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Staring out the window from the shadow of the long drapes, Yoongi watched Taehyung whistle as he strolled down the front path. The vampire stopped at the gate to turn his face up towards the sun and enjoy the breeze.
Yoongi bit his lip and wondered.
“Yoongi-yah, come away from there, poppet.” Jin’s tone was slightly scolding, and his arm looped around Yoongi’s waist to pull him back from the window even as he spoke. “We can’t have your pretty little face getting burned.”
Allowing himself to be pulled back into the circle of his sire’s arms, Yoongi turned his thoughtful pout on the older man.
“Hyung, why do you always have to come with me when I go out? Jimin-hyung lets Taehyung-hyung go out without him.”
The question was direct, maybe too direct. Yoongi had never dared to so openly point out the contradictions between the way Jin treated him and how permissive Jimin was with Taehyung.
“What, are you sick of me already, little one?” Jin teased with a laugh. Dark eyes glinted with amusement or maybe the subtle hint of concern. His face, as perfect as a marble statue, was sometimes just as difficult to read.
“Sire, you know that’s not what I mean!”
Turning in Jin’s embrace, Yoongi tucked his face into the older vampire’s shoulder.
Even in jest, the comment seemed distasteful when Yoongi owed everything to Jin. The vampire had found him as a pile of rags by the side of a road and plucked him up to cherish him like the most precious jewel. Yoongi wanted for nothing; attention, food, material comforts, all of it was his at the slightest request.
How could he wish to see less of the man who had given him everything he had never even dared to want?
“My precious one,” Jin cooed, dropping kisses all over his face. “I know. Sire is just teasing, poppet.”
“Mean.” Yoongi pulled on Jin’s shirt to convey his displeasure and turned his face away from the kisses.
Jin’s hand caught his chin and guided his head back up. Held in place for more kisses, Yoongi huffed in faux-exasperation and endured the affection.
The strength in Jin’s grip might’ve frightened Yoongi once, but not anymore. His sire had never once harmed him despite having plenty of reason to in those early days right after Yoongi’s turning when he’d been stroppy and scared.
One more kiss fell on his pouting lips as Jin pulled back. They tingled pleasantly in a way that made Yoongi’s cheeks warm.
Jin didn’t mean anything by these little pecks, he knew. The rules governing skinship changed over time, and Jin had simply never felt the need to alter his own habits. Chaste platonic kisses between close family and friends had been common when the vampire was young. Jin’s kisses didn’t mean anything romantic.
Still, Yoongi couldn’t help receiving them as something more intimate. The blood from his last meal still ran through his veins strongly enough to make his cheeks flush a delicate shade of rose pink that Jin adored. A thumb swiped over his glowing skin, and Jin pressed another kiss in its wake.
Refusing to fall for the distraction, Yoongi pulled back a little and asked again, “Why do you always come with me?”
“Fledglings are precious, little one. The turning process takes time, and it can go wrong so quickly. It’s impossible to predict how long it will take, and your body was in such terrible condition before I started the process that—” Jin cut himself off, but Yoongi had already gone stiff.
Though his remade body had recovered well from the physical trauma, the sensation was seared into his psyche. Flashes of pain and terror still woke Yoongi from restless sleep.
The attack was only half-remembered as a jumbled blur of angry voices and a kaleidoscope of jeering faces until the world resolved itself in the tableau of a shattered body lying in the mud afterwards.
Yoongi remembered the moment he realized with stark clarity that he was dying. Life had been slipping from his slack limbs, breath whispering for the last few times through punctured lungs, blood seeping from his open mouth.
And then Jin had come. Yoongi’s eyes had been open, but already death had numbed his gaze. The blurry outline of a broad chest, and a hand streaked with something crimson were the last things he saw before completely losing consciousness.
Jin could’ve killed Yoongi. It would’ve been a mercy killing, both legally and in Yoongi’s own fading mind. Jin would’ve been entitled to his blood in compensation for the grace.
Instead, the vampire had started the taxing process of turning Yoongi. Carried back to his sire’s home, washed clean with sweet soaps, and dressed in the softest silks, Yoongi had opened his eyes to his afterlife ensconced in Jin’s bed. His sire had soothed him through his panicked flailing and tucked him back between the satin sheets to rest until he needed to be fed.
So had begun Yoongi’s life as a fledgling amidst adoring coos, gentle restraint, and devoted protection. Never had there been a more doting sire than Jin as he nursed Yoongi through the transformation.
Little had changed in the intervening years because, as Jin said now, “It’s better for you to stay in my sight.”
“I’m not a fledgling anymore,” Yoongi replied, ducking his head shyly. The reminder felt disrespectful, as though he was saying that he no longer wanted Jin simply because he didn’t need his sire to keep him alive anymore.
“Nonsense.” Jin swatted the outside of Yoongi’s thigh in reprimand and warning. “You’ll always be my fledgling.”
The red flush of his cheeks deepened in shame as Yoongi tipped his head up and stood on his toes to kiss the underside of Jin’s jaw in apology. “Yes, but I’m not a fledgling anymore. Not according to most people.”
“Who’s been telling you such things?” Jin asked, grabbing Yoongi’s chin. “Was it Taehyung? Jimin is far too lackadaisical with him.”
“He didn’t have to tell me. Taehyung was turned only a few months before me, Hyung. I remember the party Jimin threw when he was fully fledged.”
Party didn’t quite cover the extravaganza that Jimin had organized. A successful turning was no small accomplishment, and what felt like half the vampires of Korea had joined in the celebration.
Blood flowed like water from donors and blood bags alike while premiere musicians took the stage and the expensive fabric of suits and dresses swished across the dance floor.
Most of all, there had been food more decadent than Yoongi could’ve stomached even while human. Shells of caviar, flutes of champagne, slabs of wagyu, trays of Densuke watermelon.
Jin’s gentle arm about his waist had drawn Yoongi insistently away. Fledglings in the midst of the transformation needed blood. Anything else interfered with the internal changes that their bodies were undergoing, so solid food was forbidden until the process was complete.
It was for this very reason that debut balls such as the one Jimin had thrown for Taehyung always involved disgusting amounts of food. Tradition dictated that the fledgling’s first bite of real food, brought to their mouth by their sire’s hand, marked their status as a full vampire.
Yoongi had been too young, at Taehyung’s debut, to eat. According to Jin, Yoongi was still far too little to wean.
That was a statement that Yoongi found difficult to argue against because, as he told Jin,“Taehyung doesn’t worry about the sun,” and Yoongi did.
“Darling, you’re just sensitive, is all,” Jin said. “Your skin is so fair that I’m sure you burned easily before the change too. It’s just a bit more exaggerated now. That’s why Hyung has to go with you when you go out.”
Turning his head sharply to pull his chin from Jin’s grasp, Yoongi glared at the curtains.
“I can hold my parasol myself,” he muttered, aware that it sounded petulant but unable to stop himself. “You don’t need to come every time I leave the grounds.”
“Wa, is that all I’m good for?” Jin blustered. “A nice shadow for you to stand in?”
The second bluff began to feel more like avoidance than true offense. “Hyung!” Yoongi’s own frown was more real this time as he turned back to Jin.
His sire went still in return. The arm around his waist tightened, a pinched expression marred Jin’s handsome face, and he sighed. “I just worry for you, precious one. The turning is always difficult, but yours…”
A faraway haze passed over Jin’s eyes. His free hand rose to trace the path across Yoongi’s head where his skull had split and a jagged scar had only recently transformed from thick, raised cicatrix to a level pink line.
The skin was sensitive still, not yet healed enough for his hair to grow back. Jin spent endless hours fussing over the arrangement of Yoongi’s curls to cover it. Yoongi’s horror when first seeing it had certainly left an impression on the vampire.
(It had seemed impossible, to Yoongi, that he could live through such an injury. He’d been sure he was looking his death in the face when he saw his reflection in the mirror for the first time after he woke up.
Then Jin had explained the change.)
The glide of his sire’s fingers over the smooth skin sent shivers down Yoongi’s spine: pleasure at the touch, bright butterflies that it was Jin’s hand that gave it, horror at the reminder.
Drawing his hand back, Seokjin favored Yoongi with a reassuring, if sad, smile. “Well, yours was what it was.”
Yoongi tucked his face into his sire’s chest, cuddling closer to comfort Jin. Or perhaps to comfort himself. It often amounted to the same thing in the end. A big hand cradled his head, and Jin dropped a kiss in his hair.
“Beside,” his hyung continued, “there’s the matter of your fangs.”
That was enough to have Yoongi rearing back in outrage. Catching his chin again in one hand, Jin pushed up Yoongi’s lip with the other to touch his dull canines. His little coo at their lack of a point couldn’t be taken as anything but an insult.
Scoffing, Yoongi slapped ineffectually at the offending hand. “That’s not fair! They’ll come in eventually! Sometimes it just happens like this, Namjoon-hyung said.”
“Of course, poppet, that’s exactly what I mean,” Jin agreed. Both hands dropped to Yoongi’s hips, which only made him feel smaller and more belligerent. “One day your fangs will grow in, and then the change will be complete.”
“It already is!” Yoongi insisted, stomping his foot. “Who knows how long it will take for my fangs to catch up. Hoseokie-hyung says it could be centuries .”
Hoseok, Yoongi thought, was rather hoping it would be centuries. For Jungkook, at least. Hoseok’s possessiveness and doting care of his fledgling were rivaled only by Jin himself.
“Centuries is nothing for immortals; I would give you the next dozen of mine without a second thought.” Jin’s grip on Yoongi’s hips tightened, reverently, as though savouring how Yoongi’s entire body fit between his palms.
“Hobi-hyung and Joonie-hyung don’t make Jungkook-ah wait for his fangs.” The grumble came out weaker than he wanted. As much as Yoongi tried to hold on to his indignation, it was difficult in the face of such obvious adoration.
Jin had given Yoongi years of his life already. Years full of Yoongi’s stubbornness, his depression, his anger, and years full of his shy, blooming affection, his overtures into tactile love, his slow, but steady acceptance of his place in Jin’s heart and Jin’s place in his own. Jin had taken all of Yoongi and given all of himself.
The years they had already spent together might seem like nothing to an immortal community, but to Yoongi, they meant everything. No one had ever treated him like Jin did. Like he was something special to be cherished. Like he mattered not for his contributions or his talents, but for his very self.
Yoongi’s quibbles seemed so immaterial next to that kind of devotion. His sire entertained them nonetheless.
“Oh?” The arch of Jin’s eyebrow betrayed his skepticism even before he said, “You think Jung Hoseok is less careful with his darling than I am? There’s a reason that he’s one of the few people I would dare leave you with, lovely.”
“You make him sound like a babysitter.” A note of petulance again crept into Yoongi’s tone.
A brief flash of surprised guilt twisted Jin’s beautiful feature, but he played off the accusation with a little smirk. “Well…” His grin grew as he trailed off.
Yoongi shot him a look , and jolted against Jin’s hold on his hips,
His sire, contrary to Yoongi’s expectations, did let him go, but only to wrap both arms around Yoongi’s waist and pull him in. His laughter rumbled through Yoongi’s smaller frame.
“I know, I know.”
Jin’s lips brushed against Yoongi’s forehead, and Yoongi couldn’t help but tilt his head up towards his hyung like a flower towards the sun.
“Your flush is just so darling.”
That only deepened the hue, Yoongi knew. Jin’s silk shirt felt pleasantly cool against his hot cheeks when he pressed his face into the older vampire’s chest again.
“Do you really want what Taehyung has, Yoongi-yah?” Jin asked, cradling Yoongi’s head with one big hand. “I know I can be a bit overbearing sometimes. Do you want me to scale it back?”
Jin’s hold on him didn’t allow Yoongi to tip his head back to study his sire’s face, but something in his posture betrayed Jin’s tension. His arms around Yoongi didn’t squeeze tighter, and his gaze was fixed on the wall over Yoongi’s head, but his pectorals strained under Yoongi’s head.
Respecting the suddenly serious turn of the discussion, Yoongi considered silently for a few seconds.
Yoongi had always thought of himself as a very independent person. As a human, he would’ve scoffed at the idea that he would ever allow another person to influence his behavior against his own judgements.
Jin did far more than that. For all intents and purposes, Jin ordered most of Yoongi’s life. Yoongi ate, rested, worked, socialized on Jin’s schedule. If he wanted to leave the house, Jin almost always accompanied him. If he stayed in bed too long, it was in who dragged him out to make him go through the process of basic self-care.
That kind of control was antithetical to everything Yoongi once thought he wanted for himself. He should be jumping at this chance for a bit more freedom.
Except… If he was being honest with himself, no part of Yoongi was excited at the prospect.
His life was so much easier now that he didn’t have to worry about arranging everything himself. His physical and mental health had peaked since he didn’t have to rely on his own willpower and drive to do things that he didn’t want to do, but knew were good for him.
At every turn, Jin prioritized Yoongi’s needs and desires. His attentions were overbearing sometimes, but in exactly the way that forced Yoongi into actually taking care of himself. On the rare occasions that Jin crossed a line, one sharp rebuke fixed the issue immediately.
Yoongi couldn’t honestly say that he disliked the babying either. Jin had a tendency towards taking care of things before they ever became an issue without infantilizing Yoongi or leaving him uninformed. It never seemed to Yoongi that Jin thought he was incapable; simply that Jin didn’t see why Yoongi should have to prove his capability.
The surplus of verbal and physical affection was entirely foreign to Yoongi, but he’d quickly grown addicted. Yes, Jin coddled him, cajole and crooned and sometimes even carried him around, but part of Yoongi (most of Yoongi) loved that.
It would be deceptive to say anything other than, “No. You’re my Sire. I’m not Taehyungie, and I don’t want you to treat me like Jiminie-hyung treats Tae.”
Jin’s arms tightened around him, restraining, cradling like a glass ornament, securing all at once. The perfect mix of control and cherishing. Yoongi heard the hint of his Sire’s self-satisfied smirk in Jin’s voice.
“Because you’re my most precious baby.”
A sound somewhere between a squeak and a mewl slipped past Yoongi’s lips. Rubbing his face against Jin’s shirt, he corrected, “Because I’m yours .”
It was as simple as that.
“And I, yours.”
Jin’s face was incredibly gentle and endeared as he grabbed Yoongi’s chin and guided his head up. When his lips slotted over Yoongi’s this time, Yoongi couldn’t quite convince himself that it didn’t mean something more.