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The clock struck midnight, the bell chiming in the distance. A strong scent of blood struck him suddenly, and his eyes darted over to where it came from.
“You’ve been starving for a while now, haven’t you?”
It was true, that he’d been starving since dawn. His eyes wouldn’t leave the sight of his blood bleeding— couldn’t leave the sight of it.
He bit on his own lip. “...Cheng Xiaoshi. Don’t… Don’t. Don’t tempt me,” and he took a step back.
Cheng Xiaoshi stepped forward in response. “Lu Guang.”
He looked away, fully turned around and looked away, his steps growing rapidly by the second, because he knew the vampire inside him wouldn’t be able to hold on any longer. “I’ll hurt you. I… You know how vampires get when they’re hungry.”
Cheng Xiaoshi’s steps, he moved faster than he did, and he found him closer than when they’d started. The smell had gotten stronger too, even more so when he moved his hand closer. “It’s all for you. Every last drop. Take as much as you need.”
“Cheng Xiaoshi. Stay away from me.”
He covered up his mouth and nose and nibbled on his own skin as an attempt to make his body believe he was about to consume the semblance of human blood.
But his body knew better than his mind did, and did nothing he did really manage to satiate the hunger that bubbled inside him.
“Oh, but who knows what’ll happen to a starving vampire at this time of day? Maybe… they’ll go on a rampage and expose themselves, hm? You wouldn’t want that, would you? After all, you’ve concealed your identity for so long already. All your efforts would just– be in vain if you didn’t.”
Closer.
“I don’t need your blood.”
And closer
“I’m not going to tell anyone. I won’t let anybody know.”
He wouldn’t stop moving closer, even when he kept on avoiding him, and running away. Because running away was the only thing he knew to do.
“That’s not…”
He didn’t know how much longer he could still keep things right, didn’t know how much longer he could endure that bubbling desire that ached and longed to overwhelm both him and his senses.
“No? I know the kind of person you are, Lu Guang. You wouldn’t want to hurt me, you wouldn’t even think of it. You know when to stop when things go too out of hand,” Cheng Xiaoshi said, right as he managed to catch onto one of his wrists to pull him back. “But even I can’t stand watching you like this anymore. I’ll stop you if you go too far. I’m stronger than most people, remember?"
Stupid, stupid Cheng Xiaoshi even dared to bring his wound right before his mouth.
“No, no, no, no, no, no, no. You don’t– You don’t understand.” He shook his head, relentlessly so, and hoped maybe his words would finally make Cheng Xiaoshi forget about this all and let him go.
“Then tell me, help me understand, so I can help you.”
He hesitated, swallowing back the drool that seeped out his lips at the sight of his blood.
He’s tasted Cheng Xiaoshi’s blood before, once. It was purely by accident, really. Cheng Xiaoshi himself might not remember— even he didn’t remember how it happened, only that he certainly wouldn’t be able to hold back if it happened a second time. His hand dropped back down.
The door was locked, he heard it click moments after he was led into this room by Cheng Xiaoshi, and before Cheng Xiaoshi had cut open his palm for him.
“I know you’re hungry. It’s better to drink it now than to let yourself be swallowed by whatever atrocities ‘vampire’ you might do. At least right now, your mind’s still somewhat clear. How long do we have left until that too disappears?”
‘We.’ Not just him, but Cheng Xiaoshi too.
“Not long, I’m guessing.” Cheng Xiaoshi leaned closer, his voice getting softer. If he could look at him, he’s almost a hundred percent sure that he’d see him with a gentle smile on his face and a pair of eyes that look at him with something that goes beyond their current relationship. “Just enough to keep you ‘you’ for the rest of the night. I won’t make you drink anymore than that. You can do that much, can’t you?”
“...”
Faced with his lack of response, Cheng Xiaoshi deadpanned, his tone suddenly dropping to a new all-time low of the day, as it lost all traces of life.
“I’ll force it down your throat if you don’t.”
There was nothing he could do about it, not about the stubbornness Cheng Xiaoshi had to have, not about the ways he always worried about others, even at the risk of losing a part of himself.
What else could he do but comply?
Cheng Xiaoshi wasn’t going to listen to him, and if he didn’t, chances were that things really were going to turn out worse than how they were right now.
He stared at the wound, “...I won’t take a lot.”
“As much as you want,” Cheng Xiaoshi corrected.
His elders have always told him the purest blood came with the purest heart. How fitting, he thought, for someone like Cheng Xiaoshi to have that kind of blood. It’s cleaner than most people’s, with the faintest hint of sweet fragrance well embedded in its aftertaste.
He reached out a hand to grab onto the one with the wound, and brought it back up to his face, leaning in before sticking out his tongue of his mouth as he tentatively licked off the beads of blood that rolled down his skin. When no reaction came from Cheng Xiaoshi, he planted his lips against his skin, and finally, to Cheng Xiaoshi’s delight— for him, it was rather dismaying seeing him like all giddy like that for wanting a vampire like him suck him out, drank part of the blood that continued to leak out.
It’s humiliating, the way he’d even gone as far to get down to his knees to drink his blood and let himself be petted like he was his, leaning in to the touch of Cheng Xiaoshi’s fingers running through his hair, all of it was utterly humiliating. An hour in and he’s already lost that original frightening impression all vampires had. He’s never given much care to his pride when it came to Cheng Xiaoshi, not that he cared in any way. It could be even more humiliating and he wouldn’t even bat an eye.
More. I want more, his instincts screamed. No, said his mind and his body.
He might’ve let himself go loose with any other person, but the person he was drinking from was Cheng Xiaoshi of all people. Crossing that line was out of the question.
“Lu Guang, don’t hold back.”
It’s weird. No matter how much blood he consumed, it never seemed to alleviate the burning pain inside him, how it only made the desire to eat him whole grow. He didn’t want to think about why that could be. It wasn’t like this before, when he’d drank other people’s blood.
It was getting hot in the room. He probably overdressed for the weather tonight, that must be it.
“Don’t be absurd.”
His mouth must be covered with splashes and splashes of blood. He must look like he’d just gone to murder a poor deer in the forest to eat it raw right now.
A laugh came from Cheng Xiaoshi’s side.
“Are you satisfied?”
He heaved in his breaths, once, then twice. He hadn’t even realized he’d been breathing so heavily, his eyes fixated on Cheng Xiaoshi and his smile only, ignorant of the ways he felt Cheng Xiaoshi’s thumb caress his cheek so tenderly, as if he was his lover (this was most likely his own interpretation of it), until he called out to him.
“I’ve never seen you this desperate for blood.”
He only stared at him, not a single word more to utter away for empty ears to hear.
“Do you need more?”
Looking up at him, the sight was unexpected, shocking, more than just surprising. It was something he wouldn't ever have thought Cheng Xiaoshi would ever do, despite how it was so like him.
He smiled, his other hand reaching over to loosen his tie over his collar, and pulling out the fabric just enough for his eyes to land on the skin at his neck that glistened under the moonlight.
He was even bold enough to let him do that? Other vampires would’ve fought thousands and thousands of beings to have something like this back in the old days. Drinking the purest blood their kind could ever know from the richest vessel there was in a human’s body now turned into something so precious it was nearly considered as a dream impossible to mingle its way in their reality by all. They would all freak out after finding out he got a taste of that dream without letting them have a piece.
“...You’re a crazy one, did you know that?”
“Mmn. Only for you,” he murmured, far closely to his liking.
He sighed, then let go of his hand and leaned over, indifferent enough to leave the leftover patches of blood that stained the corners of his mouth there despite how much of a neat freak he was known to be.
He paused before his fangs grazed against his skin. “Sorry about this.”
“What for? None of this is your fault.” It was gentle and it was lulling. It was everything he would’ve wanted to hear if he were back in the past. “I don’t mind doing this anyway.” He can only feel a twinge of regret bloom at the bottom of his heart for being something feared by all.
“...Still.”
He let his teeth sink into Cheng Xiaoshi’s neck, drawing out drops of blood that soon fell into his mouth.
To say Cheng Xiaoshi’s life’s taste was fantabulous wasn’t wrong, but it was certainly an understatement of what kinds of sensations it stirred in his kind.
He knew he should’ve stopped himself the moment he had enough to drink, knew he should’ve pushed him away more and more until Cheng Xiaoshi really would’ve listened to his refusal, knew that something like this would happen if he didn’t. It was already too late to turn back now that he’s reached this point, too late for him to stop until he felt completely satisfied with how much blood he would take from him. It was even harder for him after hearing the things that would come out of Cheng Xiaoshi’s mouth whenever he’d draw out his blood for himself.
More, more, more, screamed the vampiristic side of him, and his body complied with whatever it wished for, before he could even think.
“W-Wait… not too…!”
He was sure he would’ve made a mess of his once neat and tidy outfit now that the fabric’s all scrunched up in his hand and that he’s gone and spilled his blood everywhere. His shirt’s way too loose for a priest out of anything. His fingers would’ve rested on his fair, unblemished skin if it was loosened even by half an inch more.
“Lu- Lu Guang— Mmph..! ” His fangs sank deeper, and he heard just how terribly Cheng Xiaoshi managed to ‘cover’ up and bite down his noises, how the arms around his waist seemed to tighten, pulling him closer than he already was.
It was hot, the touch, his skin, and the air that surrounded them, even after his inverness cape fell from his shoulders. A part of him wanted to delve deeper in this heat with Cheng Xiaoshi, to share and to lay thousands and thousands of delicate touches to his skin where no one was watching. The other part knew to do better than to take so much more than he already has, and urged him to pull back before things would fall out of hand.
Only then did he notice the tears at the corners of his eyes, the way his chest heaved up and down with every ragged breath he took, with every second that passed where his insides twisted and turned for more, more, more as he watched the masterpiece he’d created lay before him.
Redness around the two bite marks on his neck and blood that refused to stop dripping from those holes, he moved closer to lap his tongue around his wound and stop any more blood from leaking.
Cheng Xiaoshi wore a cunning smile on his face, and shot him a glance that told him everything he needed to know.
“Hah… hah… You really…”
“Oh.” Did he… “Too much?”
“I never thought you had it in you to act like that. Are you like this with everyone from whom you drink?”
Act like what? It was rare for him to do something that would surprise even Cheng Xiaoshi, and it wasn’t like he knew everything he’d done in those few minutes.
It’s the first time he wasn’t in total control of his body when drinking from a host.
“Just you.”
“You can be so messy sometimes.” Cheng Xiaoshi pulled out a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped away the blood on his cheek. “If I find out that you’ve been starving yourself again like today, things are going to be much, much worse for you.”
The only terrible and non-negotiable part of something like this was the fact that he was drinking Cheng Xiaoshi. He couldn’t care less about them if it were anybody else.
“Have I told you how you always mamge to impress me every time I see you?”
“Many times over, yes. What’s this about?”
Cheng Xiaoshi pressed a kiss at his lips, the taste of berry peaches lingering atop even after he pulled back.
“My payback to you.”
Then another, and another, and another. His tongue even slipped in when he opened his mouth to scold him for things like these, and his first response was to melt under that gaze and under his touch.
His fingers brushed over his bite marks, and he just barely noticed how the motion sent shivers down his spine in the slightest bit when it happened.
“Is it still sensitive here?”
Every touch sent a jolt through his body, regardless of how light it was.
“Mmmn… Just a little.”
Cheng Xiaoshi stood up, extending a hand out for him to reach. He took it without a second thought, picking up his coat and the cross necklace Cheng Xiaoshi wore that’d fallen on the ground earlier when things had gotten heated between them.
“People’ll notice if we’re gone too long, don’t you think? They’ll start rumors about us. The churchmen will definitely have come looking for me now that I’ve been away for this long.”
The way he said it made it seem like they were actually going to be suspected of being in an affair. A vampire and a priest. Two kinds that were absolutely repulsed by the sight of one another. Nobles like them would never even think of associating the two of them together with something as ridiculous as love.
“My window’s always open for you if you ever want to pass the time. There’s barely anyone that ever comes to my mansion.” Then, with a smirk and a thought far too indecent for little old and pure him, “I don’t mind finishing off what we started tonight.”
A simple hum was what he gave to him in return. It’s not an explicit yes or no, but rather an acknowledgement of what he said. For Cheng Xiaoshi, that would translate that into something like an approval of sorts.
“You’re always welcome to come over— I’d like for you to come over, actually. Things can get a little lonely sometimes, you know?”
And there it was. That familiar longing and bittersweet tone that always melted his heart away whenever he’d hear it. It was over for him the moment Cheng Xiaoshi would use such dirty tricks on him to win his way through.
“You wouldn’t dare leave a poor maiden like me hanging around all alone defenseless, would you?”
“...I’ll come and visit soon,” came out, helpless and full of exasperation. No remark about the part where he referred to himself as a maiden.
Cheng Xiaoshi flashed a smile, then his steps picked up the pace. He turned around for one final time, his hand beside his mouth, screaming, “I’ll be waiting!” almost as if it was something he wanted everyone in the vicinity to hear.
A laugh escaped his lips, then a familiar emotion deep in the depths of his heart only Cheng Xiaoshi could stir out of him.
Maybe his visit might come sooner than intended.