Archive of Our Own

There was an uncomfortable Itch in Jabber’s bones when he pulled himself out of bed that day. 

It isn’t there all the time, only sometimes, an ache that wouldn’t let itself be ignored. He’s not sure why it happens, only how to deal with it, at least for a little while. 

Clenching his fists, he presses his nails deep into his palms, sure to leave indents when he pulls them away. It takes a while, but eventually, there’s the pinprick of him pressing too hard, the quietest stab of pain, and he holds it for a few moments before loosening his fist. The Itch wanes, but only a little bit. Sighing, he forces himself to move on—it was going to be a long day. 

His apartment isn’t far from Surebrec University, but the Itch made it stretch, made him want to do weird things like step into the street just to see how it felt for a car to ram into him. He didn’t want to die, no, he just wanted to know what it was like to have the wind knocked out of him so forcefully. He wants his lungs to burn when he inhales, wants to know what it’s like to have them punctured by his ribs. 

“Those aren’t very normal thoughts, Jabber.” 

He hears Cthoni’s voice in his head, tinged with a tired sigh, and he breathes in deep, holds it for a few seconds, then lets it go. She’s right, after all. 

He keeps walking. He moves on with his morning. 

The Itch extends his walk to feel like it takes an hour instead of just twenty minutes because he has to forcefully keep himself from doing something like pinching himself until he bleeds just to hold himself over. 

“Those aren’t very normal thoughts, Jabber.”

Cthoni tells him because she cares, worried after he had failed to tell her about the way he had sprained his ankle until it started swelling noticeably. The Itch was quiet, so he figured it’d be alright, because nothing was worse than the Itch to a ten-year-old Jabber. 

On the other hand, nothing was better than a happy Cthoni. A happy Cthoni usually meant ice cream, and he liked the way biting into it made his teeth hurt, which also kept the Itch quiet for the time being, so that was good, too. 

The hour-long, twenty-minute walk passes by eventually, and he’s at the entrance of the university. It’s as he’s about to walk in that he hears it.  

A whimper, quiet but slightly pained, followed by heavy, panting breaths. Jabber’s own hitches. 

“Zanka…” An airy voice says, a woman’s, if Jabber was hearing correctly. He pauses where he stands, curiosity a drug that sedates his mind, makes him hazy. The Itch grows louder, and this time, he is a slave to it, feeling like his body is not his own as he pivots, turning toward the sounds he hears coming from the side of the building, a quiet alleyway usually occupied by those who wanted a smoke, seeing as it wasn’t allowed inside the school. 

When Jabber rounds the corner, though, he discovers two people in the alleyway, and neither of them is smoking.

“Zanka,” The woman repeats with more urgency, lifting her hand to tug at the man’s hair. The man, currently pressing his face deep into the crook of her neck, pulls away without protest, and whatever the woman sees in his eyes has her shivering subtly.

“Sorry,” Zanka apologizes, lifting a hand to rub at the back of his neck sheepishly. His voice is smooth, husky. Jabber’s finger twitches again; the Itch intensifies. “I haven’t eaten in a while,” he says, voice thick with an accent that has Jabber’s eye twitching. 

The woman shakes her head. “It’s fine, I just—” she starts, then stops, and her eyes flit over to Jabber, who had forgotten that he even existed for half a moment. “I figured you’d want to know that we—you—have an audience.” 

Jabber’s eyes widen, and he doesn’t even get the chance to think to react because, in the next moment, Zanka is looking at him, and it’s like he can’t breathe.

His eyes are the deepest blue Jabber’s ever seen, as boundless as the ocean, and they contrast beautifully with the bit of blood still smeared across his cheek. Most incriminating of all, though, were the two sharp canines that jutted out from beneath his top lip, elongated and tinged red with blood.

They lock eyes, and it’s like Zanka can see straight through him, straight to his heart, which pounds loud in his ears, and he knows Zanka can hear it too, because Zanka was no ordinary human, no.

Zanka was a vampire.

Creatures of the night, they were called, but that hasn’t been properly true for decades, centuries, even. Besides, Zanka was definitely more of a morning person. 

Sure, he has heightened vision meant for seeing in the dark, but he preferred the way the world looked under the sun. It was one of the things his family looked down on him for, chiding him for staying awake so late—early?—into the day. ‘We vampires do our best work in the dark,’ they had said, and Zanka knew better than to roll his eyes in front of them. He made sure to do it where they wouldn’t see it, wouldn’t even sense it. 

“That’s so old-fashioned,” Enjin had said when Zanka had told him, an answer to the question of why he was so adamant about being awake in the morning (because he was petty). “Guess that’s expected of your folks, though, seeing as they’re the Nijiku’s and all.” He blew out a puff of smoke from his cigarette, his third one that hour, because it took much more than one to get a vampire high. Zanka had tried it once, wanting to understand why Enjin enjoyed it so much, but stopped after one; he didn’t much care for the feeling of the smoke in his lungs, even if it couldn’t kill him. 

So he preferred mornings and daylight over evenings and nighttime—what was the harm in that? 

The answer was nothing, really, aside from the fact that it made getting some food just a little bit harder. Just a little bit. 

See, even though everyone was aware of their existence, the world was much more content to act as though they weren’t. People liked to cause scenes whenever they discovered a vampire feeding from a willing subject, and they were much less inclined to turn their heads when it was happening in broad daylight. 

It was a bit of a problem for Zanka at first, trying to fix his eating schedule, because he’d been conditioned to eat only at night, yet his body is now waking up at least twelve hours earlier, which meant he got hungrier much sooner. He wishes he were more like Enjin, who could go days without feeding, but he hasn’t quite reached that level of discipline just yet. 

“I don’t see the point in holding off like that, anyway.” Riyo had said, leaning back on her palms as they admired the city skyline from a rooftop. The wind ruffles their clothing, but neither of them feels a chill. “Why not just eat whenever you want?” She asks, as if she weren’t saying something ridiculous. 

“It ain’t that easy, Riyo. Yer just sayin’ that ‘cause ya got a line of people just waitin’ ta be yer personal blood bags.” He huffs, fiddling with the zipper of the jacket that he didn’t need.

Riyo snorts, looking vaguely proud of herself. “You could too, y’know. You just gotta use that ‘mature’ vibe you got going for you.” She pauses to think, putting a finger to her chin. “Or that boyish charm you have when you’re embarrassed. Either one would work, though I bet if you combined both, it’d work wonders.” 

Zanka would be blushing if he had any blood in his system, but he hasn’t yet found a donor for the day—or week, for that matter—so he counts himself lucky that his embarrassment over her assessment wasn’t too obvious. Small mercies, he supposed. 

Despite her ‘easygoing’ nature, though, Riyo was right. She was the best at getting people to voluntarily offer their blood to her, no manipulation required, so he knows that she knows what she’s talking about. 

Still, this sort of thing was much easier said than done, and Zanka struggled for nearly a month after moving away from his family with getting food. Or, at least, a fresh supply of it. Sure, there were places that sold the blood of humans—because Zanka was much too spoiled to drink animal blood—illegally, but that was the problem. It was illegal, and likely unethical, too, and Zanka wasn’t the biggest fan of the taste of fear in the blood he drank. 

Fortunately for him, about a month into his search for a stable food source, he came across a blood bank willing to give him some surplus blood if he happened to be around. Unfortunately, that turned out only to be because one of the nurses working there was sweet on him. The realization had him mortified for weeks once Riyo told him, after she had watched the interaction between them during the exchange. 

“It was so obvious, Zanka, how did you not realize? It’s like there were literal hearts in his eyes, dude.” She giggles, poking his—now bright red—cheek as he sips sulkily from his blood bag. “Besides, blood banks are usually forbidden from handing out blood like that anyway. They’re for people who need it, not vampires like us.” She says the word with a faux disdain, imitating the tone of voice people tended to take on when talking about creatures like them. 

Zanka sighs, scrubbing a hand down his face. “I know, I know, I just…I thought maybe I got lucky, at least for a little bit. Now, I don’t even know if I can show my face there again.” Finishing the blood bag, he sets it aside and falls backward on the ground. 

Riyo leans over him, raising an eyebrow. “Why not? That’s an almost unlimited supply of blood right there.”

Zanka shakes his head. “Nah, it doesn’t right with me, knowin’ that he’s bein’ nice ta me ‘cause he likes me. Feels like I’m usin’ him a little bit, and I ain’t a big fan of that.” He admits, releasing another slow breath. Back to the drawing board, it seems. 

Riyo lies down next to him, and they look up at the sky together. “You’re such a gentleman, Zanka. Use that to your advantage.” 

And Zanka tries, really. He doesn’t go around telling everyone he meets that he’s a vampire, of course, but he gets a feel for people who wouldn’t mind it. A vague comment here or there about vampires to gauge their response to it, because, despite what the general population might think, no, you can’t tell who is or is not a vampire just based on how they look. The average vampire keeps their fangs hidden until they feed, and even then, said fangs are usually embedded too deeply into someone’s neck for you to see them. 

So, he tests his peers, assesses their opinions on vampires via casual comments, and he ascertains just who he thinks wouldn’t mind being fed from. Part of him squirms internally at the clinical aspect of it all, but he gets over it once the dizziness from hunger sets in.

Luckily for him, on the day that it does, he finds someone who willingly offers their blood to him without him having to ask. At least for the day. 

“It doesn’t have to be anything serious—you just look really pale, and I happen to know a few vampires myself. I don’t mind.” An acquaintance—friend?—tells him, her earnestness clear in her eyes. Zanka blinks at her, taken aback by the offer that seemed to come from nowhere; he hadn’t even told her that he was a vampire, yet. Seeming to read this on his face, though, she answers again. “I could kind of tell. Having as many vampire friends as I do gives me a leg up. Plus, I’ve seen your fangs before.” She smiles sweetly at this. Zanka scolds himself internally for letting himself get so careless.

And this is how Zanka finds himself getting his first drink of blood straight from the source for the first time in weeks, and damn, did he miss it. 

It didn’t have the stale taste of blood that’s been in a bag for hours, days, weeks, maybe, wasn’t accompanied by the clinical feel of the bag in his hands, and most of all, it was actually filling.

His fangs had lengthened the moment she bared her neck for him, and he waited for her to nod in affirmation before leaning down and allowing them to carefully pierce her skin. She stiffens for a moment—the pain from the prick of his fangs was unavoidable—then she relaxes, taking in a deep breath to calm her heart. Zanka feels bad for all of one moment, until her blood fills his mouth, and it’s quickly replaced by relief. 

Zanka doesn’t feed for long—he doesn’t want to take up too much of her time—but at some point, he becomes aware of a second heartbeat, one that overrides the one right in front of him somehow, one that beats a rhythm so intense that it distracts Zanka, and he sucks just a little too hard. He feels her grip on his arm tighten, but more than that, he hears the new heartbeat quicken, hears the responding hitch of breath.  

When he pulls away from her neck, he apologizes for his eagerness—it was unbecoming of him—then turns to meet the gaze of their voyeur. 

Red eyes so deep they remind Zanka of the blood he drinks stare back at him, wide and unblinking. With lips that are parted in shock and breathing that stops, but a heart that doesn’t, the man openly gawks at him, like he could hardly comprehend what he was seeing. Despite this, he didn’t seem afraid, didn’t look disgusted. No, with the faintest of flushes on his cheeks, he looked more like—

Zanka takes a step toward him, intending to clear up what was sure to be a misunderstanding, and the man turns tail and runs.

Jabber doesn’t know why he’s running, but he knows that he can’t stop, not while the man—the vampire—pursues him. His steps are hot on his trail, and it’s almost like Jabber can feel him. Elation forms in his chest, bubbles that rise to his throat and burst out of his mouth in the form of giggles that he can’t swallow back down. He’s not sure if the vampire can hear them, but he doesn’t dare look back. 

Shifting his backpack to his front, he holds it in his arms to keep it from jostling as he sprints through the halls of the school. He’s not sure where he’s going, only that he can’t slow down, that he can’t get caught because who knew what this vampire would do to him? 

Somehow…this isn’t a thought that bothers him as much as it probably should—if anything, he only felt more excited—but he can’t focus on that because the vampire is catching up to him, and rapidly, so he takes an abrupt left, darting into an empty classroom that has another door leading into one of the busiest hallways of the entire campus. There, he immediately slows, allowing himself to catch his breath as he subtly slides his hood over his head, pushing his locs to the front so they don’t awkwardly bunch up the fabric. Then, he hunches over slightly and keeps walking, following the crowd to nowhere in particular. His heart still thunders, but he hopes desperately that it’s been drowned out by the sound of hundreds of other heartbeats thumping alongside him. 

Zanka swears loudly when, upon opening the other door in that classroom, he’s met with a crowd of people, all trying not to push and shove at each other and, in the process, instead pushing against the walls of the rather wide hallway. There were so many bodies, so many smells, so many heartbeats, and Zanka couldn’t hear the one that mattered. He had thought he was catching up, had felt the man’s long hair graze his fingertips before they were suddenly being wrenched away from him in the smoothest pivot Zanka’s ever seen. It was so unexpected that Zanka almost didn’t respond in time, nearly slamming into someone rounding the corner they were coming up on. After a quick apology, he had quickly gone into the same classroom that the voyeur had gone into, and the door on the other end was closing just as he had opened his. Frustration, hot enough to burn him, cycles through his veins alongside the blood he had earlier, followed by a terrible frisson of excitement.

Zanka hasn’t chased someone in years, not since he had played tag with the kids of his neighborhood when he was younger, before they found out that he was a vampire. One accident with a kid tripping and scraping their knee hard enough to draw blood later, and Zanka’s true nature was revealed, via his fangs elongating before he had been properly taught to control them. Afterward, many of them became too afraid to go outside at the same time as him, and Zanka was forbidden from even looking out of the window for years after that, until he could get his fangs under control.

Now, as his gaze roves over the crowd before him, Zanka feels that frustration and excitement, and he pushes it down to make room for logic as he begins his search. 

Deciding to join the crowd so as not to stand out, the first thing he does is attempt to differentiate between the heartbeats. It was a difficult task, but not every heart in this crowd hammered as fast as the man’s did, so he focused on the ones that did. His gaze darts here and there, searching next for the conspicuous head of hair sure to be around somewhere.

Except…after about a minute of searching the crowd subtly, he couldn’t find him. Not a single sign of the man who looked to be around his height, which meant that he had to stand out at least somewhat. 

Apparently, though, this man was a master at blending in because he just can’t find him, and the longer he scans the area, the more panicked he gets. 

Although…what was he even worrying over?

It wasn’t like it mattered if one person saw him drinking from someone—he didn’t attend this school, so if word spread that there was a vampire in their midst and the people freaked out, he could just…leave. Besides, his family name is only notorious amongst other vampires, so there was no reputation of his to ruin here.

If anything, Zanka shouldn’t have chased the man at all. He should have let that—that voyeur run along to wherever he was going, and stayed to thank his donor by buying her some food to help replenish the energy she lost from the blood he had taken. He was going to do that regardless, but he doubts she stayed in place to wait for him, so he’ll have to come back tomorrow to find her. Zanka won’t let his debts go unpaid, after all. 

Jabber doesn’t expect the next time he sees the vampire to be the very next day. 

“Shit,” He swears quietly when he spots those blue tassel earrings swinging wildly as the vampire conversed with some woman—Jabber thinks she might be one of his classmates in his organic chemistry class—who’s smiling like she’s seeing the sun for the first time. 

Momoa throws him a sidelong glance, following his gaze to the vampire, then back to him with a raised eyebrow. “Someone you know?” She asks in that flat way of hers, though to Jabber, her curiosity was clear. 

“Nope.” He answered, putting a hand on her shoulder and steering them away from the vampire. Not quite in the opposite direction—they were meeting up with Fuu in the courtyard soon, and he’d get anxious if they didn’t show up at the time they agreed on—but it’s a very near thing. 

Momoa looks like she doesn’t believe him, but she allowed herself to be steered anyway. This time. “You’ll be explaining whatever that’s about when we’re out of earshot, right?” 

Jabber huffs, rolling his eyes. “It ain’t nothin’ serious, just…havin’ a lil fun, I guess. I’ll explain it later, but like…way later. I wanna see somethin’ first.”

Momoa narrows her eyes, and Jabber narrows his right back, and the two have a stare down that lasts for all of ten seconds before Momoa breaks, snorting quietly. 

“Fine. I hope it’s one hell of a story, then.” 

Jabber grins. “Me too.”

He keeps seeing him. 

In front of the entrance Jabber usually uses.

Next to the water fountain Jabber frequents. 

Even sitting in Jabber’s favorite place in the library, a secluded corner that he usually used to nap in between classes (or during it, if it was one he didn’t care about squished in between two that he did). 

How did he even manage to learn about these things in such a short time, anyway? And who on earth was paying enough attention to him to know these things? 

The questions briefly cross his mind as he does another hard pivot after spotting the vampire waiting right outside his organic chemistry class, but he decides to ignore them for the time being, since answering them would lead him nowhere. 

This vampire was following him. 

Or, at least, he was trying to. So far, Jabber has yet to let himself be spotted, immediately turning around and walking in the opposite direction without even letting himself think about it, lest his heart pick up its pace and give him away. 

Part of Jabber has to wonder why this vampire was so set on finding him, anyway. So he saw the man feeding—what was so bad about that? Was it supposed to be some sort of intimate act not to be witnessed by anyone? If that were the case, then they should have chosen a more secluded area, but Jabber doesn’t know any vampires personally, so maybe there was something he was missing. 

Man, would he love to know a vampire—all the questions he could ask them, all the answers he could get, all the experiments that could be run just based on the way their body functions. Surely they were affected by bloodborne diseases, but was it in the same way? Were there diseases specific only to vampires? And hell, given that they subsist only on blood, their immune and nervous systems have to be entirely different, which means that poisons and toxins have to have different effects on them. Schools tended to shy away from the topic of vampires altogether, leaving the generally known knowledge mostly vague and definitely outdated. It’d be amazing to learn straight from the source.

So why was he hiding?

He’ll admit—there’s a part of him that loves the thrill of being sought out like this. He’s pretty sure this vampire doesn’t even attend the school, which means that he’s been taking time out of his day to come here for about two days now, all in search of Jabber. 

But, it was beginning to become a bit…inconvenient for him, having to avoid his usual routes for the sake of avoiding this vampire, who just won’t give up. 

“So how long do you plan on keeping this up for?” Momoa asks him on the third day, sitting next to Fuu on a bench right outside one of the school’s entrances as he peels an orange for her. 

Jabber shrugs. “Not sure. Kinda wonderin’ when he’ll give up. No way he keeps this up for another day,” he says as he bites into an orange of his own, peel and all, earning him disgusted looks from both Momoa and Fuu. He doesn’t bother hiding his snicker. 

“I dunno…” Fuu starts slowly, handing Momoa back her peeled orange. “I know someone who’s friends with him, and she said he’s pretty persistent. Said he’s been asking around about you a lot.” Jabber’s eyes widen at this, and he finds himself at a loss for words for a moment. 

“You’re talking about Solana, right? She’s in my creative writing class.” Momoa comments idly, then she perks up. “Actually, I saw that vampire waiting for her outside our class today. I don’t think she knows that I know you, Jabber; otherwise, she would have told him, I bet.” Picking her orange apart, she bites into one, then says, “If she does eventually find out, and that vampire comes to talk to me, I’m telling him everything.”

Jabber’s jaw drops, affronted. “Wha—dude! That’s so lame! Momoa, don’t be lame for once in your life—” She cuts him off with a very loud look sent in his direction.

“Listen, whatever game it is that you two are playing, I’m not getting involved—that’s between you two. Besides, it’ll make hiding more of a challenge, and you love those, don’t you?” Her question sounds more like a statement, and Jabber frowns at the fact that he can’t deny it. He does love a challenge and hopes that soon, he’ll be outsmarted. God, that vampire knowing all of Jabber’s frequented spaces would make him that much harder to avoid, which meant that Jabber would really have to think in order to figure out ways to get around him while still getting to the classes he cared about on time and—

“Fine,” he concedes, mind already turning with the new routes he’d have to take, even though such a situation has yet to come to fruition. “Be a snitch and tell him everything,” He cracks his fingers, rolling his neck dramatically and enjoying the way Momoa rolls her eyes at him for it. “I can handle it.”

In the end, Jabber gets ‘outsmarted’ in the dumbest way possible. 

In his defense, he was tired, okay? He had stayed up extremely late the night before because why not, and he could hardly even drag himself out of bed. In fact, he was so delirious this morning that he decided to actually show up to his calculus class, just to make sure the professor couldn’t give him a failing grade for his lack of attendance alone, even though the exemplary grades on his assignments were more than enough to make up for it. Besides, he liked the sour look the woman’s face would take on when he did decide to grace the class with his presence once in a blue moon. 

Could he really be blamed for not spotting the vampire waiting right outside his classroom before it was too late? Jabber didn’t think so, but it didn’t matter what he thought when, as he’s leaving his class with his eyes half closed, and deep in a yawn, he’s yanked backward by his hoodie, hard. 

As he turns around to cuss out whoever it was, though—because neither Fuu nor Momoa would do something like that—he’s met with those beguiling deep blue eyes, and he loses all the air in his lungs. 

“You’ve been avoidin’ me.” The vampire says, raising an eyebrow, his accent just as thick as it was last time. Jabber’s eye twitches. “Why’s that?” 

“‘Cause you been stalkin’ me like a weirdo. The better question is, why wouldn’t I avoid you?” He retorts purely to be difficult. The vampire narrows his eyes.

“Why’d ya run that first time, huh?” 

“Why’d you chase me?” The two stare each other down in the hallway, people rushing past them uncaringly, though Jabber notices a few people glancing in their direction, lingering on the vampire in particular, and honestly, Jabber didn’t blame them. The guy was a looker, especially when he glared, like he was doing now. Those deep blue eyes turn tumultuous like the ocean, and Jabber wishes he could drown in them. He wants to feel the stinging in his lungs as the salty water fills them, depriving him of air. 

“Those aren’t very normal thoughts, Jabber.” 

Right. This vampire was clearly a weirdo, so really, Jabber shouldn’t be entertaining this at all. 

“C’mon—let’s talk somewhere else,” the vampire says eventually, turning away from him but keeping his hold on Jabber’s hood, pulling him along with unsurprising ease. Jabber swallows down the heat that floods him at the realization, his earlier reminder of normalcy flying out of the window as he lets himself be dragged away. This was what he wanted after all. 

Momoa isn’t surprised when, the very day after her conversation with Jabber, she finds the vampire waiting for her outside her creative writing class.

“Sorry ta bother ya like this,” he says as he pushes himself off the wall he had been leaning against, falling into step with Momoa easily when she doesn’t bother pausing for him. “Kinda seems like you were expectin’ this, though, so am I actually botherin’ ya?” 

Momoa shrugs, taking care not to glance at him. She’s heard more than three of her friends mention this guy via their gushing about his eyes alone—which was probably how he found out about her relation to Jabber—and that was enough to know that it probably wasn’t a good idea to look at them. “Figured you’d show up at some point. Surprised it took you this long.” She answers, leading them away from the crowd, toward one of their school’s communal areas, except one that most people often left alone. Sat right next to it was one of the few vending machines that sold sparkling water, so in addition to the fact that it was usually quiet, this space was one of Momoa’s favorites. 

She hears a responding huff from beside her, and she fights the urge to snicker, briefly. “Listen, I’ve been busy, alright? It ain’t easy goin’ around askin’ these people about someone who barely shows up to his classes anyway.”

“Right. Speaking of that, what do you want with my best friend anyway? Did he do something wrong?” Jabber still hadn’t told either her or Fuu what was going on, just that they might not find him in his usual haunts if they went looking. Momoa didn’t bother testing this, but Fuu did, and found that, out of the three places he checked, all visited shortly after the other, two of them were occupied by a man who noticed the moment he had come within range (to hear his heartbeat), but looked away once he realized that it wasn’t who he was looking for. 

Momoa hears a sigh. “It ain’t that he did somethin’, really, just that I…I wanna clear up a misunderstandin’.” 

She nods. “Jabber is notorious for jumping to crazy conclusions.” She agrees, turning the corner into her favorite place and making a beeline for the vending machine. “Still, though, I’m surprised you haven’t given up yet. Is it really that serious?” 

“Well…kinda…” The vampire trails off, and Momoa decides to risk a glance at him. She startles—subtly—to find him already looking at her, his brow furrowed contemplatively. True to her every one of her friends’ words, his eyes were the most striking thing about him, downturned and expressive. She can see practically every thought he thinks in them, and it distracts her so much that she doesn’t realize she’s been staring for an inordinate amount until she spots the light flush that dusts his ears. She imagines that it would be darker had he had enough blood in his system. 

“Right.” She says again, looking away from him to open her sparkling water and relish in the fizz for a moment before taking a long sip. “What’s the real reason, then?” 

The vampire goes quiet for a long moment. Then, “...I have a question I wanna ask him.” He says the words as if they were weighing him down, coming out in a heavy breath of air. Momoa looks at him again, this time just a glance, and she finds him looking down at his hands instead. Interesting. She nods in understanding.

“Try visiting him after his calculus class tomorrow.” 

“He’s takin’ a calculus class? I never heard about that from anyone I asked.” 

“That’s because he rarely ever attends any of the lectures; he just figures out what the assignments are from other people and completes them that way. He’ll show up for tests when he has to, but not anything else. He hates the professor and thinks the professor hates him.”

“...Yer kidding.” He huffs with disbelief. 

Momoa raises an eyebrow. “Never.” She replies, and Zanka almost believes her. 

“Alright, but…what makes ya think he’ll be there tomorrow if he’s never there usually? He got a test or somethin’?” She shakes her head. 

“Just a hunch. You’ll learn to trust them soon.”

“So, what’d you wanna talk about, Mr. Vampire?” Jabber shoves his hands in his pockets to hide the way they shake from excitement. He and the vampire sit next to each other on a bench in one of the school’s many outdoor areas, the one nearest to Jabber’s next class, which just so happened to be his favorite one. He hopes this conversation won’t drag on—he’d hate to miss any part of his toxicology lecture. 

“It’s Zanka. You know this.” The vampire—Zanka—grumbles, tapping his foot rapidly. Nervously, if Jabber was reading him right. Zanka won’t look him in the face, for some reason. “I wanted ta clear up a misunderstandin’.”

Jabber eyes him curiously. “...Go on.” 

Zanka heaves a heavy sigh, like it was taking all his energy just to speak in that moment. Maybe it was—he did seem incredibly pale, after all. Maybe he was hungry?

“First, that lady you saw me drinkin’ from—ain’t nothin’ goin’ on between us. She’s a friend of mine.”

Jabber pauses for a long moment. Eventually, he tilts his head, unimpressed. “...Okay? Fuck that gotta do with me?” Was this really what Zanka had been chasing him for? Surely that isn’t disappointment he feels welling up inside him. 

“I’m sayin’ that,” Zanka continues, loudly, and his ears are tinged the faintest of reds. “‘Cause I don’t want ya ta get the wrong idea when I ask ta drink from ya.” Jabber’s heart leaps to his throat, a noticeable change in pace that has Zanka looking at him. Longer than a glance, but too short to be able to glean anything meaningful from his expression. Not that he needed to look at Jabber to know what he was feeling. Jabber swallows thickly at the thought. 

“...Why?” Jabber asks after too long a moment, of which Zanka says nothing about as he tilts his head back to look at the sky.

“‘Cause I’m thirsty. Why else?”

“Why not ask that lady from before? What was her name again…Solana, right? Didja piss her off when you ran off on her?” Jabber can’t help but tease him, his antagonistic side flaring up with a vengeance. It was different from when he’d sloppily throw his arms around Momoa to catch her off balance, different from when he’d poke Fuu in the side just to watch him squirm because he knew the guy was ticklish there. This was rooted in something deeper, something that reignites the Itch beneath his skin, which had only just begun to die down. Something that lets his mouth get away from him. 

Zanka kisses his teeth, shoving his hands into his jacket pockets, and do vampire actually get cold? Jabber hadn’t thought so, considering that they weren’t warm or cold-blooded, existing in a class created specifically for them, but now that Jabber thinks about it, he hasn’t seen Zanka without the jacket. Maybe now that he finally has a vampire whose existence he’s aware of in front of him, he could ask just a few questions—

“—a one-time thing, an’ I already made it up to her. I’m askin’ ya because yer one of the few people in this school that know I’m a vampire, assumin’ ya told yer friends.” Zanka’s voice interrupts the torrent of thoughts that had infiltrated his mind. 

“I didn’t, but I’m pretty sure my friend Momoa’s figured it out already. My other friend Fuu probably has a hunch, but he’s the type to doubt himself, so I don’t think he’ll be bringin’ it up to me anytime soon.” Jabber removes his hands from his pockets to stretch his arms above his head, groaning with relief at the pops sounding along his spine. Then he snorts to himself at the thought of Momoa grimacing at him for it, as she often did when his terrible posture was highlighted. 

Abruptly, he feels goosebumps break out across the skin of the back of his neck; little pinpricks of heat that indicate eyes on him. Glancing to the side, he finds Zanka looking at him. Observing him. Tracing the line of his spine with his ocean blue eyes, up to his shoulders, down to his waist, then back up again. Jabber swallows thickly, his throat bobbing with it, and Zanka watches that, too. 

“So?” The vampire says—asks?—and Jabber blinks at him, uncomprehending. 

“…Huh?” He responds, feeling horribly slow.

“Are ya gonna let me drink yer blood?” Zanka presses, and he leans forward as he speaks, leans toward Jabber subtly, and it’s absolutely on purpose. The vampire can hear his heartbeat, can probably smell what he does to Jabber, too, and the realization sends another bolt of heat through Jabber, a flame that singes his veins. Still, he tries for a laidback air, because the both of them knowing it was a hoax somehow makes it all the more appealing to him. 

“Sure, since you’re just so desperate.” He drawls theatrically, sweeping his locs over one shoulder. 

“I ain’t desperate,” Zanka starts, rolling his eyes. “Just—” his voice dies abruptly in his throat.

At the sight of Jabber’s bared neck, hair held out of the way with his hand, Zanka’s fangs lengthen almost immediately. It’s dizzying, the rush of hunger that courses through him, and coupled with the rapid pace of Jabber’s heartbeat, the blood rushing in his veins, Zanka feels like he’s close to salivating. He’s never had such a visceral reaction before—he certainly hadn’t with Solana—but there’s something about the way Jabber presents himself to Zanka so easily, energy thrumming beneath the surface of his skin. 

Zanka didn’t have to smell him to know that Jabber wanted this. The way the man held his plush bottom lip between his teeth was evidence enough. 

Swallowing down the saliva that had gathered in his mouth, Zanka forces himself to meet Jabber’s gaze. Eyelids lowered to something sweltering, something luring, Jabber looks back at him, his dilated pupils speaking loudly. There’s a droplet of newly formed sweat that traces a path down Jabber’s throat, sinking into the hollow tantalizingly. 

“Just what?” Jabber asks him, the words thick in his throat, accompanied by an eyebrow that rises in question—a taunt if Zanka ever heard one. 

“Just thirsty.” He answers, his own voice hoarse. Scoots close enough to Jabber that their thighs touch. “So…may I?” 

Jabber nods, quickly, his eagerness obvious, but Zanka doesn’t sink his teeth in immediately. Instead, he scoots away, and it’s so the opposite of what Jabber wants that he almost follows after him. For a being with no blood, Zanka was surprisingly warm, which brought forth a few more questions at the keen feeling of the loss of his body heat, now that his thigh was no longer pressed against Jabber’s. His disappointment doesn’t last long once he realizes that Zanka was scanning the immediate area, frowning at the vulnerability of their position. 

“Not here. Too open. Anyone could walk by an’ see us.” The vampire says, grabbing Jabber’s wrist and pulling him to stand. 

“You mean like how we first met?” Jabber questions breezily, letting himself be pulled along once more. He feels Zanka’s grip on his wrist tighten delightfully. 

“...Right.” Zanka grits out. Jabber wishes he could see the way his eyes were likely narrowed, twitching with his irritation. “Where can we go that’s more private? I don’t want someone walkin’ in an’ thinkin’ yer being attacked or some other bullshit.” 

It sounds like an excuse of some sort, but Jabber didn’t much mind being alone with Zanka anyhow, so he doesn’t point it out. “There’s a classroom comin’ up on your left that ain’t bein’ used right now.” Zanka nods, practically yanking Jabber along now, so roughly that he nearly trips over his own two feet. His heart trips with him—this vampire was clearly eager. He should be concerned. Why isn’t he concerned? 

The Itch resurfaces, louder than ever, and it screams at him. This vampire could suck him dry and leave him dead in that classroom, and Jabber isn’t worried because—

“Those aren’t very normal thoughts, Jabber.” 

Cthoni is right. She usually is, so Jabber digs his heels in. “Damn, slow down a bit, man! What happened to not bein’ desperate, huh?” 

Zanka grunts, jerked briefly backward by the sudden resistance, and he throws a questioning look at Jabber. “Hunger pangs happened.” He sounds disconcerted, but he slows down—which isn’t quite what Jabber wanted—and his brow furrows with a sudden, grating concern. “Why? You change yer mind?” 

Jabber wants to frown. The Itch won’t stop yelling at him, preventing him from being the normal person he’s supposed to be. He shakes his head. “Nah.” 

Zanka eyes him for a long moment. “...You can back outta this if you wanna. I won’t force ya ta do this.” 

Another shake of his head. “I’m not gettin’ cold feet, man, so keep moving. I’m good.” It isn’t quite the reassurance it sounded like, but if Zanka noticed, he didn’t point it out, continuing forward silently. He still hasn’t let go of Jabber’s wrist. 

Inside the classroom, Jabber isn’t prepared for the way Zanka abruptly leans down and picks him up, strong hands wrapping around his thighs to place him on the nearest table as if he weighed next to nothing. 

“Whoa!” He yelps, hands flailing briefly in their attempt to latch onto something. That something just so happens to be Zanka’s shoulders, which were broader than he expected. Had he been expecting something?

“I’m gonna be honest with ya before we start—I’m real hungry ‘cause I haven’t eaten in a few days, so I might end up takin’ a lil’ bit more than I should, and in case I do, I don’t want ya fallin’ over on me. You could hit yer head on somethin’, and that’d be real bad, too, so I’m tryin’ ta prevent that from happenin’, cool?” Zanka is attempting to explain something to Jabber, but he can hardly focus on a single word, still reeling over how easily Zanka moved him, how gravelly his voice was, how dark his eyes were as he looked at Jabber like he was ready to swallow him whole. This vampire was absolutely going to drink Jabber dry.

Jabber nods fervently, dizzy with the rush of—no, not arousal—not excitement either, because that wasn’t normal—

“Awesome. I’m gonna start now,” Zanka says, the only warning Jabber gets before the vampire is leaning forward and sinking his teeth deep into a vein in Jabber’s neck.

Jabber wasn’t sure what he had expected, but this certainly wasn’t it. 

He can feel the intrusion of Zanka’s fangs in his skin keenly, a needle that draws his blood, except it’s followed by the vibration of an amorous groan that reverberates through him fervently. He feels it bounce around within the boundaries of his skin, restless energy with no way to be expended, so it instead settles in his lungs. His breathing quickens. He’s warm. A step past warm. Not quite burning, not just yet. 

Then Zanka presses closer, his face now shoved into the crook of Jabber’s neck. Now, Jabber feels that energy swirl around in his lungs, and he lets out a sound before he can stop himself. 

It is little more than an inhale, a soft pull of air into his lungs with the hope to cool them because they burn, but this only seems to spur Zanka on, because he groans again, and that vibration makes Jabber feel like he’s drowning. Zanka shifts, his fangs pulling at Jabber’s skin, and it hurts. It’s more than a sting, like a thorn shifting in his veins, a throb that resonates with the heat simmering low in his stomach. Waves of something begin to rise slowly in him, and unwittingly, one of Jabber’s hands shifts to clutch at Zanka’s arm. The Itch has never been quieter.

Zanka had tried wine for the first time about a month ago, in the thick of his dry spell of blood. It was dry and syrupy as it slid down his throat, and he had nearly downed the entire bottle in one go. Enjin had laughed as he pried the bottle away from Zanka, grinning as he said, 

“It might take a lot to get a vampire drunk, but you can still get a stomachache, y’know. Try not to push it.”

“Zanka,” Jabber breathes his name, the letters fluttering avidly between his lungs, sweetening the wine-tasting blood flowing across his tongue. He wants to down this entire bottle, so he pulls back for a breather, then sinks his teeth in again, keeping the punctures open as he continues his fervent sucks. 

He breathes in deep because the scent of Jabber’s obvious desire enhances the flavor of his blood that much more, and this might be the closest Zanka ever gets to being drunk. It isn’t logical thinking that has him placing a hand on Jabber’s waist to pull him closer. It isn’t common sense that has him using his other hand to hold the back of Jabber’s neck, thumb stroking just beneath the man’s ear in a way that has him shivering. Rationality leaves him when Jabber manages to get a weak grip on Zanka’s bicep, delivering a squeeze that isn’t a warning like it should have been, but encouragement. 

“Zanka,” Jabber keens softly, his hips shifting tellingly, and really, reason hadn’t been with him since the moment he asked to drink from this man.

It’s hunger that has him wrapping his arms around Jabber’s hips, pulling the man flush against him. It’s desire that has him craving more than just Jabber’s blood—he wants to lick all the sweat that disappears into the man’s shirt. It’s lust that has him yearning to feel Jabber’s hips shift against him instead of the desk he sits on, so he presses his fangs deeper and sucks harder. 

The reaction is immediate. 

Jabber jerks against him, gasping sharply, and it’s quickly followed by the most obscene sound Zanka has ever heard, a moan mixing with the loveliest of whimpers. The arousal in Jabber’s scent spikes, coating Zanka’s tongue in a blood that turns sweet, now, enlightening him on why humans became addicted to things like alcohol. If it tasted anything like Jabber’s blood at this moment, he’d never want to drink anything else.

Hell, he doesn’t want to drink anything else.

Then, suddenly, Jabber stiffens, his entire body locking up as his next breath freezes in his lungs. In the next moment, he’s springing away from Zanka like the vampire’s skin burned to the touch. Zanka just barely manages to pull his fangs out in time to prevent serious injury. Still, the tips of them graze the hollow of Jabber’s throat, leaving a shallow incision that would heal into a likely unnoticeable scar and sting like a paper cut in the process. 

“That should be enough to hold ya over for a lil’ bit, right? Can’t spare too much ‘cause I still need it, so we’ll hafta end our lil’ session here.” Jabber speaks in a rush, the words all crushed into a single inhale, and he backs away from Zanka hurriedly. “See ya never, probably, since you don’t go here in the first place.” He looks panicked—an expression Zanka didn’t think he’d see on someone like Jabber—he definitely hadn’t looked panicked when Zanka finally caught up to him—but it makes his stomach twist all the same. Had he pushed too far? Too hard? Zanka doesn’t get a chance to ask because Jabber is gone in the next blink, disappearing with the breeze that blows by him from the door to the classroom closing. With him goes that savory musky wine scent, though the taste of him lingers on Zanka’s tongue long after he leaves. 

Oh.

He’s so fucked.