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Flux didn’t explain where they were headed to.
One moment, they were in their house, cuddling together, and the next, Flux’s fingers were wrapped around Saps’s wrist — not tight, not urgent, just firm enough to say come with me — and pulled him away from the comfort of the weighted blanket and away from their house, past shuttered shops and sleeping windows. The city lights dimmed the farther they went, noise fading into something softer, more distant, like the world was slipping into slumber.
While Saps wouldn’t normally let himself get dragged (he could walk himself, thank you very much), he let himself get pulled away. It was Flux, after all. He had full trust in him, even if sometimes pretended otherwise.
“Should I be worried?” Saps asked lightly, stepping over a crack in the pavement. “Because I’ve read far too many novels to know that this is how people get stabbed in the back.”
“If I wanted you dead,” Flux said, “you wouldn’t be breathing by now.”
Saps could only pout in retaliation. “Fair enough.”
They reached an empty park through a narrow iron gate left half-open, its rusty hinges creaking when Flux pushed it aside. Inside, the space opened up before them — wide paths, empty benches, blades of grass silvered faintly by moonlight. There were no lights except the distant spill from a street several blocks away. Plus, it smelled like damp earth and old leaves.
Saps slowed his pace, taking it in. “You come here often?”
Flux released his wrist. The sudden absence of contact is noticeable. “Not often, ever since I moved in with you.
They walked a little deeper into the park, footsteps quiet on the path. Flux kept his hands in his coat pockets, his shoulders relaxed but posture precise, like he’s always aware of how much space he takes up. At a glimpse, he didn’t look like he was scanning for threats — at the very case, not obviously — but there’s a sense of watchfulness to him that never fully switches off.
Saps noticed anyway.
He always did.
“This place is nice,” Saps said, after a moment. “Empty, abandoned. But seriously, how did you even know this place existed?”
Flux said nothing. He stopped near an open patch of grass where the moonlight was the strongest, its light pale and clean. For a second, he just stood there, looking up — not at the sky exactly, but through it, as if he was measuring something only he can see.
“This park used to be filled with people,” Flux said. “Before…”
“… Before what?”
Flux’s pause was brief, but deliberate.
Saps didn’t push. Ever since Ish paired the two together, he had learned which silences were deliberate, and which were invitations. This one was the former. Yet, that silence could mean a hundred things. Saps chose the least dangerous interpretation. However, before he could think too far, Flux turned around.
The movement was unhurried, almost careful, like he was testing how Saps would react to his sudden action. He looked towards the hunter, moonlight catching in his amethyst eyes, silvering their edges.
For a second, he looked like he was about to say something important.
Instead, he said, flat and faintly amused, while extending a hand towards Saps, “Do you want to dance?”
Saps blinked.
“… Dance,” he repeated, like he’s testing how the word weighs on his tongue.
Flux only shrugged, a small yet elegant movement. “It was a question.”
“There’s no music.”
“I know.”
“This is an abandoned park.”
“I’m very aware of that.”
Saps squinted at him. Never in his life would he expect Fluixon, an ancient, pureblooded vampire almost as old as vampirism itself, would ask such a blatantly meaningless question. “Are you serious right now?”
Flux merely looked towards him with an unreadable expression, all while the silver rays smoothed the sharpest edges of his faces into something almost gentle. “Not particularly.”
Saps laughed beneath his breath, shaking his head. “You’re telling me, you dragged me out here in the middle of the night, refused to explain yourself, got all weird and philosophical, and then asked me out to dance?”
“When you put it like that,” Flux retorted dryly, “it sounds excessive.”
“Because it is excessive.”
Flux accepted that without agreement. He turned his gaze away and walked further out into the grass, hands still tucked into his coat pockets. The offer didn’t come again, he didn’t insist. It was like the question was tossed out and then released, allowed to fall where it might land.
Saps walked farther too, more out of restlessness than intention. He stepped closer, not quite beside Flux, but near enough that their shoulders almost lined up.
“You’ve been thinking about the future a lot,” Saps said.
Flux doesn’t answer immediately. When he did, his voice was careful. “Have I?”
“Yeah,” Saps said. “You keep circling the future without really saying the word. Didn’t you ask me once about my retirement plans?”
“Hm… maybe I did say that,” Flux mused, a tiny bit amused. “But… I don’t really prefer to talk about it. When you’re practically friends with eternity, the far future starts to sound like tomorrow. At some point, you stop worrying about it simply because of its absurdity and randomness.”
“That didn’t stop you before, didn’t it? I bet you’ve never expected to get signed into a vampire hunting agency.”
“No, I never did. And no, the uncertainty of the future had never really stopped me before,” Flux admitted. “But it should have.”
“Oh? What do you mean?”
Flux exhaled, slow and measured. “Because certainty is a luxury,” he said. “And I’ve spent too long pretending I had any. Every decision I made, every step I took — there’s always calculation behind it. Until… you came along.” He tilted his head slightly, the moonlight catching the sharp line of his jaw.
“You’re unpredictable. And that terrifies me.”
Saps barked a laugh, sharp and sudden in the quiet. “Me? Terrifying? That’s rich coming from the guy who once beheaded five vampires mid-conversation. Besides, unpredictability is to be expected with life. But, no matter how unpredictable life is, I always had a certain thought.”
“Do you ever think about what you’d do if things were… simpler?”
Flux’s gaze stayed forward. “… Define simpler.”
“Like… a simple life. Less running away from danger. Less blood to spill. Less… everything being a calculated risk.” Saps shrugged. “More… normal stuff.”
Flux exhaled, slow. “Normal is just a pattern people agree not to question.”
“Wow,” Saps snorted. “You’re feeling rather wise tonight.”
Flux’s mouth twitched — not quite a smile. “I didn’t bring you here to have fun. Besides, vampires are no experts in that. Dreaming is what humans do best,” he said, voice low. “But dreaming is also what gets them killed.”
Saps rolled his eyes, kicking a loose pebble across the path. “Yeah, yeah, ominous vampire wisdom. Spare me the boredom.” He glanced sideways at Flux, studying the way the shadows clung to the edges of his coat. “But hypothetically — if we could have it. A mundane future. One without any death looming above our heads. What would yours look like?”
The silence stretched, thick enough that Saps almost regretted asking. Then Flux shifted, his coat rustling softly. “A house. Not something gothic, but a normal, suburban home,” he said so quietly that Saps barely heard it. “Somewhere with a pool. And a garden. And a lot of windows.”
He paused, as if surprised by his own answer. “Ridiculous, isn’t it? An ancient pureblooded vampire asking for a house with too many windows to count.”
“Not really,” Saps said, grinning. “I’d picture you more as a ‘haunted castle on a cliff’ type, but hey, growth. Plus, you could always install blackout curtains.” He nudged Flux’s shoulder with his own. “As for me… I’d want a porch. One of those stupidly wide ones with rocking chairs. And a dog. A big, dumb one that drools on everything.”
Flux made a noise halfway between a scoff and a laugh. “You would train it to hunt vampires, wouldn’t you?”
“Obviously.” Saps stretched his arms behind his head, staring up at the sky. “And I’d retire early. No more contracts, no more near-death experiences — just me, my hypothetical dog, and you, I guess, lurking in the garden like some tragic romance novel hero.”
Flux went very still beside him. “You’re including me in this fantasy?”
Saps didn’t look at him. “Well, yeah, duh. Who else is gonna remind me how mortal I am every five minutes?”
The joke fell flat, hanging between them like a held breath. He swallowed. “I mean. If you want to be there.”
The pebble Saps had kicks earlier settled somewhere in the grass, its journey forgotten. The silence between them wasn’t uncomfortable — it was never with Flux — but it carried weight now, that kind that pressed against Saps’s ribs like a dull blade. He knew what Flux wasn’t saying, the words that caught at the tip of his tongue. They both did.
Time was the one enemy neither of them could outrun.
In the end, for a love between a mortal and an immortal, it was to be expected. Regardless of the results, Saps would age, wither and die — maybe tomorrow, maybe in fifty years, if he was lucky. And Flux would remain, deceivingly ageless and unchanged, carrying the memory of not only Saps’s face, but all the moments they spent together, like the constant weight of guilt in his heart.
The math was cruel in its simplicity.
Hunters didn’t retire — they burned out. And vampires didn’t love — they carried past regrets.
Saps exhaled sharply, breaking the tension like glass under a boot. “Yeah, okay, that got morbid fast.” He shoved his hands into his pockets, rocking back on his heels. “You know what? Fuck it. Let’s dance.”
Flux whipped his head towards Saps. “You’re serious. Didn’t you just deny my invitation?”
“Deadly.” Saps grinned, wide and reckless, the moles beneath his eyes crinkling upwards. “No music, no audience, just us and the crickets. Come on.” He reached out, fingers brushing Flux’s sleeve. “Also, I denied it earlier because it wasn’t appropriate. So, come dance with me… unless you’re scared.”
Flux’s lips quirked. “Of dancing?”
“Of admitting you want this.” Saps’s voice dropped, teasing but earnest. “Of pretending, just for tonight, that we’ve got all the time in the world.”
For a heartbeat, Flux didn’t move. Then, with a grace that made the motion seem inevitable, he took Saps’ hand. His grip was cool, firm, grounding. “One dance,” he murmured. “And then we go home.”
Saps squeezed his fingers. “Deal.”
Flux’s hand settled at the small of Saps’s back, pulling him in with a careful precision that suggested centuries of knowing exactly how to move a body — his own or someone else’s, the hunter was none the wiser. Saps stumbled half a step before catching the rhythm, his boots scuffing against the pavement. There was no music, just the distant hum of the city and the occasional rustle of leaves, but Flux moved as if he could hear something Saps couldn’t, some ancient waltz woven into the silence itself.
Saps expected something grandiose — flourishes, spins, the kind of performance that belonged in ballrooms with chandeliers, which was something Flux was awfully familiar with — but Flux led him in something simpler, slower. Their steps were small, swaying more than stepping, close enough that Saps could count the faint scars along Flux’s collarbone where his collar didn’t cover skin. He smelled like old books and cold air, something familiar underneath it all, something Saps couldn’t name but knew by heart anyway.
“You’re staring,” Flux murmured, his breath stirring Saps’s hair.
“You’re avoiding eye contact,” Saps shot back, grinning when Flux’s amethyst gaze flicked down to meet him. “See? Not so hard.”
Flux’s thumb brushed against his hipbone, a silent, fleeting correction as he guided them into a turn. The moonlight caught the curve of his cheekbone, the edge of his fang where it pressed just slightly into his lower lip. He looked younger like this, softer, as if the dance had sanded down the centuries between them. Saps tightened his grip on Flux’s shoulder, suddenly desperate to memorize the way his muscles shifted under his touch, the exact pressure of his fingers.
Then, without warning, Flux dipped him backward, one hand cradling the back of his head like he was something fragile. Saps yelped in surprise, gripping Flux’s arm for balance, but Flux held him effortlessly, suspended in the cool night air.
“Asshole,” Saps breathed out, his pulse skipping in his throat.
Flux’s mouth curved in mischief. “You asked for a dance.”
“Yeah, a dance! I didn’t ask for a near-death experience.”
Flux’s expression shifted, something unreadable flickering behind his eyes. He pulled Saps upright, their chests brushing, and for a second, Saps thought he might say something — something real, something raw — but instead, he just pressed their foreheads together, close enough that Saps could feel the absence of his breath.
Saps exhaled, slow and unsteady, his fingers still tangled in the fabric of Flux’s coat. The proximity was dizzying — close enough to feel the faint pulse in Flux’s throat, if he’d had one. “You know,” he murmured, “this is the part where you’re supposed to tell me what you’re wishing for.”
Flux didn’t pull away. His voice, when it came, was quieter than the rustle of the leaves above them.
“Peace,” he said. The word hung between them, fragile. “Not the absence of conflict. I know it will keep happening, but… I just want… the certainty that it won’t matter in the end.”
Saps huffed a laugh, breath ghosting over Flux’s chin. “That’s depressingly vague.”
“And you?” Flux countered, thumb tracing idle circles against Saps’s spine. “What do you wish for, hunter?”
Saps didn’t hesitate. “I want ordinary things to keep happening to me.”
And Flux could only smile gently. “That doesn’t sound unreasonable.”