Work Text:
It was past 1 am.
Flux was sitting on the couch, amethyst eyes looking at the TV while some variety show played on the screen. In all honesty, he couldn’t really call himself ‘paying attention’ to whatever games they were playing — even the loud, over-the-top sounds and visuals, even the pouring rain outside couldn’t distract him from the things clouding his mind.
Earlier, he had woken up to the other side of his bed being cold and empty — a common occurrence. The name ‘Saparata’ was well-known across the world for his efficient killings, moreover, he also worked for a famous former hunter named Ish as a part of his vampire-hunting company. It wasn’t out of the question if Saps wouldn’t be in the house for the entire day — hell, his record time was two weeks before he could return home. He had left a note on the countertop earlier saying he had a commission to do, and wouldn’t return until ten.
He was now three hours late.
Flux anxiously fidgeted his fingers — a far cry from his usual calculated, level-headed behavior. Saps was rarely late; the only time Flux could remember him returning home late was because a stray cat had distracted him on the way home. Even then, he was only five minutes late. Three hours late was a new achievement for his tardiness.
Was it because he had overtime? Or was it because the commission Ish gave was crazily convoluted? Then again, neither possibility was really logical — despite Ish having a reputation for being somewhat of a madman (in the nicest possible way), he actually treated his employees very well, and the commissions he usually gave were very straightforward. In addition to that, Ish’s company was one of the very few who had secret connections to the vampire faction — one of them being Flux. It also wasn’t uncommon for his employees to have romantic relationships with vampires.
(Ish always kept it a secret, though — one of the many sights of his benevolence.)
As he was about to doze off, he heard the door knocking. He immediately stood up straight from the couch, senses alert.
Before he could open the door however, his nose caught something off about the nearby scent. The scent of sunflowers and something vaguely angelic clearly had Saps’s name written all over it, but something else was clogging that scent. A coppery scent — similar to the smell of blood. While Flux wouldn’t really mind the scent of copper on Saps, the fact that the metallic scent was enough to cover his own smell.
Shaking hands twisted the handle and pulled the door open.
“Saps? You’re home late. Are you okay—” Flux stopped mid-question.
Before him, Saps was smeared in blood and rain. One whiff of the familiar flowery undertone of the coppery scent from earlier told Flux that Saps was currently covered in his own blood. His arms, now exposed by the shreds of fabric missing from his sleeves, displayed bloody scars and wounds, some still bleeding and fresh. Saps’s normally neat and silky white hair was unkempt and messy, blood caking a good portion of his locks. His golden eyes, usually bright and brilliant, were now clouded, almost as if he was hypnotized by a spell.
(He also noted that the usually sweet-smelling blood was tainted with the smell of alcohol and cigarettes.)
Flux had seen Saps bloody before. That was out of the question, considering his line of work. Yet, Flux would’ve never expected to see his lover this battered and bruised before.
“Saps?!” All the alarms in his head went off. He immediately ignored the fact that Saps was currently soaking wet from the rain, wrapping his hands around Saps’s lean but muscular build, the hunter welcoming the embrace with his body going frighteningly slack in Flux’s arms.
“…Hurts…” Saps mumbled against his chest, his voice weak. “Flux… fuck, it hurts—”
“Saps, hey, stay with me. Where does it hurt?” Flux heard his own voice getting more frantic, his hands shaking even more. Despite the nerves however, his voice was gentle and quiet, making sure not to overwhelm Saps’s senses.
“Everywhere hurts—” His speech was interrupted by a quiet flinch and subsequent sob ripping from his throat. “Agh — fuck—”
“Saps, Saps. Don’t sleep now, please. Stay with me.” Worry flooded Flux’s system as he gently ushered in a borderline-delirious Saparata into the house, closing the door behind them. The entire time he did so, he made sure most of Saps’s body weight was being put on Flux. “Can you tell me what happened?”
“I…I don’t know…” His babbled speech slowly turned into sobs. Noticing the change, Flux slowly carded a hand through Saps’s snow-white locks, occasionally using the pads of his fingers to massage Saps’s bloody scalp. However, as he did so, he made a mental note that Saps was oddly delirious — meaning that he had lost a lot of blood.
“It’s okay Saps, you can tell me when you’ve grown more conscious, okay?” Flux’s voice was uncharacteristically soft, knowing that the soft tone of his voice made Saps feel safe. He gently laid the injured hunter on the sofa, turning off the TV as he did so. “Stay here. I’ll grab the first aid kit.”
Luckily, the first aid kit was within arm's reach of Flux, so he was able to quickly grab the kit and return back to Saps. Grabbing the kit, he opened the box and took out a bottle of antiseptic and some cotton.
“Hey, Saps. I’m going to need you to take off your shirt, so that I can treat your wounds,” Flux said. Saps only responded with a wordless nod, which gave a cue for the vampire to proceed. He helped Saps take off his shirt, slightly wincing at the sheer amount of wounds on Saps’s body. The parts of his arms he didn’t see before were littered in small cuts, but there was a particularly nasty wound on his side, which looked to be some kind of gory wound. Thankfully, the cut didn’t look too deep, so there was probably no need for stitches.
“Any wounds on your lower half?” At that, Saps shook his head. Flux nodded in response, dousing the cotton in antiseptic.
“Okay, I’m gonna clean your wounds now.” Flux momentarily looked towards Saps’s eyes. They were still cloudy and hazy, but he could see a bit of that liveliness return. “Tell me when it hurts, okay? Just…pinch my arm.”
Saps gave Flux a subtle nod. At that action, the vampire proceeded to dab the cotton on the wounds. He could see the subtle contortion of Saps’s features as the antiseptic-covered cotton made cotton with the scars, but other than that, his face was uncharacteristically flat. Flux’s dead heart slightly crumpled at the sight of Saps, seeing someone who was normally bright and outgoing being this emotionally withdrawn and blank.
Flux’s blackened hands then moved towards a particularly large cut. With caution, he dabbed the cotton on the wound, eliciting a hiss of pain from Saps. Flux’s hand hesitated.
“Saps? You okay?”
“Yeah…I’m…good. Just…continue on — ugh, fuck—”
“…Saps?”
“Sorry, sorry. Just…continue.”
“…If you say so,” Flux said. He moved to the other hand, where for the majority of the time while Flux wiped the wounds clean, Saps’s expression remained lifeless, save for a few winces as he dabbed on the larger scars. The vampire then grabbed a roll of gauze and proceeded to wrap both of the hunter’s arms in the white cloth.
Amethyst-colored eyes finally looked towards the wound on the side. Pressing his lips to form a fine line, he grabbed a new cotton and poured a generous amount of antiseptic on it. Gently, he pressed the cotton to his side. The hunter’s breath hitched, fingers twitching against the couch fabric. He also made sure to hold Saps’s hand with his own free one, so that he would have something to hold when the pain did become unbearable.
After a few more cotton pads, he finally grabbed the roll of gauze again and wrapped his torso area in the bandage.
“There, finish.” Flux hummed as he finished dressing the wound. He then tidied up, throwing away the bloodied cotton and storing the first aid kid back into its spot. “By the way, you reek of whisky and gunpowder. And—,” his nose wrinkled, “cheap perfume. What kind of commission was this?”
Saps exhaled through his teeth, head lolling back against the cushions. His golden eyes, still glazed, flickered towards the ceiling. “Ish said… it was an easy one,” he slurred. “Just… a rogue vampire. He said it’d only take twenty minutes.” A weak laugh bubbled up, then dissolved into fits of coughing. “Turns out it was a fucking trap. A whole coven — ten, maybe eleven vampires — they were… waiting for me. Like… they knew I was coming.”
Flux’s hands stilled. The gauze crumpled in his grip. “You walked into a bar full of vampires,” he stated, voice dangerously low. “Alone.”
Saps blinked at him, slow and drowsy. “Mm. I won, though.” He gestured vaguely at himself, a half-smile tugging at his split lip. However, that smile crumbled when he saw Flux’s expression darkening. The vampire’s fingers traced a bruise along Saps’s ribs — too precise to be from a simple drunken brawl.
“You didn’t win,” Flux corrected, his voice razor-thin as a dark realization washed over him. “They had let you go, Saps.”
Saps’s breath hitched. His fingers curled into the couch fabric, knuckled whitening. “And… what makes you say that?”
“I thought about it. Maybe from a human’s perspective, you would say that vampires were less likely to let rookie hunters go, since they’re an easy catch. While that is true, you had to factor in the fact that you encountered a whole coven. Sure, maybe one vampire isn’t enough to take down an Elite Hunter, but make it a dozen and suddenly they’re cocky enough to believe that they’re able to kill you. There’s strength in numbers, after all.”
“If they’re able to set up a trap like that, they must be some experienced ones, not just some vampire gone rogue. I wholeheartedly believe that they’re able to kill you, Saps. It’s just that… they were bastardly enough to toy with you, rather than just killing you.”
The room fell silent. Then, Saps chuckled — it wasn’t genuine, however. It was more bittersweet than real.
“Ah… so they were playing with me. That’s why they bit me earlier.”
The vampire immediately froze. “…They what?”
“…Oh. Was I not supposed to say that?”
Flux immediately scrambled to inspect Saps’s body again, and sure enough, between his neck and shoulder area was a couple pairs of holes. Shit, how did Flux never notice that when cleaning Saps’s wounds? Come to think of it, with how his body worked, Saps was supposed to be up and ready to go even after hefty blood loss. For him to still be drowsy even after a good while told Flux that there was certainly vampire venom in his circulation.
Flux counted four vampire bites. “Fuck, Saps, why did you let them do this?”
“I was basically doomed… when the vamp first bit me. Venom’s super strong.” Saps’s breath then hitched, his fingers twitching a little. “And it hurts. Why though…?”
“Your body is probably rejecting the venom. Since you didn’t consent to the bite, your body’s trying to fight the venom off. Kinda like… how your body fights off viruses. But, since this is vampire venom we’re talking about… it’ll definitely hurt more.”
Saps was momentarily silent, before his body suddenly jerked. “Fuck, Flux, it still hurts—” Saps suddenly collapsed into Flux’s arms. “How — how to make it stop—”
“I…” Flux fell quiet. “Well… the only way I know how is that another vampire bites you. Along with drawing blood, they’ll be able to suck the venom from your body and replace it with their own. But, Saps, you just had four vampire bites. I don’t know the limits of your body, whether it’ll be able to take more—”
“No matter,” Saps grumbled as he grasped Flux’s forearm tightly. “You… bite me.”
Again, Flux was left speechless. So far in their relationship, they hadn’t gotten into that level of intimacy. The most they had done before was just a small kiss, but nothing like him biting Saps. If anything, vampires consider biting humans an intimate act. “Saps, I know you’re basically borderline delirious, but are you sure? I… I don’t want to hurt you—”
But Flux stopped as he felt the fabric on his shoulder starting to get wet. It was then that the vampire realized that Saps had been crying silently, but now that he noticed, it was clear — the way his body moved with every repressed sob, his grip starting to become shaky, him attempting to bury himself further into Flux’s shoulder. Saps probably couldn’t speak, since he would rather be caught dead then reveal to Flux that he’s crying, but in that moment, Flux understood.
For countless times, Flux had placed his trust in Saps, whether as a hunter or simply as a human. To not kill him, to not snitch, et cetera. And Saps had kept that promise with all his willpower.
With Saps placing his trust in Flux, it was only logical that Flux repaid the favour.
“…Fine,” Flux muttered under his breath. “Just… tell me when to stop, okay?”
A subtle nod from Saps.
With his answer, Flux gently manhandled Saps so that the hunter was sitting on top of the vampire’s lap, with the vampire’s hands wrapped securely around the hunter’s lithe body. His blackened fingers grazed Saps’s other shoulder, where there were no bites present. Even at a glance, Flux knew that the bastards who fed off the hunter were clearly sloppy, with traces of dried blood still around the wound. They didn’t even bother to clean it.
Assholes.
He exhaled a shaky breath over the puncture wound, feeling Saps slightly shiver from the heat of his breath. Gently, Flux sank his teeth into the wound, simultaneously drawing the venom-infused blood and injecting his own venom into Saps. Above him, Flux could feel the hunter start to slack in his hold. At that, he tightened his grip around the hunter’s body, making sure he was comfortable, all while maintaining the position of his face in Flux’s shoulder, so that the vampire didn't catch a glimpse at his glassy eyes.
After a while of drinking his blood, the moment he tasted blood without the venom infused into it, he peeled away from the hunter, licking up the small traces of blood that escaped the puncture wounds. Gently, he grabbed the first aid kit again, taking out a bandage and covering the wound.
“There you go,” Flux hummed, carding his blackened hands through Saps’s white locks. With how heavy Saps weighed in his arms, he knew that the hunter was currently fast asleep. Gently, he peeled the hunter away from his body, noticing how the tear tracks were still present.
Flux couldn’t help but wipe away the tears as he set the hunter down onto the couch after making sure he turned off the TV.
“Oh, Saps… you’re so painfully mortal, with all your altruistic dreams and selfish desires… despite that, you’re somehow able to have me wrapped around your pinky. You sweet, stubborn boy.” Flux then pressed a light kiss to Saps’s forehead, making sure to be silent.
And he made sure he was as he grabbed his phone and dialed in someone’s number.
“…Hello? This is Thomas speaking, what can I do for you?”
“Thomas, this is Flux. I need you to do a favour for me.”