#{vampire!au}

Cocky to the marrow of his bones, sharp-tongued and arrogant as Lucifer himself, Bucky lived as though the world owed him pleasure, coin and willing flesh. By day he sold his sword to the highest bidder. By night he sold his body to any woman bold enough to meet his gaze. Tavern wenches with loud laughs and rough hands, blushing noble daughters sneaking out after curfew, widowed merchants’ wives starved for a man’s touch and painted whores in the stews, he fucked them all. Often two or three in the same night, sometimes all at once.

He never stayed till morning. Never asked their surnames. Never cared.

One humid summer night in a crowded Southwark tavern, he had a fiery red-haired barmaid bent over a stack of ale barrels out back. Her skirts were rucked up around her waist and he was pounding into her so hard the barrels creaked and shifted beneath them. He gripped her hips with calloused hands, lips brushing her ear as he growled low and filthy,

“That’s it, ye greedy little slut… take every thick inch of my cock. Moan louder, lass- let the whole fucking street hear how well I’m ruining this tight, dripping cunt of yers.”

She came with a shaking cry, knees buckling. Bucky laughed darkly, low and wicked and pulled out only to spin her around and shove her to her knees in the dirt.

“Open that pretty mouth,” he ordered, fisting his thick cock. “I’m going to spend down yer throat like the good little cocksucker ye are.”

She obeyed eagerly and he fucked her mouth until he spilled with a satisfied groan.

Two nights later, he found himself in a lavish merchant’s townhouse with twin noble daughters whose father was away on business. The sisters knelt before him in their fine shifts, taking turns sucking his cock while he sat like a king upon their father’s velvet chair. He tangled his fingers in their soft hair, voice low and dripping with filth:

“Look at you two proper little ladies… choking on a lowly mercenary’s cock like common whores in the stews. Share it nicely now- lick my balls while yer sister swallows me down. Good girls. I’m going to fuck both yer tight cunts senseless until ye can’t walk straight on the morrow.”

He took them one after the other on their father’s fine bed, then together, whispering the most depraved things between deep thrusts:

“Does it feel good, feeling yer sister’s slick all over my cock while I’m buried inside ye? Ye like being fucked like cheap sluts, don’t ye?”

The girls moaned and begged for more, and Bucky gave it to them until they were trembling and spent.

Later that same month, he fucked a widowed countess in her own marriage bed, her late husband’s portrait glaring down at them from the wall while he railed her hard from behind. He slapped her ass sharply, leaving a red handprint, and snarled against her ear,

“Bet that cold old bastard never fucked ye like this, did he? Say it, my lady- tell me how much better my thick cock feels stretching this neglected, dripping noble cunt of yers.”

“Better,” she gasped, pushing back against him shamelessly. “So much better- please, harder!”

He laughed, dark and triumphant, and gave her exactly what she begged for.

He never asked. He simply took, with that devastating smirk, those piercing steel-blue eyes and that rough, velvet voice dripping pure sin. Women dropped to their knees the second he crooked a finger and flashed that wicked grin. Word of him spread through the taverns and great houses alike: if you wanted a night you’d never forget, you sought out James Barnes.

To him, life was cheap and fleeting, especially with the dark rumors of a terrible sickness creeping ever closer from the continent. So why not wring every last drop of pleasure from it while he still could? Death was for the weak, the unlucky, the overly cautious. James Buchanan Barnes was none of those things. He felt invincible, already half-immortal in his own mind, a king of fleeting nights and stolen pleasures.

Until the night the plague finally found him in that filthy alley behind the tavern.

James had just finished with a laughing barmaid behind the tavern, still tucking his cock back into his breeches with that signature cocky smirk when the nightmare lunged out of the shadows.

The man was a nobleman once, fine clothes now stained and torn but the plague had rotted him from the inside. Black buboes swelled grotesquely on his neck and groin, his skin slick with fever-sweat and pus. His eyes, however, burned with something far worse than the pestilence. They were mad. Hungry. And his mouth was open, revealing long, sharp fangs glistening with saliva and fresh blood.

Bucky tried to fight.

Even half-drunk and sated, the young mercenary was no easy prey. He swung a heavy fist and caught the creature square in the jaw with a solid crack.

“Get the fuck off me, ye sick bastard!” he snarled, terror spiking through the haze of ale.

The nobleman’s strength was unnatural. He slammed Bucky against the slimy brick wall of the alley with bone-jarring force. The stench of death, decay and rotting flesh filled Bucky’s lungs, making him gag. He kicked wildly, cursed, and clawed at the creature’s rotting face, drawing blood and pus beneath his nails.

“Unhand me, you foul whoreson!”

But the dying vampire was too far gone. With a guttural, inhuman hiss, he struck.

Fangs sank deep into Bucky’s throat.

The pain was immediate and blinding.

James screamed, a raw broken sound that echoed off the narrow alley walls. It felt as though liquid fire had been poured straight into his veins. Every nerve in his body ignited at once. His back arched violently as the venom spread like acid through muscle and bone. He dropped to his knees in the filth and shit of the alley, clawing desperately at his own neck. Hot blood poured between his fingers, soaking his tunic.

“What… what the fuck have ye done to me?!” he gasped, voice cracking with raw terror. “Get off- get off me, ye devil!”

The nobleman collapsed beside him with a grotesque, satisfied smile still twisting his rotting face, finally dead.

Bucky’s vision blurred and doubled. His gums burned as though someone had shoved hot coals into his mouth. New fangs pushed through with agonizing slowness, splitting the flesh, flooding his mouth with the metallic taste of his own blood. His eyes felt like they were boiling in his skull, bloodshot crimson, pupils blown wide with unbearable pain. Every heartbeat slammed against his ribs like a war drum, each one slower, heavier, more labored than the last.

He vomited bile and blood onto the filthy cobblestones, curling into a tight ball as wave after wave of excruciating pain ripped him apart from the inside out. Nothing in his life, no sword wound, no tavern brawl, no brutal fuck had ever come close to this torment.

“I’m dying,” he gasped between screams. “Christ save me… I’m dying…”

Then his heart stopped.

For one terrifying, endless moment there was only silence.

And then a new, monstrous strength flooded his limbs.

The pain crested like a breaking wave and shattered. The fire in his veins cooled into something cold, sharp, and impossibly clear. His senses exploded. He could hear rats skittering through the gutters three streets away. He could smell the fear-sweat and ale on every patron still inside the tavern. He could taste the copper of his own blood like the finest wine he’d ever stolen.

James Buchanan Barnes rose slowly from the filth of the alley a different man.

No longer the cocky mortal who believed himself invincible.

Now he was invincible.

The arrogance did not vanish overnight. It simply twisted into something far colder, darker and infinitely more dangerous. A ravenous hunger gnawed at his insides like a living beast. He staggered out of the alley on unsteady legs, eyes glowing faintly red in the darkness, new fangs aching in his gums. The whole world smelled of blood and opportunity.

For the next three centuries he drifted across Europe like a handsome plague all his own, still devastatingly beautiful, now paired with an immortal predator’s lethal grace. He took lovers by the dozen and left ruin in his wake.

He fucked them hard and mercilessly.

In silk-draped beds of French chateaus, he would take haughty countesses from behind while their husbands slept in the next room. He’d grip their hips hard enough to bruise, pounding into them until they sobbed with pleasure, then sink his fangs into their offered throats as they came. Many begged for it, baring their necks willingly, whispering “Take me, my lord… drink” as he drained them just enough to leave them dizzy and addicted.

In moonlit forests of Germany, he seduced witches who offered their wrists and throats in dark rituals. He’d fuck them against ancient trees or on moss-covered altars, their bare breasts bouncing with every brutal thrust while they chanted his name like a god. He drank from them mid-climax, their blood mixing with their screams of ecstasy as he filled their cunts with his spend.

In the secret royal chambers of Spain and Italy, queens and duchesses summoned him under cover of night. They offered their royal throats like sacred gifts, spreading their legs and begging the beautiful monster to ruin them. He would fuck them on their own thrones or royal beds, merciless and unrelenting, leaving bite marks that they would hide beneath high collars and jewels for weeks.

Even peasant girls in haylofts and smoky inns were not spared. They offered themselves eagerly, wrists, throats, thighs, drawn to his dangerous beauty like moths to flame. He took them roughly against barn walls or on piles of straw, growling filthy promises in their ears as he drove into them:

“That’s it, lass… bare that pretty throat for me. Let me drink while I fuck this tight cunt raw.”

He was never gentle. He fucked like the predator he had become, deep, brutal and possessive. Many women left his bed limping, marked and forever changed, craving the bite of the beautiful devil who had ruined them for mortal men.

And when the hunger demanded more than just sex, he fed.

He drank from wrists held out like offerings, from elegant throats bared in candlelight, from soft inner thighs spread wide beneath him. He never killed them, not unless they deserved it. He left them alive, dazed and addicted, whispering his name in their dreams for years afterward.

Then he vanished before dawn.

No attachments. No feelings. No mercy.

Just blood and pleasure.

He moved from city to city, country to country, leaving a trail of broken hearts, bitten throats and ruined reputations in his wake.

Until the second wave of plague swept through London in 1665… and brought him Dolores.

It was a rain-soaked evening when James first met Dolores.

He was walking the narrow, muddy streets of Cheapside, hood pulled low against the downpour, when a young woman hurried around the corner with a heavy basket of herbs clutched to her chest. She collided directly with him.

She stumbled, nearly dropping her basket. He caught her elbow with gentle, steady hands.

“Forgive me, mistress,” he murmured, voice low and rough. “I was not watching where I-”

Their eyes met.

And she knew.

She saw the faint red glow in his eyes, the unnatural stillness of his body, the way the rain seemed to slide off him differently. She smelled the old death that clung to him like a shadow. Most mortals would have screamed or run.

Dolores only smiled, soft, unafraid, almost tender.

“You’re him,” she whispered, so quietly only he could hear. “The one the shadows speak of. The immortal with the devil’s hunger.”

James froze. For the first time in centuries, he was the one caught off guard.

“And yet ye do not run,” he said, voice low and dangerous, eyes narrowing. “Most women throw themselves at me for the thrill of the monster. They bare their throats and beg to be ruined. Why do you not scream?”

She looked up at him with calm, intelligent eyes, rain dripping from her lashes.

“Because I see more than the monster,” she replied softly. “I see a man who is tired. Lonely. Carrying centuries of sorrow in those beautiful eyes. Tell me, stranger… does the hunger ever let you rest?”

James stared at her, stunned into silence. No one had ever spoken to him like this.

That night, after she invited him into the back room of her father’s apothecary shop under the pretense of selling him a tonic, she offered him something far more precious.

“I know what you are,” she said softly, standing close enough that he could hear her steady heartbeat. “And I am not afraid. If you wish to drink… you may. But only if it brings me pleasure, not pain. I want to know what it feels like to be wanted by something eternal.”

James stared at her, stunned. No one had ever offered themselves to him like this, without fear or mindless lust.

“Dolores,” he breathed, tasting the name like a prayer. “Are you certain? I am no gentle lover. I have ruined women far braver than you.”

She cupped his face with gentle hands, thumbs brushing his cheekbones. “Then be gentle with me, my James. Show me the man behind the hunger. Kiss me first.”

He kissed her slowly, reverently, as if she were the most fragile thing in existence. When she moaned softly into his mouth, he deepened the kiss, tongue sliding against hers while his hands explored her body with aching care.

That same night, in the small room above the shop with rain pattering against the window, he took her virginity.

He laid her down on the narrow bed like she was made of Venetian glass. He kissed every inch of her, slow worshipful kisses down her throat, across her collarbones, over the soft swell of her breasts. When he reached the apex of her thighs, he worshipped her with his mouth until she was trembling and whimpering.

“Easy, my sweet Dot,” he murmured against her slick folds, voice low and tender. “Breathe for me. Let me make it good for you. I want to hear every sound you make.”

He licked her slowly, reverently, sucking gently on her clit until she came with a soft cry, fingers tangled in his hair.

When he finally pushed inside her, he did it so slowly, so carefully, whispering sweet, filthy praises the entire time.

“That’s it, love… breathe. You feel so perfect. So warm and tight around my cock. Such a brave, beautiful girl, taking me so well. Does it hurt?”

“A little,” she gasped, legs wrapping around him. “But don’t stop. I want all of you, James. Please.”

He moved with aching gentleness, rocking into her in slow, deep strokes, one hand cradling her face while the other stroked between her legs.

“You’re doing so well,” he whispered against her lips. “My perfect Dot. Look at you, opening up for a monster like me. I’ve never felt anything like this. Never wanted anyone the way I want you.”

As she neared her peak, he kissed her throat and asked softly, “May I taste you, love? It will feel like pleasure… I swear it on whatever soul I have left.”

“Yes,” she breathed, tilting her head. “Take what you need. I want to feel you.”

He sank his fangs gently into her throat at the exact moment she came. She cried out in ecstasy, not pain, as his venom flooded her veins with liquid pleasure. He drank only a little, just enough to bind her to him while she clenched around his cock, sobbing his name.

“My James… oh God, James… it feels… so good…”

For the first time in three hundred years, the cold, womanizing predator fell in love. Real, terrifying, all-consuming love. Dot became his anchor, his light in an endless night. She made the hunger feel like home. They moved into a small cottage on the edge of the city, hidden behind overgrown gardens. He watched her work by lamplight, head bent over dried herbs and for stolen months he felt almost human again.

He was gentle with her in ways he had never been with anyone. He would fuck her slow and deep on their modest bed, whispering filthy devotion between tender kisses:

“My sweet Dot… so tight, so perfect for me. Look how beautifully you take my cock. I’d burn kingdoms for this cunt, for you.”

She would moan his name like a prayer, fingers buried in his hair, gasping “My James… my James…” as she came apart beneath him, safe in the arms of the monster who had chosen to be gentle for her.

But the plague found her anyway.

It started with a mild fever and a small swelling under her arm. Bucky begged her to stay inside. She insisted on helping the sick in the city “I cannot sit idle while people die, James.” Within days she was burning with fever, black buboes blooming across her neck and groin, coughing up blood.

He took her to the only hospital-like place that would accept plague victims, a filthy overcrowded pesthouse run by overworked physicians and nuns. The air reeked of vinegar, smoke, and rotting flesh. They bled her, applied useless poultices, and prayed over her while she grew weaker. Bucky waited outside in the shadows like an animal, listening to her faint cries through the walls.

When the doctors finally told him there was nothing more they could do “She is in God’s hands now” he snapped. He stole her from the pesthouse that same night, carrying her home in his arms while she shivered and whimpered.

“I’ve got you, Dot. I’m not letting them touch you again.”

Back in their cottage, he took matters into his own hands. Desperate and terrified, he forced his ancient vampire blood down her throat by the cupful. He reopened the bites on his wrists again and again, mixing his blood with herbal tonics she once made, performing every forbidden rite he had learned across three centuries. He even tried to turn her prematurely, sinking his fangs into her throat while she was still semi-conscious, pumping venom and blood into her failing body in a frantic attempt to save her.

It only made everything worse.

His powerful blood clashed violently with the plague already devouring her. The buboes swelled larger and burst. Her fever spiked into delirium. She screamed in agony as her body tore itself apart from the inside, convulsing so hard she bit through her own lip. The vampire venom accelerated the plague’s destruction, turning her gentle decline into a nightmare of pain.

In her final hours she was barely lucid. Bucky climbed into bed with her, cradling her burning body against his chest, rocking her as she gasped for air.

“Stay with me, Dot… please, my love. I can’t do this without you.”

Her eyes fluttered open one last time, bloodshot, fading but full of love. She reached up with a trembling, fever-hot hand and cupped his tear-streaked face.

“My James…” she breathed, voice cracking like glass. “I love you… even the monster. Don’t… don’t blame yourself.”

Then she screamed.

A horrible, soul-shattering scream as another wave of pain ripped through her. She clawed at her own chest and neck, eyes wide with terror and agony, whispering his name like a broken litany until her voice failed. Bucky held her through every convulsion, sobbing blood tears into her sweat-soaked hair, begging, praying, cursing God and himself.

She died just before dawn, limp and cold in the arms of the immortal who had tried everything and only hastened her suffering.

The silence afterward was worse than any scream.

Completely shattered, Bucky remained on the bed where they had been lying together.

Dot was still in his arms, limp and cold against his chest, exactly where she had drawn her last painful breath. He held her tighter, rocking her gently as if that could somehow bring her back. The silence in the small cottage was deafening, broken only by the distant rumble of plague carts outside and the crackling of the dying fire in the hearth.

Tears of blood streamed down his face as he pressed his lips to her forehead one final time.

“I’m sorry, my love,” he whispered, voice hoarse and broken. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t save you. Forgive me, Dot… forgive your monster.”

With trembling hands, he gently laid her back against the pillows, arranging her hair and pulling the quilt up to her chin like she was only sleeping.

Then he rose.

He moved through the cottage like a man in a nightmare, pouring oil from every lamp and bottle he could find. He soaked the floorboards, the rugs, the curtains, the herbs and dried flowers she had so lovingly collected. He drenched the wooden beams and the table where she used to mix tonics.

When the entire home was saturated in oil, he returned to the bed.

He stood over her for a long moment, memorizing her peaceful face one last time. Then he struck the match.

The flames roared to life with terrifying speed, greedy and hungry, racing across the floor and climbing the walls. Bucky stayed right there beside the bed as the fire reached them, the heat blistering his immortal skin. He watched the flames lick at the quilt, at her hair, at the body of the only woman who had ever truly loved him.

He didn’t move.

He stood in the flames’ glow, the inferno painting the small cottage in violent orange and red, until the roof began to collapse and the entire structure became nothing but a roaring pyre.

The last remnants of the man he used to be, the cocky mercenary, the arrogant lover, the creature who still believed he could be redeemed, died with her in that fire.

When the cottage finally collapsed in on itself with a thunderous crash, Bucky walked out of the burning ruins and into the night.

He never looked back.

After Dolores burned, Bucky wandered the world like a ghost for nearly two hundred and fifty years, feeding in the slums of Paris, hunting through the fog of Victorian London, drifting across continents with no purpose except to dull the ache in his chest.

Then the wars found him.

In 1914, when the world descended into madness, he enlisted under a false name and threw himself into the trenches of World War I. He fought like a shadow, slipping through No Man’s Land at night, ripping out German throats with his bare fangs while artillery shells screamed overhead. The mud, the blood, the endless screams… they felt like penance. He told himself the carnage was justice for every innocent life he’d taken, for failing Dot. He rarely fed on soldiers, only the cruelest officers and rapists among the ranks. The rest of the time he simply endured, letting bullets tear through him, healing slowly, welcoming the pain.

When the war ended in 1918, the emptiness followed him back across the Atlantic.

He moved to Brooklyn in the early 1920s.

New York felt different, loud, restless, alive in a way Europe no longer was. Brooklyn, with its brick row houses, bustling docks and working-class grit, reminded him faintly of the London he once knew. He bought an old warehouse near the waterfront under yet another alias and made it his lair. For a few quiet decades he tried to disappear into the rhythm of the city: working nights on the docks, boxing in smoky gyms, fucking nameless women in speakeasies just to feel something close to warmth.

But peace never lasted.

World War II dragged him back in.

By 1942 he was operating as a covert Allied operative, a ghost soldier who could walk through enemy lines and leave nothing but corpses. In the brutal winter of 1944, during the Battle of the Bulge in the Ardennes Forest, everything shattered. A German artillery shell landed too close. The explosion tore his left arm clean off at the shoulder in a spray of blood and bone. Vampire healing tried desperately to close the wound but the shrapnel was too deep, the damage too severe. He lay bleeding in the snow for hours before a secret HYDRA-linked unit found him.

They dragged him to a makeshift lab hidden in the frozen woods. There, while he was half-conscious and roaring in agony, they fused a prototype metal prosthetic to the raw stump, cold steel wired directly into his immortal nervous system. The pain was worse than the turning in that London alley. He screamed until his voice gave out as they bolted the arm into place.

When he finally woke, the arm was part of him, unbreakable, unnaturally strong and freezing to the touch. A permanent scar on the body that had once made women drop to their knees.

After the war ended in 1945, Bucky vanished again.

He returned to Brooklyn, the only place that still felt halfway like home. He kept the same warehouse, later converting it into a hidden penthouse high above the city as the decades passed. The metal arm stayed hidden beneath long sleeves and gloves. He fed only on the worst of humanity, mobsters, rapists, corrupt politicians and fucked to forget, never staying longer than one night.

As the years went on, the world changed… and so did the way people fucked.

In the roaring 1920s, flappers threw themselves at him in smoky speakeasies, lipstick-stained mouths whispering filthy promises while they rode him in dark corners. In the 1950s and 60s, women grew bolder, secretaries, housewives, beatnik girls who wanted danger. They offered their throats and wrists in motel rooms, begging him to bite while they came on his cock. By the 1970s and 80s, the sexual revolution turned everything dirtier. Women took him home and asked him to choke them, slap them, fuck them until they cried, sometimes filthier than he had ever been in his mortal days.

He gave them what they wanted. He fucked them hard and merciless in alleyways, penthouse suites and the backs of cars. He drank from them while they screamed in pleasure, leaving bite marks they would hide under turtlenecks and makeup. But it was never love. Never connection. Just bodies and blood to numb the emptiness.

He was the shift.

Many, many years ago, people fucked mostly for love, for marriage, for heirs. Now they fucked for fun, for thrill, for the sheer dirty pleasure of it and Bucky became their favorite sin. They threw themselves at the tall, silent man with the metal arm and the dangerous eyes, never knowing they were offering themselves to something ancient and monstrous.

Yet no matter how many women he took, how many throats he drank from, how many nights he spent buried in warm, willing bodies… the loneliness never left.

Four hundred more years of numbness stretched ahead of him.

A ghost with fangs, a metal arm that never truly felt like his own, and a heart that hadn’t truly beaten since Dolores died screaming his name.

Until one rainy night in 2026, outside a quiet Brooklyn library, a warm-blooded girl with a sunlight smile literally crashed into him… and everything changed.

You’re running on fumes, a broke stubborn waitress working chaotic double shifts at a loud hipster café by day and a quiet night-shift librarian at an old branch library by night. Your Gothic literature thesis is the only thing that still excites you: tragic monsters, obsessive love and beautiful creatures of the night that always end up destroying what they crave most. You laugh at how dramatic it all sounds.

It’s a brutal, pouring rainy night when fate decides to be cruel.

You’re leaving the library well past midnight, arms overloaded with books and thesis notes, your cheap umbrella doing almost nothing against the downpour. Head down, coffee in hand, you hurry down the slick stone steps and slam directly into a solid wall of muscle.

Your coffee cup flies out of your hand, splashing across his dark coat. Your umbrella spins wildly into the street. You stumble backward, nearly slipping on the wet pavement.

“Shit- I’m so sorry!” you blurt, face burning with embarrassment. “I wasn’t watching where I was going, I-”

Before you can finish, a large, surprisingly gentle hand catches your elbow, steadying you with effortless strength.

“Easy there, doll,” a low, rough voice murmurs, laced with an old-fashioned accent that doesn’t belong in modern Brooklyn. “You alright? That was my fault. Should’ve been paying better attention.”

You finally look up.

Holy fuck.

He’s stunning. Tall, broad-shouldered, with steel-blue eyes that seem to cut straight through you, sharp jawline and dark hair dripping from the rain. Danger rolls off him in waves, but his touch is careful, almost reverent.

He releases your elbow only to bend down and retrieve your soaked umbrella from the gutter, shaking the water off before handing it back to you.

You’re still flustered. “No, really, it was me. I’m such a klutz when I’m tired. Here- let me get you some napkins or something-”

He’s already shrugging off his long, clearly expensive black coat. Before you can protest, he drapes it over your shoulders. It’s warm from his body and smells like aged leather, rain and something darkly rich, like old wine and copper.

Your eyes go wide in panic.

“Wait- no, no, no! I can’t take this!” You immediately start shrugging it off. “This looks really expensive. How am I supposed to give it back to you? I don’t even know your name. I can’t just walk off with your coat like some weirdo-”

He places a gentle but firm hand on your shoulder, stopping you from removing it. His eyes soften, the corner of his mouth twitching into the faintest crooked smirk.

“Keep it,” he says, voice low and smooth. “You’re soaked to the bone, doll. You’ll catch your death walking home like that. I insist.”

“But it’s yours,” you insist, cheeks burning hotter. “What if I ruin it? Or lose it? Seriously, I feel terrible. At least let me get your number or something so I can return it properly-”

He shakes his head, that ghost of a smirk deepening. “It’s just a coat. I have others. You, on the other hand, look like you’ve had a long night. Keep it. Wear it home. I’ll survive.”

You clutch the coat tighter despite yourself, the fabric heavy and comforting against the chill. No one in this city is ever this… chivalrous. Guys your age would’ve already grumbled and walked away. This man is looking at you like your comfort actually matters to him.

“You’re really sure?” you ask softly, still hesitant.

“Positive,” he replies, eyes never leaving yours. “Besides… it looks better on you anyway.”

Your stomach flips. The way he says it, quiet, sincere, a little rough, makes heat creep up your neck.

You manage a flustered, stubborn little smile. “Thank you… really. Most people in this city would’ve just cursed me out and kept walking. You’re… surprisingly nice.”

Something flickers across his face, pain, surprise, hunger but it’s gone in a heartbeat. He hasn’t been called nice in over four hundred years. He hasn’t been looked at like a person since Dolores whispered “my James” with her last breath.

“You stay safe getting home,” he says quietly, almost like a command wrapped in velvet. “And maybe… watch your step next time, doll.”

You nod, cheeks still warm. “Yeah… I will. Goodnight.”

You give him one last awkward little wave and start walking, his coat wrapped around you like a shield against the rain. You can feel his eyes on your back the entire way down the block.

Bucky stands motionless in the downpour, fists clenched at his sides, metal arm whirring quietly under his Henley. Your scent, warm vanilla, rain and that sweet, pulsing blood underneath has already burrowed into his lungs like a drug. His fangs throb painfully behind his lips. He has to fight every instinct not to follow you right now and drag you into the nearest alley.

He waits until you’ve turned the corner.

Then he moves.

Silent as death, he follows you home.

Every step. Every turn. Close enough to protect you from anyone who might look at you too long. Far enough that you never notice the shadow trailing behind you.

By the time you reach your apartment building, he’s already memorized which window is yours.

He stands across the street in the rain, eyes glowing faintly red in the dark, heart dead for centuries cracking wide open with dangerous, all-consuming obsession.

He already knows one simple truth:

He’s never letting you go.

Bucky waited in the shadows across the street like a predator who had already decided his prey belonged to him.

He stood motionless in the pouring rain for nearly two hours, eyes fixed on your apartment window on the third floor. When the last light finally clicked off at 2:47 am, something dark and hungry uncoiled inside his chest.

But he didn’t move right away.

Instead, he stayed where he was, hidden in the darkness between two buildings and watched.

You had left the curtains open.

Through the rain-streaked glass, he saw you clearly. You were still wearing his long black coat. You shrugged it off your shoulders and held it up to your face, pressing your nose into the collar. Your eyes closed as you breathed in deeply, then again, slower, savoring his scent. A soft, almost dreamy expression crossed your face.

Bucky’s fangs throbbed. His cock hardened instantly.

You muttered to yourself, voice quiet but perfectly clear to his enhanced hearing:

“God… why does this smell so good?”

Bucky’s lips curled into a dark, predatory smile. He murmured under his breath, voice low and rough with dark amusement,

“People really don’t close their curtains anymore, do they? They have no idea who could be watching them…”

You laughed softly at yourself, shaking your head, then started changing. You peeled off your damp clothes, letting them drop to the floor without a care. For a moment you stood there in just your panties, stretching, completely unaware of the ancient predator standing in the rain across the street, staring at every inch of your body with black, starving eyes.

Bucky’s metal hand clenched at his side, plates whirring. Drool slipped from the corner of his mouth. He watched the way your breasts moved when you raised your arms, the curve of your hips, the soft sway of your ass as you turned. His breathing grew ragged.

“Beautiful,” he whispered to the night. “So fucking beautiful… and so unaware.”

Only when you finally pulled on an oversized t-shirt and climbed into bed, turning off the last light, did he move.

Silent as death, Bucky crossed the street, climbed the stairs to your building’s front entrance, and picked the cheap lock on your apartment door in less than eight seconds. He slipped inside like smoke, closed the door behind him, and locked it again with the same unnatural precision, so perfectly that no one would ever know he’d been there.

The apartment was small, cluttered and alive with you.

Your scent was everywhere, warm vanilla lotion, faint coffee from your shift, the sweet copper undertone of your blood pulsing just beneath your skin. It filled the cramped space like perfume made specifically to torment him.

Bucky’s boots were silent on the worn hardwood as he walked through your living room. Books and thesis notes were scattered across the coffee table. A half-empty mug of tea sat cold beside them. A worn blanket was crumpled on the couch. The mess should have annoyed the centuries-old soldier in him… but it only made the obsession sink deeper. This was your chaos. Your life. Your little mortal world he was about to invade.

His gaze fell on the open notebook lying on top of the pile. Your neat handwriting filled the page, underlined and circled in places:

Vampires in Gothic Literature

Eternal life vs. eternal loneliness?

Do they feel love or only hunger?

Real or metaphor for forbidden desire? Witches – power, seduction, danger… real?

Bucky read the notes slowly, a low, dark chuckle rumbling in his chest. The sound was soft, almost affectionate, but laced with something ancient and dangerous.

“Only if you knew, doll,” he whispered to the empty room, the corners of his mouth twitching into a predatory smirk. “Only if you knew.”

He lingered there for a moment longer, tracing one finger over your handwriting, before continuing toward the bedroom.

Your bedroom door was ajar.

He pushed it open slowly, the hinges giving a tiny protesting creak that made him freeze. You didn’t stir.

There you were.

Curled up in bed under a messy pile of blankets, wearing nothing but an oversized t-shirt and a pair of soft cotton panties. Your breathing was deep and even, lips slightly parted, one leg kicked out from under the covers. So vulnerable. So warm.

Bucky’s fangs throbbed. His metal hand flexed at his side, plates whirring quietly.

He stepped closer.

Your scent was strongest here, concentrated, intimate, intoxicating. He could hear every heartbeat, every soft inhale and exhale. His cock hardened instantly, thick and aching against the front of his jeans. He hadn’t felt this kind of raw, physical need in decades.

On the floor near the foot of your bed lay a pair of discarded black lace panties, the ones you’d clearly worn earlier that day. Slightly damp from the rain and your long shift. The scent rolling off them made his mouth flood with venom.

He crouched down, metal fingers hovering just above the delicate fabric. The urge to snatch them was almost painful. He wanted to press them to his face, inhale you until he drowned in it. He wanted to wrap them around his cock the second he got home and fuck his fist while imagining burying himself inside you.

But he stopped.

His hand trembled. The metal plates clicked softly.

“Not yet,” he whispered to himself, voice barely a breath. “Don’t scare her. Not yet.”

With a low, tortured growl, he forced himself to stand. He backed away from the panties like they were burning him.

He allowed himself one last indulgence.

He leaned over your sleeping form, careful not to touch you and breathed you in deeply, dragging your scent into his lungs like a dying man taking his final breath. His lips hovered an inch above your neck, right where your pulse fluttered so invitingly. He could hear the blood rushing beneath your skin. His cock throbbed harder, leaking against his thigh.

He stayed there for a long minute, eyes closed, fangs fully extended, fighting every instinct screaming at him to bite, to claim, to take.

Finally, with a ragged exhale, he pulled back.

On his way out, he noticed his coat draped over the back of your couch where you must have taken it off before bed. The fabric still carried traces of both your scent and his. For a moment he considered taking it back… but he left it exactly where it was.

He didn’t want to take anything from you tonight.

Not yet.

By the time he reached his penthouse, he was shaking with raw, barely contained need.

The second the door shut, Bucky shoved his jeans down, freed his painfully hard cock and stroked himself with brutal, desperate strokes. He buried his face in the collar of his shirt, the one that still carried the faintest trace of your scent from when he’d stood so close to you and fucked his fist like a man possessed.

He came hard within minutes, spilling over his hand with a broken, guttural groan.

Even after the release, the hunger didn’t fade.

It only grew sharper.

He didn’t even know your name yet.

And he already knew he’d be back tomorrow night.

And the night after that.

Until simply watching you sleep was no longer enough.

The next morning, Bucky was already waiting in the shadows outside your building when you left just after 6:30 am, yawning, hair messy, clutching a travel mug of cheap instant coffee.

He followed you at a distance, ten blocks through the waking city, never close enough for you to notice. He memorized every little habit: the way you adjusted your bag strap, how you checked your phone at stoplights, the slight slump in your shoulders from exhaustion. When you finally stopped in front of a small, cozy café called “The Midnight Brew,” he lingered across the street for nearly forty minutes, watching through the large windows as you tied on your black apron and started your shift.

Only when the morning rush began to build did he cross the street and step inside.

The bell above the door jingled. You looked up from behind the counter and your breath hitched.

It was him.

Bucky chose the small table by the window, the one with the perfect view of you. A few minutes later you approached, notepad in hand, trying (and failing) to look professional.

“Hi… you again,” you said, a shy, surprised smile tugging at your lips. “Didn’t expect to see you so soon. What can I get started for you today?”

Bucky looked up slowly, his steel-blue eyes dragging over your face like he wanted to commit every detail to memory. His gaze flicked briefly to your name tag.

“That’s a beautiful name,” he murmured, voice low and rough with that old-fashioned accent. “Suits you perfectly.”

Your cheeks instantly burned hot. You weren’t used to compliments delivered like that, slow, sincere and a little dangerous.

“Th-thank you,” you stammered, tucking a loose strand of hair behind your ear. “That’s… really sweet of you to say. Um, what would you like?”

“Black coffee. No sugar,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “And whatever your favorite pastry is this morning. Surprise me, doll. I trust your taste.”

You nodded quickly, scribbling on your pad to hide how flustered you felt. “One black coffee and a chocolate croissant coming right up.”

When you returned with his order, your fingers brushed against his right hand as you set the mug down. His skin was cool, almost unnaturally so, and the brief contact sent a shiver racing up your arm. You couldn’t help but notice that his left hand remained gloved in black leather, resting quietly on the table, the same glove he’d worn outside. You wondered about it for a split second but said nothing, simply offering him a small smile instead.

“Here you go,” you said softly, still pink-cheeked. “The croissant is still warm. Let me know if you need a refill or anything else.”

You hesitated for a second, then added, “Oh- I actually brought your coat with me. It’s hanging on the rack in the back. I was going to take it to the dry cleaners on my break because it got soaked last night. I can drop it off at the library tonight if you want, or… I don’t know, maybe you could pick it up later?”

Bucky’s eyes darkened, something possessive flickering behind them. He shook his head slowly.

“Keep it,” he said, voice low and firm but gentle. “It looks better on you than it ever did on me. I have more coats than I know what to do with. I insist.”

“But it’s such a nice coat,” you protested, cheeks burning hotter. “I’d feel terrible if something happened to it. At least let me get it cleaned for you-”

“No arguments, doll,” he interrupted, the faintest crooked smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Wear it when you need it. Stay warm. That’s all I want from you right now.”

You blinked, completely thrown by how gently but stubbornly he was refusing. No guy had ever spoken to you like this.

“…Okay,” you said softly, biting your lip. “If you’re really sure. Thank you again. Seriously. Most people wouldn’t have even offered their coat in that rain.”

Bucky’s gaze softened for just a moment. “Most people aren’t me.”

You gave him a shy little smile and hurried back to the counter, heart racing. For the rest of your shift you could feel his eyes on you, steady, dark and unwavering. He barely touched the coffee or the croissant. He just watched you move behind the counter like you were the only thing worth looking at in the entire world.

When the rush finally slowed, he stood up, left a very generous tip folded neatly under the mug, and paused at the counter on his way out.

“See you soon,” he murmured, saying your name like it was something sacred and secret. “Have a good rest of your shift, doll. Don’t work too hard.”

You could only manage a flustered nod, cheeks still warm long after he’d walked out the door.

That night, when he picked the lock on your front door and slipped silently into your apartment while you slept, he stood over your bed for a long time, breathing you in.

He leaned down, lips hovering just above the soft skin of your neck and whispered your name into the darkness like a vow.

It sounded like both a prayer… and a promise.

Over the next several nights, Bucky’s restraint completely shattered.

He came back every few nights, slipping through your front door like a ghost, locking it behind him with that soft, familiar click. At first he only watched you sleep. But the hunger quickly grew teeth.

The third night he touched you.

He leaned over your bed, cool lips pressing slow, open-mouthed kisses down the side of your throat. He nipped at your skin, fangs grazing but never breaking it, sucking lightly until you whimpered in your sleep.

“Fuck… such a pretty neck,” he growled quietly against your pulse. “Bet you’d look so good with my marks all over it.”

He pushed your nightshirt up, exposing your breasts and buried his face between them with a low, filthy groan. His tongue dragged over your nipples in slow, wet circles before he sucked one into his mouth, moaning like he was tasting something divine.

“So fucking sweet… these tits are perfect, doll. Made for my mouth.”

His metal hand ghosted over your hips, fingertips barely brushing your skin as he fought not to grip hard enough to bruise. You arched unconsciously toward him, thighs pressing together.

The fourth night he went lower.

He eased your panties down your legs and spread your thighs wide, kneeling between them like he was worshipping at an altar. He dragged his tongue through your soaked folds in one long, obscene lick and groaned deeply.

“Jesus Christ… your pussy is dripping for me even when you’re asleep,” he rasped, voice thick with lust. “Such a needy little cunt. You taste so fucking good, baby. I could eat this pretty pussy for hours.”

He licked you like a man starved, slow, filthy strokes of his tongue circling your clit before pushing inside you, fucking you with it. He sucked on your swollen clit with wet, obscene sounds, metal fingers gently holding your thighs open.

“That’s it… grind against my tongue even in your sleep like a good little slut,” he murmured against your slick flesh. “This pussy belongs to me now. You hear me? Mine.”

You came hard on his tongue, thighs shaking, a broken moan slipping from your lips. He licked you through every pulse, drinking down every drop like it was sacred.

The visits only got dirtier.

Night after night he returned. He’d bury his face between your thighs for what felt like hours, tongue-fucking you, sucking your clit, growling filthy praise against your soaked cunt.

“Fuck, you’re so wet… creaming all over my tongue like you were made for this. That’s my girl. Let me taste how much you need me.”

Sometimes he’d slide two cool fingers inside you while sucking on your clit, curling them just right, whispering, “Tight little pussy sucking my fingers in even when you’re dreaming. Gonna ruin this cunt one day. Gonna fill you up and make you scream my name for real.”

You always woke drenched in sweat, thighs slick and trembling, panties pushed to the side or completely off. Fragments of sensation haunted you, cold tongue licking deep, a rough voice groaning filthy things, the faint scent of old leather and blood on your skin. You told yourself they were just extremely vivid, filthy dreams caused by stress and loneliness.

Your body knew the truth.

Every morning you woke up aching and empty, clit throbbing, sheets ruined. And every few nights the dreams returned, darker, wetter, more intense.

Bucky, meanwhile, was unraveling.

He left your apartment every time with your taste coating his tongue and his cock so hard it hurt. Back in his penthouse he would stroke himself raw, snarling your name as he came but it was never enough.

He needed to hear you moan his name for real.

He needed to sink his fangs into your thigh while buried balls-deep inside you.

And he was getting dangerously close to losing the last shred of control he had left.

A few days later, the universe seemed determined to keep pushing you together.

You were halfway through your post-shift grocery run, still wearing Bucky’s oversized black coat because the autumn air had turned crisp. It swallowed your frame, the hem brushing your thighs and you secretly loved how warm and safe it made you feel. Your basket was overloaded with pasta, fresh vegetables, a cheap bottle of red wine, and a pint of ice cream you were definitely stress-eating later.

You turned the corner into the pasta aisle and walked straight into a solid wall of muscle.

“Oh- I’m so sorry!” you gasped, nearly dropping your basket.

Gentle but strong hands immediately steadied you, catching your elbows with careful precision so you wouldn’t fall.

“Easy there, doll,” a low, familiar voice murmured. “You alright? That was my fault. Should’ve been paying better attention.”

You looked up and your heart skipped hard.

It was him, the mysterious, devastatingly handsome man from the rainy night and the café. He was wearing a red Henley under a leather jacket, his metal hand tucked discreetly into his pocket like always. His steel-blue eyes softened the second they met yours.

You blushed instantly. “I swear I’m not this clumsy all the time. I was trying to decide between spaghetti and linguine like my life depended on it.”

Bucky’s mouth curved into that faint, crooked smile that made your stomach flutter. His gaze drifted down, noticing you were still wearing his coat.

“Looks far better on you than it ever did on me,” he said softly, almost reverent. “I’m glad you kept it.”

Before you could respond, he smoothly took the heavy basket from your hands as if it weighed nothing.

“Please, allow me,” he said, already heading toward the checkout. “A lady shouldn’t have to carry all this herself.”

You tried to protest. “You really don’t have to-”

“I insist,” he replied gently but firmly, that old-world chivalry radiating off him. He held the basket in one arm and used the other to open the door for an elderly woman leaving the store, nodding politely to her. “After you, ma’am.”

You watched him, completely charmed and a little dazed. No guy your age ever acted like this.

At checkout, he politely waited while you paid, then immediately took all the bags before you could reach for them. Outside, he positioned himself on the street side of the sidewalk, shielding you from traffic like it was the most natural thing in the world.

The walk back to your apartment was short but felt electric. He carried every bag effortlessly, making easy conversation the whole way.

“Long shift today?” he asked, glancing at you with genuine concern.

“Yeah… double again. I’m exhausted but the thesis won’t write itself.”

“You work too hard,” he said quietly. “A girl like you deserves to be taken care of sometimes.”

When you reached your building, he didn’t hesitate.

“Mind if I help you up with these?” he asked, voice warm and sincere. “I’d feel better knowing they made it safely upstairs.”

You nodded, cheeks warm. “Yeah… sure. That would be really nice, actually. Thank you.”

You let him follow you up the narrow stairs to your third-floor apartment. Bucky carried all the bags effortlessly in one arm, walking just behind you like a perfect gentleman.

Inside your small, cluttered apartment, he set the bags on the counter and looked around with quiet appreciation, taking in the fairy lights, the overflowing bookshelves, and the half-dead plants on the windowsill.

“It’s lovely in here,” he said sincerely, a soft smile tugging at his lips. “Warm. Lived-in. Feels like a real home.”

He rolled up the sleeve on his right arm and started helping you unpack without being asked, putting milk and eggs in the fridge, pasta in the cupboard, vegetables in the crisper, moving with surprising familiarity and care.

You noticed immediately that he only rolled up one sleeve. The left arm stayed fully covered, the black leather glove still firmly in place.

You tilted your head, curious. “Why do you keep that glove on? And you only rolled up one sleeve.”

Bucky paused for half a second, then gave a small, easy smile.

“Poor circulation,” he said smoothly. “Old injury from years ago. The left arm gets cold easily, especially in weather like this, so I keep it covered. Doctor’s orders.”

You nodded, accepting the answer. “That makes sense. Must be annoying, especially in winter.”

“Sometimes,” he replied, voice gentle. “But I’m used to it now. Doesn’t slow me down much.”

When everything was put away, you leaned against the counter, suddenly feeling chatty and comfortable in his presence.

“I still don’t even know your name…” you said with a shy smile.

He gave you a small, almost shy smile of his own and rubbed the back of his neck.

“James Buchanan Barnes,” he said. “But everyone just calls me Bucky.”

“Bucky,” you repeated, liking the way it sounded. “Nice to finally meet you properly, Bucky.”

“The pleasure’s all mine, doll.”

You kept talking, gesturing with your hands. “So… what do you do, Bucky? You seem like you have your life pretty together. Do you work around here?”

He chuckled softly, leaning on the opposite counter. “I do some consulting work. Private security, mostly. Nothing too exciting.”

“Private security at your age?” You raised an eyebrow, smiling. “How old are you, anyway?”

Bucky’s eyes sparkled with quiet amusement. “Twenty-four.”

You blinked. “Wait, really? You seem… older. Not in a bad way! Just… more mature. Like you’ve seen some stuff.”

He gave a low, self-deprecating laugh. “I’ve been told that before. Guess I grew up fast.”

You kept talking, comfortable now. “I’m twenty-three. Still feel like a kid half the time. Working two jobs, trying to finish my thesis on Gothic literature. Vampires, monsters, tragic love stories… the usual dramatic stuff.” You laughed lightly. “Do you believe any of that is real? Like, vampires and witches and all that? Or is it just fun fiction?”

Bucky’s gaze sharpened for a fraction of a second before he smiled. “I think there’s more to the world than most people realize,” he said carefully. “Some legends have roots in truth. What do you think?”

“I go back and forth,” you admitted, leaning closer. “Sometimes I think vampires are just metaphors for forbidden desire or immortality anxiety. Other times… I don’t know. The idea of someone living for centuries, watching everyone they love die… that feels too real. Too sad.”

Bucky’s expression softened, something pained flickering behind his eyes. “It is sad,” he murmured. “Very sad.”

You kept going, excited to talk about your thesis. “Exactly! And witches- the way they’re portrayed as powerful but dangerous. Do you have any favorite books or movies about that stuff?”

He listened with genuine interest, answering carefully and making up plausible details while keeping his ancient truth hidden. He asked you questions in return, drawing you out, letting you talk about your terrible boss at the café, your fear of never finishing your degree and how overwhelmed you felt sometimes.

“Do you have Instagram or anything?” you asked, then quickly added with an awkward little laugh, “I’m not trying to stalk you, don’t worry. Just… if you maybe wanted to hang out sometime, or so I could reach out?”

Bucky let out a low, self-deprecating chuckle. “I’m afraid I’m terribly old-fashioned. No social media at all. But I do have a phone number.”

You raised an eyebrow, a playful but suspicious smile tugging at your lips. “No social media? At twenty-four? That’s… suspicious. Are you secretly a spy or something?”

He laughed, the sound warm and genuine. “Nothing that exciting, I promise. Just prefer real life over screens.”

You saved his number and sent him a quick text. When his phone buzzed, his smile deepened.

“There,” you said, grinning. “Now you can’t vanish on me.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he murmured, eyes dark and intense for just a moment before he softened again. “You get some rest now. You’ve earned it.”

He walked to the door, then paused and turned back.

“Goodnight, doll,” he said softly. “Lock the door behind me.”

You nodded, cheeks warm. “Goodnight, Bucky.”

He waited outside until he heard the lock click, then disappeared down the hallway with a small, satisfied smile.

But the second he was out of sight, his expression darkened with raw hunger.

Hearing you say his name in that sweet voice had nearly made him snap.

The gentleman act was becoming harder to maintain… and the monster beneath it was growing impatient.

Bucky’s obsession had grown teeth.

After the night he helped you with your groceries something inside him finally snapped. Knowing your name wasn’t enough. Hearing you laugh wasn’t enough. Standing so close to you and still not being able to claim you wasn’t enough.

He needed pieces of you. Tangible. Permanent. His.

So the stealing began.

The first time was the night after the grocery store. While you slept, he moved through your apartment like a shadow. He took your favorite perfume from the dresser, the one that smelled like warm vanilla and something sweet and uniquely you. He sprayed a little on his wrist before slipping the bottle into his coat.

Two nights later, he took the soft cream-colored scarf you’d been wearing the rainy night you first met him. It still carried the faint scent of rain, coffee and you. He buried his face in it the second he got home and didn’t let go for nearly an hour.

The nights had become his sanctuary and his torment.

For the first time, Bucky began invading your dreams like an incubus, silent, hungry, and unstoppable. He would wait until you fell into deep sleep in your own apartment, then slip into your mind with the ease of centuries of practice. You never remembered the full details in the morning, only waking with damp thighs, aching nipples, and a strange, lingering bite of exhaustion.

In the dream he appeared behind you, naked, massive, his metal arm cold against your fevered skin as he pinned you down in a bed that wasn’t quite yours. His fangs grazed your throat while his thick cock rubbed between your slick folds, teasing, never quite entering.

“Shhh, doll,” he whispered into your sleeping mind, voice low and velvet-dark. “Just a taste. I need you so fucking badly.”

He started with your wrist. In the dream he lifted your arm, licked a slow, reverent stripe over your pulse, then sank his fangs in deep. The pull was slow and obscene, wet sucking sounds filling the dream as he drank in long, greedy swallows. Your dream-self moaned and writhed, hips grinding against nothing while he fed.

When he was done, he sealed the punctures with long, filthy licks of his tongue, savoring the last drops. Then he moved lower.

He spread your thighs wide in the dreamscape, burying his face between them like a starving man. His tongue dragged up your inner thigh before his fangs pierced the soft flesh there too. Hot blood flooded his mouth, richer, headier, while his nose pressed against your dripping cunt, inhaling the scent of your arousal. He drank deeply, groaning against your skin, cock leaking steadily onto the dream sheets.

“Fuck… your blood tastes like sin,” he growled into your thigh. “Sweeter when you’re wet for me.”

He sealed that bite too, licking lazily over the twin holes, his cool saliva tingling as it closed the wounds. Only then did he allow himself to grind his massive cock against your soaked pussy, never pushing inside, just rutting until your dream-body came with a broken cry. He spilled across your thighs in thick ropes, marking you even in sleep, then vanished before you could wake.

You always woke up with faint, fading marks on your wrist and inner thigh that you blamed on restless sleep.

But the real collection had only just begun.

Then came the panties.

He started small. The black lace pair he’d seen on your floor the very first night, the sexy ones you wore when you wanted to feel powerful and desired. He took them while you showered, pressing the crotch to his face the second he was back in his penthouse. The scent of your pussy was still faintly there, musky and sweet. He inhaled so deeply his fangs throbbed.

A few nights later he stole the soft silk ones from your laundry basket, still slightly damp. He sucked the fabric into his mouth, tasting the faint traces of your arousal and detergent, groaning like a beast as he fisted his aching cock.

But what truly broke something inside him were the cute ones.

He found them one night while you slept, an entire drawer of soft cotton panties with little embroidered days of the week. Innocent. Everyday. Mortal. The kind of thing that made his ancient, dead heart twist with dark fondness and cruel hunger.

He picked up the pair marked “Thursday” and ran his thumb over the tiny lettering, a low, predatory chuckle rumbling in his chest.

“Mortals,” he whispered into the dark of your bedroom, voice rough with twisted amusement. “Still pretending time matters. Still marking your little days like you won’t eventually be mine forever. How fucking endearing.”

He stole the Wednesday pair that night, along with the Thursday ones for good measure.

His obsession only grew darker.

He discovered the small trash can in your bathroom. Inside were a few used tampons wrapped in toilet paper. The metallic, coppery scent of your period blood hit him like pure heroin. Centuries of memories flooded him, women on their cycles spreading their thighs for him, begging him to drink while their cunts were heaviest, bloodiest, most potent.

He stood there in your bathroom for a long minute, breathing deeply, cock straining painfully against his pants.

“Even your waste calls to me,” he murmured reverently, almost lovingly. “Your blood… every drop of it belongs to me.”

He took one of the wrapped tampons, brought it back to his penthouse, and spent hours with it pressed to his nose and mouth while he stroked himself raw.

Every few nights he added something new to his growing collection: a hair tie with strands of your hair still caught in it, the half-used lip balm from your bag that still carried the faint taste of your mouth, a well-worn hoodie that smelled like your shampoo, your sweat, and the warmth of your skin. More panties, both the slutty lace ones that made his cock leak and the innocent cotton ones with their childish little days.

He kept them all in a locked drawer in his penthouse like a sacred, filthy shrine.

When the emptiness clawed at him too viciously, when Dolores’s screams echoed too loudly in his skull, he would sit alone in the dark, open the drawer, and surround himself with you. He’d press your stolen panties to his face, inhaling the scent of your cunt like oxygen. Sometimes he wrapped the Thursday pair around his thick, leaking cock and fucked his fist with slow, filthy strokes, groaning your name like a broken prayer.

“Fuck… smell so good,” he rasped into the cotton, voice wrecked and desperate. “This little mortal pussy is going to be mine. I’m going to drink from it while you’re bleeding. I’m going to fuck it until you scream. Until you beg.”

Other nights he pressed the blood-stained cotton directly to his mouth and nose, sucking on the fabric while he jerked himself brutally, imagining it was your bloody cunt riding his face. Thick ropes of cum would splatter across his abs and chest as he came with a guttural snarl, over and over, until the drawer was sticky with his spend and the scent of you was mixed with his own.

“You’re already mine,” he whispered hoarsely into the silk and cotton, fangs fully extended, eyes glowing crimson in the dark. “Every pair. Every drop of blood. Every dream. Every breath you take. All fucking mine. Even if you don’t know it yet… you will. Soon.”

He was patient.

He was starving.

And the monster inside him was done waiting.

You, meanwhile, were spiraling.

At first you thought you were simply losing your mind from exhaustion and stress. The perfume? Maybe you’d moved it and forgotten. The scarf? You probably left it at the library. But when your favorite pair of silk panties vanished from the laundry basket and then the soft cotton ones with the little embroidered days of the week started disappearing too, real unease settled deep in your stomach.

Then more things disappeared.

A hoodie you loved. Your favorite lip balm. A hair clip you’d worn the day Bucky helped with your groceries. Even one of your thesis notebooks went missing for two days before mysteriously reappearing on your nightstand.

You tore your apartment apart looking for them. You started keeping a paranoid little list on your phone. You even wondered if you had a stalker… or if the stress was finally making you crack.

Then one evening you came home from a brutally long double shift at the café, feet aching, hair smelling like coffee and grease. You flipped on the light in your bedroom and froze.

His coat was still hanging on the back of your bedroom door where you’d left it days ago.

But something was different.

A single, perfect red rose was tucked neatly into the breast pocket.

No note. No card. No explanation.

Just one flawless, blood-red bloom with a long, elegant stem and sharp thorns that caught the lamplight like tiny blades. The rose was impossibly perfect, not a single petal out of place, fresh dew still clinging to the edges like droplets of blood.

Your heart slammed against your ribs so hard it hurt.

You stood frozen in the doorway, grocery bag slipping from your fingers onto the floor. The faint scent of the rose mixed with the lingering smell of old leather from the coat, creating something intoxicating and terrifying all at once.

You knew.

You knew it was him.

Bucky.

The gentleman who had carried all your groceries without being asked. The man who opened doors, insisted you keep his coat, and looked at you like you were the only person in the world who mattered. The one with the old-fashioned manners, the low velvet voice and those intense steel-blue eyes that seemed to see straight through you, into places you hadn’t let anyone see in years.

He had been in your apartment again.

He had taken things.

And now… he was leaving gifts in his own coat, the one still hanging in your room like a claim.

You walked over on shaky legs and carefully pulled the rose from the pocket. A thorn pricked your thumb. A tiny bead of blood welled up instantly. You stared at it, then brought the rose to your nose and inhaled. The scent was rich, sweet, and heavy.

Your mind raced.

How long has he been coming in here? How many nights has he stood beside my bed while I slept? What else has he taken? What has he seen while I was unconscious?

Part of you was terrified. The logical, rational part screamed that this was insane. Dangerous. That you should change the locks right now, call the police, run as far as you could.

But another part, darker, quieter and growing louder every day, felt a rush of shameful heat low in your belly. The thought of him moving silently through your space, touching your things, watching you sleep… it made your thighs press together.

You sat down heavily on the edge of your bed, still holding the rose, and whispered into the quiet apartment:

“…Bucky?”

The silence that answered felt alive.

Like he was still there.

Watching.

Waiting.

The game had truly begun.

And neither of you were ready for how deep, how dark and how consuming it would become.

You couldn’t take it anymore.

It was 2:13 am and you were sitting on the edge of your bed in the dark, phone clutched so tightly in your shaking hands that your knuckles had gone white. Another thing had vanished today, your favorite silver necklace. But that wasn’t what broke you. It was the rose tucked into the pocket of his coat. The pattern. The way everything pointed straight to him.

Your thumb hovered over his contact for a long, trembling minute. Part of you wanted to throw the phone across the room and change the locks. Another part, the terrified, exhausted, furious part, needed answers. You pressed call.

It rang only once before he picked up.

“Hey” His voice was low, smooth, perfectly calm. “Is everything okay? It’s late.”

You didn’t even try to sound normal. Your voice came out raw, trembling with a volatile mix of terror, fury, and betrayal.

“It’s you,” you said, barely above a whisper at first, then louder. “Don’t you dare lie to me, Bucky. The perfume, the scarf, my panties, the necklace, it’s all you. You’ve been in my apartment. You’ve been watching me sleep. You left that fucking rose in your own coat. I know it’s you.”

Silence stretched on the other end.

On the fire escape right outside your bedroom window, Bucky stood completely still in the pouring rain, glowing red eyes fixed on you through the gap in the curtains. His metal hand tightened on the railing, slowly denting the metal.

He tried anyway.

“Baby, slow down,” he said, voice dripping with concern. “You sound really scared. Maybe you’re just stressed from work and your thesis. You’ve been so tired lately. I would never-”

“Stop.” Your voice cracked, but it was sharp with raw fury. Tears burned in your eyes as you stood up from the bed, pacing. “Don’t you dare lie to me right now. I’m terrified, Bucky. I’ve been checking my locks ten times a night. I wake up feeling like someone’s been touching me. And it’s you. You’ve been breaking into my home. Stealing my fucking underwear. What the hell is wrong with you?!”

Bucky’s jaw clenched hard. Drool slipped from the corner of his mouth as he watched you curl tighter into yourself on the bed, tears streaming down your face. His free hand flexed at his side, metal plates whirring.

“I was trying to protect you,” he said, voice low and careful, almost pleading. “I just wanted to be close to you. I’ve been alone for so long and you-”

“Close to me?” you snapped, voice rising in a hysterical, broken laugh that sounded more like a sob. “You’ve been sneaking into my room while I sleep! That’s not protecting me, that’s stalking me! I trusted you. You carried my groceries. You were sweet and gentle and now I find out you’ve been stealing my panties and watching me change? What kind of sick fuck does that?!”

Bucky’s red eyes flashed brighter. His metal fingers dug into the windowsill, cracking the frame with a quiet groan.

“I know it looks bad,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady but you could hear the strain. “But I’m not going to hurt you. I could never hurt you. I just… I need you. I’ve been alone for so long and you’re the only thing that makes me feel alive again. Please, doll. Let me explain-”

“Explain what?” you shouted, no longer caring if your neighbors heard. Fresh tears spilled down your cheeks. “How you’ve been breaking in? How you left a rose like some twisted gift? I’m scared to even close my eyes now because I don’t know if you’re standing there watching me!”

You were crying hard now, terrified and furious and completely overwhelmed. Your voice cracked as you whispered the last part.

“I thought you were different… I thought you were safe.”

Bucky pressed his forehead against the cold glass, breathing heavily, fangs fully extended. For a long moment he was silent. When he spoke again, his voice was raw, almost broken, with very little hope left in it.

“I’m sorry,” he said, the words cracking. “I’m so fucking sorry. I know I’m messed up. I know I went too far. But I can’t stop. I won’t lose you. I won’t. Please… just come to my penthouse tomorrow night. Let me explain everything in person. No more lies. No more hiding. I’ll tell you everything. Just… please don’t shut me out. I need to see you. I need to make this right.”

His voice dropped, almost desperate.

“I know I don’t deserve it… but please. Tomorrow at 8. My penthouse. I’ll send a car. If you still want nothing to do with me after that, I’ll leave you alone. I swear it.”

You were silent for a long, heavy moment, shaking with fear and anger.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” you hissed, voice rising again. “You want me to come to your place? After everything you just admitted? After you’ve been breaking into my home and stealing from me? You have the nerve to ask me to walk into your penthouse like it’s some normal date? Are you out of your fucking mind?!”

Bucky’s breath hitched on the other end. His voice was quieter now, almost pleading, with almost no hope left.

“I know how it sounds,” he said, the words heavy. “I know I don’t deserve your trust. But I can’t explain this over the phone. I need you to see me. To see that I’m not going to hurt you. Please, doll… just one chance. I’m begging you. Tomorrow at 8. I’ll send a car. If you walk out after I explain, I won’t stop you. I swear on whatever’s left of me.”

You were silent for a long, heavy moment, shaking with fear and anger.

“…Fine,” you finally whispered, voice trembling. “Tomorrow at 8. But if you lie to me again, Bucky, I’m done. I mean it.”

“Thank you,” he breathed, relief and dark hunger mixing in his tone. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Get some sleep, doll. I’ll be thinking about you.”

You hung up without another word.

Bucky stayed on the fire escape for a long moment, staring at your shaking form through the window. Rain mixed with the blood tears sliding down his face.

He whispered into the night, voice dark and possessive:

“You don’t have to be scared of me, doll. I’ll make sure of that… one way or another.”

He vanished into the shadows, already planning exactly what he would say and what he would do when you came to him tomorrow.

The next day, Bucky moved through the city like a man on a mission.

He hadn’t slept. He doesn’t anymore.

Vampires don’t need sleep the way humans do. The closest he ever came was a kind of cold, motionless trance but even that had abandoned him since you entered his life. Instead, he had spent the entire night on the rooftop of his penthouse, standing motionless in the wind and rain, staring out at the glittering lights of Brooklyn below. Your terrified, furious voice played on repeat in his head like a broken record.

The way you had cried.

The way you had called him a sick fuck.

The way you had still agreed to come tonight even if it was only because you were angry and scared.

Every word cut deeper than the last.

He was going to tell you everything.

No more lies. No more half-truths. Tonight, in his penthouse, he would confess what he really was. And he was going to make it as… human as possible. As normal as a seven-hundred-year-old vampire could manage.

So he went grocery shopping.

He walked into the upscale organic market near the waterfront in the late afternoon, black coat on, sunglasses hiding his eyes, metal arm tucked into his sleeve. The fluorescent lights felt too bright, the chatter of normal people too loud. But he pushed a cart through the aisles with focused determination.

He started with breakfast ingredients for tomorrow, just in case you stayed. Eggs, fresh herbs, thick-cut bacon, ripe avocados, sourdough bread. Then he moved to dinner. He wanted something comforting, something that said “I care.” He picked out ingredients for homemade lasagna, fresh pasta sheets, rich tomato sauce, ground beef, ricotta, mozzarella and basil. He added things for a salad and garlic bread.

His mind kept drifting to you as he shopped.

She’s coming tonight. She’s terrified of me. She has every right to be.

He stopped in the baking aisle and stared at the rows of flour, sugar, chocolate and vanilla. He remembered you mentioning once that you loved chocolate cake when you were stressed. So he grabbed everything he needed, dark cocoa powder, heavy cream, eggs, butter and added a bottle of expensive vanilla extract.

An older woman beside him smiled kindly as she reached for a bag of sugar.

“Baking for someone special?” she asked.

Bucky gave her a small, tired smile. “Yeah… something like that.”

He hoped you would still want anything from him after tonight.

By the time he got back to the penthouse, his arms were full of bags. He spent the next several hours in the kitchen, sleeves rolled up. He prepped the lasagna, made the chocolate cake from scratch, even baked fresh bread. The entire penthouse filled with warm, comforting smells, tomato sauce simmering, cake baking, garlic and herbs.

As he worked, he practiced what he would say.

“I’m a vampire.” “I’ve been watching you sleep.” “I stole your things because I’m obsessed with you.” “I would kill for you.” “I want to turn you so I never lose you.”

Every version sounded insane. Every version made him feel sick with fear that you would finally run.

He set the dining table beautifully, candles, wine, flowers. He even picked out soft music. When everything was ready, he stood in the middle of the kitchen, staring at the feast he had made, and whispered to the empty room:

“Please don’t leave me, doll. Please… just listen.”

He checked the clock.

8:00 pm was approaching.

And for the first time in centuries, the ancient predator felt genuinely nervous.

He was about to confess everything.

And he had no idea if you would still be his when the night was over.

You arrived at his penthouse at exactly 8:00 pm, fury burning hotter than fear. The car he sent had been silent and luxurious but you spent the entire ride clenching your fists, rehearsing every accusation. When the private elevator doors opened directly into his home, you stepped out with your chin high, jaw tight, eyes blazing.

Bucky stood near the floor-to-ceiling windows, the glittering city sprawled behind him like a dark jewel. The lights were low, candles flickering on the dining table. He looked almost… human. Nervous. Shoulders tense, hands shoved into his pockets.

You stopped a few feet away, arms crossed tightly.

“Start talking,” you snapped, voice trembling with rage. “No more ‘protecting me’ bullshit. I want the truth. All of it. Right now.”

Bucky swallowed hard. “I… I don’t know where to begin.”

“Begin with why you’ve been lying to me.”

He took a slow step closer, then stopped when you flinched. “I’m not who you think I am. Not… not completely.”

Your heart hammered. Something in his voice, the raw edge, the hesitation made the air feel heavier. “Bucky. What are you?”

For a long moment, he just stared at you. Then his shoulders slumped.

“I’m not human,” he said, voice low and rough, almost a growl. “Not anymore. Not for a very long time.”

The lights in the penthouse seemed to dim further. A chill crawled up your spine.

“What the hell does that mean?” you whispered.

His eyes, those beautiful blue eyes you’d trusted, began to change. The color bled away from the edges inward, flooding with a violent, glowing red. Not just red. Blood-red. Like twin embers pulled straight from hell, pulsing with unnatural hunger.

You stumbled back a step. “Bucky-”

His lips parted. There was a soft, wet click as his canines elongated into fangs, long, razor-sharp, gleaming under the candlelight. They looked strong enough to tear through flesh without effort. A low, involuntary growl rumbled in his chest, deep and animalistic.

You pressed a hand to your mouth, breath shallow. “Oh my God…”

He slowly raised his left hand. The plates of the metal arm shifted with a mechanical whirr-click-grind, like a machine waking up. The steel caught the red glow from his eyes, reflecting it back in cold, deadly shards.

“Bucky, what are you?” You asked again, fear finally overtaking the anger.

He took one more step forward, voice dropping into something ancient and broken. “This is what I am.”

The full transformation hit like a nightmare unfolding in real time. His skin seemed to pale further, veins standing out dark beneath it. The red in his eyes brightened, casting eerie shadows across his face. Those fangs, fully extended now, made his mouth look wrong, predatory. When he spoke again, his voice was layered with something inhuman, a resonance that vibrated in your bones.

“A vampire,” he said. “Turned in 1349 during the Black Death. I died in an alley with a nobleman’s teeth in my throat… and I woke up like this.”

You backed up until your legs hit the edge of the couch. “No. No, that’s not- this isn’t real.”

He rolled up his sleeve with deliberate slowness, revealing the brutal fusion where metal met scarred flesh. The seam looked raw, like it had been cauterized with fire and rage. The arm flexed, plates shifting with a menacing hum.

You stared, heart slamming against your ribs. “The glove… the circulation story…”

“All lies,” he admitted, voice raw. “I didn’t want you to see the monster. I thought if I could be James for a little while longer, you might not run screaming.”

He reached out slowly but you jerked away.

“Does it hurt?” you whispered, despite everything.

“Every day.” His red eyes never left yours. “It’s not mine. They tore the real one off and bolted this thing onto me while I was screaming. HYDRA made sure I felt every second of it.”

Silence stretched, thick and suffocating. Only the distant city hum and the frantic beat of your own heart filled the room.

Bucky’s shoulders shook as he continued, the words pouring out like he’d held them back for centuries. “I was arrogant. Handsome. Thought the world was mine. Then the plague came and a dying man made me eternal. I’ve spent nearly seven hundred years alone. Fucking. Feeding. Leaving bodies behind before dawn because nothing ever filled the emptiness.”

His voice cracked completely. Blood-red tears slid down his cheeks, actual blood, dark and glistening.

“Until Dolores. Dot. She called me ‘my James.’ She knew what I was and still loved me. When the plague took her in 1665, I tried to turn her. Forced my blood down her throat while she was still breathing. She screamed my name as she died in my arms. I burned the cottage with her body inside because I couldn’t bear to look at what I’d done.”

He dropped to his knees right there on the marble floor, arms wrapping around your waist like you were his last anchor.

“I’ve carried her screams for four hundred years,” he choked out against your stomach, blood tears soaking your shirt. “The wars. The mud. The explosion that took my arm. Waking up with this thing fused to me, roaring while they wiped my mind over and over. I came back to Brooklyn. Fed only on the worst people so I wouldn’t have to feel. Until that rainy night outside the library… when you smiled at me like I wasn’t damned.”

You stood frozen, sobbing, one hand hovering over his dark hair.

He looked up at you, eyes glowing like fresh blood, fangs fully bared, metal arm clenched so hard the plates screamed in protest. “I’ve been breaking into your apartment. Stealing your things. Tasting you while you slept. Listening to your heartbeat and praying I wouldn’t ruin you too.”

You shook your head, tears streaming. “You… you drank from me? While I was sleeping? You touched me, took my things like some kind of sick collector-”

“I know,” he whispered brokenly. “I’m a monster. A killer. I understand if you run. I won’t stop you. But please… I’m so fucking tired of being alone. You’re the only light I’ve had in centuries. Don’t take it away.”

The penthouse was silent except for your ragged breathing and his quiet, desperate sobs against you.

You were terrified.

You were furious.

You stood there, trembling, with Bucky’s arms locked around your waist and his face pressed against your stomach. The glow of his red eyes lit the floor beneath you like dying embers. His fangs were still fully extended, brushing against the fabric every time he breathed.

Your hand finally lowered. Fingers sank into his dark hair.

“I should run,” you whispered, voice cracking. “Any sane person would.”

Bucky’s shoulders tensed, waiting for the blow.

“But I’m still here,” you continued, the words spilling out before you could stop them. “I’m terrified… but I’m not leaving. Not tonight. Not yet. You’re a monster, Bucky. A real one. But you’re my monster. And I hate how much that matters to me right now.”

A broken sound escaped him, half sob, half relief. He tightened his hold for one heartbeat, then slowly loosened it, as if afraid you’d vanish.

“Thank you,” he breathed against you. “God, thank you.”

He stayed on his knees a moment longer, forehead pressed to your hip like a penitent at confession. When he finally rose, the red in his eyes had dimmed slightly but the fangs still peeked past his lips and the metal arm still hummed with tension. He looked raw. Exposed. Almost boyish in his uncertainty.

Bucky rubbed the back of his neck, a shy human gesture that felt strangely out of place on a centuries-old vampire.

“I… prepared dinner for you,” he said softly, a faint flush coloring his pale cheeks. “I’ve been cooking since the afternoon. I wanted tonight to feel… normal. Before everything else.”

You blinked, surprised, still wiping tears from your face. “You cooked? For me?”

He gave a small, almost shy nod. “I haven’t cooked for anyone in… a very long time. I wanted it to be perfect.”

He led you further into the penthouse with gentle care, one hand hovering near the small of your back without quite touching. The long dining table was set beautifully for one, fine china, crystal glasses, silverware polished to a mirror shine. Tall candles flickered in elegant holders, casting warm golden light across the room. A bottle of deep red wine breathed in a decanter. Soft, old jazz played from hidden speakers, something slow and smoky from the 1940s.

You could see into the open kitchen: chopping boards with fresh herb scraps, a pot that had clearly been simmering for hours, an empty wine bottle he must have used in the sauce.

Bucky pulled out your chair like a gentleman from another century, then sat across from you. He didn’t touch his own plate.

The feast was incredible.

Bucky had clearly poured hours into it. A rich homemade minestrone soup steamed gently in a beautiful ceramic bowl, loaded with fresh vegetables and herbs. Next to it sat a generous serving of creamy garlic pasta with fresh basil and shaved parmesan. There was a perfectly roasted vegetable medley glistening with olive oil and sea salt, a beautifully seared steak with rosemary and garlic butter and a large tray of homemade lasagna, layers of tender pasta, rich meat sauce, creamy ricotta, and melted mozzarella that still bubbled from the oven. A basket of warm, golden garlic bread sat beside it, the aroma of butter and roasted garlic filling the air.

On a side table waited three different desserts: tiramisu dusted with cocoa, dark chocolate cake layered with silky ganache and fresh berries with whipped cream and mint.

You took your first bite of the pasta and actually moaned. “Bucky… this is amazing. When did you even have time to do all this?”

He watched you eat with quiet intensity, a small smile playing at his lips despite the fangs. “I’ve had a lot of time to learn things over the centuries. Cooking was one way I tried to feel… human. I started preparing everything this morning. I needed to do something with my hands or I was going to lose my mind waiting for you to say yes.”

You ate slowly, studying him the entire time, the way candlelight danced across his pale skin, the subtle shift of metal plates under his sleeve, the faint red glow still lingering at the edges of his eyes. The silence finally became too much.

“Bucky… why aren’t you eating anything?” you asked gently.

He gave a low, tired chuckle and leaned back in his chair, eyes soft but shadowed. “I can eat human food, doll. Some of us do it at galas or restaurants to blend in. But it tastes like ash in my mouth. No real flavor. No nourishment. Most of us vomit it up later, or it just sits heavy and makes us sick. If we rely on it too long, we get weak… malnourished.” His voice dropped, dark and intimate. “Nothing, nothing, compares to blood. Especially yours.”

You swallowed hard, heart racing, but took another slow bite of the pasta anyway. The rich garlic and herbs still tasted divine to you, even if they were nothing to him. Curiosity was slowly winning the war against your nerves. “So the garlic in this pasta… it’s really fine?”

He smiled faintly, fangs glinting in the candlelight. “Old folklore. Garlic doesn’t hurt us. It just smells strong. Some of us find it unpleasant, like it stings our nose but it won’t kill me. I actually like cooking with it. Reminds me of simpler times.”

You nodded, chewing thoughtfully. “Can you see yourself in mirrors?”

He let out a soft laugh. “Yes. Always have. The whole ‘no reflection’ thing was invented by Bram Stoker as a narrative device to show vampires lacked a soul. I still shave the old-fashioned way every evening.”

“What about sunlight?” you pressed, leaning forward. “Do you sparkle or burst into flames like in the movies?”

Bucky let out a genuine laugh, the sound low and warm, cutting through the heavy tension in the room. “No sparkling. That one always makes me laugh. I can go out in daylight- it just weakens me. The older I get, the more it burns if I stay out too long. Like a bad sunburn that never quite heals. That’s why I prefer evening dates. Sunsets are my limit on a good day.”

You kept going, emboldened by his patience. “Holy water? Crosses? What about stakes?”

“Holy water feels like a mild burn on the skin, like touching a hot pan for half a second. Crosses do nothing- never have.” He shrugged. “As for stakes… that whole ‘wooden stake through the heart kills us’ idea is mostly modern invention. In the old folklore they were just used to pin us down or immobilize us so we couldn’t rise from the grave. To actually finish one of us off, you’d need to behead or burn the body.”

He tapped his chest with a wry smile. “A stake would hurt like hell and slow me down, but I heal too fast. You’d have to be quicker than me and almost nothing is.”

You set your fork down, studying his face, the way the red glow in his eyes pulsed softly with every answer. “When do your fangs come out? Just when you’re hungry?”

Bucky’s eyes darkened, the crimson flaring brighter for a heartbeat. “They come out when I’m hungry. When I’m angry.” His voice dropped into a rough growl that sent heat and fear twisting low in your belly. “And when I’m aroused. They’ve been out since you walked into the penthouse. Looking at you does that to me. Every damn time.”

Your breath caught. Heat flooded your cheeks. “So right now… they’re because of me?”

“Partly,” he admitted, voice rough with honesty. “Mostly. You walk in a room and my body reacts before my brain catches up.”

You bit your lip, fighting the strange flutter in your chest. “Do you… shape-shift? Like into bats or wolves or anything?”

He tilted his head, a small, dangerously charming smirk playing on his lips. “Some of the very old ones can. Bats, rats, owls, foxes, even wolves. I never learned how. Never needed to. I prefer this form. This body.” His metal fingers flexed slowly on the tablecloth. “It’s served me well for seven hundred years. Strong. Fast. Familiar.”

You nodded slowly, processing everything. “What about needing an invitation to enter a home? Is that why you waited for me to open the door sometimes?”

Bucky’s smirk faded into something darker, almost predatory. His red eyes gleamed with dark amusement.

“That one used to be real,” he said, voice low. “A long time ago. But we figured it out centuries back. Vampires invented welcome mats. Cute little loophole. Put one outside your door and boom you’ve technically invited every vampire in the world inside. Most people have them now without even realizing what they’re doing.”

He leaned forward slightly, watching your face.

“I never actually needed an invitation. I only picked your lock those first few times out of habit… and because I wanted to hear you invite me in yourself. I wanted to watch that sweet, trusting smile when you opened the door for me. I wanted you to choose to let me in.”

A deep chill ran down your spine. The candle flames suddenly felt tiny and useless against the growing shadows in the room.

“So you could just… walk in whenever?” you asked quietly, voice barely above a whisper.

“Anytime,” he said, eyes locked on yours, unblinking. “Day or night. Rain or shine. Whether you’re awake, asleep, or in the shower. I never have to wait outside again unless you explicitly tell me to leave. And even then…”

He let the sentence hang, the implication heavy in the air.

You swallowed hard, heart hammering.

Bucky’s voice dropped even lower, almost intimate.

“I’d probably still watch from the street… just to make sure you’re safe.”

You tried to push past the shiver of fear. “What about resting in a coffin with soil from your grave? Is any of that real?”

Bucky’s expression turned almost nostalgic, though there was a hint of darkness in his eyes.

“Mostly myth,” he said. “I don’t need a coffin. I don’t actually need to sleep at all- vampires don’t. The body doesn’t require rest the way a human one does. But some of us do sleep in soil from their homeland. It… grounds us. Keeps the centuries from driving them completely insane. I haven’t done that in a long time. The last time was right after the war, when everything hurt too much.”

The questions kept coming, almost like you couldn’t stop them. “Are all vampires pale and beautiful like you? Or is that just in books?”

Bucky gave a dark, low chuckle that vibrated through his chest.

“In the oldest stories, we were bloated, ruddy, purple corpses. Disgusting, swollen things that crawled out of graves smelling of rot, mindless demons driven by pure bestial instinct. No charm, no seduction, just mindless hunger.”

He smiled, his red eyes gleaming with something hungry and possessive. “But after the change… it’s different. The venom rewrites you. Makes you younger. More beautiful. More magnetic.”

“You get this pull, an almost supernatural allure that draws people in. Makes them want to get closer. Makes them easy to seduce… easy to drain dry without them even realizing what’s happening until it’s too late.”

He leaned forward slightly, voice velvet and smoke. “When I turn you, you won’t just be immortal. You’ll be… irresistible. Skin flawless. Body perfected. A face and presence that makes mortals ache to be near you. To offer themselves. To bare their throats without understanding why. That’s how we survive. Not just by strength- but by beauty. By hunger wrapped in seduction.”

You swallowed hard, a shiver racing down your spine at how casually he spoke about turning you. Like it was something he had already decided in his mind. “You keep saying ‘when,’” you whispered. “Not ‘if.’”

Bucky noticed your unease immediately. He reached across the table and gently took your hand, metal fingers cool but careful against your skin.

“You don’t have to worry your pretty head about it right now, doll,” he murmured, voice softening into that velvet tone that always made your stomach flutter. “I’m not going to rush you. I’m not going to force anything. When- if- it happens, it’ll be when you’re ready. I just… I can’t stand the thought of watching you grow old and die while I stay like this. I’ve buried too many people I cared about. I don’t want you to be one of them.”

He lifted your hand to his lips and pressed a slow, reverent kiss to your knuckles, fangs lightly grazing your skin in a promise that made your pulse jump wildly.

“You’re already perfect to me,” he whispered against your fingers. “Human or not.”

You stared at him across the flickering candles, heart racing with a dizzying mixture of fear, fascination, lingering anger, and something far deeper. The jazz still played softly. The feast was slowly cooling on your plate. And the vampire who had just answered every terrifying question with surprising patience was still holding your hand like it was the most precious thing in his long, dark life.

“This is… a lot to take in,” you said finally, voice barely above a whisper.

Bucky’s red eyes softened. “I know. Take all the time you need. Ask me anything. I’ll answer every question, no matter how dark. And I understand if it’s too much. If you want to run, I won’t stop you.”

You didn’t run.

Instead, you reached across the table and gently touched his metal hand. “I’m still here,” you whispered, fingers tracing the cool plates. “I won’t run.”

Bucky turned his hand over instantly, metal fingers carefully closing around yours like he was afraid you’d disappear. His glowing red eyes searched your face, raw and uncertain.

“There’s one more thing,” he said, voice dropping even lower, almost ashamed. “Sometimes… I can slip into dreams. Like an incubus. I’ve done it to you. Many times. I’ve made you dream filthy things while you slept. Made you feel my hands spreading you open, my mouth on your cunt, my cock buried so deep you were sobbing my name. You’d wake up soaked, thighs slick, aching so badly you had to touch yourself… and you thought it was just your imagination.”

Your breath hitched sharply. Heat flooded your face and lower, a sudden throb between your legs. “You… did that?”

Bucky’s eyes burned brighter, pupils blown wide. “Every night I couldn’t stay away. Even when I tried to stop myself. I’d stand in the corner of your room, hard as steel and push into your mind just to hear you moan for me in your sleep. I’m sorry. I know how fucked up that is.”

The silence between you crackled, thick, electric, heavy with fear, shame, and dark, undeniable desire. Your pulse thundered in your ears. You didn’t pull your hand away.

The tension finally snapped.

You stood up slowly, chair scraping against the floor. Bucky rose to meet you, chest heaving. The first kiss was slow and reverent, his hands cradling your face like you were made of glass. But hunger took over fast. The kiss turned deep, desperate, tongues sliding, teeth clashing. You moaned into his mouth and he answered with a broken growl that vibrated straight to your core.

He pulled back suddenly, breathing hard, fangs fully extended and gleaming. A thin string of saliva still connected his lower lip to your skin. He looked feral. Starving. Devastatingly beautiful.

You stared, heart pounding with something far beyond fear now. Curiosity and lust burned hotter. You reached up, cupped his jaw, thumb brushing the sharp line of his cheekbone. “Open for me, Bucky.”

His glowing red eyes flickered with surprise, but he obeyed instantly. Lips parting, he showed you the full, lethal length of his fangs. A low, needy growl rumbled in his chest, submissive and desperate, like he was offering himself up for your inspection.

You traced one fang slowly with your thumb, feeling the razor edge without cutting yourself. “Does it hurt when they come out?”

“Just a dull ache,” he murmured, voice gravel-rough and trembling. “Like an old wound. But right now… fuck, doll, it feels good. Because it’s you touching them.” His tongue flicked out helplessly. Thick drool slipped from the corner of his mouth, sliding down his chin as he fought the urge to bite.

You leaned in, eyes locked on his and dragged your tongue slowly up the length of one fang. The metallic tang mixed with his dark, cold taste, addictive and intoxicating. Bucky groaned deep in his throat, the sound broken and filthy. His metal hand tightened on your waist, hard enough to bruise, hips jerking forward involuntarily against you.

“Fuck… you’re gonna kill me,” he rasped, drooling openly now. Saliva dripped onto your chest as he watched you explore him with wide, submissive eyes. “No one’s ever… touched them like that. No one’s ever been brave enough.”

“Does drinking hurt?” you asked, still licking and teasing the sharp point, sucking gently at the tip.

“Only if I want it to.” His voice cracked into something dangerous and wrecked. “I can make it burn like fire… or feel like the best orgasm you’ve ever had. I’ve learned control over centuries. But with you-” He shuddered hard when you sucked harder. “-I don’t know how long it’ll last. Please… doll…”

You smiled, wicked and curious and took the entire tip of his fang into your mouth, sucking softly. Bucky snarled, the sound purely submissive and lifted you off the ground like you weighed nothing. Clothes were torn away in a frantic blur, your shirt ripped down the middle, his pants shoved down just enough. He carried you to the bedroom, metal arm cool and unyielding against your bare back and laid you on the bed with surprising gentleness.

But the second your back hit the mattress, the hunger consumed him.

He worshipped you for what felt like hours. Mouth everywhere. He sucked dark, claiming bruises into your breasts, fangs grazing your nipples until you arched and whimpered. He licked long, messy stripes down your stomach, drooling shamelessly over your skin, leaving shiny, cooling trails. When he finally shoved your thighs apart and settled between them, his red eyes burned up at you with raw need.

“I’ve tasted you before,” he confessed, voice thick with shame and lust, pressing open-mouthed kisses to your inner thigh. “While you slept. Just little sips from your wrist or your thigh. Never enough to hurt you. Never while you were awake, watching me like this.” He groaned, hips grinding helplessly against the sheets. “I’m sorry… but I couldn’t stop. You taste like fucking heaven.”

His tongue dragged slowly through your folds, and the broken, desperate sound he made was almost worshipful. “Let me make it up to you, doll. Please. Let me show you how good I can make it feel when you’re awake.”

Before you could answer, he buried his face in your cunt. No teasing. He devoured you, filthy, wet, obscene sounds filling the room as his tongue fucked deep inside you, curling, thrusting. His drool mixed with your slick, dripping down his chin, soaking the sheets. Two thick fingers joined his tongue while his thumb rubbed tight circles on your clit. You came the first time with a broken cry, thighs clamping around his head. He didn’t stop. He sucked your clit between his lips and growled, the vibration sending you over again almost immediately, sobbing his name.

Only then did he crawl up your body, cock heavy and leaking against your thigh. He was massive, thick, flushed dark, the head already glistening with precum and your own slick. You reached down with a shaky hand and stroked him, spreading the mess along his length.

“Bucky… you’re so fucking big,” you whimpered, eyes wide with a mix of awe and nerves.

“I know, baby,” he groaned, pressing his forehead to yours, breathing ragged and hot against your lips. “Gonna go slow at first. Breathe for me. I’ve got you. Tell me if it hurts, okay? I need to hear you.”

He pushed in inch by inch, stretching you open until you felt impossibly full. The burn was intense but perfect, bordering on too much. When he bottomed out, he stayed there, hips twitching, drooling onto your neck as he fought for control.

“Fuck… you’re so tight,” he rasped, voice wrecked. “So warm and wet for me. Taking every inch like you were made for this cock. How does it feel, doll? Does it hurt?”

“A little,” you gasped, nails digging into his shoulders. “It’s so much… but it feels good. Don’t stop.”

He stayed buried deep, rolling his hips in slow, careful circles, letting you adjust. “Good girl. Breathe. I’ve got you. If it gets too much, you tell me. Promise me.”

“I promise,” you whispered, legs wrapping tighter around him.

Then he started moving, deep, slow rolls of his hips at first, letting you feel every ridge and vein dragging inside you. The headboard creaked under his metal grip. Soon the pace turned punishing, hips snapping hard, the wet slap of skin on skin echoing obscenely through the room. He fucked you like he’d been starving for you for decades.

“Mine,” he snarled against your throat, fangs scraping your skin. “Say it.”

“I’m yours- fuck, Bucky, I’m yours!”

Your orgasm was building fast, walls fluttering around his cock. Bucky suddenly slowed, pulling almost all the way out before sliding back in deep. His glowing red eyes locked onto yours, intense and pleading.

“Drink from me,” he rasped, slicing his wrist open with a fang. Dark, ancient blood welled up instantly. “Just a little. It’ll make everything feel better. So much better. Trust me, doll. You’ll feel like you’re flying.”

You hesitated, breath shaky. “Bucky… I don’t know if-”

“Please,” he whispered, pressing his bleeding wrist closer to your lips, voice desperate and feral. “It won’t hurt you. It’ll heighten everything. Every thrust. Every touch. Every single nerve in your body. You’ll come harder than you ever have. Let me give this to you, baby. Let me make you feel good.”

The raw need in his voice, combined with the way he was still buried so deep inside you, made you cave. You parted your lips and let him press his wrist to your mouth.

The first taste was overwhelming, rich, metallic, and strangely sweet, like dark spiced wine laced with raw power. His blood flooded your tongue and burned down your throat. Almost immediately, fire spread through your veins. Pleasure exploded tenfold. Every nerve lit up like live wires. The stretch of his cock inside you suddenly felt impossibly better, every ridge dragging against sensitive spots you didn’t even know existed.

“Oh my God-” you gasped, eyes rolling back, a broken moan tearing from your throat.

Bucky groaned loudly, hips snapping forward harder. “That’s it… good girl. Feel me now. Feel how deep I am. How full you are. Does it still hurt, doll? Tell me.”

“No- fuck, it feels… incredible,” you sobbed, legs shaking around him. “Don’t stop. Please don’t stop.”

He fucked you through it without mercy, eyes glowing brighter, drooling onto your chest as he watched you fall apart.

“Fuck, look at you,” he growled, voice wrecked with feral hunger. “Drinking my blood and creaming all over my cock like a perfect little slut. So fucking perfect. So mine. You okay, baby? Not lightheaded?”

“I’m… I’m good,” you gasped, tears of overwhelming pleasure streaming down your face. “It’s so much- I feel like I’m burning up in the best way.”

He kept feeding you small sips as he pounded into you, each swallow making the pleasure spiral higher and higher until you were sobbing, shaking, coming again and again. The room spun. Your body felt like it was on fire in the best possible way, every thrust, every drag of his cock, every brush of his skin against yours amplified into pure bliss.

“Does it still feel good?” he panted, voice rough and concerned even as he fucked you like a beast. “Talk to me, doll. Tell me you’re okay.”

“Yes- yes, Bucky, I’m okay- don’t stop, please-”

He shifted higher, mouth trailing wet, open kisses up your leg until he reached your calf. Without warning, his fangs sank deep into the soft, sensitive flesh there, right below the knee, where the muscle was firm but yielding. The sharp, burning pain exploded through you, mixing violently with the overwhelming pleasure still pulsing from his blood in your veins.

The combined sensation sent you over the edge one final time, his fangs buried deep in your calf while his thick cock slammed into you with brutal, relentless strokes. You screamed, raw and broken, vision whiting out as your walls clenched violently around him. His hot, endless pulses of cum flooded you at the exact same moment, thick ropes painting your insides until it squirted out around his pistoning shaft with every thrust, slick and obscene. The wet, filthy sound of it echoed through the room, wet squelching, skin slapping, your mixed fluids soaking the sheets beneath you.

“Fuck- take it all, doll,” Bucky growled against your neck, voice ragged and possessive, his metal fingers digging bruises into your hip while his flesh hand fisted your hair. “Gonna fill this greedy little cunt until it’s dripping for days. You’re mine now. Every drop of blood, every fucking inch of this perfect body- mine.”

He kept rutting through his orgasm, hips snapping harder, chasing the last spasms of your climax until your thighs shook uncontrollably. The bedframe groaned in protest under the force, wood creaking dangerously with every punishing thrust. You were a mess, sweat-slick, cum-stuffed, blood trickling from the fresh bite marks on your neck and calf where he’d feasted earlier. The metallic tang of your blood still coated his tongue as he licked greedily at the wound.

Then it happened.

One particularly savage thrust, his cock slamming so deep you swore you felt him in your guts, made the entire bed collapse. The wooden slats snapped with a loud crack, the mattress dropping hard onto the box spring. You both jolted, still locked together.

“Oh fuck!” you gasped, eyes wide, a breathless laugh already bubbling up.

Bucky froze mid-thrust, cock still buried to the hilt inside your fluttering pussy, his glowing eyes blinking in confusion. “What the- did we just…?”

The absurdity hit you both at once. You burst into giggles, the sound bright and giddy even as his cum continued to leak out around where you were joined. Bucky’s serious, post-orgasm face cracked, and he let out a low, rumbling laugh that vibrated through his chest into yours.

“Shit, doll,” he chuckled, forehead dropping to yours, still half-hard and twitching inside you. “Broke the damn bed. Guess I don’t know my own strength when I’m buried in this tight, sloppy heaven.”

You grinned up at him, running your fingers through his messy hair, feeling the coolness of his skin, vampire cool, never quite warm like a human’s. “Mmm, worth it. You fucked me so hard I’m gonna feel you for a week. My vampire super-soldier broke the bed railing me like a damn animal. Kinda hot.”

He smirked, fangs still partially extended, glistening with your blood. “Animal, huh? Careful what you ask for.” He gave one lazy, deep roll of his hips, pushing his cum deeper, making you whimper. “Still hard for you. Could go again right here on the broken wreckage.”

You laughed softer this time, cupping his face. “Later, Buck. I’m wrecked. But… you’re not gonna sleep, are you?”

Bucky’s expression softened. He carefully pulled out with a wet sound, a gush of his spend following, dripping down your ass onto the ruined sheets. He sealed the bite on your neck first, slow, reverent licks of his tongue, warm and soothing, the healing properties in his saliva already knitting the skin. Then he moved lower, spreading your thighs wide to lap gently at the bite on your inner thigh, tasting the mix of your blood and his cum with a low, appreciative groan.

“Fuck, look at this pretty, used cunt,” he murmured filthily between licks. “All swollen and leaking my load. So damn perfect.” He pressed a tender kiss right over your clit before crawling back up.

He didn’t lie down beside you like a human would. Instead, he sat up against the tilted headboard of the collapsed bed, metal arm pulling you effortlessly into his lap so you were draped over his chest. His fingers, both flesh and metal, traced lazy, soothing patterns along your spine, your ass, the backs of your thighs.

“I don’t need sleep, baby,” he said quietly, voice low and intimate in the dark. “Haven’t in decades. I’ll stay right here, watching over you. Listening to that beautiful heartbeat. After everything… I can’t risk losing you too.”

You nuzzled into his neck, kissing the old scars there. “You’re not gonna lose me, Bucky. I’m yours. I chose this, chose you. The biting, the blood, the way you fuck me stupid… all of it. I’m not going anywhere.” Your hand slid down his abs, giving his still-hard cock a lazy stroke. “Even if you do break every bed we own.”

He let out a soft, relieved laugh, pressing kisses to your temple, your eyelids, your swollen lips. “Good girl. My perfect doll. I’ll buy a reinforced steel frame tomorrow. Maybe bolt it to the damn floor.” His voice dropped, more serious, thumb brushing your jaw. “You’re safe with me. I swear it. I’ll burn the world before I let anything touch you. You’re my light now. My reason.”

You smiled sleepily, body heavy and sated, the buzz of his blood in your veins making everything warm and floaty. “Mmm. Love you, my vampire. Even if you’re a creepy non-sleeper who stares at me all night.”

“Creepy, huh?” He nipped your ear playfully, then soothed it with his tongue. “Keep talking like that and I’ll spread these thighs again and make you scream my name until sunrise.”

“Promises, promises…” you mumbled, already drifting.

Bucky held you tighter, one hand possessively cupping your cum-filled pussy, the other stroking your hair. He stayed awake all night like that, cock half-hard against your thigh, silent blood-tinged tears slipping down his cheeks onto the pillow, heart aching with a love so fierce it terrified him. Your heartbeat was steady and strong against his chest, the last pure thing left in his long, violent existence.

And he’d protect it with every undead fiber of his being.

You woke slowly, blinking against the soft morning light filtering through the curtains, your body deliciously sore and heavy with the afterglow of being thoroughly claimed. The first thing you noticed was the chaos surrounding you.

The bed was completely destroyed, slats snapped clean in half, the mattress tilted at a ridiculous angle on the broken box spring and white down feathers absolutely everywhere. They drifted lazily through the air like snow, clung to your sticky skin, tangled in your messy hair and dusted the dried streaks of cum and blood that painted your thighs and stomach. Feathers stuck to the dark bite marks on your neck and breasts, nestled in the crease of your ass and even floated gently off the ruined sheets every time you shifted.

The bed was empty. Or so you thought.

“Bucky?” you murmured, voice raspy from screaming his name half the night. A faint flutter of panic mixed with the warm throb between your legs.

Before you could sit up, the most sinful, decadent sensation hit you, a warm wet tongue dragging with deliberate, unhurried laziness up the soft, sensitive skin of your inner thigh. Each long, slow stroke pressed firmly against a fresh, throbbing bite mark, the one Bucky had left deep in the throes of last night’s passion. The feeling was possessive, almost worshipful, like he was savoring every drop of you.

A shiver raced through your body and a soft, breathy moan escaped your lips. You looked down to find Bucky right there between your spread thighs, his massive metal arm draped heavily over your hip to keep you pinned open for him. His mouth was latched onto that tender wound, tongue working in slow, reverent circles as he licked it closed, sealing it with his cool venom while tasting the last faint traces of your blood. The sting mixed with pleasure in a way that made your core clench emptily, still aching and leaking from how brutally he’d fucked you hours earlier.

He must have been waiting for you to stir.

When he felt you tense, he lifted his head just enough to look up at you through hooded crimson eyes that glowed with hunger and raw devotion. His lips were shiny, slick and stained vivid crimson with your blood. Feathers clung to his dark hair and broad shoulders like some filthy, fallen angel.

“Good morning, my sweet girl,” he rumbled, voice gravelly and thick. “Found you leaking all over the wreckage. Couldn’t resist cleaning up my mess. You taste even better in the morning- soft, warm and dripping with me.”

You let out a shaky laugh, glancing around at the feather explosion and broken wood. “We really destroyed everything, didn’t we? Feathers in my ass, feathers in my hair… I look like I got attacked by a pillow factory after the world’s hardest fuck.”

Bucky chuckled darkly, dragging his tongue slowly up your slit, collecting the creamy mix of his dried cum and your fresh arousal. “Mmm. Worth every splinter and every damn feather. I woke up hard as fuck just from smelling how soaked you still are. Been down here licking you for ten minutes, waiting for those pretty eyes to open.”

Heat flooded your cheeks. “Bucky… thank you. For last night. For letting me drink from you. It felt… God, it felt incredible. Like every nerve in my body was on fire and singing at the same time. I don’t know how to repay you for something so intimate.”

He crawled up your body with predatory grace, feathers shifting around you both, until he hovered over you. Then he kissed you deeply, hungrily, tongue sliding into your mouth so you could taste the copper of your own blood mixed with his cool sweetness and the filthy evidence of your combined releases.

“You never have to repay me, sweetheart,” he whispered against your lips, brushing feathers from your flushed face with gentle metal fingers. “I’d drain every drop I have into you if it made you feel even half that good. Your pleasure is everything to me. You’re everything to me. Don’t ever thank me like you owe me. You’re my girl. My heart. I’d burn the world down just to keep you warm and safe in my arms.”

You smiled shyly up at him, that bashful look that always made his ancient chest tighten. “I still feel lucky. Every single time you choose me.”

Bucky groaned and pressed lingering kisses to your forehead, eyelids and the tip of your nose. “Stay right here in this ruined bed, baby. Don’t move. I’m gonna make you breakfast- you need fuel after I took so much blood and fucked you raw.”

You watched him leave the room completely naked, that perfect sculpted ass and broad back on full display, long angry red scratches running down his shoulders and spine, some deep enough to have drawn thin trails of dried blood. Guilt twisted in your stomach.

When he returned balancing a tray loaded with food, you sat up quickly, clutching the sheet.

“Bucky… your back,” you whispered, voice thick with remorse as he set the tray down on the tilted mattress. “I did that? Oh God, I’m so sorry, Buck. I got so lost in it, scratching and begging like a wild animal-”

He climbed onto the broken bed without hesitation and pulled you straight into his lap, sheet and all, so your back rested against his solid chest. His thick cock, already half-hard again, nestled hot and heavy against your ass. The scratches looked even more vicious up close.

“Shh, none of that,” he murmured, kissing your temple, then your ear. “I fucking love these marks. Every single one. Means my perfect girl lost control while I was balls-deep, pounding that tight cunt and flooding you with cum. Means I made you feel so good you turned feral. You wear my bites and bruises like jewelry… I’ll wear your scratches like badges of honor. That’s how it should be between us, doll.”

You still looked guilty, so he gently tilted your chin up, forcing you to meet those glowing red eyes. “Eat, baby. Before it gets cold. I made all your favorites.”

The tray held fluffy scrambled eggs with fresh herbs, crispy bacon, sliced strawberries and melon, buttered toast and cold orange juice. You relaxed back against his chest as he picked up the fork and began feeding you slow, careful bites, one hand continuously stroking through your feather-dusted hair while the other rested possessively on your stomach, thumb tracing lazy circles over your skin.

Every few bites he’d lean down and kiss your shoulder, your neck, the dark claiming bite marks he’d left. His fingers traced the vivid bruises on your hips and inner thighs with open, filthy pride.

“Look at you,” he murmured hotly against your ear, voice dropping into that low, dirty register. “All covered in my marks like a goddamn masterpiece. These pretty thighs bruised purple from my hands spreading you open while I railed you. This sweet little pussy still puffy, sore, and leaking my cum from how many times I filled you. And these gorgeous tits…” He cupped one gently, thumb brushing the bite right above your nipple. “Marked up so anyone who sees you knows exactly who owns this body. My perfect, filthy girl. So soft and sweet when you thank me for my blood… but you turn into a desperate little cockslut when I’m stretching this cunt open, scratching my back bloody and begging me to breed you deeper.”

You whimpered around a bite of toast, cheeks burning but you pressed back against his hardening cock. “Bucky… you’re making me wet again just talking like that. I can feel you getting hard against my ass.”

He chuckled darkly, the sound vibrating through his chest into yours. “Good. That’s what I want. I love how sincere you are, doll- blushing and thanking me even after I’ve had you screaming and creaming all over my cock half the night. It makes the monster in me want to wrap you up and protect you forever… and it also makes me want to bend you over these broken slats and fuck you raw again until you’re crying and begging for another load.”

You turned your head, kissing his jaw tenderly. “I love you. All of you- the monster, the man, the way you take care of me even after you ruin me and break the bed.”

His arms tightened around you, metal and flesh, and he buried his face in your neck with a low, possessive growl. “I love you more than I’ve ever loved anything in centuries, sweetheart. You’re mine. Every moan, every drop of blood, every scratch on my back… it’s all mine. Now finish your breakfast so I can lay you down in all these feathers and lick that pretty pussy until you’re shaking and soaking my face. Then I’ll feed you more. And if you keep thanking me so sweetly, I’ll let you drink from me again while I’m buried so deep inside you that you feel me for days.”

The monster was wide awake, completely, dangerously obsessed and he had never been happier.

The honeymoon phase didn’t last long.

What started as stolen kisses in the library stacks after closing quickly spiraled into something darker, more addictive and far more dangerous. You and Bucky fell into a secret rhythm that consumed both of you. You’d sneak out of your apartment at all hours, heart hammering and meet him in shadowed alleys, on empty rooftops, or in the back of his blacked-out SUV where he’d fuck you until you couldn’t walk straight. Some nights he’d show up at your door unannounced, eyes already black and take you right there against the wall before you could even say hello.

You started wearing high collars, scarves, and heavy concealer everywhere. Fresh bite marks bloomed on your neck, your breasts, the soft insides of your thighs. Some nights he bit you in three different places just because he couldn’t stop tasting you.

“You’re mine now,” he’d growl against your skin, licking the wounds closed with slow, possessive drags of his tongue while drool slipped from his fangs. “No one else gets to see these marks. No one else gets to touch what belongs to me.”

You lied to your friends. You lied to your coworkers. You told yourself you could handle the monster you were falling for.

But Bucky was losing control.

His obsession turned feral.

Your creepy ex Lance, the one who still drunk-texted you at 2 am calling you a worthless bitch for leaving him, was found dead in his apartment four days later. The news called it a “brutal animal attack.” Throat torn out. Body almost completely drained of blood. No forced entry. No fingerprints.

You stared at the graphic photos on your phone until your vision blurred.

Then there was that jerk from the café from two weeks ago, the one who wouldn’t stop cat-calling you, who grabbed your ass when you walked past and whispered what he’d do to you if he got you alone. He was found in the alley behind the cafe the next night. Same story. Throat ripped open. Drained dry.

You knew.

You knew it was Bucky.

When he showed up at your apartment that night, soaked from the rain, you were waiting for him. The printed news articles were spread across your kitchen table like evidence at a crime scene.

The second he stepped through the door, you shoved the papers into his chest.

“What the fuck did you do?!” Your voice cracked with fury and terror. “Lance is dead, Bucky. That asshole from the café is dead. Their throats were torn out. Was that you? Look me in the eyes and tell me it wasn’t you.”

Bucky didn’t even glance at the articles. His eyes were already pitch black, fangs partially extended, a thin string of clear drool slipping from the corner of his mouth as he stared at you like a starving wolf.

“I took care of them,” he said, voice low and rough. “They touched what’s mine. They scared you. They don’t get to keep breathing after that.”

You backed up until you hit the kitchen counter, chest heaving.

“You’re killing people, Bucky. Innocent people-”

“They weren’t innocent,” he snarled, stepping closer. More drool slid down his chin. “Lance sent you death threats. Pictures of you sleeping. The other one had videos on his phone, following you home, jerking off to you. I smelled what they wanted to do to you. I saw it.”

Tears burned in your eyes. Your hands were shaking.

“You can’t just murder people because they looked at me the wrong way! This isn’t protection, this is insanity!”

Bucky’s metal hand slammed into the cabinet beside your head, splintering the wood. He was breathing hard, drooling openly now, fangs fully extended and glistening.

“I would burn this entire fucking city to the ground for you,” he growled, voice breaking. “I already lost the only woman I ever loved. I watched her die screaming my name while I tried to save her. I won’t lose you too. I won’t. I can’t.”

The silence that followed was deafening.

You should have screamed. You should have run.

Instead, you grabbed the front of his wet shirt with both hands and yanked him into a brutal, angry kiss.

He tasted like rain and blood and desperation. He groaned into your mouth, lifting you onto the counter in one motion and shoving your legs apart. His hands were shaking as he ripped your panties aside.

You were horrified.

You were dripping wet.

That night you rode him on your couch like you were trying to punish both of you, nails raking bloody lines down his chest while he drooled against your neck, fangs scraping your skin without breaking it. Every thrust was punishing and worshipful at the same time.

Afterward, when you were both panting and spent, you curled into his lap on the couch, still shaking from the intensity of it all. Your body ached. Your mind was a storm of fear and twisted desire.

Bucky buried his face in your hair, arms wrapped around you like iron bands, so tight it almost hurt to breathe. His chest heaved against your back. You could feel his drool, warm and slick, sliding down the side of your neck from his slightly parted lips. His fangs were still partially extended, brushing your skin with every ragged breath.

His voice was barely a whisper, raw with shame and something much darker.

“I’ve thought about it, you know,” he confessed against your throat, lips moving wetly over your pulse. “Turning you. Against your will.”

You froze in his lap, every muscle locking up.

He kept going, voice cracking painfully, like the words were being ripped out of him.

“I fantasize about it almost every night,” he whispered, the confession trembling. “Holding you down while you fight me. Pinning you with my metal arm so you can’t move no matter how hard you scream. Draining you until you’re weak and crying and begging me to stop… then forcing my blood down your throat while I’m still buried balls-deep inside you. Fucking you through the change until your heart stops and you wake up screaming with new fangs in your mouth.”

A broken, wet sob tore out of him. Drool and blood tears mixed on your shoulder as he pressed closer, almost rocking you.

“I imagine the way you’d hate me at first. The way you’d scream my name in terror while your body burns and breaks and reforms. But I’d keep going. I’d hold you through it. Because then you’d be mine. Forever. Safe. Eternal. You’d never grow old and die like Dot did. You’d never leave me. Even if you hated me for eternity… at least you’d be here. With me.”

His voice dropped into something truly terrifying, low, trembling, unhinged.

“Some nights when you’re sleeping in my arms, bleeding from my bites… I hold my wrist right against your mouth. I pry your lips open with my fingers and imagine forcing it down your throat while you’re still unconscious. I want it so fucking bad it physically hurts me to stop myself. My hands shake. I drool just thinking about it. I have to leave the room sometimes because I’m scared I’ll actually do it.”

You sat there in his lap, silent tears running down your face, heart hammering so hard it hurt. His drool was sliding down your collarbone. His blood tears soaked into you. You could feel his cock twitching against your thigh, still half-hard, like even confessing this horror turned him on.

You didn’t know if you were holding a man anymore…

…or the monster who was slowly going to destroy you.

Bucky’s arms tightened even more, almost crushing you against his chest. His voice cracked into a broken, childlike whimper.

“I’m so fucking scared I’m going to do it one day. I’m scared I won’t be able to stop myself. I’m scared I’ll wake up one morning and you’ll be like me… and you’ll never forgive me.”

He pressed his face harder into your neck, fangs scraping your skin, drooling openly now as fresh blood tears fell.

“But God… I want it. I want it so much.”

You sat there in the dark, trembling in the arms of the vampire who had just admitted he fantasized about violating you in the worst possible way and you still wrapped your arms around him.

You still held on tighter.

And that terrified you more than anything else.

Because deep down, some sick, addicted part of you wasn’t sure you would stop him if he tried.

The sickness came on fast. Too fast.

It started with a scratchy throat and a mild fever you brushed off, just stress from your thesis and late shifts at the café. By the second night in Bucky’s penthouse, you were shaking apart. Violent chills slammed through your body even as sweat soaked the sheets. Your lungs felt heavy, like they were filling with wet concrete. Every cough ripped through you like shards of glass scraping your throat raw. You couldn’t keep anything down.

Bucky watched it all with growing horror, red eyes wide and unblinking.

He turned his sleek, modern bedroom into a nightmare sickroom overnight. Humidifier hissing like a dying animal. Stolen IV bags hanging from a makeshift stand. Bottles of antibiotics he didn’t trust. Ancient herbal poultices that smelled like rot and grave dirt. Cold cloths. Thermometers. Nothing helped. Your fever climbed past 104. Your breathing turned wet and rattling, like drowning on dry land.

On the third night, you were barely conscious, convulsing in his arms as another coughing fit tore through you.

“James…” you rasped, voice barely more than a broken whisper, tears streaming down your fever-flushed face. “Please… take me to a hospital. I need real doctors. Tests. Medicine. I’m scared- I’m so fucking scared. I feel like I’m dying.”

His eyes flashed blood-red, fangs fully extended, drool slipping from the corner of his mouth in thick strings.

“No.” The word came out like a growl from the pit of hell. “No hospitals. They’re butcher shops. They’ll pump you full of poison, poke you with needles and watch you rot under those lights while they pray to a god that doesn’t give a shit. I watched it happen for centuries. I held Dot while she screamed in one of those places. I won’t lose you the same way.”

You tried to push him away, but your arms were limp and useless. “Bucky, please- I’m begging you. I’m terrified. I don’t want to die here like this. Let me go. Let me call someone.”

He didn’t budge. The metal arm wrapped around you like iron bands, cool and merciless, as he carried you back to the bedroom despite your weak struggles. You slapped at his chest, sobbing, screaming hoarsely.

“I’m scared! Bucky, don’t do this- you’re scaring me! Please, I can’t breathe!”

The heavy click of the bedroom door locking from the outside echoed like a coffin lid slamming shut.

You were trapped.

Hours blurred into days. The fever spiked so high the room started to warp. Shadows crawled across the ceiling like living things, reaching for you with clawed hands. You heard Dot’s screams, a woman you’d never met, mixed with your own wet, gurgling coughs. Sometimes you saw her face rotting in the corner, black buboes bursting, whispering that Bucky’s blood had killed her too.

Bucky never left your side for long. He sat like a gargoyle on the edge of the bed, eyes permanently black, blood tears carving constant red tracks down his face. Drool dripped from his fangs onto the sheets as hunger and terror twisted him into something truly monstrous.

He murmured hoarsely, pressing icy cloths to your burning skin. His voice cracked with raw desperation. “Stay with me, doll. Please. I can’t watch you burn like she did. I can’t bury another woman I love.”

When your breathing grew too shallow and your pulse fluttered like a dying bird, he made the choice.

He sliced his wrist open with a fang, dark, ancient blood welling up and forced it against your cracked lips.

“Drink,” he begged, voice shattered and desperate. “Drink for me, baby. Please. I won’t let you die.”

The blood burned like liquid fire down your throat, healing and poisoning at once. It dragged you back from the edge for a few hours but the fever only raged hotter. Your body rejected it in violent chills and vomiting.

So Bucky started hunting.

He locked you in with cameras watching your every shallow, rattling breath, then disappeared into the night like the predator he was. You woke once to the sound of the door and saw him covered in blood that wasn’t his, splattered across his shirt, matted in his hair. He carried thermoses of warm stolen blood, mixing it with his own before forcing it down your throat.

The penthouse began to reek of copper, decay, and terror.

When you finally clawed back enough strength to be lucid, you were still weak, still burning but fury gave you fire.

The second he walked back in with another thermos, blood still dripping from his chin, you slapped him hard across the face with everything you had left.

“You locked me in here!” you screamed, voice raw and cracking. “You imprisoned me like a fucking animal! I begged you, Bucky- I begged on my knees and you said no! I’m terrified of you right now. What the hell are you becoming?!”

Bucky dropped to his knees instantly, metal arm wrapping around your waist like a vice as he pressed his forehead to your stomach. Blood tears soaked through your thin shirt.

“I know,” he choked out, voice wrecked. “I’m a monster. I watched Dot die screaming because my blood poisoned her during the plague. She begged me to let her go and I held her down instead. I can’t- I won’t- do the same with you. Not you. Please don’t make me bury you too.”

You sobbed, fists pounding weakly against his shoulders. “This isn’t love, it’s control! You’re killing me slowly. I’m so scared of what you’ll do next. What if your blood makes me worse? What if I never leave this room alive?”

“I’m scared too,” he whispered, looking up at you with those terrifying black-red eyes, drool and blood mixing on his chin. “I’m so fucking terrified of losing you that I’d rather you hate me forever than watch you slip away.”

You yanked him up by his bloody shirt, tears streaming down your face.

He didn’t give you time to think.

“I need to be inside you,” he rasped, voice desperate and feral. “Right now. My blood, my cock- it will make you feel better. It will heal you. Let me fuck you. Let me fill you. I can make this okay. I can make you okay.”

You shoved at his chest hard, fury and terror giving you strength you didn’t know you had.

“No!” you cried, voice cracking. “Are you insane?! I’m sick, I’m scared and you want to fuck me?! I’m not some toy you can use to feel better about yourself! Get off me!”

Bucky’s hands tightened on your hips, eyes wild.

“Please,” he begged, voice breaking even as his cock pressed insistently against you. “Just let me in. Let me make you feel good. My blood is already in you. Let me finish it. Let me heal you the only way I know how.”

You slapped him hard across the face, the sound echoing in the locked room.

“I said no!” you screamed, tears pouring down your cheeks. “I’m terrified of you right now! You locked me in here like a prisoner, you fed me blood, you’re acting like a fucking animal- and you think sex is going to fix this?! Get the hell off me!”

Bucky froze.

For a long, terrible moment he just stared at you, red eyes wide, fangs out, drool and blood tears streaking his face. Then something in him shattered.

He dropped to his knees again, metal arm wrapping around your waist as he pressed his forehead to your stomach, sobbing openly.

“I’m sorry,” he choked out, voice completely broken. “I’m so fucking sorry. I know I’m a monster. I know I’m scaring you. I just… I can’t watch you die. I can’t do it again. Please don’t hate me. Please.”

You stood there shaking, still furious, still terrified, but the raw pain in his voice cracked something inside you. You sank down slowly, wrapping your arms around his shoulders as he trembled against you.

The fight dissolved into quiet, broken sobs from both of you.

He held you like you were the only thing keeping him sane, blood tears soaking your shirt, drool and fear mixing on your skin.

The city lights flickered outside the soundproof windows.

Inside, the air was thick with blood, sickness, terror, and the heavy weight of a love that might destroy you both.

And you still curled into his chest, listening to the dead heart that beat only for you… wondering how much longer you had before the monster inside him finally won.

The next night, after the fever finally broke and the blood-stained sheets had been burned, Bucky carried you to the roof of his penthouse.

The city sprawled beneath you like a glittering sea of lights, cold wind whipping across the concrete rooftop. He sat on the wide ledge with you curled in his lap, your back against his chest, his metal arm wrapped securely around your waist. For a long time, neither of you spoke. The silence was heavy, weighted down by everything that had happened in that locked room.

“I’m still pissed at you,” you said quietly, staring out at the city. Your voice was hoarse but steady. “You apologized, but it doesn’t just erase it. You tried to force yourself on me when I was weak and scared. That shit stays with me, Bucky.”

“I know,” he murmured, lips brushing the top of your head. His voice was rough with guilt. “And I’ll keep being sorry for the rest of your life if that’s what it takes. I hate what I did. I hate that I became that version of myself with you. I was terrified… but that’s no excuse. I’m sorry I hurt you. I’m sorry I scared you. I’m sorry I made you feel like a thing instead of the only person I have left.”

You stayed tense in his arms, anger still simmering under your skin even as you leaned back against him. “Good. You should feel like shit about it.”

He exhaled shakily. “I do. Every second.” After a long pause, he continued, softer. “I want you to understand why I lose control like that. Not just hear the stories. I want you to feel them. All the years. All the deaths. All the reasons I’m so fucking broken that I’d rather force you to live than watch you die.”

You turned in his arms to look at him. His red eyes were haunted, vulnerable in a way that made your chest ache despite your lingering fury.

“How?” you asked.

Bucky pressed his wrist to his own mouth and bit down hard. Dark, potent blood welled up immediately, thick and gleaming under the city lights. He offered it to you, eyes glowing faintly red.

“Drink,” he whispered. “And I’ll show you everything. Please.”

You hesitated but finally brought his bleeding wrist to your lips. The taste exploded across your tongue: copper, power, and centuries of him. The world tilted violently.

Suddenly you were there.

Mud. Endless, sucking mud.

1917 - The Western Front

The stench hit you like a physical blow, rotting flesh, human shit, wet wool, gunpowder, and death. Freezing rain poured down in sheets. Artillery shells screamed overhead and detonated so close your teeth rattled. You felt Bucky’s constant, gnawing hunger like it was tearing through your own gut. He hadn’t fed properly in weeks. You moved like a shadow with him between the trenches, ripping out throats of German scouts under cover of night, drinking just enough to stay sane while the screams of dying men tore at what remained of his soul.

“I hated it,” his real voice murmured against your ear on the rooftop as the memory swallowed you. “But the screams reminded me I could still feel something.”

The loneliness was suffocating. Thousands of men all around, laughing, cursing, praying and he was completely, utterly alone. No one could ever know the monster wearing a soldier’s uniform.

The vision shifted with brutal force.

December 1944 - The Ardennes Forest

Bitter, freezing snow. Gunfire cracking through the trees like whips.

Then the shell.

White-hot agony ripped through your body as shrapnel tore his left arm clean off at the shoulder. You screamed with him, feeling the bone shatter, muscle rip, hot blood spray across white snow. He dropped to his knees in the freezing slush, roaring in pain while his vampire healing failed to close the massive wound.

HYDRA came next.

Straps biting into skin. Cold metal table. Blinding lights. You felt every bolt and wire as they fused the prototype metal arm directly into the raw, bleeding stump. The pain was apocalyptic. You thrashed in Bucky’s lap on the rooftop, whimpering.

“I begged them to let me die,” he whispered, arms tightening around you. “They wouldn’t let me.”

Decades of numbness followed. The metal arm never felt like part of him, just a constant, heavy reminder that even eternity could be mutilated. That even a monster could be broken beyond repair.

The blood-sharing deepened, flooding you with centuries of crushing loneliness in relentless flashes:

Nameless women fucked in candlelit rooms across Europe, then left before dawn because none of them were her.

Standing alone on a cliff in 1803, staring at the crashing ocean, wondering if he should just walk into the sunrise and end it.

Returning year after year to the ashes of that cottage in 1665, sitting among the ruins on the anniversary of Dolores’s screaming death, whispering apologies to the wind.

Feeding on killers in dark 1970s Brooklyn alleys, then returning to an empty penthouse to stare at the wall for days, sometimes weeks, with nothing but silence and ghosts for company.

Wave after wave of isolation crashed over you. Seven hundred years of it. You felt every agonizing second.

When the blood-sharing finally ended, you were sobbing violently in his arms on the rooftop, clutching his shirt like he might vanish. Bucky was crying too, silent blood tears tracking down his face.

“I’m not her,” you whispered fiercely through your tears, cupping his wet cheeks. “I’m not Dolores. I’m not going to die screaming in your arms. I’m choosing you, Bucky. Scars. Metal arm. Fangs. Murders. All the darkness. I see the monster and I’m still here. I’m still choosing you.”

He made a broken, wrecked sound and crushed you against his chest, burying his face in your neck.

“I don’t deserve you,” he choked out. “Especially not after what I did in that room. I keep waiting for you to realize that and run. Every single night I wait for it.”

You pulled back just enough to kiss him, slow, deep, tasting salt and blood and centuries of pain.

“I’m still pissed at you,” you whispered against his lips. “That doesn’t go away overnight. But I’m not running. Even when I’m terrified. Even when you scare the shit out of me. I’m staying.”

Bucky kissed you harder, almost desperately, metal arm holding you so tight it almost hurt. When he finally pulled back, his red eyes were softer than you’d ever seen them.

“You have no idea what you just did,” he murmured, voice wrecked. “You just gave a dead man a reason to keep existing.”

You stayed on the rooftop until dawn threatened the sky, wrapped in each other, the weight of seven hundred years of loneliness finally shared between two hearts, one living, one long dead.

But the darkness wasn’t done with either of you.

Not yet.

The hunters had been watching for weeks.

A group of ex-military contractors turned self-proclaimed “paranormal investigators,” they chased high-paying bounties and conspiracy forums. They’d heard the fragmented stories for months: an ancient vampire with a metal arm operating in Brooklyn, leaving bodies drained and throats torn out in back alleys. Most of them laughed at the vampire part, they figured it was some enhanced super-soldier gone rogue, maybe a Winter Soldier copycat. But the bounty was massive and the rumors were consistent enough to make them curious.

They’d been tailing both of you. Taking photos. Noting patterns.

And when they saw their opportunity: you, still pale and weak from the illness, walking alone to the corner store in broad daylight, they took it.

A black van screeched up beside you. Two men in tactical gear grabbed you before you could scream. A chemical-soaked rag clamped brutally over your mouth and nose. The world spun violently, then went black.

You woke up zip-tied to a cold metal chair in the middle of an abandoned warehouse on the edge of Brooklyn. The air smelled of rust, mildew, and old oil. Your head throbbed. Your wrists burned where the plastic ties cut into your skin. Six armed men stood around you in a loose circle, rifles held loosely, smirking like this was just another job.

The leader, a bearded man with a scarred face and cold eyes crouched in front of you, tilting his head.

“Well, well. Look who’s awake.” He grinned. “If your boyfriend really is some immortal bloodsucker, he’ll come running. If not…” He shrugged. “We’ll still get paid for the freak with the metal arm. Either way, jackpot.”

One of the others laughed, chewing gum loudly. “You really believe that vampire shit? Probably just some juiced-up psycho with a fancy prosthetic. We’ll put him down like any other target.”

Another poked your shoulder with the barrel of his rifle. “Bet she’s just some poor girl he’s been mind-controlling. Pathetic.”

You spat at the leader’s boots, voice hoarse but defiant. “You have no idea what you’re fucking with. Let me go. Now.”

The leader only chuckled darkly. “We’ll find out soon enough, sweetheart. Sit tight.”

Bucky felt it the instant they grabbed you.

The blood bond, the one he had strengthened every time he drank from you, every time he fed you his own blood, snapped taut like a live wire in his chest. Your fear. Your pain. Your confusion. It hit him so hard he dropped the glass of blood he’d been holding. It shattered across the penthouse floor.

His vision went red.

A roar tore out of him, raw, ancient, inhuman, shaking the windows and rattling the walls.

Then the monster took over completely.

He stormed the warehouse alone like judgment day.

The moment the steel doors exploded inward off their hinges, the hunters opened fire. Bullets ripped into his chest, his shoulders, his stomach, his thighs. Blood sprayed from the wounds but he kept walking forward through the hail of gunfire, eyes glowing bright blood-red, fangs fully extended, metal arm whirring violently as the plates shifted and spun.

In front of you, he became something from hell.

The first hunter raised his rifle. Bucky grabbed his arm, ripped it clean off at the shoulder with a wet, tearing sound, and beat the screaming man to death with his own severed limb. Bone crunched. Blood fountained. The man’s screams turned into wet gurgles until his skull caved in with a sickening crack.

The second tried to run. Bucky caught him by the waist, metal fingers sinking deep into flesh, and tore him in half at the torso with raw strength. The spine snapped like dry wood. Intestines spilled across the concrete in a steaming pile. The man’s dying screams echoed horribly as his upper body twitched on the ground.

The third got close enough to fire point-blank into Bucky’s face. Bucky crushed his skull in his metal fist while the man was still screaming, bone fragments and brain matter exploding between the vibrating plates with a wet, disgusting crunch. Blood and gore splattered across your lap and chest.

The fourth and fifth tried to flank him. Bucky moved like death itself, tearing one’s throat out with his teeth, ripping the other’s spine out through his back in a fountain of blood.

The last hunter dropped his gun, stumbling backward, piss staining the front of his pants.

“It wasn’t real- we didn’t think- please God, we didn’t know he was actually a fucking vampire-!”

Bucky grabbed him by the throat, lifted him a foot off the ground, and tore his throat out with his fangs in one savage bite. Arterial blood sprayed across the room like a broken hose as the man convulsed and died.

Then silence.

Only the sound of dripping blood, your ragged breathing, and the wet squelch of Bucky’s boots in the carnage remained.

Bucky stood in the middle of the slaughter, covered head to toe in blood and gore, chest heaving, fangs still fully extended, eyes glowing like twin hellfires. For a moment he looked every inch the ancient monster he was.

Then he saw you.

The monster shattered.

Bucky dropped to his knees in the pool of blood and viscera, crawling to you with shaking hands, fangs still fully extended, red eyes wild. The metal arm moved with terrifying gentleness as he reached for you first, slicing through the zip-ties with one careful claw so they fell away from your raw, bruised wrists.

“Doll- fuck, let me see you,” he rasped, voice cracking. His hands immediately started checking you, sliding over your body with desperate care. He turned your wrists gently, thumbs brushing the deep purple bruises left by the plastic ties. He ran his palms down your arms, your ribs, your thighs, searching for wounds, broken bones, blood that wasn’t from the slaughter around you.

“They hurt you?” His voice was hoarse, almost whimpering. “Tell me where. Did they touch you? Did they- fuck, I’ll kill them again if they-”

Only the angry red imprints from the zip-ties marred your skin. No cuts. No bites. No worse damage. Relief and guilt crashed over him at once.

“I’m sorry,” he choked out, pressing his forehead to your stomach, trembling violently. “I’m so fucking sorry you had to see that. But they touched you. They took you from me. I couldn’t- I can’t lose you. I can’t do it again.”

He was covered head to toe in someone else’s blood and brains, gore streaking his face, fangs out, blood tears mixing with the carnage dripping down his cheeks. His massive frame shook as he knelt in the slaughter, clinging to you like you were the only thing keeping him from falling apart completely.

You were shaking too, sobbing quietly, your clothes and skin soaked in warm, sticky blood that wasn’t yours. The metallic stench was overwhelming. The screams still rang in your ears.

You should have been terrified. You should have been screaming.

Instead, that dark, addicted part of you reached for him anyway.

You grabbed his bloody face with both hands, fingers sliding through the gore, and yanked him up into a desperate, blood-slick kiss.

Bucky groaned into your mouth like a wounded animal, raw, broken, relieved. The coppery taste of death coated both your tongues as he kissed you back with centuries of fear and feral love. His metal arm wrapped around your waist, pulling you tighter against his blood-soaked chest while his flesh hand cradled the back of your head.

When you finally broke the kiss, foreheads pressed together, breaths mingling in the carnage, you whispered shakily against his gore-stained lips:

“…Take me home, Bucky. Please. Just take me home. I don’t want to be here anymore. I just want you to take me home.”

He nodded frantically, blood tears still falling. “Yeah. Yeah, doll. Home. I’ve got you.”

He lifted you into his arms with ease, cradling you like something precious and fragile among the slaughter. Your head tucked against his neck as he carried you out of the warehouse, boots squelching through puddles of blood, leaving nothing but corpses and the heavy, metallic stench of death behind.

You clung to him the entire way, still trembling, still terrified, but refusing to let go.

The monster had won tonight.

And you were still his.

You woke up every day for three weeks telling yourself this was love.

Bucky had moved you into his penthouse the night after the warehouse massacre. No discussion. He simply carried your exhausted body through the elevator, locked it down with a code only his fingerprints could activate and whispered against your ear in that low, dangerous growl, “You’re never leaving me again, doll. Never.”

Your old life was gone. Your apartment, your friends, your thesis notes, they all gathered dust while your clothes now hung neatly beside his in the massive walk-in closet. Every night you slept naked in his silk sheets, the fabric permanently scented with blood, sex and the faint metallic tang of his ancient hunger. He fed you from his wrist, fucked you until you screamed, then held you like you were the only fragile thing left in his centuries-long existence.

You told yourself you were safe. Cherished. Loved.

Tonight, that comforting lie finally burned to ash.

The hunger had been eating him alive for hours.

You were on your back in the middle of his massive bed, legs locked tight around his waist as he fucked you with those deep, claiming strokes you’d grown addicted to. At first it felt fucking perfect, his thick cock stretching your dripping cunt wide open, dragging against that sweet spot with every brutal thrust, metal fingers bruising your hips while his mouth sucked dark, possessive marks across your tits.

“Fuck, baby… this tight little cunt is creaming all over me,” he growled against your neck, voice thick and raw. “Hear how fucking sloppy and wet you sound? Sucking my cock in like you were made for it. My perfect filthy girl.”

You moaned, nails raking down his back. “Harder, Bucky- please, I need you to ruin me-”

He gave it to you.

Then the flashback hit like a goddamn freight train.

You sitting on that filthy warehouse floor. Limp. Pale as death. Almost gone forever. Your head lolled weakly to the side, skin ghostly white, lips colorless, eyes half-lidded and unfocused. You looked so fragile, so close to slipping away that the sight nearly brought Bucky to his knees.

His control fucking snapped.

His hips slammed forward with terrifying force. The wet slap of skin turned savage, punishing. Pleasure twisted into sharp, stabbing pain that tore through your core like broken glass.

“Bucky- wait! Fuck- too hard!” you cried, voice already cracking. “Slow down, baby, please- shit, it hurts!”

He didn’t hear you. His eyes were wild, glowing crimson, fangs fully extended as thick ropes of drool poured from his mouth onto your bouncing tits. He pounded into you like a rabid, starving beast, driven by centuries of hunger and the primal fear of losing you again.

“Mine,” he snarled, the word vicious and broken, vibrating with pure desperation. “This fucking pussy is mine. You’re never leaving this bed. Never leaving this goddamn penthouse. I’ll fuck you raw every single night until you can’t even crawl away from me, you hear me? I won’t let death take you. I won’t let anything take you.”

Each savage thrust jolted your whole body. His metal arm crushed your hip with a sickening crack. Bone splintered. White-hot agony exploded through your pelvis like fire. You screamed, back arching violently.

“Bucky- stop! Fuck, my hip! It’s breaking- please, baby, please stop! I’m begging you! It hurts so fucking bad!”

He only fucked you harder, lost in the nightmare, hips snapping forward with inhuman power. Another vicious snap and your left wrist, pinned above your head, shattered with an audible pop. The pain was blinding, nauseating, shooting up your arm like lightning. You screamed until your voice broke, tears pouring down your face as you thrashed helplessly beneath him.

“Jesus Christ- Bucky, my wrist! Stop, please! It hurts so fucking bad- I can’t take it! Slow down, I’m scared! Please see me, baby, I’m right here- don’t break me!”

“Look at you,” he panted, drool dripping onto your lips and chin, his breath hot and ragged against your skin. “Taking my cock like such a good little slut. So fucking greedy for me even when you’re ruined. Gonna fill this sloppy cunt up until you’re dripping. Gonna keep you leaking my cum for days, baby. You’re never getting away from me. Never.”

Your ribs cracked on the next brutal thrust, one, two, three, sharp nauseating crunches that stole your breath completely. Blood bubbled up your throat and trickled from the corner of your mouth in dark rivulets. Your body went terrifyingly limp, only weak, wet gasps leaving you as he kept rutting into your destroyed hole like a desperate, starving animal.

“I almost watched you die once,” he growled, voice cracking between raw hunger and bone-deep horror. “Felt your heart slowing in my arms while you burned up with that fucking sickness. You were slipping away from me, right here in this bed. Never. Never again.”

His hips snapped harder, driving deep into you with every word.

“I will keep you here. Fill you. Bind you. You will never leave this penthouse. You will be my eternal companion… my blood, my breath, my only reason to keep walking through this damned night. I’ll drink from you every night until the hunger in me is quiet. I’ll hold you while you tremble and beg, and I will never let you go. You’re mine, my wife, my meal, my everything.”

You could barely speak now, only weak, broken cries leaving you between gasps. “James… please… it hurts… everything’s breaking inside me… I’m so scared… don’t let me die like this… please see me… I love you, just stop-”

He froze only when he felt how deathly still you had become, your body no longer fighting, just a fragile, ruined thing in his grasp, blood leaking from you in steady streams.

Reality crashed over him like ice water.

“No… no, no, NO! FUCK NO!” The roar that tore from his throat was inhuman, shaking the windows and rattling the walls until the glass trembled. He ripped himself out of you with a horrified shout, a flood of blood and slick gushing from your ruined cunt onto the silk sheets. He gathered your shattered body against his chest, rocking you violently as thick, black blood-tears poured down his face in rivers.

“I did it again- I fucking killed you!” he screamed, voice cracking into something ancient and monstrous. His metal fist smashed the headboard repeatedly, wood exploding into splinters, plaster raining down around you both. “I broke my baby- my perfect sweet girl- I crushed you like a goddamn animal! How the fuck could I do this to you?! After everything, after I swore I’d protect you, I still fucking destroy you! I’m a monster!”

In his panic he tried desperately to fix it.

He lowered his head and dragged his cool tongue frantically over the mangled ruin of your hip. Long, desperate licks, reverent, almost worshipful just like he did every dawn to the bite marks on your thighs. His cool venom should have sealed the wounds, should have soothed and healed. But the damage was catastrophic. Shattered bone jutted through torn flesh like jagged ivory knives. Blood poured freely. His tongue only lapped desperately at the crimson flow, mixing his saliva with your lifeblood, yet the wounds refused to close.

“Fuck- why isn’t it working?!” he sobbed, voice raw and cracking. “Heal, damn you- heal! Come on, baby, please heal.” He moved to your shattered wrist, licking over the crushed bones and swollen purple skin with frantic tenderness, fangs carefully retracted. “Heal, my love. My venom has always healed you before. Come back to me. Don’t leave me in this emptiness again. I can’t- I can’t survive without you. Please, don’t die on me!”

It didn’t work. Your ribs stayed caved in. Your insides were ruptured. Blood kept leaking from your mouth and between your legs. He traced every injury with guilty, starving strokes of his tongue, pressing wet, bloody kisses to your mangled hip, your ruined wrist, your trembling lips.

“I’m so fucking sorry- shit, I’m so fucking sorry, doll,” he choked out, rocking you harder against his chest, his entire body trembling with guilt and fear. “I tried- god, I tried everything. My tongue, my venom, my soul- nothing works when the monster in me takes over. I’m a horror. A starving, desperate horror who destroys the only thing he loves. Forgive me… please forgive me.”

Guilt, hunger and obsessive fear twisted violently inside him until his madness crystallized in an instant.

He slashed his own wrist open with a razor-sharp fang. Dark, ancient blood, thick and burning, gushed from the wound. He cradled your head with both hands, pressing your slack mouth desperately against the gash.

“Drink,” he begged, voice broken and trembling with terror. “Fucking drink, baby. Become mine forever. I cannot watch you die. I will not bury you. Take it. Let me damn you if it means keeping you by my side through all the endless nights. Don’t leave me alone again- I’m so scared without you. So goddamn hungry for you. Please… please don’t go. I need you more than I’ve ever needed anything.”

He held your head tighter, forcing the potent blood past your lips. Your body latched on instinctively, sucking with weak, greedy pulls even at the edge of death. The change ignited like liquid hellfire in your veins.

Your broken bones snapped and realigned with excruciating force, each crack wrenching agonized whimpers and jerks from your throat against his wrist. Your organs burned and rewrote themselves in waves of molten pain. Your heart stuttered violently… then stopped completely. The agony was worse than death, pure, liquid fire searing through every vein, every nerve, every inch of your soul as the vampire venom rewrote you from the inside out.

All the while Bucky kept himself buried deep inside your twitching, blood-slick heat. He rocked slowly through your torment, whispering hoarse, broken promises between every shallow, desperate thrust.

“I’m sorry, my everything… but you belong to me now. Eternally. I will hold you through every dark night. I will drink from you while you cry out my name. You will never grow old. Never slip away from me again. I love you too much- too desperately- to let death have you. Forgive me for what I’ve done… even if you hate me forever. This pussy, this body, this soul- it’s all mine now. Forever.”

Your eyes flew open.

Crimson. Glowing. Filled with an ancient, bottomless hunger.

New fangs pushed through your bleeding gums in sharp, painful bursts. You tore your mouth from his wrist, dark blood streaking down your chin and onto your chest, and stared up at him with pure, ravenous starvation.

“Bucky…” Your voice was hoarse, ruined, but dripping with dark, insatiable need. “I’m so fucking thirsty.”

— yours truly, ѕℓυtdιεr.

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"i believe in you, dragostea mea." ("my love" in romanian) your father had said to you scruffily before you left, bending down to give you a chaste kiss on each cheek. "we're counting on you to return home when you have slain the monster, once and for all."

but as you plodded on wearily through the eerily still countryside, you were reminded, not for the first time how you would not be given such a warm welcome if you failed to succeed, with the weight of your father's expectations suffocating your chest.

as a van helsing descendant, you had been thrust into the limelight with the increased panic and sightings of shadows at night, that told of a dark looming figure with a sharp scowl, and sharper fangs.

nosferatu has returned, hushed voices spoke, only becoming increasingly more insistent when bodies began to pile up, left strewn about always with two clean punctures in the soft flesh of the neck, their eyes rolled back and blood puddling below.

and according to town legend and all the stories murmured among the elders, it would only get worse, with the aptly named count choso's ceaseless search for the blood of mortals.

it had already gone on for far too long, with too many casualties, but what finally made your father, the head of the village snap was what had been found yesterday night.

for on the ground, transcribed messily with blood, it read in sloppy romanian, adu-mi-o pe fata vânătoare. ("bring me the hunting girl")

there was no doubt that he was referring to you, having been trained for this moment since birth, to take down the fanged devils that lurked all in the rustic countryside of romania.

you had just never thought you'd be taking the prince of them all head-on.

and yet here you were, armed to the teeth with weaponry all designed with one specific intention in mind. to kill vampires.

yet none of them could quite prepare you to walk straight into the den of one, your eyes sweeping across the foreboding scene stretching before you.

it was twilight, the sky bleak with a deathly silence that lacked even the chirruping of crickets. and just on the horizon, you were able to make out the fortress he was rumored to abide in, a long-abandoned keep with steep cliffs on every side.

it was a rustic victorian-style castle, with stone turrets and cobbled pathways that could use some touch-ups. gothic buttresses lined the triangular, pointed roof, and from your perspective, barbed spikes adorned every surface.

it was every bit as intimidating as you had feared, and it was with no small struggle that you hesitantly trudged further up the rocky path leading to it, a sinking feeling in your stomach.

the crossbow you held tightly to your chest quivered, while you worried your lip between your teeth, wondering how exactly you were going to pull this off.

the only weaknesses you knew of when it came to vampires were wooden stakes straight in the heart, but even that could prove to be no match for the prince of darkness himself.

sunlight, you knew, would also suffice, if you could find a way to lure choso out far enough during the day, but one thing about vampires that the village had taught you was that they’re smart.

and not just the intelligent kind of smart.

no, thousands of years of immortality on this earth had made them clever, and it was going to take more than a couple amateur shots and some sunlight to take the demon down

but before you had time to ponder how exactly, you’re reaching the gated entrance, which you try to push open only for the rusty metal to creak! on its hinges ominously without budging.

you sigh to yourself, looking for another way around.

and it's just then that you notice another dark entrance, this one smaller and off to the side, with the door slightly cracked open as if in wait for someone to enter.

you hesitate for only a moment before pushing your way inside, taking a moment to glance around as you do.

it's eerie, in an ancient way suggesting that no one had been there in a very long time, with bugs scattering out of the way of your footsteps, and dust collecting as far as the eye could see.

what you seemed to be in was a chapel, with rows upon rows of mahogany pews, the high vaulted ceiling a sight to behold with its medieval elegance and grandeur.

thud!

a loud noise startles you, causing you to almost drop your crossbow before you shakily reload it and aim around, searching for signs of life. he must be nearby.

after a few minutes of silence though, you decide to continue onward, your footsteps loud in the dead silence of the castle.

coming further into the heart of the citadel, you find yourself in another old-fashioned, rustic room, lanterns hung on the walls and stone columns rising up overhead.

and judging by the ancient carpet spread for decoration on the stone floor and an old grandfather clock propped against some dusty shelves, its ticking slow yet ominous, someone had been here recently, the gargoyles lining the walls seeming to eye you as you pass.

slam!

you whip around, your eyes scanning desperately as the heavy, wooden iron-reinforced doors swing shut so suddenly it has you reeling.

that was your only way out.

blood roars through your ears as your heartbeat thumps. just where were you?

and it's then that it dawns on you as you turn about nervously, searching for an exit.

for there, laid a slightly ajar coffin, its lid propped open and contents empty save for a deep, ruby red silk lining the inside.

you were in his bedchambers, you finally realize, but it's much too late when you begin to turn on your heel, the sound of the heavy thump thump! of footsteps steadily approaching causing your limbs to stiffen in terror.

you tug uselessly at the door that had closed, but before you can keep searching for another way out, a cold hand is clamping itself around your mouth and another is clutching you by the waist and dragging you to crash into a solid wall of muscle.

"well well, is this the beloved vânătoarea?" ("huntress" in romanian) i've heard so much about you, bunny."

his breath catches softly as choso drags one long finger up your stomach, stopping just below your collarbone.

you squirm desperately in his grasp, but he only tightens his grip on you, a small chuckle reverberating in his throat. "where are you going, pet?"

without warning, he suddenly spins you around to face him, your body pressed into his chest firmly while he lazily eyes you, rosy pink lips curling upward into a faint smirk.

he was tall, looming over you ominously, all ashy pale skin and sunken undereyes, smudged with eyeliner, and fangs jutting out just above his lip.

he was pierced too, shiny glinting metal above his eyebrow and on his lips, angel fangs, you believed was the name.

and as his mouth widens ever so slightly, you notice the same metal gleaming on his tongue too, a barbell that he toys with, running alongside his inner cheek as he watches you in amusement.

your skin prickles as you watch choso lean closer, his smoky incense scent overpowering you, and his warm breath ghosting over the jumping pulse point in your neck, simply breathing you in.

you let out a feverish gasp, as suddenly, his hot wet tongue comes to sweep across your neck, the sensation sending gooseflesh rising on your arms before he simply smiles against your nape, allowing you to feel the sharpness of his fangs as they press against you, not yet biting but just there.

you tremble slightly. “what are you going to do with me?”

now that the element of surprise was lost, you could bet your chances of killing him were zero to none, and you can only hope that your death would be a quick one.

choso huffs softly in amusement against your skin, cold fingers coming to grip tightly around your throat, just enough for your vision to blur. “why, i’m going to turn you into one of us, darling.”

and that’s the only warning he gives before he’s stuffing his face into the warmth of your neck with a downright sinful groan, as if he can’t get enough, lips busying themselves by ravishing your sensitive skin in hickeys.

and the way this was already going, you were sure there was something else to come, something unholy.

as if hearing your thoughts, in an instant, he has you pinned underneath him on the floor, his mouth suckling tenderly on your neck as your fingers tangle in his long black hair and press his mouth down harder while moaning pitifully.

“spread those legs, beloved.” he rasps out, and all you can do is obey, feeling a faint pulsing in your core as wetness begins to pool in your panties pathetically.

and it’s only after he slots one hefty knee between your legs, and then leans his head back, opening his mouth to bare his fangs, sharp ivory cuspids that glint menacingly, that you realize what he’s about to do.

in a heartbeat, he has his fangs sunken into your neck, a prickling pain that quickly turns into something else, something.. pleasurable.

it starts in your neck, an unusual pulsating sensation that quickly sweeps down your body, causing you to urge him closer, pushing his head down into your neck as you let out a pitiful whine.

as choso cradles your head, angling you so he can suck harder, taking long pulls of your coppery taste, you realize you're rocking your hips slowly, almost imperceptibly, against his knee.

he hums in approval, then draws back to lick a long, languid stripe up against the bite marks he had just left, the cool metal of his piercing making you shiver.

"you like that, huh, micuță curvă? ("little slut" in romanian)

“y-yes, i- fuck.” you swallow as your syrupy wet pussy throbs in response, slick already coating your thighs.

"yeah? y'know i can smell your arousal, pretty." he leans back to take in your wrecked state, pushing his knee up ever so slightly and causing you to buck against him with a gasp. "do you want more? want me to make you cum?"

but before you can think of an answer, he's biting into your neck so hard, you're sobbing out a, "y-yes please!"

"i don't think your daddy would like that, would he? a van helsing, creaming pathetically at the hands of a vampyre."

you moan softly, trying to push your hips harder against him in an effort to get yourself off. "p-please, count!"

and then you swear you hear choso whine as your scarlett red blood drips down his chin messily, his tongue lolling out to catch the stray droplets.

all you can do is grind helplessly against him, your sensitive clit bumping the leather of his pants, and throbbing in sync with each gulp of blood he takes from you, as your stomach tightens into small knots.

"taste s'good.." he murmurs hazily, as if saying it to himself. "d-don't wanna ever stop.."

"choso!" you gasp, humping fervently, glistening strings of drool beginning to spill out from the corners of your lips as your eyes roll back.

he sighs in response, applying more pressure with his knee as you feel something hot n' heavy, and downright shameless in its size fervently pressed against you, almost as if it's nothing but a second thought, his first to worship your neck completely like the sacredness of religion.

your breathing turns heavy as you drag your pussy shamelessly back n' forth against his leg while the tingly feeling choso's bloodsucking gives turns stronger, his fangs seeming to lengthen and reach deeper than before.

and when he looks up to meet your gaze, oh, is he a sight to behold.

utterly wrecked, big hazel eyes blown wide and dilated, and full of such sultry need as his mouth sucks relentlessly, starved for any taste of you that he can get.

"în o mie de ani, nu am gustat niciodată sânge ca acesta." ("in a thousand years, I have never tasted blood to the likes of this" in romanian)

"choso..!" by this point, your stomach was so taut and your breathing so ragged that you can only mewl his name like a plea, spasming weakly in his grip. "m'gonna.. hah..!"

and as he hears your weak cries, his sucking turns more intense, scraping his fangs sensually across your skin until finally, with a flourish, you're cumming, whining pitifully as you fall apart against him, soaking your panties with your own gushing slick, and unable to stop your whines of ecstasy.

did you really just..?

"good girl," choso coos, finally pulling back and wiping his mouth with a drunken grin. "now, bend."

but before you can even move however, choso is using his otherworldly abilities to turn you over on all fours, your back arched obscenely as he pushes you forward, pressing himself up behind you.

and once you feel the frantic twitching of his cock up against you, hot and pulsing steadily, you realize he's not going to let it go unnoticed any longer.

“n-need you, sweetheart.” he pants against you, before cool, ringed fingers are coming to curl around your plush thighs, spreading them open wide as he ruts against you desperately, trying to ease the unbearable hardness he was sporting.

you buck back into him, wriggling your hips which he groans at, immediately lifting up your skirts to tear your soaked panties off roughly with a rrrip!

now that your gushing wet pussy was on full display, sensitive nub throbbing as you clench around nothing, choso takes the opportunity to lean his head against you, warm breath ghosting over you teasingly and shaggy black hair brushing your inner thighs.

“all for me?” he says, using one thick finger to swirl your slick around your entrance, but never quite giving the pressure you craved, eliciting a small whine of protest from you.

he tsks at you, unbuckling himself from his leathery confines to allow his length in all its glory to spring out. “patience, bunny. you need this big cock stretching you that badly, hm?”

and oh, was he big, with a curved, veiny girth that was maroon reddish at the thickened tip, absolutely oozing glossy dredges of precum, and adorned with a glint of metal at the frenulum.

he had a dick piercing, too?

but before you have time to admire him further, he shifts impatiently, one large hand wrapping around the swollen base of himself to draaag his weepy length along your sappy pussy lips, precum already streaking down your thighs obscenely.

choso sighs softly, letting his head loll back and rifling a hand through his messy black bangs, as he pushes just the fat, bulbous tip of his cock into your entrance, groaning when you greedily try to suck him in further.

“ready to take it all, pet?” he grunts, easing himself slowly in to your warm, gummy walls at your eagerness, more sticky wetness beginning to seep out of you.

but he's only about two inches in, when you feel yourself stretching and stretching, trying your best to accommodate his utter size.

"t-too big.." you practically sob, your thighs trying to close as your body jerks and your back bows upward into a perfect arch.

but choso is quick to shove your thighs back open, this time even wider, and gifting you a sharp smack! on the ass.

"where you going, hm? don't run from me now." he growls, and then he's pushing in, while his deft fingers stroke your sopping wet clit, circling and teasing you just enough to make you gasp as another inch slides in.

slowly, as he shushes you, cooing soft praises that only make you wetter, he finally manages to bottom out, buried deep into your soft, warm cunt that clenches and dribbles webbed arousal down your thighs.

and then, the only warning you get is his big hands coming to rest on the curve of your waist, before he begins fucking into you like an animal starved, skin smacking against skin filling the air.

the cool barbed metal of his prince albert piercing hits directly into your cushy sweet spot, already making you dumb as your mouth forms into a little ‘o’ and you arch your ass impossibly further.

his fat, bulbous tip is wedged deep inside you, causing little moans to spill out of your mouth as your eyes roll back, and you push yourself against him for more, feeling him slide deeper.

"what would your father think, huh?" choso gasps, one hand roughly wrapping itself around your throat and pressing slightly, causing your breath to leave you in a whimper. "if he could see his little huntress taking a vampire's cock like she was made for it?"

at this point, you can only let out dumb little gurgles, glossy drool pouring lasciviously down the sides of your lips as you feel heat curling low in your belly.

and then choso whines, a hand coming to tangle itself in your hair and pulling, just enough to make your back bend enough to take his ruby-red cockhead deeper into your cervix, the throbbing veins adorning his shaft massaging your insides throughly with each brutal thrust.

“f-fuck, ‘cho!” you moan, your spine curving deliciously as the pressure in your stomach steadily begins to ramp up more n' more 'till you're seconds away from crashing headfirst into your second orgasm of the night, your vision splitting and turning into blurs of white.

and with each rut, his plump, globed tip is bruising your sweet spot, making you curse as his piercing bumps your hot, slithery walls, mapping you out like you're salvation.

“thas’it!” he downright whimpers as he continues rocking into you, keeping you perfectly on the edge, and swiveling his hips back n’ forth.

and only when choso’s fingers come to expertly tweak and roll the poor, sensitive bud of your clit that you find yourself cumming without warning, your thighs trembling before drenching themselves in rivulets of your gushing syrup, clenching hard ‘round choso’s cock like a vice.

and when he makes a noise caught between a moan and a whine, you realize he’s cumming too, length throbbing with every flooding ivory spurt of seed pulsing out in hefty loads until there's so much of it, it's gushing back out.

you and choso lie still in the aftershocks of pleasure, your thighs still twitching with euphoria, but soon enough you find your eyes beginning to shutter closed, and distantly, you feel choso's hands moving you, almost reverently, like you were something special and new, an experiment of sorts.

soon enough, you find yourself sleeping, comfortable enough to make a vampire’s chambers your own bed, a warmness spreading through your body at being marked and claimed for the first─and last─ time.

but not before you hear the soft, hoarse murmur from choso that he says as a statement more than anything else, cool fingers stroking your thighs gently.

“once you turn, pet, you will be my wife for all eternity. i can promise you that.”

©CHOSOSCUTIE. please don’t copy or translate any of my works

eyes flying over the pages, your nose almost touches the book pages. heeseung mentally thanks his vampire traits for making him move as lightly and unnoticeable as a feather while he simply just stares at you. he swears that if he had a heartbeat it would go absolutely berserk. if it hadn’t been the loud thump of a clumsy overworked student dropping his bookstack, the staring would've probably continued for another hour.

your head snaps up, eyes scanning for the source of the sudden noise. but before you get to, your eyes land on this absolutely gorgeous looking guy who doesn’t seem to be interested in the noise at all. instead he’s just…staring…at you.

“uhhh,” your voice trails off as you try and think of ways to figure out what exactly is happening and how to get out of the awkward situation. heeseung snaps out of his haze and straightens his shoulders

“sorry”, he quickly mutters, “was just looking for a quiet spot.” he turns, closing his eyes, mentally cursing himself. what the fuck just happened?

“there’s enough space for two, you know?”

he stops in his tracks, slowly turning to face you again.

“huh?”

you giggle and heeseung feels the air being knocked out of his lungs. did your eyes just…sparkle?

“if you want you can come sit with me,” you say “i wouldn’t mind some company.”

“yeah.” that’s all he manages to breathe out. he moves, mind racing of where exactly to sit, how close is too close? but then again he doesn't want to be rude and sit too far away. he plops down awkward on the seat next to you, the material much more cushiony than expected, leaving him to wobble a little towards you.

“sorry,” he mumbles, facing the floor. even after hundreds of years, he swears that his body sometimes doesn't realise that he is incapable of blushing anymore.

not trusting his face, his eyes wander towards you, rather to the book in your hands. he smiles, recognising the title and author.

“you got to the part where she ends up in the hidden library?”

your eyes widen “the what?!” frantically, your hands flip through the pages.

heeseung chuckles, if only you knew that he was the one to tell his old friend to put that spin in the book. if only you knew about the candle wax and tea stains on the hundreds of drafts he has flipped through.

“it happens after the harbour incident,” he adds, “about halfway through?”

“right, right…” your voice trails off. “i was just…” more frantic flipping, “but why would she even be there?”

it's been centuries, yet heeseung has never encountered something as fascinating to look at as you.

“ah, i wouldn't want to spoiler it, but trust me it's gonna blow your wind.”

your head whips around. “why would you say that?! oh my god there's a good three hundred pages left,“ you whisper yell at him. “ what's gonna happen, i thought i had it figured out!” defeated, your head thumps back against the wall.

“didn't mean to send you into full spiral,” he says while giving you the most devastating grin known to man. this earns a sigh from you.

“oh i’ll be fine,” you say, hand dramatically finding its way to your forehead. “i shall just suffer until i get to that part.” and with that you loll your head to side, feigning unconsciousness. oh heeseung’s a goner. within minutes you have interwoven yourself into his heartstrings.

the next hour flies by, but not a word of as read. instead, the two of you find yourself in the middle of a full breakdown of a poetry collection, one that neither of you thought was known by many.

“i swear it's such a good piece of literature and yet it was simply ignored! all because she was in the shade of her shitty husband, his writing sucks!”, you whisper yell. heeseung nods frantically, “if you compare his fourth volume to her first poem, it's literally the same! he blatantly just stole it from her and used it for the first half.”

“fucking men”, you mumble, earning another laugh from him.

you look at him, really look at him. gosh, he was handsome. it was a little unfair how he looked like that and have such good taste in literature. “i've never seen you around here,” you say.

“oh so you make sure the library guardian, keeping track who comes and goes?”

you roll your eyes, giving his arm a slight push. “no, i just come here all the time and i know pretty much all the regulars, or at least i've seen them. but i've never seen you before.”

“must've not looked hard enough,” he responds, “or maybe i'm just too good at hiding.”

“well i'm glad you came out of hiding.”

his brain short circuits. he desperately tries to find the words, any words to say to you, but he's gone completely blank.

“sorry, that was weird.” you chuckle nervously, playing with the rings on your finger.

“no!” he practically yells, before shrinking back down. “i mean, no it wasn't, i just… i don't know i didn't expect that.”

a pause.

“but i'm glad i came out of hiding too, you're fun to talk to”.

the smile that spreads on your face could compete with the sun, heeseungs convinced of that. oh he's in so much trouble.

P.J 박종성

composed. logical. calm. those three words probably describe jay the best. emotions get controlled with logic and is it logical to have a lover who you'll eventually outlive? no. in fact, it's the furthest away from it. sure, he enjoys a good romcom every now and then (heeseung forces him to watch them, though he'd never admit that) but it just doesn't tug at his heartstrings.

the only thing that gets him though, is art. no words, just the sheer atmosphere of paint strokes along the canvas. whether it's a known piece or a hidden gem found in the quiet corners of a little valley, jay will always stop and admire them. his place is full of painting, carefully collected over the years, created by artists all over the world. so of course he finds himself at the local art gallery showcasing pieces of independent artists.

the place is was small, fitting no more than twenty people. hushed voices mutter enthusiastically about the artwork, none of them even noticing him slip in. his eyes travel over the walls. big canvases with bright colours and bold strokes stare back at him. he slowly makes his way through the crowd, not stopping by any painting, only looking. turning the corner, he almost missed it.

the painting was no bigger than a page. black and grey tones swish together, dissolving into each other. two people, interwoven. it's messy, but not ugly. jay steps closer, bending slightly down to get a better look at it. one of the figures had a face. the rest was…barely detailed.

he notices a presence close by and turns his head.

a woman, around his age, well the age he looks like, watches him with curious eyes.

“are you the artist?”

your eyes widen a little. “yes,” you breathe out after a second. “it's mine. i mean, i made it. ”

he turns back to the painting. “is this you?” he points at the figure with the detailed face. hot flushes rush up your spine, creeping up your neck.

“yeah.”

he hums.

none of you say anything for a good while.

“is there are reason why the other person is unrecognisable?”

“it's a bit of a sob story,” you reply with a laugh.

“well now you've got me intrigued.”

“right…well i've always wanted, or more i hoped that there's this one person that just…morphs into me. not me as a person, but my life, my structures, just completely tangle themselves into my life and stay. i want the concept of a soulmate to be real so deeply, it would make me feel less pathetic to keep longing for sometime i'm not even sure exists. and that's why the other face, the other person, has no details. i don't know if they exist, putting a face to it would limit my chances of finding them i think, i don't want to look for a face, i want to look for a feeling.”

now that, jay didn't expect. what he also didn't expect, was the slight pressure in chest that he couldn't name.

“it's silly, right?”

“no, no it's admirable.”

that makes you turn. “what?”

“being that open with your feelings, it's admirable. i'd argue that most people would rather jump than say that to a total stranger.”

it was your turn to be stunned. who on earth was this guy?

“how much?”

“hm?”

“for the painting?”

“oh.” you were left stunned, again.

“wait, is it sold already, if so-”

“it's not.” you interrupt him. “it's not sold, i just didn't expect to sell it.”

his brows rise. “why wouldn't you?”

an awkward smile paints your face. “well…i don't know, it's not much really. i'm not an artist, i just entered because my friend told me to push myself a little more out there.”

jay looks at the painting, then back at you. “out of all the people here, i think your art is the most soulful piece i've seen.” you open your mouth to subject, but he keeps talking, “and no, you cannot argue against me. this is my opinion. i like your art. please, if you're willing to sell it i'd love to give it a new home.”

this wasn't how you expected your thursday night to end. you thought that you would stand in your reserved corner, awkwardly smiling back at passing viewers. not this man standing in front of you. this man that you can't read since he scares you. why would he care so much? about the painting, the story, you.

jay can practically see your gears turning while you just stare at him. it gives him time to take a proper look at you without it being weird. your face, it looks different in the painting, more…dull. how could you not put it on the canvas, he's never seen someone shine this way, in a dimmed room that is.

“ten.”

he snaps out of his thoughts.

“hundred?”

you laugh and shake your head. “no, ten. that's all i want.”

“why ten?”

“ten's the price of my go-to menu down the road.”

that earns a smile out of him. “fine, but only if i can buy it for you.”

you grin back at him, and he feels that unfamiliar feeling in his chest again. the tingle.

"deal."

S.J 심재윤

probably one of jake’s favourite memories in his (very long vampiric) life was his first encounter with a dog. if someone would've told him that there was another living breathing thing on earth that reciprocates his joy and enthusiasm, he wouldn't have believed them. a bouncing ball of energy, eagerly awaiting pets while running in circles around your legs; oh jake was in heaven every single time. 

although he’d never admit it, the fluffy companions fill what void a nonexistent love life left. sure, there was the occasional flirt, but it never went further, he made sure of that. what good would it do? it will all end in pain and heartbreak anyways. so whenever he feels the ache in his chest expand, he visits the local shelter. today was one of those days. for any other occasion he wouldn't have left his comfortable bed in the early morning hours, but this? this was different.

pockets full with treats he enters, instantly welcomed by multiple barks and wagging tails. he’s had many many talks with his friends as to why exactly he couldn't just adopt them all, yet he was tempted every time. 

he was just about to enter the room with the newly born puppies when he heard a screech. a human screech. not finding its source inside he made its way outdoors and what a sight awaited him. 

seven dogs running in circles, their long leashes practically mummifying the poor woman desperately trying to gain back control. 

hair sticking up like a birdsnest, he was barely able to make out her features until a gust of wind blew by. jake could've sworn he was in a movie. time slowed, the sun hit your face and he was greeted by the most beautiful smile he has ever seen. 

“oreo, for the love of everything- no don’t do that spike geez how do i-”.

oh, right. instead of standing around he should probably help. 

“wait, let me,” he steps forward. grabbing one of the leashes he attempts to regain control of the situation, but he forgot one thing.seven sensitive dog noses suddenly started sniffing the deliciously tempting treats. and before either of you realised what was about to happen, the dogs now circled him as well. 

you couldn't enjoy your short-lived freedom, as you felt the leashes tug around your calves and before you knew it you started toppling over towards the boy in front of you. there was an attempt to save the situation but you eventually found yourself in an entangled mess on the floor. 

paws hitting your back, you lift your head to look at your sort of saviour. 

“hi,” you smile sheepishly.

jake just stares at you dumbfoundedly. 

“i’m y/n.”

he blinks. “i’m jake.”

for a second you just stare at each other before erupting into a fit of giggles. 

“alright, hang on,” he manages to get out in between laughter. “let me get the blue and green leash first, those seem to be our main culprits.” 

after a game of leash tetris you both find yourselves upright again. 

“that was fun,” you exclaim “thanks for saving me.”

“no worries, pretty girls should never be left alone in their despair.”

as soon as the words left his mouth he realised what he had just said. he didn't even mean to flirt, it just happened. 

“well lucky me, getting saved by my pretty boy in shining armour,” you shoot back, making your way inside, leaving a flustered jake outside. quickly gathering the dogs, he rushed after you. 

“sooooo,” he starts, “are you new here? i usually know all workers and volunteers.”

“i’m filling in for my friend, they’re busy and i’ve always wanted to give this a try”, you say, rubbing a pups belly. 

jake watches you dote on the little furball. “will you come back tomorrow?”

you look up at him. “maybe, why?”

not having thought his question through, he stutters out a quick “well, well you know in case…in case you have problems with the leashes again!” smooth save, he thinks to himself. “maybe i can help you tomorrow, less disaster.”

“it’s a date.”

his brain stops for a second. wait what?!

P.S 박성훈

love isn't how they tell it in fairytales. sunghoon learned that very early on. he was young, heart seemingly bigger than the world, wearing it on his sleeve. and why wouldn't he? everybody adores him, the helpful boy of the town, always happy to be a helping hand. so when the girl with the short hair keeps waiting for him to show up every morning, of course it sets his heart to race as quick as the riverbed flows down the hill. kisses were stolen over open windows, between the bustling crowds of the daily market and under the stars. 

but this was no fairytale. there won't be a house waiting on top of the hill, no kids running around to greet him after a long day of work. no, fate is a cruel companion and turning is an even crueler curse. 

the feeling overwhelmed him, he didn't know what was happening. it could've been anyone, he wished it had been someone else. but it was her his teeth sunk into that first hunger, the worst one they say. there was no way he could've stopped himself, the addicting taste has a habit of erasing all logic. he still barely remembers what happened, after all that time it's still a blurry memory. there's bits and pieces, jungwon pulling him up right, jay rushing to the body in from of him. and the blood, oh there was so much blood. he still remembers the sickening euphoria rushing through his veins. wrong, all of it felt so utterly wrong. 

“excuse me?”

suddenly sunghoon snaps back into reality. 

the graveyard, yes, that's where he was. 

“uhm, could you…move a little?”

right, there had been a voice. he turns and finds himself looking at a woman, a woman whose eyes were swollen and red.  

“i just quickly want to change the water,” you sniffle, wiping your nose with the back of your hand. 

“oh, right!” 

the flowers. that was the reason he stopped at this grave in particular. it wasn't new, he has been seeing it for a good year or two. but every single time he came here, it was the only one adored by the same lilacs. never changing, as if too, immortal. 

he watches you pour out the murky green water onto the grass. for the past year or so he's been wondering who is pouring so much love into keeping this grave so vibrant. and here you are now, you looked, well you looked like every other human but there was something, he just couldn't name it. maybe it was how the late afternoon sun peaked through your hair, or how you oh so careful wiped the frost of the leaves. 

you turn, looking at him now. “i'm sorry, but did you know her?” right, he's been standing in front of the grave of an absolute stranger. 

“no,” he breathes out, “i just like looking at the flowers. they're beautiful.”

this earns him a smile from you. a genuine one, one that reaches you eyes and makes them crinkle slightly. “lillie's are her and my favourite,” your smile drops. “well, they were.”

“i'm sure she loves them still.” 

you hum. a beat of silence. “do you believe in life after death?” 

sunghoon exhales deeply, a loaded question. “no, but i believe we carry the love we have for people in us, even if that means it's only under the ground.”

you don't say anything, just stare at the flowers in front of you. he searches for the right words to say. why was it suddenly so difficult for him to form a sentence? and why did he care so much about making you feel less alone?  

"who did you lose?”

his head snaps up, eyes searching yours, but they were already focused on him. 

“you don't just say that without having buried someone before. we all need something to hold on to keep us sane while thinking about the big unknown.”

if only you knew that he has lost his sanity centuries ago. what does he have left? a cursed body, a never forgetting brain. but what he doesn’t have is that little spark that you want to return; he stopped searching for it years and years ago. 

“it's been so long, i barely remember it.” 

“liar,” you shoot back, the tiniest hint of a smile showing. “ you hesitated too long, of course you remember.”

he breathes out a choked chuckle. “you got me there.” 

“are they buried here?”

“no,” he pauses for a second, “i don't know where the grave is.”

that leaves you to be the silent one. 

“sor-” “don’t be, it was a long time ago.”

you watch his eyes flicker between the flowerbeds. he looks nervous, like a little boy looking for his parents after his first day at school. 

“well, i’ll be here on saturday. in case you suddenly remember more and need an open ear.” 

a smile softens his features. “saturday it is.” 

it wasn’t much. there were no big fireworks, no racing heart, no shaky hands and stutters. instead, there was…calmness. and it’s been a long time since he felt calm.

K.S 김선우

if there was a party on campus, there's a 99.9% chance you can find sunoo there. getting turned while being young and beautiful has its perks; you're in for a lifetime of compliments and suitors practically begging for your attention. at first, he was flattered. yes, he was different now, but this was normality. they didn't realise he’s different. but the fantasy started to crumble when the dates were planned, lies had to be made up. so he distanced himself from it all, not physically, but mentally. small talk was the furthest it goes, hushed kisses were exchanged, maybe even between entangled bodies; but never further. and he accepted it, he really did. he wasn't lonely, he had six friends who stuck together like glue and people gathering around him as if he were a magnet as soon as he entered the room. 

tonight was no different. the room was filled with people, the smell of smoke and practically buzzed with excitement over the end of exams. red cup in his hands, filled with whatever unholy concoction the redhead who handed it to him came up with, he looked around. 

the crowd blended into a mass of entangled bodies, arms waving around, swaying to the beat of music. he spotted the regulars, the same two handfuls of people who showed up to every single one of these. among them, yumi; all pastel pink hair and fiery attitude. she spotted sunoo and threw her hand up, enthusiastically waving it around like a windmill.

“sunoo, sunoo, sunno!” she yelled across the room, bouncing up and down. 

he makes his way across the room, almost spilling his drink about four times. as soon as he reached the other side, yumi squeezed him almost to death. “oh its been forever,” she exclaimed dramatically.  

chuckling he responds, “it’s been like what, two weeks?”

“yes, that’s basically an eternity at our age.”

our age.

“right, oh my god before i forget, today is sooooo special,” she turns and pulls someone closer, "i'm glad you’re here to witness it!”

now that's got his attention. “oh?” he questions, brows furrowed.

“sunoo, may i introduce you to the one, the only, the majestic y/n.”

his eyes moved to the left and there you were. hands nervously intertwined, eyes scanning the room. look at me, look at me, sunoo thinks. 

yumi nudges your arm, “hey, earth to y/n.”

your eyes move to the man in front of you and you kind of forget how to breathe for a second. my goodness how can someone look like that?!

“hi,” he reaches out his hand, “i’m sunoo.”

it shouldn't be legal to have a smile this devastating, you think to yourself before taking his hand and giving it a small shake. “i know, i mean i’m y/n. yumi has told me lots about you.” 

“good things,” yumi chimes in. 

sunoo grins, "suspicious."

you watch them bicker back and forth. yes, yumi has told you about sunoo. sunoo who always has an open ear for everyone, who always had the right comforting thing to say. sunoo, who she kept pestering you about to meet, since he supposedly was your type. sunoo, who definitely is your type. sunoo who, you realise, is looking directly at you right now.

“huh?” you snap out of your thoughts.

“see, i was right,” yumi exclaimed triumphantly.

utterly confused, you look between your best friend and the boy in front of you.

“right about what?”

“that it’s a good thing i dragged you out of the house tonight! otherwise you wouldn't have been able to actually meet sunoo and you would've sat outside all alone.”

“so you would've let me freeze out in the cold all by myself?” you dramatically hit your hand on your chest.

“well lucky you, i’m here tonight,” sunoo says, “and i’m in need for a break from all these people.”

you turn to look at yumi, who has already backed up a good bit, giving you a double thumbs up.

the cold air instantly hits your lungs and you wrap your scarf closer around your neck. both of your breaths dance in little clouds alongside each other. neither of you say anything for a good while.

“so,” he starts, “what did she bribe you with?”

you smile, “lemon and blueberry cake.”

he inhales sharply, “good choice, good choice.” 

“yeah.”

another beat of silence settles between the two of you. before you get the chance to overthink possible topics for smalltalk he asks, “did you really come tonight because of me?” 

hot flashes creep up your neck, “well…” you fidget with the strands of your scarf. “not really, but she kept insisting that i just have to meet you.”

he gives you a small nudge, “i’m glad you agreed to come tonight. and that i got to meet you. she was right.”

“right about what?”

another smirk spreads on his face. “shh, that's a secret.”

“hey!” now it was your turn to nudge him, “not fair i was honest with you.”

“no can do,” he says, throwing his hands up in defeat. you grumble, shooting arrows with your eyes at the boy standing next you. sunoo swears his heart was breaking the record of somersaults within a single second. 

truth be told, as soon as yumi told him about that mysterious best friend of hers he had been intrigued. she insisted that the two of you would just click instantly, which he doubted. those statements never turn out to be true.  before tonight he simply wanted to see who you were but now? now he cannot help himself wanting to talk to you the entire night. he has met so many people over the last centuries, yet not a single one of them has ever had him this mesmerised. 

“pinky promise it's nothing bad,” 

staring at the boy in front of you and his extended pinky you can't help the small grin appearing on your face. 

“you need to know that i'm very serious about pinky promises.”

“oh, trust me,”, he puts his other hand over his heart, “i am a man of honour and my word.”

your pinkies interlink. his hands were soft; very soft. kind of “i-don't-want-to-let-go-of-of-your-hand” soft. 

“it's a promise then,” he whispers, tightening his grip around your pinky.

“it's a promise.”, you whisper back. 

Y.J 양정원

amongst his friends, jungwon had been the one to immediately erase any traces of romance. a spark crackles and he dump as whole waterfall on it. he’s fine with it, at least that's what he tells himself. but this life gets lonely, so when he awoke shortly after midnight he just couldn’t be alone. aimlessly he wandered through the city. its been a good few years since he moved here; he liked it here. 

before he realises he find himself in a part of town he really ends up in. business is usually on the other side of the river. he almost turned back around when he saw something, saw her. moving with the grace of a feather, sweeping by tables of scattered customers. suddenly, his night got a little more interesting.

the rain aggressively splatters against the window of the dimly lit coffee shop. a small handful of customers dozed in their seats, letting themselves be lulled to sleep by the sound of rain. you, on the other hand, move quickly. it almost seemed like a miracle, this job. having an odd sleep pattern in today's job market is no easy thing. so when the barista at your go-to study cafe told you about an open position, you didn't hesitate for a second. 24 hours of coffee, the closest you could get to heaven on this planet. while the world sleeps, you knead doughs, carefully decorate pastries, move amongst the tables, refill cups or simply catch up with the regulars. it was a peaceful routine, nothing extraordinary but it was enough. 

tonight, however, was supposed to interrupt the routine. your head lifts as you hear the rain getting louder. a man steps in, broad shoulders, face covered by the hood of his jacket. heavy steps approach you and you clutch the coffee grinder a little tighter. he lifts his hood and he looks…normal. well not ‘normal’ normal but also not serial killer or robbing the store kind of scary. 

his eyes however, were a totally different story. sharp and calculating. and they're not studying the menu, no they're studying you. 

you force your customer service smile on. “hi, what can i get you?”

“espresso, two of them.” a pause. “please.”

“coming right up.” you move behind the coffee machine and your hands move on their own. 

“for here or to go?”

his brows furrow "aren't you closing soon?”

you chuckle, “we’re open all day around.”

jungwon looks around the shadowy room. “cozy,” he mumbles, “then it’s for here.”

“alright,” you hum back, “go sit, i’ll find you.”

you watch the mysterious man sit in the corner next to the main window. it’s odd, usually no one comes in at this hour and decides to stay. usually you just get the tourists trying to kill time for their early morning flights, maybe the occasional business people coming in for a nightly restock of caffeine. but he fits into neither of those categories. no, he’s different. 

the smell of freshly brewed coffee hits your nose and you snap out of your thoughts. grabbing a tray, you plop the two small cups on and make your way over to him.

“here you go.” another smile, less forced this time. 

“thanks.”

you turn to leave, but stop in your tracks. “why two?”

“hm?”

“why two espressos, why not just ask for a double?”

a quick laugh escapes him. “i forgot.”

now it was your turn to be confused.

“i forgot that i can just order a double.” 

you tilt your head, taking another good luck at the man sitting in front of you. 

“your whole face just changed,” you stated.

taking another sip, he mumbles into the drink “whatever that means.”

“alright grumps, go back to your sulky self.”, you mutter back, returning behind the counter.

blue ink spread on the page, as you keep pressing down the pen. it was remarkable how your professor manages to formulate the most confusing sentences. 

“why do you work here?” a sudden voice interrupts your .

jolting up in surprise, you hold your pen in front of you. 

jungwon puts his hands up in defeat, “easy there, put the weapon down.” 

you glare at him. “dont creep up on people like that.”

“sorry,” an apologetic expression on his face, a seemingly genuine one, “i was just curious. i mean its the middle of the night, you're all here by yourself and it looks like you have more than work to do.” 

a sigh escapes you. “well some of us are unfortunately nocturnal.” 

now that peaked his interest. 

“nocturnal? how?”

“not actually nocturnal,” you explain, “ but my brain just works best at night and i have some sleep issues so everyone just says im nocturnal.”

he hums, “makes two of us.”

“do explain, dear stranger.”

jungwon hesitates. he can’t just say ‘oh i’m a vampire. that's just how we are!’ 

“ah, it's a long story.”

“i’m here up until 6,” you answer, “in case you need an open ear.” 

“why?”

“why what?” you counter. 

“you don't know me, why offer? and don't say you need the tips, you’re not that kind of girl.”

“oh?” you raise your brows. “and you know this because?”

jungwon shrugs “just a hunch.” 

you smirk, “a correct one. to answer your question, nobody walks in here in the dead of night without having a heavy heart.” 

there was something about the way you said it that just made his heart clench a little. genuine care. he can't remember the last time he had a genuine conversation with someone other than his closest six friends. 

this was dangerous, this was everything he told himself not to indulge in. but right now, he didn't care. right now, he just wanted to keep talking to the pretty girl at the coffee shop. 

N.R 西村 力

it’s a shame that vampires cannot be photographed, because the fashion world would scream with joy if nishimura riki's fashion over the hundreds of years were ever to be recorded and published. whether it was the ever evolving linen shirt, ruffled silks, the occasional lace stocking, woolcoats, waist trainers, frocks or knitted sweaters, he has worn it all. and he looked damn good while wearing them. 

to him, its a game of puzzles, of anticipation. what exciting invention will come next? which fabric will be of the next trend?

unfortunately for him, immortality doesn’t come with a magical closet that lets you keep all of your clothes acquired in his very long life. that’s precisely why he adores second hand stores. sure, sometimes you’re greeted with fabrics of questionable smell and design, but every once in a while you can find a true hidden gem. once, riki even managed to find one of his long lost embroidered leather gloves and he almost teared up. 

today was his favourite day of the week; weekly hunt at his favourite second hand store. what makes it his favourite you ask? well, it’s open at midnight on one special night – tonight. 

the room was practically buzzing with excitement, muffled voices screeching over the occasional lucky find. he slowly makes his way through the crowd, stopping every now and then to closely inspect an item. 

and then he spots it. in front of everyone, right out in the open was the most breathtaking coat he has ever seen. a deep burgundy, loose cut, but with a tailored waist; definitely worth adding to his collection. 

he reached for the clothing hanger, but instead of the cold metal he was met with soft warm skin. looking to his left, his eyes meet with an equally surprised pair.

“sorry-” both of you start at the same time, throwing you into a fit of giggles. 

oh.

oh no. what is happening to his chest?

“sorry,” he breathes again, trying to sort his racing thoughts. it’s been countless years, yet this was new. he just completely shut down.

a tap on his arm makes him come back to reality.

“you okay?” worried eyes look up at him. 

he blinks rapidly, what is going on?

“yea, sorry i just…zoned out there for a sec.”

you hurriedly rummage through your bag, pulling out your water. “i havent drunk from it yet?”

while it was your intention to help, riki only goes further and further into full-on panic mode. thankfully his body knew how to breathe on its own, because he wouldn't trust himself to rely on his own senses right now. okay riki, blink, breathe in, breathe out, he tells himself. you've done this millions of times, get yourself together man. it’s just a girl. a pretty girl, my gosh…she’s so pretty.

at the same time, you’re worried sick about the stranger, mentally cursing yourself for always skipping those ‘what to in case of a stroke’ videos. crooked smile? no…that doesn't really fit. how do you ask a stranger to hold up their hands? gosh why is he blinking so rapidly?

“i’m so sorry,” riki finally manages to get out, “must’ve been the amount of people and the noise.” 

oh thank goodness he speaks, a visible sigh leaves you. 

the boy in front of you chuckles, “didn’t mean to make you worry.”

“it’s fine,” you smile softly, “just glad to see that you're okay. i don't have any food on me but you should grab a bite, you look a little pale.”

riki grins, if only you knew how hilarious that statement was with a little more background knowledge.

a sharp shriek pierces your ears. “holy shit, this is perfect.” 

two girls start bouncing up and down besides you. in their hands: the burgundy coat.

“soooo,” riki starts “midnight snack?”

“midnight snack,” you nod back with a smile.

neither of you got the coat, but you had a hunch that you gained something a lot more special.

lin’s note: first ever enha fic hooray!! this was lowkey so cheesy and cliché buuuuuuut i had fun so lolz !! big thank you to my doll for encouraging me to start this and my silly ren & skye for hyping me up so much :(( i’ve been thinking about going back to writing for a hot second and i had a blast with this. vampire!enha just has a special place in my heart. i do have another part to this planned, so let me know if you’d like to see that. thank you for reading, mwah mwah!

🗞️: @dollhoonki @sweethoons @iclimbjungwon @si3rren