#auri saathoff

The smell of his own blood was thick and rich, sparkling with death. It would not nourish him, it was only his own. No life was left in it. Erich felt it growing stickier with every passing second, seconds he spent gasping for needless air, clawing with frantic panic at the vampire on top of him.

The one whose fangs had ripped him open.

If the people walking by, only a dozen or so feet away, suspected anything, they never turned to look. Erich had learned over the years that cities often had people in them who never looked further than their own destinations. It was safer that way.

He didn’t blame them.

“Bet you regret stealing my kill now,” The vampire who had attacked him hissed against his neck, lapping at what was still coming out. “I’ve been hunting that hot piece of ass all night.” The press of tongue, warm and wet, made Erich shudder, and he shook his head back and forth, pushing at the vampire’s chest, over her collarbone, but he had no strength.

Nothing left.

The world was dim around its edges, going dark.

“Poor baby,” The vampire cooed, running her fingers back through his thick dark hair, speckled with hints of gray that had never grown in any further, frozen in time. “It’ll be a hard true death, you know. A rough one. It’s going to hurt.” She breathed the last words, and pressed a kiss to his lips, where blood was bubbling up, running out of him everywhere it could find an escape. Her lips were warm from feeding.

His were ice-cold, as he faded away.

“But that’s what you get for muscling in on my kill. I hope it’s agony, as you go. I hope you meet your true death weeping.” She pulled back, smiling at him, her eyes glowing faintly in the dark. “I hope you burn in hell. I’ll never see it.”

Erich coughed up a little more blood in reply, making her flinch backwards as some of it got in her eye and she had to wipe at it, hissing with irritation.

She stood up, dusting her hands off, and he turned his head, blearily watching her as she began to walk away on heavy platform heels. “Hey,” He croaked, one hand out, scraping at the pavement and broken rock beneath him, rolling with effort onto his stomach. “Listen.”

She paused, without looking back. She wore a heavy leather jacket, black jeans, her hair was dyed darker than the night sky. A nose ring glinted. “What?”

“It’s… n-not agony,” Erich managed, and now she did look at him, over one shoulder, eyebrows raising. “There’s... waiting for us, there’s... something. Better.” He watched her put her hands into her pockets, pull out a lighter and light a cigarette with shaking hands. “It’s… it’s going to be… good. After.”

He shifted onto his side, coughing hard to try and get the last of it out of his throat. Everything was copper and darkness, and the world was fading. He would die here, in a back alley in London, far from the battlefields that still haunted his dreams.

He hadn’t died with a gas mask strapped on making him blind and breathless as his lungs burned.

He hadn’t died in the woods in his bed, another long casualty of a war that went uncounted because he’d waited until the war was over to be lost.

But… here, it would end. 

It was as good a place as any.

Better than some.

“You think there’s a heaven?” She asked, hesitating, taking a drag off her cigarette and blowing smoke into the air. “Even for us?”

“I think… I was s-supposed to find out a long… time ago. I’ll… I’ll tell the bastards you s-said hi if I make it.”

She snorted. “I just killed you. You’re oddly cheery about it.”

“Guess… I am. Can’t blame you. Shit move, for me t’steal a kill, right?”

He laughed, but all that did was make him cough up more, and when it bubbled too thickly in his throat to breathe, she left. He listened to her heels click on the ground until they faded to silence. Until even the shouted conversations of the people on the street had gone dim, muffled. He wondered what it was like to die with no heartbeat.

He was about to find out.

Erich’s eyes closed, finally. He hoped only for peace.

When a wrist was pressed to his mouth, warm and living, he groaned and tried to turn his head away. No, no, let me die, let me join them in the fields, let me fall into the trenches where I was supposed to rest-

“Drink, liebling, now,” Auri commanded, and Erich’s mouth opened against his will, took in the hot rush of fresh living blood. He bit down hard, then, gnawing into the skin and listening to a weak cry of pain. The pulse of the wrist’s owner was rapid, fluttering in fear, and his hands came up, smearing his own drying blood over her as he pulled her close, her body hot like a brand against his. He swallowed, and felt some of it run out of the wound in his throat even as the telltale itch began.

The girl was weeping, whoever it was he was killing. He couldn’t care any longer. Now that the hot blood of life was in his mouth, he barely heard her and with a mind gone mad with thirst, he no longer cared. He drank, took in swallow after swallow of salt-sweet copper, and after a moment felt a shift of weight and knew Auri was there, too, holding her down on top of him. 

“Good, liebling, there we go... there we go, my love,” Auri said, and Erich’s eyes opened, taking in their pale face behind the victim’s shoulder, smiling at him with sparkling eyes before they turned and buried their fangs in her neck. She threw her head back and cried out, and there was something obscene about this - Erich on his back with a woman’s hips pressed to his, Auri behind her and pressed to her, how the three of them moved together in a harmony wracked with the poor thing’s pain.

Erich felt his wound healing, and he couldn’t think well enough to remember that he had wanted, before, to die.

Auri drank their fill and left him to take the rest, not moving away but resting their head on the girl’s shoulder and holding her still as she thrashed and struggled, desperate to escape. “Kill her,” Auri whispered. “Drain her dry, liebling.”

Erich was with his packleader.

He had to obey.

He felt every hint of life and breath leave the victim’s body until she was limp, until her heart slowed and finally… stopped.

Only then did he realize what he’d done.

He jerked backwards, his head smacking into the ground beneath him, and Auri pushed themself up, tossing the dead body of the victim carelessly aside. “Feel better?” They asked, hands on their narrow, angular hips. They wore acid-wash jeans and a torn black tank top. They’d been in a club or something while Erich went to hunt alone. 

“No,” Erich ground out, voice still rough, as he rolled onto  all fours and then slowly pushed himself up. His head swam with blood, soaking in it like a man diving into a pool. His chilled fingertips were warming, his face flushing with it. “I was going to die. I wanted to be done with you!”

“But I don’t want you to be done with me. So you won’t. Sorry I was late. I was… busy.”

“Feeding?”

Auri shot him a dazzling smile, and he hated and loved it in equal measures. “No. Well, not the way you’re thinking. Come on. You need to rest somewhere safe.” They held up a key ring, jangling it. “My little friend there-” They gestured at the dead body. “-told me her parents rent her a flat, no roommates. We have a day or so before anyone notices she’s not where she should be. Let’s go get some sleep, hm? Then we have a plane to catch.”

“No,” Erich said, but he knew it was pointless.

“Yes,” Auri replied. “Now. Come, my child.”

They turned and walked out of the alley into the din of the city.

Erich felt the pull of their command, and he set his jaw in a miserable line and followed.

-

@astrobly @finder-of-rings @burtlederp @whump-tr0pes @hackles-up @whumptywhumpdump @boxboysandotherwhump @wildfaewhump 

The little girl hesitates, then closes her window, and Auri lifts their chin, listening to the faint sound of her little footsteps as she races down the hall to wake her poor dear mum, so soon to find her darling husband dead in the garden.

"Please," He says, softly, putting his hands up to them. Harmless, unarmed, whatever he thinks might engender pity - but they are far too old and merciless for that. This is far too fun a game. "Please, let this be only a dream-... please don't hurt my wife-... my daughter-"

He backs directly into Erich, a solid steady weight. As hard to move from his place as any tree.

When the man spins around with a cry of alarm, Auri leaps.

Their hands curl around his once-strong biceps, their fangs bury into his shoulder, right through the thin fabric of his nightshirt when they misjudge the spot. They spit cotton and have to pull back and grab and tear it right down the seam before they can bite him again, ignoring Erich's mocking laughter as they pull heavy blood thick with gin, laden with overwhelming cheap false juniper, from the wounds they've made.

"What a mighty hunter you are," Erich teases, cruelty in his gaze, watching as they pull the man to his knees in the grass, dew soaking into every ounce of clothing both of them wear. He only watches - his own eyes sparkle bright while he waits.

"Killed you easily enough," Auri hisses, blood smeared around their mouth in a horrific pantomime of lipstick before they lower their head to drink again.

He snorts. "I was not in my right mind at the time."

"Are you ever?"

They take their fill, then rip out his throat just to see the last spray of life's blood before the body goes still. They stand, slowly, swaying from side to side. They're spinning with the gin he'd had in his veins, and the empty bottle lies on its side not far away. The smile they give Erich is loose, and they exhale in a sound not quite unlike a moan.

"Drunk," They say, as if discovering a new revelation.

"I'm shocked to hear it," He replies, kicking the dead man onto his back to see the way his eyes are still white-rimmed in horror. "He smells like a liquor store." Lights come on in the house behind them, cries for the father and husband who now cannot hear them. The little girl and her mother. Auri licks their lips, only to see Erich shake his head.

For once, they listen, and wonder who else, in other yards, is out in the middle of the night for the taking.

"I wanted children," Erich says suddenly, looking in the direction of the door, as if he will simply stand here and wait for it to be open. "Before the war. Before I fought, before everything around me died. I wanted children, and a family, and-"

"And I wanted to study with Botticelli," Auri replies, grabbing him by the hand and tugging him away. "You see how our dreams come true."

He can't resist their wants - he follows them all but helplessly, and they giggle as they hear the first screams when the man's body is found.

"Tell me he was wicked," Erich says, in a burst of earnest and sudden self-disgust. "This man I helped you to kill. Tell me he was wicked, like the others have been."

Auri is silent, focused on trying to walk steadily when their blood seems to slosh like the last of a bottle in a bar passed around the regulars. They make it to the road at the end of the drive before Erich spins them around, puts his hands to either side of their face, and looks them in the eyes.

"Tell me he was wicked," He whispers. "Evil. Tell me he deserved to die."

Auri stares right back, then leans forward and kisses him, opening their mouth until he licks the blood back off their lips, until they feel him shudder, his dead body coming to life. "He was evil," They say, only slurring their words a little. "And he deserved t'die. Better?"

"Are you lying?"

"Does it matter?"

He growls and they bark laughter right back, pulling him across the road and into someone else's yard, shoving him onto his back on the ground and climbing on top of him, straddling his thighs with their knees on either side.

"Auri-"

"Sssshhh." They press a finger to his lips, looking up to listen as the sounds of sirens begin to wail in the distance, coming ever closer. "We're going to listen to their agony, Erich., as they see him."

"I don't want to hurt innocent people-"

"But you will." They pull his head down to their neck, feel the way he starts to open his mouth by instinct before, with difficulty, he manages to pull it back again. "No. Nein. I said drink."

"You didn't say-"

"I say it now. Drink."

Their fingers bury into his short dark hair, the occasional hint of gray showing through. "When Irish hearts are happy," They sing in a whisper against his ear as his teeth just barely graze their skin, fighting with all he has, "all the world seems bright and gay..."

"You are not Irish," He hisses back. The fresh blood in them smells maddeningly good, though, they can tell - his mouth is watering, his pupils widening, overtaking his iris and lust is overwhelming all his silly remaining morality. Their commands are overriding any hint he has of an ability to control himself. "We are both German."

"No such thing as Germany when I was born," Auri says, laughing again. "We are both dead, Erich, and that is all that matters. Feed from me, meine Liebe-"

"Don't call me that." He hissed and then gave in.

He bit into them viciously, tearing open the side of their neck, and they had to muffle their cry of pleasure with a fist shoved into their own mouth as the stolen blood burst free to fill his.

Even still, they heard from across the street a woman's anguished voice call, "Did you hear that sound?"

They almost can't help the laughter, even as Erich's hands make quick work of their jeans, yanking them down their hips and discarding them to one side, his own pants pulled halfway down his thighs while he still has his fangs buried in their neck.

"For your smile is a part of the love in your heart," they sing in a half-whisper as they spread their legs for him.

"Shut up," He growls, as they lock their ankles behind his back and jam their heels into his skin.

"And it makes sunshine even more bright-"

He jams his hand over their mouth to stop them, and they bite those fingers hard until he groans and lets go again, both of them smeared in red, moving in unison.

They'd been ready for him from the second they had bitten the poor asshole who'd had the bad luck to have insomnia too close to a hungry monster.

By the time he starts to lose himself, hips rocking with abandoned thrusts that would have broken the living, both of them are purring and he has their hands in his, shoved above their head. Their fingers brush a dandelion, yellow as the sun even in the darkness. Friction rubs, pleasure building and building, coiling a spring that soon must snap.

They come with a burst of laughter, and though he glares his body follows their commands effortlessly, even the wordless ones, and he finishes inside them.

Across the street, their laughter drifts, sparkling and brilliant as shards of glass waiting to be stepped on. Men and women standing around a corpse look up, and then run towards it.

The police find nothing but the impression of a human figure in wet grass, and blood from the dead man across the street spilled on the ground.

And also a pair of discarded, forgotten jeans.

-

Their eyes gleam and glimmer iridescent in the darkness, fangs bared, their pale hair white in the near-total darkness aside from street lamps, a wild mess around their shoulders. They lean down and speak into the man’s ear as he struggles, trying to wriggle out from under them, throwing his hands up to try and pull them off.

It doesn’t work.

Erich wonders, idly, what they said to him. Auri doesn’t care about the world, but they feel darkly about what has been done to France for reasons Erich can’t even begin to fathom. He doesn’t ask, granted.

He scratches at the back of his neck, looking over to see a woman and man who were also sneaking out freeze. 

The man lets out a strangled scream for help, bouncing off of the buildings around them, as Auri buries their fangs in his throat, fingers dug so deeply into his shoulders that they’re tearing the fabric of his suit. 

The woman screams as she sees it, pointing at Auri. “Vampire!” She shrieks, in hysteric terror, and she and the man she’s with go racing away. They don’t try to help, or to pull the vampire off of the dying man. 

You don’t stop to help, not in France, not these days.

Erich doesn’t move.

He merely watches Auri’s throat bob as they swallow mouthfuls of hot fresh blood, and then looks up to see the father of the family above the store looking through the window down at the scene, where the muscle meant to scare him is instead dying on his doorstep.

The man looks up and meets Erich’s eyes. 

He, after all, had been told in advance where Erich would be standing.

Merci, the man mouths, tipping his chin down in deference. Merci, monsieur. He doesn’t smile, and Erich doesn’t try to either. They only look at each other. Once upon a time they were the same in more ways than ever they were different. Now, though, one is an inhuman predator, and the other a man who wants only to save his wife and children from the jaws of the beast.

Being a monster doesn’t mean he can’t still do a little good, for as long as Auri will let him, as long as their interest in this game holds.

He pushes himself away from the wall and walks to the storefront, his boots scraping in a whisper against the pavement. Auri looks up at him without letting go of their victim, but their eyes sparkle in a wordless invitation.

Feed with me.

As always, he has found, he can’t quite resist their commands. Not even the wordless ones. He starts walking.

Erich looks up to see the man up above close the curtains again, and knows he’ll move on to the next stage of what they had agreed upon. They’ll line up suitcases by the door, pack everything they need. A very particular vehicle will pull up, and the family will pile inside. By dawn, they will be quit of Paris.

By two days from now, they’ll be on a ship with new names, heading across the ocean. New papers, a new life, paid for by the money Erich takes from the ones he and Auri kill.

He can’t save many - but he can save a few.

He knows what will happen to them, in the end, because he has seen what is happening in Germany. What everyone pretends they don’t know is happening, but they do.

He reaches down and Auri lets go just long enough for him to pull the man, who breathes now in wet gasps as his heart fights to keep beating, close to him. Auri pushes themself up to their feet and presses in on the other side, the man sandwiched between them in their unnatural strength. His hands come up to push weakly at Erich’s chest, he begs in whispered French for mercy.

“Nein,” he whispers in return, and he bites down on the man’s left while Auri digs their fangs back in on the right.

Drinking the last of a life with Auri, his packleader, sends a wave of euphoria down Erich’s spine. They are connected through the veins they drain dry. His knees wobble and he locks them to keep standing, his hands moving, burying themselves in Auri’s hair. He groans, softly, as their hands find his waist in turn, jerking him forward. The man is between them, but still he can’t stop but moan in pleasure.

It’s obscene.

It’s devotion.

They break apart only when the man is wholly and truly dead, and Erich pants softly with breath he hasn’t quite gotten used to not needing, looking at the blood smeared red around Auri’s mouth and finding it beautiful.

It was horrifying, once.

He struggles to remember that, in moments like this.

“I-... I want-”

“I know.” Auri grins, licking their lips until red goes pink and wet, eyes half-closed in their own ecstasy. “Are you satisfied, Erich? We’ve killed another evildoer, are we the angel of death passing doorways marked in blood enough for you?”

“They never said angels were lovely or kind,” Erich says, low and rough, and he grabs their arm and pulls them against him, listening to their laughter before he presses his lips to theirs. Both of them have mouths slick with salt-sweet blood and he licks it off their lips and out of their mouth. He pulls away, jerking them along with him, in love with and loathing them in turn, both at once, the strongest things he has ever felt. 

They make it into an alley before he’s pulling their shirt off over their head. He hears, dimly, the sound of the car pulling up outside the storefront, of the man telling his children not to look at the body as they pile inside. He hears the engine roar as it pulls away, driving off into the night, heading hell for leather for a life that won’t look like this one.

He hopes it works better for them than it did for him.

Auri’s hands push up under his shirt, nails digging into his bare skin, and he tips his head back against the wall. When they bite him, it doesn’t feel like it did when he was living. Their fangs slide in, bury themselves to the hilt, and the venom floods him like a wash of pure and perfect pleasure.

“Please,” He groans. “Please take me.”

Auri is as bright as the sun, full of blood and a force of nature. They pin his wrists above his head, rolling their hips against his.

“Of course,” They murmur. Their lips move against his jaw, where there’s a scar from the war, that he’ll carry for eternity with the others. “Do it again tomorrow?”

“Please,” He whispers. “Yes. Let me help them.”

“My pleasure.” Auri’s mouth moves against his cheek. “Or yours.”

It starts to rain, but neither of them notices. If they did, they wouldn’t care.

-