#hatbox vampires

Your pulse point glitters under your skin, thumping rapidly like the fluttering of a small bird, betraying your fear.

“Just one taste…” he murmurs, lowering his head, knowing in his heart of hearts that he’s lying.

Sweet, warm blood floods into his mouth. You moan, out of pain or pleasure, Phainon can’t tell. He sucks, drawing more into his mouth, and you feel a dizziness - then nothing.

Your hands on his shoulders slacken. The rush of endorphins dims the pain, sends the whole room swaying and shimmering around you.

You stroke the nape of Phainon neck. Yes, this was fine, your boyfriend was secretly a vampire, you’d feed him, you didn’t mind. Something about it felt so good, so warm and fuzzy inside…

Phainon purrs, low and rich, swiping his tongue over the wound to encourage it to close. Maybe he should drink from you more often.

Mydeimos

“You’re allowed to drink from me, you know.”

Mydei looks up, eyeing you warily. “What?”

"You." You point at him. "You're allowed to drink. From me."

He scoffs. "I heard you the first time."

But then he has nothing else to say. You couldn't be serious, could you? Not when vampires were on such flimsy standing in society right now. Besides, the last time vampires drank from humans was millennia ago, and he didn't know how your body might respond. Mydeimos was deathly afraid of hurting you.

"I know your usual blood banks are all closing, and there's only so long you can make a few bags of blood last. When you run out, I'm just saying. You can drink from me."

"But-" He swallows. You made it sound so easy, to sink his fangs into your soft neck, to break skin, to have the taste of you flood into his mouth like heaven on earth. He shakes his head sharply. "It's going to hurt," he finishes lamely.

"No, actually!" You wiggle closer to him, showing him something on your screen. "There are some underground groups that still protect vampires. They said that it doesn't hurt too much - it just feels good. Something about endorphins?"

"Uh huh." Mydei wets his lips when you aren't watching. In truth, it'd been longer than you probably thought since he last drank in an effort to ration his stores. No one knew how long this red scare would last, and Mydei especially didn't want to leave you vulnerable to get hurt by periphery.

His point being, with you sitting this close, talking about blood, offering him to take yours, was tempting him more than he wanted to admit. And by tempting, he meant that his fangs were already beginning to prick at his lower lip, his mouth watering. The way the lights were beginning to grow brighter and diffuse around the edges-

"Fuck," he hisses. If he looked into the mirror now, Mydei knew he'd see his pupils expanded, like a cat's, his eyes a molten gold.

You look up at him and smile.

"Don't- uff." You lower yourself into his lap. Even as Mydei turns his face away, his arms come around your waist instinctively. "Please. I don't want to hurt you."

"You're not going to hurt me. C'mon."

You grip his chin gently. And with little resistance, Mydei turns back to look at you.

It was true, with your neck at his eye level, the slow thud-thud of your heart pushing all that fresh blood through your veins shimmered temptingly under your skin. You radiate heat like a small star. One of your hands twine its fingers with his.

"Come on, Dei. Just a taste." You tilt your head, exposing your neck, tugging the collar of your shirt down.

Mydei leans forward and sinks his teeth into your collarbone.

He doesn't want to allow himself to bite too deep, so he picks a spot near the bone. Still, the rush of heady warmth into his mouth is so... so...

His thoughts spiral away.

Mydei tugs you close. You make a sound of surprise, resting a hand on his shoulder. He's burning up, but so are you. You let your eyes flutter shut, feeling the rhythmic sucking of his lips at your skin, letting the endorphins hush the momentary pain.

Afterward, if he'd have to describe the sensation, Mydei would privately consider it receiving an orgasm and a massage from you all at once. Outwardly he'd tell you "It was fine."

Aventurine

He lies prone on top of you, using his arms to prop himself up, breathing slowly and deeply, letting your scent pass over the roof of his mouth.

"You're very cuddly today," you laugh, wiggling to try and get comfortable under his weight.

"Yeah. Cause you're my angel." He kisses you, again, squeezing your sides so you squeal.

These sessions were weekly, regular things where you let Aventurine drink from you. Just often enough to stave off the hunger, not too often that your health took a turn for the worse. And though Aventurine had already been in love with you, he'd fallen even deeper since your bloodletting, if it was possible.

"Alright. Enough playing," he breathes.

He sinks his teeth into the place where your neck and shoulder meet, relishing your slow, full-bodied shudder. Each time was just as good as the first - sweet, syrupy blood flowing easily from your bite. You were forcing yourself to relax despite the natural instinct to fight back, and Aventurine appreciated that, because there was nothing more painful than trying to release a victim who was all tensed up around his fangs.

He strokes up and down your sides, feeling you turn into jelly under his touch. Aventurine pulls his fangs out, laps over the wound, and bites down again on your opposite collarbone.

"I'm sorry you can't drink from me for a while," you tell Mydei. You're melted on the couch, too tired to really do anything.

He pads around the room. Like this, no one would ever guess that Mydei is anything but a regular human. Sometimes you wonder how afraid he must be, with the sudden resurgence of anti-vampire sentiments, but then again it doesn’t seem like Mydei is afraid of anything. Angry, maybe. But never afraid. “Don’t apologise for something you have no control over.”

He fetches some blankets and a glass of water. “Here. Drink up.” He tucks you in while you drink obediently. It’s warm. He’d mixed in some vitamin powder too, a habit Mydei had picked up when you once complained about falling sick too often.

Aventurine: plays with you about it

When he sidles up to you on the couch, you already know what nonsense Aventurine is about to pull again.

“No,” you sigh, trying to push him away. It has about as much effect as pushing against a boulder. “C’mon, Aven.”

“Aww.” He pouts, resting his body weight on top of yours. You have to admit, it feels kind of nice, his warmth against your sore abdomen. “But I’m hungry.”

“No you’re not. You just fed two days ago- ugh.” Aventurine pushes his nose into your jaw, forcing you to tip your head back and expose your neck. “I’m serious, Aventurine. No biting.”

“Relax.” He strokes your hair back from your face, then closes his teeth into your throat.

You wait to feel the prick of fangs.

Aventurine draws back, smiling. “I’m kidding, sweetheart. I’d never do that to you.”

He wonders who came up with the myth that vampires didn’t have reflections. They’d lied, evidently. His reflection glares back at him with its sallow cheeks, sunken eyes, skin with its appalling pallor. Dan Heng lies, curled up on his mattress, breathing shallowly.

It’s been too long since he'd had last fed. And Heng was expiring at an alarming pace.

This wouldn’t have been a problem if he’d rationed his blood properly. Or if he’d ordered more. Or if he’d thought ahead. All things you'd probably say to him if you knew the state he was in.

He shakes himself metaphorically. Come back to yourself. Conserve your energy. As if thinking too much would deliver him more quickly into Thanatos’ jaws.

He thinks of you. Oh, how worried you must be for him, trawling all the local hospitals for his name. He’d told you that he was severely unwell and it’d be a while until you could see him again. By the time you found him his secret would likely be out, but then he’d already be dead anyway. He wouldn’t have to feel guilt for your grief that way.

How horrible I’ve gotten. Dan Heng lets his eyes flutter shut. And he still had the gall to hallucinate your voice for his own comfort…

No. He forces his eyes open again. That wasn’t a hallucination. He struggles, summoning strength to his body.

“Get out.” The words tumble weakly from his mouth as you throw his door open, taking in the curtains drawn tight, the water cup gathering dust on the dresser, his ailing figure on the bed.

“Dan Heng.” You rush to his side. He can’t be sure if you hadn’t heard him or if you just didn’t care. Likely the latter. “What’s going on?”

You know what’s going on. The words fail him. In fact, all language fails him as the scent of fresh blood slams into him like a wall. His muscles flood with new strength.

The next moment you’re beneath him. Your mouth is moving urgently, your eyes wide with fear. The words fall on deaf ears. Dan Heng can feel his fangs pressing into his bottom lip.

He sinks his teeth into your throat.

There’s nothing gentle about this, no thoughtfulness about where he bites. Dan Heng bites into your carotid artery, and the rush of sweet blood brings back his senses.

You’re crying out, thrashing in his bruising grip.

“Dan Heng,” you cry. “Please.”

He hoists the body over his shoulder, willfully uncaring of the passers-by skirting around him on the pavement. Let them fear, he thought to himself. Let them see. This is the vengeance Boothill would bring down on those filthy, worthless creatures.

Because what could ever bring him closer to bringing his little girl back from the dead?

He shakes his head, tossing the body into the open boot. He'd given those muddle-fudging thoughts their time. If they wanted to get him again, they'd have to catch him first.

The sticky city air whisks his hair away from his face. Boothill whistles a jaunty, tuneless handful of notes. Perhaps he'd stop by the office district just to see you. The thought has the corner of his lips quirking upwards like a ditzy teenage girl.

Boothill would be hard-pressed to even begin why he'd picked you out from the crowd. Perhaps it was something about your energy, or your hair, or your dress. To the indiscernible eye, you would've been just another member of the workforce on the street, with your crisply pressed shirts gone limp by the end of a work day.

But there was something about you that glittered, like the promise of an uncut gem under all that rough. And Boothill liked rough. But he liked shiny things more.

He pulls to a stop by the pavement. Your office building towers before him, all glass and lights like every other office building around it. It was around now you'd be getting off work.

Boothill fingers the trinket he'd nabbed from the corpse, turning it over and over, imagining you holding that same trinket in your uncalloused hands. He'd taken care to polish the blood from it before it could dry, but - he brought it to his nose - the scent of vampire still lingered. He wrinkles his nose.

It'd have to do. It wasn't right to show up to a lady's doorstep without a gift.

He drums his fingers on the door, and nearly misses the scent that passes him by in the crowd.

Vampire.

All the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Boothill sits up pencil-straight. Not here, not now. Irrationally, he thinks, are they here for you?

It takes another heartbeat for him to pick out the figure. It isn't difficult, considering his significant larger frame than the rest of the caffiene-addled crowd. Yellow hair tapering to red at the ends. Boothill narrows his eyes. This one isn't on his files.

And- is that-

You appear down the steps, and your face lights up. No. No. No.

It becomes increasingly clear who you're beelining towards as the vampire gets closer, and embraces you in a hug. And as if to rub salt into the wound, he cups your cheek and presses a light kiss on your lips.

The pendant snaps in his fist.

Boothill was on the hunt once more.