#vampire!todoroki

@subzerobigbang weekly challenge #8

Themes: Secrets, Smoke, Magic, Vampires

An AU where they're both vampires, but katsuki was born one and ended up turning shouto. This was intended to be more romantic but it ended up dumb because that's just who I am as a person.

A multi-fandom Fictober prompt compilation.  Your wish is my command, but be careful what you ask for.  You just might get it.

For @teaplease1717

Prompt:  “Vampire” from Writetober 2019 Prompt List

Fandom:  Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia

Relationship/Pairing:  Todoroki Shouto/Yaoyorozu Momo

Genre:  Romance, Historical AU

Rating:  Teen And Up Audiences

Word Count:  986 words

Read on AO3

They say monsters exist only in fairy tales, but Momo has always had an eye for creatures that hide in plain sight. She catches a glimpse of him across the candlelit dance floor and follows, setting aside her glass as if the wine turned suddenly to water. Despite the ornate masks and excessive plumage of the masquerade ball, there is no mistaking Shouto’s otherworldly countenance. His mismatched eyes and hair are poorly concealed by his dark costume, but perhaps it is the very act of not wanting to been seen that makes the memory of him transparent in other’s minds.

Momo could not forget Shouto if she tried. They’ve been dancing in the dark for years now, a sultry tango predicated on a word whispered in the shadows of high society:  Vampire.

He catches her as she turns a corner in the garden, and but for the finger pressed to her lips, she would have yelped in surprise. Momo’s dark eyes flutter shut as she takes in his scent. Her fingers intertwine themselves in the fine hair at the nape of his neck as his hand caresses the curve of her hips, sliding upward to rest at her waist.

“Where have you been?” she asks, too loudly for his liking. “I was worried. It’s been weeks.”

“Away,” he explains vaguely, eyes shifting to and fro. The frown on his lips is palpable, but his words ring true. “I have missed you, Signorina Yaoyorozu. Though you should be running from me, not to me.”

Undeterred, Momo leans into his touch as the fingers which quieted her lips trail across her cheek to cup her face. Where a fire seems to burn over every inch of the young woman’s skin, his touch is cold and hard. Momo’s chest falls and rises within the corseted costume she wears, white as light to offset his dark. She presses herself against him but does not hope for the telltale tick-tock of a beating heart. That longing left her not long after their affair started -- when she first became aware of his true nature.

“You must be hungry,” she whispers into his ear, without precaution or preamble.

Momo draws her hands behind her head to unclasp her black choker. The velvety fabric falls to reveal two neat puncture marks, red-rimmed and scabbed but otherwise clean and stuck somewhere between healing and scarring. Rather than excited, Shouto seems to resent the sight, and the eager grin fades from Momo’s face.

“I’m sorry,” she says, stumbling over her words. She cannot deny that she has craved the feeling of his lips on her neck, sucking at the flesh and drawing out her life force. While there is violence in the way he feeds, there is also pleasure and intimacy -- moans that rattle in her throat as her senses dull, shutting out the world and halting the passage of time. “Isn’t this what you came for? To feed?”

Shouto stares at her quizzically, and Momo can see the gears turning in his mind, testing an idea that he is hesitant to speak into being. Behind her mask, Momo blushes. She fastens the choker as fast as her fumbling fingers will allow and adjusts the band to cover his mark.

“We cannot continue like this,” Shouto states with unreadable intonation.

Momo’s heart sinks. She tries to pull him out toward the light, to enjoy a dance or walk amongst the crowd if only for a moment. But Shouto is unmoved, a perfect statue of a human being decked out in his finery.

“I will come to you soon,” he says, heterochromatic eyes flashing silver and turquoise from the cover of the shadows. Momo doesn’t believe him, but he is gone before she can protest.

...

Momo is lovely in her best dress. Exquisite fabric, the color of spun sunshine, pours down her sides, and her bodice is not without compliment, showcasing an elegant coupling of decorative cords and pearls. Yet, as her handmaiden ties the last ribbon on her sleeve, Momo’s frown deepens. Her eyes remain downcast as she descends the staircase.

She supposes she is lucky to be betrothed to a count, but given the opportunity, she would gladly have escaped alongside Shouto.

“Momo!” Her father’s voice fills the high ceiling of their small ballroom, beckoning her downward to meet her fate. A Yaoyorozu to her core, Momo is poised even as she feels the weight of the future settle squarely on her shoulders.

At the base of the landing, Her mother draws near, pulling Momo toward her fiance and whispering words of wisdom in her ear. “Greet your future husband, dear. He is foreign, but I think you’ll find him most agreeable.”

Momo’s solemn eyes flit upward, and she is immediately confronted by familiar shades of gray and blue. Before her stands Count Todoroki, or so her father proclaims. He is a little-known nobleman who made his fortune in trade and other such commerce. Her father explains that he suffers from a rare illness which obliges him to shy away from public life, but Momo is no longer listening.

With barely contained joy, her onyx eyes trace the outline of his strong jaw and the slicked-back ends of his red and white hair. She notes the peculiar way he’s pulled the corners of his mouth over a pair of sharp fangs and blushes when she notices that he regards her with the same passion. Before her father can utter another word, Count Todoroki grasps his intended’s hand and presses the smooth back to his cold lips. The shiver which runs the length of Momo’s spine has little to do with the temperature.

“Have faith in me, la mia bella principessa?” he whispers in flawless Italian. “It is not your blood that I want.”

Whether he is a man or a monster, Momo decides that she will love Shouto until her heart stops.

And possibly thereafter.