seeing opeth 1st august

Kairos hadn't chosen to be a vampire, most vampires hadn't. But here he was, his transformation having only been about a week ago, Kairos found himself backstage after the show, gripping the wall with one hand, his side with the other, as a stinging pain of thirst shot through his entire ribcage, the rippling, almost cascading bursts of a sensation that was completely new to him making him feel nauseous.

For an entire week he'd managed to keep quiet. He'd managed not to feed. He'd tried to eat like he did before, sure, but his guts rejected him and his attempts multiple times, so he gave up.

With his hand pressed to his ribs, he could feel them through his shirt, the way they moved in shallow, pained breaths, and the way they stuck out like hungry claws that threatened to tear through his flesh.

Kairos needed to feed. Tonight. Or he wouldn't see the sunrise.

“You good, kid?” he heard Jake's, the frontman of his band, voice echo from somewhere besides him, but everything sounded distant and warped. Kairos nodded and, still under the same, straining ache behind his sternum, he straightened up.

Then he made the mistake of looking at Jake. How long, pale blonde hair stuck to his face with sweat, his eyes wild with adrenaline from the performance, and his neck exposed under the almost blinding lights behind the wings of the stage. Kairos watched, intrigued by the way the muscles in his bandmate's neck shifted and the vessels beneath his skin did too. The tiniest pulse visible from his carotid arteries was enough to make Kairos shiver with desire.

Not for Jake, no, but for his blood.

“Is something wrong?” Jake's voice, so far away, asked, now sounding uncomfortable. “You're glaring at me like you're- I dunno- you that drunk already?”

Kairos managed to tear his eyes off of the untouchable oasis that was his bandmate's throat and look into Jake’s eyes as he spoke: “I'm sorry. I'm just tired. I think I need some air.”

“Are you sure? Do you want someone to come with you?” Jake asked, now sounding worried, or almost pitiful. That tone made Kairos want to retch even more. Constantly was he being treated like a child by the frontman, like something that needed to be calmed or fixed.

He wanted to spit in Jake's face, then bite his neck, the rage and thirst combining inside his core to form a tight, blistering coil, that set his insides aflame even further. Yet Kairos was able to force it down with a smile.

“No- no I'm okay. Don't wait up for me. I'll see you tomorrow at the hotel.” he muttered, fists clenched at his sides, shoulders tensed as he turned to the exit, in front of which three techs were standing talking, without another word to the singer.

Kairos kept his eyes sternly on the floor when walking past the staff up to the door so that he wouldn't find any of them to be as desirable as his friend. He pushed the door open with one arm, the other one gripping his own side again.

He heard one of the techs say something, but barely registered it, stumbling out into the streets of Rome.

“Fuck-” he coughed, tasting his own blood inside his mouth, which somehow made things even worse.

Kairos' vision swam as he felt himself falling sideways right into a lightpost at the crosswalk that would lead him across a busy street.

He needed to feed. And he needed to do so now.

Across the street, he recognized the lights of what must have been a night club of some sorts. Too much neon, too many things visible to the street from the large windows to even comprehend, he could make out leather, velvet and cheap alcohol.

For just a second, he considered his own dignity, then his thirst won, and Kairos ran towards the brothel like it was a temple of a higher power.

He made it about halfway across the street, air burning in his chest, hair tangled in the wind, when Kairos felt himself leave his body for just a brief moment, a feeling he had only felt when he first became a vampire, when he had taken him.

The bones in both his forearm and shoulder gave in with a sickening wet crack that rattled his entire skeleton as the black cab slammed into him and he felt himself getting flung across the road, clothes and skin tearing where he'd skid across the concrete of the street.

He let out a choked gasp as he felt the impact the collision had on his ribs and spine, and for a moment, everything turned white, then fading to shades of light blue that stung in his eyes and his head, then shifting to a variation of purple and green patterns dancing across his vision, he felt nauseous again.

Kairos was fully convinced that he was going to die in that moment or in a few, when he heard a man shouting in Italian. His voice however was drowned out by the ringing the impact left inside his head, Kairos assumed it to be the driver of the car that hit him but he couldn't know for sure.

It was the female voice seemingly right next to his ear, that sent him out of that shock state. “You really are a pathetic excuse for a vampire.”

He whipped his head to where he thought she had spoken from, immediately met with more pain and nausea, but there was no one visible there.

“Come on, get up or this guy is going to call an ambulance.” she hissed flatly, and all of the sudden she stood there, right in front of him, looming over him, one hand extended to offer him help.

And she was beautiful. Long, pitchblack hair flowing down to her hips, sharp green eyes piercing his and a pair of large fangs peeking out from her plump, dark, bordeaux red lips. The dress she wore, black like her hair, tightly hugging her athletic looking figure, ending only short above her knees shifted in the broken shine of the streetlights and accumulated traffic like a sea of silk and stars as she moved her pale-skinned arm in an impatient manner.

“Get up. Now.” she commanded, her eyes widening to an impossible size that made her look even more unreal, her pupils turning to endless spirals within the bright, verdant green, and Kairos felt compelled to obey.

When he pushed himself up with one arm, or tried to, he let out a wail of pain as his broken ribs and bones protested, sending a wave of pain shooting through his arm and side. He felt tears sprout from his eyes and let out another strangled noise between clenched teeth when he pulled himself up with her very impatient help.

“Satana, aren't you a whiny one.” she scoffed, gripping his arm as he stood. He felt her squeeze at his biceps. “Well, not built badly though.” she noted.

“I- ah- I think- fuck- I'm dying-” Kairos sobbed through pain as she dragged him across the rest of the road, still hazy and in disbelief how any of this was possible, surely he was already-

“You're a vampire. You're essentially immortal.” she sighed.

Kairos stumbled, his right leg giving out, but the stranger kept her grip on him tight enough to pull him with her, up onto the sidewalk, where she let go and Kairos collapsed with another sob.

“Oh, calm yourself. We'll have that fixed in no time.” she muttered, turning towards the street and towards the shocked people who had gathered around.

The stranger raised both of her hands, long, almost claw like, perfectly manicured black nails, seemingly weaving a dark red glow out of thin air.

Kairos, cowering on the floor, clutching his ribs, watched almost in awe as a net-like, bordeaux colored weave began to extend from her hands to the cars, to the people, who just stood and watched in confusion, to the buildings around them, engulfing the entire street with her magic.

“It's not magic, my dear. It's magick.” she turned around again, and behind her, the car disappeared, the crowd went back to going about their night and it was like the crash had never happened in the first place.

“What?” Kairos managed. “You- read my mind?”

“Yes, silly. And I'm not using “magic”.” she rolled her eyes. “Magic is for little kids at the carnival. It's performative. Vampires don't use magic.”

Vampires.

“Yes, we both are, and you're pretty bad at being one seeing how you almost got yourself scrambled trying to find a hooker to suck on.” she scoffed.

Even in his haze of pain and thirst, Kairos couldn't help but notice how beautiful the other vampire was. Her sharp cheekbones, dark eyes and amused grin. The way she stood so confidently in front of him, her arms crossed over her chest, with her long, black hair blowing in the wind behind her.

“Well-” she chuckled, obviously still reading his mind. “We should get you out of here so you don't starve.”

“I- I think- ah- I need a hospital or something-” Kairos winced, and technically he wasn't wrong.

“Oh, don't worry, you'll feel a lot better once you feed.” she smiled. “Give me your hand.”

Kairos obliged and held out his non-injured hand to her and she took it, her grip tight and firm.

“My name is Saphira.” she smiled.

Saphira.

Even her name was beautiful.

“I- I'm uh-” Kairos started.

“I know who you are.” she rolled her eyes. “Now let's go.”

She muttered some sort of an incantation, which Kairos could only assume must have been Latin, still holding his hand and the lights went out.

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

When he opened his eyes again, Kairos found himself in a completely different place. His vision started to adapt to the darkness of his surroundings, something he'd found worked way better now that he was a vampire, and he recognized the shape of some sort of an altar.

He'd found himself in a cathedral.

The vampire wasn't holding his hand anymore, instead her eyes were shut as she sat next to him on the pews, her hands not folded, like Christian people would pray, but holding the “Solve et coagula.” pose. Two fingers extended to the sky, two towards the ground at her sides.

As above, so below.

He watched and admired her for a minute, before his injuries reminded him of their existence and he heard himself let out a helpless whimper.

She opened her eyes, green marbles meeting his brown ones.

“You're a strong one, y'know that?” she smiled, turning closer towards him. “You haven't once fed since you were taken.”

Kairos didn't reply, he couldn't, not with the pain in his ribs and not with the overwhelming sensation of thirst he got as his eyes drifted to her neck.

Could vampires even feed on other vampires?

“We very much can. And that's the plan. But what's in it for me?” she chuckled, coming even closer, one hand now resting on Kairos' thigh.

“No- I don't-” he stopped himself, feeling heat creep into his face, he locked his eyes on the altar, on anything but her body.

A gigantic stained glass window that probably depicted some kind of story from the Bible that he didn't know, loomed over it, turning the dim moonlight from outside into an odd shimmer that coated the entire inside of the cathedral.

“You don't what? Want to feed? So you want to starve instead? Go on then. I'll have my fun with you one way or another.” she grinned.

“No- please- please-” Kairos heard himself plead, looking back at her. She was so beautiful. She was unlike any woman he'd ever seen. “Please let me feed-” he whispered.

A satisfied grin spread across her dark red lips and her fangs glinted in the pale light. She reached for the collar of his already partially torn shirt and began to open it. As she did, eventually yanking the blood-stained, black fabric off, their surroundings seemed to shift again and Kairos found himself on a bed. The silky, black sheets embracing him as she pushed him backwards against the pillows.

The vampire crawled on-top of him, her thighs bracketing his waist, as she leaned down and smiled. “Here, feed, my love.” she cooed, holding her wrist up to him.

Kairos didn't hesitate, he sank his own, way shorter fangs into her pale skin and he drank. As the bitter taste of blood filled his mouth, he let out a whimper. He felt his bones ripple, his muscles twitch as the damage that would have probably taken years to recover from disappeared on itself.

“Aren't you a hungry one.” she chuckled, brushing a strand of dark brown hair away from his face with her other hand, completely unfazed by Kairos still sucking at her wrist.

Kairos didn't reply, instead he kept drinking, feeling his heart beat faster and his thoughts clear up, until he felt her grinding against him.

“You're a really pretty one, y'know that?” she smiled, running her index finger across his chest, down to his hips across lean muscle.

Kairos finally let go of her wrist, feeling full and satisfied in a way he never had before.

“I-” he gasped as she ran her claws across the skin of his arm, the prickly sensation sending a shiver down his spine. “Thank you.” he whispered.

“Oh I'm sure you get that all the time.” she grinned.

“No- I mean for that.” he replied, wiping at the corner of his mouth with his other hand, where a bit of her blood had smudged.

“Well, you owe me now. This is the fun part.” she smirked, cupping his jaw with one hand, still hovering on-top of him.

Kairos swallowed. Never had someone so attractive been this close to him.

“I- what exactly-” he gave an awkward laugh as she reached for his belt with her other hand.