Archive of Our Own

There's blood on his hands. It isn't his own.

The tap spews crystal over his palms, scarlet trickling down the drain in a steady stream, so fast and yet almost too slow. Tiny pinpricks of agony erupt all over his palms as he scrubs at his flesh until his fingers bruise red, but nothing but pain springs free from the wounds. It's not his blood. Hanbin knows that all too well.

His head hurts. Burns. He presses one damp fingertip to his forehead without thinking, mentally chastising himself when it leaves a spot of ruby behind. That goes into the sink too, crimson spilling down the drain and washing all his sins away. His hands sting. If he looks closer, they morph into claws.

This isn't the first time.

They say he's remarkably controlled for one of those things. That he keeps himself in check more than wolves should be able to manage. Hanbin knows that. It's how he can count the number of people who know what he truly is on one hand.

Hao is not one of them.

Hanbin stares into the mirror. It stares back, fractured in the middle, shards of broken glass scattered around the sink. A kaleidoscope of reflections peer at him, red-wine facets tinted vermillion at the edges. Hanbin wants to believe that he'd punched it. Hanbin wants to believe that's where all the blood comes from. Hanbin knows that isn't true.

You're fine now, he tells himself. And for a moment, he is. In the shattered remnants of their bathroom mirror, he can make out his placid brown eyes, the whisker-like dimples in his cheeks, a scattering of barely-there stubble from not being human enough to shave. But slowly, surely, his reflection changes, fur scattering across his features, teeth lengthening in a scowl, irises burning scarlet. Once a month. Just once a month. But that's all it takes.

The hallucinations are almost worse than the turning itself, the crack of bones shifting and the slipping of control nothing compared to those precious moments of coherency, so few and far between, when he wakes up to Hao beneath him, spread along his fingers as he sinks his claws into his lover's ribs and pulls---only to find himself wide-eyed and alone in an empty bed, blood staining his hands and his mind as he slips back into all the phases of the moon. And if Hanbin peers into the mirror, he can see the red of his eyes. The jut of his jaw. The ripple of something beneath his skin. Dark. Powerful. Evil.

He turns the tap off. With his hands pristine once more, red from nothing but his furious scrubbing, it's almost too easy to believe that Hanbin had never changed at all. That he is still in control, as he always is.

But there's blood in the sink. It isn't his own.

Clean fingers pinching the side of his temples, Hanbin tries to remember the events of the night before. Everything is hazy. Out of focus. Nothing but a blur. It's okay, he tells himself. You didn't leave the house. You were locked inside. And when Taerae leads Hao away by the arm, chains the door with silver, and chokes down the key, Hanbin knows the only thing getting hurt is their furniture. And Hao will return, as he always does, to a scratched up house, where the only thing he knows is that his boyfriend is different. Because Hao never asks. Hanbin never tells.

"Bin?" Hao's voice is slurred with sleep as Hanbin stumbles into their bedroom. On the nightstand, the clock reads 03:30 in bright green flashes. For a moment, Hanbin's heart grinds to a halt.

Why's he here?

Just before the monthly day from hell, Hanbin always gets Taerae to take Hao out. To get him away from the creature his boyfriend never fails to become. But he's here. He's not with Taerae. He's in their bed, dark hair spread around his face like a halo, pillow marks still scuffing his cheeks. Hanbin just turned back half an hour ago.

The hallucinations are the worst part of it all. But Hao isn't a hallucination. Because Hanbin's hallucinations are violent, macabre dreams of reaching into Hao's chest and pulling out his still-beating heart from between his ribs. They have him crushing Hao's head in his hands, clawing his eyeballs right out of his skull, flaying him alive as he screams for help that will never come.

This isn't violent. It's...peaceful, almost.

His eyes rove over Hao's stirring form. No blood. Just the peek of his defined collarbones from beneath the white shirt he's wearing---Hanbin's shirt---as he stretches coyly, letting the silky fabric slip off his shoulders with a coquettish smile.

Hanbin's heart falls back into his chest. Hao's here. Unhurt. Safe. It doesn't matter whose blood that had been, because it hadn't been Hao's. Because he's in their bed, looking like the prettiest thing Hanbin will ever see, and nothing else matters. Nothing else matters except Hao.

"Hi," Hanbin greets as Hao reaches out, tugging him into bed with an inviting grin. He slots himself between Hao's bare thighs, dots a gentle kiss to the mole right beneath his eye. "I missed you."

"Not as much as I missed you," Hao breathes as Hanbin pushes his shirt down his shoulders and gently nips at the flawless skin beneath. His breath catches in his throat, hitching wildly at the sight of Hao completely naked, fair skin an endless swath of milky white, an empty canvas just begging to be painted.

"So, are you ever going to tell me what you do whenever Taerae kidnaps me, or---" Hao starts, words cutting themselves off in a strangled gasp when Hanbin pushes his thighs open wider, fingers pressing and prodding and spreading him apart. He trails kisses down Hao's chest, down his stomach, marking violet into the jutting curve of his sharp hipbones.

"Maybe someday." It's a lie. Because Hao never asks. Hanbin never tells.

His teeth feel heavy in his mouth. A shade too sharp. Hanbin brushes the thought away as he lets Hao take him to the sky.