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Water drips down the stone walls and splashes beneath his feet as Till gingerly makes his way down the slimy, slippery steps. He keeps one hand braced against the wall, nails digging into the softened stone and moss — having survived multiple vampire hunts, it would be a blow to his pride to slip and break his neck on a flight of old stairs. Cold fog rises to greet him as he descends into the dark, rolling over Till’s skin like an icy breath. Faint spells pulse beneath his feet, flaring red in warning.
There is a vampire in the basement of the vampire hunters’ headquarters, and no one seems to know but Till. The entrance had been bricked off and the odd dead end hallway converted into a storage room where old weapons and moldy papers piled up; Till had found the place by accident, when looking for a loose brick to pry open and stash his secret treasures.
As Till reaches the final step, the vampire looks up. Glowing red eyes fix on him.
Till's lip curls as he glares defiantly back. After being trapped here for so long, it was a surprise Ivan hasn’t grown mold or mushrooms or something; his face, while pale and sickly-looking, looks pretty clean for someone who hasn’t had a bath in centuries. The arms chained behind his back still possess muscle tone, and Till is even willing to bet —only a little, obviously— that the hair reaching Ivan's waist doesn’t even have split ends.
Ivan smiles at him. “Missed me?”
—
Time means very little to the undead and less than nothing to one trapped as Ivan is. His body, driven by some self-preservation instinct, kept him in a near-death state, decades passing by as nothing more than a blink between flashes of lucidity. He gauges time by the slowly decaying spells keeping him confined; it has been at least eighty years since someone last renewed them.
He is nonetheless pleased to note that Till looks relatively unchanged since the last time they saw each other. Ivan traces his features greedily, taking in the length of Till's hair and the new sharpness to Till's cheeks. Color is impossible to make out in the dark, hunters and vampires having little need for things like lanterns, but Ivan regrets not being able to see Till's eyes in the light.
Till's face scrunches like he’s smelled something unpleasant. “Stop doing that,” he says, breaking eye contact first. His hand clenches and unclenches on the hilt of the sharp knife strapped so fetchingly to his thigh. Till looks more nervous than Ivan has ever seen him —and Ivan drew blood on their first meeting. His intrigue grows. Till is just so —full of interesting things. Ivan wishes to pull them out of him one by one. The desire is urgent, as few things are, and grows with every encounter and every indeterminable length of time spent apart; Till’s mortal lifespan is only so long, and Ivan intends to enjoy him thoroughly.
“I’m hurt,” Ivan purrs. The chains rattle above his head as he shifts position. “I thought humans engaged in intercourse out of interest in the other party –unless it isn’t my scintillating conversational skills you keep returning for…” He lets his gaze rake over Till’s body, and Till’s lip curls in disgust. So reactive.
“You’re covered in dirt.”
“That isn’t a no.”
“We’re not even friends,” Till insists, forcibly changing the subject. He swallows, squaring his shoulders. His expression hardens as he takes a deep breath and pulls something out of a pouch. “Do you know what this is?”
Ivan does. The collar and its embedded enchantments were being developed when he last roamed free, inspired by the vampire’s ability to compel their prey –it looks like the design no longer exists as mere theory. When Till clenches his fist around it, the enchantments glow briefly. It’s enough. Ivan’s starved senses seize the opportunity.
Till’s eyes are green.
He’s talking again. “You might be a bag of skin and bones, but I can’t have an ancient vampire on the loose,” he says. Ivan doesn’t understand why Till is explaining himself when Ivan is strung up and at his mercy. Till puzzles him, and he ponders this as Till rambles on about Mizi, Sua and how she has apparently gone missing after a routine hunt, the hushed cover-up in the aftermath and Till’s helplessness as a novice hunter. Essentially, Till wants to compel Ivan to help him.
“Till,” Ivan says, interrupting him. Till’s eyes snap to his face warily. Ivan tips his chin up, exposing his throat to the hunter. He smiles. He’s captured Till’s full attention. He shapes his words carefully, persuasively. “Why are you hesitating?”
Till shudders. His head dips in a nod. With the collar grasped tight in his hands, he shuffles towards Ivan, eyes dull and unfocused. His hands tremble as he unclasps the collar and brings it closer and closer to Ivan’s exposed neck, kneeling to reach Ivan’s position on the ground.
He freezes.
Excitement races through Ivan’s torpid blood. Till has some talent, to resist his enthrallment after only a handful of encounters –but it’s too late. Several things happen in quick succession. Till flinches back as Ivan jerks forward and sinks his teeth into Till’s shoulder. Till’s dagger finds its way into Ivan’s side as blood spills rich and bright into Ivan’s mouth. Ivan licks his lips. His vision goes as white as if he’d been suddenly exposed to afternoon sunlight, the taste of Till exploding across his tongue. It is like plunging a cold-numbed extremity in scalding water. It’s ecstasy.
The weight of the spells keeping him confined lessens by half. Bones crack and flesh rends as Ivan’s arm drops limp by his side, free of its shackle –
But he doesn’t need it. He pushes Till to the ground with his weight, the hunter flailing, kicking out, feet slipping against the wet and unforgiving ground as he tries to recover. Till is warm beneath him, warm and vibrantly full of life; Ivan can hear the blood sliding in his veins and threading through his capillaries. He presses his face against the crook of Till’s neck and breathes him in as Till struggles and curses. When Till tries to throw him off, Ivan presses in closer. The dagger falls again. It glances off his spine, the blow incapacitating for a human, but trivial to one like Ivan. He laughs at the sting before sealing his mouth over Till’s bleeding shoulder.
The feeding is messy. Wet sounds layer over the noises stifled in Till’s throat as Ivan sucks at his clavicle, lips and teeth and tongue ministering to the raw sore edges of the wound, jealously keeping each precious drop of blood from the open air. He keeps Till pinned, bearing down when Till tries to wriggle free from underneath his body. A shaky hand gropes over Ivan’s back, searching for the dagger still buried there. Till twists the knife before he stabs him again.
Blood wets Ivan’s back. Ivan really must admire the hunter’s stubbornness, struggling and resisting for so long; working himself up only drives the venom more thoroughly through Till’s body. He watches, fondly, as a flush decorates Till’s face and neck, spreading with tantalizing slowness beyond the collar of his shirt. Ivan can hear him panting, hear his heart beating faster, track how his pupils grow fat in the darkness. He hasn’t let go of his dagger, clutching it desperately even as he tilts his head and lets Ivan suckle bruises into his neck. He moans when Ivan bites over his collarbone, teasing him really, with a scrape of his sharp fangs over Till’s skin. A hand fists weakly in Ivan’s hair and tries to tug him away. Ivan, obliging, goes.
Till is aroused. His skin tastes faintly of salt; Till is sweating despite the cold, his core burning hot when Ivan presses his thigh against him. Ivan’s hand twitches as he directs his energy towards repairing his mangled arm, sitting back on his heels and hauling the hunter into his lap. Till falls weakly against his chest, drooling into Ivan’s shoulder and mouthing curses. His head turns, exposing a sliver of his face. Ivan watches his eyelashes flutter wildly, Till fighting blurry-eyed against the aphrodisiac effects of his bite to look around.
“What are you doing this for?” Ivan wonders, petting the slippery skin at the dip of Till’s spine. He pries open Till’s grip and forces his fingers between Till’s, pulling their joined hands away from the dagger and up over Ivan’s heart. Till’s fingers curl weakly against the fabric of Ivan’s shirt. “You should have aimed here when I attacked you,” he lectures. Not that it would have helped Till —there is a reason Ivan was locked down here— but Till hadn’t tried, risking his life instead to merely wound Ivan.
Till is rubbing himself against Ivan’s thigh with fitful, reluctant jerks of his hips. His actions pause. “Told…you…” Till mumbles, furrowing his brows. “Fuck.” Ivan takes a moment to recall —ah, Mizi. This is, Ivan decides, not a conversation he wishes to have right now, when Till is barely clinging to coherency. The scent of fresh blood fills the air as Till bites his tongue. He’s rallying.
Ivan holds him by the hip and guides Till, whimpering, into a rougher rhythm, until tears soak Till’s lashes — Till maintains the pace when Ivan removes his hand, chasing his completion with lips parted and tears rolling down his cheek. His face crumples when Ivan pulls him up and away, hips bucking ineffectually in the air and squirming as he tries to bear down. Ivan doesn’t leave him wanting long. Till moans with relief when Ivan cups his cunt through the soaked fabric of his pants and grinds himself against Ivan’s palm. Convenience and the cold have Ivan ripping through the seam and pushing aside Till’s underwear instead of stripping Till of his pants and having him on his back; instead, Till bruises his knees riding Ivan’s fingers until his wobbling legs give out and he falls with a yelp. Till’s hole clenches around Ivan as his own weight forces Ivan’s fingers deeper. He comes. The smell of his satisfaction and the sound of his hummingbird heart set Ivan’s blood on fire.
Till shrieks when Ivan sinks his fangs into his neck and pulls another orgasm from him too fast, squirting over Ivan’s lap as Ivan laps up his blood and swallows it into his stomach with the tears now dripping from Till’s chin. He lavishes Till with attention through the sobbing aftermath of his orgasm, rubbing his dripping folds and swollen clit in equal measure. Till protests, hand coming down to hide his pussy as he rises off Ivan’s lap; metal groans and something pops as Ivan’s arm —and the shackle with it— comes free from the wall. The chains rattle as they drag across the floor when Ivan reaches out and locks his other arm around Till’s waist, keeping him on Ivan’s thighs. Ivan persuades him into coming again and again, Till whining high in his throat as Ivan wrings them from his tired body. He only stops when Till collapses, whimpering softly and too exhausted to do anything but twitch when Ivan plays with his dripping hole, Till’s inner thighs trembling uncontrollably.
With the hunter limp in his lap, Till’s breath rolling in soft, hot puffs against his neck, and the spells keeping him confined broken, Ivan contemplates his next move.
—
The first taboo of a vampire hunter is to put too much weight into what is and isn’t human. Vampires aren’t like other monsters, it’s true, but that only meant a vampire hunter shouldn’t cling too tightly to humanity either, if they wanted to stake something that walked and talked like people do, or something like that. The lessons never stuck.
Lightheaded and dizzy from blood loss, Till thinks that he probably messed up years ago, when he reached out and touched Ivan’s face to check if he was still alive. He doesn’t regret coming back, even if there was only a slim chance that Ivan could help him. He tried. And Ivan is unpredictable; Till can’t help feeling more and more hopeful, as he continues to not be dead and only deeply humiliated, shifting uneasily in Ivan’s lap trying to find a perch that isn’t damp with his own cum. He closes his eyes, face pressed into Ivan’s cold chest, fingers twitching as he tries to make a fist. Vampire bites are paralytic. And an aphrodisiac. His body still feels hot.
Till’s slowing heart rate picks up again when he feels Ivan shifting beneath him, his muscles tensing as he prepares to deal with whatever Ivan plans to do next—
He feels something cold and metallic pressing into his palm. It’s stamped with sigils and hums at his touch. His eyes fly open.
The vampire regards him with open amusement.
“What the hell are you playing at?” Till mutters, rubbing his thumb over the raised lines of the collar which started this whole mess. Ivan laughs, lifting Till’s tingling arm up and biting down on his fingertip hard enough to draw blood.
“Drip our blood on it,” Ivan coaxes, moving as if to do that for him. Till jerks the collar away from Ivan warily. The bites still throb.
“I don’t need you to fucking tell me how to use this thing!” Ivan’s fingers twitch and Till forgets he still had reservations about using the damn collar; he smears his blood over the metal and watches the sigils flash. The blood disappears.
When Ivan moves to add his own blood to the collar the vampire stops smiling, watching with a somber face as the blood falls and the collar glows. Till can feel something forming in his mind, like a thread tied to a heavy object some distance away, like a leash with some slack left in it — although Till doesn't know whose hand the leash is in. When the bond solidifies, Ivan smiles again. He captures Till’s hand and raises it to his mouth.
“I look forward to our collaboration,” the vampire murmurs, pressing his lips to Till’s hand. Till wants to punch him a little. His fingers twitch as Ivan laps at them. He yanks his hand free.
“Shut up and let’s get out of here,” he grumbles, shivering as his adrenaline winds down in his thin jacket and ruined pants.
“As you command,” Ivan says, rising to obey. Till wonders what he’s gotten himself into, but he puts the thought away. He’s succeeded. Whatever happens, he’s not alone anymore, with Ivan on his side.