coley_merrin (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
coley_merrin) wrote2014-04-01 02:32 pm
coley_merrin) wrote2014-04-01 02:32 pm
Entry tags:
[Fic] Irresistible - 8/10 - Part 2
Title: Irresistible
Pairing: Zhou Mi/Kyuhyun
Rating: NC-17
Genre: AU, vampire, smut, historical
Warnings: References to issues of consent (not in fic itself), fictional drug use
Summary: The streets of Zhou Mi's city are being contaminated with a new drug - Euphoria. Pure vampire blood, it causes a high unlike any other, but when the high fades, the nightmares begin. It is the spread of Euphoria that Zhou Mi fights, and in that fight he needs a partner to get him to places and people that only a vampire can.
***
Chapter One - Chapter Two - Chapter Three - Chapter Four - Chapter Five - Chapter Six - Chapter Seven - Chapter Eight Pt 1 - Chapter Eight Pt 2 - Chapter Nine - Chapter Ten - Epilogue
***
After hours of letter writing, and Kyuhyun pouring himself into Zhou Mi’s lap until he laughed, Zhou Mi had relaxed after Jinyong had been sent away. But it had still taken a day of much laboring it seemed, until Zhou Mi had truly put it from his mind. There had been a letter written and sent to Jinyong the very moment it could be posted, that Kyuhyun knew. But it felt nice to see Zhou Mi coming into his house with a smile that touched his whole face.
“Surely you didn’t get a letter back already,” Kyuhyun said, leaning back in his chair.
“No. But they did send a messenger that they had reached the inn they will stay at for a day.”
“That’s good.”
“It is. Jinyong should not be pushed too hard, as weak as he was.”
“At least he was able to talk before he left. I imagine you would have been much more worried had he not been able to.”
“Absolutely. I think that’s the amazing thing about children. Being able to heal so quickly.”
“Perhaps it was luck that they didn’t want to waste much product on him. But he’s out of their reach now.”
Zhou Mi hummed his agreement, and Kyuhyun glanced up to watch him every so often as Zhou Mi sipped his tea and wrote letter after letter. He could see that Zhou Mi grew tired, the stiff set of his shoulders, the way he flexed his fingers as he thought. Kyuhyun signed his name to the last of his own notes, and stood. The dawn was not much more than an hour away and he meant to feed well.
“Are you nearly done?” Kyuhyun asked.
“There are always more,” Zhou Mi said. “But yes. I could be done for now.”
“Good. I promised you that I would not let your hand get too tired.”
Zhou Mi’s eyebrows rose, and then his eyes closed as Kyuhyun took his hand, massaging his palm, the soft flesh and muscles between there and his thumb. Fascinating hands. Long fingers with defined knuckles. He wondered if he would taste ink and glue if he slid them into his mouth, lips sliding over every plane and hill. Hands that touched, gentle and firm, palms that cupped. He watched Zhou Mi bask the pleasure of the rubbing of their hands together, until Zhou Mi’s eyes drifted back open.
“Where were you between every letter,” Zhou Mi teased.
“Not far,” Kyuhyun said, and did not move away as Zhou Mi stood.
“Are your lips tired too?” Kyuhyun asked, as he watched Zhou Mi poke his out, asking for something.
The smile was visible, all over Zhou Mi’s face as Kyuhyun kissed him. It was unlike a hundred other kisses, and like a hundred more as Zhou Mi gripped his waist and leaned into him. His hands left Zhou Mi’s, sliding onto his neck instead so he could kiss the bitter tea from Zhou Mi’s lips.
There was no need to coddle or convince. If Zhou Mi could not feel Kyuhyun’s need, he was not conveying himself well. And he moaned his appreciation as ZHou Mi’ mouth nudged against his, sucking at his lower lip and urging him into the kiss.
How many nights more they had, he could not lie and say he did not know. They had two, and he intended to use them without sentiment, without drawing whatever emotion Zhou Mi might feel at the end of their agreement. If it was regret or relief, it had no part between them that night.
“The bed,” Kyuhyun suggested, lips catching against Zhou Mi’s.
And Zhou Mi agreed.
So Kyuhyun took his hand, keeping him close like a leash as they climbed the stairs to Kyuhyun’s room. He stood, enjoyed, as Zhou Mi undid the buttons down his chest, and then as he did the same for Zhou Mi. Inch by inch of skin, bared for him, warm and smooth under his hands as he shed his clothes and urged Zhou Mi’s off as well. He confessed it took him a moment to fully admire Zhou Mi’s thighs, as his trousers slid down, but that was because there was so much else to admire in between.
“Something you like?”
“Many things,” Kyuhyun replied. And he stopped Zhou Mi, when he would have reached to help Kyuhyun with his own trousers. “Onto the bed with you. There’s something I…want.”
Zhou Mi’s eyebrows rose in curiosity, but he nodded, backed away. The light was not at its brightest, but Kyuhyun could see. It made Kyuhyun glad that Zhou Mi was comfortable in his own skin. He stretched back of his own accord, not trying to hide any part of himself from Kyuhyun’s view.
“And?” Zhou Mi asked.
“I would watch you bring yourself pleasure,” Kyuhyun said, slipping onto the bed on the other side, just far enough to see but not to touch. “I suggested you do that once, and you refused me.”
“You were mocking me. And I did not trust you then,” Zhou Mi told him.
No, that was truth. And yet still, Zhou Mi seemed intrigued.
“You do know how it’s done, do you not?”
Zhou Mi chuckled, fingers sliding over his own hip. “As though you have not come in my hands.”
“It will be enjoyment in two ways. I get the pleasure of watching you pleasure yourself, and you get to experience…something new. Since I cannot induce you into coming.”
“It’s possible.” And when Kyuhyun scoffed, Zhou Mi shook his head. “I find your voice very…arousing.”
There was that, then. He supposed they had that in common, among other things as he watched the flexing of Zhou Mi’s knuckles as his hand squeezed around his erection, making himself harder. It made his own body pulse, but ignored it. His whole focus had to be on Zhou Mi.
“Your body is very…” And Kyuhyun could not find the word he wanted. Arousing seemed too obvious. Words that described physical perfection, somehow trite.
“If it is that hard to find a compliment,” Zhou Mi breathed. Again, teasing with his words, though his eyes were warm, sensual.
“Only too many words came to mind.”
“I will not argue if you name them. They used to call me spare, to tease that I would break apart in a harsh wind.”
That could not have been true. He had not known Zhou Mi in those years, but the man in front of him was built solid from the soles of his feet to the hair that swathed over his forehead. He was spare in spots, but breakable in no way. Kyuhyun had gripped his wrists, bitten his neck, squeezed Zhou Mi’s hips between his thighs. And his lips had been every place else, knees and cock and shoulders.
“Arousing,” Kyuhyun said, and watched Zhou Mi’s hand falter. “Beautiful. Masculine. Delicious.”
He tried to keep his face straight, but they both laughed at that, if only on exhales and eyes roaming faces, bodies. It was a baring thing to do, to touch oneself in front of another. Kyuhyun thought back to their second time in his bed and had no doubts why Zhou Mi had refused him that, or thought him vulgar and rude. But he had not seen Zhou Mi then, not truly. He’d seen a body he wanted terribly, a challenge in the lack of thrall, and little else.
He saw in Zhou Mi then so much more.
“Have you been with more than one person at once?” Kyuhyun asked, resting his chin on his knee and running his eyes up and down Zhou Mi’s torso.
“No,” Zhou Mi said. “Only one at a time.”
“Would you like it? Two men to worship you. One to take you and stroke you. One for you to suck. Not using you, but enhancing your pleasure. You like to suck, don’t you?”
“I do.”
Zhou Mi’s eyes closed, and Kyuhyun would have none of it.
“No, keep your eyes on me.”
Zhou Mi looked to him immediately. No matter what he described, he did not want Zhou Mi’s thoughts driving to another. He was the one there with Zhou Mi, and he was the one in Zhou Mi’s mind to arouse him. He was the one Zhou Mi was hard for, his hand slick and stroking as he stared at Kyuhyun. He wanted to be Zhou Mi’s pleasure.
“You want to see me with other men?”
“Why would I?” Kyuhyun asked. “If a human I am with wants another human, they are free to take them. But they wouldn’t be in my bed any longer.”
He could see Zhou Mi was trying to keep his breathing even, brain stretching as he tried to follow Kyuhyun’s words. “So are you trying to see if I want someone else? Someone from the Organization? My friends?”
“A man you pass on the street. It doesn’t matter.”
“What if you were that man?” Zhou Mi murmured. “Hat on your head, light of the gas lamps shooting you shadow out and making you taller. Ow.”
Kyuhyun took back his hand from where he’d smacked Zhou Mi’s knee.
“I can have everything you describe,” Zhou Mi told him. “But I only need one man to do it. We’ve done it before. Your mouth on me, fingers in me, as I—“
“I see your point,” Kyuhyun said. And tried to calm himself, before he made that thought become reality. Zhou Mi’s mouth was warm. Very warm, and he could see himself emptying into it without any trouble at all.
“What would you like me to do for you after?” Zhou Mi asked, his breathing becoming labored. “Or will I get to watch, too?”
“If you watch, you won’t be watching long,” Kyuhyun admitted. As hard as he was, as much as his body was pulsing, he wondered if he would even need touch. And Zhou Mi was being so deliberately provocative, adjusting his hips, his arm as his strokes got faster.
Kyuhyun wasn’t sure where to look the concentration on Zhou Mi’s face, or the movement of his hand that had Zhou Mi dripping onto his own stomach.
“Feels good, doesn’t it,” he said, keeping his voice low.
“Better if you were doing it.”
Kyuhyun thought the same. Zhou Mi’s hand on him, his on Zhou Mi, and there would be no barriers to stop him. As it was his hand was squeezing on his thigh to keep from touching himself.
“Your body feels warm to me when mine is cold. Hot, hard in my hand. Better if I’m inside you, because I can see you gasping every time I slide in, getting tighter as you get closer. Your fingers keep digging into my back, or my shoulders, and you let out little breaths… Yeah, like that.”
The shuddering little breaths as Zhou Mi began to race himself, the feelings that were rising and his own strokes, and Kyuhyun’s words. All he could do was keep his eyes on Zhou Mi’s, and keep talking.
“Are you going to come for me, empty yourself? Imagine me sucking you clean, licking your stomach and chest. Then I’ll get it dirty again. The taste of you will almost be enough to make me come. I’m so hard already, just waiting to see you—“
With a soft grunt, Zhou Mi’s eyes went wide and unfocused as his body jerked. And Kyuhyun saw what he’d been waiting to, semen in lines and droplets, bright against Zhou Mi’s skin as Zhou Mi panted and eased his body’s furor.
Kyuhyun did as he promised, nudging down Zhou Mi’s frozen hand and tasting his cock, sucking it nearly clean. He wasn’t attempting perfection, just giving Zhou Mi exactly what he had said. His tongue took a wet, generous journey up Zhou Mi’s stomach, and the taste did have his body begging. Messy kisses up Zhou Mi’s chest, doing more to spread than to clean, as he hissed and swung his leg over Zhou Mi’s body.
Zhou Mi’s breath was sowing as he watched Kyuhyun open his trousers, and the first friction of skin against skin had Kyuhyun gulping, swallowing hard as he tried not to lose control just from that. It was a different view, but also a different feeling as Zhou Mi gripped both his thighs.
“Show me,” Zhou Mi urged.
With his hand braced on the bed, he did. He’d promised it wouldn’t last long. He could have drawn it out, spent long minutes torturing himself right on the edge of release. But Zhou Mi had found his, and wanted to see him gain his own.
And then Zhou Mi’s tongue snaked out to wet his lips, so deliberately that Kyuhyun’s eyes darted up, glaring with his brows drawn. Zhou Mi laughed, so smug and effortlessly gorgeous. Teeth bared, Zhou Mi was satisfied but still hungry. Just by the weight of Zhou Mi’s stare as he watched Kyuhyun, took in his body. Perhaps he was exactly what Zhou Mi wanted. Not just a man, but a man like him - a man Zhou Mi was touching, squeezing Kyuhyun’s thighs.
He closed his eyes, ready to give in, and gasped at the hand on his face.
“No,” Zhou Mi told him. “Look at me.”
He would come thinking only of Zhou Mi, just as Kyuhyun had demanded.
“Zhou Mi.”
Until he’d said it, he hadn’t even realized he had, watching with helpless breaths as Zhou Mi pushed himself up until he could cup the back of Kyuhyun’s head and bring him close.
“Show me,” Zhou Mi repeated. “Show me, Kyuhyun.”
As close as their faces were, it wasn’t to watch, some voyeuristic thrill as Kyuhyun had gotten. It was to see in Kyuhyun’s face every feeling, every nuance.
So he did, and lost control. But even in the glee of release, he felt Zhou Mi’s nose press beside his, his breath puffing against Zhou Mi’s mouth. But his body relaxed, still singing with pleasure, and he nudged against Zhou Mi’s face.
“Watching me caused that, huh?” Zhou Mi teased, his thumb rubbing behind Kyuhyun’s ear.
“Watching you could cause far more than that.”
They laughed against each other, trading kisses as they slowly collapsed back onto the bed.
“We should clean you up,” Kyuhyun murmured.
“Take off your trousers, and those will work.”
He drilled his finger into Zhou Mi’s side for daring to sacrifice his clothes for Zhou Mi’s cleanliness. But it was between that and finding another cloth, so Zhou Mi had the best idea after all.
But it took rolling onto his back and a struggle between his legs and Zhou Mi’s to finally wrest the offending cloth off, and then to make a passable swipe over his skin and Zhou Mi’s.
But he hadn’t fed yet, and Zhou Mi hadn’t forgotten, one long ridiculous arm snaking around his shoulders as Zhou Mi turned to him.
“The sun?”
“On its way. But there’s time.”
There was always time to feed. He had visions of Zhou Mi’s waggling brows as he pressed his lips to Zhou Mi’s neck. Zhou Mi was wrapped around him so thoroughly, as he bit, such a warm cocoon of man and cloth.
“I’ve never put myself on display like that before,” Zhou Mi said, his breath ruffling Kyuhyun’s hair.
How secure he must have been, to speak with Kyuhyun’s teeth in him. Kyuhyun hummed in response, kneading Zhou Mi’s shoulder.
“I liked it. I think someone else would have made me feel uncomfortable. Too embarrassed. Though I like it more with you against me. Tomorrow.”
Kyuhyun released Zhou Mi’s neck, kissing the cleaned wounds he’d made. He was sated, full.
“Yes, tomorrow,” Kyuhyun agreed. “Any requests?”
Zhou Mi just shook his head, and Kyuhyun rested his face against Zhou Mi’s neck. That throat. Kyuhyun’s neck. His. The sun rose, but he was already asleep.
***
In how many ways could two men fit together, Kyuhyun wondered. Day after day. He nudged his hips up against Zhou Mi’s, holding him from behind as they undressed one day. Another, Zhou Mi fell asleep breathing against the back of his neck. They were careful, so careful not to mention the time that was slipping from their fingers. Sleep was wasted time together. He’d rolled Zhou Mi over once, half asleep from coming in Kyuhyun’s mouth, only to be sucked hard, to fuck one more time. It was like an illness, trying to get his fill before he went without.
But time would not stop, even for him. He had lived Zhou Mi’s lifetime, several times over, and still he was not satisfied with what he’d had. Changmin could admonish him until he breathed in all the air in the city, but it did not diminish his want. He would have fed until he was sick, breathing at Zhou Mi’s neck. If Zhou Mi had allowed it, they would not have left his bed - he would have kept Zhou Mi aroused and needy - or in bliss from it - from the moment he woke, until the sun rose. But Zhou Mi wasn’t his to command, no matter how much time was left for them. It had always been understood that the fight against Euphoria came first, that the feeding would not interfere. And it was only one night that last week that Zhou Mi had to apologize for cutting their time short.
When Zhou Mi was with him to feed, in his bed, or against him in the library, he knew Zhou Mi thought of him only. He got to forget, for a little while. To relax. When Kyuhyun kissed smiles onto Zhou Mi’s face, and Zhou Mi’s arms slid around him. He hinted that time was short, day by day, so that it was not a surprise to either of them. Perhaps saying it aloud would make it real. But the days still passed.
Changmin, instead of showing up himself, sent a note.
It read only “Do what you must.”
Kyuhyun knew what Changmin meant.
Like the last lingering days of summer that passed into the cold, he could not stop time or extend their agreement. And he knew that he wanted time enough that last night to do anything, everything they wanted.
So he stood and Zhou Mii’s head rose. “You know what tonight is?”
“The finale of our agreement?” Zhou Mi said, and Kyuhyun nodded.
He did not have to ask if Zhou Mi was finished, or ready to go upstairs with him. Zhou Mi stood, waited for Kyuhyun to join him with a smile touching his lips, so they could walk up the stairs together. It did not feel like he was walking to his death, like his steps were heavy. But his mind was racing. What they should do, or how. How to make it a memorable night, how to make it so that Zhou Mi would never forget it even to the day he drew his last breath.
But that seemed silly. There was nothing he could do to make that happen. He had no secret, superhuman powers of sex, and no ability to enhance Zhou Mi’s pleasure. If he’d had, they would have been doing that every night and not just the last. Making it too large in his mind might instead make it worse for them.
They’d had a month to learn each other, and he knew what Zhou Mi liked. That would need to be enough.
“The time went so fast,” Zhou Mi said.
“There were a lot of things keeping time occupied.”
Letters, and trips, and children, and the poor souls that were Euphoria’s victims. The month had not been some gift of debauchery, but it had gained them both something. Zhou Mi and his Organization had made progress, and Kyuhyun had gained a great deal of other things.
In the privacy of his room, beside his bed, he gained Zhou Mi’s mouth against his. After he turned on the light at his bedside, he’d had only to turn with Zhou Mi’s arm snaking around his back and drawing him close to kiss him. When they stood like that, he felt all of Zhou Mi’s height. The way his head fell back ever so slightly, so to meet Zhou Mi’s mouth more firmly. He had no need to gain the upper hand, concerned only that he got all the kisses he was deserving of, stroking from the soft hair at Zhou Mi’s nape, to the strength of his neck.
He had not wondered if they would talk. The time for conversation had long passed. He wanted only to feel, to write into his memory something greater than himself. They worked in unison, tugging at buttons and sleeves, and the cloth at Zhou Mi’s neck. He shivered a bit, as Zhou Mi’s fingers skimmed his chest. His shirt slid down his arms at Zhou Mi’s insistence, and Kyuhyun kissed Zhou Mi’s collarbone. Zhou Mi was perfect in every way. Maybe too sharp at the knee, he conceded. But it was of no consequence.
He loved the texture of Zhou Mi’s skin. It was soft as his fingers dragged over it, but what it covered was the body of a man. His ribs, his chest under Kyuhyun’s fingertips, shivering at Kyuhyun’s touches. He did not mean to tickle and tease, only to map and remember. Straining muscle and bone, the fragrance of his hair when Kyuhyun inhaled above his ear.
Kyuhyun lifted Zhou Mi’s hand, licked along the lines crossing his palm, teasing kisses as Zhou Mi’s fingertips skimmed his cheek. The tang of salt on skin had him humming as he nibbled the soft flesh between Zhou Mi’s thumb and forefinger.
Zhou Mi did not wait for Kyuhyun to draw him in, but pressed his mouth to Kyuhyun’s first. The soft rub of lips, it was plea and order both. To kiss him as he wanted to be kissed, for Kyuhyun to meet him, taste him, allow his tongue to do unspeakable things that set his body aflame.
And yet still, he needed some assurance.
“Tonight’s our—“
“I know,” Zhou Mi said.
“We can’t—“
“I know.”
“Please don’t leave before I wake up. We should… Make it official.”
Zhou Mi nodded. “If I do have to leave, I’ll return before you wake.”
It was as good a compromise as any.
And so Zhou Mi pushed him back, first kneeling on the bed beside Kyuhyun, and then over him. It was like any other night, only there was some kind of desperation rioting in his skin.
“Let me,” Zhou Mi suggested, and Kyuhyun cupped Zhou Mi’s face, kissed him in agreement. There was nothing Zhou Mi could do that he would not like, not enjoy, until it was pain to Zhou Mi. But there was no pain in lying there, feeling Zhou Mi’s long, nimble fingers stroking him hard with the slick oil. It put Zhou Mi mostly out of reach, mostly in shadow. Zhou Mi’s face was so hard to read as he pleasured them both, but Kyuhyun traced his features anyway. His eyebrows were drawn, lips parted, and as Zhou Mi’s hand stilled on Kyuhyun, he realized why. Zhou Mi was making himself slick, so he would be ready for Kyuhyun to take. There was no list of things in Kyuhyun’s head that he found arousing, but watching Zhou Mi right then was making one. A man, aroused and ready.
He thought that was the extent of it, that he would find himself distracted by pressing Zhou Mi down and kissing him, fucking him.
But Zhou Mi smiled at him, almost as though he could read Kyuhyun’s thoughts, and maybe he could in the way Kyuhyun had tensed and reached for him. But that wasn’t what happened. Zhou Mi did not invite him as he had before, a grin on his lips and promise in the lines of his body. Instead, he lifted, waited, until Kyuhyun realized what Zhou Mi meant - that he would not press Zhou Mi onto his back, no, but Zhou Mi would stay above him. Had he not been hard, the prospect of watching Zhou Mi use his body to fuck himself would have had him becoming so. All he could do was stay still, to watch as Zhou Mi adjusted them both, until they began to fit as they knew they would.
He moaned, reaching for Zhou Mi’s hips as Zhou Mi took him, took all of him. He could do little but hold his hips still, let Zhou Mi control how much he took, how fast.
“You always wanted that control, didn’t you?”
Zhou Mi smirked at him, leaning forward and making Kyuhyun gasp.
It was their last night together, to bite, to fuck. It seemed fitting that Zhou Mi control everything. Movement. His pleasure.
It was different than watching Zhou Mi from a distance. He had movement above him, around him. Zhou Mi’s chest, and his determined expression, as though the sex was some kind of task he was trying to accomplish well.
“It is not a race,” Kyuhyun reminded him. “I won’t give you a grade after.”
Zhou Mi laughed, the sound breathy. “I am not racing any clock, but the strength of my legs. You would weary me.”
“I should have raced you up the stairs.”
“This is more pleasing.”
Kyuhyun could not argue with that. The rock of Zhou Mi’s body, lifting, sinking onto Kyuhyun again and again. He began to wonder if his body would be the one to give out before Zhou Mi’s strength did.
“We should have done this before,” Kyuhyun teased, pretending as though he were relaxing, and getting a smack to his chest.
As though he was not helping, hips lifting with every fall Zhou Mi took. Just that extra friction had him hissing, arching as Zhou Mi teased his chest with evil fingers. Circles and lines drawn into his skin, they ironically did not take his focus away from Zhou Mi, his rising desperation, but instead raised it.
And Zhou Mi knew, from the smug curve the corners of his mouth were taking as he panted and continued driving Kyuhyun to the edge of reason. Zhou Mi looked elegant and so right on the back of a horse, but it was not elegance he saw there. Determination. Desire. He tried to tell time by the beating of his heart, and could not because it raced ahead of him just watching the way Zhou Mi flung his hair from his eyes, his head tilting back or to the side as he labored to bring them both pleasure.
And when Kyuhyun thought he was nearly done, Zhou Mi lifted up onto his knees, leaving him unsatisfied, and reaching.
“What are you doing?”
“Legs are too tired,” Zhou Mi said, arranging himself on his back beside Kyuhyun. “And I want you above me.”
He did not need to be told twice, using that momentary terror to drive himself, slipping between Zhou Mi’s spread legs and pressing again into his body.
Maybe Zhou Mi knew more than he realized as he looked up at Kyuhyun and lifted his hips to greet him. It was the way they had done it first. And last.
That first time he’d been so full of nerves. He’d hoped he could satisfy Zhou Mi without the thrall, to not horrify him at the thought of being bitten or going willingly into a man’s bed. It hadn’t been talent, or luck that had accomplished those things, but a combination of Zhou Mi’s courage and need from them both. Inspiring need in a man was one thing. Making him need beyond all the other areas of worry was something else.
Using Zhou Mi’s body to his own end was different than using his hand, because there was a man racing him for breaths, for touch. Begging him without words for Kyuhyun to go faster because of Zhou Mi’s own desire.
And there was so much that couldn’t be explained in Zhou Mi’s disordered hair, wild from Kyuhyun’s fingers, and the way he met Kyuhyun’s eyes with a sweaty face and kiss-dark lips. And somehow, Zhou Mi knew, baring his throat. Not in submission, but in offer.
“Kyuhyun,” Zhou Mi breathed as Kyuhyun bit him.
It was the last blood he would take, and he drank so slowly. Zhou Mi’s fingers holding his head, holding him close. The fingers massaging his scalp had his eyes closing as he focused on the taste, the heat of Zhou Mi, of Zhou Mi’s blood. It tasted pure, and Kyuhyun wondered if he could taste the difference in a human who was in thrall or not. In the month they had had, Kyuhyun had nearly forgotten how Zhou Mi’s blood differed from any other.
He would get to find out soon enough. The thought almost made him choke, and Zhou Mi steadied him, murmuring things Kyuhyun couldn’t understand.
But at his last swallow, drawing his teeth back and wanting another bite, he wanted Zhou Mi’s mouth. To kiss him, share with him. And Zhou Mi did not shy from his kiss.
They had shared the taste of each other’s come, of food that Kyuhyun couldn’t eat. But never blood, not like that. He waited to see if Zhou Mi would pull away, once he realized, but he only wrapped his arm around Kyuhyun tighter, kissing him until the only thing he could taste was Zhou Mi.
And as Kyuhyun stroked him, he wrote Zhou Mi’s moans into his memory, the tightening of his face as he came, the sound of his name in panting breaths.
And muffling his words in Zhou Mi’s shoulder, he let himself go. It was not the height of sexual pleasure, but tinged with regret. It rolled over and through him, almost like pain, until his body had nothing more to give. And there was nothing left to take. But he waited, until he had gathered himself, until the pleasure had settled and become part of him.
“Don’t,” Zhou Mi protested, when Kyuhyun would have moved off of him.
“I think you like to breathe,” Kyuhyun suggested, getting a gusty chuckle that spurred his own.
“Not far,” Zhou Mi clarified.
“With me, then.”
With him. They rolled onto their sides, turning out the light and adjusting blankets and limbs until they were closed in and comfortable and close.
“You get better at that every time,” Kyuhyun said, voice light and teasing.
Zhou Mi answered in kind. “I was going to say the same.”
But there was no humor in Zhou Mi’s kiss. There in the dark, there was nothing else, his hand curling over Zhou Mi’s neck. Nothing but warmth, and savoring Zhou Mi’s lips against his until they were barely moving, just their lips meeting, adjusting, and meeting again.
He could feel the sun and tried to will it back back, fingers stroking Zhou Mi’s neck.
“The sun?” Zhou Mi asked, and Kyuhyun felt it as much as heard it.
“Yes.”
“Sleep then,” Zhou Mi told him, and pressed a harder kiss to his mouth, one that was meant to send him into oblivion.
“Zhou Mi,” he murmured.
There were things he wanted to say. But in the warmth, and in the rising sun, and Zhou Mi’s arm around him, he could not form words. Surely just one more night. Another week. A year. It would be enough then. Eventually, it would have to be enough.
Zhou Mi’s fingers stroked his hair. “Sleep.”
It wasn’t enough yet. He was unsure he should end it. Unsure he could keep it - keep the man longer, and let him go even as he reached for Zhou Mi’s hand. Instead he whispered Zhou Mi’s name one more time, got one last kiss.
“Thank you,” he thought he heard Zhou Mi whisper as he slipped into the bliss of sleep.
He wondered, for what.
***
Zhou Mi did not wait to be seen into the library, but went himself. It was too early for Kyuhyun to be down, but it was also too late for Zhou Mi to contemplate going up the stairs. Kyuhyun had asked him to be there when he woke, but Zhou Mi wasn’t certain if that was in his bed, or in his home. It had been quite a long time since Zhou Mi had felt awkward waking in Kyuhyun’s bed, whether Kyuhyun was still deeply asleep or waking beside him. But on that day, their last day - no, their parting day - he did not know if he could have stayed in that bed to see Kyuhyun wake. Another day, they would have kissed, touched. Kyuhyun was equally as needy when he woke and they had had all the time allotted to them. Though it didn’t keep him from wondering what would have happened, if he had been in Kyuhyun’s bed. Perhaps Kyuhyun would have woken reaching for him and there would have been some sort of comfort in the waking instead of uncertainty.
He had kept little at Kyuhyun’s home, and most of it had left with him already. His letterheads, his preferred pen. There were no clothes in Kyuhyun’s bedroom because he had taken them when he had left earlier that day. He had not wanted to leave things behind, to make it look as though he were creating an excuse to return.
The truth was he didn’t know if he would need an excuse, if the biting ceased, he assumed the sex would as well. But he didn’t know for certain. He knew what he wanted. He enjoyed Kyuhyun’s company as much as he enjoyed his body. Gaining his help had been Zhou Mi’s first priority, but that hadn’t been where things between them had stopped.
The desk Zhou Mi had used was still sitting in front of Kyuhyun’s desk. He wondered where it would move back to. Kyuhyun’s library at least would return to how it had been. Beyond the desk and chair, it had not much changed with his arrival into Kyuhyun’s life. The marks he had made on Kyuhyun’s house, like the marks made on Zhou Mi’s skin, were temporary and would fade.
Sound broke him from his contemplation and he turned to see Kyuhyun enter.
“Good, you’re here,” Kyuhyun said, not stopping beside Zhou Mi and instead moving to the other side of the desk. It put a barrier between them, one that Zhou Mi felt.
“As you requested,” Zhou Mi said. “Did you rest well?”
“The same as usual. Thank you for asking. It is best that we draw this to a formal close. It was a verbal agreement between us, but I have to ask, do you feel your requirements were met?” Kyuhyun asked.
At first the question was puzzling to Zhou Mi, as though Kyuhyun were asking him if he were dissatisfied, if he wanted compensation. When he thought of where he had been a month prior, and where he was that day, he did not think he could have possibly complained. They had found a storehouse of Euphoria, found a way to help those afflicted by it. They had gained alliances with the Choi family, rescued Jinyong, and yet still more information that Zhou Mi had yet to parse. He could not even have hoped for half of that when he had met with Kyuhyun to start.
“My requirements were more than met,” Zhou Mi told him. “So much progress was made, I cannot believe it.”
“I’m glad,” Kyuhyun said. “It is the same for me. Our bargain was for feeding, and you have fulfilled that. If we are both satisfied by the outcome, then I see no more reason to waste your time. I’m sure you have many things to accomplish.”
“If I have questions? Or if the Organization—“
“Send a note if it’s an emergency. Or have one of your other eager members come to query my help. Once an agreement like ours is over, it is not typical to continue that…acquaintance. Perhaps in the future I will be willing to help again, but it will not be with you.”
Zhou Mi kept what he thought was an admirable amount of control over his face as Kyuhyun spoke. He’d known that there would be no more feeding, a break in contact for a time to give them space. But Kyuhyun was saying there would be no contact, no communication. As though they had not met, or as though something terrible had happened between them.
“If you have all of your things, you can see yourself out,” Kyuhyun said. “It has been enlightening.”
“Yes, I have everything,” Zhou Mi said, his mind scrambling to keep up. “I did have one question. Did you learn what you wanted? About me not being subject to the thrall.”
Kyuhyun met his eyes, but they were guarded, not yielding anything Zhou Mi wanted to see. “Yes. I learned everything I needed to know.”
He’d forgotten at times what had spurred Kyuhyun to form their agreement. It would have been a month of help in exchange only for money, had Zhou Mi decided otherwise. The formal breaking of contract would have seemed to be so logical in that light, instead of standing and holding in any emotion or expression in the face of Kyuhyun’s indifference. It was equally as likely that that was a show, as much as Zhou Mi’s reaction was. Kyuhyun had known even more intimately how different their situations would be at the end of their month. And yet still, he had been the one kissing Zhou Mi before they slept, fingers tightly gripped between Zhou Mi’s, as though he were soaking up all the warmth he could.
Because there would be no more warmth. Not unless - until - Kyuhyun found another human.
Kyuhyun approached him, staying back, so deliberate as he seemed to be trying to herd Zhou Mi out of the library. Right there, he’d stood when they had met. Right there, Kyuhyun had propositioned him, bitten him, kissed him.
“Have you found another human?” Zhou Mi asked. It could have been so friendly, so detached, and yet it wasn’t.
“Not yet,” Kyuhyun said, but his eyes were at Zhou Mi’s shoulders, not his face.
“Thank you for your help. Thank you for all your help,” Zhou Mi told him, before he didn’t have a chance to express his appreciation. But those words weren’t enough to truly convey what he had in his head.
Kyuhyun nodded. “It was returned in full. Good night.”
And Kyuhyun closed the door to the library, leaving Zhou Mi in the hall.
Zhou Mi saw himself out, taking one last trip down the steps to his waiting carriage. He looked back, once, to the window he knew was the library’s. Kyuhyun was not at it, nor had Zhou Mi expected him to be. But it was a different kind of closure.
He thought perhaps he had expected more humor. For Kyuhyun to have tried to bargain for more time, or tease him that he should find another vampire. That it was so somber, so strangely stilted left him off balance. It should have felt like an end, and in many ways it did, but he was not sure that he had fully contemplated all that had happened. Nor would he soon.
***
Kyuhyun waited two days before letting his staff know he was ready to find another human to bite. He was lucky, unlike when he had first been turned. Then, he’d had to find humans on his own. It was a luxury he’d become accustomed to over the last twenty years of his life. He just had a few rules, and one of those was no biting his staff, even if they offered. And if they did offer, they would not have been working for him any longer. He’d let a couple go, with a letter of recommendation. Some things were not done.
They’d found a woman first. It would have been too much to switch to man right away, he reasoned. And yet he’d sent her away without seeing her. He had too much to do. Changmin had sent papers for him to look through, investments. He did not have to think hard to know that Changmin was trying to distract him and keep him busy. It was something he could have done on his own. He’d had plenty to occupy his time before Zhou Mi, and did after. He had not forgotten how to use his hand for pleasure, either, since he had done that whether Zhou Mi was there or not. One way or the other, things still got accomplished.
Not every human he bit and fucked. The hunger was greater than the need for satisfaction. And he wasn’t entirely positive that his body wasn’t expecting Zhou Mi to come to his bedroom door, to lean against the jamb and smile the slow smile that started at his eyes and curled his lips in invitation.
Staining the sheets wet with his come imagining Zhou Mi’s moans, the supple give of his throat, was getting him no closer to feeding.
The man his servants let into the library was not as tall as Zhou Mi, and built differently. More solid through the ribs and hips, though in a way Kyuhyun found he liked.
Kyuhyun wasn’t sure what his intention was yet, until the human began to kiss his neck. It was nice, warm, wet touches. It seemed this human had been with a vampire before, knew what might be wanted, and wanted those. And then he thought of the thrall, the calming effect, and wondered how much of the man’s desire stemmed from that. But he chased it from his mind, letting the human open his shirt and touch him. His stomach contracted at cool fingers. Not warm like Zhou Mi’s were. It depended what this human wanted, how far he would go. He would be shown.
And teeth bit hard on Kyuhyun’s shoulder.
“No, Zhou—“
The smell was wrong.
Kyuhyun’s eyes shot open as he pushed the man back. The man looked confused, unsure what he had done, unsure what Kyuhyun had said. Kyuhyun stood, buttoning his shirt.
“I’m sorry. I forgot I had another engagement and cannot feed now. Leave your name with my staff, and if you’re needed again, you will be called on.”
He did not wait for an answer, striding out the door and heading for the stable. There were a number of things he knew could cure his agitation. A long bite. A bout of sex. A hard ride.
Of the three, the only that sounded appealing was the last. No, that wasn’t true. The first two were appealing as nothing had been before. But the man he wanted, he couldn’t have.
***
Pairing: Zhou Mi/Kyuhyun
Rating: NC-17
Genre: AU, vampire, smut, historical
Warnings: References to issues of consent (not in fic itself), fictional drug use
Summary: The streets of Zhou Mi's city are being contaminated with a new drug - Euphoria. Pure vampire blood, it causes a high unlike any other, but when the high fades, the nightmares begin. It is the spread of Euphoria that Zhou Mi fights, and in that fight he needs a partner to get him to places and people that only a vampire can.
***
Chapter One - Chapter Two - Chapter Three - Chapter Four - Chapter Five - Chapter Six - Chapter Seven - Chapter Eight Pt 1 - Chapter Eight Pt 2 - Chapter Nine - Chapter Ten - Epilogue
***
After hours of letter writing, and Kyuhyun pouring himself into Zhou Mi’s lap until he laughed, Zhou Mi had relaxed after Jinyong had been sent away. But it had still taken a day of much laboring it seemed, until Zhou Mi had truly put it from his mind. There had been a letter written and sent to Jinyong the very moment it could be posted, that Kyuhyun knew. But it felt nice to see Zhou Mi coming into his house with a smile that touched his whole face.
“Surely you didn’t get a letter back already,” Kyuhyun said, leaning back in his chair.
“No. But they did send a messenger that they had reached the inn they will stay at for a day.”
“That’s good.”
“It is. Jinyong should not be pushed too hard, as weak as he was.”
“At least he was able to talk before he left. I imagine you would have been much more worried had he not been able to.”
“Absolutely. I think that’s the amazing thing about children. Being able to heal so quickly.”
“Perhaps it was luck that they didn’t want to waste much product on him. But he’s out of their reach now.”
Zhou Mi hummed his agreement, and Kyuhyun glanced up to watch him every so often as Zhou Mi sipped his tea and wrote letter after letter. He could see that Zhou Mi grew tired, the stiff set of his shoulders, the way he flexed his fingers as he thought. Kyuhyun signed his name to the last of his own notes, and stood. The dawn was not much more than an hour away and he meant to feed well.
“Are you nearly done?” Kyuhyun asked.
“There are always more,” Zhou Mi said. “But yes. I could be done for now.”
“Good. I promised you that I would not let your hand get too tired.”
Zhou Mi’s eyebrows rose, and then his eyes closed as Kyuhyun took his hand, massaging his palm, the soft flesh and muscles between there and his thumb. Fascinating hands. Long fingers with defined knuckles. He wondered if he would taste ink and glue if he slid them into his mouth, lips sliding over every plane and hill. Hands that touched, gentle and firm, palms that cupped. He watched Zhou Mi bask the pleasure of the rubbing of their hands together, until Zhou Mi’s eyes drifted back open.
“Where were you between every letter,” Zhou Mi teased.
“Not far,” Kyuhyun said, and did not move away as Zhou Mi stood.
“Are your lips tired too?” Kyuhyun asked, as he watched Zhou Mi poke his out, asking for something.
The smile was visible, all over Zhou Mi’s face as Kyuhyun kissed him. It was unlike a hundred other kisses, and like a hundred more as Zhou Mi gripped his waist and leaned into him. His hands left Zhou Mi’s, sliding onto his neck instead so he could kiss the bitter tea from Zhou Mi’s lips.
There was no need to coddle or convince. If Zhou Mi could not feel Kyuhyun’s need, he was not conveying himself well. And he moaned his appreciation as ZHou Mi’ mouth nudged against his, sucking at his lower lip and urging him into the kiss.
How many nights more they had, he could not lie and say he did not know. They had two, and he intended to use them without sentiment, without drawing whatever emotion Zhou Mi might feel at the end of their agreement. If it was regret or relief, it had no part between them that night.
“The bed,” Kyuhyun suggested, lips catching against Zhou Mi’s.
And Zhou Mi agreed.
So Kyuhyun took his hand, keeping him close like a leash as they climbed the stairs to Kyuhyun’s room. He stood, enjoyed, as Zhou Mi undid the buttons down his chest, and then as he did the same for Zhou Mi. Inch by inch of skin, bared for him, warm and smooth under his hands as he shed his clothes and urged Zhou Mi’s off as well. He confessed it took him a moment to fully admire Zhou Mi’s thighs, as his trousers slid down, but that was because there was so much else to admire in between.
“Something you like?”
“Many things,” Kyuhyun replied. And he stopped Zhou Mi, when he would have reached to help Kyuhyun with his own trousers. “Onto the bed with you. There’s something I…want.”
Zhou Mi’s eyebrows rose in curiosity, but he nodded, backed away. The light was not at its brightest, but Kyuhyun could see. It made Kyuhyun glad that Zhou Mi was comfortable in his own skin. He stretched back of his own accord, not trying to hide any part of himself from Kyuhyun’s view.
“And?” Zhou Mi asked.
“I would watch you bring yourself pleasure,” Kyuhyun said, slipping onto the bed on the other side, just far enough to see but not to touch. “I suggested you do that once, and you refused me.”
“You were mocking me. And I did not trust you then,” Zhou Mi told him.
No, that was truth. And yet still, Zhou Mi seemed intrigued.
“You do know how it’s done, do you not?”
Zhou Mi chuckled, fingers sliding over his own hip. “As though you have not come in my hands.”
“It will be enjoyment in two ways. I get the pleasure of watching you pleasure yourself, and you get to experience…something new. Since I cannot induce you into coming.”
“It’s possible.” And when Kyuhyun scoffed, Zhou Mi shook his head. “I find your voice very…arousing.”
There was that, then. He supposed they had that in common, among other things as he watched the flexing of Zhou Mi’s knuckles as his hand squeezed around his erection, making himself harder. It made his own body pulse, but ignored it. His whole focus had to be on Zhou Mi.
“Your body is very…” And Kyuhyun could not find the word he wanted. Arousing seemed too obvious. Words that described physical perfection, somehow trite.
“If it is that hard to find a compliment,” Zhou Mi breathed. Again, teasing with his words, though his eyes were warm, sensual.
“Only too many words came to mind.”
“I will not argue if you name them. They used to call me spare, to tease that I would break apart in a harsh wind.”
That could not have been true. He had not known Zhou Mi in those years, but the man in front of him was built solid from the soles of his feet to the hair that swathed over his forehead. He was spare in spots, but breakable in no way. Kyuhyun had gripped his wrists, bitten his neck, squeezed Zhou Mi’s hips between his thighs. And his lips had been every place else, knees and cock and shoulders.
“Arousing,” Kyuhyun said, and watched Zhou Mi’s hand falter. “Beautiful. Masculine. Delicious.”
He tried to keep his face straight, but they both laughed at that, if only on exhales and eyes roaming faces, bodies. It was a baring thing to do, to touch oneself in front of another. Kyuhyun thought back to their second time in his bed and had no doubts why Zhou Mi had refused him that, or thought him vulgar and rude. But he had not seen Zhou Mi then, not truly. He’d seen a body he wanted terribly, a challenge in the lack of thrall, and little else.
He saw in Zhou Mi then so much more.
“Have you been with more than one person at once?” Kyuhyun asked, resting his chin on his knee and running his eyes up and down Zhou Mi’s torso.
“No,” Zhou Mi said. “Only one at a time.”
“Would you like it? Two men to worship you. One to take you and stroke you. One for you to suck. Not using you, but enhancing your pleasure. You like to suck, don’t you?”
“I do.”
Zhou Mi’s eyes closed, and Kyuhyun would have none of it.
“No, keep your eyes on me.”
Zhou Mi looked to him immediately. No matter what he described, he did not want Zhou Mi’s thoughts driving to another. He was the one there with Zhou Mi, and he was the one in Zhou Mi’s mind to arouse him. He was the one Zhou Mi was hard for, his hand slick and stroking as he stared at Kyuhyun. He wanted to be Zhou Mi’s pleasure.
“You want to see me with other men?”
“Why would I?” Kyuhyun asked. “If a human I am with wants another human, they are free to take them. But they wouldn’t be in my bed any longer.”
He could see Zhou Mi was trying to keep his breathing even, brain stretching as he tried to follow Kyuhyun’s words. “So are you trying to see if I want someone else? Someone from the Organization? My friends?”
“A man you pass on the street. It doesn’t matter.”
“What if you were that man?” Zhou Mi murmured. “Hat on your head, light of the gas lamps shooting you shadow out and making you taller. Ow.”
Kyuhyun took back his hand from where he’d smacked Zhou Mi’s knee.
“I can have everything you describe,” Zhou Mi told him. “But I only need one man to do it. We’ve done it before. Your mouth on me, fingers in me, as I—“
“I see your point,” Kyuhyun said. And tried to calm himself, before he made that thought become reality. Zhou Mi’s mouth was warm. Very warm, and he could see himself emptying into it without any trouble at all.
“What would you like me to do for you after?” Zhou Mi asked, his breathing becoming labored. “Or will I get to watch, too?”
“If you watch, you won’t be watching long,” Kyuhyun admitted. As hard as he was, as much as his body was pulsing, he wondered if he would even need touch. And Zhou Mi was being so deliberately provocative, adjusting his hips, his arm as his strokes got faster.
Kyuhyun wasn’t sure where to look the concentration on Zhou Mi’s face, or the movement of his hand that had Zhou Mi dripping onto his own stomach.
“Feels good, doesn’t it,” he said, keeping his voice low.
“Better if you were doing it.”
Kyuhyun thought the same. Zhou Mi’s hand on him, his on Zhou Mi, and there would be no barriers to stop him. As it was his hand was squeezing on his thigh to keep from touching himself.
“Your body feels warm to me when mine is cold. Hot, hard in my hand. Better if I’m inside you, because I can see you gasping every time I slide in, getting tighter as you get closer. Your fingers keep digging into my back, or my shoulders, and you let out little breaths… Yeah, like that.”
The shuddering little breaths as Zhou Mi began to race himself, the feelings that were rising and his own strokes, and Kyuhyun’s words. All he could do was keep his eyes on Zhou Mi’s, and keep talking.
“Are you going to come for me, empty yourself? Imagine me sucking you clean, licking your stomach and chest. Then I’ll get it dirty again. The taste of you will almost be enough to make me come. I’m so hard already, just waiting to see you—“
With a soft grunt, Zhou Mi’s eyes went wide and unfocused as his body jerked. And Kyuhyun saw what he’d been waiting to, semen in lines and droplets, bright against Zhou Mi’s skin as Zhou Mi panted and eased his body’s furor.
Kyuhyun did as he promised, nudging down Zhou Mi’s frozen hand and tasting his cock, sucking it nearly clean. He wasn’t attempting perfection, just giving Zhou Mi exactly what he had said. His tongue took a wet, generous journey up Zhou Mi’s stomach, and the taste did have his body begging. Messy kisses up Zhou Mi’s chest, doing more to spread than to clean, as he hissed and swung his leg over Zhou Mi’s body.
Zhou Mi’s breath was sowing as he watched Kyuhyun open his trousers, and the first friction of skin against skin had Kyuhyun gulping, swallowing hard as he tried not to lose control just from that. It was a different view, but also a different feeling as Zhou Mi gripped both his thighs.
“Show me,” Zhou Mi urged.
With his hand braced on the bed, he did. He’d promised it wouldn’t last long. He could have drawn it out, spent long minutes torturing himself right on the edge of release. But Zhou Mi had found his, and wanted to see him gain his own.
And then Zhou Mi’s tongue snaked out to wet his lips, so deliberately that Kyuhyun’s eyes darted up, glaring with his brows drawn. Zhou Mi laughed, so smug and effortlessly gorgeous. Teeth bared, Zhou Mi was satisfied but still hungry. Just by the weight of Zhou Mi’s stare as he watched Kyuhyun, took in his body. Perhaps he was exactly what Zhou Mi wanted. Not just a man, but a man like him - a man Zhou Mi was touching, squeezing Kyuhyun’s thighs.
He closed his eyes, ready to give in, and gasped at the hand on his face.
“No,” Zhou Mi told him. “Look at me.”
He would come thinking only of Zhou Mi, just as Kyuhyun had demanded.
“Zhou Mi.”
Until he’d said it, he hadn’t even realized he had, watching with helpless breaths as Zhou Mi pushed himself up until he could cup the back of Kyuhyun’s head and bring him close.
“Show me,” Zhou Mi repeated. “Show me, Kyuhyun.”
As close as their faces were, it wasn’t to watch, some voyeuristic thrill as Kyuhyun had gotten. It was to see in Kyuhyun’s face every feeling, every nuance.
So he did, and lost control. But even in the glee of release, he felt Zhou Mi’s nose press beside his, his breath puffing against Zhou Mi’s mouth. But his body relaxed, still singing with pleasure, and he nudged against Zhou Mi’s face.
“Watching me caused that, huh?” Zhou Mi teased, his thumb rubbing behind Kyuhyun’s ear.
“Watching you could cause far more than that.”
They laughed against each other, trading kisses as they slowly collapsed back onto the bed.
“We should clean you up,” Kyuhyun murmured.
“Take off your trousers, and those will work.”
He drilled his finger into Zhou Mi’s side for daring to sacrifice his clothes for Zhou Mi’s cleanliness. But it was between that and finding another cloth, so Zhou Mi had the best idea after all.
But it took rolling onto his back and a struggle between his legs and Zhou Mi’s to finally wrest the offending cloth off, and then to make a passable swipe over his skin and Zhou Mi’s.
But he hadn’t fed yet, and Zhou Mi hadn’t forgotten, one long ridiculous arm snaking around his shoulders as Zhou Mi turned to him.
“The sun?”
“On its way. But there’s time.”
There was always time to feed. He had visions of Zhou Mi’s waggling brows as he pressed his lips to Zhou Mi’s neck. Zhou Mi was wrapped around him so thoroughly, as he bit, such a warm cocoon of man and cloth.
“I’ve never put myself on display like that before,” Zhou Mi said, his breath ruffling Kyuhyun’s hair.
How secure he must have been, to speak with Kyuhyun’s teeth in him. Kyuhyun hummed in response, kneading Zhou Mi’s shoulder.
“I liked it. I think someone else would have made me feel uncomfortable. Too embarrassed. Though I like it more with you against me. Tomorrow.”
Kyuhyun released Zhou Mi’s neck, kissing the cleaned wounds he’d made. He was sated, full.
“Yes, tomorrow,” Kyuhyun agreed. “Any requests?”
Zhou Mi just shook his head, and Kyuhyun rested his face against Zhou Mi’s neck. That throat. Kyuhyun’s neck. His. The sun rose, but he was already asleep.
***
In how many ways could two men fit together, Kyuhyun wondered. Day after day. He nudged his hips up against Zhou Mi’s, holding him from behind as they undressed one day. Another, Zhou Mi fell asleep breathing against the back of his neck. They were careful, so careful not to mention the time that was slipping from their fingers. Sleep was wasted time together. He’d rolled Zhou Mi over once, half asleep from coming in Kyuhyun’s mouth, only to be sucked hard, to fuck one more time. It was like an illness, trying to get his fill before he went without.
But time would not stop, even for him. He had lived Zhou Mi’s lifetime, several times over, and still he was not satisfied with what he’d had. Changmin could admonish him until he breathed in all the air in the city, but it did not diminish his want. He would have fed until he was sick, breathing at Zhou Mi’s neck. If Zhou Mi had allowed it, they would not have left his bed - he would have kept Zhou Mi aroused and needy - or in bliss from it - from the moment he woke, until the sun rose. But Zhou Mi wasn’t his to command, no matter how much time was left for them. It had always been understood that the fight against Euphoria came first, that the feeding would not interfere. And it was only one night that last week that Zhou Mi had to apologize for cutting their time short.
When Zhou Mi was with him to feed, in his bed, or against him in the library, he knew Zhou Mi thought of him only. He got to forget, for a little while. To relax. When Kyuhyun kissed smiles onto Zhou Mi’s face, and Zhou Mi’s arms slid around him. He hinted that time was short, day by day, so that it was not a surprise to either of them. Perhaps saying it aloud would make it real. But the days still passed.
Changmin, instead of showing up himself, sent a note.
It read only “Do what you must.”
Kyuhyun knew what Changmin meant.
Like the last lingering days of summer that passed into the cold, he could not stop time or extend their agreement. And he knew that he wanted time enough that last night to do anything, everything they wanted.
So he stood and Zhou Mii’s head rose. “You know what tonight is?”
“The finale of our agreement?” Zhou Mi said, and Kyuhyun nodded.
He did not have to ask if Zhou Mi was finished, or ready to go upstairs with him. Zhou Mi stood, waited for Kyuhyun to join him with a smile touching his lips, so they could walk up the stairs together. It did not feel like he was walking to his death, like his steps were heavy. But his mind was racing. What they should do, or how. How to make it a memorable night, how to make it so that Zhou Mi would never forget it even to the day he drew his last breath.
But that seemed silly. There was nothing he could do to make that happen. He had no secret, superhuman powers of sex, and no ability to enhance Zhou Mi’s pleasure. If he’d had, they would have been doing that every night and not just the last. Making it too large in his mind might instead make it worse for them.
They’d had a month to learn each other, and he knew what Zhou Mi liked. That would need to be enough.
“The time went so fast,” Zhou Mi said.
“There were a lot of things keeping time occupied.”
Letters, and trips, and children, and the poor souls that were Euphoria’s victims. The month had not been some gift of debauchery, but it had gained them both something. Zhou Mi and his Organization had made progress, and Kyuhyun had gained a great deal of other things.
In the privacy of his room, beside his bed, he gained Zhou Mi’s mouth against his. After he turned on the light at his bedside, he’d had only to turn with Zhou Mi’s arm snaking around his back and drawing him close to kiss him. When they stood like that, he felt all of Zhou Mi’s height. The way his head fell back ever so slightly, so to meet Zhou Mi’s mouth more firmly. He had no need to gain the upper hand, concerned only that he got all the kisses he was deserving of, stroking from the soft hair at Zhou Mi’s nape, to the strength of his neck.
He had not wondered if they would talk. The time for conversation had long passed. He wanted only to feel, to write into his memory something greater than himself. They worked in unison, tugging at buttons and sleeves, and the cloth at Zhou Mi’s neck. He shivered a bit, as Zhou Mi’s fingers skimmed his chest. His shirt slid down his arms at Zhou Mi’s insistence, and Kyuhyun kissed Zhou Mi’s collarbone. Zhou Mi was perfect in every way. Maybe too sharp at the knee, he conceded. But it was of no consequence.
He loved the texture of Zhou Mi’s skin. It was soft as his fingers dragged over it, but what it covered was the body of a man. His ribs, his chest under Kyuhyun’s fingertips, shivering at Kyuhyun’s touches. He did not mean to tickle and tease, only to map and remember. Straining muscle and bone, the fragrance of his hair when Kyuhyun inhaled above his ear.
Kyuhyun lifted Zhou Mi’s hand, licked along the lines crossing his palm, teasing kisses as Zhou Mi’s fingertips skimmed his cheek. The tang of salt on skin had him humming as he nibbled the soft flesh between Zhou Mi’s thumb and forefinger.
Zhou Mi did not wait for Kyuhyun to draw him in, but pressed his mouth to Kyuhyun’s first. The soft rub of lips, it was plea and order both. To kiss him as he wanted to be kissed, for Kyuhyun to meet him, taste him, allow his tongue to do unspeakable things that set his body aflame.
And yet still, he needed some assurance.
“Tonight’s our—“
“I know,” Zhou Mi said.
“We can’t—“
“I know.”
“Please don’t leave before I wake up. We should… Make it official.”
Zhou Mi nodded. “If I do have to leave, I’ll return before you wake.”
It was as good a compromise as any.
And so Zhou Mi pushed him back, first kneeling on the bed beside Kyuhyun, and then over him. It was like any other night, only there was some kind of desperation rioting in his skin.
“Let me,” Zhou Mi suggested, and Kyuhyun cupped Zhou Mi’s face, kissed him in agreement. There was nothing Zhou Mi could do that he would not like, not enjoy, until it was pain to Zhou Mi. But there was no pain in lying there, feeling Zhou Mi’s long, nimble fingers stroking him hard with the slick oil. It put Zhou Mi mostly out of reach, mostly in shadow. Zhou Mi’s face was so hard to read as he pleasured them both, but Kyuhyun traced his features anyway. His eyebrows were drawn, lips parted, and as Zhou Mi’s hand stilled on Kyuhyun, he realized why. Zhou Mi was making himself slick, so he would be ready for Kyuhyun to take. There was no list of things in Kyuhyun’s head that he found arousing, but watching Zhou Mi right then was making one. A man, aroused and ready.
He thought that was the extent of it, that he would find himself distracted by pressing Zhou Mi down and kissing him, fucking him.
But Zhou Mi smiled at him, almost as though he could read Kyuhyun’s thoughts, and maybe he could in the way Kyuhyun had tensed and reached for him. But that wasn’t what happened. Zhou Mi did not invite him as he had before, a grin on his lips and promise in the lines of his body. Instead, he lifted, waited, until Kyuhyun realized what Zhou Mi meant - that he would not press Zhou Mi onto his back, no, but Zhou Mi would stay above him. Had he not been hard, the prospect of watching Zhou Mi use his body to fuck himself would have had him becoming so. All he could do was stay still, to watch as Zhou Mi adjusted them both, until they began to fit as they knew they would.
He moaned, reaching for Zhou Mi’s hips as Zhou Mi took him, took all of him. He could do little but hold his hips still, let Zhou Mi control how much he took, how fast.
“You always wanted that control, didn’t you?”
Zhou Mi smirked at him, leaning forward and making Kyuhyun gasp.
It was their last night together, to bite, to fuck. It seemed fitting that Zhou Mi control everything. Movement. His pleasure.
It was different than watching Zhou Mi from a distance. He had movement above him, around him. Zhou Mi’s chest, and his determined expression, as though the sex was some kind of task he was trying to accomplish well.
“It is not a race,” Kyuhyun reminded him. “I won’t give you a grade after.”
Zhou Mi laughed, the sound breathy. “I am not racing any clock, but the strength of my legs. You would weary me.”
“I should have raced you up the stairs.”
“This is more pleasing.”
Kyuhyun could not argue with that. The rock of Zhou Mi’s body, lifting, sinking onto Kyuhyun again and again. He began to wonder if his body would be the one to give out before Zhou Mi’s strength did.
“We should have done this before,” Kyuhyun teased, pretending as though he were relaxing, and getting a smack to his chest.
As though he was not helping, hips lifting with every fall Zhou Mi took. Just that extra friction had him hissing, arching as Zhou Mi teased his chest with evil fingers. Circles and lines drawn into his skin, they ironically did not take his focus away from Zhou Mi, his rising desperation, but instead raised it.
And Zhou Mi knew, from the smug curve the corners of his mouth were taking as he panted and continued driving Kyuhyun to the edge of reason. Zhou Mi looked elegant and so right on the back of a horse, but it was not elegance he saw there. Determination. Desire. He tried to tell time by the beating of his heart, and could not because it raced ahead of him just watching the way Zhou Mi flung his hair from his eyes, his head tilting back or to the side as he labored to bring them both pleasure.
And when Kyuhyun thought he was nearly done, Zhou Mi lifted up onto his knees, leaving him unsatisfied, and reaching.
“What are you doing?”
“Legs are too tired,” Zhou Mi said, arranging himself on his back beside Kyuhyun. “And I want you above me.”
He did not need to be told twice, using that momentary terror to drive himself, slipping between Zhou Mi’s spread legs and pressing again into his body.
Maybe Zhou Mi knew more than he realized as he looked up at Kyuhyun and lifted his hips to greet him. It was the way they had done it first. And last.
That first time he’d been so full of nerves. He’d hoped he could satisfy Zhou Mi without the thrall, to not horrify him at the thought of being bitten or going willingly into a man’s bed. It hadn’t been talent, or luck that had accomplished those things, but a combination of Zhou Mi’s courage and need from them both. Inspiring need in a man was one thing. Making him need beyond all the other areas of worry was something else.
Using Zhou Mi’s body to his own end was different than using his hand, because there was a man racing him for breaths, for touch. Begging him without words for Kyuhyun to go faster because of Zhou Mi’s own desire.
And there was so much that couldn’t be explained in Zhou Mi’s disordered hair, wild from Kyuhyun’s fingers, and the way he met Kyuhyun’s eyes with a sweaty face and kiss-dark lips. And somehow, Zhou Mi knew, baring his throat. Not in submission, but in offer.
“Kyuhyun,” Zhou Mi breathed as Kyuhyun bit him.
It was the last blood he would take, and he drank so slowly. Zhou Mi’s fingers holding his head, holding him close. The fingers massaging his scalp had his eyes closing as he focused on the taste, the heat of Zhou Mi, of Zhou Mi’s blood. It tasted pure, and Kyuhyun wondered if he could taste the difference in a human who was in thrall or not. In the month they had had, Kyuhyun had nearly forgotten how Zhou Mi’s blood differed from any other.
He would get to find out soon enough. The thought almost made him choke, and Zhou Mi steadied him, murmuring things Kyuhyun couldn’t understand.
But at his last swallow, drawing his teeth back and wanting another bite, he wanted Zhou Mi’s mouth. To kiss him, share with him. And Zhou Mi did not shy from his kiss.
They had shared the taste of each other’s come, of food that Kyuhyun couldn’t eat. But never blood, not like that. He waited to see if Zhou Mi would pull away, once he realized, but he only wrapped his arm around Kyuhyun tighter, kissing him until the only thing he could taste was Zhou Mi.
And as Kyuhyun stroked him, he wrote Zhou Mi’s moans into his memory, the tightening of his face as he came, the sound of his name in panting breaths.
And muffling his words in Zhou Mi’s shoulder, he let himself go. It was not the height of sexual pleasure, but tinged with regret. It rolled over and through him, almost like pain, until his body had nothing more to give. And there was nothing left to take. But he waited, until he had gathered himself, until the pleasure had settled and become part of him.
“Don’t,” Zhou Mi protested, when Kyuhyun would have moved off of him.
“I think you like to breathe,” Kyuhyun suggested, getting a gusty chuckle that spurred his own.
“Not far,” Zhou Mi clarified.
“With me, then.”
With him. They rolled onto their sides, turning out the light and adjusting blankets and limbs until they were closed in and comfortable and close.
“You get better at that every time,” Kyuhyun said, voice light and teasing.
Zhou Mi answered in kind. “I was going to say the same.”
But there was no humor in Zhou Mi’s kiss. There in the dark, there was nothing else, his hand curling over Zhou Mi’s neck. Nothing but warmth, and savoring Zhou Mi’s lips against his until they were barely moving, just their lips meeting, adjusting, and meeting again.
He could feel the sun and tried to will it back back, fingers stroking Zhou Mi’s neck.
“The sun?” Zhou Mi asked, and Kyuhyun felt it as much as heard it.
“Yes.”
“Sleep then,” Zhou Mi told him, and pressed a harder kiss to his mouth, one that was meant to send him into oblivion.
“Zhou Mi,” he murmured.
There were things he wanted to say. But in the warmth, and in the rising sun, and Zhou Mi’s arm around him, he could not form words. Surely just one more night. Another week. A year. It would be enough then. Eventually, it would have to be enough.
Zhou Mi’s fingers stroked his hair. “Sleep.”
It wasn’t enough yet. He was unsure he should end it. Unsure he could keep it - keep the man longer, and let him go even as he reached for Zhou Mi’s hand. Instead he whispered Zhou Mi’s name one more time, got one last kiss.
“Thank you,” he thought he heard Zhou Mi whisper as he slipped into the bliss of sleep.
He wondered, for what.
***
Zhou Mi did not wait to be seen into the library, but went himself. It was too early for Kyuhyun to be down, but it was also too late for Zhou Mi to contemplate going up the stairs. Kyuhyun had asked him to be there when he woke, but Zhou Mi wasn’t certain if that was in his bed, or in his home. It had been quite a long time since Zhou Mi had felt awkward waking in Kyuhyun’s bed, whether Kyuhyun was still deeply asleep or waking beside him. But on that day, their last day - no, their parting day - he did not know if he could have stayed in that bed to see Kyuhyun wake. Another day, they would have kissed, touched. Kyuhyun was equally as needy when he woke and they had had all the time allotted to them. Though it didn’t keep him from wondering what would have happened, if he had been in Kyuhyun’s bed. Perhaps Kyuhyun would have woken reaching for him and there would have been some sort of comfort in the waking instead of uncertainty.
He had kept little at Kyuhyun’s home, and most of it had left with him already. His letterheads, his preferred pen. There were no clothes in Kyuhyun’s bedroom because he had taken them when he had left earlier that day. He had not wanted to leave things behind, to make it look as though he were creating an excuse to return.
The truth was he didn’t know if he would need an excuse, if the biting ceased, he assumed the sex would as well. But he didn’t know for certain. He knew what he wanted. He enjoyed Kyuhyun’s company as much as he enjoyed his body. Gaining his help had been Zhou Mi’s first priority, but that hadn’t been where things between them had stopped.
The desk Zhou Mi had used was still sitting in front of Kyuhyun’s desk. He wondered where it would move back to. Kyuhyun’s library at least would return to how it had been. Beyond the desk and chair, it had not much changed with his arrival into Kyuhyun’s life. The marks he had made on Kyuhyun’s house, like the marks made on Zhou Mi’s skin, were temporary and would fade.
Sound broke him from his contemplation and he turned to see Kyuhyun enter.
“Good, you’re here,” Kyuhyun said, not stopping beside Zhou Mi and instead moving to the other side of the desk. It put a barrier between them, one that Zhou Mi felt.
“As you requested,” Zhou Mi said. “Did you rest well?”
“The same as usual. Thank you for asking. It is best that we draw this to a formal close. It was a verbal agreement between us, but I have to ask, do you feel your requirements were met?” Kyuhyun asked.
At first the question was puzzling to Zhou Mi, as though Kyuhyun were asking him if he were dissatisfied, if he wanted compensation. When he thought of where he had been a month prior, and where he was that day, he did not think he could have possibly complained. They had found a storehouse of Euphoria, found a way to help those afflicted by it. They had gained alliances with the Choi family, rescued Jinyong, and yet still more information that Zhou Mi had yet to parse. He could not even have hoped for half of that when he had met with Kyuhyun to start.
“My requirements were more than met,” Zhou Mi told him. “So much progress was made, I cannot believe it.”
“I’m glad,” Kyuhyun said. “It is the same for me. Our bargain was for feeding, and you have fulfilled that. If we are both satisfied by the outcome, then I see no more reason to waste your time. I’m sure you have many things to accomplish.”
“If I have questions? Or if the Organization—“
“Send a note if it’s an emergency. Or have one of your other eager members come to query my help. Once an agreement like ours is over, it is not typical to continue that…acquaintance. Perhaps in the future I will be willing to help again, but it will not be with you.”
Zhou Mi kept what he thought was an admirable amount of control over his face as Kyuhyun spoke. He’d known that there would be no more feeding, a break in contact for a time to give them space. But Kyuhyun was saying there would be no contact, no communication. As though they had not met, or as though something terrible had happened between them.
“If you have all of your things, you can see yourself out,” Kyuhyun said. “It has been enlightening.”
“Yes, I have everything,” Zhou Mi said, his mind scrambling to keep up. “I did have one question. Did you learn what you wanted? About me not being subject to the thrall.”
Kyuhyun met his eyes, but they were guarded, not yielding anything Zhou Mi wanted to see. “Yes. I learned everything I needed to know.”
He’d forgotten at times what had spurred Kyuhyun to form their agreement. It would have been a month of help in exchange only for money, had Zhou Mi decided otherwise. The formal breaking of contract would have seemed to be so logical in that light, instead of standing and holding in any emotion or expression in the face of Kyuhyun’s indifference. It was equally as likely that that was a show, as much as Zhou Mi’s reaction was. Kyuhyun had known even more intimately how different their situations would be at the end of their month. And yet still, he had been the one kissing Zhou Mi before they slept, fingers tightly gripped between Zhou Mi’s, as though he were soaking up all the warmth he could.
Because there would be no more warmth. Not unless - until - Kyuhyun found another human.
Kyuhyun approached him, staying back, so deliberate as he seemed to be trying to herd Zhou Mi out of the library. Right there, he’d stood when they had met. Right there, Kyuhyun had propositioned him, bitten him, kissed him.
“Have you found another human?” Zhou Mi asked. It could have been so friendly, so detached, and yet it wasn’t.
“Not yet,” Kyuhyun said, but his eyes were at Zhou Mi’s shoulders, not his face.
“Thank you for your help. Thank you for all your help,” Zhou Mi told him, before he didn’t have a chance to express his appreciation. But those words weren’t enough to truly convey what he had in his head.
Kyuhyun nodded. “It was returned in full. Good night.”
And Kyuhyun closed the door to the library, leaving Zhou Mi in the hall.
Zhou Mi saw himself out, taking one last trip down the steps to his waiting carriage. He looked back, once, to the window he knew was the library’s. Kyuhyun was not at it, nor had Zhou Mi expected him to be. But it was a different kind of closure.
He thought perhaps he had expected more humor. For Kyuhyun to have tried to bargain for more time, or tease him that he should find another vampire. That it was so somber, so strangely stilted left him off balance. It should have felt like an end, and in many ways it did, but he was not sure that he had fully contemplated all that had happened. Nor would he soon.
***
Kyuhyun waited two days before letting his staff know he was ready to find another human to bite. He was lucky, unlike when he had first been turned. Then, he’d had to find humans on his own. It was a luxury he’d become accustomed to over the last twenty years of his life. He just had a few rules, and one of those was no biting his staff, even if they offered. And if they did offer, they would not have been working for him any longer. He’d let a couple go, with a letter of recommendation. Some things were not done.
They’d found a woman first. It would have been too much to switch to man right away, he reasoned. And yet he’d sent her away without seeing her. He had too much to do. Changmin had sent papers for him to look through, investments. He did not have to think hard to know that Changmin was trying to distract him and keep him busy. It was something he could have done on his own. He’d had plenty to occupy his time before Zhou Mi, and did after. He had not forgotten how to use his hand for pleasure, either, since he had done that whether Zhou Mi was there or not. One way or the other, things still got accomplished.
Not every human he bit and fucked. The hunger was greater than the need for satisfaction. And he wasn’t entirely positive that his body wasn’t expecting Zhou Mi to come to his bedroom door, to lean against the jamb and smile the slow smile that started at his eyes and curled his lips in invitation.
Staining the sheets wet with his come imagining Zhou Mi’s moans, the supple give of his throat, was getting him no closer to feeding.
The man his servants let into the library was not as tall as Zhou Mi, and built differently. More solid through the ribs and hips, though in a way Kyuhyun found he liked.
Kyuhyun wasn’t sure what his intention was yet, until the human began to kiss his neck. It was nice, warm, wet touches. It seemed this human had been with a vampire before, knew what might be wanted, and wanted those. And then he thought of the thrall, the calming effect, and wondered how much of the man’s desire stemmed from that. But he chased it from his mind, letting the human open his shirt and touch him. His stomach contracted at cool fingers. Not warm like Zhou Mi’s were. It depended what this human wanted, how far he would go. He would be shown.
And teeth bit hard on Kyuhyun’s shoulder.
“No, Zhou—“
The smell was wrong.
Kyuhyun’s eyes shot open as he pushed the man back. The man looked confused, unsure what he had done, unsure what Kyuhyun had said. Kyuhyun stood, buttoning his shirt.
“I’m sorry. I forgot I had another engagement and cannot feed now. Leave your name with my staff, and if you’re needed again, you will be called on.”
He did not wait for an answer, striding out the door and heading for the stable. There were a number of things he knew could cure his agitation. A long bite. A bout of sex. A hard ride.
Of the three, the only that sounded appealing was the last. No, that wasn’t true. The first two were appealing as nothing had been before. But the man he wanted, he couldn’t have.
***
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Why does Kyuhyun refuse to be with Zhou Mi?
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I have no idea how to tell you how amazing your writing is, how much it makes my heart curl inside me.It's just.... flawless, your attention to detail and the amount of effort that goes into crafting every single little detail and character. You don't just create a world you create rules and laws and back stories for everything within the world too. I bet there is details you've thought of and planned that we will never be outright told but they will linger in the background supporting the plot and events.
Ugh just ugh. Still No.1 fan right here!!
Oh QMi you do taunt me so. Kyuhyuns yearning for Mi is heart clenching and the insinuation of something more serious in Kyuhyuns thought leaves just the edge of mystery whilst also leading the mind to a logical outcome.....
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;~~; <3<3 That's one of the things I really enjoy about long fics. Not that in short fics there isn't that world building or character exploration, but it gives so much more time to...show? And to discover for myself, too. And it's always funny when people can point out things, like even some of those rules you mention, that I never notice and then I'm all, "Oh yeah, huh." Sometimes being too close to it makes it hard to see. It's amazing how sometimes it can all feel like a happy accident, something squished together without being able able to really see it! XD
And every story seems to teach something a little different, too...
The fact that Kyuhyun thinks he can't have that chance with Zhou Mi, just. ;~~; <3
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There are certain liberties you can take with long fics that shorter ones don't allow for, although you put tremendous amounts of effort into both :)
Kyuhyun is so... wubs. He's all melancholy because he thinks he can't have mimi and then theres mimi who is probably planning family get holidays in his head with Him, Kyu and Jinyong....wubs
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i mean....they want each other right?
gah..it's complicated....
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Lord... just two more chapters... I wish it could be longer!!!
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this big secret is killing me....!
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