Archive of Our Own ^beta

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Zayn is a solitary creature.

He has been for as long as he can remember.

Once upon a time, before he became immortal, he was human. Human in the most beautiful of ways: warm, lively, with a smile on his face and grass stains on the knees of his trousers after a long day of work. But one night he was turned. Changed. Someone transformed him for a reason he’ll never know. Whoever it was left him lying face down in a ditch just outside of the town he grew up in, with bruises littering his body, almost completely drained of blood. He doesn’t remember much about his human life, other than a few bits and pieces, his father’s name and how he used to love him.

But once he was changed, once he fled his hometown in fear, it all faded away. After a few centuries of walking alone in the shadows once the sun went down, there wasn’t much need for anything else inside his head.

He used to wonder if it was on purpose or a freak accident. Did that long ago creature spot him in a sea of people, see his handsome features and graceful gait, and decide to make him into a solitary creature, a monster, frozen into a perpetual state of decay? Or was it an accident? Was Zayn simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, destined to be that creature’s dinner, and mistakenly drained past the point of no return, with the monster’s venom coursing through his veins?

Zayn has had the same kind of accident twice, sadly. Gone too far. Taken too much and left too much of himself in return. He sometimes wonders where those two are now, if like him they roam the earth alone, in solitary confinement, even surrounded by millions of humans.

Vampire.

That’s what he is, what he turned those other two into, and it’s honestly so ridiculous sometimes Zayn can’t help but laugh right after he’s fed. He’ll be in a low lit house, a back alley, the park near his favorite museum, with blood in his mouth, and laugh like a villain in a novel. Vampires exist, the nightmare humans have been telling each other stories about for hundreds of years. And Zayn is one of them. He has red eyes. Speed. Strength. He exists in only the moonlight, his fangs protract so that he can drink human blood, and he can’t enter a residence without permission. The humans have those parts right. He does have a reflection and isn’t burned by holy water, though. He has mirrors all over his house, just to prove that he can, and sometimes he strolls through old churches at night when he’s bored, to view the artwork, crossing himself with holy water to show respect.

A wooden stake through the heart would kill him. The folklore got that right too.

But no one has ever tried to hurt him, no one has ever gotten close enough. He thinks it’s because he never goes out of his way to hurt humans, in the ways humans tend to hurt each other. He doesn’t enjoy causing them pain or playing games like he’s a true animal predator on the hunt. It’s not fun, not enjoyable, even though some monsters like him certainly think it is.

He just has to eat. Every few days, to keep himself alive, he finds a human. He makes eye contact and before anyone can comment on his piercing blood-red eyes, he smiles at them. The trance starts immediately, so he leans in and speaks softly, his voice like a forgotten childhood melody.

Don’t be afraid. Don’t scream. Don’t run.

It’ll all be over soon.

He gets them alone. He then holds their head in his hands and punctures their carotid artery with his incisors, like it’s a ripe pear, supple in his mouth, sweet juice on his tongue. He feeds and feeds, latches on with his full body weight like he’s a fucking tick, until he can barely stand up it’s so heavenly. The warmth envelops him, like he’s a drunk human with uneven footing, loaded up with expensive whiskey. He usually has to rest his forehead on their shoulder to steady himself, before he leans in a final time to lick at the wounds, to stop the bleeding. And then afterwards he simply looks them in the eye a final time, speaks just as softly as before, uses whatever power that sprung up inside him all those centuries ago, to make them forget.

You were never here. You won’t remember me. You won’t remember this at all. You fell and hurt yourself. You should be more careful.

Go home and rest.

That’s how he sends them off, none the wiser of what he is or what he’s just done to them. It’s the only way he’s been able to survive, the way he can coerce people to be his sustenance. It’s also how he gets them to do what he needs them to do. It’s how he has his house, his motorcycle, and more money in the bank than he’ll ever need.

He drinks blood and then makes them forget. Life goes on, the seasons turn, and one day he looks up at a calendar to see that it’s three years later than he thought it was. Time doesn’t stand still when you’re immortal, it moves just as it’s always done, and yet it’s different. Days become months and years become centuries.

Zayn is a solitary being, never one to insert himself into little vampire covens littered across the country, just because. He walks alone, he feeds alone. When he’s not searching for his next meal, when blood isn’t the only thing on his mind, he reads a lot. He thinks he used to enjoy singing, but how would he sing now, without drawing attention to himself? He’s been all over the world, seen every museum and famous work of art that exists. He has two college degrees and a masters. He uses his brain, he sleeps in a darkened closet as the world bustles along outside, and then ventures out night after night to keep himself busy. It’s the hardest part about being eternal: he has too much time to fill, forever.

Sometimes he charms a human with his smile, and instead of controlling their mind to feed, he lets himself be led into their cars, invited into houses and apartments, to fuck and kiss and lick the salt off of warm, human skin. He’s not naïve, he knows he’s beautiful. No coercion necessary when it comes to the need to satiate the other natural urge that swirls inside his gut some nights.

But he’s never mixed the two.

Yes, sometimes he gets rock hard when he’s drinking from a delicious smelling one, his hand curved around the base of a throat. He’s sank his teeth into necks, wrists, shoulder blades, and thought about it, what it would feel like to reach for his belt. And other times when he’s sweet-talked someone into going home with him, buried deep inside a willing human, his cock throbs to remind him he does have blood of his own circulating, that he’s suddenly seen red and wanted to lunge, to clamp down into the meat of a thigh or the arch of a back or femoral artery. To fuck while he feeds, to feed as he fucks, his two most primal urges demanding to coexist.

But it’s already a lot to take, the blood of an unwilling human, the one thing he needs to keep his muscles moving. There are some lines he’s never been able to cross, even though he’s certain many other monsters like him do regularly, and he’s not sure if it’s his last shred of humanity or something else. Sure, some humans enjoy pain, some don’t mind a spanking or a sharp slap to the face, and that’s fine because if anyone would understand, it’s Zayn. The pain that comes from him though, the kind he inflicts with his teeth, it’s not the same. He’s never seen it as the same. He keeps it separate: he feeds, erases their memory, and goes on his way; or he fucks around with a stranger, erases their memory, and goes on his way.

Zayn has existed for a hundred and twenty-one years now. He’s been a vampire for ninety five of them. He thinks his birthday was sometime in January, but he can’t be sure, and he’s certain that after a few hundred more years, he won’t count them anymore.

Time marches on and night after night, Zayn slinks alone in the shadows, his red eyes tilted down at the ground.

He tries to keep himself busy until sunrise.

---

He’s not in the mood to feed, not tonight. He fed two days ago and shouldn’t need to feed again for another two more. He’s also not really in the mood to have someone touching him, in his space, a hand down his pants. Sometimes it’s more trouble than it’s worth, trying to find someone who won’t stare at the red of his eyes or ask questions.

But when he hears two young women cackling ahead of him on the street about a new outdoor club on the west side that features a large pool with a DJ right in the middle of it, he figures why not. He can people watch in the dark, listen to music, blend in and see what sorts of things they’ll talk about. It’s fascinating, the topics they come up with. Their inside jokes, anecdotes, stray musings. It also keeps Zayn grounded, to watch and listen, to remember them as living beings and not food for the taking.

It’s late by the time he arrives. A few women eye him as he hops off his bike and then a few more eye him as weaves through the crowd inside. Everyone around him seems to be sweating, clothes sticking to tanned skin, the pool at the far end of the club misting those closest to it. He settles at the bar, leans his hip against it and immediately removes his jacket. If the humans are warm, he needs to appear warm too, wiping his forehead at nonexistent sweat to really sell it.

When he orders a drink for something to hold, the bartender comments on his hair, how sexy it is to have the sides of his head shaved and long hair on top. He nods politely, quickly averts his eyes even as he sends her a smile, so sure that he could have her if he wanted her. He wouldn’t have to trance her into it, wouldn’t have to coerce. He could just step into a shadow, shield his face slightly, slide his hand into hers and ask where she’s from. They love to say where they’re from.

But he’s still not really in the mood and not sure why. He moves around the club to see if anything or anyone can catch his attention, keep the boredom at bay for the night. The conversations he’s snuck up on here and there haven’t been interesting and no one other than the bartender has approached to say hello. His grip tightens on the glass of vodka in his hand, not too hard otherwise he’ll shatter it, and begins to turn away from where people are dancing and writhing together near the pool. It’s almost last call, the humans around him are too fucked up, drunk and high off pills probably, so he could just leave. Hop on his bike and speed towards his house up in the hills, the one he’s had since the early seventies, and call it a wash. Slide into the bed he had installed inside his window-less closet and sleep all day as usual.

It’s his neck that first catches Zayn's eye and stops him in his tracks.

A shirtless man with his back to him, his hands up in his hair, practically stumbling into the other men dancing around him. A strong, muscled back about a mile long, leading down to slender hips and up to a smooth neck. Fuck, it’s a lovely neck. And just when Zayn wonders what the rest of him looks like, he turns. And Zayn knows then that if he still had working lungs, if his body still needed the intake of oxygen, he’d be clutching the metal beam next to his head to catch his breath.

Hair hanging in his face, sweat glistening across his collar bones and chest, high on something, glassy eyes. He has a cross around his neck, hanging from a thin chain, and Zayn could rip it right off with his teeth, he thinks. There are hands all over him, running across his shoulders, down his arms, along his toned stomach. The look on his face, fucking hell, is obscene. Like he’s about seconds away from seizing up, throwing his head back, and bumping his dick up against whatever stray hip happens to brush up against him first. Zayn can’t tear his eyes away, he forgets to blink, to shift from foot to foot, human movements and ticks he’s picked up over the centuries. The guy lifts an arm, points and laughs at the DJ, mouths a few words. He’s friendly. More half naked people have made their way to the dance floor, dripping wet with pool water, as the songs blend into one after the other. He’s responsive, no matter how many strangers seem to reach for him. It’s like a wave a human skin, all of them moving together. He’s into it, he fucking likes it, just lets himself be passed from hand to hand. Docile. Pliable.

Eventually he closes his eyes and leans back slightly, a man directly behind him with a hand on the side of his neck. Zayn feels his jaw tighten. And then a girl slides in, blocks Zayn's view momentarily, her ass rubbing at the front of the man’s trousers. She bounces slightly, out of it, and the man responds. His head tips forward and he smiles, eyes still closed, at having two people sandwiching him there in the middle of a sweaty dance floor.

Zayn loses track of time, just as he always does. It could be three minutes that he stands there and watches, but he wouldn’t be surprised if it’s an hour. Another girl Zayn hadn’t noticed before, with gorgeous skin and round lips, dips to the man’s left, dragging his attention along with her. His gaze follows hers, their eyes locked, and that’s when Zayn pushes through the crowd.

In no time at all, he’s close. He winds between them, feels the heat and the sweat radiating off of them, hears so many of their heartbeats, the blood pumping so strong and fast, he has to stay focused. Zayn moves to the right of him, right as another human’s hand reaches out for the man’s shoulder, their thumb on some ridiculous guitar tattoo that has the man laughing. Actually laughing, his screech loud even over the booming music, and it’s like four other people become as jealous as Zayn, since they weren’t the one to make him laugh like that.

Zayn hasn’t felt a pull like this in a long time, years probably, a longing he can’t put his finger on. He’s not hungry, he’s not hard up for it, he can’t even figure out why he needs this so badly. But he finally gets behind him, his right hand settling on the man’s hip. It’s hot to the touch, his human skin and muscle jumping under the cool press of Zayn's hand.

Fast as anything, before the man can turn around and look him in the eye, see the red there, Zayn grips him by the other hip to match. Pushes him forward, to keep him in place, and starts to move with him. The man must understand, what Zayn wants him to do: stay right there, keep doing that, this is good for now.

The music gets louder the closer it gets to last call, a final button to the night. More people crowd the dance floor, a few try to move their way between Zayn and the man. But he can’t have that, so he purposefully makes eye contact. Blinks. A few of their eyes widen at the look on Zayn's face, or the color of his pupils. Only once does he actually have to use words, when the girl from before, who tried to rub her ass on the man, tries to physically remove Zayn's hand from his hip.

Zayn practically snarls, his lip fucking curls, and he locks eyes with her.

“You need to leave now,” he says clear as day, seductively, their mouths too close. “You’re tired. You have to be up early tomorrow.”

She blinks twice, her expression blank. Dazed.

As if she makes the decision on her own, suddenly she’s sober, moving away from the dance floor, hand already reaching into her back pocket for her phone to call a ride home. Two other girls go trailing after her, confused at their friend’s abrupt change in plans. Zayn smiles to himself, the man’s hips shifting under his hands to the beat of the song. Zayn doesn’t dance, never really saw the draw of it, but maybe he gets it now. He moves with the man, steps closer and like a fucking wild animal, presses his mouth and nose into that sweet spot between this odd stranger’s shoulder blades.

Fucking Christ, Zayn thinks as he inhales deeply, the scent of salty sweat and hot blood swirling together. Humans believe in pheromones, and maybe in that moment Zayn does too, because he swears he can smell something else under the man’s skin. Something sweet and savory all at once, something he’d like to drizzle over a meal, if he still ate food. And then fuck, it’s no longer just the scent of blood pumping through the man’s veins, it suddenly shifts, alters into something else, like saliva but better. Humans have a unique protein in their saliva, some chemical that eases pain, heals small wounds, just like Zayn's does, but weaker. And maybe that’s what Zayn smells, a chemical reaction, something the man has in his mouth that reminds Zayn of himself. Natural. Primal.

The man tries to turn once more, like he wants to be face to face and see who the person manhandling him is. But Zayn grabs his hips harder, presses his nose into his skin and inhales again, he can’t stop yet. He smells so good, so fucking good, Zayn feels overwhelmed by it. He can feel himself fattening up in his jeans, his body reacting in a way it hasn’t in a while, actually turned on just by the scent and feel of a human in his grasp. He closes his eyes, lets himself drift in it for a few more minutes, the man’s hands on top of his now on his hips. He interlocks their fingers and squeezes, draws Zayn's attention down his hands. It catches Zayn off guard because suddenly the man turns, excited that he’s won this round, hands now up on Zayn's shoulders.

The man smiles at him. A megawatt smile, one of his front teeth caught on his bottom lip for a fraction of a second, and Zayn very nearly jumps him right then and there. He forgets to blink again, forgets to duck his head and shield his eyes from the man’s piercing stare, and just goes with it. He can tell the exact instant the man quirks his head, like he’s trying to convince himself he’s imagining things when he notices Zayn's enflamed irises. Zayn blinks five times in a row and moves his hands up to the man’s chest, fingers resting over tattoos of birds. That draws his eyes away from Zayn's, and they keep swaying together.

Somehow they end up fully chest to chest, this fucking stranger’s slick, bare chest pressed against Zayn's black tshirt. Zayn can’t help but rest his nose against his shoulder, the skin there just as sweet as his back. It’s fucking heavenly, there’s that something again, wafting off of this man like a real, tangible wave of energy. Zayn's eyes almost cross when he has two large arms thrown around his shoulders and chest, the man so close, so fucking close, they’re like a fucking single-cell organism.

The lights shift and so does he. He moves his body in such a way that suddenly Zayn finds his nose and mouth pressed up against his neck, Zayn’s entire face buried in the man’s neck away from prying eyes. His mouth lands just above the chain of his necklace. It’s wrong, it’s all wrong, Zayn's brain that he has purposefully cracked into two separate pieces, his two primal urges that he keeps so separate, are unexpectedly at peace. They are one.

Before he knows what he’s doing, before his thoughts can catch up with his biology, Zayn's fangs are buried deep into the neck of this stranger. He’s not sure how he got there, how it happened, but he feeds. Hard. Blood, so much blood, spurting hot and thick into his open mouth. Not quite at the artery, but close, enough for it to spill out without him having to use too much suction. The man gasps, his knees buckle, when he realizes that he’s not being playfully nipped by an eccentric stranger in a club, some kinky bastard who wants to make a few hickeys in his sweaty skin. It’s more, it’s worse. Bitten, a bite, from a man with too-long teeth, his blood spilling. It hurts, it has to hurt more than he thought possible. Pain, white hot pain that Zayn always tried to keep at bay.

He tries to move away, he tries to push at Zayn's chest, to get him to let go, but Zayn can’t. He crowds closer, ignores the other humans around him, doesn’t hear the music or wonder if anyone can see. He pulls the man into him completely, his entire left arm around the man’s head to keep him in his grasp. Zayn is strong, he’s the strongest creature a human can possibly come into contact with, and the man must realize it’s no use. He stops moving, stops pushing. Zayn drinks and drinks, even as one side of his brain screams at the other side to stop, holding the man’s neck flush against his mouth. He screams at himself to stop, to keep going, you’re going to kill him, just a little bit more, stop, I can’t.

And then out of nowhere, Zayn realizes it. He gulps and gulps, clutches his body even tighter against himself, when it occurs to him: the man isn’t fighting, he’s not trying to run. And not because Zayn is strong and has him held in place like a rabbit caught in a steel trap.

He’s leaning into it. Still, languid, just as docile and pliable as he had been before when he was dancing with the other humans. He has a hand in Zayn's hair, cradling the back of Zayn's head, just as Zayn cradles his. Angled towards Zayn, head tilted just so. Zayn can’t fucking believe it, what he’s done, how the human seems to be reacting. He hurries to lean back and lets his gorgeous neck go. He steps away, holds a hand out before the man can follow his movements.

Zayn stands there, surrounded by humans who don’t know a thing, no one even spares them a glance, and locks eyes with the man. He blinks at Zayn in a complete daze, his shaking left hand now up on his neck to cover the puncture wounds, to stop the blood flow. Zayn can still smell it, watches it seep through his fingers, sees what he did out in the open to someone he didn’t calm down first with his words.

And even through the haze of the room, in the midst of his horror, he’s still hard.

He hurries and sucks his bottom lip into his mouth, his fangs tucked away out of site, to hide the bloody evidence from wandering eyes. In complete disbelief, as the lights shift once more and the last song comes over the speakers, Zayn steps even further away.

Quickly, faster than a human would, he tears his eyes away from the man and then he’s rushing past them to find the exit.

---

Another thing the human authors got wrong: vampires don’t turn into bats. They don’t turn into anything.

It’s a shame because there are days here and there when Zayn wishes to be anything other than himself. To be able to turn into a creature, to shift into something small, able to fly, focused on moving forward, up to the sky, and nothing else. A break from his own mind, perhaps. Not tied to the passing of time, his thoughts and boredom from the monotony, forgotten whenever he’s off flying in the moonlight.

If only he could be a bat now, he scoffs to himself, hurrying to put his jacket on as he heads towards his motorcycle in the parking lot. He wants to scream, to fucking tear his hair out, he’s so angry with himself. If there weren’t people around, bouncers and valet attendants and girls falling out of the club, he’d use his strength and speed, take about three seconds to hop on the bike, start it, and drive off into the night. But he has to measure his steps, pretend to breathe, huff and puff his way to his bike, to blend in. He has to wear a fucking helmet, because humans get nervous when they see someone driving a motorcycle without a helmet.

Zayn curses the universe in that moment, having to pretend to be something he’s not, to give comfort to the humans. To let them keep their sense of normalcy and order, to keep up the charade of his existence. He’s feeling petulant and annoyed, two emotions that can be dangerous for an immortal like him. He’s already lashed out once tonight, it’s best not to tempt fate. His dick still hasn’t gotten the message, that it’s not going to get any, and that more than anything else makes him want to fucking punch something.

So he does.

Fuck, Zayn thinks as he slams his fist into the concrete wall next to his bike, smashing a hole right through it. They all could’ve seen, they could’ve freaked. A man sucking the blood of another man right there on a dance floor. What would he have done? Run around to the crowd of people and individually erase all of their memories? How? That would’ve been impossible, someone would’ve escaped out the front door, screaming for the police, for help, and he’d be fucked. He is supposed to stay hidden, to be careful. It’s the unspoken rule of vampirism: stay out of sight, don’t make a spectacle, keep the secret.

Snatch, eat, erase. That’s how Zayn operates.

And now that human, the man with the sweet scent and delicious AB positive blood, knows what Zayn did. He felt it, he’ll have the memory of it, and even though he’ll never be able to prove it, he has been bitten by a vampire. Marked forever. He’ll either go through life with the knowledge of vampires, forever terrified and looking over his shoulder, or he’ll convince himself he’s gone crazy and that Zayn was nothing more than a weirdo with a blood kink. Both of which are close to impossible for the human brain to rationalize or comprehend. Zayn did that to him, he was a fucking moron and did it, his apex predator animal brain got the best of him.

Fuck.

Zayn is not often caught off guard or snuck up on, so when he hears a throat clear just over his shoulder, he reacts fast: he whirls around, fangs protracted, mouth open to give a warning.

“Jesus,” the man says, eyes wide, bloody hands held up in surrender.

Fuck.

Zayn curses once again, as he wills his fangs to go down and tries to remain calm. He steps away, attempts to straighten his back out of attack pose. Since when does this happen? Zayn, usually so composed and in control, now baring his teeth like a fucking wolf when someone approaches without warning? This is not him, this is not how he lives his life. This is ridiculous.

He shakes his head in relief though, at being able to correct his mistake in a dark, secluded area. He turns away from the man in his billowing light blue trousers and hastily thrown on sheer shirt and suspenders, reaching for his helmet. He can’t engage yet, not when the human will start to ask questions and demand answers, the blood still seeping from the wounds Zayn gave him. Zayn closes his eyes and adjusts his jacket, the human’s quiet footsteps getting closer. This is good. Everything will be okay. Zayn will get on his bike and start it up, and right before pushing off to head home, he’ll lock eyes with the man and erase it all.

You were never here. You won’t remember me. You won’t remember this at all. You fell and hurt yourself. You should be more careful.

Go home and rest.

But as he sits, and before Zayn can turn the key to roar his bike to life, the man reaches his hand out and covers Zayn's with his own on the left handle bar.

Zayn, frozen in disbelief, stares at it.

“I’m Harry. I – I’m Harry Styles.”

Zayn doesn’t move. It’s like the dried blood on this insane human’s warm hand stares back at him.

“You bit me,” he continues. Harry.

Zayn still doesn’t move.

“You were dancing with me and holding onto me and then you bit me,” Harry says in disbelief to the words coming out of his mouth. He moves closer, holding Zayn's hand firmly, shifting so that he’s almost directly in front of Zayn's bike. “You drank my blood, you drank from my neck.”

Zayn doesn’t know why he does it, he can blame it on his biology, on his erection that still hasn’t fully subsided. He finally responds, still looking down at their hands.

“Yeah,” he says, his voice clear and beautiful, as nature intended. “I did.”

“That’s what you do, isn’t it. Drink blood,” Harry says, his other bloody hand reaching out to tilt Zayn's chin up so they’re face to face.

Zayn isn’t sure what expression he was expecting from this guy, but it’s certainly not this. His warm finger under Zayn's chin, moving Zayn the way he wants him. His eyes wide in incredulity, slight trepidation, like he’s afraid of the answers to the questions he’s dying to ask. But also… interest. It’s written all over his face: curiosity and desire, his unwavering eye contact. Eye contact with Zayn's intense blood-red eyes.

Which is fucking deranged.

Zayn, so fast in his movements, can also switch his emotions just as fast. No longer quiet and complacent in disbelief, now suddenly he’s angry, spitting with rage, up and off his bike. He presses this Harry Styles against the concrete wall next to them, his hand at his throat. He presses, feels Harry’s pulse as a few more droplets of blood seep out of the open wounds near his artery. Zayn can’t blame anyone but himself for feeding on a human the way he did, without the trance, around all those people, regardless of Harry’s intoxicating scent and the way he leaned into it. But Zayn is furious nonetheless, at being put in this position, now.

“Are you dense?” Zayn practically snarls in his face, their noses almost touching, his eyes red and flaring like they get when he’s especially riled up. “You must be fucking stupid, to come out here and say those things to me.”

Zayn feels Harry’s Adam’s apple bob under his palm.

“Touching me? Trying to hold my hand? After what I just did to you?”

Harry blinks and nods, agreeing, which is even more fucking deranged.

“I could’ve killed you,” Zayn says, his voice dropping an octave even though he doesn’t mean it to, the hard, fast throb of blood pumping under his palm starting to get to him once more. “I could’ve ripped your throat out, ripped your head off. Do you understand?”

Despite himself, Zayn loosens his grip to allow Harry to speak, even as he presses his chest against Harry. Keeps him close.

“You’re a vampire,” Harry says, his voice husky and overused. “You’re real, you… you exist and you drank from me, you chose me.”

Zayn's jaw jumps, that particular wording irking him. He chose Harry, sure, in the way that he chooses humans all the time to fuck around with. Men, women, every kind of adult human there is, to touch and taste and fuck and be fucked. Harry chose him right back, the way he danced and smiled and hugged Zayn to his bare chest.

But that was all, Zayn didn’t mean to feed. That wasn’t a choice, it just happened, he didn’t mean it. It wasn’t supposed to… it wasn’t something Zayn expected. His brain got confused, the two urges that swiftly arose at once, it’s not…

“It hurt,” Harry continues, still as a statue. “It hurt and I… I could feel it, feel your… teeth in me, I was bleeding, and it really hurt, and you… and I…”

They stare at each other, Harry's words drifting off into nothing, when it occurs to Zayn what Harry really wants to say.

You liked it.

Holy fucking shit, you really, truly liked it. You’re into it, you’re into me, you want me to do it again.

Zayn's hand loosens a bit more, not as much around Harry's throat and instead just resting there. Warm and solid, his sturdy throat and muscular exposed chest, still just as sweaty. He’d taste heavenly, Zayn thinks again. Not his blood, but his skin. Skin Zayn could lick at, kiss and suck on, one hand in Harry's hair and the other around his cock. It’s thick, Zayn can tell, pressed up against his thigh. He hadn’t noticed it before, hadn’t focused on it, and now that his anger slowly trickles away, that’s all he can imagine. What he wouldn’t give to have it in his mouth.

If only.

If only I could separate the two with you.

“You should go,” Zayn eventually says with a sure nod.

“What?” Harry startles, his hands coming up to grip Zayn's arm still up at his throat. “Why?”

“It doesn’t work this way,” Zayn says, gesturing to Harry's bloody neck and then down to his erection. “I don’t do this, you don’t want this.”

“Why not? Yes I do,” Harry says desperately, holding on tighter, babbling. “We can. It’s okay, I won’t… I won’t tell anyone, I won’t say anything. We can… you know, and you can… drink, if you want to. I want to. Let’s go somewhere.”

He tries to smile at Zayn, this lazy half-smile thing he probably uses to get his way, and purposefully grabs at Zayn's belt.

Fuck.

“No, Harry,” Zayn shakes his head.

Harry's mouth opens and closes a few times, at a loss for more words. Zayn removes his hand from Harry's neck, but doesn’t step back. He grabs for his helmet resting on the bike’s right handle, and wills himself not to stare at Harry's mouth. To instead look into his eyes.

“Stand still,” Zayn says, readying himself for the trance. He needs his voice to be calming and melodic, his face relaxed, to await Harry's inevitable blank stare that means it’s all gone, erased, Harry none the wiser. Two strangers once more.

But right before he can start, Harry throws his hand up and covers Zayn's eyes. Zayn, caught off guard yet again by this idiot, doesn’t even know how to react to the feeling of a hand and gaudy rings on his face.

“Don’t!” Harry practically yells. “I’ve seen the movies, I know this part. Don’t do it.”

If the situation were at all funny, Zayn swears he would laugh.

“You want me to forget, you want to pretend it never happened.”

Zayn really almost laughs at the absurdity of his entire night. This half-drunk human, Harry, with the ugly tattoos and damp hair in his eyes, the one from the dance floor, has had Zayn's teeth in his neck. He’s come after Zayn, touched him tenderly, and wants Zayn to take him home. To fuck him and to feed on him.

“I don’t want to forget, I don’t want to go home with anyone else,” Harry reasons. “I know you want me, you had me before, and I didn’t scream. I want it too. If you need my permission, you have it. So let’s go.”

Zayn removes Harry's hand from his eyes and stares him down. He shouldn’t do this, this isn’t something he allows himself. He keeps his urges separate, he doesn’t take the blood of someone he has in his bed. What if he can’t stop, what if it goes wrong and he goes too far, what if Harry lets him go too far and then it’s too late?

“It’s a risk,” Harry says knowingly, practically reading Zayn’s thoughts word for word. He shrugs and does that half-smile again, dumb human ticks. “Let’s see what happens. Try it out.”

Zayn should stop, should use this time wisely and take hold of Harry's mind. Erase it, expunge his face and eyes and lust away from the record. Send Harry off to some other man back in the club, a man who won’t do the things Zayn can already picture in his mind. Maybe it shows on his face, both his unease and acquiesce in equal measure. Harry starts to smile again, like he knows he’s won, his hand once more resting at Zayn's belt.

“What’s your name?” Harry asks.

One last ditch attempt, Zayn thinks, ignoring the question. Scare him out of it.

He steps closer once more, gripping Harry firmly by the hips.

“If I take you home,” Zayn says, his voice low and elegant, fangs out, “I’ll have you. If you change your mind, you won’t be able to run or hide. No one to hear you if you scream, as I drink from you.”

Harry swallows, his stare unblinking.

Zayn leans in and inhales at Harry's neck, where the two puncture wounds from before are. They’ve mostly stopped bleeding, so it’s not as satisfying when Zayn licks one fluid stripe up Harry's throat, his fangs catching on Harry’s skin. Immediately the skin heals, Zayn's saliva doing the trick.

“Here is good,” Zayn says into Harry's neck, licking and kissing the leftover marks, “this part of a human’s body. But… some people like me? They prefer to feed on the femoral artery instead.”

Harry inhales a sharp, jagged breath, as Zayn moves his hand in between Harry's legs. He grips Harry's stiff erection, feels it hard and thick in his palm, before moving over to the crease between Harry's groin and thigh, where the two meet.

“It flows better down here,” Zayn purrs. “All that blood pumping down from your heart. It comes out so… fast. One doesn’t have to suck as hard.”

Zayn shouldn’t have expected any differently, if he’s being honest, the way Harry reacts. Before he can catch his bearings, Harry grabs for his face, wrenches it away from his own neck, and crashes their mouths together. Zayn can’t feel pain, but he thinks he would in that moment, as Harry scrambles to kiss, suck, bite his bottom lip. Zayn kisses back, his hands on the wall on either side of Harry's head, rushed and heated. He realizes his fangs haven’t gone away, they’re still present in their kiss, sharp and menacing, and it’s like Harry still doesn’t care.

In the end, predictably, as they kiss and bite, Zayn's left fang catches on Harry's lip and tears it. Just for a moment, only a few drops of blood escape. Zayn watches intently as Harry jumps at the sudden burst of stinging, his fingers instinctively up at his mouth to press at it. They look at each other, Zayn as still and solid as ever.

Harry blinks. He leans in and kisses him, they taste Harry's tangy, metallic blood together, and Harry actually groans into it. Zayn is almost certain his dick is going break off, he’s so hard.

“I’m Zayn,” he finally says, mouth still against Harry's. He licks at Harry's lip, tastes him.

This can’t end well.

“Well then, Zayn,” Harry responds, pecking Zayn's mouth a final time, “let’s go.”

This seriously can’t fucking end well.

For the drive through the city, up into the hills to Zayn's house, Harry declines Zayn's helmet. Says he prefers the wind in his hair, to feel free and brave.

If Zayn doesn’t kill Harry, he’s pretty sure Harry may kill him instead.

---

Zayn's house, situated up in the hills overlooking the city, was once a modern oasis among the cramped, older houses along his street. Built in the early seventies and quickly snatched up by Zayn bearing an envelope of cash, it’s been his home base ever since. A massive driveway leads towards the structure itself, with white concrete walls along three sides of it, and a full glass wall covering the back of the house. It boasts four bathrooms, more bedrooms than Zayn ever knew what to do with, and an empty pool he tells himself every year to fill with water.

He hasn’t changed much of the house’s interior either, the main areas he sticks to still covered in wood paneling, some horrid green shag carpeting covering most of the main floor, and a bright yellow kitchen so old and ancient, it looks like it was lifted directly from a Sears catalog. Zayn knows architecture, after staying in so many places as he’s traveled the world, and he’s seen the way people like to update their classic spaces to look brand new. He prefers to leave everything as is. Color has traditionally always been a popular element in the kitchen, but seventies kitchens were an absolute riot of color and pattern, the likes of which has never been seen before or since. So he leaves it yellow, with its garish wooden cabinets and laminate flooring. He doesn’t use it anyways, the cabinets and refrigerator empty, so he might as well keep it the way the builders intended.

As Harry wanders around the house to inspect it, his eyes wide and a smile dancing on his face, Zayn leans against a beam in the main sitting room and studies him. Ridiculous trousers, a wide open see-through shirt, boots that might as well be ladies’ high heels. It’s funny, the ways Zayn has had to modernize himself over the centuries, his clothing and hair, to show that he’s current. Not a vampire stuck back in his pre-World War II days, but a real, alive human being, who grew up in this time period and believed in current fads. For the last ten or so years, he’s worn mostly tight jackets and even tighter jeans (humans love tight clothing, present company excluded, clearly) and always changes up his hair. Humans also love to change their hair. He’s done the tattoo and piercing thing (the eighties were a wild time, to be honest) and now he’s mostly settled into quite the grungy look again. Fashion, like most everything else the humans get involved in, is cyclical. It always comes back around.

Maybe my gaudy kitchen will one day be back in style, Zayn thinks to himself, smiling, as Harry guffaws from said kitchen, probably as he sees the house’s original oven and stovetop ranges.

Next Harry heads into the office, then the dining room, and back into the sitting room where Zayn is perched. He runs his hands over the wood tables and Herman Miller sofa and chair set. He pokes at the planters near the main window looking out over the bright sprawling city, clearly eyeing the cracked, empty pool and overgrown shrubs in the backyard. Zayn watches him take in and appreciate the view. He watches him flip through a few yellowing records near the turntable, moves a few photographs on the shelves towards himself to see them better, of all the far off places Zayn has seen. If he’s wondering where the photographs of Zayn and his friends or family are, he doesn’t say it out loud.

When he finally drifts back over to Zayn, his footsteps muffled by the carpet, he starts to remove his shirt. He might as well be wearing nothing, which Harry must also be thinking, because he shrugs and smiles as he tosses it to the couch. He kicks off his boots, removes his socks, until he’s standing in front of Zayn, in only his high waisted trousers with too many nineteenth century buttons, suspenders down at his sides.

Zayn tilts his head at this strange, curious human, and wonders what he’s looking for most of all. Does he really want Zayn to feed on him? Did he truly like it, or was he simply into the idea of being wanted, lusted after, his very lifeforce craved by a creature that can’t help it? Was he looking to get fucked by a stranger, first and foremost, and just so happened to not be afraid of Zayn biting into his flesh?

He should ask. Set some parameters.

But Harry takes their conversation into his own hands instead.

“You’re a vampire,” he says matter-of-factly. “You bite people, drink their blood, and then what, tell them not to remember you?”

Zayn, amused by Harry now and no longer trying to fight both of his natural urges, decides to go with it. He’s never told a human about who or what he is, not once since he was turned all those years ago. And now that he’s bitten one for real, without the trance, he might as well embrace thrill of it. For now.

“More or less, yes.”

Harry considers the answer, his hands now held behind his back, curious for more. Zayn crosses his arms, still leaning against the beam, and awaits his questioning.

“Do you only go out at night, because the sun burns you?”

Zayn nods.

“Stake through the heart? Dead as a doornail?” Harry says, doing the cutthroat gesture across his own throat with one ringed finger.

Zayn smiles. Nods.

“Garlic?”

Zayn rolls his eyes.

“Do you have a reflection?”

Pretending to huff, Zayn juts his chin over to his left, where a large circular mirror is mounted on the wall. He makes eye contact with Harry in it and Harry's cheeks go slightly pink as he laughs.

He asks if Zayn is faster than the speed of light, just how strong he really is, if he feels pain, if he ever has to pee, if he’s a demon. Zayn smiles through it, not at all surprised that this is something a human like Harry would need. When he tries to ask Harry a few questions of his own, about his human life, where he comes from, what he likes to do in his spare time, Harry wrinkles his nose. He clearly doesn’t like to divulge much about himself, which Zayn definitely understands. So he backs off, lets Harry ask him all of the vampire related questions, vows to ask Harry about his life later.

Eventually, after asking about the existence of werewolves (which garners another eye roll from Zayn), Harry gestures to Zayn with a wave of his hand and asks, “How long have you been… like this?”

“Since 1924.”

“Jesus,” Harry mutters to himself, shifting up onto his bare toes for a few seconds, his eyes drifting off over Zayn's shoulder in thought.

Zayn lets him do the math in his head, watches the cogs turning behind his eyes, and is fascinated once more by him. No longer spurred on by the intense heat between them, their erections from the club that got them here, now it’s a bit more settled. Zayn, in his own element with a human for the first time in a long time, with the human aware of what he is, it’s quite the learning curve. He’s glad for these few minutes of contemplation. Getting to know one another, able to watch Harry watch him.

Harry comes back to himself, blinks a few times, and then reaches for Zayn's hips. He slides closer to Zayn and looks deep into Zayn's red eyes. Zayn of course doesn’t blink and lets Harry get a good look.

“Who did this to you? How? I mean, why? This is…” Harry says quietly, not looking away.

Zayn uncrosses his arms and instead wraps them around Harry, one around his shoulders, one around his waist. He can’t help it, his nose drifting along Harry's left cheek, down to his jaw, along his neck. Fuck, it’s still such a lovely neck. Harry stays still, doesn’t move a muscle, as Zayn sniffs him, inhales over and over, like he’s trying to commit it to memory. Sweet and savory, something beneath his skin that Zayn wants to bathe in. And his blood, fuck his blood is so good. The fact that he gets to kiss this man, kiss and taste, as well as bite into him, is nearly too much to handle.

In his daze, he almost forgets the question.

“I don’t have memory of it,” Zayn eventually says, leaning back so that they’re once more face to face. “It was like one day I woke up in a ditch, and I was this. I never knew how or why.”

“That’s awful,” Harry frowns, his hands tightening on Zayn's hips.

Zayn doesn’t really think about it, it’s been so many years, and Harry must understand that by the expression on his face.

“Is there anything else you’d like to know?” Zayn asks, eyes drifting down to Harry's chest, the tuft of hair just growing in, his strong arms, the way his trousers cover most of his abdomen. Zayn wants to take them off, to see the rest of him, see if he can get Harry hard again and fast.

“Can I see your bedroom?” Harry asks with a sly smile.

Zayn nods.

---

Like the dining room, the master bedroom faces the main back wall composed entirely of window panes. The most modern section of the house, with its high ceilings and white ensuite bathroom, it was thought of as pretty progressive for its time. Zayn watches Harry take it all in once more, the lines of the king-sized bed where Zayn sometimes perches at night to read a book, the sconces and art on the walls, a pair of Zayn's boots near the dresser. He keeps his space very neat, has had the same cleaning lady come in every Thursday morning for the last eight or so years. So the boots do seem particularly out of place, which Harry realizes at the same time as Zayn does.

He turns to Zayn, who shrugs his shoulders at the “mess” he accidentally left behind before heading to the club.

“You sleep here?” Harry asks, unconvinced, looking from the bed to the windows that could never possibly keep the morning sunrise hidden.

Zayn shakes his head and leads Harry over to the walk-in closet. Zayn's lucky the closet fad became popular a few years before the house was built, giving him enough room to have the bed installed. Windowless, not too cramped, a full sized bed in the left corner, obscured by a thick, black curtain for extra coverage. He doesn’t need much, since he doesn’t get hot or cold, but he rather likes having a soft mattress and a blanket, to give it some… normalcy, he supposes. He shows Harry around the black-painted closet, how he has his new, contemporary clothes hung all around him, his boots lined up on the racks, the drawers for his underwear and socks. It’s his favorite room in the house. Cramped and dark, the perfect place for a vampire to get some shut-eye all day.

Harry smiles at him, one hand tugging on the curtain near the bed, the other at the first button of his trousers.

“So is this where you want me?” he asks.

Faster than he intends, faster than a human can move, Zayn suddenly flies over to Harry and takes his hand away from the blue fabric along his torso. His head practically spinning from Zayn's speed, Harry blinks at him and stands stock still in surprise.

Zayn shakes his head once again. He grabs Harry's fingers and walks them back into the main bedroom itself, out of the darkness of the closet. Maybe Harry gets it, that Zayn wants to see him, watch him come undone in the light of the spacious room, on the crisp, white sheets of the bed. Because without being asked, he shakes his fingers free from Zayn's grasp and heads over to the foot of the bed, to stand there and wait, not daring to touch the buttons of his trousers. He slowly blinks at Zayn, probably coming down from the alcohol or whatever pill he took to get his night started. Zayn can tell that Harry's ready once again, like back at the club on the dance floor when his dick was hard and aching, begging to be touched. They stare at each other. If he’s honest with himself, Zayn would quite like to rush over to him once more, rip the trousers right off of him without even batting an eye. Turn him around, bend him over the end of the bed and taste him everywhere, all at once, over and over, until Harry is in tears it’s so good. Bite into the junction of his shoulder and neck, just below his belly button, the meat of his thigh, all of those lovely human places he’s never indulged in before.

Zayn can tell Harry wants exactly the same thing, his eyes hungry and pleading, the tent in his trousers growing by the second.

But the night is young, they have time. Zayn always has time.

He settles in front of Harry, his cool hands up on Harry's shoulders. He runs his fingers across his collar bones, then down his chest, arms, ribs, waist. He wants so many things, to fuck him into next week, suck him down, eat him out, devour him whole, just unhinge his jaw and swallow him up like a real, tangible meal. That’s fucked up, Zayn thinks, even as he bites his lip to keep his fangs from showing themselves too soon. He fed two days ago, he fed an hour ago, he can wait a little longer for more.

The two halves of his brain start to fight each other, he can feel it happening. He wants it all, he wants both, he’s about to have both.

Harry nods like he understands. Encourages Zayn to keep going.

Zayn pulls off his jacket and then his tshirt, shows Harry the first glimpse of what he has underneath. He watches Harry watch him undress, next his belt, jeans, boots and socks. He stands there in dark blue boxer briefs, his hip bones jutting out, always a bit on the thin side when he was a human and just as much in death. He’s hard again, ridiculously hard, his cock pressed up against the fabric of his briefs in Harry's full view.

Just as Harry goes to reach for him, to press a palm to it, Zayn swiftly gets down onto his knees in front of him. He looks up at Harry with his fierce red eyes and sees Harry's upper lip beginning to collect sweat. Nervous. Excited.

He goes for the buttons of Harry's trousers, one after the other in the top-most row, until they’re loose enough for Zayn to tug them down to his ankles. Harry steps out of them, a hand on Zayn's shoulder to keep steady, and Zayn is blissfully happy to see that Harry is naked underneath. Of course you are, Zayn thinks to himself, shaking his head. He places a quick kiss to Harry's hip as his fingers start to trail up and down his bare legs, his thick, uncut cock right at eye-level. He’s just as beautiful here as he is everywhere else, miles of warm skin, the scent of sweetness and sweat and blood practically smacking Zayn across the face. It’s overwhelming, intoxicating, his eyes go wide at how hard he is from sight and smell alone.

Zayn looks up at him again, their eyes lock, and Harry bites his lip. He’s still nervous. Excited, but nervous. Back at the club, Zayn told him that he could’ve killed him, ripped his throat out if he wanted to. Zayn is a vampire, he bites and sucks, takes blood from humans, however much he needs. And Zayn understands the trepidation all over Harry's face now: maybe now that he’s here, in a vampire’s fucking house, naked, being eyed up and down like he’s a meal, it’s too much. Too real.

Zayn needs to wait for Harry's cue to keep going, he knows that. But as his mouth literally begins to fill up with saliva, as his instincts start to overpower him, it’s almost too much to bear. He waits and waits, as about a thousand emotions pass over Harry's face, all of his thoughts probably waging a war inside his head. But after a few moments, Zayn has to close his eyes to focus and calm down. Because Harry is still so warm and his chest has started to glisten in sweat again, a light sheen of it as his lungs expand and contract. He smells heavenly, delicious, and Zayn can’t stop imagining how it would feel to press his entire face against Harry's upper thigh, his hands wrapped around his legs, up to his perfect pert ass. To hold on and inhale and smell him some more. How he so desperately wants to do as he teased earlier: sink his fangs into Harry's femoral artery, experience the ecstasy of that first gush of blood from the place he’s never allowed himself to enjoy, not like others of his kind. Taste it again, let is wash over his tongue like the sweetest juice imaginable, his mouth full of it. Gulping it down, sucking only just so, not much pressure.

Zayn is torn out of the fantasy when Harry grips his shoulder again, like when he was trying to steady himself. Zayn opens his eyes, realizes that his fangs had come out without him realizing it, and stares up at Harry. What Harry sees must look obscene: Zayn on his knees, hunched slightly out of desperation, his cock hard and wet at the tip in his briefs, his fangs hanging over his bottom lip like he’s a fucking rabid animal.

Harry should’ve run the second he came into contact with Zayn back at the club, and he definitely should run now. But as they stare at each other, it’s clear for both of them: you want this, you want me, fuck that’s good, I want you too. So Harry nods and steels himself.

“I want your mouth,” he says quietly as he lifts one hand and cups Zayn's face, his thumb lingering on one of Zayn's sharp fangs, and grips his cock in the other. “Tuck these away first, though. Can’t have any teeth for this part.”

Zayn tries to smile, something he doesn’t often do when he’s about to feed or has his fangs showing. He lets Harry's thumb skim at his tooth for a few more seconds and then leans back, tries to control himself, wills his incisors to get a grip for the time being.

Exactly thirty seconds later, they’re in the clear. So without further ado, Zayn goes in.

Harry throws his head back and gasps when Zayn sucks him into his mouth. It’s almost a cry, he’s so loud and obscene. Zayn, since he doesn’t have to breathe and he doesn’t get tired from physical exertion, is better at this than anyone Harry would’ve ever met. It’s ridiculously arrogant, even in its truth, and Zayn smugly sucks him down harder. He swallows around Harry's cock over and over, suctions his lips around the base of it, tucked around his regular teeth. Harry gives it only a minute or two before he has to fall back onto the bed, the backs of his thighs and ass hitting it, Zayn following without missing a beat. Still on his knees on the floor, Zayn leans down over him, holds Harry by the hips, and bobs his head up and down faster than he normally would. Faster than a human could.

He wants to focus for a bit, without looking up or catching Harry's eye, just wants to enjoy the sensation of giving pleasure to someone like Harry. He closes his eyes as Harry's hands drift to hold onto the long hair flopping down over his face, and almost chuckles at the exact moment that Harry remembers he can wind Zayn's hair between all of his fingers and pull as hard as he wants. Zayn goes with it, lets himself be pushed and pulled as Harry grunts and groans above him. He senses when Harry gets close to the edge, when he can barely stand it, as his legs lift up off the bed, his feet off the floor. They must be on the same page, because before Zayn can pull off and tell Harry not to come yet, Harry does it himself. He tugs sharply at Zayn's hair, mumbles for him to stop, and then his arms collapse back onto the bed above his head. Zayn does finally chuckle as he stands up between his legs and wipes at the spit around his mouth.

“Holy… fucking…” Harry says towards the ceiling, eyes closed, expression almost like he’s in pain. “That… I mean, you. Wow.”

Zayn reaches for Harry's cock and gives it a squeeze at the base, to remind him wordlessly not to come yet, that there’s still so much more for them to do first. He does the same to himself, mutters a few curse words it feels so good. He can’t fucking wait to be inside Harry, to see what positions he likes best, in what order. How long will he last? Zayn can obviously last awhile, can come a few times if he really focuses and has the right partner.

Zayn smiles, not that Harry sees it, what with his eyes still closed and his lungs working overtime. He crawls up onto the bed, legs on either side of Harry's thighs, and leans down to kiss his hip.  He kisses his other hip, up to the lovely flesh just above his hips, along his stomach. Harry's muscles clench a few times, either from being ticklish, or because he’s still trying not to bust a nut all over Zayn's face.

Zayn moves higher, leaving wet open-mouth kisses in his wake. With Harry's arms up and over his head, he has easy access: both sides of Harry's ribcage, three in a row up his sternum, nipples and pectorals, kissing and inhaling Harry's scent at the same time as he makes his way up towards his face. Zayn wants to kiss him again, feel Harry's plump bottom lip between his teeth. Zayn can barely stand it, it’s so good. Harry is gorgeous, beautiful, as sweet and succulent as a fucking peach.

He’s not sure how it happens; he somehow turns his face a certain way and then his mouth lines up right where Harry's right armpit meets his chest. This beautiful patch of skin that smells just as heavenly as everywhere else, but a little muskier, pure man, just below the dark patch of hair.

And then without thinking, without wondering if he should, before he knows what he’s doing, Zayn's fangs are not only out, but buried deep into Harry's muscle. Once again, Zayn feeds. Hard. Blood, so much blood, hot and thick into his open mouth, as Harry grunts in pain. Zayn knows it must hurt, he winces even as he drinks from Harry, his nose tickled by the hair of his armpit. But despite that, he finds himself holding Harry's arm in place, still up over his head, pressed into the bed so he can keep going. He drinks and drinks, Harry's sweet blood sliding down his throat like honey.

Harry doesn’t push him away or scream or cry. He just groans a few times, every few seconds, and hisses slightly. But eventually Zayn feels Harry's other arm come down from the bed and flop onto his back. Harry's nails scratching at the skin between Zayn’s shoulder blades, his erection still as hard as ever, poking at Zayn's stomach.

Zayn closes his eyes and drinks some more, his own erection pressing down onto the bed.

---

It might be a few minutes, but it could easily be a century, the time Zayn spends with his mouth latched to Harry's skin. He loses track of time, loses his peripheral thoughts. It’s like the world goes quiet when he’s feeding from someone this delicious. He’s not aware of the placement of his body, how he must look as he goes completely feral, how to think. All he knows is the warmth of Harry's chest beneath his own, the feel of Harry's muscular arm held down by his hands, confined in a vice grip so Harry won’t move it, or try to fight back, or distract Zayn from the feed.

Once he’s had enough, once he’s finally full and sated, he moves fast: removes his fangs from Harry's delicate skin, sits back onto his haunches there above Harry on the bed, and inhales sharply, deeply, to swallow the last few drops on the tip of his tongue. He doesn’t breathe, he never breathes, and yet he finds himself gulping for air anyways, eyes closed, head thrown back in pure bliss. Ecstasy.

Delicious. Absolutely sinful.

Belatedly, Zayn's thoughts come back to him. He opens his eyes, looks around the room like he barely recognizes it, before he finally remembers where he is, what he’s doing. What they’re doing, together. He tilts his face down to check on Harry, presses a cool palm to Harry's sternum to feel his heart beat, to make sure he didn’t… go too far with him, with the blood or with accidentally snapping Harry's spine. Even if it was just a flesh wound, if at some point Harry asked him to stop, and Zayn couldn’t hear it while focused on the blood, he should probably stop anything else from happening. If he can’t control himself now, with a simple bite to Harry’s chest, he certainly won’t be able control himself later, if he sinks his fangs into an actual artery.

Thankfully, Harry is still with him, still okay, still a willing participant. With his one arm still above his head on the bed, Harry stares back at Zayn with focused eyes, his jaw firmly set. He doesn’t even blink as he takes Zayn in: eyes redder than they’ve been all night, elongated fangs, blood dripping down his chin.

Zayn should wipe it away, go grab a towel maybe, clean himself up a bit. It’s obscene, to drink a human’s blood and then parade the evidence around in their face. It’s another reason why Zayn usually drinks in secluded alleyways, parks, tunnels, to keep the humans from seeing his face right after, bloodied up and high on it. 

But maybe they both realize it’s a moot point, the way Zayn looks, the blood covering his mouth, chin, and even down on his bare chest. Because Harry's still bleeding from the two small puncture wounds near his armpit. It drips down onto the starkly white sheets, Zayn even smeared some of it near Harry's clavicle, on his nipple, by accident. It’s there, it’s everywhere, they can both see it, can both smell it.

Zayn needs Harry to tell him what to do next, how he should move them along, how Harry wants this to go now that Zayn has fed from him again. Zayn, still sitting on top of his thighs, can feel that his erection hasn’t subsided even slightly, that Harry is still as hard as before, maybe even harder now.

When Harry still doesn’t say anything, Zayn finally begins to raise his hand up, to wipe at his mouth and chin. To at least pretend to go back to normal, back to the sex part of the night, now that his fangs have gone down. But before he can, Harry snatches his hand out of thin air and pulls it towards himself. Zayn follows, he tries to move slowly, until they’re chest to chest, their noses almost touching.

Harry blinks twice.

And then he’s kissing Zayn, his tongue insistent, like he’s searching for something, for an answer. Almost too startled to comprehend it, Zayn tries to keep up. He kisses back, holds Harry's head between his hands, as they taste Harry's blood together. It’s fucking insane, demented and frenzied, most humans would probably think it’s disgusting. Unnatural and repulsive. It’s so fucked up, so insanely fucked up, they both know it and yet they can’t stop. Zayn nips at Harry's bottom lip, sucks it into his mouth, and Harry groans so loudly at that, Zayn does it again.

“What do you want?” Zayn says gruffly, in between kisses, rocking down onto Harry's lap. He still has his briefs on, the fabric probably driving Harry crazy.

“Anything,” Harry whines, his hips coming up to meet Zayn's. He scratches at Zayn's back, tries to leave marks of his own, but it’s no use.

“Tell me,” Zayn insists, tugging at Harry's hair to illicit another groan. “What’s your favorite? Tell me and I’ll do it.”

Harry can’t seem to form words as they rock together in one fluid motion. He tries to bury his face in Zayn's neck, tries to kiss and suck Zayn's skin, but Zayn shakes him off. He leans back slightly, pulls Harry's hair a little harder, until Harry opens his eyes. His beautiful green eyes, practically black now, sweat along his hairline, his cheeks flushed and pink. Zayn thumbs at Harry's cheek, presses it slightly, to watch it bloom up a little more. He has his own blood smeared above his upper lip, down on his chin, their matching messy faces enough to make Zayn actually come already.

“Tell me,” he repeats.

Harry gulps for air a few times and then mumbles, “Mouth, your mouth, I want – your mouth.”

Zayn pecks Harry's lips again, smiling slightly. He gets it now.

“I can’t believe you’re not more grossed out by this,” Zayn says in wonderment, before kissing Harry's reddened cheek and gesturing to the red soaked bed. He starts to shift back onto his knees again, so they can switch positions to what Harry likes best. So Zayn can put his mouth to work once more.

But before he can, Harry throws his arms out, his fingers digging into the sheets, and smiles that half-smile of his, the blood on his face making him look absolutely evil.

“Babe,” Harry says, shifting his legs to spread them wide, “if I can kiss a man after he’s had my dick in his mouth, if I can taste my own come on someone’s tongue, I think I can handle a little taste of my own blood.”

Zayn is rarely caught off guard or truly surprised, but he is then.

In that moment, as Harry smiles at him like a fucking tease, lewd and indecent, Zayn feels himself hunch over again slightly. Like one of the gargoyles guarding Notre Dame, his back arched, a look on his face that’s probably scary, monstrous, an animal about to attack. Instead of recoiling away from it, Harry smiles wider. Like he knows how obscene he is and likes it, and likes that Zayn likes it.

Careful not to completely give Harry whiplash, Zayn moves quickly: up and off the bed, lube from a dresser drawer, briefs thrown towards the closet, his hands around Harry's hips. Harry oofs in surprise as Zayn picks him up and tosses him back onto the bed, this time on his stomach. He pulls Harry's calves, pushes his head in the direction of the headboard, and situates him on all fours, all before Harry can take another breath.

 Without preamble, without any other shared words between them, Zayn leans in. He licks Harry from his balls up to his hole, puts his mouth on Harry just as Harry asked him to. Harry whimpers from the suddenness of it, Zayn feels his thighs go taut as he tries to keep himself steady, tries to stop his body from shaking in pleasure. Zayn keeps his pace for a solid five minutes, without letting up, until Harry starts to whimper as he shakes.

Zayn almost smiles. He could stop licking, sucking, kissing Harry's hole, tell him to let go, to shake all he wants, but Zayn can be a masochist too. He rather likes having Harry at his mercy like this, ass in the air, trying to keep himself calm and collected.

He works Harry's hole open faster and better than a human could, and he wants to make sure Harry knows it. Harry grunts curse words into out into the spacious room, loudly, his hands in fists on the bed, as Zayn tongues at him. It’s wet, too hot, Harry's skin practically on fire. Zayn holds Harry's ass apart, only wonders for half a second if he’s pulling the skin too taut, and licks him out.

At one point, Zayn isn’t sure how long into it, Harry reaches for him, to hold the back of his head. Zayn almost laughs, even as he shoves his tongue into Harry's hole a little further, as Harry pulls Zayn's head against his body, insisting that Zayn stay put, keep going, faster, more, do it harder. Zayn, who can never get tired, who never needs to rest or relax his jaw, does as Harry asks. But he still wants it on his terms, to give Harry a little more.

So he lets Harry's ass go, buries his face in deeper, and reaches a hand up to grab for Harry's other arm, the one still holding him up on the bed. With hardly any effort, Zayn pulls Harry's arm out from under him, causing him to fall face first into the mattress. He once again oofs in surprise, as Zayn twists his arm and holds it behind his lower back. Harry flails for a few seconds, like he’s trying to decide if he likes being pinned this way, which is when Zayn decides to add a finger in next to his tongue.

Harry screams into the mattress, a good scream, the right scream, thank god. It’s from pleasure, excited and ecstatic pleasure. Zayn licks at his hole as he works him open with a finger, and then two fingers, for probably three days straight. Maybe ten minutes, maybe ten years.

It’s so good, so right, that Zayn almost forgets about Harry's cock entirely. That is, until Harry's wrecked voice drifts into his ears from miles away, that he needs to be touched, he’s aching to be touched. Zayn moves fast: releases Harry's pinned arm, reaches down between Harry's legs and grips him in his free hand, tugs and twists, his mouth still on Harry's hole like it was what he was born to do.

Having been sexually active for over seventy years has its perks, Zayn thinks. A few minutes more and he knows exactly when Harry is almost past the point of no return. He removes his mouth, finally gets back up onto his knees on the bed, and stares down at the wreckage. Harry, ass still in the air, thighs shaking, his upper body melted into the bed itself. Barely moving, barely breathing, he’s so overwhelmed, overexerted, overstimulated. Zayn could eat him alive, he knows it, the dip to his lower back, the sheen of sweat along his shoulders. He’s pink, like actually pink, from head to toe, the blood pumping through his veins and into his muscles, making him red and flushed everywhere.

Zayn wants to bite. He needs another taste. He can already feel the saliva in his mouth, his fangs ready to make another appearance.

But Harry's voice pulls him out of it, as he shifts, gets his arms working again to place them on the bed. He removes his messy face from where he had it pressed into the mattress and turns his head, rests his cheek, blows the hair out of his eyes. He breathes deeply, lets the oxygen into his lungs, ass still in the air like a cat in heat.

“Fuck me,” he croaks, his voice hoarse, practically gone. “Fuck me, do it, please do it, I…”

He needs it, Zayn knows. He’s shaking and weak and desperately needs to come.

Zayn can’t leave him waiting. That’s something he’s learned over the course of the night, and that’s whatever Harry wants, whatever he asks for, this idiotic human with the strange trousers and lazy smile, Zayn will do it. He has to, no questions asked.

For a few tender moments, as Harry still tries to catch his breath, Zayn nods, rubs Harry's back, and then kisses between his shoulder blades. Two quick kisses and then back to business. Do as Harry asked.

Like before, Zayn moves fast. He grabs for the lube and in about three seconds flat, he slicks himself up, squirts some onto Harry's ass so that he can feel it dripping down to his wet, used entrance, and lines up. The head of his cock catches on Harry's rim, he teases it slightly, until Harry screams at him to do it.

And then they’re fucking.

Really, truly fucking. Zayn behind Harry, holding his hips too tightly, slamming into him at a slightly-faster than human speed. Not too much, he can’t fuck this man into another dimension or anything, but hard and fast. Zayn looks down at Harry's half-hidden face, where he still lays with one cheek on the bed, his eyes almost rolled back in his head. He babbles, asks for more, demands more, and Zayn gives it to him. He places one of his feet up onto the bed, really gets some leverage, before going for both of Harry's arms again, pulling them behind his back.

The human from the dance floor, that’s who Harry is in that moment. Pliable, blissfully smiling, happy to be the center of attention. Zayn wants to kiss him, wants their mouths to be touching, so he pulls out, flips Harry over onto his back, and then fucks into him again.

Chest to chest, Zayn holds Harry by the throat, his gorgeous throat, not too hard. After drinking from him, fucking him like this, the last thing Harry needs right now is to be deprived of oxygen. So Zayn holds his hand there as a way to ground Harry, to keep Harry here with him, their eyes locked once more. There’s blood all over Harry's face and arm, on the sheets, on Zayn. And it should be enough, it’s more than enough, the amount of Harry's blood Zayn has taken tonight.

But right as they both start to head towards the cliff, Harry's eyes closed, fingers digging into Zayn's back, Zayn's balls tightening up rapidly, it happens again.

Even in his daze, on the crest of orgasm, Harry purposefully turns his head and presents Zayn his neck. The same side of his neck that Zayn bit earlier on the dance floor, the original healed, raised puncture wounds staring Zayn in the face.

Zayn lunges forward, he bites down hard, slightly above the previous bite, as he grabs Harry's cock and starts to pull him off. Harry shouts Zayn's name, pleasure and pain mixed into one, his blood gushing over Zayn's fangs, down his chin, between their chests. It’s everywhere, two bodies moving together as one.

Harry comes first. As Zayn fucks him through it, he comes into Zayn's fist, his teeth clenched. It’s perfect, it keeps his neck muscles rigid and tight, keeps the blood flowing into Zayn's open mouth. And then Zayn comes, buried deep inside of him, his hips snapping forward over and over again, Harry's entire body moving with him into the headboard.

Zayn can’t stop, he fucks Harry through his own orgasm, drinks from Harry at the same time, and it’s the most mind-blowing sensation. This is what they all meant, he thinks. Fucking while he feeds, feeding as he fucks, like he’s high on something, a chemical maybe.

Harry doesn’t cry out again or tell Zayn to stop. If the bite hurts, if his hole is too sensitive, he doesn’t say so. He just lays there, completely languid, all of his limbs splayed on the bed. Zayn comes back to himself, remembers to be careful, to not have too much at once. He hurries to pull out and lets Harry's neck go within seconds of each other. He leans back, to see the big picture, to see if Harry is okay.

The sheets and mattress are covered in blood. In the middle of it, Harry too is covered in blood, along with his own come and sweat. There, on his back, eyes closed, a slight smile on his face, he looks fucking debauched. Bitten and bruised, his hair a mess, disgusting and vile, he is without a doubt the most beautiful, flawless thing Zayn has ever seen.

---

Watching Harry eat is mesmerizing.

Zayn was human once, and he obviously interacts with humans every single day, so he’s no stranger to their food and eating habits. He sits in cafes and restaurants all the time, to read books and study old molecular biology textbooks, so he sees them eat, sees certain food fads come and go. Casseroles in the fifties were especially huge. SPAM is certainly something. Many newer European restaurants insist on serving their entrees in strange containers, metal cans, even dog bowls in one Irish pub Zayn used to frequent in the late nineties.

While Harry had been in the bathroom washing up, peeing, and chugging water to get his strength back, Zayn ordered him soup to be delivered. Humans like soup, when they’re sick, when they’re weak and need fluids. The woman on the phone at a nearby diner said chicken noodle soup and some bread would make Zayn's friend “feel better,” so he went with it.

Harry said he wasn’t hungry when Zayn asked him through the bathroom door what he wanted to drink with his food, but Zayn knew he needed it. Later as he set the tray into Harry's lap as he lounged naked against the headboard, surrounded by bloody sheets, he gave Zayn a distinctly raised eye brow in surprise.

Zayn insisted.

He’s never done this sort of… aftercare thing before, with a human. It must be something other vampires do, when they mess around with one and feed at the same time, to afterwards make sure they don’t fucking die from blood loss. Fluids, sustenance, rest. No need for senseless murder or random dead bodies scattered about, not when their existence has to stay hidden.

So Zayn perches on the end of the bed, as still as stone, and watches some of the color return to Harry's cheeks as he eats. He’s very strange. He weirdly sticks his tongue out before bringing the spoon into his mouth. Every few minutes, he slurps from the spoon instead. He dips the bread into the broth and then talks with his mouth full, about his new job, his apartment not far from the club, how the two friends he met up with are probably going to kill him for leaving with a guy and not calling them since.

He tells Zayn he doesn’t often go home with strange men, but he has before. He likes meeting new people, experience new things in weird, eccentric houses around the city. Zayn remembers to blink and nod every so often, the quirks he’s picked up over time, to put Harry at ease as he continues to say whatever comes to his mind.

Zayn likes Harry's voice. He likes his messy hair, the slight sunburn to his nose, the tattoos that sit right over his hipbones. He even likes how when Harry drains the last drops of soup from the bowl and sets the tray on the floor, he puffs up his chest, pushes out his belly and rubs at it playfully. For someone who said they weren’t hungry, he sure seemed to enjoy it.

“Thank you, babe. That was good and now I’m full,” Harry exhales as he collapses back onto the bed, before turning on his side, hitching a leg up, and nuzzling his face into a pillow to close his eyes. “I’m full and tired.”

Zayn just stares at him, this lovely, gorgeous man he let into his bedroom, and waits to see what Harry expects to happen next.

Because Zayn isn’t full or tired. He’s not alive, so he doesn’t have the same kind of brain that Harry does, the kind that needs rest and a recharge after a long day followed by strenuous physical activity. His lungs aren’t overworked, he doesn’t have any bruises littering his body. Hell, if Harry was able to take it, Zayn could without a doubt fuck him four more times before sunrise. Five, if he went fast enough.

And fuck, he definitely could keep feeding. Harry's blood is just too good, too delicious, for Zayn to want to stop. Maybe he’s selfish, maybe he’s a glutton, but he wants more. He desperately wants more, before Harry leaves after their night together, right before the sun comes up. He wants, he wants to push Harry down and kiss him again, taste his tongue and run his nose along the delicate skin of his jaw before kissing and biting his shoulder. Or maybe his inner wrist, the place where humans still sometimes spray their perfume, or his inner thigh, the meat of his abdomen.

Zayn must’ve completely zoned out for a few moments, because when he comes back to himself, he realizes he’s staring right at Harry's soft cock resting on the bed as Harry lounges on his side. Zayn hurries to look up at Harry's face instead, and is surprised to see Harry's eyes open, looking back at him.

“You’re insatiable, aren’t you,” Harry says with his half-smile.

There’s no point in lying, so Zayn nods.

“Is that another vampire thing? You really can go all night, huh? In both regards?”

Zayn nods.

Harry stares at him, unblinking, like he’s considering Zayn, looking right through him. And then he slowly turns onto his back once more, tucks his hands up under the pillow and begins to spread his legs. His long, lithe legs that lead up to his ridiculously fat cock, already filling up again just at the mention of another round.

“What do you want this time?” Harry asks, his left leg bent at the knee, giving Zayn a little show.

A man of few words, a solitary creature who spends most of his time slinking alone in the shadows, Zayn decides to show instead of tell.

He crawls up the bed to do as he imaged a few seconds before: he settles on top of Harry in between his legs and kisses him deeply. Sensually, slowly, as human passing as he can make it. He kisses Harry like he might’ve done his first kiss, whoever that was with back when he was a human and had human memories. Sometimes his memory loss makes him sad, and other times, like now, he doesn’t quite mind. Maybe he can pretend this is his first kiss, with Harry Styles, surrounded by white sheets painted red.

When he fucks Harry the second time, it’s with Harry on top. He watches Harry slick himself up, a hand reached behind his back to stretch for a few seconds, before sinking down onto Zayn's lap. Zayn actually hisses, the hot heat of Harry sheathing him, as he holds Harry around the waist. Bruises have started to form there, his waist and hips, all of the places Zayn has bit into him tonight. It shouldn’t make him even harder, shouldn’t make him want to piston his hips upwards for another three hours, but it does. His eyes are probably bright fucking red, like two glowing cherries right there on his face, as Harry clenches around him and causes him to hiss again even louder.

Harry's eyes widen as he fucks himself down onto Zayn's cock, surprised at Zayn making sounds. It must be the first thing he’s heard come out of Zayn's mouth besides words, and it sends him into a fucking frenzy. He plants his hands on Zayn's chest and swivels his hips, clockwise and then counter clockwise. A fast up and down, the slapping of their skin, his ragged breathing as he stares at Zayn. He likes it, he wants more of it, for Zayn to lose a bit more control, to really let go.

If Harry wants more, Zayn can give him more.

“Yeah, like that,” he says, his voice low and elegant, practically purring again. “That’s good. You’re doing so good.”

Harry grunts as a response, holds Zayn by the shoulder and the long hair on his head, and goes faster. They fuck, they fuck good, practically begging for each other’s orgasms instead of chasing after their own. Giving and giving, Zayn fucking up into Harry's wet, red-rimmed hole, while Harry spreads his legs wider, moves his hips up and down at such a fast pace that a bead of sweat falls from his forehead down onto Zayn's chest, like he wants Zayn to hiss a few more times.

For some reason that’s what does it, what makes Zayn go feral again, that one drop of Harry's sweat. Like it’s yet more proof that Harry is wonderfully alive and human, with that honey sweet blood beneath his laughably thin human skin. His fangs come out before he can register it, his face contorts like he’s about to pounce, to eat, and Harry's face lights up in delight, like this is what he wanted from the second they started up again.

Zayn shifts, sits up on the bed so that his legs are fully crossed, Harry in his lap and holding onto Zayn's shoulders for dear life. They keep fucking, their noses touching, close enough for Harry to whine and huff his breath directly into Zayn's mouth. He tongues at Zayn's fangs, the fucking tease, and that’s when Zayn reaches between them to tug at Harry's cock.

He’s close, Zayn can tell he’s close, so he purposefully makes the hungriest, most untamed, wild expression he can, his fangs against Harry's mouth. Wanna devour you, taste you, mark you up. Harry goes crazy for it, mutters fuck over and over again as Zayn speeds up his hand. And then right before Zayn can nudge Harry's face, to get him to turn and present Zayn his neck again, Harry shakes his head and speaks through Zayn's thrusts.

“Thought you – wanted – an artery,” he croaks, fingers pulling at the hair at the base of Zayn's neck. “Femoral, right? Come on, babe – do it. Do it.”

Zayn comes so hard, buried inside of Harry, he thinks he sees stars. Real, genuine bursts of light and color, somewhere in his bedroom that he’s never been able to actually sleep in. His body seizes up as he comes, hot spurts of it, deep inside of Harry, one arm wrapped so tightly around Harry's midsection, he could probably crack his ribs. And then Harry starts to come, his mouth up against Zayn's ear. His entire body convulses, he scrambles to hold onto Zayn, wrapped around Zayn like he’s a fucking lifeline. Zayn rocks him through it, a gentle wave of movement, his still-hard dick inside of Harry, so sure that Harry is going to feel it for weeks afterward. Harry whimpers into Zayn's neck.

Zayn gives him a few seconds to come down from it, his breathing still harsh and ragged, and then he rushes to change positions.

Harry, once again on his back, surrounded by bloody sheets, legs spread. Zayn gets on his stomach in between them and immediately shoves his face into Harry's upper thigh to inhale his scent. He’s so hot to the touch, every inch of him, his smell even stronger now. So potent and intoxicating, Zayn feels like he’s going to explode.

He wants more. He wants all of it, every single drop. The part of his brain that controls this urge, the part that demands he feed from the blood of unsuspecting humans every few nights, it tells him to bite, to sink his teeth into Harry's femoral artery. Puncture, rip, tear it past the point of no return, and suck and drink and devour until there’s nothing left, until it’s done, it’s over. Zayn wants it so badly, it’s all he can focus on, his hands now wrapped around Harry's thigh to pull him closer to his waiting mouth.

“Not too much,” Harry says groggily.

Zayn barely hears him, but he nods anyways.

“It’s gonna hurt,” he says, eyes still focused on Harry's skin, fingers pressing at the soft skin there along his groin.

If he concentrates, he can feel the pulse point. The constant pumping of blood, Harry's heart working so hard, every second of every day, to push the blood all the way down to his lower extremities, and then to go against gravity and bring it all the way back up again. Humans don’t appreciate the miracle they have, the miracle they are, underneath their skin. It’s marvelous, truly a miracle, the human heart and circulatory system.

“I can take it,” Harry says, his voice still so very far away.

As if to prove himself, Harry grabs for Zayn's hand and holds on tight, their fingers entwined next to them on the bed.

Without any more discussion, Zayn plunges his fangs into the crease of Harry's leg. And immediately, it’s like sticking his face up to a burst pipe, the blood gushing out so hard and fast, Zayn can barely catch it all. Every pump of Harry's heart, sends more into Zayn's waiting mouth. He really doesn’t have to suction whatsoever, he just holds his mouth open around where his fangs have broken the skin and artery, and lets it wash over him. He gulps and swallows, moans a few times, it’s so heavenly, his free hand holding Harry's hip, squeezing.

Somewhere over the rushing sound in his ears, Zayn hears Harry crying. Actual tears, the pain overwhelming all of his senses. Zayn can feel him trying to squirm out of Zayn's hold, his fight-or-flight instinct probably telling him to shove Zayn away as fast as he can. Zayn is too strong, they both know it’s no use.

Zayn should stop. He knows he should stop. He screams at himself to stop, to keep going, you’re going to kill him, just a little bit more, stop, I can’t.

A few seconds later, as he gulps and swallows and moans, Zayn realizes that Harry's hand, the one he’s been holding onto, has gone slack. Dead weight. Limp.

And just as fast as he started, Zayn lets go.

In sheer panic, he removes his fangs from Harry's flesh and sits up, holds a hand to the wound, blood gushing through his fingers. To his relief, he sees that Harry has passed out. He’s alive, he’s breathing, but unconscious. He’s pale, too pale, his lips white, his arms and legs limp. Zayn is an idiot, wasting precious time by staring at him, so he hurries to lick at the open puncture marks on Harry's legs. He uses his saliva to heal them up quickly, uses whatever “magic” he has in his spit to heal and knit Harry's skin back together, to fix what he broke.

There’s red everywhere, all over the bed and sheets, both Zayn and Harry covered in it, their skin and hair, caked in Harry's blood. Zayn moves up the bed and cradles Harry's face in his hands, kisses his cheeks, his mouth, his forehead, to wake him up. He’ll apologize, as soon as Harry is coherent, he’ll say he’s sorry and see what kind of soup Harry would like next.

Luckily he doesn’t have to wait long. A minute more and then Harry's eyes begin to flutter. His lashes twitch, his arm moves, and then he’s shifting slightly, moving towards Zayn. He’s cold, he’s shivering, so Zayn grabs for the messy blankets and tries to situate them around Harry as best he can, in their awkward position.

“Are you alright?” Zayn says quietly, moving Harry's hair away from his forehead. “I’m sorry, that was…”

“It did hurt,” Harry mumbles into Zayn's shoulder, eyes tired. “You were right.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Shut it, don’t be.”

Zayn isn’t sure how to respond to that, Harry being stubborn about Zayn practically draining him. But he doesn’t think Harry has the energy to have a long winded discussion about what just transpired, how Zayn should’ve been more careful, how Harry probably shouldn’t have offered such a place for Zayn to bite into. He doesn’t know if Harry has the energy to get into the implications of a human being so willing to be fed on, what it means for him to be so turned on by possible death and carnage. It’s all fucked up, every single thing they’ve done together since meeting, and only a few hours before. Maybe they’ll part ways, and further discussion won’t be necessary. Maybe Harry wants to leave, but his legs are too weak to take him out the front door just yet.

Before Zayn can start thinking himself in circles, he tucks the blanket around the both of them. Harry starts to dose off, his nose blowing puffs of air into Zayn's chest.

He leans into it and lets Harry sleep it off.

---

A few hours later, when Harry wakes up, it’s to a different scene entirely.

Zayn watches as he blinks awake and stretches, his eyes bouncing around to the bed itself, the linens, the shirt he’s wearing. Maybe he thought he was at home and that he had dreamt the whole thing, because his eyes go wide as he takes it all in.

Zayn, what with his strength and speed, was able to gently lift Harry up and out of the bed earlier, and onto the settee in the corner for a few minutes. Harry slept through it; he changed the sheets, arranged new pillows on the bed from one of the guest rooms, adjusted the overhead lighting to bathe the room in a nice gentle glow, and had more food delivered. Fruit and yogurt and rolled oats. He wasn’t sure if Harry liked coffee, tea, or orange juice, so he asked the woman on the phone for all three. Then he gently put one of his tshirts on Harry, with some boxers, and socks, in case he gets cold feet at night. He hopes that isn’t weird of him, to dress Harry in his sleep without his permission.

They exchange pleasantries, side by side in the bed, their heads on matching pillows, facing each other. Harry assures Zayn that he doesn’t mind being dressed, that he’s very comfortable, thank you. Zayn insists that Harry eat food and replenish, his eyes bouncing over the bags under Harry's eyes, his pale, sallow face. But Harry shakes his head lightly and sighs.

“Give me a few minutes to really wake up, and then I will,” he says before yawning. “I’ll eat the whole tray, promise.”

Zayn nods and reaches for his hand, to hold onto his fingers. They’re still too cold. He opens his mouth and everything, has a full apology prepared, when Harry puts his other hand up to cover it. Zayn, incensed at having his words muffled by Harry's hand, pretends to glare at him.

“Before you even start,” Harry says, “don’t. It was a crazy night, we did crazy shit, and I’m fine.”

Zayn scoffs into Harry's palm.

“I’ve always said I’ll try anything once,” Harry reasons. “You threatened me with the artery thing back at the club, and now we did it. That part probably won’t happen again, though. It fucking killed.”

Zayn smiles into Harry's palm.

You like to make jokes. And you said the word “again.”

Eventually Harry takes his hand away and they lay together, their legs tangled up under a fresh white blanket, no blood to be seen or smelled whatsoever. Harry closes his eyes every so often, still tired and run down from blood loss, which gives Zayn more excuses to stare at him. He’s marked up everywhere, scabbed over bite marks and bruises from his neck down to his thighs. His hair is dirty, he needs a shower, and should probably eat way more food than Zayn ordered. It’ll take days for him to fully recover, maybe even weeks.

Zayn frowns.

He wants to take care of Harry, show him compassion, make sure he’s comfortable, order him anything else he needs to get his strength back. If it takes days, or weeks, he’ll probably have to check in on Harry fairly often. Hopefully Harry won’t mind.

Right at that moment, when Zayn reaches out to pull Harry close, to kiss him again, the alarm on his phone goes off. The alarm he’s had synced to the world clock for years, to tell him he has five minutes to sunrise, his cue to go hide away in his closet. It’s how he knows to hide away, crawl under a blanket and close the curtain. Curl up and hibernate in his “coffin.”

Harry's eyes flutter open, his expression questioning.

“It’s my bedtime,” Zayn says. “Sun’s almost up.”

“Oh.”

Zayn runs a finger along Harry's jaw, down his gorgeous neck.

“I should erase it, you know,” Zayn says, eyes serious, the truth he hadn’t allowed himself to think about since they first walked into his house together. “I should look you in the eye, do the trance. Tell you to go home, ‘you were never here, this never happened. Vampires don’t exist and neither do I.’”

Harry stares at his lips. He reaches out and does the same thing to Zayn: runs a finger along his jaw, and then up to the curve of his top lip, along the seam of his mouth.

“Could you really do that? Send me away and pretend we never met?”

Zayn's red eyes meet Harry's green eyes, and he knows that what Harry is asking isn’t if Zayn has the ability to send Harry off and forget the whole night, but whether he wants to. And that question in and of itself, that basic understanding between them after only a few hours’ worth of time together, sort of speaks volumes.

“No,” Zayn finally responds. “I don’t think I could.”

That earns him a smile from Harry, a real one, not the half-smile to get his way or charm the pants off him. It’s lovely to see up close, so Zayn kisses him. And when Harry kisses back, it's sweet. So fucking sweet, maybe even sweeter than the blood coursing through his veins.

A few minutes later, Zayn heads to his closet. He stands at the door, hands on either side of the door frame, and looks over at Harry sprawled in his bed. He still hasn’t gone for the food yet, says he’s still too exhausted to want to eat anything, but swears he will soon.

“You really don’t mind if I stay for a while?” he asks, turning onto his side to face Zayn, his hand under his cheek.

“You can stay as long as you like.”

Harry smiles.

Zayn, still wearing a smile of his own says, “And you really don’t mind that I’m a vampire who almost ate you alive at regular intervals tonight?”

Harry laughs at that, this weird cackle of a laugh that surprises Zayn in the best way.

“No, I don’t think I mind."

Zayn nods and grabs the door handle to the closet, to go escape the sun, to close himself away from the world.

He glances over at Harry a final time, his red eyes probably gleaming in the low light of the room.

“You sure? Even if it hurts?” he asks, hopeful.

Harry smiles and shrugs.

“Doesn’t everything?”

And then he turns over onto his other side, Zayn's expensive boxers hugging his ass just so, and buries himself in pillows and blankets.

Zayn's lucky, he thinks. He's always had such a great view here in his house.

---

When the sun rises over the city that morning, Zayn of course doesn’t see it.

He’s existed for a hundred and twenty-one years, and he’s been a vampire for ninety five of them, so really, he’s used to living in the shadows, in the dark. He’s certainly not used to letting a handsome man stay in his house all day, but… maybe that'll grow on him too.

The suns rises, time marches on out on the other side of Zayn's closet. He falls asleep thinking about Harry and how he definitely will need more food than just the breakfast essentials Zayn initially ordered.

He closes his eyes.

Maybe now he’ll finally have an excuse to use his yellow kitchen.

---