From (x) @aerinva
His body moves before thought can catch up — slender fingers closing firmly around her lithe wrist. The echoing screeches of the undead below fade into static as his gaze locks onto her shoulder, where decay blooms. He hears it — sharp, unmistakable — the moment her muscles begin to wither.
She doesn’t stop. Doesn’t look at him. Doesn’t even flinch when her knee buckles or when her voice, sharp as shattered glass, tries to mask the tremble in her chest.
But Baekhyun's seen too much, lived too long, and her defiance smells too much like death.
"Don’t put on a facade with me," he says, low, leveled, but with the force of something ancient beneath it. "I can smell it, Rina. The rot. The venom. You’re bleeding lies and you think I won’t notice?" Her steps falter — a flicker of tension at the base of her neck. She still doesn’t look back.
He doesn’t expect her to.
"You’re dying," he says flatly, because no one else will. "And it’s going to be ugly. Venom is something not even I meddle with." Then the air splits.
A snarl — wet, guttural — rips down the stairwell as a blur of movement cuts across the smoke. The scent hits him first: burnt flesh, rusted blood, madness. Rogue vampires. Starved, untethered, drawn to the venom in her blood like carrion to rot. They drop from the rafters — three, maybe four — bone-thin and rapid, eyes glowing with something far beyond hunger.
Baekhyun doesn’t hesitate.
"Get down," he snaps, already moving.
He moves before the first creature fully breaches the landing — a blur of unnatural speed. His hand lashes out, claws tearing clean through its throat. It collapses in a heap before it ever makes a sound, ichor bubbling from its neck like oil.
Another one shrieks and charges from the smoke, leaping for Jimin — but Baekhyun's already there. He catches it mid-air by the jaw and slams it down spine-first onto the concrete, fist burying into its skull until the screaming stops.
The next two are faster. They come at him in tandem, but he twists into them like a storm — elbow driving into the first’s ribs, claws raking across its chest, tearing straight through bone. The second manages to catch his shoulder briefly before Baekhyun grabs it by the neck and rips. Flesh tears like fabric, and its body slumps to the floor twitching.
Blood coats his hands, dark and hot. It drips from his fingertips as he turns back to her, eyes glowing dimly in the dark — like a predator under moonlight. "You want to pretend you’re fine?" he says, breath steady, voice edged. "Then prove it." He steps closer, close enough that she can smell the iron on his skin.
"You want to play the tough guy? Fine. Show me you are not dying by the second as that venom eats you alive."
His gaze lingers on her shoulder, where poison pulses beneath the skin like something alive. "I’ve watched rot hollow out stronger bodies than yours," he adds, quieter now — not cruel, but cold with truth. "You want to outrun it, then stop lying to me and move smart."
He turns before she can answer, flexing his fingers once — the blood on his claws glinting wet in the dim light as he wipes it off with a handkerchief, already pacing up the stairs.
"Keep up, Rina."
This time, it's not a command.
It's a warning. And a promise.
