"Not over it" for Hydran
CW: murder, ED,
TW: Persep
“Why don’t you like feeding from trolls? You’re a blood drinker. It’s what you’re supposed to do.”
Hydran sat curled up in his hive, his new hive. The one he moved into after he left his first home.
He didn’t know what was happening to him. He never believed in the blood drinker myths and didn’t know how to piece together the glowing skin, the thirst, god he was so thirsty. He had called the only person he knew who might have an idea. Of course in hindsight, it was a terrible idea to invite Persep over.
Hydran still felt the uncomfortable chill when Persep looked him over. When he made that thoughtful hmm noise and in essential had told him he was a danger to them all. To everyone they knew. Hydran, you can’t stay here, you’ll snap and kill them all. Maybe it wasn’t those exact words, but the poetry language Persep spoke was long forgotten when the jist of the words were “you’re a monster now.”
How could he argue? He left shortly after. No goodbyes, and god if only that was just his only regret.
Even as he made a new life, moving to the woods away from people, trolls still found him. You could never truly be alone physically, no matter how much you felt it mentally. He had a friend online, a computer nerd that knew how to track his phone. Apparently when no one else cared he left, Hexton wanted to know why he ghosted him and Sarrca.
When the bronze blood first showed up, Hydran was excited. He missed people. Felt so emotional knowing someone cared to find him. And when Hexton punched him, Hydran started seeing spades. And at first, it was okay. He was used to going hungry, long before he died he rarely ate. He never had the stomach for it. But this new hunger was more feral, like his nose did the thinking for him. He could suppress the way Hexton smelled, how he could hear his blood rush in his veins. He was living off his own blood, well living wasn’t really what he’d call it.
Hexton vowed to stay, to help him, and they entered something like a blackrom, because neither could stand each other for anything else. And as the weeks went on, Hexton realized Hydran was sick, and getting sicker. You can’t drink your own blood and expect to be okay. But it’s not like Hydran knew that, he didn’t know anything about being a blood drinker... He knew that the more Hexton tried to touch him, tried to force him to drink water, that his blood kept calling to him. He was desperate to ignore the thoughts, tried to eat like Hexton suggested, only to throw it up. He knew what he wanted but refused to think about it. Refused to even wonder what it would taste like to have different blood.
“You’re dying, I don’t know what you did to yourself, but you’re gonna die,” Hexton snarled, watching Hydran shake as he could barely move from the floor.
“Why do you think he did something?” Hydran hissed.
“Because you’re stupid,” Hexton answered, walking over to sit on the floor next to him. “You’re insufferable. You’re stubborn. And I think you know what’s wrong. And it’s pissing me off you wont tell me.”
Hydran felt his teeth ache, his saliva increase as he listened to his blood pusher pump. It was so loud he could barely process what Hexton was even saying. He was still talking, and Hydran could only think about biting him.
“He wants your blood.” Hydran whispered.
“What?”
The last bit of strength a dying troll could muster was spent pulling Hexton down, latching his teeth into his neck. Maybe it surprised Hexton so much that he didn’t move, Hydran didn’t know why he didn’t push him off. Hydran wished he did. But in the moment? The warm blood sliding down his throat was all he cared about. It burned, like wine did, and left the same light headed feeling like when you stood up too fast. And he drank until he felt so full it was painful. And the more he drank, the stronger he got, the more he could move, grab Hexton’s shoulders to hold him in place. Until there wasn’t blood left to drink, and there wasn’t life left in him.
Hydran remembered so clearly the realization through the dazed fog. The way blood dripped from his lips and the way Hexton’s heart wasn’t making any more sounds.
The worst part was he could hear Persep’s voice, reminding him this is what would have happened if he stayed.
Hydran hated being a rainbow drinker.
And when people asked, his first taste of living blood was a random stranger in the woods. If they even got an explanation at all.