- Fraternally Yours, 666 -
Vampire! Ville Valo x Hunter! Linde Lindström
WC: girl idk.
No proofreading, pure yaoi slop, ooc, literally doesn't make sense idk wtv wtv
☆☆☆
The crunch of frozen pine needles beneath Linde’s boots sounded like breaking bone.
The forest was a cathedral of shadows, and tonight, Linde felt like a desecration within it. He adjusted the heavy leather strap of his crossbow, the weight of the silver bolts pressing into his shoulder, a constant, stinging reminder of what he was born to do.
And what he was failing to do.
Instead, he was a traitor in a hunter’s cloak. Every time he closed his eyes, he didn't see the monsters he had slain; he saw Ville. He saw the way the moonlight caught the sharp edge of Ville’s jaw and the terrifying, magnetic pull of those green eyes that seemed to see right through his armour to the broken man that he was.
He was a predator who had fallen in love with his prey.
It was a sickness.
A fever that turned his blood to lead.
It all started with the rumours.
The rumours had led Linde to a derelict opera house on the edge of a dying town. The velvet curtains were mouldering, and the air tasted of stagnant perfume and damp earth. Linde had been tracking the "Vampyyri Ville" that had been terrorizing the local nobility, not by killing them, but by stealing their secrets and their sanity.
Linde moved through the wings of the stage, his crossbow levelled, his eyes scanning the rafters. Then, he heard it: a piano.
The notes were frantic, beautiful, and deeply grieving.
Linde stepped out onto the stage, the floorboards groaning under his weight. There, bathed in a single shaft of moonlight filtering through a hole in the domed ceiling, sat Ville. He was slumped over an ivory keyboard that had lost half its keys, his long, pale fingers dancing over the remaining ones with a desperate intensity.
The floorboards groaned with every step Linde took.
Ville knew he was here.
He didn't stop.
He didn't even look up.
"The tuning is horrific," he remarked, his voice a smooth, melodic baritone that sent a shiver down Linde’s spine. "Time is such a cruel vandal, don't you think?"
"Linde stepped into the circle of light. He aimed the bolt directly at the center of Ville’s narrow chest.
Ville finally stopped playing. The silence that followed was deafening. He turned slowly on the bench, looking at Linde with an expression of profound boredom that masked a sharp, shimmering curiosity. He wasn't cowering. He wasn't baring his fangs. He looked like a fallen prince waiting for a punchline.
"You’ve been following me for days," Ville said, tilting his head. "I grew tired of waiting for you to find the courage to enter, I could smell you from afar. It’s quite intoxicating."
"I'm the last thing you'll ever smell," Linde retorted, finally speaking, his finger tightening on the trigger.
But he hesitated. He had hunted dozens of his kind.
Feral things, red-eyed and mindless.
But Ville was different. There was a human weariness in his eyes, a spark of something that felt tragically familiar to Linde.
Ville stood up, his tall, slender frame casting a long shadow across the stage. He walked toward Linde, right into the point of the silver bolt. He stopped when the tip was pressing against the silk of his waistcoat.
"Go on then," Ville whispered, his green eyes locking onto Linde’s blue ones. "Be the hero. End the song."
Linde’s breath hitched. He saw his own reflection in Ville’s eyes, a man defined only by his hatred and his weapons. For the first time in his life, the "monster" looked more at peace than the man.
Linde’s hands shook, just a fraction. He didn't fire.
"Why aren't you fighting back?" He demanded, his voice cracking.
"Because," Ville said, reaching out a cold hand to gently push the barrel of the crossbow aside, "I’ve been dead for hundreds of years, and you are the first interesting thing I’ve seen in at least fifty of them."
Ville leaned in, his lips inches from Linde’s ear, and whispered, "I think you’re going to be the death of me, Linde. But not tonight."
Then, with a blur of motion and a swirl of black silk, he was gone, leaving Linde standing alone on a rotting stage, his heart racing with a rhythm he could no longer justify.
He never even told him his name.
From that day on, Linde would hunt out for Ville.
The second meeting took place three weeks later, in the cellar of a ruined apothecary. Linde had tracked a different, younger vampire, a feral thing that had been draining livestock, only to find the creature already dead, pinned to the floor with a jagged shard of floorboard.
Standing over the carcass was Ville. He looked different tonight. The elegant, bored prince from the opera house was gone; in his place was a creature of sharp angles and frantic energy. His hair was dishevelled, and his eyes weren't green, they were a blown-out, bleeding crimson.
"You’re late to the party." Ville hissed. His voice wasn't a melody this time; it was a rasp.
Linde raised his crossbow, but the cellar was cramped. Before he could level the weapon, Ville blurred across the room. The speed was sickening. Linde was slammed back against a stone wall, the air whistling out of his lungs. His crossbow clattered to the floor, sliding out of reach.
Ville pinned him there, his hands gripping Linde's shoulders with a strength that threatened to crush bone.
"You should have stayed away," Ville snarled, his face inches from Linde's, "The hunger... it doesn't care about 'interesting' men tonight."
Linde struggled, reaching for the silver dagger at his belt, but Ville’s hand snapped down, pinning Linde’s wrist against the cold stone. The vampire was trembling, his chest heaving as if he were trying to breathe, though he had no need for air.
"Do it then," Linde gasped, his pride surging through his fear. "Show me what you really are."
Ville’s lip curled, revealing fangs that were long and wickedly sharp. He tilted Linde’s head back with terrifying force, exposing the pulse thrumming in the hunter's throat. To a starving vampire, that heartbeat was a drum, a dinner bell, a prayer.
Linde felt the freezing touch of Ville’s skin. He felt the sharp points of the fangs graze the sensitive skin right over his jugular. He closed his eyes, bracing for the agony, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
Ville froze. He didn't bite. He pressed his face into the crook of Linde’s neck, his breath, ice cold, shuddering against Linde's skin. A low, pained groan escaped him. It wasn't the sound of a predator; it was the sound of a man starving.
"So loud," Ville whispered, "Your heart...it’s so loud, Linde. It’s all I can hear."
The pressure of the fangs retreated. Instead, Ville did something far more dangerous: he pressed a lingering, desperate kiss to the spot where he should have fed.
Linde’s entire body jolted. The hatred he was supposed to feel was swallowed by a terrifying, electric heat. His free hand, which should have been reaching for a stake, instead found its way into Ville's hair, his fingers curling into his hair.
Ville pulled back abruptly, his eyes fading from crimson back to a shaken, shimmering green. He looked horrified.
"I should have killed you," Ville breathed, backing away into the shadows of the cellar. "For both our sakes."
"Why didn't you?" Linde called out, his voice trembling as he slid down the wall to the floor.
But the shadows were empty. Ville was gone, leaving Linde alone in the dark, his pulse still racing and the skin of his neck burning where the monster had shown him mercy.
The third time they met, Linde didn't need to see him to know he was there.
The forest had gone unnervingly quiet, the way it does when a predator enters the clearing. The crickets ceased their rhythmic chirping, and even the wind seemed to hold its breath among the trees.
"I know you're there." Linde said, his voice level but strained. He had no weapons, a gesture of vulnerability that felt like a sin.
There was no verbal answer, only the snap of a twig deep in the darkness to the north.
"If you’re hungry, come and take it. If you’re going to kill me, stop hovering like a bad omen and get it over with."
A low, hollow laugh echoed through the trees, seemingly coming from everywhere at once. It was a cold sound, stripped of the playful charm from the opera house.
"You’re a hunter, Linde," Ville’s voice drifted through the mist, sounding distant and ethereal. "You should be more careful with your invitations. Some things, once invited in, never leave."
"Then show yourself!" Linde yelled, turning toward the darkness, "Stop hiding behind the trees like a coward."
"I'm not hiding," Ville hissed, his voice suddenly much closer, coming from the darkness right behind Linde’s left shoulder. Linde spun around, but there was nothing there but the swirling mist. "I'm protecting you. From me. From the way you look at me."
Linde felt a flash of that familiar, burning anger, the one that masked his shame. "I don't need protection from a corpse! I need you to stand still so I can decide whether to stake you or..." He trailed off, the word kiss dying in his throat, replaced by a bitter swallow.
"Or what?" Ville’s voice was a whisper now, right at the edge of the light’s reach. Linde could see the faint shimmer of a silhouette, the outline of a tall, slender coat, the pale blur of a hand resting against a birch tree, but as soon as he tried to focus his eyes, the image seemed to dissolve.
"You’re a mess." the voice mocked, though there was a strange tenderness beneath the cruelty. "Your guild is looking for you. They smell the doubt on you. It smells like sour wine."
"Let them come," Linde snapped, his chest heaving. "At least they have the decency to show their faces."
"I can't. " Ville murmured, and for a second, the voice sounded incredibly small. "If I step into that light, if I see the way you're looking at me right now, I won't be able to leave again. And we both know how this story ends. Silver or sunlight. I’m sparing you the burden of being the one to do it."
Linde took a step toward the voice, reaching out into the blackness. His fingers brushed something, something cold and smooth like fine silk, but it slipped away instantly.
His hand instinctively went to his neck, where the ghost of Ville’s breath had lingered only nights before. Ville hadn't bitten him; he told Linde that his heartbeat was the loudest thing he heard.
The wind shifted, carrying the faint, unmistakable scent of tobacco. Linde froze. His heart hammered against his ribs, the very heartbeat Ville loved to mock.
He should've brought a weapon.
He should turn and fire into the treeline.
Instead, his hand stayed limp at his side. Empty. The anger remained, a bitter taste in his mouth, but the guilt was heavier. It was a shroud he had chosen to wear, and as he looked into the dark woods, he knew he wasn't strong enough to take it off.
The forest had returned to its natural state. The crickets resumed their song, and the oppressive, chilling presence was gone. Linde stood alone in the dark, his hand still outstretched, grasping at nothing but the cold night air.
The seasons turned with a cruel indifference. The absence was louder than any conversation. Linde found himself walking the same paths every night, his feet tracing the geography of his own longing. He looked for a broken branch, a footprint that didn't sink into the mud, a sign of a struggle.
Anything.
He would wake up with his hand on his throat, feeling for the phantom pressure of fangs that never came.
He's playing with you, Linde would mutter to himself, pacing his small, cramped room. He’s a monster. You were a toy, and he got bored.
But then he would remember the way Ville had looked in the cellar, the genuine agony in his eyes when he refused to bite.
That wasn't a game.
It couldn't have been.
Ignoring the fleeting memories, Linde finally found him in the ruins of a monastery, where the snow fell through the collapsed roof like powdered bone.
Ville sat on a stone altar, his long legs dangling, looking as though he had been waiting for an appointment. He looked ravaged, his silk shirt torn, his skin so translucent it looked like wet paper. But his eyes were still that haunting, predatory green eyes that had occupied every one of Linde’s thoughts.
"The prodigal hunter returns," Ville said, his voice a low, gravelly hum. "Did they send you to clean up your mess?"
Linde didn't answer. He raised his heavy crossbow. His muscles ached from the tension. He had spent months hating this creature for the hold he had over him, hating the way his own heart betrayed his training every time he closed his eyes.
"Don't move," Linde rasped.
"Why would I?" Ville stood up, walking toward the crossbow with a slow, deliberate gait. He stopped when the silver-tipped bolt was inches from his throat. "I’ve spent months starving in these mountains because I couldn't stand the taste of anyone who didn't smell like you. Death would be mercy."
Linde’s finger hovered over the trigger. This was the moment of redemption. One squeeze, and he would be a hero again.
"I hate you," Linde whispered, his eyes filling with hot, angry tears.
"I know," Ville replied, leaning forward until his cold skin touched the metal of the bolt. "Shoot me. Take your life back."
Linde’s knuckles turned white. The trigger clicked, but his hand froze.
He couldn't do it.
Linde screamed, the sound echoing off the frozen walls. He swung the crossbow away and smashed it against the stone altar. The wood splintered, the silver bolt skittering uselessly across the floor.
The monastery was silent, save for the whistling wind and the frantic, heavy thud of Linde’s heart. It felt like a drumbeat in a tomb, the only living thing left in a world of stone and ice.
Linde looked at Ville’s fangs, then back to his eyes. The fear was there, sharp and cold, but beneath it was a weary sort of peace. He was tired of being the man in the middle. He was tired of the guilt that had rotted his insides for months.
"Make me like you," Linde said. The words were quiet, but they carried the weight of a death sentence.
The wind roared outside, a reminder of the approaching morning. Ville looked at Linde’s throat, the pulse jumping beneath the skin, the heat radiating from his collar. His hunger, usually a dull ache, flared into a white-hot roar.
He reached out, his long, frigid fingers sliding beneath Linde’s leather collar, grazing the fever hot skin of his neck.
Lindes pulse hammered a frantic, erratic rhythm against Ville’s fingertips.
Ville’s breath was a cold mist against Linde’s lips. The hunger between them had mutated over the months; it was no longer just about blood. It was a gravitational pull, a desperate need to bridge the gap between the living and the dead. Ville leaned in, his nose brushing against Linde’s jawline, inhaling the scent of cedar, sweat, and the sharp, metallic tang of Linde's mounting fear and longing.
"Do you know what you’re asking for?" Ville murmured, his voice a low, vibrating rasp against Linde’s ear. "I'll have to break you. I'll have to drain every ounce of the man you were until there is nothing left but the shadow of me."
"Break me, then," Linde gasped, his hands digging in Ville’s silken hair, pulling him closer. "I’m already half-dead from wanting you."
A low, predatory growl rumbled in Ville’s chest. He shoved Linde back against the stone altar, his body pinning the hunter's with a strength that felt both punishing and worshipful. Ville’s mouth found the sensitive curve of Linde’s throat, his lips trailing ice cold fire across the skin.
Linde threw his head back, a sharp moan escaping him as he felt the graze of Ville's fangs, a warning, a promise. The contrast was agonizing: Linde’s body was burning with a human fever, while Ville was a beautiful, marble statue of frost.
He sank his fangs in.
The pain was a cold flash that quickly dissolved into burning heat. Linde’s legs gave way, but Ville held him upright, his arms like iron bands around Linde's waist. As Ville drank, Linde felt a terrifying, erotic thrumming through his entire nervous system. It was an intimacy more profound than anything he had ever known, his life flowing directly into the monster he had been born to kill.
For the first time, he felt alive.