Blood Beneath Silver - Part I: Unleashed
Genre / Warnings: Vampire!Yeosang AU, 18!+ MDNI, Explicit Language, Mention of Sex, Sexual Topics, Eventual Smut, Blood Consumption, Split Personality, Switch!Reader, Switch!Yeosang, Human!Yeosang is a sweetheart, Vamp!Yeosang is a horny asshole
Summary: “If you ever step out of line... I’ll just put you right back in your place.”
Beneath your sweet crush's easily flustered smiles lives a dark, possessive beast and he's done letting you think you're the one in control.
Word Count: 4.5K
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A/N: FOR MY MAN SANGIE!!! I will admit that as soon as I thought of this idea I had to write it, even though this is perfect Halloween (Kinktober) vibes. So, I present this as an intro to the spooky season. Hope you enjoy!
The subterranean vault of the museum archives was permanently frigid. Preserving centuries of fragile textual artifacts demanded a strict climate, keeping your workroom at a steady, biting temperature that made your breath bloom in a faint white mist whenever you spoke.
You rubbed your hands together to warm them up as you took a break from restoring the French document in front of you. It was always cold down here, but you never got used to it.
“Here, drink this.” Yeosang placed a mug of warm tea in front of you, eyes shyly meeting yours as he did so.
“Careful now, or I’ll start to think you like me,” you openly joked, hands immediately hugging the warm porcelain. “Thanks.”
Yeosang flinched subtly, a delicate flush creeping up to the tips of his pale ears as he quickly looked down at his work. "I... I just didn't want you catching a cold," he murmured, his voice soft and low, carrying a pleasant rasp from the dry air.
You smiled into the rim of your mug, taking a slow sip. Truthfully, your teasing was only half a joke. You had fallen hard for him over the last six months because of his quiet gentleness, his considerate nature, and the way he treated you like you held the sky together.
Working with him was effortless. You had taken charge from your very first week by ordering the preservation supplies, setting the daily restoration schedules, and making sure he actually paused for meals instead of burying his dark head in 19th-century ledgers for nine hours straight. You loved being in control, and commanding the space between you two.
And, more than anything, you loved the way Yeosang yielded to it. He eagerly obeyed your smallest directions and hung on your every word.
"Pass me the bone folder and the wheat starch paste, Yeosang," you requested smoothly, setting your mug aside to return to the brittle, water-damaged edge of the French manuscript.
Across the heavy mahogany table, Yeosang moved instantly. "Here," he said, placing the tools precisely at your right hand. He took careful measure not to let his fingers brush yours too abruptly, though his dark brown eyes lingered on your face with a quiet, reverent warmth.
He was breathtaking in the dim studio light, even with the subtle dark circles smudging the pale skin beneath his eyes. Ink-black hair framed a pale, sharp jawline, contrasting with the soft, gentle curves of his lips. When he looked at you, there was an earnest, almost desperate devotion in his gaze, like a man who considered you the absolute center of his world. But beneath that, there was something heavy, intense, and laced with an unspoken, agonizing shame that you couldn't quite decipher.
You reached across the table for the brass ruler, your fingers brushing accidentally against the back of Yeosang's hand as he adjusted a ledger. You paused, drawing your hand back just an inch. "God, you're freezing."
Yeosang glanced down at his hand, then up at where your fingers rested against his, looking as flustered as if he had been caught breaking a rule. "I'm sorry."
"You don't have to apologize for being cold, Yeosang," you chuckled, taking his hand between both of yours. You rubbed your thumb over his pale knuckles, trying to bleed some of your own body heat into his skin. "Seriously, do you have any blood in there?"
A tiny, reluctant smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "Probably."
You narrowed your eyes at him playfully. "Probably?"
He blinked, caught off guard. For half a second, something almost like amusement flickered behind his soft, tired brown eyes. It was a sudden, unreadable depth that vanished as quickly as it appeared. Then he lowered his gaze, his cheeks dusting with pink. "I mean... yes. Of course I do."
You laughed out loud at his awkwardness. "You are absolutely terrible at reassuring people, you know that?"
"I'm sorry," he repeated automatically.
"There you go again."
His smile grew softer, his thumb giving your palm a tiny, hesitant press before he gently pulled his hand back, as if afraid he was burdening you with his coldness. You kept your eyes on him, completely unaware that for several centuries, Yeosang had been perfectly comfortable with hands that cold. Over the years, he had carefully adapted to human habits and customs. He ate, he drank, and he forced himself to go to bed every night, but the warmth of your hands was still something he hadn't learned how to stop wanting.
You knew you held him in the palm of your hand. You flirted openly and teased him until his ears turned pink, thoroughly enjoying the faint, endearing stammer you could pull from his throat whenever you stepped into his personal space.
Yet, despite being attracted to his complete submissiveness toward you, Yeosang was wrapped in strange anomalies that intrigued you more than any of the artifacts you surrounded yourself with daily.
He flatly refused to turn on the bright halogen work lamps overhead, preferring the dim, amber glow of small, shaded desk lamps. Then there was his knowledge, which was an encyclopedic, almost eerie familiarity with history. When he described an artifact, he didn't sound like a scholar referencing a textbook. Earlier that evening, while examining a tarnished silver pocket watch from 1840s Paris, he had casually noted the exact damp, sulfurous smell of the Seine during that winter, speaking with the terrifying specificity of someone who had been standing on the cobblestones himself.
Above all else, there was the ring. On his right index finger, Yeosang wore a thick, heavy band of tarnished sterling silver set with a flat, uncut slab of pitch-black obsidian.
He never took it off, not when mixing harsh chemical solvents at the sink and not when slipping on delicate velvet gloves for preservation work. You had watched him constantly fidgeting with it. Whenever he felt stressed, looked at you a second too long, or whenever his quiet demeanor slipped into something subtly heavy, his thumb would fly to the band, twisting the silver against his skin until the flesh beneath was rubbed raw and pink.
"You're doing it again," you noted, resting your chin in your hand and looking across the table with an amused, authoritative tilt of your head.
Yeosang froze. His thumb slipped away from the obsidian stone, his hands dropping into his lap like a child caught doing something forbidden. A faint flush crept up his neck and dusted his cheekbones. "Sorry," he murmured, casting his eyes downward. "Habit."
"You're going to rub a hole through your hand if you keep twisting that thing," you chided gently, rounding the edge of the large table. You stopped right beside his chair, leaning back against the edge of his desk to look down at him. "What’s the story behind it anyway? It looks heavy, and you never take it off.”
Yeosang swallowed, his dark gaze flickering up to meet yours before darting away. He looked smaller like this, swallowed up by his oversized dark knit sweater and completely yielding to your questioning.
"It's... an old family heirloom," he whispered, his fingers twitching against his thighs as if fighting the urge to grab the band again. "It keeps me... grounded."
"Grounded?" You picked up a soft restoration brush, turning it over in your hands while keeping your eyes locked on his face. "You sound like you're carrying the entire world on your shoulders. You look exhausted today, Yeosang. Did you even sleep last night?"
Yeosang let out a soft, breathy sigh, leaning back slightly against his chair. He looked up at you, his expression melting into a mix of profound affection and a deep, unspoken pain. "I don't sleep much. My mind... it doesn't quiet down easily."
"What's on your mind?" you asked softly, stepping a fraction closer to let your hip rest against the wood right near his elbow. "You can tell me. You know I don't let you keep secrets in this vault."
A faint, self-deprecating smile touched his lips at your bossy tone. He loved the dynamic between you two, taking comfort in your firm presence. But beneath the smile, his brown eyes held a dark, suffocating weight—a lingering dread that seemed to eat away at him from the inside.
"I have... a side of myself that I keep very tightly locked away," he confessed quietly, his voice barely audible over the low hum of the vault's climate control. "A side that isn't very nice. I’m always afraid I’ll lose control when I’m down here with you."
You raised an eyebrow, a slow, playful smirk breaking across your face as you leaned in a little closer to his ear. "A hidden side, hmm? My sweet, polite Yeosang keeping dark secrets?" You let out a soft laugh, teasing, "What, are you secretly kinky or something? Is that what you're hiding behind that innocent face?"
For one brief, strange second, he went completely still. Not embarrassed, or flustered. Just utterly, unnaturally still.
His dark eyes lifted to yours, and something in them shifted. It was so subtle that you almost missed it. The warm, submissive softness vanished in a breath, replaced by a razor-sharp edge. His pupils narrowed, his gaze dropping lingeringly to your mouth before sweeping back up to lock onto your eyes with a cold, terrifying intensity.
Then he blinked, and the mask snapped back into place.
The softness came rushing back, accompanied by a wave of violent heat as his ears turned bright red. Yeosang’s eyes went wide, his entire face flushing a dark, mortified crimson right down to his throat.
"W-What?" he squeaked, his voice cracking as he almost choked on his own breath. He brought both hands up to cover his burning face, utterly mortified. "That's—no! I didn't mean—that's not what I meant at all!"
"Oh, come on," you chuckled, thoroughly enjoying how easily you could unravel him and command his reactions. You reached over and gently tugged one of his wrists down so you could see his embarrassed brown eyes peeking through his fingers. "Look at you, blushing like crazy. You make it way too easy to pick on you."
"You're terrible," Yeosang mumbled softly from behind his hands, though a helpless, embarrassed smile was clearly hidden beneath them.
"I'm the boss," you corrected smoothly, tapping his knuckles playfully before letting him go. "And as the boss, I'm telling you to stop worrying so much. You couldn't be mean or scary if you tried, Yeosang. If you ever step out of line or reveal this mysterious 'dark side,' I'll just put you right back in your place."
Yeosang lowered his hands slowly, his deep flush subsiding into a warm, rosy pink. His dark brown eyes softened, lingering on your face with that same intense, reverent sweetness. But behind the softness, there was a flash of raw terror, a desperate secret he was holding back with everything he had.
"Yes right," he murmured obediently, his lips curving into a soft, helpless smile. "You're the boss."
He turned back to his work, his hand slipping back to his right index finger as his thumb instinctively traced the cold, smooth edge of the obsidian stone.
You watched him, a quiet warmth settling in your chest despite the icy air of the room. Being the dominant one with Yeosang felt second nature, a sweet, comfortable dynamic you adored. But as you returned to your manuscript, your gaze lingered on the thick silver band on his hand.
You couldn't shake the eerie feeling that the ring wasn't just a piece of jewelry. It looked like a lock, and for all his submissive sweetness, you wondered what kind of storm Yeosang was keeping trapped inside it.
Yeosang was fucked. He knew it after meeting you for the first time that his resolve would be challenged. As you cleaned off the table to get ready to go home, he watched you.
You know you want to fuck her on the table.
The thought slithered through his mind, dripping with cold, dark venom. He swallowed hard, pushing the voice down into the dark abyss where it belonged, just as he had done countless times before. Yeosang averted his gaze, focusing on gathering his belongings with slightly trembling hands.
“Do you want to grab something to eat?” you asked, your voice dropping a fraction softer than usual. You smiled up at him, stepping into his personal space with a quiet, deliberate intent that made his breath catch. You were beautiful, your hair pulled into a loose braid that rested over your shoulder, a few stray strands framing your face in the dim amber light of the vault.
You reached out, your fingers lightly catching the edge of his dark knit sleeve, running a delicate, lingering trail down toward his wrist. "Just the two of us. Like a date."
Yeosang’s chest tightened, a wave of intense heat rushing to his face while his stomach flipped in a desperate mix of longing and sheer terror. The contrast between your warmth, the subtle, sensual invitation in your eyes, and the icy cold inside him made his throat feel painfully tight. He wanted nothing more than to yield to you, to say yes and let you lead him anywhere you wanted.
"I... I shouldn't tonight," he murmured, forcing a small, soft smile that barely reached his brown eyes, though he couldn't bring himself to step away from your touch. "I should head straight home. I don't want to keep you out late."
"You're not keeping me out, Yeosang," you teased gently, your thumb brushing the edge of his wrist before you reluctantly pulled your hand back. "You can't live off barley tea and old manuscripts. My treat. Consider it a reward for you being so good today."
You turned toward the far wall, where the museum's heavy iron drying racks were mounted. They were massive, floor-to-ceiling iron frames designed to hold heavy stone slabs and wooden presses used for flattening ancient parchment. Unknown to either of you, the centuries-old masonry anchor holding the top left bracket to the stone wall had been slowly fracturing for weeks.
As you stepped near the frame to move a velvet preservation cloth from the lower shelf, the internal iron pin sheared completely.
With a sickening, metallic screech, the top of the massive iron rack snapped free from the wall, the sheer weight of the iron and stone slabs sending the entire structure falling forward directly toward you.
"Watch out!"
Before your brain could even process the shadow falling over you, Yeosang moved. It was a blur of motion, far too fast for any human. His hands slammed into your shoulders, shoving you roughly and cleanly out of the trajectory of the falling iron.
You hit the stone floor with a sharp gasp, scrambling back as the iron rack crashed down right where you had been standing. The deafening impact rattled the entire vault, slamming onto the stone flooring and kicking up a thick, choking cloud of dust that billowed into the air like dense gray smoke.
"Yeosang!" you choked out through the dust, coughing as you looked up in panic. "Are you okay—"
The words died in your throat.
Yeosang was standing near the jagged iron bracket where the wall fitting had torn away. The right sleeve of his sweater was shredded open, and right beside his foot, a tiny, distinct metallic clatter echoed against the stone.
The obsidian ring had snagged on the torn iron hook. It had been scraped off his finger, bouncing twice on the floor before rolling away into the dark shadows beneath the shelving.
A suffocating, dead silence fell over the vault.
You shivered violently. The actual temperature in the room hadn't changed, but the sudden, sheer malice radiating off his figure made your blood run bone-chillingly cold, making your lungs seize as if the air had turned to ice.
Yeosang didn't move. His head was bowed, his dark sweater hanging loosely off his broad shoulders. Then, right before your eyes, something impossible happened.
Starting from the very ends of his dark hair, an icy, striking whitish-blonde began to creep upward. The pale, frosty shade consumed the ink-black strands, swallowing his warmth and burying it deep inside, moving steadily until every single hair on his head turned the silver-white of spun frost. The soft, slumped posture vanished completely. His back straightened with a slow, agonizingly elegant grace, his chest expanding as he took a deep, rattling breath as if drawing air for the first time in centuries.
When he lifted his head, the gentle man you loved was gone.
His eyes had turned a sharp, glowing amber, luminous and utterly predatory in the dust-filled air. A cruel, intoxicating smirk stretched across his jawline, pulling back to reveal two sharp, pronounced fangs that glinted wickedly under the dim lamp.
You scrambled backward on the stone floor, your heart hammering wildly against your ribs. "Yeosang...?"
In a fraction of a second, before you could even register the shift, he moved. There was no sound of footsteps, no rustle of fabric, just his towering presence suddenly looming right in front of you.
Before you could stand, his hand shot out, gripping your upper arm with a force like an iron vice. He hauled you to your feet effortlessly and slammed you back against the tall archival shelving. Heavy wooden ledgers rattled violently above your head.
You gasped, trapped between his broad frame and the cold shelves. His face was inches from yours. Up close, the whitish-blonde hair made his pale skin look like polished marble, terrifyingly beautiful, radiant, and utterly heartless.
"'Yeosang...?'" he mocked, mirroring your soft, breathless tone with a cruel, melodic lilt before his voice dropped an octave into a low, smooth purr that vibrated straight down your spine. "Is that who you think is standing in front of you?"
He bent down, resting one hand on the shelf right beside your head, caging you completely. His amber eyes locked onto yours, glowing with wicked amusement as he leaned in closer, his cold breath brushing against your cheek.
"Oh, don't look at me like that," he purred, his thumb reaching out to trace the frantic pulse fluttering in your throat. "I know you noticed how nervous he got around you."
You swallowed hard, the movement dragging the sensitive skin of your neck directly against his cold thumb. "I... I don't know what you're talking about."
A quiet, dark laugh escaped his chest, vibrating against your collarbone. "Please." He leaned closer, the scent of warm spices and autumn chill clinging to him. "You really think I wasn't there?"
Your brow furrowed, your mind urging you to somehow get out of his grip and put as much distance as possible between you.
His smile only widened at your struggle. "Every time you brought him tea because you noticed he was working too long. Every time you told him to eat." He paused, his amber eyes flicking over every detail of your face with possessive curiosity. "Every time you caught him staring at you and he looked away like a pathetic fucking virgin."
A hot flush crept up your neck, clashing violently with the icy panic settling in your blood.
He laughed out loud, thoroughly delighted by your reaction. "Fuck, you really had no idea what was going on in his head." He shifted his grip on your upper arm, his fingers tightening effortlessly to keep you pinned firmly against the heavy wood. "Do you have any idea how insufferable it is? Watching him sit there pretending he doesn't want to drag you onto that table and fuck you senseless?"
Your jaw tightened, a sharp gasp catching in your throat at the raw, vulgar bite in his voice.
"You know what his favorite part of your little routine is?" the vampire revealed, his mouth curling with cruel, dripping amusement. "That you boss him around. He fucking loves it. He loves when you tell him where to sit, what to do, when to eat, when to stop working. He'd probably let you rearrange his entire life if you asked sweetly enough."
Your heart hammered harder against your ribs, an erratic, thumping rhythm that echoed through the quiet vault.
The vampire's golden eyes brightened instantly. "There," he whispered, his smile turning almost feral. His thumb pressed lightly, deliberately against your jumping pulse. "That's my favorite thing about you."
You stared at him, breathless. "What?"
"Your heartbeat." He tilted his head, watching you like a cat watching a bird trapped under its paw. "Human Yeosang hears it too, you know."
Your breath caught in your throat.
"He hears it whenever you stand too close to him," the vampire continued smoothly, his voice dropping into a low, intoxicating murmur. "Whenever you touch his wrist. Whenever you lean over his shoulder." His expression twisted with dark satisfaction. "And every single time, he tells himself not to want you. It’s pathetic."
"No," you breathed, shaking your head in denial.
"Oh, yes." He leaned in closer, his broad frame dimming the faint amber light behind him. "You think he doesn't want you?" His gaze dropped deliberately down the front of your sweater, tracing the curve of your waist before returning to lock onto your eyes. "He's been wanting you for months. He remembers every single time you've touched him."
His voice lowered, becoming a raspy, dangerous whisper against your skin. "That little thing you do when you straighten his collar?" He smiled, his fangs catching the light. "He thinks about it afterward. Replays the fucking thing in his head like some lovesick idiot. The way you put your hand on his shoulder when you're giving him an order?" Another quiet laugh rattled in his throat. "The poor bastard practically melts."
His amber eyes narrowed with wicked satisfaction as he delivered the final blow. "And just now, when you ran your fingers down his sleeve before asking him to dinner?"
You froze, your blood running entirely cold.
"He nearly lost control."
The vampire's smile disappeared completely. For the first time, his arrogant expression flattened into something darker, heavier, and far more dangerous.
"Not because he wanted to hurt you," he said softly, his thumb dragging slowly away from your pulse, leaving a cold trail down your skin. "Because he wanted to say yes."
A heavy, suffocating silence filled the space between you, broken only by the low hum of the vault's climate control and your own ragged breathing.
Then the vampire scoffed, breaking the tension with a dismissive, arrogant tilt of his chin. "He wouldn't even let himself admit that."
He leaned in closer, the tip of one fang dragging lightly against the delicate, sensitive skin right beneath your jawline, making you gasp.
"He might be hopelessly in love with you, sweetheart," Yeosang purred, his grip on your arm tightening possessively, bruising and selfish. "He might dream about touching you gently like you're something precious, but I know what you really are. You're mine to ruin. I don't give a fuck about your feelings, your cute little dates, or your sweet words. I only care about taking what's mine. Biting into that delicate throat, and tasting your warm blood. Listening to you sob my name. Seeing you look at me like I'm a monster, watching you fucking shake in my grip.” He paused, his amber eyes holding yours, filled with an unyielding, dominant hunger that made your stomach drop.
“Nothing makes my dick harder than knowing you're entirely terrified of me." He leaned closer, chest rumbling with a quiet, triumphant laugh as he revelled in having you pinned against the shelves completely at his mercy. But beneath the suffocating dark aura, beneath the golden eyes and the sharp fangs, your brain caught the slight, erratic twitch in his right hand. It was missing its heavy silver band.
The ring.
You didn't hesitate. Driven by pure, raw survival instinct, you didn't pull away or try to fight his overwhelming strength. Instead, you dropped your weight, slipping low and sliding right beneath his caging arm before he could react to the move.
"What—" he growled, turning with fluid, predatory speed.
You dropped onto the cold stone floor, your eyes frantically scanning the gray mortar dust near the fallen iron rack. There, glinting under the shadow of a heavy wooden ledger, was the tarnished silver band.
You lunged, your fingers scrambling over the icy stone and scooping up the obsidian ring.
In a split second, Yeosang was above you, his shadow swallowing you whole as his face twisted into a vicious, snarling scowl. He reached down to grab you by the throat, his amber eyes flaring with violent rage.
"Don't you fucking—"
Before he could finish, you pushed yourself upward and slammed the ring back onto his right index finger. The impact of the silver hitting his skin echoed through your ears. Instantly, the vampire’s snarl froze.
Starting right from his scalp, the deep ink-black bled back into his icy hair in a rapid, violent wave. The predatory amber in his eyes shattered, dissolving into wide, dark brown pupils filled with sudden, agonizing clarity. His fangs retracted, and his sharp jawline softened into the familiar, delicate features of the man you knew.
The dark, suffocating power radiating off him vanished in an instant, leaving behind only the crushing weight of reality.
"N-No..." Yeosang gasped.
His knees buckled. Without his supernatural strength to hold him up, he collapsed forward, falling heavily into your arms. You caught him, the shock of his full weight pressing against your chest as you both sank to the stone floor.
He was trembling uncontrollably. His hands clutched frantically at your shoulders, not with the possessive, bruising force from earlier, but with the desperate, terrified grip of a drowning man.
He remembered every single detail of what just occurred. The cruel words, every predatory touch, and all the terrible secrets his dark half had spat into your ear came rushing back. He had been trapped inside his own mind, forced to watch it all happen.
"I'm sorry—I'm so sorry..." he choked out, his voice cracking violently. Cold, suffocating shame flooded his chest, draining the color from his face. Tears welled in his dark eyes, spilling over his lashes the moment he saw the lingering fear in your expression.
He couldn't bear it. He couldn't stand the sight of you trying to comfort him after what he had just put you through.
"Yeosang, wait," you breathed, reaching out as he scrambled backward.
"Don't look at me!" he sobbed, burying his face in his hands, his voice raw with humiliation and terror.
Scrambling backward off your lap, Yeosang shoved himself up from the floor with wildly unsteady hands. He almost tripped over his own feet, his breathing coming in ragged, hyperventilating gasps. He threw one last, utterly devastated look at you, his face flushed with toxic, overwhelming embarrassment, before turning on his heel.
He fled the vault. His frantic footsteps echoed up the stone staircase until the heavy iron door slammed shut, leaving you alone in the frigid, dusty silence.
