The slipping feeling never seems to halt. August knows that it's only a matter of time before Declan finds himself in his bed. He's certain of it, and it explains the almost predatory smirk that coils at the ends of August's lips. "Right, right," August huffs, a subtle roll of his eyes feels like the final blow. Declan's all smiles and maybe a strike too eager, but August welcomes it without flinching. "Pretty, for sure. No doubt about that." He'll bite, his eyes trailing down to Declan's mouth. He'll hold his stare, deliberate and evil in the ways he knows to be. Guys like Declan eat it up, evident by the way delight settles into his tone without a second thought.
"We'll see about that," he teases, stifling his own amusement. Declan's compliment doesn't go unnoticed. He puts that in his pocket. Future ammunition. Proof that Declan had been down bad from the very start of whatever the hell was destined to spark between the two of them. "I don't need the satisfaction of being right," August scoffs. "I'm always right. There's never been a moment where I haven't been right about something." He doesn't hesitate to close in on Declan, the space between them thinning. "How long do you wanna play this game, sweetheart? We both see what we like. What's the point in dragging it out?"
declan liked watching august decide things. the smirk and how confident he is that he'll always be right. maybe declan should have been more wary of a man so comfortable making the world bend around his opinion, but wary was hard to reach when amused and interested were standing much closer. august called him pretty again and declan's smile widened around it, biting back a laugh. "that's twice now." he pointed out. "i'm starting to think you're just looking for excuses to call me pretty." but fuck, august was right, and declan was eating it right out of the palm of his hand. he couldn't be all that concerned about the red flags when august had been so easy.
declan's arms cross over his chest. "well, you don't have manners, so why would i have manners with you, huh?" he wasn't down bad. he didn't lean in as soon as august closed the space between them and he didn't have to stop himself from reaching out to grab onto his shirt. "you're doing a lot of work to convince me of that. its kinda cute." his chin juts out, defiant at the question even though he wanted nothing more than to find the nearest dark corner. "well," he hesitates for just a beat too long; he's never been good at lying, his body always gives him away. he takes a step closer. "what if i don't like what i see? just 'cause you're big and tan doesn't mean anything. you don't know my type."
declan felt the moment the words found somewhere to land in wren. he didn't really know how long fae lived; he knew some that were thousands of years old, as old as the stories they told children late at night, but some never made it that far. either way, it wouldn't be long enough.
i'm yours.
a hundred thousand years wouldn't have been long enough. declan's breath caught, something bright and aching blooming beneath his ribs, taking root, and declan's magic warmed helplessly around the soft purr from wren's chest. this was the sort of thing fae were supposed to be clever enough to avoid and proud enough to deny.
it wasn't blood, not in the way declan understood it. too dark, too cold. it tasted like buried roots and black soil after rain, a door sealed for thousands of years finally cracking open.
wren's hand pressed to his cheek, smearing dark across his skin, and declan leaned into it, too dazed to place a word on how he felt about wren in the moment. magic stirred inside of him, warmth mixing with something darker, old and cold. declan made a quiet sound against wren's mouth, chasing the taste before he could think better of it. he should have been afraid of the thing that had just been exchanged. some distant, sensible part of him must have remembered the stories of terrible intimacy that he had been told his whole life about vampires.
it didn't matter.
hishishishishis.
wren's fingers tugged him closer by his hair and declan went eagerly, mouth open fully. he wasn't sure that he would ever feel close enough to wren again. his own fingers clawed desperately at wren's skin, leaving red marks dragging down his arms. wren tasted like vitae and want, something forbidden made warm enough to swallow, and declan had never been good at refusing warmth.
his magic shivered again. gold flickered beneath his skin, dimmer than before, candlelit around the edges. softer and stranger, threaded through with the darkness wren had pressed into him. the plants nearest to them stirred by an invisible draft, the leaves turning towards wren. declan barely had time to realize the gravity before wren was pulling back, beautiful and inhuman, and a wounded noise escaped out of declan's throat. he felt it before he saw it; the impossible speed, the shift in the air before wren's mouth was at his throat.
he shouldn't have tilted his head, but it dropped to the side, baring his neck for the fangs pressing into his skin. "wren," it came out like prayer with the bite, pain sparking bright and clean before it opened into something else entirely. warmth spilled down his throat, and declan's fingers tightened hard in wren's shirt.
the room answered with him. flowers opened and vines curled along the floorboards, slow and searching. declan had heard stories, like most things fae believed, they were all just stories. declan hadn't believed most of them; almost everything he had been told ended up being some twisted version of the truth. the stories of how dangerous it was for a fae's magic to reach towards something monstrous had littered his childhood and been brushed off as a way to keep him secluded as he got older.
he was sure now. nothing bad could come from this. he was so sure about it that when wren pulled away, declan followed. his throat ached where the bite had been. wren's tongue soothed over the wound and a shiver ran through declan so hard it made him feel boneless. his hand raised on instinct, sliding into wren's hair. for once, declan didn't fill the silence. he didn't have anything that felt important enough to ruin the golden air in the room.
i love you.
declan pulled back only enough to see him, hand sliding to wren's jaw. black stained, fangs still visible against his lips, pupils thin and inhuman and beautiful. "look at me." he hadn't meant for it to be so whiny. why did he sound like that? "wrennn, look at me." he whined again even though he didn't mean to. as soon as wren's head was out of his neck, declan found his eyes. "i love you."
it might have felt anticlimactic had the words not torn right through him on the way out, too ordinary for the way they made the room tremble around them. "i love you." he said again, because the first time hadn't been enough. "i love you." gold flickered beneath his skin, grabbing desperately at his shoulders until declan was able to pull himself on top of wren, head tilted, letting all the warmth he could muster spill over wren's skin.
it wasn't sunlight, not really. not the kind that punished creatures like wren. his magic was softer, shaped by delcan without knowing he was shaping it. warmth with nowhere to go but the dead thing beneath him. declan's hands framed wren's face, thumbs dragging over the black at his mouth trying to memorize the stain by touch. there was so much of wren on him now. vitae on his tongue. venom in his blood. dark smears across his cheek and matted in his hair. it should have felt like corruption. instead it felt like proof.
August likes the way Declan smiles. He wonders if it's this easy to get him to smile like that. The thought, selfishly, sets his teeth on edge. "Just making sure," August shrugs. He takes quiet note of the way Declan's gaze wanders, and the flicker of his eyes is enough to win a smirk from August. Maybe he's just as easy to provoke as the other. "Lucky is the word you should be using. Whatever other idea you have is dead wrong." August always speaks like his word is final, and that there's never any room for rebuttal. An ego like that could be headache-evoking, but Declan seems to be partial to it. "Pretty boy like you, I'd imagine you'd have some manners." Gravely mistaken, August assumes. "Yeah, alright. If I tell you I'm lucky, what do I get out of it?"
declan's smile only widened, helpless and pleased in a way that would have been embarrassing if declan had the ability. august spoke like the world already agreed with him and declan hated how much he didn't hate it at all. "no, 'cause you already admitted what i thought." his gaze dipped again, obvious and on purpose this time. "its cause i'm pretty, not lucky." it probably would have been smarter not to sound so delighted about it, but declan had never been all that interested in sounding smart where there were more fun things to be.
"and i do have manners!" he tacked it on, offended as if august had wounded him. "but staring doesn't count if you're nice to look at." or if the other person noticed, but declan left out that it stopped being rude the moment that august had engaged with him. "if you tell me you're lucky..." he trails off, finger tapping against his chin. "i can offer you the satisfaction of being right about it. you seem like you'd be into that."
He's fucked. August knows it the longer he looks at Declan. The inescapable feeling of the walls closing in is enough to make him drop his gaze. Tongue drags against the expanse of his lower lip as he gathers whatever is left of his composure. "You got an issue with it?" He asks, his voice like gravel. "You're lucky enough to have gotten my attention." A beat, his eyes meeting with Declan again. "I don't have manners. Not even at the dinner table, let alone with someone who's looking at me like they're fuckin' starving."
a smile spread over declan's mouth, slow and pleased, "no. why would i have an issue with it?" the answer came too quickly to be anything but the truth; anyways, he had always been a shit liar. a pointed drop of his gaze to august's mouth, his head tilts just slightly. "i don't think lucky is the word i'd use though." he felt lucky though; despite a room full of people, august's eyes had been on him. luck or not, declan felt giddy about it. "if you don't have any manners at all, then why should i pretend i wasn't staring?" practiced innocence fell over his face like a veil, despite the way his gaze was far too pleased with himself. "if anyones lucky, its you."
he laughed at that β loudly. βa fucking murder sommelier?β wren tilted his head, grinning wildly at him. βoh, baby boy. yeah, just like that.β declan said heβd go if wren really wanted him there, and wren could hardly pretend that he didnβt. βi want you to pick them out, and i want you to watch the way they wriggle like the vermin they are.β wren had never been particularly careful with the way he spoke about humans. heβd made his disdain for them perfectly clear. βwe can give them to your flowers.β
the humor faded when declan offered more of his throat. wrenβs chest rose and fell with breaths he didnβt need, his eyes fixed on the pulse beneath his skin. βyou can help,β he said quietly, his voice slipping into that treacherous tone β the one that meant the beast inside his chest was screaming to be let out. the possessiveness wrapped around his ribs whenever it came to declan was unbearable most days, but it was even worse now.
and declan was begging.
declanβs heartbeat fluttered in wrenβs ears, and his mouth flooded with venom. he couldnβt manage another word β his fingers tangled into the hair at the nape of declanβs neck, and a wicked grin pulled across his face. wren knew he mustβve looked like a mess; pupils narrowed into cat-like slits, venom spilling past his lips, but he couldnβt help the way the animal inside him came alive whenever declan was concerned.
inked fingers pressed beneath declanβs chin, holding him in place as wren nuzzled against the soft skin of his throat. perfect. soft. his. his fangs grazed over his neck, and this close, the sound of his heartbeat was almost unbearable.
wren pressed his fangs into him slowly, and a whimper escaped him at the first taste of blood. it was sweet. unlike anything heβd ever tasted before. declan was the first fae heβd ever fed from, and for half a second, wren wondered if they all tasted like this. the thought disappeared almost as quickly as it came. it didnβt matter. what mattered was that it was declanβs.
a vampireβs bite could be euphoric, or it could be agony. the worst pain imaginable, enough to leave someone begging for death. but not this. never for declan. wrenβs venom was meant to be predatory, filling someone with the sweetest sensations, making them crave the bite long after it was over. he wondered what it would do to a fae.
blood coated his tongue, and every part of him wanted to be greedy. he wanted more. he wanted everything declan would give him, but he didnβt want him weak or sick afterward. so, reluctantly β very fucking reluctantly β wren forced himself to pull away, soothing the bite with slow, kittenish licks until the blood stopped flowing.
his inked hands turned declanβs head, and wren kissed him, pressing his tongue into his mouth so he could taste himself there. βyou taste that, baby boy?β he mumbled against his lips. βbest fucking thing iβve ever had.β
declan laughed before he could help it, breathless and bright, caught somewhere between delight and disbelief that this had somehow become being this. how had killing someone turned into something casual and intimate, binding them together, even when they weren't together? that should not have warmed something in him, but it did, and it showed in very part of him that he tried to keep still. wren knew exactly what kind of gift would make declan's magic stir beneath his skin. not flowers cut and put in a vase, but bodies turned back to the ground. rot becoming root, cruelty turned into something gentle, a waste of space sweetening the soil until something green and beautiful grew from the place he'd been put down.
"that's a very romantic thing to say to me." he murmured, words coming out thinner than he meant them to, because wren's mouth was already at his throat and he couldn't form a thought anymore, much less anything clever, before his head started to unravel and his laughter turned into these breathy little hiccups that he couldn't stop. "wren, please." he wasn't even sure what he was begging for anymore as his hands grasped desperately for anything he could dig his fingers into.
he had been waiting for this since the day he met wren, fascinated by the thing that lived inside of him, so ready to give himself over to wren even then that he wasn't sure that it was safe.
wren had told declan that the bite didn't have to hurt. he hadn't really been convinced, because, well, teeth were teeth and they were sharp. so some small sensible part braced himself for the pain that never came anyways. pain that never really came, just a dull ache as wren's teeth pressed into his skin and then declan's body went still.
not fear, barely even shock. more like the moment before a seed split open underground, impossible pressure of something alive realizing it had been given permission to grow. warmth bloomed from the place wren's fangs sank into him, gold spilling under his skin in thin veins that looked like roots spreading over his neck, down his throat, across his collarbone, stopping beneath his ribs. "wren," he gasped.
it should have been a warning, but it wasn't. his hands tightened in wren's shoulders, fingers curling hard into fabric and skin, desperate for something solid while his magic poured open eagerly, like the bite had poured dawn straight into his blood. the realization that his glamour was spilling further, making the plants declan had littered around wren's townhouse curl towards them, made something helpless and ashamed twist low in declan's stomach, because he liked it. he liked it so much he could barely breathe around it. he liked being taken from.
when wren pulled away, declan wanted to say something. his mouth opened to say something that would prove he was still in control of himself and instead, a broken little sound slipped out of him as their eyes met, declan's blue eyes streaked with gold, warm and almost feverish. another sound slipped into wren's mouth, softer this time startled by the taste of himself on wren's tongue. his blood, sweet and strange, and wren's venom, darker beneath it. the two of them mixed together until declan's magic shuddered so hard that every flower in the room opened. "whoa," his voice came out dazed and confused, "do it again." his fingers tightened in wren's shirt, eyes growing even more frantic. "just one more time."
It takes too much strength to not bite. However accustomed August has grown to people staring, it always leaves him vaguely unsettled. His gaze flickers towards the other, slow and passive in the way he usually looks at people. "Where's your manners? Anyone ever tell you staring is rude?" / @aperturcs
"well, duh." declan might have noticed the bite behind his words; he just didn't care enough to let it get under his skin. "where are your manners?" practiced doe eyes blink back at august. "hasn't anyone ever told you about treating people the way you wanna be treated?" a beat passes, not long enough for august to answer him. "because you were staring back."
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