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“Will you stay with me when the full moon comes?” , Huaisang had asked, “Just so we make sure I don’t destroy the entire place”
“Of course” , Mingjue had said, believing himself able to fulfill his brother’s request “I’ll do it”
But breathing down his neck, Nie Mingjue felt enthralled. He could hear the blood traveling along Huaisang’s neck, up and down, to the beat of his hardworking heart. He could see it pulsating against the soft skin, beneath all the hair he grew in the past hour. The scent was hypnotizing, metallic below the surface, acidic when it came out of his pores, and unbearably sweet, too, but that was just his didi.
His youthful didi who now trashed in his arms, trying desperately to free himself from him, threatening to bite with the sharp teeth on his now rather long snout. But Mingjue had sharp teeth too and not much more self control left.
He didn’t have the heart to keep him chained, believing he could keep things under control. What trouble could his sixty five kilogram didi get himself into that Nie Mingjue wouldn’t be able to deal with? He had been able to take care of Huaisang’s problems for his entire life, after all.
But nothing prepared him for this.
His didi’s joints cracking, his skull changing, bones stretching themselves painfully right before his eyes. The soft brown of his eyes turned lighter, brighter in Huaisang’s dimly lit apartment. His scent changed, too. The wilderness overtaking the familiar smell it usually hid underneath until it was all Mingjue could perceive.
In truth, he hadn’t known what he agreed to, and it threatened to fracture the fragile thing they were just starting to build in the past weeks.
Huaisang charged at him, tackling him to the ground with a strength Mingjue knew Huaisang did not possess before. The werewolf inspected him thoroughly with his twitching wet nose. Mouth, ears, armpits, crotch.
He found nothing and it seemed to puzzle his didi, who growled then.
“Vampires don’t smell like anything”, he had said on that fateful night, “ That’s how I figured”
The only thing Mingjue had time to do before Huaisang’s aggression escalated was tearing into his own wrist with his fangs, making sure there was enough blood to remind his enraged didi of their familial bond.
Their preternatural natures hadn’t been able to erase that, however tenuous their relationship had grown to become.
Huaisang had smelled it, licked it, and stopped for a moment. Mingjue thought it would be enough to calm him down, but it only made the little beast lose interest in him. It walked around the small living room with newfound curiosity and tried to escape through the window.
Which led them to their current predicament: Mingjue restraining Huaisang with only his arms and trying to figure out how to chain him to the wall opposite to them again, all while maintaining control over his own thirst.
He was used to it most of the time, years into this approximation of life had granted him at least the ability to endure it.
And yet, as Huaisang struggled against him, it somehow fogged his mind. It felt dishonest to blame it on him, who had entrusted his safety and his madness to Nie Mingjue, who had given him the necessary tools to endure the transformation.
Tools, and rules, Mingjue had disregarded, believing it yet another thing he could control.
But he couldn’t, and he knew that when he sank his teeth on Huaisang’s hairy, pulsating neck. It wouldn’t fix anything, it would probably make it so much worse, but Mingjue was so, so tired of restraint.
The lies and excuses he had to tell in order to conceal his cursed nature, the gaping wound that was his hunger, the pain it brought him as his body cannibalized itself, the unbearable shame his sparse killings always carried.
It all went away as Huaisang’s blood filled him, the fight he was putting up only making it more delicious as it ran down Mingjue’s throat, warm and thick. There was only Huaisang, his inebriating taste and smell, his hair around Mingjue’s mouth, tickling as he knew his mustache tickled Huaisang when they kissed.
How he ached for Huaisang, how he thirsted for him even before he knew how torturous vampiric thirst could be.
And it scared him how it didn't feel wrong to drink from his brother.
Mingjue could feel Huaisang’s life dancing around his brain. He didn’t feel the same with his usual meals; small animals could only offer him simple, fickle images before their quick end. Humans were a sea of discoveries he could get lost into, and Huaisang was welcoming and warm.
Mingjue saw himself, younger and grieving, keeping appearances and he held Huaisang’s smaller form in his arms. Sobs rocked both their bodies as they desperately tried to make sense of the tragedy that took their last remaining parent.
Then the memory shifted, and he saw himself through Huaisang’s eyes, impossibly handsome and tall in their tiny kitchen. Mingjue was doing the dishes and his didi’s eyes captured his forearms and the stray hairs around his face in detail, the tired eyes and the scolding on the tip of his tongue were disregarded.
Faintly, Mingjue thought that was the moment he realized his affections, an overly ordinary afternoon forever framed in the gallery of Huaisang’s mind.
Years later and it was Mingjue’s own memory’s turn. Huaisang, naked and moaning in his bed, through a door that was left ajar. He convinced himself he hadn’t meant to look, but he could understand what was going on from the living room; spying by the door had been indulgence.
Next, the blood offered him their first kiss - a rainy day when the power had gone out and the candlelight had made Huaisang’s brown eyes bigger -, then a second, then a third.
In the living room over a board game, in the kitchen while covered in flour, in the bathroom after shaving.
Until, finally, they found themselves in Huaisang’s room. Mingjue remembered the rug under his feet and the artwork on the wall as he nervously undressed. His didi had been nervous too, but he couldn’t quite pay attention to that, heart throbbing in his chest.
"It's okay, da-ge, I want it too", he said, helping Mingjue with his shirt and letting his fingers linger on his sides.
And Mingjue let himself be guided into the bed that still smelled of unfulfilled teenage fantasies and Huaisang’s hair products. And his didi was eager with his mouth, taking and taking until they were both out of breath.
Then he found out Huaisang was even more eager with his hands, scratching and squeezing his way to Mingjue’s underwear until he got what he wanted: the perfect view to give Mingjue what he wanted.
He came with his didi's mouth on the inside of his thighs and his didi’s fingers buried inside his hole, relentless in their rhythm. He took Huaisang into his mouth after that, and got drunk on his taste as his seed ran down his throat, much like the blood did now.
Said blood then offered tangled images and sensations from every time they made love in the old apartment, and the guilt that came with it. It was all-consuming. Mingjue thought he was ruining Huaisang’s life so many times, every 'i love you' in between thrusts an admission, a different crime he had to atone for.
It was what sent him spiraling, what drove the wedge between them, sealed by the surprise exchange program he signed Huaisang for and by a suicidal plan to avenge their family; something Mingjue only dedicated himself to so he could find purpose within something that wasn’t sleeping with his own brother.
So came the Wens, so came the terrible discovery that something more sinister was hidden beneath their rich and unreachable façade. Then came fangs in his neck and whatever combination of desperation and pity that followed, culminating in his horrid transformation.
Mingjue remembered locking the door, blinded by the sunlight and hurting all over, he remembered hiding under the bed and only coming out at nighttime, driven by a hunger that threatened to make him insane.
Then nothing.
Then rats, cats, dogs, pigeons and insects, things that only satiated him for a while.
He avoided Huaisang like the plague, even the sight of him on his computer screen was enough to turn Mingjue paranoid. What would he do when Huaiang came back? How could he get anywhere near him without hurting his didi? Months went by and, as he prepared to come back to their old life and tiny apartment, Mingjue decided to leave.
He prepared all the documents Huaisang would need, left the place for him, wrote a final note for him that read “ Don’t chase after me, you deserve a life without me”, and left with his heart broken to never come back.
The blood was sweet in his mouth, sweeter than anything he had ever tasted, not even the pain of his failure was able to turn it sour; so Mingjue kept drinking, diving deeper into Huaisang’s mind and body, into things he was told but not shown.
Huaisang’s face when he read the note, tearfully taking into the empty place he once called home. He knew it was a possibility, but it still crushed his soul.
He sold the apartment and with that money he flew to the friends he had made, loyal young men who looked at him kindly. They sheltered him, they listened to his crying, his despair. And they couldn’t understand why their friend’s big brother would cut contact with him so abruptly, because Huaisang never told them about the kind of relationship they had.
Whether out of fear or care for Mingjue, he kept their twisted love for himself for all the years he spent by their side in their secluded home. It was a beautiful place, surrounded by trees and lakes, filled with birds that filled Huaisang’s days with a satisfied contemplation.
His inspiration to paint was back, his fractured heart was healing, and he was smiling again; cheeks reddened by the sun in this warmer place.
Mingjue couldn’t help but feel bad for depriving Huaisang of it once again.
The accident came unexpectedly. The three of them were far away enough that no emergency service would be able to reach them in time. So Huaisang’s friends had to make a decision, muddled by the life flowing out of him by the minute.
They talked Huaisang through every step of his transformation, done to save his life, granted as an act of love rather than vengeance. And Mingjue watched, an ugly feeling sinking into his stomach, not very different from envy, as they groomed and rubbed their scent on each other, marking his no longer human baby brother as part of a pack.
They hunted together, they shared their food. Huaisang was guarded and nurtured in that place. His anger was welcomed, his hunger was welcomed; once a month he was pampered and doted on as the pain of his shift settled in his nor ever-changing bones.
But the worst thing of all, the one that made Mingjue finally come to his senses and stop drinking, wasn’t the happiness he saw in Huaisang’s smile as his friend brought him a full meal in the morning after the full moon was done with him. It was the happiness that was missing.
In every memory, even as he recovered, there was something lacking. A longing behind his yellow-ish eyes that made Mingjue think he has permanently damaged something in his brother, and the thought threatened to rip him open once more
.
Now he could feel his didi’s knees buckling under his weight, the untamed creature in him finally subsiding. He let go of him in a beat. Surely he couldn’t have drank too much, he wouldn't have-
Kneeling beside him, Mingjue could hear Huaisang’s heart, beating faster now to make up for the loss. His breathing was quick too, but he had his yellow eyes open and focused.
That was good.
Huaisang neither snarled or whimpered when Mingjue caressed his face, and the vampire didn't know what to make of it.
"Didi?", he called, making the werewolf look at him, "didi, are you alright?" The beast, his didi, his love, kept looking at him, but there were no signs he understood what was being asked.
That's when the guilt washed over him.
If Huaisang’s blood hadn't fulfilled him so thoroughly, if his body didn’t cling to it so desperately, he would have spat it all out. Guilt felt too much like nausea, a bitter taste on the tongue, a stomach that was too full. Of blood, his didi’s blood.
Mingjue paced the apartment, wanting to leave and disappear again. The weight of what had just happened was heavier than anything he felt before, heavier than his chest felt after sharing his bed with his own brother time and time again.
Shame flooded him like nothing before. Feeling Huaisang’s spent run down his leg had felt better than this, swearing he would never allow it to happen again when he knew he would sneak into Huaisang’s room in the middle of the night to bounce on his dick after he swore to never do it again had felt better than this.
He could barely bring himself to look at the mass of fur and torn up clothes on the floor.
But he had to. Even if it served only as a punishment, he had to.
So he swallowed his guilt, his self hatred and his shame, and he approached the werewolf.
It surprised him to see the wound on his neck was gone, although his heartbeat was still faster than it would be healthy.
"Hey", he said, aiming for soothing, "let me help you up"
Mingjue maneuvered the creature until he could carry him properly. He sat Huaisang down on the plain mattress by the chains, and carefully tied the handcuffs around his clawed hands.
He fetched a clean towel and a bowl of water from the kitchen and cleaned most of the blood he had spilled along Huaisang’s neck and chest.
"I'm so sorry, Sang'er, I-I got carried away, I shouldn’t have agreed to this”, he caressed the damp fur, feeling the tender tissue under his fingertips where the bite mark should be. His didi was healing fast.
He moved, after a while, sniffing Mingjue’s hand at first, then licking it tentatively. Mingjue let him, petting his hair as he did it and finding comfort in the fact that his didi didn’t seem to be feeling bad. The blood loss had slowed him down, and nothing more.
Once he was done with the exploration of the soap and the water on Mingjue’s hands, he plopped back into the mattress and stared at him sleepily.
“Go to sleep, didi, you’re okay”
He stayed until the werewolf fell asleep, attentive to his heartbeat, vigilant for any signs that something was wrong; but his didi fell into a peaceful slumber, only the slight occasional twitch of his nose or ear interrupting his regular breathing.
So Mingjue got to work. He cleaned the place meticulously, as he used to do back at their old home, except without the sweating and the tiredness. Then he moved to cooking, having been told that Huaisang was usually very hungry after his shifts. He chopped the meat with the precision of a man who had done it a thousand times before; the movements coming to him naturally despite the few years without practice.
Huaisang used to say he stressed cooked, whatever that means, and he did find himself being somehow soothed by the repetitive motions. The cleaver was a welcomed weight, a perfect fit for his calloused fingers; the steaming from the pot was pleasant over his skin. It was comforting in a way, to know he hadn’t lost it, to know the man he saw in Huaisang’s memories wasn’t completely gone.
Yet, stealing a glance at his sleeping didi, he couldn’t quite allow the feeling to settle. That man was changed, transformed into a creature capable of hurting the ones it loved the most in pursuit of temporary relief. That's what he turned into.
And no amount of nostalgia it brought him to cook for his brother once more could make him forget it.
Still, he hoped the stew would be enough for his didi’s ravenous appetite, and good enough for his rather capricious tastes. He left it all on the stove for when Huaisang woke up, then spent a few minutes searching for the medication he had mentioned; mostly pain killers but also something for his stomach, and left them under the mattress, like the keys for the handcuffs. He left a note, too, stating that much. He didn't know whether Huaisang would be confused upon waking up or not, it was better to remind him of how to free himself.
The night was ending, and for all that Mingjue would like to leave, run back to his old apartment and crawl under the bed; he refused to hurt Huaisang even further by leaving again.
So he resigned himself to Huaisang's room, with the blackout curtains and thick bed covers he could hide beneath for extra protection, checking on the sleeping werewolf one last time. His fur was starting to shed already, and his face was peaceful with the mouth a little open; his sharp teeth composing the perfect picture.
He would like to say sleeping came to him easily with the sunrise, but in reality it didn't differ from how it was before everything. Some nights he tossed and turned just the same.
He thought of Huaisang’s new family, and how much better treated he would be had he stayed with them. He thought about how his didi had shown him forgiveness even after the immense heartbreak he had caused, a pain that he knew intimately now, as the blood showed him. And he hoped, despite himself, that Huaisang could do it just one more time.
There was traffic outside when he finally gave in, motor engines finally muffled the birds as tiredness overcame him, right on time to hear Huaisang's breath quicken on the other side of the door.
****
Huaisang woke up slowly, awareness coming back to him in waves. His whole body tingled in a way that was both familiar and still hard to adapt to, and he felt absolutely gross. The hair had to be his least favorite part besides the face pain and the teeth, and he was covered in it. It could be worse, he thought, tentatively touching his face to make sure everything had already gone back to normal, he could go through this more than once a month.
He could turn into a full wolf, which would make way more than just his head hurt; he could also become much stronger and an actual menace to society; so he guessed he could deal with this by himself this time.
Reaching below the mattress, he got the keys. Exploring it a bit further got him the painkillers and a piece of paper that made his heart drop.
Huaisang didn’t trust pieces of paper anymore.
Making an effort, because his whole skull was throbbing, he read the note, “Good morning, didi, I’m in the room if you need me. There's food. Eat. And rest.”
His brother’s handwriting was still tiny and rushed, and right now it wasn’t conveying heartbreak and farewell, so he relaxed. The pills would still take some time to numb the worst of his discomfort, but Huaisang couldn’t resist peeking through the door to make sure Mingjue was indeed there.
His Da-ge was a big lump on the bed, completely covered except for one pale foot . He had stayed and that was enough.
As it was usual, Huaisang didn’t attempt to do much; he waited for the painkillers to kick in, got rid of all the fur and sweat it stuck to in the shower and then devoured all the food his brother cooked for him. His teeth ached a little, too, but the meat was soft to the bite, for which he was grateful.
Were he more prone to it, he would’ve cried at the taste. Three years without eating anything prepared by Nie Mingjue hadn’t made him forget it at all, he just craved it more strongly.
The rest of the day he spent drifting off on the sofa and waiting for his brother to wake up.
It was funny how easy it felt to share the same space with Mingjue again, it was almost as if they had never parted at all. Sure, his Da-ge was still adjusting, and Huaisang knew it would take some time to get him comfortable with his own nature, and Huaisang’s own nature, but for a moment he was allowed to imagine the both of them living like this for however long their new existences allowed.
Huaisang pictured a house somewhere more removed from the city; tinted windows all over and a coffin for when Mingjue wanted to sleep alone or Huaisang wanted to enjoy the sun. They would have a garden which would attract all the small animals his brother needed to survive.
Mingjue would drain and butcher them, Huaisang would eat them raw.
Every full moon they would hunt, running free on the open fields and through the forest trees; his lover would be flushed and well fed, and he would run by his side. Huaisang would howl at the Moon and Mingjue would follow in his tuneless voice. Then he would carry Huaisang home and by morning they would make love like they used to before.
Huaisang drifted off again then, lulled by his own lovesick fantasies and by his tired body. When he woke up once more, it was to the sight of his undead brother staring at him.
“Like what you see, Da-ge?”, he teased. They hadn’t gone back to that stage of their relationship yet, but one could dream.
“How are you feeling?”, Mingjue asked with worry, and Huaisang knew that, if he were still human, he'd smell a bit like fear too. That is, underneath Huaisang’s own scent all over him. His Da-ge must have restrained him the night before.
“Like shit”, it was the truth; for all the transformation had made him stronger and more resilient, it still wrecked him every time. “It always feels like this, though”, he added after seeing his brother’s face fall.
“Don’t worry, Da-ge, I got the pills and your awesome meal, I’m alright”
But Mingjue was the one who didn’t seem alright, and he proceeded to treat Huaisang with a certain coldness for the rest of the night. Huaisang thought that perhaps he had behaved very badly during his shift and his brother was a bit wary of him; but when asked, Mingjue would say he behaved as expected.
The weird treatment didn’t stop with just one night, and Huaisang wondered if it hadn’t been too soon for his brother to witness that. His pack had warned him of the risks of revealing himself to humans, and how it often severed relationships or changed them irrevocably; but Mingjue wasn’t exactly human anymore, and he figured he wouldn’t be repelled by it.
He spent the rest of the week being proved wrong.
Mingjue wouldn’t talk about that night and most of the time he wouldn’t talk at all. He went back to his place for a couple of nights and came back looking even more miserable. The easy chat they fell back into the past three weeks and even the shy hand holding they attempted for the first time the evening before Huaisang’s shift were replaced by a distance that crushed all hopes he had for that house in the countryside.
(“Is everything alright, da-ge?”, he would ask time and time again.
And Mingjue’s reply would come at first in a calm “Yes, it’s all fine”; then in an annoyed “Yep”, then in a mute nod. But Huaisang could tell he wasn’t being honest in any of them.)
Once eight days had passed, Huaisang decided to take a more direct approach.
He was tired and quite honestly hurt as his brother seemed to put more and more space in between them. He had spent the better part of two years looking for Mingjue, holding onto the hope that his brother didn’t hate him yet fearing it had been exactly the case; finding him again had been something close to a dream becoming truth, and learning his motives for leaving Huaisang had soothed some of that fear.
Admittedly, maybe he rushed the whole werewolf thing; three weeks of getting to know his brother again were probably not enough to (re)build the kind of bond required to endure such a thing. But Mingjue had always been the one person he could entrust everything with; to think his brother would turn away from this part of him had felt like a silver coated bullet to his heart.
But he wasn’t his Da-ge, and he would do his best to not assume the worst of the situation before getting all the details. So he waited for him to come back from his hunt at the park - he was hunting more frequently now, even if all the dead hares got a small note on the newspaper -, and readied himself for yet another difficult conversation.
Worst case scenario he would buy tickets and get into that train tomorrow, return to his pack and try to mend his broken heart with their friendship and kindness. Best case scenario, he thought, as he smelled the fresh blood in Mingjue approach his front door, they would get that house.
“Hi didi”, he greeted sheepishly. There was blood on his coat.
“How was the hunt?”
“Got a couple, one escaped”, he shrugged. Vampires weren’t meant to be hunting for small animals, after all, it was natural that one less inclined to drink from people would have some trouble.
“I’ll go with you tomorrow if you want”, he offered, “but I wanted to ask you something”
Huaisang was glad his brother’s nose wasn’t as good as his own, otherwise he would have been able to smell the anxiety in his veins.
“Go on”
“Was it that bad?”, he managed, and at Mingjue’s furrowed brows, he added “My shift, was it too much?”
“I told you already, Huaisang, there’s nothing wrong with it”, his da-ge averted his eyes, displeased with the recurring topic.
“Are you sure? You’ve been avoiding all week and I ran out of possibilities”, he ran a hand through his hair, “I-If you want me to go, if you don’t think this can work, then I’ll go”
It was hard to keep his voice from shaking, the possibility of rejection seemed to open his old wound again, making it bleed all over the newfound joy of being reunited with his lover.
Somehow, Mingjue must have realized that, because his expression shifted from guarded to something smaller and troubled.
“There’s nothing wrong with you, Sang’er”, his voice was quiet, almost reticent, “I’m the one who ruined things again”, he took one long, unnecessary breath before continuing, “I never meant for you to feel this way, I wanted to keep you safe”
“From you?”, Huaisang had thought they were past it already, but his Da-ge’s face was now stained with tears as he nodded. “Where are we going with this, Mingjue?”
“I did it”, he said between sobs, then came a pause, “I drank from you”, then the confession.
“You did?”
“I’m so sorry”, he said helplessly, looking ready to drop to his knees at any moment.
“Is this why you’ve been avoiding me since that night?”, that was not what Huaisang expected at all.
Mingjue only nodded again, “I couldn’t tell you, I should have said something-”
“All this because you drank from me?”, he repeated for good measure, gaining some confidence for what he was about to do next.
“Don’t treat it lightly, it was a despicable ac-”, the words died in Mingjue’s throat as Huaisang silenced him with a kiss. It was rushed and desperate, reminiscent of the summer nights they spent together once upon a time.
For a moment Mingjue didn’t move, probably too stunned by Huaisang’s actions to do so, but soon he melted into the kiss. His mouth still tasted like fresh blood and his face was still wet where Huaisang’s fingers cradled it, the metallic smell was almost overwhelming. Huaisang could feel his brother’s fangs brushing against his tongue or lightly clashing with his own teeth and for a moment he wished he could keep his sharp canines after the full moon, just so he could give his brother a taste of the electrifying sensation.
“Huaisang?!”, his brother pushed him away gently.
“I don’t care that you drank from me”, he wiped a tear that still ran across his lover’s cheek.
“No”, he shook his head maniacally.
“I’m serious, Da-ge, I barely felt any different from the other shifts”, it was the truth, he rarely slept through it all, but otherwise he couldn’t find anything that would have given it away and he made sure to tell Mingjue that.
He didn’t seem relieved to know that, though.
“The only reason why I didn’t leave again was because you didn’t deserve it, but I’m very sorry”, he told him once he had calmed down a little and they were both seated on the sofa.
Huaisang tentatively reached for his hand then, “I promise you it’s alright, Da-ge”
“How can you say that?”, to say Mingjue was distressed with the way he was treating the whole situation was an euphemism.
“Because it’s not evil, it’s what you are and what you need”, he told him while gently rubbing circles on the hand that was offered, “I can’t fault you for drinking when you’ve been starving yourself since I got here, Da-ge, I’m not stupid”
He looked away, but didn’t let go of Huaisang’s hand, which he counted as a win.
“We can…talk about it, discuss how much it’s safe”, his brother tensed by his side, “we can find a way for this, for us, to work”
Mingjue remained silent for a moment, still looking away, but something in him felt different.
“You really think we could?”, he turned to Huaisang slowly with something that looked a little like hope in his red rimmed eyes.
“I do”, Huaisang reached for a strand of hair, tucking it behind Mingjue’s pointy ear, “I really do”.
***
Traveling at night was surprisingly noisy. It took a lot of difficult conversations and long nighttime walks in the park; months spent together trying to figure out where they stood with each other. There were shifts where Mingjue kept his distance, and ones where he stayed. But none where he drank from Huaisang again.
Self control was easier to keep when Huaisang made sure he was feeding.
They fell into an actual routine this time, past the apologies and the catching up, past the getting used to each other again. And on a warm lazy evening, Huaisang asked. And Mingjue said yes.
So they packed all their things, which wasn’t really a lot, and were on their way to Lotus Pier, Huaisang’s home for the past two years. His didi was excited, Huaisang could barely wait for his pack to know his Da-ge. His nocturnal and now rather queasy Da-ge, who he insisted should feed as much as he could before the trip since he wouldn’t get any snacks until they got there.
But it was alright, he thought, reaching for Huaisang’s warm hand and enveloping it with his equally warm ones.
Huaisang made it all worth it.