Chapter Text
“Yuuri!” Viktor shot forward, kneeling by the unconscious body.
He jolted for Yuuri’s wrist and felt frantically for a pulse.
It was there, racing and faint.
He exhaled, then lifted Yuuri’s body up so that his back was on Viktor’s knees and his upper body was leaning against Viktor’s chest.
“What’s he doing here?” Yuri growled.
“I don’t know,” Viktor said, hearing the desperation in his voice. “Yuuri…”
A soft twitch feathered across Yuuri’s face. Viktor could feel the warmth from Yuuri’s blood flowing onto his shirt.
“Yura, get a bandage,” Viktor said. “He’s still bleeding.”
Yuri complied, going to their duffle bag and rummaging around until he pulled out a large square package of gauze. He tossed it to Viktor and Viktor caught it nimbly.
With his teeth, Viktor ripped off the packaging and pulled out the bandage with his free hand. He shifted Yuuri in his arms a bit so he could press the gauze to his neck. The movement stirred Yuuri and his eyelids fluttered open.
“Yuuri! Who bit you? Did they make you drink any blood?” Viktor asked, his words ragged and rushed.
“Blood?” Yuuri whispered.
“Yes, did they make you drink any?”
“No…I don’t know who bit me… I didn’t drink anything…”
Viktor felt every nerve ending smooth out and relax at that. Yuuri wouldn’t turn into a vampire. That was something at least. He draped his arms more fully around Yuuri and rested his chin on Yuuri’s head. He felt Yuuri tense.
“You lied to me…”
Viktor closed his eyes. “I did. I’m sorry.”
Yuuri slumped a bit in Viktor’s arms and Yuri deadpanned, “He’s going into shock. His color’s gone all to hell.”
Viktor pushed Yuuri away from him slightly to see sweat beading out on golden skin. He pressed the back of his hand to Yuuri’s face and felt the cool, clammy pallor.
“I feel dizzy,” Yuuri said.
Viktor used one arm to stabilize Yuuri while he used the other one to pull open Yuuri’s left eyelids a bit wider. His pupils were blown wide. Yuri was right. Yuuri was going into shock.
“Give me that blanket from the mattress,” Viktor ordered.
Yuri moved over and pulled the heavy woolen blanket out from under him. He stood and brought it over to Viktor and laid it across Yuuri’s body.
“I thought that woman knew Yuuri,” Yuri said. “Why would she let this happen to him?”
“I don’t know,” Viktor said. “Either way, we need to keep him warm and let him relax.”
Viktor’s nose wrinkled with the scent of so much blood wafting off the man in his arms. It was uncomfortable, but he was old enough that a bit of blood wouldn’t send him into a frenzy.
The room grew suddenly, very, very quiet.
Instinctively, Viktor looked up and on Yuri’s face, he saw unbridled, agonized thirst.
“Stay back, Yura!” Viktor shouted.
The younger vampire swallowed hard and slowly crept backwards until he was pressed against the back wall of the cell.
After a few moments, Yuri said, “Why do you care so much about him?”
Viktor tightened his arms around Yuuri. “I don’t know.”
“I’m fine…” Yuuri said weakly. “I can...take care of myself.”
“You’re in shock. Just rest,” Viktor soothed.
Yuuri’s skin continued to pale as the minutes ticked by. Viktor tucked the blanket up around Yuuri’s body and pulled him closer as Viktor leaned against the wall of the cell. The baker didn’t say anything else and Viktor noticed absently that he had fallen asleep.
“Does he need our blood to live?” Yuri asked.
“I don’t think so. Surely Minako would have saved him that way if he’d needed it. Assuming she hasn’t already sired someone. I think he’ll be okay.”
Viktor hoped he was right. He didn’t want to have to ask Yuri to use his one shot at making a scion if they didn’t really have to.
Time passed and they sat in the little cell, both of them uncomfortable with the scent of blood permeating every inch of the room. Every now and then, Viktor would notice Yuri panting and sweating. The strain of maintaining control must have been excruciating, but Viktor was proud of his scion for his efforts.
A faint sound reached their ears and Viktor turned to the steel door. It was odd...sort of like the sound of a whining cat. But within seconds, the sounds coalesced into something familiar.
Screams.
“What the--” Yuri asked.
More screams and growls. The sounds of loud bangs, as though doors were being thrown open.
Viktor and Yuri glanced at each other.
“Never thought I’d live to see the day I was glad a Hunter came round,” he said.
Yuri’s eyes glinted with satisfaction.
Viktor hooked his arms underneath Yuuri and stood up, the blanket draping down to the ground. Yuri came forward and tucked the corners of the blanket underneath the baker’s body. They waited, and as they waited, more cries rang out.
“Perhaps we should back up some,” Yuri suggested.
Viktor followed his scion’s lead.
The steel door gave an ungodly screech and suddenly burst open. On the other side of the threshold, the Hunter stood, a leg raised and steel-toed boot flexed.
Viktor’s mouth fell open. Beside him, Yuri said, “You kicked that door open?”
The Hunter grunted as he put his leg down.
Viktor could see the sheer, impressed look on Yuri’s face. He would have rolled his eyes if they weren’t in an immediate hurry.
“You texted,” was all the Hunter said.
“Let’s get out of here,” Viktor said. “Before they catch up.”
“They won’t be a problem,” the Hunter said.
“I’ll tease out how once we’ve put some distance between us and this place,” Viktor said.
The Hunter turned around and flexed his hands as they walked. Bright mandalas of light flared around his wrists and Viktor knew that power would be leaching into the Hunter’s hands.
Just how powerful IS this guy?
As they traversed the corridor Viktor saw the bodies of Minako’s goons littering the floor. They were all unconscious. Some of them had visible burn marks on their faces and the exposed skin on their arms and hands.
Viktor made a firm decision never to get on this Hunter’s bad side.
Getting out of the lair was surprisingly easy. Minako was nowhere in sight and Viktor figured she must be somewhere else entirely. They didn’t even need to fight anymore. Apparently the Hunter had cleared the way expertly.
“You did all this yourself?” Yuri asked.
The Hunter turned his head and gave a nod.
Again, Viktor saw an impressed glance.
It was very difficult to impress his scion.
They left the underground corridors and walked up the stairwell into the night.
“Where to?” Vitkor asked, hitching Yuuri up higher in his arms.
“Come with me,” the Hunter said. “I’ll keep you safe.”
As they followed the man into the warren of alleyways and sidestreets, Viktor wondered at how life sometimes surprised you. He’d never have figured he’d ever trust a Hunter. And he wasn’t sure he trusted this one. But for now, he owed the man and he’d see how this played out.
He picked up his pace and clutched Yuuri closer to his body as he followed Yuri and the Hunter deeper into the city.
***
Yuuri’s eyes slowly opened.
He was somewhere dark, warm, and silent.
A flood of memory assaulted his mind and he saw everything that had happened to him before he’d fallen unconscious as though through a fishbowl. He remembered the vampire attacking him, Minako taking him to Viktor, then...nothing. He tried to sit up, but a hand pushed him gently back down.
“Rest.”
Viktor .
As he let his body fall back into what he realized was a bed and a stack of pillows, he felt his neck muscles stain against the wound there. He winced.
“It’s healing well. I cleaned it for you and put on a new bandage,” Viktor said.
Yuuri’s eyes adjusted to the darkness and he stared at the place Viktor occupied on the bed.
He sat close, but not too close. Their bodies didn’t touch.
“You’re a vampire,” Yuuri said softly.
Suddenly, Viktor’s slashed appearance the night they met made sense. He’d been in some sort of vampire fight . Whatever that meant. His secretiveness made sense. It all made sense in some weird, twisted way. And yet, Yuuri still couldn’t bring himself to accept any of it as the truth. As reality .
“Yes. I am,” Viktor confirmed.
Yuuri looked away from Viktor’s kind, serious eyes. Then back.
“I don’t know what to say,” Viktor admitted, running a hand through his silvery fall of hair.
“You can tell me the truth. About everything,” Yuuri offered. “You can tell me why you never attacked me. That’s the only reason I’m probably not freaking out right now. That and I’m terribly tired.”
“They drained a lot of your blood. You went into shock, then you fell asleep after that.”
Yuuri remembered Minako telling him he’d forget everything he’d experienced beneath her apartment building. Considering he remembered, she must not have made good on that.
“How did we escape?”
Viktor stared at the wall across from the bed. “A Hunter helped us.”
“A Hunter?”
“Vampire Hunter. They’re sort of our archenemies, but we somehow managed to get one to not hate us. He helped us escape when Yuri asked him to.”
“I think I’m going to need you to back up a bit. Several hours ago, I didn’t believe vampires were real,” Yuuri said, pinching the bridge of his nose.
He pulled off his glasses and realized they were slightly smudged -- probably from them smashing into his face when he ran into the vampire in Minako’s basement. After cleaning them, he pushed them back onto his nose and tucked his hair behind his ears.
Viktor sighed. “I don’t normally go around telling humans the truth about myself.”
“Am I just that to you? A human? Someone you’d feed on?” Yuuri asked quietly.
Viktor smiled sadly. “I would never have fed from you, Yuuri. I promise.”
Something in Viktor’s tone made Yuuri believe him.
“I’m listening,” Yuuri said. “Without judgment for now.”
“I was Made into a vampire when I was twenty-seven years old,” Viktor began, still looking away from Yuuri. “The year was 1613 and I lived in an area known as Ingria. What is now St. Petersburg.”
Yuuri sat up and propped himself onto the pillows that had been beneath him. He pulled his legs up into his chest and wrapped the blankets of the bed around himself. Viktor turned to glance at him, then back at the wall.
“I was the son of clothiers and they had a prosperous business, creating for many of the residents who lived around us and beyond the finest apparel,” Viktor said. “I loved my parents. But they died when I was in my early twenties from a terrible fever. For some reason, I survived, though I was sick with it myself. For a while, I tried to take on the family business. I wasn’t nearly as prosperous nor as talented as they were. I didn’t really have a passion for it.”
Viktor looked down, his silver lashes catching blue-gray morning light seeping in from the room’s one window.
“One day, a stout man came into my shop and demanded a new coat. I accepted the job and made him the best coat that I could. I knew my mother and father could have made him a better one, but he seemed happy with my work. He returned. Again and again. A waistcoat here, a pair of trousers there, always bringing me steady income even when many other people stopped using my services. This went on for a couple of years and over time, I came to know this man. Yakov is his name.”
Yuuri listened with rapt attention, not wanting to break through Viktor’s words lest the man clam up on him.
“Yakov told me he saw my loneliness. Saw my struggle to keep myself afloat in a society that had moved on once my parents died. He offered me a way out,” Viktor said. “I asked him to show me that way. In seconds, he was upon me, attacking my neck and drinking my blood. I had heard of vampires, of course, but I’d never suspected Yakov was one. Once he’d finished drinking from me, he stopped and moved away.
“‘If I leave you now, you’ll live and survive,’ he said, ‘but will you thrive?’
“I didn’t know what to say to him at first. Then Yakov told me, ‘If I offer you my blood, you will live forever. You’ll be strong. Mighty. In command of a great deal of power.’
“How could I say no?” Viktor chuckled softly. “With an offer like that.”
“So you said yes,” Yuuri guessed.
“Yes, I did. He fed me his very own blood and over the next week, I transitioned into a completely new life. I could see things differently. Hear and smell things far away. But it all came back to thirst. It always does for a new vampire. Yakov taught me to hunt without killing from the beginning, so I can honestly say I’ve never murdered anyone. He allowed me that mercy.”
“That’s a relief to hear,” Yuuri admitted.
“Some vampires kill, of course, but there’s really no need unless you’re starving. There’s enough blood in the human body to drink to one’s fill and leave the person alive,” Viktor explained. “Vampires who kill usually do so because they want to.”
Yuuri mulled that over.
“Twenty-seven years ago, I sired Yuri because he was dying in an alleyway after a gang had attacked him. I saved his life by turning him into a vampire. We’ve been traveling for a while now. I needed...some space from Yakov after three hundred plus years.”
“Minako said there was a family feud between you and Lilia Baranovskaya. Who is she?” Yuuri said.
“Lilia is Yakov’s ex-wife,” Viktor explained. “Lilia sired Yakov. They’re a little too close. I think that’s why their marriage didn’t work out.”
Yuuri marveled at the information Viktor had shared. It was hard to imagine a life in terms of centuries. “So...Minako is a vampire, too…”
“Yes.”
“Is she the one who attacked you? The night we met?”
“No, it was her minions. She runs the coven here,” Viktor told him.
“The coven?”
“It’s a grouping of vampires. Usually cities only have one coven per territory. Minako runs the Hasetsu one.”
“Why did they attack you?” Yuuri asked.
Viktor leaned over the edge of the bed a bit. “Because Yuri and I came to Hasetsu without going through the proper channels. Vampires have been around for a long time. We have just as much societal organization as humans do. Paperwork, visas, that sort of thing. We didn’t go through the proper channels because we honestly didn’t think a city this small would have an established and well-run coven. I got sloppy and paid for it.”
Yuuri tried to imagine an underworld of highly organized vampires. Did they have their own nations? Their own leadership? He still felt a bit woozy and he pressed a hand to his aching head.
“Are you alright?” Viktor asked.
“Just a bit out of sorts. This is a lot to take in,” he admitted.
Just then, the door to the small room opened and Yuri stood in the entry with a young man. The stranger was dressed in a black leather jacket with equally dark jeans and boots. He had an undercut and a very serious countenance. This must be the Hunter Viktor spoke of.
“Um...hi,” Yuuri said, his voice sounding weak even to his own ears.
“Glad to see you’re not dead,” Yuri said.
Yuuri chuckled at that. Then, he directed his attention to the other man. “I’m Katsuki Yuuri. What’s your name?” He hoped the man spoke English.
The man glanced to Yuri, then Viktor, but said nothing.
Yuri rolled his eyes. “His name’s Otabek.”
“You know his name now?” Viktor asked, shock evident in his tone. “I thought he refused to tell us!”
“Tell you, maybe,” Yuri huffed.
The man shrugged and pulled out a white cigarette from one of the zippered pockets on his leather jacket. He fished around for a lighter and brought both up to his mouth. After lighting it, he blew off a puff of smoke. Still silent.
“Where are we?” Yuuri asked.
The window had a drape over it and he couldn’t tell from the indeterminate light what time it was.
“My apartment,” Otabek said simply.
He had a strange accent that Yuuri couldn’t place.
After that admission, the room fell completely silent.
The nerves that had been held at bay by Viktor’s revelations flared back up in full force and Yuuri felt his skin grow clammy and his heart begin to hammer in his chest.
Can this really be true? Am I not dreaming?
He sank into the pillows and tried to conjure up a sense of peace amid all that he had learned. But the anxiety that was simmering continued to boil until he closed his eyes and tried to shut everything else out.
I am safe. I am alright. All is still well…
But was it?
Vampires were real. What else was real that he’d previously assumed was fantastical?
If Minako was a vampire...why had she always been so close with his family? Were they simply marks for her later blood-sucking enjoyment? How could he ever trust her again?
You trust Viktor and barely know him…
Did he really trust Viktor?
It was all too much.
“What will we do now? I need to get to the bakery,” Yuuri said. If anything, the normalcy of running his business would help him calm down.
“Do you think that’s safe now?” Yuri asked. “That lady’s minion attacked you…”
“She got angry at him for that. I don’t think she’d hurt me…” he hoped.
Viktor reached out and squeezed his knee beneath the covers. “Of course you should go to the bakery. Getting back to your normal life is probably for the best.”
Does that mean you’ll really leave? The thought lingered in Yuuri's mind.
“Do you mean the bakery near that resort where these two were staying?” Otabek asked.
“Yes. My parents run that resort,” Yuuri supplied.
“My apartment is a few streets over. Considering you’re a local, it shouldn't be too hard for you to find your way back. Probably best for Viktor and Yuri to lie low for now,” the Hunter continued.
Yuuri nodded and flipped the covers off his legs, turning over the side of the bed, avoiding hitting Viktor’s body where he sat on its edge. He didn’t have a watch, but he remembered he’d stashed his phone in his pocket. He pulled it out, but it had died.
“Does anyone know what time it is?” he asked.
Otabek looked at a slim black-banded wrist watch and said, “Eight-thirty.”
“Crap, I’m way late,” Yuuri said.
Viktor looked sad. “I wish I could walk you over.”
“Probably best if you don’t. I don’t think I fully understand why you are having issues with Minako, but I wouldn’t want you to end up back in that basement,” Yuuri said. “Can we talk more soon, though?”
Viktor reached into his pocket and pulled out his own phone. “I should have gotten your number ages ago,” he laughed. “Can I have it now? I can text you.”
“That would be great,” Yuuri said, and meant it.
He gave Viktor his details and then stood up. Yuri and Otabek cleared the doorway and Yuuri slogged over to it. He felt so exhausted. He wondered if he’d ever feel energetic again. Probably. Hopefully .
“Oh,” he said. A sudden thought pierced his mind, stirring his anxiety to gargantuan levels. “Will I...turn into a vampire?”
Yuri snorted. “No. You have to drink our blood to turn into a vampire and since you didn’t drink any, you’re in the clear.”
“That’s good…” he breathed a sigh of immense relief. He should have led with that when he woke up, but his brain felt intensely fuzzy and uncoordinated at the moment.
He looked back to Viktor and lifted his phone, giving it a little shake. “Text me, okay?”
Viktor nodded. “I will. I promise.”
Yuuri smiled.
Otabek turned down the hallway and said, “I’ll show you out.”
Yuuri followed him and left the apartment.
As soon as he was outside on the balcony, he stared at the sunlight beginning to break through dense gray clouds.
What...the hell...just happened to me?
But he didn’t have time to ponder this, he was nearly four hours late for his shift at the bakery. That’s if he even remembered what day it was… Tuesday? He thought Tuesday.
He picked up his pace into a run as soon as he had taken the stairs down to the pavement. With his phone dead, he couldn’t text Phichit, so he just ran as fast as his exhausted body would carry him --which wasn’t very fast.
Once he made it, he was relieved to see the bakery OPEN sign on the door and Phichit running things through the window. Thank goodness for that .
His friend caught sight of him through the front glass and gave him an arms-crossed look of complete worry.
“Where have you been?” he saw Phichit mouth silently.
There were no customers at the moment, so Yuuri went through the front door.
“I texted you eighty times, where have you been? Are you okay? I was really worried!” Phichit started on him as soon as Yuuri cleared the bells overhead.
Yuuri leaned over and put his hands on his knees. “Phichit?” He was panting and he stood up straighter to give his lungs more space to expand.
“Yes?”
“You will not believe what happened to me…”
Phichit arched his brow and looked Yuuri up and down, top to bottom. “Try me.”