Demon Tamer (2/2) [for everyone]
Part 1
Baekhyun jolts awake to the feeling of fire inside him, fire around him. Hellfire. He gasps, flying up from the bed and holding his throat as he fights for air. The burning on his back is intense, the markings there, the truth of his heritage, fighting to force him to go out, to dance in the hellfire, to take a human soul and devour it-
“Stop,” Baekhyun says to no one. The ring of his voice in the empty room cuts through the buzzing in his head, the whispers of demons rising to the earth plane, waiting for the tear to open, and Baekhyun focuses on breathing.
The burning doesn’t stop, but Baekhyun doesn’t think it will. He stands slowly, feeling his equilibrium totter momentarily as he fights between his human and demon instincts. He wants to flee, but he wants to fight. Most of all though, Baekhyun wants to succeed. Chanyeol’s warning is stark in the forefront of his mind, and Baekhyun’s clock is ticking.
He’s not going to explode, he’s not going to wreak havoc, and he’s not going to become a demon. Gatewatchers, and Lord Tamer himself, apparently, don’t believe that. They don’t have that type of faith in him. Challenge, as always, tastes rich on Baekhyun’s tongue. He’s going to tame a demon tonight, or he’s going to die trying. Death in battle would be easier to bear than dying at the hands of Lord Tamer’s demons as he stands and awaits his end.
Night Hunt begins with a grating, horrific screech and a flash of moonlight as fire rages up along the edge of the streets. The air crackles with impending death, and the screams of civilians, harmless and tasty in the mind of a demon, scratch through Baekhyun’s ear drums.
He sets himself into motion, pulling on the uniform Lord Tamer had gifted to him, slipping his hands into the gloves and flexing his fingers. The palms of the gloves have been cut out, unhindered access to the easiest source of blood. Baekhyun leans down to lace his boots, and the stretch of the fabric of his shirt against the burning mark on his back teases a wince from him. He’s content to just stand at the window, buttons fastened and mentally preparing himself to head out into Night Hunt as he waits out part one.
Night Hunt is an odd sort of phenomenon, the event, so to speak, is divided into two parts determined easily as before midnight and after midnight. Watchers, like Baekhyun, are traditionally only allowed out during the pre-midnight part of Night Hunt. The reasoning is simple, and Baekhyun understands; low-level and the occasional mid-level demons are the only ones who come out during the first half of the night. For Watchers who have the training to be Tamers but are not ones yet, it’s safer as they have no demon to call upon to protect them should they run up against a demon too strong for their ability. Tamers during the first half of night hunt tend to turn their energies towards watching over the Watchers, making sure they don’t end up dead.
Casualties are low, but the possibility of one occurring is still extremely high. Baekhyun has attended enough in-organization funerals to know.
However, Baekhyun, as a half-demon himself, knows no Tamer will bother to watch over him during the first half of the night, or even the second. His fingertips are starting to ache, and Baekhyun stands watch at the window of his hotel room as the seconds tick by.
He only makes it to half past eleven o’clock when his muscles start to scream in protest at being held still. He turns sharply on one heel, barely remembering to grab a room key and tuck it in his boot before he strides out the door and heads for the all-access stairs. He doesn’t want to join the fray just yet. Standing on the rooftop will get him outside, let his demon side relax and believe he’s doing what it wants, and it will keep him away from the fighting.
He wants a good demon, if he must have one. He wants one with power and strength. If nothing else but to prove to Lord Tamer and to the man who trained him to control his emotion that he is a good Watcher and a great Tamer. He has trained his whole life for this. With his twenty years on the line, this has to be good.
It has to be a taming that Lord Tamer approves of, after all. All tamings are subject to his approval, and his lack of approval will be the demon’s death and the Tamer’s death subsequently. Humans are fragile creatures, Baekhyun thinks, and then quickly includes himself in the thought process. He’s a fragile creature; nevermind that he’s never suffered a bruise in his life.
He’s human. He’s a Watcher. He’s going to tame a demon.
Baekhyun steps out into Night Hunt, and the screams assault him from even this high up, fearful energy everywhere even with very few civilians on the streets. Most places are locked down, the doors guarded by Tamers twirling their blades in their hands. It’s an art Baekhyun has never needed to learn. His claws from his heritage are just as sharp.
He observes the way Watchers test demons out, instantly cutting into the flesh of low-level demons, recognizable by their caricatured features and inability to recreate human speech, and screaming ”return!” once they’ve spilled the low-level’s blood. The mid-levels give Watchers pause, and Baekhyun is idle and barely amused by the hand to hand combat they engage in. He watches one Watcher fall to the ground, and a Tamer and his demon appear from out of nowhere to cut the demon down.
Tamers never help Watchers complete a taming. It’s shameful, and the taming won’t be approved by Lord Tamer anyway. Honestly, Baekhyun should find it to be a sick and disgusting business, but maybe there’s too much bloodthirst in him for that to be the case.
His back stops burning, and the screaming stops.
“Midnight!” A Tamer screams in a foghorn voice from the ground. Baekhyun turns and dashes down the steps, hurrying down a dozen flights of stairs and shoving himself through the emergency exit, ignoring the alarm as the door shuts firmly behind him.
Nausea slams into him, bowling him over as the taste of rotted souls and Hell’s miasma stick to his tongue and coat his throat. He gags hard, holding onto his humanity with an iron grip. A Watcher near him whirls on her heel, turning with her knife held in reverse grip, the other arm in a cross block across her body.
Baekhyun breathes hard, glancing up at her with wide eyes. The other Watcher’s eyes go between his eyes, certainly wild and edging on unearthly, and the lack of a crest on his Tamer’s jacket.
“Watcher?” she asks carefully, rocking on her heels, ready to move according to Baekhyun’s answer or if he should prove a threat. Baekhyun keeps his hands in plain view and hopes the girl doesn’t notice the lack of a knife holster strapped to his leg.
“Watcher,” Baekhyun answers stiffly. “Chicago. Headquarters.” The girl nods, relaxing only slightly. Her eyes roam away from Baekhyun, fixing instead on the streets, waiting for the second half of Night Hunt to begin. The energy is starting to rise in the air again, and Baekhyun thinks within three minutes the hellfire will rage over the streets curbs again.
“Seoul branch,” the Watcher answers easily, and Baekhyun figures that’s to be expected. He’s probably the only headquarters-based Watcher (soon to be Tamer!) here tonight.
“You look young,” Baekhyun says, voice dull. His fingers ache with the rush of concern trying to fill his chest.
“This is my fifth hunt out,” the girl sniffs. She wipes her demon blood-stained hand on a rag hanging from her belt. “Yerim,” she introduces. Baekhyun jams his tongue between his teeth to shake her hand, feeling the spike of her energy as two warm palms meet. Physical contact is one of those things that has always felt exponentially more powerful to him than to the average human.
“Baekhyun,” he responds.
“Listen, Baekhyun,” the Watcher, Yerim, says. “We have to head in- the rules, you know. I’m staying a block away.” She jerks her thumb over her left shoulder. Baekhyun isn’t planning to go in, that’s why he’s just come out, but for Yerim, at least, he can make sure she gets in safe.
“Fine,” he murmurs. “I’ll walk you.” Yerim starts leading the way immediately in a brisk jog. There’s less than two minutes, by Baekhyun’s estimate, remaining before the gates break open again.
“This area,” Yerim pants lightly as they run. “Has been reported to be pretty power heavy. We spent most of first half making sure it’s completely cleared out of people on the streets. Locked up the natural gates as much as we could.”
“We?” Baekhyun repeats.
“Yeah,” Yerim gasps, turning a corner down an alley to the back entrance of an apartment building. “Tamers and Watchers.” Baekhyun doesn’t react to his surprise. “They’re serious about this area. The energy reading is-” She makes a general explosion gesture with her hands, and Baekhyun kind of wants to laugh. She’s cute.
Yerim and Baekhyun slow to a walk, and Yerim pulls a scrap of paper from her pocket.
“Always forget the code,” she says, eyes curved up, smile sheepish. Baekhyun doesn’t react. He needs to stay focused, he needs to-
Fire. It blasts up from the edges of the street and the buildings. Baekhyun slings an arm around Yerim, pulling her back and diving into the middle of the alley, as far away from the flames as he can get, covering her body with his own.
“Shit,” he hears her say, and her voice is already shaky. He can smell the tinges of something sour on her- fear. “We gotta-”
Baekhyun doesn’t hear the rest of her sentence. His ears ring, the wailing high pitched and ceaseless. He drops the side, rolling on his back with his mouth open and hands pressed over his ears. It hurts. Everything hurts. The muscles on his back must be peeling away from his bone for all the burning on his skin. His body shakes, and he can’t breathe without tasting the desire for a human soul on his tongue.
“Baekhyun!” He faintly registers Yerim screaming. The sound is high and tears at his eardrums. Baekhyun tries to hold on to his human side, tries to press everything down, to become numb and ignore this pain, this suffering. “Baekhyun!” Yerim screams again, and Baekhyun’s claws dig into his scalp.
He feels off-balance out here in the middle of the second half of Night Hunt, having never felt its potency before, and he’s losing the battle with himself.
Cool fingers slide over his wrists and against his cheeks, wiping at his skin carefully, and Baekhyun realizes tears are streaming down his face.
“Baekhyun,” Yerim says, eyebrows furrowed, prying Baekhyun’s hands away from his head. “You’re bleeding-!” She cuts off, her eyes suddenly stricken with fear, focusing on Baekhyun’s fingers.
“You’re a demon,” Baekhyun reads from her lips more than he hears.
“Half,” he manages to choke. It’s not exactly something Lord Tamer likes to broadcast, the fact that he has a halfling hidden among the ranks of his Watchers, and it’s not something Baekhyun wants people to know either; he wants to be human. At this point, however, it’s better that Yerim just know. He notices her temple is bleeding, drawing red down the side of her pretty face. The color flickers in the light of the flames around them.
“When we fell,” she explains automatically, noting where Baekhyun’s eyes are fixed. He nods, swallowing hard and forcing himself to sit up, to ignore the pain lancing through him, the terrible ache in his gums.
“I can’t believe a Watcher is a half-demon,” she says. “I just can’t-”
“Get inside,” Baekhyun cuts her off, hoping to keep his voice away from a full out groan of pain. He doesn’t entirely succeed.
“Okay,” Yerim says, slowly forcing herself up to her feet. She holds out a hand. “Come on. You too.”
“No,” Baekhyun says. “You. Go.” The air suddenly waxes oppressive, and Baekhyun hunches forward under its weight. Even Yerim looks aware that something has changed, the flames around them turning dull red and flickering a little too low along the lines of the road. She looks frantically from side to side. “Now.”
Baekhyun’s voice echoes with his command, just like a real demon. He swallows hard, and Yerim gulps too.
“Yeah,” she agrees, taking one step backwards, and then another two in quick succession. “Yeah.” She turns to bolt to the door to her apartment as Baekhyun forces himself up onto his knees.
The flames stop, and Yerim freezes, her shoulders heaving with her panicked breathing.
“Baekhyun…” she starts, looking back at him, and Baekhyun can see the tears in her eyes.
“Go now!” He roars, voice bouncing off the concrete. Yerim lets out a dry sob, and yellow flames scream to life. She stumbles back, and Baekhyun throws himself up to his feet. The horrible screech of iron gates fills the air around them, and even Yerim winces at it.
“Yerim,” Baekhyun says slowly. The markings on his back feels like a million needles being pressed into his skin. From the ground in front of Yerim, blocking her way to the apartment building’s back entrance door, a gaping maw of black and red miasma is rising.
“Yerim, you should-” Baekhyun starts again, but what should he say? Run? Out into the street where the rest of Night Hunt is happening? She’s a Watcher, she’ll be killed out there without a demon for sure. Step back? Towards him? He’s in less control of himself than he’s ever been in his life.
The miasma solidifies into gates, the iron looking bars wrapped and warped with the bodies of snakes and spiders that writhe, the yellow flames lighting their marble eyes. Poison appears to drip from their fangs in the form of hell’s red miasma, and a low cackle that echoes into the deep black of the Night Hunt’s sky and bounces off the flames as they dance with its tune resounds around them.
Baekhyun’s throat constricts. Something like fear and something like arousal lance through him, and the pain is still all-consuming. His jaw works, unable to say anything, unable to warn Yerim who stands frozen with fear.
The gates split open.
Yerim screams.
A hand shoots from the depths of the gates and closes around her throat. Her scream cuts off, and her hands fly up to tug uselessly at the clawed hand wrapped firmly around her throat. She’s choking, and Baekhyun feels like he is too just watching as one leg after the other steps out from the gate, the emerging demon’s cackle still leading the dance to which the hellfire around them moves.
The demon’s tail drags on the ground, and it hits Baekhyun moments too late.
A demon prince stands before him, not even fully emerged onto the earth plane and he’s made his first kill. Yerim’s body goes limp, her toes dragging on the ground. A scream tears from Baekhyun’s throat. He watches in abject terror as the demon prince licks his lips, dragging one long claw down the front of Yerim’s coat, tearing easily through the leather and fabric, blood spraying onto his wrist and bare chest as he splits a long line down her chest to her stomach.
Baekhyun wants to throw up. He’s going to throw up. Yet as the demon prince draws her shimmering blue soul from her body, Baekhyun feels his throat go dry in lust for the soul, to feel it slide down his throat.
The demon prince swallows. Baekhyun wants that, to taste a human soul. You’re human! he screams inside his own head as watches the demon toss Yerim’s corpse to the ground. Baekhyun can see the white bone of her sternum under the open flaps of skin and see her intestines threatening to spill out out of her torn stomach.
The demon cackles again. “Hello, Little Watcher,” he says. His voice echoes around them, ringing in Baekhyun’s ears in a way that’s far too pleasant for the blood that stains the demon’s lips. To Baekhyun’s own horror, he finds the demon handsome, his features sharp, angled ears decorated thoroughly with jewelry that glints in the hellfire light. His silver hair is far too pretty for a creature like him, Baekhyun tries to convince himself, but he’s mostly mesmerized by the shadows cast by the demon’s hair where it trails over his collarbones. The markings that wrap around his left arm are graceful, swirling around his skin with the fluidity of air and the intent of a hangman’s noose- breathtaking but never returning.
The demon prince looks over at Yerim’s body with a distatched glance.
“You’re the only one here,” he murmurs in his echoing voice. It takes Baekhyun a few seconds of silence to realize that the demon is talking to him. He doesn’t react, forcing his breathing steady and pulling his cold mask of indifference over himself. The demon raises an eyebrow at him, no doubt able to feel the lack of emotional energy rising from Baekhyun. Baekhyun meets his gaze, ignoring the taste of bile on his tongue and the rolling of his stomach.
“So it would seem,” he agrees, nonchalant in demeanor. His eyes flick towards Yerim’s corpse, and the demon breaks out into that cackle again.
“Delicious,” he sing-songs, tilting his head at the former Watcher. Baekhyun strangles his snarl in his throat, but the demon’s sharp ears pick up on it anyway. He smirks. “Ah, but, you humans see this as, hmm.” He taps his bottom lip. “A tragedy, isn’t that right?” Baekhyun’s eyes narrow.
“Oh, you’re angry,” the demon says, sounding delighted. Baekhyun bets he is positively amused. The demon smiles, his long fangs curled over pointed bottom teeth. “Just livid.”
Baekhyun, however, is not amused at all. He’s torn, half of him amazed by the demon’s power and wants it for himself. The other half of him is terrified and sickened.
“Did you love her?” The demon asks. He steps forward, less than a meter separating his bare chest from Baekhyun’s jacket. Baekhyun feels frozen, the weight of the demon’s power, of the way the hellfire fluxuates to his breathing, holding him still. Baekhyun keeps staring blankly.
“No?” The demon muses, raising an eyebrow. He shrugs then. “So don’t worry so much,” he says, and swipes a finger through the blood splattered on his chest to draw the red on his lips. Baekhyun watches his long tail flick curiously at Baekhyun’s blank disposition.
The length of a demon’s tail equals his power, Baekhyun, his mentor used to tell him at the beginning of every session for years.
His tail goes to almost to his ankles! Taehyung had excitedly reported when he came home covered in blood and various wounds with a fresh set of demon markings on his right arm.
Baekhyun is going to die, a nasty voice that sounds oddly human says in his head.
“She was bound to die,” the demon’s voice snaps Baekhyun from his thoughts. “Who knows how fate determines these things, anyway?” Baekhyun breathes out harshly.
“You’re oddly calm,” the demon notes. “Quite...quiet, as well.” He grins then, mouth open as he fangs drop to their full length, pressing into his bottom lips. Baekhyun’s own jaw aches. The demon claps his hands together, leaning in so Baekhyun can almost feel the demon against him. He’s so tall, his body lithe, veins stark against his almost white skin.
“Are you going to try to tame me, Little Watcher?” The demon asks, positively delighted. He laughs out loud. “Come on. You?” He laughs again, but Baekhyun doesn’t want to tame a demon like this- a demon with this amount of power. He doesn’t want to let that kind of blood into his system.
He’s human.
The demon’s eyes flash dark red, and his own blood drips from one of his fangs down the side of his chin. Baekhyun blinks, and his back slams hard into the brick behind him, the demon laughing joyously with one hand pinning one of Baekhyun’s wrists to the harsh surface of the alley’s walls. Baekhyun coughs violently, pain momentarily twisting his features.
“I dare you to try,” the demon coos, lips against the shell of Baekhyun’s ear. His taunt brings anger flaring to the surface of Baekhyun’s skin, and he snaps his leg up as hard and fast as he can, pulling hard on the demon’s grip on his wrist for leverage. His shin smashes into the demon’s hard shoulder, and throws the Hell resident just enough for Baekhyun to slip, crashing to the ground and rolling hard away from the demon. He jumps to his feet, hands folded into fists and held protectively in front of him.
The demon cackles again.
“That was good,” he says. He adds, with condescension dripping from his echoing voice, “Little Watcher.” Baekhyun breathes hard, tasting the miasma on his tongue and something else, something a little sweet, something he almost likes.
“I don’t want to tame you,” Baekhyun snarls. “I want you dead.” The demon prince laughs again, and Baekhyun only manages to catch the glint of hellfire light off of his fangs before his back hits the opposite side of alley, the demon’s arm across his throat. It’s hard but not impossible to breathe, and Baekhyun sucks in what air he can, refusing to show his struggle and give the demon the satisfaction. He knows he’s being toyed with.
“You do?” The demon mocks. “Good.” He leans in close, his breath ghosting over Baekhyun’s jaw, and a shiver of something Baekhyun cannot, will not, acknowledge trails past the pain in his shoulders and down his spine. “But the thing is, you can’t kill me. Couldn’t even tame me. Not a little Watcher like you.” Baekhyun’s claws erupt from his fingertips, and he slashes hard across the demon’s neck, the demon’s blood hot on his fingertips. The demon stumbles back with shock at the sudden attack, and Baekhyun is careful to retract his claws before he holds out his blood stained hand.
One drop slides from his little finger to splash on the heat-burned ground. ”Leave.”
The ground shimmers, but no gate opens. Baekhyun stares at the demon, stares hard at the awful twist of his lips. ”Return!” He tries again. The demon’s physical image doesn’t even shimmer. The wounds across his neck, dripping blood that pools in the hollow of his throat, slowly stitch back together in the hellfire light. Baekhyun really can’t breathe.
“That’s not going to work,” the demon says casually. He scratches at his newly healed skin. “You’ve realized already, haven’t you?” He straightens to his full height, tail lashing behind him. “I’m a demon prince.” The fire flares around them, the flames nearly white and giving the demon an ethereal glow. Baekhyun takes a step back.
“Isn’t it a fun game?” the demon prince asks, blinking hugely. “You’re clearly not like this one.” He kicks at Yerim’s corpse, and it rolls with an awful squelch right into the hellfire. The stench of burning flesh assaults Baekhyun’s nose. “A little more resilient. Much more fun to play with.”
He steps forward, winding a hand in Baekhyun’s hair and yanking his head harshly to the side.
“But I’m curious,” he whispers, voice rough. “How did you manage to get your knife out that fast?” The demon’s fingers are light, his touch razor sharp as he trails his fingers along Baekhyun’s thighs and up his sides, finding no holsters. He yanks a little hard on Baekhyun’s hair when the Watcher tries to struggle. Baekhyun, chest moving with his frantic breathing, lets the demon stroke over one of his fingers and up the inside of his wrist, shoving his hand nearly up to Baekhyun’s elbow within his jacket. “No weapon,” he breathes. “So it must be...” He drags his hands back down, the tips of his claws just barely digging into Baekhyun’s skin, little droplets of blood beading up in the welts. He stops with his hand wrapped around Baekhyun’s own, drawing back to that they’re staring each other in the eye.
Time seems to freeze.
“Something else.” One claw sinks, vicious, into Baekhyun’s palm. Baekhyun lets go.
His body reacts before he can stop it, his claws out and digging hard into the demon’s hand as he screams, mouth open and fangs fully extended in his mouth. He shoves hard at the prince’s chest, and the demon is thrown back. The markings on Baekhyun’s back stop burning, and the demon’s own seem to glow.
“I see,” the demon says, and suddenly he’s not laughing anymore even if his smirk is just as wicked. “You, Little Watcher, are certainly one of us.”
“Human,” Baekhyun spits back.
“Halfling,” the demon returns. “And powerful. I almost could swear I’ve met you before.” He steps forward, slow, careful, light, ready to turn at a moment’s notice. Baekhyun balances on the balls of his own feet, barely breathing, fangs showing, waiting.
The demon dives, and Baekhyun steps inside of the attack, swinging his fist up hard. The demon snags his elbow, driving his knee hard into Baekhyun’s hip, forcing him to turn away from his opponent. Baekhyun throws his body forward to roll away; the demon secures his arms around Baekhyun’s middle, crushing him back against his chest.
Something wet and hot trails up the edge of Baekhyun’s ear, and a gasp of pleasure escapes him before he can clamp down on it.
“Oh, was that...pleasure, Little Watcher? Definitely one of us then,” the demon sighs into Baekhyun’s ear. Baekhyun forces his body to stay rigid, never once letting up the tension against the demon’s arms, never letting him win. “Why else would you find this”--his arms try to tighten around Baekhyun, and the Watcher growls low in the back of his throat--”so desirable.”
He twists Baekhyun in his arms and catches Baekhyun’s chin between his thumb and forefinger. He kisses him hard, their fangs clicking against each other. Baekhyun can’t find reason for it, but he kisses back, scratching up the demon’s arms and sliding his claws into the demon’s hair, the long strands twisted around his fingers.
The demon licks into Baekhyun’s mouth, and it feels less like a kiss and more like the underworldly creature is trying to taste him. Baekhyun finds himself melting into it anyway, body singing with the contact of another body against his own. The demon sucks Baekhyun’s tongue into his mouth and bites down sharply on his tongue.
Baekhyun yelps trying to draw back, but the demon has his claws buried in Baekhyun’s hair, sharp against his scalp as Baekhyun’s blood smears acroos their lips. Baekhyun digs his own claws into the demon’s skull as they stand, panting harshly, open-mouthed, fangs against fangs. The demon’s breathing turns harsh, pained, as Baekhyun drags his claws against the demon’s scalp, and their eyes meet.
The demon throws him back, and Baekhyun stumbles, landing hard on his back. He throws his legs up, rolling over his shoulder and jumping up to stand. He wipes angrily at his mouth, tasting his own blood and what can only be Yerim’s blood. He likes the taste- it’s sweet like ice cream, and Baekhyun wants to throw up again.
“I know why you seem familiar,” the demon says suddenly, gruffly, snapping Baekhyun’s focus from his apparent taste for blood. “Tell me your name.” Baekhyun shakes his head angrily.
“It won’t matter when you’re dead if you knew my name or not, demon” he spits. A bit of blood trails down his chin, mirroring the blood on the demon’s chin, and Baekhyun doesn’t feel human at all. Human, he chants weakly in his head to remind himself.
The demon laughs. “My name is Sehun,” he murmurs, and power rings in his voice at the utterance of his name. “Now tell me yours.” Baekhyun stays silent, showing his bloodstained claws when Sehun steps forward toward him with threat written in the angles of his face.
“Tell me,” he repeats. Baekhyun can feel blood slipping down his hip.
“Baekhyun,” he coughs out. The demon blinks.
“Ah,” he says. “I see.”
Baekhyun, for all of his usual control, can’t stop himself. “See what?” he demands. Sehun glides right up to Baekhyun, moving nearly to fast for Baekhyun to follow, and he traces Baekhyun’s jaw.
“Exactly why you’re so-” he pauses, swipes his thumb through the blood on Baekhyun’s chin and brings it to his own lips, licking the red away. “Addictive.” Baekhyun draws back a fist, and Sehun’s knee slams into Baekhyun’s stomach.
“Fu-” Baekhyun gasps, falling forward. The demon catches him, fingers curled in the collar of Baekhyun’s jacket, his knees just barely scraping the ground.
“I’m going to offer you an ultimatum,” Sehun breathes, his voice echoing right next to Baekhyun’s ear. “I feel you deserve it, since you are...who you are.”
A halfling, he means. “Fuck. Off,” Baekhyun manages even though the collar of his shirt is pressing against his windpipe.
“Come back down to Hell with me,” the demon suggests. “Be mine.” Baekhyun hates how tempting that sounds. He knows a little about the organization of Hell from what the First Tamer has told him, but he also knows going to Hell will be the death of his human side.
“And the other option?” Baekhyun demands.
“Well, you can attempt to tame me,” Sehun says. “And die here, of course. I always do enjoy a good game. Your choice.” He drops Baekhyun then, and the Watcher collapses to the ground, his claws clicking on the asphalt. His knees sting, the fire around him feeling like it will sear right through his jacket.
“What do you think, Baekhyun?” His name, echoing like that, feels right, and Baekhyun’s stomach turns.
“I think it’s you who will die here,” he says even though he doesn’t have the power to kill the demon, and Sehun knows it. His only chance of survival is to complete a taming on him, but taming Sehun- a demon prince- he doesn’t know how his halfling blood will react.
At this point, he has nothing to lose.
“Your eyes look sharp,” Sehun sing-songs. His tail is lashes behind him, one foot shifted back to give him a wider base. Baekhyun pushes himself up to his feet. His eyes lock on the tattoos spinning down Sehun’s left arm from his chest. He knows how taming works; he’s trained for years to be able to do this. His tutor would be upset if he didn’t even try. He doesn’t justify Sehun with an answer.
Baekhyun launches forward, the rush of flames roaring in his ears. Sehun shifts left, and Baekhyun tilts forward. He digs his hands into the asphalt and swings his right leg down hard, knee smashing hard into the inside of Sehun’s hip. The demon’s balance wavers. Baekhyun drops his shoulder to the ground, rolling over the burning marks on his back and digs the heel of his left foot into Sehun’s stomach.
The demon’s claws pierce through the material of Baekhyun’s boot as he grabs the watcher’s ankles, and Baekhyun gets his eyes open just before he’s dragged across the ground, his ear torn against the rough street. He grabs the back of Sehun’s knee, sinking his claws into his hamstrings.
Sehun screeches and lets Baekhyun go. Baekhyun ignores the pain, and jumps up again, attempting to swing an uppercut into Sehun’s jaw, but his equilibrium is thrown from the damage to his ear, and he misses wildly, fist smashing into Sehun’s shoulder instead. The demon snags his wrist. Sehun pulls, claws showing, intending to drag Baekhyun right into the black curve of his nails. Baekhyun drops his weight completely, hitting the ground hard. Sehun overbalances, falling forward.
Baekhyun’s stomach complains as he throws his legs up, digging his boots into Sehun’s stomach and throwing the demon over his head. He doesn’t see Sehun smash into the brick behind them, but he rolls over in his stomach in time to scramble over to the demon, slashing his nails down his arms, from deltoid to wrist.
Sehun roars, and the fire around them explodes, slamming into Baekhyun. Baekhyun backpedals, dive rolling away from the flames. Heavy hands lands on his back, and Baekhyun nearly bites off his tongue as he hits the ground chin and chest first.
“You piece of shit,” Sehun hisses at him, his claws sinking through Baekhyun’s jacket. The tips meet the markings on Baekhyun’s back, and Baekhyun screams, thrashing as hard as he can to throw the demon. It doesn’t work, but it does give him enough room to twist his back hard, throwing his elbow into Sehun’s jaw. The demon slides sideways, and Baekhyun throws himself after him.
Sehun lands hard on his back, and Baekhyun is there, shins over the demon’s thighs and leaning down so they’re chest to chest. Sehun claws at the skin over Baekhyun’s hips. Baekhyun screams, grabbing onto Sehun’s wrist and smashing his hand down hard into the ground. There’s a sickening crack of bone. Sehun screams in response. The flames are white around them.
Baekhyun can feel the tears streaming down his face to mix with the blood smeared along his jaw, and he presses down harder on Sehun’s legs and arm as he brings his own right hand to his mouth and bites hard into his palm, blood spilling hot on his tongue.
Baekhyun grabs Sehun’s other hand, the marked one, tearing it from where the demon lodged into his side. Bits of his own flesh are caught in Sehun’s claws, and Baekhyun jams his own into Sehun’s palm. Their blood mingles, sinking into each other’s skin as Baekhyun catches Sehun completely, his full body weight holding the demon down.
”Open!” He screams. The screeching of iron gates rings in the air, and the ground under them splits into Hell’s gates. Sehun roars.
“No!” The echo glancing off the iron gates.
”Open!” Baekhyun repeats forcefully, and the metal bars slide away. Hell’s miasma surround them both, and the flames on the street are bright yellow and white.
“You- no!” Sehun tries.
”Exchange!” Baekhyun roars. Everything stops, and then their hearts beat once in tandem, pounding in Baekhyun’s ears. Sehun’s markings light up bright, blue searing down his skin, and the mess of blood between their hands glows.
Pain tears through Baekhyun’s body, starting in his back, and he collapses, the sounds of his own screams foreign to his ears. His right arm burns as if acid were poured down his arm and flames were licking their way up. Sehun is screaming against him, and the world looks blue.
The flames are blue.
The markings on Sehun’s arm come to life, snaking up Baekhyun’s own, the designs like knifes digging scars into Beakhyun’s flesh. Sehun arches up, tears streaked on his own face. Baekhyun’s vision is fading out, his breath too hard to catch.
“Leave,” he tries to tell Sehun, to finish the ritual. Nothing happens, and Sehun is begging him now, his screams becoming pleas for it all to stop. Baekhyun wants it all to stop; he can’t breathe.
”Leave!” He sobs in gruesome desperation. It all stops: the pain, the hellfire, the swirling gates and rising miasma. Night Hunt is over. Baekhyun meets Sehun’s eyes one last time as the demon sinks into the gate, and Baekhyun lies prone in the alleyway.
The world goes black.
Baekhyun jolts awake to the feeling of fire inside him, fire around him. Hellfire. He gasps, flying up from the bed and holding his throat as he fights for air. The burning on his back is intense, the markings there, the truth of his heritage, fighting to force him to go out, to dance in the hellfire, to take a human soul and devour it-
“Stop,” Baekhyun says to no one. The ring of his voice in the empty room cuts through the buzzing in his head, the whispers of demons rising to the earth plane, waiting for the tear to open, and Baekhyun focuses on breathing.
The burning doesn’t stop, but Baekhyun doesn’t think it will. He stands slowly, feeling his equilibrium totter momentarily as he fights between his human and demon instincts. He wants to flee, but he wants to fight. Most of all though, Baekhyun wants to succeed. Chanyeol’s warning is stark in the forefront of his mind, and Baekhyun’s clock is ticking.
He’s not going to explode, he’s not going to wreak havoc, and he’s not going to become a demon. Gatewatchers, and Lord Tamer himself, apparently, don’t believe that. They don’t have that type of faith in him. Challenge, as always, tastes rich on Baekhyun’s tongue. He’s going to tame a demon tonight, or he’s going to die trying. Death in battle would be easier to bear than dying at the hands of Lord Tamer’s demons as he stands and awaits his end.
Night Hunt begins with a grating, horrific screech and a flash of moonlight as fire rages up along the edge of the streets. The air crackles with impending death, and the screams of civilians, harmless and tasty in the mind of a demon, scratch through Baekhyun’s ear drums.
He sets himself into motion, pulling on the uniform Lord Tamer had gifted to him, slipping his hands into the gloves and flexing his fingers. The palms of the gloves have been cut out, unhindered access to the easiest source of blood. Baekhyun leans down to lace his boots, and the stretch of the fabric of his shirt against the burning mark on his back teases a wince from him. He’s content to just stand at the window, buttons fastened and mentally preparing himself to head out into Night Hunt as he waits out part one.
Night Hunt is an odd sort of phenomenon, the event, so to speak, is divided into two parts determined easily as before midnight and after midnight. Watchers, like Baekhyun, are traditionally only allowed out during the pre-midnight part of Night Hunt. The reasoning is simple, and Baekhyun understands; low-level and the occasional mid-level demons are the only ones who come out during the first half of the night. For Watchers who have the training to be Tamers but are not ones yet, it’s safer as they have no demon to call upon to protect them should they run up against a demon too strong for their ability. Tamers during the first half of night hunt tend to turn their energies towards watching over the Watchers, making sure they don’t end up dead.
Casualties are low, but the possibility of one occurring is still extremely high. Baekhyun has attended enough in-organization funerals to know.
However, Baekhyun, as a half-demon himself, knows no Tamer will bother to watch over him during the first half of the night, or even the second. His fingertips are starting to ache, and Baekhyun stands watch at the window of his hotel room as the seconds tick by.
He only makes it to half past eleven o’clock when his muscles start to scream in protest at being held still. He turns sharply on one heel, barely remembering to grab a room key and tuck it in his boot before he strides out the door and heads for the all-access stairs. He doesn’t want to join the fray just yet. Standing on the rooftop will get him outside, let his demon side relax and believe he’s doing what it wants, and it will keep him away from the fighting.
He wants a good demon, if he must have one. He wants one with power and strength. If nothing else but to prove to Lord Tamer and to the man who trained him to control his emotion that he is a good Watcher and a great Tamer. He has trained his whole life for this. With his twenty years on the line, this has to be good.
It has to be a taming that Lord Tamer approves of, after all. All tamings are subject to his approval, and his lack of approval will be the demon’s death and the Tamer’s death subsequently. Humans are fragile creatures, Baekhyun thinks, and then quickly includes himself in the thought process. He’s a fragile creature; nevermind that he’s never suffered a bruise in his life.
He’s human. He’s a Watcher. He’s going to tame a demon.
Baekhyun steps out into Night Hunt, and the screams assault him from even this high up, fearful energy everywhere even with very few civilians on the streets. Most places are locked down, the doors guarded by Tamers twirling their blades in their hands. It’s an art Baekhyun has never needed to learn. His claws from his heritage are just as sharp.
He observes the way Watchers test demons out, instantly cutting into the flesh of low-level demons, recognizable by their caricatured features and inability to recreate human speech, and screaming ”return!” once they’ve spilled the low-level’s blood. The mid-levels give Watchers pause, and Baekhyun is idle and barely amused by the hand to hand combat they engage in. He watches one Watcher fall to the ground, and a Tamer and his demon appear from out of nowhere to cut the demon down.
Tamers never help Watchers complete a taming. It’s shameful, and the taming won’t be approved by Lord Tamer anyway. Honestly, Baekhyun should find it to be a sick and disgusting business, but maybe there’s too much bloodthirst in him for that to be the case.
His back stops burning, and the screaming stops.
“Midnight!” A Tamer screams in a foghorn voice from the ground. Baekhyun turns and dashes down the steps, hurrying down a dozen flights of stairs and shoving himself through the emergency exit, ignoring the alarm as the door shuts firmly behind him.
Nausea slams into him, bowling him over as the taste of rotted souls and Hell’s miasma stick to his tongue and coat his throat. He gags hard, holding onto his humanity with an iron grip. A Watcher near him whirls on her heel, turning with her knife held in reverse grip, the other arm in a cross block across her body.
Baekhyun breathes hard, glancing up at her with wide eyes. The other Watcher’s eyes go between his eyes, certainly wild and edging on unearthly, and the lack of a crest on his Tamer’s jacket.
“Watcher?” she asks carefully, rocking on her heels, ready to move according to Baekhyun’s answer or if he should prove a threat. Baekhyun keeps his hands in plain view and hopes the girl doesn’t notice the lack of a knife holster strapped to his leg.
“Watcher,” Baekhyun answers stiffly. “Chicago. Headquarters.” The girl nods, relaxing only slightly. Her eyes roam away from Baekhyun, fixing instead on the streets, waiting for the second half of Night Hunt to begin. The energy is starting to rise in the air again, and Baekhyun thinks within three minutes the hellfire will rage over the streets curbs again.
“Seoul branch,” the Watcher answers easily, and Baekhyun figures that’s to be expected. He’s probably the only headquarters-based Watcher (soon to be Tamer!) here tonight.
“You look young,” Baekhyun says, voice dull. His fingers ache with the rush of concern trying to fill his chest.
“This is my fifth hunt out,” the girl sniffs. She wipes her demon blood-stained hand on a rag hanging from her belt. “Yerim,” she introduces. Baekhyun jams his tongue between his teeth to shake her hand, feeling the spike of her energy as two warm palms meet. Physical contact is one of those things that has always felt exponentially more powerful to him than to the average human.
“Baekhyun,” he responds.
“Listen, Baekhyun,” the Watcher, Yerim, says. “We have to head in- the rules, you know. I’m staying a block away.” She jerks her thumb over her left shoulder. Baekhyun isn’t planning to go in, that’s why he’s just come out, but for Yerim, at least, he can make sure she gets in safe.
“Fine,” he murmurs. “I’ll walk you.” Yerim starts leading the way immediately in a brisk jog. There’s less than two minutes, by Baekhyun’s estimate, remaining before the gates break open again.
“This area,” Yerim pants lightly as they run. “Has been reported to be pretty power heavy. We spent most of first half making sure it’s completely cleared out of people on the streets. Locked up the natural gates as much as we could.”
“We?” Baekhyun repeats.
“Yeah,” Yerim gasps, turning a corner down an alley to the back entrance of an apartment building. “Tamers and Watchers.” Baekhyun doesn’t react to his surprise. “They’re serious about this area. The energy reading is-” She makes a general explosion gesture with her hands, and Baekhyun kind of wants to laugh. She’s cute.
Yerim and Baekhyun slow to a walk, and Yerim pulls a scrap of paper from her pocket.
“Always forget the code,” she says, eyes curved up, smile sheepish. Baekhyun doesn’t react. He needs to stay focused, he needs to-
Fire. It blasts up from the edges of the street and the buildings. Baekhyun slings an arm around Yerim, pulling her back and diving into the middle of the alley, as far away from the flames as he can get, covering her body with his own.
“Shit,” he hears her say, and her voice is already shaky. He can smell the tinges of something sour on her- fear. “We gotta-”
Baekhyun doesn’t hear the rest of her sentence. His ears ring, the wailing high pitched and ceaseless. He drops the side, rolling on his back with his mouth open and hands pressed over his ears. It hurts. Everything hurts. The muscles on his back must be peeling away from his bone for all the burning on his skin. His body shakes, and he can’t breathe without tasting the desire for a human soul on his tongue.
“Baekhyun!” He faintly registers Yerim screaming. The sound is high and tears at his eardrums. Baekhyun tries to hold on to his human side, tries to press everything down, to become numb and ignore this pain, this suffering. “Baekhyun!” Yerim screams again, and Baekhyun’s claws dig into his scalp.
He feels off-balance out here in the middle of the second half of Night Hunt, having never felt its potency before, and he’s losing the battle with himself.
Cool fingers slide over his wrists and against his cheeks, wiping at his skin carefully, and Baekhyun realizes tears are streaming down his face.
“Baekhyun,” Yerim says, eyebrows furrowed, prying Baekhyun’s hands away from his head. “You’re bleeding-!” She cuts off, her eyes suddenly stricken with fear, focusing on Baekhyun’s fingers.
“You’re a demon,” Baekhyun reads from her lips more than he hears.
“Half,” he manages to choke. It’s not exactly something Lord Tamer likes to broadcast, the fact that he has a halfling hidden among the ranks of his Watchers, and it’s not something Baekhyun wants people to know either; he wants to be human. At this point, however, it’s better that Yerim just know. He notices her temple is bleeding, drawing red down the side of her pretty face. The color flickers in the light of the flames around them.
“When we fell,” she explains automatically, noting where Baekhyun’s eyes are fixed. He nods, swallowing hard and forcing himself to sit up, to ignore the pain lancing through him, the terrible ache in his gums.
“I can’t believe a Watcher is a half-demon,” she says. “I just can’t-”
“Get inside,” Baekhyun cuts her off, hoping to keep his voice away from a full out groan of pain. He doesn’t entirely succeed.
“Okay,” Yerim says, slowly forcing herself up to her feet. She holds out a hand. “Come on. You too.”
“No,” Baekhyun says. “You. Go.” The air suddenly waxes oppressive, and Baekhyun hunches forward under its weight. Even Yerim looks aware that something has changed, the flames around them turning dull red and flickering a little too low along the lines of the road. She looks frantically from side to side. “Now.”
Baekhyun’s voice echoes with his command, just like a real demon. He swallows hard, and Yerim gulps too.
“Yeah,” she agrees, taking one step backwards, and then another two in quick succession. “Yeah.” She turns to bolt to the door to her apartment as Baekhyun forces himself up onto his knees.
The flames stop, and Yerim freezes, her shoulders heaving with her panicked breathing.
“Baekhyun…” she starts, looking back at him, and Baekhyun can see the tears in her eyes.
“Go now!” He roars, voice bouncing off the concrete. Yerim lets out a dry sob, and yellow flames scream to life. She stumbles back, and Baekhyun throws himself up to his feet. The horrible screech of iron gates fills the air around them, and even Yerim winces at it.
“Yerim,” Baekhyun says slowly. The markings on his back feels like a million needles being pressed into his skin. From the ground in front of Yerim, blocking her way to the apartment building’s back entrance door, a gaping maw of black and red miasma is rising.
“Yerim, you should-” Baekhyun starts again, but what should he say? Run? Out into the street where the rest of Night Hunt is happening? She’s a Watcher, she’ll be killed out there without a demon for sure. Step back? Towards him? He’s in less control of himself than he’s ever been in his life.
The miasma solidifies into gates, the iron looking bars wrapped and warped with the bodies of snakes and spiders that writhe, the yellow flames lighting their marble eyes. Poison appears to drip from their fangs in the form of hell’s red miasma, and a low cackle that echoes into the deep black of the Night Hunt’s sky and bounces off the flames as they dance with its tune resounds around them.
Baekhyun’s throat constricts. Something like fear and something like arousal lance through him, and the pain is still all-consuming. His jaw works, unable to say anything, unable to warn Yerim who stands frozen with fear.
The gates split open.
Yerim screams.
A hand shoots from the depths of the gates and closes around her throat. Her scream cuts off, and her hands fly up to tug uselessly at the clawed hand wrapped firmly around her throat. She’s choking, and Baekhyun feels like he is too just watching as one leg after the other steps out from the gate, the emerging demon’s cackle still leading the dance to which the hellfire around them moves.
The demon’s tail drags on the ground, and it hits Baekhyun moments too late.
A demon prince stands before him, not even fully emerged onto the earth plane and he’s made his first kill. Yerim’s body goes limp, her toes dragging on the ground. A scream tears from Baekhyun’s throat. He watches in abject terror as the demon prince licks his lips, dragging one long claw down the front of Yerim’s coat, tearing easily through the leather and fabric, blood spraying onto his wrist and bare chest as he splits a long line down her chest to her stomach.
Baekhyun wants to throw up. He’s going to throw up. Yet as the demon prince draws her shimmering blue soul from her body, Baekhyun feels his throat go dry in lust for the soul, to feel it slide down his throat.
The demon prince swallows. Baekhyun wants that, to taste a human soul. You’re human! he screams inside his own head as watches the demon toss Yerim’s corpse to the ground. Baekhyun can see the white bone of her sternum under the open flaps of skin and see her intestines threatening to spill out out of her torn stomach.
The demon cackles again. “Hello, Little Watcher,” he says. His voice echoes around them, ringing in Baekhyun’s ears in a way that’s far too pleasant for the blood that stains the demon’s lips. To Baekhyun’s own horror, he finds the demon handsome, his features sharp, angled ears decorated thoroughly with jewelry that glints in the hellfire light. His silver hair is far too pretty for a creature like him, Baekhyun tries to convince himself, but he’s mostly mesmerized by the shadows cast by the demon’s hair where it trails over his collarbones. The markings that wrap around his left arm are graceful, swirling around his skin with the fluidity of air and the intent of a hangman’s noose- breathtaking but never returning.
The demon prince looks over at Yerim’s body with a distatched glance.
“You’re the only one here,” he murmurs in his echoing voice. It takes Baekhyun a few seconds of silence to realize that the demon is talking to him. He doesn’t react, forcing his breathing steady and pulling his cold mask of indifference over himself. The demon raises an eyebrow at him, no doubt able to feel the lack of emotional energy rising from Baekhyun. Baekhyun meets his gaze, ignoring the taste of bile on his tongue and the rolling of his stomach.
“So it would seem,” he agrees, nonchalant in demeanor. His eyes flick towards Yerim’s corpse, and the demon breaks out into that cackle again.
“Delicious,” he sing-songs, tilting his head at the former Watcher. Baekhyun strangles his snarl in his throat, but the demon’s sharp ears pick up on it anyway. He smirks. “Ah, but, you humans see this as, hmm.” He taps his bottom lip. “A tragedy, isn’t that right?” Baekhyun’s eyes narrow.
“Oh, you’re angry,” the demon says, sounding delighted. Baekhyun bets he is positively amused. The demon smiles, his long fangs curled over pointed bottom teeth. “Just livid.”
Baekhyun, however, is not amused at all. He’s torn, half of him amazed by the demon’s power and wants it for himself. The other half of him is terrified and sickened.
“Did you love her?” The demon asks. He steps forward, less than a meter separating his bare chest from Baekhyun’s jacket. Baekhyun feels frozen, the weight of the demon’s power, of the way the hellfire fluxuates to his breathing, holding him still. Baekhyun keeps staring blankly.
“No?” The demon muses, raising an eyebrow. He shrugs then. “So don’t worry so much,” he says, and swipes a finger through the blood splattered on his chest to draw the red on his lips. Baekhyun watches his long tail flick curiously at Baekhyun’s blank disposition.
The length of a demon’s tail equals his power, Baekhyun, his mentor used to tell him at the beginning of every session for years.
His tail goes to almost to his ankles! Taehyung had excitedly reported when he came home covered in blood and various wounds with a fresh set of demon markings on his right arm.
Baekhyun is going to die, a nasty voice that sounds oddly human says in his head.
“She was bound to die,” the demon’s voice snaps Baekhyun from his thoughts. “Who knows how fate determines these things, anyway?” Baekhyun breathes out harshly.
“You’re oddly calm,” the demon notes. “Quite...quiet, as well.” He grins then, mouth open as he fangs drop to their full length, pressing into his bottom lips. Baekhyun’s own jaw aches. The demon claps his hands together, leaning in so Baekhyun can almost feel the demon against him. He’s so tall, his body lithe, veins stark against his almost white skin.
“Are you going to try to tame me, Little Watcher?” The demon asks, positively delighted. He laughs out loud. “Come on. You?” He laughs again, but Baekhyun doesn’t want to tame a demon like this- a demon with this amount of power. He doesn’t want to let that kind of blood into his system.
He’s human.
The demon’s eyes flash dark red, and his own blood drips from one of his fangs down the side of his chin. Baekhyun blinks, and his back slams hard into the brick behind him, the demon laughing joyously with one hand pinning one of Baekhyun’s wrists to the harsh surface of the alley’s walls. Baekhyun coughs violently, pain momentarily twisting his features.
“I dare you to try,” the demon coos, lips against the shell of Baekhyun’s ear. His taunt brings anger flaring to the surface of Baekhyun’s skin, and he snaps his leg up as hard and fast as he can, pulling hard on the demon’s grip on his wrist for leverage. His shin smashes into the demon’s hard shoulder, and throws the Hell resident just enough for Baekhyun to slip, crashing to the ground and rolling hard away from the demon. He jumps to his feet, hands folded into fists and held protectively in front of him.
The demon cackles again.
“That was good,” he says. He adds, with condescension dripping from his echoing voice, “Little Watcher.” Baekhyun breathes hard, tasting the miasma on his tongue and something else, something a little sweet, something he almost likes.
“I don’t want to tame you,” Baekhyun snarls. “I want you dead.” The demon prince laughs again, and Baekhyun only manages to catch the glint of hellfire light off of his fangs before his back hits the opposite side of alley, the demon’s arm across his throat. It’s hard but not impossible to breathe, and Baekhyun sucks in what air he can, refusing to show his struggle and give the demon the satisfaction. He knows he’s being toyed with.
“You do?” The demon mocks. “Good.” He leans in close, his breath ghosting over Baekhyun’s jaw, and a shiver of something Baekhyun cannot, will not, acknowledge trails past the pain in his shoulders and down his spine. “But the thing is, you can’t kill me. Couldn’t even tame me. Not a little Watcher like you.” Baekhyun’s claws erupt from his fingertips, and he slashes hard across the demon’s neck, the demon’s blood hot on his fingertips. The demon stumbles back with shock at the sudden attack, and Baekhyun is careful to retract his claws before he holds out his blood stained hand.
One drop slides from his little finger to splash on the heat-burned ground. ”Leave.”
The ground shimmers, but no gate opens. Baekhyun stares at the demon, stares hard at the awful twist of his lips. ”Return!” He tries again. The demon’s physical image doesn’t even shimmer. The wounds across his neck, dripping blood that pools in the hollow of his throat, slowly stitch back together in the hellfire light. Baekhyun really can’t breathe.
“That’s not going to work,” the demon says casually. He scratches at his newly healed skin. “You’ve realized already, haven’t you?” He straightens to his full height, tail lashing behind him. “I’m a demon prince.” The fire flares around them, the flames nearly white and giving the demon an ethereal glow. Baekhyun takes a step back.
“Isn’t it a fun game?” the demon prince asks, blinking hugely. “You’re clearly not like this one.” He kicks at Yerim’s corpse, and it rolls with an awful squelch right into the hellfire. The stench of burning flesh assaults Baekhyun’s nose. “A little more resilient. Much more fun to play with.”
He steps forward, winding a hand in Baekhyun’s hair and yanking his head harshly to the side.
“But I’m curious,” he whispers, voice rough. “How did you manage to get your knife out that fast?” The demon’s fingers are light, his touch razor sharp as he trails his fingers along Baekhyun’s thighs and up his sides, finding no holsters. He yanks a little hard on Baekhyun’s hair when the Watcher tries to struggle. Baekhyun, chest moving with his frantic breathing, lets the demon stroke over one of his fingers and up the inside of his wrist, shoving his hand nearly up to Baekhyun’s elbow within his jacket. “No weapon,” he breathes. “So it must be...” He drags his hands back down, the tips of his claws just barely digging into Baekhyun’s skin, little droplets of blood beading up in the welts. He stops with his hand wrapped around Baekhyun’s own, drawing back to that they’re staring each other in the eye.
Time seems to freeze.
“Something else.” One claw sinks, vicious, into Baekhyun’s palm. Baekhyun lets go.
His body reacts before he can stop it, his claws out and digging hard into the demon’s hand as he screams, mouth open and fangs fully extended in his mouth. He shoves hard at the prince’s chest, and the demon is thrown back. The markings on Baekhyun’s back stop burning, and the demon’s own seem to glow.
“I see,” the demon says, and suddenly he’s not laughing anymore even if his smirk is just as wicked. “You, Little Watcher, are certainly one of us.”
“Human,” Baekhyun spits back.
“Halfling,” the demon returns. “And powerful. I almost could swear I’ve met you before.” He steps forward, slow, careful, light, ready to turn at a moment’s notice. Baekhyun balances on the balls of his own feet, barely breathing, fangs showing, waiting.
The demon dives, and Baekhyun steps inside of the attack, swinging his fist up hard. The demon snags his elbow, driving his knee hard into Baekhyun’s hip, forcing him to turn away from his opponent. Baekhyun throws his body forward to roll away; the demon secures his arms around Baekhyun’s middle, crushing him back against his chest.
Something wet and hot trails up the edge of Baekhyun’s ear, and a gasp of pleasure escapes him before he can clamp down on it.
“Oh, was that...pleasure, Little Watcher? Definitely one of us then,” the demon sighs into Baekhyun’s ear. Baekhyun forces his body to stay rigid, never once letting up the tension against the demon’s arms, never letting him win. “Why else would you find this”--his arms try to tighten around Baekhyun, and the Watcher growls low in the back of his throat--”so desirable.”
He twists Baekhyun in his arms and catches Baekhyun’s chin between his thumb and forefinger. He kisses him hard, their fangs clicking against each other. Baekhyun can’t find reason for it, but he kisses back, scratching up the demon’s arms and sliding his claws into the demon’s hair, the long strands twisted around his fingers.
The demon licks into Baekhyun’s mouth, and it feels less like a kiss and more like the underworldly creature is trying to taste him. Baekhyun finds himself melting into it anyway, body singing with the contact of another body against his own. The demon sucks Baekhyun’s tongue into his mouth and bites down sharply on his tongue.
Baekhyun yelps trying to draw back, but the demon has his claws buried in Baekhyun’s hair, sharp against his scalp as Baekhyun’s blood smears acroos their lips. Baekhyun digs his own claws into the demon’s skull as they stand, panting harshly, open-mouthed, fangs against fangs. The demon’s breathing turns harsh, pained, as Baekhyun drags his claws against the demon’s scalp, and their eyes meet.
The demon throws him back, and Baekhyun stumbles, landing hard on his back. He throws his legs up, rolling over his shoulder and jumping up to stand. He wipes angrily at his mouth, tasting his own blood and what can only be Yerim’s blood. He likes the taste- it’s sweet like ice cream, and Baekhyun wants to throw up again.
“I know why you seem familiar,” the demon says suddenly, gruffly, snapping Baekhyun’s focus from his apparent taste for blood. “Tell me your name.” Baekhyun shakes his head angrily.
“It won’t matter when you’re dead if you knew my name or not, demon” he spits. A bit of blood trails down his chin, mirroring the blood on the demon’s chin, and Baekhyun doesn’t feel human at all. Human, he chants weakly in his head to remind himself.
The demon laughs. “My name is Sehun,” he murmurs, and power rings in his voice at the utterance of his name. “Now tell me yours.” Baekhyun stays silent, showing his bloodstained claws when Sehun steps forward toward him with threat written in the angles of his face.
“Tell me,” he repeats. Baekhyun can feel blood slipping down his hip.
“Baekhyun,” he coughs out. The demon blinks.
“Ah,” he says. “I see.”
Baekhyun, for all of his usual control, can’t stop himself. “See what?” he demands. Sehun glides right up to Baekhyun, moving nearly to fast for Baekhyun to follow, and he traces Baekhyun’s jaw.
“Exactly why you’re so-” he pauses, swipes his thumb through the blood on Baekhyun’s chin and brings it to his own lips, licking the red away. “Addictive.” Baekhyun draws back a fist, and Sehun’s knee slams into Baekhyun’s stomach.
“Fu-” Baekhyun gasps, falling forward. The demon catches him, fingers curled in the collar of Baekhyun’s jacket, his knees just barely scraping the ground.
“I’m going to offer you an ultimatum,” Sehun breathes, his voice echoing right next to Baekhyun’s ear. “I feel you deserve it, since you are...who you are.”
A halfling, he means. “Fuck. Off,” Baekhyun manages even though the collar of his shirt is pressing against his windpipe.
“Come back down to Hell with me,” the demon suggests. “Be mine.” Baekhyun hates how tempting that sounds. He knows a little about the organization of Hell from what the First Tamer has told him, but he also knows going to Hell will be the death of his human side.
“And the other option?” Baekhyun demands.
“Well, you can attempt to tame me,” Sehun says. “And die here, of course. I always do enjoy a good game. Your choice.” He drops Baekhyun then, and the Watcher collapses to the ground, his claws clicking on the asphalt. His knees sting, the fire around him feeling like it will sear right through his jacket.
“What do you think, Baekhyun?” His name, echoing like that, feels right, and Baekhyun’s stomach turns.
“I think it’s you who will die here,” he says even though he doesn’t have the power to kill the demon, and Sehun knows it. His only chance of survival is to complete a taming on him, but taming Sehun- a demon prince- he doesn’t know how his halfling blood will react.
At this point, he has nothing to lose.
“Your eyes look sharp,” Sehun sing-songs. His tail is lashes behind him, one foot shifted back to give him a wider base. Baekhyun pushes himself up to his feet. His eyes lock on the tattoos spinning down Sehun’s left arm from his chest. He knows how taming works; he’s trained for years to be able to do this. His tutor would be upset if he didn’t even try. He doesn’t justify Sehun with an answer.
Baekhyun launches forward, the rush of flames roaring in his ears. Sehun shifts left, and Baekhyun tilts forward. He digs his hands into the asphalt and swings his right leg down hard, knee smashing hard into the inside of Sehun’s hip. The demon’s balance wavers. Baekhyun drops his shoulder to the ground, rolling over the burning marks on his back and digs the heel of his left foot into Sehun’s stomach.
The demon’s claws pierce through the material of Baekhyun’s boot as he grabs the watcher’s ankles, and Baekhyun gets his eyes open just before he’s dragged across the ground, his ear torn against the rough street. He grabs the back of Sehun’s knee, sinking his claws into his hamstrings.
Sehun screeches and lets Baekhyun go. Baekhyun ignores the pain, and jumps up again, attempting to swing an uppercut into Sehun’s jaw, but his equilibrium is thrown from the damage to his ear, and he misses wildly, fist smashing into Sehun’s shoulder instead. The demon snags his wrist. Sehun pulls, claws showing, intending to drag Baekhyun right into the black curve of his nails. Baekhyun drops his weight completely, hitting the ground hard. Sehun overbalances, falling forward.
Baekhyun’s stomach complains as he throws his legs up, digging his boots into Sehun’s stomach and throwing the demon over his head. He doesn’t see Sehun smash into the brick behind them, but he rolls over in his stomach in time to scramble over to the demon, slashing his nails down his arms, from deltoid to wrist.
Sehun roars, and the fire around them explodes, slamming into Baekhyun. Baekhyun backpedals, dive rolling away from the flames. Heavy hands lands on his back, and Baekhyun nearly bites off his tongue as he hits the ground chin and chest first.
“You piece of shit,” Sehun hisses at him, his claws sinking through Baekhyun’s jacket. The tips meet the markings on Baekhyun’s back, and Baekhyun screams, thrashing as hard as he can to throw the demon. It doesn’t work, but it does give him enough room to twist his back hard, throwing his elbow into Sehun’s jaw. The demon slides sideways, and Baekhyun throws himself after him.
Sehun lands hard on his back, and Baekhyun is there, shins over the demon’s thighs and leaning down so they’re chest to chest. Sehun claws at the skin over Baekhyun’s hips. Baekhyun screams, grabbing onto Sehun’s wrist and smashing his hand down hard into the ground. There’s a sickening crack of bone. Sehun screams in response. The flames are white around them.
Baekhyun can feel the tears streaming down his face to mix with the blood smeared along his jaw, and he presses down harder on Sehun’s legs and arm as he brings his own right hand to his mouth and bites hard into his palm, blood spilling hot on his tongue.
Baekhyun grabs Sehun’s other hand, the marked one, tearing it from where the demon lodged into his side. Bits of his own flesh are caught in Sehun’s claws, and Baekhyun jams his own into Sehun’s palm. Their blood mingles, sinking into each other’s skin as Baekhyun catches Sehun completely, his full body weight holding the demon down.
”Open!” He screams. The screeching of iron gates rings in the air, and the ground under them splits into Hell’s gates. Sehun roars.
“No!” The echo glancing off the iron gates.
”Open!” Baekhyun repeats forcefully, and the metal bars slide away. Hell’s miasma surround them both, and the flames on the street are bright yellow and white.
“You- no!” Sehun tries.
”Exchange!” Baekhyun roars. Everything stops, and then their hearts beat once in tandem, pounding in Baekhyun’s ears. Sehun’s markings light up bright, blue searing down his skin, and the mess of blood between their hands glows.
Pain tears through Baekhyun’s body, starting in his back, and he collapses, the sounds of his own screams foreign to his ears. His right arm burns as if acid were poured down his arm and flames were licking their way up. Sehun is screaming against him, and the world looks blue.
The flames are blue.
The markings on Sehun’s arm come to life, snaking up Baekhyun’s own, the designs like knifes digging scars into Beakhyun’s flesh. Sehun arches up, tears streaked on his own face. Baekhyun’s vision is fading out, his breath too hard to catch.
“Leave,” he tries to tell Sehun, to finish the ritual. Nothing happens, and Sehun is begging him now, his screams becoming pleas for it all to stop. Baekhyun wants it all to stop; he can’t breathe.
”Leave!” He sobs in gruesome desperation. It all stops: the pain, the hellfire, the swirling gates and rising miasma. Night Hunt is over. Baekhyun meets Sehun’s eyes one last time as the demon sinks into the gate, and Baekhyun lies prone in the alleyway.
The world goes black.