Alice's Vampires :P
alice_montrose is evil. :P She wanted vampires for a drabble. I figured, sure, I can toss out a few paragraphs of bloodsuckers. >.> Then... Sebastian happened. x.x;; And instead of just one short drabble, I end up with a long drabble and a bloody five and a half page ficlet!!! *headdesk*
Hong Kong, 1977: Julian
Sometimes, as he watched the people moving here and there, scurrying through their lives, it occurred to him that they had absolutely no idea what they wanted. They wanted so much, too much, or at least they thought they wanted it. Then once they'd tried it, they found that it wasn't really what they'd wanted in the first place.
Sometimes he envied them. They, at least, could change their mind. They weren't stuck living with the consequences of an ill-considered choice.
He smiled bitterly. Live forever; it sounded like such a bright, glittering promise. Never grow old, never weaken, never die.
How little they understood. Once the choice was made, it was true you would never die. But all other things could and did, and one by one you were forced to watch as everything around you crumbled to dust. Everything you'd ever known, everyone you'd ever loved, gone forever.
It was no wonder so many of his kind went mad, deprived of everything that had ever made them who they were. Everything that had ever given them a reason to live. Even those who believed they needed nothing and no one never truly understood just how much they needed until it was gone. Of course, he wasn't really sure they understood it even then, because that was the point when they ceased to be men, and became monsters instead.
Very, very few of them ever managed to keep their sanity intact once they finally realized. He knew there were only a handful in the entire world, and of those most tended to extreme isolation, preferring to avoid having to watch all that they cared about wither and die time and time again.
He himself had considered such a course many times over the years, but had never quite been able to bring himself to do it. The loneliness would break him far faster than the pain of losing everything ever could. So instead he made his own path, his own method of coping.
He watched.
All around him life went on, helter skelter, and he watched. Once, he had found himself watching a particular family for four generations before finally getting bored enough to move on to other things. It was a detached sort of curiosity, seeing but never really being a part of it all, but to get any closer would be to risk falling into the madness that ever lurked, waiting, biding its time before it pulled him in. Perhaps some day it would finally claim him, and those who had chosen the hermit's way would nod sagely and say that it was only to be expected. It was impossible to balance forever on the edge of a precipice without some day falling in. Either one had to avoid life altogether, or embrace it.
Most took the easy path, and chose to avoid it. He walked the fine line between, neither apart from the world or a part of it. Then there was one who had somehow managed to embrace it, and yet still had not fallen into madness.
Or perhaps he had simply been mad to begin with.
"Julian!"
He oofed quietly as a firm body collided with his own, sending them both crashing to the rooftop from which he'd been observing the city. As usual, he somehow managed to wind up on the bottom, pinned securely beneath a grinning, bright-eyed body.
He really hated that grin. Vampires should not grin.
"Get off."
Sebastian's grin only widened and he settled himself more comfortably over Julian's hips. "Missed you too. But you're going to love what I found this time!"
Julian closed his eyes and counted slowly to sixteen, in Ancient Macedonian. "If you do not get off of me this instant I am going to rip out your throat and bathe in your dying blood before feeding your entrails to the dogs."
There was far too much brilliant, slightly-exasperated blue as Sebastian rolled his so expressive eyes. "Somebody woke up on the wrong side of the coffin this evening," he said, and ignored Julian's threats in favor of bracing his arms on Julian's chest and leaning down until their noses were nearly touching. "You were thinking again, weren't you?" he asked, his voice softer, somehow, than it had been before.
For a moment Julian's lips tightened and he gathered the words to deny it, staring up into Sebastian's so bright eyes (blue, so blue, like the sky he only remembered from books and paintings) then he turned his head and looked away. Defeated, again.
"Mmm, thought so," Sebastian murmured, squirming just a bit so that he could lie flat upon Julian, his head on Julian's shoulder. "You think too much."
"You think too little," Julian snapped back, though without any real heat. Anyone else who dared to get so close to him, to touch him, would have been long dead. Sebastian, as ever, defied convention.
"Probably," Sebastian agreed cheerfully, stealing a quick, daring kiss before bouncing to his feet and offering Julian a hand up. Julian was tempted to simply ignore it, but then Sebastian gave him that crooked, happy smile, and with a reluctant sigh he accepted the help.
Accepting the hand up, however, did not mean he'd given Sebastian permission to grope him once he was back on his feet.
Julian bared his fangs and took a step back, away from the touch that would send him into madness far more swiftly than anything else. "You test your luck, child."
"Mmm hmm," Sebastian agreed absently, already invading Julian's space again to slip his hand into Julian's own and tug him away from the roof's edge. "Come on, Mr. Grumpy Fangs. We'll get breakfast then I'll show you what I found, mmkay?"
"I hate you," Julian muttered, but he went without a fight as Sebastian dragged him down from his rooftop and back into the world he ever watched, but was never a part of.
Except for when Sebastian decided otherwise.
Philadelphia, United States, 1982: Sebastian
There were some days when Sebastian really wished he could pull off the grace and poise that every other not-mad vampire seemed to possess. Hell, even most of the stark raving lunatics managed to have more sense of presence than he did.
Granted, he didn't really want the brooding or snarling that seemed to go with it, but there was something completely undignified about being a several-centuries-old (or maybe more, he'd lost count at some point) vampire and scrambling frantically through rain-slickened alleyways trying to lose yet another bloody hunter.
Stupid hunters. He could see why they hunted those vampires who'd fallen into madness, but he really wished they'd learn to leave him alone. He wasn't doing anyone any harm - he hadn't killed one of his meals even by accident in at least a hundred years - he didn't attack them on principle, and he didn't even act like other vampires, mad or not. So how they figured out he was one, Sebastian hadn't ever figured out.
It would be nice to know, however, so he could avoid whatever it was that tipped them off. This getting chased like a wounded animal thing was really starting to get old. Especially as it seemed to be happening with increasing frequency. Either the hunters were vastly increasing in number, or vastly increasing in skill. Neither one was a particularly pleasant notion.
At least he still had the advantage of strength and speed, something he used shamelessly to leap obstacles and scale walls, hoping to leave his aggravating pursuer far behind. He'd almost thought he'd managed it when suddenly there was light everywhere, bright and vivid and entirely too close to sunlight for comfort, and in his mad scramble to turn away he lost his footing on the slick concrete and fell hard.
Damn it all, and he'd liked that outfit too.
Sitting up gingerly, twisting around and attempting to shield his eyes from the glare, Sebastian attempted to locate the hunter. Or, he realized as sudden fiery pain erupted in his shoulder, hunters. The bastards were getting smarter. They'd set a trap for him.
"Would you people leave me alone?!" he bellowed, clasping a hand over his bleeding shoulder and hissing at the burn of consecrated silver. That was going to be a bitch to yank out later. "I'm not one of your stupid mindless killers!"
"Silence, monster," someone growled, and Sebastian only barely managed to jerk out of the way of the far too pointy for comfort's sake object that whooshed through the space he'd only just been occupying.
"You missed," another voice observed, this one higher in tone. A woman?
"Shut up. It's fast," the first voice snapped back.
"It's older," the woman pointed out, and Sebastian really wished someone would kill those dratted lights. He couldn't see anything through the glare and the tears streaming from his own eyes, not his attackers and certainly not an escape route.
"Older usually means stupid," the man grumbled as he slashed at Sebastian again, tearing a jagged gash in what had formerly been Sebastian's favorite shirt.
"Older usually means fallen into madness," Sebastian corrected irritably, using all the skill and power he possessed to continue avoiding that deadly blade as best he could while blind. "I keep trying to tell you people that I'm not like tha- OW!"
Hissing, he stumbled as the pain from a second weapon cut into his side. More bloody silver, no doubt engraved with stupid holy symbols, and if he survived this (which was looking increasingly less likely) it was going to take forever and a day to heal. He really, really hated hunters.
"Just kill it, Abraham," the woman said, sounding vaguely exasperated, and much closer than she had before. That was probably where the second sharp pointy had come from, really.
"That's what I was trying to do, Ver-" The male voice cut off abruptly with a choked sound, then just as suddenly the painful light died, leaving them once more in blessed darkness. Sebastian wiped his eyes on his sleeve, blinking rapidly as sight returned to him, and could do naught but stare at what he saw.
Oh. Oh oh oh. He'd thought Julian was still in China...
Apparently not.
"Foolish hunters," Julian growled, his voice like golden honey, only considerably more dangerous. Sebastian had ever loved riling him for the sole purpose of hearing that angry growl and feeling it send shivers of desire up his body. "We permit you your games for it is almost a kindness to end the miserable lives of the mad ones, but I shall not look kindly when your prey has not yet fallen."
"Oh shit," the woman whispered, pure fear entering her voice. "An ancient..."
The man could say nothing, for he was still caught helplessly in Julian's grasp, held aloft with Julian's hand tight around his throat. Vague choking noises escaped, and Sebastian rather thought he could hear a note of panic enter into them. Possibly because of Julian's presence, and possibly because he was rapidly running out of air.
"I should break your neck like a twig," Julian said, his pale brown eyes so cold and calculating as he spoke. It ever worried Sebastian, for Julian had long walked the dangerous edge between sanity and madness, and it was moments like this that made him truly afraid that Julian might finally fall.
Well, not entirely like this. This was the first time Julian had ever done something so base as to rescue him from vampire hunters.
Actually, it was the first time Julian had ever sought him out and not the other way around. Somehow, despite his aching side and throbbing shoulder, he suddenly felt quite cheerful.
"Don't kill them, Julian," he said, reaching out to lay a hand - just a reminder - on Julian's arm. Those icy brown eyes shifted to him for a moment, and it was all he could do to hold his ground and not take a step back, then they softened and Julian finally released his chokehold on the hunter. Considering that he'd also been a good foot off the ground at the time, this also had the side-effect of dropping him rather unceremoniously to the ground where he curled up and began gasping for much needed air.
Sebastian started to smile, but Julian's gaze turned away from him, landing instead on the white-faced woman, who took two hasty steps backward. Sebastian could hardly blame her, knowing quite well the potency of that particular look.
"You will not die today," Julian said quietly, "But the next hunter to cross my path will. Let this be your only warning." He turned away, a near-silent swish of long, ice blond tresses and tailored silk, and began striding calmly off into the night. Sebastian spared barely a glance for the two stunned hunters before taking off at a brisk jog to catch up with him.
Well, maybe a brisk walk, he amended, as the rough motion of his first few steps jarred his shoulder and the searing hunk of silver bullet embedded there. That was really going to be a pain to dig out.
He followed Julian down two mostly deserted streets, and another three with passer-by who gave him rather startled looks as they noticed his injuries and the state of his clothing, before Julian roughly grabbed his wrist and dragged him into a large building. He was vaguely aware of more wide-eyed human faces before he found himself shoved into an elevator with Julian looming over him with fury in his eyes.
"What were you doing?" Julian demanded, pale brown eyes blazing. "You could have been killed!"
Sebastian wasn't certain if he should whimper or purr. Maybe both. Julian was furious with him, but Julian was also here, and even with his face twisted in anger, Julian was beautiful.
"Sorry?" Sebastian offered finally, cringing a little when that only sparked the flames.
"Sorry? You. Could. Have. Been. Killed," Julian bit out. "If I had not been in the area..."
"Why were you?" Sebastian interrupted, intensely curious. "I hadn't thought you had any plans to leave China for at least another decade..."
Julian paused his tirade, mouth slightly open, then to Sebastian's utter surprise he snapped it shut as the faintest hint of color dusted his cheeks. Impossible... was Julian, cold, aloof, beautiful, distant Julian, actually blushing?
"That..." Julian looked away. "That is of no importance."
Sebastian felt himself grinning. "Oh, I think it is. Why are you here, Julian?" He started to reach up, touch that enticing flush of color that stained Julian's cheeks, hissing as the movement pulled on his shoulder and the forgotten injury there.
"To rescue idiots from their own stupidity, apparently," Julian snapped, swatting his hand away and bending to inspect the bullet hole. He made a vague sound of annoyance mingled with disgust, then in one swift motion dug his fingers into it and yanked out the embedded bullet.
Sebastian struggled not to scream, or pass out, or both. When the pain finally subsided enough that he was once more aware of his surroundings, the elevator had stopped and Julian was absently supporting him while scowling darkly at the bullet held lightly between two bloodied fingers. Even through the blood, Sebastian could see the symbols carved onto it. Holy symbols, strengthened by the hunter's own faith, and more than a little deadly to vampires.
Well, most vampires. Julian didn't seem to notice the symbols or the silver.
"Doesn't... that hurt?" Sebastian asked, wishing he was in a little less pain so as to better appreciate the fact that Julian's arm was around his waist, willingly.
Julian snorted. "The religion is younger than I am. Do you honestly think pointless symbols thought up by some vapidly inebriated human could harm me?"
Sebastian blinked. "Well, put like that, no... but I thought..."
"Thinking is not your strong suit," Julian snapped, though he didn't really sound all that annoyed. More like vaguely resigned, at this point. Which, really, was an improvement, but Sebastian just once wished that Julian would actually sound happy when they spoke. Or happy at all. Julian was always so very sad.
Rather than irritate him further, Sebastian fell silent and allowed Julian to help him down a rather nice-looking hallway and into what he realized after a few moments was a hotel suite of some kind.
An expensive hotel suite. It rather suited Julian's elegant beauty, even if Sebastian was surprised that Julian would bring himself to interact with humans even in such a passing manner.
Always watching, but never a part of the world he watched. That was Julian.
Sebastian bit down on a cry as he was set roughly down on a surprisingly comfortable sofa, blinking as Julian knelt before him and took another look at the wounds he'd acquired in the scuffle with the hunters. He thought up several creative profanities regarding silver, as for once he had Julian in a wonderfully compromising position and was in too much pain to do anything about it.
Julian poked at the wounds, his fingertips coming away bloody, and hissed in quiet resignation as he straightened. "Those are going to take months to heal," he said quietly.
"Yeah," Sebastian agreed with a sigh of his own. "I figured." Life was so not fair. He had Julian, Julian who had sought him out, and was completely unable to take advantage of the situation.
He sulked for several minutes before it finally occurred to him that Julian hadn't moved, and was still watching him with that same vaguely resigned expression. Sebastian blinked curiously and opened his mouth to ask, only to find Julian's long, elegant finger pressed to his lips.
"I am certain to regret this," Julian said quietly, grimacing, then bit down hard on his lower lip, fangs puncturing the soft skin, blood running in rivulets down his chin.
"Wha-" Sebastian started to say as the finger fell away, then Julian was there instead, and he could taste blood, sweet and potent like nothing he'd ever tasted before and oh dear gods Julian was kissing him.
Kissing humans was nothing like kissing Julian. Kissing humans was amusing, and pleasant, their blood feeding him and giving him life even as he gave them pleasure in return, but it was nothing like this. Julian's blood was the finest of wines, sweet and spicy and dizzying all at once, and so wildly potent that he could feel it flowing through him, giving him an energy unlike anything he'd experienced before.
And then there was the kiss itself. Oh but Julian could kiss. Unexpected, for it seemed someone as cool and aloof as Julian would have little experience in such things, but he rather fancied he could kiss Julian forever.
All too soon, however, Julian's self-inflicted wounds healed, and Sebastian only got a few more minutes of sweet kisses before the ancient vampire finally seemed to remember what he was doing and pulled away as though burned. Sebastian was rather pleased to note the flushed cheeks and kiss-swollen lips, so different from the pristine and perfect Julian he was familiar with, and perhaps he was as affected as Sebastian himself but when Sebastian flicked his eyes downward to search for evidence of an arousal to match that which strained his own trousers Julian made a rough, choked sound and bolted from the suite faster than Sebastian could ever hope to match.
It was many long, uncomfortable minutes before his hard-on subsided enough that Sebastian could get to his feet, and he made it halfway across the ornate sitting room before it finally occurred to him that he was no longer in pain. A brief check confirmed that, while his clothing was still a lost cause, his body showed no signs of ever having been damaged in the first place.
That was interesting. He'd never even heard of such a thing being possible, but then, given how reclusive nearly all ancient vampires were, it wasn't like they routinely went around healing idiots who got themselves injured by hunters. It was something else entirely, however, to really understand for the first time just how old Julian really was. Sebastian knew he himself was older than most vampires, and certainly the only one of his peers who had not succumbed to madness, but Julian...
Had he really meant it when he'd said he was older than the holy symbols that so frequently spelled a vampire's doom? It was a dizzying thought.
Not nearly as dizzying a thought, however, as memories of Julian's kiss. That had been one of the finest experiences of his life, and Sebastian was the first to admit that he was an incurable sensualist. He'd had it bad for Julian almost from the moment they'd first met, but after that kiss he rather suspected that he was ruined for anyone else now.
Oh well. That just meant he'd have to speed up his plan for breaking down Julian's defenses and making the beautiful vampire all his.
But first, Sebastian was going to have to track him down, and given how fast Julian had bolted, he suspected it was going to be one of the hardest things he'd ever done.
Hong Kong, 1977: Julian
Sometimes, as he watched the people moving here and there, scurrying through their lives, it occurred to him that they had absolutely no idea what they wanted. They wanted so much, too much, or at least they thought they wanted it. Then once they'd tried it, they found that it wasn't really what they'd wanted in the first place.
Sometimes he envied them. They, at least, could change their mind. They weren't stuck living with the consequences of an ill-considered choice.
He smiled bitterly. Live forever; it sounded like such a bright, glittering promise. Never grow old, never weaken, never die.
How little they understood. Once the choice was made, it was true you would never die. But all other things could and did, and one by one you were forced to watch as everything around you crumbled to dust. Everything you'd ever known, everyone you'd ever loved, gone forever.
It was no wonder so many of his kind went mad, deprived of everything that had ever made them who they were. Everything that had ever given them a reason to live. Even those who believed they needed nothing and no one never truly understood just how much they needed until it was gone. Of course, he wasn't really sure they understood it even then, because that was the point when they ceased to be men, and became monsters instead.
Very, very few of them ever managed to keep their sanity intact once they finally realized. He knew there were only a handful in the entire world, and of those most tended to extreme isolation, preferring to avoid having to watch all that they cared about wither and die time and time again.
He himself had considered such a course many times over the years, but had never quite been able to bring himself to do it. The loneliness would break him far faster than the pain of losing everything ever could. So instead he made his own path, his own method of coping.
He watched.
All around him life went on, helter skelter, and he watched. Once, he had found himself watching a particular family for four generations before finally getting bored enough to move on to other things. It was a detached sort of curiosity, seeing but never really being a part of it all, but to get any closer would be to risk falling into the madness that ever lurked, waiting, biding its time before it pulled him in. Perhaps some day it would finally claim him, and those who had chosen the hermit's way would nod sagely and say that it was only to be expected. It was impossible to balance forever on the edge of a precipice without some day falling in. Either one had to avoid life altogether, or embrace it.
Most took the easy path, and chose to avoid it. He walked the fine line between, neither apart from the world or a part of it. Then there was one who had somehow managed to embrace it, and yet still had not fallen into madness.
Or perhaps he had simply been mad to begin with.
"Julian!"
He oofed quietly as a firm body collided with his own, sending them both crashing to the rooftop from which he'd been observing the city. As usual, he somehow managed to wind up on the bottom, pinned securely beneath a grinning, bright-eyed body.
He really hated that grin. Vampires should not grin.
"Get off."
Sebastian's grin only widened and he settled himself more comfortably over Julian's hips. "Missed you too. But you're going to love what I found this time!"
Julian closed his eyes and counted slowly to sixteen, in Ancient Macedonian. "If you do not get off of me this instant I am going to rip out your throat and bathe in your dying blood before feeding your entrails to the dogs."
There was far too much brilliant, slightly-exasperated blue as Sebastian rolled his so expressive eyes. "Somebody woke up on the wrong side of the coffin this evening," he said, and ignored Julian's threats in favor of bracing his arms on Julian's chest and leaning down until their noses were nearly touching. "You were thinking again, weren't you?" he asked, his voice softer, somehow, than it had been before.
For a moment Julian's lips tightened and he gathered the words to deny it, staring up into Sebastian's so bright eyes (blue, so blue, like the sky he only remembered from books and paintings) then he turned his head and looked away. Defeated, again.
"Mmm, thought so," Sebastian murmured, squirming just a bit so that he could lie flat upon Julian, his head on Julian's shoulder. "You think too much."
"You think too little," Julian snapped back, though without any real heat. Anyone else who dared to get so close to him, to touch him, would have been long dead. Sebastian, as ever, defied convention.
"Probably," Sebastian agreed cheerfully, stealing a quick, daring kiss before bouncing to his feet and offering Julian a hand up. Julian was tempted to simply ignore it, but then Sebastian gave him that crooked, happy smile, and with a reluctant sigh he accepted the help.
Accepting the hand up, however, did not mean he'd given Sebastian permission to grope him once he was back on his feet.
Julian bared his fangs and took a step back, away from the touch that would send him into madness far more swiftly than anything else. "You test your luck, child."
"Mmm hmm," Sebastian agreed absently, already invading Julian's space again to slip his hand into Julian's own and tug him away from the roof's edge. "Come on, Mr. Grumpy Fangs. We'll get breakfast then I'll show you what I found, mmkay?"
"I hate you," Julian muttered, but he went without a fight as Sebastian dragged him down from his rooftop and back into the world he ever watched, but was never a part of.
Except for when Sebastian decided otherwise.
Philadelphia, United States, 1982: Sebastian
There were some days when Sebastian really wished he could pull off the grace and poise that every other not-mad vampire seemed to possess. Hell, even most of the stark raving lunatics managed to have more sense of presence than he did.
Granted, he didn't really want the brooding or snarling that seemed to go with it, but there was something completely undignified about being a several-centuries-old (or maybe more, he'd lost count at some point) vampire and scrambling frantically through rain-slickened alleyways trying to lose yet another bloody hunter.
Stupid hunters. He could see why they hunted those vampires who'd fallen into madness, but he really wished they'd learn to leave him alone. He wasn't doing anyone any harm - he hadn't killed one of his meals even by accident in at least a hundred years - he didn't attack them on principle, and he didn't even act like other vampires, mad or not. So how they figured out he was one, Sebastian hadn't ever figured out.
It would be nice to know, however, so he could avoid whatever it was that tipped them off. This getting chased like a wounded animal thing was really starting to get old. Especially as it seemed to be happening with increasing frequency. Either the hunters were vastly increasing in number, or vastly increasing in skill. Neither one was a particularly pleasant notion.
At least he still had the advantage of strength and speed, something he used shamelessly to leap obstacles and scale walls, hoping to leave his aggravating pursuer far behind. He'd almost thought he'd managed it when suddenly there was light everywhere, bright and vivid and entirely too close to sunlight for comfort, and in his mad scramble to turn away he lost his footing on the slick concrete and fell hard.
Damn it all, and he'd liked that outfit too.
Sitting up gingerly, twisting around and attempting to shield his eyes from the glare, Sebastian attempted to locate the hunter. Or, he realized as sudden fiery pain erupted in his shoulder, hunters. The bastards were getting smarter. They'd set a trap for him.
"Would you people leave me alone?!" he bellowed, clasping a hand over his bleeding shoulder and hissing at the burn of consecrated silver. That was going to be a bitch to yank out later. "I'm not one of your stupid mindless killers!"
"Silence, monster," someone growled, and Sebastian only barely managed to jerk out of the way of the far too pointy for comfort's sake object that whooshed through the space he'd only just been occupying.
"You missed," another voice observed, this one higher in tone. A woman?
"Shut up. It's fast," the first voice snapped back.
"It's older," the woman pointed out, and Sebastian really wished someone would kill those dratted lights. He couldn't see anything through the glare and the tears streaming from his own eyes, not his attackers and certainly not an escape route.
"Older usually means stupid," the man grumbled as he slashed at Sebastian again, tearing a jagged gash in what had formerly been Sebastian's favorite shirt.
"Older usually means fallen into madness," Sebastian corrected irritably, using all the skill and power he possessed to continue avoiding that deadly blade as best he could while blind. "I keep trying to tell you people that I'm not like tha- OW!"
Hissing, he stumbled as the pain from a second weapon cut into his side. More bloody silver, no doubt engraved with stupid holy symbols, and if he survived this (which was looking increasingly less likely) it was going to take forever and a day to heal. He really, really hated hunters.
"Just kill it, Abraham," the woman said, sounding vaguely exasperated, and much closer than she had before. That was probably where the second sharp pointy had come from, really.
"That's what I was trying to do, Ver-" The male voice cut off abruptly with a choked sound, then just as suddenly the painful light died, leaving them once more in blessed darkness. Sebastian wiped his eyes on his sleeve, blinking rapidly as sight returned to him, and could do naught but stare at what he saw.
Oh. Oh oh oh. He'd thought Julian was still in China...
Apparently not.
"Foolish hunters," Julian growled, his voice like golden honey, only considerably more dangerous. Sebastian had ever loved riling him for the sole purpose of hearing that angry growl and feeling it send shivers of desire up his body. "We permit you your games for it is almost a kindness to end the miserable lives of the mad ones, but I shall not look kindly when your prey has not yet fallen."
"Oh shit," the woman whispered, pure fear entering her voice. "An ancient..."
The man could say nothing, for he was still caught helplessly in Julian's grasp, held aloft with Julian's hand tight around his throat. Vague choking noises escaped, and Sebastian rather thought he could hear a note of panic enter into them. Possibly because of Julian's presence, and possibly because he was rapidly running out of air.
"I should break your neck like a twig," Julian said, his pale brown eyes so cold and calculating as he spoke. It ever worried Sebastian, for Julian had long walked the dangerous edge between sanity and madness, and it was moments like this that made him truly afraid that Julian might finally fall.
Well, not entirely like this. This was the first time Julian had ever done something so base as to rescue him from vampire hunters.
Actually, it was the first time Julian had ever sought him out and not the other way around. Somehow, despite his aching side and throbbing shoulder, he suddenly felt quite cheerful.
"Don't kill them, Julian," he said, reaching out to lay a hand - just a reminder - on Julian's arm. Those icy brown eyes shifted to him for a moment, and it was all he could do to hold his ground and not take a step back, then they softened and Julian finally released his chokehold on the hunter. Considering that he'd also been a good foot off the ground at the time, this also had the side-effect of dropping him rather unceremoniously to the ground where he curled up and began gasping for much needed air.
Sebastian started to smile, but Julian's gaze turned away from him, landing instead on the white-faced woman, who took two hasty steps backward. Sebastian could hardly blame her, knowing quite well the potency of that particular look.
"You will not die today," Julian said quietly, "But the next hunter to cross my path will. Let this be your only warning." He turned away, a near-silent swish of long, ice blond tresses and tailored silk, and began striding calmly off into the night. Sebastian spared barely a glance for the two stunned hunters before taking off at a brisk jog to catch up with him.
Well, maybe a brisk walk, he amended, as the rough motion of his first few steps jarred his shoulder and the searing hunk of silver bullet embedded there. That was really going to be a pain to dig out.
He followed Julian down two mostly deserted streets, and another three with passer-by who gave him rather startled looks as they noticed his injuries and the state of his clothing, before Julian roughly grabbed his wrist and dragged him into a large building. He was vaguely aware of more wide-eyed human faces before he found himself shoved into an elevator with Julian looming over him with fury in his eyes.
"What were you doing?" Julian demanded, pale brown eyes blazing. "You could have been killed!"
Sebastian wasn't certain if he should whimper or purr. Maybe both. Julian was furious with him, but Julian was also here, and even with his face twisted in anger, Julian was beautiful.
"Sorry?" Sebastian offered finally, cringing a little when that only sparked the flames.
"Sorry? You. Could. Have. Been. Killed," Julian bit out. "If I had not been in the area..."
"Why were you?" Sebastian interrupted, intensely curious. "I hadn't thought you had any plans to leave China for at least another decade..."
Julian paused his tirade, mouth slightly open, then to Sebastian's utter surprise he snapped it shut as the faintest hint of color dusted his cheeks. Impossible... was Julian, cold, aloof, beautiful, distant Julian, actually blushing?
"That..." Julian looked away. "That is of no importance."
Sebastian felt himself grinning. "Oh, I think it is. Why are you here, Julian?" He started to reach up, touch that enticing flush of color that stained Julian's cheeks, hissing as the movement pulled on his shoulder and the forgotten injury there.
"To rescue idiots from their own stupidity, apparently," Julian snapped, swatting his hand away and bending to inspect the bullet hole. He made a vague sound of annoyance mingled with disgust, then in one swift motion dug his fingers into it and yanked out the embedded bullet.
Sebastian struggled not to scream, or pass out, or both. When the pain finally subsided enough that he was once more aware of his surroundings, the elevator had stopped and Julian was absently supporting him while scowling darkly at the bullet held lightly between two bloodied fingers. Even through the blood, Sebastian could see the symbols carved onto it. Holy symbols, strengthened by the hunter's own faith, and more than a little deadly to vampires.
Well, most vampires. Julian didn't seem to notice the symbols or the silver.
"Doesn't... that hurt?" Sebastian asked, wishing he was in a little less pain so as to better appreciate the fact that Julian's arm was around his waist, willingly.
Julian snorted. "The religion is younger than I am. Do you honestly think pointless symbols thought up by some vapidly inebriated human could harm me?"
Sebastian blinked. "Well, put like that, no... but I thought..."
"Thinking is not your strong suit," Julian snapped, though he didn't really sound all that annoyed. More like vaguely resigned, at this point. Which, really, was an improvement, but Sebastian just once wished that Julian would actually sound happy when they spoke. Or happy at all. Julian was always so very sad.
Rather than irritate him further, Sebastian fell silent and allowed Julian to help him down a rather nice-looking hallway and into what he realized after a few moments was a hotel suite of some kind.
An expensive hotel suite. It rather suited Julian's elegant beauty, even if Sebastian was surprised that Julian would bring himself to interact with humans even in such a passing manner.
Always watching, but never a part of the world he watched. That was Julian.
Sebastian bit down on a cry as he was set roughly down on a surprisingly comfortable sofa, blinking as Julian knelt before him and took another look at the wounds he'd acquired in the scuffle with the hunters. He thought up several creative profanities regarding silver, as for once he had Julian in a wonderfully compromising position and was in too much pain to do anything about it.
Julian poked at the wounds, his fingertips coming away bloody, and hissed in quiet resignation as he straightened. "Those are going to take months to heal," he said quietly.
"Yeah," Sebastian agreed with a sigh of his own. "I figured." Life was so not fair. He had Julian, Julian who had sought him out, and was completely unable to take advantage of the situation.
He sulked for several minutes before it finally occurred to him that Julian hadn't moved, and was still watching him with that same vaguely resigned expression. Sebastian blinked curiously and opened his mouth to ask, only to find Julian's long, elegant finger pressed to his lips.
"I am certain to regret this," Julian said quietly, grimacing, then bit down hard on his lower lip, fangs puncturing the soft skin, blood running in rivulets down his chin.
"Wha-" Sebastian started to say as the finger fell away, then Julian was there instead, and he could taste blood, sweet and potent like nothing he'd ever tasted before and oh dear gods Julian was kissing him.
Kissing humans was nothing like kissing Julian. Kissing humans was amusing, and pleasant, their blood feeding him and giving him life even as he gave them pleasure in return, but it was nothing like this. Julian's blood was the finest of wines, sweet and spicy and dizzying all at once, and so wildly potent that he could feel it flowing through him, giving him an energy unlike anything he'd experienced before.
And then there was the kiss itself. Oh but Julian could kiss. Unexpected, for it seemed someone as cool and aloof as Julian would have little experience in such things, but he rather fancied he could kiss Julian forever.
All too soon, however, Julian's self-inflicted wounds healed, and Sebastian only got a few more minutes of sweet kisses before the ancient vampire finally seemed to remember what he was doing and pulled away as though burned. Sebastian was rather pleased to note the flushed cheeks and kiss-swollen lips, so different from the pristine and perfect Julian he was familiar with, and perhaps he was as affected as Sebastian himself but when Sebastian flicked his eyes downward to search for evidence of an arousal to match that which strained his own trousers Julian made a rough, choked sound and bolted from the suite faster than Sebastian could ever hope to match.
It was many long, uncomfortable minutes before his hard-on subsided enough that Sebastian could get to his feet, and he made it halfway across the ornate sitting room before it finally occurred to him that he was no longer in pain. A brief check confirmed that, while his clothing was still a lost cause, his body showed no signs of ever having been damaged in the first place.
That was interesting. He'd never even heard of such a thing being possible, but then, given how reclusive nearly all ancient vampires were, it wasn't like they routinely went around healing idiots who got themselves injured by hunters. It was something else entirely, however, to really understand for the first time just how old Julian really was. Sebastian knew he himself was older than most vampires, and certainly the only one of his peers who had not succumbed to madness, but Julian...
Had he really meant it when he'd said he was older than the holy symbols that so frequently spelled a vampire's doom? It was a dizzying thought.
Not nearly as dizzying a thought, however, as memories of Julian's kiss. That had been one of the finest experiences of his life, and Sebastian was the first to admit that he was an incurable sensualist. He'd had it bad for Julian almost from the moment they'd first met, but after that kiss he rather suspected that he was ruined for anyone else now.
Oh well. That just meant he'd have to speed up his plan for breaking down Julian's defenses and making the beautiful vampire all his.
But first, Sebastian was going to have to track him down, and given how fast Julian had bolted, he suspected it was going to be one of the hardest things he'd ever done.