This was beta-ed by the lovely, lovely diluain, all the remaining mistakes are mine.
WARNING: This is GBLT/LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) themed fiction with explicit contents that is NOT appropriate for minors.
A tunnel of darkness, a small candle in a metal holder as old as the walls on which it was attached, a flame flickering in a heavy silence, twitching with jerky motions like a butterfly trapped into a spider web trying to get out.
Bare feet padded on the cold stone, and soft steps the only sound that broke the silence that ruled the long and barren hallway that led to a thick oak door. The owner of the feet came to the large door; the darkness hid his body, dressed only in a pair of slacks that hung loose on his narrow hips. Leaning with his ear on the wood, he listened to the sounds on the other side.
He heard somebody walking around and soft clicks of glass against glass. He didn't bother with trying the knob, he knew that the door was locked. He scratched the wood with his nails. "Maho, Mahoooo, open the door."
The movement on the other side of heavy door stopped.
"I'm bored. I want to play."
Silence.
He tried again. "Maho. Let me in. Pleeeease."
Silence.
"I need some attention. Mahoooo." He scratched the door again. Maho had been locked in there for almost a week and Theo needed him. He needed to see him, to touch him, to feel his touch on his skin. "Mahoo, please."
On the other side of the door, the steps that had stopped resumed again.
"Don't ignore me." He scratched the door again. From within his oval face, framed by jaw-length, ash-blonde hair, his green eyes glowed red. They drilled holes in the wood, staring in it, trying to see the room behind it, to see the tall black haired man. "Maho."
"Theo, go away."
"No." Theo pressed his cheeks against the door, his palms beside his head, his nails digging into the hard wood. He focused on the small sounds that came from the other side, the sounds that told him that Maho was walking between the showcase that held his ingredients and the large stone table with a small furnace in the middle. Damn witch and his experiments. His nails dug deeper into the wood. And damn his thirst that was getting worse and worse with each minute that ticked by.
"Let me in, please."
"I'm in the middle of something."
"You have been in the middle of something for a whole week." Theo slid down on his knees, his nails leaving long scratches in the wood. Maho had never left him for such a long time before.
"Go away."
Theo felt the pain as the skin at his nails broke and the first drops of blood slipped down his fingers, but that pain couldn't even compare to the pain of Maho's absence. It was like a knife, stabbed into his belly and turned and turned and turned. He could feel the hunger again, it had been pestering him for the last three days and it was getting stronger. And the beast was howling, tearing, trying to get out. "Maho, please, please , I need you."
Silence.
"Please, Maho." Theo didn't know how long he would be able to hold it back, how long it would take before the thirst consumed him, turned him back into what he used to be. His now claw-like nails made deep holes into the oak door that refused to open, that refused to let him in.
They had been a pair for such a long time, since that stormy night more than a thousand years ago. Maho had stepped into the inn of a small German village, because he couldn't continue his path through nature's rage. He sat down in the farthest corner he could find. He wrapped his wet cloak more tightly around himself and tried to breathe above the decay; everything smelled rotten, even the roast pig that was turning in the fireplace, and the people eyes seemed dead, without hope. He eavesdropped on the conversation of two men, two lost souls with callused hands, who probably had wives and brats waiting at home and who would never see beyond the borders of their small village. They spoke of the beast that raged around those parts.
So when the thunder and lightning and hail had changed into a soft drizzle, Maho went out into the night, his instinct guiding him deep into the woods, toward the beast's lair. But all that he found was a naked, dirty boy, with hair the color of sunflowers and eyes red as the finest rubies, hissing and clawing at him. Later, those eyes would change, to the color of grass on a summer day…
A sound of scratching at Theo's left. Theo's hand shot out, and in the next second small bones snapped in two, the sound loud in the narrow hallway, and Theo's fangs bit into a still twitching mouse.
At the first taste of crimson liquid on his tongue, Theo's youthful face grimaced in distaste, but his eyes cleared. He jumped up and hurled the furred body into the wall. Then he doubled over and his body convulsed; a small trail of greenish saliva appeared at the corner of his mouth. He wiped it away and started to bang with his fists against the door. "Maho. Maho. Please. Let me in."
Something fell on the floor and a loud hiss with a curse at the end followed.
"Maho. Please. Please." Theo alternated between banging on the door and clawing at it. He needed Maho, he needed for this door to open, needed to wrap his arms around Maho's warm, strong body. He needed to burrow his face into Maho's long hair, dark as a clouded night. "Open the damn door."
"Stop bothering me, Theodore. Go away. I still have things to do."
"No. Please." Theo almost hung on the door with his claws. He felt his feet tingling, the sensation of thousands of ants and bugs and caterpillars crawling under his skin, climbing higher and higher, the sensation that told him he didn't had a lot of time. "Please. Please. Open the door."
But Maho didn't open the door, and the light of the candles he used in his sanctuary didn't drive away the shadows that were surrounding Theo.
"Fine. Fine. You bastard," Theo cried. He turned on his heel and ran down the hallway, up the stairs and out from the basement. The three narrow, waist-long braids that hung from the side of his left temple fluttered behind him.
He ran into their room and threw himself on the big antique bed full of red satin and black velvet that ruled the middle of the room. He usually stared at the fresco of angels and devils above the bed until he calmed down, or at the light of the small lamps on the nightstands that cast such wonderful shadows.
But Theo wasn't interested in the play of light on the wall, so he curled up, the tassels of blonde curls falling on his face. "Bastard." Maho was such a bastard, but Theo couldn't live without him.
For Theo, the time before Maho was a blur of pain so sharp that just the thought of it could still take his breath away, but he could still remember the first time he had looked into the sapphire-blue pools of Maho's eyes and drowned in them, how the water of calm had enveloped him in a safe embrace. That was the first time he had believed that the cold and loneliness so firmly anchored in his bones and the emptiness in his flesh could be banished away. That the thirst and hunger twisting his intestines could finally be sated.
Theo pushed his wrist into his mouth and bit at it without breaking the skin. Maho was the only one who was able to clear Theo's mind of the fog that had been there since his seventh birthday, when the thirst had first wrapped him in her embrace, the hunger had swallowed him, hidden his essence and who he was, and pushed up to the surface the beast that controlled him. And he hated it, hated himself for not being strong enough to break through the surface, hated the fear that was there, the fear that his beast might do something horrible -- horrible like the fragments of memory that some nights came into the line of his vision, the image of redness everywhere, the taste of copper on his tongue, and there in his palm a red, pulsing mass of flesh, still warm, his mother lying on the floor, her chest ripped open. He didn't notice the green in his pupil slowly being devoured by the crimson red glow, but he did notice the fog that descended on him, that wrapped around his mind, and he noticed the bugs, the bugs that were eating him alive. He scratched his legs, blood gushing out through the scratches. He fought against the fog and the ants and bugs and caterpillars that were spreading under his skin, and he lost.
His teeth broke the skin and down below, a glass fell on the ground and shattered in into a thousand pieces.
Seconds transformed into minutes, minutes into an hour; the big hand on the clock made a full turn five times before the door opened and through them came a tall black-haired man.
In the semi-darkness, Maho's blue eyes couldn't find what he was looking for. He stepped deeper into the room and then he noticed him, a small figure nestled between blankets and pillows.
Maho stepped closer, touched the top of Theo's head. The thing, because that was exactly what Theo was in this moment, hissed at him; his clawed hand swept out and made a long, deep gash across Maho's forearm.
The blood wetted the ragged edges of Maho's black, silken robe, his favourite one; the droplets made a thin stream that slid down over his wrist, over his fingers and slowly dripped onto Theo's chest.
Theo's eyes, now red, focused on those droplets, his pink tongue darted over dry lips and then his claws were digging into Maho's upper arm. His mouth at the wound, he greedily gulped down the thick, warm liquid.
Wincing, Maho grabbed the blonde hair and pulled on it. "Don't be so greedy."
Theo bared his teeth, his claws digging deeper; he wasn't about to let go.
"This is my fault, isn't it? I left you on your own too long." Maho's grip was almost loving when he pulled on Theo's hair again. With his free hand he grabbed Theo's wrist and bent his arm behind his back.
Theo hissed and kicked and wiggled in Maho's hold, but if nothing else Maho knew how to dominate this wild beast. He had Theo, still resisting, under his hard, muscled body in no time.
Maho's weight pressed Theo into the mattress. "Is this what you want?" He shoved his bleeding arm before Theo's greedy mouth.
Theo's red eyes glowed and he attacked the wound.
Maho shifted, and he slipped his hand between them, underneath Theo's pants, his fingers cupping Theo's cock. "Or would you rather have this?"
Theo pushed into that hand, his sucking on Maho's wound slowing down.
"You like that, don't you?" Maho's breath was hot against Theo's ear. He made a fist around Theo's flesh and slowly travelled up and down.
Groaning, Theo spread his legs and wrapped them around Maho's waist, then he dug his fangs deeper into Maho's arm and just held on onto it.
Maho released Theo's cock and with well-practiced gestures greased his fingers with the lube that was on the nightstand. Then he slid his palm over Theo's hip, over Theo's ass; his fingers found and rubbed the ring of muscles, then he shoved two fingers into Theo.
Theo whimpered.
Maho rubbed his cheeks against Theo's and, ignoring Theo's wiggling and the claws that dug in his arm again, he pushed another finger into Theo. "You need this, don't you? You need this more than you need anything else, don't you?"
Theo pushed back against the fingers.
"Tell me." Maho twisted his fingers.
Theo looked up, the red glow in his eyes still strong and bright. His mouth separated from Maho's arm for a second then those fangs were back again. He pushed his tongue into Maho's wound, lapping at the blood.
"Tell me."
Theo raised ass.
That was answer enough for Maho. He pulled his fingers out, yanked Theo's torn slacks down, unzipped his pants and greased himself. He half lay on Theo, his hips between Theo's widely spread legs. Right then, he knew all that Theo needed was to feel every fucking inch of him fucking him hard, because he fought against Theo's pain and gluttony and thirst for destruction with by giving him another desire, another addiction: himself.
He pushed into Theo, whose lips parted in a cry, then started to fuck him into the mattress, mercilessly, hard and relentlessly, the zipper of his pants pressing into Theo's thigh. He wrapped his arm around Theo's waist, holding Theo in an almost painful lock until the body beneath him shook in sweet abandon, then, still pressing on, still thrusting into that clenching hole, he moved his arm, his palm sliding up toward the place where Theo's heart was, and as he came he could imagine his fingers digging into Theo's ribcage and tearing out that red-eyed beast's heart.
But at the end, Maho rolled off Theo and looked at him. Those reddish eyes, now slowly clearing, looked back at him. He had made Theo dependent on him and he couldn't forget that, even when Theo's constant desire for his attention got on his nerves, even when Theo interfered with his experiments -- experiments with which he was trying to find the means to banish Theo's beast forever. He had to remain conscious of the fact that by taking Theo with him that day so many years ago, away from the life of the animal, away from everything he had known, Maho had obligated himself to take care of Theo, always, to be the only light in his dark and long existence. To always be there for him.
Maho reached out with his fingers and combed that blonde hair; he wrapped his still bleeding arm around Theo.
Theo's eyes stared at Maho, the red fighting with green, then his hand slashed out and his claws rammed into Maho's throat.
A gurgling sound came from Maho's mouth; his blue eyes dilated and his arm slid down from Theo's body. Look what his carelessness had made Theo do! His own fault. His own fault, he shouldn't have allowed himself to become so absorbed in his work; he should have taken better care of Theo. He coughed, tiny droplets of crimson spraying over their bodies, and a small stream of red started to trickle down from the corner of Maho's mouth.
The redness lost the battle with green and Theo's green eyes zoomed in on the gurgle, on the thick liquid. Then piercing screams cut through the air, the sound of it bouncing from wall to wall until it burst out into the open air, going on and on.
A raven, who a second before had been peacefully napping on the windowsill of a castle, looked through the retreating darkness with something like surprise, as if to pinpoint the piercing voice that woke him and that still vibrated through the air. Then he extended his black wings and with an elegant sweep, flew up in the air, over the trees, over the forest toward the sky and the slowly rising sun.
The end