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delimeful · 9 months

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to taste your beating heart (8)

warnings: implied abuse, mild blood and injury, non-graphic blood drinking, vamp thralls, assumptions/miscommunication, lmk if i missed any

Anx hadn’t really believed the hunters about the whole ‘protecting the innocents’ thing.

Sure, he believed they believed it, but that didn’t necessarily make it true. There were all sorts of ways to ‘save’ someone, and there were all sorts of reasons to deem someone guilty instead of innocent. Especially if that someone happened to be a monster.

Hunters were hunters. They could try and use pretty words to conceal the truth of their occupation all they wanted, but it wouldn’t fool Anx.

They’d realize he couldn’t give them what they wanted soon enough, and then he’d be fair game; subject to however they actually treated the other vamps they ran into.

That’s what he’d thought, anyhow.

After having a coven head waltz into their house like he owned the place, convene for a private meeting with them, and then walk back out without a single threat issued or drop of blood spilled, though, he was beginning to re-evaluate his initial impression.

The entire situation had been so jarring and strange that he’d almost doubted its authenticity for a second, but there was no faking the scent of a coven head. Especially not one as well-established as... Janus.

(Something about the name scraped at him, like sandpaper against skin. It wasn’t the same sharp, piercing pain of ‘Virgil’, but it was disorienting nonetheless.)

He wouldn’t have thought a coven head was even capable of getting through an entire meeting without any blood spilled, especially a meeting with humans. Especially one where the humans in question seemed to spend half the time blatantly bickering with him.

If it had been his coven head that had been treated with such disrespect from beings as reviled and lowly as hunters…

He didn’t even like these humans, but the thought made him shudder.

Things were different around here, clearly. Everyone else already knew the rules, and he’d been left scrambling to catch up before it cost him.

“Fangtastic Four, are you even listening?” One of the insane humans in question prodded him in the side, eliciting an automatic low hiss.

Instead of looking even remotely threatened, Roman moved his finger up to point at Anx’s face instead.

“I’m over here putting my sweat, blood, and tears— mostly the blood, actually— into making sure you don’t wither away into a particularly pointy-toothed husk, and you aren’t even paying attention!” he accused, frowning theatrically at him.

What was this guy even talking about?

“Nope,” Anx replied, popping the 'P' with a casual air that would have gotten him cuffed at best by any older vamps in the coven. “I checked the kidnapee contract and ‘listen to my captor’s ramblings’ wasn’t on there. Add more fine print next time.”

Roman gaped at him for a moment, before pulling back slightly, his lips twisting with something Anx couldn’t read. In the next moment, he had returned to ranting, dramatic flourishes included. “I cannot believe you’re trying to pull the ‘poor, abducted victim’ card when you literally tried to take a bite out of Patton.”

Anx’s shoulders hunched slightly against his will, still waiting for the other shoe to drop even as he opened his mouth to snipe back. “Hey, I just call them how I see them. I was brought to a basement while unconscious, I can’t leave, and I’m wearing handcuffs. Facts are facts.”

Roman sighed exaggeratedly, a flicker of discomfort crossing his face. “Yes, well, don’t try to mind-control and-slash-or murder me during this whole bloodsucking thing, and we can discuss alternatives to the cuffs.”

As though the cuffs were the main problem.

“I feel like maybe you’re missing the bigger picture here,” Anx said, before the rest of the sentence registered. “Wait, you’re serious?”

Midway through the process of rolling his sleeve up to expose his vein, Roman raised a deeply judgmental eyebrow at him. “Have you been paying attention at all since my brother left?”

No, not really. Between the lingering haziness of his forced metal retreat and the bizarre fuzzy-feeling instincts that Remus had somehow activated, he’d been just disoriented enough for the conversation going on around him to go in one ear and out the other, leaving little to no actual impact on his brain. Something about research?

Somehow, he got the feeling that the others didn’t actually know Roman had decided to do this now. Letting a moderately untrustworthy vampire feed from him for the first time didn’t seem like the sort of thing they’d let him do alone.

This did explain why they’d returned to the room with the containment circle, though. His nose crinkled at the cloying smell of the runes, and he eyed the inactive circle with distaste.

He could already see the way things would go. He’d get to feed for precisely as long as they deemed necessary, probably the bare minimum required to keep him alive, and the moment he overstepped, all Roman would have to do was yank his arm back over that line and let the burn of the ward do the punishing for him.

What was the point of pretending this was an extension of trust, then? From within the circle, even if he did try to thrall Roman, he wouldn’t be able to escape.

“Hello? Tall, Dark, and Stormy, can we get on with it?” Roman cut into his thoughts, waving a hand in front of his face. Anx barely resisted the urge to bite it. “If you keep spacing out, you’re going to give me performance anxiety.”

“Performing? For what audience?” Anx snorted, and then watched with bemusement as Roman planted himself on one of the halloween-themed beanbag chairs.

“For an actor like me, all the world’s a stage,” he retorted, flapping his bared arm at Anx expectantly. “Now hurry up before I start developing stage fright.”

“What, you want to do it there?” he asked, brow furrowing as his gaze briefly slid over to the convenient, risk-free containment spell that was only a meter away. He was kidding, right?

“Remus said I would faint, and I’m fairly sure he was bullshitting me, but not sure enough to risk cracking my head open,” Roman replied dryly. “I’ve never actually done this bit before, you know.”

That wasn’t really what he’d been talking about, but whatever. It wasn’t like he was going to be the one to insist he be trapped, even if it was the obvious smart decision.

Anx tentatively sank into the matching purple beanbag chair next to the hunter, and wrapped his hand around the wrist of Roman’s arm, which had been helpfully (read: obnoxiously) shoved into his space.

Despite Roman’s faux-casual words, his heart was thumping a little too fast for him to be anywhere near relaxed. An actor, indeed.

Anx checked the doorway again, searching for shadows under the crack or the subtle turning of the knob. Any signs that the other two were waiting to pounce. Anything at all that indicated he was currently walking into the world’s most obvious set-up, other than his own panicked mind.

Nothing.

He frowned, eyes darting back down to the free meal he was being offered, and then sighed. Whatever the catch was, he might as well take advantage of the offer while he could.

Roman shifted antsily, darting glances at Anx from the corner of his vision. “Do you always take this long to— ow!”

—

Roman barely resisted the urge to twitch away as Anx sunk his teeth in, both from pain and indignation alike.

The pain faded only a second or two later, his lower arm going pleasantly numb, but he still felt like Anx could have been a little gentler about it. He would have appreciated a warning, at least!

He opened his mouth to say as much, and found that the part of his brain dedicated to coherent words seemed to have scuttled out of reach while he wasn’t looking.

Everything was a bit distant, now that he thought about it, like all his senses had been wrapped in a hazy layer of gauze. The realization caused a strange swoop in his stomach, but he couldn’t figure out what to do about it.

It was hard, thinking like this. All the important thoughts seemed to slip between his fingers and get lodged in hard to reach places like grains of sand. He blinked several times in rapid succession.

That seemed a little bit not good. Maybe he should have gotten one of the others to chaperone after all.

Anx was lifting his head now, gaze bouncing around the room like a hunted deer before finally settling on Roman.

Roman could feel the vamp’s nervousness, his gut-clenching anticipation, as though it was his own. He could feel the expectation of pain that hovered over his head like a guillotine, ever-present and automatic.

(Had Patton been able to tell just how wrung-out Anx was during his own stint under thrall? It explained the sympathy, at least.)

He also felt the moment that Anx realized that the thrall bond had snapped thoroughly into place between them. That for all his posturing, Roman wasn’t anywhere near experienced enough to throw it off or even resist it.

Anx could strip away his free will with the simplest of commands, and he wouldn’t be able to do a thing about it.

He knew this was bad, logically. There was a part of him that was freaking out, but it had been confined to a small corner of his brain and cut off from the rest of him.

Physically, though, he’d never been more relaxed. His heart thumped along a steady metronome, his breaths coming deep and easy. According to his body, there was nothing to worry about.

His body was a dirty traitor, and there would not be any replenishing spa days for it in his near future.

Assuming he still had a future.

His fingers twitched again, and Anx followed the motion, still holding onto his arm with those icy fingers.

He stared at Roman’s sluggishly-bleeding bite mark for a long moment, worrying at his lip with a conflicted expression. Roman tried very hard to feel concerned about the likelihood that he was about to be drained by a vampire, and mostly failed.

“This is so stupid,” Anx muttered, and moved Roman’s arm back over to his side, releasing it.

In the same moment, Roman felt a mental tug, like an intangible line had been pulled taut, and then with a snap, the bond was severed.

For a few long seconds, he sat there, stunned by the sudden wave of sadness he felt at the rejection.

In the next moment, his survival instincts snapped back into place like a lock clicking, and he sucked in a sharp gasp of air, his heart rate kicking up belatedly as adrenaline surged through him. He fumbled for the dishtowel he’d brought and quickly wrapped it over the bite, just as an extra precaution.

“There. I played nice,” snapped Anx, his posture defensive as he watched Roman take big, gasping breaths. “Are you satisfied? Do I get to go home now?”

Roman held up a finger in a silent request for him to wait, still trying to shake the lingering effects of the bond. His whole body had gone from relaxed putty to rigid plastic in less than a second, and it was more than a little disorienting.

It had the added bonus of letting him actually think about his answer for a few moments, instead of letting the knee jerk response he wanted to give tumble out of his mouth. (This is your home.)

“We brought you here because we thought you were V– our friend,” he corrected hastily. “And because we thought you were in danger, and needed a safe place.”

“I’m not him.” Virgil’s glares had always been scathing, but the unnatural purple irises added a whole new layer of eerie.

“Yeah, we picked up on that much,” Roman said curtly, ignoring– for now– the way he’d noticed a hundred little mannerisms that Anx and Virgil shared. “But the rest of it, I’m not so sure we were wrong about.”

Anx blinked, his defensiveness stopped in its tracks by Roman’s easy agreement. “What?”

“Anx,” Roman said, the name strange in his mouth. “Were you in danger? If you went… went home, would it be a safe place?”

For a brief, telling moment, Anx hesitated.

“Of course it’s safe,” he snapped, a beat late. “Safer than I am in a den of hunters.”

Roman worked his jaw, trying not to dwell on all the signs he’d seen that the opposite was true. If Anx had retained even half of Virgil’s stubbornness, there was no point in arguing in circles to try to force him to change his mind.

A different tactic, then.

“If you stay with us for a while, we could at least help you recover some of your memories. You can’t tell me you’re not curious about your life before turning at all.”

Anx’s lip curled up in a half-snarl. “I can tell you that, actually. What came before doesn’t matter, anyways. That’s the whole reason why vamps lose memories after turning.”

“Uh,” Roman blinked, genuinely thrown off. “Not to be contrarian, but that’s not true? Remus was turned, and he probably remembers more stories about our childhood than I do.”

Mostly so he could embarrass Roman at every opportunity, but still.

“I’ve actually never heard of memory loss as a symptom of being turned,” he added, trying not to let his concern crease his brow too obviously.

Anx had gone statue-still, and Roman bit his lip for a second before reaching out to set a tentative hand on his arm. “Are you–?”

“Don’t touch me,” Anx snarled, and in the next moment, he was on his feet and then bolting out the door.

Roman sat upright with some half-formed intention of going after him, or at least letting the others know that their resident vampire was upset, and then promptly flopped back against the beanbag as the world spun nauseatingly around him.

Right. Blood loss. He’d just text them then.

Letting his head fall back, he stared at the deep purple walls of the room and tried very hard to not think about how much he missed Virgil, and mostly failed.

#sanders sides fic #vampire au #to taste your beating heart #ttybh #ts virgil #ts roman #my writing #writing #queue

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goodieghosty · 1 year

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A vamp sides doodle, featuring Cupcake, who always gets her way. And often times that means pestering Virgil. Anywhooo, feel free to check out my patreon!

#goodies.art #art #sanders sides #tsart #ts art #tsfanart #ts fanart #vamp au #vamp sides #vampire #vampires #vampire!virgil #cat #virgil sanders

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ashs-random-writing · 7 months

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Sharp pointed smile

One-shot

Ao3

—

Roman, a vampire from a fantasy world, gets magically transported into a new world where he’s tiny. Luckily, local borrower is willing to help him out

—

The house was larger than anything Roman had ever seen. It made his throat run dry. He had no clue where he was, what was happening, or why. He had just been at home a few moments earlier. Why was he here?

He looked around. Everything was so… big. He could only imagine what sort of beast must live in it

He was grateful that it appeared to be nighttime. The night was illuminated with strangely bright lights, ones that hurt his eyes. Perhaps they were magic. He looked away. The house seemed to be too smooth to be made of stone, but it looked sturdy enough. He didn’t want to see the thing that lived there

Something that gargantuan could probably kill him without noticing. Back home, he had had several people trying to kill him for what he was.

This was not home. He had no idea how people would react to him.

He looked warily at the lights, and the moon that was getting slowly lower in the sky.

He looked back up at the giant house. He would need to take shelter before sunrise, but he had no one to invite him inside, nor was this his home. He would probably burn to death in the sunlight.

He got closer to the house, hoping to delay his death by getting closer to shelter even slightly, only for part of the wall to open.

The door seemed cleverly disguised, even with his strong senses, and was barely perceptible.

A him-sized person was beckoning him closer, saying something in a language entirely unfamiliar to him, but seemed to be some kind of invitation inside, going by the fact that the invisible barrier disappeared. He let a small smile grace his lips

He got inside quickly, and said a quick word of thanks to the stranger as they closed the wall.

The stranger looked back at him with visible confusion. Roman wondered if they knew his language at all.

This place was strange. Like something out of an absurd play, or perhaps a children’s book.

They led him through tunnels in what had to be the walls of the house, and into a small room-type thing that reminded Roman almost of a cave. There were strange lanterns strung up in it, ones that had no fire in them. He looked at them strangely, were they magic? They weren’t as bright as the other lights that were outside, but they were bright enough.

He looked away from them, and back towards the stranger.

The stranger was staring at him, or really his fangs, and he braced for a scream or attack. That was how it always went when someone realised that he was a vampire.

After a few tense moments, nothing happened. They looked away and started sorting something in a corner.

Looking around a little bit more, it occurred to him that this was their home. He turned around to watch them

They were messing with scraps of spare fabric that were organised into the shape of a nest. Perhaps they were makeshift blankets.

They extended the nest and Roman realised that they were expecting him, wanting him, to stay with them. He didn’t know if they knew how dangerous outside was to him, but they seemed to know that being outside was bad.

He wondered if it had anything to do with the giants that he imagined must be around. His new ally (?) kept looking back at him.

They spoke after they finished making the nest big enough, using very unfamiliar words, and speaking faster than Roman could even piece together what was a word or what was a string of them

Roman stared blankly. They paused in what had to be consideration, before gesturing to themself and saying a single word. Roman deduced that it was probably their name.

He parroted it back questioningly, pointing to them. They nodded. Virgil. Nice name.

He gestured to himself and said his own name, which they repeated. He smiled.

The rest of the time before the sun rose, Virgil would give him the name for anything he would point at. Virgil was nice. It was only a matter of time before a shrill beeping sound made its way from the more open, giant part of the house.

Virgil put their finger to their lips to gesture for him to be quiet, and he immediately did so. Virgil beckoned him towards a peephole in the wall. He watched as a giant slowly made their way into what might’ve been a kitchen.

Roman watched it for a while. Something like that could crush him with one hand. Could kill him with no garlic, or wooden stakes, or even sunlight required. He shuddered, watching as it made food. He went away from the peephole.

The sunlight was coming in from the window, and, while it did not reach the wall, it made Roman nervous. Well, that and the whole giant that was eating something by the light.

Virgil’s face was full of many emotions as they also watched the giant. The giant left a while later, leaving the house all together. Roman sat down, and looked up at his new friend/ally

“What was that?” He asked, using a very similar string of words as he did when asking for a word

The answer was short, but Roman found the answer something he wouldn’t forget. The other words he had learned today would be forgotten, he’d need to refresh his memory on them, but this? He would remember this.

Human. The way Virgil had said it, with such an extreme tone, that Roman was sure that it would echo in his mind for years to come.

He nodded, repeating the word to himself. He yawned, and absentmindedly turned into a bat. Every time he slept anywhere that was open, he always turned into a bat. It helped him sleep, and it helped prevent people noticing him.

It was the kind of thing he’d never think to do before he was turned. He flew to a shadowy corner of the tunnel, and settled down, wings wrapped around himself. He could feel Virgil’s eyes on him, but he could hear no movement from them. They just left him be, doing whatever they were doing. Even his bat form was tiny here.

When he woke up, closer to sundown, Virgil offered him some food. He shook his head. Food was not something he needed, except for blood.

He had eaten before… arriving here, anyway. He wouldn’t need to for a few days. Was this whole thing some kind of divine punishment for his sins?

He hugged his knees. The giant was moving around outside the tunnel, seemingly completely unaware of him and Virgil’s presence. Good.

It was strange. If not for the size, it would look very similar to a normal person, but it was so large. Roman thought about the amount of blood that it would have. He could probably feast on it without it noticing, whilst it was sleeping. As the human left the kitchen, Roman tried to refresh his memory of words, with Virgil’s help.

After a while, Virgil started to take him through the tunnels. Roman was shown a lot of the house. It was like a twisted version of a normal house, but with more strange things like the weird lights. He frowned.

He didn’t like this.

The giant was still completely unaware of his existence. Roman was capable of making his body just the slightest bit lighter, to avoid heavy footsteps. It was crucial in hunting, and it would be even more crucial to avoid being detected by a giant.

The giant was lying in a bed, not yet sleeping, but staring at a glowing rectangle. Strange. Virgil kept practising his words with him when they got back to Virgil’s home-part-of-the-tunnels. Roman had a hard time with it.

He hugged his knees. He wanted to go home.

Virgil left a little while later, into the kitchen. Roman watched them do things that he had never seen anyone do before. Super risky climbing moves, carrying things that looked heavier than Virgil themself, etc. He wondered if this is what they did every time they needed food.

They made almost no noise throughout the whole thing. Had he not had enhanced senses, he probably would be unable to notice anything amiss, even from this close. They were certainly practised at their actions, picking up even the slightest noise from the human’s bedroom, if the way they constantly froze and looked up, obviously listening for more signs that the giant would awaken

Roman watched them for a while.

Routines carried on like this for the next week. Roman was getting hungry. Virgil had shown him every tunnel entrance and exit and where exactly they led. Taking blood from the giant would be easy, hypothetically.

Virgil didn’t know he was doing this. How would he even explain, he only knew a handful of words in their strange language. They tried to stay near him often times, like they were trying to keep him safe.

He liked to quietly ramble to himself when the human wasn’t nearby. Virgil sometimes just sat next to him and listened to him, even though they evidently couldn’t understand what he was saying. He knew a few more words in their language than he did before, but not enough to hold a proper conversation

Or any conversation at all, really. Virgil was nice regardless. When he was in bat form, he did notice that Virgil looked at him a lot. He couldn’t figure out why

He watched the human sleep for a few minutes, making sure that it was sleeping deeply, before diving down in bat form towards its exposed arm. He did a quick enchantment to make sure it would stay numb whilst he was feasting. He bit down, and the blood started pooling into his mouth. It was more than he could ever get from anything or anyone else.

Once he was sufficiently fed, he turned back into a bat, and hovered a little. On the giant, the wound was tiny, it likely wouldn’t notice anything amiss. He flew back to the walls. Virgil was waiting for him, evidently having watched his meal.

Their face was painted with concern, instead of the usual shock and horror that came with watching him feed. They looked out at the giant, and back at Roman, before dragging him away to their (now shared) living quarters

Roman didn’t understand the lecture he was given, but understood a few words, like ‘dangerous’, a word that Virgil often used to deter Roman from going to retrieve food and supplies with him. Roman found that he really wanted to do it more after Virgil discouraged him.

The lecture lasted a while, before they noticed Roman’s non-comprehending stare. They sighed, rubbing their head like they had headache.

—

Virgil had somehow managed to make friends with a weird borrower-sized vampire. They didn’t know English, and they seemed to have appeared out of nowhere.

He had invited them inside without a second thought when he saw through a crack in the wall that they were outside. Of course, at first he had assumed them to be a borrower too, until they got to the more illuminated area of his living space, and he saw them more clearly.

They looked exactly like a stereotypical vampire, Victorian era clothing (or at least something close to it), and sharp pointed teeth

They flinched when they noticed him looking at their teeth, and Virgil looked away, forcing his anxiety down. They hadn’t attacked yet, despite being invited into his home, so they probably wouldn’t attack at all. No need to be hostile and potentially make them attack.

He extended his nest for them, and found them watching him with the type of wide eyes of someone who was entirely full of curiosity. He finished extending the nest, and looked at them

“This good, or do you, like, need to sleep in a coffin or something?”

They stared blankly, clearly not having caught a single thing he said. Oh, right… they had used a different language when they first entered the house, did they understand English?

He slowly pointed to himself and slowly stated his name, deciding that that would be easier than trying to hold an actual conversation.

They repeated the name, and then proceeded to mirror the gesture and give their own name. Roman. Cool.

They followed him around as he checked his supply stock, and pointed at things and asked what they were. Virgil always gave the name, even when they’d already asked for that name.

It was a while later that the human’s alarm clock pierced the small comfort he had offered to his new friend.

He gestured for them to be quiet, hearing the unmistakable sound of a human dragging itself out of bed. He and Roman watched the human walk around the kitchen, and Roman stepped away from the tiny hole and shuddered. Had they never seen a human before?

He didn’t know how they got here. They were strange.

They were very curious, and Virgil could admit that they brought a nice change from worrying about everything on his own. They liked to sit down and ramble about goodness knows what. Only when the human was out of the house or asleep, though.

They slept in bat form, tucked securely into a dark corner. Virgil would be lying if he said that he didn’t find their bat form at least a tiny bit adorable. That was probably weird, though

When he got back from borrowing, about a week later, and they weren’t in their usual position watching him, he started running towards the human’s bedroom.

He had noticed the way they’d slowly grown more pale throughout the week, and the way they’d looked at the human when it walked through the kitchen, at its veins. He had figured that this was a possibility, especially after he’d made the mistake of showing them every exit

Like he’d predicted, they were sinking their teeth into the human’s arm, and drinking

They flew back to the wall, with the tiniest bit of blood still staining their teeth. Virgil quickly checked that the human was still asleep, before closing the entrance and dragging Roman back to the bedroom

Once they were stood in relative safety, he sighed

“What were you thinking ?! If it sees you, you will die! It’s dangerous to get that close to a human, especially to bite one! And not to mention-” the lecture lasted a few minutes, before he noticed their wide-eyed, mildly confused stare.

Oh, right, they didn’t know English. He brought his hand up to his face and groaned

He knew they needed blood. He knew the human was the best source for this. He also knew how screwed they’d both be if they had been caught.

He just put away his recently borrowed supplies, and attempted to focus on the positive. They hadn’t been caught. The bite was small enough that it was unlikely that the human would notice

Roman once again followed him around until close to sunrise, when they went to their corner to sleep. Virgil quietly crept towards the human’s room and watched to see if it noticed anything strange.

The alarm went off as normal. Virgil didn’t think about how Roman would have half woken up from the sound and would be at least partially upset that Virgil was not there. The human groaned, slamming its hand down on the alarm clock and pulling itself out of bed. Virgil watched as it looked at its arm with a strange expression, before just going back to whatever it was doing before

Virgil breathed a sigh of relief. While the side effects of the bite seemed somewhat noticeable, the human would not spend any more time than it needed to dwell on it.

After a few more days, or rather, nights, Roman could say a few more words, and more words stuck in their head. They still practised words a lot, though now they pointed at the things and said the name rather than ask for the word

Virgil hoped that soon they’d be able to know enough English to tell him what was actually going on, why they were here, etc.

For now, he was happy that they knew enough to vaguely understand him.

He watched the human leave the house. College, apparently, was what it went to. He had heard about such things before, it was something important apparently, it was all parents talked about to their children.

It was enough to keep the human occupied for several hours most days, even when it wasn’t out of the house. Great for borrowing from. It had a lot of food in its house, most of which being non-perishables, seeing as it didn’t often have time to buy extra food.

It was perfect for a borrower like himself.

Roman was friendly, but they were a bit louder than most borrowers. It made Virgil paranoid, though they often quietened their voice when they knew that the human was sleeping, which was most of the time when they were awake.

They liked to talk. Words that Virgil couldn’t understand or piece together. They played with their hair a lot, running hands through it with their words, like they didn’t even think about it. Their hair was quite long, and a nice shade of dark reddish brown.

Virgil wondered if the myths were true, and vampires really couldn’t see their own reflection. He felt kinda bad, if that was the case. They had a very nice face.

He sat next to them for a few hours, thinking about what could happen if the human would find them. Roman would probably be trapped in something like a jar or something, and then they’d get hurt (or worse) in the sunlight.

If Virgil got caught, Roman would potentially be safe. Virgil could not be killed by sunlight, and would have the potential to escape. Therefore, it was too dangerous to let Roman borrow with him.

Roman still tried to follow him sometimes. They pouted if he said it was dangerous, but they stayed in the walls.

They were gonna need more blood soon. Virgil reluctantly admitted that the human was the best source of that if he didn’t want it all taken from him, but the human was so much bigger than both of them. The human was dangerous.

He didn’t want them to get hurt. But, they would need the blood. One night, at the time he knew for certain that the human would be deep asleep, he grabbed Roman’s hand and led them towards the human’s bedroom.

They followed with a tilted head. Virgil listened to the sound of the human’s breathing, making sure it was definitely still asleep. He slowly opened the entrance and gestured towards the human. Roman slowly took a step forward, and once Virgil didn’t stop him, he swooped down as a tiny bat, and bit into the arm, humanoid once more.

Virgil found it fascinating to look at. The way colour slowly came back to their face, the way they became much more alive-looking whilst the blood entered their body.

They flew back to him pretty much immediately, obviously scared that he would be mad again. He just grabbed their hand again and took them back to the ‘room’ they both lived in. They were smiling.

Virgil made sure that they were okay, and then he started gathering supplies for his own food.

Routines kept on like this for months.

Roman still wasn’t exactly fluent, but they knew the basics.

Unfortunately, the human seemed to have noticed that about once a week, its arm felt numb and had two little spots. It had put up cameras in its bedroom, which luckily didn’t pick up on anything, considering that Roman couldn’t be seen on footage or in mirrors, and Virgil never went actually into the room, but would absolutely cause some kind of trouble

—

Roman liked it there. For once, he could feed without killing anything or anyone. He had a friend! He had tunnels to explore!

The human was scary, of course, but Virgil always made sure that he was safe at feeding time. He sometimes watched it through the little holes in the walls when it was awake when he was. Sometimes it stayed awake during nighttime, meaning he and Virgil had to be careful and quiet.

Some days, it stayed out of the house until late at night, leaving Roman hungry. Like that night.

“Hungry,” he complained dramatically to Virgil, drawing out the word and flopping down onto the nest with a sigh

Virgil nudged him with a foot, and replied

“Sorry, nothing I can do about that. Unless, you want my blood, of course, but I don’t think I’d like that very much,” they joked, sitting down next to him

“Not your blood,” he agreed, lifting his head to reveal a small smile.

When the human came back, a few hours later, there was another human with it. Roman thought about the amount of blood they would have together, and felt all the more hungrier.

Virgil was watching the humans with the kind of nervous tension that they had if they had just dropped something whilst the human was in the kitchen.

Roman quietly walked closer, wanting to watch the humans too. At this rate, neither of the giants would sleep before the sun rose. He could probably wait another day, but it would mean that he’d take a more noticeable amount of blood from it.

He fidgeted nervously, hands running through his hair.

He looked to Virgil, who looked probably more panicked than him. Roman paused in thought

Virgil liked his bat form, he had found out, it calmed them down, and (though he would never admit so) it also helped Roman calm down to be held. He got panicked more than he let on; he missed his mansion, he missed his home, he missed knowing what was going on, he missed being able to talk fluently, he missed a lot.

But, Virgil was a constant presence, a constant friend that barely left his side, helped him stay happy, healthy even. They were the one good thing about this place, and they were great. If Roman had to pick between his mansion or Virgil’s friendship, he’d probably choose Virgil.

He turned into a bat and flew onto Virgil’s shoulder. It would be nice to see them relax a little, and he also needed the distraction.

Virgil looked towards him with a smile that Roman almost missed. They gently brought him into their arms, in a way that they had done a few times before, if the human had gotten too close to finding something out or if Virgil had only just managed to return to the walls when it entered the kitchen

Roman wrapped his wings around himself and settled in the hold. He had never been held like this before he met Virgil. People never trusted him, despite his attempts to be noble, to be a hero. Before he was turned, he was well liked, but what was he now? A monster.

Virgil had never judged him, as far as he knew. They were strange, but Roman had never been as glad of anything in his life/afterlife. He trusted that they’d wake him the second that it was safe to feed, and he started to fall asleep

Virgil’s hold was secure, a sense of warmth that surrounded his cold, and he was peaceful here. It wasn’t too long before Virgil gently jostled him awake.

“They’re both asleep now,” was said in a low whisper. Roman turned back to his normal form and stood up

Virgil led Roman, not to the human’s bedroom, but to the room where it watched ‘tv’ (a strange contraption that seemed to show plays and performances in strange ways)

Both of the humans were curled up on couches, instead of beds, and Roman looked between the two, and back at Virgil. Virgil was waiting for him to go forward and feed. He looked out of the window, he had about half an hour before sunrise.

He’d be okay to feed, if he was quick. He flew up as a bat, and towards his usual human. Its arm was uncovered, and he quickly sunk his teeth in after doing the enchantment.

The arm twitched beneath him. He froze. A small mutter that he couldn’t quite figure out the words of came from the direction of the human’s mouth. Roman looked up hesitantly. Giant brown eyes were staring back at him.

Roman’s own eyes quickly averted, towards the table in the corner in which the tunnel entrance where Virgil would be was. He couldn’t see them from here.

A hand wrapped around him, and he shouted, panicking and forgetting the words in the strange language, and using his native one

“Get away! Get away!” He screamed, feeling as though he had just been cornered by vampire hunters. He knew this was so much worse.

The other human woke up, saying something. Roman couldn’t figure out what it was; Virgil always spoke slowly to help him figure out what was being said. These humans did not extend the same courtesy to him. He hadn’t even nearly finished feeding before it woke up

He was weaker than he could’ve been. If he didn’t escape soon, that would be the least of his worries, he thought to himself, looking at the slowly lightening sky out of the window. He struggled in the hold, feeling himself be set down. No sooner than he had managed to look around, a large drinking glass was placed down over the top of him, cutting him off from the outside world.

His brain felt like it was running in circles. The humans were still talking, but through the muffling that the glass did, their fast talking, and Roman’s mile-a-minute thoughts, he couldn’t understand anything. He pushed against the glass, but it didn’t budge. Out of sheer desperation, he turned into a bat and flew around, trying to find any weak spots. Nothing. He turned back

The humans were talking.

Roman watched the window with nervousness he had almost never felt before. Usually, vampire hunters were easy to escape. He never usually had to worry about the painful disintegration that came with sunlight. He realised that he was on top of the table. The entrance to the tunnels would be almost directly below him

Virgil would be almost directly below him. Was Virgil gonna help him? What if they also got captured? Roman didn’t want to think about that

He sat down on the wooden table and sulked (though, he decided that this sulking, unlike most sulking he tended to do, was actually 100% warranted)

Cold tears fell down his already cold face. What was he doing ? He was going to turn into dust in less than an hour, he was captured, he was never going home. Either of his homes; the walls or his mansion.

The humans were talking to each other, Roman tried to listen. They spoke fast; he could only catch a handful of words. Things like ‘food’, and ‘vampire’ (a word that Virgil sometimes used in reference to him)

He sighed. None of this would matter soon. He knew this would happen eventually, he knew that something or someone would get the upper hand on him and he’d die. He just hadn’t wanted it to be here, to be close to his only friend while he disintegrated

The sunrise would be soon. He had to come to terms with it.

He shoved his face into his hands and sobbed. And then, noise from in front of the table, just out of sight. A voice- Virgil’s voice- speaking fast and loud. To the humans. Roman tried to listen but found that he couldn’t

Was Virgil saving him? The thought made something in his chest flutter, almost made his non-beating heart jolt back into rhythm. He chose to believe that it was anxiety, that he was scared for his friend’s safety (which, he was) and absolutely no other feelings were involved.

—

Logan had known that something had been biting him whilst he slept. Like clockwork, every Wednesday night, something was biting him, leaving his arm slightly numb and two tiny dots in his arm.

He had tried to put up cameras, but they didn’t pick anything up. There seemingly was nothing to pick up. It was entirely infuriating. Especially since it was always the same night of the week. No matter what. If he fell asleep during the day on a Wednesday, during his breaks, no bites.

It was a mystery, and Logan hated not knowing things. He had tried staying late at the library on a Wednesday night, and going to sleep late, but whatever was biting him was smart, and still bit him whilst he was sleeping.

His friends had joked that it was a tiny vampire, but Logan had rolled his eyes at that. Now… Now, he was considering it.

He had decided with his friend Patton to sleep late in a different room than usual, with Patton, to see if the whatever was biting him would follow him.

He was almost asleep by the time he felt two small pinpricks on his arm. He tried to make his arm stay still as to not scare away whatever the thing was and peeked his eyes open.

Without his glasses it was hard to see, but it looked humanoid. He muttered something to himself and reached out to grab it, and found that it shouted something in a language he had never heard before. Curious…

Patton woke up at the sound of the shout, and Logan grabbed his glasses as Patton did the same

“What’s going on?” Patton asked

Logan looked up for a split second “I found the source of the bites,” he said, looking down at his new find again

The closer he looked at it, the more the vampire comparisons looked more accurate. It was wearing a strange version of what one would expect of a vampire, in mostly golds and reds, though rather dirtied. It had long, dark red hair, about down to where their shoulder blades would be, and if Logan really looked, he could see two tiny fangs under its tiny top lip

It was clearly trying to get out of his grip, so he slowly brought it towards the table and, grabbing an empty glass on the way, placed it down with the glass on top of it. It pushed at the glass, but upon it not budging, it turned into a bat.

Contrary to the panic it seemed to be displaying, not once did Logan notice any breathing difficulties. Nor, any breathing at all.

Patton came closer, looking at the little thing

“It’s actually a tiny vampire?” He asked in bewilderment, before continuing “So, it was biting you for food? I feel bad trapping it, or- them? Like this, they were just trying to eat,”

Logan agreed with that sentiment, but didn’t want to risk them getting away before he got some answers. He and Patton talked in hushed voices about theories and things they needed answered for a while, finding that the vampire had sat with their back to them and head in hands.

He thought on the whole problem. This had been going on for months. Where had the tiny vampire been living this entire time? In his house? But where?

Logan was interrupted from his thoughts by a sudden shout from beneath the table that he was crouched at.

He looked down, finding another tiny person, this one looking slightly more alive, clearly breathing and, while they didn’t have much colour on their pale skin, it was certainly more than the vampire had. They were holding a pin like a sword, pointed up shakily at him and Patton

“Let- let them go! Please, they can’t answer any questions you ask, and they’ll die if they stay here once the sun rises, just let them go! Please..” they seemed desperate. They seemed terrified.

Their clothes were dirtied, clumsily stitched together, and clearly were once some kind of scrap fabric that they had found somewhere. A clear difference between them and the vampire, whose clothes seemed impeccably perfectly stitched with high quality fabrics, even when it was dirty.

Patton had started working to calm down the tiny person, and Logan looked up at the vampire again. They had clearly recognised the sound of the tiny person’s voice, going by the way they were trying to see them

Logan thought about the strange language that the vampire had spoken, then thought about how the tiny person had said that they wouldn’t be able to answer questions. Could they not speak English? Or were they perhaps just not fluent?

He tuned back into the conversation around him. The tiny person was shouting

“Stop- stop telling me to calm down ! I won’t be calm until you let them go! Please, just let them go, it’s almost sunrise,”

Logan looked out of the window. They were right, the sky was slowly lightening up.

Vampires died in sunlight, according to most myths. It made sense that they were so desperate. He looked down at the vampire, thinking.

He looked to the tiny person

“Okay, I’m going to let them out now, so if you’d just stop shouting, please,” he said, keeping his voice level to avoid any further stress on them

Their head snapped towards him, watching him like a hawk as he reached out to the glass. He lifted it up.

The vampire inside turned into a bat and speedily flew to their (friend?). They held onto each other as they reunited.

Both of their impromptu guests backed away under the table and disappeared. Logan looked under the table about a minute later and found no trace of them.

He and Patton looked at each other

“That was real, right? I’m not just imagining the two tiny people that just disappeared under there?” Patton asked, with a hint of uncertainty in his voice

Logan nodded without saying a word. Logan had a hard time believing it himself. He sighed. There was no proof of this encounter. There was nothing to indicate that it ever even happened. Nothing but his and Patton’s word. While his friends would be somewhat likely to believe them (with Patton’s lack of deceitful nature, and Logan’s completely serious demeanour) the rest of the world wouldn’t be so trusting

Then he asked himself the question: did he want to tell people? Both of the tiny people seemed downright terrified of him, what would they think if suddenly a lot of people were looking for them?

He went back to the couch and sat down. This whole day was strange, to say the least

—

Virgil paced back and forth in the walls. That was undoubtedly the most stressful, stupid, and dangerous thing he had ever done. He didn’t know what to do now.

Roman was out of the humans’ grasps, but now the humans knew that both of them existed, and it wouldn’t take long for them to figure out that they were in the walls. There were only so many places to disappear to when disappearing under a table

Roman was tracking his movements from where they were hugging their knees, sitting on the nest. Virgil was trying to think of something that could solve this entire problem.

He was supposed to move houses if he was seen, but Roman hadn’t fed properly, based on the sunken eyes, the gaunt cheeks, and the pale face. They’d move slowly. There was no guarantee that they’d find a suitable home before tomorrow’s sunrise if they started that night.

Roman obviously couldn’t drink this human’s blood again, and they couldn’t drink Virgil’s; that would kill him, and they couldn’t move house. So, what could they do? His mind was drawing blanks, and he groaned.

This was a nightmare of a situation. He sat down next to Roman, who rested their head on his shoulder. He turned his face toward them.

They’d been uncharacteristically quiet since they got away

“You still hungry?” He asked, already knowing the answer.

Roman responded with a short nod

“Any ideas on how to fix that?” He asked, once again knowing the answer

A shake of their head confirmed his thoughts.

“Well this sucks, huh?” He mused, an element of ironic humour in his voice.

Roman buried their face in his shoulder, and Virgil wrapped his arm around them. He didn’t blame them for not speaking. They had been captured by humans, they were less than an hour away from death until Virgil had somehow managed to reason with the humans to let them go.

A thought invaded his mind before he had the awareness to stop it. What if he was to… strike a deal with one of the humans? To give blood to Roman and Virgil could offer some small information every week. It was a crazy idea, but it was the only idea even semi-accomplishable.

He looked at Roman. His idea would be useless if he didn’t get Roman’s consent first. No use getting a deal with a human if Roman didn’t want it. Roman looked like they were about to fall asleep, he could wait.

They turned into a bat and fell asleep, still close to Virgil. Virgil waited a few minutes before slowly moving closer to the tiny hole in the wall. The humans seemed to have not moved much since they escaped. When Roman woke up, a few hours later, Virgil proposed his idea.

Roman was quick to agree, obviously incredibly hungry. They waited for the sun to set and went through the tunnels until they found where the human was

Virgil climbed up some nail stairs, so he’d have the advantage of being on a shelf, and therefore being less easily grabbable. Roman flew up in bat form, which Virgil insisted was cheating, but ignored just this once.

Virgil took several deep breaths before opening the wall. The human was on the other end of the room, and had not yet seen him.

Virgil motioned for Roman to stay behind the doorway for now, and walked further out on the shelf. He steeled himself and took another few deep breaths

No matter what he did, he would never be ready for this. This was the kind of thing that got people killed. He closed his eyes and shouted across the room to get the human’s attention.

A quick jolt from the other end of the room, and suddenly he had giant eyes on him. He tried to conceal the resulting flinch, and proposed his deal to his human.

It looked at him, with a contemplative expression

“What would happen if I were to say no?”

Virgil’s face fell

“If you were to say no, then my friend would die,” he said, trying to avoid emotions leaking into his voice

“Okay, then, bring your friend here, they can drink my blood. And in return, I get a question, yes?”

Virgil nodded ( this was a stupid thing to do, what was he doing- ) and he brought Roman forward

The human got its one question (what are you both?), and Roman got their blood.

Virgil and Roman set off to somewhere new the next night, not willing to stay near a human that knew what they were.

In the new walls, they both started setting up.

They were safe

—

Taglist: @a-chilly-pepper

#sanders sides gt #sanders sides fic #sanders sides story #sanders sides g/t #g/t #sanders sides #sanders side fic #sanders sides au #giant tiny #giant/tiny #tiny virgil #tiny Roman #vampire #vampire roman

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prodigal-explorer · 1 month

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Do you want to trade vampire aus? Bc me and my friends vampire au has janus and virgil and roman (and remus)

We actually have like 4 bc im obsessed with vampires but like The Main One lol

omg absolutely!!! i would love to!!

here is my vampire au:

Roman is a young teen who is infatuated with everything mythical and magical. He knows everything there is to know about magic, it's an extreme special interest of his. And he has a large forest outside his house that he regularly explores, hoping that he will find a mythical being one day.

And one day, he does.

Janus is a young vampire, the vampiric equivalent of a teenager. And when he and Roman run into each other, Roman treats Janus with kindness and curiosity, which is not what Janus expects. His older brother, Virgil, has always told him that humans are dangerous and back-stabbing. But Janus is a lonely boy, being raised only by Virgil, who is battling an extreme addiction to human blood and working hard to raise Janus and provide for him without coming near humans and risking killing them.

Janus and Roman become fast friends, especially when Roman discovers that Janus is a vampire, and is extremely happy to have finally met a mythical creature. Janus doesn't really feel any extreme craving for Roman's blood because he has never tasted human blood before, so he has no idea what he is missing out on.

Meanwhile, at Roman's house, there is father, Patton, and his older brother Logan is sort of like a ward of the family. Logan is not Roman's biological sibling, nor Patton's biological son. Logan sort of acts as a built-in babysitter for Roman, especially because Patton has gone mad. When Roman was very young, his twin brother, Remus, died in the big forest, and ever since that horrible day, Patton has lost it, insisting that a rabid vampire killed his little boy, and that he vows to find the vampire that did it and kill him, so that he can keep his surviving son, Roman, safe from harm. Every day, he searches in the big forest for the vampire, but as a result, he neglects Roman and Logan, leaving them to their own devices for very long stretches.

Logan thinks this is ridiculous. After all, vampires don't exist! He, and every other human in their lives, believes that Remus fell out of a tree, and that was how he died. But Patton knows the truth.

Eventually, Janus introduces Roman to Virgil, and Roman introduces Janus and Virgil to Logan. It goes about how you would expect: Virgil and Logan both think that the other is strange and shouldn't be trusted, but Roman and Janus work hard to bring the four together, and it eventually works out when Virgil and Logan realize that they have the same goal: to protect their little brothers from harm.

But what happens when Virgil decides to fully trust these humans as well as Janus, and tell them something that he never dared to tell anyone? That the day he realized he needed to stop pursuing human blood was the same day ten years ago, where he found a tiny little boy in the woods and sucked him dry, killing him. And that the little boy looked identical to Roman.

And yeah! That's my AU!! I really really like it, and it gets even angstier when you consider the possibility of Patton discovering Janus and Virgil and figuring out what they are, or Logan realizing that Virgil was indirectly the reason why the family fell apart.

It's just cool. Yeah! I would love to hear about your AU!!

#sanders sides #thomas sanders #sanders sides fandom #tss #roman sanders #virgil sanders #patton sanders #logan sanders #janus sanders #remus sanders #sanders sides au #tss au #sanders sides fanfic #sanders sides fic #sanders sides fanfiction #tss vampire au #roceit #analogical

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amereoddsketch · 10 months

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[Redraw of old art! Some Sander sides cause- I miss them💔]

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sleepyvirgilprompts · 1 year

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Virgil has an unusual sleep schedule. He stays awake until dawn and sleeps until afternoon. This is because he works the night shift at his job. He’s happy to; it decreases his chances of having to interact with other people. It also decreases his chances of having to go out in the sun-- he sunburns easily, and he hates sunscreen.

Virgil’s friend Roman, who isn’t aware of the thing about sunburns or the thing about the night shift, has noticed how unnaturally pale Virgil is and what strange hours he keeps, and is beginning to suspect that Virgil is a vampire.

He’s right.

#sanders sides #virgil sanders #ts virgil #sanders sides prompts #fanfiction prompt #vampire virgil #human au

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ax3-e0ns · 1 year

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Y’all have some Older Brother Janus from my Werebeast AU as a treat!

#Sanders Sides #Janus Sanders #Virgil Sanders #technically #he's the cat #Werebeast AU #my art #my artwork #funfact: Janus is regularly mistaken as a vampire #He's just a very sassy goth #he will hunt for sport anyone who looks at Virgil wrong /j

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dystopiagnome · 2 years

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What if you were a reincarination of my first love but also a vampire hunter because vampires tragically ate your brother and I was a vampire (sad) and we maybe kissed a lil' to ease the heavy homoerotic tension of that moment you try to stake me but don't because I can't help but confess that after all these years you're still the most beautiful person I've ever seen and it startles you out of the mood. What if.

Anyways this is specifically @ivan-draws-things(@ivan-draws-sandersides)'s Roman design because we thought it would be fun <3

#prinxiety #tss virgil #tss roman #based on the prev post yes the window does have a part in this one too #Anyways your honor is this vaguely a terrible CW show randomly based choices on a wheel #AU with both besties (Expedia and Iv <3)#tw blood #tw vampire

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nonbinary-octopus · 1 year

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been thinking recently about an older story of mine, and about wrapping it up with one more chapter, so I started rereading it, and now I'm contemplating some mild rewrites...

just. some things I think they'd do, that I hadn't quite figured out their characters enough yet in the first couple chapters

#original #writing a thing #vampire Virgil au

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5am-the-foxing-hour · 7 months

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Fey Remus and Fey Roman: *in a competition to see who can chop up their pile of wood into firewood the fastest* Patton *gathering the thrown about firewood into baskets so Janus can carry them to the woodshed*: Oh! Virgil, where are you going? Vampire Virgil *dressed up in a black cape and more vampire aesthetic look, compared to his more relaxed everyday wear*: Coven meeting. Shouldn't take longer than a week... Ugh I hate when the whole family get together. Too many people. Werewolf Janus: Good luck. Vampire Virgil: Thanks. I'm glad it only happens once every century. Patton: I keep forgetting you're really old, Virgil. Vampire Virgil: I'm younger than those two idiots *gestures towards Remus and Roman who are now hurling insults at each other*. Werewolf Janus: ... how old are they exactly? Witch Logan *basket of mushrooms at his hip*: The two of them are about as old as this forest, so a millennia give or take, but who knows really. They never give me a good answer. I'm starting to suspect they don't know it themselves.

#Sanders Sides #Janus #Remus #Logan #Roman #Patton #Virgil #Werewolf Janus #Fey Remus #Fey Roman #Witch Logan #Vampire Virgil #human Patton #incorrect quotes #shitpost #Wolfsbane au

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darcylovette · 1 year

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Creatures of the Night

By Darcy Lovette (ao3)

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Ship/s: Logan/Virgil

Genre: Supernatural Romance AU

Tags: Werewolves, Vampires, Omegaverse, Magic, Drama and Romance, Hurt and Comfort, Witches, Mild Dom/Sub, Slowburn, Explicit (full tags on story)

A world where Humans, Werewolves, Vampires, and Witches live together in “harmony”.

It’s not uncommon for a Rogue wolf to try and make a life outside of a Pack, but for Omegas it’s a different story.

To keep their uneasy pact with the distrustful humans, all Omegas must be placed within a Pack, the exact place decided by their Leader. If one is found, they must be handed over at once, with no fair trial or say in the matter.

After ten years living free, Virgil is caught and forced to integrate with a Pack so large it became its own independent city. But unexpected complications see him placed in the custody of Logan du Bris - son of the infamous Lord of Vampires.

Chapters: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 / 11 / 12 / 13 / 14 / 15 / 16 / 17 / 18 / 19 / 20 / 21 / 22 / 23 / 24 / 25 / 26 / 27 / 28

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delimeful · 2 years

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to taste your beating heart (7)

warnings: vampire au, dissociation, silly goofy vampire worldbuilding moments, remus pov so intrusive thoughts/gore mention/etc., references to past abuse/trauma

It took a while for Virgil to drag himself back up into complete consciousness.

Rather than stay and sit with him, Janus had immediately resorted to scheming, AKA, his primary coping mechanism for when he had to deal with upsetting emotions.

He’d exchanged a glance with Remus, silently assigning him babysitting duty, and then swept off to the den to discuss how he planned to destroy whatever coven had done this from the inside out. Logan had started contributing to the scheming before they’d even fully left the room, and Patton had followed them to either belatedly try and apply the brakes to that trainwreck or convince them to stop pulling the brakes on his own attempted trainwreck.

Honestly, the guy should know better by now. Not only was Janus an unstoppable force of self-care when he wanted to be, if they’d let Patton get away with that self-sacrificial bullshit, Virgil would have had their asses on a platter once he got back.

Wait, no, Virgil was already here. They’d found him, he just wasn’t himself. Had a funky new nickname and everything. Remus shook his head a bit, trying to get the thoughts to fall into place properly instead of bouncing around like wasps in a jar.

This was the problem with having vampire instincts that were more convoluted and twisty than a maze made out of rusty corkscrews. Sure, he got that this was Virgil’s face and body and goofy emo bangs, but his brain latched onto details like the glowing eyes and fresh-out-of-the-coffin smell and told him baby vamp instead.

The appropriate behavior for dealing with a distressed baby vamp did not include Janus swanning off to pretend like he’d never heard of an emotional crisis in his life, but luckily Remus was there to pick up the slack.

Planting his butt on the linoleum a few feet away from the corner ‘Anx’ had wedged himself into, Remus cleared his throat with a few obnoxious, phlegm-filled noises before starting up one of the few vampire-specific sounds that were audible even to humans.

The separation call was a low trill, one that burbled out in short staccato bursts, like a songbird’s chirrups but squeakier. Allegedly, it was similar to the noises bats made to communicate, which was about 60% of the reason that Remus was still of the firm opinion that vampires totally could turn into bats, everyone but him was just too limp-dick to really try.

Predictably, Anx’s head jolted up, the call catching his attention the way words hadn’t. His eyes were still a little distant, but they were at least seeking out Remus… and then settling on him with no recognition whatsoever.

Talk about a stake to the chest. He hadn’t realized how bad it would feel to have Virgil staring at him like a stranger. Remus thought he would honestly prefer it if Virgil had reverted to that one phase in his teens where he’d tried to stab Remus whenever he’d appeared on Janus’s behalf for check-ins.

He pushed past the knotted little ball of grief in his throat and made the chirp-call again, glad that this was one aspect of vampirism that he excelled at. Janus mostly stuck to the more subsonic vocalizations, but even those could come out a little wonky if he was all twisted up about something and ignoring his instincts.

Since Remus’s instincts were turned up to eleven pretty much always, he didn’t have that problem. Even with his calls coming out perfect, though, Anx was slow to respond. The baby vamp would inch forward a bit and then pause, all tense muscles and perked ears, before inching forward again.

It was… unnatural. Remus wasn’t a part of the coven that had turned Virgil– he planned to burn that coven to the ground with the vamps inside, actually– so a rejection wouldn’t have been unreasonable, but this wasn’t a rejection. It was just a very strange, stilted approach.

More than anything, it seemed as though Anx was waiting for someone to notice his response to the call and punish it, which was so antithetical to the idea of a call meant to reunite younger members of covens with the older protectors that Remus had to spend a few moments blinking away the haze of murderous intent that clouded his vision upon realizing it.

This wasn’t the time for murder, he reminded himself. This was the time for reassuring babies.

He added a crooning undertone to the next call, and was careful not to twitch as Anx finally crossed the last of the distance to slot neatly under Remus’s uplifted arm. He did that painful little tense pause again, but when all Remus did was start up a contented rumble, he went floppy against his side.

The last vamps he’d been with had hurt him for this, but he was still trusting Remus not to do the same. The thought made something in his chest feel bizarrely squishy.

“What are you doing?” Roman whispered furiously, as though he was worried that talking too loud would somehow make V’s dissociative fugue state worse.

“Come on, Ro-bro,” he replied from where he was squashing Virgil against his side and nearly vibrating with the force of his purr-rumble, “I know you don’t get bitches, but even you have to know how cuddling works.”

Roman made a face at him, but drifted closer regardless, watching Anx with a complicated mixture of confusion and curiosity.

Remus spared a second to be glad that his brother had never registered to his instincts as anything but a colony member, even back when they’d sort-of kind-of been trying to kill each other. That weird organ-squashing feeling seemed to correlate with how much trust his kinda-baby-brother-turned-baby-vamp was placing in him at the moment, and he wasn’t sure he’d be able to endure not disemboweling anyone he viewed as even a minor threat the moment they got in range.

“I thought he was freaking out,” Roman said, giving the floor a distasteful look before sighing and sitting next to them. That was what he got for wearing white pants like a chump.

“Yep,” Remus confirmed. “I’m un-freaking him. Duh.”

“Impossible. You’re like the freakiest person I know,” Roman replied, earning himself a fastpass ticket to being put in a one-armed headlock.

The resulting swearing and wrestling jostled Anx slightly, and this time when his gaze flickered over to them, he was actually seeing them.

After a beat of processing where he now sat, Anx went entirely rigid, fingers curling in preparation to strike like the flashing of a cornered alley cat’s claws.

“Emo!” Remus greeted, keeping his left side loose and unthreatening even as Roman made dramatic choking noises from his right. “Welcome back to the land of the unliving!”

Anx stared at him apprehensively, pupils blown wide to catch every movement, and when Remus only sat there and continued his casual soothing rumble, he glanced at Roman’s thrashing with badly-hidden concern.

“Are you… killing the hunters?” he asked, looking like he was itching to start a fight about it but he knew in his little vamp heart that Remus could kick his ass into next week.

Not that he would. Who would fight a baby?

But man, Anx must have checked out early if he hadn’t even heard enough earlier to cotton on to the weird detente that Janus had with these guys. “Nah, just applying a little mild strangulation! It’s affectionate in nature.”

Anx didn’t look like he believed him, so Remus loosened his grip enough for Roman to wiggle free, making sure he ruined his perfectly coiffed hair in the process, of course.

“You loathsome, loutish, lawless little leech!” Roman cried, grabbing the hilt of his sword with a flourish that was all show.

But he was still grabbing a weapon next to a twitchy anxious newly-turned vamp, proving that he had not a single brain cell to rattle around in that thick skull of his. Honestly, it was like Remus was the only one with a little decorum around here!

Rather than shy away, however, Anx made a low growl in his chest, a baby version of the ‘my colony member, back off or lose a limb’ noise. He blinked afterwards, seeming almost as surprised as Roman about it, but there was no lying when it came to primal vamp noises.

Remus couldn’t have stopped the delighted, lip-splitting grin if he’d wanted to.

“Aw, you like me,” he singsonged, and was utterly unsurprised when Anx responded by growling and shoving him hard enough to make him topple over. He didn’t resist the momentum, cackling all the way down to a slumped position on the floor.

Yeah, that was definitely Virgil. Even if he did look alarmed and confused at his own daring.

“Hold it, is this a normal vampire thing? I thought the creature noises were just you being you,” Roman asked in an accusatory tone, seemingly ignoring Anx apart from the way his hands were now carefully positioned away from any visible weaponry.

For about a fraction of a millisecond, Remus contemplated the possible repercussions of throwing Janus under all six wheels of the double decker bus that was Virgil’s band of emotionally constipated hunters.

About as quickly, he remembered he didn’t give a shit. Also, it would probably be really funny.

“You just think that because your main point of vamp contact is Janus. You’d have better luck prying emotional vulnerability from a rabid raccoon than that guy. Also, I guess most other vamps you three meet instantly attempt to maul you to death. Or run away, y’know, if they’re boring.” He stretched, making his back pop grotesquely.

“A rabid raccoon, huh.” Roman was looking at Anx contemplatively now. “Do you think vampirism counts as a form of rabies?”

Anx bared his teeth halfheartedly, but he seemed mostly preoccupied now with glancing between Remus, still sprawled out on the kitchen tile, and the door to the den.

“Why are you so…,” he trailed off, sounding confused and sort of miserable.

“Annoying? Vexing? Gross?” Roman listed helpfully, kicking in Remus’s general direction when he started preening at the “praise”.

“Safe?” Anx tried, and then shook his head like a dog trying to shake free a tick. “You’re not, you’re with him, but you feel…,” he grimaced, switching tracks. “If you’re not here for the hunters, you’re here for me. What do you want with me?”

Remus stared at the kitchen ceiling and contemplated deeply for a moment. “Mostly, I want to try pitching you into the air like a baseball.”

This was a thought he had about babies frequently, which was why he didn’t ever stick around when they were present. Luckily, baby vampires were far more resilient than mortal ones.

Anx stared blankly. Roman sighed with the exhaustion of one who had been subjected to this particular idea before. “You cannot ‘fastball special’ a baby. He’s not even a baby, he’s a grown man!”

Remus made an extremely dubious face, and Anx bristled in offense. The infant energies were off the chart with that one.

“What’s got you so freaked out about Janus, anyhow?” Roman continued, and Anx’s eyes flickered back over to the doorway with no little wariness.

He didn’t answer, so Remus decided to cut apart the middle man and spill the details himself. “It’s because Janabanana is a coven head, isn’t it?”

Anx stiffened in a way that meant his guess was right on the money. Remus propped himself up on his elbows, squinting at him intently until their eyes locked.

He ticked options off on his fingers, one by one. “Can’t be how strong he is, ‘cuz I’m stronger. Can’t be bad blood, ‘cuz you don’t remember him. So, it’s gotta be the only other thing you’d be able to pick up within minutes of meeting him: coven head.” Remus shrugged casually. “I mean, they’re easy enough to identify by scent. You’ve met one, you recognize them all.

“So, what’s got you all nervous, Count Dorkula? Bad experiences with the one you met?”

“None of your business,” he snapped, his spine stiff. “I’m not telling you anything.”

Despite the snarl in his voice, he looked only a moment away from retreating back to that dissociative shutdown.

Roman shot him a warning glance over Anx’s head, which Remus would have given him shit about if Anx’s response hadn’t just proved that it was actually extremely reasonable to be concerned about whatever the hell was going on in the gray matter of the vamp in front of them.

Still, pressing now wasn’t going to do anything for any of them. Remus shrugged and flopped himself back down against the floor, letting his head hit the tile with a dull crack to make Roman cringe. “Yeah, alright. Enough about that, then. Back to our original conversation; how do you feel about heights?”

“What?” Anx asked, bewildered. The utter confusion he was feeling at not being interrogated or otherwise tortured for information was not making Remus feel any less homicidal about his former coven, but it at least seemed to knock some clarity back into the baby vamp.

“Heights,” Remus repeated. “The sort of thing you would experience if you were, say, thrown at a supernatural speed into the air? In a manner similar to the act of throwing some sort of spherical object used for sportsgames? Hypothetically but also for real.”

“No,” Roman interjected immediately, like the buzzkill he was. “You are not throwing V– Anx around the house at mach speed. Janus will murder us both for endangering his already-traumatized family member, and then Logan will find a way to bring us back to life just to kill us again for destroying the furniture.”

“I’ve always wanted to get the full Frankenstein experience,” Remus mused brightly, and then rolled out of the way of his brother’s attempt to elbow him right in the solar plexus. He was midway through shoving Roman into a retaliatory chokehold when a throat cleared pointedly.

“I see you two have been very productive while I’ve been gone,” Janus drawled from where he’d snuck silently into the room so he could insert himself into the discussion with a snarky comment at the perfect moment. Classic Janus.

Of course, this has the side effect of making Anx jump like a cat faced with a cucumber, and the guy now looked one wrong move from crabwalking himself backwards into the security of the corner once more. Janus very carefully kept his mask of sardonic amusement at others’ expenses in place.

Honestly. Awkwardness must have run in the family or something.

Remus reached around and squished Anx into a sidehug briefly, long enough to roll his eyes at Janus over his head, before releasing him and springing to his feet. “See you around, hellspawn! Remember, if you commit a felony, I’ve got you covered like mold on an abandoned slice of cheese. Especially if it’s one of those really messy ones we talked about!”

This was confusing enough to drag some of Anx’s attention from his overwhelming wariness, and as a bonus, it distracted everyone else in the room from watching Janus experience emotional devastation in real time.

“I don’t think there’s any feloneed for that,” Patton said with a nervous laugh. He was making alarmed eye contact with Roman, who would now take the fall for seemingly allowing Remus to impart extensive knowledge of felonies upon their amnesiac teammate.

His job done, he gave Anx a hair tousle and the three stooges a customized version of a jaunty farewell salute (now with 200% more middle-fingers!) before following Janus back out of the sickeningly domestic little house and slamming the door shut behind them.

(He had already broken 4 sets of door hinges for this place, and was gunning for a fifth, but alas, the door remained upright. Not today, it seemed. Probably because Logan had started enchanting the damn things like the sore loser he was.)

On the porch, Janus turned away to compose himself, a bit of vulnerability that only Remus was allowed to be privy to. Remus didn’t say anything aloud, but he knew that Janus picked up on his subvocal hum, an ‘I’m here’ that wasn't spoken in words and didn’t require a response.

After a few moments of patiently waiting, he watched as Janus turned back towards the rest of the world. He’d pried each fragment of the sharp, jagged-glass hurt he felt about Virgil from his heart, and aimed them outwards.

At those who had dared to steal his only remaining family away. At those who had made sure Virgil remembered fear, even when he didn’t recall anything else. At those who had dared to spit in the face of the city’s most powerful coven leader.

It was time they got a little reminder of just why Janus had earned that title.

And just as promised, Remus would be right at his side.

#sanders sides fic #vampire au #ts remus #ts virgil #ts roman #ts janus #ts patton #ts logan #ttybh #to taste your beating heart #My writing #writing #sanders sides

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