Chapter Text
The supermarket was Ja’far’s last stop before he could go home—and what a desirable thought, after being out and about nearly all day. He glanced at the sun’s position—setting, almost dusk—before he walked into the store and out of the cold winter air, moving quickly to gather the items he needed. As time went on, Ja’far felt a strange urgency to move more quickly, to leave and return to a safe place—
The reason behind the strange anxiety made itself known in the form of a boy with red hair, looking puzzled as he contemplated an aisle dedicated to sweets. Ja’far blinked, his other sense throwing up red flags at the sight. He watched the boy sigh and walk toward two others with the same shade of hair—brothers, perhaps? After watching for a few moments, Ja’far gasped with realization and moved as quickly as he could without drawing undue attention to himself .
The Ren siblings.
Hunters.
Ja’far swallowed, his heart beating too quickly for comfort, before he moved to buy what he had and left. He didn’t even grab half of the things on his list, but both the feel of the hunters so nearby and the knowledge of what would happen if he were found out had him too anxious to stay. He made it outside and nearly to his car before he felt a hand grab at his arm, pulling him back slightly.
Ja’far wheeled around and was faced with the boy he’d seen earlier, causing his stomach to drop. Of course, he kept his face serene, forcing a polite confusion to his expression.
“Ah…can I help you?” he asked, trying to pull his arm back, but the grip on it was very strong.
“Hey. You feel funny,” was all he got in response.
The other two siblings joined them, walking over from the front of the store. The one with the longer hair and freckles looked bored, while the one with the strange goatee looked angry, but Ja’far suspected that was just how his face looked.
“I…okay?” Ja’far blinked, not sure how to respond to that.
“Let’s be honest with one another,” the one with the goatee started. “We’re the Ren siblings, as you’ve probably figured out by now. We’re hunters. And we know that you’re not just another human…tell us what you are, so we can rule you out of our investigation.”
Ja’far bit his lip, and decided some modicum of honesty might help him get out of this situation more quickly.
“I’m a clairvoyant—but not very gifted. I wouldn’t be useful to you in any kind of investigation,” he murmured, largely downplaying his talents. While it was true that he wasn’t the best in all of history, he had enough of his extra sense to gather a large picture of what was happening in the places he needed to know about—and that the Ren siblings had been able to fly under his radar was a testament to their skill at cloaking their own otherworldly trace. The thought made him nervous.
“We don’t need a clairvoyant,” the one with the freckles drawled. “But thanks for the info. We’re actually looking for a vampire rumored to be wreaking havoc around here—wouldn’t know anything about it, would you?”
Ja’far nearly tensed, but answered without missing a beat. “Vampires? There was a nest a few towns over not too long ago, but…”
“Not a nest,” Goatee interrupted, “A lone vampire. The signs don’t lead to an entire nest…it’s been more sporadic, less casualties than you usually see with a horde of vamps. The problem is that they keep evading us, no matter how we try and approach them. Makes us think they’ve got someone helping them.”
There was a rather accusatory silence for a few moments, before Ja’far huffed.
“And you think I might be in league with a vampire?” he frowned, looking rather offended.
“Can’t rule it out just yet. May I?” Goatee asked, reaching out a hand toward the scarf around Ja’far’s neck.
He rolled his eyes before undoing the knot himself, pulling the fabric free and shivering a little as the cold air hit his skin. The three inspected his neck and teeth and gums (much to the bewilderment of those passing around them), and eventually the one with the goatee nodded.
“I can safely say you’re not a vampire, or being used by one…but we’ll be in contact.” The three began to walk away before he called over his shoulder as an afterthought, “Let us know if you hear anything.”
Ja’far forced himself to nod, before he got in his car and started it. He bit his lip, letting out a deep breath after the trio was out of sight. He pulled his phone out of his pocket, noting the missed calls, before he dropped it in the seat next to his groceries.
He drove around for a while, ensuring that he wasn’t being followed, before he finally got home, well after dark. Ja’far didn’t bother turning on any lights as he set the bags on the counter in the kitchen, knowing that his presence was already noticed by the one waiting for him.
“You were gone so long, I was beginning to wonder if you’re cheating on me.”
Ja’far huffed, turning to the shadow in the doorway.
“I was confronted by hunters. And I had to drop the tracker they placed on me, as well as make sure they weren’t following me. And with whom would I cheat on the great and powerful Sinbad, hmm?” he asked drily.
“Nobody, hopefully,” Sinbad smiled, stepping into the kitchen fully. “Hunters come and go; don’t worry about them.”
Ja’far turned to look at the other with a crease of worry in his face, a frown on his lips. “They’re asking about the rogue vampire we’ve been tracking. If they find you instead, you know they won’t just let it go.”
Sinbad hummed, stepping into Ja’far’s personal space and picking him up easily, nuzzling at his nose as the other wrapped his legs around his waist, if only for some semblance of balance.
“I figured as much. We’ll have to be careful…and who knows, maybe they’ll even get rid of the pest for us,” he grinned, nipping at the soft skin of his neck and licking over the pulse he found.
Ja’far shivered, his fingers combing through thick purple locks. “It’s the Rens, Sin.”
Sinbad paused, looking up at Ja’far’s distressed face.
“Hakutoku’s children?”
“No…cousins, I think. But still very dangerous. We cannot afford to take their presence lightly, Sin…we’ve got to cover up all trace of your presence.”
The other sighed, pressing one last kiss to Ja’far’s throat before he set him down again.
“I’ll be careful.” He made a face, his eyes fixated on Ja’far’s neck. He knew Ja’far couldn’t see in the dark as he could—aside from his clairvoyance, he was just like any other human. But the silence after his words was deafening, and his promise fell a little flat.
“Somehow, I rather doubt it,” Ja’far muttered, fidgeting. “Will you listen more closely if I let you feed?”
Sinbad laughed lowly, more of a lion’s predatory purr than a human’s mirth. “I could taste where they touched you. I’ll have to make sure you wash properly afterwards.” A long finger traced down the side of Ja’far’s face (his breath hitched), pausing on the racing pulse at his throat. “They always look for signs of forced entry on the neck…you’d think by now that even the most dimwitted of hunters would realize that there are arteries located elsewhere on the human body.”
Ja’far could hear the smirk on Sinbad’s lips even as he was pulled to their bedroom, his clothes efficiently stripped from him in moments. He felt the goosebumps rise on his skin as he heard Sinbad pulling his shirt off, able to see his outline from the light of the half-moon through the window. Ja’far bit the inside of his cheek when he felt the bed dip, his eyes closing once he felt a hand on his side, and long hair touching at his face and chest.
Gray eyes opened to find yellow staring back at him. There was still a familiar warmth to them, but even without noticing the blown pupils, Ja’far could sense the insistent hunger growing inside of him. He took a deep breath, bringing his hands up to Sinbad’s face and pulling him down for a kiss. He was quickly pressed down, forced into a submission he’d have fallen into willingly given the chance, and moaning quietly at the feel of the hands gripping his waist, the hips grinding into his, the sharp nick of a fang on his tongue.
Sinbad growled at the tang of blood in his mouth, pressing forward more insistently to get a better taste. Only when Ja’far started whimpering did he force himself to pull back, loosening his grip on the other and gathering himself before he looked back down to his lover.
Ja’far was gasping for air, already feeling thoroughly worked over despite Sinbad not even having fed on him yet. It was always like this—overwhelming, overpowering, too much…but that’s exactly how he liked it. He stared up at the other with glazed eyes, waiting for him to calm down enough to begin his controlled frenzy.
“It’s been a while…” Sinbad started hoarsely, his voice low and gruff and everything that made Ja’far want to squirm, “…so I…I can’t go for long. Or I’ll hurt you for real.”
Ja’far hummed in acknowledgement, blinking slowly. “I understand,” he murmured, watching Sinbad’s eyes flick to the nightstand, where a seemingly innocent jar of water sat waiting.
“I won’t need it. I’ve never needed to hurt you with holy water before. Have some faith in yourself.”
Sinbad chuckled darkly, sitting up slightly to pull his mass of hair over one shoulder, shuffling down until his lips rested on the soft, pale skin of Ja’far’s belly, nipping softly. “You have absolutely no idea how many times you’ve been moments away from dying. This is such a terrible, awful thing for me to do to you…” he trailed off, before moving his face into the inside of a plush thigh, his tongue running over the many familiar scars his own fangs had left in the past.
“…But I just can’t help myself.”
Ja’far cried out when he felt Sinbad bite down, his jaw locking as his fingers squeezed into the flesh of his thigh, trying to get as much of his blood out as he could. Ja’far’s first instinct was to bury his hands into the other’s hair, scratch at his scalp and scream, cry and wail, but none of those things were helpful while Sin was feeding. Ja’far got off on the pain, masochistic as he was, but as had been proven a few times in the past, acting vulnerable while a vampire was feeding only fed their baser instincts: hunting and killing prey. He’d had his wrist broken for touching Sinbad while he fed once in the past (for which he’d gotten over a hundred apologies, all kinds of chocolate and flowers and no complaints for weeks afterwards—that last once especially had been nice), and so he simply bit down on his own lip, trying to ignore the aching of his own cock while he waited for Sinbad to finish, his hands fisting as he held them up near his face.
A breath he didn’t know he’d been holding left Ja’far’s lungs when Sinbad drew back suddenly, his own gasp for air filling the room before he was pulling at his pants, pushing them down past his hips and taking his cock in a hand, stroking quickly as he watched Ja’far scramble for the lube in the nightstand, quickly pressing his slicked fingers inside for as much preparation as he could manage before Sinbad batted his hand away, pushed him back down to the mattress and forced himself in with one quick thrust, Ja’far’s shriek echoing beautifully in his ears as he started a brutal pace, his yellow eyes intense on Ja’far’s face, those dark freckles nearly beaten out by the flush on his cheeks, his heaving chest, the muscles working in his abdomen as he took the jarring force from Sinbad’s hips, his flushed erection, down to the still-bleeding holes in his thigh, the dark liquid smearing onto his own skin as Ja’far’s legs clung to his waist.
Sinbad nearly stopped to go back to feeding at the sight, but the quickness of Ja’far’s heartbeat, the sluggishness of his movements—uncoordinated even for being in the middle of sex—the glassiness of his eyes when they were open—he was at his limit.
Ja’far gave the most erotic moan when he came, his back arching up as his hands fisted in the pillows above his head before he passed out, his entire body limp.
Sinbad came hard only moments later, grunting as he released deep inside the other, his hips jerking forward without any sense of rhythm until he was finished.
Before he let himself think, Sinbad leaned over to grab at the towel they kept at the side of the bed for just this reason, applying pressure to the wound he created in Ja’far’s thigh. By the time it had stopped bleeding, Sinbad had more of his inhibitions, checking to be sure he hadn’t hurt the other during his brief step away from his inhibitions. After noting only bruises and the marks from his fangs, he cleaned the other up, opting to worry about the sheets later, before he wiped up the blood that had smeared across his own skin, unable to resist licking at the towel before he bandaged the wound and settled down next to Ja’far, monitoring his breathing while he slept (it was fast, and rather shallow, but fine for having just lost the amount of blood he did—and then having rough sex right afterwards).
There was just something about the blood of a clairvoyant…something just made it better than a regular human’s blood.
Sinbad nuzzled into snowy white hair, a sated smile on his lips before he let himself doze—or whatever the equivalent was for a vampire—until the other would awaken later.
Ja’far woke to the sound of a very insistent doorbell, and a very low growling against his ear. He moaned pathetically, his head pounding from the loss of blood, and he felt blindly up Sinbad’s chest until he found his face, touching gently.
“Quiet…you know who it is?” he mumbled, not wanting to open his eyes just then.
“Hunters,” was the only reply for a moment. “The Rens. Their voices are annoying…grating. And the little one needs to pipe down. Thought you said they didn’t follow you?”
Ja’far nearly pulled the blankets up over his head to shield out the reality of the world around him, but the doorbell rang again, and he knew he had to get up.
“They didn’t. I’ll…I’ll find out who told them,” he murmured distractedly, carefully pulling on sweatpants, then grabbing one of Sinbad’s shirts and pulling it on before he made his way to the door, doing his best to hide the limp in his gait. He left the latching lock on so that the door could only open a few inches, eyeing the familiar brothers before him.
“Who told you where I live,” was Ja’far’s demand before any of them could start.
“…A witch by the name of Ka Koubun,” Goatee answered after a slight pause, and Ja’far sneered.
“I’ll make his life hell later,” he muttered, face darkening. Hunters were generally bad news for any part of the supernatural community—snitching things like a home address to them was a breach of the social contract, and Ja’far had enough friends to make that bottom feeder wish he’d never settled in this part of the country…
Ja’far pulled himself from his machinations, remembering his current company and fixing them with a level stare.
“I’ve already told you, I don’t know anything.”
“Ka Koubun mentioned you had a…partner…that was connected to one of the vamps in the nest that was eradicated nearby a few years ago. You mentioned it, actually, if you remember. May we speak with him?”
“You mean he went after the one that killed his family? That kind of connection?” Ja’far responded drily, taking a slight pleasure in the awkward way the three glanced away.
“We apologize for the…tactless way that was asked. We were not informed,” the freckled one supplied quickly. “But we’ve found ourselves stumped once more by this vamp who seemingly disappears without a trace. We’re back to square one, and we’ve got to work with what we’ve got.”
“Whatever rogue vampire is causing the problem isn’t from the nest you’re talking about,” Ja’far answered emotionlessly, his head still throbbing with the sunlight really not helping. He could feel the bruises pressed into his skin, causing an ache in his bones that normally would be rather pleasing, but with the stress of dealing with hunters at his house, and his vampire boyfriend only a few rooms away from their sight, the pain coming from every injury sustained the night before was hardly putting him in a good mood.
“All those vampires died—the community here saw to that. Whoever this one is, they’re not related, and Sin won’t have any useful information for you. Besides that, he’s been rather sick recently, and isn’t up for visitors.”
Well, if they forced their way inside, they could play the illness card; that would explain the pallor of his once-tanned skin and the strangeness of his aura. He could hide the latter rather well, but it still came across as odd to those trained in such arts.
There was a pregnant pause, in which the brothers glanced at one another in some kind of silent communication that made Ja’far’s eyes narrow.
“By ‘Sin’…do you by chance mean Sinbad?” the freckled one asked, his eyes only a fraction wider than they’d been before.
Ja’far sighed, cursing his thoughtless brain for allowing such information out.
“Yes…” he started, a long-suffering tone in his voice. “But he gave up hunting once he found what he was looking for. He’s been off the grid for a reason, so please, leave him be.”
“Everyone wondered where he’d gone,” the small one laughed excitedly, ignoring Ja’far’s put-out stare. “He’s the best hunter of all time, please Mr. Clairvoyant person, I wanna meet him!”
Goatee looked like he was going to say something but stopped himself, looking to Ja’far for his reaction. He sighed, shaking his head and getting ready to close the door.
“I’ve just told you, he’s not well. His health has been in decline for a while now, and he really can’t take visitors, investigation or not. Sorry to leave you back at square one.” He closed the door, locked it, and replaced the fig branch that had fallen from the doorframe when he’d opened it.
Sinbad was there when he turned, eyeing him suspiciously.
“I’m okay. Sorry I let that slip,” he apologized, making to move past him and toward the kitchen.
Sinbad caught him before he even began to take a step. He picked Ja’far up, kissing the freckles on one cheek before moving through the house and dropping him rather unceremoniously on the bed, a stern look on his face as the other tried to protest.
“Quiet. You’re on bedrest. Like I said, don’t worry about the hunters. They come and go…much like we do. You’ve been wanting to pick up again soon, so once they leave, we’ll make the preparations. Kay?”
Ja’far was frustrated when he could find nothing to argue with, his slow nod causing Sinbad to smile.
“Now,” he murmured, leaning over Ja’far and pressing a kiss to his forehead, “go to sleep.”
“…Kay.”