Title : Eternal Existence (with you)
Prompt-# : 146
For : -kimkyungri- 
Pairing : Jonghyun/Key
Author : Anonymous until reveals
Word count : 3,384
Rating : R
Warnings : mention of blood, violence
Summary : Jonghyun had yearned to watch the sunrise. But a certain human changed his mere excuse of an existence back into a real life. Kibum made him feel. Kibum made him love. Vampire!AU

Jonghyun watched the pale male lying on the bed. He seemed to be very comfortable with the electric heater in the room, creating the right temperature for him.
The silken blankets covered his body which rose and fell with his deep breaths.
Kibum always looked so peaceful when asleep, dreaming of undiscovered lands and interesting people he will never meet. His face was smoothed out, no tension was seen in his complexion only the occasional flicker beneath his eyelids indicating a very vivid dream.
Jonghyun wondered if he had looked like this as well.
Back when he was still able to sleep and dream of things he wanted to achieve, places he wanted to visit and unique music he wanted to listen to.
The brunet had been a big dreamer – he remembered that. He remembered that he wanted to become a famous composer maybe, playing newly written pieces to the royalty and causing them to smile. Working in the palace and offering a moment of peace to the much exhausted nobles there had been his dream. And also the opportunities of travel it would inevitably bring.

Jonghyun remembered that he had been from a poor family, but it had never stopped him from aiming high.
But now…? How long has it been since then?
He couldn’t remember anymore. Life had been meaningless to him as he had wandered the streets of modern Seoul in the dark, evading other creatures of the night on his restless search for blood. There had been nothing left for him but the hunger that let him strive for the warmth of humans. Many years ago, he had also enjoyed seeking pleasure from those mortals and if only for one night.
That had stopped too.
It had been meaningless.
After seeing kingdoms crumble, people dying in unnecessary wars and being caught in the spider webs of politics… Jonghyun had grown tired.
So damn tired that he had considered watching the sunrise. Watching the sun without any protection and let its warmth and its endless rays of light burn away his skin, evaporate his soul so that his immortal body would finally stop to function.
That it was finally over.

But fate had never played by his rules.
If it had, he would have become a very important person at court, playing for the royal family and their extended relatives, gaining new knowledge about music and all the instruments there were. Nothing like that had ever happened.
He had been accepted to work in the palace, helping out in the kitchen that usually consisted of getting fresh water and throwing out the dirty one.
And then…
His pulse had stopped. His meaning had stopped.

Until…

His dark, almost black eyes focused back on the very much alive human being nestled on the only bed he owned. He hadn’t really used that room anyway as he theoretically didn’t need to sleep. Only if he needed to heal from severe wounds did he need to find a place to rest. But a couch did the job just as well.
Kibum needed the comfort of a soft mattress far more than him. The human boy needed a place of security and comfort, which the brunet male tried to provide for him. Though it wasn’t always this easy.

Jonghyun’s orbs wandered over the pale form of the other, taking in his long eyelashes, the cute button nose and the pink plump lips that formed a perfect cupid’s bow.
When he had first encountered Kibum, around eighteen years ago, it had been a new moon night.
The best time for the likes of Jonghyun.
Less light meant less chances of being seen. It was always perfect to still his hunger for blood.
And so he left the house he had bought at the very edge of Seoul, near Bangbae station in the south of the big capital.
He had never been able to truly leave Seoul. It had always been his home and the ancient heart of it around their palace complexes always drew him back.
He roamed those areas in many nights, trying to feel at home. But he wasn’t. His home didn’t exist anymore.
However… he had found a new one the day he had found a squirming bundle dumped into one of the public garbage bins in the alleys of the district.
Jonghyun remembered how reluctant he had been, trying to decide whether or not he should check out the source of the cries he heard.
In the end, he had retrieved a wrapped up baby boy, with big dark eyes, dirt smeared all over his face and the white cloth that was supposed to... what?
Keep him warm between the amounts of trash? Jonghyun had shaken his head, completely at a loss at the cruelty of humans.
It wasn’t like his kin was kind. But they killed fast. If they someone dry - by accident or intentional - it went by fast and there was barely any pain to be felt.
How he knew this? Well… before he became what he was now… he was turned, of course. And that included being dry. There was a sense of helplessness when it happened, when your blood was being right out of your veins… but he couldn’t remember it being painful.
The real pain… the excruciating feeling of your soul being ripped out and punched back in happened after he was offered vampire blood in return, only a short moment before he would have died of blood loss. 
It had been the most terrible experience and he never… wanted to do this to anyone else. 

Jonghyun shook his head, dishevelling his brown locks even more. He never really cared to brush them though Kibum loved to scold him for that.
He had drifted off again. Jonghyun experienced a lot of flashbacks when he watched the young male sleep… but more often than not they were of Kibum himself and not Jonghyun’s own past.
The small bundle of a human boy he had saved back then had grown into a healthy young man by now. Jonghyun had tried to offer him everything he needed.
It hadn’t been easy – he didn’t exist in any records of the city offices but Kibum needed to be able to go to school and attend university later if he wanted.
So he asked his source to forge new fake identities for them. That hadn’t been the hard part actually. Their kin had their own underworld network going on, ensuring that no one discovered that they even existed.
And if someone did…
It was taken care of.
This whole deal only had cost the brunet a lot of money and one or two favours. He hadn’t minded those, this was just the way they worked.
It was better like this than having no help at all.
The difficult part however… had been raising a human boy. Jonghyun had never seen himself as the human’s father figure or something – no. Maybe more like an older brother?
But that wasn’t the best description either. He had been curious, but far too emotionally detached from anything and anyone to really… feel something more than pity for the boy in the first years.

He had felt bad for the baby whose parents apparently hadn’t wanted him. Disgusting mortals… 
The thought alone made Jonghyun bare his teeth in that moment, his tongue over them slowly.
He would snap their necks and drink them dry if he ever learned of their whereabouts. Knowing human nature, they weren’t even sorry for what they did.

Something stirred next to him and that made Jonghyun’s gaze flick over the male again. Right.
He had promised…
To be careful.
To not kill.
Kibum had been very strict with him. 
Yes, strict. That was another reason why Jonghyun couldn’t really see himself as an elder brother or something like that. Kibum grew up so damn fast… grew into a respectable young man with values Jonghyun had long forgotten.
(And damn, he was stubborn – exploiting the weak spot the brunet had developed for him with every chance he got. It was just unfair).
The immortal closed his eyes, reaching out blindly to caress the human’s warm skin. It made him wonder every time……How did his own skin feel?
Kibum always told him he was cold, but that he didn’t mind.

>> 
“Jonghyunah… why are you always so cold” a thirteen-year-old Kibum asked him. The vampire couldn’t help but shrug his shoulders at that
“Am I?”
He hadn’t really noticed. He knew that the young boy’s skin felt warm against his… but that was it. He hadn’t really thought about himself. And his former bed partners hadn’t really complained as he had managed to keep them quite busy.
“Yeah!” the boy chuckled and then held up a plastic bag with food packages inside that he had picked up on his way home from school.
Hadn’t Kibum been five only a heartbeat ago?
Now he was already thirteen, going grocery shopping on his own and learning how to cook the first dishes.
(Jonghyun couldn’t cook. He didn’t need to eat mortal food as blood was more than sufficient. Getting to know how to make basic dishes for small children had already been overwhelming - he had spent hours in a local pc bang with a notebook, learning how to make some easy dishes from a nice looking lady on a YouTube channel)
It was unfair, Jonghyun had mused. One day Kibum would leave him behind and conquer the world spread in front of him.
“That’s because… I’m not like you, Bum”
The teenager had tilted his head in confusion, eyebrows raised.
“If that is one of your ancient jokes then stop it now. They are never fun. You always sound like an old geezer.”
Jonghyun had snorted at this.
Who had taught this boy to talk like that?
(Though he had a small idea just who of his friends might be the culprit behind this.)

“I’d tell you to respect your elders, but it’s not like a brat like you would listen anyway.”
Kibum had crossed his arms over his chest then, the plastic bag resting on the kitchen table by now, ready to be opened.
“Try me.”

It had been the worst day for Jonghyun since the human joined his life.
They didn’t eat dinner together that day. Nor for the whole week that followed.

It had been too much for the young human to bear. Jonghyun understood that now. Realising that you had been lied to for all of your life? No matter how short it was in the immortal’s opinion, it had shattered Kibum’s inner core and had his whole world crumbling in front of him.
The person who raised him was an immortal vampire who drank the blood of other humans to get by. Jonghyun tried to keep himself in check when he drank from others – tried to not lose control of his most inner desires that told him to keep on drinking, while he let the delicious liquid run down his dry throat. But… he had admitted that it had happened before, in the many centuries he had lived through until this day. He had killed already.

Learning that creatures like him really existed…
Must have broken something in Kibum.

(Jonghyun now wished that he would have fixed it right away – but he let Kibum pick up the pieces by himself.)

The next morning, after the immortal had open his eyes from his resting period, Kibum had been gone. No note had been left, but a few clothes had been missing in his closet.

Back then Jonghyun had thought that he wasn’t capable of feeling deep emotions anymore. But that morning… he had been proven wrong as dark fear crept up his bones, holding him in an icy grip and shaking him to the core.
He was so damn afraid, so damn lost at what to do.
The vampire remembered how he had contacted Taemin, the only other of their kin he considered himself close to and asked him for help.
Cloaked up and shielded from the sun, they had roamed every inch and nook of Seoul until their noses had brought them to a house of a classmate of the young teenager. The sun had already set again on that day and no light was illuminating the room to which they had been led by their instincts.
Jonghyun had peaked in through the window, his eyes capable to see just as clearly in the dark as during the day, and felt a wave of relief wash over him when he found Kibum sleeping soundly with a young female in the bed.
The brunet recognised her – she was one of Kibum’s closest friends from school, the one he always helped out with her maths homework. And that meant…

That he was safe. And that was all that counted.

After the week had passed, Kibum came back, looking utterly exhausted and tired.
He had allowed Jonghyun to scoop him up and hold him, listening to every story and every secret the elder had to offer and for whose weight he felt far too young to shoulder.

It had been dumped on the young male anyway. All the stories about the immortals past, where he originally came from and what he went through until now. How being a vampire worked and that, yes, they needed blood to survive. (Jonghyun fought the urge to drink from the human for years already, but that was left unsaid)
Yet, the brunet had mused that it was probably for the best as their relationship went back to normal after that. Jonghyun still ate meals with the teenager even though Kibum now knew that he had always just done it out of pretence.
But it was something Jonghyun hadn’t been willing to let go so easily. He had grown accustomed to it. Just like he had grown accustomed to Kibum.
Maybe even a little too much. <<

“You’re still doing the creepy staring?”
Jonghyun jerked, his mind still swimming in the past before his eyes caught sight of feline brown orbs looking back at him.
His hand was still cupping Kibum’s cheek in a soft caress, only that his actions were discovered now.
He pulled back and grumbled when he saw the black haired male snicker at him.
Had he already mentioned that Taemin must have corrupted that poor soul of a human?
Jonghyun let out a huff before he rolled his eyes at the younger. Just one year more and Kibum would be as old as him.
Technically.
When Jonghyun had been turned he was around nineteen or twenty years old if he remembered correctly. So Kibum’s body would keep on growing, keep on aging, while he would stay forever twenty years old by exterior.
Luckily his fake IDs always said otherwise or he wouldn’t be able to keep the house under his name or do other things.
(Many of said other things also included his skill of compelling humans – a skill given to most of his kin that had never quite worked on Kibum. Why? He didn’t know. Maybe he had never tried hard enough)
“I just couldn’t sleep.” Jonghyun answered, their eyes meeting in black against brown.

It was unfair.

“You don’t sleep. You rest.” Kibum chuckled and nudged the older male sitting on his bed.
Jonghyun let out a sigh at that.
“Why can’t you let me pretend, huh?” he showed a grin but deep inside of him his dead heart was clenching.

Let me pretend to be like you. Mortal. Aging. Worthy of you.

“Because,” Kibum started, his smile becoming gentle, “you’re an old geezer and I love to make fun of you.”
Their mouths met in a tender brush of lips against lips and yet again Jonghyun wished that he could hold on to this forever. Could hold onto Kibum forever.
Only that it wasn’t possible.
He was granted forever, while Kibum’s clock was ticking. His own had long stopped. What was it now? Four hundred and thirty-two years?
And another eternity ahead of him.
The younger of them pulled away, his eyebrows drawn up.
“Your thoughts are elsewhere.” Kibum pouted, the collar of the brunet’s shirt and pulling him closer, making him lie with him on the bed.
“Sorry” Jonghyun apologized, whispering against those lips he loved.
Loved to kiss.
Loved to caress. Loved to see moving.

Jonghyun loved.

Kibum let out a breathless chuckle, his arms coming around the elder’s neck who was hovering above him now.
“Then make it up to me~” he grinned suggestively, his voice barely above a whisper.
“It’s my birthday tomorrow. Don’t forget that you promised to turn me next year.”
Jonghyun smiled. Their lips met again.
Kibum had this really foolish idea in his mind. About joining him in his immortal life.

The younger had made him promise that he would never lie to him again. Even at the age of thirteen, the young boy had been very insistent and stubborn about this. Though, theoretically speaking, what the brunet had done couldn’t be considered lying in the basic sense. He had simply omitted some parts of his life. Some very important parts. Yet, he had agreed and shared more things with the other, telling him about the secret society living in the darkest nooks of the bright city of Seoul.

But in this case…
Concerning Kibum’s wish to be with him forever and leaving the mortal world behind voluntarily…
He could only utter the same lie again and again to make everything easier.
“Yeah.”

Jonghyun wouldn’t. 
He was not ready to inflict this eternal suffering upon someone he actually cared about.
Someone who had made his life worth living again for a little while.
Kibum should enjoy his life. Jonghyun would organize for all of his fortune to be transferred to him before he would leave for good and release Kibum from the invisible shackles he held on him.
Restricted him with.

Their lips met again.

Or so he kept on telling himself.
It was the original plan, but with each passing day he was wavering a little more.
Jonghyun was growing more and more selfish day by day. His resolve was crumbling around the other. With every kiss.
With every night they spent together not as brothers, or anything of the sorts, but as lovers.
The desire to just give in and sink his fangs into the younger’s pale skin grew in him, lowly taking over him.
It was so hard for him to hold back when the younger invited him in, their bodies intertwined as a single entity when he countless of marks onto Kibum’s marvellous skin.
He wanted to give in. Taste Kibum’s blood again that sent every fibre of his being on fire and… not stop after a few gulps for once.
Not stop until his lover was barely holding on, only a hair’s breadth away from death before he would feed him the dark red liquid that would inflict him pure pain.
And eventually, after he lived through the hell of turning, grant him a new life.
(Though Jonghyun wanted to refrain from using the term ‘life’, ‘existence’ seemed to be a much better fit)

And… perhaps Kibum knew.
Knew that he was actually lying about turning him and was, consequently, trying to pull all the right strings to play him to his own desire.
The bad thing was that it was working. Jonghyun felt his resolve withering away continuously.

After all, Kibum had wrapped the elder around his finger from the first day the vampire had laid eyes upon the small boy in dirty rags, although he had never wanted to admit it. Taemin had eyed him back then, asking him why he was so fond of a simple mortal baby. He had denied feeling anything for the human.
Yet, he knew he had been charmed no matter how much he had fought against it.

Vampires were powerful and vile beings, but Jonghyun was powerless when it came to this one mortal.
The one, who wasn’t afraid to hold his cold hand and join him in endless darkness.

The one he was able to love.

His beloved.