1896

It’s the first time Nana has ever seen the sunrise but it will also be her last. The church bells don’t ring like it does every other day of her short sixteen years on life.

She’s never been up this high in the tower before; her head stuck out the gaping hole that used to be hand-painted glass mirrors. The people had asked her father to fashion the details of the holiest architecture in town. Nana could remember that icy night as if it had happened this very day; her father had wrapped her up in the warmest of blankets and carried her here; settled her down on the steps of the newly resurrected sanctuary of angels and gods and she had never felt safer or more content. Ironic, really, because here she stands – quaking knees and face wet with tears as she watches the fire she’s set devours her late father’s proudest work. But Nana knows that he wouldn’t have been upset. No, he would be please to see his little girl so brave: he would rather her die as a corpse with untainted blood in her veins than tear to shred like a piece of meat or worse, on the verge of becoming a monster.

 “You look far too young to face death.”

With a small gasp, Nana spins around at the sound of the voice. Her back collides with the wall, her bitten nails digging into the stones as she stares back at the devil. It surprised her that he looks so much like any other mortal – a tall man in rich men’s rags with white blonde hair and eyes like the bottomless sea.

“I have to say,” he says rather casually, stepping closer with each drawl of his words, “This makes for a very cozy setting to die in compared to what is out there.”

She cowers away instantly but his intention is not to snap her neck or drain her blood. Instead he leans over the same alcove she had been standing at, his stare vacant as he watches the massacre of her people – by his kinds.

Swallowing down her fear, Nana croaks, “How did you get up here?”

There’s a twitch in the corner of his mouth that resembles a smirk. “While I admit that your effort to ward off my family and I with fire is rather intelligent,” He pauses and swivels his head around just enough to see the fear floods into her eyes and says, “I’m afraid we’re not the same as the other vampires your town has come in contact with over the years.”

Nana tightens her hold on the banister, too afraid that if she lets go she would fall onto her knees – in front of this – vile, heartless creature.   “Enough with the talk, please. Just do what you’ve come here to do.”

“And what do you think that is, little girl?”

“Kill me”

He looks amused now, circling around his prey with those killers hand behind his back. “I don’t kill if not necessary; I feed enough to satisfy my hunger and simply leave my victim as they were.”

“Do not think you can lie to me!” She spits, “The bloodshed, the torn bodies, the no longer beating hearts and beaten up lungs – they were all your doings so kill me then tear me apart but do not take me for a fool.”

Nana shuts her eyes; ready to feel the rip at but no such thing happened. Rather the monster roars a great, big laughter than frightens her more than his silence did before.

Slowly but surely, he stalks towards Nana and roughly pulls her in to him, his  breath hot against her ear as he whispers, “Are you not scared, little girl? I could paint this whole floor with your blood with the snap of my fingers.”

“Why should I be?” She grits out, struggling though it’s useless, “You’re going to do it either way. It’s only a matter of time.”

He drops her wrist then, leaving her slumped against his chest and with all her strength, she pushes him to widen the space between them.

The monster quirks a brow; perhaps the only sign he’ll ever bear of his emotion. “So you do not fear death?”

“No,” she grits, “Not when I cannot deny it.”

“But what if you can?”

He flashes to her and like his touch; it feels no different than the wind blowing. He grazes her cheek ever so softly with his fingers then lingers at her jaw before gripping her chin and tipping them to align their eyes. “I am death and I am giving you the choice to deny me.”

It’s becoming harder for her to breath; the fire is coming for them but he’ll leave here, unscathed and her, in ashes. The lacing of her corsage is getting tighter by the second, it’s only a countdown to ten until the last heaving of her chest. The monster doesn’t look down at her in pity, he is challenging her with this ultimatum – to live or die, little girl, you decide. Nana has heard the myth but it is no longer one; he is capable of turning her into his kind. She too, could be an immortal that will kill and destroy and hunt to survive for centuries to come.

“Time is running out, little girl,” the devil watches her, showing her his blunt teeth, “What a waste your life will be. Your rotting corpse will perish under these tons of stones – dead and forgotten like those you’ve stepped over because you’ve denied yourself the chance to explore all that this world has to give and witness its beauty with those bright eyes of yours.”

“And in return,” Nana coughs, her visions becoming clouded, “In return, I am to be a soulless monster.”

He nods with finality. “That is the price you have to pay.”

Nana begins to slip away to the memory of her father; how he had died on this night to protect her from those bloody orbs and piercing fangs. Then she remembers her mother for the first time in years; that day when she had woken up with insatiable hunger for blood and could not be cured until the priest drove a stake through her heart. She was a monster, they’d said and Nana had nod; not because she’d agreed but because she knows she should. But the disgusting creature that her mother had become had looked at her with such love moments before she died, had whispered her name ever so softly like she did before bed time and reminded Nana that there is a human being in there; an innocent woman whose life had ended for nothing that she could be blamed for.

Oh father, she is sorry but she cannot sacrifice life this way.

“I don’t want to die. Pl – please don’t let me die.”

The monster rises, his hand out stretched. “So it will be an eternity of destruction?”

Nana mouths a ‘yes’ and will recall nothing of the dawn of their life together except her blood on his lips and how sated he looked as it trickles down his throat.

 

 

2014

“You can either turn that ear-scraping noise that foul smelling teens call ‘music’ off or remove yourself from my Mustang.”

Nana tilts her head to the side with a pout, combing through his windswept hair with her manicured fingers. “Please, for me.”

He never did know how to say no to her so he turns back to the road and goes over the speed limit. She giggles and slumps down in her seat, bathing under the sunshine with feet resting on the headboard as she bobs to a corny Katy Perry tune. They drive on for miles without as much as a word but Nana knows his bad mood is fading quick when he reaches over for her hand, rubbing circles on her palm.

“Do you,” she takes a bite of her Twizzler, says with mouthful of sweet “Remember when you finally told me your name?”

“The real one or the one that you made up and I let you keep because I found it highly entertaining?” He chuckles and she rolls her eyes, prompting him to move along, “Yes, love, I remember. How could I forget when that’s practically the first thing you said when you woke?”

“You mean after the ‘what’, ‘when’, ‘why’ and ‘how’?”

Giving her a knowing smile, he agrees. “Of course. Yet you were throwing the biggest of tantrums over my decision to remain nameless at the time.”

“Well, fine, I admit that I hated not knowing every detail about you,” she confesses, grimacing, “You never told me why you told me in the end, you know that?”

“I thought I would relieve you of the torture.”

Nana her head in skepticism and he comply, “I wanted to hear what it would sound like on your lips.”

She hums. “Jaejoong”

Again, “Jaejoong. How does that sound?”

Jaejoong removes the Ray-ban he stole off their last meal at the gas station, leaning in to brush his lips against her and mumbles between sweet kisses, “Perfect, always perfect.”

 

-

 

“Your family hates me.”

Jaejoong takes a large gulp of his long black; probably trying to restrain his craving. “That’s putting it a bit harshly, sweetheart.”

“More like lightly,” she snorts, “The last time I saw Boa she left five days worth of splinters on my left side.”

“Which I took care of,” he retorts, “You know how my sister is, she doesn’t practice self-control.”

She kicks his shin playfully with the kitten heels he got her on last year’s summer trip to Saks Fifth Avenue. “None of your family practice self-control; including you –“

“You folks ready to order?”

Their waiter for this sunny morning is some thirty-something-years old man with fat rolls all over. He doesn’t look to be too much of a people person; the good, old customer service is lost. Oh, how time has changed and how much Nana misses the sixties with the frilly poodle skirts and Sunday’s night thick shakes. Now all the diners in the world have amounted to run downs, off the side of the road business with greasy fries and flakey apple pies. Jaejooong assured her that Yunho can vouch for the big breakfast here and if the big brother with impeccable taste says so then how could it not be true?

“I’ll have a vanilla shake and…” Nana her strawberry flavored gloss covered lips then snaps her menu shut, “The royal blueberry pancakes with extra maple syrups please.”

The man gives her an once-over, says dryly, “Well, honey, you sure have a big appetite for a girl with your figure.”

Jaejoong fist tightens and she covers it with a soothing hand. “I’d have to thank my mother for that – it’s all in the gene.”

“You’ll have to tell her ‘thank you’ for me when you see her again then,” he leers at her thighs, drool almost dripping out of his mouth when Nana clears , flashing him a polite smile and directing her glance to the blonde male sitting opposite her in the booth.

“What would you like?”

“Your heart to decorate this place,” Jaejoong mumbles behind the menu so only she can hear, “The big breakfast and another long black; make it hot.”

“Extra hot, it is.” Their waiter amends with a wink that only makes the male vampire’s temper flare even further, “Will be back in a flash with your or –“

With his inhumane reflex, Jaejoong yanks the man’s wrist hard enough to rip his arm into the two. Nana holds in her squeak of surprise, though she shouldn’t be shocked by this sort of action anymore. It should start to get old by now; it’s been nearly ten lifetimes already.

“You will fetch someone else to deliver our orders,” Jaejoong instructs, his pupils dilating; the black swallowing the ocean blue – of course, compulsion, “Also, you will stop trying to paw at my girlfriend.”

The human nods and recites robotically, “I will fetch someone else to deliver the orders. I will stop trying to paw at your girlfriend.”

“Well, just look at that, Nana, they still follow the old ‘the customer is always right’ mantra,” He smirks triumphantly, letting the mortal live to run along to do what he’s been compelled to do.

She crosses her arms over her chest in disapproval at his poor idea of a joke. “What happened to self-control?”

“That, sweetheart,” Jaejoong leans over, resting his chin on his knuckle as he whispers, “Is self-control or he wouldn’t be missing both eyes and those filthy hands or his.”

“Are you going to insist on threatening every man that ever so much as breathes a word to me?”

He thinks this over for a little bit, then replies, “Would you expect anything less?”

Nana rolls her eyes, tying up her wild golden curls in a high pony tail in an attempt to keep it out of her face. His tyrannical jealously has left a trail of battered bodies all over the world, she wonders when he’ll ever tire of snapping some young flesh’s neck to quell that violent and not to mention, completely unnecessary, insecurities.

Jaejoong sensing her growing annoyance, tries to regain the lighthearted flow of the conversation with his charm. “Any man that looks at you like a piece of meat deserves nothing less but to get his head ripped out.”

She smiles but it never reaches her eyes.  

 

 

1897

“No”

He growls. “Drink, you insolent little girl or I will be more than happy to kill that pathetic peasant and make you drain the life out of him.”

Nana whips away from him, her dress swishing around to reveal patches of dry blood – a reminder of what she’s allowed herself to succumb to in the last twenty four hours. The sun shines down on her but she doesn’t feel any warmer than she did when she woke up in the woods, lying on dry patch of dead grass in a deader body. It was cold then, it’s cold now. The small town ahead of them is so lively, it reminded of Nana of the one she’s left behind. Not that she can help it, there was no one left to stay with anyway.

“I’m not hungry”

“I admire your will to tell a lie as blatant as the one you just did,” The monster laugh is of a little boy when he places a hand on the small of her back, “But I think you forget that I went through the same process as you are experience right now, sweetheart. The bloodlust is almost unbearable at this stage; every vein in sight is pulsing so loudly that it’s driving you to insanity.”

And he’s anything but correct; though Nana’s learned in her short time with him that he is never wrong. Admittedly she’s never lived like a princess, there are younger years of poverty in her seventeen years of mortal life but never has she ever experienced hunger as intense as this. It feels as if her insides are on fire; burning for the taste of thick, warm blood –

She sighs, tears prickling at her eyes. “I will not be able to control myself, will I?”

He nods empathetically. “We all have to do what he to in order to survive, little one.”

“Did you kill the first time?” Nana asks in whimper as she watches the group of children playing a game of chase.

“It is impossible to not kill on your first feed,” He tells her gently, “The first taste is the best and the worst; you will feel a surge of power coursing through you as the life of your victim slips out of their body and into you and you will always crave for more.”

She shivers at his words, imagining turning those young lives’ parents into graying corpses. How perfectly happy they look, Nana thinks, they would never know the tragedy that’s about to hit. She was about to relive her own loss, instead this time she would be the destroyer.

“If you don’t feed, you will die.”

Not too far by, a young man of the same age as her, stops at the front porch of a humble looking home. He walks back and forth, looking mighty nervous as he pulls out a ring, the small rock gleaming back at him. So he was about to propose. Nana couldn’t help but wonder what would have become of her future if this monster – this devil in a body of an angel, her savior and her creator, and his family didn’t make it into her town. She imagines a nice boy would have paid her residence a visit and asked for her hand to be his wife; she would have taken care of his home and bore him many children then spends the rest of her years growing old and eventually dying in her husband’s embrace. Suddenly, she is filled with rage and she wonders if the girl behind that door is more beautiful. Did she have more grace and elegance? Is she more deserving of a happy, fulfilling life than her? Nana could have had all that this girl will but now that the dream has died, why should this stranger get to live hers?

“You’ve been so strong, little girl,” he tempts, lips brushing her crimson stained locks, “Do not dare to die on me now.”

Fast as the wind, Nana finds herself back on her feet in front of the very same young man she had been observing moments before behind the oak tree. He appears to be stunned by her presence just as she is herself; how she had been somewhere else entirely and less than a second later, here she is.

“Af – afternoon, miss” He stutters his stiff greeting, tugging at his collar and giving her a full view of his jugular.

His racing heartbeat hammers in her sensitive ears, making her sway closer to him. Despite his fear, he is ever the gentleman and catches her in his arms and that’s when the smell of him attacks her senses with full force. The searing pain in her gum doesn’t last long; the sharp tipped teeth drops as she inches closer to his neck.

“Miss, are you okay? Are you feeling fai –“

The guttural scream that follows next is so quiet compared to the sound of his blood pumping. Finally, the noises in her head die down but so does the boy.

 

 

2014

It’s a bit too late to start panicking now that they’ve just sped past the ‘Welcome’ sign of his hometown. Three decade ago Nana would have been thrilled to be reunited with the rest of his family but things have happened that should allow at least a gap of century in between to fix. Jaejoong and his four (alive) siblings barely ever spend time under the same roof or even the same continent. They’ve come to agree that ‘eternity’ is a very long time and the constant bickering and sometimes bloody quarrels do not make it easier for them to stay together.

“You should try harder to hide that nerve of yours,” Jaejoong drawls, swerving around the corner of a small park, “After all these years and you’re still a dead giveaway.”

Her lips curve into a soft smile as she admires the view, resting her chin on the window sill. “I think I’m only a dead giveaway to you, Jaejoong.”

Nana doesn’t need to look at him to know that he’s got that smug smirk on his face, the one that she knows to appear when his ego is being . Perhaps he doesn’t realize but she knows him as well as she knows her own self, maybe even more. They don’t need words to communicate anymore; just touch.

“Not much has changed around here.”

She agrees with him. The town is still so very small, surrounded by the woods and creeks. It’s like a little island; a well kept secret that only few know exists. Nana recalls the time they’ve stayed at his town house for more than a year and how a group of tourists had ‘gotten lost’ on the way to their initial destination. Oh, what a lie that was.

“You like it that way,” Nana teases in hope to distract his thoughts from wandering to the painful past, “It’s weird seeing descendants of your neighbors.”

Jaejoong chuckles. “I ate our first neighbors for dinner, Nana.”

“And there goes the sentimentality.”

“In my defense, love,” he rubs his thumb over her knuckle soothingly, “They were a very nosey family; you would have hated them I reckon.

That got her attention. Nana raises a curious brow, her attention on the scenery slipping .“You never told me this story.”

Playfully, he says, “There are plenty of stories that I have yet to tell you, love.”

“Oh right,” Nana grimaces, “I keep forgetting that you’ve been around since the dinosaurs, therefore endless adventures. Speaking of which, when are you going to tell me about that time when the T-Rex nearly ate you?”

“Very funny, dear”

Grinning, “Aren’t I always?”

Smirking, Jaejoong pulls into an all too familiar garage. “Let’s see how funny you can be once we get you inside the house.”

 

 

1901

“You’re different,” Nana says finally, the last of the blood of her lips as she slumps down on the couch next to him.

Looking more bored than anything, Jaejoong flips a page of the novel he’s been reading since the sun went down. He’s almost done with Bram Stoker’s Dracula, not that it’s any surprise to her after she’s discovered the speed at which a vampire can complete a simple mortal task like reading.

“Have you only started to notice, dear?” He asks, putting the book down and twirling a strand of her sun kissed lock around his finger.

She giggles. “Of course not, I’ve always known since the night you’ve turned me but you never told me exactly what you are.”

Humming, the blonde companion replies, “It is a rather long story but since you’ve…” He trails off and swivels around in his seat to see the pile of lifeless bodies in their parlor, “Had your nightcap. I supposed we should follow it with a bed time story.”

Nana smiles up at him as she makes herself comfortable in his lap, laying her head down in his lap while he continues to comb through her tangled hair. “Tell me”

“You see, back when I was only a mere human, my father had made the mistake of striking up an affair with a witch in our village,” His story begins so grimly that Nana can only imagine what kind of twisted tragedy it has led up to, “Whilst my brother and the eldest of our siblings, Yunho, did have an idea of the activities father had been indulging in behind mother’s back, he did not think it was in his place as the bastard son to notify the rest of our family.”

“How many siblings do you have exactly?” Nana interrupts, her curiosity getting the best of her.

“Five,” Jaejoong answers shortly before continuing with his tale, “My father, too blind by his foolish alpha male status, underestimates his mistress’s talent of dark magic. When he refused to leave my mother and my sibling and I to start a new life with her, she decided to take it upon herself to rid of us.”

He tenses all of the sudden, his body turning stiff. Nana watches him carefully – the sharpening of his jaw as he clenches his teeth, how his eyes have darken to resemble those rare times he’s killed. She contemplates reaching out to touch him but decided against it; Kim Jaejoong did not have any weaknesses.

Then almost like the dark thoughts did not unhinge him just a little, he continues to caress her shoulder under the thin material of her gown. “Mother died unexpectedly in the middle of her sleep, she went peacefully at least. After that we’ve begun to suspect that she might have contacted some sort of disease as one by one we all begun to fall ill; first it was Yunho, then I, then our two younger brothers and finally, our sister. None of us could remember how long this sickness went on when we could finally regain our senses; we were all so numbed to everything else but this overpowering feeling of utter hunger – not for food but for blood.”

Jaejoong wasn’t turned, she realized in startling revolution, he had been cursed. Vampirism began with a curse.

“One by one, we began to wake up as monsters that will go on to terrorize the next four villages in an unexplainable bloodlust,” He sounds so hollow and far away despite their closeness, “Our father, having finally used his peanut size of a brain caught onto what his mistress had done and decided that it would be for the best to relive us of an eternity of monstrosity and forced the witch to tell him a way to end our lives, which of course, as you know by now is to aim for the heart –“

Nana cuts in, unable to help herself. “He couldn’t do it, could he?”

He laughs, but instead of the usual one of fond amusement that she’s grown used to hearing. It’s one of bitterness, the pain practically vibrating through the rumbling at the back of his throat. “You continue to surprise me by looking at everything through rose-colored glass. Tell me, how do you retain your light after living years as a creature of the dark?”

She shrugs. “If your father did not have a change of heart then…”

“I ripped out his heart before he could rip out my sister’s,” Jaejoong states in the same simple way one would say ‘the sky is blue’, “The witch overlooked a minor detail that my siblings and I are not ordinary vampires, we are the first of our kind – the originals and we could not be killed that easily.”

“Is that why you avoid killing?” The question rushes out of before she could swallow it down, “Because you feel guilty about your father?”

“Guilty?!” He shouts, gazing down at her incredulously, “After my sister had become fully conscious of what she’s done, how many she’s killed – was overcome with fear and disappeared into the woods. When my father found her in tears and quivering near our mother’s grave – his little girl, his own blood,” he spits, fiery pulsing through him and for her to hear, “He drove a stake right through her back and piercing her heart. By the time I found them and ended his undeserving life, her body was starting to grey.”

“I –“

Before Nana could get another word out, he has flashed to the other side of the room and leaning against the fire place. Her head dropped with a resounding ‘plopped’ against the warm seat where he used to sit.

“You might enjoy the thrill of the kill now, Nana,” Jaejoong says crisply, staring into the fire, “But wait a century or two; I assure you it gets old just like everything else on this planet.

 

---

 

A/N: So I'm back again with yet another Jaeanana fic! I've really missed writing this fic so welcome back again all my readers that subscribed to me for the last Jaenana fics and welcome, new ones! This time is TVD/The Original!AU ( shows, used to be good though). I hope you enjoy and I'm thinking that this will be a 5 parts fic xx