AU: Take It All (Vampire AU, Junpei [Closed])

[Yue Hirai]

Yue had gotten home somewhat late that evening, after spending a good portion of her day at the local gym as a personal fitness trainer. She was a natural at it - given her unyielding dedication and drive, she was often praised for getting good results from those that searched for intense, individualized training. At only five-foot-one, she didn't seem that intimidating, but as soon as she got to work with a new subject they soon learned why she was considered a toughie.

She'd seen Junpei shortly before he left that night, off on one of his usual hunts. He told her about a certain young vampire they were closing in on, one he and Gryphon expected to eradicate soon. She wished him luck and sent him on his way, wondering when she would be able to go with him. Yue was supposed to learn to be a hunter, now that she was engaged to one - and she had the ability and strength. She didn't tell Junpei, but she got nervous every time he went out. She was afraid one of these days he would go up against something he couldn't handle, and she would lose him.

She stayed up for a while, but eventually she went to bed, falling into a light slumber in their empty bed. It was quiet in the house when he was gone; there was too much room for her petite figure. And so she slept until early in the morning, completely unaware that her sweetheart had been turned and was planning on finding her even as she slumbered.

[Deleted]

Junpei ran down the street, keeping all his senses tuned on his surroundings as he searched for that familiar path that would lead him to the girl. The girl Yue, whom he still didn't understand his connection to. All the vampire knew was that he wanted her. For….something.

His instincts were telling him food. For her blood. But that something else there was telling him something else, something he hadn't quite identified yet.

He smelled her. She was close. Junpei knew where he was going. The house was protected. That fable about vampires not being able to enter a home unless invited? Wasn't true. Which was why the house was covered in wards. Junpei knew this and already was planning on how to work past them. He knew where they were, where the key points had been buried, and how to disrupt them. The young vampire did so quickly and quietly, then slipped in straight through the front door.

All at once it hit him as he entered into that familiar hallway, with those pictures on the wall, the scrolls in the living room, the butterfly figures that Yue decorated all corners of the house with….the whole room, the whole house smelled like her. Junpei's head dropped and he held it between his rigid hands, gripping his black hair in two tight fists. "Yue…" he whispered. His eye caught a photo of the young couple sitting on the shelves under the bannister. Yes, he recognized her. Yes, he remembered… but he was so hungry, none of that even mattered anymore. The urge to feed was too strong, it was driving him to forget himself again, to lose himself in his ravenous hunger. "Yueee------!" he screamed, doubling down to his knees at the base of the stairs.

He just wanted this to end. One way or another.

[Yue Hirai]

Yue stirred in her sleep, and her eyes blinked open, sensing something... Something was off. She didn't know just what, but she felt something in the air, like a constant buzzing had been turned off. The young woman sat up and sleepily looked around, wondering if it was important enough to get up in her half-asleep mind.

Was Junpei home? Maybe that was it. She could swear she heard something moving downstairs, maybe he was trying to be quiet so he wouldn't wake her up...

Then came the scream.

Immediately, Yue's body jumped into action, grasping onto the silver dagger she kept by her bedside and tearing out of the bedroom and down the stairs, only to be met with a confusing sight. She had expected Jun to be fighting a vampire, or something, but... He was the only one there. "Jun?" she asked carefully, heart pounding. Why had he screamed? What was-?

No. No no no no....

There was no mistaking the red gleam in his eyes. The twisted, pained contortion of his body. Yue had seen it before, the few times she'd encountered a vampire herself. Junpei had been turned.

No... How....

"Junpei?" Her voice was barely a whisper, and Yue held the dagger to her side, desperately hoping this was a dream even though she knew it wasn't. "Jun, it's me." She swallowed hard. "Can you understand me?" Don't break down, she told herself. Maybe he's still in there.... It was the only thing giving her hope.

[Deleted]

The calm that he'd felt before with his new parents had faded since he'd left their presence. It was in the hopes that hi singer would soon be satiated by this girl that Junpei seemed to have an attachment to. But now that he was here, Junpei felt like his head was going to explode with the memories that came flooding back. He remembered everything, how he'd left earlier that evening to hunt per the usual, how they'd encountered a former someone of his partner's who'd been turned, how Gryphon had allowed that connection to cloud his judgement to betray and abandoned Junpei. How he'd been left at the mercy of the two elder nos and had his blood sucked by the female.

The worst part, was that despite his self-awareness it did nothing to subdue his desire to feed. He wanted blood and he couldn't stop it. He hated the beings who turned him, yet he knew he couldn't move against them as he still felt some sick, twisted sort of affection for them.

He wanted Yue. He wanted her. "Yue..." he rasped out, still holding his arms across his torso and leaning buckled over on the stairs as if he were experiencing in the worst pain in his life. Or his death. He was dead. And that realization only plummeted him even further into despair until he could no longer hold himself back.

Junpei rose his eyes, their crimson color seeming to glow in the dim hallway, and locked them on the the visage of his beautiful, succulent, and especially deadly fiancé. "Kill me..." he begged her with a silent gasp.

Then he lunged forward, aiming directly for her exposed flesh after having completely lost his battle with reason to the urging hunger he could no longer suppress.

[Yue Hirai]

Yue was torn as she gazed upon her lover, so painfully hunched over - she knew he was certainly starving, if he had just turned, and it was no surprise he came here first. Even as this logical reasoning went through her mind, the emotional upwelling at the realization that her darling Junpei was now one of them was almost too much for her to bear. She knew it had always been possible, but... He always seemed so strong, so experienced. Now she had to determine - was he still in there? Could she get him to come out? Or was the man she loved lost forever in his world of blood and agony?

Whatever the case, she knew she couldn't kill him. Yue still gripped the dagger in her hand, but it might as well have been a butter knife for all the use she would get out of it. "Junpei, I know you're in there," he said, voice shaking. He knew her name; he told her to kill him. He had some sort of conscience left. And that gave Yue a small bit of hope in her utter despair.

"I'm not going to-" Before the small girl could finish her sentence, Jun was coming straight for her. Automatically, she jolted to the side at the last second, sending her leg sweeping under her fiance's feet to trip him on the way up the stairs. At the same time, the dagger fell out of her hand over the railing, landing with a clatter on the floor.

"Junpei!" she demanded, her voice high and agonized. Her eyes were dry, although she felt herself crumbling inside. "This isn't you! Don't let it control you!" Yue wished she had something, anything to give him to help with his desperate hunger. Well... She had herself. But she was afraid he would drain her without a second thought. "I... I'll get some bags of blood at the hospital. Or... Or something." One of the other hunters had something, surely? Maybe Xun? "Y-you're going to be okay!" Yue's voice cracked as she slowly backed down the stairs, gaze never leaving the vampire.

[Deleted]

Junpei had warned her several time that this sort of thing happened to hunters all the time. And that it was the ultimate test against one's resolve as a hunter bound to exterminate these sad beings from their plague on this earth. Too often were hunters swayed by the feelings they once had for their turned loved ones and too often did that lead to their downfall and the downfall of other hunters. Just look at what happened when Gryph had failed that test in the face of his former lover. Junpei was turned and was now giving his fiance, a young woman who was barely at the beginning of her training, the test long before she could ever have been ready for it.

But Junpei knew, both the man and the vampire, that there would be only two outcomes from this battle. Either Yue would kill Junpei, or she would become his first meal and die herself. That's all there was to it.

If she were to die, then Junpei truly would become lost to the monster. His former comrades would hunt him down, he would fight against them, and they would kill him without mercy or hesitation. That's the only way it could be. This nightmare would only end in Junpei's death, which would either happen now, by Yue's hand, or later, at the hands of his fellow hunters.

Junpei wanted it to be Yue.

He tripped on his ascent of the stairs, sprawling across the landing at the top, but wasting little time in getting back to his feet and turning back to the small apprentice hunter. She was right, there was still a slight glint of his consciousness remaining behind those blood-thirsty eyes, and even that was only telling that body to move forward. If she wouldn't do it out of mercy, then she would have to kill him to save herself! Make her fear for her life! Then maybe she'd finally put him out of his misery. "Kill me…!" he repeated, as though ordering the young huntress to do her duty.

Junpei lunged at her again, this time reaching his hand to her throat and tumbling down to the bottom of the stairs with her. At the base, in the foyer, Junpei crouched over her, his face contorted into that of a monster's hovering just centimeters above her own. His other hand slid over her soft, white neck as he leaned down further to take in her delicious scent. It was so close. Relief was separated only by a thin layer of skin. So why was he hesitating. He was so hungry, he needed this. Junpei felt his teeth slide out and he leaned in further.

[Yue Hirai]

Yue was not ready for this. And honestly, she didn't know if she ever would have been. Junpei had become the light in her life, her motivation, her inspiration. His dedication to his family's hunting ancestry had always been something she wished she could brag about to her other friends. Her fiance was an incredible man... And she never would have been able to take it easier than she was now. With so much life left before them...

She had to believe she could coax some sanity out of him, satiate his hunger enough for him to calm down and hold a conversation. But, dammit, Xun was down the block, Yue would never make it to him! She had to... She had-

He was begging her to kill him again. Yue knew that was what he wanted, but.... She was too selfish, too set on making this all alright to do it. "Junpei, we're going to figure this out!" she pleaded. "Just listen to m-"

Suddenly his hand was around her neck, and Yue was thrown backwards, crying out as she landed painfully on several stairs before they reached the bottom. And then he was above her, her previous Junpei snarling and desperate, staring at her like she was a rabbit in the claws of an eagle. She bit her trembling lip and forced herself not to show her fear, holding back a whimper as she decided what she had to do. "Do it, then," she whispered, tilting her head so the flesh of her neck was even more bared. "Relieve your hunger, Junbug. I... I love you." And then Yue closed her eyes, waiting for the pain.

[Deleted]

He could smell it, it was so close. Junpei could see himself puncturing that thin neck with is fangs. He could imagine that sweet blood seeping from between his lips as he sucked it from the the fresh wound. He could envision that red tincture flowing down and hitting his malformed gut, quenching that dreadful thirst which drove him into that feral madness.

Junpei brushed his lips over that milky white skin, savoring the taste of his victim, the few moments before he sunk himself into that flesh and drank in the life fluid of the being he'd already forgotten the name to. Who it was didn't matter anymore, this was just a body, food for him…….but then why was he hesitating?

The sounds she made were as incomprehensible to him as the squeals and whimpers uttered by a cornered animal. She was prey, nothing more.

Why couldn't he just do it then?

A low growl rolled out from the back of his throat as he turned to look on her terrified face, anticipating her end in silence. The creature steadily released the pressure on her neck and backed away from her prone form, until it reached the base of the stairs where it curled itself against the wall. He kept his teeth bared, though, and his sanguine eyes fixed on the girl. Another growl escaped him.

[Yue Hirai]

Yue kept her eyes closed, breath short and shallow as the creature that used to be her Junpei leered over her. He could kill her easily, she knew. And part of her was certain that he would. But... She couldn't kill him. Even if she wasn't trapped like she was now, she was certain of that.

His breath felt cold on her neck, sending goosebumps down her body. The feeling of his lips against her throat, where she could feel her arteries pounding with adrenaline, could have made her scream if she wasn't as determined as she was.

But then... Nothing happened. Yue peeked up to look at Junpei, and he seemed... Conflicted. Before she knew what was happening, he was releasing her, and retreating against the stairs. Disbelieving, Yue rose a hand to her smooth, unpunctured flesh. "I knew you were in there..." she breathed, eyes not leaving her fiance's for a moment.

But he was still starving. Dying, even? Yue knew she had to do something. The glint of her dagger caught her eye, and she slowly stood, easing towards the weapon while still watching for any signs of movement from the vampire. Once she reached it, she slowly grasped the hilt, and brought the blade up to her own hand, not hesitating before she sliced it across her palm, wincing only slightly as blood began to pool in her hand.

She dropped the knife and approached Junpei, hand extended. "You need to eat, sweetheart," Yue whispered. "I won't hurt you."

[Deleted]

Junpei felt sick. Dizzy, confused, like he was delirious with fever, dreaming and reliving the horrors which had taken place over that unending night. The longer he went without food, the more disoriented he became, and the more likely he was to go into a frenzy, to consume the closest source of blood like a starving animal. The worst part was, even if he didn't eat, he still wouldn't die. Just devolve further into his feral nature until his mind became completely irretrievable.

Whatever willpower he had left to keep himself at bay, Junpei didn't know where it came from, but the effort had taken up all his strength, even the strength to recall why he was trying so hard. There was no Junpei, there was no Yue, just a beast that needed to feed but for reasons he couldn't comprehend, the vampire knew he couldn't no matter how much pain it brought him.

He growled again when the woman moved, keeping his eyes locked on her, yet making no attempt to move himself.

However, as she neared herself closer, the demon retreated himself even further. The smell was even more enticing outside of her veins. He snarled again as he backed away again, slowly crawling backwards up the stairs with a glare that seemed to curse her for trying to tempt him.

[Yue Hirai]

Yue hoped she was doing the right thing. What else could she do? She couldn't kill him, couldn't bear the thought of him starving, and didn't want to die. This seemed the only viable solution for the time being. Hopefully, once he drank, he would be satiated enough to be alright until she found another source for him to drink from.

But this wasn't going as she had hoped. Even though she was small, and tried to seem harmless, Junpei was backing away from her, growling like he expected her to try to hurt him. "Junpei," she pleaded, even though she knew his name was probably falling on deaf ears. Some of the blood in her hand pooled over and dripped onto the stairs, but she stopped moving, uncertain how to make this work.

Yue bit her lip, then turned and went to the kitchen across the room, pulling out a small, flat saucer with her uninjured hand. Carefully, she twisted her palm so the blood dripped down onto the white porcelain, waiting until the bottom was covered before picking it up and depositing it a few stairs above the floor. She cradled her injured arm and stepped back a good distance, sitting on the floor to appear as nonthreatening as possible.

[Deleted]

What was she doing? What was she doing?

This person was prey, yet she was giving herself over to the predator willingly. Why would she do that? Didn't she know she would die? It must be a trick! She was trying to trick him, so that she could kill him with that baneful knife of hers….but wasn't that what he wanted?

Junpei was confused, staring at the girl suspiciously as she left the room.

This was his chance to get away! Yet he still made no effort to move from that spot on the stairwell while his meal walked off to the other room. Moments later, she returned with her blood having been collected in a small saucer which she placed in front of him.

His eyes focused only on that pool, blind to anything the girl was doing anymore. If this was a trap, it was effective because the vampire soon lowered himself closer and dipped his head closer to the dish, sniffing it like a dog. In less than five seconds, he'd lapped it up like one and, furious that there was no more, threw the saucer at the feet of the woman with an urging grunt and fierce glare.

It wasn't enough. He wanted more.

[Yue Hirai]

Yue breathed deeply as she watched her fiance study the dish, hugging herself as she tried to keep from shuddering at the grotesque way he investigated the substance before beginning to lap it up. She closed her eyes again, tightening her uninjured fist while the other still seeped crimson onto the floor. When she heard the clatter, she peeked up again, meeting Junpei's cold, red eyes silently. Then she looked down at the disposed saucer, which had been licked clean of her precious lifeblood.

"You want more?" she breathed, looking up again. Yue looked at her injury, which wasn't releasing blood fast enough to fill the saucer with again. She would have to cut herself somewhere else, and she didn't know how much self-harm she could take. For Junpei, she would, but maybe now, maybe he would be less cautious now that he'd had a taste...

Yue shakily got to her feet and, crouching slightly, edged closer to the vampire, hand once again outstretched and stained with her blood. She sat at the base of the stairs, urging Junpei to come closer, to take his fill from her willing palm. Talking so far had done nothing, so she stayed quiet, only communicating with her movements.

[Deleted]

What she'd left for him on the plate hadn't been nearly enough to satiate him, but it was enough to give him that taste of what he needed, enough so he could throw away his voiceless doubts and feed. Whatever was holding him back was still there, but it'd loosened it's hold on him just enough so he could accept what this girl was trying to offer.

Junpei didn't answer her question, still not completely comprehending the words, but he did eyeball her hand that was still dripping onto the carpet. He watched as she inched closer to him, holding out her arm as if to say "take it".

Again, the internal conflict started to brew. And how painful it was, what he wanted presented to him so freely, so easily, so close to him, and yet there was still that something inside whispering to him "no!".

Junpei released a drawn out wail of anguish before grasping Yue by the wrist and pulling her in closer. He slid his tongue over the wound on her hand, licking it clean, then, without further warning, he pulled her arm taut and sank his fangs into her forearm with one swift movement before that internal voice could talk him out of it again.

He drank, and drank, feeling his senses calm and sharpen with each swallow. Even so, his heart ached so much for failing his Yue and giving into his agonizing hunger.

[Yue Hirai]

The fact that Junpei was still fighting against his new instincts gave Yue more hope that she could pull him out of the dark world he'd been forced into. Not completely - she knew there was no way to change him back - but maybe they could work something out. Still, she needed him to eat before could become more than just his hunger.

She winced as he wailed, feeling like it sent a sharp knife through her heart to hear her lover in such agony. But then he was pulling her closer, and she didn't resist, letting her muscles go slack and praying that she'd made the right choice. Yue dipped her head and pressed her lips together as his tongue ran over her wound - it stung, but at the same time, almost felt... Good. That was, until he jerked her arm straight and plunged his teeth into her small, pale arm. She couldn't help it - she cried out in pain, gasping as tears finally pricked the corners of her eyes. She had expected it to hurt, but this, this was...

Yue whimpered once, but forced herself to go quiet afterwards. She could feel her blood being pulled out of her veins, racing up her arm to fill the void that Junpei was creating in her system. Her heart beat wildly, urging her to fight, to break free, but she forced herself still until she felt herself start to grow dizzy. She swooned forward, eyelids fluttering. "J... Junpei," she whispered, leaning her other hand against the stairs for balance. "Th... That's enough... I can't..."

Would he stop? Or was he too far gone?