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If there’s ever been a lovelier human, Keith can’t recall. Those full lips around an enticing mouth, a jaw he could trace with his tongue for days, arms he could lose himself in for the rest of his eternity on earth. Shiro's body, head to toe, is a place Keith wouldn’t mind bowing down to worship for the first time in his long, long life. Every expression the man makes is a thing to be studied and savored, committed to a memory that spans centuries— the little clench along his jaw as he frowns, the tiny furrow of frustration along his brow, the soft grey of his eyes that becomes almost silver under the moonlight. His very presence stokes the embers in Keith’s heart to a blaze, a flame kept burning by and for Shiro alone.
Some nights he likes to imagine how much more marvelous Shiro might be as a vampire: his skin gone from silk to tensile marble; cords of muscle rewoven a thousand times stronger; his soft human edges refined like a diamond cut to brilliance. Shiro’s supernatural strength would be further multiplied, his senses heightened to a degree that might even surpass Keith’s own. He’d be immortal, untouchable, closer to a god than any human to walk before him— and only then, maybe, Keith could breathe easy again.
Figuratively, of course.
But the transition from human to immortal is an inscrutable, imprecise process and Keith worries for what may be lost forever as his slayer journeys through death and into eternity. Shiro is… Shiro, after all. He’s perfect as he is, flaws and everything else. It’s those unpolished edges and softnesses that make him so vulnerable, so endearing. Keith will miss the warm beat of his heart, the squirmy sounds of his internal organs at work, the smell of sweat on his skin coupled with blood rushing just under it.
He is driven to preserve Shiro as much as he can, in any way possible. He wants to save him— from loneliness, from danger, from death. And it’s the worst sort of irony that Keith’s only avenue to immortalize the human he loves is to be the one to kill him.
“How do you load this?” the object of his intense affections asks, blissfully unaware of Keith ruminating on the dilemma of turning him into the world’s first slaypire.
Shiro’s patience is wearing thin, frustration sharpening his tone as he tries unsuccessfully— for maybe the fifth or sixth time— to fit an arrow bolt into the flight groove of his most recent gift. The moonlight highlights the bleached-bone white of the fringe that hangs across his brow and the curve of his deepening frown.
“You need to cock it first,” Keith tells him before the man’s temper gets away from him and he snaps the thing in two. At Shiro’s blank, tired stare, he smiles and slinks in close. “Let me teach you.”
“Please,” Shiro agrees, his relief plain as he hands it over.
Buying the crossbow had been an immensely satisfying experience— Shiro had practically skipped down the aisles of the enormous hunting and fishing store they’d visited, comparing models and skimming reviews until he was satisfied with his pick. But as Keith gives it a once over, he decides he could probably build a better one by hand; will build a better one, once he has the free hours to dedicate himself to making Shiro the custom crossbow he deserves.
Back when the society of Watchers was strong, a slayer like Shiro would’ve been generously outfitted and paired with a bookish instructor as soon as he was marked by his calling. Nowadays, slayers get only a letter of explanation, a bestiary, and a hearty wish for good luck— little wonder they perish so horribly and so often.
With practiced, efficient movements, Keith drops the nose of the crossbow to the ground, puts the toe of his boot through the stirrup, and bends to loop his hands around the string. “You could use a rope or a crank to help cock it, but with your strength it shouldn’t be necessary. Quicker to do it by hand, too.”
He demonstrates how to draw up the bowstring and cock it, flips on the safety, and then raises the bow and shows Shiro how to load up a bolt. “There we go. Think you can handle it?”
“Absolutely,” the slayer answers, already reaching for the crossbow, his pretty, carven fingers curling around the stock as he grips it.
It’s… cute to watch Shiro take aim, stance firm and confident despite his nonexistent experience with the ranged weapon. With a stifled smile, Keith adjusts his form with light taps along his shoulders, nudges against his hip, and advice whispered into his ear.
The first shot goes wide, veering meters away from the humanoid target Keith set up across the meadow, near the treeline. Shiro slowly repeats the process of cocking the crossbow, looking to Keith for affirmation each step of the way, and then loads another arrow bolt. As he straightens up and takes aim again, his form still isn’t quite settled.
“Like this,” Keith murmurs, pressing close to his broad back. He lays his hands on either side of Shiro’s hips and shifts them; a knee between the human’s legs helps him widen his stance. He slips his arms around Shiro and steadies the heavy crossbow in his arms, reminding him where to place his hands if he’s keen on keeping all of his remaining fingers.
“You’re so transparent,” Shiro huffs as Keith pauses to kiss a tender, ticklish spot along the slope of his shoulder. All his squirming just makes the vampire hold onto him harder.
But he pays attention as Keith’s skilled hands guide his through the motions, all of his focus narrowed onto mastering this new means of slaying his enemies. The next arrow hits the target where a shoulder joint would be, the punch through compressed foam and wood audible even from here.
“Nice. Not dead, but crippled,” Keith praises. This close, he’s not strong enough to resist the allure of Shiro’s flesh. He stretches up on his toes and lays another lingering kiss against the man’s neck, his fangs pressing longingly against warm, salt-touched skin. “Try again.”
Shiro is a monstrously quick learner. After another two tries, he has it figured out— he swiftly cocks and reloads the crossbow in between every shot, and his bolts reliably pierce the chest, the head, the throat. It’s only the growing wind that vexes him, eventually rising to gusts that blow his shots clear off into the dense shadows of the surrounding woods.
Keith stares after each one, noting the spread. When Kosmo returns, he’ll send the hellhound out to fetch them.
“So, do you like it?” Keith questions as he deftly disassembles the crossbow and returns it to its case. His gaze slides up and finds the human smiling as he watches the sure and fluid movement of his hands.
“No, I love it,” Shiro insists, leaning in close. His breath still smells like the mint-chocolate chip milkshake he’d slurped on their drive back to the cabin, crisp and cool. “Thank you, Keith. I’ll do a lot of good with that bow.”
Keith doesn’t much care how Shiro uses it, honestly. The slayer could turn it against him, even, pointing the tip of a wooden bolt at his withered heart, and Keith would probably give him pointers and encouragement along the way. Whipped, is what Allura and her assistant call it.
Hm. Maybe I should get Shiro a whip…
“I saw a shield I wouldn’t mind having, too,” Shiro throws out there, his casual tone poorly feigned. “If you’re in the mood for some online shopping.”
Keith lets out a little snort. It used to be a struggle to get Shiro to even accept his gifts without polite protest, let alone ask for them outright. “A shield, hm? Sounds expensive. Do you plan on paying me back in kind?”
It’s a tease of a question— of course he’ll buy it for Shiro. The man’s desire of it is reason enough on its own, but it doesn’t hurt that Keith himself wishes for nothing more than to arm and armor him to the point of nigh invulnerability. Still, the suggestion gets the response he’d hoped for.
Shiro leans his head to one side, baring a long and tempting stretch of his neck, and taps two prosthetic fingers over the steadily throbbing vein lying just under silky soft skin. Drinking straight from his throat is an exercise in trust that the slayer has only allowed him a handful of times before; each precious instance is marked with a faint, silvery scar in the shape of his bite.
“I’ll let you tap this keg, baby—”
“That is definitely the least appealing way to phrase it.”
Faint laughter bubbles out of Shiro all the way to the cabin and over its threshold. He smiles crookedly as Keith turns and pins him against the closed double doors; with a chest-deep moan, he tugs the collar of his shirt down with a crooked finger so that the vampire might drag his tongue up the seam of his sternum and suckle along the hollow of his throat. He glides a hard, witch-forged hand up the curve of Keith’s back, urging him closer. Synthetic fingers weave into coal-dark hair and draw the vampire up for a kiss that begs to be deepened, the same way Shiro’s skin cries out to be marked.
Shiro is his, and Keith leaves no room for doubt. The human wears his scent like a second skin, so familiar now he doesn’t even notice the notes that cling to him even in Keith’s absence. He lovingly bears scars in the distinct shape of Keith’s bite, displaying them with a boldness that makes the vampire ache in the sweetest of ways.
And where humankind failed to properly adore Shiro and prepare him for the thankless work of slaying, Keith intends to do better.
He convinces Shiro to bed down with him for the day, safe within the walls of his secluded cabin. It’s a victory, and Keith celebrates it. While the wan morning hours give way to searing day outside, he loves Shiro fierce and unrelenting, with a tenderness that still bruises the man’s softer form.
All that softness belies the fearsome strength just underneath, though. Keith’s seen it and lived, as not many vampires can attest: hands that can fit around a skull and crush it inward; a body barely taxed as Shiro cleaves undead into pieces; a relentless will that pushes him to make a stand even against demons three-times his size. Under Shiro’s perfectly chiseled cheeks and behind the bite-worthy fullness of his lips lie teeth strong enough to pierce even a vampire’s resilient skin. Even Keith's.
He still thinks of that sparring session on days and nights when Shiro doesn’t stay with him— his shoulder throbbing, his purple-tinted blood smeared dark across Shiro’s mouth, his form trembling in awe of the passion-darkened stare leveled back at him.
Beautiful.
Shiro practically melts into the sheets after they finish, sweaty and sticky and licked thoroughly clean of every spilled drop of blood. His eyes roll and swivel in their sockets, their pretty grey hidden behind the veil of closed lids, and Shiro mumbles half-asleep nonsense as Keith plasters himself to his back and nuzzles into the short fuzz along the back of his neck.
Nestled like this, Keith can feel Shiro’s heartbeat against his chest— steady as it slows into the rhythm of deep slumber— so close it’s almost like having one of his own again.