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Nights like these, when the rage that burns hot in his veins threatens the tightly wound control he holds over himself, he seeks him out. The hunter is always wary when he appears, his dark mood palpable, but he always waits, just at the edges of the shadows, a silent request to be allowed closer.
McCullum always considers turning him away, wonders if this will be the night Reid allows the beast free and the Guard of Priwen will be forced to hunt him down or die trying. But he never does. He always follows Reid back to whatever little hideout is nearest, and files away the location for future reference, resolved to not let the leech roam free in this state but also not daring to examine his other motives too closely.
Reid is quiet on nights like these, waiting for McCullum to take charge, to help him pretend – pretend he is not some nigh all-powerful vampire cursed to eternally contend with the vicious wiles and cruel inhumanity of men and immortals alike, pretend that he is someone and something else, pretend that he is what he remembers himself to have once been. So when McCullum tells him to strip, he obeys without hesitation, moving with efficiency likely learned from his years on the frontlines and a tidiness that likely came from his upbringing. When McCullum orders him to kneel, he sinks to his knees with grace and gratitude.
It always gives McCullum a thrill to see the all-powerful Doctor Reid submit, because how could it not? The man was powerfully built before being turned, and his new status as one of the undead has done nothing to diminish that. He is quite tall with broader shoulders than the suits let on, and he is nicely muscled, far more than one would expect of a doctor, with light definition around his nicely toned abdomen and a pleasing curl to his biceps. But Reid is a leech, and there’s far more power hidden beneath that pale skin, the knowledge of which makes McCullum’s blood rush. It’s a dangerous game he plays, and a large part of him knows he should take the advantage Reid gives him and put an end to it – to him – but there’s a part of him that refuses to give up this feeling, even if it is an illusion of control. It’s addictive and McCullum’s not ready to quit.
McCullum leans against the door and unzips his trousers. Reid waits obediently until McCullum tells him to suck. He shuffles forward on his knees and takes the hunter in his mouth. McCullum keeps his crossbow pointed at the doctor; it seems to give them both some amount of comfort. Reid is quiet and focused, using his knowledge of anatomy to make up for his lack of experience. He pushes back the foreskin and licks at the head of McCullum’s cock before sucking gently on it. McCullum slowly relaxes a fraction, grunting when Reid takes him deeper in his mouth.
The light sucking noises are the only thing filling the silence for a while, but then Reid relaxes his throat and takes McCullum in even deeper, eliciting a surprised groan. McCullum’s head thuds back against the door at the shock of pleasure that shoots through him as Reid sucks long and hard, the hunter’s own control sorely tested.
“Fuck, that’s enough,” McCullum growls, refusing to let things end so quickly.
Reid backs off, a self-pleased look curled around the corner of his lips.
“Pleased with yerself, aren’t ya,” McCullum mutters, glaring down at the doctor, before ordering him over to the bed.
Reid rises to his feet with unearthly grace and pads over to the bed whilst McCullum removes the crossbow and sets it aside on the nearby worktable. He lies down as bidden, a stiffness in his posture that looks strange given the grace and elegance so natural in his limbs while in motion. McCullum spies a bit of rope coiled up beside a toolbox at the foot of the small crafting table in the room. He tucks himself back in, the front of his trousers bulging with his erection, before going over to retrieve it. He then goes over to the bed and climbs on top of Reid, straddling him before resting his weight easily on top of him since there’s no fear of actually crushing him.
He takes Reid’s hands and binds them together securely with the rope before tying them to the brass bars of the headboard. It won’t actually hold him, but it will help with the illusion – with the surrender of control Reid finds himself craving now that his very existence demands he never allow himself to slip. McCullum runs his fingers through Reid’s dark hair, then pushes his head back, baring his throat to him in an odd sort of twisted parody. Reid’s eyes drift closed, lips parting in a soft sigh, as he sinks further into the artifice of helplessness.
McCullum leans down, blunt human teeth grazing over the skin. Reid huffs at the irony of the gesture, but then moans softly as McCullum begins sucking at the pulse point he remembers should be there. McCullum teases more small noises from the doctor, but then notices the way his fangs begin to bare, and pulls away. Reid blanches when he realizes, a look of utter dismay on his face.
“Stop,” McCullum commands, more pleased than he’d like to admit when Reid does, the mounting misery in his expression stopped in its tracks by a bit of surprise quickly smoothed over into attentive obedience. The hunter removes his scarf from his neck and balls it up. “Open,” he orders Reid, who obeys without question, and then stuffs it in his mouth. He then removes his already loosened belt and uses it to finish the makeshift gag, the wide leather pressed between Reid’s lips and wrapped around his head keeping the doctor from dislodging the scarf.
The look of relief in Reid’s eyes makes McCullum snort. “Yer actin’ like I don’t know how to handle ya,” the hunter scoffs. “You should know better than that.”
Reid’s eyes glitter with a smile and his body relaxes as he gives himself over to McCullum, grateful that he can do so. The hunter moves back and kneels between Reid’s legs. He takes Reid’s cock in his hand, stroking him with a firm grasp. Reid moans, back arching at the touch, cock hardening slowly but surely at the mounting pleasure. McCullum feels his own arousal straining against the confines of his trousers at the way having Reid twisting beneath him makes him feel.
He leaves Reid wanting, cock hard and dripping, panting around the gag. The doctor’s bright eyes follow him as he searches the room for something he can use as a lubricant. Ultimately, he ends up in the pockets of the doctor’s overcoat. He snorts softly when he discovers a small jar of some sort of neutral-smelling ointment; the good doctor is of course the sort to come prepared.
McCullum pauses at the side of the bed, taking in the sight of the doctor, trussed up and still hard. There are certain signs, small details, that reveal a leech to one who’s looking, but it’s startlingly more noticeable now. Reid’s skin remains pale, unflushed, and there’s not a speck of sweat. Like this, he cannot hide what he is, and McCullum’s disgusted with himself that he cannot be more bothered by that, not when Reid’s desire and need is so present, not when he’s submitting himself in this way. They’re playing pretend in several ways, but there’s a grain of truth at the heart of this farce that makes McCullum more uncomfortable than he’ll ever freely admit aloud.
“So docile,” the hunter mutters, “so expectant.” He palms himself through his clothes, a little pressure to take the edge off. “You think you deserve this?”
Reid just stares at him, a different sort of hunger in his eyes.
“You think playin’ at being good earns you some sort of reward?” he asks.
Reid’s expressions twists slightly, brow furrowing, not certain if this is McCullum genuinely asking him or part of an assumed role; perhaps it is both. But he can’t answer, not properly, and is a little relieved when it doesn’t appear that McCullum actually wants him to.
“Maybe I should leave ya like this,” McCullum continues, “get myself off to the sheer indecent look of ya, and leave you here, unable to achieve satisfaction. Do you even know what ya look like?”
Reid would have flushed had he been able, but he can feel the vestiges of it twist and burn in his chest, a level of wanton shame coiled in his chest. McCullum smirks at the embarrassment that flickers across the doctor’s usually placid expression. He’s not sure if it’s an affectation for his benefit or something genuine, but it makes him appear nearly relatable, almost human.
McCullum sits on the edge of the bed after pushing Reid’s legs up, bending them at the knees so he has better access. He coats a finger with the ointment and then presses it against Reid’s entrance, waiting till he feels the doctor relax to push it inside. He’s tight, but McCullum’s willing to take his time. He crooks his finger and strokes Reid’s insides. The doctor groans, hands clenching. McCullum spreads him a little more and works a second finger inside. He spends the next few minutes watching Reid slowly fall apart, letting go of a little more of that tightly-wound control bred in him from birth and born in him after being turned, the gag doing little to muffle the noises he’s no longer trying to contain.
Reid throws his head back with a loud, throaty moan as McCullum resumes stroking him, his cock hard and dripping messily. He drags in a breath through his nose, attempting to retain some modicum of composure, but he is helpless to pleasure in a way he is helpless to little else. It stirs a fire in his veins that may be more psychosomatic than anything else, but it is overwhelming in the most wonderful of ways. It is hunger but not torturous, not bone deep – soul deep – doesn’t overcome his senses and his self the way the bloodlust is able to. Pleasure like this thrums pleasantly throughout his body, aches and pulls at him, and is both stoked and satiated by every touch.
McCullum’s fingers brush against his prostrate and the guttural groan he emits – body arching and twisting, the sensation hitting him just right, the way it’s combined with the firm, even strokes of the hunter’s other hand on him – makes the hunter’s blood rush.
“That’s it,” McCullum murmurs, working Reid thoroughly, eyes carefully watching the shadow-tipped claws beginning to emerge. He knows this illusion can only carry so far, but at least Reid’s eyes are shut tight; at least he can continue to pretend.
McCullum’s fingers are thick and strong and deceptively dexterous. He begins stroking the doctor’s prostate with unerring accuracy while thumbing the vein along the underside of his cock. The combination of sensations is overwhelming, and Reid cannot hold back, cannot hold out any longer. He gives a loud cry as he comes, his body a rigid arc shuddering with the waves of pleasure coursing through him, and spills onto his own stomach. He collapses back on the bed, limbs trembling lightly, chest heaving, a dazed look in his eyes.
McCullum climbs onto the bed between Reid’s spread legs and hikes them over his shoulders. He unzips his trousers and shoves them down before hastily slicking himself with ointment. He guides himself to Reid’s entrance and then pushes in with a hiss of pleasure at the tightness that greets him. Reid moans as he’s breached, eyes falling closed again at this new pleasure of being filled with such delicious heat. McCullum pushes in slowly, savoring the way Reid clenches around him, until he’s buried to the hilt.
“Fuck,” he curses. He knows he won’t last long but he wants to savor this as much as he can. He pulls out a little, and then slowly rolls his hips, thrusting back in. It’s good, but not enough, not for McCullum nor for Reid, who cants his hips forward, urging the hunter to move more. “Yer not in charge here,” McCullum growls before turning his head and biting the inside of Reid’s thigh.
Reid’s gasp turns into a deep moan and he feels a stirring in his groin. But he’s already spent and he doesn’t think he’ll be able to get hard again. McCullum just watches as the faint red marks his teeth make fade nearly instantly, leaving unblemished, pale flesh behind. He rolls his hips again, accepting instead the delicious moan Reid emits, the loss of composure as much of a victory as he can expect to gain against this particular opponent. He wonders if someday he’ll be able to make Reid beg.
McCullum begins thrusting in harder, faster, and watching as the doctor comes even further undone, fangs beginning to show, biting into the leather of the belt stretched across his mouth, claws sharpening. The edge of danger gives him an indecent thrill and he curses loudly, liquid heat pooling in his groin. Every thrust becomes a little shorter, a little faster and a little more desperate as he chases that heat to the edge of ecstasy.
And then Reid utters a quiet, muffled, “Please,” and it’s too much. McCullum pulls out as he comes, a tight groan drawn from his throat as he spills, painting Reid with white and heat that clings to pale skin.
McCullum breathes heavily, staring down at the utterly indecent picture of the doctor, spent and marked and completely satiated, still bound beneath him. It’s addictive, what Reid lets him have, and he knows now, just as he knows every time, that he won’t be able to give this up, no matter how much he knows he should.
He sets Reid’s legs down, then leans over the doctor and removes the belt and scarf from his mouth. He brushes his thumb lightly over his lips and then against the tips of the fangs Reid only realizes are showing when McCullum touches them. The Ekon freezes, eyes wide and wary, as McCullum pushes his thumb between Reid’s teeth and into his mouth. His heart beats a little faster, but he runs his tongue around the digit and sucks gently.
McCullum watches him with a sharp yet guarded look, scrutinizing and contemplative, for many moments.
“Pretend all you like, Reid,” he says finally, drawing his thumb out, grazing the tips of Reid’s teeth as he does. “I never will.”
Reid flinches.
“If this is what you need, if this is what it takes,” McCullum continues, his gaze holding him, pinning him in place, “then pretend all you want.”
Reid swallows at the flutter he feels in his chest as he starts to hear what McCullum is telling him.
“Rely on me to remember,” the hunter says, reaching up to thread his fingers through the shadowy claws still apparent at the tips of Reid’s fingers. “I’ll take care of you however you need, whether it’s this or a stake to the heart.”
“That would be asking an awful lot of you, my dear hunter,” Reid says, finally managing to find his voice, a bit hoarse but also humored.
McCullum snorts and reaches down to his boot with his other hand to retrieve the small dagger he keeps concealed there. “Damn right,” he agrees. “But I’d not trust another soul to do the same.” He slices through the ropes binding Reid’s hands.
Reid remains where he is, a contemplative look on his distinguished features. McCullum’s eyes can’t help but catalogue once again every little detail that reveals Reid as the leech he is – the pallor, the veins, that particular pale shade of blue in his eyes. The shadows linger at his fingertips awhile longer before they recede, leaving long, elegant fingers befitting a surgeon intertwined with the hunter’s. He knows that McCullum’s time is limited, that he is blessedly mortal, and Reid can’t help but lament the familiar thought. Given everything he has accepted he can’t have – the warming light of the sun, the comforting taste of English tea, the laughter and smiles of his sister and nephew – it makes him feel unreasonably selfish and self-indulgent to accept what McCullum is offering.
His fingers tighten around McCullum’s in wordless acceptance, his eyes shining with silent gratitude, and he brings McCullum’s hand to his lips.
“Fuckin’ romantic,” McCullum mutters, playing at annoyed while a soft smile settles in the corners of his mouth. “I should’ve known.”
“I suppose the only proper thing after such a moving declaration would be for me to woo you now,” Reid remarks with a smile curled on his lips.
“Don’t you dare,” McCullum growls, glaring at Reid whose eyes merely twinkle with amusement. The hunter frowns, sensing the inevitable change in Reid that signals the end of the night. Sometimes it is a deadly quiet that has him slipping out the door in silence; other times it is palpable shame or guilt that leads him back out into the cover of night.
The powerful desperation that led him to the hunter is gone, replaced by his customary self-assured confidence, the change in demeanor a stark reminder of the unshakeable doubts McCullum cannot allow himself to overlook.
How many times has he hunted down a leech that had charmed or simply manipulated its prey into a not dissimilar situation? McCullum wants to think he’ll keep Reid in line, that he won’t be duped like so many others have been, but the ghost of Carl Eldritch barks disapproving words in the back of his mind that he cannot ignore. No matter how genuine Reid appears, no matter how honest he seems, he is a leech, compelled by his very nature to feed and doomed by his timelessness to forfeit all vestiges of humanity; ultimately untrustworthy.
Reid can see the tumult wrought in eyes too human, can well imagine the hunter’s misgivings and self-recrimination. His own mind echoes in parallel. But he has such a growing fondness for this hunter who is a good man, if flawed, who has and continues to provide him with shelter in the storm of animalistic instincts and monstrous urges and emotions too fraught that Reid battles within himself every night of waking. He knows there is no sense, no amount of reason in these illicit rendezvouses, but the two of them have continued in spite of themselves, reason be damned.
Theirs is a passion matched, the two of them bound in unspoken desire and silent need.
And now, McCullum has offered something more, more than either of them expected, and Reid knows there is vulnerability there, even if the hunter refuses to show it, maybe doesn’t know how. It warms him in a way he’s not sure he’s ever quite felt the likeness of before, but he schools his features, for he knows it would only make the hunter uncomfortable to see the depths of gratitude and affection he feels for him.
“I suppose it would be a bit backwards,” he replies lightly, watching the hunter’s reaction carefully.
McCullum snorts, a bit of tension easing from his expression. “Everythin’ about this is a bit backwards, I’d say.”
Reid is silent, his face decently impassive, but the emotions flitting through his too pale eyes are too readable, especially for something – someone – McCullum could have once sworn to be utterly inscrutable. He wonders if he’s not been mesmerized somehow, his mind twisted and urged to see more than is actually there, because no vampire, especially not one of Reid’s standing with the power and strength to singlehandedly end a mythic Disaster, should ever look so human.
He is of half a mind to leave, but that intangible pull he feels from Reid, feels for him, keeps him just where he is. He frowns, but leans down despite himself, and presses his mouth to Reid’s, giving him what he won’t ask for but so clearly wants, so clearly needs.
He wants this…
Reid stares at him wide-eyed for a beat, before he allows himself to slip into the moment. His eyes fall closed and his lips part, the warmth of McCullum’s mouth on his, the warmth of his hand still entwined in his, the warmth radiating from his body above him – he soaks it all up, savoring the sensation, the connection.
He wants this, if he can…
“The whole damn world is backwards and upside down,” McCullum mutters, drawing back for a moment, his lips reddened and swollen. But his sharp blue eyes maintain their piercing stare, seeing clearly what is before them. “I’ve been dealin’ with that my whole life,” he continues, brushing Reid’s disheveled hair back. “So, I suppose backwards suits me just fine.”
Such desperate affection and perilous hope beats in Reid’s chest, but there are no reassurances he can offer, certainly none that McCullum would accept, that this tenuous thing between them won’t break, won’t end by burying them in blood and flames and pain. He wants to say he’ll never betray McCullum’s trust, but the words taste like a lie in his mind when he can’t fully trust himself. So he simply draws McCullum back down for another wordless kiss, warmed and humbled when McCullum allows him.
It’s a fool’s madness, but they want this, if they can, for as long as they are permitted.