The second time Eldrin found Kiolle asleep in the studio, it was past 2 a.m. The track list for their second album was still unfinished; they had started to gain traction as a band and needed to milk it to attract more fans, and Eldrin had returned to grab a forgotten USB. He didn't expect the low hum of the computer or the quiet figure curled up beneath the keyboard, arms crossed like a cat protecting its warmth.
Eldrin paused in the doorway, backlit by streetlight glow. The only sound was Kiolle's steady breathing and the blinking cursor of an untitled demo file. He looked small. Fragile, almost. But Eldrin had clearly already learned to be suspicious od such people even those he was close with as it seemed, "…You're going to ruin your back like that," he said quietly, stepping into the room.
Kiolle stirred, eyes fluttering open, instinct sharpening just for a moment, before recognition smoothed his expression into something drowsy and harmless. "Oh. Eldrin." He sat up, stretching with a yawn that was half-calculated innocence. "I didn't mean to fall asleep, besides I've slept in odd places before."
Eldrin raised an eyebrow. "You've done this before?"
Kiolle hesitated for a beat. "Just… when I lose track of time."
"Then stop doing that." Eldrin's voice was cool but not unkind. "Come upstairs. You can crash on the couch."
Kiolle blinked. "Wait... you mean with you guys?"
Eldrin nodded once. "You're part of this group now. Might as well start acting like it."
It was the second time anyone had invited him home without strings. The first being the old grandma who invited him to stay for a while some days after he killed his masters. He had actually just planned to drain of her blood thinking she had ulterior motives but she just turned out to be lonely.
The first night at the apartment was awkward.
Kiolle stayed wrapped in a throw blanket like a ghost, legs tucked up under himself as he listened to Briar humming in the kitchen and Loran loudly announcing he was shirtless (again). Corin had merely given him a glance and a distant smile.
Eldrin didn't hover. Just placed a cup of warm water next to him and disappeared into his room. That was the key, Kiolle thought. Eldrin didn't push. And that made Kiolle want to stay.
The third time he stayed over, it was because it rained.
The fourth time, it was because Loran insisted on watching movies late into the night.
The fifth time, Briar made extra pancakes and saved him a plate with his name scribbled on a sticky note.
After that, he just… never left.
No one questioned it. No one asked when he'd moved a change of clothes into the hallway closet. Or when his toothbrush appeared in the shared bathroom. Or when he started humming their new melodies while folding Eldrin's laundry like it was the most natural and domestic thing in the world.
One month later, his name was on the WiFi label. The door lock had his fingerprint. And he now had his own space, the others casually called it "his room," even though it had once been storage. Kiolle never brought it up.
But the way he watched Eldrin when no one was looking, soft and unguarded, told its own story. And now, as he wrapped himself deeper into their routines, he did so with purpose and mission.
Because every vampire needed a den. And Kiolle? He had just found his. He never forgot the scent of blood on Eldrin. If anything, it had started to consume him.
It was always faint, always just out of reach, an iron-laced whisper that curled into his senses whenever Eldrin walked past. Sometimes fresh, sometimes days old, never his. Always someone else's. And it put him on edge.
Kiolle had been doing so well lately. Finally, reining in the hunger that had been suppressed by his masters before. They only allowed him to feed from them after they slept with him after all, and it was never enough. You could even say he was an underdeveloped fledgling. While even his masters had once remarked that he was unnaturally strong for a newly made vampire, that unfortunately also meant he needed more blood than the normal fledgling, which his masters never provided. They only did the bare minimum.
The moment he had broken free from them he had gone on an eating frenzy to satisy the hunger he had felt for decades. He eventually realised that maybe that was not normal. Especially when he noticed how easy it had been for him to get high off the blood from overfeeding. And in his case, it was relatively easy to slip, in fact, it only took one human to get him to that state.
Turns out, even a person can get tired of getting high everyday. He had had enough, so he took the opposite approach and chose to only feed when necessary.
Cutting down his consumption had not been easy. He even gave up on feeding directly from humans and only got his blood from the blood banks. And even then, he spaced out his thefts from the hospital blood bank. It wasn't the healthiest choice for a still growing vampire, though he didn't even know his age. But it was necessary for his survival and prevent close accidents.
No more messy impulse feeds or waking up covered in someone else's shame. But that smell... it undid weeks of effort in seconds. So now, he was a man on a mission to get to the bottom of the scent.
He didn't enjoy killing, contrary to what his history and his species diet might suggest. He hated the mess of it, and the clean up. The stink. The guilt. He was inherently lazy as it was turning out to be. Even stealing from the hospital stock was a hustle.
So, just recently he came up with an idea. He'd spun a delicate lie about being severely dizzy and weak and went to the hospital, just to snoop around the inventory long enough to figure out which refrigerator wasn't guarded and maybe even use his vampire speed to steal some food.
Ironically, the blood tests came back positive for anaemia and mild malnutrition anyway. Apparently, going two weeks without blood made him actually look human-sick. Weak pulse. Low BP. Paper-pale(he was a vampire for goodness sake). Who knew? And now he was stuck.
Stuck with overbearing teammates who tracked his supplements like nosy overbearing moms. Stuck with Briar who followed him with a thermos full of bone soup. Stuck with Eldrin's occasional too-sharp stares. And worst of all: stuck playing the part of fragile little Kiolle, the one who "just needed rest" and "shouldn't push himself" and "could faint again if he's not careful."
Not that he minded, but somehow, the job got infinately harder than it was meant to be. He had made a mistake.