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theshannonlewis · 7 years

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Petrichor (Chapter 2) Iwaizumi/Oikawa, Iwaizumi/Bokuto/Kuroo

Haikyuu!!, IwaizumixOikawa, IwaizumixBokutoxKuroo NSFW, 16,600 words.

Iwaizumi leaves Oikawa's hotel and finishes his drive to Houston, looking for answers about what happened the night before. But in the cold light of day, the possibility that he might be permanently connected to a vampire is starting to look a little too real. Iwaizumi POV, companion to Ichor by @carriecmoney

Also on Ao3.

Four hours, three hundred miles, and five drive-thru burgers later, Iwaizumi pulled up the long, winding dirt drive that led to TK’s ranch. It was a wide, single-story building set on a huge tract of grassland that would have been perfect for cattle grazing if it weren’t the occasional hunting ground for a dozen or so werecats and half as many miscellaneous avian shifters. The two packs mostly ran up by the Sam Houston National Forest, but the ranch – both the house and the surrounding property – was a safety net and haven for all the shifters that fell under TK’s protection. The house was big enough to put all of them up if the need arose.

All the lights were on inside, the big windows burning like beacons on the wide open plain, but TK’s red pickup and Bo’s black-and-gold Jeep were the only cars parked out front. The cats tended to linger after a shift, which meant either TK’s pride had collectively learned how to take a cue to leave and headed home on their own, or TK had cleared the place out so they could have this chat in private. Iwaizumi parked his borrowed truck next to TK’s and killed the ignition. He could return the truck in the morning. For now, he needed answers.

The front door opened while he was still halfway up the path. TK was leaning in the frame, looking like he’d just woken up from a nap. He waved, and Iwaizumi gave him a little nod, but when Iwaizumi jogged up the front steps, TK didn’t move. His lazy half-smile didn’t slip, either, but Iwaizumi knew: he was blocking the door.

“What’s going on?” Iwaizumi said, not bothering to hide his suspicion.

TK breathed out a humorless laugh, ducking his head and hiding behind his shaggy hair. “Nothing personal,” he said.

Iwaizumi prickled, a rush of hair-raising anger that came and went, but left his shoulders tense in its wake. “I came to you for help. For answers.”

“And I’m going to give them to you, but I have to ask you something first.” Iwaizumi crossed his arms over his chest, and TK sighed, cocking his head to one side. “You said you almost talked your way out of it,” he said. “Does that mean you made a deal with the vamp?”

“A contract that was fulfilled on both sides,” he said, suddenly understanding the purpose of Oikawa’s oddly formal letter. “Which I have in writing, if you’d like to see it.”

TK gave a small nod. “That the only place he bit you? On the wrist?”

Iwaizumi crossed his arms tighter. He hadn’t figured out a way to keep that mark covered yet. “No. Why?”

“Can you show me the other ones?”

A little growl trickled out of him, his voice going deep. “Not unless you want me to take my pants off on your porch. What the fuck is this about?”

TK sighed, dropping his defensive stance and stepping onto the small porch. “Look, if you and the Deacon made promises, even informally, and swapped blood, it’s possible that was enough to stand in for a binding ritual, and I need to be sure it didn’t, or shit could get messy, okay?”

The thought made Iwaizumi’s stomach clench. “Fine. How do you tell?”

“Are any of the wounds still open? Not like bleeding, but-”

“No, they’re all healed over. Just like this one,” he said, showing TK his wrist.

TK looked from where he was standing and nodded, but made no move to get closer. “Borrowed truck?”

“Yeah. Need to return it in the morning, unless you want me to go now.”

TK shook his head. “You eat already?”

“Yeah, on the way back, but I’m still starved. Didn’t have anything before or during my shift last night.”

TK hummed, nodding his understanding. “What’d you have to eat?”

“The fuck does that matter?”

“Humor me.”

Iwaizumi grunted. “Two protein bars when I woke up, some cookies, half a gallon of apple juice, five double burgers no pickles, a chocolate milkshake, and an asston of fries.”

“How tall are you?” he asked, pulling his phone out of his pocket and typing something out on the screen.

“Five ten on a good day. What’s this about, TK?”

“Just need to check something. How much do you weigh?”

“210, maybe 200 coming off the turn?”

“Blood type?”

“A.”

“Any idea how much blood he took?”

Iwaizumi shook his head. “I don’t know. Too much. Probably enough to have killed a human. Three pints? Maybe more?”

“And how much did you drink?”

“Enough for him to stop me.”

“How long were you in your shift?”

Iwaizumi gave a small shake of his head. “Dunno. Probably the full twelve. I crashed hard afterwards.”

“You don’t remember coming back?”

“I remember, but I was alone in a windowless cell, and I wasn’t wearing a watch.”

“What was his name again?”

Iwaizumi blinked. “Tooru. Tooru Oikawa.” TK’s eyes widened, and Iwaizumi frowned. “Why?”

“Well, the bad news is, you were right. Unless there are two Tooru Oikawas in Louisiana that both happen to be vampires, you just opened a vein for one of the bigwigs.”

Iwaizumi grunted. He’d figured as much. “What’s the good news?”

“The good news is, you’re not blood bound to him, and you’re not his thrall,” TK said, turning and heading back inside and waving for Iwaizumi to follow.

“I already told you that,” Iwaizumi snapped, following him inside and shutting the door behind them with a little more force than was strictly necessary.

“Yeah, well, you might not have known it, and I needed to be sure before we ran into a conflict of interests. But I trust you, so even though you absolutely reek of vampire, since your wounds are closed and you can say his name, that’s good enough for me,” TK said, leading him through the house and into the sunken living room, which was little more than a pit full of pillows and bean bags pointed generally in the direction of a big projection screen. There was some nature documentary about small mammals splashed across the wall. Bo was draped over a yoga ball in the middle of the floor eating pork rinds, and when Iwaizumi stepped down into the room, Bo held out the bag in his direction without looking away from the screen.

“No thanks,” Iwaizumi said. “What do you mean, ‘conflict of interests’?”

TK sighed, stopping in the middle of the room. He lifted up one arm and pulled up the sleeve of his shirt, revealing the inside of his bicep. The marks on his arm weren’t a perfect match for the ones on Iwaizumi’s – the two round puncture wounds were smaller, closer together, and neat, almost delicate rather than slightly ragged, and fresh, like they’d just had the scabs picked off – but it was obvious they’d been made the same way.

“You’re blood bound to someone?” He couldn’t keep the shock out of his voice, but TK looked unruffled and unimpressed. Iwaizumi shook his head, frowning. “Sorry, I just...why didn't you tell me?" he asked, trying not to sound hurt. TK kept a lot of secrets, but not usually from him - certainly not ones this big.

TK sighed. "Because vampires always come with strings attached, and I wanted to spare you getting tangled up in them if I could."

That did sound like TK. "And now?"

"Now you need to know what you're getting yourself into." TK gave a small nod towards the floor. "Sit?"

Iwaizumi settled himself awkwardly into a big pile of pillows while TK dropped bonelessly onto a cushion next to Bo’s yoga ball. “So,” Iwaizumi said. “Tell me what I need to know.”

TK stroked his fingertips along the underside of Bo’s chin, making him coo, his sharp gold eyes falling half lidded. The subdued way he melted into the touch was proof enough he wasn’t quite himself; he’d probably spent longer than he should have in his owl form, but there was no one that could keep Bo from flying, not even TK. “The vampire I’m bound to is named Kenma Kozume, the former Deacon of Shreveport.”

“ Former Deacon?” As far as he knew, it wasn’t exactly a position you retired from.

TK waved him off, continuing as though he hadn’t been interrupted. “Part of Kenma's job was to hunt down vampires that tried to leave Louisiana without permission and drag them back to the Bishop. We kept bumping into each other when I was working to consolidate the state, and we agreed to work together to pick up his strays and keep a nest from forming in Houston. For years, that was the extent of it - hunting parties and hand-offs. Then, about six months ago, he came to me looking for protection."

Six months. Iwaizumi frowned. “What happened?”

“The Bishop tried to force Kenma to sire another vampire, and when he refused, he was stripped of his land and title and run out of the state.”

“And I need to know this because?”

“Because when Kenma refused, the responsibility fell to the next youngest vampire.”

Iwaizumi grunted. “Oikawa.”

TK gave a small nod. “Apparently he refused, too, but the Bishop wasn’t willing to take no for an answer twice. Forced him to turn some Japanese exchange student that was in the city on an athletics scholarship, then stabbed Oikawa in the chest with a silver spear. Kenma thought he was dead.”

“Jesus.”

“Kenma’s got no hard feelings, but if Oikawa-”

“Tooru doesn’t care about Kenma,” Iwaizumi said, so fast he surprised himself. TK raised an eyebrow. Iwaizumi frowned, trying to trace the thought back to its source, but found only impressions – clear and decisive, but not his own. “Kenma stood up for himself and got out while he could. Tooru respects that. His beef is with Ushiwaka.” TK’s other eyebrow went up, and Iwaizumi’s frown deepened. He’d never even heard that name before, and didn’t know how he knew it.

“That’s fuckin’ creepy, man.”

Iwaizumi ran a hand down his face. “Yeah, well, that’s why I��m here, isn’t it?”

TK hummed, resting his chin on his fist and idly scratching the dip between Bo’s shoulder blades. “From the look on your face, he didn’t tell you any of that, which means whatever’s going on, it’s more than just a blood bond.”

“TK still has to talk to Kenma out loud,” Bo said absently, reaching back and feeding TK one of his pork rinds.

TK hummed an agreement, crunching on the pork rind, then said, “And I’m doubly sure you aren’t in his thrall, because you’d have a verbal block on sensitive information like that, not instinctive access to it.”

Iwaizumi frowned. “So that doesn’t happen with you and Kenma?”

TK shook his head. “We’re close, but not that close. When he’s had enough of my blood, I can read him as well as any other shifter. Better than half my pride, honestly. But it’s like Bo and Keiji. We can swap thoughts through touch, and we hunt well together, but he’s not my mate.”

“But what’s the difference?” Iwaizumi asked, frustrated. “I know the closer you are to someone, the tighter the bond, but there are so few people that let me in at all that I don’t-” He let out a curt, frustrated breath. “How is it different between the two of you than it is with Kenma, or Keiji, or anyone else?”

Bo and TK turned and met eyes, eerily synchronized, then leveled their gazes on Iwaizumi and said, together, “He’s mine.”

Iwaizumi sighed. “Great. Helpful.”

Bo cocked his head to one side and blinked slowly, eyes huge and ever so slightly inhuman. “Keiji is my… partner,” he said slowly, like he was struggling to find words to describe the feeling. “We… fit, but he’s not…” He frowned, and after a moment, cast a glance back toward TK, who grew thoughtful, sliding his hand up to the back of Bo’s neck, seeking skin.

“We didn’t know it before we met, but we aren’t whole when we aren’t together,” TK said, curling his fingers in the hair at the nape of Bo’s neck.

Bo hummed, tipping his head forward and resting his chin on the yoga ball, murmuring, “Keiji is the next closest thing, but we can’t skinwalk.”

Iwaizumi sat back, his stomach going cold. His eyes flicked to TK. “Is that the difference?”

TK nodded slowly. “It might be. I hadn’t really thought about it that way, because Kenma and I get real close when we hunt, but he’s right, it isn’t the same, and I’ve never heard of anyone being in pair bond that couldn’t do it, or two people who could that weren’t.”

“Fuck,” Iwaizumi said, scrubbing his hands through his hair, then rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands. “Fuck, I need a drink.” He pushed himself to his feet and headed for the kitchen. He could feel them both watching him, steady predator eyes boring through him, and he rubbed the back of his neck before he could check the instinct. “You want anything?”

“Boys drank us out of house and home last night,” TK said, “but there should be a couple bottles of beer in the back of the freezer.”

There were, and Iwaizumi cracked one of them open with his thumb and drained it, then pressed the cool bottle to his forehead and closed his eyes. When he looked up, TK was leaned against the kitchen counter, Bo perched next to him. “You gonna make us ask?”

Iwaizumi pulled three more bottles of beer out of the freezer and passed one to TK and one to Bo before cracking a second one open for himself. “It was just for a few minutes, but we stopped being two people.” He rubbed his knuckles against his chest, over his heart. “I can still feel him.” He took another swig of beer and shook his head. “There’s nothing there ,” he said, thumping his chest, “but it answers my call. He. Fuck, he answers my call. That means he’s-” He stopped. Swallowed. Cleared his throat. “I mean, fuck, doesn’t it? Is there precedent for this? Between a shifter and a vampire?”

“Kenma is asking around. Discreetly,” TK said. “But you realize the three of us are already weirder than most people think is possible,” TK said, gesturing between them with the neck of his beer bottle.

Bo grinned, rocking on the edge of the counter. “Anything weirder than us is just rumors.”

“At this point, I’ll gladly take rumors.”

TK gave a slow shrug. “I know a guy who knows a guy who heard there’s some kind of avian shifter that wanders the Mississippi busking with his mate, who’s a siren.”

He said it like it was a rumor hardly worth the breath it cost to spread, but Bo perked up. “No, that one’s true,” he said. TK’s eyebrows raised in surprise, and Bo conceded, “Well, probably. Few years back, Yukie picked up a couple hitchhikers headed north up by Vicksburg. They got t-boned at an intersection, and when the kid pulled her out of the wreckage, he got her blood in his cuts, enough to turn him. They didn’t stick around, but she said the guy’s friend had slits for ears and made her car smell like river water.”

TK looked mildly impressed. “If that’s true, could mean it only takes one shifter to be able to form a bond. Or sense one that’s there, maybe.” He tilted his head. “Why don’t you tell us exactly what happened last night? I saved you some steak, and there’s a bottle of tequila under the sink.”

Iwaizumi sighed and finished off the last of his beer, then nodded.

***

They sat him down at their oversized dining table and got him drunk enough to tell them everything, from the blown tire to finding Oikawa asleep on a sofa the next morning. When he tried to describe the sensation of his wolf reaching out for Oikawa, though, Bo barked out a laugh and started slapping his hand against the tabletop. “What?” Iwaizumi snapped.

“Oh man, you’ve got it bad .”

Iwaizumi crossed his arms over his chest, trying to suppress the growl he could feel prickling at the back of his throat.

“What he’s trying to say,” TK interjected, “is that that’s not something you can do with a casual acquaintance.” He shook his head. “I’m going to be blunt with you, Hajime. Your perspective is skewed because your parents are the most perfect mates that have ever walked the face of the earth, but that kind of connection is rare . Some of what you described could be vampire blood fuckery, but most of it? It’s because he’s yours and deep down, you know it. Don’t fuck this up.”

Iwaizumi frowned, “I just-”

“Call him,” Bo said.

“Okay, fine, you’re right. I’ll call him tomorrow.” TK started to object, but Iwaizumi talked over him, “I’m not calling now, because I’m drunk and tired and I don’t know how he’s going to react. I’ll call tomorrow.”

***

He meant to call.

But the next morning he woke to something shifting beneath the sheets, cool fingertips on his thighs, the ghost of lips wandering from the backs of his knees upward, his name, whispered against his skin, Hajime , before he struck, fangs piercing flesh.

Iwaizumi sat bolt upright in bed, breathing hard and sweating. TK was still asleep to one side of him, arm slung around his waist, Bo on the other, nuzzled against his hip, arms coiled around his thigh. Just a dream. He flopped back down into the nest of pillows, threading his hands back through his hair. It was just a dream.

He tried to go back to sleep, but when he closed his eyes, there was a weight on his chest, the loops and coils of a big, friendly snake, hissing his name in his ear, Hajime, Hajime , cool scales sliding along bare skin.

He swore under his breath and peeled himself free of Bo and TK, then crawled over Bo and off their better-than-king-sized bed. He dug around in their walk-in closet until he found a pair of sweatpants and a shirt that would fit him, then changed out of his borrowed pajamas. As he passed the bed on his way out, TK hooked his fingers in the pocket of Iwaizumi’s pants and murmured, “You smell like sex.”

“Go back to sleep.”

“Suit yourself,” he said, his lazy, satisfied grin giving way to a wide yawn. “I’ll go with you to drop off your car when you get back.”

“Thanks. Just gonna do a few laps around the block, clear my head.”

TK hummed, then blew a sleepy kiss that mostly wound up in Bo’s pillow. Iwaizumi grabbed his phone off the nightstand, shoved it in his pocket, and headed for the door. He spent a minute stretching on the front porch, then jogged down the driveway and out onto the street.

He slowed to a fast walk when his phone started ringing, then stopped when he saw the call was from TK. He flipped the phone open and answered. “What?”

“ I know our blocks are pretty long out here, but I didn’t think they were that long. ”

“What?” he asked, then realized he was a little breathless. “What are you talking about?”

The line was quiet for a moment. Then TK said, “ Hajime, you’ve been gone for five hours .”

“What?” he said, standing up straighter and looking around. The wide open ranchland had given way to tired-looking industrial buildings.

“ Where are you ?”

“I don’t-” He turned in a slow circle, trying to get his bearings, but nothing looked familiar. “I have no idea. TK, what the fuck?”

“ Don’t freak out. Just find the nearest cross street. We’re coming to get you .”

***

He knew what had happened, but when they got back to the ranch, he checked anyway.

He’d run more than thirty miles, following the most direct route back toward Baton Rouge.

***

Bo and TK drove Oikawa’s pickup truck back to the dealership together while Iwaizumi sat in a pile of pillows at the ranch and chewed on his thumbnail, struggling to stay still. His whole body was trembling with nervous energy, and he wanted desperately to run, but this was a trap he wasn’t sure he could escape. He had spent his whole life slipping bonds, avoiding confinement, cutting and running when the collar cinched too tight. There were a dozen packs he ran with, but none he belonged to; an apartment where his stuff stayed but he didn’t; a job that didn’t depend on a boss, or a tie, or a clock; people he loved, laughed with, drank with, slept with, but always in passing. He had never needed anything else, never let himself want it; he’d been born to run. The ache in his chest, the hollow space that hadn’t been there before, the need left him cold and nauseous, jittery and hungry to flee. But he knew if he ran now, he would spend two straight days in that blind, mindless stupor only to find himself back at Oikawa’s doorstep, a lost dog returned to its master. The thought hit, and it stuck. He pushed to his feet and ran to the bathroom, then threw up until his ribs ached and there were tears streaming down his face.

***

The dreams were worse the second night, slower and more drawn out. Oikawa’s mouth hesitated over his cock, breath like a puff of steam, before continuing up along his stomach, his sternum. This time, his legs ended up around Oikawa’s waist, and Oikawa’s fangs sunk into the soft point of Iwaizumi’s neck that he’d been denied the first time.

Iwaizumi woke with a muffled shout, grateful to find himself alone in the bed.

***

When he made his way into the kitchen, he found Bo at the stove wearing nothing but a pair of neon green briefs and a frilly pink apron, TK sitting at the island across from him, dressed for work and nursing a big mug of coffee. “He’s never going to go for it, babe,” TK said.

“It’s a good idea ,” Bo insisted, fussing with something on the stove. The kitchen smelled like eggs and bacon. Iwaizumi shuffled in and flopped down on the stool next to TK. It felt like he’d hardly slept at all the night before, despite the fact that it was already well past the time he usually got up in the morning.

TK grinned into his coffee cup and said, “Rough night?”

“Bite me, fur face,” he said, scrubbing the sleep out of his eyes with the heels of his hands. “Who isn’t going to go for what now?”

“There’s a visiting exhibit at the Field Museum in Chicago that Keiji wants to go to, for his research. Bo thinks they should fly there together.”

Iwaizumi blinked and glanced up at Bo. “Does he not want you to go or something?”

“Not plane fly,” TK said. “Fly fly.”

“Oh,” Iwaizumi said, then, “ Oh .”

Bo set a plate in front of him – two fried eggs and several strips of bacon arranged in a smiley face, with two wedges of buttered toast balanced on the edge of the plate like cat ears. “It’s a good idea,” Bo said again, pointing at Iwaizumi with his spatula. “Worst case, we halve our airfare.”

TK snorted. “Worst case, you wake up naked somewhere in the middle of Kansas.” He paused, then added, “Or wake up naked somewhere in the middle of Chicago .”

Bo waved a hand dismissively. “Keiji knows a – what is he, a python? Lives maybe an hour outside the city. We could fly to him, shift there, take the train to the city in the morning. It’s a perfect plan.”

“How would you get back?” Iwaizumi asked, poking at the yolks of his eggs with the corner of his toast.

TK groaned. “Don’t encourage him.”

But it was too late. “Like I said, worst case, we take a plane there, or back. But I’m thinking if we go maybe a week before the turn of the moon, we could force the shift early.” Iwaizumi rolled his eyes, but Bo pressed on, “Then we spend a nice week together in some swanky hotel, see the sights, eat some pizza, then fly back on the next full moon. Foolproof.”

“Maybe if you want to spend half the trip zoned out watching Animal Planet,” TK said. Bo wrinkled his nose. “Besides, that’s a lot of distance to cover in twelve hours. You sure you can even make it that far?”

“That’s what I want to find out,” Bo said, sighing and leaning on the counter across from them. “Just as a test next month, see how far we can fly in a night. For science.”

“Mm,” TK hummed into his coffee. “And then after twelve hours of flying you wake up in some unknown location, an unknown distance away from home. How do you get back?”

Bo’s cheeks puffed out. “Maybe we could just fly for six hours, and then-”

“How would you know when it had been six hours?” Iwaizumi asked with a grin, biting into his bacon.

“You could strap a tiny timer to Keiji’s leg. Have an alarm go off,” TK said, barely hiding a smile.

Iwaizumi perked up. “Actually, if you could do that, you could just test flying speed and calculate the distance from there. Just fly back and forth to figure out endurance.” A huge smile inched across Bo’s face. Iwaizumi crunched his toast. “Then again, even if you could make it that far, you wouldn’t be able to get your luggage to or from Chicago. No clothes, no money. Not the best for a museum trip.” Bo deflated, and TK snorted and slapped Iwaizumi’s shoulder.

“I’m bringing it up at the meeting today,” Bo said stubbornly, untying his apron.

“Hey,” TK said, waving a hand at him. When Bo leaned forward, TK hooked his fingers in the front of his apron and pulled him down for a quick kiss. “If you can figure out the logistics, I bet you two could have a lot of fun with it.” Bo’s lips twisted, suppressing a smile, and TK kissed him again. “Even if you can’t make it all the way to Chicago, I bet you could round trip to the Grand Canyon.” Bo’s face lit up. It was the exact piece of ammo he needed to get Keiji to cave. He clapped TK’s face between his hands and gave him a big smooch.

“There’s no way he’ll say no.”

“Mm, go get dressed. I’ll drive you over there on my way to work.” Bo pressed another quick kiss to the corner of TK’s mouth, then danced his way out of the kitchen and did a sock slide down the hall toward the bedroom. “You gonna be okay here alone today?” TK asked, transferring the last piece of his bacon and a sausage link from his plate to Iwaizumi’s.

Iwaizumi grunted. “Afraid I’m going to wander off if you don’t chain me up?”

TK grinned, licking the grease off his fingertips. “I mean, I could, if that’s what you’re worried about. But I meant more the,” he gestured to his eyes – or, rather, where there would have been dark circles beneath them if he’d had them.

“They’re just dreams,” he said, eating TK’s cast-off bacon.

“You were talking in your sleep this morning,” he said, tone suddenly serious. “In Japanese, so I couldn’t follow most of it, but-”

“I don’t remember what I was dreaming about.” It made sense that he had been, though; it would explain why he was so exhausted.

TK grunted, thoughtful. When Iwaizumi didn’t elaborate, he said, “Kenma said he has news, but that he wants to tell you in person tonight.”

Iwaizumi snorted. “Maybe I’ll restock the beer fridge and pick up something for dinner.”

TK cocked an eyebrow. “You aren’t worried about driving?”

Iwaizumi shook his head. “I space out when I run, but I think I’ve spent long enough on the road not to take a detour on accident.”

“Well, you know where the keys to the Jeep are,” he said, swallowing the dregs of his coffee and standing up. He hesitated, then leaned down and pressed a kiss to the top of Iwaizumi’s head and murmured down into his hair, “Just take care of yourself, okay?” Iwaizumi grunted, and TK boxed his ear. “And call him.”

“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” he muttered.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said, slapping him on the back and heading towards the bedroom. “If you do end up going to the liquor store, could you pick up an apple pie from the bakery next door?” he called back over his shoulder. “Kenma has a sweet tooth.”

***

An hour later he was carefully nestling a pie in between four bags of miscellaneous alcohol, trying to shake the vague sense that he’d forgotten something. TK hadn’t asked him to pick up any other food, though he’d offered to. Then again, he didn’t want to just bring home random food for dinner, especially if Bo had plans to cook that he didn’t know about. The fridge was well-stocked, but they’d eaten a lot of eggs for breakfast. Should he have gotten eggs? There was something, he was sure , he needed to pick up, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

***

The feeling didn’t resolve itself until he pulled into the parking lot of a shuttered dive bar what felt like fifteen minutes later. He’d never been there before, didn’t recognize the name on the sign, and couldn’t remember how he’d gotten there. He closed his eyes, took a steadying breath, and glanced down at the dashboard. It was just after two in the afternoon, more than four hours after he’d left the ranch. He dug around in the glove compartment for Bo’s GPS and turned it on.

He was on the north side of Shreveport. He gripped the steering wheel and forced himself to breathe. He wanted to lash out, to slam his fist into something, to rend and tear and pummel, but the only thing worse than driving blindly into vampire territory would be ripping the steering wheel off the car and being stuck there.

Questions danced on the periphery of his awareness. Why Shreveport and not Baton Rouge? Was Oikawa here ? And if so, why? And what the fuck was so important that it had made him drive, thoughtlessly, more than two hundred miles out of his way to get here? He climbed out of the car and marched across the parking lot, then banged his fist on the front door. Some lingering rational part of his mind said this is probably a vampire den . Whispered you probably shouldn’t stick your nose where it doesn’t belong . But his anger overwhelmed his caution. He banged on the door again, hard enough for the wood to protest under his fist.

He was about to knock a third time when the door opened, shedding flecks of paint and revealing a redhead who couldn’t have been more than nineteen or twenty. He was short and leanly built, almost delicate looking, and he smelled like one of the birds in Keiji’s nest. He rubbed his eyes and blinked up at Iwaizumi, soft and drowsy, like he’d been woken up by the noise. There was a messy bite mark peeking out from the scooped neck of his slightly too large shirt. He caught Iwaizumi looking and tugged at the fabric, frowning. “Who are you?”

Iwaizumi’s anger deflated in the face of the question. He’d marched up to the door ready to demand answers, but this kid wouldn’t know why he was here any better than he did.

“Look, you can’t be here,” the kid said. When he put his hand on Iwaizumi’s arm to push him out of the doorway, though, he jolted and shuddered, then jerked his hand back like he’d been stung. His eyes went wide and his mouth worked soundlessly. Iwaizumi had to give the kid credit, though; touching him without knowing what to expect had brought more than a few shifters to their knees. Even Bo still got shivers when they touched, once in a blue moon.

“He’s probably here to pick up Oikawa-san’s shit,” someone called in Japanese from somewhere inside the bar.

Iwaizumi bristled, and the kid took a step back. “Is that? Uh, are you – here for Oikawa-san?”

Apparently. He grunted. “I’m supposed to pick something up?”

“Yeah,” the kid said, taking another step back and pulling the door shut between them. “Just hang on. Don’t leave. I’ll be right back.” He heard retreating footsteps and muffled voices, but couldn’t make out more than a few garbled words. There were more than a few people in the building, though, most of them shifters, though they weren’t all birds. The creak of the door opening made him blink his eyes open and snapped his attention back to the redhead. He’d only opened the door an inch, and he stuck his hand out to pass Iwaizumi a beat up looking sports bag. “I uh. It’s. I’m, uh. Sorry,” he said, withdrawing his hand, and again, “sorry,” as he shut the door between them. The bag was zipped shut, but it smelled faintly of wolf and blood. He stared at it as he walked back across the parking lot to Bo’s car.

He tossed the bag onto the passenger’s seat and pulled his door shut with a little more force than was strictly necessary. For a moment, he was resolved not to look – to start the car and drive away from the not-quite-abandoned bar. But he had to know. He had to know what he’d driven all this way to retrieve. He dragged the bag back into his lap and unzipped it. It was full of dirty clothes – some bloodstained, but mostly just worn for a few days longer than they should have been. Pants, shirts, socks, underwear. A dogeared paperback book. A cheap wristwatch. Cellphone charger. Half a protein bar. A wallet with $6 and a library card. A small stuffed cat that looked like it had been chewed on. There were a few more things stuffed in the pockets – trinkets and papers – but it was all miscellaneous crap. Dirty laundry and maybe half a junk drawer, or the odds and ends swept off a desk. What the hell?

He threw the bag back onto the passenger’s seat, then gripped his steering wheel, trying to swallow down the rage building in the back of his throat. He took a steadying breath, started the car, and pulled out of the parking lot.

***

It was a three and a half hour drive to Oikawa’s hotel, but the sun was still out when he got there. Even if Oikawa was inside (and he was - Iwaizumi could feel him there like the anchor at the end of a chain, pulling him slowly under), he was asleep. He dug around in the glove compartment and found some old napkins, a broken pencil, and a gold Sharpie. He tossed the pencil back in, then pulled the cap off the sharpie with his teeth and wrote on one of the napkins in block letters:

I’M NOT YOUR FUCKING ERRAND BOY

Then he went inside, left the bag in the middle of the unmanned front desk, tucked the napkin under the handle, and walked back out before his feet could take him down the hall to Oikawa’s room.

***

He drove for four hours and every mile marker hurt, like he’d left a piece of himself behind and it was slowly disemboweling him, unraveling his insides and leaving a trail behind him, decorating the fast lane of I-10 in gore. He wanted to cut it off. To cut it out. To sever it now and salvage what he could. But he couldn’t.

***

When Iwaizumi finally made it back to the ranch, it was well past dark and the ache in his chest had faded and festered into cold, trembling anger. Tonight, only the kitchen light was shining through the front windows, and he was relieved to find the driveway empty but for TK’s pickup. He’d texted TK to let him know he’d be late getting back, but had offered no other explanation and ignored Bo’s attempts at a followup, so he wasn’t surprised to find the door unlocked, or to hear chairs clattering when he walked in the front door. He set the hours-old bags of groceries on the table by the door and hung Bo’s keys on the hook above it.

“Hajime,” TK said.

“Don’t.” He clenched and unclenched his fist, grinding his molars together. If he’d been anywhere else, he would have put his fist right through the wall, maybe knocked over a piece of furniture. He felt TK moving behind him, closing in a half-step, and he said again, voice gone husky, “ Don’t .”

From the entrance to the kitchen, Bo asked, “What happened?”

He clenched his teeth, working his jaw, and huffed out a tight breath through his nose. TK started to move again, and Iwaizumi barked out, “I just drove twelve hours to pick up his fucking laundry.” He whirled on TK. “And if you try to fucking touch me I’ll-”

Too late. Iwaizumi was strong, but TK was fast and his head was clear. Before he could react, TK had moved into his space, dodged the instinctive backhand he threw, and grabbed him up in some bizarre cross between a hug and a grappling hold. Iwaizumi wrenched against his grip, but TK pressed their cheeks together, nuzzling his face down into Iwaizumi’s neck. The skin contact sent a rush of comfort through him – deep shadows on a sun-scorched day. “If you don’t want me to touch you, don’t march in here like you’re about to smash the place up,” TK said. But it was for show; Iwaizumi could feel TK’s worry like a chill breeze prickling his skin. “Just calm down, big guy,” he said, voice dropping to a low, feline rumble as he tightened his arms around Iwaizumi and rubbed his cheek slowly against his neck.

Part of him balked at the affection – the part that didn’t want to be touched, or soothed, that wanted to let his anger burn through him, that wanted the anger to be all there was, that didn’t want anyone to see that it wasn’t. But his fury was already ebbing away, TK’s familiar, steady presence peeling back the veneer and pulling him apart at the seams, deflating him and grounding the heat of his rage. Then TK’s grip loosened and shifted, and Bo was there, too, not pinning him but sheltering him, surrounding him, hands under his shirt and on his skin, night air and pine sap and moonlight, the perfect hush of silent wings. The flame that had been fueling him for hours winked out. His knees buckled, but Bo and TK held him up, lowering to the ground as one body and cocooning him together, even as their touch stripped him bare.

“It’s not supposed to be like this,” he choked out, one arm tight around TK’s shoulders, fingers of his other hand gripping Bo’s hair, clinging to them both. He huffed out a sob, hiding his face in TK’s neck. “I’m going to be his slave.”

***

“You need to talk to Kenma,” TK said, when Iwaizumi had finished recounting everything that had happened that day.

“I don’t want…” Anyone else to see me like this. It was bad enough that they had, worse that the full moon had only just passed. He wanted to shed his skin and run, to let the miles blur by beneath his feet, to dive head first into the nearest body of water until he stopped feeling chained, until he stopped feeling like something vital had been removed from the center of his chest. “Not tonight.”

“It’s not going to get better,” TK said. “And he might have answers for you.”

“I’m not sure I want them,” he said, wiping at his nose. “After today, I don’t think I want to know.”

“He might be able to tell you how to fix it,” TK said.

It was an empty promise, a futile hope, but he was too desperate to say no. “Fine. Fine, call him.”

Iwaizumi barely had time to push himself to his feet and scrub his face dry before TK snapped his phone shut and the doorbell rang. Either Kenma had been hiding in the bushes this whole time, or vampires were a hell of a lot faster than he realized. Bo put a steadying arm around Iwaizumi’s waist, and TK opened the door. “Kenma,” he said, sounding relieved. “Thanks for coming.”

Kenma hummed, acknowledging and dismissing as one, and stepped inside. He was small and delicate but not frail, with ghostly pale skin and dark hair pulled back in a long tail. TK leaned down and slid his cheek along Kenma’s, a greeting usually reserved for his pride, and Kenma went on his toes to lean into it, turning his head to lay a soft kiss to the pulse point on TK’s throat, easy and familiar. “Well,” Kenma said, his voice ever so slightly smoky, “I heard there would be pie.” TK breathed out a halfhearted laugh, and Kenma stepped past him, unwinding a knit scarf from around his neck and unbuttoning his coat. Even this late, it was at least ninety outside, but if Kenma felt the heat, he didn’t show it. As he hung up his scarf and coat, Iwaizumi realized that Kenma’s outfit wasn’t the only thing a little bit off about him. His movements were just slightly inhuman, too smooth and efficient, like a drum beaten just off time, and his eyes burned in his slightly-sunken face, sharp and alert and ancient. It made him wonder if Oikawa put a lot of effort into appearing human, or if Kenma was just really bad at it. “You must be Iwaizumi-san,” he said, giving a small bow.

“Ah, Hajime is fine,” he said, returning the bow.

“Call me Kenma,” he said.

“And call us if you need us,” Bo said, putting his hands on TK’s shoulders and angling him toward their bedroom. “We’ll be right down the hall.”

Iwaizumi took a slow breath, trying to decide if it would be worse to have them hear whatever it was that was going to be said, or to be left alone in a room with a strange vampire. Before he could make up his mind, Kenma said, “I hear you’ve had the misfortune of meeting Oikawa-san.”

“Something like that,” he replied. “TK says you might be able to help?”

“Perhaps,” he said, picking up the plastic bag with the pie in it without looking, then motioning for Iwaizumi to follow him into the kitchen. “You should start by telling me what happened.”

“Not to seem ungrateful,” Iwaizumi said, stopping awkwardly by the kitchen table, “but what’s in this for you? Why are you helping me?”

“I could say it was out of the kindness of my heart,” Kenma said, moving through the kitchen with familiar ease, “or out of a sense of duty to our mutual friends, but I doubt you’d believe me.” He brought the kettle over to the sink and started filling it. “Honestly, you’re something of a curiosity, and I’m intrigued. And if that isn’t reason enough, I feel indebted to you for letting me know that Oikawa-san still lives, and that I am not his enemy. It’s more than worth an equal exchange of information, and if something I tell you gives him reason to feel appreciative of me in the future…” He gave a small shrug, setting the kettle on the stove and lighting the burner. “I suspect he will prove a valuable friend to have.”

A blunt delivery of a complex answer. Oikawa would have been horrified, but Iwaizumi found himself surprisingly put at ease. “Alright,” he said, sitting heavily on one of the dining chairs. “What do you want to know?”

“Everything,” Kenma said, going up on his toes to rifle through the tins of tea in the cabinet above the stove, selecting one with care. “TK summarized what you told him, but I’d like to hear it first hand, in as much detail as possible.”

Iwaizumi sighed, folding his hands together on the tabletop, and started over again from the beginning, recounting his story while Kenma measured tea leaves into a pot and poured hot water over them, then opened the pie box and started meticulously slicing it. When he came back to the table, Kenma set a slice of pie in front of him and put a mug in Iwaizumi’s hands. He didn’t really want either of them, but the sharp heat of the mug steadied him and helped him focus, made it easier to repeat back everything like it had all happened to someone else, not him. While he talked, Kenma ate his thin slice of pie one tiny, careful bite at a time, chasing each one with a slow sip of his tea. He only interrupted to ask for clarification, but he seemed to know whenever Iwaizumi tried to omit a detail from his retelling, and wouldn’t let him go on until he’d told him everything. By the time he finished, his own tea had gone cold in the mug, and Kenma had reduced both their slices of pie to crumbs and syrupy residue. When he looked up, Kenma’s expression was hard to read; on someone else, it might have passed for bored.

“I hate to draw this comparison,” Kemna said, “but what you’re describing sounds very much like being enthralled.”

Iwaizumi’s heart squeezed. He tried to keep the panic out of his voice. “TK said-”

“I said like being enthralled, not that you are. Do you know what it means to be a thrall?”

“To be under a vampire’s control. A blood slave.”

Kenma’s lips twisted in the barest expression of distaste. “Such a poetic notion; being a slave to the blood.” He gave a small shake of his head. “After you ingest a sufficient amount of a single vampire’s blood, their will begins to subsume your own. Their desires become your desires. If they have a need, you will be compelled to fulfill it. Thralls are like puppets that move at their master’s whim, and without other commands, exist purely to provide their master’s comfort.”

“So, they do stupid shit like drive hours out of their way to pick up a vampire’s dirty laundry?”

Kenma gave a small nod. “Just so.”

“So how am I different?”

“A true thrall would do anything to justify their erratic behavior. They would not question it, and they would go to any lengths to conceal the nature and identity of their master.”

“How do you know I’m not just fighting his control? Resisting him?”

“Look at me,” Kenma said. Iwaizumi lifted his gaze to Kenma’s cheekbone, and Kenma breathed a humorless laugh. “Look me in the eye.” Iwaizumi frowned, but did; if something went wrong, he’d hold TK accountable for it later. Kenma’s eyes were a pale honey brown, more catlike than human, and he had just a moment to wonder if it was because he fed on TK before he felt the pull of Kenma’s gaze, the deep amber of a drowsy, lingering afternoon. “Iwaizumi Hajime,” he said, raspy voice resonating with power, tugging at Iwaizumi’s guts, “I compel you to name your master.”

“I am unbound,” he said, the words seeming to originate from his lips rather than his thoughts. “I heed no master.” Kenma closed his eyes slowly and dropped his gaze, and Iwaizumi jerked back in his chair with a gasp. “What the fuck? ”

The faintest smile tugged at Kenma’s lips, “If you don’t believe me, at least believe yourself.”

Iwaizumi put a hand to his mouth. “What does that mean?”

“It means Oikawa-san does not and cannot command you the way he would a thrall,” he said.

“Then why…” He stopped, took a breath. “Why do I keep going to him?”

“I’m not certain,” Kenma said. “But I think…” He pursed his lips, frowning subtly. “Shapeshifters often describe their transformation as being taken over by a separate entity, a primal force whose will… engages with their own, either harmoniously or in conflict.”

“That’s… yeah, I mean, close enough?”

“And for pair bonded shapeshifters, these animal-selves can interact with one another, and with their hosts?”

He prickled a little at “hosts,” but nodded. “As far as I understand, yes. But what does this have to do with-”

“You are not under Oikawa-san’s command, but you feel the pull of his will .”

“You think-” Iwaizumi sat back, wide-eyed. “You think that this is…” he gestured vaguely at the phantom hollow in the center of his chest, “…his wolf?”

“Or the closest approximation,” he said with a small, affirmative nod.

He crossed his arms over his chest, trying to conflate the blind, constant pull he felt from Oikawa with the subtle feedback he got from Bo or TK when they touched – the instinctive understanding of their wellbeing and desires; to somehow relate the undeniable compulsion of Oikawa to the softer desire to please, to soothe, to fit together. But when they’d been in the same room, it had felt similar, Oikawa’s draw like silk sheets pulling him close, telling him where to touch and what to say, more total and intimate than it had ever been with anyone else. As soon as he left, the connection had become a noose pulling tighter, but that morning… “Is that even possible?”

“There is precedent,” Kenma said, lowering his voice to a whisper and switching into Japanese, “but what I’m about to tell you cannot leave this room. Do you understand?”

Iwaizumi cast a glance back in the direction of the master bedroom. “Why the secrecy?” he asked in Japanese.

“Because I know he’s listening, and part of what I’m going to tell you would start a conversation that he and I aren’t ready to have yet. Do I have your word?”

He didn’t answer right away, taking a moment to weigh Kenma with his gaze. Eventually, he said, “If he can keep you a secret from me, I can keep your secret from him, as long as it’s not something that will hurt either of them.”

Kenma’s lips curled into another faint smile. “I see why he values your opinion so highly. I think telling him, at this point, would hurt them both more than not knowing.”

“Okay. Tell me.”

“There is a rumor – and I believe it to be true, because this is a rumor I have heard many times, and it is not the sort of rumor that springs from nowhere – that the Marquise of New York is pair bonded with a werepanther, and that they have ruled various cities together for at least the last two hundred years, if not much longer than that.”

“ Two hundred years ?”

Kenma gave a slow nod. “When consumed regularly in small quantities, a vampire’s blood can extend the lifespan of most mortal creatures almost indefinitely.”

“Are you saying that-” he started, falling back to English until Kenma shot him a sharp look. “Are you saying,” he began again in Japanese, “that I could be bound to Tooru forever?”

“If it were something you both desired, yes.”

“I don’t want this,” Iwaizumi said, trying to swallow down his own panic. “I can barely - I don’t want to be at his beck and call like this.”

“For what it’s worth, I don’t think he’s doing this to you on purpose.”

“What?”

“I don’t think he even knows he’s doing it. Oikawa-san is many things, and manipulative is certainly one of them, but he is not cruel, no matter what he would have people think.”

Iwaizumi wanted to argue, but his instincts said that Kenma was telling the truth. Instead he asked, “What makes you say that?”

Kenma traced his fingertip slowly around the rim of his empty mug. “To understand Oikawa-san, you need to understand how the Bishop runs Louisiana. In most places, a blood bond is simply a pact – a basic agreement for mutual protection, usually. For the Bishop, it is accompanied by a literal contract, dozens of pages long, setting a strict code of behavior. His wolves are required to live in-house, work for him exclusively, and be available at all hours, for any task, including bloodletting for him or his guests. They are well cared for, and are at no risk of discovery, but have no lives outside the Bishop’s coterie. And this is the standard he sets for all deacons throughout the state.”

“Oikawa doesn’t keep his wolves in-house,” Iwaizumi said.

“No. Much to the Bishop’s chagrin, all of Oikawa-san’s wolves live fairly normal human lives. Do you want to know what the terms of his blood bond with his wolves are?”

“Tell me.”

“That if he calls, they will answer, and if they call, he will answer.” Kenma shifted in his seat. “In practice, it’s a bit more complicated, of course, but in letter and in spirit, it’s an equal exchange. Until…recently, I believe his wolves loved and respected him a great deal.”

Iwaizumi shook his head. “Even so, I can’t believe he’s totally unaware of what’s happening. It feels like…” He put his hand to his chest, rubbing the empty spot with his knuckles. It felt like a hooked fish pulling insistently on a line tied tight around his sternum. No. “It feels like he’s pulling on my leash.”

“You would know better than I,” Kenma said.

“What do you mean?”

“What’s his favorite color?”

He turned the question over in his head, and before he could respond that he didn’t know, his mind provided a simple flash: the exact shade of blue of his work shirt, then the molten gold of his wolf eyes. His cheeks darkened, and he forced himself to pretend that Kenma couldn’t sense the blood pounding through him. “Blue.”

“What’s his favorite food?”

Another flash: trees and moss, mineral-rich water, the pounding fury of the hunt, hot crimson blood pulsing from his thigh as his wolf tore through him, unchained and euphoric. “He’s a vampire,” Iwaizumi said flatly, “he only drinks blood.”

Kenma hummed, pushing his plate to the side but not commenting. “Why is he doing this to you?”

To this, there was no ready answer; nothing but mild bewilderment. “I don’t know.”

“Does he know what he’s doing to you?”

He’d found the duffel bag, but that knowledge was mixed with emotions that Iwaizumi couldn’t parse – relief and anger and misery and panic and confusion.

When he didn’t answer right away, Kenma asked, “What does he want from you?”

“He wants me to call him,” he answered automatically.

“That’s it?” Kenma asked, not leading but surprised.

It didn’t stop a rush of images from rushing through Iwaizumi’s mind in response. He flushed, dark red, and said, simply, “No.” Kenma sputtered out a tiny laugh, and Iwaizumi frowned. “You said your Marquise rules jointly with a werepanther. What would that mean, with him, in Louisiana?”

Kenma sobered, giving the question serious thought. After a moment, he said, “I think it would depend a lot on you, Hajime. But you should know that even as young as Oikawa-san is, he’s very ambitious. The Bishop is old enough to end religious debates by citing conversations he had with the founders of the religions in question, but Oikawa-san would dethrone him if he could. I think he’ll probably get himself killed trying, but I suppose that isn’t really what you’re asking.” He crossed his arms over his chest, leaning back in his seat and weighing Iwaizumi with his eyes. “The fact that you don’t look Japanese would be an asset. The Bishop wouldn’t assume that you speak the language, so it would be easy for you to overhear sensitive information. If it were me, I would make you look as exotic and ornamental as possible – paint you like a pharaoh and shackle you in gold and let you stand around in the Bishop’s court looking pretty until he caught on.” He gave a slight shrug of his shoulders. “But Oikawa-san loses his subtlety when he loses his temper. He might have you stand as his partner from the start.”

Iwaizumi frowned, nodding thoughtfully and chewing his lip as he turned what Kenma had said over in his head. It was a lot to take in, none of it expected, and none of it what he’d ever thought he wanted, but if it was true, it at least wasn’t as bad as what he’d feared. There was one thing Kenma hadn’t explained away, though, and before he could think better of it, Iwaizumi blurted out, “What about the dreams?”

Kenma let out a breath that wasn’t quite a laugh. “I suspect the dreams you’ve been having are a symptom of your mental connection. Again, I doubt he’s causing them intentionally. Vampires are built to be able to subdue their prey, but every vampire does it differently. My bite is soporific, as is my mind control. Oikawa-san’s are seductive. It stands to reason that what you’re experiencing is your subconscious responding to the intrusion of his mind while you’re both asleep. If you tried, you could probably creep into his dreams, too. In fact, you might be already and just not know it.”

“Great.”

Kenma gave another passive shrug. “With time and practice, I think you’ll be able to minimize the undesirable consequences of your connection. But it won’t get better until you speak to each other.”

Iwaizumi breathed out a humorless laugh. “So your advice is, ‘call him’?”

Kenma stood, picking up his empty mug and plate. “If I thought saying it would make you do it, I would.” He crossed to the other side of the kitchen and set his dishes down in the sink, then said, “You might want to consider the possibility that you aren’t the only one that’s confused by what’s happening to you.”

“He hasn’t exactly showed up at my doorstep,” Iwaizumi snapped.

“No, but because you haven’t spoken, he doesn’t know that you’re being drawn back to him any more than you know what’s been happening to him for the last three nights.”

“You think something’s happening to him, too?”

“Given what you’ve been through, I would be very surprised if it wasn’t.” Before Iwaizumi could muster an argument, Kenma turned and looked down the hall towards Bo and TK’s bedroom. “I need to be going soon, but I hope you’ll keep me apprised of what happens.” He dragged his eyes away from the closed door and said, “And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry it took so long for us to meet. You’re very important to them, and I was uncertain how you would react to me.”

“I knew there was someone,” Iwaizumi admitted, “but I could tell TK didn’t want to talk about it, so I didn’t push.”

Kenma hummed. “If you’ll excuse me?” Iwaizumi nodded and waved him off, and Kenma disappeared down the hall, the barest flash of movement followed by the swift but quiet opening and closing of the bedroom door.

Iwaizumi scrubbed his face with his hands and sighed, then pushed to his feet and went over to the kitchen sink to wash the dishes Bo had left to soak. It was a pleasantly mindless task, which was exactly what he needed. He didn’t get far, though, before he heard the bedroom door open again and felt the familiar prickle of Bo approaching behind him. “Hey,” he said.

Bo slumped down into the chair Iwaizumi had abandoned and said, “Hey.”

“Everything alright?”

Bo snorted. “I should be asking you that.”

Iwaizumi dried his hands on the dish towel, then retrieved the box of apple pie from the counter and two forks from the drawer. “I’m surprised you aren’t in there with them,” Iwaizumi said, setting the pie tin between them and handing Bo a fork. “I was ready to go sleep in a pile of pillows.”

Bo shook his head, slicing off a piece of the pie and stuffing it in his mouth. “The blood thing is their thing. I don’t like what it does to me.”

“What do you mean?”

Bo frowned, taking another bite. “I like Kenma just fine, but it…” He wrinkled his nose. “When he bites you, it’s like being drugged. Like taking a sleeping pill, kinda. It pulls you under, and you can’t stop it.” He shuddered. “Freaks me out. It’s good for Keiji, which I get, because of the insomnia, but I hate seeing what it does to TK.” Iwaizumi made a questioning hum, prompting him to continue as he dug into the pie himself. “He’s always so… sharp, you know? Like he sees everything, and is always,” he gestured broadly with his hands, “you know?”

Iwaizumi nodded, “He’s… observant? Watchful.”

“Yeah, something like that. But when Kenma bites him, he just gets… soft. Like a…” He laughed dryly at himself. “Like a panther turned into a sleepy kitten. I know for him it’s like being able to let go when he can’t, usually, but I wish it didn’t take that ,” he said, nodding toward the closed bedroom door, “for him to have that. It takes him a while to come back from it, too.”

“You know he probably feels the same way about you, when you’re slow to come back after a shift.”

Bo sat up straighter, puffing out like he was going to argue, but instead he huffed and let his shoulders sag, scrubbing his hands through his hair. “Yeah, I know. That’s why I don’t give him shit about it, but I don’t have to be in the room while he feeds the habit.” He stiffened as soon as he said it, turning to look at Iwaizumi with wide eyes. “Shit, man, I shouldn’t be saying this to you, not when you-”

“It’s okay,” he said, and meant it. “It’s something I need to think about.” He frowned. “I can see myself getting…” Addicted . “Lost in it.” He set his fork down in the pie tin. “When Tooru bit me, I didn’t want him to stop. He could have drained me dry and I would have loved every second of it.”

“Fuckin’ vampires, man,” Bo said. Iwaizumi hummed an agreement, and let Bo feed him the last bite of pie.

***

When they went back to the bedroom, the window was open, Kenma was gone, and TK was sprawled out languidly in bed. He was sound asleep, breathing slow and deep, a lazy smile on his lips and one arm draped across his eyes, showing off the two bright red puncture wounds on the inside of his bicep. The sky outside was just beginning to lighten with dawn, and Iwaizumi let himself pretend it had been an accident that he’d missed the window to call Oikawa before he bedded down for the day. That he wasn’t still trying to decide whether he was more afraid of the thought of himself chained up and drained dry, or of how badly he wanted it.

***

The third night, Iwaizumi was the one sneaking up from underneath the sheets, peppering Oikawa with gentle bites from ankle to knee to thigh, nipping at the curve of his hip and trailing his lips up along his chest and neck until he found Oikawa’s mouth and kissed him, slow and hot and probing. When he drew back for air, he hiked Oikawa’s legs up around his hips and pushed him down against-

-they were on the sofa in Oikawa’s room, and the sheet draped over them was crimson. Oikawa looked up at him, lips swollen and eyes hooded, and gasped, “How are you here?”

Iwaizumi jerked awake, heart hammering in his chest, and clamped a hand over his mouth to cover a whimper. He was so hard it hurt, every inch of his skin achingly sensitive, and the sensation of bare skin pressed against his own lingered, even as cold dread chased the seductive whisper of Oikawa from his mind. It took him a dizzy moment to realize that it wasn’t actually Oikawa in bed with him. Bo was plastered to his back, face buried between his shoulder blades, one arm slung over his waist and the other pinned beneath his neck. TK was pressed just as close, head tucked beneath Iwaizumi’s chin, arms curled against his chest, long legs tangled with his. And TK was purring, loudly, which meant either he was having a really nice dream of his own, or they’d both been picking up on Iwaizumi’s.

Iwaizumi closed his eyes and tried to slow his breathing and corral his thoughts. Kenma had been right. It hadn’t just been a dream. He’d pushed into Oikawa’s consciousness hard enough to wake him – deep enough that it felt like he’d really been there in the room with him. Which meant they’d – if not skinwalked in their sleep, then something terrifyingly close to it. And somewhere in the tangle of his awareness of TK and Bo, he could still feel Oikawa tugging at him, elegant hands cinching a tie too tight, a threat and promise in one. He choked out a soft, ragged gasp. He needed to get out of bed, away from them, needed to clear his head. But before he could even begin to free himself from the tangle of limbs, TK started tracing slow circles on his hipbone. “It’s okay,” he murmured, his voice a low rumble, heavy with sleep, “we’re here.”

The gentle brush of TK’s fingertips – probably meant to be soothing – sent heat surging through him. Iwaizumi gasped, and Bo shifted behind him, snuggling closer. “Is he gone?”

“Mm, finally,” TK murmured, rubbing his cheek against Iwaizumi’s bare chest.

They were both humming with want, skin hot against his own, but beneath and between it was the tang of worry and unease. Apparently his connection with Oikawa had been palpable enough that Bo and TK had felt him, too, as clearly as if he’d been in the room with them. He felt another tug at his chest, like his heart fluttering off-beat, and he reached up and threaded his hands in TK’s hair, holding him close to steady himself. His hands were shaking, and his voice came out breathier than he liked. “What happened?”

“You’ve been talking to him all night,” Bo complained, clearly not quite awake.

TK hummed an absent agreement, the low rumble of his purr quieting to a steady, silent thrum. “We would’ve left you alone, but you got restless and started tearing up the bed whenever we tried to leave.”

“Sorry.” He let out a frustrated huff. “I didn’t mean to drag you into this.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Bo murmured, holding Iwaizumi tighter and slinging a leg over his hip, pulling the three of them closer together.

TK nuzzled at the base of Iwaizumi’s neck, his voice accompanied by the ghost of lips on skin. “Don’t apologize for needing us once in a while.” He pressed a soft kiss to the hollow of Iwaizumi’s throat, lips curling into a smile against his skin. “But I did tell you it was going to get worse.”

“Not helping,” Iwaizumi said, voice tight.

TK’s purr flared back to life. He trailed his lips up along Iwaizumi’s throat and whispered against his jaw, “What can we do to help?”

Beneath the tease and promise, Iwaizumi could feel the weight of the real question TK was asking: was this still okay? After last night, they knew what Oikawa was to him, even if he didn’t fully understand what that meant yet himself. But if he put all the confusing bullshit aside, Oikawa was just some guy he’d hooked up with in a roadside motel. Bo and TK were his people. Right now, he needed that. He smoothed one hand along Bo’s thigh, kneading the muscle and hiking him closer, then tightened his fingers in TK’s hair, drawing his head back and looking into his eyes. “I think you know exactly what you can do to help,” he said, letting the rumble resonate through his voice as he leaned down to kiss him.

He felt something thrum between them – pleasure, relief, contentment, anticipation – and being caught in their web, at least, was a familiar constant. It was like being submerged in water that wouldn’t drown him, leaving him weightless and electrified as their connection flowed through him, fur and feathers teasing against his wolf as they fell into sync with each other. He broke away from TK’s mouth with a gasp as their connection solidified, like a current jolting through him. Bo’s hand splayed out on his chest, holding him steady at the point where they passed through him, and Iwaizumi tipped his head back, breathing hard.

Bo and TK slotted themselves against him, a tangle of bodies and limbs that should have been haphazard, but with them was smooth, almost choreographed, and intimately familiar. Bo rolled his hips, grinding against Iwaizumi’s ass, and Iwaizumi turned his head so they could kiss over his shoulder. TK slipped his fingers into the waistband of Iwaizumi’s pants and started to push them off, kissing a slow line down the center of his chest. He drew teasing circles on Iwaizumi’s skin, taking it slow, trailing light touches of lips on his sensitive skin, just below his bellybutton, then when he’d pushed his pants down around his thighs, into the hollow of his hip, kissing a wide circle around his cock without ever touching.

Iwaizumi whimpered, needy, against Bo’s mouth as TK sighed, hot breath on the wet tip of his cock. The ghost of fingers tightened in his hair – Bo’s fingers in TK’s hair – and he moaned, hard , as Bo pushed TK’s head down impatiently and his mouth closed around the length of him. Bo echoed the sound, hips hitching with a small, controlled thrust, like it was him in TK’s mouth and he was being careful not to choke him. TK hummed, and it vibrated through all three of them. Iwaizumi threaded a hand in TK’s hair next to Bo’s, an anchor as the edges of himself started to blur. TK slid a hand up along Bo’s leg and up under his shorts to grab a handful of his ass, pulling them roughly together until the tip of Iwaizumi’s cock hit the back of TK’s throat.

Bo’s toes curled. Or maybe it was his own. TK started kneading his ass (Bo’s?), long, strong fingers working the firm muscle in time with the motions of his mouth. Iwaizumi flung out a hand, searching blindly through the shelves built into their headboard until he found a bottle of lube and passed it to… someone.

No, it definitely was his ass TK was squeezing and spreading, because a moment later Bo joined in, pressing a slick fingertip slowly inside him. He groaned, pushing back against Bo’s hand, and he was rewarded with a soft, familiar sigh against his ear, a little nip to his earlobe, and Bo’s breathless murmur, “Gonna make sure you don’t forget about us.”

He started to protest, to dismiss the notion entirely because how could he ever , but before he could do more than open his mouth, Bo sank his teeth into his shoulder, right on top of the fresh scar on his skin. Oikawa’s bite mark. Thinking his name was enough to summon him, a churning sense of wrongness in his gut – Bo’s teeth didn’t quite match the mark, weren’t the right teeth, not the ones that should have been biting him. The feeling wasn’t his, and he balked at the uncompromising certainty of it and pushed back, pushed it down and away, but it fought him, stubborn and petulant and possessive, like a child clinging to a favorite toy, refusing to share. It made him prickle, because he was no one’s plaything, and Oikawa had no place here, no right to interfere. But this time, when he tried to push Oikawa out of his head, he was answered with another tug in the center of his chest, sharp enough to make him gasp.

It was different. Insistent. Like he was being- “Stop,” he said, voice edged with panic, though Bo and TK had already drawn back and gone still against him. He gripped at his chest, eyes gone wide. “Something’s wrong.” He felt the pull again, sharper, harder, demanding, calling , and he sucked in air and curled in on himself. “Something’s wrong .”

“What’s happening?” TK asked, putting a steadying hand on his hip.

“I don’t-” Then he heard it, quiet, in the back of his mind: a small voice, pleading, Hajime . “No. No .” Hajime .

He only had a moment to be afraid before it started, his ribs creaking and then cracking as Oikawa dragged the sleeping wolf out of him by force. Hajime . He screamed. It was wrong, wrong , his wolf clawing for purchase, not ready to be turned loose, even as patchy fur erupted from his skin and the joint in his shoulder dislocated. When Oikawa had called him before, his wolf had been ready and willing, but this – this felt like being dragged at the end of a barbed choke chain, like Oikawa was trying to rip his wolf out of him entirely rather than just call it to the surface.

Bo grabbed onto his arm - jerked back with a cry of pain, then scrambled to the edge of the bed. Iwaizumi’s vision had gone lupine, casting the bedroom in a blurry grayscale, but the bird looked like prey, fluttering and afraid, and part of him wanted to taste his blood, to rip him open and bathe in it, because he hated, hated, hated –

TK put his full weight on Iwaizumi’s back, pinning him to the mattress, and Iwaizumi dug claws into it, shredding. Not hate, jealousy , and not his, not him . He tried to hold onto that thought, but his body wrenched, hips realigning and misaligning until the pain was blinding. His ribs cinched tighter, not like they were reshaping themselves into a wolf’s but like something had collapsed inside him, a sucking black hole that stole the air from his lungs, breath coming in panicked sips and then not at all. The void ate up the sound of TK’s voice trying to call him back, then stole the light from the room, leaving the panicked look in Bo’s golden eyes and then nothing but darkness.

He was dying. The calmness of the realization was enough for him to know it was true. Oikawa had squeezed all the air out of his lungs and left him to suffocate. His life didn’t flash before his eyes, but it was almost, almost funny when the darkness was broken by a pinprick of light at the end of a long tunnel. Of course this one, cartoonish vision of death would be real. He started walking toward the light, answering a call that was silent but that vibrated through every fiber of him. As he drew closer to the source of the light, the tunnel started to take shape around him, stone untouched by man but smoothed by millennia of ice and water, freezing and melting. His breath fogged in the chill air.

The brighter light farther down the tunnel caught a single gossamer thread stretched out in a tight line front of him. Not just in front of him; it was attached to the center of his chest, drawing him forward. He touched it, curious, just a brush of fingertips plucking the taut string, but his hand came away bloodied, the almost-invisible thread sharper than razor wire. On the other end, someone was pulling.

He let the tug lead him forward one step at a time, but the thread never slackened, like he was being reeled in on a line that was in danger of snapping. The corridor emptied into a wide cavern, open to the moonlit sky above, a deep, still pool of water below, and a small, ragged tangle of limbs crouched beside it, wrapped in a tattered red cloth that was clinging to the floor, wet and heavy with blood. He didn’t recognize what it was until he took a step forward and it pulled, keeping the line between them taut and tugging, tugging, until he was standing right in front of it. Not it. Him.

Tooru.

He pulled again, forcing Iwaizumi to drop to his knees, until there was no more give. Up close, Iwaizumi could see that Oikawa had wound the fine, fine thread around his hands, over and over again, so tight that it cut into his flesh. Both his hands were purpled and dripping blood, but he pulled in every bit of slack in the thread, winding and gripping and bundling it up like he’d rather lose his hands than his hold. He was rocking, slowly, head bowed, bloodied hands cradled to his chest, murmuring under his breath Hajime, Hajime . He pulled again, but there was nothing left to give. Iwaizumi leaned forward until Oikawa’s bloody hands were pressed against his chest, and Oikawa dug his nails into flesh, clawing, digging, searching for the point where his two natures met, where his wolf – stretched to nothing between them – was anchored to the rest of him.

“Tooru,” he said. Nails dug deeper into his skin. He reached out and touched Oikawa’s face, forcing him to look up at him. His hair was flat and greasy, his beautiful brown eyes sunken and bloodshot, his face hollow and wan in a way it hadn’t been even when he was dying. When he lifted his head, Iwaizumi saw the other end of the thread that connected them disappearing into the core of Oikawa’s chest, less than a hand span away from the cross-shaped scar.

“I couldn’t find you.” Oikawa’s voice was raspy, raw, husky.

“I’m right here,” Iwaizumi said, taking Oikawa’s ruined hands in his own, trying to free them.

Oikawa jerked his hands back, tugging so hard that Iwaizumi fell forward into him, knocking them both to the ground. Oikawa was breathing hard, wheezing, pressing his face to Iwaizumi’s skin, writhing underneath him like a pinned animal. “Something’s missing. I’m alone. I don’t - it’s missing , I’m broken , I didn’t, you took it, I-”

Iwaizumi wrapped his arms around Oikawa, pulling him close and trapping his bloody hands between them. He nuzzled his face down into Oikawa’s lank hair and murmured, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.” Oikawa whined, trying to break free of his grasp, but he was weak and frail, all bare bones and knobbly joints. Iwaizumi held him tighter. “Tooru, you have to let go. I’ll come back to you, but if you don’t let go, I’m going to die, and then you’re going to feel like this forever, and I won’t be able to make it stop.” Oikawa let out a little panicked hiccup, and Iwaizumi traced his thumbs down along his spine. “You’re hurting me, Tooru. I didn’t mean to do this to you, but I can’t make it right if you don’t let me go.”

Oikawa turned, slowly, staring off into nothing.

Iwaizumi frowned. “What is it?”

“Someone’s calling.”

Then it hit him. He was unconscious; Oikawa was still asleep. Maybe if he woke up…“You have to answer it,” he said. “That’s the deal, right?”

Oikawa nodded, slowly, and started moving toward the sound only he could hear.

Iwaizumi caught his wrist. “Please.”

Oikawa looked down at Iwaizumi like he’d forgotten he was there, then down at his death grip on the thread he’d wound around his hands again and again. He unclenched his fists, and then he was gone.

Iwaizumi sucked in air. His body was a mess of mismatched parts and undiluted pain, and he was stretched out awkwardly on the bed, hands pinning his uneven arms down at an uncomfortable angle, a heavy weight in the center of his back. When his hearing came back to him, it wasn’t through human ears. From somewhere close behind him, TK was shouting, “-on’t know what the fuck you’re doing to him, but you need to stop, because I’m about half a heartfelt Hajime away from having a big fucking werewolf in my bed.” His whole body felt fragmented and broken, but there were golden eyes waiting for him when he opened his own, inches away and written with a different kind of fear. He wheezed out a sound that was somewhere between a groan and a whine. “Yes, in my bed, not that that’s any of your-”

“He’s awake,” Bo said, letting go of Iwaizumi’s arms to cup his face in his hands. He rubbed small circles at the base of his ears, soothing, reassuring. “TK, he’s breathing, but I think he’s stuck.”

“What?”

“Tooru,” Iwaizumi gasped. He closed his eyes, sucking in a breath, forcing his lungs open, like struggling against a cinched corset. “Please.” Iwaizumi reached back toward TK with an arm that was bent at the wrong angle and didn’t quite move right, but TK seemed to understand, and leaned forward, turning on the speaker on Iwaizumi’s cell phone and holding it near his head.

“He still can’t breathe,” Bo said, but his voice seemed distant. “His ribs are still-”

“Tooru,” he said again, his voice hardly human, “not a dream. You have...” He closed his eyes, whimpering as he felt another sharp tug, felt the bones in his spine shift beneath his skin. “Hurting me, Tooru. Can’t turn without you, can’t turn back, you won’t let me.”

“You’re killing him,” TK said from somewhere far away. There were hands on him, and Iwaizumi realized, abstractly, that he was crying. “Oh my god, you’re going to kill him.”

His vision was starting to blur around the edges again when he heard a voice, tinny from the phone and hard as ice, “ Iwaizumi Hajime, heed my call .” The line went dead, and Iwaizumi’s wolf slammed back into him hard enough to bow his back and unseat TK from on top of him. He bucked and writhed, screaming and clawing at the bed as his wolf scrambled desperately back inside him and his body righted itself, out of order and out of his control, violent in its haste, until he blacked out from the pain.

***

When he woke, he had no idea how much time had passed – seconds or minutes or hours or days, but as soon as he was sure his hands were hands and his feet were feet and that he was still able to breathe, he scrambled toward the door. His limbs were still lax and pliant, too loose to hold his weight, so when he hit the edge of the mattress, he fell right off it, collapsing into a pile at the foot of the bed, but that didn’t deter him. He dragged himself along the floor until strong arms slipped under his armpits and lifted him to his knees.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Bo asked.

“I have to-” It hurt. Everything hurt. He’d never hurt this badly in his life. “He needs me.”

“Not like this, he doesn’t,” TK said.

But he did, he did , he needed him now , he needed him days ago , he should have gone back, should never have left, should have stayed at his heel like a good dog, anything, anything but that , that mess of blood and fear and pain and despair. He squirmed, fighting against Bo’s grip, but if he pulled any harder, he was going to dislocate both his shoulders, he could feel it. He choked on a sob, falling slack. “Let me go. Please, you have to let me go. He-”

“He’s still asleep,” TK said, gentle and diplomatic, “and will be for hours. You can at least take a shower and eat before you leave. Unless you want to show up at his doorstep covered in blood.”

“What?”

TK knelt in front of him and pointed at his chest. Iwaizumi looked down and – oh. His chest was covered in ragged claw marks and he was streaked with blood down to his knees. It looked like he’d tried to dig his own heart out. “Was it because you couldn’t breathe, or did he make you do this?”

Iwaizumi shook his head. “He was trying to find me.”

TK blinked, slow, cat-like. “What do you mean?”

He wanted to rub the hollow place in the core of his chest. “This whole time,” he said. “He didn’t know what was happening. He found his other half and I took it away from him and he didn’t understand. He- oh, god, I kept going back because he needed me. He just wanted to be whole again, and I-”

“You couldn’t have known that,” Bo said.

“I should have. He didn’t- I was scared, of course he was scared too. He didn’t know what was happening.”

“Neither did you,” TK said.

“Didn’t I?” His voice cracked. “I didn’t want to admit it, but-”

“So get yourself cleaned up, and then go make it right,” TK said firmly, brooking no argument. “You have plenty of time to get there before he wakes up.”

TK was staring at him stonily, daring him to challenge his word, and Iwaizumi couldn’t hold his gaze. He let his head droop and gave a small nod. TK was right; he couldn’t even stand, there was no way he could get himself back to Baton Rouge like this. “Okay,” he breathed, then again, “okay. Can you-”

Before he could ask, Bo pulled him the rest of the way to his feet, steadying him so TK could scoop him up in his arms, cradling him against his chest like a newborn. “I’ll go make food,” Bo said, going on his toes to kiss TK over Iwaizumi’s head. As he started to leave the room, though, Iwaizumi caught his arm. He was so weak he barely hooked his fingers on his bicep, but Bo stopped anyway, turning to peek at him curiously.

“Did I hurt you?”

Bo grinned. “Just gave me a little jolt, that’s all,” he said, brushing a thumb along Iwaizumi’s forehead, gentle, but like he was rubbing something off his skin – probably more blood.

“I tried to-”

Bo interrupted him with a soft peck on the lips, then said, soft and serious, “You didn’t.” When Iwaizumi started to object again, Bo flicked the tip of his nose. “I’m going to go make breakfast.”

“Please do,” TK said, hefting Iwaizumi in his arms. “He isn’t as light as he looks.”

“You heard the man,” Bo said, patting Iwaizumi on the cheek before heading out of the room.

TK hefted him in his arms again, then made his way toward the bathroom. He shouldered open the door and kicked the lid of the toilet shut before setting Iwaizumi down on it. Iwaizumi slumped against the tank, his whole body still limp and unwieldy. “Don’t try to make a run for it, okay?” TK said, hands hovering close to make sure he wouldn’t tip over.

Iwaizumi wheezed out a halfhearted laugh. His chest hurt, inside and out, and his throat was still raw from screaming. “I can barely sit up straight.”

“Don’t fall on your face, then,” he said, plugging the bottom of their huge bathtub and turning on the water. Iwaizumi grunted and watched him work, testing the temperature of the water and adjusting the knobs, measuring out a capful of this and a scoop of that until the bath was fragrant and colorful and equal parts water and bubbles.

“I’m just going to get the water dirty,” Iwaizumi said.

TK rolled his eyes. “That’s sort of the point.”

“It just seems like a waste of your… stuff, is all.”

TK hummed, absent and dismissive, then held out his arms. “C’mon, let’s get you in the tub.”

“What, you’re going to leave me in there alone? I might drown in all those bubbles.”

“I can stay in here if you want me to, but-”

“TK.”

TK wouldn’t meet his eyes. “It’s not a good idea.”

“Taking a bath with me?”

TK opened his mouth. Closed it. Crossed his arms over his chest. “Look, I know the three of us have had a lot of fun, but now that-”

“Don’t.” Iwaizumi reached up, taking one of TK’s hands and pulling it away from his chest. “Don’t pretend we only do this for fun.” TK hugged his arm tighter against his stomach, still refusing to meet his gaze. Iwaizumi lifted TK’s hand to his lips and murmured against his knuckles, “You know that’s not why I’m here. Why I keep coming back.”

“He’s not going to share you.”

“He doesn’t get to decide that.”

TK pulled his hand back, gently, but it still stung. “Neither do you, Hajime. Not by yourself. Not anymore.”

He felt himself puff up, ready to fight, every part of him balking at the reprimand, at the truth of it. But he couldn’t deny it, so he bit down his retort and said, “I know. We’re going to have to talk, but can we save the drastic changes until after that happens?” He looked up at TK, pleading, “If you really don’t think I’m going to do everything in my power to make him understand how important you are, then go. Otherwise, can we please get in the bath? I really don’t want to spend all day sitting naked on your toilet and bleeding all over your floor.”

TK’s expression was unreadable. For a split second, Iwaizumi was sure he was going to turn and walk out the door. Then he said, “That’s sort of what it’s for.”

Iwaizumi blinked. “What?”

“It’s why we went with the porcelain tile and minimal grout lines,” TK said, nodding at the floor.

Iwaizumi looked down at his feet, which were spread out bonelessly in front of him, leaving bloody smears and drips by his heels. The tiles on the floor were huge squares, with almost no seams between them. He choked out a startled laugh, and it tumbled into a breathless giggle. Before it could edge into hysteria, TK said, “Come on, let’s get in the tub before the water gets cold.”

Iwaizumi quieted and nodded, slipping his arms around TK’s waist and drawing him close. He pressed his forehead to the flat of TK’s stomach, and TK smoothed a hand down along his back, soothing. Iwaizumi sighed, letting TK take more of his weight, and ran his hands slowly down TK’s sides, ribs to waist to hip, memorizing the curves of him. He slid his hands under the waistband of TK’s loose pajama pants and pushed them off him, his hands trailing down with them, over the curve of TK’s butt and along his thighs until his pants dropped around his ankles. On any other day, he would have pulled TK right down into his lap. Instead, he pressed one soft kiss to his stomach, then held his arms up over his head like a child and let TK lift him to his feet and maneuver him into the bathtub.

It took a little finesse, and he left a few bloody handprints on the wall in the process, but eventually they both got settled in the tub, TK leaned against the side with his head lolled over the edge, Iwaizumi between his legs, head rested back against TK’s chest. He was still wheezing from the exertion when TK started scooping water in his hand and letting it dribble down Iwaizumi’s chest, carefully rinsing away the blood. “I don’t envy you,” he said, pushing away the bubbles and scooping up another handful of water. “It’s not going to be a fun conversation to have.”

“I think…” He closed his eyes and grunted as TK’s hand wandered down his stomach before coming up with more water. He shifted, laying his head back on TK’s shoulder. “Once we work things out, I don’t think it’ll be so bad. I mean, he’s a vampire, and you felt what his influence does to people. You really think he’s going to be Mr. Monogamy?”

TK hummed thoughtfully. “But it’s one thing to play with your food. Another thing to say, hey, baby, I want to introduce you to my boyfriend, and his boyfriend who is also my boyfriend, and my other boyfriend, and-” Iwaizumi let out a little rumbling growl of displeasure, and TK amended, “And my girlfriend, and my other b-” Iwaizumi growled again, turning to give TK’s neck a reprimanding little nip.

“You know I hate that word,” he told TK’s collarbone.

TK let out a low, rumbling laugh. “I’m sure Tooru-chan won’t be too fond of it, either.” Iwaizumi huffed, and TK pressed an apologetic kiss down into his hair. After a moment, he asked, “Who else are you gonna tell him about?”

“I dunno. Probably not a good idea to lead with a list of all the people I’m sleeping with.” TK snorted, and Iwaizumi shook his head. “If it’s not a big deal, he probably won’t even bother to ask. If it is…” he gave a half shrug. “I could make it a shorter list, if I had to.”

“How short are we talking?” TK asked, teasing.

Iwaizumi elbowed him lightly in the ribs. “Don’t be jealous. One is enough.”

“Not jealous, just curious.”

“And yet, you’re going to make me name names.” TK shrugged, and Iwaizumi sighed, closing his eyes and snuggling back against TK’s chest. “You and Bo, obviously,” he said, finding TK’s hand beneath the water and giving it a squeeze. “Maybe Aone, but he’s…”

“Different,” TK agreed.

Iwaizumi hummed. He spent a moment turning names and faces over in his mind, weighing each one and considering what it was that bound him to each of them. All his closest relationships were defined by physicality, but most of them were sexual only incidentally, or in passing, something it wouldn’t bother him – or them – to lose. But… he bit his lip and sucked in a soft breath. “I have to tell him about Daichi.”

He could feel TK’s amusement like warmth spreading through his chest. “He’s going to be so hurt when I tell him how long it took you to remember him.”

Iwaizumi frowned. “That’s what he gets for dropping off the face of the earth. I haven’t even heard from him since his packmaster died and he and Sugs struck out on their own.” TK hummed, conceding, and Iwaizumi looked up at him. “Have you?”

“Not even rumors. If they’re still in the South, they’re way off the grid. At this point, you could probably leave him off the list.”

Iwaizumi shook his head. “He’ll be back. He always comes back. And I can’t leave him off the list, he’s-”

“Important?” TK teased.

Iwaizumi frowned. “He’s practically my brother.”

TK made an exaggerated gagging noise. “God, I wish you wouldn’t say that.”

“What?”

“That he’s your brother. The two of you are already basically self-cesty, you don’t have to make it incesty, too.”

Iwaizumi wrinkled his nose. “He feels like home.”

TK laughed. “Yeah, and you’re not supposed to put your dick in ‘home.’”

Iwaizumi grinned. “Who says I’m the one putting my-”

“Room service!” Bo called in as he kicked open the bathroom door.

Iwaizumi sat up a little straighter, pushing aside the heaps of bubbles and ignoring TK’s quizzical stare. “What’d you make?” he asked, holding his arms out, but Bo shooed him away, resting the big breakfast tray he was carrying across the middle of the bathtub, so the legs of it hung over either side. The tray was covered in a platter piled high with breakfast meats and a serving bowl full of scrambled eggs, plus a few conciliatory pieces of toast for TK and three big, personalized mugs of coffee. Iwaizumi tugged a slice of ham out of the pile and bit into it, not bothering with cutlery.

“So, what are we talking about?” Bo asked, shucking his gym shorts and underwear before stepping delicately into the tub across from them, careful not to bump the breakfast tray.

“Hajime was just telling me that-”

Iwaizumi pushed a piece of toast into TK’s mouth. Bo raised his eyebrows, and Iwaizumi said, “I’m starved. Thanks for making breakfast.”

Bo waved it off. “Eat up,” he said, nudging Iwaizumi’s leg with his foot. “You’ve got a big day ahead of you.”

***

The tray of food had looked like more than enough for three people, but other than the coffee and a few slices of bacon and toast, he’d eaten all of it himself, which meant he’d probably been more hurt than he realized. His legs were steady underneath him when he got out of the bath, though, and the gashes on his chest were at least closed, if not remotely healed. TK insisted that Iwaizumi take a shower before he left – supposedly so he wouldn’t smell like flowery bath oils all day, but more likely to make sure he washed away the lingering musk of his and Bo’s marks on his skin. He made quick work of it, though, the thick steam making him jittery and anxious to move.

When he stepped out of the bathroom, he got his first good look at the bedroom. The mattress was destroyed, deep gashes ripped all over the surface, the sheets shredded, and everything streaked and smeared with blood. There were feathers everywhere, at least a pillow or two reduced to a layer of downy snow. He’d have to find a way to make it up to them later.

His work clothes were folded neatly on the dresser with his keys and the arrowhead necklace on top of them, but his phone was nowhere to be found. He dressed, pocketed his keys and the necklace, and wandered out into the living room, peeking around until he found Bo and TK lounging in a pile of pillows. “Hey. Uh, I was going to call myself a cab, or a shuttle or something, but I can’t find my phone.”

“By the door,” TK said.

“But don’t bother,” Bo finished, looking up from the magazine he was reading and tossing Iwaizumi the keys to his Jeep. Iwaizumi caught the keys and blinked at them. “Now you have to come back.”

“Or we’ll have to drive out there and take back what’s ours,” TK said, only half hiding his smile behind his coffee mug.

Neither of them made any move to get up. They weren’t going to say goodbye, because they weren’t going to let this be goodbye. He closed his hand on the keys and nodded. “Alright. I’ll see you soon. And, uh, sorry about the bed.”

TK hummed, and Bo said, “Don’t forget to fill up the tank on the way back,” and that was it. He left, locking the door behind him.

#haikyuu!!#iwabokuroo #iwaoi #iwakuroo #bokuroo #iwaizumi hajime #kuroo tetsurou #bokuto koutarou #oikawa tooru #kozume kenma #werevamp #my fic

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