A Series Of One-Shots [REQUESTS OPEN]

Once Bitten, Twice Shy

Boyxboy, 2020

Request
Could you do one where a weak vampire gets two soulmates who are also vampire kings but their kingdoms are enemies and he is forced to pick between them but ends up choosing both something like that... - pinkpink93333

Apparently, all of my vampire-themed oneshots end up being angsty. You've been warned.

*

Grayson doesn't remember life before vampires took to power.

When his grandmother was alive, he had asked her questions about it. She had been a young girl at the time, but the memories were still raw. Vivid enough to cause her to grow silent if she ever thought about them.

If she spoke at all for the rest of the day, it was a miracle. After a while, Grayson learned not to ask her about it and advised his younger brother to do the same.

There's no point in dwelling on the past, not when their present looks so dismal.

Their grandmother passed away a few months ago, the last elderly person in the area. Life expectancy was little more than fifty for a human, now.

Grayson is twenty one years old and lives in a small apartment in the city with his mother, Julia, and fourteen year old brother, Jeremy. They managed to find an apartment in a mostly-human populated area in the Kingdom of Vruinem, which is hard to come by nowadays.

The bigger the population, the fewer humans living under their own roof.

It's a miracle that Grayson's family hasn't had to follow the path of many before them. With increasing rent prices from vampire landlords, it's easy for a human to be driven out into more communal housing where rent is paid with blood donations.

Grayson is hesitant to use the word donation, considering it's not exactly done out of the goodness of anyone's heart.

But there's something to be said for having lucrative blood.

Since he was young, Grayson has garnered the attention from vampires on a daily basis. Out grocery shopping with his mother, walking down the street - it didn't matter. To them, he smelt so sweet that any societal norms went out the window. It's only because of the very few laws protecting humans that Grayson hadn't been drained on the street one day.

The protective laws regarding humans in Vruinem include, and are extremely limited to:

No vampire can feed from a human without the human's consent unless
a) the human previously signed away their rights to a vampire
b) the human owes the vampire
c) the human is an employee at blood bars, residential homes, vampire-run businesses, and predominantly vampire areas

Humans cannot go out after dark, or the first law is completely void

When Grayson got older, he realised that he could use his blood to his advantage.

Blood clubs are also a popular place for vampires to feed, and for humans to earn some cash. The better the blood, the more you get paid. It's a simple system, and the main reason why Grayson's family hasn't had to move into what his mother calls blood farms.

Every human in Vruinem lives in fear. Eyes cast downwards, skin almost grey from purposefully trying to weaken the quality of their blood. It's a dismal existence, sure. But it's not like many of them know any better. The borders of Vruinem are tight, and if anyone tries to flee to the neighbouring Kingdoms they're quickly put in their place.

Or, more aptly, drained on the spot or used as a blood bag for the rest of their natural born lives.

Grayson doesn't think his family should take the risk. He can keep them afloat, get enough money from the club - keep them safe. That's all he wants to do, and for some time he thinks he can actually succeed.