Cat People
by northern and halo

Lance's eyes are wide and almost black with that mirror sheen, standing in the middle of a darkdark alley, cloudy night sky far overhead. Just standing, and it's almost tangible the way the hair on the back of his head bristles, the way he stands, chin lowered and gaze fixed. JC is crouching at the edge of a building, bedraggled and whip-thin, his eyes shining through dirty strands of hair. He twists his head slowly, tilting his face to one side, pressing closer to the wet asphalt. It's so quiet, unnaturally so, and the only thing audible is JC's quick breathing as he shifts his weight from one foot to the other, tensing his fingers into the grimy puddle on the ground.

He's just waiting... for something, some signal only he can hear inside his head. And when he hears it, when it screams through his senses like sparks along a wire, every muscle and tendon in his body coils tighttighttight with quicksilver heat, then snaps open wide again. It's then he springs, skin and bone unfurling like a whiplash slicing through the dark, blood thrumming just under the surface.

And Lance stands, caught, frozen in that tiny moment between fight and flight. He's been waiting, too.

The whirlwind leaping at him is unexpected, out-of-turn, and Lance sinks down into a crouch, ready to defend himself a moment too late. The impact leaves him staggering back and twisting desperately to right himself against the bone-and-shadows breathing harshly in his ear, the digging fingers and sharp nails skidding along his shoulder. He gets his hand tangled into JC's hair almost by mistake but takes the opportunity and pulls, hard, recovers his balance while JC fights to stay upright, his head yanked back and his throat bared.

"I sensed you," JC hisses, twisting, shifting beneath Lance's fingertips, never-ceasing movement that leaves Lance dizzy and trying to catch his breath, "as soon as you set foot outside, I sensed you."

I know, Lance thinks, and JC stills suddenly, his breath silver-green and cool, ghosting across Lance's skin, and Lance knows if he looked into his eyes, they'd be sharp and feline, dangerous and sly. He lets his hand slip from JC's hair, traces the line of his skull underneath, drags his fingers across sleek, damp skin.

A sudden movement, and JC's mouth opens in a soundless cry, his head snapping round, teeth barely missing Lance's fingertips. "Hungry," he murmurs, slicking his tongue across them instead, "it's been so long, Lance. So very long."

"Yes," Lance whispers, belly hot and tight, pulse flutterquick in his throat, "it has."

He slides his wet fingers over JC's lips, back and forth, watching in fascination how JC follows, pressing close but still holding back, starved but thrumming with adrenaline and shocked tension. Lance knows that ache.

"Long enough," he says, trembling fingers closing almost too hard around JC's chin. His fingers feel like claws, too stiff, too rough, but he can't bring himself to care. There is a throbbing weight in his throat, like a scream itching to get out, or a thousand impulses with nowhere to go. After such a long time of not breathing JC, Lance's lungs are burning with the overdose.

JC's eyes are crackling embers, his own breathing stuttered. He twists his head sharply but doesn't escape Lance's grip and cries out instead, a low, piercing yowl that runs through Lance like a line of spilled gasoline on the ground flaring into fire.

When JC turns back toward him, his teeth are bared, lips peeled back, and he's something feral and wild, more night than day, more wild than tame. Lance knows it runs in his blood too, knows there will come a time when he can no longer control it, hold it back. Even now, the memory of how it was before has grown dull, faded into the pale smoke of his past.

A slipquick touch of fingertips across his belly, and Lance can feel the thick twist of scar tissue beneath, shimmering with wild heat. A jagged semi-circle sliced scarlet into flesh, the perfect imprint of a mouth, and Lance can still remember screaming soundlessly against a blood-red sky on the night JC put it there.

For now, he forces his own jaws apart, unconsciously clenched together. "Tell me," he grinds out. It's all he thinks about.

JC starts forward, slides desperately away from under his hands until he's pressed against Lance's chest and yet still pushes on. His hand is between their bodies, nails digging into the scar, making the mark remember the numb deep pain, and Lance has to lean hard to stop himself from crashing into the brick wall.

JC hisses out a long breath, pushing against a suddenly immovable Lance. His constant straining is twisted aside violently, making him stumble as his thin body is pushed into the wall.

"Tell me," Lance says, hands shoved hard into JC's belly, hot breath on his face, glassy stare demanding something he's not sure will be there.

"I'll show you." The words are whispered low and they slide along Lance's skin like a dark caress. A slowblink of sly eyes and JC licks over his teeth, holding Lance's gaze. "Come with me."

He slips back and away in a heartbeat, the darkness swallowing him back down, but Lance knows just where he is, ancient sense memory carrying him through. The night is bloodwarm, thick, shifting layers of heat, and JC glides through it silently, leading the way. He pauses for a moment at a torn mesh fence, fierce jagged silver fingers of metal, and Lance can see the gathering of muscle under skin when JC crouches, then leaps smoothly through it, bare inches to spare. He follows, his body instinctively knowing when to move, to spring, to twist.

"Over here." JC stops by a tangle of crates piled up against the side of the shell of a building. Lance can sense things moving in there, in the place just beyond, and his skin feels hot, alive, stretched tight and thin over bone and blood.

"What-" he starts to say, and JC silences him with a low snarl, then throws his head back and shrieks. The sound of it slices through Lance, flays him open, and he has to concentrate hard on staying upright and not stumbling. JC shrieks a second time, then a third, and Lance becomes aware of another sound echoing it. Similar but not the same, and something inside him knows he's heard it before.

"He's here." JC drops to his haunches, and Lance follows, not knowing, just doing. He doesn't understand it, not yet, but he knows it's inside him and knows it's right.

The shadows shift and something slips from them. No, not something — someone. The breath shimmers in Lance's lungs, a word frozen on his lips.

Chris.

JC moves to stand beside him, a hand ghosting over the back of his neck, and Chris' head drops forward instantly. JC smiles, something terrible and wonderful, his teeth bared defiantly. "I've begun it," he says softly, looking at Lance, his fingers dancing along heated flesh, "and he wants you to finish him, Lance." He tips Chris' head back, licking across his throat before biting into the soft flesh, Chris arching forward into the sensation. "He wants to become one of us."

It's exhilarating seeing Chris like this, all need and nothing left of the bluster. Lance has his hand out and in Chris's hair before he can really think about it. His fingers tighten and pull, and the heat living inside him becomes that much hotter as Chris's head tilts this way and that, no resistance.

He glances at JC again and starts at the sly smugness visible in his eyes. Lance can feel his own eyes narrowing in question.

"For you," JC says. "For us to play with."

Lance looks back at Chris's closed eyes and parted lips. He can see the want coming off of him in waves. Lance has waited a long time for this, and it shouldn't be a surprise that it's JC who finally brings him the gift of it.

There's a metal taste on his tongue, as if Chris's blood is already on it, and he smiles. Chris opens his eyes, immediately fixing on Lance's mouth. Lance's smile has too many sharp teeth and he knows it.

"I marked him here," JC says softly, his hand sliding across the curve of Chris' shoulder, coming to rest in the dark hollow of his collarbone. Lance watches JC's fingers play across the warm skin, tracing over a dark indigo stain, the perfect impression of a single, violent kiss. Ringed with tiny puncture wounds, a bruisesmudge tattoo shimmering with crimson blood. "Where will you mark him, Lance?" JC trails his hand down Chris' chest, and Lance can see the fabric of the shirt Chris wears rending beneath his touch, exposing the bare flesh below. "It's time to decide."

Lance feels his own marking stirring, the skin on his belly thrumming, dark hunger creeping along his skin, holding him tight. He draws in a breath, letting his eyes slip closed, taking in as much of Chris' energy as he can. He fills his lungs until his head is spinning with silverblack fire, twisting along his limbs, crackling along his spine.

When he opens his eyes again, JC's watching, lips peeled back in a dangerous smile, and Lance knows he's ready.

Chris, on all fours beneath him, and Lance covers him, draped over his body like a living, breathing blanket. Moving slowly in the darkness, hips twisting and curving together then apart, over and over. Chris' skin is slick with sweat, and Lance dips his head to lap at it, letting it roll across his tongue, salt and heat and underneath it all, the promise of blood. No sound but their breathing, low, urgent, spiraling into the night only to come back to them a thousandfold. Lance hears it in his head as a low roar, and there's something else too, something pitched higher, something that calls to him, raises the hair on his body, slips under his skin.

"Chris," he breathes, "Chris." Moving underneath him restlessly, arching into his touch, head back and throat bared, waiting for what JC started and only Lance can finish.

"Please," Chris gasps, and Lance surges forward one last time, his teeth sinking into the soft, yielding flesh at the back of Chris' neck, the taste of copper hot and thick in his mouth.