This one squeaks by on a technicality, considering THEY are haunting the forest, but I couldn’t come up with anything more fitting. Anyway, have some AU vampires playing games.
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“Run, darling,” John says into Arthur’s ear.
Arthur runs. Doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t question because John has taught him the consequences if he doesn’t take it seriously, doesn’t run when John chases him. Whether he’s caught or escapes, the end will be a delight for them both—so long as John is confident Arthur gave it his all.
The forest is dark, full of unpredictable shapes and shadows. He can’t simply run headlong forever. Once he’s confident he’s put some distance between them, he changes tactics. Scales a tree up into the canopy, becomes one with the ever-shifting leaf-shadows.
He stays in motion, slow and low and quiet, not only watching but feeling the forest around him. Blending into the night’s music, ears and nose and skin reaching out and grasping for anything that doesn’t fit, anything that seems to break the rhythm.
Sound beneath him. He falls very still and listens.
Read more: Malevoween Day 10: Haunted ForestThat was all. Just the one rustle.
He’s in danger.
He falls out of the tree like a stone and hits the ground running. John’s “heh” comes from behind him. Too close. John’s legs are longer than his.
He knows these woods well enough—this is far from the first time they’ve played this game in them—and so he veers toward a steep bank he knows to be on his right. When he reaches it, he hurls himself down it. He bounces and rolls, not even trying to gain his feet. Takes the bruises, even helps gravity along when he can with an extra shove.
He steers himself toward a tree partway down. When he collides with it, he pushes off in a different direction. Spins with the momentum to regain his feet, legs a blur in the last 30 feet or so as he tries to outrun his own momentum and keep from face-planting before he reaches the bottom.
It’s a ballsy move, and he feels his fangs flash in a sharp, smug grin as he hears John crash to the bottom, considerably further behind him now.
There’s a clearing in the forest up ahead. He heads for it.
He’s the hunted, but he’s still a predator. The best defense is a good offense, as far as he’s concerned. He’s already had two close calls; John will take him if he tries to keep running. So instead: back to the wall. So to speak. A location where he can’t be sneaked up on.
He sprints faster than a human can run, stiff-arming himself off the trunks of trees he’s in danger of colliding with till he’s bouncing through the woods like a ping pong ball. It tears the skin of his hands. He’s bleeding, a scent trail John could follow deaf and blind. But that’s okay. It doesn’t matter now if John knows where to find him.
He skids to a halt in the center of the meadow and sinks to his haunches. Balances on the balls of his feet, ready to spring up in any direction. He closes his eyes and sinks himself into the life of the forest till he’s practically meditating. He waits.
John. He’ll be moving slowly now. He can smell Arthur’s blood. Knows something has either gone wrong, or else Arthur’s set a trap. Come. Come on.
The clearing. John knows these woods too. He’ll pause, hovering, before he’s even close enough to see—and therefore to be seen. A consummate predator, he’ll evaluate. Arthur is there, or somewhere on the other side. In the clearing, he’ll be exposed, silhouetted in the moonlight.
John is bold. Confident to the point of arrogance. He might go straight through. Arthur breathes out the little air in his lungs and falls completely still, lets the night take him. He stretches his senses almost to the point of intuition, even his mouth a little open to taste the air.
John circles around. He thinks. He’s pretty sure. He trusts.
Then he’ll come from downwind. Arthur cants his head slightly, slowly in that direction.
When he comes, he’ll come like a freight train, sudden and unstoppable.
He knows Arthur. Knows his mind, his traps. He’ll come—
He rolls to the side, a split second before the explosion of speed and sound that plummets down on him from above. He springs back, then drives his heels into the soft forest loam and springs forward again, colliding with John as he lands with crushing force right where Arthur had been crouching. They both go flying in a tumbling tangle of limbs.
Arthur yelps as fangs tear into his throat, throbbing through him in agony and ecstasy. He lets them grip him, set firm in his flesh so he can’t pull away without ripping his own throat out. Lets John bring them down to put Arthur on his back, John’s heavy, thick weight atop him—driving the first inch of a wooden branch in to tap against one of his ribs.
He growls around his mouthful of Arthur’s throat. It vibrates through Arthur’s body like a drum. Gently, carefully, Arthur lets his head fall back to the earth, baring his throat with a breathy laugh. “I’d call that a tie, my dear.”
He threads his fingers into John’s hair and moans up to the night sky as John begins to give him his reward.