Kane & Jim x Catharsis - Kane & Luan
K&J chronological masterlist / K&J writing order masterlist
Catharsis masterlist
content: vampire whumpee, escape, begging, starvation, caretaking, dubious caretaker, whumpee turned caretaker, death wish, suicide attempt, recapture, torture, gore, burns, rescue, brief self-harm for vampire feeding purposes, side robot whumpee
Whumpmas in July Day 15: A Soft Reprieve
the first time i've ever done a crossover between two different series of mine! this one's been living in my brain rent-free. massive props to @sowhumpshaped for inspiration!
-
Luan’s heart practically stopped when he looked through the doorbell camera to find a vampire.
The camera wouldn’t matter if it was a vampire. The door wouldn’t matter if it was a vampire. He would be taken, again, this time manhandled from his own apartment. The fact that he couldn’t sleep all night was the only reason he had this last moment of freedom.
“Stay back,” he said through the speaker, trying not to let his voice shake like his hands as he clumsily looked up the number for the local hunters. There was no way they’d get here in time, not even with their base just down the road. Not with a vampire’s speed.
“Please,” the vampire whimpered, kneeling on his doormat. “Please help me, I beg of you. I’m not a threat, I promise, please don’t call the hunters, I’ll do anything!”
Now that Luan really looked, he could see beyond the bright-red of his eyes and the intimidating fangs: the figure at his door was… not well. Clearly emaciated, a feeling Luan knew all too well. He could see what looked like burns, and what were definitely cuts. Tears tracked from terrified, desperate eyes.
“What do you want?” Luan snapped, thumb hovering over the dial button.
“Please, please, sir, I can’t find anything to end myself, the sun is coming, they’re going to find me, please, mercy, I can’t go back, please help me!” the vampire begged, weeping into his hands. “I can’t use persuasion, I promise, I wouldn’t even if I could!”
It was objectively stupid. It was going to get him killed or worse. If Luan opened this door, that would be the end of it. The vampire would take one look at him, use persuasion, and his freedom would be gone again, just like that.
There was no faking the way his stomach turned inward like that, worse than Luan had ever been. If Luan had ever starved that badly, he suspected he would have died.
Would there be any point to a vampire going to these lengths just to trick him, when he could have just used persuasion from the first moment?
“One minute. Stay there.” He dashed to find something, ending up with a ruler he hasn’t dug out in years. Sawing at it with a kitchen knife made something resembling a stake, though he knew in his heart that it likely wasn’t strong enough to get through flesh. He just had to hope it would be intimidating enough.
Luan hesitated. Was he really going to do this? Let a starving vampire into his home?
He looked through the camera again, at the pitiful man collapsed on his porch.
He opened the door, makeshift stake in hand. “Get inside.”
The vampire scrambled in, crouching like a cornered animal on his floor, panting hard. “Th-thank you, sir. Thank you so much. Please don’t call them, please, I just–”
“You can stay the daytime and that’s it.” It wouldn’t be the first time Luan had stayed awake a full 24 hours. He could do it again. “At sunset, you leave, and you don’t come back. You never take a human. Agreed?” He pointed the stake at the vampire with both hands. “Try anything and it’s the stake.”
What Luan wasn’t expecting was for the vampire to look up at him with utter adoration. “Yes, sir! Thank you, sir! I’ll be good, I promise, thank you so much! You can kill me if you’d like, I don’t mind, I won’t resist. Whatever you want.”
Luan slowly lowered the stake. “That’s… probably not necessary.” A look around the room. The sun would start rising in a few minutes, he had to act fast if he was really offering this vampire refuge. “Go wait in the bathroom,” he pointed, “There’s no windows in there.”
“Yes, sir!” The vampire started to run, but tumbled over himself, collapsing to the floor. Before Luan could react, he picked himself up to his hands and knees, crawling quickly to the bathroom and closing the door.
“Jesus,” Luan muttered. The blinds were already closed, always closed, but he knew some light could trickle in through the gaps.
What to do next? He knew what he wanted next when he was rescued. To feel safe, to feel free, to feel in control, to know Cyrus couldn’t hurt him anymore. Food, water, blankets, a fucking warm shower. Home.
What had even happened to the vampire to make him like this?
In the end, he gathered up some sweats and sneakers he wouldn’t miss–he wasn’t going to make the vampire run home half-naked and barefoot when sunset came–and a blanket, then knocked on the door, stake stowed in his pocket. “Hey.”
“Yes?” the vampire called back.
Luan opened the door, finding the vampire huddled in the bathtub. “Brought you some stuff. You can use the bath and whatever too if you want, you know.”
The vampire’s eyes widened as Luan set the bundle down on the edge of the sink. “Thank you, sir! That’s so kind of you! Thank you so much!”
“Mm-hm.” It felt good to be the one in control. Safe, somehow, even with a vampire.
He wanted to ask what happened to him, but he hated when people asked for details. Those fucking true crime junkies. If the vampire wanted to talk, he would talk.
“I’m Luan,” he offered. “You?”
“M-my name is Kane. No one’s asked me that in a very long time.” The vampire stared at him like some kind of divine being.
“Alright, Kane. Glad this isn’t going to shit immediately. I’ll be… out there. Knock if you need anything, I guess.”
“Yes, sir!”
With that, Luan let him be. The vampire did not return, staying locked in there well after his shower ended. As the hours ticked by, he couldn’t keep his mind off the vampire in the bathroom. How could he?
Food. He was probably hungry. Starving, if his appearance was anything to go by. Luan knew that feeling, the never-satisfied clawing in his gut.
He pinched at his skin. He had blood to go around, didn’t he? Just once.
Luan knocked at the door. “Kane? You doing okay in there?”
“Yes, sir,” came the vampire’s muffled voice, “Do you need something?”
“You need something,” Luan corrected. “I’m gonna feed you some blood. Open up.”
The door opened fast, Kane’s wide, red eyes greeting him. “You would give me blood?” he asked in a hushed whisper, the blanket still wrapped around him.
“Yeah. Here.” Luan held out his arm. That’s where they did blood draws at the doctor’s, right? “I know you’re hungry. Go ahead.”
Kane burst into a huge, fanged grin. “Thank you, sir!” He took Luan’s arm gingerly, with a gentleness he wouldn’t have expected from a monster of the night. Deciding on the wrist, he bit in slowly, carefully at first.
As soon as he broke the skin, all that gentleness disappeared.
The vampire bit in hard, making Luan wince at the pain of it. But he’d expected pain. It was a goddamn vampire bite, of course it was gonna hurt. He grit his teeth and bore it. He’d had worse.
“Okay, that’s enough,” he announced as he started to feel woozy. “I get you’re hungry, I wanna help, but I’m not a buffet.”
Kane paid him no mind, continuing to gulp down mouthfuls of blood, eyes wild.
Luan’s heart began to race, either from the depleting blood or the sudden terror or both. Suddenly, he wasn’t in control anymore, and that meant the vampire could do anything to him. It wasn’t like with the robot, who had to follow his orders. This was a vampire. What was he in comparison to that? He was powerless. He was–
No. Not again. He would not be that helpless thing again.
Luan hit the vampire as hard as he could, bringing his fist down on the back of his head. “I said stop!”
Kane reeled back, his bloody fangs tearing from skin, the blow jerking him back to reality. Landing clumsily on the floor, he looked up in horror as he realized what he had just done.
“I’m sorry!” he cried. “I’m s-so sorry, sir! I didn’t mean to, I swear, I was just so hungry I couldn’t control myself, I’m sorry!”
His eyes grew watery, his breaths quick and panicked. Kane backed away on the floor, cowering against the tub. “Please just k-kill me, please kill me, I’ll be good, I won’t resist, please, please, I’m sorry, I can’t, please kill me!”
Luan clutched his bleeding arm, staring at the pathetic creature before him. Was that what he’d looked like?
“You’re fine. Just don’t do it again or it’s the stake,” he said firmly. He was in control again. He got to make the rules.
“Please don’t call them,” Kane begged. “I’ll do anything, sir.”
“You’re fine,” Luan repeated. He picked the blanket up off the floor, having fallen in the chaos, and draped it back over the vampire. He instantly clung to it, his shaky hands curling tight in the fabric.
“Th-thank you, sir.” Kane gasped. “Thank you, thank you, I’m sorry.”
“Good.” Luan grabbed a box of bandages out of the cabinet and left, closing the door behind him. He was sure the both of them would feel better that way.
-
Luan woke up to insistent knocking at his door.
He wasn’t supposed to fall asleep. There was a fucking vampire in his apartment. As soon as his head was clear enough to realize, he bolted upright, looking to the still-closed bathroom door, then to the window.
The evening sun still filtered through the blinds: it was still daylight, at least for a few hours more.
“Who is it?” he asked, unlocking his phone. An emergency alert from hours ago plastered the screen before he could check his doorbell camera: VAMPIRE IN AREA.
“I’m with the local vampire hunters. We just wanted to ask some questions,” the man at the door said.
Not a sound came from the bathroom.
It would be more suspicious if he didn’t answer the door, right? Luan opened it. “What questions?”
“We were holding a vampire in the base a few streets down when it escaped last night. This one can’t hypnotize you, and we had it pretty weakened, but it’s still dangerous–caught it before it could take anyone, thankfully. We know it couldn’t have gotten far, already combed outside. It has to have snuck into someone’s home, so we’ve been making the rounds before it can escape come nightfall. Have you seen anything suspicious?”
“...Take anyone?” Luan asked, the floor falling out from under him.
“Yep,” the hunter nodded, “When we caught it, it already had someone. Almost got away with her, too. If that thing managed to get her over the border, that’d be it. Last thing we want is for that to happen again. Luckily, we’ve got the sun on our side.”
How could he have been so stupid? Of course a vampire wouldn’t be in human territory for any good reason. Kane had already gotten a taste for his blood. He was just a few hours away from being lured into captivity again, and this time, there’d be no one to save him.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Luan grit his teeth, chest tight. Cyrus would never let him hear the end of it if he knew. “He–he tricked me,” he mumbled. “He’s in the bathroom.”
“Fuck. Least we caught it before sundown. Read up some on vampire safety,” the hunter instructed him, strolling inside.
The bathroom was no longer silent.
A sob accompanied the frantic scratching of nails against wood for only a moment before the hunter yanked the door open, the shitty lock giving way on only the third try.
“No! No, please, I was out!” Kane screamed, clawing at the sink cabinet ever-harder. “Please, please, mercy! I can’t! I was out!”
“Behave yourself,” the hunter spat, and Kane and Luan both flinched. He grabbed the vampire by the hair. “Come quietly and you get a tarp, not that you deserve that much after the stunt you fucking pulled today. Make a fuss and it’s the sun.”
Kane wailed, a cry of anguish so long and deep Luan thought it might never end. When it did, a shaking Kane wrapped his arms around himself. “I’ll be good, sir,” he whispered, eyes distant.
He offered no resistance as the hunter dragged him away, only tears.
Alone once more, Luan knew he’d made the only choice he could to protect himself, but the tightness in his chest didn’t go away.
-
In the coming weeks, Luan couldn’t get the vampire out of his mind.
Even taking it out on the robot didn’t help, not that it ever really did. He found himself turning it on less and less, leaving it in the closet. Seeing Cyrus’s face just made him feel worse.
The hunters had to have killed Kane, right? That would be fine. Humanity would be safe from him if they did that, and Kane had been begging for it, anyway. What reason would they have to keep him alive?
Luan knew the answer to that better than most.
One call to the hunters confirmed it: the vampire was alive, though they promised ‘improved security’.
“Can I see him?” he blurted out.
It took some convincing, but Luan was able to secure himself an appointment.
-
“Keep away from the bars,” the hunter leading him downstairs instructed. Down, down, down. Concrete walls, concrete floor. Luan fought the urge to run. “You can talk with it for five minutes. Get some closure on whatever it was doing in your place. I’ll escort you back up later.”
“Mm-hm,” Luan agreed.
At the bottom of the stairs was a cell, and in the cell was a metal trunk. Luan dug his nails into his palm.
“It might look a little gnarly, but remember, these things aren’t human. They heal like that.” The hunter snapped his fingers. “Wait here.”
The hunter unlocked the cell, then the trunk. “Out.”
The lid flung open, a skinny, burnt hand retracting as soon as it appeared. Kane climbed out of the trunk, landing in a mess on the floor.
He was much worse-off than Luan remembered him. In only six weeks, the clothes he’d given him had become so torn and bloodstained as to be practically unrecognizable. Nearly all the skin he could see was burnt, his face a mess of severe welts. He looked to Luan with utter terror in his eyes, far more than the robot could ever hope to mimic.
“H-hello, sir,” Kane stammered.
Luan had to run. He knew he was safe, he wasn’t a vampire, but the danger emanating from every crack of this place was far greater than any he’d felt with a vampire cowering in his bathtub.
He didn’t move. He didn’t speak.
“I’m s-sorry,” Kane continued, clutching at his shirt. “Please, please, I’m so sorry.”
“What?” Luan asked. “Why are–”
“Please don’t take the clothes away! I’ll do anything!” Kane bowed his head, trembling. “Anything, anything, p-please, I need them, I’m so sorry, please! They’re the only thing protecting me from the silver!”
He picked his head up to look back at the trunk and then Luan with a sob. “Please, I know I don’t d-deserve it, I’m sorry, but please, please, I’m trying. I won’t run again, I’m sorry!”
“They’re yours,” Luan assured him quickly. “I’m not… taking them. That’s not why I’m here.”
Kane let out a massive, shaky exhale, the grip on his shirt still tight. “Thank you for your m-mercy, sir. Thank you for letting me keep them. Thank you for giving me one good day. I treasure it, sir. It–it was the best day I ever had. What can I do for you?” He looked up, eyes shining and watery.
Luan turned and ran.
-
He brought the robot out that night. No one else had the guts to tell him what a piece of shit he was. No one else who wasn’t in prison.
Luan didn’t tell Russ what happened. He didn’t need to. The robot did its job, and by the time he was done, his knuckles hurt. The robot winced as Luan reached down to switch it off, then fell limp.
He called the cops. They didn’t care. It wasn’t a crime to hurt a vampire.
Luan thought about moving, but he didn’t. Instead, he did the opposite, took long walks out to the hunters’ base with his hand on the unused pepper spray in his pocket. It was just a building, as far as he could see, but he knew Kane was in there. Someone had to know.
Until one day, Kane was outside.
He was strapped to a propped-up metal board, baking in the sun, the clothes Luan had given him gone. It was the least human he’d ever looked: his skin boiled like sugar syrup on a stovetop in some places, crisped like burnt marshmallow in others.
There was no one else out there.
He ran home, came back even quicker with his car, and hopped the fence. Barbed wire tore at his skin, but didn’t slow him down. Kane writhed, pulling at his bound wrists.
“I’m getting you out of here,” Luan whispered, taking bolt cutters to his shackles. Kane fell to the ground, letting out a muffled shriek as his yet-untouched back set ablaze.
He didn’t have time to be careful. He hauled Kane up–he hardly weighed anything–and threw him over the fence, following quickly.
Tossing the vampire into his trunk, he added, “Don’t say you’re sorry if you have nothing to be sorry for. I’m sorry. You’re going home.”
Kane’s mangled face was unreadable, but Luan could have swore he saw him relax just a little amid the pain.
-
Luan drove. He couldn’t go home yet, that much he knew. They’d find him in a heartbeat. He drove as far away from that place as he could get, the cargo in his trunk surprisingly quiet.
When he’d gotten a few hours away, he found a secluded corner of a parking garage and popped the trunk.
“Easy, it’s me,” Luan shushed when Kane started to cower. “We’re far away. Here.”
Kane’s mouth was sealed shut, his lips fused together by the heat of the sun. It took some prying, but he managed to get them unfused. Kane didn’t seem to mind, not even when his skin tore and bled.
There were no fangs in his mouth.
Whatever. That wouldn’t stop him. He grabbed his pocketknife from the glove compartment and slashed his palm open. Kane writhed again, a desperate whine dragged from his throat, but stopped when Luan made a fist over his waiting mouth and squeezed.
“Drink up,” he encouraged. He kept going for a while, eventually bringing his hand to Kane’s mouth to let him lick the excess blood from it. His hand left scabbed over, as if it had been healing for hours rather than minutes.
“Better?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” Kane rasped, his voice hoarse. “Thank you, I’ll b-be good this time. Thank you for giving me another chance.”
Oh, he’d screwed this guy up bad. Another achievement in his worthless fucking life.
“Who should I contact about getting you home?” he asked. Time to get straight to the point. “Any vampire who could come here when it’s night and get you?”
Kane was silent for a moment. “Bellamy Verta,” he said eventually. “S-safe. Safe for humans.”
The guy wasn’t hard to find, and from what his profile said, he sure seemed to live up to safe for humans. His profile linked to a website that looked like PETA for vampires.
“I’m sending a DM. He’s probably asleep right now, but he’ll probably see it when he wakes up,” Luan reported.
Kane wept, blubbering gratitudes.
-
Luan cleared the area an hour before Verta was set to arrive. No matter how innocent his page looked, he wasn’t taking any chances. He left the trunk closed so no one would find Kane besides the one who was supposed to, not that he expected vampire hunters to be prowling an unpopulated parking garage in the middle of the night. Not exactly prime vampire ground. He was sure Verta would be able to figure out opening it.
He didn’t go back to the car until he got an emoji-filled DM back from Verta with a picture of what looked like Kane’s attempt at a smile.
His trunk had a hand-shaped dent in it, not that he really gave a shit. By the time he got home, it was almost sunrise. He really had to do something about his sleeping before Monday.
Luan stared blearily at the closet.
He opened it, turned on the robot. Russ flinched back at his touch, looking up at him with a harsh glare. “What?” he spat.
Luan unplugged the charger and shoved it into Russ’s hands before backing away. “You can go.”
Russ opened his mouth, then closed it, the glare melting from his face. He turned and ran through the door without a word, off into the sunrise.
It felt better than any time Luan had hit him.
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