AN: This was the one that made me forget to post. This thing here. _ I was back and forth over whether or not to post it back then, but fudge it. It's 3 years-ish later; it is here and might as well.

Content notes: parallels to prostitution and drug addiction, so if either of those things are not ok for you, please don't read this snippet at all since that is entirely what it centers around

*o*o*

Saguru hated Donors. No, hate wasn't quite the correct word or he wouldn't seek them out again and again over the years, tracking down those humans that were in the know about vampires and lived for the rush of being bitten. He hated how they made him feel. They were both, in essence, addicts seeking a fix; the Donor the high a vampire could provide, the vampire relishing in blood and emotional feedback loops. Perhaps it was his upbringing that made him dislike it so much. It was hard to trust what felt so addictively good in the moment.

It was a compromise at first, something that was morally acceptable in that it was willing prey. Feeding from criminals was a compromise he made later that he was more comfortable with even though those that he fed from there were not always willing and certainly were not informed.

It didn't feel…like he was performing some sort of unsavory transaction.

Unclean feeling aside, he always circled back to Donors eventually, if only when it stretched too long between proper prey. The Donor that met him today was young, not quite twenty, with long black hair and the jittery energy that people got when they needed a fix. Who had a worse addiction? The vampire that needed blood to retain humanity or the Donor that grew dependent on that rush of endorphins? She greeted him with a smile and a submissive tilt of her head that was a clear invitation to ignore social niceties and skip to feeding.

"What are you comfortable with?" Saguru asked.

"Shallow bites, cuts, touching, but not penetrative sex," the Donor said. "No damage that will take more than a week to heal, preferably."

He nodded. Standard enough tastes, though he had had people that wanted things from him that he couldn't provide because they made him uncomfortable in the past. A step closer and he saw her neck had fine white lines of scars, some still pink and healing, and there were others leading down below her clothing and likely some on her wrists as well. How long had she been a Donor? She was too young for this many bites… Saguru stepped closer and she caught his hand, pressing the tips of his fingers to her pulse point. He could smell the adrenaline and excitement on her with a mix of carnal hunger. It was closer to his blood hunger than it was to standard lust, but those two sorts of hungers tended to meld together.

He leaned down and kissed her and let his pheromones swamp them both. She submitted to it instantly and he wondered what it said about him that he preferred criminals that fought against the desire to submit more than a woman that volunteered for this.

Did that make him more like the monster legends portrayed vampires as or not?

The feedback loop kicked in halfway through feeding, a more delayed one than usual. For long moments he let himself get lost in it, body tingling with it until both lusts were sated.

He held the Donor in his arms as they reeled from the after effects. Her head lolled against the crook of Saguru's arm as she breathed. The line on her throat was just one more line of many. Her glazed smile scared him a bit. He'd seen it on people in opium dens once upon a time. She was the first Donor he had sought out in Japan and he could not help but think about the feedback loop with Edogawa not too long ago. It had been different than this. Pleasurable, but also soothing in a way this wasn't. He wanted it with Edogawa again. He did not want to feed from Edogawa ever again. It was a strange, conflicting emotion building in him as the Donor pulled him down for another kiss he barely felt. The high faded fast this time.

There was always a risk that someone could become an addict. Some donors had been people who dated a vampire or had been friends with one and let them feed from them one too many times before relationships changed and they found they needed the rush.

The last thing Saguru wanted was for Edogawa to become like them.

"I'd be willing to Donate to you again in a few weeks," the woman murmured against his lips.

Saguru jolted out of his thoughts. He wondered how often she Donated. Based on the lines still healing, too often to be healthy. She probably didn't wait long enough to fully replenish her blood. And this was one more reason why he felt wrong when he fed from a Donor. He brushed the hair away from her face with gentle fingers. "I will consider it," he said, not planning to return.

She smiled and he felt a stab of guilt. "I'm going to nap here until I head home," she said with a wave of her hand at the bed they'd failed to use earlier. "You could stay?"

The stab of guilt twisted deeper. She'd been all business before, but clearly she was one that liked contact afterward and he didn't feel comfortable giving it to her. "I can stay until you fall asleep," Saguru compromised.

It didn't take her long to drop off into slumber and Saguru left as soon as he had his clothing straightened out, locking the door behind him so she had some safety while she rested. The problem was that it wasn't always like this with Donors. The ones that were careful to replenish, who didn't let themselves fall to addiction, who he talked with beforehand and had a chance to know why they chose to be Donors, he didn't leave feeling like he'd committed a crime. The pleasure there was real and untainted, and perhaps that was why he returned to Donors, the few good experiences making up for the highs and crashes he got with so many others.

It was an addiction on his end as much as it was an addiction Donors experienced and the lack of tension in him felt stolen.

He wouldn't seek out another Donor while he was in Japan, he decided. He had the control to not need to. Saguru couldn't say he would have the strength to turn away if Edogawa offered again though. It was a bridge he would cross when he reached it.