Chapter Text
“Hey, Min–”
“Can we talk?”
“You know I was joking the other night.”
“Minho, come on.”
Every single one of these was followed by a poof and a terrified little bat flying off to the distance. In some cases, Chan even managed to get close to Minho, so far as to grab his wrist, but that only made Minho more vigilant. From there on out, he never went anywhere without a pouch of wormwood, ensuring there was always a good enforced space between him and the werewolf. In fact, the herb hung from Minho’s window frame as well; you could never be too careful.
It was simply a necessity for Minho. After the night of the orgy, after he fled from Chan, after he scorched his hand, the sickness that consumed Minho became a constant: he had trouble sleeping, no appetite to eat, and the wretched queasiness was omnipresent. The most rational solution was to get rid of the only recent addition to Minho’s life – the werewolf known as Chan.
On the other hand, Chan’s window was always open. It didn’t matter if the lights were off, or if there was a storm outside; it stood unlocked, enticing Minho like a pied piper, a Herculean labor he had to endure in order to overcome his plight.
As if he wasn’t going through enough, Felix had somehow sniffed out Minho’s emotional tumult, and did the worst possible thing he could:
“Do you wanna talk about it?”
Deplorable. Twisted. Macabre.
No, Minho did not want to talk about it.
So now, besides the persistent werewolf, Minho was also forced to avoid one of his own kind inside his own damn house. Everywhere he turned was a landmine-filled checkerboard that had to be sidestep lest he exploded.
Despite his best efforts, the continuing fatigue took a toll on Minho’s mind and body. The mine-skipping had to come to a temporary, albeit involuntary, stop as his actions got increasingly sloppier.
“How long will you keep this up?”
That’s exactly what happened when Minho was tending to his bushes one night – Chan caught him, unprepared and unguarded.
Minho stiffened and turned around, petrified.
“Don’t turn into a bat!” Chan added quickly over Minho’s readying stance.
Minho feverishly looked around, and grabbed the first metal thing he saw, pointing it at Chan.
“Stay back!”
Chan lifted his hands up, eyeing the garden spatula with a raised eyebrow. “You know that’s not silver?”
Minho brought forth the pouch of wormwood in front of himself.
Chan frowned, nostrils flaring, and took a step back. “Really? You’re still carrying that thing around?”
Minho attached the pouch back to his belt, but kept the spatula in place. “State your business.”
Chan lowered his hands, putting them in his pockets. “I wanted to ask if you wanna come over. It’s been way too long.”
“No. I’m done doing that, if you haven’t noticed,” Minho said, waving the garden tool demonstratively.
“Yeah, like the fifteen other times you said the same thing,” Chan said, rolling his eyes. He made a determined step forward, spreading open his arms. “Come on. I miss you, Minho. I’m not ashamed to say it.”
Minho balked momentarily, his stance faltering.
“That’s a horrible thing to say!” he said, pointing the spatula again like it would ward off ghosts. “I’m a vampire, you should be ashamed!”
“For someone who’s lived as long as you, you’re being incredibly obtuse right now.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t know dogs had the capacity to produce such big words.”
Chan huffed and turned around, shaking his head. “You’re a dick.”
“Right back at you, buddy!” Minho yelled at Chan’s retreating back.
After that episode, Chan stopped approaching Minho, and he stopped leaving the window open, too.
Good. Great. Perfect.
Exactly what Minho wanted.
Why should he care if some dumb mutt didn’t want him in his life anymore? Minho didn't want him first!
Except, Minho did want him. He wanted Chan badly.
Minho found himself staring at the closed window a lot more than he should, and a lot more than he did when it was just an invitation for a good time, back when anything unsavory was buried under plush blankets of pleasure.
“My dude, Chan is miserable,” Jisung had shared one night at the park, after stepping right over the Chan-mentioning veto. “He keeps brooding around the house, it’s bumming everyone out! Can’t you two sort it out? I’ll even survive the wild make-up sex, I bought special noise canceling earplugs just for that!”
Minho didn’t want to know. Knowing how Chan was feeling didn’t make him feel better. Rejecting Chan conclusively didn’t make him feel better. Nothing made him feel better.
And then there was the Hyunjin Thing, which was wholly obvious now, or they didn’t bother hiding it anymore. It rubbed coarse salt in Minho’s wound every time Changbin paid Hyunjin’s room a visit, and Minho’s casket quaked in response. Fucking wooden walls.
It was unfair. As far as Minho could discern, Hyunjin had no problems at the orgy, or balancing whatever he had with Changbin with his vampiric identity. Why was Minho the only one suffering long-term consequences?
He hovered around the house like a wraith, lifeless and pale; which was really saying something considering his level of undeadness. Somehow, he always ended up in the kitchen.
“Do you want me to throw them out?” Felix asked one night, finding Minho where he always was: sitting at the kitchen table, staring at the box of cupcakes in front of him. The plastic box had become cloudy, and the cakes inside were old and moldy, the frosting discolored and mushy.
“No,” Minho replied, weary.
Felix stood by the door frame for a few observing moments before pulling up a chair, the sound of scraping tiles grating, and took a seat next to Minho. Minho didn’t run. He didn’t care anymore.
The silence stretched long.
“I was out for most of it,” Felix eventually started, “but do you remember when Hyunjin brought me in?”
Minho’s eyes flashed to Felix, and then returned back to the box. “Imagine opening the door to your idiot companion and a rabid fledgling he recently turned,” he said, some color returning to his voice.
“You didn’t turn away or kill me,” Felix said.
Minho huffed. “Of course I didn’t.”
“It wasn’t really a walk in the park when you found Hyunjin either from what he told me,” Felix continued.
“When has anything ever been a walk in the park with that hazard?”
“Oh, he does his best,” Felix said fondly. “Besides, you’ve known him for a hundred and fifty years and you’ve barely been apart.”
“A hundred and eighty-six,” Minho corrected unwittingly.
Felix smiled. “I’m still with you and we’re closing in on a century.”
Another silence stretched.
Minho chewed on the inside of his cheek. “Is there a point to this?”
“There is,” Felix said, leaning with his elbows on the table. “It’s not the first time you’re letting new people into your life.”
Minho laughed mirthlessly, playing with the plastic edge of the box. “You guys are one thing, but werewolves?”
“But it’s a lot more than werewolves for you, isn’t it?”
Minho clicked his tongue. Felix reclined back on his seat.
“I already had this conversation with Hyunjin.”
Minho glanced at him, pouty. “What’d he say?”
“He didn’t care once he realized he could just do what he wanted and enjoy it,” Felix said, shrugging. “He also liked the added bonus of pissing you off.”
“Hyunjin the Hedonist,” Minho exhaled, looking up. He let go of the box, mulling over Felix’s words. “Fuck, I can’t let that guy one-up me here.”
“There we go!” Felix said positively, slapping the table top. He got up, extracting himself from the table. With one foot through the door, he said, “You should really do something about those,” he pointed at the cupcakes, “Things shouldn’t be left out to rot for so long.”
*
“I got your letter.”
Chan approached, waving a piece of paper over his head.
“You’re late,” Minho replied, standing in the middle of a meadow, under a single oak tree. It was one in the morning on a cloudless night, brisk breeze filling the air and a not-so-full moon shining a matte veil of light.
“Well, yeah,” Chan said, stopping in front of the vampire and stuffing the letter in his jacket pocket. “Who checks the mail these days? Couldn’t you just text?”
“I don’t understand what that means,” Minho said, completely serious.
“I really need to show you how to use a phone,” Chan muttered. He coughed then, speaking more clearly. “So what’s this about?”
“About that, actually. Getting with the times,” Minho said. He rummaged through the pocket of his coat, and then brought out his fist in front of Chan. He turned it, opening up his palm like a flower in bloom, revealing three glimmering bullets.
Chan instantaneously recoiled, stumbling backwards, his eyes growing wide. “What the hell? Are you gonna kill me?”
“What? No,” Minho said, stepping towards Chan. Chan lifted his hands up, moving away from the vampire. “Listen.”
“Back off, man.”
“No, Chan, would you just– ugh,” Minho groaned, frustrated, and flung the bullets into the woods, amongst shrubs and tall grass.
“There! This is why I called you here!”
Chan’s stance slackened, hands still in the air. “Huh?”
“That,” Minho pointed to the woods, “is all the silver I own. And now it’s gone.”
Chan lowered his hands down. He looked to the forest, then back to Minho. “Does that mean–”
“I also burned all the wormwood,” Minho cut Chan off before he could finish. “In hindsight, I should’ve kept it and made crappy alcohol for humans – hell knows we need a new source of income – but,” he took a big breath, looking straight at Chan, “I want to know more. About werewolves. About you.”
Chan’s shoulders slumped. “Oh…oh.”
The way Chan was looking at Minho was equal parts shock and wonder. He got closer to Minho, whose jaw was tight and posture frigid, seeming almost pained for saying all that out loud, but managing to stand proud and resolute despite that.
Chan gripped him, and for a split second Minho thought that was it – he was getting devoured, his dues finally paid.
The grip was strong, enveloping around Minho, but paradoxically, soft and gentle. A bear hug. Chan held him tight.
Minho slowly lifted his hands and wrapped them around Chan, awkwardly patting his shoulders, before allowing his palms to rest firmly on Chan’s back. It was warm, as opposed to Minho’s undead cold.
“You should probably pick those bullets up,” Chan murmured, still holding Minho close. “There actually are bad werewolves out there. I try to keep my boys on the straight path.”
“We don’t even have a gun for them,” Minho admitted. “I was gonna send Felix to fetch them anyway, he’s probably friends with various woodland critters.”
Chan laughed, making Minho’s whole body shake. This felt nice. No, it felt right.
Minho pulled away, tracing his hands alongside Chan’s neck, up to his jaw. One of his thumbs lifted Chan’s upper lip, passing it over a canine. It didn’t seem as intimidating as it did once.
He wanted to kiss Chan really, really badly. Every part of his body was begging him for it. The whole thing seemed absurd right now, why he had been holding back when Chan had always been right there.
Surely and confidently, Minho grabbed both of Chan’s cheeks in his hands, angling him, and leaned in.
Just as the deal was about to be sealed, Chan smacked Minho’s hands away, and took a few hurried steps back, clamping a hand over his own mouth as if Minho tried to set him on fire.
“What the actual fuck?” Minho resounded, offended.
Chan loosened the grip over his mouth, waving frantically with his free hand. “It’s not you! I want to, too!”
Minho took a step forward.
Chan took a step back.
“You’re sending a lot of mixed signals here!”
“Okay, okay, you’re right. I’ll tell you,” Chan said, holding a hand up front. “So. Before coming here I, uh, sorta ate a whole head of garlic,” he said, mumbling the last part.
A moment of silence.
“You what?”
“Seungmin suggested it, okay! It was for my protection! I didn’t know if this was a booty call or if you were gonna kill me! It could’ve been either!”
Minho looked at Chan’s mortified expression, taking it in, before breaking down and bursting into laughter. He approached Chan again, and Chan didn’t make a move this time. Minho pressed his lips to the back of Chan’s hand, still covering the werewolf’s mouth.
“So you were ready to kill me?” Minho asked through batted eyelashes.
“Yeah, well, I don’t actually want to hurt you,” Chan said, muffled.
Minho hummed, running a hand down to Chan’s crotch, grabbing him by the nuts. “Is that a wooden stake or are you just happy to see me?”
Chan closed his eyes. “It’s, uh…it’s both.”
Minho chuckled. “I find a prepared man very attractive.” He nipped at each knuckle agonizingly slowly, one by one. “If there were only two options when you came out here, and neither of us is dead – well, deader – then…?”
Chan lifted his eyebrows high up his forehead.
*
“We’re never speaking of this to anyone, ever.”
Minho walked rapidly, his gait a bit wonky.
“I didn’t mean to!” Chan pleaded, but he was actually incredibly badly concealing his laughter. “How could I know that allicin gets infused into your bloodstream and into other bodily fluids?”
Minho kept marching forward, ass on fire.
“Minhooo,” Chan whined, grabbing Minho from the back, trapping him in a back hug.
“Let go,” Minho squirmed. “Your sweat might be garlic-y too.”
“No,” Chan said, squeezing Minho harder. “I’m sorry, okay. I just got excited. I didn’t know it would be like this for you.”
“Oh, you got excited,” Minho drawled. “Is that what we’re calling it?”
“I’m never eating garlic again, you have my word.”
“Easy for you to say now,” Minho groused. “But I’m the one with blue balls and burns up my intestines!”
“Sorry,” Chan said again, rubbing his nose on Minho’s neck. “Why do you smell so good, though.” When Minho didn’t say anything and grew limp in Chan’s arms, a three-hundred-year-old dead weight, Chan said, “What can I do to make it up to you?”
“Relinquish your blood.”
“You can take it anytime you want,” Chan said earnestly.
“What, really?” Minho tried turning his head, getting a better glimpse at Chan. “I’ve never had werewolf blood before. What if it’s disgusting?”
Chan scoffed, making Minho grimace at his breath. “My blood wouldn’t be disgusting! It’s a delicacy. Probably.”
“Well it’s not virgin blood, is it?” Minho pointed out.
“I don’t know. How’s your butt doing?” Chan teased, biting Minho’s cheek playfully.
Minho quickly rubbed the cheek on Chan’s shoulder, wiping any possible traces of toxic saliva. “Remind me why I haven’t drained you?” he wondered woefully.
Chan snickered, the sound sweet as if he was cooing at a kitten whose claws haven’t grown in yet. “What would you do without me?”
Minho sighed, but did not refute. He leaned into the hug and closed his eyes. Werewolf blood did sound nice if he was being honest, especially if it was Chan’s.
Now that they were close to home, they could hear chatter and noise coming from the back of the werewolf house.
“We can just skip and go to my room,” Chan offered, letting Minho go.
“No,” Minho said, pulling the lapels of his coat, “I have to do this. Inaugurate it or whatever.”
The backyard was lively, with a lit bonfire in the center and live music to accompany it: Seungmin on the guitar, Jeongin singing, and Jisung and Changbin providing back-up vocals with horrible adlibs. Felix and Hyunjin were there as well, looking at the mess, experiencing either cultural shock or a trip to the zoo.
“Nice voice,” Minho aimed at Jeongin as he approached.
The music stopped, all attention directed at the newly-arrived pair. The reception was mixed: Felix and Jisung were ecstatic, Hyunjin was sort of confused and disgusted, and Seungmin definitely didn’t bother to hide the judgmental look on his face.
Minho looked at his roommates. “It’s convenient that you’re all here, I have an announcement to make.” He cleared his throat, addressing the whole congregation.
“I hereby formally invite our werewolf neighbors to weekly game nights at the vampire household.”
A raised hand.
“Yes, Felix?”
“We only have rummikub.”
“And?”
“And only four people can play it.”
“Okay,” Minho nodded. “Hyunjin. From tomorrow you’re on trash digging duty.”
“Wh– hey!” Hyunjin protested.
“Oh alright, you can bring your furry little concubine with you, too.”
“Hey!” Changbin added, just as insulted.
“All complaints can be taken up by this guy,” Minho said, slapping Chan on the chest. “Any more questions?”
Jisung lifted his hand up.
“Yes, Sung?”
“Can I come to the next orgy?”
“If we’re in need of a virgin, I’ll let you know.”
Jisung lowered the hand sunkenly, while Jeongin next to him almost fell backwards from laughing too hard.
“That all? Great,” Minho concluded, and took a spot on a free log by the fire.
“Mmmyeah,” Chan said, all eyes left hanging on him. He tipped his head. “Carry on.”
He scooted next to Minho on the log and the festivities resumed, more jovial and chaotic than earlier.
Felix’s bass paired well with the harmonies, even if it was obvious he didn’t know any song.
Hyunjin was busy sucking face with Changbin to the detriment of onlookers.
Minho was silent, staring at the fiery licks dancing freely in the night air, the shapes and colors hypnotizing.
“I always wanted to ask, but why do you do this?” Minho asked after some time had passed, and the atmosphere lightened. “I thought werewolves were afraid of fire?”
Chan turned to Minho, an unbridled flame contained in his dark irises.
“We are, and that’s why we do it every once in a while. To not forget – fire can kill us, but it can kill anything. It has less control over us when we defuse it with the power of song and dance.”
Minho managed to catch Hyunjin’s eye at that moment, who mouthed, Fucking kumbaya. Minho snorted, shaking his head.
He leaned on Chan’s shoulder, and held his hand; one cold and pasty, the other warm and flush.
Minho’s skin didn’t burn to ashes, but it did feel tingles. He was fairly certain it had nothing to do with the garlic after all.