Archive of Our Own ^beta

Taemin leans against the counter, elbows hooked back to brace himself on the surface of the bar. He feels more at ease than he knows he should in a place like this, feels calmer than he has any right to. But he’s not afraid.

He’s a human in a room full of vampires, and he should be terrified, but he isn’t. All too aware of his heartbeat, maybe, of the eyes on him and the way so many of them would love to sink their teeth into him, all too literally. But he’s not afraid.

He’s clearly drawn some attention, probably more than he really should, but only one of them is approaching, a particularly brave vampire with a gleam in his eyes. He looks like he was hardly older than Taemin when he was turned, and he’s dressed in slightly outdated clothing, which means they he’s either young and wearing clothes that he was familiar with when he was turned or else old enough to be bad at keeping up with trends. Just from the way he carries himself, Taemin’s leaning pretty heavily towards the first.

The vampire steps close to him, halfway into Taemin’s space, and smiles with his fangs run out. Taemin takes a deep breath. This guy has shitty control, he thinks, if his fangs are out at just the sight of a human in a crowded room.

Taemin’s not only the only human, either. Albeit, there are far less of them than the vampires, and most of the humans are halfway in other vampire’s laps, some of them with teeth at their throat already, others hiding old bitemarks with scarves wound around their throats.

But Taemin isn’t special, really. He’s standing here on his own, though, and that makes him so much more appealing, he guesses.

“You’re new here,” the vampire purrs, and Taemin will never get over the fact that that’s just a thing that vampires can do, make their voice sultry and seductive and tempting like that in a way that’s almost grotesque. Taemin doesn’t much appreciate the way he kind of feels like he’s in the intro of a bad porn film right now.

But he shrugs and puts on a tiny, playful smile. He can’t leave yet, so he might as well have a little fun.

He tips his head just slightly to one side, exposing his throat. Bare, unblemished. There are no bite marks there, nothing to hide, and he can see the vampire’s eyes rove over it. He can feel other eyes on him too.

“Didn’t find what you were looking for?” the vampire asks, and Taemin knows he’s about to get a proposition-- “I could show you what you’re missing.”

Taemin wants to laugh, but that would ruin the game, so he lifts his hand to hide his laugh and hopes it passes for shyness. “I don’t know,” he says, letting it linger. Letting the seconds pass, just long enough to tease. “What am I missing, exactly?”

The vampire grins, all fangs, and really, Taemin has no idea how this guy manages to get by from night to night if he’s constantly walking around with a mouth full of teeth like he’s popping a metaphorical vampiric boner for any human with a pulse. “You’d like being bitten,” the vampire says, as if he knows Taemin at all. “That’s why you’re here, right? You’re curious.”

Taemin pretends to consider this for a moment. “I’m actually not a fan,” he says, and the vampire looks startled, like Taemin has thrown off some carefully prepared dialogue. He probably planned this whole conversation out in his head, assumed Taemin would swoon and sigh and let himself be bitten on the spot. Taemin is trying so, so hard not to just laugh in his face. “Being bitten? It’s never really done it for me.”

“You’ve never tried it though, have you?” he asks, and it would almost be a good recovery time is he wasn’t still staring at Taemin’s throat. He only breaks his gaze away to gesture slightly at the room at large. “All of them like it,” he says, looking over the other humans in the room. “Don’t you think they have a reason?”

Taemin can’t help himself. He laughs a little, burying it down and trying to make it cute, demure. Not the full-on mocking laughter that he feels building in his chest. “Do they?” he manages, the longest sentence he can get out without dissolving into laughter.

The vampire’s grin glints in the light, and he starts to step forward and then stops abruptly, eyes fixed on something just over Taemin’s shoulder. Taemin feels a presence beside him like a physical weight, cool and familiar, feels the hand catching at his hip like an anchor.

“Are you teasing again, darling?”

Jinki’s voice is thick and warm and aged, like a sweet red wine that was bottled long before Taemin was ever born. Taemin thinks he could get drunk off the sound of it sometimes.

“Only a little,” he says, and pouts, turning into Jinki’s hold and pulling up off the bar to let Jinki slide in half behind him, arm winding around him. Taemin leans into it without hesitation.

It should be more than obvious that Taemin is far more invested in Jinki, that whatever the other vampire thought he was here for, it isn’t it. But somehow, the vampire doesn’t get the memo. He steps forward slightly instead, eyeing Jinki with his teeth bared.

“I was here first,” he says, and it sounds both creepily possessive and also like a challenge, so much so that Taemin can’t help himself anymore. He twists his neck around to bury his face into Jinki’s shoulder and laugh.

“So you were,” Jinki notes, and lifts a hand to run it through Taemin’s hair, brushing it away from the nape of his neck. He’s playing Taemin’s game too, now, baring Taemin’s throat so easily, but Taemin lets him. There has never been anyone he trusted to keep him safe as much as he trusts Jinki. “Taeminnie, they were here first. Shouldn’t you be polite and finish your conversation?”

“I was finished,” Taemin says. “They were trying to convince me how much I’d like being bitten.”

He sighs the word, bats his eyelashes at Jinki playfully. Jinki smiles, teeth blunted and fangs tucked away. Jinki is the only vampire in this room who has actually tasted Taemin’s blood, and still he has near-perfect control. It makes Taemin’s heart stutter in his chest, and Jinki hums and lifts a hand to rub his thumb over Taemin’s pulse as if he (and probably anyone near) can’t hear it, loud and clear.

The other vampire snarls, a jarring sound, and Jinki looks up and scans him as if only just now really taking him into account. It’s a strange juxtaposition: the other vampire looks harsh, his fangs bared and his eyes gleaming almost unnaturally, but Jinki looks almost soft, his face neutral and his stance hardly intimidating.

But for all the other vampire’s posturing, it’s Jinki who gets to hold Taemin like this, gets to press a gentle kiss to Taemin’s throat and watch him shudder, not out of fear, but out of pleased anticipation.

The whole action is made to be pointed, but the flash of rage across the vampire’s face is still almost laughable, the way he stutters just a little forward like the thought to lunge was halfway formed before he thought better.

But he’s clearly thinking better of it now, because the moment he moved, Jinki had looked up and pulled Taemin behind him, standing straight. He looks casual, just a man in a T-shirt and jeans, a curious smile on his face, but the softness is gone, and power radiates off of him now in a way that even Taemin can feel.

It’s magic and time and energy, built up over years of life, and it is suddenly, blatantly evident that Jinki is the oldest vampire here. The most powerful vampire here. The kind of vampire that most of these vampires will never live long enough to be.

Taemin drapes himself half over Jinki’s arm and pouts. “Are you done meeting with whoever? I want to go. I’m bored.”

The other vampires are shying away now, but the one that had been trying to speak to Taemin is either incredibly brave or incredibly stupid. “If you’re going to let your feeder walk around by himself, mark him properly,” he snaps, voice only a little shrill with terror. “What kind of feeder is he that you don’t bite him?”

Jinki pauses, frowns. “He’s not a feeder,” he says, voice even, flat, and there’s something dangerous about his tone when he asks, “What kind of vampire are you that you assume any human you come across is nothing more than a meal?”

The vampire gapes a little, clearly searching for a response that doesn’t make him sound like a monster.

Taemin’s fingers tighten subtly on Jinki’s arm. “Are you done?” he asks again. “I want to go.”

Jinki looks at him for a moment and then softens easily, cupping his palm against Taemin’s face. “Of course, sweet thing. I believe we’re done here. I’m sorry to have kept you waiting.”

He brushes past the other vampire almost coldly, not sparing him even a glance as he leads Taemin out of the club and into the night.

----

Three years earlier:

Taemin knows as well as anyone that you shouldn’t walk home alone at night. He knows the stories, the tales of creatures that lurk in the dark. But they’re just stories, just scare tactics -- nothing really scary lives out here in the suburbs. All the scary things are in the woods (weres, mostly) or the city (vampires and incubi and anything that feeds off of people).

So Taemin isn’t afraid. He isn’t really in danger, and it’s so much easier to just smile at the librarian as she closes up and say, “Yes, ma’am, my mother is picking me up. She’s just outside.”

Easier than it would be to call home now and wait for them to argue whose turn it is to pick him up.

He’s only a few blocks from home, down familiar streets dotted with street lamps that cast soft pools of light across the cracked concrete and fallen leaves that coat the sidewalks. It’s only been dark for a half-hour or so, the sky still more blue than black. It’s not exactly intimidating, and it’s just easier to tuck his borrowed book inside the pocket of his hoodie and jog across the parking lot before the librarian can come outside and realize that there are no cars to be seen.

He ducks down the street, bouncing from light to light almost instinctively, and he really doesn’t know why people are so worried. He doesn’t even jump (not really) when the dog on the corner of his street starts barking.

Taemin knows the dog pretty well, pauses to pet and spoil her on the way to school each morning, and he shuffles over to her now, crouching down on the other side of the slatted fence and wriggles most of his hand through for the dog to butt her head against.

The dog licks his fingers a few times and whines pathetically.

“Sorry, buddy,” he says quietly. He’s not sure why he’s being quiet. He doesn’t exactly need to worry about bothering people. “I’ll bring you a treat in the morning, okay? On the way to school.”

The dog backs up a step, bares her teeth, and snarls.

“What the hell?” Taemin says, jerking his hand back and hissing when it gets caught on the wood, scraping his hand up painfully and leaving a splinter in his palm. “Ow.”

“Aww,” a voice says, unfamiliar, low and foreign. “I think the kid hurt himself. That’s too bad.”

Taemin whirls around, jerking backwards as he does and bumping hard into the fence. The dog is still snarling behind him, and Taemin’s heart lurches in his chest at the realization that it wasn’t at him at all.

There’s a man in front of him, standing on the sidewalk where he definitely wasn’t only a few seconds ago. There are no disturbed leaves in his wake, no hint of his approach. He’s just there, feet from Taemin.

There’s no way to properly describe that wave of fear that rises up in Taemin. Panic wells in his throat and choking him into silence. It’s almost irrational, but it isn’t, and Taemin’s heart rabbits in his chest as he trembles.

“What’s wrong, kiddo?” the man asks, and Taemin’s heart skips an ungainly beat because that’s not the same voice.

He whips his head around violently, and it’s so dumb because he can’t do anything, but a part of him needs to know, needs to see. And he doesn’t know why, because it’s so much worse when he sees the other man. The other vampire.

He’s a few feet off to the left, and he’s grinning at him. Grinning, with a mouth full of teeth that shouldn’t be there, sharp and pointed and filling his mouth too full, fangs overlapping where there should just be teeth.

Taemin has seen this only a few times, in monster movies, and none of them could so vividly capture the way it unsettles him, the way it makes the man look more inhuman than if there were fangs alone. Taemin realizes, with a certainty that weighs down every fiber of his being, that he’s going to die here.

“Please,” he manages, and his voice cracks into something like a sob. “Please, don’t—“

“Are you scared?” the man in front of him asks, the one whose mouth isn't quite so full of fangs. And he feels like not being able to see that should make him less terrified, but he’s not, because the man is looking over Taemin like he wants to rip him open and see what’s going on inside of him. “You seem like a brave kid, walking home alone at night. Hasn’t your mother ever told you that it’s dangerous?”

Taemin whimpers involuntarily. He’ll never see his mom again, he realizes. His dad. Maybe that’s better -- maybe without him they’ll have no reason to stay together, and they’ll be happier. If it’s possible to be happier with a dead son.

“Hurry up,” says the one with the fangs, and it’s hissed, low and sinister around the extra teeth in his mouth. “I’m hungry. Stop playing with your food.”

He lurches forward, almost too fast for Taemin to see, in and out of a pool of light like a passing shadow, and then he’s there, close enough to Taemin for Taemin to feel the coldness of his skin. His fingers wrap around Taemin’s arm, whirling him around and tearing his hoodie, ripping ragged tatters in the sleeve.

Taemin screams without meaning to, a short, punched-out little sound. It’s not even enough to alert anyone, and it’s certainly not enough for the vampire to let him go. It’s just enough to make him angry, and he digs his fingers into Taemin’s hair, scraping against his scalp, and yanking Taemin’s head back. His throat is stretched out, vulnerable, and Taemin sucks in a breath to scream again only to feel something sharp scraping against his neck.

He thrashes wildly, kicking backwards, and his foot connects with something with a solid thud, the kind that jarrs Taemin’s leg as the impact ripples up from his foot. The vampire just laughs, a low, pleased sound that makes his breath huff against Taemin’s skin, too cold to be natural but no less disgusting for it.

Behind him, the dog starts barking.

“Shut that damn thing up,” the vampire holding him growls, and Taemin feels his stomach twist.

“No, wait,” he pleads. “Don’t. Don’t hurt her. She’s just a dog. She--”

“Shut the fuck up,” the vampire says, and shakes him a little. “You’re about to die and you’re begging for the life of a filthy mutt? How stupid can you be, kid?”

“Don’t,” Taemin says again, not entirely sure what he’s begging for anymore. He doesn’t want to die. But he doesn’t want this poor dog to die because of him, because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

And it feels so menial, so unimportant, but if he’s going to die here, he wants to have done one good thing. Stopped one bad thing from happening. If he’s going to die here--

A burst of something washes over him, and Taemin feels like he should be thrown backwards, feels like he should be sinking to his knees, because the force is overwhelming. Taemin can’t breathe, and he wonders if this is what death feels like.

If it is, he doesn’t think he minds. It’s like being held, gently. Like being carried.

And then he’s lowered to his feet, a steadying hand on his back, and he sways in place, somehow vividly aware of his own mortality.

“Preying on children in their own neighborhoods,” a new voice says, soft and threatening, but in a way that somehow makes Taemin feel protected. That threat isn’t aimed at him. “That’s a new low.”

“Who are you?” asks one of the vampires, and Taemin realizes that they’ve moved.

Or, no. They’re still in front of the slatted fence, but the dog is quiet now, and Taemin feels a curl of horror before he sees her, cowering but alive. It’s Taemin who’s moved, several yards away, standing in a pool of lamplight across the street with a hand on his back and a strange man next to him.

Taemin peers up at him and freezes. There’s something unearthly about his face, something frozen in time. It’s like seeing a painting in real life, something that shouldn’t exist anymore but does. He has dark hair, swept to either side off of his forehead, and his eyes are gleaming in the moonlight, a brown so deep they’re almost black. They have the faintest of laugh lines, just at the corners and underneath, and when he looks at Taemin, his eyes are as soft as his touch.

“Sit down, if you need,” the man says. “Don’t worry. I won’t allow them to hurt you.”

“Who the fuck,” the other vampire starts, and Taemin finds himself flinching, reaching instinctively for his neck where he remembers the scrape, that horrible feeling of fangs, so close.

He doesn’t realize he’s about to start crying until he suddenly is, throat closing up around choked sobs and his face wet with tears. The man next to him glances at him for a moment before stepping away, letting Taemin sink to the ground in the middle of the pool of light and cry.

Something like a dream, he hears the man’s voice. “I should be asking the same. You’re in my territory. Get out, and I’ll let you live.”

And somehow, that terrifies Taemin more than anything else he’s heard tonight, because the thought of those vampires being alive, being able to come near him again, it makes the tears come harder, faster, blurring his vision.

“You don’t have a right,” one of the vampires hisses, Taemin doesn’t even know which anymore. “You can’t just steal someone’s meal like that.”

The man sighs. “I wish,” he says, stepping forward, “that you hadn’t said that.”

Taemin has never heard the sound of snapping necks before, but he didn’t expect it to sound like that. There’s grotesque cracks, a sound that’s a little bit like tearing as things come apart that was very, very much supposed to stay together. There’s heavy thuds as things hit the ground, and it takes Taemin a sickening second to realize that those things were bodies.

He shakes in place, frozen with fear and sobbing like a scared kid, and he can’t help but flinch away when he hears the sound of footsteps approaching. “Please,” he manages, and he’s still not entirely sure what he’s begging for.

The man sinks to the ground in front of him, not crouching like he’s speaking to a child, but kneeling in front of him. It’s not submissive, but it’s not patronizing either; it’s just the man getting on his level. Taemin can’t make out his exact expression through his tears, but his voice is gentle when he asks, “May I touch you? I don’t wish to frighten you.”

Taemin sobs weakly, folding in on himself. He’s so scared already, his heart racing in his chest, and he doesn’t know what he’s doing now; he doesn’t feel in danger anymore, but the man in front of him is strong enough to kill a vampire. Taemin is terrified to ask what that makes him.

“It’s alright if you won’t allow me. I’ll stay until you’re ready to stand up on your own,” the man says. “You shouldn’t be out so late.”

It’s not condescending, just concerned, and Taemin doesn’t know what he’s done to earn the concern of this stranger, but it makes him sniffle pathetically, wiping his eyes with the back of his wrist, the texture of his hoodie a little rough against his skin.

“Is...” he starts, and has to pause and clear his throat to make it come out as more than a watery croak. “Is the dog alright?”

The man in front of him makes a noise, soft and a little sighed. “Oh, sweet thing,” he murmurs, and then he’s gone, faster than Taemin can blink, and Taemin jerks with alarm. Within moments though, he’s back, a dog that should be too big to easily carry in his arms.

He sets the dog down, and she whines a little, and then scampers forward to lick at Taemin’s cheeks, snuffling at him and whining. Taemin lets out a teary laugh. “Oh,” he says, and flings his arms around the dog’s neck, burying his face in her fur and clutching tight. “I’m glad.”

“You must love her,” the man says gently. “Is she yours?”

Taemin shakes his head. “My parents won’t let me have one,” he says, voice muffled because he refuses to pull away from the dog who is now wriggling in his arms, butting her head repeatedly against Taemin’s. “But I know her. She’s a good dog. She didn’t deserve to get hurt because… b-because…”

Taemin loses it, breaks down into another sob.

The man shifts closer, just a bit, and runs his hand over the dog’s back gently. “You didn’t deserve to get hurt either,” he murmurs. “I detest vampires who prey on children, especially in this day and age. It’s not acceptable.”

Taemin hugs the dog just a little closer. “I-- vampires in general,” he whispers. “I thought they lived in the city. They all--”

“Most of us,” the man murmurs.

Taemin’s breath stutters in his throat. “You’re-” he says, voice cracking.

“I am,” the man says. “But I won’t harm you. I prefer not to drink from anyone unwilling.”

Taemin wants to ask it -- who would be willing? Even for a man like this. He can’t help but think of those teeth in his throat. Taemin shudders, fingers gripping into the dog’s fur. “Promise?” he asks childishly, even though he has no reason to believe this man’s promise.

“I swear to you,” the man says. “And I believe it’s time to let your friend rest and get you home. Your parents will worry.”

Taemin lets out a tiny, wavering laugh, but he nods anyways. He pulls away from the dog, pressing a kiss to the top of her head between her ears, and gets a lick for his trouble.

Standing is harder than it should be. The adrenaline is starting to fade, and his legs feel shaky, weak under him. “Are... “ he starts, and then feels embarrassed for it. He shakes his head. “Nevermind.”

“Tell me,” the man urges, gentle but insistent. “It’s alright.”

Taemin bites his lip. “Are… are you going to follow me home?”

The man pauses, tipping his head to one side as if considering. “Would you like me to?” he asks after a moment. “I won’t if you’d rather me not, but I would like to see that you arrive safely.”

And Taemin doesn’t know what to say to that. This man -- this vampire -- could hurt him at any moment. But if he wanted to, wouldn’t he have? He killed those other vampires without a thought, in seconds. And Taemin is so much frailer. But Taemin is the one standing here, alive.

And there could be other vampires out there, ones who haven’t promised not to hurt him. Even if it’s a false promise, it’s somehow better than no promise at all.

“Yes,” he says finally, sniffling a little and wiping the last of his tears with the back of his sleeve.

“Of course,” the man says. He deposits the dog back into the yard with ease, barely gone long enough for Taemin to dare look around, dare see the bodies lying on the sidewalk. They look like they’re sleeping, almost.

“Don’t mind them,” the man says. “I don’t like to, but I could hardly just allow them to roam free and hurt people. They can’t hurt anyone anymore, now. It’s not the cleanest method, but it’s the safest.”

“It’s horrible,” Taemin whispers. “Even if they’re-- it’s horrible.”

The man doesn’t say anything for a very long moment, just looks at him like he’s trying to puzzle something out.

Taemin blushes, feeling self-conscious under the stare. “I just…” he whispers, “I was so afraid. Of dying. Didn’t they feel that too? Even if they…”

“Sweet thing,” the man says again. “They were too far gone to feel fear like that. When vampires kill like that, indiscriminately, they start to lose themselves. There was little left to mourn over.”

“I’m not mourning,” Taemin says quietly, and doesn’t know what else to say after that. He’s not. He’s not even sad, really. He’s just tired and shaken, and he wants to badly to go home and wake up and be able to pretend this was all just a dream.

“Let me walk you home,” the man says as if reading his mind. And he does, walking just beside Taemin through the dark streets, until they’re outside Taemin’s house.

Taemin hesitates for a moment on the sidewalk, looking in at the light that’s on in the living room. “Thank you,” he says finally. “For saving me.”

“You don’t have to thank me,” the man says. “You, of all people, deserved to be saved.”

“What?” Taemin says, eyebrows furrowing. “Why me?”

The man tips his head again, and smiles so sweetly that Taemin forgets for a moment that he’s supposed to be a monster. He doesn’t seem much like one.

“Not many people would fear for another’s life when their own was in danger,” the man says. “Much less that of a pet that is not even their own.”

“I-- oh,” Taemin says. And he doesn’t know what to say after that. They stand in quiet, just for a moment, until Taemin takes a tentative step up the walk. The man is gone, as quickly as he had appeared, and Taemin sucks in a startled breath. He doesn’t even have time to think about it before he calls, “Wait!”

For a moment, nothing happens, and then the man is back, like he never left at all. “What’s wrong?” he asks, and his voice is all concern, so genuine that it takes Taemin off guard.

He doesn’t know why he called out, and he stands there for a moment, staring with wide eyes. “What’s your name?” he asks finally, for something to break the silence, for some reason to have called out. The man smiles again, and Taemin ducks his head shyly. “I didn’t-- nevermind, I…”

“It’s Jinki,” he says. “My name is Jinki.”

Taemin pauses, just for a moment. “Taemin,” he says quietly. “Mine’s Taemin.”

“Taemin,” Jinki echoes, and then, “May I?”

He’s reaching out to Taemin, hand hovering in the air, and when Taemin nods, Jinki brushes his fingers against Taemin’s hand and lifts it to his mouth, lips brushing just beneath the scrape across Taemin’s knuckles.

Taemin’s heart jumps in his throat, a tiny pang of instinctive fear. Vampire, his mind is telling him, and Taemin can’t help but think of that scrape of teeth against his neck.

But Jinki’s lips are soft, and he pulls away quickly, smiling gently with blunt teeth. “That might have been a bit antiquated,” he admits. “My apologies. But I’m glad to have met you, Taemin.”

And then he’s gone, and Taemin doesn’t call after him this time.

Instead, he turns and walks inside, kicking off his shoes in the front hall and calling, “I’m home.”

“Taemin?” his mom asks from the living room, sounding confused. “Where have you been? I thought your father was supposed to get you from the library.”

Taemin opens his mouth. “I--” he starts.

From the other room, he hears his father’s voice. “What are you talking about? You were supposed to pick him up a half hour ago.”

“Don’t you blame this on me!” his mother snaps, raising her voice. “You said--”

“I’m fine,” Taemin says, but he doesn’t think either of them are paying attention.

He peels off his jacket, thumbing at the ripped sleeve, and reaches into the pocket for his library book. It’s not there, and Taemin feels his heart sink as his parents voices raise, louder by the moment.

“I’m fine,” he says again, and slips away into his bedroom to let the door muffle their voices.

--

Taemin couldn’t say, if asked, what possesses him to go outside a few nights after he’s attacked. The air is a bit colder than before, and he’s fixed his torn sleeve with a stapler, but it’s not a great job. His arm is cold, which makes the rest of him feel a lot colder, and he thinks that he should be inside, but he’s… not.

The streets feel darker somehow, and he can’t help but be afraid. After what happened to him, a part of him keeps waiting for the other shoe to drop, for some other vampire to show up, some friend of the ones who attacked him before. If vampires have friends. Taemin isn’t sure, honestly.

But the night is quiet and still. Taemin is alone in the dim, half-moon light, alone under the streetlamps. Not a shadow, not a whisper.

He jumps out of his skin at every sound, from the neighborhood cat to the sound of a car a few streets over, echoing through the silent streets. Instinctively, he shies away. Not because he’s afraid, but because if it’s like last time, if he’s near a dog or a cat or a person, he might get someone hurt. Hurt because of him. And the thought of that makes him feel horrible.

It isn’t until he turns left that Taemin realizes the he doesn’t know where he is.

He’s still in his neighborhood, he thinks, but he isn’t sure what street or what turns he took or how to get home. He turns around, squinting down the street. The houses all look the same. Or, no, not the same, but just the right kind of confusingly generic that they all blend together and give him nothing in the way of landmarks. Taemin lets out a whoosh of breath.

He’s lost. He nearly died down the street from his own home only a few nights ago, and now he’s lost.

The enormity of the situation hits him like a physical blow. There’s a feeling like ice down his spine, a crushing weight in his chest. Taemin gasps for air, and there’s suddenly not enough of it, not enough space in his lungs.

The adrenaline is kicking in his veins, flight or fight instinct bunching every muscle in his body, but there’s nothing to fight, nothing but the sense of panic welling up inside him. Nothing but the phantom teeth of a dead vampire.

Taemin bolts.

He doesn’t know where he’s running to, doesn’t know what direction he’s heading, doesn’t even know where he plans on ending up. He just runs until there’s a stitch burning a sharp pain in his side, until every breath is a small torture, until his legs eventually give, and he buckles to his knees, gasping for air and trying to find the strength to keep running.

He’s not safe. He’s not safe.

“Taemin,” a voice says, and Taemin screams, trying to turn and overbalancing, landing on his hip with a jolt that makes him hiss in pain. “Oh, sweetheart.”

Taemin sobs weakly. “J-Jinki,” he stutters, and scrambles gracelessly to his feet. “I thought--”

“It’s alright,” Jinki murmurs, and reaches out for Taemin’s hand, taking it and rubbing his thumb across the knuckles gently, squeezing Taemin’s fingers. “I’m still a vampire. It’s instinct for you to feel frightened of me. Especially if you aren’t aware that it’s me.”

Taemin shakes slightly, and then steps forward into Jinki’s space. “I’m sorry,” he says, voice still wobbly, punctuated by gasps for air. He coughs pathetically a few times, his lungs struggling to get enough to breathe. “I d-didn’t mean…”

“Shh, shh, it’s alright, sweet thing,” Jinki soothes, rubbing circles on Taemin’s back as Taemin gets himself together. “Do you want to tell me why you’re out here?”

He lets go of Taemin and shifts, shrugging off the jacket he’s wearing and handing it to Taemin. It leaves Jinki in jeans and a printed T-shirt, but Jinki doesn’t even flinch at the cold as he wraps the jacket around Taemin’s shoulders.

It swallows him a little -- Taemin isn’t known for being an overly large person, and he’s so much younger than Jinki even looks, though he doesn’t think Jinki could have been older than his late 20s when… when he was turned into a vampire.

“Thank you,” Taemin whispers, and pulls the jacket tighter around himself, trembling under it, chest heaving. There’s no body heat soaked into the fabric, but it’s another layer, at very least, and with every inhale, Taemin catches the scent of something warm and a little spiced, though he doesn’t know what. It’s soothing though, and Taemin manages to take deeper and deeper breaths, slowly calming.

“I hope that it’s not becoming a habit?” Jinki asks.

It takes Taemin a long moment to realize Jinki is still talking about Taemin being out here. “No,” he answers quickly, “I… I just wanted…”

But he doesn’t know what he wanted. To get out of the house. To see if he could find Jinki again. He doesn’t know. Maybe he’s just out here because he didn’t know what else to do except go out into the crisp night air and just… walk.

“How did you find me?” he asks instead, and he sounds a little defensive without meaning to. “Have you been watching me?”

Jinki laughs a little, stepping into Taemin’s space, and Taemin’s breath hitches as Jinki closes the jacket tighter around his frame, letting Taemin withdraw his fingers. “I live here, Taemin. And you’re avoiding the question.”

“You live here?” Taemin asks. He turns to look, confusion on his face. “How…?”

“You would be surprised what bank interest, particularly convincing fake papers, and a particularly nice set of blackout curtains will do to make undeath easier,” Jinki says, in just the sort of tone where Taemin isn’t entirely sure if he’s joking or not. It seems so specific for a joke, but Jinki’s got a mischievous smile on.

Taemin keeps looking at him, trying to see a second row of teeth and failing.

“But,” Jinki adds after a moment, “if people begin to go missing, people begin asking questions. And I’m not very good at answering those sorts of questions when the police come calling at 2 p.m.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Taemin asks. “Isn’t this dangerous for you?”

“Oh, sweet thing,” Jinki says, and his voice is so gentle. “You wouldn’t hurt me.”

Taemin isn’t sure if that’s naivety or trust. Or maybe it’s just a fact. No matter what it is, Jinki isn’t wrong.

“I... I lost my library book,” Taemin says, and it’s a complete non-sequitur, has nothing to do with what they were talking about before, but Jinki nods as if in understanding. Taemin ducks his head a little into Jinki’s coat and adds a useless explanation of, “I got home and it wasn’t in my jacket anymore.”

Jinki’s looks at him for a long time. “You care about so many things more than yourself,” he says finally. “Neighborhood animals, library books. Yet you’re out here with a vampire at almost midnight.”

“I’m out here with you,” Taemin mumbles, a little petulant, not quite putting the full weight of a meaning behind the words.

Jinki sighs. “Yes, you are,” he says, “But you should be home.”

Taemin frowns, his eyes trained on a crack in the sidewalk. He shakes his head after a moment, shoulders pulling in in a tight little shrug. “I guess.”

There’s silence for long enough that he looks up, and when he does, Jinki is watching him like he’s trying to piece together a puzzle, trying to figure out which pieces of Taemin go where. “Taeminnie,” Jinki says finally. “Why are you out here at night with a vampire instead of at home in your bed?”

And Taemin doesn’t have an answer. Not one he’s ready to share.

“I’m lost,” he answers instead. “I don’t know how to get home from here.”

And Jinki is still looking at him like that, like he’s missing pieces to solve a riddle, but he doesn’t question Taemin, doesn’t prompt him for more. Instead he murmurs, “Come then. I’ll walk you home again. This really is becoming a habit.”

Taemin scowls a little, but when Jinki reaches out a hand, Taemin steps into it, letting Jinki lead him with a palm resting on the middle of his back. They walk in silence for a block before Taemin asks, “Why do you live here?”

“Hmm?” Jinki looks at him for a moment before smiling. “And where am I supposed to live? The sewers? A cemetery in some rainy part of the country?”

“That’s not what I meant,” Taemin says, and he wants to be mad at how fond Jinki’s laugh is. “I just -- why here? It’s can’t exactly be easy for you to… to eat.”

Jinki hums, a tiny note of amusement. “All the better of an alibi when no one does go missing, isn’t it? Taemin, I’m very old, even for my kind. And with age comes control. I haven’t killed anyone in, oh… several decades at least. And that was in self-defense.”

“You killed those vampires the other night,” Taemin says.

Jinki sighs. “I did. But the world is not black and white, and if I had let them go and another human had died… another child, your age or even younger, I would have been responsible for that death.”

“I don’t understand,” Taemin says quietly.

“You don’t have to,” Jinki says, and Taemin waits for him to say that Taemin is too young, that he’ll get it when he’s older. Instead, Jinki sighs. “It’s not an easy thing to understand, even after hundreds of years.”

Taemin’s brows furrow a little. “How old are you?” he asks. “How old is hundreds? Like, how many?”

“You lose track a bit, over the years,” Jinki says, “But I was born in the late 17th century. I could guess at the exact year, but it wouldn’t be correct.”

Taemin tries to do the math in his head and then tries not to gape at Jinki. “You’re so old,” he whispers, eyes wide. “You’ve lived that long? You must have seen everything.”

Jinki laughs. “Hardly. I’m old, not omnipotent. But I’ll tell you the stories, some other time.”

And Taemin grins, lifting a hand to his mouth, and is all set to agree before it occurs to him. “Does that mean I get to come see you?”

“I’ll come see you,” Jinki answers. “If it means you’ll stop walking the streets alone at night.”

“I’m not alone,” Taemin says, and that thought makes him feel surprisingly warm.

Jinki looks at him for a long moment, and then, “We’re almost back to your home, Taemin.”

And Taemin bites his lip and nods. “Yeah,” he says. “Can… we walk a little slower?”

And Jinki obliges, letting them slow, the seconds stretching out to minutes between them as Taemin thinks of a dozen questions and doesn’t find the bravery to ask any of them. Only when Taemin’s house is in sight does he manage to ask, “Is it true that vampires can’t come in unless you invite them?”

Jinki lifts an eyebrow. “We can’t come in unless we’re wanted,” he says. “A verbal invitation means nothing if it’s coerced. You have to be willing. I wish that rule applied to more things, truly.” His hand is settled still on Taemin’s back, and he feels the slight tensing of Jinki’s fingers, like he’s upset.

Taemin is pretty sure he knows the context, and it makes it too hard to be properly frightened, but he still lets out a little noise that makes Jinki slide his hand away. Neither of them mention it.

“So you could come in my house?” Taemin asks. “If I wanted you there?”

And now Jinki does stop in his tracks, looking at Taemin with something strange in his face. “Do you want me there?” he asks, and his voice is almost too neutral, the kind of nonchalance that says he’s looking for a particular answer. “Would you let me in?”

“I… I don’t know,” Taemin says.

Jinki relaxes subtly. “Good,” he murmurs. “I would have been afraid for you if you said yes so easily. I won’t hurt you, but I’m pleased that you have that caution.”

And Taemin can’t help himself. He touches his fingers to his throat, a nervous action, remembering the feel of fangs. Fangs that Jinki has, even if he’s never seen them.

“I don’t think you’ll hurt me,” he says quietly, after a long moment. “But that’s… that’s too much, for right now.”

Jinki smiles. “I’m glad you have some place safe,” he says. “You shouldn’t have to give that up.”

Taemin nods quietly. It’s safe, if not much else. “Do you have to go?” he says after a minute. “Can’t we walk around the block again?”

“Oh, sweet thing,” Jinki says, lapsing back into the nickname. But he takes Taemin around the block and lets Taemin stop to pet the dog that he had stopped to visit the other night, staying with Taemin until he’s shivering and sleepy, leaning heavily into Jinki’s supportive hand as they walk.

By the time they reach Taemin’s home, Taemin is dead on his feet. Or maybe that’s a bad term, but he’s swaying a little in place, exhaustion tugging on his limbs. He doesn’t mind though. Exhausted or not, he hasn’t felt this comfortable in a while. Jinki’s jokes make him smile without trying to hide it, and Taemin can’t help but think that maybe, maybe, Jinki does genuinely care.

His fingers are cold when he brushes Taemin’s hair away from his forehead, but the affectionate gesture makes Taemin feel warm. Not loved, maybe. But cared for. Cherished. It’s a nice feeling.

“Go on,” Jinki urges. “Go inside and get warm. I’ll come and see you, if you wish.”

“When?” Taemin asks, the words a little more urgent than he means them to be.

“Not tomorrow night, but the next,” Jinki says, and Taemin is about to pout until Jinki explains, “Use tomorrow to catch up on sleep. I dislike the idea of you wearing yourself thin by staying out every night with the mysterious neighborhood vampire.”

Taemin can’t help but laugh, giggling sleepily. He’s not sure if it’s funny or not, but he’s tired and he’s happy, and Jinki smiles at him so softly and watches carefully as Taemin shuffles up the walk. Taemin feels his presence as clearly as if he was standing beside him until he’s around the corner of the house and climbing back through his window.

And then Jinki is gone, and Taemin stands there for a moment in the dark. The house is quiet, and Taemin relishes the chance to sleep.

It isn’t until he starts to change into his pajamas that he realizes that he’s still wearing Jinki’s coat, and after a moment of hesitation he puts it back on over his pajama shirt and crawls back into bed, letting it warm him through as he falls asleep.

--

Taemin is not known to be an incredibly open person. He’s not really known to be much of anything, to be fair. He’s that quiet kid, the one who sits in the library at lunch, who spends extra time in the dance studio after classes are out for the day.

Taemin doesn’t mind. Or he does, but he doesn’t have the words to explain to people that he sits in the library at lunch because asking for lunch money would probably start a fight, and he doesn’t wake up early enough to pack his own lunch in the mornings. He doesn’t really have the words to explain why he spends so much time here after school, so he just mumbles some excuse about liking dance class.

The teachers generally mark him down as unremarkable -- he gets his work done, turns it in, gets decent marks. But he zones out in class too easily, staring into space as his body reminds him vividly that he hadn’t slept well the night before.

“Are you tired?” he gets asked a lot.

He doesn’t know how to politely say that he hadn’t gotten to sleep until after 2 a.m. when his parents had stopped screaming at each other about something: a bill, a broken dish, an unfinished chore. Instead he says, “A little. I’m fine.”

They always let it go. Taemin prefers it that way.

But he doesn’t get away with that with Jinki. When Jinki shows up two nights later, a smile on his lips, Taemin is ready. Jinki will ask if he got any sleep, and Taemin will tell him ‘yes, a little; I’m fine.’

But it all falls apart, because when Taemin meets Jinki out front, Jinki only stares for a moment at Taemin before sighing. “I’ll try not to keep you out too long, but I’m not sure it will help.”

And Taemin stumbles because he can’t answer that with what he’s prepared. Instead he stands, speechless for a moment. “I slept well night before last,” he answers, remembering falling asleep cuddled in the warmth of Jinki’s coat. “Just… not much last night.”

His parents had been fighting. His mom had found his dad’s cigarettes again. Taemin isn’t sure why she only throws a fit when she finds them, why she doesn’t ever say anything about the way his car smells like smoke or the ashes Taemin finds on the porch sometimes. Taemin doesn’t want to make anything worse though, so he keeps quiet when his dad lights up around him, stays in his room and waits out these bursts of yelling when his mom finds the newest pack.

It’s hard to sleep through, but it’s not strange, and Taemin is used to it by this point. It doesn’t matter.

Jinki frowns though, a tight little expression that only lasts a moment before he sighs. “Then I suppose staying away didn’t help,” he says. “Whenever you’d like to talk about it, I’ll listen.”

Taemin bites his lips together. Not yet. He can’t.

“I brought you something,” Jinki says after a moment, and reaches into a pocket of his jacket -- a new one, because Taemin is currently bundled up in his other. He fishes out something small and rectangular, and he pulls Taemin into the light so Taemin can see it better.

“My library book!” Taemin says. “How did you--?”

“A bit of searching on my way home the other night. I’m glad that I could find it for you.”

Jinki’s smile is genuine, pleased not with himself but with Taemin’s pleasure, and Taemin realizes that he’s beaming. He ducks his head, lifting his palm to his mouth, but Jinki catches it before he can, pulls it away.

“Please,” he says, looking at Taemin, “don’t hide your smile. You’re allowed to show happiness, Taemin. You don’t have to hide it.”

And Taemin stares up at him, his heart in his throat, and his hands shaking. “Can we walk to the park?” he asks, instead of answering, and lets Jinki lead him there.

They sit on the swings together, Taemin using his legs to push back and forth, just a few feet. Jinki stays still on the swings, but he watches Taemin swing, his eyes soft and patient.

“What is your book about?” he asks, after a bit.

Taemin shrugs. “I didn’t get to start reading it. You tell me.”

He doesn’t mean it, but Jinki laughs and reaches out a hand to take the book back from Taemin. “Alright, I will.”

His voice is soft, but there’s only the two of them in the park, and Taemin hears him clearly. Jinki speaks over the sentences like song lyrics, turning the whole first chapter into a melody. And Taemin can’t help but listen.

It becomes their spot over the following weeks, the following months. Even as it gets colder, the fall turning to winter and the nights getting longer, Jinki walks him to the park each night. Sometimes he reads chapters of books, and sometimes he tells Taemin stories of his own.

“I was around for the American Revolution. I was very young then, only a few decades, but I watched as people wrote a new country into being and announced themselves a paragon of freedom.” There’s something not quite amused in his voice, but it changes quickly. “We didn’t stay for very long, but New Orleans was a very nice place to live for half a century or so. We may have started a few rumors there.”

He smiles mischievously, and Taemin has no idea if any of that is the truth or not, but the next week, Jinki reads him a passage of Interview with a Vampire with a playful laugh on his lips.

“I saw the first movie they ever made,” Jinki tells him once, when Taemin mentions getting to go and see a movie with his dad, though he doesn’t add the part about his dad spending most of the movie outside the theater, on his phone. Taemin would rather not, and Jinki takes the conversation away with ease, giving Taemin the out he needs.

“It was just a horse running for two seconds, over and over. And I watched the Titanic when it came out -- my friend used to say she was on the boat when it went down.”

“Wouldn’t that be hard?” Taemin asks. “For her to eat?”

Jinki laughs. “She’s another who prefers to find willing ones. She’s had several companions since I’ve known her; I wouldn’t doubt she did then.”

Taemin doesn’t know what to say to that -- it’s not the first time Jinki has mentioned finding humans who want to be bitten, but Taemin still can’t wrap his head around it. Sometimes, Taemin worries that that’s what Jinki wants, but Jinki has never mentioned it, even in passing.

He doesn’t know what Jinki wants from him, if that’s not the case, but Jinki only shakes his head when Taemin asks once, laughs softly. “I don’t want anything but your safety and your comfort. I wish to see you happy, Taemin. That’s all.”

And Taemin can’t help but believe him, because when Jinki talks about watching the world grow up around him, and Taemin feels so small, so safe and sheltered with Jinki there.

“I fought in the last world war,” he tells Taemin once, and when Taemin looks at him with wide eyes and asks Jinki for more information, Jinki only shakes his head and whispers, “I don’t wish to give you nightmares, sweet thing.”

Neither of them find it odd, at that point, that a story from Jinki’s past is more liable to give him nightmares than nightly visits from a vampire.

It’s not every night. Jinki disappears, sometimes, and when Taemin asks him where he went, Jinki only smiles at him, all blunt teeth. Taemin knows that Jinki goes somewhere to eat, but Jinki never talks about it outright. And, Taemin finds, Jinki is warmer after he’s fed, closer to Taemin’s temperature than the frigid night air.

It is getting cold, though, and Taemin is growing a collection of Jinki’s jackets. He sleeps in them, sometimes, and Jinki never seems to question where they’ve disappeared to or protest when Taemin starts shivering and Jinki hands over yet another.

“I climbed Mount Everest once,” Jinki says. “I didn’t leave anything at the top -- it didn’t seem fair when others have struggled so much, and I have the natural advantage. But it’s beautiful up there. One of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. The stars seem so close, like you could reach up and pluck them from the sky.”

“Take me there,” Taemin says without thinking, wrapping himself in Jinki’s jacket. Jinki is wearing a tank top tonight, arms bare to cold, but he clearly doesn’t mind.

“Someday.” It feels like a promise, and Taemin wants it to be one.

“We could go now,” he says, and slides off his swing, walking over to a bench and looking at Jinki until Jinki slips from his swing as well. He’s at his side in a moment, and Taemin pulls him down, tucking himself into Jinki’s side and playing absently with the texture of Jinki’s jeans as he speaks. “You could just take me and we could go. You could show me all of this stuff.”

“Sweet thing,” Jinki murmurs, and the pet name makes Taemin’s heart do somersaults. It’s not fair that Jinki uses that so easily and means it. “You have a life here. I can’t just steal you away from it.”

“Not much of one,” Taemin argues. “I don’t think anyone at school really knows my name. And if I was gone, my parents could be happy.”

“You don’t think they’re happy now?” Jinki asks quietly, and Taemin stops, staring down at his own hand. It’s tense on Jinki’s thigh, but Jinki’s skin doesn’t give quite the same way Taemin’s does.

“No,” he whispers. “They... love me, I think. But they fight a lot.”

“With you?” Jinki asks, frowning.

Taemin shakes his head, pulling one shoulder up into a helpless pretense of a shrug. He's hunching into Jinki now for support, and he'd like to pretend that he's just feeling the cold, but there's a lot more that he's feeling right now. “No, not with me. They're never mean to me, really. But they like to use me as a weapon against each other. I haven't had a good relationship with either of them in years.”

Taemin waits for it, for Jinki to apologize for something that’s not his fault, but Jinki merely curls his grip protectively around Taemin. “Just because they aren’t mean to you doesn’t mean they aren’t hurting you. Are they?”

Taemin stares for a long time at the ground, at their footprints in the snow. “They love me, I think,” he says again. “I just think they’d be happier if I was gone. They could stop trying to stay together for my sake.”

“Oh, sweet thing,” Jinki murmurs, and Taemin feels something soft brush his hair. He doesn’t realize until it’s gone that it was Jinki’s lips, pressing a soft kiss to the side of his head.

“I could live with you,” Taemin says. “We could be like this all the time.”

And Jinki doesn’t say anything, doesn’t respond, until the sky is soft and grey and dangerous. “Let me walk you home,” Jinki murmurs.

“The sun,” Taemin protests uncertainly.

Jinki smiles. “I have time,” he says, and guides Taemin home, hand on his back. They don’t have time to linger outside, not tonight, but Jinki still pauses, cupping his hand against Taemin’s cheek.

“I’m here,” he says. “When you need me. And this will pass. I know the world seems large and frightening when everything is ahead of you, but it will always pass.”

He presses a kiss to Taemin’s forehead, and then he’s gone. Taemin watches the sunrise spill pink and gold over the horizon before he goes in and pretends he wasn’t gone all night.

--

Taemin has been looking forward to this for weeks -- it’s almost time for a break at school, and Jinki has agreed to take him somewhere, knowing that Taemin will have time to rest. They won’t be going far, but further than the park at least, and Taemin struggles to quell his excitement in the weeks before, fidgeting through classes and having trouble focusing.

Maybe it shouldn’t be quite as exciting as it is, but Taemin can’t help but feel like this means something, though he doesn’t know what that something is. They’ve been going to the park for months now, and Jinki has become something of a fixture in Taemin’s life, but this feels… different.

This feels like Jinki finally responding to Taemin’s vulnerability on that night when he asked Jinki to take him away. Maybe it’s not all there, maybe it’s not permanent, but it’s something, and maybe, if it goes well, then there will be more nights like this, more of Jinki taking him away from this tiny suburb.

It makes it hard to concentrate on anything else, and as the night approaches, it’s clear that Jinki can sense his distraction. He’s given up on reading anything, because Taemin is going to miss it, and mostly their nights are spent talking about random subjects of conversation, always looping back around to Taemin asking, “Where are you going to take me? The city? The beach? I’ve never been. To either, actually.”

And Jinki’s smile flickers, just a bit at that, but he brushes Taemin’s hair back from his face with a gentle hand and murmurs, “It’s a surprise, darling.”

And Taemin’s pouting has no effect at all on Jinki except to make him tease. The nights are getting shorter again, but Taemin is staying out later and later, rarely returning before sunrise. His sleep schedule is terrible, but he doesn’t mind. Sometimes, when he really can’t stand it, he sleeps in Jinki’s arms.

For their trip though, it won’t be a problem. Even when Jinki suggests that they should skip the night before so that Taemin can sleep, Taemin only shakes his head and nuzzles into Jinki’s hold.

“I’ll nap when I get home, and I’ll be wide awake for Friday night,” he says, pouting even though he knows it won’t make Jinki spill his secrets.

And Jinki doesn’t, of course, just hums a soft noise. “I’m glad. I wouldn’t want to keep you too late.”

Taemin raises an eyebrow. It’s nearing 4 a.m. now, and besides, it’s never Jinki who demands Taemin stays later. He gives him time, always, and never makes Taemin feel unwanted, but he also never asks Taemin to stay later, is always ready to offer to walk Taemin home when daylight’s approaching or Taemin can’t fight off his yawns anymore.

Jinki merely smiles at him though, so genuine that Taemin feels himself smiling back helplessly. “Get some rest tomorrow night, Taeminnie. I have something I need to prepare. And then the night after…”

“Okay,” he says, and even if he can’t quite hide his pout, he doesn’t complain, mostly because he’s not sure what Jinki needs to prepare, but that might also be code for needing to eat. “I’m just excited.”

Jinki laughs softly and brushes Taemin’s hair back. “I am too, sweet thing,” he says. “Just a night, and then the next, we’ll go.”

“Friday night,” Taemin says, and he’s so excited.

He can’t sit still, can’t bring himself to take a nap before school, can’t bring himself to focus through classes, can’t get to sleep the next night, even though he knows that no matter how many times he looks at the window, Jinki won’t be there.

He’s tired the day of, but it’s okay. He wasn’t wrong -- he can try to nap a little this afternoon, and then Jinki will be here and it’ll finally be time.

And then he gets to school and it all comes crashing down around his ears.

It’s the last day of classes before break, and Taemin expects to breeze through. And he does, right up until his math teacher pulls him aside to speak to him, asking, “Is everything okay at home?”

And Taemin, for once, is woefully unprepared to answer. “It’s fine,” he manages after a moment, and it comes out stilted, more of a question than an answer, but at least he’s gotten an answer out. “Everything’s fine. Why?”

His teacher looks at him for a long time, like if she stares for long enough, it will somehow make Taemin change his answer. Taemin definitely isn’t going to, and the teacher seems to clue into that quickly enough, because she lets out a long-suffering sigh. “You’ve seemed tired lately, and distracted. I tried to call your parents this morning to speak to them, but they didn’t seem to want to have a meeting about it.”

Taemin’s breath seems to stick in his throat, his chest squeezing and making his heartbeat thud in his ears. “When--”

“You’ve always been a good student -- clever, studious. You only have a few weeks left until you’re a senior, and you need to start thinking about your plans--”

She keeps talking, and Taemin wants to focus but it feels like white noise, static encroaching at the edges of her words and keeping them from processing correctly. There’s a sense of foreboding weighing heavy on his skin now, because he does everything he can not to give his parents any more reason to fight, and he knows this is going to be an issue. He just has no idea how big of one.

“Okay?” his teacher asks, and Taemin nods jerkily without having any idea what he just agreed to. He feels like he can’t quite catch his breath, and what’s worse is that every part of him wants nothing more than to see Jinki right now, to his with him because Jinki feels safe.

But Jinki is asleep -- will be for hours yet -- and Jinki can’t protect him from whatever’s about to happen. Not when Taemin doesn’t even know what’s about to happen.

As excited as Taemin has been for weeks, he’s dragging his feet now, that feeling of dread making him feel heavy and sick. It takes him longer than usual to get home, reluctance in every step, and he wonders what would happen if he just didn’t go home. If he went to the park and sat there until dark, and waiting for Jinki there.

He wants to. He wants to just avoid all of this. But he can’t.

Before he even hits the front door, he can hear the yelling. His parents’ cars are both in the driveway, and Taemin hesitates, his brain sounding all kinds of alarms in some last-ditch effort to just go, to just leave. But this is his fault.

He pushes open the door gently, and for a moment, there’s silence. And then, “Taemin!”

Taemin cringes and shuffles into the living room. His parents aren’t sitting together, fury aimed at him. Somehow, that would be better. But no. They’re standing, one in front of the other, like they were facing each other until his father turned around to see him.

Taemin swallows. “I know--”

He doesn’t know why he tries to start when he’s just going to be talked over. “Do you want to tell us why your teacher wants to have a meeting? Is this about your grades, Taemin? I expected--”

“No, no, my grades are fine. Maybe not all As, but I’m not failing anything,” Taemin hurries out, trying to alleviate something at least.

His father frowns, stepping closer. He smells of cigarette smoke and it makes Taemin have to fight down a cough, the effort of suppressing it making his chest hurt.

“Don’t interrupt me,” his father snaps, louder than Taemin thinks even he intends to if the brief start his father gives is any indication. He thinks yelling is just their natural volume by now; he wouldn’t be surprised if neither of them knew how to fully control it.

But even if Taemin isn’t surprised, that doesn’t mean much in the span of things, because his mom’s voice is immediately just as loud as she says, “Don’t yell at him for something you do all the time. No surprise he doesn’t know not to interrupt when you never let anyone get a word in edgewise!”

“This isn’t about me,” Taemin’s father yells. “Don’t you start with me when your son is getting in trouble at school--”

Taemin cringes. It hurts for some reason, the way his father just disowned him so easily when it didn’t suit him. Even if he didn’t mean it like that, it still makes Taemin’s stomach churn.

“I’m not in trouble,” he tries, but he can’t get his voice to yell on instinct, and it comes out soft, almost frightened. He doesn’t want this. He doesn’t want to be a part of this.

“Yes, you are!” His father’s face is set, angry in such an unfocused way that Taemin can’t help but be certain it’s focused on him. “Go to your room. We’ll deal with you later.”

“Dad,” Taemin says. He can’t figure out why he can’t get his voice to come out strong enough to matter.

“Go to your room!” his dad says, and grabs Taemin by the arm, twisting him around hard. Taemin shouts, more in shock than pain, and the whole room freezes for a long second, Taemin and his parents suspended in one long, extended moment of silence.

Taemin jerks away and bolts, slamming into his room and closing the door behind him. He hates that he’s afraid. He doesn’t think his father would hurt him, not really, but his arm aches slightly, a lingering feeling of too-much pressure, and Taemin’s heart is leaping in his chest.

He remembers, once, feeling like he was going to die. This isn’t the same type of feeling. But it’s still fear, still panic, that rising sense of wrongness like everything changing all at once and Taemin can’t stop it. He isn’t excited anymore. Now he’s just lost and afraid and wants Jinki so badly it aches, because Jinki never changes.

Taemin scrambles to his closet, and he doesn’t care how warm it is as he digs out one of Jinki’s jackets and bundles himself in it, grabbing another to ball up as a pillow. He curls up on the bed, burying his face in it, and shivers even under the warmth of Jinki’s coat.

Outside his room, he hears them shouting. It’s mostly indistinct. Mostly.

“He clearly takes after you!” his mom shouts at one point. “Irresponsible! Always sleeping the day away!”

Taemin thinks to afternoons, napping to keep up with the strain of his parents fighting and then to keep up with his nightly excursions.

“Don’t blame this on me! If you were a good mother, you would pay attention to how he was doing in school!”

Taemin thinks about curling up in Jinki’s arms -- “You have a test in the morning don’t you, sweet thing?” -- and shaking his head because he didn’t want to leave just yet. Jinki had made him anyways, kissing his forehead and murmuring, “I want you to do well, darling.”

And Taemin had done well. He hadn’t been lying. He’s tired, but he’s doing fine. But none of that matters in the face of this.

“If I’m such a bad mother, maybe you should have let me get rid of him like I wanted to!”

Taemin slams his hands over his ears, curling up on himself.

He doesn’t feel like he can breathe. Everything is moving too fast and too slow all at once and he keeps trying to get air and then losing it all in muffled sobs and choked coughs. His nose is stuffy and his throat hurts and he’s shaking.

He doesn’t want to hear this. He doesn’t want any of this. He wants Jinki so badly.

But it takes so long until Taemin stirs to a sharp sound.

His parents are still fighting. Taemin can hear them, their voices duller now, farther away, but he can still hear them yelling. He doesn’t know how long it’s been. It all feels muted, feels… somehow surreal, normal and different all at once.

There’s a sharp tap, fingernails on glass, and Taemin jerks like a startled cat, lifting his head. There’s damp splotches on Jinki’s jacket that he only vaguely recognizes as tear stains.

Outside the window, it’s dark. Not completely -- the sky is still more blue than black, like that night so long ago when Taemin had tried to walk home from the library. It’s evening, not even night quite yet, but there is tapping on his window, and Taemin feels a swell of relief that makes him shake.

He’s at the window before he thinks about it, throwing it open and leaning out, his arms immediately around Jinki. Jinki stiffens in his hold, and for a moment Taemin’s chest feels too tight until Jinki says, voice carefully controlled, “You’ve been crying…”

“I--” Taemin starts, and it comes out croaker than he means it to. He coughs to clear his throat, fully aware that there’s no reason to even try to fool Jinki now. “I’m okay. I’m just-- it’s fine. You’re here. I didn’t expect…”

“You’ve been so excited. I had almost assumed you’d be waiting for me. But since you weren’t, I thought--” Jinki stops, frowning tightly. “Darling, please tell me what’s wrong.”

“It’s nothing. It’s my parents. This is… it’s normal. It’s fine.” Taemin wants to badly to believe his own words.

“Taemin,” Jinki says, and pulls back, just enough that Taemin slips from his hold, back inside. Jinki’s eyes rove over him and then he stops, frowning. “Take off your jacket, Taemin. Let me see.”

Taemin doesn’t know how he knows -- how he’s holding himself, how he’s angled. Jinki isn’t human, might have ways to sense that that Taemin doesn’t know. But he probably doesn’t do a good job of playing it off by tugging the jacket closer around him. “I-- it’s not mine,” Taemin says, and that doesn’t make sense, but he feels like he needs to point it out. “The jacket, I mean. It’s yours.”

Jinki’s eyes soften, just a little. “Oh, sweet thing,” he whispers. “It’s alright. I’m here now. Please, let me see.”

And Taemin does, because what else is he supposed to do?

His arm isn’t bruised -- won’t be for a couple days, if at all. But there’s a clear reddish splotch there, and Taemin watches Jinki’s face tighten. He remembers only now that this was the man who had murdered two vampires on the very first night they met. He’s not afraid, but he feels his breath catch. “I’m okay,” he hurries out. “I am, I promise.”

“I’m sorry,” Jinki says, and Taemin stalls because it doesn’t actually seem like Jinki is talking about his arm. “I’m so very sorry. I should have understood what you were telling me sooner.”

“Jinki--” Taemin starts, and then jars when he hears a door slam in the house behind him and hears his father’s voice growing louder.

“If you want me to leave, just fucking say!” he’s yelling, and Taemin hears something break. It doesn’t actually make him flinch. That, at least, he’s used to.

Taemin looks down, away from Jinki. “I’ll-- Please, just let me get some stuff and we can go.”

“Taemin,” Jinki says quietly, and then, “May I?”

Taemin nods without thinking, and a moment later, Jinki is in his room, arms wrapped around him. He sinks to Taemin’s bed with him in his arms, and Taemin loses it, tears finally spilling over again. He’s almost startled at how easily the tears come when he has someone there to care that he’s crying at all.

In the distance, he hears his mom’s voice, not quite muffled. “If you want to leave, then leave! And take your son with you since you’re the one who wanted him so bad.”

Taemin sucks in a startled, pained breath, and feels the sudden pressure of Jinki’s hand, covering one ear and pulling Taemin’s other against his chest. It’s suddenly quiet, everything far away and muffled. He can’t hear Jinki’s heartbeat, long since silent in his chest, but Jinki is breathing, slow and steady and constant. He doesn’t have to unless he specifically needs air to speak, so Taemin’s pretty sure he’s doing it all for his sake.

He doesn’t know what all Jinki hears while Jinki holds him, nor how long it is, but he does feel Jinki’s other hand slide careful, cool fingers over the reddened skin on his arm. After a bit, Jinki lets go, pulling Taemin up. There’s silence in the house now, and Taemin doesn’t know why, but he doesn’t really want to go see either.

“I’m sorry,” Taemin mumbles after a bit. “I ruined it. We were supposed to… to go do whatever…”

“We still can,” Jinki says. “Another night. For now, let me help you pack.”

“Pack?” Taemin asks, sitting up straight and staring at Jinki in bewilderment. “What am I packing for? Jinki--”

“You deserve better than this,” Jinki says, and his voice isn’t soft anymore. It’s firm, a little edged. “You asked me to once, and I don’t know that you meant it then, but I mean it now. Let me take you away from here.”

Taemin’s breath hitches. He opens his mouth, protests already on his lips: this is his home; Jinki is a vampire; his entire life is here.

None of them seem strong enough. None of them are things he cares about. But he has to say them anyways.

“What am I supposed to do?” he asks, voice cracking. “I’m not-- why? I’m just some kid that was wandering around at night? Why do you care?”

“Sweet thing,” Jinki says, and he doesn’t reach out for Taemin, he just looks at him for a long moment. It feels almost fragile, like Taemin could break it with a word, but when Jinki speaks, his voice is soothing and soft, and Taemin feels almost caught up in it, suspended in time. “I wish I could give you an easy answer, I do. I wish I could tell you what you mean to me. But I can’t explain to you why I feel this way, only that I do.”

Taemin bites his lips together. “What… what do you feel?”

“Love,” Jinki answers without a moment’s hesitation, and Taemin sucks in a startled breath that makes Jinki smile. “Of a sort.”

“Of a sort…?” Taemin echoes.

“I don’t wish to court you,” Jinki says, and it’s such outdated terminology that it’s almost jarring, but Taemin doesn’t dare interrupt. “But I do so care for you. I want nothing more than to see you safe and happy and cared for. Nothing except, perhaps, to be the one to provide you those things.”

“I… I don’t know,” Taemin says. “I don’t know what to do here. Jinki…”

“I can’t tell you,” Jinki says. “I can only ask you what would make you happiest. And whatever it is, I will continue to be here for as long as you want me.”

“They…. They’re my family,” Taemin says, and it feels pathetic on his tongue. “What if…” He pauses and then bursts into bitter laughter. Even to himself, it sounds a lot like sobs.

“What is it, darling?” Jinki asks, and his face is so soft, so concerned. There is a vampire in his room, a monster, who loves him and cares about him more than Taemin can ever remember being cared about in his life.

“What if they come looking for me? But… I was right. They’d be happier without me,” Taemin says, and when Jinki starts to protest, Taemin shakes his head. “I think… I think I’d be happier without them too.”

It’s a long moment before Jinki speaks, his face carefully neutral. “Taemin?”

“I’m scared,” Taemin whispers. “I want to go with you. I’m just scared.”

“I don’t wish to frighten you, darling.” Jinki’s face is still unchanging, but Taemin knows him well enough by now to know he’s not upset. He genuinely cares so much.

And Taemin… god, he would be an idiot to give that up because he’s scared to leave this life, when even he’s aware that it’s as awful as it is familiar.

“I want to go with you,” he repeats. “I do. Please.”

“Are you certain?” Jinki asks. “If you come with me, a lot will change. Not us -- never what we have. But so much else.”

Taemin takes a deep breath, his shoulders rising with it, and then lets it out, slow and intentional. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m sure.”

Jinki’s neutrality slips. He’s smiling now, the affection so clear on his face that it takes Taemin’s breath away because how can that all be for him?

“Let me help you pack,” Jinki murmurs. “Would you like to say goodbye?”

Taemin looks at his bedroom door, thinking about the silent house beyond and the words that had been said before that silence.

“No,” he says. “We can pack. Can-- what were we supposed to do tonight?”

“Hmm?” Jinki asks, and then laughs softly. “I was going to take you to the beach. But we’ll have time for that. We can move some place closer to it if you’d like.”

“Move?” Taemin asks.

But yeah, Taemin understands suddenly. Of course they can’t stay here. Taemin can’t just go about his life a few blocks from his parents like he hasn’t just run away from home to live with a vampire. A lot will change.

But… Taemin is ready. Taemin is mostly tired, honestly, but he’s ready. “I… maybe not close to the beach. Maybe the city?”

“If that’s what you’d like,” Jinki says fondly.

They pack together in silence, and when they step outside, Jinki makes a soft noise of displeasure. “I’ll never quite get used to that feeling.”

“What feeling?” Taemin asks, looking at him in concern.

“The feeling of permission being rescinded,” Jinki says. “You don’t live there any longer. You can’t give me permission to be somewhere that is no longer yours.”

It feels so final, and Taemin looks at his former home for longer than he should before he turns and buries himself in Jinki’s chest. “Can we go?”

“Of course,” Jinki says, and leads Taemin into the night, walking him home the way he has so many times. Taemin doesn’t know where his new home is, but he trusts Jinki to lead him there.

--

Their new home is three cities over. It’s not very far, only an hour and a half away from the home he had once known, but it’s so different to Taemin.

Jinki doesn’t force him to go back to school to finish it out, because even Jinki admits that by the time they get false papers together for Taemin, he’ll have missed the rest of the year. But he does buy him books and a computer and online courses under a fake name and tells him very gently over Taemin’s grumbling that he’d like to see him at least test out of highschool.

Taemin doesn’t quite see why it matters, but he can see that Jinki cares deeply in some odd way that he’s not completely disrupting Taemin’s life, even if he kind of has. But it’s in the best way.

Taemin’s sleep schedule actually settles somewhat, letting him sleep during the day as long as he wants so long as he studies some at night once he wakes up. He’s usually up before Jinki, waking up early in the evening even as the days grow longer and Jinki sleeps later and later.

Taemin is happier, calmer. He doesn’t feel so tired all the time, so stressed out. He feels his chest tighten up sometimes with anxiety, but as long as Jinki is awake, he’ll pull him in and hold him gently, read him passages from books or tell him more stories until Taemin calms at the familiarity.

It is weird. And sometimes Taemin wonders what would have happened if he had stayed. He’d be back in school right now, and he wonders what his teachers think happened to him. He wonders if they assume the worst.

He wonders the same thing about his parents sometimes. What did they think when they came into his room to find him gone? Did they look for him? Did they care?

He sees missing posters sometimes, with a school picture of him from the year before. He looks too young, cheeks still full of baby fat and eyes sunken with exhaustion. It doesn’t look like him, not really.

Jinki has half-allowed him, half-prompted him to dye his hair, and with different hair, with a thinner face and an actual look of health to him, he looks as much like a different person as he feels.

But the picture stays there, hung up in the supermarket down the road and, getting further and further from who Taemin is as time passes. He catches himself looking at it sometimes as he buys groceries -- mostly easy-to-fix frozen things since he’s helpless at cooking and Jinki hadn’t had a reason to touch a stove since they were still wood-burning.

Sometimes the man behind the counter glances between Taemin and the posters, but then Taemin smiles and the man shakes his head like the resemblance has faded with just that, just a flash of a smile that’s actually genuine for once.

He doesn’t know if it was his parents who reported him missing or his school. If he knew which it was, maybe he’d feel guiltier, but as it stands, he doesn’t miss it.

When he was a child, he had wished for a home where his parents didn’t fight. When he was a younger teenager, he had wished that maybe his parents would split up, would find other people, and that he would have another chance at at least one of them being a happy home.

But now? Now he doesn’t think that matters. He hopes, in a vague sort of way, that his parents are happy. But when he punches in the code to the door of his home and wanders inside to where Jinki is, still half-asleep but insistent on helping Taemin put away groceries, Taemin realizes that this is what he wanted, what he never would have gotten had he stayed.

Even as Jinki teases, poking fun at Taemin’s food choices -- “What are toaster strudels, Taemin? Why do they sell frozen strudels?” -- Taemin can’t imagine a world where he isn’t here, with Jinki.

“If I hadn’t met you, I’d be dead,” Taemin says once, and he doesn’t entirely mean those vampires. “You saved me.”

And Jinki just hums and presses a soft kiss to the top of his head, murmurs, “Don’t fret, sweet thing. I’m here now. Forever, if you want me.”

Taemin does.

--

Jinki leaves every so often. Taemin doesn’t think much of it at first -- it’s a part of the routine, those rare nights when Jinki had told him to rest well and that he’d be back the night after. Taemin doesn’t have to ask where he goes.

But now it feels strange, because now he’s there when Jinki leaves him. Now he’s there when Jinki returns hours later with a glow to his skin and a smile on lips that are stained just a shade too dark.

They never talk about it, not really. It’s still in passing, still something that they don’t really mention for what it is. Taemin knows that Jinki is going to feed. He knows that Jinki goes and drinks someone’s blood. He knows that Jinki comes home after, back to Taemin.

When Taemin does start paying attention, he starts to find the pattern. It’s every 18 days, almost like clockwork. He’s only wavered once, when his usual day falls on Taemin’s birthday, and Jinki had gone a day earlier and they’d spent Taemin’s birthday together, watching scary movies as Jinki mocked the on-screen portrayals of vampires and weres, talking in a low voice about how inaccurate so many things were.

But other than that night, every 18 days, Jinki wakes up and goes out, comes home with blood on his lips.

And Taemin isn’t sure why he minds. It’s not the blood drinking itself. Jinki’s always done that and it’s never bothered him. But more and more, every time Jinki leaves him to go feed, Taemin finds himself feeling something unsettled in the bottom of his stomach, something lonely and bitter.

It’s not for months and months that he figures out what it is though.

It’s early spring again, nearly a year since he and Jinki began living together, the beginnings of a life together, and Jinki has gone to feed nearly two dozen times. Taemin has never asked him not to, not once, but that doesn’t stop him from feeling bad when, the night before Jinki is supposed to feed, Taemin gets sick.

It’s not bad -- probably just a mild case of the flu -- but Taemin doesn’t like being sick, and it makes him needy and a little clingy. Jinki wants to take him to the doctor, but Taemin doesn’t have insurance of any sort, which makes Jinki frown unhappily and mumble something about ‘getting that fixed’. It doesn’t matter to Taemin too much though. All he needs is some cough medicine, some warm liquids, and some attention, though he won’t admit to that last one.

Jinki has to go out to get him medicine, and he comes back with an almost ridiculous variety, like Jinki had carefully selected something for every single possible symptom from the drugstore shelf. It makes Taemin laughs, which turns into a cough, which turns into him groaning quietly and burrowing under the covers.

Jinki brings him soup, because whether he’s cooked in a few hundred years or not, it’s hard to mess up chicken noodle out of a can. He also brings him water and warm tea with honey, and extra blankets when Taemin starts shivering and it’s all so careful, so doting.

Taemin honestly forgets that Jinki is interrupting his life for him until his fever finally breaks three nights later and he wakes to Jinki, still there by his side, like he hasn’t left except to sleep. Taemin shuffles into Jinki’s hold. “Vampires can’t get sick, right? Should have asked earlier.”

“No, we can’t. Not the way you can,” Jinki murmurs. “You’re alright, sweet thing. How do you feel?

“Still a little gross, but better,” Taemin admits. “Just want to sleep some more, but… I’ve been sleeping for days.”

“Go to sleep then,” Jinki urges. “If you’re tired, you should sleep. I’ll be back by the time you wake.”

Taemin hums sleepy, nuzzling against Jinki, and then freezes. “Back?” he asks, pulling back to blink up at Jinki. “Wait, where are you going?”

“Taemin--” Jinki starts, but Taemin shakes his head sharply.

“Don’t leave me.” It sounds so needy, but he’s been needier than this for days now, and it’s okay, right? Jinki’s not going to judge him.

“Oh, sweet thing,” Jinki says. “I’ll be back soon, I swear to you, but I need to feed soon. You’ve never seen me truly thirsty, and I hope you’ll never have to, but even someone as old as I am can get out of control. I wouldn’t ever hurt you, but I don’t wish to frighten you.”

“I don’t care. I’m not scared of you. I’ve never been scared of you. Don’t leave me,” Taemin whines.

“Taeminnie,” Jinki breathes, and his face is so sad that Taemin’s stomach twists, but he can’t let this go.

“You can drink from me,” he offers.

Jinki freezes in place. “Taemin, you don’t have to. That’s not what you are to me. I don’t want to make you do that. You will never have to feed me to keep me around.”

“I know that I don’t have to,” Taemin says. “But I want--”

He frowns, biting his lips together. He knows what that emotion is now, and it scares him. He’s jealous. He doesn’t like Jinki going out and finding other people, leaving him for hours on end. And he knows Jinki needs to feed, but he’s right here. And he’s not scared of Jinki. He trusts Jinki.

Jinki looks mildly unsettled though. “I never meant that for you, darling,” he says, brushing back Taemin’s hair. “I never meant for you to be a feeder, someone I kept with me just…”

He exhales the rest the of his breath and doesn’t inhale again. It makes him seem inhuman, more like what he is, but Taemin hasn’t cared about that in so long, that he’s not sure what point Jinki is trying to prove.

“That’s not all I am to you though,” Taemin says quietly. “I know that. I’m not just a feeder. So what does it matter? I want you to. I don’t… I can’t give back a lot, but I can give this.”

“You don’t have to give me anything,” Jinki argues. “That’s not what this is, darling. I want to take care of you. You don’t owe me anything in return.”

“I know. But I want to,” Taemin argues. “I want to do it. And you-- you’re hungry, right? Don’t you want to--”

Jinki lets out a noise almost like a growl, muffled quickly as he lifts a hand to his own mouth and pulls away. “Taemin, don’t.”

Taemin swallows thickly, a pang of nerves going through him. But nerves aren’t fear, and still, “I want this. I do.”

Jinki shakes his head. “When you’re not sick. When you’re feeling better and can think straight…”

“I’m thinking straight now,” Taemin whines, and then feels himself blush as the petulance, the neediness. “If you want to wait, we can wait. But don’t… don’t leave me. Tomorrow. Tomorrow, I’ll be completely better and you’ll see.”

Jinki inhales slowly. “Taemin, I need--”

“Can you wait another night? Just one more. And if I change my mind -- which I won’t -- you can go then. Jinki, please.”

And Jinki caves, sighing and pressing a soft kiss to Taemin’s forehead. “Your fever’s broken,” he murmurs, helping Taemin up. “Let’s get you some food though, just in case.”

It’s Jinki’s way of admitting defeat, saying that he’ll stay for now, and Taemin smiles, half victory and half just happiness that Jinki won’t be leaving him.

Jinki does stay with him, but further away than normal. It would be upsetting except that Taemin can see Jinki looking at him sometimes, see the way his eyes fixate on Taemin’s chest like he’s listening. Taemin knows he can hear his heartbeat, knows that Jinki is thinking. And a very, very small part of Taemin keeps thinking about that growl, his stomach twisting up in knots.

He falls asleep at some point without meaning to, and wakes up to Jinki carrying him to bed. It’s nearly dawn, Taemin guesses, though the blackout curtains make it really hard to tell; it’s nearly pitch-black in the middle of the afternoon in here, which makes sense due to the whole vampire thing.

And Taemin can’t help himself but tease just a little, even if it’s not entirely meant as a tease. “Still want you to.”

Jinki bites back another of those near-growls, making Taemin shudder a little in his arms. “Taeminnie…”

Taemin presses his face into Jinki’s chest. “Thank you for not leaving.”

Jinki doesn’t answer, but Taemin feels Jinki press a kiss to his head before Taemin is dropped into his bed. Jinki pulls up the covers around him, even as Taemin grumbles about it, whining childishly about not being a child.

“Sleep well,” Jinki whispers, and Taemin nods sleepily and does so. He’s still trying to shake the last of his sickness, and a few more hours of sleep won’t hurt.

When he wakes up, late in the afternoon, he’s feeling better. Enough to get out of bed and get his own food, the first he’s had in days that isn’t soup. He thinks about taking some medicine, but he doesn’t exactly know how that translates into his bloodstream, and… and that’s tonight.

Taemin has to force himself to finish eating, his stomach in knots. And it’s not fear. It’s not. It’s nerves, sure, but it’s more anticipation than anxiety. Or maybe it’s both.

He turns on a dance competition show to distract himself, and normally he would put the volume low, even if it doesn’t really matter, but now he leaves it normal, because a part of him wants Jinki to wake faster. He already feels like he has to wait hours for the sun to go down, his phone pinging with the notification from the app he has set up, the one that tells him sunrise and sunset times for every day of the year. The second it goes off, he feels like his breath is stuck in his throat.

But Jinki is sleepy, even for a vampire, and it takes him a few long minutes to shake off the daytime haze and wander in.

He stops in the doorway, meeting Taemin’s eyes, and breathes in slowly and carefully through his mouth before he says, “I can hear your heart racing from my room.”

His voice is a little tight, carefully controlled, and Taemin’s heart jumps as if trying to prove Jinki’s point. “I-- I still want it,” Taemin says, and he wishes his voice wouldn’t waver so much. “I’m not lying. I want you to feed off of me.”

And now the growl isn’t suppressed. Now it’s low and thick and Jinki’s fingers curl into fists, and Taemin realizes it’s been days past Jinki’s normal schedule and Jinki probably already prolonged as much as he could.

Taemin’s heart flutters. “You won’t hurt me,” he says. “I know you won’t. And I’m-- I don’t want you to go anywhere anymore when you have me right here. You always said you wanted someone willing. I’m willing. Jinki--”

“Stop,” Jinki says. “I… I don’t have the strength to fight you right now. If you want this, truly, we can try. Do you know how tempting--”

He cuts himself off, but Taemin’s stomach swoops low with warmth. Slowly, carefully, he tips his head, almost like an invitation.

Jinki takes a quick step backwards. “No,” he says. “I won’t feed from your neck. It’s too easy -- there are things that can be bandaged, can be fixed. If it goes wrong, I can bandage almost anywhere else. But the neck is so fragile-- I haven’t drank from anyone’s neck in centuries. I won’t begin with someone who already means so much to me. If I hurt you like that, I would never forgive myself.”

And Taemin exhales shakily. “Oh,” he says, and thinks about the scrape of teeth against his neck, so long ago. “That’s… yeah. Do you want…”

He extends an arm slowly, and Jinki approaches more carefully than he ever has in his life. He kneels before Taemin, going to his knees on the floor before him, and takes Taemin’s arm in his hands, cradling it like Taemin is delicate. “Taemin,” he says, and his voice is both awed and unsure. “Are you certain?”

“Yes,” Taemin says again, and waits with bated breath as Jinki lowers his mouth slowly. Taemin has never seen Jinki’s fangs before this moment, but he feels them now, skidding across the skin of his forearm, and he can’t stop the scream in time.

He jerks his arm, and Jinki lets go quickly. Instantly, Jinki is across the room, looking at him with horror in his gaze. “Darling, you don’t have to--”

“I’m sorry,” Taemin gasps. “I want to. I do. I just… I can’t-- your teeth.”

Jinkis fangs are still run out, and they make Taemin feel like he’s going to be sick. The feeling of teeth on his neck seems to be echoing through him like the ghost of a long-ago feeling, and Taemin is trembling in place.

Jinki sucks in a sharp breath and turns his face away, just for a moment. When he turns back, his fangs are gone. “It’s alright. It’s okay, sweet thing. I’m here. I won’t hurt you. I would never--”

“Isn’t there a different way?” Taemin whines. “Anything. I don’t know. A knife or-- or just, not… I can’t get past your teeth. They’re so--” He shudders, biting his lips together. “If I cut my arm, can you drink like that? Without fangs?”

“I can, but, darling--”

“No, listen. It’s no different, right? Between a cut and a bite? One doesn’t hurt more, does it?” Taemin asks. “I want to, but… like that. Please.”

And Jinki looks unhappy, but he disappears, and when he returns, he has a pocket knife in his hand, antique but well cared for. Taemin wonders how long he’s had it. “Let me,” he whispers, kneeling before Taemin again. “Please.”

Taemin nods. The knife is sharp when Jinki flips it open, the blade a single threatening edge, and Taemin’s breath catches, but it’s not nearly so bad as Jinki’s fangs. A knife is frightening, but when Jinki lowers it to Taemin’s skin, Taemin’s breath merely hitches. He doesn’t scream, and he doesn’t rip his arm away, even when the sharp point of pain digs into his skin, blood welling up.

Jinki drops the knife to the floor, looking up at Taemin with such sad eyes, but Taemin only exhales shakily. “Drink,” he says. “I know you want to.”

And Jinki does, lowering his mouth to Taemin’s arm.

It’s a strange feeling. It hurts like hell, but Jinki is so gentle, so careful, and he makes soft noises as he drinks, little noises of satisfaction that make Taemin feel warm. Jinki needs this, wants this. And if he can give it...

He brings his free hand up, brushing Jinki’s hair back the way Jinki always does for him, and when Jinki looks up from his arm, mouth still fixes over the cut he’d made, he doesn’t look like a monster. He looks like Jinki, like the man Taemin knows and trusts and--

“I love you,” he blurts out, like a realization. “Not like-- Not like I wanna date you. Just. I love you. You mean a lot to me.”

And Jinki pulls away, lifting his hand to cover bloody lips as he laughs. “Not that I’m displeased, darling, but is now the right time?”

Taemin pouts a little. “Shut up. This is… it’s all new to me. I’m not exactly-- I dunno.”

Jinki hums. “You don’t have to explain to me, sweet thing. I know.”

“Okay,” Taemin says, and he can’t hide his smile, not with Jinki still holding one arm in his grasp. “Are you--?”

“Mm, may I?” Jinki asks, and when Taemin nods, he lowers his mouth back to Taemin arm. He drinks slowly, deeply, and Taemin whines a little when Jinki’s tongue swipes over the cut a few minutes later, Jinki pulling back from him with red lips and a soft smile. His teeth are blunt.

“How do you feel?” Jinki asks.

And Taemin pauses for a moment before answering, trying to be as honest as possible. “It hurts a bit, but not so bad. And I’m… not dizzy? But almost. Like if I stand up--”

Jinki nods. “Don’t stand then, darling. I have you.”

He picks up Taemin carefully, carrying him again, and Taemin waits for Jinki to take him to his bed despite the fact that he’s been in it for way too long now. But Jinki doesn’t. Jinki takes him to his own bed, settling him in gently among the fluffy pillows.

“Why am I here?” Taemin asks.

“Because I want to watch out for you, just in case. Keep your arm up. Let me go get bandages,” Jinki murmurs, and is gone and back in less than a minute, not just with the first aid kit but with Taemin’s laptop. “My saliva will numb it a bit and help it to heal it faster. But still, we should bandage it.”

He wipes Taemin’s arm clean with alcohol and bandages it neatly. Before he’s done, Taemin hears popping in the other room, and Jinki disappears with the trash from the bandaging and comes back with a bowl of popcorn, a bottle of water, and a bar of chocolate, all scavenged from Taemin’s shopping trips.

“Eat,” Jinki murmurs. “You need to get your strength back.”

Taemin grins and lounges back. “In your bed? You’re spoiling me.”

Jinki rolls his eyes. “Do try not to get food on the sheets.”

“Too late,” Taemin says, glancing at the blanket where there are a couple droplets of red. “You already did.”

Jinki rolls his eyes. “Eat your food,” he says, and pulls Taemin laptop to him, clicking through the internet browser with the kind of slow, methodical motions of someone who has only recently learned to use a computer. He manages to find their netflix account though and selects the first thing off Taemin’s list, some cartoon that Taemin hasn’t seen any of yet.

Taemin cuddles into Jinki’s pillow with a sigh, lifting popcorn to his mouth and munching happily. Only when they’re done with the first episode does he ask, “So are you going to feed from me again?”

Jinki looks at him for a long moment. “Oh, sweet thing,” he sighs. “In a few weeks. If you’re up to it again.”

“Good,” Taemin says, and settles back with Jinki to watch the next episode.

--

He doesn’t leave Jinki’s bed that night. Or the one after.

It becomes Taemin’s bed too, at some point in the months that follow. Taemin’s room stands empty except as storage, and Taemin finds his place in Jinki’s bed. They sleep together only in the literal sense, and neither one of them seem to want more. But when Taemin wakes, curled against Jinki’s side, it makes him feel safe and cherished and loved.

His arms grow stacks of faint scars as Jinki drinks from him, never more often than 18 days apart. Sometimes longer, if Jinki thinks he can, because the temptation of having a human around really isn’t too much of a worry when Taemin They don’t go see the world, but Jinki does give in easily to Taemin’s pleas. They go to places that Taemin never thought he’d see; in the winter months, when the nights start earlier, Jinki takes him to amusement parks and shows. They go to concerts and find the best places for Taemin to get pizza after 2 a.m., and it’s ridiculous when Jinki takes him to fancy restaurants just for the experience when Jinki doesn’t even need to eat.

Taemin likes going dancing, and there’s something about having a vampire, sitting at the bar and sipping casually on red wine while he watches Taemin dance, that makes Taemin feel strangely powerful.

He grows up with Jinki, goes from an awkward teenager to an adult knowing he has the freedom to be whoever he wants to be, to stay home in his pajamas and watch bad movies or to flirt and tease and dance with strangers, with the full and utter surety that Jinki will always be there at the end of the night to shake his head fondly and press a soft kiss to his temple.

It’s a kind of unconditional love that Taemin has never had before Jinki, and sometimes he wonders at the thought of it, at what that means.

They’re not together, not like that, but Jinki is Taemin’s whole world, and while Jinki’s world is so much bigger than his own, Taemin knows he always has a place in it.

----

“What’s it like?” Taemin asks on their way home from the club that night.

The night air is cold, and Taemin tucks himself into Jinki’s side even though Jinki provides practically nothing in terms of warmth. The walk home has been quiet, mostly, but Taemin can sense that Jinki is practically seething.

“A feeder,” he’s grumbled more than once, and Taemin has had to smother soft smiles over how protective Jinki is of him, how much he cares about this. It’s not nice that Jinki is upset, but what specifically he’s upset over makes Taemin feel fond.

Taemin hadn’t thought twice about teasing a vampire, in a club full of vampires, and it’s a testament to how safe he feels with Jinki around, how much he trusts. But he forgets, sometimes, that all of these years have been a blink to Jinki, that it must seem like mere moments since Taemin was a teenager, scared and afraid of shadows in the dark and the memory of teeth.

In some ways, Jinki must see how that fear hasn’t entirely faded even now.

But for now, he only looks at Taemin and hums, a soft questioning sound that doesn’t entirely match the stifled anger Taemin can see in his eyes. Because no matter how Jinki feels, he’s always, always kind to Taemin.

Taemin exhales, his breath a tiny cloud of warmth. He watches it dissipate into the air and then looks at Jinki. They’re the same height now, and it’s strange, somehow, not to have to look up at him.

“What’s it like?” he repeats himself. “Being a vampire?”

Jinki tips his head to one side, and when he looks back at Taemin, the anger is fading into thoughtfulness as Jinki allows himself to be distracted.

“Compared to humanity?” Jinki asks after a bit. “I haven’t been human in long enough to say, entirely. But it’s… quiet, I suppose.”

It’s not the answer Taemin was expecting, and he looks at Jinki curiously.

Jinki laughs softly. “Not in the way you’re thinking. I can hear so many things -- creatures in the alley or the underbrush and the sound of people speaking from across a room. But all of that’s just noise. And now… now I can hear your heartbeat from across that same room, pick it out of a crowd, and you are the first sound I’ve heard in years that means anything.”

Taemin’s mouth quirks, and he lifts his hand to cover it, but Jinki catches it easily, rubbing his thumb over Taemin’s knuckles.

“Before you, there were decades of silence. I could hear all of that, but none of it was for me. It was a background hum, like music heard from a building you have no right to enter. Audible, but too quiet. And strangely lonely, I suppose.”

Taemin can’t help himself. “Are you lonely now?” he asks.

Jinki shakes his head. “What do you think, sweet thing?”

“I think you’re calling me noisy,” Taemin accuses, but he’s fighting back his grin. Jinki doesn’t let go of his hand.

“Perhaps a bit,“ he teases, “But I appreciate it. I wouldn’t change this for the world.”

Taemin loses the battle against his grin, leaning heavily into Jinki. “Not even when I get crumbs in your bed?”

Jinki rolls his eyes. “Let’s just be glad that you’re the messy eater in this relationship and not me.”

Taemin snorts a laugh and looks around at the familiar streets. “Race you home?”

It’s a ridiculous request from a human to a vampire, but they do it anyways. Jinki lets him win, smiling Taemin collapses onto their couch in a breathless, laughing heap.

--

Taemin exhales softly as Jinki presses a kiss to his pulse. It’s the one in his wrist, not his throat, but Taemin is all too aware of how easily Jinki can feel the racing of his heart. They’ve done this dozens of times now, every few weeks for years, but somehow Taemin never gets over the way it makes his heart race in his chest.

It’s always strange, somehow, for him to see Jinki as a predator. Taemin knows he is -- he’s not really dumb enough to think otherwise. But knowing he is and feeling it are two different things, and Jinki is so soft, so careful with him. Taemin never really feels like prey. Even in moments like this, he doesn’t feel like it.

But Jinki does feel like a predator, his fangs just slightly run out, just enough to frighten Taemin even though he knows Jinki would never hurt him. It’s the one thing he’s never been able to get past. They scrape very lightly over his wrist, and Taemin shudders and whines unhappily.

“I’m sorry, my darling. It’s been too long,” Jinki says, even though it’s only been a week or two more than normal. “You don’t have to. I can always go elsewhere.”

“No,” Taemin says, as always. “I want you to. I just. You know I hate--”

“My apologies,” Jinki says, and wraps his lips over his teeth, curling them tight down and seemingly forcing his fangs to recede. It takes a moment, and Taemin suspects Jinki just cut the hell out of the insides of his lips if the sudden reddish tinge to them is any indication, but Jinki heals with vampiric speed, and when he smiles, there are no fangs to be seen, just his teeth, blunt and a little crooked. “I forget myself sometimes. I appreciate having you here to remind me.”

Taemin snorts a little. Like Jinki hadn’t lasted for hundreds of years before him, surviving off feeding houses and brothels in strange towns, refusing to kill as often as he could. Jinki had had that control long before Taemin. All Taemin brings to the table is a fear of fangs that forces Jinki to be creative.

Jinki pulls up away from him gently and is gone in a moment, leaving Taemin to resettle, curling back against the pillows of Jinki’s bed. Their bed, now.

“Be careful,” he says to the empty air, and when Jinki appears a moment later, he’s cocking his head in recognition of Taemin’s words, concern in his eyes. Taemin hides a grin behind one hand. “I don’t want to have to buy new pillows again because you got blood on them and the shop with the nice pillows closes before dark. They know my name now, Jinki. That’s how often I have to buy us new pillows.”

Jinki laughs, warm and sweet and sets out their things on the night table before he settles back over Taemin, leaning down to press a kiss to his forehead before brushing another against his lips. His mouth is just a little coppery, and Taemin was right -- he had cut his own mouth to keep from frightening Taemin.

“I’ll be careful,” Jinki says, thumbing along Taemin’s cheek. “Any preferences?”

Taemin shakes his head. “I trust you.”

Jinki smiles a little, lifting Taemin’s wrist to press one more kiss to it before he slips his hand up Taemin’s arm, holding the forearm gently as he produces the knife from his back pocket and lays it against the skin. Taemin hold his breath, just for a moment, until the flash of pain turns into a searing burn, and then exhales a long, shuddering hiss.

“Sweet thing,” Jinki says, just for the way it makes Taemin smile, and then lowers his mouth to Taemin’s arm, lips fitting over the cut he just made. Almost immediately he pulls away, a frown on his lips. “Are you feeling alright?”

Taemin lifts an eyebrow. “I mean, my arm hurts…?”

Jinki laughs, but it’s brief and more than slightly concerned. “I meant, do you feel ill? There’s-- mm. I don’t know how to explain it. Your blood tastes different.”

“I feel fine,” Taemin says. “Really. Maybe I’ve just been eating like shit lately? I’m fine, Jinki, really. Please eat before I bleed out on our bed for no reason.”

Jinki scowls at him, but he lowers his mouth back down to Taemin’s wrist. He drinks slowly, steadily, and Taemin sighs, relaxing into the action. By the time Taemin thinks to tell Jinki to pull away, he already is, leaving Taemin dizzy with blood loss and swaying into Jinki’s hold.

Instantly, there is gauze in the crook of Taemin’s elbow, pressing down firmly against the wound. Jinki’s saliva heals some, but the traditional route helps too, and Taemin lifts his other hand to help hold it in place only to find his limbs heavy.

“Taeminnie,” Jinki prompts, worry in his voice, “talk to me. How do you feel?”

Taemin hums. “Sleepy,” he mumbles. “Take a nap with me.”

“Of course,” Jinki says, even though it’s still dark out and he won’t get the urge to sleep for hours yet. “Do you want some food first?”

Taemin thinks about it for a moment and shakes his head. “Gatorade?”

“Of course, darling,” Jinki murmurs. “Let me bandage you first.”

His fingers are gentle as he takes the rest of the bandages off of the side table and winds them around Taemin’s arm in practiced motions, just tight enough to staunch the blood flow without being uncomfortable.

When he finishes, he presses a kiss to the bandages, leaving the tiniest of red smears across the white cotton.

“Oops,” Taemin giggles, and rolls over to nuzzle into the pillows, thankfully unstained.

A moment later, Jinki presses something into his hand, and Taemin whines, but sits up, fumbling to open the bottle. After a moment, Jinki does it for him. “Are you sure you’re alright, darling?”

“Yeah, ‘m good, really,” Taemin answers, taking a gulp of his drink. “Just sleepy.”

“Sweet thing,” Jinki sighs. “Are you going to be alright for just a moment if I clean up?”

“You’re worrying too much,” Taemin hums, still sipping his Gatorade. “I’m fine. Go wash your knife and brush your fangs.”

Jinki sighs fondly and brushes Taemin’s hair away from his forehead before he disappears.

He’s only gone for a minute or two, but Taemin has finished drinking and is already half dozing by the time Jinki comes back. He feels Jinki slip in behind him, winding an arm around his waist. Taemin smiles and tucks back into him, giggling when Jinki presses the softest of kisses to the back of his neck. “You this soft with all your food?”

“You’re far more than that and you know it,” Jinki says, arm tightening to pull Taemin close. His body is cool, but less so than normal, warmed by Taemin’s blood.

“Careful,” Taemin mumbles. “Someone might actually think you care about your human.”

“Now you’re just fishing for compliments,” Jinki says with amusement, and Taemin laughs and cuddles back into him, eyelids heavy. Before he falls asleep, he feels Jinki’s lips against his throat again. “Of course I care about you, darling. More than anything.”

“See,” Taemin mumbles. “Fishing works.”

He finally drifts off to the sound of Jinki’s muffled laughter against his throat.

--

For all that they were supposed to that night, so long ago, it’s almost four years after that when Taemin queues up an episode of his latest favorite show and figures out it’s a beach episode, he looks up to find Jinki across the room and accuse, “You’ve never actually taken me to the beach.”

Jinki looks up from his book slowly, reaching out for his bookmark and sliding it into place before he sets the book down. Taemin tends to dog-ear his, which is a running debate between the two of them, one that they’ve hit an impasse in time and again. The current impasse has been Taemin stealing and hiding all of Jinki’s bookmarks only for Jinki to wordlessly produce more from some depth of his belongings.

Taemin narrows his eyes at Jinki’s newest bookmark, distracted from his own comment until Jinki says, “No, I suppose not. We never did get around to that trip.”

Taemin looks back up, momentarily confused, and then smiles. “Isn’t that a little romantic for us? The beach at night, the ocean and the stars and the… you know…” Taemin runs out of things fast having never actually been to the beach, and waves his hand vaguely. “General beachiness?”

“How is it more romantic than any of the other outings we’ve been on?” Jinki asks, and there’s a note of laughter in his voice, playful and teasing. “What did you call them, dates?”

Taemin makes a face. “Gross,” he says, but it comes out as a laugh as well, and Jinki smiles.

“We could go tonight, if you wish?” he says, “We have a few hours left until dawn.”

“Can we?” Taemin says, and feels a sudden sense of excitement.

“Of course,” Jinki murmurs, and stands.

Jinki never bothered to learn to drive, not with his vampiric speed, and Taemin’s never really needed to. It makes the trip to the beach challenging, but it’s a fast one at least. And Taemin feels safe in Jinki’s arms, as he always does.

The beach is empty, like most places at night. There’s not likely to be any supernatural creatures out at night, but that was what Taemin has thought about the suburbs. That had ended better than anticipated, but still.

It’s good though, having a moment alone like this, because Taemin’s first view of the ocean stops him in his tracks so obviously that anyone else around would think something was wrong.

It’s not, but Taemin can’t tear his eyes away.

The water is dark, with the barest gleams of moonlight dancing off of it, and Taemin’s breath catches in his throat so hard that he begins to cough, choking on air. It’s kind of overdramatic, his whole reaction, but he can’t help it. It’s just so vast.

It’s more than Taemin has ever seen, an endless, rippling sheet, all the way out to the horizon. And where it finally, finally touches, it turns into stars, a sheet of dark sky with pinpricks of lights so far away that Taemin will never see them for what they really are, and so close that he could reach up and brush them with his fingers.

Taemin has a sudden, vivid idea of what eternity might feel like.

“It’s beautiful,” he whispers, voice shaking slightly.

“It is. It’s one of my favorite views,” Jinki says, and Taemin glances at him to make sure he’s not doing something cheesy and awful like looking at Taemin instead. He doesn’t need his life to be a bad movie right now. But Jinki is staring out at the ocean with the same kind of awe that Taemin is, and Taemin feels a pang of affection for Jinki just understanding.

“How have we not come here before?” Taemin asks.

Jinki cocks his head to one side and then sighs. “Time slips away from me too easily. I forget, sometimes, how slow it passes for you. We’ve been together for years, and that’s so much of your life. For me, it’s… less. No less important; having you with me is all I could ever ask for. But…”

But it’s a drop in the water, and Jinki has an ocean of time ahead of him.

Taemin’s stomach twists. “I love you,” he says, because he doesn’t know how else to say it. It’s not entirely a happy statement.

Jinki smiles though, soft and gentle and adoring. It’s almost as beautiful as the rest of the beach, and Taemin thinks it’s a little unfair. “That’s high praise from you, darling.”

For a moment, Taemin is confused, because Jinki always understands him, and he’s not sure how he doesn’t now. But Jinki reaches out, curling a hand soft around his waist, and pulls him in, holding him gently in his arms.

In the face of eternity stretched before him, Jinki’s arms feel like home.

“I'll always take care of you, you know,” Jinki murmurs. “For as long as you choose to stay.”

Taemin’s heart skips a beat in his chest. “Forever?”

It comes out quiet, almost insecure. Taemin doesn’t know what he’s thinking right now. What he’s feeling. It’s all so much, and he can’t imagine having done this all those years ago. Not without knowing what he does now, feeling what he does now.

Jinki hums quietly. “If you really wanted forever, I'd give it to you,” he murmurs, brushing his fingertips over the column of Taemin's throat where he's never bitten. Taemin shudders at the thought of fangs, and Jinki feels it, dropping his hand back to Taemin’s waist. “You'd only have to ask.”

“I...” Taemin doesn’t know what to say. They’ve never talked about this. How could they have? Jinki had once mentioned forever, so long ago, and Taemin had taken it to mean a lifetime. Now he’s been with Jinki long enough to realize that it could mean an eternity of them.

He can’t begin to imagine it, an eternity. As vast as the ocean. And he’d have to live through that. He’s not sure how he made it into his twenties. He can’t even fathom hundreds of years. But Jinki has lived that. And Taemin could have that long with him.

It’s a tempting thought, it is. But Taemin doesn’t know where to begin actually considering it.

Instead, he nestles back into Jinki’s hold. “Maybe,” he says, for the sake of an answer, even if it’s a noncommittal one. “Maybe forever. But I'd like to live with you a long as I can before I die with you.”

“You make it sound so morbid,” Jinki says, a laugh in his voice again. “Death would become you. But I do so like you living.”

“And I’m the morbid one,” Taemin mumbles. He doesn't know how much of that is teasing, and how much is serious. He doesn’t even know if it’s really a compliment, but the softness in Jinki's tone makes him feel cherished, so he goes ahead and takes it as one.

“Maybe,” he says again, and settles in, watching the tide roll in and out and trying to fathom the concept of eternity.

--

Taemin wakes up, a month later, unable to breathe.

He’s had colds before, the flu, but not like this. He literally can’t get air into his lungs, and he feels a burst of panic that makes it all the worse. He’s dizzy, suddenly, only seconds after waking, and he gasps uselessly for air, trying to remember how to do something he’s done instinctively his entire life.

Beside him, Jinki stirs, a slow, lethargic motion. It must be before dark, and the sunlight, whether visible or not, is dragging Jinki into a sleep that’s near comatose. But Taemin’s struggling has roused him, and he somehow drags himself to awareness enough to ask, “Darling, what’s wrong?”

Taemin tries to rasp Jinki’s name and collapses into a coughing fit, heavy and desperate. And now Jinki really is awake, jolting upright, daylight or no. “Taemin,” he says, and pulls Taemin in, rubbing his hand up and down Taemin’s back. “Breathe for me, darling. Come on.”

Taemin gasps helplessly. He’s trying, he just can’t. Sitting up helps some, but he can’t get air, can’t breathe, and it’s long minutes before he can finally get a breath in.

The panic in Jinki’s face is visible. “Taeminnie,” he whispers. “You’re okay. You’re okay, just breathe. Just breathe for me.”

Taemin shudders in his hold. His chest hurts, squeezed too tight and filled too full, and every breath is physically painful, shallow and desperate now.

Jinki rocks him gently. “Are you alright?”

Taemin nods. “I think I have pneumonia,” he mumbles, and it comes out stilted and hoarse. “I had it once when I was a kid. I’m--” he breaks off, coughing harshly, losing all the air he had.

He almost panics again, but Jinki’s voice is certain and commanding in his ear. “Breathe for me. In and out, love. Breathe in. There we go. Come on.”

Taemin breathes by obeying, and only when his breathing is more even does Jinki pull away. He reappears with Taemin’s laptop, turning it on, and searches up pneumonia medicine on the internet, frowning at the list until Taemin points to the most familiar one. “I think I’ve had that be--” He chokes on another cough. “--before.”

“Darling, we should take you to the hospital if you’re this ill,” Jinki says.

“Uh huh,” Taemin mumbles. “With my--” cough “-- amazing vampire insurance.”

Jinki frowns. “Taemin,” Jinki says firmly, “we can pay for it. I’m hardly short on money. If you need medicine--”

“Jinki,” Taemin says in the exact same tone of voice, and then slumps. “I’m okay. I’m-- okay. Just need you here. Need you to stay, make sure I don’t get--” He sucks in a breath, swallowing tightly to keep down a cough that rattles painfully in his chest. “-- worse.”

“Darling,” Jinki says, but Taemin shakes his head.

“Can I have something for the pain?”

Jinki looks lost. For one of the first times that Taemin can remember, Jinki looks frustrated and helpless. He’s still squinting at the search page, and after a moment he nods to himself and carefully -- so carefully that it feels like Taemin might as well be made of glass -- scoops Taemin into his arms.

He carries him to the bathroom, setting him on the counter and closing the door behind them, and digs out medicine for Taemin to take, pouring out a few for Taemin. He turns the shower on high, letting the steam begin to billow out around them, and frowns for a moment.

“You need water,” he says, and leaves Taemin for just a moment, returning with a glass that’s more ice than water. It begins sweating immediately in the warmth of the bathroom, but Taemin takes it and drinks the whole thing. Each swallow hurts a little, but he’s thirstier than he would have thought.

“Jinki, you don’t need to do all this,” Taemin mumbles. “I’ll be okay, really.”

“Sweet thing,” Jinki says, looking at him intently. “Let me take care of you. You know I worry.”

“I’m not a child,” Taemin mumbles, and his cheeks are hot from the heat of the room and maybe fever, so he has no idea if he’s blushing or not.

But Jinki brushes his hair back and looks over him slowly, like he’s trying to figure out how to fix Taemin in moments instead of days. “No,” he says finally, “but you don’t have to be one for me to want to keep you safe, darling. You know I love you. That’s a part of what that means.”

“I know. Forever, right?” Taemin says, and before Jinki can answer, he has to pulls away to cough violently, hacking up phlegm into the sink. “Gross.”

“It’s better that you get it out,” Jinki says gently, pushing Taemin’s hair back again to keep it out of his face. “It’s alright.”

It’s not. They spend most of the night in the bathroom, Taemin sweating the fever out in the practical sauna of their bathroom. Jinki brings him fresh water every time the ice runs out, keeps him plied with liquids. The steam helps him breathe, actually, and he hacks up more mucus every few minutes for what seems like hours.

Taemin wants nothing more than to sleep. By the time it’s near dawn, his throat is raw from coughing and he’s shaking. The only good thing is that the bathroom is too warm for him to feel cold chills, and Jinki is ridiculously effective for bringing his fever down, his cold hands keeping Taemin from feeling too awful.

Jinki carries him back to bed at dawn, tucking him in and setting out water. He returns with chicken broth and plies Taemin with it, trying to get him to eat something at least, even though Taemin would honestly rather just pass out. But he eats to make Jinki feel better, and then he gets to sleep.

He has dreams that he can’t remember, but he feels a ringing in his ears like distant yelling, and when he wakes, he curls against Jinki, trembling violently. Jinki wakes again to that, and Tamein has no idea if it’s day or night or what, but they spend hours in the bathroom again, rinse and repeat.

When Jinki is gone to get him water, Taemin hacks up phlegm that is red with blood, his throat burning. He washes it away, trying to hide the evidence, and he’s not sure if it works, because Jinki coddles him when he gets back, tipping the ice water against Taemin’s lips himself and holding him carefully, helping Taemin into the shower -- cooled down significantly from its steaming state.

Taemin doesn’t know how many times they repeat this. It’s days maybe, so long, before he wakes up able to breathe. His chest hurts still, but he takes a breath without feeling dizzy, and he doesn’t immediately feel the urge to cough until he throws up like he has some other nights.

Jinki is already awake tonight, and he immediately presses a cool hand to each of Taemin’s cheeks, cupping his face gently. “Taemin?”

Taemin shivers slightly. “M’okay. Feel a little better.”

Jinki’s face goes slack with relief.. “You’ve been half delirious,” he murmurs. “You terrified me.”

Taemin doesn’t remember that part, but he doesn’t doubt it either. The last few days are a dream-like concept of steam and heat and the coolness of Jinki’s hands and ice water burning it’s way down his throat.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m okay now. I am.”

Jinki hums noncommittally, face filled with worry.

Taemin feels awful about it, but there’s nothing he can do about it either, and he sits up slowly, testing his breathing. “I’m hungry,” he lies, to try and distract Jinki. “Can you make me something?”

“I… can try,” Jinki says. His cooking skills still aren’t great, but Taemin doesn’t think he could taste food right now anyways. “What do you want, love?”

“Anything,” he says first, and then thinks about it. “Something soft. Eggs maybe. Toast.”

Jinki relaxes. “I can do that much,” he murmurs, and presses so, so gently against Taemin’s shoulder to urge him back down. “I’ll bring it to you.”

But the thought of laying here any longer makes Taemin entire body feel antsy. He’s still sore, still lethargic, but he can make it down the hall the to the kitchen. He hauls himself out of bed, catching himself on the nightstand when his legs wobble underneath him. He wonders how long Jinki has been caring for him that his legs feel this weak.

But he hobbles down the hallway to where he can hear Jinki, moving about in the kitchen. It’s familiar and warm, and Taemin pushes off the wall to round the corner and find Jinki.

And then the world rushes up to meet him and he hears Jinki’s voice like a distant scream, calling his name.

He can’t get enough air in his lungs to answer.

--

Taemin doesn’t remember the next little while. He dances in and out of awareness, of fever dreams and reality. He’s not sure which is which; lying in bed with a vampire carefully tipping water into his mouth, or laying in his room, listening to the sounds of his parents yelling.

There are times he wakes up to a stranger near him, a pretty woman with crimson red lips who is speaking to Jinki in a firm, urgent voice. “Please, eat something. Minjung is willing to give you a bit. You need food, and yours is sick.”

“He’s not food,” Jinki’s voice says. It’s the first time Taemin has ever heard it crack like this, broken and fragile. “He’s more than that. You know that, Gwiboon. He’s so much more. How can I lose him?”

“He’s human, Jinks,” she says, voice soft. “It hurts, but he’s human. They die, eventually. I can’t let you do the same. Please go eat.”

Taemin doesn’t know if Jinki does. He bursts into a rattling cough and curls over into himself, slipping away.

He wakes, more than once, to Jinki’s voice, slow and calming, reading aloud. He pauses when Taemin coughs or shifts, reaching out to soothe him.

Taemin tries to lean into the touch against his face or his hair, but it feels like his body weighs so much more than it should. Before Taemin can make himself move, Jinki pulls his hand away and begins to read again, his voice lulling Taemin back to sleep.

“Minjung could take him to the hospital,” he hears that woman say another time. He’s forgotten her name already.

He doesn’t hear Jinki’s response, too low to be heard, but he does hear, “Jinki, you can’t stay with him. You know places like that are warded against us.”

Jinki’s says something again, far away. Taemin wishes he could have actually heard him before he falls back asleep.

He doesn’t know how long it is before he wakes, slow and real and aware. His mouth is dry and he feels like he’s been run over by a car, but he manages to get his mouth to move, manages to make his body curve upwards, just a little bit, so that he can look around. The room is dark, as always, and Jinki is asleep beside him.

Taemin has never seen Jinki sleep like this, fretful and anxious. Jinki sleeps, quite literally, like the dead. Unbreathing, his heart unbeating. Now, he shifts in his sleep, restlessly. Taemin swallows thickly, and then whimpers, the pain in his throat searing.

Jinki wakes like a man emerging from an ice-cold like, a gasp on his lips, and he whips around. When he sees Taemin, his entire body goes slack, and he looks at Taemin with eyes that are wet with tears. His composure is gone, all of it. “Taemin,” he says, and his voice is shaking and anxious. “Thank god. I thought I’d lost you. I--”

“I’m sorry,” Taemin says. “I didn’t mean… it wasn’t that bad, was it?”

“Darling, you’ve barely been coherent for the last two weeks.”

And Taemin doesn’t know what to do with that information except stare. “I had… I had a dream. There was a woman…”

“Gwiboon. My friend. I--” Jinki looks away, and Taemin doesn’t know why for a moment until he realizes. Jinki is ashamed. “I thought, were I to lose you like this… perhaps she would be able to keep me sane, where I wouldn’t be able to myself.”

“Jinki…” Taemin whispers, and he’s… he so tired, still. Too tired for this conversation. He slumps into the bed. “Jinki, don’t--”

“Grief makes one do terrible things,” Jinki murmurs, eyes still averted. “I don’t want to know the harm I could cause.”

“You’re not going to,” Taemin says. “I’m fine, see? I’m getting better.”

“No,” Jinki says. “No, Taemin. I can… I can hear you. Your heartbeat. Your breathing. You’re… you keep getting worse. And I don’t know how to help.”

Taemin blinks a few times, brow furrowing. “I’m… it hurts, a little, to breathe. But I’m not… I’m not coughing…”

“Taemin…” Jinki says. “Please. Please, let me take you to the hospital.”

Taemin frowns. There’s something there, jogging his memory, and it comes back, all too fast.

“No!” he blurts, and he was lying, because the outburst makes his chest seize around rattling coughs the send pain through his chest like flares. He curls onto his side because he can’t sit up to double over, and Jinki rubs his back, slowly, smoothly. He looks so sad when Taemin glances up at him. “You won’t be able to come with me. They’re warded. Your friend, she was talking about-- I don’t want to go alone.”

“Taemin,” Jinki says, and his voice is raw, flayed bare. “Please.”

He doesn’t say anything else, but his eyes are up now, and he’s looking at Taemin. They’re old eyes; Jinki has years behind them. Years more than Taemin has even been alive. There’s no reason for Jinki to be this lost over him. But Jinki’s eyes are wet, and Taemin doesn’t know what to say.

“I’m scared,” he whispers, and it’s true. He doesn’t know why. Why is this what he’s afraid of, out of everything?

It takes a long moment before Jinki admits, “I am too, darling.”

--

The hospital is cold and clinical. Jinki carries him there and walks with him to the doors, but he cringes away before he reaches them, and Taemin blanches. The fear is coming back, as irrational as the day he left his parents, a sense of sourceless dream that pools in his stomach, making him feel heavy and sick.

His hands are shaking. “What if…?” he starts, and he doesn’t know how to end that sentence.

“I’ll be here until dawn,” Jinki whispers. “Every night. I’ll wait for you right here.”

Taemin wants that to make him feel better, but it doesn’t, because the entire day, Jinki will be so far away, and Taemin doesn’t know how to deal with that.

But he doesn’t dare say that out loud. Not now. If he does, he’ll beg Jinki to take him home.

Instead, he walks into the hospital, leaving Jinki alone in the night. He doesn’t know what to write down on the papers. He doesn’t know his information. He knows his birthday, and he writes Lee Taemin out of instinct before staring at it. He wonders if, years later, his parents will get some notification that he was here.

He doesn’t know his registration number, and he has to keep scratching out anything about insurance. The longer his sits here, the more he wants to run back it Jinki, back into a place where he’s safe. But he thinks about the tears in Jinki’s eyes, that break in his voice that he’d never heard before, and he stays where he is until his name is called.

He walks through long hallways, with too bright lights, back into a room where they put him in a bed and ask him question after question. It feels like buzzing in his ears.

They do tests -- some of it is the usual, a stethoscope over his chest and the deepest breathing he can manage. But there’s more than that too, blood tests and x-rays, and a doctor in deep discussion outside his door with a nurse, with words thrown in about the stacks of scars up the insides of his arms, each and every one of them done with such care and precision.

Taemin doesn’t care what they think. He curls up in the bed, but it’s too warm without Jinki beside him, even in the chilly hospital gown they’ve given him. He wants Jinki there, drinking from him now, if only for the closeness.

But he’s left alone in his room, lonely and afraid. It’s not even rational, but every voice Taemin hears in the hallways, a small part of him expects it to be his parents yelling, and it makes him feel lost and afraid, like when he leaves here, Jinki will have been a figment of his imagination. He thumbs at his arms to reassure himself, and ignores the worried faces of the nurses who occasionally pop in to tell him that, “They’re running the results now. The doctor will be here soon,” over and over in unending platitudes.

He gets up once or twice to cough into the trash can, but most he lays there and waits. No one comes for a very long time.

It’s almost 4 a.m. before there’s a knock on his door and the doctor pushes inside. He doesn’t look at Taemin right away, and his voice is almost monotone as he asks, “Taemin, right?”

Taemin nods. “Yeah. That’s right.”

The doctor looks up at him. His face is schooled into a patient smile, but his tone never changes. “Can I ask you about your history with smoking?”

The bottom drops out of Taemin’s stomach. “My dad did a lot when I was a kid. Around me, sometimes. I never did.”

“I see.” The doctor makes a note. “Did you ever learn in school about the dangers of secondhand smoke?”

And Taemin wants to laugh, he does, but it throws him into another coughing fit that ruins the bitter sound Taemin needs to make. Because after everything, after he’d gotten away, after he’d gotten his own life, they’re still in his life somehow. In his body, in his lungs. Their shitty choices.

“It’s late-stage,” the doctor says quietly. “There’s some treatment options of course. Chemotherapy.”

Taemin doesn’t answer. He doesn’t know how.

“I noticed you didn’t have insurance filled out…”

“I have enough to cover this,” he mumbles. He doesn’t know if that’s true or not. He doesn’t care. “Can I go please?”

“You don’t want to discuss--?”

“No,” Taemin says. “I want to go home.”

The doctor does let him, but Taemin doesn’t care. He gathers his clothes and walks out o find Jinki. If he’s going to die, he at least wants it to be in Jinki’s arms.

--

“I don’t want to die,” Taemin says. It’s a quiet admission, the first time he’s dared to say it out loud.

He hasn’t cried yet, but the threat is there, the beginnings of a breakdown. There’s so much he doesn’t know how to say.

Jinki wraps his arms around him tightly. They’re back at the beach now, and Taemin isn’t quite morbid enough to call it a last request, but they both know that’s what it is.

Jinki had been angry when Taemin told him. That neutral mask over boiling rage. Taemin recognizes it now, has seen it only a few times in his life: when the vampire in the club assumed he was a feeder, when Taemin told Jinki about his parents, when Jinki had taken him from them without a backwards glance, and now. Now, when Taemin tells him that even that wasn’t enough to save him.

That’s all Jinki has ever done, Taemin’s entire life is save him. And he could now. He could again. But Taemin is scared.

He hasn’t stopped being scared since the hospital. Since before that, when Jinki admitted what losing him would do to him. And Taemin doesn’t want to leave him, but he can’t help but feel that part of him, deep inside, that’s already mourning.

“I want to live,” he whispers, and the words are stolen away by the salt air and the waves, washed away into eternity. It feels, somehow, like a wish. But even if Taemin really believed in wishes, he knows it’s not enough.

Jinki was his one. He doesn’t get another.

“I… I really want to live,” Taemin whispers, and sucks in a too hard breath. His lungs ache, but he doesn’t cough at least. He knows that that doesn’t mean much, in the long run.

“Oh, sweet thing,” Jinki says, and it’s the first time it’s sounded this sad. “I know. I know, my love, but I don’t want you to die either.”

Taemin laughs, a soft, broken sound. “I’m dead either way,” he says.

Months ago, on this beach, they had talked about forever, and Taemin had said maybe. He doesn’t have a better answer now. But he has to. They’re past the point of maybes. Taemin can die, one way or another.

“I know,” Jinki says, after a long, silent moment. “But in one way I get to keep you.”

--

Dying is easier, somehow, than he could have imagined.

Jinki had told him once that he would never feed from his neck, but now Taemin bares his throat for him. It doesn’t matter now, if Jinki messes this up. Bleeding out it part of the process.

Jinki holds him gently, arms wound around him, but Taemin knows it’s not entirely for comfort. Jinki’s arms, as soft as they are, are a vice Taemin can’t break. And even though neither of them think they need it, it’s a precaution that they’re choosing to take, because Jinki can’t do this with a knife.

And Taemin trusts Jinki, but that doesn’t make him any less afraid. He’s not sure the terror of teeth on his throat will ever truly fade, and Jinki is replicating that now. His fangs are out, gruesome and awful, and for once he doesn’t fight them away. For once, when Taemin begins to flinch and jerk, Jinki ignores him.

Taemin screams when Jinki’s mouth touches him, one short burst of terror, and then claps a hand over his mouth to stifle it as it erupts into a coughing fits that makes his shoulders shake.

“Breathe, sweet thing,” Jinki whispers to him, pointlessly, uselessly, and then bites. Taemin struggles fitfully, uselessly. It doesn’t hurt, somehow, as much as the knife, but it’s infinitely worse, and for the second time in his life, Taemin realizes, with a certainty that weighs down every fiber of his being, that he’s going to die here.

He goes limp in Jinki’s arms, and now the tears come, thick and stinging. Jinki drinks, as slow and steady as always, and this time, when Taemin thinks to tell him to stop, Jinki doesn’t pull away.

Taemin would have expected it to be dark, but the lights around them multiply, gleaming brighter, multiplying. They reflect through Taemin’s tears, nearly blinding him, and he closes his eyes against the light.

When he opens them next, the world is a very different place. It’s very still and very silent. Taemin searches for something and can’t find it, and it’s not for a very long moment that he figures out that it’s his heartbeat.

“You’ll get used to it, darling,” Jinki says, and Taemin turns to find him.

“It’s quiet,” he says. Even talking seems strange now. “Is it always this quiet?”

“Less so,” Jinki says, “with you around.”

Taemin cocks his head slightly to one side. “You lied to me,” he says, and Jinki raises an eyebrow, something worried in his gaze. “You said being a vampire was quiet. But I’m going to have to listen to your cheesy jokes forever.”

Jinki laughs, his whole face transforming, and his smile is so unbelievably fond. “What did I ever do to deserve this?”

“You saved my life,” Taemin says after a moment. It’s not the way he would have thought. His heart doesn't beat. His skin isn't warm. He doesn’t breathe unless he wants to speak. But he's here, and he's alive, and he has eternity with Jinki. “You’re stuck with me now.”

“I suppose I am,” Jinki says, and pulls him in, pressing a soft kiss to his cheek. Taemin can feel the smile on his face.