Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

But you
You're on my side, on my side
When second place is so familiar
On my side, on my side
So don't think twice, I'm going nowhere
I'm going nowhere
Second Place — Paper Route

“I didn’t bring my umbrella.”

Minho rubs away the raindrop that had splattered onto his nose and sticks his head back inside, closing the side door. Felix, changed out of his scrubs into a too-big leather jacket and jeans, pouts his lower lip at the angry clouds outside. He shifts his backpack further onto his shoulder and stares at the staff parking lot mournfully. The nearest metro station is at least a five minute walk away—a path that Minho, car-less as well, knows by heart. If he had enough money for a car, Felix would never walk and metro home from work again.

Minho’s own umbrella is in the stand at the door, long black handle poking up from between clear plastic sheets flecked with rainwater. One of the other umbrellas still has the CU sticker on it—a quick purchase by one of the other nurses or interns on the way to work. Minho is still in his blue scrubs; hadn’t seen a point in changing into fresh clothes when the pavement was going to kick up dirty water onto his pant legs and his umbrella dripped right down the back of his neck. He makes an easy decision.

Picking up his umbrella, Minho hands it to Felix. “That’s a new patch on your jacket, right?”

Felix’s hand shifts to his left breast. “You noticed?”

“I also noticed you sneaking into the stairwell during your rounds to call your boyfriend.”

Felix’s cheeks color. “Shut up,” he mumbles. Glances up. “Did you tell Sowoon?”

“Not this time,” Minho says. He wiggles the umbrella in his hand. “Go on. You’re only young once. Before you know it you’ll be ugly like me and no one will want to call you during work just to hear your voice.”

“That sucks—I mean. You’re not ugly, hyung.” Felix’s smile splits his face, eyes crinkling prettily.

Minho smacks him in the ass with the umbrella and Felix yelps.

“Okay, okay, I deserved that!” He takes the umbrella, then pauses. “What about you? We could share.”

Minho shrugs. “Dump some powder soap on me and then I won’t need to put a load in the washer.” When Felix continues to hesitate, Minho makes a shooing motion. “Get. I’m fine, seriously. You know it’s only big enough for one of us.”

Felix opens the side door. “Thank you hyung. I’ll see you Thursday?”

“1 AM on the dot,” Minho says through a grimace. Felix returns the grimace, then slips out.

Minho catches the door and continues to grimace at the sky. He wouldn’t mind waiting in the break room for half an hour or so if it was going to clear up, but the weather report had said rain all week and the app on Minho’s phone just shows 60%, 70%, 80%. It’s going to be a cold, wet five stops to Chungmuro station, but it beats staying at the hospital a minute longer if he’s just going to end up wet either way. Minho pours himself one last hot coffee in the break room, chugs it, and then prays to whatever god is listening that he doesn’t freeze to death.

The rain is heavy enough to be heard pattering on the sidewalk and each drop feels like a wet bullet against Minho’s head and shoulders. He’s soaked through in under a minute, with four more to go. He maneuvers around the potholes in the concrete collecting water, misses the crosswalk signal, then decides after a few moments of being pelted that fuck it, good manners are for days when it’s not pouring, and jogs across. He’s almost tempted to stop in at one of the shops along the way but he’s wet and smells like sick people and he stills needs these shopkeepers to feed him on not-wet days.

Minho takes the stairs into the metro two at a time and shakes himself like a dog at the bottom, mentally apologizing to the pair of ahjummas giving him death glares as they open their own umbrellas and head on out. He taps his card at the gate, catches the 22:34 train, and then finally he’s on the orange line and heading home.

Chungmuro station isn’t pretty by any means and at night the streets have a bad vibe to them, but Minho’s apartment is closer to the university and outside of the seedier parts of Jung-gu, so he’s never really worried about getting robbed. Most days, he doesn’t mind the hike from Chungmuro back home. But tonight, shivering and walking uphill, the rain getting heavier with each passing minute, he’s in no mood for it. The only thing on Minho’s mind is bath, bath, bath.

He passes the movie theater, a Popeyes, and two dessert cafes, tucking his head down and gritting his teeth against the cold. He’s counting convenience stores (nine until he gets home), and somewhere between the fifth store and a café he hears a high, pathetic whine coming from an alleyway.

Minho slows his steady trudging but doesn’t stop. The noise had sounded like something in pain, but it could have easily been metal creaking or a cat in heat. When he doesn’t hear the noise again, he puts it out of his mind.

Only to hear it again, this time longer and with a throaty gurgle at the end. A cold shiver rushes down Minho’s spine and along his arms. Once, when he was working ER, he treated a patient who had his throat sliced open in a freak construction accident. He gurgled like that. He didn’t make it.

Minho turns on his heel and marches back down to the alleyway.

The sound came from the other side of the street. Minho glances either way before ducking across. He wants to know how anyone hasn’t come investigating the noise yet, but then again, he hadn’t seen anyone outside since two turns ago and the whine wasn’t loud enough to penetrate through walls.

It’s a backroad but a real skinny one, probably only used for loading and offloading. Minho can only see bags of trash piled along either side of the walls and an out of order vending machine. No person bleeding out, sprawled across the ground. Small mercies.

“Hello?” Minho calls out, walking forward slowly. If it’s an animal, he doesn’t want to scare it, but if it’s a person they need to know he’s there. No answer.

“Hello?” Minho calls out again. “I’m a trained nurse; I can help you.”

Still no reply. Minho is maybe seven meters down the alleyway, but he’s still wet and if whatever it was making that noise isn’t going to show itself, then it probably doesn’t need his help anyway. Damn horny cats…as if there wasn’t an overpopulation problem already.

Minho makes to turn around and comes face to face with a tiny bundle of person squeezed in tightly between two big bags of chicken bones and used paper towels. His heart stops for a moment, but then he sees how crumpled and shivering the person is and he calms down.

“Christ,” Minho sighs. “You gave me a heart attack. You alright?”

The shivering bundle doesn’t reply. Their hair is long and curly, obscuring their face and dripping with water. They had probably been out in the rain for longer than Minho. He frowns and reaches a hand out to take their shoulder. “Hey, are you—”

The person flinches back, pressing themselves to the wall and hisses. Actually fucking hisses. Minho snatches his hand back but the hiss melts into another barely subdued whine. The person brings up their—pale, so fucking pale, even in this light—hand and starts to chew on their fingers, the trembling much more pronounced now. Their other hand digs into their forearm and they curl their legs close to their chest.

“Alright,” Minho says. “Alright, I won’t touch you. But you need to get out of this rain. There’s a café, right around the corner, I can buy you a coffee and you can sit inside and warm up a little. How does that sound?”

They don’t reply.

Minho swallows. “You’re real pale. I don’t know how long you’ve been out here, but you really need to get inside. I don’t know if you have a place to go, but please, just for now, let’s go inside. I’m really cold, too.” Still nothing.

“I’m not leaving until you get inside,” Minho says, and that grabs their attention.

“Why,” they—he—says, voice barely a croak. “Go away. Don’t need your help.”

“You very much need someone’s help,” Minho says. “I just happen to be the one that found you.”

“I don’t want to be found,” he says. “I want to be left alone.”

“You’ll die.”

He barks a laugh. “Yeah. I know.”

“Unfortunately for you,” Minho says. “I am very good at keeping people from dying.”

The man sucks in a breath and then immediately smacks both his hands over his nose and mouth and doubles over, then curls away from Minho, trembling so bad Minho can see his knees wobble.

“Please let me help you,” Minho says.

“You need to go,” he says. “Go, just go, it—it’s not safe here—you need to—”

“I’m not going—”

Anywhere, is what Minho tries to say, reaching out once more for the man. What he doesn’t expect is for the man to drop his hands and whip around, grabbing Minho’s arm and biting him.

“Ow?” Minho says, trying to pull his arm away to no avail. For a sickly little thing, the guy is strong. “What the hell—”

Almost as soon as Minho starts tugging harder, the man seems to realize that he’s sinking his teeth into Minho’s arm and drops him as if scalded.

“No,” he whimpers. “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean—”

Minho examines the wound in what little light there is in the alleyway. Most of the bite is angry red indents from his lower jaw, but on the upper side, there is a nick in his skin and a pinprick of blood, smeared by the next raindrop that falls on Minho’s arm. It isn’t a severe wound at all, but there is a slight trail of blood from the nick, running light with rainwater.

“You got some teeth on you,” Minho says. “Most bites don’t draw blood and trust me; I’ve worked the pediatric ward. We get a lot of bites.”

He looks back at the guy, back to clamping his hands over his face. Minho can see the glint of his eyes under his bangs. Sad, wet eyes. “You’re really in trouble, aren’t you?” Minho says.

“Just go,” the man says, voice muffled under his hands. “It’s better for everyone if I die.”

“We take in people like you every day,” Minho says. “No one has to know who you are.”

“People like—god, I fucking hope not,” the guy says, a half-laugh. “Send me to the fucking hospital, sure, yeah. That’s a death sentence in itself; you think she wouldn’t kill me if I were to go to a hospital? I’d be dead before you could call an ambulance.”

“You kill someone?” Minho asks.

The man goes quiet. “No,” he says. “That’s the problem.”

“Stop being such a drama queen,” Minho says.

“A—pardon?”

Minho rolls his eyes. “Your life is being threatened by someone who wants you to kill another person and your response is to lie in garbage until you die? Give me a break.”

“You don’t understand,” he says. “It’s not like that—I have to—”

“You don’t have to do anything,” Minho says. “That’s the beauty of free will. So if you want to die, or kill someone, or whatever, you can do that. Fine. But not until you’re out of this rain and have stopped shivering.”

“I can’t move,” the man admits quietly. “I’m beyond half-starved. Please…just a few more hours and either I’ll die or she’ll put me out of my misery. Please.”

“There’s a Burger King right around the corner, I can—”

“Please,” he sobs. “I can smell it on you. Please let me die without hurting someone.”

Minho stills. “This?” he says, holding up his forearm. “It’s barely a scrape, look—”

And then the man lets out that same whine-sob-whimper and throws himself at Minho, knocking him backwards and falling across his chest. Minho tenses, ready to fight, but the man doesn’t attack him. He grabs Minho’s arm, the cut, and pulls it towards his mouth. Minho watches him latch onto his wrist, feels the slightest prickle of pain as he gnaws at the tiny cut to widen it, then sucks weakly at the wound, whimpering when only the slightest stream of blood comes out.

Is this some kind of joke? Minho wants to ask. He watches for three heartbeats longer, waiting to see if this guy would spit Minho’s blood out. Minho’s bit his tongue before. He goes to the dentist. The coppery taste of blood in even small amounts is enough to make him nauseous. He waits for this stranger to have the same, human reaction.

But the man is so thin and so small. He weighs nothing on Minho’s chest and even holding Minho’s wrist, the earlier strength is nowhere to be found. He clutches helplessly at Minho’s hand and with his other hand, scratches lightly at his forearm, almost pawing at him. He's alternating gnawing at Minho's cut and lapping and sucking noisily at the wound. Minho thinks about it.

No. That’s the problem.

I’m beyond half-starved.

Please let me die without hurting anyone.

Minho pushes himself up and the stranger curls into his lap, chasing Minho’s arm with a whine when he moves it too much. Minho reaches out to his head, but pauses. Does he really want an answer? Does he really want this answer? Is he prepared to deal with the consequences of being right? If he believes this man, he could push him off and he would die before morning. Minho could pass this experience off as a fever dream. It would take a few months but the guilt would fade. He could move on with his life.

The stranger is crying.

Minho knows, because the rain has slowed to a slight irritation and no longer drenching them. And yet, water continues to bead in the corner of this man’s eyes and fall down his cheeks. He’s squeezing them shut, but Minho can see the tear trails and hear his wet sniffles.

He tried to warn me.

These tears were Minho’s fault. If nothing else, Minho was responsible for the tears in this man’s eyes, and no matter what the answer was to the question Minho didn’t want to ask, he at least owed this kind stranger the kindness of not letting him die in this stinking alleyway.

Minho knots his fingers in the man’s hair and pulls him away from his arm. The stranger cries out like a kitten being tugged from its mother, and opens a bloody mouth to reveal twin pointed canines, no longer than a human’s canines, but sharpened to an unnatural point—too dull to cause trauma but sharp enough to break skin.

“Yeah,” Minho says, letting the man go back to lapping at his arm. “Okay.”

Well, they never really taught Minho how to deal with dying vampires in nursing school, but he imagines it can’t be that much different from a malnourished or dehydrated patient. First step is getting fluids into them, intravenously if they are…too weak to do it themselves or too far gone. This man is both.

“Okay,” Minho says. “Okay, I can do this.”

He calls a taxi even this close to home because he’s pretty sure hauling this guy’s limp body to his apartment is going to get the cops called on him. Especially if the guy is trying to bite his wrist. The tough part, Minho suspects, is going to be getting him to give up that wrist.

“Hey,” Minho says. “What’s your name?”

The guy doesn’t look up at first, so Minho tucks his hair behind his ear and thumbs at the tears in the corner of his eye. “Hey,” he prompts again in a soft voice, leaning in. “What’s your name, hm?”

The guy doesn’t look up immediately at this either, but Minho can feel him detaching slowly from his arm. He leans away with trembling lips and doesn’t look at Minho. “Chr—Chan,” he says. “I’m…Chan.”

“Just Chan?” Minho asks.

He nods. “My clan name was…Bang. But that’s not my clan anymore.” His breath flutters against Minho’s throbbing wrist. “Just Chan.”

“Okay,” Minho says. “I called us a taxi, okay, Chan? No, no—don’t freak out.” Chan doesn’t relax from where he had flinched and tensed at ‘taxi’ so Minho hurries to say, “Just to my place. No hospital. No police. No mystery person trying to kill you, and no you trying to kill anyone. Just a warm, dry apartment with too many books.”

“I don’t wanna go,” Chan says.

“You are…incredibly stubborn,” Minho says. “But tough shit. You’re going. Better to die there when you’re warm and dry and unbothered than surrounded by trash and freezing to death.”

“Okay,” Chan agrees. “If I can die there, I’ll go.”

“Good,” Minho says. “You can’t…in the taxi, you can’t—”

“I know.”

“Is that okay?”

Chan looks him in the eyes for the first time. “Why are you helping me?” he asks.

Minho purses his lips in fake thoughtfulness. “I guess you’ll have to stay alive to find out.”

Chan’s shoulders slump and he kind of crumples into Minho’s chest. “Ass,” he mumbles into Minho’s scrubs.

He wasn’t lying about not being able to move, though. Chan puts all his weight against Minho and his knees give out the first few times they try to stand up. He’s also freezing, which is sucking the heat and energy from Minho and making his teeth chatter. When he finally gets Chan to his feet and the taxi arrives, Minho can only stumble-drag Chan to the alleyway entrance, hoping it comes off more as ‘my friend is so fucking wasted he can’t even see’ and not ‘I drugged this man and am taking him back to my lair.’

“I don’t drive gang members,” the cabby says stiffly when Minho shoves Chan into the backseat. It’s bullshit, so Minho ignores it and gives him the address.

“I don’t drive gang members,” the cabby says again.

“Are you—are you fucking serious?” Minho asks. “He’s not a gang member; he’s about to fucking pass out. My apartment is literally two blocks from here, will you fucking drive?”

“He’s messed up,” the cabby says. “Ain’t seen anyone but gang members that—”

“I am a motherfucking nurse,” Minho says. “And I swear to Jesus in heaven that if you do not drive this car to my apartment, I will become a gang member, right here and now.”

The cabby grumbles but takes the address this time and Minho pushes Chan’s hair out of his face. He’s back to chewing on his fingers, and now, in the light of the main street, Minho can see how his fangs stick out a little more than the others. He’s trembling again. Minho swallows.

The cabby overcharges them, but Minho doesn’t care, just throws the bills at him and flips him off as soon as he’s hauled Chan out of the taxi. He drags Chan to the front of his apartment building, enters the code, drags him into the elevator, drags him off the elevator, punches in the code to his apartment and finally shuts and locks the door after setting Chan on the couch. Minho double checks all three locks. When he turns around again, Chan has passed out.

“Right,” Minho says, putting his hands on his hips. “Well, here goes nothing.”

Chapter Text

Minho manages to finish texting Felix before the dizziness starts to really get to him. He hangs his head between his legs and waits for the world to stop spinning. It’s not that bad—he’s only lost a pint and a half—but he’s still sluggish and staring at a bright phone screen isn’t doing any favors for his nausea. Minho sits up once he swallows a few times. He uncaps the energy drink on the table next to him and sips at it as he surveys his kitchenette, covered in blood.

I’m not getting the deposit back on this place, Minho thinks.

In his defense he’s pretty sure there’s no nurse out there who has siphoned blood directly out of their own arm and into an IV bag that they then set up as a drip into their very pale, very pulseless patient in the comfort of their own home. Or discomfort. Minho isn’t really comfortable seeing his blood drying and oxidizing on every linoleum surface and some fabric surfaces as well.

He’s also not sure if draining himself of his own vital fluids is actually going to help Chan, seeing as his heart isn’t beating (probably not Minho’s fault) and he hasn’t woken after passing out on Minho’s couch. Minho has twelve tabs open onto vampire mythology on his laptop that he can barely read through his tired haze, but he doesn’t want to fall asleep before Chan wakes up. Partially because he’s Chan’s sole caretaker if anything goes wrong and partially because after skimming these websites, he’s not sure he should be asleep around a predator of which his species is the sole prey.

He supposes he could clean up the kitchen or something, but it’s actually kind of badass, having a kitchen splattered in blood. In some kind of sick way that Minho would have appreciated more as a little kid. Also, if he tries to clean it all he’ll definitely pass out. He can’t read anything because he’s dizzy, can’t listen to anything because vampire, and can’t watch anything because he doesn’t own a television and he spilled wine on his laptop and broke the speakers.

He decides he’ll just stare at a wall or something until he figures something to do and doesn’t even remember falling asleep.

Minho wakes to an onslaught of shaking that has him jolting upright. He startles Chan back a step and once Minho assesses that no, he isn’t being attacked, he glances out the window to see the warm reds of—he looks at the clock on his stove—seven in the evening?

Minho groans and leans back. “Fuck,” he says. He had finished with Chan around 8 AM…and promptly passed the fuck out for eleven hours. So much for staying awake and keeping an eye on his patient. At least Felix wouldn’t be over until eleven and Minho has time for his brain to come online before he has to lie to his best friend. Oof, that does not feel good.

“What?” Minho asks, because Chan is quivering like a leaf and staring at Minho with huge, haunted eyes, his hands fisted in Minho’s too-big grey wool sweater. Minho doesn’t have time for games. He has a headache and he’s going to be recovering blood cells and slinking around his apartment sluggishly for the next few days and he’s not happy about it.

Chan’s throat bobs. “The…blood,” he says in a tiny voice. “It’s everywhere—I hurt you—I don’t remem…I’m sorry…I…”

Minho looks at the kitchen, then at Chan. “What?” he says again, furrowing his eyebrows. “You attacked—dude, you passed out as soon as I put you on the couch.”

Chan’s shaking stills. “You mean I didn’t…? But there’s so much blood…”

Minho makes a face at his nasty kitchen. It’s mostly on the counter, dripping down the laminate cabinet to the floor in a puddle that was dragged around by Minho’s wet, socked feet and then soaking up in a dishrag, still discarded on the floor along with his socks. A few flecks on the sink and the sink knobs, and a handprint on one of the upper cabinets because Minho hadn’t been thinking when he fumbled for the paper towels.

“There’s no sign of a struggle,” Minho says. “Have you never seen Dexter? Criminal Minds? Any crime show where they analyze blood stains?”

“Blood makes me feel queasy,” Chan says.

“Wow...that’s rough, buddy,” Minho says. “Anyway, there’s no splatter, just a puddle and a bunch tracked around the kitchen because I’ve never actually siphoned blood from myself, you know. Usually it’s the patients getting stabbed, not me. And I know my veins are terrible.”

“Then I—” Chan starts.

“You laid there with your mouth hanging open and not breathing—which is freaky, by the way,” Minho informs him. “I’m actually thrilled to see that my half-assed idea worked and that you’re still alive. Kind of.”

“Oh,” Chan says. “Yeah, I guess that’s kind of weird.”

There is an awkward pause.

“Do you want to help me clean the kitchen after I check you over?” Minho asks.

“God, shit, yeah,” Chan says, dragging a hand back through his hair. “Yeah, of course I’ll help.”

Minho sits Chan back on the couch. He’s through with the blood Minho gave him, so Minho pulls out the IV and wraps it up in a plastic supermarket bag, tossing it to the side. Chan tracks it with his eyes.

“How did you manage to set up an IV?” Chan asks, gesturing to the pole Minho had hung the bag of blood up on. “This stuff isn’t just lying around.”

“I’m a nurse,” Minho deadpans. “You wouldn’t believe the amount of useless shit I’ve acquired, both from the hospital and from well-meaning friends and family members. Like, ‘you look at stethoscopes and gauze all day, Minho, I bet I know what you’d like! More fucking stethoscopes and gauze.’”

Minho pauses. “Also my best friend is a kleptomaniac. He occasionally swipes the good prescription shit from the geriatric ward but for the most part I get on his ass about only stealing redundant supplies that he then passes onto me like a little asshole.”

Chan blinks. “Your name is Minho?”

“Oh, right,” Minho says. “Yeah, Lee Minho. Nice to meet you when we’re both dry and sane. You off your white knight suicidal complex?”

“Um.” Chan colors. Then shrugs.

“You’re not you when you’re hungry,” Minho deadpans in a deep voice.

“Dude, shut up,” Chan groans, leaning back into the cushions. “Do you know how much I miss Snickers?”

“Just like, suck a diabetic off.”

Chan twists his face. “Oh my god. That is so fucked up on so many levels.”

“Excuse me for not knowing about the intricacies of vampire culture,” Minho says. “I am but a mere mortal.”

Chan’s face falls a little. “Yeah, well. It’s better that way.”

Minho knows a sign not to pry when he sees one. He goes to check Chan’s pulse on instinct and feels like a dumbass when he gets no reading. “How the fuck am I even supposed to tell if you’re healthy? Do you breathe? Salivate? Sweat? Shit? Sleep?”

“Uh,” Chan says.

“Answer all of those,” Minho says. “In order.”

“Um, okay,” Chan says. “I do breathe…I guess? I have lungs. I don’t need to. Ji—I was told it helps to appear normal by keeping up the habit. And I need to in order to speak. But I don’t have to.”

“Right, speaking,” Minho says. “But checking for pulse and breath…no good. Okay.”

“Salivate and sweat…um. I definitely salivate but I don’t…think I sweat. I’m not sure.”

“Okay…”

“I’m not answering the next one.”

Minho throws his hands up. “Tell me if you shit! You drink only blood, how am I supposed to know if you piss or shit or both?”

“Minho-ssi, please,” Chan whines. “C’mon man, this is so embarrassing.”

“I’m your nurse.”

“I never asked you to be…”

“Tell me,” Minho says, “or I’ll…cry.”

“You’ll cry,” Chan deadpans.

“Oh yeah,” Minho says. “I’m a big crier. Lots of fake tears and wailing. You may be dead but I don’t think you’ll survive me throwing a tantrum.”

“Jesus, fine,” Chan grumbles. “Your bedside manner is terrible.”

“It is when I’m off the clock,” Minho says. “Pay me if you want me to use my customer service voice on you.”

Chan sighs. “We don’t do either, really. Occasionally I’ll have to shit, but first my gut kind of hurts and then I’ll eat some bones and pass the waste from that and the blood as shit. There, you happy?”

“Wait, what?” Minho says, alarmed. “You eat bones?” There hadn’t been anything about vampires eating bones on mythopedia.org.

“Yeah,” Chan says. “Extra and different nutrients to keep us strong. Need to eat ‘em once a week or so. Every two weeks at the very least.”

“That’s…terrifying.”

Chan shrugs. “I just picked through the dumpsters outside my favorite fried chicken place. At least I can still taste it.”

Oh. Not human bones. Minho can breathe again.

“I’m supposed to be eating a human corpse once a month but I can’t do that.”

“What in the fuck,” Minho says. “How were you going to get a human corpse? Pretty sure cemeteries are guarded from trespassers and a lot of people cremate…”

Chan smiles wryly. “Yeah, but fortunately there are ten million people living in Seoul.”

Right. Predator and prey dynamics. Picking at corpses had Minho thinking vulture or hyena, but vampires weren’t scavengers.

“First year biology didn’t teach me much about vampires, sorry,” Minho jokes.

“It’s okay,” Chan says. “I’ll die before I hurt a human.”

He says it in the same way he said it’s better for everyone if I die. And now Minho starts to get it. A predator who refuses to hunt is a dead predator. And a vampire who hunts is a monster. It’s honorable, in some fucked up way that Minho didn’t think starving one’s self could be honorable. But it also sucks and it’s balls. Minho sees a lot of shitty, shitty situations and people that can’t be saved, so to write off this lively, kind man as a lost cause feels like he’s saying every difficult case that passes through the ER doors is doomed to die. And Minho can’t accept that.

“You can eat animal bones, right?” Minho asks. “What about animal blood?”

Chan nods. “Yeah. That’s what I’ve been living off of so far. I was supposed to hunt a human with the—yeah. I was supposed to hunt a human. But I couldn’t do it. I threw up a lot.”

“I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that you’re not telling me everything,” Minho says. Chan flinches. “No, it’s okay. I’m still just a stranger. I’m just trying to come up with a treatment plan for you, Chan-ssi. That’s all.”

“Chan-ssi sounds weird,” Chan says softly. “You saved my life.”

“Chan-ah?” Minho suggests.

Chan nods and smiles a little. His eyes crinkle slightly and he has a dimple on only one side that makes Minho’s heart squeeze when Chan adds onto that, “Okay, hyung.”

“You’re okay then?” Minho asks. “I have to rely on your judgment to start.”

Chan nods again. “I think so. I feel really rested and refreshed. I think…because that was my first human…um.”

“Oh,” Minho says. “Oh.” And then, “Shit!”

Minho covers his mouth with both his hands. “Oh, god, I didn’t even think—are you—is that okay? I know you were dying but you’re like, a vampire vegan or something—”

“Yeah,” Chan says. “I, uh, didn’t want to bring it up because it’s kind of awkward—”

“—I totally broke your moral code—”

“—you couldn’t have known—”

“—ask about allergies and dietary restrictions, Minho, that’s like day two of nursing school—”

“—I mean, I kind of went for your arm and everything—”

They look at each other and then Minho starts smiling and Chan starts smiling and then they’re both covering their mouths and giggling and Minho watches the full stretch of Chan’s smile deepen his dimple and scrunch his eyes into catlike half-moons. Minho sees the tiny points of Chan’s fangs amongst bright white teeth as he lowers his hand. Mean little devils, those things were, but pretty. And attached to the sweetest vegan vampire Minho could conceive. He hadn’t thought it before, but now, Minho might just be able to fall asleep without fearing for his life tonight.

“Should we clean the kitchen?” Minho asks, and Chan nods vigorously.

Minho whips out the bleach for this job, along with two pairs of rubber gloves and some shitty scrubby brushes and sponges he saved for this exact occasion. Well. For a too-messy-to-recover-from situation. Although Minho had imagined something like a period accident on his already shitty couch or Felix puking everywhere on New Year’s or having to clean up Felix’s boyfriend’s body if he dared to do Felix wrong.

Kidding about the last one. Kind of.

Chan winces at the smell of bleach and proceeds to whine about it the entire time they clean, which is how Minho learns vampires have a superhuman sense of smell. He also cracks one of the tiles on the counter while trying to scrub Minho’s blood out of the grout, which is how Minho learns vampires have superhuman strength. And he dodges the bloodied paper towel Minho tosses at him to make him squeal, which is how he learns about the reflexes.

Minho thinks that when he inevitably gives in and becomes a vampire blogger, his first suggestion will be to have your acquired vampire deep clean your kitchen. It’s a quick and easy way to assess all their superhuman abilities and it means you don’t have to do chores. People blog about their pets and eating weird shit, right? Minho can write about his pet eating weird shit.

“Well,” Chan says, once they’ve rounded up all the paper towels and bloodied-beyond-saving cleaning tools and discarded the sweaty rubber gloves, “I really don’t know how to thank you for everything you’ve done for me. I hope this can be enough.”

Minho waves a hand. “Don’t mind it.”

Chan kind of swings his arms and rocks back on his heels. “So…do you have my clothes?”

Minho makes a face. “Are you kidding me? They smelled like piss and wet garbage. I threw them away immediately.”

“But I can’t take your clothing,” Chan says, pouting. “You’ve already been too kind to me.”

“You’re wearing my clothes right now,” Minho points out. “Lost cause.”

“Yeah, but,” Chan insists, as Minho gathers up the garbage bags.

“But nothing,” Minho says. “Just help me with laundry and you can use my clothes. I practically live in scrubs anyway.”

“It’s a little late to be doing laundry, don’t you think?” Chan asks.

“What? Yeah. I mean when I next do laundry.”

“Um…so…you’re going to let me stay the night…?”

Minho stops what he’s doing to look at Chan with furrowed brows. “Yes? Obviously? Where else were you going to stay?”

Chan clutches at Minho’s sweater and looks gutted. Minho stares at him for a moment longer, backtracks, and then realizes what he’d just implied. “Oh, fuck.”

“Hyung…” Chan says softly.

“No, that was really bad, I’m so sorry,” Minho says. “That was so rude. Just—just seeing you out there on the street, I thought you had no one—”

“I don’t,” Chan says quickly. “I don’t, please, hyung, don’t make me beg—”

Minho’s pulse quickens when he sees Chan’s shoulders tense and pull together. “You should go home, Chan-ah, I’m sorry that I said that to y—”

“Please,” Chan whimpers. “Please don’t kick me out.”

Tears bead in the corner of his eyes and Minho feels hysterical. He has no idea why Chan is crying, other than Minho implying he is homeless and friendless with nowhere to go, but now he’s just confused. He’s not sure if he should pull Chan into his arms or pat him on the back, so he just stands there with his palms out and says, “I…have no idea what is going on right now.”

“I’ll leave if you want me to,” Chan says, wiping at his eyes with the heel of his hand and not meeting Minho’s eyes. “I’m sure it’s disgusting and scary, staying with a man-eater. You don’t have to let me stay the night.”

Minho swallows. “Don’t you have somewhere to go? Someone who misses you?”

Chan shakes his head. “I can’t go back to my family or anyone I know. They think I’m dead.” He closes his eyes. “I can’t go back to…she abandoned me. I can’t go back there either. I don’t have anywhere.” He looks up at Minho, eyes hollow. “I’ll die soon, but please, for tonight—”

“Stay,” Minho says. Chan swallows.

“It’s okay,” Minho says. “I’m not scared of you. And I’m not going to let you die. In fact—” And now, finally, Minho knows what to do. “In fact, as your nurse, I’m ordering you to stay under my care and supervision. For your own health, both mental and physical. Until I’m sure that you kick this suicidal white knight complex and you’re strong and healthy for a dead person, you’re stuck with me. Tough.”

“Hyung…” Chan says.

“Don’t argue with your medical advisor,” Minho says.

“Okay,” Chan says. He smiles faintly, but it’s better than that hollow look. “I’ll listen to hyungie.”

Minho nods, satisfied. But— “Don’t call me ‘hyungie.’”

“I thought you liked it?”

“It’s gross.”

“So are you.”

“Wow. Real mature.”

“Seriously,” Chan says. “Thank you. I really…don’t know how I’m going to make it up to you yet. But I’ll find a way, I swear I will.”

“Start by doing the chores and cooking,” Minho jokes.

“Okay.” Chan agrees without hesitation.

Minho sputters. “Dude, don’t take my jokes seriously or I really will make you do it.”

“You saved my life once,” Chan says. “Or whatever this next life is. And you continue to save me. I’ll do anything you want me to.”

He looks so sincere when he says it, big grey doe eyes looking into Minho’s with such intensity, it was as if he thought he could express the sincerity of his feelings with eye contact alone. His hands still fisted in Minho’s sweater. Messy hair falling in his face.

As a kid, Minho had always wanted a little brother he could bully the way his older brother bullied him. And as an adult, Minho had always wanted a cat or some other animal that could fend for itself and be harassed into cuddles and entertaining Minho when he was lonely. With Chan, he got a little of both.

“Hmm,” Minho says, stroking his chin. “Well, I haven’t had a good blowjob in quite a while, so you could always—”

Chan pegs Minho in the stomach with one of his shitty decorative pillows and it actually kind of hurts. “Shut up!” Chan says while laughing.

Minho smiles. He’s cool. Chan’s pretty cool.

Chapter Text

“You just…want me to leave the bags here?”

Felix’s voice is muffled through Minho’s door. It’s not hard to play the exhausted, sickly part when an hour and a half of cleaning on top of blood loss has left Minho wiped. He makes sure to let his voice fall into a rasp that breaks in places. “Yeah,” he says. “I don’t want you catching this shit.”

Chan, sitting on Minho’s couch with his legs drawn up to his chest, tilts his head to the side at Felix’s voice. He’s wise enough to the precarious nature of his situation to stay quiet.

Outside, Felix shuffles his feet. “I don’t know, hyung,” he says. “I’m not sure I feel comfortable leaving without looking you over. Have you seen a doctor yet?”

Curse Felix’s infallible instinct to care for and heal. “I’m going first thing tomorrow. I just want to rest tonight.”

“Not the hospital in Itaewon, right? They just got smacked with a class-action lawsuit for patient negligence.”

Minho presses his forehead to the door. “No, not the one in Itaewon.” He wracks his brain for an adequate alibi. “There’s a small urgent care center a couple stops north of here. I was just going to stop in there.”

“You have pneumonia! You need to go to a hospital!”

“I do not.” Minho jumps when he feels the tickle of breath on the back of his neck, the tops of his shoulders rippling with goosebumps. A glance over his shoulder shows Chan mouthing ‘sorry, sorry!’ He must have gotten up at some point but damn, Minho hadn’t heard him move at all. Chan hovers over Minho’s shoulder, sniffing the air. “I, uh…” Minho forces himself to focus. “I don’t want to crowd up the emergency room, especially when there are people who need more help than I do. You said it yourself; I never get sick. I’ll fight it off better than a kid or someone older.”

He hears Felix sigh noisily, giving in to his reasoning. “Are you sure I can’t at least take your vitals?”

“No, Felix,” Minho says. “You want to expose the entire nursing staff to this?”

Felix grumbles.

“I’ll let you know as soon as I start feeling better,” Minho promises.

“You better,” Felix warns. “And I’ll be coming by to pick up my grocery bags. And to replenish your produce. Call me if you need anything. Get better…or else. Love you. Goodbye.” He stomps off in what is definitely a huff. Minho will not be hearing the end of this.

“Who’s that?” Chan asks.

“That,” Minho says, “is my best friend, and also the most aggressively loving human on the planet.”

“He smells nice,” Chan says. “Soapy and clean.”

“His boyfriend is really into self-care,” Minho says. “Saved Felix from living like a disgusting bachelor, who in turn fixed me.”

“Hm…you could still use some work.”

Minho shoots him a grin. “Wow, you’re a little bastard when you’re feeling better.”

Chan shrugs, coy.

“Alright,” Minho says. “Let’s see if my boy pulled through.” He opens the door to two fabric grocery bags and a third freezer bag, all stacked to the top with produce and soup mixes and health drinks. “Bless you, Felix,” Minho sighs with a smile. He grabs two of the bags, Chan picking up the third and closing the door behind him.

Minho sorts through the groceries while Chan watches, leaning his hip against the counter and mapping where everything goes. “This’ll keep us set for a while,” Minho says as he unpacks. “I took the rest of the week off of work to recover from the blood loss and also to get you settled. What’s most important is getting you set up in an environment that will help you recover.” Minho looks at Chan. “You’ll take my bed.”

As expected, Chan opens his mouth to protest immediately. “I can’t—”

“Yes, yes you can,” Minho interrupts him. “And you’re going to. Sleeping on that couch isn’t going to hurt my back any more than it’s already damaged. You’re my patient.”

“You’re hurt too,” Chan points out sulkily.

“All I have to do is sleep and grow blood cells,” Minho says. “I have no idea what’s wrong with you, so you take priority. If it makes you feel better, I will nap in my bed when you’re awake.”

Chan looks put out, but accepts the compromise with a nod.

“Now,” Minho says, kicking the freezer door closed. “We have another order of business.” He pats Chan on the shoulder as he passes, and Chan trails after him to the little kitchen table. Minho flips open the notepad on the table and uncaps a pen. They both sit down.

“I understand there are things you aren’t comfortable discussing with me,” Minho says. Chan’s eyes fall to his hands, folded on the table, and his lips curl downwards. “But I need to know the basics. You need blood and you need bones—that’s all I know. I read up on vampire mythos while you were sleeping; everything from Nosferatu to Twilight, okay? There’s a lot of conflicting material. I need in on the ‘need to know’ stuff.”

“Okay,” Chan says. “I don’t know everything, but I can tell you what I do know.”

No breath, no pulse, limited bodily functions—Minho knew that. To Chan’s knowledge, however, other than those oddities, the vampiric body worked much like the human body, only deriving the necessary nutrients from blood and bone as opposed to traditional food. He needed sleep. He wasn’t weak to garlic—that myth had surfaced from a human who evaded predation by hiding in a spice shed and disguising their scent. They had coincidentally been behind a curtain of garlic that made the vampire recoil at the strong scent, hence the story. Seeds did not distract them; they did not need to be invited in. More wishful thinking. Chan would also be fine wandering outside in the daytime.

“It’s easier to hunt at night,” Chan explains. “You can hide in shadows and stuff. Less people around. Cover of night also hides our fangs and eyes and skin. It’s just more practical, so we became nocturnal.”

“That…actually makes perfect sense,” Minho says.

Of course they had the heightened senses, superhuman strength, agility, reflexes. The vulnerability to blessed items and weapons was true. They were not so strong that they were invulnerable to weapons that were not blessed, but blessed weapons made their skin melt and greatly retarded their healing ability. Only machine guns or other vampires would be powerful enough to cause severe damage. The myth of stakes had come from stakes made of the wood of churches or crosses that marked graves—both blessed objects.

Minho didn’t ask for the specifics of vampire vulnerability but Chan tells him anyway. He supposes this is Chan’s way of coming to him with his palms held open and head bowed. Vampires were incredible monsters, but Chan would not live under Minho’s roof without evening the playing field. Minho has no intention of using any of this knowledge against his patient, but he appreciates the gesture nonetheless.

“What about that stuff about turning into bats?” Minho asks. “That’s got to be crazy talk, right?”

To his surprise, Chan looks away from him, his shoulders tensing. “I don’t know anything about that,” he says quietly. “I was not told.”

Minho is deathly curious, but he has already committed to not pushing up against Chan’s walls. He moves on. “Okay, then final topic—diet. I order fried chicken fairly regularly; would the bones of one chicken, once a week meet your requirements?”

Chan meets his eyes again and nods.

“Now, the blood…”

“No human blood,” Chan says quickly.

“Right,” Minho says. “How often do you need to refill the tank?”

Chan hums. “I was draining animals every other day before you found me, but that’s because they’re not as nutritious as humans. I’ll probably be set for a little under a week with the transfusion, but after that it’ll have to be a full meal every other day…”

“So, a lot of blood,” Minho surmises.

“Um,” Chan says. “Yeah.”

A lot of blood. Minho taps the pen against his cheek. He’s actually glad that Chan doesn’t take human blood—Minho isn’t sure he could sneak blood away from the hospital that frequently. Nor does he want to, considering the shortage of blood for transfusions. But that still leaves the question of where to get a few gallons of blood every week.

“Where the hell did you get so much blood from in the first place?” Minho asks.

“We were provided animals to practice hunting,” Chan says hesitantly.

Minho doesn’t know who has that kind of money or the connections to procure live animals for Chan and possible others every other day for as long as Chan has been a vampire. He has a sneaking suspicion that they have significantly more wealth and power than an ER nurse being paid minimum. He will have to go about this the peasant way.

“Well, Chan-ah,” Minho says, “looks like we’re going shopping tomorrow, so get some sleep. This is bound to be…interesting.”

---XXX---

Minho has seen plenty of trash daytime television growing up. There’s the good stuff, the variety shows, and then there’s the programs of wardrobe makeovers and interventions and now with era of Netflix, Tidying Up with Marie Kondo and Queer Eye. And yes, maybe he is begrudgingly drawn to a well-executed before-and-after cinematic shot. But now Minho thinks he’s really starting to understand why Tan does what he does. Dressing Chan—well, it’s just kind of fun.

Chan is up before Minho, and he wakes to the smell of his temperamental coffee maker come to life and coughed out some sludge that is being wafted beneath his nose in a mug stamped with his hospital’s logo. Surprisingly, when he puts his mouth to the tar-like lifeblood, it is neither tar-like nor does it taste like an ashtray. Minho manages to pull his eyes open enough to eye the soft brown of the coffee, tempered with milk and sugar and tasting like…coffee. He slurps at it, perplexed.

“I didn’t know the old girl still had it in her,” Minho rasps.

“With a little bit of tough love, everything works,” Chan says, settling next to Minho. “The coffee grounds you had opened were like…hardened together…”

“Yeah,” Minho says. “I just kind of chip at ‘em.”

“How are you alive?” Chan cries. “Anyway, since that thought would never occur to normal people, I threw that shit out and opened a package I found at the back of your pantry. You’re welcome.”

He ends his story by flopping against Minho’s side petulantly, hugging a pillow to his chest. Eyes finally open and in the light streaming through Minho’s sliding glass balcony door, he realizes just how pale Chan is. His skin isn’t the same warm tones of humans, light as they may be, but an ashen color with dark veins visible through his almost paper-thin skin. Not the same blue and purple of Minho’s veins. Chan’s were black all the way through. And when he picks at his teeth, lip curled, the length and points of his canines are just unnatural enough to notice.

So, Minho gets to play dress up.

Chan is already freezing to the touch and doesn’t seem to mind the hoard of sweaters and coats Minho unearths from his closet. He throws black pants and boots at Chan, then fishes out an orangey-brown turtleneck and stuffs that into his arms as well, along with a beige overcoat.

“Put all this on,” Minho orders, grabbing his own day clothes and shuffling out of his bedroom.

Once they are both dressed, Minho helps Chan pull gloves on and hook a black facemask over his ears. He considers slapping a beanie on Chan. Or a cap. Something to draw attention away from his grey eyes, more silvery now that he’s looking perky.

“Am I human-passing yet?” Chan jokes from behind his mask, eyes crinkling into sleepy half-moons.

His cheeks are still too pale, but Minho fluffs Chan’s dark bangs into his face to cover his forehead and hide his eyes better. He really should throw a hat of some kind on Chan.

But at the same time, Chan looks—dare he say it—fashionable. The heavy coat hides how malnourished his body is, but Chan’s face has a very elegant, almost European structure to it. He looks foreign and well-to-do, like an actor from LA or something. The mask covers full lips and a strong nose, only the bridge of it and the angular shape of his face visible. And yet, Minho can tell he’s handsome.

“How does he do it?” Minho wonders aloud with mock-awe. “Is it designer? Is it makeup? Or is it…the undead?”

Chan rolls his eyes good-naturedly, clearly smiling beneath the mask.

“You look good,” Minho says. “I would really like to milk my fashion sense for a few more minutes, but honestly I think you’re just handsome.”

“Aw,” Chan says. “Thank you.”

“Death looks good on you, Chan-ah.”

“Ah, well,” Chan says, shrugging one shoulder and winking. “If only you had seen me when I was alive.”

“Alright,” Minho says. “I’ll put an end to this flirting. We have a whole district to terrorize.” He slips his own mask on and pulls a baseball cap snugly on his head. “Let’s knock ‘em dead. Hopefully not literally.”

Minho’s instincts tell him a bigger shopping center is a better bet for not getting caught. The center he’s most familiar with is a district over, which means longer on the subway. He’s not thrilled about pressing in with strangers with Chan in tow, but they don’t exactly have a choice. He’s surprised when Chan pulls out his own T-money card, then feels a pang of guilt. It’s not like Chan is thousands of years old or anything. He was human once, too. It’s perfectly natural for him to have a card and knowledge of the Seoul subway system. Wait.

“Hold on,” Minho says, stopping Chan once they pass through the gates. “How old are you anyway?”

“Huh? Oh,” Chan says. “I was born in ’97.”

Minho hesitates. “…1997?”

“Yes,” Chan says, laughing. “Do I really look a hundred years old to you?”

“Just checking, just checking,” Minho says, holding his hands up. “In that case, you can drop the ‘hyung’—I’m younger than you.”

“Really?” Chan’s eyes light up. “But you seem so competent…and mature…”

“That’s just you who isn’t, babe,” Minho says.

“Hey!” Chan protests.

Minho hooks an arm through his and pulls him along. “Come on, Channie-hyung. No use crying over it now.”

“Whatever you say, Minho-yah,” Chan sniffs. “Minmin. Minmin-ah. That’s your name now.”

“If you insist, Channie-hyungie-poo.”

“Ugh.”

They get caught in the morning rush and pressed against the door of the subway car, but Minho finds that this is more preferable than he had expected. Everyone keeps their eyes on their phones and this early, there are only two pairs of tourists ogling the commuters. Minho presses Chan’s back against the wall and boxes him in, keeping him hidden in case someone decides to get curious.

He wants to apologize to Chan for the close quarters, but Chan doesn’t seem bothered. He leans his head against Minho’s arm and smiles at him with his eyes. Minho wonders if this is part of some vampire lore Chan is keeping secret from him. Are all vampires so naturally charming? This is still, technically, a predator and prey relationship, but Minho feels relaxed as if he’s known Chan for years. He supposes it’s the skinship and helplessness throwing him off. He resolves to be more wary of Chan, but for the moment, cramped together on the green line, Minho allows his hip to brush Chan’s without concern.

They make one transfer and hop off at the stop directly beneath the shopping center. The two basement levels above the subway are the grocery stores and market, so Minho and Chan ride the escalator up one floor and start hunting for…whatever the hell it is they’re going to feed Chan with.

“Can you smell anything appetizing?” Minho asks doubtfully.

Chan tugs his mask down to uncover his nose, sniffing quietly at the air. He recoils almost immediately, hissing.

“What? What?” Minho asks.

“So much,” Chan complains, tugging the mask back over his nose. “Too many scents. Everything smells weird or plastic or dead and rotting. Or human.” He shuffles his feet. “The humans smell nice.”

“That won’t do,” Minho says. “Maybe if we get closer to the meat?”

Chan nods. Minho takes the corner of his elbow to guide him, and Chan obediently stays glued to his side as they make their way towards the deli.

Chan seems more interested when they reach the packaged meats. They have everything from ground beef to whole hunks of pork leg—there has to be something Chan can eat here. Minho looks at the prices and flinches, but Chan is sniffing the air again, picking up a steak to smell the packaging. He wrinkles his nose even as he sniffs harder at it.

“Well?” Minho asks.

“It’s dead,” Chan says softly. “It’s been dead for a long time, and there are all sorts of chemicals in it.”

“No good?”

Chan gives it one more sniff, then shakes his head. “No,” he says. “I’ll be sick if I eat that. Even if we blended it up and strained the blood out, it would be hardly enough to consider a meal. I don’t have the money to buy four of these a week and I don’t think you do either.”

“You’d be correct,” Minho admits. He sighs. Chan leans against him and sighs as well. “Can you eat fish?” Minho wonders aloud.

Chan shakes his head sadly. “The further away from plain old blood it is, the sicker I’ll be.”

“I just don’t know where we’re going to find wholesale animal blood,” Minho says. “It’s not like they just stock bagged animal blood in supermarkets.”

“Wait,” Chan says. “They might.”

Minho looks at him.

“Blood sausage soup,” Chan explains. “That calls for pork blood, doesn’t it? They have to sell it somewhere.”

Minho slaps himself on the forehead. “Of course,” he groans. “I was overthinking it. There’s plenty of frozen blood packaged for cooking.” He ruffles Chan’s hair. “Maybe you’re not so helpless, eh?”

Chan growls softly and it’s actually a little frightening when paired with narrowed, silvery eyes. Minho gets a little thrill down his spine. He lets his hand slide down to cup the back of Chan’s neck and Chan stops growling. “You’re really a top predator, aren’t you?” Minho muses. “You could kill everyone in this store on your own if you wanted to, couldn’t you?”

Chan’s eyes fall to his feet. “I wouldn’t,” he says.

“It’s kind of hot,” Minho says.

He can feel warmth rising to Chan’s neck and the tips of his ears go a little maroon (so there was color to him!). “You’re a horrible flirt,” Chan grumbles. “Let a guy breathe.”

“Sorry,” Minho says, withdrawing his hand and grinning, not at all sorry. “You’re so easily flustered. The dichotomy between what you are physically and what you are emotionally is really sweet—I don’t mean that in a flirtatious way. It’s just refreshing. You’re like Felix, before he started getting good at roasting me.”

“Thanks?”

“You’re welcome!” Minho says cheerfully. “On to frozen blood!”

Fortunately, Chan’s hunch is right and in the frozen section of the grocery are pints of both cow blood and pork blood. They’re not cheap either, but it’s better than the hunks of meat with little to them. At least these would sustain Chan for a couple weeks and weren’t so hard to come by in closer supermarkets. Of course, they look a little odd rolling up to the cashier with only cartons of blood, but Minho counts on the apathy of cashiers to work in his favor.

“You know,” she says, “if you need that much blood, you can just buy blood meal from the gardening department up one floor.”

Minho and Chan exchange glances.

As promised, when they make their way up a floor, the gardening corner of the marketplace sells three-kilo bags of blood meal for a much more affordable cost than the meat or the blood. Delighted, Minho picks up two and they head back down the escalators to the subway home.

“This is much better,” Minho says. “If we add water, they should rehydrate and provide a great way to extend the frozen blood.”

Chan eyes the blood meal bags skeptically. “I don’t know,” he says. “They still smell a little off.”

Minho claps him on the back. “Vegans can’t be choosers, man. But we’ll find a way to make it palatable. I don’t want your afterlife to suck any more than it has to.” He pauses. “Ha, suck.”

“Reconsidering my stance on human blood as we speak,” Chan says dryly.

They warm up a couple chunks of the frozen pork blood in one pot and rehydrate and heat a few hefty spoonfuls of the blood meal in another pot. Chan is definitely more inclined to the smell of the pork blood, but once the blood meal rehydrates and simmers a little, he seems less put off by it. Once they’re nice and warm, Chan does a taste test. As expected, the pork blood is a hit. Chan laps at the spoon and Minho laughs.

“Greedy,” he teases warmly. “Didn’t I just pump you full of my blood yesterday?”

Chan rumbles in his throat. “It’s yummy though…”

Minho sighs and allows him a few more greedy spoonfuls. It’s a little unnerving to watch Chan feed—even though the blood is there, liquid and accessible, Chan still bares his teeth when he slurps at the blood, teeth clacking against the metal of the spoon. With his lips pulled away from his canines and his teeth tinged red with blood, he’s intimidating. He rumbles in his throat with every sip, too. It seems almost unconscious, the noises and the teeth clattering.

“Alright,” Minho says. “I know you’re not thrilled about it, but at least try the blood meal.”

Chan wrinkles his nose but obediently dips his spoon in the pot and sips at the blood. He licks his lips and flicks his tongue over his teeth, considering. “…It’s not awful,” he relents. “Not especially tasty. Kind of flat in flavor and a dusty texture in my mouth. But I think you’re right—it could be mixed with the frozen blood and I could tolerate it.”

“Oh, thank god,” Minho sighs. “We have a way to feed your apparently voracious appetite.”

Chan withdraws his spoon where he had been trying to sneak it back into the pork blood pot. He looks at Minho with round eyes.

“Fine, fine,” Minho says. “You’re skinny enough as it is. I like seeing you with an appetite. But drink both of them.”

Minho heats up another cup of coffee while Chan mixes the blood pots together, sniffing appreciatively at the steam rising from the pot. As the coffee starts to drip into Minho’s mug, the smell of fresh coffee mixes with the smell of warm blood in the air. The result? Slightly unnerving. But not so bad that it bothers Minho. Chan pour the mixture of bloods into his own mug, one that says ‘DONATE’ in all caps around its circumference, that Minho had gotten the last time he gave blood. The curl of Chan’s lips as he takes a sip from the mug shows that he understands the irony. He holds Minho’s eyes as he drinks.

Who’s the flirt now? Minho thinks but doesn’t voice aloud. He’s pleased that Chan feels comfortable enough to be playful with him. It means he’s on the mend. Minho lifts up his coffee cup and they click their cups together. Minho can drink to that.

Chapter Text

Minho wakes to an air raid siren signaling his grudging return to the world of the working. He smacks at his phone, but in his sleep-addled haze he forgets that he is on his couch, not his bed, and he knocks his phone off the coffee table where it continues to blare, albeit slightly muted by carpet. Minho lets out a long groan.

Or he would, if his air supply wasn't being throttled by his dead weight cat, smugly napping on his chest and pulverizing his diaphragm. At least Minho isn't sweating to death or inhaling the fur that tickles his collarbones, but damn, he really needs to put this fat fuck on a diet. What kind of cat is so heavy that he can crush Minho's entire chest, abdomen, and legs? He pushes at his pet, whose name escapes him this early—late—whatever—after waking up, frowning when his palm mashes cool skin and clothing instead of fur. The cat growls low in his throat and Minho cracks an eye open.

Oh. Right. Not a cat. Person. Chan. Channie-hyung.

"Bro," Minho croaks. "I gotta get up." He can't see Chan's face through the fuzz of curly hair but he is answered by another grumbling growl. Minho scowls and shoves at him. "I gave you my bed, asshole. Get off my couch." Chan punches him in the arm in response. Rolling his eyes, Minho pushes off the couch, rolling them both onto the ground with a thud.

Chan's eyes pop open as he hits the ground, yowling when Minho's full weight lands on his stomach. Minho gives him a smug grin. "I was getting up," Chan gripes, glaring through bleary eyes.

"Go make coffee," Minho orders.

"Fuck you," Chan says, but he picks himself up and stumbles in the direction of the kitchen anyway. Once Minho hears the sound of coffee grounds hitting the filter, he drags himself to a sitting position and swipes at his alarm. His home screen shows a message from Felix reminding him about a subway station closure and a lot of exclamation points to prove how excited he is for Minho to come back to work. Minho cracks a genuine smile.

There's another message, Minho realizes as he flips on the bathroom light. He brushes his teeth and reads through what turns out to be a lunch invitation (Felix's treat) to the outdoor cafe Hyunjin frequents. Felix promises macarons, a toasted sandwich, and the choicest hospital gossip if Minho promises to leave the overprotective mother hen posturing at home. Hmm. A tough bargain. Personally, Minho thinks Hyunjin looks hot when he's on the verge of tears. He shares this thought with Felix, who texts back a very disappointed '>:C' within seconds. Minho spits in the sink. His loss.

Minho is three words into asking Felix if he can bring a plus one before he remembers that he was supposed to be out with pneumonia this past week, not recovering from blood loss and playing Switch with a vampire. His fingers freeze mid-word and he feels a sharp pang of guilt for lying to Felix, again. He reasons with himself that it's for Chan's safety, but he feels a different, unexpected pang of guilt towards Chan that he is considering going out and having fun with his friends when Chan is in this...situation. He could try to pass Chan off as an old friend who happened to be in town, but Felix knows all his friends, Chan is an untested actor, and once again not telling Felix the whole truth makes Minho feel insanely guilty.

"Your coffee is getting cold, bitch," Chan calls from the kitchen.

Minho resolves to at least clear the lunch date with one of the affected parties. "Hey," he says, padding into the kitchen and accepting the mug Chan offers him. "Would you be cool if I met a couple of my friends tomorrow after shift for lunch?"

Chan raises an eyebrow. "Yes? I don't run your life."

"Well," Minho says dumbly. "I didn't want to leave you alone here, or anything..."

Chan rolls his eyes but gives Minho a warm look. "That selfless attitude is gonna get you in trouble one day. I'm fine, Minho. Don't disrupt your whole damn life to accommodate me. I'm a big boy."

"Yeah, okay," Minho says, corner of his mouth turning up. "Emphasis on 'big.' All that blood going straight to your gut."

"A little birdie told me I was severely underweight," Chan says innocently, "then starts squawking when I obey orders to put on weight? Oh, the humanity."

Minho flicks him on the arm. "Only when the extra kilograms are crushing my lungs, asshole."

"Felix?" Chan asks, and it takes Minho a moment to remember how the conversation had started.

"Oh, yeah," he says. "Felix and his wannabe rapper boyfriend. I'm not supposed to make him cry this time."

"You make boys cry regularly?"

"Only on special occasions," Minho says. "And I don't care what Felix says; Hyunjin's a little sexy when he's teary and his bottom lip is quivering."

"Wow. Sicko."

Minho grins and elbows Chan in the ribs, disturbing his sip of vampire coffee (just add blood!). "Hey, don't be like that. I think you're sexy when you lose Cooking Mama and throw your joystick and swear. Super horny over it."

"I would almost be flattered," Chan says, "if I didn't know that you think it's hilarious to watch people fail at video games."

Minho's grin widens. "Did you know Felix has been playing Super Mario with me for five years and he still can't drift for shit? Highlight of my day."

Chan casts his eyes to the ceiling and inhales through his nose.

Minho takes that as his cue to leave, taking the coffee into his room and chugging it in between throwing on track pants and a T-shirt. His scrubs are already folded and laid out on his dresser. He finishes off his coffee and wiggles into a hoodie before shoving his scrubs in his bag and heading to the foyer. Chan meets him at the door, still barefoot and dressed in the grey tracksuit Minho takes out running. Chan takes Minho's mug from him, but not before pulling his hoodie strings tight and tying them in a bow.

"Thanks," Minho says dryly.

"'Course."

"You gonna be alright by yourself?" They had discussed this all yesterday, but now in the moment before leaving Chan unattended for the first time in a week, Minho feels nervous. "Not too cooped up or anything?"

"Aren't there lives that need saving?"

"Hyung."

Chan meets his eyes. "I've survived worse. Twelve hours by myself isn't going to kill me. Go on." He softens his words with a smile that crinkles his dimples.

Chan doesn't have a phone—left behind with his human life or something; Chan had been vague on the details—and Minho hadn't thought quick enough to buy him a little flip phone and prepaid SIM in case of emergency. The thought that Chan had no one to call if he got sick again, or if whoever was pursuing him found him makes Minho a little ill to contemplate, but seeing Chan standing strong, if a little hunched and tired, quiets Minho's worries a bit. A regular diet of "food" had seen Chan gain weight and energy, still too thin and sickly looking for Minho's comfort, but giving him confidence and presence where he had been curled in on himself in the gutter just a week ago. It occurs to Minho that even a vegan vampire might be scrappier than he was giving him credit for.

"I promise to only leave four panicked voicemails," Minho says, because he can't help himself.

"Yes, mother," Chan says with another eyeroll. "Go fuck bitches and get money, or whatever."

"Hyunjin's not really my type, but thanks for the support," Minho says, stepping out and closing the door on Chan's exasperated swear.

---XXX---

"Sumin-noona had her baby," Felix reports cheerfully in between bites of red bean ice cream.

"Really?" Minho knew she had gone to hospital the Thursday of the week before he found Chan, but he didn't know how far along she was. "Boy or girl?"

"She's not telling," Felix says, rolling his eyes. "Drama queen as usual. Sent the pictures to Chaeyoungie, though. Cute baby."

He passes his phone across the table to Minho, who makes the appropriate cooing noises over the newborn and their very tired looking coworker. The three of them are seated at an outdoor table on the porch of Hyunjin's favorite French-themed cafe, Hyunjin fighting with the big, leathery leaf of a potted banana tree brushing his shoulder. Basking in the sun and tucked away from the cutting wind on the main drag, they can almost pretend summer isn't on its last leg, giving way to the chill of autumn. Hyunjin and Minho have shed their jackets but Felix stubbornly keeps on his patch-covered jean jacket. Between them is a pot of jasmine tea and macarons that Hyunjin and Minho are splitting before their lunch arrives.

"Does Chaeyoung have an STD after all?" Minho asks, remembering the episode she had in the break room on Saturday.

Felix scowls. "No, she's clean. But that shithead partner of hers took off before she even got the results back. As in left town. Like, what the fuck? Who does that?" Felix spoons more ice cream into his mouth and talks around the little plastic spoon. "So we're pretty sure he has something to hide. Running theory is that he's married and ditched his wife and kid. Would account for the whole refusing-to-take-responsibility thing."

"Poor thing," Minho says.

"Don't feel too sorry," Hyunjin says. "She's throwing a mixer at her parents' place next weekend while they're in Ulsan. Theme is 'get drunk and hook up.'"

Minho groans. "I am too old for this. Truly."

"I was thinking of going," Felix says. "Free drinks?"

"Just come to my place," Minho says. "I need to make a dent in my liquor cabinet and I won't play Zimzalabim even once."

"Well I know that's not true," Felix says. "But having an anti-mixer where you show up with a date or you're not allowed in? Sounds good to me. Need me to get you a date, hyung?"

Minho realizes his mistake too late. "Shit."

Felix gives him a curious look, but Minho is saved from answering by the arrival of their food. He pays the sandwich far more attention than it deserves, still feeling the weight of Felix's eyes on him, but Hyunjin comes to his aid unexpectedly. "How are you recovering, Minho-ssi?"

"Kid, I don't actually hate you," Minho says, because he promised Felix he would be nice. "You can drop the honorific. But to answer your question, I'm fully recovered. Turns out it was a mild strain. And truth be told, there's not much my immune system can't beat the shit out of."

Hyunjin brightens a little. "That's good. Jikseu was really restless the first couple of days after you texted him. But you slept well the last couple nights, right? You went to bed before me."

"Yup," Felix says. "If hyung is good, I'm good."

"Spending the night quite a bit, aren't you, Hyunjin-ah?" Minho says, sipping at his tea and eyeing Hyunjin over the cup. Hyunjin chokes on a piece of lettuce and Felix closes his eyes.

"Um," Hyunjin says once he catches his breath. "Well. Not every night, just—"

"We are having lots of sex, thank you for asking, hyung," Felix interrupts. "And I stay over at his place. Bigger bed. Less squeaky."

The tactic works and Minho grumbles at being given that much detail. Instead, he gives Hyunjin's arm around the back of Felix's chair a withering glare, as if he could zap it with his eyes alone. Hyunjin tries very hard to look like an attractive twenty-something-boy who does not regularly have sex with his equally attractive boyfriend.

"So about that anti-mixer party," Felix starts.

"What was the date again?" Minho asks with fake nonchalance, fiddling with the lace edge of the tablecloth. "I have to double-check I don't have a doctor appointment that Friday."

"You just saw the doctor," Felix says, narrowing his eyes.

"Eye doctor," Minho says. "I might need reading glasses. Old age—you'll find out soon enough."

"Saturday then," Felix says breezily. "That way we're all free."

"Doesn't Hyunjin do underground shows on Saturday nights?"

"Not this weekend!" Hyunjin says cheerfully. "I'm taking the next two Saturdays off."

"Why?" Minho asks. "Moving in together?"

The diversion works so well Minho is afraid he might actually be right. Both Hyunjin and Felix go red, Hyunjin's mouth working around words he can't find, despite being a self-proclaimed good freestyle rapper. Felix makes a tiny, panicked noise in his throat. They look at Minho, then at each other, then at their food, then back at Minho.

"You are?" Minho asks.

"No," Felix says. "It's our anniversary next week. We're going to Fukushima for five days. Wednesday through the weekend."

"And after that?" Minho raises an expectant eyebrow.

Felix purses his lips. "...We are talking about it."

"My place is closer to the hospital," Hyunjin blurts out. "And Jikseu's landlord is raising the rent next year. He already stays over often, so..."

Minho sighs. "Well, if you need another hand to move Lix's hoard to your place, give me a call. I hope you have storage solutions."

Hyunjin perks up a little at the unspoken approval. "Thanks, hyung."

Felix is not as kind. "Why don't you want me setting you up with a date, Minho-hyung." Not a question.

Minho tries it anyway. "That's not it; it's just, at the moment my place is kind of—"

"Nice try," Felix says, "but I know that even on doctor-mandated bed rest you'd be scrubbing your apartment top to bottom so you don't go stir-crazy."

Urk. He's not even wrong. Minho had tidied and cleaned the entire apartment in between looking after Chan. Hyunjin, the usual suspect when it came to getting chewed out, sits up straighter in interest at this turn of events.

"Fine," Minho says. "I'm just not ready to see anyone right now."

"It's a date, not a marriage interview," Felix says. "You can't stomach one night with someone else?"

"Nope," Minho says.

"Then why, up until you got sick, were you always whining about your apartment being too quiet and struggling to get laid?" Felix asks. "What changed over the course of a week that you won't even hear me out? You usually like the people I hook you up with."

It's true that Felix has exceptional taste in men and women. And Minho has leaned on Felix in the past to set him up on a blind date since he refuses to use Tinder or its equivalents. But he can't exactly say 'sorry, I have a homeless, possibly friendless blood-sucking stray couch-surfing with me at the moment,' can he? "I'm just not feeling it right now."

"You might get laid."

"I can get laid whenever I want."

"Really?" Felix says. "Because you haven't held onto anyone for more than a few weeks since me."

Hyunjin winces and Minho blinks in surprise at the low blow. Felix realizes he's gone too far before he's even finished speaking. He sucks in a breath. "That was uncalled for, I'm sorry. I'm not accusing you of being hung up on me, I promise. I'm just worried about you living in that lonely apartment all by yourself. I got frustrated and that was unfair to say."

"It's okay," Minho says, and before Felix can protest, holds up a hand. "Really. I'm too surprised to be hurt. And I know you don't mean it like that anyway. You're my best friend."

Felix tries for a smile. "Always."

"I didn't know I had worried you that much," Minho says. "I'm sorry, too." He looks at Felix's gentle eyes and his soft hair falling into his face and Minho caves. "Okay," he says with a sigh. "I met someone."

Hyunjin and Felix make twin noises of surprise. They exchange glances.

"Not," Minho says, preempting the questions he knows are coming, "like that. It's not a romantic thing."

Felix quirks an eyebrow.

"Not a sexual thing either," Minho says.

"Well, that's boring," Hyunjin mutters. Felix, though, still looks intrigued.

"When and how did you meet this someone?" Felix asks. "It's gotta be a really new thing if you haven't told me about it yet."

"I don't have to tell you everything," Minho mutters, but gets two exasperated looks from his companions for his pointless posturing. "Fine, whatever, yeah. It's really new."

"But between the grueling schedule the past couple weeks and getting sick, I don't know how you had time to meet anyone," Felix muses. "Do you even go out to bars without being dragged anymore?"

"I told you it's not like th—"

"Right, right." Felix waves a hand dismissively. "Not romantic, not sexual. Yet, anyway." He ignores Minho's protest and talks over him. "But seriously...how'd you meet them?"

Minho groans. "Lucky accident? He was..." Minho purses his lips and goes for the simplest version of the truth. "He was hurt, and I let him crash on my couch for the night. We've stayed in contact since then."

Felix puts his chin in his hands. "Oh, it's like that, huh?" He smiles. "When?"

"Before I got sick," Minho says. Technically not a lie.

"And now that you're better..." Felix's smile gets sharper. Minho already doesn't like where this is going. "...You want to take some time to get to know this little hottie."

"I don't—hey! I never said he was hot."

"Is he?"

Minho glares at Felix's fake innocent doe eyes. "Yes."

"Only you would find such a cliche way to meet a bad boy," Felix says. "What is this, an anime? Did he get in a gang fight? Has he pushed you against a wall yet? Have you pushed him against a wall yet?"

"Not a sexual thing," Minho reminds him. Felix sips his tea. "I'm checking up on him to make sure he's on the mend; that's all. The guy doesn't seem to have a lot of friends so...I let him come over for meals and shit. We game together. Whatever. He's pretty chill."

"Gaming is just foreplay for bi guys," Hyunjin says and Felix chokes on his tea. Hyunjin meets Minho's glare with a knowing look. "Felix told me about that one time you changed the difficulty level so he would get really frustrated and lose and then you guys—"

"Went home!" Minho interrupts, remembering that day and the feeling of Felix's teeth on his neck very vividly. "Felix went home and I went to bed and nothing else happened, despite what you may have heard." Certainly no testing of an ex-high-school-gymnast's flexibility. That would be irresponsible after stuffing themselves with takeaway pho. "Keep bringing up the sexual exploits of me and your boyfriend and people will start to think you're fishing for a threesome."

Hyunjin suddenly finds his cuticles very interesting. Minho can feel the look of incredulity on his face. "You—"

"Ah, yes, the check!" Felix says. "Well, that should cover it all. We have an early start tomorrow, hyung, so why don't we get going? It was lovely talking to you and I promise to blow up your phone about this not-romantic-not-sexual friend of yours at my earliest convenience." He tugs Hyunjin to his feet, both of them pink, and Minho lets the question drop with a grin.

They see off Hyunjin first, and despite the onslaught of teasing, Hyunjin still bows politely before he leaves, his messenger bag sliding down and smacking him in the arm. He pulls Felix in by his belt loops and Minho looks away as they suck face. Felix pats him on the ass and Hyunjin jogs backwards through the subway gates, waving to both of them.

"He's cute," Minho relents as Felix leans into his side.

"He's a slut," Felix says with a sigh. "But then again so am I. Maybe we'll all hook up one day. He thinks you're dead sexy."

Minho laughs through his nose. He loops an arm around Felix's waist and Felix hums happily. "Missed you," Minho admits gruffly.

"Missed you too," Felix says. "Graveyard shift just isn't the same without your attitude. Boreul-noona is so depressing to work with." He pauses. "And about your boy—"

Minho sighs and Felix bumps him with his hip. "No jokes this time. I'm happy you found someone to hang out with outside of work. Not that I don't love having you around all the time, but now that Jinnie and I are really serious...I just worried you were getting lonely."

Minho nudges him back. "I'm okay. I'm glad you found someone who loves you that much. It's obvious he adores you."

"I love him," Felix says with a sigh. "Maybe that's naive of me, or something. I mean, it's only been a year. We're still pretty honeymoon phase. But that's why I think it would be good to move in. If it works, it works and then I'll know, y'know?"

"Yeah," Minho says. "My little Lix is so grown up."

"Don't worry," Felix says. "God gave me two hands. One to hold your hand, and the other to give Hyunjin a handjob."

"Fuck you," Minho says, pushing him away and laughing. Felix smiles sweetly, eyes crinkling in the corners. He takes Minho's hands and presses a kiss to Minho's cheek.

"Love you, hyung," he says.

"Love you too," Minho says. "Safe travels home."

---XXX---

Graveyard shift can't kill someone like Minho, who has been at this nursing business for the better half of a decade now, but there's something about leaving work as the sun is rising and feeling exhaustion all the way to his bone marrow that sucks the life out of Minho. A three-car pileup around six in the morning meant he had to work overtime two hours and the toll of losing two patients has him barely able to slog home. He considers just calling a cab, but his student loan payments are due in a couple days and although he would never admit it, he's pretty close to in the red since the Chan incident. He naps standing up on the subway, shaken into wakefulness at every stop.

When he finally manages to get through the door of his apartment, he very nearly bursts into tears at the smell of garlic and soy and braised beef. He stumbles into the kitchen to see Chan in a tank top and sweats flipping a wok full of bean sprouts and beef stir fry.

"Hey," Chan greets. "You're late."

"I love you," Minho cries.

"Uh, thanks," Chan says.

"Please tell me that will be ready soon," Minho begs.

"Sit down and I'll plate it," Chan says, smiling. "I made a salad originally, but you were so late I figured you'd want something more substantial."

"Both," Minho groans, melting into his chair. "Both sound fucking amazing. You're a god."

Chan hands him a plate of stir fry and Minho inhales it, halfway done before Chan can get the bowl of salad to him. Chan sits across from him and smiles into his vampire coffee.

"Not fair," Minho moans. "How can a dead person make better food than a living person?"

"This is literally the laziest college meal I could think of," Chan says, rolling his eyes. "You're just starving." His incisors flash around the edge of the mug, chewing softly at the rim as he drinks.

Minho nearly asks 'stay with me forever?' but catches himself. Not a very kind thing to joke about with a guy who doesn't have a home or family that Minho knows of. And not a very appropriate thing to ask someone who was, by Minho's own admission, not a romantic or sexual "thing." Instead, he nudges Chan's foot with his shoe. Gay, but he has to show his appreciation somehow. Chan smiles.

"You staying up?" Minho asks.

"Just for a bit," Chan says. "Started a new book and I'm not ready to put it down yet."

Minho nods sagely, stabbing at a bok choy leaf. "Understandable." With food in his stomach he's calmed down and feeling sleepy. "I'll be going on ahead, then."

"Take the bed back," Chan says. "I've already done laundry and swapped our blankets."

Minho wants to protest on principle, but Chan is looking sturdy and self-assured. Minho probably looks like hell with bags under his eyes and untamed stubble running wild. He knows he smells even if Chan politely puts his nose in his coffee instead of making a fuss. Minho lets out a long exhale. "Yeah. Alright. You win, Channie-hyung."

Minho finishes his salad and stands to collect dishes. He may be worn out, but at the very least he can do the dishes after Chan cooked so much for him. He motions for Chan's mug and Chan hands it over gratefully. As he stretches an arm out, Minho catches sight of something dark and jagged along Chan's side where the tank cut low. His stomach flips but he keeps his lips sealed and brings the dishes to the sink. His heart rate picks up a little. The hell was that?

"Minho?" Chan asks.

Shit. Vampire senses. No way Chan couldn't hear the change in his heart beat and the smell of worry. Minho places the dishes in the sink one by one, stalling. He said he'd mind his own business, but...

"...Minho?" Chan asks, softer, and Minho can hear that he's gotten a little closer.

"Your shirt," Minho says. "Shows a little more than I think you're comfortable revealing."

"What?"

Minho turns around and touches his own side where he had seen the dark shape on Chan's skin. Chan's too pale for the blood to rush from his face visibly, but he goes very still and clutches his side with wide eyes. "You saw it?"

"Not on purpose," Minho says. "Hyung..."

"Don't," Chan says, voice uneven.

Minho grits his teeth. "Do you know how hard it is to not ask about your past? I will take what you give to me without complaint because despite everything that has happened, we are still relative strangers and I respect your privacy. But that—" He stabs a finger at Chan's side and Chan flinches. "—that is very hard for me to stomach without knowing why."

"It's better for you not to know," Chan says quietly.

"Bullshit."

"It is," Chan says, eyes hardening. "It's for your own safety. Do you think all vampires are as harmless as I am?"

"This isn't about me," Minho says. "Someone hurt you."

"It healed."

"It was done with a blessed weapon," Minho says. "Wasn't it?"

Chan stares at him, shocked. "How could you—"

"You told me about your healing abilities," Minho says. "But holy weapons melt skin. So are you being hunted? Or did someone scar you as a reminder?"

Chan's expression goes flat. "Both," he says. "I told you vampires aren't very nice."

That gives Minho pause. Up until now he had been operating on the theory that maybe Chan was being pursued by vampire hunters. But Chan would probably have mentioned that in his briefing on vampire vulnerabilities—it didn't seem like information that would hurt Minho to have. If his own kind were hunting him, though... "Can I see it?" Minho asks.

"No," Chan says immediately. "There are more than just that one."

Minho resists the impulse to flinch. "Not to ogle them," he says. "To make sure they're healing. Are any of them open wounds?" He had been too concerned with Chan's malnourished state to check him for wounds that first night, and ever since Chan had quietly changed himself away from Minho's eyes. Minho hadn't thought anything of it.

Chan hesitates. "There's one."

"Can you show it to me without taking off your shirt?" Minho asks.

Chan hesitates again. "It will heal on its own eventually, so..."

Minho purses his lips. "Please let me clean it, at the very least. Please."

Chan's eyelashes flutter and he swallows. "Just the one."

Minho seats Chan on the couch and grabs his first aid kit and cotton balls. He kneels in front of a very pale Chan and sits back on his heels while he waits for Chan to work up the nerve to show him. Chan doesn't look at him. "Across the length of my abdomen," he says finally. "The edges have healed but it was...there might be some ointment on the wound, still. That's why it hasn't...and I can't..." He trails off.

"I understand," Minho says.

Chan mutely lifts the edge of his shirt to reveal only a sliver of his abdomen. Minho thins his lips and focuses in on only the massive black gash across above Chan's bellybutton. He reminds himself that Chan's blood is black and it's supposed to look like this. The edges are a grey-pink where new skin has formed, but unlike the smooth, almost white color of the rest of Chan's skin, the new skin is ashen and bumpy—scar tissue that even vampiric healing can't fix. The center of the wound is wet-looking and has a deep red sheen. Minho understands now why Chan only wore his black clothes and insisted on doing the laundry himself. He must have been dressing the wound on his own and silently removing the evidence all this time as well. The thought makes Minho murderous.

He bundles up his rage and shoves it low in his gut. With steady, gentle hands he wipes at the wound with antiseptic, cleaning it and making sure to remove as much of the wetness in the wound as possible. The blood is congealed enough that Minho can't tell what is blood and what is contaminant, so he has to swipe the wound thoroughly to ensure it will heal properly. It must hurt like a mother, but Chan keeps his jaw clenched and doesn't make a sound. When Minho is finished cleaning it, the wound looks less angry and bubbling and Minho is surrounded on all sides by wipes and cotton balls coated in red-black blood. He doesn't say anything about the stripes of scars that score Chan's hips and abdomen and lead up his chest, but Minho can use his imagination. "Is that the only one?" he asks.

"Yes," Chan says, and drops his shirt.

"Don't dress it," Minho says. "Let it breathe so it can fully heal." Chan nods jerkily and gets to his feet, Minho following suit. Chan steps away and Minho grabs his arm.

"Chan," he says softly.

"What's done is done," Chan says without looking at him. "You can't change it. All I can do is keep living."

Minho pulls Chan close to him and Chan goes without a fight. He flinches when Minho pulls him into an embrace, but relaxes a moment later. He doesn't hug Minho back, but Minho can feel Chan's cold fingertips on the sides of his thighs through his jeans. "You don't need to pity me, Minho," Chan says.

"That's the first time you said you would live," Minho says.

Chan startles. "It's just an expression," he says, but his palms press against Minho and he buries his face in Minho's shoulder. "It's just an expression."

"You won't die," Minho promises. "I won't let you."

Chan laughs weakly.

"If you want to tell me about them, I will always lend you an ear," Minho says. "If you never do, all I ask is that you let me clean you up when you get hurt. I won't look. I won't pry."

"Thank you," Chan whispers.

His arms come up to embrace Minho back.

Chapter Text

It's not exactly feeling like a doctor-patient relationship anymore, Minho thinks suddenly on Wednesday. He's on his lunch break at 9PM, chewing idly at a bibimbap bowl in the convenience store kitty corner to the hospital subway station. This thing with Chan—it's not not a doctor-patient relationship, but it's not as clinical or detached as one should be either. At the same time, he can't simply say they're friends. Chan cooks and cleans for him and lives on his couch. The discussion of what to do when Chan finally meets Minho's standards of 'healthy' hasn't come up yet, and neither of them seem keen to push it into conversation. Chan, because he probably doesn't have a plan, and Minho, because he's afraid Chan has no plan. From the outside, maybe it looks like they're dating. It's not like the constant cracking of dick-sucking jokes and casual 'I love you's and personal space invasion would do anything to discourage that image, even if it's inaccurate.

Roommates, Minho figures after a long sip of yakult. Just roommates. It would be easier to contemplate if he had Felix to bounce ideas off of, but Felix had taken off for Japan with Hyunjin this morning, leaving Minho stranded in his own thoughts. And like hell was he going to bring up his personal relationships with the rest of the gossip mill at work. The fewer the people who knew about Chan the better. Also Minho would never hear the end of it for finally showing interest in a person other than his best friend.

Truthfully, Minho hadn't felt so at ease with a person since Felix stopped spending the night. He's not unlikable—the opposite, rather—but the daily grind of work, eat, shit, sleep, and pay bills had left him feeling unfulfilled and lifeless before Chan. His coworkers could go out to bars after work and get into petty relationship drama but Minho couldn't really relate to that anymore. He had done it all, years ago, when he first graduated and started working full time at the ER. Nowadays, that lifestyle drains him and leaves him feeling exhausted, even hearing about it secondhand. He is lucky to have even-keel Felix and Hyunjin as company, but the too-quiet apartment had, as Felix suspected, started to get to him.

Minho can acknowledge that his handle of the Chan situation is abnormal. He should have run, or sunk into denial. Even if he could accept the existence of vampires, he should have been afraid and turned Chan over to someone else. Taking in and rehabilitating a creature he had, until two weeks ago, thought fictional was not the smartest or sanest decision. And if he's honest, Minho still feels like Chan is a bit of a fever dream.

But, if he's even more honest with himself, Minho can admit that he prefers the wild uncertainty, the devolution of the status quo that Chan has brought. Between the two—the fever dream of Chan's existence and the daze of daily life—Minho knows it's no competition which he prefers. Which is why he never brings up Chan's release and pretends not to see Chan avoiding the conversation. Yes, he worries about what will happen to Chan on his own, but another question weighs on his mind: what will I do once Chan is gone?

Minho groans and drops his forehead to the table, making the empty yakult bottle wobble. He closes his eyes. If he sits very still, maybe reality won't catch up with him.

Chaeyoung presses a cold drink to the back of his neck and he yelps. "Oppa, you can't sleep here," she says innocently. "We still have another five hours to go."

---XXX---

Minho is off work on Sunday, so Chan comes up with the idea of a movie night.

"I'll cook popcorn in the pan and we can order delivery," Chan wheedles. Minho has no idea why he's so determined to make this work, but it's amusing to say the least.

Minho pretends to be conflicted and hums. "I don't know, hyung..."

"You can order the garlic naan," Chan relents, grudgingly. Minho gapes at him and Chan turns his focus to the pan he is washing, bottom lip pouted. Chan never lets him order anything overtly garlicky. Too strong for his sensitive snout, or something. That he would give this much ground...

Minho stuffs his hands in the back pockets of Chan's saggy jeans and Chan rolls his eyes towards the ceiling, doing a poor job of fighting down a smile. "That's so sweet of you, baby," Minho coos into Chan's ear. "I can almost believe it's a selfless act." Chan reaches a sudsy hand around to grab Minho's cheeks and Minho darts back, laughing.

"I get to choose the movie," Chan says, raising an eyebrow in challenge.

"I am not sitting through Endgame again."

"Don't be ridiculous," Chan scoffs. "That would require more planning than pan popcorn and fast food."

Minho shivers at the implication.

"Pacific Rim Uprising," Chan says finally.

"You are such a guy," Minho says with a laugh.

"Oh yeah? And you didn't see it in theaters?"

"Of course I did," Minho says. "Twice. I'm not an animal. But I wouldn't sit through it a third time."

Chan flicks soap at him and this time he meets his target, the dead center of Minho's forehead. "Don't be a killjoy," Chan scolds. "It's Pacific-fucking-Rim. Even if it was nothing more than scenery shots with no dialogue for three hours it's worth sitting through a thousand times. Since when has something as minor as a predictably underwhelming sequel ever stopped anyone from giving their firstborn for the franchise?"

He's got a point there.

Still, Minho is a sore enough loser to put in two orders of garlic naan with his tikka masala. Chan protests by sticking toilet paper up his nose and scowling at Minho even as he flips the popcorn kernels. Minho queues up the movie without protest and lifts one end of his super fuzzy blanket as an olive branch when Chan pads into the living room. Chan accepts, curling against his side and letting out a pleased hum at Minho's body heat. The popcorn bowl is placed in neutral territory on the coffee table. Score.

"I don't really remember the plot to be honest," Chan says. "Aside from Charlie Day going apeshit."

"Eh, me neither," Minho admits. "Let's just assume it'll be epic, 'kay?"

"'Kay," Chan agrees.

Minho plays difficult to rile Chan up more than anything and in all honesty, has no complaints with his choice. It's thrilling and shallowly immersive the way most CG-heavy action movies are, absorbing Minho's attention until past the halfway mark, where he starts to remember all the reveals and final plot points and his interest wanes. Chan, however, pays rapt attention to John Boyega and company's twists in fate as if it were the first time. Which allows Minho the freedom to observe Chan.

He's cute. Not in the way Minho usually means, when Felix flips through the Tinder profile he created for Minho and shows him a guy that looks a little too young or soft for Minho's taste, but literally cute. Chan stares at the television with wide eyes, the corner of Minho's blanket migrated upwards and held between Chan's lips. He worries the seam of the blanket between supernatural incisors, fingertips curled around the edge. He looks profoundly childish with a blanket in his mouth and the strong bow of his upper lip softening the masculine shape of his face. It's a ridiculous dichotomy that has Minho sucking in his own lips to keep from laughing.

Well, whatever. Chan can keep his reversal charms. It buoys Minho's heart to see Chan comfortable enough to let his humanity slip out. He thinks maybe he'll write down the little Chan quirks on a pad of paper or on that vampire-keeping blog he never started, so that when the time comes and he has to let Chan go, he can offer him something to remind him that even after death, he is very much human.

The train of thought from Wednesday returns to him. Is it weird to leave Chan with something like that? It feels intimate and strangely vulnerable to admit that he has been paying careful attention and documenting the strange creature that is his patient-roommate-friend. Did you know you bob your head and hum when you read something you didn't know? You start your reading time moving your finger across the lines on the page. And over the course of the evening you slip further and further down the couch until you fall asleep. You put cups away upside down when I used to put them away facing up. I let you get away with it because I like seeing a physical trail of where you've been. I know you try on my jackets because of the creases you leave in the sleeves. I let you get away with that, too.

Minho feels a dull throb in his gut and this time he does laugh, softly and through his nose. It's covered up by the sound of a Jaeger smashing through a building onscreen. Some fucking resolve he had. It had been what, a week and change since he told Felix this wasn't a sex thing?

It's not, though. Minho never consider imposing something as heavy as sexual desire on a patient with nowhere else to go; like, how unprofessional and fucked up would that be? It's nothing more than a fleeting thought, a passing interest. Minho is bisexual, Minho has had trouble keeping a steady hookup recently, and Chan is pretty darn close to Minho's type in men. They got on like a house on fire; who wouldn't wonder about sleeping with such an acquaintance, even if for a moment?

Minho likes the look of Chan's mouth and the broad set to his shoulders. He doesn't mind slighter men—Felix can attest to that—but it's been a while since he's been in such close quarters with someone as sturdy as Chan. In the end, Minho is still just a horny animal. And given the whole undernourished-vampire-debacle-and-ensuing-living-situation combined with grueling work hours, Minho hasn't found much free time to beat off. It's the sexual frustration making him like this, making him imagine what it would be like to touch Chan's fangs with his tongue. How Chan's lips would give under the pressure of Minho's teeth.

And whether or not he had a nice dick. Fuck it all to hell; Minho doesn't care if he's stereotyping himself—he wants to know! If only he had the forethought to take a peek when he changed Chan's clothes the first night. Alas, too busy saving a life.

Thinking about Chan's dick cheers Minho up and with great irony quiets his thoughts about fucking him. Difficult to get hard when his attention is torn between kaiju guts and Schrodinger's magnum dong. Or it would be, if Chan wasn't cuddling with such intensity. Somewhere in the middle of Minho's self-reflection, Chan had nestled closer to Minho, pillowing his cheek on Minho's shoulder. He's still transfixed by the movie but subtly rubbing his cheek and jaw across the top of Minho's bare arm. His stubble prickles at both the surface of Minho's skin and beneath it, making it hard to focus on anything but the sensation. He keeps accidentally brushing his wrist over the top of Minho's forearm and his hair tickles the underside of Minho's neck. If Chan was anyone else—in any other situation—Minho would think he was being propositioned. But Chan's eyes are still on the movie and the blanket is still between his teeth.

By the time the credits roll, Minho is in a state of complete confusion and mild arousal, Chan has captured his arm, and he has a killer garlic burp just begging to be released into Chan's face. Which he does. Chan releases him instantly with some choice swears and conveniently covering up his kind-of-hard cock by scaring Chan from the room.

"You are so nasty," Chan calls from the bathroom.

"You got no idea, man," Minho says, and allows himself the guilty satisfaction of enjoying the double meaning.

---XXX---

It's payback for—well, everything, Minho thinks when he wakes up in his dark bedroom and can't move a muscle. The fruitless internal strain against a body that won't move sends a bolt of fear down his spine before he calms down and remembers, right. He has sleep paralysis sometimes.

He should really leave his eyes shut and try to slip back under. Nothing good comes from opening his eyes and facing whatever monster his subconscious has scrapped together from too many long shifts at the ER with other people's blood staining his scrubs. What will it be tonight? Arms barely attached? Eyes falling out of their sockets? The echoes of a death rattle, right next to his ear? He should keep his eyes closed and let the night terror pass, but the claustrophobia of being trapped in the coffin of his own body makes Minho snap his eyes open and face the dream demon.

At first, he thinks he's lucked out. There's nothing crawling on his ceiling or sitting at the foot of his bed. No sound but the dull rumble of the building heater and traffic outside his window. He relaxes. The familiar sounds lull him into a comfortable state of internal quiet that allows him to hear the sound of steady breathing on the other side of his pillow.

Minho's blood freezes. He can't turn his head to see who—what—it is that is lying next to him. All the hairs on his arm stand up and he wants to bolt out of bed, throw open the door to his apartment and run, but he can't. All he can do is listen to the steady, slightly ragged breathing of the creature at his side.

He knows it is a predator. The knowledge is fixed in his consciousness by his survival instinct. The breathing, the dip in the bed, the pressure of this creature's presence can only be predatory. And Minho cannot run, hide, or fight. He is going to die, probably painfully, at the hands of this monstrous thing enjoying his internal struggle.

No, Minho begs in his head as the creature shifts against his covers. No, no, no.

He feels its breath ghost over cold, sweat-soaked skin.

Please—make it fast.

Its shadow passes over his arm and Minho squeezes his eyes closed.

A long moment passes but Minho doesn't slip back under. The creature's steady breathing mixed with Minho's feverish pants sounds like an air raid siren in his ears. He wants to fall back asleep desperately, but he's already asleep, isn't he? He has no choice but to face this. He opens his eyes.

Two silver irises tear into him, pinpricks in an otherwise shadowy and hulking figure. The creature looks alien and malevolent, its wide, unblinking eyes drinking in Minho's paralyzed figure below. He feels faint with fear. A bus passes outside, momentarily lighting up his room and revealing the shadow creature. Minho's fear pales for a moment because—Chan?

It looked like Chan. His curly hair, his noble nose. His fangs.

The breathing is replaced by a low hum and fear pierces Minho anew. This isn't his Chan. This is a nightmare creature; what vampires are supposed to be, in Minho's mind. The kind of monster he had conjured on that first night after going through as many websites as he could find. A fearsome and cold man-eater.

Chan leans in towards Minho and Minho shrinks back beneath his own skin. His insides churn in an attempt to escape the silver pupils coming closer and closer. The humming increases in volume and Minho realizes it's coming from Shadow Chan himself, vibrating through his throat and over Minho's damp skin. He can feel Shadow Chan's breath quickening against his neck. He wants to writhe away from what is to follow, but he can't escape the attack.

Shadow Chan latches onto Minho's neck and bites down hard enough for Minho to feel every point of his teeth like the steel jaws of a trap closing around him. The humming increases. Chan's mouth works at Minho's neck, not yet breaking the skin but teasing him, tenderizing the prey before it is devoured. It hurts. Minho has been bitten by lovers before, but not like this. The killing intent rolls off Shadow Chan in waves, each bite at Minho's neck a test. Hunting for the sweetest artery to snip. How best to keep Minho alive to feverishly pump blood into Shadow Chan's mouth after tearing his throat open. Would it be better to drain him slowly and drag out the kill, or make it quick and explosively gory?

Shadow Chan runs a too-sharp fang over Minho's Adam's apple and his breath whistles sharply, turning into a tiny, pathetic keen of terror. The sound makes Shadow Chan whip his head around to grab the front of Minho's throat in his jaws and clamp down hard. Maybe with the intent to silence, but Minho only lets out a more drawn out whine in between tiny whistling breaths. The humming increases yet again as Shadow Chan sucks at Minho's skin. The rumble vibrates against Minho's throat and he understands that it isn’t humming—it’s purring. He's enjoying himself. The more Minho cries out, the more satisfied the dream demon becomes.

But he can only play for so long. Shadow Chan's jaw tenses. He releases Minho only to bite down once more, hard enough for the four points of his incisors to break skin and send warm blood pouring from Minho's throat. He passes out instantly.

---XXX---

Minho wakes the next morning covered in dry sweat. He's a little surprised he woke up at all. It takes wandering, specter-like, to the bathroom to check that no, there were no imprints of teeth on his neck, for him to accept that it was just a dream. A horrible, realistic sleep paralysis dream like he had never experienced before, but still just a dream. A quick moment of self-reflection makes Minho conclude that unresolved guilt over how he thought of Chan last night led to a dream of self-punishment. Kind of pathetic, really. And even more pathetic is that it's not his first time having such an unpleasant, self-flagellating dream. The week after he and Felix first fought had been rough.

Still, he can't stop himself from touching his throat as he goes through his morning routine. Making sure it's still there, not spewing blood like a fucking fire hydrant as he had dreamed before passing out again. Fortunately, it stays in place the whole morning.

Minho feels guilty for jumping at Chan appearing in the doorway of his bedroom, but in his defense, Chan could move silent as a motherfucker when he felt like it. Chan's still rubbing at his eyes and doesn't comment on Minho's flinch. "Need me to make coffee?" he asks, voice thick with sleep.

"Nah," Minho says. "I'm gonna get breakfast at the cafe a block down from the hospital."

"Mmkay," Chan agrees easily.

Minho smiles wryly. "You look worse than I feel."

"Do I?" Chan only has one eye open. "Didn't sleep well, I guess."

"Makes two of us, brother. Take my bed if you want."

Chan nods and yawns. Minho copies him.

"I'll be back before dinner, god willing," Minho says. "Prayers for an easy day."

Chan wordlessly presses his palms together and Minho laughs. He rubs a hand through Chan's hair, and the contact relieves the last of the tension in his body. This was his Chan. Sleepy and peaceful and thoughtful, even when barely awake. Minho's heart calms. "See ya."

Chan hangs on the doorway as Minho leaves, but like always, gives Minho his full attention to see him off properly. He waits until Minho turns his back and opens the door. He waits until the lock chimes and slides into place. He waits until he can no longer hear the sound of Minho's footfalls in the stairwell.

It's only once he is sure Minho is gone and not coming back for a forgotten transit card or sunglasses that Chan allows himself to sink to his knees on the floor, hugging himself so tightly that his nails leave ugly indents in his pale skin.

He lets out a single shaky breath and says in a whisper: "Fuck."

Chapter Text

I'm losing my faith
I'm losing it all
Just give me a chance before...
Where's the blood? Where's the blood? Where 's the blood?
Chariots — Paper Route

The first time Chan catches his shoulder on the corner of the kitchen archway, losing his balance and stumbling against the raised bartop counter, Minho laughs. It's three in the afternoon but the blinds of his living room window are drawn—a clear sign Chan had been sleeping up until Minho returned and Chan stumbled out to greet him like a clumsy, over-sized puppy. Chan shakes his head, bemused, and straightens up, offering Minho a bashful smile and laugh of his own.

Minho flicks him on the forehead. "It's sweet that you run to greet me and all, but don't go knocking down my apartment walls, okay?"

"Yeah," Chan says with another laugh. "I guess the switch in schedule is still messing with my internal clock. I'm so sleepy."

Chan had elected to map his sleeping schedule three hours off of Minho's, giving them plenty of overlap to spend time together, but also leaving each other a block of time to themselves. Minho's new schedule took him off of night shift for a couple months and both of them were still zombies in the morning, struggling to adjust. Minho can't blame Chan for spending a day snoozing. He sucks his lips in trying not to laugh when Chan bypasses the coffeemaker altogether to paw at the door of the fridge and make for the smoothie bottle of blood mix. He pops the cap with a thumb and upturns the bottle, guzzling the mix like a starving man. Thirsting man? Jury's out on that one.

A dribble of mix spills from the corner of Chan's lips, running down his chin, and Minho snorts. "Hey, guts. You're making a mess, man. Plenty where that came from."

Chan lets the bottle go with a pop and rubs the back of his hand across his chin. For a moment he still seems out of it, lips parted and tongue running the points of his incisors, but then he gives Minho a pained look. "Ugh, my stomach hurts."

"That's what you get for chugging it," Minho says with a good-natured eyeroll. "Pull up Youtube; I'll be there in a sec."

"New Bad Movies and a Beat?"

"Oh yeah. Too many people yelling at work today. I need that instant serotonin."

---XXX---

The second time it happens, Minho is on Kakao, working with their shift manager to get the new hire's hours set up when Chan stumbles. He has his headphones on, hoping that Park Jihoon's 360 will make this conversation less excruciating (it isn't), but he hears the sound of crashing even with the volume turned up high. Frowning and glancing over his shoulder, Minho texts Give me a minute before dropping his phone and tearing his headphones off. "Hey, everything okay?" he calls out into the apartment.

Chan is in the kitchen again, one cup of coffee safely steaming on the countertop, and the other shattered in a brilliant Jackson Pollock of ceramic chips and hot water. The coffee creeps along the linoleum, lurid red shining through the brown of coffee grounds. Minho eyes Chan's hands but he's unscathed, more shocked by the incident than anything else. "You good?" Minho asks again, and Chan jolts.

"S-sorry," he says, linking his fingers behind the back of his head and pulling on his neck. "I don't know—I just lost my grip all of a sudden."

"It's cool," Minho says, waving a hand. "I have a million mugs for a reason. Can't tell you how many I've shattered after coming back from a night out with Felix."

"I'll clean it up," Chan says, still sounding a little guilty.

"Yeah, sure," Minho says. "Seriously, it's not a big deal." He grabs the intact cup, creamer still billowing up from the bottom, and takes a loud, purposeful sip. "The important one made it out alive."

Chan laughs and Minho walks back to the couch, leaving Chan to look at his hands with a funny, puzzled smile.

The next day, Chan's leg catches on the edge of the couch and he takes a terrific tumble. He can't open a jar of olives. He keys the apartment code wrong three times in a row. He always looks tired when Minho comes home, though he manages to perk up when they play games or go out for noraebang. It takes a week and a half of this behavior for Minho to finally break down and ask, "You know...you seem really out of it lately. Are you doing okay?"

Minho doesn't want to pry. Even if Chan is his friend and Chan is sharing his apartment, Minho shouldn't breathe down his neck like an overprotective parent. He wants to give Chan freedom and independence, as much as possible. This means handling his own health and personal difficulties too, while Minho remains in reach in the case Chan needs help. It makes Minho feel like he's rearing an injured animal to be released back into the wild, and in a way, he is. Chan has to recover mentally as well as physically before he can leave Minho's care. He has to feel confident in tackling life without a chaperone and manage problems as they arise. That's why Minho left him alone. But to have it go on this long...

"Oh," Chan says. "Yeah, I'm okay. Just kind of drowsy. I haven't been sleeping great."

"Couch finally getting to you?" Minho's tone is light but he's serious.

"Not...really?" Chan bites at his pinky nail. "I mean, I don't sleep much better on your bed. Actually...I sleep worse." The look in his eyes darkens momentarily before he shakes his head and shrugs a shoulder. "Well, I had pretty bad insomnia when I was alive. This is par for the course."

"I wonder if—I mean your physiology is different, but maybe some sleep aids could still—"

"Minho, hey." Minho meets Chan's warm eyes. "It's okay. You don't need to worry."

Minho lets out a breath and nods. He'll trust Chan's judgment.

---XXX---

They make a supermarket run that Friday night to restock on pork blood. Chan was going through the mixes faster now—a good sign, Minho would have thought, if not for the worrying signs of fatigue plaguing Chan. But Chan perked up every time they got newer stock. Minho hadn't told Chan yet, but he planned to give Chan this crop of blood straight, in the hopes that it might revitalize him. That being said, Chan seems well enough as they tap through the subway gates. He's humming a little earworm and sticking close to Minho's side, dressed in all black athletics wear and hood pulled over his mess of curls. He meets Minho's eyes and bobs his head in time to the song. Minho lets out an amused breath through his nose and hooks his arm through Chan's.

They slide into the supermarket forty minutes before closing, making a beeline for the frozen foods and packing as many tubs of blood into their cart as they think they can carry. Chan gives the cart a decent push and hops up on the edge, riding the cart to the intersection of aisles where he nearly collides with an ahjussi who gives him the stink eye. Chan bows at the waist and Minho cuffs him, pulling up his hood when it slips down. They pay and pack the tubs into canvas grocery bags without incident. Walking ahead of Minho, Chan makes up a little song to BTS's Spring Day: it looks so good, I'll heat it up; and eat it all, you can't stop me; I want to eat, I want to—

The toe of Chan's trainers catch on the sidewalk and he takes a stumbling step, pausing in song and going completely still for a moment before the bags fall from his hands and he keels over, stumbling several steps sideways and crashing against the wall of a building.

Minho puts his own bags down and rushes to Chan's side, hooking arms under his shoulders and lowering him to the ground, murmuring, "Hey, hey, easy there; easy." Chan sits on the suspiciously damp ground, legs splayed apart, that funny little smile fixed on his face again.

"Oh," Chan says. "That's not... What happened?"

"You tripped and nearly fell over," Minho says gently. "We're a block from the subway station. I caught you before you could collapse. How are you feeling? Dizzy, nauseated; any numbness or tingling?"

Chan tilts his head to the side, looking past Minho. "Dizzy...yeah, a little bit of that I guess. Mostly I'm just tired. So, so tired. Can I close my eyes for a couple minutes, Minho?"

Minho clamps down on the frightful blossom of adrenaline in his chest because he is a goddamn professional. "No, I don't think it's a good idea to fall asleep right now, Channie-hyung. Let's wait until we get home, okay? Can you do that for me?"

Chan furrows his brows for a moment, thinking. "Yes?" He sounds less than sure.

"Okay," Minho says. "I'm going to collect our groceries, alright? I'll be right back, and then I'll call us a taxi."

Chan blinks.

"Okay?" Minho says more firmly.

"Okay," Chan says in a soft voice.

Minho gathers his bags and shuffles over to where Chan's fell. One bag is fine, but in the other, one of the tubs split and has spilled thawing blood all over the bag and other tubs. Minho doesn't have time to salvage it. He splits the intact tubs between the three bags and tosses the ruined bag and split tub in a dumpster down the nearest alley. He gathers the three bags and waddles back to Chan's side. When he swipes open his phone to call the taxi, his thumb slides blood across the screen.

Crouched against the wall of a building, the smell of blood and sewage clogging his nose and Chan collapsed at his side, Minho is blindsided by the memory of the night they met. It turns his stomach and sours the feeling he had had earlier, that maybe just pumping some more fluids into Chan would fix him, like they did last time. What kind of treatment plan was this? Could he really call himself an ER nurse? He kept people breathing with his own hands; held organs in body cavities—but he couldn't keep a single undernourished patient from relapsing? The gap in knowledge of human bodies and vampire bodies, of medical school and nursing school, looms before Minho as a yawning chasm instead of the crack in the sidewalk he had naively believed it to be.

God, he really is an imbecile.

"Do you think you can stand if I help you to your feet?" Minho asks woodenly. "You only have to make it to the taxi."

Chan turns his head to look at Minho, eyes unfocused. "I...can try?"

Minho takes the roiling self-hatred and packs it tightly into a ball, shoving it deep, deep inside him. He doesn't have time to be a failure. He stands, taking Chan's hands and helping him inch up the wall until he's standing, if braced against a wall. Minho loops one of Chan's arms around his neck and holds him by the waist. "Let's try a step." Chan manages one step forward, but when he tries to take another, his knees shake and he goes weak against Minho. "Okay," Minho says, crushing the impulse to scream. He half-walks, half-drags Chan to the gutter and sits him down before fetching their bags.

"Sorry," Chan says in a tiny voice, and Minho's heart splinters.

He cards his fingers through Chan's hair to disguise the trembling and pushes the side of Chan's face into his thigh. "Make it up to me by staying awake, okay?" Minho asks softly. Chan hums an assent.

Once again, Minho finds himself hoping the driver assumes Chan is too drunk to function, which Chan helps by offering a disarming, forced smile when the driver meets his eyes in the rearview mirror. Minho puts their groceries on the floor, aware that they smell of city water and rank meat. They say nothing to the driver for the duration of the ride home and in return, the driver politely averts his eyes when Minho drags Chan to the step of their apartment building.

Minho gets Chan into the elevator, then through his door, and finally into his bedroom. "Are you hot? Cold?"

"Cold," Chan answers immediately.

Minho tucks him under his covers and pulls Chan up by his bangs to level him with a serious look. "Don't fall asleep until I get back. I'm serious."

"'Kay," Chan agrees, snuggling under the covers.

Minho races to haul their groceries up, but Chan keeps his word and blinks when Minho thrusts his head in to check on him. He doesn't bother putting the tubs in the freezer. He makes a beeline for the last mix in the fridge and pours it into a mug, nuking it in the microwave. When he returns to Chan's side, he has a warm mug of blood and a soup spoon to feed him with. Chan watches him approach with only his eyes and the top of his head poking out from beneath the blanket. He lets Minho prop him up and feed him a third of the mug before he turns his head and refuses any more.

"Chan-hyung," Minho says, frowning. "You need your strength. Have you been skipping meals?"

He knows Chan hasn't even before Chan shakes his head. Chan ate with desperate hunger every time Minho saw him, as if his stomach were a bucket with a hole in the bottom. The fatigue and weakness weren't from a lack of sustenance. It was something else.

Minho thins his lips. "I need to look at your chest, Chan."

"No," Chan says, quiet but firm.

"Has the wound healed?"

"Yes."

Minho curls his hands into fists, but he forces himself to ask. "Did...was I too late?"

Chan makes a sound of confusion. Minho looks at the grey pattern of his comforter instead of Chan. "The...ointment left behind by the blessed weapons. Is it...like a poison? Did it get into your bloodstream? Was I too late?"

Chan goes still. Minho takes that to mean he's right. He hunches his shoulders. Fuck.

Chan's hand touches his, and Minho jumps. Not from surprise, but from how cold his bare skin is. Minho meets Chan's eyes and is surprised to see them flinty and hard. Chan says: "Minho. I would not hide that from you. The wound was an irritation, but never meant to kill. You haven't done anything wrong."

"But you're—" Minho swallows around the voice crack. "You're so weak now; you really expect me to believe there was nothing I could have done better?"

"Yes."

Minho grinds his teeth together.

Chan's eyes soften slightly. "I can tell you don't believe me. But didn't I say so, from the beginning? This was always going to happen."

"What?"

Chan's smile hurts them both. "I agreed to go with you if you would let me die here. That...that was always the plan. I never intended to live this long."

"You're." Minho stops. "Why..." Stops again. And then, "I don't understand. I thought we had a system. I thought...this was working."

"It did," Chan says. "So much better than I ever could have hoped. I really thought I had half a day at most, but you gave me almost three months. And not only that." Chan closes his eyes, swallows. "You gave me a second life I don't regret living."

"Stop," Minho says.

"When I first turned, I was living in hell. It was just killing and killing all the time, feeling hungry all the time, getting hurt all the time. I couldn't stop asking myself, 'Why me?' you know? Someone else might actually enjoy being like this. I convinced myself, like, 'this is just a very bad dream and when you die you'll wake up,' except I knew I was already dead. I just wanted it to be over."

"Hyung, stop—"

"But then you helped me. And you kept helping me. And after I didn't need your help anymore, you still let me stick around. It's almost like—" Chan's smile turns sad and brittle, "—like I died to meet you? Or some other stupid, cheesy shit. I don't know. Maybe it was supposed to be some kind of karmic punishment, to meet my friend soulmate after I died and my time was running out, but. I loved it. The time we've spent together. I'm annoyingly optimistic like that."

"Shut up," Minho says. "Shut up. You think I'm just going to roll over and let you die on me? You knew this would happen to you. So tell me how to make it stop happening."

"I can't."

"You can't tell me, or you won't tell me?"

"Minho..."

Minho looks at Chan's pained smile, Chan's fingers clutching the covers, and then suddenly, he knows.

"Human blood," Minho says softly. "It's because—animal blood isn't a perfect substitute, is it? It has to be human blood."

Chan is silent.

"There would be no need to kill people if animals would suffice," Minho says slowly. "There are no vegan vampires...because all of them are dead."

"I won't kill anyone," Chan says gently. "Even for you."

"Why didn't you tell me earlier?" Minho snaps. "I'm a nurse! I have access to human blood, this whole time we could've been—!"

"No," Chan says. "I won't take from people who need it."

Minho knows. It's the same reason he never suggested human blood in the first place. There was never enough on hand. To take from hospitals and blood banks just to feed one, singular vampire—Chan wouldn't accept it. Minho didn't accept it at first, either. But that was before he knew it was Chan's only way to survive. Before he knew Chan.

"There has to be a way," Minho says. "You drink less if it's human blood. We wouldn't take that much. If we spaced it out over several locations—"

"No," Chan says, firm. "People need it. You'll get caught. It isn't worth it."

"What isn't worth it? Your life?"

Chan presses his lips together. "I lived my life already."

"You lived to be twenty-one, that is hardly—"

"And so? You'll risk letting other people, uninvolved people, people with families and friends that love them die because of what? Because you care about my life more than theirs?"

Minho is stunned into silence.

Chan's expression crumples. "That's not fair, Minho. You know it isn't. You don't get to call the shots when the decisions you make will be biased in my favor. That's not fair to the people dying in your emergency room right now."

He's right. It isn't fair, but... "It's not fair to you either," Minho says. "You didn't ask to be made into this. You are just as innocent."

"But I'm dead," Chan says. "All the blood in the world couldn't bring me back to life. It's better to end a story that's dragging on than one that's just beginning, don't you think?"

No, Minho wants to say. The only story worth telling is one that you're still in. But he can't. Chan won't accept it. There's nothing Minho can do to make him accept it. He slumps forward, forward on the bed until his forehead is pressed against Chan's shoulder. Chan's freezing fingers card through Minho's hair, soothing him.

"I'm tired, Minho," Chan says. "I'm tired all the way to my core. Will you stay with me, just a little longer? Until I can finally fall asleep?"

"Yes," Minho says with difficulty. "I'll stay with you until the end."

Chan lets out a sigh. "I'm grateful that I don't have to die in an alleyway in the cold. I'm grateful I can die next to someone like you. I know it's going to hurt you. I wish it wouldn't. But I hope you can find it in your heart to not regret meeting me."

"Never," Minho says. "I would never regret meeting you."

Chan falls asleep easily. The unmoving chest and stillness of his pulse have never been more unsettling to Minho. He doesn't know if Chan will wake again. He might cling to life for a few more days, or he may pass in his sleep this very night. He could be gone already, for all Minho knows. The only thing he knows for certain is the cold ball of steel in his stomach and the glazing over of his mind. The freezing of his resolve. He tucks Chan in once more and pets a few strands of hair from his face.

I'm sorry, Chan, Minho thinks but does not dare to say.

---XXX---

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

---XXX---

The sun has barely risen when Minho returns, twitchy and startling at the slightest noise. The two bags of blood in his backpack weight him down like twin millstones. He moves mechanically. Take the bags out of backpack. Put bags in fridge. Close fridge. Walk to linen closet. Pull out materials for blood transfusion. Start setup.

"Minho?"

Chan's thick voice makes Minho drop the bottle of sterilizing solution. It clatters to the floor and Minho whips around. Guilty. He knows it's written all over his face, what he's done. What he's going to do.

Chan doesn't get it at first. He's so heavy from sleep, clinging to the doorframe and squinting at Minho, as if trying to understand what Minho is doing in the living room instead of lying next to him in bed. "What are you...” Chan starts, eyes wandering over the gathered materials. The bags of blood are tucked away, burning a hole in Minho's consciousness, but even if Chan hadn't received a drip of blood from Minho already, anyone who watched enough hospital dramas knew what the setup looked like. Minho sees the moment it clicks in Chan's head.

"What," he says flatly. Eyebrows furrowing. "Minho, I already said no. I'm not going to change my mind."

Like ripping off a band-aid, Minho thinks. "I stole two bags from the hospital while you were asleep. I'm setting up the drip now."

"You what?"

"Once you get back to full health, we can figure out a real solution."

"You have got to be kidding me."

"I agree this won't solve things permanently. But we'll just get you back on your feet—"

"I said no."

"—and once we've both calmed down, we can find a way to keep you alive without hurting anyone."

"No!" Chan snarls. "What part of 'no' aren't you getting? There is no way for me to exist without hurting people! Don't you think I've fucking thought about this? Every day of my captivity I thought about it! It's impossible!"

"If we told a few more people—Felix, Hyunjin—then we could make a pool of donators—"

"Oh, you are fucking out of your mind—"

"—and then it won't be taking from people who need it—"

"—no way in hell can we tell anyone—"

"—but you also get to live. We can make it work, I know we can."

"No!" Chan shouts. "You bull-headed ass, I said no!"

The shout carries the last of his energy from him and he collapses on the ground, mouth working around words he can't draw breath to say. Chan's eyes say everything he can't, even glassy as they are—never in a million years would he consent to drinking a human's blood. Even after Minho thought out a solution. Even if the humans themselves were okay with it. He is that determined to die.

"How can you be so fucking selfish?" Minho asks, his hands clenching into fists. "You come into my life, you make yourself an indispensable friend, and then you leave? Just like that?"

"Don't...don't do this," Chan wheezes.

"Did it really mean so little to you, our time together? Our friendship?"

Chan grits his teeth.

"It must be so easy for you to let go, Channie-hyung. Since it meant nothing to you."

"It's not—!" Chan is cut off by his own inability to draw breath, wheezing helplessly at Minho.

"Don't say staying alive is impossible!" Minho roars.

Chan's eyes are watery.

"Fine," Minho says suddenly, shoulders slumping. "Fine, you're right. You're being honorable. The world's first and last honorable vampire. And I'm just the horrible, selfish human caretaker trying to force you to stay in a world you hate. You're right. I'm the selfish one."

Minho walks, barefoot, completely numb, to the kitchen. "You're a good person, Chan. Vampire or not, you're a very good person. You're better than me." Minho watches his fingers wrap around the largest handle sticking out of the knife block. "That's why, even if it's selfish, I just can't bear to let you go."

Minho draws the knife from the knife block and turns around. He meets Chan's eyes, watches them go wide in realization, and draws the blade across the bared skin of his forearm as Chan makes a helpless gurgle that sounds like "Don't!"

Fire erupts across the cut, not deep enough to bleed out but deep enough to bleed, hot and deep red, dribbling down Minho's arm. His palms are covered in wet warmth immediately, sliding between the creases of his fingers, but he can't feel anything beyond the frantic beating of his heart in shock, sending painful pulses through the wound with every panicked thump. He barely feels himself drop the knife. Minho's seen so much blood in his life but it feels dizzying to see it rushing out of his own body, splattering in fat droplets on the floor.

He remembers the night they met, as fresh a cut in his mind as the one on his arm. Chan biting him, lapping helplessly at the pinpricks of blood through tears. Chan didn’t tell him, but Minho knows—spilled human blood is impossible to resist, especially to a vampire who is starving. With this, Minho ensures Chan’s survival. With this, Minho takes Chan’s choice away from him. With this, Minho will never, ever be forgiven.

And then Minho is on the floor. Had he passed out? No. He's awake. He can feel the cool linoleum against his arm and the soles of his feet. But there's something else. He can't move; that’s new and surprising. Is it the shock of the cut? No, it’s something else beyond that. There's something else prickling at the edge of his awareness. Something else is in the apartment with him.

The hairs on the back of Minho's neck stand up. No. Not something. Chan. Chan is here too. Where... Minho looks across the room to his bedroom doorway, where Chan had collapsed. No. Chan isn't there. Where... Minho looks up and sees a dark shadow perched on the corner of his counter, fingers and toes curled over the edge. Staring at him. Minho's stomach drops through the floor, fear sweeping through him and beating even more adrenaline into his bloodstream. Shadow Chan.

But it's not really Shadow Chan, is it. There was never a Shadow Chan. There was only ever Chan, and he had always been a predator.

It was Chan who had pushed him over, and now with his eyes locked on Minho, Minho is filled with that same unusual paralysis as that night. He can't move a single muscle other than to stare at Chan as Chan lifts a hand to lick, kitten-like at his fingers. Dirtied with Minho's blood. Flashing his incisors with every pass of his tongue.

Minho wills his body to move. Wills his body to yell. Wills his body to say, Chan. But Chan's gaze is unrelenting. When he finally crawls down from the counter and drives his incisors into the red cut across Minho's arm, Minho can't even scream at the pain that turns his vision white, then red, and then blissful black nothing.

Chapter Text

"You're not a bad person," Felix says. "You're a good person who just happened to make some irresponsible, selfish, illegal, and hurtful decisions, and now you are having to deal with the consequences of your actions."

"Wow," Minho says. "You know? Somehow that doesn't make me feel even a little bit better."

"I know!" Felix says cheerfully. "It's not supposed to."

They're sitting at one of the outdoor tables of a cafe a few blocks up from Hongik University. It's not one Minho knows, but Felix swears by their flavored ice. Even as Minho pillows his head on his arms, entire body sunk against the table, Felix cheerfully spoons tangerine-and-cream ice into his mouth with precision. Picking up a small scoop, flattening it with his lips, and then flipping the spoon over to suck on the ice until it melts. He keeps kicking Minho's chair under the table and looking around at the busy square instead of being a good best friend and sympathizing with Minho's moping.

"You knew he was going to hate you before you even texted me," Felix says, pointing at Minho with a heaped spoon. "So this shouldn't be as surprising or tragic as you're making it out to be."

Damn Felix for always being right.

If anything, Minho got off easier than he deserved. He's lucky that Chan didn't kill him, not that Felix has any idea how close Minho came to biting it. When he came to after the attack, it was to the sun rising—two days later. He had to drag himself to the bathroom through a puddle of piss and congealed blood, his brain so fogged that it took five self-evaluations of his arm before Minho could believe that there was no gaping wound. In fact, there wasn't even much in the way of a scar. Once he pumped enough fluids into his body to pretend like he hadn't been mauled by a panther and his head was clearer, he noticed a pinkish line where he had sliced his arm open, but the new skin was fully stitched together and close to completely healed. With lotion applied and long sleeves pulled over Minho's arms, a few days later it was gone.

Minho definitely lost more blood than was spilled on his kitchen floor which meant that Chan had drunk from him. It wasn't much of a win, but it was something. Stranger than the healing wound on Minho's arm had been Chan's utter absence from his apartment. Other than the kitchen, the apartment was immaculate and missing all of Chan's things. The clothes Minho had bought him. His toothbrush. His weights. Even the notes Chan had left him on the fridge couldn't be found in the trash or recycling. The silence unsettled Minho more than he thought it would and he ended up leaving the windows cracked even in summer to let the white noise of the city comfort him.

"You don't really have a choice in the matter," Felix says. "All you can do is accept responsibility. You've lost his trust; you've hurt him deeply. There's nothing more to do but wait graciously and grovel like a cheating scumbag husband if he shows his face to you again."

If Minho had been in Felix's position, he would've thought Chan was either a suicidal bum or a gangster. He wouldn't be able to be as measured and fair as Felix. No matter what he said to Felix's face, he would be thinking 'Good riddance' in the back of his mind. But Felix isn't like that. That's how Minho knows he has no choice but to listen to what Felix has to say.

"C'mon," Minho grumbles. "Ju Jaeho is nurse in charge today. He'll skewer and broil us if we're late."

Doesn't mean he has to like it.

---XXX---

Minho waits. He doesn't consider himself a patient person, but he waits. It's not every night, but when his shifts allow for it, he opens the door to his balcony and sets out a mug of blood and coffee on the railing. Then he retreats to the couch and turns on some trash television and lets himself get absorbed in other people's problems for a few hours. Once he starts to nod off, he turns off the television, picks up the mug, closes the balcony door, and dumps the mug's contents down the sink before getting to bed.

He repeats this ritual through the bags of blood he had Felix steal. He repeats it through the pig's blood he had chilled in the freezer. And he even starts to work through the blood meal bags he has tucked in the corner of the pantry. It takes a month to lose hope, but Minho stubbornly clings to the routine anyway. He has to use it up anyway, doesn't he? Even if it ends up in the sewage. It feels almost like lighting incense sticks for a friend that has passed, and in a way, it is. Mostly, Minho tries not to think too hard about Chan or the incident and spends most of his time out with Felix and Hyunjin.

It's wishful thinking, he knows it is, but sometimes Minho gets this odd sense of deja vu, like he's sleepwalking through a dream and he could swear he feels something watching him. The sensation weighs on him, looming from beyond his fluttering curtains and disappears once he steps out onto the balcony. Whether or not it's Chan, Minho doesn't dare let himself look too hard.

---XXX---

"But you don't like clubs," Felix asserts for perhaps the fifth time since they got in line. Even Hyunjin is so tired of hearing it that he rolls his eyes.

"Hate them," Minho agrees, grabbing Felix's shoulders and herding him past the bouncer. "Now let's get in here and make some mistakes."

---XXX---

Minho cracks a little the first time he scoops out blood meal and ends up scraping the bottom of the bag. His lip twitches but he carries on the act, brewing coffee and leaning against the counter. He pauses when he passes the fridge with the cup of blood coffee and after a long moment of hesitation, backtracks to grab a page from the magnetic notepad and scribble down a note. He tucks it underneath the mug when he sets it out on the balcony.

I'm running out. Sorry.

---XXX---

"You don't have to go," Hyunjin says. He's a little cross-eyed from drinking and slumped over the back of his recliner. Felix and Hyunjin's apartment is small and snug but nevertheless it is currently Minho's favorite place to drink more than a couple rounds.

"I mean," Hyunjin says, "the futon isn't, like, the most comfortable bed in the world? But you don't have to go if you don't want to. You can stay."

Minho is well past tipsy himself and all he can really focus on is not saying the word 'vampire' while also asserting to Hyunjin the importance of going home, that he has to be there. Puking on the train be damned, Minho will make it home and he will make coffee and he will crash on his own couch instead of dragging himself to bed because there's something important he has to do, god dammit. He opens his mouth to tell Hyunjin this, but he can't find the words to give his nameless routine meaning. All he can do is cling to the doorway and stare holes in Hyunjin.

"Go," Felix says sleepily from the floor. Minho hadn't known he was still awake.

"You have something you need to do, right?" Felix says. "It's okay. Go."

Minho goes.

---XXX---

Minho has run out of blood meal but even if he's not patient, he sure as hell is stubborn. He makes the strongest, shittiest coffee he can manage, the kind that any person with half a nostril would wince at from a mile away. The kind that would burn Chan's nose and make him squeak if he still lived in Minho's apartment. It's a challenge hurled into the void: This smell totally reeks, doesn't it? Then come stop me.

Minho is pretty sure he's just crazy at this point but until his neighbors complain, there's no one to stop him from dealing with losing a friend in whatever bizarre and not-personally-detrimental ways he can conceive.

That is to say, when Minho opens his balcony door and steps out to find Chan leaning against the railing with his arms crossed, Minho nearly shits himself.

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph," he swears. "You nearly scared me to death. Again. Haha."

"That's not funny," Chan says.

Wow, it is so, so good to hear Chan's voice and to hear him sounding healthy and well. So much better than the sickly Victorian orphan he had been three months ago, knocking on death's door. Not much can bring Minho to tears, but this is getting him pretty close.

"How was the soul-searching?" Minho asks. "Literally or figuratively, not sure where vampires fall on the religious spectrum."

Chan just stares at him.

"Um, well, I didn't die," Minho says awkwardly. "Obviously. And I'm really glad to see that you aren't dead either."

A muscle in Chan's jaw tightens. He looks taller, somehow. Definitely broader. The muscles of his forearms stand out where he has them crossed. Minho is pretty sure Chan never looked this good under his care. It pricks at Minho's pride a little, but he can swallow it much easier than the relief he's desperately trying to choke down so he doesn't throw himself at Chan. What can he say? He's a hugger.

"Coffee?" Minho offers, still trying to deflect Chan's piercing look and unfriendly frown. He remembers belatedly how he purposefully burned the shit out of this particular cup. "You know what? I will make a new pot."

He turns to step back into his apartment but jumps when Chan's hand shoots out to grab Minho by his upper arm. Chan pulls Minho towards him and Minho stumbles, dropping the cup. The ceramic shatters and splashes warm coffee on his socks, but Minho doesn't register it. His eyes are wide and on Chan's, pulled in a hairsbreadth from his chest.

Minho tests Chan's grip on his arm by tugging away only for Chan's grip to tighten, squeezing the shit out of him. Minho mouths 'ow' and tries to pull Chan's hand off of him, but Chan catches him by the wrist and holds his hand out of the way. All of Minho's strength is nothing against this reborn Chan, like a mouse struggling in a cat's claws. His eyes widen further. Chan offers him nothing, only the downward curl of his lip and the angry crease of his brows.

"...Okay," Minho says. "Okay. I know. I shouldn't be like this. I'm sorry."

"Do you have any idea," Chan says, "any idea, what you did?"

"No," Minho admits. "I had no ideas. I had no thoughts. I didn't think of what would happen after. All I thought was that I couldn't just let you die like that."

"It was my will."

"Yeah, well your 'will' was fucked up," Minho says, exasperated. "I never claimed to be a good guy, okay? I know you didn't want me to save you. And that's great for you, the humanitarian undead, but I'm selfish and cruel human being. I chose the option that would hurt me the least. Kill me about it."

Chan shakes him, so hard Minho's brain rattles.

Minho grits his teeth. "You can hate me. I was prepared for that, and for you to leave. But I can't handle you dying so find someone else to kill you if you want to die so badly."

"You have no idea how bad it is," Chan says. "It is an addiction. Salivating so much I have to stop and spit in an alleyway when I pass people; my throat raw and burning any time I'm not feeding; waking up and shredding my surroundings if I haven't hunted because the need to kill is throbbing beneath my eyelids even when I'm asleep. I am living with permanent withdrawal symptoms and there is no end, no salvation, just killing and drinking and soothing the itch but never scratching it."

Chan digs his fingers into Minho's arms and Minho sucks in a pained breath. "The price for this strength is also the punishment for breaking the taboo of drinking human blood. It makes living hell into something even worse."

"Just like in Supernatural," Minho wheezes.

Chan gives him a disappointed look before letting go and pushing him away. "You're impossible. I don't know why I even came back here."

"Yeah, why did you come back here?" Minho asks, rubbing his wrists. "I also want to know. If you wanted to die so fucking badly, why didn't you run off to the people hunting you with your newfound evil super-strength as soon as you came to?"

Chan is silent.

"That's what I thought," Minho snaps. "It's easy to die when you're dying, but you're alive now so why don't you shed the martyr cloak already and try living for a change?"

Minho's expression softens. "I do regret that time. Everything was so desperate and fast; I know I hurt you deeply and destroyed your trust in me. I was scared of losing you and I made bad decisions. But you're a jackass for springing that on me and giving me hope that you could survive on our animal blood treatment plan. And you expected me to let you die? After I watched you come to life and love living?"

Chan visibly swallows.

"I don't think you want to die," Minho says. "I think you're depressed and you don't have anyone supporting you and telling you it's okay to want to live."

Chan shakes his head. "It doesn't matter what I want, I can't—"

"I'm not finished, asshole," Minho says with a wry smile. "I'm trying to take responsibility here, okay? I'm saying that you're allowed to want to live. On my authority, which, by the way, as your nurse, is the only authority that matters."

"Minho," Chan says in a small voice. "I can't go back. It has to be human blood now. I can't survive off of substitutes anymore."

Minho smiles fully. "You came here for a reason didn't you?"

Chan freezes. His hand rises slowly to cover his nose and mouth and he shakes his head a little. "I can't," he says, voice muffled. "Not again, I'll—I'll hurt you."

"No you won't," Minho says. "You've been watching me, haven't you? You've tested your self-control. You won't hurt me like that again." He takes a step towards Chan and Chan flattens himself against the balcony railing. "You want to paint yourself as a monster, but that's not the Chan I know. The Chan I know is more human than I am."

Chan's eyes flutter closed.

Minho takes Chan's free hand and presses it to his neck. Chan's index finger slides to Minho's pulse point as if possessed. He clamps harder around his face and shifts his weight.

"You came back to hunt me," Minho says.

"No," Chan says.

"Yes, you did," Minho says firmly. "This is the solution you found—the least resistant prey. You knew if you came here that I would let you have me."

"No," Chan moans. "No, you're not prey—you're my friend—I wouldn't—"

"Channie," Minho says softly. He pulls Chan's hand away from his face and Chan's lips tremble. Minho can see the points of his incisors when Chan's lips part.

"This is me taking responsibility," Minho says. "Only hunt me, and never hurt another person again."

Chan sobs and collapses against Minho, cupping his neck and pressing his nose to the underside of Minho's jaw. His lips part and he scents Minho's neck, teeth scoring Minho's skin and searching for veins before finally stopping and sinking in.

It fucking hurts. Minho gasps, instinctively jerking away and writhing in Chan's grip, but it's like resisting steel rebar. His neck throbs half from pain and half from Chan sucking blood. He's so fast that Minho gets light-headed after only a few moments, losing his footing and stumbling. Chan catches him, lowering them both to the tile of Minho's balcony. The suction slows and Chan cups the back of Minho's head so he isn't lying on hard tile. Minho's head swims, but the thoughtful action calms his animal panic. Chan is still in there. Chan is with him.

Minho's fingers climb up Chan's back to embrace him. It's harder than he expected. Chan really is broad and firm now, a fully grown vampire. Damn, Minho kind of feels like the protagonist of a BL hentai. This isn't the way he expected to be sucked stupid, though.

"You're doing well," Minho slurs. "You're doing so well, Channie. It's okay."

He's pretty sure that the trembling is not coming from him, and there's a wetness around his jawline and ear that he's pretty sure isn't blood. It must've been hard for Chan until now. So hard Minho can't even imagine. He pats Chan's back weakly and offers him more soft, slurred words of comfort.

Felix told him to take responsibility—okay. From now on, Minho really will take full responsibility of Chan.