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Around 3:45 in the morning, loud and rapid knocking could be heard from the front door.
No one from the clan was asleep. Although the hour was late for humans, it was just like any other for their kind, but it was unusual for a knock to come at that time. They lived mostly surrounded by mortals, who used night time for sleeping, so the occurrence was rather peculiar. No one was surprised, though, as their senses picked up on the strangeness of the night a bit ahead of time.
A few moments before the knock, Hyunjin looked up from his canvas, and, a couple seconds later, Minho also stopped by the threshold between their leisure parlor and the main hallway, as he was on his way to sit by the fire and read a new book which arrived earlier that day.
“Han Jisung.” Hyunjin muttered, getting up, as Minho gestured to stop him in his tracks, calmly.
“Calm down. He’s steady and fast, approaching. You don’t know what happened.” Minho had to be calm, even if it wasn’t exactly his usual response to things. This time, both of them could clearly hear his fast paced heartbeats, smell his scent in high velocity towards their place and, most importantly, the clear scent of cursed blood which came along.
“He’s bloody.” The younger vampire dropped the brush he had been holding, hurrying to the front door, but as he was about to open it, Minho held his wrist.
“I’ll take care of it. You’re too close to the matter.”
“I have to-”
“You ‘have to’ nothing. What you have is a clan which is already in trouble with the higher-ups because of this allegiance with the dogs, which I supported you in even though it’s frowned upon, just because I know you’ll go dry and poof in ashes if you don’t keep humping your pet boyfriend.” Minho huffed once and then, furrowing his brows, focused on Jisung’s rapidly approaching scent, “... It’s not his blood, so he’s unharmed. Just go upstairs and I promise I’ll deal with whatever this is.”
Hyunjin was reluctant, but Minho’s resolve was absolute anytime it involved their safety, and he did trust his master enough to know he wouldn’t send Jisung away without giving him the benefit of the doubt. Besides that, everything Minho said was essentially true, he did put them in a lot of trouble and it really wasn’t his blood. Thankfully, the rest of the clan was out, either hunting or partying with mortals - interpret that however you want.
Minho was relieved it wasn’t Jisung’s blood, because otherwise there wouldn’t have even been a conversation to be had. Hot headed as he was, Hyunjin would have flown out of the door immediately.
“Fine, I’ll go upstairs… I’ll listen in, though, don’t try to stop me.”
“Of course you will, you’re an ill-mannered child who eavesdrops on anything that will get you in trouble.” He let go of Hyunjin’s wrist, the brunette just looking at him, lips pressed in a thin line, before taking a step back and then disappearing in a firewood-scented dark puff of swirling smoke. Even his dark teleportation smelled like trouble.
But Minho didn’t have time to dwell on Hyunjin for much longer, getting ready when Jisung’s footsteps were close enough to be heard when he finally entered the driveway of their estate, Minho’s one mile earshot radius.
So when the knocking happened, he promptly opened the door not even a full second after the last knock was delivered.
“Do you know what time it is?” Minho complained as he opened the door, finally taking a look at Jisung’s frame. He was gruffed, only in his shorts, as they tended to be when they had just transformed back into human form, no apparent injuries but torso splashed in blood. Now that he was close enough, something smelled faintly familiar to Minho.
His heart, if he had a beating one, would have picked up the pace right then.
“Hyung. Please.” Jisung’s voice was shaky, his body shivering, as he kneeled and put his forehead to the ground. “Help my leader.”
It was but a mere eye-twitch, the moment Minho realized what he was being asked. Jisung had his forehead to the cold stone of the front porch. And he kept still, in that position, almost holding his breath in a genuine attempt, desperation flooding his veins. He smelled of fear, blood and violence.
Minho dropped his hand from the doorknob.
“Hyung, please, you have to help–”
“ Where is he? ”
Jisung finally snapped his neck up, looking back at Minho. His countenance had changed completely.
Stone cold, looking directly in his eyes, like a shark with full blown pupils.
“... The forest. The council… They… We were surrounded, and–”
Jisung didn’t get to finish talking, Minho was long gone by the time he picked up the scent of Chan’s blood.
He knew it well, its profound scent and richness which made him salivate from hunger, which was good, because hunger fuelled his killer instincts and he was about to dive head first into a war. His clan was probably going to be decimated if he didn’t emancipate them immediately after the deed was done. It was a split second decision, really, which turned out to not even be a decision at all, but something he had coming all along.
There really wasn’t any factor that could weigh in his deliberation. As soon as he knew what happened, he had decided, and it served him right for taking in stray dogs into his otherwise safely guarded sentiments.
The forest was but a bunch of blurred angles which he left behind every second his body dove deeper into its entrails, sniffing out the bait which wasn’t his to take, willingly stepping into some smaller animal’s trap for another; a bird of prey snatching a spider from its crude web.
So when the clawed, ripped apart gray and matted figure of Chan came into view, big furry body lying against a tree trunk, bleeding out, Minho merely stopped for half a second to take in his surroundings, having dug his claw into anything that moved threateningly in his direction, leaving a trail of blood for any hound curious enough to follow his scent. A second to hear the still silence of the forest, insides now drenched in blood.
Chan, weak and weary, softly growling and whining in pain, still trying to keep quiet, somehow. Knowing that a howl from him would signify a bigger war, involving more of his loved ones. Minho could read all of this from his willingness to die alone, rather than let himself be rescued. It was utterly annoying.
Upon catching onto Minho’s scent, Chan nearly held up his big snout for a moment, sniffing as if to confirm it wasn’t his own mind playing tricks on him and, the next moment, his body deflated and transmuted back into its original form, coughing up blood immediately, as Minho crouched and caught his head before it hit the ground. Chan looked up, smiling, content.
“Good, I asked for a good dream… Maybe God still favors the cursed in their last breaths.”
He was so annoying.
“Shut your muzzle, idiot.”
Chan laughed, coughing, Minho pressing a hurried hand upon his bleeding wound. Chan was melodramatic and foolish, but had Jisung not been devoted enough, spry enough to reach his house before any further developments, he would have been all that drama with reason. A terrible, even bigger tragedy, a bigger war which often started with two idiots in love.
Love, a word he had yet to accept for himself, despite watching so many developments during his time on earth, never entertaining the notion of starting a war just for the right to love.
Yet.
“Minho… I got you into a mess like this…” Chan lifted a hand, caressing Minho’s bloodied cheek, the vampire not having noticed his own state after the bloodbath, “Your clan depends on you. Jisung was a fool…”
“Didn’t I tell you to shut up? You have no say in what I do, how dare you.” He took his hand out of the bleeding wound just to rip his own dress shirt, safely coil the fabric into the wound, Chan grunting in pain for a moment, and then used the wolf’s own hand to press the wound. “You’re a pain in my ass, assuming you got me into this. I’m perfectly capable of deciding-”
“...You shouldn’t have fallen for me,” Minho addressed this claim with a killer look, but Chan only chuckled, a semblance of sadness in his eyes despite the adoration, “Now you’re in trouble, too.”
“Fuck off. They’re the ones in trouble.” Chan knew this was right from the way Minho’s eyes glistened in red, like beads of blood, like his own lifeline. He got up, lifting Chan’s heavy body as if it weighed as much as a pillow running back home to further assess the damage of his decisions.
The aftermath was… Pretty much as expected.
Chan, staining his linen couch from the 17th century; Hyunjin, sitting by the fireplace watching a restless Jisung pacing up and down and… Minho, staring out the window, watching down as the figure of Seungmin approached the house, accompanied by two big wolves, which turned back into their human forms as they got to the door. The house otherwise full of clan mates was now a silent matter of echoes, wood creaks and the fire crackling behind him.
“Seungmin’s got your two pups.”
Chan let out a sigh of relief, Jisung reacting much more intensely, running to the window and slightly pushing Minho aside so he could make sure they were alright, immediately running downstairs, then. Hyunjin got up, getting a nod from Minho before following suit.
There was a beat of silence, as Minho gracefully paced back to his place next to the sofa, seating himself at an armchair, expecting the kids to come up after they were done with the wolf dramatics.
“What about Felix?” Chan asked, meekly, peering at Minho whose semblance was unreadable.
“He called, he’s fine. I told him what you asked me to,” Minho spared him a side eye, begrudgingly, but scoffed afterwards, “He, rightfully so, asked you to fuck right off, and he’s coming back. He’s staying, too.”
SIlence, a soft wheeze of a sigh, and a small sob which Chan managed to contain as Minho looked at him in horror - a crying Chan was something he wasn’t ready for, yet. Unsure of what his instincts could do.
“Minho… Thank y–”
His voice, laced with held back tears, was cut off by lips pressed against his hurriedly. Lips desperate to not hear the sentimentalism which would make his heart melt and crumble, make him utter words he wasn’t ready to see accomplished, but were so real, and so full, Minho was afraid they could spill at any moment.
So the kiss was preemptive. Not because he was aching for it, not because he nearly lost Chan. No, that would be the kind of sentimentality you would expect from a wolf.
“Shut your muzzle,” said he, then, and sat back as the troupe started marching upstairs. Chan chuckled, wiping his own tears, and nodded, understanding Minho much deeper than the vampire wished he did.
“Yeah… Okay.”