Nadir ◈ Seungjin

35 ◈ Modern Day Animals

Forewarning: This chapter is so long I'm so sorry, I tried to cut some stuff to make it shorter but there's so much that has to happen  😭😭😭😭

"Felix, we'll be out tonight."

"Sounds good. Work?" Felix glanced up from the almost completed painting, eyes popping up from where he typically sat while he worked to chase the pair of detectives through the living room. His gaze narrowed at them gathering what few things they decided they needed to take along with them; Gaze chasing first to the car keys, the jackets tossed over their arms, the two revolvers Minho was carrying in his hands while shoving one into his own shoulder holster, Seungmin busying himself with checking his phone for the last of the texts from an unknown number spamming him with reminders to meet up, both of them hustling to slip their shoes on without bumping into one another. The vampire becoming suspicious in the overdramatic purse of his lips, "Better not be clubbing because you promised I'd get to go the next time you did."

From behind Seungmin's hunched back as he finished retying his laces, focused on looping the strings around one another to fit securely on his ankles in the case of needing to sprint through the complexes, tying them up in never-ending knots like the twisted twines resting in his writhing intestines: Minho laughed gently. That breathy sound Seungmin recently had to listen Jeongin raving over with gentle slurs sworn from beneath his lips with infinite compliments to that detective. The same who now wandered over to, from what Seungmin saw from the corner of his eye, left to embrace Felix, "Don't worry, it's not. We'll go clubbing tomorrow, sounds good? We'll invite the boys to go."

"I'm holding you to that promise," Felix complained back to him with a huff.

Seungmin spun himself back to the pair as he finished with securing his laces, taking a moment to observe them as they were. First, Felix standing up from his crossed position on the ground and the odd wince that came across his scrunched up features when Minho's hand brushed by his side, quickly dismissed with a bubbly chuckle that radiated through the dimming evening light of the room. Then, the nature of which they embraced one another; Felix stumbled forward to Minho's arms, careful not to trip over his scattered art supplies or the dog sleeping by him while he worked; Minho in the strange expression which came to his features as he took care not to bump Felix with the revolver he held, finger delicate over the trigger, the other hand clawing at the sweater the younger enveloped himself in as if he would disappear from his grasp forever. As if this was the last time he would ever hold the vampire, despite that being farther than the truth.

Uncharacteristically, Minho lingered in that hold. Where Felix was often the one who regretted to let his friends slip from his grip, Seungmin didn't miss the hand on the younger's back tightening ever so slightly tightening when the blond tried to retract from their warmth. A type of pain that hollowed Minho's eyes as he stayed for a moment more. A hopelessness existing in the emptiness of his eyes hidden from the ray of sunlight by a forced smile while they pulled away. While he remained in front of Felix, his hand flexing on the revolver's hilt, slipping away from the trigger as that ache seemed to consume his expression. A blade, a bullet gone through his chest, stricken by the bleeding of his heart with the fondness in his gaze tracing the younger vampire's face.

None of which Felix noticed while he was being taken in.

But Seungmin did. He noticed those actions loudly.

With a final exhale from Minho, sunken as it seemed to drag him farther from the world, he turned back to the human. Hesitating between them a moment more, glancing to Felix, Seungmin, bending down to the coffee table, then to the front door he unlocked and left through. The human not letting any of his motions slip away. Paying the utmost attention as he tried to force a beam back to Felix, a softer and more reassuring smile to Seungmin as if that simple notion would be enough to calm him with the building brontide rumbling underneath their steps, the folded slip of paper he passed and left by the painted canvas, his trudged step reluctantly moving across the laminate floors, the final pass-over he gave the apartment and the two standing inside, before slipping outside of the threshold.