Little King (Seoksoo)

Joshua

"The whole thing," Seokmin said, tilting the water glass up so Joshua was forced to finish its contents.

I mean, really, Joshua thought. I'm not a baby.

But he didn't actually protest. Only stood there, blinking stupidly, as Seokmin took the glass away. Maybe whiskey on an empty stomach after only two hours of sleep had been a dumb idea after all, but Joshua had been shaken by his separate encounters with Seungcheol and Mingyu. He'd needed something to steady his nerves, to give him courage to address the issue with the two vampires in his house.

Now he just needed something to steady his legs.

Seokmin had already made him eat some toast, and Joshua had sobered up accordingly, but the exhaustion was catching up to him physically. Now his vampire was turning the bed down for him like some kind of manservant.

Some kind of sexy manservant. Mm.

"Come on," Seokmin urged. "Time for bed. Strip."

Joshua smiled at him dopily, all his earlier irritation with overbearing vampires gone. What a cutie, taking care of Joshua like this.

Seokmin stared at him for a minute. Joshua was more than happy to gaze back at him in turn—he was so handsome. Seokmin broke it off when he sighed and moved forward to wrestle Joshua's shirt off his head.

Right, he was supposed to be stripping.

As his shirt came off, the bruise Mingyu's hand had left on Joshua's forearm came into view.

Seokmin tensed at the sight, eyes darkening. "Bastard," he growled.

"I like the bruises you leave on me much better," Joshua said absently, tilting his head down and tracing one Seokmin had left on his collarbone with his fingers.

Seokmin's muscles remained tense, but his eyes flashed with heat. "I do too," he said, circling Joshua to admire the marks he'd left the last time he'd claimed him. Because that was what sex with Seokmin always felt like to Joshua—a claiming.

Joshua shivered at the memory of their last time together. He'd always thought he was relatively vanilla when it came to sex, but something about being marked up and used by Seokmin ignited a fire in his belly. The bruises even felt like a form of care, in their own way. For Seokmin to be rough and wild but never seriously hurt Joshua with his superior strength. It was passion and control at the same time.

Just like when he bit Joshua, drank him in without taking too much, too fast.

So fucking hot.

"Will you still want me as much when you can't drink from me?" Joshua hadn't known he was going to ask the question until he did. Joshua was apparently loose-lipped in general today. And now that he'd brought up being turned by Seokmin, it seemed like his brain couldn't turn off thoughts about it.

Maybe he should be more scared of the idea of giving his humanity away, but he was choosing to have faith in Seokmin, in the truth of their theoretical mating bond. Joshua knew his vampire hadn't always acted perfectly, Mingyu was proof of that, but Seokmin had admitted to his mistakes. He was willing to own up to his fear.

That alone meant a lot to Joshua. He was so used to avoidance from the people he loved. His mom fighting him every step of the way leading up to her diagnosis. His brother bending over backward to care for Joshua without actually being there for Joshua. And here was Seokmin, answering his questions openly and honestly. Admitting to the bad along with the good.

And Joshua knew from experience, both his own and what he'd seen as a nurse, that life couldn't always be counted on. He could choose his human life, choose dying peacefully of old age, and still get hit by a bus the next day.