Hongbin raced up the staircase. He glanced around the room but saw no evidence of any struggle, no injured or bleeding Jimin lying on the floor. Somehow, that only served to make him feel more apprehensive. Jimin wasn’t the most stoic of captains, but he didn’t make a habit out of appearing weak either. To hear that sound of pure fear shook Hongbin to his core.

The rest of the team made their way to the bar. They had searched the entire building, and all that they found was a stack of dead vampires in a back room. The vampire corpses had been torn apart, then burned-a manner in which no one had seen before. It was unsettling, to say the least.

Jimin was in a dark room.

That was all he knew.

There was a slight shuffling somewhere in front of him, a small cough resonated throughout the room. Jimin knew he was sitting, and it felt like he was on a wooden floor; the damp smell of mildew meant he was probably still in the hotel, maybe in a basement or something. His hands and feet weren’t bound, but something in his gut told him to stay still.

The shuffling increased in volume. Jimin heard the unmistakable sound of a match being lit, and the room was flooded with the yellow-orange glow of a small lantern.

He could barely make out the form of a boy huddled in the corner furthest from the light. The boy-no, boy wasn’t the right word for him. He was thin, for sure, and he didn’t appear to be that tall, but the pain in his eyes was that of a man. Small cuts and scrapes littered his face and hands, and the white shirt he was wearing was smeared with dirt and blood. His bleach white hair hung scraggly over his forehead, nearly obscuring his eyes.

“Who are you?” His voice was raspy from disuse, but it had a certain charm to it.

“A soldier,” Jimin responded, choosing his words carefully. Not all people took well to Celestials, especially the ones heavily armed and ready to fight. A wrong phrase or misstep could be very dangerous, not only for him but for the rest of his team.

The man’s brow furrowed. “Why are you here?”

“I could ask you the same thing.”

He puzzled over the answer for a moment, then stepped into the light. From here, Jimin could see the dark circles under his eyes, the gaunt look to his collarbones, his cheekbones. He wasn’t very threatening. Jimin knew he could take him in hand to hand, but even so he slipped a hand under his jacket to where his remaining dagger was sheathed.

“There’s no one else here.” The man studied Jimin’s face. “They’re dead. I don’t know why they would send you here just for me.”

That was concerning. Jimin watched the man a while longer. He wasn’t a vampire, he concluded. He didn’t have the trademark red eyes, nor did he have the same slight lisp that fangs caused. The way he carried himself seemed different.

That left few possibilities as to what this man could be. Not a werewolf-he’d smell like one if he did. He could be a warlock, Jimin supposed, but then where was his Witch’s Mark? Even in the bad lighting, Jimin could tell that there was no obvious disfiguration to mark him as a warlock. Not to mention the way he seemed to shrink away from light. Warlocks always surrounded themselves with light. It was an instinct leftover from before the time of the Citadel, when vampires kept to the dark and their natural enemy, the warlocks, kept to the light.

He could either be a human or a Celestial, Jimin decided. Either way, not much of a threat, but better safe than dead.

Jimin cleared his throat. “What happened to them?” He asked, shifting slightly so as to be better prepared if the man decided to lunge at him. He was pacing now, walking in and out of the light. As he approached the circle of yellow, Jimin saw a bright red gash illuminated, starkly contrasting against the alabaster of his skin.

Not Celestial then. Celestial blood is silvery, not the crimson of this man’s wound. Jimin relaxed against the wall he was leaning on. He began to worry a little; humans were notoriously breakable, always getting injured and never being very easy to put back together. It was in Jimin’s nature to care, but even more than that, Jimin felt like he couldn’t leave someone down here so vulnerable, clearly injured and with no other way of getting help.

“I’m Yoongi,” the man responded, ignoring Jimin’s earlier question. “Sorry if I scared you earlier. I thought-” He took a shaky breath. “I thought you were one of them. One that I had missed.”

“One that you..missed?” Jimin questioned.

“One of the bloodsuckers.” Jimin winced at the word. Vampires didn’t take to derogatory terms well, entire teams had been killed over less. “I had to kill them. I didn’t have a choice.” The man-no, Yoongi-confessed.

There was no way that a single human could have killed a vampire, let alone an entire coven. Jimin refused to believe it. Even the most powerful of human guns had little effect on vampires.

“I thought you were one of them,” he continued, “but then when you dropped that knife you cut your hand...It wasn’t the right color. Your blood, I mean.” He frowned. “At first I didn’t believe it, but there it was. I’ve never seen someone with blood that color before.”

Jimin looked at his hand. Sure enough, a small gash crossed his palm, a dull ache beginning to settle over it now that he was aware of its existence.

Yoongi stopped pacing abruptly.

“You said that you’re a soldier. Who do you work for?” The question was filled with distrust. Jimin couldn’t blame him for it; Yoongi seemed like he had been through a lot.

“The Citadel.” Best to answer this one honestly, Jimin thought.

Yoongi didn’t need to vocalize his confusion for Jimin to understand.

“I can take you there, if you’d like.” Jimin offered. He couldn’t leave Yoongi here-the cut on his side only seemed to be getting worse. Besides, Namjoon would love to study a human like this-one who could supposedly kill vampires. Not to mention that Yoongi was his ticket out. Jimin really didn’t think that he could find a way out on his own.

Yoongi seemed to contemplate this offer, weighing his options. Leave with a stranger to a place that may or may not kill him, or inevitably bleed and/or starve to death here?

He nodded.

Jimin kept a close grip on his dagger as Yoongi lead him through winding tunnels and up flights of stairs. As they went, Jimin noted how much larger this place was on the inside than on the outside. Strange.

“So you’re telling me that this guy kidnaps you, locks you in a dark room, and you invite him back with us?” Hongbin hissed, pulling Jimin aside.

“Yes. Who are you to question my decisions as captain? Do I need to remind you of how the Council chose me over you?” Jimin whisper-shouted back. Truthfully, he doesn’t know why he was chosen. He’d never been that good at leading, or that much stronger, better at fighting, anything. None of that matters now, though.

What matters is that Chanyeol, as the team medic, was trying to patch Yoongi up. What matters is that nothing he tried seemed to be work.

“Jimin?” He called, looking more nervous than Jimin had ever seen him. Yoongi looked worse than before, and stacks of blood soaked bandages lay next to him. Chanyeol turned away from him, attempting to hide his words from his patient.

“I don’t know what to do. The normal human remedies aren’t working, the bandages I use on us aren’t helping, applying wolf salve only seems to have given him a rash...”

“What? Why would you use that?” Jimin questioned. “What the hell Chanyeol? You know that’s only meant for use on werewolves.”

“It was my last resort!” He says defensively.

Jimin pinches the bridge of his nose. “Fine. Get him to a warlock. It’ll be expensive-I’ll pay for it. If I remember right, there should be one a few blocks down. Tell Yeri to fly him there. I’ll join as soon as I can.”

With all winged members of the team in the air, Jimin and Chanyeol are left to make their way on foot.

“You ever get jealous of them?” Jimin aseds as the others easily passed them.

“Maybe a little, yeah.” Chanyeol responded. “But what’s being jealous going to do? It’s not like we’re ever going to get to be like them, you know?”

“Yeah, maybe you’re right.”

They walked in silence the rest of the way.

---

Hoseok lived above the world’s best Chinese takeout restaurant. Or at least, the sign in front of Hoseok’s building proclaimed it so. It wasn’t the best living situation-the smell of General Tso’s at seven a.m. didn’t do wonders for the appetite- but for a young, broke warlock, it was home.

Hoseok took quite a bit of pride in his home. As a warlock specializing in healing, he kept numerous herbs growing in his apartment, as well as shelves and shelves of harder to obtain materials, like dragon’s scale and elvenwood, all entirely imperative for healing purposes. Of course, he will admit to a little bit of a side hustle, involving some shadier things-but who can blame him? A guy’s gotta eat, after all.

Hoseok has also never liked Celestials. Especially not the military types. They barge in, saying things like “We have proof of illegal substances being sold here” and “We have a search warrant, you can’t stop us”, then they go and mess up everything looking for whatever it is, entirely unaware that Hoseok is quite good at concealment spells.

He was not happy when five of them appeared on his doorstep, wings still extended, armed head to toe, and covered in blood that was not their own. When they knocked, he briefly entertained the idea of a transportation spell, maybe giving them a little vacation in Hawaii for a change. Those soldiers were too uptight anyway.

Eventually, his conscience won out and he opened the door.

The group spilled into his small apartment. He eyed them curiously.

“What can I do for you all?”

One, a small girl stepped forward. Her pale pink wings were wrapped around her body, and when she tucked them away she revealed a person in her arms.

Hoseok’s eyes immediately dropped to the man she was carrying. Blood was smeared all over his side, though bandages had been liberally applied in an effort to slow it. He seemed as though he’d never seen the sun before. (Or a good meal, for that matter.) Numerous smaller scrapes and cuts littered his face and arms, and a particularly nasty bite was right at the juncture between his neck and shoulders. He looked really bad, to say the least.

“We couldn’t, uh, fix this…” A tall one with dark hair and wings said. 
“No .” Hoseok simply replied. “Well, at least you had the sense to come to the right place. I’ll warn you, though. I can heal this, but it won’t come cheap.”

The warlock had been further than Jimin expected. The mid spring heat had left both him and Chanyeol soaked in sweat, and by the time they climbed the stairs to the warlock’s shop, Jimin was utterly exhausted.

Hoseok was stitching up the gash on Yoongi’s side. A balm had already been applied to where Chanyeol had mistakenly used wolf salve and several of the smaller cuts and bruises were beginning to disappear. Jimin had already paid Hoseok’s fee, wincing for his bank account as he did so. So much for that new sweater he was going to buy.

Yoongi had apparently passed out not long after they had left the hotel. He had yet to wake up, but Hoseok didn’t seem worried about it. He didn’t seem worried about much in general, though.

Chanyeol was pestering Hoseok with questions.

“So wait. I tried human bandages and antiseptic, but it didn’t do much of anything. How’s that stuff any different?”

Hoseok looked at him as if he’d just asked the dumbest question he’d ever heard.

“Of course human antiseptic wouldn’t work on him. He’s not human.” Hoseok continued his work, casting a cleaning spell over the area and packing away his supplies.

Jimin, who had been listening in on the conversation with only minimal interest perked up.

“What do you mean he’s not human?” Jimin asked from his spot on Hoseok’s couch. That didn’t make sense-what else could Yoongi be?

“I mean what I said. He’s not human.” Hoseok replied curtly,somewhat annoyed by the entire exchange. He brusquely folded towels, stacking them neatly on a shelf.

“Then what is he? He’s not a vampire cause he doesn’t have fangs, he doesn’t smell like a wolf does, he doesn’t bleed silver like we do…” Jimin listed, still very confused.

“He’s a warlock.” Hoseok said, clearly done with the conversation.

“B-but…” Jimin sputtered. “He-he wasn’t afraid of the shadows. And he didn’t have a Witch’s Mark…”

Hoseok turned around. “What, don’t you birdbrains have any other idea of us except those old stereotypes?” He snorted. “You know what? Get out. There’s too many of you in here. All of you.” He spoke brusquely, waving them out with his arms. “Come back tomorrow. He’ll be better by then.”