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Felix was having a shitty day. He was hungry and tired, a headache starting to bloom behind his forehead. There was a pile of homework waiting for Felix at his dorm, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to bring himself to start on any of it yet. Recently, more days were bad than not, but there wasn’t really anything Felix could do about it.
Felix was a pixie and needed physical affection like other species needed sunlight to stay alive. He could survive without it for a while, but if too much time passed he would start getting tired all of the time, would lose his appetite, cheeks would become hollow and gaunt. These days when Felix looked into the mirror, he recognized himself less and less.
When Felix left his home in the hollow, everyone had warned him that the world outside wasn’t made for woodland creatures like him, that he would struggle, that it would be better for him to just stay in the hollow like everyone else did, that he could just attend online university if he wanted to further his education. But Felix wanted to leave, wanted to explore the world. So he applied to universities, got into one that was supernatural friendly and packed up his things. Everyone told him that he would fail, that he wouldn’t even last a month on his own, but Felix was determined to succeed.
And he had succeeded—for the first semester at least. But now the second semester was halfway done and the weather wasn’t warming up as fast as Felix would have liked and his roommates were nice, but human and didn’t particularly like cuddles or the supernatural which left Felix in the predicament he found himself in: touch starved and constantly feeling on edge.
At least Felix would be back to his dorm soon. He could warm up some soup and cuddle with his stuffed animals and hope that would be enough to tide himself over for the time being. It wasn’t a permanent solution, but it was the best Felix had
His first semester, Felix had known a senior who was from the next hollow over and they would meet up at least once a week for cuddle sessions, but Seonghwa had graduated in December, leaving Felix friendless and alone. Felix knew people in his classes, sure, but no one who he was close enough with to ask for cuddles. So Felix found himself surviving off of little touches, someone brushing up against him in the hallway, casually placing a hand on his groupmate’s shoulder in class, or leaning over his lab partner to see the other’s work. It wasn’t ideal, but at least it wasn’t nothing and Felix was still alive, still able to make it to class each day.
Felix was so caught up in thought that he almost missed the person laying on the sidewalk—that is until he tripped over him.
“Oh my gosh I’m so sorry are you okay?” Felix asked as he quickly picked himself up from where he fell and turned to look at the person who he had fallen on top of. The boy was curled up into a ball on the cold, hard ground, backpack still on his back and beanie askew on his head.
“Mm,” the stranger groaned, opening his eyes to look at Felix.
Felix scrambled back frantically, the boy’s eyes were bright red—a sign of a vampire who was in desperate need of blood. But this vampire didn’t seem to be too interested in eating Felix. Instead of lunging after him like Felix expected, the boy just closed his eyes and curled up even smaller.
“Hey, are you okay? The middle of the walkway isn’t exactly the best place for a nap and you look like you need some blood to drink,” Felix found himself asking despite every survival instinct he had screaming at him to get away from the vampire who probably wanted to eat him.
“No, no blood,” the boy rasped.
“No blood? You do know you’re a vampire right?” Felix was confused. Was this boy newly turned? But if so, how did he have so much control over his thirst? Young vampires usually went crazy for blood especially if they didn’t have their sire with them.
“Leave me alone.”
Felix wasn’t about to do that. Even if the vampire wasn’t going crazy for blood now, he would be soon. Felix needed to get him home, needed to contact his sire or friends to come take care of him.
“Where do you live?”
The vampire didn’t respond, clearly done talking to Felix. That was fine, Felix would be able to figure it out on his own. Felix leaned over the vampire to reach for his backpack, unzipping the front pocket where he thought he was most likely to find keys. Luckily Felix was right and he found a ring of keys staring right back at him.
Felix grabbed the keys and started to look through them. There was a key for a music studio, a mailbox key, a key chain of a little plant, and another for the Witches Association. Felix found that strange since the boy in front of him was very clearly a vampire and not a witch.
Finally, Felix found what he was looking for: a room key. Jisung was the resident of Johnson Hall, room 325.
“You live in Johnson?” Felix asked. “So do I, but I’m in room 009. At least that means I can use my student ID card to buzz us in instead of trying to find yours. Why can’t you keep your card on your keys like every other student?”
The stranger didn’t respond, but Felix didn’t mind. Johnson wasn’t far from here and Felix’s previous tiredness was starting to dissipate in the face of his mission. He could do this. He could get this starving vampire back to his dorm and then Felix would be able to make some hot soup and cuddle up under his blankets with his small army of stuffed animals.
“Okay, let’s go. Can you at least stand up or unfurl yourself to make this easier?”
The vampire made no sign that he had heard Felix. At least Felix’s pixie blood meant that he was much stronger than he looked and the vampire honestly didn’t look like he weighed much. Felix wasn’t sure that he ever ate properly.
Felix bent down and easily swung the dead weight of the vampire onto his back. Felix assumed that he had passed out or something because he didn't even stir at the motion. After some quick adjustments, Felix headed down the walkway to Johnson Hall.
Fifteen minutes later, Felix found himself knocking on door 325. He had the key, but he thought that breaking into someone’s dorm was weird, even if he did have one of the residents of said dorm unconscious on his back.
Luckily, after a bit of commotion, a buff werewolf opened the door, the cross look on his face softening when he saw the vampire on Felix’s back.
“Changbin! Some pixie is here with Jisung on his back, we can call off the search party.” The werewolf shouted into the dorm.
“Oh thank god.” A short, but very muscular vampire appeared by the werewolf’s side. “I was scared he’d gotten himself into trouble for real this time. The tracker we have on his phone doesn’t work when he leaves his phone at home.”
“So, uh, I guess this is the right place?” Felix asked awkwardly.
“Oh, yes! Sorry, my manners are terrible. My name is Chan and the short vampire beside me is Changbin. Come inside. You can just put Jisung down on the couch.” Chan moved to the side and Felix stepped into the dorm. It had the same layout as Felix’s dorm, but felt so much more homey with the pile of shoes by the door, extra couch shoved into the communal area, and numerous plants scattered throughout.
Felix made his way to one of the couches and carefully deposited Jisung onto its cushioned surface. At the motion, Jisung finally began to stir, groaning and racing up to shade his eyes from the light. “Why am I home?”
“Because a nice pixie decided to drop you off. When was the last time you had something to drink?” Changbin asked, standing menacingly over Jisung.
Jisung didn’t respond and just turned onto his side, facing away from Changbin.
“He didn’t eat yesterday or the day before I bet.”
Felix turned around at the sound of a new voice to see one of the most beautiful creatures he had ever seen walk into the room. He was a nymph, tall and slim with shoulder length blond hair that was pulled half up, leaving some strands down to frame his face.
“Oh, are you the person who brought Jisung back? My name’s Hyunjin. Sorry to bother you with him. What’s your name?”
“Uh, Felix. And it really wasn’t that much of a bother. I also live in Johnson.”
Hyunjin’s eyes lit up. “Oh really? You’ll have to come over more often then. How do you know Jisung? I didn’t think he really talked to anyone other than us.”
Felix rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. “Funny story, I kind of tripped over him while walking home. He was lying on the walkway.”
“He was in the middle of the walkway?” Chan asked, looking up from whatever he was doing in the kitchen.
“Uh, I mean he wasn’t in the middle, more of to the side, but I wasn’t really paying attention or looking where I was going.”
Hyunjin laughed. “That’s okay. He probably deserved being tripped over. Plus, you brought him home.” He moved into the kitchen, bumping Chan with his hip as he reached into one of the cabinets. “Do you want anything to drink? We have water, juice, milk, tea, blood.”
“I’ll have hot chocolate please,” Jisung said from his place on the couch.
“No, you’ll have blood,” Chan corrected.
“Actually I won’t.”
Chan and Changbin both sighed.
“Ignore them, what do you want, Felix?”
Felix looked back over to Hyunjin. “Oh, I’m good, thanks. I’ll probably head back to my dorm now.”
“No, I insist. You rescued Jisung. The least we can do is give you a drink.”
“Plus you look like you’re about ready to keel over. When was the last time you cuddled with someone?”
Felix looked over in surprise as another person entered the kitchen. He thought that Chan, Changbin, Jisung, and Hyunjin were the only inhabitants of the dorm since four room dorms were usually for four people.
“Hi, the name’s Minho. I’m an elf. And you’re a pixie who hasn’t been taking care of themself recently.”
Felix bristled at Minho’s words. “I’m doing just fine, thank you.”
“Stop being so mean, Minho,” Hyunjin scolded. “Felix, we won’t force you to stay, but we would love it if you at least had a cup of tea with us. I haven’t been with a fellow woodland creature in so long, you know how our type doesn’t really get out much. You’d really be doing me a favor if you stayed. I’m stuck in here with werewolves, vampires, and elves, and they’re great but they don’t understand , you know?”
Felix knew all too well. “Okay, I guess I can stay for a cup of tea, but not too much longer because I have homework to do.”
A huge smile broke out across Hyunjin’s face. “Great! I’ll make us some tea. I even have the special kind I was saving from home, the tea they sell in the city is never quite the same.”
“Okay, thank you.”
“You should sit down.”
Felix looked up to see that Minho was now standing right in front of him.
“Sit on the couch, you’re our guest, you shouldn’t stand there all awkwardly.” Minho grabbed Felix’s elbow and led him to the couch, sitting down next to him so that their thighs were touching. The small amount of contact was enough to make something inside Felix settle. Between carrying Jisung and this, Felix would probably be set on physical touch for the next two weeks if he was careful.
The microwave dinged, startling Felix out of his thoughts and he looked up to watch Chan take a mug out of the microwave and pour its contents into a squeezy bottle. “Okay Jisung, we can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Chan said, walking over to the couch Jisung was curled up on.
“‘M not thirsty,” Jisung mumbled.
“When was the last time you drank some blood?” Changbin asked.
“Dunno, like a week and a half ago or something.”
Everyone sucked in a breath. Vampires were supposed to feed at least once a day, sometimes more if they were newly turned and Felix had a growing suspicion that Jisung was relatively young for a vampire.
“I thought he was eating lunch with you, Chan, that’s what he told me,” Hyunjin said.
“And he told me he was eating with you.”
Silence fell over the group and Felix felt awkward. This seemed like something he shouldn’t be privy to.
“Okay, new rule, Jisung eats at dinner, at home with one of us and proof is sent in the groupchat,” Changbin announced.
“No,” Jisung moaned.
“Yeah well I’m your sire which means that it’s my job to look after you.” Changbin moved so that he was straddling Jisung and flipped the younger over onto his back. “Ready Chan?” Changbin forced Jisung’s mouth open and then Chan was there, forcing blood into Jisung’s mouth. Changbin clapped his hand over Jisung’s mouth until he swallowed and the two of them pulled away. Jisung immediately curled back up on himself and started crying.
“That’s not enough,” Minho warned.
Chan turned around to shoot a look at Minho, as if to say Now’s not the time .
“I hate you.” Jisung sobbed. “I hate you. I fucking hate you. Why couldn’t you have let me die? You should just let me die.”
“Jisung,” Changbin tried to reach out towards him, but Jisung was already on his feet, running into one of the rooms and slamming the door behind him.
“Ah, sorry about him,” Minho apologized. “Usually it’s not this bad. He must’ve been having a bad week or something.”
“They’re having the Aptitude Tests this week.”
“Oh that makes sense.” Minho nodded at Changbin’s words, but Felix still found himself very confused. The Aptitude Tests were for high powered witches to take to get Placed. Why would Jisung, a vampire, care about those? And if Jisung was, presumably, a young vampire, how did he go so long without eating without being consumed by bloodlust? When Felix found him, Jisung should have immediately latched onto Felix’s throat, but on the walk home, Jisung’s mouth had been right by Felix’s neck, but the vampire hadn’t even stirred.
“Sorry that you had to stumble into this mess, Felix,” Chan said. “I promise we’re usually more put together than this. Well, I mean Jisung is usually a hot mess, but usually not to this level.”
“Yeah, this is like peak angstiness for him.” Hyunjin walked over and handed one of the two cups of tea in his hands to Felix before sitting down on the couch next to him, casually looping his free arm around Felix’s shoulders like they were good friends, not strangers who had just met less than half an hour ago. Felix didn’t have it in him to shrug off the touch and even found himself leaning into Hyunjin’s side, calmness rushing through his veins. It had been far too long since he had gotten any sort of physical affection, especially from another woodland creature.
“Jisung used to be a witch,” Changbin started to explain. “He, Chan, and I were all friends, but one day there was an…accident and I was forced to turn him to keep him alive. It was several years ago now, but he’s still struggling with his new vampire identity.”
Felix nodded his understanding. It didn’t matter what species someone was before turning, afterwards all previous supernatural ability they had was taken away. That is, if they survived the turning process, many people didn’t, especially if they were woodland creatures such as Hyunjin and Felix. The farther away a creature was from being a vampire, the more their nature relied on magic, the harder the turning process was. As a witch, there wouldn’t have been too many physical changes for Jisung other than the fangs and new super strength, but losing his magic must’ve been hard, especially if Jisung was talented enough to qualify to take the Aptitude Tests.
But one thing still didn’t make sense to Felix. “How can he go for so long without eating without succumbing to bloodlust?”
“Ah, to be honest we don’t really know ourselves. But Jisung has always been stubborn and a bit…different. Even when he was a witch,” Chan explained.
“I wasn’t friends with them yet when this all went down, but my theory is that his angstiness just overpowers everything else,” Minho theorized.
“Angstiness? Are we talking about Jisung?” The front door opened and two more people appeared, one werewolf and one elf.
“Oh.” The werewolf paused when he noticed Felix sitting on the couch. “You didn’t tell me we adopted a pixie.”
“We didn’t adopt anyone,” Chan said. “Felix found Jisung passed out on the walkway because he hadn't eaten in the past week and a half and brought him home. Felix has his own dorm.”
“Maybe we should adopt him. He looks touch starved,” the elf commented, tilting his head as he looked at Felix.
“Jeongin,” Chan scolded. “Just because you’re an elf and see these sorts of things easier than others doesn’t mean you can go around calling people touch starved.”
“Oh,” Jeongin looked confused. “Minho does all the time though.”
“Minho is not a good role model.”
“Hi!” Felix looked up to see the werewolf standing in front of him. “My name’s Seungmin, nice to meet you!”
Seungmin held out his hand and Felix reached out to shake it.
“I’m sorry that you had to meet Jisung first. I promise that the rest of us are more normal.”
Hyunjin snorted. “I watched you chase a squirrel up a tree the other day.”
“Really?” Jeongin asked. “Did you get a video?”
“Yeah, I did actually,” Hyunjin started to fish his phone out of his pocket and the next thing Felix knew, he had a lapful of Jeongin who had shoved Seungmin out of he way to sit in Felix’s lap. Now Seungmin was fighting with Changbin trying to get his hands on Hyunjin’s phone before he could show the video to them.
“Jeongin, you can’t just sit on people you don’t know,” Chan scolded.
Jeongin looked up innocently. “But I do know him, his name is Felix and he’s a pixie and he doesn’t mind me on his lap, right Felix?”
“Uh, no it’s quite nice actually.”
“Well next time you should ask before you just sit on someone.”
“Of course, Chan.” Jeongin rolled his eyes. “Now Hyunjin please show me that video before Seungmin escapes Changbin’s hold.”
Felix closed his eyes and let the chaos surround him. He actually quite liked it. It had been too long since Felix had been with other supers and the residents of dorm 325 were very chaotic, but in the best kind of way. It definitely didn’t hurt that Felix felt very warm and safe bracketed between Hyunjin, Jeongin, and Minho. He could probably get used to this feeling.
“Is he asleep?” Jeongin asked, looking at Felix whose lap he was still seated in.
“Hmm, I think so,” Hyunjin muttered, leaning his head against Felix’s shoulder. “He’s ours now, right?”
Chan groaned. “How many times do I have to tell you that we can’t just adopt random supers off of the street without their consent?”
“He actually came to us with one of our random supers that he found on the walkway,” Seungmin corrected. He was seated in Changbin’s lap on the other side of Minho. Chan often wondered why they had two couches when everyone always squeezed onto one anyways.
“Plus, adopting a random super worked out pretty well with Minho,” Jeongin pointed out.
Minho cracked one of his eyes open. “Everyday I regret becoming a part of this shit show.”
“Is that why you’re half asleep on the couch with half of the pack on top of you?”
“You’re lucky Felix is sleeping right now, Hwang Hyunjin. Just know that I know where you sleep.”
Hyunjin shrunk down so that he was hiding behind Jeongin and Felix.
“But seriously, Chan,” Minho said. “You can see how touched starved he is, right? It takes months of neglect for a pixie to get like that and it’s going to take a lot to get Felix back to full health. This sounds cheesy as fuck, but he needs us.”
“I’m not saying that he can’t be friends with us, I’m just saying that we can’t invite him to join our pack after only knowing him for an hour. Especially if he’s been on his own for so long, we might scare him off.”
“I joined the pack after knowing you for like 20 minutes, Chan,” Seungmin pointed out.
Changbin smacked Seungmin’s shoulder. “Yeah that’s because you literally saw us in the street and then walked up to Chan and were all like ‘Be my leader’ and Chan was like ‘Another wolf? We have to adopt him.’”
“That hurt,” Seungmin whined, rubbing his shoulder. “And it’s a wolf thing, you wouldn’t understand.”
“If you’re worried about Jisung, he’ll be fine,” Hyunjin said. “Remember when he was first turned? This is nothing compared to that.” Chan and Changbin both winced. They remembered the first year after Jisung had been turned all too well. “Plus Felix is mine now, and you can’t lie and tell me that you don’t feel it too, Chan.”
“No, I definitely do,” Chan responded. “He completes us and I’d be honored to have him join our pack when he’s ready.”