A tiny Vampire!Nicky and Werewolf!Joe fic based off of this post
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"What was that?"
Nicky looked up guiltily, palming something in his hand and shoving it below the table. "What was what?" he said, entirely too innocently.
Joe leveled his vampire boyfriend with an unimpressed stare. He could hear whatever Nicky was hiding crinkling softly below the table. The sound might have been unintelligible to human ears, but his were better than most.
Nicky didn't meet his gaze for more than a second, his face making that pinched look it got when he otherwise would have been blushing furiously. They had just sat down to eat--or in Nicky's case, drink--so both of them were a bit blood-deprived at the moment.
"Nicky," Joe tsked gently. They had only been dating for a few weeks so far but he thought they would have had more trust between them than this.
"It's stupid."
Joe softened. "Nothing you could possibly do would be stupid."
Nicky grimaced in disagreement, then finally met Joe's eyes in a surprisingly serious look, his own eyes flashing. "You have to promise not to laugh," he insisted.
Joe raised his right hand. "I promise."
Nicky judged him for a moment, then added on, "And you have to promise not to tell anyone else either. And I mean no one. Not even Booker."
Joe inclined his head in agreement, raising his hand higher. He was intrigued now. Usually Nicky was more straightforward than this about things. He scented the air subtly but all he could smell was the scent of the steak in front of him, the blood bag in front of Nicky, and something subtly sweet in the air.
When Nicky slowly unfurled his hand to let the sports drink flavor packet crumple onto the table, Joe blinked in confusion. "I don't get it."
Nicky mumbled something under his breath, too fast and quiet even for Joe's sharp ears to pick up on.
"What was that?"
"I said I don't like the taste of blood," Nicky blurted out. His face was fully pinched now, lips doing a funny little quirk and his brows furrowing together.
Joe blinked again. "But you're a vampire."
Nicky gave him an unimpressed look. "Thank you, I hadn't noticed," he commented dryly, shooting Joe a bland smile that was all fang.
Joe looked from the drink packet to Nicky's blood bag, noticing for the first time the minuscule flavor crystals still sinking slowly to the bottom. "Ah." That would explain the sweet smell at least.
Nicky grimaced again and shrugged. "It doesn't mask the taste entirely but it does help. I don't like the saltiness of the blood, so... It helps," he says again.
Okay, that, Joe decided, was adorable. "What's your favorite flavor?"
Nicky looked up at him, surprised by his genuineness. "Blue raspberry," he said without hesitation, "But I don't drink it very often because it tends to turn the whole thing purple and then people can tell," he said with a wave of his hand towards his drink.
And if Joe bought a whole box of blue raspberry flavor packets to keep in his cupboard from then on out, well...
No one knew but the two of them.
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