[fic] Inamorato (YunJaeHo) Part 3
Title: Inamorato
Rating: NC-17
Genre: AU, Angst, Dark, Drama, Supernatural, Psychological, Tragedy (?)
Warnings: AU, angst, darkfic, supernatural (incubi), character death (but not really), the occult, minor gender-bender (duh, incubi), minor drug abuse (caffeine pills), and...I think that's everything.
Summary: Until Death do us part - a farce; for true love, Death is only the beginning.
7864wc
III.
“Yunho-yah~”
Cracking open his eyes, Yunho was disappointed to see the bright fluorescence of the hospital lights above him. This was not a place he particularly cared to be at the moment, and hell, now that he thought about it, he felt just fine. There was no more pain, no more lethargy, no more delirium swallowing him piece by piece.
There was nothing. There wasn’t the sound of the hustle and bustle of busy doctors. The monitors he’d been connected to no longer sounded with a steady, pulsing beep of his vital statistics. Alarmed, Yunho jerked up and somehow the sound of the crisp bedsheets rustling made him feel a little bit better.
But the shadow to his right did not.
Jaejoong looked as radiant as ever, this time with bright blond hair that reminded Yunho of their time together as they finished high school then entered college together. Jaejoong had always been a bit of a chameleon, always seeking to reinvent and pamper himself every which way he could. Jaejoong’s last hair color had been a beautiful wine red before he’d fallen ill and it had faded to a strange shade of brown before death had taken him.
Yunho was reluctant to acknowledge it was just the two of them.
“Where is everyone else?” Yunho frowned his query, sparing a none-too-friendly glare to Jaejoong.
Jaejoong clicked his tongue and stood up. “They’re still here. Or there. But are we? Are you?” He laughed, amused by his own riddles.
“This isn’t funny,” Yunho hissed.
The cold attitude was like a slap in the face to Jaejoong. His amusement faded and his smiles disappeared. He looked sombre, unhappy, and Yunho reckoned Jaejoong was hurt. “You’ve become so cold to me, Yunho-yah,” he lamented.
“You’ve been giving me nightmares for weeks, Jaejoong. It’s hard not to,” Yunho snapped his reply.
Jaejoong shook his head, standing by Yunho’s bedside. He tried to reach for the other man and hold his hand, but Yunho would not let him. He jerked as if he had been touched by fire, and perhaps maybe he had been if the darkened scorch mark on the once pristine sheet was any indication.
“I’m sorry.” Jaejoong’s apology seemed genuine and heartfelt. Yunho felt warmth blossom in his chest because, for the first time, he hated himself for being responsible for Jaejoong’s disquietude. “But it was necessary, Yunho. I needed you to drink from Acheron.”
“What!?”
Jaejoong smiled morosely. “Did you think I was doing this just to torture you, Yunho? Do you even remember me at all? You should be the first person to know I don’t do things without rhyme or reason. There’s always something. I always have a goal in mind.”
Swallowing the thick blockage of rife emotion in his throat, Yunho nodded. “I know,” he said.
“You should be a little more grateful, I think. I suffered much worse than you have when I went through this journey. I thought I was the insane one and I damn near gave up because I couldn’t take it.” Jaejoong crawled up on the hospital bed, straddling Yunho’s lap as he looked down at him. The position was oddly intimate and brought forth a lust in him he did not yet want. He had questions and he needed answers.
“What the hell is happening?”
Jaejoong smiled and leaned down, their mouths hovering dangerously close. Yunho remembered that kiss he’d been left wanting and was bereft without, and his mind was left with this thought alone.
“You’re going to die, Yunho,” Jaejoong whispered, and it was a low whisper of sensuality and want and desire that Yunho almost didn’t fully grasp the meaning of what he’d said.
“What?” Eyes wide as fear settled in his stomach, lust dispersing, Yunho struggled to breathe.
“Don’t fear it, because I will be here holding your hand every step of the way. It will hurt, and you will suffer, but after your death we will be together. Finally.”
Yunho opened his mouth to speak, but Jaejoong cut him off with a finger to his lips and added, “Don’t question it, Yunho. I’m inside your head. I know all of your deepest thoughts and your darkest secrets. Some of them I knew even before you did.”
Realization dawned upon Yunho. “The girl with your face - ”
“The girl was me, yes. If you had preferred me that way I would have stayed. It’s one of the perks to being an incubus.”
Incubus?
“You - ”
“I gave up my humanity and became a sex demon for you? Why, yes, yes I did.” Jaejoong bristled with pride as he admitted it, and he looked almost human again, just like he was alive and beautiful and Yunho wanted that more than anything.
“I’m really not going crazy?” Yunho about cried tears of relief.
Jaejoong chuckled. “No, you’re not. Some things were necessary. I can’t quite explain it, but when it happens to you, you’ll understand.”
Yunho couldn’t hold back his tears anymore. He clasped one of Jaejoong’s pale hands between his, and though it reminded him of the warmth of summer against the frigidity of winter, he thought they looked perfect. Yunho splayed their palms together, interweaving their fingers, and just enjoying the simple-mindedness of things that he could not enjoy before when Jaejoong had been alive.
It made a little bit more sense now. Things were still blurry to him, but he felt he was on the right path to understanding everything that had happened to him.
“I love you,” Yunho whispered, pressing his lips against the back of Jaejoong’s hand. How could he have ever been angry with Jaejoong, his beloved?
Jaejoong didn’t say it back, but Yunho thought actually getting the kiss he’d been wanting for weeks was reward enough. Jaejoong’s mouth was soft and warm and slightly damp, like he’d licked his lips before leaning in. The press of their mouths was light but no less intimate than anything else they’d ever done.
A chill swept over Yunho’s body as Jaejoong threw the sheets off the ground and pushed the hospital gown all the way up to his armpits just before breaking the kiss. Yunho was dizzy and light-headed, head thrown back as pleasure spun through him so fast he couldn’t see. The heat of Jaejoong’s body above him was like an aphrodisiac, sending hot bursts of lust into his bloodstream. He was hard before he even knew it, feeling the way pleasure crackled along his skin like electricity as Jaejoong rubbed against him, all pale skin and burning heat.
It was beauty. It was perfection.
It was completion.
Yunho sank into Jaejoong with a low hiss, everything was tight and hot and strangely wet. Jaejoong’s body was pliant above him, back arched as he let out a low moan just as Yunho settled in to the hilt. They had done this carnal dance enough times to know how to settle into the perfect rhythm, finding each other again and again until pleasure blinded them both.
If Yunho was going to die, he could take it if this is what his Heaven would be. Jaejoong had a way of pulling the most primal parts of him to the surface, like a beast on the prowl, and satisfying it just before he lost his mind completely.
“Yunho,” Jaejoong gasped, hot and wet at the hollow of his throat. His body had grown weary, but he knew that Yunho would take great care of him. And he did, a hand settling at Jaejoong’s upper thigh as he steadied him before letting go, pounding into Jaejoong with all of the force and strength he could muster. Jaejoong whimpered and kissed him again, and it was a feral, messy kiss with tongue and teeth and saliva and Yunho thought it was the best kiss he’d ever had.
It was that thought that made him come, body juddering as he slowed down to harsh thrusts, carrying him through his orgasm. It was by far the most intense. The most draining.
When Yunho came back to himself, he saw that Jaejoong too had come and was licking up the mess with a serpentine tongue that had him twitching with interest again.
But he was tired. The familiar and detested lethargy had settled into his body again, and he was tired. He just wanted to sleep.
“I’ll be back,” Jaejoong promised with a come-covered kiss. Yunho’s head went light again and he swore he’d never tasted anything sweeter.
“You’d better,” Yunho growled, though without any real venom because he was too exhausted.
“I promise.” Those words were the last thing Yunho remembered.
*
Yoochun had taken a couple of days to himself. First, he needed to absorb the information he’d gotten from the priest-in-training, Junsu, at the church outside of Seoul. Second, he needed to look more into it and gather all of the information he could. This wasn’t an issue to be trifled with so lightly, and he knew he had to watch every which way his body moved.
When he had his wits about himself once more, Yoochun sped off to the hospital. He heard not a word from his aunt or uncle so he hadn’t the slightest clue about Yunho’s current condition, but he hoped things weren’t getting too bad. Hey, maybe Yunho had drastically improved and had even been released? Okay, yeah, that was wishful thinking, but Yoochun wasn’t going to lie and say this whole mess didn’t scare the fuck out of him.
Maybe it was his own fears that held him back from doing the right thing. Either way, he knew things were about to exponentially worsen and his stagnant hesitation was not helping things at all.
The hospital appeared dark and foreboding as Yoochun approached it, apprehension clawing at his insides. His steps slowed the closer he got just before walking inside, pausing to take a deep breath, before steeling himself and marching inside. He made his way to Yunho’s room but stopped when he saw his aunt and uncle nearby the nurse’s station talking to a doctor.
The older man’s mouth was firm with solemnity as he said things Yoochun couldn’t hear to Yonghwa and Insuk, though judging by their postures, it wasn’t good at all. Insuk’s shoulders had slumped, her hand covering her mouth as her head lowered. He could hear her tears before he saw them. Yonghwa wasn’t much better off, though Yoochun gave the man credit for holding himself and his wife together.
The doctor laid a kind hand on Yonghwa’s shoulder before he departed, head lowered. Delivering terrible news all of the time could never be easy, Yoochun presumed.
“What’s going on?” Yoochun asked as soon as he was close enough to talk quietly to them.
Insuk spared him a none too pretty glance full of tears as she cried. “We don’t know,” she sobbed. “They don’t know anything and they can’t do anything!”
“Insuk.” Yonghwa brought his wife close to him, fitting her snug in his arms. Watching them embrace struck Yoochun with a sense of being an unwanted third party, but he was on a mission, damn it.
“I don’t…”
“Yesterday,” Insuk sniffled, pulling away from her husband, “yesterday his kidneys started failing. Out of nowhere. No signs, nothing. Just...failure. Today, it’s his liver and the doctor things there are signs that Yunho’s body is attacking itself.
“Yunho has severe lupus that appeared out of nowhere and the doctors don’t know how long they have to do anything before it’s unstoppable.”
Yoochun was stunned. He stood stark still, eyes wide as the information slowly settled within his body. He’d barely been gone two damn days and all of these life-threatening complications were happening to his cousin… Yunho didn’t deserve this. Yunho was a good, familial man and he cared too much about others, so much so that it wasn’t uncommon to see Yunho neglect himself in their favor. It hurt, like a fresh wound to his chest, to think that Yunho was incorrigibly ill.
Did the demon - Jaejoong - have anything to do with this?
“Is he - ?” Yoochun moved to enter his cousin’s room, but was stopped by Yonghwa.
“He won’t wake up,” the man said. Yoochun met his uncle’s gaze and found the one thing he was afraid to see: Yonghwa was broken. He was hopeless. He believed they were already at the end of their rope and all they had to do was jump.
Yonghwa believed that Yunho was going to die.
Determination rose within Yoochun. He would try his best to make sure Yunho didn’t die. He was going to get Yunho the help that he needed, and the demon would leave him alone. Yunho would miraculously recover and they would live a happy life of longevity.
“You’re wrong,” Yoochun said venemously. “Yunho’s going to be fine. I promised him that I would take care of him and I meant it.”
*
“Do you know why the sky is blue?”
Yunho yawned, exhaustion still heavy in his limbs but Jaejoong’s fingers through his hair just felt so nice. “Um, it’s the way the color spectrum of light hits the Earth and reflects back to our eyes…”
“Indeed.” Jaejoong smiled at him and somehow, he managed to become the sun and the sole focus of Yunho’s world in that instant.
“Remember in sixth grade when our teacher tried explaining that to us and you didn’t get it? I thought you were mentally disabled since you were the one that had run into me, chasing after that ball…” Yunho laughed at Jaejoong’s indignant expression, finding himself unable to resist the urge to kiss Jaejoong. He felt a little bit more of his strength zap away from him just before Jaejoong pulled away.
Yunho’s brows furrowed. “Does - ”
“I’ll have you know, Heechul told me it was because of bird pee and when it rained - ”
Yunho couldn’t stop his laughter as it bubbled out of him in a fit of contagious mirth, eyes closed and mouth wide open as he remembered their childhood together. Heechul was a sassy, devious little thing and he had taken great pleasure in being one of the eldest as he tormented his younger siblings with fallacies. But those memories were for Yunho and Jaejoong only. It was sacred, the bond they had, and he understood the lengths that Jaejoong was going through to preserve it. At least, that was how he understood it.
Jaejoong had loved his father, loved God, but at the same time, Yunho knew all too well that Jaejoong had also feared them both. Yunho had once been told that a little bit of fear was healthy, but when he thought about it he realized how incorrect that actually was. If you had to inspire a “healthy amount of fear” into those around you, then you were doing it wrong.
Yunho didn’t need to hear Jaejoong’s story to know that he had been terrified by the intense closeness camaraderie. He had probably known what it was the minute it clicked into place, and who knew how long Jaejoong had spent fighting off those feelings because of the fear that had been taught to him.
His laughter quietened with those somber thoughts, and Yunho dared to ask, “Does it hurt? Death?”
Jaejoong’s smile faded but the light of contentment was still in his eyes. Yunho knew the real color of his eyes were pitch black because, as a demon, he hadn’t a shred of humanity left in him and as the saying went, a person’s eyes were the windows to their soul. But this was how Yunho preferred to see Jaejoong, looking just like he had when they were human, and Yunho didn’t even try to hide the fact that Jaejoong’s blond hair had been his favorite. The soft black he’d gone to right after that was his second favorite, and sometimes Jaejoong alternated between them when he appeared to Yunho.
“I would be a liar if I said it didn’t,” Jaejoong began quietly, “but if you think death hurts, then there is much worse to come. Expect the worst, Yunho. Expect the crippling agony, expect all of the worst nightmares you’ve never even had come true. Expect it, and then maybe you’ll be okay. Maybe.”
In a second, Jaejoong went from pensive to just plain annoyed as he rolled his eyes upward to the ceiling and glared at it. “Your cousin is quite annoying,” he muttered, lips pursed into a frown. “Whochun - ”
“Yoochun,” Yunho corrected, trying to seem stern but it was hard when he was trying not to laugh.
Jaejoong let out an exasperated sigh. “Well, he’s annoying and I want him to go away and leave you alone.”
“Wait, what?”
Jaejoong’s smile turned rueful. “There’s a reason I’ve kept you here with me, Yunho. Dying is the worst part of death, but in here you won’t be suffering. If I leave, you’ll wake up and all you’ll know is suffering. I can’t do that to you.”
Yunho sat up to look him directly in the eyes. “Jaejoong…if what I have to go through to join you is worse, then I need to face this. You can’t pamper me.”
The worst thing about Jaejoong was that, being an incubus, everything he did was charged with a sexual energy that Yunho was helpless to ignore. He turned disappointment into seduction and smiles into puddles of come on their stomachs. All he had to do was move, and move he did, and Yunho could feel himself getting hard as a rock in seconds flat. It was almost embarrassing, but Jaejoong had a way of ridding him of that.
“Fine.” Jaejoong smiled, eyes lighting up as a free hand curled around Yunho’s hard cock to fist him loosely. “But let me take care of this first beforehand.”
And by “take care of”, Yunho learned Jaejoong meant he would show him all the sinful things he could do with his mouth.
*
When Yunho rose from the elysium inside his own subconsciousness, all he knew was the blistering pain he felt throughout his whole body. He couldn’t tell left apart from right, he just knew that everything hurt so much and for a moment he regretted that he had asked for this.
“Oh my god, Yunho!” Yoochun’s breathless exclamation reminded him why he needed to do this.
Yunho opened his mouth to speak, but the only thing that came out was a helpless croak.
“Don’t, don’t. Shhh, shh, just drink,” Yoochun urged as he helped Yunho to a small glass of water that had been placed at his bedside, first removing the oxygen mask that Yunho hadn’t even realized was there. Just how bad had things gotten since the last time he had been lucid?
“Can you understand me?” Yoochun asked softly, grasping Yunho’s hand tight in his.
Yunho let out sound of affirmation that didn’t quite sound like it should have, coupling it with a faint nod. It brought a small, weak smile to Yoochun’s face.
“You’re in really bad condition right now,” he began. “The doctors are talking to your parents right now because you haven’t been awake since the last time I was here. Your organs are starting to fail and you’ve got rapidly advancing lupus. Your body is...killing itself, Yunho.”
By the end of his tirade, Yoochun’s chest hurt and his throat burned. His vision was blurred from unshed tears and he was rife with emotion, rife with sorrow because there were so many things going wrong to a wonderful man that didn’t deserve it.
Meanwhile, Yunho felt like he was bathing in caustic waters that had long since rotted away his flesh and were working slowly at his insides. He was in pain, a lot more than he had ever been able to fathom before, and all he wanted was for it to go away. Part of him resented himself for asking for this, resented Jaejoong for letting him have suffer through this agony. He felt like a petulant child again, crying over a scraped knee and wanting nothing more than someone to whisk him into their arms and kiss the pain away.
Yunho wanted Jaejoong.
Needed him.
Swallowing a deep breath, Yunho attempted to smile up at his cousin. He and Yoochun had not been very close until this had started happening, and for that Yunho would forever appreciate everything his cousin had done for him. You’re a good man, Yunho wanted to tell him, but he found that talking was still quite difficult and made his chest ache.
“Oh, Yunho…”
Yoochun spared him another resolute smile, turning around to make sure that Yunho’s parents would be distracted for a little while longer. His eyes turned wild and desperate then, the guard Yunho had been oblivious to suddenly dropping to reveal the broken man burdened by Yunho’s truth.
“Look, I - I drove out of the city and I visited a church. I found out what’s wrong with you. There’s no easy way to say it, but...you’re being haunted by a demon. I know that sounds weird since it’s usually ghosts that do hauntings but, well.” Yoochun sighed, hands shaky as he clutched Yunho’s own hand tight within his grasp.
“I’m going to take care of you,” Yoochun said. “I am going to do what I can to make sure that demon goes away and leaves us all alone. I’m going to make sure he pays for what he has done to you.”
Yunho had once been a strong man overflowing with life, and now here he was as a mere shell of what he used to be. Yoochun made this promise with himself in mind, with Yunho and his family and all of their loved ones held close to his heart.
Something flashed in Yunho’s eyes, something akin to fear that Yoochun couldn’t quite make out, and he began to shake his head to and fro rigorously. Yoochun wrongly assumed that his cousin was shocked and confused by the news, trapped in denial, and Yoochun fought another wave of tears as they threatened to blind him again.
“Look, I know it’s weird but, it’s true. I know this is something you’d find in a horror movie, but this is real and it’s happening and I’m going to take care of you. You’re going to live your life and love as you were meant to.”
Yunho licked his lips and shook his head again, somehow managing to croak out, “No.” Let me die.
Yoochun’s eyes were sad as he understood what went unspoken. “What has he done to you?” he mumbled forlornly.
Nothing, Yunho wanted to say. Jaejoong has done nothing to me that I don’t want.
He didn’t know what the incubus was thinking, but Yunho believed in Jaejoong. He felt that Jaejoong knew what he was doing and that he was doing the right thing by them. Maybe he was brainwashed, but at this point he didn’t care.
Yunho just needed Jaejoong.
And it was with this thought in the forefront of Yunho’s mind that he let himself go, the screams and shouts and screeching of the background just fading into white noise. His last memory might be of his mother’s splotchy, tear-stained face as the doctors and nurses warred with her flailing body to exit the room, but he had no regrets.
He had Jaejoong.
*
The two of them were seated on a bench, side by side, overlooking the soothing stillness of the Han River. Yunho had never been here in his life and could not help the natural desire he had to go, if even just once, and the fact that Jaejoong somehow always knew these little things and satisfied them to his best abilities always made Yunho smile.
Jaejoong was beside him, humming, and he looked as radiant as ever with his wine red hair glimmering in the sunlight, tousled gently by the gentle mid-summer breeze.
“Lovely, isn’t it?” he asked.
Yunho nodded. “I’ve always wanted to come here. It’s better than what I could have ever imagined.”
“I know.” Jaejoong laughed as a flock of birds chirped overhead, their wings fluttering to invisible heartbeats. It was the song of life, Yunho realized, and he’d never heard it so beautiful before.
“Am I…?” Dead. Somehow, Yunho couldn’t make himself say it.
“Not yet,” Jaejoong chirped as if the topic of their conversation wasn’t so grim. “Aaahhhh, I have a confession to make, my lovely Yunho.”
For a moment, Yunho saw his best friend exactly as the person he remembered him as. He saw the life in his eyes, the sunshine in his smile, and the beauty of his existence that Yunho had missed for a long time. Jaejoong came to him in his dreams, that much he knew, but this - this felt real.
It felt like happiness.
It felt like love.
“And what’s that?” Yunho hummed. He smiled as he caught sight of a majestic swan and her trail of ducklings.
“This isn’t the Han River, I’m afraid. This is the Styx, the River of Hate.”
When Yunho frowned, the sun disappeared and the world became grey and dismal. While mythology and religion and philosophy was always Jaejoong’s forte, Yunho knew enough to know exactly what it was the incubus was talking about. “How?” he asked, head tilted as he peered at Jaejoong through the darkness of his hair.
“I suppose I’ve got a lot to tell you that you need to know before we go any further,” Jaejoong started, lips pursed as he rested his cheek against the knee held to his chest, his other leg dangling free off the bench. “As you know, there are many religions and pantheons of deities that accompany each. I was raised a devout, pious man, a Christian, and that I had only believed in one higher power: God.”
Yunho tried not to look taken aback when he saw the darkness in Jaejoong’s eyes, how they went pitch black at the mere mention of anything divine. It scared him, reminded him of the nightmare he’d had when Jaejoong let him drown and that was not what he wanted to think about. Yunho watched as Jaejoong’s mouth twisted up into a wry smile, being reminded that Jaejoong practically knew his every thought as they were both still inside his head.
Usually, anyway. He didn’t think the River Styx existed inside of his mind.
“Each religion has its truths, has the things that it gets right, but there are also many things wrong that are constantly taught as though they are right. The most important thing, however, is that every religion connects in one way, shape, or form to the next. When you can find that connection and follow it to the next, you can more or less solve the entirety of the cosmos.
“As you’re aware of by now, you know that I am a demon. One common misconception about demonkin is that we are thought to be nothing but darkness, thought to be terrible creatures that have suffered and burned for sins they can’t even remember, tortured until there’s nothing left: no humanity, no emotions… This is not true. Demons are entities that feed on emotion, feed on humanity. There are some that are as foul and fearsome as humans tend to believe, but most are not.
“Do you remember the seven deadly sins, Yunho?”
“Yes.” Yunho nodded.
Pride. Envy. Wrath. Gluttony. Avarice. Sloth. Lust.
“Demons are not emotionless, Yunho. Contrary to that belief, we actually feel emotions much more strongly than humans. Emotions are...explosive. And we feed from them and their intensity. It’s the one thing that keeps us alive.”
Jaejoong turned to Yunho with a smile, reaching out to grasp Yunho’s hands in his. He interlocked their fingers and pressed their palms together, invoking within Yunho a strange, fluttering warmth within his chest. Love.
“Do you feel that?”
Yunho nodded again.
“I can feed from it. Think of it this way: each demon has their own sin, and as an incubus, my sin is lust. But the seven sins is not an exhaustive list, and while sex is my personal favorite way to feed, it is not the only way.”
Jaejoong smiled when he saw the light in Yunho’s eyes, a light that came with knowledge and the understanding of it.
Jaejoong leaned closer to Yunho, one of his beautiful, light-up-the-world smiles twisting at his mouth. He whispered, “My sin as a human being was always loving you. Not even Phlegethon could burn that away.”
Yunho’s brows furrowed in confusion, but instead of asking, he lessened the proximity between them until he could kiss Jaejoong. Kissing Jaejoong always made his head spin and his heart soar in his chest, but it also made him weary and exhausted in the worst of ways.
“Oh, Yunho,” Jaejoong murmured, “you shouldn’t have done that.” He looked up to Yunho, eyes too wide and expression timid as he bit his lower lip. He almost appeared remorseful, but Yunho was hesitant to label it as such.
“Why not?” Yunho asked. He had to fight the urge to lean in close and kiss him again.
“Because it’s how I feed. Every time that we’ve ever made love, every time that we’ve always kissed, I’ve fed from you. You can’t lie and say that you don’t feel it…”
“I do.” Yunho frowned. It dawned upon him then, in that moment, that every intimate encounter he’d ever shared with Jaejoong, every time they’d held each other and fell into a rhythm their bodies had become familiar with - every time they kissed - that Jaejoong was literally killing him. Slowly. Softly.
“We’re so fucked up.” Yunho laughed bitterly, shaking his head. As terrible as their situation was - Jaejoong was a demon appearing to him inside of his mind - he couldn’t bring himself to regret it. He was already in too deep.
“I know,” Jaejoong said, and this time he was without a doubt remorseful. “I was stupid and desperate in my humanity, but I don’t regret what I’ve done for you. I regret that it has to hurt you.”
Yunho nodded. “How much longer until…”
“Until you burn in Phlegethon?” Jaejoong shrugged. “It could be days, weeks, hours, or even seconds. But when it happens, you and I will both know.”
“This…Phlegethon… You’ve got a lot more to tell me, don’t you?”
“In due time,” Jaejoong laughed.
It was a promise.
*
Jung Insuk was a woman with strong emotions, it was one of her best qualities, but also a curse in the worst of times. Now was one of them. The only thing she’d known for the past week was a deep, pervading sadness and grief that left her feeling bereft. She did not have the energy to move, let alone eat, but with her husband at her side, he was able to coax her to do at least that much.
But this? This was too much for her to bear.
Insuk considered herself a traditional woman, she believed that being a wife and a mother was what she was meant to be. She was good at it. She loved her husband unconditionally and her children were her pride and joy, the people that she was happy to leave as her legacy when she passed on.
What Insuk never expected, however, was that her first born would die before she did. It might have been a bit unfair of her to expect to die before her children, to force them to bury her, but this just wasn’t right. Yunho had just graduated college, he had just stepped outside of the next and found that he could fly. He had a whole life ahead of him to discover himself, a whole life to live and to love but yet, here he was.
Barely alive.
The doctors called it a medical mystery that was out of their hands. Yunho had not been conscious in days, and with every passing second, his body continued to devour itself alive.
He couldn’t even breathe on his own.
It was insulting, the way that the tubes entered his body and defiled it for the sake of keeping him alive, but Insuk would have it no other way. Though with each passing day she felt the despair in her grow, a dark mass threatening to swallow her whole, she had to have this bit of faith to keep her going.
She would not let go of her son.
“This is so unfair to him,” Insuk sobbed, breaths turning into soft hiccups as her sinuses congested. She wiped away her tears, not caring how atrocious she looked at that moment. She’d stopped applying make-up because she knew it would just be ruined while she wept.
A warm, firm hand settled on her shoulder as her husband appeared behind her. “I know,” he said, gathering her in his arms.
It had been one week since Yunho had been placed on life support, and the night prior, he had had a stroke that had required surgical intervention. Insuk and Yonghwa could barely stand to look at their son’s once brilliantly smiling face. All they saw was something foreign, too pale skin and bloodied bandages wrapped around his skull. Insuk was no medical professional by a long shot, but she knew that her son had needed the surgery to lessen some pressure on his brain and drain fluid from his skull. It would aid in his recovery, the doctors had promised.
But yet, the woman could not shake off the feeling of sickness swirling in her belly. As a woman that swayed with the push and pull of her emotions, she was prone to ignoring her intuition even when it screamed at her.
This time it was intentional. Her gut told her there was no hope, that Yunho was too far gone and that he would die despite the doctors’ best attempts. That he was already dead and it was her selfishness keeping him from passing on to the next life.
The thought made her angry, and so she stomped it down until it was dust beneath her shoes. She held tight to her faith, grasping tight to the cross around her neck and praying every spare moment she had.
Yunho could not die. It wouldn’t be fair.
The two of them, they had been waiting for hours in solitude for the doctors to return. They had just wheeled Yunho back into the room not too long ago from doing some scans on him. They needed to know if the surgery had helped, they needed to know if his health would improve.
None of them looked particularly optimistic, which made Insuk just want to scream at them. It would be another couple of hours more than likely before they heard anything back, and by that time their nephew Yoochun probably would have arrived. He’d left because he needed to go to work but he had promised to be back as soon as he was done.
He kept his word.
Two hours later he strolled in, smelling strongly of coffee and still dressed in his uniform, looking worse for wear, but he was there and the doctor wasn’t far behind him. Yoochun barely had enough time to eat a muffin before the doctor knocked on the door, entering the room with a file in his hand.
The doctor did not look like he had good news to bear.
In fact, judging by the sadness and pity she saw reflected in his eyes, Insuk knew her worst fears were about to be realized.
The doctor cleared his throat. “Mr. Jung, Mrs. Jung, I regret to inform you that we have exhausted our resources and done all we can for your son.”
Insuk’s eyes burned, her face grew hot, and she sobbed as she fell like a dead weight in her husband’s arms. “No,” she gasped wetly. “No!”
“I’m sorry,” the doctor began, and he continued on about brain activities and functions. By the end of his small speech, Insuk was curled up against her husband and sobbing in his throat. Mr. Jung himself looked worse for wear, but he was struggling to hold himself together for their sake. For the sake of their daughter that was currently away at college and could not be present with them.
“Your son is brain dead.”
The sound of this distraught mother’s agonizing scream of denial would haunt this man as he slept that night.
*
“We’re not in your body anymore,” Jaejoong had told him that day at the river’s edge. It was from there he told Yunho everything else, his story, about the book Draco Maledicte that had led him to another demon of his kind. He told Yunho of his crippling depression and his struggle with his love for God and his yearning for both His and his father’s constant love and approval.
This demon had told Jaejoong a secret: how to become a demon. Most people did not ask for such a thing, but by this time Jaejoong had become so warped with his strange ideals and his obscene phantasmagoria that, to him, it had been the only logical option at the time.
Jaejoong was the first person to ever ask to become a demon, the first person to ever set out with the intention of actually damning his soul for eternity. “It’s not a bad life,” the demon had laughed. “Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.”
There were rivers - a total of five, most commonly known by their identities given by Greek mythology. Cocytus, the River of Woe. Acheron, the River of Pain. Styx, the River of Hate. Phlegethon, the River of Fire. Lethe, the River of Forgetfulness.
“Your first nightmare was your journey into Cocytus,” Jaejoong told Yunho. He continued to explain the purposes of the rivers and all that he knew about them. One had to be flighted across the River Styx to reach the afterlife, but one who was polluted by Cocytus and Acheron would sink to the bottom until it swallowed them whole. “Of course,” and Jaejoong had smiled wryly as he said it, “not everyone sees it as that. You don’t.”
The most crucial step to becoming a demon was the Phlegethon, the River of Fire. It was the closest thing to Hell that Jaejoong had ever been to, with the decades that he’d spend with his humanity burning away until there was nothing left but his sin, the very thing that made him an incubus.
And all too soon, they were standing at the bank of the river. It was as wide as it was long, looking almost like an ocean, and was exactly what he had imagined it to be: brilliant orange-yellow flames that went well over his head, flickering toward the sky. He felt the heat burning at his skin, a prelude of what was to come. Yunho’s resolve faltered, but one look at Jaejoong - whose eyes had been black for a while now - washed away all of the uncertainties.
All he knew was the strength of his conviction.
“Time here flows differently,” Jaejoong said softly. “In the one year you had thought me dead, I had already burned for over a century here before I emerged from the flames anew.”
“Will you wait here for me?” Yunho asked, pressing a palm to Jaejoong’s warm cheek. It was warmer than usual with the threatening heat of the Phlegethon around them.
“I will wait for you out there, because I don’t think I could bear staying here for another century more,” Jaejoong whispered honestly.
It made Yunho smile. He could accept that.
“Very well then.”
Yunho marched to the edge, glaring down the precipice into the flames. He turned one last time to look at Jaejoong, hand in hand, looking each other in the eyes. Even if all he saw was the darkness of Jaejoong’s soul staring back at him, Yunho knew it in his heart.
Jaejoong loved him.
“Do I get a final goodbye?” Yunho cupped Jaejoong’s face, bringing him closer. A thumb brushed against the plumpness of a bottom lip, chapped but slightly damp from saliva. He felt the heat of Jaejoong’s breath brush across his cheek, short and shallow as the proximity of their bodies brought forth feelings of want.
“Perhaps…”
Their lips met in a torrid kiss, breath warm and bodies tingling as their tongues dipped and tasted. It was a deep kiss, a kiss full of want and longing and goodbye. Yunho nibbled on Jaejoong’s lower lip, suckling it into the cupid’s bow of his own mouth before reluctantly releasing him.
But before Jaejoong even had the chance to open his eyes, he fell backwards into the fire.
It was a dreary and somber day when Jung Insuk awoke to the incessant beeping of her son’s life-support - he was gone before she was ready to say goodbye.
* * *
and when we fall into d e s p a i r
i know i’ll make it through
just to see you standing there
to catch me, as i fall into r u i n
* * *
Even as a human being, one of his favorite past times had been to look out of his bedroom window and stare at the midnight horizon. Living in Seoul had not granted him much opportunity to see the stars as they were meant to, but on nights like these, he could look at the bustling night life looming above them and pretend every light he saw was a star of its own.
A disturbance in the air - a flutter of wind against the bare nape of his neck, of heat and lust and want - before arms wrapped tight around his waist. Jaejoong smiled as he leaned back against the sturdy heat of Yunho’s frame, turning his head to capture Yunho’s perfect mouth in a hot kiss.
“You’re late.” He pouted like a petulant child, a discontented moue that Yunho kissed away.
“Sorry.” Not sorry, Jaejoong translated. “I had to make sure my family was okay.”
Jaejoong fought the urge to roll his eyes skyward, instead pulling away enough to turn and face Yunho before they were embracing each other once more. “Your mother had to see counselling after your death, but they are otherwise recovering just fine. Are you sure you don’t want them to forget?”
“They will eventually.”
Yunho’s words brought a smile to Jaejoong’s lips, and he laughed before burying his face in the hollow of his throat. He took a deep breath and inhaled the must of fire and the spice of Yunho’s demon, of his sex and want. It made him hard and tremble in his pants, but not yet. They had an entire eternity together to do whatever they wanted, there would always be time for sex.
“Does it still hurt?” Jaejoong whispered, unable to resist letting the flat of his tongue burn into Yunho’s throat. He smelled of temptation and sin and tasted like ambrosia. It was almost enough to make him bust in his own pants.
“No,” Yunho said, voice quiet. He’d spent over a hundred and twenty years burning in the Phlegethon, of reliving the nightmares he’d never had and creating new ones. The physical scars had been melted away and burned into his flesh to be melted once again, leaving only the memories he hoped would fade with time.
“Come on.” Jaejoong grasped Yunho’s hand tight, pulling him away from the embankment of the Han River. “We’ve got nothing but time on our side. What should we do first?”
Luxuria.
As incubi, it was the very thing that made them what they were. But Yunho had long since learned that lust, as a sin, did not strictly refer to sex. Lust was desire and want in its purest form, a constant thirst and need that would quickly consume them if they did not feed it. It was ardent, passionate - craving in its most basic form.
At that moment, the only thing Yunho lusted for was to experience the life he had lost.
Lips quirking upward, he rested a hand above where Jaejoong’s beating heart would have been if he still had one. “I want to swim,” he said, and his mouth twisted into laughter when he pushed the stunned incubus away from him and watched as he fell backward, wide-eyed with shock, into the frigid waters with a heavy splash.
Yunho laughed and dived in behind him, bringing Jaejoong for a cold and wet kiss once they had both surfaced. The still waters of the river had drenched them to the bone and Jaejoong’s mop of hair hung in front of his eyes, eyes that no matter how black they were, still shone brightly just like the illuminated night sky above them.
And though Yunho could not see it, he knew that he was the star of Jaejoong’s eyes.
“Feel better?” Jaejoong grumped, throwing his soaked bangs over his head so he could see.
“Perfect.” Yunho grinned.
They swam for what could have been hours in the still of the night, wrestling and doing other silly things they wished they could have done as humans. No one was there to judge them because there were already damned, but so long as they had each other then maybe it wouldn’t be so bad after all.
They made love twice, the first time when Yunho pressed Jaejoong into the dewy grass as the sun began to peek over the horizon, spreading him wide and sinking deep into him in one fluid movement. It was beautiful, the way the first rays of sunlight glittered off the water on Jaejoong’s skin, on his eyelashes, and how breathless he became when Yunho made him come between them. Jaejoong was far too eager to return the favor, leading to a second romp where they met the sun and the birds and the stray critters running about. A small chipmunk had nearly trampled over them, which left Yunho laughing and Jaejoong throwing a wildflower at him in revenge.
They were happy.
“Let’s go on a date,” Jaejoong said, head tilted coquettishly to the side. Yunho watched as Jaejoong’s body transitioned from sturdy, muscular, and thick to slim and petite with curves, dark curls falling to the small of her back.
While Yunho much preferred Jaejoong as he was, he wouldn’t deny his sick urge to spread her open an devour her until she came screaming.
A lascivious smile twisted at Yunho’s mouth.
“Let’s.”
And this was the beginning of their eternity.
do you know how hard it is to write something that romanticizes your deepest fear? welp.
Inspired by:
• 「剥離」 by the GazettE. This is just an intro from their album DIM and it has a very haunting quality to it; the first time I heard it, I could envision what eventually became one of the nightmare scenes from this fic.
• The second biggest source of inspiration for this fic came from “Incubus Dreams”, a novel by Laurell K. Hamilton. I mean the title alone, lol.
• Admittedly, I am also recycling an old, old Yu Yu Hakusho fan fiction that I was working on back in 2010 that was never finished because K-pop happened.
• Supernatural: when Dean went to Hell he spent four months there, but in Hell it was considered to be forty years. I’ve applied the logic that one month in the real world = 10 years in Hell to this fic. Therefore 1 year in hell (twelve months) is 120 years in Hell. Or, rather, burning in the Phlegethon.
• I’ve also taken the fact that demons have black eyes from the SPN!verse, though I did fondly reminisce of Charmed whilst writing it.
• Greek mythology because fuck yeah.
Thank you immensely to the people who have spare their time to read this. I’m sorry that it took so long, but after pondering about it for almost 6 months on end, I finally decided this was gathering too much dust and that if I didn’t post it now, I never would.
Thank you to Chloe for beta-reading this as well, even though she’s been busy with college lately and I miss you terribly. ♥
Thank you to Cassie as well for being the first person to let me bounce ideas off of her for this fic, almost two years before it actually happened. I wish you good luck on your marriage, bb. ♥
Rating: NC-17
Genre: AU, Angst, Dark, Drama, Supernatural, Psychological, Tragedy (?)
Warnings: AU, angst, darkfic, supernatural (incubi), character death (but not really), the occult, minor gender-bender (duh, incubi), minor drug abuse (caffeine pills), and...I think that's everything.
Summary: Until Death do us part - a farce; for true love, Death is only the beginning.
7864wc
III.
“Yunho-yah~”
Cracking open his eyes, Yunho was disappointed to see the bright fluorescence of the hospital lights above him. This was not a place he particularly cared to be at the moment, and hell, now that he thought about it, he felt just fine. There was no more pain, no more lethargy, no more delirium swallowing him piece by piece.
There was nothing. There wasn’t the sound of the hustle and bustle of busy doctors. The monitors he’d been connected to no longer sounded with a steady, pulsing beep of his vital statistics. Alarmed, Yunho jerked up and somehow the sound of the crisp bedsheets rustling made him feel a little bit better.
But the shadow to his right did not.
Jaejoong looked as radiant as ever, this time with bright blond hair that reminded Yunho of their time together as they finished high school then entered college together. Jaejoong had always been a bit of a chameleon, always seeking to reinvent and pamper himself every which way he could. Jaejoong’s last hair color had been a beautiful wine red before he’d fallen ill and it had faded to a strange shade of brown before death had taken him.
Yunho was reluctant to acknowledge it was just the two of them.
“Where is everyone else?” Yunho frowned his query, sparing a none-too-friendly glare to Jaejoong.
Jaejoong clicked his tongue and stood up. “They’re still here. Or there. But are we? Are you?” He laughed, amused by his own riddles.
“This isn’t funny,” Yunho hissed.
The cold attitude was like a slap in the face to Jaejoong. His amusement faded and his smiles disappeared. He looked sombre, unhappy, and Yunho reckoned Jaejoong was hurt. “You’ve become so cold to me, Yunho-yah,” he lamented.
“You’ve been giving me nightmares for weeks, Jaejoong. It’s hard not to,” Yunho snapped his reply.
Jaejoong shook his head, standing by Yunho’s bedside. He tried to reach for the other man and hold his hand, but Yunho would not let him. He jerked as if he had been touched by fire, and perhaps maybe he had been if the darkened scorch mark on the once pristine sheet was any indication.
“I’m sorry.” Jaejoong’s apology seemed genuine and heartfelt. Yunho felt warmth blossom in his chest because, for the first time, he hated himself for being responsible for Jaejoong’s disquietude. “But it was necessary, Yunho. I needed you to drink from Acheron.”
“What!?”
Jaejoong smiled morosely. “Did you think I was doing this just to torture you, Yunho? Do you even remember me at all? You should be the first person to know I don’t do things without rhyme or reason. There’s always something. I always have a goal in mind.”
Swallowing the thick blockage of rife emotion in his throat, Yunho nodded. “I know,” he said.
“You should be a little more grateful, I think. I suffered much worse than you have when I went through this journey. I thought I was the insane one and I damn near gave up because I couldn’t take it.” Jaejoong crawled up on the hospital bed, straddling Yunho’s lap as he looked down at him. The position was oddly intimate and brought forth a lust in him he did not yet want. He had questions and he needed answers.
“What the hell is happening?”
Jaejoong smiled and leaned down, their mouths hovering dangerously close. Yunho remembered that kiss he’d been left wanting and was bereft without, and his mind was left with this thought alone.
“You’re going to die, Yunho,” Jaejoong whispered, and it was a low whisper of sensuality and want and desire that Yunho almost didn’t fully grasp the meaning of what he’d said.
“What?” Eyes wide as fear settled in his stomach, lust dispersing, Yunho struggled to breathe.
“Don’t fear it, because I will be here holding your hand every step of the way. It will hurt, and you will suffer, but after your death we will be together. Finally.”
Yunho opened his mouth to speak, but Jaejoong cut him off with a finger to his lips and added, “Don’t question it, Yunho. I’m inside your head. I know all of your deepest thoughts and your darkest secrets. Some of them I knew even before you did.”
Realization dawned upon Yunho. “The girl with your face - ”
“The girl was me, yes. If you had preferred me that way I would have stayed. It’s one of the perks to being an incubus.”
Incubus?
“You - ”
“I gave up my humanity and became a sex demon for you? Why, yes, yes I did.” Jaejoong bristled with pride as he admitted it, and he looked almost human again, just like he was alive and beautiful and Yunho wanted that more than anything.
“I’m really not going crazy?” Yunho about cried tears of relief.
Jaejoong chuckled. “No, you’re not. Some things were necessary. I can’t quite explain it, but when it happens to you, you’ll understand.”
Yunho couldn’t hold back his tears anymore. He clasped one of Jaejoong’s pale hands between his, and though it reminded him of the warmth of summer against the frigidity of winter, he thought they looked perfect. Yunho splayed their palms together, interweaving their fingers, and just enjoying the simple-mindedness of things that he could not enjoy before when Jaejoong had been alive.
It made a little bit more sense now. Things were still blurry to him, but he felt he was on the right path to understanding everything that had happened to him.
“I love you,” Yunho whispered, pressing his lips against the back of Jaejoong’s hand. How could he have ever been angry with Jaejoong, his beloved?
Jaejoong didn’t say it back, but Yunho thought actually getting the kiss he’d been wanting for weeks was reward enough. Jaejoong’s mouth was soft and warm and slightly damp, like he’d licked his lips before leaning in. The press of their mouths was light but no less intimate than anything else they’d ever done.
A chill swept over Yunho’s body as Jaejoong threw the sheets off the ground and pushed the hospital gown all the way up to his armpits just before breaking the kiss. Yunho was dizzy and light-headed, head thrown back as pleasure spun through him so fast he couldn’t see. The heat of Jaejoong’s body above him was like an aphrodisiac, sending hot bursts of lust into his bloodstream. He was hard before he even knew it, feeling the way pleasure crackled along his skin like electricity as Jaejoong rubbed against him, all pale skin and burning heat.
It was beauty. It was perfection.
It was completion.
Yunho sank into Jaejoong with a low hiss, everything was tight and hot and strangely wet. Jaejoong’s body was pliant above him, back arched as he let out a low moan just as Yunho settled in to the hilt. They had done this carnal dance enough times to know how to settle into the perfect rhythm, finding each other again and again until pleasure blinded them both.
If Yunho was going to die, he could take it if this is what his Heaven would be. Jaejoong had a way of pulling the most primal parts of him to the surface, like a beast on the prowl, and satisfying it just before he lost his mind completely.
“Yunho,” Jaejoong gasped, hot and wet at the hollow of his throat. His body had grown weary, but he knew that Yunho would take great care of him. And he did, a hand settling at Jaejoong’s upper thigh as he steadied him before letting go, pounding into Jaejoong with all of the force and strength he could muster. Jaejoong whimpered and kissed him again, and it was a feral, messy kiss with tongue and teeth and saliva and Yunho thought it was the best kiss he’d ever had.
It was that thought that made him come, body juddering as he slowed down to harsh thrusts, carrying him through his orgasm. It was by far the most intense. The most draining.
When Yunho came back to himself, he saw that Jaejoong too had come and was licking up the mess with a serpentine tongue that had him twitching with interest again.
But he was tired. The familiar and detested lethargy had settled into his body again, and he was tired. He just wanted to sleep.
“I’ll be back,” Jaejoong promised with a come-covered kiss. Yunho’s head went light again and he swore he’d never tasted anything sweeter.
“You’d better,” Yunho growled, though without any real venom because he was too exhausted.
“I promise.” Those words were the last thing Yunho remembered.
*
Yoochun had taken a couple of days to himself. First, he needed to absorb the information he’d gotten from the priest-in-training, Junsu, at the church outside of Seoul. Second, he needed to look more into it and gather all of the information he could. This wasn’t an issue to be trifled with so lightly, and he knew he had to watch every which way his body moved.
When he had his wits about himself once more, Yoochun sped off to the hospital. He heard not a word from his aunt or uncle so he hadn’t the slightest clue about Yunho’s current condition, but he hoped things weren’t getting too bad. Hey, maybe Yunho had drastically improved and had even been released? Okay, yeah, that was wishful thinking, but Yoochun wasn’t going to lie and say this whole mess didn’t scare the fuck out of him.
Maybe it was his own fears that held him back from doing the right thing. Either way, he knew things were about to exponentially worsen and his stagnant hesitation was not helping things at all.
The hospital appeared dark and foreboding as Yoochun approached it, apprehension clawing at his insides. His steps slowed the closer he got just before walking inside, pausing to take a deep breath, before steeling himself and marching inside. He made his way to Yunho’s room but stopped when he saw his aunt and uncle nearby the nurse’s station talking to a doctor.
The older man’s mouth was firm with solemnity as he said things Yoochun couldn’t hear to Yonghwa and Insuk, though judging by their postures, it wasn’t good at all. Insuk’s shoulders had slumped, her hand covering her mouth as her head lowered. He could hear her tears before he saw them. Yonghwa wasn’t much better off, though Yoochun gave the man credit for holding himself and his wife together.
The doctor laid a kind hand on Yonghwa’s shoulder before he departed, head lowered. Delivering terrible news all of the time could never be easy, Yoochun presumed.
“What’s going on?” Yoochun asked as soon as he was close enough to talk quietly to them.
Insuk spared him a none too pretty glance full of tears as she cried. “We don’t know,” she sobbed. “They don’t know anything and they can’t do anything!”
“Insuk.” Yonghwa brought his wife close to him, fitting her snug in his arms. Watching them embrace struck Yoochun with a sense of being an unwanted third party, but he was on a mission, damn it.
“I don’t…”
“Yesterday,” Insuk sniffled, pulling away from her husband, “yesterday his kidneys started failing. Out of nowhere. No signs, nothing. Just...failure. Today, it’s his liver and the doctor things there are signs that Yunho’s body is attacking itself.
“Yunho has severe lupus that appeared out of nowhere and the doctors don’t know how long they have to do anything before it’s unstoppable.”
Yoochun was stunned. He stood stark still, eyes wide as the information slowly settled within his body. He’d barely been gone two damn days and all of these life-threatening complications were happening to his cousin… Yunho didn’t deserve this. Yunho was a good, familial man and he cared too much about others, so much so that it wasn’t uncommon to see Yunho neglect himself in their favor. It hurt, like a fresh wound to his chest, to think that Yunho was incorrigibly ill.
Did the demon - Jaejoong - have anything to do with this?
“Is he - ?” Yoochun moved to enter his cousin’s room, but was stopped by Yonghwa.
“He won’t wake up,” the man said. Yoochun met his uncle’s gaze and found the one thing he was afraid to see: Yonghwa was broken. He was hopeless. He believed they were already at the end of their rope and all they had to do was jump.
Yonghwa believed that Yunho was going to die.
Determination rose within Yoochun. He would try his best to make sure Yunho didn’t die. He was going to get Yunho the help that he needed, and the demon would leave him alone. Yunho would miraculously recover and they would live a happy life of longevity.
“You’re wrong,” Yoochun said venemously. “Yunho’s going to be fine. I promised him that I would take care of him and I meant it.”
*
“Do you know why the sky is blue?”
Yunho yawned, exhaustion still heavy in his limbs but Jaejoong’s fingers through his hair just felt so nice. “Um, it’s the way the color spectrum of light hits the Earth and reflects back to our eyes…”
“Indeed.” Jaejoong smiled at him and somehow, he managed to become the sun and the sole focus of Yunho’s world in that instant.
“Remember in sixth grade when our teacher tried explaining that to us and you didn’t get it? I thought you were mentally disabled since you were the one that had run into me, chasing after that ball…” Yunho laughed at Jaejoong’s indignant expression, finding himself unable to resist the urge to kiss Jaejoong. He felt a little bit more of his strength zap away from him just before Jaejoong pulled away.
Yunho’s brows furrowed. “Does - ”
“I’ll have you know, Heechul told me it was because of bird pee and when it rained - ”
Yunho couldn’t stop his laughter as it bubbled out of him in a fit of contagious mirth, eyes closed and mouth wide open as he remembered their childhood together. Heechul was a sassy, devious little thing and he had taken great pleasure in being one of the eldest as he tormented his younger siblings with fallacies. But those memories were for Yunho and Jaejoong only. It was sacred, the bond they had, and he understood the lengths that Jaejoong was going through to preserve it. At least, that was how he understood it.
Jaejoong had loved his father, loved God, but at the same time, Yunho knew all too well that Jaejoong had also feared them both. Yunho had once been told that a little bit of fear was healthy, but when he thought about it he realized how incorrect that actually was. If you had to inspire a “healthy amount of fear” into those around you, then you were doing it wrong.
Yunho didn’t need to hear Jaejoong’s story to know that he had been terrified by the intense closeness camaraderie. He had probably known what it was the minute it clicked into place, and who knew how long Jaejoong had spent fighting off those feelings because of the fear that had been taught to him.
His laughter quietened with those somber thoughts, and Yunho dared to ask, “Does it hurt? Death?”
Jaejoong’s smile faded but the light of contentment was still in his eyes. Yunho knew the real color of his eyes were pitch black because, as a demon, he hadn’t a shred of humanity left in him and as the saying went, a person’s eyes were the windows to their soul. But this was how Yunho preferred to see Jaejoong, looking just like he had when they were human, and Yunho didn’t even try to hide the fact that Jaejoong’s blond hair had been his favorite. The soft black he’d gone to right after that was his second favorite, and sometimes Jaejoong alternated between them when he appeared to Yunho.
“I would be a liar if I said it didn’t,” Jaejoong began quietly, “but if you think death hurts, then there is much worse to come. Expect the worst, Yunho. Expect the crippling agony, expect all of the worst nightmares you’ve never even had come true. Expect it, and then maybe you’ll be okay. Maybe.”
In a second, Jaejoong went from pensive to just plain annoyed as he rolled his eyes upward to the ceiling and glared at it. “Your cousin is quite annoying,” he muttered, lips pursed into a frown. “Whochun - ”
“Yoochun,” Yunho corrected, trying to seem stern but it was hard when he was trying not to laugh.
Jaejoong let out an exasperated sigh. “Well, he’s annoying and I want him to go away and leave you alone.”
“Wait, what?”
Jaejoong’s smile turned rueful. “There’s a reason I’ve kept you here with me, Yunho. Dying is the worst part of death, but in here you won’t be suffering. If I leave, you’ll wake up and all you’ll know is suffering. I can’t do that to you.”
Yunho sat up to look him directly in the eyes. “Jaejoong…if what I have to go through to join you is worse, then I need to face this. You can’t pamper me.”
The worst thing about Jaejoong was that, being an incubus, everything he did was charged with a sexual energy that Yunho was helpless to ignore. He turned disappointment into seduction and smiles into puddles of come on their stomachs. All he had to do was move, and move he did, and Yunho could feel himself getting hard as a rock in seconds flat. It was almost embarrassing, but Jaejoong had a way of ridding him of that.
“Fine.” Jaejoong smiled, eyes lighting up as a free hand curled around Yunho’s hard cock to fist him loosely. “But let me take care of this first beforehand.”
And by “take care of”, Yunho learned Jaejoong meant he would show him all the sinful things he could do with his mouth.
*
When Yunho rose from the elysium inside his own subconsciousness, all he knew was the blistering pain he felt throughout his whole body. He couldn’t tell left apart from right, he just knew that everything hurt so much and for a moment he regretted that he had asked for this.
“Oh my god, Yunho!” Yoochun’s breathless exclamation reminded him why he needed to do this.
Yunho opened his mouth to speak, but the only thing that came out was a helpless croak.
“Don’t, don’t. Shhh, shh, just drink,” Yoochun urged as he helped Yunho to a small glass of water that had been placed at his bedside, first removing the oxygen mask that Yunho hadn’t even realized was there. Just how bad had things gotten since the last time he had been lucid?
“Can you understand me?” Yoochun asked softly, grasping Yunho’s hand tight in his.
Yunho let out sound of affirmation that didn’t quite sound like it should have, coupling it with a faint nod. It brought a small, weak smile to Yoochun’s face.
“You’re in really bad condition right now,” he began. “The doctors are talking to your parents right now because you haven’t been awake since the last time I was here. Your organs are starting to fail and you’ve got rapidly advancing lupus. Your body is...killing itself, Yunho.”
By the end of his tirade, Yoochun’s chest hurt and his throat burned. His vision was blurred from unshed tears and he was rife with emotion, rife with sorrow because there were so many things going wrong to a wonderful man that didn’t deserve it.
Meanwhile, Yunho felt like he was bathing in caustic waters that had long since rotted away his flesh and were working slowly at his insides. He was in pain, a lot more than he had ever been able to fathom before, and all he wanted was for it to go away. Part of him resented himself for asking for this, resented Jaejoong for letting him have suffer through this agony. He felt like a petulant child again, crying over a scraped knee and wanting nothing more than someone to whisk him into their arms and kiss the pain away.
Yunho wanted Jaejoong.
Needed him.
Swallowing a deep breath, Yunho attempted to smile up at his cousin. He and Yoochun had not been very close until this had started happening, and for that Yunho would forever appreciate everything his cousin had done for him. You’re a good man, Yunho wanted to tell him, but he found that talking was still quite difficult and made his chest ache.
“Oh, Yunho…”
Yoochun spared him another resolute smile, turning around to make sure that Yunho’s parents would be distracted for a little while longer. His eyes turned wild and desperate then, the guard Yunho had been oblivious to suddenly dropping to reveal the broken man burdened by Yunho’s truth.
“Look, I - I drove out of the city and I visited a church. I found out what’s wrong with you. There’s no easy way to say it, but...you’re being haunted by a demon. I know that sounds weird since it’s usually ghosts that do hauntings but, well.” Yoochun sighed, hands shaky as he clutched Yunho’s own hand tight within his grasp.
“I’m going to take care of you,” Yoochun said. “I am going to do what I can to make sure that demon goes away and leaves us all alone. I’m going to make sure he pays for what he has done to you.”
Yunho had once been a strong man overflowing with life, and now here he was as a mere shell of what he used to be. Yoochun made this promise with himself in mind, with Yunho and his family and all of their loved ones held close to his heart.
Something flashed in Yunho’s eyes, something akin to fear that Yoochun couldn’t quite make out, and he began to shake his head to and fro rigorously. Yoochun wrongly assumed that his cousin was shocked and confused by the news, trapped in denial, and Yoochun fought another wave of tears as they threatened to blind him again.
“Look, I know it’s weird but, it’s true. I know this is something you’d find in a horror movie, but this is real and it’s happening and I’m going to take care of you. You’re going to live your life and love as you were meant to.”
Yunho licked his lips and shook his head again, somehow managing to croak out, “No.” Let me die.
Yoochun’s eyes were sad as he understood what went unspoken. “What has he done to you?” he mumbled forlornly.
Nothing, Yunho wanted to say. Jaejoong has done nothing to me that I don’t want.
He didn’t know what the incubus was thinking, but Yunho believed in Jaejoong. He felt that Jaejoong knew what he was doing and that he was doing the right thing by them. Maybe he was brainwashed, but at this point he didn’t care.
Yunho just needed Jaejoong.
And it was with this thought in the forefront of Yunho’s mind that he let himself go, the screams and shouts and screeching of the background just fading into white noise. His last memory might be of his mother’s splotchy, tear-stained face as the doctors and nurses warred with her flailing body to exit the room, but he had no regrets.
He had Jaejoong.
*
The two of them were seated on a bench, side by side, overlooking the soothing stillness of the Han River. Yunho had never been here in his life and could not help the natural desire he had to go, if even just once, and the fact that Jaejoong somehow always knew these little things and satisfied them to his best abilities always made Yunho smile.
Jaejoong was beside him, humming, and he looked as radiant as ever with his wine red hair glimmering in the sunlight, tousled gently by the gentle mid-summer breeze.
“Lovely, isn’t it?” he asked.
Yunho nodded. “I’ve always wanted to come here. It’s better than what I could have ever imagined.”
“I know.” Jaejoong laughed as a flock of birds chirped overhead, their wings fluttering to invisible heartbeats. It was the song of life, Yunho realized, and he’d never heard it so beautiful before.
“Am I…?” Dead. Somehow, Yunho couldn’t make himself say it.
“Not yet,” Jaejoong chirped as if the topic of their conversation wasn’t so grim. “Aaahhhh, I have a confession to make, my lovely Yunho.”
For a moment, Yunho saw his best friend exactly as the person he remembered him as. He saw the life in his eyes, the sunshine in his smile, and the beauty of his existence that Yunho had missed for a long time. Jaejoong came to him in his dreams, that much he knew, but this - this felt real.
It felt like happiness.
It felt like love.
“And what’s that?” Yunho hummed. He smiled as he caught sight of a majestic swan and her trail of ducklings.
“This isn’t the Han River, I’m afraid. This is the Styx, the River of Hate.”
When Yunho frowned, the sun disappeared and the world became grey and dismal. While mythology and religion and philosophy was always Jaejoong’s forte, Yunho knew enough to know exactly what it was the incubus was talking about. “How?” he asked, head tilted as he peered at Jaejoong through the darkness of his hair.
“I suppose I’ve got a lot to tell you that you need to know before we go any further,” Jaejoong started, lips pursed as he rested his cheek against the knee held to his chest, his other leg dangling free off the bench. “As you know, there are many religions and pantheons of deities that accompany each. I was raised a devout, pious man, a Christian, and that I had only believed in one higher power: God.”
Yunho tried not to look taken aback when he saw the darkness in Jaejoong’s eyes, how they went pitch black at the mere mention of anything divine. It scared him, reminded him of the nightmare he’d had when Jaejoong let him drown and that was not what he wanted to think about. Yunho watched as Jaejoong’s mouth twisted up into a wry smile, being reminded that Jaejoong practically knew his every thought as they were both still inside his head.
Usually, anyway. He didn’t think the River Styx existed inside of his mind.
“Each religion has its truths, has the things that it gets right, but there are also many things wrong that are constantly taught as though they are right. The most important thing, however, is that every religion connects in one way, shape, or form to the next. When you can find that connection and follow it to the next, you can more or less solve the entirety of the cosmos.
“As you’re aware of by now, you know that I am a demon. One common misconception about demonkin is that we are thought to be nothing but darkness, thought to be terrible creatures that have suffered and burned for sins they can’t even remember, tortured until there’s nothing left: no humanity, no emotions… This is not true. Demons are entities that feed on emotion, feed on humanity. There are some that are as foul and fearsome as humans tend to believe, but most are not.
“Do you remember the seven deadly sins, Yunho?”
“Yes.” Yunho nodded.
Pride. Envy. Wrath. Gluttony. Avarice. Sloth. Lust.
“Demons are not emotionless, Yunho. Contrary to that belief, we actually feel emotions much more strongly than humans. Emotions are...explosive. And we feed from them and their intensity. It’s the one thing that keeps us alive.”
Jaejoong turned to Yunho with a smile, reaching out to grasp Yunho’s hands in his. He interlocked their fingers and pressed their palms together, invoking within Yunho a strange, fluttering warmth within his chest. Love.
“Do you feel that?”
Yunho nodded again.
“I can feed from it. Think of it this way: each demon has their own sin, and as an incubus, my sin is lust. But the seven sins is not an exhaustive list, and while sex is my personal favorite way to feed, it is not the only way.”
Jaejoong smiled when he saw the light in Yunho’s eyes, a light that came with knowledge and the understanding of it.
Jaejoong leaned closer to Yunho, one of his beautiful, light-up-the-world smiles twisting at his mouth. He whispered, “My sin as a human being was always loving you. Not even Phlegethon could burn that away.”
Yunho’s brows furrowed in confusion, but instead of asking, he lessened the proximity between them until he could kiss Jaejoong. Kissing Jaejoong always made his head spin and his heart soar in his chest, but it also made him weary and exhausted in the worst of ways.
“Oh, Yunho,” Jaejoong murmured, “you shouldn’t have done that.” He looked up to Yunho, eyes too wide and expression timid as he bit his lower lip. He almost appeared remorseful, but Yunho was hesitant to label it as such.
“Why not?” Yunho asked. He had to fight the urge to lean in close and kiss him again.
“Because it’s how I feed. Every time that we’ve ever made love, every time that we’ve always kissed, I’ve fed from you. You can’t lie and say that you don’t feel it…”
“I do.” Yunho frowned. It dawned upon him then, in that moment, that every intimate encounter he’d ever shared with Jaejoong, every time they’d held each other and fell into a rhythm their bodies had become familiar with - every time they kissed - that Jaejoong was literally killing him. Slowly. Softly.
“We’re so fucked up.” Yunho laughed bitterly, shaking his head. As terrible as their situation was - Jaejoong was a demon appearing to him inside of his mind - he couldn’t bring himself to regret it. He was already in too deep.
“I know,” Jaejoong said, and this time he was without a doubt remorseful. “I was stupid and desperate in my humanity, but I don’t regret what I’ve done for you. I regret that it has to hurt you.”
Yunho nodded. “How much longer until…”
“Until you burn in Phlegethon?” Jaejoong shrugged. “It could be days, weeks, hours, or even seconds. But when it happens, you and I will both know.”
“This…Phlegethon… You’ve got a lot more to tell me, don’t you?”
“In due time,” Jaejoong laughed.
It was a promise.
*
Jung Insuk was a woman with strong emotions, it was one of her best qualities, but also a curse in the worst of times. Now was one of them. The only thing she’d known for the past week was a deep, pervading sadness and grief that left her feeling bereft. She did not have the energy to move, let alone eat, but with her husband at her side, he was able to coax her to do at least that much.
But this? This was too much for her to bear.
Insuk considered herself a traditional woman, she believed that being a wife and a mother was what she was meant to be. She was good at it. She loved her husband unconditionally and her children were her pride and joy, the people that she was happy to leave as her legacy when she passed on.
What Insuk never expected, however, was that her first born would die before she did. It might have been a bit unfair of her to expect to die before her children, to force them to bury her, but this just wasn’t right. Yunho had just graduated college, he had just stepped outside of the next and found that he could fly. He had a whole life ahead of him to discover himself, a whole life to live and to love but yet, here he was.
Barely alive.
The doctors called it a medical mystery that was out of their hands. Yunho had not been conscious in days, and with every passing second, his body continued to devour itself alive.
He couldn’t even breathe on his own.
It was insulting, the way that the tubes entered his body and defiled it for the sake of keeping him alive, but Insuk would have it no other way. Though with each passing day she felt the despair in her grow, a dark mass threatening to swallow her whole, she had to have this bit of faith to keep her going.
She would not let go of her son.
“This is so unfair to him,” Insuk sobbed, breaths turning into soft hiccups as her sinuses congested. She wiped away her tears, not caring how atrocious she looked at that moment. She’d stopped applying make-up because she knew it would just be ruined while she wept.
A warm, firm hand settled on her shoulder as her husband appeared behind her. “I know,” he said, gathering her in his arms.
It had been one week since Yunho had been placed on life support, and the night prior, he had had a stroke that had required surgical intervention. Insuk and Yonghwa could barely stand to look at their son’s once brilliantly smiling face. All they saw was something foreign, too pale skin and bloodied bandages wrapped around his skull. Insuk was no medical professional by a long shot, but she knew that her son had needed the surgery to lessen some pressure on his brain and drain fluid from his skull. It would aid in his recovery, the doctors had promised.
But yet, the woman could not shake off the feeling of sickness swirling in her belly. As a woman that swayed with the push and pull of her emotions, she was prone to ignoring her intuition even when it screamed at her.
This time it was intentional. Her gut told her there was no hope, that Yunho was too far gone and that he would die despite the doctors’ best attempts. That he was already dead and it was her selfishness keeping him from passing on to the next life.
The thought made her angry, and so she stomped it down until it was dust beneath her shoes. She held tight to her faith, grasping tight to the cross around her neck and praying every spare moment she had.
Yunho could not die. It wouldn’t be fair.
The two of them, they had been waiting for hours in solitude for the doctors to return. They had just wheeled Yunho back into the room not too long ago from doing some scans on him. They needed to know if the surgery had helped, they needed to know if his health would improve.
None of them looked particularly optimistic, which made Insuk just want to scream at them. It would be another couple of hours more than likely before they heard anything back, and by that time their nephew Yoochun probably would have arrived. He’d left because he needed to go to work but he had promised to be back as soon as he was done.
He kept his word.
Two hours later he strolled in, smelling strongly of coffee and still dressed in his uniform, looking worse for wear, but he was there and the doctor wasn’t far behind him. Yoochun barely had enough time to eat a muffin before the doctor knocked on the door, entering the room with a file in his hand.
The doctor did not look like he had good news to bear.
In fact, judging by the sadness and pity she saw reflected in his eyes, Insuk knew her worst fears were about to be realized.
The doctor cleared his throat. “Mr. Jung, Mrs. Jung, I regret to inform you that we have exhausted our resources and done all we can for your son.”
Insuk’s eyes burned, her face grew hot, and she sobbed as she fell like a dead weight in her husband’s arms. “No,” she gasped wetly. “No!”
“I’m sorry,” the doctor began, and he continued on about brain activities and functions. By the end of his small speech, Insuk was curled up against her husband and sobbing in his throat. Mr. Jung himself looked worse for wear, but he was struggling to hold himself together for their sake. For the sake of their daughter that was currently away at college and could not be present with them.
“Your son is brain dead.”
The sound of this distraught mother’s agonizing scream of denial would haunt this man as he slept that night.
*
“We’re not in your body anymore,” Jaejoong had told him that day at the river’s edge. It was from there he told Yunho everything else, his story, about the book Draco Maledicte that had led him to another demon of his kind. He told Yunho of his crippling depression and his struggle with his love for God and his yearning for both His and his father’s constant love and approval.
This demon had told Jaejoong a secret: how to become a demon. Most people did not ask for such a thing, but by this time Jaejoong had become so warped with his strange ideals and his obscene phantasmagoria that, to him, it had been the only logical option at the time.
Jaejoong was the first person to ever ask to become a demon, the first person to ever set out with the intention of actually damning his soul for eternity. “It’s not a bad life,” the demon had laughed. “Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.”
There were rivers - a total of five, most commonly known by their identities given by Greek mythology. Cocytus, the River of Woe. Acheron, the River of Pain. Styx, the River of Hate. Phlegethon, the River of Fire. Lethe, the River of Forgetfulness.
“Your first nightmare was your journey into Cocytus,” Jaejoong told Yunho. He continued to explain the purposes of the rivers and all that he knew about them. One had to be flighted across the River Styx to reach the afterlife, but one who was polluted by Cocytus and Acheron would sink to the bottom until it swallowed them whole. “Of course,” and Jaejoong had smiled wryly as he said it, “not everyone sees it as that. You don’t.”
The most crucial step to becoming a demon was the Phlegethon, the River of Fire. It was the closest thing to Hell that Jaejoong had ever been to, with the decades that he’d spend with his humanity burning away until there was nothing left but his sin, the very thing that made him an incubus.
And all too soon, they were standing at the bank of the river. It was as wide as it was long, looking almost like an ocean, and was exactly what he had imagined it to be: brilliant orange-yellow flames that went well over his head, flickering toward the sky. He felt the heat burning at his skin, a prelude of what was to come. Yunho’s resolve faltered, but one look at Jaejoong - whose eyes had been black for a while now - washed away all of the uncertainties.
All he knew was the strength of his conviction.
“Time here flows differently,” Jaejoong said softly. “In the one year you had thought me dead, I had already burned for over a century here before I emerged from the flames anew.”
“Will you wait here for me?” Yunho asked, pressing a palm to Jaejoong’s warm cheek. It was warmer than usual with the threatening heat of the Phlegethon around them.
“I will wait for you out there, because I don’t think I could bear staying here for another century more,” Jaejoong whispered honestly.
It made Yunho smile. He could accept that.
“Very well then.”
Yunho marched to the edge, glaring down the precipice into the flames. He turned one last time to look at Jaejoong, hand in hand, looking each other in the eyes. Even if all he saw was the darkness of Jaejoong’s soul staring back at him, Yunho knew it in his heart.
Jaejoong loved him.
“Do I get a final goodbye?” Yunho cupped Jaejoong’s face, bringing him closer. A thumb brushed against the plumpness of a bottom lip, chapped but slightly damp from saliva. He felt the heat of Jaejoong’s breath brush across his cheek, short and shallow as the proximity of their bodies brought forth feelings of want.
“Perhaps…”
Their lips met in a torrid kiss, breath warm and bodies tingling as their tongues dipped and tasted. It was a deep kiss, a kiss full of want and longing and goodbye. Yunho nibbled on Jaejoong’s lower lip, suckling it into the cupid’s bow of his own mouth before reluctantly releasing him.
But before Jaejoong even had the chance to open his eyes, he fell backwards into the fire.
It was a dreary and somber day when Jung Insuk awoke to the incessant beeping of her son’s life-support - he was gone before she was ready to say goodbye.
* * *
and when we fall into d e s p a i r
i know i’ll make it through
just to see you standing there
to catch me, as i fall into r u i n
* * *
Even as a human being, one of his favorite past times had been to look out of his bedroom window and stare at the midnight horizon. Living in Seoul had not granted him much opportunity to see the stars as they were meant to, but on nights like these, he could look at the bustling night life looming above them and pretend every light he saw was a star of its own.
A disturbance in the air - a flutter of wind against the bare nape of his neck, of heat and lust and want - before arms wrapped tight around his waist. Jaejoong smiled as he leaned back against the sturdy heat of Yunho’s frame, turning his head to capture Yunho’s perfect mouth in a hot kiss.
“You’re late.” He pouted like a petulant child, a discontented moue that Yunho kissed away.
“Sorry.” Not sorry, Jaejoong translated. “I had to make sure my family was okay.”
Jaejoong fought the urge to roll his eyes skyward, instead pulling away enough to turn and face Yunho before they were embracing each other once more. “Your mother had to see counselling after your death, but they are otherwise recovering just fine. Are you sure you don’t want them to forget?”
“They will eventually.”
Yunho’s words brought a smile to Jaejoong’s lips, and he laughed before burying his face in the hollow of his throat. He took a deep breath and inhaled the must of fire and the spice of Yunho’s demon, of his sex and want. It made him hard and tremble in his pants, but not yet. They had an entire eternity together to do whatever they wanted, there would always be time for sex.
“Does it still hurt?” Jaejoong whispered, unable to resist letting the flat of his tongue burn into Yunho’s throat. He smelled of temptation and sin and tasted like ambrosia. It was almost enough to make him bust in his own pants.
“No,” Yunho said, voice quiet. He’d spent over a hundred and twenty years burning in the Phlegethon, of reliving the nightmares he’d never had and creating new ones. The physical scars had been melted away and burned into his flesh to be melted once again, leaving only the memories he hoped would fade with time.
“Come on.” Jaejoong grasped Yunho’s hand tight, pulling him away from the embankment of the Han River. “We’ve got nothing but time on our side. What should we do first?”
Luxuria.
As incubi, it was the very thing that made them what they were. But Yunho had long since learned that lust, as a sin, did not strictly refer to sex. Lust was desire and want in its purest form, a constant thirst and need that would quickly consume them if they did not feed it. It was ardent, passionate - craving in its most basic form.
At that moment, the only thing Yunho lusted for was to experience the life he had lost.
Lips quirking upward, he rested a hand above where Jaejoong’s beating heart would have been if he still had one. “I want to swim,” he said, and his mouth twisted into laughter when he pushed the stunned incubus away from him and watched as he fell backward, wide-eyed with shock, into the frigid waters with a heavy splash.
Yunho laughed and dived in behind him, bringing Jaejoong for a cold and wet kiss once they had both surfaced. The still waters of the river had drenched them to the bone and Jaejoong’s mop of hair hung in front of his eyes, eyes that no matter how black they were, still shone brightly just like the illuminated night sky above them.
And though Yunho could not see it, he knew that he was the star of Jaejoong’s eyes.
“Feel better?” Jaejoong grumped, throwing his soaked bangs over his head so he could see.
“Perfect.” Yunho grinned.
They swam for what could have been hours in the still of the night, wrestling and doing other silly things they wished they could have done as humans. No one was there to judge them because there were already damned, but so long as they had each other then maybe it wouldn’t be so bad after all.
They made love twice, the first time when Yunho pressed Jaejoong into the dewy grass as the sun began to peek over the horizon, spreading him wide and sinking deep into him in one fluid movement. It was beautiful, the way the first rays of sunlight glittered off the water on Jaejoong’s skin, on his eyelashes, and how breathless he became when Yunho made him come between them. Jaejoong was far too eager to return the favor, leading to a second romp where they met the sun and the birds and the stray critters running about. A small chipmunk had nearly trampled over them, which left Yunho laughing and Jaejoong throwing a wildflower at him in revenge.
They were happy.
“Let’s go on a date,” Jaejoong said, head tilted coquettishly to the side. Yunho watched as Jaejoong’s body transitioned from sturdy, muscular, and thick to slim and petite with curves, dark curls falling to the small of her back.
While Yunho much preferred Jaejoong as he was, he wouldn’t deny his sick urge to spread her open an devour her until she came screaming.
A lascivious smile twisted at Yunho’s mouth.
“Let’s.”
And this was the beginning of their eternity.
do you know how hard it is to write something that romanticizes your deepest fear? welp.
Inspired by:
• 「剥離」 by the GazettE. This is just an intro from their album DIM and it has a very haunting quality to it; the first time I heard it, I could envision what eventually became one of the nightmare scenes from this fic.
• The second biggest source of inspiration for this fic came from “Incubus Dreams”, a novel by Laurell K. Hamilton. I mean the title alone, lol.
• Admittedly, I am also recycling an old, old Yu Yu Hakusho fan fiction that I was working on back in 2010 that was never finished because K-pop happened.
• Supernatural: when Dean went to Hell he spent four months there, but in Hell it was considered to be forty years. I’ve applied the logic that one month in the real world = 10 years in Hell to this fic. Therefore 1 year in hell (twelve months) is 120 years in Hell. Or, rather, burning in the Phlegethon.
• I’ve also taken the fact that demons have black eyes from the SPN!verse, though I did fondly reminisce of Charmed whilst writing it.
• Greek mythology because fuck yeah.
Thank you immensely to the people who have spare their time to read this. I’m sorry that it took so long, but after pondering about it for almost 6 months on end, I finally decided this was gathering too much dust and that if I didn’t post it now, I never would.
Thank you to Chloe for beta-reading this as well, even though she’s been busy with college lately and I miss you terribly. ♥
Thank you to Cassie as well for being the first person to let me bounce ideas off of her for this fic, almost two years before it actually happened. I wish you good luck on your marriage, bb. ♥