Eternal - Chapter 12
Lj fucked up.. again. I'll have to post like this.. again.
A/N: Waaaah I'm back! Oh God, you're allowed to kill me or ditch me or whatever, but I'd appreciate it if you didn't T.T <3 I've missed my readers, and I terribly miss my muse D: Hopefully it's just gone to come back if it misses me just as much. If you love something: let it go! But for now, here's another chapter.
Chapter 12
Outside the sun was high and bright, inside they were quiet. Each couple held to their own, leaning against a wet wall and looking at each other through the dark. There were no illness in the air, neither were they angry with each other. They were comfortable, Jaejoong almost sleeping in Yunho's arms against his chest. His heartbeat was missing, and maybe that was the only thing that was keeping him awake. The feeling that something was off.
Yoochun knew of the burn they were feeling, the constant tingling in their veins and the itch in their mouths even though they had just finished drinking. Several times now had they tried to approach the deer, tried to drink more than was actually necessary. And that was what they had to learn how to control and resist, if they didn't it would be hard to continue living with a clear mind. They'd lose their human thoughts and turn into animals. Yoochun was always there to pull them away, and now Yunho was on a high drive, feet unable to be still and eyes wide-open. Junsu was sleeping, seeing as that's what they were supposed to do during the sun hours, and Jaejoong, for some reason, found it hard to be appealed by the deer. It was almost like an eating disorder-he was hungry and longing for it, but the thought made him queasy. Instead, he was trying to rest on both Yunho's and Yoochun's command after Yoochun assured him that he could handle Yunho on his own.
Jaejoong gave off something that sounded like an annoyed whine, and Yunho raised his hand to comb through Jaejoong's hair, trying to sooth him to sleep. He knew how much Jaejoong hated to lie awake when all he wanted was to rest.
“Sleep,” Yunho said gently, massaging his scalp.
“I'm trying,” Jaejoong bit out, tightly shutting his eyes and attempted to relax. Yoochun smiled in reassurance.
“It's okay, it's like that in the beginning. You're craving blood, so your body finds it hard to shut off, but it will get better.” He shifted Junsu in his arms, until he was lying on the ground with his head brushing Yoochun's thigh. Now that Jaejoong seemed to doze off with Yunho's touch, he needed to be ready to help if necessary. He doubted that Yunho wouldn't hold back, or at least warn him when it was getting unbearable, but he was better off safe than sorry. At least he could be emotional support. For Yunho it was an excellent time for questions, an opportunity to get to know the man whom was so selflessly helping them through it.
He decided for the first question that entered his mind. “How did you become a vampire? I mean, what happened to you?” He may not have put it out there as gently as he wanted, but now he had already asked. Yoochun whom had been looking at the wall glanced at him and then quickly averted his eyes to look at this own hands, still like a statue. “I'm sorry if I hit a sore spot, or if I brought up memories. You don't have to tell me, of course, I'm just being curious.” When he still received no answer he sighed and rubbed his clammy face with long fingers. “I apologize, I'm not usually this rude. Especially not to someone I just met.”
Yoochun shook his head. “You're not being rude, Yunho. You're just right, it isn't something I like to talk about, or remember. But not because of how I became a vampire, but because of how I ended up where I was when it found me.”
“Where were you?” Yoochun was quiet, but sighed a moment later.
“On the road, just like the two of you,” he said and looked Yunho straight and cold into his eyes. Yunho waited, but there was no continuation. He just had to ask. Had Yoochun been in love too? Had he escaped something, or had he been searching for something else?
“Why were you away from home? What were you heading to?” Yoochun snorted and his eyes turned smaller, cold with the memories he was recalling. Yunho felt bad for bringing it up again, it must have taken him a while to forget.
“Nothing. I wasn't running away from something unwanted, and I was not heading to something I wished for, or dreamed of, like you,” he spoke, paused and looked up again. “I wasn't there by choice, Yunho. I don't mean to sound harsh when I say this, but I was not as lucky as you. I was thrown out of my own home by my father. Not even my mother could stop him when he found out that his son was a disgrace.” He stopped again, and Yunho felt like reaching out to comfort him, to tell him that it actually was okay now. It had happened so long ago. “I had been depressed for months, when I finally understood that I was homosexual I knew that my life wouldn't be the same as I had always expected it to be. I decided to tell my parents, hoping that they'd understand even though I knew they wouldn't. I needed... their support, to hear that they loved me and that we could solve it, cure me.”
“You... thought you could be cured?” Yunho asked, shocked, appalled. Maybe Yoochun was right when he said he had been lucky. Even from the start he had been accepting of the fact that he loved men, he knew it was not something you could get rid of. That way, it was easier to love Jaejoong, and to understand himself.
Yoochun smiled in spite, and Yunho could imagine the venom and hate Yoochun must have lived with. What opinions and thoughts of homosexuals he must have grown up to hear from his family, and to then realise that he was one...
“Yes, I was so sure... I really was convinced that I could be treated out of it, scare it out of my body, or to just have someone talk some sense into me. As sure as I was the the moon came out at night and that the sun warmed our faces during the day. Imagine hearing that that was not the case. That my father felt the opposite and didn't want to hear it, that he said it was a hopeless case. A disease and a sin that never disappeared, because he couldn't rip my soul out of my body, after all.” He licked his lips, and his hand found Junsu's soft and limp one, caressing it in the man's sleep. “I hated that part. Hearing that something I detested about myself actually sat attached in my soul, that it had been there all along. Or maybe, God had intentionally put it there, or maybe even the Devil had come up to plague me with such a sin... And to then glue it to my soul.”
Yunho swallowed, but when he spoke his voice was just as raspy as what he had wanted to avoid. “I'm really sorry you had to think that about yourself. It must have been...” he could not find a suitable word here, so he stopped, hoping that Yoochun would understand what he was trying to say.
Yoochun blinked slowly. “It was... Thank you.” A first look at Yunho did not tell one that he could be so... sentimental. Jaejoong was, clearly, but Yunho seemed harder than that. But now, sitting in front of him with Jaejoong softly breathing in his lap, he actually held genuine sympathy toward Yoochun. It was strangely unexpected, no matter how sceptical and hysteric he had been about their new lives as vampires. But maybe that was just it, he was in such a vulnerable position right now, it was hard to keep up a tough front, no matter how unmoved you really were. Yoochun could relate, he had been there himself. Furious and hurt, until he met Junsu and understood that maybe, fate just works in rough and strange ways.
Jaejoong shifted in his lap, and the uncomfortable position and stiff muscles told him that he was awake and had most probably heard the whole story. Yunho chose not to let Yoochun know what he did, he might not appreciate Jaejoong eavesdropping, even if he was right there with them.
“What happened after that? How did you meet Junsu?” Yoochun, as so many times before, paused. Yunho was not sure if it was because he didn't want to share, or because he didn't remember. Or feel the need to remember.
“It was a coincidence, quite alike to how I met you two. It just... happened. Although I met him for a reason, a reason to help myself and him. You just found me out of luck.” He continued. “I found Junsu dying by a deserted road. He... had confided in a friend, told him that he was homosexual. The word spread, first to his close friends, then to the town. Eventually it was bound to reach the wrong people, the kind that would take care of a disease when they see one. They beat him up and left him to die.” His voice was soft and free of emotions, the sentence harshly bit off at the end. Yunho put his hand on Jaejoong's angry back, already feeling the trembles of anger and thoughts of luck. How they had escaped such a hell. They had found each other in moments of love, not in death and shame.
“I had to do something, I knew I did,” Yoochun spoke, almost to himself now, eyes no longer intently searching Yunho's. “So I bit him, drank and gave him an ultimatum. You see by this time, I had already been feeling the desperation for a year. But no human I found would ever choose the road that you and I did. I felt like I belonged in hell with the sin I carried, you refused to leave Jaejoong's side. Junsu chose the same path as us.”
“Why?” Yunho asked. Junsu had not had a lover to protect, neither had he thought that his preference was a sin if he now confided in a friend. He had not been as ashamed as Yoochun had been. “Why would someone do that to themselves?”
Yoochun mouth quirked and he let his hand pet Junsu's hair. “He was hoping for revenge. The boys who almost murdered him had no chance of ever going to heaven, he figured that if he went to hell he would meet them when they died. And then do to them what they had done to him. One by one.” His eyes were soft with understanding. Maybe a bit proud. “If there was a devil, he wanted to negotiate with him. Instead, he ended up here.”
Yunho stopped breathing and drew his eyes to the gentle man resting on Yoochun's legs. How could someone so kind be filled with those dark thoughts? However betrayed, Yunho was sure that he could never have come up with such a plan. Then again, he had never had much selfrespect. He was unselfish by nature and the only thing that could bring out the worst in him was Jaejoong. Had someone done to Jaejoong what they did to Junsu he would gladly wait forever in hell to get them back. Though Jaejoong would lure him up and away to heaven until he could, he was sure. But he could very well do it. The want would be there.
“And as it turned out, his choice was a good one. At least for me,” Yoochun smiled and Yunho was relieved when his eyes could once again meet Yunho's. He had calmed down. “Although I wish he could live in heaven instead, I don't know what I would do without him. I need him with me more than I need blood. When you've been immortal for years, surviving doesn't really matter as much as living.” He smiled brightly again. “And I live when I am with him.”
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By the time everything was quiet again Jaejoong was still and asleep, and Yunho's heavy need was in focus. He was sweating terribly, nails digging into his skin. It was hard like steel and the nails refused to break through even though the pain would have been a much welcomed and burning distraction. Yoochun was watching him silently, encouraging him, telling him that it would get better as long as he tried. He just needed to be patient.
The soft and gentle Yoochun was gone with the story, and in front of him sat the quirky and fleeting man once again. It was like Junsu tied him down, kept him down to earth, and now he was up in the clouds away again. But the company was welcomed. Hell, even a punch in the face would be welcomed right now. Going for a walk, running, picking flowers, reading, cooking, fighting, sex. Anything, just something to do.
“God,” Yunho panted, shirt clinging to his clammy skin and veins looking like they were ready to burst. Like a stretch of mountains rising underneath. “If this isn't hell, then I don't want to know where I could have ended up.”
Yoochun smiled in sympathy. “Probably like this, but without Jaejoong by your feet.”
Yunho grunted in reply and closed his eyes, but immediately opened them again when the pure pain and need only got stronger when his sight turned black. The veins on his neck pounded in pace with his temples, the dull ache torturing the whole length of his body along with a strong burning in his throat.
Sweat trickled down his face like pearls, teasing, but the touch was so gentle compared to all the pain that Yunho might as well have cried. It was like going through your life in sadness and finally getting a taste of something good. Yoochun had, to Yunho's growling dismay, moved Jaejoong from his lap and down to the ground. Still close enough to feel his presence (since he no longer could feel his comforting warmth), but far enough for him to still be asleep through the turmoil Yunho's body was shaking its way through.
As if he could feel that everything was not right Jaejoong hips moved sideways, tipping over from his sleep to land in rest on his back. His eyes opened in worry-sweat, tears and heavy panting not doing anything to calm his mind back to sleep. He was still pent up by everything around them, what he really needed to hear was assuring, soft breaths of Yunho sleeping by his neck. But he wasn't, thus he sat up.
“You should sleep some more, Jaejoong. You will need every opportunity you get to rest. Believe me,” was the first words that he heard. Yoochun's voice was smooth, but serious.
Like Yunho, was Jaejoong's first thought and he swirled to find him.
There was a gasp, or maybe a shriek, and then Jaejoong was by his side, wiping at his face, kissing his damp hair and clutching at his hand.
“Why are you just sitting there?! Do something!” He yelled fiercely at Yoochun whom was resting against the hard wall. He shrugged in response. He didn't even have the decency to look sympathetic.
“What do you want me to do, Jaejoong?” he asked in a low voice. “There's nothing I can do, we just have to wait it out. I've seen it many times before, I've been through it myself. He'll be fine, he's a strong man.”
“I know that he's strong!” Jaejoong spat back to his face, lips feeling like they were filled with filth. “I know Yunho, I know he makes it through everything! I just... I hate this!” He stood up quickly, grabbing a rock and threw it with all he had into the cave. He heard a shatter from a white crystal falling to the ground. Yoochun said nothing, just continued to stare whilst Yunho struggled to keep his jaw closed, to keep the scream of want inside. His eyes were redder than blood, darker than the sky. Yunho's soft almonds were gone, love was buried underneath lust, want and need. Still the clucking of his throat told Jaejoong everything and he threw himself at the man again. His face buried itself in his torso, and he let Yunho's long fingers dig into his ribs.
“I'm calm,” Jaejoong chanted. “I'm sorry, I'll stay calm. I love you, just try to get through it.”
“You know,” Yoochun said. “This is the first time I've seen you panic. And yet you've been through many things since I met you.” Jaejoong's eyes glowed in the dark when he turned back to look at him. The animal was stretching further into his skin, limbs strongly attached to Yunho's body, lips snarled in protection and agony for his lover.
“I don't care what I have to go through. I can handle that, I just don't want Yunho to do this, to go through something so horrible whilst I run around in excitement.” Yoochun thought he heard a sniffle, but he couldn't be sure. “He goes through a lot, but I know that this one is for me. He'd rather die than to live like this if it wasn't for me. Like I said... I know him.”
“Are you angry with me?”
“No.” Jaejoong shook his head. “I'm furious with myself. For being selfish when he's so selfless. I'm enraged that this is happening to him and not to me.”
“I'm sure he's very happy about it though. He seems very keen to not have anything touch you. Or at least in a way you don't appreciate.” Yoochun replied. “Besides, you can't call this selfless. He did not choose this upon himself, and if given a choice you would both take this pain for each other. I don't see how this is selfish of you, Jaejoong.”
The hardness in Jaejoong's face didn't melt away. “I'm not saying that I'm selfish because what he's going through. I'm saying that I'm selfish because I forced him into this life as vampires. He didn't actually want it...”
“What was he supposed to do? Kill you both? This was not a choice, this was forced upon you both. He feels guiltier than you do, he told me so. He was the one who forced an ultimatum on you, who dragged you both out here.”
“He didn't drag me! I came with him, because he was in a tough position, because I love him more than my life at home. I had to!” Jaejoong defended, the fire in his eyes returning. “You wouldn't understand.”
“Oh, I understand. I'm just trying to make you understand. You losing control is only worse for him.”
Jaejoong looked uneasily at Yunho's face, he was getting better, but the attack would exhaust him when it was finished.
“You think so...? I'm making it worse?”
“Maybe. Just believe that you are and calm down. Hold him, don't scream in a frenzy.” Jaejoong nodded at this, so long that Yoochun thought his neck would break.
“Yes. You're right,” he said and curled up to Yunho again, gently holding Yunho's stiff, trembling form to his chest. Even when Yunho's grip on his wrist got too hard, or when the trembles got uncontrollable, he held on. He stayed like that until Junsu woke up, not saying anything when he saw them-only sat up and let Yoochun lean against him to get his own rest. Jaejoong loved him for not saying anything, hugging Yunho to his chest was becoming more of a duty. It was easier that way, no emotions.
“I think you can relax now,” someone said and Jaejoong looked up.
“What?”
Junsu smiled a bit. “I said, you can relax. He's asleep.” Jaejoong looked down, and in his arms Yunho had stopped shaking, and was now in a deep sleep. His sweat had dried, Jaejoong could smell the salt on his skin. As relieved as he was that he was finally sleeping, that he wasn't hurting or fighting anymore, this was not what he had in mind. Yunho falling asleep out of such exhaustion was not fair, not when he himself had fallen asleep secure and very content against Yunho's torso.
Silence stretched, none of them as talkative as Yunho and Yoochun. A bit too cold, worried and self-centric to get to know the other. But finally, Jaejoong spoke up. He could need the distraction, he could also need the feeling of being himself before all this, before he fell in love with someone he shouldn't, escaped with said love and suddenly turned into something completely different.
He was never cold before, on the contrary he was warm, fragile. Until he understood what being himself could and would cost him. Closing yourself off was normal. At least it seemed so to Jaejoong. Wasn't that an expected reaction?
“How long have you been a vampire?” Junsu seemed taken aback by the question, slightly jumping when Jaejoong spoke. He hadn't expected him to make small talk.
“Oh, uhm... About 10 years now.”
“As long as you've been with Yoochun,” Jaejoong noted.
“Yes. We became lovers almost immediately after he transformed me. We stuck together, he helped me like he's helping you and... I fell in love with him when he had already been in love with me for quite a while. We've been together ever since. I know nothing about being a vampire without Yoochun with me,” he said. “And it will be the same for you. Without Yunho you will feel lost now that he has been with you since you transformed.”
Jaejoong's mouth twitched. “I always feel lost without him, vampire or not.”
Junsu smiled, already expecting that answer. “I know.” He sighed to himself, more as an attention-gainer than in self-pity. “You are very lucky you know, Jaejoong.”
Jaejoong tilted his head slightly. “I am? How am I any luckier than you?”
“Your relationship with Yunho is far from what I have with Yoochun. Yoochun and I found each other under other circumstances. We... forget to appreciate each other, because it has always been so easy and natural for us. We were all we had-love and need came quickly. Sometimes... I'm afraid that our love isn't real. That we've imagined it all just because we have no one else,” he said sadly, staring down at Yoochun's sleeping face. Jaejoong hoped, for Yoochun's sake, that he wasn't hearing this. It was obvious how in love he was with Junsu. Even if what Junsu was saying was true, living with Yoochun's mind and believing that they were soulmates like him and Yunho would make him happier in the long run. “But then I meet our other friends, and Yoochun disappears from me for a while, and I realise that I miss him. Not just his company, but Yoochun as a person. He could be quiet and still, and still I would feel love when I gaze at him. He's more than a presence, but he isn't to me what Yunho is to you. You appreciate him.”
“That may be true, but we are both so caught up in the fear of losing each other that we almost forget to live together. That is what you see and believe is our expression of love. Just terrible, horrible fear... It's very exhausting. To constantly think about him, to wonder, to worry. It's like my life isn't my own anymore-he's my life and so he controls everything about me.”
“It will go away. By time it will,” Junsu nodded, having gone through almost the same thing the first years.
“Will it? Really?”
“Give it a few years, you will calm down.”
“Years,” Jaejoong scoffed in fatigue. “How can I live years like this?”
“Just don't think about it. Love him, appreciate him, stop the worrying and the nervousness. You will be fine, Jaejoong.”
When Yunho woke up Jaejoong was the only one there, seemingly bored and playing with a string on his shirt. He groaned and massaged his temples slowly with closed eyes. Every part of his body felt like he had just run three marathons without eating, and on top of that swallowed weights afterwards. He was heavy, sticky and exhausted. Jaejoong looked up and was immediately by his side.
“Yunho.” He reached his hand out to cup the back of Yunho's head, helping him sit up against the wall though changed his mind and guided him against himself instead. “Love? How are you feeling?” Yunho opened his eyes at Jaejoong's voice-clustered with tears and worried.
“I will be alright, eventually.”
“I'm so sorry... I'm sorry it was so hard on you.” Yunho nodded, but said nothing. He felt pathetic, and he knew Jaejoong only cared about him but his pride was peeling off from his words. What happened with the Yunho who'd protect Jaejoong at every cost?
“I can handle it,” he said instead, but nevertheless leaned his pounding head against Jaejoong's quiet chest to get his fingers through his hair. It was stupid to get upset, he told the slays of black in his head. He'd push the feelings away. “Where are Yoochun and Junsu?”
“I don't know.” He drew his fingers down to his neck and gently rubbed the knots he knew would be there. Yunho had always been a man of stress and pressure, a people pleaser who always succeeded with it too. He came through with everything perfectly, always handsome and helpful. “I fell asleep and when I woke up they were just gone. So much for helping us,” he scoffed. “At least they left the deer.”
Yunho looked over at the dead animal just feet away. Swarms of flies were gathering like dark clouds and for some reason everything felt... okay. There were no gags of repulse nor feelings of guilt and wrong. It felt like he was simply looking at a meal a maid had cooked for him, or something Jaejoong put on the table for him to eat. Was this... another process? He hadn't been a vampire for long, and still he was starting to embrace it. His mind was accepting what he needed to survive and to be with Jaejoong the rest of forever.
Jaejoong on the other hand refused to look over at the rotten flesh. Yes, he had been incredibly curious and seen such hope in their transformation, but going through the turmoil he just had over and over, stealing animals' and even peoples' lives to feed himself... There was nothing pleasant about it.
“I'm sure they didn't mean anything bad with it. If they needed to leave then we can't expect them to stay for our sake.” Jaejoong looked away and Yunho realised he might have sounded too harsh. Jaejoong never meant to be selfish, or to appear that way, but sometimes his honest opinions came out too easily.
“I know, I know. I'm just a bit upset from yesterday, that's all. You scared me so much, Yunho,” he whispered and pressed a kiss to his cool forehead.
Would it really have killed them to at least say goodbye? Yunho had always been social, surrounded with friends or people throwing themselves at his feet to get into his world. In their town, he was like a prince. Jaejoong didn't have many to lean on, and the one he did have he had left behind... Donghae. He missed him. Right in the middle of being left behind by two people he had gotten slightly close to, he missed the one he had left alone. He hadn't even gotten the chance to tell him of his plans, to tell him that he loved him, that he would think of him... Just an explanation would have felt better.
“Yunho... Do you miss them at home?”
Yunho snorted into his chest. “What do I have to miss? All I really had was you, anyway. My father never listened, my mother had no say, my friends were not real. I've always felt like... You were the only one who truly wanted to be with me, who admired me and loved me-”
“-Adored you,” Jaejoong interrupted and Yunho smiled.
“Okay then, adored me.”
“But that's sad...” Jaejoong whispered, maybe to himself, maybe waiting for a reply. To not miss the people you've grown so long with. Or, at least next to them. Jaejoong knew they had left an impact on Yunho, even if he couldn't see it himself. His father was in his stern visage, his mother in his respectful silence. The warm and humble was all Yunho though. It was a unique quality in their town.
“It's okay.” He dragged his tongue over his teeth and looked up at the wet ceiling. “It is worse for you who had to leave them behind to come with me. Pathetic Yunho who couldn't even say no to his father. Who had no choice or say in his life and had to run away... I'm an embarrassment to our family, I know that much,” he said, refusing to meet Jaejoong's upset eyes.
“How dare you say that? The man you're calling pathetic and embarrassing happens to be the one person I admire more than anyone else! You had no choice, you had to leave!” His voice flew up in hysteric octaves, absolutely forbidding him to think low thoughts of himself in that way. It was horrible to hear, it hurt in an unbelievable way.
“I was their only child, Jaejoong. My mother had a hard time carrying and delivering me... She could have no one else. A son escaping like that is humiliating, no matter the family. A strong man could have stayed. A brave one would have fought his battle for what he wanted. And where am I now? In a cave, whining and gagging about my future, when I should be accepting what things have come to. Loving them, even, since I got what I came here for.” He reached out a hand to caress Jaejoong's smooth cheek. Cold but radiant in its glittery ivory dust. “To hold you in public... Come home and kiss you with no fright.” He smiled at him. “I love our future already. I'm sorry for not feeling like you sooner. I guess the journey brought out the worst and weakest in me.”
His hand was clutched in Jaejoong's smaller ones, and they were pressed tightly to his cheek now. Having the old, secure Yunho back offered him comfort and stars in his eyes. The prince was back, and although he didn't judge him for anything, he was glad to see him again.
“Sometimes being weak isn't a bad thing, Yunho. I love all sides of you, every new one that you show me feels like my own, my private view of you. It's okay to let your guard down around me, I want you to in fact.” He stretched his lips into a gentle grin. “But I am glad that you look forward to this, and that you're sure about our future. I could never walk joyfully through this alone.”
Yunho's eyes softened, and he felt the fury at himself growing despite knowing that Jaejoong never looked at him badly.
“I never wanted you to think that way! Have you really felt lonely through all of this?”
“No, I've just been scared that I would have to convince you some more.”
“You shouldn't need to... Not when this was my idea.” He kissed Jaejoong's hand and for the first time realised what he had done, what had been going on. God had he been selfish... “I'm sorry.”
It was unbelievable to him, how Yunho looked down so much on himself but so easily mended and admitted his faults. Jaejoong was stubborn and proud, he didn't posses those qualities. He wished he did-for Yunho's sake. But then again, he was not loved by Yunho for who he could be, he was loved for who he already was.
A/N: Okay, things WILL be moving forward very soon, I promise. I have a plot in mind that will evolve, I just have to drag this on a biit further, tell their stories and whatnot ^-^
For now, what do you think~? <3