[25] Soot flakes breaking into smuts [Taecyeon/Junho]
Fic title: Soot flakes breaking into smuts
Main character: Taecyeon / Junho
Pairing: Taecho
Warnings: Rated for massive amount of porn (you know you like it)
World count: 2,872
Prompt 1: I remember everything about you
Prompt 2: http://nice-cool-pics.com/data/media/22/candle_light_candles.jpg
Prompt 3: Game over
Hunger heightens your sense of smell. Taecyeon had tried not to inhale for the longest time but some things are inevitable and as he gasped he caught a taste of orange, of charred vanilla and burning cotton. He frowned at the sweet notes and relished in the destructive smoke, his body harboring a peculiar calm and his mind an utter chaos.
It was the blackest of winter nights, not a glare of the white flakes or colored streetlights seeping through the stone walls. The sweaty patches of Taecyeon's naked soles clung to the ice-cold floor, a thin layer of frost biting his skin but doing nothing to break his concentration. It wasn't just the air and the chancel of the medieval church that was a charcoal shade.
The darkest spot of all was an orb in Taecyeon's mind, a sphere he'd spun and projected into his cupped palms.
“Junho” he chanted over and over, “Junho.” “Rise from the shadows, come from the void.”
He desperately wanted it. Willed for it to happen.
Everywhere from the vestry and through the sacred space, votive candles flamed like the devil had lit them, just a few touched by the match and the rest metaphysically inclined to obey. Over the walls and the benches flickered a strange dead vibrancy, like reflections of the moon and reversed light, an unsteady haze in which the necromancy spired.
“Junho” sprung from Taecyeon's throat again, echoing in the shadows until it was a choir of whispers and spirits, “Junho, I beg for you to come.”
In reality, he wasn't pleading and left nothing to the free will of anyone else, even the flaring candles following his every whim and motion. The ritual was a summons, a harsh demand, a calling beyond the dimensions and across the distance. From one lover to another. “I ask that you step across” Taecyeon voiced from the depth of his gut and every flame went out as the density of human presence shifted.
From between his fingers hung a chain with a vial of blood, the red of the one he loved, the blessed curse of the liquid asking of him that he gather as much as he could and spend every last droplet.
“I ask that you manifest and fill this body” he murmured, his obsidian eyes rolling back as he left his simple flesh and reached into what was already dead and should have been left that way. “Your blood is here.” He spoke up louder, a demonic intensity rising from the ground and holding him up, “Your place is here!”
“Manifest!”
Everything stirred, from the cold marble surfaces to the blue burning heat that re-lit, touching the smears of blood on the altar and the raven perched on the pulpit. Its feathers rustled and shook, Taecyeon arching his back and stretching his neck to hail the bird, to venerate the vessel with what almost seemed like devout but was on the absolute other end of the spectrum. “You have come” he grinned and lifted his hands towards the blank and empty ceiling, “Fill this body with your soul.”
A shrill cawing broke the buzzing silence, maybe it was the raven calling out in pain as another conscience invaded its ribcage, maybe it was the essence inside that chest objecting to being brought back. Taecyeon paid no attention to either, so close to grasping what he desired that he'd stopped breathing again.
“Raven, be still” he commanded, “I gave you life forevermore and you promised to do my bidding.” The shadow of death croaked again and chattered its beak as if to say 'I am here to remind you of the pain, not to bring it back to you' but Taecyeon refused to hear anything except the faint pulsations of a second heartbeat.
The game was over, the spirits had yielded.
With the flap of unsuspecting wings and betrayed faith, the raven spread its wings and whimpered as the quills turned into arms, altering shape until it wasn't a fowl but a man, a panting incarnation of what seemed like life and still wasn't quite. “Junho” Taecyeon whispered and for a fraction of a second, all his aura crackled with joy.
“Taecyeon” the resurrection breathed and shivered faced with the unfamiliar elements, huddling in naked skin as the chill of existence increased and became real, “I am here.”
They stared at each other with disbelief and ineluctable recognition, Taecyeon statuous and adamant, Junho vulnerable and subservient as he stood eye to eye with forces he'd never been able to stand up against. There had been days when he would have tried, but those were long since over.
“I have longed for you” Taecyeon said and for the first time in hours tried to move his feet, his toes fighting against the frost to tear from the tiled floor and move closer, “I have needed you.”
“I have waited for you as well.”
From the once blessed air sprung the soaring sound of a hundred bumblebees, a frantic turbulence that had nothing to do with earthly creatures but was born from the lust and the magnetism between the two men. Even things that aren't good together can sometimes have such attractive forces that hell bends for the union.
“Why did you compel me?” Junho whined and allowed himself to want the warmth of the open arms reaching for him, “Why did you bring me to a church?” he pouted, knowing all to well the dirty intentions for his revival. “Couldn't you have found something less holy to desecrate?”
“Didn't look very hard.”
“Of course not..”
Taecyeon had closed whatever short distance had laid between them, his warm breath sticking to Junho's lips, the promise of disruption still irresistible after all those years. “It's getting harder to fetch you” he admitted, “But demons love nothing like they do holy ground.” “To taint it” he added with languid lust and let the tip of his tongue track the contours of Junho's lower lip.
“Is that why you brought me from the other side, to taint me?” A faint smile played over Junho's mouth. He couldn't help it. The oxygen was too sweet, the rush of arousal too powerful, his pull towards the darkness greater than he wanted to admit. Taecyeon parted his lips and nodded, his face shaded by the strands of his hair, the dancing shadows, a darkness erupting from inside him to mix with the night.
“Up to my usual tricks.”
Being intimately familiar with those wiles, Junho gathered his senses to resist, his focus mercilessly broken as Taecyeon claimed the kiss and the vice and every ounce of blood that circulated their veins, blending through osmosis. The larger man was one to own and direct, to stick his tongue into things he craved and make them choke. Once they had loved each other with that same desperate force. Now Junho knelt under the weight of a master, helpless under the feeling of stiff limbs and dry bones filling with vitality and new blood, a surge of spiced regret that he couldn't escape from.
“I can't breathe” he mewled, the roof of his mouth tickled by what felt like a split tongue.
“I'm not sure you have to.”
“All living things need air.”
Taecyeon's hands were harsh and possessive as they rounded Junho's upper arm, grabbed it and hurt it and caressed it all at the same time, love and pain running through him as swirls of black and white, a gray filter that made his vision blurred. “Yes” he hummed and stroked the pleasant skin, making hairs rise as they connected, “But I'm not sure you are one.”
Regardless of how much was animated and what was just an imitation, there was no denying that the gentle tapping of Taecyeon's fingers instilled more humanity into Junho's shaking body, making it burn and beat as they dropped to the floor. “I'm not sure what you are either” the man below admitted and accepted to lose his footing. A feather tickled his shoulder as he was pressed against the thin cloth and the hard stone below, hands roaming his veins from the edge of his wrists and closer towards his center.
“I'm just a man who wants you” Taecyeon smirked, his torso hard and relentless as it weighed them both down, so heavy that even the floor seemed to give way.
“You smell of blood.” Junho's nostrils flared. There was a metal electricity clinging to every hair and molecule, overpowered by a sweeter layer of musk but nevertheless extremely present. “You are not just a man with a will.”
“It's a strong will.”
“It always was.”
Tongues clashed again, every lick another drop towards the inevitable point where Junho would give in, give up, start to become greedy as well. Even if it had been buried along with his ashes, the feeling of being infinite, immortal, forevermore meant to be together - it was not far away. A shallow grave soon gives way to a persistent digger.
“You are so beautiful” Taecyeon mouthed against Junho's chest, having let go of his tongue to spread mischief further down, dancing over skin like fire licks its prey. “Even having been dead for so long, you smell like sex, you taste like you always have.”
His tongue was provocatively flat and avaricious as it lapped every droplet of sweat, all the inches from neck to ribs to stomach and below, fast and lovesick with the hunger of someone who's waited for too long and found no ample distractions in the meantime. “I remember your taste too” Junho replied and swallowed a mouthful of soot and honey, cringing as it clung to his palate and made him remember. Hands went lower and his feet pressed firmly against the floor, a sharp tension shooting through his body and making all his fibers swell.
“I could taste you for a hundred years” Taecyeon moaned, the cloak he'd had over his shoulders slipping down his arms and covering them both, “I could lick you forever.”
“You could” Junho winced and groaned as the pliant tongue enclosed the hardest of his flesh, environing the throbbing essence of what it means to be truly alive, “..if only..” “you wouldn't..” “always..” A bottomless feeling of pleasure that ran to the depth of his core, silenced him before he could finish the sentence.
Taecyeon kept slipping over arteries that filled to the brim as soon as he touched them, moving over thighs and stomach, holding Junho and stroking himself - something utterly ghoulish about how he was everywhere at once, never stopping and not limited to the ten fingers a man should have. Through Junho's mind ran an eerie feeling of being under siege, scary and ominous but at the same time exactly the reason he'd never been able to put up much resistance when asked to return.
“If only what?” the larger man asked and his arms were under Junho's back, along his flanks, lifting him up and arranging him like a toy, tugging at strings and nerves and making them sing with his never-resting appetite. Junho floated under him, filled with the sense that he would live and die for him, traverse the horizons and always come back to the filth, the dark, the cold church in the middle of the night - no matter what and time and time again. Despite the consequences.
Junho didn't answer, it was still a game to him, a measure of strength, a tango where they danced and lead each other, not quite sure what the other knew or remembered. Something? Everything? Taecyeon tried to probe the waters, slowing down the monster inside himself to watch the one below gain momentum.
“I wish you would let me remain here forever” the lesser devil hissed as he strained to grope firm muscle, bite neck tendons and have his way for as long as it would be allowed. He struggled not to show too much power, say too many words, give away too many fractions of his soul. Hanging onto them while there was still time. “What makes you think I won't?” Taecyeon replied, the stakes constantly increasing, bristles and hairs rising towards the belfry and the bold hearts constantly drumming.
“I remember that much.”
“What else do you recall?”
Taecyeon froze for a moment, not just under the wake of palms that took his thighs and claimed his lust, but because the dance was nearing the edge, where it would really be game over and no more pretense. And he wanted the false excuse to last. “I know what it does when I nip here” Junho purred and pinched the delicate skin of Taecyeon's upper thigh, watching the quiver spread before pressing close together and making every cell ignite. “I am quite sure this will make you plead” he continued and rubbed his ass against the hardness wedged between his legs, the heat from the candles seeping into every pore and still not as hot as the scarlet sparks.
He was right of course, and with that, Taecyeon asked no further.
The pace between them escalated, a penetrative possession that filled every crack of their tarred souls and opened a thousand new ones. Taecyeon scratched at the pale, the stone, the trembling air, he clawed at what rode him and tried to measure up to his level of madness. Everything melted into the lack of color and presence of delirium, a thick and condensed sweetness that had both crying out in hoarse pleasure and sweetened pain.
With no excuses, life erupted and death with it too, black feathers crushed under their spines as they cursed and spat and came, bound together through the relish and the rage. The water in the baptismal funt boiled.
“So eager” Junho ghosted against the wet and still vicious neck he'd bounced against, “So rough..”
“I waited so long for this” Taecyeon sighed as his orgasm faded, his skin wet under the rain of blood and salt, “Until the moon was right and the embers would light on their own.”
Junho was silent. Anyone but Taecyeon in a blind high would have seen he was weak already, having shed the healthy glow in favor of a grayish tint.
Taking a while to come down, silence ruled as Junho bled and then finally Taecyeon let the nagging foreboding speak for him, asking “Do you remember me?” For real this time, not to play and deceive. No more games.
A sad streak came over Junho's face as he replied “I do” and nothing more.
They had been true lovers once, in another life. Until the shine of a blade had come between them, a dull threat at first but soon a sharper stab. Always when they came together, there was a knife around somewhere, Junho knew that much and didn't even bother to move his head and look around.
Yes, he remembered the last time they'd been together, and the time before that. Always when they loved, no matter how much time Taecyeon had spent to perfect the reconciliation, it ended the same. The first time he'd died, Junho had struggled against it, putting a good number of bruises up Taecyeon's arms. Since then he'd learned.
“And you still answered my calling?” The blade was closer now, just below the altar, already smudged with blood both dried and fresh. Taecyeon cried as he asked but still lifted his hands, traced the tip of the weapon along Junho's lines.
“I came back even if I remember everything about you.”
Cards on the table. Taecyeon knew why he'd put the moment off for as long as possible, confronted with how much it hurt to come to a dead end, seeing the impossibility of living close to the ache in Junho's eyes and finding it equally tormenting to put them out again.
“I love you” he cried and blood swelled for a second time, not into flesh but out of it, gushing from the wound and the vein Taecyeon knew all too well how to find, “Why can't we ever find a way of showing it?”
“You know I love you too” Junho gasped and tried to breathe but had no more room for air, “Because when you call, I come.”
Just like he'd appeared, Junho's departure was sudden and violent, a dark dither and metallic sound, softened only by Taecyeon's fingertips as they said farewell and gathered the fleeting color for his flask. So Junho fell into himself and returned to the shape of a raven, more and more of his skin covering in feathers.
Until it was all black.
Main character: Taecyeon / Junho
Pairing: Taecho
Warnings: Rated for massive amount of porn (you know you like it)
World count: 2,872
Prompt 1: I remember everything about you
Prompt 2: http://nice-cool-pics.com/data/media/22/candle_light_candles.jpg
Prompt 3: Game over
Hunger heightens your sense of smell. Taecyeon had tried not to inhale for the longest time but some things are inevitable and as he gasped he caught a taste of orange, of charred vanilla and burning cotton. He frowned at the sweet notes and relished in the destructive smoke, his body harboring a peculiar calm and his mind an utter chaos.
It was the blackest of winter nights, not a glare of the white flakes or colored streetlights seeping through the stone walls. The sweaty patches of Taecyeon's naked soles clung to the ice-cold floor, a thin layer of frost biting his skin but doing nothing to break his concentration. It wasn't just the air and the chancel of the medieval church that was a charcoal shade.
The darkest spot of all was an orb in Taecyeon's mind, a sphere he'd spun and projected into his cupped palms.
“Junho” he chanted over and over, “Junho.” “Rise from the shadows, come from the void.”
He desperately wanted it. Willed for it to happen.
Everywhere from the vestry and through the sacred space, votive candles flamed like the devil had lit them, just a few touched by the match and the rest metaphysically inclined to obey. Over the walls and the benches flickered a strange dead vibrancy, like reflections of the moon and reversed light, an unsteady haze in which the necromancy spired.
“Junho” sprung from Taecyeon's throat again, echoing in the shadows until it was a choir of whispers and spirits, “Junho, I beg for you to come.”
In reality, he wasn't pleading and left nothing to the free will of anyone else, even the flaring candles following his every whim and motion. The ritual was a summons, a harsh demand, a calling beyond the dimensions and across the distance. From one lover to another. “I ask that you step across” Taecyeon voiced from the depth of his gut and every flame went out as the density of human presence shifted.
From between his fingers hung a chain with a vial of blood, the red of the one he loved, the blessed curse of the liquid asking of him that he gather as much as he could and spend every last droplet.
“I ask that you manifest and fill this body” he murmured, his obsidian eyes rolling back as he left his simple flesh and reached into what was already dead and should have been left that way. “Your blood is here.” He spoke up louder, a demonic intensity rising from the ground and holding him up, “Your place is here!”
“Manifest!”
Everything stirred, from the cold marble surfaces to the blue burning heat that re-lit, touching the smears of blood on the altar and the raven perched on the pulpit. Its feathers rustled and shook, Taecyeon arching his back and stretching his neck to hail the bird, to venerate the vessel with what almost seemed like devout but was on the absolute other end of the spectrum. “You have come” he grinned and lifted his hands towards the blank and empty ceiling, “Fill this body with your soul.”
A shrill cawing broke the buzzing silence, maybe it was the raven calling out in pain as another conscience invaded its ribcage, maybe it was the essence inside that chest objecting to being brought back. Taecyeon paid no attention to either, so close to grasping what he desired that he'd stopped breathing again.
“Raven, be still” he commanded, “I gave you life forevermore and you promised to do my bidding.” The shadow of death croaked again and chattered its beak as if to say 'I am here to remind you of the pain, not to bring it back to you' but Taecyeon refused to hear anything except the faint pulsations of a second heartbeat.
The game was over, the spirits had yielded.
With the flap of unsuspecting wings and betrayed faith, the raven spread its wings and whimpered as the quills turned into arms, altering shape until it wasn't a fowl but a man, a panting incarnation of what seemed like life and still wasn't quite. “Junho” Taecyeon whispered and for a fraction of a second, all his aura crackled with joy.
“Taecyeon” the resurrection breathed and shivered faced with the unfamiliar elements, huddling in naked skin as the chill of existence increased and became real, “I am here.”
They stared at each other with disbelief and ineluctable recognition, Taecyeon statuous and adamant, Junho vulnerable and subservient as he stood eye to eye with forces he'd never been able to stand up against. There had been days when he would have tried, but those were long since over.
“I have longed for you” Taecyeon said and for the first time in hours tried to move his feet, his toes fighting against the frost to tear from the tiled floor and move closer, “I have needed you.”
“I have waited for you as well.”
From the once blessed air sprung the soaring sound of a hundred bumblebees, a frantic turbulence that had nothing to do with earthly creatures but was born from the lust and the magnetism between the two men. Even things that aren't good together can sometimes have such attractive forces that hell bends for the union.
“Why did you compel me?” Junho whined and allowed himself to want the warmth of the open arms reaching for him, “Why did you bring me to a church?” he pouted, knowing all to well the dirty intentions for his revival. “Couldn't you have found something less holy to desecrate?”
“Didn't look very hard.”
“Of course not..”
Taecyeon had closed whatever short distance had laid between them, his warm breath sticking to Junho's lips, the promise of disruption still irresistible after all those years. “It's getting harder to fetch you” he admitted, “But demons love nothing like they do holy ground.” “To taint it” he added with languid lust and let the tip of his tongue track the contours of Junho's lower lip.
“Is that why you brought me from the other side, to taint me?” A faint smile played over Junho's mouth. He couldn't help it. The oxygen was too sweet, the rush of arousal too powerful, his pull towards the darkness greater than he wanted to admit. Taecyeon parted his lips and nodded, his face shaded by the strands of his hair, the dancing shadows, a darkness erupting from inside him to mix with the night.
“Up to my usual tricks.”
Being intimately familiar with those wiles, Junho gathered his senses to resist, his focus mercilessly broken as Taecyeon claimed the kiss and the vice and every ounce of blood that circulated their veins, blending through osmosis. The larger man was one to own and direct, to stick his tongue into things he craved and make them choke. Once they had loved each other with that same desperate force. Now Junho knelt under the weight of a master, helpless under the feeling of stiff limbs and dry bones filling with vitality and new blood, a surge of spiced regret that he couldn't escape from.
“I can't breathe” he mewled, the roof of his mouth tickled by what felt like a split tongue.
“I'm not sure you have to.”
“All living things need air.”
Taecyeon's hands were harsh and possessive as they rounded Junho's upper arm, grabbed it and hurt it and caressed it all at the same time, love and pain running through him as swirls of black and white, a gray filter that made his vision blurred. “Yes” he hummed and stroked the pleasant skin, making hairs rise as they connected, “But I'm not sure you are one.”
Regardless of how much was animated and what was just an imitation, there was no denying that the gentle tapping of Taecyeon's fingers instilled more humanity into Junho's shaking body, making it burn and beat as they dropped to the floor. “I'm not sure what you are either” the man below admitted and accepted to lose his footing. A feather tickled his shoulder as he was pressed against the thin cloth and the hard stone below, hands roaming his veins from the edge of his wrists and closer towards his center.
“I'm just a man who wants you” Taecyeon smirked, his torso hard and relentless as it weighed them both down, so heavy that even the floor seemed to give way.
“You smell of blood.” Junho's nostrils flared. There was a metal electricity clinging to every hair and molecule, overpowered by a sweeter layer of musk but nevertheless extremely present. “You are not just a man with a will.”
“It's a strong will.”
“It always was.”
Tongues clashed again, every lick another drop towards the inevitable point where Junho would give in, give up, start to become greedy as well. Even if it had been buried along with his ashes, the feeling of being infinite, immortal, forevermore meant to be together - it was not far away. A shallow grave soon gives way to a persistent digger.
“You are so beautiful” Taecyeon mouthed against Junho's chest, having let go of his tongue to spread mischief further down, dancing over skin like fire licks its prey. “Even having been dead for so long, you smell like sex, you taste like you always have.”
His tongue was provocatively flat and avaricious as it lapped every droplet of sweat, all the inches from neck to ribs to stomach and below, fast and lovesick with the hunger of someone who's waited for too long and found no ample distractions in the meantime. “I remember your taste too” Junho replied and swallowed a mouthful of soot and honey, cringing as it clung to his palate and made him remember. Hands went lower and his feet pressed firmly against the floor, a sharp tension shooting through his body and making all his fibers swell.
“I could taste you for a hundred years” Taecyeon moaned, the cloak he'd had over his shoulders slipping down his arms and covering them both, “I could lick you forever.”
“You could” Junho winced and groaned as the pliant tongue enclosed the hardest of his flesh, environing the throbbing essence of what it means to be truly alive, “..if only..” “you wouldn't..” “always..” A bottomless feeling of pleasure that ran to the depth of his core, silenced him before he could finish the sentence.
Taecyeon kept slipping over arteries that filled to the brim as soon as he touched them, moving over thighs and stomach, holding Junho and stroking himself - something utterly ghoulish about how he was everywhere at once, never stopping and not limited to the ten fingers a man should have. Through Junho's mind ran an eerie feeling of being under siege, scary and ominous but at the same time exactly the reason he'd never been able to put up much resistance when asked to return.
“If only what?” the larger man asked and his arms were under Junho's back, along his flanks, lifting him up and arranging him like a toy, tugging at strings and nerves and making them sing with his never-resting appetite. Junho floated under him, filled with the sense that he would live and die for him, traverse the horizons and always come back to the filth, the dark, the cold church in the middle of the night - no matter what and time and time again. Despite the consequences.
Junho didn't answer, it was still a game to him, a measure of strength, a tango where they danced and lead each other, not quite sure what the other knew or remembered. Something? Everything? Taecyeon tried to probe the waters, slowing down the monster inside himself to watch the one below gain momentum.
“I wish you would let me remain here forever” the lesser devil hissed as he strained to grope firm muscle, bite neck tendons and have his way for as long as it would be allowed. He struggled not to show too much power, say too many words, give away too many fractions of his soul. Hanging onto them while there was still time. “What makes you think I won't?” Taecyeon replied, the stakes constantly increasing, bristles and hairs rising towards the belfry and the bold hearts constantly drumming.
“I remember that much.”
“What else do you recall?”
Taecyeon froze for a moment, not just under the wake of palms that took his thighs and claimed his lust, but because the dance was nearing the edge, where it would really be game over and no more pretense. And he wanted the false excuse to last. “I know what it does when I nip here” Junho purred and pinched the delicate skin of Taecyeon's upper thigh, watching the quiver spread before pressing close together and making every cell ignite. “I am quite sure this will make you plead” he continued and rubbed his ass against the hardness wedged between his legs, the heat from the candles seeping into every pore and still not as hot as the scarlet sparks.
He was right of course, and with that, Taecyeon asked no further.
The pace between them escalated, a penetrative possession that filled every crack of their tarred souls and opened a thousand new ones. Taecyeon scratched at the pale, the stone, the trembling air, he clawed at what rode him and tried to measure up to his level of madness. Everything melted into the lack of color and presence of delirium, a thick and condensed sweetness that had both crying out in hoarse pleasure and sweetened pain.
With no excuses, life erupted and death with it too, black feathers crushed under their spines as they cursed and spat and came, bound together through the relish and the rage. The water in the baptismal funt boiled.
“So eager” Junho ghosted against the wet and still vicious neck he'd bounced against, “So rough..”
“I waited so long for this” Taecyeon sighed as his orgasm faded, his skin wet under the rain of blood and salt, “Until the moon was right and the embers would light on their own.”
Junho was silent. Anyone but Taecyeon in a blind high would have seen he was weak already, having shed the healthy glow in favor of a grayish tint.
Taking a while to come down, silence ruled as Junho bled and then finally Taecyeon let the nagging foreboding speak for him, asking “Do you remember me?” For real this time, not to play and deceive. No more games.
A sad streak came over Junho's face as he replied “I do” and nothing more.
They had been true lovers once, in another life. Until the shine of a blade had come between them, a dull threat at first but soon a sharper stab. Always when they came together, there was a knife around somewhere, Junho knew that much and didn't even bother to move his head and look around.
Yes, he remembered the last time they'd been together, and the time before that. Always when they loved, no matter how much time Taecyeon had spent to perfect the reconciliation, it ended the same. The first time he'd died, Junho had struggled against it, putting a good number of bruises up Taecyeon's arms. Since then he'd learned.
“And you still answered my calling?” The blade was closer now, just below the altar, already smudged with blood both dried and fresh. Taecyeon cried as he asked but still lifted his hands, traced the tip of the weapon along Junho's lines.
“I came back even if I remember everything about you.”
Cards on the table. Taecyeon knew why he'd put the moment off for as long as possible, confronted with how much it hurt to come to a dead end, seeing the impossibility of living close to the ache in Junho's eyes and finding it equally tormenting to put them out again.
“I love you” he cried and blood swelled for a second time, not into flesh but out of it, gushing from the wound and the vein Taecyeon knew all too well how to find, “Why can't we ever find a way of showing it?”
“You know I love you too” Junho gasped and tried to breathe but had no more room for air, “Because when you call, I come.”
Just like he'd appeared, Junho's departure was sudden and violent, a dark dither and metallic sound, softened only by Taecyeon's fingertips as they said farewell and gathered the fleeting color for his flask. So Junho fell into himself and returned to the shape of a raven, more and more of his skin covering in feathers.
Until it was all black.