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They smell the fire for days after. They hear that Black Velvet song for even longer, like a twisted fucking Christmas carol. Jeno buries himself in his books, Donghyuck has his pompoms and boys, lots of them. Girls, sometimes. And blood, a lot of that too.
Jeno’s used to Donghyuck showing up at his house uninvited. He’d limped into Jeno’s bedroom the night he lost his virginity, laughed about how many old people must be getting fucked in the ass regularly if they walked around like this all day. Jeno grimaced and went downstairs to get a bag of frozen peas. Donghyuck’s first boyfriend was a boneheaded quarterback whose family owned half of Devil’s Kettle, every second store stamped with a last name straight out of goddamn Victorian England, and he was rough, thought Donghyuck liked it like that. He was the type of person who only ever learnt how to take. There was blood, then.
But not as much as there is now.
“Donghyuck?” Jeno hears his voice as if it were disembodied, and he hates himself for how much fear there is in the way he says Donghyuck’s name. Fear of Donghyuck. But still. Donghyuck is standing in front of him, head tilted and mouth stretched into a smile that curdles Jeno’s guts, a slow moving river of blood and grime from his teeth to his caked fingernails to the checkerboard tiles of Jeno’s kitchen. Jeno should be scared, right?
Donghyuck turns, his neck first, and then his entire body twists around and it’s all so freakishly fast that Jeno doesn’t have a chance to grab his wrist before Donghyuck’s stalking towards the fridge and flinging it open.
“Did they - did they do this to you?” Jeno asks hesitantly, stepping forward. He cringes as he feels his slipper slide through blood. He wonders whose blood it is. “What happened, Donghyuck? Please, talk to me, we can go to the police.”
Donghyuck doesn’t reply, just makes this low guttural noise that seems to reverberate through the entire house. Jeno trips back, and Donghyuck crouches down and snatches a packet of chicken breast from the bottom shelf.
“No,” Jeno croaks, as Donghyuck tears the plastic apart with his nails and shoves his face into the raw meat. “Donghyuck, no…”
Donghyuck spits the meat out, but Jeno quickly gets that it wasn’t because of anything he said. He lets out that nightmarish shriek again and their eyes meet for a moment, whatever’s left of Donghyuck’s brown eyes anyway, and it starts cascading out of his mouth, this fucking putrid black as anything puke. Jeno yells, staggering back against the sink. It keeps going and going and then it stops, edging towards Jeno’s feet and receding like a gentle wave against a riverbank. Donghyuck keels over, coughs wetly and then pushes himself up onto shaky legs.
“What the fuck,” Jeno breathes, eyes peeling away from the floor to watch Donghyuck stumbling out of the kitchen into the corridor. He loops around the island and follows - he’s knocked against a wall immediately.
Donghyuck stares at Jeno’s face and then lowers his head, nosing along Jeno’s neck and taking these drawn-out breaths like he’s sniffing him out, and Jeno eyes the hallway credenza next to them. It’s when Jeno is in the middle of estimating how far he’d have to stretch out to reach their landline that Donghyuck licks a line along Jeno’s carotid artery and finishes with a soft kiss to the corner of Jeno’s jaw.
He rocks back, tongue darting over his bottom lip, and saunters down the corridor and out the front door.
And Jeno, Jeno can only be thankful his mom’s on the graveyard shift. She always is.
It doesn’t take long for Jeno to figure out what Donghyuck is. It takes longer to accept what he has to do to get it out of Donghyuck. For one -
Jeno had gotten into bed to take a nap after his tutoring session with Mark Lee, already announced valedictorian in December and the only other Korean-American, well any kind of Asian, in Devil’s Kettle (Donghyuck thought Mark was pretty cute until it became a running joke in school that the three of them were brothers because they had the same last name. But that didn’t really deter Jeno.)
He’d gotten into bed alone.
Then, there’s a whisper in his ear, “Boo.”
Jeno jolts out of bed, flicking on the lamp. “What the hell, Hyuck?” He glares at Donghyuck kneeling in the centre of his bed, in nothing but Jeno’s Lucy Heartfilia tee and black briefs, hands delicately folded in his lap.
Donghyuck pouts, his mouth impossibly pink and plump. “Just wanted to cuddle. We always share your bed. I missed it. I miss you.”
“I’ve been in the library, mostly. Studying,” you, Jeno refrains from saying. The occult section is tiny, barely two rows, but Jeno’s spent a week there since the second boy was killed.
Donghyuck shuffles toward Jeno, reaching out to cup a hand around Jeno’s cheek. “You should relax, you’re such a freaking cinder block,” he says, and he gingerly takes off Jeno’s glasses, sliding them into his hair. “Mmm, look at how worked up you are after seeing Mark Lee. You’ve got such a hard-on for him, it’s adorable.”
“I don’t,” Jeno protests weakly. Donghyuck’s mouth is so close to his, and he expects to taste the metallic tang of blood on his breath, but there’s nothing but the cherry of the Twizzlers he’s so fond of chewing. And - and he wants it on his tongue.
“Would it turn you on if I was smart like that?” Donghyuck says, thumb stroking Jeno’s cheekbone. And it seems like he’s genuinely asking. “I can list all the Presidents in order.”
“Really?”
“Memorised ‘em after the squad played Fuck Marry Kill,” Donghyuck explains, face inching even closer as he does so, until his lips are on Jeno’s.
On the list of weird shit Jeno’s experienced since Black Velvet brought death to Devil’s Kettle - death and that fucking song - this hardly even makes the top 10. His hands settle around Donghyuck’s waist, Donghyuck’s palm cradling the cut of Jeno’s jaw as he licks into Jeno’s mouth. Jeno nips lightly at Donghyuck’s bottom lip and the tiny whimper he swallows down has him placing Donghyuck back on the bed, climbing over his body and kissing him even harder. It’s like hellfire, every sharp ridge of Donghyuck’s teeth underneath Jeno’s tongue.
Donghyuck tugs Jeno’s mouth off him with a hand in his hair, his legs wrapped tight around Jeno’s waist, forcing Jeno’s hips against Donghyuck’s. He suctions his mouth against Jeno’s neck, and Jeno can feel Donghyuck’s smile when he manages to elicit a full blown moan from Jeno. And then his teeth sink into the bruise, nowhere near deep enough to break skin but it snaps Jeno out of it anyway.
He pulls back, sitting on his haunches while Donghyuck continues to lounge beneath him, unperturbed. He looks beautiful like this, the life kissed out of him. Jeno’s breathless as he says, “Who would you kill, Hyuck? Who’d you kill?”
Donghyuck leans up on his elbows, and his smile is the softest and saddest Jeno’s ever seen on him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, baby,” he says, “But I’d marry you.”
When they were kids, Donghyuck liked to play boyfriend and girlfriend. He always had a bit of a mean streak, it was how they became friends - kindergarten, Jeno’s mom had just bought him a brand new Barbie doll because that was all he ever wanted then, and Donghyuck had eased her out of Jeno’s hands, smiled and said, “I’ll be pretty in pink Barbie, and you can be her.” Jeno still has the three-limbed semi-bald doll Donghyuck had placed on Jeno’s lap. Sandbox love? It never dies.
Donghyuck had been coming over to Jeno’s for Christmas for years. They were six when he suggested they get married. The story was that Jeno already had a girlfriend - a fairy Beanie Kid - and Donghyuck was so pretty that Jeno had fallen in love with him instead and Donghyuck locked Jeno’s girlfriend in a closet forever so she wouldn’t ruin their wedding ceremony in the attic. Jeno said, “I do,” and they kissed.
Donghyuck leaves soon after the kiss. He jumps out of Jeno’s window on the second storey, not even a single sound of impact as he hits the ground. No Donghyuck at all, Jeno finds when he rushes over to the windowsill, just the moon hanging low in the sky and the eerie quiet of the Minnesota woods across the street. Like he was never there.
Jeno climbs back into bed, switching off the lamp quickly. It’s the first time he’s cried in years, the first time since he grieved his dad’s death. It feels like he’s grieving something even worse, now.
The third boy dies a month later, a goth kid Jeno had Composition with. They once had a long conversation about his black cat called Marilyn.
“Donghyuck, you need to tell me what happened to you,” Jeno says over the phone. He’s slumped against his desk, computer lit up with the Google results for incubus. “We need to talk about it. You’re my best friend and I didn’t do enough to save you.”
“You got us out of that dive bar,” Donghyuck points out. He giggles, and Jeno can hear what sounds like the flick of a lighter. “Do you remember that smell? I dunno about you but it was exactly what I expected a white trash pig roast to smell like.”
“Nice, Hyuck,” Jeno says, “And after that? When you got into Black Velvet’s van?”
“Oh, right,” Donghyuck says, so casually Jeno knows he’s covering up some deeper emotion. “Tried to make out with that hot drummer, Yeri? But she pushed me away and was like to the leader, ‘Are you sure he’s even a virgin?’ and I insisted I was. Big mistake. They were like agents of Satan or whatever. I basically died, except I didn’t.”
“Why?” Jeno whispers, feeling as though his heart has grown ten times too large for his chest in the worst way ever. His best friend - he should’ve -
“They had to sacrifice a virgin to Satan to become super famous and shit. They stabbed me about a million times and then I woke up a few hours later and found my way back.”
“They murdered you,” Jeno says. He’d found his way back to Jeno’s house, to Jeno. “And it worked. That song is everywhere now.”
“Except I wasn’t a virgin,” Donghyuck laughs.
“I know what you are,” Jeno says, staring at his computer screen.
Donghyuck hums. Jeno can hear the sizzle of fire. “Yeah,” Donghyuck says, “I’m a God.”
The week before the school dance Donghyuck starts to lose that tropical glow he always seemed to have even before he died. He’d always been too sparkly, too sunny for a small cold town like Devil’s Kettle, and the sallowness his face has to it now blends right in. He hasn’t eaten in a while. And the dance? It’s a goddamn buffet.
Jeno waits inside the auditorium for Donghyuck to appear. He knows he’s coming because they’d talked over the phone as they got ready - apparently Donghyuck was bringing him a corsage even though Jeno doesn’t recall agreeing to be his date.
It’s half past 9 when Jeno realises something is wrong. He can feel it in his dick, where he feels most of his feelings about Mark Lee.
Jeno runs, and runs, and he can hear screaming inside the abandoned pool house near their school. The doors won’t budge open so he climbs onto the raised, overgrown flower bed underneath and manages to haul himself into a broken window, dropping down onto the growth of vines below.
“Nice of you to join us, Jeno,” Donghyuck’s voice is echoing. This place is huge, the grimy tiles and murky green light as though it’s underwater ceiling to floor. Like if the Colosseum had sunk to the bottom of the ocean. “Now all of Devil’s Kettle’s Lees are here, we can have the incest-y threesome everyone - and Jeno - has been dying for us to have.” He’s perched on one end of the pool, leaning back on his palms and feet dangling into the water.
Mark is on the other, trying to pull himself up and out of the pool with the collapsed ladder. Jeno scans his body as he rushes over to him. He doesn’t look injured, only appreciative when Jeno holds out his hand.
“Stop playing with my food,” Donghyuck calls out, dropping into the water without a splash. The way he swims towards them, shimmery black suit against viridescent water, is like a snake.
Jeno pushes Mark behind him, yelling, “Fuck, Donghyuck, you could have any boy you want, but you had to take the one boy I wanted. You never let me have anything, do you? You never have.”
“That’s old news, baby,” Donghyuck says, getting closer and closer. “You always had me. Always. You could’ve had me all along.” His fingertips slap onto the edge of the pool and he starts to drag himself up.
“Run,” Jeno whispers to Mark, but he finds that Mark already is, trying to drag Jeno with him. He stands firm. “Go, I’ll be fine. Go.”
“I’ll get help,” is the last thing Jeno hears before he’s met with Donghyuck in front of him, BB cream cracking on his skin and gold eyeshadow leaking like tears along his eyes.
“What’s your problem with me anyways,” Donghyuck’s drawling, slinking towards Jeno.
“I dunno, Hyuck,” Jeno says, one hand held out defensively and the other slipping beneath the back of his suit jacket to where he’s strapped a knife he stole from his kitchen. “Maybe it has something to do with how you kill and eat people.”
“Fuck you,” Donghyuck spits, “I have to do that to survive. Do you hate cancer patients too, Jeno?”
“Only cancer patients like you,” Jeno says.
For a split second, Donghyuck’s face falls. And then he’s grinning again, even wider this time. He pounces, so fast that Jeno could never have been ready even if he’d thought he was. Donghyuck manages to scratch a deep gash along Jeno’s throat before Jeno’s knife does any real damage. But it does, he makes sure of it.
“Shit, fuck, this hurts,” Donghyuck is murmuring from where he’s sprawled out next to Jeno. The knife is lodged into his heart, and the way colour’s started to return to his cheeks makes Jeno question whether he is truly dying. And a part of him, a huge and loving part, wishes he wasn’t.
“I know,” Jeno grits out, throat hoarse with his wound. He reaches for Donghyuck’s hand, their fingers intertwining. “I’m so sorry.”
Donghyuck smiles at him. “I’m still here. I’m still here. Promise me, we’ll find each other.”
“I promise,” Jeno whispers, watching Donghyuck chest rise and fall one last time, and somehow he knows exactly what he’s promising. He lays there and waits for the sirens and he can feel Donghyuck’s power coursing through him, starting at his neck.
Jeno is eighteen when he goes to prison for killing his best friend. Even with Mark Lee’s testimony, no one could fathom why Jeno had to kill Donghyuck instead of just turning him over to the authorities. They didn’t know what else to do with him.
He’s nineteen when he levitates out of solitary confinement, hitchhikes his way to the big city and guts Yeri and the rest of them in their hotel room, making sure they remember his name, Donghyuck’s name, when he’s got a knife in their chests.
He’s twenty three when Donghyuck crawls out of the Earth in Devil’s Kettle, reborn for the second time in his Snowflake Prince suit and Jeno’s corsage around his wrist. They find each other again, somewhere safe, somewhere tropical.