Chapter Text
Touching you I catch midnight
as moon fires set in my throat
I love you flesh into blossom
I made you
and take you made
into me.
-Audre Lorde, Recreation
---
The knock on the door reverberates across their modest two-bedroom apartment, as loud as the thunder crackling outside their window.
(The second bedroom is only a makeshift study, only a ruse they like to keep up for their conservative middle-aged neighbours, even if they don’t need to, even if they’ll move somewhere else in a few more years when people start noticing the conspicuous lack of age lines around their eyes.)
It strikes something akin to fear in Jeonghan’s heart, an alien sensation, hardly experienced now that he’s hovering on the tail-end of an entire century’s worth of disasters. But it’s there anyway, grown more poignant in the months since a certain scruffy-looking werewolf stumbled into the bar he co-runs with his husband of fifty years (companion of even longer), reaching an imminent crescendo in the folds of his nonexistent heartbeat.
Joshua stirs beside him in bed, makes a sound halfway between a confused whimper and hitch of mild terror. It seems, Joshua isn’t entirely immune to this selfsame fear; after all they have a near-telepathic connection, in metaphor if not literality - their thoughts always spiral in a similar direction, their breaths tied together by an unseverable invisible string.
“The full moon was yesterday, wasn’t it?” Joshua murmurs, sleep still heavy in his inflection, “Do you think-”
“I don’t know,” Jeonghan’s voice is far more placid than he would like it to be, far more structured than the shuddering walls of his (nonexistent) heart. “But I’ll go get it, you stay here.”
He presses a placating kiss to Joshua’s hairline anyway, knowing how much it centers his husband, knowing how much Joshua needs it right now - unlike Jeonghan, Joshua’s heart is a precious steadily-beating thing, flush with blood and feeling, very much existent. It needs frequent succour, frequent bursts of reassurance from Jeonghan’s lips, fingers, body.
Thunder strikes outside once more, rattling the delicate living room windowpanes, droplets of cold, ferocious rain trickling in from the seepage in their ceiling. Jeonghan’s fear is like a vice along his neck as he throws on his nightrobe and finally prods along to the door, unlocking it with shaky fingers.
It’s almost exactly what he expected - or who he expected - and yet the sight is catastrophic to the state of his (nonexistent) heart like nothing he could have anticipated, that knot of fear deep within him multiplying in size, clawing and chafing at his insides.
“H-hey,” stutters out an entirely disheveled Choi Seungcheol, his dark wavy hair in complete disarray, knotted and clumpy; his jacket torn, his shirt buttoned the wrong way. A bruise is forming under his left eye, angry and dark blue; and the cut on his bottom lip is oozing fresh, simmering blood (Jeonghan should be immune to it after years and years of practicing restraint, yet it makes him hold his breath, makes him stiffen from head to toe). “I- I was….I just…”
“What happened?” Jeonghan croaks, hoarse and pathetic, “Are you okay?”
Seungcheol looks up at him with the most painfully earnest eyes Jeonghan has ever seen, holding in them rivers of despair, disquiet, longing. Jeonghan’s nonexistent heart is a traitor once again, flouncing in his alabaster chest like it’s desperately trying to kick-start itself, desperately trying to exist.
“I’m sorry,” Seungcheol whimpers, a wounded bird flapping its sluggish wings. His eyes continue to glimmer with an emotion Jeonghan cannot reconcile with, cannot put a name to, unless he wants decades of resolve to pulverise in a mere split second. “I-it’s late. I shouldn’t have come...I shouldn’t have disturbed you-”
“Choi Seungcheol,” There’s a different voice now, shrouded in compassion despite the splinters appearing around its edges, despite its gentle tenor of something akin to a chiding, a vague warning that is barely palpable yet unmistakably present. It’s a balance Jeonghan could never straddle even if he tried, a balance only someone with endless reservoirs of patience could wield with such alacrity.
Power and empathy, always going hand-in-hand.
“Don’t you ever apologise for showing up on my doorstep.”
It’s only Hong Jisoo, only his beloved Shua. Only the high witch of downtown Seoul, harnesser of the elements, glorious possessor of a flesh-and-blood, steadily pumping, kind and magnificent heart. Only Jeonghan’s husband.
Joshua’s nightrobe is undone, thrown over his rumpled sleep-shirt, his dark purple hair falling over his eyes like flowering nightshade. He walks over to the two of them, arms crossed around his chest - Jeonghan can’t tell if that’s a sign of indignation or a subconscious defense mechanism - taking in the hapless state of the werewolf on their aforementioned doorstep.
“Are you going to come in, then?” Joshua prods once more, since neither Seungcheol nor Jeonghan can do much apart from gawking at Joshua with matching slack-jawed goldfish mouths, both of them at a sudden loss for words. “Are you going to let us help you?”
And that does the trick - it always does the trick, doesn’t it? Joshua says his words don’t carry deliberate magic, that his dexterity with the elements is limited only to his fingers, but in moments like this, Jeonghan thinks every millimeter of Joshua oozes and disseminates his art, every word that escapes his lips is fortified with a spell. Seungcheol finally stumbles inside, a limp prominent in his right leg (Jeonghan makes a mental note to examine the wounds that lie beneath the fabric of his torn trousers, hoping against hope that none of them are fatal), and Joshua catches Seungcheol almost on an instinct, their palms slotting together in rhythmic tandem, two musical notes fusing.
Jeonghan tries to stamp out the pinpricks of desire that simmer in his veins at the sight, tries desperately to ignore the subtle way in which Seungcheol leans into Joshua’s shoulder while the latter leads him towards their living room, using Joshua’s entire slender frame for support (it’s probably the wounds acting up, Jeonghan austerely reminds himself, get your fucking head straight). Jeonghan attributes the churning of his stomach to the snarl of yet another thunderbolt outside, another rattling of window-glass that sets his teeth on edge.
“I didn’t want to bother you,” Seungcheol is now saying, curled up nearly into a ball on their living room couch, eyelashes fanning against furrowed eyebrows as he looks up at Joshua. “But-”
“But, you had nowhere else to go,” Joshua is murmuring in reply, tone far more mellow now, far less chiding. His eyes scan the pale expanse of Seungcheol’s face, flitting between bruised under-eye and battered lip, between the defined bridge of nose and the surprisingly dainty curvature of chin (assessing, Jeonghan reminds himself again, he’s just assessing the extent of the wounds ), meeting Seungcheol’s gaze only after the assessment is complete, after a possible solution has been sussed out.
That’s how Joshua always functions, deconstructing everything in parts, isolating the problem bit by bit until no sign of damage is left behind. “Magic is always methodical,” Joshua had once said, centuries ago when they first met, “It may seem like mere sparks in the air, but there is calculation to it, a pragmatism in every flick of finger.” There’s a reason it’s Joshua that’s always better equipped to handle a calamity, not him. There’s a reason Joshua’s the high witch, role model and mentor to millions of bright-eyed apprentice witches, and Jeonghan is a mere blip in the radar of every vampire this side of East Asia, a mere footnote in history.
Everyone thinks Jeonghan chose to forgo a coven because he wanted to cohabit with his witch husband instead, but truth is, for all the air of enigma he likes to construct around himself, he’s entirely useless when it comes to being around people. He can’t carefully suss out a situation like Joshua, can’t gauge what another person is feeling, can’t anticipate what people might need from him. Him and Joshua work because Joshua does that for him, because Joshua is always more than ready to compensate for Jeonghan’s flaws and fill every gaping void within his soul.
But Choi Seungcheol? He’s a thunderstorm Jeonghan was wholly unprepared for - is still unprepared, even after months and months of enduring him.
“Y-you did the right thing, coming here.” Jeonghan tries anyway, tries to be that person who is there for others, pretends that he’s amidst a coven of other vampires, pretends that he can be a beacon of support even if the space within his ribcage is hollow. “We’ll keep you safe.”
Seungcheol stares up at him with unblinking eyes, glistening with a sincerity that undoes every bit of Jeonghan's resistance, that makes Jeonghan want to plunge right into the eye of the storm. A word seems to escape his lips, but Jeonghan is barely equipped to decipher it, lets it hang between them like invisible taut thread, holding all three of them into place, in endless thrall.
Purple sparks have materialised from Joshua's fingertips, haloing the room in an effervescent glow - Seungcheol sucks in a quick breath, but it reeks of resignation rather than alarm, an unabashed aftermath of Joshua's healing magic. The sparks siphon into a steady beam, Joshua deftly manouvering them along the pallid expanse of Seungcheol's skin, fingers dancing in careful harmony, face screwed up in utmost concentration. Jeonghan has seen Joshua do this a million times, has seen Joshua wield his powers with equal parts gentleness and ferocity, and yet it is always uniquely magnificent, uniquely a spectacle to behold. He's awestruck at the skill with which Joshua's hands move, at his molten honey voice muttering incantations in an ancient tongue Jeonghan will never know, at the incomparable depth in his gaze. And, judging from how Seungcheol's mouth is half-open, how the sincerity in his eyes is intensified to an extent Jeonghan doesn't even want to consider, Seungcheol is awestruck too.
This is it, Jeonghan thinks. There's no more running from it. And his nonexistent heart is like lightning in his chest, warring to outdo the lightning outside their window, illuminating all the hidden, withering parts of him that he forgot even existed.
Seungcheol whimpers silently, and Joshua's face is as close to him as ever, softening in an instant like melting dewdrops. "Ssh, it's okay," Joshua whispers, "It's gonna be okay, I've got you, Cheol-ah."
Seungcheol whimpers again, but far more subdued this time, as if his pain is finally fading, as if Joshua's magic is finally erasing every hint of the terror that had gripped him tonight. (Jeonghan knows what it's like, has been on its receiving end far too many times to not know what it's like.)
"I'm okay," Seungcheol whispers back, surrounded in tendrils of purple, "You've got me."
---
"It was The Watch," Joshua says, later in the kitchen, nursing a glass of his nourishment potion - healing magic like that always drains a significant amount of his energy, he always needs a pick-me-up afterwards. "I know I'm not supposed to read Cheol’s mind without his explicit consent, but some of it slipped past his consciousness while I was working on his wounds - I could see brief flashes of what happened."
Seungcheol is asleep on their couch, wrapped securely in Jeonghan's favourite vintage quilt. The magical healing process is as physically and emotionally draining for the recipient as is for the wielder of said magic - that's why government protocol mandates strict medical supervision for all practicing healer witches. But Joshua has been offering backdoor consultations to the supernatural community for centuries now, is firm in his belief that "supervision" is yet another tactic to discourage witches from serving the path nature laid out for them.
Jeonghan swallows hard, trying to drown out the sounds of Seungcheol's soft snoring that his supernatural hearing can't help but fixate on, even if Seungcheol is an entire room away.
"W-was it bad?" Jeonghan hates that his voice quivers, that he can't keep the hysteria at bay. Joshua, who knows him inside out, who has memorised every tell, every slip-up Jeonghan could ever make, sees through him like always, looks so apologetic Jeonghan wants to scream.
"Yeah," Joshua's exhale is heavy, perhaps driven by the same panic Jeonghan cannot exterminate from his being. "They did a real number on him tonight. And this is, what? The fifth time it has happened since we met him? For heaven's sake, he's only been a werewolf for nine months! Can they pick on someone their own size!"
Joshua doesn't get this easily agitated - that is always Jeonghan's domain, the flighty unpredictable vampire who runs hot and cold at a frequency that can give any innocent bystander whiplash - but here Joshua is now, nourishment potion briefly abandoned so he can get up and pace across the kitchen, arms fidgeting with the hem of his robe. "I can't keep seeing Seungcheol like that, Hannie! Everytime he shows up with an all new set of bruises my heart nearly stops and I feel so fucking useless! Me, the high witch of downtown Seoul, with networks that go far beyond the darkest terrains of the supernatural community - I can't even protect a fledgling werewolf from a bunch of hateful bigots!"
That's exactly what they are, aren't they? Bigots. The Watch. Words that seem interchangeable but only to people like Jeonghan and Joshua and Seungcheol (and countless others) who continue to live in the shadows even if they have "assimilated" with the human population, on paper. Even if they are supposed to be equals, on paper.
Centuries ago (long before Jeonghan set foot on this cursed earth), when the first peace treaty was signed, humans promised supernaturals a chance at a life of dignity. No more having to kill to survive, no more being hunted as trophies, no more being seen as brutal predators who will steal your children late at night. There was the temptation of legal reforms; of supernaturals getting to own and live in housing alongside humans, gaining education and employment alongside humans, gaining special healthcare facilities, marriage and adoption rights. The breathtaking lure of official training academies for young witches, official blood banks (with consensually donated human blood) for vampires, transformation centres for werewolves to avail during full moons - where they could transform without the looming danger of accidentally hurting someone. For faefolk, there was the promise of independent domains where they would be left unperturbed, for hybrids (children born of interspecies mating) there was the assurance that they wouldn’t be disregarded as ‘mutts’, that they could carve their unique niche both among humans and supernaturals.
And yet, democracy rarely comes without loopholes. Laws - however steadfast - rarely change perspectives that have been ingrained over and over and over, across generations and generations.
They say, it's something inherent - the need to protect your species, to eliminate all threats to the extinction of your species. Human-led university courses continue to perpetuate endless tomes that underline, in no particular order:
Vampires are naturally predisposed to spilling human blood. Werewolves, by their very genetic propensities, cannot distinguish between who they kill or turn when they’re deep in the throes of the full moon’s effects. Witches, no matter what kind of magic they practice, are creatures of illusion and deceit, never to be trusted.
(You get the drift.)
And humans? Humans have to protect their own too, of course. In the strangely cyclical supernatural food chain, they know where they stand.
Which is why, the only way Jeonghan and Joshua can live in an apartment as cushy is this, in a neighborhood where the drains never clog up the morning after a storm, is by pretending they aren’t supernatural at all. Which is why, after Seungcheol was first bitten by an unknown werewolf in the middle of the night, he was kicked out of his job, evicted from his previous apartment, disowned, within seconds, by his parents.
Which is why, The Watch has existed for as long as the peace treaty has existed - an amorphous group of humans who change with every generation, but stay true to the same principle - human purity.A world with a singular species ruling supreme, a world without supernaturals.
Fringe group, is what official law enforcement calls them, but the supernatural community has known for years that they’re far from just a few extremist humans running rampant. They’re organised, they’re dangerous, they know how to kill and maim better than even the most bloodthirsty vampires, the most ruthless dark witches. They know how to systematically pick their targets, know how to eliminate so-called “threats” with more precision and ease than Jeonghan can even dream of.
And Jeonghan has dreamt of it - or rather, has had nightmares about it - what could happen if one of their unsuspecting human neighbours found out who Jeonghan and Joshua really are, what could happen if Watch brethren broke into their home late at night, bright red symbols emblazoned on their jackets, and tore Jeonghan and Joshua apart, once and for all.
It’s worse, however, to imagine Seungcheol being the one in danger, Seungcheol being the one becoming a deliberate target, a pliant punching bag to an organisation hell-bent on eradicating their species….
A desperate shudder goes down Jeonghan’s spine. What has Seungcheol even done? He is just a fledgling, barely finding his footing in the supernatural world, how could he even have ended up in their radar?
“Should I...talk to Minghao about it?” Jeonghan hesitantly suggests, trying, once again to keep the panic at bay, and failing miserably, as always. “His coven… they have fought off The Watch before.”
Joshua pauses in his tracks, worries his lip between teeth in that specific manner he does when his brain is working a mile a minute, when his prowess with gauging and assessing culminates into something else entirely - a reckless bundle of nerves.
“I don’t know,” he replies, shoulders collapsing in surrender, “If we involve Minghao....what if that just makes the target on Seungcheol’s back even worse? So far they haven’t done much beyond roughing him up, but what if they go after his life? You know no one can stop them once they’re intending….an execution.”
Jeonghan does. He does know.
He has lost countless friends, lovers, compatriots to executions, barbaric and bloody. Executions, where The Watch make a spectacle out of you, draw and quarter you in the middle of the town square and murder you in full view of a vicious, cheering mob.
He can’t…
He can’t lose Seungcheol to that. He can’t…
Almost like clockwork, right then, his senses choose to derail his train of thought. His supernatural hearing picks up a wince, followed by the light thud of pillows hitting the floor. A yawn, then the almost imperceptible splatter of bare feet against hardwood floor.
“Cheol’s awake.” Jeonghan says, and Joshua’s breath catches. It’s like he’s suddenly kicked back into gear, wedged once again into the mould of the wise, calm, collected Solver Of Problems, Knower Of All Things.
For a brief second, Jeonghan deeply resents that it’s always Joshua who has to take on the mantle of being the ‘mature’ one, how Jeonghan continues to be useless and helpless, utterly incompetent in crisis situations. But he’s forced to swallow that feeling and bury it deep within the recesses of his churning stomach as the gentle vibration of muted footsteps soon flood their eerily quiet apartment.
“Hey,” Seungcheol’s broad (yet oddly soft) quilt-wrapped form appears in the doorway of the kitchen, his voice sluggish with sleep. “I’m sorry I just crashed on your couch.”
“Oh come on, Cheol-ah,” Joshua clucks at him, immediately walking over to cup Seungcheol’s (now swiftly-mending, in the aftermath of Joshua’s machinations) bruised cheek, “I told you, didn’t I? Never apologise for coming here. Never apologise for seeking our help.”
Seungcheol sucks in an audible breath, his eyes lingering on the long, graceful fingers that are enveloping his face. “But I keep doing this, I keep being-”
“Don’t,” Jeonghan can’t stop himself from interrupting, getting up from his chair but not quite summoning up the courage to get as close to Seungcheol as Joshua is, maintaining a respectable distance. “Don’t finish that sentence. Don’t ever insinuate you’re an inconvenience to us, because you’re not, okay?”
Seungcheol’s eyebrows shoot up in disbelief, and Jeonghan doesn’t blame him. It’s always Joshua who’s better with words, who’s much more deft at verbalising all the emotions this baffling werewolf makes them both experience. Jeonghan has never said something so unflinchingly honest, has never bared the blistering crust of his (nonexistent) heart.
“Stay here tonight.” Jeonghan continues, prompted by a force that he no longer recognises, a desperation that is turning his insides into porous clay, “Take our bed, sleep comfortably. The storm isn’t going to let up anytime soon, and I don’t want you to try to get home when you’re still weak.”
Even Joshua seems stunned at the revelation, his hands abruptly dropping from Seungcheol’s cheeks so he can turn around to pin Jeonghan with an inscrutable look.
(Frankly, the look isn’t quite so inscrutable - Jeonghan can tell what lies in its impossible depths, the brief burst of surprise slowly giving away to curiosity, then perhaps, a gentle glow of pride. “It’s okay, you know,” Joshua often whispers to him, late at night when they’re tangled in bed, breaths mingling in practiced symphony, “It’s okay to let people see who you really are. It’s okay to show them you care.”
It’ll never be okay, Jeonghan thinks. It never has been, in all the centuries he’s lived through, all the carnage he’s witnessed, all the unceremonious trampling of his care.
Keeping his cards close to his chest is Darwinian adaptation. An essential survival tactic.
Only with this can his heart remain nonexistent, free from the intense fragility that is only a byproduct of beating too fast, too frantic.)
Seungcheol’s coffee-brown eyes pierce into him like the sharpest of blades, and for a prolonged moment, Jeonghan regrets everything. There’s too much swirling inbetween the empty spaces under his sternum, violent waves that he doesn’t know what to do with, jangling against his defenses. He has to keep his eyes trained carefully on the floor, torn away from the combined onslaught of Joshua’s compassionate beaming and Seungcheol’s naked wonder.
“I agree,” Joshua is saying, but Jeonghan can only screw his eyes shut, let the words crash all over him as if the coldest bucket of water is being emptied over his head, “You should take the bed, Cheol-ah, be as comfortable as possible. Hannie and I can curl up on our spare mattress on the living room floor-”
“No,” Seungcheol is far too quick to interject, making the jangling in Jeonghan’s sternum even worse. Jeonghan’s eyes are still shut, but his vampire senses can make out the unmistakable twitching of Joshua’s eyebrows, the minuscule gasp of surprise he lets out.
“I mean,” Seungcheol is quick to clarify though, the sound of his hand grasping Joshua’s forefinger echoing along the length of Jeonghan’s ear canal. “If I’m taking the bed, you both are too.”
Then, a beat. “P-please?” Another exhale. “I don’t want to sleep alone.”
There it is again, loud and clear like the most untarnished bastion of truth. This is it. There's no more running from it.
Jeonghan is but a wounded dove in Seungcheol’s palms, his life entirely at the werewolf's mercy.
He opens his eyes slowly, inexorably, and finally musters up the strength to stare at the only two people who have ever wreaked this much havoc across his entire being, their palms still enjoined, their eyes still glittering with open regard.
And Jeonghan thinks this is worse than he ever imagined, worse than every form of destruction his recurring nightmares could foresee. This is his ultimate doom.
---
Seungcheol fits between them like a magnet finding its geographic north, snug and serene.
He's still wrapped tightly in Jeonghan's favourite quilt, but has one arm thrown around Joshua's slender waist, has his back pressed squarely against Jeonghan's bare chest, his hair tickling Jeonghan's nose. His little snores flitter between Jeonghan and Joshua, filling up a space their far-too-large bed seems to have always been missing, always been yearning for.
Jeonghan's throat is dry, his senses still wide awake. Vampires don't quite need a lot of sleep, but Jeonghan is never this alert in bed, never this overcome with a million conflicting emotions. Joshua too seems to be squirming underneath Seungcheol's firm grip, equally devoid of sleep, perhaps equally torn in a myriad different directions. With another delicate nudge of his body - extra careful, so as not to wake Seungcheol - Joshua turns around to stare at Jeonghan from above the mop of Seungcheol's messy curls, extends a hand to reach out for Jeonghan's.
(Jeonghan catches it in a jiffy - ever-eager, ever-hankering.)
"We're fucked, aren't we, Hannie?" Joshua murmurs against the inky-blue darkness of their bedroom, punctuated only by yet another clap of thunder, yet another rattling of windows. The storm continues to rage; unrelenting, unmitigated.
"Yeah," is all Jeonghan can murmur in response, tightening his grasp on Joshua's hand, breathing in the haunting earthy scent of Seungcheol's skin, absorbing the low susurration of blood so starkly audible in Seungcheol’s veins. It’s the purest form of torture. "I don't think...I don't think we can deny it anymore."
More rattling of windows. A floorboard creaking. Slim strands of wind pulsing in through the cracks, making Jeonghan shiver from head to toe. Seungcheol's chest, rising and swelling, his tiny exhales dissipating into the dank air.
Silence, stretching between them. Both him and his husband, wide awake in the dead of the night, staring up at their ceiling, completely at a loss.
"What if we tell him," Joshua whispers back, "What if we tell him we're-"
Before Joshua can even complete that sentence, Jeonghan can't help but laugh bitterly. "Tell him what, Shua-yah? That the two of us - centuries old supernatural husbands - are utterly besotted with him? What's he going to say to that, do you think? Ah, sorry, but I think maybe I should stop coming to you both for help whenever I'm emotionally and physically vulnerable from now on. You’re taking advantage of me."
"That's unfair, Hannie," The furrow between Joshua's brows is prominent even amidst the dark, the indignation in his voice loud and clear, even if it's pitched at a whisper, "I can read his mind, you know-"
"Which you shouldn't be doing without his consent."
"Hannie, you're being deliberately stubborn."
"Jisoo," Jeonghan's voice is carefully mellow now, resignation mingled with resolve. After all, he only calls Joshua by his given name when he's truly serious, when he’s grasping at hapless straws to keep the carefully constructed barrier around his chest upright. "I've been on this earth long enough to know how it all eventually ends. What you and I have - it’s an exception, not the rule. I'm already incredibly happy with you, Shua. Seungcheol is just…. a moment of weakness, a brief transgression. It will go nowhere, will only lead to one more disaster. After all, we’re not the ones who get to have our fairytale endings.”
The wind whistles adamantly, punctuating the silence that settles between them, amplified further only by those damned little werewolf snores wedged into the junction of Joshua’s shoulders. Joshua’s chest rises and falls too, slower than Seungcheol’s, more measured than Seungcheol’s. Jeonghan hates that his hearing never quite allows for silence, for complete and utter quietude; there are always these little details protruding past the surface, screaming for his attention.
The hand connecting with the meat of Jeonghan’s palm is suddenly a little clammy, though no less steadfast, no less comforting.
Joshua, Jisoo, still his husband. Still his companion in all things, even the messier predicaments. Even the messier emotions.
Joshua is as devastated about this as he is.
“I love you, you know that right, Hannie?” Joshua finally says, his sigh mingling with the sound of the roaring wind outside, “And I understand you, more than I have ever understood anyone. I will not argue with you tonight, because I see your misgivings, because I empathise with your feelings, I admire your courage. But I also want to say: maybe you should give Cheol a little more credit. Maybe you should let yourself hope.”
Hope.
Hope is a luxury built for humans. Who is Jeonghan to hope? A puerile creature of the night, barely alive and breathing, heart continuously nonexistent.
Who is he but an eternal interloper, always watching from the shadows but never taking the leap. Always shivering under the weight of his own repressed grief, loss, despair.
Hope is a fragile thing, a precious thing. Jeonghan is a deplorable monster entirely undeserving of it, forever alienated by it.
Jeonghan cannot let himself hope, but in the trickling hours past late midnight, thunder and lightning piercing through its veil, his husband’s hand clutched in his (a perilous reminder of what makes him whole, what refurbishes his forgotten humanity) , his breath slackens. The wind combs through Seungcheol’s hair, and the werewolf lets out a minuscule sleepy whinny, nuzzling in closer to Jeonghan’s chest.
Jeonghan shuts his eyes, dizzy with blasphemous longing.
---
Jeonghan doesn’t believe in abstruse concepts of fate or destiny, but living with a witch for almost half a century does expose one to a certain kind of mythical thinking.
It’s not exactly fate, perhaps, the way Choi Seungcheol consistently stumbles into their lives, half-battered, half-bloody, but it seems close enough. A predestined pattern of some sort.
Jeonghan remembers the first time they met him. Mingyu had found Seungcheol bleeding out in a deserted ditch - deep in the middle of territory frequented only by supernatural insurgents, scattered groups of rebels trying to drum up support to take on The Watch (a futile cause, as it has been for generations). By the time Mingyu brought him over to their bar (long after closing hours), Seungcheol had been barely conscious, barely mustering the strength to tell them that his wounds were a result of his extremely harrowing first ever transformation. “The pain was unbearable,” Seungcheol had muttered half in a daze, while Joshua carefully laid him out on the long hardwood table in the bar’s backroom, “I tried to knock myself unconscious to make it stop. But it just hurt more.”
Jeonghan stood transfixed by Joshua’s side while the witch immediately rose to the occasion, blue and purple sparks erupting from his fingers, eyes intently scanning every nook and cranny of the bruises peeking out of Seungcheol’s tattered shirt. As always, the more competent among the two of them amidst times of crisis.
“Can you tell me your name?” Joshua had murmured as Seungcheol’s eyes threatened to flutter shut, as his breathing began to peter out, “It’s okay, you’re safe now. I’m here to help, okay? We all just want to take care of you.”
Seungcheol had swallowed the bile on his tongue, uttering a fierce howl of pain that Jeonghan felt straight in his gut, the wolf in him exploding through the cracks. But in that moment, Seungcheol had seemed everything but menacing, scrambling for purchase under the muted barlights, curled up in visceral agony, tears coating his dirt-stained cheeks. He looked infinitely brittle, like even a single touch would destroy him, yet he had survived, his breathing albeit laboured but no less present. Jeonghan had known, there and then, that this was more than just someone struggling to cope with a werewolf transformation - this was someone who has seen battle scars far greater than this, far more vicious than this. Some visible, some entirely invisible.
No one could relate to that more than Jeonghan.
As Seungcheol had whimpered out his name and Mingyu hovered around keeping up a steady stream of nervous commentary, airing his suspicions that Seungcheol was most probably abandoned by the werewolf who turned him, perhaps deemed unsuitable for a pack (“too weak maybe?” Mingyu had mused out loud, his lisp becoming more and more prominent through the fog of his anxiousness, “I don’t know”), there was no other explanation for him to have ended up where he had - Joshua expertly wielded his magic.
The coils of his purple-blue sparks had slowly enveloped Seungcheol’s listless body, dousing him in an unearthly glow. There was a sharp hitch in Seungcheol’s breath, then a widening of his pupils, his squirming hands stilling in an instant. Joshua’s face was scrunched up in concentration, but his eyes were ineffably kind, alternating between nodding along to whatever Mingyu was saying and staring down at Seungcheol’s panting (yet far more composed, under the machinations of Joshua’s magic) form.
“Are you feeling any better?” Joshua had murmured, his voice a blanket of warm honey, and Seungcheol had let out a raggedy exhale, a perfunctory nod. Only Jeonghan was perceptive enough to notice Joshua’s shoulders sagging in relief - at the sorcery not being in vain, at the salvaging of another lost soul.
Jeonghan had wrapped an arm around Joshua’s waist, had leaned into his side to reassure, it’s okay, you’re doing great, i’m here for you, even if he didn’t have the capacity to put it all into words, ever the emotionally stunted vampire. Seungcheol’s barely-lucid eyes had followed Jeonghan’s motion, had pinned the both of them with an unflappable gaze.
Jeonghan had felt an inexplicable shockwave travel up his spine, a peculiar feeling of being skewered at the stake, though he couldn’t for the life of him fathom why.
Perhaps, it really was fate.
“I don’t think he should go back there,” Mingyu had been saying, the words sounding almost a little distant to Jeonghan, floating in liminal space, “He’s a fledgling, he’ll barely survive.”
“Can your pack take him, Mingyu-yah?” Joshua had murmured in response, but his gaze was still steadfastly fixated on Seungcheol, singlemindedly focused on weaving purple-blue sparks along the length of Seungcheol’s injured knee.
“I don’t think so, hyung,” Mingyu fidgeted in consternation, and for the first time that night, Jeonghan had noticed the bags under his eyes, “You know how they’re like. They don’t take kindly to wolves that are...basically strangers. It’s all bullshit and I hate it, but I...it’s hard to get through to them.”
It was true. Mingyu’s was one of the rarest packs this side of Seoul - a pack that were family not just in principle but also in blood, the werewolf gene passed down among them across five generations. Very few werewolves are purebred wolves by birth, either through their unwillingness to reproduce at all or through their unwillingness to stick around with a single pack long enough to actually build lasting kinship. Unlike vampire covens, werewolf packs weren’t bonded for life - they were nebulous, loyalties constantly shifting, their numbers either shrinking or expanding based on the circumstances. But the Kims had stayed true to their aphorisms of ‘family first’, of keeping the pack as endogamous as possible, keeping the werewolf gene firmly within their bloodline, refusing to admit any outsiders into their pack.
Mingyu was an anomaly - had always been one since he was a kid, always asking way too many questions about the pack’s archaic structure and being deemed the rebellious black sheep as a result. There was a reason he liked working at Jeonghan and Joshua’s eponymously titled bar, which catered specifically to a supernatural clientele, offered a much-needed safe space to many like Mingyu (or like Jeonghan, like Joshua) - desolate, living in the margins. There was a reason why Mingyu routinely looked out for helpless, injured supernaturals like Seungcheol, brought them to Joshua even at ungodliest hours of the night, desperately seeking help.
Jeonghan will never be even half the man Mingyu is, but he understood it, the frustrated and deflated tone of his voice when he admitted that his pack would never accept Seungcheol. He understood it, the constant vehement need to rescue - one life saved in return for the miserableness of his own existence.
Jeonghan, of all people, understood it.
“He can stay here.”
Jeonghan didn't know where it came from, perhaps the urgency in Mingyu’s venting earlier, perhaps the sight of Seungcheol stretched out like that, bruises littering every inch of his body, heartbeat barely steady. Or perhaps, the warmth in Joshua’s fingers, a shimmer in his eyes that Jeonghan had rarely seen.
Joshua’s magic recognises good. And Jeonghan would trust it blindfolded.
“A-are you sure, hyung?” Mingyu stuttered, clearly surprised at the declaration. But Jeonghan had only stared down at Seungcheol, just like Joshua was doing, the werewolf beginning to catch his breath, regarding the two of them with that same unflappable look. But Jeonghan’s words had surprised the werewolf - Jeonghan could tell from the sound of Seungcheol’s quickened pulse, the subtlest rise in his eyebrows.
“Yeah,” Jeonghan had plodded on, bolstered by the way Joshua had been nodding in the slightest of ways, had been brushing his left foot against Jeonghan’s, “There’s a room on the second floor of this bar which no one really uses, there’s a bed there as well - left by the previous owner. He can crash for as long as he wants, can work at the bar too if he likes. Heaven knows we always need an extra set of hands.”
Mingyu’s gaze had flickered nervously between Seungcheol and Jeonghan - what Jeonghan had just done was extremely out of character, far too sincere and unprecedented to be anything close to his usual spiel; Jeonghan didn’t blame Mingyu for being shocked, wary.
But Seungcheol, sprawled right there on a hardwood table worse for wear, in a bar backroom stashed with beer crates and potion ingredients alike, his hair a matted wreckage, his lip still bleeding, had finally done something that knocked the wind completely out of Jeonghan.
He had smiled, a careful little thing, an imponderable pull of lips, a soft flashing of teeth.
Breathtaking, had been the only word echoing along Jeonghan’s skittering thoughts.
“Thank you,” Seungcheol’s response had been more a whimper than a sigh of relief, an indication that Joshua’s magic had reached that stage where the recipient’s energies would be utterly depleted, where they would slip into a subconscious state until they gathered back their strength. “Thank you.”
And then, Seungcheol’s eyes had finally shut, sleep and exhaustion catching up with him at last.
Jeonghan doesn’t remember how long he stood there, staring blatantly, until Joshua had pressed a sweet kiss to his temple; had mumbled, “Let’s take him upstairs.”
---
Morning comes in hesitant waves, the grey skies a remnant of the ravages of the storm. In the absence of sunlight, there is the wind again, winnowing its way through the cracks in their bedroom window, skirting past Jeonghan’s sleep-heavy eyelids.
When he wakes, the two spots beside him are empty, the sheets made and tucked into hospital corners (just the way Joshua likes it). There are the conspicuous sounds of bustling in the kitchen, pattering feet, the subtle metallic twang of utensils being moved around. The distinct scent of bread-in-toaster, coffee beans grinding, a heady concoction of brightness from Joshua’s makeshift herb garden right outside their kitchen window, flush with last night’s rain.
But there is also something else.
The sound of laughter, pristine and giddy. It’s symphony imperfect, yet so utterly fascinating.
Cheol.
Jeonghan gets up faster than even his own vampire reflexes, throwing on a shirt at the speed of light. Outside, in the kitchen, where the source of all breathtaking sounds and scents converge, is what he’s simultaneously been afraid of and has craved for what seems like an eternity.
Joshua is flipping omelettes in a skillet, dressed in his nightrobe still, the hair falling over his forehead almost obstructing the ridiculously fond look in his eyes. Almost.
He is smiling, the force of its mirth nearly making the kitchen counter vibrate; a hint of a blush high and prominent on his cheekbones. Seungcheol leans on a kitchen cabinet right beside him - shirt discarded, only his thin vest stretching over taut muscle -wearing an identical radiant smile, whispering something that seems to be utterly delighting Jeonghan’s husband, making the latter suppress a giggle. Jeonghan feels too overcome and disorientated to make out what it is, even if his supernatural hearing isn’t quite immune to the sound.
The herb garden sways in the wake of Joshua’s joy - it always imbibes the essence of every emotion the witch feels, his magic infused in every branch, every root. A bird whistles outside, making this scene seem even more idyllic, even more picturesque.
Seungcheol laughs again, his eyes settling on the corner of Joshua’s bottom lip, and Jeonghan feels it tremble in his very bones.
“Oh there you are, sleepyhead,” Joshua is the one who notices him, god knows how long after he’s just stood there staring.
Immediately turning off the stove and abandoning whatever it is he was turning around in the skillet, he walks over to Jeonghan, directs that radiant smile at him before reaching up to demand a customary morning kiss. Jeonghan complies perhaps a little too hungrily, curling a hand around Joshua’s waist to pull him flush against his chest, pouring in every bit of desperation, every bit of blasphemous desire into their clumsy collision of mouths.
When they part, Joshua is a little breathless, chest heaving up and down, heartbeat staccato. But the smile on his lips is steady and persistent, his eyes continuously crinkled with warmth.
“A little eager this morning, are we?” he murmurs, placing another gentle kiss to the tip of Jeonghan’s nose, but Jeonghan doesn’t say anything. He simply stands there and basks in it - basks in the way Joshua’s lips brush against his pale vampire skin, basks in the way Seungcheol is looking at the both of them with sparks in his unflappable gaze, that same intensity he had the night they first met him, that same intensity Jeonghan is too afraid to examine any further.
After a moment that seems to last far too long, Seungcheol straightens, walks over to the two of them with slow, deliberate steps.
“Hi, Jeonghan-ah,” his voice is a tad raspy, perhaps still in the process of recovering from last night. “We made breakfast for you. Eat with us?”
“I…” Jeonghan trails off, suddenly at complete odds with the situation. His hands around Joshua’s waist slacken, but Joshua brings a palm to his left wrist, holding it in place with careful firmness. He squeezes it, his gaze boring into Jeonghan, nods so subtly that Jeonghan would have missed it if it weren’t for his supernatural vampire vision.
Jeonghan takes in Seungcheol’s ever-earnest eyes, aflame with unrestrained heat; his smile that is both indulgent and imploring, the planes of his chest that peek out from behind the flimsy vest, painfully emphasising everything Jeonghan cannot have.
And Jeonghan gulps, trying to keep himself from shuddering all over.
“Okay,” he replies, and it sounds pathetically eager, even to himself. His (nonexistent) heart does another strange little shuffle under his sternum, which is stupid because vampire hearts cannot physically beat, because vampires are supposed to be devoid of distinctly human sensations in every sense of the word, anatomically and emotionally. But Jeonghan’s heart has been threatening to beat in his chest for a long time now, threatening to submit to the ordeal of….whatever this will turn out to be.
“I mean, I know you vampires technically don’t need to eat human food to survive,” Seungcheol is fully and completely grinning now, gums on display, nose scrunched up in that upsettingly adorable way that commonly occurs when he’s genuinely excited (Jeonghan hates that he’s noticed it so often), “But I just gave Shua-yah my best gyeran-mari recipe, and you just have to try it.”
Joshua’s giggle does slip out this time, his cheeks the shade of a delicate musk-rose. He squeezes Jeonghan’s wrist again, says, “It truly is something else.”
Jeonghan lets out a stream of breath he didn’t realise he was holding in, lets his shoulders sink in resignation. Once again, he is subjected to the combined, utterly terrifying onslaught of two delighted grins, two sets of eyes piercing through him, two sets of hands hungering for his touch. Jeonghan feels so powerless he can barely stand still.
But, at the same time:
A latent warmth is spreading all across his body, right from his skull to the tip of his toes, rooting him to the spot, encasing him like the embrace of his favourite quilt - the very same quilt Seungcheol slept under last night.
“Yeah, I bet it is.” Jeonghan murmurs in response, feeling the edges of his lips curve up into an involuntary smile.
For once, for just this one morning, he decides to allow his (nonexistent) heart to beat. For just this one morning, after the storm has subsided, after the clouds have dispersed, maybe his heart can exist.