Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Look it says here guys, if you kill the head vampire, all half vampires will return to normal. 

• Sam Emerson to the Frog Brothers, on the occasion of his brother’s falling into the hands of the Santa Carla Tribe in 1987.

“He’s downstairs.”

“I know.” Jaehyun turned over in bed, blocking out the sight of Doyoung in his doorway. “Go away, I’m tired.” But Doyoung didn’t go away. Of course he didn’t. He was a busybody like everybody else in this damned cave. Hotel. Whatever. “Get out, Doyoung.”

“Why won’t you go talk to him?” 

“Because it’s not that simple. I can’t just go talk to him.” Imagine that. Imagine being able to walk downstairs and just have a conversation. 

“Why not?” There was a muted thump, Doyoung allowing the uneven floor and inertia to canter his lean frame into the doorframe. “Taeyong is talking to him right now.” 

The blankets covering Jaehyun shot to the ceiling and he swung around on the mattress. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Taeyong is down there talking to him but it should be you.”

“He doesn’t want to talk to me-”

“You turned him. You’re the only person who can say if he can stay. Taeyong can talk to him but he can’t let him-”

“Taeyong knows that he doesn’t have to do anything,” Jaehyun said. “And neither do I. Jungwoo was here when we took over the hotel in 1988.” Jaehyun lay back on his back and shut his eyes.

The place was only half as disgusting as it had been the last time he was here. Jungwoo wasn't impressed with the clean-up so much as he was impressed that the cave was still standing. At this point, the sunken Santa Carla Hotel was holding up the cliffs as much as anything else, and there was water in here now, pouring periodically through a sunken shaft that at least kept the place fresher. That, and Taeyong had been holding a sweeping brush when Jungwoo dropped through the entryway. He assumed that Taeyong was responsible for the general liveableness of the place. He’d been away on one of his escapades the last time Jungwoo was here. Jaehyun’s tribe and Taeyong’s tribe were technically separate, but Taeyong was a natural leader where Jaehyun preferred to brood in the shadows. Back then, without Taeyong, order had disintegrated. Things looked to be more organised now, though. A stack of plastic bins in the corner holding what looked like linens and other soft furnishings was a welcome addition. Jungwoo shuddered when he remembered the mouldy blanket he was given to sleep under last time. 

Yuta wasn’t around but there were signs of him everywhere; bits of motorcycle piled up near the alcove he’d claimed when they moved in here in 1988. There was a familiar beat-up guitar on a stand, still going strong. The alcove was messy in a way that made Jungwoo almost nostalgic when he looked up at it. There was a new dog pottering around, a snow-white German Shepherd like Thorn had been. She padded over to Jungwoo when he’d come in before dawn, recognising him for what he was, if not who he was. Jungwoo petted her ears when she came up to him again. 

“Bubu, go sit down,” Taeyong ushered the dog towards her bed in the corner. “Yuta went down the coast for a few days,” he told Jungwoo, seeing the direction of his gaze. He shifted on his feet, clearly waiting for something. Jungwoo wouldn’t make him wait any longer. 

“And is he here?” Jungwoo didn’t need to ask, of course. He knew where he was. He could feel Jaehyun; even thousands of miles away he couldn’t get away from him. Here, in the Hotel, he could almost see the thread that connected them. But it still felt more polite to ask. Launching himself up onto the balcony and straight into the general manager’s office wasn’t exactly good manners. And imposing himself on others wasn’t something Jungwoo had ever been guilty of. No, that was his maker. 

“Do you want me to find you a room? Doie knows where the free ones are but he’s just up with-”

“I’ll take my old room,” Jungwoo said, looking around. “How many of you are here?” 

Taeyong looked wrong-footed. “Um… four of us right now.” He was used to being in charge, Jungwoo supposed. But he was outnumbered here. Jungwoo was Jaehyun’s tribe, and only Jaehyun could exert his authority on Jungwoo. Of course, Jaehyun had been Taeyong’s first. He wondered what that had been like, that severing. Had Taeyong felt it, when Jaehyun untethered himself? When he cut himself loose and wrapped his own ties around Jungwoo? How free he must have felt in that moment. 

“Which one was your old room?” Taeyong asked. He sounded worried, like this vampire he had no control over might throw his weight around. Well, he had nothing to worry about. 

“I doubt anybody’s in it,” Jungwoo said. He gestured to the spouts in the cave walls, the base of which was awash right now with one of the periodic swells of the ocean outside. He stepped up to the edge of the water and launched himself up, up, into one of the little recesses where the vampires who’d been here before them had made their nest. Their debris and detritus had been swept out by Jungwoo in the late-80s, and he was right. Nobody else had ever claimed this space as their own. A shaft of light lanced through a hole in the rock, and Jungwoo carefully sidestepped it. That was new, and he would need to patch it once it got dark. 

“Jungwoo?” Taeyong called up from below. 

“It’s free,” Jungwoo said into the hollow, his voice echoing off the walls. There was a fetid blanket on the ground that might have been that mouldy one he had last time, and he folded it, tucking it under his arm, and then he dropped back down to the main floor. Taeyong clutched his brush. His eyes were huge. Maybe a little hungry. Jungwoo asked, “Is there anything to eat here?” 

Taeyong chewed the inside of his lip. Jungwoo had some work to do if he was going to put him at ease. Taeyong had no power to compel Jungwoo, but he did have teeth. Jungwoo didn’t want him to think that he would have to use them. 

“Relax,” Jungwoo said. “I won’t raid your stash too much. I just need something to get me through to nightfall.” 

He looked worried still. “The cooler is full. Take what you like.” Taeyong hesitated and then added, “We’re keeping a low profile here,” like Jungwoo was likely to take off as soon as the sun went down and pluck a screaming teenager from the back of a Camaro on the cliffs. Jungwoo flashed him a grin and walked over to crouch by the industrial-sized cool box that was hooked up to the generator. There were jars inside that didn’t smell like the Grade A stuff he’d been used to drinking from the vein. Definitely not human, either. Taeyong’s tribe still kept to his habits then. 

“He’s right upstairs,” Taeyong said behind him.

“I know.”

“Do you want me to talk to him first?” Taeyong sounded tentative but also a little impatient. 

“Isn’t the other guy already doing that? Your new one?” Jungwoo took two jars out of the cooler and walked one over to Taeyong, offering it. 

Taeyong waved him off, “I have work to do,” he said. 

Jungwoo shrugged and opened his jar, tipping his head back and taking the contents in big easy gulps. It was slower than he was used to, but eventually he felt his senses quicken, his hearing and taste and sense of smell heighten, and his muscles tense with the need to exert themselves. It would go off if he didn’t channel it into something, though, and he knew he had a few minutes before he either took off into the sky and burned up like a taper, or passed out. The jar he’d drank would be enough to knock him out for a whole night and day, probably. 

“I’ll take Yuta’s bed until I can fix something up for myself.” His steps were only a little bit uneven as he stumbled over to the alcove, loosening the curtain around the bedframe and climbing in once he was screened off. The bed was soft with cushions and blankets and every conceivable luxury. Yuta really hadn’t changed. Jungwoo pulled off his boots first, then his jacket, and then his shirt. Taeyong stood holding a full jar of blood in one hand and his broom in the other on the other side of the gauze, indistinct. 

“Welcome home,” he said.

With a scoff, Jungwoo dropped backwards onto Yuta’s bed, the edges of his vision starting to tunnel. 

“Home,” he whispered to himself as he drifted off. The knot inside him loosened to slack as he allowed his consciousness to drift. That anxious unsettled feeling of having left something behind, that nagging he felt every morning when he lay down to go to sleep, hadn’t intruded on his thoughts at all. He almost missed it, the distance he usually put between himself and his maker that made his tether taut. “What a joke,” he said, and dropped into the weary rest of the long dead.  

“Only a creep watches somebody sleep.” 

Jaehyun looked up from his contemplation of Jungwoo’s still form. Yuta’s eyes were half open and he curled himself more closely around Jungwoo from behind, with a little smile that couldn’t be anything but a taunt.

“He’s not asleep,” Jaehyun said. “He’s dead. When did you come in?” 

Yuta yawned and shut his eyes, burrowing his nose into the back of Jungwoo’s neck. “Dawn”

That was cutting it fine. It could have only been barely dark when he arrived. “You’re cutting it fine. I told you it’s dangerous” 

“So kill me,” Yuta said. “Wait. I think it’s too late for that.” His hoarse chuckle caused Jungwoo to stir, and Jaehyun watched as Jungwoo’s lips curled into an answering smirk. 

“You can’t kill us again,” Jungwoo whispered into Yuta’s pillow, and Yuta shook Jungwoo when he laughed into the back of his neck. His arms were wrapped around Jungwoo’s narrow waist, and Jungwoo leaned back into the hold. He looked over his shoulder with hooded eyes and said, “I missed you.” Yuta sighed, eyes shut, and settled again. 

Jaehyun felt rooted to the spot. The palms of his hands were itchy. He didn’t sweat and he felt like he was sweating now. He waited for Jungwoo to look at him but Jungwoo didn’t. He just shut his eyes again and pretended to be asleep. 

“Your hair is nice,” Jaehyun said finally. It was nice. It was white, almost purple in the dim LEDs Yuta suspended above his bed. Jaehyun wanted to reach out and smooth it down but Jungwoo would probably bite him if he got that close. Jungwoo looked good, too. Healthy in a way he had no right to be, really. His skin had never quite settled into the pallor of the undead, and still gleamed like poured honey, offset beautifully by the lights. 

“Let me sleep,” Jungwoo muttered. That was his cue to go, but Jaehyun didn’t move. He thought it had been maybe thirty years or so since they were all together; his tribe, the vampires he’d made, and him. If they were normal, he’d be in that bed too, carding Jungwoo’s hair, Yuta’s arm around his waist. They’d been his thralls once, his ghouls to guard his body as he slept, his tribe that he built for himself with the two men he’d loved most in the world. The two men he thought loved him. He stood and watched Jungwoo and Yuta for another ten minutes or so. Then he stepped away, pulled on his boots and his jacket, and launched himself out of the cave. It was nearly six o’clock, full dark finally. The comic book store was probably busy, but Donghyuck would make time for him. Jaehyun needed to get to him before Mark or some other insane do-gooder got wind that there was a new vampire in town. 

There was moonlight lancing through to the base of the cave when Jungwoo finally woke fully. Behind him, the solid dead weight of Yuta kept the worst of the damp from his bones. He couldn’t feel cold anymore, hadn’t done so in two hundred years, but the damp was different. So was loneliness. He was used to that in spades. He really had missed Yuta, and he turned in his arms to tell him so. But Yuta was still out, still comatose with blood, and probably would be for a while. So Jungwoo kissed him on the brow and got up, pulling on his t-shirt before he set out to find wherever Jaehyun had wandered off to when he got bored of being a creep. 

He didn’t find Jaehyun. He found Taeyong, tangled up in the guy he was with the last time Jungwoo saw him, years ago now in Korea. Doyoung; Jungwoo remembered his name. The two of them were flushed and sated-looking, naked and close-bound and more than blood-drunk it seemed like. Jungwoo pulled the curtain shut. Doyoung had barely been turned when he’d seen them last. He had been so shy of Taeyong as to be actively hostile. Ten was still with Taeyong then. He looked around but Ten wasn’t here. 

Jungwoo wondered what else had changed in the intervening years. 

Not Jaehyun, that was for sure. 

A pile of surfboards cluttered the entryway, or what passed for the entryway. There was sign of Jaehyun everywhere in the cave, but he definitely wasn’t here. The blowhole that led up to the unstable edge of Hudson’s Bluff was looking more precarious now than it did twenty-five years ago. Lairs weren’t always easy to come by, not secure and remote places like this one, but there had to be somewhere else they could set up camp. The Hotel was one more bad tremor away from slipping into the sea. 

Jungwoo took one of Yuta’s leather jackets from the rack next to his bed and decided that he was rested enough. He launched himself out of the cave and into the night sky. 

To the south, Santa Carla boardwalk glittered, tacky and iridescent. Jaehyun was there, he could feel it. He angled his body and swooped low over the water, and reached the stairs under the boardwalk without being seen. 

“I can’t give you a discount.”

“I’m your best friend.”

“Come back when you have some money then, best friend.” 

Jaehyun dropped his comic book. “Can you two shut up?”

Donghyuck levelled him with the kind of look he usually reserved for Mark. Which was to say his expression didn’t change. “This isn’t a library. You need to start bringing money too.” Jaehyun rolled his eyes and went back to his Superman 2#180 and Mark went back to trying to wheedle free shit out of Donghyuck. Jaehyun wished he’d leave. 

He liked Mark normally. Jaehyun suspected that if Mark knew what he was he might be considerably less nice, but he really wasn’t bad for a vampire hunter. Beneath all of that blind zealotry to a cause he didn’t understand was a good heart and a sunny disposition. In any other circumstances, Jaehyun would want to call him a friend. But not tonight. Tonight, Mark really did need him to leave so Jaehyun could talk to Donghyuck alone. Luckily it was some Saint’s feast day, and Mark made a fuss about having to get to church in time to set up his guitar. He swung his case from his shoulder and stowed the comic book he still hadn’t paid for in the front pocket. Then he looked up and down the length of the store, and levered himself up on the counter, planting a wet kiss on Donghyuck’s cheek, before he hurried out. 

When he was gone, Jaehyun put down his comic book. 

“There’s a name for people like that,” he said. 

“Is it Mark Lee?” Donghyuck, blushing slightly, frowned. “That’s two words I suppose.” 

“In my day we might have called him a gallant? Or a rake?” 

“Yeah well in my day we call him a fucking cock tease.” 

Gathering a stack of new stock, Donghyuck moved out from behind the counter. It was still early and the boardwalk wasn’t busy yet. The comic book store was empty, and Jaehyun followed Donghyuck from shelf to shelf. 

Jaehyun sighed. “You swear too much.” When Donghyuck only laughed, he said, “Did he say anything interesting tonight?” 

“Mark Lee says a lot of interesting things,’ he said. “He’s still pretty set on going up to Hudson’s Bluff.” Donghyuck shook his head. “I really shouldn’t have left him alone with my uncle at that stupid wedding. He’s obsessed with those bikes they found up there in, like, the 1900s.” 

Jaehyun moved a Spider-man 2099 behind the Spider-man 1602 Donghyuck had just put on the shelf. “It was 1987,” he said.

“I said that,” Donghyuck moved down the line and Jaehyun was obliged to follow. Before he could ask any more, though, a voice interrupted them. A familiar voice, soft and lilting; and playful, so he knew that Jungwoo couldn’t be talking to him. 

“The 1900s is a decade. It’s when that hotel up on Hudson’s Bluff disappeared into the caves. 1906.” Jungwoo pushed off the doorjamb and sauntered over, dropping an elbow onto Jaehyun’s shoulder and leaning in, their first physical contact in 25 years. If Jaehyun could shiver he would have right then. Jungwoo went on, “The 1980s is the decade that they found the bikes. The century is the 20th century.” 

Donghyuck had stopped what he was doing and was regarding Jungwoo with the kind of interest he only reserved for Mark Lee. “And which of the ‘hundreds’ were you born in?” Donghyuck asked, eyes sharp, his wink salacious when he was one tenth of Jungwoo’s age. He really didn’t miss a thing. Jaehyun was almost proud of him. 

If Jungwoo was concerned that this man knew what he was, he didn’t sound it when he said, “Jaehyun and I are the same age, give or take a half-century.” Out of the corner of his eye Jaehyun could feel Jungwoo’s gaze come to rest on him. He was afraid to meet it. “Well, maybe our hyung’s a year older in real time.” 

Donghyuck chuckled. “Hyung.” He beamed at them both. “Can I call you that too, Jaehyun? My mom would be so proud.” 

“You can call me whatever you want,” Jaehyun mumbled. 

Jungwoo didn’t look at him when he said, “Are you turning this one?” He looked Donghyuck up and down. “Are you joining our little family?” 

At that word, Jaehyun couldn’t help the cough that startled out of him. He’d heard Jungwoo use it before, many times, and never once without bitterness. This time, he sounded almost fond. Jaehyun supposed that Jungwoo did like Yuta. And since they’d joined their tribe with Taeyong’s he’d never been anything but kind to him, and to Ten. He wondered how Jungwoo would get on with Doyoung, if Jungwoo had already picked up on Doyoung’s complete lack of ability to withstand a pair of doe eyes. 

Donghyuck set out the last of his new stock and walked back to the counter. Jaehyun turned to follow him and Jungwoo’s arm dropped from his shoulder. He still couldn’t look at him. He did see Donghyuck’s hand disappear under the counter, though. He had a stake down there, Jaehyun knew, and a water pistol full of holy water that would be nothing to Jaehyun but would burn Jungwoo’s pretty skin for a few hours. He stepped in front of Jungwoo and shook his head at Donghyuck. 

“Is this one new?” Donghyuck sounded serious. He was a vampire hunter before he could drive, and his friendship with Jaehyun notwithstanding, he was a vampire hunter still. 

Jungwoo scoffed. “The last time I was here was before you were even born.” 

“Keep Mark away from the cliffs,” Jaehyun said. Donghyuck’s jaw tightened but he finally nodded. 

“Get out of here,” Donghyuck said. “You’re scaring away all of the customers.” 

Jungwoo gave him a smile that was all teeth and said, “The customers, or the staff?” 

Jaehyun didn’t wait to hear what expletive-laden response Donghyuck gave. He walked out of the comic book store, and after a moment he felt Jungwoo follow. 

The boardwalk had changed since the last time Jungwoo walked it. The big carousel that used to delight the young and fascinate the drug-addled was gone, and in its place was a burger restaurant that looked too expensive to go inside. All of Santa Carla was upscale now. The yuppies and the affluent had probably started to trickle in once all of the murders stopped. 

Even Jaehyun had adopted a new look, more muted and upmarket like the city around them. At some point in the last thirty years, he’d ditched his biker jacket and dreadlocks. But some of his surfer bum aesthetic remained. He was still wearing cargo pants, albeit back to the dull khaki green he’d worn through the war and well after. At least the stonewash was gone. Jungwoo wondered vaguely if he still had his skateboard.

They walked side by side to the end of the pier and stopped. 

“What are you doing here?” 

Jungwoo shrugged. “Can’t I come home to visit every once in a while?”

“Home,” Jaehyun shook his head. “Since when was this home?” 

He could feel the nasty smile take hold and let it. “Ah, since when is home just a place, hyung?” 

Jaehyun finally looked at him. He was meant to. They were his own words repackaged and sent back to him, words he hadn’t forgotten though they all tended to forget most of the details of their long years. Jungwoo still remembered those days with clarity, though; those days when the smell of a restaurant kitchen would have made Jungwoo hungry instead of the smell of the Pekinese passing by on a lead. 

Jaehyun said it when Jungwoo told him he couldn’t be with him. When he told him that he had to leave Hanyang, that he had to go home.

You’re my home, Jaehyun said. And then he handed him the bottle. He was Jaehyun’s after that first sip of blood. 

“Are you here to kill me?” Jaehyun said it so casually. He said it like attempts on his afterlife were a minor annoyance. 

“Will you stop me if I try?”

“Yuta might,” Jaehyun chewed the inside of his lip. “If you kill me, you’ll both die. You know that.” He sounded so tired. Jungwoo hated that he wondered about the last time Jaehyun ate. He was wont to run himself ragged in days past. 

“I’ll talk to him,” Jungwoo said. “He knows he can turn somebody if he want to cut your connection. But if you let me do it, we can all find some peace.” The sea was loud but Jaehyun’s sigh was audible over it. 

Leaning back against the railing and looking towards the pier, Jungwoo watched the families and the young couples, a far cry from the motorcycle tribes and coke-fuelled student athletes that had dominated the place the last time he was here. He watched a street dancer performing for a group of tourists. 

He asked, “When did Ten leave?” 

Jaehyun wasn’t very good with keeping track of time, so when he said, “Jungwoo knew he could be talking about anything between six weeks ago and ten years. 

“What kind of while?”

“Maybe three months?” Jaehyun sighed again. He’d done a lot of that tonight. He didn’t have a complex emotional life, but Jungwoo could imagine that he might miss Ten. He missed Yuta all the time, and probably still would even if their connection was severed. Ten had been Taeyong’s only companion before Jaehyun; the last of the old tribe to make it as far as Santa Clara in the late 1980s. And now he too was gone, displaced by the appearance of this interloper Taeyong couldn’t keep his eyes off of. Jungwoo had seen it and he’d only been back a few hours. It wasn’t a little concerning. The last time Jungwoo had seen that kind of hunger in somebody’s eyes, Jaehyun had condemned him to this life. How had Doyoung come to join Taeyong’s tribe? Was it choice or necessity or request? He hadn’t been with Taeyong when Jaehyun ran into him in Seoul not ten years ago. New additions were always suspicious, for one reason or another. 

“The new guy,” Jungwoo said. “Has he turned yet? Has he drank from the vein?” He didn’t look new-made. In the few minutes Jungwoo had spent in his company, he hadn’t seen any of the feverish intensity of a half-vampire. But then, he didn’t know how long he’d been with Taeyong. Still, Doyoung had a kind of bank-teller look about him that didn’t suggest he’d sank elongated canines into a living human’s neck. 

“He’s one of us now,” Jaehyun said, sidestepping the unpleasant truth of what Doyoung had to do to make that transition complete. Jungwoo considered himself corrected. He was here to stay, then, for as long as Taeyong wanted to stay alive. 

“Is he good for Taeyong?” 

“Yes,” Jaehyun nodded. “He’s nosy. And he has telekinesis.” That was a surprise, and Jungwoo momentarily forgot to be furious with Jaehyun as he blinked at him. Not everybody had powers. The last vampire Jungwoo had met who had manifested anything had been that pretty nightmare who’d lived at the hotel before they did. David had hallucikinesis; not much use for anything but a party trick, or terrorizing new initiates. 

“Telekinesis?”

“Yeah,” Jaehyun said. “He’ll show you if you ask him. Have you met him?”

“Briefly,” Jungwoo said. “Where did he find him?”

“In Seoul,” Jaehyun said, glancing sidelong at Jungwoo. “Did you meet him there?”

“No,” Jungwoo said, answering his next question: had Taeyong told Jaehyun they’d met that time? He would have, of course. Jungwoo wondered how Jaehyun had taken that news. Jaehyun didn’t know where he was of course, though their bond was stretched taut and painful at the time. The bond was hard to live with when they were far apart but pain is like cold water after all; at some point, the body gets used to it. 

On the boardwalk, some skateboarders were getting told off by a cop. Jungwoo watched them. Jaehyun glanced over his shoulder watching them too, and once they’d stopped throwing offensive gestures at the retreating cop’s back, they walked off towards the comic book store. 

Jungwoo said, “Don’t turn that kid in the comic book store. He hasn’t lived long enough.” 

Jaehyun shook his head, turning back out to sea. “He asked me to. He wants it.”

The resignation in his tone as much as the sentiment behind it was what finally spiked Jungwoo’s temper. Jaehyun was always soft. He had never been a leader.

“Let Taeyong do it, then. And let me die.” 

“No,” Jaehyun said. He turned to Jungwoo, turned the complete force of his inscrutable gaze and all of the power behind it on him. He wouldn’t use it, but he could, if he wanted to. He’d made Jungwoo. He could force him to back down. “If you want to cut yourself off from me, then you can turn him yourself.”

As if Jungwoo ever would. As if he could do that to somebody after what was done to him. 

“Please,” Jungwoo said. He knew he sounded desperate. “Let me go. Let’s end this. Together?” 

“I’m sorry, I can’t,” Jaehyun said. For the first time, though, Jungwoo thought he sounded like he meant it. Jaehyun looked back out to sea. “I still love you,” he said. 

Jungwoo didn’t want to hear any more. He launched himself off the boardwalk, and let his feet skim the dark water before he took off back to the caves. 

Yuta was still in bed when Jungwoo got back. He still felt a little flushed, a little feverish, a little overstimulated by the life essence of the seabird he’d snagged on the wing as he came in to land this morning, but he was awake now and itchy to do something. Jungwoo stormed into his alcove, muttering to himself in a way that could only mean that he’d finally talked to Jaehyun. Yuta didn’t have to ask what they’d talked about. No matter that it concerned him too, Jungwoo had only one thing he wanted from Jaehyun and it was the only reason he would be swearing at the coat rack as he replaced Yuta’s jacket. 

“It looked good on you,” Yuta said. Jungwoo glanced over his shoulder at him and didn’t respond. He did strip himself back down to his underwear, though, and climbed through the curtains and onto Yuta’s bed. Yuta hadn’t been able to believe his eyes when he’d come home, feeling the old familiar link between him and Jaehyun pull taut the day before and finding Jungwoo in his bed when he followed its thread back up the coast. It was enough to assuage his existential anxiety, to curb the worry that he might have to unmoor himself as soon as Jaehyun conceded to Jungwoo’s demands, and he’d almost cried when the skin of his chest had met Jungwoo’s bare back. It was right, it felt right, and it felt right again when Jungwoo settled himself now in Yuta’s arms, head on his chest, and sighed. Yuta waited for Jungwoo to speak if that’s what he wanted.

“Why are you still here?” 

“In Santa Carla?” Yuta slipped his fingers into Jungwoo’s hair, teasing his scalp. “Waiting for you.” He chuckled at Jungwoo’s tut of impatience. “Because it hurts to get too far from him,” Yuta said. “I worry about him here on his own.” 

He felt rather than heard Jungwoo’s scoff, a little exhale of unnecessary breath against Yuta’s cold skin. He shivered with the pleasure of it and wrapped his arm around Jungwoo’s waist, drawing him closer. There was something about being close with a member of your own tribe, something Yuta didn’t often get to feel. Jaehyun was there, of course. His sire, Jungwoo’s sire, was two floors up in his miserable little General Manager’s office. But Yuta still hadn’t quite forgiven him for Jungwoo leaving; being close with Jaehyun now felt like betraying Jungwoo. Taeyong had slaked his thirst a little bit for a while. Sharing his bed had been fun in an abstract way. But it wasn’t the same as sharing himself with one of his own. Taeyong wasn’t likely to invite Yuta into his bed anytime soon now, anyway. He was all wrapped up in his new initiate, and there was no getting between them. Ten had found that out the hard way. Yuta wondered where he was; if being far from Taeyong was hurting him the way it hurt Yuta to be too far from Jaehyun. He had no idea how Jungwoo could stand it for years at a time.

For a while, they lay and said nothing. The moon was setting, what small light it spilled into the entryway dimmed when Jungwoo propped himself up on his elbow and looked down at Yuta under the twinkling fairy lights. His hair was short again and he looked so beautiful. Yuta reached up and brushed back his bangs.

“Why don’t you come with me when I leave?” Jungwoo asked him.

He knew why. Yuta didn’t know why he was asking. “Why can’t you stay?” 

There was an answer to that and Jungwoo wouldn’t give it. He didn’t have to, though. Yuta couldn’t leave Jaehyun and Jungwoo couldn’t be around him. So here they were, missing each other constantly these last 25 years. 

The first kiss was tentative, like Jungwoo wanted to test it out in case he forgot how Yuta liked to be kissed. It was sweet and soft and Yuta had to bite down on Jungwoo’s lower lip to give him a hint. He felt Jungwoo’s smile in the kiss, and the dimples on his cheek when Yuta touched his face, and slipped his other hand into his hair again. Jungwoo slid across his body until he was straddling him. He’d fed a day ago, and his cock was hard under the cotton of his briefs, pressing insistently against Yuta’s, against his naked hip and, as Jungwoo shifted on him, between his legs. Jungwoo licked into his mouth and Yuta moaned, uncaring that the whole cave would be able to see what they were doing because the gauze around his bedframe wasn’t worth shit. He didn’t care. He had to lie awake on days he didn’t feed and listen to the way Taeyong let himself be claimed by the new guy. Taeyong and Doyoung could stand to listen to him for once. 

Jungwoo’s movements were becoming more deliberate, his hips pressing tight to Yuta’s, and it was a mystery to Yuta why he was still wearing his underwear when they should be bare, skin-to-skin like they were supposed to be, pressed against each other and around each other and into each other in an expression of completion. Not completeness. No, they needed Jaehyun for that, and Jaehyun hadn’t joined them in bed since before the Wall came down. The memory of that last time, here in this very bedstead, was enough to drag another moan out of Yuta. The way it had felt to be so utterly full, of Jungwoo behind him and Jaehyun in his mouth, and his own hardness cradled lovingly in somebody’s hands and Yuta couldn’t even tell whose, Jaehyun and Jungwoo kissing over his shoulder, and then kissing his shoulder, his neck, one each on both sides; it had been perfect. 

“Let’s call Jaehyun,” he gasped out as Jungwoo bit into the side of his neck, drawing ichor to the surface. Yuta had his hands in Jungwoo’s underwear, pushing them down his legs to feel the length of him better. Jungwoo stilled and then kissed the bite, nuzzling into Yuta’s neck.

“He’s already here,” Jungwoo said, his nose swiping at Yuta’s neck, directing his gaze to the other side of the gauze curtain. Jaehyun was there, far enough back that his expression wasn’t distinct, but close enough to know what was going on. Yuta watched him for a moment, watched the way he didn’t make a move though his body must be thrumming with the need to join them. 

“Should we invite him in?” Yuta whispered, knowing Jaehyun would be able to hear. 

“We don’t need him,” Jungwoo said, but Yuta could hear it, the hunger in his voice. He knew how much better it could be when they were all together, all three; Jaehyun’s creations and him, their cruel creator. Yuta tugged on Jungwoo’s hair, bringing his mouth to his again and letting himself taste him properly, giving in to the comfort of it and the way his body hummed, responding to every twitch of Jungwoo’s hips against his own. They had all night, and all day if they wanted it, and Jungwoo’s languid, dry thrusts were enough to say that he wanted to take his time. They had time, is what he was saying, and Yuta was so relieved he wrapped his arms around Jungwoo’s body, stilling him so he could hold him to him for just a second. Just a minute, in these gifted hours he was being promised; allowed. 

It was through that stillness that a shrill cry tore through the cave, and Jungwoo was on his knees immediately, looking out towards where Jaehyun had been standing, a momentary flash of concern on his face that told Yuta all he needed to know about how Jungwoo still felt about him. But Jaehyun was fine. He was still there, but he was looking in the opposite direction, to the little recess in the cave wall that used to be the reception desk. To-

“Taeyong,” Yuta scrambled out from under Jungwoo and hurtled through the gauze curtains. The damp floor of the cave didn’t even register on his bare feet as he followed Jaehyun to Taeyong’s bed. Doyoung was there, kneeling beside Taeyong, half dressed like he’d been getting ready to go out, to leave Taeyong in bed, wrapped up in his sheets. 

“I don’t know what’s wrong,” Doyoung said, panicked-sounding and terrified. “He was asleep. He wasn’t even awake, and then he just started screaming.” 

Taeyong was holding his chest, hand over his heard and the other clamped over his forehead, like a migraine and a heart attack all at once. Yuta had never seen him in pain before. Not once, nearly 150 years since they met in the port of Kobe. Taeyong was hit by a trolley car in San Francisco in the 20s, and he didn’t even look like he noticed. He was whimpering now, though. His hand dropped from his face, and he looked around wildly, his eyes falling on Jaehyun. There was accusation there, something like resentment and sadness. Deep, bone-crushing sadness. 

“Ten?” Jaehyun asked him. Taeyong managed to nod. Yuta’s attention snapped to Jaehyun. What about Ten?

“What about him?” Doyoung asked, either Taeyong or Jaehyun, whichever would answer him first. He’d taken one of Taeyong’s hands and was cradling it in his lap. Taeyong clung to him, fierce and possessive. 

Behind them all, Jungwoo spoke up. “He’s severed their bond,” he said. “Ten’s turned somebody else.”