Archive of Our Own ^beta

There is a difference, Jeonghan thinks, between devotion and obsession. Love, it probably is.

Devotion, a beautiful thing. Loyalty. Commitment. Faithfulness. Forever. Backed by a love, by a need to care, by the willingness to care, the willingness to go out of your way to do so, because you want to, because you have to, because you love. Forever.

Obsession. Ugly, evil. Compulsion. A perverted attraction. Fueled by delusion. Fueled by the sheer need to want, greedily. Haunting, consuming, tormenting. Forever. Lacking that gentleness of love, the delicate feelings, the sweetness that comes with devotion. Angry, instead. Plagued. Forever.

Jeonghan is very familiar with forever.

It’s his two hundred and forty fourth Halloween. Maybe he’s up to two hundred forty five now. It doesn’t really matter, nor does he care all that much—not since Halloween in 1976, that was his last fun one—but he still tries to remember the date, to keep track of the tiny ghost that Soonyoung is so keen on poorly drawing on each one of their calendars, just to make sure he’s ready, just for Joshua.

Because when you’ve been around as long as Jeonghan, when you’ve lived as many lives as Jeonghan has, there are only two things he knows he can count on: immortality (a bitch, a real pain) and Joshua Hong, at least once a year. And yes, he’s a bitch, a real pain, too.

“You look the same as you did last year.”

Joshua Hong, of course, does not look the same. His hair is dark again, brown, almost black, different from the cropped, bleach cut he had the last time Jeonghan saw him. This time it’s a little longer, neatly frames his face, hangs delicately around his ears. He looks good, because he always looks good, which is a detail that irritates Jeonghan, but is too true to ignore, and Joshua knows him well enough to know Jeonghan can’t ignore it, anyway.

“My hair’s a little longer,” Jeonghan says, just for the sake of arguing. He’s leaning up against his car, cigarette lit as Joshua stands a few feet away from him, like if he comes any closer he might burst into flames or something. It’s all part of their game, Jeonghan knows. The push, the pull, the tension, the build up, all until the dam breaks, until it becomes so unbearable they cave in with that want they keep coming back for, with the need. The obsession. “I take it you mean that I’m still as devastatingly handsome as always, though?”

“Still astonishingly humble as well.”

Jeonghan ignores him. “You look good.” He says it because he can’t ignore it, because they’re past the point of trying to, because he doesn’t want to. “Really good.”

“Thank you,” Joshua returns, and his eye contact doesn’t waver, he doesn’t fidget or shift uncomfortably like he might’ve all those years ago, back when Joshua was still a baby in all this, back when the obsession was something else, something sweeter, something backed with love. Jeonghan doesn’t really phase him anymore, at least not like that.

Jeonghan takes one last drag from his cigarette and then flicks it to the side. It’ll die, anyway, most things do.

“So?” He cocks his head. Takes in Joshua again because he can, because it’s been a year since Jeonghan last saw him and he might be obsessed. Joshua is so beautiful—Jeonghan knows that’s forever, too. “Why are you so far away, what the hell are you doing over there? You know I don’t bite, my love.”

Joshua laughs at that, one big cackle. Jeonghan smiles, can’t help it really, feels the most alive he’s felt in a while.

“That’s a funny joke,” Joshua deadpans. He sits into his hip, giving Jeonghan a quick once over. His eyes get the tiniest bit darker. Tiniest bit, but enough that Jeonghan can tell, because he knows Joshua Hong better than he knows anything else right now. Better than he’ll know anything else, ever. “Let’s go inside, then. You can buy me a drink. I wanna know what you’ve been up to.”

“You could’ve visited sooner,” Jeonghan says, shrugs, pretends he doesn’t mean it in the way he does, in a way that stings just a tiny bit, just like he wants it to. “Then you’d already know what I’ve been up to.”

Joshua shrugs back. Does not feel the sting the way Jeonghan would like, because he is Joshua fucking Hong, because he has grown colder than he once was some hundred years ago, because it would never sting, not in the way Jeonghan needs it to.

“I’ve been busy,” is all he says. Primly. Like he couldn’t be bothered. And Jeonghan knows him well enough to know he probably means it, gets stung himself instead.

But he rolls his eyes, gestures towards the bar they’re in front of, the ratty welcome mat at their feet and goes, because it’s easier than arguing, because Joshua Hong is a guaranteed forever.

A bitch, a real pain, seriously.

* * *

“So,” Jeonghan prompts, once they’re seated, the bar crowded enough that their conversation will get lost in the chatter of other patrons, but they’re still far enough in the corner, tucked away that it still feels like it’s just them. Intimate. “Where are you now? You didn’t write this time. I haven’t heard from you in a solid year.”

Sometimes it’s less than a year, depending on how lonely or how bored Joshua is. Sometimes he visits more. One night, or two, or if Jeonghan is lucky, a whole week, until he’s gone, onto the next bigger and better thing, unable to be tied down by anything, not even Yoon Jeonghan, who knows Joshua like the back of his hand, who waits even though he shouldn’t, who’s more obsessed than he would like to admit.

“I texted you,” Joshua says easily. He’s looking at the glass of whiskey in front of him like Jeonghan might have poisoned it. Like it would make a difference if he did. Like it could possibly kill him. “If you read the messages, then you’d know that I—”

“Text Soonyoungie next time, I fucking hate the new phone he got me,” Jeonghan grumbles, huffing out a sigh. The mail isn’t what it used to be so it’s rare that Joshua writes anymore, and texts are—well, Jeonghan is no good with it. Joshua will message him, and Jeonghan won’t see it until days later, and by then, Joshua’s already moved on, doesn’t care, gone and soothed over the Jeonghan shaped ache in his chest, replaced it with something else. “I fucked with the sound settings, and now it doesn’t even vibrate, and I told Soonyoung, and he told me—”

“If I wrote you, you wouldn’t have answered, anyway,” Joshua cuts him off. He rolls his eyes. Jeonghan wants to point out that that’s not at all entirely true—Jeonghan sometimes answers, but he knows Joshua, knows he wouldn’t want Jeonghan by the time he got his answer, anyway—but Joshua continues before he can, says, “I’m in California. Again.”

For the last few years, Joshua had been living in Vermont. Jeonghan liked it because at least they were in the same timezone, because they had even seen each other a few times while he was there, but when the spontaneous visits stopped, Jeonghan had supposed he up and left, because you can’t stay in one place for too long, not if you’re Joshua, larger than life and still living the one you have, still living the hundreds you’ve created for yourself.

Jeonghan, though; that’s why Jeonghan likes New York—likes to stay here—likes his shitty apartment with Soonyoung and the landlord he never sees, who never asks too many questions. He can just—disappear here.

“Again,” Jeonghan echoes, only a tad bit bitter.

Joshua always goes back to California. It’s big enough that if he times it right he can even go back to the same places he had lived in the past. It’s home, his first home, home before he got bit some hundred years ago and ended up like Jeonghan, like this.

“Yes, again.” Joshua scoffs. He picks up his glass and takes a long sip. Narrows his eyes. “What’s with the tone?”

“I have no tone,” Jeonghan lies. Useless, but he lies. “What’s it this time, then? Doctor, model? College professor? How are you expanding on your resume?”

“Yoga instructor,” Joshua says, shit-eating grin on his face. “I’m surprisingly still bendy for my age.”

“Hilarious,” Jeonghan says, and does not think about all the ways that Joshua is in fact bendy. He shrugs, like he doesn’t really care. Picks up his own glass of whiskey—which he hates, by the way, he only gets it because Joshua does and it’s just a habit, and habits are hard to break when you’ve got forever—and just swirls it around. “I bet you’re happy there, yeah?”

“I am,” Joshua confirms, and then sits back in his seat, gesturing around them with a hand holding his own glass. “How’s here, then? New York, I mean.”

“Nice,” is all Jeonghan says. Vague. Pointless. There’s a couple over Joshua’s shoulder in some kind of costume that’s way too distracting. Jeonghan never really understood Halloween, even when he was one of them—human—but he certainly doesn’t understand it now. “Cold and then hot and then cold again. I like the seasons, though. Plus, Soonyoung likes it here, too, he’s got some kind of… boyfriend now. Oh, and he found this place for like—ethically sourced blood bags, and—”

“Since when do you care if blood is ethically sourced?” Joshua laughs at him. He puts his glass down and leans forward, scanning Jeonghan’s face, his eyes to his mouth and then back up, and his—mouth again, and Jeonghan feels unbearably warm, somehow. “You’re ridiculous. What are you even talking about right now?”

“Trying to catch you up on my life, thank you very much, but if you wanna be a prick about it—”

“You’re making stuff up to be excited about while being in this shithole,” Joshua cuts him off. Harsh. Adds, then, a little more gently, “You don’t have to be stuck here, you know.”

Jeonghan knows. He knows because Joshua tells him almost every time they see each other, he knows because he told Jeonghan that the first time Jeonghan admitted he wanted permanence, when he was tired of moving and lying and constantly being caught onto, so they—ended it. Ended them. Jeonghan to New York and Joshua—Joshua had gone to Tokyo at the time, or maybe it was Paris, or perhaps it was LA again; Jeonghan doesn’t even remember, has maybe forced himself to forget over the years. Because wherever it was, it was not with him, with Jeonghan, in their suddenly too big bed and too empty apartment.

Almost twenty-five years ago now. Their first disagreement. Maybe their only. Jeonghan knows that, too.

“I’m not stuck if I like it,” Jeonghan counters. “I”m not making shit up to be excited about. And, it’s not a shithole here; me and Soonyoungie got a sweet gig going, and it’s nice to—to not have to keep moving all the time. To like, have a name that’s yours, and like, a bed or whatever.”

Joshua rolls his eyes, slumps down in his seat a little, like he’s defeated. Sick of having the conversation. Sick of Jeonghan not agreeing with him, maybe. Quietly, though, oh-so casually he adds, “Being in California makes me think of you.”

San Francisco, 1896. Hardly the San Francisco it is today, but that’s where they’d met. Jeonghan’s been like this—dead, undead, a monster, a goddamn vampire, whatever you wanna call it—for almost three hundred years, and he’s known Joshua for nearly half of that. Joshua had been like a baby then, back when Jeonghan first met him. It hadn’t even been fifty years since he had made the change. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe if they had met later, they wouldn’t be doing—whatever this is.

Jeonghan hums. He could be a dick about it—what are you wearing when you think of me? are you alone? are you that infatuated with me?—but he doesn’t, because he knows Joshua must really mean it, because he doesn’t just say things for the hell of it, especially not like this, a table apart and only half a glass of whiskey down. Normally it comes later, when he’s less on guard, more lax and tension free, between Jeonghan’s wrinkled sheets and just them, no one else.

“I could visit somehow,” Jeonghan says, just because he doesn’t know what else to say. Because he’s not the monster that he might make himself out to be, the monster he’s grown into, hates. “I miss it, too, sometimes.”

California was never home to Jeonghan, not the same way it was to Joshua. Joshua had practically been there his entire life, lived there up until his bite, too, and Jeonghan just so happened to be wandering at that point, country to country, city to city, and seemed to be there at the same time, the right time.

Maybe it was never the right time after all. Korea was home for Jeonghan and he guesses it always could be. If Joshua hadn’t become home instead, that is.

“Sometimes,” Joshua repeats, like he’s annoyed now. Mumbles it. Pissy.

“Yes, sometimes,” Jeonghan says. His mouth is a horrible mixture of nicotine and whiskey and a deep, sickly feeling of shame, guilt. Obsession. “Miss you most times, though.”

Joshua scoffs, but he doesn’t shy away again, though, he would never, not anymore.

“Don’t lie.”

“I wouldn’t,” Jeonghan insists and it’s the truth. “I can’t ever lie to you. You know that.”

“Whatever,” Joshua dismisses him gently. He nearly finishes his drink, holds onto a sip or two, though, just in case he needs it later. He sits up further, shakes his shoulders out a little. Gets that annoying gleam in his eye that Jeonghan knows well, that Jeonghan misses. “Tell me more about these ethically sourced blood bags then, huh?”

* * *

At one point, some hundred years ago, the thing between him and Joshua was love.

Something more similar to devotion. Real. Tangible, nearly. So, so natural, such a no-brainer, it had felt like the most normal thing Jeonghan had experienced since his heart had stopped beating, since he got the bite, said goodbye to his mortal life and onto this, onto a doomed forever, a never end.

Loving Joshua Hong made sense. The only part of forever Jeonghan liked at the time.

They never really said it, is the thing. It was in the way they moved, in the little things, the actions, the devotion.

The way Joshua would look at him just before the sun would rise, before the day ended. The way he’d find him on the crowded dancefloor of whatever ridiculous, posh club they landed themselves in at that time and would kiss him, really kiss him, like it was the last thing he was ever going to do. The way he held him, always did. Big hands, strong, capable, but gentle, always somehow a twinge warm, as if he was still human, as if he had any real blood pumping through his veins. In his words. Always a little bitey, but sweet, deep down, so, so sweet.

Be careful, don’t do that, have fun, you should do this, be safe, come back, I need you.

Love. Or at least the closest thing to it.

“I hate the smell of that,” Joshua is saying now, face scrunched up as he watches Jeonghan take a drag of another cigarette, seated on the hood of Jeonghan’s car. Maybe at one point, Jeonghan would’ve taken that as an I love you, too. That nagging. He knows better than to do that now, though. “It’s gross.”

“I needed to pick up a hobby when you left,” Jeonghan tells him. Annoying. “It can’t kill me, so what’s it matter?”

He kicks at a rock against the pavement, lets it skip across the deserted street. It’s late now, almost three. Most people—humans—have already retreated back to their own places, their own people, their own lives. Jeonghan doesn’t miss it, being human, but only because he doesn’t allow himself to.

“The taste is terrible,” Joshua mumbles. Watches as Jeonghan takes another drag, exhaling directly at Joshua, and Joshua doesn’t even flinch, surprisingly or unsurprisingly, maybe.

The taste, the hazy, primal part of Jeonghan’s brain echoes. Thinks about the idea of Joshua’s mouth on his own again. Sweet and mean. Delicious.

Joshua must be able to tell because he moves on then, doesn’t give Jeonghan a chance to voice it, to tell him how bad he might actually want it. Changes the subject fast, a complete 180. “How’s Seungkwan been? You talked so much about Soonyoungie back in there I almost forgot you had more friends.”

Jeonghan rolls his eyes. Scoffs. “I have plenty of friends.”

“You don’t,” Joshua corrects. Laughs, though it’s cruel. Jeonghan wants to feel it—just how cruel Joshua’s mouth really can be. Wants it almost desperately now. “And that’s perfectly ok, my love.”

“Whatever. He’s good,” Jeonghan tells him, keeping his eyes fixed on Joshua’s mouth, just to tease, just because he wants. “He’s in Europe with Hansolie. Not sure exactly where. Like, their seventieth honeymoon or something.”

“How romantic,” Joshua coos, and there’s a hint of sarcasm in his voice, or maybe that’s just jealousy of some sort.

(Jeonghan and Joshua did that once—nineteen-sixty-something. Jeonghan remembers because that was the first time he’d ever gotten high, like, really high, and then he fucked Joshua on the beach, right before sunrise, and it felt like he was dying all over again, but in the best way, the way he should’ve.)

“How are your friends, then?” Jeonghan asks, and Jeonghan supposes they’re his as well, have been at one point in time at least, but— “Seungcheol? Mingyu?”

Joshua’s making a face when Jeonghan finally meets his eyes again. Disbelieving, or annoyed. Jeonghan knows it well. Used to know it in jest, in between kisses and tender touches and funny stories, and now—now he means it. Levels Jeonghan with it.

“Them? They’re fine.” He frowns, strong arms folding across a broad chest. Joshua’s been making use of the new, state of the art gyms that have popped up over the last few decades or so. He’s annoyingly big now. It makes the want in the pit of Jeonghan’s stomach increase two-fold. “Why are you asking about them specifically? Why don’t you ask me about like, I don’t know. Jun?”

“Fine,” Jeonghan shrugs, “how’s Junnie?”

Joshua rolls his eyes. “You’re annoying. You don’t care.”

“Of course I do!” Jeonghan laughs. His cigarette’s almost completely dead. After that, they’ll leave, together, maybe, probably, and then—then it’ll only be a few more hours until Joshua’s gone again, until next year. “I love Jun. I just already know what Jun’s up to. He actually visits.”

“That’s because he and Soonyoungie have horribly compatible chemistry in bed, that Junnie thinks it's worth traveling across the country for. Does Jun know about Soonyoung’s little boyfriend, by the way?”

“Yeah,” Jeonghan confirms, shrugging. He cackles. “Pretty sure they’re all well acquainted.”

“Lovely,” Joshua laughs, just barely. He goes to say something else then, cut off by Jeonghan’s, nosy, good for nothing—-

“So Seungcheol and Mingyu—”

“Are fine, thank you,” Joshua finishes with an amused smile, just half of one, hardly there. He leans back on his hands, palms flat against the dingy trunk of Jeonghan’s 1990’s model. He bought it with Joshua, back when. It was their car, at one point, actually. That was right before Joshua and he split. “And you’re curious about them because—”

“Because,” Jeonghan muses, takes the final drag of his cigarette and tosses it to his feet, steps on it a little. He moves in closer to Joshua, hopes he’s not too repulsed by the smell of the smoke, by him. “Well. You still sleep with them?”

Joshua grins now. Evil. Gorgeous. “Not at the same time, no.”

“Not what I meant.”

“And what is it that you meant then, darling?”

“Don’t make me say it.”

Joshua laughs once more, something like a giggle. Evil, seriously. He’s got a vaguely crazy look in his eyes that makes Jeonghan feel nearly alive. “No, I think I wanna hear you say it. Go on, Jeonghan-ah.”

“Dick,” Jeonghan swears. He steps even closer, nearly closes Joshua in against where he’s still perched, and then, because he doesn’t really have much pride left, anyway, not when it comes to Joshua at least, “They better than me?”

Joshua rolls his eyes. Does not shy away from Jeonghan’s sudden proximity, though. “You’re unbelievable,” he says, scoffs.

“And you’re not answering the question.”

“Because I don’t think that’s your business,” Joshua says, stupid, really, because Joshua and he might’ve gone their separate ways two decades ago, but they’re—Jeonghan is obsessed, and Joshua is forever, he’ll always be his business.

“If that’s how you feel,” Jeonghan says. He holds his hands up like he’s surrendering, but they both know he isn’t, not really. “How ‘bout this—blink once if I’m still the best you ever had, blink twice if they are, and if that’s the case, I’ll pretend like you’ve just got an eyelash caught in your eye to protect my ego.”

“Oh, my god,” Joshua groans. He’s so beautiful up close, Jeonghan can’t even help it, can’t help that he missed him. “Unbelieve, terrible, awful freak—”

“Shua,” Jeonghan says, the tiniest hint of a smile on his face. He plants his hands on either side of where Joshua’s sitting, close enough, but still not touching. “Joshua. Beloved.”

Joshua sighs. Defeat. Acceptance of obsession, a mutual one at that.

“I came back to you,” he says, simple. A loaded answer, one that goes beyond Seungcheol and Mingyu in bed, a question that was never really about them in the first place. One that makes Jeonghan’s insides feel like they’ve been turned out. Makes his chest ache.

Joshua holds out a stick of gum then. Somehow. Jeonghan didn’t even see him reach for it, must’ve been—too wrapped up in him, or maybe he was looking at his mouth again, and— “Take it.”

“Why?” Jeonghan grumbles, but he does, anyway, chews, artificial mint taking over the tacky feeling the cigarette left instead.

“Because I told you I hate the taste of cigarettes,” Joshua reminds him. He reaches forward to shove Jeonghan away a little, a sturdy hand on Jeonghan’s middle, so he can hop off the hood. “You’re taking me home, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Jeonghan says, nearly immediately. Of course. Because that’s what they do, because they get one guaranteed night a year, when they used to be guaranteed forever.

So he’ll take Joshua home. Jeonghan’s apartment that he shares with Soonyoung, shitty, but his, permanent, and not Joshua’s.

But Joshua did call it like that; home.

* * *

Jeonghan’s thought about dying before. It never happened, obviously, not completely—the bite happened—the gift, the curse, immortality thrust upon him instead, but he’s thought about it. How it might have happened, how it might’ve felt. What would have come of him, his body or his soul.

Jeonghan wasn’t religious when he was alive, but he does think about it now; the beyond and all that. If it’s just as beautiful as they talk about, Heaven. Not like it matters, not for him, not now. There won’t be a beyond. But he’s read about it, frontwards and backwards, watched documentaries and heard stories over time. How wonderful the afterlife could be. How freeing. Ecstasy, paradise.

Not like it matters. Not like he thinks much about it anymore. There’s only so much you can do before it starts to fuck with your head. Besides, he’s got this right now—Joshua, in his bed, naked, wanting him, needing him, here—it’s the closest thing he’ll ever get to paradise, and so he’ll take it. Always, again, and again, and again.

The only thing guaranteed. Tonight, right now.

“Jeonghan-ah.”

Jeonghan always liked the way Joshua said his name, maybe more than he should. Perhaps it’s because it’s the closest thing to a human he can still be. The only tie he has left to his corporeal life. The only thing that bridges now and then, then and Joshua. He wonders what life would have been like if he and Joshua were alive together. If they could’ve been different. Wonders how his own name looks on a headstone. Wonders if it ever did end up there, even without a body to bury, if anyone ever cared to look for him.

“Jeonghan,” Joshua says again. Sharp, but honeyed, familiar. When Jeonghan looks up at him, focuses on his face, he’s got his head tilted in question, tiny grin on his lips. “Are you with me?”

“Of course I am,” Jeonghan says. Means it. He leans in, hovers over Joshua, holding his lips in a searing kiss. Like he’s starving for it.

It’s been a year; Jeonghan doesn’t think it would be far fetched to say that he is.

“You just look so pretty like this. Distracting,” Jeonghan says into his mouth. Swallows down the aggravated whine it draws out of Joshua. “Gorgeous, Shua.”

“Yah, Yoon Jeonghan,” Joshua, mumbles, embarrassed. He pulls them apart with a solid hand to Jeonghan’s chest, forcing him to flop to the other side of the bed. Joshua sits up, goes rummaging through the crappy, ancient nightstand Jeonghan’s got to their left. “You’re being weird. All—mushy. What’s with that?”

“Distance makes the heart grow fonder,” Jeonghan says. A half joke, a reflex. He lets Joshua shove him back into the pillows, settles himself there with a hand on his cock while Joshua uncaps the lube, hardly wastes any time before he reaches behind himself, lets out the tiniest of satisfied sighs. “What, you didn’t miss me?’

“Hard to sometimes,” Joshua tells him. So quiet, especially so when it’s said on shaky breath, Joshua working himself open carefully, but hardly slow, the way Jeonghan knows he likes it. “You’re—oh.”

Jeonghan hums. “That’s it,” he says, coos, just because it’ll get under Joshua’s skin, and it might not be the way Jeonghan wants to be there, but it’s better than nothing, it’s still him. “I’m what, my love?”

“A goddamn thorn in my side,” Joshua bites out. Jeonghan watches the muscles in his arms and his abdomen flex, forgets Joshua had anything else to say before he continues, “No. I was gonna—you’re everywhere. I can’t miss you when you’re still, still finding ways to make me think of you. You know that.”

Jeonghan hums again. They’re too intertwined, the two of them, even when they’ve been apart for nearly three decades, even when they’re on opposite sides of the country, of the world. Even when they’re not together, they still are, somehow.

Half the furniture in Jeonghan’s apartment was picked out by Joshua. They were both here, in New York, in the beginning. A year or so before they broke everything off. Joshua did the living room, and they compromised on the bedroom, and every time Jeonghan sits on the old, surprisingly intact loveseat, he thinks of every time Joshua sat there with him, kissed him there, held him, nagged him—was together with him.

They’re weaved together in other ways, too. The way Jeonghan has to sleep with the window open, only a crack, because Joshua always did, because when he first turned he never got enough fresh air, wasn’t allowed outside like he is now, so it became a habit, even one for Jeonghan.

There’s the specific brand of humor he has, too. Soonyoung doesn’t get Jeonghan’s jokes, doesn’t laugh at them the way he knows Joshua would. The way he used to.

There’s also the way he trusts, loves, the way he waits every year for this goddamn, singular night, the way he doesn’t try and get out anymore, doesn’t sleep with other people, because he doesn’t care to, because it never feels rewarding, because they’re not Joshua, never will be.

Jeonghan wonders when Joshua thinks of him. He’d never tell him, so he doesn’t ask, but he wonders. Is it when he’s alone, when he’s trying to rest? Joshua never adjusted well enough to truly be left alone. The bite happened and then Jeonghan happened too soon after that, Joshua was still a wreck when Jeonghan met him. Still afraid to be left, to be by himself.

Does it happen when he laughs with his friends? When he scans the room for Jeonghan, tries to find him, to share the moment with him, only to realize he’s not there? Does he think of Jeonghan on his birthday? Joshua was always good with remembering. Always saved the day somehow, someway. Does he think of him if he ever passes through Seoul? Does he even remember that was where Jeonghan’s home was, his first home, the home before Joshua came in and wrecked it, made a new one in himself entirely?

Too intertwined for their own good.

“Ok,” Joshua is saying now, taking in one last breath before he leans forward, kisses Jeonghan with all the pent up fervor again, replaces Jeonghan’s hand on his dick with his own, huge, firm, so Joshua, and pulls away to say against his lips, “want you now.”

Now, and only now. Once a year. All they can manage.

Because if they stay together, if they tried to, it would end the way it did all those years ago, in this apartment, bitter and angry and sad, admittedly devastating, actually; with Jeonghan yelling and Joshua leaving, the way it has to be.

Jeonghan wonders why he couldn’t have just said yes all those years ago. Yes, I’ll come. Yes, we’ll keep moving. Yes, this is forever and forever can be terrible, but I have you, of course I’ll follow you, I’ll always keep following you, yes, yes, yes, I love you.

“Is it living, if we have to always keep moving, keep changing?” Jeonghan had asked him then. Naive. Tired. Scared, scared that if they did keep going, keep finding bigger and better things, that Joshua would find bigger and better, too, bigger and better than Jeonghan. So Jeonghan let him go first. To find bigger and better and not feel tied to him, devoted, attached.

And it isn’t living, is the thing. Moving around, changing your story, changing yourself, right down to every quirk. Permanence is important. A constant. Jeonghan had wanted that, so he got it. A home, here, in his shitty apartment in shitty New York. That’s his constant. The one he chose over Joshua, instead.

(He’s not too certain this is living either, though.)

“Jeonghan-ah,” Joshua says on an exhale. Drawn out, a little whiny. Perfect. Jeonghan’s favorite, always.

“What?” Jeonghan manages. Settles. Joshua is hot around him, tight. He runs a hand up Joshua’s side, finds the base of his neck and squeezes, just a little. Meant to be comforting, maybe. “I’m right here.”

“Fuck me,” Joshua says, mean. He lets his legs fall open to the side more, stretches his torso out, tucking his arms behind his head. Like he doesn’t really care, like he’s bored. Says, however, “I waited all year for this. For you.”

Jeonghan scoffs, his best defense, but listens, slides his hands to Joshua’s biceps now, unfolds them and brings his arms out, slips his hands into Joshua’s. Doesn’t miss the subtle look of surprise that it brings to Joshua’s face instead.

“Did you really wait?” Jeonghan asks. He fucks in slowly, just to test the waters, to tease, just because he likes to see the vaguely irritated stitch it knits into Joshua’s brow. “You and I both know that’s not true, my love. Know what you get up to.”

“You’re not there,” Joshua points out, harsh. The truth. He wrestles one of his hands free, slides it over Jeonghan’s jaw now, thumbs at his cheek. Deceivingly gentle, despite his words. “How would you know anything about what I’m up to, actually?”

“Because I know you,” Jeonghan insists. He snorts out a laugh. “You wouldn’t wait for me. For anything.”

Joshua laughs back, albeit a bit eviler. Tries to laugh, at least, but it gets stuck in the back of his throat with a moan, and Jeonghan kisses him, instead, swallows it down before it can sting.

“Why,” he tries, when Jeonghan pulls away, “you wait—for me?”

Joshua moves his hand now, slides it from the back of Jeonghan’s neck to his chin, holds him there, their eyes locked. He presses into Jeonghan’s bottom lip with his thumb, dragging it down just slightly. Slides it to the corner of his mouth, then, runs the pad of his finger over the sharp edge of Jeonghan’s teeth and puts the slightest pressure.

Jeonghan wants him—all of him, now—gets the primal urge, the need, wants to sink his teeth into him and make him his, keep him his.

“You know me, too,” is all Jeonghan says. Manages to hold himself up long enough that he takes Joshua’s hand away, pins it into the sheets with a loose grip at his wrist, one that Joshua doesn’t fight. “What do you think, hm?”

“I think you’ve been talking too much,” Joshua tells him after a moment. After he’s thought about the answer, thought about Jeonghan really, actually waiting here, waiting for him, alone, always alone. “I told you to fuck me.”

“I am,” Jeonghan says. Laughs again, but just barely. Rolls his hips even slower, deeper. “Taking my time with you, Shua. We only have tonight, don’t we?”

“You’re so—” Joshua doesn’t finish. Jeonghan doesn’t want to hear it, anyway, so he kisses him once more, takes the words out of his mouth and swallows them down, hides them away, stores them somewhere next to the guilt and the obsession and the need, somewhere they don’t have to talk about it.

It’s hot. Messy. Hurts, with the way Joshua bites at his bottom lip, the way his grip tightens around Jeonghan’s forearm, the way he whines, lets out a debauched Jeonghan-ah, baby, that Jeonghan can’t begin to imagine anyone else ever hearing Joshua like that, him ever saying anyone else’s name.

He’s obsessed, still. Always.

Joshua’s on top of him when he speaks again. Holding Jeonghan’s hands to his hips, keeping them there, as if he’s hoping Jeonghan leaves a mark, somehow leaves imprints of his fingertips there. Obsession. Joshua knows about it, too.

“I do miss you.” There it is. Admission, again, for real this time. Jeonghan already knew. He always knows. Intertwined, they are, he said it. “I meant what I said before. Being back in California. It’s—I miss you, Jeonghan.”

“I know,” Jeonghan says. Leans up to mouth at Joshua’s chest, slides a hand around his cock and pumps slowly. Revels in the tiny gasp it draws out of Joshua. “I miss you, too.”

“But if you did,” Joshua says, “if you do, then you’d—you would do something about it.”

“What am I supposed to do?” Jeonghan asks. He bucks his hips up instead, an attempt to descalate, to distract Joshua enough that he drops it again. “We both made our decision.”

“You’re a dick,” Joshua tells him. He laughs, humorless, and then gets a firm grip on Jeonghan’s shoulder, steadying himself. Mumbles, “I hate you, seriously. I hate you, yet I come back here, every—oh, fuck.”

“You come back because you know I’ll still wait for you,” Jeonghan points out, despite himself. Because he needs Joshua to know, to understand. Joshua pushes him back down, hands at Jeonghan’s chest now, right over where a beating heart would be, where it once was. It’d be for him, Jeonghan thinks. If it was still there, if it was still beating, every rhythm would sound exactly like Joshua’s name. “You can leave because you know no matter what, I’ll be here. Isn’t that—that’s worse, Shua? I’ll never not be here.”

“I hate you,” Joshua says again. His hips stutter, and then he sucks in a breath, regains his composure. He leans down to kiss him. “I don’t wanna see you anymore.”

“You said that last time,” Jeonghan says. Mean; but it was mean when Joshua said it, too. Jeonghan thought he actually meant it for a while. He didn’t sleep for weeks. “And yet—”

“Stop talking,” Joshua all but begs, groans, and Jeonghan actually listens for once, feels the weight in his chest and the coil wound up in his gut get tighter, heavier.

He pauses, somehow managing to flip them again so he’s over Joshua once more, doesn’t hold his hands now, but instead holds him by the hips, presses him deep into the mattress like if he holds Joshua there long enough, the indent of him might stay, might be more to remember him by. And Joshua lets him, because he always will. Because he always does.

It’s mean now, angry. It always gets this way in the end. Part of the reason why they don’t work, probably. Because there is nobody Jeonghan has ever known, in all his hundreds of years of being around, that gets under his skin the way Joshua Hong does. No one who knows how to. Who wants to stay there, too.

“Jeonghan.” Joshua again. More breathless now, less uptight, but still bordering on wicked, “I do still sleep with Seungcheolie and Mingyu, for the record.”

Jeonghan winces. Can’t help it. “Yeah, I know,” he says. Forces a laugh out and tries to hide the sigh that follows in the crook of Joshua’s neck, burying it there. “I’m not stupid.”

“Sometimes you are,” Joshua teases him, and then he slides his hand through the back of Jeonghan’s hair, forces eye contact again. Joshua’s eyes are dark, and big, and endless. Evil. Beautiful. All things that are forever. Says now, very carefully, “They don’t get all of me like you do, though.”

Ah. Jeonghan feels it again, then—the urge, the need. Zeroes in on Joshua’s neck, smooth, inviting, delicious—

“Come on,” he says. Moves his hand so he can brush the hair from Jeonghan’s eyes, tucks it behind his ear. He’s being gentle now. Deceptively so. Because he needs it, too. “I’m so close. Would feel so good.”

It would feel good, right now, at this moment, yes. Sinking his teeth into Joshua. Tasting him. Having him, completely. The come down would be hell. Would make it hurt more. Make Jeonghan ache until it feels like his insides are no longer there, until he’s a shell of a person, of a thing, of—of what would be a beating heart, made specifically for Joshua.

“You’re not playing fair,” Jeonghan tells him. He mouths at his neck, gives into the greed that’s starting to build, but he doesn’t sink his teeth in, not yet. Controls himself, somehow. Mumbles into the skin there, “You’re mean.”

“You like me mean,” Joshua says.

I like you always, in any way, Jeonghan does not say. I always have.

“Lucky me, then,” he says instead. He leans up, puts a hand on to the side of Joshua’s neck and digs in with his thumb, slightest pressure where his mouth just was, just to see Joshua whine. He does, like all this really pains him, like he needs Jeonghan to do it or he might die. “You know you’re always mean, by the way.”

It’s a lie, mostly. Jeonghan says it because it’s easier. Because it’ll make Joshua grin, and Jeonghan wants to see that, would do anything to, including letting him leave, setting him free.

“Lucky you, then, indeed,” Joshua says. Somehow smug. Smiles.

Jeonghan leans back down, slides his hand away to replace it with his mouth again. Kisses, licks, moves to the other side and kisses there, too, up his jaw and back down, hot and wet and heavy. And Joshua moans, huffs.

“Either do it or don’t,” Joshua tells him. Tugs at the hair at the back of his head again, much more cruel this time. “I’m so—it hurts, Jeonghan, I want it. Need it.”

Joshua always says he needs it. Jeonghan doesn’t know if he ever means that or if he just knows how to push Jeonghan’s buttons, how to play him. He doesn’t know if Joshua is aware that he’ll give him it, anyway, no matter how he asks, because Jeonghan can’t help it, because Joshua doesn’t even need to say anything for Jeonghan to know what he wants. Obsessed, truly.

“I’m gonna do it,” Jeonghan promises him. Kisses his neck again, sucks the tiniest bit, but not with teeth still. He wants to remember it. Wishes it were special still, wishes it still meant something in the way it used to. “I told you I wanna take my time with you. I don’t get this very often, you. Not like your other boys back home.”

“I told you,” Joshua says, tiny, grinding his hips up to try and get more friction, finish faster, sooner, if Jeonghan won’t be the one to help, “no one else gets all of me except you. I meant it, angel.”

Angel. Joshua used to call him that a lot. Ironic, all things considered. Jeonghan was not, nor ever has been, anything similar. Villages used to chase their kind out with pitchforks and flames and Bibles. But Joshua calls him angel, says it sweetly, always has.

“You’re just as lovely,” Joshua used to say. “Sometimes, I think you saved me. That makes you an angel of some kind, no?”

“Yoon Jeonghan,” Joshua is saying now. More edge in his voice, like his patience is being stretched thin. “I need you, I need more, you have to—”

“Alright, ok, I know,” Jeonghan says. Seceeds. Powerless, always, under the spell of Joshua Hong, at his disposal, giving himself up, waiting around for him, a vessel, crafted by devotion and then patched together with despair.

Because Jeonghan is obsessed. Haunted, consumed, wholly and fully, completely. So he bites. Feels the dopamine and the adrenaline and the ache already settle, sink deep into his bones, make itself a semi-permanent home there.

It always makes Jeonghan feel possessed, this. The closest thing to alive, yet a reminder of forever, of what’s his forever, what’s always been his, what should be. Joshua.

He tastes sweet. Addictive. Jeonghan wishes he could die like this. He’s thought about it before, thought about it every time. The first time they had done it, the first time Joshua asked him to, Jeonghan thought he did die. It was like Joshua was everywhere, clouded every part of his senses. He didn’t know anything could feel so good, didn’t know he could feel at all again, not while he was like this, dead, not dead, a vampire, whatever.

Maybe that’s why he’s obsessed with Joshua. Why he’s always chasing him. He’s devoted to chasing the high. Committed to it. Loves it.

“Jeonghan, baby, oh, my god—”

Joshua finishes like that, with Jeonghan’s teeth still sunk into his skin, ecstasy running through his veins. And Jeonghan’s not far behind, always chasing him, comes as he finally removes his mouth, licks over the puncture in Joshua’s skin, hips stuttering as he fills him up, wishes for a sick moment that it could stay, all of it, the bite mark on his neck that’ll heal before the night ends, and the come inside him making him Jeonghan’s, and Joshua, here—wishes it would last, if not forever then at least a little while longer.

Jeonghan kisses the corner of Joshua’s mouth before he pulls out. Because he knows there are some things that are not forever. Things like this, like Joshua here.

He rolls to the other side of the bed, settles, sighs. Pretends he doesn’t feel his entire being aching for Joshua still, to pull him close, to hold him for longer, for forever.

Joshua leans over and kisses him again. More purpose this time, directly on his lips. Sweet, though, much gentler than he had been the rest of the night.

Thank you, the kiss says.

I wish you wouldn’t have to leave, Jeonghan’s says back.

But they do not say it out loud, they wouldn’t.

* * *

Jeonghan’s on the fire escape with another cigarette by the time Joshua emerges from his bathroom, scrubbed clean enough for now, but Jeonghan can still see traces of himself on Joshua, like the tiny bite mark in the side of his neck that’s already halfway to healing, or the tiny, irritated, crescent moon indentations of Jeonghan’s nails on his hips, littered around the waistband of his pants. Things that will fade eventually. Things that are not forever.

“You still haven’t fixed the sink,” Joshua says. He’s smiling, plops himself in the empty space across from Jeonghan, folding his legs against his chest to mirror Jeonghan’s position. “The faucet turns the wrong way. It’s been like that for years.”

Jeonghan hums. “I have forever to fix it,” he says, an excuse. He takes a drag of his cigarette, exhales out towards the city, away from Joshua, just because he doesn’t feel like hearing him complain. “I’ll get to it.”

“It’s dangerous when you start reminding yourself that you actually have forever,” Joshua says slowly. A bit primly.

“It’s not a reminder if it’s all I think about, all the fucking time.”

Joshua huffs now, irritated, or maybe he’s—annoyed again or hurt, something. “This is why I hate leaving you,” he says. His voice is quiet, but he doesn’t stutter, says it like he means it. Which makes it hurt even more than anything cruel he’s ever said, any fuck off, I hate you, I never wanna see you again.

“So stay,” Jeonghan says, shrugging, giving him a lopsided smile that Joshua does not return, frowns back instead. Jeonghan schools his own expression, taking another drag. “That was a joke, darling.”

“Are you happy, Jeonghan-ah?” Joshua asks next. His eyebrows furrow, like he’s trying to really see Jeonghan, take a good, deep look at him. See past all the bullshit and the walls and the lies and figure him out.

As if Joshua has ever had to try to figure him out, anyway. As if Jeonghan could hide anything from him. As if he doesn’t walk around with his heart on his sleeve, the heart that would wholly and completely belong to Joshua, if he still had one left to give.

“I’m fine,” Jeonghan says. Not convincing. He shrugs again.

Content, sure. Happy—maybe. He’s happy when he gets to see Joshua. When he hears from him when he finally figures out how to open his goddamn text messages, or when Soonyoung hears something about him from Junhui, sure. He’s happy then. He’s content the rest of the time. Existing. Here. Just fine.

“I didn’t ask if you were fine.”

“Yeah, well,” Jeonghan waves his hand around, vague, and Joshua scrunches his nose up when the smoke gets too close to him, prissy. “I’m alive. Isn’t that enough right now?”

“We’re not alive, is the thing,” Joshua says. The obvious. He laughs at himself, just a little, and he leans forward, smoke be damned, apparently. “You know I only ever really felt alive with you.”

“I know,” Jeonghan mumbles. He looks away, if only because Joshua’s eyes are too honest like this, too beautiful, too dangerous. “I get it.”

“When I left,” Joshua starts, one of his hands slowly sliding up Jeonghan’s bare calf, just holding, gentle, “I thought—for a little while, at least—that you might come after me. That you needed me like I needed you.”

“Shua—”

“I loved you,” Joshua says. His nails dig into Jeonghan’s leg, the slightest bit of pressure. Loved—past tense. Different now, maybe. “I was a fucking dick without you. For a long time. No one wanted to be around me. It was like—like I was missing a whole other half of me. The better half, maybe.”

“I know,” Jeonghan repeats, because trust him, he does know, he still knows, he sits around and mopes and rots and secretly wishes Joshua misses the East Coast, secretly wishes he’d try out New York again, bridge the distance between them so Jeonghan could have a little more time with him, more than just a night and a bed and terse conversation, but happiness, at least for a little.

“But then I thought—oh. He loved me so much that he had to let me go. I had to learn to live by myself. Learn to live without him, maybe just for a while. Temporary. He loved me so much he wanted me to be happy. Learn how to be happy on my own.”

“I did,” Jeonghan says. His cigarette’s nearly dead now, fizzled out into nothing. “I do.”

“But it’s still not temporary, because I still can’t learn, because I can’t—fucking move on, Jeonghan,” Joshua finishes. He slides his hand down to Jeonghan’s ankle, thumbs over the bone there. “It’s been twenty-something years, and I meet people, and I see things, and I live, but you’re not there, you’re here, alone, sad—”

“I’m not sad, I have Soonyoungie, and—”

“I hate you,” Joshua ignores him. “I hate you because you’re always just around, yet you’re not actually with me. I miss you, and yet it’s impossible to miss you because I can’t do anything without thinking of you. Without wanting you. So I come here, every year, and I hope, I hope you’ll tell me to finally fuck off, that you’ve found someone else, that you’re finally happy, but instead, you’re stuck—”

“I’m not stuck,” Jeonghan argues. “I’ve told you, I made my choice the same way you did. You wanted to go, and I want—”

“I wanted to go with you,” Joshua huffs. He pulls away from Jeonghan entirely, slumping against the metal of the fire escape instead. The sky’s getting lighter now, dawn somewhere in the distance, but it’s still dark enough for now, for Joshua to stay here just a little longer. “Always with you. No matter—how many lifetimes I live, I’m always gonna be the same terrified, naive boy I was when I met you. Yours. Ruined.”

“I’m sorry,” Jeonghan says after a minute. Because he doesn’t know what else to say. Because Joshua is never this genuine, he does not dwell on the past, but forever can get tiring, and all they have is time, and so much can change when it passes, even if it passes forever.

He drops his cigarette into the ashtray balanced next to him. Watches it die completely. Then, honestly, because Jeonghan can lie to himself but he cannot lie to Joshua, “You know I still love you.”

“Of course I know,” Joshua mumbles. Not surprised, doesn’t even sound pained, or upset. Acceptance. He does not say it back, but Jeonghan does not think he needs to. “You wouldn’t ever let me come back here if you didn’t. You’re too prideful, otherwise.”

Jeonghan hums. “So I guess I’ll see you next year, huh?”

Joshua sighs, rolling his wrists out towards the brightening sky, stretching, before he leans forward again, holds Jeonghan by the chin and just looks at him for a second, like it’ll be the last time, the last time for a while at least, a year.

He kisses him once. Sweet.

I’m sorry, I hate you, I can’t live without you.

Jeonghan kisses him back, just as slow. The tiniest bit of tongue, and even though he knows Joshua hates the taste of the nicotine there, he still takes it anyway.

I’m sorry, I love you, I can’t live without you.

Because the difference between obsession and devotion, given the right person, is slim to nothing. Jeonghan has always loved Joshua, no matter what he told himself, what he tried to convince himself. The basis was always the same. A need, a desire, a force of gravity, pulling them to each other, despite everything. Obsession or devotion. Beautiful or haunting or gentle or angry. Unable to be broken. Forever. Love is all of that, maybe.

“Yeah,” Joshua says when they pull apart. He taps at Jeonghan’s chin with his finger. Smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes, not in the way that shows he’s happy, the way Jeonghan used to know him. “Next year.”

And the year after that, too, probably. And the next one. And again, and again, and again.

Forever. How haunting.