Chapter Text
The courtyard still smoldered.
Marble cracked. Fountain still frozen. The air held that strange weight after divine combat, like time hadn’t quite caught up yet. The birds were silent and even the wind was careful.
But they had survived.
And Jeonghan, sitting cross-legged on the broken stones, looked more at peace than either god or demon had ever seen him.
“You didn’t just defend me.” He said, voice warm, even amused. “You protected yourselves.”
Hongjoong, crouched beside him, scowled. “Didn’t feel like it. My shoulder’s shredded.”
“Can’t breathe through one side of my nose, nor feel half of my face.” Jiyong added helpfully, lying flat beside Jeonghan like a cat in sun.
Jeonghan giggled.
They both turned to him, startled.
He laughed again, lighter this time. “Sorry. I just… you’re so powerful. Terrifying, even. And yet...”
“We’re broken?” Hongjoong offered.
“Adorably bad at healing.” Jeonghan finished. “Yes.”
Jiyong rolled his eyes. “Then teach us, oh radiant one.”
And he was more than happy to do so.
Jeonghan started by holding out his palms.
He let what little light he had left bloom slow and soft, not like the kiss that had scorched Heaven but gentler, focused.
“Your power,” he said, “is wild because it was given through love. That means it listens. Not to your commands, but to your feelings.”
He took Jiyong’s hand first.
“You feel love, and it burns,” he whispered, pressing their hands together. “But love also soothes. Focus on that.”
Jiyong closed his eyes and lets the silver beneath his skin shift. He imagined warmth, fingers in his hair, and a voice calling his name.
Jeonghan.
A glow stirred between their joined hands, as the ache in his ribs faded.
Jeonghan smiled.
Hongjoong was next.
He was fidgety, nervous, not used to soft things.
“Just try.” Jeonghan encouraged. “Feel the way light travels through breath. Inhale. Let it gather in your chest. Exhale. Let it go where it’s needed.”
“Easier said than done.” Hongjoong muttered but still, he tried.
He breathed.
He thought of Jeonghan laughing in the garden, of Jiyong singing softly in the hallway. He thought of peace.
And when he exhaled, the split skin on his shoulder stitched back together, slow and glowing gold.
“Whoa.” He breathed as he stared in amazement.
Jeonghan clapped his hands. “See? You can be gentle.”
Hongjoong turned red.
“Now,” Jeonghan said, shifting to sit between them, “you heal me.”
They both blinked.
“No.” said Jiyong.
“I’ll break you more." Hongjoong added.
“You won’t.” Jeonghan said simply. “I trust you.”
And that word hit harder than any celestial blade ever had.
Trust.
Jeonghan took each of their hands; one in his right, one in his left, and closed his eyes.
“You love me.” He said softly. “So let that be your light.”
He guided them, slowly. Fingers brushing ribs. Palms over bruises. Lips pressed to his brow.
Not for passion, but for healing.
And when their light bloomed over his wounds, warm and brilliant, Jeonghan sighed.
Not from pain but relief.
They sat together for hours afterwards. Jiyong’s head in Jeonghan’s lap and Hongjoong’s fingers laced with his.
No more sparks. No more weapons.
Just touch, laughter, and warmth.
“I think,” Jeonghan whispered, “if we keep practicing… you’ll be able to heal others, too.”
“I don’t want to heal anyone else.” Hongjoong muttered. “Just you.”
“Same.” Jiyong hummed. “No offense to the world.”
Jeonghan smiled.
Maybe Heaven would come again.
Maybe the celestials would grow bolder.
But for now?
They had each other.
And now, they had healing.
There were no storms.
No flash of trumpets or blazing swords.
Just silence, thick and absolute, the kind that comes before war, or heartbreak, or both.
Jeonghan was smiling.
That was the cruelest part.
They were in the courtyard again, Jeonghan sitting between them, small and soft and so utterly his own, gently brushing Jiyong’s silver-streaked hair back, running a thumb across Hongjoong’s knuckles where his skin had split earlier and healed now with light.
“It’s strange.” Jeonghan said softly. “I never imagined peace could feel this warm.”
And then he vanished.
No warning.
No flare.
Just gone.
Jiyong didn’t scream.
Hongjoong didn’t cry.
They froze because they knew who took him.
The ground beneath them cracked, deep and trembling. The light Jeonghan had taught them to wield flared to the surface of their skin, wild and unruly again.
Not because they didn’t know how to control it but because grief is uncontrollable, because love denied is a blade to the gut.
And somewhere, impossibly high above, Heaven shuddered.
They tried to follow, of course they did.
Hongjoong burned through every realm gate in the city, clawing at gold-threaded wards with fire-stained hands.
Jiyong shattered veils with a thought, tore down barriers with songs that hadn’t been sung since he’d been worshipped.
But Heaven was no longer letting them in.
It had seen their hands, had seen the glow that threaded between them and the angel who had chosen them.
It saw why they learned to heal, who they try to give divinity back to and Heaven, in its great unfeeling glory, took. Because it always did.
They met again where the sky meets the edge of the city, where clouds dip low and stars hide behind smoke.
Jiyong was already waiting, hair windswept, shoulders trembling with a fury that made the world twitch.
“They took him.” He said, voice low.
“I know.”
“He didn’t resist.” Jiyong continued, laughing a little, bitter. “He smiled. Like he didn’t want us to see him fight.”
Hongjoong’s hands curled into fists.
“He knew it would hurt us more.”
Jiyong turned to face him.
“And you know what happens now.”
Hongjoong nodded. “We burn it.”
“All of it.”
Heaven had remembered how they fell once.
What it hadn’t expected, was them falling together.
They didn’t plan it like a war. It was more like a promise.
A thread of knowing that passed between them in a glance, in a breath.
Jeonghan had taught them how to channel divinity through fingertips.
Now they wove it into weapons.
Not sharp ones.
No, this was worse.
They brought light.
They brought hope.
They made Heaven afraid.
Because for the first time in eons, the divine wasn't something to fear, or hoard.
It was something to love, and it was loving them back.
“He’ll think we’re stupid.” Hongjoong muttered.
“He’ll say we’re reckless.” Jiyong added.
They shared a look.
“Let’s go.”
And then, they rose.
Together.
Not as demon and fallen god, but as two beings who had been loved so deeply, they would unmake creation just to reach back.
And the skies split, the stars dimmed as Heaven trembled, because the sound of their fury was not rage.
It was grief.
It was love.
It was Jeonghan’s name.