Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He did not fall.

Angels do not fall.

They descend.

Gracefully, precisely, as if pulled downward by command alone. There was no thunder in Jeonghan’s arrival. No flash of blinding light. Just a hush that rolled over the city at midnight, too subtle to be noticed. The kind of hush that silences a room the moment someone holy walks in. Or when something old and terrible wakes up.

He stepped lightly onto the rooftop of a church that no longer prayed.

A soft click of bare soles on crumbling stone.

He was clothed in white.

Not the stark white of dogma, but the kind that shimmered faintly with opal hues, as if sewn from memory and miracle. His hair fell to his waist, unbound. His wings, for now, were invisible, folded somewhere between form and divinity.

He blinked slowly at the skyline before him as it pulsed not with life but with want.

He could taste it in the smog. Hear it in the late-night scream of tires. Feel it thrumming beneath the soles of his feet.

Sin, they called it.

The city was full of it.

That’s why he was here.

Not to purge.

Not to redeem.

He was here to judge.

“This assignment is not punishment.” the Elders had said. “But it is dangerous. You are untouched. You must remain so.”

He remembered their expressions; carved in light, mouths firm with worry. Not doubt, never doubt; there was no such thing in the realm above but there was concern, like a thread pulled taut. Like they were sending him somewhere they would never dare go themselves.

Jeonghan hadn’t spoken. He didn’t need to. His silence had always been obedience enough.

Still, they’d warned him.

“There are two.”

“Two beings whose presence warps the city’s balance. Together, they keep the rot alive.”

“The demon prince. And the fallen god.”

He had not asked for names.

He never did.

What mattered were roles, not titles.

One brought temptation. The other brought grief.

He was to avoid them both.

He was not to speak with them, not to look at them, not to be seen by them.

Above all, he was not to be touched.

“You are pure.” they reminded him. “You carry judgment in your hands. If your skin is corrupted, you risk losing your purpose.”

Jeonghan had nodded.

He understood.

He thought he did.

The city did not sleep.

Not truly.

It thrummed like a beast on its back, belly exposed, glutted on its own hunger. From above, Jeonghan watched the lights flicker in patterns both beautiful and senseless. Traffic surged like veins. Music pulsed through the buildings, the bassline a constant heartbeat of indulgence.

He had seen cities before but not like this one.

This one felt aware.

As if the whole place breathed.

As if it watched him.

He wandered.

He did not fly. His wings remained hidden, weightless against his back. To walk was to be among them. To judge, he had to see them as they were.

And they saw him.

Not for what he was, not yet, but they definitely felt something.

The first alley he stepped into silenced itself.

No one told the girl with red lips to stop laughing. No one motioned to the man pressing her against the brick to step back but they did. Slowly, like waking from a fog. They turned to Jeonghan as if he were the sun rising at the wrong hour.

His robes stayed spotless, though mud licked the hems.

The man stumbled backward. The girl’s lipstick smeared as she wiped her mouth, unthinking.

Jeonghan said nothing.

He simply passed.

He learned the sounds of the city quickly.

Glass breaking, not always from violence.

Laughter, not always from joy.

He learned that neon was used to advertise sin, not hide it. He watched as fire escapes were used for fleeing lovers, not flames; as alleyways could be chapels.

He saw hotel rooms were often confessional booths.

And still, he kept walking.

By the fourth night, he knew the city’s breath pattern. He knew where the tremble of bass grew thickest at midnight, knew where the lights were always broken, flickering like warnings, and knew which bridges held grief in their rails.

But he still did not know the two they had warned him about.

He felt them, though.

In the corners of rooms that went suddenly silent.

In the beat of a song that lingered just a note too long.

In the scent of ash and incense that curled under doors he could not open.

They were watching him.

Not openly.

Not yet.

But he knew.

The untouched always know.

On the sixth night, he came to a cathedral stripped of its saints.

No steeple. No cross. Only bones of old belief and a single rose window shattered in the shape of a screaming face.

The door had long since rotted, Jeonghan stepped inside anyway.

Dust did not cling to him.

Even the cobwebs let go.

Inside, the silence was heavy, not peaceful but accusing.

He walked the aisle where worship had died, robes trailing behind him like fog. The altar was cracked. A single candle lay broken on the floor, wax hardened like a tear.

Behind the altar, a mural half-covered in graffiti still showed traces of wings.

Not white.

Black.

Soot-streaked.

Burned.

The paint had run, as if crying.

Jeonghan reached out, and did not touch.

He would not touch anything here.

Not yet.

He didn't sleep much, not because he was not tired, but because sleep did not come easily to those who carried judgment.

His dreams were not dreams.

They were echoes; of voices not yet heard, of names not yet spoken, of lips whispering prayers into the crook of a neck.

He awoke once to the sound of weeping, only to find no one there, only the moon.

And a single black feather on the windowsill.

It disappeared before he could pick it up.

By the tenth day, he knew the city would not cleanse.

He had seen too much.

A mother trading the last of her warmth for powdered sin.

A child holding his breath as fists landed outside his door.

A man laughing with no sound, his mouth full of blood and memory.

And yet, Jeonghan hesitated, not in judgement but in certainty.

Because in the same breath, he had seen; a stranger feeding a cat with hands that trembled, a woman dancing barefoot in the rain just to feel something again, and finally a boy, not more than fifteen, returning a lost wallet with all the bills untouched.

The city sinned, but it also ached.

And Jeonghan could not yet tell if they were the same thing.

He remembered the final warning the Elders gave him.

“They will not look like monsters.”

“They will not tempt you with teeth and flame.”

“They will speak kindly. They will smile.”

“Do not let them.”

He remembered nodding.

He remembered believing it would be easy.

He had not known how lonely the city would be.

He had not known how quiet it could get, when no one dared speak to him for more than a moment. When every human gaze slid off him like oil. When no voice stayed long in his ear, except his own.

He began speaking to himself.

Softly.

Only in the mornings.

Only to hear something familiar.

He saw his reflection in a storefront once.

His robes were duller now. Not stained, not yet... but dimmed.

He still looked untouched, but he did not feel untouched.

Not anymore.

On the twelfth night, the wind changed.

It carried heat, the scent of burning sugar, qnd something older.

Jeonghan turned a corner, and the air hummed; not loud but enough.

Enough to know someone had just been there.

Someone powerful.

He stepped forward.

The ground felt warmer.

The wall beside him shimmered faintly, as if breath had just fogged it. He reached out a hand and stopped. A fingerprint glowed, faint and golden, on the glass.

He stared at it before it vanished and he kept walking.

He passed a club whose windows were blacked out completely.

The line outside was long.

No one spoke.

They simply watched the door like worshipers at temple.

Jeonghan kept his distance but his heart, it beat a little faster; just once.

As if something inside had recognized something.

As if someone behind that door had looked back.

He walked past without knocking, not yet.

At dawn, he returned to the rooftop where he’d first arrived.

The city stretched below him like an open wound, or an invitation, he did not know which.

He folded his hands behind him, the wind catching his hair, and whispered the question he had not dared speak aloud until now.

“Who do I become… if I stay?”

The city did not answer but somewhere far below two very old beings opened their eyes and smiled.

Chapter Text

There were parts of the city Jeonghan had not yet touched, not because he was forbidden but because the city itself seemed to move him around them.

Streets bent oddly in those hours past midnight. Stairwells that once led up now led down. The subway flickered into dead ends when he tried to trace the heat blooming in his bones; those strange pulses of presence, of power, of someone watching.

The city did not want him there or it wanted him very badly, and was playing coy.

He could no longer tell and he had stopped trying to interpret it.

Angels were not meant to second-guess the divine but Jeonghan was beginning to wonder if he even remembered what divinity looked like anymore.

On the fifteenth day, the rain returned.

It was warm this time. Lazy. It dripped from rusted fire escapes like melted wax and puddled in sidewalk cracks, turning gutters into glistening streams of cigarette butts and ash.

He had walked without purpose for hours.

He was good at that now, wandering. Observing. He told himself that watching was still working, that the act of being present among sin was enough to judge it but something restless scratched under his skin now.

As if judgment wasn’t enough.

As if watching without touching was starting to hurt.

He turned a corner with no destination in mind and froze.

There are certain moments the world seems to pause.

Not with drama, not with noise, but with something much quieter.

Recognition.

Jeonghan did not know him by name but he knew him.

He was small, slight, with hair dyed the deep, artificial red of stoplights and danger. He sat perched on a crumbling stone wall, legs crossed like he was balancing on a throne only he could see. His clothes were black and sharp-angled, wet from the rain but seemingly unaware. He wasn’t shivering. He wasn’t moving.

He was simply waiting.

For Jeonghan.

Their eyes met and Jeonghan’s breath caught.

Not because he felt fear but because, for the first time since he arrived, he felt seen.

Not glanced at.

Known.

The man smiled and Jeonghan’s chest tightened.

“You don’t look lost.” the man said, voice light and oddly melodic, like mischief hiding behind a piano.

Jeonghan did not answer.

The man uncrossed his legs, hopping down from the wall in a slow, practiced motion. His boots landed in the water with a splash, but he didn’t flinch.

Up close, he was... young. Too young.

But his eyes, they were ancient.

Black and shining, with pinpricks of crimson at the center. Not glowing. Worse.

Smoldering.

“I thought you’d be taller.” the man added, tilting his head. “Not that I mind. You’re prettier this way.”

Jeonghan inhaled slowly.

“You know what I am.”

“Oh, sweetheart.” The man grinned. “We all do.”

He stepped closer but Jeonghan did not move.

The warnings echoed in his skull, loud and sudden and sharp.

“Do not let them speak to you.”

“Do not look too long.”

“They will not tempt you with evil. They will tempt you with kindness.”

But the man wasn’t kind.

Not yet.

He was curious.

Jeonghan could feel the weight of his attention, precise and cutting. It stripped him faster than hands could. As if the man could already see the doubt building in his ribs. Could smell the ash under his tongue.

“I’m Hongjoong,” he said simply. “Though I think you already knew that.”

“…You’re the demon prince.”

Hongjoong pouted. “That’s so formal. ‘Prince’ is outdated, don’t you think? I’m more of a… curator these days.”

“Of what?”

Hongjoong’s smile widened. “Pleasure. Chaos. Survival.”

He circled slowly, boots hissing in the wet as he moved.

“And what’s your name, little judge?”

Jeonghan said nothing.

“Ah.” Hongjoong murmured, stopping behind him. “Still pretending you’re above names.”

“I’m not here to play games.”

“Are you here to save us?”

“I’m here to observe you.”

Hongjoong chuckled lowly. “Even worse.”

They stood in silence, rain falling gentle around them.

Jeonghan could feel the warmth of him, wrong warmth. Not sunlight, but furnace. Not comfort, but invitation.

Still, he didn’t step away.

Hongjoong moved beside him again, folding his hands in his pockets as if they were old friends bumping into each other on a slow morning.

“I thought you’d smell like flowers.” he said, glancing at Jeonghan sidelong. “But you don’t. You smell like air before lightning.”

Jeonghan frowned. “That’s meaningless.”

“It’s honest.”

He paused.

“Do you want to know what the others smell like?”

“No.”

“They do,” Hongjoong said, tapping the side of his head. “smell like flowers, I mean. The few that come down. Lilies, jasmine, something soft and smug.”

“And me?”

“You smell like the part of a storm that doesn’t know if it’ll become a disaster.”

Jeonghan turned toward him then, slowly. “Is that supposed to scare me?”

Hongjoong leaned in just slightly, just enough. “Nothing about you scares me.”

It wasn’t an insult, that was what made it so dangerous.

Hongjoong wasn’t taunting him. He was studying him, trying to understand him.

Like a musician reading new sheet music. Like a beast smelling blood it didn’t yet crave.

Jeonghan’s voice was steady when he said, “I was warned about you.”

“Of course you were.” Hongjoong replied. “They always warn the prettiest ones.”

Jeonghan flinched, just slightly.

Hongjoong caught it.

“Ah.” he said, softly. “So they sent you untouched.”

Jeonghan took a step back.

“I’m not here for you.”

“Oh, baby.” Hongjoong laughed; gently, not mockingly. “But I think you are.”

The wind shifted, not naturally. Jeonghan felt it bend.

A change in the rhythm of the city.

Hongjoong noticed it too. He stilled.

For a moment, he looked almost… reverent.

“You feel that?” he asked. “That’s him.”

Jeonghan went cold.

“Who?”

Hongjoong smiled, slow and sure. “The other half of the problem.”

The fallen god.

“He won’t come just yet.” Hongjoong said, as if discussing an old friend. “He likes to arrive when things get messy.”

He turned to Jeonghan again, all amusement gone. Just focus now. Just silence.

“He’s more dangerous than me, you know.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

“No.” Hongjoong said softly. “You won’t.”

The rain stopped all at once.

Abrupt. Wrong. Like a hand closing over a throat.

Hongjoong sighed and looked upward. “Ah. The city’s getting nervous.”

“Because I’m here?”

“No. Because I am.” He grinned. “And you’re still standing in front of me.”

Jeonghan took a step back.

Hongjoong didn’t follow.

“You think staying clean means staying untouched,” he said. “but it’s not that easy.”

Jeonghan’s hands tightened at his sides.

“You don’t tempt me.”

“Not yet.” Hongjoong said. “I’m not here to tempt. I’m here to witness. Just like you.”

Jeonghan’s brows furrowed. “…Why?”

“Because when you fall,” Hongjoong whispered, “it’s going to be beautiful.”

Jeonghan turned sharply but not before seeing it, the flash of something in Hongjoong’s eyes; not malice, not desire.

Recognition.

Like they’d done this before.

Like this wasn’t the first time Jeonghan had walked into this city, bare-footed and doomed.

He did not fly home that night.

He walked.

Carefully.

Silently.

His feet were wet. His hem soaked.

And behind him, the city felt warmer than before.

Not welcoming.

Just waiting.

When he reached the rooftop where he first descended, he stood for a long time with his arms crossed behind his back.

He thought of the warnings.

He thought of the smile.

He thought of the way Hongjoong never touched him, not even once.

He didn’t need to, not yet.

Jeonghan didn’t sleep.

Instead, he sat at the edge of the building, legs swinging over the abyss, eyes on the skyline. A thousand buildings blinked back at him.

None of them felt like Heaven.

He pressed his fingers to his mouth, thoughtfully.

Not shaking, but not calm.

And far below, somewhere deeper in the city’s belly, something laughed.

Chapter Text

It was an accident, that’s what Jeonghan told himself later.

He hadn’t meant to walk this way. The city was vast, winding, wild with chaos. Streets changed like moods. Buildings rose and sank as if breathing.

But somehow, Jeonghan ended up in front of it.

A temple that no longer worshipped, or perhaps, one that had never truly stopped.

It crouched low between the cracked teeth of skyscrapers, obscured by ivy and age, as if the city had tried to bury it. A building without signage. No worshippers. No cross or crescent or scripture.

But something pulsed inside.

Old.

Sacred.

Ruined.

Jeonghan stood before the door for a long time. His fingers twitched once at his side.

He should leave.

He would not.

Inside, it was colder than outside not from temperature, but from time.

This was a place that had been forgotten, and yet, it remembered him.

The doors groaned shut behind him. No breeze. No wind.

Just silence and the echo of dust shifting.

There was no altar here.

Only a floor layered in cracked marble, shards of mirror, and something once divine.

Jeonghan stepped over a fallen beam, careful not to touch it.

The air shimmered faintly. Gold dust caught in a sunbeam, unmoving.

He reached the center of the space and stopped.

Someone was already there.

The man sat cross-legged on the floor, back to the wall, head tilted as if he’d been listening long before Jeonghan entered.

He wore black slacks and a shirt unbuttoned at the collar, sleeves rolled to his elbows. Gold rings adorned his fingers like prayers. There was ash smudged beneath his eyes, but not from weariness, from memory.

His shoes were off and his posture relaxed, like he had been waiting.

“I thought angels didn’t get lost.” he said without looking up.

Jeonghan’s breath caught, so did the city.

He stepped back, instinctive.

The man looked up with eyes like burnt gold.

Soft. Infinite.

Wrong.

“Don’t go.” the man said gently.

And Jeonghan, terrifyingly, didn’t.

He recognized him before the name ever fell from the man’s lips.

The presence was unmistakable. Not heat, like Hongjoong. Not cold, either.

But gravity.

A pull, not a push.

Like the space around him curved inward, the way voids collapse stars.

“You’re him.” Jeonghan said softly.

The man smiled, not with teeth but with melancholy.

“I used to be.” He said.

Jeonghan swallowed. “You were a god.”

“Fell harder than most.” He replied, brushing a speck of dust from his knee. “Hard enough to remember what it felt like.”

Jeonghan dared to take one step closer.

“You don’t look like one.”

“I know.” A flicker of sadness in his smile. “Neither do you.”

They stood in silence.

The broken temple moaned quietly as wind shifted through its bones.

Jeonghan did not move closer but he did not flee.

“Jiyong.” The man said, as if to himself. “They still whisper it like a warning, don’t they?”

“…Yes.”

“Good.”

He leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes.

“You’re early.”

Jeonghan frowned. “What?”

“They always send someone eventually but I thought I had more time.”

“I wasn’t sent for you.”

Jiyong opened one eye.

“Liar.”

Jeonghan bristled and his hands curled at his sides. “I am here to observe. To judge.”

“You’ve already failed, then.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re listening." Jiyong said, eyes glowing faintly. “You’re asking questions. You’re staying.”

“I haven’t touched anything.”

“You don’t need to.” He murmured. “Judgment doesn’t require contact. Only closeness.”

Jeonghan stepped back.

Jiyong sighed. “Too late.”

A shard of mirror on the ground caught the light, reflecting the ceiling’s mural, barely visible under soot and ruin. Once, it might have been Heaven.

Now it was only memory.

“I remember you.” Jiyong said suddenly.

Jeonghan blinked. “What?”

The fallen god tilted his head. “You came before. Different form, maybe. Same light. Same eyes.”

“I haven’t...”

“You wouldn’t remember.” Jiyong’s voice was soft now. “They wiped it. Of course they did. They always do. But you walked through this city once before. You judged it. You burned.”

Jeonghan’s throat tightened. “No.”

“You did.” Jiyong whispered. “And then you begged them to send you back.”

The world tilted, only slightly.

Jeonghan didn’t show it, but Jiyong saw anyway.

He stood then, slow and deliberate.

No rush. No threat.

He was taller than Jeonghan expected. Slender. Worn.

But beautiful in the way dying stars were.

The kind of beautiful that ached.

He walked forward.

Stopped just out of reach.

“Why do they always send the softest ones?” he asked. “The ones that still feel things?”

“I don’t feel.”

“You do. You’re not cold. You’re not cruel. You still care.”

He leaned in, close enough that Jeonghan could feel the hum in the air.

“And they hate that.”

Jeonghan forced himself to speak.

“You were one of us.”

“I was.” Jiyong said. “And then I loved something more than I loved obedience.”

He smiled.

“It was worth it.”

“Love is not reason to fall.”

“No. But it’s reason to stay down.”

They watched each other.

No movement. No breath wasted.

The silence between them stretched until Jeonghan whispered, “Why are you here?”

Jiyong tilted his head.

“Because this city doesn’t need gods. It needs witnesses.”

“You’ve given up.”

“No.” he said. “I’ve settled in.”

Jeonghan’s robes shimmered faintly in the light but something in them had dulled.

He was starting to match the city. Too slow to notice. Too afraid to admit it.

Jiyong stepped beside him, their shoulders almost brushing.

He didn’t reach for Jeonghan, didn’t touch, but his voice came soft.

“You’re lonelier than you expected.”

Jeonghan flinched.

“You didn’t think judgment would mean isolation. But it does. It always does.”

“You don’t know me.”

“I know the shape of a cage.” Jiyong said. “Even when it’s made of light.”

The mirrors trembled faintly.

Jeonghan stepped back.

Jiyong didn’t follow.

“You’ll see him soon.” he said.

“…Hongjoong?”

Jiyong nodded. “He’ll smile at you like sin wrapped in satin.”

“I’ve already met him.”

“Oh.” Jiyong’s smile flickered. “Then it’s already too late.”

Jeonghan didn’t leave right away.

He stood in the ruined temple long after Jiyong had sat back down.

The fallen god didn’t speak again.

He simply watched the angel in silence.

As if waiting.

Not for Jeonghan to fall, but for him to choose.

When Jeonghan finally stepped outside, the city had changed.

The streets were slick again. The wind was warm.

He looked up and in a high window, very far away, someone stood watching him.

Red hair.

A crooked smile.

And just beside him, the shimmer of gold eyes.

He didn’t fly home that night either.

He dreamed again but this time, it wasn’t light.

It was ash and two hands reaching toward him... but not touching.

Not yet.

Chapter Text

He hadn’t spoken to Heaven in nineteen days.

That wasn’t unusual, well not at first. Angels were often sent on assignments where silence was expected, necessary. The Upper Choirs respected observation. They called it restraint.

But Jeonghan had always reported early.

Brief flickers of thought, soft prayers flicked skyward like feathers in wind. Not confessions. Not doubt.

Just presence.

And now, there was only quiet.

It wasn’t until the twentieth day that Heaven whispered back.

It was not a voice.

It was light.

He was standing in an empty stairwell when it happened.

Just past dusk. The city was humming. The kind of evening where sin came out in sequins and fur coats, where lipstick bled into wine glasses and streetlamps flickered just a little too long.

He’d stopped for a moment to press his fingers against a glass window. Something about the way the steam from a ramen shop curled up the glass fascinated him.

Then it struck, not with sound, not with force but with the absence of both.

A single streak of white light showed, thin and perfect.

Slicing down the center of the stairwell like a thread being pulled through the seams of the world.

Jeonghan blinked and for a moment, he couldn’t see the city anymore.

Just a wash of gold. Familiar. Choking.

Home.

The light pulsed once and then, words.

They weren't spoken aloud. They weren't carved into the air.

They came as thoughts, delivered with the force of commandments.

“You are behind schedule.”

He took a step back. The stairwell remained unchanged but the world was quieter.

The air, thinner.

“You were sent to judge.”

He exhaled slowly.

“I am.”

“You have not yet returned.”

“I haven’t finished.”

“You linger.”

There was no accusation in the tone. There didn’t need to be.

His hands trembled at his sides.

He hadn’t noticed until now. They were cold.

Cold, in a way they hadn’t been since he first arrived.

His feet were on the ground, but his grace, the divine thread that tethered him, had stretched thin.

He could feel it now. It was pulling, tugging gently at the back of his ribs.

A reminder.

A leash.

That night, the city didn’t shimmer the same.

The lights seemed duller. The music, hollow.

He wandered not in curiosity, but in silence.

Each step felt like walking away from something, and toward something else entirely.

Jeonghan didn’t sleep instead he stood on the rooftop where he first arrived with his arms, as always, crossed behind him.

The wind was soft and Heaven, though silent, felt close again.

It felt like breath on his neck, like a hand waiting to pull him back.

He didn’t let it.

By the next evening, something had shifted in him.

He dressed the same, walked the same but people noticed.

They didn’t part from him with the same confusion as before.

They stared longer now, whispered faster.

As if something in his stillness was starting to crack.

He didn’t return to the temple, and he didn’t seek out Hongjoong but the city made room for them anyway.

He found himself in a broken bookstore.

The roof had caved in long ago. Moss grew on the spines. The scent of old paper and mildew curled in the air like incense.

And on the far wall was a mirror, untouched by age.

He stepped toward it without thinking and stared. He looked wrong, not visibly.

He was still beautiful, still unmarked, still white.

But his eyes... they didn’t shine the same way.

Not like Heaven and not like the city, like something in between.

He raised a hand, and touched his reflection.

The glass was warm.

Behind him, the door creaked.

He turned and froze.

It wasn’t Jiyong.

It wasn’t Hongjoong.

It was Her.

She stood in the doorway, not stepping inside. Dressed in pale linen, bare feet, golden hair wound into braids that defied gravity. Her eyes were closed but Jeonghan felt her gaze anyway.

Not a messenger.

Not one of the Choir.

An Observer.

Older than him. Older than the city. Older than war.

She opened her eyes and he felt his spine stiffen, breath caught between sin and shame.

She didn’t speak.

She didn’t need to.

He bowed.

It wasn’t instinct.

It was surrender.

She watched him, gaze unreadable.

No anger.

No softness.

Just... recording.

And then, she tilted her head, as if listening to some silent prayer.

Between one blink and the next, she vanished as the mirror behind him cracked.

Just once, and straight down the center.

He didn’t move, and didn’t look away.

That night, he returned to the rooftop and looked at the city sprawled beneath him.

He whispered, for the first time since arriving, “I’m not ready.”

Heaven did not reply but somewhere beneath him two beings exhaled, almost in sync and smiled.

The rain came again, not heavy.

Just soft enough to sound like weeping.

Chapter Text

It begins, strangely enough, with silence.

Not Heaven’s, not Jeonghan’s.

But theirs.

For weeks, the demon prince and the fallen god have circled without crossing.

The city is vast, sprawling with neon and decay, but power like theirs does not exist quietly.

It echoes, and leaves bruises in the air.

It tugs at the seams of what mortals call reality.

They feel each other, even without names spoken or spells cast.

They always have.

In the way the sky seems to flinch when Jiyong steps outside, clouds recoiling like a wounded creature.

In the way shadows peel back, obedient and eager, whenever Hongjoong walks by.

They knew the angel was in the city. The heavens are never subtle with their arrivals but what they hadn’t expected, what none of them had planned for, was for him to stay.

It’s Hongjoong who notices first. Not through magic. Not through infernal whispers or blood-soaked runes.

Just... watching and seeing.

And Jeonghan is still there.

Still walking those same streets. Still speaking to mortals in that voice soft as sleep. Still wearing white, as if the soot of the city hasn’t yet touched him but there’s a difference now.

Small, subtle things.

He lingers too long when he speaks. He forgets to tuck his wings. He forgets to hide how mortal he’s starting to seem.

Hongjoong doesn’t need a prophecy to know what it means. He feels it in his bones, in the old cracks from older wars.

The angel was meant to judge. Cold. Efficient. Holy.

But instead, he’s learning.

Jiyong feels it too.

He feels it in the way the wind shifts when Jeonghan enters a room, not reverent, but curious.

In the way mortals look at him now, not as something distant and terrifying, but as someone real. Tangible. Fallible.

Something has cracked in the angel’s chest, and Jiyong... he wants to be the one to touch it first.

Their confrontation isn’t planned.

It never is.

The city doesn’t allow things like that. It simply folds time and space until two paths become one. Until inevitability has a face.

It happens in the alley behind the ruined opera house. The one where sin still lingers in the velvet curtains, where broken glass glints like gold, where the past hums through the brick.

Hongjoong rounds the corner first, his coat fluttering behind him like firelight caught in motion. And Jiyong... well he is already there, leaning against the wall, arms folded, and a smile almost on his lips.

“You’re following him too.” Hongjoong says, voice flat. It’s not a question.

Jiyong doesn’t flinch. “Of course I am. You think I wouldn’t notice Heaven’s little guest taking root in my city?”

Hongjoong scoffs. “Yours? Please.”

Jiyong turns, slowly, just enough for their eyes to meet. He doesn’t smile, that would be too easy. Too false.

“You forget.” He says softly, almost gently, “I built this city. Before you burned it. Before the angels wept over it. I carved it out of stone and blood.”

“And then you fell.” Hongjoong replies, tilting his head, stepping closer like he might strike. “Funny how your throne always ends up in the dirt.”

Jiyong’s jaw tightens, not from anger. Not quite.

Their power hums in the air, quiet and hot, like the moment before lightning strikes.

But it isn’t rage that fills the space between them, not yet.

It’s something slower.

Older.

Want.

“He spoke to me.” Jiyong says, unprompted. His voice is quieter now, but sharp enough to draw blood.

“Of course he did.”

“No.” His eyes narrow. “He came back and asked about beauty. About why mortals crave it. Why they destroy themselves for it.”

“And what did you say?”

Jiyong shrugs, but it’s not casual. “I told him the truth. That beauty is just a mirror. That people want to see themselves reflected in something holy.”

A pause.

“And then he looked at me like I was the only one who had ever said anything real.”

For a moment, Hongjoong doesn’t answer.

When he does, his gaze drops.

His voice comes low, steadier than it should be.

“He asked me why I never lie.”

Jiyong blinks.

“Said I smile like I’m mocking everything. Like I expect the worst. And I told him...” Hongjoong lifts his eyes, something unreadable flickering there. “I don’t lie because demons don’t need to. Mortals do enough of that for all of us.”

A beat of silence.

“Then he tried to touch my wrist, like it wouldn't burn.”

Silence falls again, not cold this time but something weightier.

The alley watches and the city holds its breath.

The wind brushes past, slower now.

Listening.

And above them, the sky darkens; not with storm, but with knowing.

“So.” Jiyong says finally. “You want him too.”

It isn’t a challenge.

It isn’t jealousy.

It’s something else.

Resignation.

Hongjoong doesn’t deny it.

Of course he wants him.

He wants that quiet mind; that stubborn, ridiculous kindness. Hasn't wanted anything more than that strange, radiant silence Jeonghan wears like both a shroud and a blade.

But more than that, he wants to know what happens when the angel finally stops trying to judge and starts to choose.

“He’s not yours,” Jiyong says.

“Not yours either.”

“I’m not trying to own him.”

“Neither am I.”

A pause stretches between them. Taut, but not breaking.

“Then what are we doing?”

There is no answer, not one either of them can name.

The tension doesn’t snap, instead it folds and softens.

Like a blade sheathed instead of swung.

They don’t fight, not tonight.

But something has shifted, something essential.

Because now, it’s not about power.

It’s not about vengeance.

Not even about history.

It’s about Jeonghan and the way he’s looking at the world like he might never go back.

They part without another word.

Two gods with no conclusion.

Two kings with no crown.

Three blocks away, Jeonghan pauses mid-step as something cold brushes over his skin.

It wasn't painful. Just... strange.

It's like being watched from beneath the earth.

He turns, glancing toward the rooftops. Nothing there.

But still, he hears it.

A heartbeat.

Not his.

Not from above.

From below.

The city waits, Heaven watches, and somewhere far beneath, where empires were once buried and sins were born; two beings who have destroyed whole kingdoms begin to wonder what it would take to share something holy.

Even if it means unmaking themselves all over again.

Chapter Text

The rooftop isn't on any map.

There are no doors that lead directly to it, no elevators labeled with its name.

The city forgot it long ago, swallowed it into the skeletons of ruined temples and shuttered hotels.

But somehow Jeonghan found it. Or perhaps, it found him.

It had been a whisper... a sensation.

He had been walking, again, and the pull came like a memory he didn’t recognize. A left turn when he meant to go right. A stairwell half-collapsed, a fire escape that groaned beneath his weight. The final rusted ladder had nearly scraped his palms, but he climbed anyway, wings carefully hidden, eyes turned toward a sky that hadn’t spoken to him in weeks.

And then, he arrived.

The garden wasn’t beautiful, certainly not in the way angels define it but Jeonghan still stood there, stunned.

There were vines curling around shattered pillars, their marble faces smooth and eyeless. Statues of saints and creatures long forgotten leaned against each other like tired sentinels, cloaked in ivy and moss. The garden had once been symmetrical, perhaps even sacred.

Now, it looked tired and in its tiredness, alive. A hundred weeds bloomed in place of roses. The air smelled of rust and honey.

And there, at the center, stood a rusted sundial, broken at its peak; marking time no longer.

Jeonghan breathed in deeply on what might be his third visit at the garden, and for the first time since he arrived, he exhaled fully.

No one watched him here.

No one whispered.

He let his wings flicker into sight, ghostlike and soft, feathers dulled from holding them in so long.

And when he sat among the broken saints, knees pulled to his chest, he let his halo dim. Not gone, never gone, but quiet.

So he didn’t hear the footsteps at first, didn’t notice the shadows split, and didn’t sense the power until it was too late.

Two presences; one sharp like wildfire, and the other slow like a song that ended too soon.

Jeonghan’s head turned sharply, and there at opposite ends of the garden, framed by fractured pillars and twisted vines stood Hongjoong and Jiyong.

Silence stretched.

It might have broken something else, had Jeonghan not spoken.

“You found it too.” he said, voice even. Not surprised. Not afraid.

Just tired.

Just real.

Hongjoong blinked first. “I was following the scent of something ancient. Thought it was a trap.”

Jiyong’s gaze didn’t leave Jeonghan. “I thought it was a dream.”

They said it at the same time, and then their eyes met.

It was not the first time they’d been in the same space as close as this, but it was the first time they had no battlefield between them.

Uninfluenced by the city.

No screaming mortals, no churches set aflame, and no anger churning beneath.

Instead there's just a tired angel kneeling among ruins, and both of them standing too close to where the earth once touched the heavens.

Jeonghan tilted his head. “You can sit. If you want.”

He didn’t know why he said it, only that the garden would feel colder if they left.

Hongjoong moved first.

He stepped lightly, the hem of his coat brushing ivy-covered stone. He sat on the sundial, fingers brushing away dust like ritual. He didn’t speak.

Jiyong followed a beat later, taking his place across from Jeonghan on a crumbled bench. His coat was open, and the silver chain at his throat glinted once before disappearing under shadow.

They formed a triangle.

An unholy one, perhaps, but balanced.

“I come here sometimes.” Jeonghan said quietly. “It reminds me of Heaven.”

“You had weeds in Heaven?” Hongjoong asked, one brow rising.

“No.” Jeonghan murmured. “That’s why it reminds me.”

They didn’t laugh.

They didn’t mock.

Not this time.

The quiet sank deeper.

Jiyong leaned back on his elbows. “You’ve been in the city too long. They’ll come for you.”

“I know.”

“Do you care?”

Jeonghan hesitated.

“I’m… thinking.”

Hongjoong's voice was softer than expected. “Angels don’t get to think. Just command.”

“That’s what they tell us.” Jeonghan said.

Another beat silence.

He looked between them. “Did you know each other? Before?”

Hongjoong’s jaw tightened.

Jiyong, ever theatrical, tilted his head with a smile like a wound. “We were on the same side, once.”

“Which side?”

“The side before sides existed.”

Jeonghan waited, but neither elaborated.

It wasn’t avoidance.

Just… protection of something old and raw.

“Why haven’t you tried to tempt me?” Jeonghan asked, voice nearly lost in the wind.

Hongjoong blinked. “Temptation is easy. You deserve better than easy.”

Jiyong chuckled. “You already look ruined. Why would I break you further?”

“I’m not ruined.” Jeonghan whispered.

“I know,” Jiyong said. “That’s why we’re here.”

The wind stirred.

It swept through the vines, over the statues, between their knees.

Jeonghan shivered.

Hongjoong watched the tremble and moved, slowly, peeling off his coat. He draped it over Jeonghan’s shoulders without ceremony.

Jiyong said nothing but his fingers reached for a sprig of ivy, twisting it slowly, eyes fixed on Jeonghan’s profile like he was trying to memorize him.

"You're both… strange," Jeonghan said after a while. “You’re supposed to be monsters.”

"Maybe we are." Hongjoong said. "Just not to you."

"Or maybe," Jiyong added, eyes gleaming, "you’re not as pure as you think."

That made Jeonghan laugh.

A small, unguarded sound, like water spilling over stone.

It startled both of them, and in the brief warmth of it, something shifted again.

Not power.

Not desire.

But proximity.

The kind that frays boundaries, that makes monsters human, and angels something else entirely.

Night bled into dawn while they spoke of nothing.

Old music. Cities now gone. How humans confuse loneliness for love.

Jeonghan asked questions.

They answered.

He asked more.

They still answered, not always truthfully but not cruelly.

And when the sun finally cracked the sky open, when light painted the statues gold, neither Jiyong nor Hongjoong moved to leave.

Jeonghan rose first, still wrapped in demon silk and god-scented air.

He stood barefoot on broken tile, wings flickering in and out like breath.

And he said, “I’m not finished deciding.”

The words weren’t for them, not exactly, but they still felt like knives turned inward.

Because it meant he was still thinking, still watching, and neither of them was winning.

“Come back here tomorrow.” Jiyong said softly.

Hongjoong didn’t argue, he only added, “We’ll find it again.”

Jeonghan gave no promise, only a look, and then he was gone. 

The rooftop garden was empty again.

His footprints faded. The warmth he left behind cooled. And Hongjoong’s coat, once heavy on angelic shoulders, hovered for a moment in the air; suspended as if uncertain whether to follow. Then, gently, it drifted to the ground, pooling like spilled ink against the stone.

But the air still held the weight of three impossible things; an angel without judgment, a demon who did not lie, and a god who still wanted worship.

Chapter Text

Jeonghan went back.

He didn’t pretend it was coincidence. He didn’t lie to himself about curiosity. He didn’t say it was willed, or a test, or a slip in divine judgment. He just… returned.

Barefoot again, sleeves rolled up, hair still damp from the rain.

The rooftop was waiting and, in the shadowed corners between fractured statues, so were they.

Hongjoong was already there, seated cross-legged near the broken sundial, sleeves pushed up, rings glinting as he carefully repotted a plant that had somehow taken root between two slabs of stone. He glanced up when Jeonghan appeared but said nothing, just nodded once.

Jiyong arrived not long after, as if summoned, as if he’d been coming anyway. He brought no coat this time, just a cigarette tucked behind one ear, and a new crack in his sunglasses. They didn’t ask what broke them. He wouldn’t have told them even if they had.

The garden had changed again, or maybe Jeonghan was the one who had. He saw it differently now. The moss looked greener. The saints, less sad. The vines less like decay, and more like arms trying to hold what was left.

He walked until he stood between them, the sundial at his back, the earth cracked beneath his feet. And for a moment, no one spoke. Not because there was nothing to say but because some silences are holy.

Even in a place like this.

“You came back.” Hongjoong said finally, his voice a low hum, not asking for thanks.

“I wanted to.” Jeonghan replied.

“Are you afraid?” Jiyong asked.

Jeonghan turned to him. “Should I be?”

Jiyong smiled like he had the answer but wouldn’t share it. Hongjoong just looked at the spot where Jeonghan’s feet pressed into the dirt.

“You’re not glowing.” he murmured.

Jeonghan looked down. His halo wasn’t visible. His wings weren’t either. He hadn’t meant to hide them but they were gone, for now.

“I don’t think Heaven is watching me right now.”

Jiyong scoffed. “They always watch.”

“But they’re not seeing.” Jeonghan whispered. “Not really.”

He sat down slowly, on the edge of the sundial, the same way Hongjoong had done days ago. This time, both of them stayed where they were. Jiyong leaned against a cracked pillar, arms crossed. Hongjoong’s fingers trailed over the leaves he’d been tending.

Jeonghan looked at both of them. In the light, their differences stood out sharply; fire and smoke, stone and ash. And yet, something about them always circled the same center. He didn’t understand it but he wasn’t scared of it, not anymore.

“I keep thinking about what you said.” Jeonghan said softly, voice almost childlike. “About temptation. About monsters.”

Neither interrupted, so he kept going.

“I was taught to fear things like you. That even proximity was dangerous. That your words carry venom. That your smiles mean ruin.”

He looked up.

They were both staring at him. Listening. Present.

“But here I am. And all you’ve done is listen.”

“Maybe we’re not as good at corruption as we used to be.” Hongjoong murmured.

“Maybe you’re worse.” Jeonghan countered. “Because I’m not leaving.”

That silenced them again, with a different kind of quiet now. One that vibrated with something new.

Not tension, nor desire, not yet.

But… gravity, something slow and inevitable.

“I don’t want to judge this city.” Jeonghan admitted.

“That’s why you’re the right one to do it.” Jiyong said.

Jeonghan shook his head. “No. It means I’m already failing.”

“You think Heaven hasn’t failed worse?” Hongjoong asked, too gentle.

That made Jeonghan laugh, just once.

“I think I’m tired of pretending I know what holy means.”

The air shifted then. The clouds above parted just enough for light to spill across the rooftop, striking Jeonghan’s hair like a crown. He didn’t flinch from it but he didn’t rise to meet it either.

And then, slowly, like a leaf brushing down from a tree, Jeonghan extended his hand. One toward each of them. It was not a command, not a test. Just a gesture that’s offered freely.

Jiyong moved first.

He always did.

His hand reached out, long fingers ghosting just above Jeonghan’s palm like he didn’t dare close the distance too quickly. Like he was waiting for Jeonghan to change his mind. But Jeonghan didn’t pull away.

So Jiyong let their fingertips touch.

It was fire, but not burning.

Heat, yes.

Pressure, yes.

But the kind that says I am here. I will not vanish.

Jiyong’s breath caught in his throat, but he didn’t speak and neither did Jeonghan.

Hongjoong’s hand was slower, rougher. The pads of his fingers were calloused, and when he touched Jeonghan’s outstretched hand, he did so with both reverence and defiance. His thumb pressed lightly into Jeonghan’s pulse point.

Their skin met like an oath, something unspoken and binding.

Not possession.

Not seduction.

Just acknowledgment.

I see you. I feel you. I will not look away.

Jeonghan closed his eyes, and for the first time since he fell, since he descended, since he tore through the clouds and landed in a city soaked in blood and want; he felt safe.

Not clean.

Not whole.

But safe.

They stayed like that for a long time. Three bodies. Three stories. All breathing the same rooftop air. All pretending the moment could stretch forever.

But it was Jiyong who finally whispered, “You’re changing.”

Jeonghan opened his eyes. “Am I?”

Hongjoong nodded. “You are.”

There was no malice in their voices. No pride. Just observation, and something heavier underneath.

“You’ll have to choose soon.” Jiyong added.

“Between you?” Jeonghan asked, barely louder than the wind.

“No.” Hongjoong answered first. “Between what you were sent for… and what you’ve become.”

That hurt more than he expected because deep down, Jeonghan already knew.

Heaven would not wait forever, and Hell… Hell never waited at all.

He gently pulled his hands back, not abruptly, just enough to let go. Both beings watched him, the space between them warm with memory now.

Something had changed.

Something could not be undone.

“I don’t know what I’m doing.” Jeonghan said honestly.

“That’s why we trust you.” Jiyong said.

Hongjoong looked at him like he was a new language; just learned, already needed.

“You’ll come back?”

It wasn’t a plea, but it was close.

Jeonghan stood, and he looked at them both.

The demon who touched gently.

The god who never flinched.

And he said, “If I do… will you meet me here again?”

They didn’t hesitate.

“Yes.” said Hongjoong.

“Always.” said Jiyong.

As he turned to leave, the sky above them cracked again but it wasn’t thunder.

It was the sound of something divine unraveling, and none of them dared to look up.

Chapter Text

Jeonghan didn’t dream that night. He didn’t wake in a bed or on a rooftop or even within the city. He awoke somewhere else, somewhere silent, somewhere blinding.

The air here was too still. The kind of stillness that precedes judgment.

Not peace.

Not calm.

Just the certainty that someone has seen you and they are deciding what to do.

He didn’t remember falling asleep.

He only remembered the warmth of their hands on his; the ghost of calluses and smirks and breathless silence.

He remembered choosing, just once.

He had extended his hand first.

He had meant it.

He had not asked for Heaven’s permission.

Now he stood in a chamber of light.

Not gold. Not warmth. Not comfort.

This light stripped things.

It peeled back his bones, whispered into his chest, made his pulse thunder loud enough to echo through the white.

He couldn’t see the walls. He didn’t know if there were any.

It didn’t matter.

He wasn’t meant to see. He was meant to feel.

"Jeonghan."

The voice wasn’t a sound. It was pressure, heavy and absolute.

He flinched at it, instinctively bowing his head but even that movement felt hollow like a child kneeling before a mirror, not a god.

"You touched them."

He swallowed.

His throat was dry.

His skin felt thinner.

“I did.”

Heaven did not ask why.

Heaven never did.

That was the problem.

"You were sent to judge."

The voice was louder now, without rising.

“Not to reach. Not to bend. Not to feel.”

There was a pause, long enough to stretch into something cruel.

"You were not sent to desire."

He fell to his knees, not because he was forced, but because guilt had a shape now and it pressed into his spine.

“I’m not—I wasn’t—” he stammered, searching for a defense that didn’t sound like sin.

He hadn’t kissed them.

He hadn’t begged.

He had only let them hold his hand.

That shouldn’t have been damnation.

That should have been mercy.

But Heaven didn’t understand mercy.

Only absolutes.

Only laws written in fire.

“You are untouched.”

The voice was whispering now, a hiss threaded through every vein of light.

“You are meant to remain so.”

A sound followed, not thunder, not wings but something worse.

A crack, inside him.

His back arched involuntarily as the sound bloomed from between his shoulders.

It felt like his wings, not breaking but wilting.

They didn’t tear. Heaven would never be so coarse.

No, what they did was withdraw.

One feather at a time, not in blood, not in violence but in absence.

And Jeonghan screamed, he clawed at the ground, but there was no ground.

There was only light and there was no pain he could point to, only the echo of what was taken.

His wings didn’t burn, they faded, as if even the memory of holiness could be erased.

“You disobeyed.”

The voice stated, calm and cruel and correct.

“You reached for the damned.”

“You let them reach back.”

“You forgot who you are.”

“I didn’t forget.” Jeonghan gasped.

His chest hurt, not from fire but from sorrow.

“I chose.”

And that, more than anything, was the sin.

Heaven does not allow choice.

Angels were not made for free will, only execution, judgment, and purity.

Untouched, unloved, untethered.

They let him fall after that, not to Earth, not to stone, but into himself.

The light collapsed, and he collapsed with it, curling like paper under invisible flame.

And when he woke, truly woke, he was lying on his side in a rusted alleyway.

The sky was still dark. The rooftop garden was far away and so were they.

His clothes were damp, and his hands trembled but worst of all, he reached behind him and felt nothing.

No feathers, not even the memory of warmth.

Just skin, void, and alone.

He stayed there for a long time, curled in on himself.

Breathing in the rot of garbage and streetlamp buzz and the faint scent of something almost like home, if home had ever allowed weakness.

The worst part wasn’t the pain. The worst part was that he still remembered the way they had touched him.

So gently.

Like he was mortal.

Like he was allowed to feel.

The alley was quiet, but not empty. Somewhere down the street, a cat yowled. A siren cried once, then faded.

The city had no idea what had happened to him but he knew, and he wasn’t sure if he was grieving or grateful.

He tried to stand, and failed.

Tried again.

This time, he didn’t fall but the world felt heavier, like every movement was being measured now, like he was being watched again.

But not by eyes filled with affection or mischief.

No, this time… Heaven was watching and they were waiting.

For Jeonghan to beg, to apologize, to return.

But he did not.

He stood and he brushed gravel from his palms. He looked up at the cracked sky and for the first time since arriving in this city of sin he whispered, not to anyone above, not to judge, but to himself.

“I would do it again.”

His knees buckled slightly at the echo of it but he didn’t take it back.

Not even when the sky flickered.

Not even when light lanced down like a threat, cold and furious.

He simply turned and began to walk.

He did not return to the rooftop, not yet.

He couldn’t bear to see them again, not until he understood why their touch still burned on his skin like a blessing.

He wandered instead; through streets filled with music, with chaos, with warmth. All things he had been told to fear.

He didn’t fear them now.

He feared forgetting.

Every so often, he would reach behind him, fingers brushing bare shoulder blades.

Still nothing, not even phantom pain and that was worse.

It was as if Heaven had scrubbed that part of him clean. Too clean.

At the edge of a bridge, he stopped. Beneath it, the river flowed like molten oil, and a neon sign buzzed somewhere behind him.

People passed but no one saw.

No one ever saw except them.

He looked up at the stars or what few remained through the city’s haze.

“Hongjoong,” he murmured.

“Jiyong.”

Names he wasn’t supposed to say.

Heaven had not forbidden it outright.

They didn’t need to, that’s how powerful the silence was but Jeonghan spoke them anyway.

Like prayers.

Like curses.

Like reminders.

He sat on the railing, balanced between sky and water, between ruin and redemption, and whispered, “I’m not done.”

Even if Heaven takes the rest of me.

Even if I lose everything I’ve ever known.

Even if I never get to touch again.

I will not un-choose them.

Chapter Text

It didn’t begin with thunder, and it didn’t begin with flame.

It began with quiet; an ache, a shiver in the air... a stillness where there shouldn’t have been one.

The kind of silence that doesn’t soothe… it warns.

Hongjoong felt it in the middle of a card game.

His palace was hidden behind the thrum of an underground club, the doors cloaked in illusion, the air thick with charm. It was loud, the way he liked it. Drums and bass and bodies dancing without reason.

He held a winning hand. The demon across from him had just bet three fingers and a favor.

And then, he froze; mid-laugh, mid-sip of blood-touched whiskey with eyes still rimmed in kohl, one hand still curled around his drink.

His smile was gone because something had shifted but the room was unchanged, the music still played, and the lights still blinked red.

Yet Hongjoong’s skin prickled, like ice had slithered down his spine.

Not pain, not heat but absence.

He stood without a word, and the other demons fell silent, even the cards stilled.

He said nothing to them, didn’t need to.

He left the table, the club, and the false walls.

By the time he hit the street, the smoke had cleared from his thoughts.

He knew.

Somewhere in this city, something had been taken, and it didn’t belong to Heaven anymore.

Jiyong felt it on a rooftop.

Not the one where they’d last touched fingertips, but a smaller one, lower, cradled in between two rusting towers. He’d gone there to paint, or not to paint. He didn’t know anymore. He just liked the stillness, the hum of traffic, and the way the wind tousled his already impossible hair.

He had headphones on, a brush in one hand, and a blank canvas before him.

Then he stopped, mid-stroke.

His breath caught not in fear, but in mourning. Though he didn’t yet know what he was mourning.

The song in his ears played on, but it sounded far away now. Off-key.

He yanked the headphones down and looked around. The city hadn’t changed but the air had.

It no longer whispered. It waited.

A pressure bloomed in his chest, then something colder, followed by realization.

His fingers went still because he didn’t feel the warmth anymore, not the soft echo of divine presence he had been denying ever since he first saw Jeonghan’s eyes.

That echo was gone.

He stood.

His wings, long buried beneath glamour and disdain, twitched against his back. It startled him.

He hadn’t felt them move in years, not like this. They hadn’t mourned like this, not since the first time Heaven cast him out.

He didn’t say Jeonghan’s name, didn’t have to. The grief was too personal, too sharp, too much like a scream without sound.

He reached into the sky and felt only air, then into the earth, and there, finally, he felt it.

The imprint.

Faint.

Like the ashes of a touch.

Jeonghan had fallen. Again. But not like before.

Not with body or wings.

But something deeper.

Something worse.

Hongjoong and Jiyong moved at the same time. Opposite ends of the city, but called by the same ache.

Neither knew they would meet again, not yet.

Jeonghan sat on a bench in a park too clean for this part of the city.

He looked like he hadn’t slept, and he hadn’t.

The sunrise was bruising the horizon, a gray-gold smear across ruined buildings and bent streetlights.

Birds chirped overhead like nothing had changed, but he had. Everything had.

His hands were still trembling, though the punishment had passed.

It left no visible marks, which was the cruelest part.

He hadn’t dared go to either of them.

He thought, maybe, they would know.

He thought, maybe, they would feel it.

But a part of him, small and hollow, had believed they wouldn’t because why would they?

He wasn’t theirs and he never had been.

He was just a curiosity, a winged thing they couldn’t touch until they could.

Then he heard it.

No footsteps.

No warning.

Just breath.

Soft.

From both sides.

He looked up and there they were.

Hongjoong stood in red, as always, like he’d clawed his way out of velvet and fire. His eyes glinted dark in the morning light, rimmed with worry even if his mouth didn’t say it.

Jiyong stood in pale gold, more like sunlight than sin, as if he had painted his grief onto silk. His shoulders were tense. His fists clenched.

And in their eyes, the same fury.

Not at him, definitely not, but at the thing that had dared to reach for him first.

For a moment, no one spoke, not at first.

Hongjoong moved first; slowly, deliberately.

He crouched in front of Jeonghan, eyes level, voice low.

“What did they do to you?”

Not did they.

Not why.

Just that.

What.

Because he already knew.

He just wanted to hear it from Jeonghan’s lips.

Jeonghan smiled faintly, cracked and crooked.

“Something gentle.” He said.

Then, “That’s what makes it hurt.”

Jiyong sat beside him, not touching, but close enough that Jeonghan could feel the heat of him, like a hearth after winter.

“I felt it.” Jiyong murmured.

Not I guessed. Not I heard.

I felt it.

Hongjoong nodded once. “So did I.”

They didn’t look at each other, but tension coiled between them like smoke.

Something unsaid.

Something remembered.

Something jealous.

Jeonghan, too tired to flinch, only tilted his head. “You came.”

“Of course.” Hongjoong said, as if it were obvious.

“As if we wouldn’t.” Jiyong added, sharp.

Then the silence returned but this time, it was different.

Not absence, not threat but presence, like three breaths held at once.

Three truths too painful to name.

Jeonghan stared ahead, voice thin. “They didn’t rip them away. My wings. It wasn’t… violent.”

Hongjoong’s jaw tightened while Jiyong said nothing, just let Jeonghan speak.

“They just... vanished.”

He paused.

A breath.

A crack in the voice.

“Like I’d never earned them.”

“They don’t get to decide that.” Hongjoong said quietly.

Jeonghan laughed, bitter. “Don’t they? That’s their whole thing.”

“But you get to decide.” Jiyong said, more carefully. “And you chose.”

Another silence, the kind that tastes like decision, like a crossroad, like longing pressed between ribs.

Jeonghan’s head dropped.

“I can’t go back.” He said and it was the first time he had said it aloud.

Not won’t.

Not don’t want to.

Can’t.

And Hongjoong, demon prince, leaned forward.

“You’re not meant to.” He said.

His hand hovered near Jeonghan’s knee but didn’t touch, not yet.

“But you were never meant to belong there, were you?”

Jiyong leaned in too and this time, his voice wasn’t sunlight, it was night.

Soft.

Honest.

“Let them strip you. Let them blind themselves. That doesn’t make you less.”

Jeonghan looked at him, and then to Hongjoong.

In their eyes, he did not see pity, he saw promise.

“I don’t know what I am anymore.” He said finally.

Jiyong’s gaze softened. “Then let us help you find out.”

And between them, just for a moment, the ache lessened.

The silence changed; not absence, not threat but belonging.

Chapter Text

Jeonghan didn't fall like a mortal.

Even now, after Heaven’s touch vanished from his shoulders, after the ache settled into his bones, there was still something in him.

A glow that's faint, but stubborn.

He didn't sleep like a man, and he didn't bleed like one.

He did not forget the names of stars, or the taste of moonlight, or the way sanctity once sang inside his chest. Even now; earthbound, touched, altered, Jeonghan was not mortal.

And both of them saw it.

Hongjoong came in the late hours, not unannounced but close to it.

There was a knock at the rusted iron gate that led into the abandoned library where Jeonghan now liked to spend quiet evenings. Its roof was long gone, but vines had climbed the walls in soft green riots, and moonlight filled in the ceiling just fine.

Jeonghan had been writing something.

He did not look up.

“Come in.” he said simply.

And Hongjoong did.

He wore black. Of course he did.

But his boots were clean, and his jacket wasn’t velvet or blood-red this time; it was a simple thing, dark gray, fitted snugly like he’d forgotten to be a prince.

He stood on the threshold for a moment longer than he should have, as if waiting to be burned. He wasn’t.

Jeonghan finally looked up and when their eyes met, Jeonghan found in Hongjoong’s gaze hesitation, usually always so sharp, so unreadable. It was there just for a flicker, just for a second.

“You’re glowing again.”

Jeonghan blinked, bemused. “Am I?”

“It’s subtle.” Hongjoong said, stepping closer, voice low. “But it’s there.”

He reached into his coat and pulled out something wrapped in cloth.

Jeonghan tilted his head, curious. “A gift?”

Hongjoong handed it to him without a word.

Inside, Jeonghan found a glass bottle of ink, silver-black, shimmered faintly like oil, and a fountain pen, hand-carved.

“I figured if you were going to write your judgments in exile,” Hongjoong said, lips twitching, “you could at least do it in style.”

Jeonghan laughed softly.

“Thank you.”

They talked about the city, about the things Hongjoong heard, and about the parts of the world even demons feared.

Hongjoong sat near him, not touching, but close enough Jeonghan could feel the heat he always carried.

There was no offer, no seduction.

Just presence, just listening, just... truth.

Jeonghan found himself watching the way Hongjoong’s mouth moved when he spoke and the way his brow furrowed when something troubled him.

Hongjoong noticed, of course he did.

“You keep looking at me like you’re trying to figure something out,” he said.

Jeonghan’s smile was soft, tilted. “I am.”

“And?”

“You’re not what they said you’d be.”

“Good.”

A beat.

“Because neither are you.”

They didn’t need to touch, not when Jeonghan’s skin still remembered the warmth of Hongjoong’s hands from before; but when Hongjoong left that night, Jeonghan stared at the silver-black ink for a long time.

Jiyong came at sunrise, he always did things backwards.

Jeonghan found him already there. The rooftop was colder this time, and Jiyong had brought two cups of something warm.

“It’s not divine,” he said, holding one out, “but it’s sweet.”

Jeonghan took the drink from Jiyong, and their fingers brushed, a soft reminder of the heat of what made him fall.

Still, the warmth traveled between them like it always did, quiet and unrelenting.

They sat in silence for a while.

Jeonghan was barefoot, Jiyong noticed.

“You’re still not used to shoes, are you?”

“I forget.” Jeonghan murmured. “When I’m thinking.”

“What were you thinking about?”

Jeonghan looked at him, then the sky, and then back again.

“You.” He said simply.

Jiyong blinked, then smiled.

Soft, proud, broken.

The kind of smile Jeonghan had never been taught to recognize.

“Be careful.” Jiyong said. “That’s a dangerous habit.”

“I’ve had worse.”

“I’ve been worse.”

Jeonghan laughed. Not bitter. Just true.

Jiyong pulled out a small box of charcoal sticks. “Do you want to be drawn?”

“Will you draw me?”

“I have been.” Jiyong said. “Even before I met you.”

Jeonghan sat with his back to the wind.

The morning light caught the edge of his face, not angelic now, not quite but beautiful still.

Still other.

Still something holy.

Jiyong drew him without words for almost an hour, and when he finished he turned the sketchbook around.

Jeonghan saw himself, yes, but also the parts of him he didn’t know still lingered.

The faint shimmer behind the eyes.

The way his hand curled, like it still remembered holding light.

He looked like something not yet undone and he liked that.

“Is this how you see me?” he asked.

“No.” Jiyong said.

Jeonghan looked up.

“It’s how you are.”

They were quiet for a long time as the wind rose, and the city stirred below.

Jiyong sat close beside him, not touching but not far. And when he left, he left the sketch behind.

Jeonghan tucked it into his coat, he didn’t need to hide it.

That night, Jeonghan stood before a mirror. He turned his face, lifted his hand and for a moment, just a moment, he saw what they saw.

And it didn’t make him proud.

It made him real and real was something he wanted to be.

Chapter Text

The city was sick.

Jeonghan could feel it in the way the sky dimmed even at noon, how the wind smelled less like breath and more like decay. He wandered every day, his feet knowing where to go even when he didn’t.

But that morning, he didn’t wake up alone… or rather, he did but the moment his eyes opened, there were two presences already waiting for him.

Both old.

Both powerful.

Both… trying not to startle him.

He found them on the rooftop garden again, surrounded by broken statues and vines that grew wilder with each week he stayed.

Jiyong sat on a crumbling bench, one leg crossed lazily over the other, cigarette untouched between his fingers.

Hongjoong stood near the archway, hands behind his back like he didn’t know what to do with them.

It wasn’t the first time they’d shared the same space since Jeonghan descended, but the atmosphere still held a hint of their irritation for one another.

“Morning.” Jeonghan said, voice still sleep-rough.

That made them both look up.

Jiyong grinned, eyes looking him over. “Angel.”

Hongjoong gave a short nod. “You’re late.”

Jeonghan blinked. “Late for what?”

“Whatever excuse we both used to see you.” Jiyong replied with a smirk.

It was tense, at first, as always.

Not hostile.

Not violent.

But crackling with something unspoken; the weight of history, of warnings, of him.

Hongjoong kept to the shadows while Jiyong moved like he belonged in the sun, and Jeonghan sat between them.

Literally.

There was a fallen column split into three pieces, and somehow, the middle was the only one with vines soft enough to sit on.

So he did.

“You’re not even trying to hide how you both show up at the same time now.” Jeonghan said, raising a brow.

The silence that followed was almost comical, and then simultaneously;

“We don’t plan it.” Hongjoong muttered.

“Maybe I do.” Jiyong said.

Jeonghan stared.

Jiyong exhaled a breath of smoke that never touched his lips. “What? He always looks like he wants to bite me anyway.”

“Not my fault,” Hongjoong mumbled as Jiyong smiled like it absolutely was and Jeonghan tried not to laugh.

“You’re different when he’s around.” Hongjoong said suddenly, eyes on Jiyong.

“Likewise.” Jiyong replied without looking at him.

Jeonghan looked between them. “Is this going to be a problem?”

“No,” Hongjoong said.

“Yes,” Jiyong said.

Another beat as Jeonghan looked up at the sky. “I think you both need tea.”

He didn’t have a kettle but Hongjoong conjured heat, and Jiyong found water from somewhere below the stones. Jeonghan had herbs tucked into the folds of his coat, things he’d picked from gardens no one tended.

The tea was strange, floral and bitter and alive.

They drank it in silence for a while until Jeonghan spoke again.

“Do you know what Heaven asked of me?”

Neither of them answered right away.

Then Hongjoong: “Judgment.”

Then Jiyong: “Condemnation.”

Jeonghan nodded. “And yet I haven’t written a single name.”

“Because you’re afraid?” Hongjoong asked, curious.

“Because you’re unsure?” Jiyong guessed, softer.

Jeonghan looked down at his hands, fingers still unmarred, still untouched by sin; even after he had reached for them.

“I’m… learning,” he said.

The word hung in the air.

Learning.

As if angels were supposed to, as if they could.

Hongjoong leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Do you regret reaching for us?”

Jeonghan didn’t answer but he didn’t look away either.

“No.” He finally said.

“I do.” Jiyong murmured. “Every time.”

That made Jeonghan look up sharply.

“You regret me?”

“No.” Jiyong said. “I regret what it does to you.”

The wind stilled, the vines hushed, and even the city seemed to lean in.

Then Hongjoong stood. He crossed to Jeonghan’s side, not too close, but enough to look down at him and say, quietly, “If we’re breaking you, say so now.”

Jeonghan stared at him, then Jiyong, and then back again.

“You’re not breaking me.” he said. “You’re showing me.”

“Showing you what?” Hongjoong asked, voice rough.

Jiyong leaned closer too, curiosity in his eyes now.

And Jeonghan, glowing faintly in the light of a dying sun, said, “What it means to choose.”

They sat like that for a long time.

The three of them. Not a triangle, not yet, but something shifting into shape.

They spoke of other things then. Of music and time and how the city used to sound. Jiyong hummed something Jeonghan didn’t know, and Hongjoong translated a dialect no longer spoken.

And when Jeonghan laughed, both of them turned toward him at once.

As if it mattered that he smiled.

As if they needed it to.

He left before nightfall.

They didn’t follow but they watched him go; silent and aware.

And when he was gone… only then did they speak.

“You’re not going to fight me for him?” Jiyong asked.

Hongjoong smirked. “I might.”

“You wouldn’t win.”

“I wouldn’t lose.”

“You’ve always hated losing.”

“And you’ve always wanted things you can’t keep.”

Jiyong tilted his head. “Maybe we both can.”

Hongjoong didn’t answer.

Not yet.

Far below, Jeonghan felt the echo of their tension, and he didn’t fear it.

He felt… wanted.

And it made the ache in his chest feel almost like love.

Chapter Text

It began with silence.

Not the sharp, restless kind that settled when all three of them stood too close, but something softer.

A silence filled with the sound of birds far off, with the wind tracing along the rooftop garden like it was curious, not cruel.

Jeonghan didn’t know when the thought came to him.

Maybe it had been growing there for weeks, unspoken, waiting for him to be brave enough.

Maybe Heaven was watching too closely now, and he just needed… something else. Something that wasn’t all fear and waiting.

“Come with me,” he said suddenly, standing at the edge of the rooftop.

His eyes weren’t on the city. They were turned past the skyline, toward the distant hills wrapped in pale fog.

Jiyong, reclining lazily on a broken stone angel, cracked one eye open. “Where?”

Hongjoong stepped out from shadow, arms folded, brow arched. “Why?”

Jeonghan turned, brushing his fingers against the sleeve of his coat as if gathering his thoughts.

“You’ve both shown me your worlds,” he said softly. “Let me show you mine.”

They left the city behind.

No one saw them go. No one could.

Not with Jiyong veiling them in a shimmer of fading starlight; not with Hongjoong slicing the air open like it was silk and walking through.

They moved past graveyards and rusted rail lines, past graffiti walls and crumbling churches, past every corner of the city Jeonghan had learned to watch with quiet ache.

The further they went, the quieter the world became. Asphalt faded into dirt, dirt gave way to stone, and finally... grass.

The field wasn’t remarkable, not to anyone else.

It was just a dip in the land, scattered wildflowers, a crooked tree bent from too many storms.

But Jeonghan’s shoulders loosened the moment they arrived. He breathed in, slow and deep, letting the scent of earth replace the incense that still clung to his bones.

“This place is old/” Jiyong murmured as he stepped barefoot onto the grass, the linen hems of his pants brushing his ankles.

“Too old.” Hongjoong muttered, as if wary of what might still be sleeping beneath the soil.

Jeonghan only smiled faintly. “Exactly.”

They didn’t speak much at first.

Not because there was nothing to say, but because everything between them already hummed with quiet understanding.

Jiyong spread a silk blanket, summoned from nowhere, and sprawled across it like he was born for such ease.

Hongjoong claimed a flat stone near the tree, leaning against the bark, arms folded in that careful, guarded way he had.

Jeonghan walked, barefoot.

The field seemed to know him. Petals clung to his ankles. Grass curled against his feet. The air warmed slightly, scented faintly with wild chamomile.

He knelt near a patch of flowers; not to pick them, just to be near them. It wasn’t prayer, not anymore, but it felt close.

Eventually, he returned.

Jiyong had half-dozed in the sunlight, lashes turned silver in the light.

Hongjoong was watching a ladybug crawl across his hand, like he couldn’t decide if it was a threat or a tiny miracle.

Jeonghan sat between them, cross-legged. He felt the ghost of something once divine still echoing faintly inside him; no wings now, just the memory of them.

“What did you used to believe in?” he asked suddenly, breaking the soft quiet.

Jiyong cracked one eye open.

“Hunger,” he said. Then, with a small smile, “Music.”

Hongjoong’s gaze shifted, dark and thoughtful.

“Myself.” he answered.

“And now?” Jeonghan tilted his head.

Jiyong looked at him without hesitation. “Now I believe in you.”

Jeonghan’s breath caught.

Hongjoong said nothing, but the silence between them felt a lot like agreement.

They didn’t eat, didn’t drink.

Time stretched oddly here. Hours slid into minutes, or maybe the other way around.

Jiyong hummed softly under his breath, something that sounded like a song but felt more like a spell.

Hongjoong busied himself with sharpening a twig between his fingers until it splintered to dust.

Jeonghan lay back on the blanket, letting the sunlight touch his face, his eyes closing to the sound of birds and wind. For the first time in weeks, his shoulders felt light.

When he opened his eyes again, the sun was lower in the sky, and the shadows had grown long.

Jiyong sat beside him now, close enough that their shoulders almost touched.

Hongjoong remained by the tree, watching with that sharp gaze that always seemed to cut and soften at the same time.

Jeonghan reached for a dandelion near his knee, twirling it between his fingers.

“Are you afraid of me?” he asked suddenly.

Jiyong’s brows lifted.

“No.” He said, steady.

“Terrified.” Hongjoong replied at the same time.

Jeonghan blinked.

“You change things.” Hongjoong said, unflinching.

“I’m not trying to.”

“That’s the worst part.”

Jiyong took the dandelion from Jeonghan’s hand, studied it like it was some kind of prophecy. Then he blew, scattering the seeds into the air.

Hongjoong watched them until the last one vanished.

For a moment, everything felt perfect. Too perfect.

Then Jeonghan’s breath hitched. Pain stirred low in his chest, a sharp hum, like a note struck too hard.

“You’re hurting.” Hongjoong said instantly, leaning forward.

Jiyong moved closer. “What did they do?”

Jeonghan shook his head, his voice thin. “Nothing. It’s not punishment. Not really.”

“It feels like one.” Jiyong snapped, harsher than usual.

“They’re just… reminding me,” Jeonghan murmured.

He looked down at his hands, no longer divine, but still holding echoes of what he once carried.

“I’m still theirs.” he whispered.

Both of them knelt in front of him now, a shield of warmth and stubbornness.

Neither touched him, not this time, but their closeness felt like defiance.

Jeonghan exhaled slowly.

“I don’t know how much longer they’ll let me stay.” he confessed.

The wind shifted, cooler now, threading between them like an unspoken threat.

“If they take you.” Jiyong said, voice low, “I’ll follow.”

Hongjoong’s jaw tightened. “I’ll burn the gates.”

Jeonghan laughed, startled, the sound spilling from him like the first breath of spring. “You can’t say things like that.”

“Why not?” Hongjoong asked.

“You’re demons.” Jeonghan teased, half-amused, half-wary.

“I’m not.” Jiyong said. “Just fallen.”

“And I never pretended to be more than that.” Hongjoong added.

Jeonghan looked at them both; two beings older than memory, powerful enough to unmake half the world, and still, somehow, they waited for him.

As dusk deepened into night, Jeonghan lay back on the grass, the ghost of wings aching in his shoulders.

Jiyong rested on his left while Hongjoong settled on his right.

For a suspended moment, it didn’t matter who had fallen, who had sinned, or who had stayed too long.

There was no judgment, no mission, no Heaven.

Only sky, only stars.

And the steady breath of three hearts, beating as though they’d finally found the same rhythm.

Chapter Text

They came at dawn.

Not in wrath. Not in blinding light.

No trumpets. No declarations.

Just… silence.

Two of them, wearing his face, his lips.

They had his hair, and his walk... but not his eyes, and definitely not his soul.

Hongjoong noticed it first.

He was walking through the back alleys of the eastern quarter, watching as the city stirred; factories humming, windows clattering open, sin stretching its arms for the day.

Then a flicker past his gaze, a figure standing too still, too soft.

And when he turned, when he saw the silhouette in the alley, he stopped.

“Jeonghan?”

The creature tilted its head, smiled, and said, “Yes.”

Jiyong found his imposter in the underground lounge, where music rotted and bloomed in the same breath.

He’d just finished whispering something into a mortal’s ear; a wish, a promise, a curse, when he saw him across the room.

Golden hair, white shirt, and barefoot, standing untouched amid the decadence.

“Jeonghan.” Jiyong breathed, startled.

The man looked up, and his lips curved.

“I missed you.” he said but his voice lacked the ache, the teasing lilt.

The truth.

They met on the rooftop by accident, or fate, or perhaps something more petty than either.

Jiyong stepped from a shadow while Hongjoong stepped from flame, nd each arrived with a false angel in tow.

The rooftop garden was quiet, as the vines curled over stone, and the broken statues watched in silence.

And Jeonghan, the real Jeonghan, was nowhere to be seen.

For a moment, neither spoke while the two false angels stood still, serene.

Identical in appearance.

Holy in posture.

Perfect in a way that was wrong.

Jiyong was the first to speak.

“What. Is. This.”

His voice did not echo but it rippled like a storm against glass.

Hongjoong didn’t look away from his double.

“They think we’re fools.”

“They think,” Jiyong said bitterly, “that we loved a face.”

The false Jeonghan beside Hongjoong stepped forward.

“Is it not enough?” he asked, hands folded, head tilted like the real one did when he was amused.

“I am kind. I am soft. I listen to you when you speak.”

Hongjoong raised a hand and the copy fell silent.

“You are hollow.” Hongjoong said simply.

Jiyong’s fake tried next.

“I sing when you ask. I hold your secrets. I am gentle with your ruin.”

Jiyong stepped close, expression unreadable.

“You don’t mock me.” he said. “You don’t tease. You don’t roll your eyes when I flirt.”

He tilted his head.

“You’re too obedient.”

And with that, he turned away so did Hongjoong.

They said no spell, made no gesture but both copies froze before they shimmered then vanished in a blink of unnatural light.

The rooftop fell silent once more.

The real Jeonghan appeared three hours later.

He walked slowly, cautiously.

There was something fragile in his posture, something wary.

But when he stepped into the rooftop garden and saw them, the demon prince and the fallen god, still there... still waiting... his breath trembled.

“You saw them.” he said.

Hongjoong gave a nod.

“They were beautiful.” Jiyong murmured. “Like glass. Like lies.”

Jeonghan looked away. “Heaven sent them.”

“We know.”

“They wanted to prove I wasn’t unique.”

“They failed.” Hongjoong said.

Jiyong stepped forward.

“They don’t understand you. They’ve never seen you.”

And he said it like a revelation, like a curse.

Jeonghan blinked rapidly, lips parting, then pressing together again.

“You shouldn’t trust me.” he whispered.

“I don’t.” Hongjoong said, stepping closer. “I love you.”

Jeonghan froze.

Jiyong didn’t speak, but his hand brushed Jeonghan’s, and Jeonghan didn’t pull away.

It wasn’t a kiss, not yet.

Not even a touch beyond that single shared breath of skin.

But it was something more sacred.

More damning.

Because Heaven had sent their most perfect illusions and still, they chose him.

Flawed.

Slow.

Conflicted.

But him.

That night, Jeonghan sat between them again.

No words.

Just silence.

And this time, it didn’t feel like waiting.

It felt like knowing.

Like faith, unspoken.

Like divinity, rewritten.

Chapter Text

The rooftop garden was warmer now.

Somehow.

The vines that used to crack the stone underfoot had begun to bloom. Wildflowers opened where ruin once ruled. Even the broken statues looked gentler beneath the changing light.

Something had shifted, not outside but within.

Jeonghan didn’t run anymore.

He still arrived quietly, as though testing each moment for traps, for signs that he’d gone too far but his eyes no longer searched the shadows for Heaven’s gaze.

He looked forward now, to them.

And they waited, always.

Sometimes with words, often without.

It had been days since the impostors disappeared. Days since Heaven’s attempt to sever what had grown between them but the roots ran deeper now.

And Jeonghan, he had begun to wonder what might happen if he let himself grow, too.

“Tell me something real.” He said one night.

Hongjoong glanced up from the vine he’d been coaxing into bloom. His thumb was stained green. His horns glinted gold.

“I’ve given you thousands of truths.”

Jeonghan hummed. “Give me one you’ve never said out loud.”

The demon prince’s eyes flickered, thoughtful then amused.

“I'm afraid of being alone.” Hongjoong said.

Jeonghan blinked and didn’t laugh, didn’t flinch.

“Why?”

Hongjoong let the vine curl around his finger. “Because it reminds me I once chose exile.”

A silence.

Then Jeonghan, “Do you regret it?”

“I regret not finding you sooner.”

Jiyong didn’t arrive until dusk this time around, like they were changing places.

He no longer came when the sky was bright. It was something Jeonghan had noticed; that the fallen god was made more of moonlight than flame, of ash than star.

He appeared on the ledge, a soft step, a still form.

Jeonghan turned at once.

“I thought you wouldn’t come.”

“I told you...” Jiyong said, voice velvet-thin, “I only go where I’m wanted.”

“I don’t know what I want.”

“That’s not true anymore.”

Jeonghan stilled.

Jiyong stepped closer, hair swept back by the wind, eyes heavy with knowing.

“You look at me like you’ve chosen something.”

“I haven’t.”

“Then why haven’t you run?”

They sat on the bench beneath the crumbling arch with Jeonghan between them.

Again.

Always.

But tonight was different.

He wasn’t trembling, and he wasn’t afraid.

He was… searching.

Hongjoong handed him a flower, while Jiyong handed him a match, and he held both.

The symbol of birth, the symbol of destruction, and somehow, it felt like balance.

“I was taught that desire is a test,” Jeonghan said softly, petals curling between his fingers. “that to want is to fail.”

Jiyong’s voice was quiet. “That’s a cruel lesson.”

“It was a Holy one.” Jeonghan whispered. “Until I met you.”

He looked up. Glancing first at Jiyong, then at Hongjoong.

His heart beat loud in his chest, wings flickering under his skin; hidden, half-there, aching.

“I’ve started to want,” he admitted. “and I don’t want to stop.”

Neither man moved.

He was met with stillness and then, slowly, Hongjoong’s fingers brushed his shoulder while Jiyong’s hand met his knee.

And Jeonghan didn’t pull away, not this time.

“Will it hurt?” he asked. “If I reach again?”

They both knew what he meant, what Heaven had done last time.

The punishment that rippled through his soul like a scream too deep for sound.

“Yes.” Jiyong said, honest.

“Maybe.” Hongjoong said, softer.

“But you’ve survived it once.” Jiyong added, eyes dark.

“And you’re stronger now.” Hongjoong said, fingers light.

Jeonghan looked down at his own hands; still trembling, still his.

He lifted them slowly, and this time, he reached out again to them.

Hongjoong took his left as Jiyong took his right.

Their hands met like vows, like the start of something dangerous, and divine.

And though no wings appeared, no halo flared, the rooftop pulsed with something real.

Something new.

Heaven watched, but did not strike.

Not yet.

Perhaps because it didn’t know how.

How to punish a love that did not demand, a pull that did not consume, and a union that did not obey the rules of war.

Perhaps because it had never occurred to them, that surrender could be sacred, too.

Later, Jeonghan would rest his head on Jiyong’s lap, would laugh when Hongjoong told a dry joke, eyes barely hiding his fondness.

He would admit, in a whisper, that the city’s sirens no longer sounded like cries for help.

They sounded like music and maybe that was the greatest sin of all.

Heaven would never understand this, but the fallen god and the demon prince; they did, they do.

And Jeonghan, for once, is not afraid.

Chapter Text

The garden was quieter today.

The wind moved more gently, brushing past the columns and vines like a hush.

The statues still leaned in solemn poses, broken and beautiful, and the sun held low over the city, draping the rooftops in gold.

Jeonghan sat at the edge of the fountain.

He dipped a finger into the water and watched the ripples, slow and soft, bloom outward.

Everything felt… delicate, even him.

He hadn’t spoken yet, not since arriving.

Jiyong had appeared an hour before, lounging on the stone railing with a book he never really read. He didn’t ask Jeonghan anything, didn’t press.

He just… waited.

Hongjoong came later, the smell of smoke and sandalwood trailing behind him. His sleeves were rolled up, hands stained with dirt from a newly potted vine by the archway.

He, too, said nothing.

It was Jeonghan who broke the silence, not with a declaration. not with a warning but a question.

A single, aching question.

“Do you remember the first time someone held you?”

Both men turned to look at him.

Jeonghan didn’t meet their eyes. His gaze remained on the ripples, now fading.

“I’ve never been,” he said, barely above a whisper. “Not really. Not… just to be held.”

Hongjoong didn’t speak. Jiyong didn’t either.

So Jeonghan kept going, slowly. As if every word chipped away at a truth he hadn’t meant to admit.

“They teach us not to long for things we were not built for. Contact is for healing. For ritual. For sacrifice.” His voice cracked. “Not for comfort.”

Jiyong’s hand closed the book gently as Hongjoong moved to sit on the other side of the fountain, facing him.

Jeonghan finally looked up.

“It’s stupid, right?” he said, almost laughing. “I’m a judge. I’ve walked through fire, watched empires fall. And now I can’t stop wondering what it would feel like to be...”

He cut himself off but they already knew and neither laughed.

Not at all.

“Come here,” Hongjoong said softly, patting the bench beside him.

Jeonghan hesitated.

He didn’t want to be touched because they felt sorry for him. He didn’t want to be cradled like something fragile, something halfway broken.

“I don’t know how.” he admitted, voice small.

Jiyong stood from his perch.

“You don’t need to know. You just have to let it happen.”

He stepped into Hongjoong’s arms first, because they were open because they were steady.

The demon prince didn’t move too fast. He didn’t press too tightly. He just circled his arms around Jeonghan’s waist and drew him close with care, like someone cradling an ember; something that could burn, but had chosen instead to warm.

Jeonghan shivered not from fear, but from the sensation.

Of being enclosed.

Of being wanted.

He let his forehead fall against Hongjoong’s shoulder. Closed his eyes. Felt the steady beat of another heart that didn’t belong to Heaven or sin or any commandment he'd memorized.

Just a heart.

Just him.

“I’ve imagined this.” Hongjoong whispered into his hair. “But the real thing… is unbearable in the best way.”

Jeonghan laughed, breathless and a little stunned.

“You’re not supposed to be this gentle.”

“You’re not supposed to be this soft.” Hongjoong replied, voice low. “But we’re both learning new things.”

It was Jiyong who pulled him next, and unlike the way Hongjoong held his body, Jiyong held his face.

He didn’t draw Jeonghan in with his arms. He just cupped his cheeks, thumbs ghosting over the edge of his jaw, brushing away strands of hair that had fallen from his braid.

Jiyong’s eyes burned with something old. Something broken open.

“Do you know how long I’ve looked at the stars,” he said, “and thought: I’ve never seen anything more cruel?”

Jeonghan blinked.

“But you… standing here, asking to be touched, asking to be known...”

His voice cracked.

“You make the stars look kind again.”

Jeonghan let him pull him close, let himself fold into the taller man’s chest, and felt fingers in his hair, on his spine, over the edges of what had once been wings.

And then, he was held again.

Differently but just as tenderly.

Jiyong rested his chin atop Jeonghan’s head and closed his eyes.

“You’re real.” He whispered.

Jeonghan barely managed to breathe, “So are you.”

They didn’t rush him.

They didn’t ask for more.

Didn’t slide their hands lower.

Didn’t move the touch into something else.

It remained what he’d asked for.

Just a hug.

Just the ache of arms around him.

Just safety and want and something new.

And when Jeonghan stepped back, when he looked at them with red-rimmed eyes and flushed cheeks... neither of them said a word.

Because they could see it, that some wall inside him had finally cracked, and the light pouring through wasn’t holy.

It was his.

Later, they sat together again. All three. The sun had long since dipped behind the skyline.

The rooftop felt like sanctuary, like home.

Jeonghan leaned back against the bench, caught between them, head resting on Hongjoong’s shoulder while Jiyong traced lazy patterns along the edge of his sleeve.

“I think I want this again.” Jeonghan murmured.

“You can have it.” Jiyong said.

“Anytime.” Hongjoong added.

Jeonghan smiled and whispered, “Thank you.”

Not to them as monsters.

Not to them as myths.

But as men.

Who had waited.

Who had listened.

Who had held him not to claim, but to cherish.

And maybe, just maybe…

That’s what love was.

The quiet kind.

The kind with no thunder.

The kind that feels like arms.

Chapter Text

The garden did not burn... it withered.

Silently.

The vines curled into ash as the petals shriveled mid-bloom. Stone cracked down the spines of statues that once leaned toward the sun, and in the center, stood Jeonghan.

Still in the clothes from their shared day of sanctuary. Still glowing faintly from where Hongjoong had touched his sleeve, where Jiyong had cupped his cheek.

But now? Now he stood alone.

Because they had come.

The sky did not open. It peeled... like skin, like a veil torn by something too holy to belong to this broken place.

Wings; twelve, twenty, more... all descended not in glory, but in silence.

Their faces held no kindness, no sorrow, only judgment.

And when they spoke, they did not use names, only charges.

“He has strayed from his mission.”

“He has engaged in touch unsanctioned.”

“He has failed to deliver verdict.”

“He has desired.”

Each word was like a blade. Each tone made the garden grow colder.

Jeonghan didn’t try to run.

He wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.

He simply straightened, and looked them in their eyeless gaze and whispered, “I still see beauty here.”

“Then your eyes have been corrupted.”

A flash of gold burst in the air and Jeonghan dropped to his knees, not because he wanted to but because they made him.

Chains, brilliant and searing, looped from the sky, latching around his wrists, his throat, his ankles. They pulsed with holy energy, but there was no warmth.

Only containment.

Only punishment.

And they hissed as they closed over his skin.

Like his divinity was a fire they meant to choke out.

Across the city, something cracked.

Not glass.

Not stone.

But air.

Reality thinned for a breath and two very different beings felt it.

Hongjoong rose from his chair in a room lit only by candles, his hand stilling over the page of a book he could no longer see.

Jiyong’s head snapped upward in the middle of a crowded plaza, the laughter around him fading to a dull murmur he didn’t hear.

They both turned, different corners of the city.

Same direction.

Same pull.

Same name.

Jeonghan.

The shackles didn’t just bind, they burned. Not his skin but deeper.

His grace shrieked as it was compressed, twisted back in on itself like wings folded until they snapped. He could feel Heaven trying to reduce him; not to mortal, not to ash, but to something lesser.

Something obedient.

“You do not get to choose.”

“You were never meant to choose.”

“I did.” Jeonghan said through clenched teeth and the chain around his throat sparked.

He gasped but still... he didn’t scream.

He wouldn’t.

They wouldn’t have that.

They had taken his wings, his light, his voice for centuries. He had learned silence but this silence, his own choosing, was different.

This silence was defiance and when he bowed his head... it wasn't surrender.

It was grief, because he hadn’t even said goodbye.

Hongjoong arrived first.

The rooftop, already twisted by Heaven’s presence, almost rejected him. The space folded around his feet, a hiss of divinity repulsing the demonic core he carried but he stepped forward anyway.

Fire curled around his hands.

“I warned you...” he said, voice low. “You touch what’s mine—”

“He is not yours.”

Hongjoong didn’t flinch.

“He’s not yours either.”

He bared his teeth, and flame licked up his arms, spiraling higher, drawn to the scent of injustice.

“I watched him heal this place.” Hongjoong growled. “I watched him try.”

“And fail.” 

“Fail?” Another voice echoed, softer, but no less dangerous.

Jiyong.

He didn’t step so much as arrive, shadows parting like old friends to let him through. His coat still carried the scent of the garden before it was broken.

“He failed because he felt?” Jiyong said, cold fury in every syllable. “Because he dared to want?”

“He touched.”

“He reached.”

“And you punished him for hunger?” Jiyong said, stepping toward the light.

“I would starve a thousand eternities just to hear him speak of want again.”

The angels drew their wings inward, the air thick with wrath.

“He is not yours.”

“He isn't,” Hongjoong said.

And Jiyong added, “But he is his own.”

That silenced even Heaven, and Jeonghan... Jeonghan raised his head, barely.

He looked at them with eyes wet and lips parted.

He saw them.

His demon prince.

His fallen god.

And somehow, through the pain, he smiled.

Heaven didn’t flee, they recoiled for just a moment because something in Jeonghan still shone, even bound, even bent.

There was no begging in him, unlike before; before the time he was remade.

There is no collapse, no plea for release. Just resolve, and maybe... maybe even love.

So they gave a final decree, cold and unmoving.

“He has been marked.”

“He may walk. But he may not touch.”

“He may speak. But he may not want.”

“You may keep him, if you must.”

“But know this, his punishment will live in his bones until he returns and begs for mercy.”

And just like that, they vanished but the chains did not and neither did the way Jeonghan swayed.

But two sets of hands caught him, two hearts that had shattered differently.

Jiyong, who cradled him as though the pieces were still hot.

Hongjoong, who let a gentle hand brush his temple like he could keep him whole.

They didn’t say anything, not yet because there was no line left to cross.

Only one to walk.

Together.

And Jeonghan even with his soul bound in golden shackles, even with his grace dimmed, he whispered one thing as he leaned into their arms.

“I still choose you.”

Chapter Text

He woke to rain, not the kind that cleansed but the kind that clung.

He couldn’t feel the floor, or the bed, or even the sheets, if that’s what they were.

He could feel the shackles; even though the light had faded, even though the chains no longer glowed, they were still there.

They looped around his wrists like ivy, one nestled at his throat like a warning, and one deep in his chest, one that carried weight.

Soft, but unyielding. Like a hand pressing just beneath his ribs, as if Heaven had sealed a reminder into the place where his grace once lived.

He didn’t cry, not yet.

He didn’t have the strength, but he did breathe because someone was teaching him how.

“Again." Hongjoong murmured.

His fingers hovered across Jeonghan’s stomach, just above the ache.

“Don’t hold it in. Just follow me. In... slow. Now let it go.”

Jeonghan’s breath rattled as it left him not because he was afraid but because even breathing now cost him something.

Hongjoong caught it, the tremor and gently moved his hand to hover over Jeonghan’s chest, letting his own breath sync.

“You’re not alone.” He said. “Even if it feels like it.”

“I am alone.” Jeonghan whispered, eyes still closed. “Heaven made sure of it.”

“They tried to.” came a second voice, quiet, careful. Jiyong was near the window, watching the rain slick the glass. “But you’re still here.”

Jeonghan cracked his eyes open.

“Not all of me.”

A silence followed.

Hongjoong didn’t argue, neither did Jiyong because they weren’t sure he was wrong.

They gave him the smallest things first, starting with warm water.

Clean clothes, soft enough not to chafe the marks still lingering on his skin.

Honey, pressed onto his tongue with care, when his throat refused to let anything else pass.

Jiyong washed his hair in silence, kneeling beside the tub like a prayer. Not a thing he spoke aloud, but something he held in his hands all the same.

Hongjoong trimmed the frayed ends of his robes, then slipped his own coat over Jeonghan’s shoulders when he shivered from a cold no one else could feel.

They didn't ask anything, not yet.

But Jeonghan saw the wanting in their eyes.

Not of his body, they never did.

Of his voice.

Of the way he had once laughed so softly, it made flowers bloom. The way he had spoken of sin like it was something to understand, not crush.

And the way he had looked at both of them, like he was learning how to long.

Now?

Now he barely met their gaze because to want was to suffer, and he’d learned that lesson with Heaven’s chains wrapped around his throat.

The rooftop garden had been left untouched. Destroyed, but untouched.

No one dared approach it since Heaven’s descent, not even the wind.

So when Jeonghan returned; quietly, days later, he did not ask permission.

He simply stood among the blackened vines and broken stone, arms tucked beneath the coat Hongjoong insisted he keep, and whispered, “This place still remembers.”

Jiyong didn’t say anything, he just moved to stand beside him, and so did Hongjoong.

The three of them faced the ruin together.

“I can’t feel the sun anymore.” Jeonghan said softly.

“Then we’ll light the garden ourselves.” Hongjoong replied.

Jeonghan’s fingers curled tightly in the coat.

“They said… I may speak. But not want.”

“That’s not speaking.” Jiyong said. “That’s being silenced. There’s a difference.”

Jeonghan didn’t argue. Instead he just looked at them and for a moment, he hated how much comfort hurt.

Because it made him remember what was taken, and what he still ached to reach for.

The pain wasn’t constant, that was almost worse.

There were moments; fragile, golden ones, where he forgot. Where Jiyong would hum while slicing fruit and Hongjoong would read aloud with his chin in his palm, and Jeonghan would forget that there was a chain woven into his soul.

And then, he would try.

To laugh. To stretch. To touch... and the world would narrow.

Like something inside him twisted, like he was a string pulled too tight.

Once, he tried to touch Hongjoon's hand softly in gratitude.

Just once.

He collapsed instantly, didn’t even cry out, just folded.

Jiyong caught him before he hit the floor, and Hongjoong’s hands flamed in rage; not at Jeonghan, but at the ones who had done this.

But the worst part?

Jeonghan still whispered, “I’m sorry.”

Like he was the sin.

Like he had failed them.

Jiyong held him tighter.

“You have nothing to be sorry for.” he said but guilt had already burrowed deep.

Heaven had ensured it would.

One night, the stars came out. The first time in weeks.

Jeonghan sat between them on the balcony and his hand twitched once, just slightly, when the breeze curled warm against his face.

And this time, he didn’t pull away when Hongjoong brushed his knuckles against the back of Jeonghan’s hand, didn’t flinch when Jiyong shifted close enough for their knees to touch.

He didn’t reach but he didn’t retreat, and when he spoke, his voice was almost steady.

“Before I came here, I didn’t know what a hug was.”

They both turned to him.

“I thought it was like prayer.” Jeonghan continued. “Or song. I thought it was… sacred, but distant.”

He closed his eyes.

“But it wasn’t.”

Jiyong smiled, barely.

“It was warm.”

“And close.” Hongjoong added.

Jeonghan nodded.

“They told me I wasn’t supposed to want that. That touch was temptation. That longing made me weak.”

Jiyong didn’t interrupt, he just waited.

“But it didn’t make me weak.” Jeonghan whispered. “It made me real.”

He turned then, slowly, to look at them both.

“Do you think… I’ll be allowed to feel that again? Even if I never reach?”

Hongjoong reached first, carefully placing a hand on Jeonghan’s shoulder.

Jiyong followed, resting his forehead briefly against Jeonghan’s hair.

And together, they whispered, “We’ll find a way.”

Not to undo what was done but to build something within it.

To carve sanctuary out of punishment.

To teach divinity what it meant to stay, even when all it had been trained to do was run.

Because Jeonghan hadn’t failed, he had felt.

And somewhere deep within him, he still wanted.

Even if Heaven tried to chain that away.

Chapter Text

He wakes to birdsong. Not Heaven’s choir but real birds singing into the morning light.

Tiny throats, hollow bones, wings that had never touched the skies he came from and yet, here they are singing.

Here, he breathes.

Not deeply, not yet but he breathes and that is enough to begin.

There are things that don’t hurt, not all things, but some.

Hongjoong’s handwriting, for one.

Sharp, looping script across pages left open on the coffee table. Notes scribbled in red ink, sentences half-finished. A list of herbs he wants to try growing again. A rough sketch of a new song.

Jiyong’s humming is another.

Wordless, low and meandering, slipping out of him when he thinks no one’s listening. Especially when he’s cooking, or sketching, or standing barefoot on the balcony just before the sun sets.

These are the things Jeonghan watches from doorways, or the hallway. Sometimes even from corners where the light is soft and the air doesn’t press down on him too tightly.

He doesn’t speak, he just witnesses and something inside him begins to unfurl.

Not pain.

Not fear.

Curiosity.

Hongjoong is the first to notice.

He doesn’t mention it. He just keeps the balcony doors open longer.

Lets the breeze reach the end of the hallway where Jeonghan likes to sit. He leaves a pillow out, along with a folded blanket with a cup of jasmine tea with too much honey.

And when Jeonghan doesn’t take the tea the first day, or the second, he still replaces it with a fresh cup each morning.

On the third day, Jeonghan drinks it, only half, but it’s the first thing he’s chosen without being asked.

Jiyong doesn’t ask questions either. He just leaves things behind.

An ink-washed postcard. A record playing something jazzy and strange. A pair of sunglasses too big for any sane person’s face, Jeonghan tries them on when no one’s looking.

They slip down his nose and he stifles a laugh when it does.

He doesn’t realize Jiyong saw it because he doesn’t interrupt, doesn’t even come closer. He just slips his own pair of sunglasses on the next morning and acts like it’s the most normal thing in the world.

Jeonghan doesn’t laugh out loud but he does smile.

One morning, the rooftop garden smells like mint.

Faint and lingering.

Jeonghan steps outside, thinking it’s another memory of Heaven playing tricks but no, Hongjoong’s crouched low, sleeves pushed up, coaxing life from cracked stone.

“There’s still something in the soil,” he says casually, not turning around. “Under all the ash. Something that wants to grow.”

Jeonghan’s bare feet pause just before the first tile and he finds that he can’t step any farther but he watches.

As Hongjoong hums softly to himself, as his hands press reverent into the earth, as seedlings bloom where nothing should live.

He sits down at the edge and hugs his knees to his chest.

“I thought this place was ruined.” Jeonghan murmurs.

Hongjoong glances up.

“It was.”

Then smiles.

“But ruined things can still surprise us.”

Jeonghan watches a bud crack open, white petals unfolding toward the light and for a moment, he doesn’t feel broken.

Just quiet.

The kitchen is Jiyong’s kingdom.

It shouldn’t be, he burns half the things he makes, and adds chili flakes to everything else but he moves through it like a performance.

“Want to see something ugly?” he says one afternoon, lifting the lid off something that bubbles.

Jeonghan grimaces from the stool near the doorway.

“That smells like sin.”

“Perfect.” Jiyong grins and Jeonghan snorts.

Just a little, just once but it makes Jiyong stop stirring and he turns, expression surprised, but not smug.

Soft.

He says nothing, just keeps cooking and adds extra chili, because apparently his ego is a little fragile.

The next day, Jeonghan leaves a note.

Just one line:

“More salt. You’ve lost your edge.”

He slides it onto the counter when neither are looking.

Jiyong finds it and cackles.

“Are you flirting with me or just insulting me?”

Jeonghan doesn’t answer but when Hongjoong grins and says, “Both.”

Well...Jeonghan doesn’t stop him.

There’s a rhythm now, albeit a strange one. Uneven, yes, but it exists.

Mornings in sunlight, watching Hongjoong tend to stubborn basil sprouts.

Afternoons near the open window, letting Jiyong babble about abstract nonsense; color theory, godhood, philosophy, the finer points of how croissants are overrated.

Evenings were quiet. A record playing, tea cooling, and Jeonghan letting the ache in his chest settle into something familiar, something liveable.

He still doesn’t touch, he can't but he looks and sees.

And seeing, really seeing them, does something to him.

It makes him want, not to kiss or to reach, not yet.

Just… to stay.

He finds himself watching the way Hongjoong tilts his head when he’s thinking, and the way Jiyong chews his lip when his eyeliner smudges. The way they both move when they think he’s not watching.

How gentle they can be with the world, even though they weren’t built to be. How kind they are to him, even though he came here to judge.

They never ask him for more than he can give. They never push, never pry, and yet, Jeonghan feels a swell in his chest whenever they look at him like this; soft, slow, steady.

Like he’s already theirs, even if they never touch again, like they’re just happy to see him.

He asks the question one night, voice barely more than breath, carried between sips of tea and the hush of a sky too clear to be kind.

“Would you have liked me, even if I never fell?”

Jiyong stills then his mouth curves not into a smile, but something quieter, more vulnerable.

“I already did.” he says. “Back then, I think I wanted you the way dying things want sunlight. Even if it burned.”

Hongjoong’s answer is slower, but no less sure. His eyes hold no shadow when they meet Jeonghan’s.

“You terrified me.” he says plainly. “But I still wanted to make you laugh. I think I wanted to be the one thing you looked at without judgment.”

Jeonghan stares down at his mug, watches the steam curls up and vanishes. His fingers curl tighter around the warmth like it might answer something in him.

“I didn’t know what it meant to be liked.” he admits. “Not really. Not as myself.”

“You do now.” Jiyong murmurs.

“And we do.” Hongjoong adds.

And Jeonghan feels it again, that ache that’s chased him through centuries but this time, it doesn’t press him into the ground.

It rises.

It lifts.

He still can’t keep them. Not fully, not in the way humans get to but he can keep this moment.

And maybe, for now, that’s enough.

Chapter Text

He doesn’t speak of it, not with words, but the shift is there.

In the way he lingers near doorways longer than usual. In the way his fingers hover when he reaches for the same book Jiyong just set down. In the way his shadow joins Hongjoong’s without a sound; no longer out of fear, but curiosity.

Touch is still forbidden but the desire for it?

Undeniable.

He’s grown used to the ache of it. The pang that lives in his chest like an unfinished prayer.

But now... now it lives in his hands and Jeonghan doesn’t know how to keep them still.

It begins on the rooftop where he finds Hongjoong brushing dirt from his palms, a line of bright green mint curling around his ankle like ivy. There’s dirt smeared across his cheekbone, a scratch on his forearm, and one of his piercings glinting gold in the sun.

Jeonghan doesn’t mean to reach but he does, with a fingertip that's barely extended and Hongjoong flinches, not in fear but in pain, though not his own.

Jeonghan pulls back instantly but Hongjoong hand hovers over his wrist before he can turn away.

“You’re trembling.” he says softly.

Jeonghan’s jaw clenches.

“I’m not afraid.”

“I didn’t say you were.”

He looks down at the fingers still brushing his wrist; just above, never quite touching.

“I miss being held.” Jeonghan says. “And I don’t think Heaven knows how cruel it is to make me need something so much… and then commands me to never ask.”

Hongjoong’s voice drops to a hush.

“They know.”

Then, quieter still, “They just don’t care.”

He doesn’t tell Jiyong about it but he knows because that night, he drapes a soft cashmere scarf around Jeonghan’s shoulders and says nothing when Jeonghan presses his cheek into it like it’s a touch he can borrow.

They’re seated across from each other, knees almost brushing beneath the table and Jeonghan dares again.

Just his foot, just the faintest graze against Jiyong’s ankle and when the air shudders, both of them feel it.

Jiyong reaches to steady his teacup and then his hand curls into a fist.

“Don’t.” He says gently.

Jeonghan doesn’t answer.

“You know what it costs.” Jiyong says.

“I do.”

“And you’ll still ask for it?”

Jeonghan closes his eyes.

“I think I already have.”

The ache returns that night, doubled. It's not because he's being punished, and not because Heaven sends a storm but because both of them look at him like they're waiting for it.

For the moment he breaks, for the moment they lose him again.

He hates that fear in their eyes, hates that his desire could bring them pain, too.

But he hates more the part of himself that longs to reach anyway because he remembers their first touch, and longs for what it would feel like... to hold their hands fully and not be punished for it.

To be held, and perhaps to be kissed... to want, and not be torn apart for it.

He tries to retreat the next morning. He tries to be good, Holy, unmoving but it’s too late because they’ve seen him and now, they won’t pretend not to know.

Jiyong is the one who corners him in the garden. Not physically, just emotionally.

Jeonghan is seated on the ledge again, pale robes trailing like mist against broken tiles. His gaze is distant, far.

“Don’t go.” Jiyong says.

Jeonghan doesn’t move.

“I wasn’t.”

“You were fading.”

Jeonghan closes his eyes.

“I thought that would make it easier.”

“For who?”

Jeonghan doesn’t answer.

“You think dying by Heaven’s hand is better than living with us in longing?” Jiyong’s voice is low and rough. “Then you haven’t been listening to us.”

“I have.” Jeonghan says sharply. “Every word. Every silence.”

Jiyong crouches beside him.

“This isn’t just about what you want. It’s about what we want too.”

Jeonghan turns and Jiyong’s eyes burn like dusk, warm and terrible.

“Let us bear it with you.” He says.

Jeonghan’s lips tremble.

“I don’t know if I’m allowed.”

Hongjoong’s voice reaches them from behind.

“You’re not.”

They both turn.

He’s at the doorway, eyes shadowed, lips tight.

“But if you’re going to risk punishment,” Hongjoong says softly, “don’t do it alone.”

The storm doesn’t come that night but the warning does. It doesn't come from the sky but from the floor, from the seams in the stone, the air, the blood.

From the whisper in Jeonghan’s own ribcage that says:

They are watching.

They are always watching.

But Jeonghan no longer curls in fear.

He lays in silence and remembers the way Jiyong smiled as he pressed the scarf closer, and the way Hongjoong almost reaches for him, touch hovering over his skin in an effort not to hurt him.

And Jeonghan realizes, he was never meant to do this alone.

Even judgment.

Even love.

Even desire.

So in the dark of that room, with nothing but divinity crackling beneath his skin, he whispers something Heaven has never heard from his lips before.

“I want.”

And means it.

Chapter Text

It was supposed to be another quiet afternoon.

The kind they’d been clinging to, slowly, where silence wasn’t punishment but peace, where glances held more weight than full confessions. Jeonghan sat between them on the old stone bench in the now regrown garden, sun warm on his shoulders, the scent of earth and wilted roses heavy in the air.

Hongjoong was leaned back against the wall, one knee up, wrist lazily draped over it, his gaze half-lidded as he watched a vine crawl slowly across the broken sundial. Jiyong had his head tilted toward the sky, sunglasses slipping down his nose, golden strands catching the breeze as if even the wind refused to let him be still.

Neither of them expected him to move. Not when they’d all been so careful, and not when the air still bore the tension of Heaven’s last warning.

But Jeonghan; who’d never had permission, who was always waiting for punishment, was not waiting anymore.

He turned, slowly and deliberately, and without a word, he reached out.

The moment his hand lifted, pain sparked; a quiet warning from the chains Heaven still kept wound deep into his spirit. Invisible, but sharp. But Jeonghan didn’t let that stop him.

His palm pressed gently against Hongjoong’s cheek.

Cool skin. Sharp lines. A faint shudder just beneath the surface.

The pain surged; white-hot, threading up his arm like molten glass but Jeonghan only gritted his teeth, fingers trembling as he held the contact.

The demon prince froze. He didn’t breathe, didn’t move, didn’t dare to even blink.

Then Jeonghan turned to the other side, toward Jiyong who was still as stone and did the same.

His hand rose again, slower now. The punishment more immediate.

A hand against the fallen god’s cheek.

Warmer skin. A caught breath. And pain bloomed, brighter and deeper, like a brand beneath Jeonghan’s ribs.

He swayed, but he didn’t fall.

Neither of them spoke. Neither of them reached back.

And yet Jeonghan smiled.

Faint. Gentle. A tremble beneath it, but real.

“I needed to know,” he whispered, voice hoarse from restraint. “That it wouldn’t destroy me.”

The contact lasted only seconds but the impact was violent.

For Jeonghan, it was like standing beneath the crash of a thousand years of storms, and bleeding for every second, but surviving anyway.

For Hongjoong, it was like being invited into a cathedral he thought would forever burn at his feet.

And for Jiyong, it was like hearing a hymn where there had once only been silence.

Jeonghan pulled back. Hands returning to his lap but they were different now. Less angel, more man. Not because his divinity was lost, traces of that still exist, but because his choice had been made.

And they’d both felt it.

Jiyong was the first to move, one trembling exhale through his nose, his eyes squeezed shut as if in pain.

“Why now?” he asked hoarsely.

“Because I’m tired of pretending I don’t want.” Jeonghan replied, voice soft but unyielding. “And because it matters to me that it’s you.”

Hongjoong looked at him then; not with hunger, not with worship but with something far more dangerous... hope.

“You chose us.” he said, and it was not a question.

Jeonghan nodded and Hongjoong looked away, jaw clenched.

“Then they’ll come for you.”

“I know.”

“You’ll suffer.”

“I already am.”

“You’ll lose.”

“I’ll still choose.”

The sun began to set.

They didn’t speak for a long while after. Just sat in the quiet of the broken garden, the light growing golden around them, vines curling softly at their feet.

At some point, Jiyong’s hand slipped down from his thigh until it almost brushed Jeonghan’s again.

Not quite.

Still cautious.

Still holding the weight of don’t.

But this time, when his fingers hovered, Jeonghan turned his hand and let their pinkies touch.

A breath.

A heartbeat.

A promise.

And this time, when the air shifted, Heaven did not strike.

Because perhaps even divinity was stunned into silence.

Perhaps even Heaven could not predict what Jeonghan might reach for next.

It began the same way a few days after, with quiet. The garden was hushed, the city just beyond it brimming with noise and unrest—but here, among shattered stone angels and overgrown ivy, time held its breath.

Jeonghan turned to them again.

First to Hongjoong.

Then to Jiyong.

And this time he didn’t just touch.

He explored.

With reverence, not indulgence.

With a curiosity he could no longer cage.

Jeonghan's fingers reached up to Hongjoong’s face, featherlight, barely a whisper of pressure as he traced the curve of his brow. The demon prince blinked, slow, almost in disbelief, and his breath trembled as Jeonghan followed the sweep of his eyelashes with the pad of his thumb.

Pain didn't flare but the air hummed briefly then paused, perhaps waiting to see what more Jeonghan would do.

“You don’t flinch.” Jeonghan murmured.

“I wouldn’t dare.” Hongjoong whispered back.

Then Jeonghan trailed down further; over the bridge of his nose, his high cheekbone, the hollow just beneath it. The way Hongjoong’s jaw clenched told him that touch, even light as this, was weighty.

Jeonghan didn’t stop.

He brushed the tip of a finger along the edge of Hongjoong’s lips; unpainted today, bare and chapped from biting. Hongjoong didn’t move. Not even when Jeonghan looked at him fully and asked, soft and steady, “Does this scare you?”

“No.” Hongjoong said, voice raw. “It humbles me.”

Jeonghan smiled faintly and then he turned.

Jiyong was watching him already, unreadable behind eyes too bright, too knowing. A war inside them, perhaps, but he didn’t pull away when Jeonghan’s hand rose again.

He let it happen.

Let Jeonghan touch him as if he was something fragile, breakable; though they both knew he was not.

Fingertips brushed across Jiyong’s brow, tracing the faint crease that worry had carved there long ago. His eyes fluttered closed as Jeonghan mapped each lash, each curve of skin.

“You feel warm.” Jeonghan murmured.

Jiyong's lips quirked. “You’re the first to say that in a thousand years.”

Jeonghan trailed lower, down the slope of his nose, along the sharp plane of his cheek but it was the way Jiyong shuddered when Jeonghan traced the soft outline of his lips that made time falter.

Not because the touch was sinful but because it was safe. Because Jeonghan wanted to know them.

Not what they could offer.

Not what they could destroy.

But who they were.

When Jeonghan’s hands finally lowered, resting again in his lap, both of them were watching him like something holy.

He had touched them.

Not in defiance.

Not in seduction.

But in recognition.

He had looked at each face, scarred and beautiful and heavy with myth... and had chosen to see them.

And for a long time after, no one spoke.

The silence wasn’t empty.

It was full of things unsaid.

Jiyong broke it first.

“Do you remember,” he said slowly, “what it felt like when you first opened your eyes?”

Jeonghan nodded.

“I remember thinking the world looked… too bright. Like my vision hadn’t caught up to my understanding.”

Hongjoong’s voice followed, softer. “That’s how I feel now. When you look at me.”

Jeonghan met both their eyes then.

“Then let’s keep looking.”

And he didn’t have to touch them again to feel the way their souls leaned forward.

Yearning.

Not for possession but for proximity, for permission to be near.

And that was what Jeonghan gave them.

Not his fall.

Not his vow.

Just his presence.

And that, for now, was enough.

It happened so slowly, as if Heaven, and the universe itself was holding its breath.

Jeonghan had touched them first; had reached without fear, without judgment, without demand.

And that alone was enough to undo centuries of silence buried in both their chests.

But when he drew his hands back, resting them gently in his lap like they were still learning what they were allowed to hold… neither man moved.

Not at first.

Not until Jeonghan looked at them again, really looked, and whispered, “Would you want to touch me too?”

It wasn’t a test.

It wasn’t a tease.

It was a question so simple, so achingly human, it shattered what was left of their restraint.

Hongjoong moved first, carefully. As if he thought one misstep would make Jeonghan vanish.

He reached for Jeonghan’s hand, his gaze searching the angel’s face for any sign of hesitation. And when Jeonghan didn’t pull back; when he, instead, offered his wrist as if it were a sacred relic, Hongjoong bowed his head and kissed it.

Not with hunger.

Not with sin.

But with something closer to prayer.

His lips brushed just above the pulse point where warmth and divinity thrummed, where Jeonghan’s breath caught ever so slightly and he lingered there, forehead against skin, as if waiting for thunder to strike him down.

It didn’t.

Only silence.

And then, another touch.

Jiyong had followed, though slower. As if his body was fighting the motion and his soul was begging for it.

He took Jeonghan’s other hand, cradled it like it was spun glass, and when he pressed his lips against Jeonghan’s wrist, it was different from Hongjoong; less a prayer, more a confession.

He didn’t close his eyes.

He watched Jeonghan as he kissed him.

Let the angel see all of it: the reverence, the wonder, the disbelief. And something deeper still, something like sorrow, like awe.

Jeonghan trembled, just slightly. It wasn’t pain, not this time but it was the weight of being seen. The weight of being wanted without being consumed.

He looked at the demon prince, still kneeling, his touch burning gentle.

He looked at the fallen god, still holding his hand, as if it might vanish if he let go.

“You’re not afraid?” Jeonghan asked, voice barely a breath.

Hongjoong shook his head, slow. “Of Heaven? Always.”

“But not of you,” Jiyong murmured. “Never you.”

They sat like that a while. Hands held and wrists kissed.

No flames. No thunder. No divine retribution.

Only a silence that felt like safety.

Only a moment shared with no promises, no expectations.

Just being.

“I don’t know what happens next.” Jeonghan admitted.

“Neither do we.” Hongjoong said.

“But we’ll stay,” Jiyong added. “if you’ll have us.”

Jeonghan smiled.

Not with joy, not with defiance but with the quiet ache of someone who has waited too long to be chosen, and is only just now realizing he can choose back.

Chapter Text

It began with the wind.

A shift. A stillness.

The air held no breath, no song, no scent of blooming vine or ash or blood. It was empty, vast and humming; like the space between lightning and thunder.

And Jeonghan, sitting between god and demon, felt it first.

The shiver up his spine.

The weight between his ribs.

The pulse of something ancient pressing against the skin of the world.

He drew his hands back, clutched them to his chest, and then...

The sky cracked.

Not with light but with sound.

Boom.

A low, primal note that split the air like a blade. It didn’t echo. It resonated. In the bones. In the soul. A call so old it didn’t use language. It simply was.

Jiyong was already rising. “That’s!”

Boom.

The second drum and this time it hurt.

Jeonghan gasped, doubling over as the cuffs around his wrists flared gold. They were no longer shackles. They were anchors, and Heaven had found its grip.

“Jeonghan—” Hongjoong reached for him, only to be thrown back, a crack of divine force sizzling through his hand.

“I’m—” Jeonghan choked, curling in on himself. “I’m fine, I just—”

Boom.

The third drum and Jeonghan screamed.

It wasn’t fire.

It was light.

Light that tore through him from within, that bent his body at the spine and clawed down his limbs. The cuffs began to twist; bands of gold and judgment, feeding into his very marrow.

The air around them trembled, blistered with unseen heat.

“NO!” Jiyong shouted, moving forward, but the ground between them fractured; an invisible wall of Heaven’s fury slamming down with a force that sent even him staggering.

Hongjoong growled, hands aflame, wings unfurling in shadow, but he too couldn’t break through. Not this. Not yet.

“You don’t get to take him!” He roared.

But Heaven had already decided.

Not only because Jeonghan touched, and not only because Jeonghan chose.

But because he had been chosen back.

And angels, pure and untouched, were not meant to be wanted.

Not by those cast out, not by those born of sin, and certainly not by anyone who could return the feeling.

Jeonghan’s skin began to glow, fractures of light blooming down his neck, his wrists, his spine. His halo, dormant for so long, flared into existence above him, and then shattered, pieces of divine glass falling around him like dying stars.

He couldn’t even cry out anymore because the pain had moved past sound, moved past language.

It was unbeing.

And somewhere in the chaos, through the drums and the fury, he felt it.

Their hands.

Both of them, despite the burning, despite the divine force... touching him again, holding him again.

“Don’t let go.” Jeonghan whispered and they didn’t.

Even as the light threatened to erase him.

Even as the chains pulled him upright, his feet leaving the earth, his breath coming in broken bursts.

Even as Heaven tried to take him home.

It should have ended there. With Heaven’s decree, with chains forged in starlight, with judgment cast, and wings clipped, and fire wreathed in gold.

But it didn’t.

Because neither of them let go.

Jiyong’s arms had caught Jeonghan’s waist even as divine light scorched across his chest, ripping through cloth and skin, branding him with the soundless scream of the seraph’s pain.

Hongjoong’s hands were wrapped around Jeonghan’s wrists, claws dulled to human shape, but strength still inhuman, pulling down, grounding, refusing.

They bled for him.

From mouths, from eyes, from the very pores of their skin.

And still, they held him.

Heaven flared again, pure and terrible.

A fourth drum beat through the world, and this one sounded like a breaking heart.

The light flared and Jeonghan cried out, not from pain but from clarity because he understood now.

This wasn’t salvation.

This was ownership.

This was control.

This was the cold hand of Heaven branding him theirs; not because he had sinned, but because he had felt.

They were trying to erase it... erase him.

And in the space between that knowing and the next breath, Jeonghan moved.

He twisted.

He surged.

He reached.

And with a body cracking in half and a soul being pulled in all directions, Jeonghan took Hongjoong’s face in one hand, took Jiyong’s in the other and kissed them both.

He kissed Hongjoong first, soft and shaking, lips pressed to the curve of the demon’s mouth like a benediction, like forgiveness, like something divine and utterly undeserved.

Then Jiyong, gentler still. A breath of a kiss, more memory than touch, as if the fallen god could fall again... this time into him.

Their pain stopped not because the burn faded but because Jeonghan lit up.

He glowed not with Heaven’s judgment but with his own light.

A light that reached them both, wrapped around their bodies, filled their wounds with gold, not to brand them but to heal.

To bless.

He whispered it through the kiss, through the tears:

“I give you salvation.”

Hongjoong, shaking, tried to speak, but Jeonghan held firm.

“I give you blessing.”

Jiyong clutched at his waist, forehead to Jeonghan’s chest, breath ragged and Jeonghan, divine and bleeding and breaking, smiled.

“I give you everything.”

The light exploded not outward but inward. It pulled them all into him.

The drums stopped and the sky went quiet.

The shackles shattered, not with noise but with a hush, a release, a letting go of all that bound him.

And Jeonghan fell.

Not down.

Not up.

Just… away.

From Heaven.

From earth.

From time.

From punishment.

And when he faded from their arms, when the light winked out like a final star, Hongjoong and Jiyong were left holding nothing.

Nothing but warmth.

Nothing but gold stained into their skin.

Nothing but the weight of a kiss.

Chapter Text

They don’t speak.

Not for a long time, not when the light fades, not when the garden burns, and not when the wind finally stops howling, and the sky closes its eye, and Heaven dares not drum again.

They stand there, shoulder to shoulder, soaked in smoke and ash and gold.

Jiyong’s breath is ragged while Hongjoong’s chest rises too fast, and in the trembling quiet that remains after everything… they look down at their hands.

Jiyong’s first.

They watch as his hands shake. They’re still painted with light. Burned, but not from pain, burned open. His palms are glowing faintly, an after-image of where Jeonghan’s lips had pressed, where divinity had entered.

And Hongjoong, he’s staring at his fingers, curled like they still hold Jeonghan’s jaw, like the kiss had lingered in the space between skin and soul.

He doesn’t speak.

He can’t.

Because how could he? How could either of them? How do you explain what it is to be filled?

How do you scream when your voice is caught on grief and glory?

“He gave us…” Jiyong chokes. Stops. Tries again. “He gave us himself.”

Hongjoong’s throat works.

He doesn’t answer, doesn’t have to because the world is already beginning to respond in his place.

The wind shifts direction, the stars blink out, and far above, far beyond the veil, something, someone, trembles.

Heaven watches the two most dangerous beings on Earth and sees what Jeonghan’s final act truly was.

Not rebellion, not romance, and not eve ruin but transference.

The untouched angel had not merely chosen.

He had given.

His light.

His power.

His soul, yes but also something more, something older.

He had blessed them and now… Heaven cannot see them fully, cannot touch them because their bodies have become vessels of divinity but not Heaven’s.

His.

Jeonghan’s.

The seraph who had judged gently, who had kissed without hesitation, who had burned and never regretted.

And now the god and the demon, they are not kneeling, they are not begging, they are rising.

Together.

Jiyong raises one glowing hand, fingers flexing like he doesn’t recognize the power humming just beneath skin.

“I feel him.” he whispers.

And Hongjoong nods, gaze still locked to his own palm. “So do I.”

The air shifts as Heaven watches, waits, and fears, because angels are not supposed to give. They are supposed to obey.

But Jeonghan… he loved, and love, real love, especially love that is returned was never part of the design.

Jiyong lifts his head, eyes gold, while Hongjoong bares his teeth as the garden blooms again.

Not from soil.

Not from magic.

But from a power far too ancient for even the stars to name.

Jeonghan’s blessing takes root as his divinity grows and for the first time since the beginning of everything, Heaven trembles.

The rooftop garden should not be here because it had burned, turned to ash, to ruin, to the graveyard of a final kiss.

But now vines curl back into place, stone reknits where it was shattered, and the statues, once broken and headless, lift their faces again.

None of it is natural.

None of it is demonic.

None of it is divine.

It is his.

The gift of an angel who had never learned to fear.

The imprint of someone who had never been kissed, never been touched, and yet had given everything anyway.

And that everything now lives in them.

They don’t argue.

Not anymore.

Not after they lost him.

Jiyong doesn’t speak unless he has to, and when he does, it’s only to ask, “There?”

And Hongjoong simply nods or shakes his head, dragging fingers along the threads of energy still laced into their skin.

It’s the only clue they have the echo of Jeonghan’s divinity, buried deep in the marrow of their bones, humming soft and stubborn like a prayer.

They no longer move like a demon and a god.

They move like seekers, like vessels, and they follow what they can of him.

First through alleys still echoing with Jeonghan’s last steps, the brick walls softening under their touch like they remember him.

Then through the lower sanctum of the city, where sinners and dreamers rest in equal measure, and a girl stops Jiyong by clutching his hand.

“I saw an angel,” she says. “He was crying when he smiled. Is that allowed?”

Jiyong kneels in front of her and his voice shakes.

“Yes,” he says. “He does that.”

They check churches next.

Temples.

Ruins.

They look skyward and underground, in graveyards and clubs, in beds where no one sleeps alone and forests that hum with forgotten gods.

And still, no trace, no body, no blood.

Just light, lingering where he’d stood.

Just warmth, left like a fingerprint.

Just echoes, faint and holy and so terribly his.

They feel mad with it.

This wanting.

This lack.

This holy ache.

And neither will admit it out loud but they are afraid because what if Heaven never lets him be again?

What if this is the end?

What if Jeonghan gave them divinity not to anchor them but to say goodbye?

The Throne doesn’t speak, It doesn’t have to.

The Archs have begun to tremble without it.

The flame seraphim sputter.

The water-formed dominions ripple with unrest.

Even the ones closest to the center, those wrapped in purity, wing upon wing, glance at each other now with something bordering on fear.

It’s happening.

They know it.

And worst of all, none of them can see.

The trio has vanished from Heaven’s sight, from the lines of fate, from the measure of time, even from divine record.

The moment Jeonghan kissed them both, he rewrote something.

And the Throne… It shudders.

It did not think love could undo divinity but that’s what he did.

He chose.

He loved.

And in doing so, he gave.

And in giving, he created a new order.

Heaven cannot command him now, not directly because in that kiss, he reversed the current, he blessed what should not be touched, and he sanctified what should have been punished.

And now, the demon bears a mark of grace while the fallen god carries an active halo, flickering gold behind his eyes.

They are beyond reach and Jeonghan?

His soul, his very essence, now flows through them.

He is not here.

He is not there.

He is within.

And Heaven does not know how to take back, or even kill, a soul it no longer owns.

Then it starts with a whisper from the edge of the Orders from a low-ranking angel with eyes clouded by empathy.

He leans toward another and says, “What if he was right?”

The other flinches. “Blasphemy.”

But the whisper spreads because some remember him.

Not the perfect seraph Heaven tried to make him but the gentle one, the curious one, the one who always listened, even to the ones they were told not to hear.

“Jeonghan,” They murmur. “He never judged the way we did.”

And now that judgment is failing, the threads of obedience begin to fray.

Not in revolt but in memory.

Of him.

Of the way he smiled when others called for wrath.

Of the way he tilted his head, listening, when even the Archs shouted.

Of the way he spoke, as if mercy had teeth.

As if kindness knew what it was doing.

Jiyong is the first to feel it, that small tremor underfoot but it’s not the earth.

It’s him.

Jeonghan.

Hongjoong stumbles when it hits and presses a hand to his chest.

They look at each other with eyes wide, nearly wild.

“Where?” Hongjoong breathes.

Jiyong is already moving. “Close.”

They sprint down stone steps, through the mouth of a ruined cathedral, into a chamber filled with still air and then they hear it, a faint sound.

Breathing.

His breathing.

And when they turn the last corner, they see him.

Not floating.

Not glowing.

Just… sleeping.

He was wrapped in vines, cradled in light. His wings hadn’t returned, nor had his halo.

He felt human now, but alive.

Whole.

And when Jiyong sinks to his knees beside him, when Hongjoong lays a trembling hand on the marble edge of the altar Jeonghan sleeps on… Jeonghan sighs, and the entire room exhales with him.

Alive.

The angel who gave everything.

Still here.

Still theirs.

Still himself.

And for the first time in what felt like eternity they weep.

Not from grief but from joy.

From relief.

From the promise of more.

Chapter Text

There is a stillness that comes just before creation. Not silence, not death, not sleep but stillness.

It is the quiet before a universe begins again, and that is the breath they are holding, that is the air around Jeonghan now.

He lies on stone that was once an altar, now something more, a mixed cradle of ruin and blessing, rebuilt by his sacrifice. His face is serene, lashes a pale gold, skin unmarred except for where the light still pulses beneath it.

Jiyong kneels beside him, head bowed while Hongjoong’s fingertips hover just above his, not yet daring to touch again.

They don't speak.

They don’t move.

Until Jeonghan's fingers twitch.

And both men; who have fought wars, ruled kingdoms, shattered heavens, gasp like they're the ones being born again.

Jiyong’s hand finds Jeonghan’s first. Not grasping. Just… there. Hovering. Open.

Hongjoong mirrors him.

Neither says a word but then Jeonghan reaches.

Eyes still closed, his hands rise, slow as breath, and find them.

His left touches Hongjoong as his right touches Jiyong and in that instant, the world splits.

It begins in the air; a single note, high and sharp, like glass singing from within.

Then the altar shivers.

Then the floor beneath it trembles.

Then a crack.

A seam rips through the marble beneath them.

Veins of light surge upward from the earth, splitting the stones, curling like fingers around the three bodies now joined.

Jeonghan doesn’t flinch. He only exhales, lashes fluttering. His lips part, and his breath hits both of them like wind through the soul.

Jiyong cries out from shock as the divinity inside him rushes like flame meeting old godsleep.

His halo flares into full shape behind his head; not golden, but silverfire, spiked and radiant and unbearably beautiful.

Hongjoong jerks as if struck, his pupils blown wide, one hand clutching Jeonghan’s tighter as infernal symbols bloom like flowers over his forearms and chest. They glow white; not red, not black, purified not by repentance, but by love freely given.

And above it all, the sky screams.

It is not supposed to be possible.

The divine cannot be given like this.

It must be commanded.

Earned.

Deserved.

But the boy, the angel… Jeonghan has broken the natural order.

And not with rage, not even with violence but with choice.

And now they feel it.

The Throne itself trembles, light pulsing in wild patterns.

Archangels drop to their knees, clutching their chests as something twists the covenant from within.

The living chain that once bound Jeonghan’s spirit to Heaven has snapped because Jeonghan is not just giving his divinity away…

He is rewriting it.

He is choosing who to make holy and both the demon and the god are responding.

As his fingertips remain in theirs, Jeonghan’s light doesn’t fade but instead it multiplies and flows.

Into Hongjoong’s veins, into Jiyong’s breath but not to consume, to complete.

Like pieces of a story that had always meant to end this way.

Cracks in the cathedral stretch toward the walls, and then outward, streets quake, glass explodes outward from windows, the city itself groaning beneath a love it does not yet understand.

Flowers bloom where ash had fallen as statues cry blood that turns to gold.

Everywhere, Jeonghan is remembered.

And they are blessed.

Hongjoong grips Jeonghan’s hand tighter.

“Stop.” He chokes, eyes glowing. “You’ll burn again.”

“No.” Jiyong says, low and awed. “Not this time.”

Jeonghan’s eyes open.

They are brilliant and wet with unshed tears.

“I chose you.” He says, voice raw, barely more than air. “And you chose me back.”

A beat.

“I thought that would damn us.”

Another breath.

“…But I was wrong.”

And then the light flares as everything becomes new.

Their hands are still joined.

But the energy between them now is stable; not a storm, not a punishment but a tether.

Holy.

Mutual.

Jiyong stares down at their hands, his breath ragged. “I can feel you. All of you. Not just what you gave… but what you are.”

Hongjoong nods, stunned. “It’s alive in us. And it’s good. It doesn’t… it doesn’t hurt.”

Jeonghan looks at them both, eyes shining, skin nearly translucent with light. “Because it was never meant to hurt.”

His voice catches. “Heaven lied. Touch wasn’t the sin. Indifference was.”

They stare at him.

And for a moment, all three breathe together.

Whole.

Alive.

Connected.

And then, Jeonghan collapses.

He’s not gone but he’s not conscious either.

Whatever part of him had awakened for that moment, to see them, to speak, to give, had exhausted what little stability was left in him.

Now, he lies quiet. No longer glowing, but no longer dim.

Sleeping again but breathing. Still breathing.

Jiyong catches him before his head hits stone. Cradles it to his chest, murmuring nonsense prayers into his hair.

Hongjoong strokes a hand down Jeonghan’s back, fingertips whispering over where wings should have been.

“He gave more than he should have.” Hongjoong says. “It feels like he gave everything.”

Jiyong nods as they exchange a glance.

Neither wants to let go of his hand, and neither will.

Even now, with Heaven roaring above, with the city stirring in frightened confusion, with fate and time stalling mid-spin, they hold on.

Because this time they are ready to fight.

This time, they understand what they were given, and what must now be protected.

The Throne fractures, just a little, a splinter line down the core of what had once been perfect obedience.

It screams not in rage but in grief, because Jeonghan’s act had not only rewritten the rules, it had made the others look up and see.

See what was lost.

See what they could never command again.

See him.

Still loved.

Still holy.

Even when fallen.

Especially because he fell for love.

And now...

The heavens prepare for war.

But not all are sure who the enemy is anymore.

Because something is changing.

And it started with an angel who wanted to be held.

Chapter Text

He dreams, not of Heaven or fire, not of thrones or cities made of gold.

Jeonghan dreams of arms around him. Gentle. Warm. Mortal.

He dreams of lips brushing his forehead. They weren't demanding anything, just… making sure he’s still breathing.

He dreams of voices saying his name like a secret, dreams of laughter, quiet and tired and real.

And when he wakes, he is still in their arms.

And for the first time since he fell, there is no pain.

He sits up slowly because he can feel his bones ache, and his shoulders pull.

Behind him, there’s nothing there; no wings, no shimmer, and above him, no golden weight of a halo hovering at the edge of his awareness.

But he’s not… broken.

He is present.

Soft light filters through the window of the ruined rooftop garden. Moss curls between shattered tiles. Flowers bloom from the cracks.

Beside him, Jiyong sits, half-asleep, eyelids twitching with dreams.

Across from him, Hongjoong’s legs are crossed beneath him, a hand resting by Jeonghan’s knee as though he’d fallen asleep mid-watch.

And Jeonghan feels it, that he is more mortal now than he has ever been.

Not because he was punished again but because he gave it all and Heaven felt it.

Heaven senses the shift, of course They do. There is not a trumpet this time.

No screaming skies. No howling thunder.

Just a stillness, then a reverberation.

Something old, something angry and more importantly, something afraid.

Because Heaven knows what this is.

The kind of giving Jeonghan performed was forbidden for a reason: it levels the field.

It takes divinity out of the vaults of the few and offers it freely to the hands of those who have not begged, not bargained, but simply loved.

And now, he is unguarded.

Because no full angel remains.

Only something… else.

Only Jeonghan.

Others are watching and they see it.

They felt the tremble in the cosmic latticework; the delicate web of belief, consequence, and fate.

In a dimension not quite here and not quite beyond, a being made entirely of glass sighs into its thousand mirrors.

In the spire of a forgotten celestial ruin, a choir with mouths sewn shut begin to hum for the first time in millennia.

In a void stitched between death and dream, a blade forged from an archangel’s rib begins to bleed.

And in a hidden tower behind veils of fire and mist; a celestial sovereign of order, neither demon nor divine, stares into the scrolls of fate and sees that they’ve shifted.

Lines have rewritten. Endings have moved.

Because Jeonghan is no longer Heaven’s and the god and the demon prince, they’ve changed too.

They watch Jiyong first.

The fallen god.

The storm-breaker.

The one who once turned away from the stars and was punished for choosing love over command.

They see how his shoulders are straighter now.

How his eyes glow faintly again, not the searing gold of his old self, but a deeper hue. Something forged through longing and loss and acceptance.

They see how he touches Jeonghan’s face without hesitation.

How his fingers tremble, not in fear, but awe.

They watch Hongjoong next.

The demon prince.

The infernal tactician whose power once came from wrath, from chaos, from beautifully spun lies.

They see how he now sits with stillness.

How he doesn’t pace, doesn’t calculate, doesn’t scheme.

He simply watches Jeonghan breathe and in his aura, once filled with smoke and blade, there is now devotion threaded through every sinew.

They both shine.

Not with divine fire.

But with Jeonghan’s touch on their souls.

Jeonghan finally speaks.

His voice is hoarse. Lower now.

Human but still unmistakably his.

“I can’t hear them anymore.” He says.

Jiyong blinks awake fully, hand reaching instinctively. “Who?”

“Heaven." Jeonghan replies, looking down at his palms. “The Chorus. The Will. The ones who used to whisper what I should be.”

A pause.

“And it’s quiet now.”

Hongjoong shifts. “Do you want it back?”

Jeonghan thinks, really thinks then shakes his head slowly.

“No.” He says. “I want… this.”

And he leans into Hongjoong’s side, lets Jiyong tuck his fingers into his hair and simply breathes.

What they don't know is that across realms, words begin to spread.

“He is mortal now.” The mirror-being says.

“He’s nothing.” The winged serpent hisses. “Strike him down while he sleeps.”

“They will protect him,” croons a veiled watcher. “but they bleed easier now too.”

The throne-scorched choir echoes the warning:

“Touch not the marked one.
He burned for them.
And they rose to catch him.”

Not everyone listens, not every god is kind, and not every demon is afraid.

Some are curious.

Some… envious.

Because Jeonghan’s act did something impossible.

It blessed what was once cursed and now others want that blessing too.

Even if it means breaking him to get it.

None of that touches them yet.

For now, it is still a quiet day.

For now, they sit beneath a canopy of vines and sunlight and healing magic.

Jiyong traces lazy circles on Jeonghan’s wrist as Hongjoong watches a bee land on a cracked statue and Jeonghan hums, barely aware of it, just… content.

“I thought becoming mortal would hurt more.” He admits.

“It will.” Jiyong says, soft but honest.

“You’ll feel everything.” Hongjoong murmurs. “The full weight of love. The pain of time. Hunger. Tiredness. Want.”

A beat.

“And we’ll feel it with you.” Jiyong adds.

Jeonghan nods.

Then smiles.

Then laughs, something soft and surprised.

“I think I want to.” he says. “I think… I want to want.”

And they both lean in, pressing their foreheads to his.

Chapter Text

The morning does not arrive all at once.

Instead it creeps, gentle and golden, through the cracks of ivy and broken stone.

There are no trumpets, no orders, and no punishment.

Only sunlight warming Jeonghan’s bare shoulder. Only breath, steady and even, not from his lungs but from those pressed against his side.

They have not left him, not since the moment he gave them all he had.

And yet, they still ask nothing.

They do not speak of that kiss. Of that final, reckless thing.

Where he’d reached with both hands, kissed with desperation and promise and burned, burned, burned.

They do not name it but it lingers.

Demon and god, both, glance at his mouth when he speaks now. And when they smile… it’s hesitant, unsure if it’s allowed.

As if they do not want to steal what was given.

As if they’d rather wait.

Wait until Jeonghan wants again.

And Jeonghan… he does.

“I want a day.” Jeonghan says simply, when all three are finally awake.

Jiyong, brushing his fingers through Jeonghan’s hair, pauses. “A day?”

“A day without fear. Without rules. Without...” Jeonghan glances down at his wrists, where the marks from Heaven’s shackles still linger, faint and but no longer aching, “them.”

Hongjoong doesn’t ask for clarification.

He just reaches out, threads his fingers through Jeonghan’s, and squeezes once.

“Then a day you’ll have.”

They’ve visited the rooftop garden before but never like this, never when Jeonghan could truly feel.

It's certainly different, with Jeonghan being able to truly breathe in the scent of jasmine in the air, feel the stickiness of fruit shared between fingers, and the rough stone warmed by the sun.

He laughs when Hongjoong tries to teach him how to eat mango without getting it all over himself.

He laughs harder when Jiyong gives up entirely and feeds him pieces by hand, grinning as Jeonghan bites too close to his fingers on purpose.

Neither flinch, not anymore.

Not since the kiss because he touched them and they chose him back.

And now even small things; a finger brushing his cheek, a shoulder leaning into his, the low sound of his name spoken with nothing demanded, feels impossibly, devastatingly sweet.

In the heat of noon, Jeonghan curls beneath the arms of a marble statue. Its face is worn away, its features long forgotten.

Jiyong sees him there, splayed in light and shadow and approaches like one might approach a temple.

He kneels beside him, and lets their foreheads touch again.

Now though there's no fire, no roar of Heaven, no pulling chains.

Just silence and breath.

“I didn’t think I’d ever want this again,” Jiyong says. “But then you looked at me like I wasn’t broken. Like I wasn’t… lost.”

“You weren’t.” Jeonghan whispers. “You just needed a place to rest.”

“And you gave me that.” Jiyong breathes.

He shifts, gaze dipping lower.

“I almost kissed you first.”

Jeonghan’s heart stutters.

“You didn’t.”

“You were too divine. Too far away. I thought… if I touched you, you’d disappear.”

Jeonghan reaches up. Traces a thumb across Jiyong’s cheek.

“You can touch me now,” he says.

Jiyong closes his eyes.

And presses his lips, slowly, reverently, to Jeonghan’s temple.

Later, Jeonghan finds Hongjoong perched atop a broken archway, boots dangling, fingers plucking absent chords on an invisible instrument.

He looks up and smiles that sharp little grin that never cuts Jeonghan, only cradles.

“Did you find your day?” he asks.

“Almost.” Jeonghan says, climbing up beside him.

They sit shoulder to shoulder, watching the sun melt between towers.

“I thought you would’ve run.” Jeonghan murmurs. “After… after what I gave.”

“I almost did." Hongjoong says truthfully. “Not because I didn’t want it. But because I’ve never been chosen like that. Not freely. Not without a price.”

“There was no price.” Jeonghan says.

Hongjoong’s hand finds his.

“No.” He agrees. “There was blessing.”

They sit in silence for a while.

Then Jeonghan, a little shyly, asks, “Did you want to kiss me too?”

Hongjoong laughs, startled, almost boyish. “Yes. Still do. But I won’t unless you ask.”

Jeonghan tilts his head.

Smiles, slow and warm.

“I’m not asking,” he says, leaning in, “but if you wanted to try again… maybe it won’t kill any of us this time.”

Hongjoong presses his lips to Jeonghan’s brow.

When he pulls back, he whispers, “Close enough. For now.”

The stars appear slowly that night. There was no fire this time, no fury.

Just light and in their circle of sanctuary, they lie again.

Jeonghan stretched between them, one hand in Hongjoong’s, and the other in Jiyong’s.

There was no pain, no burning.

Only the hum of something sacred but not from above from within.

“You think they’re watching?” Jeonghan murmurs.

Jiyong chuckles. “They never stopped.”

“I hope they are.” Hongjoong says. “Let them see what love looks like when it’s chosen.”

Jeonghan closes his eyes and feels it.

Not shackles, not chains, but warmth on either side.

Breath against his skin, and his name spoken not with command but with care.

He was always told desire would undo him but here, in the space between god and demon, desire is what makes him whole.

Chapter Text

It begins with a ripple in the sky.

A faint shimmer like heat rising from stone, except the air is cold.

Jeonghan feels it first, a tug in his chest. A sense of wrongness, not unlike the one that heralded the last punishment.

But this isn’t Heaven’s wrath and this isn’t judgment.

It’s intent and it’s coming.

The sky splits as they arrive in streaks of light.

Its not golden, and not warm but white-hot and merciless, like blades sharpened on the edge of divinity.

Five of them arrive.

No faces.

No names.

They are only forms of will, wrapped in radiant steel and veiled wings, descending with the crack of a storm behind them.

They speak with no mouths but the air trembles when their voices land.

“You were warned, Jeonghan of the First Choir.”

“You gave away what was not yours to give.”

“You will be unmade.”

Jeonghan is alone when they arrived and he doesn’t run.

He steps forward, wrists still raw from the last binding but human this time around with eyes wide but not afraid.

“I gave it because I wanted to.” he says, voice even. “Because they were worthy.”

A laugh, not human, tears through the lead seraph’s throat.

“A demon and a broken god? Worthy?”

“You were created for purity, not sentiment.”

“And you failed.”

Jiyong arrives with wind swirling behind him, eyes glowing with a soft violet light Jeonghan has never seen before.

He does not speak, he only steps in front of Jeonghan, and Hongjoong follows close behind, slower, but not because he fears but because he’s pulling something out of himself, a flicker of flame that does not belong to the underworld.

He stands at Jeonghan’s other side.

“What you’re here for,” Hongjoong says coolly, “you won’t get.”

“You don’t even know how to use what he gave you.” one of the celestial soldiers sneers.

“No,” Jiyong answers, smiling without warmth. “But we’re learning.”

The battle doesn’t begin with a charge. It begins with a pulse.

Jeonghan’s heart beats once and both god and demon respond.

The light that flows from them is not wholly theirs, it’s his.

They wield it differently.

Jiyong calls on it like memory.

The ache of eternity and beauty of sacrifice sharpened into precision that when he lifts a hand, a column of radiant force bursts from the ground, hurling a seraph back into the sky.

Hongjoong burns with it.

Every motion, every strike laced with vengeance and joy and the promise of protection.

His fists glow, not red, but gold.

His voice, low and clear, casts each enemy into disarray with nothing but a whisper, “You don’t touch what’s ours.”

Jeonghan watches them fight.

Not as conquerors but as keepers and not once do they turn from him.

They move around him like the eye of a storm, keeping him safe at the center, and every time they falter, every time pain sears or their knees threaten to buckle, Jeonghan speaks.

Just a whisper.

Just their names.

“Hongjoong.”

“Jiyong.”

And the light swells in them again.

His divinity.

Given.

Not stolen.

Loved.

One of the celestial invaders lands hard, a blade made of scripture poised above Hongjoong’s chest but Jiyong is already there.

He grabs the seraph’s arm and slams him into stone, voice like a hymn turned blasphemous, “You do not lay hands on what he’s blessed.”

Another moves for Jeonghan, faster than breath but Hongjoong grabs the sword meant for him, bleeding as it cuts through his palm and grins.

Because he doesn’t fall, he rises with golden fire in his veins and a kiss-marked wrist that still glows faintly from Jeonghan’s touch.

The skies do not close as Heaven watches, instead they widen because something unexpected is happening.

Divinity is being wielded outside its source.

It's not stolen, not corrupted but shared and it doesn't wither but instead it grows.

Hongjoong’s flames are too bright to be called infernal while Jiyong’s shadows bend with grace that Heaven tried to strip away.

And in the center stands Jeonghan, barely breathing, hands open at his sides, whispering their names like prayer.

One by one, the soldiers fall.

Not dead but struck dumb.

Their blades turned to dust as their wings faltered, and their voices… silenced.

Not by violence but by revelation.

They see it too now.

Jeonghan is not corrupted.

He is whole.

He is mortal, yes, but only because he chose to be.

And the god and the demon?

They have not claimed him.

They’ve honored him.

Jeonghan falls to his knees in the aftermath.

Not from pain but from relief and both men are beside him instantly.

Hongjoong touches his back, as Jiyong holds his hand.

“I’m okay.” Jeonghan whispers, voice shaking.

“Liar,” Jiyong says softly.

“You scared the sky itself.” Hongjoong adds, leaning close.

Jeonghan laughs, tears in his eyes.

“You both fought like...”

“Men in love." Jiyong says.

Jeonghan doesn’t correct him because it’s true, and the light within them says so too.

Far above the Heavens do not speak as the seraphs retreat, but the silence is heavy.

What was meant to be broken… resisted.

What was meant to be reclaimed… defended.

And now two beings walk the world with power that should not have been possible.

Not from a kiss, certainly not from love, and yet, here they are.

They are burning brighter than ever with Jeonghan at their center.

Jeonghan who has not fallen, not risen, but is his own.

Chapter Text

For days after the battle, the city quiets.

No more storms. No shimmers in the sky. No disembodied voices.

There is only light that lingers too long in the windows. Only silence that feels like held breath.

And at the center of it, three hearts still trying to beat in rhythm.

Jiyong is the first to try, which should have been the first sign that this would be a mistake.

He’s sitting on the balcony, the one Jeonghan likes to water the plants from. There’s a wilted lavender bush beside him, barely hanging on.

He remembers how Jeonghan used to touch it gently, murmuring something each time like it deserved to hear kind things.

So Jiyong does the same.

He places a palm near the soil, closes his eyes, and lets the flicker rise.

Not too much, just a little, just enough to... The entire planter explodes into bloom.

Lavender, everywhere. Crawling over the railing, up the wall, out onto the floor like it’s trying to reach for someone.

“Gosh!” Jiyong yelps, yanking his hand back.

From inside Jeonghan stifles a laugh.

“Everything okay?” Jeonghan calls, amused.

“Yes!” Jiyong shouts, stepping back from the now aggressively fragrant garden monster. “Just… photosynthesizing!”

Honjoong learns the hard way because he forgets that it’s not just fire anymore.

He’s used to rage obeying him, used to destruction bending beneath his fingers but now there’s a warmth that answers him, like a kiss on the back of his neck, like a laugh in a quiet room.

And when he calls on it in the alley behind the apartment to light a cigarette, of all things, the concrete cracks and from it rises a sapling.

It was tiny, glowing faintly, with leaves that shimmer gold.

Hongjoong drops the cigarette, choking on air.

He hasn’t seen a living thing answer him since... well, since never and now the dirt likes him?

“Jeonghan!” He calls, dragging the baby tree to the door like it’s a cursed artifact.

But Jeonghan only grins and cups the sprout between his hands.

“It likes you,” He says, voice too fond.

“Demons aren’t supposed to be liked.” Hongjoong mutters.

“Well. You’re not just a demon anymore, are you?”

It's not just power because it’s him.

His light doesn’t manifest like Heaven’s.

It doesn’t blind or burn or bind, instead it tends and now that it lives in them like an echo in the chest, like a warmth behind the ribs that they feel it in ways they can’t always explain.

Jiyong swears the stars respond when he hums one of Jeonghan’s favorite lullabies.

Hongjoong’s never been able to grow anything in his life, but now every mug with leftover coffee turns into a nest for small green leaves.

They don’t talk about it at first.

It’s too strange, too soft, too... intimate.

It happens one night, curled up on mismatched blankets in the living room, Jeonghan asleep between them, his wrist glowing faintly where both had kissed him.

“I think,” Jiyong whispers, “we’re changing.”

Hongjoong watches the gentle rise and fall of Jeonghan’s breathing.

“We already did.”

“No.” Jiyong says. “I mean now. Still. Every day. It’s not just power. I feel different.”

“Stronger?” Hongjoong asks, though his voice is unsure.

“Softer.” Jiyong says, surprised by his own honesty.

And to that, Hongjoong can only nod.

It’s Jeonghan who suggests it one day.

They’re on a rooftop again. Not the broken statue one, this is newer, with empty planters and a view of the bridge.

“Try it again,." He says, chin tilted up. “Both of you. With me here.”

“Try what?” Hongjoong mutters.

“Let the light out. Just a little.”

Jiyong eyes him. “What if the building sprouts wings and flies away?”

Jeonghan laughs. “Then I’ll know you’re both still my miracles.”

So they do it. Not recklessly but intentionally.

Jiyong holds his palm out and sings. It's not a melody, but a tone and the shadows swirl around him in soft spirals that glow at the edges.

Hongjoong breathes in, lets the warmth build in his core, and releases it through his fingertips.

Together they watch as from the cracks of the concrete floor flowers bloom.

They’re pale yellow. Scentless but impossibly soft.

And Jeonghan?

He steps into the middle of it, still radiant despite being mortal.

“I thought Heaven gave me a mission.” He says. “Turns out, I was supposed to come home.”

There are no weapons here.

No lightning bolts crashing from the sky.

No divine punishment.

Only the quiet ache of power that doesn’t feel like theirs, but like him.

And for now, they keep it between them.

In lavender gone wild on balconies, in golden saplings by doorways, in shadows that hum and roots that stir.

They don’t try to wield it for the world outside. Not yet.

Because it isn’t about the world.

It’s about him and the way his light has made a home in their chests, changing them in ways they are only beginning to understand.

Chapter Text

There’s a stillness to the morning that feels intentional.

There was no birds chirping, or even the soft rustle of leaves against the wind.

All they could hear was just the gentle rustle of sheets as Jeonghan moves across the rooftop.

He’s barefoot.

The grass underneath his feet is soft, a recent blessing from Hongjoong’s accident with divinity, and it feels like walking on forgiveness.

On second chances.

On choice.

Jiyong watches from the stairs while Hongjoong leans against the railing, arms crossed tight.

They both feel it, without needing to say it.

Jeonghan isn’t just better.

He’s free.

It starts like this.

“I want to show you what I used to do.” Jeonghan says, kneeling on the grass, his fingers brushing against a single daisy.

“Before,” He clarifies. “Before the warnings. Before the watching. Before I was assigned to judge. When divinity was given to me... to help, to fix.”

“You gave too much.” Jiyong says quietly.

Jeonghan smiles. “I gave what I had.”

And now, he gives again.

“Come here. Both of you.”

He holds his hands out, palms up, open and warm.

Hongjoong sits on his right, Jiyong on his left.

Jeonghan takes their hands, presses their fingers into his own.

“When I used my light,” he begins, “it wasn’t with force. It wasn’t about punishment. It was about feeling.”

He guides their hands to his chest, right over his heart.

“Light comes from here. From wanting. From choosing someone so strongly, your soul answers.”

The beat under their touch is steady, quiet, but it pulses like sun through clouds.

“I would reach like this,” Jeonghan says, guiding their fingers outward in a slow motion, “and I would think only of healing. Of warmth. Of letting the world know it was seen.”

He looks up.

“You can do the same. What I gave you wasn’t meant to destroy.”

Later, Jeonghan finds him in the kitchen as he’s stirring honey into tea with more intensity than required.

“Still thinking about the flower incident?” Jeonghan teases.

Jiyong snorts. “I’m still thinking about how the toaster sparked when I blinked at it.”

Jeonghan laughs soft, and clear.

“Try again but with me.”

He places a hand gently on Jiyong’s forearm, the contact light but intentional andd Jiyong forgets how to breathe.

Not because of power but because Jeonghan doesn’t pull away.

In fact, he steps closer.

He positions Jiyong’s hands just so, on a clay pot that used to be empty.

“Now,” he says, guiding his fingers from behind, “don’t push the power. Invite it. Think of someone you love.”

Jiyong’s eyes flutter.

“I’m thinking of you.”

And the pot blooms with lavender... of course it does.

Jeonghan’s laugh against his shoulder nearly knocks him over.

It’s later, much later.

The moon is heavy and Jeonghan finds him in the recording studio, head in his hands.

“You’re holding back.” Jeonghan says, walking in without hesitation.

“I don’t want to ruin it,” Hongjoong mutters. “This… thing inside me. It wasn’t built for gentleness.”

“You weren’t built for silence, either.”

Jeonghan comes behind him, slides his hands over Hongjoong’s shoulders.

And then lower, over his arms, down to his hands resting on the piano.

“You use this to create.” Jeonghan murmurs. “Let it help you again.”

When Hongjoong closes his eyes and presses a chord the room glows.

Faint. Warm.

Each note a different color.

And Jeonghan, wide-eyed, hugs him from behind.

“I knew you could.” He breathes.

Hongjoong’s throat burns.

Not with fire but with want.

It’s different now, or well Jeonghan's different now.

The shackles are gone, and the punishments, dissolved.

So Jeonghan no longer hesitates and instead, he leans.

He brushes his fingers through Jiyong’s hair while he dozes on the couch, links arms with Hongjoong when they walk through the garden.

He holds their hands without explanation, tucks his chin onto their shoulders, and taps his fingers over their spines when he hugs them goodnight.

Neither of them knows how to handle it because Jeonghan doesn’t want anything from them.

He gives.

Freely.

And they, centuries-old, war-hardened, god and demon, melt.

One afternoon, Jeonghan is in the middle of explaining how to focus light into a small sigil, a warmth that can anchor a place, when he grabs both their faces and squishes their cheeks.

“You two look so serious.” He pouts. “Relax!”

They’re stunned.

Speechless.

And Jeonghan? He laughs, like he just poured honey on sin.

“I love this.” He says, brushing his thumbs across their cheeks. “Touch. Being able to show how I feel.”

He steps back then, arms wide.

“Don’t just learn to use the light,” he says. “Let it change you.”

They end up back on the rooftop, a little breathless, a little dazed.

Jiyong leans against the wall, Jeonghan's touch still echoing down his spine.
Hongjoong can't look directly at him without his throat catching.

Jeonghan, radiant in the sunset, stands barefoot in the grass.

“You’re both doing well,” he says softly. “But remember, divinity doesn’t mean distance.”

He cups his own chest.

His own heartbeat.

“It means depth.”

And then, without warning he pulls them both close.

Arms around shoulders. Hands sliding to hold theirs.

A quiet, whispered thank you.

For learning.

For listening.

For staying.

And for the first time in years, centuries, lifetimes, the light around them hums with joy.

Chapter Text

It starts in the quiet as it always does.

The air carries no divine warning and no tremor from above. Just the weight of three hearts beating in the same space, too close.

Jeonghan sits between them again.

Rooftop, as always. The grass now growing taller with each passing day. A few wildflowers have found home by his knees.

He speaks softly, head tilted back toward the dying light of the sun.

“I used to think I was made to observe.” He says. “To watch. To judge. But I think I wanted more. Even before I knew it.”

His hand brushes over Hongjoong’s as he lets his knee knock gently into Jiyong’s.

“I want now,” Jeonghan murmurs, almost to himself. “And I’m not ashamed of that.”

The breath both men take in response isn’t soft.

It’s sharp.

Hongjoong notices it in the smallest moments.

How his hand now waits to be held.

How his eyes seek Jeonghan in a room, not for safety, but for something else. Something softer.

He listens closer when Jeonghan hums, tilts his head whenever he smiles, and freezes when Jeonghan touches him, like it's sacred.

He thinks it’s gotten better until Jeonghan leans in one day to fix a button on his shirt.

The touch is innocent. The closeness is not.

Jeonghan’s fingers brush his collarbone as his breath ghosts along Hongjoong’s jaw.

He looks up, eyes bright. Unaware. Trusting.

And Hongjoong’s throat burns.

With restraint. With reverence. With want.

He leaves the room before he does something stupid.

It’s not that Jiyong doesn’t know desire.

It’s that he’s never known it like this; patient, aching, tender.

He feels it when Jeonghan curls up beside him on the couch, head nudging into his side like it belongs there.

He feels it when Jeonghan sighs in contentment while reading, back to Jiyong’s chest, asking absentmindedly, “Can you hold this page for me?”

He feels it most when Jeonghan drifts off to sleep, forehead pressing against his arm, lips parted just slightly, and Jiyong’s whole soul stirs with something terrifying:

Let me protect this. Let me keep this.

His want isn't fire.

It’s devotion.

And it’s worse than anything he’s ever known.

The peaches are sweet, their juice running sticky down Jeonghan’s fingers as he leans back into the sunlight. The air is easy, warm, quiet enough that the sound of bees drifting between the wildflowers fills the silence.

“I’ve never kissed someone.” Jeonghan says suddenly.

Jiyong sputters into his tea, coughing like he’s been stabbed while Hongjoong goes utterly still, spoon frozen over his bowl.

Jeonghan doesn’t flinch. He licks the juice from his thumb and continues, calm as the breeze. “Not like… because I wanted to.”

The words land heavy.

He glances between them, unhurried, expression open; not teasing, not coy, just honest.
“There were times I… had to. For power. To give. To… pass things on.” His voice trails softer, almost apologetic, though his eyes never waver. “But that’s not the same, is it?”

Neither man answers.

Hongjoong’s chest burns because he remembers, remembers Jeonghan’s lips pressed to him once like fire, like judgment, like blessing. It had nearly destroyed him. And to Jeonghan, it hadn’t even counted.

Jiyong’s throat works around words that won’t form. He wants to say no, it isn’t the same, but the truth clings bitter; that it would break him to teach Jeonghan otherwise, to be the one to steal that first real kiss.

“You two know.” Jeonghan says finally, quieter now. “You know what it’s like; to want, and then… to choose.”

And when both men just stare; hollowed out, aching, reverent, something in his expression softens.

“I think I’d like to learn.”

That night, neither man sleeps.

Jeonghan falls asleep easily; warm between them on the shared bed, tucked under blankets, his breathing slow and even.

But Jiyong’s hand is frozen where Jeonghan had reached for it before sleep.

And Hongjoong watches the rise and fall of Jeonghan’s chest, resisting the urge to trace the curve of his cheek.

There’s a line.

There’s always been a line.

But Jeonghan keeps stepping past it with eyes wide open; not in innocence, but in yearning.

He wants.

He wants them.

And they, they are already falling to pieces.

The next day, Jiyong finds Jeonghan alone, tending the violets.

There’s dirt on his fingers, a smudge on his cheek.

“You’re not supposed to work too hard.” Jiyong says, crouching beside him.

“And you’re not supposed to hover.” Jeonghan shoots back with a grin.

He doesn’t pull away when Jiyong brushes the dirt off his face, and when Jiyong cups his cheek knuckles brushing the shell of his ear, Jeonghan leans into it.

Like he knows.

Like he wants.

Their foreheads nearly touch and their lips almost meet but Jeonghan closes his eyes and says softly, “Not yet. But soon.”

Jiyong trembles with the effort to nod.

It’s later that same day when Jeonghan walks into the kitchen to find Hongjoong staring at his hands.

“Still scared of breaking things?”

“No.” Hongjoong says. “Scared of breaking you.”

Jeonghan closes the space between them in three steps.

“You won’t.” He says as he reaches up careful and slow, resting both hands on Hongjoong’s chest.

“Do you know what I feel?” Jeonghan asks.

“What?”

“Warmth, and trust.”

He leans in, rests his head there.

Hongjoong doesn’t move, doesn’t breathe but his hands come up, unsure, and then settle around Jeonghan’s waist.

They stay like that for a long time.

Chapter Text

The sky is the softest shade of lavender.

Sunset spills over the rooftop like a benediction. No trumpets from above. No thunderclap. Just peace.

Just the weight of the day shifting into night, and Jeonghan watching it with a quiet kind of awe, his knees pulled to his chest.

He speaks, but not in that distant, angelic tone. It’s just… Jeonghan now.

“I keep thinking…” He trails off, then shakes his head. “No, never mind.”

Hongjoong sits beside him on the stone bench, a blanket tossed over both their legs. “You don’t have to hold anything back anymore.”

Jeonghan turns, a flicker of a smile in his eyes. “I was going to say I wondered how it would feel. To kiss someone because I want to. And not be struck down for it.”

He doesn’t look at either of them when he says it. But he doesn’t need to.

Jiyong stands a few steps away, arms crossed, but his gaze is unreadable. Jeonghan can feel the tension in both of them; not fear, not resistance, just restraint.

Just devotion wrapped so tight it trembles.

“I’m not asking for forever.” Jeonghan whispers. “Just… tonight. Just once. Let me know what it feels like to be wanted.”

And then, as if daring himself, he looks at both of them.

“Please?”

It begins with Jiyong and he approaches first, slowly.

Not because he doubts, but because he doesn’t want to rush.

Jeonghan lifts his chin, and there’s the barest tremble to his lips. He isn’t unsure. He’s just never done this by choice before.

Jiyong lifts a hand to his face.

“Can I?”

And Jeonghan nods.

Fingers cradle his jaw.

A breath is shared.

And then the kiss comes; gentle, tentative at first, like they’re both afraid it might vanish the second their mouths meet. But it doesn’t. It deepens, and Jeonghan makes a sound low in his throat, like discovery.

When they pull back, Jeonghan exhales softly with yes still closed.

“I liked that.”

Jiyong’s smile is broken, full of stunned wonder. “Yeah.” He breathes. “Me too.”

There is no jealousy in him, Hongjoong thinks to himself, not when he steps forward.

Not when Jiyong steps aside, hand brushing Jeonghan’s shoulder in a soft encouragement.

There is hunger, yes, and ache but not possession.

Not anymore.

Jeonghan turns toward Hongjoong without hesitation. “Your turn?”

His voice is almost teasing, but his eyes are shimmering with something deeper. Longing.

Hongjoong doesn’t ask.

He just cups Jeonghan’s face in both hands, closes the distance, and kisses him like it’s the answer to every question he’s ever had.

And Jeonghan sighs into it.

Lets himself be kissed.

Lets himself want it back.

When they part, Jeonghan’s forehead presses to his and none of them speak for a long time.

Then Jeonghan laughs soft, and breathless. “I’m not supposed to have favorites, but that, that was close.”

For a while no one moves and then Jeonghan reaches out, both arms extended.

And they come to him, both of them, wrapping him up between them like it’s natural, like it’s right.

He rests his head on Jiyong’s shoulder. His hand finds Hongjoong’s heart.

“You thought you’d be jealous.” he murmurs. “Didn’t you?”

Neither denies it but Jiyong is the one who says, “I thought I’d hate sharing.”

“And I thought I’d lose you both if I couldn’t claim you entirely.” Hongjoong admits.

Jeonghan smiles. “But look at you. You’re still here.”

“You’re worth it.” Jiyong says.

“You’re ours.” Hongjoong adds.

And Jeonghan beloved, aching, mortal in form but still something more, closes his eyes and lets the warmth wrap around him like divinity.

Later that night, when they lie together beneath the stars, Jeonghan between them, no one speaks for a long while.

He traces circles on Hongjoong’s arm and plays with Jiyong’s fingers.

“I think this is what I wanted.” He finally says. “Not power. Not reverence. Just this. Connection. Choice.”

Jiyong leans down and kisses his temple as Hongjoong nuzzles his hair.

And Jeonghan, sighing with joy too long denied, whispers, “Thank you… for letting me be wanted. For choosing me back.”

Neither demon nor god responds with words but the way they hold him tighter, the way their breath syncs with his; it’s answer enough.

Chapter Text

They didn’t come with trumpets.

They didn’t come with storms.

They came in silence.

One by one, then in twos, and then even more. Each cloaked in celestial fire, but lacking warmth. Each radiant, but without the light that makes things grow.

Their beauty was sharp but empty and their eyes burned with hunger.

Not the kind Jeonghan had come to understand from Jiyong or Hongjoong, no, theirs was greedy. Starved.

And it was him they were staring at.

Not his face, not his soul, but his divinity.

That flicker of light still bound within a now-fragile vessel. That piece of heaven he hadn’t yet given away. That last ember Heaven hadn’t been able to strip from him, no matter his humanity. No matter the burns.

They circled.

One touched down beside the fountain, water freezing on contact. Another floated, steps above ground, wings black-gold and rigid behind her.

A third, he remembered her. Once a seraph, now stripped of her rank. Not because she fell, but because she refused to care.

“Jeonghan.” she breathed, her voice echoing not in the air, but inside his bones. “You kissed them.”

He didn’t deny it.

“You gave blessing.” said another. Male, tall, with eyes like splintered quartz. “You gave it to the unworthy.”

Jeonghan straightened. “They weren’t unworthy.”

“You bled power into sin.” a third hissed.

“And now we bleed for it.” a fourth said, stepping forward. “Give us what remains. You don’t need it. You’ve already fallen.”

His wings, what was left of them, were a tattered gold and flickered behind his back with his rage. Broken halos shimmered above each celestial intruder. Not quite angels. Not demons either.

Something worse.

Beings cast out for cruelty, for silence and for cowardice. Not for love.

Jeonghan clenched his fists. “No.”

And that’s when they struck.

The ground buckled near the old clocktower where Hongjoong stood, eyes shut, attuned to the threads of light Jeonghan still held. He was learning to listen now, to feel the way Jeonghan had taught him.

But this wasn’t like the soft hum he’d grown used to.

This was... then he hears a scream without sound, felt a heartbeat caught in a blade.

His body reacted before thought did.

Jeonghan.

Jiyong dropped the glass in his hand as heat roared through his chest. Not fire, not rage but fear.

He bolted out the doorway, wings of smoke and shadow unfurling behind him. The city blurred as he ran.

Something was wrong.

Something was very wrong.

The first blow sends Jeonghan flying and his back hits the rusted iron gate. Pain blooms, but he grits his teeth.

“I said no.” He spits, crawling back to his feet. “I gave what I chose to. And I will not let you steal what’s left.”

“You think you understand power?” one sneers. “You think love makes you righteous?”

Another slams her hand toward him, not physical, but force. A pulse of divine energy, meant to shred.

It stops inches from his chest because a clawed hand blocks it, tattooed fingers curling in anger.

And behind him, a voice low with fury, “You don’t touch what’s mine.”

Hongjoong does not roar and he does not bare his teeth.

He smiles instead, the kind that makes the ground curl back in fear.

“I knew Heaven was greedy. But I didn’t know it was desperate.”

One of the celestials snarls. “You have no claim.”

“I have what he gave me.” Hongjoong steps forward as his eyes gleam red-hot. “And if you want to challenge that, come. Try.”

Three move at once but Hongjoong is faster.

He draws a sigil with a snap of his wristm one Jeonghan had taught him only days ago, and the sigil doesn’t just ignite. It explodes.

One celestial is thrown across the courtyard. Another shrieks, wing crumpling under the strike.

Jeonghan watches, stunned, as Hongjoong’s power swells not with chaos, but order. Controlled. Focused.

“Did you just?” He gasps.

“Yeah.” Hongjoong grits out. “You taught me.”

In the chaos, Jiyong drops from the sky like lightning.

A crack splits the marble beneath them when his feet touch ground. His arms wrap around Jeonghan instantly, shielding.

He doesn’t ask if Jeonghan is hurt.

He feels it.

He feels the trembling in his breath, the way Jeonghan sags into him, and sees the smear of blood behind his ear.

Jiyong looks up, eyes molten silver.

“You tried to break him?” He whispers. “You thought he wouldn’t be protected?”

When he moves, he moves like wrath but it’s not wild, not vengeful, it’s earned.

He spreads his fingers and the world tilts. A gust of air so cold it burns peels back one of the attackers’ wings. Another stumbles into a wall of light, light Jiyong made.

Divinity courses through him. Through both of them.

Untrained, yes.

But not uncontrolled.

They’re fighting with his light now. Jeonghan’s. Not borrowed. Not stolen.

Given.

The celestials begin to retreat but one, older than the rest, doesn’t flee. His gaze sharpens as he watches all three; Jeonghan, caught between the god and the demon, human from head to toe but light still glowing despite the bruises.

“This… isn’t over.” He spits.

“You’re right.” Jeonghan says. “It’s only just begun.”

Hongjoong and Jiyong both lift their hand, summoning energy meant to kill but instead pulls from the light given by Jeonghan, one that's meant to banish.

The last intruder is thrown backwards in a blink, swallowed by the rift that opens behind him.

And then, silence.

Jeonghan sinks to the ground and Jiyong catches him while Hongjoong kneels beside them.

“You’re hurt.” They say, overlapping.

“I’m alive.” Jeonghan whispers. “We’re alive.”

And then, softer, “You both came.”

“Of course.” Jiyong breathes.

“You called.” Hongjoong says, gripping his hand.

“No,” Jeonghan corrects, voice breaking. “I didn’t. You felt it.”

Neither answers, they don’t need to.

Because in that moment as bruised arms pull him close, as celestial dust swirls in the air, Jeonghan knows what the others will never understand.

They don’t just want him for his light.

They want him.

And that is why he survives.

That is why he wins.

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.

Chapter Text

Jeonghan wakes wrapped in bindings colder than he remembered.

At first, he thought it was because of his humanity but as he looks closer, the cold is not from the chains themselves. No, they are divine gold, inscribed with words he can no longer read, cannot fight. But it is the silence they bring, the hollowness. No wind. No scent. No warmth. No light.

He sits in a room made of clouds and marble, everything pristine, cruelly perfect.

There are no angels here, only watchers.

Their gazes press like stone and they do not speak, do not comfort. They only watch, as if expecting him to break in front of them all, but he already did that long before this.

When Jeonghan closes his eyes, he can still see and hear it; the way Jiyong’s head tilted when he laughed, the way Hongjoong’s voice dropped low when he worried.

The warmth of their hands and the reverence of their lips.

He reaches inward, into the new hollowness carved into his chest by the absence of divinity, by the absence of them and it echoes.

He doesn’t cry, instead he smiles because that echo isn’t empty. It’s waiting.

And then, he feels it.

A tremble beneath the soles of his feet.

The sound of them coming.

Divinity swirled like a tempest at their backs, flames and starlight and fury woven into impossible shapes. The sky was no longer sky; it was heat, light, and promise.

Heaven’s gates were visible now. Distant, impossibly tall, guarded by hosts of shining beings with spears made of sunbeams and armor forged from meteors.

Jiyong slows, hovering.

“You ever think we’re too dramatic?”

Hongjoong smirks. “Constantly.”

They glance once more toward the wall of angels. They are beautiful. They are righteous. They are terrifying.

But they are not Jeonghan, and so they’re in the way.

The angels do not ask questions, instead they strike. Wings of silver and gold sweep forward, weapons singing with divine judgment.

Hongjoong meets them first.

His fire does not scorch, and does not destroy. Instead it purifies, dazzling in its clarity.

One blade swings toward his head, he catches it in his hand and melts it.

Jiyong is behind him, singing in a language older than stars. It shreds armor, and turns certainty into doubt.

The angel nearest him hesitates, and in that breath, he blesses them.

With doubt.

With love.

With choice.

It is not destruction, it is rebellion.

And slowly, the angels begin to fall back.

High above, beyond the gates Jeonghan stirs, and the watchers flinch.

He’s smiling again.

“Are you afraid?” he asks the silence.

There is no answer but the walls tremble.

There is a sound now.

Far-off.

But growing louder.

A melody sung in grief and rage.

A heat that does not burn, but calls.

Jeonghan tips his head back and laughs.

“My loves are coming.”

The sound came first.

Not a trumpet, not a song, no formal herald of war.

Just a thrum.

Low and steady.

It began beneath the marble floor of Jeonghan’s chamber, pulsing like a second heartbeat. The watchers turned, stiffening. Their glowing eyes flickered.

The chains binding Jeonghan’s wrists rattled softly, as though they, too, could hear the approaching storm.

And then, a crack.

Hairline. Barely noticeable. Carving across the eastern wall like a lightning strike made of gold.

Heaven stilled.

The Watchers, silent until now, turned to face him. One stepped forward. Its voice like an empty choir.

“He is not yours to call.”

Jeonghan tilted his head and he didn't speak, he didn’t need to because they were already here.

The Gates of Heaven were meant to be impenetrable, woven with eternity, and sealed with oaths made before the concept of oaths was born.

But neither god nor demon had made those promises, and so they owed Heaven nothing.

Jiyong touched down first. There was no wind in Heaven so he brought his own.

It swirled around him, black and gold, flaring through hair now bright with light that wasn't stolen. His fingertips bled with divinity that belonged to him because Jeonghan gave it.

Next to him, Hongjoong stepped forward, eyes alight. Flames traced the curve of his shoulders, shifting from red to blue to white-hot as he breathed. Not wrath. Not chaos.

Purpose.

“What now?” Jiyong murmured, voice low.

“Now,” said Hongjoong, “we knock.”

And they did, together.

Two palms, one from each, pressed to the Gates.

Boom.

Heaven shook and inside, Jeonghan lifted his eyes as his wall cracked again, wider this time.

Light poured through it, not Heaven’s pale, cold glow but warm, golden, theirs.

It touched the floor like it belonged there, like it always had.

His chains tightened instinctively, reacting to the shift but Jeonghan didn't flinch, he smiled.

Outside, the Guardians arrived. Seven-winged, burning with celestial fury.

One charged but Jiyong didn’t even blink.

He stepped forward, placed a palm on the Guardian’s chest and spoke just one word, “Enough.”

And the angel dropped its blade, fell to its knees before they all got pulled into a void of darkness before they could even twitch.

Hongjoong turned, eyes meeting Jiyong’s.

“You’ve been practicing.”

Jiyong chuckled, a little breathless. “Only when he’s not looking.”

Then he stepped aside.

“Your turn.”

Hongjoong raised a hand. No fire, not this time. Only light.

The kind Jeonghan had shown him how to wield. The kind that healed.

The kind that said: I love you enough to destroy nothing. But I will destroy everything to get to you.

The Gates resisted, and then they didn’t. With a groan older than time, the doors began to crack, split down the middle. And light, pure, human, divine, earned, flooded out.

Inside, Jeonghan gasped as the wall shattered and the Watchers vanished.

And there standing in the ruined frame, were them.

Jiyong, his eyes wet, and Hongjoong, breathing hard.

Both of them glowing, not with stolen power, not with wrath but with love.

Jeonghan tried to stand, stumbled and they were there beside him, arms wrapping around him, hands beneath his shoulders, one on either side.

The chains groaned in protest, and then snapped.

He almost fell forward but was instead caught, held, and lifted.

And Heaven... Heaven screamed.

The skies ripped open with the sound of a thousand trumpets crying blasphemy but Jeonghan didn’t care.

He turned into the warmth of their arms, blinking back tears.

“I knew you’d come.”

Jiyong kissed his temple. “Always.”

Hongjoong rested his forehead to Jeonghan’s. “No one takes you from us. Not even Heaven.”

And together, still burning, still breaking, still whole, they fled.

Chapter Text

They found a quiet ledge on the edge of nowhere.

Somewhere between the folds of space not meant for gods, demons, or mortals. A place that existed only because they did now, were Heaven’s hands hadn’t reached yet.

A cliff suspended in sky, the horizon torn open in streaks of dawn that hadn’t been born, clouds bruised with gold and lavender, low and trembling. There were no stars, just soft pulses of light in the distance. Like Jeonghan’s heartbeat, barely audible.

They sat there, not triumphant, not safe but together.

Jeonghan’s robes were scorched and torn, faint remnants of divinity humming along the ends of his sleeves. His feet were bare yet he didn’t seem to notice.

Jiyong sat on one side of him, leaning back on his hands, his head tilted to the side like it was too heavy to lift.

Hongjoong sat on the other, hunched forward with his elbows on his knees, fingertips pressed together like he could will them to stop shaking.

Jeonghan looked at them both; at their burnt fingers, the blackening along their skin where Heaven’s light had kissed too cruelly, the tremble in Hongjoong’s breath, and the rasp in Jiyong’s lungs.

“You’re still bleeding,” Jeonghan whispered. “You both...”

“We’ve been worse.” Hongjoong replied, voice hollow.

“That’s not the point.”

They didn’t answer him, and that silence, that was what broke him.

Jeonghan’s hand trembled as he reached out, thumb brushing a streak of dried blood from Jiyong’s cheek. The fallen god closed his eyes. Swallowed.

Then, gently, Jeonghan turned to Hongjoong, pressing the pads of his fingers to the base of his throat where flame still flickered.

And it was only then that they looked at him.

Only then that they saw the fear behind his calm, the grief, and the truth he hadn’t spoken until now.

“Heaven won’t stop.” Jeonghan murmured.

A pause.

“I left. I broke Their will. I gave away what They said couldn’t be given. They will come again. And again. Until They take all of me back.”

Hongjoong’s jaw clenched while Jiyong’s brows pulled in, his throat working like something in him wanted to break loose, but Jeonghan only exhaled.

“They don’t understand,” he said. “They don’t see why I chose to stay. Why I want—”

His voice caught.

The weight of it almost too much.

“—why I want to be with you.”

Then Jeonghan moved.

He pressed his body gently against Hongjoong’s side, resting his cheek against the demon’s shoulder. His fingers found Jiyong’s, threading them together. Holding. Not desperate. Just there.

He closed his eyes as he felt their trembling begin to still.

Not because the fear was gone but because now, it was shared.

Heaven still hunted for them.

The skies above burned with searchlight stars and blades of intent. Forces older than time reassembled in silence. They readied legions, prepared the scrolls, called down Judgment.

But somewhere, between the thrum of the void and the hush of exile, three sat on the edge of nowhere.

And for just a moment, Heaven couldn’t touch them.

Not yet.

They hadn’t moved in hours.

Not because they couldn’t, though their wounds still ached, their bodies raw with divine recoil but because they didn’t want to.

Because this moment, as fragile and finite as it was, felt like the last quiet breath before the world would tilt again.

Jeonghan still sat between them, fingers still laced with Jiyong’s, cheek still resting against Hongjoong’s shoulder. The wind here didn’t whistle or bite; it drifted like memory, thick with the scent of something just shy of starlight. It was neither warm nor cold, just weightless.

Much like Jeonghan now, or almost.

He still shimmered faintly in their eyes. There was still something too bright in his gaze, too soft in his skin. Mortal, yes; more than ever before. But not only.

A divinity half-spent, half-born anew.

And in that quiet, Jeonghan finally spoke again.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said, barely above a murmur, “about how long I waited.”

Jiyong turned to him, a slow tilt of his head. Hongjoong’s fingers flexed against his thigh.

“Waited for what?” the fallen god asked.

Jeonghan exhaled.

“For someone to see me. Really see me. Not the symbol, not the vessel. Not the voice of judgment or the chain of obedience.”

His voice didn’t break. But something in it cracked.

“I used to believe love came with rules. That affection had to be granted, not earned. That purpose meant sacrifice.”

His eyes met theirs, and they both went very, very still.

“And then I met you both.”

The silence that followed wasn’t empty.

It hummed.

“Jiyong,” Jeonghan said first, voice gentler now, “you looked at me like I had already saved you, even when I hadn’t done a thing.”

The fallen god’s throat bobbed.

“And you, Hongjoong,” Jeonghan continued, shifting to face him, “you kept trying to protect me even when you didn’t understand why. Even when it cost you. Even when it violated your very being.”

His voice dropped further, until it was nothing but breath and truth.

“You both love like you were never taught how. But you do. You do. And I feel it.”

Hongjoong turned his face slightly away, jaw clenched, eyes wet but unfallen.

Jiyong leaned forward, trying not to speak, trying not to beg.

And Jeonghan trembling, quiet, but sure, lifted his hands. He took both their cheeks in his palms.

A mirrored motion from what they’d shared before but this time, he wasn’t trying to memorize their features.

This time, he was offering.

“I’d choose to fall.” Jeonghan said, voice fierce with quiet conviction. “If it meant staying. If it meant you.”

The words broke something in Jiyong. The exhale he gave sounded like a sob. His forehead pressed into Jeonghan’s palm.

Hongjoong, always more silent in pain, took Jeonghan’s wrist with his hand and held it there, against his cheekbone, like an anchor.

“You don’t need to fall.” Jiyong said hoarsely. “We’ll find another way.”

“I already have.” Jeonghan said. “Piece by piece.”

He leaned forward, closer, as his nose brushed Jiyong’s temple, then Hongjoong’s jaw.

“I’d fall again and again if it meant never going back.”

“You don’t know what they’ll do just so you won’t fall.” Hongjoong rasped. “You don’t know what we’ve sene.

“I do.” Jeonghan said. “And I’d still choose this.”

The wind picked up then, curling around them. Divinity still hummed low in the earth below, theirs now, barely controlled. Echoing with the imprint Jeonghan had given but none of them moved.

Jiyong took Jeonghan’s hand and kissed his knuckles as Hongjoong’s arm curled around Jeonghan’s back, pulled him just a bit closer.

And Jeonghan?

Jeonghan breathed.

“I don’t need to be what they made me to be,” he whispered. “I don’t want to be their weapon. Or their warning. Or their tether to obedience.”

He lifted his face and smiled.

“I just want to stay.”

Chapter Text

Jeonghan woke with sunlight across his chest.

That alone startled him, not because he was unaccustomed to light, but because of how warm it felt. How real. Not the imitation glow of divine decree, not the sterile blaze of celestial halls.

This was morning.

Soft. Gentle. A day born not of command but of choice.

He was wrapped between them again.

Jiyong’s head rested just beneath his jaw, an arm splayed protectively over Jeonghan’s hip. Hongjoong’s breath warmed the space behind his neck, his hand loosely curled against Jeonghan’s ribs.

And for a long, long time, Jeonghan didn’t move.

He didn’t want to. He didn’t dare.

Because this, this rare stillness, felt more sacred than anything Heaven had ever offered.

But he could feel it now.

A shift in the air. A call in the farthest parts of his soul. Distant but growing stronger. The unmistakable pressure of something divine, approaching.

Heaven was coming.

They were sending something. Maybe not a host yet. Maybe not wrath.

But something enough to pull, enough to hurt.

He could feel the ache deep in his marrow, the whisper of shackles returning, the echo of celestial silence poised to reclaim.

And still, despite the warning humming in his bones...

He turned over slowly, gently shifting until he was cradled by both of them. They stirred, blinked sleep away, and Jeonghan smiled like it might be the last morning.

“I need to ask you something.” He said, voice almost childlike in its hush.

Both men straightened a little at the tremble beneath his tone.

“Anything.” Jiyong said instantly.

“Everything.” Hongjoong followed.

Jeonghan swallowed. His hands rested over their hearts.

“I know love. I know loyalty. I know protection. You’ve shown me that.”

A breath.

“But I want to know more. Before they come. Before Heaven takes the choice from me again.”

Their gazes sharpened, lips parting, ready to protest, to promise otherwise.

But Jeonghan lifted a hand.

“Let me finish.”

They stilled.

“I want to know passion. The kind that’s selfish. The kind that’s pleasure. I want to feel what it’s like to be wanted, not just revered.”

The words stunned the air still as neither men moved.

And then Jeonghan whispered, “Can you teach me?”

Jiyong’s hand rose slowly, brushing a strand of hair from Jeonghan’s forehead like he was memorizing a prayer.

“Are you sure?” he asked, voice thick, hushed.

Jeonghan nodded. “If they take me... I want to remember this.”

Hongjoong leaned forward, pressing his forehead against Jeonghan’s temple.

“We’ll make sure they never forget what they let go.”

They touched him like he was light, not fragile, but sacred.

Jiyong kissed his shoulder first, hands tracing reverent lines across Jeonghan’s back. Every breath shared between them was permission. Every glance was confirmation.

Hongjoong kissed his palm, slow and unhurried, before tilting Jeonghan’s chin toward him and brushing his lips across the angel’s like an oath.

They didn’t rush.

They didn’t claim.

They showed.

What it meant to tremble not in fear but in anticipation.

What it meant to be stripped of chains, of fate, of all the rules Heaven had once written into Jeonghan’s bones and to still feel whole.

Jiyong’s hands on his skin felt like falling into fire that did not burn. Hongjoong’s mouth on his chest felt like being rewritten from the inside out.

They worshipped not his divinity but him.

And Jeonghan, breathless, wide-eyed, every nerve new and alive, felt something bloom inside him that Heaven had never prepared him for.

He laughed softly between gasps.

“I didn’t know it could feel like this.”

Jiyong bit gently at his earlobe, whispering, “This is only the beginning.”

Hongjoong’s lips curved against Jeonghan’s pulse. “You deserve everything.”

They let him lead.

They let him want.

And when Jeonghan finally arched between them, his fingers grasping theirs, a cry of pure being on his tongue, the sky outside the windows fractured with golden light.

Not as punishment but as acknowledgment.

Heaven was watching.

And Jeonghan? Jeonghan smiled.

Because for once, he wasn’t afraid.

Chapter Text

It began with the windows cracking not from sound but from light.

Pure, searing brilliance that pierced the morning like a blade. It rolled through the building in waves, making every surface tremble. Plants curled in on themselves. Water evaporated from the bowls by the bedside. The air turned thin.

And Jeonghan sat upright in bed, eyes wide and breath locked in his chest.

“It’s Them.” he whispered.

He didn’t mean just Heaven, he meant all of it.

The Host. The Council. The Collectors. The watchers who had always stood just behind Heaven’s throne, those who had never spoken his name, but always looked.

They were here now, and they were not alone.

Jiyong was the first to move.

He grabbed the nearest shirt, barely managed to pull it over Jeonghan’s shoulders before he turned to the window but it was already too late.

The ceiling above them split.

Not from storm, not from fire, but from the sheer weight of divinity.

Golden stairways unfurled from the sky like anchors dropped into mortal soil. Their edges were too sharp to be cloud, too real to be dream.

From them descended not angels but claimants.

Eyes white. Armor gilded. Hands outstretched not in prayer, but possession.

Jeonghan took a step back.

“No.” he murmured. “They shouldn’t be here. Not them.”

Hongjoong appeared beside him in an instant. His aura flared, smoke and heat and crimson power crackling at his fingertips but it flickered.

He felt it. The power Jeonghan gave them, holy, bright, still new had surged, but it wavered against the sheer number of celestial figures descending.

A hundred steps. A thousand eyes.

Too many.

“You will return.” Said the first being as they reached the rooftop.

They did not announce their name.

They didn’t need to.

Their voice echoed across every bone Jeonghan had ever broken to become what he was.

“You’ve wandered long enough.”

Jiyong stepped forward. “He is not yours to take.”

The second being was taller, wrapped in veils of light, tilted their head.

“And you are not worthy to wield what runs through you. It will be removed.”

At that, Hongjoong snarled.

Darkness erupted from his spine, shadows coiling around his wrists like blades, wings that were once torn trying to form in their place.

He took one step forward only for a celestial hammer of light to slam into him from above.

The ground cracked as Hongjoong hit the rooftop.

“Joong!”

Jeonghan moved, but arms caught him; Jiyong, shielding, snarling, face drawn in fury.

“You don’t touch him!” the fallen god roared.

But a dozen blades of light hovered now in the air between them, each one pointed at Jeonghan’s chest.

“His divinity is not yours.” said the third being, voice cold. “We will take it.”

They reached out and Jeonghan screamed.

Not from pain.

But from rage.

The light in him surged.

A rebellion of spirit. A cry of self.

It blasted through the blades, knocking the first row of celestial beings off balance. Their expressions twisted — more in shock than pain.

He was not supposed to have that strength anymore.

“Don’t.” Jeonghan gasped, backing up, arms out like wings. “Don’t you dare.”

The ones in front stilled but more kept coming.

Descending.

Pouring in.

Each one radiant. Powerful. Entitled.

“I’m not yours to claim.” Jeonghan said, voice breaking. “Not anymore.”

“You never stopped being ours.” the leader said.

Behind them, more stairways cracked open. Some beings didn’t even walk, they floated. Hovered. Pure light, no face.

They didn’t come to reason.

They came to feed.

Jiyong’s fingers tightened at his sides. Power pulsed, unsteady.

“I can’t hold them.” He hissed.

“Me neither,” Hongjoong gritted, dragging himself upright, a cut already bleeding down his temple.

They stood flanking Jeonghan.

Protective.

Shaking.

And still, not enough.

One of the Collectors stepped forward; faceless, their body made of layered symbols and scripts, their hands like blades of ink. They raised their palm toward Jeonghan’s chest—

“No!”

And then the rooftop exploded.

They fell.

All three.

Down through the layers of the tower. Glass and stone and vine tumbling around them, light chasing close behind. Jiyong grabbed Jeonghan mid-fall. Hongjoong wrapped his arms around them both, summoning every fiery shield he had left.

They hit the floor of the overgrown garden below and the light still poured down.

Jeonghan gasped, crawling up from the rubble, hair dusted with debris.

“They’ll take me.”

“Not while we breathe.” Hongjoong said.

“Not while they burn.” Jiyong spat.

But as the steps of the Host thundered toward them...

The question was no longer if they’d hold the line.

It was how long they could last.

And whether the divine love they carried would be enough to match the greed of Heaven’s need.

Chapter Text

They barely had time to crawl from the rubble.

Jeonghan’s heartbeat hadn’t even settled. Hongjoong’s eyes were still bloodied from the blow. Jiyong's arms trembled as he tried to brace Jeonghan’s back.

But it didn’t matter.

Because something else was coming.

And it didn’t knock.

It tore.

It started as a whisper.

Not sound but sensation, like strings under Jeonghan’s skin, plucked, tugged, coaxed and he froze.

Arched.

Clutched at his chest with a sound between a gasp and a cry.

“Jeonghan?” Jiyong caught him, tried to press a hand to his back, but his fingers passed through divinity that had already begun to fracture.

Something deeper, the very thread of his creation, was unraveling.

“Someone’s calling me.” Jeonghan said, voice wet with disbelief. “From inside.”

He curled forward, forehead knocking against Jiyong’s chest.

“I can’t... I can’t pull away.”

“Then we’ll pull you back,” Hongjoong snarled, crouching down, touching Jeonghan’s other side. “Don’t you dare go.”

But it was too late because the tethers had already sunk in and they weren’t dragging him upward. They were dragging him inward.

Jeonghan screamed as his spine bowed and his fingers clawed at nothing. His mouth opened, but no words formed, only light. Blinding. Raw. Like a sun splitting apart behind his teeth.

Jiyong clutched his face. “Jeonghan, look at me. Look at me, please.”

But his eyes weren’t his anymore. They shone like mirrors; reflecting every face he’d ever been forced to wear, every purity, every punishment, every expectation.

All of it was writhing inside him now.

“You can’t have him!” Hongjoong screamed at the ceiling, even as blood dripped from his lips. “You took your chance! You left him to burn!”

And yet, another pull, like a chain snapped tight.

Jeonghan's body rose off the ground, lifted by nothing visible, limbs twitching, eyes wide with pain.

And Jiyong felt it like being ripped in half.

“No!”

He leapt, grabbing Jeonghan’s arm as Hongjoong grabbed the other.

Light speared from Jeonghan’s chest, a holy tether, stretching skyward.

It wanted to take him whole.

“Hold him!” Jiyong shouted, arms burning.

“I am!” Hongjoong gritted, digging his heels into shattered stone.

But Jeonghan was convulsing. Body wracked. Light bleeding from his mouth and eyes and scars he never let them see.

“I’m sorry.” Jeonghan choked, somewhere between sobbing and dissolving. “I didn’t want— I just— I wanted to feel! I wanted to be mine.”

“You are.” Jiyong whispered, leaning close, voice breaking. “You’re ours, Jeonghan.”

“You chose.” Hongjoong said through clenched teeth. “We chose you back.”

Jeonghan’s fingers spasmed as the light screamed and something snapped.

There was a blinding pulse, like a divine nerve misfiring. The tether cracked. Just cracked, not broken but it sent all three of them slamming back into the ground.

Jeonghan collapsed between them.

Smoke rising from his skin.

Tears carving holy lines down his face.

“I can’t do this again.” He whispered.

And neither god nor demon answered because they had seen this before, and this was often the times when... when they begged to be sent back.

Instead of speaking, they just held him. Arms around his shaking form and breathing unsteady.

The worst part was, they knew, this was far from over.

It came not as light this time but as something quieter, something far crueler.

A pull from the inside.

A tug not of rope or chain, but of essence. Of thread. A slow unspooling from where Jeonghan's soul still glowed dimly beneath his ribs.

It started in his fingers, a numbness that curled inward.

Then to his spine.

Then to his throat.

He opened his mouth, as if to call out, to scream.

But no sound came, only silence.

And that silence carried with it a terrible finality.

He turned his face toward the two figures who still held him, trembling and torn.

Jiyong, his wildness tempered only by sorrow, eyes red-rimmed and teeth clenched like he could bite fate itself if it dared to touch him.

And Hongjoong, still bleeding at the brow, but cradling Jeonghan’s body like it was holy, like even in pain it was a blessing.

They hadn’t let go. Even now.

Even as the heavens prepared their next blow.

Even as his divinity was being ripped from the bone.

And still... still, he smiled.

Soft. Fragile. The ghost of what could have been joy if not for the devastation at his core.

“I didn’t know love before this.” Jeonghan said, voice cracking. “Not real love.”

The numbness had reached his legs and his chest felt hollow.

He curled his fingers, barely, until they brushed the backs of their hands.

“I didn’t know what it was to be chosen, or to choose back.”

Hongjoong leaned closer, a broken breath catching in his throat.

“Don’t.” he whispered, like saying more might undo them all. “Don’t say it... please.”

“I have to.” Jeonghan breathed, the light behind his eyes dimming, but his gaze still impossibly warm.

“I love you both.”

The silence afterward wasn’t silent at all.

It was screaming.

It was everything in the space between what they wanted to say and the fact that there was no time left.

Jiyong dropped to his knees, hand flying to Jeonghan’s face.

“No.” he said, hoarse. “You don’t get to... don’t say it like it’s the end, Jeonghan.”

“It isn’t.” Jeonghan whispered. “Not really.”

Hongjoong’s hand gripped his tighter, knuckles white, jaw clenched. “You better not be planning to go back.”

“I’m not planning to.” Jeonghan said, smiling, tears gathering at the edges of his eyes.

“But I think... they’ve planned enough for me.”

He exhaled, eyes fluttering shut briefly as the pull inside tightened, dragging something essential upward, like a siphon of light.

“But I’ll fight.”

His voice shook.

His lips trembled.

“I’ll fight to stay with you. Until my last breath.”

“And if not,” he said softly, “if this is all we get...”

His eyes opened, irises glowing faintly gold.

“I hope to see you in the next life.”

The scream that tore from Hongjoong’s throat was inhuman.

Rage.

Despair.

Loss.

It cracked the stone beneath them, sent tremors down the mountain, split the sky for one breathless second.

Jiyong folded over Jeonghan’s body, head pressed to his chest, as though he could anchor him with nothing but presence.

“Take me instead,” Jiyong hissed into the heavens. “Take what’s left of me he’s already given everything!”

But there was no reply, only the pull.

Stronger now. Like a wind rising from inside Jeonghan.

Jeonghan began to fade.

Not vanish, fade.

Color bleeding from his skin.

Edges softening like morning fog.

The warmth they loved slipping second by second through their fingers.

“Jeonghan, please.” Hongjoong whispered, his face crumpling. “Please stay.”

“I want to.” Jeonghan said, eyes distant now.

“I want to stay.”

But his body arched again, seizing in their arms. Light burst from his mouth, his chest, then cracked at his shoulder like something holy was trying to claw its way out.

“No!” Jiyong shouted, arms locking around him.

“We won’t let them take you!”

But they were.

Heaven had learned from last time.

No grand entrance.

No visible tethers.

Just slow, awful dismantling.

And still, Jeonghan reached out, grasped their arms.

“Don’t forget me.” he whispered.

As if there was any chance of that.

And then, he vanished.

There was no scream, no light show.

Just a breath.

A hand, curled around theirs.

And then gone.

It was too quiet.

Hongjoong stared at the empty space where Jeonghan had been and Jiyong didn’t move.

Not until the wind picked up, carrying a faint warmth.

Like the echo of his skin.

The aftertaste of I love you.

Chapter Text

They tried.

Gods, they tried.

Jiyong dropped to his knees first, eyes clenched shut, palms spread across the cracked earth, divinity humming under his skin like a beast ready to bite.

He reached out, not with his hands, but with everything else; with his grief, with his want, with the sacred, broken bond between them.

But there was nothing. No warmth. No thread. Not even the familiar flicker of Jeonghan’s light, that soft golden glow that used to bloom in the spaces between their souls like spring after frost.

It was gone.

Not hidden. Not even shielded.

Completely gone.

It was like Jeonghan had never been, like Heaven had unmade him entirely.

Beside him, Hongjoong was still, too still. His pupils were blown wide, and he didn’t speak, didn’t blink, and didn’t breathe.

Until he did.

A single inhale, then another, and as he shakily exhaled a breath, trembling, he looked at Jiyong.

“They erased him.” He said hoarsely. “They erased him.”

Jiyong’s mouth opened, but no words came. His voice had collapsed somewhere deep in his throat. Instead, his power rose from within. Not in light, not in thunder but in the kind of cold that killed. It slicked through the cracks in the ground like ice through bone and it wanted. Oh, it wanted.

They had been gifted divinity and Jeonghan had given it, had blessed them with something holy.

Not so they could wage war, not so they could crush. Instead he had given them himself.

So they could love, so they could heal.

And Heaven… Heaven had taken it.

No.

Not taken. They destroyed it.

Hongjoong stood, limbs shaking, and looked up at the empty sky, then he laughed.

Just once.

Low.

Disbelieving.

And utterly broken.

“They want it back?” he asked, eyes glassy, voice like steel wrapped in silk.

“Fine.”

He held out a hand as a glow sparked to life at his fingertips as Jiyong’s eyes flicked to him.

“They want it?” Hongjoong said again, louder now. “Then they can have it.”

And he reached inward.

Hard.

The spark of rage turned to a flame, then a flare.

He dug deep into the gift Jeonghan had left in his chest, divinity not born but shared, and when it touched the infernal fire in his veins, it changed.

Not gold. Not red. But something in between, something wrong and beautiful; fire that burned clean, holy in its ruin.

He ripped it out.

Not all. Just enough.

Just enough to shake the Heavens, and he threw it upward.

The sky did not tremble, it screamed. A sound eerily like metal shearing in half,  like thunder bent backward, like a cry that had never been meant to be heard.

The clouds above split, not in light, but in teeth because it received the kind of fury no Heaven had ever prepared for.

The kind born of loss.

Jiyong followed suit, didn’t even pause to think. He reached for what Jeonghan had gifted him; the warmth, the clarity, the love. And when it merged with the gravity in his chest, the pull that had always bent the world around him, it became something unbearable.

Not void, not light, but weight.

A holy anchor.

A tether even Heaven could not cut.

He lifted his hands skyward, and the sky itself bent. Stars pulled closer. The horizon warped like a painting smeared by unseen fingers.

“Here.” he spat, voice hoarse. “Take it. Take all of it.”

His grief became a black hole rimmed in gold, dragging the clouds inward until even Heaven stuttered.

“I dare you.”

The Heavens shuddered, then they sky opened, and it wailed.

It wasn't light that descended. It was force.

Winds strong enough to flatten mountains tore through the air. Bolts of sound, not lightning, cracked the air in white-hot streaks.

But neither god nor demon bent.

Not this time.

They stood in the center of it all, stripped of calm, stripped of mercy. Not because they were angry but because they were heartbroken.

Because Jeonghan had smiled through pain, had said I love you like a goodbye.

And no one, no one, got to take him and walk away untouched.

So they didn’t fight.

They gave.

They threw back everything they had been blessed with; Hongjoong’s fire burning divinity into ash-gold flame, Jiyong’s gravity bending heaven itself downward, and they let the sky break under the weight of it.

Jiyong’s hands were bleeding, and Hongjoong’s vision was shot with red but their feet stayed planted, and their souls burned hot with what remained.

“We didn’t ask for divinity.” Jiyong whispered, staring at the sky as it roared.

“We asked for him.”

“And you took him.” Hongjoong said softly, voice calm now. Cold.

“You unmade him.”

“So unmake us.”

And Heaven tried. Tried to strike them down. To reclaim the power Jeonghan had wrapped them in. But something was wrong.

Something was different.

Because this wasn’t just light and power, this wasn’t grace gifted from above.

This was love given willingly.

Love made flesh.

Love that chose.

And Heaven, for all its brilliance, didn’t know what to do with love it couldn’t control.

With devotion it hadn’t sanctioned.

With grief bigger than any rule.

The winds cracked.

The clouds tore.

And then, a silence fell.

The kind that comes after impact, after the explosion.

When the dust hasn’t settled, and you don’t yet know if you’re alive.

Hongjoong dropped to his knees again and Jiyong fell beside him.

They were still holding hands, still breathing.

And in the hollow that had once been the fury of heaven, there was nothing.

No warmth.

No trace.

Not even an echo of Jeonghan’s light.

And that… that hurt worse than death.