Chapter Text
1 .
The dream is strange. Dark, eerie, something chilling in the nothingness it brings. He cannot see, cannot hear, cannot feel. Yet something is breathing there. Something old, something evil, something that slithers and hunts for him, he knows, yet he is rooted in place; there is nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. He waits. He waits to be consumed, and when the darkness opens up before him he doesn’t scream, doesn’t resist. He submits. The jaws close on him, and nothing is left.
2 .
Things are strangely normal, Jeonghan thinks, sprawled over the counter of Minghao’s little shop, the afternoon slowly dragging to an end. He’s playing with a wisp of something that looks like dark smoke, passing it between the fingers of his right hand like he would with a penny. Your shadows aren’t here to execute little circus tricks, Minghao’s voice echoes in his mind. They like it, Jeonghan had countered as a book had flown across the room, Joshua applauding from his place on the couch. How can they like anything? They’re shadows.
Jeonghan doesn’t know, but Jeonghan is pretty sure they do. He’s wondering if he can make them do something more complex than hurtling things across space when the bell above the shop’s door jingles, heralding the arrival of a customer Jeonghan hopes is the last of the day. He’s tired and cranky and he knows Joshua must be making tea, now, ready to curl up on the couch of the library where he practically lives, trying to catch up on centuries of progress through books after books. It’s slow going, but no one minds, especially not Jeonghan, who pillows his head in Joshua’s lap and pretends to read until he falls asleep. And he dreams, now, sometimes dark, sometimes light dreams, their meaning ever so changing.
“This is crap,” a rude voice interrupts his thoughts, accompanied by the clatter of crystals thrown haphazardly on the counter.
“Excuse me?” Jeonghan asks pointedly, looking up at the customer. The man looks angry, dark eyes staring at Jeonghan from under a mess of curly hair and if he didn’t look so tired he’d be intimidating, Jeonghan thinks, feeling his shadows pool at his feet. There’s something pulsing there, inside the man, something barely contained that has the thin hair of Jeonghan’s nape stand on end.
“This is useless crap,” the man repeats, pointing at the crystals strewn about the counter. “How can you sell this shit?”
“People buy it,” Jeonghan shrugs, and judging from the man’s scowl it is the wrong answer to give.
“So you’re a fraud?”
“Look man, I’m just the cashier,” Jeonghan says, rolling his eyes, hands raised in surrender.
“I want to talk to the manager, then.”
Jeonghan gapes at the man, who crossed his arms over his chest, staring darkly at him.
“Are you serious?”
“Do I look like I’m joking?”
Jeonghan bites his lips, trying to remember in what mood Minghao had been in this morning. ‘Mildly annoyed’ had pretty much been a constant for weeks, as he had been trying to adjust to a third person in his space, a third person he didn’t hate but didn’t love, either, someone he still didn’t know how to approach despite having so much to ask, someone he desperately wanted to know but resented all the same.
“Alright,” Jeonghan says, defeated. “Give me a minute.”
Jeonghan is pretty sure the customer glowers at him as he disappears behind the red curtains separating the shop from the house. He stops at the bottom of the stairs, yelling Minghao’s name.
“Kitchen!” is the answer bellowing down the corridor. Minghao emerges a few seconds later, a steaming mug of tea in hand. His round glasses are slightly crooked, and his hair got longer, Jeonghan realizes; he looks a bit disheveled like this, a bit rumpled, as if he’d just gotten out of bed. And maybe he did, Jeonghan thinks; Minghao had started taking naps at odd times in the day, right upon his desk or curled up on the library couch, a book opened on his belly.
“What’s up?” he asks, righting his glasses and effectively snapping Jeonghan out of his thoughts.
“A customer wants to see you.”
“Why?”
“He says we sell crap and are frauds,” Jeonghan repeats, face carefully blank.
“Well, he’s kinda right,” Minghao says, blowing on his cup, seemingly unfazed.
“Yeah, I think he knows that. He’s really pissed about it too.”
“So what you’re saying is that I need to go in there and vehemently deny the truth?”
“Yeah, exactly,” Jeonghan nods, moving aside to let Minghao pass. The latter does so with a groan, shuffling down the corridor with all the enthusiasm of a condemned man.
“Minghao,” Jeonghan calls before he disappears behind the curtains.
“Yeah?”
“There’s something strange about the guy. I don’t really know what. But be careful.”
“I am the model of careful,” Minghao says as he lets the curtains fall closed behind him. Jeonghan stays in place, wondering if maybe he should follow but in his mind he’s already somewhere else, in a little library, nestled against a body he’s still learning to love.
3 .
When Minghao steps into his shop, still clutching his mug, he is not prepared for what he sees. What he feels. The man stands in the dim light, boyish features under a mop of curly hair and he could be pretty, Minghao thinks, but there’s something unsettling behind his eyes, a darkness swirling there, a darkness there is no word for. Minghao steps closer, thorns pushing under his skin. It’s different than anything he’s felt before, different than Jeonghan’s warm shadows, than Joshua’s cold edges, than his own magic, pure and intimate.
Minghao stops where Jeonghan stood, gazing at the scowling man, looking for cracks to peer through but there’s nothing to see, nothing to feel except for that low fire burning, that darkness drawing strange fears from forgotten corners. And Minghao keeps staring at the lovely face, at the dark eyes, cold and restless like an ocean in a storm. The man stands almost too straight, chin defiantly raised, and those eyes, Minghao thinks, there’s something in those eyes he’d like to dissect, pull out in the open like the diagrams on the yellowed pages of his books.
“What is wrong with you?” he asks in a soft voice, words escaping him before he can stop them. The man starts, his scowl deepening, and a sinking feeling curls against Minghao’s spine.
“What the fuck is wrong with you? How dare you sell shit like that?” the man snarls, disturbing the crystals on the counter with a disdainful swipe of his hand, effectively reminding Minghao of where they are.
“They’re pretty,” Minghao deadpans, turning to anger to bury his unease.
“Pretty?” The customer repeats in disbelief. “You’re a hack.”
“I’m a hack?” Minghao points at himself, tea sloshing over the edge of his mug.
“Yeah, you’re a hack, and you should be ashamed, and I hope your shop burns down.”
Minghao is left speechless, the vitriol in the man’s voice far exceeding his choice of words. There’s a surge within the other, something pushing underneath his skin, straining towards Minghao who takes an involuntary step back, staring at the man’s clenched jaw, at the fists curled at his side. But his own anger is there, too, a forest fire burning away any concern, any worry he could have felt because really, who does this guy thinks he is? Minghao steps forward, putting down his mug to gather the scattered crystals at the center of the counter and he steels himself when he looks up.
“Then you’re welcome to fuck off” he says, maintaining eye contact, voice as cold as he can make it. He’s good at this, he knows, walls of ice and a distance no one can bridge. The man must feel the change in him; his stance shifts, body tense like an animal poised for attack as they glower at each other.
“I’d rather burst into flames than stay one more minute in this dump anyway,” the man says, turning on his heels and striding to the door.
“A dump? Go fuck yourself!” Minghao yells, hurling a crystal at the man’s retreating back. The door closes with the jingle of the bell and the crystal, harmless, shatters in pieces as it hits the floor. Minghao remains behind the counter, fingernails digging into his palms, trying to ignore the trembling of his hands and the weight pushing against his ribs. The air itself feels nasty against his skin, as if the customer had left something behind, something old and corrupted, a phantom pouring darkness into the room.
Minghao swallows, exhaling a deep breath and willing the tension to leave with it. There’s a dark taste on his tongue, hands clammy at his sides and he skirts around the counter quietly, going to kneel by the shattered crystal to pick up the pieces. The stone reflects no light, bears no power, and Minghao knows the man was right, in a way. He is a hack, a self-made witch with no coven, no training, selling useless wares to the few who still believe there’s magic left in this world. The man had manged to rile him too easily, bringing back this old anger Minghao had thought extinguished, but the embers were still there to burn.
A sharp pain flares and Minghao hisses, dropping the crystal piece he’d picked up, blood on its edge. He presses at the unmarred skin around the cut, watching the blood swell, a drop slowly trickling down his finger and Minghao stares at the path it carves, following its course to the ground. His finger throbs dully, the pain subsiding quickly when he brings it to his mouth, the blood warm and coppery against his tongue. He sits back, a swelling in his chest feeling too much like tears and he’s tired, Minghao realizes, so tired; a simple cut and an irate man enough to push him over.
The little shop is quiet around him, the late afternoon slowly falling into night and he used to like these soft hours, neither day or night, neither light nor dark. A time for the in-between, for the magic, for the lonely and the forgotten but all that Minghao cannot feel it anymore, looking around his darkened shop. He pushes to his feet with a low exhale, cradling his wounded finger, leaving the shards to rest where they fell. It should have changed, he thinks, after all that had happened. This vast emptiness within him, it should have changed. But the past had had nothing to offer him except a bittersweet ache he didn’t know what to do with.
My grief is a constant companion, that last letter had said, the one he’d found all those months ago resting amongst forgotten books. It is the traces of the ones I loved, remains that I will forever keep with me, and I cherish it just as I cherished them. Minghao had long wondered how to find this peace, how to accept the loss and the sorrow and the loneliness. There is no anger left in me. There is only anger, left in him. Cold, quiet, buried deeper than the ground.
Minghao closes his eyes, breathing deeply, hand falling to his side. He can feel the blood welling up again on his wounded finger and he’d been careful, so careful not to let anything out, no outburst, no tears; a quiet nothingness he’d thought would bring him peace but he’d left everything to fester; a graveyard of regrets and loss, remains he couldn’t mourn, bones gathered but never buried. He opens his eyes on the quiet store, on the shelves, the useless trinkets and powerless herbs he gathered there and it wasn’t out of malice, it wasn’t out of greed; he just had to survive and at least the tarot readings had been genuine.
How dare you sell shit like that? the man had said, with his troubling eyes and spiteful voice.
“Yeah, well, fuck you!” Minghao yells, kicking a shelf and regretting it instantly, the throbbing pain in his finger mirrored by the one in his foot. He lets himself slump to the ground, sitting next to a book fallen from the shelf. Something about plants, and this one isn’t entirely hogwash, he remembers, a bitter smile gracing his lips. His gaze drifts to the shattered crystal near the door and he should really clean that up, he thinks, Jeonghan shouldn’t have to do it for him. But none of his limbs feels light enough to move and he remains there, the shelf digging into his back as the light of the day seeps out of the room, leaving him in shadows.
He’s not sure how long he stays there, listless and dazed, but the broken shards of pretty stone are still there on the ground and someone has to pick them up. Minghao forces to his feet, leaning against the shelf as he waits for his dizziness to subside. Tugging on his shirt for a makeshift pouch he picks up the shards one after the other, careful not to hurt himself again. It’s menial and grounding, his uneasiness receding slowly, until he feels like himself again. Calm, composed, hollow.
It’s in this state that he closes the shop for the night, having dropped the shards in the bin behind the counter, staring at their sad remains until they printed themselves on his retina. Minghao doesn’t dally once the lights are turned off; the tall shelves draw ghastly shadows, their darkness deeper than it used to be and Minghao is afraid that, were he to stare long enough, he would see them moving.
It’s quiet, behind the red curtain. Even the usual sounds of the house seem to have died down – no footsteps on creaking floorboards, no water in the pipes, no rumors growing from the street outside. Minghao looks down at his wounded finger, tip caked over in dried blood and he should really clean that, but instead it’s to the library that he wanders, knowing who he will find there. He has the sudden urge to not be alone, to hear voices and feel warmth, even if not entirely aimed at himself.
Both Jeonghan and Joshua look up when Minghao strolls in, scrambling to sit up away from each other so as to leave enough space for Minghao to fit in between them, Joshua’s book of the week tumbling to the floor. It’s a bit funny, how Joshua presses against the armrest of the couch, trying his best not to touch Minghao, who sprawls even further to heighten the other’s discomfort. It’s petty but satisfying all the same, even if Minghao can feel Jeonghan disapprovingly nudging him on his other side. Joshua and Minghao had never gotten over that initial mistrust, that initial awkwardness between them. Not yet, at least, and Minghao found a twisted sort of pleasure in needling Joshua, who acted so careful around him, as if Minghao was made of the finest glass Joshua was afraid to break.
“Thank you for your continuous support, Jeonghan.” Minghao says, deadpan, garnering himself a snort.
“That bad, uh?” Jeonghan asks, sitting cross-legged on the couch, body twisted to look at Minghao, who holds up his finger in the air.
“My finger’s wounded.”
“Did he do that to you?!”
“Yeah. He leaned right over the counter and bit my finger. Just fucking. Bit it right off. With pointy werewolf teeth.”
“Can you not,” Jeonghan says, shoving Minghao’s shoulder.
“Don’t ask stupid questions and I won’t.”
“See what I have to deal with?” Jeonghan addresses Joshua, leaning over Minghao to peer at him.
“You should clean that up,” the latter says, barely looking at Minghao’s finger, who immediately catches up on it.
“Does that make you queasy?” he says in a stupid voice, wiggling his bloodied finger under Joshua’s nose. “Does Sinistrad dislikes itty bitty cuts? Blood makes the great wizard sick to his tummy?”
“No, it does not, it’s just gross. And seriously, I still do not know who Sinistrad is. Can anyone tell me?”
“I don’t either,” Jeonghan helpfully supplies, bending to retrieve Joshua’s book. Something about movies you should watch before dying and Minghao peers as Jeonghan leafs through it, realizing that he didn’t see any of them, and wondering for a second what does it say about his tastes.
“Now that my suffering has been displayed and rightfully appreciated,” he says then, standing up from the couch, “I’ll go put something on this.”
He stops at the door, turning back to Joshua, his bloodied finger lifted. Joshua stares back, a frown gradually marring his features.
“Redrum,” Minghao says in a deformed voice, bending his finger, before slamming the door to avoid the book Joshua plucked from Jeonghan’s lap to throw at him.
“It’s not even the right finger!” Minghao hears Joshua yell through the door, snickering to himself as he goes down the corridor towards the bathroom. He stares long and hard in the mirror there, detailing the lines of his face, the bluish streak under his eyes betraying his lack of sleep, his dark hair, too long, too messy, framing the sharp angles of his face.
“You look like shit,” he tells his reflection, sighing as he opens the water to wash his finger underneath. The cut isn’t that deep, now that he can properly see it. Still he wraps a band aid around it, watching his work with an absent stare. Neat and tidy, concealing. Just like everything else, swept up and hidden behind closed doors and vacant smiles. Minghao sighs, gently slapping his cheeks, rubbing at his face to chase away his weariness. It’s okay, he tells himself. It has to be.
4 .
Minghao’s still wondering how Jeonghan can even make his knocks sound puzzled when the latter steps into his office, an air of confusion on his face.
“The shithead is back again?”
“Is that a question?” Minghao says, resting his chin on his clasped hands, elbows on the notebook he was trying to decipher.
“No,” Jeonghan answers, fully stepping into the office. “He’s back and weirder than ever.”
“What does he want this time?”
Jeonghan shuffles, gaze trailing to the side before focusing on Minghao again, and his half-amused, half-confused air does nothing for Minghao’s nerves.
“Datura? He wants some datura.”
Minghao remains silent for a minute, rubbing at his sore eyes, hoping against all hope that maybe he misunderstood.
“Datura. He went ahead and asked you for datura, a completely normal thing to ask for?”
“Yup. He did that alright.”
“And did he specify why he is asking for witch cocaine?”
“Nope. That he did not.”
“Oh, goddamnit,” Minghao swears, sitting back against his chair, hands falling to his lap. “That motherfucker. He can’t be right in the head.”
“Should I just go tell him to fuck off?” Jeonghan asks hesitantly, clearly not enthralled at the prospect.
“I’ll do it myself,” Minghao says, getting up from his chair. “I’m not sure what he’s trying to pull but it can’t be good,” he finishes, decidedly trudging to the door.
Jeonghan follows to the bottom of the stairs, waving him off like an aggrieved mother sending their son to war, a fake sob in his chest. Minghao flips him off before disappearing through the curtains, Jeonghan’s laugh following him to the shop.
The man looks worse, somehow, almost haggard, his nest of hair sticking up every which way, deep bruises under his eyes. The uneasy feeling is still there, Minghao’s skin crawling as he stares at the dark eyes, but there’s something new, amidst the swirling dark; a despair, a misery that seals the breath in Minghao’s lungs, something raw and agonizing that disturbs him as much as the phantoms he feels strumming under the man’s skin. The scalding words Minghao had prepared on his way down die on his lips as he takes a step forward, staring at the man’s face, at the warring he finds there.
“Are you okay?”
“Do you have datura or not?”
“I’m a hack who only sells useless crap, you should know that,” Minghao says, crossing his arms over his chest. But there’s no bite in his voice, words much softer than he intended, and he can see the man hesitates, a furrow in his brow he smooths over with obvious effort.
“I need it, okay?” the man says, almost pleading.
He’s trying not to antagonize me, Minghao realizes with amusement as he stares at this strange, eerie man, full of a chilling darkness he struggles to contain.
“And I don’t have it,” Minghao says softly. Despite his posturing the man looks fragile, on the brink of collapse, and Minghao’s voice falls to a whisper as he continues. “Even if I did, I wouldn’t sell it to you.”
“I know what I’m doing,” the man says, fists curled at his sides but his hands are shaking.
“It doesn’t seem like it,” Minghao answers, an eyebrow raised, and the man opens his mouth, a flash of fury in his eyes. But then, nothing comes out. His mouth closes, a look of surprise crossing his features, and before Minghao can even react, he folds like reeds under the wind. His head smacks against the counter on his way down with a dull thud that has Minghao wince even as he rushes to the man’s side, arriving too late to prevent any kind of damage. The man just lays there, in a lump on the floor, eyes closed. Minghao checks his pulse and it’s steady enough, eyes shuddering behind his eyelids.
Minghao loops the man’s arm around his own shoulders just as Jeonghan’s pokes his head through the curtains, eyes widening at the scene.
“What the heck happened? Is he dead? Did you kill him?”
“I didn’t kill him,” Minghao says, struggling to his feet. The guy is taller than him, heavier, too, and Minghao isn’t exactly a paragon of physical fitness these days.
“Oh god, I know nothing about hiding bodies. Should I get Joshua? He’s the one with murder experience,” Jeonghan still prattles on, the rest of him following his head through the curtain.
“Look, you idiot,” Minghao sighs, looking up at Jeonghan. “He’s not dead, he just collapsed.”
“Oh. Collapsed because he’s dying?”
“He’s not dying! At least I hope so,” Minghao adds with a concerned glance towards the man he’s trying to lug towards the back. He’s still breathing, if anything. “Now can you fucking help me? He’s goddamn heavy.”
Somehow, it had been easier to bring Minghao’s heavy furniture up to his room than carting the guy. None of them really know where to put their hands, and the weight is unevenly distributed, resulting in a struggle up the stairs punctuated by half-screamed invective that have Joshua peek out of the library.
“What the hell – is he dead?”
Minghao stops mid-step, tilting his head back to yell at the ceiling.
“Why do you two always go straight to murder? What’s wrong with you? He just fucking collapsed okay!”
“Why is he so mad?” Joshua asks Jeonghan, ignoring Minghao’s outburst. Jeonghan shrugs, a quite impressive feat to achieve considering the armful of unconscious biped he’s lugging up the staircase.
“Do you guys need help?” Joshua ventures, closing the library door behind him.
“Oh, I don’t know, do we?” Minghao answers in a biting tone that has Joshua roll his eyes.
With Joshua joining them they manage to reach Minghao’s room, where they lay the man out on the bed carefully, dark hair spilling over white pillows. His dreadful eyes closed he looks young, Minghao realizes, much too young for the exhaustion in his face, for the weight under which he caved. Carefully, Minghao brushes back strands from his brow, lets his fingers fall to the pulse at his neck. But he can feel something else, there, too; a swell, pushing, thrumming under the skin. Much too warm, and Minghao retracts his fingers, a line of worry creasing his brow.
“Can you feel it?” he asks in a soft voice, and watches Jeonghan hover next to him, watches his hand flit over the man’s fingers, tangling them in his own.
“Something’s wrong,” Jeonghan says, and for the first time Minghao notices how solemn they all became, Joshua standing at the foot of the bed, watching over them like a priest presiding at an altar, his dark eyes staring at the slumbering man.
“Something’s very wrong,” Jeonghan repeats, fingers tracing a path to the man’s wrist. “I can’t tell what it is. But it feels… it feels vile. Twisted.”
“Is he dreaming?”
Jeonghan tilts his head, eyes losing focus as his fingers rest over the vein beating at the inside of the man’s wrist.
“He is.”
“Could you see what about?”
“I could. I’m not sure I want to.”
Minghao nods, gaze flitting back to the slumbering man. He looks like a recumbent, Minghao thinks, skin too pale, body stiff, and the altar they worship at turns into a sepulcher.
“It feels familiar, Jeonghan, doesn’t it?” Joshua asks, voice flat, eyes still trained on the man’s face. They both stare at him and he looks up, something grave in his eyes sowing unease in Minghao’s guts. Jeonghan hesitates, hand leaving the man’s skin as he takes a step back, hugging his arms to himself.
“It does, but it’s all wrong. Perverted.”
“What? What’s familiar?” Minghao asks, feeling like he’s missing something.
“Don’t you sense it too?” Jeonghan asks, extending his hand to him. Minghao takes it, closing his eyes to focus better and Jeonghan’s right. If he looks he can feel it, something that calls out to him, something old and dark, something slightly evil, something smelling of rain and earth.
“The shadows,” he says, opening his eyes, and Joshua nods, hands curling at his side, face taut. “But that can’t be, he doesn’t have any with him, we would have noticed right away.”
“That’s what feels so wrong,” Jeonghan answers, still gripping Minghao’s hand. “I’ll do it,” he adds, jaw tight. “I’ll go into his dreams.”
“Are you sure?” Minghao asks after a pause. Jeonghan nods, lifting his eyes to Joshua, finding there the reassurance he needs.
“Thank you,” Minghao says, squeezing his hand softly.
Having already done so once, the preparations are quicker, this time. They wait until the last of the light has completely disappeared, plunging the room in the dark of night. Minghao lights a candle at each corner of the room, next to the mounds of salt he put there hours ago. As Jeonghan lies down next to the man, Minghao places lighted censers full of lavender by their heads, waiting until the smell permeates the room. Under his breath he murmurs words of power, the words that will keep them asleep, and, hopefully, safe. Joshua passes him the chamomile and valerian blooms Minghao places at the foot of the bed and it’s so much like adorning a tomb, two recumbent lying there, the perfect image of what there were in life.
But they’re not dead, Minghao thinks, not yet, and you won’t have to do this, not this time. Minghao sighs, shaking his head to get these morbid thoughts out of his mind and he surveys his handiwork before grabbing the last bloom, white heather he will thread in his own hair. He glances at Jeonghan, at his hand at the center of the bed, linked with the stranger’s own. He shouldn’t leave him alone for too long. A last glance at Joshua, standing at the foot of the bed, tells him everything’s ready. Minghao kneels at Jeonghan’s side, then, parting his lips on a soft chant. Closing his eyes he looks for a light he knows well, for the sense of something familiar and well-loved; for Jeonghan himself. When he finds him, everything turns black.
He opens his eyes and still he sees nothing. It’s terribly dark, wherever he is. Darker than black, and Minghao takes a careful step on a floor he cannot see. The darkness presses against him, slithers between his ribs, squeezes his lungs and wrings his heart. There is nothing to see, nothing to hear nor to feel yet he is scared, dreadfully so, a primal fear sinking claws deep in his belly. He calls but his voice dies in his throat, when he tries to run his knees buckle. There is nothing but the darkness, and a crushing loneliness. And then, he hears it. Soft, barely there. Choked sobs, from somewhere in that liquid darkness. Minghao crawls on all four towards the sound, and it seems like half an eternity before he reaches it, an island of grey light where a child crouches, cheeks streaked with tears.
“Who are you?” Minghao asks, but he doesn’t need an answer. When the child lifts his eyes on him, he recognizes them instantly. But the swirling darkness he saw in their depths isn’t here anymore; and Minghao knows why – it’s all around them, dismal, smothering. The child gasps, grabs at him with frantic hands and it hurts where his fingers bury into his flesh; a child shouldn’t have this much strength. There’s madness in him, in his eyes, in the turn of his mouth and Minghao’s fear coils darkly against his spine.
“It’s devouring me, take it out, take it out of me, it’s so hungry, I can’t hold it in any longer.”
“What are you talking about?” Minghao grabs at the child who stares at him with wide eyes, releasing his hold on Minghao’s arms to point at the darkness beyond him.
“This,” the child says, “Don’t you see it?”
Minghao turns to look, slowly, but there is nothing. When he gazes back to the child , he’s looking at an empty space.
“Where did you go?” he cries, but no one answers. Yet he is not quite alone; he can feel it, he can hear it. A slithering sound, like a colossal body creeping along the ground. Minghao stares into the darkness, his instincts commanding him to flee yet he is rooted in place, watching, waiting. And then, he sees it. A dark shape, darker than the obscurity surrounding all yet molded by it, slithering towards him. Minghao lifts his eyes on its monstrous shape, a serpentine head balancing far above the ground. The smell hits him then, rot and putrefaction, decay and death.
He should move, he knows. He should run, hide in the dark until it is gone, yet he stays rooted in place, watching the head split in two, a gaping mouth darker than dark pouncing on him.
And then, there’s a scream. His, maybe, and he’s ripped out of his skin.
He’s on the floor and Joshua’s panting above him, a hand on his heart, another on his brow. He’s speaking in a tongue Minghao doesn’t recognize, grating sounds dipping into low growls.
“What–” Minghao interrupts himself, his voice hoarse, raw in his throat. He’s thirsty, incredibly so, and it’s only when he tries to move that Joshua’s eyes snap open, the strange words dying on his lips.
“You’re back!”
“I didn’t go anywhere,” Minghao says, coughing as he sits up with Joshua’s help. He glances at the bed, where Jeonghan lays awake, reclining on pillows, face pale and sweat on his brow. Beside him the man is still slumbering and an uneasy feeling spreads like ink in Minghao’s chest – the kid in the dream, stuck with a monster made of death and darkness, it was him.
“What happened?” Minghao asks the room, gaining a weak smile from Jeonghan, who gestures at Joshua for an answer.
“I’m not sure. Jeonghan was pulled too deep, and you followed. I managed to wake him almost immediately, and it should have woken you, too, but it did not. Something was holding you back.”
“He was,” Minghao says, pointing at the sleeping man. “And then he wasn’t, and there was this beast instead. And I think… I think it would have really killed me, if you hadn’t. Woken me up somehow.”
Joshua nods, glancing at the sleeping man.
“Do you remember anything else?” he asks Minghao, gaze still fixed on the stranger.
“He said he couldn’t hold it in any longer. That it was devouring him.”
“What was?”
“I don’t know. The beast. It’s made of shadows, I think, but it’s… vile. Corrupted. Definitely evil.”
Joshua nods, wringing his hands, and it dawns on Minghao then, that none of them know what to do. He stares at the man and he knows how deceitful his slumbering face is, he knows which hell the trudges in, the fear and the loneliness and the shadows dodging his heels.
“We need to wake him,” Minghao says, voice soft, and the stranger looks young, so young.
“I tried. I couldn’t reach anything in him,” Joshua answers, looking down at his hands.
“He’s hiding. Hiding from the monster. I need to go back in and find him.”
Joshua and Jeonghan exchange a glance, something grave where unspoken thoughts flow. And they nod, Minghao looking towards the sleeping man, detailing the lines of his face, the clench of his jaw, the shift of his eyes under his closed eyelids. He knows his dreams, now, he knows the fear, the sorrow, the despair. And I won’t desert you, he tells him then. I will find you, and I will pull you out of this hellish place.
Minghao climbs to his feet, dismissing Joshua’s hands who fly to steady him. He’s okay. He’s fine. He’s not the one in need of help.
“I need all the fucking valerian I can find,” he says, trudging through the door. No one stops him.
5.
Jeonghan weaves a crown of mallows and sets it upon the man’s brow. Minghao watches from the threshold, the pale purple of the flowers striking against the dark of the man’s hair. On the other side of the bed, Joshua stands, fingers locked in front of his chest in a complicated gesture and he’s chanting under his breath in that strange, guttural tongue of his. He stands like this for hours each day, each night, too, and Minghao wonders when he sleeps. He can feel the magic seeping out of him, warm tendrils curling over the body on the bed, keeping it safe, he hopes, and Minghao turns away to step back into his office.
He had found nothing, on what the shadow serpent might be. He had found nothing that would allow him to step into the man’s dream and bring him back unharmed. And so, he had improvised, his lack of knowledge never so keenly felt. Remnants of wildflowers and dried herbs dust his desktop, two small pouches of white linen resting there on an opened book. Minghao had poured long and hard over the amulets, opting for simplicity as he had crammed angelica roots in the smallest white pouches he had before tying them closed with a leather string he could hang from his neck. Inside one of the bags, amongst the dried roots, he had put a lock of his own hair. In the other, the one he could feel resting against his chest, was a strand of the man’s own.
When he goes back to his bedroom, Joshua is alone. Eyes closed, perfectly still, he keeps chanting. The configuration of his hands has changed, and the magic as well. It’s colder, now, sharper, and Minghao fears what this might mean. He steps in quietly, kneeling by the side of the bed to peer at the stranger’s face. He’s almost too familiar, now; the way his hair fall upon his brow, the way his lips parts on slow breaths, the way his eyes shift behind his eyelids – yet he still has no name. Minghao shifts, straightening up to sit on the chair they brought near the bed and this looks too much like a sickroom, Minghao thinks, them taking turns watching over a dying man.
The chair creaks under his weight and Joshua’s eyes snap open to land on Minghao, the chant dwindling to an end.
“Sorry,” Minghao says, sincere for once. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“It’s okay,” Joshua says, rubbing his hands together. “I need a break anyway.”
“What are you doing, exactly? If you don’t mind me asking.”
Joshua smiles, taking a seat on the stool they dragged from Minghao’s office.
“It’s for protection, mostly. Guidance too. To reach him wherever he is and show him the way. Keep him alive.”
Minghao nods, suddenly aware of the strangeness of them being alone together. It happens so rarely, Jeonghan always there somehow, a buffer through which they can communicate. Minghao’s grateful for it; he still doesn’t know how to apprehend Joshua, how to accept him, resentment and mistrust warring with his longing for kinship, for approval, for family. For knowledge, too, and thus he asks another question, looking at the sleeping man rather than at Joshua.
“Which language is it?”
Minghao half expects Joshua to refuse to answer, but something’s building between them in this quiet room, a fragile peace no one dares to shatter. And so, Joshua tells him.
“The language of magic. Of the yew tree and the shadows. Did you lose it, too?”
Minghao nods, glancing towards Joshua who’s looking at him, a faraway look in his troubling eyes.
“I could teach you,” he says. “If you would let me.”
Minghao remembers what his answer had been, the first time a similar offer had been made. I do not want it. Not from you. You’re the one who brought the end. He knows, too, that Joshua must remember. That this had cemented the rift growing between them, that awkward in-between they found themselves in, tentative friendship and rueful animosity. Minghao looks at Joshua, at his intensely beautiful traits, at his sad eyes, too old, much too old for such a face.
“Okay,” he says, voice careful, and he doesn’t miss the way Joshua’s eyes widen in surprise. “If I get out of this, I’ll let you teach me.”
“You will get out of this,” Joshua tells him, and strangely, Minghao believes it. They smile at each other, something small and hesitant but there nonetheless. Minghao sighs, gazing down at the sleeping man.
“Can you remind me why I’m doing this again?”
“I seriously don’t know,” Joshua says, amused. “If I didn’t know you I’d say altruism, but…”
“Yeah,” Minghao laughs, “Not my forte.”
“You can still back off. No one will judge you.”
“I will,” Minghao says, and Joshua nods in understanding. “I think it’s time,” Minghao continues, “I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”
Joshua doesn’t dispute it. Doesn’t ask if he’s sure, if he doesn’t need more time, if they should go over everything once again. He simply nods, getting up from his stool.
“I’ll go get Jeonghan,” he says, walking to the door. But he stops on the threshold, turning back to look at Minghao who stares at him questioningly.
“I wanted to… I wanted to thank you.”
“For what?” Minghao asks, genuinely puzzled. He did nothing, except maybe make Joshua’s life harder than it needed to be.
“For letting me stay. Despite everything.”
Minghao hadn’t expected that. Having Joshua leave was not something he had ever considered. Somehow the man was already part of the house. Part of Jeonghan. Part of himself, too.
“It’s fine. Having you stay was never an issue. Jeonghan loves you. And I love him like a brother. I hate you like one, too.”
“You do know I killed my sibling, right?”, Joshua asks, impassive. If Minghao had something to throw at him, he would have right there and then.
“Shut up, it’s still a cool line,” he says instead, trying to quell the smile he feels growing on his lips.
Joshua laughs, going through the door and Minghao listens to his footsteps down the corridor, to his voice softly calling for Jeonghan. And it’s true, he realizes then. The uneasiness, the dislike he feels for Joshua is merely skin deep. There’s something else underneath, something raw and primal that had recognized Joshua as mine, my people, my kin. His gaze drifts to the man on the bed and he wonders, not for the first time, who this man will turn out to be, if there’s any meaning in his desperate attempt at saving him other than the deep compassion he feels, other than this frantic need not to lose anyone else, not even a stranger, no matter how hostile he might have been.
His thoughts are interrupted by Joshua’s return, Jeonghan on his heels. He was asleep, Minghao can tell, face rumpled and hair disheveled. A kind of softness grows in his chest at the sight, a deep affection he always takes care to hide well.
“I hear we’re riding at dawn?”
“Yeah,” Minghao says, laughing, and it’s strange how serene he feels in the face of the unknown. “I’m ready to try if you are.”
“I am,” Jeonghan nods, every last trace of drowsiness erased from his features. It’s always a mistake people make, thinking Jeonghan soft. There’s fire under his skin, an iron will no one can bend; not even death, Minghao thinks, glancing at Joshua. He knows it will be fine, then, whatever happens. If he loses himself, they will find him.
As Joshua takes up the tasks that used to be Minghao’s own – the candles and the salt, the lavender censers, the valerian and the chamomile – Minghao takes his place upon the bed.
“Remember that I won’t be in here with you,” Jeonghan is saying, “I will let you find him through me, but I won’t be dreaming. You’ll be alone.”
“I know,” Minghao says as Jeonghan climbs on the bed with him, sitting cross-legged at Minghao’s hip. He takes his hand in his, the man’s in the other, and exhales slowly as he closes his eyes.
“Everyone’s ready?”
There’s a collective assent, Joshua’s voice rising in that strange chant again, and Minghao closes his eyes.
“Now sleep,” Jeonghan says, and it’s the last thing Minghao hears.
He opens his eyes on the same liquid darkness, on the same absolute nothing. The first thing he does is check if the amulets are there around his neck, and he squeezes the one holding the man’s locks in his fist, reassured to find it there against his chest. “Where are you?” he asks the void, but there is no answer and so he starts walking, blindly through the dark. The fear is there, too, filling his lungs with lead and Minghao takes one careful step after another, listening, listening for nothing. He looks for the sobs and the grey light, wary of the beast he knows prowls this black emptiness. Still he hears nothing, sees nothing, and so he closes his eyes, clutching the amulet within his hand, asking it, asking the magic within him and the one lent to him to show him the way. And then, it does.
There’s a man sleeping at his feet when he opens his eyes. He knows him, knows the lines of his face, knows the way his eyelashes draw shadows upon his cheekbones. He’s crowned in mallows, pale purple against the dark of his messy hair and Minghao kneels beside him, removing the second amulet from his own neck. He lays it upon the man’s chest, small words of power escaping his lips. A prayer, almost, although he knows there is no one to listen, no one but the devouring dark.
He takes the man’s hand in his and it is cold, cold as death, Minghao linking their fingers, willing his warmth, his magic to flow within the other. He does not know how long they remain this way, hand in hand, tangled within the other. It seems like half an eternity before there’s a soft sigh, an itch in the man’s breath and Minghao watches him with wide eyes, watches him come back to life. The dark eyes open slowly, gazing at Minghao’s face, detailing each of his features as Minghao remains silent, breath stuck in his lungs.
“I know you,” the man says, and his voice is soft, softer than Minghao ever heard him speak.
“You do. I came to find you. To bring you back.”
“Can you?”
“What is your name?”
“Would it help if you knew it?”
“Everything helps.”
“Wonwoo,” the man says, closing his eyes as if he had exhausted his strength.
“I’m Minghao.”
Wonwoo nods, eyes still closed, and Minghao fears he’s slipping again, the darkness around them clinging to him, pulling him down, down to unreachable depths.
“You have to wake up,” Minghao says, lightly shaking Wonwoo by the shoulder. “You have to wake up and follow me.”
“Why?”
“You know why.”
“I’m tired. So tired. I want to close my eyes. I want to rest.”
“Please,” Minghao says, nervously gazing above his shoulder, looking for a shadow darker than dark, straining for the sound of a slither upon the ground. But there is no depths to the darkness that engulfs them; nothing to hear, nothing to see, just him and a half-dead body.
“I don’t want to fight anymore,” Wonwoo is saying, and when Minghao stares back at him he looks so pale, already sinking under his fingertips, down, down a shadowy river he cannot follow.
“You should leave,” Wonwoo says in this muted voice Minghao’s learning to hate. “You should leave while you still can.”
“Hold on to this,” Minghao says, shoving into Wonwoo’s cold hand the second amulet, the one with his own hair nestled inside, the one that should protect him, that should hide him, that should show him the way.
“What is it for?” Wonwoo asks, lifting his head to gaze at it.
“It will let you find me. Find a way out, if you want it.”
“So you’re not just a hack?”
There’s a hint of teasing in that flat voice, something that has Minghao smile and he shakes his head, nudging Wonwoo’s shoulder.
“Now’s not the time to be a smartass.”
“I don’t know if there will be any other time,” Wonwoo says, and it’s then that Minghao feels it. A cold, clammy sensation creeping down his skin, and that sound, that abhorred sound of a massive body dragging its distorted shape upon the ground.
“No,” Minghao whispers, hands grabbing at Wonwoo’s wrist. “Please, not now.”
Rot and putrefaction, decay and death. Minghao gags as the smell hits him, heralding the arrival of the beast. Of the shadow. And Wonwoo, Wonwoo under his fingers, too pale and too light, not enough life in him to make a fire and he’s sinking, slipping under Minghao’s fingers, swallowed by a ground soft as miry clay. Alone once more in that obscurity where nothing strives, Minghao stares at the moving dark, at the inevitable end from which he knows there is no escape, and this is what it is, he thinks, a slithering death, a dark nothingness, old as life itself.
He tugs on the amulet around his neck, clutching it in his hand, and he knows how futile it is, its power much too weak, much too quaint against such evil. Yet it is all he has, and he calls upon the magic in his blood, that strange power bestowed upon him by a heritage he never could understand, hidden, destroyed, gone. “Save me,” he asks, and he closes his eyes on the encroaching dark, the amulet pulsing of a slow heartbeat against his palm. It’s then, that he hears it. A voice he knows well, a guttural chant which words escape him.
Minghao opens his hands, a gesture of invitation for that occult magic he calls within himself. He feels its sharp, cold edges nesting underneath his skin, pulling at him, at each fiber of his being, painfully, almost, but what suffers is still alive and so he lets it, lets it pull himself apart, tearing him towards the ground, towards the soft, cool earth there, burying him where another body laid.
Minghao wakes like a drown man, breath heaving, expunging from his body the dark, the cold, the rot and the sharp magic that brought him out; a magic he still feels hanging in the air, riding every strange words from Joshua’s mouth, and Minghao holds onto it a little longer, until the chant dwindles, until there’s a warm embrace around him, fierce and smothering, one he returns with equal relief.
“I almost lost you,” Jeonghan says, “I could feel you less and less, and instead there was this… thing. It felt foul, it felt like I was eating a corpse.”
Minghao nods, disentangling himself from Jeonghan.
“It’s the thing. The shadow. It was there again, and Wonwoo disappeared, and then you brought me back.”
“So his name is Wonwoo,” Joshua says. “Did you give him the amulet?” he asks, taking a seat on the stool. He looks exhausted, Minghao realizes, face hollow and drained, eyes dimmed. As if he’d been with him, there in the dream, and Minghao wonders how much the man had to expand to find him there, to bring him back.
“I did. But I couldn’t wake him. He didn’t want to. He said he wanted to rest, that he didn’t want to fight anymore.”
Joshua nods, thoughtful, eyes trained on the sleeping man and finally, Minghao turns to look at him, too, a weight nestling against his ribs. The mallows have wilted upon his brow, the withered petals drawing purple shadows in his silky hair. Minghao picks one carefully, the flower limp in his palm. Wonwoo looks peaceful, his face a perfect mask and Minghao inches closer, tentatively grabbing his hand; the skin is warm, soft under his touch and an inexplicable sorrow unfurls in his chest.
“He’s giving up,” he says. “When he found us, it was already too late.”
They fall silent, gazing at the stranger upon the bed, at his lovely face, at the wilted petals in his hair.
“You gave him a way,” Joshua says softly, “if he desires so, he will follow.”
6 .
Joshua’s language doesn’t have neither rules nor grammar. It’s like speaking in tongues, Joshua tells Minghao as they stand face to face in the library, the bright light of early morning spilling through the window. You let the words pass through you, but you don’t control them. They will transcribe your will into power.
“But how do I find them?” Minghao asks, “Where do they come from?”
“They’re already within you,” Joshua answers, “they were given to you a long time ago.”
Minghao barely retains a scoff, rocking on his feet as his gaze falls from Joshua to the row of books behind him.
“Given to me? By who?”
“By the ones who made you. The ones who came before you. By the tree and the shadows and the earth.”
Minghao chews the inside of his cheek, all his dismissive attitude dissipating at the seriousness of Joshua’s tone and he looks back at him, at his steady gaze, at the taut lines of his face. Minghao had asked Joshua to follow up on his offer to teach him as his helplessness had grown heavy, almost too heavy to bear. They’d relay themselves at Wonwoo’s bedside but there was no change to witness, the pale face yet too still under their stares despite the flowers weaved in the dark hair, despite the amulet clutched in Minghao’s hand, despite the chants and the calls and the hopes.
“You must give up control,” Joshua continues, snapping Minghao out of his thoughts. “You must accept what is, accept what you are, let what’s buried inside you come back to life.”
“How do I do that?” Minghao asks with a pained smile, already knowing Joshua has no real answer to give him.
“You try,” he says, “you give yourself over.”
Joshua takes a step forward and another, until he’s standing in front of Minghao, closer than he’s ever been. There’s hesitation in his face as he opens his hands, offering them up for Minghao to take and long seconds tick by before Minghao complies, fitting his palms against Joshua’s and he’d expected his hands to be cold but they’re warm, a warmth much too familiar and Minghao leans in unwittingly.
“Close your eyes, try to find me, and when you do, follow.”
Minghao nods, closing his eyes on Joshua’s earnest face, trying to quell the part of him that is screaming to let go, that this is not a friend, not a brother, that there is no trust to give nor to find. Instead he focuses on the warmth against his palms, focuses on the low fire he feels traveling up his arms, focuses on what he recognizes as Joshua’s magic flowing into him and he lets it, lets him, finds him inside himself and follows, to each dark corner and forgotten hallways. When a low chant rises it barely registers, Joshua’s voice echoing inside Minghao’s head where words take form, words he never knew before yet they’re intensely familiar and he listens to their raspy sounds, swallows their shape and they taste dark on his tongue but he likes it, he likes them, and he follows Joshua’s voice until a second one threads into it, a second one Minghao recognizes as his own.
And the words still mean nothing, yet he lets them flow out of him and he knows what they speak of; yearning and loneliness and a desire for forgiveness, a desire to be known and accepted and wanted and something falters inside him, something hidden and painful that the chants brings out in the open and the vulnerability is too much – Minghao can feel his knees buckle out in the real world where his body still stands but there’s someone to hold him, someone who doesn’t let go and Minghao clings to him, clings to this strange feeling of light abandon, of surrender.
He closes his eyes tighter, flickers of light dancing on the back of his eyelids and he follows the voice deeper, deeper still, to the rawest parts of his mind, and he himself doesn’t know what lays there underneath the dust and rubble, whose bones they’ll find; his own, maybe, a child’s coffin he’d buried deeper than the ground, a loss he had never wished to face. Yet the words brings him down, down in this stifling darkness and he lets them; there’s more to find down here, an older kind of magic smelling of rain and earth, roots he knows where they would lead were he to follow.
And there, he drowns. In the words and the smell, the dark and the bones; his lungs fill yet he still breathes, his body sinks yet there is a light down there, where a voice calls his name. Minghao comes to then, with a ragged breath and an ache in his chest.
“What the fuck happened?”
“You followed,” Joshua says, and it registers that they’re both on the ground, Joshua kneeling next to Minghao’s crumpled form, holding him steady. And Minghao doesn’t want to leave his warmth, he realizes, doesn’t want to shrug off his touch; instead he tests it out, leaning more of his weight against Joshua who doesn’t let go, shifting to accommodate him, sitting on the floor an arm around his shoulders.
“My mum never told me about the magic.”
Joshua’s gaze falls on him but Minghao looks away, to the shelves full of worn books, to the crumpled couch and he finds comfort in their familiarity, in the images floating there; of Jeonghan, of Joshua, of himself.
“I could feel it but I never knew what it was. I think she hoped it would disappear in time, if she never did anything about it. I found out everything after she died, everything about the coven, about the magic I would find in the earth, in the plants, in myself.”
“How old were you?”
“About fifteen? It doesn’t really matter.”
“What happened?”
“I was bounced around houses and families until I was old enough, and then I worked, and I found this place, and I made it my home.”
“You learned everything alone.”
“I did. It wasn’t all bad. You make it sound like it was.”
“I just… I don’t know what it would have been like. I grew up with magic, and with a family to teach me.”
“For all the good it did you,” Minghao points out, but there’s no bite in his tone and Joshua laughs, something brief that has Minghao turn back to him and there’s a spark of awkwardness between them, a sudden unease at this unfamiliar openness. Minghao turns away, bashful, and Joshua retreats his touch, the loss immediately felt.
“I guess we got the worst of both worlds,” Joshua says as an after-thought and Minghao smiles, turning back to him but Joshua doesn’t catch his gaze, looking down at his own hands instead. “Can I ask how your mother – she must have been young,” he says, voice almost too quiet to hear and Minghao would have considered the question inappropriate a mere hours ago, but something had happened here between them, in the cramped library, something had opened within him that called for honesty.
“She just… Wasted away. I don’t know. I think it was all too much. Me, our heritage; maybe she knew what had happened to the coven, knew we were ones of the only few left, knew we had lost our war. I don’t think she had ever really wanted to birth me. She didn’t know what to do with me, with what was inside me. She just… she was tired.”
Joshua nods as if he understands and maybe he does, Minghao thinks, looking at him. He feels new, now that the mistrust, the hostility has receded, and maybe Minghao sees him for what he really is for the first time; a little lost, a little sad, a little lonely. He’s like me, Minghao thinks, and a wave of compassion pushes against his ribs. For Joshua, but for himself, too, and maybe he could stand to be a little kinder, a little softer.
They stay seated on the library floor until the light starts to dim, shoulder to shoulder, a soft kind of exhaustion falling over Minghao and he closes his eyes as Joshua intones a low chant. And he knows it, now, he can feel the meaning behind the strange words – remorse, yearning, hope. Minghao lets himself find comfort in it, in him, and maybe today was made for being vulnerable, for being soft; maybe it’s okay to rest, once in a while. A light rain starts to fall and the platter of the drops threads in Joshua’s voice, softening the hard edges of the words.
It’s like this that Jeonghan finds them, both lulling against each other, Minghao half asleep in Joshua’s lap.
“I’m sorry,” he says, both Minghao and Joshua straightening at the intrusion. “But I think it’s getting worse. I can’t feel him anymore.”
Minghao exchanges a glance with Joshua, the soft peace that had befallen him shattering at Jeonghan’s words. He stands up, Joshua grabbing his arm as he sways dizzily, and they both follow Jeonghan out the door to the bedroom, where Wonwoo lays.
If at all possible Minghao would think Wonwoo is even paler, all color drained from his face, lips of a bluish tint and cheeks sunken. He draws nearer, steps faltering, looking up at Jeonghan near the door.
“Did something happen?”
“No,” Jeonghan shakes his hands, wringing his hands. “He just slipped from my grasp. I could feel him, and then I could not.”
“Did you feel the beast?”
“No. Suddenly there just was nothing.”
Minghao looks back down, brings his fingers to Wonwoo’s neck; his pulse is still there under the clammy skin, beating faintly. There’s fresh flowers in his hair, a crown of mallows Minghao can picture Jeonghan weaving, sitting at the edge of the bed, deft fingers threading the flowers together.
“Is he dying?” Minghao asks to no one in particular. “Did he give up completely?”
There’s a soft touch upon his arm and Minghao looks up at Joshua, lines of worry in his face he doesn’t remember ever seeing but the soft smile he gives is hopeful.
“Do you want to try? The old magic.”
“I don’t – I don’t know if I can? I don’t know enough yet.”
“It’s not about knowledge, sometimes,” Joshua tells him in earnest, “just feelings and instinct.”
Minghao nods, biting his lips as he looks down at the dying man resting upon his bed, wasting away, wasting away and he remembers another room, another pale face framed in dark hair for whom there was nothing he could do.
“Okay,” he says firmly, resolve growing. “Okay, let’s try.”
Joshua smiles, relief evident on his handsome face and he nods, clasping Minghao on the arm.
“The magic will be stronger, with both of us.”
Again they light the candles, again valerian and chamomile blooms find their place at the foot of the bed, again the smell of lavender permeates the air. Minghao threads white heather in his own hair, watching as Joshua does the same and they kneel on each side of the bed, clasping each of Wonwoo’s hands in their own. Minghao hold the amulet in his free hand, Joshua reaching across the bed to hold onto him. The circle is closed, and Minghao peers at Jeonghan one last time before closing his eyes. The latter offers a reassuring nod – should anything turn awry, he’ll be there to stop it.
Minghao closes his eyes as the first word breaks from Joshua’s lips. He listens, first, getting a sense of the chant – something pleading, something sad yet hopeful, something comforting, too, and Minghao feels a strength rise from the depths of him, it’s not about knowledge , and so he lets it, lets it push against his ribs, coil in his lungs, just feelings and instinct, and he parts his lips, pouring all of his hopes, all of his desires into the words that leave his throat, joining in with Joshua’s own. There’s an intake of breath on his right, Jeonghan, surely, and Minghao closes his eyes tighter, gripping Wonwoo’s cold hand more firmly, feeling Joshua’s warm fingers in his own, the amulet against his palm.
For the first time in ages, the confidence Minghao feels doesn’t seem feigned. It will work. It has to.
7 .
There’s a shift, somewhere in the darkness. Wonwoo feels it against his skin, in his bones, in the last shreds of his shattered mind. It’s like a soft wind, smelling of rain and earth and he struggles to open his eyes against the darkness. He’s been waiting, waiting for the beast to find him, to give him an end, finally, an out from this war he never wanted to wage . But the shadow likes to play, likes to draw things out, and it had left him there, perfectly alone in this void it had created, this void that had already swallowed so much of him.
There’s something in his hand and when he looks it’s a small white bag, warm against his palm. Wonwoo seems to remember, then, the smell of lavender and a sharp voice, hold on to this, hands upon him, a plea, please, not now, but there is no face, no name to find in his memories. Yet he remembers the voice and he repeats the words to himself, again and again while he still can; he knows this will be devoured, too, slowly by the encroaching dark, just as everything else had been.
But he has a small white bag in his hand, pulsing like a heartbeat and Wonwoo looks down again, at the white linen, the leather string tying it close, long as if he was meant to wear it around his neck. But he has no strength to spare, trembling fingers struggling to close around the bag and it’s like holding a small animal in his palm, warm and fluttering. He closes his eyes again, and the strange wind is still blowing; there’s whispers riding on its tail, words he doesn’t quite understand yet the meaning seems to spell itself on his skin – a sorrowful plea, a hopeful lament.
And the bag grows warmer still, a heartbeat stronger than his own in the palm of his hand. Wonwoo stirs but the ground won’t relinquish him; he’s buried, waiting there for the sentence of a serpentine body upon the miry ground. Still there’s the voice in his mind and the voice in the wind, please, please, and Wonwoo grabs the bag harder just as the voices falter, a panic rising in him. The dark swallows all, he knows, rainy winds and chanting voices and the lingering smell of lavender.
Please, he says, just as he hears it, a massive body dragging itself upon the ground. Please, he repeats, just as the smell of rot and decay assaults him and he can almost see it, the beast, its monstrous shape and gaping maw, darker than dark, rising above him. Wonwoo closes his eyes, looking for the chanting voices, for the smell of rain but he can’t find anything, yet the heartbeat is still there against his palm and he clutches it tighter, asking one last time, just as the darkness moves above him, plunging to devour, please, he asks, save me.
When the pain never comes, Wonwoo opens his eyes, and the light almost blinds him. He closes them back right away, flickers shifting against his eyelids and it’s a while before he peers through his eyelashes carefully, taking in his surroundings. A white ceiling, a messy desk in a corner, white sheets and a man slumped at his side, curled up too near the edge of the bed. Wonwoo stares, sensation coming gradually back to his body; the weakness of his limbs, the soreness in his back, the dryness of his throat. He’s warm, he realizes, the mattress he lays on soft under hi m , and the room smell s of lavender and something else, something earthy but not unpleasant.
It’s actually not that bright, he realizes, the corner of sky he can see through the window telling him night has fallen. The light in the room is coming from a bedside lamp, a warm glow that has his chest constrict almost painfully, something too much like a sob stuck in his lungs . He doesn’t have time to dwell on it; the man next to him stirs, a soft sigh leaving his lips and Wonwoo turns his attention back to him. Dark hair fall in his face, disheveled and unkempt and Wonwoo softly pushes them back, detailing the features underneath, full lips and a soft nose, high cheekbones and a sharp jaw. Wonwoo pulls his hand back, recognition befalling him – he saw that man standing behind a counter with a scowl on his handsome face, saw him somewhere else, too, in an endless void, a devouring dark.
He remembers something else, too, a heartbeat in the palm of his hand and gently, carefully, Wonwoo shi f ts on his side to press his hand against the man’s chest. He feels it, right against his skin and the man is warm, warm and alive and Wonwoo leaves his hand there, closing his eyes, listening for the sounds of the man’s breaths, shifting closer to feel more of his warmth.
Wonwoo doesn’t know how much time lapses, but soon there’s a shift, an intake of breath, and when he opens his eyes the man is staring back at him.