3,234 words of mostly Jongin growing up and his trying to atone for his sins XD It's actually a really boring chapter OTL Kinda a filler tbh smh 

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Jongin sat alone in his chamber, eyes staring sightlessly into the crackling flames. He curled up forlornly against the rumpled duvet, the large bed feeling curiously empty without another warm body curled against his side. The room was silent, empty of any life save him and the dying flames. Luhan had long stormed away to his bedchamber, fists clenched and eyes blazing, and was no doubt either still seething or fast asleep. Silently, Jongin got up, extinguishing the fire with a small wave of his hand. He opened the window as if in a daze, letting his wings sprout from his shoulder-blades, stretching open in the midnight air.

He flew in a dream-like state, his mind peculiarly empty but body moving as if it had a purpose of its own. He was already brushing aside the curtains leading to his bedchamber in his own palace when realization finally hit him.

Swiftly he made his way across cold marble floor till he was standing at bed, hungrily taking in the sight of the sleeping boy beneath him. Already Kyungsoo looked better; his forehead was smooth, his face less tense, and the soft petal pink of his cheeks seemed to be returning. Seeing his sisters must have done him good.

Jongin leaned down to kiss him gently, sighing against soft red lips. Finger silken skin, and then Jongin was out the window again, the aching hole within him temporarily sated. Two more days. Two more days, and they would be together again.

As the god of desire soared back among the glinting stars, he still couldn’t shake the feeling of discomfort and what felt strangely like guilt. His thoughts kept returning to his little prince, who lay curled so sweetly amongst their bedsheets, and the princesses who were residing somewhere in his palace. Though the pain and heartache seemed to have parted from the prince like summer leaves in winter, the boy’s formerly wan and forlorn face kept reappearing, splitting into two. The two visages slowly changed and aged, one retaining Kyungsoo’s heart-shaped smile and beautiful eyes, the other his jaw line and proud gaze. The figures of the king and queen were before him, their regal bearing weathered by time and heartache.

Is our baby alright? the image of the queen whispered, her eyes—Kyungsoo’s eyes—wide and imploring. Is he safe? Is he happy? Is he alive?

The king’s emotions, though more controlled, shone through his firm mouth and worried gaze. If you touch so much a hair of his head, the vision of the monarch growled, I will fight you with all the fire of Hades, monster that all beings fear or not!

Jongin hadn’t had Zephyrus bring the boy’s parents for fear their elderly hearts could not handle flying among the clouds with no visible support but the wind god’s almost invisible attendants. He had intended for Kyungsoo’s sisters to bring back the good news about their brother, but now, as their pained faces swam before him, Jongin knew he couldn’t leave them with only spoken words from their children’s’ mouths.

A mother and father’s pain of losing their only son warranted much more than mere secondhand tidings. He would speak to them himself.

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“Sisters, are you quite alright?” Kyungsoo wondered aloud as his siblings picked at their food listlessly. They were unusually quiet; even though it was early in the morning they would usually be up and about, happily babbling and giggling, but today they were unusually solemn.

“It’s nothing, Kyungsoo-ah,” the younger sister said quickly, smiling quickly to deflect suspicion. Kyungsoo, though still wary of his sister’s strange behavior, brushed it aside. They ate in silence, the only sounds the chink of utensils, sloshing of liquid, and quiet clink of glass goblets. After their meal, Zephyrus led them to the gardens, where Kyungsoo immediately ran towards the fountain pool, splashing happily in the water.

“Your majesties, you seem awfully quiet today,” Zephyrus said gently to the two princesses, who started in surprise. “Was the food disagreeable? I can have a concoction of herbs prepared if anything has upset your stomach—“

“No, thank you, Lord Zephyrus,” the elder said quickly. “We are alright.”

Though the wind god looked skeptical, he accepted her words with a gracious bow. “As my lady says. Should you need me to attend to you, please do not hesitate to call me, your Highnesses.”

With that the god disappeared in a small whirlwind, leaving the siblings alone in the garden. Warily, the two sisters looked at each other, oblivious to the wild splashing from behind them.

“When should we tell him about the god’s warning?” the younger said, her voice muted.

“Soon—“ the elder began, only to be tossed into the pool by a giggling and ignorant Kyungsoo. The princess gasped as she trudged out from the water, her clothes soaking wet and her perfect ringlets drenched. Kyungsoo howled with laughter at the sight, only to be pushed into the pool by his other sister, who he had neglected.

“You little minx!” the princess crowed as she, too, leapt into the water after her siblings. “We’ll get you yet!”

“Never!” Kyungsoo shrieked back, giggling madly as he sloshed through the water. “You’ll never take me alive!”

With that the anonymous god’s warning was temporarily forgotten as the princesses chased their brother as he toddled away in hot pursuit. They spent the rest of the morning in their own miniature naval war, and the rest of the afternoon lying lazily in the sun, letting the warm rays dry their garments.

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Forgoing his invisibility and disguising himself as a simple mortal servant, Jongin slipped into the palace unnoticed. In the servants’ halls he came across a group of wildly chattering housemaids, all quiet tittering and waving hands.

“I’m sorry,” he said apologetically as he approached them, the conversation quickly stopping. Though the girls and women had quickly shut their mouths at the sight of the newcomer, Jongin had already caught the gist of their whispered gossiping. “I am new here. What is this about the king’s son?”

“Oh, child,” a motherly maid said, wiping her hands on her apron. “You haven’t heard? It’s been the talk of the kingdoms for a while…”

She wrapped a chubby arm around his shoulder, quickly drawing him into the circle. All the servants smiled at him welcomingly. “The king had a most beautiful son, a very sweet, quiet thing. He looked like a godling, he did, all pale skin and red lips and a soft body. Lots of people wanted him, but the prince didn’t give his suitors the time of day. Some say because the gods saw his refusal to marry as hubris, others say it was because his beauty caused all the goddesses to glow green with envy, but for whatever reason, the poor dear was taken away by a dreadful monster.” She sighed sadly, her grip on Jongin tightening. “I don’t mean to blaspheme, but Olympus knows neither the prince nor his parents deserved his fate! That boy was such a darling, always eager to help out despite being a royal. Heavens, he used to come into the kitchen and help us prepare meals, even though we insisted he shouldn’t lower himself to our station.”

“He was never prideful,” another maid agreed, shaking her head vehemently. “He was awful quiet but always treated us servants with respect, little Kyungsoo did. And the King and Queen have never been anything but kind to us. Lord Zeus have mercy on the Queen!”

 “What happened to the queen?” Jongin queried, his throat suddenly dry, and the servants cast glances amongst themselves, their faces quickly becoming forlorn.

“She’s been wasting away this past year,” another servant finally. “Doesn’t want to believe her baby boy is gone. Word is she seeks to join him in the afterlife. The King’s worried mad about her Majesty, she won’t eat or drink or do nothing.” 

“I see,” the disguised god said softly. “Thank you.”

“Where are you going?” the maternal maid asked as Jongin began striding away. “Child?”

Jongin turned back and flashed a small smile, dropping his mortal disguise for only a moment. “I’m going to do something I should have done long ago.”

With that, he disappeared, leaving the group of servants staring at the spot where he vanished with wide-eyed and open-mouthed disbelief.

Cloaking himself from mortal sight, Jongin appeared in the ailing queen’s bedchamber. He heard soft, anxious voices.

The room was dark, all curtains pulled to shroud out natural light. The room was lit by naught but several candles, the little flames inadequate to fill the entire chamber with a warm glow, leaving the room feeling instead cold and dismal. At the canopy bed Jongin could see the palace physician and the king firing worried words back and forth, the royal becoming more and more agitated as he lay a hand on his wife’s forehead, who lay on the bed swathed in blankets. Despite the heavy covers drawn up to her chin and the beads of sweat that were trickling down her forehead, the queen was pale and shivering.

“Is there nothing that can be done?”the god of desire heard the monarch demand, and the physician shook his head morosely.

“I’m afraid not, your Majesty. The disappearance of the princesses seems to have been the last straw. The queen … she has simply lost her will to live.”

With a solemn bow the doctor backed out of the room, the heavy doors shutting quietly behind him. Jongin silently made his way across the room, watching as the king dropped laboriously into the chair that had been drawn up to the queen’s bedside, hiding his face in his hands.

“First my son, then my daughters and now my wife? Gods of Olympus, what have I done? What terrible act have I committed for you to punish my family so?” The king’s old body suddenly seemed to come to life as his face twisted in rage, and Jongin suddenly thought of Kyungsoo, who had gazed at him with equal hatred the first night they met. “Why not just cast me into the pits of Tartarus? You take my daughters under the pretense of letting them visit my innocent son who you fed to your hell-born monsters, and now my beloved wife? Are you going to take from me until I have nothing left?”

As the king roared at the heavens, tears dripping down his cheeks, Jongin could almost see Kyungsoo beside him, his eyes wild and teeth bared in a hateful snarl.

What are you waiting for?! Hurry up and me, end my life now! Anything is better than these sick mind games you’re playing. You divine beings and monsters are all the same, twisting the lives of mortals for your own amusement and prolonging their pain for your own entertainment. But I refuse to be tormented by you. You’ve good as killed my by taking away what I hold dearest in life, now finish the ing job you monster!

Jongin listened to the king’s angry sobbing, head bowed, as each word slashed open the wounds Kyungsoo’s accusations had left a year ago. This was precisely why Kyungsoo couldn’t know his mysterious husband was Jongin, god of love and desire. This was why Jongin couldn’t ever let Kyungsoo know who he truly was.

Everything he had told Kyungsoo was true. He wanted to be loved as an equal, he wanted to be loved as himself, for his heart and person, not for his position among the deities.

And he also didn’t want to be hated and feared.

What hurt wasn’t the way Kyungsoo, his father, and other mortals viewed him and his godly brethren as cruel and single-minded, but how they were right. Though the gods had their good sides, bestowing their lovers with gifts and watching over those they favored, there was no turning a blind eye to their bad, to the way their petty grudges could result with death and heartbreak and destruction, the way their desires would overshadow the terrible results to come.

Jongin knew he was too selfish to give Kyungsoo up now, not when the prince loved him back and was willing to stay with him. As much as it hurt to see the king and queen’s pain, it hurt a thousand-fold to imagine an eternity without Kyungsoo after he already had held the boy in his arms, after he had already had a taste of the overpowering happiness and laughter the young prince had brought to his life. But that didn’t mean he would let the prince’s parents suffer through the rest of their lives believing their cherished son was dead.

 “My lord,” he said softly, bringing his physical body back into mortal sight. The king halted his weeping, weathered hands grasping his sword with practiced ease. He stood protectively in front of his wife’s form, and with his long silver hair and beard, his powerful form, and proud countenance Jongin thought of Zeus, lord of the sky. Though it was obvious the flow of time had sapped at his strength, the king looked no less formidable, his black-eyed stare fierce as a wolf’s.

“Who’s there?” the monarch shouted, his head whipping back and forth. Quietly Jongin stepped into the circle of candlelight, raising his head to meet the king’s gaze. The elderly king’s eyes widened in surprise. “A youth. Child, how did you come here?”

The king took in the sight of the strange young man who had chanced upon his queen’s chamber. The youth was tall, with a beautiful, timeless face of an Adonis, his powerful body draped with a simple white robe with billowing sleeves that seemed to be floating off the ground. With a jolt the aging monarch realized that the youth’s muscular arms were, in fact, bare, and that the white shapes he had mistaken for sleeves were majestic wings that were spread wide.

“Your Majesty,” the mysterious young man said as he gazed up at the king with eyes hiding unbridled emotion. “I am no mortal child. I am the husband of Kyungsoo, your child.”

Blood roared in the king’s ears at the mention of his son, a pounding bass inside his head. So this was the evil beast that and devoured his darling Kyungsoo. How dare the monster stand before him, hidden in the skin of a beautiful youth? Such petty disguises would not stop him from tearing the fiend’s head from its body, and with a bellow of rage the king threw himself forth, blade slashing in a wide arc. To his surprise the villain didn’t move, and the king’s sword left a gaping gash across its chest. Golden liquid dripped from the wound and glinted on the blade, and the king drew his weapon back with wide eyes.

Ichor, the golden blood of the gods.

Anger surged forth, overtaking him again, and despite knowing the man before him couldn’t die the king advanced, determined to inflict as much pain as possible. With a shout he drove his blade towards the beast’s chest, and the strange being didn’t move, only watching with sad eyes—

“Stop!” At the hoarse cry the king dropped his blade, whirling around to see his sick wife struggling up from her bed. The queen sat up with great effort, and the king abandoned his attack to rush to her side, steadying her before she could fall. But she brushed her husband’s arms aside, stumbling down the steps from her bed, her sleep-deprived eyes focused solely on the god before them.

“My son,” she rasped, and Jongin was floored by how her formerly breathtaking face had deteriorated into papery skin and bone as her brittle fingers clawed at the front of his robe. “My Kyungsoo, what have you done to him?”

Carefully Jongin took her hands in his, keeping his gaze steady on hers. “Your Majesties, I swear on my honor and the River Styx that your son is alive and well.”

Upon hearing this oath the queen sagged in relief, her husband catching her before she could crumple to the ground. Though the king still eyed the god with suspicion, he knew the god’s word to be true; immortals were bound by the oaths they made to Styx, and if this strange god swore by the river of Hades that their son was alive, then Kyungsoo had to be.

“He’s alive,” the queen whispered, tears leaking tiredly out of the corner of her eyes as she sank into her husband’s arms. “Oh, my baby. He’s alive, he’s alive.”

 She repeated each word with relish, as if each syllable was the sweetest nectar on her tongue. Kyungsoo’s father, however, still had the steely glint of distrust in his eyes.

“Why do you come here?” he demanded harshly, jaw set defiantly.

To their surprise the god regarded them silently before sinking to the ground on his knees, his forehead pressed against cold marble stone.

“To beg for your forgiveness,” was the god’s quiet answer as he humbled himself before the two mortals before him. “There are no words of any language that can describe how much your son means to me. I want nothing more than for him to be happy and to see his smile every day. I fell in love with him the moment I saw him, and in a mindless desire I brought him to my side.

“Your Majesties, please believe me when I say that I would never hurt a hair of your son’s head. When I took him to my palace, I promised him that I would return him home if that was what he truly wished. But in our time together your son has come to love me, and I cannot live without him.”

The god raised his eyes, and the king and queen were struck by the ardent passion that was reflected clearly on mahogany orbs. There was no artifice in his gaze, nothing but ardent affection that even the dubious monarch could deny.

“I love your son more than anything in existence,” the god said sincerely. “Though I did you wrong when I took him without your consent or his, now that he returns my affections I am too selfish a creature to part from him now. It is infinitely more than I could ever deserve, but yet I ask; your Majesties, could you ever forgive me for keeping Kyungsoo by my side?”

Wordlessly the king stepped forward, his wife clinging to his arm. His other hand gripped his sword, which he brought up slowly to trace the deity’s collar, the tip of the blade running gently against the skin of his throat.

“I could sever your head from your body,” the elderly man noted softly, almost as if mesmerized. “I could smite you to pieces with just a swing of my sword.”

“It would be no more than I deserved,” the god said quietly, never flinching as the sword dug deeper into his sun-kissed skin. At his words the king lowered his weapon, letting it clank softly against the floor.

“You truly love Kyungsoo? You would never hurt him?”

“I would rather die than hurt him.”

At his response Jongin felt weathered hands grasping his own, and he was brought to his feet till he stood tall and straight, gazing down at the king and queen. 

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A/N: ...Yeah, this was a reaaally boring chapter. OTL And kinda redundant, now that I think about it. Huh. o-o 

But there is good news! The next chapter should be posted soon, either tomorrow or the day after that! :D *runs and hides in a corner pls don't kill meeee omg omg omg omg pls