~oOo0oOo0oOo~

Love can be just as much a reward as a downfall. No one knows its potency better than you do. You know how it can turn the wise into mere marionette, how it can bring the destruction of great civilizations. For the sake of yourself and the sake of your little prince, don’t think for a moment that the puppetmaster can’t become a puppet.

~oOo0oOo0oOo~

The next morning Kyungsoo woke early and slipped out of the room, the lamp and knife bundled up by excess bedsheets in his arms.  Like a mouse he made his way to his bedroom, stowing the package beneath his bed before he went back the way he came, the pitter-patter sounds of his footsteps the only noise in the palace. He returned back beneath warm blankets, his absence having gone unnoticed by his slumbering sisters.

There was a sort of energy charging the air, thrumming through their beings like vibrations of sound. The two princesses were under the combined effect of relief and fear. After this night, their brother would be liberated of the monster that held him captive; the only question was whether he would be return to them, or if he would escape to the fields of Elysium. With the unknown god’s warnings and gifts, the confidence they had in the latter outcome grew, and as the day progressed they became more and more certain their little brother would be returning home.

Kyungsoo, however, suffered from curiosity that seemed to swallow his body whole. There was a bit of fear, too, a tiny whispering of doubt that suggested his husband was indeed the monster his sisters and the unnamed god said he was. But the tiny weed of doubt was easily crushed, overpowered by the excitement that finally, Kyungsoo would see his husband with his own two eyes.

Their departure that evening wasn’t tearful, though the princesses hated to part from their brother so soon. They were comforted by the fact they believed it wouldn’t be long before Kyungsoo returned to them. They promised to bring the good tidings to their parents, and after one last embrace, Zephyrus and his anemoi attendants lifted them into the air. Kyungsoo watched as they became mere specks amongst the white clouds, never stopping his waving until they disappeared completely from his sight. The moment they left his vision he as sprinting into the palace and up the maze of stairways until he came to a panting mess before the heavy doors to his bedroom.

As the doors opened he stumbled straight into the darkness and the waiting arms of his husband. He had scarcely crossed the threshold when he was lifted into the air and swung around in circles, his husband’s steady hands on his waist and his soft chuckling in his ears. They spun and spun and spun before tumbling onto the bed, becoming a tangled heap of limbs and laughter on the silken sheets.

“How were you while I was gone?” his husband wondered aloud between insistent presses of his lips against Kyungsoo’s.

“It was wonderful,” Kyungsoo said as his husband buried his face into his neck, arm winding around his torso. “Thank you so much for allowing my sisters to visit me. How was your trip?”

“Dismal,” was the answer whispered into his skin. “It was only three days, yet it felt like three years. Gods of Olympus, I missed you.”

The prince gasped in surprise as he pressed face first into the pillows, smothered by down feathers. His husband was pressed against his back, a tell-tale hardness flush against his bum.

“You fiend,” he whispered breathlessly as his husband chuckled lowly against the skin of his neck.

“Just the way you like me.”

Kyungsoo could only smile as his husband took him, all wandering hands and gentle but desperate kisses.

~oOo0oOo0oOo~

As they lay together, sated and happy beneath silken sheets, Kyungsoo lay with his ear pressed against his husband’s chest, listening as the man’s frenzied heartbeat slowed to a lulling decrescendo, the pulse strong and steady. Nyx came with her darkest cloak of midnight, painting the world outside their palace with pigments of indigo and black as Hypnos beckoned all to his realm of slumber. While his husband acquiesced to Hypnos’ summons and was soon fast asleep, Kyungsoo lay wide awake.

He stared into the silent darkness, questions and worries thriving in this atmosphere of uncertainty. They were the same ones he had asked when the choice was first presented to him: Was he actually going to listen to his sisters and that dreadfully misinformed god? Was Kyungsoo really willing to betray his husband’s trust? Would Kyungsoo still love his husband, even if he appeared more demon-like than human?

His answers, too, were the same: Yes, yes, and irrevocably yes. But making a choice and actually going through with it were two different things. Though his body was abuzz with excitement, his arms lay heavy at his sides, his legs like stone. Get up, light the lamp, take a quick look, then put everything away as if nothing had ever happened—it seemed to easy, so surreally simple. It was if his mind was still numb, unable to comprehend that if he moved, all it would take would be a few moments before he would finally be able to place a face onto the man that had whispered sweet nothings to him for the past year.

Finally gathering his nerve, Kyungsoo carefully moved his husband’s arm from its position around his waist, stepping with care onto the cold marble floor. He knelt, his hands fumbling searchingly beneath the bed for the bundle of blankets. His fingers finally finding purchase on cloth, he pulled it out, unwrapping it quickly. He gasped sharply as he accidentally pricked his finger against the blade’s razor edge. slightly on the wound, he grasped the handle with his other hand rather than open up opportunity for another accident, and took the lamp with his other. As he straightened he faced the direction of the bed, holding the lamp aloft.

“Light,” he whispered, and immediately the lamp filled with a flickering flame that spread its warmth throughout the silent bedchamber, gilding everything with a cozy glow.

The man who lay asleep on the bed was the mysterious man from his dreams, the man who came to him in moments when Kyungsoo hovered in the twilight between slumber and awakening, who would watch him without a word. His husband looked like an angel, his elegant face relaxed and content. Hair like spun gold curled haphazardly across his forehead and against his chiseled face and neck, and his full lips were pulled in an unconscious smile. His bare body was sun-kissed and beautiful, his musculature lithe and defined, as if the Muses themselves had come forth and carved him to perfection.

Captivated, Kyungsoo carefully crawled onto the bed, wanting to take a closer look. He would never again be able to see his husband in his waking hours, and the prince was determined to burn this image into his mind. He didn’t ever want to forget that peaceful smile, and he was determined to make the best of the fleeting time he had. He held the lamp over his husband’s slumbering form, enthralled by the way the flickering candlelight danced across the man’s elegant face.

He didn’t know how long he sat there, merely gazing at the heavenly being that was his husband, memorizing each the curve of each eyelash, each shift in movement. It was like time didn’t exist, like they were in a realm far away from the sun’s odyssey across the skies or the reign of the stars.

But Kyungsoo, too captivated by his husband, didn’t notice that he had been leaning a bit too far forward, that his lamp was tilted. He didn’t notice when a bit of hot oil spilled against his husband’s shoulder, as he was too transfixed.

But a bit was all it took.

Kyungsoo’s eyes widened as his husband opened his eyes, blinking in confusion at the unnatural light and wincing a bit from the burn on his shoulder. He sat up blearily, taking in the sight of his lover beside him, looking guilty and frightened like an owl.

His automatic reaction was to smile, elegant eyes crinkling, brushing a thumb softly against Kyungsoo’s open mouth. But as the man’s mind slowly cleared of sleep’s effects, Kyungsoo watched as multiple emotions stole across his husband’s beautiful face, his eyes widening in surprise, then face twisting into confusion, and then, as his husband’s gaze slowly came to the knife Kyungsoo hadn’t realized he was still holding, pain. It was like he was crumbling to dust, pain crashing across his eyes like a tsunami.

His husband sat back, his hand falling limply to his side, staring blankly at the knife as if he didn’t want to believe it existed, like its being there caused him physical agony.

When Kyungsoo reached forward, wanting to hold him, kiss him, anything, his husband jolted back, his eyes heavy with indescribable emotion. Then he was tearing across the room, feathers of lustrous white sprouting from his shoulder blades, the swiftness with which he moved extinguishing the flame with a gust of wind. The curtains that shielded the room from the night blew open, revealing the constellations and inky blackness of the sky. His husband paused for a brief moment, the tips of his toes barely grazing the window ledge, looking back at the shocked prince, who was confused by the drastic turn of events.

Kyungsoo could only think longingly of how ethereal he looked, his silhouette framed by the gleaming moonlight and punctuated by twinkling stars, before quiet words laced with remorse and some other emotion were falling from those full lips.

“I’m sorry, Kyungsoo.”

And then he was gone, leaping out into the open air, his heaven born wings carrying far out of Kyungsoo’s reach. He was gone before the prince raced to the window, gone too soon to hear the boy’s cries. Kyungsoo stood alone, bare feet pressed against frigid marble and without a stitch of cloth to shield him from the icy winter of the midnight air, never seeming to feel the cold, only able to comprehend that his husband was gone once again, but this time, for good.

The arms that caught him when he swayed and fell weren’t the ones that held him for so many nights. Zephyrus seized the boy before he could collide against the unyielding ground. Aware of his Master’s abrupt departure but ignorant of the circumstances that preceded it, the god of the West wind was left bewildered and worried, unsure of what to do. He dressed the boy and brought him to an alternate room after the boy refused to return to his bedroom. He watched, perplexed, as Kyungsoo sat numbly near the fireside, eyes staring blankly into the flames, his warm cup of tea ignored.

Night became day, but still Kyungsoo didn’t move from his seat before the now long-dead fire. It was when the sun blazed brightly through the sky that finally the boy quit his silent vigil, succumbing to his exhaustion.

“Take him home.”

Zephyrus jerked in surprise, almost dropping the prince, whom he had picked up with the goal of moving him to a more comfortable spot. His Master stood in the doorway, his face carefully controlled, emotionless as stone. There was a certain ache in his voice and eyes that made Zephyrus pause in his actions, his forehead puckering in confusion.

“Master, what do you mean—“

“Take him home,” the god repeated. With that, Jongin turned and quickly disappeared. His departure, however, was not quick enough, and Zephyrus had caught the little fracture in his mask, the silent tear that had begun its journey.

The next morning, Kyungsoo awoke not on the stone floor beside a fireplace, but in a plush bed, surrounded by his joyful family. Seeing the smiling faces of his sisters and the outright radiant ones of his parents could never fail to make him smile, but as the memories of the night before sunk in, the prince dissolved into silent tears.

All those who were watching, the king, the queen, the princesses, the physicians and select few servants, all said his tears were ones of happiness and relief. At long last, their little prince was back, safe and sound. None of them knew of the ache in his chest or of the way he sat alone after they were long gone, the wetness on his cheeks never having the chance to dry.

~oOo0oOo0oOo~

“True love can’t be born out of fear, and… I’m afraid something terrible is going to happen. Please be careful, Jongin. A resentful mortal can be dangerous, even to gods like ourselves. They can grow desperate, like wild animals trapped in a cage, and there’s no telling what they will do for their freedom…” 

~oOo0oOo0oOo~

A/N: And at last I've updated! :D I'm so sorry about how long it's taking for me to write and update stuff (college is such a omfg) 

Thank you so much to all of you who are still sticking around and reading my bad writing <3 <3 <3 I looooveee youuuuuuuuuuuuuuu~ ^//////^