“Good afternoon, Your Majesty.”

Youngjae nearly jumped out of his skin as a voice greeted him the moment he walked into his room.

“W-what the hell?” The healer stuttered, spotting Jaebeom sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the window, “What are you doing here? How did you get in here? What do you want?”

Jaebeom lifted both his hands in defense, “I'm just here to be the messenger.” He stood and held out a small, crudely made envelope, “It's from the Prince of Darkness. He said he made you a promise and wanted me to deliver this to you by hand, since he can't be sure you would have even received it if it went through the court first.”

Youngjae froze in place, eyes narrowed suspiciously at the envelope. Jinyoung was always one to keep his promises, but the younger prince had a hard time trusting the person who had been tasked to deliver it.

The man grinned, “C'mon, Sweetheart, I promise I won't bite.”

“That's… reassuring…” the healer mumbled, taking a few cautious steps toward the intimidating man. He paused, for a moment, eyes searching Jaebeom's entire body for signs of any kind of aggression before finally reaching up and gingerly taking hold of the letter.

He quickly pulled it to his chest, taking a step back while still eying the other wearily, earning a laugh from Jaebeom, “I’m not that scary, Angel. Relax.”

“Last time I saw you, you attacked me.” Youngjae stated matter-of-factly.

“Huh?” his companion tilted his head in confusion, “Oh. That. Right. Sorry about that, we couldn’t risk you calling for a guard.”

“Who are you anyway?” the prince asked suddenly, “I mean… you and Jinyoung Hyung… How do you know each other? Why would he suddenly leave the palace for you?”

“Well…” Jaebeom lifted a hand to count on his fingers, “Firstly, I’ve only known him for a few days. He’s more… acquainted with my brother than me. Secondly, he didn’t leave the palace for me. He didn’t leave because of me either. I actually had very little to do with that, other than just being a means of helping him to leave.”

“Then why did he leave? Who’s the guy he spoke to Jackson Hyung about? The one that made him rebel?”

The other man grinned, “All of that is explained in that letter. Straight from the Prince of Darkness’ mouth. Well, not really his mouth, but… he wrote it.”

Youngjae narrowed his eyes, “Now that I think about it; how can I be sure that Jinyoung Hyung really did write this? What if you’re just trying to trick me into believing what you want me to?”

“You can compare his handwriting or something, I dunno. I can’t make you believe me.” Jaebeom shrugged, “But hold on, you didn’t let me answer your first question. I had a whole thing planned.”

The prince blinked, “What?”

Wide grin returning to his face, Jaebeom spun around and swiftly closed the curtain over the window that he’d entered from, “How about we get some mood lighting in here, Darling?”

“Mood lighting?”

He turned back to the healer, “I noticed you have a lot of candles in here.”

Youngjae frowned, more confused than anything, “I… like candles…”

“Hey, check this out.” Jaebeom started as he lifted both hands, turning up his nose and clapping twice like a snooty aristocrat calling for his butler. All at once, every candle in the room lit up, startling the prince who was now even more confused.

“How did you..? What the hell..?” Youngjae glanced around, trying to make sense of how all seventeen candles of all shapes and sizes were suddenly burning.

The other man chuckled and turned his palm up, materializing a small floating flame that resembled a heart, “Mood lighting.”

Youngjae’s eyes widened and Jaebeom was quick to extinguish the flame in his hand and lift his index finger.

“Before you ask; everything is in that letter, I promise.” He blew out a breath before looking down at the floor. After a pause, he slowly looked back up at the other man with a dark, seductive smirk spread across his lips, “However…”

The prince tensed at the way his aura changed in the blink of an eye and took a step back, too on edge from the newly induced anxiety to form a coherent question about the candles.

“The letter is just an explanation, but I have a bit more info that I wanna share with you alone.” Jaebeom started, taking slow steps toward the smaller man, causing a chain reaction of Youngjae taking another step back “You should consider yourself lucky. You're cute, I like you.”

Another step. Forward. Backward.

“So I'm gonna tell you a little secret.” He smirked, leaning forward a little.

Another step. Forward. Backward.

“Everything ends tonight. One way or another.” He whispered.

Another step. Forward. Backward.

“The Ice Prince is near the boat monument to the south. He needs to be healed and brought back here as soon as possible.”

“W-what?” Youngjae stuttered.

Another step. Forward. Backward.

“If he isn't… then nobody will survive the night.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Another step. Forward. Backward.

And Youngjae felt his back hit the wall.

“You got that?”

Another step. Forward.

Forward again.

Until they were so close, Youngjae could feel the other’s higher than normal body temperature.

Jaebeom placed his hands on the wall, caging the younger's body, “You, My Dear, need to read that letter, pack up a bunch of your little guard friends, go to the boat monument, heal the Ice Prince and bring him back here tonight.” He leaned in close, gently running his fingertips over the healer's jaw and letting his other hand rest on the prince’s waist as he continued, speaking low and deep, “And then… when you get back, you have the choice… to stay with Icey…” his thumb slowly glided across Youngjae's bottom lip, “Or you can come to me… I'll take care of you…”

Youngjae gulped, mentally cursing himself for the shivers that ran through his body at the other man’s soft touches. Nothing good could come out of what Jaebeom was saying, he knew that. But for a moment – just for a split second – he wanted him.

Badly.

Capitalizing on the smaller man’s moment of weakness and spurred on by the spark of dark lust in his eyes, Jaebeom wasted no time in closing the distance between them. He was a little too harsh. A little too rough. Almost immediately, he slipped his tongue into the prince’s mouth, taking as much pleasure as he could from what he knew would be a fleeting, once-off moment.

As if on cue, Youngjae moaned softly in the back of his throat before he immediately gasped with the realization of what he was doing and shoved him away.

Panting a little, Jaebeom his lips and leaned down to be on eye level with his companion, “Come with me tonight.”

The prince looked everywhere except at the other man, “That’s… never gonna happen…”

Jaebeom sighed deeply, turning and walking back toward the window, “Whatever you say, Babe. But the offer still stands.” He turned a large, cheesy grin on the prince, “Just say the word and we can continue where we left off.”

•┈┈┈••✦✧✦••┈┈┈•

Walking in dead silence, in the middle of nowhere, with the Ice Prince and four royal guards was a little intimidating, Mark had to admit. There was the very real possibility that Jackson could randomly decide that he was done with this little excursion and kill him on the spot.

Not only would that ruin all of their plans, but he also hadn’t gotten the chance to brag yet…

They had been traveling for over two hours already and would be at the boat monument in around five more minutes and Mark was getting more and more nervous the closer they got. He wasn't exactly given the easiest task. Jackson was a force to be reckoned with and he had four guards backing him up too. This would require a certain amount of luck.

And having the ability to bend light wouldn’t hurt either.

The monument peeked out from above the hill and Mark took in a deep breath.

It was now or never…

He halted his steps, causing everyone else to stop as well.

“Is something wrong?” Jackson asked.

Mark shook his head, “No. I'm just curious about something.”

“What?”

“Tell me…” having kept his left hand in his pocket throughout the entire trip, he finally lifted it up to show off the black, blue striped ring around his finger, “Does this look familiar to you?”

A look of shock crossed the Ice Prince's features before quickly morphing into a white hot rage as he lunged at the other man, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt, “How the did you get that? What did you do to him?”

“Nothing. Oh, well actually…” Mark smirked, looking down his nose at the shorter, “I did do some beautifully unspeakable things to him last night, but I really don't think that's what you mean.”

Jackson growled, reeling a hand back and punching Mark in the side of his jaw, still holding onto his collar so he couldn't get away. “Where the hell is he?”

The other man shook his head to regain his senses, “I dunno. Still in my bed maybe?”

Another punch to the face, this time sending him stumbling back as the prince let go of his shirt.

Realizing that none of the guards had tried to back him up, Jackson glanced over his shoulder and gasped at the sight behind him. All four of the guards lay on the ground, mortally wounded if not dead, with blood staining their weapons. It was almost as if they'd all attacked each other.

He turned a glare back onto Mark, “What the hell did you do?”

“That's a secret, Icey.” Mark replied with an exaggerated wink and a finger placed over his lips, “If I reveal all my tricks, things won't be fun anymo--”

He was cut off by an ice dagger darting towards him. Managing to move out of the way just a moment too late, he felt the sharp edge of the ice slice shallowly through the skin just below his eye. The pain was considerably worse than Mark had expected it to be – probably due to the fact that it wasn’t just cutting him, but frostbiting him at the same time – and he thought about the wound on Jinyoung's side a few days ago and how much that must have hurt and he suddenly felt… angry.

Jackson lunged for him in an attempt to punch him again and, in a split second decision, Mark his hand out, managing to get his fingers over the other's eyes before using as much raw power as he could in an attempt to burn the prince's retinas.

The Ice Prince stumbled backwards and promptly fell to his knees, blinking wildly in an attempt to clear his vision, to no avail, as his panic quickly heightened.

Mark let out a sigh of relief. He’d never blinded somebody before – he never really had the chance or a reason to do it – but he tucked away the knowledge that it was possible for future reference. Suddenly realizing that, yeah, Jackson was blind, but he could still kill him with a snap of his fingers, Mark walked up to him, slowly sliding the ring off his finger in the process.

As soon as he was close enough, he grabbed one of Jackson's flailing hands and swiftly pressed the ring against his palm and closed the prince’s fingers over it, “You can keep this. I'm sure he doesn't need it anymore.”

With that, he his heels and hastily started making his way back.

•┈┈┈••✦✧✦••┈┈┈•

“You're not listening to me, he's a freaking elemental!” Youngjae shouted in annoyance, “What don't you understand about that?!”

“With all due respect, Your Highness, that's not possible.” a palace guard argued, “There's no such thing as a fire elemental.”

The prince let out an exasperated sigh, “I saw it with my own two eyes. He not only lit seventeen candles just by clapping his hands together, he also conjured up a flame right in front of me. I know what I saw, you have to believe me!”

“Yes, Your Highness. I will inform the higher-ups.” The man replied soullessly, still looking infuriatingly skeptical as he bowed before turning and heading for the door. Youngjae slapped his palms over his face and groaned in irritation.

After Jaebeom left, Youngjae had read the letter he was given. It was, as he had said, a letter from Jinyoung explaining as much as he could. Everything from the way he and Mark met to the strange way he felt to Mark and Jaebeom's powers to their lineage and everything in between. He didn't completely understand, but it did kind of explain why everything had suddenly turned upside down in a matter of days.

The fact that Jaebeom was an elemental also made everything he'd said to Youngjae earlier sound like a threat and the prince had taken that information to everyone in the palace in the hopes of stopping whatever he had planned. He didn’t mention Jinyoung’s letter, especially since barely anybody seemed to take him seriously anyway.

“Hyung, I'll stay here and be the first line of defense.” Yugyeom piped up as soon as the guard left the room, “Take BamBam and find Jackson.”

The healer sighed, moving his hands away from his face, “No, I think you both should stay here. I'll just take a few guards.”

“That's dangerous, Hyung.”

“No. I… I could be wrong, but I don't think they want to hurt me.” Youngjae theorized, “They want to recruit me.”

Yugyeom's eyes widened, “Did he say that?”

The other man nodded, “Both times, he asked me to join them. And he, uh… told me that, once I get back tonight, I have to make a choice between staying loyal to the court or… being with him.”

“You're not… I mean… you're not… considering it, are you?”

“Of course not!” Youngjae snapped immediately.

“Ok, sorry.” The younger apologized, dropping his gaze to the floor “It's just… y’know… Jinyoung Hyung…”

The healer let took in deep breath and then let it out slowly, studying the Water Prince’s face for a moment. “Yugyeom…” He looked around the empty room, just to make completely sure that they were alone before digging in his inner pocket and pulling out the letter, “You need to see this.”

Yugyeom took the letter curiously, “What is it?”

“Just read it. Carefully.” He commanded, “I can't waste any more time, I'm gonna go. Get BamBam, show him the letter and keep an eye out for any suspicious activity.”

“Will do.” The younger assured, “Be careful.”

•┈┈┈••✦✧✦••┈┈┈•

Youngjae had rounded up a few guards and taken to the road via carriage. They'd been traveling for close to an hour and the prince knew they had to be getting close. The closer they got, the more Youngjae thought everything over.

Jinyoung left because he found out that the court had been lying to him his entire life. Or maybe not. Maybe he left purely because he was in love with Mark and found out everything later, Youngjae wasn't sure. But he left. And because he left, they were now aware of the existence of the four opposing elements, something the healer was still having a hard time wrapping his head around.

There was also Jinyoung and Jackson's confrontation and Jinyoung showing up at the palace a day later with deep wounds on his body. Then Jackson admitting that he was the one who injured his own fiancé so severely. The thought of the people he'd known and been so close with all his life suddenly being against each other made him realize that things were far more serious than he’d originally thought.

Somehow, he was probably the most curious about Mark. He'd never met him, but the thought of a light elemental was intriguing. Youngjae wasn't sure if his interest in the man was because he was a mutated dark elemental himself - coming from a line of darkness - but that idea seemed quite plausible after everything he'd learned in the last few hours.

Then there was Jaebeom… They had met twice now and the man had given Youngjae, on both occasions, the option to join their little resistance group. He never actually considered it - he was far too loyal to the kingdom and his fellow princes - but it was interesting to see just how much Jaebeom wanted him with them.

He felt his pulse race as he, for the millionth time in the past two hours, thought about that kiss before snapping out of his thoughts as one of the guards notified him that they were nearing the boat monument.

Heart racing in anxiety now, Youngjae looked out through the window, not completely sure what he'd find. Jaebeom only told him that Jackson was injured, he didn't mention to what extent and the prince was bracing himself for all of the worst case scenarios he could come up with.

He gasped.

The bodies of four palace guards littered the ground and Youngjae felt dread wash over him. What if Jackson was dead? What if Jaebeom sent him on this wild goose chase so they could kill him too? What if he was wrong and Jinyoung really was just a traitor?

“Ah! Your Highness!” The driver of the carriage called, “In front! I think that's the Ice Prince!”

Youngjae scrambled to try and see the front and, sure enough, there was Jackson standing in the middle of the road, waving his hands frantically.

The carriage came to a stop and Youngjae jumped out as quick as he could, sprinting to the seemingly disoriented man.

“Hyung! Are you ok? What happened?” He asked frantically, catching up to him.

“Youngjae?” Jackson asked, recognizing the healer’s voice. He reached forward and placed a hand on his shoulder, “What's going on? How did you know I was here?”

“Uh… Jiny--...” He paused before shaking his head “Nevermind, I'll explain everything in a moment. Are you hurt?”

Jackson didn't miss the name drop, but chose to ignore it in favour of addressing the current issue, “Not hurt, but… my eyes…”

His unfocused, unseeing eyes suddenly became very apparent and Youngjae nodded, “Ok. Let's get you to the carriage, I'll heal you there so you don't pass out on the floor.” He held Jackson's hand and slowly started leading him back to the carriage, “How did this happen, Hyung?”

Jackson sighed, “Some guy… from the town. I don't know how, he put his fingers on my eyes and everything went white for a while and then there was just… nothing.”

“Why were you in the middle of nowhere with someone from the town?”

“He… he knows Jinyoung.” The Ice Prince muttered, “He had his ring.”

The healer gulped. None of that sounded like something a fire elemental could do, Jackson had no burns or physical injuries of any sort. Plus, he had met Jaebeom before and probably would have recognized him. So it could only have been Mark that did this.

And Youngjae hated the fact that he liked the cunning creativity that the light elemental possessed.

•┈┈┈••✦✧✦••┈┈┈•

“Ow!” Mark hissed through gritted teeth.

“Oh, stop whining.” Jaebeom scolded, cleaning the cut on Mark's face with some sort of alcohol, “You brought this upon yourself. You were supposed to just stall him, I know you provoked him just so you could gloat about stealing his man.”

“It still hurts, you .” The other man complained.

Jinyoung sat on Mark’s bed, behind the light elemental, leaning his chin on the other man’s shoulder as he watched Jaebeom work on patching him up. He hadn't been out of the building the whole day - as he obviously would have been recognized - and had a good bit of time to be by himself and just think.

Now that he seemed to be out of any immediate danger for the time being, he started to think about the whole crazy situation a lot more. The most prominent thought in his mind was the heavy question of ‘where do we go from here?’ He didn't have a long term plan. Hell, he didn't have a short term plan other than to just stay in the town and be with Mark and learn as much as he could from Jaebeom.

He'd thought a lot about the Princess of Darkness too. He was similar to her, clearly. But he wasn't going to turn homicidal anytime soon and didn't really understand why she had done what she did. If history really was repeating itself with him and Mark taking on the roles of the star crossed lovers, then something incredibly drastic would have to happen before Jinyoung would kill anyone.

“So, what fun activities did you guys do today?” Mark mumbled miserably as Jaebeom placed a makeshift gauze over his still painful wound.

“Well, I wrote a letter.” Jinyoung replied, “That was fun. Also, I hung out with Jaebeom and we talked about everything we possibly could. Pretty much every conversation somehow found it’s way back to the topic of cats though.”

“Oh, yeah, he does that.” The light elemental laughed and snuggled closer to the man leaning on his shoulder.

Jaebeom ignored the duo and pushed his supplies to the corner of the room before flopping down on the bed next to Jinyoung, “I made out with a prince.”

“Hey, me too.” Mark piped up immediately, reaching a hand out to give the other man a lazy hi five.

Jinyoung chuckled and turned his attention to the fire elemental, “You should’ve come to the party at the palace the other night. Everyone’s so focused on trying to catch a prince anyway, you probably could have just snuck in and nobody would know.” He smirked, “Y’know… since you seem to be trying to marry into royalty and all.”

“Oh sure, that'd be ideal.” Jaebeom replied sarcastically, “That's exactly what I want: to be directly controlled by the court. Yup.”

“That's a shame. You probably have a pretty good chance, to be honest.” The other man replied coyly, “Youngjae was always weak for the bad guys.”

Jaebeom turned a matching smirk on the other, “Is that how you see me, Prince? A ‘bad guy’?”

“You do give off that kind of vibe.” Jinyoung admitted, “That sort of y, like… ‘I shouldn't have to tell you to get on your knees, you should already be undoing my zip’ kinda vibe.”

The fire elemental snorted, “You know, your dirty mind caught me off guard the first time. But this time I was ready for you.”

“I don’t think you’ll ever be ready for m--”

“So, uh…” Mark interrupted suddenly, “If you guys wanna be alone, I can just get the out of here.”

The two laughed and Jinyoung turned to his other half, leaning awkwardly over his shoulder to kiss him. Shifting a little and gently coaxing Mark to do the same, he sighed in contentment at the more comfortable position, nibbling on his lover's bottom lip before tilting his head more and kissing him again, slow and lazy, like they had all the time in the world to explore each other.

“Ugh, my eyes…” Jaebeom groaned, placing his hands over his face, “I'm happy for you guys and all, but I would much prefer you not eating each other's faces in my presence, thanks.”

Mark broke the kiss, still holding Jinyoung close, “Yeah, well, I would prefer you not flirting with my man.”

The fire elemental scoffed, “Um, I'm pretty sure he was the one thinking about, quote, ‘undoing my zip’. Or, y'know, I could've been hearing things.”

“No, you just misunderstood.” Jinyoung piped up, “I was thinking about Youngjae undoing your zip. And, I mean, I can't say I hate the image.”

Jaebeom laughed and lowered his hands a little to peek through his fingers at the Prince of Darkness, “You need to control your voyeuristic fantasies, Prince.”

“You have no right to shame me for my kinks, Mr. ‘excessive pain and humiliation turns me on’.”

“Oh my God…” Mark cringed, “Will you two shut up? Please? I don't need to know this, ew…” he turned to look at his lover, “How the hell do you know that anyway?”

Jinyoung shrugged, “We spent a lot of time talking today.”

“And that was your subject of choice?”

The prince buried his nose in the junction of Mark's neck, chuckling, “I dunno. It just came up.”

“Right. Sure…” The light elemental took a deep breath, lifting a hand to tangle his fingers in Jinyoung's hair. Silence lingered as he played with the silky stands, tugging gently at random intervals, “You don’t even know my kinks yet.”

“You like getting your hair pulled.” Jinyoung replied immediately, “I noticed that.”

Mark paused in thought, taking notice of how he was currently subconsciously pulling his lover’s hair, “Actually yeah, I never thought about that.”

“You should grow your hair out. It’ll look good on you.” The prince suggested, “You’ll get your hair pulled and it’ll give me something to hold on to when--“

“Ok, that's my cue.” Jaebeom sat up, stretching. He stood up and turned to the pair, locking eyes with Mark, “I'm gonna leave.”

Jinyoung lifted his head just in time to see Mark's expression darken. The light elemental's gaze fell to the floor, “Yeah… Ok…”

Jaebeom nodded then flashed Jinyoung a soft smile before turning on his heels and walking down the stone stairs.

The sudden shift in atmosphere made Jinyoung anxious. The tension and air of sadness was so palpable and the prince didn't understand what just happened between the two brothers that caused it.

“Hey… what's wrong?” he asked quietly, rubbing Mark's shoulders soothingly.

His other half sighed and lay back, coaxing Jinyoung down with him until they were mirroring each other on the makeshift bed together, face to face, much like the first night they’d spent together. He lifted his hand up to the prince's face, letting his fingertips dance gently over his skin.

“Mark…” Jinyoung started, worry lacing his voice.

“Listen…” the other man started, “I want you to remember… no matter what happens, remember that I… I love you.”

“What's wrong? What happened?”

“Just… trust me, ok?” Mark pleaded, leaning in to speak against his lover's lips, “Please just… stay with me…”

Jinyoung gulped, anxiety skyrocketing at the complete change in Mark's usually laid back persona, “Hey… I do trust you. Hell, I'm pretty sure I'm genetically programmed to love you, right? Whatever you're worried about, it'll be ok. I'm here no matter what.”

The light elemental pressed a feather light kiss on the prince’s lips before looking into his deep, black eyes and squeaking out a soft “I love you.”

“I love you too.” The other man replied, equally as soft, realizing that he'd never said that so straightforwardly before, “Nothing will change that.”

Mark smiled and wrapped his arms around Jinyoung's waist,

“I'm gonna hold you to that.”

•┈┈┈••✦✧✦••┈┈┈•

•┈┈┈••✧✦✧••┈┈┈•

•┈┈┈••✦✧✦••┈┈┈•