The idea of heaven was used as a carrot on a stick by the priests whose fire and brimstone warnings of the devil and his ways otherwise fell upon deaf ears.

Heaven.  Now there was a thought - a place where love was freely given and the pain of disappointment was one that never existed at all.

Despite dutifully filling the pew week after week, Kyungsoo had to confess that he could not have imagined such a place even if he tried.

After all, he had been born into the world as an afterthought.  The only ones who ever spoke to him were those whose jobs it was to take care of him.  He was a burden.  Always a burden.

And for these reasons, never in his life had Kyungsoo ever believed in such things as angels.

At least not until this very moment, when he discovered one floating above him, looking down upon him with a mixture of worry and --- and something --- that Kyungsoo did not have a word for.

“- so it really does exist, then?” Kyungsoo croaked out, throat feeling raw and painful.  “That place.”

The angel continued to stare at him, the corners of its full lips slowly tugging upward into a strangely shy smile.

That smile seemed familiar to him, and even in his haze Kyungsoo squinted, trying to recall where exactly he had seen it before.  He shifted against the sheets, discovering quickly that they were soft and satin, sheer wonder against his skin.

“...am I dreaming?” He asked.

But the angel remained silent, tilting its head in response as if to ask - Are you?

Beads and feathers tied into auburn hair shifted and swayed, trailing against a long and bare neck, tan and unblemished.

Yes, Kyungsoo thought to himself in a rare moment of clarity.  I have seen him before.

Flashes of a man staring at him through a distance - always silent, never speaking - piercing his heart with those fiery eyes of his, turning the world around him silent and still.

This was no angel.

Kyungsoo his lips nervously upon recognition, too busy taking a look around the room to notice how the man’s eyes shifted to his tongue as it darted out from between his teeth.

A quick check of the window and the flickering, dangling lamplight in the middle of the room gave him the knowledge that it was well into the night.  A further examination of the sheets beneath him helped him realize that he was back in the bed of his very own room.

He’d done it again, Kyungsoo realized with a growing sense of humiliation and dread.  It was an unfortunate habit - losing his senses entirely, only to come roaring awake hours later in places he’d never seen.  This time, he’d had the even greater misfortune of having an episode while within the walls of a place from which no sympathy would be found.  He wondered how it was he had managed to escape his nightmares unharmed - and how in the first place he had snuck out in his state past his sister’s watchful eye.  In fact, looking toward his sister’s empty bed lined up against the opposite wall, it seemed neither her nor her servant were there at all.

“...where is my sister?” He asked in a voice that grew stronger with every moment of silence he was given.  The man simply stared in response.

Unnerved, Kyungsoo heaved himself up onto his elbows, trying to pull himself into a sitting position.  His struggles seemed to push the other man into action.

He stood, suddenly, towering over Kyungsoo still lying in the bed.  Kyungsoo shrank back instinctively, flinching as the other man clambered onto the bed with all the predatory grace of a wild animal.  He stayed there, crouched on his hands and knees, trapping Kyungsoo in.  Then, wordlessly, a hand reached out toward him, pressing gently against his shoulder and forcing him back down.  Kyungsoo sank back into the sheets when he was pushed, although his eyes remained blown wide open with a frantic, nervous energy.

“Where is my sister?” He asked again, this time quieter although no less nervous.

The man who leaned over him like a wildcat said not a word.  With that curious look back in his eyes, it did not seem as if he could even understand any of the words Kyungsoo was saying.  The intensity of the situation had his heart beginning to race again.  He could feel his breath beginning to catch, his vision starting to spin again as the telltale signs of yet another one of his psychotic fits began to resurface.

“My sister.” He tried again, chopping his words to simple chunks and yet urgently pleading all the same.

“Sis-ter.  Where?”

Like a bird, the man tilted his head in the other direction, sending a feather from his headpiece floating to a rest against Kyungsoo’s cheek.

in a wounded breath, Kyungsoo swiped it away.  He attempted to push himself back onto his elbows once again, but was this time stopped when the warm hand that had pushed him down suddenly found its way back onto his chest, this time pressing him back firmly and remaining there.

Kyungsoo nearly forgot to breathe for a moment, feeling the heat of that hand soaking through his bare nightshirt and into his skin.  Splayed out under the man’s hand was his heart, a frantic and nervous thing that was startled by the other’s bold touch and paced itself like a skittish horse.  Somehow, it beat even harder still when the man - completely unprompted - began to rub his hand in slow, comforting circles.  With an embarrassed and confused sort of disbelief, Kyungsoo let out the breath he didn’t know he had been holding, whining lowly under his breath as the stranger gently kneaded at his chest.  It was an oddly intimate experience unlike any that Kyungsoo had ever experienced before, and although no words were exchanged between the two of them except for labored breaths and a shared look that never broke, somehow Kyungsoo felt his previous panic begin to slip away.  Sure enough, the frantic thumping of his heart - slowing under the other man’s steady ministrations.

Do not be afraid.  The man seemed to be saying to him.  Be calm.  You are safe.

The man watched him, completely unphased, and for a moment, Kyungsoo believed it.

He took in a few experimentally deep breaths, free of the constriction that had plagued it before, staring up with wide eyes at this stranger who was sharing with him the heat of his body.

...the loud wooden squeak of the door slamming open had Kyungsoo jerking away, skittering out from beneath the man’s warm body and those gentle, comforting hands.

In the doorway through which Kyungsoo could barely see, blocked by the shoulder of the stranger and the dim haze of the darkness beyond, he could just make out the shadowy forms standing there in complete stillness, more than likely shocked by the strange sight they had walked into.

Eventually, they filed in slowly one by one, a strange procession of figures whose candlelit features made them appear as if ghoulish apparitions.

The stranger himself seemed a more welcome sight in comparison, and Kyungsoo was unable to help himself from leaning closer to the man even as he slid off the bed, favoring a stranger that he knew to those that he did not.  The man kept thankfully close.

“I see that he is awake.” Said an elderly man, appearing from the shadows with a frown.  Kyungsoo could only assume him to be the royal physician, given what tools he seemed to be carrying with him.  Stepping onto the unoccupied side of the bed, the royal physician poked and prodded at Kyungsoo with gnarled and cold fingers, grasping his chin and directing it this way and that way with a stern expression.  “Is he alert?  Aware of his surroundings?”

There it was again.  That niggling sense Kyungsoo had that he was unwelcome here, made stronger by the fact that the royal physician had addressed the stranger and the stranger only.

Even the handmaidens who bustled around him, refilling his basin with fresh, clean water and laying damp cloths on his forehead, seemed to be going about their tasks mechanically.  Not an ounce of warmth, never meeting his eyes, their touches fleeting and dismissive.

“...mm.” The stranger suddenly spoke, with a dipping nod of his head.  The physician hummed and Kyungsoo found himself frowning for an entirely new reason as the examination continued, fingers lifting his chin and massaging the nodes on his neck.

...he understood me all along.  Kyungsoo realized, with no small amount of frustration.  He simply chose not to respond!

He tried to shoot a glare at the other man, only to find that he’d moved away, choosing to stand by the wall next to someone who Kyungsoo only just realized had entered the room.

It was the young prince he’d seen earlier - the same one whom Lady Bita had laid claim to.

Prince Sehun.

What is he doing here?  Kyungsoo thought to himself, glancing over with interest.

The fair-haired prince was eyeing him back, although it was not with curiosity.  Rather, the look he was given was cold and frigid, as if Kyungsoo was nothing more to him than the dirt beneath his feet.

All Kyungsoo wanted to do was to disappear beneath the covers and escape the scrutiny.

To disappear, to disappear, to disappear.

“He appears to be in fair condition.  However his skin is clammy to the touch and his heart seems to beat irregularly.  Perhaps he suffers from a weak constitution.” The physician spoke aloud, placing his hands back in his lap.

It was nothing Kyungsoo hadn’t heard before, but out of burning curiosity he leapt forward, gripping the physician by his arm and forcing the old man to look at him.

“What exactly happened to me?” He asked, begging for answers he did not have.

“How did I end up here?”

“...swim.” The thickly accented voice was so quiet that Kyungsoo barely heard it.  What surprised him, however, was the soft and gentle quality of that voice, coming from the mouth of the auburn-haired stranger whom he had just met.

“Swim?” He repeated, astounded.  “I was swimming?  But... there are no rivers or lakes here ...are there not?”

He looked around, scanning their faces for any clues, only to find closed off faces that held no warmth.

“My lord.  You gave your sister quite the fright.”  Spoke one of the handmaidens, finally, after she had helped the physician pack away nearly all of his instruments.

“She came to us begging for help, barely dressed and in a shocking state, saying how you had ‘grown hysterical’ and had tried to throw yourself into the fountain.  Said she had come for help straight away, and that you had pushed her servant to the ground in a fit of rage.”

It seemed like such gossip coming from the mouth of a woman so young and so smug that Kyungsoo almost felt inclined to dismiss it completely.  However, although it left a foul, bitter taste in his mouth, he knew he could not.

Because such things had happened before.  Such... awful things that had left him unable to carry on his lordly duties.  There were reasons why his sister was left in charge of him.  Reasons why all of the servants at home were told that he was not to be left alone.

“I… threw myself into the fountain?” He parroted numbly.

It was coming back to him in pieces.  The ringing in his ears growing louder and louder.  The phantom groaning of wood.  White hands pulling him into the depths.

“You were fortunate that we happened to be walking by.” Prince Sehun said with an irritated tone.

“Thrashing about in the pool like a wounded animal.  Clearly intent on drowning yourself.  The water is shallow enough to stand in, but you would not respond to our calls.  If it was not for my brother Kai who jumped in to pull you out, you may have nearly succeeded in taking your own life.”

Kai.  Kyungsoo thought in a daze, looking back toward the man who was still watching him silently.  His name was Kai.

Flashes of wet, white cloth.  Soft lips on his own, pushing air into his lungs.  Words whispered so intimately into his ear, pleading for something he could not understand.

Kyungsoo felt his face flush with remembrance.

Fingers rested on the sheets above his knee, and Kyungsoo looked up startled to find that the old man was staring at him intently, the apathy in his weathered face finally turning into something more sincere.

“Do you not value the life you have been given, young one?”

These were the words a father would speak to a son.

He couldn’t help but to feel something within him twinge, partly gratitude, partly longing for something he never had.  He twitched, blinking away the feeling as he clenched the sheets between his fingers.

“I … I would never.  I had never thought of - of that before ---- I, I ---- ”

He looked down to his hands, suddenly ashamed of what he was revealing to a room full of strangers.

“I just... lose myself.  ...sometimes.”

He did not have to say it explicitly for the others to understand the meaning behind his words.  It was almost painful to hear all movement in the room still, all heads turning to fix a curious stare in his direction.

“...and have you always lived like this?” Was the physician’s next question, asked softly, with a sympathetic tone.

Feeling much like a child, Kyungsoo could only nod, picking at the threads in his blanket, pulling the fine silk from the seams.

Funny little boy - the servants back at home used to call him.  The funny little boy with the funny little head.

He nearly flinched when he felt a hand settle onto his knee comfortingly.

Kyungsoo could have told the older man the truth - that he knew he had been lost in a terrifying memory of something that had occurred more than a decade past.  That the only time he had ever found solace from the fits and frenzies that took him was when his mother had passed.

Love is the only madness from which I suffer, his mother had said to him, the very morning before she had thrown herself off of the singing cliffs.  He remembered it distinctly.  She had his cheek fondly, smiling at him as if she could do him no harm.  She smelled like roses and grave dirt.

The only explanation they could give him for his following catatonia - shock, they had said.  Shock and grief.

But had it been shock?  ...or was it instead an insidious, gleeful joy?

The old man was once again murmuring above Kyungsoo’s head, rising slowly to his feet as he advised Kai and the other occupants of the room to leave Kyungsoo to his rest.

Prince Sehun, who had had no reason to be there in the first place other than pure curiosity, was the first to comply, folding his arms and rolling his eyes in a clear sign of sullen disinterest.  He left the room with a lazy strolling pace, tossing over his shoulder that he would be ‘going to pester the cook for some pastries’.

Then the rest followed suit, all of them trailing out the door, whispering to themselves and glancing back at him occasionally as if he were some creature on display.

Only one person remained behind, watching Kyungsoo still seated on the bed.  By now, that piercing gaze was becoming quickly familiar to him.

A pair of long legs took but three strides to reach him.

Slender fingers reached into a hidden pocket, pulling out something from within.

Warms hands were wrapping around his own, folding something cold and jagged into his palm.

Before he could look to see what it was, Kai was already moving closer, still.

Kyungsoo looked up with wide eyes, only to blink when a strand of colorful beads fell upon his cheek like a lover’s caress, the features of a sharp, serious face suddenly so close to his own that he was forced to stare cross-eyed down the bridge of his nose.

All thoughts fled except for the constantly trailing thread of ohdearohdearohdear that served as white noise in the background of his mind.

He stiffened like a board.

No one - not ever - had dared to come so close to him before without reason.   He was at a loss for words, unblinking and absolutely petrified at the other’s sudden and close contact.

Kyungsoo could feel the other’s cool breath skitter across his cheek.

“Yours.” Kai whispered to him, in that strangely foreign accent that sent shivers down his spine.

“M-mine?” He repeated hoarsely, clutching his hand to his chest in a moment of sheer and panicked wonder.

A warm smile spread like fire onto the Kai’s face, the corners of his eyes crinkling softly as he chucked Kyungsoo under the chin.

With one last lightly scolding look that seemed to say - next time, be more careful - Kai backed away, standing tall and still for what seemed to be a few more reluctant seconds before spinning on his heel and pacing quickly from the room.

...Kyungsoo certainly was no expert in such matters, but even he could pick up on the way the other man had just treated him.  Warm and fond, as if...

His heart was still beating hot and fast beneath his fingertips, though for reasons much different than before.

Face flushed and breath still light when he finally relaxed minutes later, he pulled his hand from his chest and slowly unfolding his fingers, finding within his palm one of his very own gears.

Small and golden - perfect in every way.

-

His sister had been the one to send for the physicians, which explained why she had not been there when he woke.

She was back by the time he had set the gear away in his lockbox, seating herself on his bed and inviting him closer with a beckoning hand.

She had not demanded an explanation from him, far too used to his oddities to really need one, but for some reason, Kyungsoo felt compelled to tell her all that had happened in her absence anyway.  He was eager, he supposed, to get another opinion on the matter, even if that opinion came from his normally frigid elder sister.

“He is smitten with you.”  His sister firmly declared, after hearing the entire tale.

In her own strange form of sisterly love, she was massaging his legs with a cold efficiency, clawed fingers digging in almost to the point of pain.  Kyungsoo knew better than to pull away, knowing the trouble it would bring him if he incited her anger.

Gripping his ankles firmly within her hands, she looked to him through a curtain of long and trailing black hair.  “What did you say Prince Sehun called him?  Brother?”

He nodded hesitantly, gratefully accepting the glass of mulled wine that was handed to him by his sister’s servant.

“A brother!  Why a brother to a prince would be a prince himself!  What luck!” Excitement lit in his sister’s eyes as she dropped his ankles unceremoniously back onto the bed and stood.  “And I believed this would all fall under my responsibility!  Who knew that a prince would fall for you?”

He looked down into his cup, oddly stung by his sister’s comments.

“You believe he has… fallen… for me?”

“No, perhaps not fully.  Not yet, but...” His sister hummed, walking over to her suitcases and throwing them open with a zealous energy.  Pearls upon pearls, silk swatches upon silk swatches, tumbling out from the cases like blood spilled.  With a loud exclamation of discovery, she pulled out a single bangle, glimmering in the light.  Crafted of the silver found within the cliffs themselves, he recognized it as a curious, simple piece of jewelry, one whose deceptive rarity meant that it was the only one of its kind.

She held it aloft, wandering over to him and taking the wine from his hands before he had even taken a single sip.  Roughly pushing it back onto Virgil, she reached out to grasp his left wrist within her hand.  Unlike the right, marked with tattooed symbols and adorned with simple bracelets, his left wrist was .  His heart skipped a beat, knowing exactly what statement it would make if he were to wear that bangle - a declaration of marriageability.  An open invitation, for any who should choose to take it.  An enticing offer.

Though Kyungsoo could admit that he thought fondly on those piercing eyes, there was a still a part of him that shrank back from his sister’s grip, not wanting any part of what she was going to make him offer - a part of him which should have been his to choose to give.

But she held on tight, ignoring his hiss as she drew his fingers tightly together and forced the bangle over his wrist.

“He will be yours by the festival of the harvest moon, Kyungsoo.  Mark my words.”

He looked at her as if it was she who was mad.

“The harvest festival?  Sister, surely you - you ask too much!  That is but a few fortnights away!”

“It will take no time at all to seduce a man who is already falling in love.”

She reminded him of one of the desert cats gifted to them years ago from the far west.  Lean and cruel, with sharp claws ready to split open the bellies of vermin.

She grinned in that cat-like way, showing her teeth when he inevitably showed his discomfort.

“Do not make such faces, brother mine.  You must always remember what all of this effort is for.”

He tried one last time, like a wriggling rat desperately trying to escape a trap.

“But I - I am no good.” He muttered, pulling away to sink back into the safety and comfort of his covers.

“Oh, believe me, Kyungsoo.” His sister said, watching him crawl underneath the sheets with that same, toothy smile.

“You will be perfect.”

-

War had taken from them all so many things, King Yifan thought, staring into the faces of his dearest friends.

Luhan, who had been famed for his beauty since they had both been but children, now only able to see out of his left eye.  The right had been rendered useless by the ugly, jagged scar that ran down his face, given to him by the pack of war dogs that had ripped his body open before the king’s very own eyes.

Then there was Chanyeol, a loyal knight and an endearing, clumsy buffoon - made even clumsier by the loss of an entire arm, blown to pieces in order to save his king’s life.

Thankfully, Yixing who had been with them through it all had survived it with not a scratch nor a bruise - but his was a tale that was so tragically rare to find.  All the same, he had suffered in the same way as Yifan had himself - forced to watch his companions, both men and women alike, get torn apart around him.

It pained the young king to think that despite all the great sacrifices they had made for him during the war, he was only able to give to them such limited time in return.

Between the torn city he was tasked to repair, the daily requests from his loyal subjects which he was bound to honor, and the mounting treaties of peace and prosperity he was to sign, he hardly had any time for himself at all.

Occasions like these were rare to find - moments of rest he stole where he could sit back against the weathered old tree in the courtyard, biting into a freshly baked roll and listening to the sounds of court musician Luhan playing something beautiful on his lute.

“They all seem so strangely serious.” Chanyeol said, quite out of nowhere.  The sound of his voice was muffled as he used his teeth to grip the end of his glove, pulling it to rest firmly over his forearm and flexing his hand within it.

“Who is it you speak of?” Luhan asked, quite patiently.  He was (as they all were by now) used to Chanyeol’s habit of starting a conversation in the middle.

“The ones who come from the south.” Chanyeol snorted, as if it were obvious.  “I walked into the western banquet hall the other day, only to find one who had curled up on the floor whispering to himself.  I thought he was in pain, perhaps, or at least in need of assistance -- but he waved me off with a scowl as if I was bothering him.”

He rolled his eyes.

“Some form of religious practice, from what I gather.  But it’s as I’ve said before - strange people, them.”

Yifan thought back to the day he had herded them all into the great hall in welcome, watching as they filed in one by one like a ridiculous parade of peacocks, colorful feathers out and chests boastfully puffed.

Particularly Kyungri of Tidrea, who still dared to call herself queen and who had dared walk into his hall dressed in mourning robes that lamented the loss of the murderer she had called a husband.

And then there had been the case of her younger brother - a curious thing, so small and so pale, cowering behind his sister’s back like a frightened little mouse.

Strange, indeed.

“What do you know of the Do family?” Yifan addressed his friends with a thoughtful frown.

“I am afraid I know just as much as you do about them, my dear friend.” Luhan responded, his strumming turning more thoughtful as he looked out across the yellowed grass. “Although I have heard tales of the queen’s arrogance.  If I am not mistaken, her foul temper is one that runs within the family.”

Yixing sat up abruptly, butting into the conversation with the same airy voice that he always employed.

“It is not that they are a family full of rage, Luhan.  It is that they are mad - quite literally so.  In fact, the old queen mother was well known for it herself.  To many, she went by the name of Miyoung the Mad.”

“Oh yes?  And what did this Miyoung the Mad do that won her such a title?  Chase a squirrel up a tree?  Hold counsel with her own shadow?” Chanyeol barked in laughter, slapping his knee noisily and looking to the others for the approval that never came.

“She threw herself off of a cliff.” Said Yixing, twirling a piece of yellowed grass between his fingers.

Luhan paused, and for a moment, there was quiet.

“Miyoung the Mad, born of the union between the young queen of Meadowshore and the Baron of Blackcastle who, in the third year of her rule, took the palace by force.  He slaughtered all those inside, including the Queen’s first husband, forcefully taking her - his first cousin, mind you - as his bride.  She bore him five children of whom Miyoung was the youngest, and when she grew to a marriageable age, she was given by her father to the neighboring lord of the cliffs as part of a peace treaty.  It was with him that Miyoung herself had three children - the first of which I believe was stillborn, and the second and third of whom I understand you met just the other day.”

“...you seem to know a great deal about their family, Yixing.” Yifan said slowly, eyeing his friend with a curiosity.  “Is there any reason for this?”

“They are quite a fascinating family.” Was Yixing’s only explanation, odd though it was.  Then he sat there for a moment, blinking owlishly, his eyes sliding open and shut like rusty hinges.

“Well?  How did she come about tossing herself off a cliff then?” Chanyeol asked, leaning forward to shift a little closer. “Come now - we all want to know.”

“Perhaps she was tired of living.” Yixing answered simply. “As we all grow to be.”

Dissatisfied, Chanyeol sat back with a sigh, letting his visor drop back over his eyes with a metallic clank.

“...what a wretched family.”

“Oh but I do feel for the children,” Luhan said, slowly resuming his music. “It seems they’ve led quite the tumultuous life.”

“Tumultuous or not, Luhan, do not forget that the man Miyoung’s daughter married was the same man who gave you that scar.” Yifan bit out, making the easy smile fall off of his friend’s face.

The musician reached up to touch the scar in question, tracing it with his fingers.

Suddenly no longer hungry, the king tossed the last remaining pieces of his bread to the ground, knowing the birds would come to feast upon it later.

“I feel no sympathy for the family of a man who needlessly slaughtered our people.  Hundreds of mothers and fathers stolen away from their homes - dozens of children murdered in their cribs - all but for the ego of one man.”

He remembered that day clearly - a dead courier clutching onto his entrails, leaving alongside his body the chilling message of an army that marched toward them with blood on their hands.

How many hours had he spent holding in his fears, scouring over the maps and scrambling to find some way for his people to live on?

And how many nights had he spent exhausted and sleepless, drowning himself in wine and watching his lover as he slept, obsessing over every detail of that beautiful face for fear that he would never see it again?

Even now, thinking back upon it, Yifan could still feel himself shivering, remembering just how afraid he had been - how fervently he had prayed for the life of his lover, still so warm and soft in his arms.  And though the thought of that body growing cold in his arms was one that brought him great sorrow, he had held onto that feeling like a torch, carrying it in his heart as courage as he rose to stand against the invading army that day.

“I could never forgive him, really,” Yifan whispered hoarsely, his mind still miles away, “...not for trying to take away the one life I valued more than my own.”

A face still smudged with powder and smoke, a body still covered with drying blood and sweat.  He had reached out for Yifan then, the most beautiful thing he had ever seen - his little flame that burned bright with passion and love, and folded so perfectly into his arms.

He would give his life, Yifan pledged with all the earnest ardor of a man in love, to make sure no harm would come to his loved ones ever again.

And that was a promise he meant to keep.

-

A/N:  Sorry if kaisoo characterization is completely off, I'm a taoris writer through and through and this is literally the first time I've ever written about any other couple except for taoris so I'm just doing the magikarp flop here trying to write it in a not awkward way my bAADdDDdD.