Chapter Text
Seongje notices that they left the apartment lights on and it is too bright when they get in. Baekjin flips them off by reflex and the city through the windows takes over, in a cold blue light. Seongje closes the door behind them and leans against it. He keeps his hands in his pockets because he knows if he takes them out he is going to do something stupid with them.
"Okay," he says. "You want to tell me what that was?"
"Not really."
"Baekjin."
"That was my ex."
Baekjin is at the kitchen counter, both hands braced on it, head down. He has seen Baekjin angry. He has seen Baekjin bored, hungry, pretending not to be hungry, vicious. He has never seen him like this and on a stupid level, he hates it immediately. Because whatever Baekjin is feeling is not for him.
He crosses the room anyway. Stops at a careful distance, because the bond is doing something very unpleasant in his chest and he does not trust himself to get any closer.
"Your.. ex?," he repeats.
"Yes. I turned him a hundred years ago. He hates me for it. He left twenty years ago."
Seongje’s brain spins with all the information. He’s not stupid, he could put two and two together from that encounter, but hearing it firsthand was different. "And the other guy-"
"His bloodmate."
"Who he turned."
"Fifteen years ago, apparently."
Seongje tries to wrap his mind around that. Fifteen years that Humin has been existing happily on the other side of this city with the man he turned, while Baekjin has been carrying… what? What has Baekjin been carrying? Seongje does not know because Baekjin does not tell him things, because Baekjin is a closed door.
"Okay," Seongje’s voice comes out steadier than he feels. "So what?"
Baekjin does not answer.
"Baekjinnie-"
"Stop. Don't call me that right now."
It lands like a slap, but Seongje recovers fast, he has enough experience. But the bond catches it before he can lock it down and he knows Baekjin feels it, which is worse. He hates the bond, suddenly. He hates that he can’t have a private feeling during this conversation.
"Right," he says, sarcastically. "Sorry. Wouldn't want to bother you with cute names."
"I need to think," Baekjin says, eyes on the counter. "I need you to let me think."
"I am. I'm not asking you to do anything."
"You're asking by being here."
Oh. Oh, fuck him.
Seongje feels something hot climb up the back of his throat. It’s not anger, exactly, although there is a lot of anger in it. It’s something so much worse, something like embarrassment.
He has spent years in Baekjin's orbit by being useful. In the last weeks, he had let himself start believing he had a permanent seat in this space, that he was wanted. But the chair can be pulled out so easily, he should have remembered.
"That was fucking mean," he says, evenly. "Do you want to try that again?"
"No."
"Baekjin."
"I don't want to look at you right now."
Seongje's chest breaks open in a very ugly way, but he keeps his face perfectly blank. The worst part is that doing it now is not even hard.
"Okay," he says. "All right."
"I need you to understand," Baekjin starts, and oh, here it comes, "that you are not the first person I have done this with. You are not the first person I have felt this way about. You are not the first person I have been convinced I would ruin myself over. This is something I have been through, Seongje. Do you understand that? I have been here before."
Seongje hears it and the bond goes very cold.
"What are you saying to me?" Seongje says.
"I'm saying I'm not a new man, Seongje. I'm saying this feeling is not new and you, specifically, have not invented it in me. I have had it and I have survived it and I am currently watching the version of it I survived walk around Seoul with someone else. Do you understand how that feels?"
"I'm trying to-"
"You can’t possibly understand." Baekjin still has not turned around. His hands are still on the counter. "You are twenty six years old. You have been a person for a blink of an eye. You have not loved anyone long enough to lose them. Don't stand there and look at me like you know what I'm going through."
Seongje doesnt move. He thinks, I love this man and I am going to kill him.
He doesn’t, though, not yet. Instead, he shoves his hands deeper into his pockets until they start hurting. He is only less than twenty four hours out from Baekjin telling him that he was the thing that mattered. Even less than that from saying I love you for the first time and meaning it.
"Wow," he says, softly.
"Seongje-"
"Wow, okay." He laughs once, in disbelief at how ridiculous his life is. "That's where we are. Okay. Let me catch up. Last night you told me I was the thing that mattered. This morning you said you loved me. It’s now nine pm and we have seen your ex one time and suddenly I am a child who doesn't understand adult pain. Thank you for clarifying, that's really- that's really clear."
"That isn't what I-"
"That is exactly what you said, Baekjin."
Baekjin turns, finally. "I'm not handling this well," Baekjin says.
"No fucking shit."
"I need to think."
Seongje should leave. He should leave now, before he says something he can’t take back, before he lets Baekjin watch him do it, before the bond catches the next thing he is feeling and he loses the last shred of dignity he is holding together.
"I'm going to step out," he says.
"Don't."
"Listen-"
"Don't leave."
"Yes, I’m leaving. I am going to smoke a cigarette or ten, I don't know yet. Don't follow me."
"Wait-"
" Don't fucking follow me, Baekjin. "
It comes out way louder than he meant, but he doesn’t give a fuck anymore. He can see Baekjin freezing at his tone, which is a thing he has never managed to do to him before. Surprisingly, he does not enjoy it. He turns around and walks out, and he does not slam the door, which takes a lot out of him, thank you very much.
In the elevator, he leans his forehead against the wall and closes his eyes. The bond is still humming, very unhappily, and Baekjin is on the other end of it doing whatever Baekjin does when he loses an argument, which Seongje does not know what it is. The thought is so funny he almost laughs again.
When he gets to the roof, it’s empty. It’s not surprising, considering it's nearly ten pm. The wind up here is colder, so he turns his collar up and walks to the one of the walls, lighting up a cigarette. Then he stands at the wall and lets himself, finally, fall apart a little.
The thing is, he has always known he was biting off more than he could chew. From the first time Baekjin had looked at him across a Union meeting and Seongje had felt it in his entire chest, he had known that the wanting was one sided. Baekjin was a calculated leader with a vicious yet clever nature. Seongje was basically a wild child with a violent streak. The math had never been in his favor and he had not minded, because the wanting was his own thing and he was good at carrying things alone.
Then the bond happened, and Baekjin was saying I'll keep you in a tone that had compromised Seongje's defenses entirely. Then last night, he had let himself go completely. He had let himself walk around all day today thinking he was the thing that mattered. That they love each other. What a disgusting thing.
Then Humin had walked around the corner with his bloodmate, and Baekjin had cracked open. Seongje had stood there, his hand on Baekjin's back, feeling how much was still there. Felt twenty years of held grief vibrating along the bond. He had thought, oh. So that is what it should look like.
Seongje takes a long drag and breathes out slowly. He hates that he is jealous of a man he has met for ninety seconds.
He hates that he is jealous of a man who let Baekjin go. By choice. He hates that this is not even the right shape of jealousy. He is not afraid Baekjin will leave him for Humin. Humin clearly has a bloodmate and a life and saw Baekjin like a finished chapter. What Seongje is jealous of is the chapter itself. The fact that there is a man on this earth who got to know Baekjin in a way Seongje does not, at least not yet. Got to be there. Got to wound him so deeply that twenty years later Baekjin still cant say the name without his damn voice breaking.
Seongje wants that. He wants every part of it, including the very bad ones. He wants to know what Baekjin looked like the night he turned Humin. He wants to know what Baekjin said in the apartment when Humin walked out. He wants to be the person Baekjin can say things to.
You have not loved anyone long enough to lose them.
Yes I have, Seongje thinks. I have loved you for four years and I have already lost you a dozen times in my head, every time you did not look at me, every time you closed a door. Don't tell me I don't know what loss is just because I have not had a body to bury.
He flicks ash off the side of the wall.
The worst part is that he understands. He understands that Baekjin is not actually angry at him. He understands that the cruelty just now was Baekjin trying to make Seongje as small as he himself felt, so that he would not be alone in feeling it.
Understanding it doesn't make him less angry. If anything, it makes him angrier. He spent years wanting something and he’s not about to give it up. He wants to be the kind of person Baekjin has to apologize to. He wants Baekjin to grovel.
He wants, mostly, to go back downstairs and let Baekjin pull him into his chest and say I was wrong, I was cruel, you are not a replacement, you are not less. He wants it so badly it hurts physically. He wonders if Baekjin can feel that through the bond.
The cigarette is half gone when he hears the door, but he doesn't turn. "I told you not to follow me," he says.
The footsteps don't stop, and he notices that they sound wrong a second too late. He turns and there are four men on the roof with him, one of them is already too close for his liking.
Seongje drops the cigarette and goes for the inside of his jacket because he is not an idiot, he never goes anywhere unarmed, but the other fucker is faster than he should be and gets a hand around his wrist before he can get the knife clear. Seongje pivots and headbutts him straight in the face. The guy makes a sound like he is genuinely impressed.
"Oh," he says. "You're really a fun one."
"Get off me-"
The other three are on him in a second, but he makes them work for it. He manages to break one of the man's noses with his elbow and another's wrist with a sharp twist, gets a kick into someone's ribs, and for a beautiful moment he thinks he is going to be able to hold them until Baekjin notices, until the bond tells Baekjin. He can feel it himself, the alarm spiking out of him, the involuntary hey, hey, something is wrong screaming through it, and that is going to bring Baekjin up here in seconds, all he has to do is stay alive for a minute, all he has to do is-
Something hits him in the side of the head, causing him to stagger. A hand catches him before he falls, almost gently, and turns him. The first guy from before is right there, inches from his face, grinning.
"Yeah," he says. "Sorry about this." And then his mouth closes on Seongje's throat.
Oh, a vampire. It's a very rough bite, strong enough that Seongje feels the world tilt and his legs give out from under him. It’s like this guy isn't even trying to feed, but just making sure he marks him badly, leaving something to be found later.
He feels the bond going crazy. The last thing he thinks with some stupid petty clarity is now he'll be sorry for sure. Then nothing.
Baekjin is still at the counter when the bond goes silent. He has been standing there for god knows how long, going over and over what he said, wondering how he could’ve let it get so bad. There's a list now in his brain of all the things he needs to apologize for and one is worse than the next.
He had taken the thing Seongje had given him last night, the embarrassed admission that he loved him for years, and used it to belittle him. He had stood in his own kitchen and told a man who has loved him in silence for four years that he had not loved long enough to count. Worse than that, he let him think that he was a replacement of some sort.
Don't fucking follow me, Baekjin.
Baekjin presses his forehead against the cabinet above the counter. He should respect Seongje’s wishes, but he’s going to go up there in ten minutes and he is going to do this properly. He is going to say I was wrong and he will mean it. He is going to say you are not a smaller version of anyone and he will mean that too. He is going to say I have had you for little time and I have already organized my entire existence around you, and it is unforgivable that I used your love against you tonight.
He is rehearsing the third sentence when the bond changes. He recognizes it right away, it’s alarm that comes through first. Then it’s pain followed by surprise and then just unconsciousness. Suddenly, Seongje is not on the roof. He can sense Seongje is moving and he is moving fast and in a direction he would not be moving if he was just walking.
Baekjin is out the door before he can even think about it. He takes the stairs to the roof three at a time with his phone already out. The roof is empty, but there’s blood near one of walls. A crushed cigarette and Seongje's knife kicked away to the side. There’s no body, which means his senses were right, they took him. Which means they are not done with him yet.
Baekjin does his best not to crush his phone in his fury as he dials.
"Boss," Jaewoo picks up on the second ring.
"He's been taken. I'm tracking him. I want everyone you can pull within ten minutes of my location. Wait for my signal. If I do not come out, you take the building apart."
"Yes, boss."
He hangs up and starts moving. I did this to him, is the only thing that runs through his mind as he follows the bond. Of course, Dohwan had been watching this apartment for weeks. Baekjin knows that now, which means Dohwan had also been waiting for the exact situation Baekjin had handed him: Seongje alone. Baekjin had hurt Seongje so efficiently tonight that he had basically handed him over.
The bond guides him through three blocks of alleys, then west into a bunch of small buildings that are mostly warehouses. It pulls him to a stop in front of an abandoned house. He just listens first. Theres some movement, but an absence of sound, a vampire no doubt. He hears, also, Seongje's pulse. Way Slower than it should be, but still alive.
He texts Jaewoo the address and pockets his phone. He goes to open the door but it opens before he can do it himself. Dohwan, in person, is shorter than Baekjin remembers. He has kept the same clean appearance of a very wealthy man. His shirt is as neat as his hair and he is smiling in the doorway like a host.
"Na Baekjin," he says. "Come in. We have a great deal to discuss and very little time."
Baekjin does not move.
"I said, come in. I'm alone and your boy is in the back. He’s alive. Im very specifically not finishing him, in case you were planning to lead with that. You will see."
The house smells of Seongje's blood when Baekjin steps in. He does not look toward the back room yet. Looking at Seongje will for sure make him lose any thread of discipline and he needs to make sure he gets him out of here alive.
"It's been forty years, hasnt it?" Baekjin says, keeping a conversational tone. It’s taking a lot out of him to keep this front.
Dohwan's smile thins. "Forty one. Almost forty two."
"Remind me. I have been trying to remember what I did to you. I can’t place it."
"No," Dohwan says. "I didn't think you would."
He walks deeper into the room, Baekjin follows at a careful distance.
"Her name was Suhyun," Dohwan says.
Baekjin goes still.
"You didn’t know her name." Dohwan doesn’t turn around. "She wasnt anyone to you. She was, however, everything to me. She had been mine for a hundred and thirty six years when your people put her through a wall, during what I was told you called a routine retrieval. She wasnt the target. She had been with me at a tea house and your men had followed someone else into the building and one of them, an idiot who I have since taken apart, mistook her for a witness. She bled out on the floor of that tea house with my hand on her face. I watched her go."
Baekjin says nothing.
"She was my bloodmate, Baekjin." Dohwan turns, finally. His face is very calm. "I dont know if you have learned the word yet, in your two centuries of doing whatever it is you do. I assume you have, now. I’m pretty sure it’s that man bleeding in the next room."
Baekjin's balls his fists, but he still doesn't answer.
"Yeah," Dohwan says, watching him. "I thought so. I came to Seoul to find you," he continues. "Years after. I came intending to do then exactly what I am doing now. I watched. I learned that you had a partner, who was a vampire, who you had turned, and I thought: good. There he is. That's what I take. "
"Humin," Baekjin says, quietly.
"Humin." Dohwan inclines his head. "I was patient. I am, as I think you know now, a very patient man. I waited for the right moment. And then before I could move on him, he left you."
Baekjin closes his eyes briefly.
"And then I learned something I didnt know," Dohwan continues, "He was not your bloodmate. Twenty years of watching you and I had assumed, because you had turned him, because you kept him… and yet he wasnt it. He was simply a man you loved." Dohwan's mouth twists. "I thought, well. The universe has been kind to me, then. Because killing him would have been cruel, but it wouldn't have been the right thing. Suhyun was the right thing. There is only one of those in a man's life. So I waited."
"You waited for me to find the one."
"That's right." Dohwan smiles and its not warm. "And I kept watching. For twenty more years. I have nothing else to do. And then, weeks ago, I watched you start touching a man at your office differently than you had been touching anyone. You slipped."
Baekjin opens his eyes. He looks at Dohwan and how he is, in a way, looking at himself. Or at a version of himself that exists in an universe where Seongje had bled out in that parking lot in Mapo and Baekjin had spent the next forty years organizing his entire existence around destrying the one responsible for it.
He understands Dohwan. He understands him in a way that is almost ridiculous. If their positions were swapped, if some operation with Dohwan's people had put Seongje through a wall, Baekjin would have come for him. He would have come for everything Dohwan had ever loved. He has been threatening to do exactly that since the moment the bond snapped into place.
"Suhyun," Baekjin says, finally. "I don’t remember her. I'm sorry for that."
"I know you don't. Thats the problem."
"It is." His voice is steady, he doesnt really know how. "I’m sorry for the operation. I’m sorry that my people killed her. I’m sorry that you have spent forty years carrying it alone. I am sorry, Dohwan. I’m genuinely sorry."
Dohwan blinks, surprised. "That is more than I expected from you," he says, after a moment.
"It doesn’t really matter."
"No," Dohwan agrees, slowly. "I suppose it doesn't."
"Because I am still going to kill you."
"Yes."
"You took him from me, Dohwan. You fed from him, you hurt him. You put him on a dirty floor and you have been waiting for me to arrive so I can watch you finish him off. I understand why you've done it. I might even, in your place, have done the same. But I am still going to kill you for it. I’m sorry about that too."
"I would be disappointed if you didn't."
Baekjin nods, once. "This ends now."
Dohwan agrees, with something that is almost a smile. "I see that. You came faster than I expected. Pity, he has about twenty minutes left in him. Let's do this."
He attacks. Dohwan is older than Baekjin, that should matter and on most nights it would. Tonight it doesnt. The bond is humming in Baekjins chest and he moves like a man possessed. Dohwan's first strike comes at his throat and Baekjin blocks it before Dohwan can land it. Dohwan's second try, with a knife Baekjin had not seen him get, strikes along Baekjin's ribs and he lets it because it puts Dohwan's on his range of action.
He breaks Dohwan's wrist. Then his elbow. Then his shoulder, all on the same side. He always knew he was strong, but this is something else. He needs to get this over with, he needs to finish this. Finally, Baekjin puts his hand through his chest. Its not clean at all, but he does it carefully, with the specific intention of giving Dohwan time, because some part of him needs Dohwan to suffer even if he feels sorry for him.
Dohwan screams for all of it, then he smiles, like he’s happy to go and closes his eyes. Baekjin lowers him to the floor. He sets him down gently, its the closest thing to a courtesy he has it in him to offer. Then he turns and crosses the room in three steps and drops to the floor next to Seongje.
"Hey," he says. Hes shocked to hear how steady his voice is. "Hey, Seongje. I'm here."
Seongje's eyes open. They are unfocused, but they find Baekjin's face anyway. His mouth tries to shape a word.
"Don't talk," Baekjin says while he's checking the bite. The wound is wide and ugly and it has been bleeding all the time Baekjin and Dohwan were talking. Why did he take so fucking long talking? The pool under Seongje's shoulder is huge. "Don't try to talk."
Seongje tries anyway. "Took. You long enough."
"Shut up."
"Mean."
"Shut up, please. "
He gets a hand under Seongje's head. Seongje's pulse is… not good. Baekjin has been around long enough to know when a pulse is ready to give out and this is very close to that. He has, Dohwan had said, fifteen, twenty minutes. Probably less, probably a lot less.
There is a hospital eight minutes away if he runs and they can transfuse in maybe ten more, and by the time they have stabilized him, Seongje will have been blood deprived long enough that the brain damage is going to be-
He stops thinking about that. He has known, at least on some level, since the moment he came through the door of this house and saw him bleeding out, what choice this was going to be. He has been pretending he didnt know until now, which is as long as he can fake it.
Seongje frowns up at him. "I told you. Not to follow me."
"Yeah. I followed you anyway."
"Yeah." Seongje's eyes slip closed. They open again, slower. "Glad. You did."
"I have to make a choice," Baekjin says, and his voice cracks for the second time in twenty four hours, in front of the man he loves, on the worst night of his existence. "Seongje. I have to make a choice and I don't have time to ask you about it."
"Then. Make it."
"Seongje-"
"Make it, Baekjinnie." He’s able to say before his eyes close, pulse going almost dead.
Baekjin curses out loud. He thinks, I am going to lose him to this. I am going to do this and he is going to wake up and look at me the way Humin did, and I am going to deserve it. I am going to lose him anyway, just slower. But then he thinks, I would rather lose him slowly than not have him at all.
“I’m so sorry.” He bites his own wrist open, presses it against Seongje's mouth and makes him drink it.
Seongje wakes up slowly and he feels like absolute shit. His teeth, which feel wrong, hurt like hell. His tongue is incredibly dry. And worst of all, he’s starving. There is a sound somewhere, like a heartbeat, no, like several heartbeats, that is making it almost impossible to think.
He gives up on all of that and opens his eyes. He is in Baekjin's bed. The lamp is on at the lowest setting, and hes wearing a different shirt than he remembers. He moves his hand experimentally to his throat. When his fingers brush against it, is smooth. There is no bite, no scar. Well, that’s weird as fuck, there should definitely be a mark.
He touches his own teeth with the tip of his tongue. Oh. Oh.. I see.
"Seongje."
Baekjin is at the foot of the bed. Seongje does not know how he didn’t register him immediately, which is very worrying, until he notices something much more insane. He can smell something cold and clean and familiar that is, he realizes, Baekjin, the way Baekjin actually smells. What the…
"Drink," Baekjin says, sitting on the edge of the mattress with a blood bag in his hands. He looks like he has not moved in hours. He also looks like hell.
He holds the bag out, but doesnt come any closer. Seongje stares at it. Way too much is happening right now.
"Drink," Baekjin says again, his voice very even. "Slowly if you can. It's all right if you can’t."
Seongje takes the bag, its strangely warm. He turns it in his fingers and feels his own teeth lengthen, on their own, without his permission. He bites and drinks everything. Oh my god, it's the best thing he's ever tasted. So much for trying to take it slow.
He doesn’t know how long it takes. By the time he comes back to himself the bag is empty and there is blood on his chin and on the front of his shirt, which is actually one of Baekjin's shirts, and he has wrecked it. He sets the bag down. The hunger has gone from starvation to bearable.
"Better?" Baekjin asks.
"Yea-." His voice is hoarse. "Yeah."
Baekjin nods, but he still doesn’t move. There’s dried blood on his shirt, on his hands, around his nails. Seongje can smell that some of it is his.
"What happened?" Seongje asks, although he’s already putting things together.
"Dohwan took you from the roof. I tracked you through the bond. I found you at his hideout. He had-" Baekjin clears his throat before continuing. "He had bled you. I killed him.”
"And me?"
"You were going to die, Seongje." His voice turns completely flat, like he rehearsed this part many times. "You had perhaps five minutes. Maybe even less, so I made a decision. I did not ask you. I am-" His mouth does something strange. "I am sorry."
Seongje takes this in.
He had, at twenty six, never seriously imagined himself older. He understands now that his future has just expanded by an infinite amount. That he is hungry in a way that he is going to be hungry forever. He also understand why Baekjin is sitting at the end of the bed, not moving. He’s been waiting for Seongje to wake up and hate him.
"Okay," Seongje says.
"I will help you," Baekjin continues, quickly, like he is reading from a script he has prepared. "I have resources. There’s many contacts I can get you, how to hunt or where to find feeding houses… I can take you there. You will not be alone in this. I can teach you what I know."
"Okay."
"And." A small breath. "You do not have to stay. With me. I am aware that I have-" He stops before starting again. "I am aware of what I did to you. I am aware that you may not forgive me for this. I will not ask you to. If you want to leave-" He looks down, briefly, then back up. "If you want this to be over, between us, I will not stand in your way. I will help you and then I will leave you alone."
Seongje stares at him. "Are you serious?" he says.
"Yes."
"Baekjin."
"I am being completely serious."
"Baekjin, what the fuck are you talking about?"
Baekjin's mouth opens slightly and closes, and again.
Seongje has the absurd urge to laugh. Seems like he has thrown Baekjin off script. He sits up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed.
"You think I'm going to leave you," Seongje says.
"It would be understandable."
"You think-" Seongje really laughs now, a little hysterical. "You think because you saved my life , I'm going to walk out of here."
"You did not consent to this."
"I was dying , you fucker."
"You did not consent."
"Do you want me to consent now?" Seongje throws his hands up. "Fine. I consent. Yes, you can turn me. Done. Is that what you needed? Do you feel better?"
"Seongje-"
"You think I would rather be dead than be like you?"
That stops Baekjin. His face goes still, like this line of argument is not something he prepared for. Seongje takes this opportunity to climb across the bed on his knees and stops in front of the older vampire, close enough that Baekjin would have to look up at him.
"Look at me," Seongje says.
Baekjin looks at him. Up close Seongje can see clearly that he's been crying. He looks like a man who has been preparing all night to lose something. Seongje had thought, on the roof, that he wanted Baekjin to grovel. He still does, in a way. But not like this, he doesnt want any of this.
"I love you," Seongje says, instead.
Baekjin closes his eyes.
"I love you," Seongje says, again, "You are my bloodmate. I'm not going anywhere. You think I'm walking out of here because you saved my life? Because you made me what you are? You think that's the line for me?"
"Humin-"
"I am not Humin!" It comes out louder than he means, but he’s sick of this already. "I am not Humin, Baekjin. I have loved you for years. I work for you, I know what you do. I know what you are. I begged you to bite me for the first time, remember?. You think I'm going to do the wounded act now because you turned me to keep me alive? You think I am that weak?"
"I don't-"
"Look at me, Baekjin. Am I that weak?"
"No."
"No," Seongje agrees. "No, I am not." He reaches forward instead and puts his palm against Baekjin's cheek. Baekjin's skin is cold. But Seongje's skin is cold now, too. They match.
"I am-" Baekjin tries. "I do not-"
Then his face does something weird. A sound comes out of him that Seongje has never heard him make, a low, almost embarrassed sound. Then he bows his head against Seongje's chest and cries. He keeps his hands at his sides at first, like he is still asking permission.
Seongje, for his part, finds that he is also crying. He pulls Baekjin in, puts one hand at the back of his head and the other across his shoulder blades, and brings him into his chest, and lets him.
"I thought," Baekjin says, muffled, "I thought you would-"
"I know."
"I have done the one thing-"
"You didn’t do anything." Seongje's voice is a little wet. "The thing was already done by Dohwan. You did the only thing that was left. Do you hear me?"
Baekjin nods, into his shirt. The shirt that is Baekjin's. Seongje is wearing Baekjin's shirt and holding him and he’s going to keep both of them forever.
"You are not going to lose me," Seongje says, into the top of Baekjin's hair. "You are not going to lose me to this. You don't get rid of me that easily. I am yours and you’re mine, you understand? You said you were going to keep me. You said it, I am holding you to it."
"I said it."
"Damn right you did."
"I meant it."
"Damn right you did."
Baekjin laughs into his chest and it’s the best sound Seongje has ever heard. He kisses the top of Baekjin's head. He cant remember if he has ever done this before, but he’s going to do it a lot now.
Eventually Baekjin lifts his head. His face is a mess. Seongje's face is also a mess, probably. They look at each other in the lamplight, the bond between them so loud it is almost embarrassing.
"I owe you an apology," Baekjin says weakly, "from before."
"Yes, you do."
"You are not a replacement for anyone. You have not loved anyone less than I have. I knew that and I used it against you. That was wrong of me."
"Yes, it was."
"I’m sorry."
"Okay."
Baekjin waits.
"That's it?" he says, after a moment. "Okay?"
"Yeah." Seongje shrugs. "I'll think of more later. You can grovel tomorrow, I don’t know. I'm so tired."
"You're a vampire. "
"So what? I'm a tired vampire."
Baekjin breathes out a small laugh. He brings one hand up, finally, and cradles the side of Seongje's face. His thumb passes over Seongje's cheekbone.
"I love you," Baekjin says.
"I know." Seongje grins and the new fangs feel strange in his mouth, so he leans in and lets them touch the corner of Baekjin's lip on purpose, just to see what Baekjin's face does. "I love you, I’m going to love you for a very long time now. You're going to have to deal with that."
Baekjin lets out a soft sob and kisses him. Seongje kisses him back, the bond runs between the two cold bodies and sings. Baekjin holds him and doesn’t let go ever again.