but god, even stars die

Leo was drug addict with no memory of becoming introduced to the haze. There was a sea in his mind that brought forth the tantalizing knowledge on its tides, but it always retreated just before he could grasp it. Nothing came to his lips in reply, for he hadn’t missed the man in front of him. He hadn’t known to. The sensation of the male’s plush lips against his bare skin caused him to breath in sharply, and nearly pull back. There was a sun on the horizon and every intake brought him closer to the brave rays, warming him from the inside out. 

Reason whispered in his ear, telling him that the male still reeked of alcohol and every word was that of a rambling drunk, but he ignored it as he was want to do. Deep inside him, an unexplainable guilt rose. He should not be comforting his employee to start with, and certainly when he knew nothing of that which the blonde spoke of. Yet all he could was hold him closer and stare at the wall with only the frayed sobs to break the silence for a short moment. Everything that left Daehyun’s mouth hit a brick wall and fell into the unknown chasm, where it was swallowed forever. All he was left with was an acute sense of floating in an ocean of incertitude. 

The past half year had carried nothing with it but a surprising bout of normalcy. So it perplexed him to hear that he had been barred from someone who he did not even remember meeting. Desperation curled around his biceps and chest, coiling and pulling him toward the male in a relentless hold. He was helpless against the others pleas. His hands came up to bury in silky strands as he pulled Daehyun closer and molded his lips to the younger’s. For a second, his mind was filled with pure peace and bliss, and then he broke from the spell wrapped around him. Leo pulled back and let go of the male, slowly backing away from him. “What…what are you doing to me?”

It was just a cruel joke. Daehyun still couldn’t fully grasp the idea that he had been completely erased from the elders mind -- that there was nothing left. That every single moment that they had spent together, the heartbreak and fighting and tears had been for nothing. It was inconceivable, yet there wasn’t even the briefest flicker of recognition in Leo’s aura. He wanted to force himself into the others head and make him remember. Throw every single memory that they had had together at him until he was forced to acknowledge their relationship. But he couldn’t. He was too afraid of what would happen if he bared his soul and received nothing in return. 

The moment that Leo responded to his kiss brought a fiery scorch of hope, resonating from his chest to his fingertips and toes. He arched up against the male, eyes squeezed shut. When the elder broke from his desperate grip, he could only gasp in disappointment. The warmth in his chest was quickly dampened by the following question. “Please,” he reiterated, allowing a hurt tone to slide over his voice, barely a whisper above the pounding bass below their feet. Desperation crushed his chest, gluing his feet to the floor. All he wanted was to step forward, back into Leo’s arms, but he couldn’t handle being pushed away again. 

Without the support of the other, he slowly crumpled to the ground, knees pulled up to his chest. Ragged sobs tore his throat, and Daehyun allowed himself to be consumed by misery. Leo probably thought of him as pathetic; a drunken employee stumbling into his bosses office and rambling about crazy things, about a relationship that they didnt have. He should leave. He should accept defeat and go home and try to convince himself that he could move on, that Leo was happy the way things were. At the moment, all he could do was cry. 

Heat danced up his skin, spreading from where his fingers touched the blonde’s bare skin. The way his name rolled off the male’s tongue in a slur lodged in his brain, hiding behind a wave of absence. Every time he saw the other, his burgeoning confusion grew, and he didn’t like things he couldn’t figure out. His body rocked back at the unexpected movement, his chest freezing when he stopped breathing momentarily. It felt right. Although something was off by a margin, the light weight of Daehyun’s head was entirely familiar and extremely right. This was his employee, one he barely knew, but the other felt like a puzzle piece that had been missing for a long time. 

“I-” Brows furrowed, he slowly looked down at the male against his chest, and against all reason, wrapped his arms around the other, tucking him into the grooves of his body. The cool water that still clung to his damp hair and neck was the only thing keeping him locked in reality at this moment. He felt off. Like he was missing something obvious, but he couldn’t grasp it. 

While his mind retained his normal cool clarity, there was a piece that retreated further into him, as though running away. The logical response would be that the bartender was drunk and didn’t know what he was mumbling about, but Leo couldn’t bring himself to say that.  All he desired was to wipe away the beginning tears and reassure Daehyun that he hadn’t forgotten, but he sensed it would be an empty lie. Leo’s lips parted as if to answer, but nothing came. Frozen, all he could do was gaze down into the hazed, yet emotional eyes.  

The elder smelled clean and soapy, droplets of water still resting in the grooves of his collarbones. As Leo’s arms encircled his body, Daehyun allowed himself to fully relax. He felt warm and woozy, a drunken laugh escaping his lips; without conscious thought, his fingers crept up to slide around behind the others neck to hold him there. There was a sense of victory in being held again, knowing that Leo didn’t know who he was but he still wanted him. That they still had something. “I missed you.” He mumbled again, moving to press his lips against the elders adams apple, teeth just barely grazing the skin. Being this close was intoxicating. 

His eyes searched for any flicker of recognition, but there was none. Ducking his head, Daehyun buried his face back into the soft skin of Leo’s throat. “I missed you, hyung. I thought about you every day. I never stopped thinking about you. About us.” Every word was slurred, sentences and syllables blurring together as he forced them across his heavy tongue. He sniffled, once, and then there was nothing to keep the tears from running down his cheeks. Ragged sobs shook his figure, fingers clenched into the back of Leo’s shirt and in the short strands of his hair. 

“I wanted to contact you, but my brothers wouldn’t let me. They wouldn’t let me come back to Earth. They didn’t want me to talk to anyone, hyung. I would have called if I could.” The time away from the elder was one of the hardest things he had been through. Being removed from his loved ones and placed in an unfamiliar setting with no one but his brothers had changed him, but not his feelings. Not the loyalty and love he still had for him. Even if Leo couldn’t remember, he needed him to know. “I- I- Please.” The last word had barely passed his lips before he was leaning up to kiss the other hard, leaning on him for support. “Please, Leo. Please.” 

Ada Limón, from “Lashed to the Helm, All Stiff and Stark,” Bright Dead Things (via mythaelogy)

By two in the morning, his eyes were glazing over and the paper work in front of him appeared to be going for a swim on his desk. Sighing, he let the pen drop from his fingers, leaning back to rub his eyes and push the hair out of his face. After a moment of staring up at the ceiling Leo rose with a quiet groan and went into the conjoining room where there was a small washroom. He rolled up the sleeves of his black button up and turned on the faucet full blast.

The cool water rushed over his waiting hands and helped sharpen his senses as he splashed his face. The water droplets skimmed down his tired features, inky hair sticking on end when he brushed damp fingers through the dark strands. He shook his head then braced his arms on the sink and stared in the mirror for a moment. The silence was broken by a loud and slurred call. Brows furrowing, he dried his hands and face quickly with a towel and walked back out into the main room.

The sight that greeted was worrisome to say the least. With a frown, he rounded the desk and stopped just short of the slumped over male, arms half raising as if to help, but halting after a moment. “Daehyun-sshi?” Now that he was so close to the male he could smell the overpowering reek of alcohol. It suggested that the younger male had downed more than his fair share of booze, and then some. “Daehyun-sshi, what are you doing here?.” Finally reaching out, he carefully grasped the man’s arms as a sort of support to what seemed like a rather precarious battle of balance.

It took conscious effort to keep his knees from buckling under him, the pads of his fingers digging into the desk. The use of such a formal title irked him to no end -- they knew each other, had spent long nights together. Leo didn’t even refer to his other employees so respectfully. Long strands of bleached hair fell over his eyes and he pushed them away with a clumsy hand, almost falling over in the process. The ground felt like it was rolling underneath him. 

“Leo,” he mumbled again as cool fingers encircled his arms and helped to steady him. Daehyun had had a plan, before he had come in, but he couldn’t seem to remember what he wanted to say. Everything was forgotten in the close proximity to the other, bathing in the warm glow of the blue aura. Forgoing the stability of the desk to instead cling onto Leo, he let his forehead rest against one of the elders broad shoulders. It took him a few seconds to register the question, and even longer to try and formulate an answer. “I don’t know.” His tongue felt thick and heavy. Forcing the words out felt like defeat. “I missed you.” 

And more than anything, he missed. He missed the security of knowing someone loved him, and having someone he could always turn to. It wasn’t fair. "You forgot about me.” Unconsciously, his fingers gripped the soft material of the others shirt, pulling him closer and keeping him there as he took a heavy, shuddering breath. His eyelashes were wet with tears when he looked up to meet Leo’s eyes, lower lip jutting out slightly. “You said...you said you’d never leave me.”

Daehyun. The name reverberated like a gong in his skull, ringing high and sharp and clear. It meant great and honorable. Virtuous. Gazing at the male in front of him, it somehow made sense. Leo’s head tilted curiously as he waited for the other to finish the sentence, but was surprised at the news that he worked here. Because he did not, in fact, remember at all. He made it part of his job to know everyone that worked for him, and yet, he did not recall even a fragment of this man. It would be easy enough to check, so he didn’t say anything to prompt question. However, this did not explain the overly familiar behavior earlier. The decision to pursue the subject like the curious part of him wanted to warred against his reason, and it was pushed to the back temporarily. “I see.”

Carefully observing the odd behavior as the young male sought to end the conversation, he nodded. “Of course. Come in a little early to check your station if you can, but it should be fine. Thank you for stopping by, Daehyun.” Leo tested the name on his lips, rolling it on his tongue subtly, and found that he quite liked the way it tasted. He didn’t know exactly why he did what he did next, but his hand was reaching out in the purpose of a handshake. This whole thing was hard to swallow, and there were so many questions perching just on the edge of his lips, but he held back. Once his employee had left, he could seek to sate his questions. 

Even though he had lied straight to Leo’s face, the elder showed no recognition of it. There had been a time when it had been impossible to hide anything from him; their emotions and thoughts were so closely intertwined that his aura had taken on a tinge of dark blue. Now, it carried the shades of his older brothers, and Daehyun carried no ties with the man in front of him. “Yeah.” He couldn’t even believe his own voice, soft and husky to prevent it from breaking in the middle. His eyes flicked across the room, looking somewhere -- anywhere but at Leo. 

“Oh, I will.” Daehyun was eager to catch up with the rest of his co-workers, who were undoubtedly curious about his unexpected disappearance. There was a sense of teamwork and friendship that he loved about the club; different from what he experienced at the spa, but enjoyable nevertheless. Without letting his small smile fade from his lips, he bowed low to the elder and then turned on his heel, quickly exiting. Only once the door had closed behind him did it crumble.

Accustomed to monitoring people’s mental broadcasts, he flinched a little when the other withdrew behind a brick wall. While most had defensive walls, few were aware of all the emotions and stray thoughts they let past it, but the stranger in his door seemed perfectly aware. It intrigued him, but also pained him on some vague level. Although he could not sense what the other felt, a sudden wave of heat bit at his skin, threatening to sear past the fragile flesh and kiss the bone beneath. What gnawed at his skin now was a taste of what he had felt earlier before he opened the door. Something ancient and powerful. Fighting off any reactions the warring sensations evoked from his body, he refrained from withdrawing mentally so as not to dull his senses, and blinked at the sudden outburst. This was all so very confusing for him. 

For the barest of moments, he recalled the dream in which the sun had blinded him and the mysterious man stayed hidden from him. It was just a dream though and the person standing in front of him had an entirely different air than the one in the memory. Today was full of surprises and he accepted that it would continue to live up to expectations. “I’m sorry?” Leo’s head cocked as he let his gaze wander along the male, head to toe. His eyes lingered on the hands that were slighter smaller than his own, and the beautifully sculpted lips that fitted perfectly into the male’s features. “Have we met before? I am terribly sorry, but I do not recall making your acquaintance.” He believed he would remembered meeting such a man. Leo didn’t think he had ever seen the likes of the stranger ever before and he couldn’t seem to tear himself away. 

His fingers twitched at his sides, shaking off the residual heat from his small outburst. He was much stronger than before, but his emotions not always as stable. Having such a curve ball thrown unbalanced him, and he had to focus on quelling any bad emotions that still lingered, before he accidentally set something on fire. If Leo didn’t remember anything about him, then his origins and his powers were still unknown; Daehyun didn’t want to come off as a threat, in case the elder felt it was necessary to attack or defend himself. His mind couldn’t make sense of the change, however. Leo had become his point of comfort, the man who had cared for him even through all his break downs and rough patches. For their entire relationship to have been erased -- to start over from the very beginning -- was almost unimaginable. 

“I’m Daehyun. I’m...” Catching his lower lip between his teeth, he had to debate how to finish his sentence. His lover? Not anymore. “I’m a bartender here, remember?” He tried. “I went on vacation and you told me to check in with you when I came back.” It was a flimsy cover, especially after the way he had thrown himself at the elder, but the most plausible excuse that he could come up with at the moment. Every part of him yearned to be closer to Leo, to be back in his arms, to make up for the time that he was away. It was almost a physical pressure, building inside his chest and pushing him towards the male. Scuffing the toe of his shoe against the hardwood floor, he managed a weak smile. “I guess that’s it. I just came to tell you that I’m back, and I’ll be working again starting tomorrow. Is that okay?”

Clarice Lispector, from Água Viva (via violentwavesofemotion)

Confusion creased his brow as his senses were assaulted by an onslaught of emotions from the male. The pain speared through him so keenly that he nearly gasped. His words seemed to have caused this reaction, but he was clueless as to how. Even if the male seemed to hold something familiar, this sensation was of one deeply attached and invested in another person. If such feelings were in place, Leo would know, wouldn’t he? His body seemed to strain toward the stranger while his mind remained neutral from the whole situation, and it bewildered him.

As soon as the male called him Hyung, a bird fluttered in his chest even as he grew increasingly confused. His body was reacting, when he himself was not. Blinking against the flurry of words from the other’s mouth, it was all he could do to keep up, much less process anything past that. Warmth spread up from where slim yet strong fingers curled against his own, the pleasant heat creeping up his arm slowly but surely. “I believe you have the wrong person.” Fighting against the urge to hold on tighter or comfort against the threatening tears, he gently pulled from the males grasp. “Invite him inside.” Whispered Taekwoon. Although he did not know why, he complied with his other half and opened the door wider, stepping back a little to allow room with a smile. “Won’t you please come in? I’m sure we can figure this out.”

The glorious and happy reunion he had imagined for the two of them was crumbling in front of his eyes. He had waited for so long to see Leo again. It was all he had thought about in the months away, one of the only things that had gotten him through the brutal and constant training that his brethren had put him through. On instinct, he withdrew his consciousness behind a mental wall, blocking the elder out. It didn’t make sense. Frustration and anger suddenly took hold, a wave of heat rolling from his chest and outwards. His hands, now empty, clenched into tight fists. Destroy. The unwelcome voice, one that had become uncomfortably familiar over the last few months, whispered in his ear. Daehyun tugged at his earlobe. 

“I don’t!” His voice was louder than he had expected, a flush rising to his cheeks. If Leo truly didn’t remember him, then someone must have tampered with the elders mind to make him forget every single moment that they had together. Every kiss, every word, every fight and make up. And the only people he knew that were powerful enough to do so were his brothers. Standing in the doorway, Daehyun was torn between leaving or accepting the invitation. It hurt to have Leo treat him as a stranger, without the warm smile and kind eyes he had become used to, but he also craved to just be in the elders presence. After a moment of indecision, he slowly stepped into the office. His eyes scanned the desk for any remainder of his presence -- cards, pictures, drawings -- but Leo’s desk was barren of any reminders of him. He spun on his heel to face the other. “Do you really not remember me? Nothing? Do you even know my name?”

In his dream, he was wandering down a long hallway lined with doors. Somehow, he inherently knew that if he tried the knobs, they would all be locked, but he didn’t know why. At the end of the long corridor, there was a large arch and he walked through it, his foot landing on fresh grass. Dark eyes settled on a figure who stood facing away, and he stepped closer. The sun was so bright, Leo had to put his hand up to keep it out of his eyes as he lifted the other to tap the persons shoulder. There was something important about them. Something just out of reach. Just as the figure began to turn, he woke up to an abrupt sound. 

Mildly disoriented, it took a moment before he realized that he had fallen asleep at his desk and that someone was at the door. Shaking the vestiges of the dream off, he rose and made his way to the door, fingers halting just short of the doorknob. Power emanated from the other side, along with something familiar and out of reach. Half expecting the door not to open like those in his dreams, he pulled the knob and opened the door to reveal a breathtaking young male. His brow furrowed before his features smoothed out and he gave the newcomer a light smile. “May I help you?”

Of all the responses that he had anticipated receiving, the blank stare and empty smile was not what he had expected. It stung him to the core. Leo was just as handsome as he had remembered; perhaps even more so. In the past months, Daehyun had grown taller and they were almost completely eye-level. After the initial shock, his emotions turned to hurt. It was cruel of Leo to act as such; yes, he had been away for a long time, but he had accepted the elder back when he had disappeared. And yet within the familiar dark blue aura that he had missed so much, he couldn’t sense a single flicker of recognition. Almost like Leo didn’t know who he was anymore. 

“Hyung?” he breathed, eyebrows furrowing slightly. “Don’t be mean, please. I’m sorry for leaving, and missing Christmas and your birthday and everything.” Reaching out a hand, Daehyun grasped the slightly larger one in his own and squeezed it tightly. “Please, hyung. I’m sorry, okay? My brothers... they wouldn’t let me contact you. I wasn’t even on Earth.” Every word became softer and more desperate, tears welling up in his eyes unbidden. Of course he knew that there would be some sort of fallout from his disappearance, but he had expected anger or disappointment. Not this. Not the strange aloofness. 

“and the universe said…”

ENFPs are expressive communicators, using their wit, humor, and mastery of language to create engaging stories.Their enthusiasm is boundless and is often contagious, inspiring others to join their cause. They are drawn to art because of its ability to express inventive ideas. ENFPs can easily become bored with “normal” life so they regularly seek out situations that offer an escape from the mundane.They have a strong desire to make their thoughts known to the world to help others reach their creative potential.

Of course the younger would not give up. He had different beliefs and nobody could convince him that what he believed in didn’t apply to everyone.

          “I do not have friends, and as you  can  see,  I  am  not            the one to complain about loneliness or sadness here.”

More often than not it was Xaphan that complained about the lack of things to do. At some point of the day, he would always get bored and come over to bother his older brothers. And while the elder was rather good at ignoring the annoying traits of his younger brother, he was not the social butterfly Xaphan would like to see him as. He appreciated the rare moments of privacy he got, be it in his private library or during his piano recitals.

As expected, Xaphan did not agree to leave Korea. In honesty, the Lightbringer anticipated some excuses, pretexts that would allow the angel to stay, complains and clinging that would make the entire visit far less formal and more of a frustrating duty to get done with, but to his surprise, Xaphan’s answer was short.

          “Don’t you believe there is a reason behind that? The war            is coming. And it is not wise for you to stay.”

Especially since none of them knew, which side would Xaphan choose in the end.

          “I’m your friend.” 

His protest was delivered with a slightly insulted pout. His relationship with Lucifer was different from what his brethren had with the elder, but he liked to think that it was because they were closer. After all, which of his brothers could say that they got to cuddle with the Morningstar? 

Again, it took him a few minutes to absorb and formulate a response. Of course he knew that there was a war coming -- after all, that was all that everyone ever seemed to talk about. Eradicating the humans, taking their rightful place. Daehyun usually tuned out after a while. Moreover, he didn’t want there to be a war. His family was human. Many of his friends were humans. He didn’t like the idea of fighting. It was something that he had contemplated before, and so he chose his words carefully. 

          “I’m a fighter too, hyung. I know that I’m not as good as I was before, but I’ve been                     working on it. Getting stronger and stuff.” 

He was careful to refrain from mentioning any affiliation with one group or another. Reaching over, he pulled a pillow into his lap and hugged it tight. 

          “Besides, you promised to protect me when you became my master. If you’re saying it                  isn’t wise for me to stay because you fear I’ll get hurt, which I’m pretty sure you don’t                    really care about, it’s your duty to make sure I don’t.”