Chapter Text
Regulation #21: Discrimination is strictly prohibited during meetings of the joint and vampire councils. Council members who show clear biases will be dismissed from their positions. All cases handled by these councils will abide by the principle of innocent until proven guilty regarding all involved parties.
~
Fifty Years Later
Seonghwa rose from his council seat, the jewel-studded cape clasped around his neck again brushing against the polished floor. Tonight’s meeting had been brief, a short discussion related to preparations for this year’s impending masquerade. He would work closely with Kobeula to plan the itinerary and decor, as he had done for over twenty years. The others would worry about the rest; he happened to enjoy his role immensely.
“I will be in touch,” Kobeula said, walking over to him with a knowing grin curving her painted lips. She flicked a lock of glossy black hair over her shoulder. “We have a lot of planning to do, my dear.”
“I look forward to it,” Seonghwa replied, mirroring her expression. The two of them got along quite well, much to the chagrin of many. It was not a rare thing for him to find images of himself heading news articles, though it had taken some time to get used to. They liked to call him the Queen of the Immortalists, ironic considering his unique archetype. When the public spotted him and Kobeula together, they tended to have a field day.
Since the day of his declared freedom, Seonghwa had changed into someone he had never known he could be. At his core, he was the same; still gentle, still kind, but with more confidence and self respect than he had ever possessed before. He had embraced parts of himself he used to hate; his willowy frame, his elegant features, both of which had led to plenty of unwanted advances over the years.
Now, however, no one would dare to touch him. And so he flourished. His hair was long and black as night, cascading over his shoulders and down his back. He dressed in the clothes Hongjoong made for him, encasing him in a regal, opulent air. His scars had faded over time, but they were still very much visible, and he had come to embrace those as well. They were all a part of him, and he liked who he had become.
He had sat on this council for thirty years, deciding after two decades of lying low that he was ready to make the changes that would benefit those like him. No one had been able to deny him, for he belonged to an archetype of his own, and thus deserved representation in the council as much as anyone else. He couldn’t ever expand his bloodline, but that didn’t render his place in society as insignificant.
Seonghwa headed his clan of one, and he used his power to advocate for those with no one. He had only been a council member for a short time in the grand scheme of vampire lifespans, but he had invoked changes, and this world was not the same one he had suffered as a human.
Covens blended in ways they never had before. Regulations had been revised and amended for the first time in history. Execution was no longer allowed as an immediate ruling, not without the presentation of condemning evidence. Vampires mingled between covens, forming friendships that had been considered taboo before, and vampire attacks had dwindled as a result.
They had all needed a little community, to strengthen their ranks. They were all vampires, after all. Birds of a feather, who benefitted from flocking together.
Someone else sidled up to them, her white hair a beacon in this dim room. Seori took Seonghwa’s hand in one of her own, the other coming to rest on top of it. “Please, tell Wooyoung that I miss him,” she said, squeezing his hand. “I have not seen him in a while.”
“With Hongjoong and I so busy, he’s been helping us out a lot,” Seonghwa replied, smiling. “You should really see him. He’s a natural.”
“How is the little darling, anyway?” Kobeula asked, expression knowing. “I have not seen her since our last sunwalk.”
Seonghwa sighed, shaking his head in fond exasperation. “She’s really-”
A pair of familiar arms wrapped around his waist, and his sentence trailed off. He looked down, met with the sight of forearms laden with chain scars. “Can I have him back, please?” Hongjoong asked, looking between the two women. “He is looking rather ravishing today, and I can no longer resist-”
“We are leaving,” Kobeula declared, fixing Hongjoong with an unimpressed stare before sauntering off, her high heels thin as reeds. “Come, Seori,” she called over her shoulder, and the younger vampire shrugged, winking at Seonghwa before following after Kobeula.
“You know, there used to be a time when they liked me better than you,” Hongjoong sighed, resting his chin on Seonghwa’s shoulder. “I do not know what happened.”
Seonghwa huffed a laugh. “When you say things like that, they have no choice but to leave. I think they’re afraid you’re going to jump me right here in the council room.”
“Well, I have done that.”
“Say it louder, why don’t you?” Seonghwa turned in Hongjoong’s arms, facing him. “That was different. We were alone.”
Hongjoong pressed his lips into a small pout, and Seonghwa pressed a quick peck over them, unable to help himself. “Come on, let’s go home. I think we’ve spent enough time here over the last few days. This planning stuff is no joke this year.” When he was a fledgling, Seonghwa had found the council to be such a mystical group, held on raised pedestals of importance. As a council member himself, he understood now that most of the work they did was mundane.
The two of them left the council room hand in hand, stopping to bid Saja farewell before stepping out into the night. They had no need to drive here anymore, not when Seonghwa’s personal means of transport was far faster. Car routes were twisty and regulated by things like speed limits; flight had no such limitations.
He held Hongjoong close and flapped his wings, lifting them both into the air. Hongjoong nuzzled into his neck, arms wrapped tight around him, though he had grown far more comfortable with flight over the years. “You look beautiful tonight,” he murmured, breath ghosting over Seonghwa’s skin. “You look beautiful every night.”
Seonghwa smiled, the wind blowing his hair back, thick locks gusting out behind him. His cape flapped as well, billowing and light, designed specifically to avoid tangling in his wings. He flapped again, sending them up a little higher, riding on the next gust of wind as it carried them over the city and towards their familiar patch of forest. “You’re such a charmer.”
“But my charms work on you, do they not?” Hongjoong replied, pressing his lips to Seonghwa’s neck, lightly trailing them over his lifeless veins. He parted his lips enough for the tips of his fangs to brush Seonghwa’s skin, sending a shiver down his spine. “You deserve to be told that you are beautiful every day. And I know that you love the praise - you always have.”
For fifty years, the two of them had been in love. Hongjoong had known Seonghwa like the back of his hand since the beginning, but now he knew the folds and indents that made up Seonghwa’s soul, the dents and bruises and mountains and valleys. With him, hiding was impossible. All of Seonghwa’s human years spent hiding were so distant now, like a whisper carried off in the wind. To be known like this was to be loved in completion, without exceptions or petitions, and life had never lost the rose-tinted hue that Hongjoong inspired.
Seonghwa pressed his face to Hongjoong’s hair, breathing in the smell of him, like fresh rain. In a thousand years, they would still love each other like this, like they had from the start. In all the things that had changed over time, their feelings for each other had only grown stronger. They were a team, a pair entwined by destiny, a sun and a moon, bound to share the skies for eternity.
They flew over the trees, and when the coven house came into view, they landed on the soft ground. The house itself was unchanged; it still looked the same as it had when Seonghwa had first come here, scared out of his mind and completely unaware of how his future would change. The memory brought a smile to Seonghwa’s lips.
Once inside, Seonghwa headed right for the living room, and he stopped when he noticed the two sleeping forms on the couch. Hongjoong came up behind him, opening his mouth to speak, but Seonghwa shushed him and pointed.
Wooyoung was sprawled on his back along the center couch, limbs everywhere. The fireplace cast him in warm light, shadows forming beneath his eyes and in the hollows of his cheeks. Three baby bats were curled up in his hair, using it like some kind of nest. Each one was roughly the size of an egg, and they were sound asleep, small wings curled tight to their furry bodies.
On Wooyoung’s chest lay a small girl, eternally two years old. Her hair was splayed out over his shirt, her head nestled over the place where his heart used to beat. Raised scars stood out all along her skin, circling her wrists and ankles, slicing down her cheeks. One of her fingers was missing, the little one on her left hand. Despite all of that, she was at peace, her cheek smushed against Wooyoung’s chest and her eye closed, lashes touching the tops of her cheeks.
“She’s sleeping without me,” Seonghwa breathed, awed. “How did he manage that?”
Hongjoong took a step closer to them, and the look upon his face was indescribable. Pride and adoration, bundled into the dark brown of his irises. “Come, sit with me. We will wait for them to wake.” He sat down on one of the other couches, patting the cushion beside him. Seonghwa joined him there, unable to look away from Wooyoung and his assortment of babies.
The little girl had been nameless when she had first been brought to the council room, traumatized and despondent. She was a vampire, though her survival was practically unheard of, for she was only two years old. At that time, she had been covered in deep wounds, all in various stages of healing, but the worst of her pain had been held within her face. Seonghwa had looked at her and seen his sisters, dead so young. He had seen himself, two years old and failed by the systems in place. He refused to allow the same thing to happen to this girl.
She had reacted to nothing, sitting there in the center of the room with her head down, expression vacant. The trial had gone on around her, and her life had been saved only by Seonghwa’s regulation, number 21. She was guilty of no crimes, and thus she was permitted to live, though she had no family to look after her and no sire to take care of her.
Child vampires were incredibly rare, because most of them could not survive past the fledgling stage. They did not possess the will to keep themselves alive, and they did not understand why they were no longer human. They couldn’t handle the trauma of what they had been through.
But this girl… she had been through plenty of trauma in her short life, more than most humans ever experienced. The scars on her wrists and ankles were old. Seonghwa had been the first to approach her, because he hoped that he could understand her. He hoped that he would be able to bring something out of her, some kind of will. Otherwise, she would never survive.
The moment she had looked at him, however, her entire face had changed. Something about him - the long hair, perhaps, or the elegant features - had sparked some kind of memory, deep inside of her, of a mother she had hardly known. She had thrown herself at him, hanging from his neck, weeping, and Seonghwa had gained a daughter in a matter of moments.
Several months had passed since then, and she was doing better now, pulling through the end of the fledgling phase. She drank all of her blood from juice boxes, and she never left Seonghwa’s side. Usually when he had to leave, she refused to sleep or drink while he was gone. All she did was sit on the couch nearest to the door, waiting for him to come back.
She was a sunwalker, but her connection to Seonghwa was enough for him to be able to take her home, and her case was groundbreaking in that regard. Covens had always been forbidden to mix like this, but Seonghwa had fought for her, clutching her to his chest as he dared the humans on the joint council to vote against him. To keep numbers balanced, a new human had joined the council when Seonghwa had taken his place there, and he had managed to sway enough of them to let him keep her.
Kobeula often came to see her, to teach her of the ways of a sunwalker, to show her the beauty in their archetype. And eventually, she began to thrive. It did not happen overnight, and she still often woke in the throes of a new nightmare, haunted by memories that she couldn’t explain, that she didn’t understand. She was condemned to be two years old forever, never able to process her emotions like an adult, never able to express herself with a full vocabulary. But she would also always bear the resilience of a child, and that was a gift in its own right.
She did not have a name, so Seonghwa had given her one. Haneul, meaning sky. But the name meant far more than that to him. The sky was his sanctuary, the place that had set him free. He bore a special connection to it, one that could not be so easily understood by anyone else. He bore a special connection with her, too, so the name was easy to give.
Leaning against Hongjoong’s shoulder, Seonghwa sighed. Hongjoong wrapped an arm around him, touching his wing gently, tracing soft patterns in the thin, membranous skin. Neither of them said a word, because they didn’t need to. Seonghwa could read Hongjoong’s every breath, sensing his emotions from a simple touch of his hand. They did not need words to communicate.
Some time passed, and then Haneul began to stir. Her face crumpled up, small hands balled into fists, clutching the fabric of Wooyoung’s shirt. A yawn rippled through her, seeming to start at her diaphragm and pass through her lungs and chest, emerging from her mouth.
She blinked, raising her head enough to expose the other side of her face, eye socket scarred over. Seonghwa had lost his right eye, and she had lost her left. When they faced each other, they could still look each other in the eye.
Seonghwa left the couch, kneeling down beside her, gently brushing a hand over her hair. “I’m back, baby,” he murmured, heart overcome with love for this small girl. He hadn’t known he could feel like this for someone. “Did you have fun with Wooyoung?”
She sat up on Wooyoung’s chest and held her arms out. Seonghwa smiled as he took her into his arms, snuggling her close to his chest. “I have fun,” she said, her voice small but ripe with joy. “Wooyoung is silly.” She pronounced his name funny, the different syllables all meshing into one. The fangs didn’t help her speech, but Seonghwa found it adorable.
At the sound of their voices, Wooyoung began to stir, groaning as he ran a hand over his face. He started to sit up, wincing. “I knew I shouldn’t have fallen asleep with my neck at that angle,” he mumbled, rubbing the affected area. “Immortalist my ass. It still hurts.”
“Language,” Seonghwa scolded, and Wooyoung stuck out his tongue, though his eyes lit up when he noticed Haneul.
She giggled at him, pointing at his head. “Sidi in your hair.” The baby bats were awake now too, peering out from the nest of Wooyoung’s hair, sticking up in all different directions. They were each named after gemstones, same as their mother. ‘Sidi’ was Haneul’s best attempt at saying Obsidian, the bat on the left. The one in the middle was Jade, and the one on the right was Opal.
Obsidian chirped, fluttering out of Wooyoung’s hair and onto Haneul’s shoulder. She was his favorite vampire; he was always hovering around her head, hanging from the ceiling to make her laugh.
The three baby bats were similar to Haneul in the sense that they would never age another day. After Seonghwa had recovered from the initial rush of his newfound immortality, he had fallen into a depression for days, retreating to his room and soaking his comforter with tears. It had occurred to him that while he would live forever, Onyx would not, and he couldn’t bear to lose her. Not when she had been there for him through so much.
Yunho had spent weeks in his lab, rarely coming home, running all kinds of experiments in an attempt to discover a way to apply vampire turning to an animal. Eventually he had developed a method that he was confident would work, but Onyx had gone missing the next day. Seonghwa had searched the skies for her, desperate, but she had only returned on her own terms, belly more swollen than it had been before.
She had three babies, the same ones flapping all around the room now, purposely swooping down over Hongjoong’s head to ruin his perfectly styled hair. Even when Seonghwa had proposed Yunho’s solution to her, she had refused. If it went wrong, she didn’t want to leave her children behind.
However, one of her babies became sick after a few months, and Yunho’s discovery had saved her child. It had worked, so she had finally allowed herself and her other two children to be turned. They would live forever too, undead vampire bats, entirely unheard of. Yunho’s advances would have been groundbreaking in science, but he kept them under wraps to protect Onyx and her family.
“Where is Onyx, anyway?” Seonghwa asked Wooyoung, raising his voice to be heard over Haneul’s laughter and Hongjoong’s aggravation as he swatted at the bats circling his head. “She usually greets me when I get home.”
Wooyoung laughed at him. “You’ll always be her favorite, don’t pout. I think she’s upstairs.” He called her name, shouting loud enough to be heard between floors, and within a matter of moments a slightly larger black bat was soaring down the stairs.
She headed straight for Seonghwa, colliding with his neck, wrapping her wings around it. You are home.
“I am,” Seonghwa replied, petting the top of her head with a gentle index finger. “Your babies had a nice nap, I see.”
So did your baby. She winked at him - she had gotten really good at that over the years. Would you care to fly tonight?
“You already know my answer to that.” Seonghwa grinned at her, and then he returned his attentions to the little girl in his lap. “Are you hungry, Haneul? When was the last time you ate?”
“Hungry,” she agreed, still giggling at Hongjoong. The two of them were precious together, and Seonghwa passed her over to him, heading for the kitchen. He grabbed a few of the blood-filled juice boxes in the refrigerator, and as he left the kitchen, he met the rest of his coven on the stairs.
He threw one of the juice boxes Yunho’s way, and he caught it easily, pulling the straw free from where it was glued to the back. San reached over in an attempt to grab it, but Yunho held it out of his reach. “No way. Juice boxes for the defanged club only. Do you know how expensive these things are? It’s getting ridiculous - inflection has been bad this year.”
“Inflation,” Seonghwa and Yeosang corrected in unison.
“Haneul has fangs!” San protested, and Yunho scoffed, looking at him like he was a monster.
“She’s a child! She’s two years old! What is wrong with you?” They descended into bickering, and Yeosang skipped the last stair, falling into step beside Seonghwa. He didn’t say anything, but he bumped Seonghwa’s shoulder in greeting, and Onyx flitted over to say hello to him.
Mingi and Jongho bypassed San and Yunho, joining the rest of them in the living room. Seonghwa punctured the straw through the juice box and handed it to Haneul, opening a second one for himself. She was content in Hongjoong’s lap, smiling wide as he braided her hair, fangs on full display. “Do you want to fly with me, baby?” he asked as he sat down beside them.
“Yes!” She loved flying, almost as much as he did. Another way that they understood one another. “Wanna see your wings. Sidi can come, too.”
“You can come with me, but you have to drink your juice box first, okay?” This was the easiest way to get her to drink what she needed to continue to thrive, and luckily, coercion worked as easily on a vampire toddler as it did on a human one. She immediately placed the straw between her lips and began to drain the box, the sides caving inwards.
Sharing a fond look with Hongjoong, Seonghwa drained his own juice box as well, the blood passing over his tongue and down his throat without a problem. The times he had struggled with feedings were but a distant memory now; blood was all his body had come to crave. He had never believed he would make it to this point, and yet here he was.
Hongjoong finished the braid in the meantime, and he ran upstairs once he was done, returning with a small bag of fake flowers that he used in his clothing design. He carefully arranged them in her braid, taking the task very seriously, lip caught between his teeth. Before Haneul, Seonghwa had never considered what Hongjoong would be like as a father. But he was perfect for the role; a girl dad if Seonghwa had ever seen one.
The whole group of them migrated outside afterwards, and Seonghwa strapped on the harness that Hongjoong had made to hold Haneul, so that he could fly with her without risking her safety. They had a few hours remaining until dawn, and Onyx and her babies were already flying in circles around the treeline, chasing each other.
Watching them fondly, Seonghwa secured Haneul into the harness, her front facing his chest. He still wrapped his arms around her, and she held on tight to his neck, her little arms flexed as hard as they could go. “Ready?” he asked, looking down at her.
She beamed up at him. “Wanna fly!” she cried, and Seonghwa pushed off the ground, flapping his wings to take them up higher. She turned her head to wave down at the rest of the coven, and they waved back at her, watching the two of them rise towards the moon.
Seonghwa didn’t go too high with her; they stayed near the tops of the trees, and he flipped and spiraled and dipped all for her enjoyment. She was ecstatic, her laughter so loud that it was infectious, and Seonghwa found himself laughing as well.
Her smile always moved him, because she had been stoic for so long. But in their coven house, it was difficult to remain reserved. Seonghwa had learned that himself, long ago, and it had saved his life. Now, he had the pleasure of watching the same thing happen to her.
Ever since she had entered their lives, he couldn’t imagine being without her. She had softened Hongjoong, had worn down that part of him that was so quick to anger. And she had healed something deep inside of Seonghwa, a part of him that he had expected to remain cracked for the rest of time.
His inner child, the boy he had never been.
Haneul’s smile, her laugh, her pudgy hands and her scarred cheeks and her unsteady toddler steps had worked wonders on the darkest parts of him. Seonghwa had finally been able to release the pain of his past, nurturing his own deep wounds as he gently healed hers. If given the chance, he would save her again and again, because she too had saved him.
They flew for a while, all four bats chasing after them, until Haneul fell asleep there in the harness. He didn’t know how she managed that - flight wasn't exactly relaxing, but something about it always calmed her down. He touched down and carefully pulled her free from the straps, bringing her inside, the others lingering in the living room as he went up to her room.
She slept in Seonghwa’s old bedroom, and she stirred as he placed her on the small bed, curling up and peeling her eye open to look at him. “Story,” she mumbled, half asleep. “Bat book.”
So he read her the story, a picture book he had written decades ago. A story about a bat who was mistreated and shunned by all of the other bats, until he finally found a family to call his own. It had felt like the right way to tell his story, because he had needed a message like that most when he was a child. Never had he expected to be reading the book to his own child, but fate worked in funny ways like that, he supposed.
She was asleep in moments, but he finished the book anyway, tucking it back on the shelf and pressing a soft kiss to her temple before shutting the light and leaving the room. The room he shared with Hongjoong was right beside hers, so she could always come to snuggle up with them if she needed to.
Seonghwa entered his own room to find Hongjoong already inside, and he sighed, undoing the clasp that held his cape to his neck. It had been a long night, and he was exhausted. “She went down okay?” Hongjoong asked, crossing the room when Seonghwa entered, taking the cape from his hands to hang it up in the closet.
“Out like a light,” Seonghwa replied, sliding off the rest of his clothes and slipping on a pair of silk pajamas. “Braid still in her hair and everything.”
Chuckling softly, Hongjoong wrapped his arms around Seonghwa’s waist, pulling him into a gentle embrace. They both lingered there for a while, just drawing strength from each other’s presence. Hongjoong peppered soft kisses along the curve of Seonghwa’s throat, rubbing a thumb over the base of his wings.
“Can I ask you something?” he said eventually, voice but a murmur.
“Of course.”
“If there is ever another child like her, would you do the same thing again?”
Without hesitation, Seonghwa nodded. “Yes. I would not hesitate.”
Hongjoong smiled, and Seonghwa felt it against his neck. “I was hoping you would say that.” He guided Seonghwa backwards, sitting on the edge of the bed and pulling him into his lap. “I think we will have a full nest on our hands eventually.”
When they were alone like this, Seonghwa felt giddy, like he was young all over again. He licked over his bottom lip, hair falling in a thick curtain around his shoulders. “Would that be so bad?”
“Not at all.” Hongjoong shifted his hands to cup Seonghwa’s face, pressing their lips together, easing his mouth open. Seonghwa moaned softly, a breathy sound, sitting closer to Hongjoong so that their chests were touching. He wrapped his arms around his neck in return, threading his fingers through the hair at his nape. After all this time, Hongjoong still made him feel human, like his heart would come to beat again out of sheer love for the man before him.
Hongjoong kissed like a song. He carried melodies in his hands as they traced over Seonghwa’s skin, skimming over his neck and his wings, brushing the sides of his waist. The rhythm he chose this time was soft and lyrical, and every press of his lips was timed perfectly, artful and laced with allure. No one else on this earth knew how to take Seonghwa’s breath away like he did.
He pulled away from Seonghwa’s lips, pressing open-mouthed kisses to his jaw, his cheeks. “I would like to make a few more,” he breathed, gripping Seonghwa’s hair in his hands, strands woven around the looms of his fingers.
“A few more what?” Seonghwa asked, losing the thread of conversation as he gasped, tilting his head back.
“Children.”
Seonghwa blinked. “What?”
Hongjoong laughed, and the sound rumbled in his chest. How could anyone claim vampires weren’t alive, when Hongjoong’s whole body seemed to share in his joy? “You are adorable, darling.”
“Hongjoong, we’re dead. We can’t make children.” Still, Seonghwa couldn’t keep the smile off his lips. “You sound like a young adult, drunk on love.”
“When it comes to you, that is what I am. That is what I will always be.”
Seonghwa pushed him down to the mattress, hovering over him. Long locks of black hair fell around them, dark as night. “Drunk on love, maybe. Young? Definitely not.”
With a scoff, Hongjoong grabbed Seonghwa in his arms and rolled them over, grabbing his arms and pinning them over his head. “I am young,” he protested. Seonghwa raised a brow, deeming his words entirely unworthy of a real response. “You make me feel young,” he amended after a moment. That was a bit more accurate.
He continued to press kisses to Seonghwa’s face, returning to his lips after a while, taking his time with every move of his mouth. Seonghwa’s mind spun, and soft sounds continued to escape him, muffled by Hongjoong’s skillful lips. To be known was to be loved, and they knew all that there was to know about one another. Hongjoong knew which places made Seonghwa shiver, and where to stroke his wings to calm his mind in a matter of moments. He had loved Seonghwa at his worst, and now he loved him as he continued to rise, blooming into someone brilliant.
Hongjoong was still the man he had always been, but he too had changed. Where he had once been intimidating, he was now soft, his edges worn down by time and love. That restless part of him had settled down, soothed by the final pieces of his life that had slid into place. He had been forced to wait centuries, but now he treasured every single moment, treating Seonghwa like a queen.
Against all odds, they had made it through the worst. Hongjoong had survived the slaughter of his family and his resulting thirst for revenge. He had survived a traumatic turning, and had found a coven to belong to, to give him purpose. Seonghwa had survived the crimes of his father, and had managed to stay alive until adulthood despite the evils that clawed at him from the shadows. He had survived a traumatic turning of his own, and he had learned to ask for help, to leap and trust that he would be caught.
After all this time, they still sought out each other first in every room they stepped into. They still shared fond looks over the heads of the others while they bickered. They still talked for hours while the rest were asleep. And they still loved each other with the sweetness of children, picking flowers and sharing chairs and tracing their own constellations up in the stars that webbed the sky.
The first time Seonghwa saw Hongjoong, he saw love in its purest form, though he hadn’t known it. And the first time Hongjoong touched Seonghwa, he had known he was something special, something different, though he hadn’t known why.
Now, those questions had been answered. They had nothing left to wonder about, not when it came to one another.
They had taken the long way, but they were finally home.