Chapter Text
Mark laboured for breath in the thick heat of the car’s trunk. His adrenaline had worn away, leaving only the pain in his shoulder and the tingling numbness of shock.
He could still hear the creak of bone, the sluice of Jeno’s blood bursting free, Baekhyun’s body crumpling to the ground. The memories rattled around Mark’s skull as he was jostled by the movements of the car. His hands were bound with rope, but he couldn’t muster the strength to test the bindings. Distantly, some part of him could recognise the turns required to make it to church, if only because he’d driven it so many times.
He didn’t bother crying out for help. All he could hear was the rumble of the car’s engine and the ringing in his ears. The darkness of the trunk reminded him of the woodshed, the warm spray of Jeno’s insides.
Mark knew what he’d heard. What he’d seen. Had the Reverend wanted this all along? Was he possessed, too?
Maybe Mark did deserve this. How had he not looked after Jeno? Looked after all of them? His eyes stung with hot tears. He squeezed them shut to be rid of them.
The car stopped. Mark was thrown forward by the momentum, grunting as he collided with the felt walls. The lid opened as Pastor Choi frowned down at him —Mark searched his face for a sign of that squirming skin, terrified.
“Come,” the Pastor commanded.
Mark could hear the congregation singing from the churchyard. Instead of being led through the double doors, the Pastor tossed him into the adjoining office. Mark attempted to swivel around at the last second and make a break for it, but Pastor Choi was stronger and faster —Mark’s uninjured shoulder collided with the door as it locked shut. He heaved for breath.
“Mark?” Renjun said.
“Renjun?” Mark squinted. There was just enough moonlight through the windows to make out four heads at the far wall. Relief, even in broken pieces, helped numb the shock. “Guys? Are you alright?”
“We’re okay.”
Mark raced over. He wanted to hug them, but didn’t have the mobility or strength. Instead, all he could do was fall to his knees as he felt their limbs brush, their heads meeting in the curve of each other's necks. It was an instinctual, physical comfort, huddling together. Mark let out a shaking breath, then inhaled the smell of their sweat and skin.
“Are you okay?” Jisung asked, uncaring of his Mission. “Your shoulder—” He made a wet, hiccuping sound. “And Jeno, is he really…?”
Mark didn’t know what to say. His eyes stung.
“Was that… that monster… the demon,” Chenle started slowly, “was it really him?”
“I don’t know,” Mark answered. “I think it… it came from him, at least, and I think the Reverend knows that.”
The room was silent, trying to fathom something so incomprehensible.
“Are we next?” Renjun dared to ask. “Is this our punishment?”
“No, Jun—”
“We’re possessed,” Renjun rambled. “We need to be purified. Or we’ll end up like J—”
“I’m not going to let that happen,” Mark interjected.
“How are you going to stop it?”
Mark opened his mouth, but no answer came out. How many days had Mark spent here? Answering emails and phone calls, daydreaming of fun layouts for the bulletin board.
Now, the atmosphere was sombre. Their limbs bound, their strength drained, starved and exhausted, terrified beyond relief. The truth was, Mark had no idea how to get out of here, no idea how to process what he’d seen or what had happened. He felt the instinct to escape and live overwrite all other biological programming. He didn’t know exactly what the purification rite might entail now, with the Reverend in such a crazed state, but he felt like a mouse walking upon a sticky trap. He knew, instinctively, that it wouldn’t be good, but he didn’t have the strength to escape.
Mark jolted when he heard the door open, and then another body was thrown through.
“Jaemin,” Mark breathed out.
Jaemin staggered into the room. In the faint light from the window, he looked terrible. There was a cut at the corner of his eyebrow, bruises across his cheeks, swollen from an inevitable struggle, and his mouth was smothered with blood. Mark recognised him not only from the torn white shirt and crop of dark hair, but because he was certain he would recognise Jaemin anywhere. Even in a crowded, dark room, at his own expense, Mark’s eyes still wanted Jaemin first.
Even here, he was beautiful.
Mark raced over, stumbling forward. He wasn’t sure he understood who Jaemin truly was, but he knew that Jaemin had never intentionally hurt him. Right now, they needed each other. Mark could worry about the consequences after they escaped.
“Are you alright? Are you hurt? Are you—”
“I’m fine,” Jaemin snapped, stepping back. His jawline was taut as he searched Mark’s face. Jaemin exhaled, turning to the rest of the group, choosing to ignore Mark. “I was in the barn when they came to the house. I tried to hide, but they were looking too… thoroughly.”
“You should’ve run while you had the chance,” Donghyuck told him, laughing hysterically. “Now, apparently, we’re either going to be purified by God or turned into demons!”
“Isn’t that what we deserve?” Jaemin countered. His eyes bore into Mark’s skin. The blow from his words was swift and stung, but Mark had earned it. Jaemin was right to be upset.
“No,” Mark answered softly. “No, it isn’t. I— I’m sorry.” It was impossible to read Jaemin’s expression with such little light. Was he disgusted by Mark’s apology, or elated? “For everything. I should’ve trusted you more.” Jaemin said nothing. He didn’t even move, just regarded Mark coolly in the sliver of moonlight that pierced between them. “I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness.”
“Nobody deserves anything,” Jaemin muttered, voice low and gravelly. His eyes found Mark’s in the dark.
“But I’m asking for it anyway,” Mark replied. Jaemin’s lips twitched, tentative sparks at the corners of his beaten mouth. Mark inhaled.
“We’re all gonna die,” Donghyuck bemoaned.
“Shut up,” Chenle hissed. “Chenyin was okay… I mean, they cut him pretty bad but— he lived…”
“How reassuring.”
“There must be a way out of here,” Jaemin interrupted.
“How?” Jisung asked.
“I… I need time.” Jaemin looked exhausted, beaten and worn down. Mark wished he could scoop him up and protect him from all of this. “Just give me a bit to…”
“We’ll find a way,” Mark reassured. “Promise.”
The resonant chanting grew louder as the door swung open, and Mark winced at the onslaught of light.
“Prepare them for the purification ritual,” Pastor Choi said. He sneered at Jaemin. “Leave this one here. We’re going to talk.”
“Leave them out of this,” Mark bargained. “I’m the one you want—”
“Silence.” Pastor Choi scowled. “Speak again, and we’ll gag you.”
Mark grunted as he was hauled to his feet by the scruff of his neck and tossed outside, leaving only Jaemin alone in the office. He opened his mouth to protest and was struck so suddenly he bit his tongue and groaned in pain.
Mark’s mouth filled with blood. Pastor Choi cut the clothes from his body, and another member poured a jug of ice water down his back. Mark twitched in pain and shock, the concrete at his feet turning pink from the remnants of his and Jeno’s blood washing downwards. Hands around his bindings forced Mark to stand there naked and shivering, wincing at every surprise pour down his back. He had no idea how Renjun could have endured this every morning.
Next was boiling water. Mark’s eyes widened as he watched them cascade it over Chenle, staining his skin with red welts as he cried out in pain. When it came to Mark, he could barely withstand it, twitching and trembling, attempting to flinch away but held in place by more hands around his limbs.
He quivered in shock as they led them towards the church doors, single-file. Mark’s eyes darted around for a break in their ranks, some sign of escape, but his body was so weak. Even if he could have freed himself from the grip on his restraints, he wouldn’t be able to run very far.
The doors opened.
The singing was deafening, piercing through Mark’s skin so deeply that his bones quivered in harmony with the timber of the congregation’s voices. The Reverend stood at the altar, wearing a white cassock and his matching brocade stole, embroidered with two gold crucifixes at either end. He was holding up the gilded chalice that was used in communion, leading the chant.
Kyrie, eleison. Christe, eleison.
Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy.
The five of them were shoved forward, pushed to their knees. Hands wrenched Donghyuck’s reluctant face up as the Reverend dipped his fingers into the cup and painted a blessing across his cheeks and forehead in red wine.
No, not wine. Blood.
“Lord, hear my prayer,” the Reverend began. “Banish the demons from within these Children of God, so that their souls may be healed and worthy of your forgiveness.”
He repeated this down the line, gripping his fingers tight around Mark’s bruised jaw as he wrenched his chin up to expose his throat. The Reverend dipped his fingers into the chalice and drew three lines down the centre of Mark’s chest, over his heart. One for the father, one for the son, and one for the holy spirit.
Mark struggled against the grip, but was too weak.
“Which of you want it first, hm?” the Reverend crooned.
“Leave them alone,” Mark spat, struggling to no avail. His body had such little strength. “I’m the one that started this, right? I should take the punishment first.”
“Oh believe me, Mark.” As the Reverend spoke, he showed off yellowed teeth. “You will.”
The doors swung open once more. Mark turned over his shoulder to see another body being shoved towards the altar, hands bound at his back, nudged forward by the men behind him.
Jaemin was forced to his knees just beside the Reverend’s feet, forehead to the ground. He’d been beaten again, but bathed, too, his skin red with burns, the blood washed away. They’d forced him into a clean, white purification robe, but there was a sharp lash at the corner of his mouth. When Jaemin looked up; their eyes met. Mark’s heart thumped in his chest, aching to help him, to apologise, to hold him and will all of this away.
His gaze was forced down. Mark sobbed.
“Excellent.” The Reverend licked his lips. “We can begin your purification by gutting the source.”
“No,” Mark cried.
“On the altar, now,” Reverend Lee instructed.
Jaemin stood, silent and obedient as he slid onto the altar with little fuss. Renjun, beside Mark, gasped in shock.
The singing grew muffled as the congregation tipped their heads down, so that Mark couldn’t tell them apart from one another. The chanting was haunting, but filled with a warped sense of beauty. The hall was lit only by the candelabras burning at the edges of the room, and moonlight filtering through red and gold stained glass as Jaemin offered himself.
“Lay down.”
Jaemin did as instructed, without resistance. Where was his usual stubbornness? His defiance? His head tipped back until all he would’ve been able to see was the church ceiling, the wooden arches curving to meet in the shadows overhead. Leather bindings were secured over his wrists and ankles, tying him down, and his robe was cut open. He glimpsed once, towards Mark, as his head lulled to the side.
There was nothing in his expression. No warmth behind his eyes, but no coldness either, just something detached and clinical as if this were only an inevitability to him.
“The depth of your sins reflects in the world around you,” the Reverend called. He was wet with sweat, and his voice was high-pitched and frenetic, so unlike the deep composure he always maintained. “God knows that you have fallen into the arms of the Devil, and now you must repent.”
“Lamb of God, grant him mercy,” the congregation echoed back.
“Sin has permeated your very being,” the Reverend called, and looked at Jaemin with pure hunger, eager to begin, “and so we shall remove it until you are pristine.”
Mark made a weak sound of protest. Jaemin had only tried to look out for him, and how had Mark repaid him? Scorn, distrust, all the lessons the Reverend had drilled into him over the years. Jaemin wasn’t the one who locked them in the woodshed and waited for wolves to feast. He had never whispered lies in Mark’s ears, only the truth. His hands had never hurt Mark, only loved him.
Now, he would suffer for it.
Pastor Choi handed the Reverend a pair of silver sheep shears. He took the dual blades and held them sky high.
“Lord, bless my knife, so your lost sheep may shed his wool and be born anew.”
“Amen,” the congregation echoed.
The Reverend touched the knife to Jaemin’s skin.
It was a simple incision to his left forearm, first, but Mark still winced. He couldn’t bear to look, but something in him couldn’t do anything but watch, as his father closed the shears across Jaemin’s skin. It sliced through him like peeling fruit, stripping the top layer away from his arm and revealing the blood and sinew underneath.
Mark screamed.
There were similar cries of outrage beside him, but in response, the chanting only grew louder, as if to silence their joint shouts of agony. Jaemin’s jaw clenched, body tensing against the burning pain now spreading through his arm, but the restraints held him down.
“Let the sin be released from his soul.”
“Amen.”
Jaemin’s thigh was next, the white fabric hitched up to his hip. Another incision was made through the skin as the Reverend peeled it away and cut it free. Blood flowed freely out of the wound and around Jaemin’s leg, pulsing as it stained the white altar underneath him. It looked so excruciating it was becoming harder and harder for Mark to breathe.
“Let it out,” the Reverend said, gentle and sweet, like coaxing a lamb to lay down before it was slaughtered. “All your sin and impurity. Let it be freed from your skin so you may be cleansed.”
All Mark could see from the ground was Jaemin’s blood, dripping across his body. The Reverend moved to his other thigh. Mark’s vision blurred with more tears. He felt so helpless and terrified, distressed that Jaemin had to suffer through this. Mark wanted to beg that it had been enough, that he was sorry, that he wanted nothing but forgiveness, but he couldn’t move his mouth to form the words.
“P-please,” Mark tried, voice so hoarse it would never be heard over the echoing around the church. He wasn’t sure if it was a plea for forgiveness and salvation, or simply for the Reverend to stop. He watched the gentle press of metal as the blades kissed Jaemin’s skin, and braced himself for another wound on the only person who had ever loved him entirely.
“Please,” Mark told him.
“May the Lord take mercy on your soul,” the Reverend called, and laid the shears flat on Jaemin’s sternum for another area to flay away, just above his heart. “And save you from the vile things that live inside you.”
“Do you understand now?”
Jaemin’s voice was clear and resonant. It should’ve been impossible —Mark was far from the altar, and the chanting was so loud. Mark’s heart was working overtime to make up for the blood he was losing, and still— Jaemin’s voice was low, calm and gentle.
His head had tipped to the side. Jaemin’s eyes trained on Mark’s face as if they’d never left. He was observing in silence, his eyes flickering with something aching and hurt as he bled out on the altar.
The blade dug into the skin of his chest, but Jaemin didn’t even wince.
“I can make it stop,” Jaemin warned once more, “but you have to desire it.”
Please, Mark prayed, Jaemin.
The blood was too much, Mark was certain Jaemin would die— but the blades were frozen, just the lightest bead of crimson bubbling out from where they lay still in his chest.
The Reverend didn’t move.
Mark waited, but nothing happened. Even the chanting had stopped. It was as if time was frozen —the only indication it hadn’t was the flickering of the flames as the shadows shivered up the walls.
The Reverend was wide-eyed with something between fear and pleasure, hunger and desperation.
“The Lord deems us pure at last,” he murmured, and then his skull caved in.
Mark watched in slow motion as the crack appeared through his forehead, and then the blood gushed out. The Reverend crumpled in on himself like paper, bone splintering, grey matter gushing out, dowsing the altar in a spray of blood as he stumbled back. His skin shucked itself like bark from a tree, and then his rib cage popped out of his chest.
No, not popped, pushed. There was something inside of him: a twisted, mangled hand, wrenching its way out from inside him.
The room filled with screams.
Mark jolted against his bindings as something sickly pushed its way out of the Reverend. It wasn’t quite human, but it wasn’t quite animal either, pale and deformed and drenched in blood. It had no discerning features on what Mark assumed to be its head, but the skin around where its mouth should have been was translucent, stretched over warped jawbones, and vibrating with the sound of its inhuman scream. Its limbs were backwards and twisted as it pushed out of the ribcage and writhed on the ground.
Pastor Choi was next, eyes bursting in a spray of gelatinous fluid as his head caved inwards. The skin along his arms and legs distended as the thing inside him pushed around its casing. Bone protruded through skin, and the creature inside him was decidedly more animal, with a long snout and blood-soaked fur, patches of skin torn away from it where it hadn’t fully formed, showing off the long trail intestines still growing, wrapped around its waist like a lead.
Beside Mark, Renjun began to split open, fracturing with the dizzying spirals of an eggshell. His jaw unhinged as a white claw pushed its way out of his mouth, then sliced through his skin. There was a high-pitched groan from Renjun’s throat as it yearned to be free. The demon inside him was scaled with webbed spines, soaked in blood and translucent liquid as it pushed itself out and met Mark’s gaze with golden, slitted pupils, then turned to pounce on Donghyuck and tear free at the thing that was kicking its way out of his chest.
Mark screamed.
He heard the squelch and crackle of breaking bone and spraying blood, the thud of more bodies hitting the floor. Beside Mark, his friends collapsed and went limp as they hatched open, bleeding from hollow eye sockets. Donghyuck’s insides gushed outwards while Chenle convulsed, his skin stretched until it burst. Jisung’s limbs splintered apart in shards of fat and bone.
Mark twisted and struggled against his restraints, but he was woozy and weak, failing to get up without the help of his arms —he fell forward onto his stomach, able only to see the empty sacks of skin falling beside him as he sobbed in terror. It felt so terrible it couldn’t have been real, but Mark could smell the coppery scent of blood and knew it was. The congregation ahead of him was crumpling, pew after pew like dominoes —a few stragglers tried to make it to the door, but their bodies burst open before they could escape, replaced with more ravenous, grotesque monsters.
There was so much blood, spraying across the walls and ceiling, creating a shallow pool of it across the church floor. Something eyeless, mangled, and flesh-coloured flapped thin, membranous wings and hurtled through the window depicting Christ’s agony in the garden, showering the room in stained glass as it let out a shrill cry into the night.
Some of the demonic creatures had started attacking each other —the thing that had birthed itself out of Pastor Choi crushed Reverend Lee’s soft head under foot, bringing its body to its maw and devouring.
Throughout it all, Jaemin sat up and watched calmly, snapping his wrists cleanly out of his restraints, smoothing down the torn hem of his robe as his skin began to knit together and heal.
Pastor Choi snarled at him, but as Jaemin looked at the wretched creature it whimpered and curled into itself, before being tackled down by the wet tangled mess of feathers that had emerged out of Jisung, throwing the Pastor against the wall in a bloody heap that crumpled with a squelch.
A spray of blood streaked across Jaemin’s cheek, dripping down and staining the white fabric. Unaffected, he knelt down and helped Mark up, undoing the bindings at his wrists.
“What are you?” Mark asked in horrified awe.
Jaemin hummed, continuing to free Mark’s limbs as the room was a violent cacophony of mutilation and unnatural screams.
“Does it matter?” Now freed from his restraints, Mark tried to stand. He underestimated the strength required and fell forward—Jaemin caught him, cradling Mark’s body in his arms like a living Pietà. “I’m here for you. That’s what’s important.”
Even soaked in blood, Jaemin was beautiful. The broken window freed the moonlight, and illuminated his head in a silver halo as he held Mark with an amount of unconditional love Mark had never felt. His eyes were black, his smile gentle and soft, and he was a figure of utmost divinity. Mark remembered that Lucifer was an angel, once, and began to cry.
“I’m sorry,” Mark said. “For what I did. What I said to you— I never—”
“Shh, it’s alright.” Jaemin stroked the back of Mark’s hair. “I understand.”
“Are you here to take my soul?” Mark dared to ask. The tears wouldn’t stop, and the pain of his body was unbearable. The room was still an explosion of those terrible creatures, but with Jaemin crowding over him like this, all Mark could see was his face. Why had Mark been spared? Was he truly so impure? So unworthy?
“No, Mark,” Jaemin answered. A thumb swiped away the tears on Mark’s cheek, cradling him close. Jaemin let out a long, wistful sigh.
Mark felt the rush of air as it left Jaemin. This close to Jaemin’s chest, he had no heartbeat; whatever was inside him was hollow.
Jaemin coaxed Mark down onto the altar. It made Mark shiver. It was impossible to tell if Jaemin had always been this way, hunting Mark right from the start, or if the thing inside him had only grown over time. Did Jaemin Na ever truly exist? Or had he always been a wolf in sheep’s clothing, tempting Mark away from the flock to be devoured.
Mark cried. For his family, for his friends, his brothers, for himself, for being so naive and incapable of control. His hunger had eaten everything around him until there was nothing left, and still he wanted more.
“Don’t think like that,” Jaemin consoled. “You’re perfect to me. It’s them who let you down. Even now—” Jaemin tutted. “—So few of them will make it. Tsk.”
“Why me?” Mark whispered, tipping his head back to look at Jaemin. Jaemin cocked his to the side, as if to say, who else? As if the answer was obvious. He was so protective and loving, Mark wondered if Jaemin truly was here to save Mark from the world that hurt him.
A torn limb, wet with blood, was flung over the arch above his head.
“I’m hungry,” Jaemin said.
After all this time, Mark had never heard Jaemin say it out loud before.
His tone was insistent. Mark searched Jaemin’s dark, wanting eyes and felt his thigh twitch against something cold and metallic. The shears —they were still flat on the altar.
Jaemin’s eyes were begging, his body was so desperate. Mark knew what it was to ache with hunger and knew what it was to be satiated, too. Jaemin craved only what Mark could give him, but he didn’t dare ask for it directly. Mark had to give it to him, first.
Mark’s fingers curled around the handle of the shears. They were so close, all it would take was one movement, one plunge —Jaemin would never see it coming. Mark gripped the handle tighter. Right into his neck, and Mark could be freed from all of this. End it all.
“I’m hungry,” Jaemin repeated finally.
“I know,” Mark whispered.
He couldn’t do it.
The shears slipped from Mark’s fingers, cluttering to the ground and splashing the pool of blood at the floor.
Jaemin didn’t so much as blink, like he’d known Mark could never hurt him, completely unafraid. Slowly, Mark began to feel what all prey feels in its last few moments: resignation, that it was already over, as his body turned limp and willing, and recognition, that he was in the jaws of his hunter, and it was too late to break free.
Mark touched bloodied fingers to Jaemin’s cheek, leaving red fingerprints.
“Eat,” he said sweetly.
Jaemin obeyed.
He kissed Mark with love, so toe-curling Mark sighed against his lips as Jaemin laid him back against the altar and crawled atop. It freed Mark’s vision, allowing him to see the mangled corpses of Salvation and the few bloodied creatures that had emerged from their hunt victorious, feasting on what remained. Some of the candelabras had been knocked over, setting the pews aflame. Mark’s eyes stung as his lungs filled with smoke.
Jaemin’s blood-soaked hands guided Mark's Jaw back towards him for another kiss, obscuring his field of view. Mark indulged him, winding his arms around Jaemin’s neck and moaning as Jaemin’s tongue pushed into his mouth, tasting of spit and iron.
“You’re perfect,” Jaemin murmured, “I’m going to take care of you.”
How long had Mark wanted to hear such words? Always believing himself undeserving of something so pure. He sobbed, aching, spine arching as his stomach filled with a pleasant, exotic sort of heat. Jaemin sat back on his haunches between Mark’s thighs on the altar, wrenching one hand into the remnants of his robe to tear it off and toss it aside. It fell to the floor, dyed crimson red. Jaemin’s skin twitched and pulsed, desperate to feast. He ran an elongated tongue over the skin of Mark’s chest.
Mark moaned.
A flap of skin, loosened by his injury, still clung to Mark’s shoulder. Jaemin bit into it gently, separating it, then chewed and swallowed.
“You taste so good,” Jaemin muttered feverishly, nose pressed to the dip of Mark’s clavicle. “I always knew you’d be perfect for me. So perfect.”
Mark had never been perfect for anyone, before. The thought filled him with happiness, and he wanted to hear it again. To Jaemin, Mark was pristine —clean enough to be eaten.
“Jaemin,” Mark prayed.
Jaemin grinned, endeared and delighted, and shifted so that his head was between Mark’s thighs.
“Thank you Lord,” he said, “for the meal.”
He licked, long and slow, over Mark’s leaking cock, sucking and savouring the taste, and then his tongue plunged inside Mark. Mark cried out, fingers gripping the altar’s cloth for balance, as Jaemin hitched Mark’s bloodied thighs over either shoulder and ate him out. His elongated, inhuman tongue reached deep inside Mark, tasting what was to come for later. They moaned together in a beautiful harmony. Mark could feel Jaemin’s sound travel through him, and wanted more than just that.
“So good,” Jaemin mumbled over and over, like a mantra. He pulled away only to lap at some of the blood on Mark’s thigh, and then he was lining himself up, the head of his cock swiping through the mess of spit and blood between Mark’s thighs. Mark’s eyes widened.
When Jaemin pushed in, Mark cried out, the intrusion pushing something from his chest. It was painful and pleasurable at the same time, being torn open from the inside. Mark’s body began to shake, and Jaemin cradled him with his arms beneath Mark’s torso, nuzzling into Mark’s neck, then biting.
His hips thrust forward at the same time, and Mark’s body exploded with tingling, throbbing pleasure. He heard tendons snap as Jaemin tore away the skin at Mark’s neck, swallowing and licking his lips as he fucked into Mark.
“More,” Jaemin demanded, panting like a dog, “I’m so hungry.”
“Eat,” Mark once more urged. “I want you to be full.”
Jaemin licked at the blood pouring from Mark’s neck, nodding as he sighed beneath his ear in pleasure.
“You feel so good,” Jaemin told him, hips bruising Mark’s as he fucked him. It was an indescribable sensation Mark had never felt before, and would never feel again. It wasn’t the same as eating, but imbued a different kind of fullness. “I’m so hungry.”
“Yours,” Mark promised, cupping Jaemin’s cheek. “All yours. Take as much as you need.”
Jaemin kissed him. Mark exhaled sweetly, then watched as Jaemin drew back. He looked down at Mark’s chest, palms smoothing over his hips, his waist, then around to his stomach. Over his belly button and tracing out each rib, appreciative and grateful. When Jaemin’s fingers reached Mark’s solar plexus, just beneath the three red lines, they dug in.
Mark gasped in pleasure as Jaemin’s hands pushed through his skin. It was where the darkest parts of himself were hidden away, to be seen only by Jaemin. Bone snapped and bent as his ribs were pried apart, and Jaemin drooled, a glob of saliva dripping down into Mark’s open cavity.
It was so cute —he was so eager. It was a brief moment of weakness in Jaemin’s eternal composure that made Mark giggle. Jaemin tore at chunks of fat and muscle as he peeled away the layer protecting Mark’s organs, taking grateful bites in each hand and moaning around each one.
It was strange; Mark’s insides were ugly, stained dark and repulsive, but Jaemin cherished them without remorse or hesitation.
Mark’s large intestine was first, tugged free as Jaemin’s jaw opened and he swallowed it whole. The small intestines were next —these were thinner and much longer, so Jaemin thought it best to eat directly from the source. His head bowed into Mark’s stomach like a bowl of noodles, slurping gratefully. Mark could feel the way each piece of him was chewed and swallowed, crying out in ecstasy.
Jaemin sat back and fucked into Mark once more, before wiping the blood off of his mouth with the back of his arm, smearing a line of it across his cheek. His whole head was soaking with it now, dripping from his bangs, but his teeth were still white, perfect and clean as he smiled at Mark.
The pancreas was next. Jaemin ripped it out with a fist, teeth shredding through the strange, fibrous organ as fluid burst out of it, dripping down his forearm. He licked up the trail, then swallowed the rest. Behind this were the kidneys, which he plucked like pulling carrots from the earth, and then the dangling remains of the gallbladder.
Then the stomach. It was flaccid and empty, dripping acidic fluid down Jaemin’s front like broth from a stew as he scrambled to catch each drop. Mark gasped as the hunger was torn from him, sliding down Jaemin’s throat instead. At the taste of that, Jaemin came. Mark sobbed as he felt Jaemin fill the emptying cavity of his chest, painting it white and clean.
Jaemin pulled away to lick it out. Mark was so hard, cock curving into the air, desperate to be touched. Jaemin smiled at the sight, kissing the head and leaving a smear of blood across it. Shuffling his position, Jaemin decided Mark’s hole was no longer enough, and pressed his fingers to his perineum instead.
Mark keened. Jaemin’s fingers tore through the skin there too, replacing his hands with his cock as he fucked into the new entrance now ripped between Mark’s thighs. Warm, wet, tight, dripping with blood. A space made perfectly for Jaemin, and Jaemin alone.
Mark’s chest heaved as he sobbed. Jaemin fucked into him —once, twice, three times— and then he was coming again, bending down to let his tongue reach inside of Mark, eating out his own cum and Mark’s blood, mingling them together until they were inseparable, teeth dragging out the few organs that they could reach.
Mark could feel Jaemin everywhere inside him, and could feel himself everywhere inside Jaemin. Jaemin’s body took what was Mark and made it into Jaemin, absorbing his blood, his proteins, his fats, his minerals, his life, and using the fuel as its own. Their cells were merging together, using one another. It was the sort of love and satiation Mark could only dream of —perhaps their souls would find each other for eternity, now; if one ate, then the other could feel full.
Jaemin nuzzled against Mark’s liver before sinking his teeth in, and began to suck, then swallow the bits that fell away. His teeth chewed around Mark’s ribs, crunching on bone in order to make more room to wrench his lungs free. They were so big —Mark wheezed as the air was physically torn from his chest, no longer able to breathe. Jaemin ate the chewy sinew of the diaphragm first, before beginning on the lungs, one mouthful at a time.
Mark could no longer make sound, he could only stroke the back of Jaemin’s hair as he ate from Mark’s chest, slurping up every drop of blood, bone, muscle, organ, even chewing on skin, until the entire cavity was just that, empty and willing, save for Mark’s still beating heart.
It was so strange to see it like this, pulsing red in a throbbing one-two rhythm. Jaemin had eaten most of the blood vessels surrounding it, but it still took a few more to detach it free, plucking it like fruit. Jaemin cradled it in cupped palms above Mark’s chest with a loving expression as it continued to beat for him.
It looked so delicate. It was.
“You need to eat too,” Jaemin whispered, and Mark would’ve laughed at how cute he was for only just remembering, if he could’ve made sound. He’d used so much strength tonight; Jaemin must’ve been very hungry, to have been so consumed by it like that. He was always thoughtful and considerate, after all. Even now. “You must be hungry.”
Jaemin held out Mark’s heart like an apple. Mark’s eyes flickered towards Jaemin, and maintained their gaze as his lips brushed across the muscle. The skin was firm, but the fibres beneath burst with flavour, the memory of everything Mark had ever experienced or felt. The taste was sweet with an edge of salt, moist and delectably sticky, full of juicy blood. Mark’s eyelashes fluttered with pleasure, unable to moan but still wanting to. The taste was indescribable, the most satiating meal in the world.
Mark wanted to swallow but the meat had nowhere to go. Jaemin, sensing his desperation, chuckled.
“Your eyes are bigger than your stomach,” he teased, and kissed Mark, tongue prying out what Mark couldn’t swallow to do it himself, then taking a bite from the heart too. Mark’s heart in Jaemin’s palms quivered excitedly, and Mark could feel it, the warmth from Jaemin’s hands seeping inwards, through Mark’s most untouched, sacred place.
The mention of Mark’s eyes must have reminded Jaemin of their existence —his fingers breached through Mark’s eyelids to snap one from its socket. He didn’t chew, so Mark got glimpses into the inside of Jaemin, that empty, ravenous, hollow darkness as his eyeball was swallowed. It was the place Mark had wanted all this time, more than anything, to see. It was so trusting to let every piece of him inside there, so intimate —Mark’s lips parted to gasp without air.
“Eat more,” Jaemin coaxed, pressing the heart once more against Mark’s lips. “Eat until you’re full.”
It was getting harder to maintain consciousness. Mark felt blood trickle out of his eye socket down one half of his face as the cycle continued —he took a mouthful of his heart, only for Jaemin to kiss Mark and swallow it for him. His vision was spotting. As more of his heart was devoured, the beats of it started to slow, further and further apart, until there was nothing left. Jaemin’s hands were wet with blood, but blessedly empty. Mark no longer had the strength to stay awake, eyelids drooping as Jaemin cradled his face in both palms and licked the blood off of his skin.
Faintly, Mark thought of Jesus, breaking his body into bread and his blood as wine, giving himself to his disciples, because he loved them. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.
Mark wondered if death would be kind for him, if his friends, his family, and God were all waiting for him on the other side. It seemed laughable, after everything, but for the first time ever Mark felt warm and satiated, cradled against Jaemin’s breast. Mark couldn’t picture death as anything but this feeling of utter bliss.
As the last of his vision began to fade, instead of darkness there was only light, constant and eternal, purifying Mark from the inside out in a shower of warmth.
“Rest well, my love,” Jaemin told him, and so Mark did.
☾
Mark awoke to the sound of his own breathing, in and out, a familiar routine to his body, even if he no longer needed the air.
His eyes opened. Mark saw the familiar arched ceiling and sat up, looking around, but the rest of the world had changed. Light shifted iridescently through the air, and sweet music wafted through the broken window —whispers, hums and prayers interlaced throughout birdsong. Sun fragmented through the collapsed ceiling and shards of stained glass like the dappled light of a forest canopy, sparkling across the bloodied, ash-covered floor.
A wet nose was nuzzling into Mark’s palm, licking his fingers. Mark blinked and looked down, greeted by excited puppy dog eyes. Jeno’s wolfish ears flicked, and his tail began to wag.
You’re awake, he said. Come. He’s waiting for you.
Mark nodded, sitting up and looking at his palms. The air shifted around them like crystalline, sunlit water, rippling through the atmosphere. His muscles were strong, now, the fibres thick and solid where they wrapped around his limbs. The skin was clean and smooth.
Mark brought his hands to his torso and slid them down his bare front. His chest was in one piece, although it was hollow. He knocked against his skin and listened to the resonance inside himself, like the chime of a bell. Gone were the discordant feelings of mortality he was so used to, the ache of muscle and shift of tendon and bone, the churning of organs, pain of thinking, or the needle-point pressure under his feet. Everything was so easy and startlingly clear, like a blockage had been removed within him, and now the water flowed freely between channels. He couldn’t believe he’d ever lived any other way.
The limp, foetal bodies of the failures twitched dead on the ground, reeking of rot and pus. Mark wrinkled his nose as he followed Jeno out, basking in the sunlight. It was so warm and gentle, the breeze carrying the scent of summer and blood. Mark could feel something in the air like violin strings, resonating as he slid his fingers across their invisible presence, feeling bodies twitch and shudder on either end. They were so delicate and delectable, wanting to be broken into, freed, and eaten.
Mark and Jeno walked for miles, but their bodies were faster now. Mark didn’t so much as heave for breath or stop to rub a single ache. Every inch of him was bursting with an energy and vitality that he’d never felt before, free to admire the golden flames that spread their way throughout Hunter’s Creek, devouring it whole and turning it into something new.
Jeno led him home. The barn was torn open, and Abbadon was laying still in the dirt while flies swarmed his rotting corpse, his guts picked clean from his chest and eaten. In the distance, the main house and the woodshed beside it were piles of cinders and ash, cars overturned and melted in the driveway. Mark smiled at the sight and opened the front door with familiar ease.
The inside was a welcoming cool against the summer’s heat, though temperature bothered Mark little, now. The fan blew softly as Donghyuck sprawled hoofed legs out across the hardwood floor, Renjun curled in the window sill above him. An excited Chenle fluttered over from the window, donned in white feathers, to land between Jeno’s ears. Jisung chirped indignantly at him from the kitchen where he clung to Jaemin’s shoulder with the claws at the tips of his wings.
“You’re back.”
Jaemin turned from the stove where he’d been cooking something fatty that sizzled and seared. He beamed, delighted, as Jisung flapped away to tussle with Chenle through the air while Jeno barked and chased after them.
Even now, impossibly so, Jaemin was more beautiful than before. His skin was coruscant, a diamond that sparkled as he turned in the light. His hair was white one moment, and then shimmered like a scintillating prism to become a myriad of colours. His eyes were inky pools of light reflecting off of black oil that shifted and swirled, like the shimmering surface of a bubble. The music of his skin as it transposed the air was a symphony. He was divine radiance incarnate.
Mark accepted the arms around his waist and melted into the hug, then the sweet, loving kiss that followed. There was no shame or guilt anymore, only pleasure —Mark indulged in it all by licking over Jaemin’s teeth, so grateful for his forgiveness, his love, so eager to make it up to him, now.
Jaemin laughed and stepped back, playfully swatting him away.
“I was almost worried you weren’t going to wake up. Three days is longer than I expected.”
Mark’s eyebrows drew together. He pouted.
“Oh, Jeno was watching over you plenty. These things take time —I wanted to make sure you had a home to come back to. What’s better than that and a meal, hm?”
Mark inhaled the sweet scent of charred flesh and felt his mouth water, uncaring of the source. He nodded, excited.
“Cutie.” Jaemin stroked his hair and Mark’s eyelids drooped at the touch, leaning into it. Jaemin’s expression turned soft. “I’m glad you’re with me.” He sighed, relaxed. “I always knew you were perfect… Right from the start, you were made for me. I could feel it in you.”
Mark looked up at him from beneath his eyelashes as he nuzzled into Jaemin’s palm gratefully.
“It’s different, isn’t it? Better?” Mark nodded. “How do you feel?”
He placed a kiss to the inside of Jaemin’s wrist and looked around. Mark could smell the blood oozing from the meat, and smiled at the sight of the kids play-wrestling around the room. Around him, the air shimmered with the souls and scents of his prey. He licked his lips.
“Hungry,” Mark said.