Immortal Desire || SanHwa / Seonghwa x San

13. Dungeons and Dungeons

His well adjusted eyes stared at the wet, moss covered walls of the cell he laid in. His cheek pressed firm against the ground where his lips dipped in the shallow puddle of water that dripped from the roof.

The mould steadily staining his clothes from the damp stones beneath his body were giving rise to a sickening bile in his throat.

It would be the death of him soon, but he couldn't remove the clothes. Without the minuscule amount of warmth those thin layers of fabrics provided, he would die from the cold next he fell asleep.

His body hadn't moved in years, forever hunched on the floor, his fingers dipping in the wet spots of the floor, his back aching with every breath, ribs ready to crack should he dare breath in too deeply.

He had the thinnest white cotton shirt that had holes in every available space, and equally as thin pair of pants that stopped short at his ankles.

The chains around those ankles dug into the sides that were pressed against the floor. They were bloodied with open wounds that never closed, and swollen still from breaking his ankles trying to escape. Both of them.

It had been years since he'd tried to escape, way back when he first was shoved in this place. Back when he still had a fire in his heart and a reason to live.

All that was dwindling. His feet never healed all those years, blisters and blood covering the soles of his feet, with years worth of festering.

He didn't understand how his was still alive, how infection hadn't killed him off, how the cold never froze his heart, yet was always on the brink of doing so.

At first he never questioned it. How despite his recklessness he remained alive.

It was only after weeks of entrapment, that he realised he hadn't eaten, and he wasn't hungry.

He neither felt thirst. Now matter how much mould he inhaled or how many infected rats bit at his ankles and fingers, he never got sick.

He believed it to be a curse. He couldn't die if he wanted, and he had tried.

The chain marks on his neck reminisced of his attempt at choking himself with the chains, only to learn he didn't even need to breathe anymore.

He hadn't seen anyone in years. Heard anyone. The only thing in this dark damp place he had seen was the firefly.

The little yellow bug graced his presence every now and then. It was his only way of knowing it had passed into night.

It flew in from some crack in the roof, or perhaps a broken pipe. He didn't know, only that on rare nights he'd open his bloodstained eyes to see a small flashing yellow light.

It always hovered around him, flying along his fingers and arm, around his head, along his back, as if examining him time and time again. Then it would fly to a wall hanging and simply sit there, flashing its little light until morning where it flew off the way it came.

Tonight however, that firefly did something different. He watched it hover outside his cell for a few minutes, but instead of moving to inspect his broken body, the little bug flew along the corridor towards where the entrance supposedly was.

He had to lift his head up and stiffly turn his head to keep seeing the little flashing light, which had now stopped and was hovering in circles around the stairs to the door.

If it was a sign, he couldn't acknowledge it. His body hurt, his head barely stayed up, he couldn't move to even sit upright if he tried. If not from the pain, it would be the stiffness of calcified joints and bones that settled into place. His fingers were the only part of him still working like they should.

He really couldn't feel any part of his body anymore. Couldn't decipher his shoulders from his hips. The only thing he felt anymore was pain, and an icy cold that had long since settled in his bones.

He could only rest his head back down on the hard stone. When the firefly slowly few over to him, hovering over his eyes, he started to feel drowsy again. He let his eyelids heavily droop, still seeing the ghost of the firefly behind his eyelids as sleep took him again.

He could only hope for forever.

__________________________________

"Jongho I-" Mingi froze the second he opened the door to his bedroom. The sight of them both half naked cuddled in the blankets had his brain short circuit.

Jongho scowled at him as he hugged the smaller boy closer.

"Uhhh...well I can...like come back-...or but, I mean..."

"What is it Mingi?" Jongho sighed. Mingi watched bashfully as San nuzzled into the man's neck.

"I umm, we need your help to like.... go in a secret dungeon...in the palace, you know.. to find... something." Jongho visibly furrowed his brows at him.

Mingi took to looking at anything but them. He fidgeted with his hands while his eyes flickered along every wall in the room as if seeing it for the first time.

Mingi never knew how startling it would be to see Jongho so...intimate with another. He deemed his brother hopeless and single forever and yet... there he was, lips slightly puffy from kisses and cheeks dusted in pink.

Jongho will undoubtedly threaten Mingi to wipe this image from his mind.

"You mean the sealed dungeons?" Mingi jerked from his head at the knowledge.

"Sealed dungeons? You mean you know them?"

"Of course I know them. I served the King's my entire life remember?" Jongho reminded him almost irritably. "There's an entrance that got sealed by King Jimin a few months after he got corronated, it's behind the throne. The actual dungeons are underneath the throne room." Jongho said that so nonchalantly that Mingi was at a loss for words.

"What are you looking for down there? There's nothing there, we checked."

"I uhh. I don't know. Seonghwa has been looking for something and he won't tell me what. Yeosang apparently got some blueprints that don't match up and show the dungeons, and he believes whatever they're looking for is down there."

Jongho narrowed his eyes.

"And you don't know what it is?" Mingi shook his head while biting his lip.

"And you want me to just... take you there and rip open the wall just so you can look in an emtpy dungeon for something you don't even know?"

"Well...Seonghwa will be with us. He knows what he's looking for....I think."

"You think?" Mingi finally looked Jongho in the eyes. Even from across the room he looked menacing. A thousand memories of how crazy that man could get flashed in his eyes.

"Look. It's ridiculous. Im just as mad at Seonghwa for all the shit he's putting us through with no answers. I'm hoping that whatever this is that had Seonghwa missing all this time will answer everything. Like how San is your soul and not Seonghwa's. Maybe it's an answer to our immortality, maybe it's not, maybe it's a useless dead end but whatever it is, we need your help. Please."

Jongho stared a Mingi for a moment, before looking down at the boy in his arms. He bit his lip.

"What about San. I can't leave him now." It came out as almost a whisper, but Mingi heard him clearly.

"I...don't think he can come with us. But Yunho will take care of him. They're close with each other. And we only need to get through the door, then you can come back to him."

Jongho didn't look away from San. He ran his fingers through the mess of blonde hair, eliciting a soft humm from him.

"Fine. Just...give me a few minutes please." Jongho sighed, and Mingi happily left and closed the door gently.

Seonghwa stood in the loungeroom with Yunho staring at him coldly.

"So?" The raven haired man asked.

"He's in."