#tw homidice

[bearseungmin]

cadaver.

Taken too soon, your past lover is gifted a twisted revival. Minho, now instilled with a sudden agenda, plans to take down those who killed him and bring a safe Halloween back to the town, but he needs your assistance to do it.

DETAILS — [ 18+ | fic | 8.7k ] PAIRING — vengeance spirit! minho x gender-neutral! reader GENRES — the crow! au, angst, supernatural, romance, crime WARNINGS — mature content, heavy talks of death, reincarnation & afterlife, death by fire, arson, birds (crows), blood & injuries, corrupt authorities, alcohol consumption, homicide/murder SMUT WARNINGS — sexual content, protected intercourse, love making, pet names (doll) A/N — it has supposedly become a tradition for me to write a halloween fic based around one of my favorite films, so here is this years instillation! this movie is very near to my heart, as it is for many others, so i hope i did it justice! enjoy <3 this fic is based off the film ‘The Crow’ (1994)!

taglist: @sleepylixie @dom--minnie @aliceu @lixesque @jaerisdiction @fairygirl18​ @doie-sun 

listen while you read; cadaver playlist . the crow soundtrack

prologue.

A legend reads that souls can be carried and returned by crows. Beady eyes keeping the energy safe and sound, small body able to flee from any sense of danger. Their wings glide through the wind and their feet perch on the headstone of the deceased until they rise from the ground. That was the story told time and time again to the kids who needed comfort and wanted a small piece of horror with their bedtime story.

Things were almost normal in the sleepy town. It wasn't uncommon for those who normally caused trouble to bring more chaos to the table, but one night seemed to set them all ablaze at the same time.

Halloween, the night the dead are said to walk beside the living. From birth until death was life, death and beyond were made out to be nothing but rest.

It was never so simple. Fires would erupt all through the place you called home, and all you could do was hope you weren't the next target.

Clinging to him that night��merely hours before, that was the worst of it. It was almost evanescent in the way he cradled you right back against him; pretending fate wasn't on its way. Like animalistic instincts sensing danger from miles away and handling whatever was before them until it was time to make a move or accept their fate.

He was ravaged, stolen and dismantled. Minho never hurt a fly, the man only wanted to make music and love to you, and yet he was the one who lost his life.

Fate: the funny word now has a numb feeling on your tongue. It wasn't the firemen putting out your once shared apartment, not the police questioning you as you rushed alongside the cart carrying his body, and most definitely not the paramedics working to resuscitate him.

It was the crow sitting upon a chain-linked fence a few feet away staring him down with its black eyes and shivering feathers that caught your attention. The way its head tilted, it looked upon you, listened to the sound of the heartbeat monitor’s never-ending flatlining, gave Minho another glance, and then followed right behind the ambulance as it rushed him down the road.

That very moment in time brought a rush to your head and a harder thump to your heart. Your body was constricting and releasing all at once. All from a bird taking the soul of the man you love.

one.

Wheels turning into the parking spaces of the diner never seemed to stop, your shift running smoother than usual for such a specific night. Three nights before Halloween, the point in time where people in your town replace the batteries in the smoke detectors and draw up an escape route. All in case they became like the man who went with the flames almost a year before.

Minho was one of few to die within the pranks. The assailants knew of the apartment building, knew which room they were beneath by a few floors, and yet they still poured their leftover liquor and lit the match.

Almost a vivid daydream of the night would replay, but each time his face got less and less visible. Heart too pained to see him, mind trying to block his existence to protect the longing feelings of needing him; you stopped questioning why he was fading many months ago. He had left himself before they even removed him from the building, the last you saw was his corpse.

But that night—he had been so quiet, allowing you to sleep as he strummed his guitar gently. The scuffling below went unheard by the loud drops of rain against the windowsill, night air flowing into the room ever so slowly. Oxygen, it only made the flames burn higher.

Clicks and tacks, laughter and screams, heat rising faster than he could wake you, and the scorching feeling of fire brushing your limbs as he pressed you out the door. He went back for the cat. The damn cat.

But that was Minho, thinking of others before himself. It didn't matter that so many bad things were happening around him so quickly. Even you knew what was playing on repeat in his head.

"Just get downstairs! Don't come back up for me, just go down." It was his voice calling over the smoke, eyes peering around the room for the fluffy cat that hid every time it rained or stormed. His charming voice so rampant through the halls, the same words replayed in your head even now like a record with a scratch on it.

When you hear the last words of someone you love, it is bone chilling. But watching their eyes go still and their soul leave their body. It's gratifyingly traumatic in every way possible. You regretted being so attentive.

The long counter filled with a new customer every few minutes; their voices were so loud. So much noise in such a small space, it was the rushing sound of another set of wheels pulling to a stop that halted all conversation.

"I know, bad cop." The lead detective of Minho's case always had a craving for a burger at this time of night, but you always passed him over a salad. "The days close in by every hour. I can't imagine you're very thrilled for what's to come."

His tone always came across as harsh, but the man truly meant well with what he asked. He had witnessed it all that night from the time you got down the last flight of steps and crashed into his arms from smoke insolation.

"There hasn't been a peaceful Halloween since I came to this town. Starting to think I'm the bad luck charm, here." You passed him the bowl and wrapped silverware, ignoring his upward glance of annoyance from the salad sat before him.

"Bad luck was here long before you were born. If anything, you helped livin’ up the place. Minho, too."

His name was enough to make everyone turn their heads. So cherished in such a mundane place to be, he had everyone's hearts from the beginning to the end. His music would shake the floors of where he performed, and his voice could calm anyone within a close enough radius to hear the song. He was loved.

"Yeah." You laughed gently with a smile, eyes staring at the marble countertop. "The year went by so fast."

"You know, he's still with us." A woman at a far booth claimed, everyone nodding. "His album plays at the bar every night. Pictures are posted along the walls in memory. This entire town is a living tribute to that man, darling. Don't you forget it."

You grew to find yourself lucky. Despite those so evil within the cracks of the town, everyone else's hospitality hugged you until you were back on your feet again. A warm blanket on a cold night, a place to stay, a hot meal; no one let you suffer alone. All because they were suffering right there with you.

"If these damn hooligans didn't go apeshit every year, maybe we'd have that peaceful holiday we all need this time. It's cold and raining every day like the world doesn't want them around, but they still get away with it." The detective was always hitting the nail on the head. Someone not afraid to mention when shit hit the fan, you assumed it was because he lived with this every day.

And cold rain—it was, the night peeling into the sleeves of your coat and chilling you to your core. No one dared to bother you any more, the walk home seemed more lonesome than living in an apartment by yourself. Long, cement paths carved with dents and chiseled with cracks guiding you home.

Moon almost full over your head, the distracting caw of the bird caused you to stop in place. Not once since the year before had you seen or even heard the sound of a crow. But one stood before you, hopping small jumps as to get your attention by clinging its feet to a metal fence.

The cemetery, all too dark and creepy to go into alone. Beak long and eyes big, the bird didn't seem to want you to keep moving in the direction you were headed as you took a step forward and it landed just before you. Head tilted, eyes watching, feathers twitching; you knew.

"You seem to be more mysterious than the beyond." You admitted to the creature, its head turning in tandem with your question like it was contemplating its response.

A single flip of its beak to point into the direction of the cemetery had every hair on your body standing and chills to pair with them. Shivering, shaking, but letting the bird lead; it lifted and went gliding its way towards a familiar path of the heavy space. Plate after plate, corner after corner, you finally found just what it wanted you to see. His name carved precisely, headstone in better shape than most, and the slight shift of the dirt making the scenery that much more creepy.

It rose, mud from the rain turning into dry dirt until an index finger poked out from beneath, soon turning into a full hand. The crow called a dark song, watched as the soul was replenished to him, and swayed side to side witnessing him crawl from the grave back into the world again.

Minho, in the flesh, lifted himself from the ground and stood not even two feet from you. Hair longer, circles beneath his eyes darker, limbs lankier, and chest heaving to catch his breath; he didn't even give you so much as a glance before he spoke.

"Mind giving me a hand, doll?"

two.

The force of the scene before you was enough to have your knees buckling. Dirt smeared onto his skin and stained into his clothes, your eyes blinked rapidly before they shut. “Just a dream. Just a dream.” You claimed, feet dragging you backwards onto the pavement. Heels spinning and nearly slipping from the rain coursing across the cement path, you made a rush back for the metal gate you entered before you knew the future.

The bird’s squawking call behind you made you leap through the gateway, make a dash for your apartment, and book it straight home. Invincibility, you knew Minho was more special than most; but never like this. He had an alluring appeal, a smile that could light up a room, and a heart of gold. But the man was never suspicious of being ethereal, capable of rising from the dead. How was that possible?

A brain is a powerful weapon, the organ so convincing that you nearly forgot you had seen him return. When you finally slipped into your apartment and peeled away the wet, dirty clothes things became clearer. The image of his detailed hand pressing through the dirt of the cemetery plot, his soft scented cologne hitting your nostrils, and his deep voice like silk to your ears. “Doll”, it was so clear. A nickname he referred to only you as, the word alone brought tears to brim your ducts.

He had claimed the nickname for you on the same night you met, his soft lips whispering it into your ear only to watch the bumps rise on your skin and throat sip down the alcohol of the drink he bought for you after his show. Minho was never one to flirt so carelessly, your “admirable aura” bringing him to ask if he could get to know you. So easy going, the man with deep eyes and a warm smile.

A hot shower and the soft, cold sheets pulling across your form was enough to break you. The many nights spent alone wondering if he was out there came in like a tidal wave. The wonders of if he was watching over you, waiting for you, still admiring you from afar. Where had he gone? Why was he gone? And if you would actually get to see him again some day. Your heart was with him, and his blemished return made you shake in fear.

A croak of a bird startled you upwards, the very same crow resting on the beam across the studio apartment. Condescending, like a hallucination, your knees pressed into the mattress as you sat up and stared up at the fowl.

“You’re a symbol of death in most beliefs. Transformation and change in others.” Your eyes blinked ever so slowly, tears dripping down your cheeks. “There’s only one of you. Is this my bad omen?”

“Does that mean if there are two, it is a good omen?” His voice was like honey, your eyes shifting from the bird to the man perched in the open windowsill with that same, cheeky smile on his face.

“You should know, you told me that.” Your smile was so faint. Only for a split second, but he saw it. “Why are you here?” Voice just above a whisper, you saw the flash in his eyes of his own tears fading away with quick blinks.

“Do I need a reason to come see you?”

“How many times have you seen me since you died?” The question had lingered in your mind for too long, his soft laugh breaking the quietness of the room.

A subtle sound came from the bird, its wings flapping up and down until it lifted from the beam and made its way towards Minho. “This is my first full vision, but I've heard your voice many times now.”

“Where did you even go?”

“I don’t quite know, either.” He admitted, eyes dropping to the floor as the small patter of the remaining raindrops slipped off his leather coat onto the hardwood flooring. “All I know is—”

You knew that look in his eyes. Agonizing, like you were the first light of the sun after years of clouds. “I’ve missed you.”

“This is too much.” Your form lifting from the bed so sporadically made him finally spin on the soles of his feet and allow himself to sit on the windowsill instead of crouch on it. His muscular legs showed even through his tight, ripped skinny jeans, stretching until he maneuvered away from the window all together and stood at the foot of your bed. “T-Too much.”

Anyone would go insane from this. In fact, most do. But to have a lover come crawling back from the dead just to get to you; it was, in fact, getting to you.

Pupils dilated, fingers running through your hair as you gripped at your own skull—you even pressed your back into the wall just to give distance between you and the man.

“What are you?” Your words were gritted through your teeth.

He was your center of all peace. Minho had arranged your life like a bouquet of flowers, giving you only your favorites and leaving out the rest. No matter what comes towards both of you, big or small, good or bad, you always manage to work things out equally. But here and now, he was something incomprehensible.

“I am here for a reason.”

“I asked who, not why.”

Temper small but words large, he only sighed. “Doll, I need to give you something.”

Hearing the name come from his mouth, one not imaged by your pitying brain, it was a trigger. Your voice was coated with coughs and hiccups, body folding into itself as your knees hit the hard floor. It was a matter of time before you understood he was truly back, but the feeling of his cold hand pressing into the back of your neck made your body rush with adrenaline.

His fingers toyed with the hair at the nape of your neck just as he always did. It was a relaxing habit he gained, an easy way to help you become at ease. But this time it was all but reposing.

The small object fell from his opposite hand, the fingertips releasing it on purpose. It fell just beside your folded leg, in just enough of your sight to be noticed yet ignored. Your hand reached for him involuntarily, like the pugnacity boiling in your veins was only a repressed emotion and not what you were feeling. He was there, someone you could really reach for this time.

But as your palm fell against the middle of his chest, realization hit you from the hollowness. No beating heart you loved to press your ear against him to hear, nothing entirely. Your eyes rose to meet his, the calm darkness in his irises subsiding into something much stranger. Sparkles of the living peering through the dead's eyes, he was there and not all in the same.

“I’ll see you again.”

A blink was all it took for the frame of the man you loved, lost, and had returned to you to vanish again. He wasn’t just a mirage or a memory, he was something far greater than anything imagined. Minho, the one you knew would change the world, was single handedly corrupting your own.

“I need to give you something.” His lips had parted like butter to spill the first drop of his natural healing magic to your sickened mind. The short memory of the object falling beside you returned, your eyes finding it before your hand. Your entire limb retracted, a hearty breath leaving your lungs from shock.

Something you never thought to see again, the black guitar pick he always kept in his pocket to use to play when he could or was asked to. No matter how often he lost it, it always found its way back to him. The small pattern on the plectrum, printed white to be seen, made your heart leap into your throat. Even when you couldn’t see fate, it had a funny way of foreshadowing what it holds.

“A crow.” You claimed, the man sitting across from the booth of the same diner you left just hours prior lifting his eyebrow. “He’s real!”

“Let me get this straight.” The detective always had to retrace his steps, even if it meant repeating what someone said. “A crow led you to Minho’s grave. Then he was resurrected from his grave. You ran home. Him and the crow showed up there. And he left you something?”

“Exactly.” The tears were still freshly stained on your face. From the other customers in the diner’s perspective, you were still the grieving partner of a lost but loved one. “He’s back.”

The man put his index and thumb on his temple faster than you had ever seen, applying pressure slowly to release the tension as a harder sigh left him. He had heard all the stories before, once he even recalled them all to you. But this one was ‘outlandish’, as he shortly claimed.

“Where has he even been if he rose from the ground?”

“He said he didn’t know when I asked. Just that he missed me.”

“Sounds like Minho.” His voice still sounded unconvinced.

“I have proof.” Your statement was brave, eyes blinking away the tears threatening to fall when the mental image of the item came back into view.

The icon on the small pick had faded from years and years of use, always pressed between Minho’s fingertips as he strummed away at any guitar handed to him. It was the true amulet that represented him, so much so that it had been placed into his pocket that very night of the fire for safe keeping.

So much so. “How did you get that?”

The detective’s eyes lit up like a lantern in the sky, cheeks reddening on his face as the number of his blood pressure spiked. Of all the things left behind, it was never one of them.

“He left it for me last night.”

“H-How?” The man was breathless. “It was buried with him. I watched it be placed in his right pocket by the coroner hours before he was laid to rest.”

“I told you, he’s back.”

It was a light at the end of a dark tunnel, but even the road below has bumps.

“I don’t think you understand the severity of this situation.” His voice only got darker and deeper, the mind of a detective piecing together all of the clues much faster than you could. “Minho isn’t back just to return.”

“I know. He mentioned he’s back for a reason.”

“Sweetheart—” The man’s eyes were sympathetic, worried about what his next words would truly do to you. But before he could get them out, even let them sink into his own mind, his eyes diverged to the small tv over your head.

“He’s back for vengeance.”

“Breaking: Homicide committed, man found dead. With a link to last year's arson cases, could this be the karma the city has been praying for? Or is someone out for revenge?”

three.

The name of the man made your skin crawl, his death justifiable but still within the creep factor the world seemed to be building higher at this time of year. Like karma giving a greenlight while laughing, Minho’s name was displayed on the same news channel. He was forever linked to the fire and his gruesome death just as much as the men who set it.

Your head had swiveled around too soon, the detective’s face in your peripheral suddenly distressed. If Minho’s name wasn’t hard enough to see plastered on the screen, being played by every local news channel in the city—witnessing the crime scene photos taken of the arsonist's death was worse. Blurred images showed that he had been murdered in an alleyway, stabbed and butchered by his own knives. Karma was definitely laughing at the madness, but your gut knew the true matter at hand.

It had already begun.

“Minho.” His name was so deep under your breath that it came out as a gasp, an easy to see expression on your face distracting enough to make anyone believe you were only shocked by the death itself. The one who did it, the man you love, was red-handed without so much as a pin on his name and location. He was dead to everyone, although he roamed once more.

“What do you know?” The detective sipped on his second cup of coffee of the morning, sitting back into the booth now appearing as calm as ever. “I guess fate came knocking.”

It was a leap in your gut, what he said was too specific. Came knocking, just as Minho did hours prior to the arsonist’s death. Even if you asked or tried to read him enough, there was no way he could have been in two places at once to give a signal of his resurrection.

“About time someone did something.”

“Bet it was a corrupt cop who did the deed.”

“Or better yet, someone in line with their head on straight.”

The customer's words made your ears ring. It was true, the man had caused so much pain to the city. But a death like that was too horrid to be ignored. Minho knew what he was doing, setting a silent blaze that only attacked the attacker. Where does he lie within all this?

“I don’t like this.” Your words were still quiet, but enough to make the entire diner grow harsh. The looks of others made you want to race outside, their expressions questioning why you were so doubtful of the amendment being made. You were truly in the middle of this now, but no one had a clue. “When has death ever solved anything?”

“It's out of our hands.” The coffee in the mug had grown cold, but still sat between his large palms. “The news just read that they didn’t apprehend a suspect.”

“Which means another one of the men could die tonight.”

“So be it.”

Corruption began with those who ran rampant in the streets setting fires meant to only startle others. When they lead to deaths, corruption was what became of the police who wrote the scenes off as “kids being kids”. Those same police were the ones who allowed the trafficking of drugs, started fights, and single-handedly brought the whole city down with them. It started from the bottom and rose so fast to the top that authority was no longer the answer to the question of “what do we do?” anymore. The city rang with bells asking for procedural justice, and only one man answered.

“Whoever the killer is, I hope they know how many lives they’re saving.”

Eye for an eye. If only they remembered it was Minho who was taken, too.

Your hands shook too much during the shift to manage anything, everyone convinced the new death had you spooked. Eyes diverted, coughs covered your name, hands pointed in your direction; it didn’t end until the card was clicked and you were off the clock.

It’s imaginable that those getting served their own karma would make the air more breathable around you, but the darkness of the night only crept towards your senses like an awaited jump scare. The sidewalk wasn’t as welcoming. People lining the streets, they were already becoming less afraid to walk the night-life again. You were still an outcast in an attempt to not rebreak your heart, sight set on the ground until a small patch of sodding came into view.

Fake grass laid upon the ground to cover what was beneath, you found yourself outside the gate of the same cemetery you avoided at all costs. Every bit of your being wanted to pretend he was still inside, that Minho was at rest. But the caw of the familiar crow breaking through the harsh winds redacted all the less-worrisome thoughts filling your mind for comfort.

It had to be known that he was watching, the hair on your body never laid back down from the night before when his eyes caught full sight of you for the first time in what felt like a lifetime.

“I should really put a cat collar on you. One with a little bell so I can hear you coming.”

“Wouldn’t that ruin the surprise?”

He stood tall, the exact same clothing he had been buried in—the same outfit he always wore on a really good night—tight on his frame. Minho pushed off from the leaning position on the gate from within the cemetery, long legs carrying him until he was a few feet in front of you. The subjective place was becoming more or less unnerved by his emergence, but as it stood around him, it appeared restless.

“Did you find it by your leg?” A flash of the night before made your breathing hitch, sight of the black pick with a symbol printed on it regaining your focus. He only blinked at you, awaiting your answer.

“Why did you leave it to me?”

“He wouldn’t have believed me any other way.”

The detective was headstrong, only accepting factual evidence. Your second-handed appeal seemed to shake him only for a moment, but you distinctively remembered his slip up of a sentence. Fate came knocking, it had a double meaning now.

“You did go and see him.” Your eyes were shocked, but your voice was allayed.

“For a brief moment.”

“Minho, this is too risky.” Riddled with a smirk on his lips, he peered past you from the use of the word risk. He seemed clean before you, empty handed—but part of you could still see the faint stains of blood in the lines of his hands if you stare long enough.

“Risk is what we need.” His words were tainted, yet you could still see the Minho you knew staring back at you. “Doll, if I had taken a risk before, I’d still be by your side.”

“But you are at my side. Now.”

“Not forever like I was meant to be.”

The pain in your chest was more agonizing than the frown growing on his face. It took so much for the man to lose his smile, and you hated seeing it fall more than anything else in the world.

“I can’t do anything you ask me to. I’ve already lost so much.” You were breaking, voice echoing in your own head much louder than it was coming from your mouth. “I already lost you once. Don’t make me lose you again.”

“That was what I was afraid of.” His shoulders grew wider as his head fell, eyes on the squared path beneath his heavy boots. “I guess—” He halted like he hated saying what was next, but to him—there was only one solution to the entire situation. “—you’ll just have to come with me the next time I go.”

four.

Blurred vision brought the grotesque scene of Minho placing his fist through a wooden door, bloodied hand twisting the doorknob and allowing him inside the small motel room over the local bar. The man in the corner shook with every fiber of his being, the nail gun in his hand appearing as a decent weapon.

Only until the nails shot from the gun into the skull and chest of Minho did your oxygen leave you, the blood rushing from the injuries enough to have your sleeping form hyperventilating. But Minho didn’t falter, moving in on the second arsonist without so much as a wince.

The dream was so realistic, Minho’s lengthy hair falling down from the sweated-out gel until it swung before his eyes. Animalistic, pupil’s dilated and irises darker than the sky around a dying star—you never wished to see this. Red blood poured down his face as he leaned in closer, face to face with the arsonist—but you were looking through his eyes. In the place of the man nearing his rightful death, Minho almost hypnotically removed the gun from his hand. It was aimed in direct proportion to the space between his, your, eyes until the forceful but imaginary pain rushed you from the pillow and mattress below.

Your breathing stuttered, hands feeling at your face to find no marks or blood spilling like it would have had it actually been you. White cat at your feet, it sensed your discomfort and fizzled its fluffy hair before curling back up into its sleep. Your gentle words towards it as an apology only made it let out a breath, the same leaving you at the sight of your own bedroom.

The dream was too real, too detailed, and awfully astute to have just been a dream.

It was the front page of the paper, displayed all over the city as you made your way to open the diner. Death by nail gun, the homicidal killer had struck again. As it had been up until now, everyone's perception was twisted and convinced it was all karma. Killed by his own nail gun, above the same bar he tortured, within the same room he lived in, and right beside the bed he slept in every other night. Like a perplexing poem, the town was enjoying every second of justice.

Then night came back. The screen had been pulled long ago, the open section of the diner now closed as the last hour of your shift came around. One in the morning was the calmest time in the city, all things scary or bad busy and the soft and good sound asleep in their homes. There were usually only one or two customers, the building quiet except for the faint sound of the juke-box playing along the far wall.

The book in your hands flashed, vision impaired from the brightest light above going in and out in blips. Your sight rose from the words on the page, but instead of looking directly up—you found the derelict man vertically right before your face. Legs bent and tight around the swinging lamp above, Minho swayed back and forth as his body hung opposite of you from the ceiling.

“Paying attention?” He asked, a handsome grin on his face with blindingly white teeth shining through his lips.

“I am now.”

An obvious patch of hair was missing from his thick mane, a small section only large enough to directly correspond to the mark of a nail. Your eyes followed it as his strong arms lifted him back up to the lamp, legs pulling from the metal and hanging as he continued to dangle himself from the light fixture that threatened to break from the wires any second.

“Good.” He smiled a smirk, swinging hard and dropping his feet to the floor on the other side of the counter, body falling into the same seat he always sat in.

It welcomed him more than anything else had yet. The chair still swiveled each time he moved, his feet upon the metal bar on the lower part of the counter’s wall barely cradling his long legs. Smile wide, eyes bright, Minho looked like himself for just a moment. Like he had never left.

“Lift up your shirt.” You couldn’t hide the curiosity in your voice, the man’s smirk only returning in a sensual way.

“Isn’t it against work rules to flirt with a customer, doll?”

“I need to check for something.” The words were demandive, Minho’s head shaking as he lifted the thin fabric of his black tank-top beneath his leather jacket.

“Need to see the nail mark to believe it?”

“What?” Your eyes shot from his skin to his eyes, the bright irises making you shiver.

He knew. He knew it all from the beginning.

“You saw what happened in your dream. When I got back home, you were shaking in your sleep like you were having a nightmare.” It was a matter of hours before you could fall back asleep, a hard struggle to even close your eyes again after the dream you had. It wasn’t a dream, but an insight to reality taking place a few blocks away.

He always called wherever you were home.

Just likie his skull where the nail had obviously penetrated deep enough to leave a mark and release blood, you had seen the second nail press into his skin in real time. Yet right before you, the man holding his top up to his chin to let you see the smooth skin of his tight chest, there was nothing there. No scars, marks, or blood—he was completely devoid of any remaining marks from the altercations at all.

It was a dream, then it wasn’t. The possibility of the universe was broadening in your mind, Minho’s soft voice calling you back to the world before you.

“I need you to do something for me now.”

His voice brought you back to that night before, his soft-spoken words telling you the only solution he had come up with that solves every issue and whatever follows accordingly. To leave with him, die with him once his vengeance is over. What are you meant to say to that?

“What is it?” You wanted to take back your words, all of them one by one. The regret of working within his ploy to get revenge made you feel sick, but Minho always had a way of reading you.

“It’s not that, baby.” He shined, even in the white light of the vacated diner. “Meet me tonight at our old apartment.”

Your gut twisted and turned at the idea of the place where all your belongings and the man you loved were forced to leave you. It had to be filled with “do not enter” signs and yellow tape marking the sections most dangerous. What was there to return to?

The dark rain washed over the city just as it did every night until Halloween. Nightly air sucking into your nostrils and filling your lungs, your senses flourished as your sight found the moving shadow above where you walked. Minho’s rushing form moved smoothly through the rain, not a slip or jolt. His arms swayed him back and forth on the satellite pole as it swung him across to another building, feet landing perfectly on the small ledge before he rushed across the brick roof towards the next. Leaping across chambers of story-long falls without so much as a heavy breath, the crow flew through the rain just as fluently above him. It was the sight of something uncanny, unhuman—and the more you seemed to see him, the less he looked like the man you knew.

five.

The golden ring on your left hand’s finger the next morning did everything but startle you. It was a simple habit of yours to come home from work early in the morning and take it off for a shower, and too easy to forget to put it back on before dozing off to sleep. But on a night just like that, you awoke with it on your finger—in the exact place Minho put it.

A promise ring with so many memories vibrating inside the reflective gold that your finger ran numb when you were reminded of them. It was a gift from the man who gave you his heart the first week you had known him, and a promise made to never leave your side.

A promise broken and reprised, a tale too painful to bear.

Hesitation brought you to turn on the TV, but you already knew what was to come. Another new story covering another homicide done by your dead lover, the case had everyone’s eyes on the screen every time a name read across in large letters.

The third arsonist was found dead, removed from his totaled car that had rushed into the river not too far off the direction Minho had been headed in that night. Shrieking arounds of breaks and the horn sounded in your ears like a memory you were reliving, your palms covering your ears not enough to null the noise. Another dream you had, but thankfully forgotten by that morning. A memory that wouldn’t part from you until death.

It hadn’t gotten too far into you, but it was reaching the limit. Death, reincarnation, murder, and visualizing images and sounds to go along with the trio-ed story. Minho was part of you, he had been since that first night he sat down beside you at the bar; but you becoming part of him was the dilemma. Everything he felt, you felt. What he heard, you heard. More now before you could realize, all this blood was on your hands, too.

Devil’s night. A night of chaos and blemishes that mark every town and heart in its path. Three of the men who had caused so much pain and misery to the city were now being buried six feet below it, and you could see it in everyone you passed as night fell again.

Excited, peaceful, and exhilarant. Children ran around in their costumes, adults already had bags of candy on their shoulders from early trick or treating. Most importantly, for once in the last ten years of the cities’ history, no fires had been lit and no irreplaceable lives had been taken.

It stood still no matter how lively the town was running. Burnt to a crisp and hardly structured, the apartment building that sweltered with heat greeted you. The double front doors squealed as you stepped inside, the cases of stairs creaked under your feet as you rose floor by floor, and the familiar sight of the slightly open door with candle-light peeking from inside made you weak at the knees.

Minho sat with his wrist bent over the edge of the vanity, the visual of your frame slowly pulling the door open and stepping inside a sight worth him seeing as a grin rose from his blank face. Happiness in his eyes as your face reflected back at you the more he moved in on you, the huge changes to your life seemed to simplify back to the past as his arm wrapped around your waist and pulled you into him.

“I can’t make it the exact same, but I put the candles where you liked them as best I could.”

“It looks wonderful.” You exclaimed, eyes peering around the room for long enough to see the thickly-laid pallet on the floor with only two large candles illuminating the space.

With so much going on around you, it was a facile moment to live. Minho’s arm draped heavily across your shoulder as the other held you against him, his eyes falling on the lips he hadn’t kissed in over a year. It was a slow-motion film scene witnessing him suck in his breath and lean down to push his lips into yours, and it was most refreshing to taste him on your tongue. His wet muscle lapped at your mouth before the arm at your waist squeezed the last of your breath from you, a break in the kiss making you remember how much you missed this even more.

Heated kisses before were lavishing, but the ones now were like medication you couldn’t live without. The parting of a year ago was so abrupt, the loss and loneliness giving you no room left in your heart to let anyone in. Minho had always catered to every wish you could have made, and gave you no expectations from how well matched you felt alongside him. But having him back in your hold with his throat releasing a moan as your fingers threaded through the long brown locks of his hair, it was home once more.

It was gratifying to have the man you loved in your arms. Colder than before but warming up with each piece of clothing lost until he cradled your naked form above the soft blankets of the pallet on the floor, Minho’s skin heated yours just as it always did when you made love.

His mouth could only leave yours for minutes at a time, small bites and sucks engraving your skin to burn and welp for the rest of the night. The passion and fire never left him, his legs holding yours apart to run his bare hands up and down your body. Tongue pressing hard licks to your most sensitive spaces, pants and moans releasing from you before the first release of the night would turn into many, and the man had you in his favorite position.

“How is it—” His breath was hot against the shell of your ear, words dripping thicker than your juices on his fingers. “—that you still manage to make me feel calm and jittery at the same moment in time?”

“I don’t know.” Your tongue was always tied when he asked you questions like this, but he knew how to receive an answer much greater than sentences could form.

“I’ll help you remember.” He grinned, face falling down deeper and deeper until your body swelled and released once more.

“And again.” The grin was a smirk when his hand was trailing across his own stomach and feeling at his cock, rubbing it slowly before pressing it into your lubricated walls. He had little control of himself, always, at this point, yet you felt him hold his breath and carry on with all his might. Thrusting, pulling himself out just to ram himself back in, his fingerprints left in your skin from where he had to hold onto you to keep himself sane. Minho knew just what to do every chance he had you, and he never disappointed.

With a kiss on your swollen lips and a broken sentence of his tired voice, your smile back at him verbally made his heart skip a beat in your ears before sleep took over. “And always.”

The pull of the blankets woke you from the light slumber, Minho’s form lifting from the bed with nothing but his boxers on. Lightly sweated skin glowing in the faint moonlight of the now clear sky, you watched his lanky limbs fall as he sat down at the vanity.

Candlelight making it difficult to see, the sleepiness of your eyes bringing more struggle, you still saw the foundation lift into his palm. Brush running through the makeup, he pressed it against his face until each pore was painted white. Line-less, he sighed before pulling at the plastic lid over the tip of the black pencil eyeliner, drawing along the white paint to create a hollowed black smile. Eyeliner around his eyes, the black strokes reshaping his facial structure completely being paired with the white paint across his skin completely reformed him.

Minho’s smile seemed more wicked than his eyes shining in the reflection of the mirror with an eerie glow to them. Bizarre, his index fingers pulling at the corners of his mouth to lift his lips into a smile and then a frown. From the looks of it, he didn’t appear to know himself in the mirror.

“Just a little longer.” He sighed once more, this time speaking under his breath. “One more, then peace again.”

“Together?” Your voice was louder than his, enough to get his attention. His palm cupped at the drying paint, removing it from the skin of his face to his hand in an instant. A loving look overlapping the strange glisten in his eyes, the moment he saw you he seemed to change back.

“Together, of course.”

six.

Dawn rose until lines of blue and purple meshed in the sky, your shoes scuffing the pavement as you stepped out onto the sidewalk of the city. Just as easily as you parted from Minho did you find the day moving faster, a bright sun evaporating all the rain until the sky began to turn dark again.

Sunset, the pink and red lights made the cemetery look more amicable than it had the last few days. The rails shined, rusted corners and sharp points of paint against your skin as you pressed inside the calm place. Directly in the middle of the city, it was the beacon of all things that came along and passed in their own time.

And just as it had been when you rushed away, the plot of dirt where Minho once laid still sat open. A hole big enough for the man to rise out vertically, the space was now tacked with a yellow flag. Under investigation, the curious city wasn’t new to grave robberies.

But him—the detective, authorities, news, and city-living community knew the story of the crow when they saw it.

When two souls are forced to part, in life or death, they are always brought back together. Righteousness only exists in truth, the lore of the crow standing equitable. In some pieces of the legend, the crow returns the soul to make things right. This case was accurate, Minho had returned not only for vengeance and peace, but to retrieve the love he lost, too.

The rose’s black petals you placed down seemed to welt at the touch of the mud alone, withering into a deep brown color and falling down into the hole in place of the body. Like the universe knew what it was missing, and wouldn’t take anything in its place. Your mind ran rampant with what was to come, the sudden scuffling sound within the cement walls of the deteriorating church too loud to let you think.

Staircase creating a soft echo as you made it up the tall inclination, the altercation only seemed to worsen. Punches thrown, blood spilled, and you only made it inside in time to find just who was head to head.

The final arsonist alive to see the last of his days was held tightly in a choke-hold, Minho’s strong arms not giving in to release him any time soon. No matter how much about Minho you knew, how much you loved him, or how much he loved you: the look in his eyes was created by pure horror and strife.

“Minho—” He had seen you the second you stepped into the church, walls lined with red and purple colors from the stained glass being illuminated by the sun setting outside. Even with his name on your tongue, the man didn’t stutter.

“This is right. Isn’t it?” Morally corrupt, physically here but mentally elsewhere—you could see it, he just wanted an escape. “H-How do we know he gets what he deserves past death?”

“You came back, didn’t you?”

“He could, too.”

“To help what? He has nothing to prove.” The arsonist's eyes were dark with purple marks and black lines, days of hiding from the world when his name and Minho’s were put back in the news getting to him. If the worst of the worst could fear death, Minho embracing it and doing good meant he was much more of a better soul than most others could be. “You left me, and the entire world, with a gaping hole. It was like the one helping you pass on knew it wasn’t right to let you go like that.” The crow perched on the wooden, decayed benches of the church hardly hopped or squawked in response, only twisting its head between you and Minho.

“But where does he go?” Your lover still couldn’t truly remember where he had gone. “H-Hell. I hope.” Eyes wild, body sweating, Minho was on his last limb and already pulling the gun from the middle of his back. The ring of the bullet sounded for miles, going clean through the arsonist’s skull.

Your body couldn’t react fast enough, the gurgling of the man falling to the floor as the life left his eyes bringing you to vibrate and lose your balance. Silence filled into the church, Minho’s heavy pants the only distinctive noise you could make out in the space.

No rain, no fires, people way off in the distance enjoying the holiday for the first time in years, and you—trying to race to catch Minho’s falling figure. The bullet had taken two lives instead of one, the crow that gifted your lover a second chance creating a babbling call and falling onto the soft velvet cushion of the seat. In a matter of seconds it was dead along with the arsonist. Each and every one of Minho’s injuries returned to his body in the order that he received them. Marks, slices from knives, nail holes from the gun, and glass fragments left from the accident of the car: they were only killing him faster.

So much pain, loss, and desensitization only meant one answer—peace. The air was breathable, the moon shined brighter outside the open doors, and Minho’s soft hiccups of air against you brought you to realize the trail of fate was in your linings.

Things were no longer dark, now healing and regrowing. The only thing left to leave was Minho.

The hefty breaths of the detective pulled your sight from your lover’s eyes, watching the man’s gun held tight in his hold lower and fall to the ground out of shock. Tall, broad, and never casually caught off guard—his reaction gave recognition to how bad this looked.

He was heavy in your arms, torso falling lightly onto the concrete as the rest followed. His eyes could only watch the stained glass in the walls, lids falling heavy as he neared death a second time.

His calmness exhibited his plan all along to you visually, the sob hidden by your quivering lips as you raised the gas canister and began to pour it over you and Minho.

“Does it really have to be like this?” Questioned the detective, but your motions were too sure to be denied.

“I want it.” You cried, hot tears pouring down your face as the sight of the church around you blurred. “I want to go with him.”

The remaining strength in Minho was enough for him to lift his arm and take your hand, the lit match in your hold shaking with your breath.

“Then don’t do this alone.” The second match was lit by the detective, his hand shaking less and less as his arm extended out enough to toss it safely in a moment's time. “I can handle forensics. You get to where you’re going.”

The match in your hand with a burning flame, and the guitar pick in Minho’s with the crow printed on it. Nothing could have settled the much-needed serenity more than the last purposely-lit fire getting set in the city.

“I think it’s time to let fate for us end.” Minho winced, smiling an idiotic smile at the idea that he’ll have you with him forever.

The matches fell, the place burned, and even the crow on the guitar pick went along with it.

© copyright bearseungmin 2021, all rights are reserved. do not modify, repost, or translate without my permission. please.

[dontblamethewitches]

tw gabby petito autopsy

death by strangulation. her body had been in the woods for around 3 weeks before being found. her remains may now be given back to the family. brain remains suspect number 1 and is still on the loose.