everybody knows

dreamrainydays @ 2009-10-29T22:40:00

2009-10-29T22:44:54Z

Dressed to Kill
[5/?]
Hanchul, Qmi, Henwook, Eunteuk
Summary: Revenge is a dish best served cold - but Heechul never did have much patience.
Backstories: Of Diners and Coffee Cups
Chapters: #1| #2 | #3| #4 | #5
Dedication: black_goose

“You look like a My Little Pony stable boy.”

“You look like a transvestite.” There was a minute long stare off before Sungmin relented. “Fine. I won’t use your shower gel again. I promise.”

Heechul rolls his eyes. “That would be so much more effective if you weren’t crossing your fingers behind your back.” He gestures at the hall mirror. Sungmin mouths an expletive, and then the door bell rings and he remembers why they’re waiting in the hallway; Siwon’s coming round.

For some reason this has turned into a regular thing. Siwon drops in with coffee and pamphlets on how to become better people, and Heechul tolerates him because of his genius idea with how to capture Junsu. Sungmin, on the other hand, doesn’t tolerate him – he fucking adores him. Which is just some kind of typical irony because Sungmin’s the whore who everyone’s had a piece of, and Siwon is the guy who no one has, and if his mother has anything to do with it, no one ever will.

Sungmin’s already smiling when he opens the door.

---

They spent some time setting the store up, so when there’s a call from the ‘police’ and Junsu comes running hurriedly into the store, everything works perfectly. He falls over the tripwire just inside the door, onto the broken glass on the floor, and then is dragged up by Kangin and thrown into one of his café chairs. Hankyung uses masking tape to bind him to the chair, quickly all around the waist and then over the arms, punching him when he starts to struggle.

He’s sobbing by the time they drag him into the back room, Heechul leaning against a wall all nonchalant. The key thing about getting information out of someone like this is making it seem like you just don’t give a damn about them, and only care about the information. It makes them think that as long as they give you what you want, you won’t give a shit if he lives.

It’s all bollocks of course. Heechul’s blood’s practically thrumming inside of him and he’s having to bite at his cheeks to stop himself from smiling. Until he does, an inch from Junsu’s face.

“Hi there, sweet thing.” His voice is just a pitch too dark and Junsu whimpers and starts struggling against his bindings.

He’s not as good as Donghae. It takes him fifteen minutes to get the information. The difference is, Heechul leaves marks. He means to. It’s a small moment of gratification knowing that every time the son of a bitch showers, he will look down at the scars and remember Heechul. And maybe that’s something sick, but who gives a damn?

Hankyung mouths at the acute angle of his jaw in the back of the car and Heechul’s almost too distracted to toss the package into the DA’s letter box. The phone ringing doesn’t stop Hankyung.

The display flashes Kyuhyun, and Heechul flips it open just as Hankyung’s fingers undo his jeans’ button. “Yeah?”

“So? What’s the deal? How’d it go down?” There’s the sound of him swallowing something and Heechul leans his head back and tries to guess if it’s coffee or Red Bull while Hankyung strokes him inside his jeans. He frowns and lifts his hips up, Hankyung quickly getting with the program and pulling the skinnies down enough to get a better grip.

“Junsu killed him.” There’s anger burning in the base of his stomach, mixing with the hot tendrils of lazy pleasure. “Yoochun panicked at the thought of his favourite fuckbuddy being thrown into prison and also for having a murder on club premises – bad for business, don’t you know?” Kyuhyun’s snort of laughter coincides with a shaky gasp as Hankyung drags his thumb over the slit of Heechul’s cock. “So he called Jaejong, who by lucky circumstance, had someone he wanted to get rid of. Jaejoong drugged my drink and brought me to the Jungmo’s body, placed the gun in my hand and then called the cops.” His hips stutter off of the car seat, and Hankyung grins into the side of Heechul’s neck.

There is a pause on the other end of the phone, and then Kyuhyun says, “You placed the evidence and everything in the DA’s hands?”

Heechul grins. “Forgetting who you’re talking to?” He snaps the phone shut, and Hankyung increases the pressure and pace.

---

Henry’s watching the news when it comes on, a little item about there being new evidence uncovered in Jungmo’s murder leading to the arrest of a Junsu Kim, and he’s grinning so hard he almost misses Ryeowook walking into the room.

He always sits the farthest away from Henry that he possibly can. Not that Henry’s bothered by it or anything. He’s just – noticed, is all. He fiddles with the remote, turns it over to some crappy love film that he secretly loves. Ryeowook settles in deeper into his chair.

“It’s your birthday tomorrow, isn’t it?”

Henry starts and looks over in surprise. “Yeah, I guess.” He winces. “Uh, I mean. It is. For certain. Not a guess.” Ryeowook’s smiling and Henry has the distinct impression he’s laughing at him.

“Okay.”

---

Heechul’s chainsmoking on the balcony and he’s halfway through the normal number it takes for him to feel better when Sungmin joins him. They sit in silence for a little bit, a benefit of being friends for as long as Heechul was in this line of work.

“It’s been a long time since you did anything like this.” Sungmin’s voice is quiet in the way it rarely is when playing the part of a slut with a sweet heart.

Heechul sucks on his cigarette and watches the cherry glow. “I guess. Been a long time since you wanted to fuck someone outside of work.”

Sungmin smiles at that, as though he knew that Heechul would reply defensively. Heechul still can’t decide whether that’s a pro or a con of this friendship, this knowledge they have of each other, learnt by seeing and not by numbers because neither of them are that simple. “Are you really going to let Yoochun get away with a bit of minor embarrassment?”

Heechul doesn’t answer; truth is he didn’t know what to do with Yoochun. He’d maybe go down for helping Junsu cover it up, but that would only be for a few years. Yoochun was a fly in the ointment, the person who had called Jaejoong and got Heechul involved in the first place.

Sungmin takes the cigarette, burnt almost to the filter, and stubs it out on the ground. “I heard Yesung is a really good shot.” It’s almost a non sequitur. Except it isn’t.

---

Yoochun goes down in a blaze of fire outside his local grocery shop.

Three bystanders are hurt in the fire, one seriously. Yesung is a little trigger happy.

---

Kyuhyun jumps at the hand on his shoulder. He turns, looks up at Heechul and grins. “Alright, boss?”

He’s looking his age and Kyuhyun wonders, not for the last time, what prison’s like. “Mm. Get the others here, we’re going to Jaejoong’s tonight.”

Twenty minutes later, Kyuhyun has the blueprints of Jaejoong’s house and a simulation of the interior up on the three massive computer screens that span the walls. He’s been making some adjustments to the room.

Yesung has his feet up on the table, peeling an orange, a satisfied air around him. “So what’s up?”

Heechul says, “Feet off the table.” Yesung scowls, removes his feet. “We’re going after Jaejoong. He’s paranoid, being part of the underground scene, so he’s got some shit hot security. Motion detectors, thermal sensors, nasty Rottweilers and an alarm to burst your ear drums. Now Kyuhyun can give you,” he motions to Eunhyuk, “a device that will knock the dogs out for two minutes maximum. You need to use that to get into the house and fuck the alarm up. Can you do that?”

Eunhyuk shrugs one shoulder and asks, “Can you give me the make and model of the alarm system?”

Kyuhyun answers. “What kind of hacker do you take me for?” Eunhyuk grins.

Heechul continues, “Once that’s done, we need the gates opening so that we can get in. You’ll be scaling the wall at the back, it’s the one nearest to the house,” he says to Eunhyuk when he opens his mouth, “So you’ll open the gates for us, and me, Hankyung, Kangin and Yesung will go in, and then when we come out, we need for the dogs to be gone, there to be another car with shoddy brakes and a lot of alcohol, okay?”

There are nods all around. “Okay, so Donghae and Hankyung, you go get the car, Kyuhyun’s got a couple from the police department a few cities over that you can get. Take the train and make sure it’s an expensive model, Jaejoong likes his shit flashy. Sungmin and Kangin, you -”

“Fuck no.” Kangin bursts out, and Heechul blinks.

“What?”

“I ain’t working with no fag like him.”

Siwon frowns. “Hey.” There’s a warning tone in his voice and Sungmin looks as shocked as Heechul feels at that.

Kyuhyun drawls, resting an arm across the back of Zhou Mi’s chair and playing with his hair, “Gay’s not catching, you know.”

Kangin makes an expression of disgust. “I don’t give a fuck. I’m not doing it.”

Heechul smirks, “Alright, don’t start throwing toys out of your pram. You’ll just go with Hankyung, and Donghae, you can sit surveillance with Sungmin.”

Sungmin gives a sideways glance to Donghae. Donghae beams back innocently and Eunhyuk sniggers into his hand. “Hey Sungmin.” Donghae said, nodding at him, “What comes before part B?” He waits a beat. “Partay! It’ll be a blast. We’ll take coke and crisps and, oh, pink hair dye...”

“I hate you. I am putting Nair in your shampoo.”

Eunhyuk laughs and Heechul rolls his eyes. “So go.”

---

“Heechul!” Eunhyuk sounds frustrated and Heechul braces himself for another childish hissy fit. He doesn’t get one. “How the fuck do you expect me to disable this alarm?”

He raises an eyebrow. “With the expertise you have gathered over the years of being a grade a criminal?” He cocks a hip.

Eunhyuk’s mouth twists and he says, “Fucking flattery will get you nowhere with this, okay, this is impenetrable, this is the kind of security that the Pentagon wish they had. I don’t know how this pretty boy got it, but it’s impossible. The only way this will stop working is if the power’s gone and that’s only if there’s no back up generator.”

Heechul shifts on the doorframe and places his hands in his pockets. Hankyung come up behind him and places a hand on his waist. “So what? You’re saying you were a waste of money?”

Eunhyuk’s eyes snap to his and then narrow. “Right. Of course. Because every fucking thing else I’ve done for you so far is something Ryeowook could have done.”

There’s a long moment of tension and then Siwon speaks. “So why don’t you just cut the power to the house?”

Kyuhyun clears his throat. “Harder than you’d think. You can’t just block an electrical signal, it’d find some way of getting through. Well, okay you can, but you’d need something like, a pinch.”

There’s a pause. “How very Ocean’s Eleven.”

---

Kyuhyun is unimpressed. He hacks. He works code and html and chases and creates viruses. He does not construct pinches.

He lays down the soldering iron and sighs, head in his hands. “Fuck.”

Zhou Mi comes up behind him and drops a kiss to the crown of his head. “Cup of tea?” Kyuhyun straightens up and leans back onto Zhou Mi. He sighs and lets his muscles relax.

“With some of those ginger snap biscuits?” There’s hope in his tone.

There’s a puff of laughter and Kyuhyun shivers as the air hits his scalp. “Think Henry ate them all. He keeps trying to find excuses to be in the kitchen. Apparently he’s onto the cake plan.”

Kyuhyun frowns and rolls his shoulders. “There’s a cake plan?”

“More of a scheme, really.” Kyuhyun laughs and tilts his head back to smile at Zhou Mi.

He looks sleepworn around the edges and Kyuhyun kisses the hand resting on his shoulder, swallowing down the knot of worry. “Tea would be nice.”

It takes him three hours but he finally gives up. He flips open his phone, dials Heechul’s number and waits for him to pick up.

“Hello?” By the sounds of it, he’s outside. Kyuhyun waits for the sound of a car to go past before saying anything.

“You’re going to have to steal one, I can’t make it.”

There’s a silence and then Heechul says, “Sure. We’re on our way back, tell Yesung to get his gun ready.”

---

Yesung is dressed in university style clothes. It doesn’t look that much different from his usual attire, but it took three outfits for Sungmin to be truly happy. Kyuhyun’s amused.

“You know, just because you’re gay, doesn’t mean you have to pander to all the stereotypes.” The tone’s dry but not unkind, and he grins when Sungmin casually hits him around the head.

“I’m bi and grew up with two sisters. You try and embrace that y chromosome with those around you, dressing you up in pink tutus.” He grins, dimpling.

Siwon snorts. “Pink tutus?” Sungmin sits on his lap and leans back, tapping his thigh lightly with the heel of his palm.

“Hush.” Kyuhyun smirks as he draws his gaze away.

---

Yesung doesn’t get to use his gun. He goes in, slips behind a student using their ID card to get into the lab, waits for some kind of distraction (a nervy kid in goggles and an oversized labcoat accidently setting his clamp alight) and slips it into his hoodie pocket. It’s only small because it’s not very powerful, and Yesung feels very anticlimactic about it all.

He shoots a squirrel from a tree on the way back and thanks God for silencers.

---

Eunhyuk’s kind of put out, when he finally catapults himself over the top of the wall. He doesn’t get to work his magic on thermal sensors and motion detectors because they’re all inside the house. The dogs are lying on the floor, whimpering and trying to scratch their heads against the grass. He feels a pang of pity for them, but is then made conscious of the time and pulls the pinch out of his pocket.

Then he wonders how the fuck it works.

---

“What the fuck are super cushion handbags? Are you seriously talking fashion with Sungmin? You know he’ll have you dolled up to within an inch of your life if you don’t watch it.” The warning tone is teasing and Sungmin flips the bird at the walkie talkie and shifts in the car seat.

“Oh man, no. We were just talking about this one time when I went to a bar and picked up a dominatrix. When he started talking about safe words, I thought he was being cute, but then he brought out the paddle and oh my god.”

There’s a pause and then Kyuhyun’s voice comes through, even more strained through the tinny speakers, “That... was an image I could have lived without.” Quieter, “Dear God.” Donghae’s cracking up and Sungmin’s biting his lip so he doesn’t when Kyuhyun goes in a clearer voice, “He still in there?”

“Haven’t seen hide or hair of him since he went in there this morning. Are you sure we don’t need anyone round the back?”

---

Eunhyuk finally realises that all you need to do is flick the switch and all the lights go off. He figures, what the hey, and backflips cross the lawn until he reaches the house, grinning at a perfect step off. Sometimes he misses athletics. The motion and thermal sensors are off with the power cut and the lock on the door takes seven minutes, so longer than he had expected but not too long. There’s a chain on the inside of the door but that’s easily just sawn right through with the tiny file he keeps in his kit. Like a boy scout, he thinks, always prepared.

He goes into the house, disables the alarm and just in case, the detectors too. Then he flicks the power back on and opens the gate.

In the time it takes him, he has a while to wonder why no one has blundered downstairs looking for the fusebox or a torch.

---

Heechul walks in with his gun cocked and the safety off. Eunhyuk’s sitting on the couch with the TV blaring and the lights all on. Heechul feels the bottom of his stomach drop and this hot rage fill him.

“What the fuck, Eunhyuk?” His fingers tighten on his gun but Eunhyuk doesn’t miss a beat when he replies.

“Jaejoong’s gone, Heechul.”

The crowd on TV cheer as someone scores a touchdown.

dreamrainydays @ 2009-10-26T16:16:00

2009-10-26T16:21:41Z

....

OKAY FUCK THIS SHIT I AM COMING BACK TO KFANDOM AND I AM GOING INTO BANDOM. I AM GOING TO BE GREEDY AND A WHORE. I CAN HAVE BOTH.

stop gloating, izzy. this does not mean you can spam me with horrific photos of gdragon.

and then you said.

2009-10-26T14:08:44Z

and then you said
super junior; qmi
pg

The thing that never changes is that Kyuhyun is always caught off guard.

He barely registered his face, slanting bright eyes, wire-rimmed glasses and reams and reams of colourful scarves wrapped around his face and flying behind him like he meant to be dramatic. It was more the physical shove to his body as an elbow caught him in the side and made him topple, the guy in the colourful scarves turning and muttering ‘I’m sorry!’

He remembered him four days later, when he was introduced to a guy with a pashmina for a belt and curly long hair – the new transfer trainee, Zhou Mi.

Kyuhyun pulled the fabric between thumb and finger and rubbed. It was soft, sure, and no doubt expensive, but.

“Nipple on.” Zhou Mi informed him solemnly, lacing up a boot around his skinny jean and looking for his cardigan.

Kyuhyun blinked, startled into laughter, hands flying up to cover his chest.

It was too thin.

The card was gaudy, bright and colourful and something a five year old would probably pick, if five year olds had boyfriends and girlfriends. Kyuhyun stared at the bee on the cover, a speech bubble in the shape of a heart with the words, ‘Bee my Valentine!’ on the front.

It was three days too early and shoved into the space between his pillows. He’d found it, turning over the top one to get a cool side, when he couldn’t get to sleep.

The name inside was Zhou Mi. The diagram on the other side was filthy, and Kyuhyun found himself biting onto his fist to keep from grinning too broadly. The caption, written in crappy Korean, read ‘I’m sweeter than honey, come lick my honeycomb?’

In the morning, Kyuhyun made a point of eating honey on toast and crunching loudly when he sat next to Zhou Mi. Zhou Mi’s eyes flicked to the plate, up to Kyuhyun’s eyes, and then back down to the toast.

“Sweet enough?” His eyes, and Kyuhyun couldn’t think of any other way of describing it, sparkled.

Kyuhyun swallowed his mouthful. “I prefer salty things.” Zhou Mi’s eyes went wide and he choked.

Kyuhyun hadn’t expected that, thought this was all a joke and he’d get a laugh or a comeback. He hummed and leaned back a little as he thought.

It caught him by surprise, the roll of envy and anger deep in his stomach and making his hands shake. Zhou Mi kissing a cordi, his lips on her, his hands holding hers.

He walked away and punched the door of a bathroom stall. The look Hankyung gave him was concerned in the dressing room, but Kyuhyun pasted on that smile and said, “Heechul told me he loved me more than you last night.”

Hankyung smirked. “Right, and you’ve got skin clearer than Siwon’s conscience.” Kyuhyun couldn’t help the way he grinned at that, lips turning up involuntarily.

Kyuhyun was used to late night visitors, boys made to grow up too soon slipping under the covers and saying, “I’m sleepwalking, ignore me.”

Zhou Mi had cold feet and he had to bend a little in the middle to fit on the bed. He swung an arm over Kyuhyun’s chest and pulled him close, Kyuhyun’s wide eyes facing the wall, teeth worrying at his lip.

“There was a girl,” came five minutes and approximately 43 seconds later. Kyuhyun placed his hand over Zhou Mi’s, gave it a squeeze and waited for more. When it didn’t come, he started counting backwards from 500, trying to get to sleep.

Kyuhyun stole the egg from the hawk and jumped down leaves to get to the ground. He doesn’t know why he ran, because practice had told him that the hawk would catch up with him no matter what he did, but he ran anyway and sure enough, the music for the battle started up and Kyuhyun paused it quickly, cracking his knuckles.

“That’s disgusting.” Zhou Mi said absently, wriggling his toes where they were under Kyuhyun’s thigh to accentuate his point.

Kyuhyun looked over, didn’t bother raising an eyebrow because there was a magazine on Home Improvement in their eyeline. Zhou Mi’s hand was resting on his knee and Kyuhyun picked it up, cracked his knuckle for him. He started, flailed, hit Kyuhyun in the face with one of his stupidly long fingers, and then hissed. “That hurt.”

He was pouting. Kyuhyun turned back to his game, picked up the controller and then made a perfect ‘o’ with his mouth when Zhou Mi proved his legs were longer than anyone’s had a right to be, and pressed the reset button on the console with his toe.

“Bitch.”

“Abusive.”

Zhou Mi was having his make-up done by one of the girls and Kyuhyun was four inches away from him, swinging his legs from the counter. The girl’s hair kept falling into her face, a soft black waterfall, and Kyuhyun wondered why she didn’t clip it back.

“Kui Xian.” Kyuhyun felt a warm spot in his stomach, a constant companion since he’d met Zhou Mi, flare up in response. He hmed in response. “You okay?” He looked up and caught the tail end of Zhou Mi’s concerned stare, felt the warm spot double over and twist.

He mustered a smile, kept his eyes to the left. “Yeah. You?”

Zhou Mi stared.

There was a photoshoot, something to do with portraying the animal within or something. Kyuhyun was wearing something dead on his back and too much makeup for his smile to feel natural, but he crawled under the table anyway and didn’t blink when the shutter sounded again and again and again. He got up, knees cracking, when the table ended, and looked around, cheeks aching and skin between his nose and lip feeling greasy. Zhou Mi caught his eyes and Kyuhyun’s heart flipped, because Zhou Mi was supposed to be in the dressing room, not watching him like that.

The moment stretched between them, and then a cordi was coming over and taking Zhou Mi away and the photographer was calling Kyuhyun over to have a look at his shots. It left an ache in his sternum.

Zhou Mi crawled into his bed, slung an arm over his chest and said, “There was this boy.” and Kyuhyun felt all the air being sucked out of him, dizzy-headed and dazed.

“Oh.”

There was a pause long enough for Kyuhyun to hate his social awkwardness, and then, “Would you look at me?”

He couldn’t see a way of turning around without being too close to Zhou Mi, but he did it anyway, plaintive tone too persuasive. He shuffled around in tangled sheets and Zhou Mi’s arm and was an inch away from Zhou Mi’s face when he finished.

Zhou Mi wore Hello Kitty pyjama pants to bed, but nothing on top and Kyuhyun could feel his face flush at the way their stomachs met on every inhale. “Hi,” he said lamely.

Zhou Mi smiled and closed the gap, soft pressure against his lips, and oh. Okay. He could live with this. Zhou Mi pulled back, legs unhooking when Kyuhyun didn’t respond, and looked uncomfortable. “Sorry.”

Kyuhyun found Zhou Mi’s hand, gave it a little squeeze and didn’t say anything because he was too busy moving forward to kiss Zhou Mi.

They’re on a day off and Zhou Mi’s snuck them out of the flat for some sight-seeing. He’s running ahead on the Great Wall of China and Kyuhyun is busy wondering if, somewhere in a space, a camera is clicking shut on this moment, right here, right now.

He’s wearing this belt with a feather thing hanging off of it, black with turquoise highlights, and it keeps hitting the sun and shimmering against his thigh. Kyuhyun places some money into the large metal binoculars, presses his skin to cool metal and looks out over China. It doesn’t look that different.

Zhou Mi bounds into him, knocking him off-balance with a soft ‘oof’, and there are suddenly fingers in his belt loops and chapped lips a slow burn across his. The wind’s blowing against them, and Zhou Mi’s scarf whips up and brushes Kyuhyun’s forehead. He grins and relaxes.

dreamrainydays @ 2009-10-09T23:29:00

2009-10-09T22:30:50Z

probably should have pimped this before, but what the hey, i'm doing it now.
SUJU WRITERS ON MY FLIST, DO THIS NAO. you know, if you like.

dreamrainydays @ 2009-09-07T20:46:00

2009-09-07T19:58:59Z

HIATUS.

and the after that, i'm leaving. basically, i'm not really into this fandom anymore. i'll finish the fics i have up, namely These Metal Bars, Dressed to Kill and We'll Make Them So Jealous (We'll Make Them Hate Us) and i'll maybe finish the requests Qmi!Coffee Barristers, Merthur, Hanchul!Office Sex and SNSD!Foursome. please don't expect the updates to be quick as i'll be busy with RL and i'm just - not motivated anymore. haven't been for a while, to be honest.

i don't know if i'll be writing in a new fandom or not yet, but if i do, it'll probably be bandom, with all the bands from the Decaydance label and some on the Fueled By Ramen label. if you're curious as to what's in that fandom that's better than this one?

the most epic rec list ever.

dreamrainydays @ 2009-08-28T00:07:00

2009-08-27T23:24:33Z

Title: We'll Make Them So Jealous (We'll Make Them Hate Us)
Length: [2/?]
Rating: R in later chapters
Pairing: Hanchul, Qmi, Jay/Jungmo (the TRAX)
Summary: Heechul discovers music, Hankyung and the perils of falling in love with someone so wildly different from you.

OKAY. this is in present tense, because the first chapter was like, what had happened to get them, or rather, Heechul to this place in time. or something like that.

It’s strobe lights, and ripped images as they sweep over the crowd, jagged shards of a mirror and Heechul finally gets what he looks like at these things. His hair is sweat-wet and his body feels loose and comfortable, which could have something to do with thrashing out his feelings, or something to do with an alley way blowjob turned alley way fuck. Either way, he’s not complaining.

Jungmo is over in the corner, trying to undo Jay’s jeans without anyone noticing and Heechul snickers into his glass. JD and coke, and maybe he’s still not used to the proof of this world’s drinks.

There’s a half hour break and Heechul spends it chain smoking, trying to shape rings with his mouth. He’s pretty crap at it. He tries anyway. When he goes back in, the house lights are blinding, dimming to show a blond vocalist on stage, leather trousers so tight he must have been sown in. Heechul grins. It’s kind of fitting that the first band he ever saw is Hankyung’s.

They’re amazing, and Heechul feels some kind of throat-clenching nostalgia at the keyboard strains of My Worst Nightmare. Hankyung sings half of the song at him, and Heechul laughs outright from the bar, not even trying to hide it. The guy next to him gives him a look, but whatever man, they’re all crazy here. He’s already planning their first gig, brain buzzing with ideas of neon paint and flashing lights, which is kind of presumptuous as they haven’t even been able to make a proper song yet, Hankyung and Heechul clashing over what’s good or not. Problem is Hankyung’s caught on the scene, screaming anger across crowds and letting them feed off of the energy, and Heechul’s got his head half-turned to the future where they sing something other. Then again, maybe the problem is Heechul hasn’t got a fucking clue what the something other is, which kind of puts a stop to any kind of development, Hankyung just sticking to the present so fast he’s damn near going into the past, and Heechul reaching for something he can’t get on his own.

Jay and Jungmo do their bit, but they’re distracted with each other, usually spending lazy Sunday mornings together instead of thrashing out lyrics and melodies and harmonies and everyfuckingthing else. It’s kind of ridiculous, the way they spill more blood than ink onto paper. In a way, he wants to write it, something about cutting lines across each other for the adrenalin rush and the sparks behind his eyelids when fist meets face, but every time he attempts it, it descends into something resembling Dominatrix poetry, and fuck off if he could ever show that to Hankyung.

Which is half the problem, he thinks, as he mouths ‘put me on standby, your little black box’ to the shape of Hankyung’s lips. He’s shit-scared of showing Hankyung anything, because he meets everything with derision and snide remarks and, ‘oh, is that the talent your money bought you?’ which isn’t fucking fair because Heechul never asked to be born into a rich family. But still, he guesses it’s natural to want what you can’t have.

It’s the same idiom he applies to the way he watches Hankyung’s hips tilt towards the crowd, the way he licks a strip across his guitar before laughing into the mike and saying, “Oh, you so wish it was you.” The twitch in Heechul’s cock and the answering screams in the crowd confirm his egotism.

Sometimes, Heechul wonders if he should write about this, the way the dark shrouds them from respectability and lets them practically commit frottage to the person in front of them, but he doesn’t know if that’s what it’s like for other people anyway. Maybe life outside of his world is one giant orgy, just touching each other randomly in the street, quick fucks next to wheelie bins. And rationally, Heechul knows that isn’t so, but what if he fucks up so bad and he writes something that exposes him for who he really is? It would be humiliating, and would more and likely lead to a fist fight in which he would get his ass handed to him, because hello? Pretty princess, here.

In a way, he wishes he was able to just ask Hankyung. Because as much as he loves Jungmo and Jay, they’re kind of like his parents, and he wants their respect as much as he knows they’ll still have it for him anyway. Hankyung on the other hand has shown right from the beginning that he has no such problems. In fact the complete lack of respect has bred the same feelings in Heechul, and now he can only really respect Hankyung as an artist. And, obviously, a fountain of knowledge. If there’s anything Hankyung’s good at, it’s negotiating through this seething mass of people and making something good out of it.

The man’s gold dust.

Heechul wishes he could make more of that as well, but anything that he wrote would be too much like hero worship. He really doesn’t want Hankyung to get that impression, because it’s the complete opposite of what he feels. Maybe. With the strobe lights flashing and glaring and jagged self-reflections shining at him, he doesn’t really know anymore.

Jungmo steals his drink and Heechul looks up. “Can’t get in Jay’s pants?”

Jungmo laughs, bright eyes and lax limbs that show he’s already got some tonight, and says, “Sure can, just not here. He doesn’t have an exhibitionist kink like me. Damn shame.” Heechul rolls his eyes.

---

It’s gotten so that Heechul can navigate rooftops better than streets. He doesn’t mind rust stains from vanes that probably tell weather truer than any meteorologist, the stains on the backs of his thighs from moss, and the thrill of jumping to the floor is probably only an echo of flying, but it’s heady enough.

The Black Horse has been shut down (and by that, he means burnt to the floor) in the two months it’s taken their band to get their shit together, and they’ve found a new place to find their thrills and tickle their itches. He’s not heading there tonight, a bass line driving deep in his skull and needing to be realised at Jungmo’s, and before he realises it he’s humming it out loud.

Light travels faster than sound, and that’s why he sees the shrapnel fly before he hears the gunshot. Stupid shit. He’s so used to travelling rooftops and tiles that he forgot curfew and guards. He’s running, so dumb and young and stupid that he slips and falls to the floor and there’s the sickening crunch of bone getting acquainted with the streets, but he hobbles the fuck up anyway and swings himself back to the roof and starts to make a sort of hobble-slide into an alcove and somebody’s loft that they never use anymore.

The guards are shouting and house lights have been lit, flooding the streets. It illuminates a rat over the other side of the room and Heechul cringes and tries to make himself small. There’s glass on the floor and it takes a moment to remember that hey, yeah, he did smash through a window to get here. Adrenalin blurs things until they’re faint memories of did I really do that? But flesh marks everything down, some kind of busybody that is always, always, checking up on you. Trickles of blood, and he licks the ones nearer his hands and ignores the tingle of others.

He stays there for four hours, until he forgets the bass line and all he can remember is the thud of his heart. Then he crawls out and goes back home, tries to sleep. He cries instead, and then slaps his thigh and tells himself to man the fuck up already. It’s just coming down off of a high, but still.

---

The shitter of it is, he cuts his fingertips. So he can’t play guitar. Surprisingly, Hankyung doesn’t make any remark on it, just picks up the slack and tells Heechul to play piano instead if he has a tune. Which he does, of course, he’s got songs coming out of his ears and everything in him wanting to be made into a song, it’s just that somewhere between his neurons and his fingertips, it kind of just dissipates into nothing and he’s left with his head buzzing empty and his fingers hovering over keys like they knew they had something to do, but couldn’t remember what. He’s frustrated, stealing bits from famous composers because he can’t think for shit, and eventually just walks out of the practice because who knew original thinking was this hard?

He’s been listening to the same songs since he was born, or so it seems, recycled and replayed on giant speakers on every street corner and radios in cafés, and he can’t play anything different. His coat’s on the table and he grabs it, takes the stairs two at a time, and just huddles down in the parking lot and hopes no one thinks it’s anything to remark upon.

Surprisingly it’s Hankyung who eventually comes out to find him, no coat on even though it’s winter now and bloody cold. “Hi.” His words come out in a puff of condensed breath and Heechul pulls the toggles masquerading as buttons closer. He doesn’t answer.

Hankyung sighs, slides down beside him and stretches his legs. “Look, I get it okay. We’ve all had this problem.” Heechul stubbornly refuses to believe him; Hankyung makes up songs on the fly, some random rhythms with his fingers and suddenly there’s a melody for shitty lyrics to make love to. But Heechul can’t even find words. “You’ve got classical music shoved down your throat every day and only certain songs you can play and yeah, we’ve all had to break out of that. And you’ll do it, you will. Your first attempts will be shitty, but you’ll get there.” Heechul puffs out a laugh, because even if the words aren’t particularly comforting, they’re making him feel better anyway. “Seriously. Stop being an overdramatic bitch already, we need some piano strains, even if they are some bastardized version of DeBussy.” Heechul snorts this time, trying not to be amused at how pathetic he is.

He’s pulling himself up by the friction between the coat and the wall, when he looks over and sees Hankyung looking at his fingertips. He reaches over and Heechul looks down at him catching his hand and turning it over. A finger traces one of the cuts and Heechul draws in a breath.

“How’d you get these?” His voice is slow, and when he looks up, he blinks a little and then drops his hand. Heechul shifts.

The memory is a blur of fingers grabbing white-knuckle-tight onto tiles and roof top rims, but he answers anyway. “Got caught out after curfew. Smashed into someone’s loft to escape. The window wasn’t open.” For some reason, his mind flicks to Peter Pan and Wendy’s window always being open.

Hankyung makes a noise under his breath. “You disinfect them?” Heechul nods at him, because running them under a cold tap totally counts. He nods back and then turns to leave. Heechul stares at him a moment and then says,

“What’s the Great Purge, Hankyung?”

And Hankyung freezes.

It takes a couple false starts and more than a couple wishes to take the words back, but eventually he gets the story. Overpopulation and the government was struggling, natural resources becoming a rare commodity, and highly overpriced for a country that was still recovering from civil war. They say people get richer in wartime, but generally, that isn’t so. Siwon had made some compelling speeches and they’d been voted in, but within no time democracy had been replaced with autocracy, and Siwon had solved the population problem by deporting people. When other countries started to refuse to take Korean citizens anymore, Siwon turned to a more drastic solution. Be deported, or die. Hankyung’s parents had been deported to China two months before this radical policy was put into action, but he had been left behind and had only survived due to a Korean family nearby taking him in and claiming he was their recently deceased son. Population dropped, and the One Child Policy of China was stolen and adapted, and Hankyung went into a state orphanage.

The Great Purge was basically anyone foreign or unwanted going away. Whole villages disappeared. And the intelligent suddenly got rich.

“Oh.” Heechul feels sick.

Hankyung looks like he’s almost angry, but it’s muted. “Yeah.”

Heechul swallows against revulsion and says, “So that’s why you scream in songs, then.”

Hankyung laughs, kind of bitter in some of the lilts, but just free in most. “Nah, I just can’t sing for shit.” Heechul’s startled into laughter, and his eyes are creased when looks over. Hankyung’s staring at the sky, tracing the comet trail of an airplane. He shrugs, smiling. “Come on, we better get back inside. Jungmo’s been talking about christening the practice space for ages, and I don’t think his version involves holy water.”

---

And he had thought that any moment now he was going to get up from the rubbish and the rain water, and walk over there and take the beating that was meant for him. Any minute now he was going to man up and stop the bastards hitting on his best friend and just be who he had always wanted to be.

He didn’t though. The words any minute now resounded in his head, a mantra that travelled through his body, in time to the pounding rush of blood, until his best friend was this pulp on the floor and the cops showed up ten minutes too late.

Ten minutes too late.

Jungmo finds out later that he was so battered, broken and blue, that the police marked him up as a young black male. Which is kind of ridiculous because the reason they called him Rose was because he had skin as white as snow and when he blushes he went pure pink.

It had happened when he was fifteen, too hyped up on how the world was fucking unfair, too angry at how he could never get what he wanted. Over the years, friends would tell him that it wasn’t his fault, that X-Mas would have wanted it this way, that the guys were just spoiling for a fight and he should stop blaming himself. It wasn’t until Jay was told, sharing cigarettes on a balcony and sinking down low in an effort to hide when the guards patrolled by, and Jay had said, “Okay. You know what you should do? Get a tattoo to remember him by,” that he started to forgive himself.

The fairy lights went all the way round his wrist, neon colours bright against his skin. He was almost as pale as X-Mas used to be. He wears a watch to work now, to cover the tat up, because it’s illegal unless it’s something praising the empire. He kind of likes that though – that his tattoo is a secret kind of rebellion, like X-Mas’s whole life was.

He learnt his lesson not to shout out about the world though. Shit like that gets you killed. He listens to others do it instead, and it’s not until he finds Heechul and thinks, ‘oh hey, it’s not only us who can’t stand this, it’s them too’ that he figures it’s enough hiding, enough moping, enough letting other people do all the work. He can shout too.

---

Heechul gets thrown into prison for three days after his father randomly increases security and Heechul is caught on the roof after curfew.

It’s cold and he’s not allowed to sleep. Occasionally someone will come in and half-heartedly ask him if he supports the empire and Siwon. It’s just routine because they know about him and Siwon, but he knows that if they knew everything, he’d be tortured for any and all information.

Three days of not sleeping though, being slapped around when he sleeps under and into unconsciousness, is bad for the brain, so he thinks he’s fully justifiable in assuming Hankyung is a hallucination.

---

His wrist hurts from where Hankyung had grabbed it and thrown him into the old station wagon. The rear view mirror is a collage of bumper stickers and when it starts raining halfway through their journey, Heechul asks why he doesn’t use the window wipers and Hankyung replies that they’re broken. They stop when the rain starts coming down in sheets, making the world outside into amorphous amoeba-shaped grey blobs, and Hankyung can’t see.

They don’t speak.

Heechul’s still dazed from lack of sleep and poor food and not enough water, so he curls up sideways in the seat and unclips the seatbelt, tracing Hankyung’s features over and over. His mouth is slightly open and he feels like he’s drunk, weak as a kitten and when he tries to move, dizziness hits him so hard it’s like he’d been hanging upside down on the monkeybars for twenty minutes and then tried to sit up straight.

Hankyung’s hands are flexing on the steering wheel, and Heechul thinks that Hankyung’s knuckles are blinking at him, painful-white one moment and soft wrinkled flesh the next. The expletive is whispered so softly that Heechul is sure he dreamt it, and then there’s a flurry of movement, too sudden for Heechul’s eyes to focus, and Hankyung is shoving a bottle of water at him. Heechul stares at it. The light trickles through the rain on the window, and makes patterns on the car walls. He feels like they’re under water and starts humming Under the Sea, an illegal song one of Jay’s friends had sent him. Hankyung undoes the bottle top and presses the plastic rim to Heechul’s lips.

The water’s warm, and Heechul closes his eyes and pretends it’s warm because it’s heat from Hankyung’s hand. He falls asleep with water trickling on the windows and into his mouth, to the rush-rush sound of rain on the roof.

He wakes up sometime during the night, and they’re moving again. His stomach is contracting painfully he’s so hungry, and when he moves, black dots dance, but he doesn’t really care.

“Why am I here?” His voice is scratchy, so he clears his throat once, twice.

Hankyung glances at him, and looks him over. “Figured you didn’t really want to see your dad right now.” Which, yeah, is true enough. No one would really want to see the person who’d had them thrown into jail for three days, not right after getting off.

Heechul nods, and doesn’t bother reaching for his seatbelt. He’s a criminal. Criminals don’t need seatbelts, he thinks. Then Hankyung takes a particularly sharp corner and his fingers fumble for it faster than he’d thought he could like this. The click is a sound of safety, and he doesn’t even care that Hankyung is laughing at him. He scowls.

“Where are we going?”

He doesn’t really want to ask, because he’d really rather just be driving anywhere and nowhere, would really rather just be the passenger Hankyung chose for an illicit midnight runaway. So it kind of sucks when Hankyung replies, “This gig. It’s open air.” It kind of doesn’t suck because he’s never been to an open air concert before.

The car’s bathed in soft blue light and Heechul coughs into his hand. The line of Hankyung’s nose is edged in light blue, and shadows pool along his cheeks and under his lips, making the ghost touch of blue along them almost surreal. He’s wearing the same wig we wore to the anniversary party, and Heechul doesn’t think before he reaches across and takes it off, ruffling the blonde strands to get rid of the hat hair.

Hankyung’s lips are twisted when Heechul sits back down, but he thinks it’s in amusement. “There’s some food in the back.”

Heechul has a feast of petrol station food, munching on muffins and Skittles, swallowing everything down with Gatorade. It’s kind of disgusting, but good. He knows he’s going to be hitting the roof soon with all of the e-numbers, and that’s good too, because sometimes he needs a chemical aid to deal with Hankyung and when he’s feeling vulnerable and raw around the edges like now, anything to bring him out of it is more than excellent.

They pull over next to a fence on the edge of a field, and it takes a moment for Heechul to adjust when the light from the radio is gone and he’s left with shadows and moonlight, monochrome. Hankyung reaches across as he undoes his seatbelt and brushes his thumb just under Heechul’s bottom lip. “Crumb.” He says, and his eyes are kind of mocking when he pulls away. Heechul undoes his seatbelt and gets out of the car. He hopes it hides the flush in his cheeks.

“Where’re we going?” He asks, but when he looks over, Hankyung already has one leg over the fence.

Hankyung looks back when he’s over the other side, and spreads his arms, because “I already told you.” Heechul sighs and jogs over to the fence. His leg’s half way over when another car pulls over about maybe a metre from where they were parked and four kids pile out, one with bright pink hair that has Heechul pausing and staring. His mouth is pushed closed by Hankyung’s finger and he glances back, half-guilty, to see an exasperated but – fond? look on Hankyung’s face. “Don’t stare. It’s rude.” Heechul drops his eyes and uses Hankyung’s shoulder to swing himself the rest of the way over. Three of the kids are already over, laughing and shouting and then running across the field when their friend joins them. One falls over, foot caught in a hole. The other three hit the floor, giggling.

Hankyung’s a step ahead of him, and he looks over his shoulder before grabbing Heechul’s wrist and running with him. It smells like fresh earth, grass and cold night air and he’s still slightly lightheaded from his prison stint, but Hankyung’s hand is warm against his pulse-point and he finds himself smiling and wondering when life got so good.

---

The field’s massive, with floodlights that some brainiac has somehow managed to hook up to the mainline and a mass of people bigger than Heechul’s ever seen gathered in one place. The band’s underground-famous, Leathermouth and seriously political. The singer’s a good screamer though and the crowd is electric, surging forward and singing drunkenly along. Hankyung turns back from talking to the two girls next to them and hands Heechul a beer. It’s probably not the wisest thing to do, so little food in his body, but he downs it anyway and thrashes along with everyone else.

Sometime during the second set, they head out to a hill near the back of the field. The music’s tinny from here and Hankyung’s raving about this computer tech named Kyuhyun who’s been scavenging scrapheaps all across the country because he wants to have a concert where everyone can see and hear the main act. Heechul leans back and splays himself out flat against the grass, lets the damp seep through the thin cotton t-shirt and the seat of his jeans. His chest is still heaving from the crowd and he’s sweat-slick, flushed in the face and loving the cold touches of wind.

There’s a lull in Hankyung’s one-man conversation, and Heechul opens one eye (and can’t remember when he closed them) and says, “thank you,” through a smile. Hankyung shrugs.

“Your dad sucks, huh?” The tone of the question is carefully casual and Heechul finds himself swallowing past a lump in his throat. He nods, eyes bright.

Hankyung sighs and flops down next to him. He wriggles his shoulders a bit and then huffs, reaches underneath him and pulls out a rock. Heechul laughs a little.

They lay there for maybe ten minutes before Heechul says, “prison was good for one thing though. I worked out a song.”

He feels the weight of Hankyung’s glance and determinedly doesn’t look that way. The reply is cautious. “O-kay. Sing it for me?”

Heechul makes a shape with his mouth and then laughs out a sigh when Hankyung jabs his elbow into his ribs. “Okay, okay. Starts something like,” and he hums a soft F sharp in the back of his throat and then launches into, “I’m coming apart at the seams.” He’s not the singer of the band and there’s a reason for this, but he tries his hardest anyway. He was trained in music when he was younger and can mostly stay in note. He tries not to put too much emotion into the line, “I’m half-doomed and you’re semi-sweet.” Because he doesn’t want Hankyung drawing the wrong conclusion, but he doesn’t mind almost growling part of the refrain, “Nobody wants to hear you sing about tragedies.”

There’s a silence afterwards, or rather, as much as a silence as you can get when you have maybe five hundred people crammed into a field and a concert going on at the end.

Hankyung shifts, and the sound is loud to Heechul. He sighs, disappointment almost crushing his lungs. He’d honestly thought he’d finally gotten a hand of this song thing. Then Hankyung is in his line of vision grinning so bright it’s blinding and going, “Fuck man!” and punching the air, exclaiming about calling up the guys to work out the actual composition. Heechul feels something burst in his chest and as Hankyung pulls him up and down the hill, running to the car, a floodlight lights him up from behind and Heechul looks at him and thinks, gold dust.

---

Two weeks in the making and their first song is finished. Heechul flops down on Jungmo’s couch and feels exhausted, like he just ran a marathon and then did five hundred star jumps at the end. He closes his eyes and listens to the guys shuffle around the apartment, Jay clinking something in the kitchen and the other two doing something. The toilet flushes, and Heechul’s halfway to sleep when a pile of elbows, knees and limbs land on him. He ‘oof’s and opens one eye, closing it again when peroxide-white hair floods his vision.

“Nn. Move your elbow, or I’m never going to be able to have kids.” His tongue is sleep-heavy and he almost chokes on it when Hankyung slides his hands up to Heechul’s ribs and rests them there.

“Better?” Hankyung asks, speaking into Heechul’s neck and sounding like he couldn’t give a damn if it was anyway. Heechul doesn’t answer.

---

His mum was due home three days ago. Her empty chair at breakfast is like the pink elephant in the room, and Heechul finds himself saying nothing at all.

---

There is someone playing the piano a few rooms over, the sweet sounds strained through the doors and walls in-between the piano and here. Heechul shifts in his seat and stares at the pattern on Siwon’s china.

“Are you okay, Heechul?” Siwon looks concerned, but there is something else in his expression that Heechul can’t place, and it throws him off a beat so that when he replies in the affirmative, it looks like he was hesitating. “Are you sure? Because you know you can tell me anything.” Heechul looks at Siwon’s painfully sincere expression and thinks that once upon a time that had been true. But now –

There is just too much to risk. The line ‘I’m a loose bolt of a complete machine’ runs through his head in Jay’s voice, and he crosses the room to distract Siwon.

---

Four of them in the old station wagon hadn’t seemed like a lot when they were planning the outing, but now Jay’s breath is hitting the back of Heechul’s neck on every exhale, and Jungmo is demonstrating how he is a walking metronome, keeping beat with his fingers on the windowpane. Hankyung’s just looking increasingly amused at the annoyed faces Heechul keeps trying not to pull, but pulling anyway. In the end, he just flicks through the CD collection and puts something on that is labelled as De Bussy. It turns out to be Cobra Starship and by the third song they’re all singing ‘oh, I’m ready for it, come on, bring it!’

The split up when they hit the town centre, Jungmo dragging Jay into a trendy café and Hankyung sticking with Heechul out of default.

They navigate around a woman with a dog and then Hankyung goes, “You know what would be cool? Piercing my nipple.” And Heechul starts choking on his own saliva, he’s trying not to laugh so hard.

Ten minutes later they walk out of the dodgy looking shop hidden in the outhouse of an old pub with Heechul looking slightly nauseated and Hankyung glancing down at his chest. “Hankyung,” Heechul begins, “the guy was bald with a spider web tattooed on his head.”

Hankyung laughs, “I know, wasn’t that so awesome?” Heechul raises an eyebrow and Hankyung smirks suddenly. “You know what would be cool?” And Heechul is already hearing alarm bells. “You with a tat.”

Heechul starts walking quickly away.

Hankyung’s arm lands around his waist and he chuckles into his ear. “What? I thought you were hardcore?” Which is why Heechul finds himself sitting on the bathroom counter in the museum’s bathroom, with Hankyung sweeping his thumb across Heechul’s wrist and then slowly peeling back the slip of paper, blowing softly on the transferred ink. The little skull and crossbones is kind of cute, but Heechul hurriedly drops his sleeve to cover it. He hopes Hankyung doesn’t notice how, throughout the day, he keeps touching it under his sleeve with his fingers bent up to trace the same path as Hankyung’s thumb. He only thanks his stubborn nature that he managed to get a transfer tattoo and not a real one.

They go to a gig later that night, something harsh and electric, something the kids are calling Drum&Bass, and the band called Pendulum make Heechul’s body pound. He makes the mistake of looking over at Hankyung, sees him flushed and happy with sweat curling a blond lock on the side of his forehead and figures he’s pretty fucked, really.

The next time they meet, he suggests Pretty (Fucked) as a name and the others like it. Now that they have a name and a song, Heechul feels like something has solidified in his wrists and his chest, and when he goes to play some chords on the keyboard, he thumps the keys too hard and ends up laughing over notes layering over and over each other in some horrible cacophony. Jay and Jungmo look at him, worried, but Hankyung looks back and strums his guitar and grins. He gets it.

---

The weird kind of truce only lasts two more days, before Heechul makes a comment about his mother and Hankyung fucking loses it, calling Heechul a stuck up snob who doesn’t know good music and whines about his life not being perfect, using lyrics as a medium. Heechul punches him so hard he hears the sick wet crunch of his nose breaking, and then they’re scrapping on the kitchen floor like bulldogs and Jungmo and Jay have to separate them.

Jungmo gets a scratch across his cheek and a dead leg from a punch to the thigh, but he still manages to drag Heechul to the bathroom and lock the door. He raises and eyebrow and says, “You’re a dick.”

Heechul’s too busy panting to reply, so he flips him the bird and focuses on the anger, hot at the base of his spine and so much more certain a feeling than butterflies.

a/n. thankyou daisie for my quick scan-read beta.

okay so the song they sing here is a real one, and to d/l it so you have some idea of what i'm on about, go here. that should work, if not, tell me, and i'll embed it or something ;] also, the song i keep mentioning is My Worst Nightmare by Forever the Sickest Kids.

dreamrainydays @ 2009-08-12T22:56:00

2009-08-12T22:04:23Z

Title: We'll Make Them So Jealous (We'll Make Them Hate Us)
Length: [1/?]
Rating: R in later chapters
Pairing: Hanchul, Qmi, Jay/Jungmo (the TRAX)
Summary: Heechul discovers music, Hankyung and the perils of falling in love with someone so wildly different from you.

The drum kit took three trips, every time. One time to carry all the cymbals, another to pile the drums on top of each other and waddle in through the back door carefully avoiding the rubbish bins, and another to wrap his arms around the floor tom and roll it over that slightly upraised notch of metal on the floor.

“Where’s Hankyung?” He asked when he placed the tom next to the snare drum and started the long act of rearranging everything. He flicked his hair behind his ear and looked up from where he was bent over when Sungmin answered.

“Dunno. He’s at some fancy gig thing that he had to wear a wig for though. Think it’s another one of those rich people parties, you know?”

---

The fairy lights made the chandelier shine, reflected images of people dancing on the floor. Something soft and classical was being played by the band in the corner, all dressed in black tie with the official insignia of musician on their lapels. Heechul took a flute of champagne from a girl in a silvery glittery dress that skimmed her knees, and dangled the stem between his fingers. She curtseyed and then walked off, the tray of beverages carefully balanced on three fingers.

He sighed. He could practically feel the sparkles under his skin, the party was so glitzy. His father was somewhere to the left, surrounded by other officials of the government, probably of an inferior position to his father and trying to get favour. His mother was away in Europe at the moment, which was a pity because she was often the one who made these things more bearable, whispering caustic remarks about the other guests into her champagne glass and smiling as bright as the diamonds in her ring when Heechul did the same.

He rolled his eyes as he headed out of the patio doors and leant over the wrought iron railing, staring at the garden. A room full of the most brilliant people in the government, and he was forced to stare at the Koi in the pond to keep from going stir-crazy. There was something wrong in that; maybe wrong with him. Somewhere in there was the Director, the head of the new authoritarian government, the person who had revolutionised the country and stabilised their economy. He was the reason for the diamonds, the fairy lights, the home Heechul lived in, and he was inside socialising along with everyone else. Heechul should probably join the hundreds trying to catch a glimpse of him face to face, but since he had already met him a few dozen times, it seemed pointless.

“Heechul.” There was a smile in his voice, so Heechul turned around with one as well. The backing glow of the party lit up golden highlights in the man’s hair and cast shadows over his white shirt, like inky handprints of other people.

He raised an eyebrow. “Shouldn’t you be inside, Siwon?”

The man let out a loose chuckle and came to stand next to Heechul. He could feel the warmth of his arm through the fabric of his clothes, shifted closer so their shoulders were brushing. It was cold outside and he could feel his fingers going numb at the tips. “Mm, but I can only handle so many wives trying to cop a feel.” Heechul snorted, didn’t bother hiding his grin. “Why aren’t you in there?”

I miss my mum seemed childish, so he shrugged. “Seen it all before.” The music seemed out of time with the way the wind made the pond water ripple.

Siwon turned his dark eyes on him, sombre and serious like the black coffee he insisted on drinking. Like it would make him seem older than his twenty eight years. “C’mon Heechul, this is the Ten Year Anniversary.” His tone was wheedling. “You could at least pretend to be happy.”

Heechul laughed and turned to look at Siwon. “I am happy, Siwon. I have an amazing home, a wonderful family and a bright future. I’m just -” He stopped, frustrated, and ran a hand through his hair.

Siwon looked at him steadily before changing the subject. “You’re growing your hair out again.”

Heechul shrugged. “I like it long.” It wasn’t really that long, just an inch away from his chin and curling softly around his jawline. But an inch longer, and he’d be breaking regulation.

Siwon reached over, the cufflink on his shirt sleeve grazing the knuckles of Heechul’s hand. He took the glass from Heechul and took a sip. “Not too long. You know the rules.”

Heechul rolled his eyes. “Mm, the rules, the rules. Don’t worry, I won’t break your precious rules.” Siwon raised an eyebrow. “That was one time, okay?” He still remembered the cold feel of the handcuffs on his wrists, like skeleton fingers grasping tight. The three nights in the cells of the Old Bailey were not going to be forgotten that easily.

“Okay. Well, I’m going to go ask the lovely Sooyoung for a dance. Don’t spend too long out here.” He brushed the hair back from Heechul’s face, put it behind his ear, and then replaced the glass of champagne. “You’ll catch a cold.”

Heechul made a displeased shape with his mouth. “’Kay.” Siwon turned and walked away, a gust of his expensive cologne blowing in Heechul’s face. He paused and then turned around, elbows balanced on the railing. “Ya, Director.” He raised his glass and smirked as Siwon turned around. “Happy Anniversary.” The head of the government laughed as he walked through the curtains and Heechul took a sip of his drink, letting champagne bubbles fizz on his tongue.

---

The great thing about having a father that was so high in the government he was practically walking on clouds, was the unlimited access to the internet. Heechul had been around friends’ houses who were only allowed on for a certain amount of hours and to a certain sort of websites. But his father was something to do with security and political alliances or something, and so had access to everything. Heechul had only discovered this three years ago, and he still wondered if his father also knew about porn. It made him pull an involuntary face when he thought about it though, so he tried not to.

He pulled up a browser window and typed in a search engine’s address. He paused. He had been going to try and download some of last night’s band’s music, but he had forgotten their name. He sighed, and let his fingers hover over the keys. On impulse, he typed his own name in.

The first page was a bunch of his father’s achievements and some articles about his own graduation from the city’s university. The next page, however, was something else entirely.

‘Heechul Kim; Man or Woman?’

He blinked. What? He clicked on it and found what looked like a forum, not about politics or crockery patterns like his parents looked at, but one about him and his apparent gender. He felt something heavy settle into the bottom of the stomach as he skimmed subject lines and the bodies of comments. What the fuck was this?

He clicked on ‘related topics’ in the sidebar, to another forum with his name in the title. An hour later, he felt sick to his stomach and had to get up to go into the kitchen for a drink of water, concrete feet clumping across warm tiles. He didn’t understand half of what was being said, stuff ranging from how he upheld the oppressive government (oppressive? Couldn’t they see the good that Siwon had done?) to how he was the Director’s personal fucktoy who bent over at the sight of something shiny.

He spent some more time trying to rationalise it in his mind, getting indignantly angry at their words and eventually going to type a furious comment. Only when he got there, there was a new comment.

FriedRice wrote;

what i would like to know is why has the government censored music? i mean, classical music all day every day? what’s wrong with self-expression? music is supposed to be varied, supposed to reflect the times. this stuff the director makes us listen to is only reflecting the lives of the rich and the dicks, people like Heechul Kim. where’s ours?

Heechul breathed through his nose. Apart from the insult to him, this comment had something to it. It made that little niggle in the back of his mind dance around a little in recognition. He had always wondered why there was only one form of music, only one way of playing and composing. He could remember being younger, tapping his feet under his bed’s sheets out of time with his heart to create new rhythms he saved in his head, mouthing lyrics that, in retrospect, were really kind of shitty. But he could see this, could see why someone would get annoyed at the sometimes empty melodies that were blasted from speakers on every street corner.

Siwon had said that this kind of music stimulated the brain and would help to raise intellectual people. Heechul couldn’t help but think that, stimulating or not, sometimes he longed for something else. Something that would reflect how he felt, rather than how he should feel. Something that wasn’t sweeping, extravagant harmonies, but rather more suited to the staccato sound of his shoes on tarmac, or his nails tapping against windowpanes and champagne flutes.

He looked back at the screen, feeling unsettled and chewing the inside of his cheek. Someone had posted another comment.

Paintthetown wrote;

if it’s our music you’re wanting, come to the black horse tonight at 11. use the back alleys to get past the guards and use my username as the password. admission is ten quid. see you there~

Heechul leant back in the office chair. Well. It couldn’t hurt, right?

---

His stomach was twisting tight in his stomach, like a damp towel wrung out to get rid of the moisture. Only, there was loads of moisture left, in the palms of his hands and the back of his neck. He swallowed sour, and then swung himself out of his window and onto the roof below. The tiles were kind of slippy from rain earlier in the evening, so he had to lean down low and use his hands to get a grasp. It took twenty minutes to get over the first part of the building and by then he was cursing his father and his need for large houses.

“Really father, what’s wrong with a bungalow? Really?” He hissed as he slid another inch down the roof tiles and was only saved by grabbing hold of a rusty weathervane. He pulled a face at the orange marks left on his hands.

He looked around. It was pretty much pitch black outside, people turning off their lights and getting ready for bed. Curfew was ten, and it was half past now. It was the end of the day, and for a second Heechul thought longingly of his bed and the nice warm fire that his maid would have lit by now. He hoped that they didn’t look too much for him and just assumed he was somewhere else in the house. Being caught out past curfew would land him in prison again, nevermind who his father was.

He sighed. Truth was, he was tired of this place, with all these rules and all these punishments, all these petty people who listened to and read the same things and just repeated what they had heard as though it was something new. He was bored, and he was restless. And yeah, okay, trying to find a solution with people who hated him because his father’s achievements probably wasn’t the most intelligent thing he had ever thought of – but...

He took a deep breath, took a hold of the weathervane and swung himself onto the wall. He misjudged the distance a little and his left foot skidded over the edge of the wall. He frantically swung his arms out flat in an attempt to keep balance and stop himself, and it kind of worked, only his muscle gave way halfway through and he fell to his knee, arms pinwheeling like a malfunctioning wind turbine. He winced at the shock to the bone. Getting down onto the other side was a bitch, and dodging the guards even harder. He’d only just left the estate, and already his heartbeat felt more marching band on crack than simple backbeat.

In his head, for some reason, he had thought the streets would be cobbled, but instead tarmac swallowed the sound of his footsteps. After a near run-in with a guard, he quickly realised that it swallowed their footsteps too. He pressed himself tight into the enclave in the wall, and then forged onwards when the guard lit his smoke and then carried on. He hung back when he reached his destination.

The Black Horse was kind of shabby, to be honest. The whole neighbourhood was. He hadn’t realised before that just turning a few corners would lead him to this almost-poverty. Still, the whole experience was kind of thrilling, and he could feel adrenalin thrumming below the surface of the thin skin of his wrists.

The door was shut, newspapers taped up to the windows. He was about to turn back, because playing music in this kind of dump was laughable, when another guy wearing a black hoody with something white written on the back stepped out from a side street, looked furtively around, and then walked up to the door. He saw his mouth move, and then the door opened, spilling music, light and warmth onto cold black tarmac. Heechul’s heart jumped to his mouth and he felt his pulse jackrabbit jumpstart again.

He bit his lip as the door closed behind the guy, and then walked forwards, his eyes darting about as though he was in Mission Impossible. His knuckles wrapped on the door sharply, and paint flecks fell to the floor. “Paint the town.” He spoke in a low whisper, and felt as though he was standing on the edge of a crevice, about to fall. The delay between the answer and action was too long, three pulse beats too long, and he was about to turn back when the door opened and a large guy looked him up and down.

The last photo of Heechul had been three years ago, when he had hair the colour of a sunset pulled back tight in a ponytail to give him a facelift. Now he was wearing thick black shades with shaggy curly brown hair. He hoped the lack of leather, also, helped him to blend in and not be recognised. Apparently so, because the guy on the door stepped back and held out his hand flat, curling around the tenner when Heechul shoved it there, slightly damp from his own grip.

“Age?”

“19.” The guy drew two black crosses on his knuckles and said;

“Go have fun.”

Heechul’s body was wound so tight he didn’t know if he could. He took a deep breath as he walked past, and then heard background music. It sounded terrible, a muted cacophony of percussion. It sounded like nothing he had heard before. He pushed through the corridor, bumping shoulders with some girl coming down the stairs with a bright pink concoction in her hand. She scowled at him. He scowled right back.

There had to be a bar somewhere, he thought, and walked out into a larger room full of people where the noise was louder, forcing its way through his eardrums and straight into his head. It felt gritty. The room was humid and dark, the walls black and the windows wallpapered in the Daily Star. He was already longing for the biting wind outside. The bar was in the corner, and he began to head over there, when the music caught his attention again. This time, he could pick out rhythms, patterns. He looked to the stage, only a foot off of the floor and close to the crowd, and caught the gaze of a bleach blond vocalist. It was only a second, lids closing over brown eyes quickly as his face screwed up trying to hit the next note, but Heechul felt a shiver down his spine. This was someone putting words to music, ideas pinned down by the time between bars and the next breath.

He snapped his gaze back to the floor, the adrenalin kick-starting again, the lulls in-between making it more painful each time. He clenched a fist, longing for alcohol to dull his senses and make him relax, but as he tried to make his way through, he got pulled into the crowd, rebounded off of some guy with a beard and BO, right into the middle of a group of people who pressed tight around him. He was pulled up with them when they jumped, dropped back down when their feet hit the floor. He shuddered. Too close, too hot. He could already feel the back of his t-shirt clinging to his spine. He didn’t even know what the fuck this was. He looked around the mesh of t-shirts, skin and faces, saw a flash of the singer as they jumped again, and realised everyone was singing along. They were smiling, grinning, fierce and bright around their words.

After another moment of bewilderment, on the upward trip, someone’s metal belt catching the exposed skin between his t-shirts and jeans, he let go. If there was anything he was good at, it was following the crowd. Anyway, it was basically an act of survival. He felt other people’s voices join in a melee of voices around him, felt their skin rub against his, felt the angry harsh pulse of the crowd and the cool freedom of one hand waving against the rest to the beat. His feet strained against the floor, jumping to get higher, hit the ceiling, feel cool air, but the crowd was straining with him, and he felt high from lack of oxygen. The song finished and the singer leant into the microphone, whispered with an accent Heechul was too dazed too identify, “And this one’s called My Worst Nightmare.” The intro was simple, almost a piano but sounding sweeter, and Heechul frowned from his position, half-heartedly trying to identify the instrument. The people around him yelled, high pitched screams and he grinned; infectious enthusiasm. And then it went percussion beat, quick and fast, and people were dancing and grinding at the same time as jumping and Heechul felt giddy and gritty. Two men on stage singing now, the blond vocalist and someone else, but Heechul’s head was down and he was sweating like a bitch, grinning through the salt, and couldn’t see who it was.

An hour later, and the band said their goodbyes, and the lights came up. For some reason, that made Heechul feel colder. The people around him dispersed into a corner of the room, and Heechul rubbed at his arms as he headed to the bar. His hair was wet with sweat and his whole body was one sweet aching bruise, but he was grinning when he ordered a whisky. The drink was slid along the bar to him and he caught it with instinct, looking up shocked at the bartender. But the bartender just swung a stained serving cloth over his shoulder and raised an eyebrow at someone behind Heechul. He took the hint, grabbed his drink and left. The first sip was like a punch, burning his throat. The whisky they served in his world (and he was beginning to think of them as separate spheres, because this kind of thing would never happen in the world of champagne and tiny triangle sandwiches) was sweeter and weaker than this, and he could already feel the buzz in his fingers that it usually took four glasses to create. He meandered his way to the front of the room.

They were clearing the instruments off of the stage, though they left the large monstrosity that Heechul could now see was a concoction of drums and cymbals, placed at angles to each other. A guy bent down and peeled a piece of paper from the stage, looked up and caught Heechul’s eye. “Hey.” He had hair cut to curl around his ears and dance just above his collarbones, and large eyes rimmed in eyeliner. “Enjoy the show?”

Heechul’s glass was perspiring and he really wanted to wipe his hands on his jeans, but didn’t want the guy to think he was gross. He nodded, grinned. “Yeah, it was great.” The guy’s grin was small but bright, and he swung himself off of the stage, using his hand as a pivot. He landed in front of Heechul, placed his hand over Heechul’s and tilted the glass up, taking a sip.

“I need to go chuck this in the bin out back, coming for a ciggie?” The guy crunched the piece of paper in his hand and looked at Heechul questioning, dropping his hand.

Heechul shrugged. “Sure.” He was too buzzed to really care.

The other smiled back and started walking toward the bar. Heechul followed. “Yo, Shindong!” The guy yelled as they reached the bar, bending his waist over the counter until he was almost horizontal on the surface. The bartender, Shindong, Heechul was guessing, looked over and sighed.

“What, Jungmo?” The bartender’s voice was surprisingly smooth, and Heechul tightened his grip on his drink after switching it to the other hand, taking the opportunity to wipe his hand.

Jungmo grinned and waved two fingers in a parody of a salute. “Yoohoo.” Shindong rolled his eyes but couldn’t help smiling. “Got my shit?”

Shindong reached underneath the bar and chucked a bundle of things at Jungmo. “Next time, get pockets.”

Jungmo pulled a face that Heechul couldn’t see from his vantage point and whined, “But they come out in the crowd, you know that.” He jumped off again, almost into Heechul, and he found himself taking an involuntarily step backwards. “’Kay, let’s go!” Fingers wrapped themselves around Heechul’s wrist and he was pulled after him. The rush of cool air when Jungmo pushed at a bar with the faded letters ‘ire xit’ over the curve was a shock to the senses and the signal for goosebumps to spring up painfully on all exposed sections of skin.

He shivered and patted his pockets automatically. They were standing on a small rectangle of concrete, three bins to the side, surrounding by brown panelled fencing. The bins were bright colours, but they looked dim in this lighting. He looked up at the sky quickly, flicked hia gaze back to Jungmo. He was handing him a cigarette, held between forefinger and thumb. He took it with a muttered thanks and watched Jungmo’s cupped hand glow amber for a second, before he handed the lighter to Heechul. He did the same, placing his drink on the floor.

“So.” Jungmo offered, ending a long exhale of smoke that was still trailing against the black backdrop of fences and bins. He was looking up, cigarette held like some person in a Modernist painting, chin tilted to the sky, eyes half-lidded. “What’s Heechul Kim doing in a place like this?”

Heechul suddenly felt sick, too much saliva in his mouth and bile in his throat. He swallowed, shrugged one shoulder, trying for nonchalant. “Don’t know.”

Jungmo looked over at him, smirked around the filter. “You don’t know?”

Heechul briefly thought about making up some long, exaggerated story about an abusive father, or maybe about being a spy, but in the end he said, “Got bored of orchestras.”

Jungmo snorted, and then laughed, a surprisingly rich sound. Heechul had been expecting something husky and dirty. “Guess that happens,” he replied, voice still weak from amusement.

Heechul wasn’t entirely sure what was so funny, but whatever. He sucked on the filter, watched the cherry glow in response. “Is it that obvious who I am?”

Jungmo shrugged, one shouldered like Heechul had earlier, and he couldn’t help thinking that he pulled off nonchalant much better than Heechul had. “Nah. I was just on this forum today, and I’ve got an eye for faces.”

Heechul ducked his head, hoping his cheeks wouldn’t flush, and hollowed them out with a suck on his fag. “You’re paintthetown?” He asked through the exhale.

Jungmo laughed again. “What the fuck were you doing on those ‘sites?” He was tapping a quick-two-slow-two beat on the floor with his feet.

Heechul adopted a resigned expression and answered, “Googled my own name.” The tone must have been amusing because suddenly Jungmo was choking on cigarette smoke with a grin.

The pat to the shoulder was a surprise. “Poor kid.” Heechul tossed him a wry look. “So, did you really enjoy the show or were you just kidding?”

Heechul’s body was still thrumming, base beats and high notes caught in haemoglobin and electric messages, coursing around his circulatory and nervous systems. “No.” He said, fervently. “It was great. What were those instruments they were playing? I saw the drums, recognised those, but the others? What did they use in the beginning of My Worst Nightmare?” He looked steadily at Jungmo, who was looking at him with some kind of open-mouthed surprise. The cigarette was about to fall, so Heechul caught it and held it out.

Jungmo blinked, took a final drag, and crushed it with his heel. “Come with me, I’ll show you.”

---

The click of keys in the apartment door was loud in the empty hallway. Jungmo held his finger to his lips and Heechul rolled his eyes. He got it; it was past curfew and anyone caught out past curfew was arrested. It wasn’t exactly a new idea.

The door opened and they stepped inside, Heechul toeing off his shoes. Jungmo just carried on into the living room, calling out “Honey, I’m home!” on the way in. There was an answering grunt from somewhere in the flat, but Jungmo just waved his hand dismissively, so Heechul tried to ignore it. Jungmo waved his hand again, this time at the sofa. “Take a seat. I’ll get us a drink and then show you.”

The buzz from the show had worn off halfway down the cold streets, an echo briefly returning in a quick dash from two previously hidden guards, and Heechul curled his toes up under his thighs, and wrapped his arms around his chest. He felt a little dizzy, like someone had spun him fast on an office chair and then made him stand up, so he let his neck flop back and stared at the ceiling. There was damp spreading from a corner, reaching its way across to Heechul’s view. It looked a little like the pictures of dinosaurs he’d seen, and he was trying to name it when Jungmo returned, two beers in hand. The cold shock of the bottle to his forehead made him jump. “I lost my sunglasses.” He said, the beginning slow as his mouth tried to remember how to work again.

Jungmo’s face was upside down, but Heechul could still see the look of incredulity. “You came to a gig in the middle of the night and wore sunglasses? What, did you think the sun would decide to pop back quickly, try to fuck us over?”

Heechul shrugged, hand reached up to grab the bottle, and oh, the burn was sweet as various groups of muscles joined the party and pulled with the movement. “You never know with the sun.” Jungmo grinned.

“C’mon. I’m showing you.” Heechul’s muscles protested, but he curled himself outward from his position and followed Jungmo down some stairs and into a small room.

Heechul threw a measuring look at Jungmo’s back and said, “if you’re taking me to your basement, I’m skipping the rest of the night and calling rape now.”

Jungmo’s laughter was bright again, and swallowed the sound of the door clicking open. Even so, suddenly Heechul could see inside, and it was even better when Jungmo threw the switch and they moved into the room. There were instruments on the walls, a shabby baby grand piano in the corner, and a drum set in the centre. “Okay. Crash course.”

Heechul spent all night there, until the sky was light blue again and dusky tones were hanging on tight in tendrils near the horizon. Jungmo had shown him how to play the guitar, the bass, the drums and in return, Heechul had tuned the piano in the corner. Still, he didn’t expect to be there, a month later, doing tequila shots with Jungmo and his other half, Jay, as they played I Never.

“I never... got a tattoo.” Heechul smirked as Jay and Jungmo groaned and knocked back the tequila, slamming the shot glass down upside down, flat with their palms.

“Bitch.” Jungmo muttered; Heechul flipped him off. “Okay, well. I never slept with the Director.”

Heechul narrowed his eyes, and Jay snickered into the crease of skin between his finger and thumb. He took a drink defiantly and Jungmo’s eyes widened while Jay dissolved into peals of laughter on the floor. “You’re shitting me.” There was a note of amusement threaded in with the incredulity, but still. Heechul flipped him off again.

“Well, if a blowjob and then snuggling after really counts.”

Jay crowed, “The Director snuggles?”

Jungmo was laughing now too. “Totally counts, dude. Sucks to be you.”

Heechul shrugged. “I don’t know. Siwon’s mouth, guys.” They both screwed up their faces.

Jungmo was the first to speak. “That’s like, I don’t know, fucking your uncle or something.”

Heechul thought of his uncle, fat with a walrus moustache that Heechul secretly thought was his way of compensating for the lack of hair on his actual head. Then he thought of Siwon, tanned muscles that trembled when you touched him just so, and he shook his head vehemently. “Nothing like, trust me.”

They were laughing again, the neck of the bottle caught in Jay’s fingers because there hadn’t been enough shot glasses for all of them, Jay going, “Oh, oh, gross,” every time a new mental image popped into his head.

---

“Heenim!” Jungmo called across the room to Heechul with the name they’d decided he should go by so no one else would connect the dots. He twisted his neck, his elbows still on the bar, his feet hooked over each other. Jungmo was heading over with someone in tow, someone with bleach blond hair and a leather jacket. Heechul turned all the way round, leaning back and feeling the ridge of the counter settle in-between vertebrae uncomfortably. The two men came to a halt in front of Heechul, who drank the last of his drink quickly because he had found that Jungmo had this habit of drinking your drink when you weren’t looking. He blinked away the sudden rush of alcohol to his system. “This is Hankyung.” Heechul smiled and looked up at the meet-and-greet.

It felt like ten tequila shots in quick succession followed by Sambuca. In short, he was fucked.

---

He crept in at four in the morning, or something past. The sky was more blue than black, and he was reminded of the bruise on his ribs from his second gig, when he was dumb enough to think that bruises meant a good gig. Jungmo had rolled his eyes and said, “Yeah, it’s cool, but come on, how can you listen to the music when you’re too busy getting the shit beaten out of you?” Which was fair enough.

His sheets were cold, after he shucked off his clothes and tried to shake away the smell of cigarettes and alcohol. He should have a shower, really, but he didn’t know how water bills worked and whether the time he had it would show up. Sometimes being a spoilt rich kid sucked, especially when it came to practicality. He was lost in common sense.

He closed his eyes and opened them an hour later to the sound of knocking on his door. “Heechul. Heechul!” It was his father. The distance from bed to door wasn’t really that long, but the journey was gruelling all the same. He leant on the doorhandle with his elbow to open it and used the door o hold himself up.

“What?” His hair was in his eyes, but he could still identify that look; disappointment.

Half an hour later and his dad was finally through with chewing him out for the illegal music he’d found on his computer. He was also through with listing the punishments. “No internet. No phone. And we’re cutting your hair.”

The buzz cut wasn’t flattering, and neither were the glasses he wore like a security blanket, but at least it was better than being reported to Siwon and having to spend another three nights in prison. Still, the silver lining didn’t make him any less frustrated at the cloud, and he spent the day longing to bash out some beats on Jungmo’s drums. He had to settle for Chopin on the baby grand piano that belonged to his mother.

She wasn’t due back for another month, and Heechul was so far beyond missing her, he was right back where he started again, longing for acidic one-liners and a raised eyebrow that cut slivers into your ego. He tried some Tchaikovsky instead.

---

“So what’re you going to do?” Jungmo licked muffin batter from the wooden spoon and watched with dark eyes as Heechul shrugged.

“About what? My hair, my mother, my life?” He stuck a batter-covered finger in his mouth to hide the bitter twist of his lips. Okay, so yeah, there were people with worse problems than him. It didn’t stop him feeling like shit.

Jungmo smirked. “I meant about Hankyung, but yeah, dude, sort out the hair.” He hit it with his spit-clean spoon and Heechul grimaced.

He shrugged. “Bribe him with muffins?”

Jungmo laughed and kicked his heels against the cupboard. “Think it might take more than your muffins, sweetcheeks.” Heechul tossed him a dark look, and Jungmo spread his palms as though to say, what? “Bit of a blow, that. Him being part of the orchestra and all.”

Heechul hummed around his finger. “Mm. He doesn’t look that different with a wig on, to be honest.” His finger came out of his mouth with a sudden pop. “Hey, do you think I could wear a wig?”

Jungmo looked at him steadily before saying, “Oh dude, no. No. Just. No.”

There was a snort of laughter than belonged to neither of them, and they both looked towards the kitchen doorway. Jay stood there with Hankyung, looking sort of sheepish but ultimately amused. “I don’t know. Put you in a blond wig and you’d make an awesome princess, Cinderella.” Hankyung’s words were edged with a smile and dealt with a hell of a lack of respect.

Heechul saluted him with one finger. “Sorry that I’m prettier than your girlfriend, jackass.” Jungmo whistled at the tension, drawing Heechul’s eyes away from Hankyung’s.

Jungmo’s eyes went wide as he drew his bottom lip between his teeth. “This could be awkward, then.” Jay laughed into his elbow and reached up to tug his beanie off of his hair. The resulting hat hair was adorable, and while Heechul would usually go over there and ruffle it, cooing about how he wouldn’t need a teddy bear if Jay kept him company at night, he was like, a metre away from Hankyung, and that was miles too close.

“What will be?” He asked, crossing his arms over his chest and deciding that Hankyung wasn’t worth the effort anyway.

Jay grinned, kind of brilliant and unrepentant, when he said; “We should start a band.”

“With him?”

“With her? Oh, wait.”

“Yeah, no.”

“Fuck no.”

Jay chuckled and started peeling his gloves off. “Come on guys. Think of the beautiful music we’d make together.”

“The only beautiful music I could make out of him is his death rattle.” Heechul tossed his head and longed for his hair. Hankyung muttered something in Mandarin that Heechul couldn’t translate, but could definitely understand. He threw a glare at him.

“Yeah, okay, because that makes sense when I’m in an orchestra.” Hankyung rolled his eyes. “Anyway, I’m already in a band.” He directed the last sentence to Jay and Jungmo, with a much more reasonable tone. They both shrugged and said that it could be a side project.

“It would be awesome,” Jungmo enthused, “We could do some covers of old school bands first, just to get into it, but I’ve got some song ideas I’d love to flesh out with you guys and Heechul has this habit of just fixing things. I mean, about a month ago,” Heechul shifted, remembering the incident, “I played him one of my songs from when I was, I don’t know, seventeen? And he just took it and turned it into something great.”

Hankyung turned a considering eye onto Heechul. He turned one back on Hankyung, and then sighed, reaching for his coat. “I’ll think about it.”

It was all very well and good, talking about making a band in a kitchen smelling like chocolate chips and muffin batter, but the fact of the matter was Siwon had censored music like theirs and Heechul had more to lose than any of them.

---

The tea was warm through the thin china, too hot to touch. It was an art, getting it the right temperature that it would warm your stomach, but not so hot it would burn your fingers or so cold it was disgusting. Whenever Heechul came to tea at Siwon’s, he longed for the big mugs his mother had.

“So.”

They grinned. “What’s going on in our empire today, Director?” Heechul asked, dividing his attention between his tea and Siwon’s expressions. There was a wooden replica of Jesus on the cross behind Siwon’s head, and when he moved just so, it looked like he was on the cross himself. Heechul tried not to laugh at that, and burnt his tongue in the process. He hissed an expletive.

“Not much. There’s been some trouble with music lately. A lot of illegal gigs going on, especially at this place called the Black Horse? It used to be a pub near where you live, but it got closed down with the restriction of alcohol to the less intellectually gifted.” Siwon leant back in his chair. “Reports say that they sing with their music, which in itself is a bastardisation of beauty. But the things they sing, things about me, things about the government. They’re just angry. The head of security, you know I’d tell you his name if I could ‘cause that’s a mouthful,” Siwon chuckled, sipping at his perfectly cooled tea, “Says they’re a threat to home security, and that their songs reek of terrorism. Which wouldn’t be fun, really.”

Heechul shrugged. “It’s just music, Siwon.” His intestines were tying themselves in knots and he placed his cup on the saucer with too much delicacy.

Siwon turned a sharp gaze on him. “No, it’s not, Heechul. You should know better by now. Any threat has to be eliminated as soon as it presents itself. We can’t risk these things, Heechul. Do you remember what this country was like before our Party seized power?” Heechul couldn’t. He wasn’t sure if that was because he was too young, or because he’d blocked those things out of his head because they were too traumatising.

Fact was, Siwon did remember. And instead of crying about it or panicking over situations like a nationwide famine or a severe lack of any kind of energy source, he prayed and planned and then acted on the solution that would work. Which is why, he guessed, Siwon was the Director.

“Okay.” Still, he’d been hearing things. You didn’t go to gigs like the ones he went to and not hear things occasionally. Muttered into half empty (or half full) glasses, whispered over stained tables in dirty booths, shouted across the crowd in screamed lyrics. “Hey, Siwon. What’s the Great Purge?”

The clatter of the china was ominous in a way that Heechul knew he had to backpedal quickly. Siwon didn’t give him a chance. “Don’t know.”

Heechul watched the way the curtains moved in the wind, and wondered how sleeping with someone gave you an instinct for when they were lying.

----

Maybe it was just another act of rebellion that made him say yes. Lord knows he was frustrated enough, at his father and the lack of information from Siwon, and angry enough at his mother. Or maybe it was kind of inevitable. Because when he finally did play music with the band, it was like everything suddenly clicked into place.

----

PIMP

2009-07-29T16:18:34Z

Dressed To Kill

2009-07-26T13:39:04Z

Title: Dressed to Kill
Length: [5/?]
Pairings: Hanchul, Qmi, Henwook, Eunteuk
Summary: Revenge is a dish best served cold - but Heechul never did have much patience.
Backstories: Of Diners and Coffee Cups
Chapters: #1| #2 | #3| #4
Dedication: black_goose

The bell rings out as Kibum and Henry step into the café, bringing the sound of outside construction work with them. Henry adjusts his tie and tries not to look too uncomfortable in the suit, but it’s hard because it used to belong to Donghae and there’s something in the stitches that Henry’s suspiciously sure is itching powder.

They take a seat in the back restaurant, near to the counter where Junsu is, Henry following Kibum’s lead. He’s not sure if they look old enough to pull this off convincingly, but either way he feels a little off-balance by how good Kibum looks in a suit, the white shirt contrasting nicely with his skin. He resists the urge to pull at his collar. The metal chairs scrape as they pull them out.

Kibum takes his time taking things out of his pockets in his trousers, a set of keys, a memory stick, a crumpled up receipt and then, the whole point of the charade, the FBI badge. Henry leans back in his seat and smiles when Junsu comes to serve them. He’s always had a sweet tooth, and even if Junsu is a murderer, he’s going to indulge it. “Angel cake!” He says in a bad Korean accent, letting the Canadian accent slip through. Junsu wouldn’t recognise the difference between the two (American and Canadian) anyway. Kibum orders a sandwich, doing the same with his accent, and then looking back to Henry.

“So.” He asks in Korean, which Henry personally thinks is the only flaw in their plan. Why would the FBI agents be talking in their crappy Korean when they could just have easily switched to English? “I guess that guy was a dead end.”

Henry shrugs one shoulder and grins, “I don’t know, I got a couple laughs when you tackled him to the floor.” Kibum rolls his eyes and fiddles with the menu. Henry looks to the side, where he can see Junsu chopping tomatoes for Kibum’s sandwich. He frowns, because he had thought Junsu was a cake maker, not a sandwich maker. “Maybe we’re just never going to close this case. I don’t know why we got called in anyway, it’s not like any of the people involved are in our jurisdiction.”

Kibum leans back in his chair too and spreads his legs. “We got called in, that’s all we have to know.” Henry made an ‘mm’ noise in response. “Come on, it’s an interesting case anyway. Jungmo’s found dead with his best friend standing over him with the gun, but he didn’t fire it. That doesn’t strike you as interesting?”

Henry makes a so-so motion with his hand and takes a sip of the water Junsu had brought over near the beginning. It doesn’t matter anyway; they had both registered the slight slip-up from Junsu, a flustered look in their direction and the halting of the chopping. Kibum allows Henry one of his small smiles and Henry feels too warm in his suit all of a sudden.

They carry on their charade for another twenty minutes, flitting in-between English and Korean, and when they leave the café, Kibum winks at Kangin. Kangin wolf-whistles as they go past.

---

Zhou Mi’s sitting on the floor of the van, the one with Cho’s Construction painted on the side and currently placed outside of the Junsu’s café. “Don’t you think Kangin looks like someone from the Village People with that outfit?” He asks absentmindedly, picking at a thread in the stitching of his pocket. Kyuhyun snorts a laugh, pulling back one of the earphones to look down at Zhou Mi.

“What’re you doing?” There’s more than a thread of amusement.

“Thinking.” Zhou Mi answers airily.

Kyuhyun’s grin grows. “About?”

“Maybe auditioning for some companies here.” Zhou Mi doesn’t catch the way Kyuhyun’s grin falters, just a little bit.

He reaches out and grasps Zhou Mi’s hand. “I’ll look into some of the agencies, if you’d like?” Zhou Mi turns his gaze on Kyuhyun and he grins and nods. Kyuhyun’s about to say something more, something more along the lines of, ‘so what’ll you do if they accept you?’ but then there’s something on the line and Junsu’s voice is frantic in his ear.

He turns up the phone conversation. “Hello?” The guy on the other side has a husky voice that Kyuhyun doesn’t recognise.

“Yoochun,” and Kyuhyun thinks bingo, “listen, we have a problem.” Junsu’s voice is tight with worry. Yoochun’s answer is less than sympathetic.

“Wha’? Hang on, let me find some underwear before we set about saving the world, Junsu.” There’s sleep in the vowels of his words, and Kyuhyun wonders who sleeps in ‘til twelve on a Saturday. Other than Zhou Mi.

“No! Listen, Yoochun, some FBI agents were just here talking about Jungmo!” Desperation mixes with the worry. Kyuhyun turns the volume up a little more and pulls the headphones out so that Zhou Mi can listen too.

“What?”

There’s a sound like someone pacing. “Who do you think, Yoochun or Junsu?” Whispers Zhou Mi.

Kyuhyun rolls his eyes. “Definitely Junsu. He’s practically having a heart attack.”

Junsu breaks into the line again, his voice obviously more strained than before. He probably went to Yoochun looking to be reassured and Yoochun is doing a pretty shitty job of it. “Some FBI agents were here, talking about Jungmo’s murder.”

Yoochun exhales heavily, and the noise crackles in the van’s enclosed space. “Well, did they seem like they had any leads?” Kyuhyun chews on the inside of his mouth. This was looking to getting better surprisingly quickly now that Yoochun had woken up, and he needs a confession if he really wants concrete evidence.

Junsu’s answer is small. “No.”

Yoochun sighs. “Well, then. No problem. Your little secret is safe.” Kyuhyun smothers a yawn in his hand and looks down as Zhou Mi wraps a hand around his ankle. Zhou Mi blows a kiss and Kyuhyun tries not to laugh.

There’s another pause. “But what if they look into it further? What if we weren’t careful enough? What if someone finds out that it was me who murde -”

There is another sigh on the end of the line. “No one is going to find out, Junsu. I told you. Me and Jaejoong have it covered.” There’s a shout in the background. “Talk of the devil. I’ve got to go Junsu, okay? I’ll see you later. Isn’t that guy coming around with the contract for you today?”

Junsu answers in the negative. “He’s coming tomorrow.”

Yoochun replies with a smile in his voice. “So focus on that, okay? Love you, bye.” The click of the phone is loud in the van.

Kyuhyun looks down at Zhou Mi. “Do you think that’s conclusive enough?” Zhou Mi’s running his finger up and down the portion of leg he can get to, slipping them under the hem of Kyuhyun’s skinny jeans. He nods. Kyuhyun grins and leans down. “You okay down there?”

Zhou Mi turns ridiculously large eyes on him and whimpers, “Lonely.” Kyuhyun laughs and moves down to meet him, a leg on either side of Zhou Mi’s narrow hips.

“How have you even managed to stretch out like this? Your legs go on forever.” Kyuhyun muttered, untangling the headphones from his neck and trying to get more comfortable.

Zhou Mi answers dramatically, like Kyuhyun knew he would. “Like our love, Kui Xian.” It still surprises Kyuhyun into laughter. Zhou Mi’s hand reaches up and he touches the crinkles at the corners of Kyuhyun’s eyes with a small smile. “Hey.” He says, and Kyuhyun reaches down for a kiss. The double doors at the end of the van open with a creak before they can really do more than touch lips, but Kangin still rears back as though he’d just seen two grandmas going at it in his bedroom.

“Oh! Oh, I did not need that.” Kyuhyun would probably be more apologetic if Zhou Mi wasn’t humming YMCA in his ear and wrapping his fingers around his wrist.

---

Heechul’s watching old news broadcasts on his laptop, trying to catch up with the past five years, when Kyuhyun, Zhou Mi and Kangin make it back. He grins at Kangin, dressed up as a construction worker and endures the middle finger flipped at him when Kangin sees. “How’d it go?”

Kyuhyun’s eyes are distracted as he kicks off his shoes, and his fingers are wrapped around Zhou Mi’s wrist even though he could probably use that hand to get the laces undone. “Junsu killed him.” He answers, and then leads Zhou Mi into his room. Zhou Mi’s head is ducked, but Heechul can still see a grin like a cat that got the canary. He rolls his eyes.

Kangin gives him a steady look. “Do not send me out with those two again. I need peroxide to bleach my brain.”

Sungmin’s passing on the way to the bathroom, draped in a kimono-patterned dressing gown. “Oh, baby, did it offend your heterosexuality?” Kangin darts a glance at Sungmin, and then glances away again, not offering a reply. Sungmin’s mouth twists in the corner.

Heechul says, “There’s food in the kitchen, Kangin. Ryeowook just finished up.” Kangin moves away and Heechul offers Sungmin a pointed glance. Sungmin raises an eyebrow back and Heechul decides to drop it. It’s not his job to baby the employees and make sure they get along anyway. “Don’t use all my shower gel again. I will make you replace it.”

Sungmin salutes with the hand holding the loofah. “Yessir!”

---

Heechul walks into the kitchen to find Siwon and Ryeowook discussing the best way to roast potatoes, and Hankyung sitting on top of the counter with a bowl full of cereal. He grins and hoists himself up beside him, pivoting where pulse point meets MDF and arranging his limbs in a parody of casualness that creates as many points of contact between their two bodies that he can. “Hi.”

Ryeowook looks up from his heated discussion and focuses on his boss. “Heechul, it’s Henry’s birthday soon, what does he like?” Hankyung raises his eyebrows and smiles around his spoon as he shifts his body. His thigh brushes Heechul’s knee.

“Mm,” drawls Heechul, not breaking eye contact with Hankyung. “Cake? Every little boy likes cake.” He flicks his eyes down to the cereal bowl and then back up to Hankyung’s eyes and raises an eyebrow. Hankyung slips the spoon out of his mouth, dips it into his bowl and holds out a spoonful to Heechul. He wraps his fingers around Hankyung’s wrist to keep the spoon ready, but really just to rub his thumb over the sensitive skin underneath. Hankyung’s eyes darken, and Heechul’s smirking as he places the spoon in his mouth and slips back out, licking his lips.

Siwon coughs. Heechul turns to Ryeowook like an afterthought, running his fingers down the inside of Hankyung’s forearm and then dropping his touch. Hankyung shifts closer. “With strawberries. He likes strawberries.”

Hankyung’s voice is light when he says, “Me too.”

Heechul looks over and there’s something light in his throat, like he wants to laugh but can’t. “In fact,” Heechul continues, “I think I saw a recipe book in here with a strawberry cake.” He folds onto his knees and stretches over Hankyung to reach the cupboard. His fingers brush against Hankyung’s neck as he stretches upwards and Hankyung’s hand comes to rest on Heechul’s hip.

“Don’t fall.” His voice rumbles against Heechul’s ribcage.

Heechul makes a little sound of disappointment, and looks down to Hankyung. His eyes are a lot closer than he thought they would be, and warmth curls in his stomach. “Do you mind? I can’t reach.”

Hankyung’s legs fall open, and Heechul moves into the space they create, pressed flush against Hankyung. His fingers fumble with the cupboard door handle when Hankyung presses his thighs tighter and then suddenly Siwon is saying, “I think I should go,” in a strangled voice. Heechul looks over to see Ryeowook nodding fervently just as Hankyung’s hand slides a little south of Heechul’s hip.

“I’ll see you out,” the chef says and Heechul bites the inside of his mouth to stop laughter bubbling out. Heechul grabs hold of the book he was searching for, shuffles out of the v of Hankyung’s thighs, and runs a hand down the inner seam of his jeans as he slides off of the counter.

“See you around,” Heechul says, following the flustered pair into the corridor and calling out the chef’s name. He can hear Hankyung’s bark of laughter over Ryeowook’s thank you.

---

It’s night-time and the living room is full of people celebrating their first breakthrough. Heechul has cornered Hankyung on an armchair, legs slung across the arms so that Hankyung can’t get up. Eunhyuk looks over and notices that Hankyung doesn’t really seem to mind all that much. He smirks, and turns back to the conversation and an increasingly tipsy Sungmin.

Donghae, who can surprisingly hold his alcohol well, grins at Eunhyuk. “Pink?” He says, the innocent tone making Eunhyuk tip his head to the side questioningly.

Sungmin nods, eyes almost slipping closed with the movement. “Pink. I’ve always wanted pink hair. I even bought the hair dye two years ago, and take it everywhere with me, in case I ever get the balls to do it.”

Eunhyuk’s trying not to laugh. “Two years? Surely it’s gone off by now?”

Sungmin shakes his head vigorously, frowning. “I don’t think so. I check it occasionally.”

Donghae is rolling his eyes at the both of them. “So, you have it here now?” He enunciates carefully, and finally Donghae’s mischievous expression makes sense. Eunhyuk bites the inside of his mouth and darts a look to the floor.

Sungmin adopts a thoughtful expression, and for a moment Eunhyuk thinks he’s going to realise what they’re up to. “Yes.” The tone is mildly contemplative.

“Right!” Donghae says, clapping his hands. “Well, tonight, Sungmin-sshi, we will fulfil your dream! Where is it?”

Ten minutes later finds Sungmin bent over the edge of the bath with a towel over his shoulders. Eunhyuk’s rolled up his jeans and is sitting on the edge of the bath, feet in the basin. “Jesus, Eunhyuk.” Donghae says, nose wrinkled, leaning against the doorframe. Eunhyuk swears at him while taking a sip of his beer.

He turns the showerhead on, testing the temperature. “Are you sure we only have to wait ten minutes?” He turns a little to Donghae, and the expression on his face makes his stomach drop a little, though not in a bad way. He grins.

“Yup. Fast acting stuff, this.” Donghae says, and tosses the box from hand to hand.

“I feel sick.” They both turn hurriedly back to Sungmin, Eunhyuk lifting his feet up hurriedly and almost losing his balance. His plastic hair net is a kind of maroon colour, which is more than a little gross.

Eunhyuk pulls it off. “It’s okay, it’s just the fumes.” He’s thinking it may actually be the tequila shots he did with Donghae, but whatever. “It’ll be over soon.” Sungmin shudders when the water hits his head, but then Eunhyuk is carding his fingers through the strands and teasing the coloured cream away from his skull. He bites his lip when he sees the colour of Sungmin’s hair now, bright even when damp. “Uh...” He looks over to Donghae, who is doubled over in the doorway.

“It looks good, Sungmin!” Donghae says, thumbs up, before laughing again.

Eunhyuk reaches for the towel and turns the shower head off. “Maybe you should go to bed.” He’s a little rough when towelling and Sungmin whimpers.

“Mm.” He gets up from his position on the floor, and Donghae swings an arm around his shoulders. His eyes are already slipping closed, and Eunhyuk darts another look at Donghae, before turning away. He tries not to laugh again. The colour isn’t that bad, really. Maybe.

“There’s no way that Mormon can try and resist you now!” Donghae says enthusiastically as he pivots down the hallway to Sungmin’s room.

Sungmin’s answer is almost unintelligible, but Eunhyuk thinks it might be, “Jehovah’s Witness.”

---

Heechul’s a little uncomfortable in this position really, legs arching up at the knees and elbows undecided about where they want to rest. “So.” He says, and Hankyung tilts his chin up to get a better look at Heechul.

“So.” Hankyung replies, and the sweet echo of China in the way he shapes his mouth clutches at Heechul’s airways for a second. He grins.

Seven minutes later and the position he’s in isn’t any more comfortable, trousers rucked around his knees and one leg bent around Hankyung’s waist to get a deeper feel, but it has decidedly better benefits. He hits the crown of his head against the wall when Hankyung thrusts into him, the burn so long and deep he can feel it in the tips of his ears and his toes. There’s something about the way Hankyung kisses broken Mandarin into his slightly slack mouth that is endearing, and Heechul moves his hips to meet Hankyung while moving his head forward to whisper, “Bed.” Hankyung’s hand moves from where it had been bruising fingerprints into his hips to run a thumb over the head of Heechul’s cock and Heechul can’t help the ensuing gasp or the, “Or not,” that escapes.

---

Eunhyuk’s trying to remember gross motor function, or maybe just how to chew and swallow without vomiting, when Eeteuk emerges from their bedroom the next morning. He’s dressed in a pepper grey suit with a white shirt and a pale pink tie, and is fiddling with glasses in his hands like he can’t decide whether to wear them or not. Eunhyuk looks back down at his spoon. “You going out?” He tries to make the question casual, and not like it’s costing him the wrath of a severe hangover-induced headache to ask. Eeteuk looks up with wide eyes and then his expression melts into a smile.

“Yeah. Got to get Junsu to sign these papers. I think Sungmin’s going after Yoochun as well.” Eunhyuk nods and then winces.

“Do you reckon Yoochun goes for rosettes?” Eeteuk gives him a blank look.

---

Sungmin had spent ten minutes in the morning staring at his hair in despair and then wondering how many ‘sweet like candyfloss’ chat up lines he could use before he’d get bored. He figures seven, but that’s being pessimistic. It could stretch to nine.

He smiles at the coffee barrister and slides into the seat opposite Yoochun with his latte. The café’s quite full, so the older man doesn’t think anything of it, and he must get hit on a lot, Sungmin figures, because it only takes ten minutes to find themselves back at his flat against the wall.

He takes the shower offered, and sets the camera up in the bedroom when Yoochun goes after him. The pictures will be sent to Junsu’s friends and family. He smiles coyly as Yoochun opens the door in his towel, and falls back onto the bed.

---

Eeteuk walks back into the apartment three hours later, with one sleeve rolled up to his elbow, and the other one in the process. Eunhyuk wants to loosen his tie for him. “How’d it go?” He asks, head bent backwards on the couch and Donghae whooping in the background. Eeteuk’s upside down from this vantage point and his eyes look like upside down crescent moons. He smiles.

“Hi, ‘Hyukkie.” Eunhyuk tries not to blush like a fool at the nickname. “It went okay. Got the signature, slipped the papers for the real ones just in time.” Eeteuk drags his eyes away from Eunhyuk’s to look behind him and grab a sheaf of papers from his trousers. He waves them about vaguely. “His shop and all his assets are now ours.” He tilts his head to the side as he amends, “Well. Heechul’s.”

Eunhyuk smiles and puffs out a laugh. There’s one too many beats of silence and then Donghae’s overly casual voice goes, “I think Heechul’s in Kyuhyun’s HQ.” Eeteuk starts, and Eunhyuk feels irrational jealousy as Eeteuk glances over at Donghae, smiling at him.

“Cheers.” Eeteuk heads off in that direction and Eunhyuk can feel his ears burning hot as he very adamantly does not look at Donghae.

“So...” drawls Donghae.

“Shuttup.” Is the quick fire response.

There’s another pause and Eunhyuk starts to think that maybe Donghae’s dropped it. But then;

“Is it the dimple?”

He squawks as Eunhyuk’s pillow hits him on the side of his head.

---

Shake the Glitter

2009-07-17T21:39:02Z

Title: Shake the Glitter
Length: One-shot
Pairing: Hanchul
Summary: Because, Hankyung. Vegas. I am so totally dressing as Elvis, you will have to be Priscilla!

The problem with being stupidly amazingly in love with someone, was that they were hardly ever stupidly amazingly in love with you back. Because that would be too much luck in the world to ever befall someone, and God had a pretty twisted sense of fucking humour.

Not that Heechul was feeling particularly angry about it or anything. It’s just that if he was going to have to be stupidly amazingly in love with someone, he would prefer it not to be with his best friend. Because that was just damn horrible, being so near and yet so irrevocably far. He hummed a new Wonder Girls song to himself and then knocked on Hankyung’s door to the rhythm of the bass line.

He was really getting into it when Hankyung opened the door in all his morning glory, bad hair, sleep in his eyes and bad breath. Heechul made a face. “Ew.” Hankyung glared at him. “You know, when you do that, you look exactly like that girl from The Ring.” The door slammed in his face. Heechul grinned. He started up the knocking again, except this time he did it to a really obnoxious song that he knew Hankyung hated. When the door opened again, Hankyung was armed. Which, okay, he was only armed with a pillow, but Hankyung worked out, okay? He could do things with pillows that Heechul couldn’t do with crowbars.

Maybe.

“Hi hi hi.” He grinned, big and bright. “So, I have decided. We’re going to Vegas.”

“What.”

Heechul shimmied past Hankyung, kissing him on the cheek as he passed. “Vegas. You know, Tom Jones, show girls, those guys with the tigers, what’re they called?

“Sigmeund and Freud?” Hankyung asked, blearily rubbing at his eyes, the pillow still clenched in one hand. Heechul ignored the little clench in his stomach at how adorable that was.

“Isn’t Freud a psych guy?” He swivelled on the desk chair. “I don’t think that’s right, Hankyung.”

“I don’t think your mind is right.” Hankyung muttered darkly, faceplanting onto his bed.

“Says your face.” Heechul remarked back without really thinking about it. “No, no. Hankyung.” He nudged the body with his foot. “Hunh, you should have like, auditioned for CSI. You’d make an awesome corpse.” Hankyung’s hand grabbed hold of Heechul’s ankle and pulled. Heechul squawked as he fell off the chair.

Hankyung grunted. Heechul climbed onto the bed, and if Hankyung got a body full of bruises from all the gangly limbs in Heechul’s body? That was Hankyung’s fault. He poked at Hankyung’s shoulder until he turned around.

“Why Vegas, Heechul?” His voice was mildly exasperated, but Heechul knew he had already given in. He had probably been thinking about it the entire time he was pretending to be dead. Sneaky devil.

Heechul sighed and acted put upon. “Because, Hankyung. Vegas. I am so totally dressing as Elvis, you will have to be Priscilla!”

Hankyung’s face met the pillow again.

----

The car he had chosen for the road trip was red and a station wagon. Because certain clichés had to be upheld. Hankyung had grinned when he’d seen it though, so Heechul took it as a total win. Even if the clutch was a bitch to manoeuvre and the engine made this worrying chugging sound when they were doing anything above fifty.

“Look Hankyung! The seat moves back so far!” He slid a little further back on the driver’s seat and grinned. Hankyung grinned a little with him and then said;

“I am driving.”

Heechul pouted for all the time it took for him to realise that, hey, shotgun meant control of the radio. Three hours of Wonder Girls? It was something dreams were made of.

“Fine. Oh, hey, hey, Hankyung.” Heechul slid across the gearstick, and oh, hello big boy. He paused, and then carried on moving over to his seat. “It wasn’t whatever you said, it was Siegfried and Roy. I worked my GoogleFu. Where did you get Freud from, really?”

“Where do you get your clothes from, really?” Hankyung bit back as he closed the door.

Heechul frowned. “You know, that stopped being funny the first five hundred times you said it.”

Hankyung turned to look at him as he pulled his seatbelt around. “Really? It still makes me smile.” Heechul stuck his nose in the air. What did Hankyung know anyway? Fuchsia skinny jeans and an electric blue patterned t-shirt were high fashion, okay?

He bent down to reach into his manbag (“What the fuck, Heechul? You do know that handbags are a girl thing, right?” “It’s a manbag Hankyung, honestly, why are you so uncultured?”) and pulled out a CD. Sohee Ahn smiled back from the front cover. Hankyung looked over and frowned.

“Look, Heechul, I like Gee as much as you do, but -”

Heechul slapped a hand over Hankyung’s mouth. “Oh. My. God. Gee, Hankyung? Gee? You do realise that is not a Wonder Girl’s song, right?” He took his hand away when Hankyung blew a raspberry against it, and wiped it against his jeans, pulling a face.

Hankyung did this thing with his mouth that somehow managed to show his remorse. “I’m sorry, Heechul. But can we have some, maybe, Fahrenheit?”

Heechul frowned and pressed the button for the CD player to open. “That is just because you have a crush on that one with the nice bum. You are so shallow.”

The opening to Nobody opened up. Hankyung threw a dry look to Heechul. “Right. And you only like them for their talent.” Heechul ignored him in favour of doing as many dance moves he could in the restricted space he had.

---

“Tell me, tell me, t-t-t-t-tell me.” Heechul was really going for it, eyes closed and bum bopping on the seat, when suddenly – there was silence.

He cracked open an eye. Hankyung was staring at the CD player.

“I think your singing broke the CD player.”

---

Two hours of DJs talking about inane things and songs that were practically on a loop, they were so repetitive, Heechul turned the stereo off. Hankyung stopped mid head-bob, and narrowed his eyes.

“Heechul. I was listening to that.”

Heechul replied in a reasonable tone, “so was I, the first five times it came on. Then it all started to sound like white noise.”

Hankyung opened his mouth to reply, and then closed it, nodding. “Fair enough.”

Three minutes into the silence and Heechul was squirming on his seat. “Let’s play I Spy!”

“What are you, five?”

“What are you, boring?” Hankyung stuck his middle finger up. Heechul grinned, and couldn’t help the I love you that whispered bright in the forefront of his mind. “I spy with my little eye, something beginning with D.”

“Dashboard.”

“How do you do that?”

---

They entered the Strip during midday, which kind of took the climax out of it. Heechul pestered Hankyung to take him back this way when it was dark, and Hankyung grinned and said, ‘okay’. Hankyung was already relaxing, now that he was out of the dorms and out of any reminders of his last bad relationship. Heechul was a master of good ideas, a veritable fountain of them, an encyclopaedia in fact. He told Hankyung this, and Hankyung just kissed the top of his nose with a grin. Heechul tried to deny the way it made him melt a little inside.

He also tried to deny the fact that he was so hungry he’d punch a child for some food. But that was a little harder. Especially when his stomach was so vocal. “Jesus, Heechul, did you eat a lion or something?” Asked Hankyung when his stomach growled on the way to check in.

“No! I just forgot breakfast!” This wasn’t entirely true. It was either breakfast or straightening his hair and, well, Heechul had his priorities straight.

Hankyung gave him a pointed look. “We’ll get a taco from a stall or something.” Heechul rolled up his nose, because yeah, cheap food, but the guys who sold those things? Usually had large handlebar moustaches and sweaty arms. Which, hello? Totally gross. Handlebar moustaches were a thing of nightmares. No one should have to suffer through them. “Until then, here. I have a Dime bar.”

Heechul grasped the chocolate bar wrapped in-between his hands and looked up with soulful eyes. “I would love you even if you had a handlebar moustache.”

Hankyung looked at him weirdly and then grinned. “Taco stall men?” Heechul nodded as he bit into his bar. “I’m touched.”

Their bedroom was a double, since they were students and didn’t really have as much money as they probably should have, considering where they ran away to. For Heechul this was okay – when he was awake. When he was asleep though, who knew what his subconscious could do? Heechul bit his lip, staring at the bed.

Hankyung swung his bag onto the bed. “Baggsy the left, bitch.”

Heechul gaped. “Oh no you did not.” Even though he preferred the right side anyway.

Hankyung pivots on one foot and smirks. Heechul feels his breath catch. “You really want to go there?”

Uhm, yes? “Oh, fuck you. Ooh! Mini bar!”

“You haven’t eaten anything yet.” Hankyung pointed out, unzipping his bag.

Heechul frowned. “Shuttup, olives totally count as one of your five a day.”

---

“Okay. Okay, so.” Heechul gesticulated with his swizzle stick, even though they were outside now and dodging handprints of the famous. “If you could wake up and be a girl or a zombie, what would you be?”

Hankyung had his hands in his front pockets, and Heechul wondered if he knew it made his jeans tight around the crotch and butt area. He hoped he didn’t, because then his glances to the back and side wouldn’t be nearly so suspicious. “Hm.” Hankyung looked like he was seriously contemplating the question, which had to be one of the things Heechul adored about him – how he just took Heechul’s ridiculousness in his step. “A zombie. Because I could not deal with menstruating, I just couldn’t.”

Heechul laughed, even though he would have chosen to be a girl, because then he could have kissed Hankyung the first time he met him and then become his friend, and then he’d at least know what it felt like. He stepped into the hands of Samuel L. Jackson. “I think I’d be a girl. I’d look kickass in a skirt, right?”

He felt, more than heard, Hankyung’s laughter as he stepped up behind him and placed his hands on his hips to keep him from swaying. “Right.”

He took an unsteady breath, and then turned around, his lips almost grazing Hankyung’s. “I think we need costumes.”

Ten minutes later, and they were fitted in costumes with so many sequins on them, Heechul figured he might as well have covered himself in glue, rolled around several times and then pressed repeat. He awkwardly hipthrusted down the street while Hankyung tried not to trip over his skirt. “Why don’t we have a video camera?”

Hankyung gathered his skirts up under his arms and scowled at Heechul’s back; Heechul could feel the weight of it on his spine so he flipped the bird at him without turning around. “Because,” Hankyung adopted a high-pitched, nasal voice, “’the camera adds ten pounds Hankyung and do you know what that would do to my self esteem? Do you?’”

Heechul whirled around and watched interestedly as the light caught hundreds of sequins which all sent their glare at Hankyung. Huh. He could get used to this suit. “Shut up, Hankyung. You’re dressed as a girl. You don’t get a vote.” He was dressed like a girl from The House on the Little Prairie on crack, who had apparently joined Heechul with his roll in the sequins. But that was irrelevant.

“That’s so sexist.” Hankyung whined. Heechul grabbed his crotch and curled his lip.

“Uh huh.”

---

The room was spinning, and Heechul knew that his last drink had been one too many, but it didn’t stop him reaching for another. The décor was too tacky when he was sober, would be his excuse if anyone asked. It was a casino though, so no one asked, they just grinned and took his money.

When he and Hankyung stumbled out into the street later that night, leaning on each other and consequently ending up sprawled everywhere and half-bent over, they had a fistful of notes and were laughing the kind of laugh that made your stomach hurt. They started stumbling down the street, Hankyung telling a story about when he was little and he had taken ballet because he thought it would mean he could wear a skirt and not get called a pouf (Heechul had laughed at this way too much, but, c’mon, who takes ballet so they won’t get called a pouf?) and he had always wondered how girls felt.

They collapsed on a bench situated outside a wedding chapel and watched with glazed eyes as a couple stumbled out, kissing like they do in the movies and laughing breathlessly. Heechul sighed as his heart constricted painfully. “I would love to know what that feels like.”

Hankyung ‘mm’ed beside him, and then, “We can! We totally can! Come on!” Heechul blinked at him blearily and then suddenly his centre of gravity shifted as he was pulled up off of the bench and into the chapel.

He was still blinking when he registered that his hand was in Hankyung’s, and that both their grips were slightly sweaty, and while that should be gross, it really wasn’t. He gripped tighter.

“Hi. Hi hi hi hi hi.” Heechul grinned at the lady at the registration desk.

Hankyung pulled him to his side and slipped a hand around his waist. “We would like to get married, okay? Please and thank you.”

The woman smiled at them kind of blankly and said, “Okay but I need you to sign here, here and here. And then fill this out.”

The ceremony itself was kind of a swirly blur, like everything was being sucked into a technicolour wormhole, but he managed to focus enough to see that his Elvis outfit was more fabulous than the priests and also, that Hankyung’s hand was slipping lower and lower and lower. He groped him on the last word of ‘I do’ and he squeaked unbecomingly.

The marriage certificate signing was kind of ruined by Hankyung vomiting all over the witnesses’ shoes. They signed anyway.

Heechul put the marriage certificate in his pocket with his I.D. and his bus pass for back home. They hipthrusted the entire way home while humming the wedding march (and occasionally the funeral march because Hankyung kept getting muddled up. In the morning, Heechul would wonder if that wasn’t some kind of subconscious signal).

They collapsed into the bed, and Heechul, being the tactile person that he was, latched onto Hankyung’s stomach for a pillow. They were asleep within seconds.

---

The trouble with Hankyung was, when he got drunk, past a certain number of units, he never remembered what happened. Which is why Heechul was the sole member of their party of two who could remember why they were dressed, and what those gummy sweet rings on their fingers meant. Usually he revelled in being the only one, and would tease Hankyung mercilessly. Now he just felt kind of sick to his stomach.

Hankyung emerged from the shower, towel slung low over his hips and toothbrush still in his mouth. “Wur t’ nur?” Heechul mentally translated.

“Coney Island? I like rollercoasters.” He suggested and smiled when Hankyung grinned around his toothbrush and nodded vehemently. He knew Hankyung liked the adrenalin rush.

They packed the car up quickly enough. “You sure you don’t want to stay here longer?” Hankyung asked Heechul. He thought about the marriage certificate in his back pocket and shook his head.

“We should probably return the costumes though.”

---

Hankyung called shotgun as they ran out of the costume shop, so Heechul had to endure hours of Fahrenheit. For some reason, the CD player started working when Hankyung put his CD in. He suspected a conspiracy, but was too hungover to actually make an issue of it.

The marriage certificate had felt like a dead weight on his heart so he had moved it to the glove compartment with some other things to cover it up when Hankyung wasn’t looking. He was working on the principle ‘out of sight, out of mind’ but it didn’t seem completely effective.

He was just glad that Hankyung hadn’t asked too many questions yet, because Heechul was a good liar, a fantastic liar, but a bit of a crap one when it came to Hankyung. Hankyung looked over, singing something Chinese and screwing his face up for dramatic emotion. He bit his lip and headbanged and Heechul laughed. “You looked just like Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing then.”

Hankyung grinned back and said, in a very bad imitation, “How d’you call your lover boy?”

Heechul laughed and replied, “C’mere, lover boy.” He ignored the way it made his stomach flip with something all together too familiar, and twist with something he could see as guilt.

He pulled into a petrol station twenty minutes after it hit the red on the little dial. “You want anything?”

Hankyung had his feet up on the dashboard and the seat pushed back as far as it could go. His sunglasses were over his eyes and Heechul could see his reflection as Hankyung said, “Ooh, I could kill for some chocolate. Something with nuts in. I like nuts.”

Heechul grinned and couldn’t resist the lewd wink or the, “I know you do.” Hankyung groaned, but Heechul counted it as a win because of the way his lips were curled into a smile around the sound.

He left Hankyung with the petrol and swaggered into the petrol station. Not for any particular reason, because no one was watching him, he just felt like swaggering. In a way, he reasoned, he should be happy. He was married to the man of his dreams. So what if the man didn’t know?

The lead weight in his stomach rolled around a little. He bit his tongue at the sudden feeling of bile in his throat. Okay, so it mattered a lot.

He bought two chocolate bars with nuts in, instead of the one, to try to assuage his guilt. It didn’t really work, but he thought the look on Hankyung’s face might. He looked back to check on his best friend, and almost bit straight through his tongue when he saw him reaching for the glove compartment. His thoughts were a frantic mix of ‘maybe he won’t see it’ and ‘would you fucking hurry up and cash these already?’ but they slowed down to a long, drawn out feeling of dread instead when he saw Hankyung flick through some papers and stop on one, familiar and already much-thumbed piece. He swallowed.

“Here’s your purchase, sir.” But Heechul was too busy reading the thoughts on Hankyung’s face, the transitions between ‘what’s this? Marriage certificate?’ and ‘Heechul? Who the hell is Heechul married to?’ to him peering a little closer and then rearing away, as though ‘whose signature is...oh God.’ “Your purchase, sir.” The cashier shook the bag at him loudly and he blinked blearily as he reached out to take it.

Heechul tried not to panic, he really did, but the bag still shook in his hand as he opened the door with one hand and walked towards Hankyung. The smile on his face was a little plastic but he didn’t know what else to do.

“Let’s go, Hankyung!” He said, airily, tossing the bag into the bag and going to open his door. Hankyung moved in front of him, gaping. “What? Rollercoasters to ride, ice creams to lick, let’s go!” He tried to act as though he was impatient, but judging by the quietly furious look on Hankyung’s face, he was missing the mark. By a lot.

“We’re fucking married?” Heechul winced, because, okay, so it was a bit of a big thing, but did he have to sound so incredulous about it? Heechul would make a great husband.

“Uh...” He tried.

“Married?” Hankyung’s grip on the paper was white-knuckled and kind of terrifying, which wasn’t really fair since it had been Hankyung’s idea in the first place. “We’re married?”

Heechul crossed his arms and lowered his eyelids, feeling more than a little put out. “You know, the different intonations to really get across your disgust? So not needed. Honestly.”

Hankyung shook the paper again. “You – you.” Hankyung made some kind of incomprehensible sound and then said, “disgust?” in a much quieter voice.

Heechul gnawed on the corner of his mouth and then shook out one of his hands and waved it around a little. “I mean, I know that it’s a bit of a shock, but we could still annul it. I mean, it would mean that Britney has had a longer marriage than us, but by the looks of it, you could live with that, so.” He exhaled loudly. “You don’t have to shriek at me. It’s not the end of the world.” The hand that had been waving around was now in a limp fist by his side. “Besides, I’d be an awesome husband.” And shit, that came out in a much smaller voice than he had intended.

There was a long moment of silence and then a soft, “Heechul....” Heechul shook both his hands out and pasted on a bright smile.

He reached for the door. “Come on, off we go. I’m sure that if I press the pedal hard enough we can swing by some judge’s office and still make it in time.” His voice sounded too airy, too light, but he thought he deserved an Oscar for not letting the lump in his throat make everything strangled and unhappy.

Hankyung’s hand cupped Heechul’s elbow. “Heechul.” Heechul shook it off and turned to him, suddenly angry.

“What?”

There was a watercolour mix of amusement and exasperation on Hankyung’s face, and then there were fingers on Heechul’s jaw and lips on his, and oh.

The kiss was dry and tasted like the cherry Cola Hankyung had been drinking earlier, but Heechul couldn’t help the shudder that ran through his body or the quick sharp inhale of breath. There were romantic notions taking the place of oxygen in his bloodstream, leaving him lightheaded, and it took a moment to realise the flicker against his lips was Hankyung’s tongue. He opened up and felt giddy from the gentle whine Hankyung made when Heechul’s tongue slid against his, and the way the grip on his jaw turned insistent.

They parted maybe a moment too late in order to breath, and Heechul’s breath came too quickly. Hankyung threaded their hands together and said against Heechul’s forehead, “you’re such an idiot.”

Heechul snorted, and replied, “Says you, Mr. Sigmeund and Freud.” The hand dropped from his jaw to swat at his arse. He grinned.

If this were me and Daisie, I would be Priscilla and she would be Elvis. It is True Love.

Dressed To Kill

2009-07-16T14:36:25Z

Sungmin crosses his legs and Zhou Mi swallows audibly. Kyuhyun shoots him a glare and then returns his cool gaze to the man sitting on the café’s metal stool. Sungmin flicks a gaze at Zhou Mi and is smiling softly when he eventually looks back at Kyuhyun. Kyuhyun rolls his eyes and makes a ‘go on’ motion with his hand.

“Right. You want me to fuck or tease?” Sungmin asks, his eyes too coy for the question. Kyuhyun shrugs.

“Do what you want, so long as you get the information.”

Sungmin nods, thoughtful. “And you’ll be watching, on the cameras?” His tone is contemplative.

Kyuhyun grimaces. “Yeah. Well. Give me a signal and I’ll stop watching, if you like. I’ve got fourteen cameras to watch anyway.”

There’s a shift of fabric and Sungmin turns his head, scratches at his forearm. “Mm, I don’t mind. Was just thinking; a tape would be great for business, you know?”

Kyuhyun blinks. Zhou Mi makes a strangled noise in the back of his throat.

---

Yesung is playing noughts and crosses with himself when Eunhyuk, Sungmin and Shindong step out of the apartment. He looks up and grins. Shindong is wearing some loose jeans and a nice dress shirt, Sungmin is looking fan-fucking-tastic with some carefully applied eyeliner and a monochrome outfit, and Eunhyuk looks like the paperclip from Microsoft Word, albeit all black.

“Ninja.” He says. Eunhyuk sighs. Sungmin is grinning. He gets up, hand on his knee, and gestures towards the stairs. “Yesung. I’ll be your bodyguard this evening.” Eunhyuk looks like he would be scowling, if Yesung could see more of him than his eyes. Sungmin just flicks the cross earring in Yesung’s ear.

“Well, I always do like a man who can accessorise.” He purrs and swaggers down the stairs. There are bright pink handprints painted onto his arse. Yesung blinks and when he glances back, Shindong is laughing at him. He blinks again.

“He is so going on my Exception list.”

“I hear that.” Shindong crows.

---

Eunhyuk is currently stuck to the roof. Not cool. He designed the stickpads on the gloves himself, so he knows he has approximately five minutes left before gravity takes what it’s owed and he falls to the floor. His mental ‘hurry up you cocksucking bastard’ doesn’t seem to be reaching the guy reclining in the office chair though, which is a damn shame, because he’s thinking it so hard he’s practically planning for an aneurysm.

He tries to regulate his breathing to the whup-whup of the ceiling fan but his improved version of Lamaze breathing is interrupted when there’s a soft sound as his pinky comes loose. He rolls his eyes desperately and bites his lip to stop himself from vocalising his rather crude thoughts. There’s a soft sound in his ear, which could be Kyuhyun or could just be the pulse of his blood. His index finger on his left hand is the next to break free. He switches to biting the inside of his cheek. It’s more painful and therefore more distracting.

His big toe succumbs to gravity, and Eunhyuk starts compiling lists of how to break into a sealed room to stop himself from panicking. Around method #23, his whole right foot is being held near the ceiling through his muscle power alone. He tries not to breathe a sigh of relief when the guy below (a combover is not the way to go, he thinks as he glances down) starts to sound like he’s wrapping it up.

Fourteen methods later and Combover is going, “No, you hang up” in a voice too saccharine for someone of his age. Eunhyuk glares as his left hand comes loose and then decides, fuck it. The drop to the floor is soundless, the grunt as Eunhyuk hits him in that sweet spot is not.

He turns up the volume on his ear piece to hear someone’s voice go, “Dear God, his tongue!” and decides to turn it down again. He places the phone on the hook just as some girl’s voice goes, “No, you” and giggles as though she was in highschool and playing with her hair over some maths homework. Eunhyuk rolls his eyes, sticks a USB stick into the computer and presses one of the various combinations of keys Kyuhyun had told him to memorise. He’s probably fucked it up somewhere, but he’s blaming Sungmin and his blasphemous tongue if they complain.

He can hear the stickpads on his feet sticking to the carpet on his way to the filing cabinets, and cringes. The drawers are locked, but it takes a second for Eunhyuk to have them open. He would ask what he was looking for, but he’d rather not turn his ear piece up again anytime soon, so just grabs a bundle from each drawer and shoves them in his messenger bag. Then he slips out of the door, through the writhing mass of people on the dance floor and the even denser mass of people near the bar, and into a corridor with a door leading down to the basement. The men’s toilets are down here too, and he swings himself up to the ceiling by the light fixture as the door to the toilets opens. Sungmin steps out, wiping at his mouth discretely. Eunhyuk kicks his head as he passes and does not respond to the pinch to his arse. A man with a hickey on his neck and some facial fur that shouldn’t be seen outside of a nature reserve stumbles out of the toilets too, looking dazed and guilty. Eunhyuk rolls his eyes. A couple seconds later and he is jiggling at the lock of a door with a red and white sign proclaiming that only employees may enter beyond this point.

He wonders, as he steps into the room, if basements have some kind of requirement for bad lighting and creepy corridors.

---

Sungmin plays with the swizzle stick in his drink, and looks up from under his lashes at the mirror on the other side of the bar. There’s a(nother) guy approaching him from the left. He raises his eyebrows at the bartender, a friendly guy who had agreed to help Sungmin with his quest for five year (or longer) loyal customers, and gets a short nod in return as a slice of lime is added to a G&T. Sungmin wets his lips and tilts his hips just so.

“Hey.” Is the greeting. His voice is kind of phelgmy and he bears the countenance of a heavy drinker.

Sungmin smiles, slow and sure. “Hey.”

Ten minutes later, he has some information and a tongue getting intimate with his dental work. He rolls his eyes and pulls a little closer. From the corner of his eye he can see Shindong in the middle of a group of people, putting his thumbs up and grinning widely. He flips the bird.

---

The music is muffled in the basement, and it feels less like it’s about to punch a hole into his skull. Eunhyuk likes music, loves music, but not when it’s so loud the police should be turning up for noise disturbance. He sighs. There’s a red light down the far end, where a bundle of VCRs are recording various scenes in the club. He hopes Kyuhyun has a feed on them, but it occurs to him that he could just steal the tapes now and erase any chance of them being found out. He shrugs. Whatever. Let the hacker have his fun, he figures.

There’s a wall packed with VCRs, but Eunhyuk knows that most clubs just tape over and reuse old tapes. The likelihood of there actually being some tapes from five years ago is slim to none. He goes to search anyway. Besides, if there was, surely the police would have found them and logged them as evidence? The whole idea seems farfetched to him.

Twenty minutes later and he’s thanking all the Gods and their mothers for the invention of DVDs. He is sick of the sight of VCRs. He turns up the volume of his earpiece. “There’s nothing here. I’m coming back.” The reply is a hesitant, ‘uh, sure’. He sighs. “And seriously, Sungmin is not a personal porn show. Give him some privacy.”

It takes him a few minutes to find a fire escape and to slip out into an alleyway, and then ten minutes more to hail a cab. When the driver looks at his outfit rather pointedly, especially for someone wearing a Hawaiin patterned turban, he smiles and says, “Fancy dress. I’m a ninja.”

He nods at Kangin in the lobby, rides the elevator to the top floor and slips into his room unnoticed. His roommate, the actor, is somewhere else and he shucks his clothes off messily, leaving them on the floor. He sprays his shoes and puts them out in the corridor, because okay, he would be the first to admit he had a foot odour problem, and then slides under his cold sheets for four hours of sleep.

It would have been more, if not for the interrogator bouncing on his bed going, “play with me, play with me, please play with me, I’m so bored,” to the tune of a new, irritating pop song. Eunhyuk pulls the pillow over his head, and then the bouncy boy stops bouncing and leans closer. “Hey, Hyukjae, I heard you were the best at Halo in your old village.”

Something cold runs down his spine and he frowns at the voice from under his pillow. He considers playing dumb, but Hyukjae is a pretty rare name, and there were rumours about Donghae Lee. He sighs, sits up and rubs at his eyes.

“Second best. My girlfriend always beat me.” He clears his throat.

Donghae looks at him solemnly. “Womanly wiles.” He nods. “They beat testosterone every day. Play me?” His grin is bright on the last statement, and Eunhyuk thinks of his muscles aching from holding him to the ceiling for ages last night. He shrugs.

“’Kay. But I’m choosing your character for you.” Donghae bounces in triumph.

---

Sungmin comes home at around midday, looking frayed at the edges and yet still satisfied. Heechul looks up from his bowl of cereal and raises an eyebrow. “Found someone to your liking?” Sungmin steals a cornflake and crunches it appreciatively. He shrugs and then stretches, exposing a series of hickeys just above his waistline. Heechul laughs. “Slut.”

Sungmin raises an eyebrow. “Says the guy who was in prison because he couldn’t keep it in his pants.”

“Fuck you.” Heechul replies, gesturing with his spoon.

Sungmin grins. “You wish.” He turns around. “I’m having a shower. You still using that chocolate and vanilla bodywash?”

Heechul frowns into his bowl. “No.” There’s a pause. “Don’t use it all.”

He resurfaces twenty minutes later wrapped in an American football jersey with his hair all over the place. He smells like chocolate and vanilla. There’s lights flashing and conversation coming from the living room, so he heads that way, his personality automatically demanding human interaction. When he opens the door, though, he feels like he’s shot back two years to a friend’s university dorm as Final Fantasy 7 characters battle on the screen and six boys whoop and laugh at the screen. He blinks.

He recognises Kyuhyun, the hacker, as the one who had recruited him. He’s about to say something to him as Kyuhyun lands his elbow in a pot of buttery popcorn, and Sungmin can suddenly see he’s holding a controller. He rolls his eyes, looks around the hall of the flat, sees no one else and heads into the room. Whatever. He can get involved, if he has to.

Ten minutes later and he’s fumbling over the buttons as the pretty girl he had chosen is dying dramatically by the hand of a big brute belonging to the cat burglar. “Oh my god, is this what you do instead of getting laid?” He hisses as he uses his body to swerve to the right to avoid a glancing blow to his chest, and yet forgets to press the buttons on the controller. His eyebrows draw together as his character gets thrown into a pillar.

Eunhyuk lets a short breath of laughter loose. “You know, they say hand-eye coordination is important in the bedroom.” He pauses. “You must really suck.”

Sungmin somehow manages to press the right combination of words for a super strong flying kick to Eunhyuk’s character’s face. “Ha! Take that! And yes, yes I do suck. Well, actually.” There’s a snort of laughter from Kyuhyun and a light blush on Zhou Mi’s face.

“Please. Just because you get paid for it doesn’t mean it’s good, it just means you’re a whore.” Eunhyuk’s grinning though so Sungmin doesn’t take it to heart.

He lets go of the controller to hit Eunhyuk upside the head and gets a hit from Donghae in return. He glances up and Eunhyuk sniggers into his elbow. “Watch the screen, or you’re going to -” The ending music starts and Game Over flashes on the screen. Eunhyuk’s character is doing some kind of gyrating victory dance over Sungmin’s character.

Sungmin pouts. “Whoops. Again! Let’s go again!” He’s pushed out of the way by Donghae.

The man scrambles to the floor, elbowing Sungmin and Eunhyuk to make a comfortable space n the floor with his back up against the sofa. “My go!”

A quiet boy with killer cheekbones and messy hair speaks up suddenly. “You want more popcorn?”

The boy sitting next to him perks up suddenly. “Yes!” Sungmin thinks, judging by his cheeks, he probably shouldn’t have any more. But the guy with the cheekbones is grinning wide and toddles of into the kitchen while the boy with the cheeks spreads himself over the sofa to save him a seat. He rolls his eyes.

“Fine! I’m going to the toilet and when I get back, you’d better have beaten him. Fight for my honour, Donghae.” He says imperiously as he gets up and stretches. Cold air reminds him he’s only wearing his jersey shirt and his boxers.

“What honour?”Donghae asks, furiously pressing buttons. Sungmin grins, because, okay, fair point.

The carpet is soft on his feet when he walks down the hallway to his bedroom, thinking of grabbing some more clothes before going back to kick Eunhyuk’s arse. It’s different to the varnished floorboards of his own apartment the other side of Seoul, but it’s nice all the same. He might have to do some interior decorating when he gets back. The sound of the doorbell shakes him out of his inner argument about whether a pink carpet would scream ‘Barbie’s Penthouse’ or not.

He looks around again, and yet again there is no one in the apartment. He wonders where the hell Heechul has disappeared to before sighing and heading towards the door. There’s a (fucking beautiful) man on the other side when he opens it. He tilts his hip just and smiles beguilingly. “Yes?” He ignores the sounds of mass murder coming from behind him and the ‘take that you fucking cocksucking lizard eating arsewipe!’ He can only hope the guy on his doorstep does the same.

“Hi, I’m Siwon Choi, I’m a Jehovah’s Witness. Can I speak to you a minute?”

Sungmin’s eyebrows hit his hairline.

Ten minutes later, Heechul walks in with Shindong to find seven men in the living room, two playing Final Fantasy 7, three eating popcorn, and two doing some kind of deep sea diving expedition – only involving less sea creatures and salt water, and more tonsils and tongues. He sticks two fingers into his mouth and whistles. Then he frowns at the newbie.

“Who the fuck are you?”

The boy’s face brightens, though his eyes had winced at the curse word. “I’m Siwon Choi, I’m -”

Sungmin is glaring at Heechul. “He’s playing a game with us.”

Siwon is nodding beside him. “And afterwards I will help him reach spiritual enlightenment with God.” His face is curiously solemn as Heechul dissolves into laughter.

(Later, Sungmin sulks while swinging his feet against the cupboards from his perch on the counter. “It wasn’t that funny, Heechul.”

Heechul whimpers over his tea. “Please. Please, don’t say it. My stomach muscles are still recovering.” He starts laughing again anyway.)

---

They convene in the room that Kyuhyun had commandeered for his harddrives. “Okay. So. What do we have?”

Twenty minutes later and all they know is Heechul wasn’t there, Jungmo was and so was Junsu and Yoochun. Eeteuk had been surprised at this. “Yoochun?”

Kyuhyun shrugged. “I’ll run a background check. Heechul, I need you to go through the papers that Eunhyuk brought back. Maybe Sungmin and Shindong can help you, see if they can recognise any names. Everyone else, you can fuck off.”

Three hours later, and the ones who had been working are stretching in Kyuhyun’s work space. Ryeowook brings in some tea and then runs back out to the living room, where Heechul can hear Kibum using the English language in a way stereotypically reserved for sailors. Apparently he didn’t take too kindly to Henry whooping his arse.

“So, what do we know?” Kyuhyun asks, leaning back in his office chair and hooking his ankles together.

Heechul yawns. “Fuck all, other than the fact the club is owned by Jaejoong and by the looks of things, Junsu and Yoochun are regular customers.”

Kyuhyun nods. “I had some time after checking Yoochun out, and found that they’d both charged their credit cards to that club several times. Yoochun did so on the night of Jungmo’s murder, actually.” Heechul nods. “Which doesn’t seem that suspicious until you take into account that Yoochun and Jaejoong are bosom buddies, known each other since they were young, and that Yoochun and Junsu have been an on-and-off item for seven years. They’ve been off usually due to Yoochun’s cheating.”

Heechul stretched his hands over his head. “So, what? Jaejoong’s best friend is a cheating bastard, what’s your point?”

Kyuhyun sighed. “I don’t know. I mean, I feel like there’s something here, but I just can’t piece it all together. Which really fucks me off.”

Siwon suddenly chipped in. “Maybe if you get Junsu panicky, you can get some information out of him? Like, mention it in front of him, bug his ‘phones and see if he calls anyone. Or something. I don’t know.”

Four pairs of eyes swivel to turn to look at him. Heechul frowns. “What are you still doing here?”

Kyuhyun is eating his fingernail, chewing on the knuckle. “Wait, wait. That – that might work.”

---

Eunhyuk is seriously starting to wonder why he joined this merry band of lunatics. He’s only just been out. If he was working alone, one trip every six months would usually keep him financially solvent, and that wasn’t including the thefts he carried out when bored. He sighs and tries to zip his suit up at the side. It get stuck halfway over his ribs, some of the fabric caught in the teeth. He lets a low hiss out through his teeth in frustration.

The door opens and his roommate walks in, humming something painfully off tune. He blinks when he sees Eunhyuk’s predicament. “Hi.”

“Hey.” Eunhyuk ducks his head and feels a blush start to spread over his cheeks.

“Want some help?” The guy asks, but he’s already tucking his glossy mag under his arm and walking towards him.

“I’m okay,” tries to make it past his lips, but then the guy is working at the zip with his fingers, and a nail watches the skin exposed by the fabric. He hopes his intake of breath isn’t too obvious. “Thanks,” he manages, when the zip is done up to his throat. The guy takes a step back with a satisfied smile.

“No problem. You off out?” Eeteuk, that’s his name, flops back down onto his bed.

Eunhyuk shrugs. “Yeah. They want me to bug Junsu’s phones and shop and home.”

Eeteuk raises his eyebrows. “Oh, okay. Good luck. Make sure to get Henry’s cheeks.”

Eunhyuk feels like it’s a dismissal and nods awkwardly as he grabs his bag and heads out the door. He does make sure to get Henry’s cheeks though.

Come On Barbie, Let's Go Party

2009-07-13T19:50:41Z

Title: Come On Barbie, Let's Go Party
Length: [3/3]
Pairings: Hanchul, Yehwook, Jaeho, Qmi
Summary: (Dollhouse!au) Heechul's life takes a turn for the worse when he becomes responsible for the biggest thing yet - another person.

---

Donghae had crashed from his sugar high an hour ago and Kyuhyun had spent the majority of that time searching through the little discs that help the imprints. He had eventually found the original files, though Donghae seemed to be a master of the kind of disorganisation where everything was organised in a way that only he could understand. Kyuhyun had found a Rocky bar wrapper stuck to Jaejoong’s original Imprint and something sugary was lurking in the bottom of the filing cabinet.

It was worth it, in a way. If Zhou Mi was Compositing then the only way that Kyuhyun knew how to make him better (and that was what he did, he made people better, he didn’t make them forget their pain) was to restore the original person who had lived in Zhou Mi’s body.

It was more than a little daunting. He had no idea what Zhou Mi was like as a person, a real one; only Donghae and Eeteuk got to screen the candidates so Kyuhyun had never met him. Plus he had only ever used Donghae’s equipment once before, on a training day in case Donghae was ever ill. He wasn’t, though Kyuhyun was certain the only thing keeping him going was a wish and a dream. No one could survive so long with sugar being their only major food group.

He had to do it now, before Zhou Mi turned into another Yesung, or before Yesung returned to finish the job. Kyuhyun had overheard Eeteuk and Kangin talking earlier – it was only a matter of days.

Zhou Mi’s hand was warm in Kyuhyun’s and he smelled like the antiseptic shampoo that all the Dolls used. He wondered what the normal Zhou Mi smelled like, and if he would still be affectionate. Zhou Mi was being super quiet behind him but he could feel the adrenalin thrumming under the thin skin of his wrist as Kyuhyun opened the door to Donghae’s office. The overhead lights were off, but the LEDs of the computers provided enough shine to see their way. Kyuhyun wasn’t sure if this would work, as he wasn’t Zhou Mi’s Handler but he had to try anyway.

He didn’t know why, just that he had to.

He held his finger to his lips and then whispered softly, “Are you ready for your treatment?”

Zhou Mi nodded yes and lay back in the chair. The computers hummed into life. Kyuhyun took a deep breath and placed the disc in the slot, looking at Doll Zhou Mi for the last time. It hurt more than he expected.

When the spasms finished, Kyuhyun was holding Zhou Mi’s hand and stroking his hair back from his forehead. Brown eyes surveyed him with more intelligence than Kyuhyun had seen from Zhou Mi before, and it kind of scared him, even though he was and worked with a genius. “Are you feeling okay?” He couldn’t remember the exact words, but if Zhou Mi differed from the script then Kyuhyun was going to - well, do something drastic because that would be amazing and would, more importantly, mean it had worked.

“Uh – do you have any paracetamol?” Zhou Mi’s voice was a little deeper than in Doll form, and Kyuhyun was surprised, stupidly, to hear emotion other than contentment in his voice.

He nodded dumbly, drawing his hand away from Zhou Mi’s forehead to reach into his pocket. And that was when the first explosion went off.

---

Yesung whistled to himself as he scaled the side of the building, the opposite to the one now sporting a giant hole. He started counting to 180.

---

Zhou Mi jumped. The man holding his hand did too and looked to the left with something Zhou Mi had no trouble identifying as fear. The man pulled Zhou Mi up quickly by his hand, which must have only happened because Zhou Mi was feeling muggy from the chair because he had a couple inches and maybe some pounds on this guy. Not much, but it would factor largely against someone as slight as the man standing in front of him.

“What was that?” He asked, which wasn’t nearly as important as ‘who are you’.

The man turned back, panic being schooled off his expression. “I’ll tell you later. Follow me. We’re just going to have to make a run for it.”

Zhou Mi blinked. “What? Oh. Okay.”

He could vaguely remember the door that they walked through, but the plant in the corner wasn’t nearly that big before, and the furnishings had been moved around and changed a little. It was a bit disconcerting and he decided not to let go of the man’s hand until he absolutely had to. He squeezed it a little too and the man turned back and gave him a sleepy strained smile. It seemed like a familiar action and Zhou Mi wondered who this man was to him.

The glass door slid open automatically, and then suddenly Zhou Mi was being pulled along by his hand down stairs and then more stairs and then even more. His breath was coming in short gasps when they reached what looked like an underground parking lot, only everyone who parked here apparently liked black glossy expensive cars. The man pulled something shiny – Zhou Mi saw it glint under the fluorescent parking lot lights – out of his pocket, and one of the multitudes of cars beeped at them, flashing lights. They headed in that direction, Zhou Mi pulling open the door after the man did.

It smelled like new car inside, and Zhou Mi had never owned a new car so he revelled in the smell. Somewhere, he heard a loud distant bang, and then the engine started and the man pulled away. A few moments later, and Zhou Mi could see a problem.

“Uh. The garage door?”

“Is flimsy as fuck.”

Zhou Mi had a brief moment to wonder when he had entered a Bruce Willis movie before they were flying through metal and out onto tarmac.

---

Hankyung was chopping up vegetables on a plastic chopping board with the TV on. Arms snuck around his waist and then he saw ankles from the corner of his eye as Heechul swung himself up onto the counter. He stole a mushroom slice. “Hi.”

“Hi.” They smiled at each other and Hankyung felt inescapably like a girl. He started chopping vegetables like they were his femininity.

“Whoa, hey, no working your Chinese ninja on these poor vegetables. Our chopping board can’t withstand it.” Heechul joked reaching around Hankyung to get a glass out of the cupboard. And then he froze.

“What? What?” Hankyung asked, turning to look. Heechul was staring at the TV, something like grief, relief and indescribable happiness warring for space on his expression.”Seriously, what?”

“The Dollhouse has been blown up.”

---

There was plaster dust in his hair and glass in his shin, and really, if he didn’t stop coughing now, his lung was going to pop up to say hello. But he couldn’t find Jaejoong.

There were paramedics everywhere, white and green looking like some fucked up St. Patrick’s Day celebration, and Yunho couldn’t see anyone he recognised. He’d been knocked out early on, a stray piece of wall hitting him on the way to Jaejoong’s pod and had only regained consciousness a few minutes ago. But still.

He hopped off of the stretcher – though ‘hop’ was a bit of an optimistic verb. Hobble might be a better choice. His paramedics had just told him to stay put and then went to help tend more urgent cases, so he was free to go.

He found Jaejoong ten minutes later. Only – he was really Jaejoong.

---

Yesung held onto Ryeowook’s hand as they walked down the hallway to his motel room. Ryeowook wasn’t in Doll form anymore, and Yesung had been shit-scared that he wouldn’t know who Yesung was. But something must have remained because Ryeowook had opened his eyes, tightened his grip on Yesung’s hand and smiled sweetly. Yesung felt like he was coming home.

The click of the door sounding shut echoed in the room, seeming much more significant than it really should. Yesung let go of Ryeowook’s hand to shrug out of his jacket and then didn’t know how to reclaim it without being creepy.

“Uh, so. So. Are you okay?”

Ryeowook nodded. “You?” Yesung tried not to let the surreal nature of the situation render him mute. But he still just nodded.

A few awkward minutes passed and Yesung wiped his hands on his jeans. There was brick dust all over him, turning his palms rusty orange. “You want a shower?”

“Sure.” Ryeowook’s voice was a little higher than in Doll form, but Yesung thought he liked it. Ten minutes later and Ryeowook stepped out, a towel slung low on his hips. “Uh. I don’t have any clothes.”

Yesung blinked, remembering showers at the Dollhouse and how he had looked at Ryeowook and remembered that showers were supposed to be small enough for two at a squeeze. “Right. Right. I don’t - ”

Ryeowook was grinning. “Did you think this through very far?”

Yesung ran a hand through his hair (dyed a light brown to try and escape the authorities) and chuckled sheepishly. “I didn’t really expect you to remember me.”

Ryeowook shrugged, sending rivulets down his skin. “I started Compositing some time after you left – but I remembered to keep quiet about it. I’ve been waiting for you.”

Yesung smiled suddenly, something blooming in his stomach and flooding golden sunshine through his veins. “Oh.”

Ryeowook was grinning again. “Oh.” He echoed. “So.”

“So.” He felt giddy.

“Clothes?”

Yesung frowned. “Uh. You can have my shirt?” He started tugging at the hem. A hand stopped him, small with the nails polished and manicured.

“You can go get something in the morning.” Yesung looked away when the towel was dropped and Ryeowook slid under the covers of his motel bed. “I’m tired.”

To be honest, Yesung’s entire body ached, from climbing buildings and then running through them. It was hard work, bringing down a branch of a corporation. He hesitated at the foot of the bed, spun on the heel of one foot, a pivot. Then he sighed and climbed on top of the covers, facing away from Ryeowook. Sleep came easily to him, now that he could hear Ryeowook behind him.

He woke up later in the night under the covers with Ryeowook’s head on his stomach and his hand curled into Ryeowook’s mop of hair. Something in his mind distantly registered the compromising position, but he ignored it in favour of sleep. In the morning when he woke up to a sleep-warm Ryeowook wrapped around him like a second blanket, though, the something in his mind was much more vocal. He winced. Trying to move was impossible, since Ryeowook had a grip like a vice in his sleep apparently, but he couldn’t exactly stay where he was.

Except he could. “Stay.” The word was muttered against his sternum, voice box vibrating into his chest. His grip relaxed a little and Yesung sunk back against the pillows. “Hey.”

“Mm?”

“What happened to everyone else?” Yesung shifted and then blushed as he remembered the lack of clothes currently on Ryeowook.

He cleared his throat. “Remote deactivation. Donghae installed it, a secret from Eeteuk, just in case. I found some files about it when I hacked in some months ago, and got the details from Donghae when I broke in before. Do you remember that?”

Ryeowook nodded against his chest, and the smile stretched over his skin. “Mm. Failed attempt number 1.”

Yesung shrugged. “I still got the information I needed. I just didn’t get to you.”

Ryeowook stretched his hand across Yesung’s stomach. “So. How come Donghae never told anyone what you stole?”

Yesung stilled. “He didn’t?”

Ryeowook looked up, but he could only see Yesung’s chin. “Nope. I would have known.”

Yesung thought so hard he forgot to breathe for a moment. “I don’t know. Why didn’t he?”

---

Donghae woke up three hours into the drive. Kyuhyun and Zhou Mi were arguing about the destination, Zhou Mi being much more vehement when he wasn’t in Doll form. “San Francisco is their blind spot.” He grinned as Kyuhyun and Zhou Mi jumped in their seats. “Just so you know.” He stretched out over the backseat and opened a pack of Skittles. The Dollhouse gig was getting old anyway.

---

Hankyung kneed Heechul in the stomach and got a hand smacking into his left cheek for his efforts. “No, Hankyung!”

“There are only so many times I can watch Projekt Runway, Heechul!” Somehow a cushion found its way to his face and he was turned topsy-turvy upside-down with a knee on either side of his hips. He grinned into the pillow.

“Fine! But we are watching - ”

He spoke into the pillow. “No America’s Next Top Model, either!”

He could feel Heechul’s scowl, and got a pinch to his thigh for his answer. “I was going to say Gossip Girl.”

Hankyung went slack. “Oh, Chuck? Hell yeah, I can live with that.”

He got another pinch. “But maybe I do miss Tyra after all.” Hankyung groaned as the opening tune to America’s Next Top Model, Cycle 16 started.

“Maybe you’re a dickface.”

“Maybe you like my dick.”

“Maybe I do.”

They were both grinning and Hankyung wasn’t surprised when the cushion was removed for a quick kiss.

---

A Year Later

Donghae watched as Kyuhyun walked past, doctor’s coat slung over his shoulder, long legs in those skinny jeans that he was constantly getting reprimanded for. He smiled a little wistfully. “Dr. Cho!”

Kyuhyun’s head turned so fast Donghae worried he might have whiplash. “Hey Donghae.” He smiled, sleep-soft at the edges, his eyes like coffee beans and too much caffeine. “When do you get off?”

“Another three hours.” Donghae leaned forwards, held his chin in his hands. “You could stay to keep me company.” He finished just as his beeper went off. Kyuhyun’s answer was a smirk. He shrugged, stepping away from Donghae.

“Sucks to be the neurologist around here, huh?” Donghae stilled at the reminder, and then relaxed at Kyuhyun’s face – a challenge to make it an issue written in the lines and planes.

“Sure does.” He watched as Kyuhyun walked off before running to the elevator and skidding into the little box. The doors were going to take ages to close, but he liked making an entrance.

---

The last slice of pizza lay in the box, innocently enough. The fight on the sofa for the privilege of eating it? Not so much.

“Ow! Fuck! My eye!”

“Ahahaha, take that, mother – ohh. That? So uncalled for.”

“Oh, right, because -no tickling, you know I am sensitive!”

A wicked grin. “Yeah? Like, how sensitive?”

“Very – oh. Oh.” An intake of breath. “Little lower, ‘Chul. Just – nngh.”

Ten minutes later, Heechul was happily munching on the last slice of pizza as Hankyung slowly resurfaced from his post-coital daze. He wrinkled his nose. “I can’t believe we just did that to this movie.”

Heechul grinned and shuffled on his knees back to the sofa, lifting Hankyung’s legs up and placing himself underneath them. “What? Cinderella is the perfect blowjob movie.” Hankyung groaned.

---

Jaejoong didn’t look up as the bell tinkled over the café door. It was ten minutes to closing time and he liked to have most things clean before he closed up so he didn’t have too much work to do afterwards.

“Hey.” The voice was familiar, settling a weight at the bottom of Jaejoong’s spine. He dragged his eyes up and managed a smile.

“Hey.”

It had been a year since he had woken up with blood dripping from his forehead in what had looked like a scene from the third world war, with this guy’s face hovering over him. He still wasn’t sure what to do. Every night he woke up with nightmares, and it had taken three months of intensive therapy to be able to identify who he actually was. Apparently it hadn’t taken that long for everyone else, after Yesung had managed to use remote deactivation to return them to their usual selves and not their Doll form. He still wasn’t sure how that had worked, but he didn’t like thinking about it, so he guessed he wouldn’t ever understand it.

But when he had finally said, okay I can do this, this guy started showing up. Every day, around the same time. He was late today. Jaejoong had figured he had finally gotten bored.

“So. How are you?” Jaejoong blinked. Generally the guy just had a cup of coffee and a pastry and then left.

He answered cautiously. “I’m okay. You?”

The man nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m – listen, would you. Uh. I know this is kind of out of the blue, but would you like to catch a cup of coffee with me, or a bite to eat, or something?”

Jaejoong felt the moment stretching out before him. The man had an angular face and warm brown eyes that were looking at him kind of anxiously. He was wearing a GAZETTE t-shirt, worn and kind of fraying at the hems, but Jaejoong liked that. He liked the skinny jeans too. Thing was, since the whole Dollhouse thing, it had been kind of hard to get dates, especially ones who were okay with him having been what was basically a whore for three years. And Jaejoong trusted this guy, for some reason.

He tilted his head to the side. “Yeah. Okay. But no Dollhouse on the first date.”

The guy nodded, tapped his fingers against his thigh. “Okay. That seems reasonable.” He looked out the door suddenly. “Can we go now?”

Jaejoong couldn’t help the chuckle at the guy’s eagerness. “Uh, okay.” He grinned. “What’s your name?”

The guy blinked, like he had expected Jaejoong to know. Then he was smiling, exposing a slight snaggle tooth, wide and warm. “Yunho. I’m - I’m Yunho.”

---

The light was off but the TV was on when Donghae got home. He grinned and snuck along the back of the couch before finding his prey. Zhou Mi jumped a foot off of the sofa at the feel of Donghae’s cold hands against the back of neck. He sent a wounded look to Donghae.

“Not cool.”

Donghae disagreed. “I disagree. I am awesome amount of cool. I am so cool, penguins are jealous. In fact, the other day, a penguin stopped me in the street and said to me, ‘why sir, how are you so cool? I am just so -”

“Ohmygod, shuttup.” Kyuhyun’s voice was husky with sleep and Donghae reached down to kiss the growl right out of his voice.

“Why hello there, love muffin, I missed you too.”

“It’s only been three hours.” The voice was dry but his eyes were warm as he blinked them open to look up.

Zhou Mi sniffed. “Three hours in which Kyu Xian has totally managed to steal half the sofa and change the channel to something involved too many feathers and hem lines and pretty models.”

Donghae jumped over the sofa and ignored the twin groans and shouts of pain. “Ooh! Projekt Runway? I do love me some Timisms.”

Zhou Mi sighed. “I am much better at fashion design than Tim. Or any of these people.” He shifted his legs, curled them under his stomach and then snuggled up to Donghae. Donghae pulled him closer and felt the warmth from his hand seep under his t-shirt when Zhou Mi spread it across his stomach.

Kyuhyun wiggled his toes under Donghae’s thigh and grinned when Donghae turned a solemn look on him. “Are you teasing me with your toes, Dr Cho?”

“Are you teasing me with your mouth, Dr Lee?” He answered and wiggled his toes again. Donghae squirmed and Zhou Mi reached across to slap ineffectually at Kyuhyun’s calf. Kyuhyun just sat up and kissed the fingers. And then sucked them. Donghae felt Zhou Mi’s breath stutter across his collarbone, and he knew his own eyes must have darkened.

Zhou Mi spoke first, voice kind of strangled. “Bedroom. The last time we did this here, we stained the couch so badly I had to completely re-upholster it.” Donghae jumped up quickly, both hands reaching behind to take hold of wrists. The damp fingertips grazed against Donghae’s forearm and he sucked in a breath.

“Bedroom it is! Forge on! Hi ho, hi ho - ”

“Stop hanging out in the paediatric ward watching the kid movies. It’s creepy.”

---

Yesung pushed away from the sand with a foot and slung an arm over his eyes. The hammock made a creaking sound on every to-fro motion. Running away to a desert island was probably cliché, he ruminated, but Ryeowook seemed to like it well enough.

He glanced to the left. Ryeowook was sitting on the porch of their home, whittling driftwood into something fantastical. He said the nightmares made for good inspiration. Yesung just nodded and pointed out when something was beautiful. Ryeowook sold these on eBay.

Ryeowook had asked, a few months into their sudden cohabitation, what had happened to the staff at the Dollhouse. Yesung had shrugged. It wasn’t that he didn’t know, he just didn’t think it was that important. None of them were dead, he had assured Ryeowook, but none of them were exactly able to come after them either. Ryeowook had hummed at this and then cuddled a little closer.

“Okay.”

The sun was beating down a little too fiercely, so he got up and padded across the too-hot sand to Ryeowook.

“Hey.”

“Hi.”

They smiled at each other. “Whatcha making?” Yesung sing-songed, edging closer.

Ryeowook shrugged, smiled. “A rocking chair.”

Yesung snorted. “A rocking chair.”

“Mmhm. For my dollhouse.” Yesung tried not to stiffen at this. It wasn’t a new occurrence. As soon as Ryeowook had taken up the habit, he had built a dollhouse, something small but ornate. It sat in the backroom that Yesung never went into. He figured it was Ryeowook’s way of coping, like Yesung’s had been almost-mindless violence.

“Oh. Okay.” He looked at the spindly bars, the delicate circles for wheels. “I like it.” Ryeowook beamed proudly.

---

hey. so it was really fun writing this, even if it did distract me from my pokémon au (yes, you did read that right). i loved taking this idea and just running with it. after goose bullied me into writing it i opened up a document and reached about 8000 words in two nights? it was really fun :) of course, i've been really busy lately, so if this ending doesn't really - satisfy, i'm sorry.
i'm glad i got to post this as my first post to superfic and i'm just going to go out on a limb here and pimp the series Dollhouse (feat. Faith from Buffy the Vampire Slayer) which is basically this but done much better and without the hot asian boys. so yeah, if this 'verse still intrigues you, go watch that :)
oh and sorry about the sneak qmihae. that was for daisy.

Come On Barbie, Let's Go Party

2009-07-12T17:39:02Z

Title: Come On Barbie, Let's Go Party
Length: [2/3]
Pairings: Hanchul, Yehwook, Jaeho, Qmi
Summary: (Dollhouse!au) Heechul's life takes a turn for the worse when he becomes responsible for the biggest thing yet - another person.

Heechul took the company’s van until he hit a town twenty minutes from the house. He’d passed cops on the way and no doubt his number plate had been taken down but that was okay. It was something stupid at night and the town was all tucked away, so Hankyung would have to wait until the next town for drugs and some stitches. He didn’t know if he could last that long, but 24hour drug stores only existed in cities, and in cities there was usually a Dollhouse or some other organisation, and fuck if Heechul was getting involved in that. Again. Whatever.

He switched number plates between two cars, and then drove off in the station wagon, pushed the seats forward as far forward as he could while still being able to drive. The company’s van was left in the middle of the road. Hankyung was placed on the backseat, sweat beading on his forehead and his face pasty white. Heechul swore when he saw his face. He might have to risk the city anyway.

He drove for an hour until he found one. He always was sucky at reading maps. He bought Tylenol and some cotton pads, and then headed to a supermarket, bought some heavy duty alcohol and a sewing kit. He figured he’d have to make do.

Soaking everything in alcohol was okay, sterilising it with the lighter he always kept with him (just in case) was a little harder. He burnt his fingers three times before figuring that hey, maybe if he stopped shaking, this would go a lot easier.

Hankyung was passed out for the actual sewing up. Heechul wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. He drove for another three hours before switching cars in another city, and then realising that fuck – he had no money.

Okay. Okay. He could deal with that. He wrote a note on the back of a McDonald’s fries container, and then left Hankyung in the backseat hidden in the woods just outside of the city. He loped back into the outskirts, stole yet another car, and damn, who knew hot wiring would be so easy? He pushed the pedal down to 120 and well, there was a reason that wasn’t a legal speed. When he reached some town miles and miles away from Hankyung he withdrew all the money from his bank account and then cut up the card. It was more symbolic than necessary, but it calmed him down after the thoughts of becoming windshield splatter on the motorway. And then he went back.

Hankyung was still in the car when he got back, but awake now, back shuffled up against the window. His eyes were cloudy. Heechul made him eat three chocolate bars, ignoring a stupid, half-delirious comment about his dancer’s body not needing that junk in it. Heechul had just given him a glare. Heechul was kickass at glares.

The next city he got Hankyung checked over at some dirty clinic that had surprisingly good staff. He was treated properly, and when they left, Heechul swiped the chart. The clinic was a painful reminder of his sister. He hoped that she was okay now. That all of this was worth it.

They set up shop in some town in another state. Heechul got a job at a hair salon. He’d never thought those few misguided semesters at beauty college would come in useful, but hey, what do you know? Hankyung eventually got a job as a waiter. Heechul had enough money for them to live comfortably for the next five years, but blending into the community was useful, and he really couldn’t stand to be in the same house as Hankyung every day. Not with all the questions.

“Who are you and what the fuck were you doing in that house?”

“What the hell is a Handler and bullshit was I on an Engagement!”

“Dollhouse? What Dollhouse?”

“Oh please, give me a break. What? You have proof? Yeah, didn’t -”

The questions about Heechul stopped after he showed him the ‘treatment’ phase he went into, but the questions about the Dollhouse near enough drove him insane. Because he didn’t know anything.

---

Jaejoong got beat up pretty badly by the two men in black. He’d managed to escape from them using a mixture of martial arts and CIA moves, but it didn’t stop him from getting a cracked rib and a cut over his eyebrow. At the moment, he was Shep Whybrow, spy extraordinaire, gathering information for a client and getting his arse beaten for it.

His leg hurt like nothing before, and the wheezing sound he made when he drew in a breath was kind of disgusting. He’d heard the same sound on lung cancer patients in those Don’t Smoke adverts on TV. A man with tanned skin, a snaggle tooth and worried brown eyes appeared before him. Jaejoong didn’t know why but he slowed down as he got nearer and felt calmer in the man’s presence.

“Jaejoong? Are you ready for your treatment?” And everything went fuzzy white.

He woke up in the chair. Donghae looked at him with warm eyes hidden by giant lenses. He was wearing his glasses again. “Jaejoong. How are you feeling?”

He felt groggy. “Did I fall asleep?”

“A little while.”

“Can I go now?”

“If you like.”

Yunho walked him back to the recreation room, a hand on the small of his back. Jaejoong hugged him goodbye, strong and tight. For a moment, there was a swooping feeling in his stomach, but Jaejoong passed it off as just missing Yunho. He stepped back and headed over to Junsu and Yoochun. Yoochun handed him a crayon and then stared. He touched Jaejoong’s face, on the eyebrow.

“What’s that?”

“What’s what?” Yoochun was looking at Jaejoong worriedly.

“You have a scar on your eyebrow.” Jaejoong paused. He wracked his memory.

“Is this a game?” He asked, tilting his head to the side, curious. He watched the way light played on Yoochun’s cheek, shifting with the way the leaves of the plant were, rotating with the fan.

“No. How did you get this?” Yoochun sounded almost worried so Jaejoong reached up and touched where Yoochun’s finger was. He was right. Jaejoong’s eyes went wide. He did have a scar.

He was thinking hard, but. “I don’t remember.” He felt vaguely sad, and got up to find Yunho. Yunho’s hugs were the best.

---

Hankyung’s feet slapped on the floor, and he thought about accessing that grace he knew he had. But he was bone-tired, woken yet again by one too many nightmares about people he once was, by memories that weren’t his, by desires that he really didn’t have.

Heechul’s door was never open, but Hankyung knew the invitation was there all the same. He trusted Heechul. He trusted him with his life. Heechul said that was because of a script he’d been told to read, a neural lock and key, so to speak. It bound them together. Apparently, Hankyung had been brainwashed to trust Heechul with his life. It sounded like a bit of a bum deal to him, to completely trust someone when you didn’t even know what songs they liked. Not that that was particularly important in the whole ‘save my life’ stakes, but it was important in other stakes. He wasn’t sure which, but it was.

Heechul ran hot, like a lanky furnace, all long limbs that wound around Hankyung as soon as he slipped under the covers. Heechul smelled like that fruity body wash he insisted on buying, and like something familiar.

“Nightmare?” The voice was sleep-hoarse and barely intelligible. Hankyung grinned and placed his head in the gap between Heechul’s head and his shoulder.

“Mm.” He placed a hand on Heechul’s skinny hipbone and pulled him closer. When he felt Heechul wriggle questioningly, he answered, “I’m cold.” And shoved his feet onto Heechul’s bare skin. The resulting flailing landed Hankyung with a fist to the nose and a kick aimed at his groin but landing somewhere on his thighs instead. He was laughing. Heechul hit his face with a pillow and settled down again.

“Brat. Go to sleep.” Hankyung cuddled closer, still chuckling, and felt warmth blossom in his chest when Heechul’s hand crept onto his torso.

Morning brought sleep-sour breath, mussed hair and a figure standing at the edge of the bed. Hankyung jumped. Heechul brushed a hand down his arm, in an attempt to reassure him. It worked, even though Hankyung knew it shouldn’t.

“Well. Isn’t this cosy.” The voice was surprisingly deep for such a slight frame. There was no reply. Hankyung shifted to try and hide Heechul’s hand creeping to the headboard. He kept a gun hidden behind it.

The man sighed. “Fine. You will talk. Tell me about the Dollhouse.” He felt Heechul’s movements falter. “And stop reaching for the gun. It’s not there.” The figure threw something up in the air with his left hand, caught it again. “It’s here.” That’s when Hankyung knew they were fucked.

---

It was raining. Jaejoong couldn’t see the rain. He couldn’t remember ever seeing the rain. But he knew the sound, from somewhere. His leg hurt. He couldn’t think why that was, though. And his eyes were stinging from holding his eyes open too long, because when he closed them horrible thoughts of him doing strange things kept springing up.

He whimpered.

“Jaejoong?” Yunho was coming towards him, wearing a jacket that was only a shade darker than his skin. Jaejoong smiled.

“Hello Yunho. You look nice today.”

“Thank you Jaejoong.” Yunho’s brows were drawn together though, like Yoochun’s were when he asked him about the scar, and Junsu’s when he told him that he hadn’t been around for a month. But Jaejoong didn’t remember going anywhere. “Are you okay?”

“My leg hurts.” He admitted. Yunho touched his forehead and Jaejoong’s stomach swooped again. He hoped he wasn’t coming down with something. He didn’t think he’d ever been sick; he wasn’t sure he’d deal with it very well.

Yunho was frowning though, and Jaejoong didn’t like that look on Yunho’s face. He tried to smooth it out with his hand. “It hurts? Which one?” When he pointed it out though, Yunho’s face went blank and Jaejoong was sure he didn’t like this look very much either. Yunho got on his knees to get down to the level of Jaejoong.

“Jaejoong. Everything is going to be okay.” Contentment swallowed Jaejoong’s pain.

“Now that you’re here.” He recited, and smiled at Yunho.

Yunho smiled back, but it wasn’t a proper smile. “Are you ready for your treatment?”

“Yes.”

---

Shindong swivelled on his chair to face Eeteuk. “Heechul withdrew his money here.” He put a red pin in the map at the point where the city was marked. “He was seen on speeding cameras here,” he used a blue pin this time, “here, here and here.”

Kangin unfolded his arms. “There’s been no sign of him since.”

Eeteuk grimaced. “The tracking device in Hankyung?”

“It only works when the Dolls are in their blank slate mode. Hankyung still has the Imprint.”

Eeteuk sighed. “Keep checking. Local authorities, ask them about any new people in town, check the supermarkets and the drug stores. He had an abdomen wound. Look for anywhere that equipment to treat that wound was bought from. Also, keep surveillance on Heechul’s sister, he might try to use her for help or leverage. Was Hankyung seen with him on the speeding cameras?”

“No. Not as far as we know.” Shindong shrugged. “Heechul might have had to ditch him if he died.”

Kangin shook his head. “I’ve checked the hospitals and morgues. No dead guys fitting Hankyung’s description.”

Shindong grinned. “Not all dead people turn up straight away.”

---

Kyuhyun frowned. “Well there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong, Jaejoong.”

Jaejoong was rubbing Yunho’s thumb with his own. He answered absently, “My leg hurts. So does here.” He placed his hand just below his heart, but Kyuhyun saw the symbolism anyway. He held back a sigh. He’d dealt with the break in both areas as best he could, but there was bound to be residual pain. Eeteuk and Donghae didn’t seem to get that while emotional injuries could be wiped, physical ones couldn’t.

He turned to the cabinet, shook out a low duty paracetamol and handed it to Jaejoong. “Here. Take this. Everything will be okay.” Jaejoong nodded and smiled.

Yunho helped him off of the bed and smiled gratefully at Kyuhyun. He smiled back, more coolly than he supposed he was supposed to, but they had interrupted his coffee break. “Send the next one in when you go out, please?” Yunho nodded and five minutes later the doors opened again. Kyuhyun turned around and felt his stomach do that gravity-what-gravity thing it always did when Zhou Mi was around. Siwon, Zhou Mi’s Handler, nodded at Kyuhyun and motioned to the waiting room.

“I’ll just be right out here.” He said, but Kyuhyun barely heard him because Zhou Mi was smiling that blinding smile of his and already walking towards him. The door closed behind Siwon and Zhou Mi was hugging Kyuhyun with a tight grip and a soft smell. He tried not to relax into it, but it was hard.

“Hi Dr. Cho.” He said into the crook of Kyuhyun’s neck.

“Hi Zhou Mi.” He said and attempted to step back. But Zhou Mi was grippy like a grippy thing and wouldn’t let go.

“You smell really nice today, Dr. Cho.” Kyuhyun coughed and rolled his eyes to the ceiling. He thanked God that not every Doll was this affectionate. It just seemed to be something built so deeply into Zhou Mi’s nature that no amount of Wiping would get rid of it. Though it was entirely possible that Donghae had inserted this into Zhou Mi’s mind in order to fuck with Kyuhyun. Donghae would find it hilarious. The overly caffeinated arse.

“Thank you, Zhou Mi. What’s the matter today then?” Zhou Mi somehow managed to visit every day. It was a gift, Zhou Mi said, when he had been allowed to remain as a Doll long enough to remember properly.

Zhou Mi stepped back, finally, and Kyuhyun refused to admit it was a little colder in the room than he had expected. “I hurt my finger.” He held it up and sure enough, there was blood. Not a lot, but it was still there. Kyuhyun opened the drawer with the bandages in and pulled out some plasters.

“How’d you manage that?” He said as he tore one off of the strip and started taking the packaging off.

Zhou Mi looked crestfallen. “I got a paper cut.” Kyuhyun grinned and stamped down on the urge to ruffle Zhou Mi’s hair.

He placed the plaster carefully over the cut. “There you go. You can go now, if you like.” He glanced up and Zhou Mi still looked sad. “What’s up?”

“Aren’t you going to kiss it better? That’s what my mum used to do.” Kyuhyun froze. How did he –

“Your mum, Zhou Mi?” But Zhou Mi was already distracted.

“Can I have a lollipop, Dr. Cho?”

---

There was blood over the bedspread when Yesung left, mostly Heechul’s. A wound from being clocked around the head with the butt of the gun. Head wounds always bled a lot, apparently. Hankyung didn’t really know. Wouldn’t really know. Like he didn’t know anything about the Dollhouse, not that Yesung would believe him. Believe Heechul.

Heechul crawled across the bed to Hankyung, and oh, hey, would you look at that? He was trembling. Heechul kissed his forehead and Hankyung froze, then surged up to meet Heechul’s lips. It tasted of salt and copper, but it was good all the same. Heechul pulled away and whispered in Hankyung’s ear. “Everything will be alright.”

Hankyung nodded, and felt calm wash over him. “Now that you’re here.”

---

Five Months Ago

“Eeteuk, there’s a problem.” Kangin stood at the foot of his desk, arms folded. He always looked so awkward in his business suit. Eeteuk raised an eyebrow. “The Dolls, they’re – starting to form groups.”

Eeteuk frowned. “Go get Donghae.”

---

It was waffles this morning, crispy and golden. The smell triggered another flash of images, snapshots and sound bites. They didn’t stay behind his eyelids anymore and they were painful. He dropped his fork. Ryeowook’s brows were drawn together when he looked over, and he didn’t like that expression on his face, so he kissed it better. The kitchen staff looked shocked. Ryeowook looked happy. Yesung bent his head down and ate his waffles, letting his hand slip to the bench. Ryeowook’s hand followed afterwards, settled into Yesung’s small little grip like something perfect.

Waffles were Yesung’s favourites.

---

A Month Later

“Ryeowook, Ryeowook, come with me, come on!” Yesung pulled at the smaller boy, but he seemed too scared, heels digging in.

“It’s night-time Yesung, we should be in the pods!” Ryeowook whispered fiercely back.

Yesung shook his head, frustrated. “No! No, we shouldn’t, Ryeowook! We should be in beds with quilts and covers and headboards! We should be out clubbing or having a drink with some friends or – or I don’t know, but we shouldn’t be here. This place is all wrong, ‘Wookie, they take who we are and they make us someone else every time they need us, pre-packaged dolls made to order, custom design, and Ryeowook, they make us do terrible things, they make us do horrible things, they really do. And I can remember them, not all of them, but some of them and they hurt when they come back and they’re not, they’re not me but they took that from me too. They took who I am, ‘Wookie, and they replaced it with so many other people that my head is cloudy and I can’t see properly and – We have to go!”

Ryeowook was looking at him with large brown eyes and that wrinkled forehead that Yesung really didn’t like. And then his face was clearing and his jaw set and he nodded. “Okay. Okay.”

They ran.

---

Four bodies lay on the floor, cut in precise places with skills from a previous Imprint. Shindong sighed, surveyed the wreckage. “I’m never invited to these shindigs.”

Kangin was talking into the headset. “You have Ryeowook? What about Yesung? Okay. Bring Ryeowook back. Yesung won’t get far.”

Shindong raised an eyebrow. Kangin explained, “They managed to sedate the both of them, but Yesung somehow managed to escape anyway. Ryeowook’s being brought back now. I’ll go wake up Donghae, you go tell Eeteuk.”

Shindong raised his other eyebrow. “How about you tell Eeteuk?”

There was a moment of silence where they both measured each other up. “Rock, paper, scissors?”

“Oh you know it, chubbs.”

---

Present

Kangin walked into Eeteuk’s meeting with a client. “We have a situation, sir.”

Eeteuk looked at him, looked back at his client, and then excused himself. “What is it, Kangin?”

Kangin looked at the older man with something like resignation in his eyes. “Yesung’s been spotted in the city. I think we can expect contact within a couple days.”

Eeteuk nodded, arms going up instinctively to hug himself. He looked miserable. “Okay. You know what to do.” Kangin nodded. Eeteuk called after him as he went, “At any cost, Kangin. Remember that.”

---

Yunho was worried about Jaejoong. He kept remembering things that he shouldn’t remember, kept looking at his leg as though its very presence was confusing. He didn’t want another Yesung on his hands. But –

“Hey, Yunho. What’s the sky like?” Jaejoong was chewing on the end of his pencil, paint flecks on his lips. Yunho brushed them away with his thumb.

But.

“It’s beautiful, Jaejoong. Just like you.”

---

Kyuhyun sat cross-legged on Donghae’s desk, playing with the Rubix cube. “So.”

Donghae was playing some nineties game where the players were little lines and the main objective was not to let the ball fall. “Mm?” He tipped some sherbet into his mouth and not for the first time, Kyuhyun wondered where he’d gotten them from; Eeteuk had forbidden them for Donghae after the time where he went sugar high and Imprinted a rock band’s persona onto five Dolls so he could have his own personal concert. It was a pretty good concert. Kyuhyun still had his light stick.

“So, when you – when someone enters into this program, they forget everything about their old selves, right?”

Donghae frowned at the screen, pressed the space bar and then swivelled around. He looked disconcerting, eyes wide, sherbet sick hanging out of his mouth and legs crossed like the Buddha in his computer chair. “Right.” He answered, dragging the vowel out. “Why?”

“So.” Kyuhyun ignored the question. “A Doll wouldn’t remember their favourite food, or their favourite colour, or their parents?”

Donghae was looking at him mighty suspiciously now. “No. They wouldn’t. I have that information on an Imprint to give up to them once the five years are up.”

“Oh. Hunh. It’s not possible for them to remember?” He’d almost got one face of the cube completely yellow and it was easier to focus on that than how he was going to get out of this.

“Well. No. Unless they Composited.” The wheels of Donghae’s chair squeaked as he moved closer. “Why? Has a Doll said anything to you?”

Kyuhyun looked up and grinned. “Nah, just wondering. So what’s this game, anyway?”

---

Yesung was staying in some crappy motel room where the Bible in the drawer had never been touched, let alone looked at. He had the blueprints he’d stolen from the Dollhouse a few weeks back spread over his knees, and he was going through the plans one last time. Tomorrow morning at 3am he would get started.

He bounced a little bit as he got up to get a drink. It was going to be awesome.

---

Zhou Mi lay in his pod thinking about going to sleep. The trouble was every time he closed his eyes, he kept getting images of himself doing things that he couldn’t remember doing. They were so vivid that he couldn’t be dreaming, and besides, how could dream of things you didn’t know? Before, he didn’t know a mother, the sky, the way his sister’s smile looked. Now, though – now –

He blinked as the door to his pod slid open, and then broke out into a wide grin at the sight of Dr Cho. Something warm always happened to his stomach when he saw Kyuhyun, a slow burn that made him think of hot chocolate on a cold day, even if he didn’t really know what that was. “Hi Dr. Cho!” He beamed.

Dr. Cho placed a finger to his lips. “Ssh.” He held a hand out and Zhou Mi took it automatically, gripping Dr. Cho into a hug as soon as he was standing. There was a puff of laughter against his neck. “Hi Zhou Mi. Okay, okay look. We’re going to have to be really quiet okay? We’re playing hide and seek and me and you are partners. We just have to slip around everyone else. The first ones to Donghae’s office are the winners. We want to be winners, don’t we? We want to be the best.”

Zhou Mi nodded. Everyone here wanted to be the best. Dr. Cho pulled back. Zhou Mi slipped his hand down and grasped at Dr. Cho’s. “Okay.”

Dr. Cho gave him a look, and it looked like sadness, and that made Zhou Mi a little sad too. “Okay. Let’s go.”

---

2 a.m. and Yesung left his motel room. He walked carefully. His holdall contained too much C4 to jostle.

dreamrainydays @ 2009-07-10T19:32:00

2009-07-10T19:34:51Z

Title: Pretty In Peach
Length: Oneshot
Pairing: Hanchul
Summary: "Fuck off and wear the dress. Or I'll behead you. Or something."
Dedication: Seriously, stop raping my muse black_gooseEverything I have written lately has been because of a kick up my behind from you.

"No Heechul."

There were ten several tense seconds of a serious staredown, and then Heechul broke. "Why the hell not? I am your goddamn monarch!" He stamped his foot for dramatic effect, the lace cuff around his knee fluttering manically.

"Number one, that is an oxymoron, I'm sure. Number two, I've had your dick in my arse, I am allowed to have some privileges. And number three - chiffon? Really?"

Heechul crossed his arms and glared. "Shut up. You look really good in peach."

It started like this:

The doors to the drawing room opened and Heechul strode in, his bright red hair flying behind him in much the manner a cloak would, he imagined, if cloaks were still in fashion. His father, His Royal Highness, and his mother, Her Majesty, were seated in normal armchairs that they somehow managed to make look like thrones. And people wondered where he got his presence from.

He bowed low to the floor, a dramatic flourish that he knew they kind of disliked. His satin tailcoat rustled. "Mother. Father."

His father cleared his throat and took off his reading glasses. "Heechul. Me and your mother have decided. It is high time you found yourself a bride and provided us with an heir."

Heechul choked on air.

---

Hankyung sighed and stared at the dress. It stared back. "Heechul. Your Highness." He began. Heechul was glaring at him in that pissy way that said 'yes yes, it may be pissing down cats and dogs, but we are still going on a moonlit bareback horseride because I like how you fuck me in the hay afterwards' (his looks were expansive; his eyebrows could say more than the greatest wordsmith), and Hankyung sighed.

"What?" He snapped, and tossed his hair. It was much longer than Hankyung's, and if anyone was going to passably dress as a girl, it would be the Prince. Only, that wasn't really possible in these circumstances. "You'd look stunning. Fabulous. Besides, I only had my dick in you once and even then you were laughing too hard to really appreciate my prowess."

Hankyung grinned faintly. "Trust me, I know your prowess." Heechul scowled. "Look, can't you just - find some foreign princess, marry her, and keep me as your bit on the side?" Even as he said it, something settled heavy in his stomach and he had to swallow audibly.

"No."

"Your Highness - "

"Fuck off and wear the dress. Or I'll behead you. Or something."

Hankyung raised an eyebrow, and then sighed, resigned. "Fine. But you owe me for this."

"I am your god-given leader. I owe you nothing." Hankyung undid the string holding his top together. "But I could maybe rustle something up."

An hour later, Hankyung stared at the dress and licked his finger, pressing it quickly to a cut on his leg. Heechul was staring from the bed, still naked and still sticky. Strangely, that wasn't a turn off. "Hunh. Who knew shaving could be so dangerous?"

Hankyung swallowed again. "I think I hit a major artery."

"Oh shit. Really?" Heechul looked really worried and even raised himself onto his elbows to stare concernedly at Hankyung.

Hankyung nodded, doing his best to look pitiful. "I think I've lost too much blood to wear this dress." He continued, despite Heechul's snort of derision (and carefully hidden amusement), "the peach would just make me look washed out now, Heechul."

Heechul grinned, and motioned Hankyung closer. Hankyung hobbled over, making exaggerated motions his leg. "Let's see." Hankyung hoisted his leg onto the bed. The cut was just below his knee, and was bleeding profusely. He sucked in a breath as Heechul's tongue pressed a strong line against the smooth skin of his shin and sucked lightly at the cut. A hand grabbed hold of his thigh as his tongue curved over the knee, and then slid a little along the inner thigh. Heechul looked up from under his hair. He hummed, the vibrations echoing against Heechul's skin. "Mm, I don't know. You look a little flushed to me." He grinned, and let Hankyung's thigh go.

Hankyung blinked. "Nngh." Heechul grinned, all teeth.

Hankyung sighed and picked up the dress again. "You know, this is not how you propose to a man."

Heechul flopped back onto the bed. "Would you rather have roses, champagne, a minstrel singing a song about how our love will be eternal, in sickness and in health, through pms and pregnancy?" Hankyung felt vaguely sick. "Because if you answer in the affirmative, I am going to wonder why you are not already wearing that dress, you girl."

Hankyung tried not to frown, really, he did. And he's pretty sure that the cushion threw itself at Heechul's face, really, he is.

Or maybe it started like this:

The new court entertainer was a dancer. Heechul sat in his throne near his parents and tried not to yawn. Dancers were all the same, boring random expressions of emotion that Heechul could never grasp. He always came out of them feeling like he was insensitive or heartless.

The doors opened, and the man in black announced the dancer's name. "Hankyung." (He later found out that his name was really Han Geng and the man in black had just buggered up the pronunciation, but he was stuck with it after that). Five seconds in, and Heechul was gripping the edges of his throne and biting his lip.

The dance was beautiful, bells on his ankles singing something pretty while he danced around the stage like it was oxygen and he was just breathing - except he made breathing an art. It told a story of war, the sadness, the pain, the glory, the triumph. Heechul got it for the first time, sitting on the edge of his seat at the fact that this man managed to tell stories with his body and not his voice.

But that wasn't even the most impressive part. Oh, no. No, that was his goddamn thighs.

---

Hankyung was still staring at the dress when there was a knock on the door. A court herald poked his head around the door after an imperious, "come in!"

The herald bowed low when he caught sight of Heechul, casually naked on the bed and still staring at Hankyung. "Uh, Prince Heechul, there is a need for you in the entrance hall. Princess Sooyoung has arrived." Both of the men in the room blinked.

Heechul turned to the herald. "Who?"

Ten minutes later Hankyung was fulfilling his manservant role by hanging back and making sure that nothing happened to Heechul while he flirted with the Princess. He tried to deny that he felt jealousy, but it was hard when Heechul's potential bride had legs up to her armpits and a smile that was like a slice of watermelon, wide and fresh. Heechul was laughing with her, touching her hand and complimenting her on her bracelet. Hankyung looked down at his shoes.

It had no bearing on his fucking Heechul hard against the wall later that night, marking possession with lips and teeth and bruising fingertips. Or so he told himself. Trouble was, Heechul was the one of them who was able to lie to himself. Hankyung had never possessed that quality.

Which is probably why Heechul woke up the next to day to a vision in peach.

---

"Mother. Father. This is my fiancé." Heechul's hand rested possessively on Hankyung's hip. It was hot, and was leaving a mark on the chiffon, but. But. Hankyung smiled.

Her Majesty peered a little closer, frowned and then looked away. Her husband was beaming. "Excellent, Heechul! Although I expect Princess Sooyoung will be heartbroken, this is great news! Someone, go get the city herald. We'll announce this right away!" He turned back to Heechul and clapped his hands. "This is brilliant!"

His mother looked up from her tapestry and spoke with the kind of absentmindedness that wasn't really absentminded, but more designed to but straight to the heart of the matter. "Of course, we will be expecting grandchildren within the year."

Hankyung stopped smoothing down the skirt of his dress and froze. He felt Heechul do the same. "...Ah."

Come On Barbie, Let's Go Party

2009-07-10T18:21:53Z

Title: Come On Barbie, Let's Go Party
Length: [1/3]
Pairings: Hanchul, Yehwook, Jaeho, Qmi
Summary: (Dollhouse!au) Heechul's life takes a turn for the worse when he becomes responsible for the biggest thing yet - another person.

They got Heechul through his sister.

---

There were wires taped down to her skin, segueing clear plastic into blue vein in her underarm and running all the way to an IV bag with something clear inside. He’d tried reading the names on the little baggies once. Fluroethyltyrosine. Hepsulfam. They read like Latin, the language of magic, but they didn’t seem to be making her any better.

The doctors had called him into their office earlier, a hand on his elbow and that slightly worried look that no one wanted to see on a doctor’s face, not ever. They’d used the word ‘improbable’. He’d spent enough time in Biology to know that meant ‘impossible’ in science-speak. He thinks he’d broken their chair when he got angry. They had just looked at him with a softly sympathetic look, like they’d seen it all before and were more than a little resigned to it.

He’d kissed her forehead, paper-dry skin now, and gone home to get stinking drunk on Jack Daniels. The call had cut through his hangover haze the next morning. It took only a moment to process the words, and then he was in. Five years. So what? That was nothing. He could give up a portion of his life, if it meant Heejin got her own back.

Still, he guesses what he’d done hadn’t really sunk in. “12 o’clock, next morning.” They’d said, and he’d liked the fact that they counted midday as morning. Turned out they didn’t, and the knock on his door at midnight had startled the fuck out of him. The men were dressed in black, and he couldn’t help but hum ‘Men in Black’ a lá Will Smith as he was frog-marched down the stairs, sandwiched in by two breezeblocks of men. They didn’t seem to appreciate his sense of humour, if the glower from underneath their sunglasses was anything to go by. But seriously, who wears sunglasses in the middle of the night anyway?

The car was nice, and he considered helping himself to some of the spirits stored in the minibar, but then figured he should probably aim for a better first impression when meeting his new boss. Who wanted to meet-and-greet someone with Gordon’s on their breath? But then, he wasn’t really sure what he was signing up for. Signed up for. Does a verbal contract count? The doors to the building were automatic, and he was reminded why he was there.

Eeteuk was a pretty man, his figure slim even by Heechul’s standards. He was flanked on either side by two large men, one with chubby cheeks Heechul wanted to pinch and the other with muscles in his arms big enough to be babies. Maybe they were babies. There were plenty of rumours about this place. Baby killers, sex slaves, drug lords.

He’s not sure lucky is the right word for being one of the few to find out the truth.

Eeteuk smiled, exposing his dimple. “Hello, Heechul. Welcome to the Dollhouse.”

---

He was given the quick rundown, a ‘this is where you’ll be staying’ and ‘this is where they are kept’ tour. The Dollhouse was all oak and glass, austere but beautiful anyway. Heechul kind of wanted to carve his name in one of the walls, but that smacked too much of his delinquent days spent under the bleachers smoking L&Bs.

His Doll, or Active, was brought to him in the lab. He guesses he knew what they did here, the body snatcher and sex slave rumours had been the most prevalent, but it still took him by surprise how attractive the Doll was. Even with the slightly large nose, his eyes were warm and mouth pale pink and his body looked toned in the black and red ensemble.

“Hello?” His voice was raspier than Heechul had expected, higher in pitch too, and he figured that the kid had probably smoked more than a few in his time. He wondered if they could wipe that addiction from his mind too.

He tilted the side of his mouth up in something like a smile. Hankyung beamed back. It was kind of disconcerting. Donghae, one of the scientists (he had introduced himself as Donghae, not Dr. Lee because ‘that’s my dad, not me, God no’ with a sad smile) spoke around a mouthful of Skittles. “This is Hankyung. Hankyung, this is Heechul.” Hankyung did a little wiggle with his fingers. “Hankyung, are you ready for your treatment?” Hankyung nodded, and climbed into what looked like a more complicated version of a dentist’s chair.

A slip of paper was held in front of Heechul’s face. He tilted his head to the side to see Donghae’s head around it. “What’s this?”

“Your instructions. You just got to say the words and wham bam, thank you ma’am, you got yourself your very own Doll to love and cherish ‘til death do you part. Or, whatever.” Donghae’s nose was buried in his pack of Skittles, fingers working through tiny little pellets of e-numbers and fructose. Heechul grimaced.

“So what, I say these words and – what? What happens then?” The hand holding the paper jiggled a little bit, and Heechul snatched it down quickly if only to see Donghae’s face.

“He trusts you. Completely. To the degree that you could probably ask him to kill someone and he would, except we don’t actually know, as we haven’t tested that. As it’s, you know, against the – man, why are red Skittles always the hardest to find? I mean, everyone knows they’re the best. They should just do bags of – Oh! Got one!” Donghae’s face emerged from the packet, and he grinned. “Okay. Hit it.”

Heechul threw an exasperated look at him. “What are you, ADD?”

Donghae looked mildly offended. “I am brilliant, so much so I am burdened by it in fact. Burdened.” He waved a hand carelessly. “ADD is just a side effect.”

---

Hankyung was simple enough to handle, even when he wasn’t Hankyung anymore. Heechul lounged against the wall, tossing a tennis ball from hand to hand. “So, who is he now?”

---

“Hello. I am David Penn. You asked for me.” Hankyung’s hand tightened on the briefcase as he walked across the foyer. “I’m here to negotiate for the release of your daughter.” Heechul adjusted the view of the rifle as Hankyung shook the hand of their client.

---

Heechul ended up taking down one of the kidnappers and being debriefed for forty-eight hours while their client died in a posh, only-millionaires-can-afford-this-health-insurance hospital. Hankyung didn’t remember anything. Which was good, really, because no one ever needed to see someone get shot down right in front of them.

What was bad was, Hankyung got a bullet graze on his arm. For days afterwards, he kept moving his arm and then hissing whilst looking confused. He came up to Heechul one day, holding his arm gingerly. “What?”

Hankyung frowned. “I’ve hurt my arm.”

Heechul raised an eyebrow. “How’d you manage that?” Playing it normal was the key, apparently. Dr. Cho (not a first name this time, though Heechul found out it was Kyuhyun through bribing of Donghae with a six pack of Red Bull and some sherbet sticks) had fixed him up nicely anyway, so Hankyung shouldn’t really have anything to worry about.

“I – I don’t remember.” He looked even more confused now. Heechul straightened up and stopped painting his toenails.

“Is that a bad thing?” The words were unusually cautious. Even Hankyung noticed.

“I don’t know.”

---

Three weeks later and there was a problem. The Dollhouse was broken into.

“How the hell did this happen?” Heechul had helped modify the security, training in the military coming in use for something he had never expected. He knew that the only thing that would bring down the Dollhouse was a tank. Swiftly followed by another thousand.

Yunho, a kind of stand up guy with too much loyalty and morals for this gig, walked behind him with lengthy strides that even Heechul had trouble keeping up with. “I don’t know, let’s wait until we get there, okay?” His voice was tight. The break in had been near Jaejoong’s pod. Heechul kept quiet.

The wall had been blown in, plaster and metal shrapnel scattered over the floor like puzzle pieces. The plaster dust clung to Heechul’s new shoes and he muttered a curse. And then he saw the blood.

Kangin and Donghae lay on the floor. Changmin was sprawled across the dentist’s chair. Heechul catalogued injuries. Head wound, broken fingers, abdomen shot. He hissed. Yunho was already on the headset to Dr. Cho.

Shindong arrived a second later. “Well day-um. We sure missed one hell of a party.” He started heading down the corridor. “Heechul, you stay here. Yunho, come with me.” Yunho left immediately, hand reflexively tightening and loosening on the taser strapped to his waist. Heechul looked around at the wreckage, toed a piece of wall with his foot and sighed gustily.

“Trust me to get stuck with the dead guys.”

“They’re not dead yet, Heechul.” Kyuhyun’s voice shocked him, but he thinks he hid it pretty well.

He threw a wry glance at the doctor’s back as he stepped in front to get closer to Donghae. “Is that your professional opinion? Because I don’t think a quick glance is really a very thorough examination.”

“I’m sorry, would you prefer I perform a rectal exam in front of you?” Kyuhyun had really long fingers, Heechul noticed as he pressed them to Donghae’s neck. Really long fingers.

“I don’t think that’s completely necessary, Kyuhyun.” Eeteuk’s voice was even more of a surprise, and if the way Kyuhyun’s fingers faltered on the way down to Donghae’s wrist was any indication, it was a surprise to him too. “Do you need help getting them to your room?”

Kyuhyun nodded, and glanced up. “I’ll just ask for a tech to bring some stretchers.” His index finger reached up to brush his hair away and to turn on the headset. He turned away when he spoke into it, and Heechul turned to Eeteuk. He was frowning as he stared at the mess. Understandable.

“The cleaning bill’s going to be a bitch.” He said, hands sliding into the pockets of his girl jeans. Eeteuk gave one of those smiles that wasn’t really a smile. Heechul watched him. No doubt about it, the man was beautiful, but - he couldn’t help but think Eeteuk’s beauty was a little plastic sometimes. “So. What happened?”

Eeteuk’s shoulders slumped. “Judging by the video footage, a man blew down the wall, took down these guys while taking his time with Dr. Lee in order to get some kind of information out of him, stole some files and headed into Room 8.”

Heechul nodded, eyes looked at the wall again. C4, he was guessing from the blast and the damage. Nicely done too. “Do we know who it is?”

“Yesung. A rogue Doll.”

Heechul raised his eyebrows and started to grin. “Come again?” Someone brushed past Heechul, knocking his shoulder. He scowled. “Ya! Do you mind? Some people got to stay put around here.” He brushed his shoulder. “Fuck. That’s Armani as well.”

Kyuhyun was rolling his eyes, the tech was looking stressed, harried and kind of scared – though Heechul was willing to admit that it was probably because of the state of the building and not because of Heechul. He frowned even more.

“When you wipe a slate clean, there are always remnants of what was left behind. It’s never perfect. Three months ago, Yesung, one of our Dolls, broke down. He killed three guards and broke out of here. That’s what happens when the slate gets too dirty, too full of leftover remnants.” Eeteuk was peering through the hole in the wall. Heechul thought he saw some of the sky.

“So what, our brains are the slates?” He stared at the image, the planes of Eeteuk’s back, the jagged edges of the wall, the tiny piece of pale blue sky. It was morning. Early. Too early to be anything but morning.

“We Imprint personalities that fit with the Engagement onto the Dolls. These are personalities that we design from other people, from fiction, from fact, and sometimes from the Doll’s own memories. Occasionally, some of that personality gets left behind. Some people take better to Imprinting than others. Yesung didn’t take very well, and he Composited. Broke down. Got too many fake memories in his head. It’s safe to assume that he’s – deranged, now.” There was a sound to the left, and they turned their heads. Shindong was walking towards them carrying Ryeowook on his shoulder. Ryeowook was sobbing.

“Who was he? Who was he?” Ryeowook was sobbing and staring down the corridor to room 8.

Shindong slung him down to the floor. “He needs to be wiped. None of the others were harmed. He got to Ryeowook just as we got to him.”

Eeteuk stared. “Go call Sungmin.” Shindong pressed his finger to his headset.

Heechul turned back to Eeteuk. “Why are you so scared by that?” He knew it anyway, had known it the moment he had figured out what they did here. Eeteuk shrugged.

“Crazy people are crazy.” He answered, as though it was that simple.

Heechul knew though, that it wasn’t that simple. If you had an army of malleable minds willing to do anything you asked, you wouldn’t waste them on play dates and cosy companion meetings. You’d use them for crimes, crimes you didn’t want t get caught for or commit yourself. Or at least, Heechul would.

“Who was he?” Ryeowook sobbed into the floor. “Who am I?” Eeteuk exchanged an alarmed look with Shindong.

---

Donghae cradled his hand against his stomach, and typed slowly with his left hand. He kept his eyes focussed on the computer screen as Ryeowook cried on the dentist chair. Sungmin stood to the side, stroking Ryeowook’s hand. “Are you ready for your treatment?” Sungmin asked. Ryeowook calmed, focussed on Sungmin. He nodded.

Donghae whooshed a sigh of relief and pressed the final set of keys for the commands. The blue lights flickered as Ryeowook went into spasms on the chair. They stopped some seconds later. Donghae stepped up. “Ryeowook.” The Doll’s eyes, blank, focussed on him. “How are you feeling?”

“Did I fall asleep?”

“A little while.”

“Shall I go now?”

“If you like.”

Ryeowook slipped off the chair and out the door. The script was perfect, the lines delivered in a soothing voice. Sungmin looked hopelessly after him.

“Yesung will come back for him.” A hand ran through his hair. “He won’t stop ‘til he has him.”

Donghae gave him a measured look. Eeteuk wasn’t about to let Ryeowook go. Nor was he going to let Yesung get away. Sungmin clearly underestimated Eeteuk. He picked up the brightly coloured bag near some flashing buttons, offered them out with his one good hand, and smiled brightly. “Taste the rainbow?”

---

Heechul made the mistake of watching the Dolls exercise before breakfast. Or, more precisely, he made the mistake of watching Hankyung exercise.

The man was beautiful. Caramel coloured skin stretched over bones like notes stretched over vocal chords. He was elegant when he moved, control in quivering muscles, sweat beading on his upper lip. He was a walking pin up. Heechul had swallowed and moved on.

Later that day, Hankyung showed Heechul a painting he’d done. It was like a child’s drawing of a house, except with no sky, and no parents. Just Heechul and Hankyung. Heechul had looked up from his magazine and blinked, felt nausea rise up in his stomach.

He didn’t go back to the Handler’s compound that night, went out to a bar instead and hit on a guy with bleach blond hair and a skinny frame. His skin was still caramel, but there were a lot of guys with skin that colour, it was summer now. Right?

Right.

---

Usually the guys or girls that ordered Hankyung wanted a perfect boyfriend or best friend for a day or so. They might have wanted a wedding date, or a quick fuck that did everything they wanted. Sometimes people couldn’t find others who shared the same desires, couldn’t find their perfect person. The Dollhouse made them. For a fee.

Someone had paid for this Hankyung. A dancing, beautiful, martial arts-trained Hankyung. He moved across the stage in the customer’s house (and who the hell had a stage in their house, what the fuck, seriously) like he’d been doing it for years, like he was born to do this. And maybe he was. Heechul knew shit all about Hankyung before he was wiped, made into a Doll. He just figured that someone who became a Doll, signed up to have themselves wiped and made into a puppet, had some serious stuff to get away from. Stuff he wasn’t going to get into.

The electric blue nail varnish blobbed onto his nail, and Heechul didn’t even notice. Hankyung’s thighs.

---

Hankyung was panting, grinning as well. “Haven’t done that since my student days, was that okay?” His Chinese accent showed on some of the words, but he’d given up on trying to get rid of that four years ago when an old boyfriend had said it was cute. Never let it be said he was immune to flattery.

“Really, really good. Come here and let me show you how good that was.” Seriously, not immune to flattery. Jack’s lips were a little chapped, like he bit down on them a lot when he was nervous. Hankyung found that endearing. When his hand ran through Hankyung’s hair and pulled him closer, his mouth opened up, dancer’s limbs already contorting into a position just this side of comfortable. But then the hand tightened to the point of pain and something cold pressed against his pulse point. He froze.

“Now, you’re going to be real quiet, okay?” Hankyung gulped and felt his skin drag against the knife. He closed his eyes. “So, so quiet.” There was a sudden shift of gravity. “Stand up.” His voice was cold now, so different from earlier when he had begged for ‘a performance, please’. Hankyung did as he was told.

“Now. Back up.”

---

Heechul frowned. Hankyung’s vitals were off the roof, adrenalin too high for pleasure. And he knew how high Hankyung’s vitals got when he was writhing in pleasure; it was pathetic how well he knew that particular pattern of spikes. He checked the safety on his gun.

“Donghae?” Trouble was, Eeteuk needed the money for the repairs and had sent three Dolls out at the same time. Stupid, as Eeteuk had the money for the repairs, he just didn’t like having to pay it, and now Donghae was stretched between three cases. Hankyung’s was supposed to be the simple one of this evening. Eunhyuk was cat-burgling and Jaejoong was doing some high class espionage. Donghae really couldn’t afford to be distracted.

But. Hankyung.

“What is it, sugar pie?” There was a squeak over the monitor, the sound as Donghae swivelled in his chair from one monitor to another. “Oh. Oh. Do we have sound in there?”

Heechul shook his head, and then realised Donghae couldn’t see him. “No, the customer requested no.”

There was a pause. Then; “You’re his Handler, Heechul. You pull him out if things go wrong or even feel like they’re going to go wrong. Your call.”

Heechul was already out of the van door.

---

He kicked the door down, some carefully (and by carefully he meant frantic) applied pressure just the left of the doorjamb and the whole thing gave way. The alarm system went off straight away, and he just knew it had a direct link to the cops. The room with the stage was over the other side of the house, and Heechul ran the whole way there, thanking God for his super long limbs yet again. But when he got there, Hankyung had a knife in his abdomen and the customer was long gone. The blood on the floor soaked the soles of Heechul’s shoes, and he didn’t even bitch about how they were Gucci, oh my god. He just pulled his jacket off and balled it up, pressed it down hard on the wound. Hankyung gasped, and looked at Heechul with bleary eyes. “Who are you?” Heechul blinked, bit his lip hard.

“Are you ready for your treatment?” Hankyung went kind of limp, and Heechul hoped it was because of the words and not because of blood loss. He hadn’t even taken that long, damnit. Figured the fuck was faster with a knife than Heechul was faster with his legs. Fucker.

He pressed his finger to the headset. “Abdomen wound, deep, needs immediate treatment, have Kyuhyun there when we get in.” There was a pause. “Donghae!”

“The cops are on their way, Heechul.” His voice was weak, strained. “You’ve got five minutes tops to get out of there. You won’t make it with Hankyung. Leave him.” Heechul paused, shocked.

“Are you shitting me?” He asked, furious and pressing down harder than he met to on Hankyung’s wound. “Hold this.” He ordered Hankyung and was relieved when Hankyung’s hand covered the cloth and pressed down hard. He moved his hand to Hankyung’s waist and somehow managed to get the two of them in a standing position.

“No. Eeteuk’s orders. Leave him and get out, Heechul.”

Heechul gritted his teeth, locked his jaw, and threw the headset off. Apparently it wasn’t Yunho with too much loyalty and morals for this job. Who knew?

Hankyung’s head lolled onto Heechul’s shoulder and he felt more than heard the words gusting across the skin on his throat. “He just – I don’t. What.”

“Shuttup. Dumbfuck.” He was angry as he tried to shuffle them across the floor to one of the giant panes of glass that made up the south wall. “Jesus, lose some weight already.”

He felt the skin on Hankyung’s forehead wrinkle. “Your goddamn face, motherfucker.” And apparently this Hankyung’s vocabulary was that of a potty-mouthed grade schooler. He grinned as he shot a bullet hole in the window and then pushed through it with his shoulder.

“Is that how they say ‘thank you’ in China?”

---

“Heechul! Heechul!” Donghae was shouting into the receiver when Kyuhyun sauntered in.

“Jaejoong is about to get caught by two men in black, and wow, Eunhyuk. Spandex really doesn’t hide anything, does it?” Kyuhyun let out a low whistle, and stole Donghae’s drink.

Donghae turned to him wildly, hands grabbing hold of the lapels of Kyuhyun’s lab coat. “Heechul stole Hankyung.”

Kyuhyun took a long drag of his drink. “Huh. Well. Eeteuk’s gonna be pissed when you tell him.”

Donghae looked stricken, and then stared shrewdly at Kyuhyun. Kyuhyun eyed him over the lid of the can of Red Bull. “123!” They both fired out. Kyuhyun’s hand was a rock and Donghae’s was scissors. Donghae wailed.

Kyuhyun smirked. “Sucks to be the neurologist around here, huh.”

Donghae looked up from where his head was cushioned by his arms. He was determined. He was not going to tell Eeteuk. “Best out of three.”

---

beats in a bar

2009-05-29T02:11:44Z

title: beats in a bar
length: one shot
pairing: jaechun
summary: 'he heard jaejoong rustle in yoochun's spare bed, but didn't look up, just stared at the radio as it talked of an underground mutant movement, providing shelter for those who needed it. he had looked up at the end of the broadcast, caught sight of jaejoong's bed hair and the pillow crease on his cheek and opened his mouth.'

the bus is bumpy. it jerks over a pothole and jaejoong's thumb slips. yoochun takes advantage, presses it down and declares victory. dust flies up along the side, covers the windows in a fine chalky dust. yoochun can't see the way home anymore.

'one, two, three, four.' jaejoong's hand is slightly clammy in his, and yoochun's leg is going dead from where he crossed it at the knee. his foot kicks into his backpack. 'i declare a thumb war.' jaejoong's hands are tiny, chubby little things with lines gouged onto the palm. yoochun's are thin with knobbly knuckles and wide nails. jaejoong still manages to win. he smiles, close-mouthed and simple joy. yoochun grins back.

'one, two, three, four'

---

they're cuddled up in a motel room, a single bed and a single room because that's all they could afford. someone's mother would probably call this a no tell motel. jaejoong is asleep, sleepy warm and pliant. yoochun pulls himself closer, tucks his feet in with jaejoong's and hears their knees knock. he breathes in, measures the time between heartbeats, then gives up and just measures heartbeats.

they'd listened to the radio earlier, heard it in passing when they were checking in. there's more manhunts for people like them. an institute has been set up, and they're trying to 'find a source to this increasingly distressing problem.' jaejoong had snorted, muttered, 'the only thing distressing about me is how hot i am.' yoochun had laughed then, but now he can feel the fear curling his toes and making his breath come faster.

jaejoong shifts, pulls yoochun closer.

yoochun presses his hand across the bumps of his bones, across his heart. counts. one, two, three, four -

---

jaejoong had sung and charmed yoochun into it, he was sure. that was the only possible explanation for them being in a stolen car and travelling 50mph on a motorway. he's not sure what he's more disgruntled about - the hijacking or the speed.

'speed up. you'll get us pulled over just for holding traffic up.'

'they can overtake.'

'where is your male pride?'

jaejoong grins and takes his hand off the steering wheel to grab the bulge in his jeans. yoochun grins. 'dick.' he says affectionately.

'kind of the idea.'

yoochun just flicks the radio to a country and western station and slaps jaejoong's hand away every time he tries to change it. when they pull into the next motel, jaejoong is humming 'achey breaky heart' under his breath. yoochun counts it as a win.

---

it's at night when it's worse. the closeness in between their bodies, the way he matches his breathing to jaejoong's to fall asleep. the sheets are scratchy and the lamp is dusty and the blinds are cracked. when they wake up in the morning, there'll be a stroke of sunlight right in jaejoong's eyes.

but right now, it's diluted moonlight, highlighting curves in a face that's as beautiful as his voice. yoochun almost wants to touch, but his hand looks transparent in the moonlight, and he sticks it in-between his legs so it won't disappear.

even though that's what they're desperately trying to do.

---

the city is five days away, but yoochun suggests swapping drivers and kipping in the car instead of stopping at motels. they have to save the money, he says, and struggles to snatch some sleep. the stereo is too loud, and he can't hear jaejoong breathing. he ends up pinching his thigh to stay awake during the night and singing along with the soft ballads they play this time of night.

jaejoong wakes up in the middle of a sob story about a woman not loving her husband anymore. he blinks. 'what is this shit?'

'chanequa's husband is cheating on her with her sister, and she just wants to make him love her again, because he made her feel beautiful and he still does sometimes.' yoochun said, rubbing his eye with the heel of his palm.

jaejoong blinks. 'he's banging her sister?'

yoochun grins. 'either that or he really is taking cooking lessons from her.' jaejoong snorts. 'exactly.'

the road's too dark and smooth, nothing like the dusty expanse of home. a cats' eye catches the flare of the headlights, reflects it back. yoochun pinches his thigh again. 'sing me awake?' when he looks over jaejoong is looking at him speculatively.

'pull over.' yoochun does.

'you need to piss?' he asks, shifting the gears to neutral and clicking the handbrake. when he looks up, there's a smile chasing jaejoong's lips.

'no, but you need to sleep. c'mon.' yoochun felt like protesting, he really did, but his eyes felt grainy and he could feel his 'lids trying to stick together whenever he blinked. 'and get in the backseat, the front one's really uncomfortable.'

'you just want control over the radio.' jaejoong snuffled out an amused laugh, hidden behind the cuff of his hoody pulled down low over his knuckles. the seats have large buttons in that are uncomfortable, but yoochun makes do anyway, curls his knees up tight to his chest and uses his arm as a pillow. it's hard though, to close his eyes. too many news bulletins about more people taken to the institute, more people found with mutations in their dna. he watches jaejoong for a while, the way a third of his face is lit up from the lights of the dashboard and the radio. it's a weird blue light though and makes him look unearthly, unreal, so he looks out the window instead. he tries counting the burning mercury in the streetlights, one, two, three, reaches four as his eyes drop close and his mouth droops open.

---

yoochun slows down to thirty as they near the city. jaejoong is curled into window, breath fogging up the window and fingers gripping the seatbelt. he's faking being asleep so yoochun won't get mad, but yoochun's lain awake enough times to know the sound of jaejoong's breathing patterns.

there's a guard at a gate to the city. he's holding something in his hand, and when the cars move forward enough, yoochun can smell mints on his breath. 'if you could just hold your finger out please?' yoochun does and hisses with wide eyes when the guard uses the something to prick his finger.

'wh-what was that?' he asks, sucking on his finger and wincing at the taste of pennies.

'dna sample. got to keep those mutant rodents down, hey?' the guard grins cheerfully and yoochun nods numbly. dna. fuck. they have him on file. shit. the guard clicks his tongue. 'mind waking up your friend there?' yoochun's mind goes white. there's some kind of blind protective instinct that says to kill the guard and run, run, take jaejoong somewhere where they can't get him. he looks over. jaejoong's still pretending to be asleep, but he can see the seatbelt trembling.

'can't we just - let him be? we've been driving all night. sick grandmother.' he adds, eyes appealing to the guard. the guard snaps his gum.

'no can do, sorry. everyone must be pricked and tagged, you know?' the guard laughs and yoochun thinks his mouth manages half a smile. he's just about to consider flooring it and getting the hell out of here to somewhere else where there are no guards with gum and no stupid little needles, when jaejoong pretends to wake up. he does it dramatically, fluttering eyelids and hands curling for a yawn. yoochun isn't fooled.

he blinks and asks what's going on. the guard just asks for him to lean over and place his hand out flat please, it's just routine. jaejoong does and doesn't even flinch when the guard takes his blood.

they ride into the city in silence. yoochun tries not to be angry.

---

when they try to get a flat, they just drive straight to the most rundown part of the city and look for 'to rent' signs. they find one about thirty minutes into the search, this tiny two roomed apartment, with the kitchen leading onto the living room/bedroom, and a bathroom with a cracked seat. it's disgusting, smells of moth balls, cat pee and damp. they take it. yoochun uses his - he wants to call it a gift, but it's not, really. he uses his whatever-it-is and feels the landlady's thoughts flood over him.

she's thinking about her grocery list, so he says something about the price, and it flashes to the forefront of her mind. she thinks she's giving it away at a pittance and would probably charge more, but yoochun looks like her grandson who died of cancer three months ago. he shudders at the wave of grief, closes his mind up again, two halves of a shell. jaejoong's hand is on his elbow.

he nods, says they'll take it. she smiles and says he's such a nice boy, would he like a cup of tea?

---

it had come in the middle of the night, when the sun was so hot during the day that it carried on into the night, and the air pressed down against their bodies. they'd been listening to show tunes, for jaejoong to perform at the festival with yoochun on piano in a month's time. the burst of static had cut through, and yoochun had grunted and knocked the radio with the bottom of a half-formed fist.

and then he had blinked and sat up sharply. he heard jaejoong rustle in yoochun's spare bed, but didn't look up, just stared at the radio as it talked of an underground mutant movement, providing shelter for those who needed it. he had looked up at the end of the broadcast, caught sight of jaejoong's bed hair and the pillow crase on his cheek and opened his mouth.

jaejoong had looked at him, eyes bright. 'yes.' he said and it didn't matter that yoochun hadn't even proposed it yet. he scurried up onto the bed, and they outlined the journey, envisioning food and blankets and money that they didn't have.

they didn't leave until three weeks later though, when jaejoong heard rumours of a kid in a neighbouring farm being taken by the institute, for being able to charm plants. the thoughts of unease and suspicion were so strong they broke through yoochun's shell, and the moment he heard a stray thought about jaejoong, he though 'fuck it'.

they grabbed the bus that same day. played thumb wars in the back seat and didn't think about their mothers and the unplayed showtunes.

---

yoochun is scrambling eggs when jaejoong gets back from work. he has a six hour shift every morning on a market stall. he'll go out later tonight and work as a lounge singer. jaejoong wouldn't be jaejoong if he didn't sing, he said when yoochun got upset. yoochun never read jaejoong's mind, but he could tell by the set of his face that he was determined.

'honey i'm home!' jaejoong's voice is bright and cheerful and he swings a little blue bag full of apples and oranges on the crook of his index finger. yoochun grins.

'want eggs?' he gris even wider when jaejoong presses up against him and hooks his chin over his shoulder.

'more chili.' he orders, the words gusting on yoochun's cheek.

'more? you do know that you kill your tastebuds, right?'

jaejoong shifted, reached between yoochun's arms for the chili flakes, and dumped a lot more in. 'actually, the stronger tasting vegetables like these ones actually kill bacteria. his chin is gone for a second, and then is back with a citrus sweet smell. 'orange?'

'i don't know. does it kill bacteria?' his reply is dry.

'no. but it does make a pretty smile.' the orange is cut into a semi crescent and yoochun grins.

they go out later that day, hold hands through the thick crowds in the market square and duck under awnings full of water. it's never dry here. he likes the non-reminder of home. he doesn't think he could handle it if he could smell his mother around every corner they turned. he's 16 years old, but sometimes he misses his mother so much, he hurts like a needle to the brain.

'i want a new shirt.'

'then you shall have a new shirt, princess.' yoochun grins against the wind, knocks his shoulder into someone who's too tall for their own good. he looks up to say sorry (manners, his mother taught him. how to hide from the institute, he guesses he just picked up) but dark eyes catch his, and his mouth goes dry as the other's widen in realisation, and he is pulling jaejoong with him through fields of people to get away from those eyes. he tries to open his mind to follow the man's, but there are too many people and his knees buckle under the strain of all their thoughts. he staggers up and runs out onto a zebra crossing.

he feels jaejoong tighten his grip.

he grips back, whirls them into an alleyway and just when he's about to look for the man, there's a voice from above. 'hi. i'm changmin. i'm just like you.'

---

turns out changmin's got legs longer than reality, and so can be anywhere at anytime before you. it's a bit of a bitch, since yoochun hasn't run that much since gym class and the cigarettes had had more of an effect on his lungs than he'd thought. the wasted effort makes him crinkle his face, but jaejoong is all smiles and welcoming hands. changmin takes them to a little coffee shop in a better part of the market. yoochun is looking forward to swallowing back some bitter caffeine and being able to grasp this situation properly, but changmin just walks straight out the back, turns a corner, and walks into a warehouse.

yoochun feels deprived. and thirsty.

their footsteps echo on the concrete, and one of the windows has been smashed and duct-taped up. there's a low murmur of voices, and when changmin opens a door, there are five men in some sort of meeting. one of them is playing with a yo-yo.

yoochun feels it's okay to be a little bit sceptical when they tell him this is the underground movement.

---

five weeks later and yoochun is knee deep in sewer water while jaejoong sings at a newbie. he's keeping his mind open in case the men with the white ambulance and armed snatchers comes back again, and that's when he hears the snatch of thoughts from the newbie, the ones about how jaejoong looks like an angel.

yoochun smirks. the newbie doesn't know how jaejoong leaves his dirty socks all over the place, but nags at yoochun to clean his mess up.

he counts the beats in the bar as jaejoong sings. one, two, three, four. there's a rhythm to jaejoong, and he feels himself being calmed along with the newbie by the sweet tones. he's still counting beats when they leave and manage to get the man to the guys in charge.

---

the new guy's name is junsu and he can bend light with his voice. it doesn't sound that impressive, until he sings one note and suddenly jaejoong isn't standing there anymore.

yoochun freaks out entirely for the second it takes for jaejoong to blink back again. jaejoong looks nonplussed. yunho explains it to him, and jaejoong starts getting ridiculously excited and asks if they can harmonise. yoochun is trying to work out the dread from his fingertips, clenching them into the palms of his hands.

'-and yoochun can play the piano!'

'hell no.' even he's surprised at how vehement that is. jaejoong deflates visibly, and even yunho is looking at him curiously. 'just. no. i've got to get ready for work.' he leaves and buys his first packet of cigarettes in three weeks at the store on the street corner. he doesn't have work for another two hours, but jaejoong doesn't come after him.

---

it's three days later when siwon is taken.

it's explosive, heechul exploding the tires and hankyung tearing apart the earth. if siwon were there, he'd - well. it doesn't matter. because he's not. yoochun had been walking with them to go pick up a newbie, the more destructive talent type three walking with him incase the call was a trap.

it was. but they still weren't prepared. siwon was just - taken.

yoochun had gotten a glimpse of the institute from their brains, gotten a glimpse of the grief and fear from hankyung and siwon.

jaejoong found him later that night, curled up in the kitchen. he sung him a soft song from a time of dusty roads and a crackly radio in a bedroom still decorated with glow-in-the-dark stars. yoochun sobbed dry tears into his shirt and held tight.

---

jaejoong’s eyelids were bruised from lack of sleep. his fingers were wrapped tight in the thin t-shirt and his breath was hot on yoochun’s throat. breathe in. breathe out. he studies the veins in the eyelids, blue-near-black, imagines jaejoong is some blue-blood prince from somewhere amazing where they would worship mutants, rather than break them down into a series of codons and nitrogenous bases.

in the night, jaejoong is the bumps along his spine and the way he whistles a little bit when he breathes in. it used to annoy yoochun, back in the dust and in the bedroom with the two beds and the faulty radio. but now he looks at the faint cross-hatching of blue veins in the wrists and thinks, ‘keep breathing. just, keep – breathing.’

---

when jaejoong came back from a foraging trip with a wound in his shoulder and a boy on his back, yoochun felt the world centre down in slow motion on the blood flowing from the wound. he opened his mind, like he never did with jaejoong, got pictures of a fight with the snatchers and the boy being an explosive type. he wanted to hit jaejoong. yunho had taken hold of the boy, told yoochun to look after jaejoong.

they sit in silence as yoochun dabs at the wound with cotton wool heechul had stolen from a hospital, jaejoong not even hissing at the hydrogen peroxide. yoochun bandages it up, kisses it better, and feels some of the tension leak out of jaejoong's body. he turns to yoochun, 'i - i couldn't just leave him there.'

yoochun doesn't mention the stupidity of taking on snatchers without heechul or hankyung (he winces at the thought of siwon), because truth is, all jaejoong has to do is sing and the world moulds itself to the notes and the words.

that night jaejoong kisses him on the creaky mattress of their bed and whispers, 'you've been smoking again'. yoochun feels his heart held in by his ribcage and kisses back with every thought he's ever had or stolen. it won't be enough, when the snatchers come, it won't be enough to keep him going.

but right now, this is all he needs, the gasps of jaejoong as they roll their hips just so, and the stray wisps of thought and emotions that yoochun's too undone to block out. and when jaejoong falls asleep after, yoochun counts the time spanning jaejoong's heartbeats, then just counts heartbeats. one two three four five six seven -

---

there are four bars in the window of his cell, when the snatchers finally take him. he wonders if it’s ironic, and plays out showtunes on the dusty floor to keep from going crazy.

dreamrainydays @ 2009-05-28T18:21:00

2009-05-28T19:37:11Z

Title: Fluctuate
Length: one-shot
Pairing: Hanchul
Summary: "i was about to get goddamn lucky when you puked on my shoes. arse." hankyung felt inordinately smug, even with the rhino's playing at being a rock band in his head.

"Hey." His new roommate dumped his seventh box in the doorway, and brushed his fringe out of his face. Hankyung watched the black fingernails' path over the rim of his coffee cup. His roommate - Heechul? - was blurry in the steam, but he got the general idea of long limbs and thin fingers.

"Hi."

---

"Oh, fuck off. Captain Crunch is so much better than Froot Loops." Hankyung looked up from where his milk was turning nicely pink and blinked.

"What? Really? C'mon, there's no crunch left after five seconds." He said, leaning back against the kitchen counter and spooning some loops.

Heechul pouted and flicked his hair over his shoulder. "There so is!" He protested, left cheek full of cereal and spoon waggling in the air. "Just because you're a fruit, doesn't mean your cereal has to be too."

Hankyung paused. "I'm the fruit?" Incredulous. Heechul was wearing a long white dress-shirt thing with girl jeans, and if it wasn't for the Adam's apple and the husky voice, he could almost be a girl. He started laughing, choking on e-numbers and his own spit. Heechul scowled, filled his spoon full of chocolately Captain Crunch, aimed and fired. Hankyung retaliated by grabbing a handful of dry Fruit Loops and throwing them across the kitchen. There was a pause.

And then it was war.

(thirty minutes later as they cleaned milk and cereal off the floor, heechul pulled a sticky loop from his hair and ate it. "'s not so bad, i guess." hankyung grinned. "want to have toast tomorrow?"

"only if we have peanut butter."

"hell yes.")

---

The party was something out of the seventies, a disco ball and pina coladas with little umbrellas. Heechul had one behind his ear when Hankyung found him, more unsteady on his feet than he had been twenty minutes ago. Heechul had this scarf around his neck with little anchors on, and Hankyung had made several comments about sailors and being in the navy before they had left the flat. "Aye aye, Cap'n!" He said now, a sloppy salute ending up with a watering eye. Heechul raised an eyebrow.

"Oh God."

"Nope. Hankyung."

"Oh, God." Heechul waved his hand at the person he was talking to (a pretty boy with pink, feathered hair) and wound an arm around Hankyung's waist. "Come on. There's a couch over here. You're going to sit down and stay down until I get you some water." Hankyung made some noise in affirmation, but really he was too busy noticing how Heechul smelled like strawberries and cigarette smoke and how it was abnormally warm in here.

"Have you been eating strawberries?" He asked, out of the blue. Heechul gave him an exasperated but fond look as he planted him on the couch.

"Sour shots." He explained, and Hankyung didn't want to know how they had gotten into Hankyung's hair. "Keep still."

Hankyung tried, he really did, but Zhou Mi was just over there, and if anyone needed hugs on prescription, it was Zhou Mi. He was just so adorable. He said as much to Heechul when he was dragged back by the grip on his shirt collar. "Uh huh. Drink this. I'm going." Hankyung watched him walk away and tried to drink all the water in the cup, but Heechul was blurry through the bottom of the glass.

They didn't meet again until four hours later, when Heechul held his hair back while he was sick in the toilet bowl. The porcelain was cool against his forehead, and Heechul's fingers stroked the back of his neck. He felt like shit.

(hankyung woke up the next morning with one sock on, his belt digging into the soft skin of his belly and heechul crunching his goddamn captain crunch right in his ear. he made a noise that was meant to be "what the hell heechul?" but probably sounded more like "nghrufk" and got the reply;

"i was about to get goddamn lucky when you puked on my shoes. arse." hankyung felt inordinately smug, even with the rhino's playing at being a rock band in his head)

---

There was a marathon of Gossip Girl on that night and Heechul had demanded they watch it. They were cuddled up in their quilts and eating popcorn that was precariously balanced on the edge. It wobbled.

"I could hold it in place with my toes?" Heechul suggested, sucking a thumb clean of butter.

Hankyung pulled a face. "I've seen your toes, I don't want them going anywhere near my food." Heechul kicked him under the blanket and it was kind of inevitable that the bowl would fall. It did. They both stared.

"There is nothing wrong with my toes!" Heechul said eventually, tearing his eyes away from the bowl spilling its innards all over their cream carpet. It was going to stain.

"Your second toe is bigger than your big toe." Hankyung said with finality, as though it explained everything. Heechul's eyes flashed.

"Well your toes are fat." He said back, without any real bite because he knew he had freakish toes. That's why he never wore sandals. He couldn't rock them.

"Yeah, your mum." There was a pause and then a screech.

"Did you just call my mum fat?" An elbow hit Hankyung in the stomach and he stopped laughing long enough to grab Heechul's freakish foot and tickle the hell out of it. Heechul flailed. A hand hit Hankyung in the nose and he made a wholly unattractive sound. It degenerated into a chokehold and a noogie, and Hankyung eventually had to call uncle because his foot was in the bowl of popcorn and his nose was like an inch from the zip in Heechul's jeans and his stomach hurt from laughing so much. Heechul released him long enough for Hankyung to grab a handful of popcorn and shove it down Heechul's top. The gasp made it more than worth it, even when Heechul threw himself at Hankyung and he knocked his head against the floor.

(hankyung walked in on heechul showering that night, and brushed his teeth while heechul shampooed his hair. he pushed the handle on the toilet on his way out, and heechul's shout was almost worth the absence of the peanut butter in the morning and the mountain of it on heechul's plate.)

---

Hankyung made a mental note to check the weather forecast the next time they had to go grocery shopping, because the rain was coming down in sheets and Heechul was wearing a hat whose brim kept catching the rain. They both had brown paper bags under their arms, because Heechul insisted on supporting the independent stores, and any minute now their apples, instant ramen and peanut butter were going to fall out onto the street along with the bottom of the bag.

He looked up in time to see Heechul kicking a puddle towards him, and then he was running after the cackling man through the rainy streets with an unformed idea about revenge. They ended up chasing their apples down a hill because the bags had collapsed just as Hankyung had reached Heechul, so it took ten minutes longer than usual to get home. Heechul stripped in the corridor outside their door because "I don't want to get the carpet wet" but he kept his hat on and the water pitter-pattered onto the bathroom tiles.

The groceries were dumped in the bath and Hankyung found himself with an armful of white fluffy towel. Heechul's hat was still dripping and Hankyung watched from the gaps between wet hair and towel as Heechul lifted and dried his hat first before starting on his own hair. Heechul's boxers were wet too and they clung to the curve of Heechul's arse and when he bent over to make a towel turban, Hankyung had to swallow hard.

Heechul straightened and looked in the mirror, smudging at the eyeliner dripping black rivulets down his cheeks, and he got that amused look in his eyes when he'd thought of something funny and wanted to tell Hankyung. He turned around and Hankyung kissed him, softly and like it made sense, as though he was just picking up an old conversation where they'd left off. He pulled back an inch and then Heechul's fingers, cold and rain stained were curled around the back of his neck and pulling him closer. His lips were soft but he kissed hard, fingers on Hankyung's hip gripping tight enough to bruise. Hankyung imagined fingerprints burning into him and he moaned softly as Heechul's mouth opened up under his.

It was warm and tentative, tongues chasing each other with coy little flicks that left Hankyung breathless, and then Heechul made a noise in his throat and broke away. His eyes were downcast as he battled with the buttons on Hankyung's shirt, brow crossed, and Hankyung pressed lazy open mouthed kisses on his neck, licked the pulse point and grinned at the shudder. He had to move his arms from where they were pinning Heechul to get out of his shirt, but Heechul stepped close afterwards and pressed a splayed hand to the small of Hankyung's back and Hankyung shivered a little from the sensation.

They breathed in and their birdcage ribs knocked together. And then it was a furious pace of discarded clothing, slick fingers and tight hot heat, the reflection of his eyes and the muscles in Heechul's back as he arched and panted with his legs wrapped around Hankyung.

(afterwards, heechul wiped them clean with a warm flannel and pressed a close mouthed kiss to the pulse fluttering in hankyung's neck. a muscle ached there, and in the backs of his thighs. "next time we should do this in a bed."

heechul shrugged and leaned across to grab an apple from the bathtub. "fine but you're cleaning the sheets."

"i don't think so." they had a towel battle to decide. heechul won.)

---

"Fuck off!" The door slammed behind him but it was opened again a second later anyway, crashing against the wall.

"It's not like we said this was exclusive, Hankyung!" The rasp in his voice was more pronounced when he was angry.

Hankyung ignored him, stalked down the hall to his room. "For God's sake, Hankyung, don't be such a fucking pussy!"

That made him twirl around, that made him narrow his eyes and hiss with his voice. "Yeah, because I'm the one who's fucking afraid of commitment."

Heechul stood there with someone else's spit on his lips. There was an echo of vulnerability in the way his hands found his hips. "I'm not afraid of commitment, Hankyung, you just never asked for it. I don't know how they do it in China," and he sneered, "but here we ask for a fucking date first."

Hanykung gaped, waved his arm at the apartment and then back at Heechul. He hadn't changed. Something snapped. "Oh, fuck you." This time Heechul didn't follow him.

(they spent two weeks in angry silence, co-existance but not cohabitation. and then heechul woke up at three in the morning on the couch to find a blanket pulled up to his chin and a pillow under his head. he felt something jerk in his chest and felt a little sick, padded down the corridor and slipped under cool covers in hankyung's room.

hankyung asked him on a date in the morning, with morning breath and bed hair, and heechul smiled something fierce and kissed him slow and dirty until he could memorise the ridges in his mouth and the grooves of his teeth.)

---

They played Twister with their friends, slightly tipsy and conspiring to get Siwon and Sungmin in the most compromising positions. "Left foot on blue." Heechul called, and Hankyung giggled into Heechul's shoulder at the look the two threw him. Kangin took a picture, waved the camera at Siwon.

"Wait until mummy sees this." He grinned, and Siwon scowled and placed his hand in-between Sungmin's legs.

They gave up when Siwon collapsed on Sungmin and the smaller boy complained convincingly of a collapsed lung, and had Halo battles instead while Ryeowook and Heechul played showtunes in the background on Heechul's keyboard. Heechul grinned and looked up at Hankyung when he played something particularly cheesy. Yesung sang along while beating up monsters and Hankyung grinned back.

They fucked leisurely in Hankyung's room when everyone else had gone home, hips rolling lazily together, sweat gathering in the space between their bodies, and later they slept all tangled up in each other, with Hankyung's arm pinning Heechul in place.

(heechul dreamt of kissing in the frozen food aisle and eating off each other's plates in restaurants and swapping the parts of the newspaper that they both wanted to read. when he woke up, the space next to him was empty and he was trembling. he could hear hankyung in the kitchen, humming a show tune, and admitted that maybe - maybe he was a little scared of commitment.)

---

They sat in a four person booth and didn't talk. Hankyung had his feet up on the seat opposite, but Heechul had one drawn up close to his chest instead. His fingers were laced around the knee and when he shifted, the hood of his hoody slipped over his eyes.

The sun shone through the window and highlighted grease stains on the countertop. Hankyung watched people in the street. Heechul cut into his waffles when they came.

They still didn't talk.

(it was a row over nothing really, just the lack of food in the cupboard and the mess in the apartment and the cat hairs that were everywhere. it was a row like any couple had, and that's what made it harder for hankyung to understand why he couldn't fix it.

he gave up in the end.)

---

"So, a bunch of us are heading to a club tonight, throw some shapes, have some fun. You coming?" Heechul was toeing off his shoes near the door and his voice was muffled. Hankyung swallowed.

"No. I'm okay. I've got a paper due in next week." He lied.

Heechul walked past and didn't look like he cared. "Oh, okay."

He came back later that night with clammy fingers and glow paint all over him. Hankyung woke up to find a hand splayed against his waist and a flash of glazed, sneaky eyes. Heechul was already tonguing the slit on the head of his cock when he opened his mouth to say no, and when he licked the vein along the underside, Hankyung's head dropped back onto the pillow. He concentrated on breathing, but still felt his world shatter apart into brilliant pieces when he came.

(heechul left afterwards, just padded silently out of the room and into his own, and hankyung had to clean himself up in the bathroom. he splashed water on his face and told himself everything was going to be okay.)

---

Hankyung watched Heechul fight into his hoody with his arms, and then slide the window open. It was cold, and Heechul's toes were tucked up under crossed legs.

"Do you want a blanket?" Hankyung asked, fingers curled around a hot chocolate while Matt Damon jumped through a pane of glass. Heechul shook his head, took a long drag of his cigarette and blew it sideways out of his mouth.

"Hey, d'ya know you can get cancer from cigarettes?" Heechul asked in a commercial break, as he tapped an unlit one against the curve of his knee.

Hankyung made a clucking sound with his tongue in his cheek. "Huh. Who knew?"

Heechul grinned, moved from his seat and curled up next to Hankyung on the sofa. He took a sip of Hankyung's hot chocolate. "So. What're we watching?" The wind from the window blew Heechul's hair and Hankyung smoothed it down with a hand, dropping it to the ridges of Heechul's spine afterwards.

"Don't know. It's got guns in it."

"Awesome."

(it took a while, but they got there, slamming doors and frigid silences the minority in a crowd of warm mornings and lazy nights. hankyung figures it wasn't the perfect romance like he had wanted, but it was heechul, so that was okay.)

---

"I love you."

"No shit." He grinned, relented at the look tossed at him. "I love you too."

---

AN: figured i should post this to the public, sticking with that whole public!fic, f-locked!everything else thing. might end up doing a drabble dump at some point, just to clear this journal out.

These Metal Bars

2009-05-28T00:18:23Z

Title: These Metal Bars
Length: [10/?]
Pairing: JaeHo
Rating: M
Summary: Pasts have a way of catching up with you - so you'd better have an escape hatch.
#1 | #2 | #3 | #4 | #5| #6 | #7 | #8 | #9 | #10

Jaejoong sits at his kitchen counter as Yunho moves around it, attempting to cook. He can already see he's going to have to take over at some point, but there's something adorable in the way Yunho burns his thumb on the pan and tries to hide it. He grabs his camera, takes a picture of Yunho chopping a red pepper and holding the knife like it's going to turn around and bite him and then grins.

"Yunho. You're going to chop your thumb."

"I'll chop your thumb." Is the muttered reply, and Jaejoong laughs before getting off his stall and stealing the knife.

He nudges Yunho back with his elbow. "You chop vegetables like this."

Ten minutes later, they're sitting on the top of the kitchen island sipping tea and watching the food so it doesn't burn. "Since when can you cook? You don't even eat."

Jaejoong's grinning already when he says, "No, but I swallow." And kisses the grin on Yunho's lips.

The kitchen light turns flyaway hairs golden, and he remembers standing against the door of his car and watching Yunho against the sunset, thinking that he could be his escape. The ironic thing is, now that Yunho's here, there's nothing he really wants to escape from.

They go to bed that night, Yunho casting a curious glance at his mother's door before kissing Jaejoong so roughly that the beep is drowned out by the roar of blood in his veins and later, the sound of Yunho's heartbeat.

He slips out at something past midnight. Top's car had been taken to the impound, after the crash where 'Sica had died. They hold cars for thirty days before they are sold at an auction, or crushed. It had been two years since the crash, and even though Jaejoong had been out of the country for most of last year, trying to save their business from going under, he had kept track of the car incase Big Bang ever got involved again.

Still - he doesn't like the thought of driving the car that killed 'Sica and gave his mother brain damage, and he also finds he doesn't like the idea of stealing another car. Something in him says Yunho would disapprove. He sets his shoulders and catches the bus to a stop three blocks from the new owner's house.

The car had been pretty beat up when the police had taken it, but it looks like the new owner hadn't minded fixing it up some, Jaejoong notices as he peers through the wrought iron bars of the fence. The shine of the porch light on the bonnet sets something off in Jaejoong's blood, and he tries not to remember the thrill of stealing a car, the screech of rubber against tarmac and the roar or the engine going from one gear to another too quickly.

He scales the fence pretty easily and looks around. Suburban neighbourhood. He figures there's probably alarms all over the place, even if this kind of street is more safe than the majority of town. Gravel crunches under his shoes, and he remembers how it bit into his skin and how Yunho lay down beside him anyway. He chases away the smile by remembering that the less damage to the car, the better. He opens the gates that are padlocked shut with a pair of cutters in his belt that he thought he'd never have to use again. Sidling up close, he peers inside the house. It's dark inside, lighter out, so for a moment all he can see is his reflection in double-glazing, and then he focuses and he can see a kitchen counter, a fruit bowl with some browning bananas, and - bingo. His skin is thrumming with the remembrance of adrenalin when he uses his elbow to smash the window out and he clambers into the house. He's thanking the fact that the people who live here aren't paranoid enough to use security cameras when he walks quickly up to the keyrack and pulls the car keys off of the hook. He pauses as there's a creak, and then he can hear footsteps on the steps. They're cautious, so the occupant will probably take some time, and Jaejoong looks around and sees the perfect place he could hide to take him out from the back if he wanted.

Instead he's careful as he pulls himself out of the window, so as not to make a sound, or any unnecessary cuts that would take some explaining to Yunho, and he turns the keys in the door and then the ignition with only a whisper of fabric against fabric. There's a shout though as the engine purrs into life, but Jaejoong knows this car can go from 0 to 60 in a minute, and he's off down the driveway and turning left down the street, rubber residue again lung cancer roads, before the man is even out of the door.

The garage is the same as it always was. 'Big Bang' graffitied over the side of the wall, fading into a mural of a car escaping an explosion, the light on in the side where Jaejoong knows he could find Seungri bent over paperwork, the smell of stale takeaways and petrol. The car noses from the road, onto the pavement, then onto the concrete of the garage floor. He cuts the engine.

The sound of the door opening is too loud in the garage, and he suddenly remembers Jessica imploring Top to buy a radio and then tuning it to the most obnoxious stations she knew. She always had a thing for a pop songs. He walks over to where he can see sneakers moving underneath a car, obnoxiously big and bright, and coughs.

"Be with you in a minute." Daesung says.

Jaejoong contemplates saying something, but instead he just hoists himself up onto a pile of tyres and waits. At some point Seungri comes out and sees him, but Jaejoong holds a lip to his fingers, and while he does look a little irritated, he does as he asks. Eventually Daesung drops the wrench and rolls himself out. His face when he sees Jaejoong is comically suprised for a moment, and then it flashes back to sardonic and angry.

It's a little sickening to see that expression on Daesung's face, if Jaejoong is honest with himself. Daesung was smiles and jokes and unabashed affection. If there was silence, he usually filled it with a song or an impression of someone famous, which only highlights how quiet the garage is. The sudden pang for Jessica makes him lose his breath for a second.

He twizzles the keys to the car on his finger and jerks his head towards where it's parked. Seungri's watching with dark eyes from where he is leaning against the wall, and Jaejoong knows the cold must be seepng through his jacket by now, because the concrete walls were never good at retaining heat and Seungri was always ridiculously sensitive to cold. Daesung flicks his eyes to the side.

"It's changed from the brief." Daesung says, his voice kind of empty.

Jaejoong shrugs. "New owners had to fix it up a little, I guess."

Daesung casts his eyes back. "You could have just left it outside." His tone suggests that would have been the best course of action.

Jaejoong hops off of the tyres and holds the keys out flat on his palm towards Daesung. "Yeah, but." He breathes through his nose. "I left because Jessica died. Yeah, okay, she was never mine, but I loved her, as much as I was capable of loving someone back then that wasn't me." He raises his eyes to Daesung's. "This place was never a family to me. It was Jessica's instead, and she loved you, it, and I suppose I liked the rush. But it wasn't family to me. I have my family and last year was me trying to keep it together, so sorry that I never delivered the car." He tosses the keys up and Daesung snatches them out of the air. "And now I'm going to go back to my family. I'm nineteen now, and I'm tired of all of this." He makes an expansive gesture at the garage. "Don't come to find me, don't contact me, just leave me alone." He turns and walks towards the door, parting with, "And tell Top that - I'm sorry."

He gets back to find Yunho nursing half a cup of coffee on the kitchen counter. The flashing lights of the microwave cast a blue glow over his face, elongating the line of his lips and sharpening the angle of his nose.

"Hi." He says lamely, pulling the black beanie from his head and playing with the folded over fabric.

Yunho raises an eyebrow, slides off of the kitchen counter stool, and tips his drink in the sink. Jaejoong feels the irrational need to explain himself, and then gets angry at that, because why should he explain himself?

"What, you're not talking to me now?" Yunho turns to him with a weary expression and Jaejoong can see he's about to open his mouth so he overrides him. "I had to do this! It wasn't a matter of can I-can't I, I had to, to keep you safe from- "

"And I can't protect myself?" Is the harsh reply, even though they both know that this isn't what they're arguing about.

"No!" Jaejoong says before he can stop himself, thinking of Yunho's sheltered lifestyle with a police commissioner for a father, and somehow forgetting about his crackhead sister. "No, you're just - no."

Yunho's bristling, and fuming. "Right. Of course. I'm just fucking useless, aren't I." He starts to stride out, but Jaejoong catches his arm and pulls him back closer and Yunho is about to bark something out, so Jaejoong covers his lips with his own and closes his eyes against the narrowed eyes and the anger. It's too much teeth and not enough lip, fingers touching to bruise and mark, not to tease, and Jaejoong's being hoisted onto the kitchen island before he can catch a breath. He shudders when Yunho's hands tighten their grip and then suddenly Yunho is pulling away, face dropping from anger into sadness.

Jaejoong feels sick.

He measures time in the downward flicker of Yunho's eyelashes, and the frantic beating of his heart.

"I'm sorry." He says, the words heavy with emotion and stumbling off his tongue.

Yunho looks at him, eyes dark. "Just don't do it again." Jaejoong shakes his head fervently. Yunho watches him for a moment before saying, "I think I should go."

Jaejoong watches him walk a few steps before, "Don't," hangs in the air between them. He slips off of the counter and comes up behind Yunho, winding his arms around his waist. "Don't go."

---

It's morning and Junsu is eating a bagel at one of the tables in the cafeteria when he sees Yoochun walk in with a girl from their music class. Taeyeon, he thinks her name is. It makes him dart his eyes down to his food and forcefully swallow the mouthful he had just taken though, because Yoochun has never caught breakfast at the cafeteria because he can't afford the fee for a dormitory room, apart from when he has slept over at Junsu's or, as seems to be the case here, at a girl's.

He picks up what's left of his bagel and walks out one of the glass doors to the eating area outside. He suddenly doesn't feel like staying in the cafeteria building anymore. It's somehow not surprising to find Tiffany outside with two of her friends, and he's beginning to give in. He smiles when she catches his eye and goes over and sits at their table when she motions him over.

"We were just talking about Mr. Kim." She informs him. "Apparently he's won this award to go abroad for a couple of weeks on a cruise, how cool is that?"

"Pretty cool," he replies and bites into his bagel.

---

At the moment, their relationship feels like new skin over a wound, tender and sore if you press it too hard. Jaejoong wishes he knew how to fix it. He swings up beside Yunho and winces as his belt catches on the bruises of Yunho's fingerprints.

"So, I was thinking."

Yunho glances at him, and there's hope there as well, so Jaejoong knows he's not the only one feeling awkward.

"I think I could get over the Hitler thing. I mean, Mexican food, right?" Yunho laughs and Jaejoong grins, and a little of the tension seeps away.

---

Yoochun watches as Junsu walks towards them at lunch, flipping his phone in his fingers and making the light bounce off of the charm. Yoochun frowns, and reaches across the table when his best friend sits down, catching the charm.

"What's this?"

Junsu looks down and there's a blush staining his cheeks as he realises what Yoochun is on about. "A charm."

Yoochun laughs. "It's pretty girly." Then he blinks, "Did a girl give this to you?" and so what if he sounds a little incredulous?

Junsu snatches the charm back and shoves his phone in his pocket. "Yeah. So what if she did?"

Yoochun leans back and spreads his hand, surrender style. "Nothing. Just, usually you don't let girls give you things. You think it's leading them on."

Junsu looks back at Yoochun and there's so much raw emotion there for a moment that Yoochun has to catch his breath against it. "I'm not leading her on, this time." And Yoochun feels like the bottom of his world just falls out right from beneath him.

---

IDK. IS THIS THE END? OR DO WE WANT MORE? because you know you'll have to wait, like, three months for a chapter omg, why has this taken me so long to write ;____;

Bedazzle My Cloak

2009-05-27T01:38:45Z

Title: Bedazzle My Cloak
Length: One-Shot
Pairings: Established!Qmi, Established!Jongkey, Hanchul
Summary: The problem was the fucking dragon. It had to go.
Warning: It's long. Ten and a half pages long.

The trouble with magic was that it generally gave you an overinflated ego. It also made you think Bedazzling all your clothes and shrieking about toads and beetle eyes and virgins’ blood was a good idea. (It wasn’t). So really, get a bunch of magicians and sorcerers in one place, and you could only expect one thing.

A lot of glitter, explosions and overdramatic statements.

Heechul jumped over an upturned cart and landed next to Hankyung with a grin on his lips and exhilaration in his eyes, just in the middle of someone’s curse on his family involving rose petals and his mother’s blood. “His mother or your mother?”

Heechul shrugged. “Who knows?” The litany got cut off by a loud bang and a shriek of ‘eek! My rhinestones!’ “Doesn’t matter anyway, I just totally melted his diamantes.”

“Are diamantes and rhinestones the same thing?” They both crouched low as sparkling debris exploded over the top of their heads and the cart moved closer a couple inches, the wooden edge digging into Hankyung’s tailbone.

Heechul shrugged, licked his lips into a grin and pulled a face at the dust coating him. “They’re both as tacky as each other?”

Hankyung threw him a wry look. “’Nim. You spelled out ‘Cinderella’ on your first cloak in mirrored circles. I know. I was there.”

Heechul laughed as he dug around in his pockets and pulled out a vial dramatically. “Aha! And please. That was ironic. That was – self irony or something. Shut up.” He turned around the lob the vial over the side, crunching up his eyes and putting his hands over Hankyung’s ears. Hankyung followed suit, and only removed his hands from Heechul’s ear when the light faded away. He looked around.

“Bluebells? Really?”

Heechul pulled him up and into an alleyway. “Now flowers will bloom where I walk. I feel like Jesus. Siwon would love me.” Hankyung wrinkled his nose at the way dust clouds sprouted from Heechul’s cloak every time he swished it dramatically. Well, it would be dramatically, if it wasn’t so natural for Heechul to swish his cloak like that. The ponce.

“You ponce.” He took a moment to smile affectionately at the back of Heechul’s head, and then said, “And that’s blasphemy. He’d condemn you to hell with even more fire and brimstone than usual.”

“How his love for me burns.” Hankyung tried not to laugh, but it was a losing battle. It always was, with Heechul.

---

“Why can’t we all just get along?” Zhou Mi was wringing his hands by the window, the perfect picture of parental angst, and Kyuhyun pushed his glasses down to look at him.

“Zhou Mi. They’re wizards. Wizards and explosions are practically synonymous.” He sighed and put his book down. “I really don’t know why the King thought calling a General Council was a good idea. I really don’t.”

Zhou Mi turned to Kyuhyun and an explosion outside lit the left side of his face golden. “Well I think it’s romantic that he wants to defeat the dragon and get his girl back.”

“You would.” Kyuhyun grins and drinks some more of his tea. “And it probably would be, if the girl wasn’t thirteen years old, and if he wasn’t already married, and if the girl even wanted to be rescued. Which she doesn’t. The dragon’s her pet.” Kyuhyun mentally rolled his eyes at that. What kind of a godfather gives their charge a dragon egg, even if they were a sorcerer? Or, for that matter, even if you were Heechul?

“Well. It’s still -” But Kyuhyun didn’t get to hear what it still was because Jongkey (actually two separate people, but they were practically joined at the hip, so) swung open the door, slammed it behind them, and collapsed in giggles at the foot of it. Kyuhyun blinked. Zhou Mi tutted at the state of their hair.

“You look like you’ve been into a whore’s boudoir, rolled around in her makeup, and then danced in glitter.” Kyuhyun remarked, sliding his glasses back up

“I love Wizard Wars.” Breathed Jonghyun while Key nodded enthusiastically beside him.

---

The fire was crackling in the hearth when Heechul and Hankyung finally made it back to Zhou Mi’s. It was a nice enough place, warm and cosy with slightly shabby furniture that melded to your body shape. Even the wooden chairs. Heechul draped his cloak over Jongkey curled around each other on the rug.

“Their toes are going to burn.” He said to Hankyung, voice low and just above a whisper. The light of the fire caught the glitter in his eyelashes, and Hankyung tried to remember which way air goes.

“Zhou Mi already did a cooling charm.” Said a lump in an arm chair, with a book for a head.

“Hi, Kyuhyun.” Hankyung said with a grin. “Where is he?”

The book shifted to show a pale face with charcoal eyes and dusty smudges underneath. “You know that girl who falls in love with everything that moves?” They both nodded. They were both aware of Taeyeon and her tendency to think a pretty face equated love. “She’s upstairs with him. He’s making her another love potion.” Zhou Mi happened to be the kingdom’s best love potion brewer, though it wasn’t really something to be proud of, as so few people got into it. It wasn’t that wizards didn’t like love and all its ramifications (in fact, wizards were remarkably gay with rainbows and sunshine and smiles everywhere). It was just that love potions had something Dark about them that generally caused few to go in that direction. Besides, as stated before, wizards have big egos. If they have to resort to unnatural means to make someone love them, then they aren’t great. And every wizard wants to be great.

Heechul snorted. “I don’t see why she gets them. She’s pretty enough to make them love her.”

“Love isn’t looks.” Hankyung said as he settled down on the sofa, bending his knees so he could fit on properly.

Heechul grinned. “Lucky for you, then.” Hankyung stuck his middle finger up, snuggling into the cushions. Heechul slid down the side and Hankyung fed strands of his hair (red this week) through the gaps between Hankyung’s fingers. Heechul purred.

“It’s alright. He puts a timer on them anyway, and she just wants instant gratification. How’s Sohee?” Kyuhyun asked casually enough, but there was a dagger hiding in his words.

Heechul remarked, equally casually, “Oh, she’s doing just fine. The dragon’s amassed quite a lot of wealth, apparently. She has a really pretty necklace.”

There were steps on the stairs and a low murmur of voices in the hallway as Zhou Mi showed Taeyeon out. The door creaked as he opened it, and Jonghyun curled tighter into Key, fingers tightening on his hip. Zhou Mi smelled like burnt feathers and wrinkled old papyrus scrolls. Kyuhyun wrinkled his nose. Zhou Mi smiled at Hankyung and Heechul, then looked at Kyuhyun. “I’m off to bed.” His voice was tired, the husk more pronounced. “If you’re staying up, light another candle. Your eyesight’s bad enough.”

“I love you too, honey.” The reply was dry but the smile was genuine. The book shut with a snap. “Nah, I already know the ending anyway.” He was reading nonfiction, but Heechul got what he meant anyway. He grinned and pressed a little more into Hankyung’s hand. The door didn’t creak when it closed, which Heechul took to mean one of them had cast either an oiling spell or a muffling one.

For a moment there was nothing but the sound of the fire, the occasional loud bang outside, and the snuffly noises Key made when sleeping. Then Hankyung said;

“Today was fun.”

Heechul smiled. “I know, right? A dragon egg was a much better present than the three fairy wishes her godmother got her.” There was smug satisfaction in his voice. Hankyung reassured him anyway.

“Too right. Who wants a present with a limit?”

“And no explosions?”

---

Taemin showed up four days later. Kyuhyun was the only one home, curled up in his chair with a blanket wrapped around him and his prerequisite book (-‘I’ll buy you a library one day, with books on anything you want’-) half an inch from his face. He hadn’t heard the shouting, the roof tiles smashing to the floor, the shouts of the royal guard and the high-pitched giggling – to be fair, he was at a really riveting part about prisms and cheese. But he still wasn’t surprised when there was a faint glow, a hitch as the window latch was lifted up, and a boy suddenly standing in his living room.

He supposed he’d been hanging around with Jongkey and Heechul too much. (Zhou Mi still managed to surprise him, but it sounded too sappy to say, so he didn’t.) “Hello.” He said, and marked his page. He had a feeling this might take a while.

Taemin was knobbly, all big bones and delicate features with not-enough skin stretched over joints. When he bent down to eat some of rice Hankyung had made earlier, Kyuhyun saw the globe of his shoulder white through dirty skin. “So. How’d you get in?” Taemin had a grain of rice stuck to his chin when he looked up.

“Uh. I know a spell. To get me in. Uh.” Kyuhyun nodded. He had figured as much, and from the small glow, it wasn’t a very powerful spell. The powerful spells were beyond showy, and the most powerful ones (the ones no one really talked about, unless you were Heechul and wanted a reaction) didn’t show at all.

The thing was, this was a houseful of magicians, wizards and a sorcerer. In a city. Even if no one else was concerned about security, Kyuhyun would have used the most powerful spells he knew to protect his collection of books from being harmed or stolen. So, in order for Taemin to have gotten in, especially in the living room where most of them spent their time, he would have had to have used a very powerful spell.

He said as much to Taemin, but left out the bit about his books. There was a difference between self-realisation and coming across as a nerd. Taemin looked sheepish. “Well, yeah, I saw those. But, I kind of went – under?” He made some weird hand movements that Kyuhyun supposed were meant to describe his actions. They didn’t.

“Right.” He said, and gave Taemin more food.

Zhou Mi came back with two sacks, some groceries and some spell supplies and shouted into the living room. “Kyuhyun! There’s a boy in our kitchen! Did Key bring someone home again?” The last time Key had brought someone home, that someone had been missing two front teeth and had had to eat through a straw, so Zhou Mi supposed this was an improvement. Not that missing teeth made Zhou Mi love anyone less. Zhou Mi loved everyone equally, the disfigured and the disabled and the – Zhou Mi had a lot of love was what the point was. It was just hell trying to purée meat with only a pestle and mortar.

Kyuhyun grinned, and poked his head round the door. Zhou Mi looked surprised. “Oh. Hey.”

“Hey.” He said back and moved to take a bag. He chose the heavier one on purpose. “So, he tried to break in. Can we keep him? I think he might be a sorcerer.”

Zhou Mi paused. “Heechul is going to throw a fit. He likes being better than everyone else.” Kyuhyun frowned.

“Please. Like he could brew a love potion.”

---

Heechul did throw a fit. And then he cooed over how adorable Taemin was, and asked that if he was a kid, would he prefer fairies or a dragon? Kyuhyun rolled his eyes.

Somehow, everyone forgot to tell Taemin he was a sorcerer.

---

Taemin somehow ended moving in. Key took a liking to him and kept changing Heechul’s mirrors into food for Taemin. Hankyung still wasn’t sure if that was because he wanted to fatten Taemin up, or because he liked the colour Heechul’s face would turn when he couldn’t pluck his eyebrows. Hankyung didn’t mind either way, because it meant an angry Heechul, and an angry Heechul was a hot Heechul. Seriously. The man rocked a cloak when he got into his I-am-so-angry-I’m-going-to-reconfigure-your-testicles-into-bunny-rabbits stride.

Heechul was ranting about his left eyebrow as they walked down the street, occasionally ducking as disco balls, corsets and a leprechaun flew in their direction. It wasn’t that they had a lot of enemies (though they did. Well, Heechul did), it was just that the Wizard Wars were still going on. The King had offered a ridiculous sum for the head of the dragon, and instead of going after the dragon, the wizards had all stuck around to try and eliminate any potential competition first. (The truth was, no one really wanted to anger Heechul, or run into the booby traps he and Jongkey had set up.) It was more fun this way.

“– it’s wonky, Hankyung. I am walking around with a wonky eyebrow.” Heechul said over the sound of angry Irish cursing. Hankyung stopped, because there did appear to be something genuinely upset in Heechul’s voice, and wrapped his fingers around Heechul’s wrist so he would stop too. Heechul turned around, patterned lining of his cloak swirling with him, and for a moment Hankyung’s world was Heechul surrounded by tiny, tiny flowers. And then the cloak stopped swirling, and Heechul was still there. He blinked.

“There is nothing wrong with your eyebrow.” He said.

Heechul pouted. “It is wonky. Look at it. There is a distinct difference in angle!”

Hankyung didn’t really think about what he was doing, but he leant forward and kissed Heechul’s wonky left eyebrow with the distinct angle difference.

“There is nothing. Wrong. With your eyebrow.” He enunciated carefully. Heechul had ducked his head so his hair (brown and soft and curling into his cheekbones) would cover his face, but Hankyung still saw a slight pink tint on his cheeks. He felt something churn in his stomach. Heechul didn’t say anything, just turned imperiously and announced they needed to go on a quest to find more silver.

His finger was pointing upward though, and his sense of dramatics was okay, so Hankyung figured everything was normal.

---

Taemin was trying to make Kyuhyun get him food, using his looks to his advantage, when Hankyung and Heechul walked in, pieces of silver shimmering over their clothes. Kyuhyun grimaced. “You look like a disco ball threw up on you.”

Jongkey sniggered from where they were bent over a cauldron. Usually Kyuhyun demanded any potion work be done in the basement because they inevitably had to use something smelly, and he hated how odour got trapped in parchment. But this was Jongkey and if they were causing havoc, he would like to know what kind, so he could reason it out for Zhou Mi when he got fretful later.

“Hn.” Hankyung said, bending over and shaking glitter from his hair. The light from the fire caught the silver and made hundreds of tiny rainbow circles on the wall. Taemin forgot to swallow.

“Taemin.”

The rebuke from Key was almost casual, and Taemin swallowed like a reflex. Kyuhyun hid his smile in his book. “So, what’s with the glitter?”

There’s a pause. “A leprechaun got into a fight with a disco ball.”

Kyuhyun snorted, and then laughed. Heechul scowled and shook glitter all over him.

---

It was one of the few times than Hankyung wasn’t with Heechul. And it was nice. He stretched his toes and strained his fingers, and felt his spine click back into place. Then he started naming the stars that Kyuhyun had painted on the ceiling, and then he joined them up and made constellations, despite the fact that Kyuhyun had already done this, and named them with his precise silver handwriting. And then he was bored.

Heechul bounded into the room, flopped down on the floor beside him, and poked him in the ribs. “You. Amuse me.”

Hankyung looked over, with a furrow of his brow. “I am not a jack in the box, Heechul, you cannot poke me and have fun times.” Sometimes the Korean language still wouldn’t work for him, but Heechul rarely pointed it out.

There was a pause. “Fine. What were you doing before I got here?” He shifted and curled into Hankyung.

Waiting for you. “Making up constellations.” He flicked his eyes upwards, and then let them rest on Heechul’s again. But Heechul was looking up at the ceiling, and then there was a flash of a smile brighter than a sulphur flare, and he said;

“Hey, that kind of looks like Sungmin.” Hankyung changed the direction of his gaze, squinted.

“No it doesn’t.”

“Yeah it does. Look, Siwon is totally bending him over.” Hankyung burst into laughter. Heechul’s head was jostled but he was too smug to care.

---

Zhou Mi sighed, put his head in his hands and got ink stains across his cheekbones.

The trouble was, there was a goddamn Wizard War in town, which meant that there were too few humans with money to go around the lot of them. Zhou Mi needed to charge big prices for his potions in order to feed the house full of magicians upstairs, and usually he could get away with it, because nobody did it better or as well as he did. But some other wizard called Junsu had walked into town the other week, selling love potions as a side business to his singing lessons, and Zhou Mi had lost business like Heechul lost rationality.

And Taemin ate like nobody’s business. Especially not Zhou Mi’s at the moment.

The problem was the fucking dragon. It had to go.

---

“What? No. No, that was my present. Do you know what I had to do for that?” Heechul’s voice was almost shrill.

Kyuhyun said dryly, “A spell?”

“Yes! Yes, a fucking spell! I no longer have my pinkie toe because of that fucking dragon!” Definitely shrill. Hankyung placed a hand on the small of his back. “Why can’t we get rid of some of Kyuhyun’s books?”

There was a silence where both Kyuhyun and Zhou Mi stared at Heechul as though he’d suddenly changed into a hippogriff. “We’re killing the dragon, or we’re starving. It’s your choice.” It was Kyuhyun again, because Zhou Mi looked miserable and kept tugging at the (fraying) cuffs of his shirt. Heechul gaped and then stormed out. Hankyung followed, and even kept up when Heechul climbed all the way to the top and out onto the widow’s walk on the roof. Kyuhyun had installed it after reading how in a book. Heechul took flight.

They ended up in some dive bar downtown, where Heechul downed three shots of tequila and then stormed out because, ‘this glass is so fucking smeared, I could scry with it’. The streets were cobbled here, the smaller ones that you could catch your toe on if you weren’t careful. Hankyung wound an arm around Heechul waist to stop him from falling. “Are you pissed because you think she won’t love you anymore, or pissed because they’re forcing you into it?”

“I’m pissed because I’ve had six shots of tequila and I have a low tolerance for alcohol.” The reply came from the vicinity of his shoulder, right about where Heechul’s head was lolling. Heechul snaked an arm around Hankyung’s waist too, slipped a thumb in-between fabric and skin.

Hankyung grinned and pressed a kiss to Heechul’s head. “Three shots, and you can drink Siwon under the table. And he’s a holy man. They’re brought up to drink wine.”

“I don’t think communion counts as drinking.”

“I don’t think this is answering my question.” He teased and Heechul moved his head, warm breath ghosting over Hankyung’s throat.

He sighed and Hankyung tried not to shiver. “I know she’ll still love me. I’m a fucking awesome godfather.” There was still something desolate in his tone.

“Damn straight.” He nodded, and banged his jaw on Heechul’s head. Ow.

“I just miss my goddamn pinkie toe.” Still desolate.

Hankyung rolled his eyes. “Really? Because I’ve always thought ten toes is overkill.” Heechul laughed, slipped another finger in along with his thumb and sighed again.

“Fine. Take me home.”

---

All the other wizards were too busy fighting in the War to notice they were gone, which was beyond dumb because the dragon was the whole point of being there. It took two days to get out of the city and into the forest, which should take three days on foot. The man driving the cart had demanded an exorbitant fee, and Zhou Mi had paid with this look on his face that had tugged at even Heechul’s heartstrings.

“Fine.” He had said grudgingly. “Fine, we can kill the dragon.” As though this hadn’t already been established. “But only if you let me buy you some new shirts, Seasoning, because those cuffs are terrible.”

“Terrible.” Echoed Taemin, toasting a wild mushroom on the campfire.

The problem was, Heechul and Jongkey had been overenthusiastic planting their booby traps, and had forgotten where some of them were. Well, Heechul had forgotten. Jongkey just tended to pretend they had forgotten, and then would conveniently be somewhere else when everything went to hell in a hand basket.

The first time Kyuhyun got shrunk down to the size of a peanut, he could laugh about it. The fifth time, he snapped, “Jesus, did you run out of ideas?” Which was probably the most stupid thing anyone had ever said to Jongkey.

Kyuhyun got attacked by a Scribble Monster, which turned out to love being tickled. He fell down three holes, got sucked into a whirlpool, was entranced by a sylph and got soaked by bright pink water that dyed his skin a rainbow of colours. He was turning neon orange when Zhou Mi was trying to wash out the egg in his hair from another booby trap.

“And we’re not even out of the forest yet.” He moaned pitifully, turning a forest green.

He was only tinted blue when they made it out, the trees abruptly stopping and a meadow of dandelions starting. Taemin sighed.

“I hate dandelions. They make you wee.”

There was a pause. “How? How do dandelions make you wee?” Heechul scoffed.

Taemin looked to Kyuhyun, who looked back with no emotion. “I’m practically a smurf. Do you really think I’m in the mood to talk about chemicals?” Jongkey giggled, and Kyuhyun’s eyes flashed and the next thing anyone knew, they were hogtied and hanging from a branch. Everyone blinked. Even Jongkey, and they were blindfolded.

“Uhm.” Zhou Mi began.

Kyuhyun breathed through his nose, spent a laborious thirty seconds cleaning his glasses, and then waved his hand nonchalantly when placing them back on the bridge of his nose. He walked off. Somewhere in the background, he heard Zhou Mi explaining that he hadn’t read anything new in five days, and was getting kind of cranky.

Taemin transformed a rock into a book that night. Nobody had told him he was a sorcerer yet, so the pages were kind of dusty and left chalky residue on Kyuhyun’s fingers. But, turned out, rocks were awesome storytellers. Who knew? Kyuhyun curled up for fifteen minutes under Zhou Mi’s blanket, before remembering to say thank you.

---

Their second day in the field of dandelions, and the fact that it was now a field of daffodils held no bearing on its name in Heechul’s head, was okay.

It was better than okay in fact. He got to walk with Jongkey, so he was entertained. And he got to watch the way walking made Hankyung’s trousers pull tight, and the way the hairs on the back of Hankyung’s hair (now bleach blond thanks to a booby trap Heechul had forgotten about. What? It was a bad bleach job! It would have totally turned him off the idea of dragon-hunting) curled from sweat, and the way Hankyung’s forearms were starting to burn.

He muttered a cooling spell, and watched the line of Hankyung’s back relax. Hankyung turned around to smile. That was maybe the best part.

---

Heechul was stealing a drink from Hankyung’s hot chocolate at camp that night, when Taemin popped the question. “Why aren’t you two fucking?” He said it innocently, head cocked to the side and fingers tugging at his top, so Heechul was prepared to let it slip. (Also, he could see Jongkey high-fiving behind Taemin’s back so it was obvious who the real culprits were.)

“Because.” He said evenly, after he has swallowed his drink and patted Hankyung’s thigh.

Taemin’s brow crinkled up, and really, a sixteen year old boy shouldn’t be allowed to look that adorable. “Because what?”

“We’ll tell you when you’re older.” Choked out Hankyung. And Heechul grinned because that was the completely right thing to say. (And because Jongkey looked disappointed in the background. Tossers.)

----

It did pose a question though.

---

A really, really interesting question.

---

“Hankyung why aren’t we fucking?” Hankyung choked on his water, and looked like he was going to have a really profound answer (like ‘I don’t know’) but was stopped from answering by;

“Shit! Dragon!”

“Is that fire?”

“Fuckingfuckingfuckmefucking -”

And “Did your mother kiss you with a mouth like that?” which made no sense but was kind of swallowed up in the moment and afterwards nobody wanted to regurgitate it.

It was kind of quick, really. Everyone blasted something at it, which ended up with some weird flower sprouting goblin monster with wings, which died three seconds after existing. Then Heechul and Taemin fired something at it, and that time the dragon died. Smoked a little bit, too.

It was a bit disappointing, Heechul said, and confided to Hankyung. “Kind of like really great foreplay, but the actual deed is kind of boring and quick. You know? Bad sex.”

“Is that why we’re not fucking?” Hankyung just said, and Heechul choked on his water and looked like he was going to have a really profound answer (like ‘shit, I think I coughed up a lung’). Instead he muttered something under his breath and they ended up in Heechul’s room back at the house. Hankyung blinked. “If you could teleport us why the hell-”

“Does that mean you want to?”

“Teleport? What?”

“No. Fuck.” There was something quietly desperate in his voice, made even worse by the larger-than-life presence of the bed in the suddenly too-small room.

Hankyung started sweating. “Uh.” Hankyung blinked. “Well, yeah. That isn’t obvious?” He stumbled a little bit when Heechul pulled him forward by his wrist, shivered a little bit more when Heechul whispered ‘if it was obvious, I would have done this a long time ago’ and then shuddered a whole lot when they kissed.

It was something like magic.

Outtake;

Kyuhyun stumbled over a tree root, cursed viciously and hated on Heechul for pissing off back home without the rest of them. Then he choked, cursed even more viciously, and hated on Jongkey for making so many damn booby traps.

Zhou Mi made a strangled sound.

Kyuhyun turned around, hands on his hips. “What. What? Do I have bunny ears? Am I fat? Is there another Scribble Monster trying to hump my leg?”

Zhou Mi just made another weird sound, and looked kind of constipated. Kyuhyun sighed, looked down and saw –

Ruffles. White ruffles, and lots of them. Black too, a little black pinafore, and Kyuhyun started laughing when he realised he was dressed as a French maid. He looked over at Jongkey, apparently stunned by Kyuhyun’s pasty, hair legs. “Where’s my feather duster?”

And that was when Zhou Mi grabbed his wrist, and started walking really really quickly.

*

A/N: I think this is the crackiest thing I have ever written.
I am so in love with this.

These Metal Bars

2009-05-25T01:10:49Z

Title: These Metal Bars
Length: [10/?]
Pairing: JaeHo
Rating: M
Summary: Pasts have a way of catching up with you - so you'd better have an escape hatch.
#1 | #2 | #3 | #4 | #5| #6 | #7 | #8 | #9 | #10

When Jaejoong makes it downstairs, his hair is curling around his ears and he can feel his shirt sticking to his back where he couldn't reach to dry. There's an older version of Yunho, with a different nose but the same broad shoulders, sitting at the kitchen table and reading a newspaper, slim fingers with thick knuckles clenched over the headline. Jaejoong feels a rush of something like envy and unease, not even bothering to settle in his stomach, but rushing to the tips of his fingers and the top of his head. He lingers on the bottom step. Yunho comes out of the kitchen, and Jaejoong watches as he moves around the man too carefully, caution written into his actions. Jaejoong finds himself thinking that Yunho's limbs, so large and long, shouldn't be confined to these tight, careful movements.

He's so busy thinking about this, that he doesn't notice when Yunho's eyes settle on him, and something light and amused enters. "Jaejoong?" Jaejoong starts, and then blinks, shoots a sheepish smile at Yunho and drops from the botom step of the stairs. The wooden back of the chair feels too stiff when he sits on it, but the set up is something like a real family would have, and he likes the way the support feels. "You want some toast?" Jaejoong's hangover is lingering in his stomach contents, and really the last thing he wants is food, but Yunho's dad is right there, and he feels like saying no would be rejecting the older man's hospitality.

Come to think of it, Yunho's dad didn't even realise Jaejoong was staying in the first place. How come he's acting so nonchalant about it now? He brings it up later, when they're walking to school. Yunho's shoulder keeps brushing his, and the pavement's not that narrow.

"I told him when you were in the shower. He just grunted. It's not like he'd say anything anyway, unless you were so blatantly gay that it offended his morals or whatever." Yunho scoffs, brown eyes narrowed and mouth twisted like he'd tasted something sour.

Ah. Jaejoong nods. "He homophobic?" Yunho shrugs and Jaejoong takes it as an affirmative. "I'm keeping you from your run." He says instead of anything else, and the tension in Yunho's shoulders dissipates.

"It's cool. I'll just run when I get home instead." His knuckles brush the skin of Jaejoong's hand, and he hopes Yunho doesn't hear how his breath sucks in so quickly.

"Oh. Okay. Dance class first, right?" And now Yunho really does relax, hands molding shapes into cold morning air as he complains about how his leg just won't bend the way his teacher wants, and that maybe it would, if only it was double-jointed.

Jaejoong's grinning, until Yunho finally runs out of steam and he says, "But you've got that agreement with that dance company anyway, don't you?"

He thinks fuck as the line of Yunho's shoulder goes rigid again. "Yeah. But, like. My family don't know about it." The shrug looks painful, so Jaejoong takes a chance and squeezes Yunho's hand with his own, fingers threaded for a quick moment. The warmth of Yunho's palm ghosts over the lines in Jaejoong's palm when he pulls away, but he shoots a smile of something bright and sweet in Yunho's direction, and feels warmth pool in his capillaries when Yunho smiles something fierce in reply.

"So, like. I was watching this documentary the other day, and like, did you know that when seahorses give birth, they give birth to hundreds of babies, and they just get swept away on the current? The parents don't even have them for a day."

They talk about sea life, and weird mating habits, and how Junsu would be a great dad all the way into school, and Jaejoong skips his first lesson to watch Yunho dance in the studio.

He doesn't let himself think about last night, the things he told Yunho, because if he did, he knows that what they're doing now would feel too ephemereal, and he would screw it up wuth his desire to make it something more tangible. But when it slips through thoughts, sneaky and smoke-like, there's something sweet tinging the guilt, because it wasn't his fault, he hadn't been driving, and it had been a long time since he remembered that.

---

Daesung slips through doors, pushes on white metal signs that have instructions printed down the side of the handle. It's lunchtime, and he knows that Jaejoong likes to eat outside, thanks to too many years sharing life and death, adrenalin-filled moments in the spaces between windshields and gearsticks. Stake-outs too, and god, did they get boring, that it was almost interesting learning curious habits about guys who meant too much and at the same time, too little - attachment was never good, but when it was there, it was a bitch to get rid of.

At least, it was for the rest of them. For Jaejoong, it seemed much simpler.

It's stronger than a punch to the gut when he sees Jaejoong's features for the first time in months. It's more like a rock, pushing down on his lungs, and not letting up even when he drags in a breath from the open air.

His hand is still shaking when he jumps on top of the bench, swings himself down in the middle, and plants a leg either side of Jaejoong's body. His boot lands on some pretty boy's hand, but he doesn't give a damn, because Jaejoong blanches and then gets stony. "Jaebee!" He greets too cheerfully, ignoring the name 'Youngwoung' because it was fake, just like Jaejoong was fake, with all his brotherly slaps to the back and promises to die together. Fuck that. Fuck him. (Shit he looks different.)

"Daesung." His voice is even, but Daesung has been with him in too many nerve-wracking situations, can hear the quaver hiding in the vowels, and the anger in the white ridges of his knuckles. Daesung pastes on a too-big grin and says, bluntly because subtle was never his colour, "Top's in hospital. Broken ribs. Pierced a lung, and they're having a bitch trying to repair that. Know why?"

"Fuck you, Daesung." But Daesung's voice is riding over his, tight with anger and fake laughter, and he can feel his own knuckles turning white from the strain of forming a fist against the wood of the bench, and not following through.

"Because he was covering for you, Jaebee! Jaejoong, Jaebee, fucking Youngwoung who stole a car and lost it somewhere because of sweet little 'Sica having a some business on the side. Getting enough money to run away, right? Like you couldn't have stolen it from daddy, right? 'Course. It'd be like cheating then. Not like you weren't cheating already because it's not like 'Sica was fucking Top, and had been for three years, and oh, hey. Whatever. The point is he almost died for you, because to him, loyalty to backstabbing girlfriend-fucking friends is more important than his pretty pretty reflection in the mirror. Which is a damn shame, let me tell you, because I have to work with him for the rest of my life, and do you remember when you promised that too? Or has it slipped your mind too, like the memory of where that fucking car is." It's not even a question, the last sentence, because his voice is flat through gritted teeth and there's no breath for an intonation at the end.

Jaejoong's eyes look dead.

"So I'll get the car." The words are tired, like they've been on repeat in his head for the entire time he had left them standing empty-handed and without two members.

Daesung cocks his head to the side, breathes through his nose, and pauses. He nods his head. "So you'll get the car." The sock to the jaw is almost like an afterthought. Except it's not, because he's thought about it so many times, that it's more like a habit than anything else. The walk back through doors that say 'PULL' down the handle is something lighter than before, and he can feel his feet bouncing on squeaky floors down corridors that smell like books and learning.

He replays the look in Jaejoong's eyes as he fell back from the shock, likes the sting in his knuckles, and tries to remember the sound it had made. He hopes he'd broken the jaw.

---

Junsu's trying to ignore the way his pulse jerks in neck when Yunho takes Jaejoong's hand and leads him off to the nurse's office. He knows his eyes are wide, can see the fear in his eyes reflected back at him in Changmin's and Yoochun's own. It somehow makes it worse, makes his stomach churn even faster.

Tiffany comes along a second later, smelling like cut grass and something sweet, and presses the back of her hand to Junsu's forehead. "Hey, you okay?" Concern is prevalent in her tone, and he feels something melt at the base of his spine at the sound of someone's voice. He doesn't get why she's acting like everything is normal, doesn't get why his rejection is being basically rejected, but he doesn't really care at moments like this. He swallows, nods. Lets his hands drop from their grip on his sandwich. There are fingerprints in the bread, and the lettuce looks limp. He swallows again, bile high in his throat.

"Yeah." It doesn't sound convincing even to him, so he's surprised when she 'hm's and then drops her hand. He's even more surprised that he misses it.

"Okay. You want to go do that singing exercise? I don't think I got that last bit right." The offer is casual so he nods yes, and picks himself up from the bench too quickly. Black dots dance. It's only ten minutes later, sitting on the sofa in the recording studio and going over the same vocal sheet over and over again, that he realises she's been watching him carefully the entire time to make sure he's okay.

He feels uncomfortable at the scrutiny, but there's something sweet about it too.

---

The nurse leaves to go to reception. It's in another building, bad planning, so she'll be a while. Yunho moves toward the bed, the halfstep it is from his position on the door.

Jaejoong is tightly wound, muscles taut like some animal backed into a corner and ready to fight its way out. Yunho runs his fingers through Jaejoong's hair, but it doesn't do anything, just gets him a blank look flicked towards his eyes. "You okay?" He's already asked him twice. He gets a response this time, fingers gripping white bed sheet, and a furiously whispered, "Fuck."

Yunho doesn't know what to do. His limbs feel loose and useless, hanging limp by his sides. He watches as Jaejoong gets up from the bed so suddenly the springs take a moment to realise he's gone, their metallic creak a second too late. Jaejoong's already by the door, tension making his movements jerky and then Yunho has a chest full of Jaejoong, blunt fingernails splayed across his chest, and another hand clutching the shirt at his back.

It's not a conventional hug, but his hand curls around Jaejoong's waist anyway, another winding itself around his upper arm. He can feel unsteady breaths through the thin material of his school shirt, and the cool metal of Jaejong's studded belt on his thigh, can smell his shampoo on Jaejoong's hair. It doesn't feel wrong to drop a kiss on the crown of his skull, so he does it anyway, and thinks maybe it was the right thing to do when the grip on his shirt tightens, and the breaths become more steady.

Some minutes later, and Jaejoong shifts, kisses the underside of Yunho's jaw, and it tickles but it doesn't feel wrong either, so he drags his fingers down Jaejoong's forearm, feels warmth on his back from where Jaejoong's hand is suddenly flat and splayed. His head is pulled down by a tug on his tie, and there's another kiss on the corner of his lips, like Jaejoong had missed.

His lips feel dry against Yunho's skin, so Yunho adjusts the angle, presses closer, and kisses him properly. It doesn't feel wrong so he does it again, and again, doesn't hesitate when a tongue licks along the seam of his lips and a knee slips inbetween his legs. They're both breathing heavily when they pull away, and Jaejoong's eyes are dark and hooded, and his lips are red. There's a dark bloom on his jaw though, and Yunho is frowning at it unconsciously, only realising when Jaejoong uses his lips for words. "Regretting it?" Yunho kisses the bruise softly, hears the soft intake of breath, almost a hiss, and then kisses Jaejoong slow and dirty, his hand dropping to slip under his white school shirt and rake his fingers across soft skin. He can feel the muscles quiver.

The knock on the door of the school nurse is annoying, and he pulls away slowly, clinging to Jaejoong like he clings to sleep when he wakes up in the morning. He skips his dance theory lesson later, to spend a free with Jaejoong in the boy's bathroom, cold white tiles cold against his back and their breathing bouncing back, surround sound.

Dressed To Kill

2009-05-24T12:00:28Z

Title: Dressed to Kill
Length: [3/?]
Pairings: Hanchul, Qmi, Henwook, Eunteuk
Summary: Revenge is a dish best served cold - but Heechul never did have much patience.
Dedication: For </a></a>who took my little puzzle pieces, slotted them together, and them gave me the missing parts as well. She's a beaut, and the characters are as much hers as they'll ever be mine. And thanks for letting me word-vomit at you, and giving me names, and the little suju details that you forget when you drop out of the fandom for months.
Backstories: Of Diners and Coffee Cups
Chapters: #1| #2

“All I’m saying is, why didn’t I get to rub Henry’s cheeks?” Eunhyuk folds his arms across his chest and tries really hard not to pout. Ryeowook is microwaving some kebob for him, the blue of the timer lights highlighting the line of his nose and the curve of a cheek. The cook shrugs.

“Maybe they thought you were good enough without the luck?” He says diplomatically, and is quick to open the door when it beeps. The plate clatters on the island, and Eunhyuk swings his feet up and sits cross-legged on the countertop. Ryeowook joins him with a plate of his own.

“I suppose.” He grudgingly admits. “But they didn’t let Eeteuk either, and all he had was a pair of hot pants to help him. I’m sure he could have used some luck.”

Ryeowook nods. “Just make sure to rub his cheeks next time.” He offers, biting a bit of meat and chewing methodically. Eunhyuk sighs and starts eating. A few minutes later;

“’s good.”

“I know, right?”

---

Donghae and Hankyung walk past Yesung, who’s been look antsy for a couple days now and Donghae could have sworn he heard him muttering shit about calibres under his breath last night, and into the corridor. Kangin’s got his hoody pulled up and his arms crossed over his chest, and is generally looking badass. Donghae thinks his pink belt kind of detracts from the overall masculinity, but whatever, some people express individuality through crazy ties, so what if Kangin does the same with belts, right?

The door makes an ominous click when Hankyung shuts it behind them, and rightly so, because Heechul is leaning against a door, eyes turned in their direction. Usually Donghae isn’t scared of people – he has to be pretty fearless to do his job. But Heechul has this hungry feral look about him, not helped by the thin plank of a body that makes Donghae think that maybe they didn’t feed him in prison, or like, ever, which makes Donghae have nightmares about Heechul gnawing on his leg and that is some pretty disturbing shit right there. So the door is completely right to be ominous.

“Who was it?” His voice is kind of husky too, and cannibals would totally have husky voices.

“Some cakemaker called Junsu.” Donghae shifts restlessly from foot to foot.

Heechul nods slowly, eyes flicking to the opposite wall. “Right. Do we need to dispose of a body or anything?” Donghae can’t help the frown, the flicker of irritation and professional pride.

“I am a professional. I do not leave bodies.” He says, a little petulantly. Seriously, who does Heechul think he is? As if Donghae Lee would leave a body. Donghae Lee doesn’t even leave marks. Oh. But – “You might want to get a new front door or something. Hankyung knocked it out with his thighs of thunder.” Except, who gives informants new doors?

Heechul’s eyes flick back to them. “Thighs of thunder?” There’s a smile on Heechul’s lips as he saunters closer. “Hankyung, huh?” Donghae almost feels sorry for Hankyung because the look in Heechul’s eyes is practically devouring. Whoops.

Hankyung, though, doesn’t seem to sense the danger. “Yeah. Sorry ’bout that. Didn’t realise how thin the door was.” Heechul’s grin seems to grow even wider at the accented lilt.

“Huh. Okay. I’ll go tell Kyuhyun.” Donghae hopes it’s a trick of the light, but he swears he can see Heechul pat Hankyung’s thigh on the way out.

---

Kibum is working from a weird webcam thing in the third flat, the one that was refurbished to look like a corporate building. Eeteuk and Henry are milling around in the background, to give the impression of an office, while Kibum tries to persuade an independent American lab to analyse the evidence.

They’re being awkward about it, mumbling about jurisdiction and credit ratings, and it takes a ridiculous amount of time to get them to agree to take the evidence, let alone to make it a priority. By the time they’ve finished, the 14 hour time difference between Seoul and New York means that it’s something past midnight and Henry is knackered.

It’s a weird setup, this con. He doesn’t know if it’s a security thing that everyone involved is staying in the flats provided, but at the moment he’s grateful for it, shuffling along blue carpet to the white of his door. He’s in the middle of imagining how awesome it will be to slide under cold covers and go to sleep, when his door opens in his face and there’s someone else standing there.

“Um.” Says the someone.

“Um.” Says Henry. There’s a pause. Then Henry is saying, “Who are you?” just as the someone is saying, “I’m Ryeowook, you must be Henry.” There’s another pause. “Nngh.” He says and brushes past Ryeowook to his bed. He’ll be polite later. Cool sheets and cold pillows. No tanned criminal is worth missing that for.

He hears, “Uh – sweet dreams?” just before he conks out.

---

Kyuhyun’s toe is stuck in the tap.

He’s staring at it dejectedly and wondering if he can reach his phone to call Zhou Mi to come rescue him when there’s a knock on the door.

“Occupied!” He calls out, and thinks that maybe if he uses the handle of the loofah, he would be able to hook a belt loop.

His toe looks forlorn. And slightly purple. Hunh.

“I know! It’s just that we need some information on a guy and none of my prison contacts know anything.” Heechul’s voice sounds more throaty through the door, itching at Kyuhyun’s ears. He slides under the water until everything he hears is watery and garbled and soft. Then he sighs, and lifts up, because he hasn’t heard that voice in five years near enough, so.

“What kind of guy?” His toe is definitely looking purple.

“A cakemaker.” Kyuhyun blinks at the door. “A baker? Are cakemakers bakers?”

Kyuhyun frowns at the door, and tries to tug at his toe again. It hurts. “How the fuck should I know?” He reaches for the loofah – the water’s starting to get cold. “Google him. Jesus. Oh, and get me some of those angel cake things, if you’re ordering.”

“We’re not ordering, you dumbass, he’s a murderer.” The side of the bath digs into Kyuhyun’s ribs as he strains for a belt loop, and water sloshes on the floor. “Are you getting out?” Heechul asks, hopefully.

“No! No, I am not getting out. Fucking – Just google him, alright? Fuck’s sake.” The jeans are captured.

“Fine! Snotty brat.” Kyuhyun’s phone clatters to the floor from a pocket, about a foot out of reach. Kyuhyun sighs. “See if I ever do anything for you again.”

Kyuhyun considers the shower head, and wonders if the reach is long enough.

---

Junsu is the owner of Cream Puffs, a short car ride away. He’s in his twenties, having inherited the shop from his now deceased aunt, and is something of a sweetheart with an arse that puts Beyoncé to shame. He’s also a murdering son of a bitch.

The little bell above the door tinkles when Eeteuk pushes it open, and the smell of asphalt and exhaust smoke is overwhelmed by something lemony and sweet. There’s two little old ladies browsing the pastry section, and a pretty boy with a smile and sweet brown eyes behind the counter. Eeteuk recognises him from the picture, goes right up to the till and orders a lemon horn. Junsu smiles and picks it up with metal tongs, sliding it into a paper bag and across the glass top of the counter.

“Here we go.” Eeteuk hands over the money, and the till clinks as it opens. “Have a nice day.” Eeteuk can’t help but wonder if this really is the man who killed Jungmo. His voice is sweet, high and breathy, and he can hear his unrestrained laughter when one of the little ladies makes a joke as Eeteuk leaves.

He comes back the next day, smiling slightly as he remembers the way Henry had looked when he had chased him down to rub his cheeks. The shop smells like icing today. Junsu emerges from a back door when the bell chimes, and smiles with recognition.

“Hi. Same again?” He’s ready with the metal tongs, but Eeteuk shakes his head, considers for a second, then nods.

“Yeah, though that’s not why I’m here. I have a propostion for you. I know it might seem a bit hasty, as I’ve only tasted one of your products, but. Well. I guess I like to take a risk, once in a while.” He grins a little ruefully, and Junsu smiles back, albeit a touch more uneasily. The tongs hover over the pastry. “I’ve recently opened up a café, and we’ve been open for about three months now, with high turnover. But, we’ve been having trouble with one of our suppliers, so we – well, I was wondering if you would possibly consider supplying us with some of your pastries? I mean, we’d make it official and everything, but. I can work out some figures with you now and you can see if you’d like to do business with us?”

Junsu had gone from looking uneasy, to looking unsure, to looking cautiously excited. Eeteuk crosses his fingers, and reaches for the paper bag that Junsu absentmindedly gives him.

“Um. Sure. Would you like to sit down?”

Half an hour later, his mouth dry from blagging his way through the unofficial interview, he has a handshake and a ‘just bring the paperwork around and we’ll have our people look at it’. Junsu had turned the handshake into a hug with a laugh, and Eeteuk had taken the opportunity to steal some hair like Kibum had told him to. The hair will be sent off to the same lab the rest of the evidence went to, and hopefully a match will be made that can convict Junsu, or at least prove he was there when Jungmo was murdered. Eeteuk felt ridiculously like a CSI.

He hands the hair to Kibum as soon as he finds him and then sprawls across the sofa, channel-flicking. At some point, the cat burglar comes in and watches with him.

Two days later and he is back in the shop, except this time Junsu is talking to a young-ish man already. Junsu’s face brightens when he sees Eeteuk and goes, “Him! This is who I was talking about!” The man turns around, and Eeteuk has time to register a soft face with tired eyes and floppy hair curling over a forehead, before he speaks.

“You’re the one interested in buying his products?” His voice is deep and husky, and his lips curl at the corners when he speaks. Eeteuk feels warmth pool in his stomach.

He smiles. “That’d be me, yeah. I’ve, um, got the contract here, actually, if you want to look over it?” Kyuhyun had typed it up last night with help from his boyfriend, a Chinese man called Zhou Mi, who apparently had a lot of experience with contracts.

Junsu blinks. “Yeah sure, I’ll have it back to you within a couple weeks or so, yeah?” There’s something innocent in the way he wears all emotions on his sleeves, and for a moment, Eeteuk feels a flash of doubt.

“Yeah, no problem.” Junsu’s fingers curl around the manila envelope when Eeteuk steps forward with his arm outstretched, and then disappears into the back room. Eeteuk turns to the man with a smile, finds him already smiling back.

“I’m Yoochun, you must be Eeteuk.” Eeteuk has time to nod before, “I think it’s really great what you’re doing with Junsu. Here.” He reaches into his pocket and brings out a business card, handing it over to Eeteuk. It’s glossy and embossed with the name of a club, and Eeteuk recognises it as the same club Jungmo got his packet of matches from. He schools his expression. “I’m the manager of this club. Come in sometime and I’ll buy you a drink on the house.” His smile is charming.

Eeteuk nods, and feels his doubt slip away.

---

Heechul watches the ceiling and blows smoke upwards in lazy rings. The taste reminds him of quick blowjobs to prison guards for stolen cigarettes, and buying his way into favour using the prison currency of drugs, alcohol and cigarettes. Taemin had had to use the lesser talked about fare. ‘Don’t drop the soap’. Heechul winces, and tries not to wonder how he’s doing.

The doors don’t creak when they open, but Heechul can still tell when they do. The bed dips from where Kyuhyun sits down, one foot tucked under knee, the other touching the floor. He’s all gangly limbs and sleepy eyes, a smile on his lips. Heechul tries not to get too attached, even though he knows he already is. The thing about hackers is, they’re always young. You won’t find a geriatric coder. The thing about hackers is, they’re curious by nature, and inevitably they stumble across something that gets them killed. So Heechul tries not to get too attached, even as Kyuhyun reaches across and takes a drag from his cigarette.

“It’s been almost three months since you got out now.” There’s something smooth in his voice, dark chocolate. Heechul makes a small noise of acknowledgement around the butt. “Don’t you think Jaejoong will be suspicious if you don’t do anything?”

Heechul looks over, dark eyes catching Kyuhyun’s, and smirks.

(Streetlights turned spotlights. The scrape of metal along asphalt. Heechul flexed his fingers around the handle of the metal baseball bat, took a deep breath, held it high over his shoulder, and tried not to laugh when it swung down in a graceful arc. The window smashed. The alarm went off, the siren a soundtrack to his movie moment. Again, again, again. Broken bonnet, collapsed doors, shards of glass tinkling like metallic rain.

A light switched on in the building. Heechul paused, leant on his bat in a streetlight spotlight, and saluted the silhouette of Jaejoong. The raised middle finger in response made him laugh as he walked off, bat swung over his shoulder.)

“No. He won’t be suspicious.”

Kyuhyun watches for a long moment, then shrugs. “Okay. So, another question. How did Junsu know Jungmo?” Heechul shrugs. “Okay. Why did Junsu kill Jungmo?” Another shrug. “Okay. So how do we know for sure that Junsu is the killer?”

A pause. “Fuck.”

“Right.” There’s another pause, and then the matchbook is thrown onto Heechul’s stomach. “I think we could find out some information by canvassing here. It was five years ago though, so we might need to break into the office to get the paper trails of people who were there before anyway, and the surveillance tapes.” Heechul swallows, blows a broken circle.

“Shindong and Eunhyuk?”

“And Sungmin. I think our best bet is to approach this with two different kinds of interrogation.” Heechul blinks, then laughs.

“Since when has sex been an interrogation?”

---

Outtake;

Zhou Mi stands on the bathmat, hands on hips, a concentrated look on his face as he stares at Kyuhyun’s toe. Kyuhyun tries not to feel self-conscious – the water is cold and the bubbles have all long since popped.

“Hm.” He drags the syllable out, finger to his lips, and says, “We need lubrication.” Then cracks up laughing. Kyuhyun splashes him with water, and grins at the yelp.

*

A/N: I am a child. Also, do you know how hard it is to write srsbznz fic about suju? Especially when watching PAJAMA PARTAY. I have apparently lost my angst. All I can say is, thank</a></a>and </a></a>because if it wasn't for them, you would have texan!Kibum. Yeah. I know, right?

Dressed To Kill

2009-05-17T20:38:17Z

Title: Dressed to Kill
Length: [2/?]
Pairings: Hanchul, Qmi, Henwook, Eunteuk
Summary: Revenge is a dish best served cold - but Heechul never did have much patience.
Dedication: For

black_goose who took my little puzzle pieces, slotted them together, and them gave me the missing parts as well. She's a beaut, and the characters are as much hers as they'll ever be mine. And thanks for letting me word-vomit at you, and giving me names, and the little suju details that you forget when you drop out of the fandom for months.

Backstories:
Of Diners and Coffee Cups

Chapters:
#1

Finding out who had really killed Jungmo is not, apparently, a matter of typing in a few buttons and coming up with a picture, date of birth, and current address. “I’m good, but I’m not that good.” Kyuhyun says.

“Huh.” Says Heechul, leaning against the kitchen island while Kyuhyun got himself a coffee. “So. What. We just stand around until the killer comes to us?” Kyuhyun twists his head, creases appearing in his neck, and grins.

“Okay. Seriously. When did you get dumb? We go get the killer. We have a date, a body, and some evidence that can easily be acquired from the police evidence locker with Eunhyuk. We’d have to send it off to some independent lab for analysis, because you know, genius brain doesn’t mean I’m omniescent, ha ha.” Heechul’s blank look made Kyuhyun sigh. “Seriously. Dumb? When?”

“Who the hell is Eunhyuk?” Heechul replies, ignoring Kyuhyun’s smirk.

Eunhyuk turns out to be this gummy, happy kid with an anxious look in his eyes. A cat burglar, which is a shock really, because cat burglars are usually slippery shits who go into orgasms at the sight of a good alarm system. But Kyuhyun has somehow managed to find the most gummy, happy, prepubescent cat burglar in the world. He probably isn’t prepubescent, but there is something so young about the way he smiles that Heechul catalogues him in the same age bracket as Taemin.

“The police station? Yeah, no, sure. You know which precinct?” Pause, and then Heechul turns to Kyuhyun.

“Seriously. Dumb. When?” And grins when Kyuhyun scowls at him.

---

Eunhyuk generally doesn’t work with other people. Eunhyuk likes scaling down buildings, and slipping unnoticed above guard’s heads. These activities generally don’t go too well if someone else is tagging along, which is why he doesn’t particularly like the thought of Eeteuk distracting the police while Eunhyuk goes in. It’s almost like they’re doubting his ability. Arses.

“You do know that I’m the guy that stole the second David, right?” He says, in the middle of some emphatic hand gestures on Eeteuk’s part – something about why a certain province’s accent wouldn’t work – and effectively makes the room go quiet.

“Who’s David?” A big burly guy hiding his kind eyes in the hood of his jacket and leaning against the doorframe asks. Eunhyuk blinks.

“Nevermind.”

---

Kyuhyun had hacked into the state’s police records database, found the crime and where it was committed, as well as loads of other useful shit that he printed out and put in a manila folder because, well, organisation is key when bringing people down. The precinct was listed, as well as the detectives and the evidence that was logged, so Kyuhyun then hacked into the police station’s security cameras and recorded some blank time that he could loop over when Eunhyuk went in. Eunhyuk had said something about that not being necessary, because he’d be wearing his balaclava anyway, but then Heechul had cuffed him ‘round the head and told him that it’d be pretty fucking suspicious if a masked man broke into a police station and stole evidence from a case when the main suspect had just been released from prison. It was best to do it in a way where no one knew things were missing. Eunhyuk had blushed.

He’d felt sheepish enough, in fact, to just follow orders the rest of the time, instead of feeling indignant because they weren’t really taking him seriously. Which is how he ended up here, sweating in his bodysuit, crammed between the inches of space that separate floor and ceiling. He wipes some cobwebs away.

“Okay. Go.” Eunhyuk pushes down on the ceiling slat he’d loosened ten minutes ago, watches it clatter to the floor. Somewhere nearby in the building, Eeteuk is making enough noise that the crash won’t be heard. Eunhyuk hopes. He may have some slight trust issues.

His fingers curl around a thin metal pole as he swings himself down and onto the floor with a soft sound. There are dusty shelves upon dusty shelves all around him, arranged in a grid pattern with little baggies arranged in some apparent order. It’s just a pity Eunhyuk can’t figure it the fuck out. He talks into the air and hopes his hayfever doesn’t start acting up.

“Do you know where the evidence is?”

There’s a pause, then the crackly reply in his ear. He fights the feeling of schizophrenia. “Uh. On a shelf.” There’s something that Eunhyuk suspects to be amusement in Kyuhyun’s voice. He scowls. Fucking hackers. He’d like to see Kyuhyun outside of his comfort zone of .html.

It takes him fifteen minutes to find the gun they found in Heechul’s hand, another ten to find some hair and fibres they found on Jungmo. There’s the contents of Jungmo’s pockets somewhere, but Eunhyuk’s having trouble finding them. “Hey. Eunhyuk. There’s someone coming.”

Shit.

“Can’t Eeteuk distract them?” Dependence, a mocking voice mutters in his head. He scowls again.

“He’s busy distracting the rest of the station.” Eunhyuk doesn’t know what Eeteuk’s doing, but it must be pretty fucking distracting if a whole station (bar one. Bar a very annoying and inconvenient one) is busy.

Eunhyuk makes a noise that Kyuhyun can take as an acknowledgement if he wants, and then takes the earpiece out. He stills. If he concentrates, and ignores the tickling in the back of his throat, he can hear the sound of cheap shoes on shiny floor. Ten seconds away at the most. He curses again.

10.

He twists around the corner to the hole in the ceiling.

He reaches for the edge, but he’s too short.

A frown, exhale of frustration.

Weight balanced between the bottoms of two rickety metal shelves.

Arms hoisting him into the small space.

Straining muscles, legs swinging, thank God for momentum.

Hello claustrophobia.

Twisting around, feet hooked onto the metal pipe.

Held up by his toes, fingers gripping the edges of the ceiling slat.

Ceiling slat in place, pinching his fingers. The door opens. He hits his elbow when he slips the earpiece back in, holds back the curse as his funny bone tingles. “ –awesome!” He catches the tail end of Kyuhyun’s sentence. Five minutes later, and Kyuhyun says that the man has gone. Eunhyuk rolls his eyes, lets the ceiling slat crash to the floor, and wonders if someone pressed repeat.

The pocket contents take him four minutes to find, and then he’s up and away, using his elbows as leverage until he reaches another ceiling slat. He lowers himself into a bathroom cubicle when Kyuhyun says ‘go’, changes into civilian clothes, and wanders out the front door.

On his way out, he had passed Eeteuk in pink hot pants and a fishnet vest. He guesses that Eeteuk is pretty fucking distracting, dressed like that. He sneezes. Shit.

---

Zhou Mi pings a headphone against Kyuhyun’s ear and grins at the wrinkled nose he gets in return. There are a couple clicks on the keyboard, long fingers making a series of commands to a bunch of CCTV cameras, and then Kyuhyun’s fingers occupy themselves with taking the headphones off and patting down his hair.

Zhou Mi sneaks a kiss against the crease in Kyuhyun’s lips. “Hey.”

“Hi.” Kyuhyun smiles and leans back in his chair, cracking the knuckles of his fingers. “How’d you get in?”

“Asked if I could borrow a cup of sugar for a cake I was baking.” He says, leaning back in the chair he’d snagged from the dining room table, and swinging his legs across Kyuhyun’s. Kyuhyun laughs, and Zhou Mi gets that ridiculous feeling of pride he always gets when he makes Kyuhyun laugh.

“Regular Girl Scout, aren’t you?” Kyuhyun drops a hand and strokes along the seam of Zhou Mi’s skinny jeans. Zhou Mi holds his eyes, a smile on his lips. “No, really. How’d you get in?”

“The guy with the gloves went for a piss, and I slipped in. You need tighter security.” Kyuhyun’s thumb rubs against Zhou Mi’s ankle.

“No shit.” Kyuhyun’s eyes look distracted again, so Zhou Mi leans across and kisses the long fingers dangling over the arm of Kyuhyun’s chair. Kyuhyun’s smiling when Zhou Mi chances a look up, but it’s kind of nervous. “You sure you don’t – don’t mind me doing this? I mean, that is why we had to leave last time.” Zhou Mi remembers the smell of grease and the harsh lighting of a diner, the dried stains of ketchup and mustard, and the way Kyuhyun’s fingers looked curled around a cup of coffee.

“I don’t mind. Heechul’s your friend. Besides, you’re good at this.” He keeps his voice even, trying not to show he’s a little bit scared. Kyuhyun’s all skin and bones, fragility wrapped around a cigarette butt, with sleepless eyes and sleepy smiles. He’s not entirely sure how he fell into the whole criminal business, but Zhou Mi’s along for the ride either way. He grins, bright and sure against the knuckles of Kyuhyun’s hand. “So who was the guy in the hot pants?” And gets that ridiculous rush when Kyuhyun laughs.

---

The evidence bags are bloody annoying because they obscure the view of everything inside. Eventually Heechul just says, ‘fuck it’ and opens them all, because if anyone’s going to contaminate them, it should be him.

He spills them onto the table top, and then they’re all peering at them. The gun is something Heechul doesn’t feel ashamed about letting his eyes slide away from. There’s a matchbook from a club, a receipt, a condom, a pack of cigarettes. The fibres he leaves in the evidence doggy bag, because there’s nothing he can get from that anyway.

“So.” It’s Yesung that speaks up, having ambled in from his post near the stairwell. “What the hell load of use is this?”

Heechul throws him a look, picks up the matchbook (ignores how it’s the biggest cliché) and opens it. No matches have been taken. He flips it shut again. “Jungmo smoked twenty a day, and was also losing his lighter. It’s a safe bet that the club was the last place he was. But hey, there’s no point in trusting me. We can get the surveillance tapes from the club, if they have any, and also asks witnesses.”

“Witnesses from five years ago? Ha. Good luck with that. If they had anything to tell, they’d be dead.” Yesung rolls another unlit cigarette between his fingers.

Heechul’s fast developing a dislike for him.

---

Kyuhyun takes Heechul into the kitchen, rarely used unless to add water to ramen packets or open up takeaway boxes. A slim man with dark skin and darker eyes leans against the kitchen cupboards with his hands in his pockets, while a much lighter boy with chubby cheeks swings his feet from the top of the kitchen island. Heechul pauses, takes a moment to survey the kid on the countertop, before reaching over and pinching his cheeks. Heechul grins. “Well aren’t you precious.”

Chubby Cute scowls at him, and then at Kyuhyun when he sounds amused. “Heechul, that’s Henry. This is Kibum.” Heechul nods. They’d both been in the living room the first night, but had had to leave early when Kibum got a phone call. “It’s best if we go out of the country to get the evidence analysed. I mean, I don’t think Yunho or Jaejoong have insiders or own the police force, but the best guys work for the government, so. I’m sending the stuff to America. Kibum and Henry translate. And act. They’re going to pretend to be police officers. Well, Kibum is. Henry’s a trainee.” Chubby Cute scowls again.

Heechul nods. “Cheers.” Kibum nods back.

“America and Americans get every-fucking-where. Don’t worry. Plus, playing the helpless foreigner can get you some good information sometimes.” Kibum grins, white teeth even whiter against such dark skin, and Heechul wonders why Chubby Cute is in training to become so dangerous. “Nice to meet you.”

Heechul shakes his hand.

---

Shindong is a larger than life guy, in more ways than one. He wraps Heechul in a big bear hug as soon as he comes through the door, and then shouts for food. “Food! Food! Where is it? You know my fee, ‘Rella.”

Heechul had forgotten actually. “Crushing my bones isn’t enough?” He says, the caustic words muffled against Shindong’s chest. The vibrations are disconcerting when Shindong laughs.

“Gourmet food, baby. Get some for me by the time I get back.” Heechul is released. “So. What can I find out for you?”

“Witnesses. We want witnesses. For the murder of Jungmo. Or, any information, actually.” Shindong nods, grins, and then laughs.

“What, they not feed you in prison? Fucking skin and bones, look at you.” Heechul is wrapped in another hug, and this time he hugs back. “Lord. Missed you, ‘Rella.”

“Missed you too.” The words are still muffled, but he knows Shindong heard them anyway.

“Food! I want it! Pork. Lots of pork.” Shindong ruffles Heechul’s hair on the way out, and Heechul tries not to feel too touched. It’s hard though. He feels a little weak in the knees. He’s on his phone the next second, calling up an agency for five star cooks, and hires someone called Ryeowook half an hour later.

There’s pork kebob sizzling when Shindong walks in through the door again. Heechul’s being introduced to Zhou Mi when his name is shouted through the flat. He heads for the kitchen, where he finds the cook’s small body being swallowed by Shindong. He laughs at the way Ryeowook’s arms pinwheel while Shindong says, “He’s a darling, where’d you find him?”

Ten minutes later and Heechul is stealing food from Shindong’s plate at the dining room table. “So. You find anything?”

Shindong swallows his mouthful, but still manages to sound like he’s chewing when he speaks. “Yeah. Some people mentioned you, some made some wisecracks about Jack the Ripper and what-the-fuck-ever. Someone mentioned Jaejoong, you know, Yunho’s fiancé? But I found someone who was actually there. Well, by found, I mean, I was given an address. But apparently he hasn’t talked in five years, so. There’s no point in me going there, you know? I work the informants, the people that were made to squeal if you just love ‘em enough. You got any interrogators?” He takes another hefty bite, and proclaims his love for Ryeowook around a mouthful. There’s a meek ‘thank you!’ shouted back.

Heechul thinks back to a couple nights ago, remembers a guy wearing a baseball cap and an expression like he wasn’t on this planet. “Yeah.” If his affirmation is doubtful, Shindong doesn’t say anything about it.

“So, this is a nice pad. Mind if I crash? Mum’s talking about turfing me out. I figure I go for a while, let her see how much she’s missing me, and let her call me back, tail between her legs.” Shindong says, licking his finger and dabbing the plate.

Heechul doubts whether Shindong’s mum will be calling him back anytime soon, but he nods anyway. “I’ve got two spare flats either side, pick a room and make it your own. So. How are things?” He smiles, and lets Shindong talk for three hours about the five years he missed out on.

---

Donghae is about to walk out the door when Heechul shouts a weird bastardisation of his name. He would correct him, but he quite likes the thought of being almost-anonymous. It’s sneaky. Sort of. He turns around, to see Heechul dragging Henry with him. Henry seemed nice on the night they had met, stumbling over Korean like a new born foal stumbling over his own hooves. It was endearing in a ‘ha, you totally just said something rude by accident’ way.

“Rub his cheeks.” Heechul says when they come to a stop in front of Donghae, and Henry blushes and frowns and Donghae blinks, because. Well. What?

“What?” Henry is trying to escape Heechul’s bony fingers, but Heechul looks like someone who could break your kneecap with those bony fingers, so Donghae doesn’t think Henry’s got a snowball’s chance in hell in getting away.

“Rub his cheeks. It’s good luck.” And Donghae likes good luck, so he does.

---

Hankyung accompanies Donghae to the building. The stairwell smells like piss, and Hankyung has to kick away a rat in the hallway. They’ve both been in worse places.

They knock on flat 3B, wait for a reply. The doors and walls are thin, so they hear shuffling inside, but no reply to the knock. Hankyung mutters something about peepholes, and then kicks the door near the door handle. He might have only meant to bust the lock, but the entire door ends up giving way instead. Donghae whistles. Hankyung smiles a little cluelessly, like he’s not sure why he’s whistling, but he’s willing to acknowledge that he is.

The guy is sitting on the sofa in his boxers when they come in, scampers up and into the bathroom, locking it from the inside. Hankyung rolls his eyes, busts the lock on that (Donghae’s amazed the door survives) and hauls the guy back from the window using the hem of his boxers. Donghae’s impressed.

“Toss him in the bedroom and wait outside.” Donghae says, moving into the aforementioned room. The guy, and Donghae starts mentally assigning the pronoun ‘poor’, gets literally tossed into the bedroom.

Ten minutes later, he emerges with information and an unharmed guy. He smiles at Hankyung, tugs his baseball cap down, and says, “Back home? It smells like piss in here.”

*

Is the shift from totally Heechul to practically everyone weird?

Of Diners and Coffee Cups

2009-05-10T23:17:06Z

Title: Of Diners and Coffee Cups
Length: Oneshot
Pairing: Qmi
Summary: Self-preservation kind of gets shot to hell though, when you do.
Dedication: For Daisy. She's kind of amazing.

The gun is heavy in his hand, and the whisper of the silencer is anticlimatic. The sound as the body falls to the floor is sickening, crunches and flops that the usual self-preservation instincts prevent. Self-preservation kind of gets shot to hell though, when you do.

Kyuhyun picks his way out of the apartment, sidestepping crisp packets and empty ramen cartons. He's on his knees, throwing up behind a dumpster two blocks away, when the realisation hits.

---

The coffee is hot, and Kyuhyun imagines the prints on his fingers burning off and becoming a world-class cat burglar, scaling the Louvre to get some priceless piece of art, crawling along ancient air conditioning in the Vatican. His cup is almost empty when the waiter steps up, surprising Kyuhyun out of his stupor, and he grins at what a shitty criminal he makes. The waiter takes it as a greeting.

"More coffee?" There's a hint of an accent hiding in the vowels, Chinese probably, because the Japanese tend to want to shorten everything. Efficiency is everything Japanese. Kyuhyun nods, stares at a spot of dried ketchup on the apron's hem. He'd thought this was a self-service place.

(-redred, redonthefloor, onhisfingers, onhishands, inhisair-)

Kyuhyun watches his inky fingertips on the countertop surface, imagines them painting Paris and Rome. 'We'll paint the town red.' He downs scalding coffee, weak in flavour. Repetitive action after repetitive action, chasing one swallow with another and another, until he's so wired that the shadows are shaking against the ring of caffeine. The waiter again, and Kyuhyun raises his eyes but the apron is gone.

"We're closing, sir." The waiter's legs are long and skinny, encased in faded blue denim with a small brown thread spiralling wayward from the hem. Kyuhyun nods, gets up from his chair and calls a taxi outside. Caffeine chases blood through his brain and to his heart, stop-stuttering through circulation, and he draws in one shaky breath after another.

He wonders when the shock will set in.

---

He's sitting in the diner again, the crappy fan pinwheeling above his head and whining every 270 degrees. It's empty at eleven o'clock at night, and Kyuhyun wonders where all the insomniacs and angsty kids are. He drags his finger through the ring of coffee, wipes it off on his jeans, and wishes for something to clean the surface with.

The waiter, with the long skinny legs hidden by his apron, appears as if by magic, some Flash in hand and a crazy coloured cloth that Kyuhyun hates on principle. "Hey. You mind?" Kyuhyun shakes his head. The waiter has long fingers, and smooth nails, curled around the cloth as he cleans it quickly. Kyuhyun tries not to think.

---

The package slides across the dirty table, skidding through a ketchup stain. The suit would probably look disgusted if he wasn't so busy looking blank. Kyuhyun feels an itch, centred between his shoulder blades, ignores it in favour of taking a sip of his coffee and watching the angles of the suit's face shift and flicker as the light above them blinks on and off.

The diner's kind of shitty. He turns his head, sees the origin of the itch - the waiter is staring at him.

His ankles cross under the table, and the tongues of his sneakers crash together. "When do you want it?"

"Tomorrow. I'll see you here. Same time." The suit lifts his arm, holds out his hand for Kyuhyun to shake. He stares at it blankly.

"Right." The suit drops his hand at the uninterested tone. "Deposit half the money in half an hour into this bank account," Kyuhyun slides a piece of paper across the table, navigating around the ketchup and the spilt salt. He'd thrown some over his shoulder earlier, and wondered if the waiter had seen. "And the other half tomorrow." The suit nods, tucks the paper (receipt really, he'd scrawled the digits on a receipt from a bagel store a couple days ago) into his pocket, and nods his head again when he leaves.

The waiter's there almost immediately, eyes that really shouldn't be concerned, and a coffee pot that Kyuhyun's never been more glad to see. He has another drink, and then another, and then heads back to his apartment to do his job.

It's just banging code into a computer, slipping past alarm system after alarm system, killing viruses or dodging them if they're nasty bastards, the same old repetitive shit after repetitive shit. It's relaxing. It's easy. He remembers being seventeen and hacking into the government for the first time, the sick little thrill that centred in his throat and made it hard to breathe. Now, it's just routine.

The killing was a mistake. He would never have taken the job, but hacking was a rare thing to do, and rarely profitable, and he had rent to pay.

He cracks his knuckles when he's in, finds the information within seconds, and slips it all onto a USB stick. It's easy. Too simple. He plants a couple of his favourite viruses within the system, and then slips back out, closing all his pathways up like he was never there, deleting tell-tale threads of html. Sometimes, he wants to blaze 'CHO KYUHYUN' in bright neon characters across the biggest screens in Seoul. But then he reminds himself that no one would employ such a cocky, reckless shit. And he needs to be employed if he doesn't want to have to spill seas of red over dirty carpets and crumpled plastic packets again.

---

It's maybe his sixth time being the last customer in the place, and he can hear an accented voice calling out to someone else about shutting the place up. He won't move until they make him though. His place is empty, too full of shadows, and he likes the way his fingers paint ink against the white tabletop.

The waiter (he should get a name soon) slides into the chair opposite. His fingers steeple, long with wide knuckles and skinny spaces inbetween. "Don't you have a home to go to?" His accent is kind of sweet, making his words less hurtful than they could have been if Kyuhyun actually gave a fuck.

Kyuhyun holds his eyes for a moment, says finally, "What would you do if I said no?" The long-limbed man's hands untangled themselves, and the heel of his palm strained against the tabletop edge as he pushed himself back. It stayed there, and Kyuhyun traced the lines on his palm with his eyes, trying to read the answer there.

"Call you a liar." Comes the reply, and the grin is quick on Kyuhyun's face.

He plays with the saucer his cup had come on, watches the black liquid slosh around inside. The waiter pulls a face. "How you drink that without sugar and cream is beyond me."

Kyuhyun grins again. "I'm hardcore. Didn't you know?"

The waiter snorts. "Uh huh. Because hardcore people spend their lifetimes in shitty diners like this."

Kyuhyun's grin dims to a smile. "I don't know. The service is okay." The waiter laughs, and it's low and husky in a way that speaks of cigarettes. There's a pause for a moment, and the waiter drops his hand.

"You serious about not having a place to stay?" He has eyes that are ridiculously big for such a narrow face. Kyuhyun smiles against the sincerity.

"Nah. I've got a place."

"Oh. Okay." There's another pause, and Kyuhyun uses it to examine the planes and angles of the waiter's face, the pale skin stretched across cheekbones and chin and the faint smudges under his eyes, like charcoal smudges from an artist's thumb onto plain canvas.

"I'm off, then." Kyuhyun says, and drains his coffee, ignoring the way the waiter watches his throat move.

"Oh. Okay." Kyuhyun grins as he puts his cup down, and the waiter gets up too. The way he's taller than Kyuhyun makes something flutter in his stomach, and they walk to the door together. The humming that Kyuhyun hadn't noticed before stops as the waiter switches the lights off. Kyuhyun says goodbye when he's rattling with the keys.

---

"You know, at some point, you should probably order some food."

"Okay. What do you have?"

"Crap." The smile is unrepentant.

"I'll have some crap then."

---

It's his second customer in as many weeks, another suit except this one has style. His v-neck under his jacket is low, and flashes of collarbone and sternum are distracting. He has a fringe that keeps falling to his eyes, some light colour that isn't really good for his complexion, but does wonders for his brown eyes.

Kyuhyun drinks his coffee and his eyes steady. Sometimes.

The envelope is chucked onto the table almost nonchalantly. Kyuhyun raises his eyesbrows. The suit raises his. When he looks inside, he chucks it back onto the table, not even trying for nonchalant. "That was a one time thing."

"So make it a two time thing." The suit replies easily, and a cross earring dangles in his ear and catches the bright light from above.

Kyuhyun swallows hard and tries not to look around. He does anyway. The waiter is dealing with another customer. "No."

"Make it a two time thing, or your one time thing becomes public knowledge." The suit's smile is friendly. Kyuhyun kind of wants to punch him, but his fingers, and therefore his knuckles, are important. "What's the difference? Pulling the trigger is much less likely to give you carpal tunnel anyway." His smile widens.

Kyuhyun scowls. He hates suits with a sense of humour. They're somehow never funny.

---

The second time is easier.

He hates that. It shouldn't be easier.

---

The light is flickering above them again, throwing the waiter's face into relief every few seconds or so. "I'm Zhou Mi."

Kyuhyun tilts his head. "Chinese?" Zhou Mi nods. "Your Korean is pretty good." Zhou Mi nods again, his grin widening when Kyuhyun tosses him a look.

"What? You want a bedtime story?" Zhou Mi (and it's nice to finally have a name) asks, amused. Kyuhyun sticks a middle finger up. "Hang on. Let me get a drink." When he sits back down again, cream and sugar with a dash of coffee in his cup, he says, "Ran away to become a singer." There's a pause.

"Oh." Blinks Kyuhyun.

"Yeah." Says Zhou Mi. They both laugh, and Kyuhyun is getting over the shock of laughing quickly, these days. "Figured, you know, China's kind of shitty for stuff like that, so. Well, it's not, but you have to have a certain concept to become famous, or successful, and singing in lounge bars wasn't really my idea of success, you know? I'm too -" He gestures at himself and Kyuhyun frowns, because there is nothing wrong with Zhou Mi's acre of a body. "I don't know. Not pretty enough." Kyuhyun takes care to swallow, because there is some kind of ridiculous beauty hiding in the sharp twists of Zhou Mi's body, and it's China's loss, as far as he's concerned. "Came here instead, but turns out, it's just the same, you know? It's not - it's not that I've given up. I'm just." Zhou Mi's eyes drop to the table top, and he's been gesturing with his coffee cup, so cream has sloshed over the side. He frowns when he notices, licks the cream from the china cup, pretends he doesn't feel Kyuhyun's sharp focus.

"Taking a break." Supplies Kyuhyun, and knows that when Zhou Mi nods, he doesn't think it's exactly applicable. Zhou Mi has given up. He just doesn't want to admit it.

"I'm Kyuhyun." He says in the silence, and Zhou Mi grins, sudden and bright like the lights.

---

Zhou Mi is closing the door, the lights flicked off and the streetlights throwing a glow onto the lino floor of the diner. The fan makes an intimidating shadow, mixed with the backs of chairs and the lines of tables. Kyuhyun turns away, and is about to say goodbye, but Zhou Mi's face is tense in concentration as he tries to find the right key. Kyuhyun's body relaxes. When Zhou Mi looks up at the sudden weight of a hand wrapped around his wrist, Kyuhyun takes advantage, and pushes him against the door.

Zhou Mi's eyelashes are already fluttering against his cheeks when Kyuhyun kisses him, long and deep and slow. It's quiet, but that makes it easier to hear the catch in Zhou Mi's breath when Kyuhyun's thumbs push up the black tour t-shirt he's wearing, to press at the shadowed indents of his hipbones. His finger traces the line of bone through skin and Zhou Mi shivers. "'S cold." He says against Kyuhyun's lips, and the sound vibrates through the points of contact, pressed against each other. Kyuhyun grins, takes it as a half-hearted excuse for the shiver, until, "My house is warmer."

His other hand skates across the harsh angle of Zhou Mi's cheekbone, and he leans back a little, smiling as Zhou Mi thunks his head against the glass door. "Okay." His limbs thrum.

The subway to his house is spent on broken seats, Zhou Mi swinging a leg over Kyuhyun's, and tilting his head to kiss sweet and soft against his mouth until Kyuhyun chases him with something more dirty and long. Zhou Mi laughs, broken and shuddery when he pulls away, and tugs with his hand to get up for their stop. Zhou Mi lives on the first floor, which is a shame, because Kyuhyun would have loved to kiss him against the cold metal of an elevator door, and showed him contrasts in temperature.

Instead he waits until Zhou Mi has opened his door, before pushing him against the wall inside and pushing his t-shirt up. Zhou Mi is laughing again, and Kyuhyun grins with him, even when the top is over Zhou Mi's face and he can't see him anymore. It's gone within a second and Zhou Mi tugs at the hem of Kyuhyun's top and Kyuhyun quickly slides out of it. He kisses Zhou Mi again, feels the rise and fall of his chest against his own, feels the shaking fingers come to rest on his. He laces them together, and for a second they just stand there, swaying slightly into each other, breath stuttering on their tongues, passed back and forth.

Something headier than caffeine is chasing its way around his nerve system, and when his belt buckle presses into his skin as Zhou Mi tries to take it off one-handed, he hisses and kisses with a little more teeth and a lot more tongue. And then he gasps, because Zhou Mi's fingers are really cold, and he's already half-hard. He jerks forward a little bit, teeth clacking together, and Zhou Mi laughs again. "Fuck." He's about to tell Zhou Mi how cold his fingers are, really, when the hand starts stroking, and his breath feathers out onto Zhou Mi's collarbone instead. He rests his head there, breathing deeply and watching the shadow pool in the concave of Zhou Mi's skin, as the strokes get longer and his breathing gets shallower. There are fizzing bubbles in his veins, and a building pressure in his groin, and he whites out a little when he comes. His breath is stumbling onto Zhou Mi's skin.

A kiss is placed onto the damp skin of Kyuhyun's neck, and he feels his knees shake a little. He drops to them, and Zhou Mi isn't wearing a belt, so it's so much easier to get in. There's a damp stain in the front of his boxers, and when Kyuhyun uses his thumb to spread it, Zhou Mi's breath gets broken. "Need to sit." He says, eyelashes stark against his skin, and he slides to the floor in some kind of parody of grace. Kyuhun would smirk, but there's hazy pleasure threading its way through his limbs, so he just pulls the boxers down, places a hand at the base of Zhou Mi's cock and another splayed against his hip, and takes him whole. He knows he can be better than this, but Zhou Mi only takes a moment to come. It's salty, and Kyuhyun pulls a face as he pulls off, wanting to spit onto the carpet.

Zhou Mi is long limbs flung about the small hallway, hands released from where they had crushed the carpet. He starts laughing, loose and tired and happy. "What?" Kyuhyun asks, voice a little husky. He looks up and catches Zhou Mi's eyes, pupils blown.

"We didn't close the door." Kyuhyun's still laughing as he curls up against Zhou Mi's thigh, feet knocking against the neighbouring wall.

---

Another manilla folder, and Kyuhyun looks up. "I'm a hacker." He says, annoyed.

"You're also out on your arse if you don't do this." The cross flutters as the suit pushes his hair behind his ear, mocking him.

---

There's a ketchup stain on Zhou Mi's apron, and a tiny drop of dried blood on the tongue of Kyuhyun's sneakers. He scrubbed for ages, but it wouldn't come out.

---

"Let's run away."

Spoken into the space between ribs, when he thinks Zhou Mi is asleep, and can't hear him or see his inky shadow flooding over Zhou Mi's body.

"Okay." Kyuhyun's head snaps up to look at Zhou Mi's face. There's a soft smile on his lips, and he threads his bony fingers through Kyuhyun's hair. "Okay."

---

They curl up together on two seats, long limbs tossed into a tangled warm mess. Zhou Mi wears a hoody with too-long sleeves, and he holds onto the red of the cuffs with curled fingers. Kyuhyun searches the lines of his expression, measures acute and obtuse angles, and kisses the places where wrinkles will be. It's dark on the bus, so he can only see his face when they drive by streetlights, mercury-flares lighting up the way he looks at Kyuhyun.

"Thank you." He murmurs.

Zhou Mi laughs, and he doesn't get what's funny, until Zhou Mi presses closer, the sleeve of the hoody pressing against the back of Kyuhyun's neck, and he whispers into the shell of his ear. "Same to you." Kyuhyun mouths the words, against the hollow of Zhou Mi's neck, before sealing it with a kiss, searing the words into his skin. Zhou Mi's breath catches.

*

A/N: Yeah. This totally turned out differently. I LOVE YOU BABYCAKES.

Dressed To Kill

2009-05-09T14:52:56Z

Title: Dressed to Kill
Length: [1/?]
Pairings: Hanchul, Qmi, Henwook, Eunteuk
Summary: Revenge is a dish best served cold - but Heechul never did have much patience.
Dedication: For

black_goosewho took my little puzzle pieces, slotted them together, and them gave me the missing parts as well. She's a beaut, and the characters are as much hers as they'll ever be mine. And thanks for letting me word-vomit at you, and giving me names, and the little suju details that you forget when you drop out of the fandom for months.

It’s not like he hasn’t been outside, since he got sentenced. It’s not like air is anything new, or tarmac is something bewildering, and really, remembering how to drive shouldn’t be so fucking hard. It’s not like life is something that can be forgotten.

White lines flicker on the road, and cats’ eyes blink reflected light back at him. Heechul sucks on his cigarette and flicks the ash out the window. The next motel (and for some reason, the first seven he’d passed just haven’t been to his fancy) is five miles from here, across border lines, and for one crazy moment he thinks about driving until distance is measured in state borders and the amount of cigarette ash on the motorway.

But something indescribably prison is holed up in the pores of his skin, hiding under the fine hairs on his arms, and he desperately needs a shower to clean the fuck up.

The wind whips cigarette smoke away and the smell of cold into his hair. It’s not like he hasn’t been outside – but somehow the air is sweeter when you actually have a future.

---

The motel sheets are scratchy, some floral pattern that Heechul’s grandmother would love. It’s the first time in five years that he’s slept on a mattress thicker than three inches, and it’s actually ridiculous how hard it is to adjust. He can distantly remember how it was before he got framed, silk sheets, soft carpets, and he wonders how the hell he coped with all of the texture.

He’s used to sleeping with the sound of someone else, Taemin breathing heavily above him, snuffling into his pillow, and it takes him three hours to realise he isn’t going to sleep tonight. The sheets scratch against each other, exfoliate his bare skin (he forgot pyjamas and he’s never been a fan of underwear), as he leans over with his elbows on his knees and his index fingers on his temples.

Five years isn’t that long a time. Five years is a fucking gift. But there’s anger churning in one large molten mess of hot lead in his stomach, and five cigarettes and a couple hours later, Heechul has his feet pressed against the porcelain of the bathtub, and his back against the too-hot warmth of the radiator in the bathroom. The signal’s best here, so he can hear Kyuhyun loud and clear on the phone line when he calls him with a plan and an idea.

Five minutes later, when his voice has stopped scratching like the sheets, and the cigarette is dropping dots of dark grey onto cheap linoleum floor, Kyuhyun speaks. “Hey, they took five years of your life, of course I’m fucking in. I know some guys who’ll want to help too. Shindong’ll spread the word. Just get your arse to Seoul, and get a place we can work out of – with like, five harddrives because this shit is a bitch to carry around, you know?”

Heechul laughs, curves shifting the angles of his face, and replies that of course he doesn’t fucking know, he’s not the hacker.

---

The thing with running a con on some of the most powerful men in Seoul is that it’s incredibly hard to find sane men who’re willing. Heechul bears this in mind as he takes the step two at a time, humming Queen under his breath, and feeling his hair bounce against his jawline. In the two months it has taken to set everything up – people, location, a plan (that consists of two words – ‘fuck ‘em’), his hair has grown into loose brown waves that make him look even more like a gangly teenage girl than usual. He likes it, tucks it behind his ears when he eats, and pretends he doesn’t notice the men checking out the way his cheeks hollow when he sucks up his noodles.

He’d bought the entire top floor of an expensive apartment building, somewhere high rise with no other high rise buildings around it, because he’d been in the seedy side of Seoul too long to think that snipers belong in overdramatic Hollywood movies and not real life. It was under a fake name, something foreign that he’d picked from an American DVD cover, his pronunciation pretty awful but doing the job anyway. He wasn’t sure why there was a slight pause after he said his fake name, but he figures it for the landlord writing down details, and not anything else. Or maybe the landlord was too busy thinking about money, because Heechul had mentioned price and name in the same sentence, and hey, he could understand money being distracting to those that didn’t have it.

It’s a corridor of three doors, and Heechul is flicked back to three years ago, lying on the bottom bunk and trying to watch crappy daytime TV inbetween the heels of Taemin’s feet. Something about three doors and choosing the right one, and he can’t help but smirk, because fuck it, like he was ever good at right choices. His hand is dry on the cold metal handle of Door Number One. It opens into an empty apartment, with a lounge and kitchen and three rooms without lights. It’s kind of creepy, but he knows they’ll all be used, mostly, though maybe not for the original purpose the architect had designed them for.

Door Number Two spills light out onto the blue carpet of the hallway, and there’s soft laughter and even softer voices. He breathes deep, cocks his hip like some girl on a mission, brassy smile on his face because he’s Kim Heechul, and it’s not like the name has ever stopped holding power. He saunters into the room like he’s got something to prove, and lets his eyes roam over the fourteen people in front of him.

“Who the fuck are you?” Says one guy, fingerless gloves, a cigarette rolling between his fingers, and a husky voice. Heechul catches Kyuhyun’s eyes, and raises an eyebrow. The hacker is smirking. Bastard didn’t even tell them who their boss is – he probably liked the sense of dramatics.

Heechul isn’t going to lie. So does he. “Kim Heechul. Your fucking paycheck.” And watches some of the backs straighten, and some of the eyes sharpen. Even five years can’t take away the pull of his name.

Prologue.

His mouth was still salty from the blowjob he’d given Yunho earlier when he walked into the club, limbs loose and hair short, starting to curl near his ears. He smiled when he saw some friends, motioned with one hand to give him a second, and then leaned over the bar. His leather jacket stuck to some sticky dried liquid on the bartop, but his arse looked fantastic like this, and that was the side that the rest of the room would be seeing anyway. “Scotch on the rocks, yeah?” He was lucky to get served so easily, because even though he was coming to be some sort of bigshot here, there were other important people who wanted a drink too. He saw Yunho down the other end, smiled when their eyes caught, lips stretching thin over white teeth.

The bartender saw. “Boyfriend?” Heechul looked back up to the guy behind the bar, pouring amber liquid over ice, and saw the pretty angles of his face and the full lips. Grinned.

“Something like that.” The bartender nodded, smiled back almost absently.

“Thought he,” and the guy swung a towel over his shoulder and gestured with a thumb towards Yunho. Heechul didn’t notice the manicured nails, “was already with someone?” Heechul shrugged.

“Some guy called Jaejoong. Don’t know. But hey, if Jaejoong was good enough, he wouldn’t be coming to me, right?” Heechul’s grin narrowed a little at the edges, became a little dirtier. “Coming being the operative word.” The drink was placed in front of him, a little harder than Heechul thought was truly necessary, but whatever.

“Right.” Heechul waved a goodbye salute with his hand, heading over to the corner, sipping from his drink.

He came to, some time later where there was that space of colour between dawn and night, and blue highlighted the planes of the gun in his hand. It was still warm, and his hand smelled like he’d just fired it. The clatter as it fell to the floor made him blink, open his mouth a couple times, and then he saw blue tracing the outline of a body on the floor. Red soaked into the bottoms of his skinny jeans. He edged closer, why the fuck he did that he didn’t know, but he edged closer and – and – it was

Jungmo.

Shit.

Everything else happened too fast after that. The cops, the hearing, the orange jumpsuit that did nothing for his complexion, the backs turning on him because – Jungmo. Shit. And then he had a visitor.

The glass pane was murky, smudged with too many fingertips and cheap window cleaner. The bartender’s features were distorted, but Heechul remembered who he was. “Hey.” He said, because there was no good reason for a bartender of some shitty dive to be here, and it seemed like a safe enough beginning.

“Hey.” The bartender replied, his grin a flash like the sliver of a knife in an alleyway, and suddenly Heechul knew.

“So, it was you, then?” He tried for casual, came off mildly desperate.

“Yeah. Kim Jaejoong, nice to meet you.” The grin widened into a full on attack, and Heechul swallowed air down.

“Well, shit.” He said, when he could say anything at all. Jaejoong laughed, got up from his chair.

“Just thought you should know.” Heechul watched the pretty angles of his face and the full lips. He called out thanks as Jaejoong walked towards the door, received a salute thrown over his shoulder, and felt like a stupid, childish fuck.

These Metal Bars

2009-04-19T18:11:18Z

Title: These Metal Bars
Length: [9/?]
Pairing: JaeHo
Rating: M
Summary: Pasts have a way of catching up with you - so you'd better have an escape hatch.
#1 | #2 | #3 | #4 | #5| #6 | #7 | #8 | #9 | #10

The gravel is pinching into his thighs through the dark material of his jeans, digging into the skin of his neck and bared forearms, but he's taking the 'keep me grounded' thing literally and hasn't moved from this spot since he almost crashed into the travel coach carrying ninety grandparents. He breathes in, feels his lungs tighten and his head go light from overdose of oxygen, breathes out and watches his breath blur constellations he relearnt a few weeks back and showed off to Yunho with.

His mother had taught them to him when he was younger, but memories become indistinct and knowledge becomes blurry and - he had relearnt them in some kind of pathetic attempt to keep a hold of her when she was young, beautiful and golden.

His phone buzzes on the ground a few feet away from him, where he threw it after talking to Yunho about how beautiful stars were. Dumb. Now Yunho's going to know he got drunk and drove, and now he's going to be mad, because he's silly-conscious of laws like that. The sound of tires on asphalt makes him close his eyes and play dead. Some tired guy needing a piss, probably. He breathes in. Toes connect with his ribs.

"You dick." Yunho says, carefully angry through gritted teeth.

"You pussy." Jaejoong says, and cracks an eye open. He tries to ignore the way his lungs tighten again, and his the way his heart stutters like some broken car engine. "You going for a piss?" Yunho frowns down at him, and from this position, his eyes are curved upwards and it's almost like he's smiling. Except he isn't.

"No." The answer is short, clipped and bitten.

"Oh." He pats the ground and his hand reaches for Yunho's when he lies down next to him. "The gravel bites, by the way." Yunho shifts, frowns, and then there's a shaky sigh like he's almost given up. "I'm sorry."

He watches, bated breath, as Yunho closes his eyes, and lets out a shuddery sigh when his thumb strokes the back of Jaejoong's hand. "I know." There's a pause while stars map the distance between their bodies. "So.What happened?"

Jaejoong knows, deep down he knows that he shouldn't tell Yunho this because Yunho is some stupidly law-conscious thing and when he sees what terrible things Jaejoong has done, he will leave. He will leave. But he says it anyway because, shallowly, he doesn't think he cares about Yunho leaving.

"When I was young, I stole a car. Attention, adrenalin, pissed-at-the-world. I don't even know." The alcohol makes his story kind of fuzzy around the edges, but his memories are razor-sharp. "And, well. I got into this gang. Big Bang. They steal cars, sell them off for profit, and sometimes they take commissions. And there was this girl, called Jessica. We were kind of in love, but I didn't really know it at the time. Know it now though. Yeah, well, anyway." He takes a breath, almost wishes for the tang of nicotene to edge the oxygen, but he doesn't want Yunho to see how nervous he is telling this story because he shouldn't be, because who cares if Yunho leaves? Yunho squeezes his hand and Jaejoong can continue.

"She had some shit at home, and I had some shit at home, and we got drunk one night and went for a drive because. Hell. I don't even know. We crashed into a car - " lightmetalscreechingmetalredblacksilver " - and almost killed the occupant. She's brain damaged now. 'Sica, "and his breath catches on her name, how pathetic, "'Sica died. Piece of metal through her throat. Didnt even feel it, but I bet she saw it coming. 'Sica never missed a damn thing."

Yunho's thumb had stopped stroking, but now it starts again, soft and rhythmic pressure near his pulse point. "Anyway, the driver of the other car was, and karma's a bitch, really, my mother. So. Yeah. I killed my girlfriend and gave my mother brain damage." Tight throat, tight lungs, and tight little circles on his hand.

Yunho makes a low hum in the back of his throat. "Who was driving the car?"

Jaejoong pauses, because it had been a year ago now, and shrugs. "'Sica?"

"Then it isn't your fault." Jaejoong snorts because it isn't the blame that makes him hate himself, just a little bit, it's the absences of Jessica, and his mother. But maybe it sort of is about the blame because he feels a little lighter. His hand is heavy with the weight of Yunho's, and then he's being pulled up by it, pulled into Yunho, and there's this weird sort of melding-bodies hug that he doesn't think he's ever had before. "And acting like this isn't going to bring them back." And Jaejoong chokes on a sob (and seriously, where did that come from?) before nodding. Yunho pulls him into a junk heap of a car and turns the key in the ignition. Jaejoong watches, head tilted.

"Didn't know you could drive." He remarks, absently.

"A lot you don't know, Mr. Kim. You're staying at mine tonight." Yunho's voice is lightly teasing and almost paternal.

"'kay." And he bites his lip because for some reason, he is ridiculously happy that Yunho hasn't left yet.

---

Junsu is walking through the corridors past curfew, his hair damp and curled around his ears. There's a sort of water trail following him, breadcrumbs and Hanzel and Gretel springing to mind, and he grins at the thought. He shouldn't really be out but he's spent four hours more than he'd expected in the music studio with the disgusting old couch that breeds mothballs, and had snatched a quick shower on the way back. So he's really not expecting her to be there, walking down the corridor too, smelling fresh and feminine and wearing Hello Kitty pyjamas.

"Hey." Tiffany smiles as she passes, and he's so shocked that a reply stutters off of his tongue and hangs limp in the air.

---

The t-shirt and drawstring trousers hit him in the face, and alcohol has dulled his reflexes to the point where he forgets to catch them. He bends over to pick them up, stops, and pulls his top over his head first. Yunho can't quite stop the smile, because Jaejoong is adorable when he is drunk. He turns away when Jaejoong reaches for the fly of his jeans, which is kind of ridiculous because they've both undressed in public before, changing rooms stripping them of privacy for the past however-many years they've spent at school. Jaejoong coughs when he's done and Yunho turns and smiles. "You're sharing my bed, too." And doesn't miss the flush on Jaejoong's cheeks.

"Oh. Okay." It's almost child-like awkward in the way the words fall from his lips, and Yunho grins and pats the bed with a cheeky grin. Jaejoong swallows.

The sheets rustle in the dark room, and Jaejoong jumps when he turns and finds himself an inch away from Yunho's nose. Yunho finds that kind of adorable too, and is too tired to second-guess his thoughts. Or maybe it's some kind of fear-induced acceptance, because the call from Jaejoong earlier had had Yunho running out of the café, pulse pounding in his wrists and making it hard to drive. He still doesn't know how the fuck he found him. An arm is swung possessively over Jaejoong's torse and Yunho yawns without any kind of grace. "Night." He says, and snuggles down into his side of the pillow.

"Mm. Sweet dreams." Is the soft reply, and Yunho can feel fingers threading their way through his before he falls asleep.

---

Knee to the gut and, fuck there goes a rib. An uppercut to the torso, and Top loses his balance, falls back over some wooden slats.

"Where the hell is my car?" Top looks up through a swollen eye at his attacker, ignoring the speaker. The one beating the shit out of him has a comb-over and Top starts laughing because, what the fuck? There's a sound of anger, or it could be of pleasure, the ringing in his ears makes it kind of hard to discern, and then he is being pulled up by his hair and if he pulls any harder, Top thinks he'll have to start sporting the comb-over style. Which just makes him laugh even harder.

"Shut. Up." Comb Over says through gritted teeth. They have gold grills on, and Top's thinking bling, and he really should stop laughing because that broken rib hurts like a fucking bitch.

"Car?" He manages, somehow, to spit the words out through the blood in his throat. "Fuck knows. Wait a while. It'll show."

A growl and another warning that Top doesn't really hear, because woah, he's being thrown against the wall and was that crack his head or his spine? The men leave but it takes him another two hours to find his phone and call Daesung, and by then he is really hoping the rib hasn't punctured a lung because coughing up blood is only going to make his whole body hurt more.

---

Morning time and Jaejoong wakes up to find Yunho's head nestled into Jaejoong's collarbone, and their hands linked somewhere near his waist. He breathes in, winces at the morning breath, and then stills as Yunho moves and hot damp air blows against his skin.

"Hey." The word vibrates against Jaejoong's skin, and he shivers.

"Hey." He says back, awkward and, oh fuck, there are dinosaurs plays the drums in his head. "Ow." He whimpers.

A snort of laughter against his breastbone, and then Yunho is moving away and up out of the bed. Jaejoong's side feels cold and his hand feels empty, and he can't help glaring at the lines of Yunho's back.

"I call dibs on the shower." He says, throwing a smile over his shoulder, and heading out the door. "Oh, and you snore, did you know that?"

Jaejoong tries not to grin.