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in
91daes
Valentine's Day: Truth is Out There
Author: isolated_killer
Title: truth is out there (AO3 mirror)
Rating: R
Focus: OT3
Length: 2.3k
Summary: The truth is out there, but each has got their own truth they are searching for.
Warning: horror.
Notes: X-Files AU is as appropriate as ever. Rip it while it's ripe!
a big hooman thank you to J, who endured my wails of struggle and pain over writing this story.
*His eyes open to everything orange, long eyelashes tangled and covered in ice crust. There is freezing cold liquid dripping down his forehead in two steady trickles, droplets burning his irises, as he tries to gulp as much cold air as possible, his chest echoing with great ache.
Jongdae tries to move his arm to wipe the annoying water from his face, tries to turn his neck to prevent the tiny waterfalls from seeping through sweaty hair plastered to his forehead, but in vain: he finds himself caged in his own body, unable to move a muscle.
Futile effort to open his mouth and scream, a useless attempt at uttering groans of pain, as his body continues to wake up, the feeling of being prickled with thousand needles at once bursts through his back, legs and arms.
Jongdae somehow knows that he has just woken up from the deepest sleep, remembers seeing the most vivid dreams about weird naked creatures, unrecognized planets miles and miles away from Earth with nature so unimaginable he can hardly pick names for plants and animals he noticed.
He understands that something must be very wrong with his nervous system when tips of his fingers begin to hurt. His heartbeat rises and he feels faint, as the agony runs through his whole body.
Long crusty eyelashes tremble and Jongdae is not awake again.
*Now he wakes up to everything red. He does not know what measurements for time are appropriate in his current state of being, but he wants to think in hours, because now, hours later after shuttering pain attack, his body actually feels like his own.
With no water dripping down from above, Jongdae carefully attempts to blink and with great relief discovers that the muscles in his face are moving on his accord. His hair, no longer plastered to his forehead, has been slicked up; the gooey substance is pleasantly cool on his scalp, but he still thinks that slime is its only appropriate title.
Worrying that his efforts may induce another painful war between his mind and body, persistent in everything, Jongdae still tries to move his stiff neck; slowly, he manages to turn his subtly aching head to the right side.
What his unaccustomed eyes recognized as blazing red at first, is actually turning out to be hues of dirty oranges and browns. He makes a vain attempt at frowning, but his temples resound with unexpected pain, excess slime drying and pulling on his tender skin.
The cubicle where Jongdae finds himself to be plastered to the wall seemingly with no ropes or any other special mechanisms has a single glass door which leads to another corridor of same sun colours, as much as his bloodshot eyes could see.
Diffused lighting of the room makes his eyelids droop, affecting his weak eyesight, making the blurry seem even hazier: as if he has been dumped into a bucket of water, Jongdae realizes that his eye contacts were not gone the first time when he woke up.
How long has he been asleep?
*The lighting has been changing and increasing in brightness, and Jongdae cannot help himself as he is forced to try and squeeze his eyelids even tighter. He is hours into sleepless mindless existence, seemingly void of such feelings as hunger and primal needs for his body seems to be still hibernating, heart slowed down to a few bits a minute.
In such a hanging state, Jongdae is stripped of his ability to think straight. His memories are too few; he remembers the quarters, Junmyeon’s pale serious face as they were called in for emergency by Agent Park, seemingly endless drive to the place of sighting, running out of the car together, hurried and uncareful… watching Junmyeon scream after a wave of blinding white light hit them.
Is it finally happening? Were they abducted? After so many years of looking for answers, getting lost when trying to find the right questions, becoming even more confused over the discovered evidence… Is this really happening to him?
But the most worrying part that continues to keep Jongdae awake is where Junmyeon is. Is he alright? He hopes Junmyeon is safe otherwise he will not be able to forgive himself if something bad happens to his colleague; after all, they got themselves into that investigation on Jongdae’s whim.
One cannot end up unperturbed when the matter touches upon the subject of national safety, Junmyeon says this phrase a lot, as much as Jongdae likes to roll his eyes at the pompous wording, the subject of possible detection of alien life is what makes Jongdae continue his work from day to day, eager and sometimes uncaring in his obsession over truth.
He is to blame for all of this. Jongdae feels his heart stutter and does not notice when he falls asleep yet again.
*Minutes, days or years pass when Jongdae suddenly startles awake to a chunk of goo sliding down his cheek. The substance does not absorb his body warmth, continuing to draw its cold path down to his jaw. As the drop wakes his sleeping body with a sharp ticklish feeling, he notices how responsive his muscles feel under his cold skin. Jongdae tries to move his hand yet again, determined to wipe the irritant away; his heartbeat rises as his elbow picks up from the wall.
No.
Firm voice rings inside his head, a warning; it sounds like a request, yes it does not threaten him, and Jongdae cannot help but place his arm back on its place on the cold wall. He hears the glass door move on its hinges; he wants to think those are hinges, because he cannot think of proper space equivalents for noises the mechanisms are making.
There is a certain presence in the room, something or, more likely, someone moving the vibrant air inside the cubicle, and Jongdae really wants to open his eyes but the lighting becomes unbearably bright for his unprotected human eyes; he frowns, ignoring ache in his temples and the request, reflexively lifts his palm to cover his face in protection.
Do not move.
He wants to ask the voice the reason why he is not allowed to move his limbs, silently pleads the voice to remove the lighting, keeping his hand plastered to his eyelids; his skin feels waxen, frozen to the touch. It is a moment later when the light gradually subsides and he can finally open his eyes, hand near his face; curiosity burning through his veins, Jongdae locks eyes with a human looking naked creature in the center of the room. Without his eye contacts, Jongdae has to squint to be able to see clearly, for his blurry vision presents him awry image.
It has got dark eyes. Nice features to its human face. Messy black hair flowing in curling locks down its pale shoulders and back. Fit figure of a growing young man, a flock of pubic hair around its human genitals, long legs with thick thighs. This is a young healthy human being looking out of place, too human to Jongdae’s liking, years of watching unsolved cases about people of so-called weird appearances get closed and sent to archives. He frowns, staring, narrowed eyes suspicious.
You cannot leave this room.
‘Are you human’, Jongdae silently asks, knowing that the man can hear his internal voice. ‘Where am I?’ ‘What is this place?’ ‘What are you going to do to me?’
The man renders him with no reply, motionless in front of his restricted prisoner. Jongdae cannot tell if the man or creature is looking straight at him because his bad eyesight is affected by the unusual lighting; he tries raising his left arm, fingers waving at his opponent just to try and spot a reaction, finding his limbs filled with strength he was not noticing before.
If you move, you bring trouble.
Now it is clear that this young man is strangely trying to warn him with the way he carefully throws a glance behind his back; his movements are void of flexibility, his whole torso straining as he makes an attempt at looking behind his back, long hair streaming in waves of velvet red over his shoulder blades.
‘There is something funky about all of this’, Jongdae thinks. His senses are starting to come back, and the part of his brain responsible for fear has definitely woken up, ringing alarms; suddenly, he feels intimidated and scared by this creature, the room, the situation and… the lighting. Seemingly coming out of nowhere, the oranges and browns start intensifying again, hurting his eyes, painting the wary motionless man in the front a deep red shade.
*Jongdae is now aware of his own nakedness; his body, previously not acknowledged by his consciousness, covered in cold perspiration, is trembling from the temperatures barely above zero degree. He starts thrashing in an attempt to release himself, and ends up almost falling off his invisible perch on the wall, caught by the intimidating man on time right before his face collides with the floor, patterned like marble.
“Just do what he says to do, it is fine,” propelled by the naked man against the cold surface, Jongdae can actually hear the boy whisper into his hair now, a foreign accent to his tone; what seemed to be a dialogue inside his head turns out to be him unconsciously having an actual conversation with this strange man. Seconds later, Jongdae does feel his tongue move, heavy in his mouth like a cotton pad.
“What happened to me?” His voice sounds hoarse and weak, but audible enough to make the boy holding him make a pained effort to look behind his back again, dark eyes scanning the corridor. “Was I out for long? Were we abducted by aliens? Where is Junmyeon?”
“He wants to get you,” the male gives him a curt reply, huffing as he plasters Jongdae’s unresponsive body back to the wall. He quickly rearranges Jongdae’s limbs while the weak man warily pays more attention to the setting inside the room, eyes struggling.
The light, which seemed to be coming out of nowhere just minutes ago, is clearly breaking through the simple counter ceiling above their heads and panels on the walls. Floor not patterned like marble, but simply being actual marble. Glass of the door being real glass. Realizing his vulnerable position, Jongdae struggles against the other man, but in vain. Eyes filled with tears from being exposed to bright irritating orange hue of the cubicle, Jongdae feels a chill run down his spine as he grabs for the naked man in the room, desperate.
“What is going on here? Who wants to get me? What the hell is going on? You must tell me,” he demands, his body cold and hot at the same time, fear burning through his veins like liquid alloy.
“He,” the boy moves away from him, pulling on the last restraint to secure his right wrist; Jongdae licks the sweat off his upper lip as he throws quick evaluating stares at the belts on his arms and legs, not sure if they were there before. This is not alien abduction.
This is kidnapping of an investigator in clear attempt to dispose of evidence.
“Agent Kim, I hope you do not mind my borrowing you from another exciting sighting place. Clearly, it would have brought you as much new information on spacey green people or yeti as our other five hundred previous cases. Meaning, zero.”
Jongdae feels dizzy, unprepared for the too familiar voice to cut through the cloudy speed of his thinking.
“I personally asked our sweet new intern to secretly play a little role of an alien hooman and he showed himself splendidly, thank you very much, Yixing, I will raise the subject of your promotion at the next management board meeting. Please, you can dress yourself now, sorry for making you wait in the cold,” out of the corner of his eye, Jongdae can see the weird guy smile awkwardly and bow low, his long hair falling over his embarrassed face, before he quickly runs out of the door, any discomfort in his body forgotten.
“Sorry for making a fool out you, Jongdae, but you believed this whole facade so eagerly I did not have the heart to tell you it was all just a small joke. Had a nice day in your dreamland?" Jongdae stops squinting, unwilling to recognize the blurry face of the man he has been working with for a year, sharing stories and food, trusting him without a second thought.
"Well, finally, something fun from me. Now you will not be able to say that I have zero sense of humor," Junmyeon breathes into Jongdae’s face, smelling of his usual minty mouthwash, as he leans over to leer at him. But despite the abstract situation, his naked vulnerable state and Junmyeon’s clear show of hatred towards him, Jongdae still lets a bitter crooked smile appear in his face.
“You wanted to humiliate me but still brushed your teeth before coming here to show me my place? Ever worried to end up the butt of my jokes, even in your own triumph,” he croaks, hating himself for how hurt he feels over this sort of betrayal by the colleague he truly treasured. He sees the leer slide off Junmyeon’s face, prepares himself for a possible punch that never happens, silently cursing Junmyeon for not giving him more reasons to hate him.
“I participated in the latest management board. The issued order stated your inefficiency as a special cases investigator and was brought to my attention as the party responsible for your dismissal. Simply to say, we are getting rid of you, Agent Kim.”
Adrenalin pumping through his veins, heart rate drumming, Jongdae closes his eyes and sees Junmyeon scream after a wave of blinding white light hits the two of them.
After that, all he sees is red.
*
Title: truth is out there (AO3 mirror)
Rating: R
Focus: OT3
Length: 2.3k
Summary: The truth is out there, but each has got their own truth they are searching for.
Warning: horror.
Notes: X-Files AU is as appropriate as ever. Rip it while it's ripe!
a big hooman thank you to J, who endured my wails of struggle and pain over writing this story.
*His eyes open to everything orange, long eyelashes tangled and covered in ice crust. There is freezing cold liquid dripping down his forehead in two steady trickles, droplets burning his irises, as he tries to gulp as much cold air as possible, his chest echoing with great ache.
Jongdae tries to move his arm to wipe the annoying water from his face, tries to turn his neck to prevent the tiny waterfalls from seeping through sweaty hair plastered to his forehead, but in vain: he finds himself caged in his own body, unable to move a muscle.
Futile effort to open his mouth and scream, a useless attempt at uttering groans of pain, as his body continues to wake up, the feeling of being prickled with thousand needles at once bursts through his back, legs and arms.
Jongdae somehow knows that he has just woken up from the deepest sleep, remembers seeing the most vivid dreams about weird naked creatures, unrecognized planets miles and miles away from Earth with nature so unimaginable he can hardly pick names for plants and animals he noticed.
He understands that something must be very wrong with his nervous system when tips of his fingers begin to hurt. His heartbeat rises and he feels faint, as the agony runs through his whole body.
Long crusty eyelashes tremble and Jongdae is not awake again.
*Now he wakes up to everything red. He does not know what measurements for time are appropriate in his current state of being, but he wants to think in hours, because now, hours later after shuttering pain attack, his body actually feels like his own.
With no water dripping down from above, Jongdae carefully attempts to blink and with great relief discovers that the muscles in his face are moving on his accord. His hair, no longer plastered to his forehead, has been slicked up; the gooey substance is pleasantly cool on his scalp, but he still thinks that slime is its only appropriate title.
Worrying that his efforts may induce another painful war between his mind and body, persistent in everything, Jongdae still tries to move his stiff neck; slowly, he manages to turn his subtly aching head to the right side.
What his unaccustomed eyes recognized as blazing red at first, is actually turning out to be hues of dirty oranges and browns. He makes a vain attempt at frowning, but his temples resound with unexpected pain, excess slime drying and pulling on his tender skin.
The cubicle where Jongdae finds himself to be plastered to the wall seemingly with no ropes or any other special mechanisms has a single glass door which leads to another corridor of same sun colours, as much as his bloodshot eyes could see.
Diffused lighting of the room makes his eyelids droop, affecting his weak eyesight, making the blurry seem even hazier: as if he has been dumped into a bucket of water, Jongdae realizes that his eye contacts were not gone the first time when he woke up.
How long has he been asleep?
*The lighting has been changing and increasing in brightness, and Jongdae cannot help himself as he is forced to try and squeeze his eyelids even tighter. He is hours into sleepless mindless existence, seemingly void of such feelings as hunger and primal needs for his body seems to be still hibernating, heart slowed down to a few bits a minute.
In such a hanging state, Jongdae is stripped of his ability to think straight. His memories are too few; he remembers the quarters, Junmyeon’s pale serious face as they were called in for emergency by Agent Park, seemingly endless drive to the place of sighting, running out of the car together, hurried and uncareful… watching Junmyeon scream after a wave of blinding white light hit them.
Is it finally happening? Were they abducted? After so many years of looking for answers, getting lost when trying to find the right questions, becoming even more confused over the discovered evidence… Is this really happening to him?
But the most worrying part that continues to keep Jongdae awake is where Junmyeon is. Is he alright? He hopes Junmyeon is safe otherwise he will not be able to forgive himself if something bad happens to his colleague; after all, they got themselves into that investigation on Jongdae’s whim.
One cannot end up unperturbed when the matter touches upon the subject of national safety, Junmyeon says this phrase a lot, as much as Jongdae likes to roll his eyes at the pompous wording, the subject of possible detection of alien life is what makes Jongdae continue his work from day to day, eager and sometimes uncaring in his obsession over truth.
He is to blame for all of this. Jongdae feels his heart stutter and does not notice when he falls asleep yet again.
*Minutes, days or years pass when Jongdae suddenly startles awake to a chunk of goo sliding down his cheek. The substance does not absorb his body warmth, continuing to draw its cold path down to his jaw. As the drop wakes his sleeping body with a sharp ticklish feeling, he notices how responsive his muscles feel under his cold skin. Jongdae tries to move his hand yet again, determined to wipe the irritant away; his heartbeat rises as his elbow picks up from the wall.
No.
Firm voice rings inside his head, a warning; it sounds like a request, yes it does not threaten him, and Jongdae cannot help but place his arm back on its place on the cold wall. He hears the glass door move on its hinges; he wants to think those are hinges, because he cannot think of proper space equivalents for noises the mechanisms are making.
There is a certain presence in the room, something or, more likely, someone moving the vibrant air inside the cubicle, and Jongdae really wants to open his eyes but the lighting becomes unbearably bright for his unprotected human eyes; he frowns, ignoring ache in his temples and the request, reflexively lifts his palm to cover his face in protection.
Do not move.
He wants to ask the voice the reason why he is not allowed to move his limbs, silently pleads the voice to remove the lighting, keeping his hand plastered to his eyelids; his skin feels waxen, frozen to the touch. It is a moment later when the light gradually subsides and he can finally open his eyes, hand near his face; curiosity burning through his veins, Jongdae locks eyes with a human looking naked creature in the center of the room. Without his eye contacts, Jongdae has to squint to be able to see clearly, for his blurry vision presents him awry image.
It has got dark eyes. Nice features to its human face. Messy black hair flowing in curling locks down its pale shoulders and back. Fit figure of a growing young man, a flock of pubic hair around its human genitals, long legs with thick thighs. This is a young healthy human being looking out of place, too human to Jongdae’s liking, years of watching unsolved cases about people of so-called weird appearances get closed and sent to archives. He frowns, staring, narrowed eyes suspicious.
You cannot leave this room.
‘Are you human’, Jongdae silently asks, knowing that the man can hear his internal voice. ‘Where am I?’ ‘What is this place?’ ‘What are you going to do to me?’
The man renders him with no reply, motionless in front of his restricted prisoner. Jongdae cannot tell if the man or creature is looking straight at him because his bad eyesight is affected by the unusual lighting; he tries raising his left arm, fingers waving at his opponent just to try and spot a reaction, finding his limbs filled with strength he was not noticing before.
If you move, you bring trouble.
Now it is clear that this young man is strangely trying to warn him with the way he carefully throws a glance behind his back; his movements are void of flexibility, his whole torso straining as he makes an attempt at looking behind his back, long hair streaming in waves of velvet red over his shoulder blades.
‘There is something funky about all of this’, Jongdae thinks. His senses are starting to come back, and the part of his brain responsible for fear has definitely woken up, ringing alarms; suddenly, he feels intimidated and scared by this creature, the room, the situation and… the lighting. Seemingly coming out of nowhere, the oranges and browns start intensifying again, hurting his eyes, painting the wary motionless man in the front a deep red shade.
*Jongdae is now aware of his own nakedness; his body, previously not acknowledged by his consciousness, covered in cold perspiration, is trembling from the temperatures barely above zero degree. He starts thrashing in an attempt to release himself, and ends up almost falling off his invisible perch on the wall, caught by the intimidating man on time right before his face collides with the floor, patterned like marble.
“Just do what he says to do, it is fine,” propelled by the naked man against the cold surface, Jongdae can actually hear the boy whisper into his hair now, a foreign accent to his tone; what seemed to be a dialogue inside his head turns out to be him unconsciously having an actual conversation with this strange man. Seconds later, Jongdae does feel his tongue move, heavy in his mouth like a cotton pad.
“What happened to me?” His voice sounds hoarse and weak, but audible enough to make the boy holding him make a pained effort to look behind his back again, dark eyes scanning the corridor. “Was I out for long? Were we abducted by aliens? Where is Junmyeon?”
“He wants to get you,” the male gives him a curt reply, huffing as he plasters Jongdae’s unresponsive body back to the wall. He quickly rearranges Jongdae’s limbs while the weak man warily pays more attention to the setting inside the room, eyes struggling.
The light, which seemed to be coming out of nowhere just minutes ago, is clearly breaking through the simple counter ceiling above their heads and panels on the walls. Floor not patterned like marble, but simply being actual marble. Glass of the door being real glass. Realizing his vulnerable position, Jongdae struggles against the other man, but in vain. Eyes filled with tears from being exposed to bright irritating orange hue of the cubicle, Jongdae feels a chill run down his spine as he grabs for the naked man in the room, desperate.
“What is going on here? Who wants to get me? What the hell is going on? You must tell me,” he demands, his body cold and hot at the same time, fear burning through his veins like liquid alloy.
“He,” the boy moves away from him, pulling on the last restraint to secure his right wrist; Jongdae licks the sweat off his upper lip as he throws quick evaluating stares at the belts on his arms and legs, not sure if they were there before. This is not alien abduction.
This is kidnapping of an investigator in clear attempt to dispose of evidence.
“Agent Kim, I hope you do not mind my borrowing you from another exciting sighting place. Clearly, it would have brought you as much new information on spacey green people or yeti as our other five hundred previous cases. Meaning, zero.”
Jongdae feels dizzy, unprepared for the too familiar voice to cut through the cloudy speed of his thinking.
“I personally asked our sweet new intern to secretly play a little role of an alien hooman and he showed himself splendidly, thank you very much, Yixing, I will raise the subject of your promotion at the next management board meeting. Please, you can dress yourself now, sorry for making you wait in the cold,” out of the corner of his eye, Jongdae can see the weird guy smile awkwardly and bow low, his long hair falling over his embarrassed face, before he quickly runs out of the door, any discomfort in his body forgotten.
“Sorry for making a fool out you, Jongdae, but you believed this whole facade so eagerly I did not have the heart to tell you it was all just a small joke. Had a nice day in your dreamland?" Jongdae stops squinting, unwilling to recognize the blurry face of the man he has been working with for a year, sharing stories and food, trusting him without a second thought.
"Well, finally, something fun from me. Now you will not be able to say that I have zero sense of humor," Junmyeon breathes into Jongdae’s face, smelling of his usual minty mouthwash, as he leans over to leer at him. But despite the abstract situation, his naked vulnerable state and Junmyeon’s clear show of hatred towards him, Jongdae still lets a bitter crooked smile appear in his face.
“You wanted to humiliate me but still brushed your teeth before coming here to show me my place? Ever worried to end up the butt of my jokes, even in your own triumph,” he croaks, hating himself for how hurt he feels over this sort of betrayal by the colleague he truly treasured. He sees the leer slide off Junmyeon’s face, prepares himself for a possible punch that never happens, silently cursing Junmyeon for not giving him more reasons to hate him.
“I participated in the latest management board. The issued order stated your inefficiency as a special cases investigator and was brought to my attention as the party responsible for your dismissal. Simply to say, we are getting rid of you, Agent Kim.”
Adrenalin pumping through his veins, heart rate drumming, Jongdae closes his eyes and sees Junmyeon scream after a wave of blinding white light hits the two of them.
After that, all he sees is red.
*