[Fic] The Dragon and The Phoenix - Part 2
[Fic] The Dragon and The Phoenix
[Fandom] DBSK [Pairing] Yunho/Changmin
[Rating] PG-13. [Genre] AU, Sci-fi, Action, Romance.
[Summary] Yunho and Changmin are partners fighting against the android horde.
The Dragon and The Phoenix
Changmin is there at the hatch to meet Yunho.
Yunho pushes up his visor and glares at the other man. "What the hell was that?!" he shouts now that he's in the clear.
Changmin glares. "I did exactly what you told me to." His tone is cold.
"You almost dropped a smoke bomb on me. I couldn't see shit!"
"Well I'm sorry I can't control the wind!"
"Yeah? Then what about running me that close to them?"
At the other end of the room, the rest of the team watches them go at it.
"Shouldn't we break them up?" Henry suggests cautiously, but everyone just shrugs. He's the newbie on the immediate support team, only promoted to his position a couple of weeks ago. Confused, he looks from person to person, but none of them seem interested in breaking up the impending fight.
Beside Henry, Kyuhyun chuckles. “No, just leave them be.”
"Fuck you, Jung," Changmin hisses, and that's how the conversation ends, with him and Yunho storming off in opposite directions right after.
“You’re in the room next to theirs, right?” Kyuhyun asks Henry, a perverse grin on his face.
Henry cocks his head to the side. “Yeah, why?”
"Oh, just wondering.”
------
Yunho sits on the roof of the base and takes a swig of beer. The night sky is tainted with a red haze. It's been that way since his birth. He's seen old footage of deep black dotted with tiny white specks and a single pearly orb, but he doubts it will ever be that way again.
There's an unopened beer at his side. How nice that the military understands exactly what kind of rations they need.
Yunho hears the door to the roof open and close, but he doesn't even turn his head to look. Changmin sits down next to him and takes the extra beer without a word.
The first few minutes are tense but silent. They play tag with furtive glances, one looking over at the other before their gaze darts back to the red sky. Eventually Changmin gets tired of the game and sighs before turning his attention to popping the cap on beer. Yunho watches him tilts his head back and drink down the still-chilled beer out of the corner of his eye. His gaze wanders from the other man's eyes and down to lips pressed around the round opening of the bottle. He gulps and looks away. Changmin pulls the beer away and lets out a content "ahh."
"Nice night, huh?" Yunho jokes.
Changmin scoffs. "As long as it's not another 3 am mission, I'll take it." They're talking again. Yunho relaxes his shoulders and shifts a little closer. Changmin doesn't move, wordlessly permitting the invasion of his space. They're both really such typical stupid guys, unable to communicate their emotions forwardly.
But even though Changmin is still awkward about saying things like "I love you," even in private, it's not hard to understand him. He sits with Yunho in the med bay when he needs stitches after combat, insistent on being there even though Yunho is used to a little wear and tear. And he's always watching during battle. Always. Every vital sign that the armor can monitor, he sees. Every enemy on the field. Every tactic, every possibility.
"You wanna quit?" Yunho asks. Another joke.
"No," comes the usual reply. Changmin looks straight at him, eyes full of the emotions he can't vocalize. "I don't trust anyone else to do the job."
"Good." Yunho smiles and leans forward. "Me neither." They kiss, long and slow, soft and sweet.
------
The threat of android attack has been around since before either Yunho or Changmin was born. They learned all about the history of the war at the academy, and then promptly forgot it. All Changmin remembers is that it’s been roughly forty years.
At sixteen, Changmin graduated from secondary education early. It wasn't a particularly spectacular feat; these days the military is hurting for fresh blood, and the government does all they can to push them out faster. The coursework is easier, and more kids skip grades. The government allows them to do their mandatory service early, and most of the early graduates do.
Following graduation, Changmin entered the military academy. His parents weren't pleased, but during times of war it's all expenses paid, and he couldn't argue with a full-ride scholarship. His father was a teacher, but he didn't make as much after the government had cut his pay in line with their policy of favoring the war effort over education. He knew his parents preferred more academic pursuits, but he didn't really know what to do with his life, and most occupations, even civilian ones, revolved around the war anyway.
At orientation, the training officers took one look at him, tall but scrawny-looking, and immediately placed him into support instead of soldier. He used that to appease his parents, saying that he wouldn't be doing the direct fighting on the field. It only half-worked.
He met Yunho four days after settling into the dorms. Yunho was five doors down the hall, had been training for two years, and that day they just happened to pass by each other. Changmin often walked with his eyes on the ground, shoulders hunched like he was exhausted, and that day he saw a pair of sneakers come into view on his way to the bathroom.
"Wait." Yunho placed a hand on Changmin's shoulder as they crossed. Changmin flinched, looked at the hand first, then the face. The expression he was met with was stern.
Yunho dropped his hand back to his side. "If you're gonna give up, then just do it now. There's no room here for a pretty boy who just wants to mess around." He walked off. Changmin stared after him with wide, disbelieving eyes.
Once he got over his shock, Changmin stormed away in the opposite direction. Who did that guy think he was? He seethed. He was probably some hotshot soldier-in-training who thought he was superior for being put on the field. Another dumbass who thought a little more muscle was all the military needed.
He raged about the incident to Kyuhyun, his new roommate and friend, later that night, but secretly, he was just a little flustered too. No one had ever in his life called him pretty.
------
The morning after the mission, Changmin and Yunho enter the strategy room together, but they quickly split apart without a word or glance to one another.
Changmin wanders over to Henry and greets him first. “Good morning,” Henry replies, nodding his head slightly. He rubs at his neck, face feeling hot all of a sudden.
"Are you okay, Henry?" Changmin asks the newbie. His face is all red. An allergic reaction perhaps? Food allergens should have been recorded on the officer profile and checked by the staff before ordering rations, but mistakes happen sometimes. He hopes it’s not serious.
Behind Changmin, Kyuhyun laughs. He comes around and hooks an arm around Henry's neck, reeling him closer.
"Aw he's okay,” Kyunhyun explains. “I think you forgot why no one wanted that room though." Next to them, Yunho is busy going over the armor status with Donghae and Eunhyuk, the two in charge of mechanical and electrical repairs, respectively, while the convoy is mobile. The pair pause and snicker at Yunho's expense, but with one stern look, they get back to business.
Kyuhyun turns back to Changmin, whose ears have turned as red as Henry's face.
"Oh, I see," Changmin replies, completely at a loss. "C-carry on then." He turns and walks off somewhere.
Henry turns to Kyuhyun and frowns. "You didn't have to do that."
Kyuhyun shrugs. "He's fun to tease. Also, it’s payback for when they made me bunk with Sungmin until I could get my own room far away from them."
A half hour later, the team gathers to go over the status of the convoy. Fuel, food, and the latest mission are discussed. Yunho and Changmin are seated next to each other, and somehow Henry's gaze keeps wandering back to them.
The self-tunneling bombs were detonated at 2200 hours last night. One failed. The internal sensors in the drills reported unusually dense material, too tough to be simple compacted dirt, at a depth of roughly 100 meters. Since the requisition team hasn't gotten to the site yet, they have no idea what the androids were guarding. Changmin voices his earlier concern that there were only basic types on the field. Their presence suggests either a decoy sent by the androids higher in rank, the ones built with superior AI, or that whatever was bombed was not of great importance.
Yunho and Changmin don't speak a word to each other the entire meeting. There are some reports to sign off on, and Yunho slides them over without so much as a glance while Changmin receives them with the same kind of nonchalance.
They don’t seem like the two making love last night, their joined movements rattling otherwise silent walls and intimate words coming through them muffled but full of passion. Still, they're not the same as yesterday afternoon either, openly getting in each other's faces and spitting venom. He's been with the team for only two weeks, but Henry is still surprised that he overlooked a relationship with so much fire.
Then again, they seem to make great efforts to temper the flames while working. Once the meeting is over, Changmin simply nods to Yunho, then gets up out of his seat and walks away with Kyuhyun to discuss a software upgrade for the console room.
By lunch, Henry finds a bag of earplugs hanging off his doorknob.
------
Changmin had always been the shy, quiet kind of kid, but that had also made him observant when it came to people. One of his instructors figured this out early on and decided to train him as a strategist, one of the categories included under the umbrella term support. He spent several hours a day analyzing footage of androids, breaking down how they interacted and what their AIs were like. The military often takes wrecked androids off the field and tries to decipher how they're programmed, but even the basic ones have so many variables and communicate over network so incessantly that they can't predict anything with great certainty.
Androids are not built with the same ideology as humans. After nine months of gestation and a couple decades of education, a person is considered ready for work, but even getting to adulthood is a huge investment of resources. Conversely, lower-level androids like the ones they fought are machined and wired up in four days. They are kept simple-minded and designed with ease of manufacturability in mind. As a result, they are both numerous and disposable.
Their superiors take longer to make, with stronger metal, better joints, and a more robust AI program, but the time to go from scrap to functioning machine is still nothing compared to a human. The list of advantages go on and on. The ability to mold new parts out of metal salvaged from deactivated androids. Their frames are stronger than bone. They-
"Stop, stop," Yunho had interjected when Changmin was trying to explain all of this one night. They were in Yunho's room at the academy, his roommate Donghae off pulling some prank he'd later be disciplined for. Months before that, Changmin had come to conclusion that Yunho was not so much of a egotist as a perfectionist who held everyone else to the same high standards as his own self. He had been stressed and disappointed by friends leaving at the time he had met Changmin, and he had since smoothed things over by sneaking his dongsaeng extra rations for a week. Bribery had always been a great icebreaker, after all.
Changmin frowned. "But I wasn't finished."
"You're making me depressed," Yunho whined. "How are we supposed to win against them?" He sighed and fell backwards on his bed.
"It's not that bad," Changmin replied with a shrug. "The bulk of their population isn't that intelligent. They're kept dumb because it's easier to pump them out." The androids try to make up for it by networking, but in Changmin's opinion, that's like making ten monkeys type out Shakespeare instead of one.
"Even the higher levels lack the ability to innovate," Changmin told Yunho. Some can add new variables, new choices, as they're observed, but the androids don't do R&D, and they don't hypothesize or experiment. Their intellect is just well-practiced mimicry.
"They often copy our tech, but wide scale implementation takes months."
Yunho scratched his head. "So you're saying we have to stay one step ahead?"
Changmin nodded. "That's how we win."
------
The team decides to stop off at a nearby military base to restock on rations and fuel. Their travels are unpredictable, and Yunho considers these base visits to be the closes thing to a relaxing weekend. Cities have cropped up around all the major bases as civilians flock to be near them. Humans have been increasingly forced to evacuate remote areas due to lack of security. Many have abandoned farms, and as a result, food scarcity has become a larger issue as of late.
Yunho pushes all of that aside and tries to focus on the bright side instead. The cities aren’t as glamorous as he’s been told they were during peace time, but it’s still preferable to the endless sea of desert they’ve been driving through for the past day and a half. And besides, it’s not like his convoy is any sort of amusement park.
He finds Changmin is in the console room. When they’re mobile, Changmin spends very little time in his own quarters. He sleeps in Yunho’s room, the two of them pressed together on a tiny twin-sized bed, and when he’s got free time, he prefers the console room.
The console room is Changmin’s space. He’s the only one who knows the controls, and he’s the only person who ever needs to be in here. Yunho knows Changmin has installed all sorts of unauthorized software on the computer there, mainly video games to play with Kyuhyun.
There’s also porn, lots of porn.
“Really, in the middle of the day?” Yunho asks, watching with mild interest. The man on screen slaps his partner on the ass hard enough to make a loud crack, but the other man just throws his head back and moans.
Changmin shrugs. “Wasn’t that interesting anyway.” He closes the window to prove his point.
“We’re two hours out from the base,” Yunho informs as he ambles over to the console. Changmin purposefully slides his elbow off the edge of the armrest to allow Yunho to come up to him and lean against it.
“How long are we staying?” Changmin asks. He switches the screen to something far more mundane, a map showing the convoy’s route and estimated remaining time.
Yunho drapes an arm across Changmin’s shoulders and leans. He curls his hand so that the tips of his fingers brush against the other man’s collar. “Well…” When they ghost against skin, he hears Changmin’s breathing hitch. “The convoy is due for an inspection,” Yunho considers aloud, “so I’ve got that scheduled while we refuel. It’ll probably take a day and a half at least.”
Changmin leans into Yunho’s touch and hums his approval at their schedule. They’ve already done the debriefing for their last mission, so they should get some much-needed free time to roam the city. “Have something in mind?” he asks, although it’s more of a statement. Yunho’s fingers have ventured further down his shirt, running over the expanse of his chest.
Yunho smiles innocently when Changmin gasps at the flick of his nipple. “I was hoping you’d like the aquarium,” he says with a cheeky grin before spinning around and straddling Changmin in the chair, his split legs hanging over either armrest. “But in the meantime, we’ve got a couple of hours to kill.”
As expected, they’re deployed as soon as they clear inspection. The whole process takes three days instead of one and a half, and Yunho suspects that the combined efforts of Changmin and Kyuhyun were behind the mysterious cat screensaver malware that had suddenly spread on all the convoy machines and delayed their launch.
Still, it is a welcome respite for the crew, Yunho included. Lately they’ve been traveling directly from mission to mission, stopping off at minor military bases only to refuel and resupply. He knows it wears on the crew, but luckily, they are a close-knit bunch.
Yunho spends his extra time, of course, with Changmin. Sometimes they fight about work-related issues in their personal lives, and every so often their private skirmishes will bleed into their jobs, but as soon as he steps off the convoy, he feels everything but anticipation lift off of him. He and Changmin tour the city, stopping in to the aquarium to see sea turtles and human-engineered goldfish with see-through skin. They eat food, good food, then settle into a plush queen-sized bed at a three-star hotel at night.
The three day break passes like a dream, and he’s back on the road sooner than he’d like. They’re given orders as soon as they’ve passed inspection. After launch, Changmin locks himself in the console room for an hour or two. He always does this, claiming he needs to reacquaint himself with the controls and make sure no one has touched his stuff, but in reality, it’s to hide his melancholy. Civilian life, although often teetering on the verge of martial law, is so peaceful in comparison to what they’ve got.
The next mission is out in the desert again. On one hand, Yunho is glad civilians will be out of the way, but on the other, being limited by battery power always makes him nervous. The cities have inductive charging built into their infrastructure, which would give him precious additional time, but the government doesn't bother installing such technology where there aren't clusters of people.
--- The Dragon and The Phoenix |1|2|3|4|---
[Fandom] DBSK [Pairing] Yunho/Changmin
[Rating] PG-13. [Genre] AU, Sci-fi, Action, Romance.
[Summary] Yunho and Changmin are partners fighting against the android horde.
The Dragon and The Phoenix
Changmin is there at the hatch to meet Yunho.
Yunho pushes up his visor and glares at the other man. "What the hell was that?!" he shouts now that he's in the clear.
Changmin glares. "I did exactly what you told me to." His tone is cold.
"You almost dropped a smoke bomb on me. I couldn't see shit!"
"Well I'm sorry I can't control the wind!"
"Yeah? Then what about running me that close to them?"
At the other end of the room, the rest of the team watches them go at it.
"Shouldn't we break them up?" Henry suggests cautiously, but everyone just shrugs. He's the newbie on the immediate support team, only promoted to his position a couple of weeks ago. Confused, he looks from person to person, but none of them seem interested in breaking up the impending fight.
Beside Henry, Kyuhyun chuckles. “No, just leave them be.”
"Fuck you, Jung," Changmin hisses, and that's how the conversation ends, with him and Yunho storming off in opposite directions right after.
“You’re in the room next to theirs, right?” Kyuhyun asks Henry, a perverse grin on his face.
Henry cocks his head to the side. “Yeah, why?”
"Oh, just wondering.”
------
Yunho sits on the roof of the base and takes a swig of beer. The night sky is tainted with a red haze. It's been that way since his birth. He's seen old footage of deep black dotted with tiny white specks and a single pearly orb, but he doubts it will ever be that way again.
There's an unopened beer at his side. How nice that the military understands exactly what kind of rations they need.
Yunho hears the door to the roof open and close, but he doesn't even turn his head to look. Changmin sits down next to him and takes the extra beer without a word.
The first few minutes are tense but silent. They play tag with furtive glances, one looking over at the other before their gaze darts back to the red sky. Eventually Changmin gets tired of the game and sighs before turning his attention to popping the cap on beer. Yunho watches him tilts his head back and drink down the still-chilled beer out of the corner of his eye. His gaze wanders from the other man's eyes and down to lips pressed around the round opening of the bottle. He gulps and looks away. Changmin pulls the beer away and lets out a content "ahh."
"Nice night, huh?" Yunho jokes.
Changmin scoffs. "As long as it's not another 3 am mission, I'll take it." They're talking again. Yunho relaxes his shoulders and shifts a little closer. Changmin doesn't move, wordlessly permitting the invasion of his space. They're both really such typical stupid guys, unable to communicate their emotions forwardly.
But even though Changmin is still awkward about saying things like "I love you," even in private, it's not hard to understand him. He sits with Yunho in the med bay when he needs stitches after combat, insistent on being there even though Yunho is used to a little wear and tear. And he's always watching during battle. Always. Every vital sign that the armor can monitor, he sees. Every enemy on the field. Every tactic, every possibility.
"You wanna quit?" Yunho asks. Another joke.
"No," comes the usual reply. Changmin looks straight at him, eyes full of the emotions he can't vocalize. "I don't trust anyone else to do the job."
"Good." Yunho smiles and leans forward. "Me neither." They kiss, long and slow, soft and sweet.
------
The threat of android attack has been around since before either Yunho or Changmin was born. They learned all about the history of the war at the academy, and then promptly forgot it. All Changmin remembers is that it’s been roughly forty years.
At sixteen, Changmin graduated from secondary education early. It wasn't a particularly spectacular feat; these days the military is hurting for fresh blood, and the government does all they can to push them out faster. The coursework is easier, and more kids skip grades. The government allows them to do their mandatory service early, and most of the early graduates do.
Following graduation, Changmin entered the military academy. His parents weren't pleased, but during times of war it's all expenses paid, and he couldn't argue with a full-ride scholarship. His father was a teacher, but he didn't make as much after the government had cut his pay in line with their policy of favoring the war effort over education. He knew his parents preferred more academic pursuits, but he didn't really know what to do with his life, and most occupations, even civilian ones, revolved around the war anyway.
At orientation, the training officers took one look at him, tall but scrawny-looking, and immediately placed him into support instead of soldier. He used that to appease his parents, saying that he wouldn't be doing the direct fighting on the field. It only half-worked.
He met Yunho four days after settling into the dorms. Yunho was five doors down the hall, had been training for two years, and that day they just happened to pass by each other. Changmin often walked with his eyes on the ground, shoulders hunched like he was exhausted, and that day he saw a pair of sneakers come into view on his way to the bathroom.
"Wait." Yunho placed a hand on Changmin's shoulder as they crossed. Changmin flinched, looked at the hand first, then the face. The expression he was met with was stern.
Yunho dropped his hand back to his side. "If you're gonna give up, then just do it now. There's no room here for a pretty boy who just wants to mess around." He walked off. Changmin stared after him with wide, disbelieving eyes.
Once he got over his shock, Changmin stormed away in the opposite direction. Who did that guy think he was? He seethed. He was probably some hotshot soldier-in-training who thought he was superior for being put on the field. Another dumbass who thought a little more muscle was all the military needed.
He raged about the incident to Kyuhyun, his new roommate and friend, later that night, but secretly, he was just a little flustered too. No one had ever in his life called him pretty.
------
The morning after the mission, Changmin and Yunho enter the strategy room together, but they quickly split apart without a word or glance to one another.
Changmin wanders over to Henry and greets him first. “Good morning,” Henry replies, nodding his head slightly. He rubs at his neck, face feeling hot all of a sudden.
"Are you okay, Henry?" Changmin asks the newbie. His face is all red. An allergic reaction perhaps? Food allergens should have been recorded on the officer profile and checked by the staff before ordering rations, but mistakes happen sometimes. He hopes it’s not serious.
Behind Changmin, Kyuhyun laughs. He comes around and hooks an arm around Henry's neck, reeling him closer.
"Aw he's okay,” Kyunhyun explains. “I think you forgot why no one wanted that room though." Next to them, Yunho is busy going over the armor status with Donghae and Eunhyuk, the two in charge of mechanical and electrical repairs, respectively, while the convoy is mobile. The pair pause and snicker at Yunho's expense, but with one stern look, they get back to business.
Kyuhyun turns back to Changmin, whose ears have turned as red as Henry's face.
"Oh, I see," Changmin replies, completely at a loss. "C-carry on then." He turns and walks off somewhere.
Henry turns to Kyuhyun and frowns. "You didn't have to do that."
Kyuhyun shrugs. "He's fun to tease. Also, it’s payback for when they made me bunk with Sungmin until I could get my own room far away from them."
A half hour later, the team gathers to go over the status of the convoy. Fuel, food, and the latest mission are discussed. Yunho and Changmin are seated next to each other, and somehow Henry's gaze keeps wandering back to them.
The self-tunneling bombs were detonated at 2200 hours last night. One failed. The internal sensors in the drills reported unusually dense material, too tough to be simple compacted dirt, at a depth of roughly 100 meters. Since the requisition team hasn't gotten to the site yet, they have no idea what the androids were guarding. Changmin voices his earlier concern that there were only basic types on the field. Their presence suggests either a decoy sent by the androids higher in rank, the ones built with superior AI, or that whatever was bombed was not of great importance.
Yunho and Changmin don't speak a word to each other the entire meeting. There are some reports to sign off on, and Yunho slides them over without so much as a glance while Changmin receives them with the same kind of nonchalance.
They don’t seem like the two making love last night, their joined movements rattling otherwise silent walls and intimate words coming through them muffled but full of passion. Still, they're not the same as yesterday afternoon either, openly getting in each other's faces and spitting venom. He's been with the team for only two weeks, but Henry is still surprised that he overlooked a relationship with so much fire.
Then again, they seem to make great efforts to temper the flames while working. Once the meeting is over, Changmin simply nods to Yunho, then gets up out of his seat and walks away with Kyuhyun to discuss a software upgrade for the console room.
By lunch, Henry finds a bag of earplugs hanging off his doorknob.
------
Changmin had always been the shy, quiet kind of kid, but that had also made him observant when it came to people. One of his instructors figured this out early on and decided to train him as a strategist, one of the categories included under the umbrella term support. He spent several hours a day analyzing footage of androids, breaking down how they interacted and what their AIs were like. The military often takes wrecked androids off the field and tries to decipher how they're programmed, but even the basic ones have so many variables and communicate over network so incessantly that they can't predict anything with great certainty.
Androids are not built with the same ideology as humans. After nine months of gestation and a couple decades of education, a person is considered ready for work, but even getting to adulthood is a huge investment of resources. Conversely, lower-level androids like the ones they fought are machined and wired up in four days. They are kept simple-minded and designed with ease of manufacturability in mind. As a result, they are both numerous and disposable.
Their superiors take longer to make, with stronger metal, better joints, and a more robust AI program, but the time to go from scrap to functioning machine is still nothing compared to a human. The list of advantages go on and on. The ability to mold new parts out of metal salvaged from deactivated androids. Their frames are stronger than bone. They-
"Stop, stop," Yunho had interjected when Changmin was trying to explain all of this one night. They were in Yunho's room at the academy, his roommate Donghae off pulling some prank he'd later be disciplined for. Months before that, Changmin had come to conclusion that Yunho was not so much of a egotist as a perfectionist who held everyone else to the same high standards as his own self. He had been stressed and disappointed by friends leaving at the time he had met Changmin, and he had since smoothed things over by sneaking his dongsaeng extra rations for a week. Bribery had always been a great icebreaker, after all.
Changmin frowned. "But I wasn't finished."
"You're making me depressed," Yunho whined. "How are we supposed to win against them?" He sighed and fell backwards on his bed.
"It's not that bad," Changmin replied with a shrug. "The bulk of their population isn't that intelligent. They're kept dumb because it's easier to pump them out." The androids try to make up for it by networking, but in Changmin's opinion, that's like making ten monkeys type out Shakespeare instead of one.
"Even the higher levels lack the ability to innovate," Changmin told Yunho. Some can add new variables, new choices, as they're observed, but the androids don't do R&D, and they don't hypothesize or experiment. Their intellect is just well-practiced mimicry.
"They often copy our tech, but wide scale implementation takes months."
Yunho scratched his head. "So you're saying we have to stay one step ahead?"
Changmin nodded. "That's how we win."
------
The team decides to stop off at a nearby military base to restock on rations and fuel. Their travels are unpredictable, and Yunho considers these base visits to be the closes thing to a relaxing weekend. Cities have cropped up around all the major bases as civilians flock to be near them. Humans have been increasingly forced to evacuate remote areas due to lack of security. Many have abandoned farms, and as a result, food scarcity has become a larger issue as of late.
Yunho pushes all of that aside and tries to focus on the bright side instead. The cities aren’t as glamorous as he’s been told they were during peace time, but it’s still preferable to the endless sea of desert they’ve been driving through for the past day and a half. And besides, it’s not like his convoy is any sort of amusement park.
He finds Changmin is in the console room. When they’re mobile, Changmin spends very little time in his own quarters. He sleeps in Yunho’s room, the two of them pressed together on a tiny twin-sized bed, and when he’s got free time, he prefers the console room.
The console room is Changmin’s space. He’s the only one who knows the controls, and he’s the only person who ever needs to be in here. Yunho knows Changmin has installed all sorts of unauthorized software on the computer there, mainly video games to play with Kyuhyun.
There’s also porn, lots of porn.
“Really, in the middle of the day?” Yunho asks, watching with mild interest. The man on screen slaps his partner on the ass hard enough to make a loud crack, but the other man just throws his head back and moans.
Changmin shrugs. “Wasn’t that interesting anyway.” He closes the window to prove his point.
“We’re two hours out from the base,” Yunho informs as he ambles over to the console. Changmin purposefully slides his elbow off the edge of the armrest to allow Yunho to come up to him and lean against it.
“How long are we staying?” Changmin asks. He switches the screen to something far more mundane, a map showing the convoy’s route and estimated remaining time.
Yunho drapes an arm across Changmin’s shoulders and leans. He curls his hand so that the tips of his fingers brush against the other man’s collar. “Well…” When they ghost against skin, he hears Changmin’s breathing hitch. “The convoy is due for an inspection,” Yunho considers aloud, “so I’ve got that scheduled while we refuel. It’ll probably take a day and a half at least.”
Changmin leans into Yunho’s touch and hums his approval at their schedule. They’ve already done the debriefing for their last mission, so they should get some much-needed free time to roam the city. “Have something in mind?” he asks, although it’s more of a statement. Yunho’s fingers have ventured further down his shirt, running over the expanse of his chest.
Yunho smiles innocently when Changmin gasps at the flick of his nipple. “I was hoping you’d like the aquarium,” he says with a cheeky grin before spinning around and straddling Changmin in the chair, his split legs hanging over either armrest. “But in the meantime, we’ve got a couple of hours to kill.”
As expected, they’re deployed as soon as they clear inspection. The whole process takes three days instead of one and a half, and Yunho suspects that the combined efforts of Changmin and Kyuhyun were behind the mysterious cat screensaver malware that had suddenly spread on all the convoy machines and delayed their launch.
Still, it is a welcome respite for the crew, Yunho included. Lately they’ve been traveling directly from mission to mission, stopping off at minor military bases only to refuel and resupply. He knows it wears on the crew, but luckily, they are a close-knit bunch.
Yunho spends his extra time, of course, with Changmin. Sometimes they fight about work-related issues in their personal lives, and every so often their private skirmishes will bleed into their jobs, but as soon as he steps off the convoy, he feels everything but anticipation lift off of him. He and Changmin tour the city, stopping in to the aquarium to see sea turtles and human-engineered goldfish with see-through skin. They eat food, good food, then settle into a plush queen-sized bed at a three-star hotel at night.
The three day break passes like a dream, and he’s back on the road sooner than he’d like. They’re given orders as soon as they’ve passed inspection. After launch, Changmin locks himself in the console room for an hour or two. He always does this, claiming he needs to reacquaint himself with the controls and make sure no one has touched his stuff, but in reality, it’s to hide his melancholy. Civilian life, although often teetering on the verge of martial law, is so peaceful in comparison to what they’ve got.
The next mission is out in the desert again. On one hand, Yunho is glad civilians will be out of the way, but on the other, being limited by battery power always makes him nervous. The cities have inductive charging built into their infrastructure, which would give him precious additional time, but the government doesn't bother installing such technology where there aren't clusters of people.
--- The Dragon and The Phoenix |1|2|3|4|---