[Fic] The Dragon and The Phoenix
[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
The call of his name snaps him back to reality. Next thing he knows, a thunderous roar fills his eardrums. Immediately following that is the sound of debris everywhere, whipping around in the air and raining down on the dust ground.
His ears are ringing.
"Yunho?" Changmin asks, voice quivering. “Were you going to say something?” he says it quietly, maybe too soft to be heard over the noise outside, and so he repeats it.
No response. "Yunho." He calls his partner's name once more, then again, then again after that. He says it over and over, calling louder with each repetition. Yunho knows he’s the impatient type, loathe to explain things more than twice. He knows that Yunho knows.
Changmin’s hands are trembling against the console. "Yunho!" he screams uncontrollably. “Yunho!” He stands up, tears his headset off his head, and throws it forcibly against the console. He covers his face with his hands, whole body shaking. Tears begin dripping into his palm and down his wrists, but he doesn’t feel them. It can’t be, it’s not true, there’s no way-
"Changmin!" Kyuhyun barks into his ear, dropping the code name for once. "Get a hold of yourself! He's alive! You have to get him out!" Changmin's head snaps up to look at the vitals on screen. Blood loss at 9%. Armor heavily damaged but mostly intact aside from breaches on the chest and right thigh. Heart rate is elevated due to heavy physical exertion but dropping after lapsing into unconsciousness.
It's up to him now.
“Understood,” he speaks. His tone is commanding, lacking the hysteria from just a minute ago. He gets back into his chair and puts his headset back on.
Changmin balls his hands into fists hard enough to dig his nails into his palms, but he doesn't notice the pain. His hands are still shaking. He's never had to do the real thing because Yunho never fails. They've done simulations, but after his first combat experience he's learned that the psychological weight isn't the same.
“System override Dragon. Initialize Phoenix,” he orders.
Suddenly, the screen in front of him goes black. He panics, wondering if something has gone wrong, but then he hears the mechanical clicks of his headset changing shape. The visor moves over his face. He feels tiny pinpricks all along the top of his head as the computer connects to his brain. And then his body falls back in the chair, completely limp.
In his field of vision, he doesn't see the familiar console anymore. He's looking at a battlefield, sideways because Yunho has fallen down. He twists Yunho's head to look down and sees the gash on his thigh, a piece of shrapnel still embedded inside. Changmin yanks it out and forces the injured leg to kick, checking that the armor can still respond despite the damage.
3:00. 2:59. 2:58. The clock is still ticking down.
"Phoenix is active," Changmin reports. He wills the armor to move. Yunho's arms pull closer to his body, then press against the ground to lift him. The same happens with his legs until he's pulled into a crouch.
"Good," Kyuhyun responds. "Phoenix, you have to run back to base."
"His leg is badly injured," Changmin protests.
"It's his leg or his life. We'll move the convoy closer for pick up."
The armor surges Yunho forward, pushing off like a runner at the start of a race. It was initially engineered as a pilotless suit, but relaying commands wirelessly stunted reaction times on the order of milliseconds, a big deal when dealing with close-range combat. The R&D team revamped the tech and pitched it to the military as augmentation armor for a solider, the Dragon, while keeping the original framework as a fail-safe, the Phoenix.
The headset intercepts commands from his brain, reading the chemical signals it sends to the rest of his body, and digitizes the orders before relaying them to the armor. When Changmin wants to lift his hand, it's the armor's that moves instead, precise down to the position of the fingers. And now he's telling himself to run, his mind carrying the weight of a different body.
He feels like he is Yunho. He sees what Yunho would see and hear what Yunho would hear, information all recorded and transmitted by the suit's own monitoring equipment. He's moving Yunho's body as his own. But at the same time, Changmin can't feel the pain that Yunho is in, and the armor isn't hindered by the physical damage it's received. It's Changmin's own overwhelming emotions that fill in the blanks, make him run as hard as though it were his life out on the battlefield.
1:50.
"There's one incoming 30 meters to your left," Kyuhyun reports. A blue arrow extending from the center of the visor to his peripheral appears in his vision. Changmin turns his head until the arrow points straight ahead and sees one android running for him. He knows he has to make this quick. The more he moves and the longer it takes him to get back to the convoy, the more Yunho bleeds.
At his command, a blade hidden in the armor's lower arm extends from its sheath, protruding out over his hand. He runs straight for the android, and right as they're about to collide, Changmin grinds his feet into the dirt and braces for impact.
1:20.
It smashes into him, pushing him back a couple meters until they both come to a halt. It reaches for his neck, but Changmin cranes it out the way. He shoves the machine away, then kicks it to the ground. He pulls his arm back, as though he's about to make a punch, but the thing sweeps his legs out from under him, and he falls backwards.
The android is on him immediately, and they roll around in the red dirt, vying for dominance in their scuffle. It feels like the transmission delay is hurting his reaction times, and although Changmin has had combat training, he doesn't have the field experience that Yunho does. Both of these issues are making it difficult for him to make a quick getaway.
Changmin activates the armor's force field momentarily, and it sends the android flying off him. The shockwave drains his power, causing the countdown clock to flicker wildly as a result. When it stops, it settles at :40. He scrambles to reach the android before it can recover. Changmin wields his blade and in one strong, fast movement, smashes it down into the android's neck. Through his headset, he hears metal screeching loudly against metal. The blade goes all the way through until the tip is embedded in the ground. He jerks his arm to the side to dislodge it, not caring about how it tears through the android and decapitates it.
:25.
"You have to move!" Kyuhyun shouts into his ear. A red arrow that points to the convoy appears on the visor. Its trajectory is shifting slightly on screen, likely because the convoy is still moving towards him. Changmin takes off running. He forces the armor to move as fast as it can go, still 200 meters to cover according to the visor. The physical exertion has brought Yunho's blood loss up 19%.
Just a little more, he thinks desperately.
:17. The convoy is heading straight for him. The hatch on the front vehicle is being opened on the side, getting ready for his entry.
:12. :11. :10. His body is generating adrenaline despite its inactivity, fooled by the armor's transmissions, and it seems to be getting to him. Time feels slow. The armor's movements feel slow, too slow.
:07. Faster, faster, faster! he cries in his head, but he's already going at max. Blood loss is at 22%.
:05. Changmin lunges for the platform protruding out. His shoulder hits the floor of the platform, and then he goes sliding, armor and Yunho's body still moving in the direction opposite of the convoy.
:03. He deploys the arm blade and jams it into the platform. The armor jerks violently before coming to a halt on the vehicle.
:01. Through the visor, he sees people running to grab Yunho.
"Disengage Phoenix!" he shouts. His vision goes dark for a second, then suddenly he's back in the control room. He's sweating and breathing like he's just run a marathon, his brain tricked into thinking it had been his body doing all that fighting and sprinting. Control over his limbs take a few more seconds, and for a moment it's like he's having night terrors, paralyzed by some invisible, ominous force.
As soon as he regains control of his hand, he reaches up and tears the headset off, tossing it carelessly onto the console in front of him. He jumps out of his seat and rushes to the door, throwing it open violently.
"Where is he?" Changmin cries, eyes wide with an urgent fury.
Kyuhyun grabs him by arm. "He's in the med bay. They're about to do surgery on him." The convoy is only equipped to do basic surgical procedures, so anything serious will have to wait until they get back to base. Changmin hates the thought of that.
"Come with me," Kyuhyun urges. "I'll take you to the observation room."
------
Yunho doesn't wake up for three days. Surgery had revealed a grab bag of injuries. Aside from needing stitches for his thigh, he had also suffered a severe concussion, cracked half of his ribs and broken his left arm. He had suffered burns in places where the armor was weak, one of his lungs had collapsed, and the doctors had also warned about ringing in his ears.
The suit's black box had revealed a split second decision to activate the impact-absorption field, but it hadn't been fully charged at the time of the blast. Changmin knows the armor was engineered to take heavy hits but apparently nothing like a close-range high explosive. Still, he's aware of what the outcome would have been without it.
Changmin spends little time away from Yunho's bedside while he waits. He skips one shower and only rushes back to his place for the second at Kyuhyun's urgings. The rest of the team visits throughout the day, checking in on Yunho and bringing food to remind Changmin to eat. He's always in the same spot when they come, the visitor's chair pulled up flush to the hospital bed. Changmin holds Yunho's hand tight. It's still warm.
The third day, Henry visits by himself. Donghae's goaded him into bringing flowers on behalf of the team, but he's accidentally filled up the water too high and splashed some on his pants. Embarrassed, he tries to hold the vase over the wet spot.
Yunho's been placed in a one-bed room within the intensive care unit. When he came with the team yesterday, Henry had tried to ignore the frantic beeping and the rush of nurses next door, but it had been like Changmin didn't hear any of it. He was in daze; from shock or from lack of sleep, Henry wasn't sure of.
Today, Henry stops right outside the door. He thinks he hears talking inside. Cautious and just a bit hopeful, he pokes his head into the room.
Changmin is bent over the bed, arms full of Yunho. His whole body is tense, as though he wants to hold the other man tighter but can't because of his injuries. Yunho has his one good arm wrapped around Changmin's side, but there's no strength in it. He looks pale and tired, and there's a mess of tubes and wires scattered around him.
Still, Yunho is trying his best to smile. He's whispering words into Changmin's ear, running his hand over Changmin's back. Somehow Yunho has determined that he himself is not the one in need of comfort in spite of what he's gone through.
Henry places the vase outside the door and leaves quietly. The team will come running once they find out Yunho is awake, but for now, he thinks he'll give them some peace.
Back in the room, Changmin sits at the edge of Yunho's bed. Their hands are still intertwined, neither of them sure this is reality just yet. Changmin wipes at his eyes and manages a small smile. Yunho turns his head weakly on his stiff hospital pillow and takes a good look at Changmin. It's the first time Yunho's seen his stubble so long.
Yunho closes his eyes but then reopens them as soon as he catches himself. He's just so tired; he needs sleep, but a part of him is afraid too. His whole body feels oddly numb, as though he's been pumped full of drugs. He squeezes Changmin's hand tighter to distract his thoughts.
Later, after the team has come crying and making a ruckus in the otherwise quiet ICU, Changmin tells him the reality of his situation. He won't be getting out of bed any time soon, but luckily all medical expenses will be covered by the government.
Yunho is surrounded by various cards and balloons. Somehow, the team had thought it would be a great idea to arrange them on the bed as decoration. Changmin smiles and plucks them off one by one, reading each one aloud before placing them on the night stand instead. When he gets to Donghae's, however, his face scrunches up. Donghae has never had the most legible handwriting, and as it turns out, he had written a long ramble about their academy days that extended to the back of the card. With some difficulty, Changmin reads it anyway.
"What will happen to them?" Yunho asks.
Changmin sighs. "Probably reassignment. It would a waste of talent otherwise." It's a painful truth, but most of the team has been with them from the start, and a few even before that.
"And you?"
"I'm not going anywhere," Changmin assures, his tone resolute. Yunho knows how stubborn Changmin can be, and he has no doubt that the other man will keep his word one way or another.
"You wanna quit?" Changmin asks. There's no hint of a smile this time.
In response, Yunho takes Changmin's hand into his own and runs his thumb over the back of his palm. "Can't."
Changmin shuts his eyes tight and lowers his head. Then slowly, he nods. "Okay."
---End---
A/N: I got the idea for this fic back when Android was about to be released, and I've been holding on to it 80% finished for roughly a year now. On a more random note, I liked the idea of a countdown clock, inspired by Evangelion, and I imagine Yunho's suit to be white like in the tokusatsu movie Casshern.
Anyway, thank you for reading. Hope it wasn't too long-winded. ^^v
--- 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
The call of his name snaps him back to reality. Next thing he knows, a thunderous roar fills his eardrums. Immediately following that is the sound of debris everywhere, whipping around in the air and raining down on the dust ground.
His ears are ringing.
"Yunho?" Changmin asks, voice quivering. “Were you going to say something?” he says it quietly, maybe too soft to be heard over the noise outside, and so he repeats it.
No response. "Yunho." He calls his partner's name once more, then again, then again after that. He says it over and over, calling louder with each repetition. Yunho knows he’s the impatient type, loathe to explain things more than twice. He knows that Yunho knows.
Changmin’s hands are trembling against the console. "Yunho!" he screams uncontrollably. “Yunho!” He stands up, tears his headset off his head, and throws it forcibly against the console. He covers his face with his hands, whole body shaking. Tears begin dripping into his palm and down his wrists, but he doesn’t feel them. It can’t be, it’s not true, there’s no way-
"Changmin!" Kyuhyun barks into his ear, dropping the code name for once. "Get a hold of yourself! He's alive! You have to get him out!" Changmin's head snaps up to look at the vitals on screen. Blood loss at 9%. Armor heavily damaged but mostly intact aside from breaches on the chest and right thigh. Heart rate is elevated due to heavy physical exertion but dropping after lapsing into unconsciousness.
It's up to him now.
“Understood,” he speaks. His tone is commanding, lacking the hysteria from just a minute ago. He gets back into his chair and puts his headset back on.
Changmin balls his hands into fists hard enough to dig his nails into his palms, but he doesn't notice the pain. His hands are still shaking. He's never had to do the real thing because Yunho never fails. They've done simulations, but after his first combat experience he's learned that the psychological weight isn't the same.
“System override Dragon. Initialize Phoenix,” he orders.
Suddenly, the screen in front of him goes black. He panics, wondering if something has gone wrong, but then he hears the mechanical clicks of his headset changing shape. The visor moves over his face. He feels tiny pinpricks all along the top of his head as the computer connects to his brain. And then his body falls back in the chair, completely limp.
In his field of vision, he doesn't see the familiar console anymore. He's looking at a battlefield, sideways because Yunho has fallen down. He twists Yunho's head to look down and sees the gash on his thigh, a piece of shrapnel still embedded inside. Changmin yanks it out and forces the injured leg to kick, checking that the armor can still respond despite the damage.
3:00. 2:59. 2:58. The clock is still ticking down.
"Phoenix is active," Changmin reports. He wills the armor to move. Yunho's arms pull closer to his body, then press against the ground to lift him. The same happens with his legs until he's pulled into a crouch.
"Good," Kyuhyun responds. "Phoenix, you have to run back to base."
"His leg is badly injured," Changmin protests.
"It's his leg or his life. We'll move the convoy closer for pick up."
The armor surges Yunho forward, pushing off like a runner at the start of a race. It was initially engineered as a pilotless suit, but relaying commands wirelessly stunted reaction times on the order of milliseconds, a big deal when dealing with close-range combat. The R&D team revamped the tech and pitched it to the military as augmentation armor for a solider, the Dragon, while keeping the original framework as a fail-safe, the Phoenix.
The headset intercepts commands from his brain, reading the chemical signals it sends to the rest of his body, and digitizes the orders before relaying them to the armor. When Changmin wants to lift his hand, it's the armor's that moves instead, precise down to the position of the fingers. And now he's telling himself to run, his mind carrying the weight of a different body.
He feels like he is Yunho. He sees what Yunho would see and hear what Yunho would hear, information all recorded and transmitted by the suit's own monitoring equipment. He's moving Yunho's body as his own. But at the same time, Changmin can't feel the pain that Yunho is in, and the armor isn't hindered by the physical damage it's received. It's Changmin's own overwhelming emotions that fill in the blanks, make him run as hard as though it were his life out on the battlefield.
1:50.
"There's one incoming 30 meters to your left," Kyuhyun reports. A blue arrow extending from the center of the visor to his peripheral appears in his vision. Changmin turns his head until the arrow points straight ahead and sees one android running for him. He knows he has to make this quick. The more he moves and the longer it takes him to get back to the convoy, the more Yunho bleeds.
At his command, a blade hidden in the armor's lower arm extends from its sheath, protruding out over his hand. He runs straight for the android, and right as they're about to collide, Changmin grinds his feet into the dirt and braces for impact.
1:20.
It smashes into him, pushing him back a couple meters until they both come to a halt. It reaches for his neck, but Changmin cranes it out the way. He shoves the machine away, then kicks it to the ground. He pulls his arm back, as though he's about to make a punch, but the thing sweeps his legs out from under him, and he falls backwards.
The android is on him immediately, and they roll around in the red dirt, vying for dominance in their scuffle. It feels like the transmission delay is hurting his reaction times, and although Changmin has had combat training, he doesn't have the field experience that Yunho does. Both of these issues are making it difficult for him to make a quick getaway.
Changmin activates the armor's force field momentarily, and it sends the android flying off him. The shockwave drains his power, causing the countdown clock to flicker wildly as a result. When it stops, it settles at :40. He scrambles to reach the android before it can recover. Changmin wields his blade and in one strong, fast movement, smashes it down into the android's neck. Through his headset, he hears metal screeching loudly against metal. The blade goes all the way through until the tip is embedded in the ground. He jerks his arm to the side to dislodge it, not caring about how it tears through the android and decapitates it.
:25.
"You have to move!" Kyuhyun shouts into his ear. A red arrow that points to the convoy appears on the visor. Its trajectory is shifting slightly on screen, likely because the convoy is still moving towards him. Changmin takes off running. He forces the armor to move as fast as it can go, still 200 meters to cover according to the visor. The physical exertion has brought Yunho's blood loss up 19%.
Just a little more, he thinks desperately.
:17. The convoy is heading straight for him. The hatch on the front vehicle is being opened on the side, getting ready for his entry.
:12. :11. :10. His body is generating adrenaline despite its inactivity, fooled by the armor's transmissions, and it seems to be getting to him. Time feels slow. The armor's movements feel slow, too slow.
:07. Faster, faster, faster! he cries in his head, but he's already going at max. Blood loss is at 22%.
:05. Changmin lunges for the platform protruding out. His shoulder hits the floor of the platform, and then he goes sliding, armor and Yunho's body still moving in the direction opposite of the convoy.
:03. He deploys the arm blade and jams it into the platform. The armor jerks violently before coming to a halt on the vehicle.
:01. Through the visor, he sees people running to grab Yunho.
"Disengage Phoenix!" he shouts. His vision goes dark for a second, then suddenly he's back in the control room. He's sweating and breathing like he's just run a marathon, his brain tricked into thinking it had been his body doing all that fighting and sprinting. Control over his limbs take a few more seconds, and for a moment it's like he's having night terrors, paralyzed by some invisible, ominous force.
As soon as he regains control of his hand, he reaches up and tears the headset off, tossing it carelessly onto the console in front of him. He jumps out of his seat and rushes to the door, throwing it open violently.
"Where is he?" Changmin cries, eyes wide with an urgent fury.
Kyuhyun grabs him by arm. "He's in the med bay. They're about to do surgery on him." The convoy is only equipped to do basic surgical procedures, so anything serious will have to wait until they get back to base. Changmin hates the thought of that.
"Come with me," Kyuhyun urges. "I'll take you to the observation room."
------
Yunho doesn't wake up for three days. Surgery had revealed a grab bag of injuries. Aside from needing stitches for his thigh, he had also suffered a severe concussion, cracked half of his ribs and broken his left arm. He had suffered burns in places where the armor was weak, one of his lungs had collapsed, and the doctors had also warned about ringing in his ears.
The suit's black box had revealed a split second decision to activate the impact-absorption field, but it hadn't been fully charged at the time of the blast. Changmin knows the armor was engineered to take heavy hits but apparently nothing like a close-range high explosive. Still, he's aware of what the outcome would have been without it.
Changmin spends little time away from Yunho's bedside while he waits. He skips one shower and only rushes back to his place for the second at Kyuhyun's urgings. The rest of the team visits throughout the day, checking in on Yunho and bringing food to remind Changmin to eat. He's always in the same spot when they come, the visitor's chair pulled up flush to the hospital bed. Changmin holds Yunho's hand tight. It's still warm.
The third day, Henry visits by himself. Donghae's goaded him into bringing flowers on behalf of the team, but he's accidentally filled up the water too high and splashed some on his pants. Embarrassed, he tries to hold the vase over the wet spot.
Yunho's been placed in a one-bed room within the intensive care unit. When he came with the team yesterday, Henry had tried to ignore the frantic beeping and the rush of nurses next door, but it had been like Changmin didn't hear any of it. He was in daze; from shock or from lack of sleep, Henry wasn't sure of.
Today, Henry stops right outside the door. He thinks he hears talking inside. Cautious and just a bit hopeful, he pokes his head into the room.
Changmin is bent over the bed, arms full of Yunho. His whole body is tense, as though he wants to hold the other man tighter but can't because of his injuries. Yunho has his one good arm wrapped around Changmin's side, but there's no strength in it. He looks pale and tired, and there's a mess of tubes and wires scattered around him.
Still, Yunho is trying his best to smile. He's whispering words into Changmin's ear, running his hand over Changmin's back. Somehow Yunho has determined that he himself is not the one in need of comfort in spite of what he's gone through.
Henry places the vase outside the door and leaves quietly. The team will come running once they find out Yunho is awake, but for now, he thinks he'll give them some peace.
Back in the room, Changmin sits at the edge of Yunho's bed. Their hands are still intertwined, neither of them sure this is reality just yet. Changmin wipes at his eyes and manages a small smile. Yunho turns his head weakly on his stiff hospital pillow and takes a good look at Changmin. It's the first time Yunho's seen his stubble so long.
Yunho closes his eyes but then reopens them as soon as he catches himself. He's just so tired; he needs sleep, but a part of him is afraid too. His whole body feels oddly numb, as though he's been pumped full of drugs. He squeezes Changmin's hand tighter to distract his thoughts.
Later, after the team has come crying and making a ruckus in the otherwise quiet ICU, Changmin tells him the reality of his situation. He won't be getting out of bed any time soon, but luckily all medical expenses will be covered by the government.
Yunho is surrounded by various cards and balloons. Somehow, the team had thought it would be a great idea to arrange them on the bed as decoration. Changmin smiles and plucks them off one by one, reading each one aloud before placing them on the night stand instead. When he gets to Donghae's, however, his face scrunches up. Donghae has never had the most legible handwriting, and as it turns out, he had written a long ramble about their academy days that extended to the back of the card. With some difficulty, Changmin reads it anyway.
"What will happen to them?" Yunho asks.
Changmin sighs. "Probably reassignment. It would a waste of talent otherwise." It's a painful truth, but most of the team has been with them from the start, and a few even before that.
"And you?"
"I'm not going anywhere," Changmin assures, his tone resolute. Yunho knows how stubborn Changmin can be, and he has no doubt that the other man will keep his word one way or another.
"You wanna quit?" Changmin asks. There's no hint of a smile this time.
In response, Yunho takes Changmin's hand into his own and runs his thumb over the back of his palm. "Can't."
Changmin shuts his eyes tight and lowers his head. Then slowly, he nods. "Okay."
---End---
A/N: I got the idea for this fic back when Android was about to be released, and I've been holding on to it 80% finished for roughly a year now. On a more random note, I liked the idea of a countdown clock, inspired by Evangelion, and I imagine Yunho's suit to be white like in the tokusatsu movie Casshern.
Anyway, thank you for reading. Hope it wasn't too long-winded. ^^v
--- The Dragon and The Phoenix |1|2|3|4|---