[Fic] Someone Like You - 10/11
Title: Someone Like You
Author: Coley Merrin
Rating: R
Pairings: Henry/Donghae (with Tablo/Eunhyuk)
Genre: AU. Angst. Romance.
Summary: Five years ago, Donghae failed to escape his Uncle Lee's crime organization and disappeared from Henry's life. But when Donghae has to kidnap Henry to keep him safe, it is still Uncle Lee that stands in the way of them ever having a normal life.
This is a follow up to For Always (QMi, SiHan, HenHae). One can be read without the other, but it does include more detail of the HenHae background and story. :)
***
Chapter One ** Chapter Two ** Chapter Three ** Chapter Four ** Chapter Five ** Chapter Six ** Chapter Seven ** Chapter Eight ** Chapter Nine ** Chapter Ten ** Chapter Eleven
***
To say that seeing Henry on the roof gave him a bad feeling was so severely understating it. He wondered if the initiation was be some test of courage, some proof that he was committed. And he had tried to some extent to hide his feelings for Henry, from both Henry and Uncle Lee. Sometimes, it had been like holding back the tide. Obviously he had shown his possession of him, but it might have been folly to imagine he could hide something that was so deep that his only chance of hiding it had been cutting himself off from Henry entirely. And though Tablo looked kind of cool and unaffected, it was like he was putting on an act as well. To be escorting the sister of his lover, and also Henry. Henry, who he had wanted so far from any of this.
Their eyes met and he tried to convey courage. He had expected to go home to Henry, to show him it was all okay even if he wasn’t sure that he would ever be able to tell Henry what he’d been asked to do. Now Henry would not only witness it, but potentially be the object of it? Twenty stories in the air, it wasn’t like there was very far to run.
“It’s simple,” Uncle Lee said from too close beside him, his voice so smug. “This gun I have here, I loaded it earlier. Maybe only a couple of bullets. Maybe none. Empties. You don’t have to shoot at his head, or even his body. Just take the gun and pull the trigger. If you catch his leg, he’ll limp for a while. But you’ll have shown your dedication by risking your precious Henry.”
Donghae stared, nonplussed. To have to shoot at Henry? Did that make any sort of sense? Not even in his wildest fantasies, of all the horrible things he could be asked to do had that come up. His own weapon on the one man he’d promised himself he would do anything to protect. No, he couldn’t even begin to grasp it. It wasn’t calm in his heart, it was panic.
“Is that why you let me keep Henry around?” he demanded of Uncle Lee, letting some of it slip out of him.
Uncle Lee laughed, and it infuriated him. If he’d had a gun in his hand, he couldn’t have been responsible, but they had been allowed no weapons. For good reason. “Do you think I didn’t know how important he was to you? I didn’t get to be in this position because I was stupid, boy. It was one of the things that made me think you had a shot. If you could send away someone like that, you’d be willing to do almost anything. If you’d kept him, around, he’d have drug you down. Made you soft. Better that you had a few one-night stands than have some cute-faced conscience waiting for you at home. How long do you think he will last, Donghae? Before you slip and tell him something he shouldn’t know, before he goes to the police and sends you to prison? There wouldn’t be conjugal visits.”
“He knows,” Donghae tried to argue.
“Knows a little,” Uncle Lee agreed. “But he should know more. Loyalty. He won’t learn it from you. Maybe he sees you with little hearts in his eyes, but that’s dangerous. He should move into one of the other houses. You bent a few noses playing hero that one day. Give him to them to play with for a couple of weeks, and they’ll think of you a lot better. A leader should know how to keep people happy.”
“Or afraid. And they were afraid of me.”
“They should really only be afraid of me, shouldn’t they?”
It was not an idle threat. It was something he had conjured in some of his nightmares, Uncle Lee ordering Henry out of the house. It was true, Donghae had had Henry kidnapped out of that hotel, but Uncle Lee could make him disappear. Kept in houses with no documented owner, a veritable slave just because Donghae was being taught a lesson. Possibly not just sexually abused, but physically, emotionally. Something that smile would never have to endure while he was still alive.
“I knew that kid would be the key to your loyalty,” Uncle Lee said, smug. “So take the gun. Take the chance. Maybe I’ll let you keep him a little longer.”
He wanted to throw that gun back at Uncle Lee and defiantly say that he would not, that he was through, that he and Henry were leaving. In a perfect world, even if he took the chance, injured Henry, he did not trust that Uncle Lee would keep his word and let Henry stay with him. In a perfect world, he would turn and grab Henry’s hand, and they would go off to do whatever they wanted, unburdened. But he knew there was no chance at that.
Uncle Lee would never let him go.
***
Henry was going through so many things in his head that it was hard to know just what he was thinking. Donghae having to shoot at him, that he got. Maybe there were bullets or no bullets. Maybe Donghae would put a hole in him somewhere or not. He didn’t think the physical pain would be worse than losing Donghae had been. Even with the vile threats being tossed out. Donghae’s posture told him more than anything that he’d find Henry a box to live in in Antarctica before any of those threats would be carried out.
Henry thought his heart had stopped when he heard Donghae speak.
“I won’t do it,” Donghae argued.
“You say that now. All these people watching. You’ve put yourself out there in front of me. No one gets second chances. Is that what you want?”
“Not for his life.”
“Then it’s over. You’re expendable to me,” Uncle Lee said, his hand large against Donghae’s chest as it shoved him back.
Henry waited for Donghae’s momentum to stop, for him to regain his balance as he staggered backwards. Every inch of distance screaming as Donghae fought for it, anger on his face. And then fear.
The backs of Donghae’s knees hit the barrier at the roof’s edge, and it stopped him short for a half a second before his momentum carried him back, his weight dragging him down. Donghae’s fingertips caught at the edge.
He searched for help, but there was none. Nothing to hold onto. No one to help.
And then Henry thought it was his screams, as Donghae disappeared over the edge.
Henry didn’t even realize he was in motion, until he was. His knees were made of jello, the distance between him and the roof’s edge so far, so long, that he didn’t know how he would get there. So it was a shock when his hands touched the edge, hunched over like a man severely wounded. He didn’t want to see, or look. If he saw Donghae, dead, it would be real. Until then, it wasn’t, right? Or maybe he just needed help. Maybe a fall from a 20 story building wouldn’t be…
Slitting his eyes closed, he leaned over the edge of the roof, looking through his lashes because he did not want to see. Donghae’s blue shirt had his eyes jumping wide.
“No…Donghae!!”
He choked as his shirt pulled tight against his throat, a hand dragging him back, and then dropping him onto the ground. And though his arm, hip, smarted, he would have scrambled up, if he were not so aware that a gun was, not insignificantly, being gestured toward him.
“He might’ve been good. But there was always something in him that held back because of you. I knew five years ago. Get back there.”
He limped back toward Tablo and other two. When he got almost within reaching distance of the thug, he bolted, his whole existence focused on the door. Donghae, Donghae… Right there, he’d been…
He half expected to hear a shot following him, but he heard nothing over the pumping of his heart.
***
“Just let him go,” Uncle Lee ordered as one of the men started after him. “He’s not going far.”
Eunhyuk watched Henry disappear as though rabid dogs were after him and he half envied him. He was doing his best not to look at his sister, or Tablo, so that he wouldn’t somehow telegraph his fear. There had been one person for him, one for Donghae. Was he going to be expected to pull the trigger of a possibly loaded gun at his sister as Donghae had been expected to? Everything he and Donghae had worked for, and for Henry Donghae had said no. And this was his sister. Sora, the only one who had tried to fight against him going to Uncle Lee in the first place. But she’d been too late, really. And there hadn’t been much of anything she could do except stay quiet and let him go. At least part of the reason he had gone to Uncle Lee was to take the pressure off his family.
But since he was the blood nephew of Uncle Lee, there was no life off of this roof if he didn’t comply. He just wasn’t sure there was if he did, also. He’d prepared himself for so many things. But not this. Not anything like this.
“Let the girl go to her brother,” Uncle Lee commanded.
Eunhyuk bristled, even as he accepted his sister into his embrace. He wouldn’t even use his own niece’s name. But that was what made him good, ruthless. Not caring about anything. Not even family.
“I know my nephew is expecting me to offer him a gun, Tablo, but he was forced into this by my weak-spined sister. He got that from her. A dog will never talk no matter how much it is taught to. Donghae had a hunger. No, it is not my nephew who needs to show his loyalty today. It’s you.”
Considering that his eyes were on Tablo’s face, it wasn’t surprising that he saw the shock. But also, a terrible kind of knowing. As though he had been fearing something like it. There was resignation in those eyes, and that scared him more than fear would have. Uncle Lee expected Tablo to shoot at him? Or Sora? No, he made more sense. Uncle Lee knew that he and Tablo were sleeping together. Donghae’s test had been Henry, so his sister had to just be there as some kind of decoy. He frantically told himself that. But Tablo was a good shot. He’d do his best to do it in some place that wouldn’t do too much damage. And hey, Tablo would be able to get him back for that time he’d shot him. Right?
“Which one?” Tablo asked, his voice steady. Almost as though he didn’t care. But he thought they all, even his sister who had no idea they were together, saw through that.
“No one trusts you fully because of your ties to the police. Why don’t we give them a good story, and say…both?”
Tablo’s eyebrows lifted imperceptibly, and Sora gasped.
“It’ll be okay,” he whispered, and tried to believe it himself. And he marshaled all of his courage, his convictions. Squeezing his sister, pushing her away from him slightly, he turned to his uncle. The man who had never been family. “Have him take two shots at me instead. She shouldn’t be involved in this.”
If anything, Uncle Lee seemed amused by it. “How self-sacrificing. Would you forgive him if he shot your sister? Or is that all you’d think about when he asks you to get him off? No. One for each.”
“With that gun?” Tablo asked.
“Is yours fully loaded? That would take the chance out of it. Trade me.”
Eunhyuk wondered if Tablo could tell if the gun he took from Uncle Lee was fully loaded, or loaded at all. Mentally he was already bracing for pain. If Tablo did not do this, after working so long, his standing would be severely compromised. Not even for… Not even for what they had, could something like that be challenged. Tablo had no choice, and he couldn’t deny that.
But his blood chilled when Uncle Lee lifted the gun he had just taken from Tablo, pointing it at him and Sora. He shifted, trying to get his own body between the gun and Sora.
“It’s you or me,” Uncle Lee chortled. “And I won’t miss.”
Tablo was staring at the gun in his hand with some contemplation. “I’ll take your word on that.”
The shot was deafening, and Eunhyuk’s body jerked with it, as the goon right closest to him, who had pushed Sora into his arms, fell to his knees. Tablo, tense, hadn’t even raised his gun yet, reacting to the shot that had come from behind him, and it was like he could see the world expanding, raising so fluidly, so naturally. It was like his eardrums shivered along with his stomach at the blast. Watching one of the goon’s clutch at his arm, and Tablo’s gun fire. Watching the report of the gun, Uncle Lee’s gun, as it bucked, and his arm twisting.
And falling.
And Eunhyuk fell with him, dragging his sister to the ground as not one, but multiple shots rang out, flattening them as much as he could to make them less of a target.
“Stay down!” he ordered her.
He had no weapon, but the man beside him did. The one who had fallen. There was blood, a lot of it, but he scrambled forward despite it, getting the pistol in his hand, checking the safety, looking up, trying to see. He’d just painted a target on himself by claiming a weapon, but he couldn’t just lay there. He had no idea if Tablo’s gun had bullets left in it, and the goons of Uncle Lee’s wouldn’t have taken those shots sitting down. He felt the roof shake beneath him as a body fell, and his eyes slammed closed in horror. It was a nightmare he wanted to wake from. Gunfire, fights to the death. Sora should never have seen it. And if Tablo wasn’t okay, if he didn’t make it out okay, then what was he going to do? Tablo had the gun, and it had to have had something in it, something to protect him. He pushed to his feet on autopilot, looking around, finger poised. He’d kill if he had to, to protect the people he loved.
“Eunhyuk, it’s okay,” he heard, the sound muffled, dampened. But it was Tablo’s voice.
One of the men was sitting nursing a wound on his side. A man he didn’t know well, but someone Tablo was obviously concerned about. Tablo left him, apparently satisfied, back toward Uncle Lee. And as he walked, Eunhyuk turned back to Sora, making sure she was okay, helping her up. Except for a few scrapes where she had fallen, it seemed like it. And he hugged her tight to him. Whispering comfort, and knowing that when he looked up that all would be carnage.
A gunshot wound was blooming in the center of Uncle Lee’s chest, and Tablo over him. “Now, I bet that was unexpected,” he heard Tablo say, his hearing still hollow. “I knew there would be a round in the chamber, you old bastard.”
The other men on the roof had holstered their guns, the big one they called Bear coming to clap Tablo on his shoulder as he checked to make sure that Uncle Lee was dead. There were three dead men. Beneath his arm, his sister was trembling but still quite calm and he was thankful as Tablo stepped close to him.
“I got as many police here today as I could. This was an outcome we…anticipated. I’m sorry, because he was your family, but I know he was no family to you. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”
“You knew he would die? Why didn’t you kill him years ago?!”
“There are people being arrested all over the city right now with the information we got. He forced our hand, but I’m not sorry about it. Bear, take her, would you? She needs something to drink or something.”
Eunhyuk relinquished her unwillingly but she gave him a small smile. Glad to be gone from this place and the dead bodies.
Suddenly he remembered Donghae.
He raced for the edge.
***
Going down that flight of stairs was the longest in Henry’s life. He kept imagining himself tripping on a shoelace and breaking his neck, but somehow he careened out into a hallway. And had to get his bearings. Which side of the building? He veered north, pushing through stacked chairs to a wide bank of locked windows. All quite solidly latched. But he didn’t care. He would have broken the window out if he had had to, but luck was with him, and the window swung out as it had been designed to. And he was out of it, scraping his back on the frame as he scrambled to his right onto the secondary roof.
Where Donghae was moaning and clutching at his shoulder, but alive.
Alive.
“Donghae,” he half gasped, dropping beside him, touching him to be sure he was real. “I thought you were dead. I thought you were… Don’t scare me like that. Don’t scare me. I can’t lose you like that.”
He was hissing out his words, not wanting anyone to come investigate, not until he could get Donghae to some better sheltered spot. They were sitting ducks where they were. If Uncle Lee chanced to look over the edge, it was too easy to lift the gun and fire a shot. There wasn’t really any place to go but down or in.
“You’re okay,” Donghae said, voice hazed by pain.
“Shhh, yeah, I am. Come on. Can you stand? Is your neck okay? Just your arm?”
“I think it’s my shoulder. Hit it. My head. Didn’t fall good.”
He resisted the urge to kiss Donghae, assure himself he wasn’t dreaming. But he’d barely gotten Donghae sitting upright when they heard the shots. Multiple reports, multiple guns. It wasn’t anything like the movies. Nothing. Knowing their friends could be dying above them.
“Eunhyuk?” Donghae breathed. As though his head was righting itself.
“He’s okay. He has to be. His sister, too. He wouldn’t… He wouldn’t.”
It stalled them, those thoughts, staring up at the roof some 15 feet over their heads. Gripping Donghae’s good hand and sort of half praying inside, and half out. Whispering pleas.
His shoes crunched gravel in shock as a torso popped into view, and then a second. First Eunhyuk, then Tablo.
There was dread there, and then surprise. Happiness.
“Lee Donghae!” Eunhyuk shouted. Followed by a few colorful and choice curses questioning Donghae’s manhood and place in society. Tablo nodded at Henry to let him know that there was help on the way. And he gave in, wiping the tears that had snuck out against Donghae’s shirt, nearly bursting with relief and love as Donghae pressed their faces together.
***
Donghae knew he was on the good drugs, the pain in his shoulder kind of an afterthought as he lay in his hospital bed. The x-rays, the doctors. The sling. The medication. He’d gone through all of it on his own because Henry had not been allowed with him, no matter what protests he’d put up. Not enough to get him kicked out of the hospital, Donghae hoped. He’d heard things like “mild concussion” and “keeping the sling on for weeks” while he healed. And that was great. It was something. He could’ve ended up flat on the sidewalk.
And it was stupid, after all that had happened, that he was scared. Scared that Henry had lived through that scene on the roof and saw just exactly what Donghae had been doing for the last five years. It was nothing pretty. It was ugly and raw and sometimes dangerous, and more often illegal. Even with a good reason, with a cop beside him, there weren’t things he was easily going to forgive himself for. Even though everything they had done, every family they had hurt, they had tried to repay, often in more than a few ways. Very quietly. It wasn’t something he and Tablo had been able to help. And Eunhyuk as well. He wondered where they were. Probably talking to other police. There were a lot of things to go down. Trials. Sweeps. Enough information collected to make a courthouse weep, enough dirty people, officials, even cops, to make the whole five years look like a piece of cake.
Tablo had stopped in and given him a quick and dirty rundown, arguing he was police when Henry had still been barred. The rest of the organization was in shock. But the only thing no one knew was who had been the informants. Because the only people on the roof who had survived had been somehow, if unofficially, connected to the police on that roof, the blame for Uncle Lee’s death was billed an accident by one of the goons. Too bad that goon had “died” as well. Too bad. Too bad he’d never really existed, not really. He’d gone back to his life in some sea town where no one would ever know he’d really left.
He knew there would be things he’d have to do. Things he’d have to tell, things beyond what Tablo had reported. Things that wouldn’t let him escape this world he’d come into quite as quickly as he would like. He barely had recollection of how long he lay on that rooftop in pain. He could not say that his focus had been on the happenings on the roof at first, just trying to focus on breathing and not throwing up. He remembered trying to reach for something to hold on to, trying to say Henry’s name before he fell. Nothing had worked. Had he wondered if he had died, as he had clutched his shoulder? There had been gravel embedded in his skin, and he’d been so dazed…
And then Henry had been there. Touching him, talking to him. Like some kind of accented angel. He grinned kind of sloppily as he remembered. Not that he hadn’t still been in pain, but as his reasoning came back to him, and his worry, he had Henry beside him. If there was anything he had needed at that moment, it was that. Just Henry.
As another nurse came briskly in, she was giving a warning over her shoulder that visiting wasn’t allowed much longer. And his heart thumped hard. It was Henry, stepping in so unsure, as though he wasn’t sure what he was going to see. But a happy, hopeful smile on his face was enough. Waiting until the nurse had walked out and closed the door before he leaned carefully agains Donghae’s good side to kiss him.
“Hi,” Henry said softly.
“Hey.”
“I wasn’t sure if you’d want to see me. If you were tired,” Henry quickly amended, obviously sensing that he was about to get upset. Henry could not doubt that Donghae wanted, needed him nearby.
“I’d still have wanted to see you,” he said, letting his hand, and all the random equipment attached to it, rest on Henry’s neck. Henry’s cheek was pressed in the vicinity of Donghae’s heart, just listening.
“I really thought you had fallen, and I had lost you for good,” Henry murmured. “It was so unreal, like watching some kind of movie. Running to the edge. Like I’d somehow make it over after you…catch you, or…”
Or fall with him? That thought hurt more than his shoulder had.
“I can’t leave you yet,” he said, giving a hoarse little chuckle. “I made up my mind a while ago you were stuck with me until I could make it up to you. A certain number of smiles for every day we were stuck apart.”
Henry lifted his head, searching Donghae’s eyes. “That’s a lot of smiles.”
“I’m sure I’ll do something stupid to owe you more before I’m all paid up. So I think you’re stuck with me.”
“You know I don’t actually think you owe me something, right? I know you were protecting me.”
“Shh. Let me just imagine, okay? I’m finally doing something good for once.”
Henry kissed him, snuggling as close as he could while leaning as he was. “I wish I could stay here tonight with you.”
“I’m going to argue to get out of here and go home,” Donghae said staunchly. “It’s not like I broke in half or something. I can swallow a pain pill just as well. Besides, you’ll be there.”
“You know we can’t go back to the house, right? That was one of the first things Tablo did, he went to the house with Eunhyuk and packed up all our stuff. He said he’d get my passport and stuff where you’d stashed it. He said we could crash for a while with him when he gets a new apartment finalized, or he said the police department would help find us a place.”
“Yeah, okay. But I still want out of here, even if we go to a motel. I won’t be very interesting company, but it’d be better than staying in here. They don’t need my money.”
“Should I distract them while you run?”
“Would I look very good getting away in this gown?” he wondered.
Henry laughed, and it lifted him and made his heart pang in disbelief.
“I just can’t understand that it’s over. That he’s dead. That we can just… When it’s done, just do whatever. I could go back to school, or… I don’t even know! It’s so weird.”
What would it take to be done? They still didn’t have all the answers. But the danger, at least, was gone. He didn’t have to have nightmares of someone dragging Henry away. Or of killing someone. Or… At least, he wanted to be able to set aside those nightmares. He hoped he would.
“It’s not weird,” Henry said, rather primly. He sat up enough to leverage a hip onto the edge of the bed, squeezing Donghae’s fingers. “It’s what you should’ve had a long time ago.”
“I’ll make it up to you. To everyone. I swear.”
“Donghae…”
The nurse came back in, and Donghae would have bolted upright if he hadn’t been aware of his sling.
“Who do I have to talk to about getting out of here?” he demanded, giving the lady his biggest, most disarming smile.
She kind of smiled back unsure before softening. Henry chuckled inside, and kept Donghae’s hand in his.
***
Author: Coley Merrin
Rating: R
Pairings: Henry/Donghae (with Tablo/Eunhyuk)
Genre: AU. Angst. Romance.
Summary: Five years ago, Donghae failed to escape his Uncle Lee's crime organization and disappeared from Henry's life. But when Donghae has to kidnap Henry to keep him safe, it is still Uncle Lee that stands in the way of them ever having a normal life.
This is a follow up to For Always (QMi, SiHan, HenHae). One can be read without the other, but it does include more detail of the HenHae background and story. :)
***
Chapter One ** Chapter Two ** Chapter Three ** Chapter Four ** Chapter Five ** Chapter Six ** Chapter Seven ** Chapter Eight ** Chapter Nine ** Chapter Ten ** Chapter Eleven
***
To say that seeing Henry on the roof gave him a bad feeling was so severely understating it. He wondered if the initiation was be some test of courage, some proof that he was committed. And he had tried to some extent to hide his feelings for Henry, from both Henry and Uncle Lee. Sometimes, it had been like holding back the tide. Obviously he had shown his possession of him, but it might have been folly to imagine he could hide something that was so deep that his only chance of hiding it had been cutting himself off from Henry entirely. And though Tablo looked kind of cool and unaffected, it was like he was putting on an act as well. To be escorting the sister of his lover, and also Henry. Henry, who he had wanted so far from any of this.
Their eyes met and he tried to convey courage. He had expected to go home to Henry, to show him it was all okay even if he wasn’t sure that he would ever be able to tell Henry what he’d been asked to do. Now Henry would not only witness it, but potentially be the object of it? Twenty stories in the air, it wasn’t like there was very far to run.
“It’s simple,” Uncle Lee said from too close beside him, his voice so smug. “This gun I have here, I loaded it earlier. Maybe only a couple of bullets. Maybe none. Empties. You don’t have to shoot at his head, or even his body. Just take the gun and pull the trigger. If you catch his leg, he’ll limp for a while. But you’ll have shown your dedication by risking your precious Henry.”
Donghae stared, nonplussed. To have to shoot at Henry? Did that make any sort of sense? Not even in his wildest fantasies, of all the horrible things he could be asked to do had that come up. His own weapon on the one man he’d promised himself he would do anything to protect. No, he couldn’t even begin to grasp it. It wasn’t calm in his heart, it was panic.
“Is that why you let me keep Henry around?” he demanded of Uncle Lee, letting some of it slip out of him.
Uncle Lee laughed, and it infuriated him. If he’d had a gun in his hand, he couldn’t have been responsible, but they had been allowed no weapons. For good reason. “Do you think I didn’t know how important he was to you? I didn’t get to be in this position because I was stupid, boy. It was one of the things that made me think you had a shot. If you could send away someone like that, you’d be willing to do almost anything. If you’d kept him, around, he’d have drug you down. Made you soft. Better that you had a few one-night stands than have some cute-faced conscience waiting for you at home. How long do you think he will last, Donghae? Before you slip and tell him something he shouldn’t know, before he goes to the police and sends you to prison? There wouldn’t be conjugal visits.”
“He knows,” Donghae tried to argue.
“Knows a little,” Uncle Lee agreed. “But he should know more. Loyalty. He won’t learn it from you. Maybe he sees you with little hearts in his eyes, but that’s dangerous. He should move into one of the other houses. You bent a few noses playing hero that one day. Give him to them to play with for a couple of weeks, and they’ll think of you a lot better. A leader should know how to keep people happy.”
“Or afraid. And they were afraid of me.”
“They should really only be afraid of me, shouldn’t they?”
It was not an idle threat. It was something he had conjured in some of his nightmares, Uncle Lee ordering Henry out of the house. It was true, Donghae had had Henry kidnapped out of that hotel, but Uncle Lee could make him disappear. Kept in houses with no documented owner, a veritable slave just because Donghae was being taught a lesson. Possibly not just sexually abused, but physically, emotionally. Something that smile would never have to endure while he was still alive.
“I knew that kid would be the key to your loyalty,” Uncle Lee said, smug. “So take the gun. Take the chance. Maybe I’ll let you keep him a little longer.”
He wanted to throw that gun back at Uncle Lee and defiantly say that he would not, that he was through, that he and Henry were leaving. In a perfect world, even if he took the chance, injured Henry, he did not trust that Uncle Lee would keep his word and let Henry stay with him. In a perfect world, he would turn and grab Henry’s hand, and they would go off to do whatever they wanted, unburdened. But he knew there was no chance at that.
Uncle Lee would never let him go.
***
Henry was going through so many things in his head that it was hard to know just what he was thinking. Donghae having to shoot at him, that he got. Maybe there were bullets or no bullets. Maybe Donghae would put a hole in him somewhere or not. He didn’t think the physical pain would be worse than losing Donghae had been. Even with the vile threats being tossed out. Donghae’s posture told him more than anything that he’d find Henry a box to live in in Antarctica before any of those threats would be carried out.
Henry thought his heart had stopped when he heard Donghae speak.
“I won’t do it,” Donghae argued.
“You say that now. All these people watching. You’ve put yourself out there in front of me. No one gets second chances. Is that what you want?”
“Not for his life.”
“Then it’s over. You’re expendable to me,” Uncle Lee said, his hand large against Donghae’s chest as it shoved him back.
Henry waited for Donghae’s momentum to stop, for him to regain his balance as he staggered backwards. Every inch of distance screaming as Donghae fought for it, anger on his face. And then fear.
The backs of Donghae’s knees hit the barrier at the roof’s edge, and it stopped him short for a half a second before his momentum carried him back, his weight dragging him down. Donghae’s fingertips caught at the edge.
He searched for help, but there was none. Nothing to hold onto. No one to help.
And then Henry thought it was his screams, as Donghae disappeared over the edge.
Henry didn’t even realize he was in motion, until he was. His knees were made of jello, the distance between him and the roof’s edge so far, so long, that he didn’t know how he would get there. So it was a shock when his hands touched the edge, hunched over like a man severely wounded. He didn’t want to see, or look. If he saw Donghae, dead, it would be real. Until then, it wasn’t, right? Or maybe he just needed help. Maybe a fall from a 20 story building wouldn’t be…
Slitting his eyes closed, he leaned over the edge of the roof, looking through his lashes because he did not want to see. Donghae’s blue shirt had his eyes jumping wide.
“No…Donghae!!”
He choked as his shirt pulled tight against his throat, a hand dragging him back, and then dropping him onto the ground. And though his arm, hip, smarted, he would have scrambled up, if he were not so aware that a gun was, not insignificantly, being gestured toward him.
“He might’ve been good. But there was always something in him that held back because of you. I knew five years ago. Get back there.”
He limped back toward Tablo and other two. When he got almost within reaching distance of the thug, he bolted, his whole existence focused on the door. Donghae, Donghae… Right there, he’d been…
He half expected to hear a shot following him, but he heard nothing over the pumping of his heart.
***
“Just let him go,” Uncle Lee ordered as one of the men started after him. “He’s not going far.”
Eunhyuk watched Henry disappear as though rabid dogs were after him and he half envied him. He was doing his best not to look at his sister, or Tablo, so that he wouldn’t somehow telegraph his fear. There had been one person for him, one for Donghae. Was he going to be expected to pull the trigger of a possibly loaded gun at his sister as Donghae had been expected to? Everything he and Donghae had worked for, and for Henry Donghae had said no. And this was his sister. Sora, the only one who had tried to fight against him going to Uncle Lee in the first place. But she’d been too late, really. And there hadn’t been much of anything she could do except stay quiet and let him go. At least part of the reason he had gone to Uncle Lee was to take the pressure off his family.
But since he was the blood nephew of Uncle Lee, there was no life off of this roof if he didn’t comply. He just wasn’t sure there was if he did, also. He’d prepared himself for so many things. But not this. Not anything like this.
“Let the girl go to her brother,” Uncle Lee commanded.
Eunhyuk bristled, even as he accepted his sister into his embrace. He wouldn’t even use his own niece’s name. But that was what made him good, ruthless. Not caring about anything. Not even family.
“I know my nephew is expecting me to offer him a gun, Tablo, but he was forced into this by my weak-spined sister. He got that from her. A dog will never talk no matter how much it is taught to. Donghae had a hunger. No, it is not my nephew who needs to show his loyalty today. It’s you.”
Considering that his eyes were on Tablo’s face, it wasn’t surprising that he saw the shock. But also, a terrible kind of knowing. As though he had been fearing something like it. There was resignation in those eyes, and that scared him more than fear would have. Uncle Lee expected Tablo to shoot at him? Or Sora? No, he made more sense. Uncle Lee knew that he and Tablo were sleeping together. Donghae’s test had been Henry, so his sister had to just be there as some kind of decoy. He frantically told himself that. But Tablo was a good shot. He’d do his best to do it in some place that wouldn’t do too much damage. And hey, Tablo would be able to get him back for that time he’d shot him. Right?
“Which one?” Tablo asked, his voice steady. Almost as though he didn’t care. But he thought they all, even his sister who had no idea they were together, saw through that.
“No one trusts you fully because of your ties to the police. Why don’t we give them a good story, and say…both?”
Tablo’s eyebrows lifted imperceptibly, and Sora gasped.
“It’ll be okay,” he whispered, and tried to believe it himself. And he marshaled all of his courage, his convictions. Squeezing his sister, pushing her away from him slightly, he turned to his uncle. The man who had never been family. “Have him take two shots at me instead. She shouldn’t be involved in this.”
If anything, Uncle Lee seemed amused by it. “How self-sacrificing. Would you forgive him if he shot your sister? Or is that all you’d think about when he asks you to get him off? No. One for each.”
“With that gun?” Tablo asked.
“Is yours fully loaded? That would take the chance out of it. Trade me.”
Eunhyuk wondered if Tablo could tell if the gun he took from Uncle Lee was fully loaded, or loaded at all. Mentally he was already bracing for pain. If Tablo did not do this, after working so long, his standing would be severely compromised. Not even for… Not even for what they had, could something like that be challenged. Tablo had no choice, and he couldn’t deny that.
But his blood chilled when Uncle Lee lifted the gun he had just taken from Tablo, pointing it at him and Sora. He shifted, trying to get his own body between the gun and Sora.
“It’s you or me,” Uncle Lee chortled. “And I won’t miss.”
Tablo was staring at the gun in his hand with some contemplation. “I’ll take your word on that.”
The shot was deafening, and Eunhyuk’s body jerked with it, as the goon right closest to him, who had pushed Sora into his arms, fell to his knees. Tablo, tense, hadn’t even raised his gun yet, reacting to the shot that had come from behind him, and it was like he could see the world expanding, raising so fluidly, so naturally. It was like his eardrums shivered along with his stomach at the blast. Watching one of the goon’s clutch at his arm, and Tablo’s gun fire. Watching the report of the gun, Uncle Lee’s gun, as it bucked, and his arm twisting.
And falling.
And Eunhyuk fell with him, dragging his sister to the ground as not one, but multiple shots rang out, flattening them as much as he could to make them less of a target.
“Stay down!” he ordered her.
He had no weapon, but the man beside him did. The one who had fallen. There was blood, a lot of it, but he scrambled forward despite it, getting the pistol in his hand, checking the safety, looking up, trying to see. He’d just painted a target on himself by claiming a weapon, but he couldn’t just lay there. He had no idea if Tablo’s gun had bullets left in it, and the goons of Uncle Lee’s wouldn’t have taken those shots sitting down. He felt the roof shake beneath him as a body fell, and his eyes slammed closed in horror. It was a nightmare he wanted to wake from. Gunfire, fights to the death. Sora should never have seen it. And if Tablo wasn’t okay, if he didn’t make it out okay, then what was he going to do? Tablo had the gun, and it had to have had something in it, something to protect him. He pushed to his feet on autopilot, looking around, finger poised. He’d kill if he had to, to protect the people he loved.
“Eunhyuk, it’s okay,” he heard, the sound muffled, dampened. But it was Tablo’s voice.
One of the men was sitting nursing a wound on his side. A man he didn’t know well, but someone Tablo was obviously concerned about. Tablo left him, apparently satisfied, back toward Uncle Lee. And as he walked, Eunhyuk turned back to Sora, making sure she was okay, helping her up. Except for a few scrapes where she had fallen, it seemed like it. And he hugged her tight to him. Whispering comfort, and knowing that when he looked up that all would be carnage.
A gunshot wound was blooming in the center of Uncle Lee’s chest, and Tablo over him. “Now, I bet that was unexpected,” he heard Tablo say, his hearing still hollow. “I knew there would be a round in the chamber, you old bastard.”
The other men on the roof had holstered their guns, the big one they called Bear coming to clap Tablo on his shoulder as he checked to make sure that Uncle Lee was dead. There were three dead men. Beneath his arm, his sister was trembling but still quite calm and he was thankful as Tablo stepped close to him.
“I got as many police here today as I could. This was an outcome we…anticipated. I’m sorry, because he was your family, but I know he was no family to you. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”
“You knew he would die? Why didn’t you kill him years ago?!”
“There are people being arrested all over the city right now with the information we got. He forced our hand, but I’m not sorry about it. Bear, take her, would you? She needs something to drink or something.”
Eunhyuk relinquished her unwillingly but she gave him a small smile. Glad to be gone from this place and the dead bodies.
Suddenly he remembered Donghae.
He raced for the edge.
***
Going down that flight of stairs was the longest in Henry’s life. He kept imagining himself tripping on a shoelace and breaking his neck, but somehow he careened out into a hallway. And had to get his bearings. Which side of the building? He veered north, pushing through stacked chairs to a wide bank of locked windows. All quite solidly latched. But he didn’t care. He would have broken the window out if he had had to, but luck was with him, and the window swung out as it had been designed to. And he was out of it, scraping his back on the frame as he scrambled to his right onto the secondary roof.
Where Donghae was moaning and clutching at his shoulder, but alive.
Alive.
“Donghae,” he half gasped, dropping beside him, touching him to be sure he was real. “I thought you were dead. I thought you were… Don’t scare me like that. Don’t scare me. I can’t lose you like that.”
He was hissing out his words, not wanting anyone to come investigate, not until he could get Donghae to some better sheltered spot. They were sitting ducks where they were. If Uncle Lee chanced to look over the edge, it was too easy to lift the gun and fire a shot. There wasn’t really any place to go but down or in.
“You’re okay,” Donghae said, voice hazed by pain.
“Shhh, yeah, I am. Come on. Can you stand? Is your neck okay? Just your arm?”
“I think it’s my shoulder. Hit it. My head. Didn’t fall good.”
He resisted the urge to kiss Donghae, assure himself he wasn’t dreaming. But he’d barely gotten Donghae sitting upright when they heard the shots. Multiple reports, multiple guns. It wasn’t anything like the movies. Nothing. Knowing their friends could be dying above them.
“Eunhyuk?” Donghae breathed. As though his head was righting itself.
“He’s okay. He has to be. His sister, too. He wouldn’t… He wouldn’t.”
It stalled them, those thoughts, staring up at the roof some 15 feet over their heads. Gripping Donghae’s good hand and sort of half praying inside, and half out. Whispering pleas.
His shoes crunched gravel in shock as a torso popped into view, and then a second. First Eunhyuk, then Tablo.
There was dread there, and then surprise. Happiness.
“Lee Donghae!” Eunhyuk shouted. Followed by a few colorful and choice curses questioning Donghae’s manhood and place in society. Tablo nodded at Henry to let him know that there was help on the way. And he gave in, wiping the tears that had snuck out against Donghae’s shirt, nearly bursting with relief and love as Donghae pressed their faces together.
***
Donghae knew he was on the good drugs, the pain in his shoulder kind of an afterthought as he lay in his hospital bed. The x-rays, the doctors. The sling. The medication. He’d gone through all of it on his own because Henry had not been allowed with him, no matter what protests he’d put up. Not enough to get him kicked out of the hospital, Donghae hoped. He’d heard things like “mild concussion” and “keeping the sling on for weeks” while he healed. And that was great. It was something. He could’ve ended up flat on the sidewalk.
And it was stupid, after all that had happened, that he was scared. Scared that Henry had lived through that scene on the roof and saw just exactly what Donghae had been doing for the last five years. It was nothing pretty. It was ugly and raw and sometimes dangerous, and more often illegal. Even with a good reason, with a cop beside him, there weren’t things he was easily going to forgive himself for. Even though everything they had done, every family they had hurt, they had tried to repay, often in more than a few ways. Very quietly. It wasn’t something he and Tablo had been able to help. And Eunhyuk as well. He wondered where they were. Probably talking to other police. There were a lot of things to go down. Trials. Sweeps. Enough information collected to make a courthouse weep, enough dirty people, officials, even cops, to make the whole five years look like a piece of cake.
Tablo had stopped in and given him a quick and dirty rundown, arguing he was police when Henry had still been barred. The rest of the organization was in shock. But the only thing no one knew was who had been the informants. Because the only people on the roof who had survived had been somehow, if unofficially, connected to the police on that roof, the blame for Uncle Lee’s death was billed an accident by one of the goons. Too bad that goon had “died” as well. Too bad. Too bad he’d never really existed, not really. He’d gone back to his life in some sea town where no one would ever know he’d really left.
He knew there would be things he’d have to do. Things he’d have to tell, things beyond what Tablo had reported. Things that wouldn’t let him escape this world he’d come into quite as quickly as he would like. He barely had recollection of how long he lay on that rooftop in pain. He could not say that his focus had been on the happenings on the roof at first, just trying to focus on breathing and not throwing up. He remembered trying to reach for something to hold on to, trying to say Henry’s name before he fell. Nothing had worked. Had he wondered if he had died, as he had clutched his shoulder? There had been gravel embedded in his skin, and he’d been so dazed…
And then Henry had been there. Touching him, talking to him. Like some kind of accented angel. He grinned kind of sloppily as he remembered. Not that he hadn’t still been in pain, but as his reasoning came back to him, and his worry, he had Henry beside him. If there was anything he had needed at that moment, it was that. Just Henry.
As another nurse came briskly in, she was giving a warning over her shoulder that visiting wasn’t allowed much longer. And his heart thumped hard. It was Henry, stepping in so unsure, as though he wasn’t sure what he was going to see. But a happy, hopeful smile on his face was enough. Waiting until the nurse had walked out and closed the door before he leaned carefully agains Donghae’s good side to kiss him.
“Hi,” Henry said softly.
“Hey.”
“I wasn’t sure if you’d want to see me. If you were tired,” Henry quickly amended, obviously sensing that he was about to get upset. Henry could not doubt that Donghae wanted, needed him nearby.
“I’d still have wanted to see you,” he said, letting his hand, and all the random equipment attached to it, rest on Henry’s neck. Henry’s cheek was pressed in the vicinity of Donghae’s heart, just listening.
“I really thought you had fallen, and I had lost you for good,” Henry murmured. “It was so unreal, like watching some kind of movie. Running to the edge. Like I’d somehow make it over after you…catch you, or…”
Or fall with him? That thought hurt more than his shoulder had.
“I can’t leave you yet,” he said, giving a hoarse little chuckle. “I made up my mind a while ago you were stuck with me until I could make it up to you. A certain number of smiles for every day we were stuck apart.”
Henry lifted his head, searching Donghae’s eyes. “That’s a lot of smiles.”
“I’m sure I’ll do something stupid to owe you more before I’m all paid up. So I think you’re stuck with me.”
“You know I don’t actually think you owe me something, right? I know you were protecting me.”
“Shh. Let me just imagine, okay? I’m finally doing something good for once.”
Henry kissed him, snuggling as close as he could while leaning as he was. “I wish I could stay here tonight with you.”
“I’m going to argue to get out of here and go home,” Donghae said staunchly. “It’s not like I broke in half or something. I can swallow a pain pill just as well. Besides, you’ll be there.”
“You know we can’t go back to the house, right? That was one of the first things Tablo did, he went to the house with Eunhyuk and packed up all our stuff. He said he’d get my passport and stuff where you’d stashed it. He said we could crash for a while with him when he gets a new apartment finalized, or he said the police department would help find us a place.”
“Yeah, okay. But I still want out of here, even if we go to a motel. I won’t be very interesting company, but it’d be better than staying in here. They don’t need my money.”
“Should I distract them while you run?”
“Would I look very good getting away in this gown?” he wondered.
Henry laughed, and it lifted him and made his heart pang in disbelief.
“I just can’t understand that it’s over. That he’s dead. That we can just… When it’s done, just do whatever. I could go back to school, or… I don’t even know! It’s so weird.”
What would it take to be done? They still didn’t have all the answers. But the danger, at least, was gone. He didn’t have to have nightmares of someone dragging Henry away. Or of killing someone. Or… At least, he wanted to be able to set aside those nightmares. He hoped he would.
“It’s not weird,” Henry said, rather primly. He sat up enough to leverage a hip onto the edge of the bed, squeezing Donghae’s fingers. “It’s what you should’ve had a long time ago.”
“I’ll make it up to you. To everyone. I swear.”
“Donghae…”
The nurse came back in, and Donghae would have bolted upright if he hadn’t been aware of his sling.
“Who do I have to talk to about getting out of here?” he demanded, giving the lady his biggest, most disarming smile.
She kind of smiled back unsure before softening. Henry chuckled inside, and kept Donghae’s hand in his.
***