it's always sunny in space - chapter 11
it's always sunny in space (11/13)
apocryphalic + loveclouds
yunho/changmin
pg-13
fbi!changmin meets alien!yunho, his yoga instructor. commence bending, finding inner peace, and discovering love that's out of this world.
previous: chapter 1 l chapter 2 l chapter 3 l chapter 4 l chapter 5 l chapter 6 l chapter 7 l chapter 8 l chapter 9 l chapter 10
---
Changmin wakes up to familiar voices, Yoochun's and definitely Junsu's along with an extremely loud and mostly annoyed one mixed in with a gentler, curious one. He groans a little and blinks, moving around to find his wrists handcuffed to the steel hospital bedframe. Changmin mutters a curse at Yoochun and isn't surprised when the older man curses back at him and comes into view.
"Uncuff me," he hisses immediately, "I'm not a criminal or anything."
Yoochun raises his eyebrow and shakes his head, unclasping the cuffs anyway and watches as Changmin rubs his wrists. "Doctor says any deeper and you'd be dead you stupid idiot."
Changmin shrugs, narrowing his eyes as he traces along the jagged almost-but-not-really cut he had made. "If only you had come a second later then, I wouldn't be here and I wouldn't be your problem anymore."
"No, but then you'd be mine," a sharp voice snarls at him and Changmin turns to see Heerobbong. Yunho's Heerobbong.
He blanches immediately, scooting away from Heechul by instinct. "What- why are you here?" he asks, eyes wide as he stares at Heechul and the strange man beside him. "I guess you know about Yunho being taken in then...I screwed up," says quietly, his words simple and true.
Heechul growls and looks at Yoochun and Junsu who immediately turn around and exit the room, leaving Changmin alone with the two men. So much for best friends, Changmin thinks with a scowl on his face. "Jaejoong called me and told me you said some weird things about being sorry and wishing you could take things back. Told me to check up on you and make sure you didn't do anything stupid like go and try to kill yourself!"
Changmin blinks wearily at them and turns to look at his friends outside, glaring pointedly for leaving him here before looking back at Heechul. "Doesn't matter anymore. I'm not dead and Yunho's still not back." He gives Heechul a quick lookover, hesitating a little before he asks, "C- can't you save him or something?" he whispers, "you're an alien and-,"
"And what?" Heechul suddenly says, voice low and dark as he leans in to stare Changmin down, panting hotly down Changmin's neck. "Just because I'm an alien doesn't mean I can zap him away. I'm not made of magic. He's still a person, still a living, breathing thing that you sent to get locked up. You're the one who fucked up here, pretty boy, don't expect someone else to bail you out."
Changmin cringes at Heechul's words, curling down into the cot and onto his side. "Go away," he mumbles, "I don't want you here. You're not responsible for me."
"Stop acting like a spoiled, entitled brat," Heechul hisses angrily, tugging away Changmin's blanket. "You're the FBI agent here, you know exactly how they're treating Yunho right now. And I highly doubt he's cracked yet. The Jung Yunho I know wouldn't ever give up his friends and family..." Heechul leans down again, so close that Changmin can feel the dampness of Heechul's breath, "and he wouldn't give you up either. So don't you fucking dare give up on him."
Heechul doesn't say any more than that, walking out and checking Changmin out of the hospital immediately, bringing him back home where he keeps a close watch on him. And to be frank, even though Heechul is absolutely insane and the other alien, Dorobbong, is more than a little nuts, Changmin finds that he prefers the loudness they provide to the silence of living in an apartment obviously meant for more than one.
---
Heechul's seething more often than not these days, wanting to snap at Changmin constantly.
He loves Changmin on principle simply because Yunho loves the stupid idiot, and he can see why Yunho would; Changmin's very intelligent and forward with his thoughts, has many of his own ideas, and is far more mature than someone only 21 years old. He has a certain kind of softness to him that screams vulnerability and he's very, very good looking. But right now, Heechul can only massage away a headache at the moping that Changmin's doing every single day, crying every now and then, yelling for no particular reason at all except to yell, acting like such a stupid idiot that Heechul's taken to calling him that.
"Yah, stupid idiot!" he snaps, poking at Changmin's head where the younger man's seated on the couch, "dinner! If you don't eat, I'll shove it down your throat."
Changmin sighs and gets off the couch. Heechul would carry through that threat, he's already done it once and Changmin doesn't see why he wouldn't do it again.
Donghae waves him over from the dinner table with a smile and Changmin can only attempt a weak one back, trudging to the table where there's lots of rice and delicious dishes, plenty of meat to fatten Changmin up again.
It's delicious, always is, but Changmin's long since realized that nothing could ever taste as good as the jjigae that Yunho makes.
"Don't cry at the dinner table," Heechul says flatly, not even looking up from his bowl of rice.
"You've been here for three days," Changmin says tiredly, "can't you leave yet?"
"No."
"Changmin! I like your plates!" Donghae says with a bright smile, tapping at one. "Ikea?"
---
Heechul's been here for a week now and Changmin hates him but not really; the older man yells and screams at him, forces him to eat porridge and even some rice but Heechul cares and that's more than Changmin could've asked for from one of Yunho's best friends.
He's lying in bed one night after Donghae's tucked him in as usual, blankets up to his chin and Bambi snug in his arms when he hears the two of them talking in the hallway, Donghae's loud voice unmistakable. Changmin throws the covers up and pads lightly towards the door, cracking it open just a smidgen so he can hear.
"When do we go back to LA and to the other Super Juniors? I miss Hyukjae and them."
"We'll go back when the stupid idiot can eat and sleep by himself and not need us to babysit him," Heechul replies, devoid of any emotion but exasperation.
"I like him, I like him a lot, but all he does is cry and even when I smile at him, he doesn't smile back at me. I know he's sad about Yoorobbong but why doesn't he do anything? All he does is lie there. And why are we here? Kangin-hyung says that Changmin's the one that got Yoorobbong locked up and that's why I can't see him. Why are we helping Changmin out then?"
Changmin blinks, breath catching in his throat as he opens the door just a little more, peering out to find the two of them walking back to the living room.
"Because Yunho loves him," Heechul says quietly, "Yunho loves him and that's enough for me."
Changmin closes the door at that, running back to bed and hiding under the covers. He curls into a ball again, pillow in his arms as he cries, painful, full-body sobs that hurt him physically. He's more than miserable and wonders, not for the first time that week, how life without Yunho could be worth living.
He drifts off uneasily some time after that, feeling cold and alone, but that's nothing new these days. Changmin startles awake when he hears the doorbell and quickly stumbles out of bed; if there's company, then there's news.
He sees Heechul look at him in the living room before pulling the door open and Changmin's breath catches to see Yoochun standing there with a box of stuff.
"Your next mission," his old friend says, and Changmin deflates, resisting the urge to pick up a plate to throw into Yoochun's head. "Come on Minnie, you know you have to. If you stay like this, HQ really is going to get suspicious and take you in for questioning too."
"Don't fucking care," Changmin snaps flatly, turning on his heels to walk away.
"At least watch the videos!" Yoochun calls after him.
Changmin slams his and Yunho's bedroom door shut and falls into bed, curling up again, holding Yunho's soft stuffed deer in his arms, petting gently at her fur. "Do you miss your dad?" he asks quietly, looking into Bambi's plastic eyes sadly. "I miss him too. I miss him so, so, so much."
The next time he's woken up is when Heechul drops the box of stuff into the room. Changmin jolts up in the bed and looks at the older man, confused and annoyed.
"I said I didn't want to wat-"
"Shut up," Heechul says nicely, picking the box up again to dump all of its contents into Changmin's lap. "Look, you're being the opposite of productive. I can practically feel the way your entire species is regressing because of your counterproductivity." He flips his hair in irritation and sits on the bed to poke Changmin in the forehead. "What do you think you're doing right now, huhn?"
"I'm...I'm..." Changmin stutters, looking for the right word. "I'm grieving."
"Grieving!" Heechul scoffs, "for someone who's within your grasp? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard!"
"Well it's none of your bus-"
"It's all my business!" Heechul snaps, "Yunho is one of my best, best, best friends, do you understand that? I love him more than I love my own family because I actually like Yunho too. He's the kindest, sweetest guy, even to the worst of people, and right now, you're fitting into that category. I'll tell you what you're doing right now. You're being an emotional, mopey, useless sac of carbon. That's what you are. So if you want to do something, then just do it!" He shoves some of the tapes into Changmin's lap. "You have a TV in here. Watch them and help someone if you can't help yourself. Got it?"
Heechul gives Changmin the evil eye to stop any response before getting up again. He waves and pats Changmin on the head before walking out, closing the door gently behind him, leaving Changmin with his mouth open and feeling like a little boy who's just been scolded.
Changmin's still staring and gaping long after Heechul's left, tugging the huge pile of things closer so he can peer into it. Heechul's right, of course he's right, and Changmin's starting to find that particular trait of Heechul annoying. "Didn't have to be such a diva about it," he mumbles, looking at the tapes.
"I heard that!" comes Heechul's booming voice from the hallway and Changmin inadvertently cowers, peeking from behind a stack of files, half expecting Heechul to pop out and yell at him some more. "Stop sulking you stupid idiot. I'm not Yunho and I won't baby you!"
Changmin sucks in a tiny breath, reaching up automatically to wipe at his tears and scowls, sucking it up and going to pop tape number 1 into the TV.
He sits back, pulling out a case file and flips through it, hardly paying attention to what's on the TV until he hears a voice asking, "Has Changmin come to see me?" It's Yunho's voice. Changmin nearly falls off the bed, reaching for the remote and backtracking, crawling up to the TV, hand pressed up against Yunho's face as he replays the same ten seconds of video. "Yunho," he whispers, "oh my God, Yunho, what have they done to you?" he cries out softly, gently stroking at the older man's gaunt cheeks and pale skin.
He scrambles to find the other tapes, watching in horror at first as they shock Yunho, shock him for a right answer, shock him for what they think is a wrong one. It hurts more than if Changmin had been getting shocked himself. He would rather get shocked himself than watch Yunho have to go through so much pain. Changmin ejects the first tape and pops in another one, quietly gathering all the tapes on the bed into his lap.
There's thirteen in general and by the time he's on the fourth one, Changmin loses it. Yunho's obviously sick, carried in by a bunch of agents in black attire just so they could shock him for a few more answers, always the same questions about his home planet and Changmin.
He seethes in anger when they tell Yunho that he's forgotten about him, that he doesn't care about Yunho, doesn't love him and that all he wants to do is work. It's such a blatant lie and Changmin breathes out a tiny sigh of relief to see Yunho tell them to fuck off. It doesn't last long though and Changmin cringes, pressing his fingertips desperately into the TV as Yunho cries horribly, watching as the older man doesn't even fight the sedation.
It's the next tape that really does him in; Yunho's carted in once more, electrical shockers attached to his arms and for the first time in as many tapes as Changmin's watched, Yunho stops asking for him. Changmin feels himself break, ejecting the videotape immediately and storms out.
Donghae and Heechul are in the living room and Heechul stares at him, eyes narrowed before there's a flash of recognition at the emotions playing across Changmin's face. The younger man is angry, furious, and so full of hate for something or someone that Heechul, for the first time, finds himself scared of Changmin.
"Took you long enough," Yoochun says, and Changmin whirls around to find his friend at the kitchen sink, calmly drinking a glass of cranberry juice. "Seen them all?"
"What the fuck!" Changmin snarls, reaching Yoochun in five easy steps, grabbing the older man by the collar. "What the fuck, Yoochun! Why didn't you do anything!? They hurt him! They're hurting him!!" Changmin feels angry, pained tears spring to his eyes again in memory of the way Yunho's face had fallen every time they told him that Changmin hadn't come to see him. It hurts so much worse than any physical wound Changmin's ever experienced.
"Well, you did the right thing," Yoochun says, still calm, gently prying Changmin's fingers off the his shirt.
"What?!"
"You did the right thing," Yoochun repeats slowly, looking Changmin in the eye. "But Changmin-ah, you know...sometimes, there's an entire world of difference between doing the right thing and doing what you should."
Changmin stares at his friend in numb shock. Such a simple, devastating phrase and one that no one's bothered to tell him until just now.
"So I have some information for you!" Yoochun pulls a still stunned Changmin with him to the kitchen table, handing over a thin file. "Now, a proper agent doing the right thing would never, ever make copies of top secret, confidential material. And of course, never leak classified information such as the fact that at exactly 3:04 every morning, the two cameras directed towards Yunho's cell are pointed in different directions. The agent doing the right thing would never tell you that you have a 40 second slot to somehow get your way to the blindspot and get the cell open, if and only if you manage to kick the ass of the guard outside Yunho's door holding all the keys and a black belt in karate. And that he likes to order his coffee from Starbucks and have it delivered to HQ at exactly 3 am."
Yoochun smiles and watches as Changmin's face hardens, the face of the young, determined agent that had first stepped into his office over a year ago.
"And the agent doing the right thing," he says softly, "would never tell you how much Yunho misses you, how much he loves you, how much he cries because he just wants you to visit and sit with him to talk over a cup of tea." Yoochun reaches forward and collects Changmin in a tight hug, the thin folder of information pressed between them, all handwritten notes that Yoochun's made for Changmin. "There's a huge difference between the right thing to do and what you should do, Changmin-ah," he says softly.
Yoochun pulls back to smile at Changmin again, tapping the folder. He hears Heechul laughing quietly behind him and grins.
"You forget, Minnie Mouse. I'm not here as the proper agent. I'm here as your friend."
Changmin swallows back his tears and nods, more than determined because now he has a mission and an aim; he's going to break yunho out of the cell they have him in and he's going to do it soon.
He opens the folder, squeezing Yoochun's hand briefly and reads the papers, quickly scanning through them to read through all the little notes Yoochun's written for him. "I'll have 40 seconds," he repeats, raising his head to look Yoochun in the eyes, takes in the way his old friend has his fingers plugged in his ears to keep from hearing what Changmin's going to do. "I'll have 40 seconds to break him out and get him out of HQ."
Changmin locates the cell they've got Yunho in on the map, tapping his fingers as he calculates how to get to the hallway. Yoochun starts singing. It's the only way they can do this, because later, when they bring Yoochun in for interrogation for why things went wrong, the older man literally will not know what Changmin's done.
"I'll need the door at the end to be unlocked, staircase 43A and I'll need exit door 18 to be unlocked as well." Changmin whispers to himself, swallowing roughly, closing his eyes briefly before opening them to settle on the kitchen clock. It's only 11 pm and Changmin knows that that's more time than he needs. "Tonight," he whispers at first, images of Yunho coming into mind before he repeats it firmly, "tonight. I'm going to break him out tonight."
---
Hit Counter
sorry about the delay! thanks for reading!
apocryphalic + loveclouds
yunho/changmin
pg-13
fbi!changmin meets alien!yunho, his yoga instructor. commence bending, finding inner peace, and discovering love that's out of this world.
previous: chapter 1 l chapter 2 l chapter 3 l chapter 4 l chapter 5 l chapter 6 l chapter 7 l chapter 8 l chapter 9 l chapter 10
---
Changmin wakes up to familiar voices, Yoochun's and definitely Junsu's along with an extremely loud and mostly annoyed one mixed in with a gentler, curious one. He groans a little and blinks, moving around to find his wrists handcuffed to the steel hospital bedframe. Changmin mutters a curse at Yoochun and isn't surprised when the older man curses back at him and comes into view.
"Uncuff me," he hisses immediately, "I'm not a criminal or anything."
Yoochun raises his eyebrow and shakes his head, unclasping the cuffs anyway and watches as Changmin rubs his wrists. "Doctor says any deeper and you'd be dead you stupid idiot."
Changmin shrugs, narrowing his eyes as he traces along the jagged almost-but-not-really cut he had made. "If only you had come a second later then, I wouldn't be here and I wouldn't be your problem anymore."
"No, but then you'd be mine," a sharp voice snarls at him and Changmin turns to see Heerobbong. Yunho's Heerobbong.
He blanches immediately, scooting away from Heechul by instinct. "What- why are you here?" he asks, eyes wide as he stares at Heechul and the strange man beside him. "I guess you know about Yunho being taken in then...I screwed up," says quietly, his words simple and true.
Heechul growls and looks at Yoochun and Junsu who immediately turn around and exit the room, leaving Changmin alone with the two men. So much for best friends, Changmin thinks with a scowl on his face. "Jaejoong called me and told me you said some weird things about being sorry and wishing you could take things back. Told me to check up on you and make sure you didn't do anything stupid like go and try to kill yourself!"
Changmin blinks wearily at them and turns to look at his friends outside, glaring pointedly for leaving him here before looking back at Heechul. "Doesn't matter anymore. I'm not dead and Yunho's still not back." He gives Heechul a quick lookover, hesitating a little before he asks, "C- can't you save him or something?" he whispers, "you're an alien and-,"
"And what?" Heechul suddenly says, voice low and dark as he leans in to stare Changmin down, panting hotly down Changmin's neck. "Just because I'm an alien doesn't mean I can zap him away. I'm not made of magic. He's still a person, still a living, breathing thing that you sent to get locked up. You're the one who fucked up here, pretty boy, don't expect someone else to bail you out."
Changmin cringes at Heechul's words, curling down into the cot and onto his side. "Go away," he mumbles, "I don't want you here. You're not responsible for me."
"Stop acting like a spoiled, entitled brat," Heechul hisses angrily, tugging away Changmin's blanket. "You're the FBI agent here, you know exactly how they're treating Yunho right now. And I highly doubt he's cracked yet. The Jung Yunho I know wouldn't ever give up his friends and family..." Heechul leans down again, so close that Changmin can feel the dampness of Heechul's breath, "and he wouldn't give you up either. So don't you fucking dare give up on him."
Heechul doesn't say any more than that, walking out and checking Changmin out of the hospital immediately, bringing him back home where he keeps a close watch on him. And to be frank, even though Heechul is absolutely insane and the other alien, Dorobbong, is more than a little nuts, Changmin finds that he prefers the loudness they provide to the silence of living in an apartment obviously meant for more than one.
---
Heechul's seething more often than not these days, wanting to snap at Changmin constantly.
He loves Changmin on principle simply because Yunho loves the stupid idiot, and he can see why Yunho would; Changmin's very intelligent and forward with his thoughts, has many of his own ideas, and is far more mature than someone only 21 years old. He has a certain kind of softness to him that screams vulnerability and he's very, very good looking. But right now, Heechul can only massage away a headache at the moping that Changmin's doing every single day, crying every now and then, yelling for no particular reason at all except to yell, acting like such a stupid idiot that Heechul's taken to calling him that.
"Yah, stupid idiot!" he snaps, poking at Changmin's head where the younger man's seated on the couch, "dinner! If you don't eat, I'll shove it down your throat."
Changmin sighs and gets off the couch. Heechul would carry through that threat, he's already done it once and Changmin doesn't see why he wouldn't do it again.
Donghae waves him over from the dinner table with a smile and Changmin can only attempt a weak one back, trudging to the table where there's lots of rice and delicious dishes, plenty of meat to fatten Changmin up again.
It's delicious, always is, but Changmin's long since realized that nothing could ever taste as good as the jjigae that Yunho makes.
"Don't cry at the dinner table," Heechul says flatly, not even looking up from his bowl of rice.
"You've been here for three days," Changmin says tiredly, "can't you leave yet?"
"No."
"Changmin! I like your plates!" Donghae says with a bright smile, tapping at one. "Ikea?"
---
Heechul's been here for a week now and Changmin hates him but not really; the older man yells and screams at him, forces him to eat porridge and even some rice but Heechul cares and that's more than Changmin could've asked for from one of Yunho's best friends.
He's lying in bed one night after Donghae's tucked him in as usual, blankets up to his chin and Bambi snug in his arms when he hears the two of them talking in the hallway, Donghae's loud voice unmistakable. Changmin throws the covers up and pads lightly towards the door, cracking it open just a smidgen so he can hear.
"When do we go back to LA and to the other Super Juniors? I miss Hyukjae and them."
"We'll go back when the stupid idiot can eat and sleep by himself and not need us to babysit him," Heechul replies, devoid of any emotion but exasperation.
"I like him, I like him a lot, but all he does is cry and even when I smile at him, he doesn't smile back at me. I know he's sad about Yoorobbong but why doesn't he do anything? All he does is lie there. And why are we here? Kangin-hyung says that Changmin's the one that got Yoorobbong locked up and that's why I can't see him. Why are we helping Changmin out then?"
Changmin blinks, breath catching in his throat as he opens the door just a little more, peering out to find the two of them walking back to the living room.
"Because Yunho loves him," Heechul says quietly, "Yunho loves him and that's enough for me."
Changmin closes the door at that, running back to bed and hiding under the covers. He curls into a ball again, pillow in his arms as he cries, painful, full-body sobs that hurt him physically. He's more than miserable and wonders, not for the first time that week, how life without Yunho could be worth living.
He drifts off uneasily some time after that, feeling cold and alone, but that's nothing new these days. Changmin startles awake when he hears the doorbell and quickly stumbles out of bed; if there's company, then there's news.
He sees Heechul look at him in the living room before pulling the door open and Changmin's breath catches to see Yoochun standing there with a box of stuff.
"Your next mission," his old friend says, and Changmin deflates, resisting the urge to pick up a plate to throw into Yoochun's head. "Come on Minnie, you know you have to. If you stay like this, HQ really is going to get suspicious and take you in for questioning too."
"Don't fucking care," Changmin snaps flatly, turning on his heels to walk away.
"At least watch the videos!" Yoochun calls after him.
Changmin slams his and Yunho's bedroom door shut and falls into bed, curling up again, holding Yunho's soft stuffed deer in his arms, petting gently at her fur. "Do you miss your dad?" he asks quietly, looking into Bambi's plastic eyes sadly. "I miss him too. I miss him so, so, so much."
The next time he's woken up is when Heechul drops the box of stuff into the room. Changmin jolts up in the bed and looks at the older man, confused and annoyed.
"I said I didn't want to wat-"
"Shut up," Heechul says nicely, picking the box up again to dump all of its contents into Changmin's lap. "Look, you're being the opposite of productive. I can practically feel the way your entire species is regressing because of your counterproductivity." He flips his hair in irritation and sits on the bed to poke Changmin in the forehead. "What do you think you're doing right now, huhn?"
"I'm...I'm..." Changmin stutters, looking for the right word. "I'm grieving."
"Grieving!" Heechul scoffs, "for someone who's within your grasp? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard!"
"Well it's none of your bus-"
"It's all my business!" Heechul snaps, "Yunho is one of my best, best, best friends, do you understand that? I love him more than I love my own family because I actually like Yunho too. He's the kindest, sweetest guy, even to the worst of people, and right now, you're fitting into that category. I'll tell you what you're doing right now. You're being an emotional, mopey, useless sac of carbon. That's what you are. So if you want to do something, then just do it!" He shoves some of the tapes into Changmin's lap. "You have a TV in here. Watch them and help someone if you can't help yourself. Got it?"
Heechul gives Changmin the evil eye to stop any response before getting up again. He waves and pats Changmin on the head before walking out, closing the door gently behind him, leaving Changmin with his mouth open and feeling like a little boy who's just been scolded.
Changmin's still staring and gaping long after Heechul's left, tugging the huge pile of things closer so he can peer into it. Heechul's right, of course he's right, and Changmin's starting to find that particular trait of Heechul annoying. "Didn't have to be such a diva about it," he mumbles, looking at the tapes.
"I heard that!" comes Heechul's booming voice from the hallway and Changmin inadvertently cowers, peeking from behind a stack of files, half expecting Heechul to pop out and yell at him some more. "Stop sulking you stupid idiot. I'm not Yunho and I won't baby you!"
Changmin sucks in a tiny breath, reaching up automatically to wipe at his tears and scowls, sucking it up and going to pop tape number 1 into the TV.
He sits back, pulling out a case file and flips through it, hardly paying attention to what's on the TV until he hears a voice asking, "Has Changmin come to see me?" It's Yunho's voice. Changmin nearly falls off the bed, reaching for the remote and backtracking, crawling up to the TV, hand pressed up against Yunho's face as he replays the same ten seconds of video. "Yunho," he whispers, "oh my God, Yunho, what have they done to you?" he cries out softly, gently stroking at the older man's gaunt cheeks and pale skin.
He scrambles to find the other tapes, watching in horror at first as they shock Yunho, shock him for a right answer, shock him for what they think is a wrong one. It hurts more than if Changmin had been getting shocked himself. He would rather get shocked himself than watch Yunho have to go through so much pain. Changmin ejects the first tape and pops in another one, quietly gathering all the tapes on the bed into his lap.
There's thirteen in general and by the time he's on the fourth one, Changmin loses it. Yunho's obviously sick, carried in by a bunch of agents in black attire just so they could shock him for a few more answers, always the same questions about his home planet and Changmin.
He seethes in anger when they tell Yunho that he's forgotten about him, that he doesn't care about Yunho, doesn't love him and that all he wants to do is work. It's such a blatant lie and Changmin breathes out a tiny sigh of relief to see Yunho tell them to fuck off. It doesn't last long though and Changmin cringes, pressing his fingertips desperately into the TV as Yunho cries horribly, watching as the older man doesn't even fight the sedation.
It's the next tape that really does him in; Yunho's carted in once more, electrical shockers attached to his arms and for the first time in as many tapes as Changmin's watched, Yunho stops asking for him. Changmin feels himself break, ejecting the videotape immediately and storms out.
Donghae and Heechul are in the living room and Heechul stares at him, eyes narrowed before there's a flash of recognition at the emotions playing across Changmin's face. The younger man is angry, furious, and so full of hate for something or someone that Heechul, for the first time, finds himself scared of Changmin.
"Took you long enough," Yoochun says, and Changmin whirls around to find his friend at the kitchen sink, calmly drinking a glass of cranberry juice. "Seen them all?"
"What the fuck!" Changmin snarls, reaching Yoochun in five easy steps, grabbing the older man by the collar. "What the fuck, Yoochun! Why didn't you do anything!? They hurt him! They're hurting him!!" Changmin feels angry, pained tears spring to his eyes again in memory of the way Yunho's face had fallen every time they told him that Changmin hadn't come to see him. It hurts so much worse than any physical wound Changmin's ever experienced.
"Well, you did the right thing," Yoochun says, still calm, gently prying Changmin's fingers off the his shirt.
"What?!"
"You did the right thing," Yoochun repeats slowly, looking Changmin in the eye. "But Changmin-ah, you know...sometimes, there's an entire world of difference between doing the right thing and doing what you should."
Changmin stares at his friend in numb shock. Such a simple, devastating phrase and one that no one's bothered to tell him until just now.
"So I have some information for you!" Yoochun pulls a still stunned Changmin with him to the kitchen table, handing over a thin file. "Now, a proper agent doing the right thing would never, ever make copies of top secret, confidential material. And of course, never leak classified information such as the fact that at exactly 3:04 every morning, the two cameras directed towards Yunho's cell are pointed in different directions. The agent doing the right thing would never tell you that you have a 40 second slot to somehow get your way to the blindspot and get the cell open, if and only if you manage to kick the ass of the guard outside Yunho's door holding all the keys and a black belt in karate. And that he likes to order his coffee from Starbucks and have it delivered to HQ at exactly 3 am."
Yoochun smiles and watches as Changmin's face hardens, the face of the young, determined agent that had first stepped into his office over a year ago.
"And the agent doing the right thing," he says softly, "would never tell you how much Yunho misses you, how much he loves you, how much he cries because he just wants you to visit and sit with him to talk over a cup of tea." Yoochun reaches forward and collects Changmin in a tight hug, the thin folder of information pressed between them, all handwritten notes that Yoochun's made for Changmin. "There's a huge difference between the right thing to do and what you should do, Changmin-ah," he says softly.
Yoochun pulls back to smile at Changmin again, tapping the folder. He hears Heechul laughing quietly behind him and grins.
"You forget, Minnie Mouse. I'm not here as the proper agent. I'm here as your friend."
Changmin swallows back his tears and nods, more than determined because now he has a mission and an aim; he's going to break yunho out of the cell they have him in and he's going to do it soon.
He opens the folder, squeezing Yoochun's hand briefly and reads the papers, quickly scanning through them to read through all the little notes Yoochun's written for him. "I'll have 40 seconds," he repeats, raising his head to look Yoochun in the eyes, takes in the way his old friend has his fingers plugged in his ears to keep from hearing what Changmin's going to do. "I'll have 40 seconds to break him out and get him out of HQ."
Changmin locates the cell they've got Yunho in on the map, tapping his fingers as he calculates how to get to the hallway. Yoochun starts singing. It's the only way they can do this, because later, when they bring Yoochun in for interrogation for why things went wrong, the older man literally will not know what Changmin's done.
"I'll need the door at the end to be unlocked, staircase 43A and I'll need exit door 18 to be unlocked as well." Changmin whispers to himself, swallowing roughly, closing his eyes briefly before opening them to settle on the kitchen clock. It's only 11 pm and Changmin knows that that's more time than he needs. "Tonight," he whispers at first, images of Yunho coming into mind before he repeats it firmly, "tonight. I'm going to break him out tonight."
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sorry about the delay! thanks for reading!