(fic)
꼭 깨져봐야 아픈 줄 알지
(you only find out that it hurts after it's already broken.)
sunggyu, dongwoo, and woohyun in every permutation | nc-17 | part 1 of 9
They lose Dongwoo on a Tuesday.
All things considered, there's very little circumstance about it-he'd gone out on a recon run with Myungsu, nothing flashy. It was standard procedure. Just information gathering, and the next thing they know, Myungsu is stumbling back into the apartment with a broken wrist and Dongwoo nowhere in sight. It's one of those odd moments of split-second precognition-Myungsu comes through the door, and in the pit of Woohyun's stomach, he knows something is about to go very wrong.
"What happened?" is the first thing Sunggyu asks, sitting Myungsu on the couch and pressing his palm to Myungsu's forehead. "Your bike? Where's Dongwoo?"
"It's trashed." Myungsu is slurring, and his eyes can't quite focus on Sunggyu's face. That's not good. "Hyung. Hyung, they got him-they took him, took Dongwoo, the city peacekeepers took him-I ran, he tried to run, they got him-they were faster than he was-hyung, I don't know what happened, he was just with me-"
This isn't the first time Woohyun has heard of this. They've all heard the tales-mongrels pulled out of their edge of the city and remade into something befitting the high society of the city center. Horror stories, legends, told to children to keep them from staying out too late-or to keep them from misbehaving, when they got older. Woohyun's mother had told him, when he was younger, that if he stayed out past dark, the soldiers would come and take him away.
Later, Woohyun had watched from the darkness of a half-demolished building as one of his friends was dragged, screaming, into the back of a city vehicle. That was when he had known the stories were true.
The hurt comes very suddenly, a knife to the ribcage, and Woohyun doesn't know what to do with it. It feels, suddenly, very surreal. This can't be his life-this is just a dream, a very bad one. But Woohyun watches Sunggyu's face, watches the way his mouth tightens, the way his eyes go first hard and then totally devastated, and thinks that even in his wildest imaginings he couldn't conjure that expression. "Sungyeol, get Sungjong," Sunggyu says, his tone brooking no room for argument. Not that any of them would have given it-this was not the time. "Myungsu, focus. Look at me. Stay awake."
Myungsu, whose eyes have slipped closed, blinks awake. "Hyung," he says. "They took him. I'm sorry-I couldn't-"
"Enough." There's nothing gentle about Sunggyu's voice, but it is somehow still sympathetic-it's a peculiar ability Sunggyu has, to be both stubborn and incredibly forgiving. "Don't blame yourself. We'll do what we have to, but you're-just stay awake. Talk to me about something. Not Dongwoo."
Sungyeol drags Sungjong into the room by the sleeve of his sweater when Myungsu is in the middle of his story. It's not a very good story, all things considered. Myungsu keeps forgetting parts, tells the story in circles, but he's awake, so Woohyun thinks it can't be all bad. (That is a lie. It's very bad, it's all bad. Everything about this is bad, but they haven't lost Myungsu too, and Woohyun has learned to take blessings in whatever form they come.)
Sungjong drops to his knees next to the couch and looks up into Myungsu's face. "Hyung," he says, brushing Myungsu's hair out of his face. It's stuck in places, matted with blood. He will need a shower. They will all need a lot of things, but Woohyun is taking this in baby steps. "Look at me, please. Focus on my face."
Myungsu focuses, with some difficulty. Sungjong touches him carefully, fingers delicate against Myungsu's browbone, the rise of his cheek. It's tender, almost intimate, as is the expression on Sungjong's face. "You have a concussion," he says, wrapping his fingers around Myungsu's wrist where his pulse beats. "Did you pass out, hyung? Are you nauseous?"
"No," Myungsu says. "No. I'm tired. I hurt. Everything hurts-I can't believe they took Dongwoo. I can't believe I let them."
Myungsu is the quietest of them, and the least prone to outpourings of emotion, so Woohyun knows that the guilt must be chewing at him from the inside.
Sungjong's grip tightens, minutely. If Woohyun weren't looking, he would have missed it. "Hyung, we're going to have set your arm," Sungjong says, looking at-but not touching-the arm that Myungsu still has cradled against his stomach. "I'll help clean you up, and then we'll do that. And then you can sleep a little," he says. "Okay?"
"Okay," Myungsu agrees. He tilts his head back against the couch, closing his eyes, his expression pinched. "Okay."
Sungjong stands up, but he keeps his fingers wrapped around Myungsu's wrist. "He'll be okay," he tells Sunggyu, keeping a protective closeness to Myungsu. "His wrist is probably broken, and I'll wake him up every few hours to make sure he's not-um, going into a coma. But I think he'll be okay."
Sunggyu nods. There aren't a lot of words for this, Woohyun thinks, and Sunggyu isn't the type to say anything meaningless. "Good," he says. "Woohyun, come with me."
In Sunggyu's (and Dongwoo's) room, Sunggyu closes the door and leans heavily against the dresser, his back a wall presented to Woohyun. "We can't leave him," Sunggyu says, his voice hollow and dry. It sinks a knife into Woohyun's stomach and twists, because there's too much hurt, too much dejection, too much resignation in that tone. "You know, right? I have to go after him."
"You can't," Woohyun says. It's not what he means to say first, and it's not the right choice of words. Sunggyu wheels on him, and Woohyun raises a hand. "Hyung. I'll go, but you can't. I'll go and bring him back."
"You don't understand-"
In some ways, it's true. Sunggyu loves Dongwoo, in a way Woohyun can only touch the very edges of. Dongwoo had been the first of them-he'd been with Sunggyu long before Woohyun, long before their motley crew of rejects had been even a faint imagining. He's the closest thing to a right hand that Sunggyu has, if Woohyun is the left. That much, Woohyun knows-and he knows other things, things like Sunggyu kissing Dongwoo possessive and forceful against the counter in the kitchen, his palms against Dongwoo's face, Dongwoo's hands against the flat of Sunggyu's back. The way that Sunggyu's entire being oriented to Dongwoo's presence in a room. The way that Dongwoo let his fingertips linger against Sunggyu's cheek, sometimes, telling him something in a silent language only the two of them spoke.
"I do." Woohyun's voice is sharp, too, made sharper by worry. Nothing like Sunggyu's, of course, but-Dongwoo is his best friend. He loves Dongwoo, too. "Trust me, hyung. I understand-but we can't lose another leader. The kids lost one and learned to trust another once already, they can't do it again. I'll go."
Sunggyu doesn't like it-Woohyun can tell that much. It's written as plain as day in the line of Sunggyu's shoulders, the way his brows draw together, and the way his mouth tightens into a line. But Woohyun's right, he knows he's right. They'd lost Jaehyun hyung before, the same way they've just lost Dongwoo, only they hadn't been able to get Jaehyun back. And Woohyun knows that losing Sunggyu would break them. He keeps them together. Without him, they would fall apart.
"Fine." Sunggyu bites the word out, reaching out to take hold of Woohyun's collar and pull him close. They're breathing each other's air. "Bring him back, Woohyun."
There are no threats that need to be made. If Woohyun can't bring Dongwoo back, he'll die trying. They both know that.
"I will," Woohyun says, his fingers tight on Sunggyu's wrist. "I will, hyung."
Sunggyu lets him go.
Woohyun had become an orphan at thirteen, and homeless that same day, torn bodily away from his mother's corpse and thrown into the streets. The Edge was unkind to its citizens and even less kind to its orphans, and so Woohyun had learned quickly-to steal, to fight, to fuck his way into a night's lodging and food enough to keep him alive for one more day. There was no mercy for him, so Woohyun learned to show no mercy.
When Jaehyun had found him, he had been crouched over the body of a dead black market trader, his knife still buried in the man's throat. The man hadn't seen it coming, hadn't even seen Woohyun before he'd choked on steel in his windpipe and his own blood in his lungs. "Hey," Jaehyun had said, his hands raised, no threat in his eyes. "You don't look like this is your kind of gig."
"So what?" Woohyun had bitten out. He was seventeen by then, half-feral, liable to bolt and just as liable to attack. "What are you gonna do about it?"
"Feed you, for one," Jaehyun had said. His smile had been easy. "And give you new clothes. No offense, but you smell like sewage."
Woohyun had been a good fighter, then, a good street rat, but he had warily taken the offer of kindness. Jaehyun had taken him home, put him in the shower, dressed him. Fed him. Treated him as a human, in a way Woohyun hadn't been treated since he was a child-Jaehyun had introduced him to Sunggyu, and then later to Dongwoo and Hoya, to the people who would eventually become his everything. And Woohyun hadn't had to kill anymore, hadn't had to fight with tooth and nail just to stay alive. But that doesn't mean he's forgotten how.
Woohyun goes after Dongwoo alone. The main holding facility is in Ilsan, the outskirts of the city-easy to get to, but hard to get into. Sungyeol had given him what information he had, but Woohyun's not sure it'll be enough. It hadn't been enough to get Jaehyun hyung back, after all.
He sneaks in by way of a drainage entrance right on the river, an old slime-slick tunnel that pours sewage out into the water. It's not guarded, though Woohyun knows better than to assume that means anything. It's dark and cold, the sides of the tunnel coated in moss and worse, and it smells like waste and rot-Woohyun thinks about Dongwoo being kept in a place like this, and the idea makes him physically hurt. That's what drives him: the thought that somewhere in this building, someone precious to him is being held captive.
"Stay alive," he says under his breath. The words are half-command, mostly a plea-he needs Dongwoo in one piece, breathing. Woohyun isn't much of a believer, but the words sound almost like a prayer.
Woohyun meets his first guard when he hauls himself up through a grate in the floor, and takes him out with a knife across his throat before they've even made eye contact. The guard goes down hard, his arterial spray soaking Woohyun's hands and shirt and then spilling out onto the ground-it should disgust Woohyun, but it doesn't. This isn't the first throat he's slit.
He snags the guard's keycard and gun, tucks the card into his pocket and palms the gun. He has his own, of course, but Woohyun would rather not leave traces of himself behind.
The second guard is a corridor down and around the corner. He manages a shout before Woohyun slits his throat, and he dies, gurgling, in a pool of his own blood, his fingers millimeters from his panic button. It's messy. Woohyun doesn't actually like killing people-he doesn't like the metallic, sharp copper smell of blood or the way it's slick and then tacky on his fingers-but he doesn't have a choice, and he knows that they would kill him before asking questions.
Sungyeol had all but tattooed the blueprints of the building onto the inside of Woohyun's eyelids before he left, so it isn't hard to find the holding cells somewhere in the basement of the building. It smells like damp and human waste, and it makes something hot and angry settle in the pit of Woohyun's stomach. If this is where Dongwoo is-if this is where they are holding him… Woohyun can't imagine what he'll do.
Another three guards die before Woohyun finds Dongwoo's cell.
"Hyung," he says, pressing up against the bars, his fingers wrapped around the rough metal. "Hyung. Wake up. Dongwoo hyung-"
Dongwoo is slumped against the far wall, still wearing the clothes he'd left in when he went with Myungsu. He's dirty. There's blood on the side of his face and on his clothes, bruises and scrapes visible through the tears in his shirt. Woohyun imagines them taking him in, trying to subdue him-because Dongwoo is a fighter, he always has been. Woohyun imagines strangers' hands twisting Dongwoo's arms, scratching at his face, landing blows along his torso. The idea makes him want to rip the place apart.
There's a cloth tied over Dongwoo's eyes, but Woohyun can tell when he awakens. He does it in a rush, sitting up and then coughing harshly-too much exertion on a battered body. "Woohyun," Dongwoo says, his voice weak.
"Hyung, don't move," Woohyun says. He's already kneeling, his pick working at the tumblers in the door's lock, watching as Dongwoo reaches up and very carefully removes the cloth from his eyes.
Woohyun knows immediately that something is wrong. Dongwoo's temples are bandaged, with a care they hadn't taken with the rest of his injuries, and there's something strange in his gaze. Sunggyu had teased Dongwoo, once, about having crazy eyes-but now there is something about the way he looks at Woohyun that reminds Woohyun of an injured animal, terrified, vicious, ready to bolt or defend itself to the death.
"Hey," Woohyun says, listening to the tell-tale click of the tumblers falling into place. "We're gonna be okay. I told Sunggyu hyung I wouldn't come back without you, and I'm kinda looking forward to whatever Sungyeol's making for dinner, so…"
It's not entirely appropriate, but it makes Dongwoo smile. "Yeah, that sounds good," Dongwoo says, struggling into a standing position with his arm pressed to his torso. "Home sounds good."
It is, of course, not that easy.
They make it back to the main corridor before the guards respond to the silent alarm that Woohyun had set off by opening Dongwoo's cell door. If there is one thing Woohyun is glad for, it's that the corridor is too close for gunfire-he's still wielding the pistol he'd taken from the first guard he killed, but he doesn't want to use it, doesn't want to risk ricochet. So he drops Dongwoo to the side and puts his boot into a guard's face, and from there it's madness.
Woohyun loses one knife into a guard's ribcage and takes the butt of a rifle to the collarbone, then snaps the last man's neck and turns back to find Dongwoo standing between the corpses of two guards, their throats torn out. There is blood on his hands, and Dongwoo looks horrified. "Wow," Woohyun says, because he's sure Dongwoo wasn't armed, and because for all that Dongwoo is a fighter, he knows Dongwoo hates violence. "Okay. Okay, we'll talk about that-just go, hyung, come on."
From somewhere deep in the building, Woohyun can hear the high-pitched wail of a siren. "Do you want a knife?" he asks, supporting most of Dongwoo's weight as they stumble back toward the drainage entrance.
"No," Dongwoo says, his face contorted into a grimace of pain. Woohyun winces in sympathy. "Don't give me a knife, don't give me anything-anything deadly, Woohyun, just get us out of here, we have to be not here anymore."
His voice is desperate, too desperate for the collected leader-in-chief that Woohyun has known Dongwoo to be. It sets Woohyun's teeth on edge. "It's okay, hyung, we're going," he says, kicking the grate out of place to expose the ladder. "Go down, we're almost there."
Dongwoo goes down first. When Woohyun follows, he's greeted by the abrupt, burning pain of a bullet scraping his ribcage-a near miss, a miracle-and he immediately throws Dongwoo down, taking cover behind a pile of debris. "Fuck," he swears, pressing his palm to the warm pulse of blood on his side and unlocking the safety on his gun. "Hyung, just-stay down."
The first guard goes down easily, the second with a little more effort. But there are only four, and they each take a bullet before Woohyun realizes he's made a mistake. He's used to trusting Dongwoo to have his back, to leaving himself exposed and knowing that Dongwoo will be there to protect him. But Dongwoo can't do that right now.
Woohyun spins around in time to see Dongwoo bring the heavy end of a broken pipe down into a guard's skull. The bone fractures with a sickening crack, and Woohyun shudders involuntarily, watching Dongwoo kick the guard backwards with a firmly-placed boot. This is not right. This is not Dongwoo.
"Hyung," he says.
Dongwoo turns, and there's nothing in his eyes.
It's not that there's no fear, or no horror-it's that there's nothing. No recognition, no emotion. Dongwoo shifts his grip on the pipe and takes a few steps towards Woohyun, who takes a few paces back.
"Hyung, what are you doing?" he asks. His voice cracks. Woohyun has never been this afraid.
He takes the first blow to his forearm, unable to get away in time, and barely manages to stumble away before the pipe swings through the air where his head once was. Woohyun trips backwards over the wreckage of a crate and lands hard, and then Dongwoo is on him, vicious, his fingers digging into Woohyun's bicep, his shoulder, around his throat.
Around his throat.
"Hyung," Woohyun gasps-croaks, his fingernails digging into Dongwoo's wrist, drawing blood. There's panic welling up inside Woohyun's ribcage, expanding to fill the space left by oxygen deprivation. "Hyung, stop-hyung, it's me, you know me, don't do this-"
Dongwoo's fingers tighten, and Woohyun stops being able to breathe. He struggles, futilely, to draw a breath, and he can't. He can't. His vision goes fuzzy at the edges, spots swimming into his view, looking up into Dongwoo's face-emotionless, dark eyes, how did things turn out like this? He'll have broken his promise to Sunggyu, and there will be no one to make this right-
And then Dongwoo's grip loosens. Woohyun gasps in air and chokes, dizzy and weak and unable to catch his breath-the oxygen makes his lungs feel like they're being torn apart, but he can't stop the desperate, heaving breaths he keeps taking, keeps choking on, staring up at the ceiling for a moment before he can process what's just happened.
"Hyung," he manages, his voice painful and raw in his throat. Woohyun shoves himself up into a sitting position and sees Dongwoo a meter away, crouching, his head in his hands. He's trembling. "Hyung," Woohyun says again.
Dongwoo doesn't look up. "Sorry," he says. He sounds like he's crying. "Sorry, Woohyun, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I didn't-I didn't-"
"I'm okay," Woohyun says. That much, at least, is strictly true. He's alive. He hurts, but he's alive, and the pain means he hasn't lost yet. "They really fucked with you, huh? Damn. Hyung, it's okay, we're gonna get out of here. Right now, okay?"
He struggles to his feet, every single nerve in his body screaming for him to stop, and takes a few steps to kneel next to Dongwoo. He doesn't touch-it doesn't seem like a good idea. "Hyung," he says, more quietly. "Let's go."
It doesn't take long to figure out that Dongwoo is broken.
Woohyun brings him back bruised and bandaged, but that's not what he means. It's something else-something darker, a shadow under Dongwoo's smile, a kind of deadness in his eyes that not even Sunggyu can chase away. Dongwoo is broken, in a way none of them know how to fix.
But that comes later.
Woohyun brings Dongwoo in through the doorway at three in the morning, covered in soot and bleeding from the head, but Dongwoo is alive. That's what Sunggyu sees, Woohyun thinks-he sees Woohyun, and then he sees Dongwoo, sees the rise and fall of Dongwoo's chest, and knows he's alive. That's what matters. Woohyun doesn't blame him.
"Dongwoo," Sunggyu says, almost a gasp, mostly a prayer.
"Hey," Dongwoo says, his voice fragile. He smiles, but it's like a shadow. "I'm home."
Sunggyu's knuckles tighten against the doorframe. Any tighter and the wood might buckle under the stress. "How do you feel?" he says. It's too casual, the way he's holding himself, but Sunggyu is transparent: Woohyun knows he's barely holding himself together. "You look like you could go for a shower and a nap."
Dongwoo laughs, still leaning heavily against Woohyun. Woohyun feels it echo through his body. "That sounds nice," Dongwoo says. "Who do I have to talk to to hook myself up?"
"You're lucky," Sunggyu says. His voice is thick, strangled in the back of his throat. "The boss is right here."
When they've gone, disappeared into their bedroom, Woohyun lays down on the floor in the living room and doesn't move for several long minutes. The apartment is mostly silent, the only sound the faint murmur of voices from Sunggyu and Dongwoo's room, and Woohyun focuses on the silence-lets it enfold him, feels it ring in his ears.
"Hey," a voice says. Woohyun nearly jumps out of his skin.
"Jesus Christ, Hoya," he says, sitting up fast. He immediately regrets it when his head starts spinning. "You can't sneak up on people like that. You're gonna give me a heart attack someday, and then who's gonna cook for you guys?"
It's posturing, and Hoya knows it. He doesn't smile, just lets Woohyun finish, then reaches out to brush his fingers very gently over the bruised and bleeding place at Woohyun's temple. "Are you okay?" he asks. Woohyun thinks he's probably talking about more than just the cut. "Should I get Sungjong?"
"Let Sungjong sleep," Woohyun says. He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, feeling the throbbing burn of the wound at his side and the bruise on his forearm. "I'm fine. I just need to-shower. Sleep. Ask me again tomorrow."
When he opens his eyes, Hoya is still there, studying him. "Thank you," he says, finally. "For bringing him back. Sunggyu hyung didn't say it, did he?"
Woohyun hadn't even been thinking about it.
"It doesn't matter," he says, rolling his shoulders in a shrug and then wincing at the pull on strained ligaments. His side aches terribly where the bullet had scraped. He probably should have it stitched, but Woohyun is very tired. "I know he felt it, even if he didn't say anything. And-if I hadn't gone then he would have gone, and if he'd died then where would we be? You'd be stuck with me to lead you and that wouldn't go over very well at all-"
Rambling again. Woohyun shuts up.
Hoya nods a little, like he understands something Woohyun hasn't said. "What happened?" he asks, very quietly.
Woohyun thinks about the dark and damp and the feeling of being watched, the way that his skin had crawled, the look in Dongwoo's eyes when he'd found him-half-crazy, alive, but something else too, and the way that it had been a battle through hell to get out-
"I don't want to talk about it," he says, his voice cracking.
Hoya is smart enough to let it go.
Woohyun wakes up at five in the morning to the gentle touch of fingertips against his forehead. He's clean now, at least, showered and blood-free and bandaged-barely, sloppy from exhaustion, but bandaged nonetheless. It takes work to open his eyes, but when he does, he sees Sunggyu sitting on the edge of his bed, his fingertips brushing through Woohyun's fringe.
"Hyung," he says. His voice is more like a croak, the result of brutal fingers to his windpipe. "What's wrong?"
"I woke you," Sunggyu says quietly. "Sorry. I didn't mean to."
"It's okay." Woohyun tries to struggle into a sitting position, but his limbs won't cooperate. His entire body feels like dead weight, some invisible pressure holding him motionless. Instead, he shakes his head a bit and takes a breath. "What happened?"
"Nothing," Sunggyu says. "Everything's fine. Dongwoo's sleeping-I just…" He glances down, away from Woohyun. "I didn't ask how you were. If you were okay. I'm sorry, Woohyun-ah."
Woohyun lets his eyes close again, just for a moment, and takes a deep breath. "It's fine, hyung," he says. "I was fine. I am fine. And he's-more important, I know how you feel about him." Even if he hadn't, the way that Sunggyu's body had released angels at the sight of Dongwoo would have been enough to clue him in. "Don't worry about it."
But Sunggyu doesn't move. He just sits there in silence for a long moment, then looks over at Woohyun, frowning. "What happened in there?" he asks. His voice is quiet, almost reverent, and suddenly the silence in Woohyun's room seems too loud. "To you. To him. Something's off about both of you."
With Hoya, it had been easy to avoid. Hoya is strong and solid and reliable, and doesn't push things that aren't meant to be pushed-but Sunggyu is stubborn, and besides that, he's their leader. Woohyun thinks he probably owes Sunggyu the truth.
"He's fucked up, hyung," Woohyun whispers, his voice too sore for anything louder. "He's really-I think they tried to reboot him. He's not done, they didn't-I mean, it didn't work. But I think they tried."
In the dimness of the room, Woohyun can barely make out the too-even rise and fall of Sunggyu's back in time with his breathing. His hands are clasped together in front of him, and Woohyun can't see Sunggyu's face. He's glad for that, really. Woohyun's not sure he can handle it.
"He attacked me," he says. Sunggyu needs to know. "With a pipe. With his bare hands, when he dropped the pipe."
"The bruises on your throat-"
Woohyun reaches up, slowly, to touch the ring of bruises at his neck-shaped like hands, he knows. Pressure on his windpipe. "Dongwoo's," he says. He hates saying it. "I had to remind him that it was me, he knew me. He knows me. Us. It wasn't-it wasn't good, hyung. I don't know what they did to him, but it messed his brain up."
They sit in silence for a moment, and Woohyun knows Sunggyu is taking it all in. It's a lot-Woohyun wouldn't believe it, if he hadn't been there. He still almost doesn't.
"Okay," Sunggyu says, after a long moment. "Okay."
He stands up, makes his way to the doorway. Woohyun watches him go, but Sunggyu pauses, silhouetted by the light from the hallway, and turns back. "Woohyun," he says.
"Yeah."
"Thank you."
part one | part two
note: Ah, it's very different from my usual style, isn't it? Originally this was intended to be my Infinite Minibang entry! But I overestimated myself a little... and wrote far too much.
Instead of posting it at once, I'll post it in parts! I'm sorry if it's a bit different to what you expected-it's much more plot-oriented than what I normally write!
(you only find out that it hurts after it's already broken.)
sunggyu, dongwoo, and woohyun in every permutation | nc-17 | part 1 of 9
They lose Dongwoo on a Tuesday.
All things considered, there's very little circumstance about it-he'd gone out on a recon run with Myungsu, nothing flashy. It was standard procedure. Just information gathering, and the next thing they know, Myungsu is stumbling back into the apartment with a broken wrist and Dongwoo nowhere in sight. It's one of those odd moments of split-second precognition-Myungsu comes through the door, and in the pit of Woohyun's stomach, he knows something is about to go very wrong.
"What happened?" is the first thing Sunggyu asks, sitting Myungsu on the couch and pressing his palm to Myungsu's forehead. "Your bike? Where's Dongwoo?"
"It's trashed." Myungsu is slurring, and his eyes can't quite focus on Sunggyu's face. That's not good. "Hyung. Hyung, they got him-they took him, took Dongwoo, the city peacekeepers took him-I ran, he tried to run, they got him-they were faster than he was-hyung, I don't know what happened, he was just with me-"
This isn't the first time Woohyun has heard of this. They've all heard the tales-mongrels pulled out of their edge of the city and remade into something befitting the high society of the city center. Horror stories, legends, told to children to keep them from staying out too late-or to keep them from misbehaving, when they got older. Woohyun's mother had told him, when he was younger, that if he stayed out past dark, the soldiers would come and take him away.
Later, Woohyun had watched from the darkness of a half-demolished building as one of his friends was dragged, screaming, into the back of a city vehicle. That was when he had known the stories were true.
The hurt comes very suddenly, a knife to the ribcage, and Woohyun doesn't know what to do with it. It feels, suddenly, very surreal. This can't be his life-this is just a dream, a very bad one. But Woohyun watches Sunggyu's face, watches the way his mouth tightens, the way his eyes go first hard and then totally devastated, and thinks that even in his wildest imaginings he couldn't conjure that expression. "Sungyeol, get Sungjong," Sunggyu says, his tone brooking no room for argument. Not that any of them would have given it-this was not the time. "Myungsu, focus. Look at me. Stay awake."
Myungsu, whose eyes have slipped closed, blinks awake. "Hyung," he says. "They took him. I'm sorry-I couldn't-"
"Enough." There's nothing gentle about Sunggyu's voice, but it is somehow still sympathetic-it's a peculiar ability Sunggyu has, to be both stubborn and incredibly forgiving. "Don't blame yourself. We'll do what we have to, but you're-just stay awake. Talk to me about something. Not Dongwoo."
Sungyeol drags Sungjong into the room by the sleeve of his sweater when Myungsu is in the middle of his story. It's not a very good story, all things considered. Myungsu keeps forgetting parts, tells the story in circles, but he's awake, so Woohyun thinks it can't be all bad. (That is a lie. It's very bad, it's all bad. Everything about this is bad, but they haven't lost Myungsu too, and Woohyun has learned to take blessings in whatever form they come.)
Sungjong drops to his knees next to the couch and looks up into Myungsu's face. "Hyung," he says, brushing Myungsu's hair out of his face. It's stuck in places, matted with blood. He will need a shower. They will all need a lot of things, but Woohyun is taking this in baby steps. "Look at me, please. Focus on my face."
Myungsu focuses, with some difficulty. Sungjong touches him carefully, fingers delicate against Myungsu's browbone, the rise of his cheek. It's tender, almost intimate, as is the expression on Sungjong's face. "You have a concussion," he says, wrapping his fingers around Myungsu's wrist where his pulse beats. "Did you pass out, hyung? Are you nauseous?"
"No," Myungsu says. "No. I'm tired. I hurt. Everything hurts-I can't believe they took Dongwoo. I can't believe I let them."
Myungsu is the quietest of them, and the least prone to outpourings of emotion, so Woohyun knows that the guilt must be chewing at him from the inside.
Sungjong's grip tightens, minutely. If Woohyun weren't looking, he would have missed it. "Hyung, we're going to have set your arm," Sungjong says, looking at-but not touching-the arm that Myungsu still has cradled against his stomach. "I'll help clean you up, and then we'll do that. And then you can sleep a little," he says. "Okay?"
"Okay," Myungsu agrees. He tilts his head back against the couch, closing his eyes, his expression pinched. "Okay."
Sungjong stands up, but he keeps his fingers wrapped around Myungsu's wrist. "He'll be okay," he tells Sunggyu, keeping a protective closeness to Myungsu. "His wrist is probably broken, and I'll wake him up every few hours to make sure he's not-um, going into a coma. But I think he'll be okay."
Sunggyu nods. There aren't a lot of words for this, Woohyun thinks, and Sunggyu isn't the type to say anything meaningless. "Good," he says. "Woohyun, come with me."
In Sunggyu's (and Dongwoo's) room, Sunggyu closes the door and leans heavily against the dresser, his back a wall presented to Woohyun. "We can't leave him," Sunggyu says, his voice hollow and dry. It sinks a knife into Woohyun's stomach and twists, because there's too much hurt, too much dejection, too much resignation in that tone. "You know, right? I have to go after him."
"You can't," Woohyun says. It's not what he means to say first, and it's not the right choice of words. Sunggyu wheels on him, and Woohyun raises a hand. "Hyung. I'll go, but you can't. I'll go and bring him back."
"You don't understand-"
In some ways, it's true. Sunggyu loves Dongwoo, in a way Woohyun can only touch the very edges of. Dongwoo had been the first of them-he'd been with Sunggyu long before Woohyun, long before their motley crew of rejects had been even a faint imagining. He's the closest thing to a right hand that Sunggyu has, if Woohyun is the left. That much, Woohyun knows-and he knows other things, things like Sunggyu kissing Dongwoo possessive and forceful against the counter in the kitchen, his palms against Dongwoo's face, Dongwoo's hands against the flat of Sunggyu's back. The way that Sunggyu's entire being oriented to Dongwoo's presence in a room. The way that Dongwoo let his fingertips linger against Sunggyu's cheek, sometimes, telling him something in a silent language only the two of them spoke.
"I do." Woohyun's voice is sharp, too, made sharper by worry. Nothing like Sunggyu's, of course, but-Dongwoo is his best friend. He loves Dongwoo, too. "Trust me, hyung. I understand-but we can't lose another leader. The kids lost one and learned to trust another once already, they can't do it again. I'll go."
Sunggyu doesn't like it-Woohyun can tell that much. It's written as plain as day in the line of Sunggyu's shoulders, the way his brows draw together, and the way his mouth tightens into a line. But Woohyun's right, he knows he's right. They'd lost Jaehyun hyung before, the same way they've just lost Dongwoo, only they hadn't been able to get Jaehyun back. And Woohyun knows that losing Sunggyu would break them. He keeps them together. Without him, they would fall apart.
"Fine." Sunggyu bites the word out, reaching out to take hold of Woohyun's collar and pull him close. They're breathing each other's air. "Bring him back, Woohyun."
There are no threats that need to be made. If Woohyun can't bring Dongwoo back, he'll die trying. They both know that.
"I will," Woohyun says, his fingers tight on Sunggyu's wrist. "I will, hyung."
Sunggyu lets him go.
Woohyun had become an orphan at thirteen, and homeless that same day, torn bodily away from his mother's corpse and thrown into the streets. The Edge was unkind to its citizens and even less kind to its orphans, and so Woohyun had learned quickly-to steal, to fight, to fuck his way into a night's lodging and food enough to keep him alive for one more day. There was no mercy for him, so Woohyun learned to show no mercy.
When Jaehyun had found him, he had been crouched over the body of a dead black market trader, his knife still buried in the man's throat. The man hadn't seen it coming, hadn't even seen Woohyun before he'd choked on steel in his windpipe and his own blood in his lungs. "Hey," Jaehyun had said, his hands raised, no threat in his eyes. "You don't look like this is your kind of gig."
"So what?" Woohyun had bitten out. He was seventeen by then, half-feral, liable to bolt and just as liable to attack. "What are you gonna do about it?"
"Feed you, for one," Jaehyun had said. His smile had been easy. "And give you new clothes. No offense, but you smell like sewage."
Woohyun had been a good fighter, then, a good street rat, but he had warily taken the offer of kindness. Jaehyun had taken him home, put him in the shower, dressed him. Fed him. Treated him as a human, in a way Woohyun hadn't been treated since he was a child-Jaehyun had introduced him to Sunggyu, and then later to Dongwoo and Hoya, to the people who would eventually become his everything. And Woohyun hadn't had to kill anymore, hadn't had to fight with tooth and nail just to stay alive. But that doesn't mean he's forgotten how.
Woohyun goes after Dongwoo alone. The main holding facility is in Ilsan, the outskirts of the city-easy to get to, but hard to get into. Sungyeol had given him what information he had, but Woohyun's not sure it'll be enough. It hadn't been enough to get Jaehyun hyung back, after all.
He sneaks in by way of a drainage entrance right on the river, an old slime-slick tunnel that pours sewage out into the water. It's not guarded, though Woohyun knows better than to assume that means anything. It's dark and cold, the sides of the tunnel coated in moss and worse, and it smells like waste and rot-Woohyun thinks about Dongwoo being kept in a place like this, and the idea makes him physically hurt. That's what drives him: the thought that somewhere in this building, someone precious to him is being held captive.
"Stay alive," he says under his breath. The words are half-command, mostly a plea-he needs Dongwoo in one piece, breathing. Woohyun isn't much of a believer, but the words sound almost like a prayer.
Woohyun meets his first guard when he hauls himself up through a grate in the floor, and takes him out with a knife across his throat before they've even made eye contact. The guard goes down hard, his arterial spray soaking Woohyun's hands and shirt and then spilling out onto the ground-it should disgust Woohyun, but it doesn't. This isn't the first throat he's slit.
He snags the guard's keycard and gun, tucks the card into his pocket and palms the gun. He has his own, of course, but Woohyun would rather not leave traces of himself behind.
The second guard is a corridor down and around the corner. He manages a shout before Woohyun slits his throat, and he dies, gurgling, in a pool of his own blood, his fingers millimeters from his panic button. It's messy. Woohyun doesn't actually like killing people-he doesn't like the metallic, sharp copper smell of blood or the way it's slick and then tacky on his fingers-but he doesn't have a choice, and he knows that they would kill him before asking questions.
Sungyeol had all but tattooed the blueprints of the building onto the inside of Woohyun's eyelids before he left, so it isn't hard to find the holding cells somewhere in the basement of the building. It smells like damp and human waste, and it makes something hot and angry settle in the pit of Woohyun's stomach. If this is where Dongwoo is-if this is where they are holding him… Woohyun can't imagine what he'll do.
Another three guards die before Woohyun finds Dongwoo's cell.
"Hyung," he says, pressing up against the bars, his fingers wrapped around the rough metal. "Hyung. Wake up. Dongwoo hyung-"
Dongwoo is slumped against the far wall, still wearing the clothes he'd left in when he went with Myungsu. He's dirty. There's blood on the side of his face and on his clothes, bruises and scrapes visible through the tears in his shirt. Woohyun imagines them taking him in, trying to subdue him-because Dongwoo is a fighter, he always has been. Woohyun imagines strangers' hands twisting Dongwoo's arms, scratching at his face, landing blows along his torso. The idea makes him want to rip the place apart.
There's a cloth tied over Dongwoo's eyes, but Woohyun can tell when he awakens. He does it in a rush, sitting up and then coughing harshly-too much exertion on a battered body. "Woohyun," Dongwoo says, his voice weak.
"Hyung, don't move," Woohyun says. He's already kneeling, his pick working at the tumblers in the door's lock, watching as Dongwoo reaches up and very carefully removes the cloth from his eyes.
Woohyun knows immediately that something is wrong. Dongwoo's temples are bandaged, with a care they hadn't taken with the rest of his injuries, and there's something strange in his gaze. Sunggyu had teased Dongwoo, once, about having crazy eyes-but now there is something about the way he looks at Woohyun that reminds Woohyun of an injured animal, terrified, vicious, ready to bolt or defend itself to the death.
"Hey," Woohyun says, listening to the tell-tale click of the tumblers falling into place. "We're gonna be okay. I told Sunggyu hyung I wouldn't come back without you, and I'm kinda looking forward to whatever Sungyeol's making for dinner, so…"
It's not entirely appropriate, but it makes Dongwoo smile. "Yeah, that sounds good," Dongwoo says, struggling into a standing position with his arm pressed to his torso. "Home sounds good."
It is, of course, not that easy.
They make it back to the main corridor before the guards respond to the silent alarm that Woohyun had set off by opening Dongwoo's cell door. If there is one thing Woohyun is glad for, it's that the corridor is too close for gunfire-he's still wielding the pistol he'd taken from the first guard he killed, but he doesn't want to use it, doesn't want to risk ricochet. So he drops Dongwoo to the side and puts his boot into a guard's face, and from there it's madness.
Woohyun loses one knife into a guard's ribcage and takes the butt of a rifle to the collarbone, then snaps the last man's neck and turns back to find Dongwoo standing between the corpses of two guards, their throats torn out. There is blood on his hands, and Dongwoo looks horrified. "Wow," Woohyun says, because he's sure Dongwoo wasn't armed, and because for all that Dongwoo is a fighter, he knows Dongwoo hates violence. "Okay. Okay, we'll talk about that-just go, hyung, come on."
From somewhere deep in the building, Woohyun can hear the high-pitched wail of a siren. "Do you want a knife?" he asks, supporting most of Dongwoo's weight as they stumble back toward the drainage entrance.
"No," Dongwoo says, his face contorted into a grimace of pain. Woohyun winces in sympathy. "Don't give me a knife, don't give me anything-anything deadly, Woohyun, just get us out of here, we have to be not here anymore."
His voice is desperate, too desperate for the collected leader-in-chief that Woohyun has known Dongwoo to be. It sets Woohyun's teeth on edge. "It's okay, hyung, we're going," he says, kicking the grate out of place to expose the ladder. "Go down, we're almost there."
Dongwoo goes down first. When Woohyun follows, he's greeted by the abrupt, burning pain of a bullet scraping his ribcage-a near miss, a miracle-and he immediately throws Dongwoo down, taking cover behind a pile of debris. "Fuck," he swears, pressing his palm to the warm pulse of blood on his side and unlocking the safety on his gun. "Hyung, just-stay down."
The first guard goes down easily, the second with a little more effort. But there are only four, and they each take a bullet before Woohyun realizes he's made a mistake. He's used to trusting Dongwoo to have his back, to leaving himself exposed and knowing that Dongwoo will be there to protect him. But Dongwoo can't do that right now.
Woohyun spins around in time to see Dongwoo bring the heavy end of a broken pipe down into a guard's skull. The bone fractures with a sickening crack, and Woohyun shudders involuntarily, watching Dongwoo kick the guard backwards with a firmly-placed boot. This is not right. This is not Dongwoo.
"Hyung," he says.
Dongwoo turns, and there's nothing in his eyes.
It's not that there's no fear, or no horror-it's that there's nothing. No recognition, no emotion. Dongwoo shifts his grip on the pipe and takes a few steps towards Woohyun, who takes a few paces back.
"Hyung, what are you doing?" he asks. His voice cracks. Woohyun has never been this afraid.
He takes the first blow to his forearm, unable to get away in time, and barely manages to stumble away before the pipe swings through the air where his head once was. Woohyun trips backwards over the wreckage of a crate and lands hard, and then Dongwoo is on him, vicious, his fingers digging into Woohyun's bicep, his shoulder, around his throat.
Around his throat.
"Hyung," Woohyun gasps-croaks, his fingernails digging into Dongwoo's wrist, drawing blood. There's panic welling up inside Woohyun's ribcage, expanding to fill the space left by oxygen deprivation. "Hyung, stop-hyung, it's me, you know me, don't do this-"
Dongwoo's fingers tighten, and Woohyun stops being able to breathe. He struggles, futilely, to draw a breath, and he can't. He can't. His vision goes fuzzy at the edges, spots swimming into his view, looking up into Dongwoo's face-emotionless, dark eyes, how did things turn out like this? He'll have broken his promise to Sunggyu, and there will be no one to make this right-
And then Dongwoo's grip loosens. Woohyun gasps in air and chokes, dizzy and weak and unable to catch his breath-the oxygen makes his lungs feel like they're being torn apart, but he can't stop the desperate, heaving breaths he keeps taking, keeps choking on, staring up at the ceiling for a moment before he can process what's just happened.
"Hyung," he manages, his voice painful and raw in his throat. Woohyun shoves himself up into a sitting position and sees Dongwoo a meter away, crouching, his head in his hands. He's trembling. "Hyung," Woohyun says again.
Dongwoo doesn't look up. "Sorry," he says. He sounds like he's crying. "Sorry, Woohyun, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I didn't-I didn't-"
"I'm okay," Woohyun says. That much, at least, is strictly true. He's alive. He hurts, but he's alive, and the pain means he hasn't lost yet. "They really fucked with you, huh? Damn. Hyung, it's okay, we're gonna get out of here. Right now, okay?"
He struggles to his feet, every single nerve in his body screaming for him to stop, and takes a few steps to kneel next to Dongwoo. He doesn't touch-it doesn't seem like a good idea. "Hyung," he says, more quietly. "Let's go."
It doesn't take long to figure out that Dongwoo is broken.
Woohyun brings him back bruised and bandaged, but that's not what he means. It's something else-something darker, a shadow under Dongwoo's smile, a kind of deadness in his eyes that not even Sunggyu can chase away. Dongwoo is broken, in a way none of them know how to fix.
But that comes later.
Woohyun brings Dongwoo in through the doorway at three in the morning, covered in soot and bleeding from the head, but Dongwoo is alive. That's what Sunggyu sees, Woohyun thinks-he sees Woohyun, and then he sees Dongwoo, sees the rise and fall of Dongwoo's chest, and knows he's alive. That's what matters. Woohyun doesn't blame him.
"Dongwoo," Sunggyu says, almost a gasp, mostly a prayer.
"Hey," Dongwoo says, his voice fragile. He smiles, but it's like a shadow. "I'm home."
Sunggyu's knuckles tighten against the doorframe. Any tighter and the wood might buckle under the stress. "How do you feel?" he says. It's too casual, the way he's holding himself, but Sunggyu is transparent: Woohyun knows he's barely holding himself together. "You look like you could go for a shower and a nap."
Dongwoo laughs, still leaning heavily against Woohyun. Woohyun feels it echo through his body. "That sounds nice," Dongwoo says. "Who do I have to talk to to hook myself up?"
"You're lucky," Sunggyu says. His voice is thick, strangled in the back of his throat. "The boss is right here."
When they've gone, disappeared into their bedroom, Woohyun lays down on the floor in the living room and doesn't move for several long minutes. The apartment is mostly silent, the only sound the faint murmur of voices from Sunggyu and Dongwoo's room, and Woohyun focuses on the silence-lets it enfold him, feels it ring in his ears.
"Hey," a voice says. Woohyun nearly jumps out of his skin.
"Jesus Christ, Hoya," he says, sitting up fast. He immediately regrets it when his head starts spinning. "You can't sneak up on people like that. You're gonna give me a heart attack someday, and then who's gonna cook for you guys?"
It's posturing, and Hoya knows it. He doesn't smile, just lets Woohyun finish, then reaches out to brush his fingers very gently over the bruised and bleeding place at Woohyun's temple. "Are you okay?" he asks. Woohyun thinks he's probably talking about more than just the cut. "Should I get Sungjong?"
"Let Sungjong sleep," Woohyun says. He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, feeling the throbbing burn of the wound at his side and the bruise on his forearm. "I'm fine. I just need to-shower. Sleep. Ask me again tomorrow."
When he opens his eyes, Hoya is still there, studying him. "Thank you," he says, finally. "For bringing him back. Sunggyu hyung didn't say it, did he?"
Woohyun hadn't even been thinking about it.
"It doesn't matter," he says, rolling his shoulders in a shrug and then wincing at the pull on strained ligaments. His side aches terribly where the bullet had scraped. He probably should have it stitched, but Woohyun is very tired. "I know he felt it, even if he didn't say anything. And-if I hadn't gone then he would have gone, and if he'd died then where would we be? You'd be stuck with me to lead you and that wouldn't go over very well at all-"
Rambling again. Woohyun shuts up.
Hoya nods a little, like he understands something Woohyun hasn't said. "What happened?" he asks, very quietly.
Woohyun thinks about the dark and damp and the feeling of being watched, the way that his skin had crawled, the look in Dongwoo's eyes when he'd found him-half-crazy, alive, but something else too, and the way that it had been a battle through hell to get out-
"I don't want to talk about it," he says, his voice cracking.
Hoya is smart enough to let it go.
Woohyun wakes up at five in the morning to the gentle touch of fingertips against his forehead. He's clean now, at least, showered and blood-free and bandaged-barely, sloppy from exhaustion, but bandaged nonetheless. It takes work to open his eyes, but when he does, he sees Sunggyu sitting on the edge of his bed, his fingertips brushing through Woohyun's fringe.
"Hyung," he says. His voice is more like a croak, the result of brutal fingers to his windpipe. "What's wrong?"
"I woke you," Sunggyu says quietly. "Sorry. I didn't mean to."
"It's okay." Woohyun tries to struggle into a sitting position, but his limbs won't cooperate. His entire body feels like dead weight, some invisible pressure holding him motionless. Instead, he shakes his head a bit and takes a breath. "What happened?"
"Nothing," Sunggyu says. "Everything's fine. Dongwoo's sleeping-I just…" He glances down, away from Woohyun. "I didn't ask how you were. If you were okay. I'm sorry, Woohyun-ah."
Woohyun lets his eyes close again, just for a moment, and takes a deep breath. "It's fine, hyung," he says. "I was fine. I am fine. And he's-more important, I know how you feel about him." Even if he hadn't, the way that Sunggyu's body had released angels at the sight of Dongwoo would have been enough to clue him in. "Don't worry about it."
But Sunggyu doesn't move. He just sits there in silence for a long moment, then looks over at Woohyun, frowning. "What happened in there?" he asks. His voice is quiet, almost reverent, and suddenly the silence in Woohyun's room seems too loud. "To you. To him. Something's off about both of you."
With Hoya, it had been easy to avoid. Hoya is strong and solid and reliable, and doesn't push things that aren't meant to be pushed-but Sunggyu is stubborn, and besides that, he's their leader. Woohyun thinks he probably owes Sunggyu the truth.
"He's fucked up, hyung," Woohyun whispers, his voice too sore for anything louder. "He's really-I think they tried to reboot him. He's not done, they didn't-I mean, it didn't work. But I think they tried."
In the dimness of the room, Woohyun can barely make out the too-even rise and fall of Sunggyu's back in time with his breathing. His hands are clasped together in front of him, and Woohyun can't see Sunggyu's face. He's glad for that, really. Woohyun's not sure he can handle it.
"He attacked me," he says. Sunggyu needs to know. "With a pipe. With his bare hands, when he dropped the pipe."
"The bruises on your throat-"
Woohyun reaches up, slowly, to touch the ring of bruises at his neck-shaped like hands, he knows. Pressure on his windpipe. "Dongwoo's," he says. He hates saying it. "I had to remind him that it was me, he knew me. He knows me. Us. It wasn't-it wasn't good, hyung. I don't know what they did to him, but it messed his brain up."
They sit in silence for a moment, and Woohyun knows Sunggyu is taking it all in. It's a lot-Woohyun wouldn't believe it, if he hadn't been there. He still almost doesn't.
"Okay," Sunggyu says, after a long moment. "Okay."
He stands up, makes his way to the doorway. Woohyun watches him go, but Sunggyu pauses, silhouetted by the light from the hallway, and turns back. "Woohyun," he says.
"Yeah."
"Thank you."
part one | part two
note: Ah, it's very different from my usual style, isn't it? Originally this was intended to be my Infinite Minibang entry! But I overestimated myself a little... and wrote far too much.
Instead of posting it at once, I'll post it in parts! I'm sorry if it's a bit different to what you expected-it's much more plot-oriented than what I normally write!