[KPOP RPS] Mutli chap: As the crow flies - Prologue {super junior}
Title: As the crow flies
Author: Selena
Rating: R
Pairing: Kangin/Leeteuk [main], Heechul/Han Geng [main], Eunhyuk/Donghae, Siwon/Sungmin, Kyuhyun/Zhou Mi, Yesung/Ryeowook.
Warnings: Angst, drama, sex, violence, character death
Word count: 43,199
Summary: Immortals, they fight for the right and the power to rule the earth. The gathering has started and group of mortals are in the wrong place at the wrong time, getting pulled into a bloody battle and becoming pawns in a sadistic game.
A/N: Loosely based on the Highlander TV series.
As the crow flies.
What’s past is prologue…AKA the prologue
Prague. Club S(ex). 2am. Three weeks previous.
Kangin feels it the second the other Immortal enters the club. To Kangin the presence of another of his kind is like an incessant buzzing in his head. He’s heard other Immortals describe the feeling as being like static on the radio, if you concentrate hard enough you can tune into each others individual stations. But Kangin doesn’t hold to that esoteric bullshit. To Kangin, it’s an irritation, like a fly in his ear. Usually when out in public like this he can shut it out, put up make shift walls in his head. But right now? Right now he is very, very, very drunk. So he can’t do that. He feels the other Immortal weave their way through the sparse crowd, heading towards him. Kangin tries to decide if he’s capable of getting up and making a quick and speedy exit. He decides that, no, he really isn’t.
Dammit.
He’s slumped down low in his seat, halfway to slipping to the floor. The glasses and bottles from the nights bender are collected in front of him, piled high like a house of cards. They would make one glittering mess should they fall. His poor waitress keeps trying to clear them all away but he won’t let her, he likes to watch his collection grow. He has a kaleidoscopic view of the other Immortal as it/he/she approaches. It’s hard to identify anything through the barricade of glass. It’s a honeycomb of red and black that Kangin sees before him, at least it is until the coloured blurs fly forward and start rearranging the mess. Suddenly his unwanted companion snaps into focus.
“God, Youngwoon,” the newcomer says, his beautiful mouth curling in distaste. “You’re disgusting.”
“Well, hello and fuck you too, Heechul.” Kangin says. Or at least he tries too. His words are slurred, his voice feels heavy, his tongue feels too big for his mouth. Kangin reaches for the glass the waitress has just set down, he finds it empty. He blinks at it and can’t remember when he drank it. He sighs and places the glass top down in the space Heechul has just cleared. There now, that’s better, if he slumps down lower still then the new addition just about obscures Heechul’s face and that stupid, condescending, girly, bitch ass smirk. Now, maybe, if he works on ignoring Heechul fully and concentrates hard enough, maybe Heechul will just turn out to be a figment of his drunk ass imagination.
Except…wait…
Kangin sits up a little, or at least he tries too. He leans forward a little-again or at least he tries to. He peers at his old friend, blinks, shakes his head, blinks again.
“Chullie-ah?” he starts to say, his words still slurred, his voice still heavy. “Chullie-ah, what in the ever flying fuck have you done to your hair?”
“Bitch,” Heechul says, twirling a lock of bright red hair around a slender finger. “You wish you were this pretty.”
||
Still Prague. Outside Club S(ex). 2.30am. Still three weeks previous.
Even at this late (early) hour the streets are still a riotous mess of drunk tourists and enterprising locals. No one gives them a second look as they stumble out of the club and into the night (morning). Kangin shuffles along in the wake of his epic alcohol consumption while Heechul falters under the strain of keeping Kangin upright and steady.
“I’d say this stuff will kill you, but you and I both know that it won’t.” Heechul Huffs.
“It’ll still hurt like hell in the morning though.” Kangin says. His voice is slightly stronger now. The cool ‘early hour of the morning’ air is having an effect on him, it starts to soothe his drunken daze…or maybe it just hammers home just how drunk he actually is. Kangin half expects Heechul to ask him why he does this to himself, especially now. But he knows that Heechul already knows. Knows that Heechul is probably going to want to talk about it and won’t that be an experience rich in smiles and sunshine.
Kangin thinks that he might just like to throw up now.
It takes Kangin a few minutes-or maybe a bit longer than that-to realize that he is being pulled in the wrong direction. Kangin is staying in a hostel a few blocks over. Kangin likes hostels, even if they do make him feel a little old at times. With all his years behind him it’s hard to remember that the world still perceives him as being 23. Kangin likes the come and go anonymity that hostels provide, he likes that no one asks questions and he loves that there is often some pretty young thing ready to warm his cot should he be in the mood.
Heechul however, hates any place where there is no room service and god forbid he should ever have to share space with the unwashed masses.
Kangin doesn’t think he wants to go to Heechul’s hotel room. He also doesn’t think he has all that much of a choice. The grip Heechul has on his arm is close to crushing and the grip Kangin has on consciousness is getting closer to tenuous. The last thing he hears is Heechul’s irate (and rightly so) voice…
“Youngwoon, you rat bastard. Don’t you dare pass out on me!”
||
Still Prague, he thinks. Heechul’s hotel room, probably. Sometime in the morning. Two weeks and six days previous.
When Kangin wakes the world around him is that special brand of hotel beige. It’s bland and inoffensive but it’s still too bright for his too sensitive eyes. The surface underneath him is comfortable but slightly confining and it’s only when he tries to move that he finds out it’s a sofa. He falls out of it.
“About fucking time you woke up.”
Heechul’s voice is loud and harsh and Kangin finds himself wishing for the haven of drunken oblivion again.
No such luck however.
“Get up, asshole. There’s breakfast.”
Kangin really, really doesn’t think he wants food right now. Still, he hauls himself up anyway, half afraid that Heechul will drag him up if he doesn’t move himself. He drops into a chair at the table where Heechul sits, he doesn’t even look at the food in front of him.
Heechul’s hotel room is more of a suite, Kangin having spent the remainder of the night on the sofa in the living/dining room area. There are three closed doors. Bedroom, bathroom, way out. Kangin decides to give himself a few minutes to get his sea legs back before making a break for door number three. He didn’t know exactly what time it was but there had to be a bar open somewhere. The cold, harsh light of sobriety was leaving him vulnerable to the call. He could feel it pulling at him, the need to go, to play, to kill. Kangin doesn’t know how Heechul can stand it. Doesn’t know how Heechul can sit there all calm and quiet and not freaking the hell out.
Now that he can see it properly he notices just how bright Heechul’s hair is, so bright it makes him dizzy.
“Your hair is making me dizzy.”
“Bathroom’s that way.”
Kangin all but runs to it.
*
It takes a good ten minutes before he starts to feel even barely human again. He washes his face, brushes his teeth with a complementary toothbrush, though he debates using Heechul’s for one quick second. He leaves the bathroom clear headed and straight backed but he still doesn’t think he’s ready for the conversation Heechul obviously wants to have.
Heechul is waiting for him.
“No.” Kangin says before Heechul can open his mouth to speak.
“Really, Youngwoon,” Heechul says. “It’s not like you have a choice.”
Kangin glowers at him and slumps back down in his chair. He picks up a slice of toast, it’s cold and he eats it dry, it helps to settle his stomach a little more.
“Siwon called.” Heechul says. Says it so casually, like it’s not some huge deal. Kangin curses under his breath. “He says he needs us. Both of us. He never asks for help.”
“But now he needs us?”
“Yeah, now he needs us.”
Kangin thinks that they both might just be screwed.
*
Heechul tells him that Siwon needs them to come home. Not wants, needs. The gathering has started and for this one fate/the universe/what the fuck ever has chosen Seoul as the battleground. Kangin had designs on sitting this one out, planned on being drunk off his ass and half a world away. But now…now…
“You can’t tell him no.” Heechul says and Kangin knows that he’s right. But Kangin wants to say no. He wants to-just for a little while-say no and for once to be in control of himself, in control of his own damn destiny.
He leaves.
Heechul doesn’t try to stop him or follow him. Kangin knows that this is just a temporary reprieve.
||
Malgrat De Mar. Club Q. 11pm. Two weeks previous.
The club is almost empty, it won’t get busy for at least another hour. The tourists in this tourist town are still getting their swerve on in the cheap bar shacks next to their not so cheap hotels. Kangin tells himself that he will leave as soon as the dance floor starts to fill up.
Someone sits next to him, out of the corner of his eye Kangin sees a slender frame and bright, bright red hair. Kangin groans.
“Following you around Europe is getting pretty fucking old.” Heechul says.
“Then stop it, I don’t care.”
“Listen up shit for brains, I’m not doing this for kicks and giggles.”
“I know.”
“Then come home with me.”
“I haven’t been home for about a century.”
“Then don’t you think it’s time?”
“Not really, no.”
“Watching you play the brooding hero is getting pretty fucking old too. Grow a pair dip shit, come home. And don’t you fucking walk away from me Youngwoon! Don‘t you fucking dare!”
||
Dusseldorf. Airport. 7.15am. One week previous.
“Siwon called again.” Heechul says. No hello, no snide remark. “He says Kibum’s back in Seoul.”
Kangin feels his lip curl. Feels his hand tighten on the handle of his bag. Feels his heart try to beat its way out of his chest. He hopes Heechul doesn’t notice that he’s shaking. There are a thousand questions he wants to ask. He wants to know if Heechul is sure that’s what Siwon said. He wants to know how the fuck Siwon can know half the shit he does when he doesn’t set foot off Holy Ground. Who is spying for him? Does Kibum know that he’s been seen?
“Well,” Kangin says eventually and he‘s surprised that his voice comes out even and sounding calm. “It’s a good job that’s where we’re going isn’t it?”
“What are you going to do if you see him?”
“When I see him, I am going to kill him. Honestly Chullie-ah, that’s a fucking stupid question.”
…End prologue.
Author: Selena
Rating: R
Pairing: Kangin/Leeteuk [main], Heechul/Han Geng [main], Eunhyuk/Donghae, Siwon/Sungmin, Kyuhyun/Zhou Mi, Yesung/Ryeowook.
Warnings: Angst, drama, sex, violence, character death
Word count: 43,199
Summary: Immortals, they fight for the right and the power to rule the earth. The gathering has started and group of mortals are in the wrong place at the wrong time, getting pulled into a bloody battle and becoming pawns in a sadistic game.
A/N: Loosely based on the Highlander TV series.
As the crow flies.
What’s past is prologue…AKA the prologue
Prague. Club S(ex). 2am. Three weeks previous.
Kangin feels it the second the other Immortal enters the club. To Kangin the presence of another of his kind is like an incessant buzzing in his head. He’s heard other Immortals describe the feeling as being like static on the radio, if you concentrate hard enough you can tune into each others individual stations. But Kangin doesn’t hold to that esoteric bullshit. To Kangin, it’s an irritation, like a fly in his ear. Usually when out in public like this he can shut it out, put up make shift walls in his head. But right now? Right now he is very, very, very drunk. So he can’t do that. He feels the other Immortal weave their way through the sparse crowd, heading towards him. Kangin tries to decide if he’s capable of getting up and making a quick and speedy exit. He decides that, no, he really isn’t.
Dammit.
He’s slumped down low in his seat, halfway to slipping to the floor. The glasses and bottles from the nights bender are collected in front of him, piled high like a house of cards. They would make one glittering mess should they fall. His poor waitress keeps trying to clear them all away but he won’t let her, he likes to watch his collection grow. He has a kaleidoscopic view of the other Immortal as it/he/she approaches. It’s hard to identify anything through the barricade of glass. It’s a honeycomb of red and black that Kangin sees before him, at least it is until the coloured blurs fly forward and start rearranging the mess. Suddenly his unwanted companion snaps into focus.
“God, Youngwoon,” the newcomer says, his beautiful mouth curling in distaste. “You’re disgusting.”
“Well, hello and fuck you too, Heechul.” Kangin says. Or at least he tries too. His words are slurred, his voice feels heavy, his tongue feels too big for his mouth. Kangin reaches for the glass the waitress has just set down, he finds it empty. He blinks at it and can’t remember when he drank it. He sighs and places the glass top down in the space Heechul has just cleared. There now, that’s better, if he slumps down lower still then the new addition just about obscures Heechul’s face and that stupid, condescending, girly, bitch ass smirk. Now, maybe, if he works on ignoring Heechul fully and concentrates hard enough, maybe Heechul will just turn out to be a figment of his drunk ass imagination.
Except…wait…
Kangin sits up a little, or at least he tries too. He leans forward a little-again or at least he tries to. He peers at his old friend, blinks, shakes his head, blinks again.
“Chullie-ah?” he starts to say, his words still slurred, his voice still heavy. “Chullie-ah, what in the ever flying fuck have you done to your hair?”
“Bitch,” Heechul says, twirling a lock of bright red hair around a slender finger. “You wish you were this pretty.”
||
Still Prague. Outside Club S(ex). 2.30am. Still three weeks previous.
Even at this late (early) hour the streets are still a riotous mess of drunk tourists and enterprising locals. No one gives them a second look as they stumble out of the club and into the night (morning). Kangin shuffles along in the wake of his epic alcohol consumption while Heechul falters under the strain of keeping Kangin upright and steady.
“I’d say this stuff will kill you, but you and I both know that it won’t.” Heechul Huffs.
“It’ll still hurt like hell in the morning though.” Kangin says. His voice is slightly stronger now. The cool ‘early hour of the morning’ air is having an effect on him, it starts to soothe his drunken daze…or maybe it just hammers home just how drunk he actually is. Kangin half expects Heechul to ask him why he does this to himself, especially now. But he knows that Heechul already knows. Knows that Heechul is probably going to want to talk about it and won’t that be an experience rich in smiles and sunshine.
Kangin thinks that he might just like to throw up now.
It takes Kangin a few minutes-or maybe a bit longer than that-to realize that he is being pulled in the wrong direction. Kangin is staying in a hostel a few blocks over. Kangin likes hostels, even if they do make him feel a little old at times. With all his years behind him it’s hard to remember that the world still perceives him as being 23. Kangin likes the come and go anonymity that hostels provide, he likes that no one asks questions and he loves that there is often some pretty young thing ready to warm his cot should he be in the mood.
Heechul however, hates any place where there is no room service and god forbid he should ever have to share space with the unwashed masses.
Kangin doesn’t think he wants to go to Heechul’s hotel room. He also doesn’t think he has all that much of a choice. The grip Heechul has on his arm is close to crushing and the grip Kangin has on consciousness is getting closer to tenuous. The last thing he hears is Heechul’s irate (and rightly so) voice…
“Youngwoon, you rat bastard. Don’t you dare pass out on me!”
||
Still Prague, he thinks. Heechul’s hotel room, probably. Sometime in the morning. Two weeks and six days previous.
When Kangin wakes the world around him is that special brand of hotel beige. It’s bland and inoffensive but it’s still too bright for his too sensitive eyes. The surface underneath him is comfortable but slightly confining and it’s only when he tries to move that he finds out it’s a sofa. He falls out of it.
“About fucking time you woke up.”
Heechul’s voice is loud and harsh and Kangin finds himself wishing for the haven of drunken oblivion again.
No such luck however.
“Get up, asshole. There’s breakfast.”
Kangin really, really doesn’t think he wants food right now. Still, he hauls himself up anyway, half afraid that Heechul will drag him up if he doesn’t move himself. He drops into a chair at the table where Heechul sits, he doesn’t even look at the food in front of him.
Heechul’s hotel room is more of a suite, Kangin having spent the remainder of the night on the sofa in the living/dining room area. There are three closed doors. Bedroom, bathroom, way out. Kangin decides to give himself a few minutes to get his sea legs back before making a break for door number three. He didn’t know exactly what time it was but there had to be a bar open somewhere. The cold, harsh light of sobriety was leaving him vulnerable to the call. He could feel it pulling at him, the need to go, to play, to kill. Kangin doesn’t know how Heechul can stand it. Doesn’t know how Heechul can sit there all calm and quiet and not freaking the hell out.
Now that he can see it properly he notices just how bright Heechul’s hair is, so bright it makes him dizzy.
“Your hair is making me dizzy.”
“Bathroom’s that way.”
Kangin all but runs to it.
*
It takes a good ten minutes before he starts to feel even barely human again. He washes his face, brushes his teeth with a complementary toothbrush, though he debates using Heechul’s for one quick second. He leaves the bathroom clear headed and straight backed but he still doesn’t think he’s ready for the conversation Heechul obviously wants to have.
Heechul is waiting for him.
“No.” Kangin says before Heechul can open his mouth to speak.
“Really, Youngwoon,” Heechul says. “It’s not like you have a choice.”
Kangin glowers at him and slumps back down in his chair. He picks up a slice of toast, it’s cold and he eats it dry, it helps to settle his stomach a little more.
“Siwon called.” Heechul says. Says it so casually, like it’s not some huge deal. Kangin curses under his breath. “He says he needs us. Both of us. He never asks for help.”
“But now he needs us?”
“Yeah, now he needs us.”
Kangin thinks that they both might just be screwed.
*
Heechul tells him that Siwon needs them to come home. Not wants, needs. The gathering has started and for this one fate/the universe/what the fuck ever has chosen Seoul as the battleground. Kangin had designs on sitting this one out, planned on being drunk off his ass and half a world away. But now…now…
“You can’t tell him no.” Heechul says and Kangin knows that he’s right. But Kangin wants to say no. He wants to-just for a little while-say no and for once to be in control of himself, in control of his own damn destiny.
He leaves.
Heechul doesn’t try to stop him or follow him. Kangin knows that this is just a temporary reprieve.
||
Malgrat De Mar. Club Q. 11pm. Two weeks previous.
The club is almost empty, it won’t get busy for at least another hour. The tourists in this tourist town are still getting their swerve on in the cheap bar shacks next to their not so cheap hotels. Kangin tells himself that he will leave as soon as the dance floor starts to fill up.
Someone sits next to him, out of the corner of his eye Kangin sees a slender frame and bright, bright red hair. Kangin groans.
“Following you around Europe is getting pretty fucking old.” Heechul says.
“Then stop it, I don’t care.”
“Listen up shit for brains, I’m not doing this for kicks and giggles.”
“I know.”
“Then come home with me.”
“I haven’t been home for about a century.”
“Then don’t you think it’s time?”
“Not really, no.”
“Watching you play the brooding hero is getting pretty fucking old too. Grow a pair dip shit, come home. And don’t you fucking walk away from me Youngwoon! Don‘t you fucking dare!”
||
Dusseldorf. Airport. 7.15am. One week previous.
“Siwon called again.” Heechul says. No hello, no snide remark. “He says Kibum’s back in Seoul.”
Kangin feels his lip curl. Feels his hand tighten on the handle of his bag. Feels his heart try to beat its way out of his chest. He hopes Heechul doesn’t notice that he’s shaking. There are a thousand questions he wants to ask. He wants to know if Heechul is sure that’s what Siwon said. He wants to know how the fuck Siwon can know half the shit he does when he doesn’t set foot off Holy Ground. Who is spying for him? Does Kibum know that he’s been seen?
“Well,” Kangin says eventually and he‘s surprised that his voice comes out even and sounding calm. “It’s a good job that’s where we’re going isn’t it?”
“What are you going to do if you see him?”
“When I see him, I am going to kill him. Honestly Chullie-ah, that’s a fucking stupid question.”
…End prologue.