Post #5.
After a slow third week, post four yielded a lot of prompts -- and, more importantly, a lot of fills! I was afraid that we were slowing down, but you guys really put a lot of effort into making post four a good one, and I have faith in you to continue leaving prompts and writing (or drawing, as one anon did!) fills. ♥
Fics ( #4)
Suho as a Composer ( ( Read more... )
Fics ( #4)
Suho as a Composer ( ( Read more... )
(Sunggyu was supposed to be the Mal-type figure, but... nagging!mother style... thus the crackiness. Instead, he's barely mentioned. >.>)
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They're going to need a new policy: no more "favors" for friends.
To be fair, it hadn't sounded like it was going to be this life-threatening. "It's my... friend," Woohyun had said. "I think he's gotten into something bad. Like, really bad. But he won't listen to me, so I need you to get into his head and convince him to get out of it."
"He can pay well," Dongwoo had added quickly, because Sungyeol was about to reject the job offer right away.
Woohyun's loaded and apparently really likes this friend, and that's how they end up lurking in a spa, waiting for Woohyun and Kim Kibum to finish getting massages. Sweat's dripping down Myungsoo's nose by the time Woohyun pops his head out of their private room and makes a face he probably thinks is sly but really just looks like he desperately needs to pee.
Kibum's asleep on the table. He works, like, three jobs, Woohyun had explained, so it'll be easy to get him to relax. If he's awake, though, he's got senses like a cat.
Woohyun tips the masseuses an extra wad of bills to leave them alone, sending them away with a wink and a grin that promises absolutely nothing (but they don't know that). Meanwhile, Dongwoo bustles around, pushing the sparse furniture to the corners to give everyone space to lie down. There's no time for final speeches or words of encouragement, and he just gives Woohyun a nod as he presses the button on the machine.
-
The first level is Dongwoo's dream. It's a mess of streets and street art, tree-lined roads and corner parks. The skies are clear and cloudless, filled instead with blue and birdsong, and always far off in the distance, the faint bass beats of a boom box. It's reminiscent of Busan, perhaps, and maybe a bit of the riverside, but nothing too specific. There are fashionable shops with loud clothes in the windows, but no brand names. Kibum walks into one, and Hoya, looking rather unlike himself and more like a matchstick - tall and skinny with bright red hair - sweeps him up with a young fashionista's enthusiasm, pointing out different items that would match whatever Kibum holds up.
Sungjong finds the post box he put the masks and weapons in and once their faces are safely hidden behind black ski masks, they barge into the store, brandishing guns. Sungjong holds his to Hoya's head, freezing Kibum in place with the wordless threat of getting brains all over everything. Sungyeol and Myungsoo grab Kibum by the arms and drag him from the store, rushing him outside to the van waiting at the curb with its side door thrown open. The sidewalk bucks under their feet before they get there, tree roots cracking through concrete to form a barrier.
This isn't supposed to happen. Most people's minds wouldn't even know when their dreams were being influenced. For Kibum's subconscious to have such a strong reaction means only one thing.
Myungsoo stumbles on a root tendril, and Kibum pulls out of his grip. Then the gunfire starts, chipping at the concrete around them and pinging off of the van, pinning all of them in place. Sungyeol all but throws himself over Kibum, both to protect him and keep him in place, while Myungsoo and Sungjong shoot at the snipers appearing over the edge of the store's roof. Hoya, wearing his own face under another ski mask stashed in the store, joins them a few seconds later, brandishing a rifle that Sungjong eyes with a certain amount of envy.
Finally there's a break in the assault (as a corpse dramatically falls over the edge of the roof), and Myungsoo yanks Sungyeol up, both of them steering Kibum around the tree-root fence with Sungjong trotting backward to keep up, eyes still trained on the roof.
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"You didn't say he'd been trained!" Myungsoo shouts in Sungyeol's ear accusingly as they duck in unison.
"I didn't know!" Sungyeol yells back, and Sungjong just shoves both of them.
"Get in the damn van!" he snaps, words punctuated by a bullet that whirrs by, shattering half of the back window. They pile in and Sungyeol yanks the doors shut as Dongwoo floors it and the van squeals its way across a basketball court in a shortcut to a bridge. The rest of the city is across it, with more people and more threats, but they'll need to be higher up than they are now for Dongwoo to properly jolt them back to this level.
Kibum starts to struggle again, and Sungyeol unceremoniously chloroforms him. "Should've done that before," he says, watching with some satisfaction as Kibum slumps in his seat.
"What happened?" Dongwoo asks as the others peel off the ski masks now that their target's unconscious.
Myungsoo's glaring at Sungyeol. "He's had training. And no one fucking knew."
Sungyeol's about to retort with equal bite, Sungjong can tell, but before he can intervene because seriously they need to focus, Dongwoo derails their bickering.
"Oh," their current driver and resident scientist says, and drums his fingers on the wheel as though they're not being chased by a taxi of gunmen (they are). "Well, we'll deal with it." He meets Myungsoo's incredulous stare in the rearview mirror, and laughs. "Don't worry, you can rely on me! I'm the best driver, remember?"
"You're the only driver," Sungjong mutters, barely audible. He's not pleased about this development either, but Sungyeol is already preparing the next round.
"We don't have a choice now. We're going too far in," he says, passing around handfuls of tubes. "Ready?"
Despite Sungjong's grumbling, and Myungsoo's irritation, they both are. Dongwoo throws them a salute in the rearview mirror again, before reaching back and sending them on their way.
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The second dream is Sungyeol's. It's a replica of one of Kibum's workplaces, recreated down to the smallest detail. Sungyeol's particularly proud of it, because creating made-up places is its own challenge, but tricking someone in a place they're familiar with is a greater reward.
Kibum is wary because this is the store that Woohyun said is getting into some pretty illegal stuff behind the scenes. For them to have prepared Kibum for having his mind invaded means ‘pretty illegal' is probably an understatement.
He's shaken back to reality by his co-worker nudging him. "Hey, man, what's wrong? You completely zoned out."
He apologizes, but his attention flits away again. He's tired, though he's not sure why, and something doesn't seem quite right. It's probably because he's tired. That makes sense. Too many shifts in a week (in a day, even) often end up leaving him feeling like he's not really in the world as completely as everyone else.
"Seriously. What's up with you?" His co-worker looks a little annoyed now, but they're interrupted by a man in a suit Kibum hasn't seen before. He's young, and handsome in a clean-cut, movie star sort of way, and Kibum's about to ask him if he needs any help when he speaks.
"Would you excuse us?" This is directed towards Kibum's co-worker, who opens his mouth and shuts it again, then shrugs and sidles away.
Kibum is easy to manipulate, Myungsoo finds. Perhaps it's the suit - Kibum's jobs are all pretty much entry-level, from the sound of it - or perhaps Myungsoo's just a better actor than he thinks he is. Well, perhaps it's also the tiny rolling earthquakes that jolt them every time Dongwoo swerves too wildly, or goes over a pothole too quickly. Whatever the case, it doesn't take long to convince Kibum that he's in danger in his own head from a rival company trying to take down his employer. They've targeted him because they know he has information they need, now that he's been brought into the fold, but he's still new enough that they didn't think he'd be able to ward them off.
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"Yes, but," and he glances around at the passersby eyeing him, all tense and on edge. Kibum's subconscious is preparing to defend itself, but Kibum doesn't know that. According to Myungsoo, after all, Myungsoo's in charge of those defenses, so when he says, "we need to get moving now," Kibum just nods.
"We need to find out what they want to know," Myungsoo explains when they're tucked away in the tiny break room with his fellow dream security associates (as he described Sungyeol, Hoya and Sungjong when they arrived).
Kibum nods. Sungyeol glances at his watch, and presses the button as Kibum's subconscious starts to hunt for the threat to his safety.
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The third dream is Hoya's. It's an outlandish action movie setting, because Kibum knows he's dreaming now. The stakes are higher, their time shorter, but they're near the end of it all. They're on an island, in a fortress in a volcano, and Sungjong's buried a vault deep inside it. It can't be too easy to get to, so they're approaching through a side door partway up the mountain.
The idea, a mere suggestion, is locked away. It has to seem like it comes from Kibum's own mind, Sungyeol had explained, when Woohyun had wondered why it was suddenly so complicated. It can't be something obviously implanted. Duh.
If all goes according to plan, Kibum will realize he's in over his head, that what he knows - a lie, carefully crafted by Sungjong - will end up costing him too much. If things don't go as planned, well, Myungsoo refused to talk about that.
"We die, basically," Sungyeol had said bluntly.
That's not entirely true, but Myungsoo's not thinking about Limbo (not thinking about who he knew there once) as he wrenches open the side door and hurries inside, Kibum half a step behind.
"Where are - ?" Kibum asks, and Myungsoo doesn't have to answer because he's cut off by an explosion somewhere on the other side of the fortress. Sungjong has a scary fondness for booby traps (something about stress relief, he's said), and Hoya indulges him probably more than he should, but they're certainly an effective distraction for Kibum's mind-grown security.
"Come on," Myungsoo says, and grabs Kibum by the wrist, half-dragging him down the corridor. Their footsteps are loud, but so are the gunshots they can hear echoing off the walls.
They haven't got much time to get inside.
And then the volcano will erupt, and they'll fall.
The dingy linoleum floor will crumble, and they'll fall.
Dongwoo's crazy driving will finally pay off, and they'll fall.
And, then.
"Welcome back."
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[In the extended edition, that would've been mind!Sunggyu. In the un-complicated version, it's not.]
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