deus ex monstrum || pt. iii
Title: Deus Ex Monstrum
Fandom: EXO
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: graphic descriptions of violence, blood, body horror, etc; mentions of character death; animal cruelty. Really, it's not a nice read.
Summary: Individuality has its price.
part i || part ii
A/N: stupid livejournal and their stupid maximum size. This was originally supposed to be the second half of part ii, but since I basically had to cut it in half I was like fuck it why not. But this is why it's so conjoined to that part compared to the first one. Yeah. This is also where shit goes down like, shit.
Again, PAY ATTENTION TO THE WARNINGS. THIS IS NOT A PLEASANT READ.
Baekhyun figures his attempts at rousing Jongin were successful. He accepts his name, accepts his identity, even Baekhyun’s suggestions that they are mistreated and should - dare he say it - try and make their way out of the ward, escape the clutches of their handlers and embrace themselves and a peaceful existence.
It’s a little too much to hope for, but Baekhyun remembers a phrase about aiming high, and that’s what he does. He trusts his sporadic memories or epiphanies, maybe more than he should, but it feels good to hold on to something that comes from himself rather than his handler.
This is also why he indulges his urges and starts talking to 61 about their situation.
61 is not very receptive at first, but he eventually opens up, just a little, just enough for Baekhyun to keep going.
“I thought I was just getting defective,” 61 says as his eyes stay focused on the site he is tracing through the scope of his sniper rifle. “That maybe I needed maintenance. It has been a while, after all.”
“No, that’s not it,” Baekhyun says, continuously scanning the area with his sharp eyesight. “I mean, they might think you need to be fixed, because they want to control you, but they shouldn’t. You are your own person, and you should be free to think and do whatever you like.”
“I don’t know what I want to do.”
“Exactly!” Baekhyun sighs. “That’s the problem. They took away your free will, and that’s not okay.”
“Huh.” 61 shifts slightly, moving his rifle just a smidge East. “And this is why the beating isn’t okay either?”
“That’s definitely not okay,” Baekhyun says.
“But we kill people all the time,” 61 argues. “Does that mean we are bad people as well?”
“Sort of…” Baekhyun scratches his head. “But we don’t mean to. They made us do it.”
“Because they are bad people,” 61 supplies, and Baekhyun nods.
“That’s right.”
“Okay, then.” 61 fires off a shot, and then they have to take off because their location has been compromised. But their target is taken out.
Baekhyun isn’t sure if he got through to 61, because he sounded so casual about it all, like he understood everything objectively but not subjectively. He wishes he could have made a better emotional appeal, but how do you do that to someone whose personal sentiments have been ripped away?
He only worries for a while, until he hears a commotion down the hall during his debrief, and his handler goes out to check. He comes back chuckling, and tells the nurse tending to Baekhyun that 61’s asked a lot of questions and snapped and is now being sent downstairs to ‘atone for his sins’.
Baekhyun knows what that means, and he shouldn’t be happy that 61 is going to be punished, but the knowledge that his words meant something to the tall soldier warms something in his chest.
--
99 draws a finger along the window, looking at the rain as it hits the opposite side of the glass. It’s not quite dark outside, but it’s a bit gloomy nonetheless, and 99 can see the reflection of his eyes. They light up, like they do when he’s in an intense fight or particularly agitated.
He doesn’t quite understand why.
He’s relaxed.
He’s in a car, heading back to the ward after another successful mission. It’s a completely ordinary situation, nothing unsettling about it at all. His handler is in the front seat, chatting quietly with the driver, while 99 is alone in the backseat with the equipment he’s used. Nothing much today, really, a semi-automatic and one Glock. It was a clean hit, simple, unmemorable.
He puts his palm against the damp window. Feels the cold against his skin. Removes it. Flexes his fingers a little.
The cold doesn’t bother him. He’s okay with it. It’s just another sensation, nothing wrong with it.
He puts one finger back on the window, not quite in the center, but towards the left, and watches the little fog that spreads around it for a second. It’s calming, soothing almost, and 99 smiles a little to himself.
Then the little fog spot spreads, slowly, like it’s climbing, and 99 realizes it’s not actually heat but cold emanating from his finger, and the spread consists of tiny crystals that create an intricate pattern on the window. He watches in fascination as the crystals crawl all over the glass, bright and fragile like nothing he has ever seen before.
Then the pattern in the middle of the window shifts. The symmetrical crystals reshape themselves, drawig something decidedly out of place, but it still looks beautiful to 99’s eyes. He sees the ice change until it spells out a word…
Minseok?
He doesn’t know what it means.
He doesn’t know why the ice tells him this.
He doesn’t know why there is ice coming out of his hands.
Then he remembers 61, and the fire that came out of his hands a while ago.
He smiles a little to himself. He is sure he will understand it all in time. Things usually work out, in one way or another.
As soon as the takes his finger of the window, the ice retracts and disappears, but when he looks down at his hand, he finds snowflakes dancing around his palm.
--
94 is furious.
He pounces on the target, hands already stained red from the guards and one secretary, gun lost somewhere on the eight floor, and drives the man to the ground. He tumbles on top of him, but doesn’t halt even for a second, landing punches and scratches and growling at his victim. The poor man didn’t even have the time to raise his arms in defense.
He pulls his arm back for another punch, straight to the nose, but the target turns his head and the hit lands on his cheekbone, breaking it in a sick crunch and leaving a caved dent on his face. 94 doesn’t care. Again, another punch, and he breaks skin, spurting sluggish blood and white peeks through in sharp shards. His prey still screams, raw, hoarse and in utter agony.
94 switches hands, and with his left hand he hits at a different angle, driving the bloodied head around and he repeats the process, this time breaking an eye socket and bursting an eye. He doesn’t stop, keeps on pounding until the nose is a crumpled mess, chin unrecognizable and the entire face mostly reduced to a beaten pulp.
His own knuckles are bruised and bloodied, but most of it isn’t his own. He doesn’t feel the pain anyway, not now.
94 thinks about the mission some time ago, the one with 04 and 88. They kept talking about things, strange things he hasn’t heard about before, and it confused him. He doesn’t have a name, or dreams, or anyone else who knows him, he is sure of that.
Or at least, he was.
He went back to the ward with the two of them, silent, contemplating what they said. They sounded so sincere, so pained, and 94 kept thinking about this even as he gave his report. He mentioned it to his handler, who backhanded him and told him to forget about such talk.
He tried, he really did.
But his mind wouldn’t let it go.
The entire thing confused him so much, because what if they were right? What if he, 94, isn’t really 94, and the ward has tricked them all into believing strange things and made them do things they never wanted to?
It doesn’t make any sense - the ward is all he knows, he didn’t exist before the ward.
He doesn’t remember the first time he opened his eyes, he doesn’t remember much of distant memories at all. They cloud over time, being replaced by new memories of new missions and fresh targets, while past experiences are slowly wiped away by the passing of time.
He grabs the target’s hair and raises his head slightly before smashing it down on the polished wooden floor beneath them. The man has stopped screaming, unconscious, or dead, 94 doesn’t care. He is angry and he needs to take it out on something, or else it will devour him.
The skull doesn’t give on the first smash, but he sees red seeping out and raises it again. Again, again. The head is 04, with his strange ideas, his compassion and his eagerness. The head is 88, his gullible brain, his childhood friend, his name.
It breaks, finally, and 94 screams as he twists the head sharply to the right and up, breaking the neck with a loud noise. He pulls out a knife and stabs it in the unmarred eye, somewhere in the middle of the bloody mess that once was a face. Then he pulls it out, dragging the remains of the eye and torn veins out with it before hacking it apart.
The eye is the ward. The eye is everything they did to him because he is just a soldier.
Why? Why did his existence suddenly become so complicated? Whose fault is it?
He leans back and readies the knife, still with the eyeball impaled at the tip. With one hand, he rips open the target’s jacket and exposes the white shirt underneath. So pure, untainted, yet -
Red blooms on the surface as he drives the knife through his chest. The eyeball remains on the knife, like a grotesque ornament, still dripping from the socket and the new chest wound.
94 knows now, has know for a while, that he is more than a soldier. He has know since that horrible mission, the mission that sparked something in his brain. He could never stop thinking about it, and eventually he realized he knew more, realized he recognized some of 04’s arguments.
What they make him do is wrong.
He isn’t their slave. He should be a person.
But he isn’t. He doesn’t know who he is. He just knows how he feels.
He twists the knife around, digging it deeper into the chest, painting his hands and his victim in scarlet until there is a gorge exposing broken, blackened cigarette lungs, the twitching lump of a heart and other organs 94 doesn’t know or care about. He slashes open the lungs, three times, and sticks the knife down to the stomach. He knifes this open as well, and the stench of stomach acid and half-digested food crawl up his nose and irritates him further.
He doesn’t think he deserves this. Maybe he does, but he wouldn’t know, would he? Because someone turned him into X-94, and now 04 and 88 have reminded him of this, and he is in pain and angry and nothing makes sense anymore besides the blood underneath him. At least that doesn’t change. At least that is what it has always been, and 94 knows what to do with blood.
He drags the knife across the sternum in six precise strokes, painting a hexagon against the spotted skin. Then he thinks about it, and draws two more intersecting lines, from the top two corners to the bottom two.
He leaves half an hour later, still livid, still confused, and still questioning himself. A soft breeze follows him out, but it doesn’t comfort him much.
The eye is perched on top of the remnants of the target’s mouth.
--
10 is on his way back from a mission when he hears a tiny mewl from a back alley.
He stops, turns, and heads straight into the dark and dingy corners away from the main road.
The kitten is shivering behind a container, skinny, wet, but lively, and it immediately nuzzles up to 10’s hand when he puts it down to stroke the soft fur. The mewling turns to soft purring and 10 sits down next to the cat, unminding of the wet pavement or the foul-smelling trash by his shoulder.
It’s not actually raining anymore, but the ground is still damp from the falls earlier that night, and 10 feels the water seep through the coarse fabric on his knees. He doesn’t mind. His attention is focused on the little grey creature in front of him, watching as it rubs its head against his hand and crawls a bit closer.
He hesitates for a second before picking it up.
The kitten is tiny in his arms, smaller than 10’s guns and even his pocket knives. He cradles it in two hands, but it would easily fit in one, curled up in his palm and relaxed. Trusting. Fragile. The tiny rumble of delighted purrs echoes in his hands, and 10 can almost feel it in his own chest when he brings the kitten close.
It doesn’t realize how dangerous he is.
It would be so easy, not even an exertion for him, and he could crush the kitten in his hands. It is completely oblivious, trusts him blindly, and its ignorance makes it vulnerable.
10 controls the life of the kitten now, he could kill it or let it live in the blink of an eye.
It’s a situation he has been in before. He is often sent to kill people, humans, and when he stands over them, wounded, disarmed, at gun point and trembling before him, 10 knows he controls their fate. It’s a detached sort of knowledge, one which 10 retains but thinks little about because it is a useless thought. It is not his job to think about who lives and who dies. It is his job to carry out the will of his master. His master is the one with the decisions.
That’s all there is to it.
But now…
His handler has never told him anything about kittens. He doesn’t know what to do with them.
Except he kind of does.
The petting, cradling, sweet, gentle touches are all instinctive to him, his body reacting before his mind has processed the action and the kitten responds to him so well, as if he is doing the exact right thing. It mewls and purrs and cuddles into his hands and it puts a little smile on 10’s face.
He kind of knows what to do with kittens, but he doesn’t know what he should do with them. What the protocol is for a soldier when he meets a kitten. Is he supposed to kill it? Feed it? Leave it alone?
But the thought of harming the kitten makes his stomach twist uncomfortably and something constricts and rises in his throat. He doesn’t want to. Maybe it’s wrong, but he doesn’t want to hurt the kitten. It sounds like he is wrong. But it feels like he is right.
It’s a very confusing thought, so 10 brings the kitten closer to his face and rubs his nose in its fur instead.
But then he feels sharp stings on his chin, and even though it’s not very painful (certainly not to him, ache is a comfort he has learned to live with) 10’s instincts scream at him to defend himself, and he flings the source of the hurt away from his face -
The kitten yelps sharply as it hits the brick wall, and falls heavily in a lump on the ground.
10 only stares at it when it starts squirming, screeching, but not getting up. It’s only moving its head and front paws, and even if 10 doesn’t know much about kittens, he can feel the agony radiating off it and towards him, permeating his body until his spine throbs in a steady rhythm and his legs tremble and burn. His mouth is dry and his head rings, an octave higher than the kitten’s wails and he wants to raise his hands and cover his ears, but somehow they don’t respond. He can only look at the kitten.
The little creature is in pain, too much agony for such a harmless thing.
10 did this.
10 hurt the kitten.
It feels anything but right, and suddenly 10 knows that he was not supposed to kill or harm the thing, and he wishes (how strange?) that he had never turned into the alley, but just kept going back to the ward, like he was supposed to do. Then the kitten wouldn’t suffer, and 10 wouldn’t feel so…
Guilty?
“I’m sorry,” he mumbles to the kitten, but he still doesn’t reach out to it again. He doesn’t know what to do to make it better, but he wants to do something -
“Yixing, why did you hurt me?” The kittens yelps turn into a wail, but it doesn’t mean anything to 10.
He was the one who hurt the kitten, but what is Yixing?
“What?” He asks, because his handler always clarifies when he asks questions. His handler thinks he is stupid, but 10 doesn’t mind. He never thought so himself, at least not until he tossed a kitten into a wall and it started speaking to him.
It’s not right.
“Yixing, why did you hurt me?” The kitten demands again, and it is the voice of a young boy, but 10 doesn’t think he recognizes it.
“Yixing, why did you hurt me?” 10 shakes his head, his eyes burn, his body shakes and he doesn’t know why he reacts like this. His body - lungs, stomach, head, throat, it all hurts, bit different than a bullet wound or solid punch. It’s all inside, knocking on his skin from the inside out, pressuring his organs and twisting his veins. He has never been scared before, and this terrifies him.
“Yixing, why did you hurt me?”
“No - “
“Yixing, why did you hurt me?”
“Yixing, why did you hurt me?”
“Yixing - “
“No!” He cries and lurches forward, forcing his limbs into mobility as he grabs the kitten and cradles it in his arms again. The little, fluffy body feels different, wrong, twisted compared to earlier, and 10 hates it.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he mutters into the fur, and his cheeks are getting wet and everything is wrong. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to, please don’t die, I’m sorry - “
He sobs and the kitten’s writhing is reduced to mild shivering and 10 feels cold all over.
“Yixing, why did you hurt me…”
He didn’t mean to, and he wishes he could fix it, so badly, more than he has every wanted anything before.
10 isn’t used to - isn’t supposed to want anything, but right now he feels less like a soldier, and more like a -
He feels like Yixing.
Suddenly he isn’t cold and hurting anymore, but revering in the warmth that spreads from his hands and through his arms, down his chest and all the way to his toes. His back isn’t tense anymore and his knees feel solid on the ground, and the tingling in his throat has changed from a choking nausea to pleasant buzz.
The kitten has stopped wailing.
He opens his eyes again and pulls the kitten away from his face to look at it. The shrieks have changed to a soft purring, and it’s curled up comfortably in his palm, not looking at him accusingly or hurt, but content and trusting once more. Its bones feel sturdy again, not broken or bent, and it’s almost as if it never hit the wall at all.
Did he do this?
He doesn’t think he can fix broken animals.
Did he imagine throwing the kitten against the wall?
No, that was real, as real as anything he’s ever experienced. He felt the pain - the kitten’s pain, as his own, it asked him why, but he couldn’t say, and then they were both okay. It doesn’t make any sense.
But maybe it doesn’t have to.
He determines not to tell his handler about this. He wants this to be his own little secret, because he doesn’t think they would like it if he told them. It’s probably wrong, but it feels very right. He doesn’t want the feeling to leave. The way the kitten looks up at him, adoringly and happy, it can’t be wrong, and he wants to remember this, as long as ever.
Because it’s right.
“It’s okay now, thank you, Yixing.”
When he steps out of the alley to find a lonely kid in need of a fluffy companion, he is Yixing.
--
Baekhyun and 21 usually takes separate missions. They have similar core competencies, so they are more frequently paired with soldiers who fulfil different roles in an operation.
This is why, when 21 mockingly introduces himself to their target as Jongdae, Baekhyun’s jaw drops to the floor in surprise.
“Is that your name?” He asks, as the target spasms from surges of electricity courtesy of 21’s three days old abilities.
21 shrugs and looks up from the body reeking of burned flesh beneath him, eyes glittering in the morning light. “Yeah, why?”
“Since when?”
“What do you mean, since when?”
“Well, I thought you were - “ Baekhyun swallows, trying to word this correctly without discouraging 21. “I thought you were called X-21?”
21 looks at him weirdly.
“That’s just a codename,” he says. “My name is Jongdae.”
“Well, then, Jongdae, my name is Baekhyun. Nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you too, Baekhyun.”
--
One day 94 is woken up and his first thought is, my name is Sehun, and he cries.
When the nurse asks him what’s wrong, he punches her in the face, and immediately feels guilty about it, and then he cries some more.
--
Baekhyun knows something is up when he wakes up and sees his handler’s stormy face above him. Normally the nurses escort him out to prep, but there is something new today, it must be.
“Seems like they are tired of your little antics,” his handler says and sneers distastefully, an unfortunate replacement for his usual cocky grin. “They might not have confirmed that it’s you, but I know. I know that you’re up to some cheeky shit.”
Baekhyun stays silent, because anything he could say now would just provoke his handler even further. No need to do that, at least not before he knows what this is about.
“Get up,” his handler says then, and Baekhyun slowly obeys, his knees still a bit weak from being kept comatose for so long (how long?) but the handler has no patience. He grabs a hold of the back of Baekhyun’s collar and drags him out into the sterile corridor. It’s quite barren, both of objects and people. As they turn a corner, Baekhyun sees Jongin’s trademark blond hair somewhere before him, next to another handler in a dark uniform, armed and heavy, in contrast to Jongin’s simple white scrubs.
They head in the same direction.
Eventually they reach a door, and when they enter, Baekhyun recognizes the procedural nurse room.
It makes his stomach churn uncomfortably, and he halts for a second before his handler drags him towards one of the beds. He sees some of the other soldiers there already - Jongin arrived seconds before him, and is settling down in a bed on the opposite side of the room (hexagon, everything is a hexagon) under the stern glare of his handler. 12 is there as well, appearing surprisingly irritated, because Baekhyun has never seen him anything but painfully stoic and this is a strange development. 99 is sitting quietly as well, almost folded in on himself, in a stark contrast to 94, who looks positively bursting with angry energy.
61 is on the bed next to Baekhyun’s, fists closed and a deep frown in place. According to the other soldiers and his handler, 61 has developed a temper and is impossible to pacify these days - even more than usual.
Baekhyun takes this as a personal victory.
He also notices the burns and lacerations on 61’s face, which he does not celebrate the same way. But he is sitting upright. He looks okay.
As Baekhyun settles on the bed, 10 is lead in by two nurses rather than a handler. Baekhyun doesn’t know what this is, but he doesn’t see any point in asking.
He is very confused about the situation, but he knows it’s not going to be good. No use in worsening the situation before it has even unfolded.
01 and Jongdae are lead in shortly afterwards, and Baekhyun is shocked to see the muffler on Jongdae’s face. Black, thick, and heavy, undoubtedly uncomfortable. Jongdae himself looks very displeased with this, and 01 looks almost apologetic, or maybe empathic. Baekhyun can’t tell.
Now they are all gathered. The nurses step up to their beds, one on the left side of all the soldiers, and the handlers scamper off to the side of the room.
The door slams open and a tall, menacing guy Baekhyun has never seen before strolls in. His expression is murderous, and he is bigger and broader than any of the soldiers, but not with an unintelligent gleam in his eyes. Like the handlers, he is dressed in black, gun holstered and heavy boots stomping, and Baekhyun suddenly feels very vulnerable.
“You have brought this on yourself,” the big man says, angry and loud, and he looks around the room with a glare, making sure to meet the eyes of all the soldiers. None of them back down, but he doesn’t look pleased with their defiance. “All this chat about names and justice and individualism - it’s all bullshit and I won’t have any of it. We took you, and we made you, and you will listen to us. Nothing else matters.”
Silence. Then -
“Fuck you.”
This is Jongdae, he has torn off the mask and tosses it before the man’s booted feet. Baekhyun is very impressed with his audacity.
The large man is not.
In two swift strides, he is by Jongdae’s bed, and backhands him so hard Jongdae’s head whip around in the blink of an eye.
“No, fuck you,” he says as Jongdae spits out a glob of blood. “I don’t think you understand. We control you. You are only here because we can use you.”
He spits at Jongdae, a mock imitation of his earlier actions, and steps back. “Once that changes, you’re out.”
“What sort of life is this anyway?” asks 99, his voice almost timid, but the conviction in his eyes is real. “We’re nothing but tools now.”
“You tore everything from us,” 94 joins in, his eyes shining with tears and, oh, Baekhyun feels a cold wind through the room. How? Is this 94’s new ability?
The big man seems to ignore it.
“We did,” he agrees. “And now we will do whatever we need to in order to keep it that way. We tried to let you off easy, with a few reprimands, but you’ve given us no choice. We’ll do a complete wipe, start over. And we will keep doing this until you cooperate.”
“Is that what you did before?” Jongin asks, and Baekhyun remembers Jongin’s friend from that one mission he failed.
But the man’s patience is gone, and he turns to the head nurse. “Start the procedure.”
He says it softly, but they all hear it nonetheless. The nurses all take a step forward, as if a hive, one of them reaches for Baekhyun’s arm -
“NO!”
There is a loud boom in the room next to them, and the floor shakes, throwing them all off balance and tossing 12 out of his bed. The glass windows to the corridor burst inwards, throwing shards of glass across the nearest beds and their respective nurses. Then a lick of fire follows, and Baekhyun can see that the entire corridor is covered in flames that threaten to migrate to their room. The easy wind from before has whipped up to a contained storm, feeding the fire and inviting it in, and Baekhyun jumps off his bed before it singes his hair.
“Inject them!” The big man shouts, crouched in the opposite corner. “I thought you sedated them before! Do it!”
One side of the room is beaten by fire and heat and wind, but now a big patch of ice is spreading on the opposite wall, creeping down towards the handlers. Baekhyun glances around the room and sees 99 twist his hands in the direction the ice is going, controlling it, pushing it. Pushing it towards the big guy.
“We did!” One of the handlers shout back to their leader. “They’re stronger than we thought. They must have - “
His suggestion is cut off by 10, who suddenly appears and pushes a finger against the speaker’s forehead. The man’s eyes roll back into his head, and he falls down at 10’s feet.
“You shouldn’t be sleeping at work,” 10 says innocently, but Baekhyun can practically hear the smirk in his voice.
He looks around the room, and all the soldiers are now at their feet, approaching the door and the handlers, who are grabbing at their guns, knives, whatever weapon they have on them at the moment. Baekhyun notes that the big man is completely frozen solid, covered in ice.
To his right, 01 disarms a handler and knocks him out with an elbow.
“You’re right, I am the guardian,” he says to the unconscious handler. “Call me Suho.”
The flames have crept over some of the beds now, and Baekhyun winces a little at the nurses caught in the crossfire, but they are acceptable collateral.
(Hopefully.)
A couple of the handlers escape out the door before the soldiers can take them out, but this is their chance.
“Let’s run for it,” Baekhyun says. “Focus on getting out, whatever means necessary. We’ll rendezvous outside, same procedure as usual!”
They all nod affirmatively and run out of the room.
They are immediately assaulted by nurses with shock pistols and armed guards.
“Split up!” Jongdae shout, and they all end up running off through the labyrinthine corridors in pairs, trusting each other to make it out safely.
That is, they all run off in pairs except for 61.
“61, where are you going?” Baekhyun shouts. “There are no exits from there!”
“I know!” 61 cries back, deep voice carrying across the sounds of shots and shrieks and fire. “I have something I need to do first. Get everyone out, I’m torching the building in ten minutes!”
Even as he says this, his eyes glow and another wall catches on fire.
Baekhyun doesn’t like it, but he has no choice. “Alright, I’ll see you outside!” And then he joins forces with 21, who’s already disarming the nurses’ tasers and electric guns.
--
He knows this route well by now, and it is one filled with dread, anger, hurt, and confusion all at the same time. 61 has walked this way a lot of times, always escorted, always with his handler or a nurse or a guard or anyone, essentially. This is the first time he makes the trek on his own, through the massive building and towards the North-western corner, but he knows exactly where to go. He knows exactly what he is looking for.
He lets his hand rest on the wall as he runs past, leaving sparks and glowing embers in his wake, and he smirks as he feels the ward itself catch on fire. Destroying this place will be good.
Baekhyun triggered something within him. There was always this uneasy restlessness in the back of his mind before, but when he allowed himself to explore it, he was almost overwhelmed by what he discovered. He realized everything, he remembered, he knows.
It is devastating, this awareness of what they put him through, any why - it was always just for selfish reasons. All nine of them, erased from the surface of the Earth, only so these people could have some effective soldiers.
Their lack of regard for human lives sickens him.
The thought that he has taken lives for them, actually destroyed other people for them without objections frightens him.
He wants vengeance.
He find the office and tears the door open. As expected, his handler is there, grabbing his gun and aiming at 61, but a wall of fire demolishes the bullet before it can touch him. Another shot, and another, but the same thing happens, until the handler drops the ground and backs up towards the wall.
61’s eyes are burning, glowing red, amber, scorching as fire and cowering his handler, who has never been on the receiving end of his lethal ire. Usually, it’s the other way around - the handler hitting 61, utilizing all sorts of archaic methods of punishment, a whip, club, fire (oh, the irony), water, anything he wanted to try. He had the perfect guinea pig, after all. He sent 61 down to the basement for conditioning, he put him in the chair for shocks, the drugs, all of it. Always looking for excuses to make 61 scream.
Now 61 will make him scream.
“I’m - I’m - “
“You’re sorry?” 61 suggests, his voice dripping with poison, and he cranes his head slightly before shaking it. “Sorry doesn’t mean anything. Sorry doesn’t help you at all. I don’t want sorry.”
“Then…” The handler glances around the room, wincing, looking for an exit. There is none. 61 sets his table on fire, lights up the chair and explodes a bottle of liquid for good measure.
“What d-do you want?”
“You die,” 61 sneers. “You suffer. And…”
“No, please, I-I - “
61 steps forward and plants his fist in the handler’s face, making him stumble.
“Now, tell me my name.”
“W-what?”
61 growls and lurches at the handler, his hand reaching for the vulnerable neck and grabbing a hold until he can shake the poor excuse of a man.
“What is my name?!” he barks, his grip tightening around the handler’s collar until his nails dig through the fabric and into the soft skin beneath. The handler whimpers, gulps in air, wets his lips slightly, but 61 is not patient.
“Tell me!”
“Ch-chan - “ the handler starts, the sound hesitant but hysteric. “Chanyeol!”
61 - Chanyeol drops him then, and the handler crumbles to the ground, panting and clutching his throat.
His name is Chanyeol. He is Chanyeol. He is a person.
I will know who I am.
It feels gratifying, more so than anything he can remember, better than any successfully completed missions or -
He realizes that those are his only moments of satisfaction, however brief and muted. It angers him. How can he not have a single happy memory? Who is he? What is wrong with him?
No, nothing is wrong with him. Not anymore. He is Chanyeol, and Chanyeol is his own person.
The only ones that are wrong are these people. The people who twisted him, tormented him, used him for their own purposes - what purposes? He still doesn’t know, and he doesn’t even care. It’s not important, not anymore, because nothing they can do or say will affect him anymore.
They tore him apart once.
He will return the favour.
His former handler is still heaving, shivering on his knees and looking at the ground. It is such a pitiful sight, so incongruous with the aggressive captor that spent all his time ripping on a wounded and lost soul. Now he is just a blubbering mess. There is nothing intimidating about that.
Chanyeol crouches before the handler and stares intently into eyes that refuse to meet his. A good minute passes before he slowly pushes his hand into the handler’s face, his fingers spreading out like spider legs across clammy skin. Then his hand is engulfed in flames, and they slither across his knuckles to devour the entire head, tearing an agonized wail from the handler as his eyes melt, nose searing and hair ablaze.
He writhes and twitches, clawing at his face and the invasive hand, until Chanyeol steps back and folds his arms before the wretched display. As soon as the touch is gone, the flames burst, as if unleashed and licks down the handler’s body until all that remains is a shaking, screaming mass of flames on the floor.
Chanyeol watches, passive save for the little smirk blooming on his lips.
This is satisfaction.
He knows he doesn’t have the time, he should leave, but he allows himself to savour this moment.
The first time Chanyeol is happy.
- hope you enjoy some easter eggs/hints/allusions
- yes there is a lot of chanyeol in this
- i did say it wouldn't be a very nice read, soz for sehun's anger management issues
- the scene with yixing and the kitten was so difficult to write and i actually wish i could've ended a chapter with that but livejournal does not agree