(no subject)
Title: System Failure (8/9)
Authors: butterflyweb and nemesis_cry
Genre: Sci Fi, Matrix!AU
Rating: NC-17 overall
Pairings: JaeMin, JaeHo, YooSu, SiChul, SiHan, MinChul
Warnings: sex, violence, language, character death
Summary: Things are rarely as they seem. Especially in a world governed by machines.
| Prologue | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 |
He wakes with his heart pounding in his chest, tears winding hot paths down his cheeks and the sound of wails in his ears.
A hand reaches frantically behind him, trying to pull the plug out, grief bubbling up in his chest and no, it wasn't real right? The Matrix is a trick, it wasn't--"Get it out of me!" he shouts hoarsely, Siwon's larger hands covering his as the man comes to his aid, shoulders shaking.
He sits up with wide eyes, fingernails digging into the armrest as he takes in the scene.
U-Know clutches Jaejoong's limp form to his chest, sobbing into his hair with force enough to break him; Rella does break--breaks everything he can get his hands on, swears streaming from his lips, breaking probably his own fingers as he slams his fist into the side of the ship. Xiah is huddled in Micky's arms, slight form racking with the force of his tears.
The PA comes alive with Han Geng's voice, metallic static turning every word to robotic sound. Like he's a machine. "We've got a tracker... Yunho, you need to get up here..."
He goes unheard, the other man blind and deaf to the world around him. Jaejoong's head rolls weakly in his embrace, like a lifeless, torn up rag doll, and the memory of bullets ripping through him is real in Changmin's mind even if not in this world. Dead in the Matrix, dead for good.
Siwon sinks to his knees by his chair, hands pressed to his mouth and belatedly, he thinks this must be the first time the other man has seen real death. It's the first time he's seen it too, but the realization doesn't crash just as quickly through him. Instead, he lingers in a state of shock and disbelief, pain radiating through his fingers as his nails almost bend backwards in the leather armrest.
Rella kicks the side of the ship. Han Geng's voice grows in intensity.
With shaking hands, Micky flips a switch and the lights go out.
***
It's almost like deja vu.
He finds himself lying lifelessly on his cot, staring at the rust stains on the walls of his room, eyes red-rimmed with tears. Sobs hiccup from his throat, fingers digging into the worn mattress, and he feels disconnected. He doesn't know how long he's cried, doesn't remember how he got out of the chair and into this room. The only thing his mind can focus on is Jaejoong's limp, empty shell, eyes glazed in death. Staring.
He curls in on himself, trying to will the image away, knowing that his body is somewhere on the ship still. Just the body. Not Jaejoong.
Where is he? Where do you go when you die in the Matrix?
The metal door to his cell of a room opens heavily, Rella hesitating in the doorway before stepping through. He shuffles his feet, movements slow and tired before sinking to the cot beside him.
"Squid's gone... Han Geng is... he's taking us back to Zion for the..." He doesn't say it, but Changmin knows it's there: funeral. Rella touches his shoulder. "Move over."
He shifts automatically, the action not even a conscious one, gaze still trained on the wall, never breaking. Rella lays down behind him, muffling a sigh in his shoulder. A skinny arm circles his waist.
"You alright?"
It's a stupid question, so stupid he nearly laughs out loud. It dies in his throat before he can, eyes finally falling shut.
Jaejoong is gone. Dead. What does it matter how he is?
Rella's body is cold, but his chest shifts with breath. He's alive.
"Why did he... he told them, he..." A sob catches in Changmin's throat, choking him. Nothing makes sense anymore, not the Oracle, not the real world. Not the Matrix. Rella tightens his hold incrementally, forehead pressed to the nape of Changmin's neck.
"He wanted back. He wanted back so fucking bad, more than any of us. He must've thought..." Another sigh.
He doesn't want to hear the words, he knows. There's only so much that can be whispered around corners, only so many places where Yunho's shouts won't carry. Jaejoong's deal, his betrayal. And the opportunity placed right in his lap through the visit to the Oracle. The visit he suggested.
Rella presses a kiss to the nape of his neck in cold comfort.
***
When he wakes again, the other side of the cot is bare and cold, mattress belying the presence of a body there not so long ago. How many hours have passed? How many days?
The ship is quiet like a tomb and the comparison cuts deep. It is a tomb. It's Jaejoong's. Hero's.
Changmin rolls to the floor, where at least the hard edges can recall that he is a living, breathing thing. Not a machine, not one of those killer bots that took his friend. He sees the bullets rip through once more and shuts his eyes tightly to the world, choosing instead to remember the lies he was lead to believe before all this madness even started.
Jaejoong on his back, staring down at him with so much affection in his gaze...
Jaejoong calling his name as he comes, a fist clenched in white sheets beside him...
Jaejoong's cold stare the night he came back.
Tears aren't enough.
***
Muscles aching with some undefinable hurt, he trudges aimlessly through the ship, somehow finding himself at the edge of the upper deck, fingers clawing at the walkway. In front, by the large panel that makes for a viewshield, Han Geng keeps an arm wrapped around Siwon's shoulders, the other man's form shifting with the tell-tell signs of wakefulness.
The sound of steps rouses them.
"Max... oh..." Siwon sounds almost disappointed but he doesn't tell him to leave. It dawns on Changmin that the other man was probably expecting Rella. Or, in the alternative, Jaejoong--a dead man.
He enters anyway, shy steps carrying him through into the crowded room anything but soundlessly, until he can collapse on one of the chairs and press his chin to his knees. Curled up like a pretzel, he's a sad reminder of the man he used to be when Jaejoong was around, when he thought they were in love. Siwon strokes a hesitant hand over his arm and he's reminded of the awful things he said to him what feels like an eternity ago. They don't matter, nothing really does.
"We're heading back to Zion," Han Geng murmurs, his voice low enough not to throw an echo.
Changmin lifts his head. "For Jae--for Hero?"
"Yeah," the pilot nods and it dawns on him that this could well be the first time they've had someone die on them.
"To give him a proper burial... not that he deserves one." The words cut deep, unreasonably so, but they're not from Han Geng's mouth. It's Rella who delivers them, sharp like a knife from his place at the edge of the stairwell. His hair is a mess that hangs into his eyes, his fists are clenched. Gone is the man who held him earlier.
"What are you talking about, he was shot, he..."
Rella's glare is ice and fire all at once, red-rimmed eyes the only sign that he's been crying as much as the rest of them.
"He sold us out to the machines," he spits, betrayal and hurt mingling together. "Xiah pulled up whole logs of his bullshit. Every time he went into the Matrix, he wasn't just going to see Max, oh no. He was fucking making a deal to get himself reinserted. That naive fucking bastard!"
Each word rings loud and painful in Changmin's ears, supposition turned reality with a few computer checks. Why did they even have to bother? Wouldn't it have been better if they hadn't known?
"He was shot by those... Agents," he mumbles, cringing at the look he receives from the other man. "He didn't get anything in the end, why do you have to treat him like he's any less of a victim..."
Rella's fist slams the hull so loud the sound echoes dully through the whole ship. "Because you could have died!" he yells and no one, not even Siwon, and he's been fucking this man, understands why.
Changmin doesn't even try. He doesn't care. This is all bullshit. The Oracle was bullshit, getting pulled out of the Matrix, losing Jaejoong, all of it. How can he blame the other man for wanting to be reintegrated when right now, in this moment, he'd like nothing better himself? For a man who spends his time fucking his crewmen in cyberspace, he can't help think Rella is more than hypocritical for what he's saying.
"Why do you even care?" he finds himself asking, too defeated by circumstance to raise his voice. "I'm nobody. I'm just another average Joe who woke up to find the life he thought was real was actually just a big fat lie. Yeah, I'm alive. Big deal. Jaejoong's dead and maybe that means nothing to you, but it means a lot to me. I lo-loved him..." His breath catches, a pang of guilt for denying the man's advances, for not fighting harder resonating throughout his form now that it's too late. It's so fucking ironic it leaves him gasping for breath, but he goes on:
"What do you even understand about love?" The one U-Know had for Hero; the one Han Geng has for Siwon. "What do you understand beyond your self-interest?"
Haunted eyes meet his own. "Haven't they told you?" the other man asks only to receive silence in response from Han Geng and Siwon. "I bet they didn't," he chuckles, but it's without humor. Two paces into the room and he's propped above Changmin, arms anchoring him to the console above. "I was supposed to be the traitor. Not Hero. According to that nice lady with the turban, I was supposed to sell you out and get you killed and everyone's been watching me as if I was some fucking bomb, just waiting to explode... and then he goes and does it instead."
Siwon looks away, shifting invariably closer to Han Geng, whispering a soft: "You knew..."
"With you offering to spread for me whenever I fucking wanted? Yeah, I knew." A thumb reaches out to touch his chin. "It helps when the Oracle decides to spill the beans and make you feel like your whole life is out of control, too."
The Oracle lies, virtual reality kills and lovers are torn asunder by some outside evil none of them can control. It's almost Shakespearian--if Shakespeare even existed: the reversal, the unmasking of the culprits. All down to the twisted romances that are never quite real, never quite lasting. Changmin hides his face in the circle of his arms and tries to block it all out.
Enough. He's had enough.
Rella snorts with the laughter of the arrogant and the resentful. His hands tap the overhead console twice before he draws back, the shadow of his body shifting out of Changmin's sight until retreating footsteps sound down the steps and further into the levels below. He's gone for now, but even in the company of the two other men, Changmin feels the wound left by his absence. It's void of sense anyway.
In a world where sense and reality are supposed to go hand in hand, he finds himself at a strange crossroads of disbelief. The world beyond the viewshield is so barren, so dark that it offers no comfort and no salvation.
The Matrix is something else; a cleverly constructed trap and the lure is almost to great to resist. It has just one flaw: it's every bit as futile as the real world. Changmin swallows this conviction like a bitter pill and thinks of the universe the Oracle painted with her prophecy. A world without Matrix, without slavery to the machines. A world that he can bring forth.
Yeah, right.
"It's funny, but... She told me..." He trails off. No one's listening to him anyway.
***
It's not until hours later, when he finally dares make his way into the mess to sit down beside a silent Xiah that he realizes he hasn't eaten since being unplugged. Life has come to a standstill on the ship. Their captain is nowhere to be seen and tensions run high and low in alternation. They live in a temporary world of extremes.
Siwon hands him a canteen filled with protein-filled paste, the taste bland without Rella's contribution. The other man eats quietly in a corner, eyes averted from the lot of them when they're not glaring sheer righteous hate.
"Is it true?" Micky whispers under his breath and even in the silent kitchen, it's too low to be heard by anyone besides Changmin. "Did Hero..."
"Yes." He answers curtly and though it's the most words he's shared with the new crewman since he joined the ship, politeness has long stopped being a concern. A man is dead, a man who no doubt wanted all of them dead if it could help him reach his goal. It would be easier to hate him if Changmin couldn't relate. As it is, the line is too thin to be drawn around what's good and what's evil.
Xiah lifts his eyes from his plate and wipes the back of a sleeve against his eyes, erasing moisture. These men can't understand, he thinks, shamefully. They're of a different caste, they might as well be of a different species. Murder to them is physical, tangible. Real blood, real weapons. They can read what the others experience, but they can't feel it. It's all a TV show, until it's real and than it's a shock.
Changmin pushes away from the table, skin crawling with the slow burn of defeat. To waste away to nothing doesn't seem like the worst of plans right now either. Eyes turn to him, but no one stops him, only the door swinging inwards as U-Know comes through, eyes dark and firm, sorrow undisguised within them.
He's overlooked by the all encompassing gaze.
"Tell Han Geng to turn the ship around. We're going into the hub to end this once and for all." His order is brief and doesn't allow opposition or dissent. The door slams shut behind him just as quickly and it's anyone's guess where he's off to, but common knowledge states he's probably gone back to keep vigil over a dead man's body.
It may not be responsible or understandable to any one else among them besides Changmin, but at least no one bothers opposing the ritual, destructive though it may be.
Rella throws his canteen to the table with a clank that startles more than just Changmin from his thoughts. "Machine City?" he snorts, wiping his lips with the back of his hand. "We're as good as dead. That's plain suicide."
"What's Machine City?" Changmin breathes, the question for Xiah's ears only.
The other man swallows thickly before replying: "Central line for all machine operations. Heart of the Matrix. No one's ever gone in there before." Or, Changmin thinks anxiously, no one who's ever gone in has ever come out again.
For once, he can't help think Rella is right.
Authors: butterflyweb and nemesis_cry
Genre: Sci Fi, Matrix!AU
Rating: NC-17 overall
Pairings: JaeMin, JaeHo, YooSu, SiChul, SiHan, MinChul
Warnings: sex, violence, language, character death
Summary: Things are rarely as they seem. Especially in a world governed by machines.
| Prologue | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 |
He wakes with his heart pounding in his chest, tears winding hot paths down his cheeks and the sound of wails in his ears.
A hand reaches frantically behind him, trying to pull the plug out, grief bubbling up in his chest and no, it wasn't real right? The Matrix is a trick, it wasn't--"Get it out of me!" he shouts hoarsely, Siwon's larger hands covering his as the man comes to his aid, shoulders shaking.
He sits up with wide eyes, fingernails digging into the armrest as he takes in the scene.
U-Know clutches Jaejoong's limp form to his chest, sobbing into his hair with force enough to break him; Rella does break--breaks everything he can get his hands on, swears streaming from his lips, breaking probably his own fingers as he slams his fist into the side of the ship. Xiah is huddled in Micky's arms, slight form racking with the force of his tears.
The PA comes alive with Han Geng's voice, metallic static turning every word to robotic sound. Like he's a machine. "We've got a tracker... Yunho, you need to get up here..."
He goes unheard, the other man blind and deaf to the world around him. Jaejoong's head rolls weakly in his embrace, like a lifeless, torn up rag doll, and the memory of bullets ripping through him is real in Changmin's mind even if not in this world. Dead in the Matrix, dead for good.
Siwon sinks to his knees by his chair, hands pressed to his mouth and belatedly, he thinks this must be the first time the other man has seen real death. It's the first time he's seen it too, but the realization doesn't crash just as quickly through him. Instead, he lingers in a state of shock and disbelief, pain radiating through his fingers as his nails almost bend backwards in the leather armrest.
Rella kicks the side of the ship. Han Geng's voice grows in intensity.
With shaking hands, Micky flips a switch and the lights go out.
***
It's almost like deja vu.
He finds himself lying lifelessly on his cot, staring at the rust stains on the walls of his room, eyes red-rimmed with tears. Sobs hiccup from his throat, fingers digging into the worn mattress, and he feels disconnected. He doesn't know how long he's cried, doesn't remember how he got out of the chair and into this room. The only thing his mind can focus on is Jaejoong's limp, empty shell, eyes glazed in death. Staring.
He curls in on himself, trying to will the image away, knowing that his body is somewhere on the ship still. Just the body. Not Jaejoong.
Where is he? Where do you go when you die in the Matrix?
The metal door to his cell of a room opens heavily, Rella hesitating in the doorway before stepping through. He shuffles his feet, movements slow and tired before sinking to the cot beside him.
"Squid's gone... Han Geng is... he's taking us back to Zion for the..." He doesn't say it, but Changmin knows it's there: funeral. Rella touches his shoulder. "Move over."
He shifts automatically, the action not even a conscious one, gaze still trained on the wall, never breaking. Rella lays down behind him, muffling a sigh in his shoulder. A skinny arm circles his waist.
"You alright?"
It's a stupid question, so stupid he nearly laughs out loud. It dies in his throat before he can, eyes finally falling shut.
Jaejoong is gone. Dead. What does it matter how he is?
Rella's body is cold, but his chest shifts with breath. He's alive.
"Why did he... he told them, he..." A sob catches in Changmin's throat, choking him. Nothing makes sense anymore, not the Oracle, not the real world. Not the Matrix. Rella tightens his hold incrementally, forehead pressed to the nape of Changmin's neck.
"He wanted back. He wanted back so fucking bad, more than any of us. He must've thought..." Another sigh.
He doesn't want to hear the words, he knows. There's only so much that can be whispered around corners, only so many places where Yunho's shouts won't carry. Jaejoong's deal, his betrayal. And the opportunity placed right in his lap through the visit to the Oracle. The visit he suggested.
Rella presses a kiss to the nape of his neck in cold comfort.
***
When he wakes again, the other side of the cot is bare and cold, mattress belying the presence of a body there not so long ago. How many hours have passed? How many days?
The ship is quiet like a tomb and the comparison cuts deep. It is a tomb. It's Jaejoong's. Hero's.
Changmin rolls to the floor, where at least the hard edges can recall that he is a living, breathing thing. Not a machine, not one of those killer bots that took his friend. He sees the bullets rip through once more and shuts his eyes tightly to the world, choosing instead to remember the lies he was lead to believe before all this madness even started.
Jaejoong on his back, staring down at him with so much affection in his gaze...
Jaejoong calling his name as he comes, a fist clenched in white sheets beside him...
Jaejoong's cold stare the night he came back.
Tears aren't enough.
***
Muscles aching with some undefinable hurt, he trudges aimlessly through the ship, somehow finding himself at the edge of the upper deck, fingers clawing at the walkway. In front, by the large panel that makes for a viewshield, Han Geng keeps an arm wrapped around Siwon's shoulders, the other man's form shifting with the tell-tell signs of wakefulness.
The sound of steps rouses them.
"Max... oh..." Siwon sounds almost disappointed but he doesn't tell him to leave. It dawns on Changmin that the other man was probably expecting Rella. Or, in the alternative, Jaejoong--a dead man.
He enters anyway, shy steps carrying him through into the crowded room anything but soundlessly, until he can collapse on one of the chairs and press his chin to his knees. Curled up like a pretzel, he's a sad reminder of the man he used to be when Jaejoong was around, when he thought they were in love. Siwon strokes a hesitant hand over his arm and he's reminded of the awful things he said to him what feels like an eternity ago. They don't matter, nothing really does.
"We're heading back to Zion," Han Geng murmurs, his voice low enough not to throw an echo.
Changmin lifts his head. "For Jae--for Hero?"
"Yeah," the pilot nods and it dawns on him that this could well be the first time they've had someone die on them.
"To give him a proper burial... not that he deserves one." The words cut deep, unreasonably so, but they're not from Han Geng's mouth. It's Rella who delivers them, sharp like a knife from his place at the edge of the stairwell. His hair is a mess that hangs into his eyes, his fists are clenched. Gone is the man who held him earlier.
"What are you talking about, he was shot, he..."
Rella's glare is ice and fire all at once, red-rimmed eyes the only sign that he's been crying as much as the rest of them.
"He sold us out to the machines," he spits, betrayal and hurt mingling together. "Xiah pulled up whole logs of his bullshit. Every time he went into the Matrix, he wasn't just going to see Max, oh no. He was fucking making a deal to get himself reinserted. That naive fucking bastard!"
Each word rings loud and painful in Changmin's ears, supposition turned reality with a few computer checks. Why did they even have to bother? Wouldn't it have been better if they hadn't known?
"He was shot by those... Agents," he mumbles, cringing at the look he receives from the other man. "He didn't get anything in the end, why do you have to treat him like he's any less of a victim..."
Rella's fist slams the hull so loud the sound echoes dully through the whole ship. "Because you could have died!" he yells and no one, not even Siwon, and he's been fucking this man, understands why.
Changmin doesn't even try. He doesn't care. This is all bullshit. The Oracle was bullshit, getting pulled out of the Matrix, losing Jaejoong, all of it. How can he blame the other man for wanting to be reintegrated when right now, in this moment, he'd like nothing better himself? For a man who spends his time fucking his crewmen in cyberspace, he can't help think Rella is more than hypocritical for what he's saying.
"Why do you even care?" he finds himself asking, too defeated by circumstance to raise his voice. "I'm nobody. I'm just another average Joe who woke up to find the life he thought was real was actually just a big fat lie. Yeah, I'm alive. Big deal. Jaejoong's dead and maybe that means nothing to you, but it means a lot to me. I lo-loved him..." His breath catches, a pang of guilt for denying the man's advances, for not fighting harder resonating throughout his form now that it's too late. It's so fucking ironic it leaves him gasping for breath, but he goes on:
"What do you even understand about love?" The one U-Know had for Hero; the one Han Geng has for Siwon. "What do you understand beyond your self-interest?"
Haunted eyes meet his own. "Haven't they told you?" the other man asks only to receive silence in response from Han Geng and Siwon. "I bet they didn't," he chuckles, but it's without humor. Two paces into the room and he's propped above Changmin, arms anchoring him to the console above. "I was supposed to be the traitor. Not Hero. According to that nice lady with the turban, I was supposed to sell you out and get you killed and everyone's been watching me as if I was some fucking bomb, just waiting to explode... and then he goes and does it instead."
Siwon looks away, shifting invariably closer to Han Geng, whispering a soft: "You knew..."
"With you offering to spread for me whenever I fucking wanted? Yeah, I knew." A thumb reaches out to touch his chin. "It helps when the Oracle decides to spill the beans and make you feel like your whole life is out of control, too."
The Oracle lies, virtual reality kills and lovers are torn asunder by some outside evil none of them can control. It's almost Shakespearian--if Shakespeare even existed: the reversal, the unmasking of the culprits. All down to the twisted romances that are never quite real, never quite lasting. Changmin hides his face in the circle of his arms and tries to block it all out.
Enough. He's had enough.
Rella snorts with the laughter of the arrogant and the resentful. His hands tap the overhead console twice before he draws back, the shadow of his body shifting out of Changmin's sight until retreating footsteps sound down the steps and further into the levels below. He's gone for now, but even in the company of the two other men, Changmin feels the wound left by his absence. It's void of sense anyway.
In a world where sense and reality are supposed to go hand in hand, he finds himself at a strange crossroads of disbelief. The world beyond the viewshield is so barren, so dark that it offers no comfort and no salvation.
The Matrix is something else; a cleverly constructed trap and the lure is almost to great to resist. It has just one flaw: it's every bit as futile as the real world. Changmin swallows this conviction like a bitter pill and thinks of the universe the Oracle painted with her prophecy. A world without Matrix, without slavery to the machines. A world that he can bring forth.
Yeah, right.
"It's funny, but... She told me..." He trails off. No one's listening to him anyway.
***
It's not until hours later, when he finally dares make his way into the mess to sit down beside a silent Xiah that he realizes he hasn't eaten since being unplugged. Life has come to a standstill on the ship. Their captain is nowhere to be seen and tensions run high and low in alternation. They live in a temporary world of extremes.
Siwon hands him a canteen filled with protein-filled paste, the taste bland without Rella's contribution. The other man eats quietly in a corner, eyes averted from the lot of them when they're not glaring sheer righteous hate.
"Is it true?" Micky whispers under his breath and even in the silent kitchen, it's too low to be heard by anyone besides Changmin. "Did Hero..."
"Yes." He answers curtly and though it's the most words he's shared with the new crewman since he joined the ship, politeness has long stopped being a concern. A man is dead, a man who no doubt wanted all of them dead if it could help him reach his goal. It would be easier to hate him if Changmin couldn't relate. As it is, the line is too thin to be drawn around what's good and what's evil.
Xiah lifts his eyes from his plate and wipes the back of a sleeve against his eyes, erasing moisture. These men can't understand, he thinks, shamefully. They're of a different caste, they might as well be of a different species. Murder to them is physical, tangible. Real blood, real weapons. They can read what the others experience, but they can't feel it. It's all a TV show, until it's real and than it's a shock.
Changmin pushes away from the table, skin crawling with the slow burn of defeat. To waste away to nothing doesn't seem like the worst of plans right now either. Eyes turn to him, but no one stops him, only the door swinging inwards as U-Know comes through, eyes dark and firm, sorrow undisguised within them.
He's overlooked by the all encompassing gaze.
"Tell Han Geng to turn the ship around. We're going into the hub to end this once and for all." His order is brief and doesn't allow opposition or dissent. The door slams shut behind him just as quickly and it's anyone's guess where he's off to, but common knowledge states he's probably gone back to keep vigil over a dead man's body.
It may not be responsible or understandable to any one else among them besides Changmin, but at least no one bothers opposing the ritual, destructive though it may be.
Rella throws his canteen to the table with a clank that startles more than just Changmin from his thoughts. "Machine City?" he snorts, wiping his lips with the back of his hand. "We're as good as dead. That's plain suicide."
"What's Machine City?" Changmin breathes, the question for Xiah's ears only.
The other man swallows thickly before replying: "Central line for all machine operations. Heart of the Matrix. No one's ever gone in there before." Or, Changmin thinks anxiously, no one who's ever gone in has ever come out again.
For once, he can't help think Rella is right.