From the Soul to the Song - Verse Twenty Five
From the Soul to the Song
Verse Twenty Five
The light knocking on his bedroom door stirred Heechul from his fitful sleep. “What?” he growled, partially because his mind was still lost in slumber but more so because he was not thrilled to be woken.
“Leeteuk has called a mandatory group meeting in the living room. We all need to talk,” Kangin’s voice came through the door. Heechul groaned and buried his head under his pillow. “Heechul,” Kangin’s voice called warningly.
“We’ll be there!” Heechul snapped. “Tell your wife not to get his panties in a bunch,” he mumbled under his breath. He waited for Kangin to retort but when he heard nothing he figured the man must have left.
“We should go,” Hankyung said softly. He was sitting on the bed beside Heechul. There were dark circles under his eyes displaying the fact that he had slept very little if at all.
Heechul groaned and sat up as if it was the hardest thing he had to do. He studied Hankyung for a minute. “You were dreaming all night and kept waking up.”
“Yes,” Hankyung said softly, not meeting the other man’s eyes.
“About what?”
“Nothing,” Hankyung replied lamely.
Heechul snorted. “Nothing doesn’t cause you to wake up screaming and sobbing at the same time.”
“Sorry, I’ll sleep in my own room tonight so I don’t bother you.”
“That’s not what I meant and you know it,” Heechul reached out and grabbed Hankyung’s hand with one of his own. “I don’t care what you think, you did not hurt me in any way. You could never hurt me,” he told the other man softly.
Hankyung squeezed his hand lightly. “I know that, but it doesn’t keep him from reminding me exactly what he - we - I did.”
A startled look crossed Heechul’s face. “Keiran can talk to you? As in, talk to you now?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know,” Hankyung rubbed his face tiredly. “I just keep seeing what I did over and over again. It was worse last night. It’s like nothing I do can make me stop thinking about it.”
Heechul nodded, knowing that the other man was just as confused as he was. “We need answers,” he mumbled.
Hankyung sighed. “Yeah,” he paused for a minute. “Do you have your makeup here?”
The older man nodded and climbed off his bed to retrieve the small case of makeup. “Do you want some help?”
Hankyung shook his head. “No I’ll be fine. I’m going to go shower.” He rose from the bed and Heechul watched him retreat to the bathroom. He didn’t like the look of defeat that surrounded the man one bit.
As he selected his clothing for the day and attempted to tame his hair into something more manageable, Heechul felt himself growing angrier and angrier. It was one thing for Keiran to be trapped in Hankyung but quite another if it was awake, conscious, and trying to toy with Hankyung’s mind.
In the end, Heechul settled for simply pulling his hair in a tail at the back of his neck. As he finished Hankyung immerged from the bathroom. He had used Heechul’s makeup to cover the dark circles beneath his eyes. It made his face look less tired but Heechul could see weariness in his body. He held out Heechul’s makeup case. “Thanks.”
Ignoring it, the other man crossed the room and wrapped one arm around Hankyung’s waist. His other hand settled over Hankyung’s heart, right where he knew the scar would be. He didn’t think what had happened had really hit him yet, and he wasn’t looking forward to the time when it did.
“Heechul,” Hankyung started, somewhat startled.
“Shut up. I can hug you if I want. It works better if you hug me back.”
“Heechul, you know I just…” Hankyung let his sentence trail off finding he couldn’t voice what he wanted to say.
It didn’t matter Heechul understood. “I know.” He pulled away so that he could meet Hankyung’s eyes. “You are my Singer and my lover and I am not willing to give up either. You’ll be able to again, eventually.” Heechul said firmly.
Hankyung could only nod and Heechul pulled away completely. He snatched his makeup from Hankyung’s limp fingers and tossed it on his bed before fitting his hand where it had been. Heechul squeezed Hankyung’s hand lightly before giving it a gentle tug. “Come on. Let’s go see what our fearless leader wants.”
~♪~♪♫♪~♪~
Leeteuk couldn’t help but smile when Heechul and Hankyung walked in hand and hand. He could tell that the Chinese man was exhausted but they were touching and that was clear progress. Kangin smiled as well and put a supporting hand on his back as he surveyed their group. The pair may be working out their differences but Leeteuk could tell there was trouble brewing with another pair.
So far he hadn’t been able to determine why Sungmin and Kyuhyun were sitting on opposite sides of the room and avoiding looking at each other. Kyuhyun seemed unbothered by the whole situation but Leeteuk knew that was one of his ways of dealing with things. He was very good at hiding behind a mask. Sungmin on the other hand looked like he was going to be violently angry with the first person that did the slightest thing wrong.
When Sungmin had firmly seated himself by Eunhyuk, Donghae had instantly looked somewhat sick. The Weaver of Water had leaned over and whispered something to Eunhyuk, to which the other man nodded. Then he had offered Sungmin an apologetic look and dragged Kibum with him half way across the room. Kibum had been shoved into an empty chair and Donghae had immediately crawled onto his lap and snuggled up like a toddler. Kibum had dealt with it all with knowing smile and had ruffled Donghae’s hair affectionately before simply settling to just hold him.
Eunhyuk, who had remained by Sungmin, looked at him worriedly before placing a hand on his shoulder. Sungmin had shook his head and offered him a half apologetic look. Eunhyuk had nodded his understanding and dropped his hand, although he remained seated by Sungmin’s side.
Shindong had looked torn when he had entered the room, torn between loyalties to Sungmin, who he could tell was upset, and Kyuhyun, who he only guessed was. Eventually Sungmin won out, and he settled on Sungmin’s other side. Zhou mi may have helped him make that decision, since when he had come in a moment after Shindong he had nodded to the other man before settling beside Kyuhyun and engaging him in conversation.
Leeteuk had watched everything unfold in silence. He knew that their group was hardly a collection of moody teenagers anymore and the pair would likely work out their issues, but it was hard to squash the desire to fix everything that was wrong.
“Now that we are all here,” Leeteuk began after Heechul and Hankyung had settled on a couch. “There has been some serious stuff going on that we are all confused about. No one here seems to have any answers about this so we are on our own.” He nodded towards Henry and the younger man cleared his throat.
“I have been doing some reading, well actually I’ve been playing and Yesung has been listening, to the old books written by the Light Ones. Sangita showed us a whole library full of them and we spent most of yesterday sorting out what we thought might be helpful,” he looked at Yesung and the other man nodded.
“What we found so far is that what happened to Hankyung is very rare and can only be done by a very high level Dark One. We found that the Dark Ones don’t have Songs of their own, which we knew, and that they take the Songs of everything else, which we also knew. What we didn’t know was that when they take those Songs they work sort of like a battery. They have power to draw on for a while but eventually it runs out.”
“Which is why they have to keep taking more Songs,” Zhou mi mused aloud.
“Right,” Yesung affirmed. “The more Songs a Dark One gets the more power they have. The more power they have, the more powerful Songs they can take. The books weren’t real clear if they have an unlimited capacity to get more and more powerful or if there is a stopping point for every Dark One. What it did say is that the Prince is one of the most powerful Dark Ones. He is one that at any moment has several Songs from actual Ensouled inside him working as batteries.”
“Now what we think he did is what the books describe as a form of possession. It looks like anyone with enough power at their finger tips could do it. I think I could possess Ryeowook if I wanted to and it would be even easier for me because he would let me. If someone doesn’t let you then it takes a whole lot more power and you have to be so much more careful.”
“How exactly does this possession thing work?” Leeteuk asked.
“Well it needs to start with internal contact somehow. Things like blood contact would work,” Yesung explained.
“The cut, on your arm,” Heechul muttered in surprise.
“What?” Leeteuk asked.
“Right before we were all transported here a Dark One showed up. We fought it and killed it but it cut Hankyung’s arm,” Siwon explained.
“But we killed it. That couldn’t have been it,” Heechul replied frustrated.
“It probably was,” Yesung argued. When Heechul looked like he was going to respond, Yesung held up a hand to quiet him. “From what I understand, there are two ways to do this. The first is to actually physically come into contact with whoever you want to possess. The second is to sort of store a good portion of yourself in an object,” Yesung waved his hand and the image of a knife floated in the air in the middle of the room.
“It would take layers and layers of Weavings all on top of each other,” bright light began to layer and wrap around the knife. “There would have to be Weavings for every single scenario possible because when something happened a Weaving would have to react just as their creator wanted them too. What is in Hankyung isn’t really Keiran; it’s like a shadow of him or a puppet. It is just thousands of Weavings created together to act exactly like Keiran would if he were really here. It’s sort of like a keyboard. The letters and combinations are all sitting there waiting to be used, but until a key is pushed they never activate. If you press the ‘a’ key you will get an ‘a’, a reaction to something that happened. Then for some things, several keys have to be pressed in a certain order to get a response. What I understand, is that it works just like that. Certain things that would happen would activate certain Weavings. Some of those Weavings would activate others and so on.”
“So we are talking something super sophisticated and complex and probably taking a long time to even create. But Weavings take power to maintain themselves, how would that have had the power to do what it was doing?” Kyuhyun reasoned.
“My guess is that is why it was in a Singer,” Leeteuk replied, “for their power.”
“Not just any Singer though,” Yesung said slowly. “Siwon was there at the same time and could have been possessed just as easily, I think it had to be Hankyung. I think he designed them for Hankyung.”
Kyuhyun nodded his agreement. “But why?” No one had an answer for that and Leeteuk nodded for Yesung to continue with his explanation.
“Then once the knife was created all Keiran had to do was send it to a servent to put his Weavings in the person of his choice. When the knife cut Hankyung, the Weavings probably jumped from the knife into Hankyung.” In the air his illusion showed exactly what he meant.
“That can’t be right, I was using his Song I would have felt it. I should have felt it!” Heechul said angrily.
“I don’t think so,” Kyuhyun responded. When no one challenged him he continued. “Think about it. The way these things get to power is to actually go out and get it. It isn’t something they are born with. If I had spent all this time and risen through the ranks to be the Prince of the Dark Ones, there isn’t a chance I’m a moron. If it was me, I would put my package in my target and wait until he was not connected to anything and very likely sleeping, to do anything with that package. Then all I would do is get myself settled and start slowly infiltrating. Even if the person I am in wouldn’t feel it until it is too late, if I did things too fast others could. I would know that, so I would do it one little drop at a time, like an infection, so that by the time everyone notices it’s beyond too late.”
“What’s more I wouldn’t even put all of my power into it,” Kyuhyun said. He glanced around to the members who were clearly trying to make sense of what he was saying. “Look it’s like a battle strategy. Yesung can you give me a land mass?”
Yesung nodded and the knife blurred and was replaced by what looked like a floating island.
“Ok,” Kyuhyun said climbing to his feet so that he could move to the map. “Say I want the resources of this island and I will do anything to get them, but this island is populated by thousands of people.” Tiny blue dots appeared all over the map and began moving around. “Now I have two options. I can drop right down in the middle and lay siege or I can chose to be a little more subtle. I could place scouts and spies, here, here, here,” Kyuhyun continued to point out small low population zones on the map and each place he pointed a few red dots appeared.
“They would mingle with the locals and feel out the water. There is bound to be people who aren’t happy with the way their life is and my spies would seek out those people and stir the pot even further. Soon there would be people that they could use to do what they wanted.” Several of the blue dots nearest the red ones changed to red as well. “Then I would start testing and seeing how good my foothold was, just little things, like maybe a fight in the bar. Things that no one would suspect, just to see how good my hold was. Then once it had spread further,” more of the dots changed to red. “I would try something bigger like a town riot.”
“Or stabbing Eunhyuk,” Hankyung said in disbelief.
“Right, no one would look for me, I’m a loyal citizen, so my hold would spread unnoticed.” More dots changed to red. “Then when I had a good enough hold and the time was right, say a national holiday, I would bring my troops in force and storm the island through all of my foot holds.” Red dots suddenly swarmed from all of the places Kyuhyun had originally pointed out and over took most of the blue.
“That night,” Hankyung whispered. “We were celebrating our victory.”
Kyuhyun nodded. “Things look like they are going great for me. Sure the natives are fighting back but it’s nothing I can’t handle. But then there is this group,” he swirled his finger around a small cluster of blue in the center of the map. “They would rather destroy everything on their island, including themselves, then let my people use it for our evil deeds. So they blow the top off the island’s volcano and cause it to erupt.” The small island map began to shake and the top of the mountain in the center exploded spewing ash and small rivers of lava.
“Now I don’t want all my troops to die so I am going to retreat and pull back as fast as I can. But I have a problem. I have no boats to get off the island because the natives would have noticed those if I had left them near, so I am stuck. I retreat as far as I can.” The red dots pulled back and held around the edge of the island. “The natives, seeing my retreat manage to capture me and hold me firmly captive.” Small cages formed around all of the red dots.
“Then what is more they manage to stop and reverse the eruption. Now they are all safe and rejoicing and I am captive and very, very pissed.” Kyuhyun paused in thought. “If it were me, I wouldn’t stop. I would keep working. I was a master of persuasion in the first place so every time someone comes to feed me or guard me, I would still try to corrupt them, and if I couldn’t I would make them doubt everything they knew.”
Hankyung’s eyes widened. Then they clenched shut as he leaned forward and pressed his head to his hands. “Hankyung?” Heechul asked, worried as he placed an arm around the man.
“Headache. I’ll be fine,” he replied as he rubbed his temple.
Kyuhyun looked at him and then looked at the map, deep in thought. “If it were me,” he said more to himself then anything, “and I knew that they knew I was trying to make them doubt, I would know that that tactic was worthless to use any longer. There would only be one thing left for me to do. I would put all of my resources into one final attack. I might be able to break from my prison or I might not. I will probably destroy myself trying but I will take as much of the enemy out with me as I can.”
Hankyung groaned again and then slid from the couch as both hands came up to clench at his head. Heechul dropped down beside him, worry filling his eyes, and rubbed soothing circles on his back. Kyuhyun’s eyes widened as he glanced between his map and Hankyung and several pieces clicked firmly into place in his mind. “Keiran knows we know!” he exclaimed frantically. “He is trying to kill him!”
In seconds Leeteuk and Kangin were at Hankyung’s side. Kangin stretched out his hands and moved them over the man as if searching. “There is nothing wrong,” he said puzzled.
“Not physically,” Yesung said. He was sitting stiffly on the couch and clutching Ryeowook’s hand tightly. “It’s his Song. He’s trying to unravel his Song.”
“Stop him!” Heechul said frantically.
“I can’t. I don’t know what his Song is supposed to sound like. I could accidently destroy Hankyung’s Song before I even had a chance to put it back to right.” Yesung looked to Henry and the other man shook his head.
“I don’t know if I know what his Song sounds like without Keiran in it,” Henry replied, scared.
“I do!” Heechul said fiercely as he transferred the pained filled Chinese man to Kangin’s arms. He climbed to his feet and walked over to where Yesung was sitting. “I know it. I’m his Weaver and was before any of this happened. I should know it. Take it from my mind.”
“It’s not that easy Heechul, we aren’t the same element. I don’t even know if I could read Ryeowook’s mind like that,” Yesung replied searching his mind frantically for an answer.
“What about if you possessed me. Would you be able to then?”
“Yes, but Heechul I can’t. It would take years of study just to make sure I was doing it right and-”
Heechul snarled, reached down and fisted his hands in Yesung’s shirt. He used the hold to drag the other man into a standing position so that he could look him in the eyes. “I don’t care if it kills me. I will not lose anything else to this bastard, he has taken enough from us. Do you think he will stop with Hankyung? Help me protect our group.”
They searched each other’s eyes for a moment before Yesung nodded. “Alright.”
Heechul immediately released the man and spun as Hankyung screamed in pain. “We need to do this now!” he snarled panicked.
“Use my Song too,” Ryeowook said as he stood. “It will give you power and help to ground you.”
“No,” Yesung said fiercely, refusing the other man’s Song for the first time. “I won’t risk you.”
“Yesung, you-“
Yesung placed a finger over Ryeowook’s lips to stop his tirade. “No. You have given me too much already.” He leaned down and replaced his finger with his own lips. Ryeowook gave in and returned the kiss passionately. When Yesung pulled away he smiled at the irritated look on Ryeowook’s face.
“I’ll guide you back,” Ryeowook said firmly.
“I’ll look for you,” Yesung said with a smirk.
“Yesung!” Heechul called sharply as Hankyung screamed again.
Yesung nodded and created a small knife from his own Song. He slid it across his palm and nodded in satisfaction as the skin split and deep red blood pooled forth. Heechul accepted the knife without question and did the same with his palm. “Are you ready?” Yesung asked holding out his bleeding hand.
Heechul didn’t answer, instead he pressed his hand to Yesung’s and both men closed their eyes.
~♪~♪♫♪~♪~
It was a strange feeling, Yesung noted immediately, the liquid slide of blood against their palms in contrast to the sharp ache of the cut. He studiously ignored the feel of it and focused on more important things, like the feel of Heechul’s Song. He could feel it moving just out of reach. Yesung knew from what he and Henry had looked up that he didn’t really need to join their Songs, that was would be a form of fusion that he didn’t even think they were capable of. Instead he needed to place a part of his Song in Heechul’s in key places.
He reached into his personal reservoir of power and began spinning. Yesung didn’t know exactly what he would need to do, he hadn’t had time to do that sort of research, but he hoped his instincts would guide him. Once he had pulled a significant amount of power from himself, he carefully grabbed a piece of his own Song and pushed.
~♪~♪♫♪~♪~
Heechul could feel their contact through their joined hands and it made his stomach turn. It wasn’t that he had a weak stomach or anything but the idea that his blood was mixing with Yesung’s was a strange one indeed. It was like they were becoming blood brothers or something equally ridiculous.
He was about to tell Yesung it wasn’t working, since he could feel nothing unusual, and that they didn’t have time waist on trying, when he felt a strange tingling sensation on his palm. It wasn’t pain, he had gotten over the pain of cutting his hand almost instantly. Instead this reminded him of the tingles he got when he had been lying on his arm and it had fallen asleep.
Then just as suddenly as the tingles had appeared, they were gone, replaced by a white hot pain that shot like fire straight up his arm and spread through his body. Heechul screamed in pain, or he tried to. Sound didn’t come from his mouth. In fact it didn’t even open when he tried. In panic he tried to open his eyes, move his arms, anything, but nothing would listen to him. It was as if his body had checked out and was no longer paying attention to his commands.
The pain receded to a throbbing ache and he felt as though something else was there with him. It was one of the most unsettling things he had ever felt and it left him feeling as though he had been violated. His secrets were not his own anymore, he could feel something looking through his mind. Searching.
Mentally Heechul snarled at himself. This panic and fear and whimpering in pain was not him. He was stronger than this. He shoved his reactions to the side and focused instead on the other presence in his head. Now that he was focusing on it, it felt distinctly like Yesung and he was searching for something. Yesung was lost in the library of Heechul’s mind, looking memory by memory, thought by thought, through the shelves trying to find it.
Heechul knew his own mind and he knew what Yesung wanted. He grabbed the memory from his own mind much like he would have pulled a book off a shelf and handed it to Yesung. He could feel the other man open it, read it quickly, and then put it back on a shelf at random before vanishing. Heechul grumbled at his screwing up the filing system and pulled it back off the shelf to take it back to where it belonged. Once it was back, Heechul realized that his body was moving and he was not causing it. He couldn’t help but laugh at that. There was nothing like being along for the ride while trapped in your own mind.
~♪~♪♫♪~♪~
Their eyes snapped open at the same exact moment that their hands released one another. Together, Yesung and Heechul moved across the room to where Hankyung laid writhing and screaming in pain.
“Move,” both men said in unison and Kangin looked at them wearily before releasing Hankyung, who he had been holding still and backing away. The rest of the people who had gathered around them did the same. Heechul knelt at Hankyung’s head. He helped Yesung turn Hankyung onto his back, before he held Hankyung’s head firmly in his lap.
Yesung straddled Hankyung’s waist and then leaned forward so that he was laying on top of the other man’s body. In part, this would help him hold the man still so he didn’t hurt himself, but mostly he knew the more physical contact there was the better he could hear Hankyung’s Song. He closed his eyes as he pressed their foreheads together and placed his hands on either side of Hankyung’s head. Yesung ignored the pain filled cries of the other man as he looked deeper, beyond what his ears could hear.
It didn’t take him long to find the man’s Song. It was the deep black of midnight, yet the color didn’t seem wrong. Instead it seemed soothing and inviting. Wrapped around and throughout it were thousands of colored strands. The colors writhed around it, trying to not only pull it apart but rewrite it at the same time.
Yesung traced to the colored strands back to a cage. The cage that he found had tiny little holes punctuating all sides of it that allowed the multicolored threads to pour out. He grabbed the threads pouring out of one and shoved them back inside. Then he slammed a covering over the hole the moment they were in, sealing it against further escape. One by one, Yesung sealed the holes with his own Weavings until there was just one left open.
That done he turned back to Hankyung’s Song and the colored threads attached to it. Carefully, he began to pull the colored strings off, untangling them from the black, destroying what he could and stuffed all the others back in through the hole. He ignored the stray strings that tried to attack his own Song and simply continued his work. When he was finished he snatched the stray strings that had come after him and put those in the cage as well. Once they were all stuffed safely away he sealed the last hole.
Then he turned his attention back to Hankyung’s song. Carefully he soothed and straightened the strands of it, putting back what Keiran had tried to undo. Using the memory of Hankyung’s Song from Heechul’s mind he straightened, moved and encouraged the man’s Song back into what it was supposed to be. It was much easier to do then separating the Song’s had been. Hankyung’s Song seemed to want to go back the way it was supposed to and it eagerly leapt to do so the moment Yesung added the smallest guidance.
Once he had it straightened back to what it was supposed to be, he used his hold on Heechul to pull power from Hankyung, through Heechul, and into himself. Using that power to boost his own, he began adding layer upon layer of Weaving to the cage that held Keiran, layers that would, with any luck, leave him completely trapped and unable to do anything further. After several layers Yesung could feel exhaustion pulling at him and he placed one more protective barrier around the cage before carefully pulling out of Hankyung’s mind.
Yesung’s eyes fluttered open and he met Hankyung’s who stared in confusion for a moment, before his eyes rolled up in his head and he passed out. Yesung smiled and looked up at Heechul. It was like looking at himself. If he concentrated he could see himself from Heechul’s eyes. Still he smiled and nodded, knowing that Heechul was in there somewhere and could see him. Then his world blurred and he joined Hankyung in the land of unconsciousness.
Verse Twenty Six
Masterlist
Character Information
AN: I swear I don't like to torture them, it just keeps happening! Kudos to the few of you that figured out that it was the cut in the beginning that started it. ^_^
I just want to thank all of you that commented on this thing so far. I was blown away by how many of you spoke up last chapter. I love reading everything you have to say. Keep it up guys!
Verse Twenty Five
The light knocking on his bedroom door stirred Heechul from his fitful sleep. “What?” he growled, partially because his mind was still lost in slumber but more so because he was not thrilled to be woken.
“Leeteuk has called a mandatory group meeting in the living room. We all need to talk,” Kangin’s voice came through the door. Heechul groaned and buried his head under his pillow. “Heechul,” Kangin’s voice called warningly.
“We’ll be there!” Heechul snapped. “Tell your wife not to get his panties in a bunch,” he mumbled under his breath. He waited for Kangin to retort but when he heard nothing he figured the man must have left.
“We should go,” Hankyung said softly. He was sitting on the bed beside Heechul. There were dark circles under his eyes displaying the fact that he had slept very little if at all.
Heechul groaned and sat up as if it was the hardest thing he had to do. He studied Hankyung for a minute. “You were dreaming all night and kept waking up.”
“Yes,” Hankyung said softly, not meeting the other man’s eyes.
“About what?”
“Nothing,” Hankyung replied lamely.
Heechul snorted. “Nothing doesn’t cause you to wake up screaming and sobbing at the same time.”
“Sorry, I’ll sleep in my own room tonight so I don’t bother you.”
“That’s not what I meant and you know it,” Heechul reached out and grabbed Hankyung’s hand with one of his own. “I don’t care what you think, you did not hurt me in any way. You could never hurt me,” he told the other man softly.
Hankyung squeezed his hand lightly. “I know that, but it doesn’t keep him from reminding me exactly what he - we - I did.”
A startled look crossed Heechul’s face. “Keiran can talk to you? As in, talk to you now?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know,” Hankyung rubbed his face tiredly. “I just keep seeing what I did over and over again. It was worse last night. It’s like nothing I do can make me stop thinking about it.”
Heechul nodded, knowing that the other man was just as confused as he was. “We need answers,” he mumbled.
Hankyung sighed. “Yeah,” he paused for a minute. “Do you have your makeup here?”
The older man nodded and climbed off his bed to retrieve the small case of makeup. “Do you want some help?”
Hankyung shook his head. “No I’ll be fine. I’m going to go shower.” He rose from the bed and Heechul watched him retreat to the bathroom. He didn’t like the look of defeat that surrounded the man one bit.
As he selected his clothing for the day and attempted to tame his hair into something more manageable, Heechul felt himself growing angrier and angrier. It was one thing for Keiran to be trapped in Hankyung but quite another if it was awake, conscious, and trying to toy with Hankyung’s mind.
In the end, Heechul settled for simply pulling his hair in a tail at the back of his neck. As he finished Hankyung immerged from the bathroom. He had used Heechul’s makeup to cover the dark circles beneath his eyes. It made his face look less tired but Heechul could see weariness in his body. He held out Heechul’s makeup case. “Thanks.”
Ignoring it, the other man crossed the room and wrapped one arm around Hankyung’s waist. His other hand settled over Hankyung’s heart, right where he knew the scar would be. He didn’t think what had happened had really hit him yet, and he wasn’t looking forward to the time when it did.
“Heechul,” Hankyung started, somewhat startled.
“Shut up. I can hug you if I want. It works better if you hug me back.”
“Heechul, you know I just…” Hankyung let his sentence trail off finding he couldn’t voice what he wanted to say.
It didn’t matter Heechul understood. “I know.” He pulled away so that he could meet Hankyung’s eyes. “You are my Singer and my lover and I am not willing to give up either. You’ll be able to again, eventually.” Heechul said firmly.
Hankyung could only nod and Heechul pulled away completely. He snatched his makeup from Hankyung’s limp fingers and tossed it on his bed before fitting his hand where it had been. Heechul squeezed Hankyung’s hand lightly before giving it a gentle tug. “Come on. Let’s go see what our fearless leader wants.”
~♪~♪♫♪~♪~
Leeteuk couldn’t help but smile when Heechul and Hankyung walked in hand and hand. He could tell that the Chinese man was exhausted but they were touching and that was clear progress. Kangin smiled as well and put a supporting hand on his back as he surveyed their group. The pair may be working out their differences but Leeteuk could tell there was trouble brewing with another pair.
So far he hadn’t been able to determine why Sungmin and Kyuhyun were sitting on opposite sides of the room and avoiding looking at each other. Kyuhyun seemed unbothered by the whole situation but Leeteuk knew that was one of his ways of dealing with things. He was very good at hiding behind a mask. Sungmin on the other hand looked like he was going to be violently angry with the first person that did the slightest thing wrong.
When Sungmin had firmly seated himself by Eunhyuk, Donghae had instantly looked somewhat sick. The Weaver of Water had leaned over and whispered something to Eunhyuk, to which the other man nodded. Then he had offered Sungmin an apologetic look and dragged Kibum with him half way across the room. Kibum had been shoved into an empty chair and Donghae had immediately crawled onto his lap and snuggled up like a toddler. Kibum had dealt with it all with knowing smile and had ruffled Donghae’s hair affectionately before simply settling to just hold him.
Eunhyuk, who had remained by Sungmin, looked at him worriedly before placing a hand on his shoulder. Sungmin had shook his head and offered him a half apologetic look. Eunhyuk had nodded his understanding and dropped his hand, although he remained seated by Sungmin’s side.
Shindong had looked torn when he had entered the room, torn between loyalties to Sungmin, who he could tell was upset, and Kyuhyun, who he only guessed was. Eventually Sungmin won out, and he settled on Sungmin’s other side. Zhou mi may have helped him make that decision, since when he had come in a moment after Shindong he had nodded to the other man before settling beside Kyuhyun and engaging him in conversation.
Leeteuk had watched everything unfold in silence. He knew that their group was hardly a collection of moody teenagers anymore and the pair would likely work out their issues, but it was hard to squash the desire to fix everything that was wrong.
“Now that we are all here,” Leeteuk began after Heechul and Hankyung had settled on a couch. “There has been some serious stuff going on that we are all confused about. No one here seems to have any answers about this so we are on our own.” He nodded towards Henry and the younger man cleared his throat.
“I have been doing some reading, well actually I’ve been playing and Yesung has been listening, to the old books written by the Light Ones. Sangita showed us a whole library full of them and we spent most of yesterday sorting out what we thought might be helpful,” he looked at Yesung and the other man nodded.
“What we found so far is that what happened to Hankyung is very rare and can only be done by a very high level Dark One. We found that the Dark Ones don’t have Songs of their own, which we knew, and that they take the Songs of everything else, which we also knew. What we didn’t know was that when they take those Songs they work sort of like a battery. They have power to draw on for a while but eventually it runs out.”
“Which is why they have to keep taking more Songs,” Zhou mi mused aloud.
“Right,” Yesung affirmed. “The more Songs a Dark One gets the more power they have. The more power they have, the more powerful Songs they can take. The books weren’t real clear if they have an unlimited capacity to get more and more powerful or if there is a stopping point for every Dark One. What it did say is that the Prince is one of the most powerful Dark Ones. He is one that at any moment has several Songs from actual Ensouled inside him working as batteries.”
“Now what we think he did is what the books describe as a form of possession. It looks like anyone with enough power at their finger tips could do it. I think I could possess Ryeowook if I wanted to and it would be even easier for me because he would let me. If someone doesn’t let you then it takes a whole lot more power and you have to be so much more careful.”
“How exactly does this possession thing work?” Leeteuk asked.
“Well it needs to start with internal contact somehow. Things like blood contact would work,” Yesung explained.
“The cut, on your arm,” Heechul muttered in surprise.
“What?” Leeteuk asked.
“Right before we were all transported here a Dark One showed up. We fought it and killed it but it cut Hankyung’s arm,” Siwon explained.
“But we killed it. That couldn’t have been it,” Heechul replied frustrated.
“It probably was,” Yesung argued. When Heechul looked like he was going to respond, Yesung held up a hand to quiet him. “From what I understand, there are two ways to do this. The first is to actually physically come into contact with whoever you want to possess. The second is to sort of store a good portion of yourself in an object,” Yesung waved his hand and the image of a knife floated in the air in the middle of the room.
“It would take layers and layers of Weavings all on top of each other,” bright light began to layer and wrap around the knife. “There would have to be Weavings for every single scenario possible because when something happened a Weaving would have to react just as their creator wanted them too. What is in Hankyung isn’t really Keiran; it’s like a shadow of him or a puppet. It is just thousands of Weavings created together to act exactly like Keiran would if he were really here. It’s sort of like a keyboard. The letters and combinations are all sitting there waiting to be used, but until a key is pushed they never activate. If you press the ‘a’ key you will get an ‘a’, a reaction to something that happened. Then for some things, several keys have to be pressed in a certain order to get a response. What I understand, is that it works just like that. Certain things that would happen would activate certain Weavings. Some of those Weavings would activate others and so on.”
“So we are talking something super sophisticated and complex and probably taking a long time to even create. But Weavings take power to maintain themselves, how would that have had the power to do what it was doing?” Kyuhyun reasoned.
“My guess is that is why it was in a Singer,” Leeteuk replied, “for their power.”
“Not just any Singer though,” Yesung said slowly. “Siwon was there at the same time and could have been possessed just as easily, I think it had to be Hankyung. I think he designed them for Hankyung.”
Kyuhyun nodded his agreement. “But why?” No one had an answer for that and Leeteuk nodded for Yesung to continue with his explanation.
“Then once the knife was created all Keiran had to do was send it to a servent to put his Weavings in the person of his choice. When the knife cut Hankyung, the Weavings probably jumped from the knife into Hankyung.” In the air his illusion showed exactly what he meant.
“That can’t be right, I was using his Song I would have felt it. I should have felt it!” Heechul said angrily.
“I don’t think so,” Kyuhyun responded. When no one challenged him he continued. “Think about it. The way these things get to power is to actually go out and get it. It isn’t something they are born with. If I had spent all this time and risen through the ranks to be the Prince of the Dark Ones, there isn’t a chance I’m a moron. If it was me, I would put my package in my target and wait until he was not connected to anything and very likely sleeping, to do anything with that package. Then all I would do is get myself settled and start slowly infiltrating. Even if the person I am in wouldn’t feel it until it is too late, if I did things too fast others could. I would know that, so I would do it one little drop at a time, like an infection, so that by the time everyone notices it’s beyond too late.”
“What’s more I wouldn’t even put all of my power into it,” Kyuhyun said. He glanced around to the members who were clearly trying to make sense of what he was saying. “Look it’s like a battle strategy. Yesung can you give me a land mass?”
Yesung nodded and the knife blurred and was replaced by what looked like a floating island.
“Ok,” Kyuhyun said climbing to his feet so that he could move to the map. “Say I want the resources of this island and I will do anything to get them, but this island is populated by thousands of people.” Tiny blue dots appeared all over the map and began moving around. “Now I have two options. I can drop right down in the middle and lay siege or I can chose to be a little more subtle. I could place scouts and spies, here, here, here,” Kyuhyun continued to point out small low population zones on the map and each place he pointed a few red dots appeared.
“They would mingle with the locals and feel out the water. There is bound to be people who aren’t happy with the way their life is and my spies would seek out those people and stir the pot even further. Soon there would be people that they could use to do what they wanted.” Several of the blue dots nearest the red ones changed to red as well. “Then I would start testing and seeing how good my foothold was, just little things, like maybe a fight in the bar. Things that no one would suspect, just to see how good my hold was. Then once it had spread further,” more of the dots changed to red. “I would try something bigger like a town riot.”
“Or stabbing Eunhyuk,” Hankyung said in disbelief.
“Right, no one would look for me, I’m a loyal citizen, so my hold would spread unnoticed.” More dots changed to red. “Then when I had a good enough hold and the time was right, say a national holiday, I would bring my troops in force and storm the island through all of my foot holds.” Red dots suddenly swarmed from all of the places Kyuhyun had originally pointed out and over took most of the blue.
“That night,” Hankyung whispered. “We were celebrating our victory.”
Kyuhyun nodded. “Things look like they are going great for me. Sure the natives are fighting back but it’s nothing I can’t handle. But then there is this group,” he swirled his finger around a small cluster of blue in the center of the map. “They would rather destroy everything on their island, including themselves, then let my people use it for our evil deeds. So they blow the top off the island’s volcano and cause it to erupt.” The small island map began to shake and the top of the mountain in the center exploded spewing ash and small rivers of lava.
“Now I don’t want all my troops to die so I am going to retreat and pull back as fast as I can. But I have a problem. I have no boats to get off the island because the natives would have noticed those if I had left them near, so I am stuck. I retreat as far as I can.” The red dots pulled back and held around the edge of the island. “The natives, seeing my retreat manage to capture me and hold me firmly captive.” Small cages formed around all of the red dots.
“Then what is more they manage to stop and reverse the eruption. Now they are all safe and rejoicing and I am captive and very, very pissed.” Kyuhyun paused in thought. “If it were me, I wouldn’t stop. I would keep working. I was a master of persuasion in the first place so every time someone comes to feed me or guard me, I would still try to corrupt them, and if I couldn’t I would make them doubt everything they knew.”
Hankyung’s eyes widened. Then they clenched shut as he leaned forward and pressed his head to his hands. “Hankyung?” Heechul asked, worried as he placed an arm around the man.
“Headache. I’ll be fine,” he replied as he rubbed his temple.
Kyuhyun looked at him and then looked at the map, deep in thought. “If it were me,” he said more to himself then anything, “and I knew that they knew I was trying to make them doubt, I would know that that tactic was worthless to use any longer. There would only be one thing left for me to do. I would put all of my resources into one final attack. I might be able to break from my prison or I might not. I will probably destroy myself trying but I will take as much of the enemy out with me as I can.”
Hankyung groaned again and then slid from the couch as both hands came up to clench at his head. Heechul dropped down beside him, worry filling his eyes, and rubbed soothing circles on his back. Kyuhyun’s eyes widened as he glanced between his map and Hankyung and several pieces clicked firmly into place in his mind. “Keiran knows we know!” he exclaimed frantically. “He is trying to kill him!”
In seconds Leeteuk and Kangin were at Hankyung’s side. Kangin stretched out his hands and moved them over the man as if searching. “There is nothing wrong,” he said puzzled.
“Not physically,” Yesung said. He was sitting stiffly on the couch and clutching Ryeowook’s hand tightly. “It’s his Song. He’s trying to unravel his Song.”
“Stop him!” Heechul said frantically.
“I can’t. I don’t know what his Song is supposed to sound like. I could accidently destroy Hankyung’s Song before I even had a chance to put it back to right.” Yesung looked to Henry and the other man shook his head.
“I don’t know if I know what his Song sounds like without Keiran in it,” Henry replied, scared.
“I do!” Heechul said fiercely as he transferred the pained filled Chinese man to Kangin’s arms. He climbed to his feet and walked over to where Yesung was sitting. “I know it. I’m his Weaver and was before any of this happened. I should know it. Take it from my mind.”
“It’s not that easy Heechul, we aren’t the same element. I don’t even know if I could read Ryeowook’s mind like that,” Yesung replied searching his mind frantically for an answer.
“What about if you possessed me. Would you be able to then?”
“Yes, but Heechul I can’t. It would take years of study just to make sure I was doing it right and-”
Heechul snarled, reached down and fisted his hands in Yesung’s shirt. He used the hold to drag the other man into a standing position so that he could look him in the eyes. “I don’t care if it kills me. I will not lose anything else to this bastard, he has taken enough from us. Do you think he will stop with Hankyung? Help me protect our group.”
They searched each other’s eyes for a moment before Yesung nodded. “Alright.”
Heechul immediately released the man and spun as Hankyung screamed in pain. “We need to do this now!” he snarled panicked.
“Use my Song too,” Ryeowook said as he stood. “It will give you power and help to ground you.”
“No,” Yesung said fiercely, refusing the other man’s Song for the first time. “I won’t risk you.”
“Yesung, you-“
Yesung placed a finger over Ryeowook’s lips to stop his tirade. “No. You have given me too much already.” He leaned down and replaced his finger with his own lips. Ryeowook gave in and returned the kiss passionately. When Yesung pulled away he smiled at the irritated look on Ryeowook’s face.
“I’ll guide you back,” Ryeowook said firmly.
“I’ll look for you,” Yesung said with a smirk.
“Yesung!” Heechul called sharply as Hankyung screamed again.
Yesung nodded and created a small knife from his own Song. He slid it across his palm and nodded in satisfaction as the skin split and deep red blood pooled forth. Heechul accepted the knife without question and did the same with his palm. “Are you ready?” Yesung asked holding out his bleeding hand.
Heechul didn’t answer, instead he pressed his hand to Yesung’s and both men closed their eyes.
~♪~♪♫♪~♪~
It was a strange feeling, Yesung noted immediately, the liquid slide of blood against their palms in contrast to the sharp ache of the cut. He studiously ignored the feel of it and focused on more important things, like the feel of Heechul’s Song. He could feel it moving just out of reach. Yesung knew from what he and Henry had looked up that he didn’t really need to join their Songs, that was would be a form of fusion that he didn’t even think they were capable of. Instead he needed to place a part of his Song in Heechul’s in key places.
He reached into his personal reservoir of power and began spinning. Yesung didn’t know exactly what he would need to do, he hadn’t had time to do that sort of research, but he hoped his instincts would guide him. Once he had pulled a significant amount of power from himself, he carefully grabbed a piece of his own Song and pushed.
~♪~♪♫♪~♪~
Heechul could feel their contact through their joined hands and it made his stomach turn. It wasn’t that he had a weak stomach or anything but the idea that his blood was mixing with Yesung’s was a strange one indeed. It was like they were becoming blood brothers or something equally ridiculous.
He was about to tell Yesung it wasn’t working, since he could feel nothing unusual, and that they didn’t have time waist on trying, when he felt a strange tingling sensation on his palm. It wasn’t pain, he had gotten over the pain of cutting his hand almost instantly. Instead this reminded him of the tingles he got when he had been lying on his arm and it had fallen asleep.
Then just as suddenly as the tingles had appeared, they were gone, replaced by a white hot pain that shot like fire straight up his arm and spread through his body. Heechul screamed in pain, or he tried to. Sound didn’t come from his mouth. In fact it didn’t even open when he tried. In panic he tried to open his eyes, move his arms, anything, but nothing would listen to him. It was as if his body had checked out and was no longer paying attention to his commands.
The pain receded to a throbbing ache and he felt as though something else was there with him. It was one of the most unsettling things he had ever felt and it left him feeling as though he had been violated. His secrets were not his own anymore, he could feel something looking through his mind. Searching.
Mentally Heechul snarled at himself. This panic and fear and whimpering in pain was not him. He was stronger than this. He shoved his reactions to the side and focused instead on the other presence in his head. Now that he was focusing on it, it felt distinctly like Yesung and he was searching for something. Yesung was lost in the library of Heechul’s mind, looking memory by memory, thought by thought, through the shelves trying to find it.
Heechul knew his own mind and he knew what Yesung wanted. He grabbed the memory from his own mind much like he would have pulled a book off a shelf and handed it to Yesung. He could feel the other man open it, read it quickly, and then put it back on a shelf at random before vanishing. Heechul grumbled at his screwing up the filing system and pulled it back off the shelf to take it back to where it belonged. Once it was back, Heechul realized that his body was moving and he was not causing it. He couldn’t help but laugh at that. There was nothing like being along for the ride while trapped in your own mind.
~♪~♪♫♪~♪~
Their eyes snapped open at the same exact moment that their hands released one another. Together, Yesung and Heechul moved across the room to where Hankyung laid writhing and screaming in pain.
“Move,” both men said in unison and Kangin looked at them wearily before releasing Hankyung, who he had been holding still and backing away. The rest of the people who had gathered around them did the same. Heechul knelt at Hankyung’s head. He helped Yesung turn Hankyung onto his back, before he held Hankyung’s head firmly in his lap.
Yesung straddled Hankyung’s waist and then leaned forward so that he was laying on top of the other man’s body. In part, this would help him hold the man still so he didn’t hurt himself, but mostly he knew the more physical contact there was the better he could hear Hankyung’s Song. He closed his eyes as he pressed their foreheads together and placed his hands on either side of Hankyung’s head. Yesung ignored the pain filled cries of the other man as he looked deeper, beyond what his ears could hear.
It didn’t take him long to find the man’s Song. It was the deep black of midnight, yet the color didn’t seem wrong. Instead it seemed soothing and inviting. Wrapped around and throughout it were thousands of colored strands. The colors writhed around it, trying to not only pull it apart but rewrite it at the same time.
Yesung traced to the colored strands back to a cage. The cage that he found had tiny little holes punctuating all sides of it that allowed the multicolored threads to pour out. He grabbed the threads pouring out of one and shoved them back inside. Then he slammed a covering over the hole the moment they were in, sealing it against further escape. One by one, Yesung sealed the holes with his own Weavings until there was just one left open.
That done he turned back to Hankyung’s Song and the colored threads attached to it. Carefully, he began to pull the colored strings off, untangling them from the black, destroying what he could and stuffed all the others back in through the hole. He ignored the stray strings that tried to attack his own Song and simply continued his work. When he was finished he snatched the stray strings that had come after him and put those in the cage as well. Once they were all stuffed safely away he sealed the last hole.
Then he turned his attention back to Hankyung’s song. Carefully he soothed and straightened the strands of it, putting back what Keiran had tried to undo. Using the memory of Hankyung’s Song from Heechul’s mind he straightened, moved and encouraged the man’s Song back into what it was supposed to be. It was much easier to do then separating the Song’s had been. Hankyung’s Song seemed to want to go back the way it was supposed to and it eagerly leapt to do so the moment Yesung added the smallest guidance.
Once he had it straightened back to what it was supposed to be, he used his hold on Heechul to pull power from Hankyung, through Heechul, and into himself. Using that power to boost his own, he began adding layer upon layer of Weaving to the cage that held Keiran, layers that would, with any luck, leave him completely trapped and unable to do anything further. After several layers Yesung could feel exhaustion pulling at him and he placed one more protective barrier around the cage before carefully pulling out of Hankyung’s mind.
Yesung’s eyes fluttered open and he met Hankyung’s who stared in confusion for a moment, before his eyes rolled up in his head and he passed out. Yesung smiled and looked up at Heechul. It was like looking at himself. If he concentrated he could see himself from Heechul’s eyes. Still he smiled and nodded, knowing that Heechul was in there somewhere and could see him. Then his world blurred and he joined Hankyung in the land of unconsciousness.
Verse Twenty Six
Masterlist
Character Information
AN: I swear I don't like to torture them, it just keeps happening! Kudos to the few of you that figured out that it was the cut in the beginning that started it. ^_^
I just want to thank all of you that commented on this thing so far. I was blown away by how many of you spoke up last chapter. I love reading everything you have to say. Keep it up guys!