Ignis 10/?
Title: Ignis /Chapter 10 - "Stitch In Time"
Author: kaybee38
Rating: PG
Pairings: Minho/Onew, Taemin/Sulli, JongKey, broken!Minho/Yuri
Genre: fantasy, sci-fi, character death
Disclaimer: SHinee is owned by SM Entertainment only
Summary: Teneo are humans that live among us that have a genetic mutation that gives them the ability to live on indefinitely. They each have unique abilities and they don't physically age past 25. They all lead double lives since their "gifts" are a secret, some not even realizing that there are others like them. But someone has found a way to kill them. Jonghyun, with the help of a covert society has been secretly trying to warn and protect as many of his kind as he can before it's too late. Onew, Minho, Taemin and Sulli all end up joining forces with him to try to track down the killer before they can strike again. The bonds that grow between them along with their powers might be enough to save them, but the killer is closer to them than they realize.
A/N: I had a lot of fun writing this chapter. In the immortal words of Hiro...."YATTA!". (If you didn't get the reference, you're not really a geek.)
Prologue [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]
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Chap 10 - "Stitch In Time"
“Wait!”
Onew called to Jonghyun’s retreating figure. Jonghyun stopped again and looked over his shoulder at him.
“New what are you waiting for? We’re gonna lose him!”
Onew was obviously not in any hurry as he casually glanced at the clock on the wall above the register before sauntering across the diner towards his partner.
“Did you even see which way he went?” Onew inquired. Jonghyun shook his head frowning, exasperated with Onew’s clear lack of urgency.
“No! That’s why we have to go! We don’t have time for this.”
“Actually, we do.” Onew gave Jonghyun a lopsided grin and grabbed him by the shoulder.
Jonghyun felt his ears pop.
The uncomfortable sensation was similar to one he had experienced on a recent flight back home. He remembered frantically searching his pockets for a stick of gum to chew on while sticking his pinky finger in his ear and wiggling it around. Jonghyun repeated the action now and opened his mouth trying to force a yawn in an attempt to release some of the pressure. He looked at Onew, about to ask him if he was experiencing the same thing, when he realized that everything was quiet.
Too quiet.
In fact, the only thing Jonghyun could hear was a thumping sound that seemed familiar, yet distant and his breath hitched with the realization that it was so quiet, he didn't even recognize his own heart beating in his chest.
Ok.
Everyone, no, everything in the diner seemed to have stopped moving.
People eating had stopped mid-chew. Food still lodged in their jaws. Less than a foot away, Sunny seemed to be frozen like a statue as she handed a plate of pie to a customer. He didn’t fully process what was happening until he saw a stream of coffee pouring from a carafe in Jessica’s hand frozen in mid-air, never reaching the mug it was directed towards. Onew nervously observed Jonghyun’s face run a gamut of emotions as he processed everything. He recalled his EMT training as he scanned his features and body for any obvious signs of trauma or shock.
Onew hadn’t brought anyone with him into the rift but his brother Joong Ki. And that was over 50 years ago. Jonghyun spun around and stared at Onew.
“S-So this...this is...” Jonghyun stammered.
“My gift.” Onew shrugged. Jonghyun’s eyes widened comically.
“Y-you can stop time.” Jonghyun said it like a statement not a question, but Onew answered anyway.
“Kind of.”
“Kind of?”
“Yep.”
“I see. Care to elaborate?” Jonghyun looked at Onew with confusion and disbelief painting his face. Onew’s mouth stretched into a smile without showing his teeth as he tilted his head and regarded Jonghyun for a moment.
“Well, I actually don’t have the ability to stop time altogether, what I can do is manipulate it. In this case, I’ve just slowed it down to the point that it’s moving imperceptively slow”.
“I’m confused.” Jonghyun responded, closing his eyes, shaking his head.Onew thought for a moment, struggling to come up with the best explanation. Looking back at Jonghyun thoughtfully, he took a deep breath.
“Imagine being able to walk between raindrops. They’re still falling and you will still get wet as they hit you, just...not as quickly.”
Jonghyun nodded in response, but for some reason, the small movement was making him nauseous, his face paled as the room started to tilt a bit in his vision.
“Um…I think I need to sit down.”
Onew looked at the shorter man worriedly and quickly grabbed a chair for him before he fell into it, lightheaded. He looked down at him apologetically, instinctively reaching for the smaller man’s pulse.
“Sorry. I guess your body is not used to this.”
Full on nausea slammed into Jonghyun and it took him a couple of minutes, (he guessed, since he had no way of really knowing), with his head between his legs and with Onew rubbing his back gently, for the room to stop spinning. He noticed his healing powers weren't kicking in as fast as usual and wondered if his healing ability had been retarded by this new environment. Onew ran to the kitchen and came back with a glass of water.
"You see our bodies are are in motion moving through time as well." Onew explained.
"That's how we connect to our environment. When we alter that connection, and time is running at a different speed outside than within, we can get thrown a bit off balance as our bodies adjust. The nausea should dissipate soon." Onew looked down at a pale Jonghyun apologetically as Jonghyun's eyes rolled around his head for a moment before he squeezed them shut. He sipped more water and then stared at the glass for a moment before he spoke.
“So you can manipulate things while you’re in this..this..whatever this thing is.” He frowned as he waved his other hand in the air.
“I call it a rift. Although that’s probably not quite an accurate term, but yes, I can manipulate things, change things, move things, remove things...” Onew’s voice trailed off as he smiled to himself, remembering how he'd made a college professor's aggravating prized maltese go missing from class, (he took the damn dog everywhere), only to reappear in the class know-it-all's stunned arms moments later, toppling said young man from the post of "teacher's pet" forever.
“So what’s your brilliant idea? Besides trying to get me to blow chunks?” Onew’s reminiscent smile dropped as he gave him an apologetic look, while scratching the back of his head.
“I’m really sorry. It’s been a long time since I’ve ever done this with anyone else..”
“New, I get the feeling it’s been a long time since you’ve done anything with anyone else.” Jonghyun’s tone was evenly placed between worried and aggravated.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” The sarcasm wasn't lost on Onew as he frowned.
“...this explains a lot actually.” Jonghyun continued, quickly changing the subject as he squinted and rubbed a hand nervously on the back of his neck.
“What do you mean?”
“Remember when we responded to that domestic disturbance with that guy on PCP?” Onew grimaced.
“How could I forget?" as EMT's they trained for everything, but that day, Onew felt, was straight out of a horror movie or something.
"The guy thought his wife was an alien, who had come to abduct him or something and…slit…her…throat... Wait a minute.” Realization moved across Onew's facade as he looked at Jonghyun, his eyes widening.
“You! You healed her didn’t you? I knew her trachea had been sliced open, but when we got her in the bus, she was talking!”
“Yep. But now I understand how you were able to disarm him before the cops did. One minute he’s waving a butcher knife and a cleaver, and the next he’s eating linoleum with the knives neatly on the counter.” Jonghyun smirked and gave Onew side eye as the latter grinned sheepishly but Onew wouldn’t cop to it.
“That doesn’t mean anything, I could have disarmed that guy with with pure brute strength.” Onew pulled both his arms in front of him, rolling his shoulders forward and grasping his right wrist with his left, twisting at the waist, posing like a bodybuilder. Jonghyun rolled his eyes and gulped down the last of the water.
“New, don’t take this the wrong way, but I would never use brute and your name in the same sentence.” Onew’s eyes grew wide; mouth agape, about to protest. Jonghyun didn’t give him the chance.
“…and let’s face it. You’re not the most coordinated person I’ve ever met. Maybe it’s a condition or something…” Jonghyun suddenly looked at the ceiling as if it held the answers to his partners random acts of clumsiness.
“Remind me to look it up for ya.”
“What? Oh c’mon Jjong, that hurt.” Jongyun wiped his mouth on his sleeve, before handing Onew the glass.
“Can you stand?”
“Yeah I think so.”
“Good. Get up slowly.”
Jonghyun did as he was told and was grateful when his stomach contents stayed where they were. Onew turned on his heel and started walking towards the back of the diner with Jonghyun in tow. Onew stopped abruptly when he saw a full dessert tray of cookies and sweets under a glass cloche on the diner's counter, next to the register.
“Hey!”
Jonghyun rubbed his head after it had collided with Onew’s shoulder blade. As he looked up, Onew turned to him mouth full of a huge chocolate walnut chip cookie, eyes smiling into half-moons.
“I wuv deez.”
He took a big bite and a moment to savor the dessert before he kept walking. Snorting at his partner’s randomness, Jonghyun shook his head and followed behind him as they made their way past more patrons and employees frozen like so many mannequins. Jonghyun thought he saw a pair of familiar eyes in his periphery, but never slowed down to check. Onew pushed the back door of the diner open and walked out into the sunshine holding it open for the shorter man to step through. As they made their way down the alley Jonghyun looked up at the sky and noticed the clouds weren’t moving.
“How far away does this ‘rift’ reach?”
“No idea. Never checked.” Onew shrugged as they reached the end of the alley.
“Ah. Here we are. Let’s take a look around shall we?”
He popped the last of the cookie into his mouth and Jonghyun followed him with curiosity down the street to the building where the fire had been. The windows were boarded up and there were still black marks and gouges where the fire had left it’s ugly mark. A woman stood near the curb in front of the building frozen in place mid-conversation on her cell phone as her small dog had it’s back leg up in the air aiming for the fire hydrant next to it. Jonghyun let out a laugh at the diorama in front of him, then quickly covered his mouth with the back of his hand to muffle his giggles as Onew tugged at his arm as he led them down the street a bit going south, passing an alley on their right.
“Wait!” Jonghyun said suddenly in a hushed tone.
Onew looked back at Jonghyun then backed up and looked down the alley. There, just a few steps away, was their mystery man locking up what appeared to be a bookstore.
Frozen like a statue.
“There he is!”
Jonghyun was excited as he walked towards him slowly, and quietly, almost as if the man the waitress called “Minho” could wake up out of his stasis at any moment and bolt.
“What now?” Onew asked, hands in his pockets, rocking back on his heels.
“I don’t know, this was YOUR idea.”
“I only figured this is how we could find him. You’re the one looking for him, what do you want to do?”
“Are you kidding me?” Jonghyun whispered, running a hand through his hair and bringing both fists to his hips. Onew laughed suddenly.
“What?” Jonghyun glared at him. Onew stifled a giggle.
“Why are you whispering? You know he can’t hear you right?”
Onew put a hand over his mouth and tried to contain his laughter as Jonghyun glared at him. He dropped his hand suddenly as he looked at the man and a thought occurred to him.
“He’s one of..of..us...Teneo…right?” Onew, being pretty much a loner, was a bit of a novice to the whole “us” thing. When he thought about it, Jonghyun really was his only friend.
“I believe so.” Jonghyun spoke through his hand as it covered his mouth in contemplation.
“Is he a healer too?” Onew eyed Minho curiously.
“I don’t think so, I think he’s something much more interesting. But...” The shorter man was peering up at the young man’s face, squinting.
“...if I’m right, this isn’t going to be easy.”
Jonghyun took a step back away from the young man taking in his full height.
“Damn he’s tall.” Thinking for a moment, he came up with a plan. He suddenly wagged a finger in the air and raised his eyebrows as if remembering something.
”Ok. I’m going to restrain him, but let me get my hands on him before you bring things back up to full speed.”
“Restrain him?! Why? Is that really necessary? What are you going to do?”
“Stop him from getting away from us again! I need to confirm what and who he is.”
“Jonghyun, think for a minute. You don’t know what he is or what he’s capable of, do you really think this is the best way to make a first impression?”
Jonghyun comtemplated his partner’s words for a moment, then nodded and looked at Onew.
“Yep. I do.”
Onew contemplated the situation for a moment, his eyes moving back and forth between Jonghyun and the statue of a man as if he was observing a tennis match.
“Ok but don’t hurt him.”
“I can always heal him.” Onew frowned.
“I mean it.”
“Ok. Ok. I won’t hurt him. Oh, but listen New,”
Jonghyun grabbed Onew by the arm firmly.
“Do NOT look into his eyes.”
“Why? Is his gift like ‘Medusa’ or something?”
Jonghyun’s face was completely serious.
“Possibly. It may even be something worse.”
Onew’s eyes widened, as he suddenly thought that maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.
“Promise me this," Jonghyun continued, if he starts to get away, stop time again and incapacitate him even if you can’t get to me right away.”
Onew stared back at his friend.
“Ok.”
Then he watched Jonghyun as he positioned himself behind the tall young man, putting one hand over his mouth and grabbing the man’s free arm and wrenching it at an uncomfortable angle up the man’s back pushing him up against the door.
“Ok. NOW!”
Onew closed his eyes.
In an instant, the world roared back to life as if Jonghyun was just jerked awake from a dream. Trying to ignore the ringing in his ears and another wave of nausea, he focused all his energy and strength into pushing the young man up against the door so that he couldn’t turn around and couldn’t free himself. He waited a moment until he heard the keys jangle and the young man moan a bit in pain, before he tilted his head towards the young man’s ear.
“Hello handsome.”
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A/N: Nice way to make a first impression Jjong. But don't worry, Minho will be ok. Here, again is more art from the "Ignis" series. I actually am not as happy with this one as I am with Key's, but Photoshop crapped out on me and lost like 27 layers. Which.I.had.to.rebuild....yeah. So, It's close to what I wanted, but not exact. Ok I'm rambling...just look at it. As usual...comments are love!
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