hc_bingo fic: WILD CARD (experiments by evil scientists)
Title: Fortunate Ones
Fandom: DBSK
Pairing: none
Prompt: WILD CARD (Experiments by Evil Scientists)
Rating: R
WARNINGS: Human experimentation, obviously, as well as abuse- physical, mental, and emotional.
Word Count: 6499
Summary: How do you plan for the unimaginable? How do you deal with becoming more than human? How do you cope with being forced to hunt down one of your best friends, whether you want to or not? They didn’t choose to be what they are, but now all they can do is move forward.
AN: Written, as the subject and tag say, for hc_bingo. Masterpost with game card is here.
No. No, they were not making him do this. No, no, nononono. Not this time. Not ever again.
~
Their handlers were angry. Junsu had told them that before the first even opened their door, but that didn't stop the man from putting Changmin on the floor with a split lip before any of them could react. If any of them would have, anyway. Yunho stepped in front of Changmin before their handler could decide to take it any farther. "He didn't do anything."
He didn't flinch away even as the heavier man drew his hand back again. The answer, however, came from the door. "No, he didn't, but Jaejoong did."
They glanced at each other. Jaejoong had been taken for tests that morning, and while he had been gone a very long time, none of them had thought...
"I see you understand what that might mean." The head doctor of the project entered the room, waving their handlers back and allowing Yunho to help Changmin to his feet before extending his hand, palm cradling a bloody and broken tracking capsule. "He killed three guards and removed his tracker from his own arm before fleeing. He killed another five between the testing rooms and the exit. We were only lucky that very few are authorized in that particular ward."
Yunho didn't look away, but internally he winced. He'd known, they'd all known, that Jaejoong was more on edge lately, but who could have expected this?
The doctor continued without waiting for Yunho or the others to process anything. "You know we've been nothing but understanding of the difficulties you all have had. We appreciate the good work you help us do. But we cannot allow someone of Jaejoong's level and current mental state to go unchecked. I trust you understand what that means, as well."
Yunho nodded, ignoring the sounds coming from the three behind him. If Jaejoong had turned rogue, what else could they do?
~
It had all started innocently enough. Broke college students answering a seemingly innocent newspaper ad about a medical trial that would pay more money than probably any of them had ever seen, let alone had. It was no surprise that people who fit the requested demographic practically flocked to the early tests, to get weeded out one by one in tests of endurance and intellect and general health.
Finally, two dozen young men in their early twenties had been chosen. They’d been from all over the country, but it was hardly a hardship to take a semester off of school when you knew you’d come out of it comfortably set for the rest of your life. At first, they were allowed to continue living as they saw fit, either in apartments or hotels in the area with stipends that covered everything. Life had never been so rich. The study itself was strange, a series of injections and pills and other things that were never quite explained. “Fitness research” seemed to be the acceptable excuse, but if the only noticeable side effect was becoming more and more fit and athletic, well, who was going to argue with that?
They became vaguely acquainted with each other, seeing each other during tests or check ups, one coming in as another was going out. Acquainted enough that it started to become obvious when some of them just... weren’t there anymore. The doctors became more and more strict about times and places and activities until finally they were offered an ultimatum. The test was entering its final stage. They could continue and move into a location for intensive study or decline, be left with nothing other than what had already been paid out for them, and no ill effects.
Exactly five of them agreed.
The rest had either already been dropped from the program or just couldn’t completely give up on their lives like that. The five who stayed each had their own reasons. Yoochun’s family was poor. His parents’ marriage was getting worse by the day, and his brother... He needed the money. Jaejoong’s family needed the money, too, although less from being poor and more from having nine children to feed and support and send through college. More than that, he just wanted to see something of the world and do something with his life that wasn’t living in a small town in the middle of nowhere forever. Changmin’s family definitely didn’t need the money, but obviously the doctors were doing something that would help people eventually. Plus, an extended medical study was sure to help put things in perspective after med school. Junsu never gave a specific reason why he needed the money, just that he did and it was more important than anything. None of them pressed the issue. And Yunho...
Yunho wasn’t entirely sure why he stayed. Maybe he felt like he had to. Maybe he thought he’d already invested so much time into the study that he might as well finish. Maybe he just wanted to help people. The doctors promised them all that when this was over, they’d help so many people with what was being learned from them. That was a pretty good reason.
They were brought to a fully furnished, almost lavish apartment in a complex that was a little too close to ‘mad scientist’ for anyone’s comfort. There were guards everywhere, but they were assured that the guards were only there to keep an eye on the valuable research in the building. At first, the tests and injections and check-ups were all much the same, although somewhat more frequently now.
And then Junsu started complaining about headaches.
At first he was the only one. Constant headaches that kept him bedridden for days and the others worried half to death despite the doctors’ reassurances that this was both normal and expected. If this was expected, then why couldn’t they fix it?
Jaejoong succumbed to the headaches next, then Yunho, while Yoochun burned with a fever that nothing they did would bring down. Changmin’s lips cracked and peeled with what the doctors said was advanced dehydration. Until one day, everything just... stopped.
Junsu woke up, clear-eyed and healthy for the first time in over a weak, and sat, staring at a wall for an hour, only to calmly tell the others that he could hear their thoughts. Like it was a perfectly normal thing to wake up to, or perhaps like it was so absurdly strange that there was no measure against which to understand it. The doctors whisked him away, returning later for each of them. When they next saw each other, days later, it was to announcements of the doctors’ pride in their success and the unfortunate admittance that they were unlikely to leave the compound again any time soon. They were simply too valuable.
They had, the doctors explained, been part of an extremely high risk experiment to develop supernatural powers in a depressingly natural human body. They were the first successes but hardly the first attempts. In the coming weeks, they would see their powers develop and perhaps mature, if they were lucky. They would most likely die if they were not.
More tests followed. They were being trained like soldiers, but the doctors swore it was simply to keep their bodies in peak condition, lest their newfound powers spiral out of control.
They never connected the snowballing changes until it was too late.
~
This morning, they’d taken Jaejoong. That, in and of itself, wasn’t so unusual. They took one or more of them for tests and training almost every morning. But this morning had felt different. This morning, Jaejoong had snarled at the guards and had to be removed from their rooms by force. Junsu had been informing all of them of Jaejoong’s deteriorating mental state for weeks, but none of them had thought it would come to this.
Now, staring at the broken tracking capsule, knowing that Jaejoong was loose in a world completely unprepared for him and knowing they were the only ones who could do anything about it, it suddenly felt so very real. Knowing what they would have to do to someone they’d all come to think of as a dear friend, almost brother... but what choice did they have?
The doctor nodded once he was sure Yunho and the others understood the gravity of the situation. He told them they would leave at sundown and had until then to plan and request whatever supplies they might need. They would be supported and followed as closely as possible, but of course, more ordinary guards could not be risked until Jaejoong’s mental state was stabilized.
The doctors had never really given them specifics on what had been done to them, just that the injections and tests had awoken extra parts of their brains than what normally handled day-to-day activity for humans. It gave them what some people would call super powers. Junsu had been the first to develop his and the first to master them. His telepathy and receptive empathy made him the heart of their forming team in more ways than one. Changmin’s hydrokinesis and Yoochun’s pyrokinesis were like two sides of a coin, fire and water, life and death, and when they had rare dual training sessions, it was almost hypnotic to watch the way they could intertwine. Yunho’s enhanced senses and clairvoyance tended to give him an edge nearly equal to Junsu’s. If only it gave him insight more than ten minutes out, maybe this could have been prevented.
Jaejoong... Yunho had often thought Jaejoong’s telekinesis might be the most dangerous of them all, if only because of the person who wielded it. Not that he ever expected Jaejoong would want to be able to tear a living heart out of someone’s chest. He just knew Jaejoong would, if he had to. And apparently he had.
The doctors and guards filed back out, leaving just the four of them. Yunho turned, meeting each of their eyes squarely. They hadn’t even known each other a year ago, and now here they were. He knew them almost as well as he knew himself. Yoochun had an arm around Junsu who looked like he’d gotten a painful headache from the tense encounter. Changmin was dabbing at his lip with the edge of his sleeve.
“Well?” He knew they had no choice, but it felt like something that needed to be said out loud.
Changmin, as always, was the first to answer. He shrugged. “We don’t have a choice if Jaejoong-hyu-” He caught himself. “If Jaejoong has gone crazy.”
Junsu immediately shook his head. “He hasn’t. I know he hasn’t. You can’t just change that quickly and he was fine before he left. Scared, but fine. Maybe... Do we know what they had him doing in his last few training sessions? Maybe...”
The rest of them were quiet, but they all knew what Junsu was implying. The tests and training had been getting harsher and harsher the last month. Who knew what they’d made Jaejoong do? What might have made Jaejoong do what he did.
“We still have to find him.” Yoochun, looking down at the floor between them, seemed the most affected. “Before he can do anything stupid.” To someone else or to himself, was just understood.
They all nodded and eventually went back to their own rooms to pack what they thought might be essential, Yunho also making a list of things to ask the guards for. Whatever came after, they needed to find Jaejoong.
~
He stumbled, forgetting every lesson he’d learned about using his power to aid him. The images of what they wanted, what they were making, fogged his mind. He kept running.
~
Yunho blinked, coming back to himself with a start and pouring the bowl of water onto the ground. “A forest? Maybe a park? He’s running too fast for me to get much of an impression.”
His clairvoyance was always as much an annoyance as a tool. While he could see things over almost any distance, if he knew what to look for, it didn’t exactly guarantee that he’d see them clearly. He stowed the bowl away in his pack. The head trainers said he was using it as a crutch, but whatever helped him focus, right? Even if he didn’t technically need it, and Junsu said it made him look like someone from the Harry Potter movies.
“So we’re basically as blind as they are, right now?” Changmin had caught a droplet of water and was bouncing it sulkily. None of them liked this, but Changmin looked up to Jaejoong in a way none of the rest of them did. This must have been especially hard on him.
Unfortunately, he was also right. Without the tracker that they had each been implanted with, Jaejoong was no easier to find than any other person on the planet. While there were people who specialized in doing exactly that given time, it was time they didn’t have to spend. “He’s going to have to stop eventually. We’ll just... go in a likely direction and keep checking whenever we stop.”
Since none of them had anything resembling a better plan, that was what they did. They had to check in with their handlers every two hours wherever they were, so Yoochun would do that while Changmin produced a bowl of water and Yunho searched. The images didn’t get any clearer, but he felt like they were on the right track. He didn’t know if that feeling was from his powers or from him just being eternally hopeful, but either way he wanted to believe it. They had to find Jaejoong.
~
They passed the night like that. Finally, they stopped in the early hours of the morning for a few hours of sleep. They found a cheap hotel that wouldn’t look too closely at four men arriving on foot and paying in cash.
There were only two beds in the room, but after everything else, sharing was the least of their worries. Yoochun called to let the handlers know of the stop and Yunho set the alarm clock to wake them up in four hours. It wasn’t much, but they’d had less.
Yunho was asleep before his head even hit the pillow.
~
He fell. Blood splattered from somewhere, dyeing his vision red. He tried to get up, had to keep running, but he couldn’t. He dropped to the ground, exhausted.
~
Yunho sat bolt upright, startling Junsu awake in the bed next to him. It took a minute of panting before he was able to form words, and by then Junsu had woken the other two. “He stopped. We have to go now.”
None of them questioned Yunho’s announcement, they just packed quickly and were out the door within minutes. Yunho didn’t even bother to consult any more visions. He may not have known exactly where Jaejoong was, but he knew where they had to look.
~
They stopped to rest yet again, and Yunho was sure they had to be close. How much farther could Jaejoong have made it by himself? The woods they’d entered felt familiar, the sound of the quietly murmuring river like something he’d heard a million times before. He had to be here somewhere.
Suddenly, Junsu froze like a hunting dog catching a scent. “I think I hear him.” He frowned. “He doesn’t sound good.”
Yunho strained his ears, trying to pick up some sound to go with Junsu’s telepathic find, but either Jaejoong was still too far for him or was making less than no noise. “Lead us to him.”
Junsu frowned again, and Yunho knew he’d been slightly unfair. Junsu’s powers didn’t work like a normal sense. There was no telling exactly which direction a thought came from. It just appeared in his head. But they could figure out a direction by process of elimination, given enough time, and that was all they had.
Eventually, Junsu gave in, closing his eyes tightly, brow furrowing in concentration. He took a step, then two, and frowned more, shaking his head before returning to where he’d started. He tried another direction, moving more confidently this time.
He led them toward the river, and Yunho’s heart sank.
~
Junsu’s range must have been greater than any of them imagined, because it took almost an hour to track Jaejoong down. When they found him, Yunho wished they hadn’t. He was fairly sure the others felt the same.
He must have pushed himself to his feet when he heard them approaching, because there was no way he’d been standing long, swaying like he was. He was fit, as they all were now, but he’d been running for who knew how long with no rest, and even after his body collapsed he obviously hadn’t slept. His arm no longer bled, but it was crusted with dried blood and gore from where he’d removed his tracker. A gash on his forehead still trickled blood into his eyes, and he looked like someone who’d spent the night in the woods. It was enough to make Yunho wish they hadn’t found him.
Yunho finally took a step toward him when it became apparent that none of the other three could move. “Jaejoong-ah.”
Jaejoong took an answering step back, and Yunho bit down the urge to lunge at him as it took him even closer to the river. “I’m not going back.”
“We have to-”
“No!” Jaejoong stepped back again, and Yunho heard one of the others shifting beside him. He didn’t dare look away, though. “I’m not going back. You’re never going to make me. You can’t. I know you can’t. I won’t go back to that, I won’t!”
Yunho heard Junsu choke behind him, the sound coming out tight and strangled, and right at that moment, Jaejoong took one step too many and the bank crumbled under his foot. He hit the water with a splash and a shout. Changmin cursed and was in after him in seconds. Yunho started to follow, but Yoochun grabbed his arm. “Help me with Junsu. Changmin can get him faster than any of us right now.”
He knew Yoochun was right but that didn’t make turning his back on the river any easier. Once he saw Junsu, he was glad he did, though. Junsu must have collapsed right before Jaejoong went into the river. His face was painfully pale and drawn, like he’d seen a ghost. Yoochun took one arm and Yunho the other and hauled him to his feet.
Junsu was shaking in their hold and muttering under his breath, but Yunho tried to tune that out and listen for any sound from Changmin. Of course it didn’t work. He gritted his teeth and tightened his grip on Junsu. “Come on.”
The trees and bushes didn’t grown too closely together right at the side of the river, like someone maintained it and wanted to be able to walk there. That was lucky for them. They followed the path of the river, watching for any sign of Changmin and Jaejoong. Nothing at all. They passed a small footbridge that soared over the water in a graceful arch, proving that at least someone came this way, and the path seemed to end, becoming harder and harder to pass through. Yunho helped Yoochun sit Junsu down and went on by himself.
Another few meters and he finally caught sight of something. The river widened here, but he thought he caught sight of two familiar figures just at the foot of trees on the other side. He raced back to where he’d left the other two, to find Junsu somewhat more himself and Yoochun looking infinitely relieved. “I think I spotted them. They’re on the other side.”
Still helping Junsu along, they went back to where they’d seen the bridge, crossing it carefully as it seemed to weave and sway under them, until finally they were on the opposite bank. Yunho took off, trusting them to follow.
He’d been right. He heard Changmin talking before he saw them, but then almost stumbled over them anyway. “Changmin! How is...”
He caught sight of Jaejoong’s almost deathly pale face. At least it answered his question. Changmin looked up, face almost as pale as Jaejoong’s. “Hyung, he hasn’t moved since I pulled him out. I don’t know if he’s-”
Yunho shook his head sharply, cutting Changmin off before he could even finish the thought. No sense thinking something bad like that into reality. “He’ll be fine.” He crouched next to them and Changmin easily moved back to give Yunho room to bend over Jaejoong. His pulse was still strong, if fast, and Changmin must have pulled any water out of his lungs because his breathing sounded fine.
He looked back up when Changmin jerked, automatically trying to shield Jaejoong, but Yunho put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s just Yoochun and Junsu.” He called out more loudly, knowing they couldn’t hear him as well as he could hear them. “We’re over here!”
A few moments later, the other two joined them in the now extremely cramped clearing. Junsu just looked at Jaejoong, and Yunho knew he was using his own powers to reassure himself that Jaejoong was still Jaejoong in there.
Yoochun was the one to voice what they were all thinking. “What do we do now?” It had seemed so clear cut just a few hours ago, but seeing Jaejoong and knowing what would happen if they took him back didn’t make it so easy. None of them were under any illusions about what the people in charge of the experiment were capable of.
Yoochun jumped when his pocket started ringing. His cell phone. Only one place had the phone number. Yunho sickly realized that two hours must have come and gone without them noticing. Yoochun turned away to answer it, speaking quickly and quietly. Eventually, he glanced back, eyes wide. “They want to know why we missed our call.”
Before any of them could answer, Junsu jumped up from where he’d been slumped against a tree, suddenly full of energy. He grabbed the phone from Yoochun’s stunned hand and chucked it as far as he could into the river.
Changmin was on his feet in a second, leaving Yunho with Jaejoong. “Junsu! How could you? They’ll-”
“They’ll kill us all, anyway!” Any composure Junsu had regained was gone in the wake of the phone call. “We can’t go back! I saw it, I saw what they were trying to make Jaejoong do, and I’m not going back to that. I’m not. You’re not taking him back, either.”
The other three shared uncertain glances. What were they supposed to say to that? With Jaejoong out of the picture, Changmin and Yoochun were the only two with offensive powers so there was no way Junsu could win that fight if it came to that. But did they want it to?
Yoochun found his voice first. “The trackers...”
“Jaejoong can deal with ours the same way he took care of his.” And if Junsu felt as sick over the thought as the rest of them, he didn’t show it. “If we keep moving, they can’t track us down right away, and when Jaejoong’s awake, he can take out the trackers and they won’t be able to find us at all! We can’t go back. We can’t. You didn’t see so you don’t know.”
Yunho sighed, pressing fingers to his eyes. This was all supposed to be so easy. What happened? “Let’s... let’s get out of the open and see if we can’t get Jaejoong warmed up. We’ll figure out what we’re doing from there.”
~
It took a few minutes for Changmin and Yunho to get Jaejoong settled on Yunho’s back in a way that wouldn’t stop them from getting through the undergrowth or risk Jaejoong falling off. Junsu and Yoochun were talking quietly by the time they were ready to set off, and they kept close to each other as the group set off into the woods.
When they finally found a suitable break in the trees, Jaejoong stirred slightly on Yunho’s back, groaning and trying to push himself away. It was easier to just lower him to the ground than try to keep him there when he was fighting, however weakly. Yoochun immediately started collecting twigs to build a fire. Junsu took one look at Jaejoong, flinched, and went to help him.
That left Yunho and Changmin alone with Jaejoong again. Changmin’s expression said he didn’t have any better idea of what to do than he did before Jaejoong woke up. Jaejoong’s hair had dried plastered to his forehead. Yunho brushed it back. “It’s okay, Jaejoong. We’re the only ones here. You’re still safe.”
Jaejoong’s eyes opened a slit but fell closed again almost immediately. His breathing deepened, and Yunho was fairly positive he was only sleeping now, not unconscious. That was good, at least.
Yoochun dropped an armful of sticks close to where they were setting. “Maybe if we get him warm, it’ll help.” Even if he and Changmin had mostly drip-dried by then. Yunho hoped Yoochun was right, anyway.
Changmin apparently had other ideas for what might help. He was watching Junsu hang back like a hawk watching a mouse. “What did you see?”
Junsu took an automatic step back which made Changmin all but growl in response. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, you keep saying there’s something bad but not what. If you want us to believe you, you’ll need to come up with something more than that.”
Yoochun didn’t look up from his fire. “It had to be pretty bad to make Jaejoong act like that.”
“We all knew Jaejoong was on edge, though.” Yunho hated playing devil’s advocate, but he didn’t think too fondly of being on the run for the rest of his life, either.
“But this was probably why!” Junsu ran a rough hand through his hair, then came to crouch close to Jaejoong. “They... His head’s all messed up, and his emotions are going haywire, but I think they were making him kill things.”
Yunho started. “People?”
“Not... not yet. I think. Maybe that was what made him run. Like I said, he’s all over the place. There’s just lots of death.” He dropped his head, fingers tightening on Jaejoong’s pants leg. “How long until they start making Changmin and Yoochun do that, too?”
Again, the other three exchanged glances, these ones more worried. It made sense, in a horrible sort of way. Jaejoong and Yoochun and Changmin would make amazing weapons, weapons that no one else in the world had, with Junsu and Yunho to keep them in line.
But there was no way to know for sure until Jaejoong woke up. If Junsu hadn’t gotten rid of the phone, they could have held their handlers off for a little while longer, but as it was, people were probably already looking for them. It was a no-win situation and they were out of time.
Yunho shook Jaejoong’s shoulders, waving the others away when they tried to stop him. “We need him awake to take out these trackers and tell us what the hell is going on. Otherwise we aren’t going to have any choices in the matter.”
He shook Jaejoong more violently until the other whimpered, jerking in his sleep, his lids slipping open to reveal dark, scared eyes. It broke Yunho’s heart, but it needed to happen. “Jaejoong. Jaejoong-ah. Wake up. You need to-” He cut himself short when Jaejoong shrunk back into himself. The only thing he’d said...
His resolve strengthened. Junsu had to be right if Jaejoong was reacting like that to any sort of command. “It’s okay, Joongie. I promise. We aren’t going back. But they can still follow our trackers. We need to get rid of ours like you did yours.”
He could tell when that sunk in because Junsu groaned, taking his hand away from Jaejoong’s leg to press to his own head. He could only imagine what Jaejoong’s head was like right now. “Please, Jaejoong.”
Jaejoong squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head violently. “Not hurting anyone.” He tried to slide away, but Changmin was there at his back. Yunho and Changmin looked at each other for a minute before Changmin pulled Jaejoong into a hug, whispering into his ear while Yunho turned to Junsu.
“Are you okay?” Yoochun had been studiously keeping his eyes glued to his fire, but now he looked up, echoing the question silently. Junsu just nodded. “If you’re sure.” Junsu nodded again. Yunho sighed, but if that was all he was going to get... “Yoochun?”
Yoochun laughed shortly and went back to poking his fire. “Yeah. Great.”
Yunho frowned but didn’t say anything in reply. He didn’t think anything was going to help any of them right at this moment. Although whatever Changmin had said to Jaejoong seemed to almost have worked. Jaejoong’s eyes were open, if staring bleakly at Changmin’s arm in his lap. Changmin caught Yunho looking at them and shrugged. He’d done what he could. Now Jaejoong had to decide.
The skin of Changmin’s arm rippled and bulged like there was an insect just under the surface trying to dig its way out. Changmin choked on a pained noise, turning his head away and biting down on his other hand to keep himself quiet, more for Jaejoong than anything. Eventually, the skin split with a horrible tearing sound and Changmin’s tracker dropped out onto the ground where it was suddenly crushed into dust.
Jaejoong, Yunho noticed belatedly, was crying.
~
It took an hour, a lot of coaxing, and two yelling matches to convince Jaejoong to do the rest of their trackers. The yelling had been between Junsu and Changmin and Junsu and Yoochun, respectively. Jaejoong hadn’t said a word.
Junsu had wanted to push Jaejoong harder, while Changmin, to everyone’s surprise and perhaps even his own, argued to let him stop if he wanted. Junsu preferred not to get caught and insisted that his go next, if only so he could leave them behind if he needed to. That started off Yoochun and Junsu’s shouting, which was also a surprise to all involved. In the end, Junsu had gone last, and Jaejoong had taken his own time through all of them. He never made a sound, only holding a hand out to each of them in turn while tears streamed silently down his cheeks.
Yunho wondered if perhaps they should have taken him back, only because he wasn’t sure Jaejoong was still there and it was as much their fault now as anybody’s.
Yoochun finished carefully cauterizing Junsu’s arm, frowning down at it before looking up at all of them. “Well, now that we all have conveniently identifying scars, what next?”
That... was a good question. “We still have some cash, and they can’t track us too easily, now. And they know two of us can watch for them, so they’ll have to be careful.” Not to mention, they knew what Jaejoong could do. Yunho wasn’t going to bring that up any time soon.
“This’ll be the last position they’ll have for us, so we should probably get moving.” Changmin was still at Jaejoong’s back and didn’t seem to have any plans to leave him alone. “Even without an exact location, they’ll find us here eventually.”
Yunho nodded and gestured for Yoochun to put out his fire. Junsu was still cradling his arm close to his body but seemed otherwise able to travel. Which left them with only one person to hold them back. “Can you walk?”
It took two more repetitions and Changmin repeating his words directly in Jaejoong’s ear to get a reaction. He stood, more or less steadily with a bit of help. Yunho bit down the desire to force Jaejoong to say something, if necessary. It wouldn’t solve anything, and they needed him at least mostly functional.
He took the front of their little procession, listening and watching for any sign that something may not be right. Changmin and Yoochun helped Jaejoong along, both of them ready at any moment to defend all of them. Junsu brought up the rear, and Yunho knew he’d be listening just as hard in his own way. They were all on-edge and paranoid now, knowing that there was no possible way they’d actually get away with this, but knowing they couldn’t just go back, either.
They were out of options and good solutions. All they could do was forge ahead.
~
Jaejoong decided their next camping spot for them. They’d been walking for what felt like days and was probably hours, following some sort of deer trail for the last half hour or so when they came to something that couldn’t be described as a clearing so much as a place where a tree could have been but wasn’t. The opening wasn’t even big enough for any light to escape the canopy overhead.
Jaejoong didn’t so much choose to stop walking as his legs chose to stop working. They folded under him and only Yoochun’s quick reaction stopped him from toppling face-first onto the exposed roots of the nearest tree. No amount of coaxing could get him moving again. It was as if the toll of using his powers to remove their trackers on top of everything else before that with only the miniscule amount of sleep and unconsciousness in the middle had finally won.
Changmin remained close to Jaejoong and the others set about finding what little food they could manage, thanks to Junsu’s extensive scout experience. After much discussion, they decided a fire was too risky when it might give them away. Junsu and Yunho agreed to split watches. The other two protested but couldn’t argue that Junsu and Yunho were the best equipped for early warning.
Junsu took first watch. He shook Yunho awake in the dark, cold hours before dawn, shivering a bit as he forced his way into the space between Yoochun and Changmin. Where Jaejoong should have been. When Yunho frowned, worry building, Junsu just shrugged and nodded his head to a darker lump against the base of the trees.
Yunho sighed and made his way over. It was as good a place to keep watch as any. “You’re supposed to be sleeping.” He kept his voice down to not wake the sleepers, but sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with Jaejoong, he was sure the other heard him.
Whether he would answer or not was another question. Yunho was about to write it off as a no when Jaejoong leaned slightly against him. “Can’t.”
Yunho turned to look in Jaejoong’s direction, but the darkness kept him from seeing much more than his outline. “Why?”
Jaejoong shivered and Yunho knew it wasn’t from the cold but wrapped an arm around him anyway. “I keep... dreaming. But they’re not dreams.”
“Memories?” Jaejoong nodded, Yunho feeling the movement against his shoulder. When there was no further answer forthcoming, Yunho pressed a bit more. “Junsu said he saw what they were making you do. Why we can’t go back.”
Jaejoong shivered again, more violently, and Yunho couldn’t help feeling guilty. “They’re making an army. We’re the test subjects, but they’ll keep making more and more. How do you defend against someone who can tear your heart out?”
Yunho clenched his jaw, pure hatred simmering up from somewhere in his gut. They’d known the experiment was risky when they signed up. They knew it would be long, but they thought they’d be doing something good for the world, not just becoming new ways to hurt and kill each other. To find they’d been used like that, and not even told about it, not even when one of them was being all but tortured to that end... “We’ll find a way to get them stopped. I don’t know how, but I promise we will.”
Jaejoong didn’t bother to nod. Why should he, when Yunho didn’t even believe himself? “They said... we were an accident. I mean, they knew what they were trying to make, but it had never worked before. People always went crazy, or their powers were useless.” Yunho heard him sniffle and tightened his hold. “I think I’m going crazy, Yunho.”
“You aren’t.” That, Yunho believed. He believed it as fiercely and as completely as he’d ever believed anything in his life. “We won’t let you.”
Jaejoong immediately shook his head. “All I can do is hurt people. Yoochun can keep people warm, and Changmin can save them from drowning, and Junsu could... could be a psychologist or something, and you could, I don’t know, find lost children, and why am I the only one that can only do bad things?”
Yunho gave up on sitting next to Jaejoong and pulled him into a hug, but Jaejoong still wasn’t done. “I killed people, Yunho. People we see every day. I know their names, and they probably had families, and I killed one of the doctors, too, did they tell you that? He was bringing in this cat, because we started with bugs, and then fish, and then a snake, and he was bringing in this cat and I was supposed to kill it and they’d have a perfect assassin that could stop a heart in someone’s chest, and I can’t do that, Yunho, I can’t!”
He let Jaejoong talk until the words became sobs, fingers combing through his hair in what had to be empty comfort because there was no way to soothe what hurt Jaejoong. He heard movement and soon the other three had joined them. They’d been sleeping not too feet away, how could this not have woken them up?
Yunho held out one hand to them. Changmin was the first to accept. Easily clasping Yunho’s hand for a moment before finding his now-customary place at Jaejoong’s back. Yoochun and Junsu took a second longer, but soon the four of them had closed ranks around their suffering fifth.
They’d started as strangers, and then slowly became friends and something more. Now, Yunho couldn’t imagine calling them anything but family. The experiments, however horrific in the end, had brought them together, and now their only choice was to use what they’d gained to fight for what had been taken from them.
Jaejoong fell into a restless sleep, half sprawled in Changmin’s lap, head cradled on Yunho’s shoulder, fingers twined with Yoochun and Junsu on either side. They would have to talk in the morning, but Yunho knew their choices without even having to ask. They’d do whatever it took, to stop the experiments, to stop others suffering at the hands of people who only saw the outcome but not the means. They’d fight to regain themselves and their lives and everything they’d lost.
But he knew they’d fight for Jaejoong most of all.
This entry was originally posted at http://envious-muses.dreamwidth.org/12558.html.
Fandom: DBSK
Pairing: none
Prompt: WILD CARD (Experiments by Evil Scientists)
Rating: R
WARNINGS: Human experimentation, obviously, as well as abuse- physical, mental, and emotional.
Word Count: 6499
Summary: How do you plan for the unimaginable? How do you deal with becoming more than human? How do you cope with being forced to hunt down one of your best friends, whether you want to or not? They didn’t choose to be what they are, but now all they can do is move forward.
AN: Written, as the subject and tag say, for hc_bingo. Masterpost with game card is here.
No. No, they were not making him do this. No, no, nononono. Not this time. Not ever again.
~
Their handlers were angry. Junsu had told them that before the first even opened their door, but that didn't stop the man from putting Changmin on the floor with a split lip before any of them could react. If any of them would have, anyway. Yunho stepped in front of Changmin before their handler could decide to take it any farther. "He didn't do anything."
He didn't flinch away even as the heavier man drew his hand back again. The answer, however, came from the door. "No, he didn't, but Jaejoong did."
They glanced at each other. Jaejoong had been taken for tests that morning, and while he had been gone a very long time, none of them had thought...
"I see you understand what that might mean." The head doctor of the project entered the room, waving their handlers back and allowing Yunho to help Changmin to his feet before extending his hand, palm cradling a bloody and broken tracking capsule. "He killed three guards and removed his tracker from his own arm before fleeing. He killed another five between the testing rooms and the exit. We were only lucky that very few are authorized in that particular ward."
Yunho didn't look away, but internally he winced. He'd known, they'd all known, that Jaejoong was more on edge lately, but who could have expected this?
The doctor continued without waiting for Yunho or the others to process anything. "You know we've been nothing but understanding of the difficulties you all have had. We appreciate the good work you help us do. But we cannot allow someone of Jaejoong's level and current mental state to go unchecked. I trust you understand what that means, as well."
Yunho nodded, ignoring the sounds coming from the three behind him. If Jaejoong had turned rogue, what else could they do?
~
It had all started innocently enough. Broke college students answering a seemingly innocent newspaper ad about a medical trial that would pay more money than probably any of them had ever seen, let alone had. It was no surprise that people who fit the requested demographic practically flocked to the early tests, to get weeded out one by one in tests of endurance and intellect and general health.
Finally, two dozen young men in their early twenties had been chosen. They’d been from all over the country, but it was hardly a hardship to take a semester off of school when you knew you’d come out of it comfortably set for the rest of your life. At first, they were allowed to continue living as they saw fit, either in apartments or hotels in the area with stipends that covered everything. Life had never been so rich. The study itself was strange, a series of injections and pills and other things that were never quite explained. “Fitness research” seemed to be the acceptable excuse, but if the only noticeable side effect was becoming more and more fit and athletic, well, who was going to argue with that?
They became vaguely acquainted with each other, seeing each other during tests or check ups, one coming in as another was going out. Acquainted enough that it started to become obvious when some of them just... weren’t there anymore. The doctors became more and more strict about times and places and activities until finally they were offered an ultimatum. The test was entering its final stage. They could continue and move into a location for intensive study or decline, be left with nothing other than what had already been paid out for them, and no ill effects.
Exactly five of them agreed.
The rest had either already been dropped from the program or just couldn’t completely give up on their lives like that. The five who stayed each had their own reasons. Yoochun’s family was poor. His parents’ marriage was getting worse by the day, and his brother... He needed the money. Jaejoong’s family needed the money, too, although less from being poor and more from having nine children to feed and support and send through college. More than that, he just wanted to see something of the world and do something with his life that wasn’t living in a small town in the middle of nowhere forever. Changmin’s family definitely didn’t need the money, but obviously the doctors were doing something that would help people eventually. Plus, an extended medical study was sure to help put things in perspective after med school. Junsu never gave a specific reason why he needed the money, just that he did and it was more important than anything. None of them pressed the issue. And Yunho...
Yunho wasn’t entirely sure why he stayed. Maybe he felt like he had to. Maybe he thought he’d already invested so much time into the study that he might as well finish. Maybe he just wanted to help people. The doctors promised them all that when this was over, they’d help so many people with what was being learned from them. That was a pretty good reason.
They were brought to a fully furnished, almost lavish apartment in a complex that was a little too close to ‘mad scientist’ for anyone’s comfort. There were guards everywhere, but they were assured that the guards were only there to keep an eye on the valuable research in the building. At first, the tests and injections and check-ups were all much the same, although somewhat more frequently now.
And then Junsu started complaining about headaches.
At first he was the only one. Constant headaches that kept him bedridden for days and the others worried half to death despite the doctors’ reassurances that this was both normal and expected. If this was expected, then why couldn’t they fix it?
Jaejoong succumbed to the headaches next, then Yunho, while Yoochun burned with a fever that nothing they did would bring down. Changmin’s lips cracked and peeled with what the doctors said was advanced dehydration. Until one day, everything just... stopped.
Junsu woke up, clear-eyed and healthy for the first time in over a weak, and sat, staring at a wall for an hour, only to calmly tell the others that he could hear their thoughts. Like it was a perfectly normal thing to wake up to, or perhaps like it was so absurdly strange that there was no measure against which to understand it. The doctors whisked him away, returning later for each of them. When they next saw each other, days later, it was to announcements of the doctors’ pride in their success and the unfortunate admittance that they were unlikely to leave the compound again any time soon. They were simply too valuable.
They had, the doctors explained, been part of an extremely high risk experiment to develop supernatural powers in a depressingly natural human body. They were the first successes but hardly the first attempts. In the coming weeks, they would see their powers develop and perhaps mature, if they were lucky. They would most likely die if they were not.
More tests followed. They were being trained like soldiers, but the doctors swore it was simply to keep their bodies in peak condition, lest their newfound powers spiral out of control.
They never connected the snowballing changes until it was too late.
~
This morning, they’d taken Jaejoong. That, in and of itself, wasn’t so unusual. They took one or more of them for tests and training almost every morning. But this morning had felt different. This morning, Jaejoong had snarled at the guards and had to be removed from their rooms by force. Junsu had been informing all of them of Jaejoong’s deteriorating mental state for weeks, but none of them had thought it would come to this.
Now, staring at the broken tracking capsule, knowing that Jaejoong was loose in a world completely unprepared for him and knowing they were the only ones who could do anything about it, it suddenly felt so very real. Knowing what they would have to do to someone they’d all come to think of as a dear friend, almost brother... but what choice did they have?
The doctor nodded once he was sure Yunho and the others understood the gravity of the situation. He told them they would leave at sundown and had until then to plan and request whatever supplies they might need. They would be supported and followed as closely as possible, but of course, more ordinary guards could not be risked until Jaejoong’s mental state was stabilized.
The doctors had never really given them specifics on what had been done to them, just that the injections and tests had awoken extra parts of their brains than what normally handled day-to-day activity for humans. It gave them what some people would call super powers. Junsu had been the first to develop his and the first to master them. His telepathy and receptive empathy made him the heart of their forming team in more ways than one. Changmin’s hydrokinesis and Yoochun’s pyrokinesis were like two sides of a coin, fire and water, life and death, and when they had rare dual training sessions, it was almost hypnotic to watch the way they could intertwine. Yunho’s enhanced senses and clairvoyance tended to give him an edge nearly equal to Junsu’s. If only it gave him insight more than ten minutes out, maybe this could have been prevented.
Jaejoong... Yunho had often thought Jaejoong’s telekinesis might be the most dangerous of them all, if only because of the person who wielded it. Not that he ever expected Jaejoong would want to be able to tear a living heart out of someone’s chest. He just knew Jaejoong would, if he had to. And apparently he had.
The doctors and guards filed back out, leaving just the four of them. Yunho turned, meeting each of their eyes squarely. They hadn’t even known each other a year ago, and now here they were. He knew them almost as well as he knew himself. Yoochun had an arm around Junsu who looked like he’d gotten a painful headache from the tense encounter. Changmin was dabbing at his lip with the edge of his sleeve.
“Well?” He knew they had no choice, but it felt like something that needed to be said out loud.
Changmin, as always, was the first to answer. He shrugged. “We don’t have a choice if Jaejoong-hyu-” He caught himself. “If Jaejoong has gone crazy.”
Junsu immediately shook his head. “He hasn’t. I know he hasn’t. You can’t just change that quickly and he was fine before he left. Scared, but fine. Maybe... Do we know what they had him doing in his last few training sessions? Maybe...”
The rest of them were quiet, but they all knew what Junsu was implying. The tests and training had been getting harsher and harsher the last month. Who knew what they’d made Jaejoong do? What might have made Jaejoong do what he did.
“We still have to find him.” Yoochun, looking down at the floor between them, seemed the most affected. “Before he can do anything stupid.” To someone else or to himself, was just understood.
They all nodded and eventually went back to their own rooms to pack what they thought might be essential, Yunho also making a list of things to ask the guards for. Whatever came after, they needed to find Jaejoong.
~
He stumbled, forgetting every lesson he’d learned about using his power to aid him. The images of what they wanted, what they were making, fogged his mind. He kept running.
~
Yunho blinked, coming back to himself with a start and pouring the bowl of water onto the ground. “A forest? Maybe a park? He’s running too fast for me to get much of an impression.”
His clairvoyance was always as much an annoyance as a tool. While he could see things over almost any distance, if he knew what to look for, it didn’t exactly guarantee that he’d see them clearly. He stowed the bowl away in his pack. The head trainers said he was using it as a crutch, but whatever helped him focus, right? Even if he didn’t technically need it, and Junsu said it made him look like someone from the Harry Potter movies.
“So we’re basically as blind as they are, right now?” Changmin had caught a droplet of water and was bouncing it sulkily. None of them liked this, but Changmin looked up to Jaejoong in a way none of the rest of them did. This must have been especially hard on him.
Unfortunately, he was also right. Without the tracker that they had each been implanted with, Jaejoong was no easier to find than any other person on the planet. While there were people who specialized in doing exactly that given time, it was time they didn’t have to spend. “He’s going to have to stop eventually. We’ll just... go in a likely direction and keep checking whenever we stop.”
Since none of them had anything resembling a better plan, that was what they did. They had to check in with their handlers every two hours wherever they were, so Yoochun would do that while Changmin produced a bowl of water and Yunho searched. The images didn’t get any clearer, but he felt like they were on the right track. He didn’t know if that feeling was from his powers or from him just being eternally hopeful, but either way he wanted to believe it. They had to find Jaejoong.
~
They passed the night like that. Finally, they stopped in the early hours of the morning for a few hours of sleep. They found a cheap hotel that wouldn’t look too closely at four men arriving on foot and paying in cash.
There were only two beds in the room, but after everything else, sharing was the least of their worries. Yoochun called to let the handlers know of the stop and Yunho set the alarm clock to wake them up in four hours. It wasn’t much, but they’d had less.
Yunho was asleep before his head even hit the pillow.
~
He fell. Blood splattered from somewhere, dyeing his vision red. He tried to get up, had to keep running, but he couldn’t. He dropped to the ground, exhausted.
~
Yunho sat bolt upright, startling Junsu awake in the bed next to him. It took a minute of panting before he was able to form words, and by then Junsu had woken the other two. “He stopped. We have to go now.”
None of them questioned Yunho’s announcement, they just packed quickly and were out the door within minutes. Yunho didn’t even bother to consult any more visions. He may not have known exactly where Jaejoong was, but he knew where they had to look.
~
They stopped to rest yet again, and Yunho was sure they had to be close. How much farther could Jaejoong have made it by himself? The woods they’d entered felt familiar, the sound of the quietly murmuring river like something he’d heard a million times before. He had to be here somewhere.
Suddenly, Junsu froze like a hunting dog catching a scent. “I think I hear him.” He frowned. “He doesn’t sound good.”
Yunho strained his ears, trying to pick up some sound to go with Junsu’s telepathic find, but either Jaejoong was still too far for him or was making less than no noise. “Lead us to him.”
Junsu frowned again, and Yunho knew he’d been slightly unfair. Junsu’s powers didn’t work like a normal sense. There was no telling exactly which direction a thought came from. It just appeared in his head. But they could figure out a direction by process of elimination, given enough time, and that was all they had.
Eventually, Junsu gave in, closing his eyes tightly, brow furrowing in concentration. He took a step, then two, and frowned more, shaking his head before returning to where he’d started. He tried another direction, moving more confidently this time.
He led them toward the river, and Yunho’s heart sank.
~
Junsu’s range must have been greater than any of them imagined, because it took almost an hour to track Jaejoong down. When they found him, Yunho wished they hadn’t. He was fairly sure the others felt the same.
He must have pushed himself to his feet when he heard them approaching, because there was no way he’d been standing long, swaying like he was. He was fit, as they all were now, but he’d been running for who knew how long with no rest, and even after his body collapsed he obviously hadn’t slept. His arm no longer bled, but it was crusted with dried blood and gore from where he’d removed his tracker. A gash on his forehead still trickled blood into his eyes, and he looked like someone who’d spent the night in the woods. It was enough to make Yunho wish they hadn’t found him.
Yunho finally took a step toward him when it became apparent that none of the other three could move. “Jaejoong-ah.”
Jaejoong took an answering step back, and Yunho bit down the urge to lunge at him as it took him even closer to the river. “I’m not going back.”
“We have to-”
“No!” Jaejoong stepped back again, and Yunho heard one of the others shifting beside him. He didn’t dare look away, though. “I’m not going back. You’re never going to make me. You can’t. I know you can’t. I won’t go back to that, I won’t!”
Yunho heard Junsu choke behind him, the sound coming out tight and strangled, and right at that moment, Jaejoong took one step too many and the bank crumbled under his foot. He hit the water with a splash and a shout. Changmin cursed and was in after him in seconds. Yunho started to follow, but Yoochun grabbed his arm. “Help me with Junsu. Changmin can get him faster than any of us right now.”
He knew Yoochun was right but that didn’t make turning his back on the river any easier. Once he saw Junsu, he was glad he did, though. Junsu must have collapsed right before Jaejoong went into the river. His face was painfully pale and drawn, like he’d seen a ghost. Yoochun took one arm and Yunho the other and hauled him to his feet.
Junsu was shaking in their hold and muttering under his breath, but Yunho tried to tune that out and listen for any sound from Changmin. Of course it didn’t work. He gritted his teeth and tightened his grip on Junsu. “Come on.”
The trees and bushes didn’t grown too closely together right at the side of the river, like someone maintained it and wanted to be able to walk there. That was lucky for them. They followed the path of the river, watching for any sign of Changmin and Jaejoong. Nothing at all. They passed a small footbridge that soared over the water in a graceful arch, proving that at least someone came this way, and the path seemed to end, becoming harder and harder to pass through. Yunho helped Yoochun sit Junsu down and went on by himself.
Another few meters and he finally caught sight of something. The river widened here, but he thought he caught sight of two familiar figures just at the foot of trees on the other side. He raced back to where he’d left the other two, to find Junsu somewhat more himself and Yoochun looking infinitely relieved. “I think I spotted them. They’re on the other side.”
Still helping Junsu along, they went back to where they’d seen the bridge, crossing it carefully as it seemed to weave and sway under them, until finally they were on the opposite bank. Yunho took off, trusting them to follow.
He’d been right. He heard Changmin talking before he saw them, but then almost stumbled over them anyway. “Changmin! How is...”
He caught sight of Jaejoong’s almost deathly pale face. At least it answered his question. Changmin looked up, face almost as pale as Jaejoong’s. “Hyung, he hasn’t moved since I pulled him out. I don’t know if he’s-”
Yunho shook his head sharply, cutting Changmin off before he could even finish the thought. No sense thinking something bad like that into reality. “He’ll be fine.” He crouched next to them and Changmin easily moved back to give Yunho room to bend over Jaejoong. His pulse was still strong, if fast, and Changmin must have pulled any water out of his lungs because his breathing sounded fine.
He looked back up when Changmin jerked, automatically trying to shield Jaejoong, but Yunho put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s just Yoochun and Junsu.” He called out more loudly, knowing they couldn’t hear him as well as he could hear them. “We’re over here!”
A few moments later, the other two joined them in the now extremely cramped clearing. Junsu just looked at Jaejoong, and Yunho knew he was using his own powers to reassure himself that Jaejoong was still Jaejoong in there.
Yoochun was the one to voice what they were all thinking. “What do we do now?” It had seemed so clear cut just a few hours ago, but seeing Jaejoong and knowing what would happen if they took him back didn’t make it so easy. None of them were under any illusions about what the people in charge of the experiment were capable of.
Yoochun jumped when his pocket started ringing. His cell phone. Only one place had the phone number. Yunho sickly realized that two hours must have come and gone without them noticing. Yoochun turned away to answer it, speaking quickly and quietly. Eventually, he glanced back, eyes wide. “They want to know why we missed our call.”
Before any of them could answer, Junsu jumped up from where he’d been slumped against a tree, suddenly full of energy. He grabbed the phone from Yoochun’s stunned hand and chucked it as far as he could into the river.
Changmin was on his feet in a second, leaving Yunho with Jaejoong. “Junsu! How could you? They’ll-”
“They’ll kill us all, anyway!” Any composure Junsu had regained was gone in the wake of the phone call. “We can’t go back! I saw it, I saw what they were trying to make Jaejoong do, and I’m not going back to that. I’m not. You’re not taking him back, either.”
The other three shared uncertain glances. What were they supposed to say to that? With Jaejoong out of the picture, Changmin and Yoochun were the only two with offensive powers so there was no way Junsu could win that fight if it came to that. But did they want it to?
Yoochun found his voice first. “The trackers...”
“Jaejoong can deal with ours the same way he took care of his.” And if Junsu felt as sick over the thought as the rest of them, he didn’t show it. “If we keep moving, they can’t track us down right away, and when Jaejoong’s awake, he can take out the trackers and they won’t be able to find us at all! We can’t go back. We can’t. You didn’t see so you don’t know.”
Yunho sighed, pressing fingers to his eyes. This was all supposed to be so easy. What happened? “Let’s... let’s get out of the open and see if we can’t get Jaejoong warmed up. We’ll figure out what we’re doing from there.”
~
It took a few minutes for Changmin and Yunho to get Jaejoong settled on Yunho’s back in a way that wouldn’t stop them from getting through the undergrowth or risk Jaejoong falling off. Junsu and Yoochun were talking quietly by the time they were ready to set off, and they kept close to each other as the group set off into the woods.
When they finally found a suitable break in the trees, Jaejoong stirred slightly on Yunho’s back, groaning and trying to push himself away. It was easier to just lower him to the ground than try to keep him there when he was fighting, however weakly. Yoochun immediately started collecting twigs to build a fire. Junsu took one look at Jaejoong, flinched, and went to help him.
That left Yunho and Changmin alone with Jaejoong again. Changmin’s expression said he didn’t have any better idea of what to do than he did before Jaejoong woke up. Jaejoong’s hair had dried plastered to his forehead. Yunho brushed it back. “It’s okay, Jaejoong. We’re the only ones here. You’re still safe.”
Jaejoong’s eyes opened a slit but fell closed again almost immediately. His breathing deepened, and Yunho was fairly positive he was only sleeping now, not unconscious. That was good, at least.
Yoochun dropped an armful of sticks close to where they were setting. “Maybe if we get him warm, it’ll help.” Even if he and Changmin had mostly drip-dried by then. Yunho hoped Yoochun was right, anyway.
Changmin apparently had other ideas for what might help. He was watching Junsu hang back like a hawk watching a mouse. “What did you see?”
Junsu took an automatic step back which made Changmin all but growl in response. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, you keep saying there’s something bad but not what. If you want us to believe you, you’ll need to come up with something more than that.”
Yoochun didn’t look up from his fire. “It had to be pretty bad to make Jaejoong act like that.”
“We all knew Jaejoong was on edge, though.” Yunho hated playing devil’s advocate, but he didn’t think too fondly of being on the run for the rest of his life, either.
“But this was probably why!” Junsu ran a rough hand through his hair, then came to crouch close to Jaejoong. “They... His head’s all messed up, and his emotions are going haywire, but I think they were making him kill things.”
Yunho started. “People?”
“Not... not yet. I think. Maybe that was what made him run. Like I said, he’s all over the place. There’s just lots of death.” He dropped his head, fingers tightening on Jaejoong’s pants leg. “How long until they start making Changmin and Yoochun do that, too?”
Again, the other three exchanged glances, these ones more worried. It made sense, in a horrible sort of way. Jaejoong and Yoochun and Changmin would make amazing weapons, weapons that no one else in the world had, with Junsu and Yunho to keep them in line.
But there was no way to know for sure until Jaejoong woke up. If Junsu hadn’t gotten rid of the phone, they could have held their handlers off for a little while longer, but as it was, people were probably already looking for them. It was a no-win situation and they were out of time.
Yunho shook Jaejoong’s shoulders, waving the others away when they tried to stop him. “We need him awake to take out these trackers and tell us what the hell is going on. Otherwise we aren’t going to have any choices in the matter.”
He shook Jaejoong more violently until the other whimpered, jerking in his sleep, his lids slipping open to reveal dark, scared eyes. It broke Yunho’s heart, but it needed to happen. “Jaejoong. Jaejoong-ah. Wake up. You need to-” He cut himself short when Jaejoong shrunk back into himself. The only thing he’d said...
His resolve strengthened. Junsu had to be right if Jaejoong was reacting like that to any sort of command. “It’s okay, Joongie. I promise. We aren’t going back. But they can still follow our trackers. We need to get rid of ours like you did yours.”
He could tell when that sunk in because Junsu groaned, taking his hand away from Jaejoong’s leg to press to his own head. He could only imagine what Jaejoong’s head was like right now. “Please, Jaejoong.”
Jaejoong squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head violently. “Not hurting anyone.” He tried to slide away, but Changmin was there at his back. Yunho and Changmin looked at each other for a minute before Changmin pulled Jaejoong into a hug, whispering into his ear while Yunho turned to Junsu.
“Are you okay?” Yoochun had been studiously keeping his eyes glued to his fire, but now he looked up, echoing the question silently. Junsu just nodded. “If you’re sure.” Junsu nodded again. Yunho sighed, but if that was all he was going to get... “Yoochun?”
Yoochun laughed shortly and went back to poking his fire. “Yeah. Great.”
Yunho frowned but didn’t say anything in reply. He didn’t think anything was going to help any of them right at this moment. Although whatever Changmin had said to Jaejoong seemed to almost have worked. Jaejoong’s eyes were open, if staring bleakly at Changmin’s arm in his lap. Changmin caught Yunho looking at them and shrugged. He’d done what he could. Now Jaejoong had to decide.
The skin of Changmin’s arm rippled and bulged like there was an insect just under the surface trying to dig its way out. Changmin choked on a pained noise, turning his head away and biting down on his other hand to keep himself quiet, more for Jaejoong than anything. Eventually, the skin split with a horrible tearing sound and Changmin’s tracker dropped out onto the ground where it was suddenly crushed into dust.
Jaejoong, Yunho noticed belatedly, was crying.
~
It took an hour, a lot of coaxing, and two yelling matches to convince Jaejoong to do the rest of their trackers. The yelling had been between Junsu and Changmin and Junsu and Yoochun, respectively. Jaejoong hadn’t said a word.
Junsu had wanted to push Jaejoong harder, while Changmin, to everyone’s surprise and perhaps even his own, argued to let him stop if he wanted. Junsu preferred not to get caught and insisted that his go next, if only so he could leave them behind if he needed to. That started off Yoochun and Junsu’s shouting, which was also a surprise to all involved. In the end, Junsu had gone last, and Jaejoong had taken his own time through all of them. He never made a sound, only holding a hand out to each of them in turn while tears streamed silently down his cheeks.
Yunho wondered if perhaps they should have taken him back, only because he wasn’t sure Jaejoong was still there and it was as much their fault now as anybody’s.
Yoochun finished carefully cauterizing Junsu’s arm, frowning down at it before looking up at all of them. “Well, now that we all have conveniently identifying scars, what next?”
That... was a good question. “We still have some cash, and they can’t track us too easily, now. And they know two of us can watch for them, so they’ll have to be careful.” Not to mention, they knew what Jaejoong could do. Yunho wasn’t going to bring that up any time soon.
“This’ll be the last position they’ll have for us, so we should probably get moving.” Changmin was still at Jaejoong’s back and didn’t seem to have any plans to leave him alone. “Even without an exact location, they’ll find us here eventually.”
Yunho nodded and gestured for Yoochun to put out his fire. Junsu was still cradling his arm close to his body but seemed otherwise able to travel. Which left them with only one person to hold them back. “Can you walk?”
It took two more repetitions and Changmin repeating his words directly in Jaejoong’s ear to get a reaction. He stood, more or less steadily with a bit of help. Yunho bit down the desire to force Jaejoong to say something, if necessary. It wouldn’t solve anything, and they needed him at least mostly functional.
He took the front of their little procession, listening and watching for any sign that something may not be right. Changmin and Yoochun helped Jaejoong along, both of them ready at any moment to defend all of them. Junsu brought up the rear, and Yunho knew he’d be listening just as hard in his own way. They were all on-edge and paranoid now, knowing that there was no possible way they’d actually get away with this, but knowing they couldn’t just go back, either.
They were out of options and good solutions. All they could do was forge ahead.
~
Jaejoong decided their next camping spot for them. They’d been walking for what felt like days and was probably hours, following some sort of deer trail for the last half hour or so when they came to something that couldn’t be described as a clearing so much as a place where a tree could have been but wasn’t. The opening wasn’t even big enough for any light to escape the canopy overhead.
Jaejoong didn’t so much choose to stop walking as his legs chose to stop working. They folded under him and only Yoochun’s quick reaction stopped him from toppling face-first onto the exposed roots of the nearest tree. No amount of coaxing could get him moving again. It was as if the toll of using his powers to remove their trackers on top of everything else before that with only the miniscule amount of sleep and unconsciousness in the middle had finally won.
Changmin remained close to Jaejoong and the others set about finding what little food they could manage, thanks to Junsu’s extensive scout experience. After much discussion, they decided a fire was too risky when it might give them away. Junsu and Yunho agreed to split watches. The other two protested but couldn’t argue that Junsu and Yunho were the best equipped for early warning.
Junsu took first watch. He shook Yunho awake in the dark, cold hours before dawn, shivering a bit as he forced his way into the space between Yoochun and Changmin. Where Jaejoong should have been. When Yunho frowned, worry building, Junsu just shrugged and nodded his head to a darker lump against the base of the trees.
Yunho sighed and made his way over. It was as good a place to keep watch as any. “You’re supposed to be sleeping.” He kept his voice down to not wake the sleepers, but sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with Jaejoong, he was sure the other heard him.
Whether he would answer or not was another question. Yunho was about to write it off as a no when Jaejoong leaned slightly against him. “Can’t.”
Yunho turned to look in Jaejoong’s direction, but the darkness kept him from seeing much more than his outline. “Why?”
Jaejoong shivered and Yunho knew it wasn’t from the cold but wrapped an arm around him anyway. “I keep... dreaming. But they’re not dreams.”
“Memories?” Jaejoong nodded, Yunho feeling the movement against his shoulder. When there was no further answer forthcoming, Yunho pressed a bit more. “Junsu said he saw what they were making you do. Why we can’t go back.”
Jaejoong shivered again, more violently, and Yunho couldn’t help feeling guilty. “They’re making an army. We’re the test subjects, but they’ll keep making more and more. How do you defend against someone who can tear your heart out?”
Yunho clenched his jaw, pure hatred simmering up from somewhere in his gut. They’d known the experiment was risky when they signed up. They knew it would be long, but they thought they’d be doing something good for the world, not just becoming new ways to hurt and kill each other. To find they’d been used like that, and not even told about it, not even when one of them was being all but tortured to that end... “We’ll find a way to get them stopped. I don’t know how, but I promise we will.”
Jaejoong didn’t bother to nod. Why should he, when Yunho didn’t even believe himself? “They said... we were an accident. I mean, they knew what they were trying to make, but it had never worked before. People always went crazy, or their powers were useless.” Yunho heard him sniffle and tightened his hold. “I think I’m going crazy, Yunho.”
“You aren’t.” That, Yunho believed. He believed it as fiercely and as completely as he’d ever believed anything in his life. “We won’t let you.”
Jaejoong immediately shook his head. “All I can do is hurt people. Yoochun can keep people warm, and Changmin can save them from drowning, and Junsu could... could be a psychologist or something, and you could, I don’t know, find lost children, and why am I the only one that can only do bad things?”
Yunho gave up on sitting next to Jaejoong and pulled him into a hug, but Jaejoong still wasn’t done. “I killed people, Yunho. People we see every day. I know their names, and they probably had families, and I killed one of the doctors, too, did they tell you that? He was bringing in this cat, because we started with bugs, and then fish, and then a snake, and he was bringing in this cat and I was supposed to kill it and they’d have a perfect assassin that could stop a heart in someone’s chest, and I can’t do that, Yunho, I can’t!”
He let Jaejoong talk until the words became sobs, fingers combing through his hair in what had to be empty comfort because there was no way to soothe what hurt Jaejoong. He heard movement and soon the other three had joined them. They’d been sleeping not too feet away, how could this not have woken them up?
Yunho held out one hand to them. Changmin was the first to accept. Easily clasping Yunho’s hand for a moment before finding his now-customary place at Jaejoong’s back. Yoochun and Junsu took a second longer, but soon the four of them had closed ranks around their suffering fifth.
They’d started as strangers, and then slowly became friends and something more. Now, Yunho couldn’t imagine calling them anything but family. The experiments, however horrific in the end, had brought them together, and now their only choice was to use what they’d gained to fight for what had been taken from them.
Jaejoong fell into a restless sleep, half sprawled in Changmin’s lap, head cradled on Yunho’s shoulder, fingers twined with Yoochun and Junsu on either side. They would have to talk in the morning, but Yunho knew their choices without even having to ask. They’d do whatever it took, to stop the experiments, to stop others suffering at the hands of people who only saw the outcome but not the means. They’d fight to regain themselves and their lives and everything they’d lost.
But he knew they’d fight for Jaejoong most of all.
This entry was originally posted at http://envious-muses.dreamwidth.org/12558.html.