Acts of Insurrection (2/20)
Title: Acts of Insurrection (2/20)
Authors: butterflyweb and nemesis_cry
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: OT5
Warning(s): violence, graphic sex, language
Summary: It's been six months since Changmin crashed on the remote planet known as Elysia. Five months since Yunho and Junsu found him. Four months since Jaejoong was shot by a man he and Yoochun both trusted. Now training as the Empress' men, former soldiers and former rebels have shed past allegiances in service of a common goal. But the tide is turning--and not in their favor.
Banner credit: luvmeanddespair
A/N: Thank you for all your wonderful feedback for chapter one. We hope you enjoy this one!)
Prequel: Acts of Contrition
Acts of Insurrection: One
Chapter Two
The black surrounds him, thick like a blanket. His eyes adjust to it difficultly. They're keeping radio silence, which makes him more uneasy than anything else. Yoochun's playful banter does more for his concentration than any speech from anyone, than any duty he may feel. Of course, on the Cerberus and everywhere, he's Jiexi's servant. If she asks him to kill, he'll kill. If she asks him to fly... he'll try.
Yunho's fighter takes a dip and they're set to follow. Simple maneuvers, Jaejoong can do. It's the unexpected he can't deal with. And trust Yunho to train them harder than he did his Guard friends.
Unable to stop his gaze from sliding to Jaejoong's fighter, Yoochun inhales sharply, playing mimic to Yunho's movements, at ease in the pilot's seat. An ease he knows Jaejoong does not feel and it's throwing off his concentration. He keeps looking to his side, expecting to see Jae there, like he always does, manning the guns in their two person craft. But Her Majesty's ship did not include fighters of the old make, strictly single cockpit. Saving on space, increasing maneuverability and separating Yoochun from his partner without thought or remorse.
Frustration hums in his veins. He has never felt substandard as a pilot until being asked to fly as one with his lovers. Changmin is daring, reckless, his actions flirting with a loss of control but never quiet reaching it. Junsu is hard angles and stubborn determination, while Yunho's movements carry an almost liquid grace. He feels like a bumbling amateur in a too-fragile craft, constantly playing catch up, and he knows Jaejoong shares his frustration.
There's no need to learn complicated formations for their makeshift squadron, Yunho has granted them that much reprieve from the rigor of military standards. They're guerrilla fighters, they're to be alert at all times, always ready to react, always keeping an escape plan in mind.
Jaejoong almost keeps up. Almost.
Changmin's fighter makes a ninety degree turn and flips over. Changmin never breaks formation.
Changming never shoots on his own people either, so what the fuck is he doing?
The silver, unmarked craft fires two volleys, aiming them straight for Yunho's position. Though he can't see Yunho from his cockpit, he can see the radar.
And Yunho blinks off.
"Shit," Yoochun breathes, startled and panicked as their leader suddnely disappears from the radar. "What the fuck just happened?" The question is unconsciously asked aloud, but there is no Jaejoong there to answer him and Yoochun swears, breaking comm silence with a tense, "Jae. Did you see that?"
"Fuck... fuck, what the hell is he doing?"
Another volley flies over his craft, dangerously close. Changmin's turned to firing on the rest of the squadron.
"Changmin!" Predictably, there is no response beyond what Yoochun is screaming into his ear piece, what his radar is telling him.
Junsu's craft is next to blink off.
"Son of a bitch," he chokes, pulling up at a hard, desperate angle, praying for Jaejoong to follow him. Flicking shields into place, raising proton turrents and letting the target screen click into place over his eyes. He can't believe what just happened, won't believe it, but his body works on autopilot, focused on one thing: hovering over Jaejoong's wing like an archangel, ready to blast the fuck out of anything that threatens them.
Even if… if it's their own lover.
"Goddamit, Jae, talk to him!"
Repeated efforts to reach Changmin are either ignored or unheard.
Falling into defensive manoeuvres, Jaejoong switches to his weapons and swears under his breath. "He's not answering!" And he wouldn't be. What is he doing? Shooting at his own people, shooting at Yunho, of all people? Hands shake as he grips the controls for balance. It doesn't mean he's ready to shoot, not by far.
There's got to be some technical malfunction in Changmin's craft. A Guard spy planted something aboard the fighter. Something has to explain this. Something other than betrayal, that disgusting, sour word that makes bile rise in his mouth.
"Where is he? Yoochun... where..." The radar is useless. Yoochun's report and Changmin's just merged. Even if he could get his mind, his hands to carry out the necessary action, he couldn't risk it. What the fuck? How-how did this happen? His lovers, people he's slept with, he's kissed... how can Changmin do this?
"Stay with me, Jaejoong," Yoochun orders him in a shaking voice. "Don't leave my side, do you fucking hear me?" He won't lose them all to whatever demon's possessed Changmin's mind or craft.
"I can't fucking see you!" Jaejoong yells, adrenaline and panic pumping through him. His electronics are not responding, his mind is not responding, he feels like he's about to choke and what the hell... Changmin--Changmin loves them. He wouldn't…. This morning, when he kissed Yunho's shoulder, did he know? When he played with Jae's hair...
His radar must be lying. His craft has just blinked off, as if dead.
In his ear piece, Yoochun is screaming.
His fists hit the controls, the unbreakable glass of the cockpit, hammering in fury and betrayal and fucking loss and he'll kill him. He'll murder him. Yoochun flips the craft, tearing towards Changmin's blip on the screen. Guns at the ready, wanting to fire on him, wanting to let his fight rip him apart like tissue paper but he pulls up at the last second. Cowardice, weakness in his heart and he can't kill him cause he's all he has left and dimly, he realizes he's still screaming.
"Yoochun." Yunho's tone is unmistakably clear and strong and not dead. "Pull up thirty degrees north."
Jaejoong hears it even as his own comlink refuses to connect to the radio frequency. He's sure he's dreaming. Dying. Maybe this is what being dead feels like. Watching the ones you love from above.
"Yoochun, destroy that fucking ship and you'll be giving my sidearm a blowjob!"
Something about the tone, surreal as it is, impossible as it is, breaks through the rage and grief warring in him, body obeying almost mechanically. Yoochun can't think, can only follow orders given in a dead man's voice, Jaejoong's name spilling from his lips in a ceaseless litany.
Radars come back to life slowly. Fighters that went down are revived, along with an error message about his weapons systems.
"That was a simulation," Yunho's voice continues to drone on - even if it can't be, even if he's supposed to be dead--"and congratulations. You've failed."
His own breathing is heavy in his ears, mind registering the words slowly, relief warring with rage. He watches the blips on the screen circle, palms sweaty on the controls. He needs to get the fuck out of this cockpit before he suffocates. Simulation. A fucking simulation. That bastard.
They make it back to the Cerberus somehow, he doesn't know how. It isn't like his body's responding to his mind, the controls to his hands. It's all fucked up and how could Yunho do this? He's sure his heart is somewhere in his throat, maybe that's why he can't breathe properly.
The engines are barely off before he's stumbling out of the cockpit, throwing his helmet aside and pinning Yunho with a hard glare.
Where Jaejoong is ice and stone-faced fury, Yoochun is heat and rage and noise, boots scraping over the floor of the hangar as he clutches Yunho by the collar of his flight suit, pushing him back into his fighter.
"You fucking cunt," he hisses, eyes rimmed in red even as he spits venom. "How dare you?"
How dare you making me lose you all for the sake of a fucking game?
Yunho arches an eyebrow, but all call demeanor is a facade when his jaw clenches. He understands. He expected this. He can't blame them. Changmin and Junsu know the old song and dance. These boys don't. It isn't their fault. But he won't apologize.
Junsu tries instead. "We couldn't know ahead of time... Yoochun, let him go."
His head snaps to face the younger man. "Shut up. Is this what you learned in your fucking Guard? Your little war games? Is that it?"
"Did you forget what happened on Elysia?" Yunho asks, insinuating a hand between their bodies, not pushing but rather tugging Yoochun's flightsuit close. Yunho doesn't want this job. Never did. "Did you forget what happened to Jaejoong? Imagine Gun Il in a craft, shooting at you with a hundred plasma guns instead of one."
Yoochun bites down on his tongue until he feels copper flood his mouth, eyes blazing against the other man's steady gaze. "You took him from me," he chokes, clenching the fabric between his fingers. "You took...you knew and you..."
Logic doesn't apply here, nor a greater cause and maybe that makes him weak in Yunho's eyes; a piss-poor solider. But goddamnit, he can't separate head from heart, no matter how much he tries.
Clapping hands startle the silence before Yunho can reply.
"Great job," the Empress compliments, army boots beating a steady rhythm as she walks by their returned crafts. Ceremony is a thing of the past. She doesn't expect them to kneel or they'll never get anything done. Doesn't mean her presence doesn't still startle them all into silence.
She leans her head against Yoochun's fighter, as if listening for a sound, listening for a voice from within heated steel. The effect is oddly unsettling. "That was great flying. How are they progressing?" Her eyes are riveted to Yunho's form, as if she can't see Yoochun's murderous expression, or perhaps as if she doesn't care.
And if the Empress says it's okay, then it's okay. She knows best.
"Our debriefing..."
"...wasn't until later, yes, I know." Jiexi anticipates without caring that she's interrupting. She's not in the Guard anymore, submitting to her Captain. She's on her ship, dealing with her men. "How will I convince you to take control of my whole fleet, Yunho, hmm? What should I bribe you with?"
Yoochun drops his hands from the fabric he's wound into his fists, shaking slightly with the fierceness of his anger. He tries to hold his tongue in her presence, to not have the audacity to interrupt her, but strong emotion tears reason and protocol from his grasp.
"Your Majesty, I...I need a co-piloted ship. I can't..." he falters, losing his nerve.
"Do you see any co-piloted ships around here, Yoochun?" She may not be cruel to her followers, but she is curt. Clicking her tongue like a child, she scampers off, hands in the pockets of her oversized leather jacket. "You're a skilled pilot. You all are. Can't afford not to use you."
He falls into momentary silence at that, fingernails digging into his palms before he looks up to meet Yunho's eyes. "You said I failed. What would success have been?" The words are laced with vitriol.
"Shooting down the enemy," comes the cold, detached reply. This is the only way Yunho gets through war. Yoochun knows this; he's seen it before. It doesn't sweeten the blow any less. After all, what he means is: shooting down Changmin.
Yoochun lifts his chin, meeting black eyes with his own. "Then I will fail. And continue to fail." He takes a step back, reaching blindly for Jaejoong's hand. "I'm not a traitor."
"You missed the point of the simulation then." Yunho shrugs, brushing past them on his way to follow Jiexi. "Changmin was the traitor. You were just fighting for Her Majesty." And you failed.
He winds his fingers in Jaejoong's, staring straight ahead as Yunho leaves them. The words hover on the tip of his tongue, unspoken because they're wrong, they're not what they're supposed to be.
I fight for those I love first. Always.
Authors: butterflyweb and nemesis_cry
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: OT5
Warning(s): violence, graphic sex, language
Summary: It's been six months since Changmin crashed on the remote planet known as Elysia. Five months since Yunho and Junsu found him. Four months since Jaejoong was shot by a man he and Yoochun both trusted. Now training as the Empress' men, former soldiers and former rebels have shed past allegiances in service of a common goal. But the tide is turning--and not in their favor.
Banner credit: luvmeanddespair
A/N: Thank you for all your wonderful feedback for chapter one. We hope you enjoy this one!)
Prequel: Acts of Contrition
Acts of Insurrection: One
Chapter Two
The black surrounds him, thick like a blanket. His eyes adjust to it difficultly. They're keeping radio silence, which makes him more uneasy than anything else. Yoochun's playful banter does more for his concentration than any speech from anyone, than any duty he may feel. Of course, on the Cerberus and everywhere, he's Jiexi's servant. If she asks him to kill, he'll kill. If she asks him to fly... he'll try.
Yunho's fighter takes a dip and they're set to follow. Simple maneuvers, Jaejoong can do. It's the unexpected he can't deal with. And trust Yunho to train them harder than he did his Guard friends.
Unable to stop his gaze from sliding to Jaejoong's fighter, Yoochun inhales sharply, playing mimic to Yunho's movements, at ease in the pilot's seat. An ease he knows Jaejoong does not feel and it's throwing off his concentration. He keeps looking to his side, expecting to see Jae there, like he always does, manning the guns in their two person craft. But Her Majesty's ship did not include fighters of the old make, strictly single cockpit. Saving on space, increasing maneuverability and separating Yoochun from his partner without thought or remorse.
Frustration hums in his veins. He has never felt substandard as a pilot until being asked to fly as one with his lovers. Changmin is daring, reckless, his actions flirting with a loss of control but never quiet reaching it. Junsu is hard angles and stubborn determination, while Yunho's movements carry an almost liquid grace. He feels like a bumbling amateur in a too-fragile craft, constantly playing catch up, and he knows Jaejoong shares his frustration.
There's no need to learn complicated formations for their makeshift squadron, Yunho has granted them that much reprieve from the rigor of military standards. They're guerrilla fighters, they're to be alert at all times, always ready to react, always keeping an escape plan in mind.
Jaejoong almost keeps up. Almost.
Changmin's fighter makes a ninety degree turn and flips over. Changmin never breaks formation.
Changming never shoots on his own people either, so what the fuck is he doing?
The silver, unmarked craft fires two volleys, aiming them straight for Yunho's position. Though he can't see Yunho from his cockpit, he can see the radar.
And Yunho blinks off.
"Shit," Yoochun breathes, startled and panicked as their leader suddnely disappears from the radar. "What the fuck just happened?" The question is unconsciously asked aloud, but there is no Jaejoong there to answer him and Yoochun swears, breaking comm silence with a tense, "Jae. Did you see that?"
"Fuck... fuck, what the hell is he doing?"
Another volley flies over his craft, dangerously close. Changmin's turned to firing on the rest of the squadron.
"Changmin!" Predictably, there is no response beyond what Yoochun is screaming into his ear piece, what his radar is telling him.
Junsu's craft is next to blink off.
"Son of a bitch," he chokes, pulling up at a hard, desperate angle, praying for Jaejoong to follow him. Flicking shields into place, raising proton turrents and letting the target screen click into place over his eyes. He can't believe what just happened, won't believe it, but his body works on autopilot, focused on one thing: hovering over Jaejoong's wing like an archangel, ready to blast the fuck out of anything that threatens them.
Even if… if it's their own lover.
"Goddamit, Jae, talk to him!"
Repeated efforts to reach Changmin are either ignored or unheard.
Falling into defensive manoeuvres, Jaejoong switches to his weapons and swears under his breath. "He's not answering!" And he wouldn't be. What is he doing? Shooting at his own people, shooting at Yunho, of all people? Hands shake as he grips the controls for balance. It doesn't mean he's ready to shoot, not by far.
There's got to be some technical malfunction in Changmin's craft. A Guard spy planted something aboard the fighter. Something has to explain this. Something other than betrayal, that disgusting, sour word that makes bile rise in his mouth.
"Where is he? Yoochun... where..." The radar is useless. Yoochun's report and Changmin's just merged. Even if he could get his mind, his hands to carry out the necessary action, he couldn't risk it. What the fuck? How-how did this happen? His lovers, people he's slept with, he's kissed... how can Changmin do this?
"Stay with me, Jaejoong," Yoochun orders him in a shaking voice. "Don't leave my side, do you fucking hear me?" He won't lose them all to whatever demon's possessed Changmin's mind or craft.
"I can't fucking see you!" Jaejoong yells, adrenaline and panic pumping through him. His electronics are not responding, his mind is not responding, he feels like he's about to choke and what the hell... Changmin--Changmin loves them. He wouldn't…. This morning, when he kissed Yunho's shoulder, did he know? When he played with Jae's hair...
His radar must be lying. His craft has just blinked off, as if dead.
In his ear piece, Yoochun is screaming.
His fists hit the controls, the unbreakable glass of the cockpit, hammering in fury and betrayal and fucking loss and he'll kill him. He'll murder him. Yoochun flips the craft, tearing towards Changmin's blip on the screen. Guns at the ready, wanting to fire on him, wanting to let his fight rip him apart like tissue paper but he pulls up at the last second. Cowardice, weakness in his heart and he can't kill him cause he's all he has left and dimly, he realizes he's still screaming.
"Yoochun." Yunho's tone is unmistakably clear and strong and not dead. "Pull up thirty degrees north."
Jaejoong hears it even as his own comlink refuses to connect to the radio frequency. He's sure he's dreaming. Dying. Maybe this is what being dead feels like. Watching the ones you love from above.
"Yoochun, destroy that fucking ship and you'll be giving my sidearm a blowjob!"
Something about the tone, surreal as it is, impossible as it is, breaks through the rage and grief warring in him, body obeying almost mechanically. Yoochun can't think, can only follow orders given in a dead man's voice, Jaejoong's name spilling from his lips in a ceaseless litany.
Radars come back to life slowly. Fighters that went down are revived, along with an error message about his weapons systems.
"That was a simulation," Yunho's voice continues to drone on - even if it can't be, even if he's supposed to be dead--"and congratulations. You've failed."
His own breathing is heavy in his ears, mind registering the words slowly, relief warring with rage. He watches the blips on the screen circle, palms sweaty on the controls. He needs to get the fuck out of this cockpit before he suffocates. Simulation. A fucking simulation. That bastard.
They make it back to the Cerberus somehow, he doesn't know how. It isn't like his body's responding to his mind, the controls to his hands. It's all fucked up and how could Yunho do this? He's sure his heart is somewhere in his throat, maybe that's why he can't breathe properly.
The engines are barely off before he's stumbling out of the cockpit, throwing his helmet aside and pinning Yunho with a hard glare.
Where Jaejoong is ice and stone-faced fury, Yoochun is heat and rage and noise, boots scraping over the floor of the hangar as he clutches Yunho by the collar of his flight suit, pushing him back into his fighter.
"You fucking cunt," he hisses, eyes rimmed in red even as he spits venom. "How dare you?"
How dare you making me lose you all for the sake of a fucking game?
Yunho arches an eyebrow, but all call demeanor is a facade when his jaw clenches. He understands. He expected this. He can't blame them. Changmin and Junsu know the old song and dance. These boys don't. It isn't their fault. But he won't apologize.
Junsu tries instead. "We couldn't know ahead of time... Yoochun, let him go."
His head snaps to face the younger man. "Shut up. Is this what you learned in your fucking Guard? Your little war games? Is that it?"
"Did you forget what happened on Elysia?" Yunho asks, insinuating a hand between their bodies, not pushing but rather tugging Yoochun's flightsuit close. Yunho doesn't want this job. Never did. "Did you forget what happened to Jaejoong? Imagine Gun Il in a craft, shooting at you with a hundred plasma guns instead of one."
Yoochun bites down on his tongue until he feels copper flood his mouth, eyes blazing against the other man's steady gaze. "You took him from me," he chokes, clenching the fabric between his fingers. "You took...you knew and you..."
Logic doesn't apply here, nor a greater cause and maybe that makes him weak in Yunho's eyes; a piss-poor solider. But goddamnit, he can't separate head from heart, no matter how much he tries.
Clapping hands startle the silence before Yunho can reply.
"Great job," the Empress compliments, army boots beating a steady rhythm as she walks by their returned crafts. Ceremony is a thing of the past. She doesn't expect them to kneel or they'll never get anything done. Doesn't mean her presence doesn't still startle them all into silence.
She leans her head against Yoochun's fighter, as if listening for a sound, listening for a voice from within heated steel. The effect is oddly unsettling. "That was great flying. How are they progressing?" Her eyes are riveted to Yunho's form, as if she can't see Yoochun's murderous expression, or perhaps as if she doesn't care.
And if the Empress says it's okay, then it's okay. She knows best.
"Our debriefing..."
"...wasn't until later, yes, I know." Jiexi anticipates without caring that she's interrupting. She's not in the Guard anymore, submitting to her Captain. She's on her ship, dealing with her men. "How will I convince you to take control of my whole fleet, Yunho, hmm? What should I bribe you with?"
Yoochun drops his hands from the fabric he's wound into his fists, shaking slightly with the fierceness of his anger. He tries to hold his tongue in her presence, to not have the audacity to interrupt her, but strong emotion tears reason and protocol from his grasp.
"Your Majesty, I...I need a co-piloted ship. I can't..." he falters, losing his nerve.
"Do you see any co-piloted ships around here, Yoochun?" She may not be cruel to her followers, but she is curt. Clicking her tongue like a child, she scampers off, hands in the pockets of her oversized leather jacket. "You're a skilled pilot. You all are. Can't afford not to use you."
He falls into momentary silence at that, fingernails digging into his palms before he looks up to meet Yunho's eyes. "You said I failed. What would success have been?" The words are laced with vitriol.
"Shooting down the enemy," comes the cold, detached reply. This is the only way Yunho gets through war. Yoochun knows this; he's seen it before. It doesn't sweeten the blow any less. After all, what he means is: shooting down Changmin.
Yoochun lifts his chin, meeting black eyes with his own. "Then I will fail. And continue to fail." He takes a step back, reaching blindly for Jaejoong's hand. "I'm not a traitor."
"You missed the point of the simulation then." Yunho shrugs, brushing past them on his way to follow Jiexi. "Changmin was the traitor. You were just fighting for Her Majesty." And you failed.
He winds his fingers in Jaejoong's, staring straight ahead as Yunho leaves them. The words hover on the tip of his tongue, unspoken because they're wrong, they're not what they're supposed to be.
I fight for those I love first. Always.