My first attempt at writing a multi-part. I have a feeling that this has been done many times before, but this is my take on it, and I hope it turns out okay - the boys have super powers.
Title: The Sound of Flight - Part I
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Dong Bang Shin Ki
Pairing(s): OT5
Disclaimer: The boys do not belong to me. This is also nothing but pure fiction.
All parts:
Part I |
Part II |
Part III |
Interlude |
Part IV Part V |
Part VI |
Part VII |
Part VIII (final) The Sound of Flight
Part I
"Get into the car," Yoochun says stiffly, staring straight ahead, hands tightly gripping the steering wheel. The storm clouds have been hanging overhead for the longest time, but the rain has yet to come, leaving the air stagnant and humid.
Changmin kicks at the gravel road and ignores Yoochun.
Yoochun turns furiously, grinding his teeth as he mentally tells himself not to scream. "Did you hear me?" he demands. "Changmin, get in the bloody car right now. Please don't make me force you."
Changmin stares at him unblinkingly, arms crossed. Yoochun wonders if those are heat waves rising from the ground, blurring the air around Changmin's feet. After a long moment, Changmin gets into the car, slamming the door shut. Yoochun starts to drive. "You're a pain, you know that?" Yoochun says after a minute of silence.
They both don't look at each other, both staring straight ahead at the endless stretch of road ahead of them.
"I don't care," Changmin answers.
When Yoochun finally looks over at the passenger seat, Changmin has fallen asleep, and they are ten minutes away from their destination.
"Oh, thank god," Yunho says, when he sees the car pulling in through the window. By the time he unlocks the door and takes the steps down two at a time, Yoochun is already getting out of the car. Yunho can see Changmin in the passenger seat, head rested against the window, eyes shut.
"He fell asleep," Yoochun says, as Yunho folds him into a brief hug. Yunho lets go of Yoochun, smiles, "I'll wake him up. Junsu and Jaejoong are inside. We can't stay here for too long - "
Yoochun nods before running up the front steps into the house, tossing the car keys from hand to hand. He turns around to see Yunho opening the car door, and running fingers down the side of Changmin's face, speaking too quietly for Yoochun to hear. In that split second, he feels like a voyeur and a flush starts rising from his neck to his face.
"You found him."
Junsu has his hands full of duffel bags, and he's grinning.
Yoochun eyes the bags critically. "Junsu," he says slowly. "What did the three of you do when I was looking for Changmin?"
Junsu's grin freezes on his face and then fades away. He dumps the bags onto the ground, and crouches down to unzip one of them. Yoochun's jaw goes slack when he sees the bundles of cash, tied together by rubber bands, stacked on top of each other haphazardly. The sight of so much money makes Yoochun dizzy.
"Holy shit," Yoochun breathes when Junsu zips up the bag again. "What did you do?"
Junsu raises a finger to his lips. A secret, he mouths and a ball of fire rotates in his other hand before disappearing in a split second. "Hold the door open for me, will you? I need to put this in the car."
Yoochun opens the door, and Junsu carries the bags down the stairs, stepping sideways to give way to Yunho and Changmin. Changmin grabs Yunho's arm the moment he sees Junsu. "Hyung," Changmin's voice is tense. "What's in those bags?"
Yunho looks uncomfortable as he locks the door behind him. "While you two were gone - " he trails off when Jaejoong appears in the corridor.
"We stole some money," Jaejoong fills in the blank, his face expressionless. There's a brittle moment of silence, and then Jaejoong smiles. "Dinner is ready."
Junsu remembers the first time he killed someone. He was twelve, watching the man who had hit his brother roll around on the floor in front of him, flames licking at his clothes, his body. A part of him thought he deserves this for hurting my brother, and the other part of him thought I am a murderer.
The police arrived to find two young boys crouched in the corner of the room, and the charred corpse of a man lying on burnt carpet.
Four months later, he was taken from home to a place where they promised he'd meet other people like him. There, he met Yunho, who could bend metal rods and lift a car with one hand, and he finally saw himself reflected in someone else, powerful and terrified.
"They'll get us in the end," Changmin says tightly. "They'll find us and make us go back. They'll make us do horrible things." He shudders uncontrollably, memories flickering into his mind like images from film-strip. Jaejoong breathes warm puffs of air against Changmin's right ear, hands rubbing the tension out of Changmin's shoulders.
"Don't be silly," Jaejoong says lightly. Changmin watches a bottle of water sail across the room into the hand that Jaejoong stretches out. Opposite them, Junsu whispers show off, and Changmin smiles as Jaejoong unscrews the bottle cap without using his hands.
The cap flies towards Junsu and smacks him in the middle of his forehead. Junsu yelps, and hurls the cap at Jaejoong. It never hits Jaejoong, because Jaejoong sees it coming and the cap makes a swift turn in mid-air and hits the wall instead.
"Stop it," Yunho says. There's a resounding clap of thunder and finally, it starts to rain. "We have to leave soon, we better - "
Before he can complete the sentence, Changmin is on his feet, a fist pressed against the knot of pain in his chest. "They're coming, they're coming," he breathes. They grab their belongings, abandon the house and tumble into the car, dripping wet and panting.
Yoochun starts up the car, and turns into the main road, swiping at his face with his damp sleeve. "Fuck, how close are they?"
In the back-seat, trapped between Junsu and Jaejoong, Changmin wrings his fingers together. "I don't know, all I can feel is our panic - " He breaks off, and squeezes his eyes shut, eyebrows knitted together in concentration. "We are a good distance ahead," he says finally. "I'm not absolutely sure, but I think we're safe for now."
Junsu exhales, letting the bag he's holding fall onto the floor of the car. "So where do we go now?"
In the passenger seat, Yunho unfolds the map, making wet spots on the paper with his fingers.
Changmin tunes out the sound of Yoochun and Yunho's voices as they discuss where to go, and stares at the window, the raindrops skating down the glass like tears, and wishes as hard as he can that one day, they can stop running away.
Jaejoong takes his hand.
Changmin looks at him, and warmth fills him from the inside. He doesn't quite know what to say when he identifies the feeling as affection. He tries to project the feeling back to Jaejoong, and feels Jaejoong's hand tightens around his. He can feel the low throb of panic and anxiety from Junsu on his other side, and focuses on projecting this warm feeling in his chest to Junsu.
Startled, Junsu turns to stare at Changmin. "You can do that now?" he says incredulously.
"I've been trying," Changmin says, and he feels oddly accomplished. "I think I can send now too."
"Our baby is growing up," Jaejoong coos, and Changmin hits him, glad that Jaejoong can only control inanimate objects and can't do anything about the half-hearted punches that Changmin rains on him.
They check into the hotel, paying in cash.
They get two rooms with a connecting door, Jaejoong and Yunho taking one room, and the younger three taking the other. After losing at rock paper scissors, Yoochun has to take the sofa, while Changmin and Junsu get into the double bed, kicking at each other beneath the blanket.
"I hate the two of you," Yoochun says, as he throws the extra blanket and pillow onto the sofa. "I really hate the two of you." He resists the overwhelming urge to just make one of them give up their space on the bed, and kicks angrily at the wall like a spoilt child.
From the bed, Junsu blows kisses at him.
In the middle of the night, Changmin wakes up to find Junsu's hands wandering up the front of his shirt. "Junsu," Changmin gasps.
"Be quiet," Junsu mumbles, rolling on top of Changmin.
Changmin can hear Yoochun's soft snoring from across the room, and raises a fist to his mouth to keep from making noises. Junsu bucks against him, and desire bleeds from him into Changmin. Junsu kisses him, inserting a knee between Changmin's legs, forcing them apart. His hands find Changmin's in the dark, and he pins Changmin's wrists onto the bed.
Changmin twists beneath Junsu, pushing upwards to bite him on the collarbone. Junsu presses him back down, forehead to forehead, their breaths warm and moist between their mouths. Junsu shifts, their hips fitting together beneath the tangle of blanket, and Changmin bites down on his lower lip to keep from crying out.
Junsu is hot, unnaturally hot, and Changmin starts to sweat uncontrollably.
"Junsu," he whispers, panting. "Are you going burn me?"
Junsu's eyes glow in the dark, nocturnal animal eyes blinking at him. "It'll be okay," he promises, kissing Changmin again, his hands moving downwards and finding where Changmin wants him the most, and making magic that his gift cannot.
Jaejoong's sisters were the ones who noticed that something was not right with their brother. They told their parents, Jaejoong can make things move without using his hands, but they thought it was just a joke.
Jaejoong can make books fall off the shelves onto our heads when he's mad at us, his sisters claim. Jaejoong can make doors open and close without standing up. Jaejoong is different.
It wasn't until his parents walked into his room to find him sitting on his bed, his books floating around like little planets in the galaxy, suspended in mid-air, spinning and rotating around Jaejoong, that they realised that Jaejoong was special.
After a few months, they came for Jaejoong - the men in the black suits. They told him they were taking him to a special place for special people like him. His parents smiled, and told him it was all going to be okay, and so Jaejoong left with them. You have to learn how to control your gift, they told him, if not you might make terrible things happen without meaning to. Jaejoong remembered the time the mirror in the bathroom shattered when he was angry, and the time a chair flew up and hit his friend in the eye when Jaejoong got jealous.
At the Academy, he met Yunho who could throw a car across a field, and Junsu who could set things on fire, and since then, he has never seen his family again. Now, six years later, they're on the run.
Running away from a nightmare, running towards freedom.
Yunho's vision adjusts to the sunlight streaming in from the crack between the curtains. Next to him, Jaejoong is curled on his side, still asleep. Yunho brushes the back of his hand down Jaejoong's face, the skin warm and smooth to the touch, and snatches his hand back before he does something stupid. He gets out of bed, opens the connecting door and finds Yoochun staring back at him, shocked.
"Morning," Yunho says, finding his voice first.
Yoochun smiles. "Morning," he pauses before adding, "I heard the two of them together last night." Yunho's gaze snaps to two people sleeping on the double bed. Changmin's arm is thrown over Junsu's shoulder, their feet locked together at the ankle, like entwining plants, growing and knotting into each other.
Yunho doesn't quite know what to say to this. Junsu - the person he's known long for the longest them, the one he'll give up his life for - is sleeping with Changmin - the person that Yunho desperately wants to figure out and refuses to admit he wants. Yunho doesn't know where he goes in that equation, and he doesn't even know what the equation is.
Yoochun is watching him. Yoochun notices things - Yoochun probably knows what's going through Yunho's mind. It's disconcerting but Yunho notches his chin upwards anyway and pretends nothing is wrong.
"Which one?" Yoochun says, still watching Yunho with careful eyes.
"What do you mean which one?" Yunho says tightly. Yoochun grabs his hand, and it startles him, but he doesn't pull his hand away. Yoochun's hand is warm, and he moves the tip of his fingers over Yunho's knuckles in an impossibly gentle gesture, a juxtaposition to the strength that Yunho has.
"The one that you want," Yoochun answers, following Yunho's gaze back to the bed where Junsu and Changmin are still sleeping.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Yunho lies, and closes his eyes when Yoochun tugs him forward and fits their mouths together. Yoochun tastes like minty toothpaste, and that time in the Academy one month back on the rooftop under the stars, the time they both promised not to talk about.
Changmin was dreaming the night before he ran away. He was dreaming about standing in the middle of a field of green grass, cupping a tiny egg in his hands. The egg was sky blue, with flecks of silver that reflected his eyes back at him. The wind whipped his hair against his face and he could only squint.
Slowly, the egg started sprouting feathers, more and more feathers that grew larger and larger, until Changmin was holding nothing but a moving bundle of silver feathers, flapping and fluttering, alive.
The feathers lifted into the air, and Changmin lifted his gaze to follow it as it disappeared into the endless vivid blue of the sky.
Changmin woke up, still hearing the sound of beating wings, gasping for breath.
For the rest of the day, there was a painful feeling in his gut, the knowledge that even if the five of them have gifts that normal people don't, they're not going to make it. The Academy will get them in the end.
After lunch, he walked out of the door, not knowing where he wanted to go. He wondered if away was a physical space. If there was a place where someone like him could really be free.
Every time he closed his eyes, he saw silver wings, unfolding, unfurling like a cocoon.
Three hours later, he was still walking. The road seemed endless. He still had no idea where he was going. Vaguely he sensed distress, alarm, and then fear from a distance away. When he finally turned around, Yoochun had already stopped the car, leaned over and opened the door for him. Waiting.
"Get into the car," Yoochun said. Changmin felt like crying. He could feel waves of relief rolling off Yoochun, even though Yoochun wasn't looking at him. The sky was grey, the enormous rain clouds hanging low. It was going to rain soon. The air was almost sticky.
Changmin closed his eyes and for the first time since he met Yoochun all those months ago, his gift told him there was love amongst the storm of emotions in Yoochun's heart.
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