Tell me, would you kill to save a life ; superheroes verse ; 1/14

[januarys_lovers]

Title: Tell me woud you kill to save a life?
Rating: nc-17
Pairing: secret engdame pairing, Jongdae centric
Wordcount: 100,882
Warning: Original characters as second characters, blood, murders, mentions of drug trafficking, bombs, mental control, death by fire, panic attacks.
Disclaimer: EXO belongs to themselves and SME
Notes: HAPPY BIRTHDAY JONGDAE ♥ This is my (very) modest participation in this glory day. Remember when I was a decent writer? Yes, this is over. I'm starting to think I have lost my mojo, to be honest. But anyway.
Inspired by the comics superheroes I grew up with (especially some of my favourite Batman arcs). Thanks to all those amazing writers who made sure limits didn't appear that solid for my child self.
I'd like to think my very special flower who popped into my DMs everyday to make sure I was still inspired. She truly saved me from numerous breakdowns.
Thank you to A, and you honestly should all thank her. Thic fic is terrible BUT it's edited. She had to go through the unedited version. Kudos to you, A ♥

Title comes from Hurricane by 30 Seconds To Mars.

Summary: Five years have gone by, but Port Ville still remembers its dearly beloved superhero's last appearance. It's a topic that often comes back, and on which a few headlines still like to ponder. Jongdae, though, remembers it more clearly than everyone else. He was there when everything stopped making sense.



i. a death in the family

Run. Faster. Faster.

Jongdae’s breath is coming out in short erratic puffs that tear the night apart with small clouds of steam. His heart is swelling in his chest, pressing against his ribcage until it feels like his bones are cracking under the pressure. Under the fear.

Faster. Faster.

He won’t make it in time. The fear, the adrenaline, his soles repeatedly beating the concrete and his cloak flapping in the night - it’s all too real. His senses are going into overdrive, and his pupils, although glued to his goal, catch so many details that flood his mind. Moonlight seeping through rotten planks, the silvery puzzle it paints on the concrete, the piles of containers spurting out in the dark, and the crane hovering over the docks. He can’t even beg for all of this to be a dream because he hears the swell, he tastes the salt on his lips and he can smell the faint hint of essence left by a day of activity lingering in the air. Heize is sobbing in his right ear, and his left ear can’t stop replaying the Bomber’s cheerful voice as it sings you have thirty minutes, you have thirty minutes, you have thirty minutes, you have - ”

Jongdae’s scream explodes in the night and blood fills his mouth as he bites down on his tongue, desperately trying to push his body harder. His legs are burning, his lungs are collapsing, but he can’t think about slowing down. He can’t even check the countdown on his watch, can’t get his eyes off the warehouse he’s aiming for as he finally barges in the large alley. It’s close, so close, and Jongdae is running faster than he has ever run before. Relief washes over him, more powerful than any lungful of oxygen he could have breathed, and he allows himself a shallow gasp as tears fill his eyes.

“I’m here, I’m here,” he breathes out, hoping that his breathless whisper will reach Heize through the communication device.

He will never know if it did, because Heize’s voice takes over with a broken, desperate cry of Jongdae’s name. He will never know what she wanted to say, but he will spend most of his sleepless nights trying to guess. It’s probably something along the lines of you’re too late don’t go inside. On his worst nights, Jongdae always hears a you’re too late, you killed him.

But Heize’s words drown in the explosion and the roar pulling the night apart. Jongdae’s feet leave the ground as the blast hits him in full force. Red and angry yellow surround him in slow motion. He spots sparkles spurting out of the inferno and up into the sky, and the toxic taste of essence fills his mouth. His body stops flying up and starts falling down and he’s hit with the certainty that he will never ever stop falling down.

Jongdae’s scream dies in the back of his throat as he crashes against the floor. It merges with his tears and ends up in a gargle on which he chokes as he struggles to break free from his sheets. He faintly hears the fabric crack because of his erratic trashing, but it doesn’t stop him. It feels like there are iron hands closed around his limbs and pressing toxic fingers into his flesh. He wants to scream for help, beg for his life, scream the name that has been haunting his dreams, but nothing comes out of his mouth. His lungs feel like they’re about to explode in his chest, and panic floods his veins. It takes him another desperate gargle and a weak weeping sound to finally manage to grip his bedside table. The wood cracks under his grip, but Jongdae doesn’t let go. He uses the piece of furniture to crawl away from the sheets turned snakes caging his body.

Hi bedside table falls over as a new spasm runs through Jongdae’s fingers, and he moans when his hands get crushed. Kicking away his sheets, he rolls on his back and brings his hands up to his face. Through the thick veil of haziness and saltiness blocking his vision, he catches patches of red gnawing his knuckles and bruises blooming on his skin. Then the colours fade away, the bruises shrink and disappear. The pain dies out - it always does - and Jongdae blinks, only to see the fire printed all over the back of his eyelids. A peak of panic has him moan in despair. This pain never leaves, and he feels it, along with the grief, swell in his chest and travel back up his throat. He seals his lips, intent on keeping it all buried, just like it has been for the past five years. He also tries not to picture the body he used to know so well blown apart by the bomb, eaten away by the flames, reduced to ashes by red and angry yellow. No matter how hard he tries, the skeleton is still there, in his mind, still hovering over his thoughts. Still dead.

“Fuck,” Jongdae groans.

He rolls on his side, knocking his head against his bedside table as he does so. He ignores the fleeting flash of white in his vision and presses his palms against his temples while curling up in a ball. His fingers are shaking, knotting his sweaty hair and scratching his forehead, but Jongdae doesn’t pay attention. Instead, he focuses on the vibrations inside his head, the elusive lines and the discreet hints of electricity - the waves.

They come, they go, nervous and agitated peaks of energy. He thinks about what he would do -if it wasn’t his brain but someone else’s - what manipulations he would do so that the agitation would finally calm down. His power is mechanic, instinctive. He would aim for the alpha waves, and he would play with them, tame them until relaxation came, slowly but surely. He tries to picture himself falling into the softness and the peacefulness they bring to other people, but his shaking body, covered in cold sweat, makes sure he remains pinned to the ground with his alpha waves untamed.

Jongdae cracks under the irony. It’s so laughable, it always has been. He can bend reality, he can make people fall asleep with a brush of his fingers, he can make their brains believe everything is fine even when it’s not. But when it comes to his own mind, he’s helpless and there’s nothing he can’t do except try to breathe in and wait for the memories to fade away. He’s been waiting for five years now.

“God,” he lets out in a shaking sob. He opens his eyes and there’s nothing but darkness around him. “God,” he repeats, like a mantra.

He buries his face in his hands, his knuckles now fully healed cracking under the tension still lingering in his fingers. He can still feel the heat of the blast around him, the force that sent him flying upwards, and the cruel realization that he was too late. There’s a skeleton in his mind that once was a body, a body that Jongdae once thought he could save.

He cries as hard as he can, as loudly as his weak body allows him, hoping that eventually, his tears will drown the fact that he was too late for that.

He was too late.

It’s uncharacteristically hot for a mid-June day, and it leaves a feeling of exhaustion in Jongdae’s body. If Port Ville is already melting under the heat even though summer hasn’t technically started yet, he can only dread what August will bring. The sky is blinding as it gets reflected on the thousand windows covering the skyscrapers, and it feels like a dozen of suns are hung up above them, mercilessly aiming for their necks. Jongdae spots a business woman wiping the delicate skin on her collarbones with a look of uneasiness on her beautiful face, and he silently agrees. When he walks past her though, he breathes in a very enjoyable hint of flowery fragrance. He’s pretty sure half of the people in this city - him included - don’t smell that good right now, and it makes him stop and turn around. She looks up, large green eyes catching his, and she smiles, dimples and freckles flooding Jongdae’s vision. It’s a rare sight in Port Ville: a stranger smiling at you instead of staring at their shoes. He considers, for a very brief second, walking to her and asking for her number, or just engage in a nice chat. But it still is Port Ville, and Jongdae knows better. She seems to have learned her lesson too anyway since she looks away first, mildly embarrassed and mortified for having forgotten how deadly this city can be.

Jongdae keeps on his own path, walking down the street in long strides. He soon leaves the business block behind for a much more cheerful one with much smaller buildings. The mall pops up on every signs and people are now carrying shopping bags instead of briefcases. There’s music flooding the streets coming from small shops, and eruptions of laughter taking over the ruckus of the traffic, but Jongdae doesn’t let it fool him. Port Ville by day has always seemed so wrong to him, too thick and surrealist. It’s all make-believe and disguise, and the smaller streets and the darkness between the high buildings are still there, lurking and waiting. No one can run fast enough from it. Port Ville always wins in the end.

Someone bumps into him, and the surprise jolts him out of his reverie. He mumbles a short apology for the culprit who has already walked past him, and shuts down his thoughts. The café terrace is only a few feet ahead, and Jongdae focuses his senses on not getting killed as he crosses the road. The pastel pink sign of the bar merges surprisingly well with its urban surroundings, but nothing lights up Port Ville like Dahye’s smile does.

Jongdae feels his own face splits up in a soft smile as he joins her at one of the pastel green tables. She’s not dressed like the other customers as nothing in her outfit implies distraction or pleasure, but she still greets him with the widest smile and the brightest eyes.

“You look like shit,” she says in lieu of a greeting.

“Hello to you too,” Jongdae retorts.

He sits down and allows himself a pleased sigh at the coldness of the chair shielded from the sun by the large square parasols. When he looks up, Dahye’s almond-shapped eyes are scrutinizing. They’ve known each other for quite some time already, but she only developed that look after her first sessions in the interrogation room at the police station, to Jongdae’s dismay. Pinned down by the intensity of her gaze, he can’t even look away, let alone think of a lie to throw at her when she’ll figure out why he looks exhausted. Because Dahye always figures it out.

“Another dream?” she asks.

Her voice drowns in the noisiness of the warm Friday afternoon, but not before it has reached Jongdae’s ears. She’s extremely efficient, Jongdae has known it for a while now, but his inability to lie to her still frustrates him. He gives her a sharp nod, and she sighs, slowly shaking her head. The gesture wakes up her delicate citrus perfume, and Jongdae can’t help but smile as it reaches him. Today, she’s wearing her long hair down, and the define muscles of her arms are hidden by a jacket. He can’t help but feel a bit jealous of how much she’s grown up in the past five years, of everything she’s accomplished. As though reading his thoughts, she flashes him a severe look.

“You need to let go, Jongdae. You can’t keep on going like this.”

“You sure make it look easy to do,” he snaps back, way more aggressively than he wanted.

Dahye doesn’t look hurt. She’s moved past the hurt point somewhere during those five years of Jongdae being more aggressive than he wanted, but the slight twitch of her mouth is enough to make the guilt swell in his chest. He’s going to choke on it sooner or later, and he’ll die staring at his worst mistakes straight in the eyes. Hurting Dahye will always be one of them.

“I stopped blaming myself,” she says. “And I did everything I could to keep helping this city.” Her fingers instinctively follow the edges of her police badge over her jacket, and determination floods her eyes. “It’s not the same costume now, but at least I’m still doing some good.”

“I know what you’re going to say, please -”

“You need to get back out there, Jongdae. Port Ville needs you.”

“-don’t,” Jongdae finishes.

They exchange a look, Dahye’s eyes strong and judging and Jongdae’s fleeting and tired.

“Port Ville needs Alpha,” she adds in a low voice.

Her voice slightly drops at the end of her sentence, and her eyes quickly scan their surroundings before blinking back to Jongdae. She frowns at the little smile tugging at his lips, and her perplexed look only makes Jongdae’s smile widen. Sixteen-year-old Dahye loved to act like a spy, and it’s no surprise that twenty-four-year-old Dahye still enjoys the rush of adrenaline and the secrecy even though it’s been years since their last secret faded away. She hasn’t lost any of her reflexes, and neither did Jongdae. As soon as the Alpha name left Dahye’s mouth, he was already plastering his best neutral look on his face.

“Port Ville has everything it needs,” Jongdae says. He already feels lighter, brighter and Dahye has everything to do with it. “It already has a badass police detective.”

Dahye snorts. She sits up, and the intimacy she had created with her last sentence dies out.

“The badass police detective is breaking her teeth on her current case. I’m not giving much of my career right now.”

“The jewellery burglars? What are so special about them?”

Old habits die hard, and it’s so easy to fall back on supposedly forgotten patterns. The agitation around them fades out until Jongdae’s senses are all focused on Dahye. She has brought in several criminals but she looks genuinely frustrated about those that newspapers have been calling the Invisible Burglars. Jongdae has followed the headlines with more interest than he should have, but as a police officer, Dahye obviously knows more about the case. He is craving details, and he knows his best friend well enough to read the wrinkles mapping the corners of her eyes. Dahye is about to give him everything she knows.

“All we know for sure is that there are several of them, but we don’t even know exactly how many. They choose the jewellery shops randomly, with a certain liking for smaller ones. They never steal everything, and instead focus on a few items only, which makes them dangerously organized. And very quick.”

Jongdae nods.

“What about their M.O?” he asks before Dahye can say anything more. He needs details, not the same worn-out facts that have been written and rewritten in the newspapers. “How do they manage to get past the security systems?”

She slightly squirms, uneasy, and looks away. Jongdae catches a new wave of details, from her fingers gripped on the edge of the table to the way she bites her inner cheek. He can’t help his heart from speeding up in response, adrenaline already warming his blood with expectation.

“Dahye?”

“They’re using the same M.O Thorne’s henchmen used to.”

The name hits Jongdae like a freight train. He freezes as the adrenaline in his veins turns to poison. There’s an iron hand closing around his heart and pointy teeth scraping his bones. Dahye flashes him a worried look, but Jongdae is already long past the point of reacting. His mind fills with flashes he’d give anything to forget, old ghosts that gladly rise from the dust, and his eardrums shrink under those very same intonations that keep haunting his nights. You have thirty minutes, you have thirty minutes, you have thirty minutes.

He faintly hears a feminine voice ask if they wish to order now, and Dahye’s answer doesn’t reach his brain. Maxwell Thorne, alias the Bomber, can’t have anything to do with those robberies, because he is currently rotting in a cell. Sure, it’s a comfier cell than Jongdae would have wanted it to be, and he gets to watch TV and play board games with other patients, but it’s still a cell. Pleading mental insanity may have saved him from Port Ville’s prison, it didn’t stop justice from sending him to the asylum. Maxwell Thorne got put away five years ago, Jongdae made sure of that. He cannot have anything to do with the thieves.

“Jongdae?”

Dahye’s fingers softly close around Jongdae’s wrist, and the tension he can feel in his tendons clash with her gentleness. When he looks up, feeling like there’s a rope tightening around his neck, she meets his eyes with a sad look lurking behind her dark irises.

“Did you -” Jongdae’s voice cracks and gets drowned by the noisy happiness all around them. He clears his throat. “Did you question him?”

She nods sharply. Her thumb is now softly brushing against the darker veins mapping out the inside of Jongdae’s wrist.

“Twice, but it wasn’t conclusive. I even asked for an outside psychiatrist to run a psychological evaluation, but he gave me the same bullshit than the doctors of the asylum. Thorne isn’t who he used to be, and he is now expressing sincere remorse about what he’s done, blah blah blah.”

I like you, little boy, and I’m going to prove it to you. There are plenty of bad guys in this city that would crush you without a second thought, but good old Bomber? Nay, nay, he’s not like that. I’m giving you thirty minutes, my sweet friend. Isn’t that very nice of me? Thirty long minute to celebrate our new friendship. Thirty minutes for you to try and save an old one.

Jongdae pulls his hand away and Dahye’s nails clink against the metallic surface.

“He’s messing up with you.”

“I know, Jongdae. Trust me, I do. But what am I to do? The Commissioner is getting increasingly annoyed with me. Thinks I’m paranoid, but he doesn’t know Thorne like you and I do.”

Her voice is begging and her eyes pleading. Jongdae doesn’t have to ask her why she didn’t tell him about this sooner, because it’s written all over her face. He wonders what she is reading on his. Anger? Fear? Both?

Now, now. Don’t look at me like that, my boy. You’ve just wasted twelve seconds! My first advice as your new best friend is that you should start running immediately.

“Could he be operating from the asylum?” Jongdae asks.

His whole body feels so rigid that even his tongue struggles to curl around his words. He never realised how violent speaking was. His teeth clash, his tongue hits and his vocal chords snatch the oxygen away from his lungs. His jaws lock and unlock, and Jongdae wonders how much blood is currently dripping down his mouth from the battlefield in his mind. He feels like a time bomb.

“Probably,” Dahye cautiously answers. She keeps scanning him, on the lookout for whatever signs she has learned to recognize during the past five years. “The asylum offers him the perfect alibi.”

Jongdae closes his fists and keeps his eyes on them. There’s a snake whistling in his ears about an old suit waiting under his bed, old weapons that would gladly break free from the thick layers of dust burying them, and an old need for blood and revenge blood to make up for the loss. Jongdae’s breath speeds up.

“Listen Jongdae, I -” Dahye’s voice is hesitating, but the way her fingers crawl back to Jongdae’s hands is firm and determined. “I know you miss him. I miss him too, and I always will. Sehun was my childhood friend. If Thorne really does have anything to with those thieves, I will bring him in, and he will finally get what he deserves. I promise you I will, okay?”

“I can’t do this,” Jongdae snaps.

He needs more distance, he needs more space or he’ll choke to death, and Dahye, with her overwhelming voice and her warm eyes, is sucking up all the oxygen around him. He stands up hastily, his chair scraping the concrete with a low rumble. Dahye holds his gaze with a hint of defiance. Her features look sharper than they have ever been.

“Jongdae -” she starts.

It’s been five years, five years of Jongdaes and clashes, but her voice doesn’t wear any hints of tiredness. If anything, her love for him and worry are the only things radiating from her soft intonations. Jongdae shakes his head, hoping that the sharp gesture will somehow sweeps away the knowledge that he should be doing the exact same thing for her.

“I’ll call you okay? I just remembered I agreed for an extra shift this afternoon, I can’t stay much longer. Take care of you. Next time, I’ll treat you!”

She deflates but still gives him a nod and a smile, to which he barely answers before turning on his heels and putting as much distance as he can between them. Between him and Maxwell Thorne. It’s just wishful thinking and he knows it: he’s been digging that gap for five years already, but it’s never deep enough, never distant enough. Flashes of his nightmare come back and haunt. He feels like his body is still hung up in the air, and his eyes are still fixed on the inferno raging on a few steps ahead. There’s a cold laugh ringing through his ears, and a skeleton growing in his mind. No matter how many times the scene plays in his head, his body never hits the ground. He just keeps on falling. It just never stops.

It never will.

Jongdae's nod comes a second too late for his gesture to appear as polite as it should, but luckily, the couple doesn't seem to mind. The girl flashes him a quick smile as her boyfriend wraps an arm around her waist, and Jongdae steps aside to let them walk out of the room. He follows them with his eyes until they reach the cinema's front doors and step into the darkness of the street. If he remembers well, they were the only ones who bought tickets for the latest showing - a special rerun of Kill Bill Volume I. Week nights aren't the craziest nights, they haven't been in a long time. The opening of a multiplex cinema on the other side of the city didn't help, but people still seem to enjoy the relic Jongdae works in, a remain of a golden age in cinema history. At least, enough do for him to keep his job, which is all that matters. He likes working here.

Despite being one hundred per cent sure no one else is inside the room, Jongdae only half opens the heavy door to slip inside. Light dives into the room, temporarily fighting off the darkness until, at least, Jongdae closes the door behind him. The Kill Bill credits flashing on the large screen are the only source of light left, but Jongdae doesn't need much more to navigate between the rows and check for any forgotten items or empty popcorn packets. The music is loud, thumping against the wall, and the high notes echo in Jongdae's mind. He pauses and looks up to the screen, to the unknown names coming one after another. It is a beautiful song, soft and sad, and Jongdae's throat constricts around words and memories. Dahye's voice pops in his mind along with her pleading eyes and her determination, and he thinks he hears her intonations in the melody. It's a song about loss and revenge after all, and it's so ironically fitting.

The lights automatically switch on, efficiently jolting him out of his reverie. He blinks the impending wave of memories away and gets back to work. His thoughts seem to be hanging to the song though, because his mind is already full of Maxwell Thorne. The anger he felt when he heard that the criminal - the murderer - had managed to avoid prison is still vivid, and now that Dahye thinks he has been using his so-called insanity as a cover, Jongdae can taste a feral bitterness on the back of his tongue. It's the second time today that he thinks about the box hidden under his bed. He tries not to imagine what he could do, tries not to think of a plan but with the pan flute whistling in his ears and Dahye's voice playing with his sanity, it reveals to be harder than ever.

Jongdae straightens up and closes his eyes, hoping that the darkness plastered on the back of his eyelids will help him get back to his senses.

“You can't,” he whispers. “You can't do that, Jongdae.”

Hearing his name in his own voice forces him out of his daydreaming, and soon enough, he is back in good old reality, working the late night shift in an old cinema instead of planning to kill a murderer. Jongdae breathes in slowly as his senses settle down, leaving behind too vivid memories and powerful desires for revenge. He flashes a quick smile that gets lost in the emptiness around him, and draws back his focus to the seats ahead of him.

Just as he bends down to pick up creased movie tickets, his senses suddenly get on high alert. Jongdae immediately kneels down and hides behind the seats. His heart speeds up in his chest and he clenches his fingers on the closest seat, his eyes wide open. There's someone in the room, he'd bet his life on it. Someone who was watching him. He still can feel the slight flicker in the air that comes with people moving around him, and he's almost sure he heard someone breathe. A deep, regular breathing.

Jongdae mentally curses. He's not worried about getting harmed or having to deal with someone trying to steal from the cinema. For someone who can heal from just about everything and who has super senses and the ability to play with brain waves, that would top it all. What if it's someone who knows that though? Someone who knows that Jongdae can do things and who has done the maths and realized who he used to be?

The instruments die down and soon enough the pan flute is the only music left echoing through the room. It goes slower and slower, but the sublime soaring of the melody still takes over the silence. Jongdae can now pick up the unknown breathing. His senses slowly follow the trail, from the light vibrations in the air to the slow breathing, until they reach the source. Behind his closed eyelids, Jongdae easily pictures the stranger, his head turned towards the rows and his body standing by the door. He feels him blink, hears his lashes crash against his cheekbones and his tongue wet his lips. Jongdae's heart slows down, each beat still so strong against his eardrums, and his focus floods his mind, so thick that there's no room left for his own thoughts. He tightens his hold on the seat which creaks under the strength, and opens his eyes. Adrenaline burns through his veins as he suddenly jumps back to his feet.

He's fast. Faster than plain humans, but apparently not fast enough. As soon as Jongdae spurts out from behind the seats, the silhouette, all dressed in black, whirls around with a surprising agility and bolts out of the room. Jongdae curses under his breath and rushes out of the row of seats. He jumps over the steps and sprints towards the still swinging doors. His ears are focused on the hurried steps, his nose picks up a faint smell of musky cologne and his eyes follow invisible whirling in the air trailing after the stranger. He lifts his elbow and uses it to run through the swinging door without flinching when it hits the hard surface. His speed has him crashing against the wall on the other side, straight against one of the multiple frames breaking the monotony of the red velvety wallpapers. He barely registers the black and white poster as glass breaks under the violence of the collision. It digs in his flesh, mercilessly tears veins apart and Jongdae sighs as hot thick blood floods his palm lines.

Someone chuckles in his back. Jongdae turns around, taken aback, only to meet darkness. The silhouette - it's a man, he realizes - is standing at the end of the corridor, in the small zone of shadows between two cones of light thrown by the spots. Jongdae's eyes fill with black - black hood, black leather jacket, black pants, black shoes.

“Who are you?” he asks.

His voice echoes against the corridor's walls. Jongdae refuses to blink, and soon enough the man's body lines print themselves on his irises. Broad shoulders, long legs, slender figure. Holding his wounded hand against his chest, Jongdae takes a tentative step, frowning. The man immediately reacts. He grabs the closest frame and tosses it towards Jongdae. The frame hasn't even reached Jongdae that the man is already out of the corridor, the sound of his soles against the hall's tiled floor filling Jongdae's ears.

He dodges the frame, thrown with so much strength that it literally splatters against the door behind him. Glass falls down in an oddly musical cascade, but Jongdae is more focused on the sounds coming from the man's hurried escape. He hears the main doors open as he runs down the corridor and barges into the hall just as they close after the stranger. Jongdae speeds up and once again uses his elbow to run through the doors. His race comes to a sudden halt as he slides on the pavement on the other side.

There's nothing but darkness on the street, and no other sound than the usual drumming of Port Ville’s night life. Confused, Jongdae scans the surroundings, from the pools of light to the pavements diving into the night.

“What the...” he whispers as he turns around to check the street behind him as well.

There is nothing. The hooded man has disappeared without a trace.

Jongdae freezes. He looks up to the strong silhouette of the building towering over him. It's just darkness against darkness, barely lighter lines separating the night sky from the architecture, but it leaves a deep and unsettling feeling in Jongdae's guts. His eyes stop on the roof, high above his head, and he feels like the top of the building is staring back at him. Nervous, he looks away, checks the streets around him one last time and steps back into the safety of the cinema.

The harsh lights inside reflect on the blood on his hand, and Jongdae mindlessly watches the wound close, his mind running at full power. More than once, he feels eyes digging through the flesh of his back, and his heart explodes in his chest as he jumps around to stare at nothing but emptiness and silence. No one has ever been able to shake him off like that, but the strength and the speed are not what bother Jongdae the most.

No, the chuckle does.

The high-pitched tone barely echoes against Jongdae's eardrum since Dahye picks up the phone almost right away. Her voice fills the receiver in too reactive intonations for what she should be doing at almost two a.m.

“Hey, Jongdae. How was Kill Bill night?”

Jongdae breathes a little too harshly in his phone, and for a short second, Dahye's calm breathing gets drowned in the cracking. Calling her is the first thing he did when he got home, but now that she is waiting on the other side, her attention completely on him, he finds himself at a loss of words. What could he possibly tell her?

“Jongdae? You there?”

“Yeah, sorry. I blanked out.”

Dahye chuckles in the receiver. She doesn't sound as young as she used to in Jongdae's ear. She had a much lighter voice back then, but he can't figure out if it's the growing up or the loss that gave her her more serious intonations, her deeper huskier syllables. He likes her voice, how bubbly and cheerful it can be when it's not nearing delicate topics, and he likes that he can hear her smile in her words even though it's two a.m and she should be fast asleep by now.

He slowly deflates on his bed as she breaks the silence again.

“So I take it it wasn't that eventful,” she teases him.

“That's the least you could say.”

She snorts, but not loud enough for Jongdae to miss the sound of paper ruffling on her side. He pictures her, so small behind her kitchen table, her pale fingers massaging her temples and her eyes scanning over messy writing she probably knows by heart, and something tightens in his guts. He glances at his TV set, the black screen staring back at him, and wonders with a certain dread what it would flash him if he were to turn on the news channel.

“Why aren't you sleeping?” he asks in a tentative, careful voice.

“Something came up and I'm worried,” she confesses in a low voice. “You know me, I can't sleep when I'm worried, so I'm just making sure I didn't miss anything before I go to bed.”

“Something?”

He feels, before he hears, the shift in Dahye's voice.

“Something,” she confirms with a hint of playfulness. “Are you Jongdae? I can't talk to you about it, it's confidential.”

“What are you saying?” Jongdae chuckles. “Of course I'm Jongdae.”

“Pity. If you were someone else like... I don't know, Alpha? Then maybe I would have revealed a thing or two. For this city's safety, you know.”

She breaks before he does - she always breaks before he does - and her laugh rings in Jongdae's ear. It's contagious, even over a phone call, and soon enough Jongdae feels his own lips open on a chuckle. Her childlike hiccups soften the thick night lurking behind his bedroom window and the worry that was creeping up on him. He feels the tension fade out from his shoulders and hears her chair scraping against the floor as she moves away from the table.

“Alright” she finally says with a sigh. Her voice is lighter, and he knows, even without seeing her, that her gaze has let go of the files. “It's actually later than I thought. I should go, tomorrow's gonna be busy.”

“Don't try to lure me in with your big secrets. I don't care what it is.”

“Yeah, you keep telling yourself that,” she chuckles.

Jongdae snorts.

“See you tomorrow, Dahye.”

She answers with silence that Jongdae instinctively translates with a nod and a smile. He looks up and meets his TV set's huge eye again. On the black surface, a smaller and almost translucent Jongdae stares back, eyes inevitably falling down to the black space under his bed. Jongdae looks away.

“Jongdae?”

He answers with silence that Dahye instinctively translates with a nod.

“Why did you call me?”

“I just wanted to let you know I didn't get killed on my way home.”

“Of course you didn't,” she immediately answers.

Here comes the heavier voice again, the words full of implied meanings. Jongdae would laugh at it if he wasn't so busy trying not to choke on his need to tell her that superheroes do die. Luckily, she hangs up before he gets all poisonous and toxic, but the sudden lack of her voice leaves him oddly helpless and lonely. He puts his phone on his bed as he listens to his own breathing trying to fight the silence around him. He closes his eyes and lets out a long sigh as he falls back against his mattress, arms spread out on his sides. There's a teenager searching through his parents' fridge two floors above, a young baby crying somewhere in the building and a couple fighting about some random family dinner. He hears his fingers brush the sheet when his lungs empty themselves, his blood rush into his arteries but mostly, he hears the static electricity running across the TV screen the loudest.

“I won't turn you on,” he says to the darkness painted over his closed eyelids. “I won't.”

No one answers, but the TV set keeps on quietly buzzing. Jongdae sighs and curls on the side while pulling his legs up next to him, suddenly feeling nervous about the space under his bed. He knows what kind of monsters are waiting down there after all. He grabs his pillows and buries his face under, silently hoping they'll give him at least a couple of hours of good sleep before they crawl out and engulf him.

Jongdae stares at the big bold headline on the fresh new issue of the Sailor's Gazette. There's a black and white picture under it and he wonders for a brief second why the photographer decided to drop the colours for that one. There's a hint of symmetry and composition which give the shot what could be a sort of artistic vibe if broken glass and dead bodies lying under white sheets weren't filling the foreground. The article spurting out from the bottom edge of the picture is written in much smaller words, but some of them do pop out quite a lot. Gangs, ambush, settling of scores, no serious leads.

“Hey, Jongdae! How are you doing?”

Jongdae looks up at a friendly cop holding out his fist. He flashes him a smile and offers his own hand for the famous fist bump the young man - Jihoon - is so fond of.

“I'm good,” he says, and Jihoon throws him another bright smile.

He's quite the contrast standing in the middle of a room full of agitated cops, but that's nothing new, really. Jongdae has always thought the uniform looked a bit too large on him. He's still a kid, with less than a year of active duty to his name, but he's been determined and so optimistic since the very first day, which is honestly a true miracle for a member of the Port Ville Police Department.

Jihoon glances at the newspaper Jongdae is still holding and he winces.

“I feel bad but I'm actually very grateful Dahye and Frank are on this case. Wouldn't have wanted to end up on that one, trust me. That stuff is messy.”

Jongdae flashes him a slight smile as he puts back the newspaper on Dahye's desk - on which he is currently sitting.

“Still a proud traffic cop?” he asks.

Jihoon snorts. “Hey, I'm saving Port Ville's grandmas,” he chuckles. “I'm a true hero, if you will.” He nods towards Dahye's desk. “She's in the Commissioner’s office, probably getting screamed at.”

“It's okay,” Jongdae says. “I'll wait.”

Jihoon nods, holds out his hand and gladly takes another fist bump from Jongdae as a very modest goodbye. Jongdae watches him walk away, his right hand hovering over the gun hanging on his hips, and his bait as strong and manly as it can be considering his boyish figure. Jongdae was there for Jihoon's first day, just like he was there when his partner, Joy, called for backup after her and her previous partner were violently attacked in the Bottoms. Detective Kim Heechul didn't make it, Joy barely did, and Jihoon became the new member of a broken team.

Jongdae takes a look around him. He spends so much time here that none of Dahye's co-workers question his presence, but they're all obviously too busy to care anyway. He barely slept a couple of hours, but he looks so well rested next to them, and he guesses Dahye won't look any better. He sighs as he takes another look at the headline.

THE JEWELLERY BURGLARS GET KILLED DURING ROBBERY

Jihoon is right. This stuff is going to be messy.

The wooden door of the Commissioner’s office opens with a bang, and a very frustrated looking Dahye walks out, fire spurting out of her eyes.

“I really do hope I'll never have to say I told you so, Chief, because I don't want to end up cleaning your fucking mess!” she snaps as she glares over her shoulder.

She looks like a fury with her dishevelled hair and the angry patches of red on her face. They all step away from her as she walks towards her desk. Angry Dahye is a rare sight, but Jongdae has to admit that when it does happen, she can be impressive. If the whole situation wasn't so explosive, he'd probably laugh at how everyone is peeking at her with a certain nervousness despite how tiny she is. Deep down though, he can't help but feel proud of her. Being a cop in Port Ville isn't easy, and being a woman makes it even more suicidal, but Dahye has been taking over the police department inch by inch since her very first day. There are times when he likes to pretend he taught her how to be that strong and determined, but it's obvious that she's doing it all on her own.

She freezes when her eyes fall on him, and the burning rage on her face turns to panic.

“Oh fuck,” she curses. “Am I late?”

Jondgae throws a sandwich tightly wrapped in white paper at her. She catches it and casts him a questioning look.

“You're not,” he says with a hint of playfulness. “But I figured you wouldn't have the time for Chinese today so I brought sandwiches.”

She looks undecided for a brief second, her blood probably still boiling in her veins, but she lifts the sandwich to her face and sniffs it.

“Oh god,” she moans. “Is that a chicken curry sandwich?”

Jongdae gives her his best smile, and she deflates, tension leaving her body. She walks up to him, leaves a gentle kiss on his cheek and sits on her desk next to him. Her perfume fills his nose with delicate hints of orange and honey even as she unwraps her sandwich. He watches her profile, from the slight curve of her nose to her red lips as she takes a first bite and hums in pleasure.

“Where's Frank?” Jongdae finally asks. Frank is the oldest detective of the PVPD, and also Dahye's partner. Jongdae has a sandwich for him in his bag.

She glances at him, a leftover of magma burning in her pupils, and nods towards the Commissioner’s office.

“Probably trying to stop Chief Do from firing me. I said some nasty stuff in there.”

“No kidding,” Jongdae mumbles.

She glares at him, but the effect is somehow ruined by her obvious hunger. She licks her lips, her red lipstick fading to a soft pinkish colour, and takes another bite. He watches her blink away from every glance she receives, one second staring down at the wooden floor of the police station and the next one looking up at the dark ceiling. Her fingers work around her sandwich in quick and sharp movements. They tear the paper piece by piece while she pretends that her whole attention is on her lunch, but Jongdae doesn't get fooled. There's a glistening reflection in her eyes that her incessant blinking can't hide.

She feels his gaze on her, and she glances at him, brows furrowed and eyes wet. He knows her too well to mistake those tears for signs of sadness or despair. She's angry and frustrated.

“I guess you know about my something now,” she says, nodding towards the newspaper between them.

Jongdae makes a face. “At length.”

Dahye takes another look at the Sailor's Gazette and her eyes flash angry red for a short second.

“It's that stupid reporter, that Park Chan-something. He had to make a big deal out of it, and now everyone in Port Ville thinks there's another gang war coming our way.” She then glares at the Commissioner's office with so much intensity that Jongdae wouldn't be surprise to see the faint shadow on the other side of the windows drop dead. “He thinks that too, but that's rubbish.”

Jongdae follows her gaze and comes back to the Sailor’s Gazette. He can hear Commissioner’s low voice threatening Dahye's partner - keep her in check or I swear I'll make you two traffic cops - just like he can see scribbled post-its all over Dahye's desk.

“That's not what worries you,” he tells her. In the ruckus going on around them, his voice gets lost, but Dahye picks it up. She looks at him with eyes full of seriousness.

“If I'm right on this whole thing, those burglars are working for Thorne, and now someone is coming after them.”

Jongdae's throat feels like it's made of sandpaper. He flashes Dahye the shadow of a smile.

“You're worried about Thorne breaking out to settle this mess himself.”

She nods, but the simple gesture scares Jongdae so much. He ended this chapter of his life years ago, and pretending that he had moved on has been keeping his mind busy for so long already. The nightmares are bad enough, and the fact that he remembers perfectly well the smell of gasoline, the heat, the raging roar of the inferno will always keep his conscience pinned to that one moment. He can't have Thorne barging into his life again. Not when he's supposed to come from a time that has long stopped existing.

“I'm not happy with him being in the asylum instead of the cell he deserves,” Dahye says. “But at least he's locked up.” She throws a frustrated look around her. “No one believes me. They think I'm obsessed with him.”

I’m giving you thirty minutes, my sweet friend. Isn’t that very nice of me? Thirty long minutes to celebrate our new friendship. Thirty minutes for you to try and save an old one.

Jongdae snorts.

“You have all the reasons to be,” he says.

She nods again, but this time, it is more submissive, as though a part of her had already given up on this. She usually stands so tall, despite being smaller than most people, her eyes fierce and powerful and ready to jump into a fight, but this Dahye looks like she has lost the fire inside her. The soft curve of her back dips down, and her eyes don't throw any spark any more but only ashes as she looks at the dusty ground. She's been with him for the past five years, pushing him, holding him. For how long has she been hiding this case from him? How many nights did she spend losing her sleep on the idea that they never stopped the Bomber at all, despite what he did to Sehun? She even went and questioned him, Jongdae remembers. Two times.

“Tell me what you have,” he says. His voice breaks, fades away in the mess around them, but Jongdae clears his throat and straightens. “Tell me everything,” he repeats.

Dahye's fingers jump from one article to the other, black ink on white paper, white paper pinned on a black board. Jongdae feels like he's reading one of those old comics in which the only colour comes from deadly red of the heroin's lipstick. Right now, the only colour comes from a square picture of a face he hoped for so long he'd never have to see again pinned at the exact centre of the board. Dahye puts her palm on it for support as she tiptoes to reach the higher articles. Jongdae imagines the sound of Thorne's nose breaking, and the feral and heavy odour of blood.

“Here you have the exact date when Thorne's sentence was made public,” Dahye says, jolting Jongdae out of his reverie. He blinks up to the article she's taping with the tip of her finger. “Internment. Mental instability, blah blah blah.”

She glances at Jongdae over her shoulders, a note of uncertainty still glistening in her eyes. The police badge on her belt catches the artificial light of the meeting room she took him in, and the gun hanging on her hips breaks the natural sweet curve of her waist, but to Jongdae, she looks like the sixteen-year-old Dahye who knocked at his door and told him she knew who he really was more than ever. He smiles to her, and the uncertainty fades away. She reads hints like no one does.

“It was seven months after Sehun's death,” she continues. Her voice slightly drops on the name, as though she wasn't sure she was allowed to say it, but she doesn't pause. “And two days later, a gang attacks Wright's club. Frank worked on that case. He told me the booze was gone, and the place was a mess. But they didn't take the cash.”

Jongdae frowns and Dahye smiles.

“I know right?”

Lexie Wright's club is one of the headquarters of Leone Pavoni's gang and probably the place where they launder their black money. It's a very classy club whose thick walls never manage to fully stop the nagging jazz notes that fill the place from invading the streets. Port Ville's high society always have a nice thing to say about Lexie Wright, but the woman is as dangerous and deadly as she is beautiful and mesmerizing.

“Who attacked the club?” Jongdae asks.

Dahye's eyes literally sparkle with delight at the question. She raises a finger, dimple digging into the softness of her cheek.

“No one knows. Pavoni's mob didn't retaliate. Frank told me they thought it was Beaulieu's gang at some point, but the lack of retaliation from Pavoni kind of nipped the case in the bud. And since they didn't take any money anyway--”

“It wasn't an act of war,” Jongdae interrupts. Dahye watches him, excitation flooding her face. “It was a warning.”

She nods furiously. He hears her heart speed up in her chest and reads just as easily on her features what she is thinking. It wakes up old riddles that they solved together in the secrecy of Jongdae's room, their fingers covered with pizza grease. Jongdae can't help the wave of affection and sincere care from flooding him. It's the first time pain doesn't hit him like a freight train as he lets his mind wander to forgotten times.

“Exactly,” Dahye says. “I realised something a couple of months ago when the special Gazette's issue about the last gang war came out. After Thorne's internment, there wasn't any gang war. No one fought.”

“Which doesn't make sense,” Jongdae continues for her. “His gang had a huge territory. Why didn't Beaulieu and Pavoni try to get hold of it after Thorne was out of the picture?”

Dahye steps away from the board, her hand falling back to her waist, and Jongdae's eyes land on the kaleidoscope of colours clashing against the black and white collage. His heart misses a bit.

“That's why you think he's still in activity. Because his territory is still unclaimed even when it was just there for the taking.” He gestures at the article topping everything else. “And you think the attack of the club was a warning from him, that he wanted to make sure Beaulieu and Pavoni knew he was still there.”

“There had been a few attacks in Thorne's territory during his seven-month long trial,” Dahye confirms. “But everything stopped after the club's robbery. I think that Thorne didn't warn them before because he didn't want to risk jeopardizing his trial. After that, it was a piece of cake. The asylum was the perfect alibi.”

Jongdae looks back at the picture. The longer he stares, the scarier the face gets. The man's nose seems to be growing until it becomes as sharp as a blade, and his cheekbones slowly shrink into his cheeks, giving his eyes a dead look completed by heavy eyelids. This is the face of the man who terrorized Port Ville for months before Jongdae and Dahye finally managed to bring him in. It took the PVPD around a week to find every bomb he had hidden in the city, and a lot of them blew up before they even had a chance to defuse them.

“The bombs...” Jongdae whispers. He blinks and draws back his attention on Dahye. “There wasn't a single bomb since he got interned in the asylum.”

Dahye nods. “It would be too obvious, wouldn't it? Robberies followed by bombs blowing up to cover any proofs?” She shakes her head. “No. He's being very clever on that one, but I know it's him. I just do.”

Jongdae slowly nods. She probably has a dozens of arguments ready to be thrown at him, but Jondgae doesn't want to hear what she thinks. There's a giant board, covered in white and ink, and a too detailed picture of Maxwell Thorne and if that alone isn't a proof that Dahye is too caught up in the case, her hungry looks towards the press clippings complete her lack of impartiality. But as Jongdae gets closer to the board, he can feel himself being assaulted by the hundreds of reasons why neither Dahye nor him will ever be objective when it comes to the Bomber. Flashes of Thorne's mad smile when Jongdae finally found him flood his mind. The asshole was singing Alice in Wonderland's rabbit's song. Jongdae can still hear the husky intonations.

I'm late, I'm late for a very important date. No time to say hello, goodbye--

“This is all you have?” he asks Dahye, his eyes scanning every press clipping.

He doesn't need to glance at her to know she's nodding. He can feel her eyes watching him, but Jongdae keeps his on the board. He goes over every circled word, every note Dahye scribbled. He reads Thorne's M.O several times, follows white lines linking several articles, and stares at Port Ville's map for a couple of minutes. Dahye has highlighted the places that were attacked, circled the one neighbourhood where nothing happened, raised a huge questioning mark above it that she scribbled probably later with bold letters reading Thorne's daughter's house. She doesn't only have arguments, he realizes. She has proofs. She has connections between every case, all of them possibly leading back to Thorne with a little bit of digging. She has proofs that both Pavoni and Beaulieu are keeping away from Thorne's old territory despite being the two most powerful gangs in the city. She has more than enough to be heard by Commissioner Do, but Jongdae wouldn't blame the man for his refusal to accept the idea that Thorne might have played on them all - again. Port Ville's mob has always been so intricately mixed to the police and the high society anyway, making it almost impossible to dismember. It is a kind of disease that doesn't create any cure, but only bring corpses and despair. Jongdae tried to fix Port Ville too. It didn't work so well.

“What is he trying to achieve...?” Jongdae mumbles for himself as he goes over an article about drug trafficking in the Bottoms, Port Ville's less fortunate neighbourhood. It is a small island, connected to the coast by three bridges, and it's also the mob's top market. The article talks at length about this new very addictive drug that apparently wasn't introduced by Beaulieu and Pavoni. It ends with a questioning tone about the possibility of a new gang emerging in Port Ville, and the civil war that might result from it.

Jongdae glances at Dahye, who shrugs.

“Power? Money? What has he ever tried to achieve?”

“But he can't enjoy power nor money where he is right now,” Jongdae argues.

“Hopefully, he will never be able to.”

Jongdae turns around to look into Dahye's face.

“I know it would require more digging,” she says, on the defensive. “But as long as Do doesn't believe me, my hands are tied.”

Jongdae slightly frowns, but then it hits him. Dahye's excitement, the fact that she showed him the black board, and that she let him take a closer look himself. She's not only sharing what has been weighing on her shoulders for the past couple of months, she's luring him. His heart drops in his chest and he steps away from the board. Dahye catches on, and she opens her mouth, her eyes already pleading. Thankfully, this is when the door of the meeting room opens, taking them both by surprise.

Dahye's partner, Frank, walks into the room and Jongdae internally shakes himself.

“Here you are,” Frank greets them both with his usual husky voice.

He's the walking stereotype of a cop from the gangster age, from the hat to the leather holster strapping his chest. He lived Port Ville's last gang war, and many other cases, which makes him a sort of legend amongst the PVPD, especially when it comes to newest recruits, but to Jongdae, he's the surly grizzled man who told Dahye on her first day that Port Ville would probably turn her into an alcoholic, while taking a sip from his own flask.

“Hey Frank,” Jongdae greets him back.

He catches Frank's grey eyes going from Dahye's face to the black board. The cop then empties his lungs with a long and heavy sigh.

“I hope you're here to knock some sense into her,” he tells Jongdae. “She's going to get herself fired and I'll have to find a new partner.”

He points at Dahye.

“D'you hear that? I'll have to find myself a new partner and it'll probably be an overexcited newbie, like Jihoon. I worked too hard on you kid, please, I'm begging you,” he says, linking his fingers in a pleading prayer. “Don't mess it up.”

Dahye snorts, but Jongdae is relieved to see that she also stepped away from the board. Frank has delayed what she wanted to ask him, but she's been tottering around the topic far too many times these past few days for Jongdae to hope that she will drop it. He deems it better to play it safe and run while he still can, so he grabs his jacket and gestures towards the plastic bag with Frank's sandwich.

“I brought you lunch,” Jongdae says. Dahye desperately tries to catch his gaze, but Jongdae's eyes remain glued to Frank's. “Don't be a douche to my best friend, okay?”

Frank lets out a peal of laughter.

“I did save her from getting fired today, didn't I?”

“That's why I'm leaving you the sandwich,” Jongdae answers with a wink.

He turns around, and Dahye's face fills his vision. He can almost hear her thinking about random excuses so that he would stay longer, and he really hopes that she also can hear him silently pleading her not to. She'll re-enter the fray, probably not later than tonight, but his escape will at least earn him a couple of hours to think about what he'll say to her.

“I'll see you later, Dahye,” he throws with his most cheerful voice before nodding towards Frank.

He catches her deflate from the corner of his eyes, but he doesn't let it stop him. He also catches the black board, with its infinity of white stains and the mix of colours at its centre, but he doesn't slow down, doesn't hesitate. It was a mistake to ask about her case, a mistake to follow her into that room, and an even bigger one to have looked at that board. Fortunately, he has become quite used to making mistakes which makes him an expert at running away from them. It usually comes with a game of pretend, pretend that he's not being a coward. Pretend he's not hurting Dahye.

Pretend he doesn't catch her disappointed and pleading look right before the door closes.

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