Fic: pick your battles
Title: pick your battles
Pairing: past jessica/yoochun, jaejoong/yoochun, implied jaejoong/yunho, eventual yoochun/junsu
Rating: R
A/N: AU. supernatural!fic. inspired by watching too much Reaper (which is great stuff, btw). Also, I know nothing about SNSD, or Jessica, except that she is very pretty, so this might be pretty OOC. um. yes. ...idek, okay? I'm supposed to be studying, but, eh. Also, I hardly ever write yoosu, so I'm not all too sure where this came from XD
14th October, 2008. Park Yoochun crashes into a streetlamp while out making a delivery. He swears he only had his eyes off the road for a second (this is untrue. The sway of that girl’s hips caught his attention for at least two). He is fired for messing up for the nth time this week.
15th October, 2008. Park Yoochun is served an eviction notice. The landlord is a nasty sonofabitch who threatens to throw him out on his ass. Jessica still won’t take any of his calls.
16th October, 2008. Park Yoochun decides to kill himself.
---
It isn’t planned, this course of action. The thought materializes in Yoochun’s head the morning of the sixteenth as his sits in the kitchen nursing a mug of bitter coffee and a hangover. It’s an epiphany, of sorts, a step so logical he’s amazed he didn’t think of it sooner. I’m going to kill myself, he thinks, and waits for the instinctive recoil, the psychological equivalent of the survival instinct.
…nothing.
He shrugs, pours the rest of the sludge down the sink, and picks up the phone.
---
Jessica is in fine form today.
“What do you want?”
Curt. Clipped. Detached, even. Yoochun is impressed.
“Good to hear from you too, babe.”
“Stop calling me, Yoochun.”
Yoochun can’t resist. “This playing hard to get thing’s getting old, Jessica.”
A sharp intake of breath, and he can almost hear her getting ready to unleash a torrent of self-righteous wrath on him. Jessica is too easy.
“My therapist says”, her voice tight, a clear indication of her valiant attempt at control, “that I have to let go of my anger. And this means not letting you get to me.”
Yoochun rolls his eyes, then remembers that Jessica can’t see him. “What, are you still going to that quack? Because, you remember, my way of releasing all that pent up rage is way more fun -”
“Go to hell,” she snarls, and Yoochun resists the urge to laugh out loud. “Are you bored, or did you just feel like you needed to ruin the rest of my week?”
“Neither,” Yoochun replies cheerfully. “I just wanted to let you know that I’ll be out of your hair soon enough. For good. That should make up for this phone call. Oh, and you can have my CDs.”
“I want my DVD player back.”
Over my dead body, Yoochun almost says before the irony hits him, and then he laughs until Jessica hangs up on him.
---
Yoochun goes to a club that night. If this is going to be his last night on earth, he figures he might as well spend it doing something he actually enjoys.
Yoochun’s on his fifth shot and feeling decidedly tipsy when he notices he has company. The young man is almost preternaturally attractive, even accounting for his alcohol-impaired judgment and the dim lighting.
“You look like a man on a mission,” he informs Yoochun with a grin. He has nice eyes. Yoochun feels expansive, generous. He lets the man slide in next to him, their knees touching, shoulders bumping. Yoochun leans in to speak by his ear. He smells of amber, of smoke, of black Columbian coffee.
“I’m going to kill myself,” Yoochun confides in a conspiratorial whisper, and the man nods sympathetically.
“Can’t say I blame you.” Yoochun blinks, confused, but before he can ask he’s being pulled to his feet. “Let’s make tonight worth your while then, shall we?”
Which is how he ends up having sex with a virtual stranger in the men’s bathroom on the night he’s about to off himself. Not that he’s complaining. Jaejoong has deft hands, soft lips, pale skin stretched taut over muscle and bone. Yoochun learns his name as he’s backed into a stall, Jaejoong’s shirt already tossed unconcernedly to the floor. He’s new to this, bar that one time in college with his roommate, high on coke and heady with triumph, creased certificates flung carelessly atop the mess on their desks (the world awaits, Yoochun remembers being told, the words shaped against his skin, and he, young and naïve, actually believes it). It had been fumbling, awkward; hilarious, really, if it hadn’t been quite so embarrassing. They’d never spoken to each other again. This, though, is different, the planes and angles of Jaejoong’s body unfamiliar to him, but it’s good different, the only embarrassing thing Jaejoong’s skill at reducing him to a whimpering mess. He’s almost sorry when it’s over, Jaejoong patting him companionably on the hip on his way out of the bathroom.
“I’ll see you again soon,” he says, and Yoochun considers reminding Jaejoong of his impending non-existence, but doesn’t. He stands in front of the mirror and surveys his reflection critically. He looks like crap. Yoochun shakes his head, decides it hardly matters, makes his way to the roof.
---
It’s oddly undramatic, standing on the precipice, alone with the wind in his face. He feels nothing peering down at the cold pavement fifteen stories down, even though he’s always been a bit squeamish about heights. Dying, it appears, is horribly overrated.
The silence is making Yoochun edgy. He wonders if he should say something.
“Well, fuck you too.”
That seems about right.
He’s getting ready to launch himself off the edge -no sissy baby steps off into the air with his eyes squeezed shut for Yoochun - when he hears the shout.
“Hey. Hey!”
Well, damn.
Yoochun turns to peer back over his shoulder. “Go away, please.” He’s surprised at how polite and sober he sounds, how rational.
The boy looks so distressed he almost feels sorry for him. “Please. Come down.”
Yoochun sighs. “This really isn’t any of your business, you know.”
The boy scowls. “Well, it is now.”
A smartass if ever there was one. Yoochun isn’t aware he’s spoken out loud until he hears the boy’s indignant retort (“What did you say?”) by his right leg, and by then it’s too late to slip free (how did he move across the rooftop that quickly?) before he’s yanked back forcibly from the ledge.
Yoochun lands badly, only thankful that it isn’t on his face. “Ow! Son of a -”
The boy’s grip is deceptively strong. “I’d suggest you don’t finish that thought,” he says, his fingers digging deep into Yoochun’s arm belying the positively sanguine smile on his face.
Yoochun pulls away in disgust. “What are you, some kind of good Samaritan? Swoop around saving a lot of lost souls, do you?”
It’s crazy, but he swears the boy positively beams at him.
“As many as I can.”
---
His name is Junsu, and he won’t answer any questions about himself. He stays over that night to “keep an eye” on Yoochun, and Yoochun wakes up past lunch the next day, head pounding, to find Junsu moving box after box into the spare bedroom.
“What the hell?” It seems just about all Yoochun can manage right now. He coughs, clears his throat, wills the pain away. Junsu sets down a large carton.
“Oh, good, you’re awake. I bought lunch.”
Yoochun attempts a suspicious glare, manages a bleary squint, and stumbles in the vague direction of the kitchen. He chooses to ignore the sound of Junsu’s footsteps behind him, and converges on the food.
“I paid your rent,” Junsu says, and Yoochun forces himself to swallow before he chokes. “He said you were three months behind on it. No wonder he was so eager to kick you out.”
“You didn’t have to do that.”
Junsu pulls up a chair. “A simple ‘thank you’ would suffice.”
“Um. Thanks. I guess.”
“You’re welcome.” Junsu shrugs. “I needed a place to stay, anyway.”
Yoochun isn’t sure what to make of this. It must be written all over his face, for Junsu attempts a reassuring smile, bright enough to light up his entire face. It makes him look younger than he already does, and Yoochun tries not to resent Junsu for his sunny optimism. He swears he can almost see that damn halo.
“Don’t worry. We’re going to get along fine. As long as you stop doing stupid things.”
Yoochun bristles. “What do you mean stupid things -”
“You almost got thrown into the street, this place is a dump, you tried to jump off a building, and, oh, your girlfriend left a message on your machine.” Junsu’s eyes are full of mirth, and right then Yoochun hates him a little bit. No, wait, scratch that. He loathes the guy. “She said, since you’re giving her your CDs, could she have your speakers, too?”
It’s a toss up between breaking down where he sits or throwing his spoon at the guy, and Yoochun decides to opt for the latter.
---
Jaejoong likes to reward himself for a job well done by allowing himself to sleep in. It’s late afternoon by the time he deigns to roll out of bed. So trite, he thinks, not for the first time, as he punches in the same three numbers, and waits as strains of Muzak filter over the connection. Damn. He keeps forgetting just how insidiously mind-numbing it can be.
The operator’s voice is sharp, grating, even to his ears. “Circle Seven. State your request or get off the line.”
Jaejoong suppresses a sigh. The service nowadays. Back in his day, now -
“Youngwoong Jaejoong. 6675349. Class A.”
“Hold on.” There’s more Muzak, and then the operator’s voice again. “Your current tally is 84, 116. Have a good haul.”
“That’s not right.” Jaejoong suppresses his impatience. “I got three yesterday. There should be one more added to that total. Could you check again?”
The operator heaves a sigh of the long-suffering. “The system is never wrong, sir.”
Jaejoong scowls. He’s right about that much, at least. Jaejoong frowns as he hangs up. He had been so sure about that last one, too.
If there’s one thing he hates, it’s not reaping the rewards for a job well done.
---
It’s Junsu’s idea to go job-hunting two days later. “What are you going to do about next month’s rent? And the bills?”
Yoochun scowls. “Leave me alone. I’ll figure it out, okay?”
Two hours later they’re at the local coffeeshop talking to the manager. Yoochun wishes Junsu wasn’t quite so pushy. That, and for him to be less susceptible to Junsu’s prodding and wheedling.
The middle-aged woman’s eyeing Yoochun skeptically. Yoochun smooths down the front of his shirt self-consciously. Perhaps he should have ironed it first.
“He’s strong, see?” Junsu punches Yoochun lightly in the arm for emphasis. “He can move supplies. And I’ve had experience working a cash register.”
“I don’t know if we’re that short-handed. We only put an ad out for one.”
“Oh, I don’t know. This place looks busy enough. You guys must have some great coffee, huh?” Junsu smiles disarmingly, and Yoochun has to suppress a snort. “Please, just give us a trial. You can let us go if you decide you’re not that understaffed after all.”
Yoochun can just about see her falling for Junsu’s earnest expression. “Oh, alright. You start work tomorrow.”
“Thank you,” Junsu says, and turns back to Yoochun once she ducks back behind the counter. “That wasn’t so bad.”
“Oh, I don’t know. When you have to flirt with old women just to get a job -”
“Yoochun?”
Yoochun turns. It’s Jaejoong in all his smoky-eyed glory, clutching a tall cup of coffee to go and looking as if he’s just seen a ghost. Which, to be fair, might as well be the same to him, considering Yoochun had expressed a wish to leave the face of the earth the last they’d parted ways.
“Um. Hey.”
“You’re not -”
“Dead? No.” Yoochun manages a sheepish grin. “I meant what I said, though -”
“Oh, no, I wasn’t implying that you were lying - oh.” Jaejoong stops as he catches sight of Junsu. A strange understanding seems to dawn in his eyes. “Oh. I see.”
It’s nothing short of remarkable, the change in Junsu. He seems to have expanded somehow, features losing their boyish affability, gaze steely. The smile never leaves his face, though, except there’s a strange ferocity to it now, something almost deadly in its brightness. “Hello.”
Except for the tightness of his jaw, Jaejoong seems completely at ease, limbs loose, relaxed, one hand tucked casually his jeans pocket. “Well. It’s nice to finally meet the competition. Been in the neighbourhood long?”
Junsu’s smile grows wider, if that’s even possible. “As long as you have, I’d say.”
Jaejoong makes a noncommittal sound, then straightens. “I have to run. Busy, busy, busy.” His gaze returns to Yoochun, though Yoochun is positive his words are meant for Junsu. “Many…messes to take care of. Maybe I’ll see you around, Yoochun.”
They watch Jaejoong’s retreating back in silence. Yoochun turns back to Junsu, mouth half-open, catches the dark look on Junsu’s face, and decides he doesn’t want to know after all.
---
Jaejoong makes a detour before he starts his run for the night. He checks his reflection in the mirrored walls of the elevator as it climbs slowly to the highest floor, fussing with his hair until he’s satisfied. It’s an hour past the end of the workday, and almost the entire building is deserted. The soft slide of the elevator doors opening is the only sound in the unnatural hush, his steps muffled by the lush carpeting. Jaejoong decides he prefers the quiet.
“Sir? Sir, you can’t go in there.”
Jaejoong stops, and frowns. He wasn’t aware anyone would still be here this late. “I need to see Mr. Jung. Urgently.”
The boy is unmoved. Pretty, Jaejoong decides, if a little young for his tastes. Unfortunate, though, that thinly veiled streak of rigid stubbornness, but it intrigues Jaejoong. “Listen,” he glances down at the boy’s desk, “Changmin.” He leans down, too close, but Changmin doesn’t flinch. Jaejoong is impressed. “You tell him Youngwoong’s here.”
Changmin’s face might as well have been carved out of stone. “If you insist.” He picks up the phone, punches in the extension. Jaejoong crosses his arms and waits.
“Mr. Jung? …Yes, I’m sorry, I know what you said. Sir, there’s a Youngwoong here to see you. Says it’s urgent. …Yes, yes, I understand.” Changmin hangs up. “You can go in now,” he informs Jaejoong, tone neutral.
Yunho is on the phone when Jaejoong enters. “No, it’s your job to get those pests out from under my feet. Don’t call back until you do.” Yunho hangs up. “If it isn’t my favourite employee.”
“I didn’t know your tastes ran to little boys.” Jaejoong jerks a thumb back over his shoulder in the general vicinity of Changmin’s desk, and sinks into a chair.
“He happens to be very resourceful. Have you been harassing my staff again?”
“Me?” Jaejoong widens his eyes in mock indignation, then sobers. “I met their emissary today.” Jaejoong’s lip curls momentarily, and Yunho raises an eyebrow.
“Oh?”
“He saved someone.” Jaejoong shakes his head. “I was careless. I should have stuck around till the end.”
“Jaejoong, Jaejoong. When will you ever learn?” Yunho’s smile takes the sting out of his partial rebuke. “Though, given your track record, this shouldn’t be a problem. You’ve faced tougher adversaries.”
Jaejoong winces. “And come out of the fray in bad shape, if you recall. I’m too old for this, Yunho.”
Yunho’s gaze hardens momentarily. “You know as well as I do that I have people to report to, Jaejoong. And my reports hinge largely on your performance.”
Jaejoong sighs. “Maybe you should arrange for a stand-in. It’s been a while since I’ve had a vacation.”
“I’ll make it worth your while.”
“Yeah?”
Yunho’s grin is incandescent in the gloom. “Yeah.”
Jaejoong stands with a groan. “You’re one hell of a taskmaster, you know that?”
Yunho smirks. “I do my best.”
“Throw in that secretary of yours and you’ve got a deal.”
Yunho shakes his head. “Do I even want to know?”
“Probably not. The anticipation’s half the fun.”
Yunho’s tone is all business now, no-nonsense. “About this emissary. You won’t let it become a problem.” It’s not a question.
“No. No, it won’t be a problem.”
Why, then, does it feel like he’s not quite telling the truth?
---
The first time it happens is a week later. Yoochun wakes up at three fifteen in the morning for a glass of water to find the kitchen light on. “Junsu?” The apartment is silent, and he shrugs, grabs a glass of water, flicks off the switch and heads back to bed. He peers into Junsu’s room on a whim to find the bed neatly made, covers undisturbed. Yoochun frowns. They’d had dinner together, then spent an hour watching a ridiculously sappy drama serial before Junsu had yawned and excused himself to bed. Yoochun had turned in half an hour later, and he’s pretty sure he would have heard if Junsu had left the apartment. Besides, where could he be at three in the morning?
“Junsu? Are you even -”
“Am I even what?”
Yoochun spins around so fast he spills some water on himself. “I - You scared me. Where’d you come from?”
Junsu seems a little breathless, but apart from that nothing else seems to be amiss. His hair is sleep-mussed, and sticking out at strange angles, his pajama bottoms riding low on his hips. “Bathroom, why?”
“I thought - but why would you -” Yoochun turns around, and blinks. He could have sworn the bed had been made, sheets unslept in. When he turns back around Junsu’s looking at him with a puzzled smile on his face.
“You okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I am. Goodnight.”
“Night, Yoochun-ah.”
Junsu has a strange knack for unearthing Yoochun’s misplaced things, and for preventing minor mishaps. Two weeks into his new job, Yoochun’s drying the coffee mugs when his hand slips. “Damn it -” He braces himself for the inevitable crash (and having his pay docked for the third time this week to pay for the damage) which, surprisingly, never comes.
“Hi,” Junsu says, by his crouch on the floor at Yoochun’s feet, mug caught deftly in his right hand.
“How - I thought you were in the back.”
Junsu shrugs. “I’m fast.” He straightens, and sets the mug on the counter. “You really should be more careful, Yoochun.”
“Uh, yeah. Yeah, sure.”
Yoochun wishes he could just shrug it off as a product of his overactive imagination, and he does, for the most part. What he can’t rationalize is how Junsu seems to know things. “He’s going to be okay,” Junsu says unexpectedly one morning, launching himself Yoochun’s arms. “Who?” Yoochun demands to know, but is duly ignored. It isn’t until later that afternoon that he gets a call about his father’s heart attack. “He’s going to be okay,” his brother tells him, and the exact repetition of Junsu’s words makes him cold inside. He wants to ask - who are you and how did you know - but can’t seem to bring himself to.
The thing is, Yoochun’s not so much afraid of being lied to, as he is of being told the truth.
---
Jaejoong has his sources. It takes only a modicum of arm-twisting and some vaguely implied threats to get him the information he needs.
He’s waiting when Junsu shows up at the mouth of the alley. “Too late,” he says, as Junsu ventures closer. He’s picked a strategic spot, the orange fluorescents of the streetlamps bright enough to make out the pale, bloodless face of the boy on the carton, the track marks on the inside of his arm, the empty syringe hanging from limp fingers. He doesn’t look a day over eighteen. Jaejoong watches as Junsu’s face turns ashen.
“Drug overdose,” Jaejoong informs him. “Tragic, isn’t it?” He touches the dead boy’s cheek fondly. “Such a sad soul. All he wanted was a way to escape.” Jaejoong allows himself an indulgent smile. “So I gave it to him.”
Junsu is shaking, fists clenched tight at his sides. “You sick, sick bastard.”
“Tsk. I thought your lot weren’t allowed to swear.”
Junsu launches himself at Jaejoong with a cry, and Jaejoong dances nimbly out of reach.
“Really. You should know the rules by now.”
Junsu doesn’t reply. He pauses to scoop the corpse into his arms, and Jaejoong sighs melodramatically.
“Please say you’re not one of those who insist on a proper burial for a mere husk of flesh. The important bit’s gone. I’ve won. Why bother with useless, ceremonial gestures?”
Junsu’s voice is flat, emotionless. “His family should have a chance to grieve.”
Jaejoong laughs mirthlessly. “You know as well as I do that’s unlikely to happen. You might as well wish for stones to weep.”
“You haven’t won,” Junsu calls back, before he vanishes into the night.
Jaejoong smirks, leans back against the wall, and lights up.
“Yet.”
---
Yoochun doesn’t even have time to wonder just how Jaejoong managed to track him down to his doorstep.
“Consider this a parting gift.” Jaejoong says, and kisses him full on the mouth.
Yoochun is breathless and slightly light-headed by the time Jaejoong releases him. “What?” Very nice, Yoochun. Very smooth. No, you did not sound like a dimwit at all.
“Tell Junsu I said hi,” Jaejoong grins, before turning and vanishing back down the stairs.
---
“He what?”
Yoochun takes a careful step back, and feigns nonchalance. “I don’t see why you’re making such a huge fuss out of it. Okay, so it was weird, and maybe he’s a little bit weird, but he didn’t stick around, so I - ”
“Yoochun.” Junsu’s grip on his shoulders is uncomfortably tight. “I’m not even sure I should be saying anything, but Jaejoong…isn’t what you think he is. I told you, you should be more careful, and - Yoochun?”
“Whoa.” Yoochun shakes his head in an attempt to clear it, but that only seems to make it worse. The room is spinning around him, his vision doubling, then tripling. Junsu’s panicked face swims in and out of focus, light, then dark, then light, then dark.
“Yoochun? Are you okay? Yoochun!”
“I think I’m coming down with something,” Yoochun says, before collapsing to the floor.
At first there was light, and then-
---
Yoochun swims in and out of consciousness over the next three days. Junsu is constantly at his side. He’s burning up, freezing cold, plagued with vicious, vivid dreams of blood and fire and the screams of the damned. “Stay with me, damnit,” Junsu exhorts each time he forces his eyes open, “stay with me.”
Yoochun wakes from one of these episodes screaming and shaking, tears coursing down his cheeks. Later he won’t remember what he’s seen, or imagined he’s seen (he knows all about the mind’s tricks, the barriers erected to preserve a man’s sanity) but Junsu is there holding his hand and murmuring soothing, nonsense words. “Don’t leave me,” Yoochun remembers pleading, “don’t leave me alone in the dark.”
“It’s fine, nothing, just horrors shadows whispers, they lie, lie, lie, don’t listen to them.” Junsu’s hands are warm, his voice liquid gold, sing-song, and Yoochun begins to feel safe again.
“You’re glowing”, Yoochun says in wonder, and he is, there’s a nimbus of light around Junsu, and around their clasped hands, and warmth warmth so much warmth.
“Shh. Go back to sleep,” Junsu says, and Yoochun closes his eyes, and drifts into blessed darkness.
---
“Losing our touch, are we?”
Jaejoong bares his teeth at Heechul. “How was I to know he’d be able to heal? Hardly any of them can anymore.”
Heechul smirks. “Somebody’s in a bad mood today.”
Jaejoong snarls wordlessly, and stubs out his cigarette with unnecessary vigor. Heechul rolls his eyes. “I don’t even know why you want this one so badly, anyway. He’s hardly worth the effort.”
“This,” Jaejoong snaps, “is about winning.”
“Oh, boy. And I thought Yunho was obsessed.”
“Picked our own poisons a long time ago.”
“Huh. Yours was Pride?”
“What did you think it was?”
“…never mind.”
---
Jessica knows better than to open the door to strangers. “Hello,” the stranger says, and Jessica promptly forgets all about prudence.
“Hi,” she says, and finds to her horror that she’s blushing. Blushing! Her! Yoona would never let her live it down if she knew. “Who are you?”
The stranger smiles, and Jessica is caught caught trapped. “I need a favour,” he says. “Here’s what I need you to do.”
---
A week later, Yoochun is mostly fine, if still very weak. He has no idea what the hell Jaejoong gave him, and Junsu doesn’t seem to have a name for it. They don’t talk about the nightmares, or anything else of importance, really. Junsu fusses about him, and brings him books, cold towels, food. For now it‘s easier just to pretend it’s a normal illness Yoochun’s recovering from, a bout of flu or some such, and Junsu artfully evades all his questions.
“I’m going out for food,” Junsu says. “Stay right here. I’ll be back soon.”
Yoochun manages a grin. “Where could I go, anyway?”
Junsu is not amused. “Sit!” He commands imperiously, and Yoochun rolls his eyes at him. Junsu laughs and lets himself out.
The abrupt silence is peaceful, and Yoochun reads until the words begin to swim before his eyes. He’s about to doze off when he hears the click of the lock in the door.
“That was fast. Did you remember the soup?”
“Yoochun?” Jessica. Yoochun remembers too late that he forgot to ask for his key back.
“In here,” he calls, and waits until she enters.
Jessica’s face is wan, guarded, her eyes flickering back and forth, taking in the room, then him, then back again. “Are you alone?”
“Yeah. What’re you doing here, Jessica?”
A strange look flits across her features. “I don’t know. I mean, I think -” She moves closer, and Yoochun sits up.
“Jessica? You okay?”
“I - oh. Oh, I remember now.” A beatific smile crosses her face, and Yoochun realizes that he can’t see her hands, because they’re behind her back; she looks tense, nervous, scared, and then she’s holding a knife over him, the blade sharp, sharp steel, cold as death, and -
“Oh, crap.”
---
Junsu realizes too late just what’s going on.
He drops his things, and runs.
---
The ascent up the stairs slows Jessica down, but not by much. She’s hot on his heels, and Yoochun’s legs feel like rubber, a mere parody of flesh and bone. There are spots clouding his vision, the darkness threatening to drag him under. He only realizes he’s reached the roof when he feels the wind on his face, and he stumbles forward, back towards the waist high parapet.
“We don’t have to do this, Yoochun,” Jessica says, her voice so measured, so reasonable, that it scares the shit out of him. “I’ll do it fast, I promise.”
“Get away from me, you crazy bitch,” Yoochun manages, before he realizes it’s probably not a good idea to be pissing her off. Not when she’s advancing on him with a knife, at any rate.
He’s up on the ledge before she’s halfway across the roof. A flicker of irritation crosses those pretty features. “Get down from there, Yoochun. There’s nowhere left to run.”
Nowhere left to run, indeed. Yoochun glances back over his shoulder, and almost laughs out loud at how he once thought a fall from this height would be easy.
“Come down, Yoochun.”
“The hell I will,” he snarls, and jumps.
---
There is wind, and speed, and the sound of the ground rushing up towards him loud in his ears. Yoochun thinks he might be sick. He squeezes his eyes shut, and thinks about his family, and oblivion, and Junsu’s eyes, and smile, and oh dear god this is it this is it -
Yoochun opens his eyes when he realizes that everything’s ground to an abrupt halt, and it takes him a moment to realize he’s no longer falling.
It takes him another moment to realize that Junsu’s caught him. Which is impossible, because he was falling through mid-air. Which is impossible, unless -
“What the fuck?”
“Language,” Junsu says reprovingly, and Yoochun wonders if he’s finally lost it.
“You - you have wings.”
“Yes, nothing wrong with your eyes, apparently- Don’t touch!” Junsu snaps, and Yoochun recoils as if stung. It’s another moment before they reach the ground, and Junsu sets him on his feet carefully.
Yoochun is grateful there’s a wall for him to lean on. He watches as Junsu’s wings (snow white, pristine, delicately arched) seem to fold in on themselves, until they’re gone, and it’s just Junsu again, normal, wingless, not-quite-human Junsu.
“You’re,” Yoochun struggles to say it. “You’re an -”
“Don’t,” Junsu says warningly, “someone might hear,” and Yoochun snaps his mouth closed.
“I don’t understand,” he says feebly, and Junsu spares him a sympathetic glance.
“I couldn’t let you kill yourself. It’s…part of my job.”
“So,” Yoochun tries to wrap his muddled thoughts around these revelations, “so if you’re a - and you and Jaejoong - that means Jaejoong -”
“Your brain seems to be working fine.”
Yoochun ignores the jibe. “But you stayed. With me. Even after…why?”
Junsu shrugs. “I told you. I needed a place to stay.”
Yoochun scowls. “I thought you couldn’t lie.”
Junsu flushes. “That is - what makes you think I’m - that’s not important right now.”
“Maybe it is.”
Junsu frowns. “No, it isn’t - What are you doing? Stop -”
Junsu tastes sweet, like clear spring water, and Yoochun draws away heady and gasping. “Where’d you learn how to do that?”
Junsu grins. “I’ve been around a long time,” and it’s as good an answer as any, as right as the way he fits into the circle of Yoochun’s arms.
“Does this mean you’re not incorruptible, then?”
“You have no idea.”
Pairing: past jessica/yoochun, jaejoong/yoochun, implied jaejoong/yunho, eventual yoochun/junsu
Rating: R
A/N: AU. supernatural!fic. inspired by watching too much Reaper (which is great stuff, btw). Also, I know nothing about SNSD, or Jessica, except that she is very pretty, so this might be pretty OOC. um. yes. ...idek, okay? I'm supposed to be studying, but, eh. Also, I hardly ever write yoosu, so I'm not all too sure where this came from XD
14th October, 2008. Park Yoochun crashes into a streetlamp while out making a delivery. He swears he only had his eyes off the road for a second (this is untrue. The sway of that girl’s hips caught his attention for at least two). He is fired for messing up for the nth time this week.
15th October, 2008. Park Yoochun is served an eviction notice. The landlord is a nasty sonofabitch who threatens to throw him out on his ass. Jessica still won’t take any of his calls.
16th October, 2008. Park Yoochun decides to kill himself.
---
It isn’t planned, this course of action. The thought materializes in Yoochun’s head the morning of the sixteenth as his sits in the kitchen nursing a mug of bitter coffee and a hangover. It’s an epiphany, of sorts, a step so logical he’s amazed he didn’t think of it sooner. I’m going to kill myself, he thinks, and waits for the instinctive recoil, the psychological equivalent of the survival instinct.
…nothing.
He shrugs, pours the rest of the sludge down the sink, and picks up the phone.
---
Jessica is in fine form today.
“What do you want?”
Curt. Clipped. Detached, even. Yoochun is impressed.
“Good to hear from you too, babe.”
“Stop calling me, Yoochun.”
Yoochun can’t resist. “This playing hard to get thing’s getting old, Jessica.”
A sharp intake of breath, and he can almost hear her getting ready to unleash a torrent of self-righteous wrath on him. Jessica is too easy.
“My therapist says”, her voice tight, a clear indication of her valiant attempt at control, “that I have to let go of my anger. And this means not letting you get to me.”
Yoochun rolls his eyes, then remembers that Jessica can’t see him. “What, are you still going to that quack? Because, you remember, my way of releasing all that pent up rage is way more fun -”
“Go to hell,” she snarls, and Yoochun resists the urge to laugh out loud. “Are you bored, or did you just feel like you needed to ruin the rest of my week?”
“Neither,” Yoochun replies cheerfully. “I just wanted to let you know that I’ll be out of your hair soon enough. For good. That should make up for this phone call. Oh, and you can have my CDs.”
“I want my DVD player back.”
Over my dead body, Yoochun almost says before the irony hits him, and then he laughs until Jessica hangs up on him.
---
Yoochun goes to a club that night. If this is going to be his last night on earth, he figures he might as well spend it doing something he actually enjoys.
Yoochun’s on his fifth shot and feeling decidedly tipsy when he notices he has company. The young man is almost preternaturally attractive, even accounting for his alcohol-impaired judgment and the dim lighting.
“You look like a man on a mission,” he informs Yoochun with a grin. He has nice eyes. Yoochun feels expansive, generous. He lets the man slide in next to him, their knees touching, shoulders bumping. Yoochun leans in to speak by his ear. He smells of amber, of smoke, of black Columbian coffee.
“I’m going to kill myself,” Yoochun confides in a conspiratorial whisper, and the man nods sympathetically.
“Can’t say I blame you.” Yoochun blinks, confused, but before he can ask he’s being pulled to his feet. “Let’s make tonight worth your while then, shall we?”
Which is how he ends up having sex with a virtual stranger in the men’s bathroom on the night he’s about to off himself. Not that he’s complaining. Jaejoong has deft hands, soft lips, pale skin stretched taut over muscle and bone. Yoochun learns his name as he’s backed into a stall, Jaejoong’s shirt already tossed unconcernedly to the floor. He’s new to this, bar that one time in college with his roommate, high on coke and heady with triumph, creased certificates flung carelessly atop the mess on their desks (the world awaits, Yoochun remembers being told, the words shaped against his skin, and he, young and naïve, actually believes it). It had been fumbling, awkward; hilarious, really, if it hadn’t been quite so embarrassing. They’d never spoken to each other again. This, though, is different, the planes and angles of Jaejoong’s body unfamiliar to him, but it’s good different, the only embarrassing thing Jaejoong’s skill at reducing him to a whimpering mess. He’s almost sorry when it’s over, Jaejoong patting him companionably on the hip on his way out of the bathroom.
“I’ll see you again soon,” he says, and Yoochun considers reminding Jaejoong of his impending non-existence, but doesn’t. He stands in front of the mirror and surveys his reflection critically. He looks like crap. Yoochun shakes his head, decides it hardly matters, makes his way to the roof.
---
It’s oddly undramatic, standing on the precipice, alone with the wind in his face. He feels nothing peering down at the cold pavement fifteen stories down, even though he’s always been a bit squeamish about heights. Dying, it appears, is horribly overrated.
The silence is making Yoochun edgy. He wonders if he should say something.
“Well, fuck you too.”
That seems about right.
He’s getting ready to launch himself off the edge -no sissy baby steps off into the air with his eyes squeezed shut for Yoochun - when he hears the shout.
“Hey. Hey!”
Well, damn.
Yoochun turns to peer back over his shoulder. “Go away, please.” He’s surprised at how polite and sober he sounds, how rational.
The boy looks so distressed he almost feels sorry for him. “Please. Come down.”
Yoochun sighs. “This really isn’t any of your business, you know.”
The boy scowls. “Well, it is now.”
A smartass if ever there was one. Yoochun isn’t aware he’s spoken out loud until he hears the boy’s indignant retort (“What did you say?”) by his right leg, and by then it’s too late to slip free (how did he move across the rooftop that quickly?) before he’s yanked back forcibly from the ledge.
Yoochun lands badly, only thankful that it isn’t on his face. “Ow! Son of a -”
The boy’s grip is deceptively strong. “I’d suggest you don’t finish that thought,” he says, his fingers digging deep into Yoochun’s arm belying the positively sanguine smile on his face.
Yoochun pulls away in disgust. “What are you, some kind of good Samaritan? Swoop around saving a lot of lost souls, do you?”
It’s crazy, but he swears the boy positively beams at him.
“As many as I can.”
---
His name is Junsu, and he won’t answer any questions about himself. He stays over that night to “keep an eye” on Yoochun, and Yoochun wakes up past lunch the next day, head pounding, to find Junsu moving box after box into the spare bedroom.
“What the hell?” It seems just about all Yoochun can manage right now. He coughs, clears his throat, wills the pain away. Junsu sets down a large carton.
“Oh, good, you’re awake. I bought lunch.”
Yoochun attempts a suspicious glare, manages a bleary squint, and stumbles in the vague direction of the kitchen. He chooses to ignore the sound of Junsu’s footsteps behind him, and converges on the food.
“I paid your rent,” Junsu says, and Yoochun forces himself to swallow before he chokes. “He said you were three months behind on it. No wonder he was so eager to kick you out.”
“You didn’t have to do that.”
Junsu pulls up a chair. “A simple ‘thank you’ would suffice.”
“Um. Thanks. I guess.”
“You’re welcome.” Junsu shrugs. “I needed a place to stay, anyway.”
Yoochun isn’t sure what to make of this. It must be written all over his face, for Junsu attempts a reassuring smile, bright enough to light up his entire face. It makes him look younger than he already does, and Yoochun tries not to resent Junsu for his sunny optimism. He swears he can almost see that damn halo.
“Don’t worry. We’re going to get along fine. As long as you stop doing stupid things.”
Yoochun bristles. “What do you mean stupid things -”
“You almost got thrown into the street, this place is a dump, you tried to jump off a building, and, oh, your girlfriend left a message on your machine.” Junsu’s eyes are full of mirth, and right then Yoochun hates him a little bit. No, wait, scratch that. He loathes the guy. “She said, since you’re giving her your CDs, could she have your speakers, too?”
It’s a toss up between breaking down where he sits or throwing his spoon at the guy, and Yoochun decides to opt for the latter.
---
Jaejoong likes to reward himself for a job well done by allowing himself to sleep in. It’s late afternoon by the time he deigns to roll out of bed. So trite, he thinks, not for the first time, as he punches in the same three numbers, and waits as strains of Muzak filter over the connection. Damn. He keeps forgetting just how insidiously mind-numbing it can be.
The operator’s voice is sharp, grating, even to his ears. “Circle Seven. State your request or get off the line.”
Jaejoong suppresses a sigh. The service nowadays. Back in his day, now -
“Youngwoong Jaejoong. 6675349. Class A.”
“Hold on.” There’s more Muzak, and then the operator’s voice again. “Your current tally is 84, 116. Have a good haul.”
“That’s not right.” Jaejoong suppresses his impatience. “I got three yesterday. There should be one more added to that total. Could you check again?”
The operator heaves a sigh of the long-suffering. “The system is never wrong, sir.”
Jaejoong scowls. He’s right about that much, at least. Jaejoong frowns as he hangs up. He had been so sure about that last one, too.
If there’s one thing he hates, it’s not reaping the rewards for a job well done.
---
It’s Junsu’s idea to go job-hunting two days later. “What are you going to do about next month’s rent? And the bills?”
Yoochun scowls. “Leave me alone. I’ll figure it out, okay?”
Two hours later they’re at the local coffeeshop talking to the manager. Yoochun wishes Junsu wasn’t quite so pushy. That, and for him to be less susceptible to Junsu’s prodding and wheedling.
The middle-aged woman’s eyeing Yoochun skeptically. Yoochun smooths down the front of his shirt self-consciously. Perhaps he should have ironed it first.
“He’s strong, see?” Junsu punches Yoochun lightly in the arm for emphasis. “He can move supplies. And I’ve had experience working a cash register.”
“I don’t know if we’re that short-handed. We only put an ad out for one.”
“Oh, I don’t know. This place looks busy enough. You guys must have some great coffee, huh?” Junsu smiles disarmingly, and Yoochun has to suppress a snort. “Please, just give us a trial. You can let us go if you decide you’re not that understaffed after all.”
Yoochun can just about see her falling for Junsu’s earnest expression. “Oh, alright. You start work tomorrow.”
“Thank you,” Junsu says, and turns back to Yoochun once she ducks back behind the counter. “That wasn’t so bad.”
“Oh, I don’t know. When you have to flirt with old women just to get a job -”
“Yoochun?”
Yoochun turns. It’s Jaejoong in all his smoky-eyed glory, clutching a tall cup of coffee to go and looking as if he’s just seen a ghost. Which, to be fair, might as well be the same to him, considering Yoochun had expressed a wish to leave the face of the earth the last they’d parted ways.
“Um. Hey.”
“You’re not -”
“Dead? No.” Yoochun manages a sheepish grin. “I meant what I said, though -”
“Oh, no, I wasn’t implying that you were lying - oh.” Jaejoong stops as he catches sight of Junsu. A strange understanding seems to dawn in his eyes. “Oh. I see.”
It’s nothing short of remarkable, the change in Junsu. He seems to have expanded somehow, features losing their boyish affability, gaze steely. The smile never leaves his face, though, except there’s a strange ferocity to it now, something almost deadly in its brightness. “Hello.”
Except for the tightness of his jaw, Jaejoong seems completely at ease, limbs loose, relaxed, one hand tucked casually his jeans pocket. “Well. It’s nice to finally meet the competition. Been in the neighbourhood long?”
Junsu’s smile grows wider, if that’s even possible. “As long as you have, I’d say.”
Jaejoong makes a noncommittal sound, then straightens. “I have to run. Busy, busy, busy.” His gaze returns to Yoochun, though Yoochun is positive his words are meant for Junsu. “Many…messes to take care of. Maybe I’ll see you around, Yoochun.”
They watch Jaejoong’s retreating back in silence. Yoochun turns back to Junsu, mouth half-open, catches the dark look on Junsu’s face, and decides he doesn’t want to know after all.
---
Jaejoong makes a detour before he starts his run for the night. He checks his reflection in the mirrored walls of the elevator as it climbs slowly to the highest floor, fussing with his hair until he’s satisfied. It’s an hour past the end of the workday, and almost the entire building is deserted. The soft slide of the elevator doors opening is the only sound in the unnatural hush, his steps muffled by the lush carpeting. Jaejoong decides he prefers the quiet.
“Sir? Sir, you can’t go in there.”
Jaejoong stops, and frowns. He wasn’t aware anyone would still be here this late. “I need to see Mr. Jung. Urgently.”
The boy is unmoved. Pretty, Jaejoong decides, if a little young for his tastes. Unfortunate, though, that thinly veiled streak of rigid stubbornness, but it intrigues Jaejoong. “Listen,” he glances down at the boy’s desk, “Changmin.” He leans down, too close, but Changmin doesn’t flinch. Jaejoong is impressed. “You tell him Youngwoong’s here.”
Changmin’s face might as well have been carved out of stone. “If you insist.” He picks up the phone, punches in the extension. Jaejoong crosses his arms and waits.
“Mr. Jung? …Yes, I’m sorry, I know what you said. Sir, there’s a Youngwoong here to see you. Says it’s urgent. …Yes, yes, I understand.” Changmin hangs up. “You can go in now,” he informs Jaejoong, tone neutral.
Yunho is on the phone when Jaejoong enters. “No, it’s your job to get those pests out from under my feet. Don’t call back until you do.” Yunho hangs up. “If it isn’t my favourite employee.”
“I didn’t know your tastes ran to little boys.” Jaejoong jerks a thumb back over his shoulder in the general vicinity of Changmin’s desk, and sinks into a chair.
“He happens to be very resourceful. Have you been harassing my staff again?”
“Me?” Jaejoong widens his eyes in mock indignation, then sobers. “I met their emissary today.” Jaejoong’s lip curls momentarily, and Yunho raises an eyebrow.
“Oh?”
“He saved someone.” Jaejoong shakes his head. “I was careless. I should have stuck around till the end.”
“Jaejoong, Jaejoong. When will you ever learn?” Yunho’s smile takes the sting out of his partial rebuke. “Though, given your track record, this shouldn’t be a problem. You’ve faced tougher adversaries.”
Jaejoong winces. “And come out of the fray in bad shape, if you recall. I’m too old for this, Yunho.”
Yunho’s gaze hardens momentarily. “You know as well as I do that I have people to report to, Jaejoong. And my reports hinge largely on your performance.”
Jaejoong sighs. “Maybe you should arrange for a stand-in. It’s been a while since I’ve had a vacation.”
“I’ll make it worth your while.”
“Yeah?”
Yunho’s grin is incandescent in the gloom. “Yeah.”
Jaejoong stands with a groan. “You’re one hell of a taskmaster, you know that?”
Yunho smirks. “I do my best.”
“Throw in that secretary of yours and you’ve got a deal.”
Yunho shakes his head. “Do I even want to know?”
“Probably not. The anticipation’s half the fun.”
Yunho’s tone is all business now, no-nonsense. “About this emissary. You won’t let it become a problem.” It’s not a question.
“No. No, it won’t be a problem.”
Why, then, does it feel like he’s not quite telling the truth?
---
The first time it happens is a week later. Yoochun wakes up at three fifteen in the morning for a glass of water to find the kitchen light on. “Junsu?” The apartment is silent, and he shrugs, grabs a glass of water, flicks off the switch and heads back to bed. He peers into Junsu’s room on a whim to find the bed neatly made, covers undisturbed. Yoochun frowns. They’d had dinner together, then spent an hour watching a ridiculously sappy drama serial before Junsu had yawned and excused himself to bed. Yoochun had turned in half an hour later, and he’s pretty sure he would have heard if Junsu had left the apartment. Besides, where could he be at three in the morning?
“Junsu? Are you even -”
“Am I even what?”
Yoochun spins around so fast he spills some water on himself. “I - You scared me. Where’d you come from?”
Junsu seems a little breathless, but apart from that nothing else seems to be amiss. His hair is sleep-mussed, and sticking out at strange angles, his pajama bottoms riding low on his hips. “Bathroom, why?”
“I thought - but why would you -” Yoochun turns around, and blinks. He could have sworn the bed had been made, sheets unslept in. When he turns back around Junsu’s looking at him with a puzzled smile on his face.
“You okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I am. Goodnight.”
“Night, Yoochun-ah.”
Junsu has a strange knack for unearthing Yoochun’s misplaced things, and for preventing minor mishaps. Two weeks into his new job, Yoochun’s drying the coffee mugs when his hand slips. “Damn it -” He braces himself for the inevitable crash (and having his pay docked for the third time this week to pay for the damage) which, surprisingly, never comes.
“Hi,” Junsu says, by his crouch on the floor at Yoochun’s feet, mug caught deftly in his right hand.
“How - I thought you were in the back.”
Junsu shrugs. “I’m fast.” He straightens, and sets the mug on the counter. “You really should be more careful, Yoochun.”
“Uh, yeah. Yeah, sure.”
Yoochun wishes he could just shrug it off as a product of his overactive imagination, and he does, for the most part. What he can’t rationalize is how Junsu seems to know things. “He’s going to be okay,” Junsu says unexpectedly one morning, launching himself Yoochun’s arms. “Who?” Yoochun demands to know, but is duly ignored. It isn’t until later that afternoon that he gets a call about his father’s heart attack. “He’s going to be okay,” his brother tells him, and the exact repetition of Junsu’s words makes him cold inside. He wants to ask - who are you and how did you know - but can’t seem to bring himself to.
The thing is, Yoochun’s not so much afraid of being lied to, as he is of being told the truth.
---
Jaejoong has his sources. It takes only a modicum of arm-twisting and some vaguely implied threats to get him the information he needs.
He’s waiting when Junsu shows up at the mouth of the alley. “Too late,” he says, as Junsu ventures closer. He’s picked a strategic spot, the orange fluorescents of the streetlamps bright enough to make out the pale, bloodless face of the boy on the carton, the track marks on the inside of his arm, the empty syringe hanging from limp fingers. He doesn’t look a day over eighteen. Jaejoong watches as Junsu’s face turns ashen.
“Drug overdose,” Jaejoong informs him. “Tragic, isn’t it?” He touches the dead boy’s cheek fondly. “Such a sad soul. All he wanted was a way to escape.” Jaejoong allows himself an indulgent smile. “So I gave it to him.”
Junsu is shaking, fists clenched tight at his sides. “You sick, sick bastard.”
“Tsk. I thought your lot weren’t allowed to swear.”
Junsu launches himself at Jaejoong with a cry, and Jaejoong dances nimbly out of reach.
“Really. You should know the rules by now.”
Junsu doesn’t reply. He pauses to scoop the corpse into his arms, and Jaejoong sighs melodramatically.
“Please say you’re not one of those who insist on a proper burial for a mere husk of flesh. The important bit’s gone. I’ve won. Why bother with useless, ceremonial gestures?”
Junsu’s voice is flat, emotionless. “His family should have a chance to grieve.”
Jaejoong laughs mirthlessly. “You know as well as I do that’s unlikely to happen. You might as well wish for stones to weep.”
“You haven’t won,” Junsu calls back, before he vanishes into the night.
Jaejoong smirks, leans back against the wall, and lights up.
“Yet.”
---
Yoochun doesn’t even have time to wonder just how Jaejoong managed to track him down to his doorstep.
“Consider this a parting gift.” Jaejoong says, and kisses him full on the mouth.
Yoochun is breathless and slightly light-headed by the time Jaejoong releases him. “What?” Very nice, Yoochun. Very smooth. No, you did not sound like a dimwit at all.
“Tell Junsu I said hi,” Jaejoong grins, before turning and vanishing back down the stairs.
---
“He what?”
Yoochun takes a careful step back, and feigns nonchalance. “I don’t see why you’re making such a huge fuss out of it. Okay, so it was weird, and maybe he’s a little bit weird, but he didn’t stick around, so I - ”
“Yoochun.” Junsu’s grip on his shoulders is uncomfortably tight. “I’m not even sure I should be saying anything, but Jaejoong…isn’t what you think he is. I told you, you should be more careful, and - Yoochun?”
“Whoa.” Yoochun shakes his head in an attempt to clear it, but that only seems to make it worse. The room is spinning around him, his vision doubling, then tripling. Junsu’s panicked face swims in and out of focus, light, then dark, then light, then dark.
“Yoochun? Are you okay? Yoochun!”
“I think I’m coming down with something,” Yoochun says, before collapsing to the floor.
At first there was light, and then-
---
Yoochun swims in and out of consciousness over the next three days. Junsu is constantly at his side. He’s burning up, freezing cold, plagued with vicious, vivid dreams of blood and fire and the screams of the damned. “Stay with me, damnit,” Junsu exhorts each time he forces his eyes open, “stay with me.”
Yoochun wakes from one of these episodes screaming and shaking, tears coursing down his cheeks. Later he won’t remember what he’s seen, or imagined he’s seen (he knows all about the mind’s tricks, the barriers erected to preserve a man’s sanity) but Junsu is there holding his hand and murmuring soothing, nonsense words. “Don’t leave me,” Yoochun remembers pleading, “don’t leave me alone in the dark.”
“It’s fine, nothing, just horrors shadows whispers, they lie, lie, lie, don’t listen to them.” Junsu’s hands are warm, his voice liquid gold, sing-song, and Yoochun begins to feel safe again.
“You’re glowing”, Yoochun says in wonder, and he is, there’s a nimbus of light around Junsu, and around their clasped hands, and warmth warmth so much warmth.
“Shh. Go back to sleep,” Junsu says, and Yoochun closes his eyes, and drifts into blessed darkness.
---
“Losing our touch, are we?”
Jaejoong bares his teeth at Heechul. “How was I to know he’d be able to heal? Hardly any of them can anymore.”
Heechul smirks. “Somebody’s in a bad mood today.”
Jaejoong snarls wordlessly, and stubs out his cigarette with unnecessary vigor. Heechul rolls his eyes. “I don’t even know why you want this one so badly, anyway. He’s hardly worth the effort.”
“This,” Jaejoong snaps, “is about winning.”
“Oh, boy. And I thought Yunho was obsessed.”
“Picked our own poisons a long time ago.”
“Huh. Yours was Pride?”
“What did you think it was?”
“…never mind.”
---
Jessica knows better than to open the door to strangers. “Hello,” the stranger says, and Jessica promptly forgets all about prudence.
“Hi,” she says, and finds to her horror that she’s blushing. Blushing! Her! Yoona would never let her live it down if she knew. “Who are you?”
The stranger smiles, and Jessica is caught caught trapped. “I need a favour,” he says. “Here’s what I need you to do.”
---
A week later, Yoochun is mostly fine, if still very weak. He has no idea what the hell Jaejoong gave him, and Junsu doesn’t seem to have a name for it. They don’t talk about the nightmares, or anything else of importance, really. Junsu fusses about him, and brings him books, cold towels, food. For now it‘s easier just to pretend it’s a normal illness Yoochun’s recovering from, a bout of flu or some such, and Junsu artfully evades all his questions.
“I’m going out for food,” Junsu says. “Stay right here. I’ll be back soon.”
Yoochun manages a grin. “Where could I go, anyway?”
Junsu is not amused. “Sit!” He commands imperiously, and Yoochun rolls his eyes at him. Junsu laughs and lets himself out.
The abrupt silence is peaceful, and Yoochun reads until the words begin to swim before his eyes. He’s about to doze off when he hears the click of the lock in the door.
“That was fast. Did you remember the soup?”
“Yoochun?” Jessica. Yoochun remembers too late that he forgot to ask for his key back.
“In here,” he calls, and waits until she enters.
Jessica’s face is wan, guarded, her eyes flickering back and forth, taking in the room, then him, then back again. “Are you alone?”
“Yeah. What’re you doing here, Jessica?”
A strange look flits across her features. “I don’t know. I mean, I think -” She moves closer, and Yoochun sits up.
“Jessica? You okay?”
“I - oh. Oh, I remember now.” A beatific smile crosses her face, and Yoochun realizes that he can’t see her hands, because they’re behind her back; she looks tense, nervous, scared, and then she’s holding a knife over him, the blade sharp, sharp steel, cold as death, and -
“Oh, crap.”
---
Junsu realizes too late just what’s going on.
He drops his things, and runs.
---
The ascent up the stairs slows Jessica down, but not by much. She’s hot on his heels, and Yoochun’s legs feel like rubber, a mere parody of flesh and bone. There are spots clouding his vision, the darkness threatening to drag him under. He only realizes he’s reached the roof when he feels the wind on his face, and he stumbles forward, back towards the waist high parapet.
“We don’t have to do this, Yoochun,” Jessica says, her voice so measured, so reasonable, that it scares the shit out of him. “I’ll do it fast, I promise.”
“Get away from me, you crazy bitch,” Yoochun manages, before he realizes it’s probably not a good idea to be pissing her off. Not when she’s advancing on him with a knife, at any rate.
He’s up on the ledge before she’s halfway across the roof. A flicker of irritation crosses those pretty features. “Get down from there, Yoochun. There’s nowhere left to run.”
Nowhere left to run, indeed. Yoochun glances back over his shoulder, and almost laughs out loud at how he once thought a fall from this height would be easy.
“Come down, Yoochun.”
“The hell I will,” he snarls, and jumps.
---
There is wind, and speed, and the sound of the ground rushing up towards him loud in his ears. Yoochun thinks he might be sick. He squeezes his eyes shut, and thinks about his family, and oblivion, and Junsu’s eyes, and smile, and oh dear god this is it this is it -
Yoochun opens his eyes when he realizes that everything’s ground to an abrupt halt, and it takes him a moment to realize he’s no longer falling.
It takes him another moment to realize that Junsu’s caught him. Which is impossible, because he was falling through mid-air. Which is impossible, unless -
“What the fuck?”
“Language,” Junsu says reprovingly, and Yoochun wonders if he’s finally lost it.
“You - you have wings.”
“Yes, nothing wrong with your eyes, apparently- Don’t touch!” Junsu snaps, and Yoochun recoils as if stung. It’s another moment before they reach the ground, and Junsu sets him on his feet carefully.
Yoochun is grateful there’s a wall for him to lean on. He watches as Junsu’s wings (snow white, pristine, delicately arched) seem to fold in on themselves, until they’re gone, and it’s just Junsu again, normal, wingless, not-quite-human Junsu.
“You’re,” Yoochun struggles to say it. “You’re an -”
“Don’t,” Junsu says warningly, “someone might hear,” and Yoochun snaps his mouth closed.
“I don’t understand,” he says feebly, and Junsu spares him a sympathetic glance.
“I couldn’t let you kill yourself. It’s…part of my job.”
“So,” Yoochun tries to wrap his muddled thoughts around these revelations, “so if you’re a - and you and Jaejoong - that means Jaejoong -”
“Your brain seems to be working fine.”
Yoochun ignores the jibe. “But you stayed. With me. Even after…why?”
Junsu shrugs. “I told you. I needed a place to stay.”
Yoochun scowls. “I thought you couldn’t lie.”
Junsu flushes. “That is - what makes you think I’m - that’s not important right now.”
“Maybe it is.”
Junsu frowns. “No, it isn’t - What are you doing? Stop -”
Junsu tastes sweet, like clear spring water, and Yoochun draws away heady and gasping. “Where’d you learn how to do that?”
Junsu grins. “I’ve been around a long time,” and it’s as good an answer as any, as right as the way he fits into the circle of Yoochun’s arms.
“Does this mean you’re not incorruptible, then?”
“You have no idea.”