the devil

“there’s nothing to do,” she sighs, punctuating each word with an impatient tap of her foot, as if siyeon is annoyed at the compound for not having more things to do. it suddenly occurs to her that she hasn’t even got a specific idea in mind, but she shrugs it off. she knows she’ll end up cranking out something stupid and amusing enough to entertain her for an hour or so. spontaneity is the spice of life, or so it goes whenever she’s too shortsighted to actually plan ahead. “if you don’t have anything better to do, do you wanna go terrorize the good people of the arc today? after we get you some coffee, though. you, ah, you look like you could use a little.”

the door swings open to reveal someone who looks far more put together than moonsoo really feels is necessary in his current situation. his frown mirrors this sentiment, as do the blearily narrowed eyes he levels on siyeon when she opens her mouth. “i hang out with you because you don’t talk.” is what he returns with. this isn’t exactly true, but siyeon’s known him long enough to pick up on when he’s not being entirely serious anyway, and so moonsoo’s not really worried she’ll take it the wrong way.

but then, he’s usually not worried when people do take things the wrong way, either. 

his jaw cracks when he yawns, and moonsoo halfheartedly lifts a hand -- he’s almost successful in covering his entire mouth. almost successful in being entirely polite. his body all but collapses against the door frame in some elaborate gesture of laziness as he listens to siyeon talk, waits for whatever plan that’s been spinning through the gears of her mind to find its way out of her mouth. eventually, it does. but it’s not so much of a plan as it is an idle thought, and moonsoo’s not entirely sure it’s a very good reason to draw him out from his bed, either (even if he wasn’t really up to anything -- productive or otherwise). 

“you could sleep. or knock on someone else’s door.” moonsoo suggests, makes a point of leaning halfway out into the hall and glancing pointedly down it at the rows of doors, throws out a quick gesture with a flick of his wrist, as if to send her off. not that he really expects her to do it. and if he’d really wanted her too, he would have demanded it. 

“i look charming and irresistible.” moonsoo grits out in what might be the least-charming tone of voice he’s able to produce, though it’s still wrapped up and dripping in fabricated charisma. the type that draws people in, makes them cling to his every word. no matter how stupid, no matter how small and pointless. 

“pass me a cigarette? i can’t stand another minute of this.”

stakeout mission were something that often seemed lost on moonsoo. his skillset was narrowed. a peculiarity in and of itself, and while immensely powerful, moonsoo is situational. at best, stakeouts offer him an opportunity for a target to arrive at the location, and that’s what he can handle. but most of his partners -- sans his own teammate, who is acutely aware of how moonsoo functions -- love to insist on making him hide in the shrubs for a handful of hours to glean whatever scraps of info they can from staring a building half a mile away with binoculars pressed to their faces. 

granted, there are situations where moonsoo should be more cautious, more wary. situations where he should put faith in whoever he’s with, situations where those who want him dead are lurking in the shadows, outnumbering him. moonsoo maintains, however, that even with that information at the ready there isn’t much he can do about it. that and he’ll readily complain that he shouldn’t be sent on those sorts of missions in the first place, and that even if it happens, he has a gun and he’ll fucking use it. he has too much bravado, but he needs to. he uses it to cover up his fear, after all.

but even still, with all his brashness and he’s sure he could get them into the mansion without sitting outside of it for an hour, and he’s sure hayeon could cloak them both in fabricated shadows if anyone showed up that moonsoo couldn’t get a jump on with his mouth. it’s pointless. he’s relayed this to her at least six time, but he’s still there. behind a bush with gnats hanging in the air in front of him like a cloud. 

he could think of at least fifty-four things he’d rather be doing. 

moonsoo eventually hefted out a sigh, something to enunciate his displeasure before making a grab for his cigarettes. at this rate, he hoped some passerby noticed the flare of a spark when he lit up. at least that way he’d be able to move. occasionally he’d lift his binoculars, but it was more for something to do than it was him actually taking surveillance seriously.

hanjun pulls out his folding blade and steps closer to song moonsoo. “don’t you know it’s more satisfying doing it yourself? but it’s not like you know that,” hanjun drawls. “so i’m giving you a chance.” and he proceeds to dig the tip of the blade into his stomach, hard enough to break skin, but not enough to inflict a grievous injury just yet. “go on, do your worst,” hanjun challenges, his hands gripping onto the blade and the handle left free.

for all their snarls and swears, for all their terrible fights and brutal hands, moonsoo understand hanjun, at least on some level. the will to fight back, to keep throwing yourself at something even if there’s a near definite chance of getting cut down over and over again. the need to grasp at control and pull it to your chest so that no one can take it back from you. not everybody feels it. not everyone understands. but hanjun does. maybe that’s what keep pulling moonsoo back to him, a moth to a flame. a moth that almost craves the repercussion of being burned. it doesn’t make perfect sense, but what in moonsoo’s life does?

moonsoo understands hanjun, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to help him. that doesn’t mean he’s going to make it easy for him. that doesn’t mean he’s willing to hand over the wheel and let hanjun drive them both off a cliff (despite the fact that moonsoo’s already wrecked, despite the fact that there’s not much more damage that can be done).

he watches with a curious sort of detachment when hanjun lands and grabs at his own finger, jams the bone out of place in a way that the arc taught them long ago. there’s an eerie silence in the clearing, the birds already chased away and hanjun standing near-dazed in front of him. it’s what prompts moonsoo to take a couple of steps closer, to grab at hanjun’s face. pulls him back and forth and pairs it with derogatory words, the kind that will burrow underneath hanjun’s skin and eventually drive him mad (truth be told though, moonsoo rather likes him when he’s mad).

he earns himself a laugh and moonsoo offers up a lazy looking smile of his own in response. “the best i can do,” the words turn over in moonsoo’s mouth, a contemplative pause as if he’s considering hanjun’s question, taps his thumb against the jut of the other’s jaw as he talks. “i don’t really think you want to see the best i can do.” he finally settles on, his stare bored as he settles his gaze on hanjun’s face. there’s a disconnect there as he says it, something unsettling and glazed.

there’s a rustle of grass and weeds when hanjun yanks himself backward, and moonsoo lets his hand swing back down to his side. “hiding. is that what you call it? so when you use your wings, should i call that running? i guess it fits the coward.” it’s an apt comparison, moonsoo figures, if he were to apply hanjun’s apparent logic to it. there is, perhaps, a shred of truth in hanjun’s statement, but it deviates from his intended barb. moonsoo does hide, but it’s from himself. from his past. as far as he’s concerned he’s armed with a weapon that does nothing but infuriate the world around him, power to a boy who should deserve none. it’s wrong, and it’s unnatural. but in moonsoo’s opinion, they can all go fuck themselves. so overwhelmed with jealousy they’d request a bullet over a command. that’s what he tells himself. how else is he supposed to sleep at night, with what the arc makes him do?

“hanjun, if i’m ordering people to do shit then clearly i’m getting things done. it’s like, you know, ten times the manpower over doing it myself. at least use a little bit of common sense before you say shit, won’t you?” moonsoo drawls out, one hand slipping down to his pocket in search for his smokes. something habitual. he comes up empty though, and it brings a scowl to his face. “anyway, i’m useless? what about you? you can grow wings and fly, big fucking deal, so can a carrier pigeon.” it comes out conversational over angry, but moonsoo has long perfected the art of infuriating people. meeting anger with pointedly calm derision almost never fails to meet a violent response.

moonsoo eyes the other’s hand as he pulls out a knife, his lips parting -- no doubt in preparation to mutter out a fast stop if he needs to. “you don’t know anything about me” he mumbles back instead when hanjun turns the knife around on himself and offers moonsoo the handle. “what kind of fucked up test is this, anyway? am i supposed to take the moral high road or gut you to show you i can get my hands dirty?” he asks him outright as he takes a step closer to curl his fingers around the proffered handle. “did you forget that i learned how to use a gun just as well as everyone else in the hellhole? are you that fucking jealous?” he gets close enough to whisper this before he twists his body, adds pressure to the blade and lets metal sink into skin. 

hanjun will heal. it’s all pointless.

“are you happy now that my hands are red?” he asks him, acid dripping from his tongue, twists the knife once with a grimace before he pulls his hand away and takes a few steps back, sniffs against the air and swipes his bloodied hand off across the thigh of his jeans.

“go get them,” song moonsoo had said. but he said nothing about bringing them back to him. so hanjun closes his eyes and flings the pack as far as he can to a destination unknown. turning towards the bench where he’s sure song moonsoo can see him, hanjun gives him the middle finger. “oops,” he says as he flies closer to the bench, his veneer cool and calm, but his blood half-way boiling.

"guess it depends, but you seem so adamant about doing it all the goddamn time. must get a little tiring." moonsoo speaks out  conversationally as he ambles closer. he likes games, but he likes winning even more. usually he can mold situations to fit his needs, to give himself an upper hand that he can exploit and abuse. but hanjun, he's learned, loves finding loopholes and pushing back. moonsoo both loves and hates it – it leads to an interesting dynamic, one that he can't seem to pull himself away from. it leaves them both in dangerous territory, both gunning for control that neither of them can seem to hold onto for very long around each other. 

that doesn't stop moonsoo from trying, though. so he lets hanjun talk, and he watches with a bored stare when hanjun lobs his cigarettes into a tree, and then – like on so many other occasions – moonsoo immediately falls back on his powers and orders hanjun to get them back. he collapses back onto the bench while he waits, watches. destroyed fabric and hanjun's muscles tensing in what he assumes to be pain before he takes flight. leaves a hard wind and a flurry of dirt in his wake that moonsoo closes his eyes against. 

at first, before it all really began, moonsoo had felt borderline guilty about using his powers. at first, moonsoo had felt like he was spinning out of control, like he was wrong. at first, moonsoo had felt like a monster. but that was before he'd learned to embrace it. that was before he decided that his gift was exactly that, payback for all the years he'd suffered through underneath someone else's thumb. so now? now he likes to say he feels nothing much about anything, anymore. 

the funny thing is, he's not even lying. 

maybe the monster inside of him consumed the ragged remainders of his soul too, the haunting presence of which only visits him in nightmares he chases away with copious amounts of vodka. 

he lifts a hand to block out the sun when the rustling stops and hanjun seems to emerge with the pack in hand. they only remain there momentarily though, a beat before hanjun is crooking his arm back and throwing them deep into the woods. he hadn't been specific enough. moonsoo takes a deep breath in, and then out when hanjun flies in front of him and flips him off. 

it’d be easy to just unlock moonsoo’s door and waltz right in, but truth be told, she’d rather not accidentally invoke his irritation at her . so instead, she knocks neatly on his door twice. “moonsoo oppa,” she calls, voice as unintentionally flat as ever. if she could, she’s sure she would have sounded enthusiastic, but at the moment, this is the best she can do. “are you busy?”

moonsoo had gone to bed drunk with the world spinning underneath his back, and he woke up bleary eyed and only a little bit hungover (miraculously enough). it was what prevented him from climbing out of bed for more than a handful of hours. he's still buried under tangled sheets when the sun climbs high in the sky, lazy enough that he just squints against the light and turns to face the wall with his phone in hand instead of getting up to pull the blinds closed. 

he's only completely roused from his incredibly busy schedule of  staring dazedly at his phone screen when a fist hits his door.  he sighs, rolls onto his back and takes a second to process the sound. it's not too hard, like it would be if whoever was on the other side of it wanted to take a swing at his face, so he hefts himself upright with a groan and scrubs a hand across his face. he looks disheveled, the hood of his sweatshirt pulled up over wild hair and the imprints of his pillow indented into his cheek. but at least his hangover's gone (even if he could really go for a cup of coffee or four). 

moonsoo flips the lock and swings the door open to reveal a familiar enough face. he doesn't mind siyeon, not like he has a way of minding most people (or perhaps, a more accurate way to describe the bulk of moonsoo's relationships is: not like the way he has a habit of immediately getting on people's bad sides). but she's never been indignantly moral, doesn't reprimand him when moonsoo pushes things too far, twists things up cruel and leaves them there for other people to detangle. he likes the predictable, monotonous way she talks. likes how she dulls emotions so that he's not the one who has to deal with them. 

he doesn’t make it to the three. before he knows it his head is up and he is standing up, looking down at moonsoo with anger. “are you done with your little show?” he asks, hands in fists, mind running to so many places he doesn’t even know. at this point, jihoon is almost begging for it. one more word, you little prick. one more word so he can punch his scrawny pretty face. “do you feel hardass enough now that you came here and talked all this shit? just get the fuck out of here.”

for all that moonsoo's clever, he's overconfident. or at least, he likes to pretend that he is. why else would he stand in front of jihoon just to goad him on with cruel words? for selfish means to reach his ends, undoubtedly. but there are safer ways to handle things. instead, he ignores those options and baits jihoon on with words instead, hopes to catch his outrage, his hurt, hopes to feed whatever hole feels like it's been punched through moonsoo's own chest by trying to steal others’ happiness (though it never really seems to work). 

jihoon stiffens when moonsoo speaks, shoulders  tensed and his eyes closing like he might be trying to block out moonsoo's voice from the world around him. but then, that's a terribly hard thing to do. moonsoo's become rather adept at sharpening his tongue into a weapon; bullets traded out for words. 

it only takes a few comments before jihoon's rocking forward onto his feet to crook his head down at him. moonsoo stares back with an expression that reads of boredom, though there's an amused glint in his eyes behind it all. he feigns shock, however, at jihoon's question. "is that what i'm doing? but i thought you were the one with the show, promising whatever the hell crosses your mind just to drop the fucking ball." the words slip out easily, and moonsoo looks every inch relaxed even as jihoon's fingers clench into fists. 

“i know you don’t like me — fine, i don’t care, but don’t you realize it could have been so much worse?” other possibilities run through his mind, all horrible and graphic — and they are not just simply failing a mission as a consequence. “it’s not just about some file we might have failed to take today, it’s about the arc as a whole — i might be fucking bullet-proof but not everyone in this team is, don’t you fucking get it?”

listening has never really been moonsoo's forte. or rather, following the instructions he's been given. he hears quite a lot, and he locks the information away for later. but no matter how hard someone might yank him toward water, it's hard to force moonsoo to drink. so stubborn he'd probably still refuse even if he was dehydrated and gasping. perhaps hyperbole, but moonsoo fucking himself over just to spite someone else isn't really an irregularity. he's unpredictable, and he's uncaring, and this means he's often not the best teammate to have unless he arbitrarily decides he feels like having someone's back. 

today was not one of those days, and had taken far more enjoyment out of doing almost the exact opposite of every order or suggestion jinwoo had shouted his way. moonsoo's always thought his ego to be too big (which is hilarious, considering how moonsoo himself acts), so he finds no qualms in pointedly ignoring him, even to the detriment of everyone else who'd been on the assignment. it's not like people usually come after him for it, even if he knows they want to, knows they hate him. because above it all, they're scared of him (and he finds a twisted sort of peace of mind in that knowledge). 

so he doesn't care if jinwoo had possibly gotten shot (he actually found the prospect to be mildly amusing), doesn't care enough to listen to him rant in the plane and had quieted that before it even had time to begin. doesn't care about what jinwoo was planning on doing for the rest of the day either, but jinwoo corners him before moonsoo has time to slip away to his room. he falls into old habits and does what he does best: runs his mouth. 

"all the time, i try to make a habit of it. it's honestly pretty useful, you should try it out." moonsoo trades back to jinwoo's altered question on thought. "others, though? i mean, sometimes. depends on my mood. you know me. fickle." he tacks on with a grin, dichotomous to jinwoo's obvious displeasure. "oh no. not that. not the arc as a whole." moonsoo doesn't even try to affect his voice this time, it just comes out in a deadpan, helps to paint the portrait of his disinterest in the entire situation. 

he’s not gonna suffer for just it because song moonsoo can’t seem to keep his control and addictions in check.

"do you ever get tired of lying just to try and spite me?" moonsoo muses out loud at hanjun's immediate rejection of potential skill. moonsoo knows for a fact he'd be an excellent salesman. of course, it would essentially be cheating. but he doesn't tell hanjun he'd be terrible at the high jump just because of his wings (granted, hanjun's never brought up the high jump in conjunction to his wings, but that's neither here nor there). 

it does often seem that hanjun lives to spite him though. not that moonsoo has room to talk, considering the way he often acts back. it seems almost like karmic retribution with how he treats everyone else around him on a regular basis, but moonsoo still apparently clings to enough dramatics to pretend to be indignant about it all. even if, more often than not, he often traipses into the territory of either amusement or outright anger when they clash. it's hard to predict. for whatever reason, he continuously pulls himself back to hanjun's side to repeat their disaster of a recipe. maybe some twisted part of him enjoys it (in all likelihood, this is the most believable option). 

moonsoo wanders in a little closer to glance down at hanjun, a brief moment to take advantage of being taller than him as he tips his head down. "lying again, someone should cut out your tongue." moonsoo suggests, tone conversational as he tucks a hand into the pocket of his jeans to pull out a pack of cigarettes. not that they stay pressed to his palm for long, they're gone almost immediately after he fields out the question, and it has moonsoo pairing a scowl with a glare as he fixes his gaze back to hanjun. there's a thump as the pack lands tangled in the foliage of a tree, startles a bird in the process. a cacophony of beating wings and a shrill caw before it quiets again. 

it isn’t until a little while later that he feels an approaching presence. by the sound of their footsteps, he immediately knows who it is but he doesn’t think about why or how, only that he would crush any number of cigarettes into his palm if that someone tries to smoke there. even so, his eyes remain closed. “whatever you’re selling, i’m not interested,” he deadpans. “no sale.”

there aren't too many fond memories of geoje left in moonsoo's head, though for whatever irrational reason nostalgia tends to creep up on him whenever he's close enough to a shoreline to smell the sea salt. but on the compound, when he wanders out too far, all he can smell is pine and dirt. there's nothing of his home there, and he doesn't want there to be. he's been running from his old life, from himself, for far too long to sit down and accept that it's all catching up to him. that it will all catch up to him someday regardless. he's too stubborn to make that admittance quite yet. 

if prompted, moonsoo would defend that he doesn't know why he's following a trampled down path toward an old, defunct park that someone probably put up once upon the time, when they were still trying to make the area profitable. if prompted, moonsoo tends to slip a lot of half-truths through, gives out jagged puzzle pieces of his psyche instead of spreading himself out flat to read. the answers tends to be hidden between ugly truths and distracting phrases, but he hardly ever lies outright. it's more fun to blindside people with the truth. 

so he does and he doesn't know why he's following the path down to the park. he knows that hanjun will be there, lounging and looking nonplussed. but he doesn't know why he seems to continuously drag himself down there to see him. doesn't know why hanjun keeps playing the odd little game, too.why they both write it off as a coincidence. as far as moonsoo can tell, the rules are up in the air. but then, he's always enjoyed being the one who created them. 

hanjun's voice weaves through the branches to meet him when he's almost through the clearing, and moonsoo scoffs loudly. there's a rustle of leaves immediately after, like a rabbit might have darted off as a result. "like anyone would be able to say no to me, you included." moonsoo finally throws back when he pushes past a few scraggly looking weeds to stand in front of him. his hands are tucked into the pockets of his jeans, and he levels hanjun a look as he stares down at him. 

“look, lets meet in the middle, we’ll get a few blocks away, camp out until the chaos dies down, and then slip up the river.” she reasons, having had a moment now to think about the limitations of her impromptu partner. “and anyway you’re the one who brought up sex stuff, so don’t back out now like a little bitch.” she has her pride, too, juvenile though she may be.

"the point of bunkering is to find somewhere where people won't blow a hole in your head. you know, a place that offers you cover so you can do all the blowing first. i thought you'd like that plan, considering how fixated you are on blowing fucking everyone." moonsoo drags out with a roll of his eyes. it's not like he wants to make a home there and settle down for the rest of the night, he just wants to wait out whatever patrol might still be wandering the streets. but nora is too shortsighted, or perhaps can't pull herself away from her own biased view of survival that fits her niche range of powers, so moonsoo silently constructs his own backup plan of telling her to take a bullet for him if things start to look sketchy. it's her own damn fault for not having any common sense. 

so he checks his gun, rolls his eyes again just to outwardly indicate that he still thinks she's a huge idiot. "i don't know if i can trust that," moonsoo mutters under his breath just to piss her off as he pushes out of the alleyway to take off down the street in pointed, brisk strides. finds himself a sack of meat and drags them along for the ride, just in case. "oh, are we meeting in the middle now? i didn't take you for an altruist." moonsoo tosses back with a sidelong glance to his newfound friend, figures nora wants him to cut him loose now, which moonsoo thinks is entirely unwarranted. he's not built for missions like these.