live

minseok’s comment about being already dead send a chill through jongdae, and he shudders, thinking that he might as well be dead now too. but something tells him this situation isn’t as simple as minseok says it is. from what he remembers from the files, minseok should have already killed him and seeing as that wasn’t happening, there must be a connection or something that the other needs from jongdae.

he glares, muscles tensing, at minseok’s words about suho and as the other slowly starts to approach him. the valium slows his reactions at an uncomfortable rate, but he thinks if the other tries anything bold, he could at least take out this room. his thoughts are stopped as the other starts to twitch - no, flicker, like a bad connection on a television screen - he dims in and out and jongdae blinks slowly because he isn’t sure what is supposed to be happening. is this real or the pharmacon flowing through his veins.

eventually, when he stops trying to access jongdae’s memories and personality, he stops flickering. minseok sinks down to the floor, breathing heavy and slow like a wounded animal, and his mind comes back to him. it takes him a moment to remember where he is, but doesn’t quite recall trashing the place.

“well,” he smirks, “that was fun.” he groans, not really feeling pain but a semblance of it. “it’s almost like-”

his brow furrows. he leans forward, resting his arms on his knees and searching the tiles on the floor for an answer. his head snaps to jongdae’s form on the bed. the kid doesn’t have enough training to know what a mindblock even is, let alone create one. there’s only one possibility.

he lets out a cough, holding his side gingerly and he looks at the bandages around jongdae’s ribs and laughs, incredulous.

“oh fuck, that’s fucking rich,” he laughs again, near crazed, “you’ve got yourself a real fucking guardian angel here, don’t you.”

he approaches the bed, standing over jongdae and moving to place his hand on his abdomen.

“Or you could’ve walked home, asshole. Now, are you going to get into the car or just stand there looking stupid?” He grits the words out in between taking another long drag from the cigarette.

It’s not like Jongdae isn’t glad to see his partner in crime out of jail, but the dickhead had an annoying quality around him that seemed to quell even his worst violent tendencies. He was almost glad when Minseok was taken away, if it meant he could be alone for just a little while. Breathing out his last hit, he discards the butt and cracking his neck, faces Minseok slowly.

but he restrains himself.

it’s been two years since he’s seen the outside. twenty-four months, and a week for good measure, and his mind is still wound tight with the thought of survival. despite his criminal lifestyle, his connections and die-hard partnerships have kept him from facing maximum security. two years isn’t as bad as it could be--for the things he’s done, the things he can’t regret--but he would be lying if he wasn’t burning with impatience, with rage.

who in seoul could know, intimately, his sister’s plan to break him out and strategize its dissolution without revealing themselves. and while he’s not a lawyer, he knows damn well the previous heist and his criminal record were more than enough to lock him in maximum for three or four lifetimes. and that’s not even taking into account that minseok is a firm rebel against “good behavior.”

someone in the shadows is playing him. and the best part is, minseok knows they’re high enough up the chain for him to want what they have (which, if he’s being honest, is a low bar--he’s got a lust for basically everything).

“the real question is, what are you going to do about it, because so far you’ve done jackshit,” he snaps. in all two years, he won’t say he expected at least a visit--that would be too much, too intimate--but some effort would have been nice. jongdae has been all but absent. he scattered like a fucking rat in the sewers after everything went wrong.

“please,” he makes a welcoming motion with his arm, sarcastic drawl at the ready, “show me your grandiose ideas. i can be in for the ride, up for the destruction. how about for once you make your own goddamn plan and get us out of this goddamn mess instead of crawling back up out of your self-imposed dungeon to sniff around and see what’s worth your fucking time.”

and just like that, the tension’s back. he huffs out a breath and runs his hands through his hair, tugging at his scalp. minseok adjusts his sitting position, no longer slouched against the back of the chair, he sits upright, struggling to breathe evenly and glaring out of the window. he’s still in defense mode. prison has brought so many memories to the forefront that he’s finding it hard to concentrate on the matter at hand. taking it out on jongdae makes his stomach clench, but he’s mostly glad his sister’s not here. 

“i wouldn’t even think about threatening me. there’s a shit ton of oxygen in this room, and i’m already dead so you’d only be hurting yourself, dumbass.” he taunts. his palms thump against his thighs as he paces the room and thinks. “you haven’t been suho’s partner for a long time--no, he would have told you about me in detail.” 

“so you don’t know anything about me,” she says slowly, and then turns when he comes to his conclusion, “but i can know everything about you.” minseok’s smile grows across his face. he takes a few steps forward, cautious not to startle jongdae into killing them in a fiery explosion. 

not that this would actually kill minseok, but acknowledging that he’s technically a ghost possessing jongdae leaves the possibility for possessing another body--permanently.

the muscles in his hands twitch as he closes his eyes and concentrates on jongdae’s memories but he can’t reach any of them. they feel like cotton candy in his mouth, fading away every time he finds one. he opens his eyes and is struck by a faintness so strong, he keels forward and just manages to catch the bed railing to lower himself to the ground.

he stares at his hands as they fade in and out again. his whole body is flickering and it hurts like pressure, squeezing him from all sides. 

“hey assface,” he says to the nearest doctor, instinctively knowing it wouldn’t result in anything, but genuinely surprised when the man walks away without a single regard.

he picks up a vase, shatters a computer and the glass in his knuckles doesn’t sting a bit--but no one notices. as soon as he turns away, the items are again returned to normal. he screams and no one hears him, he presses the call button, rips ivs from patients in intensive care and no one gives one damn fuck. if this is what it’s like to be dead, then--only then, only now as he stands in the middle of the ER searching for his body, that he knows he won’t find--he finally knows why he fought so hard to stay alive.

there is no smell, every sound is muffled, and he can’t feel things--can’t feel his skin and can’t activate his power. the hallway of the recovery wing feels like a tomb to him. it’s not that something in particular has called him there, he’s running laps around each area of the hospital because he’s not sure he can leave the hospital, but when he peers into one of the rooms, he feels his senses returning like a car crash. he remembers.

his arm ripped open against the windshield—he reaches in to grasp the collar of the driver and pulls him forward, slamming him into the glass. the truck decelerates rapidly without the weight of his foot on the pedal. a small movement catches the corner of his eye and he turns to see a second passenger. another agent, training or trained to be a hunter but he doesn’t do anything except watch their precious few seconds slip away. the agent in his hand wrenches himself loose and floors it; the truck spins out of control and the next thing minseok feels is his body convulsing--

he fades back in.

he’s in front of the bed now, watching with a blank expression as the agent stares back. he smiles, a little crazed, a little relieved and now he knows what suho has done. he collapses against the chair behind him and stares back.

suho has been hunting for a while, this he knows. the mark on the back of his neck gives him safe harbor in jeju but it also gives him so much more; it gives him superiority, power that he has been seeking since he first discovered his powers in their busan gang. on the hunt, suho starts with a gesture, arms wide open to receive, and he had offered this to minseok only to find himself receiving a piercing rod in the leg. the second act is words, sweet, dulcet tones convincing, enticing. minseok had leaned in close, had nodded yes and been saved only by a more powerful distraction—their rapid descent off the nearest cliff. suho survived that one (he always had failsafes, other mutants lying in wait to save him.)

the funny thing is minseok survived that one, but only after falling to his death. he would have survived this one too, his power allowing.

now he’s here. he smiles and digs a little and as his eyes roll back he thinks he can find jongdae in here, piece by piece.

he stands and stares the agent, wandering around the room and shoving things off tables. he moves the chair to the door, experimentally, and hooks it under the doorknob. minseok looks around the room again, and thinks to smash in the face of the monitor above jongdae’s bed, raining shards down on the patient. and when he tries to run, minseok holds him still, and he stays quiet as he clambers into the hospital bed and hovers.

a blink of an eye and everything is back to normal, minseok is back on the chair, jongdae is glaring at him on the bed and minseok finally lets out a bark of a laugh.