Chapter Text
San blinks his eyes open to the remnants of sugar-spun warmth in his heart and lightness in his chest, his hand reaching for a solid presence that slips through the empty air of reality. He doesn’t remember the dream, only one detail amidst the gray of his undecorated walls: Jongho’s rare grin curving his adorable eye smile.
It’s a little embarrassing how syrupy he feels when they haven’t even properly held hands. All his life has been a rush. A stolen childhood, compacted training, elite selection and more training, mission after mission after brutal mission, the blood and the travels and the coverups always with too few grains of sand in the hourglass.
With Jongho though, it’s different. San feels like he can breathe in the silences without anticipating a code red, can actually appreciate the rowdiness of commuting and the social establishments Jongho will drag him to for food or a workout or live music.
He sometimes falls asleep to a promise of tomorrow. It’s a foreign sensation but not at all unpleasant.
There’s never a pressing limit on their time, curfew a construct San is proud to announce Jongho has finally mastered breaking. Tomorrow had always been such a wavering hope, he still breathes it with hesitation.
He doesn’t want to rush this, whatever tentative thread linking his and Jongho’s lives. San knows they’re just implausible dreams woven into words but he wonders about their talks of visiting another star system, if maybe they could go together as friends or something more. He wants to meet Yunho and Mingi who seem so very far away, hating the way that haunting shadow of pain would always cross Jongho’s face.
At the very least, even if their time doesn’t have a thread into the future, after so many long days and nights of overturning fruitless stones and cold leads, Crescent wouldn’t remain one of the cold memories San desperately wants to forget.
He finally admits to himself that Jongho is really the only reason he’s still here.
✧•*``•.¸✯
At first when Jongho fails to respond to his messages for an entire daylight cycle, San is a little bit hurt but not immediately alarmed. He has a contact to meet with at the same time Jongho is getting off his shift that day so he shoots the younger some wholesome holos of baby animals and hopes it helps relieve a bit of the stress of his day.
It isn’t until the second day in a row where San searches Construction Site Horizon fruitlessly for a mop of familiar dark hair and the soft apples of Jongho’s cheeks that the first poisonous threads of doubt and fear crawl into his veins.
He drops by the restaurant Jongho frequents though he’s only taken San twice. All he remembers is Jongho being on a first-name basis with both of the owners. Their interactions were always friendly and familiar and the owners would greet San with more warmth by mere association.
One of the owners, Seonghwa, frowns at him a bit warily when he asks about Jongho’s whereabouts after a few pleasantries. His high cheekbones are dusted lightly with what looks like flour though San can’t help thinking he looks paler at the question.
It’s Yeosang though who steps forward with his voice lowered and marblesque features pulled tight. “Wait, we’ve met before. Aren’t you Jongho’s Sannie?”
San’s ears heat up. This close, he can see the little splash of a birthmark beside Yeosang’s eye. He’s sure Yeosang has a clear view of his fire-engine red ears too. “I didn’t realize he talked about me.” Despite the worry churning in his gut, he can’t help feeling just a little pleased.
Yeosang and Seonghwa exchange a weighted look. After a moment, Seonghwa sighs, deflating enough for his shoulders to visibly hunch. “We know as much as you do.”
San’s heart drops. He tries his best to smile. “Well, I can try and drop by his apartment tonight.” He doesn’t mention how he’s already tried or how there was no answer.
Seonghwa nods, his voice still pitched low, almost pleading, “Please keep us updated.”
He’s walking out of the restaurant to the first of the evening stars in the ashy sunset when his mobile buzzes.
Jongho’s wide eyes, caught in surprise from a quick holo-capture San had taken at the tiny aquatic store in the broadstone courtyard near their apartments, floats above the screen of San’s mobile. He laughs a little – speak of the devil – and accepts the call, the brightest stars in the sky reminding him of their late nights on the rooftop.
“Miss me?” San teases, shifting the mobile to his ear, relief flooding his system.
It doesn’t last. There isn’t quite silence on the other end but San catches a muffled thump. He stops walking, straining his ears. The hair on the back of his arm prickles uncomfortably.
More shuffling, so faint it sounds almost like breathing, and another strained noise, nearly words and cut off abruptly.
Something ugly twists in his gut, clawing of wrongness. San hates how he always assesses situations with a lens of fatality but the call doesn’t feel right, especially coupled with days of radio silence. His instincts are honed for danger and every one of its hackles are up.
He decides to risk asking, “Is everything okay?”
This time, he hears a faraway shout and what might be the muted sounds of a struggle: the shifting of feet, of clothes, of wordless noises swallowed down halfway through. San would know. He’s had to subdue targets in the dark without raising alarm and although he’s good, one of the best at deadly surprises, there’s only so much that training and experience can do to make a human being absolutely silent in combat. There are always flaws.
San runs .
His feet pound the pavement and though the wind whips through his hair and people leap out of his way, it doesn’t feel like enough.
(He should’ve known: tomorrow is never a promise. Sometimes, there were no more grains left in the hourglass.)
✧•*``•.¸✯
The apartment is empty and just as San remembers it when he flicks on the hallway lights. Jongho’s shoes are placed neatly beside the door, overflowing from the shoe rack and despite the worry running as blood in his veins, San smiles a little at the domesticity.
On the drying mat, a few glasses and bowls still have droplets of water along their rims and the bed is made. There are no signs that anything is amiss but for the ringing quiet.
Jongho could have stepped out to grab something and called San by accident. His mobile could have died midway through the call, he might have forgotten to bring his charger to work and after a full day’s use, there would be no power left in the device.
Could have, might have, maybes—
He’s so busy spinning an entire story of what Jongho is doing that he knocks into the dresser, shifting it a few inches. San curses at the blooming pain in his abdomen, shoving the piece of furniture back against the wall with a little too much force for good measure. That’s when he sees it.
The lighting from the hallway only reaches just beyond the door of the bedroom but it’s enough. It’s enough for something to reflect the artificial glow as burnt silver.
San’s heart thuds.
The broken watch with the little hourglass flying over the old-fashioned hands of time had rested on the bone of Jongho’s wrist every time they met, his fingers often framing the memories of a past San has never pushed for him to share, a pocket of time Jongho seems to treasure with reverent sorrow. As far as he knew, Jongho had never taken it off since he’d first wrought the delicate chain to bind the watch’s tattered band to his wrist.
He closes his fingers over the watch’s stopped time, trying and failing to draw even breaths. San moves to stand by using the wall as support and his fingers rest along several jagged lines in the plaster.
Lines. He fumbles blindly for the secondary light switch, forcing his eyes to focus around the blackening panic crawling at his vision.
San places a hand on the wall again, letting out a sound somewhere between a gasp and a growl when his fingers align with each of the lines. Scratches. Fingernail markings.
The watch bites sharply into his palm as he tightens his fist, the rounded edges digging into his skin. San doesn’t care. Someone touched Jongho without his consent, took him right from his own home that was supposed to be a safe haven. Jongho had fought back and the scuffle was covered to near perfection.
He’d tried to call San and when that failed, he’d left a different clue. Whoever did this couldn’t have gone far but a lot could happen in precious few minutes. San fears the state Jongho will be in once San finds him.
He will find him. San opens his palm to stare at the cracks spreading like butterfly wings over the hourglass, dipped in Jongho’s blood, the clock hands and tiny numerals etched in vermillion instead of iridescent gloss. It’s fitting. Butterflies are attracted to blood, to death.
And San has always gone looking for trouble.
✧•*``•.¸✯
He breaks into the security room of their apartment complex with ease and finds none of the security footage erased though he discovers it glitches momentarily at a certain point not long ago. He backburns the current footage and sorts through the source code with shaking hands, every wasted second of scanning costing too much time.
After a few frustrating minutes, he manages to restore some of the footage. There’s a fumigation truck on the screen, time stamped about an hour prior in the underground parking structure. The people unloading the chemical equipment do it with practiced hands and even engage a peace keeper in conversation above ground when they take the stairs and loop around to the lobby.
There’s nothing particular about the crew or their actions. Passersby barely spare the fumigation a glance but San zeroes in on the peace keeper, narrowing his eyes at the casual talk before the peace keeper walks away.
He freezes the frame and sharpens the focus on an enlarged screen. There’s an object in the peace keeper’s hand, one that wasn’t there when approaching the fumigation crew. San scowls darkly. He isn’t surprised, has always known corruption might as well be one of the foundational pillars of the peace keepers, but the rage is new.
Because that peace keeper believes whatever he holds in his hand is worth more than Jongho’s life.
San slams his fist on the security footage and tries to refocus. The fumigation logo isn’t familiar, neither are any of the crew’s features that flash on the screen. Still, he can’t rule out his own adversaries, old wrongs and scorns of which he has plenty. Most of his life has been a bloody trail he can never cleanse his hands or his soul of. He can never really leave it all behind. If Jongho was taken because of him, he’s not sure what he’s going to do.
He’s never allowed himself to hope for a future beyond curiosity and possibly misguided vengeance, his whole life having shaped itself around “the next mission”. With Jongho, he’s dared to believe there’s more than just pain and guilt and aching loneliness waiting for him.
That he’s capable of more than just hurt and violence and ruthless efficiency.
On the cameras, the fumigation truck drives off north. San yanks out his mobile and accesses Crescent’s security mainframe. He hadn’t even needed to hack it, just strolled up to one of the municipal offices looking like he belonged and sweet-talked his name into the system as a new transfer.
He inputs the image of the truck’s logo and sets the approximate time frame for the past hour into the mainframe security filter.
The moment the different cameras across Crescent start lighting up on the screen, locations blinking happily, San stalks out of the building too, motorcycle in one hand and blaster in the other.
The corporate office is one of the nicest in the colony. San feels a little bit bad driving his motorcycle straight through the revolving doors, leaving the brass overhangs to drape sadly over the brittle remnants of the glass panels.
Immediately, he hears shouts to the right. At least he doesn’t need to worry about whether this was the place those assholes had taken Jongho so late after curfew.
He cuts the engine of his motorcycle and slips down a different hallway, doubling back when the rushing of footsteps fade. San toggles his helmet to clear the night vision and thermal scanning filters and enhances full access to the helmet sensors. He stops at a door with a somewhat crooked hinge.
It might be too much to hope for. In an office as pristine as this one though, the odds are tilted in favor of Jongho having arrived still fighting back. He can’t be in too bad shape.
San doesn’t enter it though his chest tightens knowing Jongho is in there. Not yet. As much as he wants to charge in with his blaster and knives, he has to be strategic about this. San doesn’t care if he himself is at risk but if something goes wrong and San is otherwise incapacitated, it’s Jongho’s life hanging on the line too.
He searches for a central broadcasting office, skidding around another corner. It doesn’t end up quite being an office and is far too open for comfort as San stumbles upon the dimmed screens but he manages to bypass the central broadcasting system with ease and sync up enough of the camera’s functionality onto his mobile.
There’s no audio. Jongho sits in a chair without restraints though he slumps a bit to one side, his back to the security camera. San can’t tell how badly he’s injured from this angle.
The camera’s footage identifies the office as the one with the broken hinges. He picks the lock of the smaller adjacent workstation and takes a deep breath, gathering his bearings. This is one rescue mission he cannot fail.
Movement on his mobile snags his whirring thoughts. A flash of deep-seated fear surges through him as someone raises a baseball bat, walking towards Jongho.
For the record, Jongho only raises his head, the strong line of his shoulders hunched but unflinching. Through the walls, San can hear voices, the louder ones forming into words.
“–The files , Choi Jongho. Do you really value your life so little?”
If there’s a response or another comment, it’s too quiet for San to catch. Ice crawls down his spine. A part of him knew it didn’t really make sense for anyone to be going after San, not in this off-world colony where he has no reputation attached to his name, not even a face to his call code. San had almost been hoping this was related to the dumb jocks sent after him from the bar deciding on round two for their ego redemption after the beating he and Jongho had handed them. That would be so much simpler.
This feels like something far larger.
There’s a crash and San reels back, having felt the collision against the walls, through them. Light tinklings of diamond shards dance with gravity to the floor. On his mobile, the baseball bat whips back to attention. A bruising mishmash of sparking wires and darkly warped plaster peek out beside Jongho’s head.
What may have been a photograph or a certificate framed against the wall no longer exists. “Next time, this breaks bone,” comes the promise.
San switches the camera footage to infrared. He carefully unsheathes the long knife hanging on his belt and with a quick mental assessment, impales the light switch along the shared wall. Gritting his teeth, San forces the knife forward with both hands, all the more grateful for his helmet as electrical scintillas flare and die before his eyes.
The moment he hears startled yells in the adjacent room, San thrusts the knife back in its sheath and positions himself by the workstation door.
He checks the cameras one last time just to verify Jongho’s location. The shape of his frame is huddled in the corner on that awful chair, glowing a dull orange in the infrared lighting. Jongho looks unbearably small.
Defend, protect, shelter .
In the absence of light, the first blaster shot cuts through the wall as a sword through silk, fluid and easy and with terrifying precision.
Gore splatters against the wall and drips onto the floor, red-hot in the darkness. Someone goes down screaming. San doesn’t bother checking who it is, already aiming for his next target.
Return fire cuts through the walls but with the door acting as a buffer, nothing gets close enough to be an actual threat.
Only after San manages to take down at least four of the interrogators does one of them have the bright idea to leave their office and hunt San down with a cleaner shot.
He’s ready when that happens, surging up from one knee and elbowing the man’s wrist. The resulting discharge is far too close to San’s ear but the shot itself goes wide and that’s all San can ask for.
He grabs the man by the side of his neck and slams his head twice against the workstation door. San steps over his slumping form and plants a steel-tipped boot into the next attacker’s stomach, quickly bringing down the end of the blaster onto the vulnerable bundle of nerves at the back of the neck.
Two of the interrogators attempt to shut the office door while kicking away one of their own men’s unconscious legs blocking the hinges. They jostle at the doorway and San nearly eats a bullet to the face, the shot grazing his jaw instead. The line of searing iron brands his skin with fresh blood and for a petrifying moment, he sees pure black.
San yells something guttural as he shoves with all his might, knowing another shot leveled to his head might very well be the last.
Then abruptly, the door flies open.
San collapses on the ground alongside two heavy thuds, barely registering the metal handle of the office door embedding itself into the plaster of the already mangled wall. He looks up into familiar features, round eyes blown wide with terror and the beginnings of a nasty swelling bruise against his temple, plump lips parted to show bloody teeth.
In Jongho’s hands is the aforementioned baseball bat, freshly stolen and freshly used. Jongho forms San’s name incredulously, wordlessly, and the reassurance that San got to him in time before anything irreversible happened dawns on him as a weighted blanket of respite amidst the chaos.
Air rushes past his cheek and before San or Jongho can stop him, one of the barely conscious interrogators uses the distraction to scramble over the bodies and flee.
San curses. He can’t even say in what languages and struggles to follow, slipping on crimson and torn flesh. He’s taken a couple of staggering strides into the corridor when strong hands pull him to a halt.
“Don’t! San, please!” Jongho is nearly screaming, his chest heaving with desperation and panic and maybe something else entirely.
He tries to shake Jongho off without hurting him but the younger only clings harder. His grip is surprisingly powerful though San shouldn’t be surprised considering the last time the two of them had gotten into an altercation. San can’t let this go though, the desire to pay back all the pain and fear stretches too tightly over his skin. And the fact they might come back. San is not willing to take the chances they’ll hurt Jongho again or do something far, far worse. “After what they did to you—”
“It doesn’t matter! See? I’m fine!” Jongho gestures at himself and he’s still clutching the baseball bat. Even with his fingers closed around San’s wrist, he’s trembling far too much to be anything remotely close to fine.
“Jongho. Let me go.”
“You don’t have what they’re looking for. They’ll kill you!”
“I’d like to see them try,” San growls.
“Well, I don’t!” Jongho’s face is closer now and there’s an intensity to his eyes that goes beyond anguish. “If something happened to you, I couldn’t live with myself if, I don’t want you to…”
The baseball bat clatters to the floor as Jongho drops his head against San’s shoulder. Whatever adrenaline-fueled rage and impulsive restless energy seeps out of San, his free hand coming to rest on Jongho’s shaking frame, stroking at the tiny hairs at the base of his neck, bared and exposed.
Jongho starts to cry, silent and shaking. San realizes how tiny Jongho can be as he curls into San, every little gasp of breath immediately stifled, each sound agonizing and heartbreaking.
Even now, Jongho hugs his arms tightly like he’s forgotten how to accept comfort outside of himself and it hurts inexplicably to see.
“I’m here,” San murmurs. He tucks Jongho’s face against his collarbones and runs his fingers down his spine. One moment. San allows this one moment to ground them both. Then, softly, “I won’t go.”
✧•*``•.¸✯
The travel cubicle isn’t much, built for those who were seeking to do a bit of work or grab a quick nap in between destinations or during delays in transit. There’s a well worn mattress and a desk with some cables and a fridge and storage locker shoved atop it. It’s a struggle to squeeze into the adjacent bathroom if the crate acting as a stool isn’t shoved beneath the desk.
San has lived with worse. The accommodations are temporary anyways. It’s Jongho he’s more worried about. The younger still hasn’t said a word and he doubts the unfamiliar environment is helping to provide any kind of comfort.
He nudges him into the bathroom and it’s a bit of an awkward shuffling of limbs and stepping on one another’s toes but at least Jongho is able to focus on his eyes for more than a fleeting moment. “Wash up first,” San urges gently. At Jongho’s hesitation, his eyes darting to the front door of the travel cubicle, San does his best to share a reassuring smile. “You’re safe. I’ll be right here.”
Jongho bites his lips, nods, mechanically turns on the tap.
San steps out of the bathroom and strips of his coat. There’s dried blood caked into the seams and staining the metal – he doubts it’s salvageable.
His jawline aches stubbornly and it’s a struggle to clean with the precarious balanced reflection of his mobile on his lap. He slaps a messy bandage on top and decides it has to be good enough.
In the time it takes for Jongho to wash up, San also shoots out a message to Wooyoung, vague but with language he knows Wooyoung will understand. During and in between missions, they never communicated across distances without an undertone of urgency, knowing their communications were always tracked, only calling upon each other if situations were dire. Even in the past few months of casual messaging and check-ins, San finds himself reverting back.
Jongho startles when San shuffles out of the bathroom, wincing as he smacks his elbow against the stupid coat hangar that’s too close to the door and pretty much useless. His eyes are clearer, brittle almost, as if one wrong word might crack the glass.
Now that he has Jongho’s full attention, all of San’s questions wither on the tip of his tongue. He digs through the storage cabinet for cups, feeling strangely raw.
“Let me know if I can do anything,” he says into the air and cringes at the crack in his voice.
Jongho sighs. “You saved my life tonight. I should be asking you that.”
There’s a beat of quiet filled only with the heating packet San is kicking back to life to warm the cup in his hand.
“My past is catching up to me,” Jongho murmurs, his tone dull and distant. It makes San’s heart clench.
He doesn’t know much about Jongho’s past but he has a sinking feeling this might have something to do with the vagueness with which Jongho would always refer to certain memories, the ones with Yunho and Mingi, eyes glistening with a tapestry of unhealed scars and ghosts San can’t see.
Huddled into the furthest corner of the mattress with a blanket over his shoulders, cross legged and staring through his fingertips, Jongho looks beyond exhausted. The usual casual strength in the line of his shoulders fades into the stained walls behind him and the threadbare blue of the sheets San had scrounged up from who knows where.
At least he’s not shivering anymore. San crouches before him and hands him another cup of warm water, wishing he had tea or juk.
Jongho takes the cup with one hand, the other lingering. His features brighten when San presses the well-worn watch into his hands too. Jongho traces the cracked screen with delicate fingers, uncaring of the jagged lines marring the surface.
“Have you ever heard of Mira-3?”
San jolts. Of all the things to be breathed between them, he never expected Jongho to mention a connection that ran deeper than even Wooyoung knew.
Jongho searches San’s eyes with unguarded fire and a decade of stories in his gaze.
Every thread of his life from the first cherry-picked mandatory drafts, every ghost of a lead in his missions, every trail he’s been chasing, piecing together edges of a puzzle where he can’t sense any of the pieces, only the ramifications and disappearances and dead ends from Crescent to every mining colony he’s visited.
Jongho is watching him carefully and honestly, San isn’t even sure what expression he’s wearing. Dumbfounded surprise, the beginnings of horror and comprehension, naked curiosity. “I take that as a yes,” he exhales. It sounds tainted.
“It’s a mystery,” San replies absently, knowing full well it’s far more than that. “The colony was pretty remote. By the time a rescue transport made it out, there hadn’t been signs of life for months.” All it would have taken were some disruptions in the tiny planet’s atmospheric communication signals and the entire colony would have been cut off from trade, transit and any form of help.
“Or so the story goes. It was decades ago but it was the first.”
“The first?”
Jongho smiles derisively and curls his fingers into a fist atop San’s palm. “Aside from titanium and uranium, what would you say is the most coveted material?”
“Silicon carbide or well, good old water,” San lists immediately. He frowns as his thoughts stray, knowing he never took on those missions but was always aware they existed. “There’s an extensive black market trade dealing with alien fragments though.”
“Except they’re never stable, no matter how ancient they supposedly are.” Jongho shakes his head.
“They would need a large facility to hold the fragments, something that never stops moving to keep the magnetic-synthetics as stable as possible,” San reasons slowly. “Only the largest of moons or a planet would provide some semblance of dependability with the right atmosphere and geo-magnetic forces.”
Jongho laughs a little at that. “I understood a few of those words but essentially, yes. Only a few places could host an orbiting facility of that size.”
San doesn’t think there are many candidates. He has a feeling most of them may not be livable anymore or even exist in this galaxy any longer.
“They got good at fabricating terra-forming privileges. At first, it was just mining the stupid shit,” Jongho says and frustration bleeds into his words. The harshness of his tone doesn’t last. “Of course, in the name of science, they started to experiment too.”
Something in Jongho’s tone is subtly disquieting like he knows San doesn’t believe the story of Mira-3 circulating as history and is warning him to brace himself. Colony failures were rare but they weren’t unheard of, even in recent years. Some people, some corporations, would always bite off more than they could chew, their eyes filled with dreams and primed with ambition against the cruelty of the universe and how devoid and uncaring the darkness could be.
He thinks about the night they met, standing beneath the canvas of the skies with the dots of distant stars and galaxies, wondering how many of them are already dead, their brilliance reaching their eyes light years in the present.
San barely dares to draw a breath. “Thelea.”
The way only destruction had been on his mind, having already emptied his stomach hearing the last of the footage from Thelea, another cold lead, another dead end and a plethora of innocent bodies to add to the endless questions as he fled. The way Jongho had barged in and San didn’t feel cornered or even angry, the haunting images churning to a halt.
“It’s not just Thelea.” Jongho grips his hand and it’s almost desperate how tightly he holds onto San like he’s afraid maybe this time, San would be the one leaving. “We weren’t supposed to know.”
San wraps his fingers around Jongho’s. I’m not leaving. “Know about what?”
“How the fragments are strong enough to imbalance a planet’s core.”
A pause. San is still floating as he processes the information. “And how it can be weaponized for mass extermination.”
✧•*``•.¸✯
Wooyoung hasn’t changed much since they last parted ways. San supposes it’s only been a few months since they both went rogue from the corporate entity they’d been under since kids. He’s a little thinner perhaps and he carries the exhaustion of the 18 hour flight from the neighboring colony cluster but the familiarity of his presence with his hooded gaze and crooked grin dissipates some of the tightness in San’s chest.
“It’s good to see you,” San whispers as Wooyoung envelops him in a hug. “Thank you for coming, for answering my signal.”
“What else are besties for,” Wooyoung laughs. When he pulls back though, he holds San at arms-length and the worry is piercing in his eyes. He scans San critically and San wonders how much of a mess he seems. “Are you okay?”
San can’t help the wince that passes over his face. “We’ll catch up later,” he says apologetically. “How’s the ship?”
Wooyoung glances back at the unregistered small-weight carrier and his lips pull into a tighter line. He knows San well, arguably too well and it goes both ways. San feels the tenseness of his body as a slim shadow paints its way down the starship’s ramp. “I had to call in a few favors and well, I couldn’t pilot the systems alone.” Wooyoung steps aside though he keeps a hand on San’s shoulders, gesturing at the unplanned addition. “This is Hongjoong. He’s the captain of the Twilight. Hongjoong, meet San.”
The newcomer has delicate features and a lithe build. There’s fire-wrought iron in his gaze though and a certain strength in the way he carries himself, not unapproachable exactly, just determined and unshakeable. He nods at San and says simply, “Woo mentioned you needed an off-planet transport.”
Nicknames already? San shoots Wooyoung a look he ignores though he catches a hint of softening around Wooyoung’s eyes. Interesting. They’re definitely talking later. “Yes, can the Twilight take us across star systems?”
“Of course.” Hongjoong’s words are a little stiff and San wonders if his question implied doubt and offense.
He steps forward, in line with Wooyoung.“How fast?”
San appraises the carrier – it’s outfitted for perhaps a dozen guests and a handful of crewmembers for transportation, a smaller and sleeker model than the small-weight transit carriers San has seen. However, carriers aren’t really built for their speed. At the moment, a carrier should be enough to get them to the next star system over where they can hopefully swap out for a ship that’s less for comfort and more for stealth, preferably a bit more heavily built.
“I’ll get you there safely,” Hongjoong promises. His tone is so painfully sincere, San wishes he could believe him with just that.
He pauses as his eyes catch on vague outlines in the hull, large enough cutouts on both sides that could hold storage for longer space-travel. Wooyoung’s hand slips as San leans down and walks around to the starboard side. The same outlines are barely visible there too.
San performs a swift calculation. The outlines are too perfectly positioned, whatever is beneath has enough weight to counterbalance the engine strategically. They’re not for storage. The more likely possibility is that these compartments conceal retractable gunports.
Huh.
Perhaps Hongjoong knows what he’s doing after all. Or is at least smart enough not to charge into their situation unprepared. If Wooyoung had come alone, San has a feeling he would have stolen the first transport he could, regardless of build or speed or shielding.
Hongjoong’s eyes watch him shrewdly as he walks back around to stand before him. San sends him a smile, a little bit secretive. He doesn’t think Wooyoung understands quite how lucky they are to have called in Hongjoong for a favor. “I’ll find a way to repay you.”
A sharp shake of Hongjoong’s head. “A friend of Wooyoung’s is a friend of mine,” he assures and there’s a bit of warmth in his words where San had only received curt formalities before. “Besides, I kind of needed a new crew to leave this star cluster.” Hongjoong rubs the back of his neck, his smile just shy of bashful.
There’s a story there and San would be lying if he said his curiosity wasn’t piqued. “Then I’m glad you’re our captain,” San says instead. Maybe it’s a trick of the light, the hangar bulbs above shining insipid reds onto the floor, but both Hongjoong and Wooyoung’s cheeks take on a bit of pink. He pivots back to Hongjoong and grips his arm, not tightly, just enough pressure to be taken seriously. “They’re tracking all transports in Crescent, especially ones leaving. If we’re not back within the hour, you need to take Wooyoung and leave.”
Wooyoung opens his mouth to protest. Hongjoong tilts his head and steel cuts through his gaze. “A captain never leaves his crew behind.”
San’s respect for Hongjoong increases tenfold and the words hit unwanted memories of struggling to survive without any support after an aborted mission. He wonders what it would’ve been like to have Hongjoong as his captain back then, if that rescue mission would have turned out differently. “We’re not your crew yet,” San reminds him gently. He changes tactics. “Just…don’t wait so long you put Wooyoung in danger.”
His tactic doesn’t work. Hongjoong scoffs, “Wooyoung would be the first to charge after you.” He places a hand over San’s, his lips thinned. “We’ll be here.”
San nods a little helplessly. When he slips through one of the side doors and glances over his shoulder into the hangar, Wooyoung and Hongjoong are talking, the former casually cleaning a blaster while Hongjoong gestures at a hologram with star paths and flight patterns criss-crossing the open air.
He trusts Wooyoung even if he’s not so generous to hand that same trust to Hongjoong quite yet, no matter how loyal he seems to Wooyoung or how much San already likes him.
Wooyoung and Hongjoong have done their part in acquiring a transport. Now, it’s San’s turn to ensure they, alongside Jongho, leave Crescent in one piece.
When he gets to their agreed-upon rendezvous point, there’s no one in sight. His throat tightens. The familiar shape of the blaster in his hand isn’t a comfort.
Before he can do something impulsive like tear through the nearby establishments and apartment complexes, the muffled echoes of footsteps resound from his left like someone is trying to be quiet but hasn’t quite mastered the art of sneaking around places they don’t belong. The first thing San registers is that there are three silhouettes, not one.
As they approach, San realizes one of them is limping badly, a garish outfit torn to shreds on his frame and covered by a familiar overcoat San recognizes as one of Jongho’s favorites.
Jongho is supporting the limping young man. Their eyes meet across the closing distance and there’s a flash of relief across his tight features. Before Jongho or San can speak however, the third silhouette steps forward, shielding San from Jongho and the stranger he’s supporting who lag behind. A guarded expression rests in elegant alluring eyes, a mask over the rest of his features and a hood pulled low over his head. He feels vaguely familiar though San can’t place him.
His knuckles are wrapped and the light fabric is painted the color of wine. San only senses wariness and protectiveness though, nothing threatening.
“San, I’m so sorry but,” Jongho sounds strained and the masked stranger blinks, stepping back to help support the limping young man, “I hope there’s room for two more.”
The young man they’re supporting lifts his head. There are bruises adorning his neck and the movement looks so painful San almost tells him to stop until he recognizes the high cheekbones and the warm kind eyes. “We’ll be okay,” he whispers, voice hoarse and scratched. “We’ve always been okay.”
Seonghwa sounds half delirious and San looks to the young man with hidden features who can only be Yeosang. “Please take care of Jongho.”
“We can’t leave them, San,” Jongho presses, ignoring both of their comments. “They know about me. They know about Seonghwa and Yeosang. You know what that means.”
He does.
The Twilight is a freighter built for maybe a total of twenty crewmen and passengers. There’s plenty of space and even if there wasn’t, San never wants to make a habit out of leaving people behind to a fate worse than death. Then he truly wouldn’t deserve any better than the hell his and Wooyoung’s former corporate employer is rotting in now.
San slips into a half kneel before Seonghwa and allows Jongho to shuffle him onto San’s back despite Yeosang and Seonghwa’s combined protests.
“None of us are dying tonight.” San makes that a promise.
✧•*``•.¸✯
Even once they clear the wispy atmosphere surrounding Crescent, even once Crescent is barely a dot on the horizon of the rear pilot viewports, Jongho can’t relax. In his waking hours, he picks up the pager every few minutes as if the symbol for ‘signal delivered’ would change the moment he isn’t looking.
San finds him right outside the medbay. When Jongho had peeked inside earlier, Yeosang had been asleep in the chair beside Seonghwa’s cot. He’d laid a blanket over Yeosang and adjusted the ones around Seonghwa, making sure they weren’t irritating the bandages around his leg or the delicate ones around his throat. He still isn’t sure what compelled them both to drop everything and help him but he’s grateful for it and relieved the transport has space and supplies enough for their unplanned accompaniment.
Wordlessly, San presses the cup in his hands into Jongho’s, the warm smell of chamomile bleeding from his fingers and into the air between them. The prominent sense of déjà vu lingers too. Jongho finally remembers to take a breath.
“Still no luck,” Jongho updates needlessly.
“It’s barely been a daylight cycle, Jongho,” San reminds him gently.
“What if their pagers are no longer with them? Someone else could have easily taken it into their possession,” Jongho insists and his voice sounds strained even to his own ears.
“We’ll know when you receive a return,” San says quietly.
Not if, not whether, but when.
Jongho sighs. He’s never been a master of waiting, especially when his thoughts can be so unbearably loud sometimes, alone in the dark abyss of his mind.
But he’s not floating on an island buried ten stories down anymore. There are people who look out for him, whether he’s known them for a few months or for a few short hours. He’s been alone for so long, he had forgotten what it meant to rely on someone else and be relied on in return. It’s honestly such a strange feeling though not unwelcome.
In those last moments on Crescent when Jongho really thought, This is the end, he had never really been as alone as he believed. Seonghwa’s clever disguise and Yeosang’s fast reflexes bought them just enough time. He doesn’t know how he’ll ever pay them back. Maybe by first thanking them and then apologizing for having always pushed them away, for never letting them knock on the walls around his heart without running.
The last few hours, he understands why San treasures Wooyoung so much. He’s serious with what’s asked of him, no matter how impossible it sounds, yet he cares and prioritizes the people far more. San may think he hides his softer smiles well behind all the whining San elicits when Wooyoung tells him to rest. Jongho can feel how much they mean to one another.
He hadn’t really spoken to Hongjoong except for a rundown of the ship’s layout, their destination and the potential tasks and chores they would all be assigned once they were settled in for the month-long trip. His voice had been stern when he told them to get cleaned up and to come back after his and Wooyoung’s designated shift but his eyes were warm.
Jongho remembers the way Hongjoong had stood on the command deck as he slipped away, his silhouette framed against the darkness of the universe before the front viewport, his head haloed by galaxies, himself a shining star.
And then there’s San, someone infinitely bright and bold and a little brazen sure but someone who is also safe and solace and understanding beyond words.
He lets San guide them down one of the corridors and tries not to stumble as the ship rattles. The corridors aren’t so narrow that they need to be pressed nearly side by side. Still, San’s hand rests so tenderly against the small of Jongho’s back, his heart aches in an entirely different way. The quiet companionship, the silent understanding – it’s so alike the first time Jongho reached out to San what feels like a separate lifetime ago.
The metal walkway opens up into a wider space with counters along the walls, stoves and cooking appliances embedded into the minimalist space and lounge furniture secured to the floorings.
What catches Jongho’s attention is the enormous viewing port covering the right side of what he guesses is the ship’s canteen. Glistening diamonds shine in the distance, bladed streaks of galaxies yearn in the skies wheeling around them. It’s always been a humbling sight. Jongho didn’t even realize he’d forgotten that awe-inspiring feeling, had let it fade from him.
He wonders when he got it back. He thinks he knows the answer but he hasn’t dared to hope in so long, it’s hard to re-train himself that the lightness bubbling in his chest is something good.
San’s hand disappears from his back. Before Jongho can mourn the loss of warmth, fingers slip into his own.
“I should have figured Hongjoong would recreate this from the first flight Wooyoung and I ever took,” San laughs softly. He pauses and Jongho dares to look at him, drinking in the sharp outlines of his features, the delicate curve of his lips, the brightness of the stars in his eyes. “It reminds me a bit of how we first met too.”
The words are a bit hesitant as if San isn’t certain they’d be welcomed. Jongho looks down at their hands and sets the cup blindly, precariously, on the nearest surface. “I still can’t believe I was concerned about you breaking curfew,” Jongho remembers the dark glint to San’s eyes in that office building, the hard set of his jaw, “When you had no need to worry about your safety.”
San nudges him. “First conversation and we were already talking about protection.”
His infuriating smirk is laced into the tone and Jongho feels both aggravated and distractedly warm. He decides to squeeze their fingers just to the left of painful as retaliation.
“You won’t need to worry either,” San continues with a solemnity not usually found in his demeanor.
“Hm? What do you mean?” When Jongho looks back at San, he finds intense eyes already scanning his face.
He blinks as San reaches up to trace a tingling finger over the skin by his ear where the bruises are gradually healing to leave behind a jarring scar mostly hidden by Jongho’s hair. “I won’t let them have you, Jongho. I swear it on my life.”
And that…is a lot to process. It feels like a confession or maybe something more precious. “San, I’m not worth your life,” Jongho tries. “I just want you in my life, in whatever capacity you want to give.”
“All of it,” San replies immediately, his words whispered between them.
This close, Jongho can count his eyelashes, the cute little mole on his cheek, the dip of his lips.
He finally lets himself drown.
Kissing San has the heat of his intensity, his drive, his passion. San’s lips are gentle though, never pushing. Jongho lets his mind unwind and melt into the organized chaos of all that San is.
They pull apart to breathe and try as he might, Jongho isn’t able to bite down his grin. San giggles and Jongho is pleased to see a healthy flush over his cheekbones and the tips of his ears. His adorable dimples are out in full glory. There’s nothing stopping Jongho now from reaching up and poking them.
Jongho unbolts one of the lounge chairs and drags it over to re-secure near the reinforced glass. At some point, San falls asleep, his head coming to rest lightly against Jongho’s shoulder. He looks so unbearably serene, Jongho marvels at how that lithe body could overpower a man twice their size, how cutting his gaze could be one moment and how kind and gentle it could be the next.
He adjusts their positions slightly, leaning back against the lounge chair so San can better rest his neck. The near unconscious effort to draw San closer with an arm around his shoulders is a little frightening. Jongho hadn’t truly known how comfortable – how attached – he’d gotten.
Not until the floodgates finally opened.
He has no recollection of falling asleep too but he wakes to the peaceful lull of warmth and a steady weight sprawled over his body.
There’s also something digging uncomfortably into his chest. Jongho claws at the fabric there until he finds the opening to his jacket pocket and winces when it lights up too brightly for his groggy eyes. A moment passes as his brain tries to comprehend what he’s seeing.
Then he’s sitting up abruptly, bodily hauling San upright too and just barely catching his still sleeping body from listing off the lounge entirely. He grips San’s hand in his own and the steady thumping of his pulse is the only anchor keeping Jongho seated.
> J.YH.
We copy
S.MG. says you better have brought snacks
(See you soon, little bear)
coda.