Episode 16 #2
Sahyuk jammed the gun against Jun’s stomach.
Jun swiveled his hips, shoving the barrel to the side.
The gun went off. Heavy impact punched Jun back into the stand for the equipment.
It topped. Jun’s hand shot out to save himself, grabbing at Sahyuk.
The gun fired again. Something burned in his arm, but his fingers wrapped around the barrel.
He slapped the wall with his other arm, stopping his fall, then jerked the gun forward.
Sahyuk fell towards him, still gripping the weapon.
Jun slammed his knee up and between Sahyuk’s legs.
Sahyuk doubled over, air leaving his mouth in a strangled grunt.
His hand released the gun as he grabbed himself.
Jun ripped the gun free, braced himself against the collapsed equipment, and kicked Sahyuk’s shoulder, sending the man flying towards the middle of the room on his back.
Gun in one hand, microphone still clenched in the other, Jun pushed himself upright and stalked forward, standing over Sahyuk.
The man was winded, his hands covering his groin, face twisted up in pain and rage.
Jun raised the microphone to his lips. There was no more backing track coming through the speakers.
It wasn’t necessary. He’d written this song:
I’m not your child
I’m your crime
I’m not your blood
I’m your patricide
Sahyuk’s eyes widened with fear.
“Don’t.” Jamal pointed his weapon at Sahyuk’s head from where he still lay on the floor. He sounded sick, but the gun was steady.
The door burst open, the charge led by Timothy and two police officers. Damian was right behind them.
“Someone take his gun.” Jun held the weapon out. “He might have used it to kill Gyeong.”
One of the officers produced an evidence bag. The other, along with Timothy, tackled Sahyuk. Jamal dropped his weapon and slumped, face to the floor in obvious distress.
Damian went past them all straight to Jun.
Richard, right behind him, dropped to one knee beside Jamal.
“Your arm” Damian touched Jun’s shoulder.
Jun looked down. His hand was covered in blood, his shirt sleeve was torn and some of the leather straps on his bracer were cut.
It looked bad, but it didn’t feel real. It felt far away.
Like everything else. He’d been so present, so focused, staring Sahyuk down, and now…
now he was cold and clammy and a thousand miles away from what was right in front of his face.
He could only understand two things: Damian and Richard.
He looked back at Jamal who was speaking haltingly to Richard. So this is what it was to be in a battle.
“He put something into Jamal,” Jun said. “There’s a syringe. He said it was a sedative.”
He wasn’t sure if anyone heard him, but Damian’s hand tightened on Jun’s arm and he turned away, yelling something to one of the police officers.
Someone bellowed into a radio for the medic team.
Two officers grabbed Jamal and started moving him out of the room, away from the fight going down around Sahyuk.
It all felt so far away. He should be more upset, more worried.
Instead, he just was. He’d said the words and now he was standing there.
Damian put his body between Jun and the struggle that still surrounded Bak Sahyuk. It didn’t keep Jun from seeing it past Damian’s shoulder.
Sahyuk screamed, straining towards Jun as he was forced up on his feet. Jun stared back. He should feel something. And he had, somehow, just moments before. Now? Nothing. At least nothing he could name.
Sahyuk thrashed, dragging the two men holding him forward. “You’re mine! I OWN you!”
“I wasn’t raised,” Jun said, staring at him.
The room quieted. Jun barely noticed. He slid past Damian, his fingers gliding over the fabric of Damian’s suit.
Damian’s cologne and the scent of the laundered shirt he was wearing brushed against Jun’s senses.
He could feel Damian’s body heat. He sensed Richard like a column of calm.
They were there, living, breathing, real.
And yet so was his father, this murdering anti-communal lunatic in the center of his vision on the other end of the room.
This creature with a red face and twisted up suit, panting at him.
It didn’t seem like they should all be able to exist in the same space.
“I wasn’t raised, I was crazed.” Jun started again, speaking into the silence, voice projected so everyone could hear him.
“I’m not human, left to the fairies, now I’m rage.
Wildling with a familiar face, Boy in the box, the one you forgot.
You could have owned me, Father. But I’m the boy in the box, the one you forgot. ”
He waited a beat. No, there was nothing else to say. That was all. He was the boy in the box, the one Sahyuk forgot, and he was ready to be done being that boy. He turned away, giving his father his back.
“You…faggot!” Sahyuk thrashed, making the officers holding him slide across the floor in their boots.
Jun turned back. They hadn’t cuffed Sahyuk yet, like he thought. The man’s hands were free. They were just holding him by his wrists, one officer on either side. Such clean hands. Such a lie.
Jun crossed the room. He took his own hands, covered in blood from the wound in his arm, and smeared it across Sahyuk’s palm. One, then the other. Then stepped back.
“You could have had a son, Sahyuk, but you sold him. This is what you bought. Your own demon.”
Bak Sahyuk’s eyes bugged out, staring at the blood on his hands. His fingers stretched out, as if they could escape their own palms. He shrieked, his knees starting to collapse.
Jun watched. This was right. This was the way it should be. Let everyone see.
Bak Sahyuk’s eyes stayed wide, but his voice broke, trailing away. He was just trembling now. The officers forced him from the room, his knees dragging on the floor, his eyes still on his bloody hands.
Jun turned away. Damian touched him, just his fingers. Jun glanced sideways, meeting his look.
“We need to stop the bleeding,” Damian murmured.
Damian was here. Damian had come. Damian always came. Warmth curled through Jun’s chest. He leaned in to Damian, subtly offering his surrender. “Alpha.”
Damian stepped in closer, bolder now, putting his arms around him. “I have you.”
“We have to finish the party.”
“We have to stop the blood.” Damian steered Jun out of the room and down the hall to a different one. There were people moving about but Jun could only handle looking at Damian. Where had Richard gone? He wanted Richard. He wanted everyone.
“Mi Hi has the party,” Damian said.
Jun nodded. That made sense. Mi Hi always had everything handled. She was competent like that.
Richard re-entered his line of vision. Then Collin was there, and émeric. Jun closed his eyes, dizzy with everything.
Hands worked on his arm. “It’s a flesh wound,” Ellisandre said. “Let’s tighten down the leather strap to slow the blood.”
When had Ellisandre arrived?
“Can we wrap it up?” Jun gritted out. It hadn’t hurt, but now that they were touching it, it did. Everything smelled like blood.
“I don’t like this,” Jun said, looking at Damian.
“What part don’t you like?” Damian was just so there, so close. So calm. Such a nice calm. He smelled good. Unlike Jun. “I don’t smell good. It’s…coppery. And…”
“It’s blood.” Ellisandre said. “You’re smelling blood.”
“I don’t like it.”
“Little crime,” émeric said. He was right there, crouching down beside Damian, blocking out the rest of the room so Jun could see him and Damian and nothing else. “We’ll make that smell go away. We’ll clean it up.”
Jun swallowed and nodded. “Okay.”
Damian kissed Jun’s forehead, holding him upright as émeric started taking off Jun’s one remaining glove and dabbing away blood. Ellisandre was still making something tight higher up on Jun’s arm.
“There were two shots,” Richard said from somewhere. “Jamal isn’t shot anywhere. The medics just confirmed.”
“The gun was pointed at me,” Jun said. “There was a taser, or something like a taser.”
“Zapper. Found it.” an officer called out.
“Are you hurt anywhere else?” Ellisandre got up in Jun’s face.
Jun looked at Damian, begging with his eyes. His arm was enough. They could leave everything else alone.
“We have to know, wolfling,” Damian cupped Jun’s face. “I can look for you, if you don’t know.”
Jun touched his belly, to the side, just above his hip. émeric pulled the dirty vest and undershirt away showing the bullet proof vest. It was dented and creased. Everything underneath it hurt. He’d known that before, but also, hadn’t. Now he couldn’t stop knowing it.
“Not a direct hit, either,” Ellisandre touched the vest. “Good thing you were wearing it. You’re going to have the mother of all bruising. We need to get you checked.”
Jun closed his eyes, leaning into Damian.
They could do whatever they wanted. He was going to pretend it wasn’t happening, that he was just with Damian.
They touched and prodded, but always, Damian’s hands were there, and émeric’s voice, and in the distance, Richard’s as well, directing and consulting.
He could smell the product Collin used in his hair. He was close.
“Is Geun okay?” Jun whispered to Damian.
“Geun is still as fine as he was before,” Collin answered. “Everyone is going to come back here in just a moment.”
“Don’t let them worry,” Jun said, forcing his eyes open. “If they see the blood…”
“There’s no more blood,” émeric held Jun’s hand up for him to see. “We cleaned it up and cut off your sleeve.”
Collin was cleaning Jun’s other hand. He hadn’t even realized.
Jun sniffed. The coppery smell was almost gone beneath the smell of everything else.
Clean. They were making him clean. He blinked back tears and found émeric’s face in the confusion. “Thank you.”