Chapter Text
Everything hurts.
Wooyoung groans as he slowly regains consciousness, blinking to get his eyes to focus. He’s sitting upright with his back pressed against one of the unforgiving bulkheads and he can feel warm blood trickling down the side of his face—probably from hitting his head against either the floor or the aforementioned bulkhead. It’s too dark to see more than a few centimeters in front of him, which means that emergency power hasn’t kicked in yet, but when he shifts to stand he realizes that something is pinning his leg in place.
“Fuck,” he hisses, reaching out with fumbling fingers. It’s a piece of metal, he determines, that’s pierced through his pant leg, scraping across his skin, and embedded itself into the floor.
How hard did they crash?
He slumps back against the bulkhead and closes his eyes again, listening for other signs of life. He hears a faint moan somewhere to his left and then their captain’s voice echoes through the ship, sounding strained beneath its usual imperiousness.
“Okay, who’s not dead? Sound off.”
“Me,” he calls, waving a useless hand.
“Me,” San says—the source of the moaning to his left.
“Me,” Mingi says from the direction of the cockpit, sounding mostly stable.
“Me,” Seonghwa hisses, also from the cockpit because, right, he took over co-piloting duties from San a few hours ago.
“Me,” Yunho says, and his voice has a layer of deadly calm that he only uses when he’s injured or in trouble somehow and doesn’t want them to know about it.
“Me,” Jongho says, followed by a groan that’s probably him getting to his feet. “I’ll get the backup power.”
His footsteps stagger away. No other voices follow, and terror seizes sudden and tight at Wooyoung’s throat.
“Yeosang?” He calls, leaning forward again to pull at his stupid, trapped pant leg. “Yeosang?”
No answer. The others are trying to move, too—he can hear the creak of the pilot chairs and San kicking something loud and metallic. Finally, he manages to tear the fabric of his pants free from the metal and pull himself up using the bulkhead. His head spins for a second, but both of his legs support his weight.
A hand lands on his shoulder, startling him. Fingers curl into his shirt, pressing slender and sharp to the skin underneath. “Wooyoung?”
Ah. Hongjoong.
“Hey, captain,” Wooyoung says and feels Hongjoong’s arm slide across his back, supporting him.
“You in one piece?” Hongjoong asks and Wooyoung can just see the outline of his head turning in the inky black of the cabin, trying to find the rest of his crew.
“More or less,” Wooyoung says, ignoring the persistent throbbing behind his temple and left eye. He tries to scan their surroundings too, looking for any sign of Yeosang.
Where was he when they went down? The Guardian ship, the crackle of their shields breaking, the blare of sirens, the chaotic whirl of stars and atmosphere and earth, Mingi’s voice shouting at them to hold onto something— everything’s a blur.
“Found him!” San’s voice yells just as a hum runs through the ship and the lanterns flare to life.
Wooyoung’s breath catches at the sight of San kneeling near the back of the main cabin, on the other side of the navigation table, and Yeosang lying still beneath his bloodstained hands. He shoves away from Hongjoong and stumbles over—only half-aware of the others crowding at his back.
“Yeosang,” he gasps as he crashes down next to San.
Yeosang’s chest rises and falls in a subtle sign of life and his eyelids flicker but he doesn’t stir. One of the overhead support rods broke free from the ceiling in the crash and now it’s jutting bloody from Yeosang’s stomach, pinning him to the floor like a stuck butterfly. Wooyoung curls his fingers around the narrow piece of metal and reaches through his panic to his medical training.
It looks like nothing vital was hit, based on the positioning of the rod but if he pulls it free, Yeosang might bleed out. But he has to pull it free to get Yeosang off the floor and properly treated.
Fuck.
A hand on his shoulder again—Seonghwa this time, looking pale and frightened beneath the dirt and blood streaked across his face but jaw tight with determination. “What do you need?”
Before he can answer, Mingi shouts “Yunho!” and there’s another sound of screeching metal, undercut by a pained whimper.
“I’m fine,” Yunho answers in a tone that suggests he’s anything but. However, Yunho is conscious and speaking and that means Yeosang is Wooyoung’s first priority.
“Hyung, can you make it to the med bay?” He asks Seonghwa. “I need gauze, a shiton of gauze, sealing gel, the purple salve in the jar in the left cabinet, and an injector.”
“On it,” Seonghwa says, vanishing from view. Wooyoung hears him pause to talk to Jongho, roping him into the medical supply run, and turns his attention to San, who is cradling Yeosang’s face—a stricken, terrified expression on his own.
“San-ah,” Wooyoung says, “San-ah, get on his other side. I’m going to need you.”
San nods, a sharp jerk of his head, and wobbles to his feet. He’s got a nasty gash across one shoulder—bloody skin visible through the large tear in his jacket and shirt—but he moves with his usual grace and speed as he follows Wooyoung’s directions and kneels across from him, Yesoang’s body between them. Hongjoong materializes above them, hovering anxiously. He gets prickly and jagged-edged when he feels helpless, especially when his crew is involved, and Wooyoung loves him, he does, but he can’t deal with Hongjoong and fight off an impending panic attack at the same time.
“Hyung, I say this with great affection: please fuck off.”
Hongjoong bristles. “Yah.”
Wooyoung looks up at him and some of his terror must be making it onto his face because Hongjong softens again immediately. “Right,” he says. “Okay. I’ll go find out where the fuck we are.”
He stalks off with a new purpose and Yeosang chooses that moment to wake up, choking on a gasp as his eyes fly open. San and Wooyoung nearly knock their heads together in their rush to soothe him. His eyes roam frantically around the cabin before landing on their faces.
“Wha—” he mutters, blood bubbling on his lips, and then his gaze slides from them down to the metal pole lodged in him and he whines in horror.
“Shh,” Wooyoung hiccups, brushing his black bangs off his forehead. “Shh, baby, it’s okay. You’re gonna be okay.”
“Woo—” Yeosang starts, then chokes again, wheezing.
Wooyoung remembers his face, six years younger, streaked with soot from the fires spreading through the city they’d called home all of their lives. He remembers the crush of bodies desperate to get on the refugee ships. He remembers the bombs falling again, explosions rocking the landing dock beneath his feet, and losing Yeosang in the mayhem. He remembers three years without him, searching for his name in the manifests of every incoming ship to the backwater planet he ended up stranded on. He remembers Yeosang suddenly walking into his little weapons shop on a quiet afternoon, alive and healthy, and finally being able to breathe again.
He remembers the feeling of Yeosang in his arms as they hugged and the wet of Yeosang’s tears on his shirt and the warmth of Yeosang’s skin beneath his hands and thinks, I am not losing him again.
“Don’t try to talk,” San says, petting Yeosang’s hair with trembling, dirty fingers. “Don’t try to talk, jagi, it’s okay.” There is the same love and grief and fierce determination on his face that Wooyoung knows must be on his own.
Seonghwa returns—Jongho on his heels and arms ladened with supplies—and Wooyoung sinks back into what the others call Medic Mode. “Okay,” he says, all business. “Seonghwa hyung, give San the gauze and go hold Yeosang’s hand. Jongho-yah, pour the purple stuff into the injector. Yeah, just like that.”
He looks at Yeosang again, watching them all with wide eyes. “Yeosang-ah, if you need to pass out, pass out, okay?” A tiny nod. “Good.”
Jongho hands him the injector and he sets it next to his knee. “Anyone have a knife?”
Jongho again, procuring one from its usual place in his boot. Wooyoung uses it to cut open Yeosang’s shirt, creating an opening around the metal and trying to carefully untangle as much fabric from the wound as he can. Yeosang hisses and squeezes Seonghwa’s hand. Once that’s done, Wooyoung picks up the injector and jabs Yeosang’s stomach three times.
“This is a numbing agent,” he says even though they’re all aware. Talking helps his nerves and he can’t stop his mouth from running. “It’ll help but it won’t block everything out completely, I’m sorry, Yeosang-ah.”
Yeosang manages a weak smile. “‘S okay.”
Wooyoung touches the back of his hand to Yeosang’s cheek. “Alright, on three, I’m going to pull this free.” He curls his fingers carefully around the metal rod again. “San, as soon as I do, you need to put pressure on the wound. We can’t let him bleed out. Got it?”
A nod from San and he shifts into place, thick gauze in his hands. Wooyoung takes a deep breath.
“Okay, brace yourself, love,” he says to Yeosang, then counts, “One. Two. Three.” He grips the rod and pulls with all his strength to dislodge it from the floor . Yeosang screams, back arching as the rod comes free, and San pitches forward to press gauze over the bubbling wound.
The gauze soaks red within seconds and San curses as he switches it out for another, pressing down harder. Wooyoung feels Jongho’s hand against his back as he leans in to help San—both of them desperately trying to staunch the blood flow. Seonghwa is curled over Yeosang’s head, whispering encouragement as Yeosang’s fingers scratch at his arm. Wooyoung thinks the others have gathered, too, but his sole focus is Yeosang and his thoughts are a mantra of can’t lose him, won’t lose him, come on, come on, come on.
At last, at last, the bleeding slows enough for Wooyoung to disinfect the wound and pack it with sealant, spreading a final layer of gel across the surface of Yeosang’s skin to hold everything in place before he wraps fresh gauze around Yeosang’s torso.
“There,” Wooyoung declares, shaky. He feels vaguely like he’s going to throw up. Jongho squeezes his shoulder hard enough to bruise and it’s good, grounding. Yeosang seems to have passed out again and they should move him, but Wooyoung is afraid of jostling him too much.
“Let him rest for a few minutes, then we can move him to the med bay. If it’s intact?”
Seonghwa nods. “It’s mostly intact. The worst of the damage is up here.”
Wooyung forces himself to stand, trusting that Seonghwa and San will look after Yeosang. He finally turns his attention to the rest of his crewmates. Jongho’s face sports shallow scratches and some bruising along his jaw but he seems mostly fine. Mingi has nothing besides a split lip. Which leaves—
“Jeong Yunho, what’s the damage?” Wooyoung asks. “And don’t you dare lie to me.”
Yunho is upright, which is something, but he’s leaning suspiciously against the navigation table and avoiding putting any weight on his left leg.
“It’s not serious,” he says, the liar. If he wasn’t injured, Wooyoung would punch him.
“I think it’s broken,” Mingi says. Yunho glares at him.
“It’s not broken,” Yunho insists, which means that it probably is.
Yunho once shattered half his ribs and none of them knew until he literally collapsed hours later. They’re wearing him down, but he’s still too used to being on his own—with only Mingi for occasional support. His years as a bounty hunter made him awe-inspiringly efficient and incredible in a fight (as they learned firsthand, the hard way), but a stubborn idiot when it comes to his own health and well-being.
Fortunately, Wooyoung is just as stubborn.
“Fine.” He crosses his arms. “Walk on it.”
Yunho grimaces. Mingi sighs.
“No?” Wooyoung arches an eyebrow. “Then sit the fuck down.” He points to the chair at the comms station along the far wall.
Yunho does a little hop-turn and starts forward on his own before Mingi sighs again and wraps an arm around his back to help him.
“Idiot,” he grumbles, but his mouth is tight with worry.
Yunho sags into the chair, wan-faced but still calm. Wooyoung has only seen him not-calm once in the entire time they’ve known each other and that’s when Wooyoung, as part of Hongjoong’s crew, interfered with his job, stealing a mark out from under him, and he blew up their ship in retaliation.
“It’s really not that serious,” he tries again as Wooyoung crouches in front of him and uses Jongho’s knife to unceremoniously cut his pant leg open. “Ah, Wooyoung-ah,” he almost whines. “I liked these pants.”
“Too bad,” Wooyoung says without a drop of sympathy.
It’s hard to see in the dim glow of the lanterns—unable to burn any brighter since they’re running on backup fuel—but Wooyoung can make out dark bruising along Yunho’s calf and feels telltale swelling beneath his fingertips. Yunho hisses quietly when he presses down, fingers white-knuckled on the arms of the chair.
“It seems like a clean break, at least,” Wooyoung says, relief blooming in his chest.
“Good,” Yunho says. “Just reset it and put a brace on.”
The relief dissipates. Wooyoung glares up at Yunho, who looks steadily back. “What? No, I’m taking you to the med-bay with Yeosang—”
“Wooyoung-ah.” Yunho’s gaze flicks to Yeosang, lying still in Seonghwa’s arms, and then back to Wooyoung. There’s both grief and steel in his eyes. “That was a Guardian ship,” he says quietly. “I can’t sit in the med-bay. Brace it and let me keep going. Please.”
Wooyoung curses quietly under his breath. He hates that they’re not out of danger yet. He hates that he has to sacrifice the health of one of his family on the altar of pragmatism.
“Fine,” he spits out.
Mingi looks ready to argue but Yunho peers up at him and they have one of their silent conversations—the same kind that Wooyoung and Yeosang are capable of, a side-effect of knowing each other most of their lives. After a few seconds, Mingi blows out a sharp, defeated breath, squeezing Yunho’s shoulder.
“I’ll get a brace,” he says and stalks off in the direction of the med-bay.
“Thank you,” Yunho mutters.
“There’s one in the cabinet,” Wooyoung calls after him.
“Thank you,” Yunho says to him this time.
Wooyoung bares his teeth in response, which only makes Yunho’s mouth twitch in a smile. He has a fine layer of dust in his dark hair and his eyes look sunken, hollowed-out by exhaustion. Wooyoung imagines he doesn’t look much better, pushing his own filthy black bangs out of his eyes.
Hongjoong chooses that moment to emerge from the cockpit—a grimace on his face that suggests he’s about to be the bearer of bad news.
“Have you figured out where we are?” Jongho asks him, pausing in the middle of the line he’s been pacing up and down the length of the room.
“Yeah,” Hongjoong says. “Erimos. Desert world, still in the Wilds at least, so we didn’t accidentally jump to a whole new quadrant. But nothing here except endless canyons and maybe a few trading outposts.”
“And the ship?” Seonghwa asks. He’s carding his fingers through Yeosang’s tangled hair in soothing sweeps.
Another grimace, and Wooyoung’s stomach sinks. “Mingi and San will have to run an actual diagnostic check, but it doesn’t look good. We’re not gonna get airborne without extensive repairs.”
Shit.
“Poor baby,” San murmurs, patting one of the bulkheads. “We’ll take a look once Yeosang and Yunho are taken care of.”
Hongjoong’s gaze slides to Yeosang. He wrings his hands—nails digging into the shallow cuts along his knuckles. “How is he? I heard him scream.”
“He’s stable,” Wooyoung says, and that’s going to be enough. Yeosang is going to pull through.
Hongjoong nods, jerky and sharp. Mingi sweeps back into the room, clutching a metal brace in his hand. Wooyoung takes it from him with a grateful dip of his head, setting it on the floor near his knee.
“Okay,” he says, once again reaching for his training to keep himself calm. “Take a deep breath, Yunho-yah.” Yunho obeys—a shaky inhale. Wooyoung carefully positions his hands on Yunho’s leg. “On three. One, two—”
He forcibly shifts the bone back into alignment. Yunho jerks in the chair, eyes squeezed shut, but he doesn’t scream. Mingi makes a pained sound for him, low and soft in the back of his throat.
Wooyoung attaches the brace next: one band around Yunho’s thigh, just above his knee, one around his mid-calf, and one around his ankle. Two flexible metal rods run the length of it, with a hinge by his kneecap, to keep everything locked tightly into place. Wooyoung designed it himself and it’s got much better range of movement than something you’d find in a clinic, even if the elegance of the design could still use some work.
“There,” he announces. “Don’t walk on it until you have to.”
“Yessir,” Yunho wheezes.
Wooyoung gently pats his knee and rises to his feet. As one, he can feel them all shift in Hongjoong’s direction, waiting for instructions now that the immediate danger has passed. Hongjoong responds in kind: features settling into the sharper angles of their captain, spine straightening, worry and doubt shed like dead skin.
“Mingi, San,” he says, “check on the ship. Give me a full damage report and what we need to do to fix it.” Mingi nods and San salutes.
“Jongho, take a flier and go scouting. I want to know how close to the nearest outpost we are and what the landscape is out there.” Relief breaks over Jongho’s face at being given something to do.
“Yes, captain,” he says.
“Seonghwa,” Hongjoong continues, “take Yeosang to the med bay, then check comms. See if we can send any signals out.” At Seonghwa’s acknowledgement, he glances at Yunho. “You stay put.”
Yunho frowns at him, but doesn’t protest any further. A miracle.
“I’m going to check on our cargo. Make sure everything’s still intact.”
His gaze turns to Wooyoung last and holds, assessing. “Wooyoung….” Wooyoung braces himself, ready to be given another assignment, but all Hongjoong says is, “take a breather.”
For a second, he wants to argue. To insist that he can be useful and how dare Hongjoong try to sideline him, but then he glances down and realizes that his hands are both covered in Yeosang’s drying blood and trembling violently. Oh, he thinks, a wave of sudden dizziness rushing over him now that the adrenaline is fading.
Okay, yes, he needs a breather. After Yeosang is safe.
Seonghwa carefully gathers Yeosang into his arms, and Wooyoung follows him through the winding corridors and down the steps to the med bay on the lower level. As Seonghwa promised, it’s mostly intact. They keep most everything locked away or bolted down, which means that the worst of the damage is a few spilled containers of bandages and salve that escaped when one of the cupboards got knocked open. Wooyoung cleans them up while Seonghwa lays Yeosang on one of the two beds and fits a vital monitoring plate over his chest. It will continuously scan and sound an alert if anything changes or Yeosang wakes up. Wooyoung slips the alert band onto his bloody wrist.
Seonghwa tucks a blanket over Yeosang, pausing to smooth back his hair before he turns to Wooyoung. “I’m going back up to the bridge. Please actually take a breather.”
Wooyoung nods. Once Seonghwa’s left, he shuffles forward and presses an aching, lingering kiss to Yeosang’s forehead. “I’ll come running as soon as you wake up,” he promises.
Yeosang doesn’t stir, which Wooyoung tells himself is a good thing. He pries himself away, heading back up top. Seonghwa and Yunho are huddled together at the comm station—Yunho still confined to his chair—while Mingi has moved back up to the cockpit, conferring with Hongjoong as he examines buttons and dials and readouts that Wooyoung’s never bothered to learn the meaning of. The ship ramp has been lowered, so Wooyoung stumbles outside to take the promised breather.
Hot, dry air blasts him in the face and his boots hit coarse sand at the bottom of the ramp. He squints against the sudden brightness, lifting a hand to shield his eyes. Once they adjust, he realizes that the ship is sitting beneath a large overhang. Rust red rock extends over his head, cut through by swirling, glimmering patterns of yellow, blue, and green mineral deposits. Beyond the overhang, he can see the path of their ship marked in the blackened sand—a long line from the middle of the canyon floor all the way to its current resting place.
He whistles. Shit, they traveled far. It’s lucky they didn’t smash into the canyon wall.
“Crazy, right?” San’s voice comes from above him.
He whirls around, spotting San perched on top of the ship. He’s stripped down to his undershirt and pulled his dark hair into a small ponytail at the crown of his head, and he peers down at Wooyoung from behind the shield of large protective goggles that swallow half of his face.
There’s still at least two full meters between him and the bottom of the overhang.
“Yeah, can’t believe you managed to stop in time.”
“It took everything we had,” San says, “and the ship still took a ton of damage. Though mostly courtesy of the Guardian ship, not just the impact.”
“How bad?”
San shakes his head. “Tell you later. Don’t worry for now.”
Wooyoung scowls at him. “Yah, I don’t need to be coddled.”
“It’s not coddling,” San promises. He’s got a data tablet in his hand that he pauses to punch information into. “I literally don’t know yet. But Mago’s pretty beat up.”
Mago. San’s pet name for the ship that Mingi always sighs at but has come to accept. Perhaps because the name comes from a goddess on San’s homeworld and there is little left of that planet now—ravaged by the war and subjected to brutal oppression by the new empire seeking to control the mining and refinement of Dust. Being one of the only planets in the system to have natural deposits of the mineral needed to fuel starships once made Samhan rich and powerful, but everything’s different now.
It’s a new galaxy they’re trying to survive in.
“Fine,” Wooyoung relents. “Tell Mago it’s gonna be okay.”
San grins. “I will.” His earpiece crackles—probably Mingi in the cockpit—and he shifts his attention back to his work.
Wooyoung leaves the ship behind, venturing out from the overhang to get a better stock of their surroundings. They’re in a large, circular clearing that’s surrounded on all sides by towering cliffs. Dead ahead, a canyon yawns—dozens of meters deep and wide. It cuts a straight path through the earth before curving to the left, probably winding its way through hundreds of kilometers across the planet’s surface.
From what Wooyoung recalls, every living thing on Erimos resides in these vast networks of canyons, chasms, and craters, seeking shelter from the vicious scorch of its massive sun.
Footsteps crunch in the sand: Jongho, approaching with a rifle slung across his back, a protective poncho draped over his torso, and goggles on his face. He clutches a flier in one gloved hand. The little mechanical bird runs on tiny portions of Dust, can travel for hours, and sends live footage of terrain back to the HUD wired into Jongho’s goggles.
Wooyoung helped Yeosang design the whole system and he’s proud of it. It remains one of his better inventions.
“You okay, hyung?” Jongho asks, pausing next to Wooyoung.
“I will be,” Wooyoung says. He wants to get Yeosang’s blood off his hands and sleep for a week, until his body stops aching, but he no longer feels like he’s about to fall apart.
He hates when Hongjoong is right.
“Good,” Jongho says, pulling the hood of his poncho up. The beige material blends in well with their surroundings.
“Be careful out there,” Wooyoung says.
Jongho gives him a small, confident smile. “I always am.”
He activates the flier with the press of a switch and throws it into the air. Its wings unfurl and it hovers for a second, calibrating, before it zooms off down the canyon.
“I’ll be back in a few hours,” Jongho says, breaking into a jog to follow it.
Wooyoung watches his retreating back until he reaches the bend in the canyon’s path and disappears from view.
_ _
“Okay,” Mingi says a few hours later. “We have good news and bad news.”
They’re all gathered on the bridge again except for Yeosang, still asleep, and Jongho, who hasn’t returned. Wooyoung’s managed to clean himself up—enough to change clothes and finally get all the blood and grime off of him—but Mingi and San still look like they’ve been through a battle, covered in grease and soot.
“What’s the good news?” Hongjoong asks.
“We can repair Mago ourselves,” San says, bright.
“And the bad?”
“We need additional parts to do it,” Mingi says—a grim contrast to San’s optimism.
Hongjoong curses under his breath, raking a frustrated hand through his hair. “Rare parts?”
San shakes his head, which relaxes everyone a fraction. “No, fortunately not. A trading outpost should have them.”
“It just depends on how far we are from one,” Mingi says.
Seonghwa glances to the cockpit and out the front viewport where the setting sun casts long shadows across the canyon walls and the wind has picked up, ripping sand from the ground and flinging it into the air. “Jongho’s not back yet.”
“He will be,” Yunho says with confidence. “He’s the best scout we have.”
As though he’s been summoned, Jongho chooses that moment to blow up the ramp in a flurry of sand. He coughs, slamming the button to close the door behind him, and he looks a little ghostly with a layer of red dust all over his face and poncho, but mostly unharmed. Seonghwa still hurries to his side, helping him remove the rifle from his back and brush sand from his hair.
“I’m fine, hyung,” Jongho promises. He sets the flier on the navigation table and shoves his goggles up onto his forehead, revealing two perfect circles of clear skin amidst the dust coating. “The canyons really do go on forever. From what I can tell, they cover this entire region. But, there’s a crater about half a day’s walk from here and in that crater is a trading outpost.”
A collective sigh of relief runs through the room.
“Thank the gods,” Hongjoong mutters.
“You don’t believe in gods,” Yunho points out—mouth twisted in wry amusement.
Hongjoong shoots him a weary look. “I do now.” He glances at each of his crew in turn. “Okay, here’s the plan: everyone sleep tonight, try to get some rest. At dawn, Jongho, Mingi, San, and I will head to the traveler’s outpost to pick up supplies and parts for the Destiny. I’ll wire our client, too—let them know the supplies are still coming. Seonghwa and Wooyoung will stay with the ship and look after Yunho and Yeosang. Good?”
Wooyoung hates the prospect of being stuck on the ship, but he would hate to leave Yeosang even more.
“Good,” Seonghwa agrees, speaking for the rest of them.
Hongjoong nods. His expression softens again—their captain melting away, leaving their hyung behind. “I’m glad you’re all okay.”
“We’ll get through this,” San says. More of that unfailing optimism that Wooyoung often envies. “We’ve gotten through worse.”
And it’s true, isn’t it? They’ve survived a war. They’ve survived the rise of an empire and the end of everything they knew. They’ve survived the burial of what they could have been—the people they once were. They emerged from that grave dirt with steel in their spines and grit between their teeth, and two years after Braxis secured its victory, they’re still here, still fighting.
They move forward. There’s nothing else to do.
_ _
Wooyoung can’t sleep. He tried in his bunk—tossing and turning for an hour before Mingi rapped on the wall and asked him to please be quiet. Giving up, he crept to the med bay and planted himself at Yeosang’s bedside, reaching under the blanket to thread his fingers through Yeosang’s limp ones.
Now, his back aches and his eyes feel heavy, but he knows that if he surrenders, terrible dreams are going to be waiting for him. The ones where he watches Yeosang die on that loading dock, unable to make it to the evacuation ships. The ones where he staggers through a destroyed, smoldering city and sees the bloody faces of his loved ones amidst the rubble as ash fills his lungs. The ones where he’s all alone in an empty world—the last living thing, and no one to hear him scream.
The med bay door hisses open, startling him from his haze. Hongjoong slips inside, closing it behind him. He’s shed his black coat for the baggy shirt he normally sleeps in, and he looks smaller this way. More fragile. More human.
As haunted and exhausted as they all are on their bad days.
“You should be sleeping,” he says as he pulls up a chair next to Wooyoung.
Wooyoung scoffs. “So should you.”
“I’m the captain.”
“And I’m the medic.”
Hongjoong’s mouth quirks. “We’re both terrible, I guess.”
Wooyoung huffs a tired laugh. “You’re the one that chose us. I guess like attracts like.”
“Yah, I didn’t choose you,” Hongjoong protests, poking him in the shoulder. “You all just decided to join and take over my ship.”
“Technically it’s Mingi’s ship.”
“Only because Yunho blew up my ship.”
“That was Seonghwa’s ship.”
Hongjoong waves a dismissive hand. “Semantics.”
Wooyoung peers at him, taking in the bags under his eyes that look almost as deep as the canyons outside and the subtle twitching of his fingers. Ah. How to approach this? If he expresses too much sympathy, Hongjoong will scuttle away like an angry crab. But treat it too lightly and Hongjoong will brush his concern aside.
Blunt honesty, then.
“Do you need another tonic? I can mix you one.”
Hongjoong sighs at him, a sharp punch of breath, but the claws don’t come out. “No,” he says. Wooyoung glares, unimpressed, and Hongjoong shakes his head. “They only help so much, Wooyoung-ah. You know that.”
Wooyoung kicks him, gently, in the ankle. “It’s still better than doing nothing, hyung.”
“I’m fine, ” Hongjoong insists. “I’m present. My head’s clear.” A wan smile. “And too much tonic just makes me numb. That can’t happen right now anyway.”
Hongjoong’s right , is the frustrating thing. There is no cure for the side effects of the Mist—memory loss, occasional disorientation and hallucinations, creeping paranoia. Wooyoung has tried every remedy he can think of, both from his training and what he’s been able to find in the medical communities of planets they visit, and nothing stops the bad days completely.
Braxis brewed toxins in their laboratories and dropped them on entire cities. All the victims, all Hongjoong, can do now is endure.
Wooyoung hates it.
“Okay,” he mutters in surrender. “But I’m watching you.” He points a finger at Hongjoong, who glares back at him. “If it gets too bad, I’m telling Seonghwa.”
That makes Hongjoong grimace and look away. Someday, Wooyoung thinks, his captain and first mate will finally talk about the big, disgustingly non-platonic feelings they have for each other but it might not be for another century, at this rate.
“You’re terrible,” Hongjoong huffs. “I should fire you.”
“And starve?” Wooyoung asks with an arched eyebrow. “I’m your weapons specialist, your medic, and your cook. I’m more valuable than you.”
Hongjoong kicks him in the shin, but he’s fighting a smile now. Wooyoung bites his lip to keep his own mouth from betraying him.
“Brat,” Hongjoong says without much heat. “Try to at least get some sleep.”
He pushes himself to his feet, pausing to look at Yeosang. His hand twitches towards Yeosang’s face before he pulls it back.
You can touch him, Wooyoung wants to say. You can touch any of us. But some things are always a battle and their captain is prickly—all wrapped in fierce spines that never let any of them close, not even Seonghwa.
Someday, though, they’ll wear him down just like they have Yunho. Wooyoung is sure of it.
“You too,” is all he says. “Get some sleep, hyung. That’s an order.”
Another glare. “I’m the captain.”
“And I’m the medic.”
Hongjoong rolls his eyes but leaves the med bay to hopefully sleep. Alone again in the quiet, Wooyoung slumps forward, resting his upper body on the bed with his head carefully positioned on Yeosang’s thigh. He keeps hold on Yeosang’s hand as he finally lets his eyes drift shut—still nervous about nightmares but knowing that he needs to sleep.
They have a long day ahead of them tomorrow.
_ _
The city is empty, decaying and dead. The burnt out buildings have crumbled to ruin and the bodies decomposed to skeletons. Yellow mist hangs in the air, choking his lungs as he tries to walk. His vision goes hazy, blurring at the edges. When he blinks to clear it, the buildings burn again.
Bombs in the distance, crushing the city to ash and mortar. The screams are even louder, ringing in his ears. He tries to scream, too: the name of someone whose hand should be gripped tight in his own. But his voice is gone, even though he can feel the ache in his jaw as he stretches his mouth wide.
The sky is red. The fire is red. The blood that stains his hands is red. The banners of the Braxian soldiers marching through the city that used to be his home are red.
He drowns in it, he chokes on ash, he—
Wakes up to familiar fingers tangled in his hair, mouth open and gasping against the fabric of the med bay bed as he reminds himself that his lungs are clear and he can breathe. The fingers tighten, grounding, and only one person knows to do that for him, not even San….
“Yeosang-ah,” he murmurs without opening his eyes.
“You were loud,” Yeosang whispers back, voice rasping and exhausted but steady, and with his usual wry tone back. “Woke me up.”
Wooyoung wheezes out a tired laugh. “Sorry.”
He takes another deep, steadying breath and sit ups on the exhale. Yeosang’s hand falls away, landing back at his side. He’s still tucked under the blankets with the monitoring plate on his chest, projecting steady vitals across its smooth metal surface. Another device on the wall displays environmental readings from outside the ship and declares that it’s morning and the current temperature is already over 37°C outside.
“How are you feeling?” Wooyoung asks, getting up to pour Yeosang a glass of water from the cooler. His limbs crack in protest and his neck aches from sleeping slumped over. Seonghwa will probably scold him for not taking proper care of himself, but that’s been an ongoing lecture for as long as they’ve known each other.
“Like I got punched through by a giant piece of metal,” Yeosang croaks.
Wooyoung hums in sympathy and helps Yeosang lift his head so that he can drink. He grimaces at the taste of the water. “Did you put something in this?”
“Yah, no whining. It’s already infused with sana powder so just deal with the taste, it’ll help you heal.”
Wooyoung traded several precious weapons to get his hands on some of the little flowers that contain extraordinary healing properties. Like Dust, the sale and cultivation of it is another thing that Braxis has exerted tight control over, and it’s become both scarce and expensive on the black market. But Wooyoung would trade the whole fucking ship if it meant keeping Yeosang alive. He just isn’t going to tell Mingi or San that.
Yeosang sighs but finishes the glass and slumps back against the bed, eyes fluttering closed again.
“I should check your bandages,” Wooyoung says. They’re running critically low on gauze, salve, and painkillers, but he’s had to ration before—he can probably stretch them for at least a few days.
Yeosang hums without opening his eyes. As Wooyoung shifts to remove the monitoring plate the door slides open, admitting Seonghwa. He still looks haggard—skin wan, black hair falling into his eyes instead of slicked back the way he normally prefers it—and it negates the effect of the reassuring smile he offers them.
“You’re awake,” he says, coming over to squeeze Yeosang’s hand. “I’m so glad.”
“‘M not,” Yeosang grumbles, squeezing Seonghwa’s hand back.
Seonghwa turns to Wooyoung. “We need you up top. The scouting party is departing for the outpost.”
Wooyoung hesitates, loathe to leave Yeosang, but Yeosang flops his hand in a weak, dismissive gesture. “Go. I wanna sleep some more. We can go through the ordeal of bandage-changing later.”
“Okay,” Wooyoung relents. He holds up his wrist to show off the band still around it. “This is attached to the chest plate so just tap on if it you need anything and I’ll—”
“Wooyoung-ah,” Yeosang says, exasperated, “I know how it works. Go.”
Wooyoung goes.
_ _
In the main cabin, San, Mingi, Jongho, and Hongjoong are all dressed in ponchos and goggles with packs strapped to their backs. Yunho has stubbornly taken a seat back at the comms station, but at least he’s kept the brace on so Wooyoung doesn’t have to murder him.
“We’ll be back by tonight, dawn at the latest,” Hongjoong promises, checking the gun he has strapped to one hip and the sword on the other.
“Be careful,” Seonghwa says, hovering nearby and trying not to seem as anxious as he clearly is.
Wooyoung wishes the two of them would just kiss and get it over with, but he holds his tongue as he watches Hongjoong reach out and clasp Seonghwa’s shoulder.
“Take care of the ship, Seonghwa-yah. And the others. We’ll be fine.”
Seonghwa nods, not looking very reassured. Wooyoung leaves them to whatever is left in their weird mating ritual to pull San aside.
“We need medical supplies,” he says, trying to mask his own nerves. “Can you pick some up? Fresh gauze, salve—that purple kind, painkillers, and we could use some more applicators now that I’m thinking about it but those aren’t as big of a concern—”
“Wooyoung-ah,” San says very gently, taking Wooyoung’s hands, “I’ve got it. I’ll get everything, don’t worry.”
“Right.” Wooyoung smiles through his embarrassment. He doesn’t like being frazzled in front of the others, even though it sometimes feels like they’re all composed of nothing but fraying threads. “Thank you. And be careful.”
San squeezes his hand—a brief, reassuring pressure. “I will,” he promises. “You too.”
“I’m always careful,” Wooyoung insists. Neither of them comment on how much of a blatant lie that is.
“Stay safe,” Mingi announces, mostly focused on Yunho but glancing at Wooyoung and Seonghwa too. “Don’t do anything to my ship.”
“Our ship,” San corrects.
“My ship,” Hongjoong huffs.
“We should go,” Jongho says, cutting through the bickering like he usually does. “The temperature is rising.”
And just like that, with another round of waves, the four of them disappear down the ramp and out into the growing light. Seonghwa seals the door behind them, shutting out the heat, and sighs.
“You should rest, Yunho-yah,” he says. “They won’t be back for hours.”
Yunho looks grim—so grim that Wooyoung feels a sudden, heavy dread thump into his stomach like a boulder.
“We can’t rest,” Yunho says, voice as grim as his expression. “That was a Guardian ship. They’ll be tracking us. We need to prepare.”
Seonghwa frowns. “We did an unnavigated jump, how would they be able to track that?”
“Even unnavigated jumps leave Dust trails,” Yunho points out. “And we didn’t leave the quadrant. They’ll be able to find us eventually.”
Wooyoung presses his tongue to his teeth. He’s heard stories about Guardians: the behemoth, deadly soldiers of the new empire. The stories go that they’re not even human, that they’re machines with a veneer of flesh. The stories go that they’re unstoppable, that one Guardian can take on an entire battalion of soldiers and emerge victorious. The stories go that they’re ruthless, that they can’t be reasoned or bargained with.
But he chose to believe that they’re just stories. Now Yunho’s face is telling him otherwise and he hates it.
“Please put your face away,” he says to Yunho. “It’s terrifying.”
Yunho does not put his face away. If anything, he manages to look even more grim. “We need to prepare.”
“You said that already,” Wooyoung snaps.
“Would the Emperor’s Guardians really bother with a bunch of lowly smugglers?” Seonghwa asks. He’s crossed his arms over his chest but his tense fingers are digging into his skin, creating deep furrows in the sleeves of his black shirt.
“Maybe not a bunch of lowly smugglers,” Yunho says. “But the Black Pirates? If they’ve figured out who we are, then yes. They’ll come.”
For a moment, pure, unfiltered terror seizes Seonghwa’s expression. It startles Wooyoung, who is used to Seonghwa tired and exasperated and determined but never truly afraid. It’s gone in a blink, filtered behind the calm mask that Seonghwa usually wears when he’s trying to put up with their antics or win some debate against Hongjoong.
“I see,” he says and his voice wobbles a little on the first syllable before steadying. “Have you faced them before?”
“Once,” Yunho says. “During the war.” He licks his chapped lips. The comms chair creaks in loud protest as he shifts his weight. “I dropped a bomb on it, hyung. It kept coming like it was nothing. Mingi and I had to flee the planet and make five unnavigated jumps before we felt safe.”
“Gods,” Seonghwa breathes. But he’s their second-in-command for a reason. While Wooyoung wants to open his mouth and emit one long, neverending scream until he passes out, Seonghwa drops his hands to his sides and says, “we need to cloak the ship, then. And hide the evidence of our crash.”
Yunho nods. “And prepare all the explosives we have.” He glances at Wooyoung, sad and apologetic. “We’ll need Yeosang.”
Wooyoung bristles. “He’s asleep in the med bay right now. In case you somehow missed it, even though you were right there, he nearly bled to death less than twenty-four hours ago.”
“I know,” Yunho says. “We still need him. He’s the only one who’s going to be able to get the cloaking working with the ship in this state.”
Yunho is right, damnit, but Wooyoung still wants to fight him. Wants to deck him in his stupid, serious face, or sink teeth into his shoulder far past the point of affection, all the way until they touch bone.
He takes a deep breath, shoving down the fear that makes him feral. “Fine,” he grits out. “I’ll go wake him up and—”
“No need,” a weak voice comes from the direction of the stairs and Wooyoung spins to see Yeosang leaning against one of the bulkheads with a protective arm around his middle. “‘M up.”
“Yah!” Wooyoung yells, fear rushing right back. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“I got tired of staring at the ceiling in the med bay,” Yeosang says as Wooyoung and Seonghwa both hurry to his side.
Somehow, he managed to walk all the way up here but now it’s clear the bulkhead is the only thing keeping him upright. His face is shiny with sweat, making his hair stick to his forehead and cheeks, and his skin is far too pale. His birthmark stands out deep red against it, like a burn, and Wooyoung wants to pick him up and carry him back downstairs, strap him to the bed—anything to ensure he stays safe.
But Yeosang is stubborn, he forgets that. Because the stubbornness is more quiet than Wooyoung’s own belligerent kind. Wooyoung’s is a storm, designed to push you away, cut you open, but Yeosang silently sinks roots of himself deep into cracked earth and refuses to be moved. Wooyoung stares at the tense line of his jaw and the fire in his eyes that blazes even through the weariness and pain, and knows he would lose this battle if he tried to fight it.
“You idiot,” he still says.
“I know,” Yeosang murmurs as Seonghwa loops an arm around his back to keep him steady. “Yell at me later.”
“Oh I will.”
Seonghwa carefully eases Yeosang into the chair next to Yunho and Wooyoung crouches in front of him, pulling open his loose white shirt to check the gauze wrapped around his stomach. It’s reddened but not alarmingly so, the sealing gel is holding well. Wooyoung sets a time on the now mostly useless wrist device and listens as it starts to tick down.
“Two hours,” he says. “Then I’m changing these.”
“Deal,” Yeosang says. “And I helped myself to some painkillers.”
“Good.” At least Yeosang’s not a complete idiot.
“How much did you hear?” Seonghwa asks, crouched on Yeosang’s other side.
“Guardian ship probably incoming,” Yeosang says. “Need to hide.”
“Can you cloak the ship?” Yunho asks.
Yeosang grimaces. “Probably? Put me in the cockpit and I’ll tell you for sure.”
Seonghwa nods and then just picks Yeosang up, scooping him carefully into his arms bridal style. Yeosang makes a startled sound, gripping the back of Seonghwa’s neck for balance. “Hyung,” he protests.
“Not a word,” Seonghwa says, marching off in the direction of the cockpit.
Something is niggling at the back of Wooyoung’s mind—an insistent question. “Why didn’t you tell the others?” He asks Yunho. “About the Guardian ship?”
Yunho’s mouth presses into a thin, sharp line. “Because then they would have stayed.”
Once again, Wooyoung hates Yunho’s pragmatism. Hates how good they’ve all become at calculated sacrifices. Better only four of them dead than all of them if this goes south; better a chance that they get supplies and let their clients know what’s happened in case things don’t go south.
“Okay, fair,” he concedes.
“Good news,” Yeosang calls from the cockpit. “I can still cloak the ship.”
“I’m sensing there’s also bad news,” Seonghwa says, hovering next to the pilot chair where he carefully placed Yeosang.
That is the trend of the last day, so it’s not a surprise when Yeosang sighs and says, “it’ll only last for a few hours.”
“How many?” Yunho asks.
Yeosang shrugs. “Don’t know for sure with the ship so damaged. Let’s say two?”
Yunho rubs an anxious hand over his jaw. “Okay. Two.” Then, because he’s a stubborn idiot, he pushes himself up out of the chair, completely ignoring the warning glare that Wooyoung levels at him.
“Hyung, Wooyoung-ah, can you take care of the evidence outside? I’ll start getting weapons together.”
“I’ll stay here,” Yeosang announces. “And monitor the ship. The pilot’s chair is comfy, Mingi should let more people sit in it.”
Seonghwa’s mouth quirks in an affectionate smile. “That’ll never happen so take advantage now.”
Wooyoung pinches the bridge of his nose. “No one is going to listen to me about taking it easy and not idiotically reopening their wounds, are they?”
Seonghwa pats his shoulder in sympathy.
_ _
So Wooyoung finds himself outside with goggles and a poncho on, getting his boots full of sand as he buries the scorch trail of their ship. Seonghwa works next to him, moving his feet in graceful, sweeping arcs. He looks like he barely even feels the heat, or the sand, and as always Wooyoung is wildly envious of how effortless he makes everything seem.
Wooyoung just tries to make the spread of the sand look natural, hoping that the wind will pick up at some point in the near future and lend them a hand. He’s so focused on the patterns beneath his feet that everything else fades—the world narrowed down to the grit of the sand in his socks, the rhythm of left, right, left, right, left, right. Seonghwa’s sudden hand on his shoulder startles him into a forward jerk, a little shout of alarm escaping his mouth.
“Quiet,” Seonghwa says, in his own captain mode. “Do you hear that?”
Wooyoung swallows down the admonishment he’d been about to aim at Seonghwa for startling him so badly and closes his eyes, focusing. For a few seconds, all he can hear is the low whistle of the breeze but then another sound cuts through it, gaining in volume.
The distinctive rumble of ship engines.
“Shit,” he mutters.
“Run!” Seonghwa hisses. “Back to the ship.”
Wooyoung sprints, relieved that the loose sand fills in his staggering footprints enough to obscure them from view. He reaches Mago’s ramp just as the second ship appears in the sky. It’s definitely imperial—he’d recognize that spiky, awful Braxis design anywhere after how many times he’s seen it in his nightmares. Together, he and Seonghwa crouch at the base of the ramp and watch as the ship flies west, then north, then east, then south in what appears to be a grid.
“Search pattern,” Seonghwa says. “They definitely know we crashed in this area.”
“Great,” Wooyoung injects so much false cheer into his voice that Seonghwa glares at him. “That’s awesome.”
The door opens behind them, revealing a thunderous Yunho. “What the fuck are you two doing? Get inside!”
“Excuse me,” Seonghwa says, even as he stands to continue up the ramp, “I’m your hyung. And your second-in-command.”
“Neither of which matter if you’re dead because you were stupid,” Yunho fires back, hobbling aside to the usher them in.
“The overhang was hiding us,” Wooyoung insists, needing to defend his own intelligence, especially from Yunho.
Yunho levels him with a look that perfectly conveys how momumentally stupid he thinks that argument is and Wooyoung briefly contemplates breaking his other leg.
“Yeosang-ah!” Yunho calls back up to the cockpit. “Are we cloaked?”
“We’re cloaked!” Yeosang calls back. “For at least the next two hours.”
“What are the chances of them giving up?” Seonghwa asks, pushing his goggles up onto his forehead as the engine noises continue outside, growing louder and then fading again in a repeating pattern.
“Zero,” Yunho says.
He limps further into the room, brace creaking with each heavy step, and Wooyoung notices that he’s managed to drag just about every major weapon up from storage. They’re all laid out in neat, organized groupings across the metal floor: three rifles, four pistols, about ten mines, their only two energy grenades, and a tangle of razor-sharp tripwires.
“Huh,” Wooyoung says, finally remembering to tug his own goggles down to hang around his neck, “I thought we had more than this.”
The last time he got a chance to run inventory was two jobs ago, though.
“We did,” Yunho says. “But then there was that… hiccup on Montress last month, remember?”
Oh right. The hiccup: getting ambushed by a rival smuggling crew and drawn into a firefight. Annoying business, all of it.
Seonghwa sighs. “I guess we make do. And your face says you have a plan. Care to share?”
Yunho does have his Planning Face on—jaw tense, lips slightly pursed, eyes focused and burning. It’s a pretty scary face, but fortunately Yunho doesn’t plan against them anymore. Usually. Most of the time. Except when they (Wooyoung) decide to steal his food or his shampoo or bite him one too many times in a row.
“We have the element of surprise right now,” Yunho says, picking up the most intimidating rifle from the lineup—the one that Wooyoung designed to be fitted with rounds strong enough to pierce a ship’s hull, “I’m going to take advantage of it.”
He loads in the charge pack with deft fingers and hefts the rifle onto his shoulder. A muscle in his cheek twitches, betraying just how much pain he’s probably in.
“You can barely stand up,” Seonghwa protests, reaching for him.
Yunho shifts out of range. “I’m still our best shot.”
“Fuck, stop being right,” Wooyoung grumbles.
“Sorry,” Yunho says, smirking. “Can’t help it that I’m the only one with a brain.”
“Yah, I will break another bone of yours.”
“Children,” Seonghwa sighs. The Guardian ship flies closer again—engines like a low rumble of thunder.
“I’ll be fine,” Yunho reassures them and limps down the ramp.
Wooyoung still follows, hovering at the edge of the protective overhang. The gathering wind tugs at the edges of Yunho’s long black coat, whipping them around his legs. He walks until he’s several meters away from the ship, in the middle of the open space between the red canyon walls. Then, he plants his feet wide and readies the rifle with a practiced, steady grip, peering down the scope. On the horizon, the Guardian ship appears like a large black insect, growing bigger and bigger and bigger.
Yunho’s shoulders relax. His finger curls around the trigger as he tracks the ship’s path.
BANG.
The sound echoes down the canyon, bouncing off the walls in a wild cacophony. And the shot punches a hole through the side of the Guardian ship, right into their fucking engine. A deafening explosion rattles the rock around them and the ground beneath their feet, forcing Wooyoung to drop into a crouch to keep from falling over. Pieces of smoking debris hail down, causing eruptions of sand with each thudding impact. Yunho casually leans out of the way of one, focused on the Guardian ship as it fights to stay in the sky.
It tries to retreat, flying south, in the supposed direction of the trading outpost, but it can’t maintain altitude and dovetails, spiraling out of view into a different canyon.
Wooyoung whoops, punching a fist into the air.
“You’re terrifying!” he shouts to Yunho.
Yunho shakes his head. Sways dangerously—energy spent from absorbing the rifle’s kickback.
“Shit,” Wooyoung curses under his breath, rushing forward to catch Yunho before he faceplants into the hot sand.
“‘M fine,” Yunho insists, even as the rifle slips from his fingers.
“Shut up,” Wooyoung says, wrapping a steadying arm around Yunho’s waist. “You saved the day, you can stop being a stubborn idiot and rest now, Yunho-yah.”
“No,” Yunho mutters, but he lets Wooyoung steer him back towards the ship, leaning on Wooyoung for support. “‘S not over yet.”
What?
“You just shot them out of the fucking sky.”
“I evened the playing field,” Yunho explains. “Enough to maybe get us out of this alive. But we’re just starting.”
What? Just starting?
“Fuck.”
Yunho wheezes a laugh. “Exactly.”
Seonghwa materializes at the top of the ramp, arms already outstretched to take Yunho. Wooyoung passes him over, then jogs back to retrieve the discarded rifle, grunting as he lifts it out of the sand. Gods, he probably needs to take Jongho up on his long-standing offer to provide workout lessons if they survive this.
Back inside the ship, he returns the rifle to its place on the floor and crouches next to Yunho, who has sprawled his long limbs everywhere. “Are the stories true, then? About them being machines?”
“Not entirely,” Yunho murmurs, tipping his head back against the side of the navigation table. “It’s worse.”
“Worse?” Seonghwa asks, then gets up to scold Yeosang when he comes shuffling out of the cockpit, helping him into the comms chair.
“Amazing shot,” Yeosang says—definitely a shade or two paler than before but still fully coherent. Good. “Have I mentioned that I’m glad you’re on our side?”
“Yeah, yeah, Yunho’s a badass and we’re lucky he didn’t kill us.” Wooyoung flicks his hand. “Back to ‘worse’ and what you mean by that.”
Yunho sighs and closes his eyes. “I don’t know for certain. Just from rumors, things I saw back on Ando after the invasion. It’s only a theory.”
“Okay, fine,” Wooyoung says, occupying himself with surreptitiously checking the hinges on Yunho’s brace because Yunho is the hardest of them to take care of after Hongjoong and this is all the fussing he’ll probably allow, but dammit Wooyoung has to do something or he’ll go insane. “Still share the theory with the class, please.”
“You’ve heard of the SEA right?”
“The Space Exploration Academy,” Wooyoung says with a nod. “Who hasn’t?”
Ando was renowned for training the best and brightest cadets to embark on long, possibly one-way missions into the vast reaches of uncharted space in an effort to map the galaxy and find new worlds that could provide resources, or even homes for intrepid colonists looking to build a society from the ground up. But all of that’s over now.
Braxis invaded and the SEA became a source of canon fodder—hundreds of cadets conscripted into the ranks of Braxis’ mighty imperial army.
“I was a cadet,” Yunho murmurs, opening haunted eyes, and honestly that’s the least surprising information he’s ever shared. “Along with Mingi. When Braxis conquered the planet….” He sighs. “It wasn’t just conscription. Cadets started disappearing and there were rumors that human experimentation was happening. That…that Braxis was turning them into super warriors. Something between people and machines.”
Wooyoung shouldn’t feel surprised, or sick. Braxis’s atrocities over the last six years are well-documented and unlimited, continuing to increase as they cement absolute control over the galaxy. This still rattles him, sending a rush of bile up his throat.
“Gods,” Yeosang breathes.
“I received a summons,” Yunho continues. “For a special program—they wouldn’t tell me what. That’s when Mingi and I ran.”
“So trying to pair human-level intelligence with a machine’s durability,” Seonghwa says. “It’s ingenious.”
“It’s cruel,” Wooyoung snaps, twisting to glare at him.
“It is,” Seonghwa agrees, unfazed by Wooyoung’s ire. “And it got them super soldiers.”
“That are now trying to kill us,” Yeosang says, rubbing twitching fingers along his jaw. “So how do we stop them?”
“We throw everything we’ve got at them,” Yunho says. “We can trap the canyon entrance to start. I don’t think they’ll come down over the walls. The sun at surface-level would fry them. Are any of the ship’s weapons online?”
“The forward guns can be,” Yeosang says. “But I’ll have to divert power from life support systems and the shields.”
“Hyung?” Yunho turns to Seonghwa, who is still their second-in-command.
“Do it,” Seonghwa decides. “If it will help.”
Wooyoung rises to his feet, itching to be useful. “Seonghwa hyung, you can help me with the traps.”
Yunho predictably opens his mouth to protest and Wooyoung kicks his good leg. “Yah, shut it. Your leg is still broken. This isn’t a magical healing brace. Stay put. Help Yeosang.”
“I am probably going to need someone to carry me back to the cockpit,” Yeosang mutters, slumped in the comms chair. “And bring me more painkillers.”
“I can do one of those things,” Yunho says, hauling himself to his feet. “I’ll be right back.” He limps off in the direction of the medbay and Seonghwa scoops Yeosang back into his arms, grunting with the effort of lifting him.
“You have too many muscles, Yeosang-ah.”
“Thanks, hyung.”
Wooyoung drifts over to the inventory Yunho assembled, brushing his hands over the mines. He regrets not only Montross but the other bullshit mission three weeks ago, when they had to drop five detonators down the throat of an ice serpent to keep from getting devoured. One of the worst planets Wooyoung’s ever been to, excluding this one, and such a waste of good explosives.
Seonghwa returns from the cockpit nearly the same time that Yunho creaks his way back from the medbay, armed with painkillers and fresh bandages.
“I’ll start on the traps,” Seonghwa declares, carefully piling the mines into a bag that he can sling over his shoulder. “You take care of Yeosang.”
Wooyoung accepts the bandages and painkillers from Yunho with a jerky nod. “Make sure they’re evenly spaced,” he can’t help instructing. “And cover the whole canyon entrance. Try to not put them all in one row, but a pattern that won’t be easy to guess—”
“Wooyoung-ah,” Seonghwa interjects, tone somehow both firm and gentle in a way that only Seonghwa is capable of. “This isn’t my first fight.”
“I know,” Wooyoung says. “But you don’t usually handle explosives.” Seonghwa is far more deadly with a sword and a rifle.
“I’ve watched you all plenty of times,” Seonghwa says, fixing his goggles back over his eyes. “I’m fine.”
With that, he exits the ship, back into the searing daylight.
“You worry too much,” Yunho says and Wooyoung frowns at him.
“Someone has to look after you idiots. No one has any sense of self-preservation on this fucking ship.”
Yunho arches a questioning, condescending eyebrow. “And you do?”
Of course he doesn’t. Wooyoung has enough self-awareness to know that he’s as reckless and as headstrong as the rest of them because what other option do they have in this galaxy, especially if they want to protect each other?
He sniffs, imperious. “As the ship medic, I have to nag. It’s part of the job description.”
Really, they all take turns nagging. Seonghwa hovers like a mother hen. Hongjoong barks orders until everyone stops to take care of themselves. Yunho doles out weapons training and keeps a watchful eye out on missions. San climbs into bunks to cuddle when someone’s having a sleepless night. Yeosang lends a listening ear and a silent, supportive presence. Mingi offers tight, grounding hugs and sometimes awkward, but always sincere expressions of both comfort and admonishment for pushing too far, not respecting the limits of your own mind and body. Jongho disguises concern beneath pointed, teasing insults and sheer intimidation—not above physically threatening you until you eat or sleep or open up about what’s bothering you.
And Wooyoung somehow has packed all of these methods into one loud, obnoxious presence. He orders them around and cooks for them and patches up their wounds while hurling insults to hide how scared he is of losing them, threatening bodily harm if they don’t listen.
It’s a coping mechanism, but everyone is too kind to point that out.
“I know,” Yunho says now with a faint smile. “You have the worst bedside manner I’ve ever seen.”
“Yah.” Wooyoung takes a threatening step forward. “The only thing you respond to is threats. So stay off your leg for at least ten minutes or I’ll break the other one.”
Yunho’s smile widens, but he salutes and takes a seat. Mollified, Wooyoung slips into the cockpit where Yeosang is perched in the pilot’s chair—one hand pressed carefully to his wounded stomach and the other flicking switches and turning dials with impressive speed.
“Mago really is in bad shape,” he says without turning around. “But I think I’ve got enough power diverted to give us a few rounds from the forward guns.”
“Good job,” Wooyoung says, sinking into the co-pilot’s seat. It has a smear of blood across one armrest, probably from Seonghwa. “Can I change your bandages now?”
“Do you have painkillers?”
“Yes.”
Yeosang holds out a hand. “Those first. Then you can.”
Wooyoung passes the blue pills over and watches Yeosang swallow them dry. They’ve all probably gotten too used to injury in the past four years but it’s a staple in their line of work—in this new, violent galaxy they’re all forced to endure.
“Okay, ready,” Yeosang says, closing his eyes.
Wooyoung kneels in front of the chair, pushing up Yeosang’s loose white shirt. He tries to move quickly, unraveling the old bandages, re-packing the wound with fresh salve-laced gauze to replace the crumbling sealant from earlier. Yeosang winces and grits his teeth, fingers digging into Wooyoung’s shoulder, but he doesn’t cry out. Wooyoung aches the way he always does when any of them are hurt, wishing he had the ability to reach inside of them and take the pain away—heal their wounds with a magic wave of his hand.
“There,” he says as he ties off the fresh bandages and lowers Yeosang’s shirt. “All done, darling.”
“Thanks,” Yeosang says with a final squeeze to his shoulder.
“You should go rest, but I know you’re not going to do that.”
“You expect me to sleep when we have evil super soldiers coming after us?” Yeosang asks and Wooyoung sighs in defeat, packing up the old bandages to dispose of.
Through the cockpit window, he can see the tiny figure of Seonghwa at the mouth of the canyon, crouched to bury mines in the sand one by one.
“I’ll man the guns,” Yeosang says. He makes a shooing motion with one hand. “You go help Seonghwa hyung.”
Wooyoung sighs again and nods. “Okay, don’t strain yourself too much.”
“Yes, medic-nim.”
Wooyoung sticks his tongue out like the mature professional he is and leaves Yeosang to his work. Yunho has miraculously stayed sitting this whole time, which is probably a testament to his exhaustion more than him suddenly developing the ability to follow Wooyoung’s orders.
“Did you take painkillers?” Wooyoung asks, poking him in the arm.
Yunho sways with the poke. “Yes.”
Wooyoung pokes him again. “Do you think we stand a chance?”
He wants Yunho to say something confident and reassuring like we’re going to whip those Guardians’ asses but Yunho just frowns. “I don’t know.”
“Great. Good talk.”
Yunho grabs him before he can stomp away, long fingers curling easily around his wrist. “I do know that we’ll put up one hell of a fight.”
“Of course,” Wooyoung grumbles. “That was a given.”
He’d be embarrassed for them if they did something stupid and cowardly like offering immediate surrender. They’re going to die in a storm of fire and explosives, taking at least some of their enemies with them, or they deserve to wander this desert planet in shame for the rest of eternity—unable to pass on into any sort of afterlife.
Yunho kisses his hand, chapped lips warm and comforting. Wooyoung leans in to press his own kiss to the top of Yunho’s head, then goes to find his goggles, poncho, and the last of their tripwires.
It’s time to really get to work.