This story is already complete .I am goint to post fast if I see more comments. lol (eveil laugh)

Thanks guys. ^.^

-------------------------------------

Sungmin lays the blue demon flat out on the medical table in the lab, wrapping zher limbs with magical constraints, keeping the cord on zher neck so zher can’t teleport when he wakes. he should come around eventually.

He carefully documents all of the sigils that have been – shockingly – carved into the damon skin with a knife. It’s a particularly complex set, winding its way through all sorts of spells. There’s altered memory charms, illusions, mind-to-mind communication enhancements, triggered punishment sigils, and, scarily enough, something that appears to be an esoteric voodoo possession veve.

Sungmin seems to be looking at a tortured, mind-controlled, and enslaved demon assassin. Conclusion subjective.

He has to sit down and have a cup of tea. With scotch.

Then he calls Eunhyuk.

“It’s sort of a... difficult situation to explain,” Sungmin says delicately. “Could you come over?”

-

Kyuhyun feels like he’s floating, high above the horizon line, riding on the wind with his wings spread out as far as they can go, sifting through clouds that are as fluffy as this mattress –

“Wait!” Kyuhyun jackknifes up in bed, suddenly intensely awake despite his natural healing coma. He needs to confirm something hugely important.

Is he in Sungmin’ bedroom? Sleeping on Sungmin’ bed?

He looks around furtively. There are oddly specific magical theory books on the bedside table. And there’s a teacup, half-full with – Kyuhyun sniffs it – well, Kyuhyun is sure that it’s some sort of tea. So far, all evidence points to yes.

He falls back into bed, relishing the springy bounce and the soft cotton sheets. He turns his head to the side, taking in Sungmin’ scent. It’s clean, somehow, like a breath of fresh air or a newly fallen rain. It’s so different from the smog and smoke that Kyuhyun’s used to. It’s... addicting. He rubs his face into the pillow. “Mmmmm...”

There’s an unfortunate ripping sound.

Kyuhyun blinks. His horn has speared right through the pillow and into the mattress. “,” he swears under his breath.

He carefully gets up on his hands and untwists the horn to free himself. It’s unbearably, uncharacteristically awkward. He finally sits back with a frustrated sigh, looking at the terrible mess before him. Feathers are everywhere, and the mattress looks like it was stabbed in a gory murder. Though, that effect may also result from the enormous bloodstains Kyuhyun left on it.

It won’t do. Kyuhyun will have to replace it as soon as possible. Humans need their rest, Sungmin especially. He resolves to get Jessica on it right away when this whole assassination mess is straightened out.

He stiffens. Jessica – did Jessica make it? He remembers a flash of – the assassin went after her when she tried to intervene –

Kyuhyun leaps out of bed, despite a pounding headache and a few open wounds, and rushes down the hallway. It’s lovely and ornate, but Kyuhyun could not give less of a damn. He sprints down the stairs to the first level, checking the doors up ahead – no, no, no, yes!

There’s Sungmin’ workroom!

He slams open the metal door with a fierce push from twenty meters away and tears through it.

“Sungmin!” he barks –

“Hello there,” says a surprised Sungmin. He’s standing calmly with some other scientist, looking at various test tubes full of, well, liquids of some sort. And some papers and books and things. Magician stuff.

Kyuhyun pulls up short. “Er,” he says intelligently.

“Oh, yes, of course,” Sungmin says. “This is my magician associate, Mage Doctor Lee Eunhyuk. He’s helping me with the search, as well as...” Sungmin’ mouth twists. “...Well, with deactivating your assassin.”

Kyuhyun doesn’t understand. He shakes his head and forcefully stills his spinning mind. “Later. You will explain this to me later. Sungmin, Jessica – is she – ”

“Who is Jessica?” Sungmin asks seriously. Kyuhyun starts to panic, but then he continues, “Is she a demon with dragonfly wings?”

“Yes, yes, that’s her,” Kyuhyun says frantically. “Is she – ”

“I don’t have absolute proof that she’s all right, but I do have something,” Sungmin says without forcing Kyuhyun to finish that sentence. “Here are the facts. She had a strong pulse before I went in to your office, but she had disappeared before I came back out.”

Back to her home to heal, Kyuhyun thinks. That’s all well and good, but she was traveling through hell with wounds. She could have been attacked by some random demons just because they’d smelled blood.

“I have to go check up on her,” Kyuhyun says urgently. “I have to – Sungmin, could you summon me back here after I’ve made sure she’s all right?”

Sungmin’ face softens. “Of course,” he says. “This is important.”

“Thank you,” Kyuhyun says desperately. “I’ll – the journal, yes?”

“Yes, yes, I know,” Sungmin says. “Go!”

Kyuhyun goes.

He’s dashing out of his office window and into the smoggy hellscape a second later. It’s not that explosive today – he won’t have to dodge any fiery flare-ups on his way to her place. That’s good.

He beats his wings as fast as he can, shooting through the sky at top speed. He has to slam a few demons trying to attack him out of his way – he has no time for these blood-sniffing hyenas right now.

Left, right, apartment complex, dodge another blood-sniffer, high-rise condo, restaurant, dodge an explosion, right, right, left, up –

There’s Jessica’s loft. He rapidly sweeps up the mountainside and up to her front door.

“Jessica!” he yells, hammering his fist on the door. “Jessica, it’s Kyuhyun, are you all right?!”

No answer.

To hell with politeness.

Kyuhyun twists his fingers and all of her locks click open at once. The door swings open in front of him with a push of his chin.

It’s quiet inside. “Jessica?” Kyuhyun calls. He steps inside and heads down the hall, shutting the front door and all its locks behind him with a flick of his wrist. He looks in a few doors – kitchen, laundry room, bathroom, living room – where’s her blasted bedroom? Finally he comes to the last one. He turns the handle, pushing it open –

And sighs in relief.

Jessica is sprawled out on her bed, breathing softly. She’s halfway under the covers and halfway out. Her girlfriend has an arm slung over her, glaring daggers at him.

“You’d better be quiet and not try to start anything,” she hisses. “Or I’ll ing kill you. And then sue you. And then tear your corpse apart.”

Kyuhyun grins. “I’m her boss, Kyuhyun,” he whispers. “Just making sure she’s all right.”

She glares for another moment. “I’m – ”

“Kitty?” Jessica mumbles. Both of them stop and look down at her. She stirs, blinking her eyes open and looking up at him. “Kyuhyun?”

“Kitty?” He raises an eyebrow. “Taking pet names a little literally, are we, Jessica?”

“It’s Yuri to you, mister,” ‘Kitty’ snaps at him.

Jessica rolls her eyes. “Quit it, both of you,” she says. She rolls over a bit and kisses Yuri, who hugs her tighter. “I’m all right,” she reassures her lowly.

She looks up at Kyuhyun, smiling. “Thanks for the check-up, boss,” she says as she nuzzles closer to Yuri. “But I have some very important business to attend to at the moment.”

Kyuhyun smiles back. “I’ll let you get back to it,” he says before he steps out.

As he’s flying back to the office, Kyuhyun realizes something. If Sungmin hadn’t come to save him, not only would he be dead... Jessica would be, too. The assassin would have left nothing to chance.

He doesn’t know quite what to do with himself, with this huge feeling rushing through him. He wants to fight off an army, tear down a volcano, build a nation – all for Sungmin.

Kyuhyun reaches his office, pointedly ignores the remains of the entrapment circle scarring the ceiling, and picks up his journal off the floor. He scratches in his message with the nearest pen. Ready to come back now.

Excellent, Sungmin responds. Is she doing well?

Kyuhyun softens. Yes, he writes back. She is.

See you soon.

Kyuhyun shuts the journal and slips it back into his ruined suit before he’s pulled into the void.

His blue smoke clears to the welcome sight of Sungmin.

“Thank you,” Kyuhyun blurts out, heartfelt. “So much.”

Sungmin smiles sadly. “You’re welcome,” he says quietly.

They gaze at each other for a moment. Kyuhyun feels like this silence between them is so full of words.

Suddenly, there’s a slight movement in the corner of Kyuhyun’s eye, and Kyuhyun realizes they have an audience. That young, awkward magician with the glasses is fiddling with a microscope across the room, studiously not looking at them.

Kyuhyun gives a little cough and changes tacks.

“About the assassin,” Kyuhyun says, taking a lurching, painful step forward. “Why – ”

“I told you I would explain later, but,” Sungmin dithers as he looks over Kyuhyun’s injuries. “I think it’ll have to wait until you rest a bit more. When we’re finished, I’ll call you straight away.”

Kyuhyun frowns. “But – ”

“You haven’t completed your healing process,” chides Sungmin. “Your wounds have partially reopened, and your movements are sluggish.”

Kyuhyun huffs. “But – ”

“There will be no long-winded explanations until you’re properly rested up,” Sungmin says firmly. “And that’s that. Go.” He shoos him off.

Kyuhyun sulks. “Fine,” he says.

He goes straight to Sungmin’ bed and flops down into his healing coma.

-

Five hours later, Sungmin is sitting cross-legged on the floor. He takes a deep breath. “Right. Are we ready over there, Eunhyuk?”

“Uh – ” There’s a crash behind him, and he’s incredibly tempted to turn around, but Sungmin carefully keeps himself perfectly still. There are colorful paints and chemicals adorning his face, running down his body, across the floor, and touching on the assassin’s temples. It took at least two hours to get all of it painted on; he is not messing any of it up just to check on Eunhyuk’s progress.

“Eunhyuk?”

“Just a – ” Eunhyuk is moving things around noisily. “– second. Okay. Almost there.”

“Good.” Sungmin closes his eyes. “Remember, this will have to be timed perfectly, or it will most likely backfire on us. Make sure you deactivate the sigils right as I reach them.”

“Absolutely.” Eunhyuk pauses. “I still feel like this isn’t safe. Usually there are more magicians around for these kinds of... psychic experiments. For medical emergencies.”

“Yes, that is true,” Sungmin says bluntly. “But honestly, we don’t have time for all of that bureaucracy.”

Eunhyuk is silent for a moment. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “Yeah.”

Eunhyuk flips the final switch, and there’s a humming in the air as their carefully concocted potion ignites. Sungmin feels magic surrounding him like a heavy fog, brushing against his painted sigils and filling them with sparking, sizzling power.

The glow runs down the lines of paint like electricity through wires, passing through Sungmin’ body and across the floor and right into the assassin’s temples.

It takes Sungmin along with it, stretching him carefully into zher mind.

It is a desolate, confusing place, to be honest. Not that Sungmin has actually been in a demon’s mind before, who knows, it could just be that they have completely different brain structures.

But yes, it seems like Sungmin is in a labyrinth of some sort, one with walls and doors and floors popping up from insane angles. He feels like he has found himself in an Escher drawing. The colors are too bright, and the walls and doors and stairs are hanging all around him at impossible, disturbing angles that are too close and so far away all at the same time. When he looks down the long, twisted hallways, the tunnels look like they stretch on forever.

He puts a careful hand to the wall and starts up (down?) the nearest stairs. His stomach lurches back and forth, like gravity’s direction is constantly shifting around him. It’s making his head spin, so he keeps a hand on the wall (floor?) to steady himself as he goes.

Everything around him is too quiet, and every step he takes is painfully sharp in his ears. It occurs to him that this demon can probably hear him, wherever zhe is hiding in this impossible maze.

“Hello?” Sungmin calls into the endless spaces.

That one word echoes through the hallways – hello hello hello hello – and the walls surrounding him begin to vibrate with it, reeling and squirming like a serpent. There’s a rumbling noise, from a long way off.

Sungmin’ eyes widen. He seems to have... accidentally activated one of the defensive sigils. Maybe more than one.

The walls and floors and doors start smashing together in the distance like rocks in a landslide, closing in on him from all of his possible escape routes from miles away. It’s moving fast, even though it’s at least ten miles down those sprawling, infinite tunnels.

Sungmin takes off running.

“Quick, quick, think, give Eunhyuk enough time to counteract it,” Sungmin says to himself. He watches the faraway glass and wood and plaster smash and tumble together like a tornado as he sprints from one collapsing hallway to another, heart beating like a rabbit’s and legs burning with fatigue.

He pauses to catch his breath –

And the rolling, crushing hallways and doors slow their churning.

Sungmin shakes his head to clear his mind, but when he looks again, yes, it’s actually going much slower than when he was running. It’s basically stopped five miles out.

He