.revamped ch 2

Donghae plastered himself against the wall of his room, his entire focus narrowing to the military-grade automatic rifle. Panic shot through him again as he tried to fight off black-gloved fingers, only for everything to freeze as he felt the cold metal of a gun press against his forehead. His eyes stayed open, as much as he wanted to close them, and he saw a finger begin to slowly squeeze the trigger…

 

Donghae jerked himself awake, fear and panic still clawing through his system and a scream caught in his throat as he sat up. The room he shared with Hyukjae was dark, but with just enough light drifting in and around the curtains giving him enough light to make out Hyukjae turned towards the wall. Breathing heavily, he dropped back down onto the bed with a muffled groan. He hadn’t been sleeping well for the past week after he’d activated, and he whined quietly, wanting to go back to sleep. But if the past few days had been any indication, he’d just have another nightmare. Quietly sighing, he sat back up and started the process of getting out of bed, thinking to himself about how bad his control lesson was going to be.

 

“It’s barely three in the morning,” Hyukjae grumbled, his voice slow and deep.

 

Donghae jolted, startled out of his musings. “Sorry, had a nightmare.”

 

“Again?” Fabric rustled as Hyukjae sat up, scratching his fingers through his hair.

 

“Huh?” Donghae asked, startled. He was pretty certain that Hyukjae had been sleeping through his waking up and getting out of bed.

 

“You’ve been having nightmares all this week,” Hyukjae said, his voice a little more alert. “What are they about?”

 

Donghae sighed, dipping his head. “About when I was taken from my house. I can’t get back to sleep when all I can remember is seeing the wrong end of a gun.”

 

“Have you talked to anyone about this?”

 

“No,” Donghae said, hearing the weariness in his own voice. All his body wanted to do was go back to sleep, but his thoughts kept spinning out of control.

 

Hyukjae sighed heavily. “Okay I’m going to get dressed and you’re going to see Sungmin hyung. You need to get some sleep.”

 

“But he’s probably asleep and I don’t want to bother him,” Donghae protested. “I’m just going to go make myself some tea.”

 

“Does it help?”

 

“Not really,” he admitted.

 

“So what does help?”

 

Donghae shrugged. “I don’t know. I didn’t really have nightmares regularly until after I activated.”

 

“Every night?” Hyukjae’s voice rose on the final word, and Donghae shrugged slightly.

 

“It’s not really a big deal,” he demurred.

 

“Uh, yeah it kind of is,” Hyukjae rebutted. “If you’ve been having nightmares for a week straight, it’s a really big deal and you need to have it checked out.”

 

Donghae grunted a bit, not entirely sure how to respond. He didn’t want to be a bother to anyone, but he definitely needed more sleep than what he was getting. Finally, he sighed in defeat. His body was clamoring for more sleep, and he knew, deep in his thoughts, that he couldn’t survive like this much longer. “When I would have an occasional nightmare, I’d go sleep with my hyung,” he said, his voice barely louder than a whisper and his fingers plucking nervously at his blanket.

 

“In the same room?” Hyukjae asked after he’d finished a yawn.

 

“Same bed.” He saw Hyukjae still. “I’ll just go make some tea. I’m probably up for the day.” He’d gotten the impression that Hyukjae shied away from skin to skin contact but he’d not been comfortable enough to ask why.

 

“Donghae.”

 

Donghae closed his eyes for a moment. He was tired and exhausted, but that didn’t stop his thoughts from interpreting Hyukjae’s sleepy voice as y. “Hm?” he finally responded.

 

“Come here and sleep. I’ll drag you to Sungmin hyung before class.”

 

“But…” Donghae heard his voice crack a little and he cleared his throat. “But I figured out that you don’t like skin contact. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

 

“If I was really uncomfortable I wouldn’t have made the offer. Besides, according to Lami, we’ll be having lots of skin contact at some point, so I’d better start working on getting more comfortable with at least having you near and then work from there.”

 

“Only if you’re sure…” Donghae demurred, wondering if Hyukjae was still so sleepy that he lacked any filter for his words.

 

“Just get over here,” Hyukjae demanded, humor evident in his voice. “I want to get some more sleep before the alarms wake us up.”

 

Donghae stood and immediately swayed in place. He definitely needed more sleep. Stumbling over to the other side of the room, he softly patted the bed to figure out where he could reasonably crawl in.

 

Hyukjae was wiggling back down underneath the blanket, turning on his side to give Donghae more room. Donghae slid the rest of his body onto the bed, turning on his side as well. His eyes dragged down as soon as he’d pillowed his head on his arm and he thankfully slept, dreamless.

 

When their combined alarms did go off, Donghae grimaced a little and snuggled a little harder into the warm body next to him. He smiled slightly at the feeling of a hand soothingly running up and down his back before a grunt had his eyes opening with a yawn.

 

“You snuggle hard,” Hyukjae lightly complained, his eyes not open yet, but a small smile curving his lips.

 

“You’re warm and I’m not as exhausted as I would have been had I tried to stay up,” Donghae returned easily.

 

“You needed sleep,” Hyukjae finally said, stretching and opening his eyes. Donghae noticed that Hyukjae had a face mask slung across his chin and a familiar pair of thin leather gloves on his hands. His arms were surprisingly bare, but Donghae noticed that Hyukjae had looped his arm in just the right way to always be covered by Donghae’s shirt.

 

“Um, do you mind if I ask why the no skin contact?” Donghae shyly asked, not moving. He didn’t want to jostle Hyukjae’s arm.

 

“Besides the legal reason that the Ministry said I can never touch anyone without clothes in the way?” Hyukjae shrugged. “My power works on skin contact.”

 

Donghae tilted his head slightly. “What is your power? You know mine’s water, right?”

 

Hyukjae blinked a few times before he pulled his head up to stare at Donghae. “Water? You’re an elemental?”

 

Donghae nodded. “You should have seen how big the splash got in the testing pool. It’s so weird feeling the water in juice and in your own body too. I was so distracted by my own body being a giant sack of water for a couple of days, along with all of the water in the pipes and the river…” he trailed off when he realized he was rambling and shook his head. He could still get distracted by everything around him, but that had been the focus of one of his first control lessons. He was surprised he still didn’t have a headache from Heenim yelling at him both physically and telepathically, then prodding at his mind like he had when Donghae activated. But it had worked, and Donghae was mostly able to ignore his body and the water everywhere after only a couple of days.

 

“I was wondering why you were so dazed and out of it earlier this week, but wow I’ve never heard of an elemental activating here.”

 

“Yeah, I’m told it happens more often with larger populations, but it hasn’t happened in Korea for decades. It’s still a little weird to be thought of as anything extraordinary, you know? When it comes down to it, I’m just a kinetic, but limited to water.”

 

Hyukjae huffed a little. “I’ve never heard anyone downplay their abilities like that before. I think it’s a little more special than just being kinetic like what you’re saying, though. Maybe when you really settle into your power, you’ll figure out a few more things you can do with it. Like are you a waterbender like in Avatar? Because Katara could do all sorts of stuff with water bending!”

 

Donghae laughed shortly. “Maybe? I don’t know. Now that I’m not distracted by all the water, I’m still trying to learn how to just feel it without doing anything to it and not gagging myself when I’m drinking something.”

 

“Oh, right you’re still in your early control lessons. But how in the world do you gag yourself while drinking?”

 

“I feel the water in whatever I’m drinking and when I feel it, I guess I unconsciously yank it around, so I gag because the water comes back up.” Donghae lightly poked Hyukjae’s ribs through his shirt after a moment. “Come on, I told you what I do, what’s your power?”

 

Hyukjae shrugged, a little bashfully. “My power’s practically useless to me. I just boost everyone.”

 

“Boost?” Donghae repeated, his eyebrows furrowing.

 

“Heenim sunbae calls me a gestalt. I take anyone’s power, multiply it, and feed it back to them. I just seem to be a conduit for everyone else to use.”

 

Donghae blinked a couple of times, his slightly sleep-fuzzed mind trying to understand the implications. “I don’t know, that sounds kind of cool to me. You don’t like it though?”

 

Hyukjae sighed. “It’s useless to me. I can boost anyone except myself and I don’t have anything else that works in self-defense like you do. It’s also pretty dangerous, but Lami apparently doesn’t think it’s a danger to you.”

 

Donghae tilted his head slightly, not sure which question he wanted to tackle first. “Does your power turn off or is it always on?”

 

“Always on,” Hyukjae sighed, the corners of his lips turning down. “My power, if you even want to call it that, is completely passive. It works no matter what.”

 

Donghae looped his arms under Hyukjae’s waist, and hugged him tightly. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

 

“Sorry for what?” Hyukjae asked softly, his gloved hands running through Donghae’s hair.

 

“You don’t like your power and it upsets you. I didn’t mean to make you sad.”

 

Hyukjae’s chest moved slightly under his ear in a laugh. “So your first thing is to hug it out?” he teased. “I could definitely get used to that reaction.”

 

Donghae relaxed against Hyukjae’s sturdy body, wanting almost to drift back off to sleep. The alarm going off again made him groan.

 

Hyukjae laughed again. “I know, but we really need to get up so you can get to Sungmin hyung before class.”

 

Donghae grunted a little. Now that he’d gotten some sleep, his body was clamoring for more, and he knew that the longer he put off going to Sungmin, the less sleep he’d get. “Okay,” he finally said, defeated. “I really do want more sleep every night. You can grab first shower. I’m going to make