Here it is, the beginning of the end!

Nobody liked to think about the likelihood that someone on their team would someday get very badly hurt. They always took precautions, they were careful, they knew it could happen, but they never talked about it, not even when it was obvious that they were saying goodbye, just in case. It was bound to happen sooner or later, and really the amazing thing is that it didn’t happen sooner.

Their intel said nothing about guns, so they’re only wearing light vests, the kind that can deflect blades and maybe the worst of a handgun. It’s risky, but it makes it much easier to move around in tight spaces. They infiltrated the terrorist’s warehouse under cover of darkness, six stay outside to keep watch behind a wall of garbage cans, and six go in to retrieve information. They have just finished downloading all the data on the computers when the first shot rings out. The team members standing guard outside begin to fire back, and those on the inside race out to back up their colleagues, only to find themselves facing not an army of people, but an army of robots. About twenty of them, they look like something out of Doctor Who, but so much more frightening because this is real, this is Earth, this is not technology that’s supposed to be available on this planet.

“The intel didn’t mention this!” Kyungsoo hollers over the gunfire.

“Fall back!” Suho is screaming, “Fall back, take cover, we need to—”

The robots advance, the team tries to duck down, or get in the warehouse, but they’re advancing too fast. The trash cans they’re crouched behind can’t shield them forever, and they need to move.

“I’m going to try to stop them,” Tao yells. He flings his gun aside and stands up, his power already swelling around him, but the bullets are moving too fast for him to freeze.

It seems to happen in slow motion.

Kris can see the bullet that’s going to hit him. He opens his mouth to scream, he reaches out to pull Tao out of the way, but he’s too slow. The bullet slips between the shielding of his vest, and Tao falls to the ground clutching his abdomen.

Kris feels like the air has been ripped out of his lungs. He crawls to Tao’s side, and touches him with shaking fingers.

“Tao?”

He looks down—there’s already a puddle of blood under Tao’s body. Slowly, the others begin to realize what has happened.

Minseok screams in fright, in anger, and Yixing reaches for him, but Minseok stands up and throws his arms out. There’s a flash of white light, and then silence. When the light fades, the entire line of robots is frozen in a huge block of ice. Bullets are frozen in midair, with long trails of ice connecting them back to the huge block. And Minseok stands at the center of it, breathing heavily and swaying on his feet.

Kris looks back at Tao. His face is bloodless, his eyes wide open and his pupils dilated to pinpricks. He coughs and blood sprays out of his mouth.

“KAI!” Kris yells, “Kai, we need to get home!”

“We can’t—” Kyungsoo starts to say, but then in the next second they’re in the middle of their living room, all of them. They barely even felt the move, they didn’t even notice Kai gearing up to take them away, yet here they are.

Several things happen at once. Kai collapses from exhaustion, Kris yells for Yixing, Kyungsoo screams and kneels by Kai’s side, and Minseok falls to the floor, staring at his hands.

Yixing looks back and forth between Minseok and Tao.

“Yixing,” Kris pleads from Tao’s side, “Stop the bleeding, just make it stop, I know you can’t fix it just make him stop bleeding!”

Yixing jolts, and moves to Tao’s side, his eyes still on Minseok. He places his hands on Tao’s body, and then he gasps and tears his eyes away from his boyfriend to gaze at Tao in horror.

“Oh god,” Yixing whispers. “Oh, my god.”

Kris glares at him. “Shut up,” he snaps. He leans over Tao and kisses his forehead. “It’s okay,” he says soothingly, “Don’t you worry baby, you’re going to be just fine, I promise.”

Tao has begun to shake, and his teeth are chattering. His eyes can’t seem to focus, they flicker around the room.

Kris pets his hair. “It’s okay. Listen to me baby, I’ll be right back, I’m going to go get help. I’ll be right back, Suho’s going to stay here.” He grabs Suho and yanks him down, and then he’s gone faster than anyone’s eyes can track.

Suho squeezes Tao’s hand and tries to smile at him, but he’s not sure that it looks reassuring. “Yixing, have you stopped the bleeding?”

“Y-yes,” Yixing stammers, “But I’m not sure…I don’t think I can do anything else.”

“You’ve done what you can,” Suho says, “Now we’ll get you to the hospital, okay, Tao?”

“No,” Kris says, running over from the stairs. He kneels beside Tao and holds his hand again. “They can’t…we’re going to my planet.”

“What?” Suho asks.

Kris has a small bag in his hands, and from it he takes what looks like a cell phone and holds it to his mouth. “This is agent Wu Yifan,” he says in Chinese, “Requesting emergency warp transport to medical base, under article 12.3 of the Doctrine of Rights, do you copy?”

There’s a second of silence, and then a robotic voice rings out of the device.

“Request approved. Activating emergency warp transport to medical base 5T from logged coordinates. Countdown initiated. Sixty seconds.”

Kris looks up at all of them. “I’m taking him to my planet. When the countdown reaches one, that door—” He points to the front door of their apartment, “Is going to become a portal to a hospital on my planet, and I’m going to take Tao through it so they can fix him up. I need three people to come with me and donate blood to him, and I also need Yixing to come so he can explain how he stopped the bleeding.”

Jongdae is the first to step forward. “I’ll go.”

“Me too,” Baekhyun says.

“And me,” Chanyeol says quickly.

Suho starts to open his mouth, but Kris cuts him off. “Stay, take care of Minseok. He’s about to lose it and I’m so sorry to be taking Yixing away from him but I’ll try to get him back soon.” Then he looks back at Tao and smiles at him. “It’s going to be alright, my love.”

The robotic voice is back. “Ten seconds. Nine. Eight.”

Kris scoops Tao into his arms, wincing as Tao cries out in pain. “Yixing, Jongdae, Baekhyun, and Chanyeol—when you see the light, walk right into it, just keep walking and do not stop. Grab onto each other and hold my arm.”

They barely have time to follow his instructions before, for the second time in the last two minutes, a bright white light nearly blinds them. Kris plows into it, the others right behind him, and a few seconds later the light vanishes.

The remaining six people sit in silence for a few seconds, until a small whimper from Minseok makes them all jump.

“How is it possible?” He whispers. “I don’t understand, what did I do? This wasn’t supposed to happen, how did this happen?”

Lu Han crawls over to him and hugs him tightly. “You saved us,” he says, “Minseok, you saved us all, it’s because of you that we were able to get away as fast as we did, you’re a hero.”

Minseok’s face is almost as white as Tao’s was. “But I didn’t even know what I was doing! I didn’t mean to, it wasn’t, it didn’t even feel like me—” he breaks off with a sob and buries his face in his hands. “Oh god, how is this happening to me?”

A moan from Kai makes them all jump again. He lifts his head and squints at the room. “Where’s Tao? Is he okay?”

There’s a streak of blood on the floor where Suho is still kneeling, the only evidence that Tao was even there. Suho looks down at his hands and gags when he sees the blood that coats his palms. He closes his eyes and breathes deeply a few times before he answers.

“Kris said he’s going to be okay. We have to trust that he knows what he’s doing.”

One minute the light was blinding them, and then in the next they’re in the lobby of a hospital, and a team of nurses is waiting with a gurney. Kris lays Tao on it, and takes hold of his hand once more. It’s sticky with blood, but he ignores it and keeps smiling.

“We’re here, we made it. We’re going to get you all fixed up, baby.”

He looks over his shoulder and sees a nurse is trying to hand Yixing a translator, but he’s frozen in place, staring at Tao with tears in his eyes.

“Yixing, take that thing and put it in your ear,” Kris says calmly, “Then tell her what you did to stop the bleeding.” He looks at the other nurses and switches to his mother tongue. “The healer can’t give blood, he’s not human. The other three can, I know he’s going to need it.”

They nod and begin to push the stretcher along. Kris looks back again to make sure that the others are following. Another nurse is giving Baekhyun, Jongdae and Chanyeol translators of their own. Kris knows that he’s asking a lot of them, but right now he’s not able to spare them a second thought. All he can think about is Tao, because he knows the damage is really bad.

Tao’s lips move, and nothing comes out but Kris knows what he’s trying to say.

“You’re not going to die,” he says, squeezing Tao’s hand. “I’m not going to let that happen. We made it here, and that means that you’re safe. Nothing bad will happen to you now, nothing at all.”

Tears leak from the corners of Tao’s eyes, and the shaking seems to get worse.

“I know you’re scared,” Kris says, his voice breaking, “And you’re hurting, but it’s not going to last much longer. And I’m going to be right here with you, the whole time. You’re going to be okay.”

The nurse stop moving, and Kris looks up. They’re in an elevator, and they’ve been joined by a doctor.

“We’re going to prep him for surgery,” the doctor says. “Since the bleeding has been stopped, we can afford to take the time to decontaminate his body. We’ll begin pre-surgical procedures in the meantime, taking vitals and drawing up plans and such. You can stay for a while,” she says, pointing at Kris, “But the three who are donating blood will be taken to a separate wing, and the healer will go with them.”

“Yixing explained everything to you?” Kris asks.

“Yes,” she says, “We know what’s happened, and we can handle it. It’s what we would have done anyway.”

The elevator doors open and they’re off again. Kris calls to the others, “I’ll see you soon, just trust them!”

And then they turn a corner and the last thing Kris sees is Jongdae’s wide-eyed panic. But he pushes that to the back of his mind.

The room is exactly like the one Kris was in for his procedures. There’s no scary medical equipment, but the room is buzzing with nurses. They transfer Tao to another bed, cut his clothing away, and cover him with a thin sheet. Kris places his hand on Tao’s head and press him down when he tries to sit up and take a look at the damage.

“Don’t,” Kris begs quietly, “Please, don’t look.”

Tao starts to cry again and Kris shakes his head. “It’s going to be all fixed up, I promise. We’re going to take good care of you.”

Kris does not peek at the wound, because he knows it’s bad. Even if it’s not bleeding, he knows that Tao is all torn up inside. No Earth hospital could have fixed him, not by a long shot. Some damage is going to be beyond repair.

A nurse taps Kris’ shoulder. “You need to take his ring, he can’t wear it during surgery.”

Kris nods, and he lifts Tao’s hand and makes sure that Tao is looking at him. He kisses Tao’s finger, then removes his ring. “I’ll give it back when you get out of surgery.”

Tao nods.

Kris leans down and kisses Tao’s cheek. “I love you so much,” he whispers, “And I can’t lose you, not now, not ever. I won’t let that happen.” He stubbornly blinks back tears. Tao will not see him cry, not before he goes in for surgery. “Everything’s going to be okay.” Maybe if he says it often enough, he’ll actually believe it too.

Tao manages a tiny smile, and he whispers hoarsely, “Haa-Sha-Il-M-th-yha.”

That nearly makes Kris lose control and start sobbing, but he holds it in. “I love you, too.”

A nurse slides a needle into Tao’s arm and tells him that she’s going to give him fluids and painkillers. Kris can see the exact moment that the painkillers begin to take effect—Tao’s eyes slide out of focus and his entire body goes lax. He won’t feel much pain at all for the next few days. Then his body is carefully washed, and the wound examined. The doctors take scans of the damage and recreate it on a screen that faces away from Tao. From the corner of his eyes Kris sees them shake their heads, and his heart skips a beat, but he refuses to think that Tao cannot be helped.

It feels like it’s only been a few seconds when the nurses tap Kris’ arm and tell him that it’s time for them to take Tao away.

“Let me stay while he falls asleep,” Kris pleads, clinging to Tao’s hand. “I can’t…please, just let me stay.”

They look to the doctor, who nods. Kris places a lingering kiss on Tao’s forehead, and prays to every god he can think of that his beloved lives through this. Even if Tao hates him for it, he’ll be happy to know that Tao is alive.

“It’s going to be okay,” Kris says again. “Everything will be just fine when you wake up.”

He stays until Tao’s eyes close, and then the nurses have to lead him out of the room, and he stares over his shoulder as Tao is taken away. When the nurses sit him down in the hallway and he’s finally alone, he finds that he can’t even cry. All he can think is, ‘What have I done?’

Jongdae looks about ready to pass out, and even Baekhyun can’t seem to calm him down. His eyes dart around the room, his face is white as a bed sheet, and his whole body quivers. The nurses have tried to ask him what’s wrong, to placate him, but they seem to have realized that the more they touch or acknowledge him, the worse he gets. It’s only when they suggest that it might be a better idea for him to not donate blood that he calms down. But it’s an eerie kind of calm, one that is so obviously forced that it’s scary. Even Baekhyun has no idea of how to comfort his boyfriend.

Chanyeol tries to keep the mood light. He keeps saying that these people know what they’re doing, look at all they did to Kris’ body, and remember how they found a way to keep his ailing father alive for a few more years? If anyone can help Tao, it’s them. But his voice falters and cracks, and eventually he stops talking and it becomes obvious that he’s holding back tears. Once they’ve all donated as much blood as they can, they’re given juice and food and made to rest for a few minutes. They’re told that Tao is in surgery, and after an hour they’re allowed to go sit with Kris.

They find him alone, sitting on the floor with his hands folded in his lap. He’s covered in blood.

Yixing approaches him first and kneels next to him with his head bowed.

“I’m sorry,” Yixing says, the first words he’s spoken since telling the nurses what he did. “I wish I could have done more for him, I wish I could have healed him, I’m so sorry.”

Kris lifts his head slowly, and it’s obvious that he’s pulling himself out of some very deep thoughts. “You have nothing to be sorry for,” he says. “I know you…I couldn’t have asked for anything more than what you did. You kept him from bleeding out, it’s thanks to you that we were able to get him here in time. I don’t want to think about what might have happened had you not been there. Thank you so much for your help.” He looks over at Jongdae, Baekhyun and Chanyeol. “And thank you for donating your blood to him. I’m really sorry that I didn’t stay with you or explain everything, I just…”

“You were thinking about Tao,” Jongdae says, “As you rightfully should have been. I can’t even imagine what you’re going through.”

“What kind of bullet was that?” Chanyeol asks faintly.

“Some kind of explosive one,” Kris says. “It ripped apart inside his body. It—” he breaks off with a sob and presses his hands to his mouth. It’s a few minutes before he finally lowers them. “I called Suho and let him know that we’re safe, and Tao is in surgery. If you want, I can have them send all of you back, now.”

“We’ll wait with you,” Yixing says. “Or I will, I can’t speak for everyone.”

But the other three quickly agree to stay.

“How did we get here?” Baekhyun asks, sitting beside Kris. He notices a bowl of water and a stack of towels next to the wall and figures a nurse left them so Kris could clean up, which he obviously hasn’t, so Baekhyun grabs the bowl and a towel, and pulls Kris’ hands into his lap so he can start scrubbing. He’s wearing Tao’s ring alongside his own.

Kris begins to explain. “My government knows that emergencies can happen in our line of work, especially medical ones. Your hospitals aren’t able to treat me, if something goes wrong, so they allow us access to a very rare kind of technology, rare even here. They can bend space to create a wormhole, and we can pass through it and arrive at a hospital in seconds. We only get about five chances to use this technology, and of we max those out then we’re ordered back home on grounds that obviously we’re not very good. We can use this technology for our significant others, but we run the risk of punishment for it.”

“Will you be punished?” Jongdae asks.

“I doubt it,” Kris says, “Based on my stellar record and the fact that this is the first time I’ve used the technology.” He gasps and looks up suddenly. “Yixing. I’m so sorry that I snapped at you before, I just didn’t want Tao to hear how bad it was.”

Yixing shakes his head. “No, you were right. It’s understandable, don’t worry about it.”

Chanyeol collapses into a chair, his face pale. “You know how bad it was? Is it really bad?”

Yixing squirms as they all look at him. “There was a lot of internal damage, to his veins and muscles, and…and some organs as well. I don’t know how bad it is exactly, I stopped feeling for what I couldn’t fix and focused on what I could. I made the majority of the gaping wounds clot to stop the bleeding, and that was about all I could do.”

They fall into silence. Baekhyun finishes cleaning Kris’ hands and even wipes a bit of blood off his face, but he doesn’t dare go near his shirt, that thing is ruined beyond repair. After an almost unbearable hour, Baekhyun speaks up again.

“Minseok saved us. I had no idea he could do that.”

Yixing pales, blushes, and then goes pale again. “I knew,” he says quietly. “He did it once before, when he was…when he was scared, and angry. He hates that power, because he can’t control it. He’s been taking something to suppress it, but I guess when he saw what had happened to Tao, he just got so angry. He’s probably terrified.”

“You can go back,” Kris says again, “I can have them send you back.”

Yixing shakes his head. “No, I mean I want to go but I don’t want to leave you, or Tao.”

“Baekhyun and I will stay,” Jongdae says. “You and Chanyeol should go back.”

Yixing is about to argue again when suddenly a wall at the end of the hallway slides open. Yixing, Baekhyun, Jongdae and Chanyeol all jump in shock and realize that the wall was in fact a door. A woman dressed in green walks out, taking a mask off her face as she comes.

She eyes the five of them. “You’re with Tao?”

Kris leaps to his feet. “What’s happening?”

She sighs. “There was massive internal trauma to the stomach, large intestine, spleen, and part of the liver and left lung, not to mention all the damage to the blood vessels and muscles. The damage to the stomach and intestine was the greatest, we have replaced the stomach and large intestine entirely and we’re starting to patch up the spleen and lung with half-organs. The liver we can leave alone, and when we’re done we will begin knitting the veins, muscle, and skin back together.”

Kris nods. “Okay. Okay. So he’ll live?”

“Right now, I will say yes. He’s responding well to the procedures, and the blood donations are enough to replace what was lost.” She spares a brief smile. “You all did quite well in helping to save his life.”

“He’s a martial artist,” Kris says, his voice breaking, “And he loves his job. Will he be able to…to keep doing all that?”

“We will do our best,” the doctor promises. “Right now I estimate a 90% chance of full recovery in two months. Assuming that he can bounce back psychologically. We can fix his body over and over, it’s up to him what happens when he wakes up.”

They all heave a sigh of relief. Kris takes the doctors hands and presses them to his mouth. “Thank you,” he whispers. “Thank you so much.”

The doctor smiles again and pats Kris’ cheek. “I will come back in a few hours when the procedure is done.”

When the doctor leaves, Kris turns back to the group. “Now you should really go,” he tells Yixing and Chanyeol. “Go back and tell them the news. I’m sure they would love to hear from you.”

They both look unsure, but agree to go. Kris takes them to the hospital lobby and arranges for transport back to Earth, explaining that the five wormhole tickets are roundtrip. That gets them to smile for the first time all night, and Yixing and Chanyeol leave looking hopeful. But as soon as they’re gone, Kris’ expression turns dark.

“What’s the matter?” Baekhyun asks as they go back upstairs. “Tao is going to be okay.”

“But he didn’t want this,” Kris says. “I told him that…when I first met him all I could think about was getting him to agree to a procedure like this, and then after only a while I realized how wrong I was to think like that. Tao said one day he would consider it, and we could talk to a doctor about it, but he wasn’t ready. And I did this without consulting him first. He’s going to wake up and be so confused, and maybe even…maybe he’ll hate me.”

“He won’t,” Jongdae says sharply. “My god Kris, you saved his life. He’ll understand why you brought him here and what you’ve done for him. You think he would rather be dead?”

But Kris refuses to be cheered up.

When Chanyeol and Yixing stumble back through the wormhole, they are greeted by Jongin, Suho, Kyungsoo, and Sehun, and Yixing’s heart sinks when he doesn’t see his boyfriends.

“Tao is still in surgery,” Chanyeol says, “But the doctor thinks he’s going to make a full recovery.”

There’s a collective sigh of relief, and then Suho points Yixing upstairs. “They’re in your room.”

Yixing darts off, his heart racing. He has no idea what’s waiting for him. But when he comes crashing into the room, all he finds is Lu Han and Minseok cuddled up on the bed. They’re both awake.

“Hi,” Minseok says tiredly. “Come join us?”

Yixing takes off his shoes, shirt, and pants, and crawls under the covers on Minseok’s other side, too tired to even think about redressing himself. “Tao’s going to be okay,” he tells them. “But he’s going to be like Kris now. Some of his organs needed to be replaced.”

Lu Han gasps and covers his mouth. Tears fill his eyes, and he looks away. “I can’t believe he got shot. I can’t believe those things were there.”

“Does the Agency know?” Yixing asks.

“Suho told them,” Minseok says. “They’re looking into it.”

Yixing Minseok’s cheeks. “How are you feeling?”

Minseok shrugs. “I don’t know. Lu Han’s been talking me down and…I guess I’m not as upset as I was before. I was so scared and so angry when I saw the blood. I just lost it.”

“I’m sorry that I wasn’t here for you,” Yixing apologizes tearfully. All the stress and worry is starting to catch up to him, and he’s barely holding back sobs. “I wish I could have been.”

But Minseok shakes his head. “No, you were right to go and help Tao. If you had stayed I would have been mad at you, probably. It’s okay, I’m not hurt.”

“No, not physically,” Yixing says, “But Minseok, we can’t ignore this.”

“I won’t. I’ll talk to the others about it, when we’re sure that Tao is going to be alright. And maybe…maybe I’ll stop taking the suppressants.”

Yixing looks at Lu Han in shock, and sees Lu Han is equally surprised—he and Minseok didn’t talk about this.

“I mean if I’m going to lose control anyway, I might as well know what I’m doing, right?” Minseok asks angrily. Then he sighs. “Sorry, sorry. But I mean it. I need to learn to control this, I can’t keep hiding it.”

“You shouldn’t do it if you feel like you’re being forced,” Yixing tells him.

Minseok closes his eyes and a lone tear slips down his cheek. Lu Han carefully wipes it away, but in another second Minseok begins crying in earnest.

“How do I even begin to explain this to them? This is not what I wanted. I was so happy, I was finally feeling like I was in control of my own ing destiny.” He rolls onto his stomach, hands clasped under his pillow, and begins to sob.

Lu Han sits up and looks sadly at Minseok. His eyes are puffy and red, and Yixing knows that Lu Han really can’t stand to see other people cry, especially not Minseok.

“Has anyone else been up here?” Yixing asks.

Lu Han nods. “Suho kept coming, and Kai as well. I told them to just give us some space.”

Yixing pats Minseok’s back. “See? They still care, they still want to be with you.”

Minseok moans into his pillow and shakes his head frantically. “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t look at them, I can’t do it. I could have hurt them I could have hurt everyone. I didn’t know what I was doing, oh god what if I had missed or lost it completely? What would I have done?” He suddenly shoots up and looks around wildly. “It’s not safe, it’ll never be safe, I have to—”

Lu Han pulls Minseok against his chest and shushes him. “Enough,” he says firmly. “You’re not doing this again.”

As Yixing watches, Minseok goes limp in Lu Han’s arms and sniffles a few times before slumping back down on the bed.

“This is the third time,” Lu Han says. “The first time I panicked too. He actually started packing a bag. Then I yelled at him and he started crying, and I realized he was having some kind of episode and didn’t really mean it.”

Yixing sighs and lays his hand on Minseok’s forehead. He’s too warm, and when Yixing searches for problems in Minseok’s body, he’s hit with aches and pains to the point where he gasps in pain.

“Oh, no,” Yixing sighs, “My poor Minseok.”

Minseok shakes his head, but Yixing cradles his face in his hands and bends down to kiss him gently. “It’s okay,” he croons, “I’ll help you.” And he floods Minseok’s body with warmth, taking away all his pain, starting with the headache that Yixing can just tell is making everything a hundred times worse. Then he moves on to the aches in Minseok’s neck, shoulders, arms and thighs, and by the time he’s done Minseok is asleep, his face perfectly blank.

Lu Han looks at him in awe. “I tried to make him take something. I knew he was hurting, and I knew he was tired, but he just wouldn’t.”

Yixing kisses Minseok’s cheek gently, so as not to wake him. “I wish I had thought to ask Kris to get me back sooner.”

Lu Han reaches over and takes his hand. “But you’re here now, and you helped him. And when he wakes up, I’m sure he’ll be thinking more clearly, and then we’ll both be here to talk to him.”

The second Lu Han touched him, Yixing could feel all the aches in his body too, and he starts to take them away, but Lu Han pulls his hands away and shakes his head. “No, it’s all minor stuff that can be fixed with sleep, which is what we both need, especially you. You look like you’re about to faint. Let me get you some pants, it’s chilly and there’s no need for you to sleep in your underwear.”

Lu Han ends up having to dress Yixing—as soon as Lu Han brought up sleep Yixing suddenly remembered how tired he was. It was like his whole body shut down and he could hardly keep his eyes open. He’s awake enough to remember Lu Han giving him a kiss and tucking him in, and then his mind is blank.

Don't kill me, nobody dies in this story.

Also don't forget to leave me questions for my author Q & A, if you have any that is.