It was the crack of dawn, and for whatever awful reason Jackson was no longer safe in bed. Instead, he and his companions had been forced to awake before the sun and cross the freezing cold asphalt to the decay of the old Marriott hotel, with the 'ar' missing from the sign. With a sulking scowl he glared at the ground. It wasn't even decent enough to be called asphalt: it was chunky, glorified, craptaular gravel that poked through the thinning soles of his ancient, yes, literally ancient, shoes. To make matters worse they faced the neigh insurmountable challenge of the stairs: sixteen flights of unforgiving ascension. All because Jaebum was too much of a bum to get himself out of bed. Rude. Without Jaebum there was no electricity and thus no elevator to ease the burden of appearing before their illustrious leader.

Jackson sneered at the overwhelming gloom of the ominous stairwell as they reached the old glass fire door. Before he knew it BamBam was pulling it open with such a flourish of energy that Jackson felt doubly exhausted just watching.

“Come on Jackson,” Mark huffed, rolling the younger man's name off his tongue with a sweet little country drawl as he shoved at Jackson's shoulders from behind. He was forced to oblige, with a sigh puffing out in a white cloud of breath that he was sure was actually his soul trying to escape into the morning cold.

BamBam bounced ahead with enthusiasm. It was difficult not to notice the fine curve of gently feminine hips as the youngest of the group wriggled his way up two stairs at a time, propelled by long, well toned legs.

Mark sighed, causing an uncomfortable wave of familiar tension to float forward in Jackson's mind. When his eyes wandered up to meet the puffed out cheeks of his clearly irritated companion, his breath hitched awkwardly and something like a pinch pricked at the corner of his heart.

“What?” Jackson bristled, feeling both self conscience and defensive in addition to the annoyance that Mark's sour mood was pushing on his empathetic spirit, “He's got a nice . You've stared at it too. I know you have. I seen you.” The lilting sweep of his rich southern accent was offset by a bell tone of mildly malicious giggling that came tumbling down the echoing expanse of concrete and steel from somewhere not so far ahead. If he had listened hard enough Jackson probably would have, in fact, heard the wiggling of BamBam's shapely . It made him laugh despite the overwhelming push of Mark's surly self trying to invade his mind.

By the time the empath crested the threshold of final flight, neither the soft line of Mark's thin waist nor the supple round of BamBam's rump could compel him to drag his feet even one inch further. He collapsed in a heap on the floor just outside the ugly metal door that lead into the old corridor – taking in the wonderfully pungent smell of decay, rot, winter musk and really dirty feet.

The wonder of angsty grouchiness that was Mark at that hour dragged his beat up sneakers across the rough purplish carpet and a sharp toe dug itself right into Jackson's kidney.

“Ow man!” the empath exclaimed, trying his best not to laugh because he was still high on BamBam's happy mood, “What's your problem today?”

“I'm going to go get Jun.K,” was all the older man offered and the white-blond swore he had never shot to his feet that quickly in all of the almost twenty-two years of his life. Despite all of his huffing he managed to put together a parade of shuffles and drudge his way down the hall to the supposed office of his glorious leader.

Mark surged forward with a sudden rush to grab the door before BamBam had a chance to throw it into the wall like he had so many times before. There was still a hole from where the handle had imbedded itself in the wall previously. True story; it had taken three hours and a rusty saw from Nichkhun's musty old pool shed to get that stupid blasted scrap of metal from the drywall.

Jun.K looked...so unimpressed.

In that moment he didn't exactly look like the fearless leader that they had come to expect. His legs were looking oddly attractive in those painfully tight jeans. Wait a minute, were those WooYoung's jeans? Because they certainly looked like WooYoung's jeans. WooYoung was one of only two people that could wear that size comfortably. Clearly Jun.K was not wearing them comfortably, as he was leaned against windowsill.

In true Jun.K style, he had pulled back the curtains to revel in the first dregs of morning light as they shown through, illuminating the outline of his defined chest through his baggy white shirt. It was hanging like aura around him and definitely not his usual fare. Wait another freaking minute, that was totally TaecYeon's shirt. He was wearing WooYoung's pants and TaecYeon's shirt.

Kim MinJun, leader of the Lost Boys, defacto commander of their awkward little family, with his mused hair, standing melodramatically in the early light of a peaking dawn had grabbed the wrong clothes as he had rolled out of bed just before his scheduled meeting. He called the meeting. He should have been up hours ago. If he couldn't be bothered to get up on time for his own meeting why did they have to?

“Did you just roll—” two very familiar waves of annoyance crashed into Jackson as he began to verbalize his train of thought. One manifesting physically in the sharp press of Mark's fingernails into the hard flesh the blond's biceps. The second came in the form of the elder empath imparting a disgustingly nauseating curl of emoted 'shut your mouth now.'

BamBam rolled with nervous giggles, running an hand up the fuzz of cinnamon hair on the back of his head. He hesitated for a fraction of a second before slipping in with the musical tick of his thick creole accent, “So...what's up Junbug?”

A sigh hissed through his clenched teeth before a clipped fall of words somehow managed to ease out from between their leader's pouting lips, “I'm sending you on an out mission” his voice cracked, giving him away entirely. The loser had totally just gotten up. “It's a rescue.” He stopped to gauge each one of their reactions.

BamBam was literally quivering with anticipation: probably thinking about how his first out mission was going to be so much more boss than any one else's. Firstly, because no one ever got lost when they joined the Lost Boys. They weren't the found boys, well, except YoungJae and JunHo. That was a totally different story. Secondly because most everyone's first 'out missions' (if they could even be called that) involved scavenging for supplies in a nearby abandoned “city” (if it could even be called that).

Snap. Snap. Snap. And then one more for good measure clicked right in front of his face. Snap. “Jia Er, did you hear a single word I said?”

Jackson managed to gaze into his leader's sharp khol rimmed eyes. Boy could not managed to put the right clothes on or brush his sandy red hair ,but his eye liner was always on point. Like always. Like every day. Sick in bed with a fever of 102 and still eyeliner fabulous. And Jackson would have assumed it was a tattoo except for that one time that he had unwisely burst through the bedroom to witness the most sacred of morning rituals as Jun.K applied his eyeliner with an impressively steady hand.

“Jack-in-a-box,” BamBam called out trailing off in soft melodic notes. The faint burn of the siren's entrancing seduction tingled through the entirety of Jackson's body. One half of it found a home in the pit of his stomach while the rest migrated up the back of his neck, the two places where all weird feelings tend to be felt. Just as the blond was beginning to melt, Mark threw a force field so strong that it acted as an emotional silencer.

The stare down that resulted was confusing, there were too many people involved. Jun.K glared at BamBam, who in turn glared at Mark. The most confusing part of this strange glare triangle was Mark's dagger glare at Jackson. What had he done? It wasn't his fault that BamBam had y seductive powers and a pretty voice was it?

“What did I do this time Mark?” The empath inquired, which was a rare thing for him. Usually he knew without asking, but he'd never been forced to learn body language. His gift made reading people so easy. It was next level really, but Mark with his shielding abilities made life more complicated. A constant question-Mark.

“Nothing,” Mark sassed, “When do you ever do anything.”

“If you guys could hold off on killing each other for another two weeks, this mission is kind of...important.” Jun.K said.

The shield dissipated, and little bits of emotion started to poke through at the edges. BamBam was a whirlwind of conflicting...things. Not even feelings, just a muddy mess of swamp gunk. The state of his being could almost be described as Nichkhun level grime. And Nichkhun was pretty much the swamp thing. The one and only. That was another story.

Question-Mark held up his guard, without even letting the little things swirl around him like he usually did to humor Jackson. There was just a void. If Jackson could feel anything from him it would probably just be annoyance or grumpiness.

MinJun took a deep breath in, and slid his tongue around like he was tasting words on it before he could let them out to meet the ears of the three young men in his office. In the moment when he finally did open his mouth and let sound fall out each one of those words hit the floor heavy like an iron bead: “YoungJae went missing yesterday,” he said, resting hands on the overstretched, ed waistband of WooYoung's jeans.

Frustration, anxiety and anger bubbled up in a thin soupy mess of storm clouds come to ruin the day. Jackson wasn't sure what he had expected. Rescue mission kind of implied that someone was lost...or in this case, found he guessed. Of course one of the only two found boys would go and get himself found again. YoungJae had literally gone years living in that old gas station across the road without anyone but JunHo and Jun.K knowing he existed. Seriously. No one could camouflage as well as he could. Jackson had watched the brunet melt into a wall once.

“Maybe he's just chilling somewhere invisible?” BamBam suggested super lamely, because he was in a room with not one, but two empaths.

Jackson thought for just a heartbeat before, “He hasn't been around for a week,” slipped through his lips.

The red haired leader nodded, “He was on an out mission – was supposed to be back by yesterday at sundown. He was scouting pretty far out so...better to send out a team now rather than later.” It was probably the looks of shock that prompted him to keep moving on the subject rather than stalling, because YoungJae being sent on an out mission was absurd. The farthest the brunette wandered was ChanSung and TaecYeon's western garden.

“YoungJae w-was what?” Mark stuttered, doing his best to contain the fury that started bubbling past his emotional shields.

“Alone?” BamBam managed to add.

The door to the adjoining suite popped open casually breaking the tension with a sudden burst of familiarity. The raspy voice of a sleep ridden WooYoung called out slick and drawled impossibly thickly, “Never mind Taec, I found my pants.” His messy medium brown hair was followed through the door by the curve of his shirtless shoulders as he leaned in. His bare chest was a work of art. Muscles so fine that the ridges along his abdomen could have been carved from marble.

He winked at Jun.K, flashed a crooked smile, and slipped backwards.

“Oh!” TaecYeon's rich voice rang out, “are they getting their mission?” After a short pause he bellowed, “Mark-icorn! Take care of the boys for us,” as Jun.K moved to pull the door shut.

“I thought those pants looked awful tight,” BamBam offered with a smirk.

“Not now, Kunpimuk, ” Jun.K puffed in out in exasperated whisper, “I already have a headache.”

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