o47

Control

Falling onto the ground was just as painful as it was when he had forced her up. Breathing hurt. Alleviating the pressure on her ribs was probably beneficial in making sure they didn’t break even more, but it was agony. But given that Junsu had let go and through the haze of pain Jinqiong was pretty sure someone had knocked him over the head…

Someone was tugging her to her feet again. It was still dark, but her eyes had adjusted enough to be able to see Jongdae. His voice was all too discernable, concerned, panicked, but it was Jongdae. Jongdae. Jongdae was here, with her.

“Get up,” he said. “Dammit, Jinqiong, get up.”

Something in between a cough and a laugh escaped her. “Are you insane?”

“No, but you are,” he shot back. “Get up. We need to get out of here.”

“You smacked Byun Junsu over the head with a plank,” Jinqiong said slowly. Jongdae gave her a not-so-gentle tug. The pain confirmed that he was there, even if her mind hadn’t quite caught up with the fact yet. She wondered if she had finally begun to hallucinate. As much as she didn’t want to believe it, something about Junsu’s words seemed to make sense. She had started it all alone. Maybe she would die alone too.

“I did,” he replied drily. “And I don’t think he’s going to fall for it a second time.”

Pain, pain, pain, and yet somehow Jinqong managed another laugh as Jongdae hoisted her to her feet. He was stronger than she thought he was.

Junsu had begun to stir. Whatever Jongdae had hit him with had done a decent amount of damage (given that Jongdae wasn’t known for hitting hard, she thought dryly), but it wasn’t enough to keep him down for long. 

“Should’ve stabbed him before coming for me,” Jinqiong croaked.

She could picture the eye roll as they stumbled towards the door, over the rubble. “Our priority is getting out of here,” he replied. “I didn’t want to risk anything else. Besides, I don’t think I would be able to lift Junsu’s sword, and you can barely walk.”

“Shouldn’t have risked anything,” Jinqiong heard herself say.

Jongdae actually paused. They were still a couple feet from the destroyed doorway, and Junsu was beginning to wake up behind them, but he gave her a look. “I wouldn’t leave you here,” Jongdae said quietly as he began to move again. “I hope you knew that.”

Had she? In those moments with Junsu, Jinqiong had told herself over and over again that they wouldn’t abandon her. Hell, Hei had been willing to stay. Jinqiong had just made sure she couldn’t. But the thought of dying alone, without the certainty, she hadn’t known. Even now, part of her still doubted that Jongdae was truly there, and not a figment of her imagination. 

If he could tell what her silence meant, he didn’t comment on it. Instead, they made painful progress towards the door, then out, before there were sounds of movement behind them.

“Junsu’s up,” Jinqiong told Jongdae.

He gritted his teeth as they stumbled into the hall, then up a couple of the steep set of stairs. “Hurry.”

There was an angry shout behind her, and he pulled her aside just before Junsu all but tore out of the room. He was still armed with his whip and broadsword, while Jinqiong had lost both her daggers in the wreckage. Jongdae’s grip tightened on her when he turned around to look at Junsu, the stairs at their heels. Two flights up and they’d be on the deck, except there was no way they could make it with Junsu so close behind. Maybe if she wasn’t so terribly injured.

But there was Jongdae, face pale and frightened but still standing his ground. He had come back for her, and he wasn’t stupid. He had come back knowing full well what the consequences would be. Junsu had been wrong.

Sure enough, his expression was livid. Jinqiong wanted to laugh at the ridiculousness—he had been so close to killing her, like those many times before, yet Jongdae had ruined it. Again. Because he had risked his life to save her. Again.

“So you came to die with her,” Junsu said slowly. Neither of them mistook the calm tone for anything but anger, barely hidden beneath the faux smoothness.

“I want you to make the side of the ship disappear,” Jongdae said in a low voice as Junsu took a slow step forward, the broadsword dragging behind him. “Then we jump out. Just… a hole big enough for us to get out. We’re going to go for the shore. Or at least the ice. Baekhyun can deal with him.”

Jinqiong didn’t dare acknowledge what he said, keeping her gaze on Junsu. Jongdae squeezed her waist slightly—it shouldn’t have been hard enough to hurt, but it still sent a jolt of pain up her spine. (Jinqiong wondered briefly if there were part of her that wasn’t injured, because every slightest bit of movement hurt so much.) She didn’t have the luxury to question him, but jumping from the ship didn’t seem to be the most brilliant idea either. Or perhaps they were so out of options that it was the only idea.

Except even if jumping from the ship didn’t kill them, she wasn’t sure if she even could make something so huge disappear. She wasn’t sure if she could even use her power anymore, given how beaten up and exhausted she was. Maybe it was too late. Maybe she and Jongdae had finally run out of luck, if it had been luck they were running on in the first place.

Jongdae took a step up the stairs. “Focus,” he told her quietly, before raising his chin at Junsu. “You’re wrong, you know?”

He sneered back at Jongdae. “Do you think you’ll make a difference, clairvoyant? Surely, with that power of yours, you could see that she wasn’t worth your life so many times? Or at least you would know that you won’t change anything by coming back here.”

Jongdae shrugged. “You said she would die alone,” he replied. “But that’s you. It doesn’t matter if you brainwashed a whole crew to work for you. In the end, you’re the one whos's alone. It’s not Jinqiong. Not anymore.”

Her concentration wavered slightly. Not anymore. As terrified as she felt, despite the pain and exhaustion, she believed him. Junsu was wrong, and Jinqiong had never been happier about anything in her life. He had come back for me.

Junsu’s lip curled. “I thought you’d be smarter than this,” he snapped, before he drew back his whip. Jinqiong gritted her teeth, trying to prepare herself for the blow and focus on making the two pieces of wood disappear at the same time.

The pain (or additional pain, added onto the rest) didn’t come. Jinqiong had half the mind to wonder if maybe she had made Junsu disappear when she realized that it was because Jongdae had blocked the blow completely. She couldn’t see enough to tell what exactly happened, but one moment she was watching Junsu swing the whip and the next he was standing in front of her.

He let out a hiss of pain, but that was the length of his reactions. Junsu moved forward, raising his whip to strike again, and Jinqiong focused all her will into her power. It would obey her, no matter what, because Jongdae was there and she didn’t want to see another person hurt, and—

Light spilled into the hall, blinding and sharp and enough to distract Junsu. For a split second, Jinqiong paused, the thought settling in that she had somehow managed to actually use her power—before Jongdae, much more alert than she was, tightened his grip on her waist and all but jumped out of the hole.

It was the icy water that brought back all of her senses, the sluggishness her mind had descended into slowly wearing off. That, and the fact that the cold mixed in with the water of Hell’s Gate and the salt of the sea didn’t do wonders for her cuts. Jinqiong could feel a piercing pain in every single one of the injures—from the smallest of scratches to the deep whip wounds on her leg, side, and stomach, all of which had been bleeding profusely.

It was so cold. Jongdae was no longer holding onto her as Jinqiong floundered towards the surface, uncertain as to how far they had jumped or where Junsu was. Her head broke through the surface a couple of seconds later, followed by Jongdae’s, who sputtered out a mouthful of water. His teeth were chattering, and Jinqiong realized that her own were too.

“G-get up,” he stammered. “Onto th-the ice. Now.”

The cold was leeching at her energy now, and Jinqiong barely managed a nod. Almost an arm’s length away the ice started again, an endless, glimmering sheet that still caught the last rays of the sun. Sunset. The sun hadn’t set yet. It hadn’t even been that long, yet it felt like forever that they had been trapped inside the ship.

Behind them, not far off, the ship loomed. There was an area of water around—the explosion must’ve been enough to melt the ice, even if it were just a bit—and if Jinqiong looked up, there was the empty section of the wall when she had made the boards disappear. They were near the back of the ship, sandwiched between the first one of the fleet, still a couple hundred yards of ice between them and Baekhyun’s ship. And… Junsu was nowhere to be seen.

Junsu. A wave of panic swept over Jinqiong, and she paddled towards the ice, sluggish once more because of the cold. It was a good wake up call, but apparently not when she stayed for so long.

Jongdae was pulling himself onto the ice already, drenched, shivering, lips beginning to turn blue. In contrast, Jinqiong could see the line of red down his back that was now showing through torn clothing, blood mixing with sea water, as he crawled onto the ice. He had blocked that lash. He had come back. He hadn’t left her there.

She grabbed hold of the ice as well. It was cold under her fingers, even more so than the water, so cold that it burned. Jongdae was shivering uncontrollably, but he gave her slight smile as he offered her a hand to pull her up. Jinqiong reached up to grab it.

And then was yanked down.

Her scream was muted by the water as swallowed a mouthful of salty, freezing, disgusting water as Jinqiong was pulled under again. She wasn’t disoriented enough not to recognize the grip on her ankle—the harsh metal grip—and the identity was reaffirmed when she glanced down to see the gold armour. Junsu’s grip tightened, so much that Jinqiong was sure that one of the bones in her ankle would snap as well. She tried to fight against the unrelenting grip, but he was much stronger than her—always had been, especially when she was in such a state—and there was nothing she could do. Desperately, Jinqiong struggled upwards, but it was no use.

Air. Her lungs screamed (or was it her broken ribs?), her eyes stung, and the light on the surface seemed to be getting dimmer and dimmer. Jongdae was up there somewhere, except there was nothing Jinqiong could do, nothing she could fight back with, and no more fight left. Everything was either cold or hurting or numb.

Above, from the ever-darkening surface, something seemed to gleam. Jinqiong managed to raise her head towards the source, confused and half-certain that she was beginning to hallucinate. The pressure of the water seemed to increase on all sides, along with the pressure in her chest, the ever-tightening grip on her ankle dragging her down, down, down.

Jinqiong reached up for the last piece of light, and somehow, her hand wrapped around a familiar grip.

Her dagger. Through the hazy, descending numbness, Jinqiong realized that the situation felt awfully familiar. She could remember the sea serpent dragging her down into the depths of Hell’s Gate by the leg, blood and water mixing until she wasn’t sure what was going into her lungs. And she could remember driving the same dagger through its golden eye.

Now, Jinqiong relaxed. As if Junsu could sense the lack of resistance, he gave her a sharper pull, and she let him until she was close enough to reach. Then, with all the strength she could muster, she drove her dagger towards the gap between his helmet, straight into his left eye, and twisted.

Her aim landed true. Jinqiong could almost hear Junsu’s howl of rage and pain through the water, and the grip around her ankle released almost immediately. Sluggishly, she felt the brief satisfaction that at least he felt pain, given that he never seemed to be bothered by the injures. Then, there was also the brief thought that she should be swimming for the surface, although the pain had finally turned bearable and Jinqiong could no longer feel the uncomfortableness of running out of breath. Through blurred vision, she thought that she could see something darker, silhouetted against the last of the light, but it was very possible that it was one of the black dots that started spotted over her sight. Then they grew larger and larger until everything was black, and Jinqiong didn’t remember anything else. 

***

When Jinqiong came back to consciousness, the first two feelings she managed to comprehend was the coldness and the pain, which happened to be the last things she remembered when she woke up. There was an uncomfortable pressure in her chest as well. 

Jinqiong sat up. She nearly smacked her forehead into Jongdae’s, who drew back in surprise, right before she managed to turn to the side and retch up the remaining seawater, gagging at the taste. The effort made her body scream, one relief replaced by another pain. Still, Jinqiong coughed until she was sure all the water was expelled from her lungs. It felt like someone had torn open . And perhaps the rest of her body.

Jongdae waited at the side until she had finally recovered, and then Jinqiong realized that both of them were drenched head to toe, sitting on the ice and a couple of meters from where it turned abruptly into water. She turned back to look at Jongdae.

“I’m alive,” she said slowly. 

His teeth were chattering, but he managed a grin. “You’re w-welcome.”

The cold had begun to sink in too, the chill settling so deep that Jinqiong was sure it had fused with her bones and she would never get rid of the feeling. She wanted to get up from the ice, but her body felt broken in various places, and moving from the spot seemed impossible. Memories flooded back—being pulled down under by Junsu, and then… stabbing him in the eye. She had stabbed him in the eye, and he was nowhere to be seen.

“Junsu,” she realized slowly.

Jongdae held up his hands. His face was so pale from the cold that his eyes and hair stood out as a scary contrast, lips leached of all colors, but there was a glint in his eyes that seemed so bright. “He hasn’t come up,” he told her. “I don’t know if he’s still down there. But we need to get back to the ship. You need to get everything fixed up.”

A breeze touched the air, the coldness magnified. A little while ago and she had been trapped in the burning ship, wishing for something cold, and now it was the other extreme. Jinqiong had trouble deciding which one was worse.

It was Jongdae who offered her a hand, having already gotten to his feet. He was limping. “We need to go,” he said. “At least regroup with everyone else. Baekhyun and the rest of them can take care of Junsu. Neither of us can fight right now.”

Jinqiong huffed out a laugh. “Y-you can n-never fight,” she retorted, but she reached out to take Jongdae’s hand. It felt just as cold as hers—or she thought she did, but there was also the possibility that she couldn’t even feel her fingers.

Jongdae gave her hand a light squeeze. That hurt. But at least she could feel the hurt, which meant her hands weren’t completely beyond saving. 

“Up,” he said, surprisingly gentle. Jinqiong groaned, but propped herself with her free hand, wincing, and pushed herself up with his support. She would’ve fallen right over if Jongdae hadn’t steadied her.

Now that everything else had faded away, Jinqiong could hear the distant sounds of another battle. The other ship, she supposed, still with Junsu’s men. The fact that nothing was burning probably meant the plan had gone wrong somewhere, which wasn’t surprising, given how well attempting to rescue Hei had been. Jongdae took a careful step forward, and Jinqiong followed his movements, wincing as another jolt of pain went up her leg.

Another step. Jinqiong was wondering if they would freeze to death before they could even get halfway across the span of ice before there was a loud crack behind them.

Jongdae froze, then let out a swear under his breath. Jinqiong looked back.

Behind them, from where Jongdae had pulled her from the water, Junsu was hauling himself out of the sea as well. A pit of red had taken the spot where his left eye once was, and the blood continued to drip from the gaps between his helmet in streaks, down the gold metal. His remaining eye seemed to burn with double the rage.

“,” Jongdae said under his breath.

While an apt summary of what was happening, Jinqiong couldn’t bring herself to say anything. She had lost count of the number of times Junsu should’ve been dead but had ended up alive (and that was only in the past thirty minutes). She did have a very good idea that there were too many moments that she had been saved by sheer, dumb luck, and it was very likely that she was about to run out of that soon.

Jongdae took a step back. Junsu stumbled, righted himself, and bared his teeth at them. “I’ll kill you,” he growled.

The words get out of here surfaced, but before Jinqiong could say them to Jongdae, Junsu lunged at them.

Every hint of the trained, graceful warrior had disappeared, and he was simply feral. Movements nothing but brutal, Jinqiong felt herself thrown aside, her chin hitting ice painfully. Black spotted over her vision, and for a couple of agonizing seconds, she could only lie on the ground, winded and wounds screaming, even though the only comprehendable words she could think of was Jongdae. Unable to get up, Jinqiong heard him shout something indecipherable—a warning? Telling her to leave? There was the sound of a scuffle, although by the time Jinqiong got her limbs to obey her and crawled to her knees, Jongdae was already on the ground, Junsu standing over him with a blade. Her dagger. The one that she had stabbed into his eye, now poised over Jongdae—

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