Waking the Dead

Waking the Dead 06

The four men sat silently in the ruined living room after having righted the couches and dragging a table between them, gathering and looking through the notes Lee May had been working on, after the 'good doctor' had refused, point blank, to tell them anything after laughing in their faces, and instead lashed out at them all, throwing insult after insult at them all, until they simply tied her to a chair with a gag in her mouth.

"What exactly are we looking for?" Jin asked, flipping through another book.

"I don't know." Tae wheezed. He was definitely looking worse for ware as the last tackle by Joongki had busted a rib or two, and his neck now bore two black and blue handprints. He could barely keep his eyes open as he rested his forehead against the warm back of his lover, who sat between his legs. Tae loosely looped his arms around the boys waist as he drifted in and out of sleep.

"How can he sleep?" Jin asked looking amazed. With everything going on, sleeping was the last thing he felt like doing.

"He can't help it." Jungkook explained gently. "He needs to...recharge, so to speak."

Namjoon looked at him over steepled fingers." Like a battery?"

"Exactly. Tae's like a high volt battery the dead are attracted to, the more often he meets them, interacts with them, the more of a drain it becomes on him. The dead use his enery to interact with him and the world of the living."

"We've had quite a bit of interaction with the dead today." Namjoon said, the others nodding in agreement.

"Yeah, his napping used to get him in trouble at the school, the teachers couldn't figure out why he would just fall asleep, and stay asleep all afternoon."

"What do you mean by 'at the school'?" Namjoon asked.

The boy smiled a little melancholy at the question. "That's where we first met. We went to a special school for the 'gifted' when we were kids, though most called it a school for freaks."

Tae snorted. "Yeah, like my dad." he mumbled, snuggling closer to the younger, Jungkook gently stroked the hands looped at his waist in comfort.

"Anyway, the school was full of people like me and Jin," he said, gesturing at the empath who had, at some point, began filming again, "but Tae's gift was beyond them. They spent three years trying to understand him. The school building used to be an old court house that held executions."

Namjoon winced. "I can imagine."

Jungkook nodded. "It's why he slept in the afternoon. It's funny, they all wanted to understand what Tae saw, and when they did, they were terrified."

Jin was spellbound. "Why? They got what they wanted....to see what he sees."

Tae, who had awoken again, simply answered. "Who wants to see the dead?"

*

*

*

It was getting late, passing six, when they decided to take a break and eat. Jin and Namjoon left to make sandwiches, the pair returning shortly after with food in hand.

"Should we wake him?" Namjoon asked softly looking over at Tae, who was drapped over Jungkook's back.

"Let's let him sleep a little longer." 

Suddenly Jungkook felt Tae shiver before his head rose.

Sleepy brown eyes looked at something on his left.

"Tae?" Jungkook asked softly, craning his neck to look at him.

"Thank you." Tae said groggily. He looked as if he was talking to thin air. "Hope you're okay." He paused as if listening for an answer. "We can't figure it out." He waited again before turning his head to look to the opposite side of the room.