Rush

file six: lty

One, two, three.

Heave.

He lifted himself off the ground, hand pressing against his side. Despite the layers of cloth wrapped around his abdomen, he could still feel the wetness of the blood seep through, warm and frightening, dampening his skin.

Taeyong dragged in a ragged breath, throwing another wary glance over his shoulder to make sure he wasn't being followed. If he was being honest, he hadn't expected the manager to turn on him so quickly, especially after giving him a sense of home for six years—the six worst and the six best years of his life, until he had met you.

The memory stung like alcohol on a fresh wound, and he winced from both the emotional pain of the thought and the physical pain of the slash at his side. His spidery fingers curled around the gash, faltering as they came in contact with the blood again. He inhaled deeply, steeling his nerves, and counted to three before clenching his teeth and dragging himself along the path again.

The pain brought hot tears to his eyes and black spots dancing in his vision. Even though it only proved to be an obstacle, he was thankful to the dark cloak of the night for hiding him from prying eyes, especially when the people tailing him were like bloodhounds—they would have sniffed him out in his weakened state from a mile away.

He poked the corner of his lips with his tongue, feeling the slightly ragged flesh and tasting metal and salt when he did. His entire body was covered in a layer of blood, sweat and grime, but he wasn't planning on changing that, because taking a bath meant staying in one place. And staying in one place for too long meant another death under the racers' belt.

Taeyong honestly didn't know how he had managed to pull himself this far. Even the fact that there wasn't a single bullet in him yet was fascinating. He was alone, unchangeably and utterly alone, and the city was sleeping around him.

Just after leaving you at the airport, he had been forced to run. The gun had helped him get past the main barriers of Seoul, so he had been able to cut a path skirting around the outskirts. It had let him hide from a possible encounter with Vernon Chwe, and he was hoping he wouldn't be identified again—which meant he had to ditch the Stingray.

It had hurt him to do it first, both because of the emotional attachment he had with the car and the importance of a vehicle in a getaway. And a fast one at that. Thankfully, he had found a suitable hiding spot for it, so that if things somehow worked out for him, he would be able to retrieve it later.

He was brought back to his senses by almost tripping. Taeyong blinked, once, twice, three times, trying to get his bearings as he slowed to a stop. He leaned against the lone street light above, catching his breath. The neighborhood was dark—so, so dark. The street was empty except for him, one of the few reasons someone as beaten up and bloody as him could walk it freely.

Ghost street. Ghost town.

His skin crawled. Swallowing, Taeyong brushed back his bloodred hair with his fingertips, wiping away the red matting some of it to his temple. It stung as his fingernails accidentally scraped against the scab, but not as much as the wound on his side. He took a deep breath, tucking his lower lip between his teeth, and pressed it between them as he heaved himself up again, for the final few steps.

"Fuck!" The word was torn out of him like a bandage being ripped off of a still-healing injury. Owing to the sharp pain of the movement, he had bitten down much too hard on his lip, and it was bleeding now, thick, hot liquid bubbling up skin and some of it sliding down his jaw as he raised his face to the sky.

Despite being almost completely sure that he was alone, the loudness of his exclamation made him cringe. He pulled himself into the booth, leaning his shoulder against the glass side as he pulled the door shut. The metal cut into his forearm as it pressed into it for support, one almost-useless leg bent at the knee slightly.

Taeyong finally let go of the open gash at his side, hissing as the bruised skin around it made contact with the chill in the air. With crimson-stained fingers, he pulled out the spare change from his tattered jeans, blood-caked fingernails scraping weakly against the coin which he inserted into the slot, puched in the number he remembered from six years ago and hoped that it still worked.

Pick up, he thoughts desperately, face an active expression of last attempts, painful memories, nostalgia tainted with nightmares. Pick up, please.

"Hello?"

Taeyong sucked in his breath in surprise, the phone almost falling from his weak grasp. The voice on the other end of the line was much older than he recalled—nothing like the boy he remembered.

The tone was not the soft, careful one of the boy who used to press a knife in his hand and whisper into his ear to run and come back in the morning, nothing like the brave self-sacrificing tone that would stand between his young self and a monster on those few nights which made the dining table look like an arena. It was nothing like the hesitant lullaby of a sixteen year old boy trying to sing a twelve year old Taeyong to sleep. It was harsh. It was smooth. It was powerful.

It was the tone of a leader, a heir, a king. It was not the voice of a boy—it was the voice of the man the boy had been forced to become.

"Brother," Taeyong whispered, so low he barely heard it himself, savouring the way the word sounded on his tongue, syllables melting on his tongue like cottan candy with a side of wine. "I need your help."