Chapter Text
“We invaded and rescued you from some traffickers,” Chan, the leader of the group, explained as if Jisung and Felix didn’t know what had happened, weren’t there for it themselves. He said it as if Jisung still didn’t hear the gunshots echoing in his head, heart wasn’t still pounding from the fear of getting caught in the crossfire.
When neither Jisung nor Felix said anything, another member called Changbin chimed in, “You guys are safe here though, we’re not going to hurt you.”
Felix’s hand twisted in the back of Jisung’s shirt. They were speaking in Korean, so Jisung wasn’t sure how much Felix had understood, but it was clearly enough to be worried. Not that Jisung’s own stiff tail and ears flattened against his head spoke of relaxation.
The two of them had backed themselves into a corner, Felix tucked behind Jisung. Jisung was only a day older, but he always acted strong for Felix, always tried to protect him. Felix didn’t speak Korean that well, so it was better for Jisung to interact with their captors, it kept them from hurting Felix for not understanding their orders barked in rapid Korean.
Felix’s claws cut into Jisung’s back through his shirt that Felix had in a death grip. Jisung didn’t flinch at the pain, Felix needed all the comfort he could get even if that meant destroying Jisung’s shirt and accidentally piercing his back.
A third man appeared with ash gray hair that Jisung recognized from the raid. He was part of the group, Stray Kids, that had rescued them. He crouched in front of Jisung, but still a couple of feet away to give them their space. It was only then that Jisung noticed the cat ears peeking out from his hair. The man had worn a hat during the raid to cover them, so Jisung hadn’t realized he was also a hybrid.
“Hey, my name is Minho, what’s your name?”
“Jisung,” Jisung responded without thinking, he knew better than to not respond to a direct question. Keeping quiet when a direct question was asked always meant pain was following. Sometimes pain followed either way, but it was always better to answer than to not.
“And what about you?” Minho asked Felix.
Jisung puffed himself up to appear bigger and guard Felix as Felix’s hand fisted even tighter in Jisung’s shirt. This time, Jisung nearly flinched at the pain that followed; Felix might have broken the skin.
“His name is Felix,” Jisung answered, tucking his hands into his pockets to feign nonchalance and hide their shaking. He shouldn’t be answering questions for Felix, he knew that was a surefire way to get punished, but it also usually took the punishment off of Felix and focused it on himself instead. He could take the pain, he had so many times before. Felix couldn’t.
“Can Felix talk for himself?” Minho asked, tilting his head as if he was trying to see Felix hiding behind Jisung’s body.
Felix’s other hand found its way into Jisung's shirt and his forehead rested against Jisung’s back as he tried to make himself even smaller to get out of Minho’s stare. In this position, Jisung could feel just how much Felix was shaking. Jisung took a few steadying breaths, trying to calm himself down so that he could be brave. He had to be strong for Felix.
“You can talk to me,” Jisung said, trying to speak with a confidence that he didn’t have.
“Okay.” Minho’s gaze focused on Jisung, where it should be. “Are either of you hurt anywhere?”
Yes, Jisung thought. He had a nasty gash on his leg that was starting to show signs of infection as well as the countless marks across his thighs and back, both fresh and partially healed, evidence of all the times Jisung had been bad, disobeyed the rules. Felix was better, only a couple of bruises from times where Jisung had failed to protect him from their captors’ touch.
“No we’re both fine,” Jisung responded, the lie slipping out easily through his teeth.
“Okay,” Minho hummed, clearly not believing Jisung. “Well if anything does come up, we do have a medic who can help you. He’s also a hybrid.”
Jisung nodded his understanding, but didn’t say anything. He had lost his trust of fellow hybrids long ago when he’d first been captured. He’d been young and naive then, thought that all hybrids were on his side, only to find out that some worked for the bad guys, the boogeymen that he had always been warned about. Some of the most cruel of their captors were other hybrids who were unsellable and found that they needed to be useful in other ways in order to survive.
“I know you don’t trust us,” Changbin said, Jisung thought he was quite astute for that observation, it wasn’t like his emotions weren’t clearly written out in his body language or anything. “But, we really just want to help you. Minho, Hyunjin, Jeongin, and Seungmin are all hybrids and all of them also used to be victims of trafficking until we helped them get out.”
Jisung remembered Hyunjin, he had been a bunny hybrid with a scar across his face, marring his pretty features, hair black, long, and half covering his face in an attempt to cover it. It was hybrids like Hyunjin that Jisung trusted the least, they had nothing more to lose, and in Jisung’s experience they were oftentimes the meanest.
Chan stood up from where he was sitting at the big wooden table in the middle of the room with Changbin to wrench open a door, causing three hybrids to come tumbling into the room. One was Hyunjin, and the other two, presumably Jeongin and Seungmin, Jisung recognized them from the raid, but like Minho, they had been wearing hats to hide their ears.
“I thought I told you guys to get one of the rooms ready,” Chan sighed.
“We did!” the fox hybrid exclaimed, “Then we came here to hear what was going on.”
“I think you guys are really bad at this. The two of them looked terrified,” the dog hybrid chimed in, his ears brown and floppy. Jisung recognized him as the one who directed Jisung and Felix into one of the vans, the two of them had followed blindly, too scared to protest. It was when they arrived at the member’s hideout that the two of them had tucked themselves into a corner while Chan and the others tried to calm them down and coax them out.
“You were scared at first too, Seungmin,” Minho scolded, playfully swatting Seungmin on the shoulder.
Felix flinched at the sound, his breath coming out in small puffs against Jisung’s back where his head was buried.
“Maybe you should feed them, they look way too skinny,” Hyunjin suggested.
Chan ran a hand over his face. “This is why I didn’t want you guys in here right now, you’re overwhelming them.”
All of the eyes in the room focused on Jisung and Felix and Jisung tried to puff out his chest and square his shoulders to appear as protective as possible. If he made himself a big enough target, maybe Felix would stay safe. There were a lot of them though, enough that they could probably take both of them down easily. Jisung tried to fight as best he could, but he was tired, so tired. He had been giving most of his food to Felix and taking both of their punishments for too long, his body was starting to fail him. But that didn’t matter, Jisung would fight until he couldn’t anymore for Felix’s sake.
“If you want to get them something to eat, then the three of you should go to the kitchen to make something,” Minho suggested, making shooing motions with his hands. “Changbin can join you to supervise.”
Changbin, who had been sitting in a chair with his arms crossed, looking very intimidating with his big muscles up until this point, rolled his eyes, but stood up with a gruff “Let’s go, you don’t want to get on Minho’s bad side.”
All three of them eventually followed Changbin out of the room, but with no shortage of groaning and complaining.
Minho closed the door after they left and Chan shot a sheepish smile towards Jisung and Felix as he rubbed the back of his neck. “Sorry about them, they get a little overexcited sometimes, but they mean well.”
“Is there anything you like to eat that I should tell them to make?” Minho asked, he had his phone out and was looking at the screen.
Jisung didn’t respond to the question; opinion questions were tricky, they were always traps. He wasn’t going to eat anything that they gave him. It was probably going to be drugged. The traffickers liked to drug their food sometimes to keep them compliant, Jisung was good at recognizing the taste of drugs, but sometimes even a small mouthful was enough to make him feel woozy and weird for the rest of the day. It was on those days that Jisung would sometimes lose chunks of time, waking up with bruises that he didn’t have before he ate the contaminated food.
“No? That’s okay, they’ll probably just make soup then.” Minho typed something on his phone before turning it off and slipping it into his pocket.
“You guys know that we’re not going to hurt you, right? We rescued you from that place.” Chan flipped one of the chairs at the table backwards before sitting on it, facing Jisung and Felix in the corner.
Chan was looking straight at Jisung and Jisung wanted nothing more than to flinch back and hide from Chan’s piercing gaze, but he didn’t move, he had to protect Felix. Felix was relying on him to keep them safe.
Minho sat back down on the floor in between Jisung and Chan. “Chan rescued me from a trafficking ring many years ago. I didn’t trust him either then. It’s okay that you’re scared, just let us help you.”
“I’m not scared,” Jisung responded without thinking, cursing himself after the words came out of his mouth. He always got in trouble for speaking without thinking first.
But the hits that Jisung had braced for never came, Minho and Chan just sent Jisung almost identical pitying looks.
“What about Felix?”
Felix tensed at the mention of his name. “What about him?” Jisung was on the defensive now. If nothing else, he was going to keep all of the attention, all of the future punishments focused on himself. Felix didn’t deserve this, any of it. He was just a poor hybrid that had ventured into the wrong part of town on his trip to Korea. He couldn’t fend for himself, didn’t know how to take the hits like Jisung did, didn’t even know how to speak more than basic Korean.
Minho put up his hands in a placating gesture. “I didn’t mean to agitate you, I’m sorry.”
Jisung just glared back in response. The mention of Felix’s name had almost erased the shakiness from Jisung’s body, the need to protect overpowering his fear.
Just then, a group of three rambunctious hybrids and one very buff human tumbled through the door, carrying two bowls of steaming soup that they somehow managed not to spill. They did, at least, quiet slightly when they took in the tension in the atmosphere and the way Jisung’s hair was sticking straight up.
“We brought soup,” Jeongin announced, holding up one of the bowls.
“It’s chicken noodle,” Hyunjin chimed in, holding up the two spoons and napkins in his hand.
They slid the two bowls of soup and the utensils towards Felix and Jisung before backing away to give them space to grab the food. Jisung didn’t move towards the bowls and neither did Felix.
Jeongin’s face dropped at their lack of reaction to the food. “Aren’t you hungry?”
Seungmin ruffled Jeongin’s hair lovingly. “Of course they are, but I bet they’re too overwhelmed and stressed to eat right now. They’ve gone through a lot today.”
Jeongin made a face that made Jisung question if he’d actually been trafficked like Changbin had said. Jeongin just seemed to have retained too much of his innocence to have gone through that sort of hell.
Hyunjin tilted his head and looked at Jisung. “You probably think it’s drugged, don’t you?” He dropped to his knees before Jisung could answer and reached for the bowls, taking a sip out of each one. “See, it’s safe. So if you want to eat it, you can do it without worry. We won’t drug you though, ever.” Hyunjin paused. “Unless we need to for a medical procedure or something, but we’ll ask your permission before we do that. Like for my eye.” He pulled back his hair to show the scar that cut across his forehead, across his missing eye, and down his cheek. “It was too damaged so Seungmin had to remove it, he’s our medic.”
Jisung didn’t say anything and just eyed Hyunjin warily.
“Changbin said that your name was Jisung and that the hybrid hiding behind you is Felix.” Hyunjin leaned over to try and see Felix better. Jisung hissed at him, his hair puffing up in defense as Felix’s claws dug into his back again.
“Sorry.” Hyunjin held up his hands and backed away.
Jisung decided he didn’t like the rabbit hybrid, he was too friendly. It was suspicious.
Chan stood up and clapped his hands, Jisung flinched at the loud sound and Felix’s claws embedded themselves in his back. “We’re going to go have a team meeting in the computer room for the next 2 hours, but you two are welcome to stay here and eat your soup and when you’re done you can go to the room that Jeongin, Seungmin, and Hyunjin prepared for you. It’s a more enclosed space where I bet you’ll feel safer. We’ll leave that door and the door to the bathroom open for you.”
And with that, the 6 of them filtered out of the room, leaving Jisung and Felix alone. Once everyone was gone, Jisung waited a few minutes before whispering to Felix in English. “It’s okay now, they’re gone for the next 2 hours.”
Felix slowly lifted up his head and then scooted out from the corner when he realized that they were truly alone in the room.
“Sorry about your shirt, and back,” Felix said once he uncurled his hands from their clenched position in Jisung’s shirt.
“It’s all good.” Jisung swung his arm around Felix’s shoulders, wincing at the strain it put on his back. “No harm, no foul.”
“Can we eat the food?” Felix asked, face lighting up when he saw the two bowls of soup.
“Yeah, Hyunjin, the one with the scar, ate some to prove it wasn’t drugged.”
At Jisung’s affirmation, Felix instantly dug into the soup, eating like he hadn’t in days. With a pang, Jisung realized he hadn’t, neither of them had. The captors had wanted to take Felix away a couple of days prior and Jisung had fought them tooth and nail, earning himself several lashes and both of them some time locked down in the cellar.
It was dark and wet and cold and awful down there. That’s where Stray Kids had found the two of them, huddled together trying to keep warm. Apparently all of the other hybrids had been taken to some sort of safe place, already evacuated, but Jisung and Felix had been forgotten about in the cellar.
Jisung blamed the cold on his complacency when Seungmin had found them down there and told them to follow him to one of their vans. They had passed the fighting on their way, Jisung covering Felix’s eyes and ears so that he didn’t have to see the gruesome scene of Stray Kids shooting their previous captors.
Now they were sitting in what looked like Stray Kids’ dining room, eating the soup that they had made. Well, Felix was eating the soup. He had finished off the first bowl and started on the second after Jisung ate a couple of spoonfuls and then said he couldn’t eat anymore. In truth, Jisung was still terribly hungry, his stomach was doing somersaults, but he would rather go hungry than deny Felix any food that he wanted.
“What do you want to do?” Jisung asked as Felix finished off the other bowl of soup.
“Huh?”
Jisung realized that Felix hadn’t understood Chan when he told them about the room that the others had prepared for them. “Chan, the leader one with the hair bleached to hell, said that they had prepared a room for us that we could go to if we wanted. It would be smaller and more secure than this open space.”
“Let’s go there then, I don’t like how open this room is, it’s too easy for them to get to us.”
Jisung agreed and stood up, his injured leg protesting at the action. Sitting in the damp cellar had really not helped the big gash on his thigh.
“Is it infected?” Felix asked, glancing worriedly at Jisung’s injured leg.
“No, it’ll be fine,” Jisung lied with a smile. “Just give me your shoulder and I’ll be all good.”
Felix helped Jisung put his arm around his shoulder and they limped out of the room, Felix bearing the majority of Jisung’s weight. Jisung felt bad for making Felix practically carry him through the hallway, but his leg burned more and more with every step and his back ached, causing Jisung to pant in pain. If he just took deep breaths and focused on putting one foot in front of the other, it would be okay.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Just peachy,” Jisung panted. “Did you know that adrenaline is one hell of a drug?”
Felix gave Jisung another worried look, but it’s not like there was much that could be done. Neither of them trusted Stray Kids enough to tell them about Jisung’s injuries.
“I’ll be fine once we can lay down somewhere comfortable.”
“Good thing we’re almost there.”
After what felt like a lifetime of pain, but was probably at most ten minutes, the two of them stumbled into the room with an open door. There was a queen size bed in the corner of the room, topped with plenty of blankets and pillows and a couple of stuffed animals. It was the most comfortable set up that Jisung had seen in a long time and he wanted nothing more than to collapse on the big comfy bed and fall asleep. But he couldn’t afford himself that luxury.
“Under the bed?” he asked Felix. At least the floor was carpeted.
“Yes,” Felix replied, already collecting the blankets and pillows from the bed and showing them underneath. Jisung tried to help, but when he stood up, pain shot through his leg as it collapsed, unable to hold Jisung’s weight.
“I’ll just help out from down here.”
Felix shot Jisung a sharp look at his words, but didn’t say anything, just continued to pass pillows to Jisung.
Once all of the blankets and pillows were under the bed, Felix looked at Jisung and bit his lip, his tail flicking behind him. He clearly wanted to say something, but wasn’t sure if he should.
“Yes?” Jisung prompted.
Felix worried his lip a little more before finally answering. “I have to go to the bathroom.”
“It’s just right across the hall, you saw it, yeah?” Jisung shot Felix a reassuring smile.
“Will you be okay by yourself?”
Jisung thought it was cute that Felix was worrying about him even though he was fine. “Yeah, I’ll be fine. Here.” Jisung scooted more towards the middle of the room. “If I sit here I can see the bathroom and you’ll be able to see me. They should still have an hour left in their meeting, so everything should be okay.”
“Okay…”
As soon as Felix entered the bathroom and closed the door behind him, Jisung pulled at his pant leg. He was lucky his pants were black, the color masking the blood that had soaked through the fabric. Felix wasn’t going to be in the bathroom for long, so Jisung had to work fast.
He pulled at the stiff material until it revealed the gash spanning the expanse of his thigh. It had stopped bleeding a couple of days ago, but now the wound was puffy and oozing yellow, red starting to spread out from the wound and across his leg. Shit. This was worse than Jisung thought. But there was nothing Jisung could do about the infection spreading toxins into his bloodstream, so he quickly pulled his pants back into place before Felix returned from the bathroom.
Once Felix came back to the room, he crawled under the bed, Jisung following close behind him. Beneath the bed wasn’t spacious by any means, but it was comfortable enough for their skinny, malnourished bodies. After arranging all of the blankets and pillows—luxuries that Jisung was unused to, the two of them drifted off to sleep. Jisung had tried to stay awake, knew that he should stay alert to protect Felix, but in the end, he lost the battle against his exhausted body and drifted off into a fitful sleep.