pirate king (pirate!au) ➵ ateez ✔️

nature

It's well past midnight when a strange noise startles you awake.

The sound starts off soft, barely rousing you from your slumber as your sleep addled mind tries to convince you that it's nothing, cajoling you back to into your dreams. Embarrassingly, you almost let it pull you under for a short moment before the sound gets louder and louder, unrelenting and interspersed with high pitched cries. A sleepy frown pulls at your face as you try to figure out just what the commotion is without opening your heavy eyes, before horror strikes you and your eyes fly open of their own volition.

It's the sound of Yunho moaning in pain.

Fear jolts through you and you jerk upright in the bed, rubbing at your eyes even as you scramble to Yunho's side, nearly tripping over when your legs get caught up in the sheets. Catching your balance, you rush to the bed opposite yours, glancing over at Yunho's face.

He doesn't seem to have awoken yet, to your confusion, but he's flailing around in the blankets as if he's trying to reach for something, whimpering with his eyes squeezed shut. There's unintelligible noise falling from his lips and you lean down to hear him more clearly, but your heart sinks in your chest when the word repeats itself in your ears over and over again.

"Gunho... I'm sorry, Gunho..."

You stare upon the pale, ashen face of Jeong Yunho as he calls out softly for his younger brother repeatedly, the very same person who had stabbed him in the gut without a second glance. Even after being betrayed, even after being backstabbed, even in his feverish, weakened state...

He still won't stop reaching out for his brother's hand.

Anguish, so raw that it almost feels real, claws at your insides and you find yourself reaching out for Yunho's outstretched hand, wanting to provide comfort to him in anyway you possibly can. Yunho's fingers close around your hand in a vice like grip, clutching at you desperately like he's a drowning man and you're some sort of lifeline in the middle of an endless ocean. It hurts, but you can't bring yourself to pull your hand away.

Then you freeze.

Because Yunho's eyes are open.

You almost fall off the bed in a shock, even though your master had warned you beforehand that his anaesthesias tended to have a weaker effect on the older battlemaster, you had never expected it to wear off so quickly. Recovering from your surprise as fast as you can, you wave a hesitant hand in Yunho's face.

"Yunho? Yunho, can you see me?"

But Yunho doesn't respond, merely blinking up at you as his eyes wander back and forth, flitting about like a dancing butterfly before they finally settle on the spot right at your left shoulder and a wide, joyous smile blooms on his pale face. You frown as nerves start to creep up in you, uneasiness settling deep in your gut. What's happening?

"Gunho... you came back to me."

Every muscle in your body turns to ice at those words, your hand tightening on Yunho's unconsciously. He thinks you're his brother.

You search his eyes carefully like your master has taught you, finally recognising the signs that you see there. The hazy, unfocused gaze, dilated pupils, shallow breathing and incoherent mumbling, seeing something that isn't quite there. They all point towards the same thing.

Yunho is hallucinating.

There's nothing you can do for him. If you had to guess, the poison in Yunho's bloodstream was probably some sort of hallucinogen that's finally starting to show its effects, and without a proper antidote, there's no way that you can help him in any way. What you can do is to merely keep Yunho calm and his heart rate under control, preventing further spread of poison through his body.