By the time Mark reached the bar, Shao had already found Taeyong.

He rushed towards the two, concern creasing his brow and turning down the corners of his mouth, barely able to keep himself from shaking. Taeyong was on his back next to a wall, on a bed of glass shards, multiple tiny cuts littering his bare arms and face. That wasn't what concerned him, though. No—what concerned him was that Taeyong didn't seem to be breathing.

Mark was on his knees before Shao even had the time to look up. Her lips were pressed in a thin line, and she was kneeling next to the man with a defeated air. Kai was next to him in a second, hesitant and worried. "Where's Lucas?"

"Is he breathing?" Mark asked, the words sounding rough-edged through the dryness of his throat. "Did you give him CPR?"

"I don't know how," Shao said helplessly, and Mark's heart turned to ice. "I did push his chest a couple of times, though. I don't know if that works."

He swallowed against the scream threatening to climb up his throat, and turned over Taeyong's limp wrist. The pulse was alive, but thready, too strong for him to be dead but too weak for him to be alive long enough. Mark placed his arm at his side with shaking hands and pressed an ear to his chest, his own heart beating wildly in his.

"He's..." The boy swallowed again. His hands were shaking too much, and there was a loud buzzing in his ears that didn't seem like it was going to go away soon. "He..."

Shao sat back on her haunches, silent. There was a hesitant fear in her eyes as they flicked between Mark's face and Taeyong's. "Mark—"

"No, no, no, no," Mark chanted as he pressed his ice-cold fingertips to the base of Taeyong's throat. So many ways to check a pulse, and Mark was going to go through every single one of them until he got one. "No."

Kai was frozen. The rest of the members had dispersed into the bar, using the split-up method to look for Lucas, but Mark wished someone was here to help him. To help Taeyong. He placed his hands over the man's limp chest and started pushing, singing along to Stayin' Alive.

"What are you doing?" Shao asked, but Mark wasn't listening. He was pushing, as hard and deep as he dared, trying not to mess up the lyrics and focusing on his own breath as he sang.

His pulse was weak and fluttering, getting weaker by the second, and Mark's eyes were beginning to sting. No pulse. He sat back and covered his mouth with his hand, trembling all over. "No, no, no," he whispered into his fingers, sweaty and cold. How could he live in Taeyong's house when Taeyong wasn't even in it? He'd worried so much about his own safety, but he'd put someone else's safety on the line to keep himself out of trouble. Someone besides Taeyong. Someone out there really needed Taeyong back—

He went cold as a new thought struck him. Jaemin.

"What's happening here?" He didn't look up at the new voice, recognizing it to be Lucas's. Kai didn't even let out a breath of relief. All he heard was some shuffling as the man knelt next to him, and an uncomfortable warmth that wrapped him. "Is he...?"

Lucas was bare-chested, his shirt hanging in tatters around his shoulders, looking like it had been burnt right off his torso. Thankfully, his pants—which were a part of his suit—were fine, but the man was sizzling. Quite literally.

"There's no pulse," Mark said, robotically neutral, but his mind was in pieces, all of his thoughts screaming he's gone with the ugly disorder of the singing of insects, in chaos and disbelief.

Lucas stared at him for a moment, silent as stone. "Was there a pulse when you found him here?" he asked. "How long has it been gone?"

"A few seconds," he replied in a whisper. He had gone as pale as a sheet. He's gone he's gone he can't be gone. "But—"

"Hit me."

Now it was Mark's turn to stare at him. "What?"

"As hard as you can." Lucas gave him a firm look and gestured towards his semi-clothed torso, getting to his feet. "Hit me."

Mark stared up at him. Lucas towered over him. Yes, he was squatting, but he was pretty sure he'd still be shorter if he stood up. "But—"

"Oh, for god's sake," Shao interrupted with a huff, pushing past him and moving towards Lucas instead. "Why do none of you ever listen to any of you? Even I understand that Supers know shit about themselves, so—"

Mark's eyes followed the blur of the flat of her hand as it swung towards Lucas, connecting with his chest with a noise that sounded like someone falling on hard-packed earth. Lucas doubled over with the force of the smack, but he caught the spark in his eyes before he did—a literal spark of fire, swirling like a storm in his irises, burning orange and gold.

Lucas's hands hit Taeyong's lifeless chest softly, but the latter's back arched so much that it looked like Lucas's hands had been defibrillators instead. Taeyong gasped, eyes snapping wide open, and he collapsed back on the floor like a ton of bricks. For a second, he lay there, choking and curling like a fish out of water, as color flowed into his cheeks and life returned to his body in the form of a tremble.

Kai gaped at Lucas, more surprised by the manner of the feat than the feat itself. "How did you do that?"

Lucas shrugged; his face grim. "I can absorb and transfer energy," he said like it was no big deal. "The energy was sucked out of his body, and when I transferred the energy from the hit into his body, it turned into the form it needed: heat."

"Oh." Kai's eyes widened. "Is that what you did when Baekhyun's lighting struck this place?"

Taeyong sat up groggily, rubbing at his neck. "What the hell just happened?"

Before anyone could answer, Mark threw himself onto the man, pressing his face into the crook of his neck. Taeyong reeled, almost pushed over by the force of the tackle-hug.

"I thought you were gone for a second," Mark sniffled, voice muffled from where his mouth was pressed against Taeyong's shirt. "I really did."

Taeyong hesitated only for a second before bringing his arms around the boy, simultaneously balancing himself and pulling him closer. "I'm right here, kiddo," he said gently, looking at him fondly.

"This is adorable," Shao said, wiping a fake tear from her eye. "I always knew my idea of letting him stay over at your place was going to bring you two together."

Taeyong glared at her, but it was more playful than serious. "Way to ruin the moment."

It was another few seconds before Mark finally released Taeyong. He sat down on the floor, counting up to four and back in his head to let himself calm down. "That was, like, the scariest experience of my life," he said. "Please don't ever do that again."

Taeyong shot him a half-formed smile, and Lucas cleared his throat. "What happened?" he asked, picking off the scraps of his burnt t-shirt from his chest. "I saw you running in when the lightning happened, but I had already started taking the energy in. Is that why you—?"

Taeyong shook his head, sitting up with some difficulty. The cuts on the exposed parts of his skin were still bleeding, some of it running down his arm, but otherwise, he seemed fine. "I saw someone," he said, frowning as if the memory disturbed him. "I was still woozy from pain when I did, so I might have hallucinated the whole thing, though."

"What did you see, Taeyong?"

He hesitated, distractedly picking at the tiny pieces of glass still embedded in his skin. "A man," he said. "A really pale man, with bloodred lips and ice-blue eyes, but everything else was white. Really, really white." He paused, letting the words sink in. "I think I saw an angel."

"Doesn't matter what you think, we can't have any loose ends," Lucas said impatiently. "We probably didn't manage to get our hands on the fox guy, either, since Baekhyun and Taemin are still gone."

"Speaking of Baekhyun and Taemin, where the hell are they, anyway?" Kai asked. "I know Ten is supposed to be guarding AEOLUS, but I haven't seen or heard them since I left."

"Here." They turned when the new voice spoke, just in time to see the duo emerge from the flaming entrance to the bathrooms. "Unfortunately, we couldn't find anything of interest, except maybe some partly-charred toilet paper," Baekhyun said with a disappointed frown. He stopped, frown fading as he noticed the grave expressions on the group's faces. "What happened?"

"Oh, this is good." Kai chuckled dryly, shaking his head. "Taeyong said he literally glimpsed heaven."

|

I MET A CAT

AND ALSO A LOT OF PUPPERS