Chapter Text
Seungmin ran his fingers through Chan's hair as he lay with his head in Seungmin's lap, sitting on the steps of the dias that housed the King's throne. Chan sighed. He was hungry and thirsty and tired, but they couldn't do anything about it right now. They couldn't get to the kitchen right now until it was safe, and it wouldn't be safe until Hyunjin was back.
“I'm worried,” Chan murmured. “Are they really gonna be okay?”
“Of course they will,” Seungmin replied, twirling Chan's curls around. “They’re going to be okay.”
“And if not?”
“Someone will come kill us. I don't think we'll get out of here alive if Hyunjin loses.”
Right. That made sense. Chan nodded. “Mm. Well… there's worse people to die with,” he teased.
Seungmin smiled. “Yeah, true. I could die with Jisung . That'd be way worse than dying with you.”
Chan actually managed a laugh, despite how miserable he felt. He just wanted…
The doors were suddenly flung open. They both startled as the doors slammed against and rebounded off the stone walls. Chan shot straight up, eyes wide and expectant. Was he expecting the worst? The best? He couldn't even tell anymore.
But it didn't matter. It was Hyunjin, flanked by Minho and Changbin who had opened the doors for him, followed by the rest. Hyunjin carried a heavy-looking wooden chest in his arms as he stepped into the room, through the doors that had been opened for him. His face was bloody, but Chan couldn't tell whether it was his blood or not.
The blood on his side definitely was. He was wrapped in a white cloth bandage, and a large spot of blood dyed the left side of it red. “What happened?” Seungmin asked when words failed Chan. Seungmin helped Chan to his feet and across the room to meet Hyunjin halfway.
Hyunjin shook his head. “Nothing serious. It'll heal.”
“I told him he shouldn't be carrying that,” Minho said, “but he insisted. Said it's only right for him to be the one to do it, even though it makes him sick.”
Chan's eyes darted to the chest. “What is it?”
Seungmin's lips pressed into a thin line. Then, “Their heads.”
Chan almost choked on his own tongue. “ What? ”
“It's how power transitions around here,” Seungmin explained. “An usurper is too weak to wear the crown if he can't cut off the last head that wore it. The Prince and the King… they're in there, and Hyunjin has to display them on that balcony over there.” He jerked his head in the direction of a door he’d peeked through when they’d first taken refuge in this room; Chan hadn’t ever gotten a look at what was on the other side, nor what even the front of the castle looked like when he was being brought here, so he could only assume that there was a balcony on the other side the overlooked as much of the city as possible. Picturing it made Seungmin’s words sink in that much further.
Oh. Oh. Fuck. “Shit,” Chan breathed. “Okay. Okay, yeah. Whatever you have to do.”
Hyunjin nodded. “Jeongin, will you start looking for the crowns? They must’ve stashed them around here somewhere. Lixie, take Chan to the kitchen and get him some food. He’s hungry.”
Chan crossed his arms and sat back down right where he’d been a moment ago. “I’m not leaving,” he said, aware of how petulant he must look, but not bothered to care. “You already sent me away when you had to fight. I’m waiting here until you’re done with… that, and then we need to talk, okay?”
Hyunjin raised an eyebrow at Chan’s tone. Evidently, he hadn’t expected that sort of backtalk. “About what?” he asked, not moving an inch in any direction.
“You kissed me,” Chan said bluntly, “after all this time of resisting every advance everyone has made, and it’s not fair to not talk about it.”
“Chan…”
“I don’t believe it was the heat of the moment, so don’t bother.”
Hyunjin hesitated, then nodded. Changbin trailed behind him as he headed towards the balcony, leaving the rest of the group to wait in a tense, awkward silence while the dirty work was done. Felix came to sit next to Chan, laying his head on his shoulder and taking one of his hands, murmuring something in that deep voice of his about how it had been a long past couple of weeks and they were so glad to see Chan again, how it was all going to be okay now… That voice was too soothing for Felix’s own good, ugh. Chan was exhausted. It took all his strength to keep from dozing against him; he wanted to curl up in the middle of a stupid pile of all the boys, all loose limbs and bare skin and strong heartbeats to lull him to sleep after all the time he spent unable to rest in that stupid fucking chair he’d been chained to.
He settled against Felix and waited.
It took longer than he would’ve expected it to. But maybe he should’ve expected it to take even longer, all things considered; it was apparently quite the gruesome task, so it would be… odd, wouldn’t it, if Hyunjin—if anyone —could do it easily.
Except maybe Minho, but he was a different breed altogether.
Hyunjin and Changbin reentered the room together, Changbin supporting Hyunjin against him as they walked. Hyunjin held his wound as he walked, but he refused to lower his head or show any weakness in front of his boys. He slowly lowered himself to sit on the other side of Chan, groaning softly as he did. Minho would fuss and fret over him later, surely, but for the time being, everyone stayed where they were as Hyunjin took a deep breath.
“I could never love any of you,” Hyunjin said, “because I could so easily lose you. And if I lost you, I thought… I thought for sure I'd lose everything.” He kept his gaze trained on the floor, a pitiful expression on his face. “How would I be able to lead the entire Rebellion if I couldn't even keep my inner circle safe? And how would I live with myself if I let someone I admitted to—someone I admitted to loving die?” He looked up then, around at everyone, and settled on Chan. “I think everyone understood why I was keeping them all at arm's length, even if they didn't agree with it. But you… From the moment we brought you into our home, it felt like you just… fit in my bed. And that made it a lot harder to keep staying away, but I had to try.”
“I knew you'd been staying out more than usual,” Jeongin said as he made himself comfortable on the floor. It had been a long day; one by one, the guys were getting tired of standing and finding the most comfortable positions to sit. “You were doing it because Chan was making it harder to say no to all of us?”
“I'd wake up in the middle of the night,” Hyunjin said, “and I'd be holding him, and I… I wanted that. With him, with you, with all of you. I couldn't have it yet.”
Jisung rolled his eyes. “You could've, if you weren't such a stubborn bastard. We've literally talked about it a dozen times.”
“Yeah, I've explained it to you a dozen times. I couldn't. ”
“Pussy.”
“Bitch.”
Chan cleared his throat. “So…”
Hyunjin managed a small smile. “So,” he continued, “when you really were taken from me, I… I couldn't hesitate on anything anymore. I had to get you back or I'd never be fully happy again, y'know? And when you came around that corner all in one piece, I just… it didn't matter that we hadn't won yet, because whether we won or lost, I couldn't go another second without you knowing that I really do want you.”
Oh. Hearing that took the air straight out of Chan's lungs. It had definitely been implied in the kiss, but for it to be said was another thing entirely—and he wanted to hear it again and again and again, as many times as Hyunjin would say it.
He practically flung his arms around Hyunjin’s shoulders and buried his face in the taller man's neck. “ Hyunjin, ” he sighed. “I'm back. You have me. You have all of us. We're not going anywhere.”
He could feel the hesitance still lingering in Hyunjin's frame, the worry that he might do something wrong. And he felt Hyunjin fight it off as best as he could, relaxing his muscles and wrapping his own arms around Chan's waist in turn. “Thank you,” he said softly, sweetly. “You have me, too. All of you do.”
For the first time in either of his lives, Chan finally felt wholly whole.
-
In the anime, the last episode had been something of a filler-fluff-fest; the real action took place in episode eleven, leaving the protagonist the last episode to get settled into their post-Rebellion peace as everyone moved into the castle with the Prince and had a lot of sex. It had been… an unsatisfying ending, Chan had thought, though he’d never had high hopes to begin with. He’d just been hoping it wouldn’t be absolute horseshit, and it had been barely above that mark.
But now that it was him? Well…
It was a pain in the ass! In multiple ways! Fuck!
The transition of power went as smoothly as it possibly could have, he supposed; he did his best to support Hyunjin as word spread through the kingdom that the Rebellion had officially succeeded, though Hyunjin told him all he really needed to do was sit there and look pretty. Hyunjin had to tame the remaining military after his usurpation, weed out the dissidents and bolster the numbers again after any potential trouble within the ranks had been quelled, and then he had to send out squadron after squadron to crush small rebellions as they popped up around the kingdom; and while Hyunjin was making sure that the kingdom knew that it sat in his hands and would not continue to follow the path the previous rulers had set it on, the rest of the boys took turns moving all their junk from their shitty little apartment to this big castle they'd claimed.
Moving was a pain in the ass. He'd hated it back in his last life, and he hated it in this one, too. He hated helping fill boxes and move them and unpack them and set everything up again; it was all annoying and tiring and just… so much effort. But the kingdom wouldn't accept any sort of transition of power if their new leaders didn't live in that fucking castle, so there they went, moving all their shit. So, yeah, it was a pain in the ass.
Chan’s day didn't end after they settled in for the night, though. While most of them had little to no energy at the end of the day due to their moving house and settling the kingdom after the usurpation—not to mention laying the groundwork for making all of the social changes Hyunjin had imagined for them over the years—one or two of them always managed to escape the worst of the day's efforts and have just enough heat still boiling in their blood to convince Chan to join them for a quick roll in the sheets.
And considering that Hyunjin's work was overwhelmingly bureaucratic at the moment, it was usually him. How could Chan possibly say no to him after wanting him all this time, even if he was tired? Hyunjin didn't ask anything unreasonable of him, anyway; “We don't have to,” he'd murmur against Chan's ear as he pulled him close in bed, “but… but if you want to, you can just leave it all to me.”
Chan folded like he was made of paper.
It was like that day in and day out. Hyunjin had… uh… a backlog of desires that he'd purposefully held himself back from, so now that he felt like he didn't have to hold back anymore, he wasn't going to. Chan wasn't always sure he'd be able to keep up, but he damn sure wasn't gonna give up.
So that was the other pain in Chan's ass.
He found that he enjoyed that one much more, though.
Now, with the window cracked and the soft sounds of the night wafting through, Chan let out a content sigh as Hyunjin ran a finger down the line of his spine. This bed was so much bigger than the one they'd shared in the apartment, softer and oozing an air of expense; Chan wasn't even sure any of the beds he'd slept in back in the modern world had been as comfortable, but maybe that was just because none of the other beds he'd ever laid in had Hyunjin in them. Hyunjin's bare skin against his own felt like heaven, and the harmony of Hyunjin's breathing and heartbeat were a sort of music that couldn't be replicated. God, he needed to be able to sleep next to someone like this every night for the rest of his life.
It wouldn't always be Hyunjin. It wouldn't always be one of Hyunjin’s large hands sliding down to gently knead at his thigh, kissing Chan's forehead and murmuring such sweet things as, I love you, Channie. Thank you for being here for me whenever I need you.
Sometimes it would be Felix’s small hands holding him and his deep voice praising him. Sometimes it would be Jeongin nibbling Chan's earlobe and grinning about how it made him shiver. Sometimes it would be Jisung pawing at his arms and praising his strength. Sometimes it would be him working his fucking ass off to make someone’s eyes roll back. Nothing was ever for certain until it was happening, and he found that it didn’t intimidate him nearly as much as he’d thought it might.
“What’re you thinking about?” Hyunjin asked as he began tracing circles over Chan’s skin with his fingertips. “You’re awfully quiet, even for being tired.”
Chan huffed amusedly and snuggled in a little closer. He couldn’t tell Hyunjin the full truth—that he’d come here from another world, that he’d been lonely and miserable in his past life and that this world was just a story where he came from, but that he was endlessly grateful that he’d ended up here anyway—but he could, at least, tell part of it. “Just thinkin’ that I didn’t think… I didn’t think you’d all accept me the way you did, and I definitely didn’t think we’d end up like this. And that I can’t begin to tell you how happy I am that you did, even if it took a little while.”
And it took being taken prisoner, but that was neither here nor there.
Hyunjin took a slow, deep breath, the sort Chan had learned he sometimes did when he was deeply considering something. Then, “I’m sorry I made you wait so long, and I’m thankful that the others were able to hold you when I couldn’t. And that you were able to forgive me.”
“There was nothing to forgive, Hyunjin. I understand why you waited.”
“But I made you wait—made everyone wait—for so long… ”
“It’s over. We’re here. I’m in your arms, and tomorrow you’re gonna go settle another bureaucratic nightmare, and one day this entire kingdom will look just the way you always wanted it to.”
“You have so much faith in me. Thank you.”
“Mm. You’re easy to believe in.”
Although, Chan didn’t really understand what was so fundamentally different about this version of the story and the original version that had resulted in Hyunjin’s victory. Surely Hyunjin and his boys had been just as skilled in the original version, right? So why had they lost that time but won this time? Surely it wasn’t as simple as the protagonist switched sides, right?
…Right?
God, that was totally it, wasn’t it? He’d been placed into the protagonist’s body and gone off-script, and the story had changed itself to match his actions. It wouldn’t make sense for the protagonist’s side to lose; it wouldn’t make sense for the Rebellion to be considered the bad guys in this version if they were the ones Chan had chosen to align himself with, and it wouldn’t make sense for them to fail when the protagonist was supporting them. If he’d kept his head down and done what was expected of him, lived in the shoes of the original protagonist and flirted with that nurse on that first day, then… then it would’ve played out the way it had when he’d watched the show, right? He’d be in this bed with the Prince instead of the Rebel Leader, he’d be getting passed arou—no, he wouldn’t be getting passed around a different harem; he’d be making the rounds in a different harem, because the original protagonist had only submitted to the Prince and the Soldier. Y’know, the most masculine ones. It was dumb. The whole show was stupid!
He was so glad he’d changed it. He buried his face in Hyunjin’s chest and said, “I love you, Hyunjin. I love being with you. I love everything you’ve done. Thank you for having me.”
Hyunjin kissed the top of Chan’s head. “I love you. I hope… I hope the dust settles soon so we can all relax a little more.”
Mm. Whether everything settled soon or not, they were bringing Hyunjin’s big dreams to life, and that was worth more to Chan than any amount of quiet peace.
The door opened. Seungmin slipped inside, looking unusually shy, asking whether he could come lay with them for a little while.
Oh, yes, Chan was so, so very grateful.