run for the skyline
title: run for the skyline | [song]
pairing: taekwoon/sanghyuk
rating: pg-13
word count: 2,617
summary: sanghyuk looks to taekwoon to free him from his thoughts.
"How long do you think it would take for us to fall from up here?"
Taekwoon was startled from his thoughts by the question. He looked over and saw Sanghyuk leaning over the railing of the bridge, his auburn-dyed hair hanging down and blocking his eyes from Taekwoon's view. Under the bridge was the main road in and out of the city, almost as busy as a highway with cars speeding in either direction. Like many of the other bridges that pedestrians walked on throughout the city it was about one hundred feet above the roads. Unlike the other bridges, it lacked the blue neon lights on the side that marked it as a walkway. It was older than most of them and had thus far managed to avoid the constant cycle of destruction and reconstruction that everything else had fallen victim to. Even historical centers were occasionally revamped, but only small details each time so that the only way it would ever be noticed would be by comparing two photographs taken fifty years apart. Due to the lack of neon lighting, the pair's shadowed figures couldn't be seen from the road without a kind of scrutiny that was impossible in a vehicle going nearly one hundred kilometers-per-hour.
Sanghyuk found a loose pebble against the concrete and nudged it with the toe of his bright green running shoes (even if he wasn't an athlete himself, he found the extra support more comfortable than average sneakers). He waited for a lull in the traffic and then with a jab sent it free-falling to the road. Taekwoon watched it but it was too small to be seen after it had fallen half of the distance.
"Not fast enough," he finally answered and grabbed onto the bridge's railing with both hands. He had been drinking an iced coffee earlier in the night, but finished it and thrown away the cup before they had reached the bridge. He hadn't minded the absence before, but suddenly he became aware of how empty his hands were. He tapped his fingers and listened to the small "ding" noises when his nails occasionally came into contact with the metal. He could have taken Sanghyuk's hand in his if he wanted to, but the real question was if Sanghyuk wanted to, and Taekwoon had never been good at reading moods. "You know I hate it when you talk like that."
Sanghyuk shrugged his shoulders in response. "I wasn't actually going to do it," he clarified even though Taekwoon didn't need him to, "I was only curious." And Taekwoon knew this, he had always been aware of it, but the amount of questions and ponderings due to Sanghyuk's morbid curiosity had increased a disturbing amount within the month.
Taekwoon returned his focus to Sanghyuk's hands. They seemed perfectly clean, as despite the fact that he had spent all day cooped up inside studying, writing in the form of ink or graphite had become obsolete unless one was an artist (which Sanghyuk had proven many a time he was not). Yes, at a glance they seemed perfectly clean. However, at an attentive look such as what Taekwoon was giving, it was clear that was not the case. His hands were calloused rather than smooth despite his youth, and no matter how much he washed there always seemed to be dirt under his nails. This was due to an interest in machinery he had taken up as a small child that had grown as he did. As he had begun transitioning into adulthood it became his only link to his father who had been killed in a traffic accident shortly after he entered university. Perhaps that had been the beginning of Sanghyuk's fixation on death.
"Are you listening?"
He snapped out of his thoughts and brought his gaze to Sanghyuk's face. His lips were parted slightly and in his eyes swam a puzzled expression. Taekwoon answered with a smile, but it was a weak effort and gone as soon as it appeared. "Yeah, yeah. It's cool."
Sanghyuk didn't buy it. "You have no idea what I was talking about."
Taekwoon conceded defeat and shook his head. "I'm sorry." He moved his arms so he was leaning on the railing on his elbows and rested his chin on the backs of his hands.
In the silence, Sanghyuk made his own conclusion. "Is everything okay? Do you still have work?"
A real smile made it's way onto Taekwoon's face, a flash of white teeth visible as he chuckled. "Everything is fine," he assured him. Taekwoon himself had never graduated high school, and therefore never made it to university, and he made his living in an only slightly less-than-honest way. He spent most nights scavenging junkyards and looking for spare parts to sell - things that were still useful with a bit of TLC but easily replaceable to those in the financial position to do so. Usually he only found spare cogs and gears, but occasionally he would find parts of cyborgs. The cyborgs themselves were illegal and therefore usually disposed of in a haste and not destroyed properly which meant that sometimes he would be lucky enough to find entire limbs. This made his job easier, as after he salvaged the parts Taekwoon made his money by selling them to the same people who made the discarded robotics. When he wasn't foraging for parts, he was running errands for the men he sold to. He typically made deliveries for them, knowing nothing about his cargo other than the fact that it was more than likely illegal. He knew he had his job due to the fact that he didn't ask questions and had no tie to law enforcement, and given that he still had interest in getting paid he made sure to keep it that way.
Sanghyuk had started to chew on his nails, biting off a thumbnail and moving onto his index finger.
"Don't do that," Taekwoon chastised, reaching to pull the hand from his mouth as if he were a child, "Your hands are filthy."
Sanghyuk smiled sheepishly, still with his nail between his teeth, and it was hard to tell because it was so dark but for a moment Taekwoon could have sworn he saw an embarrassed flush on his face. He turned his head away but looked at Taekwoon from the corner of his eyes. A small smirk pulled at the corner of his lips and slowly grew into a real, toothy smile. Taekwoon knew this look: it meant he was up to something.
"What?" He failed to keep his apprehension out of his tone of voice.
Sanghyuk started fishing around in his pockets for something, but he still wouldn't share whatever great idea had popped into that over-active brain of his. "Got it!" he shouted with enthusiasm, and Taekwoon saw a flash of silver and heard the light jangle of metal as he pulled whatever it was from his pocket. "Remember when I had that summer job at the Garage?" He was holding a silver key between his index finger and thumb, and several other keys dangled from the key-ring it was attached to.
"Sanghyuk..."
"Come on," he whined, "don't be such a scaredy-cat!" Before Taekwoon could object further, Sanghyuk had already started to run towards him. He grabbed the older in the crook of his arm and pulled him behind himself. He was already smiling wide, something that even Taekwoon didn't get to see genuinely on any old night.
The Garage was on a underdeveloped side of the city, and there were several times where Taekwoon stumbled over uneven sidewalks or slipped on a walkway that was nothing but loose pebbles. "If I sprain my ankle I'm forwarding you the bill," he muttered between his teeth as he regained his balance. Sanghyuk merely cackled in response and wouldn't slow down his steps to let Taekwoon catch up. At this hour of the night, the entire area was deserted. There was nothing but the scattered green storage warehouses that made up the "Garage," as it had come to be called. Sanghyuk ran to the small wooden shed on the farthest side of the yard from them, kicking up gravel as he went, and pulled the keys from his pockets to unlock the door. He didn't hold it open for Taekwoon.
By the time Taekwoon had caught up and was outside the door, it swung out in his face and Sanghyuk bounded out of the warehouse and ran in the direction they had just come from. He was about to call after him and ask what he was looking for when he saw the younger skid to a stop at one of the warehouses. He watched as Sanghyuk looked through the key-ring and tried to put a key into the lock, discovered it was the wrong one, and tried a second one that was the correct one.
He finally acknowledged Taekwoon's presence and turned to ask, "Can you help me with this?" Taekwoon didn't ask questions - he never did - and leaned down to grab the pull-up door and together they pushed it up enough so they could get in. Behind the door was a sleek, black sports car, with blue neon lights lining the bottom and the tires. It was very obviously worth more money than Taekwoon would see in his lifetime, and he was entranced by it until he felt something hit his left shoulder.
Laying on the ground, half a foot from his feet, were the keys to the car. Sanghyuk had just tossed them to him.
"That wasn't even a bad throw," he heard him whine from the passenger's side as he stooped over to pick up the keys.
"Why do I have to drive?"
"Because when I drive you always gripe about motion-sickness and yell at me for going too fast."
Taekwoon rolled his eyes, but unlocked the car nonetheless and slid into the driver's seat. The car rumbled to life as he turned the keys in the ignition, and he bit his lip and looked at Sanghyuk, but the younger was too busy messing with the radio controls to notice.
He pulled out of the storage warehouse carefully. He knew his caution was inconsequential, given that the car itself had been loud enough before Sanghyuk turned on the radio (he could feel the very, very heavy bass line to the multi-layered electronic song in his chest). He drove slowly as he looked for an exit to the road, and ended up doing two laps around the yard before he found it.
Nothing had to be said for Taekwoon to know Sanghyuk wanted him to take it to the highway. In the corner of his eye, Sanghyuk fiddled with more buttons. He had figured out how to roll down all of the windows, and the wind hitting their skin raised goosebumps on Taekwoon's arms that he hoped the other wouldn't notice. Sanghyuk pressed a button on the dash and then the roof to the car folded back. Once he had figured that out, he leaned back in his seat and stared up at the neon signs that burned holes in the sky.
Meanwhile, Taekwoon had his teeth clenched, which he only noticed because his jaw had started to ache. He had just pulled onto the highway, and despite the fact that nobody else was on the road he was overly conscious of the fact that this car was very, very expensive and also very, very not theirs. Sanghyuk looked over at him and then yelled something over the music that Taekwoon couldn't quite hear. He turned down the radio before he repeated himself, "You need to loosen up, you look tense!" Before Taekwoon could ask him what he meant, Sanghyuk threw his arms in the air and yelled, a loud "woo-hoo!" usually reserved for when he beat Taekwoon at video games. He then did it again, but this time he stood up, and only then did Taekwoon realize that neither of them had buckled their seatbelts.
Before he could stop himself, his right hand shot over to grab Sanghyuk's arm and pull him down. "What are you doing?" he didn't even realize he had raised his voice, "What if you fall?"
Sanghyuk pouted at him and pulled his arm out of Taekwoon's grasp. "I'm fine, you should try it."
"I'm driving!"
"So?"
If Taekwoon had been talking to anyone other than Sanghyuk he wouldn't have believed his ears, but over time he had gotten used to the younger's absent sense of self-preservation. This didn't mean that it failed to shock him - it never did.
He didn't try to stop Sanghyuk as he stood again, he just kept his eyes on the passing exit signs so he could keep track of how far they had gone. Suddenly, he felt a hand on his shoulder and the next thing he knew he was being pulled to his feet. The car swerved dangerously as he struggled to keep his hands on the wheel and pull himself out of Sanghyuk's grasp. He managed to sit down and regain control of the car before they ended up upside-down, but he wasn't able to stop them from going off of the road.
His nostrils flared and his hands shook, and it took everything in him not to scream. He had only ever yelled at Sanghyuk once, over a lost cat that Sanghyuk had nothing to do with, and he had scared him off for days. He took several deep breaths, enough to feel his ribs expand, before he spoke, "What the hell was that?"
Sanghyuk wasn't looking at him, his eyes trained on a spot on the dashboard right in front of him. "I'm sorry," he mumbled almost inaudibly. All of the bright amusement from before had left his eyes.
"You need to stop being so reckless," Taekwoon continued. "What if we had hit something?"
"But we didn't."
"What if the car had flipped over?"
"But it didn't-"
"I don't care that it didn't!" Taekwoon was on the verge of tears and his voice shook. "It doesn't mean it can't happen."
Sanghyuk finally looked up when he heard the older's voice crack. "No, no," he reached over and used his thumb to wipe a stray tear from the corner of his eye. "Taekwoon, please don't cry." Taekwoon pulled away from his touch and turned his gaze to the steering wheel.
"You scare me sometimes, Sanghyuk."
The words hung in the air for a while. He didn't know how to respond. He opened and closed his mouth several times, but nothing he could think to say seemed sufficient enough.
"I'm sorry," he repeated at last, and before Taekwoon could turn his head to say anything he quickly followed up with, "I know it's not enough, it can't make up for it or reassure you," he paused, "but I'm really sorry."
Taekwoon looked at him, and even though his eyes glistened he appeared to have regained control over his tears. "I just wish you wouldn't take so many risks," he told him. "I wish you would take care of yourself. Can you do that for me?"
Sanghyuk hesitated, unsure if it was a promise he could keep, before he finally nodded in agreement.
Taekwoon smiled lightly, tears finally gone from his eyes. Then he did what he had been waiting to do all night: he grabbed Sanghyuk by the back of the neck and kissed him. It was a quick kiss, although their lips lingered against each other for a moment, they didn't deepen it. "Thank you," he said.
The second time it was Sanghyuk who pulled Taekwoon in for a kiss.
pairing: taekwoon/sanghyuk
rating: pg-13
word count: 2,617
summary: sanghyuk looks to taekwoon to free him from his thoughts.
"How long do you think it would take for us to fall from up here?"
Taekwoon was startled from his thoughts by the question. He looked over and saw Sanghyuk leaning over the railing of the bridge, his auburn-dyed hair hanging down and blocking his eyes from Taekwoon's view. Under the bridge was the main road in and out of the city, almost as busy as a highway with cars speeding in either direction. Like many of the other bridges that pedestrians walked on throughout the city it was about one hundred feet above the roads. Unlike the other bridges, it lacked the blue neon lights on the side that marked it as a walkway. It was older than most of them and had thus far managed to avoid the constant cycle of destruction and reconstruction that everything else had fallen victim to. Even historical centers were occasionally revamped, but only small details each time so that the only way it would ever be noticed would be by comparing two photographs taken fifty years apart. Due to the lack of neon lighting, the pair's shadowed figures couldn't be seen from the road without a kind of scrutiny that was impossible in a vehicle going nearly one hundred kilometers-per-hour.
Sanghyuk found a loose pebble against the concrete and nudged it with the toe of his bright green running shoes (even if he wasn't an athlete himself, he found the extra support more comfortable than average sneakers). He waited for a lull in the traffic and then with a jab sent it free-falling to the road. Taekwoon watched it but it was too small to be seen after it had fallen half of the distance.
"Not fast enough," he finally answered and grabbed onto the bridge's railing with both hands. He had been drinking an iced coffee earlier in the night, but finished it and thrown away the cup before they had reached the bridge. He hadn't minded the absence before, but suddenly he became aware of how empty his hands were. He tapped his fingers and listened to the small "ding" noises when his nails occasionally came into contact with the metal. He could have taken Sanghyuk's hand in his if he wanted to, but the real question was if Sanghyuk wanted to, and Taekwoon had never been good at reading moods. "You know I hate it when you talk like that."
Sanghyuk shrugged his shoulders in response. "I wasn't actually going to do it," he clarified even though Taekwoon didn't need him to, "I was only curious." And Taekwoon knew this, he had always been aware of it, but the amount of questions and ponderings due to Sanghyuk's morbid curiosity had increased a disturbing amount within the month.
Taekwoon returned his focus to Sanghyuk's hands. They seemed perfectly clean, as despite the fact that he had spent all day cooped up inside studying, writing in the form of ink or graphite had become obsolete unless one was an artist (which Sanghyuk had proven many a time he was not). Yes, at a glance they seemed perfectly clean. However, at an attentive look such as what Taekwoon was giving, it was clear that was not the case. His hands were calloused rather than smooth despite his youth, and no matter how much he washed there always seemed to be dirt under his nails. This was due to an interest in machinery he had taken up as a small child that had grown as he did. As he had begun transitioning into adulthood it became his only link to his father who had been killed in a traffic accident shortly after he entered university. Perhaps that had been the beginning of Sanghyuk's fixation on death.
"Are you listening?"
He snapped out of his thoughts and brought his gaze to Sanghyuk's face. His lips were parted slightly and in his eyes swam a puzzled expression. Taekwoon answered with a smile, but it was a weak effort and gone as soon as it appeared. "Yeah, yeah. It's cool."
Sanghyuk didn't buy it. "You have no idea what I was talking about."
Taekwoon conceded defeat and shook his head. "I'm sorry." He moved his arms so he was leaning on the railing on his elbows and rested his chin on the backs of his hands.
In the silence, Sanghyuk made his own conclusion. "Is everything okay? Do you still have work?"
A real smile made it's way onto Taekwoon's face, a flash of white teeth visible as he chuckled. "Everything is fine," he assured him. Taekwoon himself had never graduated high school, and therefore never made it to university, and he made his living in an only slightly less-than-honest way. He spent most nights scavenging junkyards and looking for spare parts to sell - things that were still useful with a bit of TLC but easily replaceable to those in the financial position to do so. Usually he only found spare cogs and gears, but occasionally he would find parts of cyborgs. The cyborgs themselves were illegal and therefore usually disposed of in a haste and not destroyed properly which meant that sometimes he would be lucky enough to find entire limbs. This made his job easier, as after he salvaged the parts Taekwoon made his money by selling them to the same people who made the discarded robotics. When he wasn't foraging for parts, he was running errands for the men he sold to. He typically made deliveries for them, knowing nothing about his cargo other than the fact that it was more than likely illegal. He knew he had his job due to the fact that he didn't ask questions and had no tie to law enforcement, and given that he still had interest in getting paid he made sure to keep it that way.
Sanghyuk had started to chew on his nails, biting off a thumbnail and moving onto his index finger.
"Don't do that," Taekwoon chastised, reaching to pull the hand from his mouth as if he were a child, "Your hands are filthy."
Sanghyuk smiled sheepishly, still with his nail between his teeth, and it was hard to tell because it was so dark but for a moment Taekwoon could have sworn he saw an embarrassed flush on his face. He turned his head away but looked at Taekwoon from the corner of his eyes. A small smirk pulled at the corner of his lips and slowly grew into a real, toothy smile. Taekwoon knew this look: it meant he was up to something.
"What?" He failed to keep his apprehension out of his tone of voice.
Sanghyuk started fishing around in his pockets for something, but he still wouldn't share whatever great idea had popped into that over-active brain of his. "Got it!" he shouted with enthusiasm, and Taekwoon saw a flash of silver and heard the light jangle of metal as he pulled whatever it was from his pocket. "Remember when I had that summer job at the Garage?" He was holding a silver key between his index finger and thumb, and several other keys dangled from the key-ring it was attached to.
"Sanghyuk..."
"Come on," he whined, "don't be such a scaredy-cat!" Before Taekwoon could object further, Sanghyuk had already started to run towards him. He grabbed the older in the crook of his arm and pulled him behind himself. He was already smiling wide, something that even Taekwoon didn't get to see genuinely on any old night.
The Garage was on a underdeveloped side of the city, and there were several times where Taekwoon stumbled over uneven sidewalks or slipped on a walkway that was nothing but loose pebbles. "If I sprain my ankle I'm forwarding you the bill," he muttered between his teeth as he regained his balance. Sanghyuk merely cackled in response and wouldn't slow down his steps to let Taekwoon catch up. At this hour of the night, the entire area was deserted. There was nothing but the scattered green storage warehouses that made up the "Garage," as it had come to be called. Sanghyuk ran to the small wooden shed on the farthest side of the yard from them, kicking up gravel as he went, and pulled the keys from his pockets to unlock the door. He didn't hold it open for Taekwoon.
By the time Taekwoon had caught up and was outside the door, it swung out in his face and Sanghyuk bounded out of the warehouse and ran in the direction they had just come from. He was about to call after him and ask what he was looking for when he saw the younger skid to a stop at one of the warehouses. He watched as Sanghyuk looked through the key-ring and tried to put a key into the lock, discovered it was the wrong one, and tried a second one that was the correct one.
He finally acknowledged Taekwoon's presence and turned to ask, "Can you help me with this?" Taekwoon didn't ask questions - he never did - and leaned down to grab the pull-up door and together they pushed it up enough so they could get in. Behind the door was a sleek, black sports car, with blue neon lights lining the bottom and the tires. It was very obviously worth more money than Taekwoon would see in his lifetime, and he was entranced by it until he felt something hit his left shoulder.
Laying on the ground, half a foot from his feet, were the keys to the car. Sanghyuk had just tossed them to him.
"That wasn't even a bad throw," he heard him whine from the passenger's side as he stooped over to pick up the keys.
"Why do I have to drive?"
"Because when I drive you always gripe about motion-sickness and yell at me for going too fast."
Taekwoon rolled his eyes, but unlocked the car nonetheless and slid into the driver's seat. The car rumbled to life as he turned the keys in the ignition, and he bit his lip and looked at Sanghyuk, but the younger was too busy messing with the radio controls to notice.
He pulled out of the storage warehouse carefully. He knew his caution was inconsequential, given that the car itself had been loud enough before Sanghyuk turned on the radio (he could feel the very, very heavy bass line to the multi-layered electronic song in his chest). He drove slowly as he looked for an exit to the road, and ended up doing two laps around the yard before he found it.
Nothing had to be said for Taekwoon to know Sanghyuk wanted him to take it to the highway. In the corner of his eye, Sanghyuk fiddled with more buttons. He had figured out how to roll down all of the windows, and the wind hitting their skin raised goosebumps on Taekwoon's arms that he hoped the other wouldn't notice. Sanghyuk pressed a button on the dash and then the roof to the car folded back. Once he had figured that out, he leaned back in his seat and stared up at the neon signs that burned holes in the sky.
Meanwhile, Taekwoon had his teeth clenched, which he only noticed because his jaw had started to ache. He had just pulled onto the highway, and despite the fact that nobody else was on the road he was overly conscious of the fact that this car was very, very expensive and also very, very not theirs. Sanghyuk looked over at him and then yelled something over the music that Taekwoon couldn't quite hear. He turned down the radio before he repeated himself, "You need to loosen up, you look tense!" Before Taekwoon could ask him what he meant, Sanghyuk threw his arms in the air and yelled, a loud "woo-hoo!" usually reserved for when he beat Taekwoon at video games. He then did it again, but this time he stood up, and only then did Taekwoon realize that neither of them had buckled their seatbelts.
Before he could stop himself, his right hand shot over to grab Sanghyuk's arm and pull him down. "What are you doing?" he didn't even realize he had raised his voice, "What if you fall?"
Sanghyuk pouted at him and pulled his arm out of Taekwoon's grasp. "I'm fine, you should try it."
"I'm driving!"
"So?"
If Taekwoon had been talking to anyone other than Sanghyuk he wouldn't have believed his ears, but over time he had gotten used to the younger's absent sense of self-preservation. This didn't mean that it failed to shock him - it never did.
He didn't try to stop Sanghyuk as he stood again, he just kept his eyes on the passing exit signs so he could keep track of how far they had gone. Suddenly, he felt a hand on his shoulder and the next thing he knew he was being pulled to his feet. The car swerved dangerously as he struggled to keep his hands on the wheel and pull himself out of Sanghyuk's grasp. He managed to sit down and regain control of the car before they ended up upside-down, but he wasn't able to stop them from going off of the road.
His nostrils flared and his hands shook, and it took everything in him not to scream. He had only ever yelled at Sanghyuk once, over a lost cat that Sanghyuk had nothing to do with, and he had scared him off for days. He took several deep breaths, enough to feel his ribs expand, before he spoke, "What the hell was that?"
Sanghyuk wasn't looking at him, his eyes trained on a spot on the dashboard right in front of him. "I'm sorry," he mumbled almost inaudibly. All of the bright amusement from before had left his eyes.
"You need to stop being so reckless," Taekwoon continued. "What if we had hit something?"
"But we didn't."
"What if the car had flipped over?"
"But it didn't-"
"I don't care that it didn't!" Taekwoon was on the verge of tears and his voice shook. "It doesn't mean it can't happen."
Sanghyuk finally looked up when he heard the older's voice crack. "No, no," he reached over and used his thumb to wipe a stray tear from the corner of his eye. "Taekwoon, please don't cry." Taekwoon pulled away from his touch and turned his gaze to the steering wheel.
"You scare me sometimes, Sanghyuk."
The words hung in the air for a while. He didn't know how to respond. He opened and closed his mouth several times, but nothing he could think to say seemed sufficient enough.
"I'm sorry," he repeated at last, and before Taekwoon could turn his head to say anything he quickly followed up with, "I know it's not enough, it can't make up for it or reassure you," he paused, "but I'm really sorry."
Taekwoon looked at him, and even though his eyes glistened he appeared to have regained control over his tears. "I just wish you wouldn't take so many risks," he told him. "I wish you would take care of yourself. Can you do that for me?"
Sanghyuk hesitated, unsure if it was a promise he could keep, before he finally nodded in agreement.
Taekwoon smiled lightly, tears finally gone from his eyes. Then he did what he had been waiting to do all night: he grabbed Sanghyuk by the back of the neck and kissed him. It was a quick kiss, although their lips lingered against each other for a moment, they didn't deepen it. "Thank you," he said.
The second time it was Sanghyuk who pulled Taekwoon in for a kiss.