Strangers in Diners
Title: Strangers in Diners
Pairing: Yoochun//Changmin
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: language, mentions of suicide, implied depression/eating disorder
Disclaimer: I don't own anything, written just for fun.
Summary: Coffee, that's the first thing Yoochun smells, and it's so familiar, almost comforting, that his lips start to tug up into a smile (wristcutters!au)
A/N: I haven’t seen Wristcutters, so I took some liberties with world building and ripped off Dante a bit, my apologies. Originally posted as a pinch hit for dbskistic.
“Who the hell are you?"
Coffee, that's the first thing Yoochun smells, and it's so familiar, almost comforting, that his lips start to tug up into a smile.
"That's what I'd like to ask."
The boy--man?--person--across from him isn't smiling though, he's glaring barbed wire and rusty fish hooks at Yoochun.
"It's none of your business," the person bites out, his plump lips curling down in a snarl. If his high cheekbones and round eyes weren't so charming, Yoochun might actually be intimidated.
"Fine, then I'm not telling you either." Yoochun crosses his arms, wincing at the sting in his wrists.
"Not to interrupt or anything," a husky voice cuts in from somewhere behind them, "but can I get you gentlefucks anything to drink?"
"Whiskey? Straight?" Yoochun pats his pockets for his wallet. All he finds is a wad of empty gum wrappers.
"No can do, bunny boy." The bartender has the most delicate wrists Yoochun has ever seen on a man, a sequin covered waistcoat, and no shirt. "It's either coffee or dishwater here."
"Coffee," Yoochun rasps, trying to cover his splutter at the dishwater comment with a cough. He hopes the bartender, JJ according to his upside down nametag, is joking,
“One coffee, coming right up. You have a choice of americano, and watered down espresso.”
“Make it a trashcan and give me both.” Yoochun slumps forward until his cheek is pillowed on the grimy bar. He grimaces but stays put, too exhausted to move.
“I’m not drinking or eating anything in this shitty place,” the dude next to Yoochun declares. His arms are still folded across his chest but his shoulders are hunched up to his ears, like he’s feeling chilly. It’s not cold in here though. The windows at the end of the empty room are half open, but there’s no breeze.
“Suit yourself, but I can guarantee you we serve the best Brazilian roast this side of the Amazon.” JJ throws a Hamtaro print towel over his bare shoulder. “And this side of the Styx!” He laughs, slamming his fist into the bar until the shot glasses rattle.
“So this is hell, then,” Yoochun muses through a yawn before he realizes he’s speaking aloud. “So why am I being served free coffee by a hot dude with no shirt.”
JJ laughs again, but the other dude’s mouth falls open with a snort, as if in offense that his masculine beauty wasn’t acknowledged.
“Nope, not hell.” JJ licks his lips. His earring, a tiny red jewel on a fine chain, swings forward to tangle in his overgrown bangs. “Welcome to Limbo, boys. The late night cable version of Neverland.” He sets a lukewarm mug of brownish water in front of each guest. The other dude frowns, gingerly pushing his back with the tip of his pinky finger.
“I said I don’t wanna drink that,” he growls. “If I eat the food I’m stuck here for good, right?” he adds in a much softer voice, glance darting from Yoochun to the bartender.
“You’re stuck here regardless.” JJ pats away a yawn from his lips, then licks them again. “Might as well make yourself comfortable. Though the best you can expect in the way of food here is the shitty gas station stuff. Lumpy hot dogs, soggy doughnuts, black bananas and the like.”
“Lovely,” Yoochun groans, gingerly dipping the tip of his tongue into the coffee. JJ doesn’t smile, but his sneer twists sharper, shows off more of his pointed teeth. Oh well, it’s not like Yoochun had enjoyed his food on earth either.
“So how do I get out of here.” The other dude phrases it like a demand more than a question, but JJ nods, straightening up with a vague wave towards the back of the room.
“First hall on your left, there’s a door to the street. Unless you mean the way out of town, in which case I think you can follow your nose. There’s only one paved road in these parts.”
The other dude grits his teeth. His lips push into a puckery pout that has something softening in Yoochun’s chest, the same sticky feeling he used to get watching his pet cat eat breakfast on Thursdays (they only ate breakfast once a week, after hump day).
“No, I mean out, out-out. Back home.”
“Oh, well in that case…” JJ sucks in a long breath, air hissing between his sharp teeth, and the other dude springs to attention like he just sat down on a pinecone. “Can’t help you there, son. I’ve been here since ‘80, swallowed three tubes of tainted toothpaste in protest of the regime.”
“A very hygienic way to go,” Yoochun nods in appreciation. “Not to mention patriotic.”
“Thank you.” JJ presses a hand to his heart, the Hamtaro print towel wrapped around his palm like a bandage.
“You don’t look like you’ve been trying too hard to escape,” the other dude glares down his finely chiseled nose. JJ just shrugs, rolling his under his vest.
“Why should I try, I’m freer here than I’ve ever been.” He leans forward til there’s only a centimeter of space between his nose and the other dude’s. “So why are you here?”
“That’s none of your pussywax!” the other dude splutters.
“I’m here ‘cause my cat died,” Yoochun says, and they both turn to gape at him.
“Really now.” JJ slouches against the drying rack behind him, a damp towel curtaining his head like a suspended wedding veil.
“Yup. Blug finally croaked, so I thought I might as well, too.”
“You named your pet cat Blug.” JJ’s nose twitches. “What is that, Swedish for dysentery?”
“It’s a portmanteau,” Yoochun sighs, digging knuckles into his temples. He’s a bit annoyed he’s still stuck explaining his former pet’s name in He--uh, Limbo. “My niece coined it, it’s short for ‘Balloon Hug’.”
“I see,” JJ hums, stroking his chin to the sharp point and back up to his lips again, “except that I don’t.”
“That’s it, I’m outta here.” The other dude shoves back from the bar. His stool screeches on the unfinished tile floor.
“Hey, don’t forget your keys,” JJ calls before he gets three steps, and tosses him a ring with a Pikachu keychain.
“Thanks.” The door to the hall squeaks like chalk on glass.
“Aren’t you gonna go with him?” JJ points to the exit. “Or do you really wanna stay here forever?”
“But--”
“Who knows when the next ride out of town will be.”
“Ok…” Yoochun gets up, a little regretful to leave behind unfinished coffee, but his jog down the hall jolts to a sprint when he hears a throaty engine roar to life. The coffee tasted like dishwater, anyway.
“You’re coming too?” The other dude rolls his eyes and spits a mouthful of gunk out the window of his cranberry red Camry.
“I’ll be useful. I’m good with maps,” Yoochun says, and crawls in through the passenger window.
“So long, boys!” JJ leans out the open window to wave goodbye from the bar. The air is still flat, lifeless, and his towel flops limply from his fist.
Yoochun checks the glove box as the other dude pulls out of the lot and to his surprise, not only do the seatbelts work, there is a map in the cubby.
Welcome to Limbo! it says across the front in curling yellow script, and in smaller black letters underneath, 2014 special edition, courtesy of Limbo Regional Admin. Div., Virgil, Ovid, et. al
“So where are we going,” the other dude asks. He fiddles with the radio, but all the stations come in as static except for one that seems to be looping the chorus of “Bad Day”.
“Straight ahead,” Yoochun says, and turns the music up. There is only one road on the map, after all. JJ wasn’t lying.
******
They stop at a diner when it starts to get dark. The other dude tosses the keys on the seat, not bothering with the locks, and Yoochun lays the open map over the dash.
“Welcome to Jack’s.” A girl with short legs and tall heels slaps a menu to his chest as Yoochun pushes through the swinging doors. “Table for two?”
“Long time no see, noona,” the other guy says, and Yoochun’s gaze flickers back to the hostess from his momentary fascination with the drain pipes on the unfinished ceiling.
Upon second glance he realizes she’s not a girl but probably closer to thirty, with fine lines around her mouth and deeper ones at the corners of her eyes thinly veiled under caked on foundation. She looks like a doll, one with a sad cracked face and chopped off hair marked FREE at a yard sale, though her dark hair swings heavy and thick to her hips.
“Long time no see, Min. You guys can sit by the window if you don’t like the counter.”
The counter is already occupied, albeit by a lone soul who seems to have knocked out with his forehead in a basket of fries. Yoochun follows the other dude--Min--to counter. They seat themselves just past the register, a respectful distance from the only other patron.
The menus only list one option, the Brown Ribbon Usual, and Min orders it without question. Yoochun orders coffee, black.
Despite his earlier refusals to even taste the water, Min digs right in as soon as his food arrives, a steaming pile of mashed cauliflower with a side of underdone zucchini fries. Yoochun’s coffee is predictably dishwater in taste, with a subtle bouquet of detergent flavors accenting the stale aftertaste of cold grease.
“You sure you’re not hungry?” the hostess asks. Her nametag says BoA in fat gold stick on letters.
“I’m good,” Yoochun says. “I don’t usually eat, except sometimes I do.”
BoA nods, and Min keeps shoveling forkfuls of mashed cauliflower between his plump lips. The steam makes them rosy and moist, and Yoochun wonders if you can buy lip balm in Limbo, or only overpriced tubs of petroleum jelly.
“Who’s that,” Min grunts as he chews, jerking his head at the sleeping stranger three chairs down.
“Oh, him.” BoA sniffs, flapping crumbs of cauliflower from her rag into the sink. “Name’s Yunho. He’s a stray that wandered in one day and never left. We kept him ‘cause he’s fluffy, and Junsu has a soft spot for anyone who likes his veggie mash.”
Yunho lifts his head at the mention of his name and stares. His lips pull back over his teeth, like he’s forgotten how to smile but still has vestiges of the urge to satisfy the social contract between strangers in diners.
Yoochun waves, and tries not to think about dirty river water as he swallows down a gulp of coffee/dishwater.
“You want a smoke?” Yunho rattles a pack pulled from his pocket and Min scrunches his nose in disgust.
“You even have cigs here?” Yoochun hadn’t dared to hope, but now he feels for his lighter in his jeans pocket and sighs in relief when his fingers curl around the scarred plastic.
“Yup,” Yunho nods as he lights up with trembling fingers. “Though you can’t get the cinnamon kind, or even menthol. They all taste like lemon lysol.”
“Erwgh,” Yoochun gags, this time not from the coffee. “How do you even know what that--oh.” He looks down at his wrists, the faint twinge of his veins beneath faded denim cuffs that extend halfway up his palms.
******
They sleep in the Camry in the parking lot of the diner, because there isn’t a motel around for miles. Min glares at him when Yoochun props his heels on the dash, so he just pulls his knees into his chest and huddles against the tipped back seat. It’s not comfortable, but at least it’s not cold. Even after sunset, the temperature hasn’t seemed to change at all.
BoA sends them off at sunrise with a sack of squashy tangerines and a thermos of coffee, palatable only because it’s scalding. It pulls Yoochun out of his lethargy though, the familiar hum of caffeine simmering under his skin as Min accelerates on the highway.
“How many miles do you think we’ll make today,” Yoochun asks, mostly because a chirpy “good morning” seems a little flat when they’re driving through a miasma of polluted fog.
“Dunno,” Min growls, then clears his throat to scrape away some of the sleep coating his voice. “Does it matter.”
“I guess not.” There are no road markers, anyway, or even painted lines dividing the road into lanes. Yoochun hopes they don’t hand out speeding tickets in Limbo, because Min is riding the needle of the speedometer into the red zone. “Where are you off to in such a hurry, then?”
“Dunno,” Min says again. His knuckles are white against the faded red steering wheel. “I’ll let you know when I figure it out.”
“Looks like this road follows the coast.” Yoochun taps the crisp paper unfurled over his lap, the yellow ribbon of the road that runs vaguely parallel to the seaboard.
“That’s nice,” Min says. “Are there any landmarks on that thing?”
“Landmarks...like touristy spots? Or do you mean geographical features?”
“Institutions,” Min corrects, and adjusts the angle of his rearview. “Like a church, or a--a cathedral.”
“Nope.” Yoochun quickly scans the map to double check, but nope, nothing.
“I fell from a cathedral,” Min says, “that’s how I wound up here.”
“Fuck, you’re a jumper?” The back of Yoochun’s head hits the seat. “I mean, were?”
“I said I fell,” Min glares. “That’s not the same thing.”
“Sure, sorry,” Yoochun says. Although if Min’s here, it can’t have been just an accident.
“Well, if you see anything later, church, cathedral…” Min swerves around a pothole, cussing under his breath, “heck, I’ll even take a mosque or a synagogue.”
“Religious abodes, got it.” The air's a bit clearer now, either the sun is burning off some of the foul moisture or they've driven past it. "But you know, I was raised to believe you can talk to God anywhere, with or without a roof over your head."
"I don't want to pray," Min scoffs. The car accelerates eleven kpm. "I just want to get home, so I might as well go back to where I started."
"That almost makes sense," Yoochun concedes. In an Alice in Wonderland sort of way. Maybe Min isn't so far off after all, since Limbo seems to be running on a similarly twisted sense of logic. Free coffee, only embittered companions to share it with, that sort of thing.
******
The next sign of life they come across is a motel. Heenim’s Palace the sign reads, lit up with old fashioned Vaudeville lights even though it’s barely three o’clock and the sun has finally come out of its carcinogenic shell.
It’s only afternoon, but the map is devoid of any landmarks within driving distance before night fall. It's only afternoon, but Yoochun feels exhausted in the creak of his joints folded into the cramped seat. His eyelids burn from the glare of sun on the windshield, and he's tired of listening to Min gripe about the road conditions and bitch about the lack of standardized road signs.
Min parks haphazardly in the drive under the front awning, and Yoochun trails him into the building. The manager is slumped behind the check in desk, sequined dockers propped on the counter as he slumps in a reclining chair. What it is with hot guys in sequins in this odd, odd place, Yoochun thinks, but he shuffles into place beside Min.
"Only one vacancy," the manager says, and blows his fringe out of his eyes. He has dark red hair that hangs almost to his shoulders. "I'm afraid you boys will have to share tonight." He's apologizing, sort of, but the sharp glow in his dark eyes communicates anything but a contrite heart.
"Don't be insufferable." Min clicks the corner of his credit card against the peeling laminate counter. "You have twenty rooms. The parking lot's empty. And the rusty excuse for a bike in the rack out front ain't carried any twenty persons here on its lone frame."
"Ingrates," the manager sighs, flipping back a wave of red hair. "Let me guess, you're new to Limbo Land. But I'll let you stay tonight out of the goodness of my heart, despite your ignorance."
"Are there seriously nineteen occupancies?" Min tries again, leaning in across the counter as he points at Yoochun, "because I can't share a room with him."
Yoochun makes a strangled sound of offense as the manager hacks out a laugh. Chronic bronchitis. He must smoke the same lemon flavored bleach that JJ does, Yoochun thinks.
Min's glare doesn't intimidate the manager either, apparently, because the man hands over a single key on a cheap wire ring with a green plastic tag. "Sorry to disappoint you, but we're doing renovations. You'll have to excuse us for the inconvenience."
"I hope you break your bank on those 'renovations'," Min says glibly, one hand resting on the jut of his hipbone through his thin slacks. "This place looks like a dump."
"First door on your right, take the elevator up to the third floor," the manager says. and he looks amused more than anything, reclining in his padded rocker behind the scarred laminate counter.
Min refuses to take the elevator, which to be fair doesn't seem to have been renovated since the 60's (does Limbo count in earth decades? JJ does, anyway), and Yoochun isn't champing at the bit to test it out either.
"Fuck," Min groans as he unlocks the door and pushes into the room. "Tell me again how I got stuck sharing with you?"
"That's what I'd like to ask." Yoochun toes out of his weathered loafers and flops onto the bed, rolling to the side to make room for Min. Looks like the room isn't the only thing they'll be sharing tonight.
“Fuck this.” Min’s boots hit the back of the closet with a thud of doom. “I’m not getting in that bed with you.” His arms are crossed against the heavy broadcloth button down he’s sweating in. He looms over Yoochun at the foot of the bed, and Yoochun stares at the layers of dried sweat already darkening the inside of his collar.
“Ok,” Yoochun says, because he wouldn’t mind not-sharing, too. “You want to shower first, or shall I?”
“Do what you want,” Min says, “I’m not showering.”
“Oh, come on.” Yoochun rolls onto his side to groan into the stiff hem of the quilted bedspread. The pilling polyester is slick against his skin, catches on the stubble shadowed along his jaw. It smells, gives off wafts of a chemical approximation of lavender only slightly less sickening than mothballs. “You have to shower and change at some point.”
“No, I don’t,” Min says with the infuriating patience of a child who can’t be talked sense to, although there’s an underlying note of panic in his voice that unsettles the breakfast of squashy tangerines languishing in the pit of Yoochun’s stomach.
“Does this have to do with getting back home,” Yoochun sighs, and he wants nothing more than to bury his head under a lumpy pillow and drift off to the blank hum of the A/C.
“Yes.” Min’s voice is lemonade, clear and acerbic and somehow refreshing in its bite. The heavy stillness of the motel room lies otherwise unbroken. There is no A/C, only a chipping porcelain radiator that won’t turn on, Yoochun’s already tried.
“You wanna talk about it?” Yoochun pats the broken spring in the mattress beside him, and he can’t believe he’s offering counseling services to an angsty kid dressed head to toe in brand-new sweat stained Burberry with a phobia of hygiene. Maybe if he talks him through it, though, Min won’t be such a razor blade up the ass while they’re on the road tomorrow. Maybe a good ole fashioned heart-to-heart will break some of the tension.
“I can’t believe this is happening.” Min’s voice wavers as he sinks into the mattress. The ruined springs squeal under the added weight. Yoochun rolls his eyes at the comment, as if Min considers talking to Yoochun a nightmare, but the tragic state of coffee in this universe isn’t worth batting an eyelash at. (Min has pretty eyelashes though, by the way. Yoochun wouldn’t mind watching him bat them for like, a few hours.)
“So you’re bound and determined to get back,” Yoochun prods, because Min is facing the headboard and not speaking, and Yoochun needs a shower before his body falls asleep on him.
“I didn’t want to jump,” Min whispers to the strip of bed sheets visible at the edge of the mattress. He outlines a bunch of stylized grapes carved in relief on the headboard with the tip of his finger. “I mean I did, for a little while.” The headboard is hardwood, dark stain, and old. The kind of antique you’d expect to find in a homey B&B place, and not a cheap motorist hotel. “I did for a while, but then I changed my mind.”
“Mid-air?”
“As my feet were still slipping on the edge of the roof tiles,” Min says, and smears a clear stream of snot from his nostrils. “If only I’d worn my hiking shoes, not my flats.”
“Indeed,” Yoochun sighs, and passes him the Kleenex. It’s rough single ply, of course, heaped into a cheap cardboard box, the kind with coarse perforations at the pull top that can give you a nasty paper cut if you’re not careful.
“But who the hell wears hiking boots to tour a downtown cathedral.” Min spits into the first tissue, blows heavily into the second.
“Who the hell,” Yoochun agrees.
“So that’s why I deserve a second chance,” Min says, the liquid self-pity dripping from his gaze and the self-loathing bathing his voice freeze over, hardening once more with a self-assured resolve.
Does anyone deserve a second chance? Yoochun wants to slander back, what about cancer patients, shooting victims, do you realize they didn’t want to leave earth either? But he doesn’t; he passes Min the wastebasket before the burgeoning pile of used tissues can overflow from his lap to the floral bedspread.
“So I just have to find a cathedral and talk to the people in charge, explain why it was all a mistake.” Min grips the edges of the trashcan for a too-long moment, bracing himself, white knuckled. Yoochun’s afraid for stuttering heartbeat that he’s about to hurl, but Min relaxes of a sudden, slumping back against the fruit themed headboard.
“Why do you get to decide if it was a mistake or not.” Sometimes Yoochun feels like the whole world must be a mistake, a greedy, garish, gelatinous blob of mistake that he happened to fall into one day, a lost soul chasing butterflies down a rabbit hole into the dragon’s lair.
“I need to explain why my mistake shouldn’t be counted as one. I took it back before I hit the air, took it all back!”
“What if it doesn’t work,” Yoochun says, Yoochun clings to the possibility, “what if your plan doesn’t work.” He finds himself wishing, and he hasn’t wished since the year he was lonely enough to adopt himself a neurotic demon of an anorexic cat.
Yoochun wishes, because maybe it’s only been forty-three hours since they met, but he’s already feeling attached to the bright, vindictive glow of Min’s eyes, to his lips that curl delectably around fierce snarls, to his ultimatums and his reckless driving. Min has several good points, but mostly Yoochun is drawn to his conviction.
Yoochun wants Min to be wrong because maybe he hate’s Min’s annoying face and annoying voice and biting charm-casm, but he doesn’t hate Min. Also because Yoochun doesn’t want to face any more choices. Yoochun was counting on it when he dispatched himself here, that this is a done deal, because he never wants to face the guilt, the weight, of deciding whether to return home.
Maybe he doesn’t have to worry either way, though, because he completed his final self-inflicted PTSD treatment without a lick of regret. Yoochun made his choice and didn’t change his mind at the edge.
“So...if I shower, you think--” Min breaks off, gasps in a breath, and grips his knees with his fingers in a stranglehold.
“You already ate the cauliflower,” Yoochun points out, “breathed the smog, fraternized with the residents. I don’t think showering in Limbo will make too much of a difference at this point.”
“Ok,” Min says, and his voice is only slightly shaky as he strips off his shirt. Yoochun slides his head under the lumpy pillow encased in a cheap polyester 250 count case until he hears the bathroom door click and the water trickle on. Fuck. Of course the water pressure would suck here.
Min comes out dripping and Yoochun moans in confusion as he tries to lift his head, vision shifting between dimensions as he veers out of the sleep lane.
“Don’t bother.” Min is dripping all over the bedspread as he leans forward to towel his hair. “The water heater will take a while yet, I’d imagine.”
Yoochun might be pissed if he weren’t half asleep and if the joints of his spine didn’t feel like crumbly dry clay without enough straw to hold his limbs in place. He can shower later, anyway. It’s only three--four o’clock, now. They’ve got all night.
Min’s wet head hits the pillow beside Yoochun’s, and Yoochun’s fingers unfurl like a morning glory bloom in the first clear light of dawn. His skin still smells like sweat, a hint of sweet musk under the milky scent of baby soap and floral shampoo.
The wet strands squeak between Yoochun’s fingers before flopping back to the pillow.
“No conditioner,” Min says, “and the hairdryer only has a cool setting.”
Better for the hair cuticles, Yoochun would say, less damage, but his lips won’t unlock themselves from dream speech mode, the words echoing soundlessly from his brain waves. Yoochun blames the crumbling coordination of his insubordinate spine when his fingers slip lower to palm the slick curve of Min’s firm neck.
Yoochun finds his vocal cords back when Min’s lips find his. Min tucks Yoochun’s startled squawk into his own mouth with a filthy sweep of his tongue, wet and scalding, and pulls back to survey the fallout. Both his brows are raised in challenge, as if Yoochun had made the first move instead of him.
“This is ok, right? I mean, I saw you staring, in the rearview mirror. I saw you staring, so I know--”
“It’s alright,” Yoochun says, “this is okay.”
Min’s mouth falls open and his eyes fall closed when Yoochun’s pinky fingernail catches on his damp nipple, but he keeps talking, keeps up his defiant ramble.
“I know this isn’t normal,” he gasps as Yoochun’s tongue curves down to follow the course charted by his fingers, “this--place. Limbo. But that--that’s what you do, right? This is--what happens when you h-hook up with strangers in diners and take them back to your hotel room.”
Technically, this dump does not deserve the title hotel or Palace, and technically they “hooked up” in JJ’s bar, not the diner, but Yoochun has never cared much for technicalities. They’re too dreary to be bothered with, their associated pressures much the same as the stress of decisions and proper, scheduled meals.
Min doesn’t shut up, but he quits talking because Yoochun is hungrily tracing the lines of his body with an appetite no earthly food could ever stir so deep within him. And Yoochun, like he said, is good with maps.
Min, Yoochun decides, with the burning coals of dissatisfaction in his heart that his ribcage can’t quite contain do not belong in Limbo after all. Min has too much passion fermenting his bones, too much will to fuck things up still marinating in him. He throws things off balance, like Yoochun’s equilibrium, for one.
Yes, Yoochun knows from the deep ache in his gut, in his thighs, that he’s getting way more attached to this person--kid?--soul--than he should be for a 44.5 hour relationship, but he hopes Min finds his way back home.
******
“Happy trails,” the manager says in the flattest voice Yoochun has heard from him yet, “or should I say, enjoy the treasure trails?” He cocks a lecherous eyebrow and flicks a condom across the counter. The foil square spins into Min’s hand as he’s signing the receipt with just his initials, just so no one can steal his name to potentially trap him here, just in case.
Min shoots it back to the manager, and Yoochun doesn’t care if his vanity is a waste. The condom’s probably expired, anyway, like everything in this place.
They get back in the Camry, Yoochun’s bare feet propped on the dash with Min’s grudging tolerance this time. The air quality is still on the sucky end of the urban SoCal spectrum and Min’s headlights won’t turn on, but the manager of the Palace waves goodbye from cracking pavement of the parking lot median and Yoochun almost feels like smiling again, almost.
Their map shows only one landmark in range for today and Yoochun, talented though he may be at decoding topography charts and tremors of hard muscle rippling beneath golden skin, has no idea if it will be St. Basil’s or a pet crematorium up ahead. He’s hoping with all the fortitude of the squashy tangerines and caffeinated dishwater swirling in his gut that it’s Min’s fated cathedral. But, in the likely case it isn’t, Yoochun will keep driving along with him into the hazy sunsets until the stone spires grace the horizon.
Yoochun promised him that, somewhere between 3 AM and their third bottle of the shitty complimentary vodka, Min dusted off from behind a rusty steam iron in the closet. Min thanked him with a hard, sucking kiss, sealing the declaration into an agreement, a contract of sorts between strangers.
Yoochun has nothing else to do anyway, besides scour the countryside for his dead cat. Blug always hated his guts anyway, probably starved herself to death in protest of her owner’s apathetic existence.
Yoochun may not stay apathetic forever though, it all depends on how long Min has to rub off on him before he finds his fairytale cathedral and marches down the aisle to demand his happy ending, his second chance. Who knows, maybe Yoochun will join him at the altar.
“Radio?” Yoochun asks, dangling a curl of tangerine peel out the passenger window and letting the drag tatter it to fragrant, citrusy shreds before he lets go.
“Be my guest,” Min sighs, and switches on the static.
Yoochun fits the pad of his thumb to the groove of the dial and eases the numbers forward, a tenth of a digit at a time. They have all day to argue over which frequency of static sounds more aesthetic, more appropriate for epic road tripping ambience.
Yoochun holds up the map and lets it flutter away next, his eyes on Min the entire time. There’s only one road, anyway, and they have all the time in Limbo to traverse it together.
Pairing: Yoochun//Changmin
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: language, mentions of suicide, implied depression/eating disorder
Disclaimer: I don't own anything, written just for fun.
Summary: Coffee, that's the first thing Yoochun smells, and it's so familiar, almost comforting, that his lips start to tug up into a smile (wristcutters!au)
A/N: I haven’t seen Wristcutters, so I took some liberties with world building and ripped off Dante a bit, my apologies. Originally posted as a pinch hit for dbskistic.
“Who the hell are you?"
Coffee, that's the first thing Yoochun smells, and it's so familiar, almost comforting, that his lips start to tug up into a smile.
"That's what I'd like to ask."
The boy--man?--person--across from him isn't smiling though, he's glaring barbed wire and rusty fish hooks at Yoochun.
"It's none of your business," the person bites out, his plump lips curling down in a snarl. If his high cheekbones and round eyes weren't so charming, Yoochun might actually be intimidated.
"Fine, then I'm not telling you either." Yoochun crosses his arms, wincing at the sting in his wrists.
"Not to interrupt or anything," a husky voice cuts in from somewhere behind them, "but can I get you gentlefucks anything to drink?"
"Whiskey? Straight?" Yoochun pats his pockets for his wallet. All he finds is a wad of empty gum wrappers.
"No can do, bunny boy." The bartender has the most delicate wrists Yoochun has ever seen on a man, a sequin covered waistcoat, and no shirt. "It's either coffee or dishwater here."
"Coffee," Yoochun rasps, trying to cover his splutter at the dishwater comment with a cough. He hopes the bartender, JJ according to his upside down nametag, is joking,
“One coffee, coming right up. You have a choice of americano, and watered down espresso.”
“Make it a trashcan and give me both.” Yoochun slumps forward until his cheek is pillowed on the grimy bar. He grimaces but stays put, too exhausted to move.
“I’m not drinking or eating anything in this shitty place,” the dude next to Yoochun declares. His arms are still folded across his chest but his shoulders are hunched up to his ears, like he’s feeling chilly. It’s not cold in here though. The windows at the end of the empty room are half open, but there’s no breeze.
“Suit yourself, but I can guarantee you we serve the best Brazilian roast this side of the Amazon.” JJ throws a Hamtaro print towel over his bare shoulder. “And this side of the Styx!” He laughs, slamming his fist into the bar until the shot glasses rattle.
“So this is hell, then,” Yoochun muses through a yawn before he realizes he’s speaking aloud. “So why am I being served free coffee by a hot dude with no shirt.”
JJ laughs again, but the other dude’s mouth falls open with a snort, as if in offense that his masculine beauty wasn’t acknowledged.
“Nope, not hell.” JJ licks his lips. His earring, a tiny red jewel on a fine chain, swings forward to tangle in his overgrown bangs. “Welcome to Limbo, boys. The late night cable version of Neverland.” He sets a lukewarm mug of brownish water in front of each guest. The other dude frowns, gingerly pushing his back with the tip of his pinky finger.
“I said I don’t wanna drink that,” he growls. “If I eat the food I’m stuck here for good, right?” he adds in a much softer voice, glance darting from Yoochun to the bartender.
“You’re stuck here regardless.” JJ pats away a yawn from his lips, then licks them again. “Might as well make yourself comfortable. Though the best you can expect in the way of food here is the shitty gas station stuff. Lumpy hot dogs, soggy doughnuts, black bananas and the like.”
“Lovely,” Yoochun groans, gingerly dipping the tip of his tongue into the coffee. JJ doesn’t smile, but his sneer twists sharper, shows off more of his pointed teeth. Oh well, it’s not like Yoochun had enjoyed his food on earth either.
“So how do I get out of here.” The other dude phrases it like a demand more than a question, but JJ nods, straightening up with a vague wave towards the back of the room.
“First hall on your left, there’s a door to the street. Unless you mean the way out of town, in which case I think you can follow your nose. There’s only one paved road in these parts.”
The other dude grits his teeth. His lips push into a puckery pout that has something softening in Yoochun’s chest, the same sticky feeling he used to get watching his pet cat eat breakfast on Thursdays (they only ate breakfast once a week, after hump day).
“No, I mean out, out-out. Back home.”
“Oh, well in that case…” JJ sucks in a long breath, air hissing between his sharp teeth, and the other dude springs to attention like he just sat down on a pinecone. “Can’t help you there, son. I’ve been here since ‘80, swallowed three tubes of tainted toothpaste in protest of the regime.”
“A very hygienic way to go,” Yoochun nods in appreciation. “Not to mention patriotic.”
“Thank you.” JJ presses a hand to his heart, the Hamtaro print towel wrapped around his palm like a bandage.
“You don’t look like you’ve been trying too hard to escape,” the other dude glares down his finely chiseled nose. JJ just shrugs, rolling his under his vest.
“Why should I try, I’m freer here than I’ve ever been.” He leans forward til there’s only a centimeter of space between his nose and the other dude’s. “So why are you here?”
“That’s none of your pussywax!” the other dude splutters.
“I’m here ‘cause my cat died,” Yoochun says, and they both turn to gape at him.
“Really now.” JJ slouches against the drying rack behind him, a damp towel curtaining his head like a suspended wedding veil.
“Yup. Blug finally croaked, so I thought I might as well, too.”
“You named your pet cat Blug.” JJ’s nose twitches. “What is that, Swedish for dysentery?”
“It’s a portmanteau,” Yoochun sighs, digging knuckles into his temples. He’s a bit annoyed he’s still stuck explaining his former pet’s name in He--uh, Limbo. “My niece coined it, it’s short for ‘Balloon Hug’.”
“I see,” JJ hums, stroking his chin to the sharp point and back up to his lips again, “except that I don’t.”
“That’s it, I’m outta here.” The other dude shoves back from the bar. His stool screeches on the unfinished tile floor.
“Hey, don’t forget your keys,” JJ calls before he gets three steps, and tosses him a ring with a Pikachu keychain.
“Thanks.” The door to the hall squeaks like chalk on glass.
“Aren’t you gonna go with him?” JJ points to the exit. “Or do you really wanna stay here forever?”
“But--”
“Who knows when the next ride out of town will be.”
“Ok…” Yoochun gets up, a little regretful to leave behind unfinished coffee, but his jog down the hall jolts to a sprint when he hears a throaty engine roar to life. The coffee tasted like dishwater, anyway.
“You’re coming too?” The other dude rolls his eyes and spits a mouthful of gunk out the window of his cranberry red Camry.
“I’ll be useful. I’m good with maps,” Yoochun says, and crawls in through the passenger window.
“So long, boys!” JJ leans out the open window to wave goodbye from the bar. The air is still flat, lifeless, and his towel flops limply from his fist.
Yoochun checks the glove box as the other dude pulls out of the lot and to his surprise, not only do the seatbelts work, there is a map in the cubby.
Welcome to Limbo! it says across the front in curling yellow script, and in smaller black letters underneath, 2014 special edition, courtesy of Limbo Regional Admin. Div., Virgil, Ovid, et. al
“So where are we going,” the other dude asks. He fiddles with the radio, but all the stations come in as static except for one that seems to be looping the chorus of “Bad Day”.
“Straight ahead,” Yoochun says, and turns the music up. There is only one road on the map, after all. JJ wasn’t lying.
******
They stop at a diner when it starts to get dark. The other dude tosses the keys on the seat, not bothering with the locks, and Yoochun lays the open map over the dash.
“Welcome to Jack’s.” A girl with short legs and tall heels slaps a menu to his chest as Yoochun pushes through the swinging doors. “Table for two?”
“Long time no see, noona,” the other guy says, and Yoochun’s gaze flickers back to the hostess from his momentary fascination with the drain pipes on the unfinished ceiling.
Upon second glance he realizes she’s not a girl but probably closer to thirty, with fine lines around her mouth and deeper ones at the corners of her eyes thinly veiled under caked on foundation. She looks like a doll, one with a sad cracked face and chopped off hair marked FREE at a yard sale, though her dark hair swings heavy and thick to her hips.
“Long time no see, Min. You guys can sit by the window if you don’t like the counter.”
The counter is already occupied, albeit by a lone soul who seems to have knocked out with his forehead in a basket of fries. Yoochun follows the other dude--Min--to counter. They seat themselves just past the register, a respectful distance from the only other patron.
The menus only list one option, the Brown Ribbon Usual, and Min orders it without question. Yoochun orders coffee, black.
Despite his earlier refusals to even taste the water, Min digs right in as soon as his food arrives, a steaming pile of mashed cauliflower with a side of underdone zucchini fries. Yoochun’s coffee is predictably dishwater in taste, with a subtle bouquet of detergent flavors accenting the stale aftertaste of cold grease.
“You sure you’re not hungry?” the hostess asks. Her nametag says BoA in fat gold stick on letters.
“I’m good,” Yoochun says. “I don’t usually eat, except sometimes I do.”
BoA nods, and Min keeps shoveling forkfuls of mashed cauliflower between his plump lips. The steam makes them rosy and moist, and Yoochun wonders if you can buy lip balm in Limbo, or only overpriced tubs of petroleum jelly.
“Who’s that,” Min grunts as he chews, jerking his head at the sleeping stranger three chairs down.
“Oh, him.” BoA sniffs, flapping crumbs of cauliflower from her rag into the sink. “Name’s Yunho. He’s a stray that wandered in one day and never left. We kept him ‘cause he’s fluffy, and Junsu has a soft spot for anyone who likes his veggie mash.”
Yunho lifts his head at the mention of his name and stares. His lips pull back over his teeth, like he’s forgotten how to smile but still has vestiges of the urge to satisfy the social contract between strangers in diners.
Yoochun waves, and tries not to think about dirty river water as he swallows down a gulp of coffee/dishwater.
“You want a smoke?” Yunho rattles a pack pulled from his pocket and Min scrunches his nose in disgust.
“You even have cigs here?” Yoochun hadn’t dared to hope, but now he feels for his lighter in his jeans pocket and sighs in relief when his fingers curl around the scarred plastic.
“Yup,” Yunho nods as he lights up with trembling fingers. “Though you can’t get the cinnamon kind, or even menthol. They all taste like lemon lysol.”
“Erwgh,” Yoochun gags, this time not from the coffee. “How do you even know what that--oh.” He looks down at his wrists, the faint twinge of his veins beneath faded denim cuffs that extend halfway up his palms.
******
They sleep in the Camry in the parking lot of the diner, because there isn’t a motel around for miles. Min glares at him when Yoochun props his heels on the dash, so he just pulls his knees into his chest and huddles against the tipped back seat. It’s not comfortable, but at least it’s not cold. Even after sunset, the temperature hasn’t seemed to change at all.
BoA sends them off at sunrise with a sack of squashy tangerines and a thermos of coffee, palatable only because it’s scalding. It pulls Yoochun out of his lethargy though, the familiar hum of caffeine simmering under his skin as Min accelerates on the highway.
“How many miles do you think we’ll make today,” Yoochun asks, mostly because a chirpy “good morning” seems a little flat when they’re driving through a miasma of polluted fog.
“Dunno,” Min growls, then clears his throat to scrape away some of the sleep coating his voice. “Does it matter.”
“I guess not.” There are no road markers, anyway, or even painted lines dividing the road into lanes. Yoochun hopes they don’t hand out speeding tickets in Limbo, because Min is riding the needle of the speedometer into the red zone. “Where are you off to in such a hurry, then?”
“Dunno,” Min says again. His knuckles are white against the faded red steering wheel. “I’ll let you know when I figure it out.”
“Looks like this road follows the coast.” Yoochun taps the crisp paper unfurled over his lap, the yellow ribbon of the road that runs vaguely parallel to the seaboard.
“That’s nice,” Min says. “Are there any landmarks on that thing?”
“Landmarks...like touristy spots? Or do you mean geographical features?”
“Institutions,” Min corrects, and adjusts the angle of his rearview. “Like a church, or a--a cathedral.”
“Nope.” Yoochun quickly scans the map to double check, but nope, nothing.
“I fell from a cathedral,” Min says, “that’s how I wound up here.”
“Fuck, you’re a jumper?” The back of Yoochun’s head hits the seat. “I mean, were?”
“I said I fell,” Min glares. “That’s not the same thing.”
“Sure, sorry,” Yoochun says. Although if Min’s here, it can’t have been just an accident.
“Well, if you see anything later, church, cathedral…” Min swerves around a pothole, cussing under his breath, “heck, I’ll even take a mosque or a synagogue.”
“Religious abodes, got it.” The air's a bit clearer now, either the sun is burning off some of the foul moisture or they've driven past it. "But you know, I was raised to believe you can talk to God anywhere, with or without a roof over your head."
"I don't want to pray," Min scoffs. The car accelerates eleven kpm. "I just want to get home, so I might as well go back to where I started."
"That almost makes sense," Yoochun concedes. In an Alice in Wonderland sort of way. Maybe Min isn't so far off after all, since Limbo seems to be running on a similarly twisted sense of logic. Free coffee, only embittered companions to share it with, that sort of thing.
******
The next sign of life they come across is a motel. Heenim’s Palace the sign reads, lit up with old fashioned Vaudeville lights even though it’s barely three o’clock and the sun has finally come out of its carcinogenic shell.
It’s only afternoon, but the map is devoid of any landmarks within driving distance before night fall. It's only afternoon, but Yoochun feels exhausted in the creak of his joints folded into the cramped seat. His eyelids burn from the glare of sun on the windshield, and he's tired of listening to Min gripe about the road conditions and bitch about the lack of standardized road signs.
Min parks haphazardly in the drive under the front awning, and Yoochun trails him into the building. The manager is slumped behind the check in desk, sequined dockers propped on the counter as he slumps in a reclining chair. What it is with hot guys in sequins in this odd, odd place, Yoochun thinks, but he shuffles into place beside Min.
"Only one vacancy," the manager says, and blows his fringe out of his eyes. He has dark red hair that hangs almost to his shoulders. "I'm afraid you boys will have to share tonight." He's apologizing, sort of, but the sharp glow in his dark eyes communicates anything but a contrite heart.
"Don't be insufferable." Min clicks the corner of his credit card against the peeling laminate counter. "You have twenty rooms. The parking lot's empty. And the rusty excuse for a bike in the rack out front ain't carried any twenty persons here on its lone frame."
"Ingrates," the manager sighs, flipping back a wave of red hair. "Let me guess, you're new to Limbo Land. But I'll let you stay tonight out of the goodness of my heart, despite your ignorance."
"Are there seriously nineteen occupancies?" Min tries again, leaning in across the counter as he points at Yoochun, "because I can't share a room with him."
Yoochun makes a strangled sound of offense as the manager hacks out a laugh. Chronic bronchitis. He must smoke the same lemon flavored bleach that JJ does, Yoochun thinks.
Min's glare doesn't intimidate the manager either, apparently, because the man hands over a single key on a cheap wire ring with a green plastic tag. "Sorry to disappoint you, but we're doing renovations. You'll have to excuse us for the inconvenience."
"I hope you break your bank on those 'renovations'," Min says glibly, one hand resting on the jut of his hipbone through his thin slacks. "This place looks like a dump."
"First door on your right, take the elevator up to the third floor," the manager says. and he looks amused more than anything, reclining in his padded rocker behind the scarred laminate counter.
Min refuses to take the elevator, which to be fair doesn't seem to have been renovated since the 60's (does Limbo count in earth decades? JJ does, anyway), and Yoochun isn't champing at the bit to test it out either.
"Fuck," Min groans as he unlocks the door and pushes into the room. "Tell me again how I got stuck sharing with you?"
"That's what I'd like to ask." Yoochun toes out of his weathered loafers and flops onto the bed, rolling to the side to make room for Min. Looks like the room isn't the only thing they'll be sharing tonight.
“Fuck this.” Min’s boots hit the back of the closet with a thud of doom. “I’m not getting in that bed with you.” His arms are crossed against the heavy broadcloth button down he’s sweating in. He looms over Yoochun at the foot of the bed, and Yoochun stares at the layers of dried sweat already darkening the inside of his collar.
“Ok,” Yoochun says, because he wouldn’t mind not-sharing, too. “You want to shower first, or shall I?”
“Do what you want,” Min says, “I’m not showering.”
“Oh, come on.” Yoochun rolls onto his side to groan into the stiff hem of the quilted bedspread. The pilling polyester is slick against his skin, catches on the stubble shadowed along his jaw. It smells, gives off wafts of a chemical approximation of lavender only slightly less sickening than mothballs. “You have to shower and change at some point.”
“No, I don’t,” Min says with the infuriating patience of a child who can’t be talked sense to, although there’s an underlying note of panic in his voice that unsettles the breakfast of squashy tangerines languishing in the pit of Yoochun’s stomach.
“Does this have to do with getting back home,” Yoochun sighs, and he wants nothing more than to bury his head under a lumpy pillow and drift off to the blank hum of the A/C.
“Yes.” Min’s voice is lemonade, clear and acerbic and somehow refreshing in its bite. The heavy stillness of the motel room lies otherwise unbroken. There is no A/C, only a chipping porcelain radiator that won’t turn on, Yoochun’s already tried.
“You wanna talk about it?” Yoochun pats the broken spring in the mattress beside him, and he can’t believe he’s offering counseling services to an angsty kid dressed head to toe in brand-new sweat stained Burberry with a phobia of hygiene. Maybe if he talks him through it, though, Min won’t be such a razor blade up the ass while they’re on the road tomorrow. Maybe a good ole fashioned heart-to-heart will break some of the tension.
“I can’t believe this is happening.” Min’s voice wavers as he sinks into the mattress. The ruined springs squeal under the added weight. Yoochun rolls his eyes at the comment, as if Min considers talking to Yoochun a nightmare, but the tragic state of coffee in this universe isn’t worth batting an eyelash at. (Min has pretty eyelashes though, by the way. Yoochun wouldn’t mind watching him bat them for like, a few hours.)
“So you’re bound and determined to get back,” Yoochun prods, because Min is facing the headboard and not speaking, and Yoochun needs a shower before his body falls asleep on him.
“I didn’t want to jump,” Min whispers to the strip of bed sheets visible at the edge of the mattress. He outlines a bunch of stylized grapes carved in relief on the headboard with the tip of his finger. “I mean I did, for a little while.” The headboard is hardwood, dark stain, and old. The kind of antique you’d expect to find in a homey B&B place, and not a cheap motorist hotel. “I did for a while, but then I changed my mind.”
“Mid-air?”
“As my feet were still slipping on the edge of the roof tiles,” Min says, and smears a clear stream of snot from his nostrils. “If only I’d worn my hiking shoes, not my flats.”
“Indeed,” Yoochun sighs, and passes him the Kleenex. It’s rough single ply, of course, heaped into a cheap cardboard box, the kind with coarse perforations at the pull top that can give you a nasty paper cut if you’re not careful.
“But who the hell wears hiking boots to tour a downtown cathedral.” Min spits into the first tissue, blows heavily into the second.
“Who the hell,” Yoochun agrees.
“So that’s why I deserve a second chance,” Min says, the liquid self-pity dripping from his gaze and the self-loathing bathing his voice freeze over, hardening once more with a self-assured resolve.
Does anyone deserve a second chance? Yoochun wants to slander back, what about cancer patients, shooting victims, do you realize they didn’t want to leave earth either? But he doesn’t; he passes Min the wastebasket before the burgeoning pile of used tissues can overflow from his lap to the floral bedspread.
“So I just have to find a cathedral and talk to the people in charge, explain why it was all a mistake.” Min grips the edges of the trashcan for a too-long moment, bracing himself, white knuckled. Yoochun’s afraid for stuttering heartbeat that he’s about to hurl, but Min relaxes of a sudden, slumping back against the fruit themed headboard.
“Why do you get to decide if it was a mistake or not.” Sometimes Yoochun feels like the whole world must be a mistake, a greedy, garish, gelatinous blob of mistake that he happened to fall into one day, a lost soul chasing butterflies down a rabbit hole into the dragon’s lair.
“I need to explain why my mistake shouldn’t be counted as one. I took it back before I hit the air, took it all back!”
“What if it doesn’t work,” Yoochun says, Yoochun clings to the possibility, “what if your plan doesn’t work.” He finds himself wishing, and he hasn’t wished since the year he was lonely enough to adopt himself a neurotic demon of an anorexic cat.
Yoochun wishes, because maybe it’s only been forty-three hours since they met, but he’s already feeling attached to the bright, vindictive glow of Min’s eyes, to his lips that curl delectably around fierce snarls, to his ultimatums and his reckless driving. Min has several good points, but mostly Yoochun is drawn to his conviction.
Yoochun wants Min to be wrong because maybe he hate’s Min’s annoying face and annoying voice and biting charm-casm, but he doesn’t hate Min. Also because Yoochun doesn’t want to face any more choices. Yoochun was counting on it when he dispatched himself here, that this is a done deal, because he never wants to face the guilt, the weight, of deciding whether to return home.
Maybe he doesn’t have to worry either way, though, because he completed his final self-inflicted PTSD treatment without a lick of regret. Yoochun made his choice and didn’t change his mind at the edge.
“So...if I shower, you think--” Min breaks off, gasps in a breath, and grips his knees with his fingers in a stranglehold.
“You already ate the cauliflower,” Yoochun points out, “breathed the smog, fraternized with the residents. I don’t think showering in Limbo will make too much of a difference at this point.”
“Ok,” Min says, and his voice is only slightly shaky as he strips off his shirt. Yoochun slides his head under the lumpy pillow encased in a cheap polyester 250 count case until he hears the bathroom door click and the water trickle on. Fuck. Of course the water pressure would suck here.
Min comes out dripping and Yoochun moans in confusion as he tries to lift his head, vision shifting between dimensions as he veers out of the sleep lane.
“Don’t bother.” Min is dripping all over the bedspread as he leans forward to towel his hair. “The water heater will take a while yet, I’d imagine.”
Yoochun might be pissed if he weren’t half asleep and if the joints of his spine didn’t feel like crumbly dry clay without enough straw to hold his limbs in place. He can shower later, anyway. It’s only three--four o’clock, now. They’ve got all night.
Min’s wet head hits the pillow beside Yoochun’s, and Yoochun’s fingers unfurl like a morning glory bloom in the first clear light of dawn. His skin still smells like sweat, a hint of sweet musk under the milky scent of baby soap and floral shampoo.
The wet strands squeak between Yoochun’s fingers before flopping back to the pillow.
“No conditioner,” Min says, “and the hairdryer only has a cool setting.”
Better for the hair cuticles, Yoochun would say, less damage, but his lips won’t unlock themselves from dream speech mode, the words echoing soundlessly from his brain waves. Yoochun blames the crumbling coordination of his insubordinate spine when his fingers slip lower to palm the slick curve of Min’s firm neck.
Yoochun finds his vocal cords back when Min’s lips find his. Min tucks Yoochun’s startled squawk into his own mouth with a filthy sweep of his tongue, wet and scalding, and pulls back to survey the fallout. Both his brows are raised in challenge, as if Yoochun had made the first move instead of him.
“This is ok, right? I mean, I saw you staring, in the rearview mirror. I saw you staring, so I know--”
“It’s alright,” Yoochun says, “this is okay.”
Min’s mouth falls open and his eyes fall closed when Yoochun’s pinky fingernail catches on his damp nipple, but he keeps talking, keeps up his defiant ramble.
“I know this isn’t normal,” he gasps as Yoochun’s tongue curves down to follow the course charted by his fingers, “this--place. Limbo. But that--that’s what you do, right? This is--what happens when you h-hook up with strangers in diners and take them back to your hotel room.”
Technically, this dump does not deserve the title hotel or Palace, and technically they “hooked up” in JJ’s bar, not the diner, but Yoochun has never cared much for technicalities. They’re too dreary to be bothered with, their associated pressures much the same as the stress of decisions and proper, scheduled meals.
Min doesn’t shut up, but he quits talking because Yoochun is hungrily tracing the lines of his body with an appetite no earthly food could ever stir so deep within him. And Yoochun, like he said, is good with maps.
Min, Yoochun decides, with the burning coals of dissatisfaction in his heart that his ribcage can’t quite contain do not belong in Limbo after all. Min has too much passion fermenting his bones, too much will to fuck things up still marinating in him. He throws things off balance, like Yoochun’s equilibrium, for one.
Yes, Yoochun knows from the deep ache in his gut, in his thighs, that he’s getting way more attached to this person--kid?--soul--than he should be for a 44.5 hour relationship, but he hopes Min finds his way back home.
******
“Happy trails,” the manager says in the flattest voice Yoochun has heard from him yet, “or should I say, enjoy the treasure trails?” He cocks a lecherous eyebrow and flicks a condom across the counter. The foil square spins into Min’s hand as he’s signing the receipt with just his initials, just so no one can steal his name to potentially trap him here, just in case.
Min shoots it back to the manager, and Yoochun doesn’t care if his vanity is a waste. The condom’s probably expired, anyway, like everything in this place.
They get back in the Camry, Yoochun’s bare feet propped on the dash with Min’s grudging tolerance this time. The air quality is still on the sucky end of the urban SoCal spectrum and Min’s headlights won’t turn on, but the manager of the Palace waves goodbye from cracking pavement of the parking lot median and Yoochun almost feels like smiling again, almost.
Their map shows only one landmark in range for today and Yoochun, talented though he may be at decoding topography charts and tremors of hard muscle rippling beneath golden skin, has no idea if it will be St. Basil’s or a pet crematorium up ahead. He’s hoping with all the fortitude of the squashy tangerines and caffeinated dishwater swirling in his gut that it’s Min’s fated cathedral. But, in the likely case it isn’t, Yoochun will keep driving along with him into the hazy sunsets until the stone spires grace the horizon.
Yoochun promised him that, somewhere between 3 AM and their third bottle of the shitty complimentary vodka, Min dusted off from behind a rusty steam iron in the closet. Min thanked him with a hard, sucking kiss, sealing the declaration into an agreement, a contract of sorts between strangers.
Yoochun has nothing else to do anyway, besides scour the countryside for his dead cat. Blug always hated his guts anyway, probably starved herself to death in protest of her owner’s apathetic existence.
Yoochun may not stay apathetic forever though, it all depends on how long Min has to rub off on him before he finds his fairytale cathedral and marches down the aisle to demand his happy ending, his second chance. Who knows, maybe Yoochun will join him at the altar.
“Radio?” Yoochun asks, dangling a curl of tangerine peel out the passenger window and letting the drag tatter it to fragrant, citrusy shreds before he lets go.
“Be my guest,” Min sighs, and switches on the static.
Yoochun fits the pad of his thumb to the groove of the dial and eases the numbers forward, a tenth of a digit at a time. They have all day to argue over which frequency of static sounds more aesthetic, more appropriate for epic road tripping ambience.
Yoochun holds up the map and lets it flutter away next, his eyes on Min the entire time. There’s only one road, anyway, and they have all the time in Limbo to traverse it together.