Dark
007. Dark
[Pairing] Eeteuk / Sungmin
[Rating] PG
[Genre] Sci-fi?
[Word Count] 1.151
[Author's Note] I was getting un-ready for work (oh, that's a long story) and my brain started writing this, so I just had to write it. It's kind of weird (Mica and Tasja always get me in this kind of mood after their updates), but weird is good. So, enjoy, and I hope the ending isn't too confusing :)
(My Archive)
He’s not exactly sure when he started throwing up, but as he hunched in a cold bathroom over even colder porcelain, he’s aware that he’s been here for far too long. He can feel the bits of alphanumeric coding leaking from his eyes in the form of tears, knows the data coded in his brain is rushing to every part of his abused internal system in an attempt to fix the problem, feels his half-robotic body shaking, shaking, not with the cold but with the violence of the vomiting. His new body wasn’t designed for this kind of harsh treatment, and he wonders every second this is happening what he ate or drank to induce this kind of reaction.
It’s so dark in the bathroom as he curls painfully over, but he’s used to the dark in both the physical and metaphorical sense. His first conscious memory is of waking up in a dark room with a single light focused on his legs, but he was never told what happened to him to make him forget in the first place. It feels strangely unreal, but he’s never informed why.
A sound of metal crashing to the floor resounds through the bathroom as his left leg gives out beneath him, no longer being able to support his body, now using the human foot on his right leg to stay upright because Sungmin would kill him if he ever threw up on the floor. His head aches, his brain screams at him, his muscles burn, and soon his left arm gives out from the shoulder down, falling limply into the toilet, and he wishes he had the energy to pull it out. His stomach heaves, harder than before, his tears falling down his cheeks and landing on the seat, glistening a pale blue as bits of his internal body falls with the tears.
This isn’t normal or natural, even for his half mechanical body. He is allowed to throw up, but this is too much. Small wires and flashing bits of memory lace the regurgitated dinner in the toilet, and he wants to cry more with how unnatural the whole thing looks, but he can’t afford to lose any more of his body. Sungmin would kill him for that.
When he’s lying on the all-too familiar bed a few days later, with its hard mattress and multiple bindings, he knows he really messed up. Sungmin lectures him for being so careless and stupid and allowing himself to drink that certain drink that ensures robotic death and ignores when Leeteuk tells him it was an accident and he didn’t know what it was. Sungmin makes sure it hurts extra this time when he’s installing the new body parts, just to get his point across.
He was told that the sun had almost completely burned up and that’s why it’s so cold all the time and why heat generators were installed in houses. People tried to not go outside too much since the technology for putting a heating system over an entire city was still just a bit beyond their range, but he didn’t mind too much. Sungmin explained to Leeteuk before that he was trying to invent a heated suit so he could walk around outside without worrying about the blistering weather, but so far the suit only lasted five minutes, and in the run-down mess they called a city, five minutes could get you nowhere.
So when Leeteuk decides he wants to go for a walk, Sungmin bundles him up in multiple layers of jackets and scarves and headgear invented by the boy himself, making sure to wrap his mechanical parts in extra layers so they wouldn’t freeze up and leave Leeteuk crawling home, and Leeteuk appreciates the gesture. He’s still not sure why Sungmin cares so much for him, but he doesn’t complain; he’s got a house to live in, food to eat, and someone who cares about him.
Somewhere in the deep recesses of his mind, he thinks it feels oddly lonely in a nostalgic sort of way, but those thoughts make his stomach hurt and his heart feel empty, so he tries not to dwell on them.
The flashlight he brings with him dies halfway to his destination, and he curses the near-darkness to the depths of Hell and wishes the Sun would come back to light his way. He doesn’t know what the sun looks like or what happened to it to make it die, but he wishes someone would relight it so he could finish his walk and get back home safely. From what he’s heard, the world used to be very bright, and he wishes it were like that now.
The extra battery he brought with him dies as well even though he’s sure he grabbed a new one from the pack Sungmin keeps on the counter, but when he gets in the mood to leave the house, he tends to get careless, and he assumes he got one next to it that Sungmin meant to recharge. He continues to curse at himself, though, turning around an attempting to retrace his steps back home.
His flashlight flickers feebly, and Leeteuk hopes that means that it’ll start working again. He isn’t sure why it stopped working in the first place if it still had battery power in it - why else would it be flickering? - when he realizes the truth.
Energy eaters.
He tries to run as fast as he can, stumbling over rocks and loose dirt and whatever else is in his way - he wishes desperately he could see the terrain - not looking back, gripping his flashlight tightly, hoping, hoping they didn’t track him, praying, running-
And it all goes black, blacker than before, blacker than when he closes his eyes to sleep. Dark, endlessly dark. In the split second before consciousness slips from him, he thinks about Sungmin and how angry he’s going to be.
His eyes flutter open to the sight of a blonde boy, no older than mid-twenties, peering into his face, dark eyes searching carefully with a hint of - was it anger? Irritation? - something in them that he couldn’t exactly place.
“I had to replace your internal hard drive and pieces of your memory system. And that damn leg. Why do they always want the legs?” He sighed, running his hand through his hair. “Anyway, sit up.”
He did as he was told, wondering where he was and what was going on. “Your name is Leeteuk. Mine is Sungmin. Can you move your legs?”
Leeteuk looked down at his legs, wondering why they were silver and metallic and covered in wires, and moved them experimentally.
“Good, come on, we have to start physical therapy.”
Leeteuk wondered why this boy seemed so irritated at him when he’d just woken up. How’d he get here, anyway? It was awfully dark in here. Wasn’t there any light?
[Pairing] Eeteuk / Sungmin
[Rating] PG
[Genre] Sci-fi?
[Word Count] 1.151
[Author's Note] I was getting un-ready for work (oh, that's a long story) and my brain started writing this, so I just had to write it. It's kind of weird (Mica and Tasja always get me in this kind of mood after their updates), but weird is good. So, enjoy, and I hope the ending isn't too confusing :)
(My Archive)
He’s not exactly sure when he started throwing up, but as he hunched in a cold bathroom over even colder porcelain, he’s aware that he’s been here for far too long. He can feel the bits of alphanumeric coding leaking from his eyes in the form of tears, knows the data coded in his brain is rushing to every part of his abused internal system in an attempt to fix the problem, feels his half-robotic body shaking, shaking, not with the cold but with the violence of the vomiting. His new body wasn’t designed for this kind of harsh treatment, and he wonders every second this is happening what he ate or drank to induce this kind of reaction.
It’s so dark in the bathroom as he curls painfully over, but he’s used to the dark in both the physical and metaphorical sense. His first conscious memory is of waking up in a dark room with a single light focused on his legs, but he was never told what happened to him to make him forget in the first place. It feels strangely unreal, but he’s never informed why.
A sound of metal crashing to the floor resounds through the bathroom as his left leg gives out beneath him, no longer being able to support his body, now using the human foot on his right leg to stay upright because Sungmin would kill him if he ever threw up on the floor. His head aches, his brain screams at him, his muscles burn, and soon his left arm gives out from the shoulder down, falling limply into the toilet, and he wishes he had the energy to pull it out. His stomach heaves, harder than before, his tears falling down his cheeks and landing on the seat, glistening a pale blue as bits of his internal body falls with the tears.
This isn’t normal or natural, even for his half mechanical body. He is allowed to throw up, but this is too much. Small wires and flashing bits of memory lace the regurgitated dinner in the toilet, and he wants to cry more with how unnatural the whole thing looks, but he can’t afford to lose any more of his body. Sungmin would kill him for that.
When he’s lying on the all-too familiar bed a few days later, with its hard mattress and multiple bindings, he knows he really messed up. Sungmin lectures him for being so careless and stupid and allowing himself to drink that certain drink that ensures robotic death and ignores when Leeteuk tells him it was an accident and he didn’t know what it was. Sungmin makes sure it hurts extra this time when he’s installing the new body parts, just to get his point across.
He was told that the sun had almost completely burned up and that’s why it’s so cold all the time and why heat generators were installed in houses. People tried to not go outside too much since the technology for putting a heating system over an entire city was still just a bit beyond their range, but he didn’t mind too much. Sungmin explained to Leeteuk before that he was trying to invent a heated suit so he could walk around outside without worrying about the blistering weather, but so far the suit only lasted five minutes, and in the run-down mess they called a city, five minutes could get you nowhere.
So when Leeteuk decides he wants to go for a walk, Sungmin bundles him up in multiple layers of jackets and scarves and headgear invented by the boy himself, making sure to wrap his mechanical parts in extra layers so they wouldn’t freeze up and leave Leeteuk crawling home, and Leeteuk appreciates the gesture. He’s still not sure why Sungmin cares so much for him, but he doesn’t complain; he’s got a house to live in, food to eat, and someone who cares about him.
Somewhere in the deep recesses of his mind, he thinks it feels oddly lonely in a nostalgic sort of way, but those thoughts make his stomach hurt and his heart feel empty, so he tries not to dwell on them.
The flashlight he brings with him dies halfway to his destination, and he curses the near-darkness to the depths of Hell and wishes the Sun would come back to light his way. He doesn’t know what the sun looks like or what happened to it to make it die, but he wishes someone would relight it so he could finish his walk and get back home safely. From what he’s heard, the world used to be very bright, and he wishes it were like that now.
The extra battery he brought with him dies as well even though he’s sure he grabbed a new one from the pack Sungmin keeps on the counter, but when he gets in the mood to leave the house, he tends to get careless, and he assumes he got one next to it that Sungmin meant to recharge. He continues to curse at himself, though, turning around an attempting to retrace his steps back home.
His flashlight flickers feebly, and Leeteuk hopes that means that it’ll start working again. He isn’t sure why it stopped working in the first place if it still had battery power in it - why else would it be flickering? - when he realizes the truth.
Energy eaters.
He tries to run as fast as he can, stumbling over rocks and loose dirt and whatever else is in his way - he wishes desperately he could see the terrain - not looking back, gripping his flashlight tightly, hoping, hoping they didn’t track him, praying, running-
And it all goes black, blacker than before, blacker than when he closes his eyes to sleep. Dark, endlessly dark. In the split second before consciousness slips from him, he thinks about Sungmin and how angry he’s going to be.
His eyes flutter open to the sight of a blonde boy, no older than mid-twenties, peering into his face, dark eyes searching carefully with a hint of - was it anger? Irritation? - something in them that he couldn’t exactly place.
“I had to replace your internal hard drive and pieces of your memory system. And that damn leg. Why do they always want the legs?” He sighed, running his hand through his hair. “Anyway, sit up.”
He did as he was told, wondering where he was and what was going on. “Your name is Leeteuk. Mine is Sungmin. Can you move your legs?”
Leeteuk looked down at his legs, wondering why they were silver and metallic and covered in wires, and moved them experimentally.
“Good, come on, we have to start physical therapy.”
Leeteuk wondered why this boy seemed so irritated at him when he’d just woken up. How’d he get here, anyway? It was awfully dark in here. Wasn’t there any light?