In The End [3/?]
Pairings: HoMin
Rating: R
Warnings: boyxboy, some gore, might have adult themes in the future.
Summary: It's a normal day when life pushes them together. Who would have known a few hours later they would only have one another?
A/N: There is no chapter limit anymore. I've decided my original idea was really boring. So now I don't know what I'll do, heh. Enjoy!
September 2, 2011
”This is the call of the Antichrist, the Apocalypse as it was predicted. Gather your family together and pray to the Lord our Savior, pray for your soul and for those around you, and may they find a way through this Hell upon Earth. Repent from your sins before it’s too-“
Changmin is only mildly surprised when the TV signal suddenly gets cut off, leaving behind a shaky mess of blurry gray lines. Not a lot is lost; the reports were getting more monotonous and repetitive, telling people to stay indoors at all times, stay in contact with family, and terminate all those infected.
He’s glad the internet is still working though. He spends his days searching for survival guides and maps of the city and surrounding areas, planning where to move next when it becomes necessary. He uses Yunho’s printer to produce black-and-white typed papers and colorful maps when he can find them.
That’s another aspect of their recent arrangement: Changmin has gone to live with Yunho. It was more of a practical measure than an emotional one if you asked Changmin, but Yunho knew the younger one did not want to be in his empty home while his parent’s were lost, and most likely dead. Disappearances were taken as deaths by general rule those days, and Changmin had stopped looking after hitting a dead end in his investigations.
“The food is ready, Changmin-ah!” Yunho hollered from the kitchen.
“Coming!” Changmin hollered back, putting his laptop away and shuffling to the kitchen, entering the room just as Yunho was putting a warm pot of food on the table.
They each took spoonfuls of meat and vegetables, setting them in their plates to swim in the warm and spicy broth. Changmin ate with gusto, having settled for instant noodles the day before.
Since neither of them was a good cook, they ransacked Changmin’s fridge, taking everything they could find in it and taking it upstairs. They started with the leftovers, not wanting good food to go to waste, and made a commitment to make the frozen food last as long as they could.
“The TV does not work anymore,” Changmin informed Yunho as he was helping himself to a second serving.
“What do you mean?” Yunho asked while he chewed. Changmin shot him a disgusted look and Yunho shrugged, swallowing.
“The signal is gone.”
Yunho hummed. “Took them long enough.”
They finished eating in silence. Changmin washed the dishes since Yunho heated the food and set the table, while the older man went to grab a deck of cards. They made a habit of playing after dinner and Changmin almost always won; Yunho’s poker face sucked.
“Ready?” Yunho asked from the doorway, deck already in one hand, a bottle of whiskey in the other.
They spent a lot of their nights like that. The cards took their minds away from the troubles they faced while the alcohol numbed the pain, the uncertainty and the fear.
“Do you ever think about them?” Changmin asked after a few rounds. His eyes were beginning to get glassy from the alcohol, but Yunho saw he was staring at a framed picture of Yunho with his parents and a girl that looked at lot like him, most likely his sister.
Yunho stopped shuffling the cards and looked at the clock. It was almost 1 am.
“Sometimes,” he replied softly.
Changmin was about to say something but Yunho cut him off.
“It’s getting late, let’s go to sleep.”
Changmin nodded and tried to stand, almost toppling over before Yunho reached over the table and grabbed him from under the arms. He thanked Yunho and managed to stand, albeit shakily.
Both men made their way to the bedroom, the more sober of the two watching the younger one made his way through the hall with tumbling steps, ready to catch him if he were to fall.
Changmin still had some conscience in him to pull the covers down before he threw himself on the bed. Yunho had taken pity on Changmin the second night he spent in the apartment, deciding they could share the bed. It was big enough after all.
“You’re going to regret drinking so much in the morning,” Yunho said with a small amused laugh.
“Don’t care,” Changmin mumbled, his face pressed against the pillow.
Yunho locked the door to his room before crawling into bed, just in case. There were three locks secured on his door and they had pushed a heavy cabinet in front of the hallway door leading to the stairs, but paranoia meant survival, while relaxing could mean becoming a walking corpse.
“Good night, Changmin-ah,” he whispered just before he closed his eyes, getting no reply other than Changmin’s soft snores.
September 5, 2011
Yunho shivered under the stream of cold water. His skin crawled with goosebumps as he poured shampoo on his palm and rubbed it into his hair, massaging his own scalp with swift movements. The last time they had gotten hot water had been two days ago, and showering became a much dreaded task since then.
He was still lathering his hair when the stream of water started to thin out. Realizing what was happening he jumped under it, frantically rubbing his hands over his head, trying to rinse as much shampoo as possible to no success. Barely a few seconds passed before the only thing coming from the shower head were lone drops of left-over moisture while Yunho tried to keep the running shampoo out of his eyes.
“Damn,” he cursed, wrapping a towel around his waist and wiping his face with another. He stepped out of the shower and went to stand in front of the mirror. Sure enough, white suds still bubbled on his hair and dropped over his forehead, pooling dangerously over his eyebrows.
“What happened?”
Yunho was startled by Changmin standing just outside the bathroom door, thick glasses atop his nose and his hair in disarray. In his hand he was clutching what looked like a map of something or the other-Yunho had long since lost interest in all of the data Changmin was collecting, trusting the younger man with it.
“We ran out of water,” Yunho announced solemnly as Changmin looked at his shampoo-covered hair.
“Let’s go downstairs,” Changmin suggested. “There’s bound to be water at my place.”
Yunho nodded and went in search for some clothes. When he came back from his room he found Changmin waiting for him at the door, a baseball bat in one hand and a basket of toiletries in the other. There was a towel wrapped around his shoulder as well.
“What’s that for?” Yunho asked, the movement of his raised eyebrows causing shampoo to run down close to his eye before he wiped the hazardous drop off.
Changmin shrugged. “If there’s water this might be the last chance I get to shower in a while.”
Yunho waited outside of the bathroom, baseball bat in hand. Droplets ran down his neck and drench the collar of his shirt but it had felt good to rinse the shampoo out of his hair. The shower was still running, signaling Changmin was still not done which only made his anxiety pike. While climbing down to Changmin’s floor they had heard some groans and faint shuffling from who knows how many floors below. They scrambled inside the younger’s apartment, locking the apartment door after them, but their hearts kept hammering inside their chests long after that.
Yunho tip-toed to the door hoping to hear if one of those things was approaching. He pressed his ear to the door but no sound could be heard through the thick wooden surface. He hoped it was because there was nobody outside, and not because the door would not allow sound to pass through. He was in the process of kneeling to see through the opening under the door when the lights in the apartment started flickering. It only took four seconds for the lights to completely die out, making the windows in the living room the only source of light in the enclosure. Yunho stopped for a second, to hear if Changmin was not having any trouble, but there was no sound of alarm coming from the bathroom.
He crouched back down, the bat lying forgotten next to his hand, and peered through the opening. There was nothing to be seen, only darkness since the lights had gone out.
And then it hit him.
He scrambled to his feet and rushed to the bathroom as silently as he could. He knocked softly on the door, hoping Changmin had heard, but there was no response.
“Changmin! Hurry up!” he whispered harshly. When there was no response he knocked harder. “Changmin! We have to leave. NOW!”
Finally he heard the water being turned off, and the faint splatter of wet feet on the floor. There was some shuffling before the door opened. Changmin was still buttoning his pants, water dripping down his soaked hair to cover his naked chest.
“What’s going on?” he asked, his fingers stumbling over the buttons in his haste.
“Power’s out,” Yunho said, frantic.
“Well it has been out for about three minutes n-“
“You don’t understand. The only reason the stairs were illuminated was because the power in the building was still on.”
Realization dawns on Changmin’s face as he struggles to put on his shirt.
“Oh shit.”
They went to Changmin’s room, the farthest one from the front door. There was Changmin’s bed and a chair sitting neatly in front of a desk but neither men dared to sit down.
“What now?” asked Changmin, as he paced around the room.
“Do you happen to have flashlights here? I thought we could just make a quick dash upstairs, but we probably won’t be able to come back down again, so you might want to get all of the things you haven’t taken up with you now.”
Yunho leaned against the wall, watching Changmin. The younger man had stopped pacing, and was now looking around his room, probably trying to figure out if he was missing anything. He walked towards his desk and opened one of the drawers, pulling out a flashlight. He turned it on to check if it still had batteries before handing it to Yunho. Then he grabbed a large pack and started shoving things in there, including other packs. Then he motioned for Yunho to follow him outside. They walked into what could not be anything but the master bedroom. Changmin headed towards his parents’ wardrobe, taking out boxes from the top shelves until he reached a black leather bag which he pulled out.
“There should be a first-aid kit under the kitchen sink, hyung. Could you go get it?” Changmin asked.
Yunho was curious as to the contents of the bag but he nodded anyways and went to get the kit. Just as Changmin had said, it was in the cabinet under the sink so it took him no time at all to get it. He returned to the room to see Changmin sorting through different caliber ammo and spreading it on the bed next to a handgun.
As soon as Changmin raised his eyes Yunho shot him a questioning look.
“I’ve known where my dad hides his gun since I was twelve,” Changmin answered. “He caught me snooping around, so he taught me how to shoot it.”
A wave of relief washed over Yunho. At least the kid knew how to use it. When he saw Changmin putting the gun into its original bag he started to protest.
“We shouldn’t waste our bullets,” Changmin explained.
“Okay, but let’s be quick. I don’t want those things climbing up to this level.”
He helped Changmin pack the gun and ammo into the pack before grabbing the bat again. Changmin shouldered the large pack and Yunho turned on the flashlight, pointing it at the door.
“Ready?” Changmin whispered as he went to stand next to the door, pommel in hand.
Yunho nodded and Changmin opened the door quickly. Other than the thin strip of light the flashlight provided, everything was dark. They would have preferred silence as well, but the groans downstairs continued to sound, even more haunting in the darkened staircase.
Changmin took the flashlight and lead the way while Yunho stayed close, turning every once in a while to check they weren’t being followed by one of the undead. They were almost all the way to the upper floor when Yunho suddenly tripped, the bat coming down to bang against the metallic steps as he tried to brace himself for the fall. The echoing sound seemed almost deafening in the otherwise empty staircase but as it started to fade they could hear the groans growing in volume and -if Yunho could trust his ears-in interest.
Both men turned to look at each other, panic lacing into a suffocating knot in their throats. Not even a second later they were running up the rest of the stairs.
Yunho could not even tell how or when they got through the door to his floor. He didn’t even remember pushing the cabinet back in place. He was suddenly inside his apartment, locking the door before collapsing on the floor.
Changmin, likewise, was seated opposite to him, panting heavily. His hands were shaking and when Yunho looked down at his own hands he found them in a similar state.
That day there was no talking, and that night there were no card games. The looks they exchanged said it all: it was time to get out of there.
Rating: R
Warnings: boyxboy, some gore, might have adult themes in the future.
Summary: It's a normal day when life pushes them together. Who would have known a few hours later they would only have one another?
A/N: There is no chapter limit anymore. I've decided my original idea was really boring. So now I don't know what I'll do, heh. Enjoy!
September 2, 2011
”This is the call of the Antichrist, the Apocalypse as it was predicted. Gather your family together and pray to the Lord our Savior, pray for your soul and for those around you, and may they find a way through this Hell upon Earth. Repent from your sins before it’s too-“
Changmin is only mildly surprised when the TV signal suddenly gets cut off, leaving behind a shaky mess of blurry gray lines. Not a lot is lost; the reports were getting more monotonous and repetitive, telling people to stay indoors at all times, stay in contact with family, and terminate all those infected.
He’s glad the internet is still working though. He spends his days searching for survival guides and maps of the city and surrounding areas, planning where to move next when it becomes necessary. He uses Yunho’s printer to produce black-and-white typed papers and colorful maps when he can find them.
That’s another aspect of their recent arrangement: Changmin has gone to live with Yunho. It was more of a practical measure than an emotional one if you asked Changmin, but Yunho knew the younger one did not want to be in his empty home while his parent’s were lost, and most likely dead. Disappearances were taken as deaths by general rule those days, and Changmin had stopped looking after hitting a dead end in his investigations.
“The food is ready, Changmin-ah!” Yunho hollered from the kitchen.
“Coming!” Changmin hollered back, putting his laptop away and shuffling to the kitchen, entering the room just as Yunho was putting a warm pot of food on the table.
They each took spoonfuls of meat and vegetables, setting them in their plates to swim in the warm and spicy broth. Changmin ate with gusto, having settled for instant noodles the day before.
Since neither of them was a good cook, they ransacked Changmin’s fridge, taking everything they could find in it and taking it upstairs. They started with the leftovers, not wanting good food to go to waste, and made a commitment to make the frozen food last as long as they could.
“The TV does not work anymore,” Changmin informed Yunho as he was helping himself to a second serving.
“What do you mean?” Yunho asked while he chewed. Changmin shot him a disgusted look and Yunho shrugged, swallowing.
“The signal is gone.”
Yunho hummed. “Took them long enough.”
They finished eating in silence. Changmin washed the dishes since Yunho heated the food and set the table, while the older man went to grab a deck of cards. They made a habit of playing after dinner and Changmin almost always won; Yunho’s poker face sucked.
“Ready?” Yunho asked from the doorway, deck already in one hand, a bottle of whiskey in the other.
They spent a lot of their nights like that. The cards took their minds away from the troubles they faced while the alcohol numbed the pain, the uncertainty and the fear.
“Do you ever think about them?” Changmin asked after a few rounds. His eyes were beginning to get glassy from the alcohol, but Yunho saw he was staring at a framed picture of Yunho with his parents and a girl that looked at lot like him, most likely his sister.
Yunho stopped shuffling the cards and looked at the clock. It was almost 1 am.
“Sometimes,” he replied softly.
Changmin was about to say something but Yunho cut him off.
“It’s getting late, let’s go to sleep.”
Changmin nodded and tried to stand, almost toppling over before Yunho reached over the table and grabbed him from under the arms. He thanked Yunho and managed to stand, albeit shakily.
Both men made their way to the bedroom, the more sober of the two watching the younger one made his way through the hall with tumbling steps, ready to catch him if he were to fall.
Changmin still had some conscience in him to pull the covers down before he threw himself on the bed. Yunho had taken pity on Changmin the second night he spent in the apartment, deciding they could share the bed. It was big enough after all.
“You’re going to regret drinking so much in the morning,” Yunho said with a small amused laugh.
“Don’t care,” Changmin mumbled, his face pressed against the pillow.
Yunho locked the door to his room before crawling into bed, just in case. There were three locks secured on his door and they had pushed a heavy cabinet in front of the hallway door leading to the stairs, but paranoia meant survival, while relaxing could mean becoming a walking corpse.
“Good night, Changmin-ah,” he whispered just before he closed his eyes, getting no reply other than Changmin’s soft snores.
September 5, 2011
Yunho shivered under the stream of cold water. His skin crawled with goosebumps as he poured shampoo on his palm and rubbed it into his hair, massaging his own scalp with swift movements. The last time they had gotten hot water had been two days ago, and showering became a much dreaded task since then.
He was still lathering his hair when the stream of water started to thin out. Realizing what was happening he jumped under it, frantically rubbing his hands over his head, trying to rinse as much shampoo as possible to no success. Barely a few seconds passed before the only thing coming from the shower head were lone drops of left-over moisture while Yunho tried to keep the running shampoo out of his eyes.
“Damn,” he cursed, wrapping a towel around his waist and wiping his face with another. He stepped out of the shower and went to stand in front of the mirror. Sure enough, white suds still bubbled on his hair and dropped over his forehead, pooling dangerously over his eyebrows.
“What happened?”
Yunho was startled by Changmin standing just outside the bathroom door, thick glasses atop his nose and his hair in disarray. In his hand he was clutching what looked like a map of something or the other-Yunho had long since lost interest in all of the data Changmin was collecting, trusting the younger man with it.
“We ran out of water,” Yunho announced solemnly as Changmin looked at his shampoo-covered hair.
“Let’s go downstairs,” Changmin suggested. “There’s bound to be water at my place.”
Yunho nodded and went in search for some clothes. When he came back from his room he found Changmin waiting for him at the door, a baseball bat in one hand and a basket of toiletries in the other. There was a towel wrapped around his shoulder as well.
“What’s that for?” Yunho asked, the movement of his raised eyebrows causing shampoo to run down close to his eye before he wiped the hazardous drop off.
Changmin shrugged. “If there’s water this might be the last chance I get to shower in a while.”
Yunho waited outside of the bathroom, baseball bat in hand. Droplets ran down his neck and drench the collar of his shirt but it had felt good to rinse the shampoo out of his hair. The shower was still running, signaling Changmin was still not done which only made his anxiety pike. While climbing down to Changmin’s floor they had heard some groans and faint shuffling from who knows how many floors below. They scrambled inside the younger’s apartment, locking the apartment door after them, but their hearts kept hammering inside their chests long after that.
Yunho tip-toed to the door hoping to hear if one of those things was approaching. He pressed his ear to the door but no sound could be heard through the thick wooden surface. He hoped it was because there was nobody outside, and not because the door would not allow sound to pass through. He was in the process of kneeling to see through the opening under the door when the lights in the apartment started flickering. It only took four seconds for the lights to completely die out, making the windows in the living room the only source of light in the enclosure. Yunho stopped for a second, to hear if Changmin was not having any trouble, but there was no sound of alarm coming from the bathroom.
He crouched back down, the bat lying forgotten next to his hand, and peered through the opening. There was nothing to be seen, only darkness since the lights had gone out.
And then it hit him.
He scrambled to his feet and rushed to the bathroom as silently as he could. He knocked softly on the door, hoping Changmin had heard, but there was no response.
“Changmin! Hurry up!” he whispered harshly. When there was no response he knocked harder. “Changmin! We have to leave. NOW!”
Finally he heard the water being turned off, and the faint splatter of wet feet on the floor. There was some shuffling before the door opened. Changmin was still buttoning his pants, water dripping down his soaked hair to cover his naked chest.
“What’s going on?” he asked, his fingers stumbling over the buttons in his haste.
“Power’s out,” Yunho said, frantic.
“Well it has been out for about three minutes n-“
“You don’t understand. The only reason the stairs were illuminated was because the power in the building was still on.”
Realization dawns on Changmin’s face as he struggles to put on his shirt.
“Oh shit.”
They went to Changmin’s room, the farthest one from the front door. There was Changmin’s bed and a chair sitting neatly in front of a desk but neither men dared to sit down.
“What now?” asked Changmin, as he paced around the room.
“Do you happen to have flashlights here? I thought we could just make a quick dash upstairs, but we probably won’t be able to come back down again, so you might want to get all of the things you haven’t taken up with you now.”
Yunho leaned against the wall, watching Changmin. The younger man had stopped pacing, and was now looking around his room, probably trying to figure out if he was missing anything. He walked towards his desk and opened one of the drawers, pulling out a flashlight. He turned it on to check if it still had batteries before handing it to Yunho. Then he grabbed a large pack and started shoving things in there, including other packs. Then he motioned for Yunho to follow him outside. They walked into what could not be anything but the master bedroom. Changmin headed towards his parents’ wardrobe, taking out boxes from the top shelves until he reached a black leather bag which he pulled out.
“There should be a first-aid kit under the kitchen sink, hyung. Could you go get it?” Changmin asked.
Yunho was curious as to the contents of the bag but he nodded anyways and went to get the kit. Just as Changmin had said, it was in the cabinet under the sink so it took him no time at all to get it. He returned to the room to see Changmin sorting through different caliber ammo and spreading it on the bed next to a handgun.
As soon as Changmin raised his eyes Yunho shot him a questioning look.
“I’ve known where my dad hides his gun since I was twelve,” Changmin answered. “He caught me snooping around, so he taught me how to shoot it.”
A wave of relief washed over Yunho. At least the kid knew how to use it. When he saw Changmin putting the gun into its original bag he started to protest.
“We shouldn’t waste our bullets,” Changmin explained.
“Okay, but let’s be quick. I don’t want those things climbing up to this level.”
He helped Changmin pack the gun and ammo into the pack before grabbing the bat again. Changmin shouldered the large pack and Yunho turned on the flashlight, pointing it at the door.
“Ready?” Changmin whispered as he went to stand next to the door, pommel in hand.
Yunho nodded and Changmin opened the door quickly. Other than the thin strip of light the flashlight provided, everything was dark. They would have preferred silence as well, but the groans downstairs continued to sound, even more haunting in the darkened staircase.
Changmin took the flashlight and lead the way while Yunho stayed close, turning every once in a while to check they weren’t being followed by one of the undead. They were almost all the way to the upper floor when Yunho suddenly tripped, the bat coming down to bang against the metallic steps as he tried to brace himself for the fall. The echoing sound seemed almost deafening in the otherwise empty staircase but as it started to fade they could hear the groans growing in volume and -if Yunho could trust his ears-in interest.
Both men turned to look at each other, panic lacing into a suffocating knot in their throats. Not even a second later they were running up the rest of the stairs.
Yunho could not even tell how or when they got through the door to his floor. He didn’t even remember pushing the cabinet back in place. He was suddenly inside his apartment, locking the door before collapsing on the floor.
Changmin, likewise, was seated opposite to him, panting heavily. His hands were shaking and when Yunho looked down at his own hands he found them in a similar state.
That day there was no talking, and that night there were no card games. The looks they exchanged said it all: it was time to get out of there.