for jibae: Z
For: jibae
Title: Z
Rating: R
Pairing: Baekhyun/Zitao
Word Count: 2052 words
Summary: Zitao will never leave Baekhyun. Ever.
Warnings: major character death, implied minor character death, gore themes, insinuations of apocalypse, implications of cannibalism due to subject matter, horror topics due to subject matter
A/N: Thanks so much to the mods for being so understanding in the light of health and unexpected situations. Thanks to my recipient for the chance to write this pairing and subject; I hope you like it! Thanks so much to tlist for being there when I was again swamped with deadlines. Thank you particularly to A for beta-ing (and I'm always surprised that you haven't had enough of me already). And to that person I send the squishiest of hugs. Just because.
Forward note:
J'ai mis les roses dans le canon d'un gun
Que j'avais chargé de deux balles
Le premier jour où j't'ai croisée en automne
Faudrait leur donner du soleil, nah?
Finger on the trigger just to lay down
J'ai mis une lettre dans une bouteille de choses rares
Que j'comptais garder pour nos vieux jours peut-être ~ Automne
It always begins at the end. He's been running for days, grey skies opening with cracks of lightning to pour rain down to earth; hair slicked down by the wet and cold fingers of water running down his back as the muddy pools trip up his feet - splashing dark, gritty mud up to hit his face and fly into his mouth.
He looks over his shoulder. They're always just a body-length away, shadowy faces painted red with other people's pain. The fingers wrapped around his hand are cold now and he can see the exhaustion on Zitao's face. He's ready to give up but Baekhyun is prepared to keep running forever.
one little -
Zitao spent his days hiding, fading from one shadow into the next, breath cautious and steps light. All of his martial arts training had emerged from the back of his mind to infuse every cell of his body: you must survive he told himself every day. You have to do it.
There had been a point when he'd thought...but that was before. Before that moment. Before the world changed forever.
Now he was going to spend the rest of his life watching over the one person he still cared about. And he's still a person.
He stuck to the shadows, scavenging abandoned houses for the fewer and fewer uncontaminated caches of food that were left, avoiding the humans just as much as the other ones. The ones he refused to call by the name the humans called them. The humans, who didn't understand him at all and only tried to take him away to a "safe place", as if they didn't understand that there were no safe places left. Only people who had been loved and then lost.
A shadow skipped over the pale gravel in the moonlight; he held his breath from where he was perched, balancing on the corner beams of a former warehouse. The shadow coalesced into a figure, sniffing the air gently, and there he was. Baekhyun. Zitao smiled at the nothingness that filled the air. No one could take this away from him.
Baekhyun's delicate nostrils flared as he caught the scent of human; Zitao knew he had to leave but he couldn't help staying just a moment too long, skirting death with every stolen breath as the shuffling footsteps of others approached the hiding place. For a moment their eyes met; Baekhyun and Zitao, the lost and the looking, and a faint spark of something flew to bridge the gap before Zitao reluctantly flexed his legs and flung himself over the roof, landing on his feet to the loud applause of disappointed screams, hungry voices filling the cold night air. Because they were always hungry. And he was always running, only a hair's-width away. He couldn't bear to be any further.
two little -
He can keep running forever but his body thinks differently as his one weak knee gives way, screaming a silent agony of tendons and muscles as he drags his boyfriend down, the snapping already at their heels as fends tooth and fingernail off with his back, skin tearing and ribs peeking through as he swears to keep him safe, even as he can feel the madness rising to his brain: "Run!" he screams. "Run!" But he can see that the his gloriously idiotic beloved hopeful mess of a boyfriend won't leave him behind - "Do it for me!" he shouts before surrendering himself to the mouths and hands and red splashing on the ground as something begins to unwind his intestines from his stomach and he's not screaming. No. He's only wishing on every fallen star he's saved up since the end began that Zitao will listen to him. A tear falls down one cheek, dripping off his chin onto the silent ruin of his throat.
three little -
He waited till nightfall again, spending the day secreted in the top of the water tower that no one else had appeared to have been able to scale, so that was where he stored anything that he had left, that was worth keeping. The ring he'd given Baekhyun, in that distant dream of brighter days and green grass and teeth that didn't bite and tear but only lingered, teasing over collarbones and gently running over the faint indentations between the ridges of his rib cage. The watch that Baekhyun had given him, battery long since dead, the hour and minute hands stopped at the moment he'd ceased to be part of a two, and began being part of a one and something else. The mechanism was still intact but the spirit was gone, and he didn't know how to get it back. If I try hard enough... he thought, despite the scornful things that other survivors had flung at him when he refused to leave the desolation that surrounded him as far as the eye could see - buildings still smoking in the dim light of the sun. And that was why he continued his strange game of courtship by moonlight, skipping shadow to shadow, breath to breath, a shared gaze here, the briefest graze of a finger tip there, lips ghosting over a silver head if he was feeling truly brave or reckless or simply too desperate to care, the memory of fingers and lips and entwined bodies, the room echoing back soft sighs as - he shook his head. It was too hard to think about things he couldn't have.
When the first star of the night rose to stain the darkness; the moon rising gradually to peek a cold and watery face over the rim of a desolate landscape, he stood, a single figure stark against the sky, and searched for the one from whom he would never be parted.
There.
Time to slide down the water pipe, cold metal slipping through his hands, the friction warming to a sharp and angry burn as he flung himself at the room of the neighbouring water treatment plant and evaded the first night's starving guests, lying in wait. One day they might get lucky, one day the metal might be too slippery, the screws too soft, the roof too slick, but it wasn't today.
Today he was still victorious.
[word has been withheld for being culturally inappropriate]
It's like a dream as he watches, everything in slow motion, everything echoing with silence, Zitao's back turning away, mud flying, water hitting his face to mix with the darker, stickier things as his ribs give way, footsteps slapping the ground, fingers in his chest, teeth caressing the inner walls of his abdomen and it's one long dream sequence - nightmare sequence - everything hurts and nothing matters and his life is reduced to a single silent scream -
You have to live.
four little -
Sometimes the light tricked him. Sometimes, just for an instant, the earth at perihelion, the moon full, he could swear on the bones of his dead parents that a flicker of recognition crossed Baekhyun's face, a spark of affection in his eyes before he threw himself forward, fingers curled and mouth open, going for that all-encompassing kiss. Zitao dreamed sometimes, thought about standing still, waiting to be engulfed with that fierce love instead of swinging to safety, a knife's blade away from the dark.
He ached to stay. You have to live, words still echoing in his head, over and over and over again. The last words. A promise that was meant to be kept, signed in blood and stamped with bone.
Sometimes he thought about breaking it anyway.
five little -
Everything is
dark
now. The skin
broken
beneath ragged
fingertips.
Only flickers
moons
in puddles -
splash.
Softness
gives way to
bone.
"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh..."
There are no
words
now.
Faces are
two holes and
a gaping wait.
Teeth
taste
red.
six little -
And then there was the time when he'd been cornered in an alley, feet slipping off the rain-slick drainpipe, rust on his hands mixed with slivers of metal in his palms, curving fingers only a half-second away, the race would end in a draw he thought to himself, strangely ecstatic at the thought of finally being able to meet his fate.
Our bodies joined together forever.
In that hush, the pause between breaths, between footsteps, goodbyes whispered to the night air and apologies made to a person who could no longer comprehend them, something happened.
Zitao couldn't possibly be sure, looking back, foot perched up on a slipping edge of siding, firm grip on a ledge above his head, other hand swinging him up from the drainpipe bracket and onto the safety of a shingled-roof, what had actually happened. It had all been so fast.
Baekhyun's face.
Fingers that missed his throat because an elbow was bent.
Sudden motion pushing him into the air.
Zitao didn't hope because there was nothing to hope for, it was impossible, it was unheard of, it would tear him apart if he dwelled too long on things he could never have.
He lived, and dwelled on them anyway.
[word has been withheld for being culturally inappropriate]
Everything
is
hunger.
Hunger.
Hunger.
Thoughts -
what are those
nebulous
things.
Moonlight
white in a
puddle
feet breaking
the surface.
Suddenly
fingers poised
supper served
take the
first bite -
no.
He doesn't
understand.
He misses
anyway.
Revulsion
at
the
thought
of
teeth
tasting
stomach twists.
Shove that
pain
away.
Away.
seven little -
There was less and less food now. Zitao kept having to run further and further, the closer stores all smashed, the further ones depleted, but he coudn't bear to leave, to say goodbye. My life is here. As his strength faded slowly, stomach slowly shrinking and leaving a concavity where there used to be strenth, ribs where he used to have muscles, every motion was slower - every retreat longer. He woke up dizzy some mornings, drank more water, sucked small stones. The stone soup from that story of my childhood. But stones coudn't lift his weary feet, like the wolf from the fairy tale he was weighted down, the goat kid waiting to push him over the edge to his death.
One of these days.
Soon. He never saw people anymore. He wondered if there were any left. He didn't care much, either way. What did it matter? It was of no consequence to him. His mouth was dry and he needed a drink of water.
The rusty nail kissed him as he slid down the room, letting gravity move his weary bones.
eight little -
If he could
worry -
which he can't
he would
remember
leaves
whispers
fingers on
the pearly knobs
of his
neck.
Lips
parting
with
sighs.
Not teeth.
He parts lips
teeth
and thinks
about
rust.
nine little -
It wasn't anyone's fault, least of all his, and yet somehow Zitao felt a rage burning deep within his soul as he watched the infection creep down his arm, every centimetre, day by day, towards his heart. This is how you fall in love.
He couldn't leave the rooftop anymore; he knew that if he fell he would never get up again. His heart ached at the thought that he wouldn't be able to see Baekyun again. Watching the red line growing slowly, a poisonous vine, a seeping sadness, he tried to remember everything. I thought I would end with a bang, not a whimper.
When the line was lost where his arm met his shoulder Zitao knew his time was over. It was pointless, it was impossible, but he was going to look for the only person he had cared about. Maybe he could even find Baekhyun before someone else found him. Maybe.
Small miracles.
So when he slid off the roof, down the drainpipe that last time, he didn't expect to find someone waiting for him at the bottom. Fingers reaching. The flickering of the moon in eyes more familiar than his own.
"Thank you," he breathed into the night. Thank you.
He closed his eyes.
[word has been withheld for being culturally inappropriate]
Heart
beats
like
home.
Eyes
wide
open.
Stars.
If he
could
think it -
"I love you."
He can't.
He engraves it instead
tooth
against
yielding
flesh.
Even a [word has been withheld for being culturally inappropriate]
can smell
infection.
It's gone now.
There's
only the
colour of
love.
ten little [the rest of the manuscript is missing]
Final note:
Dites à mon amour qu'est morte
J'aurais dont jamais dû donner mon coeur
Barrer la porte et puis fermer les stores ~ Automne
Thanks for reading.
Title: Z
Rating: R
Pairing: Baekhyun/Zitao
Word Count: 2052 words
Summary: Zitao will never leave Baekhyun. Ever.
Warnings: major character death, implied minor character death, gore themes, insinuations of apocalypse, implications of cannibalism due to subject matter, horror topics due to subject matter
A/N: Thanks so much to the mods for being so understanding in the light of health and unexpected situations. Thanks to my recipient for the chance to write this pairing and subject; I hope you like it! Thanks so much to tlist for being there when I was again swamped with deadlines. Thank you particularly to A for beta-ing (and I'm always surprised that you haven't had enough of me already). And to that person I send the squishiest of hugs. Just because.
Forward note:
J'ai mis les roses dans le canon d'un gun
Que j'avais chargé de deux balles
Le premier jour où j't'ai croisée en automne
Faudrait leur donner du soleil, nah?
Finger on the trigger just to lay down
J'ai mis une lettre dans une bouteille de choses rares
Que j'comptais garder pour nos vieux jours peut-être ~ Automne
It always begins at the end. He's been running for days, grey skies opening with cracks of lightning to pour rain down to earth; hair slicked down by the wet and cold fingers of water running down his back as the muddy pools trip up his feet - splashing dark, gritty mud up to hit his face and fly into his mouth.
He looks over his shoulder. They're always just a body-length away, shadowy faces painted red with other people's pain. The fingers wrapped around his hand are cold now and he can see the exhaustion on Zitao's face. He's ready to give up but Baekhyun is prepared to keep running forever.
one little -
Zitao spent his days hiding, fading from one shadow into the next, breath cautious and steps light. All of his martial arts training had emerged from the back of his mind to infuse every cell of his body: you must survive he told himself every day. You have to do it.
There had been a point when he'd thought...but that was before. Before that moment. Before the world changed forever.
Now he was going to spend the rest of his life watching over the one person he still cared about. And he's still a person.
He stuck to the shadows, scavenging abandoned houses for the fewer and fewer uncontaminated caches of food that were left, avoiding the humans just as much as the other ones. The ones he refused to call by the name the humans called them. The humans, who didn't understand him at all and only tried to take him away to a "safe place", as if they didn't understand that there were no safe places left. Only people who had been loved and then lost.
A shadow skipped over the pale gravel in the moonlight; he held his breath from where he was perched, balancing on the corner beams of a former warehouse. The shadow coalesced into a figure, sniffing the air gently, and there he was. Baekhyun. Zitao smiled at the nothingness that filled the air. No one could take this away from him.
Baekhyun's delicate nostrils flared as he caught the scent of human; Zitao knew he had to leave but he couldn't help staying just a moment too long, skirting death with every stolen breath as the shuffling footsteps of others approached the hiding place. For a moment their eyes met; Baekhyun and Zitao, the lost and the looking, and a faint spark of something flew to bridge the gap before Zitao reluctantly flexed his legs and flung himself over the roof, landing on his feet to the loud applause of disappointed screams, hungry voices filling the cold night air. Because they were always hungry. And he was always running, only a hair's-width away. He couldn't bear to be any further.
two little -
He can keep running forever but his body thinks differently as his one weak knee gives way, screaming a silent agony of tendons and muscles as he drags his boyfriend down, the snapping already at their heels as fends tooth and fingernail off with his back, skin tearing and ribs peeking through as he swears to keep him safe, even as he can feel the madness rising to his brain: "Run!" he screams. "Run!" But he can see that the his gloriously idiotic beloved hopeful mess of a boyfriend won't leave him behind - "Do it for me!" he shouts before surrendering himself to the mouths and hands and red splashing on the ground as something begins to unwind his intestines from his stomach and he's not screaming. No. He's only wishing on every fallen star he's saved up since the end began that Zitao will listen to him. A tear falls down one cheek, dripping off his chin onto the silent ruin of his throat.
three little -
He waited till nightfall again, spending the day secreted in the top of the water tower that no one else had appeared to have been able to scale, so that was where he stored anything that he had left, that was worth keeping. The ring he'd given Baekhyun, in that distant dream of brighter days and green grass and teeth that didn't bite and tear but only lingered, teasing over collarbones and gently running over the faint indentations between the ridges of his rib cage. The watch that Baekhyun had given him, battery long since dead, the hour and minute hands stopped at the moment he'd ceased to be part of a two, and began being part of a one and something else. The mechanism was still intact but the spirit was gone, and he didn't know how to get it back. If I try hard enough... he thought, despite the scornful things that other survivors had flung at him when he refused to leave the desolation that surrounded him as far as the eye could see - buildings still smoking in the dim light of the sun. And that was why he continued his strange game of courtship by moonlight, skipping shadow to shadow, breath to breath, a shared gaze here, the briefest graze of a finger tip there, lips ghosting over a silver head if he was feeling truly brave or reckless or simply too desperate to care, the memory of fingers and lips and entwined bodies, the room echoing back soft sighs as - he shook his head. It was too hard to think about things he couldn't have.
When the first star of the night rose to stain the darkness; the moon rising gradually to peek a cold and watery face over the rim of a desolate landscape, he stood, a single figure stark against the sky, and searched for the one from whom he would never be parted.
There.
Time to slide down the water pipe, cold metal slipping through his hands, the friction warming to a sharp and angry burn as he flung himself at the room of the neighbouring water treatment plant and evaded the first night's starving guests, lying in wait. One day they might get lucky, one day the metal might be too slippery, the screws too soft, the roof too slick, but it wasn't today.
Today he was still victorious.
[word has been withheld for being culturally inappropriate]
It's like a dream as he watches, everything in slow motion, everything echoing with silence, Zitao's back turning away, mud flying, water hitting his face to mix with the darker, stickier things as his ribs give way, footsteps slapping the ground, fingers in his chest, teeth caressing the inner walls of his abdomen and it's one long dream sequence - nightmare sequence - everything hurts and nothing matters and his life is reduced to a single silent scream -
You have to live.
four little -
Sometimes the light tricked him. Sometimes, just for an instant, the earth at perihelion, the moon full, he could swear on the bones of his dead parents that a flicker of recognition crossed Baekhyun's face, a spark of affection in his eyes before he threw himself forward, fingers curled and mouth open, going for that all-encompassing kiss. Zitao dreamed sometimes, thought about standing still, waiting to be engulfed with that fierce love instead of swinging to safety, a knife's blade away from the dark.
He ached to stay. You have to live, words still echoing in his head, over and over and over again. The last words. A promise that was meant to be kept, signed in blood and stamped with bone.
Sometimes he thought about breaking it anyway.
five little -
Everything is
dark
now. The skin
broken
beneath ragged
fingertips.
Only flickers
moons
in puddles -
splash.
Softness
gives way to
bone.
"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh..."
There are no
words
now.
Faces are
two holes and
a gaping wait.
Teeth
taste
red.
six little -
And then there was the time when he'd been cornered in an alley, feet slipping off the rain-slick drainpipe, rust on his hands mixed with slivers of metal in his palms, curving fingers only a half-second away, the race would end in a draw he thought to himself, strangely ecstatic at the thought of finally being able to meet his fate.
Our bodies joined together forever.
In that hush, the pause between breaths, between footsteps, goodbyes whispered to the night air and apologies made to a person who could no longer comprehend them, something happened.
Zitao couldn't possibly be sure, looking back, foot perched up on a slipping edge of siding, firm grip on a ledge above his head, other hand swinging him up from the drainpipe bracket and onto the safety of a shingled-roof, what had actually happened. It had all been so fast.
Baekhyun's face.
Fingers that missed his throat because an elbow was bent.
Sudden motion pushing him into the air.
Zitao didn't hope because there was nothing to hope for, it was impossible, it was unheard of, it would tear him apart if he dwelled too long on things he could never have.
He lived, and dwelled on them anyway.
[word has been withheld for being culturally inappropriate]
Everything
is
hunger.
Hunger.
Hunger.
Thoughts -
what are those
nebulous
things.
Moonlight
white in a
puddle
feet breaking
the surface.
Suddenly
fingers poised
supper served
take the
first bite -
no.
He doesn't
understand.
He misses
anyway.
Revulsion
at
the
thought
of
teeth
tasting
stomach twists.
Shove that
pain
away.
Away.
seven little -
There was less and less food now. Zitao kept having to run further and further, the closer stores all smashed, the further ones depleted, but he coudn't bear to leave, to say goodbye. My life is here. As his strength faded slowly, stomach slowly shrinking and leaving a concavity where there used to be strenth, ribs where he used to have muscles, every motion was slower - every retreat longer. He woke up dizzy some mornings, drank more water, sucked small stones. The stone soup from that story of my childhood. But stones coudn't lift his weary feet, like the wolf from the fairy tale he was weighted down, the goat kid waiting to push him over the edge to his death.
One of these days.
Soon. He never saw people anymore. He wondered if there were any left. He didn't care much, either way. What did it matter? It was of no consequence to him. His mouth was dry and he needed a drink of water.
The rusty nail kissed him as he slid down the room, letting gravity move his weary bones.
eight little -
If he could
worry -
which he can't
he would
remember
leaves
whispers
fingers on
the pearly knobs
of his
neck.
Lips
parting
with
sighs.
Not teeth.
He parts lips
teeth
and thinks
about
rust.
nine little -
It wasn't anyone's fault, least of all his, and yet somehow Zitao felt a rage burning deep within his soul as he watched the infection creep down his arm, every centimetre, day by day, towards his heart. This is how you fall in love.
He couldn't leave the rooftop anymore; he knew that if he fell he would never get up again. His heart ached at the thought that he wouldn't be able to see Baekyun again. Watching the red line growing slowly, a poisonous vine, a seeping sadness, he tried to remember everything. I thought I would end with a bang, not a whimper.
When the line was lost where his arm met his shoulder Zitao knew his time was over. It was pointless, it was impossible, but he was going to look for the only person he had cared about. Maybe he could even find Baekhyun before someone else found him. Maybe.
Small miracles.
So when he slid off the roof, down the drainpipe that last time, he didn't expect to find someone waiting for him at the bottom. Fingers reaching. The flickering of the moon in eyes more familiar than his own.
"Thank you," he breathed into the night. Thank you.
He closed his eyes.
[word has been withheld for being culturally inappropriate]
Heart
beats
like
home.
Eyes
wide
open.
Stars.
If he
could
think it -
"I love you."
He can't.
He engraves it instead
tooth
against
yielding
flesh.
Even a [word has been withheld for being culturally inappropriate]
can smell
infection.
It's gone now.
There's
only the
colour of
love.
ten little [the rest of the manuscript is missing]
Final note:
Dites à mon amour qu'est morte
J'aurais dont jamais dû donner mon coeur
Barrer la porte et puis fermer les stores ~ Automne
Thanks for reading.