post #14

[seoulfulness]

Fics ( #13)

those who wake SHINee, Jonghyun/Key
emporte moi Glam, Zinni/Dahee
i call shotgun EXO, Tao/Kris
could have spread out, too EXo, Kai/Baekhyun
glory days EXO, Lu Han/Kai
splash of hope SNSD/2AM, Seohyun/Jinwoon
again? f(x), Krystal/Sulli
past and present SHINee, Jonghyun/Taemin [warning: self harm]
Honesty EXO, Suho/Kai
the intervention

Comments

time to go (sehun/luhan, 1/2)

[anonymous]

notes: dear anon, this is... a little different from the original prompt in that 1) the watches 'activate' when they meet their soulmate instead of counting down; 2) the setting is post-apocalyptic.

In a volatile world - often moody, sometimes kind - it's humbling to remember control.

Sehun wants to curl up in a fetal ball, claim it as a valid defense mechanism, and wail until his throat becomes raw. And of course he can't, because only the two of them are left. Their friends have given their bodies back to the universe, but the two of them continue to die, dwindling day by day, dwarfed by the stench of death that covers every stretch of land where people used to dwell.

While waiting out the last gasps of civilization, Sehun sits on the ground, watching the cavernous expanse of thick ashen clouds concealing the stars that travelers once used to light their way home. Above the roof steeled ten times over, acid rain washes over the world, settling the dust, battering the earth. The sky, much like the earth, is littered with dead and dying heavenly bodies, exiled for eternity to the vast cold vacuum of space.

"Sehun. Buddy. You doing okay?" Jongin's hand clasps around his shoulder, little comforts that bring him back to the way the world used to be. "Go rest. I'll take it from here."

He nods, eyes following Jongin as he walks to the entrance of their makeshift camp. Silver numbers reading "0002d 06h 23m 38s" glint sharply against Jongin's wrist, and he looks away out of a strange sense of propriety. Jongin's partner, Baekhyun, died two weeks ago when organ hunters shot him clean with a bullet to the head. They found his body in the shadow of the the dead husk of a burned out nuclear power station near the abandoned house they were currently staying in.

On that day, Jongin doesn't cry. The days after, sometimes Sehun finds blood on Jongin's fingertips. His wrists are thinner and his voice, once a rowdy baritone, is now little more than eerie blows of air.

"Hey, can I ask for a favor?"

Sehun blinks. "What?"

"When I go, will you--"

"I told you, we aren't talking about this." His voice cracks as he sits up straight. "You're not going to die."

Jongin turns to look at him, eyes red-rimmed and watery. "You and I both know this watch is just riding out the race of my life before I conk out for good. Baekhyun is gone, and sooner or later I will be, too."

"That's a soulmate watch. It's not supposed to count down to... to--"

"Delusional is not a good look on you." Jongin chuckles lightly. Sehun feels the mourning in the echoes his voice makes around the camp. "At least look yours isn't working. Or you're lucky enough to have your soulmate die before you ever meet him."

Sehun is twenty and there's nothing on his wrist. Most of his friend's watches activated at fifteen, sixteen. Jongin's activated at thirteen when they meet Baekhyun in an ice cream shop. Baekhyun trips and spills ice cream all over Jongin's Nike's, and seconds later there's loud mechanical tittering sounds coming from their bodies.

But for Sehun, a lover is like a high ceiling in a house he'll never own, a beautiful ornament he can't afford. Not a necessity, because he's lived this long without having one, hasn't he? A lover belongs only in dreams he's misplaced, the ones from which he wakes with his hands in the air as his mind cartwheels over possibilities.

"Anyway, as I was saying before you so rudely interrupted, when I go--"

"Jongin, shut the fuck--"

"When I go," Jongin presses, shoving his fists into his pockets. "Go back to town and bury me with Baekhyun. I want us to go together. There's a gun in the drawer of Baekhyun's parents' room, in case you can't find bullets on the way."

"There's nowhere to go and he's gone on without you," Sehun says irritably. He's too tired to say anything else. "Let me sleep."

"Yeah, yeah." Jongin laughs again, like he knows something Sehun doesn't. "You'll see."