draw straws.
Title: Draw Straws
Pairing: suchen, broken!suhan
Rating: pg-13
Genre: angst, tragedy
Length: one shot
Summary: To detonate the asteroid, you must also detonate his heart.
based off the 1998 science fiction disaster drama film, Armageddon.
no dialogue included.
contains character death.
word count; 1,290
Chen's shaking hand reached out to draw a straw, his fingers twitching ever so slightly as he plucked one. He drew his hand in quickly, examining his straw by himself. It was a good size, it didn't lack in length but it wasn't really extraordinary either. He just hoped it was enough to keep him in.
Next to have a pick at fate was Suho. Almost mirroring Chen, his hand shook as he plucked a straw, one of the last remaining. His eyes started to bulge and dart around his palms as he held the straw in his hand, his face contorting in fear. It was short.
The six of them counted down together, each one as nervous as the next. At once, they all held their straws out, quickly looking to see if there's was longer then another. All were but one.
Suho's.
Chen's throat became dry, the air being sucked out as soon as he processed the scene that was going to unfold. He was going to have to send his fiance out into space, to manually detonate an asteroid, and die before his own eyes. And nothing he could do or say could stop that now. The decision was made fairly, and Suho couldn't withdraw his name or the straw now.
Suho turned around and caught his gaze, quickly surrounding himself with Chen's arms he sobbed his words out to his other. His senses and sounds were muffled, his limbs fuzzy, his heart weak. He couldn't let go, he just couldn't, but he had to - he had to do the impossible. He was going to earn his stripes as a hero as one with the stars, known for saving earth from the fatal asteroid and known for surrendering his life to millions down below, many who were living in a fear of death he was going to take away. He was going to b extraordinary.
Just like his straw wasn't.
His shirt was tugged backwards, and his arms unwound from around his sobbing fiance's waist. Tao told him it was time to go, time to fly, and time to say goodbye to people who would see him burn.
The first few goodbyes was simple, a pat on the back, a hug and encouraging, spirit lifting words for his mission. They weren't much of a help for Suho, his soul was as dead as his body would be in a few minutes.
His goodbye from his boss, Luhan, was painful. Luhan was not a man of emotion, a man built between the walls of fear and loneliness but he'd always had something with Suho, something un-explainable. They weren't meant to be, Luhan's independancy, Suho's need to settle down, but they were always lingering by each others side and Luhan found it hard to let him go. But he managed.
Fingers numb, mouth dry, Suho turned back to his other, his eyes filling with salty tears as they both started to choke on their sobs. Chen, shaking, ran over and connected their lips together in a sickly kiss. It tasted dry and sour, their sobs still rattling in the back of their throats as their mouths connected them as one for the last time in history.
Suho pulled away, promptly wiping his and Chen's tears away, but not once wiping the taste of him off his lips. They hugged each other once more, bones crushing under each others grip, crescent moons piercing into the layers of skin that held them together, held them up.
A cough from Tao signaled the final goodbye's to be over.
Suho reluctantly walked away from Chen, his face drawn back in distress. With the help of Sehun, his oxygen mask for the mission was placed around him, and his gear was strapped around every inch of him. He exhaled.
Stepping in to the airlock zone, Suho planted his feet firmly in the center. He flashes a smile to his crew, but it doesn't fool them, they can see through to his pain. And they can't even smile back.
His hand stretches out to the GO button, about to give himself up for his country, for his planet - when all stops.
Before he has time to process a thing, his oxygen mask is ripped away from him and promptly placed on a crew member he can't see. He's pushed, a little roughly, out the airlock zone and back into the shuttle, his breathe ripping out from his lungs as he realizes he's free, his heart is still beating and someone took his place to be the hero he was too scared to become.
He stands up, running to the spot where he said goodbye to Chen, but he isn't there. He spins around, looking to and fro to see where his fiance is, where his little idiot is lurking so he can hug him and squeeze him and tell him that everything will be okay.
But he can't.
Suho let's out a painful cry, as he spots his fiance in the airlock zone, his oxygen mask now rapped firmly around him instead. His stomach twists and twists, as he moves to the zone, banging an crying on the glass to let Chen out and to let him see that everything will work out somehow and they can be together. That they can have the little family in the countryside that they always dreamt of together, and finally go on the holiday to beaches around the world that had been eating away at them since their engagement.
Chen shakes his head.
No.
His hand raises to meet Suho's on the other side of the glass, a soft smile setting in his features. Suho can't take it, he would happily of gone out there for Chen but he physically can't bare the pain to watch Chen die.
Chen kisses the glass where Suho's head is rested upon, his eyes shut tight and his eyes spewing tears. It'll be okay he tries to say, but neither mutter a word, words not able to say what they want to. His hand slides over Suho's heart, the warmth from his fiances organ giving him the strength he needs to press the GO button.
And he does.
Sliding down and away from everyone he loved, Chen waves as he takes himself to his early death - a death that was not meant to be his.
For a split second the shuttle is silent, until Suho hears the click on the airlock zone opening, meaning that Chen was now seconds away from blowing himself up into the atmosphere to be with Zeus and Orion. His throat opens up, his screams and plea's from Chen to be in his arms filling up the shuttle as he falls to the floor, clawing at the glass for his baby to be back.
Luhan moves down next to Suho, his hands shaking like Suho's chest, and he grips his shoulders, pulling the weaker man into his chest to tell him that it'll be okay. Although, he knew it wouldn't be.
Luhan hopes that somehow he can repair Suho's heart, repair the broken pieces and stop the tears from falling from the only man he's ever truly loved. But by the way Suho's was crying Chen's name; it only seemed a wish that fate wasn't going to grant him.
Lifting his eyes from the floor, Suho went into silent sobs, his body turning into a shell as he was no longer whole.
Boom.