On This Planet Spinning (16/23)
On This Planet Spinning
aka post-apocalypse au, aka painfic
Pairings:[Spoiler (click to open)]Baekxing, Xiuhan, Chansoo (+Chanyeol/Plant)
Genre: post-apocalypse, fantasy, drama, romance
Rating: R
Length: 137K total
Warnings: mature themes, violence/injury, some possibly disturbing imagery, threat of death, poor mental health, very brief mentions of suicidal ideation(?), sad times
Summary: Over a century after meteors destroyed Earth, making the surface uninhabitable, communities are returning from their bunkers and attempting to recolonize the planet. But resources are scarce, tensions are high, and neighbouring communities X-22 and Q-16 are fighting tooth and nail over the Valley, a rare patch of fertile land. Add to that a controversial group of humans with special abilities, and people will start to realize it's not the coming winter that's humanity's biggest obstacle-it's humanity itself. But that doesn't mean hope doesn't exist.
Chapter links: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
*****
Every day, before they start their real work for the afternoon, Jongin and Minseok attempt to heal Sehun’s brain scarring. It’s...slow going, to say the least. Every day, they try again to get a grip on the black energy inside his skull, wrap it up in something good, force it away. But every day, it’s just as hard. Jongin tries and tries and tries, but it’s so painful, it’s so overwhelming, it’s terrifying every time. Minseok isn’t faring any better. Sehun isn’t improving.
But Jongin has a good feeling about their seventh day. He’s in a good mood, the weather is beautiful, the ground is thrumming with energy after a light rain overnight. He thinks today might be the day for a breakthrough.
“Why are you smiling?” Sehun asks nervously, sitting on Jongin’s floor as usual.
“Happy isn’t good,” Minseok says. “We only do things right when one or both of us is pissed off.”
“That’s not true,” Jongin says. “We do things right when we’re neutral now.”
“I don’t feel very encouraged,” Sehun interjects.
“It’ll be fine. Excuse me for being hopeful.” Jongin shoots Minseok a small glare. “Alright. Round seven. Let’s see what we can do.”
It starts off the same way as it always does-with Jongin drawing the sickness into himself slowly, and feeling good energy flow into him from the ground to counteract it. Sometimes, Jongin wonders what would happen if he tried to block the good energy out and just try to wield the bad, but he kind of suspects the result would be him dying, so he doesn’t try it. But even with the good energy inside him, the sickness tries to black him out and overwhelm, tries to spread into every corner of his body like a drop of blood in water. He holds his breath, grits his teeth, feeds it into Minseok at the slowest pace he can manage.
“Hey, here we go,” Minseok says, voice tight, breaths harsh. Jongin can sense him shaping the energies, transforming them, forcing them into the form he wants. He’s doing a good job. Jongin has to focus most of his attention on controlling the flow of energy through him, but he spares a moment to appreciate how hard Minseok is working, how efficiently despite how much pain he must be in.
It’s working. Jongin can feel it working, he can feel everything going right. Everything is huge and painful and too much, but the black, sick energy is flowing out of Sehun and through Jongin, into Minseok, and the good energy is doing the same from the ground, and it’s spinning, it’s changing, it’s doing exactly what they’re telling it to. Jongin feels positively triumphant.
And then something slips. It feels like a screw has rattled loose at first, making one wheel wobbly. Something goes off in that single moment of weaker focus, and it’s enough to throw Jongin. He struggles for a moment, tries to tighten his grip, tries to get things back under control and steady. Minseok grunts as a spike of black energy shoots through him, and Jongin tries to yank it back, feeling everything beginning to slip through his fingers.
“No, no, no,” he mutters, panicking, trying not to lose it. They had it, just now. They had it. He can get it back.
But he can’t. One moment of lost control, and everything’s unravelling. Jongin loses his hold on the sickness and it rushes into him-it’s too much for Minseok, so he tries to tighten control on that channel, but that means it builds up inside him. And it builds, and it builds. It’s too much, it feels like it’s killing him, curling around his insides, squeezing up through his throat. Rationally, Jongin knows it can’t do anything to him, its form is too abstract, it’s not meant for him, but it threatens to choke him and Jongin is scared.
“Jongin, stop, stop, just drop it,” Minseok says, sounding pained.
“I can do this,” Jongin thinks he says, but everything sounds very far away. He feels like he’s drowning, and like he’s being eaten from the inside out.
“We’ll try again after, Jongin, stop.”
“We were doing it,” Jongin insists.
“Jongin you’re hurting me,” Minseok tells him forcefully.
“I’m sorry,” Jongin says. He’s completely lost control, and he knows it. He’s leaking energy everywhere, because there’s literally nowhere left for it to go in his body except out, and he knows he’s pushing too much into Minseok but he can’t stop it.
“Fuck, stop!”
Something coalesces between them at the last second-a last-ditch attempt by Minseok to deal with the huge amounts of energy flooding his body-and Jongin breaks all connections with a resounding snap! The solid mass of energy bolts, and Jongin hears a short, choked cry.
Jongin opens his eyes and sees Sehun flat on his back, skin pale as death. “Oh, god,” Jongin breathes, going cold. “No, no, no. Oh my god.” His mind reaches out for Sehun’s familiar wavelengths, wanting reassurance, but feels nothing. He recoils, scrambles back across the floor, feels his head thud against the wall with a dizzying sense of detachment. “Oh my god,” he says, and then he lurches for the door, throws up just outside as panic and horror sweep through his exhausted body.
“Jongin!” Minseok yells.
Jongin barely hears him, his breaths coming faster and more painfully as he wipes the sour taste of bile from his mouth. You killed him, a voice tells him, straightforward and rational as the rest of him melts down. You killed him. He’s dead.
“Jongin,” Minseok says again, and Jongin vaguely feels hands on his shoulders as he shakes violently. Or is Minseok shaking him? He thinks maybe it’s both, but he can barely think past the way his lungs are spasming, the way his mind is an endless loop of accusations and nightmares. “Jongin listen to me. He’s okay.”
Jongin forces his eyes open, tries to breathe past the guilt clogging his throat. “He’s not,” he gasps. “He’s not.”
“Jongin, look at me. He’s fine.”
“I killed him,” Jongin chokes. He scrabbles at the front of Minseok’s shirt, frantic, trembling. “Minseok. I killed them.”
Minseok pulls him in, wraps his arms around Jongin and just...holds him. For the first time since Joonmyun and Yixing were taken away from him, someone holds Jongin, even despite the blood on his hands. Jongin breaks down and cries.
“He’s okay, Jonginnie,” Minseok says, his voice soft, soothing. “Look, I promise. He passed out, but he’s still breathing, his heart’s beating just fine. He’s gonna be okay. We’re all gonna be okay.”
Jongin registers what he’s saying, but he’s in no state to take it in. “I killed them,” he sobs. “Minseok, I. I killed them. I killed them.”
“Jongin,” Minseok sighs. He’s rocking them back and forth steadily, like a pendulum. It’s grounding, somehow. Jongin uses the beat of their swaying to measure his erratic breaths. “Is this about your parents again?”
“They’re dead and it’s my fault,” Jongin tells him, chest heaving.
“It’s not,” Minseok says. He keeps rocking them, keeps holding him. “It’s not your fault. It was never your fault.”
“You don’t understand,” Jongin hiccups.
Minseok’s hand is in his hair, gently pressing Jongin’s head down against his shoulder, petting the back of his skull. “Then explain it to me.”
“It’s my fault,” Jongin says, voice trembling, face hidden in the fabric of Minseok’s shirt. “I was so sick, and they. They wanted to save me. My mom-the sorcerer, just like me-she wanted to save me. But I was so sick, and I made her sick, too. She was so- She was so weak.” He sobs. “And she couldn’t. She couldn’t do it. It was my fault. She was so weak, and she died saving me. I took everything that was left of her. And my dad, too. My dad died too. A conjurer can’t live without his sorcerer. I killed them both.”
“Oh, Jongin,” Minseok says, like an apology. “Just because they died saving you doesn’t make it your fault. It doesn’t,” he says more forcefully when Jongin tries to object. “Do you think they died for you, hoping you’d feel guilty for it for the rest of your life?”
“They didn’t think they’d die,” Jongin says, breath hitching against Minseok’s shoulder. “They didn’t die for me.”
“They did. They sacrificed themselves for you. That doesn’t place the guilt on you. They died willingly, so that you would live.”
Jongin shakes his head, lifting it so he can wipe the tears from his eyes. “No,” he says, swallowing hard. “No. If that was a sacrifice, then where’s my Reward?”
“Your...what?” Now Minseok just looks confused.
“My Reward. It’s- Great sacrifice begets great reward. It’s a paranormal thing.” Jongin’s head pounds with exhaustion and emotional hangover. “When a paranormal human sacrifices themselves for something, that last bit of energy, that last beat of their heart, it materializes as a Reward. There’s always a Reward. But there was none. Traditionally, I should have gotten it. But I never did.”
“Jongin…”
The sound of movement from the floor distracts Jongin in an instant, and he jerks in Minseok’s hold as he sees Sehun stirring. He groans, and Jongin is kneeling next to him as fast as his limbs can carry him there, feeling his forehead, reaching out with his mind, holding onto that familiar energy. “Oh my god, Sehun.”
“Ugh,” Sehun says groggily. “Did I have a seizure?”
Jongin starts crying again. “I’m sorry,” he sobs. “I’m sorry, I thought I killed you. I thought you were dead and it would have been my f-fault.”
“What?” Sehun says, sounding completely confused as Jongin leans down to squeeze him tightly. “What happened?”
“The healing didn’t go so well,” Minseok says, his voice as steady and calm as ever. “You passed out for a minute, and Jongin had a panic attack because he has a guilt complex about killing his parents.”
“You...what?” Sehun asks from where his face is now smushed into Jongin’s shuddering chest.
“Which he didn’t,” Minseok says pointedly. He’s down on his knees suddenly, right next to Jongin. “Come here, bud. Come on. Group hug.”
Jongin lets himself be manhandled, and Sehun is carefully helped to sit up so that they can both be pulled into Minseok’s arms right there on Jongin’s floor. Jongin thinks he’s still crying, overcome with relief and a million other things, but he’s surrounded by warmth and steady breathing and despite everything, it soothes him.
“You didn’t kill Sehun,” Minseok says quietly against Jongin’s hair. “And you didn’t kill your parents. I don’t know where your Reward is, but to be honest, maybe that last bit of energy was used on you instead. It doesn’t matter. You. Did. Not. Kill them. You have not killed anyone. Do you think they want you to be sad all the time?”
Jongin sniffles. “I deserve to be sad,” he says weakly.
“No you fucking don’t,” Minseok fires right back.
“If I don’t deserve to be sad,” Jongin says, “why did I end up here? Why did I end up here, with no family, and no one left? Why am I alone?”
Minseok sighs into his hair, long and tired. “Goddammit,” he says softly. “I knew you weren’t expressing yourself about Joonmyun and Yixing enough.”
Just hearing their names again makes Jongin want to start crying all over again, but he doesn’t think he has any tears left. He lets out a dry sob.
“Hey, shhh. It’s okay. We’re okay.” Minseok’s arms tighten around them. “You’re not alone anymore, okay? You’ve got me, and you’ve got Sehun. So let’s figure this out, alright? Sehun’s fine. We were really doing it, before. We can still do it. Let’s take the day off, okay? Let’s just rest and figure things out.”
Jongin wants to argue, wants to put up a fight, but he’s so, so tired. And Minseok says he’s not alone. He wants so desperately not to be alone. “Okay,” he whimpers.
“Okay, Sehun?” Minseok asks.
“Super confused, to be honest,” comes Sehun’s muffled voice. “But yeah. Okay.”
“Good boys.” Minseok squeezes Jongin tightly, so tightly that it hurts, and then he kisses the crown of his head, and Jongin breathes, and feels warm.
***
Ever since the grass bracelet, Baekhyun has started noticing a pattern. It's not very obvious at first, but it's definitely there. Looking back, he can definitely pick out several singular events (so long as his memory isn't failing him).
Yixing is being weirdly nice to him.
Not that he's ever not been nice. Honestly, his defining character trait is way too nice for a prisoner working under threat of death. That's why it wasn't completely obvious in the beginning. Yixing has been smiling at Baekhyun and keeping him company and doing things for him since day one, despite all of the many, many reasons not to. And Baekhyun has appreciated it. Really, he has. But recently, it's getting a little out of hand.
It started with the grass bracelet. A sweet gift, really. On one of Baekhyun's worst days. Baekhyun thought it was a one-time thing.
But then he brought Baekhyun his evening meal. Which wasn't that odd, except that it was distinctly larger than Baekhyun's usual portions. He'd been feeling off all day, hadn't done well in physio, his tremors had been bad, and in the evening Yixing had come in with his tray-alone, no Joonmyun, no Jongdae-and said, "I brought you a meal."
Baekhyun had looked at it, all neatly arranged, and said, "This is more than a normal...ration."
"I added some from my own," Yixing said, smiling gently, face open and earnest.
Which was really a very sweet thing for him to do. Rations aren’t large in Q-16, and giving any of it up is one of the kindest things someone could do for you. It’s a sacrifice.
"Thanks," Baekhyun said honestly. "But I'm not hungry." It was the truth. He'd been feeling kind of nauseous all day, and the scent of the stew in the bowl was making his stomach turn. He'd nibble on some bread before going to sleep that night.
"Oh," Yixing said, face falling. "Are you sure?"
"Yeah. You should eat it."
Yixing had looked like he wanted to push it, but hadn't, retreating quietly to his quarters with the whole tray.
Baekhyun had thought that was the end of it, but a couple days later, Yixing was back with a new tray, this time at midday meal. "I brought this for you," he said, smiling uncertainly. Less confident than the first time. Baekhyun could differentiate this occasion from all the other times Yixing brought his meals because there was more food on his tray again, and it was still hot-something Baekhyun's meals rarely are. His bowl was all the way full, his bread was surprisingly soft, and Baekhyun could swear someone had tried to improve the presentation so that it looked more appetizing and less like something someone scraped off the bottom of a pot and slapped onto a tray.
"Oh," Baekhyun said. "Thank you." He took it willingly-he wasn't sick this day.
"A meal for you," Yixing had clarified, as if it wasn't obvious.
"Yeah. I'm starving. Thanks." It was a better day, and Baekhyun's hands had been surprisingly steady as he scooped food with his spoon. His speech has been getting better, his struggle to find words more manageable, his pauses growing more infrequent.
"Do you like it?" Yixing asked, like he had made it with his own hands.
Baekhyun shrugged. "Same...blah food as always. Not much to like."
"Oh." Yixing had looked legitimately disappointed.
Baekhyun felt sorry for him, somehow, even though it definitely wasn't Yixing's cooking abilities he was criticizing. "It's not as gross as usual, though?"
That made Yixing smile slightly. "Well, at least you're eating it."
"Of course I'm eating it," Baekhyun said, confused.
His response seemed to cheer Yixing up, bizarrely. "Yeah. I'm glad," he said, and that had been the end of it.
That had been several days ago, though. Today, he's back with something new.
He stands in front of Baekhyun, some time after Liyin has left and Jongdae has gone back to work after midday meal, holding something behind his back, and bashfully says, "I don't really have any belongings with me here, so I didn't really know what to give you..."
"What?" Baekhyun says. "Yixing, you don't have to give me anything."
"Of course I do," Yixing says, eyes wide. "It's just that I don't really have any belongings, so...I kind of had to improvise. So I'm giving you the only thing here that does belong to me, therefore being my item of most importance." He holds out his hands proudly, a little nervously.
Baekhyun looks at the cards in his hands, then back up at his face. "Your deck of cards?"
"I would have made you a new set that's not as beat up as these ones, but for one thing, that kind of defeats the purpose, and also, these cards have some significant meaning attached to them, right? We have memories together of these cards." Yixing seems desperate to prove himself, and the worth of the torn, bent, and creased cards in his hands.
"No, you're right," Baekhyun says, uncertain. "But those are yours, Xing. You shouldn't give them to me. I'll just use them...whenever you say I can, you know?"
"But I want to give them to you," Yixing says earnestly. "They're for you. They're a gift."
"Are you sure?" Baekhyun asks. He's pretty sure Yixing won't back down, but he can't help but want to refuse.
"Positive," Yixing says. "I want you to have them."
"Then...okay. Thank you." Baekhyun reaches out, takes the cards and shuffles through them. They're familiar in his hands. Yixing was right; they have a lot of memories with these cards. He's won-and lost-many a game with them.
But this is the strangest gift yet. Baekhyun isn't having a bad day. He's not desperate for a soothing voice, someone to tell him he's doing alright. He's had a pretty alright day, if he's being honest. He's doing okay.
So why the spontaneous gifts?
Yixing just stands there, staring at him, for several long seconds, and Baekhyun fidgets under his gaze. Is he supposed to say something here?
Joonmyun chooses that moment to walk in, like he’d been waiting just outside the door. “So he accepted, then?” he asks, tired and grumpy. He’s not a big fan of Yixing’s sudden gift spree, either. Another way Baekhyun can’t avoid noticing it.
Yixing rocks on his heels. “Baekhyun, do you accept my gift?”
“Of course,” Baekhyun says, puzzled. “It was...really nice.”
Yixing looks at Joonmyun with a hint of smugness. Joonmyun rolls his eyes in response. “He didn’t say-”
Yixing punches him in the shoulder-the most violent Baekhyun has ever seen him. “Shush,” he says. “He said enough.”
“Fine,” Joonmyun mutters, and they drop it.
Later, Jongdae comes for evening meal, and Baekhyun clings to his hand and says, “I don’t think I can take anymore of this.”
“What?” Jongdae asks, unfazed as he eats his meal.
“Yixing being way too nice to me even though I don’t...deserve it,” Baekhyun clarifies, flopping back in his spot and twisting his bracelet around his wrist, a new habit he’s picked up. “Like, I have never done anything for him? I am literally just making his life more difficult? But he keeps doing stuff for me?”
Jongdae grins and leans over to pat Baekhyun’s hand. “You poor dear.”
“No, listen! The guilt is...mounting. I am confused and afraid. He’s too nice to me. Joonmyun is getting jealous.”
Jongdae is suddenly interested. “Oh he is, is he?”
“I mean, Joonmyun has never liked me as much as Yixing does. Because he is a...rational person, probably.” Baekhyun rolls his eyes. “Anyway, Yixing told me they’re definitely not an item, but-”
“Oh he did, did he?” Jongdae wiggles his eyebrows.
“Stop doing that,” Baekhyun says, flapping his hand.
Jongdae laughs. “I’ll take care of Joonmyun,” he says. “You find a gift for Yixing, if you’re so concerned about equity.”
“Please don’t...harass that poor man.” He knows it’s fruitless even as he says it. “But you might be onto something.”
“Of course I am,” Jongdae says, smug.
He obediently (but mostly for his own pleasure) drags Joonmyun into the paranormals’ quarters a couple days later, spouting some excuse or another, once Baekhyun has acquired a suitable reciprocal gift. “I got you something,” he tells Yixing once they’re alone together.
Yixing looks positively stunned. “A gift?” he asks.
“Yeah,” Baekhyun says. “So I thought about it for a while, and I wanted to give you this.” He pulls it out from under his blanket and holds it out to him.
It’s a book, specially requested through Liyin. “Oh,” Yixing says, surprised and almost awed. “Is it-is it something of yours?”
Baekhyun frowns. “Well, not really,” he says. “It’s the community’s. We don’t really own things here, we really just share...everything. But...it’s a book I read a lot when I was younger. It was my favourite one. It’s really good. I could probably still retell it word for word, even despite-” He gestures to his head.
Yixing blinks at him, still weirdly amazed that Baekhyun is giving something to him. As if no one’s ever repaid his own kindness before. “So it’s something of importance to you?”
Baekhyun shrugs. “Yeah, I guess.”
A sudden grin breaks out across Yixing’s face, wide and giddy and flustered. “Thank you,” he says, reaching out to take the book with reverent hands. “I- It’s a really nice gift, Baekhyun. You skipped some steps, but I accept.”
His response doesn’t make perfect sense, but Baekhyun is too distracted by how endeared he is right now to notice. “I’m glad you like it,” he says, smiling helplessly as Yixing cradles the book and beams.
“I like it a lot,” Yixing says. “It’s really thoughtful. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Baekhyun says, pleased. With Yixing’s enthusiastic response, he feels like he’s really done something to counteract Yixing’s overflowing generosity.
Yixing looks down at the book, giggles, and then leans over and kisses Baekhyun’s cheek. When he straightens again, he looks a little shy, but mostly just happy.
At this point, okay, Baekhyun’s slightly confused. Yixing is acting sort of weird. However, paranormals seem to be sort of weird in general, with their touchiness and their magic and their propensity for gambling, so Baekhyun just lets it go and runs with it. He lets Yixing clutch at his hand for a moment, he grins at Yixing’s genuine joy, and then he watches with amused satisfaction as Yixing goes to tell Joonmyun about his new gift, like it’s the first time he’s ever received one.
“I think he likes it,” Jongdae says later, winking at Baekhyun as he reenters the room.
“I think so too,” Baekhyun says, still smiling. He can faintly hear Yixing’s excited voice from the other side of the door.
“Joonmyun looked exasperated, which is always fun,” Jongdae adds.
“You are horrible.”
“I know,” is Jongdae’s pleasant response.
“I’m glad he liked it,” Baekhyun says, snuggling down into his bed, stretching his legs.
“I know you are.”
***
There are few things that make Kyungsoo as happy as seeing Chanyeol doing better.
In all fairness, that aren’t a lot of things making Kyungsoo happy right now. His working hours are terrible, he rarely gets to see his friends or family, and tension in X-22 is rising as they panic about the upcoming winter, low food stores, and not enough arable land for their fall crops after the last harvest. Kyungsoo knows there have been an increasing amount of skirmishes against Q-16 over the Valley-something both communities are pinning their hopes on-but he can’t even do his part to help in them, because he’s asleep whenever the rest of his fellow soldiers are out there fighting. People are coming back injured increasingly often, the fear of deaths is weighing on everyone, but no one knows what else they can do. They need that land, and Q-16 refuses to give it up.
Everyone is nervous, everyone is tense, but when Kyungsoo starts his shift and sees Chanyeol smiling, Chanyeol chattering, Chanyeol healing, he feels like things might be okay. If Chanyeol can get through everything currently happening in his life and still smile and be optimistic, then goddammit, so can Kyungsoo.
“You’re looking busy,” Kyungsoo says when he walks in, puts down Chanyeol’s supper tray, and Chanyeol still hasn’t turned around from where he’s working inside the skeleton of the Machine.
“I’m very busy,” Chanyeol calls back without breaking his stride. Kyungsoo can’t see what he’s actually doing in there, but there’s some rhythmic clanging coming from within. “Don’t distract me, I’ll forget what I’m doing.”
“Should I leave then?” Kyungsoo asks teasingly.
“No, just stay right there, silently, so I can admire how you look from afar.”
“You’re not even facing me,” Kyungsoo says with a quirk of his lips.
“Well if you’d shush, I’d be done sooner, and then the admiring could commence.”
Kyungsoo chuckles lightly, but obediently falls silent as Chanyeol works away for a few minutes, then finally says, “There!” and ducks out from underneath the Machine. There, he pauses, leaning against the rusted frame with his weight on his good leg, and looks at Kyungsoo for a moment, grinning softly.
“I’ll eat your food if you don’t want it,” Kyungsoo threatens.
Chanyeol laughs and walks over, still limping but crutch-free. He takes the tray, and Kyungsoo uses his now-free hands to pull his sleeve over his hand and roughly wipe grease from Chanyeol’s jaw. “You’re filthy.”
“You always feel the need to point that out, don’t you?” Chanyeol says with a wrinkle of his nose. “Or are you just looking for excuses to touch my face?”
“You caught me. It has nothing at all to do with my neat freak tendencies and the fact that you look like a child let out to play in the mud.”
Chanyeol winks at him and retreats to eat his food. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell. You can touch my face all you like.”
Kyungsoo snorts, stepping closer to the Machine to look it over curiously. “You’ve made a lot of progress recently,” he says. “I mean, by the looks of it.”
“I have,” Chanyeol agrees through a mouthful of food. “I’ve been getting little ‘reminders’ from Boa through Seulgi and Joohyun that I better be working hard on it.” He peers up at Kyungsoo. “You guys been getting into lots of fights recently?”
Kyungsoo shrugs, refrains from mentioning that most of them are against Chanyeol’s community. “I’m not awake for them,” he answers honestly. “Everyone’s getting antsy. I’m not surprised she’s trying to pressure you.”
Chanyeol hums. “Probably sick of feeding me,” he says, offhanded. “Rations are getting smaller.”
Kyungsoo doesn’t know what to say to that, so he keeps his mouth shut.
“Anyway, I’m aiming to get it running, at the very least, in the next week. I’m working on wiring right now, making sure everything’s connected.”
“You think you could be done that soon?” Kyungsoo asks, surprised.
Chanyeol shrugs. “Just because it’s running doesn’t mean it’ll be working. I’m still working blindly. I’m making a lot of guesses, so…” But he looks hopeful.
“That’s really great,” Kyungsoo says, smiling.
“I should work on it more after I eat,” Chanyeol says with a sigh. “I don’t want to lose my train of thought. And I should probably start putting in more hours, if I’m being honest.”
Kyungsoo chews on his lip for a moment, tapping at a rusted iron bar. “I could help.”
“What?” Chanyeol looks up at him, eyes wide.
Kyungsoo shrugs, aiming for nonchalance. “I could help you, if you wanted. Just, you know, hand you things, listen to you talk through problems. Extra set of hands.”
“Really? That’s, like, totally not in your job description. You’re just supposed to watch over me and make sure I don’t fuck shit up.”
Kyungsoo smirks a little. “It gets boring,” he says. “Let me help you. I might as well.”
Chanyeol breaks out into a grin. “Okay.”
Ten minutes later, they’re both half-crouching inside the Machine’s skeleton, on either side of a sharp blade. Chanyeol’s taken a few of them off to give himself room to work, but he left some of them in to save himself the hassle of reattaching them at some point, and it makes it crowded and dangerous there in the underbelly.
“Hand me that wrench, will you?” Chanyeol says, grease-stained fingers rubbing at a loose knut (or bolt-Kyungsoo doesn’t know the difference). Kyungsoo does as he’s told, and Chanyeol goes about tightening it. “Look, this bar here is attached to this joint bit, which extends here to this piston. This thing runs on hydraulics. Each of these arms turns one of the blades-the dangling ones are where I’ve taken blades off. See how complex the jointing is here? I’m not sure exactly how they work, because I’ve never seen it in motion, but it probably means the blades won’t necessarily stay in this position. I mean, they’ll go kind of down and out and back in, like a grabbing motion, but it seems like you can make them do other stuff too. That’s what all the programming inside was for. But I tore it out, so you’d have to switch gears and stuff manually...I’m not sure exactly. I can kind of see how it would work in my head, you know, when I look at it, but it’s hard to explain.” He makes a frustrated sound.
“Your brain is a wonder,” Kyungsoo says, utterly lost. “I really don’t know how it works.”
Chanyeol glances at him sheepishly. “Yeah, I’ve heard that a lot.”
“It’s not a bad thing,” Kyungsoo says with a frown. Who has made Chanyeol feel like his extraordinary brain is something to be ashamed of? Kyungsoo feels unreasonably angry at whoever it was. “There’s no way I could just look at something this complex and see how it worked. I probably wouldn’t ever be able to figure it out.”
“Well, I mean, every machine is basically the same. It’s all the same mechanics,” Chanyeol says, shrugging. “Once you’ve seen enough, you notice patterns. A pattern like this-” He gestures to a series of bars and joints and who knows what else, “-will make that grabbing motion I talked about. They become familiar. You just have to look hard enough.”
Kyungsoo shakes his head in silent disbelief. “Incredible.”
Chanyeol looks at him all shyly, biting his lip and smiling. “Thanks.”
Something warm stirs in Kyungsoo stomach. “Show me more,” he says, nodding towards the Machine vaguely. But he doesn’t look away from Chanyeol’s face until he has to.
Chanyeol talks as he fixes, rambling about different parts, the names he’s given them, how he discovered how this or that works, the time he spent two hours looking for a screw he was holding in his hand, the way he fixed this using the knowledge he gained from fixing a laundry machine when he was fourteen. Kyungsoo can’t always follow him, but he’s more than content to listen and smile and nod along, holding and lifting things for Chanyeol when asked, offering his arm when he looks unsteady. It’s worth it when Chanyeol grins at him and says, “Sorry, I can stop,” and Kyungsoo can reply with, “No, keep going,” just to see the way his face lights up.
As night falls and it gets harder to see even with the help of Chanyeol’s lamp, they retreat to sit on the ground outside the Machine, and Chanyeol gets out his little puzzle box as usual. He seems positive that he’s getting close to fixing that, too, and he works on it avidly with deft fingers and keen eyes. Kyungsoo sits above him on the steps to the Machine’s cockpit, peering down at him as he works, and makes the odd remark, pointing out connections, offering suggestions, and otherwise providing scathing commentary.
“Did I ask for your opinion, Master Fixer?” Chanyeol asks for the millionth time, but his smile is bright when he tips up his face to look at Kyungsoo.
“I’m just saying, there are weird loopy shapes on three of six faces. It probably means something.”
“I’m almost positive they’re meaningless. I saw them on other parts, too, and they didn’t mean anything then. I think it’s just a stylistic thing,” Chanyeol says.
“What if they are connected and you’re wasting time pretending they aren’t?”
“Then it’s time wasted in good company,” Chanyeol says, and he laughs when Kyungsoo kicks him lightly in the shoulder.
He gives Kyungsoo some time to talk, too-encourages it, really, asking him questions about how Jongin is doing, what Sehun is up to, how he and Seulgi became friends. Kyungsoo’s not as wordy as Chanyeol is, but he chatters freely, comfortably, the way he does with his friends and family. He thinks Chanyeol just likes hearing a voice other than his own, so he talks about whatever comes to mind, and lets Chanyeol lean against the side of his leg where it dangles next to him, feeling the warmth of his shifting arm through their clothes.
Chanyeol’s movements gradually grow more sluggish, and his responses become slower and more slurred. Kyungsoo smiles and keeps talking, asks increasingly bizarre questions as Chanyeol sleepily answers them like they’re completely normal. Finally, he stops replying at all, and his puzzle box drops into his lap.
Kyungsoo smiles, carefully climbing down from his perch and shaking Chanyeol so that he wakes up enough to crawl over to his bed blanket. He falls back asleep with his eyes slightly open, a habit Kyungsoo has noticed in the past, so he closes them gently with his fingertips, smiling fondly. “Goodnight, Chanyeol,” he whispers as Chanyeol makes a quiet sound in his sleep.
Chanyeol breathes slow and even after that, and Kyungsoo watches his face for a few moments, so peaceful in slumber, illuminated from the yellow light of his lamp, his eyelashes standing out starkly against his skin the same way the grease smudges do. Kyungsoo has some on his own face now, probably. What a pair they must look.
Kyungsoo sighs, brushes choppy hair off of Chanyeol’s forehead, and then walks towards his post outside the door.
“Kyungsoo,” comes Chanyeol’s soft voice as he retreats.
“What?” Kyungsoo asks, turning back.
Chanyeol doesn’t respond, eyes still closed, breaths still even. He’s asleep. He’s calling Kyungsoo’s name in his sleep.
Kyungsoo sighs again.
What a pair.
*****
NEXT>>
A/N: Merry Christmas everyone! I figured I might as well still update, stick to schedule and all that ^^;;
Find me on twitter, tumblr, and ask.fm!
aka post-apocalypse au, aka painfic
Pairings:[Spoiler (click to open)]Baekxing, Xiuhan, Chansoo (+Chanyeol/Plant)
Genre: post-apocalypse, fantasy, drama, romance
Rating: R
Length: 137K total
Warnings: mature themes, violence/injury, some possibly disturbing imagery, threat of death, poor mental health, very brief mentions of suicidal ideation(?), sad times
Summary: Over a century after meteors destroyed Earth, making the surface uninhabitable, communities are returning from their bunkers and attempting to recolonize the planet. But resources are scarce, tensions are high, and neighbouring communities X-22 and Q-16 are fighting tooth and nail over the Valley, a rare patch of fertile land. Add to that a controversial group of humans with special abilities, and people will start to realize it's not the coming winter that's humanity's biggest obstacle-it's humanity itself. But that doesn't mean hope doesn't exist.
Chapter links: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
*****
Every day, before they start their real work for the afternoon, Jongin and Minseok attempt to heal Sehun’s brain scarring. It’s...slow going, to say the least. Every day, they try again to get a grip on the black energy inside his skull, wrap it up in something good, force it away. But every day, it’s just as hard. Jongin tries and tries and tries, but it’s so painful, it’s so overwhelming, it’s terrifying every time. Minseok isn’t faring any better. Sehun isn’t improving.
But Jongin has a good feeling about their seventh day. He’s in a good mood, the weather is beautiful, the ground is thrumming with energy after a light rain overnight. He thinks today might be the day for a breakthrough.
“Why are you smiling?” Sehun asks nervously, sitting on Jongin’s floor as usual.
“Happy isn’t good,” Minseok says. “We only do things right when one or both of us is pissed off.”
“That’s not true,” Jongin says. “We do things right when we’re neutral now.”
“I don’t feel very encouraged,” Sehun interjects.
“It’ll be fine. Excuse me for being hopeful.” Jongin shoots Minseok a small glare. “Alright. Round seven. Let’s see what we can do.”
It starts off the same way as it always does-with Jongin drawing the sickness into himself slowly, and feeling good energy flow into him from the ground to counteract it. Sometimes, Jongin wonders what would happen if he tried to block the good energy out and just try to wield the bad, but he kind of suspects the result would be him dying, so he doesn’t try it. But even with the good energy inside him, the sickness tries to black him out and overwhelm, tries to spread into every corner of his body like a drop of blood in water. He holds his breath, grits his teeth, feeds it into Minseok at the slowest pace he can manage.
“Hey, here we go,” Minseok says, voice tight, breaths harsh. Jongin can sense him shaping the energies, transforming them, forcing them into the form he wants. He’s doing a good job. Jongin has to focus most of his attention on controlling the flow of energy through him, but he spares a moment to appreciate how hard Minseok is working, how efficiently despite how much pain he must be in.
It’s working. Jongin can feel it working, he can feel everything going right. Everything is huge and painful and too much, but the black, sick energy is flowing out of Sehun and through Jongin, into Minseok, and the good energy is doing the same from the ground, and it’s spinning, it’s changing, it’s doing exactly what they’re telling it to. Jongin feels positively triumphant.
And then something slips. It feels like a screw has rattled loose at first, making one wheel wobbly. Something goes off in that single moment of weaker focus, and it’s enough to throw Jongin. He struggles for a moment, tries to tighten his grip, tries to get things back under control and steady. Minseok grunts as a spike of black energy shoots through him, and Jongin tries to yank it back, feeling everything beginning to slip through his fingers.
“No, no, no,” he mutters, panicking, trying not to lose it. They had it, just now. They had it. He can get it back.
But he can’t. One moment of lost control, and everything’s unravelling. Jongin loses his hold on the sickness and it rushes into him-it’s too much for Minseok, so he tries to tighten control on that channel, but that means it builds up inside him. And it builds, and it builds. It’s too much, it feels like it’s killing him, curling around his insides, squeezing up through his throat. Rationally, Jongin knows it can’t do anything to him, its form is too abstract, it’s not meant for him, but it threatens to choke him and Jongin is scared.
“Jongin, stop, stop, just drop it,” Minseok says, sounding pained.
“I can do this,” Jongin thinks he says, but everything sounds very far away. He feels like he’s drowning, and like he’s being eaten from the inside out.
“We’ll try again after, Jongin, stop.”
“We were doing it,” Jongin insists.
“Jongin you’re hurting me,” Minseok tells him forcefully.
“I’m sorry,” Jongin says. He’s completely lost control, and he knows it. He’s leaking energy everywhere, because there’s literally nowhere left for it to go in his body except out, and he knows he’s pushing too much into Minseok but he can’t stop it.
“Fuck, stop!”
Something coalesces between them at the last second-a last-ditch attempt by Minseok to deal with the huge amounts of energy flooding his body-and Jongin breaks all connections with a resounding snap! The solid mass of energy bolts, and Jongin hears a short, choked cry.
Jongin opens his eyes and sees Sehun flat on his back, skin pale as death. “Oh, god,” Jongin breathes, going cold. “No, no, no. Oh my god.” His mind reaches out for Sehun’s familiar wavelengths, wanting reassurance, but feels nothing. He recoils, scrambles back across the floor, feels his head thud against the wall with a dizzying sense of detachment. “Oh my god,” he says, and then he lurches for the door, throws up just outside as panic and horror sweep through his exhausted body.
“Jongin!” Minseok yells.
Jongin barely hears him, his breaths coming faster and more painfully as he wipes the sour taste of bile from his mouth. You killed him, a voice tells him, straightforward and rational as the rest of him melts down. You killed him. He’s dead.
“Jongin,” Minseok says again, and Jongin vaguely feels hands on his shoulders as he shakes violently. Or is Minseok shaking him? He thinks maybe it’s both, but he can barely think past the way his lungs are spasming, the way his mind is an endless loop of accusations and nightmares. “Jongin listen to me. He’s okay.”
Jongin forces his eyes open, tries to breathe past the guilt clogging his throat. “He’s not,” he gasps. “He’s not.”
“Jongin, look at me. He’s fine.”
“I killed him,” Jongin chokes. He scrabbles at the front of Minseok’s shirt, frantic, trembling. “Minseok. I killed them.”
Minseok pulls him in, wraps his arms around Jongin and just...holds him. For the first time since Joonmyun and Yixing were taken away from him, someone holds Jongin, even despite the blood on his hands. Jongin breaks down and cries.
“He’s okay, Jonginnie,” Minseok says, his voice soft, soothing. “Look, I promise. He passed out, but he’s still breathing, his heart’s beating just fine. He’s gonna be okay. We’re all gonna be okay.”
Jongin registers what he’s saying, but he’s in no state to take it in. “I killed them,” he sobs. “Minseok, I. I killed them. I killed them.”
“Jongin,” Minseok sighs. He’s rocking them back and forth steadily, like a pendulum. It’s grounding, somehow. Jongin uses the beat of their swaying to measure his erratic breaths. “Is this about your parents again?”
“They’re dead and it’s my fault,” Jongin tells him, chest heaving.
“It’s not,” Minseok says. He keeps rocking them, keeps holding him. “It’s not your fault. It was never your fault.”
“You don’t understand,” Jongin hiccups.
Minseok’s hand is in his hair, gently pressing Jongin’s head down against his shoulder, petting the back of his skull. “Then explain it to me.”
“It’s my fault,” Jongin says, voice trembling, face hidden in the fabric of Minseok’s shirt. “I was so sick, and they. They wanted to save me. My mom-the sorcerer, just like me-she wanted to save me. But I was so sick, and I made her sick, too. She was so- She was so weak.” He sobs. “And she couldn’t. She couldn’t do it. It was my fault. She was so weak, and she died saving me. I took everything that was left of her. And my dad, too. My dad died too. A conjurer can’t live without his sorcerer. I killed them both.”
“Oh, Jongin,” Minseok says, like an apology. “Just because they died saving you doesn’t make it your fault. It doesn’t,” he says more forcefully when Jongin tries to object. “Do you think they died for you, hoping you’d feel guilty for it for the rest of your life?”
“They didn’t think they’d die,” Jongin says, breath hitching against Minseok’s shoulder. “They didn’t die for me.”
“They did. They sacrificed themselves for you. That doesn’t place the guilt on you. They died willingly, so that you would live.”
Jongin shakes his head, lifting it so he can wipe the tears from his eyes. “No,” he says, swallowing hard. “No. If that was a sacrifice, then where’s my Reward?”
“Your...what?” Now Minseok just looks confused.
“My Reward. It’s- Great sacrifice begets great reward. It’s a paranormal thing.” Jongin’s head pounds with exhaustion and emotional hangover. “When a paranormal human sacrifices themselves for something, that last bit of energy, that last beat of their heart, it materializes as a Reward. There’s always a Reward. But there was none. Traditionally, I should have gotten it. But I never did.”
“Jongin…”
The sound of movement from the floor distracts Jongin in an instant, and he jerks in Minseok’s hold as he sees Sehun stirring. He groans, and Jongin is kneeling next to him as fast as his limbs can carry him there, feeling his forehead, reaching out with his mind, holding onto that familiar energy. “Oh my god, Sehun.”
“Ugh,” Sehun says groggily. “Did I have a seizure?”
Jongin starts crying again. “I’m sorry,” he sobs. “I’m sorry, I thought I killed you. I thought you were dead and it would have been my f-fault.”
“What?” Sehun says, sounding completely confused as Jongin leans down to squeeze him tightly. “What happened?”
“The healing didn’t go so well,” Minseok says, his voice as steady and calm as ever. “You passed out for a minute, and Jongin had a panic attack because he has a guilt complex about killing his parents.”
“You...what?” Sehun asks from where his face is now smushed into Jongin’s shuddering chest.
“Which he didn’t,” Minseok says pointedly. He’s down on his knees suddenly, right next to Jongin. “Come here, bud. Come on. Group hug.”
Jongin lets himself be manhandled, and Sehun is carefully helped to sit up so that they can both be pulled into Minseok’s arms right there on Jongin’s floor. Jongin thinks he’s still crying, overcome with relief and a million other things, but he’s surrounded by warmth and steady breathing and despite everything, it soothes him.
“You didn’t kill Sehun,” Minseok says quietly against Jongin’s hair. “And you didn’t kill your parents. I don’t know where your Reward is, but to be honest, maybe that last bit of energy was used on you instead. It doesn’t matter. You. Did. Not. Kill them. You have not killed anyone. Do you think they want you to be sad all the time?”
Jongin sniffles. “I deserve to be sad,” he says weakly.
“No you fucking don’t,” Minseok fires right back.
“If I don’t deserve to be sad,” Jongin says, “why did I end up here? Why did I end up here, with no family, and no one left? Why am I alone?”
Minseok sighs into his hair, long and tired. “Goddammit,” he says softly. “I knew you weren’t expressing yourself about Joonmyun and Yixing enough.”
Just hearing their names again makes Jongin want to start crying all over again, but he doesn’t think he has any tears left. He lets out a dry sob.
“Hey, shhh. It’s okay. We’re okay.” Minseok’s arms tighten around them. “You’re not alone anymore, okay? You’ve got me, and you’ve got Sehun. So let’s figure this out, alright? Sehun’s fine. We were really doing it, before. We can still do it. Let’s take the day off, okay? Let’s just rest and figure things out.”
Jongin wants to argue, wants to put up a fight, but he’s so, so tired. And Minseok says he’s not alone. He wants so desperately not to be alone. “Okay,” he whimpers.
“Okay, Sehun?” Minseok asks.
“Super confused, to be honest,” comes Sehun’s muffled voice. “But yeah. Okay.”
“Good boys.” Minseok squeezes Jongin tightly, so tightly that it hurts, and then he kisses the crown of his head, and Jongin breathes, and feels warm.
***
Ever since the grass bracelet, Baekhyun has started noticing a pattern. It's not very obvious at first, but it's definitely there. Looking back, he can definitely pick out several singular events (so long as his memory isn't failing him).
Yixing is being weirdly nice to him.
Not that he's ever not been nice. Honestly, his defining character trait is way too nice for a prisoner working under threat of death. That's why it wasn't completely obvious in the beginning. Yixing has been smiling at Baekhyun and keeping him company and doing things for him since day one, despite all of the many, many reasons not to. And Baekhyun has appreciated it. Really, he has. But recently, it's getting a little out of hand.
It started with the grass bracelet. A sweet gift, really. On one of Baekhyun's worst days. Baekhyun thought it was a one-time thing.
But then he brought Baekhyun his evening meal. Which wasn't that odd, except that it was distinctly larger than Baekhyun's usual portions. He'd been feeling off all day, hadn't done well in physio, his tremors had been bad, and in the evening Yixing had come in with his tray-alone, no Joonmyun, no Jongdae-and said, "I brought you a meal."
Baekhyun had looked at it, all neatly arranged, and said, "This is more than a normal...ration."
"I added some from my own," Yixing said, smiling gently, face open and earnest.
Which was really a very sweet thing for him to do. Rations aren’t large in Q-16, and giving any of it up is one of the kindest things someone could do for you. It’s a sacrifice.
"Thanks," Baekhyun said honestly. "But I'm not hungry." It was the truth. He'd been feeling kind of nauseous all day, and the scent of the stew in the bowl was making his stomach turn. He'd nibble on some bread before going to sleep that night.
"Oh," Yixing said, face falling. "Are you sure?"
"Yeah. You should eat it."
Yixing had looked like he wanted to push it, but hadn't, retreating quietly to his quarters with the whole tray.
Baekhyun had thought that was the end of it, but a couple days later, Yixing was back with a new tray, this time at midday meal. "I brought this for you," he said, smiling uncertainly. Less confident than the first time. Baekhyun could differentiate this occasion from all the other times Yixing brought his meals because there was more food on his tray again, and it was still hot-something Baekhyun's meals rarely are. His bowl was all the way full, his bread was surprisingly soft, and Baekhyun could swear someone had tried to improve the presentation so that it looked more appetizing and less like something someone scraped off the bottom of a pot and slapped onto a tray.
"Oh," Baekhyun said. "Thank you." He took it willingly-he wasn't sick this day.
"A meal for you," Yixing had clarified, as if it wasn't obvious.
"Yeah. I'm starving. Thanks." It was a better day, and Baekhyun's hands had been surprisingly steady as he scooped food with his spoon. His speech has been getting better, his struggle to find words more manageable, his pauses growing more infrequent.
"Do you like it?" Yixing asked, like he had made it with his own hands.
Baekhyun shrugged. "Same...blah food as always. Not much to like."
"Oh." Yixing had looked legitimately disappointed.
Baekhyun felt sorry for him, somehow, even though it definitely wasn't Yixing's cooking abilities he was criticizing. "It's not as gross as usual, though?"
That made Yixing smile slightly. "Well, at least you're eating it."
"Of course I'm eating it," Baekhyun said, confused.
His response seemed to cheer Yixing up, bizarrely. "Yeah. I'm glad," he said, and that had been the end of it.
That had been several days ago, though. Today, he's back with something new.
He stands in front of Baekhyun, some time after Liyin has left and Jongdae has gone back to work after midday meal, holding something behind his back, and bashfully says, "I don't really have any belongings with me here, so I didn't really know what to give you..."
"What?" Baekhyun says. "Yixing, you don't have to give me anything."
"Of course I do," Yixing says, eyes wide. "It's just that I don't really have any belongings, so...I kind of had to improvise. So I'm giving you the only thing here that does belong to me, therefore being my item of most importance." He holds out his hands proudly, a little nervously.
Baekhyun looks at the cards in his hands, then back up at his face. "Your deck of cards?"
"I would have made you a new set that's not as beat up as these ones, but for one thing, that kind of defeats the purpose, and also, these cards have some significant meaning attached to them, right? We have memories together of these cards." Yixing seems desperate to prove himself, and the worth of the torn, bent, and creased cards in his hands.
"No, you're right," Baekhyun says, uncertain. "But those are yours, Xing. You shouldn't give them to me. I'll just use them...whenever you say I can, you know?"
"But I want to give them to you," Yixing says earnestly. "They're for you. They're a gift."
"Are you sure?" Baekhyun asks. He's pretty sure Yixing won't back down, but he can't help but want to refuse.
"Positive," Yixing says. "I want you to have them."
"Then...okay. Thank you." Baekhyun reaches out, takes the cards and shuffles through them. They're familiar in his hands. Yixing was right; they have a lot of memories with these cards. He's won-and lost-many a game with them.
But this is the strangest gift yet. Baekhyun isn't having a bad day. He's not desperate for a soothing voice, someone to tell him he's doing alright. He's had a pretty alright day, if he's being honest. He's doing okay.
So why the spontaneous gifts?
Yixing just stands there, staring at him, for several long seconds, and Baekhyun fidgets under his gaze. Is he supposed to say something here?
Joonmyun chooses that moment to walk in, like he’d been waiting just outside the door. “So he accepted, then?” he asks, tired and grumpy. He’s not a big fan of Yixing’s sudden gift spree, either. Another way Baekhyun can’t avoid noticing it.
Yixing rocks on his heels. “Baekhyun, do you accept my gift?”
“Of course,” Baekhyun says, puzzled. “It was...really nice.”
Yixing looks at Joonmyun with a hint of smugness. Joonmyun rolls his eyes in response. “He didn’t say-”
Yixing punches him in the shoulder-the most violent Baekhyun has ever seen him. “Shush,” he says. “He said enough.”
“Fine,” Joonmyun mutters, and they drop it.
Later, Jongdae comes for evening meal, and Baekhyun clings to his hand and says, “I don’t think I can take anymore of this.”
“What?” Jongdae asks, unfazed as he eats his meal.
“Yixing being way too nice to me even though I don’t...deserve it,” Baekhyun clarifies, flopping back in his spot and twisting his bracelet around his wrist, a new habit he’s picked up. “Like, I have never done anything for him? I am literally just making his life more difficult? But he keeps doing stuff for me?”
Jongdae grins and leans over to pat Baekhyun’s hand. “You poor dear.”
“No, listen! The guilt is...mounting. I am confused and afraid. He’s too nice to me. Joonmyun is getting jealous.”
Jongdae is suddenly interested. “Oh he is, is he?”
“I mean, Joonmyun has never liked me as much as Yixing does. Because he is a...rational person, probably.” Baekhyun rolls his eyes. “Anyway, Yixing told me they’re definitely not an item, but-”
“Oh he did, did he?” Jongdae wiggles his eyebrows.
“Stop doing that,” Baekhyun says, flapping his hand.
Jongdae laughs. “I’ll take care of Joonmyun,” he says. “You find a gift for Yixing, if you’re so concerned about equity.”
“Please don’t...harass that poor man.” He knows it’s fruitless even as he says it. “But you might be onto something.”
“Of course I am,” Jongdae says, smug.
He obediently (but mostly for his own pleasure) drags Joonmyun into the paranormals’ quarters a couple days later, spouting some excuse or another, once Baekhyun has acquired a suitable reciprocal gift. “I got you something,” he tells Yixing once they’re alone together.
Yixing looks positively stunned. “A gift?” he asks.
“Yeah,” Baekhyun says. “So I thought about it for a while, and I wanted to give you this.” He pulls it out from under his blanket and holds it out to him.
It’s a book, specially requested through Liyin. “Oh,” Yixing says, surprised and almost awed. “Is it-is it something of yours?”
Baekhyun frowns. “Well, not really,” he says. “It’s the community’s. We don’t really own things here, we really just share...everything. But...it’s a book I read a lot when I was younger. It was my favourite one. It’s really good. I could probably still retell it word for word, even despite-” He gestures to his head.
Yixing blinks at him, still weirdly amazed that Baekhyun is giving something to him. As if no one’s ever repaid his own kindness before. “So it’s something of importance to you?”
Baekhyun shrugs. “Yeah, I guess.”
A sudden grin breaks out across Yixing’s face, wide and giddy and flustered. “Thank you,” he says, reaching out to take the book with reverent hands. “I- It’s a really nice gift, Baekhyun. You skipped some steps, but I accept.”
His response doesn’t make perfect sense, but Baekhyun is too distracted by how endeared he is right now to notice. “I’m glad you like it,” he says, smiling helplessly as Yixing cradles the book and beams.
“I like it a lot,” Yixing says. “It’s really thoughtful. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Baekhyun says, pleased. With Yixing’s enthusiastic response, he feels like he’s really done something to counteract Yixing’s overflowing generosity.
Yixing looks down at the book, giggles, and then leans over and kisses Baekhyun’s cheek. When he straightens again, he looks a little shy, but mostly just happy.
At this point, okay, Baekhyun’s slightly confused. Yixing is acting sort of weird. However, paranormals seem to be sort of weird in general, with their touchiness and their magic and their propensity for gambling, so Baekhyun just lets it go and runs with it. He lets Yixing clutch at his hand for a moment, he grins at Yixing’s genuine joy, and then he watches with amused satisfaction as Yixing goes to tell Joonmyun about his new gift, like it’s the first time he’s ever received one.
“I think he likes it,” Jongdae says later, winking at Baekhyun as he reenters the room.
“I think so too,” Baekhyun says, still smiling. He can faintly hear Yixing’s excited voice from the other side of the door.
“Joonmyun looked exasperated, which is always fun,” Jongdae adds.
“You are horrible.”
“I know,” is Jongdae’s pleasant response.
“I’m glad he liked it,” Baekhyun says, snuggling down into his bed, stretching his legs.
“I know you are.”
***
There are few things that make Kyungsoo as happy as seeing Chanyeol doing better.
In all fairness, that aren’t a lot of things making Kyungsoo happy right now. His working hours are terrible, he rarely gets to see his friends or family, and tension in X-22 is rising as they panic about the upcoming winter, low food stores, and not enough arable land for their fall crops after the last harvest. Kyungsoo knows there have been an increasing amount of skirmishes against Q-16 over the Valley-something both communities are pinning their hopes on-but he can’t even do his part to help in them, because he’s asleep whenever the rest of his fellow soldiers are out there fighting. People are coming back injured increasingly often, the fear of deaths is weighing on everyone, but no one knows what else they can do. They need that land, and Q-16 refuses to give it up.
Everyone is nervous, everyone is tense, but when Kyungsoo starts his shift and sees Chanyeol smiling, Chanyeol chattering, Chanyeol healing, he feels like things might be okay. If Chanyeol can get through everything currently happening in his life and still smile and be optimistic, then goddammit, so can Kyungsoo.
“You’re looking busy,” Kyungsoo says when he walks in, puts down Chanyeol’s supper tray, and Chanyeol still hasn’t turned around from where he’s working inside the skeleton of the Machine.
“I’m very busy,” Chanyeol calls back without breaking his stride. Kyungsoo can’t see what he’s actually doing in there, but there’s some rhythmic clanging coming from within. “Don’t distract me, I’ll forget what I’m doing.”
“Should I leave then?” Kyungsoo asks teasingly.
“No, just stay right there, silently, so I can admire how you look from afar.”
“You’re not even facing me,” Kyungsoo says with a quirk of his lips.
“Well if you’d shush, I’d be done sooner, and then the admiring could commence.”
Kyungsoo chuckles lightly, but obediently falls silent as Chanyeol works away for a few minutes, then finally says, “There!” and ducks out from underneath the Machine. There, he pauses, leaning against the rusted frame with his weight on his good leg, and looks at Kyungsoo for a moment, grinning softly.
“I’ll eat your food if you don’t want it,” Kyungsoo threatens.
Chanyeol laughs and walks over, still limping but crutch-free. He takes the tray, and Kyungsoo uses his now-free hands to pull his sleeve over his hand and roughly wipe grease from Chanyeol’s jaw. “You’re filthy.”
“You always feel the need to point that out, don’t you?” Chanyeol says with a wrinkle of his nose. “Or are you just looking for excuses to touch my face?”
“You caught me. It has nothing at all to do with my neat freak tendencies and the fact that you look like a child let out to play in the mud.”
Chanyeol winks at him and retreats to eat his food. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell. You can touch my face all you like.”
Kyungsoo snorts, stepping closer to the Machine to look it over curiously. “You’ve made a lot of progress recently,” he says. “I mean, by the looks of it.”
“I have,” Chanyeol agrees through a mouthful of food. “I’ve been getting little ‘reminders’ from Boa through Seulgi and Joohyun that I better be working hard on it.” He peers up at Kyungsoo. “You guys been getting into lots of fights recently?”
Kyungsoo shrugs, refrains from mentioning that most of them are against Chanyeol’s community. “I’m not awake for them,” he answers honestly. “Everyone’s getting antsy. I’m not surprised she’s trying to pressure you.”
Chanyeol hums. “Probably sick of feeding me,” he says, offhanded. “Rations are getting smaller.”
Kyungsoo doesn’t know what to say to that, so he keeps his mouth shut.
“Anyway, I’m aiming to get it running, at the very least, in the next week. I’m working on wiring right now, making sure everything’s connected.”
“You think you could be done that soon?” Kyungsoo asks, surprised.
Chanyeol shrugs. “Just because it’s running doesn’t mean it’ll be working. I’m still working blindly. I’m making a lot of guesses, so…” But he looks hopeful.
“That’s really great,” Kyungsoo says, smiling.
“I should work on it more after I eat,” Chanyeol says with a sigh. “I don’t want to lose my train of thought. And I should probably start putting in more hours, if I’m being honest.”
Kyungsoo chews on his lip for a moment, tapping at a rusted iron bar. “I could help.”
“What?” Chanyeol looks up at him, eyes wide.
Kyungsoo shrugs, aiming for nonchalance. “I could help you, if you wanted. Just, you know, hand you things, listen to you talk through problems. Extra set of hands.”
“Really? That’s, like, totally not in your job description. You’re just supposed to watch over me and make sure I don’t fuck shit up.”
Kyungsoo smirks a little. “It gets boring,” he says. “Let me help you. I might as well.”
Chanyeol breaks out into a grin. “Okay.”
Ten minutes later, they’re both half-crouching inside the Machine’s skeleton, on either side of a sharp blade. Chanyeol’s taken a few of them off to give himself room to work, but he left some of them in to save himself the hassle of reattaching them at some point, and it makes it crowded and dangerous there in the underbelly.
“Hand me that wrench, will you?” Chanyeol says, grease-stained fingers rubbing at a loose knut (or bolt-Kyungsoo doesn’t know the difference). Kyungsoo does as he’s told, and Chanyeol goes about tightening it. “Look, this bar here is attached to this joint bit, which extends here to this piston. This thing runs on hydraulics. Each of these arms turns one of the blades-the dangling ones are where I’ve taken blades off. See how complex the jointing is here? I’m not sure exactly how they work, because I’ve never seen it in motion, but it probably means the blades won’t necessarily stay in this position. I mean, they’ll go kind of down and out and back in, like a grabbing motion, but it seems like you can make them do other stuff too. That’s what all the programming inside was for. But I tore it out, so you’d have to switch gears and stuff manually...I’m not sure exactly. I can kind of see how it would work in my head, you know, when I look at it, but it’s hard to explain.” He makes a frustrated sound.
“Your brain is a wonder,” Kyungsoo says, utterly lost. “I really don’t know how it works.”
Chanyeol glances at him sheepishly. “Yeah, I’ve heard that a lot.”
“It’s not a bad thing,” Kyungsoo says with a frown. Who has made Chanyeol feel like his extraordinary brain is something to be ashamed of? Kyungsoo feels unreasonably angry at whoever it was. “There’s no way I could just look at something this complex and see how it worked. I probably wouldn’t ever be able to figure it out.”
“Well, I mean, every machine is basically the same. It’s all the same mechanics,” Chanyeol says, shrugging. “Once you’ve seen enough, you notice patterns. A pattern like this-” He gestures to a series of bars and joints and who knows what else, “-will make that grabbing motion I talked about. They become familiar. You just have to look hard enough.”
Kyungsoo shakes his head in silent disbelief. “Incredible.”
Chanyeol looks at him all shyly, biting his lip and smiling. “Thanks.”
Something warm stirs in Kyungsoo stomach. “Show me more,” he says, nodding towards the Machine vaguely. But he doesn’t look away from Chanyeol’s face until he has to.
Chanyeol talks as he fixes, rambling about different parts, the names he’s given them, how he discovered how this or that works, the time he spent two hours looking for a screw he was holding in his hand, the way he fixed this using the knowledge he gained from fixing a laundry machine when he was fourteen. Kyungsoo can’t always follow him, but he’s more than content to listen and smile and nod along, holding and lifting things for Chanyeol when asked, offering his arm when he looks unsteady. It’s worth it when Chanyeol grins at him and says, “Sorry, I can stop,” and Kyungsoo can reply with, “No, keep going,” just to see the way his face lights up.
As night falls and it gets harder to see even with the help of Chanyeol’s lamp, they retreat to sit on the ground outside the Machine, and Chanyeol gets out his little puzzle box as usual. He seems positive that he’s getting close to fixing that, too, and he works on it avidly with deft fingers and keen eyes. Kyungsoo sits above him on the steps to the Machine’s cockpit, peering down at him as he works, and makes the odd remark, pointing out connections, offering suggestions, and otherwise providing scathing commentary.
“Did I ask for your opinion, Master Fixer?” Chanyeol asks for the millionth time, but his smile is bright when he tips up his face to look at Kyungsoo.
“I’m just saying, there are weird loopy shapes on three of six faces. It probably means something.”
“I’m almost positive they’re meaningless. I saw them on other parts, too, and they didn’t mean anything then. I think it’s just a stylistic thing,” Chanyeol says.
“What if they are connected and you’re wasting time pretending they aren’t?”
“Then it’s time wasted in good company,” Chanyeol says, and he laughs when Kyungsoo kicks him lightly in the shoulder.
He gives Kyungsoo some time to talk, too-encourages it, really, asking him questions about how Jongin is doing, what Sehun is up to, how he and Seulgi became friends. Kyungsoo’s not as wordy as Chanyeol is, but he chatters freely, comfortably, the way he does with his friends and family. He thinks Chanyeol just likes hearing a voice other than his own, so he talks about whatever comes to mind, and lets Chanyeol lean against the side of his leg where it dangles next to him, feeling the warmth of his shifting arm through their clothes.
Chanyeol’s movements gradually grow more sluggish, and his responses become slower and more slurred. Kyungsoo smiles and keeps talking, asks increasingly bizarre questions as Chanyeol sleepily answers them like they’re completely normal. Finally, he stops replying at all, and his puzzle box drops into his lap.
Kyungsoo smiles, carefully climbing down from his perch and shaking Chanyeol so that he wakes up enough to crawl over to his bed blanket. He falls back asleep with his eyes slightly open, a habit Kyungsoo has noticed in the past, so he closes them gently with his fingertips, smiling fondly. “Goodnight, Chanyeol,” he whispers as Chanyeol makes a quiet sound in his sleep.
Chanyeol breathes slow and even after that, and Kyungsoo watches his face for a few moments, so peaceful in slumber, illuminated from the yellow light of his lamp, his eyelashes standing out starkly against his skin the same way the grease smudges do. Kyungsoo has some on his own face now, probably. What a pair they must look.
Kyungsoo sighs, brushes choppy hair off of Chanyeol’s forehead, and then walks towards his post outside the door.
“Kyungsoo,” comes Chanyeol’s soft voice as he retreats.
“What?” Kyungsoo asks, turning back.
Chanyeol doesn’t respond, eyes still closed, breaths still even. He’s asleep. He’s calling Kyungsoo’s name in his sleep.
Kyungsoo sighs again.
What a pair.
*****
NEXT>>
A/N: Merry Christmas everyone! I figured I might as well still update, stick to schedule and all that ^^;;
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