(L/Sungyeol) a ship and its uses
Title: a ship and its uses
Pairing: Myungsoo/Sungyeol
Rating: M
a ship and its uses
There are two things Myungsoo knows he cannot possibly survive without: a gun (an old police-issue one he stole during the beginning of the end, where there was chaos and fear but most of all hope because back then, people still believed things could get better) and a handheld radiation meter.
The downside: there are only two bullets left in his gun and lately, everything he has been eating has a radiation level three times too high for safe consumption.
Brightside: Myungsoo’s not any more nauseous than usual and it only takes one bullet to end it all.
There was a nuclear fallout in three different countries, all at once. On the news, experts lamented that there was a one-in-a-billion chance of something like that happening.
But it happened either way, and people started dying as far away as Australia.
Things were bad in Korea, of course, but it was only until the President died that the country started to descent into chaos. No one could go anywhere or leave, because ports were blocked and airplanes grounded and soon, fuel ran out.
More people died and Sunggyu was the first casualty in their group. That was the evening they came up with a plan, fraught with problems but it is the best they could do: Myungsoo, Woohyun and Dongwoo were to break into the police station to steal weapons and ammunition while Sungyeol, Sungjong and Howon targeted the closest hospital.
Everything goes according to plan, except Sungjong never makes it back.
In time, Woohyun stops talking. Howon stops eating. It doesn’t take long for Myungsoo to stop hoping and he is the first one who leaves.
The city is a wasteland.
Myungsoo lives in an empty apartment block, ground floor. The lock on the front door is useless, so he boards the entrance up with anything he can find. The back window is his secret entryway.
Shops have been looted since the beginning and lately, supplies have been dwindling. There are two types of food you can find, Clean and Unclean. Clean food is food tainted but still safe enough to eat.
Unclean food is what killed Sunggyu.
Myungsoo has enough bottled water to last him five days, at most, and stale seaweed and canned soup for a week. This is how days and weeks are measured now - in the amount of time you can last until you go raiding the homes of the survivors for something, anything to keep you alive. There is a calendar somewhere in Myungsoo’s apartment, dusty and untouched.
He’s stuck in December, 2012.
When he’s down to two days of drinking water and five days of food, Myungsoo gears up with his two most precious items and ventures outside. The air is stale and arid and quiet and he holds the gun out in front of him, as steadily as he can.
He moves quickly and he has to move far, further away that he’s been, almost to the edge of Seoul. It’s like the whole world has been silenced and Myungsoo knows if he can unsee the bodies scattered along the road, the crumbling buildings and the shattered streetlights, things would appear perfectly tranquil.
Myungsoo swallows and shakes the fantasy from his mind’s eye as he moves forward, into a dilapidated corner store. It’s dim and the floor is littered with empty food wrappers and flattened cardboard boxes. Surprisingly, there is a closed door, hidden at the far side and Myungsoo proceeds with one measured step at a time.
Silence.
The doorknob is rusty and Myungsoo contemplates kicking the door down but the risk of drawing attention to himself in a closed space is not very wise, so he grips the knob cautiously and as he exhales, he twists it open and the doorknob disintegrates in his hand.
The solid door creaks open though (creaks) and it’s a trap, not an inventory room because in the heartbeat that it takes for Myungsoo to open the door, a figure is standing behind him with something cool pressed against the back of his neck.
The only consolation is that is feels circular, not sharp or pointed, so it is probably not a knife.
“Drop the gun,” the voice says quietly. It’s a boy.
“I’ll leave without a fight,” Myungsoo replies, just as softly because they both know there is no need to attract unwanted attention from the outside.
“No. You know where I live,” and what feels like a metal bar digs into the back of Myungsoo’s neck, until he’s semi-pinned to the grimy wall.
The gun is slick in Myungsoo’s hand. Two bullets, two shots.
The figure seems to read his mind. “Drop it,” he says, more forcefully this time, his breath washing over Myungsoo’s ear.
“Wait-” Myungsoo starts but the boy has had enough because the cool of the metal bar leaves his neck and Myungsoo ducks just as it smashes into the wall, sending plaster raining down on them.
They’re face-to-face now, and the dull metal bar falls to the ground with an echoing clang. The gun almost slips from Myungsoo’s grip because standing in front of him is Sungyeol. Thinner, paler, more weary, but it’s Lee Sungyeol in a helmet and deep blue sweater.
“Shit,” Sungyeol breathes, and before Myungsoo can react, he scrambles for the metal pole and brings it swiftly to Myungsoo’s right knee. He colapses onto the tiled floor, kneeling in front of Sungyeol as his gun scuttles across the floor noisily.
“What the fu-” he gasps and Sungyeol picks up his gun.
“That is for leaving. How many more bullets do you have left?”
“What?” Myungsoo says, forcing the word past his gasps of sharp pain.
“Ammunition. How much do you have left?”
“Two.”
“Cartridges?”
Myungsoo looks up to Sungyeol, spitting out a bitter scoff. “Bullets.”
Before Sungyeol can ask him for questions or hit him with more metal items, there is a flurry of noise outside and Sungyeol shakes his head. “We made too much noise,” he says and reaches blindly in the corner, drawing out a dirty white bag with a faded red cross that he swings over his shoulders.
Myungsoo is hoisted to his feet and there is a bright wave of pain as his knee tries to stabilize his weight. A small object is pushed into his hand: his gun.
“Time to move. I hope you have a hideout,” Sungyeol says before placing a well-aimed kick against a section of the wall and it crumples like paper just as shots are fired behind them.
They make their escape and as they run, Myungsoo can swear he hears Sungyeol laughing and it’s the first time in liters and liters of water and the thinnest slices of beef that he’s heard something like this.
They manage to lose the assailants, even with his injured knee and Myungsoo’s grateful he did not catch a glimpse of the people: he’s seen desperate kids wielding weapons bigger than themselves, only to be shot down by people just as desperate - women with crying toddlers or men with tears in their eyes.
When they finally arrive inside Myungsoo’s apartment, his knee is numb and Sungyeol surveys the place in guarded interest, his eyes darting to the most vulnerable places - the reinforced windows, the boarded-up front door, the dark rooms.
“This is a good place,” Sungyeol says after a beat and Myungsoo nods because his teeth are clenched; it’s too painful to speak. He rolls up his jeans carefully and there is a large purple bruise already blooming but as he presses his knee gently, it’s intact. Not dislocated, he thinks with a brief sigh of relief.
Something lands with a thud next to him and he looks up to find a white package. Sungyeol is crouching over him, examining his knee. “It’s not dislocated. Just punch that cool pack and it should ease the pain. I would offer you some painkillers, but I wouldn’t waste it on something like this.”
Myungsoo blinks. He has forgotten Sungyeol was one of those who was in charge of medical supplies. “What happened to...everyone else?”
“Dead,” Sungyeol says colourlessly, sitting down on the floor.
The cool pack is harsh and sandy against his skin, the cold as sharp as the throbbing pain. Something inside of him aches as well.
Sungyeol turns away and starts to unpack: more cool packs and long, slender tubes and two big plastic bottles and three small rolls of gauze. A bottle of water. A large packet of golden fortune cookies.
“Fortune cookies?”
Sungyeol breaks open one with a sharp crack, and he collects the broken biscuit in one hand and holds out the thin strip of paper in the other. “It takes courage to grow up and turn out to be who you really are,” he reads.
Myungsoo stays mute, the pain ebbing and rising in steady intervals, like a tide and Sungyeol breaks another cookie open, fingers trembling.
Mostly, they operate in silence because what is there to say after all that has happened? Everything’s the same, except now Myungsoo has medical supplies at hand and less food and water to go around.
The only time the stillness is broken is when Sungyeol reads his fortunes, which are absurd and annoying and sometimes, painfully true. Like, You will always have good luck in your personal affairs and Someone is watching from afar and Accept no other definition of your life, only your own.
“Why do you do this?”
“Do you remember our debut song? We had custom-made fortune cookies on that day. I miss what we were.” Sungyeol looks up. “I bet you don’t.”
Sungyeol has this tone that isn’t accusatory nor bitter - it’s observational, like someone trying to describe a snowstorm to someone living in the tropics.
And he does miss what they had: he missed the time they had together, training and play-fighting for food and queuing for the bathroom; he missed electricity and the ease of a life planned around a routine. He missed when Sungyeol would tell stupid jokes and cry when pranked - he realizes with a jolt, he misses Sungyeol.
But Myungsoo stays quiet, as usual, and he stands abruptly and picks up his backpack from the corner.
“Where are you going?”
“You should stay,” Myungsoo says, checking his gun.
Sungyeol seems to understand, because his eyes land on their dwindling supply of water. Myungsoo crawls out the window and there’s a quiet shuffling behind him, a straightening and Sungyeol’s standing behind him, eyes hard and the grubby medical bag across his chest. I’m coming, his eyes smother and Myungsoo exhales too loudly.
Fine.
There are boxes upon boxes of bottled water, yes, but it’s hard to concentrate on all that water when there’s a man in a mask with a knife to Sungyeol’s throat.
“Leave now or he dies,” he rasps.
Myungsoo hesitates, the gun heavy in his grip and the man presses the blade harder against pale skin and soon there’s a fine, fine line of crimson.
“No,” Myungsoo says. “We can share the supply.”
The man shakes his head, agitatedly, and Sungyeol snaps his eyes shut because the crimson line is grows thicker.
“Kill him, I don’t care. But you need to remember, I have a gun while you have a knife.”
Sungyeol’s eyes snap open and he’s staring at Myungsoo with something that makes his stomach churn: not surprise, but an expectation fulfilled. The man wavers and before he knows it, the gun goes off in his hand and the man collapses, a tiny circle of red marking his forehead.
Sungyeol slides down to his knees and it’s only when Myungsoo searches the bag across Sungyeol’s chest and starts to wrap the gauze around Sungyeol’s neck that he looks up.
He is crying.
Five litres of water and three packets of stick biscuits and a hostage situation and tears.
They don’t talk about it or anything and Myungsoo thinks it’s unhealthy but what’s even more unhealthy are his dreams about Sungyeol dying, bleeding to death on a filthy floor and Myungsoo is left with nothing but hundreds and hundreds of strips of paper that have the same words printed on them: A ship in harbor is safe, but that’s not why ships are built.
And his other dreams are clouded with a man with dark mask, rising from the ground with a single gunshot wound on his forehead, holding Myungsoo’s own gun to his head and keeping it there, for agonizing second after second. When it finally goes off, the last thing Myungsoo sees is Sungyeol, standing over him with a gun in hand.
Myungsoo wakes up with Sungyeol hovering over him in the dark, a hand pressed over his mouth, because sounds attract attention and Sungyeol’s “You still talk in your sleep.”
It is when Myungsoo wakes up one night to Sungyeol on top of him and there is no hand over his mouth, no forced-casual remarks, nothing, except Sungyeol breathing in and out, on top of him.
“I thought you were going to watch me die,” he says. His voice wavers slightly, as though he is guilty.
Myungsoo’s vision is still hazy and unfocused. No, he thinks. Of course not. Never. “Please don’t cry on me,” he says instead.
And then it is guilt that compels Myungsoo to pull Sungyeol to him, to kiss him and fumble with the opening of his jeans and to move his hands from waistband to his body, the sharp surface of Sungyeol’s ribs under his fingers.
It is guilt that drives him to do all of that but by the time he has Sungyeol’s jeans pulled down and Sungyeol lying on the bed while he’s on top and sliding down, the guilt has dissipated and an ache for Sungyeol takes its place. ImissyouImissyouImissyou, he thinks somewhere at the back of his mind, as he takes Sungyeol into his mouth and there are muffled moans and hitched breaths and when Sungyeol finally comes into Myungsoo’s mouth, he can say it.
“No. Of course not. Never.” Myungsoo is shaking his head and his jaw aches and Sungyeol is bitter on his tongue, “never.”
One litre of water left and some canned soup and Sungyeol has gone down twice now on him.
“Look afar and see the end from the beginning,” Sungyeol reads today and Myungsoo thinks about having one bullet left and not enough food and Sungyeol’s fortune cookies and truth and Sungyeol and then it ends there, with Sungyeol.
concrit is welcomed!
Pairing: Myungsoo/Sungyeol
Rating: M
a ship and its uses
There are two things Myungsoo knows he cannot possibly survive without: a gun (an old police-issue one he stole during the beginning of the end, where there was chaos and fear but most of all hope because back then, people still believed things could get better) and a handheld radiation meter.
The downside: there are only two bullets left in his gun and lately, everything he has been eating has a radiation level three times too high for safe consumption.
Brightside: Myungsoo’s not any more nauseous than usual and it only takes one bullet to end it all.
There was a nuclear fallout in three different countries, all at once. On the news, experts lamented that there was a one-in-a-billion chance of something like that happening.
But it happened either way, and people started dying as far away as Australia.
Things were bad in Korea, of course, but it was only until the President died that the country started to descent into chaos. No one could go anywhere or leave, because ports were blocked and airplanes grounded and soon, fuel ran out.
More people died and Sunggyu was the first casualty in their group. That was the evening they came up with a plan, fraught with problems but it is the best they could do: Myungsoo, Woohyun and Dongwoo were to break into the police station to steal weapons and ammunition while Sungyeol, Sungjong and Howon targeted the closest hospital.
Everything goes according to plan, except Sungjong never makes it back.
In time, Woohyun stops talking. Howon stops eating. It doesn’t take long for Myungsoo to stop hoping and he is the first one who leaves.
The city is a wasteland.
Myungsoo lives in an empty apartment block, ground floor. The lock on the front door is useless, so he boards the entrance up with anything he can find. The back window is his secret entryway.
Shops have been looted since the beginning and lately, supplies have been dwindling. There are two types of food you can find, Clean and Unclean. Clean food is food tainted but still safe enough to eat.
Unclean food is what killed Sunggyu.
Myungsoo has enough bottled water to last him five days, at most, and stale seaweed and canned soup for a week. This is how days and weeks are measured now - in the amount of time you can last until you go raiding the homes of the survivors for something, anything to keep you alive. There is a calendar somewhere in Myungsoo’s apartment, dusty and untouched.
He’s stuck in December, 2012.
When he’s down to two days of drinking water and five days of food, Myungsoo gears up with his two most precious items and ventures outside. The air is stale and arid and quiet and he holds the gun out in front of him, as steadily as he can.
He moves quickly and he has to move far, further away that he’s been, almost to the edge of Seoul. It’s like the whole world has been silenced and Myungsoo knows if he can unsee the bodies scattered along the road, the crumbling buildings and the shattered streetlights, things would appear perfectly tranquil.
Myungsoo swallows and shakes the fantasy from his mind’s eye as he moves forward, into a dilapidated corner store. It’s dim and the floor is littered with empty food wrappers and flattened cardboard boxes. Surprisingly, there is a closed door, hidden at the far side and Myungsoo proceeds with one measured step at a time.
Silence.
The doorknob is rusty and Myungsoo contemplates kicking the door down but the risk of drawing attention to himself in a closed space is not very wise, so he grips the knob cautiously and as he exhales, he twists it open and the doorknob disintegrates in his hand.
The solid door creaks open though (creaks) and it’s a trap, not an inventory room because in the heartbeat that it takes for Myungsoo to open the door, a figure is standing behind him with something cool pressed against the back of his neck.
The only consolation is that is feels circular, not sharp or pointed, so it is probably not a knife.
“Drop the gun,” the voice says quietly. It’s a boy.
“I’ll leave without a fight,” Myungsoo replies, just as softly because they both know there is no need to attract unwanted attention from the outside.
“No. You know where I live,” and what feels like a metal bar digs into the back of Myungsoo’s neck, until he’s semi-pinned to the grimy wall.
The gun is slick in Myungsoo’s hand. Two bullets, two shots.
The figure seems to read his mind. “Drop it,” he says, more forcefully this time, his breath washing over Myungsoo’s ear.
“Wait-” Myungsoo starts but the boy has had enough because the cool of the metal bar leaves his neck and Myungsoo ducks just as it smashes into the wall, sending plaster raining down on them.
They’re face-to-face now, and the dull metal bar falls to the ground with an echoing clang. The gun almost slips from Myungsoo’s grip because standing in front of him is Sungyeol. Thinner, paler, more weary, but it’s Lee Sungyeol in a helmet and deep blue sweater.
“Shit,” Sungyeol breathes, and before Myungsoo can react, he scrambles for the metal pole and brings it swiftly to Myungsoo’s right knee. He colapses onto the tiled floor, kneeling in front of Sungyeol as his gun scuttles across the floor noisily.
“What the fu-” he gasps and Sungyeol picks up his gun.
“That is for leaving. How many more bullets do you have left?”
“What?” Myungsoo says, forcing the word past his gasps of sharp pain.
“Ammunition. How much do you have left?”
“Two.”
“Cartridges?”
Myungsoo looks up to Sungyeol, spitting out a bitter scoff. “Bullets.”
Before Sungyeol can ask him for questions or hit him with more metal items, there is a flurry of noise outside and Sungyeol shakes his head. “We made too much noise,” he says and reaches blindly in the corner, drawing out a dirty white bag with a faded red cross that he swings over his shoulders.
Myungsoo is hoisted to his feet and there is a bright wave of pain as his knee tries to stabilize his weight. A small object is pushed into his hand: his gun.
“Time to move. I hope you have a hideout,” Sungyeol says before placing a well-aimed kick against a section of the wall and it crumples like paper just as shots are fired behind them.
They make their escape and as they run, Myungsoo can swear he hears Sungyeol laughing and it’s the first time in liters and liters of water and the thinnest slices of beef that he’s heard something like this.
They manage to lose the assailants, even with his injured knee and Myungsoo’s grateful he did not catch a glimpse of the people: he’s seen desperate kids wielding weapons bigger than themselves, only to be shot down by people just as desperate - women with crying toddlers or men with tears in their eyes.
When they finally arrive inside Myungsoo’s apartment, his knee is numb and Sungyeol surveys the place in guarded interest, his eyes darting to the most vulnerable places - the reinforced windows, the boarded-up front door, the dark rooms.
“This is a good place,” Sungyeol says after a beat and Myungsoo nods because his teeth are clenched; it’s too painful to speak. He rolls up his jeans carefully and there is a large purple bruise already blooming but as he presses his knee gently, it’s intact. Not dislocated, he thinks with a brief sigh of relief.
Something lands with a thud next to him and he looks up to find a white package. Sungyeol is crouching over him, examining his knee. “It’s not dislocated. Just punch that cool pack and it should ease the pain. I would offer you some painkillers, but I wouldn’t waste it on something like this.”
Myungsoo blinks. He has forgotten Sungyeol was one of those who was in charge of medical supplies. “What happened to...everyone else?”
“Dead,” Sungyeol says colourlessly, sitting down on the floor.
The cool pack is harsh and sandy against his skin, the cold as sharp as the throbbing pain. Something inside of him aches as well.
Sungyeol turns away and starts to unpack: more cool packs and long, slender tubes and two big plastic bottles and three small rolls of gauze. A bottle of water. A large packet of golden fortune cookies.
“Fortune cookies?”
Sungyeol breaks open one with a sharp crack, and he collects the broken biscuit in one hand and holds out the thin strip of paper in the other. “It takes courage to grow up and turn out to be who you really are,” he reads.
Myungsoo stays mute, the pain ebbing and rising in steady intervals, like a tide and Sungyeol breaks another cookie open, fingers trembling.
Mostly, they operate in silence because what is there to say after all that has happened? Everything’s the same, except now Myungsoo has medical supplies at hand and less food and water to go around.
The only time the stillness is broken is when Sungyeol reads his fortunes, which are absurd and annoying and sometimes, painfully true. Like, You will always have good luck in your personal affairs and Someone is watching from afar and Accept no other definition of your life, only your own.
“Why do you do this?”
“Do you remember our debut song? We had custom-made fortune cookies on that day. I miss what we were.” Sungyeol looks up. “I bet you don’t.”
Sungyeol has this tone that isn’t accusatory nor bitter - it’s observational, like someone trying to describe a snowstorm to someone living in the tropics.
And he does miss what they had: he missed the time they had together, training and play-fighting for food and queuing for the bathroom; he missed electricity and the ease of a life planned around a routine. He missed when Sungyeol would tell stupid jokes and cry when pranked - he realizes with a jolt, he misses Sungyeol.
But Myungsoo stays quiet, as usual, and he stands abruptly and picks up his backpack from the corner.
“Where are you going?”
“You should stay,” Myungsoo says, checking his gun.
Sungyeol seems to understand, because his eyes land on their dwindling supply of water. Myungsoo crawls out the window and there’s a quiet shuffling behind him, a straightening and Sungyeol’s standing behind him, eyes hard and the grubby medical bag across his chest. I’m coming, his eyes smother and Myungsoo exhales too loudly.
Fine.
There are boxes upon boxes of bottled water, yes, but it’s hard to concentrate on all that water when there’s a man in a mask with a knife to Sungyeol’s throat.
“Leave now or he dies,” he rasps.
Myungsoo hesitates, the gun heavy in his grip and the man presses the blade harder against pale skin and soon there’s a fine, fine line of crimson.
“No,” Myungsoo says. “We can share the supply.”
The man shakes his head, agitatedly, and Sungyeol snaps his eyes shut because the crimson line is grows thicker.
“Kill him, I don’t care. But you need to remember, I have a gun while you have a knife.”
Sungyeol’s eyes snap open and he’s staring at Myungsoo with something that makes his stomach churn: not surprise, but an expectation fulfilled. The man wavers and before he knows it, the gun goes off in his hand and the man collapses, a tiny circle of red marking his forehead.
Sungyeol slides down to his knees and it’s only when Myungsoo searches the bag across Sungyeol’s chest and starts to wrap the gauze around Sungyeol’s neck that he looks up.
He is crying.
Five litres of water and three packets of stick biscuits and a hostage situation and tears.
They don’t talk about it or anything and Myungsoo thinks it’s unhealthy but what’s even more unhealthy are his dreams about Sungyeol dying, bleeding to death on a filthy floor and Myungsoo is left with nothing but hundreds and hundreds of strips of paper that have the same words printed on them: A ship in harbor is safe, but that’s not why ships are built.
And his other dreams are clouded with a man with dark mask, rising from the ground with a single gunshot wound on his forehead, holding Myungsoo’s own gun to his head and keeping it there, for agonizing second after second. When it finally goes off, the last thing Myungsoo sees is Sungyeol, standing over him with a gun in hand.
Myungsoo wakes up with Sungyeol hovering over him in the dark, a hand pressed over his mouth, because sounds attract attention and Sungyeol’s “You still talk in your sleep.”
It is when Myungsoo wakes up one night to Sungyeol on top of him and there is no hand over his mouth, no forced-casual remarks, nothing, except Sungyeol breathing in and out, on top of him.
“I thought you were going to watch me die,” he says. His voice wavers slightly, as though he is guilty.
Myungsoo’s vision is still hazy and unfocused. No, he thinks. Of course not. Never. “Please don’t cry on me,” he says instead.
And then it is guilt that compels Myungsoo to pull Sungyeol to him, to kiss him and fumble with the opening of his jeans and to move his hands from waistband to his body, the sharp surface of Sungyeol’s ribs under his fingers.
It is guilt that drives him to do all of that but by the time he has Sungyeol’s jeans pulled down and Sungyeol lying on the bed while he’s on top and sliding down, the guilt has dissipated and an ache for Sungyeol takes its place. ImissyouImissyouImissyou, he thinks somewhere at the back of his mind, as he takes Sungyeol into his mouth and there are muffled moans and hitched breaths and when Sungyeol finally comes into Myungsoo’s mouth, he can say it.
“No. Of course not. Never.” Myungsoo is shaking his head and his jaw aches and Sungyeol is bitter on his tongue, “never.”
One litre of water left and some canned soup and Sungyeol has gone down twice now on him.
“Look afar and see the end from the beginning,” Sungyeol reads today and Myungsoo thinks about having one bullet left and not enough food and Sungyeol’s fortune cookies and truth and Sungyeol and then it ends there, with Sungyeol.
concrit is welcomed!