Week 1, Challenge 4: we are the pieces that were swallowed up
Title: we are the pieces that were swallowed up
Pairing: sechen & xiuhan
Rating: PG for now
Genre: sci-fi/magic realism
Length: ~1000w
Summary/Warnings: post apocalypse!AU
-for 26: write in a different style
-I want to add more to this, but for now it could be a standalone
In the early morning, when there's dust in the air and the rancid smell of oil from the generators floats through the cracks in the walls, Sehun likes to close his eyes and imagine how it was. Against the dark of his closed eyelids he sees the way the skyscrapers crumbled, how the government building was swallowed and all the ground coughed up was a cloud of smoke. He pictures the slide of the houses as they collide into each other, the slump of the elevated expressway as the concrete bends in the heat.
In the early morning, when there's dust in the air and the rancid smell of oil from the generators floats through the cracks in the walls, Sehun likes to close his eyes and imagine how it was. Against the dark of his closed eyelids he sees the way the skyscrapers crumbled; how the government buildings were swallowed by the ground and coughed up as smoke. He pictures the slide of the houses as they collide into each other and the slump of the elevated expressway as the concrete bends in the heat. He wonders how it felt to watch the world warp before their eyes, colours mixing from familiar to strange in a badly developed photograph.
He was too young to remember, Luhan often tells him, but that day the stars were overtaken by a flash of light and the earth rumbled as if thunder was trapped beneath it. Luhan lies a lot, and at first Sehun didn't believe him. But as he got older he noticed more. How Luhan's fingers would inch towards Minseok's each time Sehun made him repeat the same few sentences. How Luhan's knuckles became white even as his voice never wavered.
You were too young, Luhan always tells him, to know that the world had ended.
But the world hasn't ended, Sehun always protests. As a child the protests were a battle to force the truth in front of Luhan's face. The overconfidence of a young boy who believes himself to be right. But as he grows older his protests are softer each time, and the faraway look that submerges Luhan's gaze as Minseok rubs constellations onto Luhan's fingertips scares Sehun into thinking that maybe the world has ended, for Luhan if not for anyone else.
There are days that Luhan gets lost inside the maze inside his head, but it never takes much more than a gentle touch and a word from Minseok to bring him back. He pulls back to himself slowly, and smiles at them. He wanders to the marketplace and finds his way back.
But then one day he doesn't.
--
The marketplace is not a place for children to go. The stalls blend into each other in a mirage of treasure and trash, and the pathways that snake into it hold no promise of coming out. He's heard people say before that the market is as alive as any of them, and as he watches the covered tents and wooden stalls inhale and exhale with the push of traffic, he's inclined to believe it. Sehun waits at the fringes, staring into a path that disappears into a dark tunnel with walls jagged with junk. He sucks his bottom lip into his mouth and gnaws, considering. Perhaps there are people that never leave the market and wander until they become a part of the pulse that hums the earth.
"Lost?" Whispers a voice from the right of him and Sehun bites down hard on his lip as he jolts forward. He winces at the bitter copper taste in his mouth, as he runs his tongue over the nick.
"How can I be lost?" He does nothing to mask his irritation and the other boy shrugs.
"Well, you didn't look like you were found." It's an evasive answer from an evasive person.
Jongdae is a wanderer that lurks around the edges of the market, trying to find clients that need a tour into the heart of the sprawl. He calls himself a tour guide of sorts, but Sehun thinks of him as more of a con artist. A seemingly pleasant face that will lure you into thinking that you know your surroundings. But no one can know a changing organism that shifts between moods like the market. Sehun has watched him lead people down into the paths, but he's never seen him coming out of the market with anyone.
The sounds of the market are beginning to pick up, and a few people push ahead of him to duck inside underneath the hanging wires and pans. Sehun watches them haggle with shopkeepers until they vanish from his sight. Was Luhan the same? Simply a small twinkling star eaten up by a whirlwind of things?
"Luhan's gone," Sehun says simply and when the other asks where he just points to the path before them.
--
Minseok didn't cry or break down when Luhan went missing. Instead his mouth become more rigid and his smile a more brittle. There was a bit more silence and a lot more thinking. Sometimes his eyes became a bit vacant and Sehun wondered if Luhan's disappearance was the way the world ended for Minseok, the same way that Luhan had never forgotten the crush of the buildings and the wave of light.
Minseok and Luhan had always complimented each other and without Luhan, Minseok was off-kilter. He orbited around nothing and even Sehun couldn't hold him in one place. It seemed natural that Minseok would be following Luhan's pull.
It was barely more then two days before Minseok was slipping through the door with a rucksack pulled over his shoulder, and his boots tightly laced. A burst of wind brought in the dust of outside, and even though Sehun didn't like that Minseok's I'll see you later had sounded more like goodbye, he couldn't find any resentment either.
And that day Minseok, too, disappeared into the market.
Pairing: sechen & xiuhan
Rating: PG for now
Genre: sci-fi/magic realism
Length: ~1000w
Summary/Warnings: post apocalypse!AU
-for 26: write in a different style
-I want to add more to this, but for now it could be a standalone
In the early morning, when there's dust in the air and the rancid smell of oil from the generators floats through the cracks in the walls, Sehun likes to close his eyes and imagine how it was. Against the dark of his closed eyelids he sees the way the skyscrapers crumbled, how the government building was swallowed and all the ground coughed up was a cloud of smoke. He pictures the slide of the houses as they collide into each other, the slump of the elevated expressway as the concrete bends in the heat.
In the early morning, when there's dust in the air and the rancid smell of oil from the generators floats through the cracks in the walls, Sehun likes to close his eyes and imagine how it was. Against the dark of his closed eyelids he sees the way the skyscrapers crumbled; how the government buildings were swallowed by the ground and coughed up as smoke. He pictures the slide of the houses as they collide into each other and the slump of the elevated expressway as the concrete bends in the heat. He wonders how it felt to watch the world warp before their eyes, colours mixing from familiar to strange in a badly developed photograph.
He was too young to remember, Luhan often tells him, but that day the stars were overtaken by a flash of light and the earth rumbled as if thunder was trapped beneath it. Luhan lies a lot, and at first Sehun didn't believe him. But as he got older he noticed more. How Luhan's fingers would inch towards Minseok's each time Sehun made him repeat the same few sentences. How Luhan's knuckles became white even as his voice never wavered.
You were too young, Luhan always tells him, to know that the world had ended.
But the world hasn't ended, Sehun always protests. As a child the protests were a battle to force the truth in front of Luhan's face. The overconfidence of a young boy who believes himself to be right. But as he grows older his protests are softer each time, and the faraway look that submerges Luhan's gaze as Minseok rubs constellations onto Luhan's fingertips scares Sehun into thinking that maybe the world has ended, for Luhan if not for anyone else.
There are days that Luhan gets lost inside the maze inside his head, but it never takes much more than a gentle touch and a word from Minseok to bring him back. He pulls back to himself slowly, and smiles at them. He wanders to the marketplace and finds his way back.
But then one day he doesn't.
--
The marketplace is not a place for children to go. The stalls blend into each other in a mirage of treasure and trash, and the pathways that snake into it hold no promise of coming out. He's heard people say before that the market is as alive as any of them, and as he watches the covered tents and wooden stalls inhale and exhale with the push of traffic, he's inclined to believe it. Sehun waits at the fringes, staring into a path that disappears into a dark tunnel with walls jagged with junk. He sucks his bottom lip into his mouth and gnaws, considering. Perhaps there are people that never leave the market and wander until they become a part of the pulse that hums the earth.
"Lost?" Whispers a voice from the right of him and Sehun bites down hard on his lip as he jolts forward. He winces at the bitter copper taste in his mouth, as he runs his tongue over the nick.
"How can I be lost?" He does nothing to mask his irritation and the other boy shrugs.
"Well, you didn't look like you were found." It's an evasive answer from an evasive person.
Jongdae is a wanderer that lurks around the edges of the market, trying to find clients that need a tour into the heart of the sprawl. He calls himself a tour guide of sorts, but Sehun thinks of him as more of a con artist. A seemingly pleasant face that will lure you into thinking that you know your surroundings. But no one can know a changing organism that shifts between moods like the market. Sehun has watched him lead people down into the paths, but he's never seen him coming out of the market with anyone.
The sounds of the market are beginning to pick up, and a few people push ahead of him to duck inside underneath the hanging wires and pans. Sehun watches them haggle with shopkeepers until they vanish from his sight. Was Luhan the same? Simply a small twinkling star eaten up by a whirlwind of things?
"Luhan's gone," Sehun says simply and when the other asks where he just points to the path before them.
--
Minseok didn't cry or break down when Luhan went missing. Instead his mouth become more rigid and his smile a more brittle. There was a bit more silence and a lot more thinking. Sometimes his eyes became a bit vacant and Sehun wondered if Luhan's disappearance was the way the world ended for Minseok, the same way that Luhan had never forgotten the crush of the buildings and the wave of light.
Minseok and Luhan had always complimented each other and without Luhan, Minseok was off-kilter. He orbited around nothing and even Sehun couldn't hold him in one place. It seemed natural that Minseok would be following Luhan's pull.
It was barely more then two days before Minseok was slipping through the door with a rucksack pulled over his shoulder, and his boots tightly laced. A burst of wind brought in the dust of outside, and even though Sehun didn't like that Minseok's I'll see you later had sounded more like goodbye, he couldn't find any resentment either.
And that day Minseok, too, disappeared into the market.