Status: Prompting Closed
This round is now closed to further prompts but remain open for fills and remixes (forever!).
About
"Enter any body of water and you give yourself up to be swallowed. Even the stones know that."
"beauty is terror"
"Would you fall in love with me again, if you knew all I've done? The things I can't undo. "
Calling all lovers of poetry and prose, rhyme and reason, screen and stage. Welcome to the Quotes Round, where every prompt must cradle a quotation (or two, or three). Mix the media and let the synergy birth a new order, or keep it short and let the subtext speak its secrets to the right writer.
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[FILL] never to be rid
Additional Tags: handwavey sci-fi, tfw your crush is still hung up on your ex
Permission to remix: Yes
***
From what Wonwoo understands of the mirrorverse, it's that everything inside of it is the inverse of what they know and understand. The worlds, universes, even—though Seungcheol often calls them 'planes,' which doesn't feel as all-encompassing as what he gleans it to be—were theorized to be in moral opposition. There's science fiction that poses the hypothesis of the other version of yourself—the reflector, the one you see in the mirror—being 'evil' or having an exacerbation of all of your worst qualities. He shudders to think what reflector Wonwoo's life looks like, and what he carries that's exacerbated in this universe. Little versions of yourself segmenting off like broken glass. Each decision, another shatter. Propagations of a life that could've, would've, should've been lived.
The first time that Seungcheol transports through a mirror, all Wonwoo sees is light. Like forgetting your sunglasses at the office with the sun at your back while driving home, or the flash of a camera on yearbook picture day, half-blink, grimacing and powder-pale.
He doesn't explain what it is he's seen. Leaving it alone is easy enough, until Seungcheol ropes him into it. Isn't that just the way?
He's just always crashing into Wonwoo's bedroom at a godforsaken hour.
“Don't be mad,” Seungcheol pleads. "But I have to tell you something."
Light travels wherever Seungcheol goes. It’s just a fact. Even in this darkness, the little slits that leak through the windows refract off his skin as he shimmers back into view. Into this plane of existence.
Wonwoo squints in his direction. His form slowly molds into something humanoid, then solid next to his bed. He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes.
“Why would I be mad?”
“Wonwoo-yah,” Seungcheol moans. Hands rest on his shoulder and shake him side to side. He tries—and fails—to wrestle the curled in ends from his fingers. Instead of giving up, he forces himself onto the small ledge of space between Wonwoo and the lip of the mattress. Always the little spoon, no matter what.
“Just promise.”
That can't be good. The arm he loops around Seungcheol’s waist is book ended with a fist to the stomach. A retaliatory elbow hits Wonwoo in the ribs.
“Ow!”
“Move over.”
Reluctantly, Wonwoo moves, and takes in a deep breath of cologne that is definitely not Seungcheol’s own. It sticks to his skin, his hair, under a thin layer of sweat. Oh. Good.
“How long have you been in here?” Wonwoo asks, peeling open his eyes. May as well brace himself for this conversation. Forty-five minutes of sleep is plenty.
“Long enough.” Seungcheol twists around in his hold. “You know, your jerk-off technique could use a little—”
A pillow to the face doesn't silence him.
“Shut up,” Wonwoo groans, reaching around for his glasses.
Seungcheol’s laugh, a loud hak-hak-hak, fills the air. Small comfort, for now. Wonwoo blinks at him as he solidifies into an actual shape, face, person.
“You saw him again.” Seungcheol going quiet is answer enough. "Hyung."
Going through it once was more than enough, but Seungcheol has always been a masochist. The worst part is that Wonwoo can't find it in him to be angry.
"We talked about it," Seungcheol says, as if anything he says doesn't make him sound desperate and ridiculous.
"They're not the same person."
Wonwoo's said it a million times, and the way Seungcheol responds has been it for a million and one.
"It's closure."
"You've been going to see him every week for the last three months," Wonwoo points out, which draws Seungcheol's shoulders to his ears. He presses his face to Wonwoo's chest, breath warming through the cotton. His hands are resting limply at his sides, though Wonwoo can feel him fist the sheet under them.
"We're making progress."
Wonwoo bites his tongue on the knee-jerk response. Progress is when we kissed on New Year's, not whatever this is. Instead, he grabs Seungcheol's hand and holds it in front of their faces.
"The longer you're there, the more you start to fade away."
Seungcheol groans and pulls his hand back. "There's nothing to worry about."
"So Jeonghan on this plane knows exactly what you've been doing then, right?" Wonwoo says sharply.
Seungcheol buries his face in Wonwoo's chest and groans. "How is it that you sound the same both here and there?" he whines. "I know what I'm doing. It's fine."
Wonwoo is not moved. And it's not fine.
Re: [FILL] never to be rid
Re: [FILL] never to be rid
Re: [FILL] never to be rid
also the idea of meeting your ex afresh in a parallel universe, one who does not have any memory of the historical break-up..... but also the opening lines implying that the jeonghan /there/ is not quite the same as the one /here/ - "it's not the same person", and if I scream!
Re: [FILL] never to be rid
Re: [FILL] never to be rid
[REMIX] lingering sunspots
?Seungcheol/JeonghanMajor Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: unreliable narrator, throwing sci-fi to the winds, getting over it is a sisyphean task
Permission to remix: Yes I see a crumb of another dimension, I take it and run wild
***
It was so overwhelming, the first time Seungcheol crossed over.
The air was honey-thick and just as golden, filtering crystalline beams of bright, bright, blinding light. The pressure of it all brought him to his knees, breath wheezing out of his chest that he thought he couldn’t afford to lose, because how could such an oppressive environment be at all hospitable to his intruding flesh. But, slowly, the tight grip around his heart began to relax finger by reluctant finger, as he realised it really wasn’t as bad and overwhelming as it had first seemed.
He just had to acclimatise to it.
It took a while, but each visit found him withstanding the passage a little quicker, a little easier, and now it seems like he only needs a few moments to shake off the shock of the crossing—body recalibrating to the new environment, lungs temporarily forsaking the ease of before with a wheezing exhale as they adjust—before he can start to move.
The Wonwoos he finds here are always pretty similar to his. They’re never the most enthusiastic that he’d crossed over again (though far more relaxed about it than his), looking up from whatever they are occupied with to greet him with an unsurprised, “Oh, you’re back again.”
There is one memorable difference, at least.
Now that he’s gotten to know them, these Wonwoos always greet Seungcheol with a small smile—a pleased little curve of the lips, even if it seems to creep up without permission. It’s the kind of smile he normally gets to see when he gets to surprise Wonwoo with a gift—something that leaves him feeling touched. Wonwoo’s other smiles are a lot more common, of course, but this one is extra precious because it's so rare. Had been so rare, until now.
If he dwells on it for too long, he might start getting wild thoughts like his presence alone is a gift to Wonwoo on this plane—which is more like something that Jeonghan would have said to him once, really, maybe lighthearted and teasing or acerbicly sarcastic depending on his mood, because he was so mercurial, sometimes—but it is true that Seungcheol has never met another Seungcheol in here, yet.
He’s not necessarily complaining. He doesn’t want to run into his own reflection—who knows what it would show him, in this place.
He’s not here for himself nor Wonwoo, anyway.
A sheepish hug around the shoulders—as if he hadn’t carefully untangled himself from his Wonwoo’s arms what feels like a few minutes ago; he’s become more of an early riser, lately, because the first rays of the morning sun signal another opportunity to attempt to try get things right, just one more chance—and a nuzzle into this Wonwoo’s hair is all he gets away with before he’s spinning around in his chair to look at Seungcheol, not unkindly directing him southwards.
“Safe to assume you want to see him again?” This is probably another little distortion of this plane—this Wonwoo’s smirks are maybe 5% more smug and annoying than his Wonwoo’s. Just as knowing, though.
“I’m feeling good about this one,” Seungcheol says, and doesn’t waste much more time before he’s on his way.
It’s a relatively quick jog over; a few minutes, maybe just a few blinks—it’s all the same, right? He knows how to move through treacle-light, expects the different levels of resistance that replace standard air-drag, and keeps following the direction Wonwoo had pointed him towards.
The plane warps around him as he keeps the most blinding rays of light to his left, small sunbursts reeling and slowing and flooding outwards from whatever reflective surfaces are giving them life, illuminating the otherwise empty landscape. Maybe he would see things, wonderful, terrible things in those reflections, if only he stopped and allowed the light to stop blurring and looked—but there is only one thing on his mind, of course.
Clear the slate with Jeonghan—if it works here, it’ll work in real life.
He just has to figure out what will work, and not get distracted yet again.
*
Despite his best intentions, Seungcheol hasn’t succeeded quite yet. He keeps returning to the plane, keeps imposing on the Jeonghan he can find there, and he gets the creeping sense that this miraculous stone is starting to dry up; this Jeonghan is always remarkably yielding and happy to see him, just as Seungcheol secretly hopes his Jeonghan would be if he just managed to preface that this is all for for closure, but there’s always something missing—some possibility or response that Seungcheol hasn’t considered yet, a path his Jeonghan might take that he should prepare for here just in case it eventuates so he will be ready and it will all still turn out okay just like he’s been practicing—and he’s starting to feel some too-persistent worries return in a place where they shouldn’t be a problem.
It takes him far too many attempts of working through it stubbornly before he thinks to tell a Wonwoo his woes, after crossing over; his Wonwoo doesn’t know the Jeonghans Seungcheol has been seeing, and from past experience he’d probably just tell Seungcheol that it’s a sign he should stop this altogether.
Thankfully, this Wonwoo is far more helpful.
“If nothing’s quite working out now, what if you just tried—replaying things with a past Jeonghan, instead?” Wonwoo suggests it with a shrug, like the idea should have been far more obvious and Seungcheol should have thought of it on his own merits. “See how a different choice leads to a different outcome—it might help you figure out what’s been missing here?”
“You can do that here?” Seungcheol asks. His mind, traitorous, reminds him—of fleeting touches, whispers, a particular hard-worn warmth—of things that he thought he had carefully locked down many months ago.
“Of course—if you have a specific moment in mind, just keep heading east until you find it.”
It’s like Wonwoo can read Seungcheol’s mind. About a week ago, Seungcheol had thought he had seen Jeonghan through a cafe window—just his turned back, and only if he had been extremely dedicated in growing out his hair again, to how it had been, well, before. He hadn’t dared to check. There had been too many ways for it to go wrong if it had somehow been him; a stressfully public confrontation, being briefly acknowledged before summarily, soulcrushingly, being ignored, and the absolute worst possibility—there with a friend, or—someone—who—no.
He had just continued walking down the street as if he hadn’t frozen, midstep, for a few seconds—crossing the road so he doesn’t have to pass right by the window. Just in case.
This time, though, when he finally stumbles upon the reflection of the scene with a little too much force—squinting against the bright light, eyes swimming with thick tears until they blink away and he can see clearly again—he stumbles against the cafe’s doorway, shoes squeaking embarrassingly loudly when he tries to stop himself from falling.
Jeonghan turns at the sound—and of course it was Jeonghan there, he should always trust his gut—and surprise punctures his expression, unguarded, when he sees Seungcheol.
But there’s none of the hostility he had feared. Jeonghan doesn’t get up and leave, brushing past Seungcheol with a barely-passably accidental knock to his shoulder. He just looks caught off guard, fumbling with the handle of his mug.
The other seat at his small table looks to be empty.
Seungcheol hurries to the counter to order, glancing back briefly at Jeonghan—hopefully, desperately. Maybe it comes through in his eyes, widened and begging, because when he turns back around with table number in hand Jeonghan still hasn’t left. He’s still sitting there, patiently, already doing more than Seungcheol had hoped to hear him out while Seungcheol awkwardly slides into his seat.
He carefully pushes the number across the table until it reaches the edge, helpfully angling it towards the staff, and immediately runs out of anything else to stall with.
He has to think. What would he have said if it had been Jeonghan, that day, and he had stayed to hear Seungcheol out?
He thinks and thinks and plans it out and only when he feels ready does the thick air start to slide against his skin again.
Jeonghan’s eyes are golden in the warm, all-encompassing light. He smells the same as he always does, even while they're inside the cafe—it's comforting to be reminded of it.
Seungcheol wets his lips, and starts.
*
When Seungcheol has exhausted the cafe, Wonwoo tells him that he might have to run further back, to find the next one. It takes him a while to think of it, but—a month or so ago—while he had been hurrying through Gongdeok Station, he’s pretty sure he might have caught a glimpse of Jeonghan cutting sideways through the crowd. Maybe. Half a second of his side profile before Seungcheol lost sight of him, but that fleeting memory had looked exactly like how Seungcheol remembered him.
So he fixes that vague moment in his mind and he runs—a pleasant trot, really, because it won’t take him too long and he doesn’t want to run in the subway station—and he runs and he runs and the light dims and curves and brightens and warps and dims and rises again and again and again—
Until, a few moments later, he’s stumbling as he’s adjusting to the tiles of the station floor, and there’s a gap in the crowd where he can, quite clearly, make out Jeonghan. This time he’ll get it right.
*
Something he’s noticed, lately, is how different the air feels once he’s reluctantly slipped back out of a mirror. It tingles, almost, a subtle buzz against his skin—it comes and goes in waves but it’s only started to be more noticeable recently. He imagines that the sun isn’t quite as warm, his skin occasionally prickles in the air, forces himself to press back up against Wonwoo’s arms and ground himself in an uncomfortable reality because it’s probably just a small resurgence of anxiety. After all, he’s getting much closer to going through with finding and talking to his Jeonghan, it’s no wonder that it feels a little scary.
The itch does make him a little more eager to cross back over and try again, though. He’s on a roll, so why not quickly roll out of bed for another attempt the very next morning (it’s taking a few more slow-stretched moments for him reach this particular memory from last year, but he could dispel so many regrets if he just finished working through all the what-ifs and seeing them through to completion)?
The quicker he crosses back over, the quicker the anxiety will vanish and his skin will calm and his chest will unwind and he will breath deep and easy while bathed in golden light—and the quicker he’ll be done with this, and feel confident enough to talk to the other Jeonghan once and for all, of course.