Ship/Member: mingyu/minghao Major Tags: idolverse, apocalypse Additional Tags: strong hints of death, weird freeform musings on the end of the world! bad weird vibes! Permission to remix: yes
***
There are bad times, near the end.
Which isn't to say there aren't good times - there have to be, that's the nature of things, but eventually the bad times have to win out; it's a numbers game.
It's a numbers game: blast ranges. Radiation levels. How many times Mingyu can say "We could have saved them" before Minghao takes this piece of rebar and sticks it through his throat.
There's very little information still publicly disseminated, either because nobody's around to disseminate it or they're the only people left listening. Most of it comes on the long-wave radio, signals from overseas. Neither of them can understand English well enough to know the words which are attached to the numbers, which seem to grow daily. Minghao doesn't know if that's good or bad, but optimism isn't a valued survival skill, so.
Hunting is valued. Sharp sticks are valued. Fire is valued, and Minghao so tends to it now, feeding the small blaze enough twigs and dried-out leaves to keep it happy. Mingyu was the one who taught him how to do it, he was on that survival show a few years back and still has a hazy understanding of what kind of organic fuel will make it so you don't choke to death on smoke. Minghao listens to him, because he doesn't know what else to do, and neither of them have asphyxiated to death yet so that's probably good.
Mingyu is stretched out on the other side, his back flat against the rock floor. They've been staying in this cave for two weeks. It has a high ceiling and a shallow pool of water near the back which Mingyu won't let them drink out of, and at night they watch the fires burn across the river, red and orange, almost like a sunset, except it isn't like a sunset at all. Mingyu is staring at the ceiling, not at the city. He could be looking at the stars but there's been too much smoke to see, these last few days. The river stops the smoke for now, except the fire is getting bigger, and the smoke is getting darker.
Minghao doesn't know the name of the city. Minghao doesn't know the name of the country; if it used to be a country, if things like countries exist anymore. Minghao wasn't supposed to be the one flying out to film with Mingyu in the first place - it was going to be Seungkwan, they had wanted Seungkwan, but he had that stomach virus, and Minghao was being bundled onto the plane before he could ask, and the cell network died before he could get a strong enough signal to pull up a map, and-
(And there had been a plane. Fueled, ready. Theirs, if they wanted.
- But it was small and rickety and the pilot's breath was sour, he couldn't point to Seoul on a map and he'd stared at Mingyu's expensive watch the whole time instead of listening to their words. Minghao's always trusted his gut. Mingyu has always trusted Minghao.
It was the right option. It was the option which saved their lives. Their lives, which matter just as much. Even Mingyu agreed.
But he wouldn't looked at Minghao when he'd did.)
Mingyu held Minghao's hands in his own the first time he showed him how to light this fire, their fire. His fingertips were rough even though neither of them have ever done manual labor in their lives. It was three days after, after Minghao lost cell service and Mingyu's phone cut out halfway through Jeonghan's "The air is getting wor-" It was getting darker, in the day along with the night, harder to see the sun for all the clouds brewing like they do right before a storm, except there haven't been storms for weeks.
And Minghao had considered turning his palm over so that it touched Mingyu's, curling his fingers so that they could touch in a real way, Minghao never liked skinship but this isn't skinship anymore, he doesn't think. But Mingyu pulled his hand away before Minghao could move, and now they don't touch each other.
Mingyu is saying something. His voice used to be so loud Minghao would joke he needed a muzzle but lately it's become high and strained and sad and broken, and full of smoke Minghao can't see but can taste in his own mouth, coating the inside ash. He doesn't ask Mingyu to speak louder, because even now Minghao could say Jump and Mingyu would reply Off what. Instead he just closes his eyes and remembers what Mingyu used to sound like, back before the air was hot, back when he would touch him.
"We could have saved them," he might have said, and Minghao would say, "We saved ourselves."
"You should have let me go back," he might have said, and Minghao would say, "You couldn't help them."
"It's your fault," Mingyu might have said, and Minghao would say nothing.
He takes a breath. (Can they still?) He scours his mind to find anything, anything worth the air. He opens his mouth.
But the silence has curdled and gone sour, and instead of waiting for a response, Mingyu turns his head away from the fire, and away from Minghao. His neck is long and stroked with ash. Minghao's fingertips itch. His throat itches. But even if Minghao wanted to say something the fire would be crackling too loud to hear. Both fires.
[FILL] we all complete
Major Tags: idolverse, apocalypse
Additional Tags: strong hints of death, weird freeform musings on the end of the world! bad weird vibes!
Permission to remix: yes
***
There are bad times, near the end.
Which isn't to say there aren't good times - there have to be, that's the nature of things, but eventually the bad times have to win out; it's a numbers game.
It's a numbers game: blast ranges. Radiation levels. How many times Mingyu can say "We could have saved them" before Minghao takes this piece of rebar and sticks it through his throat.
There's very little information still publicly disseminated, either because nobody's around to disseminate it or they're the only people left listening. Most of it comes on the long-wave radio, signals from overseas. Neither of them can understand English well enough to know the words which are attached to the numbers, which seem to grow daily. Minghao doesn't know if that's good or bad, but optimism isn't a valued survival skill, so.
Hunting is valued. Sharp sticks are valued. Fire is valued, and Minghao so tends to it now, feeding the small blaze enough twigs and dried-out leaves to keep it happy. Mingyu was the one who taught him how to do it, he was on that survival show a few years back and still has a hazy understanding of what kind of organic fuel will make it so you don't choke to death on smoke. Minghao listens to him, because he doesn't know what else to do, and neither of them have asphyxiated to death yet so that's probably good.
Mingyu is stretched out on the other side, his back flat against the rock floor. They've been staying in this cave for two weeks. It has a high ceiling and a shallow pool of water near the back which Mingyu won't let them drink out of, and at night they watch the fires burn across the river, red and orange, almost like a sunset, except it isn't like a sunset at all. Mingyu is staring at the ceiling, not at the city. He could be looking at the stars but there's been too much smoke to see, these last few days. The river stops the smoke for now, except the fire is getting bigger, and the smoke is getting darker.
Minghao doesn't know the name of the city. Minghao doesn't know the name of the country; if it used to be a country, if things like countries exist anymore. Minghao wasn't supposed to be the one flying out to film with Mingyu in the first place - it was going to be Seungkwan, they had wanted Seungkwan, but he had that stomach virus, and Minghao was being bundled onto the plane before he could ask, and the cell network died before he could get a strong enough signal to pull up a map, and-
(And there had been a plane. Fueled, ready. Theirs, if they wanted.
- But it was small and rickety and the pilot's breath was sour, he couldn't point to Seoul on a map and he'd stared at Mingyu's expensive watch the whole time instead of listening to their words. Minghao's always trusted his gut. Mingyu has always trusted Minghao.
It was the right option. It was the option which saved their lives. Their lives, which matter just as much. Even Mingyu agreed.
But he wouldn't looked at Minghao when he'd did.)
Mingyu held Minghao's hands in his own the first time he showed him how to light this fire, their fire. His fingertips were rough even though neither of them have ever done manual labor in their lives. It was three days after, after Minghao lost cell service and Mingyu's phone cut out halfway through Jeonghan's "The air is getting wor-" It was getting darker, in the day along with the night, harder to see the sun for all the clouds brewing like they do right before a storm, except there haven't been storms for weeks.
And Minghao had considered turning his palm over so that it touched Mingyu's, curling his fingers so that they could touch in a real way, Minghao never liked skinship but this isn't skinship anymore, he doesn't think. But Mingyu pulled his hand away before Minghao could move, and now they don't touch each other.
Mingyu is saying something. His voice used to be so loud Minghao would joke he needed a muzzle but lately it's become high and strained and sad and broken, and full of smoke Minghao can't see but can taste in his own mouth, coating the inside ash. He doesn't ask Mingyu to speak louder, because even now Minghao could say Jump and Mingyu would reply Off what. Instead he just closes his eyes and remembers what Mingyu used to sound like, back before the air was hot, back when he would touch him.
"We could have saved them," he might have said, and Minghao would say, "We saved ourselves."
"You should have let me go back," he might have said, and Minghao would say, "You couldn't help them."
"It's your fault," Mingyu might have said, and Minghao would say nothing.
He takes a breath. (Can they still?) He scours his mind to find anything, anything worth the air. He opens his mouth.
But the silence has curdled and gone sour, and instead of waiting for a response, Mingyu turns his head away from the fire, and away from Minghao. His neck is long and stroked with ash. Minghao's fingertips itch. His throat itches. But even if Minghao wanted to say something the fire would be crackling too loud to hear. Both fires.