Ship/Member: joshua-centric, joshua/minghao Major Tags: slight blood/gore + references to murder, the horror of living inside your body, the horror of letting somebody do something with it Additional Tags: horror au, bodyswap au, joshua hong pretending everything is fine until the end, reference to traumatic events, emotional support boo seungkwan (also w his own trauma) Permission to remix: yes!!! wc: 777
a bodyswap au gone horribly terribly wrong ft. joshy hong, enjoy :’0 please please please let me know if i need to adjust tags [reposted bc i didn't notice the error in formatting T__T sorry otl]
> going for 5 of a kind (horror / bodyswap au!)
***
my body walking out of the room / bent on some deadly errand / and me up on the ceiling just sort of fading out — anne carson, “all we as leaves
Joshua sits in muted silence as he watches the stranger in his body go to work. It’s mesmerizing, the way his back muscles flex and shift underneath the worn white tee.
He never thought his hands were capable of being that neat, that delicate. It’s an artist’s work. It’s honest work.
Okay, he thinks. This isn’t too bad.
The more he says it, the more it becomes okay. Becomes something tolerable, something manageable, something easy to tuck away and hide and never have to bring up again.
He has to live with it, after all.
//
They call them body snatchers because the whole experience is incredibly fleeting. One moment, your body will belong to you. The next — someone is in there with you. It isn’t so much a feeling as it is a knowing: something is inside you, something foreign and strange.
They aren’t always kind.
What happens when you lose control?
//
“Do you like wine?” Joshua says aloud. The Joshua who is trapped inside his body nods. He tries to be helpful. Provides the body snatcher with where to find his bottles, watching with a sort of helplessness as his body picks up the most expensive one in his collection.
At least the pour is nice. Two glasses are out, but only one can actually physically be drinking. He appreciates the gesture nonetheless.
“I’ve never really done this before,” Joshua confesses, flexing his large fingers this way and that, marveling at their size and strength. His fingers clench into a fist suddenly, fast enough that his knuckles crack with the ferocity of it. It sounds like gunshots in the empty space, rattling around in his bedroom.
“I like it.” The creature inside him rumbles, grinning down at their hands. It’s a smile with too many teeth in it. “My name is Minghao. Nice to meet you.”
Joshua feels a growing sense of alarm.
Maybe it is bad after all.
//
A body acts as a tether. Grounds you to the physical world, so that the rest of you won’t float away into a different one.
“But,” Joshua says, frowning, “if it’s tying you down here, it’s also trapping you. What’s to say something else won’t climb right in?”
Seungkwan looks at him with tired eyes. Joshua doesn’t ever remember seeing him ever this haunted.
“Exactly,” Seungkwan turns away, voice breaking with shame. “Do you know what that does to a person? When even your body doesn’t belong to you anymore?”
//
You never think it’ll be you. Never. It’s always someone else, a friend of a friend of a friend. Somebody else’s horror story. A mother goes to sleep and wakes up as someone else and decides that now is a good time as ever to invest in cutlery. Knives are sharp and plenty in the kitchen.
You can see where this is going, don’t you?
Murder is easy when the hands you use to take a life don’t belong to you. It is even more useful when those very hands can’t get traced back to you. You’re a ghost in the shell, a stranger passing by, a whisper in the breeze. A fleeting memory. Who’s to say you were even there?
One day, Joshua gets picked. Not once does he feel lucky.
//
I am not here. I am not here. I am not here.
Maybe if he repeats it enough he will believe it.
//
Joshua wakes up to bloodstains on his hands. The blood is thick and red and oozing. Still warm. Still fresh. There is a dead body on the floor that doesn’t belong to him and one that is still alive, standing in the room — the one he woke up in but doesn’t quite own. Not anymore.
“What did you do?” Joshua croaks out in horror.
“Maybe the better question is, ‘What did you do?’” Minghao is mocking and cruel. It’s Joshua’s voice all the same. He registers it faintly, ringing in the back of his ears, used to the way it sounds but not the way it is spoken to him.
This is a horrid dream — wait, no. It’s a horrible reality.
This is Joshua’s reality.
Only a body has hands. Only a body can be tied down. Only a body can be capable of leaving a mark.
Minghao uses Joshua’s face to smile. The person staring back at him in the mirror isn’t him. Joshua wants to throw up. He wonders if his body will carry out the reaction. There is bile building in his throat. His mouth won’t open to let him check.
The corners of his mouth curl up, of someone else’s volition.
[FILL] a whisper in the breeze
Major Tags: slight blood/gore + references to murder, the horror of living inside your body, the horror of letting somebody do something with it
Additional Tags: horror au, bodyswap au, joshua hong pretending everything is fine until the end, reference to traumatic events, emotional support boo seungkwan (also w his own trauma)
Permission to remix: yes!!!
wc: 777
a bodyswap au gone horribly terribly wrong ft. joshy hong, enjoy :’0 please please please let me know if i need to adjust tags [reposted bc i didn't notice the error in formatting T__T sorry otl]
> going for 5 of a kind (horror / bodyswap au!)
***
Joshua sits in muted silence as he watches the stranger in his body go to work. It’s mesmerizing, the way his back muscles flex and shift underneath the worn white tee.
He never thought his hands were capable of being that neat, that delicate. It’s an artist’s work. It’s honest work.
Okay, he thinks. This isn’t too bad.
The more he says it, the more it becomes okay. Becomes something tolerable, something manageable, something easy to tuck away and hide and never have to bring up again.
He has to live with it, after all.
//
They call them body snatchers because the whole experience is incredibly fleeting. One moment, your body will belong to you. The next — someone is in there with you. It isn’t so much a feeling as it is a knowing: something is inside you, something foreign and strange.
They aren’t always kind.
What happens when you lose control?
//
“Do you like wine?” Joshua says aloud. The Joshua who is trapped inside his body nods. He tries to be helpful. Provides the body snatcher with where to find his bottles, watching with a sort of helplessness as his body picks up the most expensive one in his collection.
At least the pour is nice. Two glasses are out, but only one can actually physically be drinking. He appreciates the gesture nonetheless.
“I’ve never really done this before,” Joshua confesses, flexing his large fingers this way and that, marveling at their size and strength. His fingers clench into a fist suddenly, fast enough that his knuckles crack with the ferocity of it. It sounds like gunshots in the empty space, rattling around in his bedroom.
“I like it.” The creature inside him rumbles, grinning down at their hands. It’s a smile with too many teeth in it. “My name is Minghao. Nice to meet you.”
Joshua feels a growing sense of alarm.
Maybe it is bad after all.
//
A body acts as a tether. Grounds you to the physical world, so that the rest of you won’t float away into a different one.
“But,” Joshua says, frowning, “if it’s tying you down here, it’s also trapping you. What’s to say something else won’t climb right in?”
Seungkwan looks at him with tired eyes. Joshua doesn’t ever remember seeing him ever this haunted.
“Exactly,” Seungkwan turns away, voice breaking with shame. “Do you know what that does to a person? When even your body doesn’t belong to you anymore?”
//
You never think it’ll be you. Never. It’s always someone else, a friend of a friend of a friend. Somebody else’s horror story. A mother goes to sleep and wakes up as someone else and decides that now is a good time as ever to invest in cutlery. Knives are sharp and plenty in the kitchen.
You can see where this is going, don’t you?
Murder is easy when the hands you use to take a life don’t belong to you. It is even more useful when those very hands can’t get traced back to you. You’re a ghost in the shell, a stranger passing by, a whisper in the breeze. A fleeting memory. Who’s to say you were even there?
One day, Joshua gets picked. Not once does he feel lucky.
//
I am not here. I am not here. I am not here.
Maybe if he repeats it enough he will believe it.
//
Joshua wakes up to bloodstains on his hands. The blood is thick and red and oozing. Still warm. Still fresh. There is a dead body on the floor that doesn’t belong to him and one that is still alive, standing in the room — the one he woke up in but doesn’t quite own. Not anymore.
“What did you do?” Joshua croaks out in horror.
“Maybe the better question is, ‘What did you do?’” Minghao is mocking and cruel. It’s Joshua’s voice all the same. He registers it faintly, ringing in the back of his ears, used to the way it sounds but not the way it is spoken to him.
This is a horrid dream — wait, no. It’s a horrible reality.
This is Joshua’s reality.
Only a body has hands. Only a body can be tied down. Only a body can be capable of leaving a mark.
Minghao uses Joshua’s face to smile. The person staring back at him in the mirror isn’t him. Joshua wants to throw up. He wonders if his body will carry out the reaction. There is bile building in his throat. His mouth won’t open to let him check.
The corners of his mouth curl up, of someone else’s volition.
How are you going to prove that it’s me?