Ship/Member: Wonwoo/Jun/Minghao Major Tags: minor references to alcoholism, non-graphic violence, reference to patricide, heavy references to the source Additional Tags: wonwoo martyr complex Permission to remix: No
This is quite possibly incoherent but my brain has been made into noodles by this. The consequences of my own silly little actions!
***
There is darkness, and then there is the true dark. Darkness is what gave birth inside of Wonwoo after the death of his father, after he was sentenced with committing patricide. What hardens him to the trauma of war. Shedding blood is easier when your mind is numb to empathy, when you've had the blood of your family on your hands.
But true dark is what resides in the inner confines of his mind. Being forced to relive the realities of his situation, the concrete weight of his condition keeps him upright long enough to turn into a killing machine.
True dark is the sound of screams, each one belonging to a pilot too young to die in a war that they had no choice to enlist in. All by his hand. True dark threatens to swallow him. To consume him. On his best days, he is barely staying head above water.
He wants to relay an apology to each and every one, send on some sort of token when their bodies go home to their families. Tell them, we were both prisoners, but only one of us could survive. Tell them, your child deserved more than being a life force to a man more infamous than honorable, and you are owed more than a death gratuity.
Strapped inside of the pilot’s seat, his fingers traces shapes, relying on muscle memory and intuition to guide him along the path of least resistance. Outside of the Chrysalis, the Hunduns swarm, and his numbed mind moves into autopilot. The Vermillion Bird remains in its first form, but he pulls from his partner and finds—
For the first time, a strong resistance.
The secondary pilot killed their first. He supposes it's a controlling method. That the secondary pilot dies and they lose a would-be Iron Widow, or Wonwoo dies, and they lose their top-ranking pilot in a casualty of war. Two nobodies they want to wash their hands of, and the secondary pilot spit just as much in his direction, all hissing malice.
Wonwoo tries to draw from their qi, and bits and pieces of the other man's memory floods his senses. He tries to not see it, see him. Carry the guilt of another into his next life.
But the mind, it's strong. Resilient. He came ready to kill, that much he can see.
The mind, it pushes against him. He's not used to pushback like this.
The other man—Wen Junhui, he snarls, fingers pressed around his throat inside their mind link—resists him, and the world goes white.
--
When the guards come to lead him out of the Chrysalis, it is a shock to hear another person's voice. To not smell a copper corpse beginning to rot in the secondary seat.
Wen Junhui's voice, though wiry, taunts. "Surprise."
Wonwoo cannot see more than Wen Junhui's shape, but the blurred form turns solid. It's not often a secondary pilot lives long enough to force themselves to be seen.
He hopes that Wen Junhui can feel his open shock staring right back.
For the first time, Wonwoo leaves the cockpit with his hands clean.
--
They dress the both of them up in new clothes. Not a prisoner's jumpsuit, but in the uniform of a pilot. It's to make examples of them.
Wen Junhui is thinner than he expected from someone with so much fight inside. But Wonwoo supposes that’s part of it.
The other pilots spread rumors that Wen Junhui is possessed by a fox spirit. That his advantages are supernatural. That the only way that Junhui has stayed alive twice now in the Chrysalis is based on pure luck rather than his own strength and willpower.
Someone tries and fails to level Wen Junhui. They may be quick-witted, but Junhui is more clever, lobs the words back across the net until the other pilot's face shatters like glass.
Unfortunately for him, his bark is worse than his bite, but the guards made a terrible mistake in taking off Wonwoo's muzzle. He is all bite, no bark.
Wonwoo’s vision zeroes in, and it’s Wen Junhui’s stone face that is all he sees when white-hot anger and a metal try turn the tile floors red.
Their eyes meet.
It's a surprise to find a familiar darkness inside of Wen Junhui.
In the end, his new glasses shatter and his short-lived memory of Wen Junhui becomes more statuesque in his mind.
—
It's no surprise that Wen Junhui has an anchor. A person. A guiding light. He recognizes it in Xu Minghao and covets it. Wants it for his own.
Even when he publicly announces and fortifies his bond to Junhui, his thoughts are on Minghao.
Minghao who introduced himself with a small smile, who approached him without fear. Minghao who sees past the veneer and knows more about Wonwoo than he cares to remember. Flaunts his wealth the way he would in a past life, without any sort of humility. The wealthy are selfish, but Minghao is generous.
Minghao has a cruel streak, feels it in the grip on the collar that presses heavy against Wonwoo’s throat. “You need to stay sober for Junnie, or I’ll kill you myself.”
Minghao has kindness in him, one that takes the shape of a heaping dining table. Meals Wonwoo hasn't known since he was a teen.
It's so easy to fall in step with him, to know him, to see Wen Junhui through his eyes and understand what they see in each other.
They're both trying to protect something special.
But Wonwoo does wish that it was him that they were thinking of.
----
He breaks one night, and Minghao kisses the wine from Wonwoo’s lips.
Junhui follows after until his own lips are stained red.
They take him into their bed–Junhui’s bed, easily fitting two, now three–and oh.
The world shifts into focus.
---
Jun helps him believe again, that his spirit hasn't been broken by war.
Minghao fortifies him with patience.
Inside of the Chrysalis, he shoulders the hits of their fellow fighters. It was only a matter of time before they turned against him to tribute. You can only live so long before they fling you to the light.
Inside, he can hear Jun's rabbit-quick thinking, can hear Minghao's steady voice. Knows that being selfish gave him this much.
But some missions are greater than others.
Fingers hovering over the eject button, Wonwoo lets the dark consume him.
---
Sacrifice doesn't make Jun a widow. Sacrifice doesn't make Wonwoo a martyr.
But when he hears of Jun’s name in the distance, they whisper his name like a fearsome god.
FILL: loaded god complex
Major Tags: minor references to alcoholism, non-graphic violence, reference to patricide, heavy references to the source
Additional Tags: wonwoo martyr complex
Permission to remix: No
This is quite possibly incoherent but my brain has been made into noodles by this. The consequences of my own silly little actions!
***
There is darkness, and then there is the true dark. Darkness is what gave birth inside of Wonwoo after the death of his father, after he was sentenced with committing patricide. What hardens him to the trauma of war. Shedding blood is easier when your mind is numb to empathy, when you've had the blood of your family on your hands.
But true dark is what resides in the inner confines of his mind. Being forced to relive the realities of his situation, the concrete weight of his condition keeps him upright long enough to turn into a killing machine.
True dark is the sound of screams, each one belonging to a pilot too young to die in a war that they had no choice to enlist in. All by his hand. True dark threatens to swallow him. To consume him. On his best days, he is barely staying head above water.
He wants to relay an apology to each and every one, send on some sort of token when their bodies go home to their families. Tell them, we were both prisoners, but only one of us could survive. Tell them, your child deserved more than being a life force to a man more infamous than honorable, and you are owed more than a death gratuity.
Strapped inside of the pilot’s seat, his fingers traces shapes, relying on muscle memory and intuition to guide him along the path of least resistance. Outside of the Chrysalis, the Hunduns swarm, and his numbed mind moves into autopilot. The Vermillion Bird remains in its first form, but he pulls from his partner and finds—
For the first time, a strong resistance.
The secondary pilot killed their first. He supposes it's a controlling method. That the secondary pilot dies and they lose a would-be Iron Widow, or Wonwoo dies, and they lose their top-ranking pilot in a casualty of war. Two nobodies they want to wash their hands of, and the secondary pilot spit just as much in his direction, all hissing malice.
Wonwoo tries to draw from their qi, and bits and pieces of the other man's memory floods his senses. He tries to not see it, see him. Carry the guilt of another into his next life.
But the mind, it's strong. Resilient. He came ready to kill, that much he can see.
The mind, it pushes against him. He's not used to pushback like this.
The other man—Wen Junhui, he snarls, fingers pressed around his throat inside their mind link—resists him, and the world goes white.
--
When the guards come to lead him out of the Chrysalis, it is a shock to hear another person's voice. To not smell a copper corpse beginning to rot in the secondary seat.
Wen Junhui's voice, though wiry, taunts. "Surprise."
Wonwoo cannot see more than Wen Junhui's shape, but the blurred form turns solid. It's not often a secondary pilot lives long enough to force themselves to be seen.
He hopes that Wen Junhui can feel his open shock staring right back.
For the first time, Wonwoo leaves the cockpit with his hands clean.
--
They dress the both of them up in new clothes. Not a prisoner's jumpsuit, but in the uniform of a pilot. It's to make examples of them.
Wen Junhui is thinner than he expected from someone with so much fight inside. But Wonwoo supposes that’s part of it.
The other pilots spread rumors that Wen Junhui is possessed by a fox spirit. That his advantages are supernatural. That the only way that Junhui has stayed alive twice now in the Chrysalis is based on pure luck rather than his own strength and willpower.
Someone tries and fails to level Wen Junhui. They may be quick-witted, but Junhui is more clever, lobs the words back across the net until the other pilot's face shatters like glass.
Unfortunately for him, his bark is worse than his bite, but the guards made a terrible mistake in taking off Wonwoo's muzzle. He is all bite, no bark.
Wonwoo’s vision zeroes in, and it’s Wen Junhui’s stone face that is all he sees when white-hot anger and a metal try turn the tile floors red.
Their eyes meet.
It's a surprise to find a familiar darkness inside of Wen Junhui.
In the end, his new glasses shatter and his short-lived memory of Wen Junhui becomes more statuesque in his mind.
—
It's no surprise that Wen Junhui has an anchor. A person. A guiding light. He recognizes it in Xu Minghao and covets it. Wants it for his own.
Even when he publicly announces and fortifies his bond to Junhui, his thoughts are on Minghao.
Minghao who introduced himself with a small smile, who approached him without fear. Minghao who sees past the veneer and knows more about Wonwoo than he cares to remember. Flaunts his wealth the way he would in a past life, without any sort of humility. The wealthy are selfish, but Minghao is generous.
Minghao has a cruel streak, feels it in the grip on the collar that presses heavy against Wonwoo’s throat. “You need to stay sober for Junnie, or I’ll kill you myself.”
Minghao has kindness in him, one that takes the shape of a heaping dining table. Meals Wonwoo hasn't known since he was a teen.
It's so easy to fall in step with him, to know him, to see Wen Junhui through his eyes and understand what they see in each other.
They're both trying to protect something special.
But Wonwoo does wish that it was him that they were thinking of.
----
He breaks one night, and Minghao kisses the wine from Wonwoo’s lips.
Junhui follows after until his own lips are stained red.
They take him into their bed–Junhui’s bed, easily fitting two, now three–and oh.
The world shifts into focus.
---
Jun helps him believe again, that his spirit hasn't been broken by war.
Minghao fortifies him with patience.
Inside of the Chrysalis, he shoulders the hits of their fellow fighters. It was only a matter of time before they turned against him to tribute. You can only live so long before they fling you to the light.
Inside, he can hear Jun's rabbit-quick thinking, can hear Minghao's steady voice. Knows that being selfish gave him this much.
But some missions are greater than others.
Fingers hovering over the eject button, Wonwoo lets the dark consume him.
---
Sacrifice doesn't make Jun a widow. Sacrifice doesn't make Wonwoo a martyr.
But when he hears of Jun’s name in the distance, they whisper his name like a fearsome god.