universal

[bbyah]

Title: universal
Rating: PG
Pairing: Homin
Genre: AU, Scifi
Summary: In the meantimes, between each Calamity, Yunho waits. And he searches.



i.

Yunho is sitting atop the spire of what was once a church. A lantern dangles from his hand, his only source of light as he watches the clouds huddle together in the dark sky. The moon is huge and loud, huge fissures marbling its surface and sending a crackling noise down through the stratosphere.

It’s coming. He can sense it in the stillness, the despair of the city, the vibrations in the skeletons of the buildings that haven’t been rebuilt. He’s prepared for his next jump, as prepared as one can be to slip between dimensions and centuries.

It happens every hundred years, this horrible reset. The Calamity that cycles around their universe in lazy circles, shredding worlds and crushing their inhabitants into a terrifying darkness. They’ve stopped rebuilding. This sequence has lost hope.

The loop is so destructive, their universe has been classified as ‘Cannibalistic’ and off-limits to unauthorized outside interference. Foreign chrononauts are forbidden to enter. The chrononauts Yunho trained alongside in the institute have almost completely disappeared over the ages. They’ve been harassed and tortured and forced into hiding, or self-termination, or the real disappearance that is the complete erasure of a person, the kind that chrononauts excel at by very definition.

Yunho is probably the last one that still comes here. Still alive, for some reason.

He’s waiting, and he keeps waiting, for the extremely unlikely anomaly that would be the reappearance of Shim Changmin.

A brilliant chronologist, a genius of his own time and many others. His research had surged headfirst into new frontiers, opening up possibilities and dimensions and changing the universe for chrononauts and chronologists everywhere. He had an unbelievable, almost prodigal grasp of sequences, achieving what most Chronologists needed volumes of detailed note-taking to do with no more than a stopwatch and an ephemeris. Some called him a sensational liability, an uncontrollable element, but the general consensus was that Shim Changmin had time and space wrapped around his finger. He had single-handedly predicted the Calamity’s skyfall, accurate to the minute. When Yunho’s first Calamity was approaching, he had the privilege of calling Shim Changmin his.

Then it all went wrong, and Shim Changmin disappeared.

Yunho’s tried to change what happened. He really has. He’s tried to travel back to it, too. But that first time is protected and buried and safeguarded and duplicated beyond his reach. He knows that if he had only realized what would happen, he would have never made the decisions he did.

In the meantimes, while the Calamity is elsewhere, Yunho waits. And often, he searches.

He searches because Changmin will never forgive him, wherever he is, if he doesn’t find him.

Their world is destroyed every century because of his selfishness and hesitance. Their sequence is fucked.

ii.

“Hm,” Changmin-from-many-years-ago says out of the blue.

They’re sprawled on Changmin’s bed, books scattered everywhere. Yunho’s hanging off the bed, upside down, enjoying the slow rush of blood to his head. He wonders if jumping through time feels like this. Yunho wants to be a chrononaut more than anything- helping others with his mastery of jumps and skips, diverting catastrophes. It’s enough to make his heart swell with excitement.

“‘Hm’, what?” Yunho prompts, watching the little fuzzies float in his vision. His face is starting to hurt from the pressure, so he swings upright and looks down at Changmin next to him.

Changmin looks intelligent, that’s really all Yunho trusts himself to say without being completely indecent. Changmin’s laid out on his stomach, in front of a huge book. One foot kicks up, waving lazily around in the air. He’s checking his mini, the little screen casting a glow up at his face. He looks up at Yunho, and Yunho wants to squish his cheeks. He blames it on the headrush.

“Um. Well,” Changmin says in that particular way of his, where he tilts his head a little and sort of bites his lip. Yunho waits for him to say what he wants to say.

“I got...just got accepted to UCCI,” Changmin finally says. “For Chronology.”

Yunho thinks his heart stops for a second.

“On a trial basis,” Changmin clarifies quickly, like it’s not a huge deal. “They liked my thesis but they’re worried my understanding of basic concepts is tenuous and-”

Yunho tackles him, burying him in a hug.

“WE’RE GOING TO UCCI TOGETHER!”

Changmin hits Yunho a few times, but Yunho doesn’t care.

“Yeah! Yunho, get off!” But he’s laughing, and Yunho just drops his face next to Changmin’s and presses their cheeks together.

“My genius Changmin- we’re going to be in the same year! That’s amazing! I can barely believe it, but I can because of course if anyone can get accepted early, it’s you-”

Beneath him, Changmin rolls over with some difficulty, blushing scarlet.

“You be quiet,” Changmin says, but now they’re face to face and very close. They still, and Yunho admires Changmin’s gorgeous eyes and soft, golden skin. Changmin’s hands run up Yunho’s sides, and he laces his fingers behind Yunho’s neck.

“I’m so glad we’ll be together,” he says softly, and tilts up to press his lips against Yunho’s.

Yunho-from-many-years-ago made sure to memorize every bit of the moment, because he had heard that Chrononauts need strong memories to tether them on jumps. There was no other memory he wanted to stay with him more than Changmin sturdy and present against him.

iii.

As if attempting to break the very rules he himself had discovered and outlined in an easy-to-understand guide for the general public, Shim Changmin is in every universe Yunho travels to. Yunho’s checked Changmin’s notes and confirmed: it’s an anomaly, outside of derivative sequences. Separate universes should not have recognizable simultaneous doubles. But he’s always there, with the same face and body and voice, an omnipresent constant.

Yunho’s ashamed, a little, to admit that this might be part of what keeps him jumping. He’s greedy, he supposes- while he chases after his own Changmin, he can find pieces and abstractions of others in the universes around theirs. He finds Changmin in hardship, in peacetime, in totally uneventful circumstances, and occasionally, right before death. Of course, strictly speaking, he shouldn’t announce his own presence to another universe’s Changmin, for fear of replicating the conditions that began the Calamity. But no one ever said anything about just watching, so he watches.

Yunho thinks this is a very interesting permutation of hell.

iv.

Yunho is proud of his work ethic and accomplishments at the Universal Chronological and Chrononautical Institute. He’s top of his squad, told that his physical ability and quick thinking is unparalleled by his teammates. Yunho doesn’t let it go to his head. He encourages those that fall behind, and several times finds himself advising other chrononaut hopefuls about personal issues, and occasionally other alternative fields of study. Yunho, however, is built to be a chrononaut, and only a chrononaut.

His body is perfectly conditioned, his mind and reflexes sharp enough to identify the perfect drop for a jump and stay intact through the nauseating wavelength travel. He is eventually recognized as the institute’s top candidate for the year. Yunho just waits for his assigned chronology team, and hopes with all of his heart that Changmin is on it.

Changmin had trouble when he arrived. He did his work too fast, or not at all, and his grades flagged. His energy was spent on stimulating debates with his mentors after class, persistent questions and arguments that left them scratching their heads. Midway through their first year, Yunho finds himself waiting outside the headmaster’s office. Changmin is inside, hopefully defending his placement well. Yunho’s heard the whispers- ‘probably too young’, ‘too reckless’, ‘unable to accept basic truths of the field’- and he’s ignored them. Changmin is smart. Too smart. He doesn’t have the desire, or the restraint, he just has the sheer intellect and a mind that is far, far too open. So open that it’s convinced that the textbooks are mistaken, the established rules are flawed, that things that can’t be done can be most certainly done.

Yunho wipes a hand over his face. As usual, his lovely Changmin is out of this world.

The door opens, and Yunho jumps up immediately.

Changmin walks out, bowing to someone inside. Another person, a man in a suit Yunho has never seen before, is by his side.

Yunho stands there awkwardly until Changmin sees him and brightens. He rushes over to Yunho, and the man follows.

“How was it,” Yunho says, exercising some restraint in front of the strange man.

“Yunho, this is Mr. N,” Changmin says, gesturing to the man.

The man smiles, all bright white teeth.

“Jung Yunho, then. I’ve heard a lot about you as well. So nice to hear that two extraordinary students are so close.”

Yunho frowns. Changmin must have presented his case fantastically, if someone’s calling him extraordinary.

“Uh, yeah. We’ve known each other for years. So, is he going to stay here?” Yunho cuts straight to the point.

Mr. N makes a fond noise, and clears his throat. “I was called in to evaluate Changmin’s eligibility to continue in the program, but more significantly...Changmin’s been submitting some very interesting papers to some scientific journals that I am on the board of. The concepts presented are...unique. Some might call them ‘ridiculous’, but they’ve created quite a ruckus in the scientific community. The type of ruckus that is common when something is too close to disproving the established canon. Breaking the truth.”

Yunho is speechless.

“Shim Changmin has several fans in the higher echelons of the chronological society, and the numbers are growing,” Mr. N says, and Changmin looks embarrassed but vindicated. Yunho grabs his hand.

“Changmin, you’ve been...? What are the articles about?” He asks.

“Just some stuff I’ve been thinking about. The things they’re teaching in the classes...they’re good guesses, but I think it’s possible that they’re wrong, or at the very least, disputable. I didn’t think it would get to this point, though.”

Mr. N nods. “We’ve decided that Changmin will continue learning what he should in the curriculum here at UCCI. They will be supplemented, however, by practical work with respected chronologists and theorists in several different labs and institutes. If he makes any progress, we’ll continue it through four years and he might be a candidate for a more advanced degree upon graduation.”

Yunho squeezes Changmin’s hand. He thought Changmin was just not ready for UCCI, but...it seems like it's the other way around.

“So he’ll still be here, right?” Yunho feels like it’s a stupid question, but he can’t help it.

Mr. N laughs.

“Yes, for the most part. He will still live in the dorms and study here. We actually feel it would be beneficial if- well. Ah. That brings me to my proposal for you, Jung Yunho. I understand you are the top of your class. You’ve passed every physical trial with flying colors, and your instinct for jumping is superb. Charisma and common sense will serve you well in other zones. We’d like to offer you and Changmin a guarantee. If you both stay enrolled at UCCI, you will be paired up in a special team upon graduation.”

Yunho resists the urge to look at Changmin. He can indulge himself with his doubts later, when they’re alone.

“You’ll form an experimental unit- testing newly proposed theories and developing cutting-edge research. We need the best of the best to withstand whatever these new avenues might bring forth.” There’s an ominous edge to Mr. N’s pleasant voice. There’s something he isn’t saying.

“This sounds dangerous,” Yunho says.

“It might be. Or it might not be. There’s the possibility that nothing will come of Changmin’s theories. But...like I mentioned, there were some possibilities that have created quite a stir. To better serve humankind, we feel it is best to take immediate action.”

v.

The first jump after Changmin’s disappearance is hard. Yunho miscalculates, not even really sure of what he’s looking for, and he’s not focused. He’s not expecting anything, he just wants to get away. The jump brings him to an somber place, covered in black sand under a bruised, purple sky. The daylight is strange and unfamiliar, spearing through the clouds in ruthless shafts of radiance.

It’s a land of silence and echoes. Large stone cathedrals stand on huge mountains, but there’s no worshippers, no reverent chanting, just cold, quiet, light. The world seems empty, missing its warmth and shadow.

He’s about to give up on this uncomfortable world when he comes across a weathered cairn, out of place on the black plains. A tattered flag streams in the wind, and he steps carefully around broken stones to find it guarding a tunnel leading down into the earth. It’s big enough for a man to walk upright in, and Yunho decides to investigate. Little rays of light poke through tiny holes on the ceiling, washing everything in soft grey. It’s then he reaches the end of the tunnel, and his heart stops.

Atop a black throne sits Changmin. His eyes are closed, and he sits unmoving among rotting tributes and incense. Shriveled petals are strewn across his legs and in his hair, and his hands are in his lap, palms up. Yunho staggers forward, upsetting a box of dried flowers, before he stops himself.

It’s not Changmin.

Or, rather, it’s not the right Changmin.

This man in front of him is identical to Changmin, that’s for sure, but he’s...not the same.

Occasionally, a plaintive, distant wail of ‘why’ just barely echoes from somewhere in the depths of the cavern. Changmin doesn’t show any signs of acknowledging it. The Changmin here doesn’t say anything at all. The beams of light play across his serene face unheeded.

Yunho doesn’t know what or who he’s waiting for, and leaves the next day at sunrise, when the wailing gets a little closer and the unresponsiveness of Changmin’s face starts to bother him.

vi.

A red notebook contains Changmin’s most dangerous theories. Changmin, naturally, turns his attention to the Calamity. He proposes that the next one is soon, and that it can be stopped, and that it can be identified. Yunho begs him to keep these theories private. There are certain topics that can earn you some trouble, and the Calamity’s one of them.

Changmin frowns, but he promises Yunho, and hides the notebook away somewhere.

They both know that’s not the last time they’ll see it.

vii.

Yunho jumps to a universe of Kings.

It’s an awful world based on towers of bureaucracy and ancestry. There’s a legacy of brutality along the King lineage, all of them dictators with a taste for the macabre. The small aspects of the world that aren’t soaked in blood are restrained in austere ceremony and piety. The Changmin here is not a King, he’s a Prince, which is the universe’s term for what is essentially the King’s human missile.

However, Changmin doesn’t disappoint- he’s a rogue Prince, joining a force of rebels and a vengeful Goddess set on dismantling the machine of Kings from the inside out. He’s completely different from the Changmin Yunho is looking for, but there are flashes of the familiar across his face every so often.

Revolution breaks out. Prince Shim takes the field with the angry Goddess roaring a song of death by his side and completely unbalances the foundations of his own world. It seems like a good sign to Yunho, oddly familiar in its inevitability.

After every victory, Prince Shim brings his hand up and kisses a ring on his finger, closing his eyes and mouthing something silent against his knuckles.

Yunho stays for a while, watching the battle unfold from the shadowy forests and ruined ramparts, until one day, Prince Shim falls in battle. His comrades press on, pushing back the failing defense, leaving him bleeding out among a field of corpses.

It goes against all protocol, but Yunho makes his way across the quiet battlefield when the fighting has moved on. He steps quickly over the dead, and at last, kneels next to Prince Shim’s still body.

Yunho reaches out to touch his pale, bloodless cheek, but suddenly his eyes open and it’s Changmin staring up at him from the edge of death.

“Y...Yunho..?” Changmin rasps out in an unfamiliar accent, voice thick with pain.

Yunho strokes his face and tries to smile.

“You’ve worked hard,” he says, inadequately at best.

“You’re alive...?” Changmin asks, grabbing Yunho’s wrist. His fingers curl around it and Yunho cradles his hand.

“Sort of.”

Changmin looks confused, then laughs. It ends up sounding terrible and he winces.

“Ah, no? You’re a phantom. Then I’m dying,” he says.

Yunho draws him closer. He has no idea what to say to this Changmin, no idea who this Changmin thinks Yunho is.

“Are they still fighting,” Changmin says, grunting as he turns his head.

Yunho nods. “Valiantly.”

“Good. I...I did it all for you, Yunho. I regret everyday that I couldn’t even save you, that I never told you how thankful I was that you were mine,” Changmin’s no longer focusing on Yunho, eyes feverish and distant. “I wanted to destroy them for taking you away from me, for showing me how easy it was- I’m so sorry, Yunho, I miss you, so so much, I will find you in the next life."

Yunho has to lean close to hear everything properly, the confessions of a dying prince, and wonders what he can say to put him at ease. He brushes Changmin’s damp hair back, taking in his strained face, and he kisses the cold ring upon his finger.

“I know. I could feel it everytime,” he whispers.

Prince Shim dies, and his grip around Yunho’s hand tenses before going limp. A cry of victory hurtles through the valley. Yunho stays for a moment, before carefully removing the ring. It's plain and silver, with a single red line inlaid in the center.

It is a universal treasure that should never be lost.

viii.

By their third year at UCCI, Changmin hasn’t made much progress in his normal classes.

However, he has decimated practically every principle the institute’s curriculum is based on.

Professors had panicked so much that they are being told to act for now as though the gigantic strides in chronological research aren’t happening, if only for the sake of their syllabi. They can’t just stop teaching because of conflicting theories, and there is an aging and testing period that theories need to go through before they are considered canon.

Yunho gets to watch Changmin disprove each principle he sets his suspicious sights on in the comfort of their shared dorm. He’s been promoted from Changmin’s boyfriend to his bodyguard. Leaders of dying religions send Changmin death threats, people of every type are proclaiming that he’s either their savior or the destroyer of worlds, and there’s a healthy amount of people chasing after him for other reasons.

Changmin’s found a new enthusiasm for classes. He goes so he can pick the professors’ brains, discuss their hidden beliefs and theories, learn everything he can about everything he needs to know. Some of the professors shy from the student who wants them to tell him their doubts and observations about the very subject they call their expertise, and others take up his offer to be used quite eagerly. They use him as their messenger, introducing theories to the world that they couldn’t bear to stake their reputation on.

The chronological world is under heavy turbulence. The chrononautical world...well, things go on as usual.

His superior officers look with disdain at the scientific overthrow, then turn back to their squads and tell them to keep training. All the theory can change and flip upside down, but jumping is still the same.

Yunho keeps himself in top shape, excelling past excellence, because this is what he’s made to do. And when he holds Changmin in his arms at night, he feels happy that he can at least share that stability with him.

He hopes they can stay together forever.

He knows better.

ix.

According to his ephemeris, he meets Max about two hundred years after Shim Changmin’s disappearance.

Yunho arrives in a dark, empty living room. He doesn’t move for a few minutes, taking in the well-loved furniture and shelves of equally-loved books. There’s a row of beer bottles lined up on the window sill. Yunho’s been through quite a lot in his time, but it’s the first time he’s jumped directly into someone’s house. He’s not sure if he should leave, but there’s no one around from what he can see.

The only sound is the creak of his boots as he moves through the house cautiously. Nothing stands out as especially unusual- a leather jacket and a scarf on a hook. An empty mug on the kitchen counter. A stool pushed back from the bar and a pair of glasses left in front of it.

He finds the stairwell when he’s searching for the front door. It’s dark at the top, but there’s a lamp next to the railing that Yunho switches on to illuminate a small attic loft. There’s a small bed, a beaten-up piano shoved against the wall, and-

Changmin, sitting on a massive hope chest in front of the window, long legs extended in front of him. He’s staring right at Yunho, eyebrows raised in curiosity.

“...hi,” Yunho says. He runs through his checklist of ‘Is This The Right Changmin’, before determining that it is not- the hair is wrong, the eyes aren’t quite as sharp, and the body language and languid way Changmin turns back to look out the window are all key indicators.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to, uh, barge into your house,” Yunho tries. “I thought no one lived here.”

“Looks like I might be losing my touch...” Changmin murmurs, before he swings back around with a grin. “Nevermind. To be honest, I was expecting you a lot sooner. I almost thought that maybe I had the wrong time.”

Yunho’s not sure what he’s getting at, but he wonders if he’s getting mixed up with someone else. Yunho’s probably dead in this sequence too. He decides to go with the flow. It usually serves him well.

Changmin doesn’t get up from his perch, pinning Yunho with an assessing gaze. Yunho doesn’t move, staying in a neutral stance so he can show he means no harm. While he waits for Changmin to speak, he lets himself actually look at this Changmin.

He’s got a style that veers far from Shim Changmin’s low key student fashion- dusty black boots with shiny buckles, tight tight jeans, and a long vest that drapes around him. His arms are bare except for short black sleeves and- tattoos. Inky lines crawl delicately along his biceps and down his forearms, forming flower petals and fish and letters. A mess of bangles jingle around both his wrists. Black and silver hoops and charms hang from his ears. His eyes are smoky and his hair feathers off at an angle over his forehead, the sides buzzed short. Yunho thinks he sees a few streaks of bleach blonde peeking from the tips. This Changmin is definitely something else.

“Well, now that you’re here...I’m glad. You’ve come a long way. Why don’t you take a little break?” Changmin says, hopping up off the chest and taking big swaggering steps towards Yunho.

It’s almost hilarious to see Changmin decked out like this, but Yunho just tries to remember that this is not Shim Changmin- not the right one, anyways.

Changmin comes right up close to him, and smiles. His teeth are pearly white, and a silver hoop glints from his lips. Yunho tilts his head, hopelessly bemused and sort of...enamored. He’s not sure what protocol would say about this.

“I have advice for you,” Changmin says, before his eyes drop to Yunho’s hand. He grabs it and holds it up, tapping on the Prince’s ring. “Time skipper.”

Yunho’s heart skips a beat. His fingers clench around Changmin’s hand.

“W...what? Wait, how do you know-”

Changmin falls backwards to sit on the bed, pulling Yunho down to sit next to him. Changmin crosses his legs and purses his lips before tugging Yunho’s hand again so his fingers lay flat.

Yunho is very, very unsure of what’s going on. Changmin is peering at Yunho’s hand intently, head bowed as he murmurs to himself. He looks up at Yunho and bites his lips.

“Call me Max. Still searching, still traveling, hm? Your lines are a mess. Your energy,” Max-Changmin strokes his palm, “is stuck. You hope finding it can fix everything. You wish you could go back to the way it used to be.”

Yunho swallows. “You can figure all that out from my hand?”

Max nods, face grave.

...before he starts laughing. He pitches forward as he laughs, still holding Yunho’s hand as he cracks up. The sound sends a little tendril of sweet nostalgia through Yunho. He smiles despite the strangeness. If he closes his eyes, he could pretend he and his Changmin were right back where they should be, on Changmin’s bed, reading comics and textbooks and telling terrible jokes. Finally, Max straightens up.

“No. I already knew, I don’t need to use palmistry to figure that out.” Max says, spitting out ‘palmistry’ like it’s some kind of undesirable thing he found under his boot.

“I know all...or, well, some. I know some. Like how you’re searching. I saw that. I also saw your future. Or, well, a future. Maybe you already did it, shit, your story is so complicated!” Max exclaims, ruffling his hair in agitation.

“You can see things like that?” Yunho asks to confirm. “Are you really...you have that ability?”

“Yes, I’m a clairvoyant. I’ve been catching your story for a while now. I knew you’d come here, and I know you’ll be leaving soon. I have something to tell you before you go.” Then Max pulls a tiny red notebook out of his pocket. Yunho stares at it. It’s too small to be the red notebook, but the familiar leather cover still makes him tense in anticipation.

Max flips about halfway through the notebook before he seems to find what he needs.

“Okay. So there’s another world. Several. And there’s a different me in each one. One in armor,” he reads.

“The prince,” Yunho says.

Max shakes his head. “No, not a suit of armor. An armored body. A machine. He’ll try to kill you.”

Yunho can’t imagine Changmin ever raising a finger to hurt him, but stranger things have happened.

“You’ll want to avoid being killed, obviously. Aaand, if you can manage to get around him, you’ll find something, something that will lead you closer.”

Max’s still clasping his hand as he looks at the notebook for a moment, biting his lips, before pocketing it. “That’s all I saw. I hope it helps.”

Yunho licks his lips and nods. “It did. I’ll keep my eye out for him.”

Max smiles and sighs, looking down at his boots. He taps one of them against Yunho’s shoe.

“If you don’t mind me asking...What’s your name? What are you looking for, anyways?”

Yunho runs a finger along Max’s hand, remembering the feeling of rough calluses from a different year and a different world.

“My name is Yunho. I’m looking for someone I hope I never forget,” he says softly.

Max frowns.

“...Why do you keep finding different versions of me?”

Yunho decides that this Changmin, with all of his unrealized omnipresence and power, will be able to understand a little bit of his feelings too. He’s earned it.

“Because I don’t want you to forget, you’re my world.”

Max stares at him, eyebrows raising minutely, before his eyes shift to the side.

“In that case, there is one other, tiny thing...” he says. “I thought that maybe I didn’t see it right...but maybe it will help?”

He moves in close, whispering next to Yunho’s ear.

“The thing with the machines, the thing you need to find- it’s a red notebook. Like mine. There’s something in it that will change your world forever.”

x.

Upon graduation, Yunho is placed in standby until Changmin’s curriculum ends. He spends the month fairly productively, training while he catches up on his favorite drama series. It makes him restless, watching all his friends get placed in squads, ready to drop into other sequences as soon as their trial periods are over, but he’s content that he and Changmin will make a great team.

They do.

UCCI makes the mistake of giving them some time to familiarize themselves with the equipment. Changmin’s got a testing schedule worked out in a matter of hours, and the officials at the institute have no choice but to approve it.

Without the limitations of the institution, they work harder than ever, like a flawless machine. Yunho drags back more and more data for Changmin, who plugs it into his equations and theories and finds out how to get Yunho to travel further than any other jumper.

They’re the darlings of the chronological world, and maybe that’s where their problems began. Yunho’s not sure. Yunho tries not to think too much about what it is they’re working so hard to prove. He doesn’t bother Changmin with his suspicions. He decides to believe that Changmin would tell him if he needed to know.

xi.

He remembers the day that he walked in on Changmin with that familiar red notebook. Changmin had looked up at him, an odd expression on his face.

“I...this is-”

“Changminnie. No,” Yunho says, panic lacing up his spine.

But Changmin’s got that look on his face, that sidelong look of hiding and slipping away, and Yunho thinks that he’s never wanted Changmin to be wrong more than he does at the moment.

Unfortunately, Changmin’s good at what he does, and he’s hardly ever wrong.

Their Calamity is coming.

xii.

Yunho only understands what Max meant about the armored Changmin when he jumps to a robotic world, an abyss of cables drawing him in with a bright, buzzing hum.

“They told me they broke that mold. You aren’t allowed to have that face,” the Changmin with bright, inhuman red eyes says.

Yunho, for some reason, only remembers Max’s warning about three seconds before his face is nearly smashed in.

“He’ll try to kill you,” Max had said. Right.

Yunho can barely lean back in time before Changmin swings a haymaker at his head, definitely aiming to destroy. He stumbles upright and hesitates as Changmin tugs his arm out of the wall he’s just shattered, then runs when Changmin’s head snaps back to him.

At least if he dies by Changmin’s hands, that face will be the last thing he sees.

It’s a nice thought, but Yunho’s not fucking done with the millenium yet.

He launches himself out of the bright alcove, feet pounding down the metal catwalk with loud clangs. To each side, there’s rows and rows of screens, all scrolling endless readouts of numbers. People walk along each catwalk, reading the screens with mild, content looks on their faces. He almost knocks a woman over, but doesn’t bother with an apology. The people here are not humans. They are cold, a graceful stiffness to their movements that Yunho feels blind for not noticing earlier.

He speeds up. Not-Changmin is right behind him, footsteps barely more than taps as he delicately tears after Yunho.

The place seems like a maze, the catwalks looping around on every level, repeated as far up and as far down as the eye can see. Yunho can’t afford to be wandering in circles, not when he’s trapped in a test of speed with a robot version of his boyfriend. He needs to find the red notebook, needs to see what world-changing secret lies inside, and he needs to jump.

Max had kept his notebook in his pocket. Yunho has no clue where the notebook here would be, and he has no time to think. He shreds down a staircase and finally finds an outlet- a long, illuminated hallway that he wastes no time running the length of.

Then Changmin tackles him. The air pressure feels like an elephant is about to slam into him, but the impact itself is surprisingly minimal. They end up in a heap on the floor, Changmin leaning over Yunho as he traps him.

“That face is illegal and you are not authorized to have it,” Changmin says.

Yunho squirms underneath Changmin. It’s absolutely not the time to be thinking that despite the non-human qualities, Changmin’s thighs are oddly warm and firm, with slight give under pressure. Just like the real thing. Good craftsmanship, he supposes.

Changmin’s huge eyes looking down at him, aggrieved and so so sad, are also very similar to the real thing. The strange red light behind his pupil adds a surreal quality to the picture. Why is a robot looking at him like it wants to cry?

“That face is not yours to use,” Changmin chokes out. “They’ll find you and kill you again so get out of here.”

Yunho finds it odd that this artificial Changmin is able to mirror his own heart so well. He thinks that maybe Max wasn’t quite accurate when he said there was a red notebook here, there’s only red eyes and someone who's been left behind.

He decides to take Not-Changmin’s advice and leaves empty-handed.

xiii.

To Changmin’s credit, he did figure out how to stop the Calamity. He was just forbidden to actually do so.

It required an unthinkable sacrifice- their own sequence. It made no sense to most of the public, and they understandably refused the logic when Changmin released it into the world. UCCI sent a delegate to inform them that they would not allow Changmin’s research to continue if he kept on about unrealistic measures.

Changmin argues, he theorizes that if their universe sacrifices itself to save it’s mirrors, then the mirrors, in other mirror dimensions, would sacrifice themselves, a mobius loop of selflessness and necessity and it does make sense in a way, but it’s too much uncertainty. Yunho lays with Changmin on their bed as he rants up at the ceiling, ‘they don’t understand, it’s coming more quickly and it’s getting stronger every time and they can end it’. Yunho just crawls over him and kisses him between words until Changmin shoves a hand in his face and almost laughs. Yunho takes it upon himself to tickle him until he does.

“They can end it, hyung,” he whispers breathlessly after they’ve rolled around. “Why won’t they just do it?”

“They think it means there’s no hope,” Yunho says, petting Changmin’s hair.

“But it is hope.”

xiv.

Sometimes Yunho returns to his favorite universes, generally the ones where Changmin is easy to find and neither of them are in danger of being killed. In this one, he needs a camera to blend in, and wields it half-heartedly when he hears excited screaming.

This universe’s Changmin, ‘Choikang’, is an idol, followed by huge clumps of paparazzi wherever he goes. Yunho sees the shadows behind his sunglasses and wishes he could brush cool fingers over his tired eyes, stroke his hair, hold him as he slips into sleep, but he stays behind the security line as the only cameraman not shooting any photos.

His attention is also caught by someone else: the little girl that is with Choikang constantly, either in his arms or trailing after him, hand in hand. It’s Choikang’s daughter, Jiyool, and there is almost no information on her origin. The tabloids love commenting on her lack of resemblance to Choikang, apart from their perfectly coordinated designer clothes. There’s still something compellingly familiar about her face, though; a strength to her sharp jawline, chubby cheeks and finely arched brows.

However mysterious the circumstances may be, there’s no ring on Choikang’s finger, just a sheen of ice over his features. It melts only when Jiyool grins up at him.

During each of his visits, Yunho orders rush delivery for a huge bouquet of purple irises, Changmin’s favorite flower. He has no clue if they always reach Choikang, but occasionally he’ll see one in Choikang or Jiyool’s arms as they rush through the paparazzi.

Yunho’s there when a huge scandal blows up. Old photos of Choikang with a man that looks too much like Jiyool are posted to the internet, ex-acquaintances offer cryptic hints to the media, and Choikang hides in his apartment in between painful presscons. Another idol finally steps forward, tearfully clearing their names.

Through her tears, the press learns there had indeed been a relationship. A friendship. An agreement. A baby. A car crash.

She has Jiyool’s eyes. Jiyool looks just like her parents.

Yunho looks too much like the man in the photo to spend anymore time in Choikang’s world.

He ties the Prince’s ring to the card in the last bouquet he sends. On the card, he writes, 'I will always be proud of you'. He hopes it gives Choikang strength if it manages to reach him.

Choikang’s unattainability is comforting. Yunho can’t reach him, just like his own Changmin. It gives him hope that his Changmin is somewhere too, tired, maybe, exhausted, but still out there.

xv.

Maybe Changmin got sick of it. Yunho had kept reassuring him, drawing him close, murmuring ‘why don’t we just keep trying, we’ll find a different way’.

Changmin had pulled back and stared at Yunho, really looked at him, eyes dark and glittering. He wasn’t smiling.

“No. There really isn’t another way. It’s not easy- why would it be easy? If it was easy, someone would have done it already,” Changmin says. He casts his eyes across the room, and gets off the bad. He stalks over to the desk, running a hand through his hair and grabbing at a notepad. He looks down at it, biting his lips. Yunho can only see how thin he’s become, how his sleep pants hang huge and baggy, and how the shirt dips along the small of his back, settling to bunch on his hips.

“Changmin-”

Changmin’s not listening any more. His head is tipped forward as he focuses on whatever’s on the notepad. Yunho relaxes back onto the bed, never once looking away from Changmin. Changmin is only an arms’ length away, feet planted on the same hardwood floor, in the same comforting lighting, but something feels so wrong, like they’re separated by a glass wall, like they’re saying goodbye.

When did he begin losing Changmin?

xvi.

The worst part of searching for something lost is the possibility that you may never find it.

There’s a certain crushing weight that bears down in the back of a mind, the part that knows that maybe the search is pointless, maybe it’s all in vain, and it keeps showing up.

It keeps quietly, soothingly murmuring.

Even though he’s seen numerous other Changmins, none of them are the right Changmin, and he feels like maybe he’s forgetting Changmin’s face.

The possibility that Yunho will never be able to touch his Changmin’s cheek again, never be able to hold his hand or hear his laugh or listen to the way he speaks or ask him for advice- it’s maddening and it’s killing him. The possibility, or rather, the likelihood that they aren’t even under the same sky makes his eyes sting with hopelessness.

The nights when he thinks that are the worst- the nights when he thinks he would die just for five more seconds holding Changmin’s face. The nights when he forgets what Changmin sounds like when he’s happy, or upset, or teasing. The nights when he remembers a joke he told Changmin, but not Changmin’s reaction.

It’s a cold, frozen tundra in his heart that rips through his bones and makes him worry that he’s just never going to be able to let go, it hurts so much, and he’d give anything to go back to how it used to be.

He’s sick of missing his best friend.

xvii.

He doesn’t know when he began losing Changmin, but he knows when he lost him.

He remembers the night before, one year after graduation, when Changmin had realized something. They had been eating dinner, sort of- Yunho was idly calculating sequences with the oven clock as Changmin ignored his food in favor of the red notebook. It was silent and tense, like too many of their last moments together. Changmin’s hand floated up to blindly grasp for his water, and then suddenly froze in midair. Yunho’s eyes flicked to Changmin’s face. A curious expression lingered there, completely blank, his gaze dark and fixated on something on the page. His hand fell, and he shoved the chair back, taking the notebook as he left the room.

Yunho had just stared down at his plate, no longer hungry as dread and a sour sense of loss crawled up his throat.

One year after graduation, Yunho doesn’t say the right thing at the right time. Shim Changmin disappears. He leaves everything behind, except the red notebook.

One month after Yunho’s mistake and Changmin’s disappearance, the Calamity occurs.

The world slants and the moon cracks and Yunho can’t help but feel like it’s one month late. His world’s already ended. Luckily for the rest of their world, he’s Jung fucking Yunho. The end of one world means very little, in chronological terms. If Shim Changmin was the only person who could stop a Calamity, Jung Yunho was the only person who could undo one.

He jumps, and saves one universe in exchange for another one he’s never been to. Changmin would kill him- but then again, Changmin’s not there and he can’t see their own world suffering and Yunho can. Despite their short-sightedness, Yunho can’t forsake them for a world he knows nothing of.

So he makes the switch and rights everything, and the people hail him as a savior. They look down on Changmin’s predictions and calculations in his absence, dragging his name ruthlessly through the mud for underestimating the power of humanity and science and Yunho and themselves. Yunho just feels like he needs to throw up, because he knows what they don’t. He was with Changmin almost every second of every hour for the past year. He knows Changmin is too smart to underestimate. That’s why he knows what Changmin realized that night across the dinner table, scanning the pages of his red notebook. Although one universe ceases to exist, it is saved after the diversion from the sequence. The other universe that was ‘saved’, though-

Their world is stuck ending again and again, doomed to an endless loop of decimation. It’s the price for a sacrifice, and Yunho accepts the burden of shame like armor.

The end of the world means very little when you have infinity to fix it.

xviii.

Nowadays, Yunho travels light during jumps. He no longer requires vitamin drinks or a stopwatch- just a small leatherbound timing book, a graduation gift from Changmin. It’s seen better days, hanging raggedly from his belt, but it serves its purpose. It holds lists, hundreds of lists, keeps track of coordinates and formulas and where he’s been and where he needs to go next.

There’s also a column for Changmin - underneath, a yes, a no, a quick note about what role Changmin is playing in this world, or a hastily scrawled ‘left upon arrival’ for the more dangerous worlds.

One more thin column is nearly hidden by the margin. 'Yunho'. He’s never written anything in the column, because Yunho isn’t alive in any of the universes he visits. There’s no alternate versions of himself, no variants, just...gaps and eulogies and legends. It makes sense according to Changmin’s research, but it's strange that all the Changmins are still around, that they’re all so alone.

It’s like they’re waiting. Like something’s been taken away.

He starts to wonder about them.

xiv.

The facts were these.

Changmin turned to Yunho, face red and eyes livid. His lips were tight in an angry slant. Yunho was breathing heavy. They’d had a fight.

The subject- the Calamity. As usual.

Changmin had thrown his most potent arguments at Yunho, but Yunho had heard them so much, they barely fazed him. Changmin asked one question, expecting Yunho’s typical response. In a fit of temporary bad judgment, Yunho threw words even more potent at Changmin.

For a moment, they stared at each other. Changmin’s mouth trembled as he opened it to speak, then shut it. He had rushed out after that, grabbing his jacket and that notebook and slamming the door behind him.

Yunho just stood in the silence, listening to the echoes of their words hanging in the air.

His words.

He couldn’t take them back. He couldn’t take back the worst mistake of his life.

Changmin had asked if he wanted to be at fault for losing their entire universe.

Instead of ‘of course not’ instead of ‘there’s got to be another way’, Yunho had responded, “I don’t want to lose you.”

It was the last thing he said to Changmin.

xv.

One night, Yunho says it to the empty atmosphere right above him.

He’s weak from the endless ‘what if’s and ‘maybe’s and decides to finally release it, give a prayer to the universe and hope to every world out there that it reaches Changmin, wherever he is.

“Come back, Changmin. I can’t find home until you do. I don’t know where you are, but...I don’t wanna be anywhere else.”

xvi.

The moment he finds Changmin again is anticlimactic and sudden. He sees a flash of red in the middle of a jump, a faded red that sends panic into his bones, and he nearly kills himself pulling every stop just to land a little bit too late. Late is apparently right on time, though, because someone tall and familiar is suddenly in front of him. All of his fantasies and daydreams of their reunion crash on his head, and they stare at each other from a small distance.

The stars don't spell out Changmin’s name, in fact they're not even visible from where they're standing, on a rooftop miles below a blanket of luminous clouds.

Changmin looks furious, but mostly the same, save for longer hair and a slightly more mature appearance. Five hundred years of time skips have aged him on the edges- sharpened his cheeks and jawline, lined his eyes with shadow, paled his skin, lengthened and whittled his limbs and torso. There’s still that softness in his eyes, though, an intelligent slope to his brow, a hint of honey in his complexion, a set to his mouth that recalls laughter and smiles and kisses. He’s the most beautiful thing Yunho’s seen in centuries, and Yunho knows it's his Changmin. The right Changmin.

“What are you doing here,” Changmin says after a long silence, low and harsh.

Yunho sees the way Changmin’s hands squeeze into fists before he whirls and starts to stride away.

“Changmin,” he manages.

He’s moving slower than Changmin, he’s sure of it, but he’s got Changmin’s wrist in his hand in two seconds.

Changmin’s eyes are wide with exasperation when he turns. Yunho can’t find his voice at all.

His hands move up to frame Changmin’s face, trembling as he lets his eyes and thumbs run down Changmin’s cheeks. Changmin just looks at Yunho’s face like he’s afraid it’s not real. A longing hangs tenuously in the seconds between them, before Changmin breaks it. He pulls Yunho close and kisses him, really kisses him like he thinks it’s the last time he’ll ever be able to- although knowing Changmin, that’s not entirely impossible.

“You’re such an idiot, following me here-” Changmin gasps, but his lips are working desperately against Yunho’s, and his fingers pull at Yunho’s coat.

“I’ll never stop following you,” Yunho agrees.

Sometimes Changmin can be so devastatingly perfect, it’s no wonder he condemns universes at the same rate he saves them.

“Why are you here-”

“Missed you so much-”

“You’re supposed to be home-”

“It’s doomed without you-”

“Why do you have to do everything I don’t want you to-”

Yunho draws Changmin close and lays his head on his shoulder, blinking his eyes wide open and willing the tears lining them to stay put. Changmin exhales a watery sigh and wraps his arms around Yunho’s back.

“Why did you come,” he whispers against Yunho’s ears. Yunho hates that the resignation and despair in Changmin’s voice is his fault, but he’s happy that he can hear it at all.

“Our universe is destroying itself,” Yunho says, straightening up and wiping his eyes.

Changmin looks off to the side.

Although the circumstances are far from ideal, they’ve picked a beautiful setting for a reunion. A massive pale moon looms overhead, the only astral body visible through the haze of light pollution from a glittering city that lies around them. The lights glow against thick clouds, creating an artificial twilight.

Yunho waits for Changmin to gather his thoughts. He’s not in a hurry. He could spend forever just admiring the shadows and light that bathe Changmin’s skin.

It’s okay to allow himself the thought, since it will never be reality. Their time is short, and both can feel it in the dimensions all around them.

Changmin turns back to Yunho and tosses his hair back out of his eyes. The little gesture almost undoes Yunho, bringing such a realness to the situation it’s almost unbearable. This is really Changmin in front of him, fixing critical eyes on him.

“So you decided to go and mess the sequence up even more,” Changmin says.

“I had to.”

“You knew full well that my way was the only way.”

“No. People were dying.”

“Well, they’re not much better off now, huh?” Changmin laughs humorlessly, and Yunho grits his teeth and tries to let it go.

He tries to understand that this is he has no idea what Changmin’s been through for the past half a millenium, that this is Changmin’s way of dealing with loss, but the anger still comes.

“I was weak, okay? I had to do it, I couldn’t do it any longer,” he says, and hopes that Changmin won’t push it. “This can’t be their fate, Changmin.”

Changmin is blessedly quiet. He paces away from Yunho, lean form silhouetted against the bright glow from below.

“I should have realized it was selfish of me to ask you to stay and watch that,” he finally admits, quiet and contemplative.

Yunho understands then how much Changmin’s regretted, how much he’s matured.

“Why did you leave?” Yunho asks, voice barely a whisper. “If it was doomed either way, why did you leave me?”

Changmin turns to look at him again.

“You fool, I did it to save something bigger than us.”

He steps towards Yunho, grabbing for one of his hands and holding it between his own. His hands are warm, and Yunho helps lock their fingers together.

“I figured out how to stop it for good- the Calamity will never end if it’s not given a universe to inhabit. I made a test universe to feed it, and it was supposed to follow me there.”

“But it didn’t,” Yunho confirms.

“No- no, but I’ve found...I think I’ve found the way to...to lead it-”

“I’m going with you,” Yunho says firmly. There is no room for argument between his words, he makes sure of it.

Changmin squeezes Yunho’s hand.

“It will probably be the end. There won’t be an escape this time, there won’t be another universe you can jump to,” he says.

“You’re my universe,” Yunho replies. He says it simply, letting all of his faith in Changmin live in the words.

Changmin stares at Yunho, before he ducks his head down to pinch the bridge of his nose. When he speaks, his voice is thick.

“I never wanted to hurt you. There is no other person like you in any world, Yunho. I’ve looked. I still love you. I always will. I always did.”

Yunho smiles. He’s ready to die for this man. “You’re in every world, in every second of my time.” He licks his lips and tickles Changmin’s hand a bit. “So cough up those coordinates. We just need to make a quick stop to pick up a Calamity.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Changmin says, lightly hitting Yunho on the chest with their joined hands before he glances up at Yunho again. “We’re probably going to die. Is that okay?”

“Fine by me. I’ve been waiting for about five hundred years,” Yunho says, before he pushes back Changmin’s hair. “But can stay here a little bit longer? I’m a little tired, and it’s so beautiful here.”

Changmin smiles at him, and it’s so gorgeous that Yunho really doesn’t care if this is the end. But it’s another self-indulgent thought, and he and Changmin both know it’s not the end. It never will be.

You know how sometimes you wake up and you find you're on a camel for some reason, traipsing through the desert with a group of similarly becameled gentlemen who won't tell you anything about what's going on?
….no?
well, in case you were curious, that's what writing this was like :>
This was one of my Nano projects from November, helped greatly along by the sudden influx of Humanoids and Time!!
I don't know how much sense it makes, since it's such a weird format for me, but gah I just love time skipping homin....