CHINGUX 2014: phantomwise, dreaming as the summers die (1/1) for kojafras

Aug 23, 2014 00:08

Title: phantomwise, dreaming as the summers die
Author: atharaigas
Recipient: kojafras
Pairing/Focus: OT4
Rating: PG13
Warnings: some swearing; mild hallucinatory … uh. reality shifts?
Length: 4k
Summary: fairytale au: Sometimes the fairy tale world is the sanctuary, as opposed to the wolves that wait outside. Title and cut from Lewis Carroll. (my thanks to e for the cupcakes, cheer, enthusiasm, and stunning editing work; also thanks to w, for being wonderfully reliable and honest as ever.)



Once upon a time, when the earth still young, the Winter King came down among his people.

He swept down the streets and over towns in a terrible wrath, leaving behind the empty ruins of his stricken castle. It looks like broken crystal from afar. Ice ravaged the land and nothing could grow for miles.

The Winter King must have been very lonely.

Baekhyun dreams alive a boy in armor, helmet obscuring his face. He can see him walking toward a gloomy edifice on a lonely hill, sword and scabbard clanking at his hip. The boy seems oddly familiar. His silhouette breaks the shape of a broken-open castle in the horizon.

“Ah, it’s so far away.” The knight looks up at the distant tower. The craggy stones and turrets, silhouetted against the sun, cast a long shadow over a barren plain. He thought he could see the shadows of little villages, but the paths were deserted. “Wish I had a horse,” he grumbles. “Would’ve made things easier.”

Baekhyun dreams alive a prince, descendant of princes. He turns in his sleep, a quiet sigh escaping his lips.

Chanyeol takes off his helmet and shakes his head like a dog, hair rearranging itself violently as he takes deep breaths, inches from the gloomy castle’s entranceway. After silent streets and shadowed houses, the place was practically comfortable.

Craning his neck, he can barely make out the shape of a needlelike tower atop the building. His gauntleted hands thud-thud-thud on a blue-grey door that swings inward by itself. The end of his quest beckoning him, he follows an unbroken spiral of stairs to the tower as his boots ring heavy against dusty stone.

He passes through an arched doorway to see a sight come alive from legend: silky fabrics covering a bed captured by a cone of light, and a veiled occupant slumbering heavily. There’s a pair of rose-pink lips and gentle breath pulsing beneath milky skin, too - Chanyeol’s heart skips a beat as he shuffles toward the lit bed, armor clanking quietly. His mouth is pretty dry.

Setting his helmet down on the bed, Chanyeol pushes away the veil and purses his lips, fluttering his eyes shut. He inches closer.

Plink.

An insistent hand taps him on the shoulder. It makes a weird, musical noise on his pauldron. “I’m kind of busy here,” Chanyeol mumbles, eyes still closed. Plinkplinkplinkplink. Sighing, he sits back and turns around, freezing as another person darts in closely to the sleeping figure.

He can see someone shake the sleeper awake.

“That is not how you do it,” he says loudly. “I walked fifty miles to kiss this princess, okay - ”

“Shut up,” a new voice whines. “Go away. Let me sleep.”

The skinny intruder pushes Chanyeol off the bed - and he goes, cuirass clanking. The helmet crashes to the floor as the formerly-asleep figure shifts under the covers, generating enough noise to wake the dead.

“I’m awake,” the voice sighs. The sleeping princess-stealer goes to retrieve his helmet, shoving it into Chanyeol’s hands before trying to push him out the door.

“Excuse me,” Chanyeol tries, resisting the shoves. “I was trying to wake you up, but - ”

“Ignore him, it’s not worth it.”

Chanyeol bristles at that, because it’s kind of rude - but he realizes that it wasn’t addressed to him at all. He stands his ground, crossing his arms and glaring at -

“Hey,” he says curiously, pausing mid-thought. “Are you a guy?”

“I’m a prince.” Stretching, the sleeping boy flashes a bright, flirtatious grin. “Bow before me, commoner.”

Aghast, Chanyeol digs in his heels entirely. “That’s not fair,” he protests. “I’m a prince, too!”

“No way. You don’t even look like a prince - ”

A distant crash interrupts them. Chanyeol finds his hands empty of his helmet and the room without a third party, with the distinctive noise of armor colliding with a spiral staircase. “Your princess,” the sleeping-princess-stealer informs him cheerfully, popping his head back in the room with a smug grin, “Is in another castle.”

“Jongdae’s right,” the other prince laughs. “Go try and kiss people somewhere else.”

Chanyeol fights the blush growing on his face. “You were sleeping,” he insists. “In a princess’ tower! And I’m a prince!”

“I’m not a princess.”

Jongdae wiggles his way under the covers and settles like a contented cat. Chanyeol crosses his arms and stares down the other boy, fighting the insane unfairness of the situation.

“You were sleeping.”

“I’m narcoleptic. It means - ” Yawn. “I fall asleep easily.”

Once upon a time, when the world was still dark and the earth still young, the Winter King settled his rule over the land.

To herald his coming, the roads were strewn with flowers: his magic allowed delicate petals of ice to sprout on thin, glassy stalks. The glacial winds carved lovely patterns over the land, painting frost on windowpanes and carpeting the streets with thickly-strewn layers of snow.

The Winter King loved his realm very much.

Baekhyun dreams alive a frightened child on the run, breath catching (don’t look behind you, don’t look behind you).

“Wake up, damn it - ”

Baekhyun registers Chanyeol’s voice. Jongdae’s hands are oddly warm, seeping through his shirt.

Words slur in his mouth. He thinks he can hear someone apologize.

Baekhyun dreams alive two sons from a kingdom far away: an elder brother, growing into strength and beauty like a raw thing of the woods - and a younger brother, who grew into reason and a different type of strength. He dreams a voice, raspy and shaky, “Let’s play a game, little brother. Run. And we shall see if I catch you.”

(don’t look behind you, don’t look behind you)

“Princess,” Jongdae says, childish grin plastered on his face as Baekhyun struggles from sleep.

“Hey, you okay?” He focuses his eyes on Chanyeol’s face, uncomfortably parked several inches from his own face.

“Yeah. Fine.” Yawn. “Just fine.”

Jongdae pulls him upright again, tugging aside the blankets to let him swing his legs down to the ground. Chanyeol sits back, still on the bed, eyes tracking Baekhyun like a bemused puppy. He relents.

“Something about a wolf. Weird dream. It happens.”

“A wolf, huh?”

“Yeah.” Jongdae rests his chin on Baekhyun’s shoulder, a comforting gesture - until he digs the point of his jaw right down, the little bastard. “Hey, get off - ”

Thud-thud-thud.

Baekhyun freezes in the middle of tackling Jongdae; Chanyeol, trying to keep them apart, nearly falls over with shock at the sound. The noise of someone at the door scatters the tussle.

“You go,” Baekhyun says at once, trying to smother his panic.

“I’m too handsome. You go get it.” Chanyeol tries burrowing beneath the blankets, only to find a wide-eyed Jongdae curled up neatly underneath the sheets.

“I’m handsomer. I’m so good-looking you tried to kiss me.”

“I’m taller than you.” The knocking sound grows louder, a panicked rhythm building against the door.

“I’m smarter than you.”

Outraged, Chanyeol flaps his mouth open and shut like a fish. “No, you’re not,” he manages.

“Are too. And I’m eldest. Go see what it is.”

Once upon a time, when the soft night began to polish its stars, the Winter King’s early reign was marked by solitude.

He built a marvelous castle, filling its courtyards and gardens with sculptures. At the heart of the castle was a large, wondrous shape, like a dragon about to take flight. Rows of snowy flowers and icy trees surrounded the castle, with orchards bearing fruits that shone like gems.

As the years grew weary and his castle ever silent, the Winter King’s sadness darkened his ice. His gardens withered, blossoms growing dull and snapping off in the howling wind.

As the long season turned his realm brittle, the Winter King’s statues began to come alive.

Baekhyun dreams alive a basket, carried by a fearful child in disguise.

“Let me in!” The boy’s fists hammer at the door until Chanyeol stumbles his way down the stairs. He opens the door to see long hair and a blood-red cloak. “Thank you,” the boy says breathlessly, running inside and slamming the door shut behind him. A basket dangles from the crook of his arm.

“Uh.” Because Chanyeol, unlike that ungrateful narcoleptic loudmouth upstairs, was raised with manners, he offers a gallant hand to the red-cloaked boy. “Park Chanyeol. Hi. Nice to meet you?”

“Chanyeol?” he can hear Baekhyun holler. “Is it human?”

“A guest,” he shouts back. The boy doesn’t take his hand. “You can follow me upstairs? And, uh. You don’t have to be scared. Whatever’s out there can’t hurt you here.”

“Really?” The boy clutches tightly at the basket. It looks empty.

“Yeah. And,” Chanyeol puffs out his chest. “I’m a prince. I can protect you.”

“Okay. Sure.” The boy agrees almost absently, and begins to climb the stairs ahead of Chanyeol, leaving him between the door and the outside world.

Baekhyun dreams alive the slavering jaws of a wolf, a white-furred beast with limbs like steel.

“Your princess is in another castle,” Jongdae greets hesitantly, curiously eyeing the red-cloaked boy.

“Hello,” the boy answers. “I’m …” Pausing, his eyes dart for the door again as Chanyeol clanks into view from behind. “Kyungsoo. Do Kyungsoo.”

The name jolts Baekhyun out of sleep (wake! up!).

“Hello,” he says neutrally. “You’re shorter than what I imagined you to be.”

“That’s rude. You’re so rude,” Chanyeol snorts.

“Another castle,” Jongdae agrees.

“Hey, is that all you can say?” Kyungsoo turns curious eyes on Jongdae.

“Uh. Yeah.” Baekhyun stretches. “It’s not a bad curse, as far as they go. My father had an advisor cursed by a witch, once. It was terrible. Jongdae’s could be worse.”

“Is that what happened to you?” Kyungsoo shows remarkable power in ignoring Baekhyun. Jongdae shoots Baekhyun a speak for yourself stare before shrugging it off almost immediately, smile coming out like sunshine.

“Jongdae smiled at a witch having a bad day,” Baekhyun snickers. “My father’s advisor was turned into a giraffe.”

“Wow.”

“I know. Doesn’t it suck?”

“I meant him.” Kyungsoo rolls his eyes. Chanyeol is fascinated by that movement, his expressive face molding itself into a expression of distaste aimed in Baekhyun’s direction.

Once upon a time, as the years weighed down his reign, the Winter King’s loneliness transformed into a searing rage.

His people remained afraid of him. They barred their doors against him, shuttering themselves away during the long season. Despite the wonder of his magic, their fear ruled them - until the Winter King tired of waiting. His sadness corrupted that lovely castle from the inside and poisoned the stones.

The dragon came to life, answering the wrath of its master. Its eyes glittered like diamonds.

The Winter King’s solitude seeded destruction. He called furious winds to rake over deep gashes in the earth, cruel ice slashing down from the sky. His magic shattered the barriers of his castle.

The dragon curled up in the courtyard and waited for its master to come home.

Baekhyun dreams awake a winter magic. He can hear voices, in the distance, beyond the boundaries of conscious comprehension.

Chanyeol is talking to someone - probably Kyungsoo - with soft tones and garbled words. It might’ve been a comment on the weather.

(have to get back … it’s getting cold in here)

The wind howls outside. “The wolf!” Kyungsoo scrambles to duck behind a bemused Chanyeol, whose hand automatically goes for the sword belted to his hips. “He’s coming for me!”

“It’s just the wind.” Chanyeol tries to keep his voice level, but the wind ramps up to a scream.

Baekhyun dreams awake a dragon, sleeping deeply beneath layers of snow and ice. Its blue-grey scales, each the size of a knight’s shield, were tinged with white frost. The wolf prowls at the edges of the Winter King’s dead land.

“I have to get out of here. The wolf is coming - he’s coming for me.”

Kyungsoo looks half-frightened to death. Jongdae wiggles his way out of the bed and wraps warm arms around his shoulders. “Princess,” he says carefully.

“Nothing’s gonna get you here,” Chanyeol adds. Baekhyun pats the empty space beside him.

“C’mere. Chanyeol can secure the castle. He’s a prince. He does this for a living.”

Jongdae walks Kyungsoo over, nose pressed to Kyungsoo’s shoulder.

“Yeah. I do.” There’s a funny feeling in the pit of his stomach at the sight of that boy looking so scared. At the top of the staircase, he looks back at those three: Baekhyun falling asleep against Kyungsoo, Jongdae still holding his trembling hands. Kyungsoo looks content there, limbs relaxed and comfortable, which is what fuels Chanyeol down the stairs.

(wake up, wake up, please)

Once upon a time, while the earth learned to love the sun, the Winter King’s dragon dreamt people into the deserted streets.

They passed the time, these little creatures - living and dying in his dreamscape. The dragon watched as generations of humans lived their lives without ever knowing the Winter King and his destruction. He fed them little scraps of the tale: the Winter King’s extravagant coming as heralds of the changing season; the Winter King’s incredible loneliness, shut up alone in his castle.

When he woke, they disappeared. And they were never the same when he returned to dreaming.

Baekhyun dreams about a warmth pressed against him, soft hair against his cheek. “Hm?” he mumbles, caught between reality and his dreamscape (where Chanyeol and Jongdae are trying to fuse the generators together - no, where the prince grips his sword with both hands and vows to slay the wolf).

“He snores, a little.”

Jongdae nods his agreement.

“I used to exchange letters with someone, when I was young.”

“Castle?”

“Yeah. Another prince. He wrote me letters for years.”

“I thought it was you.” Baekhyun stirs, rousing himself. “I didn’t know you still looked like a kid.” Behind Kyungsoo’s back, Jongdae elbows Baekhyun in the ribs. “You still have the biggest eyes I’ve ever seen. I thought your portrait was exaggerating.”

“The better to see you with.” But the smile Kyungsoo give Baekhyun is all teeth. Baekhyun focuses on that face as sleep claims him again, the gentle interlude of conversation evading him.

Baekhyun dreams about a prince, descendant of princes, clanking his way down a staircase without a princess or prize in his hands. He dreams about the weight of an unsheathed sword in his hands, familiar face and tall limbs.

He dreams Chanyeol’s panic, his voice echoing against blue-grey stonework. “I can’t save anybody,” he can hear him say, forlorn. “I don’t even have a horse.”

Chanyeol is peering outside the gate, half-hoping for nothing at all; Baekhyun can feel the tension of his shoulders at the sight of a white something in the distance, lean and four-legged. He tightens his grasp on the sword.

The world fractures.

The Winter King never came home. His loneliness took him away from his kingdom - and his castle, and his dragon - until the sun shone at its mightiest. Its rays melted smooth the jagged, raw edges of his realm and coaxed it to grow again. The sun healed nearly every square inch of his land, save that where his castle stood.

The dragon stayed in the husk of the broken castle, waiting.

There’s a tale with a princess asleep, a broken-open castle and a wolf in the woods. There’s a tale of victory, where every prince wins his war against his opponents; it ends happily ever after, despite the best efforts of the witches and wolves of the world. Chanyeol’s heart beats steadily underneath the protective steel of his armor.

(rescue is not coming - no hails on the band - communications wiped out)

The dreamscape splinters.

Captain’s log.

There’s a local legend here that Jongdae and Kyungsoo unearthed several days ago, something about a Winter King. It definitely explains how long the winters are on this planet - not that it’s any comfort. But I’m not complaining, because it’s either fairy tales and legends about winter deities or Chanyeol and Kyungsoo singing that stupid song again.

I mean, wonderful composition. At least they should teach everybody else on this base the lyrics, that’s fair. But they don’t - and I’m the one stuck with that melody in my head, da-da-dada-da.

Anyway. Three months, six days, fifteen hours into our assignment: Jongdae is still programming, Chanyeol is still rewiring consoles, and Kyungsoo has been nagging me about food for half this planet’s Solar year. It’d be kind of sweet, if I thought he did it because he cared; why couldn’t Headquarters assign us a Quartermaster who wouldn’t stoop to cannibalism jokes?

Three months, six days, and fifteen hours in - we have only five months left here on this godforsaken base. Assignment nearing completion; Captain Byun Baekhyun, signing off.

“Wake up, god damn it.” Kyungsoo’s voice is flat, his hands trembling from the frostbitten wind. “Baekhyun, for God’s sake, fucking wake up.”

Captain’s log.

We have been here not two days - not two days! - and Chanyeol has already blown up a thing. He was rewiring some parts, and (as far as I can tell) a tube was connected in the wrong way. There’s some scorch marks in a pretty cool radius, but I can already hear what the criticism will be like: there’s no place for that kind of mishap on a planetary base, you’ll have to redo it, what were you thinking. Kyungsoo’s jamming Chanyeol’s pockets with kinetispanner bits when he’s not looking: but I am, so it’s pretty funny to see Chanyeol clanking around with an entire starship engineer’s toolkit in his pockets.

(Audio: “Do you hear that?”

“S’the wind.” Mumble mumble, long extended vowels. Engineer Park with a miniature hydraulic suspension lever jammed between his teeth and Quartermaster Do humming some kind of answer.

“We’ll seal the tubes and get out of here, yeah? It’s warmer on the bridge.”)

Jongdae’s driving all of us crazy with his schematics - apparently whoever coded the programs here didn’t have any concepts of runtime in a faster scale than decades. He’s redoing everything - not that I mind, since it keeps him away from trouble and makes sure Kyungsoo gets the full brunt of Chanyeol’s weak-minded revenge.

Those kinetispanners should probably be used for, uh. Actual repairs. But if Headquarters assigns a skeleton crew to a godforsaken frozen-to-hell fifteen-centuries-out-of-date planet, I guess this is what happens. We have eight months (an eternity?) here, after all.

“We don’t have any power. We don’t have any power at all - what we’re broadcasting to you is something that hopefully works, for the love of - Chanyeol, I’m looking at you - please. If you’re there, this is Planetside Base 1515 requesting S&R for a crew of four. Please. Can you hear us?”

Captain’s log. With Baekhyun out of commission, it’s becoming rapidly apparent that this punishment was designed for all of us, not just him. Headquarters probably didn’t find our little joke very funny - but I have a visual feed of recordings that people have been gifting us since we were assigned here: that’s nearly four months of hilarious multiangle video. I’d publish them, but I don’t even know what this base’s designation codes are - and seriously, whoever programmed anything here deserves to wake up in a frozen purgatory … that looks exactly like this place.

There are some funny knocks that should be shaken out by the time we file our next official report. Maintenance and physical repairs are going well - the quantum grids aren’t great, but that’s Chanyeol’s department.

I think Kyungsoo’s going to poison us in our sleep. Or just Chanyeol. He thinks Chanyeol hasn’t been noticing how he’s jamming his uniform pockets with stuff, but that’s just because Kyungsoo hasn’t been checking his inbox lately. We’ve signed him up for a lot of spam and strip clubs.

I mean, Chanyeol has. I’m busy doing things. Yeah.

Cap’n hit his head hard against one of those plasteel things when Chanyeol blew open another tube. We’ll try to scrub away the scorch marks, but seriously, can’t we just keep them? They kind of look neat. Not that we’re encouraging him to blow stuff up - we’d like to get out of here A.S.A.P. and him doing that just prolongs this fucking damnation. Kyungsoo’s got Baekhyun wrapped up in one of the medical chambers. We have shifts in there now, just to see if he wakes up and remembers anything.

Go figure: he’s the one who got us assigned here, and he’s the one who manages to get out of it halfway through. It’s not like that Baekhyun guy has friends, no - just accomplices.

“... S&R … is anybody out there? … It’s very cold here … This is Base 1515 …”

A storm cycle’s hit us midway through a maintenance shutdown. I know Kyungsoo read the planet’s datafile, but seriously. It’s getting bad out there. Chanyeol cracked some kind of joke about huddling together for warmth, but I’d rather eat lead than cuddle with those three in a tiny medical pod.

Speaking of, our glorious captain awoke for several hours yesterday - we sedated him (not because Kyungsoo had that hyposyringe in his hands and we didn’t want to take it away from him, uh) and he’s sleeping fine, now. We’re not doing shifts anymore, since it’s apparently some kind of healing sleep. It’s a pity - Kyungsoo and I were reading him some of the local stories, but I never got to know what it was like at the end of it.

“This is engineer-in-chief Park Chanyeol … search and rescue … come in. We’re broadcasting from … come in …”

Chanyeol’s nerves, under siege the moment he stepped outside the castle, are rapidly fraying. The wolf inches toward the castle, sniffing at the air.

A prince’s sword is a thing of magic, forged to protect brave hearts and ensure goodness. It sharpens itself.

He can sense it: the wolf draws ever closer to what he protects.

Where the beast walked on frozen ground, its tracks leave a miasma of bloodlust against the white snow. The thick metal of Chanyeol’s sword grows ever sharper in the memory of Jongdae’s laughter and Baekhyun’s smile (don’t look behind you, look dead ahead). He kisses the haft of his sword in a crusader’s salute, and hopes for strength.

Chanyeol cobbles together a beacon with the spare parts on the console room floor. Kyungsoo’s lips are blue. He wires it to the heart of the base, engineering degree be damned - it sucks the remaining energy out from the works, Jongdae’s monitors flickering shut at the death of their reserve power. He sets it to broadcast at its highest, at every frequency he can manage.

Sleep piles on him, like snow. White noise crackles on the band.

“You kids are the luckiest crew I’ve ever clapped eyes on.”

Baekhyun tries to focus on the source of that sound. “Easy, easy.” A soothing voice. “Can you tell me your name?”

“Byun Baekhyun.” The words are strange in his mouth. “Captain, assigned to Planetary Base 1515, credentials at - ”

“Is he gonna be okay?” Jongdae sounds concerned - which means he’s alive, they’re all alive. Baekhyun remembers a crash, plassteel exploding, and a deathly frigid cold that swept the hollow base into sleep.

“Yeah. I think he’ll make it - he’s just confused. The concussion.”

“Hey.” Baekhyun heaves his eyelids open to see a stranger - and Kyungsoo staring down at him. It’s a sight that brings him back; he remembers the academy and Kyungsoo in that exact same position when it was exam season.

He takes time to breathe before talking. “Hey.” His voice sounds weak, even to his own ears. “I had a nightmare, and you were in it.”

“He’s back,” Kyungsoo comments drily. Jongdae gently slaps his palm against Baekhyun’s - the invalid’s high-five. The stranger laughs.

“You were out for a long time.” Chanyeol looks like hell. He slouches on the floor, back curved against the wall of a cargo bay.

“Where are we?”

“Merchant ship picked up our distress beacon. It went eighty klicks outside atmo. I’m told our search and rescue was hard, since part of the base caved in when the storm hit its worst.”

“It was,” the stranger agrees. “I’m Zhang Yixing. I fished your friends out of a snowdrift.”

“Thank you.” Baekhyun focuses on his surroundings, shaking away the last tendrils of the dream. “Eight klicks? Chanyeol, that’s breaking the laws of electromagnetism.”

“Nah, I went low-tech. That’s the first time I used copper wiring in anything before. Base was just one giant amplifier - until the power ran out, at any rate.” Chanyeol shudders at the thought.

“You know, you look like hell.”

“I slept. Like the dead. I’m never going to sleep again.”

“You say that now, but Kyungsoo knows where the med bay is.”

“No, I don’t,” he deflects - but there’s a keen edge to his smile that belies the threat. Yixing laughs again, the sound wonderful and warm after all those months of tinny, caged-up activity.

“We’ll dock at the nearest spaceport in a few hours. Get some rest while you can.” He stands up and offers Baekhyun another friendly smile. “Nice to meet you, and all.”

“I like him,” Jongdae says immediately after his departure.

“He saved our lives,” Kyungsoo adds. “You’re supposed to like people who do that. Besides - you should meet the other people on this ship. Yixing’s crew are odd people.”

Chanyeol snorts. “You know, after Base 1515, I think I could do with that.”

“Never mind his crew, what about the spaceport? When we dock, we should probably file with Headquarters. They probably think we’re dead.” Kyungsoo looks worried at the prospect of it.

“I threatened to space you during the Academy and they didn’t notice,” Baekhyun objects. “Besides, what am I supposed to report? Hit my head four months into the assignment, got rescued by a passerby?”

“Yeah. Report exactly that.”

Captain’s log.

This is Captain Byun Baekhyun, probationary status, formerly of Planetary Base 1515. Apologies for the lack of updates: there were concussions and an epic snowstorm that wiped out our tech array. Currently docked at a public spaceport, local codes X75, Y08, Z125589.

Headquarters’ assignment unfortunately unfulfilled, due to freakishly violent weather. You know, there’s some kind of cultural history around this base that tells of a Winter King and his fury …

ship: ot4, cycle: summer 2014

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