Into the Dark
This is written from a song prompt (“You’ll never walk alone” gerry and the Pacemakers) from followurdestiny. OMG I FINALLY WROTE OUR CELEBRATIONAL FIC THINGY BB <3
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INTO THE DARK (Hankyung x Yunho)
Everything smelt like death. It was the rotting of rubbish and bodies, the bitter sting of copper and the scent of destruction. The streets were filthy, wet with grime and blood and oil, doors swung wide open, creaking and banging against the doorframes in the wind, invitations into the darkness beyond and the horrors that lay within the empty houses, long abandoned by its occupants.
They were running, leaping over fallen trees and crumpled cars with shattered windows and hiding from the them , the changed people, the creatures that stumbled around aimlessly. They looked harmlessly enough, but both Yunho and Hankyung knew how utterly dangerous these unimposing creatures could be; Yunho still had the scar across his cheek from last time and Hankyung still had thick bandages wrapped across his shoulder. They ran and ran and there was desperation in their steps, because this wasn’t a just race or a competition, not one for a medal or glory or even for alcohol like they had all played for that summer, but a game of survival that can never be won, with life the unattainable prize. Even as Yunho pushed harder, feet pounding against the cracked concrete, he knew they couldn’t run forever.
It hadn’t always been this way. There had been a time, not so long ago, even though it seemed like another lifetime, when the streets had been clean and bustling, the trees and the plants green and neat and flourishing. There had been a time, where there had been people. A time where there were always people rushing about, rushing through jobs and relationships and life. Back when there had been things to rush through. Back when all Yunho had to worry about was how to pass high school and become the captain of the basketball team and how to get Hankyung to fall in love with him. Then it had came and there was only silence.
It crept onto them silently, soft as a whisper and deadly in a way that didn’t kill, but did much much worse. They had all been unaware, so happy and excited at graduating, that they spent all their days drinking and dancing and curled up together on the couch. It had started as a flu spout, then it was a pandemic and then there wasn’t a name for it, because there had never been anything like this before and all the people who named these things weren’t there anymore. There were funeral services and mass production of coffins, until all that stopped too, there was no point burying people when they only clawed their way back out.
It hadn’t always been the two of them either; there had been six of them at the start. Yunho couldn’t remember how they all met and became friends, only that they were; the best kind too, the ones that turned up at each other’s houses at 3am and drunk dialed each other and slept on the floor of one of their houses, because the bed couldn’t fit them all and they wanted to be together. And they weren’t just friends, they were something more, not quite lovers at times, sharing simple pecks and embraces and at other times more than just lovers, sharing things that weren’t ever meant to be shared with anyone but your soulmate. That’s how they were that summer, excited for the future, loving the present, sharing each and every balmy day with each other. Yunho finally knew what it meant to be happy, how it felt to hold those hands he had always itched to hold, how amazing it is to kiss those lips and claim such a gorgeous man his . He had wanted that summer to last forever and it was just as he was building his dreams (ones that didn’t involve white picket fences but a small apartment for two with a room mimicking a dance studio), that everything came crashing down.
Junsu had been the first one to be taken, back when they still tried to heal people with medicine and hospitals. There had been tears and fear and shock and chicken soup in white hospital rooms and a funeral filled with white lilies and sobbing guests. By the time Yoochun had fallen ill, the hospital corridors were crawling with them, and bodies took the place of doctors and the dying and the dead spread out on the hospital trolleys, the blood soaking through starched sheets that weren’t white anymore. They didn’t take Yoochun to hospital, they sat with him at his favorite beach and they watched him die. They burnt his body, in a great roaring bonfire on the sands, the flames dancing high into the night sky, and they cry and blame it on the smoke. They couldn’t bury him (even though Hankyung mutters to them that was how Yoochun wanted it). It was bad enough seeing Junsu again, because it wasn’t Junsu anymore and Yunho wonders how Hankyung can sleep at night without remembering the feel of those hands wrapped around his throat.
It was only a little afterwards, after all the electricity had been cut off and they were cut off, that Changmin left town, drove away in his car after begging them to go with him. They try to tell him it’s hopeless, that it’s not just their town anymore, it’s the whole country, the whole fucking world and what is the point of running when the entire world is about to end anyway. Changmin screams at them and pulls at them and he is wiping tears as he drive away amid their pleas to stay together. Then there were only three and they spend the night curled up together on a bed in a stranger’s house with wooden picture frames of horses and pastel blue walls. They cling to each other and sleep, faces pressing into each other’s necks and they hope to wake to a morning of blue skies and white fluffy clouds. They don’t wake up to blue skies, they don’t wake to a morning at all, because it’s still dark even as the clock on the walls read 10am and there is only darkness outside the window; endless black skies with dark red clouds.
They stick close and there’s a gun in Yunho’s hands and a dagger in Hankyung’s, a beautiful antique with wooden handles and Chinese carved into it (Hankyung tells them what it says: Walk through the wind, walk through the rain, through your dreams. Jaejoong says it’s beautiful; Yunho tries to remember what his dreams are). Jaejoong is holding a kitchen knife and it would be absolutely hilarious, except Yunho couldn’t seem to remember how to laugh either. Yunho and Hankyung are guarding the door, because Jaejoong hadn’t been feeling very well- it was just exhaustion, nothing else, definitely not it - and then they were being shoved out and Hankyung bangs against the door so hard that it rattles. They’re a second away from breaking the window, when there was a horrible tearing noise that could be heard even over the whistling wind and Yunho catches Hankyung and drag him away, as something hits the glass from within. The blue walls aren’t blue anymore, they’re splashed with long thick splotches of red and Yunho throws up his breakfast on the front lawn and Hankyung is dry heaving until there’s only ragged chokes and he’s coughing up blood that mixes with the tears and leaves pink streaks down his shirt.
They move through the town and there’s no one else here, no one alive. They spot their old school teacher, the one who marks really easily- Yunho’s favorite teacher, and the canteen lady near the school and Yunho and Hankyung turn away as she grabs his hand and pulls him into a hug and rips out his throat. They had been married for two month. The two of them walk through the school, which is strangely empty, only overturned tables and cracked walls. They keep their eyes alert and they try to ignore the blood splattered white board and the bodies- or what must have been bodies- lying open and spread out on the tables, on the chairs, on the floor and on the stairs; red messes of muscles specked with shattered bits of bone. There wasn’t enough fresh food supply left for the creatures; they hunted what they can, ate each other and themselves.
They sit on the rooftop, their weapons lying forgotten on the ground, leaning against each other, watching the stars that aren’t there anymore. There’s a rumbling of sorts shaking the building, faintly building growls and snarls and the stamp of feet. The two of them ignore it all, because this, now, this wasn’t part of that world, not part of the pain and horror, it was only part of their world. This was where they had met for the first time, when Yunho had stumbled onto a crying young exchange student and couldn’t move away. This was where Yunho had first confessed, all awkward laughs and shifting feet and Hankyung had answered with a brilliant smile. This was where they had first belonged to each other, loud and hot, fully and completely, sealing their fate together. They hold hands now, fingers clasping together loosely and there’s thunder crackling above and the rain is pouring down, and they sit there through it all, the rest of the world forgotten and insignificant.
There’s the screech of metal and thundering feet and Yunho whispers, “You’ll never walk alone, Geng” onto his lover’s lips and then there’s hands on them, and teeth and there’s tearing and breaking and pain and so much noise. There’s red, only red, behind Yunho’s eyes and inside of him and spilling out, mixing with Hankyung’s and the rain isn’t enough to wash it all away. Then the red finally fades and the black starts to creep in and Yunho smiles, because he can still feel Hankyung’s hand in his, even as everything starts to fade.
Even into the darkness, they’ll never walk alone.
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INTO THE DARK (Hankyung x Yunho)
Everything smelt like death. It was the rotting of rubbish and bodies, the bitter sting of copper and the scent of destruction. The streets were filthy, wet with grime and blood and oil, doors swung wide open, creaking and banging against the doorframes in the wind, invitations into the darkness beyond and the horrors that lay within the empty houses, long abandoned by its occupants.
They were running, leaping over fallen trees and crumpled cars with shattered windows and hiding from the them , the changed people, the creatures that stumbled around aimlessly. They looked harmlessly enough, but both Yunho and Hankyung knew how utterly dangerous these unimposing creatures could be; Yunho still had the scar across his cheek from last time and Hankyung still had thick bandages wrapped across his shoulder. They ran and ran and there was desperation in their steps, because this wasn’t a just race or a competition, not one for a medal or glory or even for alcohol like they had all played for that summer, but a game of survival that can never be won, with life the unattainable prize. Even as Yunho pushed harder, feet pounding against the cracked concrete, he knew they couldn’t run forever.
It hadn’t always been this way. There had been a time, not so long ago, even though it seemed like another lifetime, when the streets had been clean and bustling, the trees and the plants green and neat and flourishing. There had been a time, where there had been people. A time where there were always people rushing about, rushing through jobs and relationships and life. Back when there had been things to rush through. Back when all Yunho had to worry about was how to pass high school and become the captain of the basketball team and how to get Hankyung to fall in love with him. Then it had came and there was only silence.
It crept onto them silently, soft as a whisper and deadly in a way that didn’t kill, but did much much worse. They had all been unaware, so happy and excited at graduating, that they spent all their days drinking and dancing and curled up together on the couch. It had started as a flu spout, then it was a pandemic and then there wasn’t a name for it, because there had never been anything like this before and all the people who named these things weren’t there anymore. There were funeral services and mass production of coffins, until all that stopped too, there was no point burying people when they only clawed their way back out.
It hadn’t always been the two of them either; there had been six of them at the start. Yunho couldn’t remember how they all met and became friends, only that they were; the best kind too, the ones that turned up at each other’s houses at 3am and drunk dialed each other and slept on the floor of one of their houses, because the bed couldn’t fit them all and they wanted to be together. And they weren’t just friends, they were something more, not quite lovers at times, sharing simple pecks and embraces and at other times more than just lovers, sharing things that weren’t ever meant to be shared with anyone but your soulmate. That’s how they were that summer, excited for the future, loving the present, sharing each and every balmy day with each other. Yunho finally knew what it meant to be happy, how it felt to hold those hands he had always itched to hold, how amazing it is to kiss those lips and claim such a gorgeous man his . He had wanted that summer to last forever and it was just as he was building his dreams (ones that didn’t involve white picket fences but a small apartment for two with a room mimicking a dance studio), that everything came crashing down.
Junsu had been the first one to be taken, back when they still tried to heal people with medicine and hospitals. There had been tears and fear and shock and chicken soup in white hospital rooms and a funeral filled with white lilies and sobbing guests. By the time Yoochun had fallen ill, the hospital corridors were crawling with them, and bodies took the place of doctors and the dying and the dead spread out on the hospital trolleys, the blood soaking through starched sheets that weren’t white anymore. They didn’t take Yoochun to hospital, they sat with him at his favorite beach and they watched him die. They burnt his body, in a great roaring bonfire on the sands, the flames dancing high into the night sky, and they cry and blame it on the smoke. They couldn’t bury him (even though Hankyung mutters to them that was how Yoochun wanted it). It was bad enough seeing Junsu again, because it wasn’t Junsu anymore and Yunho wonders how Hankyung can sleep at night without remembering the feel of those hands wrapped around his throat.
It was only a little afterwards, after all the electricity had been cut off and they were cut off, that Changmin left town, drove away in his car after begging them to go with him. They try to tell him it’s hopeless, that it’s not just their town anymore, it’s the whole country, the whole fucking world and what is the point of running when the entire world is about to end anyway. Changmin screams at them and pulls at them and he is wiping tears as he drive away amid their pleas to stay together. Then there were only three and they spend the night curled up together on a bed in a stranger’s house with wooden picture frames of horses and pastel blue walls. They cling to each other and sleep, faces pressing into each other’s necks and they hope to wake to a morning of blue skies and white fluffy clouds. They don’t wake up to blue skies, they don’t wake to a morning at all, because it’s still dark even as the clock on the walls read 10am and there is only darkness outside the window; endless black skies with dark red clouds.
They stick close and there’s a gun in Yunho’s hands and a dagger in Hankyung’s, a beautiful antique with wooden handles and Chinese carved into it (Hankyung tells them what it says: Walk through the wind, walk through the rain, through your dreams. Jaejoong says it’s beautiful; Yunho tries to remember what his dreams are). Jaejoong is holding a kitchen knife and it would be absolutely hilarious, except Yunho couldn’t seem to remember how to laugh either. Yunho and Hankyung are guarding the door, because Jaejoong hadn’t been feeling very well- it was just exhaustion, nothing else, definitely not it - and then they were being shoved out and Hankyung bangs against the door so hard that it rattles. They’re a second away from breaking the window, when there was a horrible tearing noise that could be heard even over the whistling wind and Yunho catches Hankyung and drag him away, as something hits the glass from within. The blue walls aren’t blue anymore, they’re splashed with long thick splotches of red and Yunho throws up his breakfast on the front lawn and Hankyung is dry heaving until there’s only ragged chokes and he’s coughing up blood that mixes with the tears and leaves pink streaks down his shirt.
They move through the town and there’s no one else here, no one alive. They spot their old school teacher, the one who marks really easily- Yunho’s favorite teacher, and the canteen lady near the school and Yunho and Hankyung turn away as she grabs his hand and pulls him into a hug and rips out his throat. They had been married for two month. The two of them walk through the school, which is strangely empty, only overturned tables and cracked walls. They keep their eyes alert and they try to ignore the blood splattered white board and the bodies- or what must have been bodies- lying open and spread out on the tables, on the chairs, on the floor and on the stairs; red messes of muscles specked with shattered bits of bone. There wasn’t enough fresh food supply left for the creatures; they hunted what they can, ate each other and themselves.
They sit on the rooftop, their weapons lying forgotten on the ground, leaning against each other, watching the stars that aren’t there anymore. There’s a rumbling of sorts shaking the building, faintly building growls and snarls and the stamp of feet. The two of them ignore it all, because this, now, this wasn’t part of that world, not part of the pain and horror, it was only part of their world. This was where they had met for the first time, when Yunho had stumbled onto a crying young exchange student and couldn’t move away. This was where Yunho had first confessed, all awkward laughs and shifting feet and Hankyung had answered with a brilliant smile. This was where they had first belonged to each other, loud and hot, fully and completely, sealing their fate together. They hold hands now, fingers clasping together loosely and there’s thunder crackling above and the rain is pouring down, and they sit there through it all, the rest of the world forgotten and insignificant.
There’s the screech of metal and thundering feet and Yunho whispers, “You’ll never walk alone, Geng” onto his lover’s lips and then there’s hands on them, and teeth and there’s tearing and breaking and pain and so much noise. There’s red, only red, behind Yunho’s eyes and inside of him and spilling out, mixing with Hankyung’s and the rain isn’t enough to wash it all away. Then the red finally fades and the black starts to creep in and Yunho smiles, because he can still feel Hankyung’s hand in his, even as everything starts to fade.
Even into the darkness, they’ll never walk alone.