[baekyeol] you're too beautiful to be crying every day.
you're too beautiful to be crying every day;
chanyeol/baekhyun; pg; ~1200w
dystopian!au, mama!au - it gets hard to deal with the aftermath. [warning]
character death
white is the color of the ash that fell like snowflakes the day we lost everything. orange is the color the flames burnt, obliterating everything that dared stand in its path (only people as foolish, as headstrong as we were). crimson is the color you bled, viscous liquid slowly trickling down your leg from a wound in your side as you struggled to remain standing but fell, the mighty dictator with his legs swept out from underneath him because of a literal stab in the back. gray is the color your face turned as you struggled to keep awake. fuschia is the color your fingertips turned when i squeezed your hand but i was thankful, because that meant blood was still flowing and you were still alive and we still had hope.
//
they came for us in the night. i hadn’t expected it, but i think you did - you were always the more astute, more careful one. you noticed the little details while i was more about the big picture, but it was okay. it made us better as a whole, more complete than we were as compared to being a sum of our parts and nothing else. i liked that, and i hope to think you’d liked that too.
“chanyeol, maybe we should lock the doors and windows tonight.” you said as you bit your lip worriedly. “maybe they know about us.”
all the maybes, all the possibilities. you had them all mapped out in your head way before i even found the starting point.
“i don’t think so,” i laughed. “we can’t have come so far only to have our luck run out now, can we, baek?”
“you didn’t see his face today,” you sighed, small hand reaching up to caress my face fondly. it was a habit you had, and a habit i miss even now. nowadays, physical affection is a rarity, something i left behind in the past. “he looked like he knew something about us, about our whole movement. he looked like he knew we were working to take him down.”
“don’t be paranoid,” i whispered as i held my arms open wide and you clambered into them without a second’s hesitation. you didn’t exactly fit into them perfectly because you weren’t that tiny and i wasn’t that tall, but it was familiarity and love rolled into one simple gesture and i don’t think neither of us used to mind.
that was the way we fell asleep, without even turning out the lights. we forgot. you forgot to manipulate the rays, i forgot to remind you. it was nobody else’s fault but ours. and that’s how they found us, the soldiers on night patrol, looking out for hearts like us who dared to be brave.
//
they brought us in, poked and prodded and demanded but we said we’d never tell. it was a promise we made when we joined the group, do you remember? and i swore to honor it with my last breath, with my last heartbeat, and never divulge anything we weren’t meant to.
but then they took you, dragged you away kicking and screaming and all of a sudden i wasn’t sure who was screaming louder, you or i? they’d blinded you so you couldn’t see the light, couldn’t control anything and put me in chains. i was fighting against my restraints, the unbreakable metal chafing against my skin and tearing it wide open, but the pain was nothing compared to the fear. those chains i couldn’t break, because they’d reinforced them with some mysterious metal that wouldn’t melt, and my emotions were interfering with my ability to control myself. the fear that they would hurt you, break you so irreparably open you couldn’t be fixed; or even worse, take you from me forever in the most painful of ways. and you were shouting, saying that you’d never tell and i shouldn’t either or you’d never forgive me.
those were the last words i ever heard you say. the screams, however, lasted a lot longer, the soundtrack to my nightmares even now.
//
i don’t know what they put you through, but when they returned you to our shared jail cell a week later you were broken. physically, emotionally, mentally. they crushed you, till you were nothing more than a paper doll breathing and blinking, with no soul or spirit whatsoever.
(it was hell without you, always pacing the tiny space that reeked of cruelty and malevolence. going out of my mind without your voice and laughter and the sight of you. perhaps i faced more of my demons alone in that cell than i ever had anywhere else.)
you couldn’t even recognise me, took one look at me and backed away into one corner as if you were afraid i’d hurt you. as if i could, as if i would ever.
“no, please,” you gasped. “stay away, i’m afraid-” you broke off as you shuddered. and at that point in time, i knew i couldn’t have done anything. i merely held you, ignoring the way you struggled weakly, futilely because you were bleeding out and we had nothing to our name, not even the memories, and that hurt even more than anything. i held you the way you liked to be held and the way i liked to hold you, waiting for your ragged breaths to even out and cease as you left me behind.
i couldn’t cry, wouldn’t cry. when you are made of fire, water is your deadliest enemy. that’s what you used to say, but maybe now i think about it, you were my greatest enemy, my biggest weakness - hurt you, and you inevitably shake my foundations, ruin me as well. maybe we were both wrong all along.
i burnt my way out that day. i set fire to the entire prison without regard for my own safety, because without you i had nothing more to lose.
//
was black the color that blanketed your vision then, unseeing hands stretched out as you tried to view the world through nothing but your fingertips? is black the color that blinds you now, separating you from the light you so revered? i don’t think i’ll ever know.
what i do know is this: white is the color of loneliness, an emptiness so vast inside me it swallows up everything else. but i don’t mind, because white is also the color of pure light, the color of you.
i see you in the way the flames reflect off any smooth metal surfaces. i see you in the sunrise and amongst the stars, sometimes, if i’m lucky. i see you in the way we’re still fighting, jongdae and lu han and jongin and all the others.
(and i hope that somewhere, wherever you are, you’re looking down on us. that wherever you are, there’s light and maybe a little bit of fire, to remind you of me.)
fin.
+ why do i even bother tbh
+ i am sorry this is so jumbled
+ i can't seem to write happy!baekyeol huh