[fic] Lux Æterna
Lux Æterna
pg13 - yunjae/ot5
summary: "and i will follow you (he says) until the sky falls down. the room starts to rumble." [many many many thanks to ishougen, who read this and loved it and convinced me it was okay to post~ <3] Also, a soundtrack? More like, songs I listened to writing this~ if you're interested!
and i will follow you (he says) until the sky falls down.
the room starts to rumble.
don't ever forget me (you say) when you're alone.
i will never be alone (he screams).
the walls start to crack and the sounds the pieces of sky makes as they fall onto the earth are heartbreaking and horrifying.
i love you i love you i love you.
time passes.time passes.time passes.time passes.time passes.time passes.you open your eyes.
where am i (you say) where am i.
no one answers because you're alone in the bedroom where love was alive.
the bed has cracked in two, the walls have wrinkles. the floor has waves and the bookshelf and books are tossed around like flowerpetals that have withered away.
you're curled into a corner where the tv used to be and there's something dried and red on the palms of your hands.
t h e r o o m i s t o o s i l e n t .
the world is bright. the middle of the afternoon and no one is mowing grass or playing in the sprinklers in the summer heat. the neighbor's son's tricycle is missing a wheel.
where is my second wheel (you wonder) where has he gone.
the trees don't rustle because they don't have leaves. bare branches stab into the air. the sky above-
you step around pieces of sky as delicately as you can. they look like glass, perfect blue and dotted with clouds. one piece has red around the edges and someone's hand has grabbed a hold of a corner.
there are no people around. in the city only five minutes away, there's a stillness that betrays the way the air above whirls dark and furious.
how is the world still bright (you ask) when there's nothing but storms above us.
A SHRIEK. A SCREAM. ANGUISH AND PAIN.
you drop to your knees and cover your head with your hands because the sound is so loud it pierces your head, sinks into your brain and pounds. you can't hold back the dry sob that rips from your throat. the scream goes on, and it becomes less and less like death, and more and more like the sounds the baby two houses down made when it first woke up in the morning and it's mother wasn't yet in the room. the remembrance makes you peel away from yourself.
the pieces of sky come in all different sizes. they feel like stepping stones to the house two houses down. the houses on the cracked and mangled concrete street look like people. some are crumbling, falling into pieces where the sky broke them apart. some are standing strong, fortresses with sky glittered across their roofs.
you find the baby girl clutched into arms into a body without a head. you see the strands of red hair the same color as the baby girl's on something round only a foot away. you take the baby girl into your arms into a body where your head is still attached and she stops screaming immediately. her eyes are big and brown and you name her Aurora because you'll never tell her the secret of her birth to parents that couldn't be there to take care of her.
let's go find our missing wheel (you coo) sleeping beauty.
you realize on your way to the city that your shoulder is bleeding. there's a piece of sky lodged into your shoulderblade and it's numb and only throbs. you make sure to hold Aurora on your good shoulder and you think that you and your sleeping beauty need to go to the city. if people are still alive, the city is where they'll meet. you almost want to cry in happiness when you open up a cabinet in Aurora's kitchen and there is cans and cans and cans of baby formula and pretty little baby bottles besides them.
the refrigerator is on its side, the dishwasher is caved in, the back door has been sliced clean into half.
you open the sleeping refrigerator and you do start to cry, soft and hopeful, when there are bottles of water, lukewarm and clean. you hold Aurora close and run back to your house and you try to act like your blind as you make your way straight to the bedroom closest and take out the black bookbag. at Aurora's house, you fill the bookbag with all the baby formula and water you can and the two prettiest baby bottles, pink with yellow sunflowers and green with rainbows and hello kitty. you step to leave, stop, turn on the stove. it works. you make the formula as fast as you can and fill the two pretty bottles and put one carefully into the pocket of your hoodie and the other inside the wrap with Aurora. the sling is something you find in a bedroom, pink, like the ones your mom used to wear when she watched your oldest sister's baby. you've wrapped Aurora tightly to your chest, after you bundled her into clothes that didn't look like they were going to tear if you touched them. you cover her bright red hair with a black baby cap with a red flower on the side.
let's go (you whisper) let's go.
the city looks and sound like it's sleeping. the closer it gets, the quieter it is. the sky is as bright as ever, even though the clouds that spin above seem closer then before and twirl faster. the neighborhood street stretches straight to the side, curls and curves only slightly in the middle of the way. closer to the city, there are piles of metal and steel and color that are cars. closer to the neighborhood are cars alone half buried into trees and cars in pairs in the middle of the road and even a bright green car with green wheels that rests sideways in a house's living room.
you think of your mother and your sisters. you try to remember everything they did. it makes you calm, makes you hold Aurora close and tight. the cars scare you because you know that inside are bodies. the car only half a black away from you is your neighbor's. the black coat you wear makes you sweat, but you remember how cold in gets in the evenings now. you don't know where you and Aurora will be in the night, you have to be prepared.
the city is even closer.
oh my god (he whispers) oh my god.
you're alive (he cries) i'm not alone.
you're afraid to get too close to him. his clothes are dirty and smell and his face has mud on it. Aurora peers out quietly from her wrap and makes a soft noise.
please tell me i'm not dreaming (he pleads) tell me i'm not dead.
we're alive (you say) we're going to the city.
do you want to come with us?
please (he says) yes.
we're Aurora and Jaejoong (you say).
i'm Junsu (he says) i'm looking for my brother.
you realize then that his eyes are red but they're beautiful. beneath the dirt is something calm and gentle and frantic. he's looking for someone too.
i'm looking for my wheel (you say).
he doesn't understand but it's okay because he doesn't need to know.
is she your daughter (he asks).
she is now (you answer).
cooooo~ (Aurora coos).
why does the sky never get darker (he asks) it's been five hours already.
only five hours (you say) it feels like five lifetimes.
it does (he agrees).
you get to the city soon enough, and your legs are just starting to tire. you've given up two of your water bottles to clean junsu up. he tells you that he was driving and when the sky fell, he drove into the river. the car had gotten stuck in the riverbank filled with mud and he'd climbed out. he's looking for his brother, he tells you, because his brother is all he has left. his parents passed away two years ago and he and his brother, his fraternal twin, live together in an apartment in the city that overlooks the park. Aurora tells him with coos that she's an only child.
the city is as silent as the neighborhood. the buildings loom into the bright sky that turns into the black and grey clouds. there is even more destruction in the streets of the city. bodies lay sprawled on the road, cars jammed into buildings and each other. pieces of sky decorate everything, perfect clear blue that look like a field of wildflowers from a distance.
what will happen to the world (he asks) now that there's no more sky.
i don't know (you whisper) i don't know.
junsu plays with Aurora in a mostly perfect coffee shop when you go looking for supplies. junsu needs clean clothes, you can bear to see the younger man in his dirty mud-dyed rags anymore. the smile in his eyes is too bright for mud. you wish you could be more like him, talking and laughing, remembering. junsu talks about his brother all the time. you can't talk about your wheel. you'll cry. even through the city is bright, there's still something sinister about it. the silence overpowers the brightness of the air. you find a clothes shop only two blocks away and you gather all the clothes you can and hope something fits. there's even a baby department and you become just a little selfish and take time picking out pretty things for Aurora that will last. you hurry back to the coffee shop because the silence starts to get to you, but when you arrive, the shop is empty.
Aurora (you call) junsu.
the lack of answers make your breath come short and you wonder the worst, maybe pieces of the sky are still falling and-
Aurora junsu (you scream) junsu Aurora.
junsu comes into the store from the other direction, Aurora tucked into his shoulder.
hey Jaejoong (he exclaims) guess who i found-
you cut him off by hugging him, crying, sobbing, clutching him close with Aurora.
Jaejoong (he asks) are you okay.
i thought (you stutter) i thought you were gone.
it only takes seconds for junsu to understand and he clutches you back, whispers soft soothing things into your ear and pats your back as you cry. when you can finally pull away, junsu holds your hand.
i won't leave you (he declares) i promise.
you remember another promise just like that and it hurts.
a cough sounds behind you and you spin with your heart scrambling to your throat.
it's two people this time, a tall man, boy really, with dark hair that waves to his shoulders and a shorter man with shorter curlier darker hair. junsu beams.
jaejoong (he exclaims) this is Changmin and Yoochun.
yoochun smiles and changmin nods his head and you feel hope push your heart back where it's supposed to be. if you're finding people already, your wheel should roll right on in soon enough. you'll find him.
yoochun and changmin are together.
you see them sometimes, yoochun's laughter pushing stoic studious changmin into matching laughter, yoochun's hands pushing against changmin's chest and changmin stealing kisses. it makes you smile to see it, but it also makes you cry very softly at night.
you fall into a comfortable pattern at the coffee shop that's now home. you and junsu have already talked long before you ever reached the city, about what you would do. you've both decided that no matter how much you love your wheel, and how much junsu loves his brother, you have to take care of Aurora first. meeting yoochun and changmin makes things much easier. changmin finds cloth to make drapes over the far-too-open windows of the shop. you watch him sew together pieces of dark cloth when one strip is not enough, and you decide that out of all of you, changmin is the most mysterious. his baby face and his long legs and his easy smiles and his stoic personality all combine into something intensely alluring. yoochun catches you watching him one day and he only smiles, shrugs. he understands.
it takes Aurora only two days before she has yoochun wrapped around all ten fingers all at once, and when you see that yoochun might as well be shooting hearts out of his eyes at her, you decide that it'll be okay to leave her with junsu and yoochun while you and changmin make a trip to the mall ten minutes away. you have to go, Aurora is growing out of clothes faster then you would've though possible and the clothes store just down the street doesn't have anything practical anymore. the only place left is the mall. junsu holds your hands tight and stops you in your pacing in the bathroom.
it'll be okay jaejoong (he reassures) i'll take good care of her.
you make a little noise.
but (you plead) who'll take care of you.
junsu laughs and the sound carries through the shop-home and you see changmin look up from a book, smiling at the sound.
i do have Yoochun (he says) he'll take care of me.
not though (he adds) i need anyone to watch over me like a child.
because i'm not (he says) you know.
you and changmin leave the next morning.
the streets are as quiet as ever. it's only been a week but it feels like months, looks like years with the leaves piling up on the once-clean streets, the grass growing between the cracks of sidewalks. the clouds above get darker and darker, but the pieces of sky still on the ground shine as bright as ever. they stay sapphire blue and dotted with pure white clouds.
the walk to the mall is mostly silent, but changmin breaks it halfway there, stopping and staring down at a piece of sky as long as his body.
have you ever touched one Jaejoong (he asks) wondered how the sky feels.
you shake your head.
no (you answer) i don't care.
the truth is, you hate those pieces. you hate those pretty pieces that have ruined your life. ruined everyone's lives.
at the mall, you learn things about changmin you didn't know before. changmin likes to look at everything. he pokes at anything he can get his hands on, he likes to turn them around in his hands and figure out how it ticks moves operates. you learn that although changmin didn't talk much before, it must've been because there was nothing to inspire him to talk. at the mall, detouring into abandoned electronics stores and bookshops, changmin talks nonstop. he picks out books for yoochun, books about music and instruments and a couple of comic books. he finds pop up books and educational books for Aurora, even stuffed animals in the children's section. he finds walkie-talkies in the electronics and hands them to you, a smile just barely there on the edges of his lips. you close your hand around the metal, around his fingers.
changmin (you say) changmin.
he lets you kiss the corner of his mouth, where his smile finally forms.
junsu and yoochun are holding hands when you and changmin come back. they sit on a couch they managed to pull from a lawyer's office two days ago, and they make sounds with Aurora who laughs and coos and they hold tight onto each others hands. when you and changmin stumble in carrying clothes and books and general things of junk changmin needed to bring, yoochun jumps up from the couch to kiss changmin's mouth and brush his fingers through your hair. junsu laughs and wonders over with Aurora, who waves fists at you. you take her, hold her tight, and junsu leans against your shoulder.
we need to find them soon (you whisper) we need them with us.
junsu nods, kisses Aurora's fist laying across your cheek.
THE R A D I O CHANGMIN BROUGHT FROM THE MALL STARTS TO MAKE SOUNDS THAT ARE W O R D S.
"is anyone out there? hello? if there's anyone out there, we're a red cross unit stationed at city hall. we have medicine, supplies, food. please, if there's anyone out there, come to city hall. please, there are many of us out here, please come, we'll help you."
you hold Aurora so tight to your chest she makes little moaning noises and bats at you. you loosen your hold, but only because you can feel the heat of changmin's hand on the small of your back. the four of you are only minutes away from city hall, but there hasn't been a sign of anyone yet. hope has been growing in your chest, matched by the way junsu's face brightens each step he takes. yoochun and changmin are hopeful, but you know that they aren't as excited, they can't be. the only people they worry about are the people they're with. but yoochun and changmin understand, and even now as changmin holds onto you, he holds junsu's hand and junsu seems to lean a little more against yoochun. your little family.
when you hear the faint sounds of people talking, it's terrifying at first.
junsu takes in a deep breath.
do you (he starts)-
yes (you finish).
you speed up, your hear the faint sounds of laughter and shouting and mumbling and footsteps and soon you're running and junsu is a wisp of air behind you and yoochun and changmin are laughing as they follow, and you turn the corner-
-there are crowds of people surrounding city hall.
they mill around in groups, by themselves. some are shouting, some are crying, but some are laughing and eating, sitting on sidewalks and in the middle of the seat and on the stairs. some people are all cut up, some are flawless. some wear bandages like mummy wrap, a few only bandaids.
and above the noise of people being alive, a strong steady clear voice from the top of the steps of city hall.
"alright, listen up guys, groups b and d are taking alpha section today, groups a and c can rest. remember, be careful where to step, be careful of the buildings. they might look steady, but you don't know where the sky could've cut up. got it? alright then, lets go boys!"
time passes.time passes.time passes.time passes.time passes.time passes.you close your eyes
.
you start to cry.
yoochun throws his arms around you.
what's wrong (he asks) what's wrong.
and you sob harder.
i found my wheel (you tell him) i found him.
you cry into Aurora's hair and you point up to the stairs to where Yunho is standing with a bullhorn, a bandage around his head and a corner of his eye, his clothes worn but clean, his voice as loud as always.
(i found you.)
Yunho steps down from the stairs, walks through the crowd of people. he gets his back patted by some, hugs from others. he stops to talks to little children, pats lucky pet dogs on the head. he moves through the crowd gracefully, a pillar of strength.
you watch him without calling out because you can't catch your breath, can't make your lungs slow down.
you realize at that moment that you'd begun to think he was dead.
he comes closer without knowing it, he smiles at changmin and junsu and turns and smiles at yoochun and his eyes slide to you, down to Aurora, over you past you, then back. and stops.
"jae-"
he comes running at full speed and yoochun yanks Aurora away from you and Yunho hits you like a car, in total silence, and crushes you against him.
you cry all over again.
"Jaejoong."
Yunho finds rooms for Yoochun and Changmin and one for Junsu, but they all say no. They want a room all together. Yunho looks a bit surprised but he doesn't say anything, Yunho isn't the kind of man to say anything. He only nods, smiles his smile, finds a room a little bigger then the ones he had planned on giving them.
"There, that should fit all three of you, right?"
Junsu nods and holds tight onto Yoochun's hand. "It'll be fine, we've been sleeping in worse. I was wondering, is there a list somewhere? Do you know all the people here, do you know who's looking for who, do you-"
Yunho slows Junsu's rush of words by resting his hand on Junsu's shoulder. "We've been working on one. It's not complete, new people wonder in, but we have most. We also have a list of any... bodies we've found that've had any identification on them..." he trails off and Junsu makes a little sound and turns his head into Changmin's shoulder.
you sit on the bed, a cot really, with aurora sleeping in your arms, and yunho sits beside you with his hand resting on your thigh. he seems to think that if he doesn't hold onto you, you'll fly away. you feel the same about him.
"so, we're looking after ja-"
"don't say it." your eyes are big as you rush to cut him off. "she's aurora now. she's aurora until she grows up and she understands what happens. she can't grow up with- with" you can't put into words the need to give aurora a new name, a new life, you can't, but yunho understands, of course he understands, and he kisses you to keep you from crying.
"okay, jae. i understand. aurora."
you tangle a hand into his shirt. "i missed you."
with your words, yunho's quiet and strong seems to melt. he sags against your side and buries his face in your hair, and his shoulders start to shake.
"i thought you were gone, jaejoong. there was so much noise, so much screaming and people running and dying and i tried to find you but there was so much smoke. i tried to get to you but i got all mixed up, did you see the giant whole where the wall used to be? i think i stumbled out that way, and there was more smoke and people dying, running into each other, cars crashing and flipping. i got hit with something, i think some piece of a car flew off and got me. when i woke up, i found myself with a few others who had survived, met up. i wanted to go back home, but they said it was totally dead. so i followed them. i didn't think i could live jaejoong, not without you. but one day, we found a little boy hiding in a air vent in one of the buildings, and he sounded just like you with your accent. and i had to live and i had to find more people, and we had to find each other and survive."
although yunho's voice is steady, his shoulders don't stop shaking and the cloth of your shirt gets damp. you feel yourself tearing up again, just imagining yunho by himself, while everything was happening, while the sky was falling. you turn to him and you wrap your arms around him and aurora both and for a little while, just for a little while, you both cry.
city hall is headquarters now. people send radio messages everyday and people go out into the city and to the neighboring suburbs to find more survivors. there are more then people had first thought, and soon they grow beyond city hall. people begin to claim rooms in apartments, hotels surrounding the hall. even though they number in the hundreds now, they still stay close. the air above their heads still swirl dangerously, but they start to forget it as it seems to do nothing. in two weeks, the brightness they'd learned to live with starts to fade, and in three weeks, there's day and night again.
you hold junsu close to you. it's been a month now and you still haven't found junsu's brother. junsu has changed, the bright bubbly young man now sits quietly, thinks more. his smiles come less and less and seem more and more forced. even yoochun's kisses when he thinks you aren't looking and your own hugs with your hands groping don't make him grin and burst out into laughter like it used to. junsu has nightmares at night, and he takes turns sleeping with you and yunho and aurora then changmin and yoochun.
jaejoong (he says in the darkness of the room) do you think he's dead?
do you think my brother's dead?
you don't know what to say, so you hold him tighter, and he cries.
junsu's brother is dead.
his body is identified one month two weeks four days and ten hours after the sky fell.
junsu's screams make you flinch, cry.
he throws himself over the body, the body that's only slightly bloodied, arm twisted akwardly, face smooth and sweet as junsu's. he covers his brother with his own living body and he screams and cries and pulls his hair.
changmin grabs him when he starts to beat his hands onto the concrete floor and you're glad, so glad, that you're inside the makeshift morgue in the bottom of the building next to city hall, and not outside.
junsu tries to pull away, screaming still, but changmin doesn't let go, and yoochun joins him, hugging junsu close from in front. they form a little bubble around junsu that junsu beats at, screams at, but they don't let go, and when you and yunho join them, wrap your arms around changmin and yoochun and junsu, junsu subsides into sobs that hurts your ears more then his screaming ever could.
he finally passes out.
the funeral for junsu's brother is on a noisy day. even on the hilltop where they stand, the one junsu and his brother had had a view of from their apartment, you can hear the sounds of people and life in the city.
there's no minister, no preacher, just the five of you and Aurora close to the sky where the clouds get lighter and slower everyday.
junsu doesn't talk.
he drapes himself over his brother again, but softer this time. he doesn't scream but he cries silently, and you have to look away with your own tears when junsu covers his brother's face in kisses, soft sweet kisses with his tears spilling over his cheeks. yunho holds changmin close because you and yoochun tend to forget that changmin is the baby of your family, and that he isn't as strong as he appears to be. he chokes his sobs back into his throat and shudders against yunho.
yoochun moves to pull junsu away.
they need to bury the body.
junsu resists with a horrible throat-tearing groan and keeps kissing his brother, keeps laying soft brushes of his lips across his brother's cheeks and mouth and nose and forehead and eyes but yoochun keeps pulling and soon junsu is broken away to sob against yoochun's shoulder.
i love you i love you i love you.
jaejoong and yunho and junsu and yoochun and changmin and aurora and the other people surviving in the city learns the truth of the sky falling seven months, one week, two days, eight hours, and eighteen minutes after the sky fell.
an explosion, a government mission gone wrong, a chaos of protocals and cover-ups and greed that led to the deaths of three thousand twenty-four hundred people.
junsu has never been the same since his brother's death. he talks now and laughs now and plays now, but there's a stillness to him that never leaves. jaejoong catches him sometimes in the middle of the night, staring out the window of the bedroom he shares with yoochun and changmin and jaejoong and yunho in the apartment far away from the one he used to share with his brother, crying very quietly and very softly with his hand pressed tight to his mouth. jaejoong says nothing but holds him very close, and junsu falls asleep on his shoulder with tears drying on his face.
yoochun teaches music classes for children at a cafe down the street. in the new world they're building, there isn't enough happiness to share with the children who will never be quite the same again, so yoochun does what he can. they find out from changmin that yoochun has quite a bit of money, and his family is just important enough to be important, so they aren't surprised when amid all the mess and rage and sorrow, yoochun manages to get a cafe turned into a little studio filled with every instrument possible. the children come at all days, at all times, and they stay for as long as they can, and yoochun doesn't come home some nights until way past midnight, but he's always smiling.
changmin joins a political group made of college students trying to find their way. they hold rallies and protests and jaejoong and yunho and yoochun and junsu don't fall asleep until he comes home, scratched up from rioting and solemn-faced with another loss. they plead with him to stop. yunho roughs him up, beats him around, yelling, but changmin endures it all without a sound. yoochun cries at him, jaejoong gives him the cold shoulder, junsu closes further into himself. changmin still leaves every weekend armed with fliers and a loud voice and ideals. they give up, they let him be, until changmin comes home one night with his clothes stained red and junsu screams and changmin shakes his head, wide-eyed. he stops going to rallies and goes back to college instead.
yunho stays with the red cross team. he was promoted unofficially to be their leader, and officially only a few days afterwards. he works normal hours and comes home sometime grinning, sometimes on the verge of tears. even though most of the world has just gone back to what it's always done, in cities where the damage was worst, like theirs, there is still a lot of people to save, to bury. yunho tends to talk to yoochun about the burials, yoochun a sympathetic listener that holds his hand and cries with him, and tells jaejoong only the good stories, the people saved.
jaejoong stays home with Aurora. he makes food for the others when they come home, when they leave him. he begins to paint again. the early works are dark and abstract and heartbreaking and jaejoong locks up them as soon as he finishes. when Aurora turns two and her first word is "daddy" arms held out to jaejoong, his paintings become brighter and happier and soon he doesn't have to lock them away anymore. he's comfortable staying home with junsu and Aurora, being the mother of the group, being the one who gives hugs and cooks food. sometimes, when the four of them are crammed into their only bed together, Aurora deeply asleep in the crib not too far away, jaejoong feels that he could almost be thankful, could almost be grateful, because he can't imagine life without his family now.
(When Aurora turns eighteen, Jaejoong tells her the truth about her, their family. Aurora cries softly, like Yunho, then smiles brightly, like Junsu, hugs him close, like Yoochun, and kisses his cheek, like Changmin. "You did good, daddy," she says, and tells him that she doesn't mind never having been Jamie Lee.)
pg13 - yunjae/ot5
summary: "and i will follow you (he says) until the sky falls down. the room starts to rumble." [many many many thanks to ishougen, who read this and loved it and convinced me it was okay to post~ <3] Also, a soundtrack? More like, songs I listened to writing this~ if you're interested!
and i will follow you (he says) until the sky falls down.
the room starts to rumble.
don't ever forget me (you say) when you're alone.
i will never be alone (he screams).
the walls start to crack and the sounds the pieces of sky makes as they fall onto the earth are heartbreaking and horrifying.
i love you i love you i love you.
time passes.time passes.time passes.time passes.time passes.time passes.you open your eyes.
where am i (you say) where am i.
no one answers because you're alone in the bedroom where love was alive.
the bed has cracked in two, the walls have wrinkles. the floor has waves and the bookshelf and books are tossed around like flowerpetals that have withered away.
you're curled into a corner where the tv used to be and there's something dried and red on the palms of your hands.
t h e r o o m i s t o o s i l e n t .
the world is bright. the middle of the afternoon and no one is mowing grass or playing in the sprinklers in the summer heat. the neighbor's son's tricycle is missing a wheel.
where is my second wheel (you wonder) where has he gone.
the trees don't rustle because they don't have leaves. bare branches stab into the air. the sky above-
you step around pieces of sky as delicately as you can. they look like glass, perfect blue and dotted with clouds. one piece has red around the edges and someone's hand has grabbed a hold of a corner.
there are no people around. in the city only five minutes away, there's a stillness that betrays the way the air above whirls dark and furious.
how is the world still bright (you ask) when there's nothing but storms above us.
A SHRIEK. A SCREAM. ANGUISH AND PAIN.
you drop to your knees and cover your head with your hands because the sound is so loud it pierces your head, sinks into your brain and pounds. you can't hold back the dry sob that rips from your throat. the scream goes on, and it becomes less and less like death, and more and more like the sounds the baby two houses down made when it first woke up in the morning and it's mother wasn't yet in the room. the remembrance makes you peel away from yourself.
the pieces of sky come in all different sizes. they feel like stepping stones to the house two houses down. the houses on the cracked and mangled concrete street look like people. some are crumbling, falling into pieces where the sky broke them apart. some are standing strong, fortresses with sky glittered across their roofs.
you find the baby girl clutched into arms into a body without a head. you see the strands of red hair the same color as the baby girl's on something round only a foot away. you take the baby girl into your arms into a body where your head is still attached and she stops screaming immediately. her eyes are big and brown and you name her Aurora because you'll never tell her the secret of her birth to parents that couldn't be there to take care of her.
let's go find our missing wheel (you coo) sleeping beauty.
you realize on your way to the city that your shoulder is bleeding. there's a piece of sky lodged into your shoulderblade and it's numb and only throbs. you make sure to hold Aurora on your good shoulder and you think that you and your sleeping beauty need to go to the city. if people are still alive, the city is where they'll meet. you almost want to cry in happiness when you open up a cabinet in Aurora's kitchen and there is cans and cans and cans of baby formula and pretty little baby bottles besides them.
the refrigerator is on its side, the dishwasher is caved in, the back door has been sliced clean into half.
you open the sleeping refrigerator and you do start to cry, soft and hopeful, when there are bottles of water, lukewarm and clean. you hold Aurora close and run back to your house and you try to act like your blind as you make your way straight to the bedroom closest and take out the black bookbag. at Aurora's house, you fill the bookbag with all the baby formula and water you can and the two prettiest baby bottles, pink with yellow sunflowers and green with rainbows and hello kitty. you step to leave, stop, turn on the stove. it works. you make the formula as fast as you can and fill the two pretty bottles and put one carefully into the pocket of your hoodie and the other inside the wrap with Aurora. the sling is something you find in a bedroom, pink, like the ones your mom used to wear when she watched your oldest sister's baby. you've wrapped Aurora tightly to your chest, after you bundled her into clothes that didn't look like they were going to tear if you touched them. you cover her bright red hair with a black baby cap with a red flower on the side.
let's go (you whisper) let's go.
the city looks and sound like it's sleeping. the closer it gets, the quieter it is. the sky is as bright as ever, even though the clouds that spin above seem closer then before and twirl faster. the neighborhood street stretches straight to the side, curls and curves only slightly in the middle of the way. closer to the city, there are piles of metal and steel and color that are cars. closer to the neighborhood are cars alone half buried into trees and cars in pairs in the middle of the road and even a bright green car with green wheels that rests sideways in a house's living room.
you think of your mother and your sisters. you try to remember everything they did. it makes you calm, makes you hold Aurora close and tight. the cars scare you because you know that inside are bodies. the car only half a black away from you is your neighbor's. the black coat you wear makes you sweat, but you remember how cold in gets in the evenings now. you don't know where you and Aurora will be in the night, you have to be prepared.
the city is even closer.
oh my god (he whispers) oh my god.
you're alive (he cries) i'm not alone.
you're afraid to get too close to him. his clothes are dirty and smell and his face has mud on it. Aurora peers out quietly from her wrap and makes a soft noise.
please tell me i'm not dreaming (he pleads) tell me i'm not dead.
we're alive (you say) we're going to the city.
do you want to come with us?
please (he says) yes.
we're Aurora and Jaejoong (you say).
i'm Junsu (he says) i'm looking for my brother.
you realize then that his eyes are red but they're beautiful. beneath the dirt is something calm and gentle and frantic. he's looking for someone too.
i'm looking for my wheel (you say).
he doesn't understand but it's okay because he doesn't need to know.
is she your daughter (he asks).
she is now (you answer).
cooooo~ (Aurora coos).
why does the sky never get darker (he asks) it's been five hours already.
only five hours (you say) it feels like five lifetimes.
it does (he agrees).
you get to the city soon enough, and your legs are just starting to tire. you've given up two of your water bottles to clean junsu up. he tells you that he was driving and when the sky fell, he drove into the river. the car had gotten stuck in the riverbank filled with mud and he'd climbed out. he's looking for his brother, he tells you, because his brother is all he has left. his parents passed away two years ago and he and his brother, his fraternal twin, live together in an apartment in the city that overlooks the park. Aurora tells him with coos that she's an only child.
the city is as silent as the neighborhood. the buildings loom into the bright sky that turns into the black and grey clouds. there is even more destruction in the streets of the city. bodies lay sprawled on the road, cars jammed into buildings and each other. pieces of sky decorate everything, perfect clear blue that look like a field of wildflowers from a distance.
what will happen to the world (he asks) now that there's no more sky.
i don't know (you whisper) i don't know.
junsu plays with Aurora in a mostly perfect coffee shop when you go looking for supplies. junsu needs clean clothes, you can bear to see the younger man in his dirty mud-dyed rags anymore. the smile in his eyes is too bright for mud. you wish you could be more like him, talking and laughing, remembering. junsu talks about his brother all the time. you can't talk about your wheel. you'll cry. even through the city is bright, there's still something sinister about it. the silence overpowers the brightness of the air. you find a clothes shop only two blocks away and you gather all the clothes you can and hope something fits. there's even a baby department and you become just a little selfish and take time picking out pretty things for Aurora that will last. you hurry back to the coffee shop because the silence starts to get to you, but when you arrive, the shop is empty.
Aurora (you call) junsu.
the lack of answers make your breath come short and you wonder the worst, maybe pieces of the sky are still falling and-
Aurora junsu (you scream) junsu Aurora.
junsu comes into the store from the other direction, Aurora tucked into his shoulder.
hey Jaejoong (he exclaims) guess who i found-
you cut him off by hugging him, crying, sobbing, clutching him close with Aurora.
Jaejoong (he asks) are you okay.
i thought (you stutter) i thought you were gone.
it only takes seconds for junsu to understand and he clutches you back, whispers soft soothing things into your ear and pats your back as you cry. when you can finally pull away, junsu holds your hand.
i won't leave you (he declares) i promise.
you remember another promise just like that and it hurts.
a cough sounds behind you and you spin with your heart scrambling to your throat.
it's two people this time, a tall man, boy really, with dark hair that waves to his shoulders and a shorter man with shorter curlier darker hair. junsu beams.
jaejoong (he exclaims) this is Changmin and Yoochun.
yoochun smiles and changmin nods his head and you feel hope push your heart back where it's supposed to be. if you're finding people already, your wheel should roll right on in soon enough. you'll find him.
yoochun and changmin are together.
you see them sometimes, yoochun's laughter pushing stoic studious changmin into matching laughter, yoochun's hands pushing against changmin's chest and changmin stealing kisses. it makes you smile to see it, but it also makes you cry very softly at night.
you fall into a comfortable pattern at the coffee shop that's now home. you and junsu have already talked long before you ever reached the city, about what you would do. you've both decided that no matter how much you love your wheel, and how much junsu loves his brother, you have to take care of Aurora first. meeting yoochun and changmin makes things much easier. changmin finds cloth to make drapes over the far-too-open windows of the shop. you watch him sew together pieces of dark cloth when one strip is not enough, and you decide that out of all of you, changmin is the most mysterious. his baby face and his long legs and his easy smiles and his stoic personality all combine into something intensely alluring. yoochun catches you watching him one day and he only smiles, shrugs. he understands.
it takes Aurora only two days before she has yoochun wrapped around all ten fingers all at once, and when you see that yoochun might as well be shooting hearts out of his eyes at her, you decide that it'll be okay to leave her with junsu and yoochun while you and changmin make a trip to the mall ten minutes away. you have to go, Aurora is growing out of clothes faster then you would've though possible and the clothes store just down the street doesn't have anything practical anymore. the only place left is the mall. junsu holds your hands tight and stops you in your pacing in the bathroom.
it'll be okay jaejoong (he reassures) i'll take good care of her.
you make a little noise.
but (you plead) who'll take care of you.
junsu laughs and the sound carries through the shop-home and you see changmin look up from a book, smiling at the sound.
i do have Yoochun (he says) he'll take care of me.
not though (he adds) i need anyone to watch over me like a child.
because i'm not (he says) you know.
you and changmin leave the next morning.
the streets are as quiet as ever. it's only been a week but it feels like months, looks like years with the leaves piling up on the once-clean streets, the grass growing between the cracks of sidewalks. the clouds above get darker and darker, but the pieces of sky still on the ground shine as bright as ever. they stay sapphire blue and dotted with pure white clouds.
the walk to the mall is mostly silent, but changmin breaks it halfway there, stopping and staring down at a piece of sky as long as his body.
have you ever touched one Jaejoong (he asks) wondered how the sky feels.
you shake your head.
no (you answer) i don't care.
the truth is, you hate those pieces. you hate those pretty pieces that have ruined your life. ruined everyone's lives.
at the mall, you learn things about changmin you didn't know before. changmin likes to look at everything. he pokes at anything he can get his hands on, he likes to turn them around in his hands and figure out how it ticks moves operates. you learn that although changmin didn't talk much before, it must've been because there was nothing to inspire him to talk. at the mall, detouring into abandoned electronics stores and bookshops, changmin talks nonstop. he picks out books for yoochun, books about music and instruments and a couple of comic books. he finds pop up books and educational books for Aurora, even stuffed animals in the children's section. he finds walkie-talkies in the electronics and hands them to you, a smile just barely there on the edges of his lips. you close your hand around the metal, around his fingers.
changmin (you say) changmin.
he lets you kiss the corner of his mouth, where his smile finally forms.
junsu and yoochun are holding hands when you and changmin come back. they sit on a couch they managed to pull from a lawyer's office two days ago, and they make sounds with Aurora who laughs and coos and they hold tight onto each others hands. when you and changmin stumble in carrying clothes and books and general things of junk changmin needed to bring, yoochun jumps up from the couch to kiss changmin's mouth and brush his fingers through your hair. junsu laughs and wonders over with Aurora, who waves fists at you. you take her, hold her tight, and junsu leans against your shoulder.
we need to find them soon (you whisper) we need them with us.
junsu nods, kisses Aurora's fist laying across your cheek.
THE R A D I O CHANGMIN BROUGHT FROM THE MALL STARTS TO MAKE SOUNDS THAT ARE W O R D S.
"is anyone out there? hello? if there's anyone out there, we're a red cross unit stationed at city hall. we have medicine, supplies, food. please, if there's anyone out there, come to city hall. please, there are many of us out here, please come, we'll help you."
you hold Aurora so tight to your chest she makes little moaning noises and bats at you. you loosen your hold, but only because you can feel the heat of changmin's hand on the small of your back. the four of you are only minutes away from city hall, but there hasn't been a sign of anyone yet. hope has been growing in your chest, matched by the way junsu's face brightens each step he takes. yoochun and changmin are hopeful, but you know that they aren't as excited, they can't be. the only people they worry about are the people they're with. but yoochun and changmin understand, and even now as changmin holds onto you, he holds junsu's hand and junsu seems to lean a little more against yoochun. your little family.
when you hear the faint sounds of people talking, it's terrifying at first.
junsu takes in a deep breath.
do you (he starts)-
yes (you finish).
you speed up, your hear the faint sounds of laughter and shouting and mumbling and footsteps and soon you're running and junsu is a wisp of air behind you and yoochun and changmin are laughing as they follow, and you turn the corner-
-there are crowds of people surrounding city hall.
they mill around in groups, by themselves. some are shouting, some are crying, but some are laughing and eating, sitting on sidewalks and in the middle of the seat and on the stairs. some people are all cut up, some are flawless. some wear bandages like mummy wrap, a few only bandaids.
and above the noise of people being alive, a strong steady clear voice from the top of the steps of city hall.
"alright, listen up guys, groups b and d are taking alpha section today, groups a and c can rest. remember, be careful where to step, be careful of the buildings. they might look steady, but you don't know where the sky could've cut up. got it? alright then, lets go boys!"
time passes.time passes.time passes.time passes.time passes.time passes.you close your eyes
.
you start to cry.
yoochun throws his arms around you.
what's wrong (he asks) what's wrong.
and you sob harder.
i found my wheel (you tell him) i found him.
you cry into Aurora's hair and you point up to the stairs to where Yunho is standing with a bullhorn, a bandage around his head and a corner of his eye, his clothes worn but clean, his voice as loud as always.
(i found you.)
Yunho steps down from the stairs, walks through the crowd of people. he gets his back patted by some, hugs from others. he stops to talks to little children, pats lucky pet dogs on the head. he moves through the crowd gracefully, a pillar of strength.
you watch him without calling out because you can't catch your breath, can't make your lungs slow down.
you realize at that moment that you'd begun to think he was dead.
he comes closer without knowing it, he smiles at changmin and junsu and turns and smiles at yoochun and his eyes slide to you, down to Aurora, over you past you, then back. and stops.
"jae-"
he comes running at full speed and yoochun yanks Aurora away from you and Yunho hits you like a car, in total silence, and crushes you against him.
you cry all over again.
"Jaejoong."
Yunho finds rooms for Yoochun and Changmin and one for Junsu, but they all say no. They want a room all together. Yunho looks a bit surprised but he doesn't say anything, Yunho isn't the kind of man to say anything. He only nods, smiles his smile, finds a room a little bigger then the ones he had planned on giving them.
"There, that should fit all three of you, right?"
Junsu nods and holds tight onto Yoochun's hand. "It'll be fine, we've been sleeping in worse. I was wondering, is there a list somewhere? Do you know all the people here, do you know who's looking for who, do you-"
Yunho slows Junsu's rush of words by resting his hand on Junsu's shoulder. "We've been working on one. It's not complete, new people wonder in, but we have most. We also have a list of any... bodies we've found that've had any identification on them..." he trails off and Junsu makes a little sound and turns his head into Changmin's shoulder.
you sit on the bed, a cot really, with aurora sleeping in your arms, and yunho sits beside you with his hand resting on your thigh. he seems to think that if he doesn't hold onto you, you'll fly away. you feel the same about him.
"so, we're looking after ja-"
"don't say it." your eyes are big as you rush to cut him off. "she's aurora now. she's aurora until she grows up and she understands what happens. she can't grow up with- with" you can't put into words the need to give aurora a new name, a new life, you can't, but yunho understands, of course he understands, and he kisses you to keep you from crying.
"okay, jae. i understand. aurora."
you tangle a hand into his shirt. "i missed you."
with your words, yunho's quiet and strong seems to melt. he sags against your side and buries his face in your hair, and his shoulders start to shake.
"i thought you were gone, jaejoong. there was so much noise, so much screaming and people running and dying and i tried to find you but there was so much smoke. i tried to get to you but i got all mixed up, did you see the giant whole where the wall used to be? i think i stumbled out that way, and there was more smoke and people dying, running into each other, cars crashing and flipping. i got hit with something, i think some piece of a car flew off and got me. when i woke up, i found myself with a few others who had survived, met up. i wanted to go back home, but they said it was totally dead. so i followed them. i didn't think i could live jaejoong, not without you. but one day, we found a little boy hiding in a air vent in one of the buildings, and he sounded just like you with your accent. and i had to live and i had to find more people, and we had to find each other and survive."
although yunho's voice is steady, his shoulders don't stop shaking and the cloth of your shirt gets damp. you feel yourself tearing up again, just imagining yunho by himself, while everything was happening, while the sky was falling. you turn to him and you wrap your arms around him and aurora both and for a little while, just for a little while, you both cry.
city hall is headquarters now. people send radio messages everyday and people go out into the city and to the neighboring suburbs to find more survivors. there are more then people had first thought, and soon they grow beyond city hall. people begin to claim rooms in apartments, hotels surrounding the hall. even though they number in the hundreds now, they still stay close. the air above their heads still swirl dangerously, but they start to forget it as it seems to do nothing. in two weeks, the brightness they'd learned to live with starts to fade, and in three weeks, there's day and night again.
you hold junsu close to you. it's been a month now and you still haven't found junsu's brother. junsu has changed, the bright bubbly young man now sits quietly, thinks more. his smiles come less and less and seem more and more forced. even yoochun's kisses when he thinks you aren't looking and your own hugs with your hands groping don't make him grin and burst out into laughter like it used to. junsu has nightmares at night, and he takes turns sleeping with you and yunho and aurora then changmin and yoochun.
jaejoong (he says in the darkness of the room) do you think he's dead?
do you think my brother's dead?
you don't know what to say, so you hold him tighter, and he cries.
junsu's brother is dead.
his body is identified one month two weeks four days and ten hours after the sky fell.
junsu's screams make you flinch, cry.
he throws himself over the body, the body that's only slightly bloodied, arm twisted akwardly, face smooth and sweet as junsu's. he covers his brother with his own living body and he screams and cries and pulls his hair.
changmin grabs him when he starts to beat his hands onto the concrete floor and you're glad, so glad, that you're inside the makeshift morgue in the bottom of the building next to city hall, and not outside.
junsu tries to pull away, screaming still, but changmin doesn't let go, and yoochun joins him, hugging junsu close from in front. they form a little bubble around junsu that junsu beats at, screams at, but they don't let go, and when you and yunho join them, wrap your arms around changmin and yoochun and junsu, junsu subsides into sobs that hurts your ears more then his screaming ever could.
he finally passes out.
the funeral for junsu's brother is on a noisy day. even on the hilltop where they stand, the one junsu and his brother had had a view of from their apartment, you can hear the sounds of people and life in the city.
there's no minister, no preacher, just the five of you and Aurora close to the sky where the clouds get lighter and slower everyday.
junsu doesn't talk.
he drapes himself over his brother again, but softer this time. he doesn't scream but he cries silently, and you have to look away with your own tears when junsu covers his brother's face in kisses, soft sweet kisses with his tears spilling over his cheeks. yunho holds changmin close because you and yoochun tend to forget that changmin is the baby of your family, and that he isn't as strong as he appears to be. he chokes his sobs back into his throat and shudders against yunho.
yoochun moves to pull junsu away.
they need to bury the body.
junsu resists with a horrible throat-tearing groan and keeps kissing his brother, keeps laying soft brushes of his lips across his brother's cheeks and mouth and nose and forehead and eyes but yoochun keeps pulling and soon junsu is broken away to sob against yoochun's shoulder.
i love you i love you i love you.
jaejoong and yunho and junsu and yoochun and changmin and aurora and the other people surviving in the city learns the truth of the sky falling seven months, one week, two days, eight hours, and eighteen minutes after the sky fell.
an explosion, a government mission gone wrong, a chaos of protocals and cover-ups and greed that led to the deaths of three thousand twenty-four hundred people.
junsu has never been the same since his brother's death. he talks now and laughs now and plays now, but there's a stillness to him that never leaves. jaejoong catches him sometimes in the middle of the night, staring out the window of the bedroom he shares with yoochun and changmin and jaejoong and yunho in the apartment far away from the one he used to share with his brother, crying very quietly and very softly with his hand pressed tight to his mouth. jaejoong says nothing but holds him very close, and junsu falls asleep on his shoulder with tears drying on his face.
yoochun teaches music classes for children at a cafe down the street. in the new world they're building, there isn't enough happiness to share with the children who will never be quite the same again, so yoochun does what he can. they find out from changmin that yoochun has quite a bit of money, and his family is just important enough to be important, so they aren't surprised when amid all the mess and rage and sorrow, yoochun manages to get a cafe turned into a little studio filled with every instrument possible. the children come at all days, at all times, and they stay for as long as they can, and yoochun doesn't come home some nights until way past midnight, but he's always smiling.
changmin joins a political group made of college students trying to find their way. they hold rallies and protests and jaejoong and yunho and yoochun and junsu don't fall asleep until he comes home, scratched up from rioting and solemn-faced with another loss. they plead with him to stop. yunho roughs him up, beats him around, yelling, but changmin endures it all without a sound. yoochun cries at him, jaejoong gives him the cold shoulder, junsu closes further into himself. changmin still leaves every weekend armed with fliers and a loud voice and ideals. they give up, they let him be, until changmin comes home one night with his clothes stained red and junsu screams and changmin shakes his head, wide-eyed. he stops going to rallies and goes back to college instead.
yunho stays with the red cross team. he was promoted unofficially to be their leader, and officially only a few days afterwards. he works normal hours and comes home sometime grinning, sometimes on the verge of tears. even though most of the world has just gone back to what it's always done, in cities where the damage was worst, like theirs, there is still a lot of people to save, to bury. yunho tends to talk to yoochun about the burials, yoochun a sympathetic listener that holds his hand and cries with him, and tells jaejoong only the good stories, the people saved.
jaejoong stays home with Aurora. he makes food for the others when they come home, when they leave him. he begins to paint again. the early works are dark and abstract and heartbreaking and jaejoong locks up them as soon as he finishes. when Aurora turns two and her first word is "daddy" arms held out to jaejoong, his paintings become brighter and happier and soon he doesn't have to lock them away anymore. he's comfortable staying home with junsu and Aurora, being the mother of the group, being the one who gives hugs and cooks food. sometimes, when the four of them are crammed into their only bed together, Aurora deeply asleep in the crib not too far away, jaejoong feels that he could almost be thankful, could almost be grateful, because he can't imagine life without his family now.
(When Aurora turns eighteen, Jaejoong tells her the truth about her, their family. Aurora cries softly, like Yunho, then smiles brightly, like Junsu, hugs him close, like Yoochun, and kisses his cheek, like Changmin. "You did good, daddy," she says, and tells him that she doesn't mind never having been Jamie Lee.)