idek i was listening to tragic music and some flash fiction happened oops

Pairing: Daeup

Rating: PG-13

Genre: tragedy, romance

Warnings: kinda sad, implied but not confirmed death

          The spindly fingers of wind grasp and tug, locks of hair slipping through them as they are dragged along and past him with their brethren. The sunlight is long trapped far, far behind layer upon layer of cloud and dust, kept well outside the atmosphere. The light that valiantly pushes through sits heavy and brown, illuminating dully particles of sand and dust and electricity that swirl around rusty buildings and broken telephone wires. They were warned long ago of the potential that the weather had to wipe the lands clear again, and now is the time, he supposes.

            He leans forward, against the wooden railing of his front porch, and watches the hot and cold currents of air spike together and weave themselves into a thunder filled funnel on the horizon.

            He doesn’t turn around. The sound of his brother’s desperate voice is muffled and barely there, drowned out well by the winds that scream death into his ears.

            A hand grabs his shoulder but he refuses to budge, worn, worried but guarded eyes scanning the empty, dead fields that make up a desperate town.

            He would be back any minute now. He would make it back to the house before the storm reached them and tore up the trees and whatever else stood tall and proud on the earth.

            They would be together for the end.

            His brother speaks something of retreating to the basement so that they can lock the cellar door and wait. That they can’t afford to wait any longer.

            Not yet. Just a little bit longer. He’ll be here.

            He leans further into the wood, which digs half-heartedly into his stomach, and lets his eyes roam further. There is nothing. Nothing but the thick twist of wind speeding towards them, tearing up the ground beneath it and unlucky, sickly livestock into its waves to end their long-lived suffering.

            No.

            Eyes stormy and dull as the sky not far above, he yanks his elbow from his brother’s grasp, and firmly grips the rail to support his weight as he lifts himself and jerkily vaults over the rickety, century old oak.

            Nothing stops him as the sprints into the hold of the wind, which slips around him and through already-tousled and teased hair; not even the faint pleading of a brother’s voice carried and then snuffed by the dust to deter.

            If he’s got to die, he’s going to die with him.

            He’s fast as the lightning, a wild horse riding on the low clouds kicked up by soles of beaten, borrowed leather. Nothing is visible past one foot from himself now, and his legs push to their limits as he holds a hand before his eyes to deflect what particulate matter it can. His lungs reject the air they drag in, pushing it back out as soon as the they grasp the oxygen, and he lifts his t-shirt to cover his nose and mouth in hopes of filtering the larger debris, but the coughing relents. Path memorized, his outstretched palm finally hits the sanded-down, paint-chipped wood of the place he knows he’ll be, the place he goes to when he’s upset or distraught, the only place he’ll be: the barn.

            It is quiet inside but the horses know, and the smoky-blue cat that sleeps in the bundles of hay is nowhere to be seen.

            It is merely a matter of minutes, now.

            He pants and coughs, dust still clouding his esophagus, dirt forever painted onto his forehead, and finally, finally he spots him through squinted, watering eyes.

            “Daehyun…,” the name is only breathed, yet it is so loud in the warmth of the last breaths of the wild.

            Daehyun turns from where he stands, gazing numbly outside, hands grasped behind his back and watching nature destroy his home.

            “I was wondering when you’d show up.” His voice is choked, face wet, but he’s smiling.

            Jongup breathes a sigh and reaches out to touch him. His hand is met halfway and he’s pulled into Daehyun’s embrace, shaky but warm and there.

            “Did you doubt me?” He rasps into his shoulder. “I though you would come back to the house…”

            Fingers sift through his hair, brushing out shifting plumes of dirt. “I’m sorry. I really didn’t think that this… that it would actually reach us.”

            Jongup tightens his hands around Daehyun’s waist and lifts his head to press their cheeks together. He’s glad he can feel the peach-soft skin.

            They sit together, leaned against the worn wall, hands woven and resting lightly on the hay-strewn ground beneath them.

            As the wind’s howls and roars grow nearer and the wooden boards begin to shiver, Jongup reaches over to unbuckle Daehyun’s belt, and he slides it smoothly from the loops of his pants, the grip of his other hand still tight on Daehyun’s fingers until he lets go to loop the leather around both their waists. Daehyun’s own hands replace his to fasten the buckle around them, making sure that it’s also around the metal pole that travels far beneath the ground to pump water in for the animals now awaiting their slow demise behind them.

            As soon as the belt is secured as well as it can be, a hope that they will remain together no matter where they are taken and laid down, Daehyun’s hands are back in Jongup’s.

            There is a sudden rush of wind that rocks around them, and the horses screech as a once proud oak tree is thrown through a wall, crushing and sending debris settling, unstill, upon them. In tandem with the animals, one of the boys, neither could say which, scratches out a breathy sob, and they hold each other ever tighter together as the reality sinks like a stone deep into their stomachs.

            The sunlight snuffed by the clouds appears only in the hope of the metal beneath the ground, the strength of worn leather, and luck that neither has ever believed in.

            A sharp, splintered shard grazes Jongup’s cheek, and drops of blood are drawn, forcefully torn from his broken skin as the riptide of wind curls sharp around them, suffocating oxygen from lungs and shuttling it far; too far away.

            It plays in slow motion: the symphony of sand and wood that make up tombs playing so fast but so smooth in circles around them. Vain gasps for air that is long choked away go silent as they press foreheads together. Daehyun’s legs are locked around Jongup’s waist, and if not for the metal separating them a mere few inches from being chest to chest, the two heartbeats would be pumping against each other, as close as each breath is to being the last.

((possible sequel if enjoyed by my audience??))