“Yixing?”

 

Jongdae’s voice is weak, barely audible over the sound of wind and road traffic outside the thin glass of their window, but Yixing hears him perfectly, and he’s never far away anyway.

 

“You’re awake.” Yixing murmurs, settling himself on the edge of the bed, but he sounds unhappy rather than relieved.  “How are you feeling?”

 

“Never better.” Jongdae shows his teeth in what’s clearly intended to be a smile, and he clasps Yixing’s hand tightly.  The disease has stripped the strength from his muscles, and the pain saps the energy from his limbs until he can barely stand.

 

The Geostigma advances ruthlessly up the side of Jongdae’s neck, dark like a bruise against his chalk-white skin.  “Don’t look so sad, hyung.” He whispers, smiling weakly.

 

“Don’t worry about me.” Yixing says quietly, brushing the hair out of Jongdae’s eyes.  There’s a Stigma mark here too, protruding from just beneath his hairline, like a smudge of dirt that never washes off.  Heaven knows Jongdae tried hard enough when the mark first appeared.

 

“Try it.” Jongdae says, and this time, there’s a tremor beneath his whispering voice.

 

“Jongdae, I—” Yixing protests thinly, “—you know it won’t work.”

 

“Please, try.” Jongdae pleads, holding Yixing’s hand in both of his own and pressing it to his forehead.  “Try it again.”

 

Yixing bites his lip and steels himself against the disappointment clouding his mind.  Focusing his energy into his hands, he presses them lightly to Jongdae’s forehead, gentle green light emanating from his fingertips and leaving faint traces where they brush Jongdae’s darkened skin.

 

When the light fades, the marks are still there, and Yixing isn’t sure if it’s his imagination that makes them seem darker than before.

 

Jongdae looks up at Yixing, eyes shining hopefully, but the hope slides out of his expression as he takes in the tears welling in Yixing’s eyes.

 

“I couldn’t.  I’m…sorry.” Yixing whispers, and Jongdae tugs at Yixing’s arms until Yixing tumbles down onto the bed next to him.

 

“Thank you.” Jongdae murmurs, putting his arms around Yixing’s neck.  “It doesn’t hurt as much now.”

 

That’s a lie—it hurts abominably, like the heat from a bad burn consuming his body, but seeing Yixing so unhappy hurts more.  Yixing smiles tearfully at Jongdae and kisses his forehead.

 

“You missed.” Jongdae says, pulling Yixing down to kiss his lips softly, and for one breathless moment, the pain really is gone as Yixing cups the back of his neck, his thumbs the line of Jongdae’s jaw.

 

Even still, he’s grey with exhaustion when Yixing settles him back on the pillow.

 

“Will you be okay while I’m gone?” Yixing asks, just like he always does, and Jongdae smiles weakly.

 

“Of course I will.  Just wake me up when you get back, okay?”

 

Yixing lays his cool hand against Jongdae’s forehead for a moment before he rises from the bed, pulls his sweater and scarf on, and heads out into the chilly evening.

 

*

 

Everyone had thought Edge would be better after the fall of Midgar, but for most of its population, Edge is simply one enormous slum.  

 

Nothing is better in Edge than it was in Midgar.  The plate is gone to reveal the pallid white sun, but the mark of poverty is even more distinct for the plate’s absence.  Even the previously wealthy, those who had lived on the upper plate before Meteorfall, had suffered.

 

They had said Geostigma would mostly affect children, but here in the slums where the Lifestream still seeps through cracks in the wasted ground, everyone is at risk.

 

Everywhere in Yixing’s area of the city, the homeless huddle together against walls or scan sunken eyes over passersby, but rarely speak.  And more often than not, the dark stain of the Stigma mars an exposed hand, wrist, face, stealing their strength until they can no longer work to sustain themselves, like Jongdae.

 

Yixing gives when he can, but times are hard on them all, and he hates when he doesn’t have a few gil to pass on to the knobby hands that clutch desperately at the hem of his jacket.  He also knows that kindness alone doesn’t fill an empty stomach, so he keeps his hood up and his eyes down and tries to blend into the background.

 

Much of his life is lived in the background, if he can help it.  Don Corneo had long ago lost control of the red light district, but it still exists, and is even worse for the corruption running unchecked through the slums of their new city.  Working conditions are harder, poorer, and Yixing hardly survives off the pay he makes working there; but he counts himself lucky to have work at all, and especially that he makes just enough to keep a roof over his head and food enough for both of them.  Any other line of thought would have driven him crazy long ago.

 

Yixing draws a deep breath before pushing open the entrance to the rebuilt Honey Bee Inn.  That much, at least, is familiar.

 

The back rooms are brightly lit to reveal cracked paint and bare pipes rusting over, and in the corner, one of Yixing’s so-called coworkers, Chanyeol, seated at the makeup table, already half-dressed in short leather shorts and a slick of lipstick.  He glances up with a smile as Yixing drops his coat and scarf onto a hanger.

 

He, too, bears a faint freckling of Geostigma on his face, just beneath his right eye, which he covers with a layer of foundation and powder.  Chanyeol is strong and will be for some time, as his disease is in its earliest stages, but the blemish is a guaranteed death sentence.

 

Yixing smiles at him in return, trying hard not to notice the deepset circles around Chanyeol’s eyes and vaguely jealous of his ability to smile in the face of his pain.  “How are you feeling?” He asks, and Chanyeol shrugs.

 

“I’ve seen better days.” He says cheerfully.  “Baekhyun is doing well at his job.  He got promoted.”

 

Baekhyun had found a job at a restaurant downtown a few months back, and while the pay is scanty and the management seedy, Baekhyun had been lucky enough so far to evade the taint of Geostigma, and thus been able to stay on when the others fell ill. The unspoken implication is that when Chanyeol finally becomes too sick to work, Baekhyun will be able to care for him.  “That’s great.” Yixing says earnestly.

 

“How’s Jongdae?” Chanyeol asks as Yixing leans over his shoulder to look at himself in the mirror.  Yixing suddenly can’t speak around the lump in his throat.  He puts his hands on Chanyeol’s shoulders and squeezes, and Chanyeol grasps his fingers lightly in response.  “Sorry.”

 

“He’s not well.” Yixing says feebly.  Chanyeol stands and pulls Yixing into a hug and a lipstick-sticky kiss on his cheek. He doesn’t need to say anything, and when he pulls away, he cups Yixing’s cheek in a warm hand.

 

“You know that if you need anything, Baek and I can help.” Yixing presses Chanyeol’s hand to his cheek and nods gently, and then Chanyeol totters away in too-small boots and his short shorts and mesh tank top, and he casts a little smile over his shoulder as he steps up into the hallway and through the noisy clatter of tacky bead curtains.

 

Yixing is sloppy about his makeup today, and the black studded collar he puts around his neck feels a little looser.  Even still, he dresses with grim resignation in the set of his jaw, and goes out to meet the customers.

 

*

 

Yixing stumbles out of the Honey Bee Inn in the wee hours of the morning; it had been a slow night, but even then, he always gets the demanding ones—for which he’s grateful in a way, because they always slip him a little extra, and he’d walked home with a purse rattling with gil.  Enough to keep them in the shabby, chilly room with its sagging mattress, and even buy a little extra food.

 

He stops for hot kimchi spaghetti from Kyungsoo, the shop owner a few doors down from his apartment, a short, friendly man with bright eyes and a shock of red hair.

 

“Haven’t seen you around lately, Yixing.” Kyungsoo says kindly as he dishes up spaghetti into a container.  Yixing shrugs.

 

“Times are hard.” He says conversationally, but Kyungsoo doesn’t miss the way his face tightens a little.

 

“How about a discount, then.” Kyungsoo replies, smiling, and he pushes the container into Yixing’s hands without taking the money clutched in Yixing’s extended hand. “I know Jongdae isn’t well.  It won’t be like this every time, but…I think I can let it slide today.”

 

Yixing turns away to hide the tears burning his eyes and leaves the money on the counter when Kyungsoo turns his back.

 

Jongdae is awake and sitting up in bed when Yixing pushes open the door and leaves his sweater and scarf in a pile on the floor.  He’s pale, but the smile on his face is radiant when Yixing sits on the side of the bed, the container of hot food resting in his lap.

 

“I’m hungry.” Is the first thing out of Jongdae’s mouth.  Yixing grins for the first time that night.

 

“What’d you forget?” Yixing says, opening the container and breaking apart the chopsticks.  Jongdae slings his arms around Yixing’s neck and kisses him eagerly.

 

Yixing insists on letting Jongdae eat as much as he likes first, and the food puts color back in his cheeks and stains his mouth red.  Jongdae, in turn, insists on feeding Yixing alternately, and the hot food seems to bolster his spirit a little.

 

And then it’s a bath after their early-morning, late-night dinner, but Jongdae refuses to let Yixing help him up, and ends up sitting on the toilet, his limbs shaking and face drawn in exhaustion as Yixing runs the bath for him.  “I told you to let me help you, Jongdae.” Yixing says reprovingly.

 

“I don’t like you doing everything for me.” Jongdae whines.  “And I can still piss by myself.  Not going to give that up anytime soon.”

 

Yixing ushers Jongdae into the bath and slides into the tub behind him, washing Jongdae’s hair and taking stock of the black mark spreading over Jongdae’s neck.  It advances slowly at first and more rapidly as the disease progresses, and Yixing’s heart rate doubles at the sight of a new swirl of black under the skin of Jongdae’s neck, like a tattoo.

 

“It started bleeding again.  Last night.” Jongdae says softly.  Yixing presses a hand to the black mark on Jongdae’s neck.

 

“It’s bigger here, too.” Yixing traces it with his fingertips. His voice shakes and he makes no effort to control it.

 

“I’m tired, hyung.  Let’s go to sleep.”

 

Yixing dries Jongdae off with a threadbare towel and crawls into bed alongside him, and Jongdae pulls Yixing against his chest with a sigh that sounds mostly contented.  “Good night, hyung.” He kisses Yixing and closes his eyes, and his breathing lulls almost instantly into the soft rhythm of sleep.

 

Yixing won’t be able to sleep for a while yet, not when his ears are trained so intently on the sound of Jongdae’s steady breathing.

 

*

 

It’s the explosions that wake him, and at first, Yixing thinks someone’s thrown a rock through the brittle, clouded glass of their second-story apartment, because glittering fragments of glass shower the bed and floor in a cacophony of ringing noise.  Jongdae wakes with a start too, a wail of surprise on his lips.

 

The second explosion, almost immediately after, practically knocks them both out of bed and onto the floor. Yixing is already pulling his jeans and boots on before he’s even fully registered what’s happening.

 

Fear puts some momentum into Jongdae, too, and he sits up in bed and dresses in preparation to leave. Yixing peers out the window, glass crunching under his boots, but nothing is obvious just yet except a fine film of smoke drifting through the air—a bomb?

 

“Is it safer to stay inside, or leave?” Yixing asks himself quietly, watching as Kyungsoo the shopkeeper bustles a stooped elderly couple down the alleyway.  He calls to Kyungsoo through the shattered glass, and the fear in Kyungsoo’s wide eyes is enough of a warning to Yixing that he doesn’t really need to hear the words.

 

“Get out, Yixing!  I don’t know what’s happening, but it looks bad.  Find a place to hide!”

 

He shoves Jongdae’s feet into his boots and gets him standing, and Jongdae’s eyes are round with fear as they head for the stairwell.  He clutches a blanket from their bed—he knows better than to leave it behind.

 

As they reach the front door of their shabby apartments, the source of the explosions becomes apparent in the gaps between the buildings; it’s hard to make out, but the edge of a colossal wing is visible in the narrow space, and the most hideous of screeching roars splits the air.  Monster attacks aren’t totally unheard of, but monsters of this size?

 

Jongdae makes it a dozen steps or so down the street before the adrenaline driving him peters out and he collapses against the aluminum wall of the alleyway with a pained whimper.  There’s a distant explosion that shakes the metal around them.

 

“Come on, come on,” Yixing urges, as the shrieking roar of the monster drowns out the sound of his voice, and Jongdae shakes his head.

 

“I can’t.” He whispers, clutching at Yixing’s arms, and his face is sheet-white.  He’s sliding down the side of the building, chest heaving.  “Yixing, I can’t.”

 

“Let me carry you.” Yixing says desperately, pulling Jongdae’s arm around his shoulders.

 

“Yixing, for ’s sake!” Jongdae jerks his arm back, and Yixing can see what he’s about to say, and he wants to clap his hands over his ears before Jongdae can speak.

 

“Jongdae, don’t—” Yixing says, but Jongdae grabs his wrists, eyes huge, expression wretched with pain.

 

“I’m dying!” Jongdae says, digging his fingernails into Yixing’s palms.  “You’re healthy and well, while the Stigma is killing me slowly.  I’m dying, Yixing!”

 

“I know!” Yixing yells miserably over Jongdae’s voice.  “I know, Jongdae.  But I can’t leave you behind.”

 

“Everything hurts, Yixing.” Jongdae says laboriously, and he drops the last few inches until he’s sitting on the dirty ground.  “Everything hurts all the time.”

 

Yixing lets a breath out as his vision blurs with tears, and an explosion closer than the last nearly knocks him off his feet.  Jongdae doesn’t react but for a flicker of eyelashes, and tears leak from under his sunken eyelids.  “Just leave me here.  Get somewhere safe.”

 

“I’m going to carry you whether you want me to or not.” Yixing says, and he cups Jongdae’s face in his hands.  “I love you, Jongdae, and I’m not going to let you out of my sight.  I wouldn’t let you die alone.  So stop being an and let me carry you.”

 

Jongdae looks mutinous for half a second, and then pounding footsteps make them both look up as Chanyeol and Baekhyun come sprinting around the corner of the alleyway.

 

Without a word, they help pull Jongdae to his feet and onto Yixing’s back; he’s dead weight, clinging to Yixing’s shoulders with what strength, none of them know.  Even as he races down the alley as best he can with Jongdae’s body bouncing heavily against his back, Jongdae is light enough to make him feel worse than before.  Chanyeol and Baekhyun flank them to either side, one ahead, one behind.

 

“We’re going to Joonmyun’s house.” Chanyeol calls over his shoulder.  Yixing is too breathless to speak, so he keeps running and tries to ignore the sudden crash and scream of metal overhead and the roaring of the behemoth.

 

Joonmyun, a short, black-haired man with an innocent face and hard eyes, is waiting for them and has the door open before they even cross the first step, and has it shut just behind Baekhyun’s heel as they cross the threshold.

 

“Here, down here.” He says urgently, pulling up on a metal loop embedded in the floor to reveal a cellar.  “Hide here.  The Remnants have attacked, and we’ll be lucky if Edge survives at all.  We might.”

 

“The Remnants?” Chanyeol says interestedly as he climbs down the ladder, and Baekhyun pushes his head down impatiently before swinging his body around and climbing down into the cellar.

 

It’s a narrow fit, like the bottom of a well, and Yixing tries his best not to think about it as they settle in; the explosions and screeching are muffled now, less invasive, less immediate.  Jongdae is too weak to sit up, so Yixing spreads the blanket in the corner for him, and Joonmyun offers a ragged but clean pillow.

 

Chanyeol pesters Joonmyun about the Remnants until Joonmyun launches into an explanation, calmly illustrating the devastation the Jenova project had unwittingly unleashed upon the Planet, of the accidental seepage of alien cells into their Lifestream.  Joonmyun had been a Shin-Ra employee for many years under Hojo, though he had quit some time even before Jenova had initially escaped.

 

Yixing doesn’t listen.  He sits on the floor, Jongdae’s hair, his heart clenching each time a whimper leaves Jongdae’s throat on an exhale.  Little flickers of green light leave his fingertips almost involuntarily and leave waning patterns on Jongdae’s skin in the path of his hands.

 

He dozes off after a while, the quiet discussion of the others and the stifled noises from above ground lulling him to sleep, Jongdae’s head tucked into the pit of his shoulder.  Anxiety keeps him from sleeping too deeply, but he’s spent and despairing, and it lies heavily inside the little cellar, affecting all of them like toxic gas.

 

“Is it raining?”

 

Baekhyun’s voice is never quiet, no matter how carefully he whispers, and Yixing wakes instantly, his eyes snapping open; and it’s only a heartbeat of time before he registers the way Jongdae is clinging to him, panting for breath and whining.  Chanyeol pushes the trapdoor open and sure enough, the sound of rain pattering against the windows can be heard.

 

“Shh…” Yixing soothes him softly, brushing Jongdae’s hair out of his eyes.  His hand comes away sticky with traces of black where the Stigma has started bleeding again.

 

Jongdae shivers violently and then convulses, a little cry leaving his mouth as his body twitches and goes rigid.  His lips draw back to show his teeth in a rictus of pain, and Yixing feels cold dread wash down his spine.  It’s happening.

 

He’d always known it would come, watching Jongdae’s strength wane day by day and the blight spread over his skin like rot, but he’d never really believed he’d have to watch Jongdae dying.

 

Chanyeol is calling him, but Yixing’s head is buzzing, because there’s nothing he can do.  Even still, he presses his hands to Jongdae’s chest, his neck, dodging his seizing limbs.  He leaves glowing handprints on Jongdae’s skin that only make him feel more desperate, more helpless, draining his strength even more.

 

“Yixing, get Jongdae out into the rain!  I can’t explain, just—” Chanyeol shakes Yixing’s shoulder urgently and pushes him out of the way to scoop the thrashing Jongdae into his arms.  There’s blood on Jongdae’s teeth, leaking from the corner of his mouth as he twists in Chanyeol’s hold and fights him the entire way.

 

Between the four of them, they bring the convulsing Jongdae out into the rain.  Yixing is mystified, exhausted, quailing at his Jongdae’s pain and the impending silence, and he fails to notice that everyone, everyone, is coming out into the rain, smiling and laughing and gasping in delight.

 

Rain soaks down the back of his neck, ice-cold and refreshing, and the ache in his joints and throbbing head suddenly seems a little easier to bear; and Baekhyun and Chanyeol are clutching at each other and laugh-crying loudly together.  Something strange is going on; Jongdae’s convulsing stops the instant they come out into the rain, and he’s shivering now, his breathing slowing.  The stiffness of his body melts in Yixing’s hold as the cold rain drenches his body too.  

 

Yixing pushes the hair off of Jongdae’s face just in time to see the last of the Stigma vanish from his skin in a flicker of green light.  Jongdae sighs and clutches at Yixing’s wrist weakly, a little smile quirking the corner of his mouth.  “Yixing.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“I’m tired.” He murmurs.  Yixing sniffs loudly, and he’s not sure if he’s crying, but rain is dripping from the end of his nose and filling his eyes, and Jongdae puts his arms lazily around Yixing’s neck and kisses him.  “Did you heal me?”

 

Yixing blinks the water from his eyes and kisses Jongdae again.  “Yeah.”