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writetomyheart2015-07-27 05:20 pm
bluedreaming) wrote in writetomyheart2015-07-27 05:20 pm
[team five] my feet are blue
The title is from Be Your Shadow by The Wombats. Thank you ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nachtegael for all your help and gorgeous photos and I'm sorry this ended up being too small to use most of them. ;;
PSA: Sehun and Skandar look the same okay?
This was written for Soulmates AU week.
Regrets float down from the pale sky, blue obscured by white, snowflakes of acid rain that burn his skin as they land on his face, blinking up at heaven, the roof of the building hard against his back, smoke from the exhaust pipes, factory chimneys pumping poison into the air, crystallizing into ice.
"I have a bad feeling about this one," he remembers William saying, passing him the file, the Avenir Next Ultralight scrolling across the screen, turning into Courier.
"You always say that," he'd laughed, and Skandar can feel the corners of his mouth twitch now, reaching for a grin that he can't quite shape. You were right.
It's the way the world is, so messed up and turned over and twisted onto itself, "how can we ever hope for happy endings when we only know our soulmates when we die?" Georgie said once, the words bitter on her tongue; Skandar had only shaken his head, because who had time for soulmates anyway, they worked in Interpol and crime had been on the rise for the last millennium, and only projected to increase. The words echo in his head now, happy ending, happy ending, but it was too late even before it started.
It's always been too late, for Skandar.
The picture that's been swimming behind his eyes—dark hair and winter pale skin, lips chewed red and tired eyes that burn with a ferocity he can't quite grasp, stories that he will never have time to hear—the picture burns his eyes.
Why didn't I realize? he wonders, but maybe it's always like that. People kicking themselves as they die, their soulmate flashing before their eyes. It's so clear now.
He closes his eyes against the overbearing brightness of the white, all the things he didn't have a chance to do, the dreams that never came true, and lets Sehun's face burn itself further into his heart.
It's a better pain than the cranberry dark dripping down onto the frozen concrete, draining his life down to the last drop.
It's supposed to be an easy assignment, or as easy as anything these days, when more crime happens between the zeroes and ones strung together in a virtual reality that's all too real, more sharp, more precise than the dull sadness that fills the sky.
It's raining when Skandar steps out of HQ, flags down a taxi because he doesn't like driving.
"Train station," he tells the driver, who tips its cap, a strange hold out to the time when cabs were staffed by real people. Such a strange country, the past much have been. Skandar shakes his head, flips through the files, the celluloid slippery under his winter-chilled fingers. It will be snowing in neo-Siberia, and he's not looking forward to it. Harbing in winter is a frozen iceland, which is of course why the Vuokko took the target there.
Why is nothing ever easy?
The streets rush by, dark buildings blurred in the rain, falling green leaves and red in the gutters, the seasons have stopped being in line with nature since the Great Dark—Skandar thinks of better things.
Like the fact that the train he has to take to liaise with the Trans-Siberian Express is sitting on the tracks, not yet lifted on the magnetic rails, and he zips his code against the door and climbs on, heading for the berth code that shows up winking in his right field of vision.
Oh Sehun. Age 21. Heir to O— Megacorporation. Last seen on ■■.■■.■■■■ in the vicinity of his K— college.
He's only two years younger than me, Skandar thinks, flicking past lines of text to look at a photograph. Sehun has dark hair, wind-ruffled in his photograph, a stare that seems to meet Skandar's eyes with an unspoken question. He doesn't look like the kind of person who bums around at college and gets kidnapped for his mother's money. Skandar thinks about what he was doing two years ago, and quickly halts the thought in its tracks.
The sound of screaming, broken glass and crimson rain.
"What's your story?" he asks the photograph, but there's no answer. Looking up, Skandar catches sight of his reflection in the glass of the window, cast against the black wall of the tunnel they're speeding through at 500 km/h, give or take a few heartbeats. His dark hair and eyes burning out from a winter-pale face stare back.
It's supposed to be a simple extraction, but nothing is ever simple. When the call goes down and the systems are supposed to be offline, Skandar is hardly dropping out of the exhaust pipes into the cell when the lights go on again. Sehun looks up, dark tangled hair obscuring his eyes but he's okay—there's a kind of electricity in the air, a kind of tingling in his fingertips as their eyes meet. Skandar wants to know Sehun, he realizes, wants to say hello, go for coffee maybe, talk about things that aren't important, not like life and death and the bullets from guns that go through skin and bone and burst in shards of metal shrapnel, but there's no time for that.
There's never time.
Damn it Georgie get me cover now, Skandar types, but it's too late, the siren is already off and there are feet pounding down the hall. Sehun's eyes are wide, the silhouette of his mouth moving against the silver tape holding his words trapped behind his lips. Skandar wonders what he's trying to say, but there's no time as he shoves the tiny screen into Sehun's hands and pushes him up into the exhaust pipe.
"Wait until she gives you all clear?" Skandar whispers into Sehun's ear, barely more than a breath as Sehun shivers, trying to look back but Skandar pushes him up into the ceiling and replaces the grate, sitting down on the chair and coiling the ropes messily around his wrists and ankles before the door bangs open, it's too late for the silver tape but the Vuokko aren't known for hiring the smartest staff; hopefully it will be okay.
As the shape of the Metalloid fills the door, Skandar almost laughs, before the aluminum fist slams into his mouth. I'm so lucky we look alike, he thinks around the pain, rust filling his mouth, as he doesn't wonder why.
Doesn't think about the soft skin of Sehun's ear as he whispered the words. I never got to hear your story. He won't know, it's pretty clear. Though the Vuokko might be sloppy, they don't like loose ends. As far as the Metalloid knows, Oh Sehun is still sitting in the cell, and has just become a liability. Time to go. Skandar doesn't even bother dragging his feet as he's pulled up by the shoulder, piercing fingers almost like claws shredding his shirt, scarlet blooming on his skin.
Be safe, he thinks, but Sehun didn't look like the type to cry in the exhaust pipes, fall apart in the midst of danger. He'll be okay.
And as the Metalloid pulls him up the steps, his feet bump bump bumping against the concrete and head still ringing from the force of the blow, Skandar images what it would be like to get to know Oh Sehun.
He's still dreaming as he stands under the open sky, breathes in the polluted air, hears the faint buzz of a post-Soviet heli-drone above the cloud-cover. Snow is drifting down, landing on his shoulders, hair, as the Metalloid paints the front of his white shirt vermillion, a staccato symphony ringing through the air.
As as he falls, Skandar waits for the moment his soulmate will swim before his eyes, the person who was always supposed to be for him: maybe it will be a person he's never met, or maybe he has, locking eyes at a cafe or a coworker he would maybe have connected with later.
He doesn't expect to see Sehun's face painted across the air, the backs of his eyelids as he falls, skeleton impacting as his body bounces, once, twice, landing with a dull thud.
Sehun.
The Metalloid clanks away, rusty joints fading into the distance as the trapdoor slams shut, vibrating the cement of the roof he's lying on, but it barely registers. Nothing really matters, right here, right now, except one thing.
Looking up at the sky, the sun forever obscured by clouds of smog and broken dreams, Skandar blinks as a shard of ice catches in his eyelash, water melting like tears as he coughs up a single word, stained red on his lips.
"Sorry."
But Sehun isn't there to see it.
The Book of L—, Extract #6■1:
In a world where we only find our soulmate when we're dying, there are a few lucky people, the ones who almost drown, or slip into a coma and emerge years later, or fall down and somehow get up again; these people see the face of their soulmate and live. They get a second chance at life. We call them the miracles, the only kind of hope left after the Great Dark. But for most people, miracles don't happen.
taggingsingilu
nachtegael for all your help and gorgeous photos and I'm sorry this ended up being too small to use most of them. ;;PSA: Sehun and Skandar look the same okay?
This was written for Soulmates AU week.
Regrets float down from the pale sky, blue obscured by white, snowflakes of acid rain that burn his skin as they land on his face, blinking up at heaven, the roof of the building hard against his back, smoke from the exhaust pipes, factory chimneys pumping poison into the air, crystallizing into ice.
"I have a bad feeling about this one," he remembers William saying, passing him the file, the Avenir Next Ultralight scrolling across the screen, turning into Courier.
"You always say that," he'd laughed, and Skandar can feel the corners of his mouth twitch now, reaching for a grin that he can't quite shape. You were right.
It's the way the world is, so messed up and turned over and twisted onto itself, "how can we ever hope for happy endings when we only know our soulmates when we die?" Georgie said once, the words bitter on her tongue; Skandar had only shaken his head, because who had time for soulmates anyway, they worked in Interpol and crime had been on the rise for the last millennium, and only projected to increase. The words echo in his head now, happy ending, happy ending, but it was too late even before it started.
It's always been too late, for Skandar.
The picture that's been swimming behind his eyes—dark hair and winter pale skin, lips chewed red and tired eyes that burn with a ferocity he can't quite grasp, stories that he will never have time to hear—the picture burns his eyes.
Why didn't I realize? he wonders, but maybe it's always like that. People kicking themselves as they die, their soulmate flashing before their eyes. It's so clear now.
He closes his eyes against the overbearing brightness of the white, all the things he didn't have a chance to do, the dreams that never came true, and lets Sehun's face burn itself further into his heart.
It's a better pain than the cranberry dark dripping down onto the frozen concrete, draining his life down to the last drop.
It's supposed to be an easy assignment, or as easy as anything these days, when more crime happens between the zeroes and ones strung together in a virtual reality that's all too real, more sharp, more precise than the dull sadness that fills the sky.
It's raining when Skandar steps out of HQ, flags down a taxi because he doesn't like driving.
"Train station," he tells the driver, who tips its cap, a strange hold out to the time when cabs were staffed by real people. Such a strange country, the past much have been. Skandar shakes his head, flips through the files, the celluloid slippery under his winter-chilled fingers. It will be snowing in neo-Siberia, and he's not looking forward to it. Harbing in winter is a frozen iceland, which is of course why the Vuokko took the target there.
Why is nothing ever easy?
The streets rush by, dark buildings blurred in the rain, falling green leaves and red in the gutters, the seasons have stopped being in line with nature since the Great Dark—Skandar thinks of better things.
Like the fact that the train he has to take to liaise with the Trans-Siberian Express is sitting on the tracks, not yet lifted on the magnetic rails, and he zips his code against the door and climbs on, heading for the berth code that shows up winking in his right field of vision.
Oh Sehun. Age 21. Heir to O— Megacorporation. Last seen on ■■.■■.■■■■ in the vicinity of his K— college.
He's only two years younger than me, Skandar thinks, flicking past lines of text to look at a photograph. Sehun has dark hair, wind-ruffled in his photograph, a stare that seems to meet Skandar's eyes with an unspoken question. He doesn't look like the kind of person who bums around at college and gets kidnapped for his mother's money. Skandar thinks about what he was doing two years ago, and quickly halts the thought in its tracks.
The sound of screaming, broken glass and crimson rain.
"What's your story?" he asks the photograph, but there's no answer. Looking up, Skandar catches sight of his reflection in the glass of the window, cast against the black wall of the tunnel they're speeding through at 500 km/h, give or take a few heartbeats. His dark hair and eyes burning out from a winter-pale face stare back.
It's supposed to be a simple extraction, but nothing is ever simple. When the call goes down and the systems are supposed to be offline, Skandar is hardly dropping out of the exhaust pipes into the cell when the lights go on again. Sehun looks up, dark tangled hair obscuring his eyes but he's okay—there's a kind of electricity in the air, a kind of tingling in his fingertips as their eyes meet. Skandar wants to know Sehun, he realizes, wants to say hello, go for coffee maybe, talk about things that aren't important, not like life and death and the bullets from guns that go through skin and bone and burst in shards of metal shrapnel, but there's no time for that.
There's never time.
Damn it Georgie get me cover now, Skandar types, but it's too late, the siren is already off and there are feet pounding down the hall. Sehun's eyes are wide, the silhouette of his mouth moving against the silver tape holding his words trapped behind his lips. Skandar wonders what he's trying to say, but there's no time as he shoves the tiny screen into Sehun's hands and pushes him up into the exhaust pipe.
"Wait until she gives you all clear?" Skandar whispers into Sehun's ear, barely more than a breath as Sehun shivers, trying to look back but Skandar pushes him up into the ceiling and replaces the grate, sitting down on the chair and coiling the ropes messily around his wrists and ankles before the door bangs open, it's too late for the silver tape but the Vuokko aren't known for hiring the smartest staff; hopefully it will be okay.
As the shape of the Metalloid fills the door, Skandar almost laughs, before the aluminum fist slams into his mouth. I'm so lucky we look alike, he thinks around the pain, rust filling his mouth, as he doesn't wonder why.
Doesn't think about the soft skin of Sehun's ear as he whispered the words. I never got to hear your story. He won't know, it's pretty clear. Though the Vuokko might be sloppy, they don't like loose ends. As far as the Metalloid knows, Oh Sehun is still sitting in the cell, and has just become a liability. Time to go. Skandar doesn't even bother dragging his feet as he's pulled up by the shoulder, piercing fingers almost like claws shredding his shirt, scarlet blooming on his skin.
Be safe, he thinks, but Sehun didn't look like the type to cry in the exhaust pipes, fall apart in the midst of danger. He'll be okay.
And as the Metalloid pulls him up the steps, his feet bump bump bumping against the concrete and head still ringing from the force of the blow, Skandar images what it would be like to get to know Oh Sehun.
He's still dreaming as he stands under the open sky, breathes in the polluted air, hears the faint buzz of a post-Soviet heli-drone above the cloud-cover. Snow is drifting down, landing on his shoulders, hair, as the Metalloid paints the front of his white shirt vermillion, a staccato symphony ringing through the air.
As as he falls, Skandar waits for the moment his soulmate will swim before his eyes, the person who was always supposed to be for him: maybe it will be a person he's never met, or maybe he has, locking eyes at a cafe or a coworker he would maybe have connected with later.
He doesn't expect to see Sehun's face painted across the air, the backs of his eyelids as he falls, skeleton impacting as his body bounces, once, twice, landing with a dull thud.
Sehun.
The Metalloid clanks away, rusty joints fading into the distance as the trapdoor slams shut, vibrating the cement of the roof he's lying on, but it barely registers. Nothing really matters, right here, right now, except one thing.
Looking up at the sky, the sun forever obscured by clouds of smog and broken dreams, Skandar blinks as a shard of ice catches in his eyelash, water melting like tears as he coughs up a single word, stained red on his lips.
"Sorry."
But Sehun isn't there to see it.
The Book of L—, Extract #6■1:
In a world where we only find our soulmate when we're dying, there are a few lucky people, the ones who almost drown, or slip into a coma and emerge years later, or fall down and somehow get up again; these people see the face of their soulmate and live. They get a second chance at life. We call them the miracles, the only kind of hope left after the Great Dark. But for most people, miracles don't happen.
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