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Dept. of Putting It Out There
I finally decided I might as well put this piece of RPF-adjacent fic up here. Alert the press.
Also, I'm putting the MV here (under a cut, I'm not subjecting folks to it if they don't want to see it), so that if you do want to read it, you have the MV there as proof of what sparked this
With that handled, here's the story, under its very own cut.
Fandom: Stray Kids, Stray Kids "Escape" MV
*** *** *** *** ***
He didn’t know what they were or why they were. Sometimes, when he only had two feet, he thought he remembered some of the what and why, at least the words he knew should apply to them. That half-understood and almost remembered knowledge faded when he ran on four feet. When he tried to understand on four feet, it slid away and could not be caught.
There was a part of him that insisted those things didn’t need to be remembered. As long as the other one ran with him, he largely agreed. It itched at him, though; itched in a place where neither hand nor claw could reach to scratch.
When it came to the other, he knew he differed from that fierce little one. He didn’t know why or how, nor did he care; on two legs or four, he just knew it was good to have the other beside him. On four feet, they ran together; on two feet, they wrestled in a way that made his heart hot. On two feet, he could smile at the other and the other could grin back in his wild way. That also made him happy.
He remembered finding the little one, broken chains dangling from his wrists, playing alone in the ruins of … something, some place that he himself could almost understand. The place, its grounds littered with brick detritus, with steel and wood platforms rising to nowhere, angered him and filled him with sorrow. On four feet it was a playground; on two feet it was one more itch that couldn’t be scratched, one more inescapable cause of despair.
Despite all that, the scent and sound of the other one, slight and dangerous, drew him inexorably. He had watched while the other moved, sharp and rapid, his head at a raptor’s tilt, his laugh a bark pitched high and nearly silent. That laugh told him so much more than the other might have realized, and his own heart ached. He smelled loneliness so intense that it could kill; the scent was like his own.
He hadn’t stopped to consider what he’d do. He had confronted the little one, disregarding the feral and frightened glare that greeted him. He had waited, unmoving, legs apart, until the other understood that he was not a danger. More, that the one standing in front of him was stronger, faster, and willing to protect what could become his. That choosing him might save them both.
The other took no time to decide. His trust was complete and unquestioning, something wonderful. It felt right, despite the weight it placed on his own shoulders. He could bear it because now neither of them were alone.
They were inseparable. They played in the ruins, racing and exploring, neither moving too far from each other. He knew the little one craved the same warmth that he himself did. They shared life in the day and slept curled up around each other at night, in corners of the ruins that they made their own. Night and day, they gave each other warmth.
He thought that his fierce companion had some of the same memories he did. When they both ran on two feet, he knew the other would explore places that once were built for two feet, his face intent and curious, his fingers reaching for something that wasn’t there anymore. He knew that frustration; he’d felt it himself. But as long as they were together it didn’t matter to him. He hoped their bond meant the hazy confusing memories didn’t torment his companion too much either.
Sometimes he wondered what they were to each other. He knew the other made his heart hot, but he didn’t know why. Eventually he decided it didn’t matter what they were. They were connected and the connection could not be broken. They shared a life; they shared each other’s hot hearts. It was enough.
*** *** ***
They didn’t measure time; they didn’t need to. On four legs, it didn’t exist and on two legs, it was something to be ignored. He worried, though. When they ran on four feet, the stench of death was now never far away, even though he saw nothing around them that could cause it. The ruins had held death once upon a time, but that was old and dry, barely a scent at all. No, what he smelled was newer and closer and that was why he worried.
One night, as they prepared to bed down, he was moved by some unknowable impulse to pick up a large shard of glass, sharp edged and pointed, when he saw it lying in the rubble. He handed it to the other. It was more than a gift. He thought it might be preparation for what he somehow knew was coming, because at his core, he wasn't sure he could keep them both safe.
The next night, he saw it, the darkness; smelled it, the rotten-sweet stink of death. Stench and darkness became claws reaching for them. He stared in shock, momentarily immobile with terror, and then he remembered. His little one, his companion; he had to find safety for them both, someplace hidden where the dark and the odor of death couldn’t find them.
He fought the terror in order to grab his companion’s hand and drag him back and away from that menace. They should have dropped to four feet because they could have run faster, but he didn’t stop to think about that. He just ran. They tried to hide in one place, but he couldn’t stifle the little one’s snarls, and the unnatural darkness found them.
The ruins spun around him as he looked everywhere, trying to find a way out. There was none. He tried to think, but his companion wasn’t thinking. He was grasping the glass shard so tightly blood ran from his fingers down to his wrist before dripping to the ground. His face was alight with fear and ferocity and, in a look toward him so brief it might have been just imagination, stubborn determination to fight for him. To defend him.
Before he could prevent it, his companion, so small and so savage, took off at a run toward the darkness. The darkness swallowed him.
Panicked by the disappearance, he leapt from one steel platform to another in an effort to spot something; anything. He couldn’t. That night he crept into a hole in the ground and slept alone. The hole was filled with the scent of his grief.
*** *** ***
Empty night followed empty night and he forgot to eat, forgot to drink, forgot almost everything but his anguish. He wouldn’t sleep, tormented by dreams of the little one, all ferocity gone, trembling and once more bound by chains. The nightmares wouldn’t show him a route to his companion. Instead they brought him too close to remembering what he might once have been, what they both might once have been. He could not bear that, so he prowled through the ruins on two legs and on four, finding nothing and sinking into misery so deep he couldn’t see a way out.
He had forgotten about the moon.
The moon hadn’t forgotten him. He discovered that on a night when its light was full. It gave him a gift; it cleared the noisome darkness from his eyes and his nose. He raised his head to test the night air and, for the first time in far too many days and nights, he caught the scent of his little one; he knew where to run, how he could rescue him. His heart, which had become so wretchedly cold, once more burned hot.
And somehow, he felt the other’s heart, equally hot. He knew the moon had given gifts to his beloved little one, and now there was nothing that could keep them apart. He ran, faster than he had ever run before. Although he didn’t know it, joy transfigured his face.
And there! There he was, there was his reason for living! His little one didn’t need rescuing; he’d found his own way to freedom. Once more unfettered by chains, running toward him, on four feet and two, his companion’s eyes were filled with the light of the moon. As he matched that run, on four legs and two, he thought the moon and all the stars above must be shining in his own eyes.
Grey and white, large and small, furred and without fur, he and his beloved companion collided. On two legs, they flung their arms around each other. There were no words because none were needed. His fierce little one looked up at him, and there was no rage, no fear, in that look. Meeting that gaze, he understood anew that what he felt, the other felt as well. He loved, and was loved in return. Their hot hearts beat in unison and they were again one with each other. They were all they needed, he thought —
— until a different light eclipsed the moon with its glare and almost blinded them. The smell of death returned but it was different. It flooded the air with great gouts of smoke from the thing that had somehow crept up on them while they held each other.
He saw where the light came from; he saw where the smoke came from. He couldn’t see into the front of the … truck, that was the word, truck … but he knew that death and rank darkness grew from inside that truck. He remembered, in flashes that made him hate memory, all the pain and the blood, all the fright and horror in bright, white rooms. And he knew deep in his bones, that the little one had been in a white room too. He snarled wordlessly.
He looked to his companion. All the joy was gone from his fierce little one’s face, replaced by the grim ferocity he’d worn at their first meeting. He was crouched, ready to spring at whatever enemy he saw; at whatever enemy he was ordered to assault. He was ready to defend, just as he had done with the glass shard.
That would not happen. He had no doubt about the little one’s bravery, but he would never again watch a doomed and solitary attack. They were together; they would live or die together. He bared his own teeth and the other, looking up from under dark brows, gave the palest of smiles. He reached for his beloved companion’s hand, held it tight.
Perhaps they would tear past its protective glass and metal to rip the throat out of the darkness and stench inside the truck. Perhaps they would leap onto its cabin and race across its roof into the moonlit night and win even more freedom in the world beyond these ruins. Perhaps they would die. No matter; whatever happened, whatever they did, they would never again be prisoners; they would never again be apart.
They leapt.
-30-