dcntlie

[dcntlie]

[dcntlie]

[dcntlie]

        the rush never truly goes away. a lifetime of adrenaline hasn’t dulled its effects, left the familiarity cold. even as an observer, watching the monster that is his younger brother twist and jerk against the chains binding him, he can feel the dizzying urge pulling at his heart. the call to join, to be one. it’s not a call he can answer, not now. not when their futures depend on his ability to see this through. instead he steps forward, slowly nodding. calling, “good,” loud enough to be heard and assertive enough to be heard but still what he hopes is comforting, “keep trying.” he places a steadying hand on the shoulder of the newest member of his family. resist. stay human. observe.

[dcntlie]

i’m a little bitch

[dcntlie]

° ☾ .: BEN:

     ben sucks in a sharp breath when somi pulls at his hair, and then his eyes are bugging out at her suggestion. ❛ i don’t know if that’s my look, ❜ he says sheepishly. ❛ i can pull off guy fieri, i don’t know if i can pull off bald. ❜

     somi’s bottom lip juts out, her whine of protest soft as she leans in closer to ben’s ear to run her fingers through her hair before delivering a solid pat to the tuft she pulled. ❛ so when are you coming over to do the deed ? frosted tips are so in, benji. ❜

[dcntlie]

° ☾ .: HYUNGMIN‌:

     relief floods hyungmin, and although he’s been given instructions to do otherwise, his immediate reaction is to fling himself at daesun. his arms close around his shoulders, and he buries his face against his hair, breathing in deeply. ❛ thank you, ❜ he whispers. a squeeze, and then he’s stepping away to flip up the hood of his sweatshirt. ❛ let’s go. ❜

     the stiffness is an immediate reaction in daesun, so out of practice with gestures like this that no instinct is available to kick in to inform his reaction. he knows in his rational mind that the obvious response would be to hug him back, but it feels wrong. artificially forced. warmth does not come easily to jung daesun. but before he can formulate what he would like to do, hyungmin is letting go. he clears his throat and smooths down the front of his shirt, stepping quickly to get in front of the taller boy. ❛ this is just for tonight, you should know. i don’t run a pet-sitting service. ❜

[dcntlie]

° ☾ .: TAYLOR:

     taylor’s never really believed anyone that’s ever said it all happened too fast. how time could move any quicker in moments of distress than in times of peace has never been a concept that he could wrap his head around. a second is still a second, a minute is still a minute, and any time at all is still an opportunity to act. he’s never really understood, not until now, not until he’s upright one instant and flat on his back the next, pushing against noah’s weight with all the strength in his body, mouth parted, gasping and ready to scream. he’s trapped, but when a jolt of warmth radiates out from taylor’s neck and pools low in his stomach, he stops struggling against it. his desperate shouts for help die in his throat, and instead, he moans, high and breathy in noah’s ear.

     the sound taylor makes is distant to noah’s ears, only tangental to the task at hand. noises are nothing compared to the taste, the warmth in his mouth, the relief that comes after a new lifetime of hunger ends. the blood flows freely but he still sucks at the wound, desperate not to let a single drop fall without passing his lips. he only exists to feed, and there isn’t a thing in the world that can stop him before he’s satisfied.

[dcntlie]

° ☾ .: BEN:

     ben’s smile turns wry, as if he didn’t genuinely think she’d be willing to spend her afternoon making him over. he reaches up to splay his fingertips out over the crown of his head and jokes, ❛ maybe just some frosted tips for now ? i want to be backstreet, not slim shady. ❜

     she snorts and raises her hand up as well, fingers brushing past ben's before grabbing a chunk of his hair left uncovered. ❛ you know what i think would look rad ? ❜ she asks, eyeing him carefully before giving the hair a solid tug, ❛ if we shaved it all off. ❜

[dcntlie]

° ☾ .: HYUNGMIN:

    he leans closer to him, the damp pavement beneath his bare feet hard and uncomfortable, peering down at this stranger. at this distance, daesun can surely see the glint of desperation in his eyes, can hear the slight waver in his voice when he says, ❛ i don’t have anywhere else to go. ❜

     jung daesun is many things, but he's never been one to easily give into charity. his life is one that's been built on looking out for himself above all else, something that can't easily be done if often swayed by the plight of the less fortunate. he's ready to leave this boy in the street, turn on his heel and walk away and never spare him another thought, which counts for his confusion when instead he hears himself saying, ❛ cover the ears. let's go. ❜

[dcntlie]

° ☾ .: TAYLOR:

     it’s been a whirlwind since that night, all frantic feeling and no closure, no relief from his thoughts, nothing but unease, and it’s been no better since he saw him. he saw him, cloaked in the cold light of this very apartment, and just the thought astounds him. everyone thinks noah’s missing, perhaps worse, perhaps a victim of something sinister and scary which lurks only in the nighttime of cities like this one, but taylor knows better. taylor hopes he knows better. that’s why he’s here, because he doesn’t know if he can trust his own memory, because he doesn’t know if the half-dead thing that he spoke to, the thing that looks like the boy he grew up alongside but can’t possibly be, is trustworthy either.

     even as it opens the door, taylor’s confidence wavers. he looks even worse — grayer somehow, more sunken, like a corpse, even in the dark. it makes his stomach churn, as does the sight of his own scarf, knotted tightly around noah’s throat; his gaze fixates on it immediately, and even though his mouth falls open, no words come out. every thought that he’s tried to articulate between home and here gets caught somewhere, and he can’t get any of them unstuck as he gapes at him. tell him you’re scared for him, a voice pleads. tell him you’re worried. tell him you’re sorry. tell him you’ve never been sorrier. tell him his parents miss him. tell him winnie misses him. tell him you miss him. tell him, whatever’s going on, he’s not alone. tell him he has you. tell him everything. tell him anything.

     ❛ noah, ❜ he breathes, amazed. ❛ fuck. ❜ 

     the concept of noah liu is no longer.

     the thing that now becomes noah liu is one that only loosely resembles a human being. one that falls more in line with the whispered legends of his ah-mah, of corpses that walk with rotted skin and blue lips and cold hands who have risen only to steal the essence of those still living. the boy noah liu once was could easily frighten from these stories, hidden far under blankets on cold nights in hong kong silently holding his breath until his vision swam and praying that there was nothing lurking just out of sight. now he is that thing that lurks, and he feels no fear. just a need that he doesn't have the will to fight.

     taylor hits the ground with a thud, and there's barely time for him to react until he's being pulled by the ankle further into the darkness of the apartment. the door shuts, and any light remaining from the hall is extinguished. for a stretch that could be a second or could be a minute there's only darkness and silence, the faint hum of the refrigerator, and then the weight of another human being crushes against his chest. teeth sink into flesh and the flash of pain quickly gives way to something else.

     something warm.

     noah liu doesn't exist, all that remains is hunger.

[dcntlie]

° ☾ .: BEN:

     their arms knock together when ben pushes up onto the next step, beside her, still too close and yet completely within the boundaries that they, as a unit, as a trio, have established for themselves. ❛ it looks nice, ❜ he says, grin crooked and a little sheepish, and he means it. ❛ you should do me next. ❜

     somi's hip nudges ben’s, the shadow of a body check thats intent is understood without the necessity of force. ❛ you wanna go full eminem ? ❜ she asks with a raise of her brow, ❛ because i could make that happen. i think i have some bleach left over. ❜

[dcntlie]

° ☾ .: HYUNGMIN:

     his tail curls around his thigh on its own and nearly disappears against the fabric of his sweatpants, just a thin line in the darkness, but he can’t hide his ears or their nervous twitchiness. a part of him worries that his nature unsettles this seemingly unflappable boy. ❛ i won’t stay long, ❜ he says, trying to curb the hopefulness in his voice. ❛ i don’t take up that much space. you’ll barely even notice i’m there. ❜

     his eyes move from the disappearing tail to the ears that are entirely too realistic to process, finally to the face of this long and slender impossibility. it's sweet. trusting. hopeful. all the things daesun can't have nearby without tainting. ❛ issue being, my landlord is also my roommate. i think he’d notice, don't you? ❜

[dcntlie]

° ☾ .: HYUNGMIN:

     hyungmin lets out a clipped breath of exasperation, even rolls his eyes. ❛ no, ❜ he says, voice insistent. ❛ i’m a person. as in, not a stray cat. ❜ as if on cue, his tail swishes idly through the air.

     daesun’s eyes flick to hyungmin’s tail, his mind still not completely wanting to process what he’s seeing. this boy who’s also animal doesn’t make sense, and while daesun thinks that’s fantastically weird the sense of wrongness his instincts provide disagrees. ❛ people can be strays, ❜ he says after a moment of silence, ❛ but i’m enough of a stray as-is. ❜

[dcntlie]

° ☾ .: BEN:

     he’s just behind her, too close, her scent thick in his nose: not the powdery freshness of her deodorant or her fruity body splash, but her, her essence, something heady and familiar like home, something that he must breathe too much of when she turns to face him. his head swims, but the smile on his mouth remains. ❛ that’s some killer self-control, ❜ he says mildly. ❛ i mean, the new hair ? ❜ an unnecessarily loud wolf whistle follows.

     the way she touches her hair self-consciously is involuntary, not even thinking about her movement as she does it. she would call it something done out of boredom, not the painstakingly long ordeal it was to achieve a specific look that she aspired to. brush it off like nothing. because she’s somi, and she doesn’t care. ❛ what about my hair ? ❜

[dcntlie]

° ☾ .: TAYLOR:

     he goes back.

     even as he passes through the unlocked front door, ascends the narrow staircase, makes his way hesitantly down the hallway he left noah bloody and broken in, taylor can’t figure out why he’s there. there’s nothing there for him, no answer for any of the questions he still has, no easy explanation for anything that’s happened recently — to him or to noah, whose grayish pallor and unnatural movement is all that he’s been able to think about since seeing him last. nothing about that encounter seems real, even now.

     still, against all rational thought, he goes back, and as he stands where noah’s body once lay, he forgoes a knock to jostle the doorknob instead, calling loud and muffled into the apartment, ❛ it’s me. please open the door. ❜

      it’s been days since he’s so much as heard the sound of another person’s voice, not since taylor’s ill-fated visit with his sister that noah cut short just close enough to keep it from turning bloody. the total lack of contact has been unfamiliar, complete isolation not something he’s had much experience with considering the constant calls from over-involved parents that have followed him through college no matter how much he would prefer to pretend that his māma and bàba are two things that rarely cross his mind. the calls haven’t stopped, not by any means, if anything their frequency has increased along with the desperation of the texts that accompany them. but noah can’t answer, not so much as an i’m okay, not if he’s still capable of anything even resembling love. and so, he’s been alone.

     until he hears the voice.

     he won’t open the door, but he’s not thinking as he silently glides across the hardwood from his bedroom to the peephole. he won’t open the door, but seeing taylor on the other side distorted by the glass, offering a confirmation that he didn’t need, makes him acutely aware of a longing that gnaws at his stomach and might have been there all along, unnoticed. he won’t open the door, but the scarf taylor has wrapped tightly around his neck is only a reminder of what he almost had, what he deserved to have, and yet still let slip away; that kills him. he won’t open the door, but he can smell him, all warm and familiar and enticing and mouth-watering and inviting him to just stepalittleclosereasynowimallyours. he won’t open the door, but god he wants to.

    ( he opens the door. )

[dcntlie]

° ☾ .: HYUNGMIN:

     shy and uncomfortable under this stranger’s inspection, hyungmin leans awkwardly to the side like he’s not sure what to do with his body, so far he nearly topples over into the street. ❛ it’s not funny, ❜ he says, blunt in a way usually characteristic of a childlike innocence. ❛ i’m a person. ❜

     daesun can’t help his smile, the one that belongs to the part of him that enjoys seeing the way this strange boy seems to squirm like a child. ❛ so people don’t get joked about ? ❜ he asks, crossing his arms, ❛ duly noted. ❜

[dcntlie]

° ☾ .: BEN:

     he laughs, and this time, it’s more reminiscent of himself: loud and unrestrained, teeth bright and exposed. maybe when they were younger, wading through the throes of adolescence alongside each other, some feelings could’ve gotten mixed up, but now, as all three of them push into their twenties, the suggestion of romance blossoming within their trio is pretty ridiculous to ben. ❛ you guys had two whole months without me, ❜ he reminds her gently. ❛ if finn didn’t make his move then, i doubt he ever would’ve. ❜

     somi’s frown is exaggerated, meant to show that she’s unhappy with ben’s words rather than to express genuine emotion. she’s at the top of the steps leading up from the sidewalk to her door, standing with one hand on her hip and skateboard tucked under the other arm, looking down at ben and practically pouting. ❛ 아이씨, ❜ she hisses, ❛ he’s just shy. he had to leave to make sure he wouldn’t ruin things between us. ❜