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cherries-jubileee · 11 months ago

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when you're lost in the darkness. . .

pairing : kwon soonyoung x reader

au : the last of us

summary : seoul falls first to the infection, and five years is too long for one man to be alone.

cw : canon-typical violence (for tlou), character death, mentions of infection/viruses, hurt/comfort, also hurt/no comfort, the crushing weight of being alone in the apocalypse, mentions of blood/gore

wc : 8.3k

day zero

year one of the outbreak

soonyoung is slouched over the kitchen counter when you walk out of the bedroom that morning, desperately trying to figure out how to use your new keurig as quietly as possible. it’s far earlier in the morning than you’re used to, having to be wide awake before the sun has fully risen, but the law firm that’s hired you on is well-known and respectable, and you want to make a good impression. this new schedule, you tell yourself, is only temporary, and you’d be able to afford to sleep in just a little more a few months down the line.

“soonyoungie, you should be in bed right now,” you say, finally, after several moments of watching your partner struggle to find the power button to your coffee-maker. soonyoung doesn’t jump or act surprised that you’ve been standing behind him, but you note that he looks only the slightest bit apologetic, “the physician said you needed to be resting as much as possible, i know i’m not the only person who heard that.”

you don’t feel bad when his lips pull into a tired pout – you’ve been desensitized to it at this point – but perhaps your heart aches a little when he plays with the laces of his hoodie and mumbles, “but i wanted to make you coffee for your first day at work.”

soonyoung looks precious like this, in your opinion, and your opinions are very rarely objectively wrong; you don’t know when he rolled out of bed after you got up to shower, but he’s still sleep-warmed and half-asleep, snuggled into a well-worn hoodie you remember gifting him before you had even officially started dating. he’s barefooted, which, on the kitchen tile floors, can’t exactly be pleasant, but he doesn’t seem perturbed by it at all. the only thing ruining your domestic view of your boyfriend has to be the rough, wet cough that comes from him the next time he opens his mouth, quickly shoving his face into his elbow as the coughing fit wracks his body. whatever he meant to say before is lost between the both of you, and you flit around the kitchen restlessly to get him a glass of water.

“i know, it’s miserable,” you tell him, after the coughing has stopped and he’s taken the glass from your hands, “i’m very happy that you wanted to send me off today, but it’s super early, and i know you don’t feel well right now. did you already check your temperature while i was getting ready?”

soonyoung nods, but knowing the look in his eyes, he isn’t pleased with the answer. “still have a fever,” he rasps, and when you raise your hand to press it against his forehead, smoothing his hair from his face, he leans into you without hesitation.

disappointment and worry pull your lips into a frown. “you are still a little warm.” it’s not new information, but you don’t like admitting it. already, it’s been a week since soonyoung was exiled from the company building until he got better, and only three days since he’d developed that nasty cough. his symptoms weren’t dire, you were well aware of that, but that didn’t make you worry any less over his well being. soonyoung is still pallid, his face uncharacteristically puffy and tender – you remember that the doctor had brushed it off, claiming it was nothing more than lymph node inflammation from some kind of virus; he’d sent soonyoung home with anti-inflammatories, and instructions to remain rested and hydrated. this was the first day you would be gone at work full-time, and you were already fretting over how soonyoung would fair being left by himself. “go back to bed, and call me when you wake up.”

soonyoung hums. “alright, take care.”

“and if you start to feel worse, just tell me and i’ll come straight home.”

“okay.”

“and make sure to eat something. your appetite probably isn’t what it usually is, but you should still try and eat.”

“got it.”

“if you want, i can have something delivered –”

“babe.” soonyoung’s groan is slightly muffled by his hoodie, his hands coming up to your arms to pull you back, “do you even want this job? you’re gonna be late.”

checking your phone, you curse when you realise he’s right. if you wanted to make it to the firm before you were officially late, you would have to leave now. “alright, alright, i’m going. i love you. and i’m serious about you calling me if you need anything, okay?”

you don’t wait for an answer, even though soonyoung is still nodding as you lean up and press a kiss to the side of his head, pull back and, upon further consideration, kiss his cheek again for good measure. soonyoung sees you out as far as the door, leaning from the threshold and waving at you as you hurry down the hallway. you turn to him for the last time as you reach the elevator, blowing him another flurry of air kisses until the elevator dings, and the door opens. he watches you disappear from view, slowly closing the door in front of him.

the trip back to bed, now that the house is empty, feels infinitely longer than it should have. he can still hear the television murmuring quietly from when you turned it on; you like to absently listen to the news while you get ready in the mornings. admittedly, there aren’t many days where you are gone, and soonyoung is home alone. most days, you were both gone until late into the afternoon – soonyoung, at practice and in the studio, and you, at school. the most recent turn of events had been your graduation from law school, which gave you an uncanny few weeks off while you were still interviewing for a job.

you’d called it boring, mainly. ‘it was a lot of sitting around and doing nothing,’ you’d told him one night, eating dinner together at the coffee table, ‘mostly, it was a lot of waiting.’

it isn’t the same, but soonyoung wonders if this is what you felt like every day when he left for work, leaving you home alone for long hours at a time.

the sun is high in the sky when soonyoung is awake enough to think critically again. waking up early enough to send you off while he was sick as a dog wasn’t his smartest idea, but going right back to sleep makes him feel slightly more human than before. he’s not entirely sure what time it is – and he doesn’t check, seeing as his phone is on his nightstand, which is all the way across the bed from where he’s laying.

he doesn’t dwell on it, crawling into your side of the bed and wrapping the blankets around him tightly. you’re probably going to kill him when you find out he slept here, him and all of his germs, but he knows it’ll be worth it, the scent of your shampoo still lingering on the soft coolness of your silk pillowcase. the television acts as some sort of glorified white noise machine, lulling him to sleep before soonyoung even has a chance to set an alarm for later in the day. truthfully, he wouldn’t need it; he wouldn’t be going anywhere for a long, long time.

soonyoung knows he should probably listen to what you told him earlier and eat something, and yet he stays in bed, staring blankly at the television as it moves through sports headlines. his eyes are still partially glued shut, and his throat feels dry. he almost swears that he can feel your charger cable plastered to his back, but makes no move to pull it out from under him.

he thinks about eating again, and the thought only serves to make him more nauseous – maybe, if he tried, he could get away with nibbling on some crackers without feeling like his stomach might explode.

one could only hope.

soonyoung’s lament doesn’t last long, promptly interrupted as his phone vibrates against his nightstand. soonyoung weighs his two options: one, it’s from the company, in which case he very much could have ignored it and he moved for nothing; two, it’s from you, and if he doesn’t pick up the call in the next fifteen seconds you’re going to be on the phone with paramedics before soonyoung has the chance to call you back. he doesn’t take the time to deliberate over which one would be worse, because he’s squirming into a sitting position and reaching for his phone before he can decide.

luckily, it’s just you. soonyoung only thinks it’s a little strange that you’re calling him at – he checks the clock on his phone – 1:38 pm on your very first day at work.

“hey, you,” he manages to mumble out, holding the phone to his ear even as he leans back into his mass of pillows, scratching the side of his jaw, “you have good timing. i just woke up.” he hears you laugh from over the phone, but it doesn’t give him the same satisfaction that it usually does.

“hey, young-ah,” you say, and normally, soonyoung would preen at the nickname, despite the fact that you have dozens for him. today, he doesn’t – he isn’t sick enough to not notice the tremble in your voice, or the fact that you sound like you’ve been gasping for air. “how are you? are you still at home?”

“of course.” maybe it sounds worse than it is. soonyoung is prone to dramatics, including the self-inflicted. “been sleeping the day away, mostly.”

“okay.” you sound far away now, like you’ve set your phone on your lap, “listen, something came up earlier, so i’m…i got seungcheol to pick me up, and mingyu is here, too. i’m on my way home right now.” he hears a distant ‘hi, hyung’ coming from the other side of the call, and almost doesn’t have the thought to greet mingyu in return.

soonyoung expects the worst – that maybe your alleged boss had reconsidered your application and hadn’t been able to tell you before you got there; maybe some sort of tragedy had happened to one of the workers, enough to where the entire office had been shut down, employees sent home.

as curious as he is, and god does he want to know every juicy detail, soonyoung instead stretches himself onto his back, half-buried in your pillows, and asks, “are you okay?”

“i’m fine,” you say, your voice coming out quicker than he had expected, “i can’t explain it right now, just – turn left right here, cheol – i’ll tell you as soon as i get home, i promise.”

“what are you talking about?”

“soonyoung, i can’t – there’s not enough time to explain it right now.” soonyoung sees the ‘breaking news’ title card scroll across the screen of your tv as you pause, “i’ll tell you everything, i promise. do you remember where i put my old bookbag after i graduated?”

there’s not enough time for soonyoung to process what you’re asking him when he starts reading the scrolling headlines at the bottom of the screen. “i think so…”

“can you take it out for me? i just need somewhere to store the important things before we go.”

from the other side of the line, soonyoung can hear seungcheol talking, just over the sound of traffic around you. “we don’t have that much time. just get soonyoung-ah and come back down…”

“we can’t assume we’re coming back, cheol. he’s still really sick, and if he happens to get worse while we’re gone, i don’t want to be unprepared for it.”

“gone?” soonyoung parrots, feeling utterly confused, “baby, why aren’t you telling me what’s going on? why are we leaving?”

you seem to suddenly realise that your boyfriend is on the other end of the line, sucking in a sharp breath that the receiver only vaguely picks up. “soonyoung, we’re almost there, please, let me explain everything in person–”

“what even is cordyceps?! why is it all over the news, they’re talking about it like it’s the end of the world!”

“baby, i–”

“i know, you’ll tell me when you get home, but if it’s actually important that we leave as soon as possible–”

“cheol, there’s a shortcut up here–”

“–then i can pack everything you need and meet you in the lobby–”

“no!” you seem almost surprised as he is that you raised your voice, “no, soonyoung, please don’t. it’s not – it’s not safe right now, everyone is acting crazy and you’re not at one-hundred percent health. please, please tell me you’ll stay inside until i get home.”

soonyoung has never heard you beg before, and that alone is enough to chill him straight through the bone. he agrees without any more fuss, putting the phone on speaker and leaving it in bed, even as he paces nervously around the room, wrestling out of his clothes and pulling fresh ones out of his closet, trying to dress as quickly as possible. it’s only jeans and a worn, oversized sweatshirt, but it’s better than nothing.

you haven’t stopped speaking, but soonyoung knows you aren’t talking to him. everything you say is a little too far away, a little too vague to make out. he hears other voices – mingyu, seungcheol – and you can only truly be talking to those two now. there’s an occasional softness in your voice, when you sound the most far away, that makes soonyoung think that you’re turning your head to murmur reassurances to mingyu, who has always been a bit of a scaredy-cat. soonyoung imagines that he’ll tease him about it later, when he no longer has a laundry list of questions keeping him from comforting his dongsaeng.

“baby,” soonyoung mumbles, grabbing his phone and cradling it in his hands, “how far out are you?”

“not far at all, young-ah.” you sound so unsure, but soonyoung lets you pretend you’re hiding it well, “just a few blocks, i can see our apartment building–”

the crash doesn’t register with soonyoung until you’re screaming over the phone; the crunch of metal folding like paper and the shattering of glass so fine it sounds like rain; a frenzy of deep, sharp shrieks as soonyoung imagines the car flipping once, twice; your voice is so far away now, but you’re screaming louder than ever, desperation and terror sending you into hysteria as you sob and wail ‘mingyu-ah! mingyu!’ until your voice begins to crack with use. soonyoung is yelling with you, shouting your name, “what happened, what happened?! are you okay? is everyone okay? talk to me! baby, i need you to talk to me!”

soonyoung is helpless to do anything other than listen, your heartbroken cries punctuated only by the scrape and crumble of glass, piercing his heart and nearly sending him into a panicked spiral. soonyoung only thinks to grab his phone at the last second before standing up and bolting to the front door. he’s already been thinking about how much time it would take for him to get downstairs using the stairs and into the street before he’d be able to find you. you’d said on the phone that you could see your apartment building just before you crashed – surely you were close enough to reach on foot.

soonyoung struggles with the laces on his sneakers, and tries not to think about seungcheol’s bmw flipped over onto its roof in the middle of seoul, with his partner hanging upside-down in the front seat.

“soonyoung-ah…”

your voice creaks as you call his name, and soonyoung nearly dives for his phone, clutching it in both hands as he holds it up to his face. if he stares hard enough through the screen, perhaps your likeness would appear in front of him – despite the fact that you despised using video call, and would avoid it like the plague if you could help it.

“you’re okay,” a deep, gentle voice hums from the other end of the line; it’s seungcheol, and soonyoung could almost cry in relief that he’s okay, “you’re okay, i got you. hold on to me so i can get you down.”

“soonyoung-ah…” you’re crying harder now, choking on your tears as something metallic clicks in the background and the shuffling begins, only to end just as quickly as seungcheol’s voice mumbles quiet, undecipherable comfort to you.

soonyoung is quick to open his mouth, desperate to say ‘i’m here, i’m still here, i’ll come down to you. stay there, be safe, i love you.’

“soonyoungie,” you sob again – soonyoung has never heard you cry this much in the near-decade he’s known you, and his heart leaps to his throat, “don’t come - don’t come down here.”

“don’t say that to me.” soonyoung finally finds his voice, though the words are hard to force out, “don’t tell me to do that. jus-just don’t move, okay? soonyoungie will come downstairs and find you and seungcheol-hyung and mingyu-ah, and then we’ll all go together. how’s that sound?”

“no, you can’t.” if soonyoung could see you, he imagines you would be shaking your head at him, “please, i’m begging you. it’s not safe.”

it feels like there’s glass scraping at the inside of soonyoung’s skull – the headache from earlier is coming back, full force. “baby, i don’t understand–”

“i’m telling you not to come downstairs!” you shout, “don’t come down here, soonyoung! don’t come–”

day one-thousand nine-hundred and seventy

the call cuts before you can finish, his phone screen lighting up to show him his background – it’s supposed to be a photo he took with you after seventeen’s first win, except he’s cropped himself out, leaving only your smiling face behind. soonyoung sits in the new silence that blankets your shared apartment. on the street below, chaos erupts, the everyday humdrum of the city shattering as the apocalypse begins in the heart of south korea.

five years, five months, twenty-five days after the outbreak

mold has started growing on the walls of the apartment. it’s the first of many signs that soonyoung will eventually have to pack up and leave – the sooner the better.

this mold isn’t cordyceps, which can’t survive outside of the body for more than an hour, but it’s fungi, and he’s aware of the health risks posed against him should he cohabitate with it for too long. he can’t afford to get sick. there’s no one here to watch his back.

soonyoung misses you more than anything.

he wakes up cold, curled tight into a ball within his sleeping bag. lying on his side, staring into the decrepit, ransacked room, there’s a sliding glass door on the adjacent wall, half-obscured by torn, fluttering curtains. it’s his only exit from the ground floor apartment, so he’d attempted to leave it exactly as he’d seen it before – sitting half-open with one side of the curtains drawn, the rest sitting in a sopping heap on the floor.

he’d spent most of the night watching the door, listening for the tiniest movements, before he eventually let exhaustion drag him into sleep.

for a sunny day in march – and soonyoung at least thinks it’s march – the cold bites like a wild animal. it had rained yesterday, a searing downpour that lasted most of the afternoon, and now a dense, heavy chill sat low on the city. the wind makes it even worse, but soonyoung at least hopes his windbreaker would be enough to keep him from freezing while he scrounged for supplies.

seoul might as well have been a barren wasteland at this point. while the vast majority of the population had escaped the confines of the city during the first hours of the outbreak – soonyoung can imagine many were attempting to reach the coast and escape the country by water – few stragglers still roamed the city streets. even after five years, soonyoung’s never seen anyone closer than fifty meters away, though he wasn’t naive enough to assume there weren’t people who would harm him; with how few people still stubbornly called the city home, supplies were fewer, and soonyoung’s food situation was looking dismal.

it was time to get creative.

normal grocery stores or shopping malls were out of the question – it was suicide, if not for other survivors willing to fight him for whatever scraps they may find, then for the infected. the worst of the hordes drifted out of the city within the first few months of the outbreak, leaving behind an eerie, false silence. the infected, albeit still numerous in the city, became something of an afterthought compared to the risks posed by other human survivors.

produce was a luxury only found in the occasional garden, sometimes growing wild in city parks, and perishable goods were completely out of the question. soonyoung would instead have to rely on looting abandoned homes to look for anything still edible. in previous years, as a man still holding onto the slim hope that help was coming, it would have been soonyoung’s last resort; now, there was nothing left but to assume that he was on his own, and he’d have to act like it. anything not nailed down was free game.

by midday, soonyoung was crossing the han river into dongjak-gu, picking his way through the graveyard of broken cars still stuck on the road. they were likely abandoned in the initial panic to get out of the city – the city’s power grid had stayed on for a week after the outbreak, and every channel on tv was broadcasting the same emergency news, telling citizens to head south, as far south as possible. it’s hard not to wonder how many of them actually made it that far, but it’s an unpleasant thought that soonyoung pushes from his mind as quickly as he can.

he’s is only a third of the way across the bridge when he starts to hear the clicking. it’s not the first time soonyoung has heard it, but it’s one of the only time he’s ever been this close to the source. it was atypical for clickers to congregate in groups outside, where their echolocation was less dynamic.

it meant good things for him, because it meant he’d be able to sneak past them with less trouble that usual. he wasn’t prepared for a fight; soonyoung only carried one weapon with him – a mean-looking hunting knife that he rarely used in self-defense. if it really came down to it, running for his life was really his only option.

soonyoung steps out carefully from behind the row of cars he was huddled behind, and immediately realises he’s made a terrible mistake. at the sound of his canvas sneakers hitting the asphalt, ten heads turn his way, half-muddled eyes training on him through the haze. a quiet, biting ‘fuck!’ leaves his lips, and soonyoung takes his one option without an ounce of hesitation.

he sprints down the remaining length of the bridge like he’s a runner on his final leg, finally putting his foot on the gas after taking it easy through the last turn. the shrieking doesn’t let up behind him – if anything, it grows closer, closer, until it’s nipping at the backs of his heels. soonyoung’s lungs burn and his legs shriek with exertion, but he doesn’t stop. he can’t stop, desperation fuelling his adrenaline that much more, breath coming out in rushed gasps. there’s a pileup at the intersection not one-hundred meters in front of him, if he can just get there, get up and over, maybe he can break their line of sight, disappear in the rubble.

it’s not a good plan, but it’s better than no plan, and it’s all soonyoung has time to come up with before the shrieking behind him is suddenly in his ear, the weight taking him to the ground as the infected clambers over him.

soonyoung has never seen one this close before, never been under one as it fights against his hands restraining it, broken fingernails digging into his arms and rotted, black teeth snapping in his face. he doesn’t know where the rest of its group is, doesn’t hear any cacophonous sounds of his impending doom over the sound of his own heartbeat.

he needed to push it off, needed to reach for his knife and sink it into the decaying bone of its skull, but there was no way he could hold it with one hand. the lack of sustenance wasn’t helping soonyoung’s case – he was weak, no longer the energy-ridden dancer he used to be, and while he still retained what was left of his stamina from the years before the outbreak, it was nothing if he couldn’t defend himself in a pinch.

soonyoung is sure he’s going to die here when the shrieking stops faster than he can process it, a sharp bang echoing through the empty streets. the infected slumps into his hold, and soonyoung’s arms finally fail him. he gasps for air, shivering on the ground; he can’t tell if it’s from the cold or pure adrenaline. there’s blood splattered on his face, and soonyoung can smell the iron in the air, clogging his senses.

the infected has a bullet wound drilling straight through its temple and out the other side, dripping blood all over soonyoung’s windbreaker.

he pushes the body away, rolling it to the side and sitting up, scanning the street for the shooter. with so many cars in the way, it was hard to see anything at all. none of the other infected were coming after him – had they also been taken out? was he being watched right now? it didn’t matter, he was losing daylight, he needed to move if he wanted to eat tonight.

“soonyoung-ah?”

it can’t be who he thinks it is. soonyoung is five years younger in an instant, sitting on the floor of his – your – otherwise empty apartment, feeling the weight of the world settle on his shoulders. he hadn’t wanted it then, but he’d been able to carry it with him, every ounce of that grief and anger, because he knew it would keep him alive.

a pair of worn hiking boots plod into the corner of his vision, and soonyoung looks down the barrel of a shotgun at one choi seungcheol.

five years have passed since soonyoung had last seen him, but seungcheol still looks every bit of the leader that he was before, if not a little rough around the edges. there was no faulting him in that, not with the way the world is now.

“hyung,” soonyoung mumbles, feeling his eyes prickle with tears, and seungcheol’s reaction is near instantaneous, hanging the shotgun off of his shoulder and pulling soonyoung into a rough, blazing hug. soonyoung’s face is tucked tightly into his shoulder, a familiar hand buried into the choppy black hair at the back of his head. soonyoung can still hear his heart pounding in his ears. seungcheol is shaking against him, though quiet. it’s uncanny. soonyoung doesn’t remember ever seeing seungcheol become so emotional before.

soonyoung isn’t doing much better, pressing his face farther into seungcheol’s jacket. his tears are beginning to soak through the material, but cheol doesn’t pull away. he makes no move that proves he even notices, which soonyoung only has the energy to be tangentially grateful for.

“seungcheol?” a woman’s voice echoes through the streets from behind soonyoung – it’s unfamiliar, not one he recognises, “who is that?”

it takes a herculean effort for seungcheol to pull soonyoung away from him, and when he does he pushes him gently to turn around, presenting his find to an older woman with a serious face, who stares at soonyoung critically. briefly, it takes him back to his trainee days, and soonyoung would be a liar if he said he wasn’t almost missing those formidable years; they were, in most ways, awful, but in the very least he hadn’t been alone, hadn’t been made to fend for himself.

“this,” seungcheol starts, pressing a strong hand against his shoulder, “is soonyoung. he’s one of the friends we lost – thought we lost – when everything went to shit.”

soonyoung feels like his head is floating through space, and he tries not to think too hard about seungcheol’s word choice in the latter half of his statement.

the woman doesn’t speak for a long time, simply levelling soonyoung with an expression he can’t quite read. she’s silent for perhaps another thirty seconds – though it could have been several minutes – before she sighs and gestures them both along.

“come on, then,” she grunts, “we’re too far into the city as it is. we might as well head back before it starts to get dark.”

soonyoung learns that the woman’s name is julkyung, and that she’d met seungcheol’s group two and a half months ago during a supply run into the city. she tells him that their group doesn’t live in the city – that a small group of them are holed up outside the city as they gather supplies for the coming winter months. she doesn’t tell him where their real camp is or why they have to come all the way to seoul for what they need, and soonyoung doesn’t ask.

seungcheol smiles, warm and bright and so, so relieved, and pulls soonyoung along, falling quickly in step behind the older woman.

they walk for an hour down the highway, going south out of the city. seungcheol doesn’t let go of soonyoung’s hand the entire time, occasionally turning to look over the younger man, like he’s searching for something wrong.

“what?”

“nothing.”

“are you sure?

seungcheol flashes him a comforting smile, and soonyoung wants so badly to trust it isn’t forced. “i promise, soonyoung-ah. hyung is just happy that you’re okay.”

julkyung leads them to a break in the highway, where the concrete has crumbled with time, scaling down a lopsided bus held up haphazardly by the untouched road. seungcheol is almost unnecessarily careful as soonyoung slides down the roof, but neither of them say anything – soonyoung is more than willing than to let seungcheol have this if it gives any comfort to his brother.

“how long were you in the city?” soonyoung asks, unsure if his hands were clammy or just wet with rain, “after everything…y’know, i rarely saw other survivors, much less…” he doesn’t finish, but seungcheol seems to understand what he’s searching for immediately.

“we left the city,” he says, “a couple days after the quarantine zone went to shit. they’d blocked off all the city exits, but with all the chaos we were able to slip out. went north for a while and, hm…ran into trouble. we doubled back earlier this fall, passed around the city trying to go south. that’s how we met julkyung and the others.”

“and everyone else?” it’s an idiotic question to ask, because soonyoung doesn’t even want to know the answer, “is everyone okay?”

seungcheol’s grimance tells him everything he needs to know.

“no.” somehow, cheol is calm, bringing a hand up to securely thread his fingers through the short hairs at soonyoung’s nape, “but most of us are, and that’s what’s important right now.” julkyung pushes her way through a swathe of undergrowth, seemingly ignoring them. “come on, we’re almost there.”

the path julkyung had taken them down leads into a clearing, one that looks like it could have been for camping in another era. there are tents scattered across the flattest portion of earth, forming a ring around a fire pit in the middle. there are other people – people that notice them before soonyoung has even laid eyes on them. many flock to greet julkyung once they notice their little group at the edge of the perimeter. most of them don’t notice soonyoung at all, not until cheol is gripping his arm and pulling him to the wayside, around the congregation, and to the circle of tents.

it’s early morning, practically still night, as your small group hikes south of seoul, when soonyoung turns to you and asks a question that makes your stomach drop.

he’s calling for someone, perhaps multiple someones, but soonyoung doesn’t have to guess who. when his eyes meet yours – looking upon you for the first time in what could only be a thousand years – soonyoung crumbles under the weight of the world, and falls into your arms without a moment of hesitation

“what happened to them?”

you don’t respond to him immediately, but soonyoung can feel your discomfort radiate off of you. his hand is laced in yours, and even as you squirm and your skin grows clammy despite the cold, he doesn’t allow you to pull away.

“soonyoung, no,” you mumble, pleading, “i sh - i shouldn’t tell you that. i can’t. it’s bad enough that they’re gone already, isn’t it?”

you can’t see him through the ghost grey of the incoming sunrise, the sky just barely illuminating enough for him to make out your silhouette. you can’t see the way soonyoung’s eyes well with tears at the mention of it, biting at his lips to keep from sobbing again. he should have run out of tears by now.

you’re right. it is already bad enough; enough so that the grief has become a sentient monstrosity that lives and thrives within the hollows of his ribs, a perfect cage to house the creature. soonyoung should grieve, should memorialize the dead in his memory and try to find happiness with the loved ones who are still with him.

soonyoung can’t do that.

he can’t.

you can’t see him, but you can hear him, and you falter as soonyoung stifles his tears and murmurs out a quiet, helpless, “please.”

even so, you’re silent. and who could blame you? what could you even say to him that wouldn’t drag his already tattered soul through glass? you could only imagine how much he had gone through, alone, in the last five years – you couldn’t simply add onto that, let him carry the weight of those deaths with him. they were not his to bear, and yet he begged for them.

“shua was already too far gone when seungcheol and i made it back to the dorms,” you say, quietly, softly, nerves edging your voice as you glance through the trees, “he was infected, i think. i never saw him. nobody did, actually, but we heard him. jeonghan wouldn’t let anybody go into his room when we were packing up to leave.” your eyes peer to the front of the group, where soonyoung knows jeonghan is, talking quietly to seungcheol. there’s an emptiness to him that soonyoung hadn’t been able to place last night. he and shua had practically been soulmates – perhaps that effort was only to protect what was left of him.

soonyoung tries not to think about joshua – beautiful, sweet joshua-hyung – rotting away in his room, skull cracking and splintering open as fungi grows from his brain in swooping branches. even in soonyoung’s imagination, they look like antlers.

the joshua-hyung of his imagination tilts his head into a grievous angle, and clicks at him wildly, making to lunge at him. soonyoung quickly burns that joshua from his mind, squeezing his eyes shut until he sees white.

soonyoung is only partially there as you tell him about wonwoo, who had been bitten protecting chan, how the rest of you tried – god, you tried – to take that arm off in time, to save him, how it was just too much for him. he listens as you tell him that seungkwan had gone alone into a pharmacy to retrieve a medication they needed for jihoon, that nobody had known about spores at the time. you talk about how he changed; as jihoon got better, seungkwan grew more and more sick, until it was clear that there was no hope of him coming back from it. seungcheol was the one to do what was necessary – he was the only one who had the resolve for something like that.

(what you don’t tell him is that jeonghan had begged joshua not to give up, had nearly dragged him out the door kicking and screaming, unwilling to accept leaving him behind. you don’t tell him about the first night, the first sleepless night, sitting outside shua’s door and talking to him, keeping him company as he slowly lost himself in the brain fog. you don’t tell him that chan had curled up at wonwoo’s side for the better part of three days, comforting his hyung as wonwoo grew dimmer and dimmer, until one night he fell asleep and never woke up again. you don’t tell him that chan cried himself hoarse, that your little group had buried wonwoo in a park just outside of the city. you don’t tell him that seungkwan went slowly and painfully, that vernon hid the slow-mounting grief and held firm for his friend until the very end. you don’t tell him that you’d woken up to seungkwan begging for ‘hyung, just do it, just do it please–’ and seungcheol’s responding, thick-voiced ‘i know, hyung is here, i’m sorry, i’m so sorry, please forgive me–’’ before the silence set in.)

(you don’t talk about mingyu. soonyoung doesn’t ask.)

you walk together, silent, hands loosely intertwined, for hours, until julkyung is stopping the group next to a small stream to rest and eat. soonyoung doesn’t have an appetite – doesn’t think he could stomach eating even if he tried – and yet you sit beside him quietly, busying yourself by peeling an orange. soonyoung doesn’t want it, he wants you to eat it, if not to give you that tiny ray of happiness, watch it spark in your eyes, but he doesn’t reject it when you begin pushing individual segments into his hand, only after peeling all of the clinging, filmy albedo off of the fruit. you know soonyoung hates the white stuff, hadn’t ever eaten his oranges without spending an inane amount of time making sure they were immaculate, before finishing the entire fruit in a matter of moments.

“young-ah,” you whisper into his shoulder, pressing a gentle kiss against the fabric of his sweatshirt, “i love you so much, do you know? and i would do anything to keep you safe.”

“i know,” soonyoung says, because he does – it’s the only thing he knows for certain, outside of his group members – yet he still manages to sound just south of unsure, “i’m going to wash my hands off. they’re - i’m gross right now.”

you mumble after him, something soft and comforting that soonyoung knows would have him melting into you like putty, so it’s a good thing he’s already up, rolling his sleeves up to his elbows as he reaches the edge of the small creek and submerging his hands inside, sighing at the coldness of the water against his skin. it’s the type of cold that will likely chill him to the bone later, when he least expects it, but for now it’s a comfort. soonyoung doesn’t know the next time they’ll come across clean water until they reach this new camp, if at all.

soonyoung scrubs his hands until the skin is red and raw, until not a speck of dirt remains on them. if it weren’t so cold, he would seriously consider washing his hair. as it was, every follicle would freeze before it had time to dry, and that wasn’t even enough to say that they didn’t have time–

soonyoung’s entire world is turned one-hundred-and-eighty degrees when someone grabs his arm, twisting it around to examine it, forcing his entire body to follow. he’s face to face with julkyung again, but the woman isn’t wearing her usual indifferent facade. she looks at soonyoung as if he’s some sort of wild animal, or a dog with rabies she’s been called to put down.

her hand grips the skin just above a ragged bite scar in his arm. it’s an ugly thing, a pseudo-circular mess of indistinct teeth-marks where a runner had taken him off guard months ago. soonyoung hadn’t even noticed it until hours later, when he was semi-safe in a new hideout, shucking off his layers of clothes until he’d found blood on his long-sleeved shirt. the creature had bitten him through three layers, which would be commendable if soonyoung hadn’t panicked about it for three days straight.

he hadn’t known what to do. he still doesn’t know what to do; the bite is easy enough to forget, but just seeing it every so often is enough to give him anxiety, make him question whether or not the infection might still spread if given the chance.

it hadn’t, but julkyung didn’t know that.

“what the fuck is this?!” she snarls at him, gripping his arm tight enough to bruise, “what the fuck is this! you fucking–”

seungcheol is up the moment he hears the conflict, attempting to put his way between soonyoung and julkyung. “woah, hold on, we don’t have any idea what this means–”

“it means you brought a fucking infected back to my camp!” julkyung cries out, shoving seungcheol back, “what if he’d gotten all the way back to the others before we found out, huh? he could have infected any one of us!”

“don’t be ridiculous!” you hiss, grabbing julkyung’s wrist and ripping her away from soonyoung, holding it with much gentler hands as you inspect it, “this bite isn’t fresh, and soonyoung isn’t infected. if he was, we would be seeing side-effects already, but we’re not!”

with the way julkyung’s face twists up into a snarl, soonyoung is expecting the woman to grow fangs and a set of claws. as it is, he tries not to look at her at all, focusing wholly on your outraged expression, and the way your hand cradles his wrist.

“why are you defending him?!” julkyung sounds an eclectic mess of exasperated and angry, and soonyoung’s chest pushes against your back as you step away from her, right into him. it’s an awkward angle, not that soonyoung cares about awkward anymore, and when something cold presses against his chest, it doesn’t take him long to realise it’s because there’s a rifle hanging off of your shoulder. “we were going to take you people home! you could have a community, an actual life outside of scavenging for scraps!”

“we can still have that,” you say, your voice a placating, deceptive calm, “just not with you people. not if soonyoung isn’t coming.”

soonyoung can’t allow you to say something like that. he spent five years surviving by himself, alone out there – it’s a pain he wouldn’t wish on his worst enemy. he wants to speak up, spin you around and grab you by your shoulders and say that you can’t do that, he won’t allow you to give up a semblance of civilization for him. selfishly, stupidly, he wonders if you’ll go with him if he’s forced to leave, travel with him for however long you both last.

he won’t do that to you. he would never forgive himself if he were the first to go, and then he thinks, again, that it would never happen to begin with, because his friends – his brothers – would never let him walk that road alone.

“so you’re just going to give it up,” julkyung starts slowly, “for him? for a man you haven’t seen in five years?”

you don’t answer; maybe you feel that you don’t need to. it’s obvious enough what you’re going to choose. from the corner of his eye, soonyoung watches jeonghan tuck his own rifle underneath his arm, hiding only slightly behind seungcheol as he racks a bullet in the chamber.

(the night before, you had bundled soonyoung up in your sleeping bag with you, zipping it closed and curling yourself around him, pressing your face into the prominent bone of his shoulder. “i saw you everywhere we went,” you’d murmured, voice thick with tears. in the frosty half-light of pre-dawn morning, soonyoung could only see a faint outline of your figure entwined with his; even so, he knew that he could map your body blindfolded, trace every subtle feature with the skill only found in the depths of reverence. “i prayed every day that we would find you again, that i could hold you like this and be held once again. and i promised that, should i find you again, i would never let you go.” there’s warmth against soonyoung’s cheeks – he digs himself closer to you and sobs into your hair. “i meant what i said, young-ah. i’ll follow you anywhere, wherever you go.”)

“screw this,” soonyoung hears, a harsh, rasping whisper that comes from behind him, just seconds before a rough hand is grabbing the back of his shirt and throwing him to the ground. he attempts to scoot back, hopefully get his feet under him and stand up, do anything to defend himself, except soonyoung finds his body frozen in place as an older man produces a handgun from the inside of his jacket. “we don’t have time for this, let’s just kill him now and–”

the man gets no chance to finish, sooner interrupted by a deafening bang that seems to shake the very foundation of the earth.

initially, soonyoung is convinced that he was shot, expecting the blooming pain that would come with white-hot metal ripping through his flesh, pressing a hand against his chest to feel for blood. it doesn’t come, though it’s twice as jarring when the man topples sideways in front of him, viscous red pouring from a dime-sized hole in his temple. he trembles briefly from his place in the dirt, before eventually going still, staring into soonyoung with eyes blown wide.

your rifle is no longer slung across your shoulder, now held firmly in your hands, still aimed where the man once was. soonyoung waits for the regret, waits for the shock to set in as you realise you just killed another human being, and yet it never comes. you look at the body in a fluctuating degree of interest, but none of your body language conveyed anything more than mild surprise.

chaos erupts quickly around him. julkyung screams, attempts to grab at your shoulder and whirl you around, one hand grappling for the revolver strapped to her leg. she doesn’t get very far, even as you fumble to hastily rack another bullet – another gunshot crackles through the air, and the tender flesh of julkyung’s neck explodes into visceral bits as the shot tears through her arteries. soonyoung doesn’t have to look to know who the culprit is – he can already see jeonghan stalking forward from the corner of his eye, but sees little else as you grab his collar and drag him back.

julkyung’s sluggishly writhing body is the only thing that stands between what’s left of seventeen and what future lies ahead of them. soonyoung grapples for the knife strapped to his leg, knowing it’s a useless weapon in his circumstance, yet preferring to have at least some chance to defend himself should it come to that.

“none of you move,” seungcheol calls, shooing the others back, until eventually the entire group was moving in step, “not until we’re long gone. we don’t want to kill any more of your people, but if you follow us, we will defend ourselves.”

“they’re going to come after us.”

soonyoung thinks he hears someone snarling at them, spitting vile words or threats or something, but you’re taking him by the arm and pulling him deeper into the woods before he can think about it any longer.

it’s the first time someone has spoken up in hours, and soonyoung recognises the voice to be jeonghan’s.

“they will,” seungcheol says, sounding distant up in the front of the group, “which is why we need to put enough distance between us and them before we set up camp for the night.”

“we should go back to using the watch rotation,” junhui calls from the back, “make sure at least one person is awake to watch for intruders, infected or not.”

“and maybe find somewhere inside to hole up for the night,” vernon mumbles. he’s been quiet, even more so than usual, and soonyoung doesn’t know if it’s because of what transpired earlier, or something that he hadn’t been present for.

there’s a murmur of agreement, and seungcheol quietly starts steering them to what were more populated areas off of the highway. more population means there’s likely to be more infected, but being inside is safer, easier to defend, and will do a better job of blocking out the cold that’s only going to get worse as night falls.

soonyoung thinks he should say something; about the bite, about the implications of his immunity, something, anything. he needs to clear the air, get back on the right track with everybody, as if they’d somehow veered off-course. he opens his mouth, hoping that he would know what to say, and yet nothing comes.

he clamps his mouth shut again. the way his teeth grind together eases the pressure in his skull only minimally, but he doesn’t say anything about it. he’s already put too much pressure on you and the others in the few days he’s been reunited with you.

your hand has migrated from his arm back down to his hand, squeezing intermittently, a reminder of your warmth and your presence right beside him. he squeezes back, if only to feel you squeeze harder.

soonyoung swallows, his throat try and crackling as he searches for the words to say, and without looking, you beat him to it.

“you don’t have to say anything,” you whisper to him, continuing to look ahead, “you need to tell us eventually, soon, but just know that every person in this group will fight for you wholeheartedly. we will never abandon you.”

the ache in his chest doesn’t fade, but soonyoung presses his lips together, and nods. you’ve already proven your loyalty to the group, your devotion to him. wherever you go, wherever you called him to, soonyoung would follow without question.

he would never want for anything but to be by your side.

#seventeen #svt #kwon soonyoung x reader #kwon soonyoung #hoshi svt #the last of us #alternate universe #tlou au #i kinda ate with this #even though it hurt me on a psychospiritual level #i'm not super happy with the ending but it already took me like a month to write so i don't have the energy to change it #oh but i love putting pookie through the ringer #svt hoshi #hoshi x reader

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