Work Text:
Year 0, Month 0, Day 0 -- 17:53 [Lee Donghyuck]
When the apocalypse strikes, Donghyuck is drinking jasmine tea.
As people would think, the apocalypse is more of a series of events rather than a single moment - a war declaration, nukes flying, smoke in the sky, the radio announcing death counts that are too high for anyone to process for what they are. Schools closing, the kids being sent to factories, or refuges. Jeno telling him to come hide in the countryside, where they’ll lack food, but probably won’t be incinerated. They’ll even get to play like when they were children. Donghyuck plays, alright, but he’s never into it.
But the end of all is a moment, and Donghyuck is drinking jasmine tea on the ratty armchair that Jeno’s grandpa would’ve smacked him for touching if he were still alive, feet propped on the coffee table, near the remnants of the Jenga they’re too lazy to tidy up. He’s drinking jasmine tea, and listening to the radio, his only surviving connection with Seoul.
The radio crackles, with a sound that stills the blood in his veins, and then goes silent.
Seoul is gone.
Seoul is gone, and Donghyuck doesn’t want to care, because so are many other places, but his mother was still alive in Seoul.
The only thing that stops the tears prickling at his eyelids from dropping is the sound of his walkie-talkie crackling, and Mark’s panicked voice on the other end.
“Raiders coming, get to the truck! Now!”
Donghyuck cusses out loud, cusses more when he spills tea on the table, and runs.
Year 0, Month 0, Day 4 -- 09:11 [Lee Jeno]
Jeno has some moral qualms about stealing from supermarkets, but Donghyuck isn’t entirely wrong when he points out that the people who would suffer from it are all gone.
“And also, it’s either us or other gangs, so we’re making sure it’s us.” Donghyuck points out. He’s filled every pocket, bag and cart he can. He’s even holding apples in his shirt.
“Produce is gonna be in the past soon, but I’d rather have some last vitamins, you know,” he bitterly comments, and Jeno agrees. His own shirt is filled with as many mandarins as he could humanly hold, and he thinks for a moment about how much all of this fruit would’ve cost them if they weren’t ransacking an abandoned place.
“Let’s go back to Jaemin and the truck, I think I heard someone,” Mark calls, appearing from nowhere. He’s sweating a little from nerves, but he seems way more collected than Jeno had expected him to be.
They both nod, and march back.
Year 0, Month 0, Day 26 -- 14:05 [Lee Jeno]
The third time they try to ransack a place, it’s a shopping mall, and Jeno is paralyzed by the sheer amount of possibilities they have for a second. Most stores have long burnt down or collapsed on themselves, and the power is working in maybe three places total, but there is still much, much more material than they could ever carry, and it makes Jeno anxious rather than any sort of content.
“Jeno, go look for soap or something. Donghyuck, with me on food,” Mark orders, practiced by now. Somehow they all agreed he’s in charge without ever saying it. He’s probably only the leader because he is the eldest, but somehow they have enough respect for that practice to still uphold it. Mostly. Jeno is pretty sure all three of them could get him to do anything they wanted if they twisted it the right way.
“Actually, I’m gonna look for something else,” Donghyuck says, pointing in a vague direction behind his back.
Mark and Jeno both raise their eyebrows, but neither protests.
“Meet you at the entrance in an hour, break something loud if you see others, don’t engage unless you absolutely have to,” Mark repeats, the usual recommendations he has whenever entering any place. Still, both Jeno and Donghyuck nod obediently.
Jeno spends a good half an hour trying to gather whatever he can still find at Lush, because this place has a Lush store that still has some soaps and Jeno knows a blessing when he sees one. Only when his bag is choke full of honey and herbs-scented blocks, and maybe a couple hand cream pots, he remembers they definitely need a couple changes of clothes, too.
The H&M he steps into is one of the few still illuminated places in the centre, aggressive light coming out of lamps that might or might not be dangling in extremely unstable positions. The clothes have been thrown in complete disarray, but the shelves are still furnished with pretty much anything he could ask for. He’s approaching some sweaters when he hears a human voice yelp, and he realizes he is not alone.
His bag drops to the ground, and Jeno has already pushed a rack of children’s shirts aside and grabbed the culprit by their neck before he realizes what he’s doing. Or before he realizes he almost strangled a child.
He almost lets go, but a voice tells him not to. He’s not sure whether it’s his reason, or the projections of Mark and Donghyuck that live in his head telling him respectively to assess threats and investigate whether they’re actual fucking threats, idiot.
“Lele! Lele help!” the child screams, and Jeno does the only thing he can do when he realizes he’s holding a vulnerable, not-alone, child hostage. He puts his hand over the kid’s mouth to muffle his screaming, pushes him against a wall, and turns around to watch for his rescuer.
He’s expecting someone to come rushing at him, weapon in hand, aiming for his head. What he’s certainly not expecting is for a tuft of blond hair to peek from behind a shelf of jeans, and a child to step up with his hands up.
“Please, we’ll leave, let him go-”
But Jeno isn’t listening.
“Chenle?” he interrupts. The boy blinks, and it’s definitely Zhong Chenle; Jeno’s mind is playing some weird trick on him, and his heart is doing even worse, because the combination of adrenaline, guilt, and surprise when he recognizes the familiar face all catch up to him at once and he’s pretty sure he’s going to collapse from the sudden ache.
Chenle blinks.
Jeno is going to die today.
Year 0, Month 0, Day 26 -- 15:58 [Lee Donghyuck]
Chenle and Jisung settle in a corner of the truck, both somehow trying to guard each other from a potential threat. Donghyuck thinks it’s adorable, but very, very stupid. They’re in a closed space surrounded by potential enemies. They would be already dead in most scenarios.
Jeno goes through the whole story - how he found them, how he didn’t recognize Jisung because he’d been twelve last he’d seen him, how he and Donghyuck had met them in a mentorship program their middle school organized between students. How apparently the kids had been looking for something to wear because their clothes were complete rags.
The two don’t talk much, although they for some reason still think manners are important enough to thank Donghyuck for draping the one blanket they have over their shoulders. It’s a stupid thing to thank him for, they’re trembling like leaves, but Donghyuck will take it. When questioned, they reveal they made it out of Seoul because and only because the night before the bombing, Chenle had a dream and was scared enough to try and get away. Only Jisung trusted him enough to follow him out of most of the blast area.
“We were still in the blast area, just… not the real one. Hyung broke a leg, I burned my arm. We made it out though.”
They made it out alright, Donghyuck observed. By some fucking miracle, they lived.
"We're keeping them," he decides, putting all of his effort so that his tone leaves no room for protest.
No one protests.
Year 0, Month 1, Day 12 - 22:47 [Park Jisung]
Their new house is nice, lovely, in fact. It might not have all the things a house should have, like a bathroom, or stable foundation, but Jisung can very well live in a van. A van is really beyond what he could have ever hoped for after the explosion; he was mostly expecting to die very soon, either shot by someone, or from nuclear syndrome. Or hunger, or thirst, or from coughing his lungs out until he choked on his own blood because that's how Seunghee died, and he still sees her blood-red spit bubbling in the corners of her mouth when he closes his eyes, sometimes.
He doesn't tell any of the others about the first colony, and by silent agreement, neither does Chenle. It'd be bad luck, and Jisung for one wants all of these hyungs to survive. They're kind, and even though they hesitate before trusting them, they take care of them. That's what Jisung really likes - what he hopes will last. The rest of it, the books and clothes and food they've piled away and the couch they don't have yet but Donghyuck wants to steal next time they find a furniture store, is all nice, and Jisung really appreciates it, but he could live without it as well.
He looks around, and feels safe, and that's what he wants. Mark and Jaemin are trying to fix dinner and arguing about how to go about it. Donghyuck is studying medicine manuals he stole from the bookstore the same day they joined the group, Jeno taking peeks over his shoulder. Chenle is in the furthest corner, staring intently at a book without actually reading it. Jisung can tell, but he leaves him alone. He knows Chenle will come to him if he needs support, just like Chenle knows Jisung will not do the same.
They don't like talking about it. It's unhealthy, Jisoo said, but he's dead, and they're not. They'll keep living. Maybe one day they'll talk, too.
Year 0, Month 6, Day 2 -- 10:03 [Lee Mark]
“There is little space in this truck and there’s a whole six of us now, do you know how precious even the space to store a few cans is?” Donghyuck tries again, irritation and his natural sarcasm seeping into his voice. He’s been at it for a good five minutes or so, and Mark reckons he’ll lose his patience soon enough.
Jeno completely ignores him this time, flipping the page of whatever book he is re-reading, and that’s what makes Donghyuck snap.
“I’ll burn those old papers myself, fuck you,” he growls, and Jeno grabs his wrist the second he starts moving.
“You touch anything in the front seats, I’ll burn your hands off.” He is entirely serious, Mark can tell. So can Donghyuck, who loses his final shred of patience and kickstarts the screaming match.
“Seriously man, fuck those documents! It’s just old insurance shit and bank incomes, what do you need this truck’s insurance for? Insurance companies are, news-fucking-flash,
gone
, like everything else.”
“Just shut up, Donghyuck. Don’t touch grandpa’s documents, that’s final.”
“Hyuck, leave it,” Mark whispers. “We’ll make shelves or something."
“No! I don’t give a shit about some papers, the old man is gone and he would a-”
Jeno’s fist stops him before he can ever finish that sentence. Hyuck knees Jeno in the stomach, because Hyuck fights dirty, and Jeno’s elbow promptly hits Donghyuck’s own gut.
Mark has a bad feeling he’s going to die. He still rushes in to separate them.
Year 0, Month 6, Day 2 -- 10:37 [Lee Mark]
“Just wait a minute, he’s coming and he knows what to do way more than both of us,” Mark insists, gently prying their first aid box off of Jeno’s hands.
They’re both sitting on the couch, bruises aching and accidental cuts mostly bandaged. Mark didn’t quite die, but he did gain an impressive black eye from some hit or another. Jeno’s aching a bit more, but Mark is pretty sure he’d rather die than admit he’s in pain. Whatever Donghyuck could do at the moment, he had - he left five minutes ago to retrieve some cream or another from where he’d left it in the car front, and they can't do much but wait.
The door slides with its usual cacophony of ugly sounds, and Donghyuck climbs in, hissing in pain. “Found it,” he murmurs, dangling a tube of some medical product. Mark sighs in relief, not only because they can finally finish up and go their own way, but because he can finally be sure Donghyuck actually went looking for the medical supplies, and didn’t do something stupid.
The youngest dabs sticky cream around his eye, and Mark tries not to wince in pain too much. Donghyuck shoves his shoulder in a half-hearted punch when he pushes him away, and pulls Jeno closer instead.
“I burned them,” he informs him, eyes trained on the bruises he’s working on. “We’ll find some use for that space.”
When he lets go of Jeno’s arm, he doesn’t step away.
“You can punch me again or whatever, I guess.”
Jeno does, and Donghyuck puts away the medical supplies without taking cure of his own bruises.
Year 0, Month 11, Day 19 - 16:59 [Lee Donghyuck]
They're dumb.
Idiocy causes death, Donghyuck has been warned. Good people die too, but idiots? They die immediately. Jeno's grandfather had it right.
Donghyuck is going to kill himself as soon as they find Jisung. They're dumb, because they let their guard down and separated in hostile territory, and Jisung might as well be already dead. The explosion didn't promise well, but that was three hours ago.
They've been looking since then, screaming with no regards to their own safety or who might be listening to them, have even separated in teams of two in the streets of the town and left the Dream Machine unprotected. They've already been dumb, they might as well keep doing it.
The store signs creak and their voices are carried too far by the wind, and Donghyuck shouldn't be thinking about how it sounds like a parody of a bad zombie movie before all the protagonists die, but he's been screaming Jisung's name for hours, in what could very well be enemy territory, and he's pretty much expecting to die very soon.
The walkie-talkie crackling with static is his bell of salvation, and he heads to the location Chenle manages to stammer out, trying to keep his nerves calm, first aid kit ramming against his hipbone with every step he runs.
He takes the two blond figures in first, then the fact that Jisung is trapped under a pile of rubble.
Jisung is wounded, trapped, and potentially unconscious. If there are enemies nearby, they certainly know their location, they've been raising a commotion. Donghyuck desperately tries to ignore the sweat clinging to the back of his neck, the palpitations in his chest and wrists and neck that make his vision swirl black.
They're going to fucking die.
They're going to fucking die, but before that Donghyuck is going to save this kid.
Year 0, Month 11, Day 19 -- 19:59 [Zhong Chenle]
The environment for the surgery is probably the cleanest thing Chenle has seen in years, so it has to go well. They used too much of their water supply to clean their blanket, even disinfected it. They’re only resting Jisung’s upper body on it, because there’ll be blood, Donghyuck says.
“Chenle, pass me the cable,” he orders in a cold voice, and Chenle’s heart relaxes even more, because Donghyuck is good at this. He spent so many hours studying those medicine manuals, and he knows what he’s doing, so Jisung will be safe before they all know it.
“He’s gonna scream. You can call Jaemin if you don’t want to watch," Donghyuck informs him with the same unaffected tone he'd used when he first took a look at Jisung's swollen, black hand, and pronounced it gangrenous.
Chenle finds himself wanting to be like that. Even in this state of weird cold-blooded panic he's in, he needs to be calmer, like Donghyuck is.
“I’ll watch.”
Donghyuck nods, and he starts strapping the cord to Jisung’s wrist.
“I’ll start now. Gonna hurt like hell. Sorry, kid.”
Year 0, Month 11, Day 19 -- 20:32 [Zhong Chenle]
Jisung screams.
He screams, sobs, and screams again. Some of it makes sense, some of it is pleading for Donghyuck to stop. Mostly, he just screams his throat raw, and bleeds. He bleeds everywhere, bright red jumping out of his wrist the more Donghyuck sinks his blade in, and Chenle briefly wonders how bad it would be without their makeshift tourniquet. He watches, bile rising up to his throat when Donghyuck finishes sawing up to the bone and starts working on the opposite side.
Jisung screams, and when Donghyuck starts sawing through the bone, he screams more, until his throat is raw and he can only cry. He tries to beg again, while Donghyuck cusses at the thread that won’t go inside his needle, cries when Chenle drops half a bottle of vodka on his open hand, trying not to stare at the exposed bone and muscle and veins. His tears start to dry up by the time Donghyuck is almost done with the stitches. The older snatches the bottle out of Chenle’s hands and soaks the bandages in it before wrapping them around what remains of Jisung’s hand.
It’s clean, and so white Chenle forgets there’s something missing for a moment. He knows ghost limbs are a common symptom post-amputation surgeries, and he wonders whether Jisung can still feel the hand that’s lying a few centimeters away from his face.
“Lele, do me a favor and throw it out,” Donghyuck says, nodding at the amputated mass of bloody meat. Chenle’s stomach rebels at the idea, he would much rather call Jaemin to do it than pick up pieces of his best friend’s flesh and bone, but he sucks it up and holds it through the plastic of his gloves long enough to open the back door and drop it out like it’s toxic. It might as well be, with how it smells like death.
Chenle knows what death smells like. He needs it as far away from all of them as possible.
Year 0, Month 11, Day 24 -- 07:03 [Lee Jeno]
Jeno is vaguely aware of the others’ voices and hands trying to shake him into responding. He is awake, that is what they seem to not understand - he is very much awake, even if the world around him fades at times, even if the few times he has actively tried to move, his nerves refused to carry the message through to his muscles. He hasn’t tried to move much, anyway.
Jeno is very much aware, on some deep level that at times hits him with all the weight of their truck, that Jaemin is losing his mind, that Mark is worried and keeps trying to force food down his throat so he doesn’t die, that Donghyuck screams at him every now and then. Donghyuck is right, but he doesn’t need to. Jeno is awake, and has been wishing he weren’t for five days now.
Jisung is there too, of course. He lives, breathes, no thanks to Jeno. He sits on the couch, drapes the blanket over Jeno, and Jeno can only look back at him with distant eyes.
Not his hand. Just his face, where he’s tired and dirty and thin and older than he should be, but everything is as it’s meant to be, and Jeno never risked killing him.
Donghyuck has screamed about that, too. That it was stupid to separate, that Jeno is an idiot, that it’s all his fault, and then that it’s not a tragedy, some nights later, that people die or lose more, and Jisung is alive and doesn’t hate him. Jeno knows all of that.
No one hates him for failing their plan. If he goes back, though, he will have to face that, and live with the fact that he’s forgiven and he doesn’t deserve it.
Pain snaps him back to reality, and it takes him a few minutes to work his way through the daze long enough to realize Jisung is screaming at him. He forces himself to listen to it, no matter how much he wants to go back in his head, where the only voice of truth is his own familiar one, because Jisung deserves that. Jeno’s brain struggles to keep up with it, but he anchors himself to the sting in his face, and makes himself listen to Jisung, even if he already knows Jisung is alive and probably only angry with Jeno for making this about himself.
He could starve, drink the gasoline they store. He could just make himself move long enough to pick up one of their guns and pull the trigger. Stick a knife in his throat. Something to make him escape the consequences, consequences he should have been the one to get, not Jisung, who only did what Jeno told him to. But that’s the easy way out, and Jisung wants him to come back, so he owes it to everyone.
He will. Maybe a couple days more, and he will, if only so Mark and Jaemin don’t lose their minds, and so Jisung - little Jisung who’s hurt and it’s his fault - doesn’t think he did anything wrong.
Year 1, Month 1, Day 2 -- 18:07 [Na Jaemin]
They find Renjun covered in soot and grime, traces of old paint marring his cheeks and forehead, dragging a wheelbarrow with arms that look too small to carry anything, let alone the amount of weapons stuffed in the small cart. He looks at them with burning eyes, and something in Jaemin’s chest cries in relief and fear all at the same time.
He wants to launch himself out of the truck and bury his face in Renjun’s chest, breathe in all the dirt encrusting his shirt and feel the heartbeat under his hands, but as soon as he jumps out, Renjun is holding a knife to his throat before Jaemin can even touch him. The jagged ending digs on his skin, stings like a fucker, but all Jaemin can think about is how that’s a valid reaction to have, and how his heart burns with bile and he wants to vomit and burst into a thousand tiny pieces of carbon and bloated entrails, and maybe Renjun doesn’t even recognize him after all this time, and it hurts, it hurts so bad he wants to cry.
He does cry, as Donghyuck shouts from the truck, as Jeno throws himself after the two and points his gun at Renjun. Renjun can’t know it’s empty, can’t know Jeno would never do that to him, not even to save Jaemin. He just presses the knife harder onto Jaemin’s throat, and spits blood on the ground.
“Please, Renjun, it’s me, please,” Jaemin is babbling, and he doesn’t care about dying, not really, because he thinks he might actually die anyway if Renjun doesn’t hold him.
They kissed once, and once only, when they were nine and innocent, and only wanted to meet each other like adults did, on their favorite park bench, the one near the fountain. Jaemin screamed in disgust after that, because it was weird at the moment, and they just chased each other around the playground. Jaemin went home with a bruise on his arm and scraped knees from being tackled to the ground. He’s always thought of that day as the single most romantic moment of his entire life.
Now Renjun’s holding a knife with Jaemin’s blood slowly trickling down its surface and onto the ground, and Jaemin is sniffling like the giant baby he is because he can see the older’s hand trembling, like an overgrown child holding something their mom told them not to touch, who knows they’re in trouble. He realizes that even if Renjun is the one with a stock of weapons, holding a knife against his throat, he’s still so small, and if Jeno weren’t scared of hurting either of them he could overpower him within seconds.
A shot rings, and Jaemin jumps, his neck stinging sharp from the knife. Renjun is impassible. He doesn’t even flinch.
It was Jeno, he realizes somewhere in the moment.
That was not an empty gun. Jeno missed, he missed on purpose, he probably didn’t even aim at them, but the gun is loaded, it’s loaded and they could shoot the one good thing Jaemin has found in this shitstorm, and Renjun would kill him anyway before he died, but if he died from Renjun’s knife it would be better than slow radiation poisoning, better than starving. He wants Jeno to shoot him, wants the bullet to go astray from his trembling hand and bury itself in Jaemin’s chest, wants Renjun’s knife to cut his throat so he can feel the blood gurgle out of him, so they can all be covered in what remains of him when he’s finally free from the hell they got stuck in.
Donghyuck’s voice breaches through his haze, shouts something about standing down, something about a truce. There’s his name, and Renjun’s, and Jeno’s, like an order, and Mark is talking, clearer bit by bit.
The knife finally drops from his throat.
“Renjun,” he sobs, facing his friend. He ignores his heart tearing to pieces when the gaze that meets his eyes is cold as the steel its owner is holding against Jaemin’s throat.
“Let’s all eat something, yeah?” Donghyuck cheerfully suggests. It’s his diplomacy tone, and Jaemin can’t care less. Renjun pushes him to the truck, jumps on. Donghyuck smiles warmly, extending a hand that is left untaken.
“You try something funny, I shoot the loud one first,” Renjun mumbles.
Jaemin cries again.
Year 1, Month 1, Day 5 -- 11:16 [Lee Jeno]
The chances of happening upon an old friend in the middle of an apocalypse - or after one, Jeno guesses - are infinitesimal, and yet Renjun sits cross-legged in a corner of the truck, obsessively sharpening a knife and glooming the air with his presence. Jeno can't know for sure, but he thinks it's the same knife he threatened Jaemin with, and he wants to burn it to dust, and Renjun along with it.
Since he's shown up, Jaemin has cried so many tears, Jeno got afraid he'll run into serious dehydration problems, so he forced him to drink part of his water rations, too. He knows too well Jaemin used to harbor the most embarrassing crush on the Chinese boy, because even back when they could go to school, he never had any qualms about trusting Jeno with all his feelings. Jeno was glad at the time, and he is glad now; he would genuinely give his life to protect Jaemin’s happiness, if he could.
But the Renjun glaring at them from his safety corner like a trapped animal is not the same boy who liked singing and reading and got two teeth knocked out because he’s the worst goalkeeper in history, and Jaemin will have to realize that even if it hurts him.
That is, if they all survive the next days.
Year 1, Month 1, Day 11 -- 10:56 [Park Jisung]
Jisung isn't told many things, but he can still understand there is a fine line of tension between Jaemin, Jeno, and Renjun. It’s not too hard to figure out: Jaemin wants to protect Renjun, Jeno wants to protect Jaemin, Renjun is confused and pretends to hate them all. He can see the tension reaching its limit, very, very close to snapping, and he hopes they’ll work things out quickly and limit themselves to a few well-aimed straight hooks.
The pull that eventually makes everything snap comes when Jaemin says Having both of you here makes me want to live again, casually, over the can of peas they’re sharing for dinner, and there are no punches thrown, no screaming. There is Renjun, who can’t breathe, and Jeno, who freezes.
There’s some crying, but Jisung doesn’t see much else. Chenle makes him turn around to give them privacy, because they deserve at least that. Jisung stares at the wall in front of him, and wonders if he will ever feel anything like that someday.
Year 1, Month 3, Day 27 -- 19:45 [Lee Mark]
Jisung’s growth spurt hits them all out of nowhere, and Mark feels like he suddenly understands the suffering his parents went through with him. They’ve found three shopping malls still standing in the last month or so, and none of them had essentially anything that would fit him. If it existed, it had been taken, burnt, or had rotted away long before they could salvage anything. When even Jeno’s clothes stop fitting him, Renjun and Donghyuck set up an improvising team, and they somehow manage to frankenstein bits and pieces of what they can spare together into some semblance of new shirts. They’re definitely way worse at working pants, so the kid is stuck with basketball shorts or extremely tight jeans.
Donghyuck presents him with a skirt, at some point, and Mark is ready to give a whole speech on not making fun of each other’s problems, when he realizes Jisung is actually thankful and Donghyuck is dead serious. Mark doesn't comment, because he knows Donghyuck would go on another tirade about how he's been socialized into gender roles.
He just looks at Jisung, his awkward voice and bad posture, because his limbs are too long, his missing hand and improvised clothes, and feels mildly guilty he can't give him a good childhood. Not that his own childhood was great - he spent most of his teenage years either hiding from the war or working in a factory until he was allowed to collapse, but at least he had uniforms that fit him and didn't feed on cockroach soup. Or at the very least, whatever it was, it didn't look like cockroach soup. The exposure to radiation hadn't been kind, but he would take what fate had dealt him in due time.
"I said I spy something black , idiot!" Chenle screams, shoving at Jisung under the blanket. They're hogging it, but no one seems to care.
"Everything is black though, it's night…"
Chenle dissolves in a fit of giggles, and so does Mark, and everyone else. Jisung rubs the back of his head, confused, but no one is explaining why that was funny so Mark won't ruin that for them. He just watches Jaemin force the kids to push aside and let him into the blanket-game area, and smiles.
They're doing terrible, but they're trying.
Year 1, Month 11, Day 22 -- 17:42 [Huang Renjun]
“Ok, so rules,” Mark says, clapping his hands. Renjun admires the show of authority, even if it’s a bit cliché.
“So far we have, uh, no being disgusting in the Dream Machine - Hyuck, just call it the van,” he sighs. The pieces of paper they all scribbled their own rules on are deployed in front of him like playing cards, in a cacophony of different handwritings and number of exclamation points.
“Dream Machine.” Hyuck stomps his foot. “No holding hands, no shoving tongues in anyone’s throat. Cuddles are allowed.”
“Fine, yes, whatever. Then, uh, Chenle is not allowed to drive. Okay, I support this one.”
“Why?!”
“You drove the van off a cliff once,” Jeno points out. Renjun is deeply saddened he’s missed that particular episode.
“It was an accident!”
“You literally said you had the best idea ever- nevermind, next. Jisung is absolutely and forever forbidden from cooking?”
“That’s me,” Jaemin clarifies. “This stuff is already disgusting enough without it being poisoned, too.”
“Fully agree. Raise your voices past midnight and I’ll murder you- Let me guess, Renjun.”
“I can throw knives in the dark and still pinpoint you by your voice.” Renjun shrugs. He’s pretty sure the others know he’s mostly joking.
Mostly.
“Oof. Anyway, I won’t allow Jisung to drive either, too young, that’s my rule. We share batteries and books, long live Communism, uh, Chenle? Good. Jisung, you didn’t write anything.”
Jisung shrugs. “I don’t really have any requests for rules.”
“Come on. It can be anything,” Mark insists. Jisung sighs in defeat, then perks up almost immediately.
“I have it.”
He scribbles down furiously, and Renjun tries to lean in over the mass of everyone’s limbs and heads to take a peek before Mark ruins it.
“Mandatory group activities once a day?” he reads out. Jisung smiles, small and happy with his idea, and Renjun feels almost bad for how much he hates it.
“Games, or talking. We can also do chores together or just hang out. There's a lot of us now, so I was just thinking, we could do some actual family stuff.”
There’s a beat of silence in the van, and Renjun almost thinks he’ll have to break it himself and tell Jisung that’s a terrible idea. He needs to be alone or he’ll go insane, he’s survived on his own for too long, and getting attached more than he already has is just about the worst thing that could happen.
“That’s a great idea, Jisung-ah.” Jeno smiles warmly. It's the wrong time for Renjun to be sentimental, but he does love that smile very much, so his mouth moves before his brain can catch up with it, for once.
"I love it," he grins.
For some reason, it doesn't feel like a lie.
Year 1, Month 11, Day 28 -- 19:22 [Na Jaemin]
Jaemin loves ransacking. Partially, he loves playing spies with blatant disregard to the fact that hadn't he lost track of his age he'd know he's way too old to be playing pretend, but no one is around to see anyway. Mostly, he likes seeing the van's nooks and shelves and boxes full of food, after a good run. It makes him feel safe, and really, no one could possibly blame him. He sometimes finds something new - a book, a pair of glasses, even a functioning watch three months ago.
This time, though, he found a shitton of bleach and dye, and he's at his happiest working away at Chenle's hideous roots while Renjun massages pink pigment onto Jaemin's own hair. 'Cause really, at least 70% of good post-apocalyptic fashion is having something other than black hair, and no matter how inconvenient it is according to Mark, Jaemin will die for this shred of luxury.
"I'll do yours green, Lele," he offers absentmindedly as he covers it in plastic.
"You'll waste water." Mark pipes up after being quiet for all of five minutes.
"We have a fuckton of dirty water, I'll just use that. Hyuck, you're up," Jaemin declares, shaking the tube of firetruck red paint more for show more than anything else.
Donghyuck rolls down from the couch to sit in front of him, and Jaemin carefully unwraps his bleached hair to check for mistakes he doesn't find. Donghyuck tucks an earplug in his ear as he works, playing some urban pop song Jaemin doesn't recognize on his MP3, as Jaemin works the dye onto his hair.
Life is good.
Year 2, Month 0, Day 13 -- 12:24 [Na Jaemin]
The sun is oppressing, like it always is. The air is dry, yet Jaemin can still feel his top stick to his back and shoulders with sweat, and he still hates it way too much after all this time.
Renjun is perched on the window of the truck, one leg dangling outside, an arm precariously keeping him in balance. The flowers he’s painting on the exterior are beautiful, but Jaemin cannot be surprised at that. Everything Renjun does is beautiful. When he paints. When he sings because he thinks no one can hear him. When he and Jeno hold hands, because Jeno makes Jaemin’s heart hurt so much, too. When he sleeps, knowing someone else is keeping guard, and the tension leaves his shoulders; when he gets ready for a fight, eyes determined and back taught.
He is beautiful now, too, trying to keep himself stable, wearing just his tactical shorts, because he’s smarter than Jaemin and knows better than to wear a shirt or shoes in this heat, even if the dust and grime that are everywhere are adding layers upon layers of dirt to what is already probably permanently encrusted onto his skin.
“How do they look from down there?” Renjun shouts, and Jaemin almost chokes out his entire flow of thought, condensed in the word ‘Beautiful’, but he catches himself in time.
“Lunch is ready, come down,” he yells instead, and he swears he can see Renjun roll his eyes in mid-flight when he jumps down.
“You could spare some compliment sometimes, you know,” the older grumbles, and Jaemin’s lips curve in a smile on their own. He’s not attempting to stop them, either way, just like he’s not attempting to stop the impulse that brings him to hang an arm around Renjun’s waist and pull him closer. Renjun seems to be actually waiting for Jaemin to say something, so Jaemin grins and does.
“Amazing. Spectacular. Showstopping. Never the same, totally unique-”
“Okay, okay, we get it, take your arm off, it’s sweaty.”
Jaemin pulls him closer.
“-incredible, genius, never been done before-”
Year 2, Month 3, Day 21 -- 07:22 [Lee Mark]
“You should’ve told me,” Donghyuck accuses, and he’s crying. Donghyuck has always been very liberal with his tears, but Mark still regrets making him spill them. He’s standing there, clutching his spraypaint can, the handkerchief he's tied as an armband about to fall off, and Mark feels really sorry for making him sad, so he tells him so.
Donghyuck scoffs, incredulous, then laughs as if Mark had told a funny joke. Mark can tell he’s pissed, he really can. He just doesn’t know what to say that won’t make it worse, so he tells him that, too.
“ Sad. I’m not sad, you asshole, I’m furious! You absolute emotionally constipated idiot , my best friend has a fucking tumor and he’s just kept it to himself - was it to avoid breaking my heart? Was it? Well, you sure did a great job! Marvelous! Kudos, really, kudos.”
Words pour out of Donghyuck’s mouth, like they always do when he’s feeling too many emotions to handle at once, and Mark guesses he does deserve them.
“I’m sorry,” he repeats, and he doesn’t avoid Donghyuck when he hits him with the can. The armband finally flies off his arm and falls to the ground; Donghyuck either doesn’t notice, or doesn’t care. He just hits Mark again, eyes wide open like he always does to try and keep his tears in, even if it doesn’t really work. He pauses to catch his breath, swallow, look at the ground whose grime has long encrusted his cheeks, because he hasn’t bathed in forever and Mark really, really wishes he could give Donghyuck at least that right now, because he deserves nice things, like water to wash up and new batteries for his MP3, and a friend who knows how to handle things.
“Who else knows?” Donghyuck finally asks.
“Just Jeno and Renjun.”
“I'm telling them." Donghyuck decides. "You're apologizing to everyone."
Mark nods. There is something in his throat that makes it very difficult to speak, but he can nod, at least.
"And if it turns out to be some cancer shit, so help me, hyung, I will murder you myself."
Year 2, Month 4, Day 2 -- 15:48 [Lee Donghyuck]
Donghyuck is proud of many, many ideas he has had over the years. Decorating the Dream Machine has probably been his greatest strike of genius, and the night he’d spent on the roof painting highly inappropriate lyrics, as Mark had called them the following morning? Totally worth it.
Making their own Cards Against Humanity cards to compensate the gradual loss of more than half of their former collection had also been a strike of pure genius, he decides once again.
Why is Jaemin crying today? - The time Jeno got frostbite on his dick.
“Literally fuck you all. All of you,” Jaemin grumbles, but Donghyuck is the czar, and he is all-powerful. His decision is final, so Renjun accepts his black card with a smug grin, and the power moves on to Mark.
“When it eventually boils down to it, blank-blank’s is just blank-blank,” he reads.
Donghyuck looks at his cards and immediately snickers, throwing down Chenle and Holding down a child and farting all over him. Not his best play, admittedly, but they are all mature enough to appreciate a good, old-fashioned fart joke as the highest form of humor it is.
Mark flips the cards, keeping his usual poker face throughout all of the responses, even though half of them, Donghyuck included, positively lose their shit at An old grandma and her fifty-three cats and Jeno adopting stray children.
Mark flips the last couple of cards, and everyone freezes. Donghyuck feels his blood run cold for a moment.
When it eventually boils down to it, Mark’s never-ending journey. is just Kids with ass cancer.
Donghyuck’s eyes bore into Mark’s shoulder, where he can’t see the little bump that could be deadly or perfectly harmless. It’s still there.
He suddenly finds the game a great deal less amusing.
Mark’s chest first shakes, and then his entire body, as he doubles over with uncontrollable laughter, shattering the tension like the Machine’s windows shattered the one time Chenle was experimenting with explosives in the front seats.
“Which of you bastards- Na Jaemin! That was horrible!” he wheezes, face contorted in never-ending giggles. Jaemin accepts his black card with a shit-eating grin and sticks his tongue out at the rest of them.
“Oh, this one is good? Surprise me,” Renjun says, already holding the next black card.
Donghyuck takes another moment to look at Mark. He’s laughing, and Donghyuck is not stupid enough to not recognize when his best friend’s laughter is hiding something else, but Mark doesn’t want to talk about it, or think that it’s dangerous, and Donghyuck, for once, finds himself agreeing.
What is Donghyuck’s guilty pleasure?
Okay, this is his round.
Year 2, Month 4, Day 11 -- 02:32 [Zhong Chenle]
Renjun and Donghyuck's critter soup is surprisingly tasteful. Chenle vaguely remembers them being excited about some spice or the other they'd found, but it matters relatively little; all that Chenle really cares about is shoving more of the insects in his throat while they're still warm.
Renjun himself is pacing the length of the Dream Machine, huffing over maps. They're almost out of fuel, and they're all rightfully stressed, but Chenle doesn't like stressing so much. If this is the end of their current path, so be it. Mark and Jeno are taking it in the worst way possible, though and Renjun is stressing most of all.
"I have it," the latter murmurs, stopping dead in his tracks so abruptly that Chenle almost drops his spoon in surprise.
There's spine in his soup, probably a lizard's. The consistency is horrible, but Renjun told them there's vitamin in spinal cords, so Chenle forces it down anyway.
"If I'm right about where we are, there's a huge reserve three days from here," Renjun muses, sketching a rudimentary map on some piece of paper. None of them come closer to him in this state, but Chenle can tell everyone is all ears.
"The safe path takes two weeks. We're not gonna make it for shit. The gang around here, NCT, they were fairly small a year ago but scouts still picked them up. Quick route passes straight through their territory."
"Well. Fuck." Jaemin interjects.
"I think I have a plan."
The plan isn't all that convincing. Go through their territory, scare them half to death, possibly pick a hostage or two to ensure their own safety. Fear breeds respect, Renjun says, and it's pretty much their only chance of not being stranded in the middle of a desert. That would be a very bad place for Mark to spend his last days, but Chenle still thinks he rather hates the plan.
"Chenle, I need your help with a trap."
Chenle sets his soup down with a loud clang , his mouth curving into a grin on its own.
He loves the plan.
Year 2, Month 4, Day 11 -- 13:43 [Park Jisung]
The trap is set, and it’s perfect, according to Chenle. Jisung is pretty sure he can trust Chenle on that, at least. He would still find a way to blow things up and get them out alive even if the trap failed.
Jeno and Renjun sit in the open, holding their rifles in plain view. Renjun has tucked it under his armpit, he’s polishing his knife and looks so relaxed Jisung wonders if he is acting at all. Jeno looks more nervous, clutching his rifle close, finger itching near the trigger. Not on it, because Renjun still kicks their shins every time they get weapon code wrong.
It's hot, really too hot for all of their tastes, and Jisung’s shirt is already way too small but now that it’s sticking to his back it’s uncomfortable as all fuck. He wants to take it off, but he has the feeling that if he so much as moves a finger, everything is going to go to shit.
Everything will be good, though, because the plan is flawless. Jeno and Renjun are, as Jaemin put it, the perfect bait we hope they’ll fall for, Mark and Donghyuck are waiting in their postation up above on the cliff (“ Which they totally will not know about, since it’s their territory and all”), and Jisung, Chenle, and Jaemin are just waiting for Mark-hyuck to pick the first attackers off so they can blow the whole thing up. ( “Okay, that part will work. But only because that’s Chenle’s superpower.”) . The crew will come for Jeno and Renjun, Mark and Hyuck will shoot at them, and when they head towards the snipers, they’ll be blown up.
They just need to wait. Wait a lot.
Jisung hates waiting. His skin itches with sweat but he cannot move, stuck under the sun and radiation, out in the open where anyone could shoot at him and he can only look at the dust patterns and cockroach tracks to distract himself.
Two shots ring in the air. Jisung checks Jeno and Renjun, still alive and well, and ducks to get closer to the trigger. It isn’t until a second later that he realizes.
The shots didn’t come from where they were supposed to.
Before he can so much as move, Jaemin is already cussing and running towards the cliff.
“Mark! Hyuck!”
Year 2, Month 4, Day 11 -- 15:42 [Huang Renjun]
Jaemin has broken three toes. One in a fall when he attempted to climb the cliff, and another two by kicking the van’s walls in frustration. Renjun ignores his protests that he doesn’t need help, that their brothers are in danger, that they should run to their aid, and forces him to sit still while he attempts to fix it. He’s not Donghyuck, but the job he does isn’t all that shabby, and the mechanical process allows him to think.
“I’m going to negotiate.”
“Sure. Jisung and Chenle can stay here, watch over the truck and Jaemin. Nana, if anything goes south, take the kids and go.”
“Like fuck I’m staying here,” Jaemin growls, trying to look angry and absolutely failing, because fists aren’t scary when the person clenching them is pouting and partially immobilized.
“I’m going alone,” Renjun clarifies before the two can keep bickering.
“No, you’re not.” Jeno protests, so obvious that Renjun is already rolling his eyes before he’s even started the sentence.
“I survived for years on my own. I’ve had run-ins with at least two gangs that wanted me dead and made it out alive. None of you can say that. If I die, it will have been my time, and you’ll finally free up that space we’ve been needing.”
He expects Jeno to start on a tirade about why his life matters, too, or Jaemin to say he’ll come along, because Na Jaemin is that stubborn.
He should’ve expected Jaemin to slap him, but he doesn’t, so he’s stuck staring in disbelief at Jaemin clutching his hand afterwards.
“You hurt yourself, idiot,” Jeno sighs. “Huang Renjun.”
Renjun forces his eyes away from Jaemin’s hand and onto Jeno’s own, tries to look serious and not nearly as annoyed or shocked as he is.
“You can go. If you die, I will make sure you regret it.”
Okay.
Okay. Renjun wasn’t expecting that.
“He won’t take you seriously like that,” Jaemin reprimands, sighing overdramatically, in true Jaemin fashion. “Renjun, if you die, I’m straight up killing myself. So don’t die, since you love me too much.”
Renjun smiles in agreement.
He can only hope Jaemin is bluffing.
Year 2, Month 4, Day 11 -- 17:05 [Huang Renjun]
Renjun’s heartrate is dangerously rapid, or at least, he thinks it is. Then again, it’s been a while since he’s been in actual danger, the kind that comes with walking mostly unarmed and holding your hands up in complete enemy territory.
“I’m here to negotiate,” he shouts, taking careful steps under the banner hanging from the stone arch overhead.
No one stops him.
They think they’re being clever, probably. Jaemin or Jeno wouldn’t have noticed, but Renjun sees the tip of a barrel pointed at him from behind a rock cliff, hears the unmistakable noise of someone’s shoes grinding against the ground to stabilize their grip.
These people are almost falling from their sniping postations. If they’re all as dumb as whoever that was, maybe Mark and Donghyuck still stand a chance of making it out alive.
“Over here.”
Renjun turns towards the voice slowly, holding his palms open. His heartrate accelerates even further, almost to the point he thinks his organs could genuinely give in to the rush of adrenaline.
The man he’s faced with is maybe a few years older than him, sitting on a rock, an ankle resting on the other leg’s knee. Renjun doesn’t raise an eyebrow at the white hair, or the bright red jeans he’s wearing in this heat.
He drops to his knees, instead, hands held up in surrender.
“I’m here to negotiate.”
“Are you in a position to?” the man asks. Renjun counts at least four snipers on him, but there’s no way there’s not at least ten members in the area. He really is not.
“There’s more of us. If no one is back to our base by sunfall, my companions will blow up everything they can get their hands on.”
He’s not sure he’s bluffing. He really, really hopes he is, but an angry Chenle and a Jaemin in grief are a terribly dangerous and combustible combination.
It's likely not even a bluff.
The man raises his eyebrows. “They’ll die.”
“They’ll go out with a bang, then.” Renjun shrugs. “I have a deal to propose. Can I put my hands down?”
His interlocutor watches him over, then nods towards him. A boy runs from behind a column and grabs his hands before Renjun can lower them, inspecting him thoroughly enough to find the knives in his combat boots. The amount of willpower it takes Renjun not to snark something along the lines of you could’ve asked is truly a testament to his negotiation abilities.
“Go ahead,” the man eventually consents, having presumably received an all-clear from whoever is holding Renjun.
“You have two of my companions. They're completely useless. The older one once dropped an entire supermarket shelf while trying to take out one can. You let my friends go, I'll do whatever you want. It’s one more capable fighter in your ranks, or someone to do whatever you don’t feel like doing. Whether you want to use me as a blood harvest, or food if you’re into that, I don’t care, I won't fight you. They’re a lot farther south but I have a few powerful gangs on my back, you can definitely exchange me for something of value. Those kids don’t even have a name as far as politics games are concerned."
Renjun hates having a body. It's tiring, painful, and right now the organs in his chest are twisting all sorts of painful ways.
“And what’s
your
name?” the man asks, impassible.
“Huang Renjun.”
Renjun didn't quite know what to expect when he revealed himself. It definitely wasn't for the hands holding him from behind to drop him all of a sudden.
"Wha- 'Yong- chief, boss!" the voice screeches, and Renjun's heart tries to jump three different ways at once.
"-Dejun?"
Year 2, Month 4, Day 11 -- 21:04 [Lee Donghyuck]
The situation they're currently is a terrible headache personified. Situationified. Whatever.
In less than twelve hours, Donghyuck has gone from setting a trap, to falling into one himself, being taken hostage, blatantly lying about his identity and how many people they're travelling with, only for their captors to suddenly come in the tiny cave-room they're holding Mark and him in and free them, Renjun behind them.
For a terrifying moment he'd thought Renjun had done something crazy like try to sacrifice himself for them.
But apparently Renjun knew some of these people, he'd ran away from his old gang with them, and they'll keep you safe, just let me go fetch the others, trust me on this one.
Donghyuck, admittedly, always ends up trusting people whether he wants to or not.
Now he sits, food and tea and a fucking clean wet towel in front of him, surrounded by people none of them have ever known in their lives, on Renjun's word.
"Feel free to stay here as long as you need to. You can even join - we have good, stable sources of energy and water."
None of them reply to the weird white-haired man's offer. Donghyuck wants to protest, tell them to fuck off and let them go, that they don't need help, but they defer to Mark in times like these, and he does, too.
He waits for Mark, who is thinking so hard Donghyuck can see smoke from his brain malfunctioning.
"How many can you take? Our youngest are like, sixteen or something, I think. The two of them, if you could maybe take them in-"
Donghyuck almost screams. He doesn't know what the fuck Mark is planning, but he knows whatever it is, he hates it.
True, they've been going around aimlessly in Jeno's dead grandfather's old truck for years, with nowhere to go and nothing to do and ever thinner resources, but Donghyuck likes it. He likes game night, he likes huddling under their one blanket to hide from the cold, he likes kicking Jeno down from the couch when he's taking up all the space. He likes Chenle blowing things up, and Jisung's ridiculously good dancing, and Jaemin dyeing all their hair whenever he can.
Donghyuck would fucking die before he lets any of that go.
"If you're not staying, we're not either," Chenle declares, and it takes all of Donghyuck's willpower not to shout in approval.
"You could all stay, if you want." The other group's leader, or whatever he is, clears his throat uncomfortably. "Really, we have the space and resources. We're still a small group. There's an entire cave complex around here, and Dongyoung and Yuta's projects have a lot going on them. You wouldn't be the first group we've assimilated, just - uh, just, consider it, okay? I'll- I'll leave you alone.
He does leave them alone. The seven of them, in some cave from which they can't run away and apparently don't have to.
Donghyuck wants to shout, cry, punch everyone surrounding him for disrupting the world again.
He does none of that. He is tired.
"Let's stay."
Year 2, Month 4, Day 18 -- 12:41 [Moon Taeil]
The team always complains that Taeil has too big a heart to survive, but they'd never do the same to Taeyong. Taeil is honestly just glad, purely and utterly glad almost no one protested the children's addition.
Some of them are not too young - their eldest is the same age as Yukhei, Kunhang, and Dejun - their youngest, though, are children, and a part of Taeil is irredeemably happy when the green one first smiles at them.
They find new clothes to substitute whatever they're wearing - Taeil appreciates the attempts at sewing, but Jisung looks so much more comfortable in Johnny's old clothes. He watches from the side, mostly, content to see them murmuring among themselves when they first see the hot spring and get to take a bath, when Yangyang asks them to play with his latest droid.
He doesn't know what they've gone through or how they survived. They don't talk about that, don't talk much to them yet, but it's okay.
Taeil goes to their truck, at night, already knowing the kids will be there even if they've cleared room for them, and throws a second blanket onto the pile of entangled bodies they become every time they go to sleep. He can tell most of them wake up, Renjun's hand even shoots for the gun, but he doesn't flinch.
No one shoots him, or holds a weapon against him, just like he wouldn't against them, and that's honestly more than he thought he could hope for in such a short amount of time.
Five minutes later, they're back to sleep.