Note: Part of the Ashakiran!verse.
Warning: Implications of child prostitution.

Ashakiran
It Ends Tonight

Year 3228, 4th Cycle, 2nd Period

Crimson drops splashed onto white fabric, dying it a shade it was never intended to be. The startled gasp and moan of pain eclipsed the silent tears startled look. Small limbs scrambled to move the heavy weight that was slowly leaking the life giving fluid off the one it was sprawled a top of.

“Leeteuk?” he called, trying to draw forth a response from the now free boy.

“H-Heechul?” came the stuttered reply from a tear streaked face.

“It’s ok. Come on,” Heechul grasped him gently, helping him to his feet and closing the now discolored white fabric around his body.

Wide eyes stared at the fallen man where he laid with a knife protruding from the back of his neck. “Y-You killed him,” he stuttered, clutching tighter to Heechul.

“Yes,” he said simply. “I’ve had enough. No one can hurt us. Not anymore.”

“Heechul, you killed him!” Leeteuk said, his voice rising in tone as panic set in. Someone would come looking, someone to check on or collect them and then they would know, they would see what had been done.

“Yes,” Heechul repeated.

“I was fine! I would have been fine,” Leeteuk said with more conviction then he felt.

“This wasn’t about you,” Heechul snapped. “I’m done with this life.”

“This is our home,” Leeteuk murmured.

“This isn’t a home. I have read-”

“You and your books!” Leeteuk snapped cutting him off. “Life isn’t a story! This isn’t just another story! You can’t just kill someone!” he yelled swinging his arm wildly at the man. A second later they both froze as they heard footsteps in the hall. Frantically Leeteuk glanced between the dead man and the door.

“Are you with me?” Heechul whispered.

Leeteuk didn’t have to think about it, not really. Where else could he possibly be? “Yes,” he whispered.

Heechul nodded and crossed to the body, pulling the knife free with a sickeningly wet noise. Although Leeteuk turned away, he didn’t manage to keep from losing the small amount of food he had been able to eat that day. Heechul ignored him as he heaved the contents of his stomach onto the plushy carpeted floor, in favor of turning towards the door.

When it opened, he was ready for whoever was there, bloody knife clutched in his hand. There in the doorway stood the woman who was the only mother they had ever known, the last person Leeteuk had wanted to see. “Is everything-” she began, but cut it off with a gasp as she took in the room, the man, the blood, and Heechul standing with the knife.

Leeteuk turned to face his partner, “Heechul,” he murmured. There was nothing they could do against her. They could hardly hurt her, let alone kill her.

“We are leaving,” Heechul said darkly.

“I know you are upset,” she told him, as if trying to sooth an animal. “It must be horrible to see someone killed in front of you. I’m so glad you are safe.”

“I killed him,” Heechul replied as though it hardly mattered. She gasped again and her eyes widened. “And I will kill you too if you don’t let us go.”

“Now Heechul, don’t be ridiculous. There is nowhere for you to go,” but Heechul was no longer listening to a word she was saying. Leeteuk watched with horror as the arm holding the knife whipped out and the object flew at her. It embedded itself in her leg and she screamed, crumpling to the ground in pain.

A second later, Heechul was grabbing his wrist and pulling him out the door, forcing him to run with him. He assumed they would run to their rooms, as if they would provide some sort of shelter, but Heechul skipped them entirely, running beyond them, and into corridors they had never been through before, yet still knew of. The door to the outside wasn’t locked, and they burst through it, ignoring the clamor behind them that was likely the sound of their pursuit.

Bare feet on the hard rock of the street was hardly convenient, but they couldn’t stop to change that any more then they could stop for directions. With no destination in mind, they ran, and with every step they took, Leeteuk could feel the protest beginning in his body. He was fit, but not for this sort of exercise.

Still it was as if with each stride of their legs, each slap of their feet against rock, that Leeteuk could feel Heechul’s desire and purpose flow through him. Things began to slip away, like the pain in the soles of his tender feet, the burn in his legs, the gasps in his breath, as every motion took them closer to something, something that they had never known.

Through the streets they ran, trying to convince themselves that the sirens they were hearing were a normal part of this world they had never experienced and not the sound of their inevitable end. If they had been a little older or perhaps a little wiser, it might have occurred to them that there was really nowhere to go, yet it hadn’t and didn’t as they ran with no real direction.

A large wall stood before them, and in it, an opening into what appeared to be nothingness. Heechul ran right for it, Leeteuk at his side now, running with him as a partner. They burst from a side street, startling the men who were milling about and not expecting the appearance of two young boys as they dashed through the opening. There were cries to ‘stop’, ‘wait’, or in general not to do that, but they ignored them, running to what Leeteuk knew as some sort of vehicles only from the books Heechul had read.

Heechul paused by one, fiddling with it until he managed to get it to produce a rumbling noise. He threw one leg over what looked to be the padded seat and settled onto it. The vehicle rose off the ground as he pressed another button and Leeteuk rushed forward to scramble on behind him, barely fitting on the seat and wrapping his arms tightly around Heechul’s waist. Shouts of a more frantic nature were coming from behind them now and the vehicle lurched forward, jerkily at first and then with a smoothing gentleness until they were racing off over brown and dead land, kicking up dust behind them.

For a while Leeteuk kept glancing over his shoulder to see if anyone was following but it seemed that no one was. That was good, for he didn’t know what they would do if they had been followed. It wasn’t until they had gone for quite some time that two things hit him. They had left the safety of the city and what he knew to be the Dome, the only livable place left on the planet but more importantly, the boy in front of him was shaking with sobs.

“Heechul?” he whispered softly.

It took a moment for Heechul to say anything, and when he did, he only said three words while looking straight ahead. “We are free.”

That was such a strange concept for one who had always spent his life where he had and knew no other way of living. That Heechul seemed to grasp it confused Leeteuk, yet he felt that he knew at least a few things of what Heechul might be talking about. He would never again have to let people touch him because he was told to. He would never again have to undress in front of and touch a total stranger. He would never again have to watch some hit Heechul because they liked the way his skin turned a bright pink.

Heechul had always talked about the way things “should be”, but Leeteuk had thought that had just been him reading one too many books. Perhaps that hadn’t been it at all. Maybe, just maybe, Leeteuk thought that some of what Heechul had read had been true, and if so, then maybe, just maybe, they might truly be free.

Masterlist

AN: Look I'm alive and still writing! I had the desire to write in this verse all of the sudden so this little peace was created. The next chapter of 'Of Flesh' is being edited as I type so that will be out soon enough for everyone. (I'm thinking tomorrow). Hopefully my life has regulated enough to the point where I can find the time to write more regularly.