TW: Character Death, explicit description of death and injury

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With reluctant steps, the two males wandered around the dead bodies. A sombre silence covered the area like a stifling blanket. Respect passed their lowered eyes as they lingered no longer than necessary at each body. Most of them had blood-covered features and clothing, and their faces were barely recognisable under the thick layer. Wooyoung was sorry for every second he spent staring at them like science experiments. If they knew he searched for someone specific, they would forgive him.

Some men on the ground had been treated before their death. Dirtied bandages wrapped around the stumps of missing limbs and crossed over their chests under their open shirts. Despite desperate attempts, all help had been too late for them. The eyes of those people were closed in an eternal peace after death, sparing Wooyoung of the horror their empty gazes caused in his heart.

Hongjoong was slightly ahead of Wooyoung. His hunched shoulders conveyed the same goosebumps Wooyoung had since entering the area. The man probably speculated about his own future. Whether he would be able to make it, whether he would live to see the end of the war.

Wooyoung didn't tell him he would. He kept those words to himself and didn't meddle with the natural flow of time.

Every step felt heavy, as if Wooyoung's feet were encased in solid concrete. He feared how they carried him closer and closer to where San had to be. To the truth. Today decided whether Wooyoung could gain new hope in meeting the man or if he would fall into all-consuming darkness that would keep him trapped forever.

Despite all efforts humanity had gone through in the past century leading up to Wooyoung's birth, he had to lose his boyfriend in a war before they could start the happiest part of their lives. Such a sadistic joke.

Hongjoong passed yet another soldier that was too bloodied to be identified. While he moved on already, Wooyoung lingered. His eyes were stuck to the shape of a crescent moon, once golden but now painted red with blood that peeked out under the man's shirt. His steps slowed to a halt as he stared at the object without blinking.

He didn't dare raise his eyes to the face above the man's collarbones. Not looking too much at those bloodied features was Wooyoung's last string of hope.

When Hongjoong noticed Wooyoung slowing down, he turned. His eyes followed Wooyoung's petrified gaze to the man on the ground, then he came back over.

Wooyoung couldn't hide from his prying eyes. Couldn't deny how every emotion displayed on his features as if readable like the lines in an open book.

"Is this him?"

Without waiting for an answer, Hongjoong crouched next to the body. It laid neatly in a row with everyone else, not standing out at all. Nothing special, nothing unique about him.

When Hongjoong smoothed out the bloodied uniform of the man, both his name tag and the red cross stitched onto the fabric came into view. Even from the distance, Wooyoung could see the dreaded letters.

"So he died... I will leave you to it." Hongjoong distanced himself. He meandered through the rows, trying to remember the names and faces of those he would never see again. Friends, maybe, or people he had shared his hopes for a life after this hell with.

Wooyoung slowly sunk to his knees next to the body. The broad shoulders tapered into a scarily familiar narrow waist and long legs. Wooyoung recognised the freckles on his neck in one of the few spots that weren't covered in dried blood.

His heart raced in his chest.

Finally, he dared the dreaded glance at the man's features. He bit his lip at the sight, trying to hold back his wails that would have pierced the death-filled silence of the trenches.

San looked serene in death. Somebody had closed his eyes for him and the man's lips were relaxed. No grimace, no shock or horror had met him before his death. Forever frozen like Snow-White in her coffin, he laid in front of Wooyoung.

Wooyoung's fingers fisted into a blood-stained uniform. At the grab, it shifted aside to reveal the necklace again, dully resting on the man's sternum. It would never twinkle in the shift of light dancing on his breathing chest anymore.

"San... San..." Choked up, Wooyoung leaned over him. His tears mixed with the blood on San's cheeks, but it didn't wash off.

Wooyoung quivered and cried in silence. His voice couldn't make a sound even if he had tried to. There was only him, among rows of the dead that included his lover as he grieved over the lost soul of an immortal.

When Wooyoung's legs gave out on him, he crashed into San's body. It held no more heat that kept Wooyoung warm on wintry nights. Cold and firm, it caught Wooyoung but ignored his sobs.

His heart broke impossibly further as Wooyoung cradled San's head in his hands. Heavy and unwilling, it let itself be pressed against his neck. Wooyoung clung to him, sobbed for him, whispered his name, but none of it brought San back.

It was all in vain.

Wooyoung swayed the two of them back and forth like a mother would calm her child. In his mind, he soothed San and his hurt and loneliness wherever he was now. In reality, Wooyoung clung to San desperately like a child to its doll. He wanted to take San with him, wanted to clean him, wanted to preserve him in glass and always treat him like a precious good. He didn't deserve to lie here with the many others as a tiny fragment of the war when he had been so much; known so much.

When Wooyoung had loved him so much.

He cradled San's head in his hands, contemplating to kiss those blood-stained and lifeless lips that had laid upon Wooyoung's with so much passion not too long ago. He halted in his movement when his fingertips brushed an unknown torus at the back of San's skull. Carefully, he turned the man's no longer stiff neck and shifted his blood-clotted hair aside.

Through a patch of abraded skin, a circular hole sat in the back of San's head. The blood seeping out of it had thickened in a clot around the wound. Some other liquid mixed in as well, distorting the colour, but Wooyoung couldn't bear looking any longer. His stomach twisted around his breakfast. His heart plunged over the image in his mind, over the cruelty that had ripped San's life away from him.

"Oh, San..." Wooyoung muttered as he pulled the man's head against his chest once more, embracing him. San let him, wouldn't resist in a play fight ever again.

Wooyoung leaned his head back to blink against his fresh tears. His face was full of sticky fluids, but he didn't care as he gently lay San on the ground. He adjusted the man's head so his neck wouldn't strain and closed his shirt to keep curious hands from grabbing for the necklace. It belonged to San. It should stay with him.

When Wooyoung sat back on his knees, he heard the nearby doctor. A priest had joined his side by now and blessed the souls of the dead with his indistinct murmurs and songs. Wherever they went, the ravens picking at the bodies hopped off to find a new victim.

Hongjoong slinked back over when he noticed Wooyoung's empty face. He stood by his side wordlessly, neither reaching out nor talking.

"He-" Wooyoung cleared his throat when his voice broke. "He has an important necklace on him, a family heirloom. Make sure he is buried with it. I'm sure he would appreciate being buried with his comrades more than me dragging his body back to his parents."

Wooyoung didn't know why he upheld the facade. Hongjoong had seen him, heard the rawness of his voice.

Still, the man nodded.

"I will make sure it stays with him."

"Thank you." Wooyoung's throaty murmur was nothing but a gust of breath in the air. The stench of death and blood usually would have caused him to vomit, but out here and kneeling next to San, he was too numb to care. His world was all wrong, as if everything had shifted slightly and all shadows had grown darker. In this cold and dreary world, his human functions didn't concern him.

"I have to go," Wooyoung said with another glance at San. The man still laid there, pretty and lifeless.

"Where to?"

Wooyoung pointed his head in some direction.

"Anywhere. Away from here. I have to relay the message." His purpose came belated, but Hongjoong didn't point it out.

"Then be on your way," he said. Wooyoung obeyed like a doll drawn by strings. He stumbled away, around the watchtower and hopefully out of Hongjoong's sight.

He didn't check if the man could see him as he activated his remote and lurched through the door. It slammed shut behind him, leaving only a void for Hongjoong to find.

Wooyoung collapsed onto the floor and wrapped his arms around his knees. He curled up right in front of the door and laid still. His eyes stared emptily at the opposite wall, unseeing of the elegant marble tower he rested in.

The floor was cold and hard, punishing Wooyoung with pain that he barely felt. He laid there for several hours, no thoughts and no emotions passing him. His shock drowned out everything else.

Seungyoun found him there long after the room had got dark when the sun set outside. He rushed into the room with a surprised yell as he spotted Wooyoung on the floor and immediately tended to him. His groan when he picked Wooyoung up into his arms like a bride passed Wooyoung's ears without him trying to aid the man.

Seungyoun changed his clothes for Wooyoung, raising and dropping his limbs as a parent would do to their toddler. When he pulled Wooyoung off the table after the struggle was finished, he wrapped one of Wooyoung's arms around his shoulders and dragged his sweater-clad body into the foyer.

Yongguk was there, waiting for them with his car keys in his hand. His worry had his brows in a straight line as he regarded Wooyoung's empty and pale face.

They all piled into the car without a word being said. Wooyoung leaned into Seungyoun's side heavily. He noticed the glances Yongguk sent their way through the rearview mirror from his peripherals, but he never looked back and offered reassurance.

They halted at Seungyoun's home. Yongguk was confused when Seungyoun unbuckled Wooyoung's seatbelt, but Seungyoun caught onto it.

"I won't leave him alone after this. Don't worry. He won't do anything stupid while I am around."

"Be safe. Tell me if you need help," Yongguk muttered as they left the car. Like a heavy coat, Wooyoung hung from Seungyoun's side and allowed the taller man to throw him around as he pleased. With Wooyoung basically tucked under his arm, the man waved goodbye to Yongguk and waited until the man had pulled out of the parking lot before he dragged Wooyoung up the stairs leading to his flat. Falling over his own feet, Wooyoung let him until they arrived at the door.

Seungyoun held Wooyoung up against the wall with his shoulder while he unlocked the door.

"Here we go," he grunted as he hauled Wooyoung inside. Wooyoung couldn't even appreciate his dedicated care. He went through getting stripped of his coat and boots once more before Seungyoun carried him inside to dump Wooyoung's body on his couch. Sprawled on the soft material, Wooyoung watched how Seungyoun pushed back his sweaty hair and sighed. He went to the kitchen to make some hot tea for the two of them and soon, the soothing aroma filled Wooyoung's senses.

Wooyoung stared at Seungyoun's cat, who gave him a vindictive glare from the coffee table without seeing her.

"You can stay here however long you need. I can take some days off to take care of you." Seungyoun's hands never wavered as they poured the tea into two mugs and stirred some sugar into Wooyoung's. After all his shaking, Wooyoung would need that.

Seungyoun carried the two mugs over and lifted Wooyoung's legs before he sat down by his side. With the man's legs on his lap, Seungyoun sunk into the couch with a sigh.

Wordlessly, Wooyoung stared into the open room. The image of San's dead face had burnt itself into his inner eye and appeared whenever he blinked. He was afraid to close his eyes, too tight-strung in terror.

"Want to sleep in my bed with me? Or shall we make a pillow fort? I'm against leaving you in a room by yourself."

Wooyoung wanted to tell him he was no baby, but he didn't feel to be in a joking mood.

He didn't feel anything.

"Pillow fort it is." Before Seungyoun went to work, he sipped his tea in all peace. Wooyoung didn't touch his, too scared that he would drop the mug. When Seungyoun gave him a straw and tugged the table close enough that Wooyoung could drink while lying down, he slurped his tea mindlessly. Some drops trickled over his chin, but this time San's warm tongue didn't lap them up.

Seungyoun built a pillow fort and stayed up with Wooyoung long into the night while Wooyoung stared out into the falling slow. At four in the morning, Seungyoun crashed next to him with his head on the couch and his body on the blanketed floor. He slept peacefully while Wooyoung continued to look out of the window.