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Spooky Swap
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Published:
2023-07-18
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1,771
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1/1
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love from the other side

Summary:

When Jeonghan turns his back, something crackling in the air strikes the transmitter and jumps into Seungcheol’s chest. He doesn't see it happen the first few times. Or maybe he does, and just can't remember. 

Fate has a cruel sense of humor. So does time.

Notes:

I was playing Oxenfree II: Lost Signals in an airport and it reawakened my need to attempt to write this before my twice-delayed flight finally boarded. Love to write in liminal spaces.

My AO3 username is an indirect Oxenfree reference (in/frequency, as in radio signals) so it was only a matter of time. Anything that doesn't make sense is a result of me being less clever than I think I am.

For caveglow because you asked.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

“Jeonghan, are you there?”

Seungcheol comes through the walkie, voice pinched and tight around his distress. Static crackles around every syllable and carves out the meaning. Rushing water nearly drowns his voice out. Jeonghan clutches the radio to his ear in shaking hands, holding on.

“I’m here. Seungcheol, I’m here.”

But he’s been here, several times over. Jeonghan can remember every choice he’s made this time around.

[Do you ever get this feeling that you’ve lived this all before?]

The air here is dense, making it hard to breathe. A strange light pulses somewhere from the back of the cave and it calls out to him. Stubbornly, Jeonghan doesn’t fiddle with the dial for further instruction. How could he?

Static emanates from the tinny speakers, an uncomfortable buzzing sound that vibrates down into Jeonghan’s bones. There has never been a choice that has physically ached like this. The sound of Seungcheol’s voice is all that matters.

“Seungcheol, is there a boat there?”

Fate has a cruel sense of humor. So does time. The walkie can barely pick up a signal from the tower, but it catches Seungcheol just enough that Jeonghan can hang on to every breath.

“I need you to get on the boat.”

These are the last words Jeonghan will ever say to him. Or they will be, before the water swallows Seungcheol whole.

They ask Jeonghan every time in some collaged makeshift speech: believe—leave—is possible? The pulsing grows louder. They don’t like to be ignored.

Seungcheol seems resigned to his fate this time around. He also seems to remember.

“Just let me go,” he says in a low whisper before the static begins to cover him in a thick fog. “I’ll be okay.”

In this timeline, Seungcheol’s voice cracks. “Don’t find me.”

Even if he'd wanted to—

“I love you.”

The sound cuts. Only silence remains. Green light flashes before Jeonghan’s eyes.

 

 

Everything hurts when Jeonghan wakes, though it probably has something to do with how he’s sprawled out on the cavern floor as if he'd fallen.

Seungcheol is staring back at him with a patient face, though Jeonghan can tell he’s pissed off. Years apart and he's still an open book. Those brown eyes aren't as hard to read as he’d like to believe.

“I looked back and you had dozed off,” Seungcheol explains. His lips thin out, bit between his teeth. "Or, something."

The lantern dangles from Seungcheol's fingers, light dancing back and forth against the far wall of the cave. Jeonghan averts his gaze to watch the beam carve out shadows.

He can’t take Seungcheol’s disappointed face right now.

“Are you still on that one medication?”

“I’m not.”

It comes out quiet, but the cave is unsettlingly still. No sound to hide the way his voice wavers and fissures. Jeonghan wobbles a little as he stands, trying to find footing. His back is screaming. The climb up and out is treacherous, but he’s done it hundreds of times before.

Before, when they'd been—

“Then let’s get going.” Seungcheol clicks off the light and puts his hands on the ladder. “We’ve lost too much time.”

 

 

Fate has a cruel sense of humor.

Jeonghan nearly banged his head against the hood of the beat-down pickup when the voice called out to him—“Hi, I’m here for the transmitter kit!”—and was greeted with the face of his past.

“I thought you’d gone overseas,” was the first thing Jeonghan had said. Because that’s what he’d remembered. Seungcheol leaving everything and everyone behind.

Jeonghan being left in the dust with the deed to a cabin that no one had wanted to keep, after.

There is more than one ghost on this island now.

 

 

Seungcheol takes the shower first. He’d traveled the farthest, so it’s only fair.

Having another person in the house shouldn’t feel as novel as it does; Jeonghan’s sister sometimes spends time in the cabin with him for holiday. Every so often can he lure Seungkwan out from civilization.

Minghao enjoys visiting, but never stays. “There’s something wrong with the…” he’d trailed off, unable to finish the sentence before taking leave for a motel in town. His parting words from the back of a cab were, “I think you need to sell the cabin.”

The thing is, Jeonghan has tried. Fully furnished, as a fixer-upper, offering it up as a rental to the tourists who come in for the conferences held at a local religious facility.

The cabin is cursed. He wishes it would sink into the ocean.

Seungcheol’s voice carries through the halls. He can hear him singing upstairs, over the sound of the microwave’s weird humming that makes the overhead light on the stove flicker. The house's frame makes a loud crackling sound as the wind outside picks up.

Something cold takes over Jeonghan. A shadow emerges over his shoulder and sends him back.

The morning before Seungcheol had left, they’d still been happy.

Maybe?

They’d certainly fucked enough—made love, is what Seungcheol from before would’ve said, eyes alight, fingers intertwined in Jeonghan's—that nothing feasibly had felt wrong, before.

Up until the days. Hours. Minutes. Time is cruel. He barely remembers what it felt like. The microwave beeps, cutting the silence in two. 

“Were we happy?” Jeonghan asks the phantom in the reflection. The eyes glow red. His face is familiar. He radiates a signal that makes Jeonghan's hair stand on end.

“You tell me. Was it something you’d want to live again?”

[Yes? Maybe.

What would you trade it for?]

Jeonghan whips around to an empty kitchen.

“Seungcheol?”

 

 

The sky is a deep blue from the cliffs, though there’s a storm brewing over the water that only gets worse as Seungcheol sets up the transmitter kit, ignoring the caution in Jeonghan’s voice as he reads out the numbers.

“Something is wrong,” Jeonghan repeats. He turns on the walkie and is greeted with static. Wasn’t there supposed to be another person supporting Seungcheol off-shore?

Separately, the radio is going crazy, humming in Seungcheol's hands. 

Still, Seungcheol scoffs. Cold bears down despite the sun.

“You always think something is wrong.”

Jeonghan flinches, feeling the weight of Seungcheol’s words sink into his chest.

“Fuck you.”

Every single kind thought he’s spared in the thoughts he’s forced himself to conjure, the observations, the compliments he’d held back at how much he's changed—all of it dissolves like sand.

 

 

The shower is still running when Jeonghan comes up the stairs. The singing hasn’t stopped this time.

"Seungcheol?"

Jeonghan’s vision blurs at the corners. It's been different over the last handful of years. No one responds to him calling out. Sometimes someone does.

The hardwood floors are freezing. Someone left the air con on high. Jeonghan always turns off the air conditioning when he leaves.

Maybe Seungcheol had cranked it on—after all, it’s his house.

The bathroom lights are off when Jeonghan rounds the corner. The lights are motion sensored.

"Yah, Choi Seungcheol, don't use up all the hot water!"

Light shifts. The periphery of his vision turns green and blue.

The singing continues, but the voice is all wrong.

It sounds garbled, like a person drowned.

 

 

“Jeonghan, are you there?”

[Tell him you are.]

“I’m here.”

[Let's play a game!]

—they have a terrible sense of humor—

[Rover rover, send the boy over. Board. Tell him to get on the boat. Dare him to stay afloat.]

[Ten.

Nine.

Eight.

Sev—]

 

 

Nothing about the scene that greets Jeonghan’s opened eyes is out of the ordinary. Same as any other day.

The sky outside the window is clear, the trees are tall and alive.

The shower runs in the background and Jeonghan settles into the memory foam, listening to the water hit the tiles.

There's something missing that he can't put his finger on. Turning over, his ringless fingers rub against the white sheets.

Wasn’t he supposed to be doing something involving a radio?

 

 

"Jeonghan."

His whole body is sore and it hurts to move. A splintered ladder lies to his side; it’s a small miracle that Jeonghan had awoken with little more than minor scrapes and bruising. He cracks open an eye and feels out for the walkie he'd been clutching, but can't find it.

Why can't he find it?

"Jeonghan, where are you?"

He reaches around for the lantern and finds the front of it shattered, though it flickers on all the same. Jet black nothing greets Jeonghan as the voice crackles through the walkie again.

“Cave by the shore,” he wheezes, coughs. Flickerings of red and green blink from the edges of his vision like Christmas lights. “Ladder broke.”

["Stay where you are. I'm coming to get y—"]

 

 

Seungcheol doesn’t seem surprised to see Jeonghan still on the island. He’s always been someone who lingers, like a ghost. Still haunting where he was left.

Seungcheol looks softer now. Harder to look away from. The anger still swells just underneath Jeonghan's paper skin.

“I heard that you’d tried to sell the house.”

Jeonghan slams the hood shut, nearly catching his fingers in his haste. The sun is painfully hot, and the shade affords little recompense.

“Didn’t you hear?” Jeonghan laughs. “Joshua hired a priest who said it needs to be cleansed.”

 

 

The readings are all wrong. The numbers don't make any sense, too far out of range for normalcy.

But Seungcheol is stubborn as always. Headstrong and refusing to see reason.

Jeonghan lost his patience with him, years and years ago.

When Jeonghan turns his back, something crackling in the air strikes the transmitter and jumps into Seungcheol’s chest. He doesn't see it happen the first few times. Or maybe he does, and just can't remember. 

[Believe—Leave—Possible?]

The voice in the static had told him to be careful of what you wish for.

Something happens to Seungcheol that can’t be undone.

“Drown for all I care, then!” but Jeonghan does care.

He cares. He cares. He cares. He—

“Jeonghan—"

Seconds. Or maybe hours. One or two heartbeats.

"I don’t know where I am?” Nervous chuckling follows. “I think I fell into the water.”

(He now knows it feels to have a long-held wish finally granted. To listen to the past sink underwater. Later that night, he’ll find that some kids from the town had broken into the house, had shattered their memories against the hardwood floors.)

“Are you still there?”

Seungcheol comes through the walkie again, voice pinched and tight around his distress. Static crackles around every syllable, carving out the meaning. Rushing water nearly drowns him out. Jeonghan clutches the walkie to his ear, holding on.

“I’m here. Seungcheol, I’m here.”

Notes:

give up what you love / before it does you in

Spoiler Warning

This fic is not a true AU of the video game, simply inspired by. No knowledge of Oxenfree is needed, but it is fun to have to catch the references! I recommend watching a Let's Play if you do not have access to the game.

Much like the game that this fic draws inspiration from, there are elements of horror, time looping, ghosts, apparitions, disembodied voices. While the death is not explicitly outlined, Seungcheol dies by drowning and there are allusions to it that cannot be avoided.

In this loop, Jeonghan lets him go. Or, tries. Whether or not you think it's selfish is up to you.


inbox // bluesky