fic: it is you i have loved (leobin) r

[himuup]

it is you i have loved, r [song]
4,074w
a/n: this was written for the christmas exchange over on vixxgifts! much darker than my usual angst, but something i'm personally proud of ;;
prompt: "i just died in your arms tonight" / in which hongbin is ill, taekwoon is at a loss and sanghyuk is willing to lend a helping hand. slight fantasy / thriller



it is you i have loved

Autumn turned early that year, the massive front lawn and all the drive peppered in leaves of brittle browns and reds. The yellows changed to murky blacks as mud and deadened foliage discolored them; Taekwoon would often track bits of earth into the foyer, mud hardened to cement impossible to scrub away after days left on the wood floors. But cleanliness, it seemed, had taken an insignificant turn after Hongbin had fallen ill. As it was, the state of the manor had never been one of much importance to Taekwoon from the start.

His study alone, though greatly spacious, was cluttered with old mugs of almond tea, black coffee left to coagulate; sticky rings from tumblers of scotch left on the oak bookcase. It had been Hongbin who would sweep the rooms for mess, collecting upside-down books, dog-eared and crumpled over the years, and the suit coats wrinkled over the backs of armchairs. These small inconveniences, once invisible to Taekwoon as he made his way through the house-his briefcase left on the entrance mat, his coat on the kitchen counter-had become more apparent over the autumn months than ever before; and as he sat in his study now with Jaehwan beside him, rambling quickly about the interns at the office, Taekwoon thought not only of Hongbin alone upstairs-withering away in a bed too large for his thinning frame-but of the shoes he'd left by the study door, and the tracks of mud that would not be cleaned by anyone. His heart had ached deeply.

'The doctor say anything lately?' Jaehwan asked solemnly. He spoke gently, as if they had been speaking of Hongbin all night. It'd been weeks since Taekwoon had been asked about doctors.

'The doctor,' he sighed. He touched the wet rim of his glass to his temple, the icy coolness soothing for just a moment. 'The doctor doesn't come by anymore.'

'No? Why not.'

'Hongbin's... sick.' With a grimace, Taekwoon pushed the hair out of his eyes. 'Really sick now. They... can't do much about it.'

Jaehwan waited a long while, his lips parted with a crease between his eyes, before asking hoarsely, 'So they just stopped coming to check on him? How's that supposed to help.'

'He's dying,' Taekwoon said simply. 'But we knew that. Except now he's going to die s...soon.' He cleared his throat quickly, refusing to allow emotion to fester there. With a large pull from his drink-dry whiskey with a single ice cube floundering small as a pebble lost in dirty waters-he wiped the condensation from his upper lip.

'I saw you talking with that boy today,' he remarked quietly, hoping with a false smile that Jaehwan would follow his lead. 'The one with the dark hair. I can't remember his name.'

'Wonsik,' Jaehwan said.

'He looks nice.'

'He is nice. I really like him,' and though he was smiling, there was a downward curve at the seams of his mouth. Jaehwan allowed Taekwoon a moment to collect himself before rising to his feet, patent leather shoes squeaking faintly with movement. He touched his mouth lightly to Taekwoon's temple.

'Will you be alright?' he whispered.

'No. But I'll figure it out.'

'If you need me, will you call?'

Taekwoon smiled. 'I might.' Lifting his head as Jaehwan pulled away, he said, 'He told me he felt a little better the other day.'

'You don't believe him.'

'No.'

'Maybe you should.' Jaehwan took the glass from Taekwoon's hand, not yet empty, and set it aside. 'You shouldn't drink anymore.' And with that, he showed himself out. After years of coming here, many of which had been spent in stupors-the three of them often drunk beyond comprehension, ties loosened and their shirt-tails wrinkled and untucked; laughter so loud in such spacious rooms, their voices had echoed through the darkest of alcoves-Jaehwan had known the house intimately. Taekwoon listened for the faint squeal of hinges that would tell him the front door had been opened, then closed; and once this sound came, he reached for the glass of whiskey and refilled it.

By the window, he could make out the blue of Jaehwan's headlights. They shined impossibly bright on the frost covered lawns, like spotlights of sparkling white; as Jaehwan pulled out of the drive and away from the house, the light flashed through the foliage. Once he was gone, Taekwoon finished half his drink then rest his forehead to the cool window. His breath had left fog on the glass, like a cloud forming grey and dismal; he wiped it away with the tip of his fingers and thought of the coming winter.

He stayed this way for a long time, breathing deeply as if in a trance. His glass soon emptied, and still Taekwoon watched as the first snow of the year fell in soft smoky tendrils. It had started, simply, as a headache one evening. Hongbin had come home from work with a pain above his left eye, a migraine-something he'd suffered from often that summer, two years ago. As Taekwoon poured himself half a drink, the last from the bottle, he touched the throbbing ache in his right temple and wondered if he too would soon fall away as Hongbin was doing, so clandestinely it seemed no one really knew what was happening.

Taekwoon knew, of course. He had been watching, as the days waned and nights became endlessly vast: Hongbin's once bulky frame became lithe and fragile beneath his hands. Shoulders Taekwoon had touched for years, had enveloped his own arms around as they would hurry through rainy side-streets, laughing as the storms thickened and they returned home drenched like animals. Hongbin's shoulders could no longer be held the same way, but rather gently-a way that Taekwoon had never really handled him before. He bruised easily these days.

As he took the foyer stairs, moving slowly almost staggering with each step, he drained his glass once again, leaving the tumbler on a small brown table as he passed through the hallway. The carpets had been made of deep maroon and burgundy, the walls paneled in ancient wood-his grandfather having been the one to construct such a massive manor; it felt old in every way. The floor would creak outside the guest bedroom, and the ceiling, though so high above their heads, showed the first signs of aging. It showed discolored in most areas, a marble white turned dingy grey. Taekwoon thought perhaps, once everything was over and he was alone in such a large place, he'd sell it. Move further out into the country and away from the city; he would drink until his body gave way.

But until then-

The master bedroom was beautiful, though Taekwoon had never taken part in the renovations. He had left them to Hongbin and had been pleasantly surprised by the four poster bed with the lavender canopy over top, prints by Edward Hopper framed and mounted over the nightstand, beside the closet. He had torn up the carpets and replaced them with wood, much more fitting to handle Taekwoon's burly, muddy shoe-prints; but tonight, Taekwoon had remembered to take them off and so tip-toed soundlessly from the bedroom's open door to the bed, where Hongbin slept.

Already he looked dead. His face a deepened pit of bones, cheeks once soft as cotton now sank down against his teeth. Taekwoon leaned forward and pressed the tip of his nose to the sharp angle of Hongbin's cheekbone; almost instantly, he startled awake.

'Sorry,' Taekwoon whispered. Then again, as guilt swarmed his gut like fire.

Hongbin smiled and shook his head, his eyes still closed. He reached up and touched the back of Taekwoon's hair, pulled gently at the ponytail there. 'You smell like liquor.'

'Ah.'

'Are you drunk?'

'No,' Taekwoon lied. 'Not really.'

'Not really,' Hongbin hummed. He laughed softly, then said, 'Are you gonna sleep with me now?' His eyes opened and, even in the dark-their window closed and all the lights from the hallway burning low-, Taekwoon swore his eyes gleamed as softly as far away stars, twinkling with a renewed vengeance. Of course, he thought, stars were already dead and those that burned brightest had been gone the longest.

He sighed heavily.

With a soft tilt of his head, Hongbin murmured, 'What's wrong?'

'Nothing.'

'You're not tired?'

Taekwoon nodded, 'A little.' His stomach burbled softly with liquor. It'd been two days since he'd last eaten, and aside from the burned coffee offered at the office, he had had only whiskey and a tumbler of scotch; wired, he was certain he wouldn't sleep. But no sooner had his head touched the pillow than Taekwoon felt his eyes begin to droop shut. It was hard to focus on Hongbin's darkened face.

'How have you been?' he whispered, teasingly. He had spent all day in bed, as he did almost every day. It had been two weeks since Taekwoon had seen Hongbin anywhere else than the top floor; it was as if the stairs proved too difficult to walk down alone.

'Fine,' Taekwoon told him. 'Busy.'

'Work?'

'Yes, but it's fine.' Taekwoon let his arm rest in the dip of Hongbin's waist, where his bones showed sharp through the cotton of his shirt. 'How are you?'

'Tired.'

'Then sleep.' And it was as if Hongbin needed this simple demand to close his eyes again, one arm reaching over his head to lie at an angle, like a frame about his face. Taekwoon watched him until his breathing turned deep and even, his chest hitching only once as he slept. Then, without warning, he crawled out of bed again, leaving the room and the door open behind him; he descended the stairs to sit, lonely, in the dining room where they had once had their holiday dinners, but was now as cold and abandoned as a morgue.

*

He hadn't known how long he had been asleep, but the sky was now overcast with fresh snow clouds. A blanket lay over the lawn, thin and transparent; the fields collecting snow and all the branches of the pines dusted a gentle white.

Taekwoon looked at the Rolex on his left wrist: 1:54am. He had work in six hours. Rubbing circles over his closed, tired eyes, he murmured a gentle, 'Hongbin,' that was so quietly spoken it might have only been a thought.

Then, just as quietly, a breathy tone not quite as deep as Hongbin's own but near identical, croaked: 'Hello.'

He yelped. He couldn't help it. Reeling back, he clipped his hip against the corner of the table. Hair falling into his face, he pushed it away and found-sat curiously in an armchair by the large living room window-a boy. He couldn't be older than twenty, with a face a chalky white and eyes that glowed as brightly as two burning embers. Taekwoon had thought, for just a second, that they shined red.

'Who the hell-'

'Calm down,' the boy said. Then, happily demanded: 'Call me Hyuk. Sanghyuk, if you want but...' he smiled. 'You don't have to be so proper if you don't wanna be.'

A break-in had been Taekwoon's first thought. The second: a possible prank. He was certain-though, not in any real sense of the word-that he had seen this boy before. Somewhere around the office, perhaps; a corner store. One of Jaehwan's friends? And as he racked his memory for any signs of familiarity, he watched perplexed as Sanghyuk rose from the armchair and strolled, rather leisurely, to the bookshelf by the bay window.

'Now,' Sanghyuk murmured, 'you can go ahead and ask yourself a hundred questions and try and figure out if you're dreaming or not, but I'll tell you-just to cut things short.' He whispered gently as if telling a particularly good secret: 'You aren't. You're wide awake, probably drunk still from all that shit you drink, but,' he smiled again. Taekwoon realized the pain in his gut was fear, bursting like flames from a rusty tailpipe.

'Essentially, you're awake. You're here. With me.'

Fleetingly, Taekwoon glanced to the upstairs. He thought of Hongbin, alone and still dreaming.

'I don't want him, don't worry,' Sanghyuk said.

Taekwoon inhaled deeply.

'You're a pitiful thing, aren't you?' Sanghyuk muttered. He took from the shelf a worn copy of The Odyssey, frayed along the edges and yellowed with age. Taekwoon had forgotten he ever owned it. 'Greeks... fucked up, huh?' He placed the book back on the shelf, smiling as if he'd thought up a great joke. But instead of saying it aloud, he fell hard into a dining chair, his feet propped up on the table.

'My friends and I, we had this, like, bet going on about you. We were wondering how long it'd be before you reached out to one of us. And, um, well-' he bit his lip, tilting his head gently from side to side- 'I started thinking: maybe he doesn't know how.'

Despite what Sanghyuk had said, Taekwoon had concluded that he was, in fact, dreaming. Slowly, he lowered himself into the armchair the other had occupied only moments before, and crossed one leg over the other.

'How to what?' he asked.

'Summon a demon.'

'A... demon.'

Sanghyuk opened his arms in a flourish, dramatic and over the top with a grin so wide it seemed to split his face in two. 'At your service.'

'I don't get it.'

'No?' Sanghyuk's forehead creased, a furrow between his brows so deep it might have made Taekwoon smile had it been anyone else. 'Well, alright. Doesn't matter I guess.'

'You're a... demon?'

'Yes, yes. Let's get on with it, huh? I'm a demon, you're a human. A rather pathetic one. No offense.' He raised his hands in a mock gesture that appeared odd in his mannerism. It was as if he was copying something he had once seen from a film and, unsure how to carry it out on his own, moved stiff and unnaturally.

Sanghyuk began, 'You-' and so baffled by Taekwoon's sudden interruption, gawked near humorously.

'I'm not pathetic.'

'I said no offense.' Moving slowly, he rested his elbows to his knees, hunkered forward with all his limbs-so lanky in build-spilling forth from the dining chair. 'Your husband is dying,' he said simply. 'He won't live through the winter. And you, Taekwoon, have this idea in your head already that once he's gone, you're going to kill yourself. Am I right?'

He added, with a smug grin, 'Do correct me if I'm wrong.'

Able, only by sheer will, to keep his surprise neatly concealed, Taekwoon leaned back in the armchair. As he did so, his legs came uncrossed; he folded his arms over his chest. 'How do you know that?'

'Hello,' Sanghyuk sing-songed. 'Demon. I know a lot of things about you. You don't even have to speak it out loud, see, that's the cool thing with my kind-I just hear what you're thinking.' As he spoke, he moved his hands animatedly; arms flapping, palms upward and facing Taekwoon. He seemed half crazed, though his eyes-shining dark-never changed. They remained inky pools of black, seeming to grow deeper as his voice continued to rise.

'Because I know what's going on here-' he tapped his temple- 'I thought it'd be best to approach you, you know, before anything happened.'

A festering had begun low in Taekwoon's stomach, so low in fact he could feel the cold sweat seeming to rise from the soles of his feet. And though everything pointed to a truth Taekwoon could not understand, he refused to humor it.

Bullshit, he was thinking. But as his mouth came open, the word not yet fully formed, Sanghyuk fell back in his chair with a dramatic slump. He sank low, his chin to his chest and his legs miles long before him.

'Alright, I get it. You don't believe me, you won't believe me, blah blah blah. So, let's pretend that you don't have a .38 in your desk upstairs.' He nodded vigorously, voice growing louder as Taekwoon's mouth started to part. 'While we're at it, Taekwoon, we'll also pretend that you haven't already decided to kill yourself in the same fashion that you father had, like, ten years ago. Right? All that set aside-' he raised his hand abruptly, forcing Taekwoon to stop speaking before he had even started. 'No. Listen. All that set aside, I want to make a deal with you, yes? That's why I'm here.'

His mouth pulled into a wry smile. 'This way,' he said, 'you can die, but it won't have to be so fucking melodramatic.'

'I...'

'It's a deal,' Sanghyuk blurted. 'So you get something in return, right? Anyway. All you have to do is sign your soul over to me, and I'll give Hongbin vitality and health for the rest of his life.' He waited, watching all the while as Taekwoon wound his trembling hands together.

'How about it, Taekwoon? What do you say?'

'The rest of his life?' Somewhere, he was sure, the world was ending. 'How long is that?'

'How should I know? I'm a demon, not a psychic.'

'But you can interfere.' Skeptically, he raised an eyebrow. 'Can't you?' It was the slump of Sanghyuk's shoulders that told him that yes, he could. But would he?

'If you can promise that he'll live a...' Taekwoon breathed deeply, pushing through a smoldering tightness that had wound invisible about his chest. 'If he lives a long life, then I'll do it.'

'What, you want your husband to have a guardian demon hanging around?' He laughed to himself, but quickly sobered as Taekwoon leaned forward, clearly nodding.

'That's.. yes, that's what I want.'

'Most people, you know, in case you didn't, like,... know are more into guardian angels.'

Taekwoon had kept his mouth closed, his eyes following the waves of Sanghyuk's hands; he swore to himself he could see the air around the other. He saw it parting, like the Red Sea.

'Alright,' he grumbled. 'Fine. Fine. I promise, Taekwoon, that Hongbin will have a long and fulfilling life and that he won't successfully kill himself after he realizes that you're dead.'

With his head in his hands, Taekwoon had groaned; a deep reverberating sound forcing itself out of him. He wondered, what was worse? To let Hongbin die alone, his body an achy cavern he could never be freed from; or to make him live a life by himself.

'Taekwoon.'

'Ah...'

'Don't worry, alright? He'll be fine. He'll have me.' Sanghyuk grinned, winked; Taekwoon's stomach soured. 'He'll have the rest of his life to find a replacement, so it's almost guaranteed that he won't die alone.'

'Can you promise that?'

'That, I can't. You... should leave some things up to chance. Nobody wants their entire lives planned out for them, hm?'

'Hm,' Taekwoon responded. 'Alright.'

'We have a deal?'

Nodding gently, Taekwoon unbuttoned the cuffs of his shirtsleeves, rolled them to his elbows. A chill rippled up his arms immediately, rolled in waves down the sharp curve of his spine; and it wasn't until he looked up from the floor that he realized Sanghyuk had-in less than a second-moved from the dining chair to kneel at his feet. It had been the wind created by Sanghyuk's rapid movement that had chilled him.

'Jesus-'

'Sorry,' and the demon almost looked it. Had he not grinned immediately after, Taekwoon would have believed him. 'So, we have a deal? Yes? You're certain? I mean, really, there's no turning back uh, I don't give refunds. Once you sign the paper, that's that.'

Taekwoon sighed. 'I know how contracts work, thank you.

'Feisty.' He shrugged. 'Whatever you say,' and pulled from his shirtsleeve: a document so modern Taekwoon hadn't been sure if it was real.

'You sign here, on the line,' Sanghyuk pointed to a small dotted line at the very bottom of the page. A Montblanc fountain pen appeared between Taekwoon's forefinger and thumb, weighty and slender; and as he pressed the inky tip to the paper, it bled blue and beautiful across striking white.

He was amazed by how it seemed his name appeared all on its own: perfectly written in penmanship much better than Taekwoon's had ever been.

'Far out,' Sanghyuk whispered. 'Cool. Totally- freakin- awesome.' He grinned. 'One more thing, though.' And as Taekwoon's head shot up, a caution bleeding into him, intoxicating and fierce, Sanghyuk rolled the contract up and slipped it back into his sleeve. 'I have to mark you.'

'Mark-?'

A searing pain blossomed ugly in the center of Taekwoon's head as Sanghyuk pressed the flat of his thumb into his left eye; it felt as if Sanghyuk had pierced through the hollow of Taekwoon's skull, and though little thought was able to be processed, an image flashed quickly: Sanghyuk's thumb projected from the back of his head.

Taekwoon howled, soundlessly; he could feel the fire building from inside him, tangled raw within his throat as he screamed, but no sound came. Then, suddenly, the pain was gone.

From everywhere, all at once, Sanghyuk's voice rang: 'You have just enough time to say goodbye.' A low chuckle emitted from the earth, and Taekwoon-staggering, sure his eye was bleeding-forced his legs to cooperate.

Up the stairs, one at a time, afraid that he would fall; Taekwoon had gripped the banister until his knuckles burned white. Thinking was impossible. Past the oak table where his glass still sat, lonely and sticky, with the tiniest bit of whiskey still at the bottom; there was a mirror just beside the guest bedroom, but he was too afraid to look into it. Would there be blood on his face, he had wondered. Would Hongbin be frightened if allowed to see him?

The bedroom smelled strongly of rosebuds and carnations. Potted flowers, so unearthly placed within the window sill, an oddity to see in the beginning of winter; Taekwoon felt his heart begin to thrum rapidly.

Hongbin continued to sleep. Moved on his side-a position he had been otherwise unable to sleep in, due to his chronically aching bones-he snored briefly, a gentle guttural sound that was almost cute. If it hadn't been for the pain in his head, and the ache of his body, Taekwoon would have smiled.

To lie, so still, beside the other was a strange feeling. It was as if Taekwoon was unable to move once he was in bed. His joints locked up, his fingers trembled. He watched the rise of Hongbin's chest and thought, disbelievingly, that he could see the fullness return to Hongbin's cheeks. It had been like watching a balloon inflate: his body, so frail and wasted away, became a rosy pink; his face-though it had always been angular and beautiful-filled full, his lips turning a deep red.

Taekwoon sighed; his vision began to waver. For a moment, he imagined he was crying: a watery film had clouded his eyes, but he soon realized that he was simply dying.

And he wondered, why didn't it hurt as badly as he imagined?

It took all the capability he could muster, but eventually Taekwoon was able to press his mouth-so subtle and dry-against the warmth of Hongbin's own. He tasted just as he had the first time they kissed, all those years before. But for fear of startling him awake, Taekwoon quickly fell back against the pillows. From this safe distance, he had watched-unable to look away-as the once premature grey of Hongbin's dry hair began to change color. Oily black and shining, like the feathery blues of a raven's wings.

A memory came, so arbitrary and unimportant he wondered why it was the last thing he could think of. Late autumn, on the porch outside his family estate; the summer cabin he and Hongbin would steal away to during the vacation weeks of school. They had drank champagne from teacups, played cards in the grass beside the decorative chess table, the large ceramic flower pots. Hongbin had jerked his head to the side and murmured teasingly, 'I'm going to win,' and though Taekwoon had been certain of the cards in his hand and that there was, in fact, no way for Hongbin to beat him, he had let him win anyway.

a/n: wouldn't it be wild if somehow this turned into a spin-off series where sanghyuk, hongbin's guardian, like.. falls in love with him ? l o l so wild