a great escape; krisbaek
pairing: kris/baekhyun
word count: 700+
rating: g
summary: wander across the paths & find promises of the past.
Baekhyun is a wandering soul.
Somewhere between the quiet words and uneasy glances, Baekhyun knew. He could see the pieces cracking slowly, and sometimes he would peek inside, just to know what it felt like. It didn’t feel very nice.
Wu Fan was his anchor. He tied him down to the Earth; held his hand in his like a friend, but whispered rhapsodies in his ear like a lover. It was Wu Fan that made sure that Baekhyun wouldn’t float away.
Wu Fan was Baekhyun’s anchor.
-
His absence filled every room in their house like unencumbered smoke. It reached to the furthest of corners, to the most obscure nooks, and every day, Baekhyun would breathe it into his lungs, just to remind himself of what Wu Fan was.
Sometimes Baekhyun is unfazed, but sometimes he weeps.
-
There are things Baekhyun wishes he could have said-you’re important to me, what would I be without you?, I’m sorry-but it wasn’t easy. The love Baekhyun had-has- for Wu Fan transcended words and phrases and sentences. His love is complex, something harder to piece together than I love you.
Wu Fan was different.
Wu Fan was beautiful. His words were inelegant, rash, and poorly chosen, but Baekhyun thought Wu Fan’s language was beautiful. He’d say ugly things like My love for you is like a fly’s love of garbage, and sometimes profound things would he say, such as Things like feelings-love-they can’t be conveyed properly by the sounds our mouths make, it’s a much precious thing that can only be understood when two people truly love each other, isn’t it?
Wu Fan’s words were beautiful. Wu Fan was beautiful.
Baekhyun wishes he could have trapped Wu Fan’s beauty in a bottle, because without it, he feels like he’s breathing acid.
-
There were daily trips to the hospital.
Baekhyun didn’t like hospitals. Hospitals were death, sickness, dying hope, and sadness. Baekhyun didn’t like sadness.
But Wu Fan was Baekhyun’s light. Everything Wu Fan did made Baekhyun feel giddy in the head. Visiting death was a sacrifice he made just to keep that light burning just a little longer.
And it did; it burned for a while. But death is a cruel and unforgiving creature, because it snuffs out light, and more importantly, it snuffed out Baekhyun’s light.
-
Baekhyun used to fall. Down, down, down he fell, like a flightless bird. Sometimes the destination was familiar, sometimes it wasn’t. The latter terrified Baekhyun the most.
Wu Fan was there. Wu Fan caught him when he fell. Wu Fan would wrap his arms around Baekhyun, kiss his ear and tell him it’s okay, while Baekhyun rocked back and forth, crying into Wu Fan’s sweaty shirt. Wu Fan’s presence made falling seem insignificant-Wu Fan made Baekhyun feel safe.
But now Baekhyun doesn’t fall. He jumps; into oblivion, into an abyss, into darkness. It’s always the same thing. He jumps off a high point and waits his fate while blackness swallowed him whole like a predator anxious for its meal. He tried to fight it-tried to picture Wu Fan’s arms around him like a net-but the dark was malignant.
Wu Fan wasn’t there to chase the nightmares away anymore. Baekhyun cried, because Wu Fan just wasn’t there anymore.
-
It’s a lifetime before Baekhyun sees Wu Fan again. This time Wu Fan’s face isn’t dotted with red, and his eyes aren’t darkened by the circles underneath it. Wu Fan smiles at Baekhyun, and it’s like meeting each other all over again.
“What was it like?” Baekhyun questions. His baritone falters, his expression falters, everything falters when Wu Fan opens his mouth, and every inch of the room is filled with a mellifluous melody.
“What was what like?” Wu Fan replies, the grin on his face informing Baekhyun he’s trying to rile him up. Instead of retorting, Baekhyun grins. “Shut up,” he says, “you know what I mean,”
Wu Fan hums for a moment. His voice reaches to all points of Baekhyun’s body, invigorating his fingers, his toes, his ears. “Why are you asking me? You yourself know what it feels like, idiot,” Wu Fan mocks, giggling like a schoolgirl.
Baekhyun pulls Wu Fan’s face towards his own. He rests his forehead on Wu Fan’s, and his laughter dies down; settles into a comfortable silence. “Just tell me,” Baekhyun demands, breathing in Wu Fan’s scent for the first time in so, so, so long.
Wu Fan is quiet, but Baekhyun doesn’t mind. They don’t need words to fill the spaces in the between, to occupy the gaps spanning years. Baekhyun feels comfortable by Wu Fan’s presence again. It’s like-
“-floating away. It was like floating away,”
-like Wu Fan never left.