Just Keep Swimming {Eunhyuk/Donghae}
Pairing: Eunhyuk/Donghae
Rating: pg-13
Summary: Hyukjae can't read bubbles.
Note: 2nd fic from my request page :) written for krnqt96 , i hope you find this EunHae acceptable! this picture helped me start off. it's Rainbow Fish-esque in a way, as in my chaptered fic not the children's book XD
Word count: ~1020
just keep swimming
Staring at the world, like everything is above water, they’re down below. And stuck there. If not, one of them is just too afraid to reach the surface. And the other is too afraid to leave him behind. Hyukjae won’t admit to either.
They’d taken a picture, birds in the background. And Heechul, the one who was bird-like in his own way, had been there. The picture became something that Donghae liked to have in his nightstand. In truth, he held the only copy. The one on Hyukjae’s computer had magically disappeared, most likely at the electrically-damaging hands of Lee Donghae himself. And Heechul already deleted the picture off his phone for space-he’d needed to selca with Sulli later.
“Sorry,” he’d said. Hyukjae shook his head and flopped on his single bed. Donghae pretended as if personal space never needed to exist and left not an inch between them.
“It’s okay.”
Donghae left out the part about the copy he owned. He could feel it gravitating towards him across the room. He kept his mouth shut. Hyukjae’s arm was bonier than it would be in the future. Donghae found it was easier to pin him down when they wrestled, or when they ‘wrestled.’
Donghae worries about sharks, because he and Hyukjae are only small fish squirming through this salt liquid, small creatures that the big kids can gobble up or destroy with a glare.
He wishes fish could just drown. Get it out of the way. He wonders if Hyukjae has ever wished the same thing.
It must be dark above the surface. No rays of light. No inspirational music. The two of them never get that down here. Down, down, down.
“Just keep swimming,” Donghae holds Hyukjae’s hand but in the sea, his words mean nothing but bubbles.
He thought up some good lyrics every once in a while. Hyukjae liked to think that he could survive on penning his own songs, if he needed to. It wouldn’t happen. The guys wouldn’t let the need rise, anyway. Donghae, especially.
There was this one night where Donghae had climbed on top of him, and while he felt lips at his neck, Hyukjae wrote something in his head. It could have been a song. It could have been something to them, but later when he reached for a pen and some paper and he was missing a few pieces of clothing, he couldn’t remember a word.
He’d been there before, crawling fingers over paper because the words had been so important. Hyukjae felt a pair of arms sliding around him and felt the instinct too push them away. And that’s exactly what he did. But he would not let himself cry. Even when the shadows loomed after him, teasing him and threatening to smother him as soon as he turned his back. His back was always turned to them.
The bed squeaked and groaned when he stood. It re-aligned itself after being forced to maintain the weight of two twentysomethings when really, it should only be holding one. Or just one teenager.
And he thought for a second Why is it so dark? before he realized how his eyes were squeezed shut. He pulled his fingers out of their own fists and looked at Donghae’s back.
He never felt so frayed, emotionally. Physically, it felt like his nerves had been stretched and hung from the Christmas tree. Only it wasn’t Christmas, and Hyukjae started to wonder exactly how much drama he was creating in his head. He slept in Donghae’s bed that night, and Donghae stayed in Hyukjae’s bed.
He does like the way the water flows over his skin when he swims, he likes how if he cries no one would ever even know. It’s took dark to know, and tears taste like salt anyway. He hates that he won’t know if Hyukjae cries. Does he even cry? Of course he does. He’s a cry baby, Donghae reasons.
It doesn’t feel like enough, though, to dig into the reality and pull out any real life examples. Not for a long while. Not since they almost lost Heechul.
“Are you okay?” Bubbles.
Hyukjae can’t read lips very well.
They took another picture, to add to whatever countless amounts building up in photo albums were already there. And the two of them looked like the sun had been kind to them recently, they looked healthy and like they’d made friends with sleep, too. Come to terms with it, at least.
Hyukjae’s heart squeezed when he gazed down at it, their faces only half done so far as he made himself a copy from his laptop through the communal printer. Donghae was standing in the doorway, a blanket around his shoulders that didn’t go past the small of his back. It’d been a while since he’d found this one, the one from his childhood. He put it around Hyukjae and tried not to kiss the back of his head.
It didn’t feel right. Donghae got his blanket back before going to sleep, but he got it with Hyukjae attached. All or nothing.
It scares him most when the shark almost gets them. He swims closer to Hyukjae, and a fish called Kyuhyun gets the worst of it. In the end, they’re all okay. And afterwards Donghae realizes he’s only imagining the past in his present, an invasion he doesn’t really need or want. His hand splits through the water and reaches Hyukjae, grabbing his elbow. Fish don’t have hands, they both know this. And they know they’ve had hands, but they’ve always felt like fish on the inside, and maybe that’s how they’ve allowed themselves to be underwater. It’s true that maybe their eyes should be weary from the salt content, they’re surrounded by the salt spray condensed and tightened into an actual liquid. They swirl around for a while, because the tide’s changed. So maybe it’s time to go home and put and end to this. Donghae makes more bubbles and Hyukjae reads them right this time. Swimming together, they float up.
Their heads break the surface.
--
i'll post to miracle when i wake up later, it's time for bed. hope you liked it :)
Rating: pg-13
Summary: Hyukjae can't read bubbles.
Note: 2nd fic from my request page :) written for krnqt96 , i hope you find this EunHae acceptable! this picture helped me start off. it's Rainbow Fish-esque in a way, as in my chaptered fic not the children's book XD
Word count: ~1020
just keep swimming
Staring at the world, like everything is above water, they’re down below. And stuck there. If not, one of them is just too afraid to reach the surface. And the other is too afraid to leave him behind. Hyukjae won’t admit to either.
They’d taken a picture, birds in the background. And Heechul, the one who was bird-like in his own way, had been there. The picture became something that Donghae liked to have in his nightstand. In truth, he held the only copy. The one on Hyukjae’s computer had magically disappeared, most likely at the electrically-damaging hands of Lee Donghae himself. And Heechul already deleted the picture off his phone for space-he’d needed to selca with Sulli later.
“Sorry,” he’d said. Hyukjae shook his head and flopped on his single bed. Donghae pretended as if personal space never needed to exist and left not an inch between them.
“It’s okay.”
Donghae left out the part about the copy he owned. He could feel it gravitating towards him across the room. He kept his mouth shut. Hyukjae’s arm was bonier than it would be in the future. Donghae found it was easier to pin him down when they wrestled, or when they ‘wrestled.’
Donghae worries about sharks, because he and Hyukjae are only small fish squirming through this salt liquid, small creatures that the big kids can gobble up or destroy with a glare.
He wishes fish could just drown. Get it out of the way. He wonders if Hyukjae has ever wished the same thing.
It must be dark above the surface. No rays of light. No inspirational music. The two of them never get that down here. Down, down, down.
“Just keep swimming,” Donghae holds Hyukjae’s hand but in the sea, his words mean nothing but bubbles.
He thought up some good lyrics every once in a while. Hyukjae liked to think that he could survive on penning his own songs, if he needed to. It wouldn’t happen. The guys wouldn’t let the need rise, anyway. Donghae, especially.
There was this one night where Donghae had climbed on top of him, and while he felt lips at his neck, Hyukjae wrote something in his head. It could have been a song. It could have been something to them, but later when he reached for a pen and some paper and he was missing a few pieces of clothing, he couldn’t remember a word.
He’d been there before, crawling fingers over paper because the words had been so important. Hyukjae felt a pair of arms sliding around him and felt the instinct too push them away. And that’s exactly what he did. But he would not let himself cry. Even when the shadows loomed after him, teasing him and threatening to smother him as soon as he turned his back. His back was always turned to them.
The bed squeaked and groaned when he stood. It re-aligned itself after being forced to maintain the weight of two twentysomethings when really, it should only be holding one. Or just one teenager.
And he thought for a second Why is it so dark? before he realized how his eyes were squeezed shut. He pulled his fingers out of their own fists and looked at Donghae’s back.
He never felt so frayed, emotionally. Physically, it felt like his nerves had been stretched and hung from the Christmas tree. Only it wasn’t Christmas, and Hyukjae started to wonder exactly how much drama he was creating in his head. He slept in Donghae’s bed that night, and Donghae stayed in Hyukjae’s bed.
He does like the way the water flows over his skin when he swims, he likes how if he cries no one would ever even know. It’s took dark to know, and tears taste like salt anyway. He hates that he won’t know if Hyukjae cries. Does he even cry? Of course he does. He’s a cry baby, Donghae reasons.
It doesn’t feel like enough, though, to dig into the reality and pull out any real life examples. Not for a long while. Not since they almost lost Heechul.
“Are you okay?” Bubbles.
Hyukjae can’t read lips very well.
They took another picture, to add to whatever countless amounts building up in photo albums were already there. And the two of them looked like the sun had been kind to them recently, they looked healthy and like they’d made friends with sleep, too. Come to terms with it, at least.
Hyukjae’s heart squeezed when he gazed down at it, their faces only half done so far as he made himself a copy from his laptop through the communal printer. Donghae was standing in the doorway, a blanket around his shoulders that didn’t go past the small of his back. It’d been a while since he’d found this one, the one from his childhood. He put it around Hyukjae and tried not to kiss the back of his head.
It didn’t feel right. Donghae got his blanket back before going to sleep, but he got it with Hyukjae attached. All or nothing.
It scares him most when the shark almost gets them. He swims closer to Hyukjae, and a fish called Kyuhyun gets the worst of it. In the end, they’re all okay. And afterwards Donghae realizes he’s only imagining the past in his present, an invasion he doesn’t really need or want. His hand splits through the water and reaches Hyukjae, grabbing his elbow. Fish don’t have hands, they both know this. And they know they’ve had hands, but they’ve always felt like fish on the inside, and maybe that’s how they’ve allowed themselves to be underwater. It’s true that maybe their eyes should be weary from the salt content, they’re surrounded by the salt spray condensed and tightened into an actual liquid. They swirl around for a while, because the tide’s changed. So maybe it’s time to go home and put and end to this. Donghae makes more bubbles and Hyukjae reads them right this time. Swimming together, they float up.
Their heads break the surface.
--
i'll post to miracle when i wake up later, it's time for bed. hope you liked it :)