Believe, Chapter 9
Title: Believe 9/9
Pairing: JaeMin
Rating: R
Genre: fantasy/romance/a wee bit of angst.
Length: chaptered
For: [info]anihimesama
Summary: Jaejoong's just working a job, clearing a forest for a new city to be built. But what he finds is more than just the tranquility of nature; what happens when he's pulled into a world that he's been helping destroy? If it sounds sort of like Fern Gully.....it's sort of because that's where I got the idea.
No beta! If you see errors, let me know?
Changmin doesn't remember being half-carried back to his people's village, can't recall snarling at everyone around him until the crowd dissipates and he's left clutching at the Jaejoong's cooling body. His lips, wet with gathered tears press into an unresponsive mouth, skin that's hardening under death's unflinching influence. There is no going back, no fixing what's been broken. Jaejoong is dead, eyes open and unseeing, pupils wide and fixed. His empathy pokes and prods, desperate to find an echo, a ping of something within the still man in his arms, but all that remains is the emptiness of a shell that's been hollowed, smoothed down by the ocean's ever-revolving waves.
There's...nothing. No reprieve to be found in the darkness surrounding him, the cool earth under his legs, the dirt his fingers press into to keep Jaejoong's head from being sullied by its dusty grasp. His mind races, though it's stagnant, revolving only around one subject, permutations of one question. Why, he asks, over and over, to the sky, the trees, the spirit inside himself. Why? Why Jaejoong? Why extinguish a spark so bright, so pure?
The trees sway, their leaves brushing, trying to soothe the twisted edges of Changmin's empathy, the bleeding and cracking pieces that dampen the joy they feel as wind brushes over them, caressing knotted bark and reaching limbs. That same wind doesn't say anything at all, just keeps moving, brushing over skin and hair and the decay that used to be the Fae's love.
His love.
Bile moves up his throat and he drops Jaejoong's body, crawling away as fast as he can into the surrounding brush to let acid and the rest of his stomach's contents drop over his teeth, the aftertaste bitter and vile on his tongue. He imagines the flesh turning black, crumbling into ash and wishes it would, wants to shrivel up and disappear completely. He's so entranced, trapped by the weight of his grief that he doesn't feel the calloused fingers of another alighting on his shoulder, a touch that should make him react, jerk back and fight or struggle but all he can do is collapse, body falling sideways into the dirt, head too heavy to hold up.
Yunho's empathy wraps itself around him, trying to radiate warmth and love are care, all the platonic emotions that their friendship has cultivated, but they're all tinged with blood-shaded sorrow, regret for Jaejoong's passing, the knowledge of how such a loss will affect Changmin.
“Yunho,” he hears himself saying, a whisper of his normal voice, gravel-rough and tired, “Yunho, I can't do it. Not without...”
He's being moved, pulled away from his sick and laid down again, the warmth of the other Fae's body close by, arms pulling him close, clenching hard when the sobs start, when they wrack through him hard and fast until he's gasp-choking, trying to pull in air that doesn't cooperate, that won't allow him to breathe, not without Jaejoong.
*
They bury Jaejoong as one of the Fae. Changmin stands at the front of his people as they chant around him, calling to the earth to take back the body of one of their fallen, watching with wide eyes as vines from nowhere snake from the ground where the human lies, looking for all the world as if he's merely asleep. But he doesn't stir, doesn't take notice as he's pulled under, taken into the depths of the ground, taken back to the earth for his energy to be reused, his death carried into something else's life. Yunho's hand is in his, maybe for support, maybe to keep him from diving after Jaejoong, pulling his lover away from the magic happening before them. This is the final goodbye he desperately wants to keep from being said.
Jaejoong's plan continues without him, a carefully constructed game of chess that has the humans reeling from unseen attackers, nuisances that delete important documents, move tools placed down not a second earlier and disable machinery hourly, gears grinding, pipes clogged, thick, acrid smoke of overworked engines wafting into the sky. But Changmin doesn't see any of it, doesn't feel like celebrating when news comes of nervous humans, titters of abandoning the project altogether. He doesn't watch as summer begins to melt away, green bleeding into the rich colors of fall, the red and orange and yellows of a harvest that tastes of dust, dry and pointless in his mouth. When all is said and done, he is alone and the patterns of life, the swell of life before winter's barren hold means little to a person counting each and every breath, waiting for the moment he can join Jaejoong, waiting for the cessation of the blood running through his body that carries him dutifully along.
He's sitting out in the cold, wrapped tight in the blankets Jaejoong slept in on his first night with the fae, staring out at nothing when snow begins to fall. The flakes are big, the fluffy kind that stick and build into a layer of insulation, a shroud of white that stings the eyes in the morning sun. He's gazing out, glazed eyes taking in everything and looking at nothing when a steaming cup is thrust under his nose, waking him from his trance. It's tea, warm and fragrant, dried wildflowers that would lull him to rest if he let them. And he's tired, so, so tired.
“You looked like you needed this.” Next to him, leaves rustle as another fae settles in, almost touching. Junsu. His voice is soft, but isn't steeped in the pity everyone else in the village pours over him, 'Changmin-may-crack' looks in their dark eyes. He takes the cup, sighs as its heat soaks through numb fingers and takes a sip, letting the taste wash over his tongue, enjoying the lightness of the taste, even as it burns his tongue.
“Don't say anything if you don't want to,” Junsu says, carefully avoiding Changmin's gaze, allowing him privacy even when offering comfort. “I know how hard this is for you.”
“He was my mate,” Changmin whispers, fighting the tears beginning to gather, thickening his words and throat. “And now I'll spend forever alone.”
“He was mortal, Changmin. It would have happened sometime.” The words are harsh, but the feel of an arm slipping around his waist softens the blow.
“We could have had eighty, ninety years, Junsu. It would have felt like forever to me.” He sags into Junsu's embrace, pulling the smaller fae closer, allowing him to reach out with empathy that strokes Changmin's own, swirling with light and heat and comfort, all the things that washed away with Jaejoong's death. “Imagine losing Yoochun,” he murmurs, wincing at the sudden and sharp cleaving in Junsu's empathy, the horror at the mere suggestion.
“Oh, Changmin.” It's Junsu's turn to cry, mostly because he's found the black hole in Changmin, the cancer of pain and torment, the space where love used to fill. He's tainted now, no longer able to be lost in the cycle of nature, the voice of the earth that used to whisper freely to him. All is silent now, a buffer blocking him from everything he used to know. His wings fold out, desperate for something, to be touched or stroked or needed. But Junsu isn't his mate, so his fingers are awkward when he pets the thin skin softly, so unlike the reverent glide of Jaejoong's hands.
*
Life goes on. Slowly. Every moment is an ache, one that begins to lessen, though it never goes away, because Changmin forgets sometimes, thinks of something he wants to tell Jaejoong, a funny story or a feeling he gets. But Jaejoong isn't there. And every morning when he opens his eyes, Changmin remembers that. He doesn't get to stare into liquid-ink eyes, doesn't card fingers through soft, slightly too-long hair. He doesn't get to hear Jaejoong snarl in anger or moan in ecstasy. But his cause is still there, the need to drive the humans back from the forest, a goal that gets closer with every breath taken; when it snows and their tricks continue with no footprints left behind, the workers mumbles turn into shouts, panic of evil spirits, ghosts bent on keeping their space theirs.
The day they call off the construction entirely is a hollow victory, though Changmin joins in with the feast and tries not to let the press of countless others' empathy drown him, the churning sea of happiness he can barely stomach.
“What can I do?” Yunho asks one day when normalcy begins to return to the village, when every thought isn't centered on fighting for their land, their lives. “What will bring the light back to your eyes?”
Changmin doesn't have to say anything when he lifts his gaze to the grim set of Yunho's jaw, the darkness of sorrow-drenched irises as they rake over his own long form. Yunho knows the word on the tip of his tongue, knows the name he cries out in his sleep, the soul his own spirit yearns to twine around.
“I'd do anything,” the fae begins.
“I know,” Changmin cuts the sentence off because it's not fair, not right that everyone else has to deal with the echo of his pain, his loss. It hurts for others to look at him, to be near him. “I know you'd do anything, but there's nothing that can be done. And we can't go back.”
We can't go back.
Yunho's wings press flat against his back, like fearful dog's ears against its skull. His skin is gold-tinged in the setting sun, lips and cheeks red from the cold. He is beautiful and alive, dragon's breaths of puffed steam rising from his lips with every exhale, evidence of the warmth within. Changmin wishes he could feel for his friend, wishes there could be something more, a clench of the stomach, a flutter in his heart but he feels nothing, is nothing. He trudges back to his room alone, the snow on the ground leaking through shoes he's forgotten to patch up, chilling his toes. He curls them in and keeps walking until he can't feel them anymore. The numbness is familiar, welcome even. He thinks maybe that should worry him, but he forgets about it when he reaches the entrance to his house.
*
Spring comes early, its blush pushing back the frost of winter, calling new life into being. Changmin feels the itch of it under his skin, the pull of nature no fae can resist, though he tries valiantly, tries to cling to the darkness that curls around his heart, shielding it from his life, the truth. When he finally does give in to the light of day, he takes flight immediately, searching for an open space, one where he won't be subject to the quiet whispers or worried looks of his people, the skirting glances made to look casual that are anything but.
He ends up at Jaejoong's grave by accident, its heavy-rock marker obvious in the otherwise cleared patch of land. The ground underneath his feet is soggy, wet to the touch but it doesn't matter; he lays down on it, directly where Jae had been taken into the earth, ignoring the morbidity of hovering over his lover's remains. It doesn't matter. No one's looking, no one's there to find his actions strange. He stares up into the sky, the sun high and warm, a sharp contrast to the cold water his clothes have soaked up.
“Jaejoong.” His call has no reply, no echo of life buried beneath the ground. Hands clenched, his body curls in on itself as tears run free again. Crying has become loathsome for him but there's nothing else to do, nothing that helps as he screams and moans and presses his hands, now bleeding in crescent-moon shapes, into the dirt a wish he could join his lover, wishes his body would break down into single cells, digging into the soil to mingle with Jae's own.
“I didn't want to love you,” he speaks to Jae and the universe spitting at the awful irony of letting someone in just in time to lose them. “I wanted to hate you, so, so badly, Jaejoong. I wanted nothing more than to punish you for my parents. But you had to be different, didn't you? You had to be the one, had to change everything I knew about humans and, fuck, you had to be so beautiful, so strange and perfect and you just-you just-” Words break into sobs, the exsanguination of not blood but emotion, a pour so thick it rivals the most powerful of falls. He holds an ache in his chest so deep it's a wonder breath comes through at all, and now, god, he wishes it wouldn't, wonders why he can't be taken too, why he can't be broken into pieces until there's nothing left, no thought, nothing with which to miss Jaejoong.
“I miss you,” he says when nothing else comes, when he's drained dry and exhausted, slightly confused because he thinks he sees a strange bright light through his falling eyelids, almost blue, light the light of a flame as it first catches. But the sun should be setting, should be ushering the day out, allowing the blue black velvet of the night to flood through, the minute spotlight of faraway stars the only light in the sky. But he doesn't think too much about it, doesn't let it bother him as he drifts away, content to slip into dreams, the only place where missing Jaejoong isn't on the forefront of his mind.
*
It's raining, he thinks as the veil of sleep slowly unwinds from around him, though his mind remains groggy, sluggish. But it's strange; he only feels the light drops, a touch here and there, on his face. With an almost audible snap, Changmin's mind catches up to the stimuli and he realizes it's not the caress of rain but of a touch, the light butterfly kiss of digits tracing across his face one by one, as if trying to put the planes to memory.
“You're too perfect not to memorize.” The voice is familiar but changed, with a sudden depth he hasn't encountered before. It's sticky like caramel and just as sweet draped across the tongue. But no, it's not possible. It's not real. It's the remnants of a nice dream, nothing more.
“Open your eyes, Changmin.”
No, can't be. It's not real.
He's convinced himself, is sure he's suffering from a deluded fantasy when it happens, when his defenses are pushed away and an empathy he knows as well as his own brushes against his soul, drifting over the chasm inside.
Hold on, he hears, and it's too late to fight back, to do anything but listen. He's being lifted, or his soul is, taken up and out to be consumed by whatever it is that's got him in its clutches. But...it feels right, so easy, slipping into cool water to relieve hot skin. And he can still feel himself, vaguely, as he's swept away, as something surrounds him on all sides and pushes, reaching for everything he has, the burdens he carries. He's bathed in concern and love that brushes away his fear, the doubt that hovers at his edges. And everything is so light, so far away from the cement that had been pushed into each limb, making his body a chore to drag around.
Something joins him there, a pulsing vibration of energy that electrifies him, reminds him of who and what he was this time last year. The press of a mouth is at his throat though he knows it isn't his physical self that's being touched; a tongue and teeth nip across his jaw and then rake over his lips, paying attention to each before licking into his mouth. A jolt of heat runs through him and he hears the warning again.
Hold on, Changmin.
That's when the heat becomes too much, when every cell finds itself alight and he's protesting, whining and mewling to be let go, to get away from the fire burning him from the inside out.
Would you give everything for him? A strange voice asks, one that's old and damp, like the trunk of a moss-covered tree. It's like time itself speaks to Changmin, a force bigger than he understands. Could you live without him?
His answer is obvious and immediate, a 'no' that comes out as a shout that echoes through his head, slicing away at the soft tissue there. The pain is pushed away though, by a soft 'shh,' noise, and the voice seems to be laughing at him.
We don't want to lose you, child. Make it count.
*
Yunho finds Changmin three days after he goes missing, though no one noticed at first. The tall fae had become somewhat of a hermit, though no one could blame him. He avoids Jaejoong's grave until he can't, until the truth all but reaches out and yanks him in the right direction, toward the still body of his best friend draped over the grave of his lover.
He looks peaceful, Yunho thinks as his knees find their way to the ground and his fingers trace over Changmin's still features. Even in death, the younger fae is beautiful, lips parted, eyes half open, looking like he's about to speak, to open his mouth and call to Yunho, to take off into the sky laughing, giggling at his friend's horror, proclaiming it all a joke.
But a stilled chest can't be faked. And it almost breaks Yunho's faithfully beating heart to have to carry his friend back to the village, his tears obscuring sight he doesn't need as he follows a path he knows better than the back of his hand. Before he lands, before he has to break the news to the elders, he looks down at his friend to say a goodbye he can barely stomach.
I hope to see you again, Changmin. Make sure Jaejoong takes care of you, wherever you are.
***
A few decades later, when thoughts of building in a strangely haunted forest have long since been abandoned, in an earth that has rethought its need to knock down nature in favor of technology, a man named Changmin sits under a tree, back against the rough bark, breathing in the thick, spiced-with-flowers air of summer. He waits for a class he's arrived early for, though he can't bear to wait the time out inside the stifling dance building that always smells vaguely of sweat and the frustration of those who push themselves ever harder, trying to bend and push their bodies into perfection, to move in the ways music leads them.
He opens eyes he doesn't remember closing and finds, not even a few feet away is another man, one whose back is turned to him. But though it's a nice back to begin with, lithe and muscular, what catches Changmin's attention is the tattoo of wings across the man's shoulders, displayed proudly underneath the translucent white tank top he wears. There's something about the ink, the perfection of the shading on the pale skin that entrances him, makes him wonder how it would feel to taste that skin, to bite down as he slid inside the man's body, chasing the perfection of release.
Feeling Changmin's stare, the man turns around. Their eyes lock, and Changmin just manages to keep from gaping aloud. There's something so familiar about this man, the too-big eyes, the narrow chin and pouting lips.
“Do I know you?” The man's voice is low but insubstantial in a way, breathy. Changmin leans forward to hear it better, to absorb all of it.
“I-I don't think so,” he says, extending a hand as the other man sits, folding his legs underneath him. “I'm Changmin.”
“Jaejoong,” the man says, reaching to shake. Electricity sparks as their skin brushes, rooting Changmin to the ground, eyes wide. For a moment, all that exists is them, just their hearts and breaths and eyes, gazing into one another. The muscles in Changmin's back twitch and he shrugs, rolling the blades.
“Do,” Jaejoong begins, still not letting Changmin's hand drop, “You want to have dinner with me tonight?”
Changmin bites his lips to keep from saying he'd like to do much more than that.
“Yeah,” he replies. “I'd love to.”
Jaejoong smiles, and Changmin thinks he's been in the dark his whole life because when he looks at the other man, it's like finally, finally seeing the sun.
Fin.