chocolate gelato #16: amor vincit omnia
Author: Marika Kailaya
Title: i should've destroyed you
'Verse: Nagekawashii; MeYu
Challenge: Chocolate Gelato: 16. Amor vincit Omnia
Toppings/Extras: N/A
Wordcount: 623
Rating: R
A/N: follows never looked better.
He wakes up slowly, his swollen eyes reluctant to open and let the blinding white light of noon in. His face has the unique, heavy feeling of having been beaten to what he, half-awake, already assumes is a pulp.
Then the light is dampened with a rustle of dark curtains, and his husband's voice pierces through his skull. "You're awake," he remarks.
"I'm alive," Yuku responds. He is shocked that he is able to speak; he distinctly remembers being strangled. And that is the last thing he remembers. He cracks open his eyes all the way, and sees Meki sitting on the edge of the bed beside him, dipping a white cloth into a bowl of water and gently dabbing at Yuku's face with it. It comes back bloody, but to his surprise, that's all: as far as Yuku can tell, he simply has a headache. There aren't any open wounds on his face. His lips aren't even split, though they feel swollen.
He realizes Meki's hands are wrapped thickly with bandages.
"Is it worth it, Kobayashi Meguru?" Yuku murmurs.
"Our marriage?" Meki responds dryly. His voice is rough, and every sound, even the splash of water as Meki rinses out the cloth, hits Yuku's head hard and over-loud, but it is human, the most human it has been in days.
"Healing me," Yuku clarifies.
"O librarian," Meki replies, very quietly, arranging the cloth atop Yuku's forehead, "if our marriage is worth it, then healing you is worth it; this is me, putting out the fires I set in the universe."
Yuku looks up at Meki, noticing the marks of his own fingernails that had scrabbled desperately at Meki's neck; the dark purple bruise that consumes Meki's mouth; the blue-black skin around one eye. These are things Meki has not even made any mortal attempts at healing. He glances around the room, but the light is off, and the curtains have been drawn now. He can't see if Meki has yet cleaned up the blood, or the vomit.
Meki's eyes are no longer ice-blue, white-blue. They are calm and tired and as human as they will ever be.
"You burned yourself," Yuku says, of the bandages.
"I burned you," Meki corrects him. But there aren't any burns on Yuku's body that he can feel.
And then burned yourself, realigning my bones, Yuku thinks, but he doesn't say that. It isn't that he's scared of having his body broken; it is the heartbreak he fears now.
He does not observe, either, that his husband perpetuates a cycle: healing him makes them both less human, which in the end will only make them madder, more needing of magic to save their lives when it goes wrong.
"Where's our son?" Yuku asks, and Meki stretches out beside him on the bed before answering, "Still at Liang's."
"That's all right, then," Yuku says, sighing with relief.
"I couldn't have taken you to the hospital," Meki says, after a moment. "There'd have been...politics. Police. It was easier to do it this way."
"I can't argue," Yuku says simply, and takes in a long, deep breath. He had been fairly certain one of his ribs was broken; that doesn't seem to be the case now. He lifts his hand to Meki's face, laying his palm against his cheek, and closes his eyes, and calls upon the gods in their graves. His hand burns.
When he opens his eyes, the bruise on Meki's mouth is gone and his eye is no longer swollen. The palm of Yuku's hand feels singed.
"Was that also worth it, my love?" Meki asks him, pressing his own hand to Yuku's chest to cling to a heartbeat.
Yuku closes his eyes again, and smiles. "Yes."
Title: i should've destroyed you
'Verse: Nagekawashii; MeYu
Challenge: Chocolate Gelato: 16. Amor vincit Omnia
Toppings/Extras: N/A
Wordcount: 623
Rating: R
A/N: follows never looked better.
He wakes up slowly, his swollen eyes reluctant to open and let the blinding white light of noon in. His face has the unique, heavy feeling of having been beaten to what he, half-awake, already assumes is a pulp.
Then the light is dampened with a rustle of dark curtains, and his husband's voice pierces through his skull. "You're awake," he remarks.
"I'm alive," Yuku responds. He is shocked that he is able to speak; he distinctly remembers being strangled. And that is the last thing he remembers. He cracks open his eyes all the way, and sees Meki sitting on the edge of the bed beside him, dipping a white cloth into a bowl of water and gently dabbing at Yuku's face with it. It comes back bloody, but to his surprise, that's all: as far as Yuku can tell, he simply has a headache. There aren't any open wounds on his face. His lips aren't even split, though they feel swollen.
He realizes Meki's hands are wrapped thickly with bandages.
"Is it worth it, Kobayashi Meguru?" Yuku murmurs.
"Our marriage?" Meki responds dryly. His voice is rough, and every sound, even the splash of water as Meki rinses out the cloth, hits Yuku's head hard and over-loud, but it is human, the most human it has been in days.
"Healing me," Yuku clarifies.
"O librarian," Meki replies, very quietly, arranging the cloth atop Yuku's forehead, "if our marriage is worth it, then healing you is worth it; this is me, putting out the fires I set in the universe."
Yuku looks up at Meki, noticing the marks of his own fingernails that had scrabbled desperately at Meki's neck; the dark purple bruise that consumes Meki's mouth; the blue-black skin around one eye. These are things Meki has not even made any mortal attempts at healing. He glances around the room, but the light is off, and the curtains have been drawn now. He can't see if Meki has yet cleaned up the blood, or the vomit.
Meki's eyes are no longer ice-blue, white-blue. They are calm and tired and as human as they will ever be.
"You burned yourself," Yuku says, of the bandages.
"I burned you," Meki corrects him. But there aren't any burns on Yuku's body that he can feel.
And then burned yourself, realigning my bones, Yuku thinks, but he doesn't say that. It isn't that he's scared of having his body broken; it is the heartbreak he fears now.
He does not observe, either, that his husband perpetuates a cycle: healing him makes them both less human, which in the end will only make them madder, more needing of magic to save their lives when it goes wrong.
"Where's our son?" Yuku asks, and Meki stretches out beside him on the bed before answering, "Still at Liang's."
"That's all right, then," Yuku says, sighing with relief.
"I couldn't have taken you to the hospital," Meki says, after a moment. "There'd have been...politics. Police. It was easier to do it this way."
"I can't argue," Yuku says simply, and takes in a long, deep breath. He had been fairly certain one of his ribs was broken; that doesn't seem to be the case now. He lifts his hand to Meki's face, laying his palm against his cheek, and closes his eyes, and calls upon the gods in their graves. His hand burns.
When he opens his eyes, the bruise on Meki's mouth is gone and his eye is no longer swollen. The palm of Yuku's hand feels singed.
"Was that also worth it, my love?" Meki asks him, pressing his own hand to Yuku's chest to cling to a heartbeat.
Yuku closes his eyes again, and smiles. "Yes."