Go To Sleep
Title: Go To Sleep
Prompt: #31
For: sweetstreet on aff
Pairing: Jongkey
Author: >anonymous until reveals<
Word count: 1972
Rating: R
Warnings: mentions of insomnia, sex; language
Summary: Jonghyun doesn't sleep. Kibum wished he was the one who didn't.
>><<
Even a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day. Even the most tormented heart works till its last beat. It functions and it's doing its job. Even if it's soaked in nocturnal tears.
He sees a tombstone in his rare dreams, ivory block on the misty green ground. He's been here before. On the stone it says, in black neat lettersWhere are you now? He steps back, shivering - either from cold or fear - and realizes that he doesn't know.
He sees dawn after dawn pass in front of him, each one becomes sadder after each meaningless evening and tears don't seem like a healthy response anymore.
When he's awake, he wishes he dreamt of soothing waves drifting over his skin instead of freezing and foul water biting his limbs. Of grains of sand between his eyelashes instead of bloody mouth and pain in his eyes. Not of boiling sounds of lost screams under water.
__
They see each other at the meeting for those who suffer from insomnia. Maybe Kibum doesn't really suffer from insomnia. Maybe Jonghyun doesn't know that. He's been half-alive for the past three months. Nights became days and days became nights. He writes, he erases, he cries. It might be his lack of proper sleep, it might be his tortured mind, but when Jonghyun sees him for the first time he can't help but smile - for the first time, in a long while. Kibum is what he would never call "beautiful" because the word won't do him justice, because it doesn't contain enough. Jonghyun would go home and still would not meet warm, soothing arms of his long-lost dreams but he would write and this time he would not erase what he'd written. This time, he'd be content with it and he'd want to write more.
They see each every Friday evening - Jonghyun with messy hair and droopy eyes, Kibum with tense smile but soft lips. At least Jonghyun thinks they are soft. He's afraid he'll hear poison pour out of them, something like What are you staring at, asshole. He doesn't, though. Instead it's the same tense smile and soft lips every time they hover above free coffee and tea in the corner of the meeting room.
(Maybe Kibum does have nightmares. In them his teeth are falling out, they are maroon and crumbling. In his nightmares he kills people, but doesn't actually do it - he gives orders, he's isn't the direct cause. In his nightmares he hides in shadows. )
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Kibum rubbed his eyes. They've been drinking soju outside the 7/11 he works at. Kibum stopped going to those meetings because he didn't have insomnia and also because the whole thing seemed shady. However, one night he is woken up from his nightmares by a phone call from a saved, but forgotten number - and that's how their own therapy started. Jonghyun would reach out, come to his workplace, offer to go get coffee. Firstly, Kibum was hesitant. He still remembered Jonghyun's not so subtle attempt at courting by saying Since we both can't sleep, why don't we occupy ourself with each other? Funny how it actually became true, though not exactly in the way one might think
One time meeting was enough to change his mind and that scared Kibum. Scared how easily he fell into conversations with Jonghyun, how easily Jonghyun fitted into his life. Night-talks instead of nightmares. Lips stretched wide instead of decaying teeth. Warm hands on his shoulders instead of cold darkness and sick feeling of vagueness.
Instead of being afraid in his nightmares, he became afraid in reality. It bordered between a nice, good feeling of butterflies in his stomach and a feeling of I'm making this mistake again, ain't I?
“I'm going home.”
"I'll walk you, you are barely standing."
"Why are you so concerned about me?"
Jonghyun let out a low chuckle. He might have been a bit offended, Kibum couldn't tell. His face was covered in laces of shadows from trees surrouding them, gentle coins of artifical light between vague blackness of the shadows on Jonghyun's tanned face. He leaned in and pressed his lips against Kibum's. Tender, almost docile brush.
Kibum wanted to laugh.
(That night Kibum learns that Jonghyun smokes, when he hears a click and turns in his bed to see Jonghyun propped back against the headboard with his kiss-swollen lips around a cigarette.)
They started pressing their lips together often. And though Kibum wished they could do it in the comfort of his tiny apartment, it was still nice to kiss Jonghyun under night's starless sky, in the company of humming engines in the distance, rustling of the leaves being their background tune.
Because all these neglegeble things cease to exist in Kibum's reality when their lips touch. There was only place of warm skin where Jonghyun's neck and shoulder met and his rough but familiar scent and the noise Kibum's heart made but only they could hear.
__
Kibum was going through old pages of Jonghyun's notebook, while the latter covered his neck with dry, gentle kisses.
“Have you any dreams you'd like to sell, huh? I'd give them away for free. I'd even fucking pay to get read of them if I had money.” Kibum says with more poison than he intended to.
“And I'd fucking buy them from you.” Jonghyun whispers against his skin. “Alas, I don't have money either. I'm just a freelance song-writer. Guess that's why we're stuck together.”
Kibum huffs and goes back to reading Jonghyun's sloppy handwriting.
__
Kibum wakes up to humming street sounds, headlights lazily swimming above his head on the ceiling.
"You've slept for eight hours."
Jonghyun's arm dangles on the other side of the partly open window.
"Don't smoke in my house."
"I didn't." He slightly raised his hand to emphisize that his hand is outside of his apartment.
Although he was frustrated and he hated when Jonghyun did that, he felt immense comfort upon seeing him after eight hours of perturbed sleep. There was dreamlike lostness about him.
Jonghyun flicked cigarette butt out of the window and moved from the windowsill to his bed and squated beside it. He placed his chin on the warm bed linen and closed his eyes. He looked so serene, so peaceful and Kibum knew that Jonghyun slept that night too. His eyelids felt heavy again and he fell asleep again, without resisting it.
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"Kibum..."
"Yes?"
"Do you...Do you think that maybe the fact that people sometimes feel sad for no particular reason, that they have depression is a healthy response to everything that surronds us? Maybe it's only natural for beings who came to have consciousness 40 thousand years ago to feel misery and sadness. To feel lonely? Because, you know, with consciousness eventully comes realization that there is really no meaning in life. No real meaning. We can assume that it's there, we can find one, develop it...but if the universe comes and goes with a bang - there must be no meaning, right?
I don't want to sound cynical. It's just how life is. And by life I don't only mean our lives, where we eat and drink and fuck and go to work five days a week and work 9 to 5. I mean life in general. Cells. Insects. All that shit. There is no high purpose in their existence and there's sure as hell none of that in ours.
And maybe it's only natural to feel terrified and sad and lonely sometimes? Even when there are so many people around you? Even if there's no reason? Because you are nothing compared to everything that exists. You come and go. Maybe atoms that you are composed of already know that they'll be a part of something else again and again and again..."
"Jonghyun...shut up and go to sleep."
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Waitress refilled Jonghyun's mug with steaming coffee. She looked at Kibum and smiled, question in her eyes.
"No, thank you. Can I have a glass of orange juice, please?" She nodded and walked away quickly.
"I almost forgot that you are weird like that" the older boy uttered, bringing the mug to his lips.
"Sorry? Didn't quite catch your mumbling."
"Everybody loves coffee."
"And you know that because you asked every single person on the planet." Kibum's earlobe is kinda itchy so he tugs on it.
Jonghyun smiled at him, though Kibum could only judge by his eyes, because his mouth was hidden behind the mug. But it was definitly for him.
"I love you, Pumpkin."
Kibum glared at him. He was occupied with watching little girl outside the coffee shop playing with a balloon that had a smiley face on it.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Don't you love me too? Kibum, you are useless."
Kibum stared at him, eyelids heavy with annoyance.
"You need to say "I love you, Honey Bunny", c'mon. We watched it like seven times..." There was a faint note of childish disappointment in his voice.
Kibum took a sip from his orange juice that has just been placed on the table. Nobody but Jonghyun noticed a smile hiding on Kibum's pressed and slightly moving lips.
"We could rob this place, you know."
"Louder, please. People can't hear you." Kibum smacked his lips, cartoonishly enjoying his drink.
"You are no fun."
"I'm all the fun you have, Honey Bunny."
(The last nightmare Kibum had was a month ago. He doesn't remember what it was about. Jonghyun struggles with his dreams, but he promises that he feels better. Kibum wants to believe him, but sometimes he wakes up from the sound of Jonghyun writing something rapidly in his notebook.)
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When autumn rolled on with its warm vagueness and dusty sunsets they made a habit of sleeping on Kibum's couch every Sunday. It's was uncomfortable and sweaty but it also was mild. Jonghyun refused to bring Kibum to his place and he knew why - at least he guessed. Jonghyun lived in a den, where he had his own room with a single mattress and a dirty floor. Cockroaches in the kitchen, nightmare of a bathroom. Neighbors - kind but suspicious - low-quality pushers. Password - 7002.
Kibum's apartment was nice, tiny - yes, but it was still better than what Jonghyun had, so he longed unconsciously to spend more time between cozy and warm four walls with his arms around Kibum's waist than spend another night of dreamless sleep on his dump mattress.
(Kibum wished that he could feel all of the burning skin touching his, he really longed to feel him whole. No clothes between them, no useless layers, he wanted them back to the way they were brought into this world. But when they fuck, they almost always fuck at least half-clothed. No time to take a t-shirt off, the position they are in is so nice, Jonghyun doesn't bother pulling off his or Kibum's pants, depending on the position. But he always manages to drag a hand across Kibum's nipples under his soft white t-shirt with turquoise letters on it, because the look on his face is worth an extra-movement.
Sometimes Kibum wonderes what was the reason for it, but never long enough.)
Jonghyun is panting and his damp skin is illuminated by moon's light. He keeps rubbing his eyes, chest rising and falling noticeably. Kibum lays beside him, also panting with his mouth open, worried eyes never leaving Jonghyun's profile.
"What's wrong?"
Jonghyun turnes his head quickly but is silent for a minute.
"Nothing. It's just that the last time I slept with you was the last time I slept."
Kibum gently coveres him with a blanket they share, making noises of disapproval, that could not be heard, because Jonghyun falls asleep.