Love Lockdown
Love Lockdown
Onew/Minho (ish), Onew/Taemin (past), PG-13, ~2000 words
"It hurts," he mumbles into Minho's shoulder. He feels like he should be sobbing his heart out right now, but his eyes remain obstinately dry. The arm wrapped around his shoulders rubs soothingly. Jinki distracts himself by analyzing the motion: up, down, up down. His cheeks are wet before he even realizes he's crying.
"It's gonna be okay," Minho murmurs, tightening his hold momentarily before his arm resumes its motion.
"I wish I had a robot heart," Jinki says. "So it would stop hurting."
Minho squeezes him so tight it makes him gasp. "Hyung, no," he says, aghast. His voice is pleading. "It'll get better. I promise."
Jinki tries to imagine being happy. All he can picture is Taemin's smile, Taemin's outstretched arms, Taemin's broken body -- he tears himself free of Minho's hold and dry-heaves over the side of the couch. "Happy" is meaningless without Taemin. There is no such thing.
Then he imagines himself cut open, the surgeon's gloved hands carefully lifting out his heart, the metal organ slowly lowered in. Tendons and nerves and arteries closing in around it, the hunk of metal starting to pulse -- slow and weak at first, then stronger and faster. He imagines opening his eyes, feeling the bandages over his chest. A sense of calm. A different feeling in his fingers -- tactile sensation, but without warmth or pleasure. Numb. He thinks: this is the only possible "better".
Robot hearts don't actually beat.
That's the first thing Jinki notices when he wakes up. The familiar thud-thud-thud of his own heart has been replaced with a faint whirring sound. He presses his hand to his chest, curious to see how this new rhythm feels under his palm. He can feel the vibrations through the gauze. The constant hum makes his fingers throb, and he lets his arm drop back down to his side.
The second thing he notices is that it still hurts. The pain has a different colour, maybe, but it's still there. He still feels sick inside. He still misses Taemin.
His hands are cold. He tucks them under the blanket and pretends to listen as the nurse comes in to tell him about post-surgical care: how he should avoid strenuous activity, how he needs to rest and allow his body to adapt to the new organ, how he can't shower for a week until the wound closes and there's no risk of water reaching his new heart and causing it to short-circuit. He tries to focus on the feel of his heart whirring in its cage, but it's neither loud enough nor strong enough to hold his attention, and he finds himself wondering what it would feel like to die of a short-circuit. If he would feel anything at all.
It's not enough.
Minho picks him up from the hospital. He's careful not to let his gaze fall on Jinki's hands, but other than that he keeps his disappointment in Jinki well concealed. Jinki thinks he should feel relieved about that, but instead he feels guilty. He knows Minho's right about the whole thing -- Jinki doesn't need the surgery, he needs to let himself care about the world again. But Jinki doesn't want that. He doesn't want to betray Taemin's memory. He wishes Minho could understand that.
He squeezes his hands into fists experimentally. The joints are stiff, slow to respond. It will take at least a week before they'll be agile enough for Jinki to operate a steering wheel. He's supposed to keep them covered at all times to prevent them from gaining or losing too much moisture. He's not allowed to cook, either; the heat could cause irreparable damage to the welding between the metal of the wrist and the bone of his arm. They're remarkably fragile things when new. It'll take at least a month of playing it safe before they're strong enough to resume everyday activities.
He can't even buckle himself in once they reach the car. Minho does it for him, keeping his gaze trained on Jinki's face so he doesn't accidentally look down. There's a little smile at the corner of his mouth, so fragile it could turn into a frown with a single tremor of his lips. This close, his eyes look bigger than normal. Jinki reads sympathy in them, and worry and affection. Maybe even love. The thought terrifies him, and he screws his eyes shut. Minho freezes above him and sucks his breath in, a sure sign his control over his emotions is about to snap. Jinki holds himself very, very still.
Minho lets his breath out all at once, and then there's a light pressure on Jinki's forehead -- Minho's lips, he realizes. His body responds on its own, all the tension ebbing away as he leans into the touch. He can feel his mouth curving into a smile, and a familiar tightening in his groin -
No. No!
Jinki pushes him away and turns to stare out the window, his breath coming in shallow gasps. He can feel Minho's eyes on him. The feeling makes his skin prickle. He wills his erection to disappear, but it's been so long, and Minho's been so kind, and his body still craves a loved one's gentle touch.
This isn't happening, he thinks.
Minho sighs and starts the car. The prickling feeling eventually fades, but Jinki refuses to look anywhere but out the window the entire ride.
The hospital is boring. Jinki has no one to talk to -- the nurses come and go, checking in on him, changing his tubes, emptying the bags of urine and shit. They're quiet and efficient. Most of them have robot hands and eyes. They don't take interest in anything. Jinki tried talking to them at first, but quickly gave up when all he got in return were blank stares and noncommital grunts.
He's lonely. He'd thought he was lonely before, too, but it's worse now. Somewhere along the way, he'd stopped missing Taemin quite so much and had grown used to seeing Minho every day instead. He'd chalked it up to his new heart doing its job, filtering out more of his emotions as the whirring grew stronger, but in reality he'd been happy.
Happy. The word makes him sick. How could he be happy, he wonders. How could he forget about Taemin so quickly. He has no right to be happy ever again.
At night, when the lights are out and the nurses won't return for hours, he presses his palm against his dick. It's another week until he can use it to go to the bathroom by himself, but he tests it every night, waiting for the familiar curl of interest in his belly to take hold and pull him back into his nightmares. Nothing happens. He tugs until he's convinced it won't respond, and only then does he let himself breathe again, relief spreading through his limbs and forcing his eyes shut.
Whatever fickle emotions arise, his body won't betray him again.
The next time Jinki sees Minho, he has a robot torso and robot shins. He has a reinforced spine, too, and a chip in his brain to help the metal organs function in harmony with the original flesh and blood. He doesn't feel much of anything anymore: no loneliness, no sadness, no happiness, no cold or warmth. Everything that happens to him seems to happen from a distance. Occasionally he feels hungry, but he no longer needs to eat: he recharges by plugging his torso into the wall. Eating is a luxury, a ritual he engages in during the brief, random bouts of loneliness and anxiety.
Jinki is in the hospital when Minho visits. His heart has been behaving erratically recently. The familiar whirring has gone into overdrive. His body thrums with energy. He feels jittery all the time, and his movements are jerky, almost spastic. He twitches when he goes to pick things up and ends up knocking them onto the floor instead. The doctors don't know what to do.
Jinki hardly cares. His eyes are still his own, but they look at the world like robot eyes. Everything appears dull, unchanging. Jinki thinks he's more of a machine than the nurses now. The thought alternately amuses and terrifies him.
"Hyung," Minho says. He settles into the chair next to Jinki's bed and leans forward, his hands hovering above Jinki's before wrapping around Jinki's wrists instead. Jinki wonders briefly if it's because Minho still can't stand to touch the metal or if he wants Jinki to be able to feel the warmth of skin on skin. He doesn't open his eyes.
"Hyung," Minho says again. There's a hushed, urgent quality to his voice that Jinki hasn't heard in a long, long time. "It's going to be okay. It'll get better. I promise." His thumbs rub circles into Jinki's arms.
Jinki's breath catches. His heart speeds up until he's sure his whole body must be trembling. His hands clench and unclench. He tries to say something, anything, but his throat closes in on itself and he can't breathe at all and then he's gasping with tears, his chest heaving as he chokes on his own spit. Minho's hands tighten around his wrists and pull Jinki forward so his arms can wrap around Jinki's back. Jinki's face falls into Minho's shoulder and his hand fist in Minho's shirt, clinging like Minho is the only thing keeping him from drowning. Minho's hands burn into Jinki's back like hot irons. It shouldn't be possible, and it hurts, but Jinki's not about to let go.
"I missed you," he confesses to the patch of snot and tears on Minho's shirt. Minho lets out a choked laugh, and Jinki realizes he's been crying too. One of the hands on Jinki's back starts up a familiar rhythm up and down.
Jinki stops shaking. His heart slows to its usual hum, then slows again until he can barefly feel it anymore. He gasps for breath, suddenly dizzy. His hands go limp and fall to his sides. He feels like he's falling into darkness. He hears Minho's voice, questioning and worried, before it fades away into silence and he's alone in a sea of endless black.
A beat.
Another beat.
Air spills into his lungs and rips them wide. His eyes fly open. The world spins in a mess of colour.
Beat.
Sound comes first -- the buzz of the air conditioner, the wind brushing through the trees and sweeping into the room. Minho's panicked voice: Hyung! Hyung!
Beat.
Then the sterile smell of the hospital. The detergent in Minho's shirt, mixed with the scent of his shampoo. The spinning slows, and Jinki is able to make out shapes.
Beat.
Then feeling: the air ruffling his hair, Minho's arms around his back. The scratchy sheets of the hospital bed tangling around Jinki's legs. An ache in his lungs, like he's just run a marathon. Every gasp of air. Each throb of his heart. The world stops moving and slowly comes into focus.
His heart. He pulls out of Minho's embrace and presses both hands against his chest. There it is: a beat, weak but steady. No whirring, no humming, no vibrations. He feels like he's just woken up from a long dream.
Minho reaches out to touch him but stops halfway. His face is lined with worry. "Hyung," he says softly. "Are you okay?"
Jinki's lungs hurt and the new patches of cold and warmth on his metal limbs are disconcerting, but he feels content for the first time in months. And alive. And, suddenly, very, very hungry.
He grins and grasps Minho's hand in his. Warmth seeps through the metal at every point touching Minho's skin and floods his body. "I'm gonna be okay," he says, beaming at Minho hopefully.
Minho squeezes his hand and smiles back. "Promise?"
Jinki's heart soars. "Yeah," he replies, squeezing his hand in return. "I promise."
Onew/Minho (ish), Onew/Taemin (past), PG-13, ~2000 words
"It hurts," he mumbles into Minho's shoulder. He feels like he should be sobbing his heart out right now, but his eyes remain obstinately dry. The arm wrapped around his shoulders rubs soothingly. Jinki distracts himself by analyzing the motion: up, down, up down. His cheeks are wet before he even realizes he's crying.
"It's gonna be okay," Minho murmurs, tightening his hold momentarily before his arm resumes its motion.
"I wish I had a robot heart," Jinki says. "So it would stop hurting."
Minho squeezes him so tight it makes him gasp. "Hyung, no," he says, aghast. His voice is pleading. "It'll get better. I promise."
Jinki tries to imagine being happy. All he can picture is Taemin's smile, Taemin's outstretched arms, Taemin's broken body -- he tears himself free of Minho's hold and dry-heaves over the side of the couch. "Happy" is meaningless without Taemin. There is no such thing.
Then he imagines himself cut open, the surgeon's gloved hands carefully lifting out his heart, the metal organ slowly lowered in. Tendons and nerves and arteries closing in around it, the hunk of metal starting to pulse -- slow and weak at first, then stronger and faster. He imagines opening his eyes, feeling the bandages over his chest. A sense of calm. A different feeling in his fingers -- tactile sensation, but without warmth or pleasure. Numb. He thinks: this is the only possible "better".
Robot hearts don't actually beat.
That's the first thing Jinki notices when he wakes up. The familiar thud-thud-thud of his own heart has been replaced with a faint whirring sound. He presses his hand to his chest, curious to see how this new rhythm feels under his palm. He can feel the vibrations through the gauze. The constant hum makes his fingers throb, and he lets his arm drop back down to his side.
The second thing he notices is that it still hurts. The pain has a different colour, maybe, but it's still there. He still feels sick inside. He still misses Taemin.
His hands are cold. He tucks them under the blanket and pretends to listen as the nurse comes in to tell him about post-surgical care: how he should avoid strenuous activity, how he needs to rest and allow his body to adapt to the new organ, how he can't shower for a week until the wound closes and there's no risk of water reaching his new heart and causing it to short-circuit. He tries to focus on the feel of his heart whirring in its cage, but it's neither loud enough nor strong enough to hold his attention, and he finds himself wondering what it would feel like to die of a short-circuit. If he would feel anything at all.
It's not enough.
Minho picks him up from the hospital. He's careful not to let his gaze fall on Jinki's hands, but other than that he keeps his disappointment in Jinki well concealed. Jinki thinks he should feel relieved about that, but instead he feels guilty. He knows Minho's right about the whole thing -- Jinki doesn't need the surgery, he needs to let himself care about the world again. But Jinki doesn't want that. He doesn't want to betray Taemin's memory. He wishes Minho could understand that.
He squeezes his hands into fists experimentally. The joints are stiff, slow to respond. It will take at least a week before they'll be agile enough for Jinki to operate a steering wheel. He's supposed to keep them covered at all times to prevent them from gaining or losing too much moisture. He's not allowed to cook, either; the heat could cause irreparable damage to the welding between the metal of the wrist and the bone of his arm. They're remarkably fragile things when new. It'll take at least a month of playing it safe before they're strong enough to resume everyday activities.
He can't even buckle himself in once they reach the car. Minho does it for him, keeping his gaze trained on Jinki's face so he doesn't accidentally look down. There's a little smile at the corner of his mouth, so fragile it could turn into a frown with a single tremor of his lips. This close, his eyes look bigger than normal. Jinki reads sympathy in them, and worry and affection. Maybe even love. The thought terrifies him, and he screws his eyes shut. Minho freezes above him and sucks his breath in, a sure sign his control over his emotions is about to snap. Jinki holds himself very, very still.
Minho lets his breath out all at once, and then there's a light pressure on Jinki's forehead -- Minho's lips, he realizes. His body responds on its own, all the tension ebbing away as he leans into the touch. He can feel his mouth curving into a smile, and a familiar tightening in his groin -
No. No!
Jinki pushes him away and turns to stare out the window, his breath coming in shallow gasps. He can feel Minho's eyes on him. The feeling makes his skin prickle. He wills his erection to disappear, but it's been so long, and Minho's been so kind, and his body still craves a loved one's gentle touch.
This isn't happening, he thinks.
Minho sighs and starts the car. The prickling feeling eventually fades, but Jinki refuses to look anywhere but out the window the entire ride.
The hospital is boring. Jinki has no one to talk to -- the nurses come and go, checking in on him, changing his tubes, emptying the bags of urine and shit. They're quiet and efficient. Most of them have robot hands and eyes. They don't take interest in anything. Jinki tried talking to them at first, but quickly gave up when all he got in return were blank stares and noncommital grunts.
He's lonely. He'd thought he was lonely before, too, but it's worse now. Somewhere along the way, he'd stopped missing Taemin quite so much and had grown used to seeing Minho every day instead. He'd chalked it up to his new heart doing its job, filtering out more of his emotions as the whirring grew stronger, but in reality he'd been happy.
Happy. The word makes him sick. How could he be happy, he wonders. How could he forget about Taemin so quickly. He has no right to be happy ever again.
At night, when the lights are out and the nurses won't return for hours, he presses his palm against his dick. It's another week until he can use it to go to the bathroom by himself, but he tests it every night, waiting for the familiar curl of interest in his belly to take hold and pull him back into his nightmares. Nothing happens. He tugs until he's convinced it won't respond, and only then does he let himself breathe again, relief spreading through his limbs and forcing his eyes shut.
Whatever fickle emotions arise, his body won't betray him again.
The next time Jinki sees Minho, he has a robot torso and robot shins. He has a reinforced spine, too, and a chip in his brain to help the metal organs function in harmony with the original flesh and blood. He doesn't feel much of anything anymore: no loneliness, no sadness, no happiness, no cold or warmth. Everything that happens to him seems to happen from a distance. Occasionally he feels hungry, but he no longer needs to eat: he recharges by plugging his torso into the wall. Eating is a luxury, a ritual he engages in during the brief, random bouts of loneliness and anxiety.
Jinki is in the hospital when Minho visits. His heart has been behaving erratically recently. The familiar whirring has gone into overdrive. His body thrums with energy. He feels jittery all the time, and his movements are jerky, almost spastic. He twitches when he goes to pick things up and ends up knocking them onto the floor instead. The doctors don't know what to do.
Jinki hardly cares. His eyes are still his own, but they look at the world like robot eyes. Everything appears dull, unchanging. Jinki thinks he's more of a machine than the nurses now. The thought alternately amuses and terrifies him.
"Hyung," Minho says. He settles into the chair next to Jinki's bed and leans forward, his hands hovering above Jinki's before wrapping around Jinki's wrists instead. Jinki wonders briefly if it's because Minho still can't stand to touch the metal or if he wants Jinki to be able to feel the warmth of skin on skin. He doesn't open his eyes.
"Hyung," Minho says again. There's a hushed, urgent quality to his voice that Jinki hasn't heard in a long, long time. "It's going to be okay. It'll get better. I promise." His thumbs rub circles into Jinki's arms.
Jinki's breath catches. His heart speeds up until he's sure his whole body must be trembling. His hands clench and unclench. He tries to say something, anything, but his throat closes in on itself and he can't breathe at all and then he's gasping with tears, his chest heaving as he chokes on his own spit. Minho's hands tighten around his wrists and pull Jinki forward so his arms can wrap around Jinki's back. Jinki's face falls into Minho's shoulder and his hand fist in Minho's shirt, clinging like Minho is the only thing keeping him from drowning. Minho's hands burn into Jinki's back like hot irons. It shouldn't be possible, and it hurts, but Jinki's not about to let go.
"I missed you," he confesses to the patch of snot and tears on Minho's shirt. Minho lets out a choked laugh, and Jinki realizes he's been crying too. One of the hands on Jinki's back starts up a familiar rhythm up and down.
Jinki stops shaking. His heart slows to its usual hum, then slows again until he can barefly feel it anymore. He gasps for breath, suddenly dizzy. His hands go limp and fall to his sides. He feels like he's falling into darkness. He hears Minho's voice, questioning and worried, before it fades away into silence and he's alone in a sea of endless black.
A beat.
Another beat.
Air spills into his lungs and rips them wide. His eyes fly open. The world spins in a mess of colour.
Beat.
Sound comes first -- the buzz of the air conditioner, the wind brushing through the trees and sweeping into the room. Minho's panicked voice: Hyung! Hyung!
Beat.
Then the sterile smell of the hospital. The detergent in Minho's shirt, mixed with the scent of his shampoo. The spinning slows, and Jinki is able to make out shapes.
Beat.
Then feeling: the air ruffling his hair, Minho's arms around his back. The scratchy sheets of the hospital bed tangling around Jinki's legs. An ache in his lungs, like he's just run a marathon. Every gasp of air. Each throb of his heart. The world stops moving and slowly comes into focus.
His heart. He pulls out of Minho's embrace and presses both hands against his chest. There it is: a beat, weak but steady. No whirring, no humming, no vibrations. He feels like he's just woken up from a long dream.
Minho reaches out to touch him but stops halfway. His face is lined with worry. "Hyung," he says softly. "Are you okay?"
Jinki's lungs hurt and the new patches of cold and warmth on his metal limbs are disconcerting, but he feels content for the first time in months. And alive. And, suddenly, very, very hungry.
He grins and grasps Minho's hand in his. Warmth seeps through the metal at every point touching Minho's skin and floods his body. "I'm gonna be okay," he says, beaming at Minho hopefully.
Minho squeezes his hand and smiles back. "Promise?"
Jinki's heart soars. "Yeah," he replies, squeezing his hand in return. "I promise."