Day Two - 너라면 한 몸 아깝지 않은 나 By Vanillatiger Part 1
Livejournal Username: vanillatiger
Title: 너라면 한 몸 아깝지 않은 나
Word count: 20.7k
Rating: NC-17
Prompt: #32 [Lay has healing powers but can only heal through skinship, (touch kiss or licking etc). One day he discovers Leo getting injuries seemingly out of nowhere, but the cause is dripping in voodoo.]
Summary: If it’s you, my body is not wasted.
Warnings: violence, gore, torture, mentioned character death, mentions of abuse, slight blood play
For three days, Yixing isn’t quite sure who his neighbor is. He only has one, barring the students that live across the hall, because Yixing’s apartment is the last apartment on his side of the hallway. All he knows is that the young couple who used to live next door to him moved out weeks ago, and the apartment was empty until just earlier this week. Yixing was laying himself down for bed when the shower rang out on the other side of his wall, a sound he hadn’t heard since the couple moved out. He’d let the dull hiss of the water lull him to sleep, only beginning to contemplate about his new neighbor the next morning as he prepares for work.
Yixing’s work is easy. It’s not really easy, because his hospital is large and his unit is small and he often has more patients than he should be able to handle; but it’s easy for Yixing. Most of the time, his patients only require half of the interventions prescribed to them, as compared to the patients of his peers. Yixing assumes that his peers do not have the ability to heal hidden inside of them, like Yixing does. In fact, Yixing doesn’t know anybody who has his power hidden within them except for himself.
It could be a curse, but Yixing treats it as a calling: a bit of intention as he dresses a wound, and the wound is already halfway healed by the next dressing change. A gentle touch as he listens to the lungs of a patient with pneumonia, and before they leave, their crackles are gone. It’s tiresome, for as much as Yixing has practice he has very little control of himself, and most work days, Yixing comes home exhausted, feeling as though he has given away his own liveliness for his patients. He will never regret it, though; by his next shift, he is always recuperated and ready to do it all over again.
It’s a compulsion, to have such a gift inside of him, knowing that he can do good that nobody else he knows can do. For all Yixing is aware, he is the only man in the world who can do what he does. It’s too great of a sign to be complacent. Yixing seeks out those in trouble, always in the hopes that he will be able to change things for the better.
So it might be fate that the first time Yixing meets his new neighbor, it is as the man is struggling to insert his key into his lock as it slides around in his bloody fingers. Yixing almost drops the bags of groceries he’s carrying in his concern, rushing over to the man to help without thinking twice. The man flinches away from him, his somber face narrowing in suspicion. Yixing bows and apologizes.
“Are you okay?” he asks as he’s coming up, indicating boldly to the man’s hand. From what Yixing can see, there are no wounds there; it must be a wound beneath his long sleeve, draining down. He reaches forward to touch, just in the hopes of relieving whatever pain the man may be feeling, but Yixing’s neighbor retracts it before he can reach. His fingers swipe through air, his energy not connecting.
“I’m fine. Thank you,” the man says politely, though his expression remains guarded. Yixing blinks up at him, frowning. He has known patients who concealed their injuries; many times, it was a matter of trust. Yixing places his bag of groceries on the ground and presents his hands in a conceding gesture.
“It’s okay, I’m a nurse. I just want to help,” he says, but the man doesn’t relax. Rather, he grows stiffer as Yixing persists. Yixing knows that he should let the man be, but the amount of blood on the man’s hand, having soaked all the way through his shirt and down to his skin-Yixing is worried that perhaps the man’s wound has crossed an artery, and he may not understand the extent of the damage that has been done. “I have supplies in my apartment, I live right next door. Please, I would feel better if I could just bandage it to stop the bleeding.”
“It’s not bleeding anymore,” the man says. Yixing opens his mouth, but he isn’t sure what to say. Never has he felt so determined to help someone before. He is compelled to heal this man who refuses to even let Yixing near him.
“May I at least see it?” he asks obsequiously. If he can’t touch, then getting a good look might assure him that the man is as fine as he says he is.
The man hesitates, but Yixing flashes him a small smile and a please, and he hesitantly begins to roll up his soaked sleeve. Indeed, the wound has begun to clot some, but Yixing can see that it is fresh. “Has it been cleaned?” he asks.
The man stands silently for a moment, pulling his arm back into himself where Yixing can no longer see it. Guarding, perhaps. Yixing looks away from the arm and back up into the man’s eyes. “No,” he finally says, breaking eye contact with Yixing for the first time in their encounter. He stares at the floor now. Yixing takes a step forward, and the man doesn’t pull away from him.
“I can clean it. It won’t hurt, I promise,” Yixing swears, picking up his groceries and indicating towards his apartment. The man’s face twists uncomfortably, but Yixing knows that sepsis is far more uncomfortable than a stranger, so he persists. “I can even bring my things out here, if that would be more comfortable for you.”
For a long while, Yixing thinks that the man might not respond to him at all. He bides his breaths, trying not to seem too presumptuous, until finally the man says, “No. That won’t be necessary.” He steps out of the way, allowing Yixing to access his door, and when Yixing unlocks it and holds it open behind him for the man, he only hesitates for a moment before following Yixing in.
“My name is Yixing,” Yixing says as he sets his groceries on the kitchen counter and leads the way back to his bathroom. He keeps his first aid kit in his full bath, tucked in the depths of his bedroom. It’s a cramped bathroom, with barely enough space for the man to sprawl his long legs as he takes a seat at the edge of the bathtub.
“Taekwoon,” the man replies, offering his arm when Yixing sets his kit down on the toilet lid. Yixing kneels down before Taekwoon, turning his arm this way and that to inspect the cut. It’s deep-definitely a bleeding risk, but not as much as Yixing initially thought. He breathes easier after that, preparing a clean rag with sterile saline to dab at the crusted edges of the cut.
“Can you tell me how you got this?” Yixing asks into the silence, glancing up from his work to look into Taekwoon’s face. His expression is pinched, and Yixing lightens his touch, almost pulling away. “Am I hurting you?”
“No,” Taekwoon tells him. “You’re doing fine.”
Yixing smiles and continues to clean the cut. “You should see a doctor to make sure that this isn’t infected. For instance, if you got this from any sort of rusty metal-“
“Tetanus,” Taekwoon interjects.
Yixing smiles up at him and nods, discarding his dirtied wash cloth. He prepares another and continues to clean until the white rag comes up clean. “Yes, tetanus. Just because I’m cleaning this, that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t need medical attention.” He pats the cut dry with a fresh towel before pulling out a large adhesive pad, one that will sufficiently cover the impressive extent of the wound. He peels off the protective backing to expose the sticky side. Taekwoon offers his arm, and Yixing places the bandage, careful to keep it from creasing or bending.
Though the compulsion to heal Taekwoon is strong, Yixing almost doesn’t do it. The cut is clean, the wound edges are smooth, and surely Taekwoon will see a doctor to make sure the cut heals properly, with no complications. Yixing doesn’t need to do it, he should save his energy for his very sick patients who will be under his care during his shift tomorrow. Yixing hesitates, pressing down the edges of the bandage, warming the adhesive so that it will stick better.
On an impulse, Yixing does it. He does what he can, the energy feeling physical in his fingers, like water or heat or a hum of static running through him, or all of it at once. It is light, in color and size and texture and sound, engaging all of him as he decides that he wants to heal Taekwoon, just enough to keep bacteria from infecting the cut, but his control is imprecise so he knows that the cut will heal much more than he means for it to. He smooths down the perfectly smooth bandage with his thumbs, letting the energy work through him and into Taekwoon’s skin through the flexible fabric barrier.
Taekwoon tears away from him so fast that he almost tumbles back into the tub. Yixing flinches and falls back onto his bottom, his knees smarting as his weight is lifted off of them. Taekwoon clutches his arm close to him, his eyes wider than Yixing knew they could get. He balks up at Taekwoon, knowing that something must have happened, but he doesn’t know what. What could have possibly happened that would scare Taekwoon so badly? Perhaps he knows. Perhaps he felt it, even though nobody has ever felt the healing before. Not in a way that alerted them to the strangeness, the inhumanness of Yixing’s abilities.
But Taekwoon accuses him, his tentative words coming out quiet, as though he is not certain he is even speaking the truth, “You healed me.”
Yixing flounders. He begins to sit up, waving his hands defensively. “No, no, I didn’t-”
“You did,” Taekwoon cuts in, bolder now. Yixing should act like he doesn’t know what Taekwoon is talking about. He should deflect, he should question how Taekwoon even knows, but he can’t. He’s never been caught before. He can’t string together a coherent sentence, let alone a competent argument.
Taekwoon stands abruptly, towering above Yixing, who remains seated on the floor. He shakes where he sits, panic stunning him, leaving him silent and stupid. Taekwoon glares down at him; Yixing wonders if he is about to breathe his last. He’s not a devil worshipper, nor a demon, nor a witch, but if Taekwoon were to accuse him of any of those things, he would have no defense for himself. He closes his eyes and braces himself for the worst.
Instead, Taekwoon brushes past him on his way out of the bathroom, and Yixing has to stumble to his feet just to watch him escape Yixing’s apartment. Yixing’s legs are tired and numb, and he can’t keep up. The door slams shut, ringing throughout his rooms resolutely. Yixing stares after the empty hallway where Taekwoon was only moments ago, and he catches his breath.
Did Taekwoon really know? He didn’t even look under the bandage to see if the cut had shrunk. He didn’t do anything; he just looked up and delivered his accusation. Yixing scratches his head. Perhaps Taekwoon is mad, he thinks. Nobody can feel the healing. Not once in Yixing’s twenty-four years of life has anybody been able to feel his work. He considers following Taekwoon, just to make sure that he’s okay and not putting himself in danger somehow. A man that unstable should do better than to be alone in such a vulnerable moment.
But Yixing does not follow this particular compulsion. He forces himself to leave it. He ducks out of his hallway and into the kitchen, choosing instead to unload his groceries. Perhaps he has seen the last of his strange neighbor. The knot in Yixing’s stomach leaves him wondering as to whether or not he’s upset about that.
Taekwoon shed his blood in a hotel room outside of the city before burning it, leaving a bit of himself behind to roast in that fire. Hae Na will find him there amongst the ashes. It will give him a few days, at the very least. If he’s lucky, he might have a few weeks before he needs to move again. He takes a train into town, hiding his messy arm away from prying eyes tucked deep into his stomach. He finds his new apartment, only realizing that his fingers are numb when he struggles with the key. He tries to work quicker; this apartment is the safest sanctuary Taekwoon will get.
Sanghyuk is safe. Sanghyuk found a plane that would take him far away from here. Hae Na can only feel them through the ground-she won’t be able to figure out where he’s gone. Not for a very long time, at least. Wonshik is in the mountains, where energy does not run steady or polite; he’ll be disguised there. Jaehwan is with his brothers; Taekwoon only knows because Hakyeon told him. Jaehwan’s wards have kept Taekwoon from being able to fully ascertain where exactly Jaehwan is; his wards have always been the strongest of them all. Hakyeon-Hakyeon is not safe. Hakyeon is living like Taekwoon, on the run. Playing target so that the others may escape. Taekwoon understands the guilt, the feeling of responsibility after Hongbin-
Taekwoon can’t think about Hongbin too much these days. It makes him useless, frozen and helpless, wondering if he doesn’t deserve what Hae Na has designed for him. He can’t escape when he’s thinking about Hongbin, and what’s worse, he’s begun to suspect that Hae Na can sense his grief, his distress. She always finds him faster when he’s been ruminating on the past.
Perhaps it’s why Hakyeon has to move so often. Taekwoon wonders if he ever finds sleep, between his travels and his torment. Taekwoon quiets his mind and his fears and his scorching self-hatred in the hopes that he might salvage this apartment to the end of the week. He should try to unlock with his uninjured arm, but it’s his non-dominant hand, and he would struggle just as heartily. The cut is messy, soaking through his shirt and smearing over his hand. He needs to get inside to rinse it off, before Hae Na smells the blood-
Before somebody else notices. “Are you okay?” the man asks him after Taekwoon pulls away, curling himself in from his standing height so that he is smaller than he normally is. The man is beautiful, more than his face or his smile or his small, smooth hands, there is a magnetism to him that makes Taekwoon uncomfortable. It’s a materialistic want, unconducive to his current situation. Taekwoon knows he needs to steel himself against this man, what would Hae Na do if she felt his want, what would she do to him or this man?
But Yixing’s persistence is powerful, and it’s only when he reveals his power that Taekwoon considers the depth of how terrible a decision Yixing is. The magnetism-it’s an electricity. A current, a magic, a devilry that has only damned Taekwoon in the past. Why should he expect anything different in his future? He pulls away from the burn of magic and retreats to his apartment. He has wards up-Yixing will not be able to enter unless Taekwoon allows it. Hae Na should not be able to feel him, his thundering heart, his racing mind. He cannot feel her here, but that has never reliably indicated her awareness of him in the past. With a heavy heart, Taekwoon realizes that he will have to find a new hiding place soon, one far away from the magic user he’s found living next door.
Yixing thinks about Taekwoon throughout his entire day. Every time he touches someone, intending to heal them, his eyes flick up, fear curling in his gut that he will see revelation and hatred in their eyes. But nobody recognizes him. An elderly woman with a cannula and an IV pats his hand and tells him that his touch is so gentle, it almost seems to take her pain away. Yixing finds himself disbelieving that Taekwoon could have known. And yet, hadn’t he accused Yixing so vehemently?
It’s with a furious eagerness that he thinks he could get a hold of Taekwoon, ask him what happened, how he knew. It drives Yixing all the way to his apartment complex, walking with a spring in his step that hadn’t been there before. He takes the stairs voraciously, long strides carrying him down the hall until he’s come to the second to last door on the right. He knocks, and nobody answers.
Yixing gives it time before knocking again, and he is still met with nothing. Whether Taekwoon is not home, or whether Yixing is merely being ignored, he is uncertain. He only knows that after four bouts of knocking with no answer, he is most definitely wasting his night. With a weary sigh, Yixing drags himself the last few steps towards his own door, his exhaustion settling heavily upon him with the added weight of disappointment.
There’s no reason for Yixing to be so worried, he thinks to himself as he showers, the steam and hot water clearing his mind to make room for wandering thoughts. Taekwoon is a grown man who understands his situation much better than Yixing does. Yixing has no reason to doubt Taekwoon’s ability to take care of himself. And yet…
And yet Yixing longs to slip into the hallway and knock one more time, just in case Taekwoon was out earlier. He brushes his teeth, wondering if he ever went to the doctor. Something about Taekwoon’s skittishness makes Yixing think that there’s something unsafe about the way he got the injury. Perhaps the cut came from a fight. Perhaps it was self-inflicted. It’s beyond Yixing to assume why Taekwoon wanted so little to do with Yixing, but whatever his reason is, Yixing worries for him. He flosses, his eyes unfocused as he drifts closer and closer to the mirror. His mind is occupied solely with his new neighbor.
But that evening yields no results. Yixing does step out to knock again, and he still gets no answer. Even though he has difficulty sleeping and is awake late into the night, he hears nothing through their walls. Perhaps Taekwoon truly is gone. Yixing finds that he is not comforted by this; in fact, he feels Taekwoon’s absence as an acute loss. Wherever Taekwoon is could be much worse than a small, below-average apartment in a somewhat downtrodden part of the city, if he’s coming home with cuts that deep. His thoughts torment him, disrupting his sleep, which usually comes so easily.
Yixing has known Baekhyun for as long as he’s lived in the city, from the very first day when they sat next to each other on the train and Baekhyun had single-handedly constructed a conversation between himself and a very shy, quiet Yixing. He knows everything about Yixing except for his ability, so when they meet for lunch the following day, Yixing tells Baekhyun as much as he can about his new neighbor with really explaining why their encounter is bothering him.
“Maybe he’s a drug addict,” Baekhyun offers, sipping his water through a straw. Yixing frowns and puts his chopsticks down, leveling Baekhyun with a look.
“That’s not funny.”
Baekhyun, looking affronted, says, “It’s not supposed to be. People like that need serious help. You just need to be patient with him if you really want to make a connection.”
Yixing sighs. He can tell Baekhyun that it could be something much worse than drugs, or it could be something far simpler. There’s never been a person in the world who understands Yixing or his ability; that Taekwoon could not only feel his energy, but could pinpoint what, exactly, he was doing-he’s blown the limit on what’s possible. In Yixing’s eyes he has, at least. But Baekhyun doesn’t even know that he actually broke his ankle two years ago rather than spraining it; Yixing had taken special care of his best friend to make sure that he wouldn’t even need a hospital visit for that one. Just some over the counter anti-inflammatories and some rest. How is Yixing supposed to tell Baekhyun about Taekwoon when Baekhyun doesn’t know about Yixing?
It must be a dilemma he is supposed to shoulder alone. Just like his powers, Taekwoon is something secret, another part of the world that people don’t know about. Yixing supposes that of course he would be drawn by it; it’s the first time he’s ever been acknowledged. It’s the first time anyone has ever suggested that there might be more magic than just Yixing in this world. Doesn’t everybody want to know that they’re normal? That they’re not alone? But that doesn’t explain his worry for Taekwoon, how he wants to be closer to him, to hold him and have him and keep him from harm, unless Yixing thinks deep down that this new world where Taekwoon comes from is a terrible, dangerous place. It could be, for all Yixing is aware.
It is no less confusing that Taekwoon is a very tall, handsome man. Yixing has not felt want like this in a very long time, having abstained from romantic relationships since he first came to the city. His job takes too much from him. But if Taekwoon understands what he is, perhaps he could let himself get lost in another person again, without fear of being discovered…
If only Taekwoon didn’t hate him.
Baekhyun is no help in Yixing’s quest to understand Taekwoon and how he should engage him. When Yixing gets back to his apartment complex after their lunch, he stops at Taekwoon’s door, knocking and waiting several minutes for an answer before feeling assured that he will not get one. That night, as Yixing lies awake in bed, knowing that he should be asleep, he can hear Taekwoon’s shower running through the wall. He wonders how long Taekwoon has been home.
With little agency over the situation, Yixing chooses the most realistic approach and represses his desires to pester Taekwoon until he receives a response. He would be no better than a stalker, since Taekwoon has made it obvious that he has no desire to see or hear from Yixing. Instead, Yixing chooses to be reckless and headstrong in the hospital.
One of his patients suffers a partial evisceration of a surgical wound on their stomach, and Yixing pulls it back together before the doctor can come to assess whether the patient needs more staples. A child whose asthmatic attack is not responding to bronchodilators takes a long, deep breath the moment Yixing touches her throat. An elderly woman’s pressure ulcer, spanning from the anterior iliac spine down to her greater trochanter, is suddenly only four centimeters in diameter. Yixing is brazen that day, almost daring somebody to accuse him, to recognize him, to understand that what he’s doing isn’t possible, that what he’s doing isn’t human.
But nobody does. He looks straight into the eyes of the surgeon who comes to check on the evisceration, begging in his head for the man to ask him what Yixing did. Instead, the doctor asks the patient to describe what happened, and the patient can’t describe it. They’re not quite sure what happened. Both the doctor and Yixing explain and demonstrate splinting for whenever the patient needs to cough or sneeze in the future in order to protect the rest of the staples, and Yixing documents that instead of twenty-eight staples, the patient now has twenty-two. He begs for somebody to catch his documentation, to accuse him of making an error, to force him to provide an explanation for where those six staples went, but nothing happens.
Yixing goes home more tired than ever, his brashness draining more from him than usual. Baekhyun offers to come over and cook for him; he even offers to bring Jongdae, but all Yixing really wants is to see Taekwoon’s arm and make sure his cut is healing well. He doesn’t; he has a tall glass of water in lieu of dinner, showers, and crawls into his covers still wet and naked. He is asleep before his head hits the pillow.
The day after is horrible, worse than the worst hangover Yixing has ever had in his life, and he swears that he will never overuse his powers out of spite ever again. It’s hard, knowing how much good he can do and having to hold himself back from it, but what little he can do for each individual is better than no healing touch at all. The blip of excitement that Taekwoon brought into his life has died; as long as he doesn’t take Yixing’s story to the papers, Yixing thinks that he could settle back into the way things were and almost forget about Taekwoon very easily. It’s easier than pushing for Taekwoon to let him in. It’s probably safer, too.
It must be safer, because when Taekwoon next comes to him, he comes as a mess. Yixing is sleeping fitfully, exhausted from a long shift. His sleep is ravaged by nightmares, formless and dark. All Yixing knows is that something is wrong, something he can’t explain. Something he can’t even understand. He wakes up and knows immediately what woke him. Before Taekwoon can even knock on his door, Yixing is scrambling up out of bed to answer him.
The moment Yixing sees him, he understands why Taekwoon came. It’s not for a simple cut on his arm. Taekwoon’s face is covered in sweat; his hair is matted to his forehead. He looks exhausted. He probably is. Pain is tiresome, as is blood loss. Yixing ushers him in quickly, not even bothering to take Taekwoon back to the bathroom this time. Instead, he pulls Taekwoon into the kitchen, where the floor is tiled and at little risk of being stained, and he reaches for the buttons of Taekwoon’s shirt. Taekwoon lets him, leaning back against a counter for support.
The piercing wounds crossing up and down Taekwoon’s sides and his arms are calculated. Yixing’s stomach heaves, and he has to cover his mouth to make sure that he won’t be sick. It looks like he’s been stuck through repeatedly with wide gauge needles, over and over again. Beyond torture, Yixing can imagine no situation that would lead to wounds like this. Taekwoon’s complexion is pale in the yellow glow of Yixing’s oven light. Yixing looks up into Taekwoon’s eyes, but even if Taekwoon were looking back at him, Yixing would find no answers. His expression is guarded, even under this level of duress. Yixing sighs and sets to work healing him, wasting no time with pretense.
He places his hand firmly over the first hole, high up on Taekwoon’s arm, feeling how it stretches beneath the skin all the way to the other side. Taekwoon’s bicep bunches beneath his touch, and Yixing glances up at him. Taekwoon is glaring down, his lips tight. He’s trembling; Yixing begins to heal him as they watch one another, hoping to at least ease the pain.
“Do you have to touch them?” Taekwoon asks as Yixing moves on to the next one. The first has withered down to a small scab on either side of his arm. It won’t even scar.
“Yes,” Yixing says, lowering his eyes and focusing. “That’s how…” He trails off, putting thought into the next wound to make his point. Taekwoon sighs, or maybe he huffs. Whatever it is, he accepts Yixing’s touch as he moves to the other arm, healing the two piercings there before moving to his waist. “What did this?” Yixing asks, already knowing that he won’t get an answer. Sure enough, Taekwoon tenses, his abdomen contracting away from Yixing’s hands. Yixing sighs and allows the silence to settle. He won’t get any answers tonight.
Yixing is already drained from his workday, but he continues to blatantly heal all of Taekwoon’s wounds. It’s what he came here for. By the time Yixing has finished the last hole, his head is throbbing and his vision is blurring at the edges. He swoons, taking a hold of the counter just to the side of Taekwoon. Taekwoon skirts out from under him, letting Yixing fall forward to catch his balance. “What’s going on?” he asks.
“Just…tired,” Yixing grits out. He settles down to the floor, feeling more stable down there, and when he looks up at Taekwoon, that accusing look is back in his eyes.
“You don’t know what you’re doing,” he says. But he doesn’t say it derisively. It’s just a statement. A fact. Yixing could take affront to it, he’s been doing this for sixteen years, but Taekwoon is right. Ever since his childhood, he’s never been able to control exactly what he’s doing. He only knows that he can do it, and usually that’s enough. He’s learned to not expect certainties; his ability generally does the right thing. He’s never hurt anybody before.
“Who taught you to do this?” Taekwoon asks next.
“Nobody. I don’t know anybody else who can do this. I don’t even know how you know,” Yixing tells him, taking a deep breath and pulling himself back to standing with the edge of the counter. Taekwoon puts his arms up a bit, as though to catch Yixing should he fall, but he puts them back down at his side as soon as he realizes Yixing has seen him doing this.
“Thank you,” Taekwoon says, buttoning up the first few buttons of his shirt as he makes his way out of the kitchen. Without a goodbye, only silence settling in his wake, he leaves. He does not slam the door this time. It closes with a gentle click.
Yixing thinks that he may have misjudged Taekwoon. He might be very level-headed indeed, barring whatever the situation is with his injuries. Yixing stumbles through his apartment back to his bedroom. If he were any less exhausted, he would probably stay up for hours worrying and wondering about his neighbor. Instead, he falls into bed and thanks heaven that he does not have a shift scheduled the next day before crashing into sleep once more.
Hae Na uses dolls to focus her powers when she does not have young, impressionable boys with the ability to manipulate others’ magic sitting around. She collects them and grooms them and keeps them. Taekwoon knows this well; he was one of her favorites. With her boys at her side, she can do anything with the power inside of her.
But she doesn’t have her boys with her anymore. She has to rely on her own crude stitchings to connect herself to someone like Taekwoon, somebody who can take her power and refine it, make it do things that she can’t do by herself. It’s how she can find them without knowing exactly where they are, hurt them without even having to touch them.
The dolls, crudely enough, do make useful voodoo dolls.
She’s piercing Taekwoon’s. He hasn’t heard from Hakyeon in a few days, so he doesn’t now if she has one for him. Wonshik and Sanghyuk should be safe from her torment, but Jaehwan may be suffering soon, if he’s not already. Wards will not hold up long against whatever voodoo she’s come up with now.
This is how Taekwoon woke up in the early hours of the morning in a panic, reaching for the skin at his side only to feel it pierced completely through to the other side. Only when he fully woke did he realize that it wasn’t the pain that roused him.
It’s a light-or, not a light. A feeling of light. A warmth without warmth. Whatever it is, it is safety, guiding him to where he will be hidden, sheltered from her. It’s how Taekwoon ends up at Yixing’s door, lifting his hand to knock and Yixing answering before he can. He doesn’t want to be here. His stomach curls with fear at the idea of being in the hands of another magic user, but Yixing ushers him in and Taekwoon is shocked.
Hae Na isn’t here. The piercing-she’s moved on to his arms now-has stopped. Hae Na cannot reach him in here. It’s almost as if she doesn’t exist, if only in this apartment; like Yixing has taken Taekwoon to a separate universe, where his tormenter cannot find him. The light, the warmth, it’s coming from here. This is a safe space.
Yixing leads him into the kitchen. His magic burns, but it doesn’t hurt. It’s hot, sparking, skating along his skin in disjointed currents. Taekwoon can feel it searing into him, ripping in between each layer of tissue as Yixing guides it clumsily to where its work resides. Taekwoon wants to pull away, wants to escape form it, but he can’t. It holds him in place, not like a spell but like a magnet.
“Does it hurt you?” Yixing asks him.
Taekwoon isn’t certain. He knows that he can feel it, the enormity of it, the aggressiveness of it. It’s there, in him, flooding like water from a burst dam. But does it hurt? Taekwoon tries not to think about it too resolutely, for when he does, he finds himself uncertain of whether the spark pains him or pleasures him in the end. Instead, he gives Yixing a blank look and falls back on his best defense, his silence.
No, Taekwoon thinks. It doesn’t hurt. Yixing’s touch eases the pain like warm water over cold hands. Taekwoon hates the way Yixing’s touch is so soft, so gentle, so harmless. Taekwoon knows that hands with power in them are never harmless. But Yixing tells him that he must touch to heal, so Taekwoon lets him. Yixing works in silence, and with no reluctance this time. Taekwoon supposes there’s no use hiding or disguising it now that he knows; this is what he came for, after all.
Taekwoon only realizes how inept Yixing is when he has to rest after such a short period of healing. A magic user who is untrained, isolated, and ignorant. Perhaps he is not as dangerous as Taekwoon assumed. Given that he isn’t lying.
“Thank you,” he tells Yixing before leaving. He closes the door behind him gently; Yixing will need quiet and rest to recover from such strain. If Taekwoon were any younger, any more naive, he would offer to help Yixing. He would teach him, and perhaps use him. It has been a long while since Taekwoon has used magic; Hae Na has shut him out of hers. As he climbs back into bed and stares at the ceiling, he wonders what he would find if he reached into Yixing. A puddle? a river? an ocean?
Hae Na has not found him, but her anger has. Taekwoon is as safe as he will ever be in his apartment, with a healer next door. The next time he seeks Yixing’s help, it’s for cuts. Shallow, thin; they could be paper cuts, if he could convince himself it were so. Crisscrossed along the back of his hand, up his wrist, along his forearm. Across his cheeks, around the back of his neck. Whiplike along the skin of his back. Yixing heals him without a word this time, seeming to know better than to ask their origin.
But Yixing worries for him. The more Yixing touches him, the more Taekwoon feels his energy, the more he can read Yixing. He wants to ask. Why? What does it matter to you? But Taekwoon is a smarter man than to tempt fate. Yixing’s rooms are the only haven Taekwoon has found from Hae Na’s wrath. He doesn’t know what price will come with them, what horrors he will have to endure down the line to pay for the protection he’s taking right now, but from such an inexperienced magic user, Taekwoon expects that he will have less trouble than Hae Na gives him. All the power in the world is useless when it’s cooped up, cut off from use. A battery with no port. A body can only run so much energy through it, like blood clogging a catheter-Yixing would kill himself before he could kill Taekwoon.
So Taekwoon comes back. He comes back over and over again. For bruises, for burns, for cuts, for wounds that cut straight into him. Yixing even puts his eye back in one night when Hae Na finds it funny to gouge it out. The horrors of her abuse never stagnate; they are always fresh. Taekwoon’s panic feels new, foreign, every single time it comes to him. He clings to the small reprieve life has given him; Yixing’s power is unbelievable, the things that he can do. But in his ignorance, he always comes away nauseous, always comes away with a headache, always comes away ill for healing someone else’s woes.
It wouldn’t hurt Yixing if Taekwoon were to take a look; it wouldn’t hurt either of them, so he does. It’s not hard. Yixing is already touching him, his power is simmering at the surface, the connection is already there. Taekwoon closes his eyes and reaches back, through Yixing’s clumsy stream of energy, and he peers inside.
What he sees is not a river. It is not a lake, or an ocean, or a planet. What he sees inside Yixing is a galaxy. Star after star burning inside of him, such a wealth of power that Taekwoon loses his breath looking at it. He can’t even see the extent of Yixing’s abilities, so vast inside of him, sprawling astronomically. Taekwoon has only ever known Hae Na’s touch, Hae Na’s power. She is a pond, and Yixing is a galaxy. He comes out, breathing hard, and Yixing watches him strangely.
“Am I hurting you?” Yixing asks for what must be the hundredth time since this arrangement began.
Taekwoon has to take a moment before answering. “No,” Taekwoon tells him, “you’re not.” But he could. If Yixing used everything inside of him, if anybody could use everything that is inside of him, they could make him hurt a lot.
Taekwoon doesn’t come back every single day. Sometimes it’s a week between visits, sometimes it’s only a few days, but it never takes longer than that for whatever is ailing him to return. Yixing doesn’t know what to do. He can’t call the police; or, he could, but what would he say? What would Taekwoon say? Yixing doesn’t even worry about how he would explain his own abilities to the police, but he worries a lot about what would happen to Taekwoon. Yixing seriously doubts that whatever put Taekwoon into this situation can be presented in a simple, innocent explanation.
There is darkness and evil in those wounds that he heals. Yixing doesn’t know what to do, so he does what he can do. He puts his hands on Taekwoon’s broken skin, and he thinks of peace. Of everything that can go wrong in the body, and how it might go right. The energy works of its own accord, filling in the spaces where Yixing lacks the knowledge or the precision. By Taekwoon’s third visit, he’s figured out where Yixing keeps his tea and begins to make him a cup after every session.
Yixing sits on the floor as Taekwoon hands him a mug. He pulls his sleeves over his hands before he takes it because it’s still steaming. The porcelain is warm beyond the cotton of his hoodie. Taekwoon fetches a plastic cup for himself, filling it with water and sipping slowly. His face is still beaded with sweat, his skin still pale. Yixing can see the remnants of pain on him, even though he knows that Taekwoon’s pain should have passed.
“Why do you come here?” Yixing asks that night. Taekwoon doesn’t talk much. It seems that beyond accusing Yixing of witchcraft, he never has much to say. Yixing has never been averse to silence before, but he feels very alone when it seems that he’s the only one of the two of them who feels the desire to be closer, to share something as big as this. It’s not that there hasn’t been any progress-Taekwoon is still standing in his kitchen, drinking a cup of water, minutes after Yixing has finished healing him. It’s a far cry from his short thanks and departure immediately after Yixing finished the first night he came. But Taekwoon holds himself away from Yixing; it’s almost a physical barrier between them, something Yixing has to scale. Taekwoon wouldn’t let him.
“What do you mean?” Taekwoon asks, setting his cup aside. He stands upright, arms folded over his chest. His shirt is still bloody; Yixing thinks about buying him a new one as a gift, for all of the shirts he must have had to dispose of by now.
“Why do you come here instead of going to the hospital? Since you don’t like my methods. Why do you keep coming back?”
Taekwoon watches Yixing for a while, frowning down at him. It’s not a look someone would make if they don’t know the answer. Yixing can see that Taekwoon knows exactly why he comes back here, to a place where he’s uncomfortable, into the hands of a man he doesn’t trust. It could be as simple as privacy, Taekwoon not wanting to put himself in the care of someone who might report their findings to the police; but if that were so, why would Taekwoon hide that from him? Yixing only wants to know why Taekwoon comes only to him because Taekwoon is so reluctant to tell him.
“You don’t charge,” he says in the end. Yixing blinks, and then smiles.
“You made a joke,” he says, his voice hopping with laughter.
Taekwoon smiles; or he doesn’t really smile, but his lips twitch in a way that Yixing thinks could be a smile. Yixing smiles wider, reaching up to place his tea on the counter before pulling himself to standing. “I didn’t know you smiled, either.” Taekwoon’s eyes lower and he nods, the mirth falling from his expression. Yixing takes a step forward. Taekwoon tenses, but he relaxes after a beat. Yixing wants to reach out and touch him, but he abstains; he’s already taking too much leniency with Taekwoon’s trust as it is.
“I understand why you wouldn’t want to tell me about whoever is hurting you. But if you ever find that you cannot handle this by yourself-” he gestures towards Taekwoon’s healed body, remembering how battered it’s been, “-I want to help you. I’ll be here.”
Taekwoon continues to stare at the floor, his lips thin and tight, but beyond that, Yixing cannot see his expression enough to read it. Yixing sighs and reaches for his mug, lifting it off of the counter and up to his lips. When he sets it back down and glances over towards Taekwoon, Taekwoon has already straightened and moved away, towards the entrance of the kitchen. “Thank you,” he says before disappearing off into the hall. Escaping back to his own apartment again. Yixing follows behind him to make sure the front door is closed, for he hadn’t heard it click, but it is.
Taekwoon already knows that Hakyeon is at his door before he opens it. His bond with Hakyeon goes way back, to the days when they were in school together. Taekwoon will always be able to feel Hakyeon if he is close, so it’s not that Hakyeon is there that surprises Taekwoon. It’s how he looks.
Taekwoon doesn’t even invite him in, he just takes Hakyeon by the arm and leads him through the sparsely furnished apartment to a chair. Hakyeon sits in it heavily, not meeting Taekwoon’s eyes. Taekwoon doesn’t have another chair, so he stands, first crossing his arms over his chest, and then unfolding them and tucking his hands into his pockets. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other, each side becoming uncomfortable very quickly and leaving him shifting awkwardly. Still, Hakyeon will not look at him.
“Is this about the dolls?” Taekwoon asks.
Without looking up, Hakyeon nods. He’s wearing long sleeves; Taekwoon’s own flesh prickles from his fresh wounds, but his skin is unmarred: a great victory from the efforts of the healer next door. He realizes with a start how he must look to Hakyeon. As though Hae Na hasn’t gotten around to him yet. Perhaps Hakyeon is worried; he still hasn’t said what he’s come to say. Taekwoon waits patiently.
“Jaehwan,” Hakyeon finally chokes out, staring down at the ground. Taekwoon frowns. This isn’t what he expected. Hakyeon is trembling, but he’s silent. The apartment is so quiet that Taekwoon can hear the soft, wet sound of tears dripping onto the linoleum between Hakyeon’s feet. For the longest time, it’s the only sound, until Hakyeon takes a sobbing, shuddering inhale, and Taekwoon’s stomach drops.
Not another one.
Taekwoon slowly lowers himself down to the floor, bracing for a fall. His knees are weak, ankles unsteady, and his head swoons, leaving him feeling as though he is going to fall and fall and fall forever. Taekwoon should have known, he should have known, Jaewhan’s wards wouldn’t keep him hidden, they wouldn’t keep him safe. Taekwoon should have known. Jaewhan wouldn’t have a healer just across the dividing wall like Taekwoon does, of course he was in danger. Taekwoon never even thought to seek him out. He should have known, he should have known-
“Stop,” Hakyeon tells him. Taekwoon breathes in, his first breath in almost a minute. His hands are fisted in his hair, pulling, his body hunched over, making himself small. He doesn’t remember doing this, but it feels fitting. Hakyeon has slid down off of the chair, kneeling before him, and though his eyes are red and swollen and his cheeks are wet, he takes Taekwoon’s hands in his own and pulls them down, rubbing his thumbs in to relax them. “There’s nothing you could have done.”
“I could have warned him, I knew she was doing this, I could have gotten him out-“
“You don’t even know where he was,” Hakyeon reminds him, gently accepting Taekwoon into his arms. Their tears continue to stream, and it’s Hongbin all over again. Taekwoon squeezes his eyes shut until he sees spots and his head hurts. He will not think of Hongbin. Not right now.
“We have to stop,” Taekwoon cuts in abruptly, his voice cracking. “We can’t-we can’t think about him. Hae Na, she’ll-“
“She’s not here,” Hakyeon says. Taekwoon looks up at him, frowning. “Her eyes are everywhere, looking for us, but we’re in the dark here.” He meets Taekwoon’s wary gaze, watching him for a moment before asking, “It isn’t your wards, is it?”
Taekwoon shakes his head. “The healer next door,” he says, but doesn’t finish his thought. Hakyeon’s eyes widen a bit, and he sniffles. His tear-streaked face shines in the scant light of the apartment, but his expression is young and hopeful. Taekwoon bows his head to look away from it.
“That’s-” Hakyeon cuts off, reaching forward to place a hand against Taekwoon’s chest. “That’s who I’m feeling,” he finishes, a weak smile pulling at his lips. He wipes his face dry with his sleeve, even though his eyes continue to well and overflow. “Taekwoon, I can feel him on you. He’s close-you said next door?” Taekwoon continues to stare at the ground in silence. “Taekwoon, I can see your bond. You’ve bound yourself to him.”
Taekwoon flinches, shocked by the idea, but he does not look up. He shakes his head, scowling. “No. I didn’t. I wouldn’t. Not after…”
Hakyeon is quiet for a moment, waiting for Taekwoon to finish before deciding that he will not. “Not all magic users are like her,” he says, his voice rough from crying but steady and sage anyways. “And you can pretend that you haven’t, but you have bound yourself to him.”
“I didn’t,” Taekwoon insists. “I didn’t do anything. I only-all he does is heal me. I haven’t taken anything from him, I haven’t let him do anything else.”
Hakyeon sighs, pulling his hand away and drawing his knees up to his chest. “I don’t know what to tell you. I can see it Taekwoon. Maybe you didn’t mean to, but you did.” When Taekwoon remains silent, Hakyeon continues. “It’s not a bad thing. He’s protecting you. Hae Na can’t come in here while he’s with you. She’ll never find you while you stay here.”
Taekwoon looks up at him, frowning. “He couldn’t-” Oh, Taekwoon thinks, but he could. The galaxy that is Yixing could certainly hide him, if Yixing cared strongly enough. Taekwoon wonders, if Yixing knew what he was doing with his power, whether or not he could protect Taekwoon from Hae Na’s wrath, the pain that she sends out blindly. He thinks about how the torture always stops when he steps inside Yixing’s apartment. There could be no limits to what Yixing could do, if only he knew what he was doing.
“He is,” Hakyeon says after Taekwoon has been thinking for too long. “You’ve been thinking about him a lot, haven’t you? You can’t not feel it. It’s so bright, Taekwoon.”
“This isn’t what you came here for,” Taekwoon says abruptly, feeling as though he might be sick if Hakyeon says one more word about the healer. It could be anxiety, or it could be anticipation, he isn’t sure. He hasn’t felt either so strongly since Hae Na. When Taekwoon looks up, Hakyeon’s face is creased unhappily, on the verge of tears once more, and Taekwoon ducks his head, mumbling an apology.
“I’m going to stay with Wonshik,” Hakyeon tells him. The moment Hakyeon says it, a world of weight lifts from Taekwoon’s shoulders. Hakyeon is following Wonshik into the mountains, where he’ll be safe, hidden. Her magic might reach him, but not as strong and not as precise. It won’t be anything that could kill him. Hakyeon will be safe. “You could come with me,” Hakyeon says after a moment.
“No. You go. I need to stay in the city, where-”
“Where she can see you?” Hakyeon leans forward, frowning. “It’s over, Taekwoon. We’re getting out. You don’t have to play decoy anymore.”
Taekwoon shrugs, glancing up at Hakyeon but immediately back down. He hates the conviction he can see there. “It’ll take you some time to get to Wonshik. At least if she can see me, she won’t go after you.” He nods towards the dividing wall. “Besides, I’ve got a healer next door. I’ll be fine.”
Hakyeon reaches for Taekwoon’s hand; Taekwoon gives it to him. “Don’t do anything stupid,” Hakyeon says. Taekwoon just smiles for him. “You’ll catch up to us, right? After everybody else is safe?”
“Yes,” Taekwoon lies. It’s what Hakyeon needs to hear right now. He offers Hakyeon his bed, but Hakyeon takes to the night, preferring to move in the humming electricity of darkness. Taekwoon leaves at an hour’s interval from Hakyeon’s departure to take a walk around the city. Hae Na will be searching for him over Hakyeon, anyways.
He tries not to think about Jaehwan, but his heart feels swollen with sadness. Remorse. Guilt. If Taekwoon had gotten them out sooner, if Taekwoon had thought to warn them about the dolls, if Taekwoon hadn’t fallen in love with a monster in the first place. He feels the blood of two friends on his hands; he clenches them into fists inside his pockets. When he can no longer feel Hakyeon in the city, Taekwoon begins to amble back to his apartment. Hae Na’s first incisions are parting the flesh of his chest, piercing, phantom pain cutting into him in neat, claw-like patterns.
He hasn’t even come halfway down the hall when Yixing opens his door and steps out to greet him. Something in Taekwoon knew that he would-the bond, he thinks-but Yixing wouldn’t know what called him out. It doesn’t matter. His eyes narrow skeptically, searching over Taekwoon’s body. “Here,” he says, pointing to his chest. Yixing’s lips tighten, his eyes shining sadly. He reaches out, and Taekwoon steps into his embrace, allowing Yixing to lead him into the dining room.
The moment Yixing touches him, Hae Na’s wrath is ripped away from his body. Taekwoon takes a deep breath and squeezes Yixing’s hand. Yixing does not seem to notice. Taekwoon takes a seat at the table, pushing out at an angle so that Yixing can reach him. He pulls off his jacket and then his shirt. Yixing’s eyes flit between the open wounds and his bared flesh.
Much like it has been for weeks, Yixing feels that something is wrong before he can see it. Taekwoon is not in his apartment, and neither is the man who came by earlier. Yixing could not feel him the way he does Taekwoon, but he could hear their voices through the wall whenever they spoke loud enough. Yixing will reluctantly admit that he was listening.
He does not know who the man was, only that he left and Taekwoon soon followed after him. Yixing waited for his return, and now he feels it. He steps out into the hallway, hoping that Taekwoon is alone. He is, but his face is pale and pinched, and Yixing knows that he is in pain. He searches for the injuries, but finds nothing. Taekwoon raises his hand, wincing when he does, and points to his chest. “Here,” he says. Yixing reaches for him, and to his surprise, Taekwoon accepts his hold. He tries to maintain a respectful distance when he leads Taekwoon into his kitchen.
Taekwoon strips himself once he’s seated, and Yixing’s stomach revolts at the half-finished pattern of cuts across Taekwoon’s pectorals. As though whoever was doing this stopped abruptly. Yixing wonders if Taekwoon overpowered his attacker. But then, the marks would be more jagged, wouldn’t they? Yixing would expect to see defensive wounds. These are precise, neat, clean. Just like all the wounds that have come before them. Yixing presses his hand to one pectoral, the span of his fingers not reaching across the entirety of the muscle. The cut is deep. Yixing has to sink his focus all the way down to begin pulling the edges back together.
It’s still tiring. Taekwoon sits calm and patient for him, quiet as he’s ever been, but Yixing’s head hurts before he’s even finished healing half of the cuts. He leaves them behind as scars, not on purpose, but because he cannot work hard enough to smooth the skin back down once he’s finished. His world is swaying from side to side, the corners of his vision darkening. He does not come to until Taekwoon takes him by the wrist and forces him away.
“You’re exhausted,” Taekwoon tells him. Yixing blinks, and then smiles at him.
“I’m just a little hungry. Maybe I can make us something to eat after this.” He tries to reach forward to resume, but Taekwoon holds him still. Yixing looks up at him, surprised, and tries again. Taekwoon holds him back. Yixing frowns. “Taekwoon, you are bleeding too much. I have to at least close them up.” Taekwoon, in his silent way, doesn’t relent. Yixing frowns at him and makes a split-second decision. By and large, split-second decisions don’t do well, especially when there’s magic involved, but this one goes over better than most.
Taekwoon doesn’t shove him, and that’s more than Yixing could expect from anybody.
“You’re exhausted.” This magic user is artless, and now he is weak. A weak healer is no healer at all; Taekwoon physically holds him back from using himself up in one night. He’s noticed Yixing working until he can hardly stand, but Yixing isn’t nearly finished and he’s already swaying. Yixing’s smile is dim and slow when he responds.
“I’m just a little hungry. Maybe I can make us something to eat after this.” Taekwoon likes the sound of that; he’s not sure how he feels about how much he likes it. He’d probably like it a lot more if Yixing weren’t pushing weakly against his grip. This weary enchanter knows no limits. “Taekwoon, you are bleeding too much. I have to at least close them up.” Yixing continues to push, but Taekwoon holds him back with ease. He’ll survive until Yixing has had a nap and something to eat.
“If you get hurt, that doesn’t help either of us,” Taekwoon explains to him, pushing Yixing back with the grip on his wrists. “I’ll be fine until you can start healing again-“
Yixing ducks forward, and Taekwoon gasps. He flinches back, but he’s still holding Yixing’s wrists, so he just ends up pulling Yixing with him. Yixing presses his lips to the wide chasm of separated flesh marring Taekwoon’s chest. He opens his mouth, the lesion’s edges coming together as he kisses them closed. Taekwoon’s heart is thudding, he’s barely breathing, and if he just looks down his lips will be in Yixing’s hair, he could kiss Yixing’s head like Yixing is kissing him, tender, attentive-
“Yixing, stop,” he chokes out. Yixing does pull away, glancing up at him with blood on his lips. His tongue flicks out, but he makes a face when it does, like he didn’t mean to taste Taekwoon’s blood. Taekwoon’s throat swells so that nothing can pass through it, not a protest or a cry of disgust. That same blood that ran through Taekwoon’s veins, that carried Hae Na’s evil for so long, is somehow pure on Yixing’s lips. When Taekwoon says nothing else, Yixing bows his head to continue. He licks up the long lines of the wounds, sealing them shut much easier than when he used his hands.
But he still sways when he comes up. Taekwoon’s chest is bloody but healed, and he holds Yixing against it to keep him from falling over. Yixing slumps into him, breathing shallowly. His chin is smeared red, and it turns Taekwoon’s stomach how much he wants to lick it clean. “Shower,” he says aloud. Yixing nods against him.
Title: 너라면 한 몸 아깝지 않은 나
Word count: 20.7k
Rating: NC-17
Prompt: #32 [Lay has healing powers but can only heal through skinship, (touch kiss or licking etc). One day he discovers Leo getting injuries seemingly out of nowhere, but the cause is dripping in voodoo.]
Summary: If it’s you, my body is not wasted.
Warnings: violence, gore, torture, mentioned character death, mentions of abuse, slight blood play
For three days, Yixing isn’t quite sure who his neighbor is. He only has one, barring the students that live across the hall, because Yixing’s apartment is the last apartment on his side of the hallway. All he knows is that the young couple who used to live next door to him moved out weeks ago, and the apartment was empty until just earlier this week. Yixing was laying himself down for bed when the shower rang out on the other side of his wall, a sound he hadn’t heard since the couple moved out. He’d let the dull hiss of the water lull him to sleep, only beginning to contemplate about his new neighbor the next morning as he prepares for work.
Yixing’s work is easy. It’s not really easy, because his hospital is large and his unit is small and he often has more patients than he should be able to handle; but it’s easy for Yixing. Most of the time, his patients only require half of the interventions prescribed to them, as compared to the patients of his peers. Yixing assumes that his peers do not have the ability to heal hidden inside of them, like Yixing does. In fact, Yixing doesn’t know anybody who has his power hidden within them except for himself.
It could be a curse, but Yixing treats it as a calling: a bit of intention as he dresses a wound, and the wound is already halfway healed by the next dressing change. A gentle touch as he listens to the lungs of a patient with pneumonia, and before they leave, their crackles are gone. It’s tiresome, for as much as Yixing has practice he has very little control of himself, and most work days, Yixing comes home exhausted, feeling as though he has given away his own liveliness for his patients. He will never regret it, though; by his next shift, he is always recuperated and ready to do it all over again.
It’s a compulsion, to have such a gift inside of him, knowing that he can do good that nobody else he knows can do. For all Yixing is aware, he is the only man in the world who can do what he does. It’s too great of a sign to be complacent. Yixing seeks out those in trouble, always in the hopes that he will be able to change things for the better.
So it might be fate that the first time Yixing meets his new neighbor, it is as the man is struggling to insert his key into his lock as it slides around in his bloody fingers. Yixing almost drops the bags of groceries he’s carrying in his concern, rushing over to the man to help without thinking twice. The man flinches away from him, his somber face narrowing in suspicion. Yixing bows and apologizes.
“Are you okay?” he asks as he’s coming up, indicating boldly to the man’s hand. From what Yixing can see, there are no wounds there; it must be a wound beneath his long sleeve, draining down. He reaches forward to touch, just in the hopes of relieving whatever pain the man may be feeling, but Yixing’s neighbor retracts it before he can reach. His fingers swipe through air, his energy not connecting.
“I’m fine. Thank you,” the man says politely, though his expression remains guarded. Yixing blinks up at him, frowning. He has known patients who concealed their injuries; many times, it was a matter of trust. Yixing places his bag of groceries on the ground and presents his hands in a conceding gesture.
“It’s okay, I’m a nurse. I just want to help,” he says, but the man doesn’t relax. Rather, he grows stiffer as Yixing persists. Yixing knows that he should let the man be, but the amount of blood on the man’s hand, having soaked all the way through his shirt and down to his skin-Yixing is worried that perhaps the man’s wound has crossed an artery, and he may not understand the extent of the damage that has been done. “I have supplies in my apartment, I live right next door. Please, I would feel better if I could just bandage it to stop the bleeding.”
“It’s not bleeding anymore,” the man says. Yixing opens his mouth, but he isn’t sure what to say. Never has he felt so determined to help someone before. He is compelled to heal this man who refuses to even let Yixing near him.
“May I at least see it?” he asks obsequiously. If he can’t touch, then getting a good look might assure him that the man is as fine as he says he is.
The man hesitates, but Yixing flashes him a small smile and a please, and he hesitantly begins to roll up his soaked sleeve. Indeed, the wound has begun to clot some, but Yixing can see that it is fresh. “Has it been cleaned?” he asks.
The man stands silently for a moment, pulling his arm back into himself where Yixing can no longer see it. Guarding, perhaps. Yixing looks away from the arm and back up into the man’s eyes. “No,” he finally says, breaking eye contact with Yixing for the first time in their encounter. He stares at the floor now. Yixing takes a step forward, and the man doesn’t pull away from him.
“I can clean it. It won’t hurt, I promise,” Yixing swears, picking up his groceries and indicating towards his apartment. The man’s face twists uncomfortably, but Yixing knows that sepsis is far more uncomfortable than a stranger, so he persists. “I can even bring my things out here, if that would be more comfortable for you.”
For a long while, Yixing thinks that the man might not respond to him at all. He bides his breaths, trying not to seem too presumptuous, until finally the man says, “No. That won’t be necessary.” He steps out of the way, allowing Yixing to access his door, and when Yixing unlocks it and holds it open behind him for the man, he only hesitates for a moment before following Yixing in.
“My name is Yixing,” Yixing says as he sets his groceries on the kitchen counter and leads the way back to his bathroom. He keeps his first aid kit in his full bath, tucked in the depths of his bedroom. It’s a cramped bathroom, with barely enough space for the man to sprawl his long legs as he takes a seat at the edge of the bathtub.
“Taekwoon,” the man replies, offering his arm when Yixing sets his kit down on the toilet lid. Yixing kneels down before Taekwoon, turning his arm this way and that to inspect the cut. It’s deep-definitely a bleeding risk, but not as much as Yixing initially thought. He breathes easier after that, preparing a clean rag with sterile saline to dab at the crusted edges of the cut.
“Can you tell me how you got this?” Yixing asks into the silence, glancing up from his work to look into Taekwoon’s face. His expression is pinched, and Yixing lightens his touch, almost pulling away. “Am I hurting you?”
“No,” Taekwoon tells him. “You’re doing fine.”
Yixing smiles and continues to clean the cut. “You should see a doctor to make sure that this isn’t infected. For instance, if you got this from any sort of rusty metal-“
“Tetanus,” Taekwoon interjects.
Yixing smiles up at him and nods, discarding his dirtied wash cloth. He prepares another and continues to clean until the white rag comes up clean. “Yes, tetanus. Just because I’m cleaning this, that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t need medical attention.” He pats the cut dry with a fresh towel before pulling out a large adhesive pad, one that will sufficiently cover the impressive extent of the wound. He peels off the protective backing to expose the sticky side. Taekwoon offers his arm, and Yixing places the bandage, careful to keep it from creasing or bending.
Though the compulsion to heal Taekwoon is strong, Yixing almost doesn’t do it. The cut is clean, the wound edges are smooth, and surely Taekwoon will see a doctor to make sure the cut heals properly, with no complications. Yixing doesn’t need to do it, he should save his energy for his very sick patients who will be under his care during his shift tomorrow. Yixing hesitates, pressing down the edges of the bandage, warming the adhesive so that it will stick better.
On an impulse, Yixing does it. He does what he can, the energy feeling physical in his fingers, like water or heat or a hum of static running through him, or all of it at once. It is light, in color and size and texture and sound, engaging all of him as he decides that he wants to heal Taekwoon, just enough to keep bacteria from infecting the cut, but his control is imprecise so he knows that the cut will heal much more than he means for it to. He smooths down the perfectly smooth bandage with his thumbs, letting the energy work through him and into Taekwoon’s skin through the flexible fabric barrier.
Taekwoon tears away from him so fast that he almost tumbles back into the tub. Yixing flinches and falls back onto his bottom, his knees smarting as his weight is lifted off of them. Taekwoon clutches his arm close to him, his eyes wider than Yixing knew they could get. He balks up at Taekwoon, knowing that something must have happened, but he doesn’t know what. What could have possibly happened that would scare Taekwoon so badly? Perhaps he knows. Perhaps he felt it, even though nobody has ever felt the healing before. Not in a way that alerted them to the strangeness, the inhumanness of Yixing’s abilities.
But Taekwoon accuses him, his tentative words coming out quiet, as though he is not certain he is even speaking the truth, “You healed me.”
Yixing flounders. He begins to sit up, waving his hands defensively. “No, no, I didn’t-”
“You did,” Taekwoon cuts in, bolder now. Yixing should act like he doesn’t know what Taekwoon is talking about. He should deflect, he should question how Taekwoon even knows, but he can’t. He’s never been caught before. He can’t string together a coherent sentence, let alone a competent argument.
Taekwoon stands abruptly, towering above Yixing, who remains seated on the floor. He shakes where he sits, panic stunning him, leaving him silent and stupid. Taekwoon glares down at him; Yixing wonders if he is about to breathe his last. He’s not a devil worshipper, nor a demon, nor a witch, but if Taekwoon were to accuse him of any of those things, he would have no defense for himself. He closes his eyes and braces himself for the worst.
Instead, Taekwoon brushes past him on his way out of the bathroom, and Yixing has to stumble to his feet just to watch him escape Yixing’s apartment. Yixing’s legs are tired and numb, and he can’t keep up. The door slams shut, ringing throughout his rooms resolutely. Yixing stares after the empty hallway where Taekwoon was only moments ago, and he catches his breath.
Did Taekwoon really know? He didn’t even look under the bandage to see if the cut had shrunk. He didn’t do anything; he just looked up and delivered his accusation. Yixing scratches his head. Perhaps Taekwoon is mad, he thinks. Nobody can feel the healing. Not once in Yixing’s twenty-four years of life has anybody been able to feel his work. He considers following Taekwoon, just to make sure that he’s okay and not putting himself in danger somehow. A man that unstable should do better than to be alone in such a vulnerable moment.
But Yixing does not follow this particular compulsion. He forces himself to leave it. He ducks out of his hallway and into the kitchen, choosing instead to unload his groceries. Perhaps he has seen the last of his strange neighbor. The knot in Yixing’s stomach leaves him wondering as to whether or not he’s upset about that.
Taekwoon shed his blood in a hotel room outside of the city before burning it, leaving a bit of himself behind to roast in that fire. Hae Na will find him there amongst the ashes. It will give him a few days, at the very least. If he’s lucky, he might have a few weeks before he needs to move again. He takes a train into town, hiding his messy arm away from prying eyes tucked deep into his stomach. He finds his new apartment, only realizing that his fingers are numb when he struggles with the key. He tries to work quicker; this apartment is the safest sanctuary Taekwoon will get.
Sanghyuk is safe. Sanghyuk found a plane that would take him far away from here. Hae Na can only feel them through the ground-she won’t be able to figure out where he’s gone. Not for a very long time, at least. Wonshik is in the mountains, where energy does not run steady or polite; he’ll be disguised there. Jaehwan is with his brothers; Taekwoon only knows because Hakyeon told him. Jaehwan’s wards have kept Taekwoon from being able to fully ascertain where exactly Jaehwan is; his wards have always been the strongest of them all. Hakyeon-Hakyeon is not safe. Hakyeon is living like Taekwoon, on the run. Playing target so that the others may escape. Taekwoon understands the guilt, the feeling of responsibility after Hongbin-
Taekwoon can’t think about Hongbin too much these days. It makes him useless, frozen and helpless, wondering if he doesn’t deserve what Hae Na has designed for him. He can’t escape when he’s thinking about Hongbin, and what’s worse, he’s begun to suspect that Hae Na can sense his grief, his distress. She always finds him faster when he’s been ruminating on the past.
Perhaps it’s why Hakyeon has to move so often. Taekwoon wonders if he ever finds sleep, between his travels and his torment. Taekwoon quiets his mind and his fears and his scorching self-hatred in the hopes that he might salvage this apartment to the end of the week. He should try to unlock with his uninjured arm, but it’s his non-dominant hand, and he would struggle just as heartily. The cut is messy, soaking through his shirt and smearing over his hand. He needs to get inside to rinse it off, before Hae Na smells the blood-
Before somebody else notices. “Are you okay?” the man asks him after Taekwoon pulls away, curling himself in from his standing height so that he is smaller than he normally is. The man is beautiful, more than his face or his smile or his small, smooth hands, there is a magnetism to him that makes Taekwoon uncomfortable. It’s a materialistic want, unconducive to his current situation. Taekwoon knows he needs to steel himself against this man, what would Hae Na do if she felt his want, what would she do to him or this man?
But Yixing’s persistence is powerful, and it’s only when he reveals his power that Taekwoon considers the depth of how terrible a decision Yixing is. The magnetism-it’s an electricity. A current, a magic, a devilry that has only damned Taekwoon in the past. Why should he expect anything different in his future? He pulls away from the burn of magic and retreats to his apartment. He has wards up-Yixing will not be able to enter unless Taekwoon allows it. Hae Na should not be able to feel him, his thundering heart, his racing mind. He cannot feel her here, but that has never reliably indicated her awareness of him in the past. With a heavy heart, Taekwoon realizes that he will have to find a new hiding place soon, one far away from the magic user he’s found living next door.
Yixing thinks about Taekwoon throughout his entire day. Every time he touches someone, intending to heal them, his eyes flick up, fear curling in his gut that he will see revelation and hatred in their eyes. But nobody recognizes him. An elderly woman with a cannula and an IV pats his hand and tells him that his touch is so gentle, it almost seems to take her pain away. Yixing finds himself disbelieving that Taekwoon could have known. And yet, hadn’t he accused Yixing so vehemently?
It’s with a furious eagerness that he thinks he could get a hold of Taekwoon, ask him what happened, how he knew. It drives Yixing all the way to his apartment complex, walking with a spring in his step that hadn’t been there before. He takes the stairs voraciously, long strides carrying him down the hall until he’s come to the second to last door on the right. He knocks, and nobody answers.
Yixing gives it time before knocking again, and he is still met with nothing. Whether Taekwoon is not home, or whether Yixing is merely being ignored, he is uncertain. He only knows that after four bouts of knocking with no answer, he is most definitely wasting his night. With a weary sigh, Yixing drags himself the last few steps towards his own door, his exhaustion settling heavily upon him with the added weight of disappointment.
There’s no reason for Yixing to be so worried, he thinks to himself as he showers, the steam and hot water clearing his mind to make room for wandering thoughts. Taekwoon is a grown man who understands his situation much better than Yixing does. Yixing has no reason to doubt Taekwoon’s ability to take care of himself. And yet…
And yet Yixing longs to slip into the hallway and knock one more time, just in case Taekwoon was out earlier. He brushes his teeth, wondering if he ever went to the doctor. Something about Taekwoon’s skittishness makes Yixing think that there’s something unsafe about the way he got the injury. Perhaps the cut came from a fight. Perhaps it was self-inflicted. It’s beyond Yixing to assume why Taekwoon wanted so little to do with Yixing, but whatever his reason is, Yixing worries for him. He flosses, his eyes unfocused as he drifts closer and closer to the mirror. His mind is occupied solely with his new neighbor.
But that evening yields no results. Yixing does step out to knock again, and he still gets no answer. Even though he has difficulty sleeping and is awake late into the night, he hears nothing through their walls. Perhaps Taekwoon truly is gone. Yixing finds that he is not comforted by this; in fact, he feels Taekwoon’s absence as an acute loss. Wherever Taekwoon is could be much worse than a small, below-average apartment in a somewhat downtrodden part of the city, if he’s coming home with cuts that deep. His thoughts torment him, disrupting his sleep, which usually comes so easily.
Yixing has known Baekhyun for as long as he’s lived in the city, from the very first day when they sat next to each other on the train and Baekhyun had single-handedly constructed a conversation between himself and a very shy, quiet Yixing. He knows everything about Yixing except for his ability, so when they meet for lunch the following day, Yixing tells Baekhyun as much as he can about his new neighbor with really explaining why their encounter is bothering him.
“Maybe he’s a drug addict,” Baekhyun offers, sipping his water through a straw. Yixing frowns and puts his chopsticks down, leveling Baekhyun with a look.
“That’s not funny.”
Baekhyun, looking affronted, says, “It’s not supposed to be. People like that need serious help. You just need to be patient with him if you really want to make a connection.”
Yixing sighs. He can tell Baekhyun that it could be something much worse than drugs, or it could be something far simpler. There’s never been a person in the world who understands Yixing or his ability; that Taekwoon could not only feel his energy, but could pinpoint what, exactly, he was doing-he’s blown the limit on what’s possible. In Yixing’s eyes he has, at least. But Baekhyun doesn’t even know that he actually broke his ankle two years ago rather than spraining it; Yixing had taken special care of his best friend to make sure that he wouldn’t even need a hospital visit for that one. Just some over the counter anti-inflammatories and some rest. How is Yixing supposed to tell Baekhyun about Taekwoon when Baekhyun doesn’t know about Yixing?
It must be a dilemma he is supposed to shoulder alone. Just like his powers, Taekwoon is something secret, another part of the world that people don’t know about. Yixing supposes that of course he would be drawn by it; it’s the first time he’s ever been acknowledged. It’s the first time anyone has ever suggested that there might be more magic than just Yixing in this world. Doesn’t everybody want to know that they’re normal? That they’re not alone? But that doesn’t explain his worry for Taekwoon, how he wants to be closer to him, to hold him and have him and keep him from harm, unless Yixing thinks deep down that this new world where Taekwoon comes from is a terrible, dangerous place. It could be, for all Yixing is aware.
It is no less confusing that Taekwoon is a very tall, handsome man. Yixing has not felt want like this in a very long time, having abstained from romantic relationships since he first came to the city. His job takes too much from him. But if Taekwoon understands what he is, perhaps he could let himself get lost in another person again, without fear of being discovered…
If only Taekwoon didn’t hate him.
Baekhyun is no help in Yixing’s quest to understand Taekwoon and how he should engage him. When Yixing gets back to his apartment complex after their lunch, he stops at Taekwoon’s door, knocking and waiting several minutes for an answer before feeling assured that he will not get one. That night, as Yixing lies awake in bed, knowing that he should be asleep, he can hear Taekwoon’s shower running through the wall. He wonders how long Taekwoon has been home.
With little agency over the situation, Yixing chooses the most realistic approach and represses his desires to pester Taekwoon until he receives a response. He would be no better than a stalker, since Taekwoon has made it obvious that he has no desire to see or hear from Yixing. Instead, Yixing chooses to be reckless and headstrong in the hospital.
One of his patients suffers a partial evisceration of a surgical wound on their stomach, and Yixing pulls it back together before the doctor can come to assess whether the patient needs more staples. A child whose asthmatic attack is not responding to bronchodilators takes a long, deep breath the moment Yixing touches her throat. An elderly woman’s pressure ulcer, spanning from the anterior iliac spine down to her greater trochanter, is suddenly only four centimeters in diameter. Yixing is brazen that day, almost daring somebody to accuse him, to recognize him, to understand that what he’s doing isn’t possible, that what he’s doing isn’t human.
But nobody does. He looks straight into the eyes of the surgeon who comes to check on the evisceration, begging in his head for the man to ask him what Yixing did. Instead, the doctor asks the patient to describe what happened, and the patient can’t describe it. They’re not quite sure what happened. Both the doctor and Yixing explain and demonstrate splinting for whenever the patient needs to cough or sneeze in the future in order to protect the rest of the staples, and Yixing documents that instead of twenty-eight staples, the patient now has twenty-two. He begs for somebody to catch his documentation, to accuse him of making an error, to force him to provide an explanation for where those six staples went, but nothing happens.
Yixing goes home more tired than ever, his brashness draining more from him than usual. Baekhyun offers to come over and cook for him; he even offers to bring Jongdae, but all Yixing really wants is to see Taekwoon’s arm and make sure his cut is healing well. He doesn’t; he has a tall glass of water in lieu of dinner, showers, and crawls into his covers still wet and naked. He is asleep before his head hits the pillow.
The day after is horrible, worse than the worst hangover Yixing has ever had in his life, and he swears that he will never overuse his powers out of spite ever again. It’s hard, knowing how much good he can do and having to hold himself back from it, but what little he can do for each individual is better than no healing touch at all. The blip of excitement that Taekwoon brought into his life has died; as long as he doesn’t take Yixing’s story to the papers, Yixing thinks that he could settle back into the way things were and almost forget about Taekwoon very easily. It’s easier than pushing for Taekwoon to let him in. It’s probably safer, too.
It must be safer, because when Taekwoon next comes to him, he comes as a mess. Yixing is sleeping fitfully, exhausted from a long shift. His sleep is ravaged by nightmares, formless and dark. All Yixing knows is that something is wrong, something he can’t explain. Something he can’t even understand. He wakes up and knows immediately what woke him. Before Taekwoon can even knock on his door, Yixing is scrambling up out of bed to answer him.
The moment Yixing sees him, he understands why Taekwoon came. It’s not for a simple cut on his arm. Taekwoon’s face is covered in sweat; his hair is matted to his forehead. He looks exhausted. He probably is. Pain is tiresome, as is blood loss. Yixing ushers him in quickly, not even bothering to take Taekwoon back to the bathroom this time. Instead, he pulls Taekwoon into the kitchen, where the floor is tiled and at little risk of being stained, and he reaches for the buttons of Taekwoon’s shirt. Taekwoon lets him, leaning back against a counter for support.
The piercing wounds crossing up and down Taekwoon’s sides and his arms are calculated. Yixing’s stomach heaves, and he has to cover his mouth to make sure that he won’t be sick. It looks like he’s been stuck through repeatedly with wide gauge needles, over and over again. Beyond torture, Yixing can imagine no situation that would lead to wounds like this. Taekwoon’s complexion is pale in the yellow glow of Yixing’s oven light. Yixing looks up into Taekwoon’s eyes, but even if Taekwoon were looking back at him, Yixing would find no answers. His expression is guarded, even under this level of duress. Yixing sighs and sets to work healing him, wasting no time with pretense.
He places his hand firmly over the first hole, high up on Taekwoon’s arm, feeling how it stretches beneath the skin all the way to the other side. Taekwoon’s bicep bunches beneath his touch, and Yixing glances up at him. Taekwoon is glaring down, his lips tight. He’s trembling; Yixing begins to heal him as they watch one another, hoping to at least ease the pain.
“Do you have to touch them?” Taekwoon asks as Yixing moves on to the next one. The first has withered down to a small scab on either side of his arm. It won’t even scar.
“Yes,” Yixing says, lowering his eyes and focusing. “That’s how…” He trails off, putting thought into the next wound to make his point. Taekwoon sighs, or maybe he huffs. Whatever it is, he accepts Yixing’s touch as he moves to the other arm, healing the two piercings there before moving to his waist. “What did this?” Yixing asks, already knowing that he won’t get an answer. Sure enough, Taekwoon tenses, his abdomen contracting away from Yixing’s hands. Yixing sighs and allows the silence to settle. He won’t get any answers tonight.
Yixing is already drained from his workday, but he continues to blatantly heal all of Taekwoon’s wounds. It’s what he came here for. By the time Yixing has finished the last hole, his head is throbbing and his vision is blurring at the edges. He swoons, taking a hold of the counter just to the side of Taekwoon. Taekwoon skirts out from under him, letting Yixing fall forward to catch his balance. “What’s going on?” he asks.
“Just…tired,” Yixing grits out. He settles down to the floor, feeling more stable down there, and when he looks up at Taekwoon, that accusing look is back in his eyes.
“You don’t know what you’re doing,” he says. But he doesn’t say it derisively. It’s just a statement. A fact. Yixing could take affront to it, he’s been doing this for sixteen years, but Taekwoon is right. Ever since his childhood, he’s never been able to control exactly what he’s doing. He only knows that he can do it, and usually that’s enough. He’s learned to not expect certainties; his ability generally does the right thing. He’s never hurt anybody before.
“Who taught you to do this?” Taekwoon asks next.
“Nobody. I don’t know anybody else who can do this. I don’t even know how you know,” Yixing tells him, taking a deep breath and pulling himself back to standing with the edge of the counter. Taekwoon puts his arms up a bit, as though to catch Yixing should he fall, but he puts them back down at his side as soon as he realizes Yixing has seen him doing this.
“Thank you,” Taekwoon says, buttoning up the first few buttons of his shirt as he makes his way out of the kitchen. Without a goodbye, only silence settling in his wake, he leaves. He does not slam the door this time. It closes with a gentle click.
Yixing thinks that he may have misjudged Taekwoon. He might be very level-headed indeed, barring whatever the situation is with his injuries. Yixing stumbles through his apartment back to his bedroom. If he were any less exhausted, he would probably stay up for hours worrying and wondering about his neighbor. Instead, he falls into bed and thanks heaven that he does not have a shift scheduled the next day before crashing into sleep once more.
Hae Na uses dolls to focus her powers when she does not have young, impressionable boys with the ability to manipulate others’ magic sitting around. She collects them and grooms them and keeps them. Taekwoon knows this well; he was one of her favorites. With her boys at her side, she can do anything with the power inside of her.
But she doesn’t have her boys with her anymore. She has to rely on her own crude stitchings to connect herself to someone like Taekwoon, somebody who can take her power and refine it, make it do things that she can’t do by herself. It’s how she can find them without knowing exactly where they are, hurt them without even having to touch them.
The dolls, crudely enough, do make useful voodoo dolls.
She’s piercing Taekwoon’s. He hasn’t heard from Hakyeon in a few days, so he doesn’t now if she has one for him. Wonshik and Sanghyuk should be safe from her torment, but Jaehwan may be suffering soon, if he’s not already. Wards will not hold up long against whatever voodoo she’s come up with now.
This is how Taekwoon woke up in the early hours of the morning in a panic, reaching for the skin at his side only to feel it pierced completely through to the other side. Only when he fully woke did he realize that it wasn’t the pain that roused him.
It’s a light-or, not a light. A feeling of light. A warmth without warmth. Whatever it is, it is safety, guiding him to where he will be hidden, sheltered from her. It’s how Taekwoon ends up at Yixing’s door, lifting his hand to knock and Yixing answering before he can. He doesn’t want to be here. His stomach curls with fear at the idea of being in the hands of another magic user, but Yixing ushers him in and Taekwoon is shocked.
Hae Na isn’t here. The piercing-she’s moved on to his arms now-has stopped. Hae Na cannot reach him in here. It’s almost as if she doesn’t exist, if only in this apartment; like Yixing has taken Taekwoon to a separate universe, where his tormenter cannot find him. The light, the warmth, it’s coming from here. This is a safe space.
Yixing leads him into the kitchen. His magic burns, but it doesn’t hurt. It’s hot, sparking, skating along his skin in disjointed currents. Taekwoon can feel it searing into him, ripping in between each layer of tissue as Yixing guides it clumsily to where its work resides. Taekwoon wants to pull away, wants to escape form it, but he can’t. It holds him in place, not like a spell but like a magnet.
“Does it hurt you?” Yixing asks him.
Taekwoon isn’t certain. He knows that he can feel it, the enormity of it, the aggressiveness of it. It’s there, in him, flooding like water from a burst dam. But does it hurt? Taekwoon tries not to think about it too resolutely, for when he does, he finds himself uncertain of whether the spark pains him or pleasures him in the end. Instead, he gives Yixing a blank look and falls back on his best defense, his silence.
No, Taekwoon thinks. It doesn’t hurt. Yixing’s touch eases the pain like warm water over cold hands. Taekwoon hates the way Yixing’s touch is so soft, so gentle, so harmless. Taekwoon knows that hands with power in them are never harmless. But Yixing tells him that he must touch to heal, so Taekwoon lets him. Yixing works in silence, and with no reluctance this time. Taekwoon supposes there’s no use hiding or disguising it now that he knows; this is what he came for, after all.
Taekwoon only realizes how inept Yixing is when he has to rest after such a short period of healing. A magic user who is untrained, isolated, and ignorant. Perhaps he is not as dangerous as Taekwoon assumed. Given that he isn’t lying.
“Thank you,” he tells Yixing before leaving. He closes the door behind him gently; Yixing will need quiet and rest to recover from such strain. If Taekwoon were any younger, any more naive, he would offer to help Yixing. He would teach him, and perhaps use him. It has been a long while since Taekwoon has used magic; Hae Na has shut him out of hers. As he climbs back into bed and stares at the ceiling, he wonders what he would find if he reached into Yixing. A puddle? a river? an ocean?
Hae Na has not found him, but her anger has. Taekwoon is as safe as he will ever be in his apartment, with a healer next door. The next time he seeks Yixing’s help, it’s for cuts. Shallow, thin; they could be paper cuts, if he could convince himself it were so. Crisscrossed along the back of his hand, up his wrist, along his forearm. Across his cheeks, around the back of his neck. Whiplike along the skin of his back. Yixing heals him without a word this time, seeming to know better than to ask their origin.
But Yixing worries for him. The more Yixing touches him, the more Taekwoon feels his energy, the more he can read Yixing. He wants to ask. Why? What does it matter to you? But Taekwoon is a smarter man than to tempt fate. Yixing’s rooms are the only haven Taekwoon has found from Hae Na’s wrath. He doesn’t know what price will come with them, what horrors he will have to endure down the line to pay for the protection he’s taking right now, but from such an inexperienced magic user, Taekwoon expects that he will have less trouble than Hae Na gives him. All the power in the world is useless when it’s cooped up, cut off from use. A battery with no port. A body can only run so much energy through it, like blood clogging a catheter-Yixing would kill himself before he could kill Taekwoon.
So Taekwoon comes back. He comes back over and over again. For bruises, for burns, for cuts, for wounds that cut straight into him. Yixing even puts his eye back in one night when Hae Na finds it funny to gouge it out. The horrors of her abuse never stagnate; they are always fresh. Taekwoon’s panic feels new, foreign, every single time it comes to him. He clings to the small reprieve life has given him; Yixing’s power is unbelievable, the things that he can do. But in his ignorance, he always comes away nauseous, always comes away with a headache, always comes away ill for healing someone else’s woes.
It wouldn’t hurt Yixing if Taekwoon were to take a look; it wouldn’t hurt either of them, so he does. It’s not hard. Yixing is already touching him, his power is simmering at the surface, the connection is already there. Taekwoon closes his eyes and reaches back, through Yixing’s clumsy stream of energy, and he peers inside.
What he sees is not a river. It is not a lake, or an ocean, or a planet. What he sees inside Yixing is a galaxy. Star after star burning inside of him, such a wealth of power that Taekwoon loses his breath looking at it. He can’t even see the extent of Yixing’s abilities, so vast inside of him, sprawling astronomically. Taekwoon has only ever known Hae Na’s touch, Hae Na’s power. She is a pond, and Yixing is a galaxy. He comes out, breathing hard, and Yixing watches him strangely.
“Am I hurting you?” Yixing asks for what must be the hundredth time since this arrangement began.
Taekwoon has to take a moment before answering. “No,” Taekwoon tells him, “you’re not.” But he could. If Yixing used everything inside of him, if anybody could use everything that is inside of him, they could make him hurt a lot.
Taekwoon doesn’t come back every single day. Sometimes it’s a week between visits, sometimes it’s only a few days, but it never takes longer than that for whatever is ailing him to return. Yixing doesn’t know what to do. He can’t call the police; or, he could, but what would he say? What would Taekwoon say? Yixing doesn’t even worry about how he would explain his own abilities to the police, but he worries a lot about what would happen to Taekwoon. Yixing seriously doubts that whatever put Taekwoon into this situation can be presented in a simple, innocent explanation.
There is darkness and evil in those wounds that he heals. Yixing doesn’t know what to do, so he does what he can do. He puts his hands on Taekwoon’s broken skin, and he thinks of peace. Of everything that can go wrong in the body, and how it might go right. The energy works of its own accord, filling in the spaces where Yixing lacks the knowledge or the precision. By Taekwoon’s third visit, he’s figured out where Yixing keeps his tea and begins to make him a cup after every session.
Yixing sits on the floor as Taekwoon hands him a mug. He pulls his sleeves over his hands before he takes it because it’s still steaming. The porcelain is warm beyond the cotton of his hoodie. Taekwoon fetches a plastic cup for himself, filling it with water and sipping slowly. His face is still beaded with sweat, his skin still pale. Yixing can see the remnants of pain on him, even though he knows that Taekwoon’s pain should have passed.
“Why do you come here?” Yixing asks that night. Taekwoon doesn’t talk much. It seems that beyond accusing Yixing of witchcraft, he never has much to say. Yixing has never been averse to silence before, but he feels very alone when it seems that he’s the only one of the two of them who feels the desire to be closer, to share something as big as this. It’s not that there hasn’t been any progress-Taekwoon is still standing in his kitchen, drinking a cup of water, minutes after Yixing has finished healing him. It’s a far cry from his short thanks and departure immediately after Yixing finished the first night he came. But Taekwoon holds himself away from Yixing; it’s almost a physical barrier between them, something Yixing has to scale. Taekwoon wouldn’t let him.
“What do you mean?” Taekwoon asks, setting his cup aside. He stands upright, arms folded over his chest. His shirt is still bloody; Yixing thinks about buying him a new one as a gift, for all of the shirts he must have had to dispose of by now.
“Why do you come here instead of going to the hospital? Since you don’t like my methods. Why do you keep coming back?”
Taekwoon watches Yixing for a while, frowning down at him. It’s not a look someone would make if they don’t know the answer. Yixing can see that Taekwoon knows exactly why he comes back here, to a place where he’s uncomfortable, into the hands of a man he doesn’t trust. It could be as simple as privacy, Taekwoon not wanting to put himself in the care of someone who might report their findings to the police; but if that were so, why would Taekwoon hide that from him? Yixing only wants to know why Taekwoon comes only to him because Taekwoon is so reluctant to tell him.
“You don’t charge,” he says in the end. Yixing blinks, and then smiles.
“You made a joke,” he says, his voice hopping with laughter.
Taekwoon smiles; or he doesn’t really smile, but his lips twitch in a way that Yixing thinks could be a smile. Yixing smiles wider, reaching up to place his tea on the counter before pulling himself to standing. “I didn’t know you smiled, either.” Taekwoon’s eyes lower and he nods, the mirth falling from his expression. Yixing takes a step forward. Taekwoon tenses, but he relaxes after a beat. Yixing wants to reach out and touch him, but he abstains; he’s already taking too much leniency with Taekwoon’s trust as it is.
“I understand why you wouldn’t want to tell me about whoever is hurting you. But if you ever find that you cannot handle this by yourself-” he gestures towards Taekwoon’s healed body, remembering how battered it’s been, “-I want to help you. I’ll be here.”
Taekwoon continues to stare at the floor, his lips thin and tight, but beyond that, Yixing cannot see his expression enough to read it. Yixing sighs and reaches for his mug, lifting it off of the counter and up to his lips. When he sets it back down and glances over towards Taekwoon, Taekwoon has already straightened and moved away, towards the entrance of the kitchen. “Thank you,” he says before disappearing off into the hall. Escaping back to his own apartment again. Yixing follows behind him to make sure the front door is closed, for he hadn’t heard it click, but it is.
Taekwoon already knows that Hakyeon is at his door before he opens it. His bond with Hakyeon goes way back, to the days when they were in school together. Taekwoon will always be able to feel Hakyeon if he is close, so it’s not that Hakyeon is there that surprises Taekwoon. It’s how he looks.
Taekwoon doesn’t even invite him in, he just takes Hakyeon by the arm and leads him through the sparsely furnished apartment to a chair. Hakyeon sits in it heavily, not meeting Taekwoon’s eyes. Taekwoon doesn’t have another chair, so he stands, first crossing his arms over his chest, and then unfolding them and tucking his hands into his pockets. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other, each side becoming uncomfortable very quickly and leaving him shifting awkwardly. Still, Hakyeon will not look at him.
“Is this about the dolls?” Taekwoon asks.
Without looking up, Hakyeon nods. He’s wearing long sleeves; Taekwoon’s own flesh prickles from his fresh wounds, but his skin is unmarred: a great victory from the efforts of the healer next door. He realizes with a start how he must look to Hakyeon. As though Hae Na hasn’t gotten around to him yet. Perhaps Hakyeon is worried; he still hasn’t said what he’s come to say. Taekwoon waits patiently.
“Jaehwan,” Hakyeon finally chokes out, staring down at the ground. Taekwoon frowns. This isn’t what he expected. Hakyeon is trembling, but he’s silent. The apartment is so quiet that Taekwoon can hear the soft, wet sound of tears dripping onto the linoleum between Hakyeon’s feet. For the longest time, it’s the only sound, until Hakyeon takes a sobbing, shuddering inhale, and Taekwoon’s stomach drops.
Not another one.
Taekwoon slowly lowers himself down to the floor, bracing for a fall. His knees are weak, ankles unsteady, and his head swoons, leaving him feeling as though he is going to fall and fall and fall forever. Taekwoon should have known, he should have known, Jaewhan’s wards wouldn’t keep him hidden, they wouldn’t keep him safe. Taekwoon should have known. Jaewhan wouldn’t have a healer just across the dividing wall like Taekwoon does, of course he was in danger. Taekwoon never even thought to seek him out. He should have known, he should have known-
“Stop,” Hakyeon tells him. Taekwoon breathes in, his first breath in almost a minute. His hands are fisted in his hair, pulling, his body hunched over, making himself small. He doesn’t remember doing this, but it feels fitting. Hakyeon has slid down off of the chair, kneeling before him, and though his eyes are red and swollen and his cheeks are wet, he takes Taekwoon’s hands in his own and pulls them down, rubbing his thumbs in to relax them. “There’s nothing you could have done.”
“I could have warned him, I knew she was doing this, I could have gotten him out-“
“You don’t even know where he was,” Hakyeon reminds him, gently accepting Taekwoon into his arms. Their tears continue to stream, and it’s Hongbin all over again. Taekwoon squeezes his eyes shut until he sees spots and his head hurts. He will not think of Hongbin. Not right now.
“We have to stop,” Taekwoon cuts in abruptly, his voice cracking. “We can’t-we can’t think about him. Hae Na, she’ll-“
“She’s not here,” Hakyeon says. Taekwoon looks up at him, frowning. “Her eyes are everywhere, looking for us, but we’re in the dark here.” He meets Taekwoon’s wary gaze, watching him for a moment before asking, “It isn’t your wards, is it?”
Taekwoon shakes his head. “The healer next door,” he says, but doesn’t finish his thought. Hakyeon’s eyes widen a bit, and he sniffles. His tear-streaked face shines in the scant light of the apartment, but his expression is young and hopeful. Taekwoon bows his head to look away from it.
“That’s-” Hakyeon cuts off, reaching forward to place a hand against Taekwoon’s chest. “That’s who I’m feeling,” he finishes, a weak smile pulling at his lips. He wipes his face dry with his sleeve, even though his eyes continue to well and overflow. “Taekwoon, I can feel him on you. He’s close-you said next door?” Taekwoon continues to stare at the ground in silence. “Taekwoon, I can see your bond. You’ve bound yourself to him.”
Taekwoon flinches, shocked by the idea, but he does not look up. He shakes his head, scowling. “No. I didn’t. I wouldn’t. Not after…”
Hakyeon is quiet for a moment, waiting for Taekwoon to finish before deciding that he will not. “Not all magic users are like her,” he says, his voice rough from crying but steady and sage anyways. “And you can pretend that you haven’t, but you have bound yourself to him.”
“I didn’t,” Taekwoon insists. “I didn’t do anything. I only-all he does is heal me. I haven’t taken anything from him, I haven’t let him do anything else.”
Hakyeon sighs, pulling his hand away and drawing his knees up to his chest. “I don’t know what to tell you. I can see it Taekwoon. Maybe you didn’t mean to, but you did.” When Taekwoon remains silent, Hakyeon continues. “It’s not a bad thing. He’s protecting you. Hae Na can’t come in here while he’s with you. She’ll never find you while you stay here.”
Taekwoon looks up at him, frowning. “He couldn’t-” Oh, Taekwoon thinks, but he could. The galaxy that is Yixing could certainly hide him, if Yixing cared strongly enough. Taekwoon wonders, if Yixing knew what he was doing with his power, whether or not he could protect Taekwoon from Hae Na’s wrath, the pain that she sends out blindly. He thinks about how the torture always stops when he steps inside Yixing’s apartment. There could be no limits to what Yixing could do, if only he knew what he was doing.
“He is,” Hakyeon says after Taekwoon has been thinking for too long. “You’ve been thinking about him a lot, haven’t you? You can’t not feel it. It’s so bright, Taekwoon.”
“This isn’t what you came here for,” Taekwoon says abruptly, feeling as though he might be sick if Hakyeon says one more word about the healer. It could be anxiety, or it could be anticipation, he isn’t sure. He hasn’t felt either so strongly since Hae Na. When Taekwoon looks up, Hakyeon’s face is creased unhappily, on the verge of tears once more, and Taekwoon ducks his head, mumbling an apology.
“I’m going to stay with Wonshik,” Hakyeon tells him. The moment Hakyeon says it, a world of weight lifts from Taekwoon’s shoulders. Hakyeon is following Wonshik into the mountains, where he’ll be safe, hidden. Her magic might reach him, but not as strong and not as precise. It won’t be anything that could kill him. Hakyeon will be safe. “You could come with me,” Hakyeon says after a moment.
“No. You go. I need to stay in the city, where-”
“Where she can see you?” Hakyeon leans forward, frowning. “It’s over, Taekwoon. We’re getting out. You don’t have to play decoy anymore.”
Taekwoon shrugs, glancing up at Hakyeon but immediately back down. He hates the conviction he can see there. “It’ll take you some time to get to Wonshik. At least if she can see me, she won’t go after you.” He nods towards the dividing wall. “Besides, I’ve got a healer next door. I’ll be fine.”
Hakyeon reaches for Taekwoon’s hand; Taekwoon gives it to him. “Don’t do anything stupid,” Hakyeon says. Taekwoon just smiles for him. “You’ll catch up to us, right? After everybody else is safe?”
“Yes,” Taekwoon lies. It’s what Hakyeon needs to hear right now. He offers Hakyeon his bed, but Hakyeon takes to the night, preferring to move in the humming electricity of darkness. Taekwoon leaves at an hour’s interval from Hakyeon’s departure to take a walk around the city. Hae Na will be searching for him over Hakyeon, anyways.
He tries not to think about Jaehwan, but his heart feels swollen with sadness. Remorse. Guilt. If Taekwoon had gotten them out sooner, if Taekwoon had thought to warn them about the dolls, if Taekwoon hadn’t fallen in love with a monster in the first place. He feels the blood of two friends on his hands; he clenches them into fists inside his pockets. When he can no longer feel Hakyeon in the city, Taekwoon begins to amble back to his apartment. Hae Na’s first incisions are parting the flesh of his chest, piercing, phantom pain cutting into him in neat, claw-like patterns.
He hasn’t even come halfway down the hall when Yixing opens his door and steps out to greet him. Something in Taekwoon knew that he would-the bond, he thinks-but Yixing wouldn’t know what called him out. It doesn’t matter. His eyes narrow skeptically, searching over Taekwoon’s body. “Here,” he says, pointing to his chest. Yixing’s lips tighten, his eyes shining sadly. He reaches out, and Taekwoon steps into his embrace, allowing Yixing to lead him into the dining room.
The moment Yixing touches him, Hae Na’s wrath is ripped away from his body. Taekwoon takes a deep breath and squeezes Yixing’s hand. Yixing does not seem to notice. Taekwoon takes a seat at the table, pushing out at an angle so that Yixing can reach him. He pulls off his jacket and then his shirt. Yixing’s eyes flit between the open wounds and his bared flesh.
Much like it has been for weeks, Yixing feels that something is wrong before he can see it. Taekwoon is not in his apartment, and neither is the man who came by earlier. Yixing could not feel him the way he does Taekwoon, but he could hear their voices through the wall whenever they spoke loud enough. Yixing will reluctantly admit that he was listening.
He does not know who the man was, only that he left and Taekwoon soon followed after him. Yixing waited for his return, and now he feels it. He steps out into the hallway, hoping that Taekwoon is alone. He is, but his face is pale and pinched, and Yixing knows that he is in pain. He searches for the injuries, but finds nothing. Taekwoon raises his hand, wincing when he does, and points to his chest. “Here,” he says. Yixing reaches for him, and to his surprise, Taekwoon accepts his hold. He tries to maintain a respectful distance when he leads Taekwoon into his kitchen.
Taekwoon strips himself once he’s seated, and Yixing’s stomach revolts at the half-finished pattern of cuts across Taekwoon’s pectorals. As though whoever was doing this stopped abruptly. Yixing wonders if Taekwoon overpowered his attacker. But then, the marks would be more jagged, wouldn’t they? Yixing would expect to see defensive wounds. These are precise, neat, clean. Just like all the wounds that have come before them. Yixing presses his hand to one pectoral, the span of his fingers not reaching across the entirety of the muscle. The cut is deep. Yixing has to sink his focus all the way down to begin pulling the edges back together.
It’s still tiring. Taekwoon sits calm and patient for him, quiet as he’s ever been, but Yixing’s head hurts before he’s even finished healing half of the cuts. He leaves them behind as scars, not on purpose, but because he cannot work hard enough to smooth the skin back down once he’s finished. His world is swaying from side to side, the corners of his vision darkening. He does not come to until Taekwoon takes him by the wrist and forces him away.
“You’re exhausted,” Taekwoon tells him. Yixing blinks, and then smiles at him.
“I’m just a little hungry. Maybe I can make us something to eat after this.” He tries to reach forward to resume, but Taekwoon holds him still. Yixing looks up at him, surprised, and tries again. Taekwoon holds him back. Yixing frowns. “Taekwoon, you are bleeding too much. I have to at least close them up.” Taekwoon, in his silent way, doesn’t relent. Yixing frowns at him and makes a split-second decision. By and large, split-second decisions don’t do well, especially when there’s magic involved, but this one goes over better than most.
Taekwoon doesn’t shove him, and that’s more than Yixing could expect from anybody.
“You’re exhausted.” This magic user is artless, and now he is weak. A weak healer is no healer at all; Taekwoon physically holds him back from using himself up in one night. He’s noticed Yixing working until he can hardly stand, but Yixing isn’t nearly finished and he’s already swaying. Yixing’s smile is dim and slow when he responds.
“I’m just a little hungry. Maybe I can make us something to eat after this.” Taekwoon likes the sound of that; he’s not sure how he feels about how much he likes it. He’d probably like it a lot more if Yixing weren’t pushing weakly against his grip. This weary enchanter knows no limits. “Taekwoon, you are bleeding too much. I have to at least close them up.” Yixing continues to push, but Taekwoon holds him back with ease. He’ll survive until Yixing has had a nap and something to eat.
“If you get hurt, that doesn’t help either of us,” Taekwoon explains to him, pushing Yixing back with the grip on his wrists. “I’ll be fine until you can start healing again-“
Yixing ducks forward, and Taekwoon gasps. He flinches back, but he’s still holding Yixing’s wrists, so he just ends up pulling Yixing with him. Yixing presses his lips to the wide chasm of separated flesh marring Taekwoon’s chest. He opens his mouth, the lesion’s edges coming together as he kisses them closed. Taekwoon’s heart is thudding, he’s barely breathing, and if he just looks down his lips will be in Yixing’s hair, he could kiss Yixing’s head like Yixing is kissing him, tender, attentive-
“Yixing, stop,” he chokes out. Yixing does pull away, glancing up at him with blood on his lips. His tongue flicks out, but he makes a face when it does, like he didn’t mean to taste Taekwoon’s blood. Taekwoon’s throat swells so that nothing can pass through it, not a protest or a cry of disgust. That same blood that ran through Taekwoon’s veins, that carried Hae Na’s evil for so long, is somehow pure on Yixing’s lips. When Taekwoon says nothing else, Yixing bows his head to continue. He licks up the long lines of the wounds, sealing them shut much easier than when he used his hands.
But he still sways when he comes up. Taekwoon’s chest is bloody but healed, and he holds Yixing against it to keep him from falling over. Yixing slumps into him, breathing shallowly. His chin is smeared red, and it turns Taekwoon’s stomach how much he wants to lick it clean. “Shower,” he says aloud. Yixing nods against him.