Suggest a pairing (gen is fine too) & prompt and I'll do my best to write you something short. All comments are screened (until filled, of course), and I make no promises. ♥
Zitao's dreams skip along a timeline. Each snatch of dream is like walking back into a movie that keeps playing while he's away. His dream body knows dance routines and songs that his waking mind doesn't. He learns how to say skinship, appreciation, synchronized, in Korean. He slips into concerts, dance practices, vacations. Photoshoots, where his bandmates tickle his stomach and pull on his clothes. Kris making him instant noodles in the kitchen, humming off-key while sucking on a chopstick, face plastered in a clay mask. Zitao furtively buys himself a clay mask one weekend and tries it on. It comes out tacky, thick, a grey smear across his cheeks and forehead. When he looks in the mirror, he half expects to see Tao looking back at him. He's disappointed when the door opens and it's just his roommate, who snorts, "What the hell are you doing?"
"I don't know," Zitao answers truthfully.
In the next dream, Tao asks Kris to help him with a facemask. Kris' hands are light and expert against Tao's face, like water working against stone, kneading. Zitao thinks that this man, he can't be simply made of Zitao's imagination. Zitao's never felt anyone's fingers like that before. He's never known anyone like Kris before. Somewhere, Kris must be real. Maybe, Zitao thinks, he's the one Tao dreams up, and not the other way around.
-
Narcolepsy can be treated, but not cured. Zitao's already tried medication, simulants, antidepressants. He'd change his lifestyle, but he already avoids caffeine and exercises regularly. His mother tried to put him on a schedule of herbal supplements and teas. It just ended up giving him a stomachache.
Sometimes he's afraid that it's not the drugs. Sometimes he's afraid it's just him, that maybe if he stopped wanting his dream life, he could let it go. Who wouldn't want to be famous? Who wouldn't to be loved? But that's not how narcolepsy works, his doctors tell him. They're genetic mutations, an irresistible pull of your body towards atypical sleep cycles. You don’t get to control how much or what kind of proteins your brain produces. There's nothing Zitao could do.
Yet when he slips into his dreams and he wakes up in Kris' arms, Kris' hair draped inelegantly in his eyes, his breath stale in the morning and his smile as radiant as the light outside their hotel windows, Zitao thinks, there is responsibility in desire. His body pulls towards Kris, scraped free from Kris' body and set adrift like a satellite, always circling, vigilant. He thinks of Kris as an eclipse, stuck between Tao and Zitao. He waxes and wanes with the tides of his own subconscious.
"You're always smiling in your dreams," his friends tell him. "You look so peaceful."
Tao er, at least try smiling for the camera today, Kris jokes. You always look so troubled.
We are one, Zitao thinks. Within dreams, and without. He closes his eyes, not dreaming, not awake.
asdjflkjalghlgdskjfl;s this is amazing!! I loved the parts about REM sleep and the parts about Kris's fingers and the parts about clay masks and the parts about EDS and the parts about Chinese herbal remedies, and I LOVED ALL THE PARTS; thanks so much for writing this!
Zitao's dreams skip along a timeline. Each snatch of dream is like walking back into a movie that keeps playing while he's away. His dream body knows dance routines and songs that his waking mind doesn't. He learns how to say skinship, appreciation, synchronized, in Korean. He slips into concerts, dance practices, vacations. Photoshoots, where his bandmates tickle his stomach and pull on his clothes. Kris making him instant noodles in the kitchen, humming off-key while sucking on a chopstick, face plastered in a clay mask. Zitao furtively buys himself a clay mask one weekend and tries it on. It comes out tacky, thick, a grey smear across his cheeks and forehead. When he looks in the mirror, he half expects to see Tao looking back at him. He's disappointed when the door opens and it's just his roommate, who snorts, "What the hell are you doing?"
"I don't know," Zitao answers truthfully.
In the next dream, Tao asks Kris to help him with a facemask. Kris' hands are light and expert against Tao's face, like water working against stone, kneading. Zitao thinks that this man, he can't be simply made of Zitao's imagination. Zitao's never felt anyone's fingers like that before. He's never known anyone like Kris before. Somewhere, Kris must be real. Maybe, Zitao thinks, he's the one Tao dreams up, and not the other way around.
-
Narcolepsy can be treated, but not cured. Zitao's already tried medication, simulants, antidepressants. He'd change his lifestyle, but he already avoids caffeine and exercises regularly. His mother tried to put him on a schedule of herbal supplements and teas. It just ended up giving him a stomachache.
Sometimes he's afraid that it's not the drugs. Sometimes he's afraid it's just him, that maybe if he stopped wanting his dream life, he could let it go. Who wouldn't want to be famous? Who wouldn't to be loved? But that's not how narcolepsy works, his doctors tell him. They're genetic mutations, an irresistible pull of your body towards atypical sleep cycles. You don’t get to control how much or what kind of proteins your brain produces. There's nothing Zitao could do.
Yet when he slips into his dreams and he wakes up in Kris' arms, Kris' hair draped inelegantly in his eyes, his breath stale in the morning and his smile as radiant as the light outside their hotel windows, Zitao thinks, there is responsibility in desire. His body pulls towards Kris, scraped free from Kris' body and set adrift like a satellite, always circling, vigilant. He thinks of Kris as an eclipse, stuck between Tao and Zitao. He waxes and wanes with the tides of his own subconscious.
"You're always smiling in your dreams," his friends tell him. "You look so peaceful."
Tao er, at least try smiling for the camera today, Kris jokes. You always look so troubled.
We are one, Zitao thinks. Within dreams, and without. He closes his eyes, not dreaming, not awake.
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sorry this took so long!
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