it’s not the fire that burns, but the air around it (Kyuhyun/Zhou Mi, PG13)
Title: it’s not the fire that burns, but the air around it
Author: Anonymous
Recipient: windlost
Characters/Pairings: Zhou Mi, Kyuhyun / Kyuhyun/Zhou Mi / ((?)/Zhou Mi)
Rating: PG-13
Genre(s): psychological / romance
Warnings: angst / mental illness
Author's Note: thaaaanks to s. for betaing. ♥
He gets the nicer one this morning, Dr. Kim who wears her hair in a neat tight bun and whose blouses never seem to fit properly, the one who smells like an amalgamation of baby powder and rubber and disinfectant. Today her lipstick is a violent shade of red, congealed-blood-guts-intestines red, and there is a violet continent-shaped bruise peeking out from beneath her collar, poorly hidden by powder foundation.
She smiles at him. There is lipstick smeared over her teeth, too. “Nurse Choi says you’ve been feeling much better lately.”
Zhou Mi absorbs the words, processes them, decides they don’t comprise a question, and therefore don’t necessitate a reponse. He nods dutifully nevertheless. He’s only being an obedient boy for Kyuhyun, anyway. They’ll only let him see Kyuhyun if he’s nice to his nurses and answers all their questions, and when he misbehaves he’s left alone for weeks on end and it’s unpleasant, to say the least. No man is an island, he remembers reading somewhere. Solitude would drive anyone mad.
“You look much better, that’s for sure.” She scribbles something on her notepad in stereotypically illegible doctor’s script. “You’ve been taking your medication regularly, right?”
He knows she already has the answer in front of her - Nurse Choi administers and monitors every pill he takes - but he nods.
“Sungmin’s coming in to see you again tomorrow.” She smiles. “Are you looking forward to it?”
He thinks Sungmin is a really odd pseudonym to use, and isn’t sure why Kyuhyun even needs one in the first place, but he doesn’t care, it doesn’t matter, Kyuhyun is coming and that’s all that counts. “Yes,” he says. He averts his gaze from the mirror behind her and tries a strained smile, even though it makes his jaw ache. Kyuhyun said Zhou Mi used to smile constantly, that it was his default expression, but his facial muscles don’t seem to follow his brain’s commands very easily anymore. “I am.”
--
Mario pays him a visit every Monday, sometimes more frequently than that, usually materialising atop Zhou Mi’s bedside table, or beside Zhou Mi when he’s out for his scheduled morning walk. This Mario doesn’t collect golden coins or slide down pipes, the way Zhou Mi is vaguely aware he should. But he knows nearly everything about everything - the algorithms behind sudoku puzzles, what a man looks like deconstructed, the scent of a human body set ablaze, and the theory of the universal wavefunction, which implicates that all possible alternate histories and futures are real, that there is another separate universe for every possibility.
“Then there must be a world where Kyuhyun and I can be together all the time,” Zhou Mi said, once. And then, feeling brave: “If you could, maybe …” He trailed off.
“That isn’t how it works. You’re already with Kyuhyun, in that alternate world - but it’s a different you. The you that’s here and now can’t cross over.”
Mario has his limitations, too.
---
Sometimes at night he dreams - at least he thinks they are dreams, it’s difficult to tell - about his other selves. This specific dream is more vivid than all the rest: stagelights so bright he can’t see. Screams drowning out the sound of his own voice. The audience falling quiet when he steps onto the stage, a malicious kind of silence. Kyuhyun beside him, their fingers locked together.
When he wakes up he’s not sure whether or not to categorise it as a nightmare.
---
Zhou Mi hasn’t been further than walking distance from the House in a long, long time, but he likes it that way. He used to go on roadtrips a lot, he knows, but his memories of them are myopic, fragments of recollection like comic-book panels, jigsaw pieces. Crimson-gold light filtering in through the car window, the cricks in his neck upon waking up in the back seat, learning to recognise landmarks by the stories Kyuhyun told him.
He can’t do cars anymore, had to be sedated the last time they’d taken him out. Can’t do mirrors either, and avoids reflective surfaces because they never show him anything he wants to see. Rearview mirrors are the worst - nothing ever looks good in a rearview mirror.
---
The doctor’s offices in the House are all an appropriately clinical shade of cream, and most of the others are jail-cell-pink, but Room 302’s walls are covered with pale pink, glossy Hello Kitty paper. Zhou Mi picked it out himself. Hello Kitty makes for good company when he’s alone, which is 90% of the time.
They’ve reduced his pill intake lately. He’s down to six a day only, he’s been such a good boy. Powdery pink and blue and yellow. Valentine candy heart shapes.
His morning intake is halfway down his throat when a knock comes at the door. It opens silently, which Zhou Mi thinks is rather a pity. He prefers doors that creak. They have more character.
“Zhou Mi?”
He swallows and looks up.
Time passes differently in the House. All the days bleed together, and Zhou Mi marks the calendar in his head by Kyuhyun’s visits, by the minute changes he sees manifesting themselves in Kyuhyun’s body every time he comes. The crow’s feet around his eyes. Aging. Death. Concepts he’s aware of, naturally, but are disconcerting to witness.
Kyuhyun’s smile is always nervous, coloured with something like - fear? Zhou Mi doesn’t like it. His memories of life before coming to the House are limited but clear, and he’s positive Kyuhyun never used to look like this. Kyuhyun was always cocksure.
But he’ll take what he can get.
“I haven’t seen you in too long. I’m sorry. Life has been busy.” Kyuhyun’s voice is unsteady, higher than it used to be. “You look well. Have they been treating you properly here?”
“You sound like one of the doctors.” Zhou Mi reaches out to grab a fistful of Kyuhyun’s shirt, dragging him in, and Kyuhyun doesn’t resist. Not like he had the first few times. “You know the answers already. Have you missed me?”
Kyuhyun kisses him in response. It’s not an answer, but it’s a close enough approximation.
The old Kyuhyun would have called this a sin, what they do together in the dark. He always loathed even being touched back then, Zhou Mi recalls. Had only been fine with physical contact if he were the one instigating it. But time changes everyone. For better or for worse.
Zhou Mi’s hands push Kyuhyun’s shirt up, roam over the smooth expanse of Kyuhyun’s stomach. There were scars there before, pink and raised and lipgloss-shiny; he has memories of running his tongue along their ragged edges. The skin is smooth now, perfectly healed. He doesn’t ask how that happened. There are questions that are better left unasked and unanswered.
“You’ve gained weight.” Zhou Mi rests his index finger against the pulse point on Kyuhyun’s neck. It’s reassuring, Kyuhyun’s pulse, the blood coursing through Kyuhyun’s veins. Heartbeat like the bassline of a song. “You always ate too much. Now your metabolism’s caught up with you, hasn’t it.”
Kyuhyun just makes a soft muffled noise. He’s quieter than he used to be, and when he shifts to kiss Zhou Mi the shape of his lips against Zhou Mi’s feels - wrong, somehow, like attempting to slot together jigsaw pieces from different puzzles, or something, but it’s time to abort this line of thought. He’s not supposed to think like that, the past isn’t safe to dwell on, and anyway he’s happy, astonishingly happy, how could he not be with Kyuhyun’s hand around his cock, so warm and rough and tight.
“Kyuhyun,” Zhou Mi mouths as he comes. “Kyuhyun, Kyuhyun - ”
Kyuhyun never lingers afterward, which suits Zhou Mi just fine. Orgasms exhaust him; he can never keep his eyes open afterward, and anyway it’s getting late. Time for his third and final dose of medicine for the day.
Nurse Choi rolls in the tray with pills all lined up in a neat little row, a tiny paper cup of water. Kyuhyun always has a private chat with Nurse Choi afterwards, in urgent low hushed voices, and Zhou Mi always makes out the same scattered pieces of dialogue every time. Not much improvement - can’t remember - the accident was years ago - his outlook appears - still thinks I’m -
Kyuhyun turns around. “I’ll.” He swallows. Zhou Mi watches the movement of his adam’s apple bobbing. So nervous, all the time. “I’ll be back, okay? Be - be good.”
Zhou Mi nods. Smiles.
Watches Kyuhyun leave room 302 for the last time.
This entry was originally posted at http://sujuexchange.dreamwidth.org/10316.html?mode=reply. Please comment there using OpenID (i.e., your LJ account's URL).
Author: Anonymous
Recipient: windlost
Characters/Pairings: Zhou Mi, Kyuhyun / Kyuhyun/Zhou Mi / ((?)/Zhou Mi)
Rating: PG-13
Genre(s): psychological / romance
Warnings: angst / mental illness
Author's Note: thaaaanks to s. for betaing. ♥
He gets the nicer one this morning, Dr. Kim who wears her hair in a neat tight bun and whose blouses never seem to fit properly, the one who smells like an amalgamation of baby powder and rubber and disinfectant. Today her lipstick is a violent shade of red, congealed-blood-guts-intestines red, and there is a violet continent-shaped bruise peeking out from beneath her collar, poorly hidden by powder foundation.
She smiles at him. There is lipstick smeared over her teeth, too. “Nurse Choi says you’ve been feeling much better lately.”
Zhou Mi absorbs the words, processes them, decides they don’t comprise a question, and therefore don’t necessitate a reponse. He nods dutifully nevertheless. He’s only being an obedient boy for Kyuhyun, anyway. They’ll only let him see Kyuhyun if he’s nice to his nurses and answers all their questions, and when he misbehaves he’s left alone for weeks on end and it’s unpleasant, to say the least. No man is an island, he remembers reading somewhere. Solitude would drive anyone mad.
“You look much better, that’s for sure.” She scribbles something on her notepad in stereotypically illegible doctor’s script. “You’ve been taking your medication regularly, right?”
He knows she already has the answer in front of her - Nurse Choi administers and monitors every pill he takes - but he nods.
“Sungmin’s coming in to see you again tomorrow.” She smiles. “Are you looking forward to it?”
He thinks Sungmin is a really odd pseudonym to use, and isn’t sure why Kyuhyun even needs one in the first place, but he doesn’t care, it doesn’t matter, Kyuhyun is coming and that’s all that counts. “Yes,” he says. He averts his gaze from the mirror behind her and tries a strained smile, even though it makes his jaw ache. Kyuhyun said Zhou Mi used to smile constantly, that it was his default expression, but his facial muscles don’t seem to follow his brain’s commands very easily anymore. “I am.”
--
Mario pays him a visit every Monday, sometimes more frequently than that, usually materialising atop Zhou Mi’s bedside table, or beside Zhou Mi when he’s out for his scheduled morning walk. This Mario doesn’t collect golden coins or slide down pipes, the way Zhou Mi is vaguely aware he should. But he knows nearly everything about everything - the algorithms behind sudoku puzzles, what a man looks like deconstructed, the scent of a human body set ablaze, and the theory of the universal wavefunction, which implicates that all possible alternate histories and futures are real, that there is another separate universe for every possibility.
“Then there must be a world where Kyuhyun and I can be together all the time,” Zhou Mi said, once. And then, feeling brave: “If you could, maybe …” He trailed off.
“That isn’t how it works. You’re already with Kyuhyun, in that alternate world - but it’s a different you. The you that’s here and now can’t cross over.”
Mario has his limitations, too.
---
Sometimes at night he dreams - at least he thinks they are dreams, it’s difficult to tell - about his other selves. This specific dream is more vivid than all the rest: stagelights so bright he can’t see. Screams drowning out the sound of his own voice. The audience falling quiet when he steps onto the stage, a malicious kind of silence. Kyuhyun beside him, their fingers locked together.
When he wakes up he’s not sure whether or not to categorise it as a nightmare.
---
Zhou Mi hasn’t been further than walking distance from the House in a long, long time, but he likes it that way. He used to go on roadtrips a lot, he knows, but his memories of them are myopic, fragments of recollection like comic-book panels, jigsaw pieces. Crimson-gold light filtering in through the car window, the cricks in his neck upon waking up in the back seat, learning to recognise landmarks by the stories Kyuhyun told him.
He can’t do cars anymore, had to be sedated the last time they’d taken him out. Can’t do mirrors either, and avoids reflective surfaces because they never show him anything he wants to see. Rearview mirrors are the worst - nothing ever looks good in a rearview mirror.
---
The doctor’s offices in the House are all an appropriately clinical shade of cream, and most of the others are jail-cell-pink, but Room 302’s walls are covered with pale pink, glossy Hello Kitty paper. Zhou Mi picked it out himself. Hello Kitty makes for good company when he’s alone, which is 90% of the time.
They’ve reduced his pill intake lately. He’s down to six a day only, he’s been such a good boy. Powdery pink and blue and yellow. Valentine candy heart shapes.
His morning intake is halfway down his throat when a knock comes at the door. It opens silently, which Zhou Mi thinks is rather a pity. He prefers doors that creak. They have more character.
“Zhou Mi?”
He swallows and looks up.
Time passes differently in the House. All the days bleed together, and Zhou Mi marks the calendar in his head by Kyuhyun’s visits, by the minute changes he sees manifesting themselves in Kyuhyun’s body every time he comes. The crow’s feet around his eyes. Aging. Death. Concepts he’s aware of, naturally, but are disconcerting to witness.
Kyuhyun’s smile is always nervous, coloured with something like - fear? Zhou Mi doesn’t like it. His memories of life before coming to the House are limited but clear, and he’s positive Kyuhyun never used to look like this. Kyuhyun was always cocksure.
But he’ll take what he can get.
“I haven’t seen you in too long. I’m sorry. Life has been busy.” Kyuhyun’s voice is unsteady, higher than it used to be. “You look well. Have they been treating you properly here?”
“You sound like one of the doctors.” Zhou Mi reaches out to grab a fistful of Kyuhyun’s shirt, dragging him in, and Kyuhyun doesn’t resist. Not like he had the first few times. “You know the answers already. Have you missed me?”
Kyuhyun kisses him in response. It’s not an answer, but it’s a close enough approximation.
The old Kyuhyun would have called this a sin, what they do together in the dark. He always loathed even being touched back then, Zhou Mi recalls. Had only been fine with physical contact if he were the one instigating it. But time changes everyone. For better or for worse.
Zhou Mi’s hands push Kyuhyun’s shirt up, roam over the smooth expanse of Kyuhyun’s stomach. There were scars there before, pink and raised and lipgloss-shiny; he has memories of running his tongue along their ragged edges. The skin is smooth now, perfectly healed. He doesn’t ask how that happened. There are questions that are better left unasked and unanswered.
“You’ve gained weight.” Zhou Mi rests his index finger against the pulse point on Kyuhyun’s neck. It’s reassuring, Kyuhyun’s pulse, the blood coursing through Kyuhyun’s veins. Heartbeat like the bassline of a song. “You always ate too much. Now your metabolism’s caught up with you, hasn’t it.”
Kyuhyun just makes a soft muffled noise. He’s quieter than he used to be, and when he shifts to kiss Zhou Mi the shape of his lips against Zhou Mi’s feels - wrong, somehow, like attempting to slot together jigsaw pieces from different puzzles, or something, but it’s time to abort this line of thought. He’s not supposed to think like that, the past isn’t safe to dwell on, and anyway he’s happy, astonishingly happy, how could he not be with Kyuhyun’s hand around his cock, so warm and rough and tight.
“Kyuhyun,” Zhou Mi mouths as he comes. “Kyuhyun, Kyuhyun - ”
Kyuhyun never lingers afterward, which suits Zhou Mi just fine. Orgasms exhaust him; he can never keep his eyes open afterward, and anyway it’s getting late. Time for his third and final dose of medicine for the day.
Nurse Choi rolls in the tray with pills all lined up in a neat little row, a tiny paper cup of water. Kyuhyun always has a private chat with Nurse Choi afterwards, in urgent low hushed voices, and Zhou Mi always makes out the same scattered pieces of dialogue every time. Not much improvement - can’t remember - the accident was years ago - his outlook appears - still thinks I’m -
Kyuhyun turns around. “I’ll.” He swallows. Zhou Mi watches the movement of his adam’s apple bobbing. So nervous, all the time. “I’ll be back, okay? Be - be good.”
Zhou Mi nods. Smiles.
Watches Kyuhyun leave room 302 for the last time.
This entry was originally posted at http://sujuexchange.dreamwidth.org/10316.html?mode=reply. Please comment there using OpenID (i.e., your LJ account's URL).