Archive of Our Own

I was raised by atheists, forgive me, I don’t know how to pray.

I’ve never seen it done; I don’t know what to say. *

Coming home after such an endeavor – including a costly hospital stay, lackluster hospital food, and the ever-present tickle in the throat from the nasogastric tube – was anything but trivial. 

He’d half-expected the ordeal to have shocked Jaekyung into a social remission, to have seen him far and few between within the penthouse, simply out of duty to prevent as much harm to Dan as possible. It would have made sense, and though possibly making Dan a little bit lonely and perhaps a bit bereft, he would have understood the space.

After all, he could only imagine just how much guilt and agony over the situation must have welled up inside of him.

It would never be his fault, but Dan knew how rampant the man’s mind ran when he became anxious. And, yeah, good luck trying to tell him that.

What he hadn’t expected was for Jaekyung to take the doctor’s orders too seriously, and to do everything that Dan could also do, in his place.

It hadn’t been much, at first – it started small, with Jaekyung opening the car door for him, which Dan was able to write off as being gentlemanly to someone recently injured. The man even went as far as to reach right across him and pull his seatbelt and click it, for him.

When Dan started to notice it being a bit much, had to be when they’d stopped at the grocer for something that Dan could eat – and Jaekyung, without even batting an eye, had demanded he cook, tonight.

“I’ve got it,” Dan tries to say as Jaekyung is both hauling both of their backpacks, a bag of groceries, with a pair of Ray-Bans in one hand and hoisting the door open with the weight of the same arm, instead of letting him help. “I can take the bags.”

“No,” is all Jaekyung gives him, calm and slow and nonchalant, like he isn’t being Dan’s maid for self-made reasons.

Dejected, Dan gives him a little pout as he toes off his sneakers and sets them onto the porch shelf. “I’m not feeble, you know. Just because they said I can’t do any heavy lifting, doesn’t mean I can’t carry our groceries. I really doubt that’s what the doctor meant.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he hears again, in that same smooth, deep, calm voice, like what they were discussing wasn’t a matter of rendering Dan useless or not. “You don’t get your stitching removed for another week and a half, so you just focus on recovering. I’ll handle the housework.”

A bit miffed, he finds himself tsking as Jaekyung coolly brushes past him and heads into their kitchen, where he sets the paper bags upon the island’s marble. It’s without much preamble nor a smidge of dialogue that Jaekyung begins to procure their bags of vegetables, their package of potato starch, Dan’s favorite chips for when he’s allowed solid food, followed by two cellophaned slabs of swordfish, and finally a bulk-size case of vanilla-flavored protein shakes.

By the time he reaches into the second bag to take out a carton of eggs and a gallon of two-percent milk, Dan’s already intercepting him with a swipe of an arm, fully intending to grab hold of one of the bags of peppers.

However, Jaekyung’s got the advantage of height over him, and simply lifts his belongings high above Dan’s head, a feeble effort at best in the game of getting a word in edgewise. “Stop that,” Dan chastises him with a furrowed brow and hands upon his hips. “I live here, too, you know! Just let me do something – anything.”

There’s a slight twist to the corner of Jaekyung’s mouth, now, the plush lips curving just slightly in what seems to be amusement, and it would suit him well if not for the deep sallowness beneath his eyes, stark in comparison. “Or what?”

Hmm. “I know where you’re ticklish,” is what he goes with, an edge to those golden-brown eyes that hadn’t been there a moment ago.

After a moment, though, Jaekyung simply exhales and lowers his arms, the size of a skyscraper, and looks at him with a raised eyebrow and awfully tired eyes. “Really?” He asks gently, rather amusedly. “That’s my punishment?”

“You won’t be saying that soon,” Dan retorts with a smirk, and moves around the island with calm steps to slide a three-pack of bell peppers closer to him, “when I’ve got you in a fit of giggles.”

Worn by defeat, Jaekyung sighs. “Fine. What do you want? You’re not allowed to do anything that requires you bending down or going up on the stepstool.”

As if for emphasis, Dan taps his finger theatrically on his chin, as he settles his elbows comfortably against the marble. “The big, tough, strong man could let me cut everything up for him. Make it easy for him to toss everything into a pan and fry it. I wouldn’t be by the heat of the fire, that way – you know.”

Then, something seems to pass over Jaekyung’s face, as the light in his eyes immediately dims and a shadow befalls his expression. Suddenly, he won’t meet Dan’s eye, and the crease between his brows makes an ugly reappearance.

Sensing the seismic shift in the energy between them, Dan’s grin very quickly melts away into a concerned frown, taking a small step away from the countertop with hands at the ready, as though he needed to brace himself for something. “Mr. Joo?”

“It’s fine,” Jaekyung interjects rather quickly, but there’s something amiss with his speech, as well. Something sort-of… choked, within his tone. “Forget it. Let’s just clean up.”

He’s closed himself off from Dan, the large expanse of his back presented to him as he solemnly places their perishables into the refrigerator, still in their store-bought packaging – and doesn’t say a word to him.

It’s a massive, stark difference to the playful Jaekyung who just once was, and there’s something about the sudden, mysterious shift in his behavior that has Dan’s stomach twisting. “Jaekyung,” he breathes out soothingly, padding very softly over to him like he was approaching a wounded animal, not a man nearly a whole head taller than him. His socked feet whisper against the kitchen tile, and the weight of his palm upon the ridge of the man’s clothed shoulder blade is careful. “Tell me what’s wrong. It’s just me.”

It does take a long moment for Jaekyung to warm back up to him - something that was probably just several seconds yet felt to Dan like an hour – but after a minute, a long sigh ripples through him, and he gently shuts the refrigerator door, before turning.

He still won’t look at him, but they can at least communicate face to face, this way. “I don’t - ” Jaekyung begins to say before his words seem to get caught, his Adam’s apple bobbing with the effort it takes. “I don’t exactly… want to think about you around – knives, right now.”

“That’s not the same thing, though,” Dan offers delicately, not at all trying to overstep his feelings, right now. “I’d be helping you cook, and – it’s controlled. You’d be right there watching me.”

“Dan,” Jaekyung warns tiredly, the weight of the week they had just endured pulling down on him. “I don’t want to talk about this. Please.”

Gently, Dan coos out an apology and strokes the pad of his thumb across the man’s bicep. Then, after a moment, he trails his touch softly down the length of Jaekyung’s sleeve, curtaining softly over the rough knuckles. It’s not until he reaches the sleek, studded band adorning the man’s ring finger that he stops, strokes over it with a tender thumb, and meets his eye. It’s a gesture so simply and so demure that it undoes Jaekyung completely, and as his throat works in a swallow, there’s a mistiness in those eyes that hadn’t been there, before.

“We can worry about cooking tomorrow, I think,” is what Dan tells him in a low voice, a beacon of warmth and safety from deep within the thicket of Jaekyung’s psyche. “I think it’s been a long day, and we should unwind. Yeah?”

Gently does he rise onto his tiptoes, then, and plants a single soft kiss to the man’s plush lips. It definitely does not escape him the way Jaekyung practically melts into him, body curtaining around him like a shelter.

“Sorry,” Jaekyung offers dumbly, stormy eyes creased with worry, and it’s only a moment later that a soft hand cups his cheek and keeps him rooted and steady, his Northern star in a sky of inky nothingness.

Dan doesn’t respond verbally, but they both know he doesn’t have to.

“Want to watch a movie?” Dan asks instead, eyeing up Jaekyung’s modular sectional in their main living area. If they both were to fall asleep, it was plenty roomy enough for the two of them to share – and, if he could warm Jaekyung up enough, he may even be able to score himself a snuggle. “We could make some snacks.”

At that, Jaekyung snorts. “Snacks before bed?”

“A better idea than wine,” Dan joshes back, and the warm fuzzies return to his gut at the sight of a small grin on the man’s face. Beneath the exhaustion and the anxiety, it’s joy that he finds, there, and it’s nice. “Plus, snacking before bed one time is worth experiencing at least once.”

“Won’t you be upset that you can’t eat with me, though? I couldn’t leave you out.”

“Hmm,” he hums, taking kindly to stroking the rough creases on the man’s meaty knuckles, including swirling the pad of his thumb over the cool metal which adorns his skin. “You’re always worrying about me. I’m using it as an ulterior motive, because I think you deserve it.”

At that, something glimmers along the chasms in Jaekyung’s eyes, a light in the darkness which befalls him from the inside out. There’s a semblance of something vulnerable etched across his face, something brand-new and adolescent. “I deserve that? A movie with snacks?”

Aware that he’s missing the nuance, however, Dan can’t help but grin. “You’re exhausted, and need some sleep,” is what he says with a calm, warm demeanor, grounding and homely and safe. “I’ll even let you choose the movie, if you want to show me one of your favorites.”

That, as a one-way street to getting Jaekyung to unwind properly and relax even his mind, must have been a rather enchanting offer, for there seems to be a twinkle in those eyes that doesn’t normally exist there. There’s a sliver of excitement there; Jaekyung had never expected someone to ask to share.

“Yeah,” he says dumbly, simply the first thing that came to mind, and makes sure to punctuate it with a proper nod. “Yeah, we can – we can do that. But, y’know, I’ll warn you – everyone else has thought they were boring.”

Dan only smiles, ignoring the insinuation. “No time I’ve spent with you has been boring. You grab some blankets and pick one out – I’ll grab us something to eat.”

Others may have found it childish, really, how quickly it got Jaekyung moving and how excited he seemed to feel, inside, at the prospect of showing someone else something that he favorited.

With Dan on the road to recovery and above all willing to stay in Seoul with him, it was a promise of bonding that had Jaekyung’s palms sweating.

He’d missed feeling Dan against him, all warm and soft and pliant. A safe, unbiased weight filling up the empty space between his arms.

Dan was comfortable to hold, conforming easily to the valleys of Jaekyung’s triceps and with a desirable plushness to his body and skin that he found ideal. Never having been one to be able to alter his sleep methods at all and have success, he had begun finding it easy to doze off with the gentle, silent sounds around him of Dan’s calm, even breathing and the occasional rustle of his hair against their bedclothes.

After just a moment of reprieve, Dan became a little bit cold. Subconsciously, Jaekyung’s arm had tightened around him as they slept, idiosyncratic in his efforts to keep Dan comfortable against him.

Perhaps he’d forgotten to shut the air off, before they’d fallen asleep. He does remember enjoying Dan’s company as the couple on-screen were shown meeting for the first time in an old-timey diner, hanging lamps and pinstriped booth seats. Dan had been on orders to eat mostly liquid meals – so Jaekyung, not wanting to exclude him, had christened him with a toast of a protein shake of his own. He’d been so relaxed and full by the end of the movie that they, naturally, had begun to doze off together, Jaekyung having sprawled out on the long end of the sectional with that lean body tucked against him.

Yeah, he certainly remembers being sleepy, after that. Did they even remember to brush their teeth?

Softly, Dan mumbles something in his sleep, against his shirt, and Jaekyung’s brow creases.

Dan is too cold.

He’s frigid, like Jaekyung had cracked a window overnight, or something, exposing them to the January elements. Which, admittedly, wasn’t very like him, as Jaekyung hated the sounds and smells of the city.

It’s not making sense to his sleep-addled mind, so he cracks open an eye to peer around.

Dan is –

- Wet.

There’s an awfully sticky, slightly damp feeling where Jaekyung’s palm curtains around the dip of his waist, incredibly unusual for how Dan tends to sleep.

When he glances down, the spike of shock that bolts through his gut has him instantly breaking out in a cold sweat; the sofa is soaked with the scarlet sheen of his existence, a cascade of wine-rich liquid into the suede and down over the carpet.

He’s sitting up and maneuvering his beloved from his lap before he can even think, socked feet soaking into the puddle beneath them with a sickening squish. His movements tremble in panic, hands scrambling along blood-slick, frigid skin. Lips pallid, breaths awfully tight in comparison to their typical.

The place where he’d be sutured last seems to have ruptured, the flow of glistening crimson indocile and overwhelming where it pours torrid over large, calloused hands, as he presses down and tries to stop it.

He screams for Dan to awaken, to open his eyes one more time and reassure him that this wasn’t what it looked like. Eventually, the caricature of tragedy before him begins to blur, kaleidoscope effervescence soaking into the moonlight.

Was he crying, again?

Even looking down at his hands serves him no purpose, the image of his blood-stained hands suddenly foreign to even himself.

He began to wonder if he, too, were beginning to pass. Maybe the pain in his body would finally cease, the pestilent ache within his chest where his heart once was and the eclectic migraines which crippled him with vertigo.

“…Jaekyung?”

All at once, he notices the horrific image before him beginning to bubble and blur out into glittering light flares, the fluorescence of pain and agony lifting.

It’s not real; it can’t be.

They told him that Dan was fine. He had brought him home, made his bed for him – even kept hold of all the post-release care pamphlets that the hospital suggested he utilize. He’d been prepared to wait on the man hand and foot, as if it were his very last chance to vie for an opportunity to atone for his sins.

The ringing in his ears grows to a deafening decibel, acrid in his ears and sharp where it pierces into his psyche, a pressure so loud that it forces his eyes to close.

When he manages to open them – it’s silent.

He’s home, sitting up on the sectional, in the dark – their clean, charcoal-suede, unblemished sectional.

And when he glances down, his hands and his clothes are clean, unstained, and exactly the way they should be. Even in the dim light of the moonlight and with fuzzies in his eyes from the shock, does he become aware of the obvious lack of blood soaked into the cushions and the rug. The main menu from the movie plays silently in the background, a slowly moving picture accompanied by the technical whine of the television on mute.

A four-pack of store-bought protein shakes sits on the coffee table, two opened and with their red, plastic lids missing.

“Jaekyung?”

The sudden sound in the otherwise pin-drop silence is nearly enough to send him into cardiac arrest, and he leaps from the couch faster than he could think.

Dan is stood there, right in the dining area, hands resting around his elbows as if he were hugging himself – in one whole piece. He’s completely, utterly fine – sleep pants smooth and unmarred, his short-sleeved shirt decorated with only the mundane portrayals of eucalyptus leaves.

He may have been able to write it off as a trick of the mind, a mirage in a moment of hopelessness, as though the Dan speaking to him were his ghost. That was, until he registered the familiar sleepiness in those sloped eyes, and the glimmer of the ring on his first finger in the delicate moonlight.

Strong, muscular legs barely able to hold him without wobbling, Jaekyung is up from the couch in seconds flat, nearly stubbing his toes on the leg of the couch.

If he had thought that the desperation and agonizing relief that had flooded through him at the hospital the day Dan had opened his eyes again had been groundbreaking, this was seismic. A bolt of white-hot pain streaks across the center of his head at the abrupt moving, causing him to teeter where he stands – and causes the look in Dan’s eyes to twist into worry.

He’s saying something softly, holding those little, tender hands out to him as though Jaekyung may fall, like he was the one on the brink of death, and not Dan.

Hands tremble as they reach up to cup the skin of Dan’s cheek in a gentle, trembling palm, finding the skin warm, palpable – alive.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Dan tells him carefully, eyes a little bit wide and significantly shinier than they normally are; had Jaekyung worried him to tears? He couldn’t also stomach being responsible for causing him to shed tears.

With tender hands, his love caresses up his arms and across his chest, reassuring him physically and grounding him in this moment of need. Those same hands hold the sides of his face steadily, thumbs softly stroking the skin on his cheeks which helps, allowing the warmth from his palms to bleed into him.

He’s okay. This Dan is warm, breathing, and real.

“That fucking scared me,” he blurts out in a pained, whispered tone, eyes squeezing shut as though the continuous thought of the hallucination had been causing him physical pain. “Y-you – you were… I wasn’t – ”

“Shh,” Dan coos, going as far as to lean forward on his tiptoes and offer him a soft kiss on the mouth. “Breathe, honey. You’re holding your breath, and you’re shaking. Do you want to sit?”

Honestly, going anywhere near that couch, right now, was the last thing on Jaekyung’s mind. Without a second thought, he shakes his head in rapid succession. There’s a pregnant pause where his lips part and work in silence, as though he were shaping words, yet finding his voice failing him. In frustration, dark eyebrows furrow down in the center, the arches raising as the creases around his eyes deepen.

“I – I thought… I saw you bleeding, like I woke up and – like I’d hurt you in my sleep, or something, or like you’d ruptured the stitches and – ” Jaekyung stammers, unable to contain the word vomit once it starts to pour forth, anchoring him with his pain as it flows out uncontrollably. “I don’t know what I saw. I don’t know. I don’t want to think about that anymore, I don’t - ”

“Okay, okay,” Dan breathes out and gathers him close, pressing their foreheads together as small, lustrous tears leak from the corners of stormy eyes. “I’m right here. I’m alright – see? I was just using the bathroom. I think you were dreaming, love. Probably a nightmare.”

Dreaming? That’s what they’re going to call whatever he just experienced and saw, with his eyes? That didn’t feel anything like a dream.

“Let’s go back to sleep,” Dan concludes, wrapping those soft hands around one of the man’s meaty wrists. He tries to give him a gentle tug, intending to bring him back to their sofa-bed and their soft blanket and their stack of pillows – but Jaekyung doesn’t budge. He’s rooted right in place; feet firmly planted to his spot and body rigid where he casts his eyes to the floor. “Hey – don’t be like that, come on, you’re tired. We still have time until sunrise.”

However, there’s refusal in those eyes – dark, rigid, and fearful.

And when he raises his gaze to allow theirs to meet, the look of pure terror that greets him has Dan’s blood running cold, himself.

“You okay?” Is what comes out of that small, plush mouth, a heavenly vessel that did not deserve to speak the words of such damage and despair.

He didn’t care what he would have to do, even if it cost him his sleep for the rest of his life and his mental sanction for the time being; he would give anything if it meant that Dan would be safe and healthy for the remainder of his life, a soul so undeserving of the evils of the world.

Dan did not deserve to stand face to face with the gates of purgatory, but Jaekyung probably did. He would offer ten times over, if that were not the case.

“I don’t want to sleep anymore,” Jaekyung lies, the gruffness in his voice and the cold sweat beading along his pallid skin giving him away. His wellbeing did not take precedence over Dan’s physical safety. “I’ll – I can go relax in the bedroom until sunrise, so I don’t disturb you. I’ll read, or something.”

It’s not convincing, at all. Fortunately, he’s quite a poor liar, and Dan can see right through him. He frowns, the wrinkles in his chin deepening as he pouts. “Jaekyung,” he drawls out once more, attempting to be sterner.

“No,” comes quickly, and the man turns on his heel, then, presenting him with his back. “You – you can go back to sleep on the couch. You can have all the pillows, if you want. I’ll – figure something out. Don’t worry.”

It’s without much ceremony that he pads with slow, long steps over to his own bedroom, and shuts the door behind him with a soft click.

And, unfortunately, it is not at all the response that Dan had anticipated receiving. He had to wonder just what it was that Jaekyung had seen, or had imagined, that had scared him that severely.

Rather crestfallen, Dan cannot help but curl up in their now-cold spot on the sectional, legs folded and pulled to his chest, and mournful at the loss of his comfy, protective sleep partner.

He could only hope that Jaekyung was going to be okay.

He’s pouring himself a cup of coffee into his favorite mug, when he hears the door to Jaekyung’s room click.

The man is dressed in a new set of day clothes, a simple duo of black track pants and a form-fitting mid-sleeve, something that moves with him as he walks and hides his tattoos from view. As he pads out of the room and runs a hand over his messy hair, it does not escape Dan the way that those dark eyes do not meet his. Instead, they shy away, as Jaekyung steps over to the kitchen, his house slippers whispering against the tiled floor.

“Ice in your coffee?” Dan asks him casually, like nothing had ever happened.

He won’t pressure him to talk; that would only make Jaekyung close himself off, more.

It isn’t a vocal response that he expects, so it comes as very little surprise that the man merely nods as he slips a cap over his hair, smoothing it back to set the hat upon his head. Dan wonders when the last time he’d mustered the energy to wash it, had been.

It’s without much preamble that the man reaches for his own coffee and offers him a soft kiss on the cheek as a wordless thank-you.

Despite seeming to have closed himself off at least from conversation, Jaekyung still brandishes his ring in the morning sunlight, still taps that finger against his glass where he holds it as he takes a long sip.

“I’ll get you some milk in a little bit, if you want it with breakfast,” Dan tells him over his shoulder, as he sets the glass pot back into the coffee maker.

They settle into a less-than-comfortable silence in their roomy kitchen, as Dan busies himself at the countertop with scrambling a few cracked eggs into a mixing bowl, combining them with a pad of butter and some sour cream, and preparing the front-right burner on the stove.

He must assume that Jaekyung had prostrated himself somewhere against the island, be it in a seat and relaxing against the middle or resting against the island where he leans his weight against it.

“You don’t have to be nervous around me, either,” Dan offers softly, as well, worried that Jaekyung may have potentially been avoiding him.

Whether or not that was the case, he is pleased to hear the shuffling of feet once more after just a few moments, and Jaekyung reappears in his peripheral vision to his left. “Can I help?” Is what he asks, timid and slow, voice a bit gruff and scratchy from overuse. Dan has to wonder if he had been crying, again – and the thought absolutely kills him, inside.

Nevertheless, he won’t dwell on it unless Jaekyung wants to open up to him, and instead passes him a wooden cutting board to use, as he pours the eggs into a pan. “I want something sweet, this morning,” he tells him without any edge to his voice, merely a suggestion that bordered on a statement. “Think you can make me something I’d like?”

It’s immediate the way Jaekyung’s head nods, understanding the assignment, and turns his attention to the refrigerator to rifle around in there. It’s almost like a surprise – Dan has no idea what he’ll get, and Jaekyung gets to play around with ingredients to come up with something nutritious and tasty.

After just a moment, the man stands back at full height and sets what he’s procured onto the counter – an avocado, a container of yogurt, a punnet each of strawberries and blackberries, and a banana. From the cabinet, he takes out a bottle of agave nectar, a tin of matcha, and a packet of sweetener for taste.

“You sleep okay?” Comes softly tumbling out of that loud mouth with an uncharacteristic softness to his words, a shyness which contradicts. He tries to refocus his attention on the cutting of his berries and the slicing of his avocado, but the trembling in his hands unfortunately gives him fully away.

Dan does seem to notice – but, if he does, he doesn’t say anything. “Yeah, fine,” he answers. Jaekyung’s furniture was always quite comfortable to relax and rest on, his house always a rather cozy 20°C with the air indoors always crisp and pristine. He would have slept better, however, if he had a warm, sturdy, protective body to hold all night. “What about you? Did you get back to sleep alright?”

There’s a quick, swift sound to his left as the man scoops his cubes of avocado and quartered strawberries onto the side of his knife, before sliding them into the blender with a deft hand. It’s once again that he does not dignify Dan’s inquiry with a response.

What happens, instead, is those deep, exhausted eyes flicker over to his for just a brief second – the whites reddened as though he had been crying – before returning to his produce.

If Dan were asked to visualize the phrase I’m not doing well, and I hate that I’m making you worry about it, that would be a carbon copy of what he’d surmise.

“You know,” the brunette offers after a moment, warm rustic eyes peering over as he oils his cooking pan to sear off a small slab of Jaekyung’s swordfish, “I was thinking that it might be a good idea to get out of the house for a bit, today. Maybe drive over to the shore and watch the storms roll in, if you want to? I think the peace and quiet after everything would be nice.”

He wasn’t sure if being in a hospital setting to visit either grandma or the director would have been what Jaekyung needed to feel better, right now. Realistically, Dan understood well that what the man would need was sleep – and lots of it. However, if reminders of the events at the penthouse were the cause for his refusal to rest, then a change of pace and scenery could be exactly what he needed.

Besides – if Jaekyung was well-rested and of sound mind, then it would benefit Dan in his own recovery, as well.

“We could do that,” Jaekyung agrees rather quickly, reaching for the yogurt to add a bit to his concoction he’s making. They’re both going to ignore that the smidgen of matcha he’d added had taken over as the primary color of his drink. “You want to go out for just today, or you think you wanna go away for a few days? I could book a place.”

At that, Dan smiles. “You don’t have to do that. We can go back to the condos for the week. Say hi to Myung-jin and the dogs, too. Just us, the sunrise at dawn, and the waves for a few days. A break from everything here.”

It must be exactly what Jaekyung had been thinking, as well, for that same delighted twinkle to his otherwise sallow eyes returns. He’s pretty like this, innocent and vulnerable, even if the expression doesn’t bleed into the rest of his features. “Sounds like fun,” he states, casting a brief glance to the side as Dan cracks some salt and pepper over the skin on his fish. “I think – yeah… it would be nice, to get out of the house.”

Warmed at heart, Dan grins, and curtains the top of Jaekyung’s right hand with his own, a soft warmth to remind each other that their sufferings would no longer be performed alone, and that Jaekyung certainly would not be alone in this endeavor, either.

“And I think,” Dan begins softly, gently stroking the pad of his thumb across the skin, there, “you might sleep better away from this house, as well.”

Jaekyung must have known he couldn’t hide from Dan, forever, the older man far too intelligent and sharp for his own good. When he dares to meet those warm, forgiving eyes, the look of advertency is palpable in the subtle golden shimmer. It’s so intense a look that his throat begins to work in a nervous swallow, an inadvertent reaction to being caught red-handed. “I slept just fine, last night. I’m fine.”

“Liar,” comes tumbling out of Dan’s lips before he can stop it. Deftly, he reaches down to turn off the gas flame and removes the pan from the heat. “You look like you’ve been to war and ran all the way back home on foot.”

Well, he couldn’t exactly argue with that one. His body felt sluggish, rundown from the exhaustion, and mildly sore all over from exerting himself. “You’re probably just seeing things,” he manages after racking his brain for really anything. “You don’t have to worry about me, of all things. I’ll be just fine.”

So stubborn, this man could be, Dan would think to himself at times like this. He wished he could just talk some sense into him but, as time stretched further on and the man’s unwaveringness held, he was beginning to think that throttling him may have been the only answer. “You should have told me you still couldn’t sleep, hun. I wouldn’t have left you alone to stare at the wall and do nothing.”

“Let’s – ” Jaekyung begins, then, but stops shortly after a moment, unsure if he should have finished. “Look, you know that this isn’t something I particularly want to talk about. It’s just as uncomfortable for me as it probably is for you.”

“But,” Dan reiterates with a hand on Jaekyung’s arm, a move that he knows will undo him, “not talking about it is what leads to you staying up all night. And I can’t help you fix it, if I don’t know what the problem is.”

He sighs, then, as the realization that he were facing imminent defeat became prevalent. Although Dan may care about him, this was really, really not something that he preferred to worry him with – not while he had stitches in his belly and couldn’t eat any solids.

Trying to drown out the noise in his head with the screaming of the blender motor certainly helps, the pulses of ice gurgling in the blades serving as cathartic to an otherwise troubled soul. It’s easy to not hear his thoughts over the absolute racket he creates.

And by the time he’s finished with Dan’s smoothie, as the whirring from the machine dies down, he finds Dan looking at him expectantly – no, that’s not expectancy. He’s looking at him with an expression that borders on brash – Jaekyung’s own Achilles’ heel if he ever had one, and he suspects that Dan one-hundred percent knows that.

“Don’t give me that look – fuck,” is sworn out under his breath, casting his gaze back downward and away from Dan’s prying, and tips out the pitcher to pour his concoction into a glass for his partner. “Look, we’ll – let’s just eat first so we can pack our shit and get the fuck out for the week, and then we’ll talk. Promise.”

His response is every bit as definitive and convincing as it could be at the present, but it likely suffices, as Dan seemingly slinks away from him to retreat back to his stovetop. It’s wordlessly that he begins to plate Jaekyung’s food, lifting the fish out of the pan carefully with a pair of chopsticks, and plating it with some raw chives on the side.

“You’re sure you’re okay?” Is what Dan asks, not at all convinced and unfortunately not trying to hide it.

Besides – if it did turn out that the ghosts of this version of home were truly responsible for anguishing him every time he closed his eyes, and the change of scenery did help his mental state to improve – then there would be nothing for Dan to worry about.

“Positive,” Jaekyung states, eyes hard. “Now – c’mon, I made it special for you.”

If you can start again after your severed limbs,

Maybe then, like you, I can recover. *

It’s many hours later and with the sun beginning to sensually kiss the skyline that they find themselves downstairs in the parking garage, with Jaekyung taking the liberties to hoist his and Dan’s luggage into the trunk. They’d cleaned up after breakfast and gotten right into cleaning themselves up for the day, having some much-needed showers, tidying up the living area, and jumping right into packing. He’d grabbed the keys for his larger four-door sedan with the roomy gunmetal interior and ample space for Dan to make himself comfortable, even sprawl out in the back if he so pleased.

And since this endeavor did, in fact, qualify as heavy lifting, Dan did not try to fight him on this one.

“If you want to lay down so you don’t pull your stitching,” Jaekyung says as he shuts the trunk door, the sound loudly echoing in the garage, and tugs his coat around him, “you can help yourself to the back seat. Turn on the heaters in the cushions if you want to. Keeps you warm.”

Oh. “Um, actually,” Dan begins, as he’s chewing on his lower lip and visually somewhat nervous. “I was thinking – maybe I should drive.”

As he’s padding around the side of the car to reach the driver’s door, it stops Jaekyung dead in his tracks, and he stares over his shoulder right back at Dan like he’d seen a ghost, all furrowed, dark brows and weathered, sore eyes. “You can drive?”

Dan simply nods at that, like they’d been merely discussing the weather over a cup of tea. “Just because I don’t own a car, doesn’t mean I don’t have my license.”

The look in the man’s eyes is startled, bewildered, certainly not something he had expected to learn on a sullen, quiet January evening. “Okay, but – it’s probably been a while since the last time you were behind the wheel, right? Are you sure that’s something you’re okay doing? I wouldn’t – ”

“Joo Jaekyung,” he states sternly, the decibel of his voice causing the man’s own to die out. “Shut up and give me your keys.”

At that, Jaekyung’s jaw simply drops, hand hanging dumbly in front of himself, with said keys held just within the confines of his palm. If those solid, confident eyes weren’t keeping him rooted where he stood, he was sure he may have fallen. Slowly, on command, his fingers unfurl and present Dan with the keys.

Like the little vixen that he was, with lips curling into the grin of a pseudonymous Cheshire, Dan takes hold of the keys and twirls them around his pointer finger. “Passenger’s all yours. Or the back, if you want to sprawl out. Maybe turn on the seat heaters and stay warm,” he says with a smarmy little tone, throwing Jaekyung’s words right back at him.

It does take a few seconds for Jaekyung to seemingly return to his stubborn, pouty self, as after a moment does he bury his hands in the pockets of his overcoat and stalk off to the other side of the car, mumbling something about unfairness and sprinkling in a few little brat’s.

As they slide into their seats, Dan finds himself encompassed entirely in a vehicle much more massive than himself, with so much space indoors he wasn’t sure what to do with himself. He simply takes a moment to soak it all in from the driver’s seat for the first time, giving him a completely different perspective to a car he’s sat in many times, before.

“Is it too big?” Jaekyung asks him after a moment, concern etched into those pretty, angular features. “We can switch to the other car, if you’d be more comfortable in that one.”

He receives a mere shake of the head, at that, as Dan gazes over at him in the passenger. “No – it’s fine. I just never realized how spacious this place is, from here. Your cars are all so elegant, Jaekyung – like you.”

It’s definitely not what he expected to hear, at a time like this; not when the both of them were struggling to cope and yearning to begin healing. The compliment brings a flush to his cheeks and causes him to grow shy, tugging the hood of his coat over his face and clicking his seatbelt, before crossing his arms over his chest as he says, “Just turn the thing on and crank the heat up – it’s cold as balls, in here.”

The comment has a laugh tinkling out of Dan’s mouth, airy and weightless, and something in Jaekyung begins to settle. He does as he’s told, starting the ignition and tilting the vents down toward the both of them. He knows that Jaekyung is also likely playing up just how cold he felt for the bit, as Dan knew just how warm he naturally would run, but it was an enjoyable laugh to be had, nonetheless.

“You know,” Dan begins after a minute of sitting in silence, the both of them beginning to slowly defrost as the engine warms, and he taps his fingers gently along the curve of the wheel as he speaks. “I know that you aren’t ready to fully tell me what’s going on, but you also can’t expect me to turn a blind eye and pretend that means that nothing is wrong. You can’t stomp your feet at me this time when I say that you’ve barely slept in a whole week, and I’m lucky if I can get you to eat two square meals a day, let alone three.”

Listening, Jaekyung only pouts, and stares out the window and away from him. “So?”

“Jaekyung,” Dan breathes out, brow tensing from the weight of his words, “you’re in no state to be driving a car.”

Hmph. Well, if it was his fault in the first place, then they didn’t need to be in the car, at all. “We don’t have to be going back to Namhae-do, if that’s the case,” Jaekyung argues petulantly, and Dan has to roll his eyes, because honestly. “We can head right back upstairs, pretend to sleep, and unpack the car in the morning.”

“You’re also in no state,” the older of them interjects, “to stay in this house right now, when it’s clearly haunting you and eating you alive. We are going away for a few days, I am going to be driving us there, and that is final. Any other questions?”

It’s with a pout, then, that Jaekyung glances over at him, and he’s able to notice that the look on his face is devoid of any real anger – rather, he seems worried, concerned, if not frightened. “If you can’t – ” Jaekyung starts, beginning to struggle once more. “If you can’t do it – if you need to switch… you have to tell me. Please.”

A sigh. “You’re too tired for this – ”

“Not for you,” he argues softly, carefully. “I would never be too tired to protect you.”

It’s not what he expected to hear – he half-expected Jaekyung to just concede, to pull his hood over his head and agree and lean back in preparation to conk out for five hours. However, it’s clear now that he’s done a lot of changing, for that’s not at all what the old Jaekyung would have said to him as a response.

Dan swallows at that, trying to pretend that it doesn’t make his palms sweat and his heart skip a little. “Yeah – I’ll tell you,” he confirms softly, buckles himself in, and presses down on the brake to pull the stick shift back, “but that means the same, for you. If you need anything – and I mean anything, Jaekyung – you must let me know.”

“Of course,” the man whispers beside him as Dan smoothly drives them both up the ramp and toward the gates. The seat heater was beginning to kick in, as well, and he was starting to feel much more comfortable, now. “I’m sorry… for how I was being to you.”

The sentiment makes Dan smile a bit, as he pulls onto the freeway and heads south. He doesn’t give him a verbal response – just a taste of his own medicine, really – but offers Jaekyung his right hand in an open-palmed gesture.

It’s taken rapidly, enveloping his own hand in a warm, massive palm, as Jaekyung knits their fingers together and exhales where he leans back into the seat. It must have instantly soothed him, likely settling the anxiety he must have been feeling, and rests both of their hands against a warm, broad thigh for the duration of their drive.

It doesn’t take very long for Dan to realize, probably about forty-five minutes out when the sun has finally disappeared from the horizon, that Jaekyung’s eyes were closed.

It’s when they’re almost halfway to the shore down I-37, just approaching Deogyu-san and the rest stop on the righthand side, that Dan feels the body next to him lurch in its seat. The abrupt, sharp movement startles him halfway out of his skin and causes him to snap his hand back. “Jesus – ” he hisses, narrowly avoiding causing a swerve and managing to regain control of the wheel. “That scared me – you okay?”

However, when he’s able to fully realize what he’s looking at, it becomes apparent that something dire was happening.

Jaekyung is looking right at him where he’s sitting ramrod straight in his seat, eyes both bloodshot and yet glassy as he stares unseeingly toward his partner at the wheel. He looks downright terrified, all the color draining from his face like he were moments from passing out.

It sends a spark of something that Dan can’t put to words through his chest, and he forces himself to reign in the half a mind that he has to pull right off the main road and pop his hazards on.

“What – what happened?” Dan blurts out, reaching out once more to wrap a steady hand around two of the man’s large fingers, and strokes over his ring soothingly. “I’ve got you – tell me what you need.”

However, he should have known Jaekyung better than that and should have known that he wouldn’t have bothered him unless he really needed it. “Pull over,” is what creaks out from between plush lips, and when Dan glances over, he notices the glisten of sweat beading upon the man’s brow in the dark and realizes it must have been more serious than he’d initially thought. “Please - ”

Either Jaekyung was having a hot flash, which made absolutely no sense given the circumstance – or he was about to throw up.

“Okay,” he promises quickly, and flicks on his right blinker. “It’s okay – hold on.”

Whatever he had anticipated happening - if anything anticipating quite literally the worst – had to be something with patience, for it’s able to hold on until Dan is able to slow down the sedan and park it safely on the shoulder.

It doesn’t give him much reprieve once that moment comes, before Jaekyung’s hands are tugging impatiently on the door handle and wrestling himself out of his seatbelt.

“Wait – the child locks!”

He curses himself under his breath for momentarily trapping them in the vehicle, but once he’s pulled back on the tab for the locks, Jaekyung’s door flies open and causes the tall length of him to tumble out of his seat and into the darkness. “Jae - !” Dan begins to shout, leaning over the center console to get a better look at what happened.

When he hears the first dry-heave, it spurs him right into action.

He’s around the vehicle with both doors shut in mere seconds, hands immediately bracketing him in and wrestling him out of his overcoat. “Okay, okay,” he coos softly, attempting to soothe him through whatever spell had overcome him halfway down the interstate. “Breathe – that’s it, let it out if you have to. It’s okay.”

It’s so rare that Jaekyung was sick – however, it was even rarer in those instances that he was, that nothing decided to come out.

He’s found torturing himself, instead, with loud, full-bodied dry heaves, as though something was trying to force its way out of him. The feeling ripples through him in waves and with such force that he finds himself bowed over, supporting himself on his knees as his vision swims and tears flood his eyes. “Fuck,” he swears; it just won’t fucking stop. And the more it goes on, the more woozy he begins to feel, and the less he feels steady on his feet.

All he can think about was those eyes. Glazed, completely whited out, where that body had laid on the pavement - gone. 

When he goes down to the grass, Dan goes with him.

“Easy – okay,” he’s able to hear over the whirring in his ears, over the tightness in his head that threatens to swallow him whole. “You’re gonna be okay – we’re almost there, yeah? I’ll get you some water. Just sit for a moment, love – there. Careful.”

After a few agonizing minutes, he’s able to settle Jaekyung back against the large front tire of his own car, skin colorless and pallid beneath the moonlight and the parting of his hair soaked in his sweat. He’s returned just as promised, with a bottle of water and a packet of tissues. “Did you actually get anything out?” He finds himself asking as he rips open the tab on the packet – probably a dumb question, really, but it’ll help him determine what could’ve happened.

“No,” comes gruffly, before Jaekyung takes the water from him and downs a sizable swig.

“Hey – ” Dan stops him quickly, and he shoots him a pressed look as they both lower the bottle from his lips. “No – bad. You have to sip it, or it’ll come right back up.”

Pfft. “Fuck that,” he shakes his head weakly against the rubber, and has another go at the bottle. He’s so fucking cold and thirsty.

“Okay, well – don’t complain to me when you start throwing up again.”

He manages to get himself halfway through the bottle before he caps it up and sets it down onto the grass beside them. As he does so, a sigh of relief escapes him, and he allows his head to lean back onto the cold metal of the sedan’s door. “Sorry you had to see that,” he finds himself saying after a long moment of comfortable silence, Dan right by his side and not pushing. “Dunno what happened.”

He both feels and hears his partner pout before he even sees it, and isn’t surprised in the slightest when he hears, “Did you fall asleep again?”

There’s no use lying – Dan sees right through him like stained glass even when he’s trying to be smarmy and convincing. He nods, shutting his eyes as the shame of what’s happened floods through him. He can’t even rest his eyes without causing a scene and having Dan worry over him.

This wasn’t how this was supposed to be going – he was supposed to be the caretaker, right now. Strong, healthy, and a reliable force for Dan to lean on – not the other way around, with him unable to keep himself lucid and having Dan to worry about him at every corner. It wasn’t fair.

“I saw something I didn’t want to see,” he admits in a low tone, the shame bleeding into his words. “Or – I thought I saw something. Probably didn’t – definitely didn’t, yeah. You’re still here, so.”

Oh. “Wanna talk about it?” He offers rather quickly, wondering if perhaps talking to Dan about it himself would help to alleviate the severity of the visions.

Well, he supposed it couldn’t hurt anymore than experiencing it in real-time. “I saw you,” he states after a moment, and the older of them leans forward a bit when Jaekyung’s reddened eyes crack back open. “Behind the wheel – like you were, but – not there.

“There was an accident – I… I was fine, I guess? Somehow. Fuck if I know. But you were – you weren’t there anymore, you... we’d hit something, and parts of you were there, but not - and the windshield – ”

“Okay,” he cuts him off as the memory begins to turn graphic and takes the man’s large hands in his. For the very first time, they’re ice-cold – and it bleeds pain right into Dan’s heart, the pace of that breathing beginning to quicken, as well. “That wasn’t real. I’m right here, and we weren’t in an accident. We aren’t going to be – hmm? We’re just an hour and a half out, we’re going to be there very soon. Okay?”

It takes a lot for Jaekyung to seemingly shake himself out of it, dark inky hair hanging over the shadows of his eyes as his shoulders tremble. Dan simply holds him through it, threading their fingers together and keeping him grounded. He couldn’t believe that just two weeks ago, he’d been pacing around that emergency ward, unsure if he’d ever be able to experience Dan’s beautiful, warm gaze all over him again. The box of rings had burned where it sat against his skin.

Now, the same cherished angel he’d prayed to only in his dreams had taken a seat on the grass with him, held him as he dry-heaved, and promised to stay where he was needed.

“Let’s switch,” Jaekyung proposes after a moment; it’s all he can do to gather his wits about him for the remainder of the ride. He can’t afford to fall asleep again – he’s not sure what will happen, or what he’ll see. “I’m alright, for now. You should take a break.”

“What?” Dan asks, then, surprise etching into his features as Jaekyung moves to stand. “Are – are you sure? You’re weak, still.”

“I can sit down and drive,” he argues weakly, allowing a rather unsteady grin to grace him. “I can use my eyes for an hour and a half. You should rest before we get there. You’ve done enough staring at the road - not fair that you can't also take a nap, if y'want.”

Hmph. “Okay,” he concedes, “but only if you’re sure.”

“Yes,” Jaekyung reiterates, and brushes himself off. “But, uh… sorry that I, uh…”

It’s bittersweet, really, that their dynamic had changed so starkly in the span of just several weeks – hell, in the span of a year. Dan would never have imagined this massive, intimidating man having been on his knees in front of him, falling sick in the grass, and apologizing – had he not seen it firsthand. “Don’t apologize for that – hm?” The brunette gives him a gentle stroke across the cheek, resting his thumb along the man’s bottom lip. “Give me a kiss, and we’ll get back in the car.”

He should have accounted for waking up Bok-soon – however, having to actually deal with it in the moment? Not exactly something you could plan for, aside for slamming on the brakes and accepting the consequences of waking the neighbors.

When one particular neighbor cracks their sliding door to peer out, however – the sheer rush of delight on Dan’s face makes everything Jaekyung had put him through worth it.

“Danny boy? That you?”

At the pet name, it seems the dogs must have caught on, as well, as several of the puppies bombard him at their feet. Dan scoops one of them up, and gives it a little squeeze. “Sorry to wake you, sir. We were coming to spend the night – but the time got away from us.”

“Oh, that’s just fine, it is!” The elderly man waves his hands at the both of them, and slides on his outside shoes to traverse down his front steps. “You’ve been missed, Danny my boy – the women all loved ya.”

After a moment of perusing the sight of the two of them and reminiscing in the brief nostalgia, there’s a flicker of something in the old man’s eyes that looks like concern. “Jaegeng, my boy – y’don’t look so good. Y'okay there, son?”

“Ah – ” Dan interjects, not sure that this would be something to necessarily talk about, yet. He wasn’t sure Jaekyung would even be comfortable bringing it up in front of the old man, at all. “He, um – we’re here to – ”

“I’m getting over a cold,” is what tumbles out of Jaekyung’s abrupt mouth before Dan can find him sufficient cover. And, honestly – it’s a pretty smooth lie, too. “Hay fever. It’s been getting bad in the city, and Dan’s been feeling a little sick lately, too. I have some people checking my ventilation this week, so we’re going to crash here in the meantime.”

It takes Dan by surprise to hear, certainly not what he expected the man to say – but yeah, sure, they’ll go with that. “Th – that’s right,” he finishes for him with an agreeing nod. “Can’t exactly be breathing everything in when they’re gutting the insulation, and all.”

“Oh, is that so?” The old man crows out as he scratches at the back of his neck, and casts a sideways glance over to the athlete’s larger condo. “Well – I can’t guarantee it’ll be much better here for ya, but I hope yer able to rest and feel better, at least. Yer always welcome back here, you’s know.”

Without the bustle of the city and the errant reminders of what had transpired just outside of those four walls, Jaekyung was awfully hopeful that the recuperation they sought would be exactly what he’d been desperately needed. “Thank you,” he comments with a brief lateral bow. “It’s been a long day for both of us, but we’ll be sure to come over for dinner, tomorrow night. Normal time.”

“Yeah,” Dan agrees. Perhaps it was best for not only the both of them, but the old man’s heart, if he didn’t know just quite yet. “We still have to unpack and then get some sleep however we can.”

“Gimme your bag,” the taller of them tells him suddenly, holding out a broad hand in the cold. “I’ll go put your stuff in your room, for you.”

Dan’s lips part at that for a moment, before his eyes take on a glaze of surprise, widening them and smoothing out his frown lines. “You don’t want me to sleep with you, tonight? I thought it would help you better – ”

“Dan,” Jaekyung deadpans, face furrowed and eyes dark. “The bag.” The old coot doesn’t know about us or your stitches, he wants to say, but decides it best if he doesn’t, and this wouldn’t be how I’d want to tell him.

However, the elderly man must have been sharper than either of them had given him credit for, as the look in his eyes is palpable and aware. “Oh – are y’having some trouble sleeping there, Jaegeng?”

Sigh. This was exactly what Jaekyung had wanted to avoid, his face twisted into a grimace of sheer agony as he racks his brain for a way out of this. He could barely stomach worrying himself and Dan over what they’d endured, let alone somebody so elderly and frail.

“He – ” the brunette begins, picking up rather quickly that he would need to save this situation before it completely fell apart between his fingers. “Mr. Joo sometimes has some difficulty with falling asleep at night. Finds it hard to unwind and relax after the day – you know? He did nap in the car a little bit, on the way here, but it wasn’t – a lot.”

As though words were not coming to him, Jaekyung merely hums in agreement beside them, and gently snatches Dan’s rucksack from his hands. He doesn’t at all try to hide the flair he uses to loop it over a forearm, either. “I’ll be inside,” he tells them pointedly, beginning to appear more drained by the minute.

A sigh escapes Dan, then, as he worries his fingers into the side of his head. He hadn’t meant to upset Jaekyung after what happened in the car, but it seemed like it had been out of his control, now. “Sorry about him. It’s been… a long week.”

Unmarred by the events, however, Myung-jin merely shrugs, and steps to the side. “It’s quite alright. Y’know Danny boy – I been growin’ a garden since y’left. It’s a bit cold now, I say, but some plants can withstand the cold snaps, here ‘n there.”

“Oh?” Dan muses, then, eyes taking on a twinkle to them. “Can I see?”

“Of course,” the old man agrees flippantly, and waves him over. “This way.”

Despite the cool, unforgiving darkness of the night which surrounds them, the soft glow from the house lights helps to illuminate the way around the back of the home. Dan can envision the unseeded back patio area from memory, remembering its broken stone pathways and the withered wood from a fence many years ago. It’s seemingly just as he remembers it to be – quaint, attached to Bok-soon’s little house where she’s retreated with her pups, and slightly overgrown with weeds.

When they turn the final corner, Myung-jin gestures theatrically to his yard with an outstretched hand, and Dan coos out in awe. He’s tended up a little garden right under his back awning, with solar lights aimed right at the seedlings to provide some artificial light and heat in this climate. He sees the beginnings of grape tomatoes, the frills of some small onions, and some tall tufts of weedy plant mass, decorated in petal-shaped leaves and little white buds.

“It’s beautiful,” he comments as he kneels, yet keeps his hands softly upon his knees, as though his touch could very well spoil them. “You did all of this yourself?”

“I did,” the old man tells him proudly, crooked smile stretching up his face and his sparse teeth gleaming in the solar lights. “I was lonely when y’d left, you two. Bok-soon likes to be walked, but my legs don’t appreciate that much walkin’, now. So, I’d have the village women walk ‘em once a day, but I had nothin’ for me to do. Decided to take up sowing as a hobby, you see – decided, yeah, it was nice.”

“What’s your goal with it?” Dan asks him softly. “Do you want to make some money off your produce? Maybe start to grow a little farm?”

“Hmm, it’s an idea. Hadn’t thought that far, yet, see. Just thought it’d pass the time.”

He grins, endeared to the idea of this small man developing an interest in something so mundane, yet so delicate and balanced. “Grandma used to love to garden, when I was young,” he shares as the old man takes a small, green bulb of a tomato into his palm, and gives it a gentle shine. “Mostly flowers and herbs, but it was my favorite way to pass the time, when the weather was nice.”

“It’s surprising – y’can create so many things, with just a bit o’ earth.”

Dan had to agree, for he’d experienced himself the joys of creating something out of nothing. A helpless little plant, a baby puppy – even a budding relationship.

“Anyway,” he hears beside him. “This is why I brought y’back here, see,” the old man says as he, too, begins to kneel, rucks up his pants from around his ankles and folds his hands in front of himself. Catching the young man’s attention, he eyes up one particular section of leafy growth – the cluster with the flower-petal leaves. “This ‘ere’s eucalyptus. Grew it myself from just a sprout, d’you know.”

“Oh, I love the smell of eucalyptus,” Dan croons with a smile to him, and allows himself to reach out and gently caress the plant’s vines.

“She’s popular for scent, sure,” Myung-jin nods, “but she’s also a great deal of help when y’re not well.”

Curious, he glances over at his neighbor in question. “It has medicinal properties – correct? I learned in the city that it’s extremely popular for both congestive issues and inflammation. We used to recommend it at the hospice in water-soluble form for some of our gastric patients.”

“That it does,” the old man agrees, “but it’s also said that the oil y’extract from it works wonders for what yer friend is dealing with.”

At that, Dan’s face twists in mild confusion. “Sorry? You – are you talking about using it as a muscle relaxant? I mean, it is popular in sports medicine as well – we’ve used it before when he pushes himself too hard. It makes it so he doesn’t get nearly as sore after training.”

“Ahh,” the old man tisks and shakes his head, before meeting Dan’s eye. “That’s not what I mean, and y’know that, son. That boy isn’t just not sleeping – is he.”

It’s not a question. It doesn’t sound like a question, and Dan would know what that inflection sounds like. Myung-jin is telling him what he’s hearing and not asking for confirmation. “You can tell?” Dan concedes after a moment and drops his voice so as to not have Jaekyung eavesdrop on them. “We’ve been trying what we can. It’s common that this happens for him, but – erm, not usually this severely. None of his usual remedies are working, and – he’s starting to see things.”

“Right,” he nods, and plucks a single leaf from the thin vine. “I’ll have y’try something, and I’ll need y’to trust me. Y’er running out of time for him, see, and that boy’d sooner drive himself away into the night than tell y’bout it.

“And from what I can tell,” Dan hears as he feels the weight of someone’s eyes on him, and realizes rather quickly that Myung-jin is looking at him. Rather, actually – at his hands, and the ring that adorns one of them, “he means too much t’ya to lose, like that.”

A shaky breath escapes him that he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, and it becomes clear that he really would have done anything he could to help Jaekyung; it was all he could do, after everything Jaekyung had done for him, in the first place. “What are you proposing?” He questions gently. “I don’t know how to stop the nightmares long enough for him to be comfortable.”

Then, the old man turns his attention back to the cluster of leaves. With deft hands, he plucks several of the petal-shaped leaves from their vines and gathers them in a cupped palm. It only takes a few moments to procure enough to satisfy him, for when he finally passes them to Dan’s waiting hands, he’s counted about ten of them out and made sure they were shiny and bulbous enough for the taking.

“The oil’s what yer after, but that takes a long time to make,” the elderly man explains. “If y’break the skin on the leaves, the oil will come out – and y’ve got enough to use.”

“What do you think is best I do with them in this form, though?” He asks, and he’s sure there’s got to be an answer.

“Take the leaves – bruise ‘em,” is instructed to him in real-time, watching as Myung-jin folds one right down the curve of the leaf, and presses it in half. “This ridge here – take it, ‘n rub it behind his ears. Just a little ‘ll do ya. Put him right to sleep, promise y’that. I even heard it lowers yer anxiety, helps y’calm down faster than a horse tranq.”

Dan folds his own leaf in half as instructed to be sure he knows what he’s doing; once he’s able to feel the hint of a secretion leaking from the ridge of the leaf, a sigh escapes him, and a mistiness fills his eyes. “You’re sure this will help? We don’t know what else to do without going to a psych, and he'd never agree to that. I'd sooner see pigs fly.”

A shrug, and a crooked, toothless grin. “Can’t hurt to try, then, yea?”

So, can you touch me? I know I’m just a wandering spirit.

But if you want, this forest can be my religion. *

Right – Dan would want his toothbrush and toothpaste in the full-bath over the half-bath, and would want his soaps in the shower ahead of time. He was particular about that – something about efficiency and proper time management, all things Jaekyung regretted half-tuning out.

He’d also want his favorite chips on the kitchen counter and not inside the cabinet, because he tended to forget what he had when he was in the mood to raid his snack stash.

As for his luggage full of clothes – well… that one may have to wait. They hadn’t discussed just how long they were staying, meaning they hadn’t decided if it would be worth it to put their clothes in the drawers, or not.

Dan would want his whites with his underwear and socks, and the colors all in another drawer.

Dan… would want to curl up next to him tonight, both of them entangled in one another – but, how could he bring himself to do just that after what’s been happening? 

It had been damaging enough to watch the man slip right through his fingers in front of his very eyes, something he hoped he would never have had to relive for as long as he’d grace this planet. Now, having to relive that feeling every time he closed his eyes felt like paying a petulant toll to only the deepest pits of Hell.

Surely, he didn’t deserve this – he knows that he has a lot to make it up to Dan over, but this? He wasn’t sure it was even the slightest bit humane to consider this a punishment. Jaekyung would rather not be alive, at all, if this was how he was meant to atone for his sins.

He sighed and hung his head low between his shoulders, wondering just what the fuck he should have done differently. It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy resting with Dan – it was, well… more so that he feared what he could do to Dan, while he wasn’t awake. If he even so much as rolled on top of Dan in the middle of his sleep, and put enough pressure on his stitching to cause physical pain, he knew he would never forgive himself for as long as he lived.

He’d sooner nail himself to the wall while Dan slept peacefully in their bed.

Distraught, he sighs and buries his head in his hands. He’s just so fucking tired.

Well – despite the unwavering sleep deprivation beginning to take a toll on his psyche, he’s lucid enough to remember that above all, Dan still needs him. Dan still relies on him as a guardian and a caretaker, and that means needing Jaekyung strong-willed, resilient, and certainly not cowardly.

Then maybe, once Dan was able to have his stitching removed, the nightmares would finally dissipate and allow him ample rest. Maybe it’s the possibility of them reopening the wound that was keeping him up at night, and not the gnawing guilt simmering in his gut which convinces him that he could’ve done more.

As if on cue, he hears the telltale clack of the front door opening and stands from his brooding spot.

When he rounds the corner out of the small bedroom, Dan is in his entryway toeing off his outside shoes and looking up to make eye contact. “You’re still here,” his beloved comments offhandedly, half-expecting Jaekyung to have been so overwhelmed and rundown that he’d likely raced over to his own bed. “You doing any better, you think?”

Sucking in a breath, Jaekyung finds his palms sweating. It was so much easier to lie straight to his face when they weren’t inches from Dan’s bed, where they should be. “I guess,” he surmises, the guilt of the situation beginning to swallow him whole. He was the only reason they even came out here; if he hadn’t been falling apart, they would’ve still been home, with Dan able to rest in his massive, goose-down bed with central heating and 20°C aircon.

There’s a beat of pure silence, then, followed by the rustling of Dan’s coat as he shucks it off, setting it on the rack. “Right,” he draws out with a downward inflection – a dead giveaway that he didn’t believe a word out of that mouth. “You’re normally pretty chatty with me when we’re alone, but now it feels like you can’t wait to get away from me. Care to share with the class what’s going through your head?”

Fuck. The breath he was holding rushes out of him like a popped balloon, and shame heats the expanse of his cheeks. “I keep inconveniencing you. You should be home, in our bed, focusing on your recovery, and – ” he begins to ramble with unseeing eyes, hanging his head and shying his gaze from view, “ – instead, you’re here dealing with… whatever the fuck’s going on with me.”

“I am,” Dan agrees with that same flippant tone of his and closes the gap between the two of them in a few slow steps. “And, whose idea was it to come down here, in the first place?”

A sigh. “Yours,” Jaekyung confesses, brushing his hair out of his face with a broad hand, “but I’m still the only reason you would’ve suggested it in the first place.”

“That may be true,” the older of them hums as a grin begins to creep its way onto his lips, and reaches up to cup the man’s cheek softly. Warm, smooth, and all his, “but it’s not like it’s changing anything for me, really.”

Hmph. “Gonna be harder to stick to your diet without a full kitchen.”

“Jaekyung,” Dan giggles and finds himself rolling his eyes. “It’s fine. Promise.”

The pout he gets in response as those same turbulent eyes finally meet his, tells him all he needs to know. “You’re sure?”

“Positive,” comes immediately, throwing Jaekyung’s words from earlier that day right back at him once again. “I know that I’ve been making you worry since my injury, but I’m allowed to worry about you, too. We came down here for the week so that both of us can tune everything out and focus on recovering. You included.

“And, quite frankly,” Dan coos with a rather underhanded move of gently pressing his thumb to the curve of the man’s lower lip, feeling the puffs of his breath against his skin, “it’s hard to get better when I’m not sleeping well, either, and it’s hard to sleep well when I don’t have – ” he cuts himself off, and dares to gently press his thumb forward just a bit, reveling in the way Jaekyung’s hot mouth instinctively leaves a scorching, wet kiss to the digit, “ – my favorite teddy bear, to hold.”

His partner swears under his breath and can’t stop himself when he surges forward to connect their lips in a searing kiss, hands gently framing Dan’s lower back. “You’re evil.”

He smirks. “I know. I just want what I want – and, right now, I want to change out of these clothes, get comfortable with just the two of us, and get some actual sleep. Hmm?”

The simple mention of slipping back into the hell that was his subconscious has Jaekyung trying to pull back, breath escaping him in a choking rush – before small hands grapple at his bicep and keep him right where he was.

The look in Dan’s eyes is intentional, stern, and hard-pressed; this was a fight that he knew he would not win. “Jaekyung,” the older of them says, once more, and frowns when worry lines reappear around those sore eyes. “We can’t keep running from this – if you want it to go away, then we have to face it head-on.”

Rather quickly, though, Jaekyung begins to shake his head. “I can’t keep putting myself through this,” he confesses in a rather broken tone, the edges of his voice crackling with grief. “It’s every time I shut my eyes – even if it’s for just twenty minutes, it’s… you’re there, in front of me, and in some way, you’re dying. Bleeding out, losing a limb – fuck, I don’t know…” comes out choked, and Dan wonders for a moment if he would have been sick, again. “You’re constantly slipping right through my fingers, and nothing I do stops it.”

“It’s not real, sweet,” his partner coos softly, running his free hand over the man’s shoulder blade in comforting motions. “I know saying that doesn’t help, but we’re going to fight this together - yeah? I’ll be right here, so if something happens – I’ll be able to help you through it.”

Then, the look on Jaekyung’s face falls, and he goes pale. “You – right here? No, we can’t – ”

“We can,” is argued back gently, “and we will. There’s no fighting me on this. We’re sleeping together, and that is final, Joo Jaekyung.” A rushed breath tumbles out of him, then, and Dan feels tears dripping over the back of his knuckles. “Oh – no, don’t cry – ”

All their antics come screeching to a halt as Dan gathers him close, wrapping both arms around the back of his neck and tucking that large body into the crook of his neck. It’s awkward, holding somebody that much taller than himself – but it helps. As he smooths a palm down the center of Jaekyung’s clothed back, he can feel his body ripple as the dam inside him breaks.

“I’m sorry,” Dan whispers to him, and it helps a little bit. He can’t do much, right now, but offers a thick, wet sniffle as a response. “That wasn’t what I meant. I want to sleep with you, to see if I can help. I don’t know if it’ll work, but I want to try, Jaekyung. For you.”

Another sniffle. “Can’t,” is what he gets back, gruff and deep. “I could roll on top of you – I could hurt you, I – ”

“Shh, you would never,” his beloved croons gently, and plants warm kisses along the side of his face that have him floating. “Never in a hundred years would you let yourself hurt me, Jaekyung. Not even when you’re asleep.”

He chokes back a whine, not willing to feel that pathetic.

“Now,” Dan says quietly and carefully, “let’s change. Turn the lights down. Okay? We’ll share my bed today, and if you want, yours tomorrow.”

After a moment, and a few more sniffles, he feels Jaekyung nod in the crook of his shoulder. It’s close enough to agreement, as far as he’s been able to come all week with this subject, and he’ll take what he can get.

“Something comfy, and maybe warm,” is what he’s told, as Jaekyung picks the pieces of himself up and begins to tape them back together. “It’s a little drafty, so it gets cold in here at night.”

He nods, and moves on autopilot with a mind as mushy and empty as the rest of him.

Jaekyung has to go back out to his own dwelling to retrieve his toiletries but makes sure to return dutifully back to the small studio he’s borrowing for the night. He doesn’t remember what he grabs from his suitcase, quite honestly forgetting all about asking Dan about unpacking his own belongings and where he should put them.

He puts on something, blind to the color but comfortable in whatever he’d chosen. That held no importance, now.

Blindly does he go through the motions of brushing his teeth, as well; if Dan had asked him to also wash his face, tonight, he isn’t sure he’d be able to stand up in the bathroom long enough to do it.

And, when he returns to Dan’s little room, he finds what looks to be a comfortable area set up with two pillows and multiple blankets, an unfitted sheet as thin as paper with a lush, heavy duvet over top to keep the cold out, a setup that looks absolutely divine to a body as starved of rest as his.

When Dan realizes that he’s returned to him, the smile that blooms upon that face is breathtaking – gentle, embracing, and devout. He’s poised in a sitting position, with legs beneath their blankets, and his shirt rucked up to his clavicles as he smooths a protective bandage over his sutures. It’s nearly enough to bring Jaekyung right to his knees.

The beautiful, stunning love of his life was so brave and strong, enough to tackle the responsibility of piecing not only himself back together but another human. He’s the most perfect thing Jaekyung thinks he’s ever seen, those warm, sloped eyes tired and weakened from the day, his frame no longer frail and wispish, but filled out and lean, with muscle where his bonier areas had been.

He’s strong, now, with a body healthy enough to treat that which ails him.

“Hey, tough man,” Dan coos to him, and it tugs on the threads holding Jaekyung steady. “You can climb in – don’t be scared.”

He huffs, but kneels to join Dan in his makeshift bed, anyway, lifting the covers to stretch out his long legs. “Not scared.”

There’s a bleat of comfortable silence as Dan balls up the bandage wrapper, and leans over to toss it into his desk wastebin. When he’s done with his work, he lets down his shirt to fall comfortably at his waist, once more, and turns back to his partner.

“Okay, I have an idea,” he proposes, and smooths a hand over one of the pillows, “but you have to trust me, for it to work.”

Hmm. “What if it doesn’t work?”

“Well,” Dan shrugs, and stacks two of the pillows on top of one another for added lift, “we won’t know until we try. Turn off that light for me?”

Jaekyung nods, and briefly stands to turn off the desk light. The room floods with the cool, nostalgic darkness of the nighttime, accompanied by trickles of the comforting, ethereal gleam of the moonlight wafting through the windows. It bathes the room in an effervescent indigo, deep in richness compared to the day yet lacking any intimidation, as compared to the shadows within the penthouse.

It’s serene, refreshing, and quiescent – all things Jaekyung hadn’t realized he’d been missing.

When he returns to the futon and climbs back under the duvet, he notices something in Dan’s hands. “What’s your idea?” He finds himself asking. Knowing it’s Dan with something up his sleeve makes him believe it’s either something mischievous, or genuinely intelligent.

“Okay,” Dan breathes out in haste, like he was preparing for a spoken-word exam. “I did – a little research. Before I came in to get you, Myung-jin showed me his new garden. Cute, quaint. And he told me… to try this, as a natural remedy for insomnia.”

He holds out a small hand to him, allowing Jaekyung to cup it in his own, much larger, and view the leaves in the moonlight. “Poison… ivy?”

With a laugh, Dan shakes his head, and that mop of brown hair swishes prettily in the glow. “No. Eucalyptus, he says… helps calm the mind, and thereafter the body. Prepares it for sleep.”

His wrist flicks as he picks up two of the ovular leaves, and Jaekyung watches as he practically snaps them right down the spine, folding them like a matchbook. When his fingers go lax and release the leaves, they stay in place folded down the middle, and if Jaekyung looks close enough, he’s able to notice the glimmer of something in the crease he’s made.

“The leaves secrete an essential sap, that we use to produce essential oil,” the brunette explains, and meets his eye in the dark. “My thought process is – we test that theory, tonight. If it works, the cineole compound in the sap is said to relax the body and reduce inflammation, including in the head. It’s supposedly aromatherapeutic, as well – should make you less anxious and help you think less.”

Well… it’s certainly an idea. “What if it doesn’t?”

“We try it,” Dan continues, “and then we try something else. Myung-jin said it’s popular down here, as a topical antianxiety. So, if your nightmares are connected to your overthinking – hypothetically, we’ll need to target the reason for that overactivity. No?”

Honestly, it was at least worth a shot. Jaekyung didn’t have any better ideas. “That brain you’ve got there can be really sexy, sometimes,” he comments, and it pulls another laugh tumbling out of Dan’s lips, followed by a playful nudge to the shoulder. “Sure, do what you want. I don’t trust myself, but… I trust you.”

At that, his partner smiles. Wide, this time, and warm, as always. “Come here, love.”

He ushers him forward, hoarding Jaekyung’s large frame between his legs, and settles himself with arms on broad shoulders, so he brackets the man’s head on both sides. “It’s gonna feel weird but trust me on this. I looked it up.”

Being in the arms of the only person he felt safe around instinctively had him yawning, the older man’s magnetic pull far too strong for Jaekyung’s weakened will to resist. He’s warm to the touch, soft as silk, and smells like home.

Then after a moment, he feels something sticky and with pressure behind his left ear, and jerks a little where he’s held. “I know, trust me,” Dan whispers. “I won’t take long - let me do it.”

The man nods, and allows his eyes to close as he enjoys the serenity between them.

Dan is deft with his fingertips where he massages the fluid from the leaf behind the shell of his ear in small circles, not too much pressure but enough to keep it in place. He makes sure to trail it up to his hairline, as well, and further down below the lobe. When he feels the leaf crumple beneath his touch, he shifts Jaekyung’s head down the other way, inky hair tickling the skin on Dan’s neck, and turns his attention to the right ear.

“He didn’t tell me how long it takes to kick in,” Dan explains in a soft, quiet tone, like he were intentionally trying to pull Jaekyung into rem sleep. “I figured we’d give it a little time, let you unwind and we’ll take it from there.”

The body he’s holding tries to nod – he thinks, anyway. It’s hard to tell, when they’re both moving slightly.

When the second leaf begins to crumple, he squishes them both together, tossing them in the general direction of the wastebin – doesn’t matter, he’ll clean it up in the morning – and puts some pressure on the meat of the man’s shoulders to push him upright.

Jaekyung’s eyes are heavy, half-lidded, and glazed over. He’s visually teetering on the edge of sleep, and Dan has to wonder if that’s something that he did, or if that stuff really did work at the speed of light. “Oh – okay, wow,” he acquiesces, and scooches back over to the side, so that he can let the man lay his weight down. “Easy – ”

Everything feels fuzzier, Jaekyung realizes, and a lot lighter on the shoulders than it had been. Whether that’s due to whatever Dan put behind his ears that smells a lot like a hospital, or just from a change of scenery, soundtracked by the whispering of the waves and the dead-silence of the village – he couldn’t muster the ability to wonder.

Dan’s helpful in laying him down on his side, all of the bones in his body beginning to feel a bit soupy. What the fuck – did he drug him with something?

“Okay, not too fast,” he hears above him, but barely registers what it means. He also barely registers Dan laying down beside him, before the brush of clothing against his skin becomes apparent.

He knows he shouldn’t, but Dan is just so warm, and smells like safety. He just wants to feel okay again.

After a few moments, he feels someone tugging at him, once more, and cracks his heavy eyes open. He lets himself go with the movement, being rolled over onto his stomach – and right on top of Dan.

Like he’d been shocked, he jolts upright, hoisting the top half of him above his partner with rigid arms on either side of him, and a wild look in his eyes. “Wait – are you crazy? I could’ve hurt you!”

“Shh, you’re not,” his beloved insists, tugging at him once more to pull him back down. “Come on, hold me. I’m cold.”

“Dan – ” he stops himself, voice cutting short as a rush of emotion bleeds out of him, raw and uncontrolled, no matter what he does. A familiar mistiness returns to the corners of his eyes, and he must swallow it down before it’s too late. “I wouldn’t forgive myself – ”

The older of them tisks, then, clearly running out of patience for their back-and-forth charade. “I haven’t had an active bleed in four days, love – I’m going to be fine. I would be better, even, if you’d let me hold you.”

It has Dan lifting himself up on folded elbows to reach him, and he begins to pepper soft, open-mouthed kisses up the side of Jaekyung’s face, trailing over to the shell of his ear.

A rush of air leaves him. “Fuck,” he swears, and swallows around a dry throat.

He’s too weak-willed for this, right now, and can’t help but give into his urges.

Softly does he slot their mouths together as his resolve snaps, the wet smack of lips meeting echoing in the dark. A pleased mewl tumbles its way out of Dan’s throat, as small, delicate hands trace up the length of his shoulders and stroke along the short hairs at the back of his neck.

After a moment, Dan is the one to break the kiss – and settles himself back into their newly-made pile of pillows that anchor him in a cloud of soft, white cushion. Wordlessly, he pats the empty space above his left shoulder, the glint of his promise ring gleaming in the moonlight – and Jaekyung can’t resist.

He shuts his eyes tight as he finally lets Dan manhandle him into position, curtaining Jaekyung’s large body over him like a weighted blanket. Their legs slot together beneath the covers where they entwine together, and as the man’s weight finally leans down on him, long arms curtaining him on both sides and head softly resting on the ridge of Dan’s shoulder – a pleased sigh rumbles through him.

“Let’s stay like this for a little bit,” his partner tells him in quiet verbiage, massaging the ridge of Jaekyung’s shoulder through his shirt.

The position is comfortable, allowing Jaekyung to drape himself across Dan’s body however was comfortable, yet keeping his weight away from his injury. For how broad his upper body was, Dan was finding use for him as his own personal cover.

“Nice, isn’t it?” He hears above him, but the vowels begin to bleed together.

It’s nice, it is. He feels safe, here, held close by careful, loving arms. There’s an enticing warmth beginning to bleed through his clothes everywhere that Dan touches him, and that fuzziness in his head starts to come back.

Grimacing, he’s unable to stifle a massive yawn that purges its way right out of him.

It must’ve been humorous, because he thinks that he can hear Dan laugh at him. He’s not too sure – he heard something that sounded a lot like Dan, but he couldn’t prove it.

What he was able to feel after a moment, however, was the crisp, soothing sensation of hands in his hair.

He feels nails, as they delicately swipe down the roots of his hair in slow, methodical motions, starting at his crown and working down to his nape. It’s rhythmic, the way it pulls him further into the painless nothingness that calls out to him, a sensation so alluring that it reads as foreign.

When Dan leaves a soft, pliant kiss to the parting of his hair, allows him to collapse into him and fall victim to the weightlessness that begins to sink into his muscles - he’s not sure he even would remember it. There’s a simplistic plateau of euphoria that draws him in with each push of the man’s hand, each whisper in his ear, each I love you that gets dropped on deafened ears.

And for the first time in a week, Jaekyung sleeps, and doesn’t awaken in tears.