Our old lady time she's still a-flying; Onew/Taemin
Title: our old lady time she's still a-flying
Pairing: Onew/Taemin
Rating: R
Word count: 2,393 words
Summary: Jinki moves to a lake side home and meets a neighbour who can manipulate time.
Prompt #8: Onew/Taemin; "When he told the truth it never sounded like the truth but it felt like the truth."
"Have you ever wondered how Time works?" Taemin says to Jinki, just inches away. The neighbour in the next house, who by the sound of it is about seventeen years old. So far, Jinki has sat in the garden talking to Taemin about twice now. Two weeks since he's moved here. He thinks Taemin might be his first friend in this neighbourhood.
He's yet to see Taemin's face.
"I dunno," he says. "Why?"
On and off he thinks about Jonghyun back in Seoul. If he were in Seoul, they'd be at noraebang or an ice-cream parlour, still in their uniforms, shirt tails not tucked into their pants in rebellion. Kibum would join them and say something horrible about Jinki's face or accuse him of profound mental retardation. And Jonghyun would defend him, like 'this guy is second in our class you asshole,' and swat Kibum's head with a dessert spoon.
Jinki's mom had moved to a lake side home in hopes to escape a bustling city life, the unstoppable tick of the clock. He had been in prep school, perfectly happy. Happy with homework, scattered messily on his desk, working methodically to the faint glow of his computer. He'd been happy to have friends like Jonghyun, and admittedly, Kibum, to keep him company. They'd both looked exceedingly guilty to learn that he was leaving, Kibum collapsing into him and crying, and he'd tried awkwardly to comfort him by telling them that he'd visit. Jonghyun had been uncharacteristically tearful.
And so, Jinki has been thrust into this not-life with a carpet-grass garden to replace an air-conditioned lobby, and the occasional email to replace his friends. A break from school, all the time in the world to do nothing.
For the past two weeks, the world has slowed around him, hot and sticky against his skin. Heavy and agnate to things he doesn't have time to understand. But there is so much time, he doesn't quite know what to do with it.
"I dunno either," Taemin says, scratching against the wood with a fingernail, composing a cryptic message worded entirely with erratic taps. "But I can manipulate it. I could live forever if I wanted."
Jinki considers this. He's about to answer, when Taemin cuts him off.
"You could too, you know. Live forever, I mean."
"That's impossible."
They discuss the topic at length for another fifteen minutes or so, before Jinki dares himself to ask what he's been waiting two full conversations to ask, "Hey so, uhm. Since we're neighbours and everything. D'you think, maybe. I don't know. Maybe we could-hang out at my house?"
Taemin remains quiet on the other side of the fence and Jinki calls out his name a few times until he thinks it's quite probable that Taemin's already left. He feels something that's a lot like disappointment, but he tries not to let it bother him too much. He gets the feeling they'll be talking again really soon, anyways.
When he closes his eyes, the sky turns dark, the red glow of the sun through his eyelids fading to a dim midnight blue.
---
Jinki drafts the third email of the day on his laptop, starting with 'hey Jonghyun' and ending with backspaces until the page is empty again. He doesn't know how to explain Taemin, how the boy is curious and amazing, and he doesn't even know what Taemin looks like but it's like there's an effervescence in his lungs every time they talk. It's the weirdest thing.
He starts the fourth email with 'I don't know how to explain this, but I think my neighbour can manipulate time', then deletes it and shuts his laptop down.
It's a crazy idea that Jinki had been stupid enough to even consider. Of course time can't be manipulated, he thinks. It's preposterous. Taemin was just being philosophical, talking in metaphors. He did say that perception of time is a never ending illusion. No reason for Jinki to take him literally.
Jinki walks over to his bed and lies down, his head resting on the back of his hands pressed together against his pillow.
Then he swears he was at his desk, typing an email, or lying down in his bed taking a nap. But he's in the garden again, a boy sitting beside him, scuffed sneakers tucked under his crossed legs. Jinki stares at the boy's face for a while, trying to compose himself. The boy's cheeks white and full and tinged with just the barest flush of pink, hair straight and long, the ends spilling over his collarbones. Lips like moist pink gummy candies, pressing together.
"Who are you?" Jinki says, though he already has a good idea.
"Taemin," he says in response, hand coming to rest gently on Jinki's shoulder. Jinki wonders if he's dreaming, if the orange-gold glow of late afternoon sky is a result of his staring at the computer too long. He might be day dreaming.
"Well. Uhm, hi. How did you get here? I don't remember letting you in. To my garden," Jinki says, folds his arms once, undoes them and crosses them again, then rests his hands awkwardly in his lap. Has he always had arms? What's he supposed to do with them? Surely he isn't supposed to wrap them around Taemin's waist like he wants to. He pushes the idea away.
"You must be sleepy," Taemin says, a corner of his mouth bearing an upward lilt. "I want to show you something."
They stand up, legs tingling from being crossed, Jinki's head still feels far too heavy to be held on straight, so he regards Taemin forty-five degrees to the right of eye-level. It's a good angle for Taemin, where the hollows of his cheeks are dusted with shadows, and his eyes reflect the warmth of the sunset.
Whatever it is Taemin wants to show him, Jinki never finds out, because next thing he knows he's back on his bed. Time eludes him.
His computer buzzes quietly on his desk.
---
There is little evidence to support Taemin's claims of immortality. Relative, he calls it. Everything is relative, and Jinki would just have to take his word for it. Taemin's words cast over splintering picket fence. The wan nuances of his voice when he claims to have felt things Jinki wouldn't have ever imagined.
Jinki falls backwards from a cross legged sitting position onto his back, eyes tracing clouds along the wide expanse of blue sky. Half obscured by the few inches of timber that keep Jinki from touching Taemin's hand. A lone beetle takes calculated steps across the sole of Jinki's sneaker. His legs stretch out onto the grass from under him.
Careful words, Jinki only speaks careful words. Politically correct words.
And then Taemin claims to know how to halt time. Or make it go quick.
Jinki wants to ask this time. Ask him how he's doing these things; making time skip. Taemin smiles, audible on the other side.
"I'll show you."
Jinki feels displaced and young as he's watching Taemin climb over the fence into his garden. Taemin lies down next to him, their shoes touching, his fingers trembling from the electricity of having Taemin so close. And then there's Taemin who looks like he's in total control, like he knows exactly what to do.
Jinki isn't sure why, but he turns on his side to face him. They're face to face, noses just the width of a hair apart. Licking his lips, just sticking his tongue out to slick over them, he'd be able to taste Taemin.
Taemin thumbs his eyes closed, so gentle, like he could crumble any moment from the heat of his skin. The ghost of Taemin's breath rustling through the gaps in his eyelashes. His thumb trails the bridge of Jinki's nose, coming to rest between the part of his lips.
"Keep 'em closed," Taemin says. Jinki supresses the shudder that threatens to overwhelm him.
So he keeps them closed. He waits for Taemin to do something. To kiss him. Perhaps making the day go double time is an elaborate euphamism for making out, he thinks, lips swelling at the thought. It doesn't explain the way his days have sped up every time he encounters Taemin, but that isn't the point now.
He waits. And waits. Then the air around him drops a few degrees.
And after what feels like a minute, he opens his eyes. Taemin has disappeared, the grass that was under him cold again. The sun that'd been beating down on him is replaced with muted moonlight. His mother calls him into the house for dinner.
---
The air is cold, Jinki can just about see ice particles stuck to his eyelashes. Everything is dark around the sides, and this is how Jinki knows he's dreaming. Taemin takes him by the hand, and they're headed for the lake just a few blocks from his house.
Jinki has to dare himself to look, as they perch themselves on the edge of the shallow end, his shoes kicked off. Socks be damned. He watches in what would be sick fascination as Taemin slowly peels the shirt off his torso, hair falling across his shoulders as he pulls his head out of the collar.
"Why are you undressing?" he says.
"We're here to swim, remember? We do this every night. Or some nights. Depends."
"We do?"
Taemin takes off his pants, and is apparently not a fan of underwear. Jinki feels like the inward curve of Taemin's hipbones is something he might want to fit his palms into.
"I don't remember. Is this part of your weird time-jumping abilities?"
"Maybe."
Maybe. Trust Taemin to be ambiguous every chance he can get. Jinki has to wonder where this all this trust is coming from. He knows nothing about this person, and he's not quite sure if he wants to. Jacked up time, possible wormhole jumping and all this new age science fiction stuff isn't exactly his idea of a good summer.
So maybe it's because this is all a dream, but Jinki takes off his clothes, slowly, languidly, like he wants to. All the way till he bathes in cold air and his pores rise in protest. Till his teeth ache with cold. This could be a nice dream if he weren't this lucid. Jinki can't even remember when a he'd had a dream that felt this real before tonight.
Jinki tries not to wonder if this'll end up a wet dream.
"Get in the water already!" Taemin says, his shoulders glistening, the rest of him flesh coloured ripples. "Before you freeze."
He does; is absolutely happy to. And despite being bitten by the icy water, despite how dark it is and how alone they are, Jinki can't bring himself to feel scared.
"The water's cold," he manages.
"Come here."
They stay that way for a while, treading water, boundlessness beneath them. Taemin's arms rest comfortably on his waist, their torsos pressed flush together. The dark around the sides gets a little darker, but if there's anything he doesn't want to wake up from, it's Taemin's breath frosting against his cheek.
"This is real, you know," Taemin says, chin resting on Jinki's shoulder.
Of course it is. It feels real, at least. If there's anything he's learnt knowing Taemin, it's that reality is fashioned only by our perception of it, anyways, so technically everything he's seeing is real if he's perceiving it. It means Taemin trailing his fingers against Jinki's jaw, parted lips pressed into Jinki's neck-it's all real. Their legs tangled together. Their mouths pressed together. Jinki's tongue moves instinctively to nudge against Taemin's, a quiet sound sitting at the back of his throat.
When they pull apart, Taemin's eyes are red with the invasion of fresh lake water, presumably. There's a look in Taemin's eyes that says I hope you remember, just this once.
It takes him all night to understand the sadness in the smile Taemin gives him.
---
Jinki wakes up.
There it is again, waking up, not knowing what just happened. Losing a few hours to black. This time he's back in his room, the clothes he remembers wearing kind of wet, folded neat in a plastic bag ready to be thrown into the laundry basket. One day he might be determined enough to sit Taemin down and figure this out. This maddening warp he's let himself walk into.
But it's morning and maybe he'd fallen asleep without realising. Maybe he is profoundly retarded. Kibum might be right.
The cereal in his bowl is tasteless and soggy, and perhaps there's something wrong with Jinki-something to be done about the conservative yet fantastical way his mind chooses to fathom the way his days proceed. But what is he supposed to think? Logic and patterns and trends do nothing for him here.
Maybe he has that condition. The one where you fall asleep or faint at random.
"Mom," he says, dregs of milk collected at the corners of his mouth, "when was the last time I had a physical?"
"Finish your breakfast and go play with your new friend."
Why is she treating him like he's five years old? That in itself is puzzling, because Kibum used to say that Jinki was an ajusshi in a teenagers body.
"I think I might be a narcoleptic. Or cataplexic. Or both."
She looks at him, her eyes absolutely unreadable. "You don't need a doctor. You just need to have fun this summer. That is what we're here for."
"That's-I don't like not knowing what's wrong with me."
She huffs, agitated and anxious, delicate fingers curling into her palms to form tight balls. When there are tears in her eyes, Jinki decides he won't pursue the matter.
---
"Put me out of my misery," is the first thing Jinki says when it's him and Taemin in his garden again. The evening sets around them, heavy. Resisting the urge to wonder how he got here has become a force of habit. "What the hell is wrong with me? I know you know."
Taemin reclines. He pauses, then, "I'm sorry."
Jinki's sorry too. How could he have forgotten? How could he not? Neurodegeneration does funny things to a person.
"You know how to live forever," he says more than asks. "Teach me."
Pairing: Onew/Taemin
Rating: R
Word count: 2,393 words
Summary: Jinki moves to a lake side home and meets a neighbour who can manipulate time.
Prompt #8: Onew/Taemin; "When he told the truth it never sounded like the truth but it felt like the truth."
"Have you ever wondered how Time works?" Taemin says to Jinki, just inches away. The neighbour in the next house, who by the sound of it is about seventeen years old. So far, Jinki has sat in the garden talking to Taemin about twice now. Two weeks since he's moved here. He thinks Taemin might be his first friend in this neighbourhood.
He's yet to see Taemin's face.
"I dunno," he says. "Why?"
On and off he thinks about Jonghyun back in Seoul. If he were in Seoul, they'd be at noraebang or an ice-cream parlour, still in their uniforms, shirt tails not tucked into their pants in rebellion. Kibum would join them and say something horrible about Jinki's face or accuse him of profound mental retardation. And Jonghyun would defend him, like 'this guy is second in our class you asshole,' and swat Kibum's head with a dessert spoon.
Jinki's mom had moved to a lake side home in hopes to escape a bustling city life, the unstoppable tick of the clock. He had been in prep school, perfectly happy. Happy with homework, scattered messily on his desk, working methodically to the faint glow of his computer. He'd been happy to have friends like Jonghyun, and admittedly, Kibum, to keep him company. They'd both looked exceedingly guilty to learn that he was leaving, Kibum collapsing into him and crying, and he'd tried awkwardly to comfort him by telling them that he'd visit. Jonghyun had been uncharacteristically tearful.
And so, Jinki has been thrust into this not-life with a carpet-grass garden to replace an air-conditioned lobby, and the occasional email to replace his friends. A break from school, all the time in the world to do nothing.
For the past two weeks, the world has slowed around him, hot and sticky against his skin. Heavy and agnate to things he doesn't have time to understand. But there is so much time, he doesn't quite know what to do with it.
"I dunno either," Taemin says, scratching against the wood with a fingernail, composing a cryptic message worded entirely with erratic taps. "But I can manipulate it. I could live forever if I wanted."
Jinki considers this. He's about to answer, when Taemin cuts him off.
"You could too, you know. Live forever, I mean."
"That's impossible."
They discuss the topic at length for another fifteen minutes or so, before Jinki dares himself to ask what he's been waiting two full conversations to ask, "Hey so, uhm. Since we're neighbours and everything. D'you think, maybe. I don't know. Maybe we could-hang out at my house?"
Taemin remains quiet on the other side of the fence and Jinki calls out his name a few times until he thinks it's quite probable that Taemin's already left. He feels something that's a lot like disappointment, but he tries not to let it bother him too much. He gets the feeling they'll be talking again really soon, anyways.
When he closes his eyes, the sky turns dark, the red glow of the sun through his eyelids fading to a dim midnight blue.
---
Jinki drafts the third email of the day on his laptop, starting with 'hey Jonghyun' and ending with backspaces until the page is empty again. He doesn't know how to explain Taemin, how the boy is curious and amazing, and he doesn't even know what Taemin looks like but it's like there's an effervescence in his lungs every time they talk. It's the weirdest thing.
He starts the fourth email with 'I don't know how to explain this, but I think my neighbour can manipulate time', then deletes it and shuts his laptop down.
It's a crazy idea that Jinki had been stupid enough to even consider. Of course time can't be manipulated, he thinks. It's preposterous. Taemin was just being philosophical, talking in metaphors. He did say that perception of time is a never ending illusion. No reason for Jinki to take him literally.
Jinki walks over to his bed and lies down, his head resting on the back of his hands pressed together against his pillow.
Then he swears he was at his desk, typing an email, or lying down in his bed taking a nap. But he's in the garden again, a boy sitting beside him, scuffed sneakers tucked under his crossed legs. Jinki stares at the boy's face for a while, trying to compose himself. The boy's cheeks white and full and tinged with just the barest flush of pink, hair straight and long, the ends spilling over his collarbones. Lips like moist pink gummy candies, pressing together.
"Who are you?" Jinki says, though he already has a good idea.
"Taemin," he says in response, hand coming to rest gently on Jinki's shoulder. Jinki wonders if he's dreaming, if the orange-gold glow of late afternoon sky is a result of his staring at the computer too long. He might be day dreaming.
"Well. Uhm, hi. How did you get here? I don't remember letting you in. To my garden," Jinki says, folds his arms once, undoes them and crosses them again, then rests his hands awkwardly in his lap. Has he always had arms? What's he supposed to do with them? Surely he isn't supposed to wrap them around Taemin's waist like he wants to. He pushes the idea away.
"You must be sleepy," Taemin says, a corner of his mouth bearing an upward lilt. "I want to show you something."
They stand up, legs tingling from being crossed, Jinki's head still feels far too heavy to be held on straight, so he regards Taemin forty-five degrees to the right of eye-level. It's a good angle for Taemin, where the hollows of his cheeks are dusted with shadows, and his eyes reflect the warmth of the sunset.
Whatever it is Taemin wants to show him, Jinki never finds out, because next thing he knows he's back on his bed. Time eludes him.
His computer buzzes quietly on his desk.
---
There is little evidence to support Taemin's claims of immortality. Relative, he calls it. Everything is relative, and Jinki would just have to take his word for it. Taemin's words cast over splintering picket fence. The wan nuances of his voice when he claims to have felt things Jinki wouldn't have ever imagined.
Jinki falls backwards from a cross legged sitting position onto his back, eyes tracing clouds along the wide expanse of blue sky. Half obscured by the few inches of timber that keep Jinki from touching Taemin's hand. A lone beetle takes calculated steps across the sole of Jinki's sneaker. His legs stretch out onto the grass from under him.
Careful words, Jinki only speaks careful words. Politically correct words.
And then Taemin claims to know how to halt time. Or make it go quick.
Jinki wants to ask this time. Ask him how he's doing these things; making time skip. Taemin smiles, audible on the other side.
"I'll show you."
Jinki feels displaced and young as he's watching Taemin climb over the fence into his garden. Taemin lies down next to him, their shoes touching, his fingers trembling from the electricity of having Taemin so close. And then there's Taemin who looks like he's in total control, like he knows exactly what to do.
Jinki isn't sure why, but he turns on his side to face him. They're face to face, noses just the width of a hair apart. Licking his lips, just sticking his tongue out to slick over them, he'd be able to taste Taemin.
Taemin thumbs his eyes closed, so gentle, like he could crumble any moment from the heat of his skin. The ghost of Taemin's breath rustling through the gaps in his eyelashes. His thumb trails the bridge of Jinki's nose, coming to rest between the part of his lips.
"Keep 'em closed," Taemin says. Jinki supresses the shudder that threatens to overwhelm him.
So he keeps them closed. He waits for Taemin to do something. To kiss him. Perhaps making the day go double time is an elaborate euphamism for making out, he thinks, lips swelling at the thought. It doesn't explain the way his days have sped up every time he encounters Taemin, but that isn't the point now.
He waits. And waits. Then the air around him drops a few degrees.
And after what feels like a minute, he opens his eyes. Taemin has disappeared, the grass that was under him cold again. The sun that'd been beating down on him is replaced with muted moonlight. His mother calls him into the house for dinner.
---
The air is cold, Jinki can just about see ice particles stuck to his eyelashes. Everything is dark around the sides, and this is how Jinki knows he's dreaming. Taemin takes him by the hand, and they're headed for the lake just a few blocks from his house.
Jinki has to dare himself to look, as they perch themselves on the edge of the shallow end, his shoes kicked off. Socks be damned. He watches in what would be sick fascination as Taemin slowly peels the shirt off his torso, hair falling across his shoulders as he pulls his head out of the collar.
"Why are you undressing?" he says.
"We're here to swim, remember? We do this every night. Or some nights. Depends."
"We do?"
Taemin takes off his pants, and is apparently not a fan of underwear. Jinki feels like the inward curve of Taemin's hipbones is something he might want to fit his palms into.
"I don't remember. Is this part of your weird time-jumping abilities?"
"Maybe."
Maybe. Trust Taemin to be ambiguous every chance he can get. Jinki has to wonder where this all this trust is coming from. He knows nothing about this person, and he's not quite sure if he wants to. Jacked up time, possible wormhole jumping and all this new age science fiction stuff isn't exactly his idea of a good summer.
So maybe it's because this is all a dream, but Jinki takes off his clothes, slowly, languidly, like he wants to. All the way till he bathes in cold air and his pores rise in protest. Till his teeth ache with cold. This could be a nice dream if he weren't this lucid. Jinki can't even remember when a he'd had a dream that felt this real before tonight.
Jinki tries not to wonder if this'll end up a wet dream.
"Get in the water already!" Taemin says, his shoulders glistening, the rest of him flesh coloured ripples. "Before you freeze."
He does; is absolutely happy to. And despite being bitten by the icy water, despite how dark it is and how alone they are, Jinki can't bring himself to feel scared.
"The water's cold," he manages.
"Come here."
They stay that way for a while, treading water, boundlessness beneath them. Taemin's arms rest comfortably on his waist, their torsos pressed flush together. The dark around the sides gets a little darker, but if there's anything he doesn't want to wake up from, it's Taemin's breath frosting against his cheek.
"This is real, you know," Taemin says, chin resting on Jinki's shoulder.
Of course it is. It feels real, at least. If there's anything he's learnt knowing Taemin, it's that reality is fashioned only by our perception of it, anyways, so technically everything he's seeing is real if he's perceiving it. It means Taemin trailing his fingers against Jinki's jaw, parted lips pressed into Jinki's neck-it's all real. Their legs tangled together. Their mouths pressed together. Jinki's tongue moves instinctively to nudge against Taemin's, a quiet sound sitting at the back of his throat.
When they pull apart, Taemin's eyes are red with the invasion of fresh lake water, presumably. There's a look in Taemin's eyes that says I hope you remember, just this once.
It takes him all night to understand the sadness in the smile Taemin gives him.
---
Jinki wakes up.
There it is again, waking up, not knowing what just happened. Losing a few hours to black. This time he's back in his room, the clothes he remembers wearing kind of wet, folded neat in a plastic bag ready to be thrown into the laundry basket. One day he might be determined enough to sit Taemin down and figure this out. This maddening warp he's let himself walk into.
But it's morning and maybe he'd fallen asleep without realising. Maybe he is profoundly retarded. Kibum might be right.
The cereal in his bowl is tasteless and soggy, and perhaps there's something wrong with Jinki-something to be done about the conservative yet fantastical way his mind chooses to fathom the way his days proceed. But what is he supposed to think? Logic and patterns and trends do nothing for him here.
Maybe he has that condition. The one where you fall asleep or faint at random.
"Mom," he says, dregs of milk collected at the corners of his mouth, "when was the last time I had a physical?"
"Finish your breakfast and go play with your new friend."
Why is she treating him like he's five years old? That in itself is puzzling, because Kibum used to say that Jinki was an ajusshi in a teenagers body.
"I think I might be a narcoleptic. Or cataplexic. Or both."
She looks at him, her eyes absolutely unreadable. "You don't need a doctor. You just need to have fun this summer. That is what we're here for."
"That's-I don't like not knowing what's wrong with me."
She huffs, agitated and anxious, delicate fingers curling into her palms to form tight balls. When there are tears in her eyes, Jinki decides he won't pursue the matter.
---
"Put me out of my misery," is the first thing Jinki says when it's him and Taemin in his garden again. The evening sets around them, heavy. Resisting the urge to wonder how he got here has become a force of habit. "What the hell is wrong with me? I know you know."
Taemin reclines. He pauses, then, "I'm sorry."
Jinki's sorry too. How could he have forgotten? How could he not? Neurodegeneration does funny things to a person.
"You know how to live forever," he says more than asks. "Teach me."