Fic-DBSK-Anodyne
Title: Anodyne
Author: virdant
Length: 1,234 words; one-shot;
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Angst, Romance (?)
Pairing: JaeChun
Summary: But Yoochun understands enough.... It’s a good type of pain. Like the pain you feel when you know you’re getting stronger, after a run.
Warning: Self-destructive behavior.
Notes: Can be interpreted to come after Plunging Downwards but stands on its own since I planned this before I wrote that other one-shot.
Anodyne
Rooming together, there are aspects to Jaejoong’s life that only Yoochun is privy to.
Yoochun doesn’t understand Jaejoong fully, for all their proclamations of “soul-mate.” But he knows enough. He knows enough to understand the itch that crawls under Jaejoong’s skin, the itch that tells him: this is wrong this is wrong this is wrong even if Yoochun disagrees with Jaejoong’s desperate whispers of: make me perfect. Jaejoong already is perfect.
But Yoochun understands enough.
So he takes the needle from the small sewing kit Jaejoong keeps in his bedside drawer, washes it with soap and more soap in the bathroom, prolonging the inevitable.
He laces the small raised lump n Jaejoong’s back-nothing but a bug-bite-with the needle, doing the duty for Jaejoong, because it’s better Yoochun do it with a needle washed too many times to count than to have Jaejoong stab himself with 0.28 mm ballpoint pens.
It bleeds, not from Yoochun’s needle, but from perfect cuticles working away at the lump as a broken voice whispers: get it out get it out get it out! Yoochun washes the blood away-a damp towel on the back coming away brown with old blood and red with new-and clips off blood encrusted nails off otherwise perfect hands.
(Yoochun is the one to suggest tattoos when it inevitably scars. Because Yoochun understands. He tapes the tattoo as often as possible in a desperate bid to keep nails away from black ink just under skin. He doesn’t want to see Jaejoong’s nails all shorn away.)
*
Yoochun understands, which is why he carries a nail clipper on a keychain wherever he goes (except on airplanes; he loses two before he decides to keep a clipper on a separate keychain, apart from all his keys). It’s not only for him-for the band-because his music requires nails shorn short enough to keep from clacking on (plastic) ivory keys. Jaejoong needs it, Yoochun understands, and he’s patient. He waits, watching, because he’s always watching, always waiting.
Yoochun sees the signs. Jaejoong starts twitching, worrying at fingers. Yoochun laces their hands together, squeezing every time Jaejoong’s nails scrape on rough skin-Yoochun understands, so he relishes every burst of red-hot pain on his skin.
And Yoochun waits and squeezes until Jaejoong starts digging at his nails, digging until Yoochun can see white crescents where none were before. Then Yoochun carefully clips the white away, sweeping all evidence away.
They can never know, Jaejoong whispers with ragged desperation. They can never know. I don’t want to leave them.
Yoochun understands.
I have to be perfect.
*
The others don’t know, don’t understand, don’t think, and Yoochun holds Jaejoong’s hands until his shudders pass and he’s Jaejoong again, alive, living, and alert.
Yoochun wonders, if Jaejoong wasn’t Yoongwoong Jaejoong but simply Kim Jaejoong or even Han Jaejoon, how different things would be.
He wonders, because he thinks he could just possibly understand Yoongwoong Jaejoong, but he wonders if he would understand Kim Jaejoong or even Han Jaejoon.
The differences make him cling-however cruel of him-to Yoongwoong Jaejoong in his shattered perfection.
*
Jaejoong hunches over the sink in the kitchen as Yunho showers. He scours his hands-filthy, dirty, grimy hands-under the guise of washing dishes, water flowing over and over and over until the skin prunes and Jaejoong starts picking away at loose peeled skin.
Yoochun knows, understands, watches, even though the kitchen’s off limits when Jaejoong’s cooking-a rule that Jaejoong implemented when Changmin wandered in to see Jaejoong’s teeth working at a scrap of skin. But Jaejoong’s dignity is second to reassuring Jaejoong that he’s perfect the way he is, so Yoochun walks through the half-open door and ignores Jaejoong’s hiss of almost-aggravation. (Not of pain. Never of pain.)
Yoochun holds his own hands over the water, biting back his screams at the too-hot water. Jaejoong doesn’t even blink when the water leaks from the cracks between Yoochun’s interlocked fingers to scald already pink-with-heat skin.
Afterwards, Yoochun rubs balm onto Jaejoong’s hands, slipping on white gloves over patchy pink skin to keep sharp nails away. The gloves are a reminder for Jaejoong, of Jaejoong: perfect white. White sliding into faded grey in a day’s time.
Jaejoong clutches at his own hands, twisting his fingers together and pulling them apart. For a day, two days, he wears the gloves, and the others have seen Jaejoong with the white gloves often enough that they only spare him a cursory glance, their questions silenced long ago by Yoochun.
The next morning, Yoochun wakes to find a pair of white gloves on his hands and steam everywhere in the bathroom.
Yoochun fingers off the gloves in silence.
*
Yoochun holds shards of colored glass in his hands, a stained glass window destroyed. Jaejoong stares at the ceiling, humming nonsense, a jumble of scales, the rise and fall of notes, chaotic. He hums sixteenth notes to Yoochun’s triplets, the sound almost chaotic if it weren’t for the fact that Yoochun understands Jaejoong enough that they spin it into proper form.
*
The itch crawls under Jaejoong’s skin, and his fingers tear desperately at his arms, legs, head when it comes, and Yoochun is helpless, only able to watch, silent, waiting for the snap.
It comes late at night.
Yoochun takes Jaejoong’s hands and folds it in his lap. He brushes his own fingers through Jaejoong’s hair, fingers used to tapping keys easily twisting around singular strands. He finds twisted, knarly strands of dye-ruined, perm-destroyed hair, and Jaejoong’s nails scratch at Yoochun’s skin as Yoochun pulls them out, hating himself-hating who?-as he does so. Jaejoong mumbles: make me perfect for them, and so Yoochun’s fingers keep moving, even as he mourns the strands of knotted crinkled hair, because Jaejoong is already perfect.
He whispers an inquiry, asks Jaejoong if each tug hurts as it pulls on his scalp. Jaejoong whispers a single negative back, voice tired, breath damp against Yoochun’s cheek.
It’s a good type of pain. Like the pain you feel when you know you’re getting stronger, after a run.
Yoochun tries not to shudder. And then he sets Jaejoong’s fingers in his own coarse, knotted, ruined hair, and feels Jaejoong’s fingers card through waves. It hurts. But it’s a good type of pain. Yoochun closes his eyes and embraces the pain.
The same pain of a needle lacing through skin. The same pain of nails trimmed too short. The same pain of hot water over hands. The same pain of each knotted strand coming out with a sharp tug.
*
Jaejoong is already perfect, Yoochun thinks, when he sees the smile, when he hears the laughter, when there are no doubts in the air. Jaejoong is perfect, and that is enough for Yoochun.
But for all their proclamations of "soul-mate," there are some things that Yoochun does not understand…
(nails scratching at an ear, a strangled plea to be able to hear, the knowledge of knowing that every note that came from his throat was wrong, and listening, over and over and over, even through the sounds were too loud and perhaps more damage was done in the end, and nails scratching, scratching, scratching at ears until one day the notes are right, even though he knows: they have to be wrong. Because they’ve never been right before.)
But Yoochun understands enough.
End.
End-Notes: This isn't even plot-beta'd because beta is in Japan helping Tohoshinki make no. 1 on oricon weekly doing who knows what, probably shopping and eating food and wishing for internet. Therefore, concrit is a wonderful thing, and should be given in spades. Especially since this bad and will probably undergo continuous editing.
Author: virdant
Length: 1,234 words; one-shot;
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Angst, Romance (?)
Pairing: JaeChun
Summary: But Yoochun understands enough.... It’s a good type of pain. Like the pain you feel when you know you’re getting stronger, after a run.
Warning: Self-destructive behavior.
Notes: Can be interpreted to come after Plunging Downwards but stands on its own since I planned this before I wrote that other one-shot.
Anodyne
Rooming together, there are aspects to Jaejoong’s life that only Yoochun is privy to.
Yoochun doesn’t understand Jaejoong fully, for all their proclamations of “soul-mate.” But he knows enough. He knows enough to understand the itch that crawls under Jaejoong’s skin, the itch that tells him: this is wrong this is wrong this is wrong even if Yoochun disagrees with Jaejoong’s desperate whispers of: make me perfect. Jaejoong already is perfect.
But Yoochun understands enough.
So he takes the needle from the small sewing kit Jaejoong keeps in his bedside drawer, washes it with soap and more soap in the bathroom, prolonging the inevitable.
He laces the small raised lump n Jaejoong’s back-nothing but a bug-bite-with the needle, doing the duty for Jaejoong, because it’s better Yoochun do it with a needle washed too many times to count than to have Jaejoong stab himself with 0.28 mm ballpoint pens.
It bleeds, not from Yoochun’s needle, but from perfect cuticles working away at the lump as a broken voice whispers: get it out get it out get it out! Yoochun washes the blood away-a damp towel on the back coming away brown with old blood and red with new-and clips off blood encrusted nails off otherwise perfect hands.
(Yoochun is the one to suggest tattoos when it inevitably scars. Because Yoochun understands. He tapes the tattoo as often as possible in a desperate bid to keep nails away from black ink just under skin. He doesn’t want to see Jaejoong’s nails all shorn away.)
*
Yoochun understands, which is why he carries a nail clipper on a keychain wherever he goes (except on airplanes; he loses two before he decides to keep a clipper on a separate keychain, apart from all his keys). It’s not only for him-for the band-because his music requires nails shorn short enough to keep from clacking on (plastic) ivory keys. Jaejoong needs it, Yoochun understands, and he’s patient. He waits, watching, because he’s always watching, always waiting.
Yoochun sees the signs. Jaejoong starts twitching, worrying at fingers. Yoochun laces their hands together, squeezing every time Jaejoong’s nails scrape on rough skin-Yoochun understands, so he relishes every burst of red-hot pain on his skin.
And Yoochun waits and squeezes until Jaejoong starts digging at his nails, digging until Yoochun can see white crescents where none were before. Then Yoochun carefully clips the white away, sweeping all evidence away.
They can never know, Jaejoong whispers with ragged desperation. They can never know. I don’t want to leave them.
Yoochun understands.
I have to be perfect.
*
The others don’t know, don’t understand, don’t think, and Yoochun holds Jaejoong’s hands until his shudders pass and he’s Jaejoong again, alive, living, and alert.
Yoochun wonders, if Jaejoong wasn’t Yoongwoong Jaejoong but simply Kim Jaejoong or even Han Jaejoon, how different things would be.
He wonders, because he thinks he could just possibly understand Yoongwoong Jaejoong, but he wonders if he would understand Kim Jaejoong or even Han Jaejoon.
The differences make him cling-however cruel of him-to Yoongwoong Jaejoong in his shattered perfection.
*
Jaejoong hunches over the sink in the kitchen as Yunho showers. He scours his hands-filthy, dirty, grimy hands-under the guise of washing dishes, water flowing over and over and over until the skin prunes and Jaejoong starts picking away at loose peeled skin.
Yoochun knows, understands, watches, even though the kitchen’s off limits when Jaejoong’s cooking-a rule that Jaejoong implemented when Changmin wandered in to see Jaejoong’s teeth working at a scrap of skin. But Jaejoong’s dignity is second to reassuring Jaejoong that he’s perfect the way he is, so Yoochun walks through the half-open door and ignores Jaejoong’s hiss of almost-aggravation. (Not of pain. Never of pain.)
Yoochun holds his own hands over the water, biting back his screams at the too-hot water. Jaejoong doesn’t even blink when the water leaks from the cracks between Yoochun’s interlocked fingers to scald already pink-with-heat skin.
Afterwards, Yoochun rubs balm onto Jaejoong’s hands, slipping on white gloves over patchy pink skin to keep sharp nails away. The gloves are a reminder for Jaejoong, of Jaejoong: perfect white. White sliding into faded grey in a day’s time.
Jaejoong clutches at his own hands, twisting his fingers together and pulling them apart. For a day, two days, he wears the gloves, and the others have seen Jaejoong with the white gloves often enough that they only spare him a cursory glance, their questions silenced long ago by Yoochun.
The next morning, Yoochun wakes to find a pair of white gloves on his hands and steam everywhere in the bathroom.
Yoochun fingers off the gloves in silence.
*
Yoochun holds shards of colored glass in his hands, a stained glass window destroyed. Jaejoong stares at the ceiling, humming nonsense, a jumble of scales, the rise and fall of notes, chaotic. He hums sixteenth notes to Yoochun’s triplets, the sound almost chaotic if it weren’t for the fact that Yoochun understands Jaejoong enough that they spin it into proper form.
*
The itch crawls under Jaejoong’s skin, and his fingers tear desperately at his arms, legs, head when it comes, and Yoochun is helpless, only able to watch, silent, waiting for the snap.
It comes late at night.
Yoochun takes Jaejoong’s hands and folds it in his lap. He brushes his own fingers through Jaejoong’s hair, fingers used to tapping keys easily twisting around singular strands. He finds twisted, knarly strands of dye-ruined, perm-destroyed hair, and Jaejoong’s nails scratch at Yoochun’s skin as Yoochun pulls them out, hating himself-hating who?-as he does so. Jaejoong mumbles: make me perfect for them, and so Yoochun’s fingers keep moving, even as he mourns the strands of knotted crinkled hair, because Jaejoong is already perfect.
He whispers an inquiry, asks Jaejoong if each tug hurts as it pulls on his scalp. Jaejoong whispers a single negative back, voice tired, breath damp against Yoochun’s cheek.
It’s a good type of pain. Like the pain you feel when you know you’re getting stronger, after a run.
Yoochun tries not to shudder. And then he sets Jaejoong’s fingers in his own coarse, knotted, ruined hair, and feels Jaejoong’s fingers card through waves. It hurts. But it’s a good type of pain. Yoochun closes his eyes and embraces the pain.
The same pain of a needle lacing through skin. The same pain of nails trimmed too short. The same pain of hot water over hands. The same pain of each knotted strand coming out with a sharp tug.
*
Jaejoong is already perfect, Yoochun thinks, when he sees the smile, when he hears the laughter, when there are no doubts in the air. Jaejoong is perfect, and that is enough for Yoochun.
But for all their proclamations of "soul-mate," there are some things that Yoochun does not understand…
(nails scratching at an ear, a strangled plea to be able to hear, the knowledge of knowing that every note that came from his throat was wrong, and listening, over and over and over, even through the sounds were too loud and perhaps more damage was done in the end, and nails scratching, scratching, scratching at ears until one day the notes are right, even though he knows: they have to be wrong. Because they’ve never been right before.)
But Yoochun understands enough.
End.
End-Notes: This isn't even plot-beta'd because beta is in Japan helping Tohoshinki make no. 1 on oricon weekly doing who knows what, probably shopping and eating food and wishing for internet. Therefore, concrit is a wonderful thing, and should be given in spades. Especially since this bad and will probably undergo continuous editing.