Work Text:
When it started, Jisung felt higher than he ever had before. Neither drugs nor alcohol could even come close to the high Minho gave him. He felt like he had been sucked into the heart of a hurricane that had his hair dishevelled and his heart pounding through his ribcage whenever they touched. It was no less than addictive.
Chan, of course, was the one to express concern. Always the father of the group, he sat Jisung down one day after he had come to the studio with his body still trembling and an electrifying energy running through his veins, and asked “Don’t you think you’re going a bit too far?”
Chan knew of Jisung’s tendency to be consumed by whatever his mind was fixated on at that very moment. His tendency towards addiction. Jisung, on the other hand, knew he drank too much, knew he loved too much, knew he was too much. That, however, had never stopped Chan and Changbin from staying by his side, always, unwavering.
Jisung would go out at night, drinking to deal with the way his feelings overwhelmed him. One night it was the infinite love for the entire world that came over him, the other night he felt like nothing could ever redeem him in the eyes of this world. Jisung knew he drank too much, but he had never cared. His friends did care, and he hated hurting them, but there was frankly no better way to take the edge off. No conversation could calm his heart in the way the buzz from vodka and sprite did. And so, Jisung drank. And met Minho.
Their eyes met on the floor of a dingy karaoke bar, both clouded from intoxication. They danced, they kissed, they drank each other in. Jisung never wanted to be without Minho again. He knew he would stay with him, no matter if they were kissing on dance floors or if Jisung was holding Minho’s hair as he threw up too much red wine.
Slowly but surely, Jisung noticed he cared no more. His visits to the studio became infrequent, the times he woke up with twenty missed calls from Chan and panic overcame him, though, became very frequent. The bad conscience of missing yet another meeting would choke him, drive the air out of his lungs and tears into his eyes. But then he would look at Minho. Minho, sleeping, his thin limbs tangled with the blanket that he hugged more than it covered him, his pale face so peaceful as he dreamt, or maybe not. The dark circles under his eyes were not so apparent when he was asleep, his dark hair framed his protruding cheekbones beautifully, a stark contrast between it and his skin. When he looked at him, Jisung would breathe again. He would lean back against the headboard, close his eyes and take a swig out of whatever bottle was left over on the floor or nightstand. And then he would draft an empty apology to Chan, met with an empty “Ok…”.
Jisung knew that Chan had to be at his breaking point. But he cared about nothing but the feeling of Minho wrapped around him when they were lying on the couch, drinking, chatting in hushed tones about their dreams of the future, as though they were secrets so obscene that did not deserve to be spoken. They dreamed of houses by the coast, of three cats joining them on their couch, of early morning skinny dipping in the ocean and of cooking hearty meals together and feeding each other the tasting spoons - all while they were drunk in their dark little apartment, lit up only by a pink lava lamp, dizzy and unable to eat because they were constantly sick to their stomachs. But the dreams were there, and they were so beautiful and tangible that they were bound to become real, Jisung thought. It was meant to be. So it would be.
When Jisung was kicked out of the band, the only tears shed were by Chan. Their meeting was long and apparently painful, but throughout Chan’s sadness and Changbin’s anger and both of their concern, Jisung only felt one thing: impatience. Impatience to go home and get drunk on vodka and Minho, and finally leave these excruciating hours behind. The meeting caused him no pain, only boredom as he sat for six hours and let talk of rehab and ‘getting a grasp’ and Chan’s tears fly over his head.
When they were finally silent for more than five seconds, Jisung sighed. “Are you done?” he asked, and wasted no time on their incredulous faces as he stood up and left the studio. He walked home through the crisp autumn air that touched his skin but no deeper.
When Jisung arrived home, the bathroom door was open. Minho was in the bathtub, asleep, with two bottles of red wine and some burned out tea lights around him. The water was cold, and so was his bare skin, his lips blue from the cold and the wine. Jisung smiled. It was so much like Minho to fall asleep drunk, even in the bath. He touched Minho’s arm, softly, watched as his eyelids fluttered open and his wine-veiled eyes gained some, but not much clarity.
“You fell asleep, baby,” Jisung said.
“Come on, let’s get you warmed up again.” He extended his hand to help Minho out of the bathtub, luckily so as Minho slipped and nearly fell onto the floor. But he only fell into Jisung’s arms. Jisung laughed and pressed a kiss to his head, grabbed a towel, and wrapped it around Minho as he went to go look for clothes.
“I love you,” Minho whispered as they lay on the couch when he was dressed. Jisung took his hand and stroked the back of it with his thumb as he looked at Minho.
“I love you, too.”
—
It went on like this. Jisung loved Minho, and Minho loved Jisung. They drank and kissed and fucked and cuddled and lay next to each other with their hands intertwined, dreaming of a future that was slipping out of their grasp without either of them noticing. All they seemed to need was this little life they had together.
It would not be enough.
—
The fall happened slowly. Its dark tendrils stretched out throughout their flat first, wrapped themselves around the dusty furniture and the dishes in the sink that were slowly beginning to catch mould. Neither of them even noticed until they slowly began to tug at their hands, then their heads, then their hearts.
One night, as they were lying and dreaming in hushed whispers, Minho fell silent.
“Do you think we could do it?”, he asked, a mere whisper, sounding small and scared in a way Jisung had never heard him.
“Of course we can,” Jisung said without a second of hesitation.
“Do you… really think so?” Minho asked back. Jisung did not feel his gaze upon him, and as he turned, Minho was lying flat on his back, staring at the ceiling, and as he looked at him, doubt began to tug at his heart strings.
Minho was deathly pale, his lips thin and white and freckled by smudged wine stains. The circles under his red eyes were purple, his hoodie and joggers hid his figure but where he held Jisung’s hand, his bony wrist peeked out of his sleeve. He was beautiful, Jisung thought, and he was dying. He was beautiful.
“Because I don’t,” Minho whispered. Jisung saw how his eyes, though their gazes were not crossing, were empty and red-rimmed. Had he been crying? Jisung did not know. Time was whirling overhead, and with it everything that happened outside of what he focused on, which, at the moment, was the feeling of Minho’s hand, cold to the touch.
“How could it?” Minho asked.
“It’s meant to be,” Jisung whispered back. And Minho looked at him. He looked even more tired than Jisung had thought he would.
“It’s not going to happen if we don’t do it,” he said.
“Isn’t this life enough?” Jisung asked quietly and carefully. “Our life?”
“It’s enough,” Minho whispered. “But have you ever thought of… that maybe we can’t go on like this forever? Look at me, look at you. We’re not going anywhere, Ji.”
Jisung let things pass through his head. The last month, or so, since he got kicked out of the band, had been beautiful. He had been with Minho. Always. Had it been a month? Longer? Shorter? He could not remember, and he did not care, but as he told Minho that, tears welled up in the other’s eyes.
“How can we talk of a good life if we can’t even say when it started? If we can’t even say what day it is? Believe me, Ji, I don’t just want to go on like this, I need it. But it can’t happen.”
Jisung said nothing, just squeezed Minho’s hand in what he hoped was a calming gesture. But Minho’s frail body was now wracked by sobs, and as Jisung pulled him close and let him cry into his chest, Minho shook his head.
“We’re dying, Ji,” he choked. And this, suddenly, hit Jisung in his heart that he had sheltered so carefully from every worry in the world.
They were dying. It was so simple and plain, but it was the truth. They were wrecking their bodies and their minds, and they did not even care that they were doing so. And if anyone but Minho had told him this truth, Jisung would never have cared. But hearing it from his lover’s lips, those cracked lips that had kissed him senseless so often, hurt. Because it was not only Jisung who was dying. It was Minho, too. Jisung cared little about changing if he was the only one affected. But if he was falling, Minho was too, and he would not forgive himself if Minho died. He would not want to live if Minho died, but even more importantly, he would take the guilt of having had a role in taking Minho’s life with him beyond the grave.
“We really have to change, don’t we?” he asked quietly.
—
And they tried. They sat with each other through sweats and fevers and their bodies trembling, through sickness and spasms and many, many tears. They were determined. They had dreams. They wanted their house by the coast, their cats, their meals, their love.
But it wasn't enough.
The relapses came and went, sometimes more, sometimes less frequent. The guilt went hand in hand with them, the disgust, too. And Jisung felt that his determination was hanging by a thread. He was doing it for Minho, and for their future, but the urges and the cravings were killing him, eating him up from the inside, and he knew that if it weren’t for Minho, he would never hang on.
One night, Jisung came home from shopping after Minho, going through a particularly bad episode, had begged him to, for some reason, go buy him new candles. The flat was silent when Jisung entered, Minho nowhere to be seen. He might have fallen asleep in the bath again, Jisung considered.
But when he entered the bathroom, he found Minho collapsed over the toilet bowl instead. Dark red vomit stained his chin, clear shards around him had cut through his skin so that vodka mingled with blood on the floor. Jisung smiled sadly, and softly shook Minho’s shoulder to wake him up.
But nothing happened. Minho was limp as a doll, his breathing so flat that Jisung heard it only when he put his ear right to his mouth. Jisung’s reaction came slowly, but when it kicked in, it washed over him like a wave.
Minho was dying.
It was more tangible than ever now, with his lover collapsed in front of him, barely breathing, not moving at all. The panic that overwhelmed Jisung eclipsed any and all thoughts, all he could do was shake Minho, yell at him, scream and slap his face through his tears. But Minho would not move.
It took Jisung time - how much, he did not know - to become present enough again to call the emergency services. They took Minho to the hospital, but Jisung was not allowed to come with him. What they did, he did not know, they probably pumped his stomach, but nobody told Jisung.
He was like paralyzed. He lay on the couch, taking sips from the bottoms of random bottles every now and then. Tears rolled down his face, but they were silent. If Minho died, there would be nothing holding him in this world. No anchor. Nothing. Jisung knew that he was dying.
—
When Jisung heard a knock on the door, he didn’t even care at first. It was only when there was another knock, and then another, that he managed to get to his feet. His body felt sore and stiff and the skin around his eyes was tender from crying, but he heaved himself up and made it to the door.
In front of it was Minho. He looked even paler and thinner than he had last time, if that was even possible. Even with a greyish undertone to his skin he was beautiful. His eyes were clouded, and he was holding a nearly empty bottle of wine that he must have picked up right on the way back from the hospital.
They stood facing each other for a few seconds, shock and worry and love and craze all exchanged in these moments when their gazes met for the first time after the longest they’d ever been apart. Then, Minho took a step forward and fell into Jisungs arms. He was crying, Jisung noticed, and he wrapped his arms around his lover and held him as he wept.
Minho was sobbing. But between all his tears and sobs, he managed to choke out words. “Why does it have to be like this, Ji?” he cried. Jisung felt as though his heart had been pierced by an arrow. He was crying now, too, his tears fell onto Minho’s greasy hair and rolled down his temples, mingling with Minho’s own.
“I don’t know, Min,” he whispered.
“I don’t know.”