“Chanyeol… Chanyeol?”

Hearing his name being called wakes him from the doze he hadn’t realized he’d fallen into, slumped uncomfortably in a stiff chair next to a hospital bed, now with a stiff neck, too. He rubs his neck and stretches, bleary eyes gradually focusing on a slender figure next to the open door.

“Jongin? Is that you?” He blinks the weariness away, or tries his best, at least. Getting rest has been near impossible lately.

Chanyeol hears Jongin chuckle quietly as he walks into Baekhyun’s hospital room and pulls up a chair beside him. “It’s me, alright,” he answers with a small smile. “But you – Is that really you, Park Chanyeol? You look…”

Chanyeol cracks a smile, something else that’s been impossible since the accident, and runs his hands over the scruffy beard he’s accidentally grown. “I must look like something else, don’t I?” His hair is equally messy, along with his clothes, now stained with dirt and spilled food and drink. It’s hard to concentrate on aiming the soup and sandwich for your mouth when you don’t want to tear your eyes away from someone laying unconscious in a hospital bed, just in case they wake up.

“A little less like Park Chanyeol, more like Caveman Chanyeol… with sandwich crumbs in his beard,” Jongin jokes, trying to lift his spirits. Chanyeol smiles weakly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-”

Chanyeol grins in earnest this time and pats Jongin’s knee. “Don’t worry about it, Jongin. What brings you here this fine day?” He asks, briefly glancing from Jongin, out the big window, and back to Baekhyun’s sleeping face. “At least, it looks like a fine day…” It’s a bright and sunny afternoon. He notes the trees near the window slowly swaying in a breeze. “I haven’t been outside recently.”

“I’m just checking up on you since I’ve noticed you haven’t been home much… And him, of course,” Jongin’s stare joins Chanyeol’s on Baekhyun’s still form covered up in bed with soft blankets. He lays unmoving save for the steady rise and fall of his chest. He’s been that way for weeks and weeks. “Have you spoken with the doctor today? When will he wake up?” He tries to avoid staring too long at what remains of Baekhyun’s left arm, having been amputated from the elbow down. His bones were shattered and it couldn’t be salvaged. Now there’s only pristine, white bandages. They match the white hospital bed linen and the gauze and tape covering Baekhyun’s other minor wounds. Most of his damaged body has healed, now left with faint scratches and bruises. “When can he come home? Henry misses you two.” Chanyeol had entrusted Baekhyun’s cat to his next door neighbor, Jongin and his family, for the time being.

Chanyeol laughs softly. “Henry misses him.” He adds after a pause, “But soon… The doctors said soon. They’ve only kept him out while his pain has been more severe. Now they think it’s manageable. They’re going to lessen his medication and wake him up…”

Baekhyun waking up. The thought is exciting and overwhelming, nerve wracking and terrifying. Baekhyun never even had a chance to process what had happened to him that day, and it’s all going to happen as soon as he wakes up. Chanyeol will have to relive the accident all over again when he has to sit there with the doctors to tell Baekhyun what happened. He feels stupid just wondering if their lives will be the same.

“Do you think you can tear yourself away for the afternoon? I thought I could help you ready your house before he wakes up to make the job a little easier on you. I popped in this morning and the dust was so thick I wrote my name on your coffee table. And, I must admit my true intentions, I worry Baekhyun will have quite the fright upon seeing you when he first opens his eyes.” Chanyeol can’t even be upset at the comment, just a little bit embarrassed instead because he knows it’s true. “I’m going to personally see to it that you shave off that little creature growing on your face and take a proper bath. And not a dirt bath, which I suspect is how you’ve been bathing from the looks of it.”

Chanyeol stifles a laugh and after triple checking with Baekhyun’s doctors that he won’t be awake till the next day or so, he finally agrees and Jongin warmly takes him by the arm to lead him away, through the sunny hospital corridors and out to the warm streets. He was happy to find out that it is indeed a fine day.

After spending the entire afternoon cleaning and wiping away all the short messages Jongin had written on dusty surfaces around the house, Jongin forces Chanyeol into the bathroom while he cooks them a well-deserved hot dinner.

Chanyeol soaks in a steaming hot bath till the water turns cold, the heat slowly drifting out the cracked bathroom window. He shaves his beard and combs his hair in peaceful silence, except for crickets outside. In minutes he went from Neanderthal to Modern Man.

“Hey,” Jongin turns from the stove where pots are bubbling with a huge grin on his face when Chanyeol finally makes his way to the kitchen. “There’s the old Chanyeol I know and love…and recognize.”

“Ha ha, yes, it’s me, your eyes do not deceive you this time,” responds Chanyeol dryly, coming to peek over Jongin’s shoulder at what’s cooking. “This better be edible, Kim Jongin.” Jongin didn’t have the best track record in cooking, still being young and having the luxury of living at home where his parents and older sisters do all the cooking.

“Oh, it’s just my specialty. Well, my only specialty… Well, the only thing my mom’s taught me to cook so far…”

A very passable spaghetti and meatballs.

“Not bad, but,” Chanyeol starts, slurping up the last of his messy noodles, “don’t quit your day job.”

“Sheesh, you sure are back to your old self already, huh?” Jongin laughs and throws his balled up napkin at Chanyeol’s face.

His old self? Chanyeol pauses in thought. Sitting like this with Jongin at the kitchen table, without Baekhyun, like they’d done so many times before when Baekhyun would be running through rehearsals at the theater late into the night, Chanyeol had lost himself in the moment and forgotten that things have changed, but maybe only slightly. Maybe, when Baekhyun comes home, life will be the same again and no one will notice that Chanyeol was ever anyone else but his ‘old self.’

Jongin brings Henry back home that evening after he and Chanyeol wash dishes together, listening to a late night comedy program crackling on the radio. He convinces Chanyeol to sleep in his own bed that night, instead of heading back to the hospital, so he can be well rested for tomorrow when Baekhyun wakes up. Chanyeol finally agrees after much consideration – it would be the first night spent away from Baekhyun’s hospital bed – but on one condition.

“Is this a joke?” Jongin squints at Chanyeol from the over-stuffed armchair where he’s settled in the bedroom.

“It’s the only thing that helps me sleep,” Chanyeol whines – yep, back to his old self – from bed, where he’s pulled the covers up tight to his chin. Henry’s already snoozing at the foot of the bed like he’d never been away. “Baekhyun does this whenever I can’t sleep.”

“I think this’ll put me to sleep before you,” Jongin says frowning, flipping through the latest publication of Inventors Digest magazine. “You are so boring sometimes. How Baekhyun can read this to you without screaming I’ll never understand.”

“It’s called love, Jongin. He does it out of love. Now start with the first article.”

Jongin groans but starts reading while Chanyeol settles into the pillows and closes his eyes, his memories of Baekhyun’s voice reading to him till he fell asleep replaying in his mind like it was just the night before.

What Chanyeol has no memory of, will never have memory of, always happened after, when Baekhyun would put the magazine aside and settle down next to Chanyeol in the sheets. Laying on his side and with barely-there touches, Baekhyun would trace the gentle slope of his nose, lips, chin, and would watch him sleep till his own eyes were too heavy to stay open.

“Surely. I don’t know what else it would be.”

*

The next morning came and went so fast, like a blur now, and looking back on it, Chanyeol was glad. He wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible. Quiet, uneventful morning hours soon turned into an afternoon filled with teams of doctors and nurses and Chanyeol sitting beside Baekhyun helplessly, confusion and lost time spent in a medically-induced coma, tears of pain and disbelief. Chanyeol pleaded with the doctor to give Baekhyun a sedative to calm him down, and after the medicine was injected into his veins he was asleep once again.

The sunny hospital room is empty when Baekhyun wakes up the second time that day, groggy coming off the medicine. Chanyeol holds his hand as Baekhyun’s eyes slowly focus on his face.

“Why do you look so nice?” Baekhyun asks weakly and blinks slowly, catching Chanyeol off guard.

“W-what?”

“Why do you look so nice?” he asks again, this time slipping his hand from Chanyeol’s to touch his cheek. “Did you go to church?”

Chanyeol pauses, mouth agape, before doing what he least expected in such a situation: he laughs. He holds Baekhyun’s hand in place against his face like he’s done so many times before. “Jongin made me do it,” he responds softly with a small smile. “You wouldn’t have recognized me before today. I looked terrible, like a scruffy street dog.”

Baekhyun smiles back easily. Like they could have been standing in their kitchen at home. Like they could have been in the middle of a picnic in the yard. Like he didn’t just wake up from a long sleep in a hospital. “I think scruffy dogs are pretty cute.”

Chanyeol laughs again and kisses Baekhyun’s palm. Better that than the tears he felt welling up.

*

“Jongin dropped the car off for us this morning,” Chanyeol says as he pushes Baekhyun in a wheelchair to the front of the hospital. They’re packed up and ready to go home, at long last. They stop under a shady tree. “So I’ll just bring it around…” Chanyeol squints into the bright daylight. “Wherever he parked it… He helped me clean up around the house, too. Made us some spaghetti to re-heat,” he rambles on. “Brought Henry back over… Took great care of him next door.”

“So I can hire him as my personal butler? That’s good. I’ll tell him if we ever find the car.”

Chanyeol turns around to stare at an expressionless Baekhyun watching the shadows move over the sidewalk, the sunlight filtering through the leaves creating dappled patterns. He seems… Maybe it’s the pain killers lightening his mood. Is it good he still has his sense of humor? Is this normal? Should Baekhyun be acting like… How should he be acting… Baekhyun meets his eyes then and they share a smile. Chanyeol reaches into the pocket of his slacks and holds a card in his grip – a card for a doctor, a different kind of doctor. A psychiatrist he met yesterday, before Baekhyun was awake. He hoped they wouldn’t need it, but it would be okay if they did… Baekhyun would be okay… He’d be-

“Right. I’ll be right back then,” Chanyeol says and tries to get out of his head for once, a little bit at least, and hesitantly leaves Baekhyun alone on the sidewalk to go in search of the car.

*

The nights at home are quiet in a way Chanyeol’s not used to, sitting by himself in his study, trying to get some new projects done. He’s been working on something big these months while Baekhyun’s been recovering; the idea had come to him after having spent many nights watching Baekhyun sleep, at times fitful when his medication wore off. It was painful to watch and worse to feel so helpless. There’s no piano echoing through the house while he works now, just crickets and tree branches hitting the windows that he’d accidentally left to become overgrown. The silence is somehow more distracting than when Baekhyun used to practice.

The daytime is quiet, too, but in a less lonely way. Baekhyun sleeps late into the afternoon and Chanyeol is ready and waiting with a tray of breakfast when he wakes up.

Baekhyun blearily greets Chanyeol and turns his face away from the bright sunlight pouring in. “You just had to open the curtains?”

“Yes,” Chanyeol replies firmly, shifting awkwardly with the full tray, looking for a place to set it down. “I’d help you sit up but…” He stares pointedly at Henry, sleeping sprawled across Baekhyun’s chest. Baekhyun catches on and rolls his cat off without even waking him up. “Besides, it’s scientifically proven that sunlight makes people happy.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Baekhyun complains, carefully wiggling his way up to sit up against the headboard. It’s been weeks since he’s come home, the pain in his limb from the surgery virtually gone now, wound healed too, thanks to his medication and attentive nurse Chanyeol. He can move a little bit freer without worry (mostly from Chanyeol) of bumping into something the wrong way and causing agonizing pain all over again. Baekhyun pats his lap with his remaining hand, signaling he’s ready for the tray.

Chanyeol carefully sets it on his lap. “It was time for you to get up anyway,” he says, pulling up a chair to sit beside him. He pours cream into a cup of coffee and stirs while Baekhyun cuts a too large piece of pancake and stuffs it in his mouth. “Did you know you were snoring?” He grins, and Baekhyun stares back with squinted eyes and full cheeks. “And drooling. When I came in earlier you were drooling.” Chanyeol turns the coffee cup to where Baekhyun can reach the handle. “Drool everywhere,” he snickers.

Baekhyun swallows his mouthful and takes a sip from the steaming cup of coffee. “I don’t like the way you joke, mister.”

“I’ve never seen anyone look so precious while drooling.”

“You know, I was going to share my bacon with you but now I think I’ll let Henry have it,” Baekhyun replies, picking up a crispy slice of bacon and waving it in front of Henry’s nose. “Henry… Bacon…” Henry doesn’t so much as crack an eye and Chanyeol laughs. “You’re lucky he’s asleep,” he says, handing the piece over to Chanyeol.

In the evening after dinner, Chanyeol helps Baekhyun take a bath. They’ve found this to be a little tricky still…

“Two Chanyeol hands are better than one… of mine,” Baekhyun once joked, but after a while Chanyeol realized this is how Baekhyun is dealing with his loss – by keeping his sense of humor, albeit a little more black than before. After a couple visits with a psychiatrist at Chanyeol’s insistence – just in case, just to make sure he was okay – Baekhyun was cleared by the doctor, and even made him crack a smile when he said, on their way out, “Now I only have one hand to smack you with, Chanyeol.”

“He’s handling it very well,” the doctor said quietly to Chanyeol before they left. “I wouldn’t worry too much. However, if you are ever concerned, feel free to come back, of course.”

“How’s the water?” Chanyeol asks.

Sitting in the tub, Baekhyun spits water from his mouth and wipes dripping hair from his face. “Don’t you think you should have asked me that before you dumped a cupful over my head?”

“No,” he replies with a toothy smile, leaning forward to dip his arm into the hot, soapy water. He softly draws a line through the suds on Baekhyun’s knee bobbing above the water and when he flicks his gaze up he finds Baekhyun watching him. “How is it?” Chanyeol asks, motioning to Baekhyun’s amputation.

Baekhyun looks down at what’s left of his arm, motionless at his side, just above the surface of the water. “It’s…” He frowns, searching for a simple response, if there is one. “Fine, I guess? Better… It’s bizarre, I still have some phantom limb sensations…” With his hand he cups the warm water and lets it trickle through his fingers onto Chanyeol’s hand, resting atop his knee. “It’s like… I can feel this hot water, as if my arm were really there… Warm, tingling. It’s so strange,” he says with a small, breathy laugh.

“Alright, I think we’re done,” Chanyeol declares, dumping a final cupful of clean hot water over Baekhyun’s body to rinse the last of the bubbles away. He carefully helps him climb out of the tub and wraps a large, soft towel around his shoulders. Chanyeol combs Baekhyun’s wet hair to the side with his fingers and smiles tenderly. “Let me serve you some ice cream for dessert before bed,” he offers, and Baekhyun’s eyes light up. “If my career as an inventor fails I think I’ll really flourish in a soda fountain.”

“Let’s hope! Can you imagine all the free root beer floats you could make me?” Baekhyun grins as Chanyeol dries him off. “What’re you-” Baekhyun suddenly yelps when Chanyeol pinches his hip in revenge. “Working on, I was going to say,” he finishes, shrugging into a robe with Chanyeol’s help. “I never hear a peep out of your study at night.”

“At night when you’re supposed to be sleeping and resting?”

“…Henry wakes me up. He my chin and wakes me up all the time.”

“Mmm,” Chanyeol hums in understanding, wrapping an arm around Baekhyun’s waist to lead him to the kitchen. “Actually… I have to go into town tomorrow for a meeting with a consultant of mine for my current project…” he says, and notices Baekhyun suddenly glance up at him with a fleeting nervousness across his features. Chanyeol’s never had to leave him alone yet. Baekhyun’s always been perfectly independent but now… things are a little different. He’s still adapting. They both are. “I can ask Jongin to come over if you need anything…”

“Maybe… I still don’t understand why he didn’t want to be my butler.”

*

Chanyeol is back in his study gathering his papers for his meeting tomorrow. He studies a page closely, a final draft of a sketch, and thinks of Baekhyun waiting for him in bed, before placing it carefully in his leather portfolio. He notices his desk clock has stopped ticking and he picks it up to wind it. He sets it back in place and peers to the side of it to a tall stack of books, behind which he had hidden something rather poorly and in haste, but at the time he didn’t give it much thought. Chanyeol reaches behind the books and picks up his small treasure, a little jewelery box holding a gold ring he knows is still as perfect as the day he bought it, still as perfect as the person he bought it for.

WOWOWOWOW I finally wrote some o' dis after 20 years!!!! :)))