The pack of pills sits squarely on the dinner table.

None of them move for a good one minute, then Hongbin suddenly picks it up, turning it over in his hands. “It says here that for your age you need 2 pills. Fever and headache.”

Sanghyuk leans forward and places his hands on the table. His muscles are aching with a rotgut pain and over the past twenty-four hours, his fever had dulled into a fluctuating one, spiking almost every other hour, which feels (almost) worse than a constant fever. He feels like complete and he has managed to puke out just about everything he ate ever since he woke up. Hongbin stays up with him as well, waiting anxiously outside the toilet as he waits for the retching noises to stop. He has a bit of a vomit phobia – ever since – ever since he got beat near to death when he puked up on Sir’s rug. It takes him almost three trips to the bathroom to realize that Hongbin isn’t going to be angry with him. Even then, he tries to hold it in, tries not to be a mess.

It obviously doesn’t work. But Hongbin hyung doesn’t say a word about it.

The hallucinations have yet to cease and it’s running at the back of his head like an old black and white film. The hunger and sleep deprivation is starting to get to him. He had fallen to the floor after trying to get up (twice), so here he is. Medicine. Pills. Waiting for either something really good or really bad to happen.

Hongbin pushes the packet across the table. “You up for it?”

Sanghyuk picks it up and reads the label even though he knows exactly what it says. Paracetamol. For fever, headache, and pain relief. Non-drowsy. Two capsules every 4-5 hours for patients aged 12 and up. Of course he knows what it says. He’s read it once for every time Hongbin wanted him to take it.

“It’ll make you feel a lot better, Hyuk-ah.”

His Sirs used to say that all the time but it sounds different in Hongbin’s voice. Everything sounds different in Hongbin’s voice. Sanghyuk wants to believe that it’s because everything that Hongbin says, he means, but it’s not that easy to remove something so ingrained in your bones. To even get to his bones, Sanghyuk understands that you have to peel back so many layers of flesh and blood. It’s going to hurt and he doesn’t want to feel pain anymore if he can help it.

“Hyuk-ah, we’ve talked about this. If your fever didn’t go down by today…” Hongbin looks up at him.

Sanghyuk looks down and whispers, “I have to go back to the hospital.”

Through the haze of his fever, Sanghyuk still knows he’s being talked down to. And he doesn’t mind because at least he’s not being forced into doing anything. Hongbin isn’t forcing him to take the pills even though he wants him to. Yet, Sanghyuk still refuses to take them. Hongbin is treating him like a child because he is acting like a child. It’s just as simple as that.

Something flickers in the amber of Hongbin’s chest. “Hyuk-ah.”

“Yes, hyung?” 

“I’m not angry.” Hongbin says and Sanghyuk tenses. He doesn’t even have enough energy to spare for fear and that’s a dangerous place to be in for a person like him.

“I know hyung, I just –” Sanghyuk looks up and puts the packet down on the table. “I just don’t like drugs.”

Sanghyuk’s eyebrows quirk in an odd fashion and his lips tighten like he’s going to cry, but he doesn’t. Sometimes Hongbin wishes that the boy would just cry whenever he wants to, so he wouldn’t have to look at Sanghyuk’s hands shaking all the time like there’s an earthquake below skin. He knows that it’s painfully hard for Sanghyuk to even speak without being told to, or remember to take care of himself, and he doesn’t want to make it worse, but there are some things that he can’t not do. One of them includes bringing a fever down.

“I wish I could make you believe me, but I don’t know what to say. You have to trust me.”

And Sanghyuk does. He trusts Hongbin more than anyone, which might not be much, considering how he feels about everyone else, but it still accounts for something at least. Besides it makes sense, sort of, to trust Hongbin, because he’s seen him at his worst. Yet, there is an inexplicable fear within him that stops him from doing everything that he wants to do. It feels more like a simple ache than a tumor. It’s not going to kill him, but it’s frustrating and annoying as hell. It’s almost like suddenly remembering that at least one part of your body is touching something at any given point in time. A person isn’t supposed to be aware of their own body so much. It’s just supposed to be there. Like… it always has been.

“Do you trust me?” Hongbin asks it casually, but the way he looks so firmly at Sanghyuk tells them everything they need to know.

Sanghyuk’s head hurts and Hongbin’s question is a little overwhelming but he refocuses. “I do, hyung.”

It feels only half natural that he’s saying the things he’s saying. It’s almost as if a space had been created around him and he’s just a speck of dust in existence. Whatever he does or say shouldn’t matter but it still changes things and that scares him. Maybe it’s the fever that’s making him a little bit delirious but some parts of him knows that there’s truth in it.

Sanghyuk takes his hands off the table. “Okay. Yeah – Yeah – I –”

“You’ll take it?” Hongbin’s eyes take on such a glimmer that it almost makes Sanghyuk feel proud of himself as he nods tremulously. I’ll get you a glass of water. Hold on.”

He sits quietly at the table, trying hard not to fidget. He’s nervous. Not about taking the pill, but what might come after. It’s not – He’s not good with drugs.

He remembers the first time Jooncheol Sir told him that it would make him feel better and stuck a needle into his skin with a force so large that ended up severing a few nerves. Until now, his fingers don’t move as well as he would like them to. It’s why he can’t handle chopsticks. Hongbin thinks it’s because he hasn’t used one for a long time which, admittedly, is also a reason, but it’s not the whole story. The needle was clean at least, but Sanghyuk still can’t erase the way the liquid lit his veins on fire, made him see strobes of color, and most of all, how it had felt genuinely good from his memory. Until now, he can still almost remember how it felt having the needle jerk around under his skin, the liquid being pushed into his body even though he tried to stop it. It was the first time he came without even being touched. It was pathetic, and it made him feel helpless, dirty. Still feel dirty, he thinks. 

Hongbin comes back with a glass of water and places it in front of him. Sanghyuk takes the two pills from him and decides to just do it. He picks up the glass with his good hand and actually has to concentrate on not dropping it because he’s shaking so much. But the moment his throat works around the pills, his gag reflex triggers and he chokes, almost throwing up the water.

In a split moment, his chest fills up with so much anxiety and panic that the first thing he does he spring up from his chair. He doesn’t think he can let anyone touch him right now – not if he wants to be okay for the next hour or so. More than feeling scared that Hongbin might scream at him, he’s guilty for not being able to do anything on his own. He can hardly breathe and he thinks he’s barely managing to stop himself from spitting everything out.

Hongbin waits for the wave of coughing to pass and Sanghyuk to recover from the panic. He still doesn’t shout at him once.

***

Turns out, the medicine works miracles. His fever is almost gone by the time Hongbin wakes him up for lunch. The nap had smoothened out all the knots in his back muscles, and his head is almost clear with the good rest. He had a bad dream of himself carving ‘Sir’ on his own body but besides that, he doesn’t even stir.

Maybe it’s because Hongbin had told him that he’d be there when he wakes up. And he did keep his promise. It’s… foreign to have someone do what they really say because up till now, he had never been able to trust anyone with the depth that he trusts Hongbin. He remembers trusting Jooncheol Sir once, but it was destroyed pretty early on. He had made Sanghyuk say thank you for being ed and after that, he learnt the hard way on a couple other occasions that people are not meant to be trusted. It doesn’t seem to apply to Hongbin, though, and he doesn’t really know what to feel about that. So like most other times, he just chooses not to feel anything.

It’s easier that way.

Lunch was great and he doesn’t even panic when he takes the second round of pills. It’s a small victory. A small victory, but one nonetheless. And Hongbin doesn’t forget to praise him for it.

But now there’s one problem to face.

His debt towards Hongbin is snowballing into one that perhaps he cannot repay, and the easiest way to approach the problem is to bring it up instead of waiting. So he brings it up at dinnertime.

“Hyung?” Sanghyuk asks softly. “How do you want me to pay you back?”

Hongbin looks up with an almost-grin on his face. “For what?”

“I don’t know. Everything. The hospital, and for saving me, and for the food, and the late nights and – Everything.”

Hongbin looks like he doesn’t have anything to say.

Then Sanghyuk says finally, unable to push the words down anymore. “You could me.”

Hongbin almost chokes on his own saliva and the look on his face is one that Sanghyuk cannot decipher. It’s almost… incredulous. Which, of course, Sanghyuk can perfectly understand. His body is scarred, he’s not pure, even his own skin doesn’t want to belong to him (he watches the way his scars bump and curve like they’re trying to escape and he knows) – why would Hongbin want to him? He doesn’t even want to touch himself. But he can be a good boy for Hongbin. He doesn’t even need to take off his clothes, doesn’t need to see his disgusting skin – he has heard plenty of times that his mouth is fantastic.

“What makes you think I’m that sort of person?” Hongbin asks, almost angry, and Sanghyuk wants to find a place to hide. “You shouldn’t even be offering it to me.”

Sanghyuk tries to compartmentalize the fear and concentrate on the basics. “Should I offer it to your colleagues then? Or maybe like –”

Taekwoon hyung is scary, sure, but he’s pretty confident that he can handle if after so many years of almost constant fear. Nothing can possibly match up to what his Sirs could do. He wants Hongbin to tell him what to do, to tell him what not to do. He wants to kneel, or do anything to make Hongbin happy. Hongbin can even choke him if he wants. Tie him up and blindfold him. Anything. Because he needs Hongbin to keep him, and his body is the only thing he can trade for that. He needs Hongbin to want him, he needs to make Hongbin happy.

“No.” Hongbin cuts him off as he puts down his chopsticks.

Of course it was going to be a no. Hongbin saved his life. He – he’s Hongbin’s property, of course. Why didn’t he think of that before he spoke – Sanghyuk feels an almost sick sense of relief that he can finally catch up as to what is going on. Of course. His loyalties lie only to Hongbin.

“You don’t offer it to anyone. Ever.” Hongbin sighs. “You don’t owe me anything. This isn’t how this should work – I – I’m helping you because we’re friends. And friends don’t have debts to each other. Friends also definitely don’t repay each other… by forcing the other person to do something he doesn’t want to do.”

Oh. At least that’s one of his questions answered. Hongbin doesn’t want to him.

“Then,” Sanghyuk is possibly even more confused than when he started. “Why are you keeping me here?”

Hongbin suddenly looks very melancholic. “You don’t want to be here? Do you feel like I’m forcing you to stay here? Do you want to leave?”

“No, no. I want – I want to be here.” Sanghyuk fuddles. “I just – just – What do you want me to do? Chores aren’t enough and I don’t – I haven’t even been doing them. Why am I… still here, if I can’t do anything – um – anything for you, hyung? What do you – What do you want me to do?”

“I don’t want you to do anything.” Hongbin’s voice cracks ever so gently. “I want you to do what you want to do.”

But that’s terrifying to Sanghyuk, because he hasn’t ever been trusted to make his own decisions before. He doesn’t know what else he can say or do without possibly making Hongbin angry so he just keeps his head down. Hongbin suddenly feels like he had just kicked a defenseless puppy, and he can feel Sanghyuk’s distress. It feels horrible.

“Fine. I’ll tell you.” Hongbin says bluntly. “I want you to keep getting better. I want you to smile more. I want you to learn how to use the chopsticks. I want to tell you how much I love How I Met Your Mother and stupid sitcoms. Or how much I hate the Next Top Model franchise and reality TV. I want you to tell me about your favorite movie. I want you to keep breathing. I want you to reply me when I talk to you. But mostly I just want you to be happy and healthy and I want you to feel like you deserve… to be cared for. To be looked after. I’m doing this because you deserve it. And I’m trying to give you what you’ve been deprived of for the whole of your life.”

There it is again. Sanghyuk’s body isn’t made to contain so much emotion and its filling his chest so rapidly that he doesn’t know where to let it go. It’s not debilitating or paralyzing. It’s nice, and it makes him feel so warm that it’s almost as if the air had suddenly become hot. He tries to swallow and his throat feels tight. It’s so hard to keep up with what Hongbin just said that he doesn’t know how to respond. He can’t process it fast enough.

But he’s a lot more settled now that he knows of Hongbin’s intentions and what Hongbin might be expecting. He’s not even upset that Hongbin doesn’t want to him, just knows that he’s relieved because Hongbin doesn’t want to hurt him. It’s a huge load off his shoulders and he feels the ghost of a smile creeping into his consciousness. Hongbin reflects it back to him with a slight smile of his own and Sanghyuk suddenly feels like he can breathe. The surge of oxygen feels like a new life.

But because it’s easier to flatten emotions out of existence, he picks up his chopsticks and eats. His fingers are awkward and fumbling, but they’re not shaking anymore.

He can breathe. 

[A/N[ Buffer chapter because I am completely clueless as to how this story should progress from here. I would appreciate, and welcome any ideas/hopes you have for the story. Thank you.