"You make me forget about myself," Jongdae says, as he absentmindedly runs the pad of his thumb against the blade of his knife.

"What do you mean by that?" Joonmyun is used to his husband's cryptic statements. It's all part of Jongdae's tormented writer thing, he supposes.

"You make me forget all the reasons why I'm not a good person."

Jongdae sinks the knife into the juicy grapefruit, digging and twisting into the ruby flesh.

Joonmyun puts his newspaper down. He's allayed Jongdae's self-loathing and soothed his crippling insecurities for years, but Jongdae still insists on thinking of himself as the scum of the earth. He wishes that Jongdae would just open his eyes already and see how beautiful he is.

The twin sets of scars on the soft undersides of Jongdae's forearms are an ominous reminder of how far he'd gone...how close he'd been. Jongdae once had no idea how to organize the violent cacophony in his mind. So he carved his chaotic thoughts into his skin and flesh, straight lines in neat rows.

All Jongdae wanted to do was scream, and Joonmyun was the only person who didn't try to bottle him up and lock him away. He screamed at Joonmyun until his throat was raw and he coughed up sprays of scarlet, but Joonmyun just dabbed his tears and fears away and sang him soft lullabies to keep the nightmares at bay.

"How's your novel coming along?" Joonmyun asks gently. "You didn't come to bed until late last night, were you up working on it?"

"I...yeah." Jongdae digs his spoon into his grapefruit. He offers a scoop to Joonmyun, who leans away, shaking his head and scrunching his nose.

"You've been working on it for months now, but I still have no idea what you're writing about. Care to share with your biggest fan?" Joonmyun flutters his eyelashes with a cloying grin.

"It's a...love story," Jongdae says carefully.

"Love story? I like those," Joonmyun murmurs, rubbing his thumb against the tiny bones in Jongdae's wrist. "Are you going to show me a manuscript sometime this century, or am I going to have to pry it from your cold, dead hands?" he jokes.

"Maybe when I'm happy with it."

That's the thing about being married to his editor- there's almost nothing he can hide from Joonmyun. Joonmyun has this way of seeing past the writing, straight into the soul from which the words poured out of. It's intimate, it's terrifying. He also has the uncanny ability to extract things from the writer that Jongdae wanted to keep locked up in the midnight shadows of his heart- the errant thoughts, the irrational fears.

But Joonmyun has this way of taking the turbulent waters of Jongdae's sea of thoughts and making them gentle and quiet.

"Don't forget, your brother is coming by today to pick you up for your family fishing trip," Joonmyun reminds him, taking a sip of his Americano.

"Oh- right."

"You forgot, didn't you?" Joonmyun smirks, his eyes twinkling fondly.

"You know what...I don't know what I would do without you," Jongdae confesses. Joonmyun is his lifesaver in more ways than one.

"That’s what I thought, especially when I saw last night that you hadn't even bought fishing gear."

"I'm sure that Jongdeok has me covered..."

"Either way, I bought you a hat last night, just in case..."

Joonmyun digs through a cabinet until he procures a bundled up plastic bag. He pulls out a stereotypical khaki fishing hat, grinning hopefully at his husband.

“Nice, eh?”

"Did you really..." Jongdae begins in disbelief.

"Yes!" Joonmyun says excitedly. "I knew you'd like it!"

"...That's the nerdiest thing I've ever seen in my life."

Joonmyun's face falls, and Jongdae plucks the hat out of his hands, placing it on his own head.

"Thank you, Joonmyun," he says, kissing his husband on the cheek.

After Jongdae has left, Joonmyun takes the opportunity to clean out their entire townhouse. Usually Jongdae doesn't let Joonmyun step into the extra bedroom he uses as his writing space, so Joonmyun takes the opportunity vacuum and dust the room for the first time since Jongdae started working on his novel.

Joonmyun braces himself for a dust bunny wasteland, but the room is surprisingly clean. Jongdae's learning how to take care of himself, Joonmyun thinks fondly. However, Jongdae's filing cabinets and desk drawers appear to be in a bit of a disarray.

Since he prefers to scrawl his stories by hand with paper and pen, most of Jongdae's writing studio is devoted to storing mountains of notebooks and reams of paper. But there are loose sheets of paper filled with black ink scribbles sticking out of the closed drawers, as if the storage space is overflowing and ready to burst.

Joonmyun jimmies a cabinet drawer open to tuck the papers back inside, but he freezes when he catches a glimpse of the words scratched across the crumpled sheet in Jongdae's distinct, artfully messy handwriting.

I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry

It's nothing other than that phrase, repeated over and over again for an entire page. Joonmyun frantically flips the page over, and it's the same on the other side. With a sinking dread, Joonmyun digs through the other papers stuffed in the drawer, pulling them all out at once. They all have the same words scribbled across every inch of each page.

Joonmyun pulls out all the drawers of every cabinet and shakes out all of their contents.

I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry

I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry

I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry

In a cold rage, he flips over Jongdae's writing desk, and more papers scatter across the floor.

I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry

I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry

I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry

I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry

I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry

With a heaving chest, Joonmyun surveys the horrifically disheveled space. Hundreds of papers blanket every inch of the floor like snow after a blizzard.

When Jongdae returns from his fishing trip, exhausted but mercifully not sunburnt (he makes a mental note to thank Joonmyun again for the hat), he finds his husband waiting for him at their dining table.

"How was your fishing trip?" Joonmyun asks, reaching across the table to pull the hat off Jongdae's head and tenderly smooth his hair back.

"Boring," Jongdae admits. "I tried to text you, but my mother threatened to throw my phone into the lake."

Joonmyun chuckles quietly, but when he looks back up at Jongdae, Joonmyun’s eyes are dead serious.

"When were you going tell me?" he asks quietly.

"W-what?" Jongdae's heart rate spikes and his hands are suddenly cold and clammy.

Joonmyun pulls a folded piece of paper out of his pocket, and Jongdae's heart almost stops when Joonmyun presses it flat onto the table.

It’s like an iron cage is clamping tight over Jongdae's chest, choking and squeezing the breath out of him.

"When were you going to d-do it?" Joonmyun asks, the slight falter betraying the turmoil beneath his apparent calm.

"I...don't know." The admission is barely above a whisper. "I can feel it coming back, Joonmyun. I thought I was normal again, but it’s coming back even worse, and...I don't know if I'll be able to recover this time. I just didn't want to be a burden, you deserve more than having to worry about me all the time..."

Joonmyun wants to laugh or cry, but he swallows his hysterics.

"You know I'll always be here to protect you, right? Your troubles are my troubles, Jongdae. You are the most important thing to me. Just- next time when you feel that way, don't shut yourself away, okay? Talk to me, and we can talk to Dr. Zhang... Sound good?"

Joonmyun's hands find Jongdae's, and he laces their fingers together. Jongdae hangs his head and takes a few deep, shuddery breaths.

"You've been nothing but good to me," he finally rasps.

"That's my job, yeah? That and making sure you hit your deadlines."

Jongdae tries to form a shaky approximation of a smile through his tears. Joonmyun lifts one of Jongdae's wrists to press a tender kiss to the bumpy, raised slash marring the pale skin.

"Come on," Joonmyun says, pulling Jongdae up by the hand. "I have something to show you."

He leads him to Jongdae's writing studio. There isn't any sign of the hurricane of white and black that had swept through the room earlier in the day. But now, instead of one desk facing the window, there are two. The filing cabinets that had been pressed against the walls have been replaced by a cushy looking sofa with wide seats, as well as a brand new bookshelf filled with inspirational classics and the products of Joonmyun and Jongdae's literary partnership.

"I moved in, I hope you don't mind,” Joonmyun says, almost a little sheepishly. “I don't think the guys at the office will miss me breathing over their shoulders all the time. But now you won't have to be alone so much anymore."

Words aren't necessary- the way that Jongdae buries his face in Joonmyun's neck for a moment and the grateful, teary smile that crosses his lips when he pulls away are enough to tell Joonmyun all that he needs to know.

Later, Jongdae breaks the silence of their wordless pillow talk.

"You know what I was thinking?"

"Hmmm?" Joonmyun mumbles sleepily, snuggling closer and breathing in a lungful of Jongdae.

"I'm wondering how productive we'll be, if you put us in a room together for hours at a time with a giant sofa right there."

Joonmyun chuckles, his warm breath fanning across Jongdae's bare skin.

"I think that's a risk I'm willing to take."

A/N: Titled after lyrics from “Bleeding Love” by Leona Lewis