[mɑːb(ə)]

A hard crystalline form of limestone, typically white with coloured mottlings or streaks which may be polished and is used in sculpture and architecture

The utterly helpless nature of its form.

Water's touch will melt its skin and acid's burn will distort its name.

Eunhyuk had taken to sleeping on the bed instead of passing the nights curled up into the eave of the window, hugging his legs until his knees were drawn up to his chin; eyes misty and sultry pale in the moonlight. Donghae had been shocked the first time, to say the least, when he had drawn the blankets up to his chin only for Eunhyuk to pull them back down and stand over him with an expectant look. He'd stared questioningly up at the blonde with the blanket pooling around his waist and may have let out a little huff of irritation at the flash of coolness against his upper body but any sign of protest was promptly ignored as Eunhyuk gestured at him to shift across the bed.

He'd climbed in beside Donghae, wrapped his arms around the latter's shoulders and pressed his face into the crook of his neck before settling down; breathing slowing to gentle puffs of air against the brunette's ear and his hair shifting with each exhale. It had been the most awkward night and he'd woken the next morning with a stiff back from having slept hunched over with the paranoia of shoving Eunhyuk off the bed in his haze of sleep induced restlessness. However, as he pried the blonde's grip off his shoulders and sat up groggily to see the figure beside him enchantingly fragile with his curls of yellow hair falling over his face and his hands now curled up against his own chest, Donghae felt his own insecurities fade away.

Eunhyuk couldn't possibly care whether or not Donghae snored or rolled about in bed. Even if he were to fall headfirst onto the wooden panels of the floor, he would probably either sleep through the impact or crawl back onto the bed without any grudges.

The following nights, Donghae was once again enveloped into Eunhyuk's intoxicating smell of vanilla and hyacinths, mixed with the comforting scent of warm skin and the faint rustle of their clothing against one another. Sometimes, it was he who climbed into bed several minutes after the blonde had fallen asleep and felt obliged to take the latter into his arms as Eunhyuk had always done every night. In the mornings, he would wake to the sight of Eunhyuk's face beside his own, lashes brushing his cheeks and a soft smile gracing his face; taking the edge off his features.

Their relationship was closer to that of brothers than anything else; an overwhelming sense of the need to safeguard one another. Eunhyuk was his guardian; sheltering him with an almost possessive frenzy of his suffocating presence and Donghae eventually came to depend on him like an arthritic man depends upon his walking stick to function.

It was rather frightening; how desperately he clung on to the latter like a bur. How the blonde's existence was vital to Donghae's own growth and how he himself seemed to be the only thing holding Eunhyuk down to this world. He spurred him on to continue living and fighting and breathing. Were it not for Donghae, Eunhyuk appeared to have no purpose anymore. It seemed that his every action had been done for the benefit of the brunette.

Donghae sat on the edge of the bed with his back against the wall and the crook of his knees splayed over Eunhyuk's stomach as the blonde lay bundled up in the blankets, breathing soft and drawn out as it was whenever he was asleep. The warm glow of the string of bulbs hanging over them was deliciously intoxicating and spread a yellow cast over them. Jungsu was quietly playing with the train in the corner of the room; nibbling and poking at the engine with his broad bill and quacking in indignation as he was rewarded with a face full of steam.

He held the glass hemisphere carefully between the thumb and index finger of his left hand and, with his most delicate of brushes, dabbed on a ring of melted bone; carefully spaced to utter perfection. It served as the glue to bind the gold leaf to its surface, glowing with a milky haze against the transparent orb which appeared to harden into stiff peaks before his very eyes. Donghae pressed the leaf on, dragging a needle over the precipice of each ring to mark the contours of what would be an iris, and trimmed the excess with a small knife. The resultant glass eye glowed in the middle of his palm like an all-seeing being; staring at Donghae with unadulterated curiosity.

The stare burned into him like a poker pressed white hot against his forehead.

"What is it?"

"An eye." Donghae answered shortly, willing himself not to look up. Not to meet the eyes of the boy who had risen from the dust and ashes of his own home. The boy who stood before him, thankfully shrouded in a dark robe which hung from his fragile frame like folds of excess skin. The boy with the slightly overgrown black hair, though not to the extent of Donghae's own, and the white stark pallid sheen of what appeared to be more paper than skin. The boy with the dark shadows hanging heavy beneath his eyes and the bare bony fingers and toes poking from the holes of his clothing. The boy who had introduced himself as Taemin, though he had no explanation for his seemingly random appearances, whether in real life or Donghae's own mind, he knew not. "It's a glass eye. I'm a toymaker after all. This is what I do, to grant my creations the gift of sight."

"I could use another one of those."

"It's for my friend over there." Donghae gestured towards the unfinished blind hedgehog toy perched on the bedside table on Eunhyuk's side of the bed and frowned, "Besides, you already have a perfectly good pair of eyes. Why do you need another one?"

"I used to." He smirked, trailing his index finger down his left eye; pulling down on the lower lid and exposing the stark redness of the veins underneath before it slipped back into place against his eyeball. Donghae shivered at the sight, stomach clenching with fear, "I used to be able to see, but now they're gone. Where did they go?" Taemin's voice grew plaintive and scared, retreating back to his childlike persona and his eyes were large; shining with terror, "Where did they go? Why couldn't I see? Do you know why?"

Donghae shook and grimaced slightly with the strenuous effort of simply holding it in. The raw terror of the moment. This boy… Taemin. Why was he here? What had Donghae done for him to haunt him in such a fashion? He slipped his hand into Eunhyuk's palm poking out from the blanket and held it in a vice grip.

"Do you know why?"

"No." It was a hoarse whisper. Hardly his own voice anymore.

"I was even younger than you when he did it. I was only a little boy. But it wasn't me he wanted. I was the sacrificial lamb; the false offering. I was only one of many. One of several hundred. Can you imagine that?" Taemin gripped his own face; hands pulling his skin taut against the bones which shone with each stark contour, "Several hundred of us trapped in the bloody inferno of greed and hunger for power of one man. They were all older than I was; your age and older. I was the only falsely taken child and perhaps that is why I was able to live on in spirit, even if only to warn you against him."

"Why me?" Donghae croaked, "Of all the people to warn, why me?"

The boy regarded him with half lidded eyes, half his face shrouded in darkness, "Because you're the last one. You're the only one that man could find. The others are all dead, their lives sacrificed for us. Only yourself and another survived but you're the one he needs. The other one has run away from the terror of your father but in his haste, he's left you more vulnerable than ever before."

More vulnerable than ever before.

He gripped Eunhyuk's hand tighter and glanced down at his still-sleeping form. It was then that Donghae realised something was wrong. Eunhyuk was silent, frozen, cold as ice. The soft mutterings, occasional snuffle and that even passing of air through his lungs; they were all gone. He lay there with eyes shut and lips slightly ajar with no movement at all. Even his skin seemed so fragile and pale compared to the usually vibrant Eunhyuk.

"Hyuk." Donghae squeezed his hand lightly with fear fluttering in his chest. There was no response. "Hyuk? Eunhyuk!"

He lay impossibly still with skin white as paper. There was no hint of the warmth which surrounded Donghae nor the familiar scent of vanilla and hyacinths. There was nothing; only the cold emptiness of a corpse. A heart-wrenching ache seemed to burst within him and he quickly sat up, the brushes and tubs of materials dropping over the edge of the bed with a clatter.

Squatting over the blonde, Donghae pressed his trembling fingers over his closed eyes and pried them open with his thumb. Whiteness greeted him with faint veins spreading like roots from the base of his eye. He snatched his hands away in horror and slapped Eunhyuk hard against the cheek, causing his head to flop weakly on the pillow. His pallid skin left no trace of the assault.

"Taemin, what do I do? Eunhyuk is-" He raised his gaze frantically to where the boy had been standing only moments ago. There was no sign of the boy anywhere.

He had disappeared as abruptly as he had appeared.

Donghae had never before thought to question Eunhyuk's previously almost nonexistent sleeping habits. The latter had taken to perching on the windowsill, watching over the brunette and the few times that Donghae had awoken in the middle of the night, Eunhyuk had always been awake and close at hand no matter how late into the night or early into the morning he had been disturbed. However, he had recently been sleeping consta