Lunacy and Other Fairytales ; tk | ym

8.

mild smut warning ahead

~

The bed is strangely empty when Taehyung awakes the next morning after a night of restless sleep haunted by skinless men and white eyes. It's not a rarity that he wakes up alone. Sometimes, Jeongguk has to work early and whenever he gets up quietly enough, Taehyung stays asleep.
But this morning, it feels weird. Almost as if Jeongguk wanted to escape an inevitable encounter after their fight a little while longer.

It takes Taehyung longer than usual to get up. He rolls around in bed, considers trying to sleep again but quickly figures that he won't be able to anyway. The first thing he sees when he enters the living room is the new pile of envelopes on the table; Jeongguk must have put them there this morning after the mailman dropped them off.
He grabs the pile, flips through them — advertisements, a letter from their insurance company, a hospital bill from when Jeongguk had food poisoning two months ago. Every new payment request makes Taehyung's stomach drop a little further. Eventually, Taehyung just drops the papers where the others are lying, waiting to be dealt with. Soon, he thinks as he makes himself a can of coffee that he really needs to get through the day, Soon this will all be over.

He is too tired to bother his head over the matter, so, with his coffee in one hand and his laptop in the other he sits down on the couch, cuddles into a blanket and opens the last document he has worked on — Yoongi at the hospital.

"Go get the nurse!" someone said. Yoongi's neck was too stiff to move, but he could see a person standing next to him. That is the last sentence he wrote a few days ago. The problem he had back then still consists, kind of; who was at the hospital with Yoongi and how did they react?

Artistic freedom, Taehyung thinks with an internal shrug and puts his fingers down on the keyboard, ready to write.
But... nothing.

His head is empty. Utterly rid of any idea he might have had before.
All that rotates through his brain is Jeongguk, Jeongguk's disappointment at Taehyung's words, Jeongguk worrying about him, Jeongguk being mad, Yoongi panicking and Jimin crying and the bloodcurdling screams and Jeongguk and the shadow rushing past Taehyung last night in the bathroom and white, huge eyes staring at him without blinking once.

He shuts his laptop. No, he can't do this, he just... can't.
Usually he finds peace in writing but right now it only seems to spur on the mess that is his mind and create an even bigger chaos. Taehyung doesn't want to think of anything right now.
But of course life doesn't play in his favors right now and he can't just stop his thoughts. The more time passes the bigger the guilt flaring in his stomach grows until it's all but unbearable; sure, Jeongguk acted insensitive yesterday, but Taehyung didn't make it easy for him either. He should have stayed calm and tried to resolve things like the grown adult he is. Jeongguk was right, he is childish.

Taehyung groans and throws his head back against the couch as the remorse grows and grows. He has to make it up to his boyfriend, there is no other possibility. But how?

He could make him lunch and drop it off at work — but considering Taehyung's lack of cooking skills, that might not be the best idea after all. Or he could order food in, but that is probably the least personal thing he could do.

And considering how annoyed and stressed Jeongguk must be after working so long and then having to return home to his boyfriend with who he just had a fight with, he can't just — wait.

Taehyung looks at the windowsill behind him. The candles Jeongguk put there when the power went out two weeks ago are still there; some of them have to be in the drawer, too. Or, at least that is where Taehyung put them when he cleaned up the next morning.
A soft smile grows on his lips, the first one for today, as he finally realizes what it is he can do for Jeongguk, in hopes that said man will be willing to talk to him then. Or, perhaps just hear Taehyung out and let him apologize. That would a beginning.