alone.
neojinsol:
“is it, like….?” did i fuck it up? fuck you up? he wants to ask.
theo is running out of concentration. he’s running out of patience. he’s running out of much beyond the capacity to feel pain. it’s a singular focus now, everything else steadily graying around the edges, a system shut down to focus on the burning distraction. he feels lightheaded and distracted, he feels clouded and aching. his chest hurts like his sternum might split. his stomach twists in knots. at every angle he is assaulted with it. outside of his arm numbness begins to set it, fingers fumbling for purchase against the other’s wrist, scrambling up to brace against his shoulder, clinging like an anchor though his grip strength weakens by the second.
“now, jinsol, now,” he tells him, forces the words from between gritted teeth. “right now,” he adds, lips thin pressed together, white against the sickly pallor of his skin. “what good is lying?” he’s distracted, vision blurring, closes his eyes and leans back against the edge of the table. he’s vibrating with the ache of it, a shudder straight down his spine as he slams weakening fingers into the metal fixture. “twist and pull.” he repeats. his lungs are empty, flattened things in his chest and his lips are parted around ragged breaths. he must be quite the picture of weakness in the moment, he thinks, a pinnacle of what it means to be broken. not just lacking in an arm but nerves frayed and fried in his attempts to improve himself, to restore what he’d lost. a sign of his own hubris or his own shortcomings - maybe both. how embarrassing.
jinsol looks like he might burst into tears with the panic of it, but it’s hard to tell. jinsol tells him not to scream and theo wants to tell him that’s unfair. that he wants to scream right now, like that might help release the pain that’s building incremental in him. but instead, jinsol is already twisting the appendage free and for a moment there is sudden, blinding pain. it flashes white over his eyes and through his body and maybe in the end he could not have screamed if he had wanted too. his hair stands on end and his muscles seize and immediately after the white there is black. but it must not last long, startling out of the moment with the clatter of his arm. there’s a distracted thought that he ought to scold jinsol for that, but instead he’s lurching a half step forward to slump against him, like he can’t stay upright on his own.
he’s not sure when he starts sobbing. it’s not really a manly thing to do, and distractedly he’s aware of that, but the physiological response is unstoppable. that kind of impossible sourceless pain, that kind of sudden jolt of excruciating synapse, that kind of sudden dull aching relief - it needs a release. he’s not sure how fast he collides into the other or how long he stays there, with a hand knotted into his shirt. it’s mostly soundless and largely desperate and he’s going t o be humiliated later, but for now he jerks himself back upright and pulls up the hem of his shirt to drag over his face. “it’s fine. it’ll be fine.” he tells him, glances down at the arm on the floor beside them. “you didn’t have to drop it though.”
