Work Text:
Baekhyun peeks in. The doctor’s speaking gently to the child, who’s still sniffling and squirming in his seat.
“Trust hyung, okay? I’ll be very careful. Hold them out for me.”
The kid doesn’t look entirely convinced, but he nods tearfully and stretches his small wings out.
“That’s good, Chenle,” the doctor says. He hums as his measures the span of the child’s wing, then prods gently at his back.
“He’s been complaining about the pain for a couple days now,” the mother wrings her hands worriedly.
“All normal,” the doctor says. “Just growing pains. Look.” He gestures for the mother to come over. “This is what’s causing the discomfort. Broken feathers right here, where the wings are moulting. I’ll clear them away, and they should be as good as new. You’re doing great, Chenle. Now take a deep breath, and make them as big as you can.”
“Okay,” the boy says, now growing more confident at his mother’s relieved smile. “Will it hurt, hyung?”
“Just a small itch,” the doctor replies cheerfully. “Would you look at that!” He holds out a bent feather to the little boy. “What colour is this?”
“Aqua man green!”
The doctor laughs, a melodious, soothing sound. “Whose feathers do they look like?”
“Mummy!” The little boy points excitedly at his mother’s wings, neatly folded behind her back. “They look like yours, mummy!”
The mother beams, delighted. She stretches hers out. They’re a lovely pale green at the arc, growing deeper in colour to the tips of the feathers. “That’s right, Chenle! We match!”
Baekhyun tears his eyes away, ribcage tight.
We match.
He looks back hesitantly at his own wings, resting weakly against his back. They’re shabby and dull. Baekhyun remembers when they were a soft lilac, taking after his mother, then blooming brighter in purple as he grew older. When he had met Chanyeol, swathes of cobalt had started to appear, mimicking the taller man’s deep, dark wings.
Now, the vivid blue have all but shed, leaving ugly and bare patches. He starts at the sight of a lone feather on the floor. Embarrassed, Baekhyun hastily picks it up and shoves it into his pocket, ignoring the feeling of the brittle shaft snapping.
He’d put this visit off for too long, disliking the idea of anyone observing their failure of a relationship, splashed so plainly on the canvas on his back. But it’d gotten worse in the months following their breakup. The shine in his wings wore off. They became weak and thin. Finally, Kyungsoo had threatened to deliver him to the clinic himself if Baekhyun didn’t go.
He forces himself to look into the room again. The doctor is chatting animatedly to his little patient, arms waving about. He scoops up a handful of downy bits and rains it around them, causing the boy to squeal with glee. It makes Baekhyun feel slightly better, the urge to run dampening.
He returns to the waiting room.
--
“Baekhyun-ssi?”
“Ah—I’m here.”
“Doctor Zhang will see you next.” His wings tighten with tension, but the nurse isn’t fazed. She smiles kindly at him, and he relaxes minutely. “If you would follow me.”
He’s led back to the room he surreptitiously spied on earlier, where he catches the doctor leading a patient out, one vermillion wing angled awkwardly off his back. Baekhyun winces in sympathy.
“No crazy tricks. Or dives. Or flying during this period, for the matter.” A sound of protest, but the doctor shakes his head. “As much as I like you Jongin-ah, it’d be good not to see you every week. Don’t make me get you a babysitter. I can make it happen.”
“Alright, alright.” The patient laughs sheepishly. “I get it. I’ll stay on the ground.”
“Promise?”
“Promise, hyung.”
The doctor grins, ruffling his patient’s hair fondly. “Get home safe, Jongin.”
Baekhyun blinks, slightly taken aback by the candid exchange going on in front of him. The doctor turns to him.
“Baekhyun-ssi?” Baekhyun lifts his hand up in a half wave, and the doctor smiles pleasantly. “I’m Doctor Zhang Yixing. Come on in.”
Baekhyun settles himself on the exam table, shifting nervously. He has a moment where he considers fleeing the room, but Yixing’s looking at him encouragingly, open and non-judgemental, and Baekhyun reluctantly spreads open his wings. If Yixing’s taken aback he doesn’t show it. Baekhyun supposes he’s seen it all.
“Do you mind if I…?”
Baekhyun shakes his head, giving Yixing the go ahead, and Yixing reaches forward to run his hands across his wings. He presses down lightly on the bare patches, and Baekhyun can’t help but feel vulnerable and exposed.
“Loss of muscle mass…” He measures the span of Baekhyun’s wings. “One point five… Do you remember how wide they were previously?”
“One point eight,” Baekhyun manages unsteadily.
Yixing nods, and continues his thorough examination, ending at his back, where his wings meld into flesh. “How long has it been since you flew?”
Baekhyun supposes he should be thankful he wasn’t asked, how long has it been since your heart was broken. “About eight months.”
Yixing frowns. “I see.” He sets aside his tools. “You’ll have to forgive me for being indelicate, Baekhyun-ssi, and I know it will be difficult, but I’m going to have to ask you to try as hard as you can to use your wings. Everyday. Even a flap or two is better than nothing.”
Baekhyun swallows around the lump in his throat. “I’ve tried. They… can’t lift me anymore.”
Yixing leans forward to clasp him gently on the shoulder. “That’s what I’m here for. I’m going to be prescribing you some calcium pills to help with your decreased bone density. But the best way for them to heal would be for you to use them. Don’t worry. I’ll walk you through this process.”
“Will my feathers grow back?” Baekhyun asks, terrified of the answer.
“They can,” Yixing asserts, and it makes him strangely hopeful. “I’ve seen it happen all the time. You just have to believe yourself capable of it.”
--
Baekhyun finds himself looking longingly at the sky, trying to remember the last time he stepped off a ledge, and taking flight. The wind in his hair, the sun on his face. Icarus had gotten too close, hadn’t he? Lost his feathers and went crashing into the sea. Chanyeol had always been too bright.
Above him, people streak past. A college student carrying a pile of books, russet wings flapping strongly. Probably late for class. A mother, with one arm cradling a bag of groceries, and the other clutching her daughter’s hand, the girl’s buttery yellow wings pumping furiously in an attempt to keep up. A couple floating lazily along, with seemingly contrasting cream and olive wings. Underneath the coverts, Baekhyun can see a clear line of distinct colour on each pair, matching the other’s.
He stiffens as he remembers the doctor’s advice to move his wings. Maybe later.
Kyungsoo greets him with some homemade kimchi jjigae. Baekhyun stares into the contents of his bowl, letting the steam wash comfortably over his face.
“How was it?”
“Better than I expected. The doctor was nice.”
“That’s good,” Kyungsoo says encouragingly, and Baekhyun smiles at him, ever thankful. The shade of a person’s wings really does reflect their personality; Kyungsoo’s deep orange and magenta blend speaks of comfort and warmth, a hearth by a fire. “You’ll be seeing him again?”
“Yes, once a week. He said…” Baekhyun pauses, swallows. It’s too soon to harbour such hope. He’d thought it’d last for a few weeks, maybe a month or so, but it’s October, and still he wakes every morning with featherless patches in his wings.
“He said?” Kyungsoo presses.
“That my feathers could grow back again.”
Kyungsoo nods, scoops him some more stew. “You’ll try, won’t you? Baekhyun-ah, I don’t want you to give up.”
Baekhyun thinks of Icarus and how hard he must have flapped his arms, even when all his feathers were lost. Even when he plunged down, he must have tried, desperate to live.
“I’ll try,” he says.
--
“How are you, Baekhyun-ssi?”
He’d experimented with moving them, three times in total. And each time, he’d been rewarded with a screaming pain arcing down his back. His wings had stirred, but so slowly they found no momentum for lift.
“Okay, I guess,” and it sounds tired even to his ears.
Yixing must hear it, for he nods in sympathy and says, “The first few weeks are the hardest. Can you hold them up for me, please?”
Baekhyun does, fighting the urge to fidget as Yixing goes through his check-up. Yixing’s touch is soft, but his fingertips are calloused; a string instrument, then, perhaps the guitar, and if he closes his eyes, Baekhyun can still imagine different hands running through his feathers—
He resolutely does not close his eyes.
“Are you up for some exercises today?”
“For my wings?” he asks, even though he already knows the answer.
Yixing nods, smiles encouragingly. There’s something about this doctor, Baekhyun thinks warily, that makes you do things you really don’t want to, and then he’s stretching his wings out.
Yixing grips his right wing firmly, and moves it slowly in a circular motion. It feels like he’s dislocating an arm. “This will probably hurt,” Yixing warns belatedly.
“Tell me something I don’t know, Doc,” Baekhyun grits out.
“Uh, well, the reason it hurts is because I’m tearing them—
“Tearing them?”
“Not your wings!” The doctor hurriedly adds. “Your muscles!”
Baekhyun huffs, the pain making his eyes water. “That’s supposed to make them better?”
“I’m stretching them past what they’re used to at the moment, and so there’ll be micro-tears, but when the tears heal your muscles become stronger, and—”
Baekhyun blinks as Yixing stumbles back and crashes into the tray holding all his equipment and oh no. He really hadn’t meant to do that. But apparently his right wing had decided it had had enough and proceeded to whack the doctor across the face.
“I’m sorry!” he squeaks, mortified. “I didn’t mean to, I swear, oh my god are you okay—”
Yixing is laughing, shaking his head as he picks himself up. “Feisty one you got there.”
“Sorry, sorry, sorry—”
“Baekhyun-ssi,” Yixing interrupts, still grinning. Baekhyun doesn’t understand what’s so great; he’s pretty certain he just assaulted a doctor. “Did you see that?”
“Of course I did!” he wails. “You flew across the room!”
“I meant your wing, Baekhyun-ssi. Did you see what it did?”
Baekhyun stares back at his right wing. It had snapped back, with enough force to push Yixing away, and that’s… good, right?
“Yes, good,” Yixing is saying. “Now let’s try your left.”
--
“Yeah, that’s it,” Baekhyun winces. “Push down a little harder.”
“Are you sure I’m helping,” Kyungsoo asks worriedly. “It feels like I’m hurting you more than anything.”
“The doctor seems to think these will help,” he mutters darkly. Yixing had cheerfully handed him a list of exercises he was supposed to do, complete with checkboxes that Baekhyun could tick off to show that he was sticking to them. Baekhyun knows it’s punishment for slapping him with his wing. No slacking off, was what Yixing had said at the door, which honestly made Baekhyun contemplate the pros and cons of sticking his tongue out at the person in charge of his recovery. “And that I should do them every day.”
Kyungsoo presses down and his wing folds forward. Baekhyun hears a disconcerting crunch. “I hate him,” he whimpers weakly.
Kyungsoo laughs. “He’s making you try. I like him.”
--
Two months in and Baekhyun can move his wings without relative pain and disturbing joint pops. In front of the bathroom mirror, he watches them flap lethargically but smoothly, back and forth. Baekhyun contemplates them for a moment, then angles his body away so he doesn’t have to see the bare patches. He repeats the motions. Satisfaction bubbles in his chest, spills out at the dining table where he talks Kyungsoo’s ear out. Kyungsoo shoves him out the door an hour early, citing the excuse that a doctor would be better equipped to deal with him.
Yixing’s on break, but Baekhyun finds the cafeteria and marches up to him. “Look,” he demands, startling both Yixing and his lunch partner. He moves his wings. “I did your exercises.”
Yixing beams, brighter than a signal flare. Baekhyun’s a little blindsided by the dimple on his cheek. “Ge,” he turns to the other occupant at the table, “can I—”
“Go, go,” Luhan, his nametag reads, says. He has bubble gum pink wings that seem to sparkle in the light. They match his hair. “You look more excited than him.”
Yixing stands, grabs a flustered Baekhyun by the hand and all but drags him out of the building. There’s a park two blocks down, with a small playground nestled in the corner. Yixing clambers up the parallel bars.
“You play the part of kindergartener very well.”
Yixing rolls his eyes, and it’s so undoctor-like Baekhyun has to smile. “Up you get, come on.”
“What are we doing?” Baekhyun asks, bewildered, but he’s already following Yixing. It should be slightly worrying how carelessly he heeds this doctor, especially when his instructions often include bodily harm, but Baekhyun doesn’t want to dwell on it much.
“You’re going to jump, like this.” Yixing hops off the bars gracefully. “And you’re going to flap your wings at the same time.”
Baekhyun stares. “No.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“I’m going to fall and land on my neck. And break it. And then you’ll be sorry.”
“You’re five feet from the ground, you’re not going to fall.”
Eighteen years ago, his mother had brought him to a stout tree with a low lying branch hanging above the ground, in a park rather similar to this one. Baekhyun remembers the feel of the wood beneath his palms, bereft of splinters, worn away by all the kids using the tree as a spring board, as he clung to the branch refusing to let go. His mother had brought him back daily, waiting for the day that he’d gather the courage to jump.
He had, but by accident. Tripped over his shoelaces, and tumbled off. He’d landed on the ground with a softer thump than expected, courtesy of a flap by his untrained wings.
A couple more times of tree hopping, and then she had brought him to a gate, and took him to the top, five metres above the ground. A little nudge and he was falling, but his wings had snapped out and stopped his plummet. He refused to speak to his mother for two hours later, and only forgave her when she made him cookies and put on his favourite cartoon.
Baekhyun looks down and the distance seems to stretch farther. He tries stalling. “I’m not a baby eagle. You can’t push me off a cliff and expect me to fly.”
“I’m not going to push you,” Yixing says, eyes twinkling. “You’re going to jump on your own accord.” And then Yixing stretches out his arms, as if poised to catch him, and Baekhyun acknowledges that there’s nowhere else to go.
Funny how that with this insufferable doctor Baekhyun needs no untied lace or unwelcomed shove, somewhere at the back of his mind Baekhyun realizes that there’s something about Yixing that makes him brave; he jumps.
--
Pick up stuff, reads Kyungsoo’s note on the fridge. Don’t forget. Or I’ll forget to make dinner tonight.
Baekhyun groans. “It’s cold,” he whines aloud to the kitchen, hoping for some sympathy. Kyungsoo’s knives glint back dangerously at him.
Potatoes (that don’t have sprouts), the list underlines. Six.
Onions.
Shitake mushrooms.
Ham (you can buy your favourite).
Hot sauce.
Broccoli. A lot.
What is a lot, Baekhyun wonders, and decides to play it on the safe side and fill up two paper carriers. He regrets it when he lifts his grocery bags after paying. The three block walk back home is starting to look like a murderous trek up the Himalayas. Baekhyun sighs as the automatic glass doors open, and a gust of wind swipes at his face.
“Baekhyun-ssi?” He whips his head around. It’s Yixing, carrying a carton of milk. “That looks like it weighs a ton.”
“My flatmate does all the cooking. I do all the shopping.”
Yixing chuckles. “Sounds like you got the short end of the stick. Here, let me help. Are you taking the bus?”
Baekhyun opens his mouth to protest, but Yixing grabs his heaviest bag, containing the potatoes and ham.
“No I—you don’t have to,” Baekhyun squawks. “You’ll have to walk.”
He cringes at the reminder of the fact that he still can’t fly. He’s now able to hover a foot above the ground for a couple of seconds. But he tires quickly, and that’s all he can manage before he drops back down, winded. Yixing’s been as encouraging as ever, assuring him that his wings need time to build back mass and strength, and that he’s making progress. To Baekhyun, it only seems like they’re taking an eternity.
“I don’t want to inconvenience you,” Baekhyun tries again, even as he falls in step with Yixing.
“Nonsense,” Yixing says. “I usually walk, anyway.”
“Why?” Baekhyun asks, slightly incredulously. He hopes it doesn’t sound bitter. But why would you, when you can just fly?
“I enjoy it.” Yixing shrugs. “Now lead the way, Baekhyun-ssi.”
“Baekhyun.”
“Sorry?”
“If you’re carrying my groceries it’s going to have to be just Baekhyun.”
Yixing grins at him, and Baekhyun’s pulse does a funny little dance. He’s a little out of breath, but it could just be due to the uphill walk. “No more Doctor Zhang, then. Hyung will do. Or Yixing. I don’t mind, really.”
“Yixing hyung.”
The warmth from Yixing’s smile stays with him, all the way up to his apartment, long after Yixing bids him goodbye. He tells Kyungsoo the flush in his cheeks is from the cold.
--
Kyungsoo no longer has to kick him out the door early. Baekhyun shows up at the clinic every Saturday, an hour or so before his scheduled appointment. Yixing sometimes takes his lunch break with him. And then they leave for the park for practice. They’ve moved on to the high bar, and Baekhyun sometimes yells Superman before he jumps down, just to see Yixing’s eyes crinkle up. Baekhyun’s not sure how to describe the giddy feeling within him when Yixing adjusts his scarf, when Yixing brushes close to him when they walk, when Yixing does anything, really.
Yixing also trips over piles of orange leaves, gets lost even in a familiar neighbourhood, and sometimes forgets to look both ways before he crosses the streets.
Today a car breaks the residential area speed limit, and Yixing steps off the curb without noticing, and the ball of sensation bubbling in his chest erupts into a flame, spreading molten hot down humerus, ulna, and radius, screaming go, go, go—
His wings snap forward, carrying him easily, and Baekhyun hurtles towards Yixing, colliding and bringing him out of the path of the speeding car. They land heavily on the sidewalk, tangled together, Baekhyun cradling the back of Yixing’s head to protect him. He’s breathing hard and he starts shaking Yixing, saying you careless, stupid man—
Yixing blinks, dazed, before he reaches up and cups his face. “Baekhyun,” he whispers in awe. “Did you see that? Baekhyun, you flew.”
--
Déjà vu, he thinks, staring at himself in the mirror, except now his wings look healthier, and larger too. The bare patches are… no longer bare. Down’s starting to appear, but they’re an odd colour. They’re not purple; they’re brownish with a soft sheen—bronze, maybe?
He traipses down and parades them in front of Kyungsoo, who in a rare show of affection hugs him tight enough to squeeze the air out of his lungs.
“They’re the wrong colour,” he complains.
“Maybe that’s because they’re just starting to grow out? It could change, when they mature. You should ask your doctor.”
He decides to surprise said doctor, and so he folds his wings flat against his back until Yixing sits him on the exam table.
“You smell of mischief,” Yixing says amusedly. “What are you so excited about?”
“Ta-dah,” Baekhyun says, and opens his wings to full length.
Yixing drops his pen. It clatters across the floor with disproportionate weight. Baekhyun watches Yixing swallow, reach forward to touch the different coloured feathers, and then withdraw his hand as if burned. His expression looks hollowed out, terrified.
“Hyung?” Baekhyun asks, nervous. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Yixing says, and if Baekhyun wasn’t listening closely he would’ve missed the minute tremble in his voice. “Baekhyun, this is great! It really is. You’ve made so much progress. You should be proud of yourself.”
“Yeah,” he says uncertainly. Yixing’s smiling, but it’s not his regular one; it’s tight, and sad around the edges. “Thanks hyung.”
Yixing sends him off early with instructions to not agitate the newly growing feathers, and to soothe any itching with regular moisturizer. Baekhyun’s left confused and unsure, unable to shake the feeling that he’s done something frightfully wrong.
--
Trying to convince himself that Yixing just had an off day fails miserably, when the clinic calls him two days later to ask him to change his weekly appointment day. They tell him Doctor Zhang has taken a leave of absence, and that he’s been placed in the care of Doctor Luhan.
Baekhyun tastes panic on his tongue, wants to argue—but, Luhan, he remembers him. Bubble gum pink wings. Yixing’s lunch mate. The receptionist probably hasn’t the faintest clue what happened with Yixing. His best bet is Luhan.
“Thursday evenings works for me.”
“Excellent,” the receptionist sounds relieved. It does nothing to soothe Baekhyun’s frazzled thoughts.
Thursday finds him fidgeting in the waiting area of the clinic. The nurse shows him to a new room.
“Hello, Baekhyun-ssi—”
“Please tell me what happened to Yixing hyung,” he blurts out as soon as the nurse leaves.
Luhan stills, gazes at him carefully.
“You’re friends right? Please, I need to know why he’s gone.”
Luhan’s expression softens. “I’m not at liberty to say, Baekhyun-ssi.”
“Something happened right? He saw my wings, and he looked so scared, something happened, I just don’t know what, I need to know if I can help, please—”
He quiets when Luhan places both hands on his shoulders. “May I see?”
Baekhyun nods, and stretches his wings out. He hears Luhan’s shocked intake of breath. “What,” he asks urgently. “I don’t understand. What is it?”
“The colour of your new feathers, it’s—”
“Yes, I know,” Baekhyun says impatiently. “It’s bronze, or something. Not my base colour. So what?”
“It’s the colour of Yixing’s wings,” Luhan finishes.
Baekhyun stops, stunned. That’s impossible; he would’ve noticed. The colour of Yixing’s wings are… They’re…
Baekhyun has never seen Yixing’s wings.
He searches his memories; the times they were at the park, in the examination room, at the grocery store, but comes up blank.
“I’ve never seen them,” he whispers, realization settling in like lead. He nearly sobs when Luhan’s face melts with comprehension. “Why? I don’t understand. You have to tell me.”
His desperation must show because Luhan sighs, relents. “That’s because he doesn’t have them anymore.”
--
Yixing takes cares of wings. He helps the little ones grow properly, tends to the wounded ones; Baekhyun’s never stopped to consider it odd that Yixing has on no occasion ever showed his own.
He steps foot out of the clinic, his mind a singular focus: Yixing, who walks to places because he can’t fly. Yixing, who was probably more broken than he ever was. Yixing who hid all this from him, while doing everything he could to support Baekhyun’s recovery. Baekhun can’t imagine the strength it took to do that.
He needs to find Yixing, and it comes back to him, as fundamental and as normal as breathing: one flap, then two, and then his feet are lifting above the ground and he’s flying.
He alights at the address Luhan gave him, rings the bell. The door opens.
“Lu-ge? Why are you—”
Yixing stops. Baekhyun stares. There they are. Yixing’s wings.
“Who did this to you?” Baekhyun asks, tears stinging his eyes. “Yixing-ah.”
Yixing’s wings are completely bare, stripped of all feathers. All that’s left is bone, pale, brittle, and dull; a picture of utter heartbreak.
“It doesn’t matter now,” Yixing says tiredly. He steps back, shame weighing on his posture, and tries to fold his wings away.
“Don’t,” Baekhyun pleads, reaching forward to grasp Yixing’s arms desperately. “Hyung, don’t hide from me.”
“I didn’t want you to see me like this,” as if this changes anything, as if Baekhyun could ever see Yixing as anything less than he is.
“I don’t care,” he says, desperate for Yixing to believe him, “you know that, don’t you?”
A beat, and then Yixing nods shakily.
“Then why are you running?”
“I saw your feathers taking on that colour,” Yixing chokes out, as if the bronze were a curse, “you can’t, you’re just getting better Baekhyun, you deserve more than the broken goods I am—”
Baekhyun tightens his grip on Yixing. “Don’t say that, Yixing. Don’t you ever. Look, look at what you did for me.” Baekhyun spreads his wings. “This is you. They grew again because of you. I flew again because of you.”
He pulls Yixing closer and kisses him as tenderly as he knows how. There’s a well of emotion churning within him; love, mostly, for this broken, beautiful, man, and Baekhyun wants to pour it all into him.
“Let me do for you what you did for me,” he implores, cradling Yixing’s face, kissing him again, willing him to accept. Relief shudders through him when Yixing pushes back softly, clutching onto him as if he were a lifeline, the only thing keeping Icarus from falling—and Baekhyun has no intention of letting that happen.
“They won’t grow back.”
“They can, silly,” Baekhyun murmurs. “I’ve seen it happen, remember?” It feels strange, this role reversal, Yixing vulnerable and hurt and guarded, but the proof is etched into Baekhyun’s very wings. He wraps them around Yixing, surrounds him in all the warmth he can give, lets Yixing’s head fall to rest on his shoulder.
“You just have to believe yourself capable of it.”
--
(“Shower’s ready,” Yixing calls.
Baekhyun pokes his head in. “That was fast.”
“So much paperwork,” Yixing whines. “Backlogged from my leave.”
Baekhyun laughs. “Don’t lie hyung, you’re just excited to see your patients again. Who do you have today?”
“Sehun and Jongdae.”
“Ah, the storm chasers.”
“You mean the brats who don’t listen to me and go around getting their wings all bruised up.” Yixing huffs, but it’s fond. He passes Baekhyun, and presses damp lips against his. “I’ll get breakfast going.”
The bathroom’s foggy from steam. Baekhyun pulls back the shower curtain, reaches for the faucet when something catches his eye. It’s—
“Yixing,” he yells, grabbing the object and rushing down, “Yixing, Yixing, Yixing.”
—a feather.
Burnished bronze, with a stem the richest of purple.)