Archive of Our Own ^beta

“How do you normally do it?” Phuwin asks.

The air this far uphill is gentle but needy, pushing past all barriers in Pond’s throat, filling him so much that it leaves an aching emptiness behind. Their trainer had called it lack of oxygen—this far up north, you feel everything; higher up and you go numb.

For a blinding, groping moment, Pond doesn’t understand the question. Instead, his neck cranes, eyeballs straining against eyelids as his gaze drifts upwards and his breath stalls, and the moment lingers and stretches like chewed out bubblegum.

Understanding weighs him down. He takes a seat on one of the flat slabs of a rock jutting out from the ground, base covered with grass that are greener than Pond has ever seen them in Bangkok, more dangerous-looking, home to insects and parasites. “Do what?” the question is a formality, considering everything that’s already passed between them.

“Palm,” Phuwin answers. For a split second, Pond reacts to that name like it’s Neung’s voice calling out to him: a knee-jerk reaction that starts from his toes and ends snubbed beneath his diaphragm, “I know you have a … method. Of reaching to him. So, what is it?”

Nothing has changed outwardly in his expression, Pond knows this, because Phuwin’s eyes haven’t gone narrow with an inkling of something that borders terrifyingly on truth. But Pond shivers with the after-taste of Palm left strong under the dumb stretch of his tongue, taunting him for fleeting moments before retreating into a dormant state—an illusion of control given back to Pond. Just now, hearing Phuwin say Palm’s name, that was relieving and ruinous in the same beat. Pond almost tears up.

“I…” he struggles with the words, stare fixed on his hands; watching them be empty and purposeless is strangely comforting. “It’s like, like slipping into his skin. Like he’s becoming me.”

Phuwin’s voice is calm, steadier than the rock that supports Pond’s weight now, “Which part of him?”

“All of him.” Pond shakes his head a little, “No, that’s not right. Sometimes—some parts of him are more, I don’t know, easier to grasp? Do you know what I mean?”

Pond looks up and Phuwin meets his eyes, unflinching and reassuring as always. His cheeks are flushed with exertion from their climb earlier, and he’s still not seated, rather he’s stood a few paces away from Pond, shoulders loose and wrists covered inside the pockets of his denim shorts. His hair is silky in the weak sunlight, still unbrushed, curling softly under his ears as if kissing the skin there. He looks radiant.

“Parts where you understand him the most,” Phuwin says, pulling out that last held breath loose from under Pond’s ribs. His eyes are lit up, and he’s not smiling but his facial features—the sharp jaw, the high cheekbones and the skin between his eyebrows—are soft, aged with warmth and care. “Parts when Palm becomes you. You don’t have to drag him out, he’s already there. Yeah, I get it.”

“And sometimes, he doesn’t go back,” Pond adds on. Phuwin gives him an encouraging nod, and the words come easier, more meaningful, “It’s not a big deal or anything, but yesterday I was talking to my mom and she said—something, I don’t know, can’t remember—and I started crying. On the call. And I knew, I know, that that was Palm, not me.”

Silence. Time just takes the soft swell of it with grace, sparing Pond the awkwardness on top of everything else he’s feeling, and Phuwin slowly makes his way closer to him. Pond has dropped his head again, always on edge now since Palm started to infiltrate the shortness of his breath and the tremor in his hands, trying to carve out the parts of himself from the parts of Palm for identification. Which is which. Who is he right now.

Phuwin waits another long moment before sliding a hand onto the tight stretch of Pond’s shoulder, moving it gently to the top of his spine, his back, and then up the nape of Pond’s neck. Warmth, pushing against Pond’s muscles until he loosens up, although Phuwin’s touch remains undemanding. It grounds him like nothing else could.

Pond sighs into it, and Phuwin says, “It’s okay. You know Neung is twice as bad, don’t you? Had to make a whole playlist for him at one point.”

“How do you do it?”

Phuwin smiles down at him. “I’m not- I mean. Of course, your method of reaching Palm is different from mine but you can do that better. I’m not like you.”

Understanding blooms inside Pond again, but this doesn’t feel heavy, and Pond welcomes the distraction. “You become Neung.”

“The call is coming from inside the house, as they say,” Phuwin recites, half in English.

They share a beat and burst out laughing at the same time.

Morning is glaring full-force by the time they notice their surroundings. Phuwin’s hand slides down and curls around Pond’s wrist as he pulls himself up, body stinging with the faint memory of sitting on a rock. It feels good, useful, in a way. Phuwin’s small, indulgent smile soothes away any sting, physical or remembered.

“Is it ever about me?” Phuwin asks.

Pond startles at the question, frozen in Phuwin’s hold. “What?” He’s afraid he might stumble now if he started descending this hill, and the oxygen pouring in his lungs might overstuff him and make him feel too much instead of too little or nothing. He’s become comfortable with this perpetual shortness of breath, this light squeeze, this tightness in his chest—numbness isn’t so bad when he’s already smarting from too many wounds.

Pond feels as if Palm were a sword that’s been un-hilted from the meat of his guts, pulled out from the hard, broken muscle inside, and left a gaping hole.

Is it ever about Phuwin, he wonders, or Neung?

Phuwin’s eyes are pathways to unriddled secrets, vines of talking intrigue, and stone walls that lower down with each step onward. His lips are slightly dry, gaze lined with dark lashes, sun-kissed honey skin that could almost be a tan under the right lighting. Pond’s mouth opens and what comes out is only the enchanted, drawn-out truth; he couldn’t fabricate anything under Phuwin’s watchful presence: “Sometimes, it’s all about you. And then it’s not.”

Phuwin looks at the gushing wound, still open, not castrated, vicious and ugly, and only gives in return his ever-gentle hand. Steady, he intertwines their fingers together, and starts to lead them down, never more than a step ahead of Pond.

“I’m here,” is the last thing he says, before they finally touch down and join the rest of the crew on the set. “You can tell me anything, always, and we’ll figure this out together. Watch your step, now, the grass here is slippery.”