Work Text:
It's just like sewing, Taeyong had told him. Well, kind of.
The smell of alcohol and antiseptic felt like it was slowly burning through the inside of his nose as Ten stood in District 13's medical wing, watching one of the medical workers, Kun, demonstrate to him how to suture a wound. The dark lines of thread stood out starkly against the uncomfortably fleshy pink of the suture pad, and Ten couldn't help but wince as he watched the needle make punctures into the fake flesh. The needle was sharp and curved, glinting almost wickedly in the harsh hospital lighting— nothing like the needles Ten was used to.
"Do you want to give it a try?" Kun asked, stepping back and gesturing towards the equipment. Ten nodded, stepping forward hesitantly and taking a deep breath. He felt the need to impress Kun somehow, to show to District Thirteen that he wasn't just some useless Capitolite, that he could get his hands dirty and work hard and contribute. That Johnny hadn't made a mistake in bringing him here. That he wasn't just a waste of District Thirteen's already limited resources.
--//--//--//--//--//--
It'd hurt, the first time he pricked his finger on a needle.
He'd stared at the small red bead of blood, not comprehending it for a moment. Watched it well up, dark as rubies, round and shiny and shaking with surface tension.
He'd snapped out of it when the surface tension broke, blood running in a thin stream down the side of his finger, nearly staining the fabric in his hands. He dropped the fabric with a jolt, and rushed to get a healing patch from the first-aid kit.
Five minutes later, he was good as new, so he'd picked up the needle and went back to work. Injuries always were like that in the Capitol— there one moment and gone the next, just like everything else.
--//--//--//--//--//--
He'd grown up watching carnage and bloodshed in the Games, seen teenagers slit each other's throats, seen Career tributes carve their names into dead bodies and play with the guts of their victims, but that had all been through a TV screen. It was one thing to see destruction on TV, and another thing to be presented with the aftermath in front of you, broken bones and flesh wounds, and told here. Fix this.
It's one thing to feel the slight give each time you puncture the suture pad, the resistance as you thread the needle through, and another thing to feel the needle slicing through flesh, the sharp tip poking out of the other side of the wound, the accompanying hiss of pain they make each time you go over-under-over-under.
--//--//--//--//--//--
It was often much easier to make something new than mend something old. People in the Capitol didn't usually care for mending things. If something broke, they ordered a new one. If something ripped—
"My mother gave this to me before she died," sobbed Karina, "and that bitch just slashed it to shreds! She knew how much it meant to me! Gosh, it's not my fucking fault I landed that modeling gig and she didn't!"
Ten assessed the damage. Whoever had decided to destroy this dress had been thorough. Laying out the pieces of fabric on his workbench, he could barely tell what parts went where. Some pieces were cut so narrow that they were no more than ribbons, curling in on themselves as if to protect their insides from being laid flat, as if begging please don't cut me even smaller, I don't think I could take it, one snip away from being scrap.
"I don't think I can restore the dress to its original state," Ten said regretfully. Karina sobbed even harder.
"Please, can you try? It doesn't have to be perfect. Just name your price."
There is no price so high that it can make miracles happen. Ten floundered, at a loss for what to do. "I'm sorry— I don't think I can—"
"This dress is vintage! It's been passed down through generations of the Yu family!" She sniffed, dabbing at her eyes carefully with a handkerchief to stop the tears from running down her face. "Look, there's the Yu family crest— it's been slashed in two— it's an affront to our family name! If word got out about what happened…" Karina dissolved into sobs again, hiding her face in her hands.
"I'll do my best," Ten promised. "But I can't guarantee it'll look how it used to." Suddenly, an idea struck him. "What if I redesigned the dress to work with these pieces? It won't look anything like the original dress, but it'll still be made of the same material, and of course I'll stitch up the crest—"
"Oh, could you? Oh, that would be wonderful!" Karina gasped. She nodded as she considered the idea, face brightening. "The dress was getting a bit old-fashioned… and I needed to get it tailored anyways… you're a total genius! Thank you!"
Ten laughed. "Gosh, don't thank me already! I haven't even done anything yet!" Still, he felt a rush of warmth at her reaction, confidence flooding back into him as he re-examined the pieces of fabric with fresh eyes. It was time for some reinvention.
--//--//--//--//--//--
Human bodies are nothing like fabric. Human bodies cannot be cut up and rearranged into different configurations, cannot be Frankensteined together to create something new, cannot survive being slashed to shreds and sewn together again.
There is no room for creativity in stitching up human bodies. Everything has to go in the right place— head on top of shoulders on top of torso on top of legs on top of feet, stacked upright, ligaments and tendons and nerves connecting everything together at a microscopic scale.
Looking at the gaping maw of the injury, Ten feels that familiar helplessness rise back up, along with the contents of his stomach. The back of his throat burns. He takes a deep breath, swallows it back down.
There is no food to be spared here if he throws up. There is no helplessness to be spared here either; everyone must do their part. He has two nimble hands and keen eyes and knows how to work a needle. He cannot be helpless here. He won't let himself be helpless anymore.
He looks at the wound again, takes a deep breath. All he has to do is hold it together.
--//--//--//--//--//--
Ten fell in love with embroidery on a Wednesday evening. He used to watch the Hunger Games opening parades religiously, and there, riding on a chariot for District Three, was one of the most intricate embroidered designs he'd ever seen, thin wires shimmering in the fabric of the dress, gold and silver and copper and lightning. Several hours later saw him opening the door to a new package he'd just ordered, full of embroidery supplies, and plopping down on the living room carpet with a tutorial playing on the holoscreen.
(The tribute had died in the bloodbath. Someone from District Two had been victor that year. Ten had thought it was a shame, only because District Two usually didn't have very interesting outfits on their Victory Tours.)
It turned out that custom embroidery was a fairly profitable business in the Capitol— everyone wanted something unique, something exclusive, something made just for them that nobody else could get. Ten spent much of his time at his and Taeyong's shared studio working on the custom embroidery requests, needle going over-under-over-under, weaving in and out smoothly and leaving a trail of color behind. It was almost meditative, the repetition of the motion, the feeling of the fabric in his hands, the warm satisfaction of watching the final design begin to take shape.
--//--//--//--//--//--
No matter how neat he makes the stitches, they always look so ugly— thread stark against the skin, flesh around them angry and inflamed, looking so horribly wrong that Ten still can't get used to it, even after all this time. Sometimes when he closes his eyes he sees stitches burnt into the blackness behind his eyelids, a gash splitting his mind in two and holding it together with thread.
Still, he settles into a routine, finding that the motions come easier with practice. He befriends some of the other med wing workers, helps out where he can, and goes back to his room at the end of the day feeling like he's done something.
Ten is amazed, the first time he sees the aftermath, the healing— the wound closing up and scarring over into raised flesh. He runs his fingers over it, marveling quietly. He'd stitched this up, and then the patient's body had done the rest, the scar a living reminder of what had happened.
He thinks about his own scarless body, and wonders if he might end up with scars too, someday. Wonders just what it takes for something to leave a scar.
--//--//--//--//--//--
The first time Johnny asked Ten to mend one of his suits, it was with an uncharacteristically hesitant tone to his voice and a sheepish, apologetic smile. "Sorry," said Johnny, "I know this is one that you gave me— I was trying to be really careful with it, but it just kinda…"
"Of course I can fix it," Ten reassured with a smile. "This is just a ripped seam, it's an easy fix! And don't worry about it, these things happen. Worst case scenario, I can always make you a new suit."
"That's really not necessary! You've done so much for me already, Ten. Seriously."
"Alright, alright, no new suits for now." Ten conceded. A couple months ago, he might've insisted, but by now he knew that Johnny wouldn't accept, that Johnny wouldn't take the Capitol's luxury, even though he knew it was easy for Ten to give. He purposefully kept his mouth shut about the entire folder of clothing designs for Johnny sitting in his tablet, and instead took the ripped jacket from Johnny's hands to lay it out on the workbench.
He smoothed out the fabric, grounding himself in the familiar motion, the feeling of it under his fingertips. He glanced up to find Johnny perched on the stool nearby, and this, too, was familiar, the weight of Johnny's gaze as he worked on something.
This, too, was familiar— the weight of Ten's words as he swallowed them back down, Ten purposefully keeping his mouth shut so something stupid wouldn't spill out, something like why are you looking at me like that? or do I have something on my face? or maybe even take a picture, it lasts longer, you can look at it when you miss me back in District Seven. Do you miss me back in District Seven?
Ten glanced back down. Threaded the needle. Went over-under-over-under.
--//--//--//--//--//--
He's just about to head to lunch when he gets a ping on his communicator, the holo-display expanding automatically and flashing above his wrist. Urgent, it reads. Please report to medwing 0202 immediately.
His first thought is that's unusual. He's not skilled enough, or high enough in the medical hierarchy, to get summoned for urgent medical reasons.
His second thought arrives a second later, striking him with panic as his feet begin to run towards the med wing before he can even finish the thought.
Johnny went on a mission today. They weren't supposed to be back until this afternoon.
Several District Thirteen natives give him the stink eye as he runs past them, skidding around corners and darting around groups of people. When he finally crashes into the room, his heart jumps in his throat when he sees Johnny sitting on one of the cots— alive, grimacing in pain, but not in critical condition as far as he can tell.
His feet slow abruptly as Johnny looks up and makes eye contact with him. A small smile crosses Johnny's face as Ten approaches Johnny quietly. "Hey," says Johnny.
"What happened?" Ten stops a couple feet away from Johnny, afraid to get too close in case he somehow makes Johnny's injury worse, or knocks over the rolling cart of medical instruments to the side. From here, he can see the deep gash crossing his back, starting at his shoulder and traveling diagonally downwards. Blood has congealed around the wound, sticking the fabric of the bodysuit to Johnny's body.
"A drone with an insanely sharp rotor blade thing. It got a bunch of us, so we had to abort. It got some of the others, too." Johnny tilts his head towards the side of the room, where some of the other members of the mission are getting patched up. "At least Jaemin got some decent action footage of it though."
Just then, Kun walks up to them swiftly, depositing a box of supplies on the rolling cart. "Oh good, you're here. Ten, Johnny needs his wound cleaned and stitched up."
Ten turns to him, eyes wide. "You want me to stitch this up?" Up until now, he'd only worked on more minor injuries— never something like this. "I— shouldn't someone else more experienced do it?"
Kun and Johnny share a look. Ten glances between them, trying to decipher what is going on. "I want you to do it, Ten," Johnny says.
Kun nods. "You've got this, Ten. It's just like everything else you've done. Just make sure to really clean the wound properly. You'll need to cut the bodysuit away from his body, since he can't take it off himself. I'll be in the room the whole time, so you can yell for me if you need help." Kun glances over to the other side of the room. "I have to go deal with someone else right now, but seriously, Ten, you've got this. You'll be fine." Kun flashes a smile at the two of them before hurrying away, fingers already tapping at his tablet.
Ten takes a deep breath. "Okay. Clean the wound." He can at least do that much, he figures. He takes a hesitant step closer to Johnny, trying to ignore Johnny's gaze tracking his every move, following his arm as he reaches for the scissors. He's quiet as he carefully cuts the bodysuit, peeling it away from Johnny's body. This part is familiar— scissors through fabric, the resistance and texture as the blades shear through. As he works his way up to the top, Johnny flinches slightly, and Ten pauses. "Sorry, sorry— did I hurt you?"
Johnny releases a deep breath. "No, you're fine. You just poked it a little, I think." He flashes a grimace. "This part isn't that bad. It's cleaning it that's probably gonna hurt like hell."
Seeing Johnny in pain never gets any easier. Normally Ten is by his side, holding his hand while his wounds get treated, but today he has no hands to spare. There is never much to spare in District 13. There is never much to give, either, and it is this, more than anything, that makes him long for the indulgences of the Capitol sometimes— the easy generosity that comes with excess. The privilege of not feeling selfish, of being able to give. Of not feeling the wanting and hunger like an open maw beneath his ribcage. Of not having to choose between comfort and survival. Ten wants to give Johnny everything, but he has learned how to choose survival first, even though it is hard sometimes.
He swipes the disinfectant gently over the wound, watching Johnny's hands curl into fists on the bed as he lets out a hiss through his teeth.
The wound somehow looks worse after it's been cleaned, red and angry and inflamed. Ten preps his materials on autopilot, trying not to think about how deep the gash goes. He starts at the top, where the gash starts just outside Johnny's existing scar, the one he got from Jaehyun during the Games— the only one the Capitol had him keep.
It strikes him, suddenly, that this will be Johnny's first major scar since the Games. That this is only one of the first battles of this new arena. That this is no longer a game, and never has been. It's always been more than that, hasn't it?
Still, Ten will continue to do what he does best—
"I'm going to start with the shoulder now, okay? Get the worst part out of the way first."
Johnny looks up at Ten and nods, lips quirking up into a half-smile. "Okay. I trust you, Dr. Ten."
Ten huffs out a laugh, some of the nervousness lifting from his limbs. He takes a deep breath. Picks up the needle and thread, and goes over-under-over-under.
--//--//--//--//--//--