Work Text:
PLAY/PAUSE
Taehyung looks like shit.
Okay, well, an exaggeration. He looks fine, he looks good, he’s made sure of that. Real nice clothing, no creases, his hair’s arranged softly over his brow. But the overhead lighting in this restroom isn’t doing him any favors with the dusty mirror, and he feels like shit inside anyway.
Taehyung groans and scrubs a freshly dried hand down the side of his face. His reflection copies him. It’s fine, he’s fine, he looks good, his skin looks smooth, he looks pretty enough.
He hasn’t looked at you once, though, a traitorous little thought slinks through his periphery. Taehyung squeezes his eyes shut to dispel the way it swirls in his head. His grip turns white-knuckled against the marble sinktop.
The reality of it is complicated, anyway. But the mood that blankets him, this low-level thrum of frustration itching hotly to near anger, it’s uncomfortable nonetheless. He always feels so intensely about things, trigger-switch moods that seize hold of him for hours, days, months.
Taehyung blinks, and makes some faces in the mirror. Rearranges his jaw, watches the skin around his mouth pull and stretch. His cushion foundation creases near his smile-lines. His gloss is smeared a little at the corner of his lips. Taehyung bares his teeth at himself. Hmph. That’s almost a smile, right? The fluorescent restroom lights flicker.
Taehyung’s phone rings on the sinktop, abruptly breaking him out of his reverie. He glances down. Sanghyeokie <3 is calling …
Taehyung wrinkles his nose. Eugh. He needs to change that contact name. Actually, even better, he needs to block that contact. The phone’s ringtone is giving him a headache. Taehyung puts it on silent, and makes a world-weary face at himself in the mirror. God, he’s really gotta get out of here already.
He rinses his mouth in the sink and shakes his hand dry on the way out, door swinging behind him.
Taehyung maneuvers through the restaurant tables, through dimmed mood lighting and the noisy din of activity, already rearranging his features in search of his hyungs (and Jungkook). Jungkook spots him and waves him down, a grin spreading over his front teeth as he motions wildly at the waiter. Taehyung jogs over and collapses back into the end of the U-shaped booth, mouth fresh with laughter, shaking air out of his hair.
“Hyung, you took so long!” Jungkook leans over and ribs, not unkindly. He points at the waiter at the other end of the table, says, “We’re ordering more drinks now. You want sweets?”
Taehyung eyes the waiter there, who’s engaged in bright, fast conversation with Jimin and Namjoon, the pad in his hands already forgotten in favor of enthusiastic gesturing. He’s a slight little thing, a waifish-looking boy, with a pointy nose. Taehyung narrows his eyes. Does Jimin know him?
Taehyung can’t make out the conversation over the buzz of the restaurant, but he can clearly see the way Jimin’s shoulders are turned towards the waiter, the way his eyes are lit up with recognition, his mouth stretched in an awed little smile as the waiter ducks his head in a bow. Jimin can’t even look at Taehyung but he can look at this guy? Taehyung scowls. Who is that?
“Who’s he,” he leans over to mutter to Hoseok, interrupting his menu perusing with Yoongi.
“Dunno. Friend from way back, Taekwondo club, I think?” Hoseok shrugs, and turns back to the menu. “What do you want,” he asks Taehyung.
“Whatever Yoongi-hyung’s having,” Taehyung mumbles.
Hm. Taekwondo club. Taehyung plays idly with a napkin. Sighs. He feels heat-burnished and itching, hot from the restaurant's buzz, cranky for no reason. Well, there is a reason. Is it a good one?
Taehyung sneaks a look at Jimin, whose head is now thrown back in laughter at something the waiter said, probably. Jimin can’t even acknowledge him? The dinner’s supposed to be about Taehyung, anyway. It was a—celebration, or pick-me-up, or however you call it, for a newly-single Taehyung. He sighs again.
Hoseok nudges him out of his trance. “Taehyung-ah, why so moody?” he croons, in that kind, pushy-like Hoseok-hyung way.
Taehyung brushes playfully at Hoseok’s hand, stretches his mouth into a smile. He ducks his head and mumbles something noncommittal.
Hoseok makes a knowing hum, knocking their shoulders together gently. “Ah, forget about him! Tonight’s all about Taehyungie!”
Taehyung’s eyes flicker back to the other side of the table. He wants to laugh. How could Taehyung possibly forget about him?
Yoongi catches his eye and nods seriously. “Hey, don’t worry about Sanghyeok, kiddo. His loss.” Ah. Right.
Im Sanghyeok had been nice, while it lasted. He was a decent guy, kind where it mattered and sympathetic where it didn’t. Bit of a kiss-ass. It was fine. He was fine. So, naturally, Taehyung had gotten—no way to put it nicely—disinterested. It just didn’t work; unsustainable. Sparks, but no flame. Maybe it was Sanghyeok. Maybe it was him.
Sanghyeok had been the one to break it off, though, last night, but he’d still fucked Taehyung after. Tonight was for Taehyung to shake out the leftover dirt from his feathers, sitting in this fairly upscale Seogyo-dong restaurant with his hyungs and Jungkookie. And Jimin.
Who hasn’t said a word to him at all.
“Yeah, fuck Sanghyeok!” Jungkook cheers. His near-empty drink sloshes with his excitement. Seokjin pinches him for the pottymouth. “Owh, haeng-ah…” Jungkook’s vowels are smearing already.
Taehyung still feels off kilter in this conversation. Usually, Jimin’s already come up to him by now, and said some scathing, sultry thing; the quick lash of a scorpion tail. Taehyung would have bitten his lip coyly and said something back. He’d have been clever, witty. He really would have, except Jimin’s never outright ignored him like this.
It’s a real discomfort that burns in his stomach. Think about me. Talk to me. Jimin. Jimin, think about me. Jimin doesn’t even look at him. It’s fine. That’s fine.
Taehyung widens his smile and joins Seokjin in poking fun of Jungkook instead, ignoring the bitter things staining his teeth. (Sometimes, Taehyung gets this feeling like he’s utterly shallow, terrifyingly blank beneath the surface. Jimin’s attention, though, it makes him think he has depth. Like he’s more than just litter skimming along a yawning black river. Jimin’s seen the worst of him, and he still comes back for more. Taehyung aches for it again. That thrill, that intoxication.
When they’d still been together, after one of their fights, Jimin had said something to him. You’re easy to read, Taehyung-ah. But you aren’t very easy to understand. Taehyung had been breathless with how Jimin saw him just like that. Intoxication; that’s right. Better than any alcohol.)
The waiter comes by again with their drinks and Taehyung barely notices him this time, just accepts the glass with a tight smile and turns back to his hyungs, doing his best to ignore the frustration crawling over his spine. Tight, creeping little things seizing the muscles in his back. Taehyung shivers.
The boy keeps smiling as he passes the drinks around the table. He seems a little starstruck by the force of Park Jimin’s ah, thank you!, the smile that crinkles his eyes, already flushed with good food and alcohol. Bright and pretty and bubbly. That’s what everyone sees, right? And the waiter just swoons with Jimin’s charm. But he’ll never be Taehyung.
Oh, there’s an ugly thought. Taehyung curls his lip, head ticking to the side. The pearls on his earrings clink, swaying with movement.
Hoseok taps Taehyung’s forehead. “Hm?” Taehyung looks up quickly.
“Budge up, gotta piss,” Hoseok says. Taehyung hums and moves his legs to the side. Hoseok clambers right over him.
Taehyung smears moisture beading up over the lip of the glass with his index finger. His eyebrow tries to twitch, but he has to tamp down the reaction. He isn’t allowed to feel this anymore … but he wants the attention. He wants it. He feels like a petulant little child, wants to throw a tantrum. Kicking and screaming and shit.
Taehyung wants that thrill, the heady blaze of writhing in the garden of Jimin’s attention. He wants the full force of it to drown him again. Is Jimin even thinking about him anymore? Taehyung should be fucking haunting Jimin. Goddamnit. He lifts his glass.
The drink tastes foul. It was a mistake to order the same thing as steel-stomach Min Yoongi. Taehyung’s not cut out for this cool shit.
“Jimin-hyung!” What the fuck, again? Taehyung’s jaw threatens to tick for the third time tonight.
The waiter bounds up with the dessert order, sets Jimin’s plate down in front of him. That waifish looking boy, wispy and pretty. What was his name? Doesn’t matter. Jimin turns to him, eyes already glittering with his earlier soju, greeting him each time as if he hadn’t seen him before. The two of them fall into laughter.
Hoseok nudges by and drops into his seat, back from the bathroom. He hasn’t had his second shot yet, else his face would be red. He thumps Taehyung on the shoulder. “Newly single mood, ah? Chin up, Taehyung-ah, we’ll cheers you.” The first drink is already coloring Hoseok’s ears, though.
Seokjin hears him and raises his drink dramatically with a yell, Yoongi rolling his eyes and following suit, but still smiling.
“To our Taehyungie! May his conquests be ripe and plentiful!” Namjoon shouts, thrusting his empty glass to the ceiling. “Taehyung-ah, get some- ah! ” Yoongi elbows Namjoon. Three guesses as to who’s drunk the most, then.
Taehyung raises his glass, and his gaze meets Jimin’s dark eyes head-on.
Oh, man. Fuck, it burns. A thrill through Taehyung already, from that one second of direct eye contact. Taehyung can taste the tension, zinging over his tongue. He’s got a sixth sense when it comes to Jimin. Jimin makes him magic.
In the background, Yoongi teases Namjoon about his toast. Jimin tilts his head and then breaks eye contact. Taehyung takes a sip. Ugh, yuck. Second drink and it never gets better. He’s barely feeling anything, anyway.
“I miss Sanghyeok,” Taehyung says, abruptly. The words fall out before he even thinks about it, he’d just wanted Jimin’s eyes back on him again.
Everyone at the table pauses for a beat, lips curving into sympathetic smiles. Jimin remains stone-faced, eyes on his drink. Not enough. “I miss the sex,” Taehyung clarifies, huffing a small laugh.
Jimin sets his glass down onto the tabletop. It thunks when it meets wood. The waiter hides an awkward giggle behind his palm, eyes darting around the table.
“Mmn, fucked so good.” Taehyung throws the rest of his drink back. God, it fucking burns, he hates alcohol. Every sip he gives it the benefit of the doubt, and every sip sucks. Out loud, he groans, rolls his neck a bit, blinks at the ceiling, drops his gaze down to Jimin. He can imagine the sweep of his lashes over his glazed eyes; Jimin’s resolve should be weakening already, right?
The waiter pipes up, then. “Any other orders?” Taehyung scowls. What is he still doing here? “Jiminie-hyung?”
“We’re good,” Taehyung says. Snaps, more like. Jimin’s eyes never leave his. Two opposing ends of the U-shaped booth—the north and south poles of a magnet, some unfailing attraction, a law of the universe pulling them together. (Magnets; they always come with two poles.)
The waiter backs away, probably. Taehyung isn’t paying attention. The anger that sets his jaw is so right. It burns so good in him, fucks him up just perfect. He deserves more than this; Jimin hasn’t talked to him all night, has barely looked at him, except in the last five minutes. Are they not friends, at least? Even after the shit that always went down between them, Jimin can’t say a single word?
It’s frustration, or anger, all smeared on his insides, on the lining of his intestines. His left eyeball throbs in its socket. That ugly knot shivers in his stomach, monstrous, makes him desperate.
Taehyung feels like being nasty, tonight. He feels like playing dirty boy. Messy boy. Jimin’s messy boy, fuck. Everyone can probably tell what Taehyung’s doing, they’re chatting over him. He’s ruining the mood. He’s throwing a tantrum. What the hell, what does he care, anyway. He gets this. He should get to have it.
“Can still feel the break-up fuck in my ass,” Taehyung giggles a little, and sighs. “I wish he came inside. Something to remember him by.”
Across the booth, Yoongi's nose scrunches a little, but he smooths it out quickly. “Oh my god,” someone mumbles. Namjoon and Jungkook studiously find something very interesting in their drinks.
It’s—crass. Taehyung probably shouldn’t be speaking like this in front of his hyungs. He shouldn’t be speaking like this in front of Jungkookie. Whoops. Maybe the alcohol made his tongue a little looser than he intended.
So he can play up that alcohol a bit, can use it to his advantage. Taehyung knows his strengths, he’s got that little doll face, when he makes his eyes big and pout pretty. And he hates this, this silent, stoic Jimin. Where’s the Jimin who clings to his heels, flirting for his attention, hm? He’s holding back too much; Taehyung needs to crack him open. “Not kidding, he was so b-i-ig,” Taehyung whines.
“Oh my god,” Seokjin groans. He makes a furtive snatch at Taehyung’s drink. “C’mon, I think you’ve had enough.”
“Haven’t had enough of that dick,” Taehyung fires back, grinning fiercely. Alright, maybe he’s having fun, sue him.
Somehow, luckily, drunk Hoseok finds this retort uproarious. He snaps up and bends in half with laughter, smacking the table. Taehyung giggles, too, buoyed with that amusement. In the bit of chatter, Taehyung catches Jimin’s burning stare.
What am I, hm? What am I to you, Park Jimin?
“Taehyung,” Jimin says, low and quiet. Like it’s just for Taehyung’s ears.
Taehyung’s entire body lights up. A hit right to his nervous system, adrenaline right to his heart, his spine straightens. Jimin’s voice laced around his name …
For a moment, Jimin looks as if he’s teetering on the precipice of saying something. But it dies down. “Just … Can you pass me a napkin?” (A request, not even an order. He’s playing polite.)
Taehyung grits his teeth and snatches a napkin off the table, leaning forward. The movement makes him dizzy, and something reaches out and grips him right by the throat. He always was a lightweight.
Their fingers brush. “Jimin.” Taehyung pouts. He shakes his phone in his other hand so the notification screen lights up. 3 missed calls from: Sanghyeokie <3. Jimin’s eyes flick to it for a second before he looks back. It’s petty. It’s stupid. Taehyung says it anyway. “You think I should call him back?”
Out of the corner of his eye, Taehyung registers Jungkook's head swiveling between Jimin and Taehyung, eyes big. He looks a bit like a rabbit: wide-eyed, tensed, flighty.
Something simmers between them, the sixth sense. A fine, shimmering mirage. The air twists.
“Taehyung-ah, maybe you should take a break,” Yoongi cuts in, carefully, before Jimin responds. “You’ve had a bit to drink.”
“Yeah, don’t want our Taehyungie to go crawling back to the ex,” Namjoon laughs, halfway slumped onto the table. Yoongi rolls his eyes to the heavens, looking exasperated, as if that just set him back ten steps.
Taehyung, still leaned forward over the table, greedily looks for Jimin’s reaction to Namjoon’s joke, the ones alcohol unsmothers from him. Jaw tensing, fingers curling against the tablecloth. A flare of roiling emotion, splitting behind his pupils. Jimin turns his head, breaking eye contact.
“I’ll take him home.” Jimin says, staring at a point somewhere between Seokjin, Namjoon, and Yoongi.
Seokjin and Yoongi exchange looks, and Seokjin leans over to whisper quietly into Jimin’s ear.
“I'll take him home,” Jimin says, again, wound tight behind his teeth. His eyes are hot like coal, snapping and locking onto Taehyung.
“I can do it myself,” Taehyung says, just to be difficult, but the air smolders between them. Jimin’s eyes narrow, heating a thin line of liquid fire in Taehyung, trickling down the nape of his neck.
“Don’t be stupid.” It’s firm, laced with a fine tremor. Anger? Is Jimin angry? Jimin rises, stepping out of the booth. “I'm taking you home.”
PLAY/PAUSE
Taehyung doesn’t remember much of what happened here, after. His memory is just flashes, from leaving the restaurant. Downing one last drink, trailing after Jimin. The bell jingling as the restaurant door swings shut behind them.
They walk first, and Taehyung remembers bits of that, too. Jimin’s fingers pinching at Taehyung’s sheer slip of a blouse as they walk side by side. The sun’s already set, but the Seoul sky still glows from its incandescent insides out. The red sprawl of a light-polluted horizon, cars glittering into the distance. These frothing arches of clouds, purple smoke detaching from the sky. Taehyung’s head is up there, too, soaring with the luminous fog that alights on the gleaming crests of skyscrapers. Whoosh.
Jimin’s hand falls heavy in the dip of his arm, in the curve of his waist. Jimin doesn’t stop touching him. (Jimin hadn’t stopped touching him the whole way back.)
Taehyung walks like swaggering, his chest full of cotton, arms careless beside him. Taehyung’s head aches when it thunks back against the streetlight- no, wait, this memory is out of order. Maybe he’s remembering everything wrong.
It’s the restless air, it must be choking him, heavy with summer. The night-inked sky fades into yellow, bruised orange. The dying light is almost green, on the wrong side of blue. The sun drains from the sky. The shame drains from Taehyung.
It’s only flashes, anyway, a casino coin-slot chime of memory, tumbling into his hippocampus, one-by-one and jumbled up. Cha-ching!
Taehyung’s dazed with everything around him, and the heat of Jimin pressed by his elbow, a burning line from his shoulder radiating down over his forearm. The wind whips at his cheeks, two-hundred kilometers per hour. Taehyung stumbles on the pavement, but Jimin catches him, holds him up. Always holding him up.
Jimin looks Taehyung over, dragging his eyes down Taehyung’s body. He pinches Taehyung’s shirt again, rubs it in his fingers, making a shk-shk sound with the flimsy fabric. Taehyung shivers.
Jimin raises his eyebrow with a disgruntled noise and slips off his jacket. Taehyung doesn’t know what to say. It’s a pretty leather-like one, a nice texture. Taehyung’s seen this jacket before, it’s familiar. Some disquiet in Taehyung settles at it. Jimin slips it around his shoulders.
He has to step closer to do it, and just like that, Taehyung’s in the sky again. Jimin’s perfume. Jimin’s scent. (Like pine, or juniper, like burning, a flower-nectar offering.) Jimin’s jacket, a weight over his shoulders.
“It’s windy,” Jimin says, into his ear. Just a statement, but he doesn’t meet Taehyung’s eyes. His gaze is wired to the flap of the jacket around Taehyung’s waist. Taehyung ducks his head, throat clicking with absolutely nothing.
The fabric is soft against his arms, like crushed velvet. The inside is lined with this deep red, almost purple—the color of trampled grapes, or broken blood vessels. Jimin’s leopard print blouse billows in the wind. He spins on a polished heel and stalks ahead of Taehyung, tossing his hair back. Taehyung buries his nose into the collar of the jacket. Jimin’s perfume. Jimin’s scent. He watches Jimin stride away.
“Won’t you be cold?” Taehyung calls after him.
Jimin turns. “No,” he says. “What do you care, anyway?” He’s going too far away. Taehyung’s legs ache to follow.
He frowns and jogs to catch up to Jimin. “I care,” Taehyung insists. He slips his arm into the crook of Jimin’s elbow. Jimin scoffs, but he doesn’t push Taehyung away.
God, why is Jimin giving him such mixed signals? He puts his jacket around Taehyung’s shoulders … It’s windy. No, Taehyung knows what that means. It’s not about keeping him warm. It’s a mark. Taehyung’s already got a half-plan, he’ll forget to give Jimin the jacket back, and tell Jimin to come get it later.
(It always goes like this: the brand of themselves on each other.)
Taehyung skips over a crack in the pavement. Beyond the alcohol in his blood, he’s brimming with something, a strange energy slithering here and there around him, tugging him in Jimin’s path. Every few steps, his eyes pull towards Jimin and he loses all his breath. Taehyung’s heart morphs into an animal-skinned drum heaving in his ears.
With the cut of his jaw, the glimmering slant of his eyes, Jimin is something else beyond this place. His leopard print top falls low enough to expose his collarbones, his earrings swaying as he struts, boots click-clacking along the pavement. Jimin is the kind of stunning that makes you fucking grateful just to have eyes.
Taehyung’s not cold anymore, he’s burning up. He can’t stop glancing sideways.
“Call the taxi,” Taehyung says. He’s impatient. He’s been impatient for hours now.
“Mm?” Jimin hums. They’re just playing games now, Jimin wants to hear him say it again. Fine.
“Call the taxi. Now, please.”
Jimin grins wryly, not looking at him as he pulls out his phone. “Okay, baby.” A shiver winds up Taehyung’s spine. Baby. Oh, that was so much. He’s burning so hot he’s freezing. He can’t pay attention to anything but the heat of Jimin’s body. Is it the alcohol? Is that what’s doing this? Taehyung doesn’t know how long they’ve been walking. For all he knows, he isn’t drunk anymore.
Taehyung leans against the streetlight. His head hurts. The silence stretches thickly between them as they wait for the taxi to arrive. Taehyung swims in his own mind, trying to bring himself back to the forefront. Maybe his body’s reactions are all messed up because of Jimin.
The alcohol really has been evaporating slowly. A twinge of self-awareness rises behind him in the lull of activity. Why are they like this, again? But Taehyung smothers it easily, because it’s more fun this way, and there’s more stakes. So it doesn’t matter. It’s what he wants, anyway. Zero-sum game. Who has the upper hand? Both of them; neither of them.
Familiarity breeds contempt, or however it goes. Breeds boredom. It’s easy to delude yourself in small doses; too much exposure builds tolerance. Disillusionment. Hence this kind of illusion has to be rare, so that even a glance, even the suggestion of touch pulls Taehyung into madness.
And more than that, well. Madness is too kind a word for what it really is.
Taehyung’s shaken out of whatever headspace he’d sunken into by the arrival of the taxi. Jimin opens the door for him, crooks two fingers and tilts his head to order Taehyung into the taxi silently. And Taehyung follows his instruction like a dog on a leash, because that’s what it is, isn’t it?
Something about Park fucking Jimin has always been inescapable. He’s wreathed in the inelcutable chokehold of some higher gravity. The pied piper’s alluring spell, making Taehyung feel, in equal parts, awfully helpless and undeniably … powerful. There’s something deeply fucked up in Taehyung to be so affected, to want it this much every single time, but it’s Jimin’s fault, too. It has to be.
Taehyung scoots to the far side of the backseat. Jimin slips in after him and seals the door closed. No escape for Taehyung, now.
The driver asks if the address is correct. “Yes, that’s the one,” Jimin says. Taehyung leans over with the motion of the car to look at the screen. It’s Taehyung’s new address—so that means Jimin remembered it, putting it in the app himself. Knows it by heart, where Taehyung lives now. Taehyung bites his lip. That means … something. He can’t think right now.
Jimin’s hand lands heavy on Taehyung’s thigh. Oh, god. Taehyung’s sinking into the seat. His hand is warm, firm. Taehyung can nearly feel the outline of each ring adorning Jimin’s fingers on his skin. One, two, three, four, stamped into his thigh. He almost whimpers, which is- pathetic, probably. But Jimin doesn’t move his hand, not for two minutes, not for five, not for ten. Just a steady, warm pressure. A brand. No, a claim.
The taxi accelerates, pressing Taehyung against the seats. Taehyung uses the momentum to try shifting his hips upward into Jimin’s forearm. Not subtle at all, but they both know what they’re really here for, right?
Jimin shoots him a look, his heavy, swollen eyes landing on Taehyung, pinning him into the seat. His voice, when he speaks, flutters low and rich, a rasp vibrating with breath. “Been a while since we last found ourselves like this, eh, Taehyung-ah?”
Oh god, don’t remind me.
Last time had been months ago, with them fucking in the bathroom of Jimin’s elder brother’s wedding reception. Taehyung had gone home after and collapsed for thirteen hours. When he’d woken up, there had been a text notification from Jimin. Just a photo, of his legs spread, hole and cock exposed. The deep purple tie Taehyung had worn to the wedding was wrapped around his cock, the silky slip of fabric hugging a small vibrator right beneath Jimin's ruddy cockhead. Think I have something that belongs to you, Jimin's text said. Shameless.
And Taehyung, weak and easy as ever, had shown up at Jimin's doorstep, still nursing the previous night’s hangover, and eased himself past Jimin's hot, still-swollen rim within the hour.
“Answer me, huh? You been wantin’ it?”
Taehyung’s cheeks go cherry red, because shit, yeah, he’s been wanting it. Jimin seems hotly delighted at that; the upturn tilting his mouth plumps his rosy lips further, in such a distracting manner that Taehyung knows he’s being obvious, and yet. And yet.
Jimin sucks his teeth and scoffs when Taehyung stays wordless. “You’re pissing me off,” Jimin says.
It’s fine, Taehyung takes it. Jimin needs this bit, anyways, needs to say this part. Some part of Taehyung needs to hear it, too. The anger mellows in him slowly, turning belly-up in the passing flicker of streetlights. A lazy surrender.
“‘M sorry,” Taehyung says, biting his lip. It’s completely insincere, he’s been trying to shimmy Jimin’s hand closer to his crotch.
“All damn night. Why were you trying to test me,” Jimin asks, low. His mouth catches the shell of Taehyung’s ear. Taehyung’s head drops forward, his palms spasming against the leather seats as Jimin’s fingers tighten on his thigh.
“You weren’t paying attention to me,” Taehyung says. He feels a little small, a little silly. It’s an almost uncomfortable arousal that stirs in him, like being under a microscope. Jimin knows him too well. Jimin sees too much of him, all the blood and the veins and the viscera. Taehyung shakes, a little.
“Speaking so crassly in front of your hyungs like that, Taehyung-ah, you have no shame? What, you’re that fucking desperate for my attention?” The taxi careens to a stop.
That stings. Taehyung knows not to let it show, although Jimin probably knows anyway. “It worked though, didn’t it?” Taehyung turns so he can whisper right into Jimin’s face. “You’re always so jealous, Jimin-ah.” He tuts a little, disapproving. Oh, now that’ll really piss him off. Taehyung restrains his smile.
Red light from the traffic signal fractures over Jimin’s features, sneaking beneath his lashes. Jimin’s nails dig into the meat of his thigh, making Taehyung gasp lowly, head falling forward, neck limp. His eyes dart wildly, searching for something on Taehyung. Taehyung tries to keep his expression steady, meets Jimin’s eyes levelly.
Something complicated happens across Jimin’s face. Like he’d been holding back this whole time, and then he’s finally let something behind slip. His pupils eclipse his dark irises, seizing Taehyung’s lungs. He’s close enough, leaning enough over Taehyung’s body for him to feel Jimin’s heat, Jimin’s scent soaking on his tongue. Pine and juniper, intoxication, burning worship-things.
Taehyung’s temple hits the back of the seat. He struggles to catch his breath as Jimin’s fingers find the crease of his thigh and groin—so, so close to where he needs it. His heart pounds so densely in his throat he can almost taste it. Fear, arousal, anticipation. Greed.
All these hot, ugly feelings twist into this delicious squeeze right in Taehyung’s belly, simmering so strongly he’s drunk on it already. The air is thick between them, as if the atoms themselves are vibrating, ricocheting from the tension humming dangerously in the small space of this backseat, heating everything up ‘til the hair prickles along the back of Taehyung’s neck. The warning wave of heat milliseconds before a ticking bomb explodes. The acute feeling of a doe rearing back on the hind legs, ears perking up, sensing impending danger mere moments before she is pierced by her hunter’s arrow.
Taehyung’s stomach swoops, caught in free-fall.
His head lolls, swaying towards Jimin, cheek pressed against the leather, caught up in all of it, headrush, heartrush. He’s so close. He’s so close. Jimin’s eyes flick to the partition between them and the driver. One last barrier.
Taehyung sucks in his lower lip. If he shifts enough… ah, yes. Jimin’s hand slides between his thighs, cupped over his crotch. Taehyung moans then, low and breathy, shuddering. Jimin’s gaze darts down, then back up to his eyes, then drops to his mouth.
The traffic light turns green.
Jimin surges forward and kisses him.
Heart stop, heart start. Taehyung’s mind goes fucking blank for the first few seconds of it; Jimin doesn’t let up on him. His fingers curl dangerously tight into Taehyung’s skin, soft damp heat of his mouth slanted over Taehyung’s, breathless. Jimin kissing him, Jimin kissing him, Jimin kissing him. Jimin’s lips and tongue work Taehyung open, and Taehyung is helpless to do anything but receive him, blood thrumming, skin bursting, heart pounding. Jimin’s tongue curls, slides against his and Taehyung moans into the kiss, feverishly—it’s just a kiss but it’s Jimin, he really did it, he really did it, finally! Taehyung can’t stop trembling; that’s all that’s in his mind. He did it.
The kiss breaks and Taehyung falls forward into Jimin's shoulder as the taxi sways, his head swimming, burying his face in Jimin’s neck and inhaling his sweat-bloomed scent. Jimin chuckles. He sounds breathless.
“Jealousy, huh. You’re one to talk,” Jimin says, finally, a little hoarse, chin ducked towards Taehyung’s ear. Is that fondness? Amusement? Taehyung doesn’t know. “Don’t think I didn’t see the way you side-eyed Hwihyun all night.” His thumb rubs over the inseam of Taehyung’s pants.
“Ah, was that his name?” Taehyung hums lightly, into Jimin’s collar. He can barely fucking think over the buzzing in his brain, over the static that rises in him and explodes on his skin. Jimin kissed me. Jimin just kissed me.
Triumphant. That’s what it is, Taehyung feels so fucking beyond triumphant. His breaths fall heavily into Jimin’s neck. This is it. This is confirmation: he hasn’t fucking left Jimin’s mind. Jimin noticed. Jimin noticed him being jealous, that means Jimin cares—Jimin saw him and watched him and he cared, this whole time.
Taehyung rubs his face feverishly into the smooth line of Jimin’s neck, tucks his nose under the hinge of his jaw, and basks in it all as Jimin keeps touching him. One of Jimin’s hands slide around his waist, pulling him in closer, shifting Taehyung across the seat until his body weight is all leaned hotly into Jimin’s side, and he keeps touching Taehyung.
Taehyung’s thoughts get drifty again, his body buzzing, humming, lost in that touching, lying on Jimin’s chest. Being able to smell him, laid against the planes of his body. His hand between Taehyung’s legs, touch-touch-touching him, his fingers sliding under the hem of Taehyung’s shirt, stroking over his belly. That’s all Taehyung knows how to do, gasping, breathless, brow furrowed in pleasure as he presses his heated cheek into Jimin's shoulder, blinking blearily.
“Jimin,” Taehyung whimpers. Jimin, Jimin.
“You’re a good boy, hm?” Jimin murmurs into his ear, amused.
Jimin's hand sneaks up his side, down into his waistband. Hot, hot, hot, too hot. His breath is damp and warm on Jimin's shoulder. If he looks just right he can see Jimin's nipples, Jimin’s abdomen past the neckline of his blouse. Saliva pools in Taehyung’s mouth, heat stirring in his belly, between his legs. He squeezes his eyes shut, dark-lashed and hot-mouthed. Jimin's cool rings brush against his abdomen, fingers teasing at his waistband.
“Yeah, ‘m, good …” Words are too far beyond reach.
He nudges Taehyung’s waistband up with his knuckles and scratches his nails over the dark line of Taehyung's happy trail, dragging lower into the thatch of coarse hair curling around the base of his aching dick. Jimin can probably feel the humid warmth in Taehyung’s boxers, Taehyung’s scent would stick on Jimin's fingers, sweat-rich and drooling with arousal. So fucking close to touching his cock, stealing the breath right from Taehyung’s lungs. Taehyung’s drunk on that, now.
Jimin pulls his hand out of Taehyung’s pants and brings the same index and middle finger up to trace over Taehyung’s cupid’s bow. The pads of his fingers have that familiar smell, that ripe, humid Taehyung smell, his fingertips dripping with Taehyung’s arousal. Taehyung inhales and gets dizzy, wetness pooling in his mouth; Jimin’s hands smell like him. Jimin dips his fingertips into the lower curve of Taehyung’s lip, right past where the soft skin turns saliva-damp, and rubs the scent into Taehyung’s mouth. Feeling it out, feeling it out. Taehyung’s hips strain upwards, his cock fat and needy between his thighs.
“Y’re just gagging for it, ain'tcha?” Jimin’s syllables are all thick, accented. Spills down Taehyung’s throat.
Taehyung can’t think to answer before Jimin grabs him, palming over the hot curve plumped up in his pants. Taehyung jerks and bites down on the fabric of Jimin's blouse so he doesn’t make a noise. His hands both spasm around Jimin's bicep. Jimin doesn’t play around, he’s firm and rough with Taehyung, hot friction sparking over Taehyung’s length. Just doesn’t care, grabs him right like that; Jimin takes what he wants.
Taehyung breathes a faltering, needy noise into Jimin’s neck. “Jimin,” he says.
“Mmn?”
“Jimin …” Taehyung doesn’t know how to say anything else.
Jimin grins with his eyes, a laugh escaping his teeth, and he is everything Taehyung has been dying for.
PLAY/PAUSE
Taehyung slams the front door to his apartment shut.
Jimin’s second kiss is like high voltage electricity right to the brain.
Jimin shoves him up against the wall and he’s everywhere all at once: in Taehyung’s mouth, over Taehyung’s skin, pressed to Taehyung’s body. Taehyung gets swept up in the wild wash of arousal, everything moving fast and slow—underwater, free-fall, wading through quicksand, hurtling through empty space. A shower of glitter from his crown to his toes. Jimin’s fingers tremble against his jaw. Taehyung makes an urgent sound into Jimin’s mouth.
“Please- ! ”
And as quick as it begins, Jimin pulls himself away from Taehyung and inhales a lungful of air. Taehyung blinks, disoriented, stumbling back against the wall.
They stand on opposite walls of the hallway for a breath, two. Moonlight slants over faces, bodies. The world stills entirely but for breath and pulse. Taehyung invites Jimin in, knees weakened, the line of his shoulders and hands pressed flat back to the wall, an animal heartbeat running in his chest, rabbit-fast. Taehyung won’t survive this, god, he won’t—
Their hands twitch at the same time, and they come together all over again.
It’s hard to focus on anything, swept right back up in the frenzy of it. Jimin feeds kiss after kiss into Taehyung’s mouth, and Taehyung presses back into him as their lips slide slickly together, Jimin’s taste already flooding his tongue. Everything feels so hot, warmed up, sweat beading on Taehyung’s brow already. The pressure of Jimin’s lips on his own, the desperate tug of Jimin’s kiss …
“Taehyung,” Jimin gasps into his mouth, and his hands grab Taehyung’s head and push him deeper into the wall. Taehyung’s fingers curl into Jimin’s collar, the only thing he can focus on is meeting each kiss Jimin gives him. Jimin’s hands flutter everywhere, rake into Taehyung’s hair, push up into his blouse.
Jimin tilts out of the kiss with a greedy inhale, squeezing Taehyung’s face between his palms. A noise rolls in Jimin’s throat, trapped in, and he ducks to run his nose along the underside of Taehyung’s jaw. Taehyung’s head lolls back against the wall, gaze unfocused at the warmth of Jimin’s breath blooming over his neck.
He drags a kiss over Taehyung’s neck. It’s too sensitive, his skin, Taehyung’s eyes roll back into his head, he slumps against the wall, shuddering. “So pretty.” Jimin’s fingers curl dangerously tight into the front of Taehyung’s blouse. Taehyung swallows. “So sensitive,” he says, running his nose up the center of Taehyung’s neck, from collarbone to chin, slashing a burning trail in his wake. His mouth smears against Taehyung’s jaw, a flash of teeth bared against the skin, his breath skating over Taehyung’s ear, all-consuming. And Taehyung remembers why he can’t have this too much, because he’s already so lost in it. It’s so dangerous. He’ll only get worse.
Taehyung meets his own stunned eyes in the mirrored door of the entryway closet. His body locks up as Jimin presses forward, pink tongue flashing out to lick at the pearls of Taehyung’s earring, before he sucks Taehyung’s earlobe into his mouth. He drags back with his teeth, slick pearls sliding out of his mouth and brushing at Taehyung’s neck. The heat smolders between Taehyung’s legs, an aching heat there between his trembling, sweat-damp thighs. Jimin rubs over Taehyung’s nipple, beneath the sheer shirt, and smiles against his jaw as Taehyung jerks and moans, convulsing against his chest.
“God, look at you. What else will you give me?” Jimin asks him, gaze flicking wildly between Taehyung’s eyes. His fingers slide into Taehyung’s hair, nails scraping over Taehyung’s scalp softly. Taehyung’s head lolls into the grip, blinking dazedly.
“I’ll give you whatever you want,” on a sigh pulled right from Taehyung’s throat.
Jimin’s teeth flash before he kisses Taehyung again, messy, deep, and this time it’s like he’s pouring every bit of himself into Taehyung’s body. He sucks at the wide curve of Taehyung’s lower lip, feeling out his mouth, feeling it out. All-new familiarity, different as they are, Jimin’s kisses always make him buckle in half. The arousal drips through Taehyung, inky, his gasps for air between kisses breaking short on his moans.
Jimin presses all those kisses into Taehyung and then rips himself away, taking in a deep breath, stalking into the living room. Taehyung’s knees give out and he slides down when Jimin lets him go, heels pressed flat to the wall.
Jimin leans against the arm of the couch and rubs over his own mouth and chin with an unsteady hand. Taehyung brings his fingers up to touch lightly at his lips, hot and swollen, and ducks his chin. His eyes stare, unfocused, at the opposite wall. Taehyung swallows, saliva clicking under his tongue, and touches his mouth again, to make sure it all really happened. Oh, my god.
Jimin breathes in deep, rattling, shakes out his hair and says, “Taehyung-ah.”
Taehyung looks up. His fingers tremble against his lips.
“Come here.” Jimin’s beauty is a shock of flame over Taehyung’s spine, the column of his neck all thickly carved with muscle, black hair spilled over his forehead like wine. The dark glitter of his eyes, a look on his face like hunger, felt right down to the bone. “Baby, come here.”
He’s art. He’s just … art. He makes Taehyung feel like how they feel in the movies, picture-perfect and brimming … how moving, how pure that kind of love and obsession is. Taehyung’s so lucky to have Jimin so he can feel that, too.
Taehyung- can’t make anything work. Nothing works. He takes a deep breath and shuffles forward onto his knees to get up.
“No. Stop.”
A pitiful noise catches Taehyung’s throat. What now?
Jimin tilts his head, leaning against the arm of the couch, assessing. His chest moves with his breaths, skin exposed under the open buttons of his blouse. His lower lip shines, spit-slick. “Crawl.”
A hot, happy ache plucks right between Taehyung’s ribs. He's a mess, his emotions are exploding everywhere on the walls, paint-streaked and revealing. “Oh, ” Taehyung’s breath rushes out. He leans forward and rests his palms on the ground.
“C’mon, crawl to me. Taehyung-ah. Am I pretty?” The red slick of Jimin’s tongue gleams behind his teeth, white as bone in the dark night.
Terrifyingly pretty.
Taehyung crawls forward, obedient. His palms rasp over the floor. The wood warps and strains as he moves, pushing him towards Jimin, head spinning with reckless exhilaration.
God, Taehyung’s so, so lucky to even fucking exist like this. A light, happy sound rushes out of him, a smile slanting over his mouth of its own accord. Jimin watches him as he moves across the floor, his belt clinking as he unbuckles it. Jimin slides his hand beneath the waistband of his pants, groaning as he touches himself. As he watches Taehyung crawling for him, and he touches himself, the thick outline of his knuckles and his cock pressing into the ink-spill fabric of his pants.
Taehyung thinks about getting it into his mouth, and his tongue waters with a remembered taste. He cannot keep himself from longing for it, stopping at Jimin’s feet on his knees and tracing his nose over the thick carve of muscle over Jimin’s thigh. Taehyung’s mouth drags against the faux leather, smearing his gloss over the stretch of it. He tilts up to blink at Jimin. “Hi,” Taehyung says. “Can I- ,” he tries, but before he gets very far in his sentence, Jimin leans over to kiss him again.
Taehyung’s body sways upward, straining to follow Jimin as he pulls back, their lips unlocking with a soft noise. “Good boy.” Taehyung falls forward onto Jimin’s clothed thigh, holds onto it. Laughter overcomes Taehyung for no reason, a rush of it breathing through his throat, his cheek pressing into Jimin’s thigh. Jimin strokes at Taehyung’s hair.
Taehyung shivers, and keeps shivering, body wracked with it, until Jimin’s grip in his hair turns painfully tight and he drags Taehyung upward, half off the ground. Taehyung moans, startlingly loud. His hands fly up but don’t know where to grab, at Jimin’s hand, at his own hair, at his neck, at his chest. The noise dies into a hiccuping breath and Jimin grins at him, satisfied, a strange, awed sort of expression crossing over his eyes.
Taehyung starts laughing so hard he can barely breathe, slumped halfway to the floor, upper body held up only by Jimin’s grip on his hair. Fist clenched, Taehyung’s body raised into the hold, like Jimin’s the executioner gripping Taehyung’s freshly severed head by the hair. Beheaded for the hungry masses.
“Stop laughing,” Jimin says, but his teeth still flash, and so does his voice, bright and serrated. “You’re crazy, you know that?”
“Mn- yeah,” Taehyung nods as best as he can with Jimin’s small hand fisted in his hair, biting back the exhilarating grin trying to gash his mouth open. God, has he missed this.
Taehyung really was never like this before Jimin. He was good, he was a kind and good boy, but something about Jimin’s attention … there’s so much there to want. Jimin tugs his cock out of his pants with one hand, still holding onto Taehyung. Taehyung loses his words, can only press his mouth to Jimin's skin. Nothing to say. He's all desire now, from the crown of his head to the tip of his toes. He's just want, dizzy with it, drunk with it, wanting Jimin and being wanted in return.
Jimin’s foreskin tugs over his cockhead, already wet and red. His cock’s so hot, the heat just radiating over Taehyung’s cheek, where his forehead presses to Jimin’s hip. He slaps his cock against Taehyung’s face a couple times, lightly, over his cheek, browbone, his forehead. And then Jimin leaves his cock there, laid out over the length of Taehyung’s face.
“Ah, that’s- what are you,” Taehyung tries to begin, but Jimin grabs his chin, head tilting to scrutinize Taehyung. So Taehyung plays pretty, lets him look, lets Jimin’s eyes drink him in. Oh, god, that’s him, he’s the reason Jimin’s looking like that, he’s the reason Jimin is so, so hard … Jimin sweeps a thumb over his cheek and Taehyung preens for him, heart fluttering. Taehyung’s lips tilt open into a breathless grin.
“Yeah,” Jimin sighs out, stroking at his hair. “S’that doin’ it for you?”
“Always tastes- so good,” Taehyung tells him. “S’thick. Big. Mmn, fuck. Can you put it in, in my mouth?”
Jimin hums noncommittally. “No. Keep going, I want to watch you.” He presses his cock down over Taehyung’s face—it’s burning hot, Taehyung needs to shut his eyes when the shaft squishes against the socket.
Taehyung ducks to mouth at Jimin’s balls but Jimin tugs him back by the hair. His cock lays fat and hard over Taehyung’s face, warm damp heat of it, the base of it resting on Taehyung’s open, panting mouth, balls pressed to his chin, length curving hotly over his cheek. The velvet weight of it, the rush of blood, the pulse of his cock, hard and alive and satisfying, leaking onto Taehyung’s brow.
It’s- obscene. Lewd, filthy. Taehyung inhales the scent of Jimin all the way in his lungs, almost tasting it there, that kind of humid, hot and heavy flavor, ripe with sweat-salt. Taehyung can practically see it all in his mind, so clearly—himself on his knees, panting, with Jimin’s cock on his face.
Taehyung goes almost cross-eyed looking at the way Jimin drags his foreskin back down the head of his cock, exposing the thick ridge of it. His mouth waters. Jimin’s cock drools on his face. Taehyung squeezes his eyes shut but it rolls down his brow, over the corner of his eye, like a teardrop. Lashes strung with tears of Jimin’s pre-come, he thinks. How pretty does he look?
Taehyung is feverish, a fine tremor sluicing through his veins. He rubs his face fervently against the underside of Jimin’s cock, catches his nose on it. Licks at the base a little, down over his balls, sticks his nose right at the base. Mouths on Jimin’s balls, rubs his open, wet mouth, his cheeks on it like some dumb, drunk thing.
Jimin shakes Taehyung’s hand in his head, as if to snap him out of his haze. “Look at me. You want me?”
Taehyung looks at Jimin, he really looks and he- “Yeah. So bad, god, want you so bad,” and he really wants it, so bad.
Taehyung suckles at Jimin’s cockhead, tucks into his mouth gently. (He reminds himself: this is the Jimin who’s grown past his youthful, unsteady dominance, who no longer needs Taehyung’s reassurance. A Jimin who no longer issues requests but demands, who no longer prefaces his commands to, “Open up,” with a gentle Will you-? This is the Jimin who’s memorized all the pressure points at which Taehyung breaks, and tonight, Taehyung will be shattered.)
Taehyung breaks free of his head when Jimin dips his fingers into the soft skin of Taehyung’s cheek, presses in to watch it distend from the outside. And then he strokes his fingers into the flesh as if it were a cunt, massages at the inside of Taehyung’s cheek as if to test it’s a good enough place to put his dick, making Taehyung drool over his own tongue, over his lips, slipping over Jimin’s knuckles.
He wants to get his mouth really around Jimin’s dick, nearly begs for it, burning up with the lust. Jimin knows it anyway, drags his cock down Taehyung’s face, smears precome over his cheek. “Open your mouth.” Nudges it up over Taehyung’s lips, he parts his mouth eagerly, lets his jaw drop down.
Taehyung’s making this pitiful snuffling noise, sticks his tongue out and rubs it down the ridge of Jimin’s cock. The pressure and weight of it, the smell of it, heat and taste of it. Jimin fits so good on his tongue, it’s like a shot of straight whiskey to his blood, except whiskey never tastes this fucking satisfying.
Jimin grabs him round the maw, his fingers blunt points of pressure along Taehyung’s jawline and cheekbone. He shakes Taehyung’s head gently in his hand, tutting. “Look at you. Can almost see that tail wagging.”
Taehyung growls, a soft little rrr that wheezes at the end. He laps at Jimin’s cock, just the head of it, doesn’t go very far. Tongue’s already working though, Taehyung’s got the suction of it cupping the underside of Jimin’s cockhead. Swells right into that spot of his mouth, that little shallow of his tongue. Works his lips, a soft wet smack as he sucks his tongue to pull him in deeper.
Jimin pushes his tip into Taehyung’s cheek, grabs his jaw and holds him there and just rubs it in little circles, Taehyung watching Jimin watching the soft skin of his cheek stretch around his cockhead.
Jimin holds Taehyung by the jaw and hair at the crown of his head, slides his cock in slowly. Feeds it to Taehyung, who fits his mouth around him and sinks into it. He dips his cock into Taehyung’s throat and pulls back just as slow.
“Y’ can, can fuck my throat,” Taehyung swallows all the saliva pooling in his mouth.
“Yeah, you can take all that, huh? Had a lot of practice since last time?” Jimin caresses his cheek, Taehyung shudders into the wild abandon that sways over him.
Too easy. Taehyung can’t resist. He sucks around Jimin’s cockhead as he pulls off. “‘Hyeok bi-i-ig,” he says, a mockery of himself in the restaurant. “‘N Jaehong-something before that, too.” His lips brush over Jimin’s tip as he speaks, looking up innocently.
At this angle, Jimin looks otherworldly. Glorious, thunderous density glides from his shoulders like a cape, makes him bigger. Monumental. Nigh deified, with Taehyung kneeling at his altar. Taehyung’s dizzy with it, euphoric in the gravity of Jimin’s apotheosis.
“Throat loose for any big dick your way, mm?” Jimin tugs at his hair.
Taehyung’s voice sounds dazed, wasted when he answers. “Ah! - I'll do it for you, too.”
Jimin hooks his thumb into Taehyung’s mouth, wrenches his jaw wider. Pushes in all in one go, Taehyung’s throat convulsing with a swallowed choke. Fuck, it’s right in his- he can’t breathe- oh, god. Jimin keeps Taehyung’s mouth open and presses his cockhead into the soft, sloppy clench of Taehyung’s throat, groaning with pleasure.
A fever trickles down over his spine, Taehyung has to take himself in hand before he fucking bursts inside his pants.
“Cockslut,” Jimin says, all soft. It’s near fond, but laced with this thin knife edge. Taehyung closes his eyes and moans, back in his soft palate it makes a wet, sucking sound. “Should just keep you for this tight mouth, shouldn’t I.”
Keep me, keep me. I'll suck you every day, Jimin. Drink your cock, put it right in my throat every day, let me get fucked up on it. Taehyung makes an incomprehensible garbling noise in response and squeezes his eyes shut.
Jimin must understand him anyway, because he laughs all sweet and mean-like as he keeps fucking forward. It gets messy really fucking fast, Taehyung can’t stop himself from drooling with every thrust, slipping out of the corners of his lips, slicking up Jimin’s cock.
“Thought about it all fucking day when you texted us about the break-up,” Jimin says. “Was gonna, unh, call you, say some shit, I don’t even know.”
Taehyung makes a strangled noise around Jimin’s cock. More, tell me more, Taehyung wants to plead. He’d texted their group in the morning, after he’d gathered his shit and stumbled out of Sanghyeok’s apartment. So Jimin had thought about it all day. All day. Jimin with his jaw wound tight, eyes smeared dark with envy and desire; Jimin with his fists clenched, skin stark white against his rings, pacing furiously. Thinking about Taehyung. Wanting Taehyung. Possessive over Taehyung. He cares, Jimin still cares about him.
“You walked in ‘n I wanted you so fucking bad, got so angry he broke up with you. Can’t believe he had you and let you go. But it meant I could, I could …”
You had me and you let me go, too. Take me back. Jimin, take me back. Taehyung struggles, his body convulses but he forces himself down further on Jimin’s cock, straining to bury his nose at the base. It fills up his throat so Taehyung can’t speak anymore. He doesn’t want to think, either.
Taehyung’s eyebrows furrow as he works himself deeper, rounds out his throat on Jimin’s cock and swallows him down. “Mmn,” he chokes. He has to pull back, let Jimin’s dick slide out of his mouth and suck back his own saliva off Jimin’s cock. “More,” Taehyung rasps out, but Jimin shuts him up with cock again, his face contorting fiercely.
“What do you want me to say, huh? That I got so damn jealous I couldn’t see straight?” Jimin punctuates his gasps with punishing fucks of his cock into Taehyung’s mouth, drawing out these breathless, wet noises from him. “That I wanted to, fucking, show up at your apartment, take you back? Or that I wanted to fuck you in the shit stalls of that shit restaurant bathroom? Take you right there, hyungs and Jungkookie be damned?” Jimin’s hips stutter, half-frantic, his hands tightening restlessly in Taehyung’s hair. His cock slips out from Taehyung’s mouth on the next thrust, skidding up over Taehyung’s cheek, smearing wetly over his skin.
Taehyung falls backward with a desperate gasp, and the quick lungful of air rushing through his throat sends him coughing, seizing. “I wish you did fuck me right there,” he bites out, between his gasps for air. “I wish they all fucking saw.”
Jimin growls, really growls, this beastly, rabid kind of thing. He drops onto his knees, surges forward to kiss Taehyung again, small hands pressing at Taehyung’s shoulders, a full-frontal assault. Taehyung’s body convulses again with a choke but Jimin clambers over him, into his lap, and Taehyung can’t breathe, a tear slips down his cheek. Taehyung kisses him back but he can’t- he can’t find any purchase on the floor and sprawls onto his back, Jimin pinning him down, trapping him.
Jimin keeps rutting forward, his bare cock slipping under Taehyung’s blouse, branded onto his skin, Jimin’s arms and legs pressing, catching him tight. “Fuck me,” Taehyung wheezes out, “Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me fuck-me-fuckme, oh god …” A cry wrenches from his throat when Jimin tugs his pants down to rut against Taehyung’s cock, pressing them so painfully tight together, inescapable, bodies shifting.
Jimin makes a tight, rolling noise in the pit of his chest. Crashing waves. “Let me, can I- do it raw,” Jimin says, asks. God, it’s stupid, it’s so reckless but—
“Yeah, yeah, just. Just put it in, I wan’ it, I want it all, want you,” Taehyung tells him. Jimin makes a pained, shaking groan, his hips punching down like he wants to bury himself in Taehyung already, like he’s thinking about putting it in right now on the floor. “Y’can fuck me, fuck me bare, cum in me, cum in my ass-! ”
“Dirty fucking-,” Jimin bites into his mouth.
A gasping from Taehyung—“Yeah, I’m nasty, ’m filthy, y’gotta set me right-,”
“I’ll fuck you right,”
“Fuck me so good …” Taehyung moans and his hips keep moving with anticipation, little rocks of his body under Jimin like he’s already getting fucked. He can’t help but think about what it would feel like to have Jimin stretch him on that sturdy cock again, finally, after so long. Coming home.
“Get up- fucking, get the fuck up,” Jimin scrambles to tug Taehyung up and shove him towards the bedroom.
Taehyung stumbles as Jimin pushes him, head spinning. He can’t- he doesn’t know how he’s going to survive this, the room buckling, twisting as he staggers backward, Jimin growing outlined in the white spill of light from the window. But he hopes, he prays that maybe, maybe he can have this much tonight, and maybe after it’s all over Jimin will curl in bed next to him and they will breathe together until they sleep. This one night is going to fuck Taehyung up for days, weeks, months. Recovery —that’s a laugh. He’ll never recover.
Taehyung doesn’t know whether or not there’s a God listening to his prayers. But he can’t worship anyone other than Jimin, anyway, so he stumbles backward through the threshold of his bedroom, body ablaze, and watches Jimin advance on him, his leopard-print blouse half-opened and rucked up out of his pants, stalking forwards like he’s descending from the heavens.
This, Taehyung thinks, is what divine retribution feels like.
PLAY/PAUSE
No one fucks like Jimin.
No one fucks like Jimin, pressed over every inch of Taehyung’s back, swallowing him whole, prey trapped in an anaconda’s coiled body. Squeezing the life out of him. Jimin’s ringed hands hold firmly onto the chain of Taehyung’s necklace, holding him up by the throat, back forced into a deep arch, as Jimin thrusts hard enough to rattle Taehyung’s teeth. All of his skin sparks like a livewire, so supremely aroused, so deeply felt and moved.
Taehyung whimpers when Jimin fucks in again, hips thudding hard in thick, stirring strokes. “‘ts, ah, deeper,” Taehyung says. He's leaned over the edge of the bed, knee propped up.
“When you broke up, did he fuck you like this?” Jimin demands.
Not like this. Never like this.
“On my, on my hands and knees,” Taehyung says. Ah, that’s a lie, Sanghyeok fucked him over the kitchen counter. It was frantic and they barely had space; this is already so, so much better. Taehyung likes this position best, loves how deep Jimin gets in him like this.
“I’ve got you better than that,” Jimin lets him know.
He does, he’s already got Taehyung more fucked up than he has been in ages, got Taehyung’s mind hanging just shy of the inevitable plunge. “Yeah,” Taehyung says, “please.” He needs it now.
Jimin pushes him down, onto the bed. Taehyung sprawls face first on the sheets and scrambles to get up on his hands and knees. He hears Jimin shifting behind him, hissing as he holds his cock and lines himself up. The fat head of his dick nudges up at Taehyung’s lonely little hole for a second, forcing him open, stretching it, and then he slides right home. That thick cock, sturdy cock. Pushing all up in him like it’s meant there, and it is.
“Feeling like, all up in-” Taehyung can only gasp out when he’s deep down like this.
“An’ still taking it, baby, I’ll go deeper,” Jimin’s got a lot to say. And more, he won’t stop talking, mouthfuls of the filthiest things. Taehyung loves it, Jimin’s voice so warm and dark, slithers into his mind and tugs him beneath the sweet waters.
Jimin really fills him right up—cock stupid fucking thick, curved wickedly right into the most sensitive places in Taehyung. Taehyung’s head hangs forward, jostled with each deep thrust. Jimin’s cockhead drags inside him, hitting somewhere deep in that angle Jimin fucks him so good at. Jimin’s tip, rubbing and rubbing and rubbing him, making Taehyung all swollen, it’s making him all swollen; he’s really fucking sloppy, he knows it, lube trickling down the backs of his thighs.
God, yeah, he’d take this cock every damn day if he could. He had, at one point. Not anymore.
“Y’keep gushing for me, Taeng-ah,” Jimin laughs. “Can’t believe I used so much lube. So damn wet. Look at you, sucking at me.” Jimin sounds out of it too, his voice all dark and floating through Taehyung’s ears. Lost, drunk on something harder than alcohol. “Takin’ it so well, mm?”
Taehyung, gasping as Jimin fucks him, elbows trembling already with the strain of holding himself up. “Thick cock, J’min, thick …” fucking pornography pouring past his lips, “love cock, love y’r cock,” speaking past the breathless lurch in his chest.
The sturdy slide forces him open, raw and wet in his rim, against his walls, sore and tender already. A shockwave on each stroke, burning through his belly. He’s slicked open so firmly, dripping sweetly over Jimin’s cock. Taehyung thinks about thumbs tearing the flesh of ripe, pulped fruit, thinks about that revealing wine-stained gape, juice sticky in the corners of his lips and sinewy-like behind his teeth. Taehyung’s head is floating past what’s real.
“‘N you still want it harder?” Jimin’s breathless, Taehyung can hear the grin in his voice. The lilt, it’s so familiar, it’s so good. Biting edge of humiliation. Taehyung’s tummy and balls just fucking squeeze.
It gets him so deep, his head is beneath the waves. He wants Jimin to give himself wholly, he doesn’t want anything held back. What does Jimin want? How does Taehyung hand himself over, give himself up? His chest is coarsening and Taehyung has to fix it all right now so Jimin slides deeper and deeper still, locks himself in.
He needs to feel the words in his mouth—“Yes, hyung, please,” and blurts it right out, “‘m sorry, please …” What is he apologizing for? Just feels like there needs to be an apology, Taehyung needs to soothe this; Jimin’s ruining him inside, he’s so raw and burning so good.
“Jimin, hy-ung, sorry,” Taehyung garbles. It gets all mixed up in his mouth, his tongue too fat and heavy to speak around.
“‘Jimin-hyung’—yes, that’s it, you’re mine, right? You’re hyung’s. No one else’s. My Taehyungie. No one’s but mine.” The words seem pushed from the vicious set of Jimin’s jaw. A raw, animal sound.
“Just hyung’s … ’m just yours,” Taehyung promises, and this is all he’s ever wanted to hear from Jimin. No one else’s but his. He’s Jimin’s. “Ple- ease! ”
“I’ll burn all of them outta your head,” Jimin tells him. “Only name you ever say is mine.”
Taehyung remembers this one time, when they’d still been together, Jimin had tied him down, dripped his name over Taehyung’s skin in wax that had been a little too hot, hissing over the flesh. He’d let it cool there and peeled the characters off with his nails while Taehyung writhed in pain, in pleasure. Tender skin, a deep raw pink, three syllables throbbing between Taehyung’s dark nipples. Park Ji-min. A firm sort of brand that had seethed at its heat-crest. Park Ji-min. Burned right into him.
He’s too far sunk in his head, in his body. The memory of those three syllables flares back now in a strange sensory flashback, Jimin’s name a searing tattoo right over the rib-laced cavity where his soft heart beats. Ji-min, it thumps. Ji-min.
A hard thrust and Taehyung slips forward off Jimin’s dick, unable to hold himself up. He collapses onto the sheets, breath knocked out of him. Cheek hitting the pillow, ass up, chest flush to the bedsheets. All loosened up.
“Fuck, you’re- too much,” Jimin’s voice swells behind his ear, clicking with saliva. “Up, get up.”
Taehyung spreads his legs and there’s a slick little sound between his thighs, inviting. He barely has any time to reorient himself before Jimin’s back on him again, punching the breath out of his throat and his cock plunges right back in. Taehyung’s vision goes dizzy, moaning like a bitch in heat. Taehyung mouths at the pillow, sucking the fabric into his mouth to muffle his noises.
“Don’t stop, in me- hah , open on you, fuck me open,” and it keeps coming like that, rushing from Taehyung, beaten out, anguished.
Jimin slaps him, slaps his ass, tells him to get his mouth off the damn pillowcase. “C’mon, moan for me,” Jimin says, reaches down to grab Taehyung’s cock swinging dumbly beneath him, and squeeze. “Let me hear you.”
He can’t get enough air between thrusts, can’t get enough control over his body, mouth slack and dragging wetly over the fabric. Jimin’s got his cock crammed up inside him, carving him open up to his ribcage. Jimin pulls out for a second to force Taehyung’s ass into a deeper curve, get him completely unbalanced. Taehyung’s hot with pleasure down the backs of his thighs, scalded.
“Was never like this before you, Taehyung-ah. Something about you fucked me up … drove me fuckin’ insane.” Jimin groans, breaths hiccuping through his words. “What did you do to me, why can’t I forget you, huh?”
Taehyung whimpers, high tortured noise. Damped with pleasure-pain, sticking in his throat. “You did, to me- me first,” barely able to speak coherently, and cries, “wh- why? ”
Jimin’s squishing his cockhead really right into his hot, swollen prostate, it’s so damn much, hips working his tip right there; his balls thump against Taehyung’s taint. Taehyung’s pinned through to the sheets, staked through, fuckdrunk and spinning. His calves keep spasming.
The bedsprings are whimpering, or- or- or maybe it’s Taehyung, making those high little yelps with every thrust, because his lungs can’t draw enough air to moan anymore. He's a- squeaky toy. Getting fucked so good he squeals.
Taehyung rests his cheek against the cool sheets, breathes into his lungs and blinks tears out of his eyes. Can see himself in the mirrored closet doors. Can see Jimin in the mirrors, his muscles breathing beneath all his skin, along the dip of his back and the swell of his ass. Thick, corded tendons straining under flesh, teeth bared, face tossed back, open with pleasure.
Taehyung’s far away. He’s close, and he’s far away, and distorted, misshapen on Jimin’s push-pull, that give-and-take sweetness. It comes as a surge over him. He gasps out, weakly, “Hyu-ung, gonna come, y’r gonna make me come- ah! ” Jimin doubles down with renewed purpose and Taehyung’s body can barely take it.
Taehyung gets this. Taehyung gets Jimin like this, stripped down til his desires are right out in the open, no hiding, fucked out and fucking him. No one else fucks him like this, with this kind of rich, full stain to their sex.
Jimin’s cock slides even deeper, hitting something fleshy inside him, swollen. Taehyung can feel it getting squished, aching fiercely with each hot, blunt thrust; Jimin’s tip pressing into his- is it his, his womb- no, can’t be, Taehyung doesn’t have one of those, but Jimin could- he could fuck Taehyung right up ‘til there … He could press all the way up, mould him, change Taehyung on the inside, too ...
Taehyung’s back arches and his mouth hangs loose, imagining Jimin’s cock pressing the deep and vivid purple-red of his walls open inside him. He thinks about all the places Jimin’s touching, all the places Jimin has touched on him, in him, all the secret and unknown things Jimin drags out of Taehyung’s insides with his hands, with his eyes, with his teeth. With his cock.
His muscles ripple and release beneath his body, an inching closer of his orgasm. His heartbeat is too loud in his ears, Ji-min, Ji-min. Head beneath the water, battered by ocean waves rolling him into the sea floor; Taehyung sinks, and he sinks, and he drowns.
It all goes dark. Jimin speaks behind him, There you go, pretty, his hand rubbing over Taehyung’s cock as it slicks up over his belly, drips onto the sheets. Taehyung’s body convulses, once, twice, all his muscles spasming as each wave rolls over him. His skin’s stretched all different, strange and tight over every inch of his body, warping. Each pulse pushes an agonized moan out of Taehyung, an urgent torture, as Jimin keeps fucking his cock in, letting Taehyung squeeze and flutter around him.
“Good boy,” Jimin says, and pets at his flank. Taehyung shudders into the pillow. His throat hurts, all raw and bruised. His ass, too, on fucking fire, his body burning up, shaking.
“Ahhn, out, out,” Taehyung scrabbles at Jimin’s hips, trying to get him to pull out. He can’t breathe, he can’t see, Jimin slides out carefully and watches Taehyung’s heaving chest, Taehyung’s frantic hands pushing Jimin down onto the bedspread so he can crawl on top of Jimin and kiss him again, sobbing into his mouth, sodden and dizzy with pleasure.
“So good, so good, thank you,” Taehyung tells him. “J’min, y’make me feel so good …” Jimin kisses him back with a pained scrunch to his brows, his hands grabbing at Taehyung’s head. Taehyung’s cum smears between their bellies as they writhe in the sheets.
“Too fucking—,” Jimin breathes, and Taehyung pulls back to drink in Jimin’s face, his eyes blown wide, shocked, hair raked up by Taehyung’s fingers. There’s something like awe, like terror, something wild and unrestrained and powerful painted over Jimin’s features as he clutches at Taehyung’s cheek, fingers pressing into the meeting of his jaw and neck hard enough to bruise.
Taehyung whimpers, and Jimin’s expression tilts even darker, hips shifting beneath Taehyung.
Jimin’s cock smears wetly over his abs and Taehyung realizes he’s too … “Ah, ‘m empty, want it back,” he breathes, wants it more than air, wants it back. And Jimin knows it already, guiding Taehyung back down onto him with strong hands steadying his hips.
Taehyung moans shakily, low and broken, as Jimin squeezes his cock back in. It’s a fat, swollen stretch that inches past Taehyung's reddened rim, soothing his rubbed raw walls back up. The friction is almost unbearable after orgasm, sparking like a lighter and aching so heavily in Taehyung’s spine.
“C’mon, let me back in, there you go,” Jimin breathes as Taehyung’s body swallows him back up. His voice trails off into a gorgeous moan, head falling back with pleasure. His throat’s streaked with sweat, down to his collarbones, glittering and pretty. Taehyung’s making him feel so good, Taehyung’s the one making him feel so, so good.
Taehyung rides Jimin like that, rocking in his lap, thighs shuddering. Jimin rakes his nails down Taehyung’s cum-stained abdomen. Taehyung’s panting, out of breath completely, beyond lost on Jimin’s cock. It’s slow, so deep and pressure-heavy, full, that Taehyung’s cock keeps dribbling, half-softened as it is, leaking over itself in little spurts as Jimin rocks Taehyung in his lap.
“Did you love him?” Jimin pants, brows screwed as he works his hips under Taehyung.
“Nh-no, hng, I didn't.” One truth at least, in this sea of half-lies. Taehyung’s not sure he’s been able to love anybody since he first kissed Jimin, stupidly, all those years ago.
“Are you telling me the truth?” Jimin asks, and his voice is trembling, his brow furrowed, and Taehyung needs Jimin to believe him.
“Yes,” he gasps out, “Promise, not lying, ‘m sorry, hyung, ‘m suh-sorry,” he’s slurring, he thinks, head hanging back. The skin of his throat pulls taut over his Adam's apple, trembling like a plucked string. “T’yeongie’s sorry …” His hips keep moving of their own accord, shaking and oversensitive. The fullness is turning its tide, edging into torture, but the good kind, the sore kind, the kind that stays branded for days in your spine.
“You’re sorry, baby, ah?” Jimin’s voice is too much of- of something, shot through with a sickly-sweet kind of sympathy. It’s too much for Taehyung, his heart kicks up in its cage; he clenches involuntarily around Jimin and moans all low like it’s the only thing he knows how to do. And at this point, it really is.
“Yeah, clench like that, good boy, there you go. Squeeze fucking tight for me, mnh, god …”
“Feels hot, like burning right- guh!, right here,” Taehyung balances on one arm, blinks unsteadily, and pets at his stomach, low, where he thinks he can feel Jimin’s cock.
Jimin pets over it too, cooing, cool silver rings catching against Taehyung’s overheated skin. “Hurts in your tummy, mm?”
“Mnnyeah, hyung’s muh-making me feel all weird … Jimin! ”
Jimin thrusts up hard, his balls smacking against Taehyung’s ass. Taehyung hunches forward, his head hangs down between his shoulders, his fingers spread over Jimin’s chest. Taehyung clenches automatically, grips around Jimin’s cock. Jimin moans at that, his mouth falling open. Taehyung wants to- to lean forward and kiss him but he doesn’t know if he can hold himself up to do that.
“Look at that, hugging me so well in there, Taehyung-ah.”
Jimin’s still stroking over the swell of Taehyung’s soft belly. He’s too raw inside, like meat or something, the repetitive petting is making him woozy, running and slipping on fine sand, sun-dazed and blinded by light. Hot, sun-glassed sand, like the time he’d fucked Jimin on a hidden stretch of Busan beach, and his cock had ached ‘cause Jimin gripped around him so tight and wouldn’t let go, and his eyes had stung with sweat and the sea and his tears, all salty, so salty on his lips. Salty on his tongue now, too, when Taehyung breathes in, choked.
“Jimin-ah, hurts,” Taehyung says, and it really does. He doesn’t know where but something is aching in him, it’s really breaking—he’s fracturing along his creases.
“Sorry, Taehyung, ‘m sorry,” Jimin says, and gentles his movements, but he doesn’t stop. So many sorrys exchanged, what are they apologizing for? Does he know what he’s saying?
Taehyung loses himself in the motion of rocking, far away and close all over again. They’re somewhere else. His breath keeps hiccuping, spine burning, but Taehyung presses down wherever he can on Jimin and keeps him locked in.
“I don’t want it to, to be anyone else, I want it to be me, ah, I want you to be mine, no one else’s,” Jimin’s voice trembles as he confesses, “I want you to be mine forever.”
Taehyung wants to cry. Let me break, just break me. Please, let me have this much. Don’t take this away from me.
“Yours, yours, love you, Jimin, luh-ve you,” Taehyung whines it, soft and sweet, his voice breaking. Jimin’s hips kick up into him as he says it. “Ji-min, love you, luh-love, Jimin, you, love you,” the name and the sentiment so fused together that they are one in Taehyung’s mouth. He gets to have this, right now. They are the same.
He doesn’t have to wait long after that for Jimin to come, hot and messy. Love you, love you, love you, Taehyung tells him, and he can’t stop himself from falling forward onto Jimin’s chest. Jimin’s body keeps moving, rocking, fucking his cum into Taehyung. Taehyung almost doesn’t catch it, because he’s straining for the feeling of Jimin staining him inside, but it almost makes him black out when he hears it. Jimin’s soft, anguished whisper, a prayer moaned into the vulnerable air between them.
Because Jimin says it back, and Taehyung’s world carves into pure ecstasy.
He loves me.
PLAY/PAUSE
Taehyung rolls over, his head lolling towards Jimin’s profile, highlighted in the wash of glittering city. A feeling so settled, so satisfied rests in him, makes his belly full. It’s something that grows slowly elated, a satedness that floods his limbs, slinks across his face.
Jimin turns to look at him and blinks slowly, blearily. Jimin yawns, then, and it gnaws at Taehyung’s mouth, too. Taehyung stretches lazily, yawning wide, bearing the pink backs of his mouth to Jimin, the softness of his gums. Both their mouths sweet and vulnerable, framed with teeth; who you are to me, who I am to you. Jimin broke him open.
It’s so eerie, calm. The Seoul lights and shadows leak in turn through the windows and splay themselves over the furniture, the walls, the ceilings; like gliding underwater, shallows of sunlight-sundark streaming in turn over bared skin. They lie there on the bed, Taehyung’s head swims along untethered like that. A light show, swaying up and down, everything he sees glows so dense with color, so vibrant and alive it’s almost fuzzy. Perfect chaos. He’s more than his body. His heart’s entwined with Jimin’s. Taehyung doesn’t know for how long he’s like this; his mouth stays parted in awe. He breathes into his belly.
But as Taehyung comes down, his brain starts working again, and noise filters through his ears, and the colors drain of their brightness. Something changes in the air and Taehyung closes his mouth. It’s so dry. He needs water.
Jimin shifts on the bed. And then he shifts again, restless. It’s creeping across the sheets too fast, Taehyung’s catching the restlessness. Jimin sniffs, chin tilting up, shoulders pointed away. He swings his feet off the bed and puts his head in his hands for a beat. Is he leaving? No. He can’t be.
Jimin leans over, swipes his shirt off the ground, and stands up from the bed. Taehyung watches him tug his clothes on, and he can’t say anything. His mouth won’t work; it’s too dry. His vocal chords are frozen, clicking in his throat. Jimin doesn’t look at him. He goes into the bathroom to wash up, leaving Taehyung in the bed. Taehyung swallows.
It’s terrible. It’s the worst thing he’s ever felt. A corrosive, awful discomfort calcifying along the lining of his guts. Taehyung shifts and tries to will it away. No, he wants that settled feeling back. He was so pleased and fuzzy and floating like a big lazy cat. He was feeling good, he was feeling so good, what happened?
It bursts through his body in a hot, sickening roil; he wants to kick out, scream, explode, but he’s too exhausted to do anything but roll over and start to cry.
The first few times they’d fucked after breaking up, Jimin had clung to him, sexdrunk and giggling, “Don’t go, don’t go, my Taehyungie.” Taehyung can still remember it, the pull of that soft, airy voice. The stupid nonsense things they’d say to each other, curled small and pretending everything was still alright. The sweet pillow talk they would soothe into each other’s skin, chests pressed together, in an attempt to lap up the blood they’d shed between themselves.
But even that’s gone now. They don’t talk about the things that matter, anymore. Just silence: silent breaths, silent thoughts. This is just the way it is. Pulling apart, one last fiery supernova before their quiet dissipation into space. Was this the last? It couldn’t have been. Don’t take this from me. If not this, what else is left?
They had gotten back together, once, determined to get it right, but even that had fallen apart. Second chances … Taehyung shouldn’t have taken it. He should’ve just left it. He should have fucking left it. Why did he take it? Nothing was ever the same again.
And Taehyung, he- he hates himself for it all, every time. But he always wants Jimin more than he hates himself, every single time, so. This is the same, tired old loathing that comes after, when he’s left alone.
What was it that Namjoon had said at the restaurant? Yeah, don’t want our Taehyungie to go crawling back to the ex. Look at me now, Namjoonie-hyung. Come look at me now.
Taehyung always forgets this part of the cycle. There’s the frustration, the desperation, the love. But he forgets this … this grief, sickening grief, insane, mad grief crawling up his throat in the moments where Jimin leaves him alone again.
I’ll die, Taehyung thinks. I’ll die, I’ll die. Just let me die here.
Taehyung’s shaking. He doesn’t know what to do. Taehyung tries to wipe himself clean on the edge of the sheet, tries to get Jimin’s cum out of himself. It’s staining him. His hand keeps trembling with the cold shock of adrenaline that spills through him. A fault line breaks across his misshapen skin, thin and threatening, fractures up his arm. His narrow vision narrows further, shadowed at the edges of his consciousness; his fingers rasp over his skin, his feet the same in the sheets.
Taehyung’s cracking; Jimin broke him open. He blinks it away. He shakes his head and he says to himself, no, no. It’s not real. His breaths come too fast, shallow and seizing.
A gaze prickles over his left side. Taehyung whips his head and meets his reddened eyes in the mirror, sideways, laid out over the sheets. He’s watching himself laid out like that, fucked out like that. Ringed bruises decorate his throat like a leopard’s hide, a deep purple where his blood vessels had broken beneath Jimin’s teeth.
A pitiful noise escapes Taehyung’s chest. Tears carve hotly over the slope of his nose. And the worst part of it all: Jimin’s not there to wipe them away, anymore. He won’t come. He’s not coming back. What have they become, to each other? He won’t touch Taehyung’s cheeks with his small thumbs and kiss away the sour stain of Tahyung’s hateful, weak mouth. What has Taehyung done to them?
A slow creak rings out in the silent room, the door to the bathroom sliding open, breaking the rhythm of Taehyung’s hiccuping breaths. Taehyung waits for the bedroom door to open, too, for Jimin to walk out of his life, but …
He shouldn’t hope. Taehyung can’t stop it from warming him anyway, from pulling open his messy chest, his body straining to roll over and call out to Jimin. Please, Taehyung thinks, hopes. Wants more than anything. More than air. Please. He holds his breath.
Hushed, padding footsteps drag over to the bedside. A buzzing slivers through all that loss, numbs the grief, because Jimin’s coming back to lie down with him.
It billows through him, lava-hot, blood seething through his toes, his fingers, rushing under his skin. Jimin's weight presses down into the bed and Taehyung’s whole face threatens to split in relief. Oh, god. It’s a giddiness that carves open his mouth and makes him so purely happy as nothing else ever would. So emotional with it, it sneaks up his face and grows over his body, roots itself in his bones and blooms over everything, protecting him in the umbrella of its petal-shadows. Grief can’t touch him. Grief can’t lay a fucking finger on him, because Jimin’s here, and he’s staying.
Taehyung can breathe again. He's staying. Jimin’s staying. The air rushes into his lungs in a shuddering, heaving inhale. Taehyung can only make out the silhouette of Jimin’s form in the mirror. He faces away from Jimin, he can’t handle looking at him now. Taehyung’s fingers clutch into his pillow.
Jimin doesn’t do anything, doesn’t say anything, just slips naked on top of the covers. But it’s okay. Because he’s here. Taehyung knows it: Jimin’s warmth radiates against his back, his presence as heavy and unquestionable as truth itself. Jimin’s breathing evens out quickly. They’re not facing each other, but Jimin’s still there.
Bruised joy. Taehyung bites down on his lip to stop it from shaking, but every part of him is trembling, separating, so light it floats away. His breaths are coming out so fast it’s like laughter.
And Taehyung remembers Jimin’s voice, the softest whisper, Oh, god, Taehyung, I love you. I love you.
He loves me.
I want you to be mine forever.
All of these things and more, they’re promises, they have to be. Taehyung’s heart pounds thickly in his veins. Jimin will never forget him. He can’t. Jimin wants him forever.
The dark night stills in fragments, and Taehyung’s mind draws inward in spheres, freezing the night into his memory until all he knows is him and Jimin, curled on the sheets like inverted quotations—the end of one sentence, the beginning of another.
Taehyung buries his triumphant, shaky grin into his pillow, meets his tear-reddened eyes in the mirror. His pupils are blown so dark.
His gloss tears at the corner of his lips. Hahahaha. Yes, Taehyung feels like laughing.
He's going in slow-motion. Ha-ha-ha-ha. His cushion foundation peels over his laugh lines.
His reflection’s mouth gapes open. Each syllable detaches.
Ha. Ha. Ha.