I'll take a quiet life, a handshake of carbon monoxide
r // taemin/jonghyun // ~5k w
-- wherein jonghyun is a vampire and
taemin helps him.
warnings: blood (duh). this is NOTHING
like twilight.
photo credit
music: no suprises by regina spektor (radiohead cover)
title is quoted from the first verse of said song.
A heart that's full up like a landfill,
a job that slowly kills you,
bruises that won't heal.
You look so tired-unhappy,
bring down the government,
they don't, they don't speak for us.
I'll take a quiet life,
a handshake of carbon monoxide,
1997
When Taemin was seven, kids at school liked to throw things at him.
Not really things that you plug in, just pencils and notebooks, a stapler every once in a while, just things.
Then there was a new kid-“My name’s Jonghyun, I just moved here.”-that stood between the flying things and Taemin, and shouted at the kids to stop.
Taemin didn’t think much of him before. But after that incident, Jonghyun turned out to be pretty useful.
Jonghyun turned out to be beautiful.
2011
Taemin’s been dragging bodies from the alley to his car for years. He’s gotten used to the weight now, the way the bones scratch against the pavement concealed in stretched, bruised skin.
It’s the struggling that still makes him twist and turn at night, makes guilt sleep right next to him. He has a friend that’s a nurse, has access to drugs and all that stuff.
“Thanks, man.”
“Yeah.” Minho doesn’t protest anymore, Taemin thinks. It has been years anyway. He’s probably sick of it. He used to argue about how he could get fired for what he was allowing Taemin to take from him, but Taemin always knew that Minho would give in. All Taemin had to do was be there. “Tell Jonghyun I said hi.”
Taemin tucks the bottle inside his coat pocket and bites his tongue.
Taemin and Jonghyun have been moving around from place to place, just masses of houses and apartments until they found the right one. A humble house with a beat up fence, right off the brink of exit 11. It’s perfect.
No stairs, no bordering houses, no police station in sight. The windows are painted black and most of the rooms don’t have windows anyway.
Taemin walks in cradling his victim in his arms, the keys caught in his mouth as he tries as best he can to drop the body on the couch without damaging it any further.
Jonghyun taught him years ago how the most Taemin can do is bruise a few times and drug them, basically he can grip at their arms, their wrists, their necks if he has to keep them from moving, just to be able to cover the cloth over their mouths-“Try to keep them alive.”
After locking the door, Taemin carries the body all the way to basement, in the middle of the empty lot. Above is a light bulb that switches open if he tugs at the metal brace.
The light isn’t strong but it glows enough for Taemin to realize that Jonghyun is behind him, under the stairs with his arms dangling over the spaces.
His eyes have gone extremely black, veins popping from random parts of his face and neck.
“Hey. Sorry, I got cau-“
“Later.” Jonghyun states.
It’s a warning. Taemin knows this.
That’s another thing he never got used to. The idea of being breakable… disposable in Jonghyun’s eyes on nights when his hunger is all he knows.
Taemin quivers inwardly, his gaze dropping to his hands where he spilled some of the drug earlier. “I should wash my hands anyway.” He says before jogging up the stairs, his heart beat skipping when he senses Jonghyun sniffing his scent from underneath.
He pulls at the door of the basement gently, closes his eyes and breathes.
Dinner.
He goes to the freezer and collects a plate of pork and tofu from last night, pops it in the microwave and reaches for a bowl to place his rice in. He tops the heated viand on his rice and walks to the living room, propping his feet atop the coffee table, one hand curved below his bowl, the other palming the sofa cushions for the remote, a scream erupts, slightly muffled from the basement.
Taemin shuts his eyes, his hand now working faster to find the remote. He feels it and hauls it over, clicks the television on and blasts the volume to 89.
2005
Jonghyun’s blocking the doorway, face hidden in the crook of the girl’s neck as he fractures her skin and muscles with his teeth, biting and sucking while tugging at her hair to make her neck more available.
While this is all happening, Taemin is at the other side of the door of the motel room, just arriving from the convenient store to buy them both food because Jonghyun was getting all moody earlier-“I’ve never been this hungry before…”
He asked Jonghyun what he wanted to eat and all Jonghyun could do was swear him off and tell him that he didn’t know that he needed so shut the fuck up or something.
Taemin didn’t know what that meant. He had no idea what it would lead to.
And he had never anticipated anything like this. He feels as if his heart is being sucked out from him, like his lungs are trying to fly away with it. The more Jonghyun just stays there, the more the girl’s eyes fall blank, the more Taemin is paralyzed.
It’s like watching a car crash close up, in slow motion, where it’s all fluid and extremely crisp. The blood. The panting. The sweat.
It ends with Jonghyun suddenly recognizes what he’s doing. He releases his hold on the girl and she slides from his mouth easily, thumping on the carpet with a final twitch, eyes wide open as her head lolls to the side and her wound is exposed in a punctured debauchery.
Jonghyun’s eyes are as round as saucers, the back of his hand stuck to his mouth as he walks back, stumbling over the dresser, shaking like he had woken up from a dream. He stares at the body while Taemin stares at him.
Without noticing, the plastic bag from Taemin’s hand slips and the packets crunch against the pavement.
And when Jonghyun’s gaze flicks to Taemin’s, Taemin spins and runs to catch up with his heartbeat.
“Taemin!” Jonghyun is calling after him.
Water burns Taemin’s eyes as he ignores Jonghyun’s voice, dashes for the stairs and slips on most of them on his way down.
He sprains his ankle and hits his head on the rail, pulling his weight up and failing when Jonghyun’s footsteps grow closer.
“Taemin-“
“Get-you! You stay the fuck away from me!”
“Shut up, Taemin, just-“
“Don’t touch me!”
Taemin just wants to run away. He isn’t thinking straight. He isn’t thinking at all when his hand comes flying to attach to Jonghyun’s face but even before the anticipated collision, Jonghyun makes a grab from his wrist and for that one moment, time stops.
Because how?
How the fuck did he move so fast?
What the fuck are they doing?
What’s happening?
Did Jonghyun just kill that girl?
Are… are those… he... “You..” Up close and with Jonghyun’s lips slightly parted… “… your teeth…”
Jonghyun clamps his mouth shut and without another second slipping past he hauls Taemin over his shoulder and carries him all the way back to their room.
He kicks the door back on the frame, steps over the body and drops Taemin on the bed. Taemin sits up, curls in with his legs hugged to his chest.
“Listen, there’s-“ Jonghyun halts abruptly to follow Taemin’s stare, all the way back to the corpse in the middle of the room. “Taemin.”
“She’s looking… at me.”
“She’s not looking anywhere.” Jonghyun tugs at the sheets from underneath Taemin and uses it to wrap the girl’s body in before slinging it over his shoulders with no trouble and walking to the bathroom where he hides it in the bath tub, using the shower drapes to cover it and walking back out.
When he comes back out Taemin is weeping on the balls of his knees. Jonghyun runs to him, melts on Taemin with his arms reaching.
Taemin shifts away. “You still smell like her.” Taemin rubs at his nose as if doing so would erase the scent… every trace of what he saw.
This is when Jonghyun decides to break down, when he sees his arms with strips of dried blood, when he can still taste her and remember how fulfilling it was. He rakes his hands through his hair, balling into his lap and rocking back and forth while Taemin watches him, shaking.
“There’s something wrong with me.” Jonghyun admits through his hands. “I know you don’t wanna talk about Key… but he did something to me, I swear to god, Taemin.”
“Jonghyun, I can’t really go over this again.”
“It’s not about-“ Jonghyun soothes his frustration with a sigh. “… Taemin, please. I need you to listen to me. He did something to me. I don’t know what or how, but he did.”
“How can you not know if you were there?”
“There was a lot happening and I… I can’t… I can’t remember all of it. Every time I try to my head literally draws blanks and I get… I get hungry… so hungry…” Jonghyun scratches the base of his neck where dusts of blood come off easy.
“Jonghyun…” Taemin begins to cry again. He hates crying. He hates what it does to him and he hates it especially when other people get to see him in such a state. He hasn’t cried this hard since he was younger.
2007
“Do you want her?” Taemin asks from his side of the table in the diner. He knows that Jonghyun has been staring at this one plump girl a few tables down.
Jonghyun might’ve blushed if he could; instead he averts his gaze and pretends to sip on his glass of coke. “This is flat.”
“I can get her for you if you want.”
“Maybe I can get another glass.” Jonghyun distracts himself by trying to find the waitress.
“If it will help. Your eyes have been that color for a while. And pig’s blood can’t be that good.” Taemin pushes the food on his plate around.
“What does a guy have to do to get some service around here.” Jonghyun yawns, his hands slipping into his jacket pockets.
“Maybe I can start sleeping with both my eyes closed.”
That catches Jonghyun’s attention. His smirk fades to a scowl and he looks indisputably insulted.
“I see the way you look at me sometimes.” Taemin accents while staring at his stir fried noodles. “I know what you’re thinking.”
Jonghyun scratches his chin, the glare meant for Taemin directed at one of the vacant chairs next to them. “I would never hurt you, you know that.”
“Not on purpose.”
Jonghyun swallows, jaw clenching tight as he stares daggers at Taemin, his irises as dark as night that it sends pins and needles to prick at Taemin’s nape. And it’s like Taemin can’t stare any harder, the way he looks at Jonghyun’s angles. Not much has really changed with his face. He looks exactly the way he did before this all began.
Jonghyun rises from his seat and slips a few bills on the table before walking out. Taemin remains in his seat and waits a few minutes before patting his mouth with his napkin and looking over his shoulder to smile at the girl behind him.
He shows up at Jonghyun’s door with the girl behind him and Jonghyun pulls him inside, excusing himself and Taemin from her, “I just need a quick word.”
He shuts the door back in place and slams Taemin against it with a ferocity that Taemin is all too familiar with. His sharp eyes are wild and soulless as they bore holes into Taemin’s.
Taemin wished that didn’t make his insides burn the way that it did, that it didn’t turn him on so much.
“Don’t test me, Taemin. What is she doing here?”
“I told her that I thought she was pretty.” Taemin’s eyelids are half closed, his fingers scanning the curve of Jonghyun’s waist.
Jonghyun claws at his hand and tosses it like a used rag, venom in his voice when he says, “So you fuck her and afterwards I get to suck the life out of her, is that it?”
“No.” Taemin whispers as he snakes his arms along Jonghyun’s neck and clings to him.
“Taemin.” Jonghyun’s voice is suddenly weak, his hands flying to pry Taemin’s arms away, to get some distance in between them. They can’t be this close. Not now. “Taemin, come on.”
“You haven’t made love to me in such a long time.” Taemin keeps his arms strong around Jonghyun’s neck, dropping pecks of kisses along his jaw line. Jonghyun flinches and grunts but Taemin knows that if Jonghyun wanted to, he could fling Taemin with just a snap of his fingers. Taemin presses his crotch against Jonghyun’s thigh and grinds just enough for Jonghyun to feel his erection outlining his jeans. “When she walks in I want you to drink her blood the way you would drink mine. Bury the body away, come home to me and fuck me.”
“Taemin…” Jonghyun’s hands slide under Taemin’s shirt, already lifted at the hem and he’s torn between wanting to ravish Taemin and flesh him inside out. And Taemin knows this more than anyone. And it turns Jonghyun on even more when he thinks of the possibility of Taemin entertaining the idea of it. “Oh god, Taemin.”
Taemin nibbles on Jonghyun’s earlobe before walking into the room and shutting the door. Jonghyun breathes in, weighing his options before prying the door open and finding the girl still there, on the steps observing her nails.
“Hey.” She greets as he helps her up. Her skirt and blouse pop a bit when she moves, offering Jonghyun peeks of her flesh. “Where’s your friend?”
“He’s inside.”
Her expression turns lustful and Jonghyun tries to remember that people will still miss her when she’s gone. “I hope that’s an invitation.”
And with that Jonghyun dismisses his earlier idea to just send her home and opt for one of the pig blood bags he still has in his fridge. The world doesn’t need more people like her. He can’t be a judge for shit but when life offers you an open target, 9 times out of 10 you’re going to take advantage of it.
And when he crunches his teeth against her rupturing skin, her scream drowning into a raspy screech, half of Taemin appears from the door frame of the room, watching with one eye as Jonghyun gets his fix.
Jonghyun knows he’s near. He can smell Taemin from the distance. When he looks up from the girl’s neck their eyes meet and there’s electricity-the disturbing kind that’s entirely misplaced.
But Jonghyun feels it. And Taemin feels it. Taemin’s fingers trace over his lips as he studies Jonghyun’s mouth stretched over the girl’s neck. Jonghyun feels disgusted when he realizes how much he likes that Taemin’s watching him so shyly from the doorway, not brave enough to step out so he just stays there silently.
Jonghyun pulls at the girl’s hair until her neck breaks and the bones create a brutal orchestra of cracks that makes Taemin flinch from where he’s standing.
When Jonghyun has had his fill he stands up, dumps the body on the floor and with the blood still trickling from his mouth to his shirt, he runs to Taemin and connects their mouths, pushes his tongue to dance languidly with Taemin’s in a rough choreography.
Taemin moans at the iron pang, gripping at Jonghyun’s shirt so his knees won’t give in. The kiss awakens him into something that he never thought he would understand, let alone want. And it makes every goosebump on his skin tell a story of how he fell in love.
Taemin walks backwards, taking Jonghyun with him to the bed and both boys tumble over one another, painting the sheets with crimson blots. “The body..” Jonghyun tries between kisses.
“No time.” Taemin turns them both over so that he ends up straddling Jonghyun and discarding his shirt. Jonghyun sits up to do the same and when he’s done Taemin pushes him back down on the bed, their heated skin reveling in the friction of being dragged against each other. Taemin nips at the blood on Jonghyun’s mouth, on his chest, on his neck and at the same time bucks his hips forward repeatedly.
Jonghyun’s clutching at his back tight enough to bruise and Taemin wishes that he would. He wants Jonghyun on him one way or another. He wants a mark of territory, an unspoken promise set in his skin. He wants to be defiled tonight.
Or, maybe… he wants to defile Jonghyun. And maybe, in some sick way, he was incredible jealous of that girl earlier.
Taemin flips Jonghyun over and pushes him down on the mattress, tugs on both their pants and boxers and rubs his own length while bending over, chin digging into the valley of Jonghyun’s back. “Taemin, you have to…”
“I know.” Taemin wiggles down, his tongue never leaving the vertebrae of Jonghyun’s back. Jonghyun’s hands push on the pillows, just so he can grip at something while Taemin finds Jonghyun’s hole. He parts the cheeks with twin claws and spits. Right after, he licks his fingers and tries one finger in. He’s never done this before, only running on what has been done to him.
“All the way in…” Jonghyun instruct breathlessly.
Taemin knows. And he’s getting sick of Jonghyun’s voice. So he inserts another finger in to shut him up but it only makes Jonghyun squirm and groan. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, that fucking hurts.”
Taemin rest his weight in his knees as he sits up, one palm flat on the curve of Jonghyun’s ass, the other still working two fingers inside Jonghyun, curving in a crook and twisting according to the tones of Jonghyun’s moans.
And when Taemin is able to scissor his fingers apart without Jonghyun telling him to stop, he releases his fingers and drives into Jonghyun without much restraint, without the care that Jonghyun does.
Maybe it’s a type of punishment. Not just for the girl earlier, but for every person he’s ever done that to. It’s ridiculous and utterly peculiar, the way that Taemin feels and he doesn’t understand it at all. All he knows is that Jonghyun being helpless beneath him helps a little.
2008
He shouldn’t have forced it. He shouldn’t have tried to get the girl with the boyfriend. But she seemed clean and Taemin knows that Jonghyun would like her. And he tried, he really did, but by the time he was about to make his move at the back of the club her boyfriend came pouncing in and the knife he had tucked in his pants somehow ended up bladed into his thigh.
The girl must’ve called an ambulance when she managed to usher herself and her boyfriend away because the wang wang commotion reaches his ears in the nick of time, right before his blood runs out.
In the emergency room, a nurse comes to his rescue, tall guy with legs that go for miles. And his eyes never quit, large perfectly framed. Taemin notices this after the procedure, when blood is transferred back to his system and he can breathe normally and the entire world isn’t spinning a mile a minute.
In the midst of everything, Taemin falls into a deep sleep, only to come to with a vague register of the nurse checking his temperature.
“Hey, little guy.” He says with a nod and a slight smirk.
“Am I dead?” it’s the first question in Taemin’s head.
“You’re a little young for that, don’t you think?” The nurse jokes, jotting down on his pad whatever results he got from Taemin’s vitals. “Your heartbeat is still irregular and your blood pressure is pretty low. So I think we’re gonna keep you hear for some monitoring.”
“What?” Taemin sits up so quickly, the wires tug at his skin. He is dizzily lead back down on the bed.
“Woah, woah. Easy there, tiger.”
“I can’t.” Taemin’s throat is sand paper rough. “I can’t stay here.”
“It’s just for a night or two. We can’t let you go like this.”
“No, you don’t understand, I-“
“Listen, I don’t usually beg.” The nurse goes down on his knees and bows. Taemin stares with his mouth open. “If I let you go I could lose my job. And it’s selfish, I know, but it’s the practical truth.”
“Please stand up.”
“Promise me you won’t leave.”
“I just-“
“Please!” The nurse emphasizes with a slight crack in his voice and Taemin can’t help but raise his brow and smile.
“Maybe for a night.”
And just like that the nurse dusts himself off and stands. “Good.”
He goes back to Taemin’s chart and takes quick observations of Taemin’s IV drip before leaving the chart back on the holder by the foot of the bed.
“Sorry about earlier, the begging and all.” The nurse says again, tucking his thermometer back in its case and in his chest pocket. “I just hate it when people die of blood loss.”
Taemin doesn’t mean to look away when the nurse says that but he does, and he blinks at the needle in his arm.
“It was a joke.” The nurse amends right after Taemin’s uncertainty. “I just-you work at a hospital you develop a certain type of humor.”
“No, yeah, I get it.” Taemin tries a weak smile without looking back at the nurse. “I think I’m just tired.”
“Of course.” The nurse plants his hands on his waist. “We’ll have a room ready for you in a few then I’ll transfer you.”
Half an hour later a room opens up and Taemin is placed in a gurney where he is lead by the same nurse all the way to his room.
“I can manage.” Taemin says when the nurse is about to lift him to his bed from the gurney.
“Do you want me to call anyone for you?” The nurse says after Taemin is tucked in his bed. “Friends, family? That could stay with you tonight?”
“No.”
The nurse frowns. “You sure?”
Taemin opens his mouth a few times but ends up saying nothing until finally, “What’s your name?”
“Choi Minho.”
“Can I call you Minho?”
“Sure.” Taemin catches the slight flush that reaches Minho’s cheeks. “And you’re Taemin.”
“How’d you-my chart.”
“I know you inside and out.” Minho smiles wider.
“Can you stay with me?”
To this Minho bites his lip and shifts his weight from one foot to the other. “I… I’m on duty and I have rounds to-“
“Of course, yeah, sorry.”
“My shift ends in four hours.”
Taemin looks up and meets Minho’s eyes. “Four hours.”
“It’s in a while, yeah but you’re obviously not going anywhere.”
Taemin raises his needled hands slightly only to have them land back on the mattress.
“Yeah.” Minho chuckles. “So, I’ll see you then maybe. Earlier, actually. You have painkillers in an hour and half from now. So there are two things to look forward to.”
Minho shuts the door with a click.
As much as Taemin doesn’t want Jonghyun to worry, he can’t just call him and expect him to stay at home. Not when it’s still night out. He decides to give him a call early in the morning.
2008 - Christmas
“Where were you?” Jonghyun is watching television, rubbing sleep out of his eyes on the couch.
“I ran into Minho when I was at the mall. We had a few drinks.” Taemin answers as he hangs his scarf and leaves his Christmas present by the door to hide it from Jonghyun.
“Who?”
“Minho.” Taemin brings in the takeout he bought on the way over as he enters the living room and plops on the couch next to Jonghyun. The cushions are still warm where he slept on. “He was my nurse when I had that accident, remember?”
Jonghyun shakes his head.
“Figures. You scared him half to death when you waltzed in the night after.”
“I was worried.”
“He wasn’t the one who stabbed me, you know.”
“Whatever.” Jonghyun dismisses the conversation with a wave of his hand, taking a cushion from behind him and hugging it. “Did you have fun?”
“Huh?” Taemin is placing the takeout boxes on the coffee table, glancing at Jonghyun over his shoulder. “It was okay. He’s going back to school for his medical degree so that’s pretty cool.”
“I didn’t think you guys were close.”
Taemin pauses then pats his hands on the front of his jeans. “What are you thinking?”
Jonghyun shrugs, his gaze dragging over Taemin’s body.
“You’re trying to smell him on me, are you?”
Jonghyun tilts his head forward to scratch his neck.
“Fine. You don’t wanna talk about it. But just for good measure, nothing happened.”
Jonghyun grinds his teeth together, pinching the loose thread attached to the cushion.
Taemin rolls his eyes, taking one of the takeout boxes and handing it to Jonghyun.
Jonghyun pushes it away. “I’m just gonna throw it up in a few minutes.”
“But you promised you’d always eat with me.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“That’s a first.”
Jonghyun takes the box and chucks it at the television screen. The noodles spatter all over the surface and smudge at the reporter’s 2D face.
Taemin’s eyes bulge out of its sockets. “Jonghyun!”
Jonghyun rises from the couch before Taemin can say anything else and aims for the back door.
Taemin marches after him, pulling at his shirt.
“Let me go.”
“Jonghyun, what the hell-“
Jonghyun doesn’t calculate his strength when he shoves Taemin away and Taemin ends up flying all the way to the opposite wall, slamming against the wood and creating a crack slightly before falling to the floor.
“Fuck.” Jonghyun rasps and dashes to Taemin’s coughing form, sliding against the floor tiles to get to him. “Taemin. Taemin. Fuck, I’m so sorry.”
Taemin fights to keep his eyes from watering. And he turns his head away when Jonghyun tries to clip his chin between his fingers. He falters in Jonghyun’s arms and Jonghyun cradles him, rubbing at his shoulders, his back and whispering I love you’s with a grainy tone.
Taemin doesn’t have to say it back. But he loves Jonghyun so much it’s going to kill him.
2009
“Taemin, it’s not that I can’t, okay. I just. I need to know what you need it for.”
Taemin fans himself with the collar of his shirt. The stock room of the hospital was stuffy as fuck. “It’s… I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“It’s not exactly legal.”
“That, I already know.” Minho crosses his arms. “Just tell me what you need it for.”
“Minho… I need you to trust me right now.”
“Taemin, you’re not asking me to trust you. You’re asking me to follow you without question. And unless you’re Jesus I don’t think this is a good idea.”
“I don’t…” Taemin starts just as Minho reaches for the doorknob. “I don’t have anyone else to turn to. And you’re the closest that I have to… just… please. Please do this for me.”
Minho’s eyelids flutter before he looks away. He begins staring at the door then back at Taemin.
And as much as Minho had the power in this whole situation, he ends up in the center of Taemin’s palm.
After that, Minho begins to act weird. He starts texting Taemin in the middle of the night, starts asking Taemin questions about his relationship with Jonghyun.
And one drunken phone call leads Minho to declaring to Taemin how much better he is than Jonghyun. And how he can take care of Taemin.
Taemin runs out of the house in the middle of dinner, leaves Jonghyun to stare at his back before replying, “You don’t know that, Minho.”
“Yes.” Minho slurs. “Yes, I do. Can’t you see what he does to you? I just know that the drugs you get are for him. And everything else in your life like being stabbed before and all like Taemin I would never let that happen to you.”
“He didn’t know about those things. I chose to keep them from him, okay? You should get some sleep.”
“Taemin, I can make your life so much easier. Just come to me. I promise you.”
“That’s true.” Taemin knows it. Minho knows it. And maybe even in the darkest part of Jonghyun’s mind, he knows it too. “... but I don’t mind a challenge.”
“Taemin…”
“Goodnight, Minho.”
He shuts his phone, walks back inside his house and kisses Jonghyun until he’s breathless.
2011
Jonghyun falls asleep with his mouth open and Taemin sits up, awake in the dark with his back pressed against the headboard.
He observes the quiet ins and outs of Jonghyun’s breathing, wonder how someone who isn’t alive breathes so lively in his sleep. He wonders if Jonghyun dreams at all or if he doesn’t dream and only passes out. He read about how Jonghyun would never change in his physicality and it turned out true. And he still is bothered by the thought of everything… about looking through their old photographs and never seeing Jonghyun in any pictures after 2005… however, there’s this hold that he can’t rid himself off. And he’s wished time and time again that it was that easy.
But Jonghyun was always there for him. And maybe, this wasn’t an obligation or a sense of gratitude. This was just him deciding that he wanted to be just as good for Jonghyun as he was for Taemin.
Taemin raises a hand and lets it hover over Jonghyun’s nose, reducing it to just a finger when it traces the air above his mouth. And ever so slightly, he pulls at Jonghyun’s bottom lip and places his finger over one of the sharper lower teeth…
He pricks himself without realizing it and Jonghyun wakes with a start, sitting up and pulling away from Taemin with his hand over his mouth. He stares at Taemin in the dark, shell shocked. His tongue runs over his teeth and he tastes Taemin, burning his mouth so fiercely that he has to get up and create distance.
Taemin gets on all fours, like he’s offering himself. The blanket slips from his naked body and sits on his calves, finger still open and wounded. His heart is pounding like five hundred drums simultaneously. Like’s he’s about to jump off of something really steep and high and it starts to ache, his chest and his entire body.
Jonghyun backs up until he hits the wall. “What are you doing?” He whispers, even when he knows.
“I thought that maybe if you… if you just knew what I tasted like… you wouldn’t crave for me so much.” Taemin explains from his side, unmoving. “I… I wanted you to know.”
“Taemin, you can’t do that.”
“I don’t mind, you know.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’ve thought about it a few times. About what it would be like to be… like you. And I don’t think I mind.”
“Taemin-“
“I know. I won’t… I won’t force you to do it or anything. I can wait some more. I just wanted you to know.”
Jonghyun removes his hands from his mouth, leaves them to hang by his sides. “Know what?”
“That I’m ready whenever you are.”
“Taemin, you don’t know what you’re asking-”
“I love you, Jonghyun. It’s all I’ve ever known. I’ll give you all the life you need. Even my own.”
2005
“I don’t really feel like going to a club tonight.” Taemin fiddles with the phone cord as he nibbles on his bottom lip, listening to the exasperated sigh that resonates from the other end of the line.
“It’s not like we go every night.” Jonghyun argues.
“I know that, but I kind of.. I don’t know. I just don’t feel like it.”
“But I wanna see you.”
Taemin smiles, looks down and lies on his back. “You can come over.”
“Your parents still mad at me?”
“That never stopped you before.”
“Taemin, I’m getting tired of climbing up your window. And besides, I kinda promised this guy Key, I’d show up.”
“Who?”
“Key. I told you about him before. He’s the owner, I think? Yeah, he gave me a plus one so I could bring you.”
Taemin remembers seeing Key once when Jonghyun and him were just leaving school. The guy came up to them to talk to Jonghyun and apparently he knew Jonghyun through a friend of a friend. Or something akin to that. “Doesn’t that guy have a thing for you?”
“Can you blame him?”
“You’re a moron.” Taemin replies with a frown. “Just come over.”
“I’ll see. After the club, okay. I’ll just stop by then I’ll come see you.”
“Do you have to go?”
“I said I would. But I won’t stay long. I’ll see you right after. I’ll text you when I get there.”
Taemin twists the cord around his finger, thinking that there was nothing else he could do. “Okay.”
*masterficlist | tumblr | comment here to be added
-- this actually turned out
less dramatic than i thought. :|
won't lock this coz... well,
i'm actually happy with it. lol.
-- wherein jonghyun is a vampire and
taemin helps him.
warnings: blood (duh). this is NOTHING
like twilight.
photo credit
music: no suprises by regina spektor (radiohead cover)
title is quoted from the first verse of said song.
A heart that's full up like a landfill,
a job that slowly kills you,
bruises that won't heal.
You look so tired-unhappy,
bring down the government,
they don't, they don't speak for us.
I'll take a quiet life,
a handshake of carbon monoxide,
1997
When Taemin was seven, kids at school liked to throw things at him.
Not really things that you plug in, just pencils and notebooks, a stapler every once in a while, just things.
Then there was a new kid-“My name’s Jonghyun, I just moved here.”-that stood between the flying things and Taemin, and shouted at the kids to stop.
Taemin didn’t think much of him before. But after that incident, Jonghyun turned out to be pretty useful.
Jonghyun turned out to be beautiful.
2011
Taemin’s been dragging bodies from the alley to his car for years. He’s gotten used to the weight now, the way the bones scratch against the pavement concealed in stretched, bruised skin.
It’s the struggling that still makes him twist and turn at night, makes guilt sleep right next to him. He has a friend that’s a nurse, has access to drugs and all that stuff.
“Thanks, man.”
“Yeah.” Minho doesn’t protest anymore, Taemin thinks. It has been years anyway. He’s probably sick of it. He used to argue about how he could get fired for what he was allowing Taemin to take from him, but Taemin always knew that Minho would give in. All Taemin had to do was be there. “Tell Jonghyun I said hi.”
Taemin tucks the bottle inside his coat pocket and bites his tongue.
Taemin and Jonghyun have been moving around from place to place, just masses of houses and apartments until they found the right one. A humble house with a beat up fence, right off the brink of exit 11. It’s perfect.
No stairs, no bordering houses, no police station in sight. The windows are painted black and most of the rooms don’t have windows anyway.
Taemin walks in cradling his victim in his arms, the keys caught in his mouth as he tries as best he can to drop the body on the couch without damaging it any further.
Jonghyun taught him years ago how the most Taemin can do is bruise a few times and drug them, basically he can grip at their arms, their wrists, their necks if he has to keep them from moving, just to be able to cover the cloth over their mouths-“Try to keep them alive.”
After locking the door, Taemin carries the body all the way to basement, in the middle of the empty lot. Above is a light bulb that switches open if he tugs at the metal brace.
The light isn’t strong but it glows enough for Taemin to realize that Jonghyun is behind him, under the stairs with his arms dangling over the spaces.
His eyes have gone extremely black, veins popping from random parts of his face and neck.
“Hey. Sorry, I got cau-“
“Later.” Jonghyun states.
It’s a warning. Taemin knows this.
That’s another thing he never got used to. The idea of being breakable… disposable in Jonghyun’s eyes on nights when his hunger is all he knows.
Taemin quivers inwardly, his gaze dropping to his hands where he spilled some of the drug earlier. “I should wash my hands anyway.” He says before jogging up the stairs, his heart beat skipping when he senses Jonghyun sniffing his scent from underneath.
He pulls at the door of the basement gently, closes his eyes and breathes.
Dinner.
He goes to the freezer and collects a plate of pork and tofu from last night, pops it in the microwave and reaches for a bowl to place his rice in. He tops the heated viand on his rice and walks to the living room, propping his feet atop the coffee table, one hand curved below his bowl, the other palming the sofa cushions for the remote, a scream erupts, slightly muffled from the basement.
Taemin shuts his eyes, his hand now working faster to find the remote. He feels it and hauls it over, clicks the television on and blasts the volume to 89.
2005
Jonghyun’s blocking the doorway, face hidden in the crook of the girl’s neck as he fractures her skin and muscles with his teeth, biting and sucking while tugging at her hair to make her neck more available.
While this is all happening, Taemin is at the other side of the door of the motel room, just arriving from the convenient store to buy them both food because Jonghyun was getting all moody earlier-“I’ve never been this hungry before…”
He asked Jonghyun what he wanted to eat and all Jonghyun could do was swear him off and tell him that he didn’t know that he needed so shut the fuck up or something.
Taemin didn’t know what that meant. He had no idea what it would lead to.
And he had never anticipated anything like this. He feels as if his heart is being sucked out from him, like his lungs are trying to fly away with it. The more Jonghyun just stays there, the more the girl’s eyes fall blank, the more Taemin is paralyzed.
It’s like watching a car crash close up, in slow motion, where it’s all fluid and extremely crisp. The blood. The panting. The sweat.
It ends with Jonghyun suddenly recognizes what he’s doing. He releases his hold on the girl and she slides from his mouth easily, thumping on the carpet with a final twitch, eyes wide open as her head lolls to the side and her wound is exposed in a punctured debauchery.
Jonghyun’s eyes are as round as saucers, the back of his hand stuck to his mouth as he walks back, stumbling over the dresser, shaking like he had woken up from a dream. He stares at the body while Taemin stares at him.
Without noticing, the plastic bag from Taemin’s hand slips and the packets crunch against the pavement.
And when Jonghyun’s gaze flicks to Taemin’s, Taemin spins and runs to catch up with his heartbeat.
“Taemin!” Jonghyun is calling after him.
Water burns Taemin’s eyes as he ignores Jonghyun’s voice, dashes for the stairs and slips on most of them on his way down.
He sprains his ankle and hits his head on the rail, pulling his weight up and failing when Jonghyun’s footsteps grow closer.
“Taemin-“
“Get-you! You stay the fuck away from me!”
“Shut up, Taemin, just-“
“Don’t touch me!”
Taemin just wants to run away. He isn’t thinking straight. He isn’t thinking at all when his hand comes flying to attach to Jonghyun’s face but even before the anticipated collision, Jonghyun makes a grab from his wrist and for that one moment, time stops.
Because how?
How the fuck did he move so fast?
What the fuck are they doing?
What’s happening?
Did Jonghyun just kill that girl?
Are… are those… he... “You..” Up close and with Jonghyun’s lips slightly parted… “… your teeth…”
Jonghyun clamps his mouth shut and without another second slipping past he hauls Taemin over his shoulder and carries him all the way back to their room.
He kicks the door back on the frame, steps over the body and drops Taemin on the bed. Taemin sits up, curls in with his legs hugged to his chest.
“Listen, there’s-“ Jonghyun halts abruptly to follow Taemin’s stare, all the way back to the corpse in the middle of the room. “Taemin.”
“She’s looking… at me.”
“She’s not looking anywhere.” Jonghyun tugs at the sheets from underneath Taemin and uses it to wrap the girl’s body in before slinging it over his shoulders with no trouble and walking to the bathroom where he hides it in the bath tub, using the shower drapes to cover it and walking back out.
When he comes back out Taemin is weeping on the balls of his knees. Jonghyun runs to him, melts on Taemin with his arms reaching.
Taemin shifts away. “You still smell like her.” Taemin rubs at his nose as if doing so would erase the scent… every trace of what he saw.
This is when Jonghyun decides to break down, when he sees his arms with strips of dried blood, when he can still taste her and remember how fulfilling it was. He rakes his hands through his hair, balling into his lap and rocking back and forth while Taemin watches him, shaking.
“There’s something wrong with me.” Jonghyun admits through his hands. “I know you don’t wanna talk about Key… but he did something to me, I swear to god, Taemin.”
“Jonghyun, I can’t really go over this again.”
“It’s not about-“ Jonghyun soothes his frustration with a sigh. “… Taemin, please. I need you to listen to me. He did something to me. I don’t know what or how, but he did.”
“How can you not know if you were there?”
“There was a lot happening and I… I can’t… I can’t remember all of it. Every time I try to my head literally draws blanks and I get… I get hungry… so hungry…” Jonghyun scratches the base of his neck where dusts of blood come off easy.
“Jonghyun…” Taemin begins to cry again. He hates crying. He hates what it does to him and he hates it especially when other people get to see him in such a state. He hasn’t cried this hard since he was younger.
2007
“Do you want her?” Taemin asks from his side of the table in the diner. He knows that Jonghyun has been staring at this one plump girl a few tables down.
Jonghyun might’ve blushed if he could; instead he averts his gaze and pretends to sip on his glass of coke. “This is flat.”
“I can get her for you if you want.”
“Maybe I can get another glass.” Jonghyun distracts himself by trying to find the waitress.
“If it will help. Your eyes have been that color for a while. And pig’s blood can’t be that good.” Taemin pushes the food on his plate around.
“What does a guy have to do to get some service around here.” Jonghyun yawns, his hands slipping into his jacket pockets.
“Maybe I can start sleeping with both my eyes closed.”
That catches Jonghyun’s attention. His smirk fades to a scowl and he looks indisputably insulted.
“I see the way you look at me sometimes.” Taemin accents while staring at his stir fried noodles. “I know what you’re thinking.”
Jonghyun scratches his chin, the glare meant for Taemin directed at one of the vacant chairs next to them. “I would never hurt you, you know that.”
“Not on purpose.”
Jonghyun swallows, jaw clenching tight as he stares daggers at Taemin, his irises as dark as night that it sends pins and needles to prick at Taemin’s nape. And it’s like Taemin can’t stare any harder, the way he looks at Jonghyun’s angles. Not much has really changed with his face. He looks exactly the way he did before this all began.
Jonghyun rises from his seat and slips a few bills on the table before walking out. Taemin remains in his seat and waits a few minutes before patting his mouth with his napkin and looking over his shoulder to smile at the girl behind him.
He shows up at Jonghyun’s door with the girl behind him and Jonghyun pulls him inside, excusing himself and Taemin from her, “I just need a quick word.”
He shuts the door back in place and slams Taemin against it with a ferocity that Taemin is all too familiar with. His sharp eyes are wild and soulless as they bore holes into Taemin’s.
Taemin wished that didn’t make his insides burn the way that it did, that it didn’t turn him on so much.
“Don’t test me, Taemin. What is she doing here?”
“I told her that I thought she was pretty.” Taemin’s eyelids are half closed, his fingers scanning the curve of Jonghyun’s waist.
Jonghyun claws at his hand and tosses it like a used rag, venom in his voice when he says, “So you fuck her and afterwards I get to suck the life out of her, is that it?”
“No.” Taemin whispers as he snakes his arms along Jonghyun’s neck and clings to him.
“Taemin.” Jonghyun’s voice is suddenly weak, his hands flying to pry Taemin’s arms away, to get some distance in between them. They can’t be this close. Not now. “Taemin, come on.”
“You haven’t made love to me in such a long time.” Taemin keeps his arms strong around Jonghyun’s neck, dropping pecks of kisses along his jaw line. Jonghyun flinches and grunts but Taemin knows that if Jonghyun wanted to, he could fling Taemin with just a snap of his fingers. Taemin presses his crotch against Jonghyun’s thigh and grinds just enough for Jonghyun to feel his erection outlining his jeans. “When she walks in I want you to drink her blood the way you would drink mine. Bury the body away, come home to me and fuck me.”
“Taemin…” Jonghyun’s hands slide under Taemin’s shirt, already lifted at the hem and he’s torn between wanting to ravish Taemin and flesh him inside out. And Taemin knows this more than anyone. And it turns Jonghyun on even more when he thinks of the possibility of Taemin entertaining the idea of it. “Oh god, Taemin.”
Taemin nibbles on Jonghyun’s earlobe before walking into the room and shutting the door. Jonghyun breathes in, weighing his options before prying the door open and finding the girl still there, on the steps observing her nails.
“Hey.” She greets as he helps her up. Her skirt and blouse pop a bit when she moves, offering Jonghyun peeks of her flesh. “Where’s your friend?”
“He’s inside.”
Her expression turns lustful and Jonghyun tries to remember that people will still miss her when she’s gone. “I hope that’s an invitation.”
And with that Jonghyun dismisses his earlier idea to just send her home and opt for one of the pig blood bags he still has in his fridge. The world doesn’t need more people like her. He can’t be a judge for shit but when life offers you an open target, 9 times out of 10 you’re going to take advantage of it.
And when he crunches his teeth against her rupturing skin, her scream drowning into a raspy screech, half of Taemin appears from the door frame of the room, watching with one eye as Jonghyun gets his fix.
Jonghyun knows he’s near. He can smell Taemin from the distance. When he looks up from the girl’s neck their eyes meet and there’s electricity-the disturbing kind that’s entirely misplaced.
But Jonghyun feels it. And Taemin feels it. Taemin’s fingers trace over his lips as he studies Jonghyun’s mouth stretched over the girl’s neck. Jonghyun feels disgusted when he realizes how much he likes that Taemin’s watching him so shyly from the doorway, not brave enough to step out so he just stays there silently.
Jonghyun pulls at the girl’s hair until her neck breaks and the bones create a brutal orchestra of cracks that makes Taemin flinch from where he’s standing.
When Jonghyun has had his fill he stands up, dumps the body on the floor and with the blood still trickling from his mouth to his shirt, he runs to Taemin and connects their mouths, pushes his tongue to dance languidly with Taemin’s in a rough choreography.
Taemin moans at the iron pang, gripping at Jonghyun’s shirt so his knees won’t give in. The kiss awakens him into something that he never thought he would understand, let alone want. And it makes every goosebump on his skin tell a story of how he fell in love.
Taemin walks backwards, taking Jonghyun with him to the bed and both boys tumble over one another, painting the sheets with crimson blots. “The body..” Jonghyun tries between kisses.
“No time.” Taemin turns them both over so that he ends up straddling Jonghyun and discarding his shirt. Jonghyun sits up to do the same and when he’s done Taemin pushes him back down on the bed, their heated skin reveling in the friction of being dragged against each other. Taemin nips at the blood on Jonghyun’s mouth, on his chest, on his neck and at the same time bucks his hips forward repeatedly.
Jonghyun’s clutching at his back tight enough to bruise and Taemin wishes that he would. He wants Jonghyun on him one way or another. He wants a mark of territory, an unspoken promise set in his skin. He wants to be defiled tonight.
Or, maybe… he wants to defile Jonghyun. And maybe, in some sick way, he was incredible jealous of that girl earlier.
Taemin flips Jonghyun over and pushes him down on the mattress, tugs on both their pants and boxers and rubs his own length while bending over, chin digging into the valley of Jonghyun’s back. “Taemin, you have to…”
“I know.” Taemin wiggles down, his tongue never leaving the vertebrae of Jonghyun’s back. Jonghyun’s hands push on the pillows, just so he can grip at something while Taemin finds Jonghyun’s hole. He parts the cheeks with twin claws and spits. Right after, he licks his fingers and tries one finger in. He’s never done this before, only running on what has been done to him.
“All the way in…” Jonghyun instruct breathlessly.
Taemin knows. And he’s getting sick of Jonghyun’s voice. So he inserts another finger in to shut him up but it only makes Jonghyun squirm and groan. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, that fucking hurts.”
Taemin rest his weight in his knees as he sits up, one palm flat on the curve of Jonghyun’s ass, the other still working two fingers inside Jonghyun, curving in a crook and twisting according to the tones of Jonghyun’s moans.
And when Taemin is able to scissor his fingers apart without Jonghyun telling him to stop, he releases his fingers and drives into Jonghyun without much restraint, without the care that Jonghyun does.
Maybe it’s a type of punishment. Not just for the girl earlier, but for every person he’s ever done that to. It’s ridiculous and utterly peculiar, the way that Taemin feels and he doesn’t understand it at all. All he knows is that Jonghyun being helpless beneath him helps a little.
2008
He shouldn’t have forced it. He shouldn’t have tried to get the girl with the boyfriend. But she seemed clean and Taemin knows that Jonghyun would like her. And he tried, he really did, but by the time he was about to make his move at the back of the club her boyfriend came pouncing in and the knife he had tucked in his pants somehow ended up bladed into his thigh.
The girl must’ve called an ambulance when she managed to usher herself and her boyfriend away because the wang wang commotion reaches his ears in the nick of time, right before his blood runs out.
In the emergency room, a nurse comes to his rescue, tall guy with legs that go for miles. And his eyes never quit, large perfectly framed. Taemin notices this after the procedure, when blood is transferred back to his system and he can breathe normally and the entire world isn’t spinning a mile a minute.
In the midst of everything, Taemin falls into a deep sleep, only to come to with a vague register of the nurse checking his temperature.
“Hey, little guy.” He says with a nod and a slight smirk.
“Am I dead?” it’s the first question in Taemin’s head.
“You’re a little young for that, don’t you think?” The nurse jokes, jotting down on his pad whatever results he got from Taemin’s vitals. “Your heartbeat is still irregular and your blood pressure is pretty low. So I think we’re gonna keep you hear for some monitoring.”
“What?” Taemin sits up so quickly, the wires tug at his skin. He is dizzily lead back down on the bed.
“Woah, woah. Easy there, tiger.”
“I can’t.” Taemin’s throat is sand paper rough. “I can’t stay here.”
“It’s just for a night or two. We can’t let you go like this.”
“No, you don’t understand, I-“
“Listen, I don’t usually beg.” The nurse goes down on his knees and bows. Taemin stares with his mouth open. “If I let you go I could lose my job. And it’s selfish, I know, but it’s the practical truth.”
“Please stand up.”
“Promise me you won’t leave.”
“I just-“
“Please!” The nurse emphasizes with a slight crack in his voice and Taemin can’t help but raise his brow and smile.
“Maybe for a night.”
And just like that the nurse dusts himself off and stands. “Good.”
He goes back to Taemin’s chart and takes quick observations of Taemin’s IV drip before leaving the chart back on the holder by the foot of the bed.
“Sorry about earlier, the begging and all.” The nurse says again, tucking his thermometer back in its case and in his chest pocket. “I just hate it when people die of blood loss.”
Taemin doesn’t mean to look away when the nurse says that but he does, and he blinks at the needle in his arm.
“It was a joke.” The nurse amends right after Taemin’s uncertainty. “I just-you work at a hospital you develop a certain type of humor.”
“No, yeah, I get it.” Taemin tries a weak smile without looking back at the nurse. “I think I’m just tired.”
“Of course.” The nurse plants his hands on his waist. “We’ll have a room ready for you in a few then I’ll transfer you.”
Half an hour later a room opens up and Taemin is placed in a gurney where he is lead by the same nurse all the way to his room.
“I can manage.” Taemin says when the nurse is about to lift him to his bed from the gurney.
“Do you want me to call anyone for you?” The nurse says after Taemin is tucked in his bed. “Friends, family? That could stay with you tonight?”
“No.”
The nurse frowns. “You sure?”
Taemin opens his mouth a few times but ends up saying nothing until finally, “What’s your name?”
“Choi Minho.”
“Can I call you Minho?”
“Sure.” Taemin catches the slight flush that reaches Minho’s cheeks. “And you’re Taemin.”
“How’d you-my chart.”
“I know you inside and out.” Minho smiles wider.
“Can you stay with me?”
To this Minho bites his lip and shifts his weight from one foot to the other. “I… I’m on duty and I have rounds to-“
“Of course, yeah, sorry.”
“My shift ends in four hours.”
Taemin looks up and meets Minho’s eyes. “Four hours.”
“It’s in a while, yeah but you’re obviously not going anywhere.”
Taemin raises his needled hands slightly only to have them land back on the mattress.
“Yeah.” Minho chuckles. “So, I’ll see you then maybe. Earlier, actually. You have painkillers in an hour and half from now. So there are two things to look forward to.”
Minho shuts the door with a click.
As much as Taemin doesn’t want Jonghyun to worry, he can’t just call him and expect him to stay at home. Not when it’s still night out. He decides to give him a call early in the morning.
2008 - Christmas
“Where were you?” Jonghyun is watching television, rubbing sleep out of his eyes on the couch.
“I ran into Minho when I was at the mall. We had a few drinks.” Taemin answers as he hangs his scarf and leaves his Christmas present by the door to hide it from Jonghyun.
“Who?”
“Minho.” Taemin brings in the takeout he bought on the way over as he enters the living room and plops on the couch next to Jonghyun. The cushions are still warm where he slept on. “He was my nurse when I had that accident, remember?”
Jonghyun shakes his head.
“Figures. You scared him half to death when you waltzed in the night after.”
“I was worried.”
“He wasn’t the one who stabbed me, you know.”
“Whatever.” Jonghyun dismisses the conversation with a wave of his hand, taking a cushion from behind him and hugging it. “Did you have fun?”
“Huh?” Taemin is placing the takeout boxes on the coffee table, glancing at Jonghyun over his shoulder. “It was okay. He’s going back to school for his medical degree so that’s pretty cool.”
“I didn’t think you guys were close.”
Taemin pauses then pats his hands on the front of his jeans. “What are you thinking?”
Jonghyun shrugs, his gaze dragging over Taemin’s body.
“You’re trying to smell him on me, are you?”
Jonghyun tilts his head forward to scratch his neck.
“Fine. You don’t wanna talk about it. But just for good measure, nothing happened.”
Jonghyun grinds his teeth together, pinching the loose thread attached to the cushion.
Taemin rolls his eyes, taking one of the takeout boxes and handing it to Jonghyun.
Jonghyun pushes it away. “I’m just gonna throw it up in a few minutes.”
“But you promised you’d always eat with me.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“That’s a first.”
Jonghyun takes the box and chucks it at the television screen. The noodles spatter all over the surface and smudge at the reporter’s 2D face.
Taemin’s eyes bulge out of its sockets. “Jonghyun!”
Jonghyun rises from the couch before Taemin can say anything else and aims for the back door.
Taemin marches after him, pulling at his shirt.
“Let me go.”
“Jonghyun, what the hell-“
Jonghyun doesn’t calculate his strength when he shoves Taemin away and Taemin ends up flying all the way to the opposite wall, slamming against the wood and creating a crack slightly before falling to the floor.
“Fuck.” Jonghyun rasps and dashes to Taemin’s coughing form, sliding against the floor tiles to get to him. “Taemin. Taemin. Fuck, I’m so sorry.”
Taemin fights to keep his eyes from watering. And he turns his head away when Jonghyun tries to clip his chin between his fingers. He falters in Jonghyun’s arms and Jonghyun cradles him, rubbing at his shoulders, his back and whispering I love you’s with a grainy tone.
Taemin doesn’t have to say it back. But he loves Jonghyun so much it’s going to kill him.
2009
“Taemin, it’s not that I can’t, okay. I just. I need to know what you need it for.”
Taemin fans himself with the collar of his shirt. The stock room of the hospital was stuffy as fuck. “It’s… I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“It’s not exactly legal.”
“That, I already know.” Minho crosses his arms. “Just tell me what you need it for.”
“Minho… I need you to trust me right now.”
“Taemin, you’re not asking me to trust you. You’re asking me to follow you without question. And unless you’re Jesus I don’t think this is a good idea.”
“I don’t…” Taemin starts just as Minho reaches for the doorknob. “I don’t have anyone else to turn to. And you’re the closest that I have to… just… please. Please do this for me.”
Minho’s eyelids flutter before he looks away. He begins staring at the door then back at Taemin.
And as much as Minho had the power in this whole situation, he ends up in the center of Taemin’s palm.
After that, Minho begins to act weird. He starts texting Taemin in the middle of the night, starts asking Taemin questions about his relationship with Jonghyun.
And one drunken phone call leads Minho to declaring to Taemin how much better he is than Jonghyun. And how he can take care of Taemin.
Taemin runs out of the house in the middle of dinner, leaves Jonghyun to stare at his back before replying, “You don’t know that, Minho.”
“Yes.” Minho slurs. “Yes, I do. Can’t you see what he does to you? I just know that the drugs you get are for him. And everything else in your life like being stabbed before and all like Taemin I would never let that happen to you.”
“He didn’t know about those things. I chose to keep them from him, okay? You should get some sleep.”
“Taemin, I can make your life so much easier. Just come to me. I promise you.”
“That’s true.” Taemin knows it. Minho knows it. And maybe even in the darkest part of Jonghyun’s mind, he knows it too. “... but I don’t mind a challenge.”
“Taemin…”
“Goodnight, Minho.”
He shuts his phone, walks back inside his house and kisses Jonghyun until he’s breathless.
2011
Jonghyun falls asleep with his mouth open and Taemin sits up, awake in the dark with his back pressed against the headboard.
He observes the quiet ins and outs of Jonghyun’s breathing, wonder how someone who isn’t alive breathes so lively in his sleep. He wonders if Jonghyun dreams at all or if he doesn’t dream and only passes out. He read about how Jonghyun would never change in his physicality and it turned out true. And he still is bothered by the thought of everything… about looking through their old photographs and never seeing Jonghyun in any pictures after 2005… however, there’s this hold that he can’t rid himself off. And he’s wished time and time again that it was that easy.
But Jonghyun was always there for him. And maybe, this wasn’t an obligation or a sense of gratitude. This was just him deciding that he wanted to be just as good for Jonghyun as he was for Taemin.
Taemin raises a hand and lets it hover over Jonghyun’s nose, reducing it to just a finger when it traces the air above his mouth. And ever so slightly, he pulls at Jonghyun’s bottom lip and places his finger over one of the sharper lower teeth…
He pricks himself without realizing it and Jonghyun wakes with a start, sitting up and pulling away from Taemin with his hand over his mouth. He stares at Taemin in the dark, shell shocked. His tongue runs over his teeth and he tastes Taemin, burning his mouth so fiercely that he has to get up and create distance.
Taemin gets on all fours, like he’s offering himself. The blanket slips from his naked body and sits on his calves, finger still open and wounded. His heart is pounding like five hundred drums simultaneously. Like’s he’s about to jump off of something really steep and high and it starts to ache, his chest and his entire body.
Jonghyun backs up until he hits the wall. “What are you doing?” He whispers, even when he knows.
“I thought that maybe if you… if you just knew what I tasted like… you wouldn’t crave for me so much.” Taemin explains from his side, unmoving. “I… I wanted you to know.”
“Taemin, you can’t do that.”
“I don’t mind, you know.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’ve thought about it a few times. About what it would be like to be… like you. And I don’t think I mind.”
“Taemin-“
“I know. I won’t… I won’t force you to do it or anything. I can wait some more. I just wanted you to know.”
Jonghyun removes his hands from his mouth, leaves them to hang by his sides. “Know what?”
“That I’m ready whenever you are.”
“Taemin, you don’t know what you’re asking-”
“I love you, Jonghyun. It’s all I’ve ever known. I’ll give you all the life you need. Even my own.”
2005
“I don’t really feel like going to a club tonight.” Taemin fiddles with the phone cord as he nibbles on his bottom lip, listening to the exasperated sigh that resonates from the other end of the line.
“It’s not like we go every night.” Jonghyun argues.
“I know that, but I kind of.. I don’t know. I just don’t feel like it.”
“But I wanna see you.”
Taemin smiles, looks down and lies on his back. “You can come over.”
“Your parents still mad at me?”
“That never stopped you before.”
“Taemin, I’m getting tired of climbing up your window. And besides, I kinda promised this guy Key, I’d show up.”
“Who?”
“Key. I told you about him before. He’s the owner, I think? Yeah, he gave me a plus one so I could bring you.”
Taemin remembers seeing Key once when Jonghyun and him were just leaving school. The guy came up to them to talk to Jonghyun and apparently he knew Jonghyun through a friend of a friend. Or something akin to that. “Doesn’t that guy have a thing for you?”
“Can you blame him?”
“You’re a moron.” Taemin replies with a frown. “Just come over.”
“I’ll see. After the club, okay. I’ll just stop by then I’ll come see you.”
“Do you have to go?”
“I said I would. But I won’t stay long. I’ll see you right after. I’ll text you when I get there.”
Taemin twists the cord around his finger, thinking that there was nothing else he could do. “Okay.”
*masterficlist | tumblr | comment here to be added
-- this actually turned out
less dramatic than i thought. :|
won't lock this coz... well,
i'm actually happy with it. lol.