[eunhyuk/donghae] starts and stops
starts and stops by catskilt
eunhyuk/donghae
nc-17; 5736 words; angst
they're hurting themselves over and over, but they can't get out of it.
half-inspired by the story of his 'love triangle' that eunhyuk told on happy together.
starts and stops
It has been twenty hours since last night and Donghae's nerves erupt into a shout when Ryeowook misses the count on the jump again, a shout so loud and frustrated that every movement in the room stops like a still frame, quivers and freezes as Donghae yells that they've been through this a thousand times and there's no reason why they should be getting this wrong three days before their first performance of Bonamana on Music Bank and he's done with this, he's fucking through with this shit and he doesn't care anymore, they can go ahead and embarrass themselves on live television if they so wish. He isn't going to hinder them in their incompetence.
He slams out of the rehearsal room and Hyukjae finds him in a small deserted practice room curled into a ball with his forehead on his knees. He doesn't look up when Hyukjae enters and closes the door behind them, turns the metal lock clockwise. Snap and click, Donghae thinks, this is how he tries to salvage the situation; locking us in will make this all a-okay. The paint on the walls is old and shrouded; the wind outside rattles the slightly opened windows, makes a shrill distressed whistling that cuts, swift, into their heads. The clouds have been heavy all day.
Hyukjae kneels down beside him, works his hand onto Donghae's shoulder. The muscles are tense, and they don't relax under his kneading. Donghae pushes him away.
"If your problem is going to be as serious as this, I'm out of here," Hyukjae says.
"You have some nerve touching me after last night," Donghae hisses, grabbing hold of Hyukjae's wrists and pulling him close, breath on breath, mouths almost touching. Hyukjae frowns in the semi-dark, but he shudders at their proximity nonetheless and Donghae releases one wrist, drags his hand from Hyukjae's chest to his hip.
"You're lucky that I'm touching you, not slapping you. You seem to think it's okay for you to act like a jerk to the others just because something went wrong between us." Hyukjae smells musky, sweet and salty sweat and muscle, and Donghae wants to touch him, wants to hurt him more.
"Stop trivialising things into 'something went wrong between us'."
"There's nothing to trivialise. It wasn't important in the first place."
"Shut up, asshole."
Ten seconds later Hyukjae's kissing him, rough, tongue pushing aggressively against his, lips so soft that Donghae's knees buckle and he has to hold on to Hyukjae for support. He hates being like this; hates how easily he capitulates, how quickly Hyukjae can seduce him simply by touching him. He tries not to moan when Hyukjae moves his mouth from his chin to jaw to neck, wet wet and soft, biting, clashing contradictions always, antithesis, best friends fucking, never quite making sense.
"What do you want?" Hyukjae says against his skin, and Donghae wants to say, get out, I want you to get out, but his fingers tremble in their grip on Hyukjae's shirt and he says, "Suck me off" instead, sags against the wall as Hyukjae immediately moves his hand to the waistband of his pants, strokes the skin beneath his shirt with his thumb once, twice, before working at his zip.
He's hard when Hyukjae bends over and takes him into his mouth, tonguing the tip with a few practiced flicks. He doesn't want to look down but he does anyway, and what's the point of avoiding it, it's Hyukjae and it has always been Hyukjae and he doesn't know if it'll ever be anyone else but Hyukjae, if he will ever be able to expose himself so intimately to another person. He runs his fingers over the muscles in Hyukjae's shoulder exposed by the skin-tight wife beater, over the taut lines and the hint of damp perspiration as Hyukjae massages his balls, licks a strip down his shaft.
"Who are you thinking about?" he grunts, and Hyukjae looks up at him once, eyes shadowed by lashes, and Donghae squeezes his eyes shut from the look on Hyukjae's face, leans his head against the wall and lets himself be sucked into the heat and wet and rounded corners of Hyukjae's mouth. He isn't thinking anymore. They're in a room alone together and for this minute, this moment, Hyukjae is his and neither of them are thinking of anyone else, it's not possible. His breaths are coming out as pants and he might be moaning, later he'll wonder if he was moaning Hyukjae's name, he'll despise himself for the constant show of weakness, of emotion, but now Hyukjae makes a sound around his cock and he can't stand it anymore, he's gripping Hyukjae's head and coming into his mouth, hips snapping minutely, head thrown back against the wall.
He's still leaning against the wall when Hyukjae moves up, presses his lips along Donghae's neck and jaw and back onto his mouth, kissing him lazily, smoky and bitter, and Donghae wants to cry.
"I wasn't thinking of anyone," Hyukjae says. "But even if I was, what is it to you?"
Nothing, Donghae knows he's supposed to say. Nothing you do means anything to me.
Hyukjae tidies him up, fastens his zip. He's pulling away. He pulls away right after they're done now and Donghae feels the moments slipping through his fingers, intimacy dirtied with reality, remembrance. "Ready to be civilised now? Go through the count on the jumps again?"
Donghae doesn't respond.
"Donghae-yah."
"You go back first."
"I'll talk to Kibum hyung. We'll do one more run and then we'll be done with it, go back home, get some sleep and wake up tomorrow feeling less shitty. How does that sound?"
"Mmm."
Hyukjae cups his face, kisses him again, tender, nothing and everything like what Donghae wants. "You'll feel better."
He leaves and Donghae sits against the wall, listening to the silence and the whistling rattle of the wind. How much longer will this last, he wonders. Five years and here they are, faces still turned away from each other, names still repressed. This isn't how it's always going to be, but the outcome will be different now from what he'd hoped one and a half years ago when Hyukjae had kissed him with a desperation that he'd been naïve enough to think was directed at him.
He gets up from the floor, opens the door and walks out.
Hidden corners, semi-dark places, passionate moments; he's beginning to learn, the hard way, not to leave a memory in any of them.
… …
Here are the facts:
Hyukjae loves Donghae, and Donghae loves Hyukjae, but their forms of love aren't the same.
Hyukjae still thinks of his ex-girlfriend at occasional, inconvenient moments. Still remembers the sting when he'd found out that she was two-timing him with her ex, but remembers more vividly the late-night dates in movie theatres and steaming hotpot in roadside restaurants and cold, soft hands entwined with his in his coat pocket.
Hyukjae doesn't do relationships anymore, at least not till they're out of the public eye, and even then the relationship that Hyukjae will seek won't be with him. Donghae struggles every day to keep to the line they'd promised, to keep himself from choking on the comfort that they both need, that they're both in this for.
Hyukjae uses him, and Donghae uses Hyukjae, and Hyukjae thinks that one day all this will end, they'll start living normal lives again and they won't feel the urge to turn to each other anymore. Donghae knows that that one day is drawing near, and the end isn't going to be as straightforward as Hyukjae thinks.
Donghae repeats these facts to himself whenever he's lying in a tangle with Hyukjae, still half-hard and breathing, thigh against his leg, but like the sting and the late-night movie theatre memories, he repeats to himself more emphatically the smile in Hyukjae's eyes whenever they fuck slow and deep, so slow and deep that it might almost be real, that they might almost be in love.
He remembers that more.
… …
Because he is in love with Hyukjae, and things do mean something, even if they mean nothing at all.
They aren't always rough and demanding, pushing and rutting against each other in dark and meaningless lust. There are times when Donghae phones downstairs, says "Teukie hyung just went out and nobody else is at home except for Heebummie" and Hyukjae brings a DVD upstairs. They're good and obedient for a while, but not for too long; fifteen minutes of Korean subtitles and inspirational American football coaches and unsolved mysteries and intelligent, maverick rookie pilots before the television is off and they're in Donghae's room instead, falling onto the cool bedsheets and laughing over their unembarrassed groping.
There is never any underwear beneath Donghae's track pants when it comes off and Hyukjae says "You are so shameless", makes mock disapproving faces as Donghae pulls off his clothes agonisingly slowly and Hyukjae leans back against the pillows, spreads his legs and touches himself in full view, light and tantalising, not really getting himself off.
When they come together it's the irresistible pull of flesh against flesh, erections brushing as they kiss and fondle, Donghae's tongue on Hyukjae's chest, running over the smooth expanse of skin and sucking at his nipple, tight enough for Hyukjae to moan and wrap his leg around Donghae's calf, cock rock hard against his thigh.
"You are such a victim of my mouth," Donghae teases, and Hyukjae opens his eyes to squint and say, "You're not any less a victim of my mouth."
Sometimes Hyukjae doesn't close his eyes. They're smiling, playful, looking at each other as Donghae scratches his fingers on Hyukjae's back and shoulders and Hyukjae thumbs the tips of their cocks, squeezes lightly and grins when Donghae arches his back and moans. The air is cold against their bare skin but the heat under the blanket is unbearable and so they kick it off, pressing and curling against each other for body warmth, kissing and licking and tasting and touching until Donghae groans, "Let's just fuck already, I'm about to implode" and Hyukjae laughs at his impatience, runs his hand over the swell of Donghae's butt as Donghae leans over him to pull out the lube and condoms stuffed into the corner where his mattress meets the wall.
The sheets are warm under his back as Hyukjae enters him, slowly and carefully, watching for any signs of discomfort on his face. They've done this so many times that they've lost count and yet Hyukjae is still anxious of hurting, still cautious until he's all the way in and Donghae is wrapping heat and tightness around him. He leans over and Donghae kisses him, pulls himself up on his elbows as Hyukjae begins fucking him, deceptively slow at first, pushing him to the point of begging harder, god damn it, faster before upping the pace and the strength of his thrusts and they're gasping, panting, swearing, Donghae's hands on Hyukjae's hips, pushing against him, crying out.
If they have time Hyukjae drops the pace, positions them so Donghae is lying facedown on the bed and they're stretched full against each other, weight pressing them down into the mattress and Hyukjae kissing the nape of Donghae's neck as he moves slowly in and out, feeling, patient.
"You're not making this easy, are you?" Donghae says, turning his head to the side to catch Hyukjae's kisses, and Hyukjae sometimes says "You like it better this way, I know you too well" or sometimes they just kiss like they're in love, intimate without words. And maybe they are, for this hour. Nothing unreal can feel so real.
If they're sitting, Donghae takes over instead, pumping Hyukjae's cock in and out of his body as he rocks and slides and Hyukjae smiles at him, strokes his back, presses his tongue into the hollow at the base of Donghae's throat. When they're seated like this, face to face and chest on chest close enough to fill up every corner, nook and angle, Hyukjae deep inside Donghae, they're best friends, they gossip, they laugh. Hyukjae says that Yesung has a collection of the dirtiest porn videos imaginable in his hard drive.
"But hyung doesn't go for the gross stuff," Donghae objects, leaning forward to bite Hyukjae's neck softly and feeling Hyukjae's responsive shiver.
"Maybe Donghee hyung downloaded it for him as a prank then," Hyukjae says. "I wouldn't put it past him."
"How would you know, anyway?" Donghae asks. "Have you been sneaking around with Yesung hyung's laptop watching his dirty collection of porn in the bathroom?"
"Brat," Hyukjae says, and reaches forward to pull Donghae so hard onto him that Donghae jerks and bites down on his bottom lip to keep from screaming, not that it would matter even if he screamed anyway, the apartment is empty. So Hyukjae reminds him and Donghae screams in his ear and Hyukjae whips his head away and they laugh and get serious, Donghae leaning back on his hands so his angle is better, Hyukjae wrapping a hand around Donghae's erection. If he's in the mood he bends down far enough to take the tip of Donghae's cock into his mouth and suck and it doesn't take much for Donghae to succumb, moaning loud enough for the entire apartment to hear as he spills hot and sticky into Hyukjae's mouth, damn whoever's unlucky enough to come home at that moment to hear. Hyukjae grips his hips and bends him back onto the bed and fucks him so hard his hips snap back and forth in a blur, always a sign that he's about to come, and when he does Donghae opens his eyes to catch the bliss on Hyukjae's face, the beauty of his eyes sliding close and his lips parting as he groans long and deep, sometimes indecipherable, sometimes "Donghae."
When they fuck like this they always lie together afterwards, catching their breaths and fighting drowsiness. Donghae picks up the blanket and throws it half over them and Hyukjae cushions his nose in Donghae's neck, murmurs strange slurred things about tiredness and unwatched movies and being, being…; he falls asleep and Donghae puts his hand on Hyukjae's chest, watches him sleep, thinks things that he doesn't dare to put into words.
In dramas this would be when he says "I love you", quietly and sadly while Hyukjae sleeps, unconscious to the world and to the pain on Donghae's face; strange how Hyukjae is always anxious of hurting and yet always hurting regardless, in unintended ways; but this is reality and there isn't the next episode to keep their love story ongoing and so Donghae doesn't say it, doesn't think it, maybe he feels it, stronger than usual, but that's it. He goes to sleep on Hyukjae's chest and maybe he wakes up in time to slip on his track pants before someone comes home, maybe the both of them continue sleeping until Jungsu's shaking Hyukjae's shoulder and saying, "Wake up, come on, we have to head out soon and damn this room stinks, why can't you air it at least before you collapse into each other's arms? For that matter; why can't you just keep your bedroom activities restricted to Hyukjae's bedroom?"
They haven't slept like that in a long time. The fucking is fast and hard now, they barely talk, Hyukjae pulls away when they're done. Donghae knows the end is coming, and Hyukjae's ex is just a part of it. Youngwoon hyung is going into the army and Hankyung hyung is uncontactable in Beijing and SM is losing faith in the group; their invincibility is up, their fantasy is drawing to a close. Life is moving ahead faster than they're ready for it, but they're moving on with it anyway. He can't get too emotionally involved now.
And yet, it's the sad times he chooses to forget and the laughter that he thinks over alone in bed, the friendship and understanding and almost-love, smiling at the smile he sees in Hyukjae's eyes.
… …
He doesn't feel much better the next day when Ryeowook turns on the television and it's a broadcast of an all-stars concert they performed in two weeks ago. A girl group comes out to perform and Hyukjae is transfixed when his ex comes to the front of the choreography to sing, voice cute and appealing, flicking her hair around. He sees Hyukjae's Adam's apple bob in his throat and Donghae is suddenly furious, raging, uncontrollable in the intensity of his anger. Jungsu makes a grab at him as he pushes his chair back but he evades Jungsu and picks up the remote control, turning off the television just as Hyukjae's ex gives the camera a pretty, charming smile.
"What's going on?" Hyukjae says, turning around in bewilderment.
This is it, Donghae says, he's beyond fed up with Hyukjae's seesawing and emo shit and he's not going to continue standing by and crooning sympathetically whenever Hyukjae gets hung up over his ex. "One and a half years and you still fucking can't get over her, what in hell is wrong with you? Dude, it's time for you to wake up. She's not going to leave him again, they were doing love missions with each other when she was supposed to be with you, and fucking face it already, it's all over for you."
"Donghae-yah," Yesung whispers in his ear, tugging urgently at his sleeve.
Donghae shrugs him away. "This is the truth and he has to hear it."
"There are some truths that you shouldn't say out loud," Yesung says.
"Oh, yeah?" Donghae turns on him. "Like the truth that he's been fucking me for the past five years save for the time when he was with that love of his life and that he's still fucking me but two nights ago he said her name when he was orgasming in me?"
Yesung recoils, shocked, and Hyukjae goes straight up to Donghae, hits him so squarely across the face that Donghae staggers against the sofa. Ryeowook hurries to support him but he's on his feet again before Ryeowook gets close, legs apart giving Hyukjae glare for glare, splinters and sharp edges and the recrimination of two years and Jungsu shakes his head at Ryeowook and Yesung, signals that any interruption now would be friendship-damaging.
"We agreed on this two years ago," Hyukjae says, voice hitting and bouncing off the surfaces. "You aren't going to interfere with my feelings for her at all and we're not going to talk about her."
"That was before you said her name when you were inside me," Donghae snaps back.
"What is it to you whether I say her name or not? You know full well that there aren't any emotions involved in what we do…"
"Fuck you, stop giving me that argument!" Donghae yells and Hyukjae's silenced, staring at him with sharp edges gone, all too understanding in a moment.
"I'm not this object that you can have sex with whenever you feel horny," Donghae says. "I'm not here to be a substitute for your ex until you can entice her back to you. She screwed you over and you've got to face up to it and get over yourself, stop making use of me. The way you've been sleeping with me over the last few months makes me feel like a prostitute. You fuck me and you're done and you walk off like you're a client."
"You say that, but you've been making use of me, too," Hyukjae says, his voice undulating, uneven. "You keep sleeping with me because you think that you'll make me fall for you some day, maybe everything is going to work out the way you like it and we'll live happily ever after fucking all over the place and making heart-shaped cupcakes on Saturdays or something. This happy ending isn't going to happen and you're throwing a fit at me because I can't give you what you want me to."
"Guys, stop it," Jungsu says at last, stepping in between them. "If you don't shut up you're going to destroy whatever's between you and you're not going to be happy about it. So, just. Shut up. Before you say things that you can't take back."
They know he's right. Friendships are so easily broken by the wrong things said. Hyukjae walks out of the dorm, presumably to go back down to the 11th floor, and Donghae slams himself into his room, locks the door. He sits on the bed where he and Hyukjae have tumbled into so many times, in friendship or in lust; he doesn't dare to think of love now; and he thinks that goodbyes shouldn't have to be so ugly.
… …
If there is anything he regrets, it's that five years ago when they first started sleeping together, initially out of loneliness and curiosity and later on out of sheer enjoyment in sexual gratification, he hadn't told Hyukjae what he really felt for him, had let it drag on for over a year before Hyukjae found someone new and he realised how far he'd gone wrong.
It had been awkward when they first started; Hyukjae hadn't wanted to know that it was Donghae he was sleeping with. It had taken five months before he finally agreed to bottom, and even then Donghae had to soothe him for an hour before he relaxed, consented to spread his legs and close his eyes as Donghae worked his way slowly into Hyukjae's resistance.
"If you're going to fight this so hard, it's going to hurt," he said.
Hyukjae had stopped fighting then, had lain defenceless as Donghae thrust once into him and then gasped, his entire body spasming in a tremor of intense pleasure when Donghae found his prostate, hit it directly. It had been embarrassingly quick before Donghae came, unable to hold out against the combination of the stimulation of Hyukjae's body and the realisation that it was Hyukjae he was doing this with, but they'd done it again, and again, and yet again when Hyukjae said he liked being a bottom after all, there were advantages to it.
It was then, Donghae thinks, that he should have said something; they'd been open with each other, there hadn't been the shadow of an ex between them, they'd gotten past their embarrassment of sleeping with each other and their physical intimacy had drawn them closer emotionally, made them such good friends that Heechul said they were practically lovers. He hadn't known then that they were sleeping together. Nobody knew except Jungsu and Sungmin, and when Hyukjae went and got himself a girlfriend nobody had been privy to Donghae's pain except Jungsu.
I should have told him, he'd thought three and a half years ago, and he thinks now, if I'd told him then, if I'd lain a claim on him then, maybe there wouldn't be today. Maybe he would have loved me back; maybe he would have been driven away and I'd have extricated myself out of the mess before I got in too deep and we wouldn't be facing this now, this potential falling down of a friendship simply because of sex and lust and one-sided feeling and it's never true that sex changes nothing. Once you've laid yourself open to another person, physically and emotionally, there's no way it doesn't matter.
At night he dreams of them making love in Hyukjae's house, waking up early the next morning to smell the frying of eggs in the kitchen. He gets up from the weight of Hyukjae's limbs, opens the windows, sits at the foot of the bed pulling on his shorts and socks. It's achingly familiar, they might have done this before. Outside the cars are passing by, engines droning, wheels swishing on damp roads. It had rained last night while they were moaning into each other's mouths, raindrops pattering thick and blunt against the plastic window as Hyukjae grinded against him.
Hyukjae says something, and Donghae leans in to hear. The next moment he's waking up to damp on his pillow and tears rolling down the sides of his face. He's not quite sure why, he has forgotten whatever he was dreaming about, but the impression of the name of Hyukjae's ex and the word 'love' is in his mind.
… …
Four days of watching Hyukjae sitting apart in dressing rooms and dancing beside each other on stage as though nothing is wrong pass by and Donghae plays with the thought that after all it's a bad idea to fuck your best friend, friends are meant to be friends and you find your lovers elsewhere.
He should never have approached Hyukjae four months after that messy breakup with his ex-girlfriend. He should not have stroked Hyukjae's neck with his thumb, should not have leaned forward to kiss Hyukjae's jaw and he should have pulled away when Hyukjae pulled him onto his mouth, kissed him with a desperation that Donghae should have been lucid enough to recognise it for what it was; loneliness and a cheap sense of self-worth after a heartbreaking collapse of a relationship.
They should not have slept together that night in Hyukjae's room and they should have stopped themselves from the second time in the morning, the second time that sealed it all because it had been slow and gentle and Donghae had cried, said please come back to me even if you don't feel anything for me, I can't stand it without you Hyuk.
"I'm not interested in a relationship with you," Hyukjae had said bluntly, "I don't want to get into the whole emotional works again for some time. There's no point anyway; there isn't any future for us. If we're going to be together it'll only be for this time being and only for one thing."
"That's okay with me," Donghae said, and he'd really thought it was okay then, that it would be fine as long as Hyukjae could be his for stolen moments here and there in the years leading up to Super Junior's break up. He should have been smarter then. He should have known what he was heading into. He should have realised that there isn't any such thing as sex without strings when one party is emotionally involved with the other. But he hadn't, and now he's here, and there's no use in thinking of the shoulds and should nots that hadn't happened.
That night, while Hyukjae and Jungsu are being DJs on KTR, he sits alone in the room, doesn't turn on the light, and goes through all his memories. A breathless ten minutes backstage at the Shanghai concert, half an hour in his car at the underground SM building car park, a night in Jeju, Hyukjae's admiration of his chest and ass, hours in Hyukjae's room reading manga together and forgetting the pictures an hour later, going down on Hyukjae on the morning of his return from China and Hyukjae waking up, bleary, thinking it was some sort of erotic dream. He goes through them and he tries to fling them out, to put them to death, because it's only when he's done that that he can move on from five years of being in love with a doomed impossibility.
Hyukjae comes into the room sometime after one o' clock in the morning, sits at the foot of the bed. He doesn't turn on the light either and so they sit in darkness.
"I'm sorry," Hyukjae says. "I shouldn't have said those things to you."
"They were true." Donghae takes a breath. "I've been wanting you to fall for me ever since we started sleeping together. I made you come back to me after you broke up with her because I thought that you might be able to feel something for me."
"I'm still getting over her," Hyukjae says. "It's not easy. I still feel something when I see her, and I'm trying really hard to move on. But as far as that goes…I don't know why I said her name that night. I wasn't thinking about her. It was probably a slip of the tongue and I'm really sorry for that, I swear I wasn't imagining you to be her. You're you, Donghae."
"Okay."
"What I'm trying to say is…," Hyukjae falls silent for a moment. "It isn't going to work out. It doesn't matter what I feel for you or what you feel for me. It's all coming to an end…us, Super Junior, everything. Even if we want to be together we can't continue this past Super Junior…it'll end with the group and it's going to happen soon. You know it too, don't you?"
Donghae nods, he can't speak, but Hyukjae knows him well enough to read his silence.
"I guess that's why we've been…different, lately. Or I've been different. I keep thinking, everything's going to be over in a year and it's going to hurt so much, I don't think I can deal with it. And so I've been trying to pull away. I'm sorry for that, too. For not telling you what I was doing, and making you think that I was treating you like…like all I wanted from you was sex."
"You've always liked harbouring things inside."
"Yeah."
They're silent for a while, and Donghae looks up at the shape opposite him. "Is this it, then?"
The shape moves, makes a sound, and stops. Hyukjae is breathing so hard he sounds like he might be holding back tears. "No," he says suddenly. "I don't want this to be over, I don't know what I would do if I don't have you to hold on to. I've been trying to pull away but I feel more broken each time and I don't know what to do. Tell me to get out, Donghae. I don't know how to get out otherwise."
"But what are you holding on to? You don't feel anything for me."
"Maybe I do," Hyukjae says. "I just don't want to admit it to myself because you're my best friend and I'm so scared that something might go wrong…that if I lose you as a lover I'll lose you as everything else. I don't want to think about feeling anything for you and I'm not worth it, Donghae. I'm not worth you. Tell me to go."
Donghae bends over, palms cold and heartsick, hitting his forehead on the blanket. "I can't tell you to go," he says, muffled into cotton and misery. "I'm as weak as you. Even if you don't feel anything for me, I can't stay away. Now that you're telling me that you might feel something…I can't walk away at all. I can't throw away all that we've done together, and even with the thought of us having to separate soon…and all this being over…I still want to hold on, if only until the group breaks up. I'm that weak."
Hyukjae reaches out to touch him and they're kissing again in the darkness, their weakness shielded from vision. This is where they are, caught in between feeling and no feeling, letting go and holding on, and in the end it matters, it means too much. Snap of the cap and the slick tear of a condom wrapper and they're too impatient to remove any clothes except the essentials. Hyukjae is inside him again, they're seeing nothing and feeling everything, they're back to square one, they've gotten nowhere. Donghae drops a few hot tears on Hyukjae's shoulders when they come, presses his face back so Hyukjae's mouth falls on his. They kiss hard, over and over and things are shaping back into what they were before, and when Hyukjae falls away from him and curls his arms around Donghae's waist Donghae thinks that maybe this isn't the end but it's the beginning of a series of ends, of starts and stops, of pulling away and coming back until they're drawn apart for good.
He knows that they should stop this before they really hurt themselves. Before they start thinking again of the inevitability of the final end and before Hyukjae gets hung up over his ex again and before they re-enter the agony of being stuck between loving and not loving, physical and emotional, logic and the heart.
But he can't, and he cries his shame at his weakness into Hyukjae's chest and Hyukjae holds him close, presses his cheek against Donghae's hair. Nothing resolved, some things changed, and this is how they're going to be until the next end rolls along, blow by blow until it finishes. They don't have the strength to take things into their own hands.
… …
Here are the facts:
Hyukjae loves Donghae, and Donghae loves Hyukjae, and their forms of love might be aligning but they still aren't the same.
Hyukjae is afraid of leaving Donghae, and Donghae is afraid of leaving Hyukjae, and even though they know that it's in each other's best interest to walk away from this abstract relationship they're in, they can't bring themselves to do it.
They're both choking on the comfort that they need, they're suffocating on what they want, and they're failing at ending it but one day it's going to end once and for all.
They're both weak and indecisive, and what they're doing is only going to cause them more pain because no matter what they might feel for each other, they're not going to continue past Super Junior. They don't have a future to work towards.
Donghae repeats these facts to himself, but he's lying in a tangle with Hyukjae, still half-hard and breathing, faces close and looking into each other's eyes, and he's seeing the tenderness in Hyukjae's face that means everything and nothing at the same time. Like the sting and the late-night movie theatre memories, he tells himself more emphatically that for the moment, Hyukjae is his. For the moment, Hyukjae can't walk away from him, and whether or not he'd confessed three and a half years ago Hyukjae is still with him and they're so entangled that they can't get out of it by themselves. He's going to hold on for as long as he can.
They might almost be in love.
He remembers that more.
--------
so this is probably just an excuse to write hyukhae sexy times. i apologise for any and all weirdness :|
eunhyuk/donghae
nc-17; 5736 words; angst
they're hurting themselves over and over, but they can't get out of it.
half-inspired by the story of his 'love triangle' that eunhyuk told on happy together.
starts and stops
It has been twenty hours since last night and Donghae's nerves erupt into a shout when Ryeowook misses the count on the jump again, a shout so loud and frustrated that every movement in the room stops like a still frame, quivers and freezes as Donghae yells that they've been through this a thousand times and there's no reason why they should be getting this wrong three days before their first performance of Bonamana on Music Bank and he's done with this, he's fucking through with this shit and he doesn't care anymore, they can go ahead and embarrass themselves on live television if they so wish. He isn't going to hinder them in their incompetence.
He slams out of the rehearsal room and Hyukjae finds him in a small deserted practice room curled into a ball with his forehead on his knees. He doesn't look up when Hyukjae enters and closes the door behind them, turns the metal lock clockwise. Snap and click, Donghae thinks, this is how he tries to salvage the situation; locking us in will make this all a-okay. The paint on the walls is old and shrouded; the wind outside rattles the slightly opened windows, makes a shrill distressed whistling that cuts, swift, into their heads. The clouds have been heavy all day.
Hyukjae kneels down beside him, works his hand onto Donghae's shoulder. The muscles are tense, and they don't relax under his kneading. Donghae pushes him away.
"If your problem is going to be as serious as this, I'm out of here," Hyukjae says.
"You have some nerve touching me after last night," Donghae hisses, grabbing hold of Hyukjae's wrists and pulling him close, breath on breath, mouths almost touching. Hyukjae frowns in the semi-dark, but he shudders at their proximity nonetheless and Donghae releases one wrist, drags his hand from Hyukjae's chest to his hip.
"You're lucky that I'm touching you, not slapping you. You seem to think it's okay for you to act like a jerk to the others just because something went wrong between us." Hyukjae smells musky, sweet and salty sweat and muscle, and Donghae wants to touch him, wants to hurt him more.
"Stop trivialising things into 'something went wrong between us'."
"There's nothing to trivialise. It wasn't important in the first place."
"Shut up, asshole."
Ten seconds later Hyukjae's kissing him, rough, tongue pushing aggressively against his, lips so soft that Donghae's knees buckle and he has to hold on to Hyukjae for support. He hates being like this; hates how easily he capitulates, how quickly Hyukjae can seduce him simply by touching him. He tries not to moan when Hyukjae moves his mouth from his chin to jaw to neck, wet wet and soft, biting, clashing contradictions always, antithesis, best friends fucking, never quite making sense.
"What do you want?" Hyukjae says against his skin, and Donghae wants to say, get out, I want you to get out, but his fingers tremble in their grip on Hyukjae's shirt and he says, "Suck me off" instead, sags against the wall as Hyukjae immediately moves his hand to the waistband of his pants, strokes the skin beneath his shirt with his thumb once, twice, before working at his zip.
He's hard when Hyukjae bends over and takes him into his mouth, tonguing the tip with a few practiced flicks. He doesn't want to look down but he does anyway, and what's the point of avoiding it, it's Hyukjae and it has always been Hyukjae and he doesn't know if it'll ever be anyone else but Hyukjae, if he will ever be able to expose himself so intimately to another person. He runs his fingers over the muscles in Hyukjae's shoulder exposed by the skin-tight wife beater, over the taut lines and the hint of damp perspiration as Hyukjae massages his balls, licks a strip down his shaft.
"Who are you thinking about?" he grunts, and Hyukjae looks up at him once, eyes shadowed by lashes, and Donghae squeezes his eyes shut from the look on Hyukjae's face, leans his head against the wall and lets himself be sucked into the heat and wet and rounded corners of Hyukjae's mouth. He isn't thinking anymore. They're in a room alone together and for this minute, this moment, Hyukjae is his and neither of them are thinking of anyone else, it's not possible. His breaths are coming out as pants and he might be moaning, later he'll wonder if he was moaning Hyukjae's name, he'll despise himself for the constant show of weakness, of emotion, but now Hyukjae makes a sound around his cock and he can't stand it anymore, he's gripping Hyukjae's head and coming into his mouth, hips snapping minutely, head thrown back against the wall.
He's still leaning against the wall when Hyukjae moves up, presses his lips along Donghae's neck and jaw and back onto his mouth, kissing him lazily, smoky and bitter, and Donghae wants to cry.
"I wasn't thinking of anyone," Hyukjae says. "But even if I was, what is it to you?"
Nothing, Donghae knows he's supposed to say. Nothing you do means anything to me.
Hyukjae tidies him up, fastens his zip. He's pulling away. He pulls away right after they're done now and Donghae feels the moments slipping through his fingers, intimacy dirtied with reality, remembrance. "Ready to be civilised now? Go through the count on the jumps again?"
Donghae doesn't respond.
"Donghae-yah."
"You go back first."
"I'll talk to Kibum hyung. We'll do one more run and then we'll be done with it, go back home, get some sleep and wake up tomorrow feeling less shitty. How does that sound?"
"Mmm."
Hyukjae cups his face, kisses him again, tender, nothing and everything like what Donghae wants. "You'll feel better."
He leaves and Donghae sits against the wall, listening to the silence and the whistling rattle of the wind. How much longer will this last, he wonders. Five years and here they are, faces still turned away from each other, names still repressed. This isn't how it's always going to be, but the outcome will be different now from what he'd hoped one and a half years ago when Hyukjae had kissed him with a desperation that he'd been naïve enough to think was directed at him.
He gets up from the floor, opens the door and walks out.
Hidden corners, semi-dark places, passionate moments; he's beginning to learn, the hard way, not to leave a memory in any of them.
… …
Here are the facts:
Hyukjae loves Donghae, and Donghae loves Hyukjae, but their forms of love aren't the same.
Hyukjae still thinks of his ex-girlfriend at occasional, inconvenient moments. Still remembers the sting when he'd found out that she was two-timing him with her ex, but remembers more vividly the late-night dates in movie theatres and steaming hotpot in roadside restaurants and cold, soft hands entwined with his in his coat pocket.
Hyukjae doesn't do relationships anymore, at least not till they're out of the public eye, and even then the relationship that Hyukjae will seek won't be with him. Donghae struggles every day to keep to the line they'd promised, to keep himself from choking on the comfort that they both need, that they're both in this for.
Hyukjae uses him, and Donghae uses Hyukjae, and Hyukjae thinks that one day all this will end, they'll start living normal lives again and they won't feel the urge to turn to each other anymore. Donghae knows that that one day is drawing near, and the end isn't going to be as straightforward as Hyukjae thinks.
Donghae repeats these facts to himself whenever he's lying in a tangle with Hyukjae, still half-hard and breathing, thigh against his leg, but like the sting and the late-night movie theatre memories, he repeats to himself more emphatically the smile in Hyukjae's eyes whenever they fuck slow and deep, so slow and deep that it might almost be real, that they might almost be in love.
He remembers that more.
… …
Because he is in love with Hyukjae, and things do mean something, even if they mean nothing at all.
They aren't always rough and demanding, pushing and rutting against each other in dark and meaningless lust. There are times when Donghae phones downstairs, says "Teukie hyung just went out and nobody else is at home except for Heebummie" and Hyukjae brings a DVD upstairs. They're good and obedient for a while, but not for too long; fifteen minutes of Korean subtitles and inspirational American football coaches and unsolved mysteries and intelligent, maverick rookie pilots before the television is off and they're in Donghae's room instead, falling onto the cool bedsheets and laughing over their unembarrassed groping.
There is never any underwear beneath Donghae's track pants when it comes off and Hyukjae says "You are so shameless", makes mock disapproving faces as Donghae pulls off his clothes agonisingly slowly and Hyukjae leans back against the pillows, spreads his legs and touches himself in full view, light and tantalising, not really getting himself off.
When they come together it's the irresistible pull of flesh against flesh, erections brushing as they kiss and fondle, Donghae's tongue on Hyukjae's chest, running over the smooth expanse of skin and sucking at his nipple, tight enough for Hyukjae to moan and wrap his leg around Donghae's calf, cock rock hard against his thigh.
"You are such a victim of my mouth," Donghae teases, and Hyukjae opens his eyes to squint and say, "You're not any less a victim of my mouth."
Sometimes Hyukjae doesn't close his eyes. They're smiling, playful, looking at each other as Donghae scratches his fingers on Hyukjae's back and shoulders and Hyukjae thumbs the tips of their cocks, squeezes lightly and grins when Donghae arches his back and moans. The air is cold against their bare skin but the heat under the blanket is unbearable and so they kick it off, pressing and curling against each other for body warmth, kissing and licking and tasting and touching until Donghae groans, "Let's just fuck already, I'm about to implode" and Hyukjae laughs at his impatience, runs his hand over the swell of Donghae's butt as Donghae leans over him to pull out the lube and condoms stuffed into the corner where his mattress meets the wall.
The sheets are warm under his back as Hyukjae enters him, slowly and carefully, watching for any signs of discomfort on his face. They've done this so many times that they've lost count and yet Hyukjae is still anxious of hurting, still cautious until he's all the way in and Donghae is wrapping heat and tightness around him. He leans over and Donghae kisses him, pulls himself up on his elbows as Hyukjae begins fucking him, deceptively slow at first, pushing him to the point of begging harder, god damn it, faster before upping the pace and the strength of his thrusts and they're gasping, panting, swearing, Donghae's hands on Hyukjae's hips, pushing against him, crying out.
If they have time Hyukjae drops the pace, positions them so Donghae is lying facedown on the bed and they're stretched full against each other, weight pressing them down into the mattress and Hyukjae kissing the nape of Donghae's neck as he moves slowly in and out, feeling, patient.
"You're not making this easy, are you?" Donghae says, turning his head to the side to catch Hyukjae's kisses, and Hyukjae sometimes says "You like it better this way, I know you too well" or sometimes they just kiss like they're in love, intimate without words. And maybe they are, for this hour. Nothing unreal can feel so real.
If they're sitting, Donghae takes over instead, pumping Hyukjae's cock in and out of his body as he rocks and slides and Hyukjae smiles at him, strokes his back, presses his tongue into the hollow at the base of Donghae's throat. When they're seated like this, face to face and chest on chest close enough to fill up every corner, nook and angle, Hyukjae deep inside Donghae, they're best friends, they gossip, they laugh. Hyukjae says that Yesung has a collection of the dirtiest porn videos imaginable in his hard drive.
"But hyung doesn't go for the gross stuff," Donghae objects, leaning forward to bite Hyukjae's neck softly and feeling Hyukjae's responsive shiver.
"Maybe Donghee hyung downloaded it for him as a prank then," Hyukjae says. "I wouldn't put it past him."
"How would you know, anyway?" Donghae asks. "Have you been sneaking around with Yesung hyung's laptop watching his dirty collection of porn in the bathroom?"
"Brat," Hyukjae says, and reaches forward to pull Donghae so hard onto him that Donghae jerks and bites down on his bottom lip to keep from screaming, not that it would matter even if he screamed anyway, the apartment is empty. So Hyukjae reminds him and Donghae screams in his ear and Hyukjae whips his head away and they laugh and get serious, Donghae leaning back on his hands so his angle is better, Hyukjae wrapping a hand around Donghae's erection. If he's in the mood he bends down far enough to take the tip of Donghae's cock into his mouth and suck and it doesn't take much for Donghae to succumb, moaning loud enough for the entire apartment to hear as he spills hot and sticky into Hyukjae's mouth, damn whoever's unlucky enough to come home at that moment to hear. Hyukjae grips his hips and bends him back onto the bed and fucks him so hard his hips snap back and forth in a blur, always a sign that he's about to come, and when he does Donghae opens his eyes to catch the bliss on Hyukjae's face, the beauty of his eyes sliding close and his lips parting as he groans long and deep, sometimes indecipherable, sometimes "Donghae."
When they fuck like this they always lie together afterwards, catching their breaths and fighting drowsiness. Donghae picks up the blanket and throws it half over them and Hyukjae cushions his nose in Donghae's neck, murmurs strange slurred things about tiredness and unwatched movies and being, being…; he falls asleep and Donghae puts his hand on Hyukjae's chest, watches him sleep, thinks things that he doesn't dare to put into words.
In dramas this would be when he says "I love you", quietly and sadly while Hyukjae sleeps, unconscious to the world and to the pain on Donghae's face; strange how Hyukjae is always anxious of hurting and yet always hurting regardless, in unintended ways; but this is reality and there isn't the next episode to keep their love story ongoing and so Donghae doesn't say it, doesn't think it, maybe he feels it, stronger than usual, but that's it. He goes to sleep on Hyukjae's chest and maybe he wakes up in time to slip on his track pants before someone comes home, maybe the both of them continue sleeping until Jungsu's shaking Hyukjae's shoulder and saying, "Wake up, come on, we have to head out soon and damn this room stinks, why can't you air it at least before you collapse into each other's arms? For that matter; why can't you just keep your bedroom activities restricted to Hyukjae's bedroom?"
They haven't slept like that in a long time. The fucking is fast and hard now, they barely talk, Hyukjae pulls away when they're done. Donghae knows the end is coming, and Hyukjae's ex is just a part of it. Youngwoon hyung is going into the army and Hankyung hyung is uncontactable in Beijing and SM is losing faith in the group; their invincibility is up, their fantasy is drawing to a close. Life is moving ahead faster than they're ready for it, but they're moving on with it anyway. He can't get too emotionally involved now.
And yet, it's the sad times he chooses to forget and the laughter that he thinks over alone in bed, the friendship and understanding and almost-love, smiling at the smile he sees in Hyukjae's eyes.
… …
He doesn't feel much better the next day when Ryeowook turns on the television and it's a broadcast of an all-stars concert they performed in two weeks ago. A girl group comes out to perform and Hyukjae is transfixed when his ex comes to the front of the choreography to sing, voice cute and appealing, flicking her hair around. He sees Hyukjae's Adam's apple bob in his throat and Donghae is suddenly furious, raging, uncontrollable in the intensity of his anger. Jungsu makes a grab at him as he pushes his chair back but he evades Jungsu and picks up the remote control, turning off the television just as Hyukjae's ex gives the camera a pretty, charming smile.
"What's going on?" Hyukjae says, turning around in bewilderment.
This is it, Donghae says, he's beyond fed up with Hyukjae's seesawing and emo shit and he's not going to continue standing by and crooning sympathetically whenever Hyukjae gets hung up over his ex. "One and a half years and you still fucking can't get over her, what in hell is wrong with you? Dude, it's time for you to wake up. She's not going to leave him again, they were doing love missions with each other when she was supposed to be with you, and fucking face it already, it's all over for you."
"Donghae-yah," Yesung whispers in his ear, tugging urgently at his sleeve.
Donghae shrugs him away. "This is the truth and he has to hear it."
"There are some truths that you shouldn't say out loud," Yesung says.
"Oh, yeah?" Donghae turns on him. "Like the truth that he's been fucking me for the past five years save for the time when he was with that love of his life and that he's still fucking me but two nights ago he said her name when he was orgasming in me?"
Yesung recoils, shocked, and Hyukjae goes straight up to Donghae, hits him so squarely across the face that Donghae staggers against the sofa. Ryeowook hurries to support him but he's on his feet again before Ryeowook gets close, legs apart giving Hyukjae glare for glare, splinters and sharp edges and the recrimination of two years and Jungsu shakes his head at Ryeowook and Yesung, signals that any interruption now would be friendship-damaging.
"We agreed on this two years ago," Hyukjae says, voice hitting and bouncing off the surfaces. "You aren't going to interfere with my feelings for her at all and we're not going to talk about her."
"That was before you said her name when you were inside me," Donghae snaps back.
"What is it to you whether I say her name or not? You know full well that there aren't any emotions involved in what we do…"
"Fuck you, stop giving me that argument!" Donghae yells and Hyukjae's silenced, staring at him with sharp edges gone, all too understanding in a moment.
"I'm not this object that you can have sex with whenever you feel horny," Donghae says. "I'm not here to be a substitute for your ex until you can entice her back to you. She screwed you over and you've got to face up to it and get over yourself, stop making use of me. The way you've been sleeping with me over the last few months makes me feel like a prostitute. You fuck me and you're done and you walk off like you're a client."
"You say that, but you've been making use of me, too," Hyukjae says, his voice undulating, uneven. "You keep sleeping with me because you think that you'll make me fall for you some day, maybe everything is going to work out the way you like it and we'll live happily ever after fucking all over the place and making heart-shaped cupcakes on Saturdays or something. This happy ending isn't going to happen and you're throwing a fit at me because I can't give you what you want me to."
"Guys, stop it," Jungsu says at last, stepping in between them. "If you don't shut up you're going to destroy whatever's between you and you're not going to be happy about it. So, just. Shut up. Before you say things that you can't take back."
They know he's right. Friendships are so easily broken by the wrong things said. Hyukjae walks out of the dorm, presumably to go back down to the 11th floor, and Donghae slams himself into his room, locks the door. He sits on the bed where he and Hyukjae have tumbled into so many times, in friendship or in lust; he doesn't dare to think of love now; and he thinks that goodbyes shouldn't have to be so ugly.
… …
If there is anything he regrets, it's that five years ago when they first started sleeping together, initially out of loneliness and curiosity and later on out of sheer enjoyment in sexual gratification, he hadn't told Hyukjae what he really felt for him, had let it drag on for over a year before Hyukjae found someone new and he realised how far he'd gone wrong.
It had been awkward when they first started; Hyukjae hadn't wanted to know that it was Donghae he was sleeping with. It had taken five months before he finally agreed to bottom, and even then Donghae had to soothe him for an hour before he relaxed, consented to spread his legs and close his eyes as Donghae worked his way slowly into Hyukjae's resistance.
"If you're going to fight this so hard, it's going to hurt," he said.
Hyukjae had stopped fighting then, had lain defenceless as Donghae thrust once into him and then gasped, his entire body spasming in a tremor of intense pleasure when Donghae found his prostate, hit it directly. It had been embarrassingly quick before Donghae came, unable to hold out against the combination of the stimulation of Hyukjae's body and the realisation that it was Hyukjae he was doing this with, but they'd done it again, and again, and yet again when Hyukjae said he liked being a bottom after all, there were advantages to it.
It was then, Donghae thinks, that he should have said something; they'd been open with each other, there hadn't been the shadow of an ex between them, they'd gotten past their embarrassment of sleeping with each other and their physical intimacy had drawn them closer emotionally, made them such good friends that Heechul said they were practically lovers. He hadn't known then that they were sleeping together. Nobody knew except Jungsu and Sungmin, and when Hyukjae went and got himself a girlfriend nobody had been privy to Donghae's pain except Jungsu.
I should have told him, he'd thought three and a half years ago, and he thinks now, if I'd told him then, if I'd lain a claim on him then, maybe there wouldn't be today. Maybe he would have loved me back; maybe he would have been driven away and I'd have extricated myself out of the mess before I got in too deep and we wouldn't be facing this now, this potential falling down of a friendship simply because of sex and lust and one-sided feeling and it's never true that sex changes nothing. Once you've laid yourself open to another person, physically and emotionally, there's no way it doesn't matter.
At night he dreams of them making love in Hyukjae's house, waking up early the next morning to smell the frying of eggs in the kitchen. He gets up from the weight of Hyukjae's limbs, opens the windows, sits at the foot of the bed pulling on his shorts and socks. It's achingly familiar, they might have done this before. Outside the cars are passing by, engines droning, wheels swishing on damp roads. It had rained last night while they were moaning into each other's mouths, raindrops pattering thick and blunt against the plastic window as Hyukjae grinded against him.
Hyukjae says something, and Donghae leans in to hear. The next moment he's waking up to damp on his pillow and tears rolling down the sides of his face. He's not quite sure why, he has forgotten whatever he was dreaming about, but the impression of the name of Hyukjae's ex and the word 'love' is in his mind.
… …
Four days of watching Hyukjae sitting apart in dressing rooms and dancing beside each other on stage as though nothing is wrong pass by and Donghae plays with the thought that after all it's a bad idea to fuck your best friend, friends are meant to be friends and you find your lovers elsewhere.
He should never have approached Hyukjae four months after that messy breakup with his ex-girlfriend. He should not have stroked Hyukjae's neck with his thumb, should not have leaned forward to kiss Hyukjae's jaw and he should have pulled away when Hyukjae pulled him onto his mouth, kissed him with a desperation that Donghae should have been lucid enough to recognise it for what it was; loneliness and a cheap sense of self-worth after a heartbreaking collapse of a relationship.
They should not have slept together that night in Hyukjae's room and they should have stopped themselves from the second time in the morning, the second time that sealed it all because it had been slow and gentle and Donghae had cried, said please come back to me even if you don't feel anything for me, I can't stand it without you Hyuk.
"I'm not interested in a relationship with you," Hyukjae had said bluntly, "I don't want to get into the whole emotional works again for some time. There's no point anyway; there isn't any future for us. If we're going to be together it'll only be for this time being and only for one thing."
"That's okay with me," Donghae said, and he'd really thought it was okay then, that it would be fine as long as Hyukjae could be his for stolen moments here and there in the years leading up to Super Junior's break up. He should have been smarter then. He should have known what he was heading into. He should have realised that there isn't any such thing as sex without strings when one party is emotionally involved with the other. But he hadn't, and now he's here, and there's no use in thinking of the shoulds and should nots that hadn't happened.
That night, while Hyukjae and Jungsu are being DJs on KTR, he sits alone in the room, doesn't turn on the light, and goes through all his memories. A breathless ten minutes backstage at the Shanghai concert, half an hour in his car at the underground SM building car park, a night in Jeju, Hyukjae's admiration of his chest and ass, hours in Hyukjae's room reading manga together and forgetting the pictures an hour later, going down on Hyukjae on the morning of his return from China and Hyukjae waking up, bleary, thinking it was some sort of erotic dream. He goes through them and he tries to fling them out, to put them to death, because it's only when he's done that that he can move on from five years of being in love with a doomed impossibility.
Hyukjae comes into the room sometime after one o' clock in the morning, sits at the foot of the bed. He doesn't turn on the light either and so they sit in darkness.
"I'm sorry," Hyukjae says. "I shouldn't have said those things to you."
"They were true." Donghae takes a breath. "I've been wanting you to fall for me ever since we started sleeping together. I made you come back to me after you broke up with her because I thought that you might be able to feel something for me."
"I'm still getting over her," Hyukjae says. "It's not easy. I still feel something when I see her, and I'm trying really hard to move on. But as far as that goes…I don't know why I said her name that night. I wasn't thinking about her. It was probably a slip of the tongue and I'm really sorry for that, I swear I wasn't imagining you to be her. You're you, Donghae."
"Okay."
"What I'm trying to say is…," Hyukjae falls silent for a moment. "It isn't going to work out. It doesn't matter what I feel for you or what you feel for me. It's all coming to an end…us, Super Junior, everything. Even if we want to be together we can't continue this past Super Junior…it'll end with the group and it's going to happen soon. You know it too, don't you?"
Donghae nods, he can't speak, but Hyukjae knows him well enough to read his silence.
"I guess that's why we've been…different, lately. Or I've been different. I keep thinking, everything's going to be over in a year and it's going to hurt so much, I don't think I can deal with it. And so I've been trying to pull away. I'm sorry for that, too. For not telling you what I was doing, and making you think that I was treating you like…like all I wanted from you was sex."
"You've always liked harbouring things inside."
"Yeah."
They're silent for a while, and Donghae looks up at the shape opposite him. "Is this it, then?"
The shape moves, makes a sound, and stops. Hyukjae is breathing so hard he sounds like he might be holding back tears. "No," he says suddenly. "I don't want this to be over, I don't know what I would do if I don't have you to hold on to. I've been trying to pull away but I feel more broken each time and I don't know what to do. Tell me to get out, Donghae. I don't know how to get out otherwise."
"But what are you holding on to? You don't feel anything for me."
"Maybe I do," Hyukjae says. "I just don't want to admit it to myself because you're my best friend and I'm so scared that something might go wrong…that if I lose you as a lover I'll lose you as everything else. I don't want to think about feeling anything for you and I'm not worth it, Donghae. I'm not worth you. Tell me to go."
Donghae bends over, palms cold and heartsick, hitting his forehead on the blanket. "I can't tell you to go," he says, muffled into cotton and misery. "I'm as weak as you. Even if you don't feel anything for me, I can't stay away. Now that you're telling me that you might feel something…I can't walk away at all. I can't throw away all that we've done together, and even with the thought of us having to separate soon…and all this being over…I still want to hold on, if only until the group breaks up. I'm that weak."
Hyukjae reaches out to touch him and they're kissing again in the darkness, their weakness shielded from vision. This is where they are, caught in between feeling and no feeling, letting go and holding on, and in the end it matters, it means too much. Snap of the cap and the slick tear of a condom wrapper and they're too impatient to remove any clothes except the essentials. Hyukjae is inside him again, they're seeing nothing and feeling everything, they're back to square one, they've gotten nowhere. Donghae drops a few hot tears on Hyukjae's shoulders when they come, presses his face back so Hyukjae's mouth falls on his. They kiss hard, over and over and things are shaping back into what they were before, and when Hyukjae falls away from him and curls his arms around Donghae's waist Donghae thinks that maybe this isn't the end but it's the beginning of a series of ends, of starts and stops, of pulling away and coming back until they're drawn apart for good.
He knows that they should stop this before they really hurt themselves. Before they start thinking again of the inevitability of the final end and before Hyukjae gets hung up over his ex again and before they re-enter the agony of being stuck between loving and not loving, physical and emotional, logic and the heart.
But he can't, and he cries his shame at his weakness into Hyukjae's chest and Hyukjae holds him close, presses his cheek against Donghae's hair. Nothing resolved, some things changed, and this is how they're going to be until the next end rolls along, blow by blow until it finishes. They don't have the strength to take things into their own hands.
… …
Here are the facts:
Hyukjae loves Donghae, and Donghae loves Hyukjae, and their forms of love might be aligning but they still aren't the same.
Hyukjae is afraid of leaving Donghae, and Donghae is afraid of leaving Hyukjae, and even though they know that it's in each other's best interest to walk away from this abstract relationship they're in, they can't bring themselves to do it.
They're both choking on the comfort that they need, they're suffocating on what they want, and they're failing at ending it but one day it's going to end once and for all.
They're both weak and indecisive, and what they're doing is only going to cause them more pain because no matter what they might feel for each other, they're not going to continue past Super Junior. They don't have a future to work towards.
Donghae repeats these facts to himself, but he's lying in a tangle with Hyukjae, still half-hard and breathing, faces close and looking into each other's eyes, and he's seeing the tenderness in Hyukjae's face that means everything and nothing at the same time. Like the sting and the late-night movie theatre memories, he tells himself more emphatically that for the moment, Hyukjae is his. For the moment, Hyukjae can't walk away from him, and whether or not he'd confessed three and a half years ago Hyukjae is still with him and they're so entangled that they can't get out of it by themselves. He's going to hold on for as long as he can.
They might almost be in love.
He remembers that more.
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so this is probably just an excuse to write hyukhae sexy times. i apologise for any and all weirdness :|