[oneshot] baby, i'm not a monster
Title: baby, i'm not a monster
Pairing: gtop
Rating: nc17
Genre: romance, ar, slice-of-life
Warnings: swearing, sex, breathplay
Author: gdgdbaby
Notes: advent calendar day 4, for eeka_specks. top's a werewolf. set in 2010. 3,091 words.
"It's a miracle he didn't go blind," the doctor is saying outside the hospital room, his words muffled by the thick panes of glass.
"Right," Jiyong mutters, fiddling idly with his cell phone strap and staring at the gauze wrapped around Seunghyun's head, the monitors beeping into oblivion behind him. "A miracle."
It's the tattoo that does it. Out of all the vices and proclivities they possess as a collective whole, marking his skin permanently was never one of Seunghyun's-and in Tokyo, in a hotel bathroom that's barely large enough to fit the both of them, the three-pronged swirl between Seunghyun's shoulder blades seems even more out of place.
"What is that?" Jiyong asks, reaching out to touch it despite himself. "When did you get this? It looks old."
Seunghyun sends him a pensive glance and shrugs his sweatshirt back on, the smooth expanse of his back covered again. He's always been as strange and spacey as any of them, of course-and it's concert season, four days of touring for Electric Love after months of inactivity, which complicates things-but different schedules can only go so far as explanations for Seunghyun's newer set of idiosyncrasies. Or the tattoo.
But Seunghyun's never responded well to direct confrontations or haphazard ultimatums, so Jiyong shakes his head and slips out of the bathroom, toweling his hair. "How's filming? I heard-"
"I'm a werewolf," comes the loaded bombshell from behind him, and it's just the type of absurd thing Seunghyun would say to derail his thoughts that Jiyong rambles on for another minute before he turns around and sees Seunghyun standing in the frame of the bathroom door, arms crossed over the pretzel on his shirt, eyes scanning Jiyong's face.
"What did you say?"
"You heard me," he says, making his way to the other twin bed with a fluidity that Jiyong had just written off as something he'd picked up from Into the Fire boot camp or whatever, filed away in his head as one of many inconsequential details. Seunghyun slides beneath the blankets and smiles, then, and if it's more lupine than usual it's only because of the bizarre context of the conversation at hand.
"Don't be ridiculous," Jiyong scoffs. "Werewolves don't exist, idiot."
Which is when Seunghyun decides to scare the living shit out of him and shift into a fucking wolf two feet away-a real, living, breathing wolf with glossy black fur and big yellow eyes lounging on the bed, clothing ripped to shreds around him.
Jiyong backpedals into the far wall so fast he's pretty sure he concusses himself. "What the hell, hyung?!" The wolf leaps off the bed and bounds over to him in one long step, rears up on two legs, front paws braced on either side of Jiyong's head. Jiyong doesn't breathe-is too afraid, shocked, every goddamn synonym in the thesaurus, to move at all. "I'm dreaming," he mumbles numbly, "This isn't real, what the fuck-"
The wolf fucking licks his face-because of course he does, the dumbass-and Jiyong kind of collapses into a heap on the floor, jelly legs splayed out on the carpet.
"I think you just shaved ten years off my life," he breathes, closing his eyes for a moment and pinching the bridge of his nose with shaking fingers.
When he opens them again it's a very much human Seunghyun staring back, crouched down next to him with his head cocked to the side, expression curious, the most naked Jiyong's seen him since they'd gone to public bathhouses together in middle school. Jiyong studiously avoids looking anywhere but at Seunghyun's face.
"Pity about the Fubu sweater," he continues, the hysterical urge to laugh bubbling up in his chest. "I liked it."
Seunghyun rolls his eyes. "I'll get another one," he says, voice like gravel, and Jiyong swallows instinctively.
"Okay," he says, scrubbing at his face. "So it's real. Who else knows?"
"Just you," Seunghyun says. "I had to tell somebody."
Jiyong frowns. "Okay, but what about the person who-I assume someone had to bite you-"
"I don't know who it was," he says, averting his gaze. "It happened when we were in China. We were in the woods, it was dark, and I got bitten. That's all I can remember."
Jiyong opens his mouth to say something incredulous but notes the genuine confusion on Seunghyun's face and just sighs instead. "We have to tell the managers, or sajangnim-"
He makes to get up, but Seunghyun reaches out with panicked hands and forces him back down, leans in and pins him there with a strength that has to be superhuman because Jiyong's always been able to extricate himself from Seunghyun's half-hearted manhandling before. "You can't." His eyes flash gold and the heavy planes of his body press down on Jiyong's in a way that make his knees go liquid again, his breath catching in his throat.
"Fuck," he says, the word coming out slow and slurred, and somehow through the haze of-whatever this heady arousal is-Jiyong can pinpoint the exact moment it clicks in Seunghyun's head.
"Wait-really?"
Jiyong wheezes out a laugh, stretching up to palm the forearm that's pressed against his collarbones. Even now, over half a decade beyond his awkward teenage years, Seunghyun still doesn't quite know what he does to people. "This newfound physicality is a good look on you."
Seunghyun snorts and rolls off of him. He stares absently down at his hands and clenches his right one into a fist, watches as the muscles in his arm flex to match it.
Jiyong sits up, still breathing hard. "You have no idea what you've gotten yourself into, do you?" The quiet look he gets at that is all the answer he needs. Jiyong picks himself off the floor and tosses a bathrobe at Seunghyun. "Well, I guess we have our work cut out for us."
The Internet, as usual, is full of misinformation. Seunghyun can still wear the silver accessories Jieun arms him with during performances, and he doesn't seem to have a problem turning into a wolf despite the fact that the full moon's two weeks past. Jiyong finagles the staff into getting him better earplugs for the concerts so Seunghyun's heightened awareness of everything doesn't fry his brain when the thrumming bass comes on. The tattoo is still a mystery.
They fly back to Seoul after the last show in Budokan and spend nights in the studio and days in the gym, where Master Hwang marvels at what he assumes are the fruits of Seunghyun's healthy living.
"Your body's in prime condition," he says, flipping through the report from their physicals. "I'm impressed. Keep it up."
Jiyong wrinkles his nose when Master Hwang's gone and he's left with the human embodiment of smugness jogging breezily on a treadmill. "Too bad your super awesome werewolf powers didn't improve your dancing any."
"Can't have it all," Seunghyun says, grinning, and nearly breaks off the handle of his machine in his haste to pick up speed.
In the end, it's the meditation that helps Seunghyun wrestle it under control, at least an hour of it every day so he doesn't accidentally shift in the middle of a meeting or interview or performance. "You know, you're probably the best person this could've happened to," Jiyong remarks, a couple of days before Seunghyun has to go back on set to film for his movie. "You're laidback enough to be unfazed. Youngbae would've probably thought he was turning into a demon or something. Seungri wouldn't have been able to keep his mouth shut at all and everyone would've found out. Daesung-he's too normal to be a werewolf."
Seunghyun slides his finger down the mixing console and hikes an eyebrow, amused. "What about you?"
"I think I would've freaked out and tried to drown my sorrows in alcohol," he decides, hugging the back of his swivel chair and twisting his legs together. "As with everything."
"Nah," Seunghyun says. He hits the space bar and the latest scratch track floods the room. "You don't give yourself enough credit."
"Aconite poisoning," the doctor continues. "He had some sort of severe allergic reaction when coming into contact with it on location, but he's well on his way to recovery."
Seunghyun stirs in the gurney and Jiyong leans forward in his chair. "We should've known about the wolfsbane," he hisses under his breath. "It's-"
"Not your fault," Seunghyun finishes slowly, speech still thick with sleep. "Plus, superhuman abilities, remember? I'll be fine." He lifts his bandage and blinks a watering eye at Jiyong, the cuts on his skin from the shrapnel already scabbing over. "See?"
"Can you regulate how fast you heal?"
His mouth twists with concentration. "I think so. It's harder with the wolfsbane stuff still in my bloodstream. Why?"
Jiyong jerks his head at the window. "Don't you think they'd be a little suspicious if you were completely fine after two days?"
"Oh," he says, brow furrowing. "Right."
A nurse bustles in with fresh gauze and swats Seunghyun's hand off the bandage. "Don't touch that," she says, and glares at Jiyong after she finishes changing the dressing. "Visiting hours will be over soon."
"I understand," he calls. She hurries out again. The door swings shut. Jiyong turns back to the bed and a first wave of exhaustion hits him-he was clocking hours in the studio as usual when Namgook came in with news that Seunghyun had been hospitalized. He folds his legs up, sitting cross-legged in the chair, and scowls. "You're-"
"An idiot, I know," Seunghyun finishes for him. He sinks into the pillows and tilts his head, listening to something Jiyong can't hear. "Youngbae and Daesung just got here."
What descends next is a flurry of concern and well wishing. Jiyong gets shunted out of the hospital room before he can think twice, and they don't get another chance to be alone before the staff force them to leave, Seunghyun falling back into morphine-induced sleep.
Principal photography ends in April, and they all attend the movie's premiere in June. Seunghyun returns to the dorm and the dogs promptly go berserk. They don't calm down until he learns how to mask his scent, which is probably the weirdest thing Jiyong has ever heard drop out of Seunghyun's mouth. Well, the weirdest thing after hey, I'm a werewolf-but then that one is pretty difficult to beat.
More difficult still is adjusting to the fact that Jiyong can't even mention Seunghyun's name without him turning up sooner or later, a knowing look on his face-or that Seunghyun is actually toned now, at least from the flash of forearm and stomach Jiyong gets out of the corner of his eye when they're rehearsing in the practice rooms. It's fucking distracting is what it is, and he can't afford distraction when he's supposed to be writing their new album on top of all the work that's coming in from new photoshoots and advertising campaigns and Youngbae's solo promotions.
The album, of course, is supposed to come out in October, but Jiyong's birthday passes and they've still only got one new usable song, if that, so everything gets pushed back to November, and then indefinitely.
"We're never coming back," Seungri says morosely in October, after another failed recording session.
"Go home, both of you," Jiyong says to him and Daesung, sprawled across the couch in the back. "We'll try it again tomorrow."
They can't get out of the place fast enough. Jiyong pinches the bridge of his nose and lets an old track sajangnim vetoed start playing in surround sound.
"That sounds good," Seunghyun says, dumping his workout bag on the table and bending over the soundboard.
Jiyong uncurls from the chair and kicks his sneakers off, flexes his toes. "It's too bad the only person whose opinion matters doesn't think so."
Maybe sajangnim is a fucking werewolf too, because he sticks his head into the room minutes later, eyebrows raised. "Oh, good, you're still here." He proceeds to outline a new plan of action in fifty words or less and drops a pile of meeting notes in Jiyong's lap before waltzing out the door again with a creepily enigmatic smile on his face.
"What was that?" is all Jiyong can manage. He stares down at the packet, Pilkang and Choice's familiar handwriting scrawled in the margins.
"I think," Seunghyun says slowly, "he just said he wants subunits."
If Jiyong thought a normal amount of daily contact with Seunghyun was bad before, working with him alone becomes increasingly unbearable. It's better when Kush and Teddy are there, or Bom when she's recording different arrangements for Don't Go Home and then Oh Yeah-but when the cameras are gone, he can always feel the back of his neck prickling. He is hyperaware of Seunghyun's presence at all times, and absently wonders if werewolf symptoms are contagious.
They're back in the studio a week after Seunghyun's birthday, and Jiyong can't for the life of him get his voice all the way up for Baby Good Night's hook.
"Take a break," Seunghyun calls, and Jiyong stomps out, collapses listlessly on the couch.
The next thing he knows, Seunghyun's shaking his shoulder and there's a massive crick in his neck. He scrubs his mouth and tries to sit up. "Did I fall asleep?"
"Dead to the world," Seunghyun confirms. His thumb is still rubbing smooth circles into the skin where Jiyong's shoulder meets his clavicle and Jiyong's breath hitches despite himself, his heartbeat picking up. "You're nervous," he says, a look of confusion flickering over his face. "Why?"
Jiyong shrugs noncommittally. He'd protest, but Seunghyun's learned how to read vital signs better than anyone, and it would be futile to discuss. "Have you figured out who bit you, yet?" he asks, sour.
Seunghyun scowls and sits back on the sofa, the hand on Jiyong's shoulder withdrawing. "Is it important?"
"Yes," he hisses. "Someone out there knows what you are. What makes you think they aren't going to come back for everything?"
"What makes you so sure they will? It's been over half a year by now-"
"There's a fucking tattoo on your back and you have no idea how it got there. Jesus." He runs an agitated hand through his hair. "You can't tell me you aren't at least a little concerned."
Seunghyun stares at him. "Actually, at the moment, I'm more concerned about the fact that you've been hiding something from me. Care to share with the class?"
"It's not important," he mutters, and reaches for the bottle of vitamin water on the table. "Look, we should keep recording, we lost a lot of time-"
Seunghyun snatches it away before he can. "So there is something."
"I-"
"Are you tired of taking care of a total freak?" he asks calmly.
Jiyong blinks, momentarily blindsided. "What? No! Where on earth-"
Seunghyun shakes his head. "It's alright."
"No, it isn't." He breathes out through his nose, eyebrows scrunching together. "I don't even-have I ever given you any reason to think I have a problem with this?"
Seunghyun casts him a sidelong look.
"Really?"
He shrugs, the fight deflating out of him abruptly. "Or maybe you're jealous."
"What?"
Seunghyun's shooting in the dark, now, his voice flat and dull. "Listen, I know how hard it is for you to keep secrets-"
"Shut up," Jiyong snaps, leaning forward and seizing the lapels of Seunghyun's blazer. "You don't know anything."
He kisses Seunghyun like it's a foregone conclusion, and the angle is all wrong but Seunghyun kisses him back after that first moment of indecision, which is what matters. It's messy and awkward and knocks the breath right out of Jiyong's lungs, all sharp teeth and wet tongue and Seunghyun's tightening grip on the crook of Jiyong's neck-and then Seunghyun's got him pinned to the couch, leg tucked in between Jiyong's, his irises bleeding gold.
Jiyong bucks up against Seunghyun's leg, but it's useless, he's absolutely immobile, and Seunghyun's forearm descends like it did months ago, levering firmly across his collarbone again. Jiyong opens his mouth to suck in air but all that comes is a tiny trickle, and then nothing. He closes his eyes and the world diminishes to two points: the arm at his neck and the knee against his erection, grinding in a way that should hurt-but then, so should the lack of oxygen, and yet here he is, harder than he's ever been in his entire life.
Jiyong's not sure if he passes out or comes, or both-probably both-because when he comes back into himself Seunghyun's crouched on the floor, hair disheveled, bent over Jiyong with a haggard expression on his face.
"What's up with you?" he rasps out. "Fuck, we definitely can't record anymore."
"Are you okay?" Seunghyun says, pressing a cool palm against Jiyong's forehead. "You-"
"I'll live." He shifts his legs and his underwear pulls uncomfortably. "God, those were my best pair of Gallianos. I hope you're ready to shell out if they're ruined."
Seunghyun laughs, ducking so that his head bumps against Jiyong's shoulder, and moves to drop a kiss there because he's Seunghyun and therefore stupidly sentimental. "What the hell, Jiyong. You could've told me, you know?"
Jiyong clears his throat. His neck throbs, warm with the pleasure of pain. The bruising will be fucking atrocious tomorrow, of course. It's a good thing November is scarf weather. "Didn't I just?"
So it turns out sex is better at dissipating Seunghyun's excess wolf-related energy than any amount of meditation could've been-which, given the truly alarming amount of pornographic Twilight fanfiction on the Internet, probably shouldn't have come as much of a surprise at all.
"This isn't over, by the way," Jiyong hisses later. It's two nights before the MAMAs and they're in the studio again, making last minute adjustments on the digital masters. Teddy's just gone home for the evening. Jiyong pokes at the fabric of Seunghyun's jacket, right over where the tattoo is on his back. "I'm not going to drop this business about who the hell bit you just because we happen to be, I don't know-"
"Boning on the regular?"
Jiyong frowns severely at him. "Not the words I would've used, but I guess it's the right sentiment."
"We'll get there when we get there," Seunghyun says, serene as ever, and pulls him down onto the couch.
fin
A/N: SORRY ABOUT JUST... ENDING IT THERE (and the surprise... breathplay... which u did not ask for omg i am SO SORRY ~__~). i would've added more but this thing is already like 3k and if i'd kept going it would've ended up being some 20k monster and i wouldn't have been able to finish any of the other things i have to write for advent u__u pls rest assured that i will most probably revisit this ~universe~ after the month is over and i (hopefully) finish everything else on my plate /o\
Pairing: gtop
Rating: nc17
Genre: romance, ar, slice-of-life
Warnings: swearing, sex, breathplay
Author: gdgdbaby
Notes: advent calendar day 4, for eeka_specks. top's a werewolf. set in 2010. 3,091 words.
"It's a miracle he didn't go blind," the doctor is saying outside the hospital room, his words muffled by the thick panes of glass.
"Right," Jiyong mutters, fiddling idly with his cell phone strap and staring at the gauze wrapped around Seunghyun's head, the monitors beeping into oblivion behind him. "A miracle."
It's the tattoo that does it. Out of all the vices and proclivities they possess as a collective whole, marking his skin permanently was never one of Seunghyun's-and in Tokyo, in a hotel bathroom that's barely large enough to fit the both of them, the three-pronged swirl between Seunghyun's shoulder blades seems even more out of place.
"What is that?" Jiyong asks, reaching out to touch it despite himself. "When did you get this? It looks old."
Seunghyun sends him a pensive glance and shrugs his sweatshirt back on, the smooth expanse of his back covered again. He's always been as strange and spacey as any of them, of course-and it's concert season, four days of touring for Electric Love after months of inactivity, which complicates things-but different schedules can only go so far as explanations for Seunghyun's newer set of idiosyncrasies. Or the tattoo.
But Seunghyun's never responded well to direct confrontations or haphazard ultimatums, so Jiyong shakes his head and slips out of the bathroom, toweling his hair. "How's filming? I heard-"
"I'm a werewolf," comes the loaded bombshell from behind him, and it's just the type of absurd thing Seunghyun would say to derail his thoughts that Jiyong rambles on for another minute before he turns around and sees Seunghyun standing in the frame of the bathroom door, arms crossed over the pretzel on his shirt, eyes scanning Jiyong's face.
"What did you say?"
"You heard me," he says, making his way to the other twin bed with a fluidity that Jiyong had just written off as something he'd picked up from Into the Fire boot camp or whatever, filed away in his head as one of many inconsequential details. Seunghyun slides beneath the blankets and smiles, then, and if it's more lupine than usual it's only because of the bizarre context of the conversation at hand.
"Don't be ridiculous," Jiyong scoffs. "Werewolves don't exist, idiot."
Which is when Seunghyun decides to scare the living shit out of him and shift into a fucking wolf two feet away-a real, living, breathing wolf with glossy black fur and big yellow eyes lounging on the bed, clothing ripped to shreds around him.
Jiyong backpedals into the far wall so fast he's pretty sure he concusses himself. "What the hell, hyung?!" The wolf leaps off the bed and bounds over to him in one long step, rears up on two legs, front paws braced on either side of Jiyong's head. Jiyong doesn't breathe-is too afraid, shocked, every goddamn synonym in the thesaurus, to move at all. "I'm dreaming," he mumbles numbly, "This isn't real, what the fuck-"
The wolf fucking licks his face-because of course he does, the dumbass-and Jiyong kind of collapses into a heap on the floor, jelly legs splayed out on the carpet.
"I think you just shaved ten years off my life," he breathes, closing his eyes for a moment and pinching the bridge of his nose with shaking fingers.
When he opens them again it's a very much human Seunghyun staring back, crouched down next to him with his head cocked to the side, expression curious, the most naked Jiyong's seen him since they'd gone to public bathhouses together in middle school. Jiyong studiously avoids looking anywhere but at Seunghyun's face.
"Pity about the Fubu sweater," he continues, the hysterical urge to laugh bubbling up in his chest. "I liked it."
Seunghyun rolls his eyes. "I'll get another one," he says, voice like gravel, and Jiyong swallows instinctively.
"Okay," he says, scrubbing at his face. "So it's real. Who else knows?"
"Just you," Seunghyun says. "I had to tell somebody."
Jiyong frowns. "Okay, but what about the person who-I assume someone had to bite you-"
"I don't know who it was," he says, averting his gaze. "It happened when we were in China. We were in the woods, it was dark, and I got bitten. That's all I can remember."
Jiyong opens his mouth to say something incredulous but notes the genuine confusion on Seunghyun's face and just sighs instead. "We have to tell the managers, or sajangnim-"
He makes to get up, but Seunghyun reaches out with panicked hands and forces him back down, leans in and pins him there with a strength that has to be superhuman because Jiyong's always been able to extricate himself from Seunghyun's half-hearted manhandling before. "You can't." His eyes flash gold and the heavy planes of his body press down on Jiyong's in a way that make his knees go liquid again, his breath catching in his throat.
"Fuck," he says, the word coming out slow and slurred, and somehow through the haze of-whatever this heady arousal is-Jiyong can pinpoint the exact moment it clicks in Seunghyun's head.
"Wait-really?"
Jiyong wheezes out a laugh, stretching up to palm the forearm that's pressed against his collarbones. Even now, over half a decade beyond his awkward teenage years, Seunghyun still doesn't quite know what he does to people. "This newfound physicality is a good look on you."
Seunghyun snorts and rolls off of him. He stares absently down at his hands and clenches his right one into a fist, watches as the muscles in his arm flex to match it.
Jiyong sits up, still breathing hard. "You have no idea what you've gotten yourself into, do you?" The quiet look he gets at that is all the answer he needs. Jiyong picks himself off the floor and tosses a bathrobe at Seunghyun. "Well, I guess we have our work cut out for us."
The Internet, as usual, is full of misinformation. Seunghyun can still wear the silver accessories Jieun arms him with during performances, and he doesn't seem to have a problem turning into a wolf despite the fact that the full moon's two weeks past. Jiyong finagles the staff into getting him better earplugs for the concerts so Seunghyun's heightened awareness of everything doesn't fry his brain when the thrumming bass comes on. The tattoo is still a mystery.
They fly back to Seoul after the last show in Budokan and spend nights in the studio and days in the gym, where Master Hwang marvels at what he assumes are the fruits of Seunghyun's healthy living.
"Your body's in prime condition," he says, flipping through the report from their physicals. "I'm impressed. Keep it up."
Jiyong wrinkles his nose when Master Hwang's gone and he's left with the human embodiment of smugness jogging breezily on a treadmill. "Too bad your super awesome werewolf powers didn't improve your dancing any."
"Can't have it all," Seunghyun says, grinning, and nearly breaks off the handle of his machine in his haste to pick up speed.
In the end, it's the meditation that helps Seunghyun wrestle it under control, at least an hour of it every day so he doesn't accidentally shift in the middle of a meeting or interview or performance. "You know, you're probably the best person this could've happened to," Jiyong remarks, a couple of days before Seunghyun has to go back on set to film for his movie. "You're laidback enough to be unfazed. Youngbae would've probably thought he was turning into a demon or something. Seungri wouldn't have been able to keep his mouth shut at all and everyone would've found out. Daesung-he's too normal to be a werewolf."
Seunghyun slides his finger down the mixing console and hikes an eyebrow, amused. "What about you?"
"I think I would've freaked out and tried to drown my sorrows in alcohol," he decides, hugging the back of his swivel chair and twisting his legs together. "As with everything."
"Nah," Seunghyun says. He hits the space bar and the latest scratch track floods the room. "You don't give yourself enough credit."
"Aconite poisoning," the doctor continues. "He had some sort of severe allergic reaction when coming into contact with it on location, but he's well on his way to recovery."
Seunghyun stirs in the gurney and Jiyong leans forward in his chair. "We should've known about the wolfsbane," he hisses under his breath. "It's-"
"Not your fault," Seunghyun finishes slowly, speech still thick with sleep. "Plus, superhuman abilities, remember? I'll be fine." He lifts his bandage and blinks a watering eye at Jiyong, the cuts on his skin from the shrapnel already scabbing over. "See?"
"Can you regulate how fast you heal?"
His mouth twists with concentration. "I think so. It's harder with the wolfsbane stuff still in my bloodstream. Why?"
Jiyong jerks his head at the window. "Don't you think they'd be a little suspicious if you were completely fine after two days?"
"Oh," he says, brow furrowing. "Right."
A nurse bustles in with fresh gauze and swats Seunghyun's hand off the bandage. "Don't touch that," she says, and glares at Jiyong after she finishes changing the dressing. "Visiting hours will be over soon."
"I understand," he calls. She hurries out again. The door swings shut. Jiyong turns back to the bed and a first wave of exhaustion hits him-he was clocking hours in the studio as usual when Namgook came in with news that Seunghyun had been hospitalized. He folds his legs up, sitting cross-legged in the chair, and scowls. "You're-"
"An idiot, I know," Seunghyun finishes for him. He sinks into the pillows and tilts his head, listening to something Jiyong can't hear. "Youngbae and Daesung just got here."
What descends next is a flurry of concern and well wishing. Jiyong gets shunted out of the hospital room before he can think twice, and they don't get another chance to be alone before the staff force them to leave, Seunghyun falling back into morphine-induced sleep.
Principal photography ends in April, and they all attend the movie's premiere in June. Seunghyun returns to the dorm and the dogs promptly go berserk. They don't calm down until he learns how to mask his scent, which is probably the weirdest thing Jiyong has ever heard drop out of Seunghyun's mouth. Well, the weirdest thing after hey, I'm a werewolf-but then that one is pretty difficult to beat.
More difficult still is adjusting to the fact that Jiyong can't even mention Seunghyun's name without him turning up sooner or later, a knowing look on his face-or that Seunghyun is actually toned now, at least from the flash of forearm and stomach Jiyong gets out of the corner of his eye when they're rehearsing in the practice rooms. It's fucking distracting is what it is, and he can't afford distraction when he's supposed to be writing their new album on top of all the work that's coming in from new photoshoots and advertising campaigns and Youngbae's solo promotions.
The album, of course, is supposed to come out in October, but Jiyong's birthday passes and they've still only got one new usable song, if that, so everything gets pushed back to November, and then indefinitely.
"We're never coming back," Seungri says morosely in October, after another failed recording session.
"Go home, both of you," Jiyong says to him and Daesung, sprawled across the couch in the back. "We'll try it again tomorrow."
They can't get out of the place fast enough. Jiyong pinches the bridge of his nose and lets an old track sajangnim vetoed start playing in surround sound.
"That sounds good," Seunghyun says, dumping his workout bag on the table and bending over the soundboard.
Jiyong uncurls from the chair and kicks his sneakers off, flexes his toes. "It's too bad the only person whose opinion matters doesn't think so."
Maybe sajangnim is a fucking werewolf too, because he sticks his head into the room minutes later, eyebrows raised. "Oh, good, you're still here." He proceeds to outline a new plan of action in fifty words or less and drops a pile of meeting notes in Jiyong's lap before waltzing out the door again with a creepily enigmatic smile on his face.
"What was that?" is all Jiyong can manage. He stares down at the packet, Pilkang and Choice's familiar handwriting scrawled in the margins.
"I think," Seunghyun says slowly, "he just said he wants subunits."
If Jiyong thought a normal amount of daily contact with Seunghyun was bad before, working with him alone becomes increasingly unbearable. It's better when Kush and Teddy are there, or Bom when she's recording different arrangements for Don't Go Home and then Oh Yeah-but when the cameras are gone, he can always feel the back of his neck prickling. He is hyperaware of Seunghyun's presence at all times, and absently wonders if werewolf symptoms are contagious.
They're back in the studio a week after Seunghyun's birthday, and Jiyong can't for the life of him get his voice all the way up for Baby Good Night's hook.
"Take a break," Seunghyun calls, and Jiyong stomps out, collapses listlessly on the couch.
The next thing he knows, Seunghyun's shaking his shoulder and there's a massive crick in his neck. He scrubs his mouth and tries to sit up. "Did I fall asleep?"
"Dead to the world," Seunghyun confirms. His thumb is still rubbing smooth circles into the skin where Jiyong's shoulder meets his clavicle and Jiyong's breath hitches despite himself, his heartbeat picking up. "You're nervous," he says, a look of confusion flickering over his face. "Why?"
Jiyong shrugs noncommittally. He'd protest, but Seunghyun's learned how to read vital signs better than anyone, and it would be futile to discuss. "Have you figured out who bit you, yet?" he asks, sour.
Seunghyun scowls and sits back on the sofa, the hand on Jiyong's shoulder withdrawing. "Is it important?"
"Yes," he hisses. "Someone out there knows what you are. What makes you think they aren't going to come back for everything?"
"What makes you so sure they will? It's been over half a year by now-"
"There's a fucking tattoo on your back and you have no idea how it got there. Jesus." He runs an agitated hand through his hair. "You can't tell me you aren't at least a little concerned."
Seunghyun stares at him. "Actually, at the moment, I'm more concerned about the fact that you've been hiding something from me. Care to share with the class?"
"It's not important," he mutters, and reaches for the bottle of vitamin water on the table. "Look, we should keep recording, we lost a lot of time-"
Seunghyun snatches it away before he can. "So there is something."
"I-"
"Are you tired of taking care of a total freak?" he asks calmly.
Jiyong blinks, momentarily blindsided. "What? No! Where on earth-"
Seunghyun shakes his head. "It's alright."
"No, it isn't." He breathes out through his nose, eyebrows scrunching together. "I don't even-have I ever given you any reason to think I have a problem with this?"
Seunghyun casts him a sidelong look.
"Really?"
He shrugs, the fight deflating out of him abruptly. "Or maybe you're jealous."
"What?"
Seunghyun's shooting in the dark, now, his voice flat and dull. "Listen, I know how hard it is for you to keep secrets-"
"Shut up," Jiyong snaps, leaning forward and seizing the lapels of Seunghyun's blazer. "You don't know anything."
He kisses Seunghyun like it's a foregone conclusion, and the angle is all wrong but Seunghyun kisses him back after that first moment of indecision, which is what matters. It's messy and awkward and knocks the breath right out of Jiyong's lungs, all sharp teeth and wet tongue and Seunghyun's tightening grip on the crook of Jiyong's neck-and then Seunghyun's got him pinned to the couch, leg tucked in between Jiyong's, his irises bleeding gold.
Jiyong bucks up against Seunghyun's leg, but it's useless, he's absolutely immobile, and Seunghyun's forearm descends like it did months ago, levering firmly across his collarbone again. Jiyong opens his mouth to suck in air but all that comes is a tiny trickle, and then nothing. He closes his eyes and the world diminishes to two points: the arm at his neck and the knee against his erection, grinding in a way that should hurt-but then, so should the lack of oxygen, and yet here he is, harder than he's ever been in his entire life.
Jiyong's not sure if he passes out or comes, or both-probably both-because when he comes back into himself Seunghyun's crouched on the floor, hair disheveled, bent over Jiyong with a haggard expression on his face.
"What's up with you?" he rasps out. "Fuck, we definitely can't record anymore."
"Are you okay?" Seunghyun says, pressing a cool palm against Jiyong's forehead. "You-"
"I'll live." He shifts his legs and his underwear pulls uncomfortably. "God, those were my best pair of Gallianos. I hope you're ready to shell out if they're ruined."
Seunghyun laughs, ducking so that his head bumps against Jiyong's shoulder, and moves to drop a kiss there because he's Seunghyun and therefore stupidly sentimental. "What the hell, Jiyong. You could've told me, you know?"
Jiyong clears his throat. His neck throbs, warm with the pleasure of pain. The bruising will be fucking atrocious tomorrow, of course. It's a good thing November is scarf weather. "Didn't I just?"
So it turns out sex is better at dissipating Seunghyun's excess wolf-related energy than any amount of meditation could've been-which, given the truly alarming amount of pornographic Twilight fanfiction on the Internet, probably shouldn't have come as much of a surprise at all.
"This isn't over, by the way," Jiyong hisses later. It's two nights before the MAMAs and they're in the studio again, making last minute adjustments on the digital masters. Teddy's just gone home for the evening. Jiyong pokes at the fabric of Seunghyun's jacket, right over where the tattoo is on his back. "I'm not going to drop this business about who the hell bit you just because we happen to be, I don't know-"
"Boning on the regular?"
Jiyong frowns severely at him. "Not the words I would've used, but I guess it's the right sentiment."
"We'll get there when we get there," Seunghyun says, serene as ever, and pulls him down onto the couch.
fin
A/N: SORRY ABOUT JUST... ENDING IT THERE (and the surprise... breathplay... which u did not ask for omg i am SO SORRY ~__~). i would've added more but this thing is already like 3k and if i'd kept going it would've ended up being some 20k monster and i wouldn't have been able to finish any of the other things i have to write for advent u__u pls rest assured that i will most probably revisit this ~universe~ after the month is over and i (hopefully) finish everything else on my plate /o\