(no subject)
Title: Apologia Pro Vita Sua (Chapter 9)
Authors: Scorpions angelinaii, murasaki_plum, nemesis_cry
Characters/Pairings: All (kangteuk, shichul, kihae; potential kyuwook, eunkihae, shihanchul, yeshdong, yewook, minry)
Rating: PG-13 to R
Genre: AU, organized crime, postcyberpunk
Summary: In a world where money and crime go hand and hand, survival is not determined by the fittest, but the ones who will fight to live.
Warnings: violence, swearing, sexual situations
Introduction and Chapter 1 | Chapters 2 & 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8
Banner by angelinaii
Mother and Father left sometime after his twelfth birthday. They weren't bad parents, so they left him with the local priest, as if religion must've been synonymous with kindness. They weren't stupid, but they were gullible. Surely, they figured, a bald, middle-aged man already caring for two orphan choir boys--of whom the choir was actually exclusively formed--couldn't possibly be anything but the perfect guardian for their handful of an only son.
They started by leaving him there after school for a few days while they worked. He didn't complain, but he didn't like hearing the priest talk about his sermon all the time, or watch the other boys play. For one, he didn't understand why they always blanched when thick black robes would appear behind a corner.
After about a month of impromptu stays at the church, his parents just didn't come back one day. They didn't come home, either, but when he looked through his mother's clothes, most of the winter garments were gone and her jewelry too. Everything she might've felt was important.
At church, they prayed for his parents' safe return. His neighbors patted his head and smiled condescendingly, all the time whispering behind his back. It didn't take false pity for him to realize he was, for all intents and purposes, on his own from that day on.
"We'll be your family from now on," became the tack of the man in the black robes. Every night and every morning, at every meal and every lesson. "We'll be your family now." Said with a wide smile that exuded honesty and spelled lies. He wasn't fooled. Family was a cursory word. He didn't know what this was, but it wasn't that. Not when his "brothers" still ran around like chickens without heads, blanching if he spoke too loudly, begging him to dim the lights on nights he couldn't sleep.
It would anger the priest, they said. And when the priest got angry, as Heechul learned soon enough, he didn't spare the rod. For a child whose parents hadn't believed in corporal punishment, it was more than a lesson learned, it was humiliation and an impetus to do more wrong than good.
He took up smoking because he saw two people light up after mass one Sunday. He took up painting his nails and lips because he saw a hooker come to confession one afternoon. She left in tears and it smudged her mascara, but he still thought that was pretty.
So when time came to hang around at night and his "brothers" told him not to do it, Heechul only reveled in the potential for conflict. Just let him try, he thought. Just let him touch me. He was sixteen by then and he knew his strength. He went out at night guessing the risks but mostly just wanting the excitement, the freedom of their neighborhood in the dark.
He found more to fear and dread than within the church walls but it didn't make him turn back. And when six years later, he went out again, he almost fancied himself king of the world, his matches lighting his crown in short flares of ash.
***
Finding the narrow space between floorboard and wall, Heechul retrieved his treasure chest. It wasn't much of a chest and it lacked the obvious appeal of shiny trinkets to which he never much objected, but it was important in its own right. In it, he kept a seemingly endless supply of cigarette lighters, all of which worked perfectly, all of which he'd rigged into mini-bombs. For the occasion, he picked a red one, fingers itching to strike a flame even while aware of the explosion that would ensue. Not enough to cause damage to the building, but he'd probably lose his hands if not his life.
That one new priest who liked to loiter around the only school left in the Bottoms was long overdue for a smoke. He'd pay him a visit in the morning, just as the man smiled his ugly grin at unsuspecting little boys again. It was Heechul's belief that men who engaged in one form of vice didn't object to others. And if he didn't smoke, well, Heechul didn't value his hands above the thrill of a flame.
Footsteps in the other room brought his thoughts back to the present. Swiftly, meticulously, he returned the box to its place out of the way, and stood, twirling the lighter between his fingers. Such a pretty thing too. Perfect choice for a perfect target.
Siwon tossed his leather jacket onto the armrest of a sofa., stepping through the living room to sit at the makeshift dining room table. It was the only area in their apartment with decent lighting. He reached behind him to pull a miniature black notebook from its place by the telephone and began to flip through the pages. An endless stream of names and phone numbers of clients, friends, lovers and colleagues. The latter was what he was searching for, someone from his past.
"Looking for something?" Heechul asked by way of greeting, bootheels clicking a stilted rhythm as he followed to peer over the other man's shoulder. It was rare enough for Siwon come home so late after him, it was unprecedented that he'd do the whole dark and moody routine that was usually Heechul's specialty.
"One of Taboo's girls ended up at the morgue today. How that woman functions is beyond me." he said with a sigh as he found the number he was looking for and reached for the telephone. The phonecall was brief enough, it wasn't even his to make. He broke the news and offered to handle the details, declining to share the information that Eeteuk had relayed to him earlier. It was disconcerting among the grief-filled sobs of the woman on the other end, that there was little disguising the relief the woman felt in finally knowing where her daughter was. Siwon couldn't help but wonder if this was the phone call that his parents were waiting for and dreading back in their estate deep within Judoh, but he long stopped dwelling on such things.
Heechul listened in unabashedly, knowing the other man could tell him to fuck off if necessary. When he didn't, a small tendril of concern wormed its way into the pit of his stomach, unease settling firmly within. People died all the time, especially in the Bottoms. Whores, children, sometimes both in one go. It wasn't that big of a tragedy that they took it upon themselves to call up families or pretend to offer sympathy. Belatedly, it dawned on him that Siwon may've known the girl. Not that it changed much. His life and the girl's life were wholly unconnected now and Heechul couldn't pretend he felt any regret.
"Did you know her?" he asked, schooling his features into a suitably grave mask without pushing the envelope any further.
Siwon ran a hand through his hair and shrugged. "We ran in the same circles, lost touch when she started using and hooked up with Tab. We weren't close, if that's what you're really asking."
"It's not. I'm just curious," Heechul shrugged in kind, moving to round the table. Not even curious, really, simply making conversation. "Heard Eeteuk was going to the morgue about something..." Obviously the two had to be connected somehow. Coincidence, like Lady Luck, didn't visit the Bottoms much. "What happened to her, do you know?"
"Hollowed out like a jack-o-lantern." Siwon commented, shuddering. It was the one detail of his call with Eeteuk that stuck with him, that there was someone in the Bottoms capable of doing such a thing. That the person was still out there. "From what Eeteuk said, it didn't look like it was done by an amateur either."
A shudder, barely hidden by a yawn as Heechul leaned against the table, pondering his little plan, the lighter he'd been toying with. One target was just as good as another.
"Maybe it was just a client gone wild," he suggested, sliding the small metal stick to the other end of the table. "My contribution to the party fund. If Eeteuk went so far as to tell you about it, he's planning on going all Robin Hood on us." A tilt of the head. "Though defending whores is more like a pimp's job."
"I don't think a client would bother to keep the organs after he finished cutting them out of her body. If what Eeteuk said is true, we want to get this guy off of the streets as much as the pimps do." Siwon frowned as he took sight of the lighter on the countertop. "Thought Kangin told you to get rid of those things."
"Kangin tells me a lot of things," Heechul grinned in response. "He knows me well enough to know I don't listen." Or hear him, for that matter. As if with one of Kyuhyun's chips, he could almost reduce the other man's voice to background noise through sheer willpower if he focused enough. "Come on, I've got something to take care of in half an hour. Get over the dead girl already."
"He has a point, people are starting to notice it. If it gets traced back to us..." he trailed off, not even bothering to rehash an argument he knew Heechul would get into with Kangin later. Siwon gave Heechul a dark look over his last comment. "What do you need me for? If you got something to do, do it."
Heechul rolled his eyes, pulling his shirt over his head. "Inspiration," he explained archly, giving up on Siwon if the other man was going to insist on making him walk over hot coals. Thirty minutes and counting until he had to be out the door again and he wasn't going to waste them on hand-wringing and false sympathy. Kangin's point or lack of point and Eeteuk's worry over dead prostitutes left him for the better part unmoved. There was no reason Siwon's mood should affect his with any more impact than that.
Siwon ran a hand along the smooth skin above Heechul's hip and pulled the other man onto his lap. "Find inspiration somewhere else." he murmured after a lingering kiss, cruel and yet equally deserved. "I have a dead girl to get over."
"Ouch," Heechul feigned with a pout. "If that's not a blow to my ego, then I don't know what is." Standing with a smirk, he changed the front room for their sparsely furnished bedroom but left the door open. Not precisely an invitation, more like a form of payback.
"It's called giving a damn, try it some time?" Siwon called down the hallway, plucking the lighter off of the table and spinning it between two fingers. He hated the mind games they played with each other, pushing to see how much it took to get what they wanted out of the other. Yet he couldn't get enough of them. Or Heechul for that matter, it was that reason alone that could explain why either stayed with such a man for years.
***
Siwon had few regrets in this world; he, like relatively few of the disenfranchised Judoh kids, had turned rebellion to a lifestyle in the Bottoms. He found himself swept away by the instant gratification of the slums, the easy money and the emotion-free sex. It wasn't the life he was slated to live, but he loved every minute of it. Disappointments were few if you knew what to expect--that was why he did not feel any misgivings when he mistook the slender redhead as his female client for the evening.
Dark eyes turned from initial surprise to the sort of amused 'what the hell' aura of everything on the outskirts of the glittering city. They beckoned him out of the street and into one of the usual love ho's, even letting him pick the room like women often did, preferring silence until they were behind closed doors and could shed all pretense. He could never quite relate, but he understood them. All the more so since some could be called his co-workers.
Not this one, though.
"How much?" came the sudden, unflinching question. No skirting around the issue. No softening the blow Siwon was sure he wouldn't feel. Perhaps because even more arresting were the deep tones addressing him, instead of the whispered, feminine voice he'd expected.
"The first one is free." Siwon commented with a grin, his evening had already been paid for in advance and he didn't intend to waste it on numbers.
A finger twisted in the chain around his neck, pulling without purpose, pulling until their bodies were flush together and there was no denying the absence of feminine curves. "Well, if that's the case..." And it wasn't the usual crap about wounded feelings and bitter sobstories, but it was a challenge and he never backed down from a challenge.
"Siwon." he introduced himself simply, bringing their lips together roughly before he pulled back. "You can always tip me later."
No answer but for the return of that smirk and he found the kiss rekindled, teeth digging harshly into his lips but only for a second, as if in a strange kind of warning he didn't grasp. The whole thing became an afterthought once he felt the door against his back and hands on his hips, drawing out a moan that was more real than it should've been.
Though he took the shove as a sign that he was to be fucked instead of the other way around--the switch a welcome change--it didn't mean he would take the docile route as he pulled at the other man's top. He rolled his pelvis and slid his hand along smooth skin and taut muscles, trying not to let his attention wander as he focused on what his companion for the evening was doing to him.
Wide, almost childlike eyes bore into his when they broke apart. "Let's play a game," the other man muttered contemplatively, licking his lips. "You do everything I do. Exactly."
It wasn't by far the most outrageous fantasy he'd ever heard and he figured the redhead must've known, but still he nodded, mirroring the smirk thrown at him diligently.
Follow, the man said, and he followed him into the room proper. Siwon matched the redhead's kisses with his own, light and rough and everything in between. His mouth twisted in a smile, he found the edge of bed without taking his eyes off his client who laughed and flipped open a lighter. A warm glow surfaced, ever so briefly, the smell of fuel liquid quick to follow. It didn't bother the other man as reclined against the bed, arching an eyebrow when Siwon failed to follow with his next breath.
"Did you forget the rules of the game?" the man asked Siwon with an amused drawl, waving the lighter in front of his eyes. "Exactly as I do, remember?"
"I don't play with fire," he retorted, straddling slim hips even if that didn't follow the rules either. "Put it away," he breathed, reaching for the redhead again,wanting to go back to being touched.
"You're playing with me." Wide, cat-like eyes narrowed up at him. Hands that were anything but soft or gentle tugged the thin leather from Siwon's shoulders before resuming to tinker with the lighter. "I am fire."
There wasn't a man or woman in the Bottoms--or Judoh, for that matter--who was sane anymore, so Siwon failed to find his companion of the night as anything more than eccentric. Grasping a thin, pale wrist in his fist, he brought the fingers to his lips, the lighter still held firmly between them. "You're also a man."
A flame sparked against his cheek, sudden and harsh, just like the other man's smirk.
"And so are you." the man reminded with a smirk, the orange flame reflected in his dark eyes.
Siwon tensed at the heat against his skin and the orange glow below his peripheral vision and he resisted the urge to recoil. Every man had their fears, he could not think of anyone who lacked of one. Fire happened to be one of his. Instead, he tightened his grip on the man's wrist and pinned it above his head, keeping the lighter a fair distance away from his view. "Enough of that."
The redhead pouted. "My game, my rules," he complained, stretching out under him like a cat, spine arching off the bed. The same dull clink of metal sounded in the silence between them before it was swallowed by a low moan as hips shifted against the sheets without satisfaction. "I like your eyes on me... but I bet the rest of you is just as nice."
"Let's find out." Siwon smirked, bringing his lips to graze at a sharp collarbone as he reached for the belt of the man's pants. He never hesitated before and there was no reason to start now. Male or female, his clients hired him for a reason.
And patience was never their strongest suit.
"Kiss me," came the predictable, if slightly breathless demand as he made quick work of the other's belt and zipper.
He didn't yield to the request immediately, in part of revenge for the stunt with the lighter and the small thrill that inched up his spine as the man arched his neck whenever Siwon's lips were near. Blowing air against the man's lips, he continued to remove the remaining garments.
Long, dark eyelashes fluttered closed, as much in pleasure as exasperation. "Siwon," the redhead pleaded and he decided he rather liked his voice. "How is it that in your line of business you don't do as you're told?"
Siwon choose to kiss him then instead, nipping lightly at the man's lips before pulling back. He didn't do as he was told because he always did what he wanted. "How is it that you won't give me a name?"
"Because you didn't ask for one." And the redhead hadn't offered to share. Denying Siwon a proper answer, he turned his attention inward, running sharp nails over a smooth abdomen. "Don't like you up there. You're too far."
"Give me a name and I might fix that." Siwon smirked, biting back a moan as the other man mirrored his actions.
Judging the trade off to be in his favor, the redhead drug his fingers to his belt and below it, tracing Siwon's zipper slowly. "Heechul," he breathed. "Satisfied?"
He gave a noncommittal noise to Heechul's question, even as the other man pulled at his zipper. Extracting the hand to remove his pants on his own, Siwon closed the space between them.
"Bet you're not," Heechul smirked, speaking into his lips. His hand jerked twice against the pillow, as if trying to disengage Siwon's hold before he settled down, falsely pliant. For all that, he couldn't let Siwon's efforts go unnoticed. A runner's leg wrapping around the other man's hips, he hissed as they fell pelvis to pelvis, the sound full of things he might have spoken out loud.
Siwon smiled into a gasp. Some of them were talkers. He always considered it rather flattering when they suddenly had nothing to say anymore.
Authors: Scorpions angelinaii, murasaki_plum, nemesis_cry
Characters/Pairings: All (kangteuk, shichul, kihae; potential kyuwook, eunkihae, shihanchul, yeshdong, yewook, minry)
Rating: PG-13 to R
Genre: AU, organized crime, postcyberpunk
Summary: In a world where money and crime go hand and hand, survival is not determined by the fittest, but the ones who will fight to live.
Warnings: violence, swearing, sexual situations
Introduction and Chapter 1 | Chapters 2 & 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8
Banner by angelinaii
Mother and Father left sometime after his twelfth birthday. They weren't bad parents, so they left him with the local priest, as if religion must've been synonymous with kindness. They weren't stupid, but they were gullible. Surely, they figured, a bald, middle-aged man already caring for two orphan choir boys--of whom the choir was actually exclusively formed--couldn't possibly be anything but the perfect guardian for their handful of an only son.
They started by leaving him there after school for a few days while they worked. He didn't complain, but he didn't like hearing the priest talk about his sermon all the time, or watch the other boys play. For one, he didn't understand why they always blanched when thick black robes would appear behind a corner.
After about a month of impromptu stays at the church, his parents just didn't come back one day. They didn't come home, either, but when he looked through his mother's clothes, most of the winter garments were gone and her jewelry too. Everything she might've felt was important.
At church, they prayed for his parents' safe return. His neighbors patted his head and smiled condescendingly, all the time whispering behind his back. It didn't take false pity for him to realize he was, for all intents and purposes, on his own from that day on.
"We'll be your family from now on," became the tack of the man in the black robes. Every night and every morning, at every meal and every lesson. "We'll be your family now." Said with a wide smile that exuded honesty and spelled lies. He wasn't fooled. Family was a cursory word. He didn't know what this was, but it wasn't that. Not when his "brothers" still ran around like chickens without heads, blanching if he spoke too loudly, begging him to dim the lights on nights he couldn't sleep.
It would anger the priest, they said. And when the priest got angry, as Heechul learned soon enough, he didn't spare the rod. For a child whose parents hadn't believed in corporal punishment, it was more than a lesson learned, it was humiliation and an impetus to do more wrong than good.
He took up smoking because he saw two people light up after mass one Sunday. He took up painting his nails and lips because he saw a hooker come to confession one afternoon. She left in tears and it smudged her mascara, but he still thought that was pretty.
So when time came to hang around at night and his "brothers" told him not to do it, Heechul only reveled in the potential for conflict. Just let him try, he thought. Just let him touch me. He was sixteen by then and he knew his strength. He went out at night guessing the risks but mostly just wanting the excitement, the freedom of their neighborhood in the dark.
He found more to fear and dread than within the church walls but it didn't make him turn back. And when six years later, he went out again, he almost fancied himself king of the world, his matches lighting his crown in short flares of ash.
***
Finding the narrow space between floorboard and wall, Heechul retrieved his treasure chest. It wasn't much of a chest and it lacked the obvious appeal of shiny trinkets to which he never much objected, but it was important in its own right. In it, he kept a seemingly endless supply of cigarette lighters, all of which worked perfectly, all of which he'd rigged into mini-bombs. For the occasion, he picked a red one, fingers itching to strike a flame even while aware of the explosion that would ensue. Not enough to cause damage to the building, but he'd probably lose his hands if not his life.
That one new priest who liked to loiter around the only school left in the Bottoms was long overdue for a smoke. He'd pay him a visit in the morning, just as the man smiled his ugly grin at unsuspecting little boys again. It was Heechul's belief that men who engaged in one form of vice didn't object to others. And if he didn't smoke, well, Heechul didn't value his hands above the thrill of a flame.
Footsteps in the other room brought his thoughts back to the present. Swiftly, meticulously, he returned the box to its place out of the way, and stood, twirling the lighter between his fingers. Such a pretty thing too. Perfect choice for a perfect target.
Siwon tossed his leather jacket onto the armrest of a sofa., stepping through the living room to sit at the makeshift dining room table. It was the only area in their apartment with decent lighting. He reached behind him to pull a miniature black notebook from its place by the telephone and began to flip through the pages. An endless stream of names and phone numbers of clients, friends, lovers and colleagues. The latter was what he was searching for, someone from his past.
"Looking for something?" Heechul asked by way of greeting, bootheels clicking a stilted rhythm as he followed to peer over the other man's shoulder. It was rare enough for Siwon come home so late after him, it was unprecedented that he'd do the whole dark and moody routine that was usually Heechul's specialty.
"One of Taboo's girls ended up at the morgue today. How that woman functions is beyond me." he said with a sigh as he found the number he was looking for and reached for the telephone. The phonecall was brief enough, it wasn't even his to make. He broke the news and offered to handle the details, declining to share the information that Eeteuk had relayed to him earlier. It was disconcerting among the grief-filled sobs of the woman on the other end, that there was little disguising the relief the woman felt in finally knowing where her daughter was. Siwon couldn't help but wonder if this was the phone call that his parents were waiting for and dreading back in their estate deep within Judoh, but he long stopped dwelling on such things.
Heechul listened in unabashedly, knowing the other man could tell him to fuck off if necessary. When he didn't, a small tendril of concern wormed its way into the pit of his stomach, unease settling firmly within. People died all the time, especially in the Bottoms. Whores, children, sometimes both in one go. It wasn't that big of a tragedy that they took it upon themselves to call up families or pretend to offer sympathy. Belatedly, it dawned on him that Siwon may've known the girl. Not that it changed much. His life and the girl's life were wholly unconnected now and Heechul couldn't pretend he felt any regret.
"Did you know her?" he asked, schooling his features into a suitably grave mask without pushing the envelope any further.
Siwon ran a hand through his hair and shrugged. "We ran in the same circles, lost touch when she started using and hooked up with Tab. We weren't close, if that's what you're really asking."
"It's not. I'm just curious," Heechul shrugged in kind, moving to round the table. Not even curious, really, simply making conversation. "Heard Eeteuk was going to the morgue about something..." Obviously the two had to be connected somehow. Coincidence, like Lady Luck, didn't visit the Bottoms much. "What happened to her, do you know?"
"Hollowed out like a jack-o-lantern." Siwon commented, shuddering. It was the one detail of his call with Eeteuk that stuck with him, that there was someone in the Bottoms capable of doing such a thing. That the person was still out there. "From what Eeteuk said, it didn't look like it was done by an amateur either."
A shudder, barely hidden by a yawn as Heechul leaned against the table, pondering his little plan, the lighter he'd been toying with. One target was just as good as another.
"Maybe it was just a client gone wild," he suggested, sliding the small metal stick to the other end of the table. "My contribution to the party fund. If Eeteuk went so far as to tell you about it, he's planning on going all Robin Hood on us." A tilt of the head. "Though defending whores is more like a pimp's job."
"I don't think a client would bother to keep the organs after he finished cutting them out of her body. If what Eeteuk said is true, we want to get this guy off of the streets as much as the pimps do." Siwon frowned as he took sight of the lighter on the countertop. "Thought Kangin told you to get rid of those things."
"Kangin tells me a lot of things," Heechul grinned in response. "He knows me well enough to know I don't listen." Or hear him, for that matter. As if with one of Kyuhyun's chips, he could almost reduce the other man's voice to background noise through sheer willpower if he focused enough. "Come on, I've got something to take care of in half an hour. Get over the dead girl already."
"He has a point, people are starting to notice it. If it gets traced back to us..." he trailed off, not even bothering to rehash an argument he knew Heechul would get into with Kangin later. Siwon gave Heechul a dark look over his last comment. "What do you need me for? If you got something to do, do it."
Heechul rolled his eyes, pulling his shirt over his head. "Inspiration," he explained archly, giving up on Siwon if the other man was going to insist on making him walk over hot coals. Thirty minutes and counting until he had to be out the door again and he wasn't going to waste them on hand-wringing and false sympathy. Kangin's point or lack of point and Eeteuk's worry over dead prostitutes left him for the better part unmoved. There was no reason Siwon's mood should affect his with any more impact than that.
Siwon ran a hand along the smooth skin above Heechul's hip and pulled the other man onto his lap. "Find inspiration somewhere else." he murmured after a lingering kiss, cruel and yet equally deserved. "I have a dead girl to get over."
"Ouch," Heechul feigned with a pout. "If that's not a blow to my ego, then I don't know what is." Standing with a smirk, he changed the front room for their sparsely furnished bedroom but left the door open. Not precisely an invitation, more like a form of payback.
"It's called giving a damn, try it some time?" Siwon called down the hallway, plucking the lighter off of the table and spinning it between two fingers. He hated the mind games they played with each other, pushing to see how much it took to get what they wanted out of the other. Yet he couldn't get enough of them. Or Heechul for that matter, it was that reason alone that could explain why either stayed with such a man for years.
***
Siwon had few regrets in this world; he, like relatively few of the disenfranchised Judoh kids, had turned rebellion to a lifestyle in the Bottoms. He found himself swept away by the instant gratification of the slums, the easy money and the emotion-free sex. It wasn't the life he was slated to live, but he loved every minute of it. Disappointments were few if you knew what to expect--that was why he did not feel any misgivings when he mistook the slender redhead as his female client for the evening.
Dark eyes turned from initial surprise to the sort of amused 'what the hell' aura of everything on the outskirts of the glittering city. They beckoned him out of the street and into one of the usual love ho's, even letting him pick the room like women often did, preferring silence until they were behind closed doors and could shed all pretense. He could never quite relate, but he understood them. All the more so since some could be called his co-workers.
Not this one, though.
"How much?" came the sudden, unflinching question. No skirting around the issue. No softening the blow Siwon was sure he wouldn't feel. Perhaps because even more arresting were the deep tones addressing him, instead of the whispered, feminine voice he'd expected.
"The first one is free." Siwon commented with a grin, his evening had already been paid for in advance and he didn't intend to waste it on numbers.
A finger twisted in the chain around his neck, pulling without purpose, pulling until their bodies were flush together and there was no denying the absence of feminine curves. "Well, if that's the case..." And it wasn't the usual crap about wounded feelings and bitter sobstories, but it was a challenge and he never backed down from a challenge.
"Siwon." he introduced himself simply, bringing their lips together roughly before he pulled back. "You can always tip me later."
No answer but for the return of that smirk and he found the kiss rekindled, teeth digging harshly into his lips but only for a second, as if in a strange kind of warning he didn't grasp. The whole thing became an afterthought once he felt the door against his back and hands on his hips, drawing out a moan that was more real than it should've been.
Though he took the shove as a sign that he was to be fucked instead of the other way around--the switch a welcome change--it didn't mean he would take the docile route as he pulled at the other man's top. He rolled his pelvis and slid his hand along smooth skin and taut muscles, trying not to let his attention wander as he focused on what his companion for the evening was doing to him.
Wide, almost childlike eyes bore into his when they broke apart. "Let's play a game," the other man muttered contemplatively, licking his lips. "You do everything I do. Exactly."
It wasn't by far the most outrageous fantasy he'd ever heard and he figured the redhead must've known, but still he nodded, mirroring the smirk thrown at him diligently.
Follow, the man said, and he followed him into the room proper. Siwon matched the redhead's kisses with his own, light and rough and everything in between. His mouth twisted in a smile, he found the edge of bed without taking his eyes off his client who laughed and flipped open a lighter. A warm glow surfaced, ever so briefly, the smell of fuel liquid quick to follow. It didn't bother the other man as reclined against the bed, arching an eyebrow when Siwon failed to follow with his next breath.
"Did you forget the rules of the game?" the man asked Siwon with an amused drawl, waving the lighter in front of his eyes. "Exactly as I do, remember?"
"I don't play with fire," he retorted, straddling slim hips even if that didn't follow the rules either. "Put it away," he breathed, reaching for the redhead again,wanting to go back to being touched.
"You're playing with me." Wide, cat-like eyes narrowed up at him. Hands that were anything but soft or gentle tugged the thin leather from Siwon's shoulders before resuming to tinker with the lighter. "I am fire."
There wasn't a man or woman in the Bottoms--or Judoh, for that matter--who was sane anymore, so Siwon failed to find his companion of the night as anything more than eccentric. Grasping a thin, pale wrist in his fist, he brought the fingers to his lips, the lighter still held firmly between them. "You're also a man."
A flame sparked against his cheek, sudden and harsh, just like the other man's smirk.
"And so are you." the man reminded with a smirk, the orange flame reflected in his dark eyes.
Siwon tensed at the heat against his skin and the orange glow below his peripheral vision and he resisted the urge to recoil. Every man had their fears, he could not think of anyone who lacked of one. Fire happened to be one of his. Instead, he tightened his grip on the man's wrist and pinned it above his head, keeping the lighter a fair distance away from his view. "Enough of that."
The redhead pouted. "My game, my rules," he complained, stretching out under him like a cat, spine arching off the bed. The same dull clink of metal sounded in the silence between them before it was swallowed by a low moan as hips shifted against the sheets without satisfaction. "I like your eyes on me... but I bet the rest of you is just as nice."
"Let's find out." Siwon smirked, bringing his lips to graze at a sharp collarbone as he reached for the belt of the man's pants. He never hesitated before and there was no reason to start now. Male or female, his clients hired him for a reason.
And patience was never their strongest suit.
"Kiss me," came the predictable, if slightly breathless demand as he made quick work of the other's belt and zipper.
He didn't yield to the request immediately, in part of revenge for the stunt with the lighter and the small thrill that inched up his spine as the man arched his neck whenever Siwon's lips were near. Blowing air against the man's lips, he continued to remove the remaining garments.
Long, dark eyelashes fluttered closed, as much in pleasure as exasperation. "Siwon," the redhead pleaded and he decided he rather liked his voice. "How is it that in your line of business you don't do as you're told?"
Siwon choose to kiss him then instead, nipping lightly at the man's lips before pulling back. He didn't do as he was told because he always did what he wanted. "How is it that you won't give me a name?"
"Because you didn't ask for one." And the redhead hadn't offered to share. Denying Siwon a proper answer, he turned his attention inward, running sharp nails over a smooth abdomen. "Don't like you up there. You're too far."
"Give me a name and I might fix that." Siwon smirked, biting back a moan as the other man mirrored his actions.
Judging the trade off to be in his favor, the redhead drug his fingers to his belt and below it, tracing Siwon's zipper slowly. "Heechul," he breathed. "Satisfied?"
He gave a noncommittal noise to Heechul's question, even as the other man pulled at his zipper. Extracting the hand to remove his pants on his own, Siwon closed the space between them.
"Bet you're not," Heechul smirked, speaking into his lips. His hand jerked twice against the pillow, as if trying to disengage Siwon's hold before he settled down, falsely pliant. For all that, he couldn't let Siwon's efforts go unnoticed. A runner's leg wrapping around the other man's hips, he hissed as they fell pelvis to pelvis, the sound full of things he might have spoken out loud.
Siwon smiled into a gasp. Some of them were talkers. He always considered it rather flattering when they suddenly had nothing to say anymore.