Title: Tarnished Angels
Pairing: Min/Other
Section Rating: PG-13
Overall Rating: NC-17
Blame:
ranalore Summary: Hot Korean boys. A seduction. An alluring. A temptation. And Min's self-discovery.
Sections:
One,
Related Fics:
So Much Mine and
Lavender Bunny. Links go to PDFs. Other related fics can be found at my LJ:
wedspawn The hard wooden floor felt deliciously cool against Min’s overheated body. Closing his eyes, he lay and let the ache work up from his feet to his shoulders, mentally releasing the pain through his upturned palms. Another deep breath was nearly enough to take out the first wave quivering through his body. The third breathe, deep into his chest and held until it burst through his belly, equalized the pressure he felt pushing in from the outside.
“Here.” Yunho’s voice slid through the fractures of Changmin’s calm, an icy touch of wet on his bare shoulder. Cracking open one eyelid, Min couldn’t help but grin at the offer of a chilled bottle of electrolyte water. It was a struggle to sit up but Min allowed himself to be lured into it by the cold drink, Yunho setting himself down beside the youngest of the group.
The others continued to work through their routine, a complicated weaving dance step that seemed nearly impossible for Jaejoong to grasp. A slender female choreographer led the elder singer through the dance, sliding in behind him to guide along, a slow light to draw a fluttering moth.
“I think he’s almost got it.” Min used his chin to indicate Jae, twisting the cap of his drink open. “Now Yoochun is tangled in with Junsu.”
“I don’t think that’s an accident.” Yunho’s deep voice rumbled with a flat humour. “Yoochun’s hands aren’t where they should be.”
Changmin spotted Chunnie’s fingers grazing the small of Junsu’s back, lifting up the edge of the other’s shirt as he moved by. Junsu pursed his mouth in frustration at the touch, pulled out of his concentration by his lover’s caress but fighting to contain a smile from the pleasure it gave him. The dance instructor on the other side of Jaejoong saw none of it, her attention fixed on the lanky singer.
“His hands are probably where Junsu really wants them.” Min said slyly, taking a sip of his water.
Yunho glanced at the young man under hooded eyes. Changmin had grown up while Yunho wasn’t looking, stretching upward in body and outward in his mind. Taking a sip at his own drink, Yunho merely murmured a soft indistinct reply.
“Hyung, you’re fairly… wise about things like love. Or at least where to put… the parts of your body that want love.” Min’s off-handed comment made the water spurt from Yunho’s mouth and up through his nostrils.
“Ah! Min!” Yunho wrinkled the bridge of his nose, scrubbing at his dripping nostrils with the flat of his palm. “Warn me when you’re about to say something stupid so I can prepare myself.”
“You don’t think you’re…” Min searched for the proper word. “Experienced? I would have thought that with everything that Jaejoong has put you through over the past few years, you would be the perfect person to ask about a few things.”
“If you want to know how to drive Jaejoong crazy,” Yunho cocked his head, a quirk of his lip giving his smile a jaunty sneer. “Then I can talk to you about that. But if you were to try any of that, then we’d be looking for another high vocalist. Either that or you’ll be singing higher than you ever thought possible.”
“No, no.” Min made a face. “Jaejoong is too complicated. I sometimes think he has two separate personalities that live inside of his body and they switch just to tease us. I just wanted to ask you about…”
“Come on, let’s take this outside.” Yunho stood, dragging the youngest up with him. “I’d pay more attention to you there. And it sounds as if you need my full attention.”
Horns blathered through the streets, cabs whipping past the two young men as they stepped out to sit under the wide awning outside of the dance studio, a flight of cement stairs wrapping up around the building to the empty back offices. A fried oyster kiosk did a brisk business on the corner, the tantalizing aroma of ponzu sauce and seafood calling to Yunho’s hunger.
“I should have brought money with me.” Yunho groaned aloud. “The smell of food is going to drive me crazy. Talk to me, dongsaeng. Who’s got you thinking about love?”
“Not love.” Changmin corrected with a shake of his head. His dark eyes were watchful, absorbing the motion of the traffic winding slowly past. He saw nearly every face, studying the varied expressions and wondered briefly at the lives walking by. These people had lovers and longings. Some wore their worries openly on their faces, others shuttered any shred of personality behind a hardened shell.
“More… lust.” Min listened with satisfaction at Yunho’s intake of breath. He enjoyed throwing the older man off his stride. “Love. I see the four of you every day. Love isn’t something I need to talk about.”
“You’re…”
“Too young to think about lust?”
“No, not that.” Yunho shook his head. “Lust is something for frivolous people. You are never that, Minnie-ah.”
“Of all the worldly passions, lust is the most intense. All other worldly passions seem to follow in its train.”* Min quoted at the leader. “Passion of any kind is just a fractured reflection of lust. Even a solemn person can be shallow.”
“Min, that you can come up with a quote for lust shows me that you’re not frivolous.” Yunho leaned back on his hands, the gritty sand of the poured cement biting into his palms. “Were you thinking of anything specific or were you just asking about it in general?”
“In general.” Min contemplated. “What makes a man lust?”
“God, that’s like asking why we think.” Yunho responded. “Are you sure you’re human? You’re telling me that you’ve never lusted for something before?”
“Not something. Someone.” Min explained. “And why would someone lust for someone else? I want to think that it is something chemical that in invoked if there are certain triggers or scents but there’s something inside of me that believes it goes deeper than that.”
“I think lust is harder than love.” Yunho nodded at Min’s mocking snort. “No, it is. Lust is hard to maintain. It fades so quickly. Ah, I’m not good at explaining this.”
“Explaining what, Yunnie-ah?” Jaejoong mounted the stairs towards where the pair sat, drops of rain washing some of the sweat from his face. He carefully sat down between Yunho’s feet, leaning against the other man, using Yunho’s legs as a back rest. To a casual observer the touch would appear casual but the swell of black in Yunho’s pupils said something else.
“Dongsaeng asked about the difference between lust and love.”
“Not the difference, hyung. The why of lust.” Min corrected. Leaning forward, he brought his face down closer to Jae. “I don’t think Yunho knows a lot about lust.”
“He knows …” Jae’s face coloured as Yunho’s foot nudged the rise of his rear. “Let’s leave Yunho out of this.”
“Lust.” Jaejoong mused, leaning his head back against Yunho’s knees, his tousle of black hair spreading over the other’s bended legs. “Lust is when you see someone and say, I want to taste him in my mouth.”
Changmin swallowed at the inference, Seven’s words echoing Jae’s sentiment.
He’d not heard from the older singer in days and wondered if the pursuit was over before it had ever truly began.
Then a text message on his phone greeted him during breakfast. A murmur of needing to find someplace warm to put cold fingers. Min remained at the table long after he’d eaten, unwilling to be seen with the press of his body against the thin fabric of his night shorts.
“Yunho, go help the other two.” Jae leaned forward, reaching back to tug at his lover’s shin.
“If you want to talk to Min privately, you can just say that.” Yunho mumbled against the back of Jae’s head.
“Go. I want to talk to Min alone.”
“I’ll tell them to hurry and learn what they need to so we can go home and get some food.” Yunho groaned as he stood up, stretching out his legs. “Don’t be too long.”
Jaejoong waited until his lover passed around the corner, sliding up to the step where Changmin sat. Pursing his lips, he contemplated the younger man with an assessing look.
“Don’t look at me like that, hyung.” Min protested. “I just was curious.”
“You’re never just curious, Minnie-ah.” Jae commented. “There is always a reason for your curiosity.”
“Sometimes, my reasons should remain private.”
“They could but they won’t.” The other reminded Min. “We’re too tightly woven for anything to remain private for long.”
“I might want it to be private.” Changmin replied.
Everything he did was definitely out in the open. He woke up to find others breathing in his space and went to sleep with the press of others’ thoughts in his head. Not for the first time, he wondered if he couldn’t just rent a small closet somewhere for a few hours each day just for the quiet of his own thoughts.
“And this is about lust?”
“It’s about a lot of things.” Min agreed. “Mostly, it’s about my wanting to try out… tastes. I think I’m old enough. I’m no longer a wide-eyed child that everyone needs to protect.”
“You were never that child, dongsaeng.” Jae said softly.
That was the last thing Changmin wanted; to be perceived as a child. He fought that every day. Every single moment of every day. Until he joined the group, he’d been the eldest. He knew that role. Embraced it. Now he was the youngest and it fit poorly on his shoulders.
As the group evolved and each of them settled comfortably into their routine, Min quickly discovered he lost the identity that had been constructed for him. He was supposed to be the cute one. The innocent. Once more, not a comfortable fit. He hated pretending that he sat in a field of sugar daisies and dreamed of pink unicorns.
Changmin wanted to dream of sloe-eyed men with dangerous smiles. And wicked mouths promising long nights of heat and satiation. Min wanted to be the man that would draw that. But how to go about being that person was something that eluded him.
“There is someone that…” Min puffed out his cheeks and blew the air from his lungs, cleansing his body. “He calls and sometimes we talk about things that leave me feeling like my skin is on too tight. As if when I go to move, I would split open and all of my guts would spill out of my body.”
“I don’t want forever with him.” Changmin whispered. “I don’t think he’s someone that thinks about next week much less about love and eternity. I know this. I don’t want that either. It’s too soon in my life to find the person that I want to die next to.”
“It’s never too soon for that.” Jae commented darkly. “You have the right to be as miserable as I am sometimes.”
“Love just seems like a waste of energy.” Min laughed. “I watch the four of you and you spend so much of your lives hiding who you love and how you care. And then on top of trying to fit yourself into a relationship that none of you really know how it works, you have to learn how to maneuver your body into pleasing the other person.”
“I don’t want to learn how to make love at the same time I’m learning to love.” The youngest explained. “I want to experience the sensations of my body without having to worry about my heart.”
“Do you want to know what I think?” Jaejoong asked softly.
“Yes. I always care about what you have to say, hyung.”
“I think you believe that love is a burden and not one that you want to carry.” Jae’s bright eyes shone in the soft watery daylight coming down through the rain. “I understand that. I do. But I think you will be missing so much if you don’t love as you explore inside of yourself for the answers that you’re looking for.”
“Everything changes when you love the person you’re with, dongsaeng.” Jae said, resting his hand lightly on Min’s arm.
“I’m not saying that I won’t love.” Min replied. “I just don’t want to love right now.”
“Okay.” The eldest licked at his lower lip, a sure sign he was thinking. “What happens if you fall in love with this person that you lust for? Does he…wait, is it really a he?”
“Yes.” Min nodded. “He’s someone that I know. And I am not going to fall in love with him”
“Does this mysterious he lust after you?”
“Yes, he’s told me so.” Changmin afforded himself a small sigh, thinking of the dark crawl of want in Seven’s voice the last time they spoke.
“And you are sure that he won’t fall in love with you?”
“I’m not someone that has others fall in love with him.” Changmin let out a yelp of protest when Jaejoong struck his leg with a clenched fist. “Ow! I’m being truthful. I don’t have the charisma to pull anyone in. And I don’t want that anyway. Not now.”
“Plenty of people would fall in love with you if they just saw you, Minnie-ah.” Jaejoong admitted. “Don’t say things like that.”
“You defend me because you love me.” The youngest quickly swiveled his hips, taking his leg out of reach of Jae’s hand. “I just want to… explore, Joongie-ah. I want to see what’s inside of me. To understand why someone drives me insane until I can’t think and then someone else just leaves me feeling as if we are good friends. I want to know what it’s like to lose myself in pleasure.”
“Promise me that you’ll take care of your heart, Minnie-ah.” Jaejoong whispered. “Please.”
“I will.” Min poked at the other’s cheek with his finger, dimpling Jae’s porcelain skin.
Jae moved to hug the youngest, his arms nearly embracing Changmin when the young man’s phone burst into song from its place in Min’s pocket. Grinning, Jae gave Min the barest of kisses on his forehead before loping down the stairs, ostensibly giving Changmin the privacy he needed and deserved.
“Minku.” The voice as velvet again, hot silky midnight despite the cold of the rain. “Are you busy?”
“I…uh.” Min stopped talking when Yoochun popped his head around the corner and stared up the steps. The baritone’s predictable nature meant Yoochun would more than likely climb the steps to harass Changmin as he spoke.
“You have company.” Dong-wook sounded displeased to Min’s untrained ear.
“Chunnie-ah.” Changmin waved the other member off, pointing to the phone and asking for five minutes with a wave of his hand. “We’ve just finished rehearsal.”
“I’m just going in to mine.” Seven said, the sounds of people working loud echoing through the phone lines. “I thought I would give you a call. Something to make me hard. It helps me dance better.”
Blushing, Min dropped his face down, not wanting the now overly curious Yoochun to see his red face. “Yunho was right. He said lust was for frivolous people.”
“Are you saying I’m frivolous?” Seven asked, playfully mocking in false outrage. “I’m very serious. I take lust very seriously. How else can your lover enjoy it?”
“I’m…not your lover.” Min corrected the other, keeping his voice down to a soft murmur. “I have to go. The others will come looking for me.”
“I’m not your lover yet, pretty.” Seven said. “I’ll call you when I’m done with dinner. I have to go to a thing. Are you going to be up?”
“Yes.” Min squeezed his eyes shut, remonstrating himself for agreeing to quickly. “Maybe. I’m tired. It’s beena long day.”
Someone shouted for Seven, loud and close enough for Changmin to hear. “I have to go as well, Minku but I want you to remember something for when we talk again.”
“What’s that?” Min swallowed. The last instance Seven told him to remember something, it kept him up nearly half the night with the possibilities of where the older man would leave his first love bite.
“I want you to remember that yet I said because I am going to become your lover.” Seven’s chuckle held a ripe promise in its fullness. “And that the next time I see you, I’m going to spend a lot of my time and energy making you scream my name.”
“So Minku, do me a favour and repeat after me, man’etsu.”
“Man’etsu.” Changmin rolled the word over his tongue. “What does that mean?”
“It’s what I’m going to bring you to once you finally give up running away from me.” Seven promised. “And I’m going to enjoy bringing you there. I will talk to you later, little Minku. Wait up for me. The last thing I want to hear tonight before I go to bed is you panting into the phone.”
*Quote: Buddha Gotama