BTS Fic: Tacit
Jul. 13th, 2022 07:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kat_lair***
Title: Tacit
Author:kat_lair / Mistress Kat & dreamersdare
Fandom: 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Pairing: Kim Namjoon | RM/Min Yoongi | Suga
Tags: Selective Mutism, Multilingual Character, Exhaustion, Power Dynamics, Dom/sub Undertones, Service, Caretaking, Feelings
Rating: M
Word count: 2,920
Disclaimer: Very not true
Summary: “I know,” Yoongi says suddenly, apropos of nothing. He cuts Namjoon a glance out of the corner of his eye, before his brow furrows in a frown that Namjoon aches to smooth out with his thumb, but the next words out of Yoongi’s mouth still his movement. “I know,” Yoongi says again, and it’s the thick accent, rather than the words themselves that tells Namjoon Yoongi is speaking in English.
Author notes: Written back-and-forth as part of our kpop weekend extraordinaire. Deeply self-indulgent on two levels; 1) multilingual exhaustion is real and relatable, 2) power dynamics is how we vibe. Prompt for this was: "Being strong doesn't mean never asking for help or admitting you're in pain."
Tacit on AO3
By the time they’re hustled back to the waiting cars, the world has grown blurry around the edges. Namjoon trips over his own feet, almost face-planting into the leather seats if not for Jin’s back breaking his fall and Hoseok’s quick reflexes that have him catching Namjoon by his belt. It’s not the most dignified exit Namjoon’s managed during his career but right now he’ll take it.
He doesn’t have a choice.
“Thanks,” he mutters at Hobi as soon as the doors are closed. “I’m sorry,” gets directed at Jin. “You okay?”
Jin blinks at him and tilts his head curiously. “I am okay,” he says and Namjoon frowns, wondering why he’s answering in English when there are no interviewers around. They’re almost to the hotel by the time he realises it’s because Namjoon did it first and that means he’s more exhausted than he had realised.
He stares at the back of Jin’s head, his mop of dark hair still damp from the rapid showers they’d been rushed through. He could explain, he thinks. Talk about what it’s like when tiredness creeps in so deep that everything gets smeared; grit in his throat that mangles his sounds and sand in his eyes that steal his focus. He could try to describe how the lines between English, Japanese and Korean bend and morph, how they flip him from Hangul to kanji to modern Latin and back, twisting so that he can’t tell which side he’s standing on anymore until he hears the words coming out of his own mouth. Or sometimes, like now, not even then.
He could, but he doesn’t, his head falling back against the headrest instead and he turns to stare blindly out of the window as the lights of the city flicker past too quickly to see. If he tried to explain, he’s not sure the words would come out right. He’s not even sure which words would come out.
The solution is simple; say nothing. Say nothing until he knows what he wants to say, until he knows he wants to say anything at all.
The car pulls into the hotel garage, and everyone files out and toward the lifts on autopilot. The managers are waiting in the lobby, so no one needs Namjoon to talk, and then talk again, and then again, in different words and phrases and similes. They handle the thanks and room keys and a million other details that Namjoon knows by heart, in several languages.
“Room 459,” a staff member says, pressing a key card into his hand. “Wake-up at 7am.”
Namjoon nods because he understands perfectly well. It’s just that if someone had asked what language the message was conveyed in, he couldn’t answer. Right now everything is impressions and feelings, flashes of colour, familiar shapes; Hoseok’s bright jacket, the soft curl of Jimin’s shoulders where he’s leaning against the counter. And like a heavy cloth draped over everything, like a gag stuffed into his mouth, there is the bone-deep tiredness that numbs his tongue, forces its way down his throat until Namjoon can do nothing but try to breathe around the jumbled clump of phrases, the jagged edges of sentence fragments digging into his flesh from the inside.
For someone who has built his entire career, his entire self, on words, it should scare him. And it will, but always after, not during. This isn’t the first time this has happened.
“Dinner?”
Someone is talking to him. Namjoon blinks, swallows. The dry click of his throat sounds loud to his own ears.
“Namjoon-hyung?” It’s Jungkook. “We’re going out for dinner. You coming, right?”
Namjoon is half-nodding before the question registers, because Jungkook is asking for something and it’s instinct to accommodate. It’s another thing he knows without thinking, muscle memory enabling communication in lieu of consideration, but muscle memory is contextually specific too, and Namjoon feels his own instinctive movement stutter in uncertainty, stilling entirely when Jungkook frowns.
“Who’s rooming with Joon-ah?” Yoongi’s voice is crushed gravel over his shoulder, demanding attention away from Namjoon, and his shoulders slump in unspoken relief. Jimin flicks his fingers up in clear acknowledgement.
Yoongi holds out his hand. “Switch. You can share with Tae-yah. Joon and I are going to stay.”
“Hyung?” Jungkook’s look is searching, his gaze flicking restlessly across Namjoon’s face like sheer persistence could draw out an answer he would understand. “Are you okay?”
“He’s fine, Kook-ah,” Yoongi says, softer for their maknae than he ever is for anyone else. “He just needs to sleep; he almost faceplanted into the car on the way here, do you really think a public restaurant with cameras and an audience is what he needs now?”
The look Jungkook aims at Namjoon is openly disbelieving, and Namjoon is acutely reminded of how Jungkook sees him still, the larger-than-life persona that Jungkook has never quite been able to let go of, and he pushes himself a little more upright. He’s never quite managed to live up to Jungkook’s expectations of him, he doesn’t think, but he won’t aim below them.
Behind him, Yoongi’s eyeroll is almost audible.
“You both need to eat,” Jin points out mildly, and Hoseok laughs.
“I think we’re famous enough that they can get away with ordering room service,” he says, his smile bleeding through into his words. “Can we please go and eat? I’m starved.”
It’s permission enough to satisfy everyone, it seems, and Namjoon watches Jimin and Taehyung hustle Jungkook toward the door, with Hoseok and Jin following easily behind them. Jungkook is letting them even with his misgivings clear in the glances he keeps throwing back over his shoulder. Then there’s a warm hand on his waist, steering him toward the lift, and Namjoon doesn’t remember deciding to move, but he’s enclosed before he realises it, soft music with indecipherable lyrics in his ears, and his own distorted face staring back at him from the polished chrome doors.
“I know,” Yoongi says suddenly, apropos of nothing. He cuts Namjoon a glance out of the corner of his eye, before his brow furrows in a frown that Namjoon aches to smooth out with his thumb, but the next words out of Yoongi’s mouth still his movement. “I know,” Yoongi says again, and it’s the thick accent, rather than the words themselves that tells Namjoon Yoongi is speaking in English.
The lift dings, the doors open and so does Namjoon’s mouth, but nothing comes out. There’s a hot flood of embarrassment, of feeling like he’s letting everyone down, but no surprise. Of course, Yoongi knows. Of course, he hasn’t said anything before. And yet, with a sharp stab of resignation and gratitude and overwhelming fondness, Namjoon remembers other times, of Yoongi acting as a buffer between him and the rest of the world when he got like this. He doesn’t remember it being this bad before though, and never in the middle of a tour, never when simply shutting himself in the studio or dorm room until it passes hasn’t been an option.
“C’mon,” Yoongi says, pulling gently on the sleeve of Namjoon’s jacket. He wants to apologise, wants to say ‘thank you’ and ‘you don’t have to’ but his tongue lies still and useless in his mouth, and Yoongi is already towing him toward the room.
Once the door closes behind them, it’s like someone had cut Namjoon’s strings. He would have probably slid to the floor right there if not for Yoongi catching him around the waist with a grunt.
“Christ, you’re heavy,” he complains, hauling Namjoon toward the nearest bed. “You’ve got to stop going to the gym so much. They might look good, but your muscles are not easy to manoeuvre.”
A noise that could be laughter pushes past Namjoon’s lips as Yoongi deposits him onto the mattress.
Namjoon knows what he should do now. He should tell Yoongi that he’s fine, to go catch up with the others and enjoy dinner. He should get out of his clothes and have a shower, order room service and then check his emails and deal with the work things that he’s missed during the last several days of back-to-back interviews and appearances. He should pull out the music file he’s been fiddling with for the last week and see if he can actually make some progress. He should set the alarm early enough to go to the hotel gym before—
“Hey.” Yoongi’s voice penetrates his muddled thoughts with ease. He’s crouching in front of Namjoon. “What are you doing?”
Namjoon doesn’t know but he looks at where his hand has automatically grabbed his laptop from the bedside table, pulling it close.
“No,” Yoongi says. “Joon-ah, leave it.” He tugs the laptop away and unceremoniously slides it under the bed. Namjoon hopes one of them remembers where it is by the time they have to pack. “You don’t always have to…” Yoongi trails off, face pinched with worry and frustration and now Namjoon reaches out, presses his thumb into the crease between Yoongi’s eyebrows, pushes his hair out of the way, feels Yoongi’s stuttering exhale against the inside of his wrist.
“Can you just…?” Yoongi grips Namjoon’s shoulders and shakes him, just a little. “For once, let someone take care of you. Let…” He licks his lips, a nervous habit that has always drawn Namjoon’s gaze more than it should. “Let me?” He asks, eyes dropping from Namjoon’s face to somewhere around his collarbones. “Let me.” This time it’s less tentative, more of a statement than a question.
Fair. There isn’t much Namjoon wouldn’t let Yoongi do.
His hands drop to the mattress, the sheets a static scratch against his fingertips, and he leans his weight back onto his hands. It opens him up; an unspoken permission that answers the fast, searching look Yoongi targets at him. Yoongi licks his lips again, a quicksilver flicker, before determination settles across his face like a mask, and he sinks deliberately down to his knees.
Namjoon’s breath catches like a hook in his throat.
Yoongi flicks him another look from underneath his eyelashes. Namjoon has no idea what the expression on his face says, but the corners of Yoongi’s mouth curl into a small, satisfied smile that echoes, warm and pleasing, low in Namjoon’s belly and his fingers twitch with the urge to chase that feeling.
He holds still. Yoongi asked for this; Namjoon can give it to him.
Yoongi drops his gaze to the ground, and Namjoon feels a tug as Yoongi’s hand wraps around his heel and lifts. He lets Yoongi position them with his foot resting in Yoongi’s lap. Yoongi lets go, and Namjoon feels the strain in his thigh as he holds his weight up.
“Relax,” Yoongi’s voice is timbered low, his hair hanging down to obscure his expression, but Namjoon can hear the fondness under the words. “You’re not that heavy, Joon-ah; I can take it.”
Namjoon exhales shakily, his words hanging heavily on his tongue, and he can’t explain, all of his rationales and justifications trapped behind a linguistic barrier he can’t remember how to breach. Yoongi huffs noisily through his nose before Namjoon feels him press pointedly down against the arch of Namjoon’s sneaker, and all of his explanations dissolve like smoke in a breeze. “Relax,” Yoongi says again, insistently.
Namjoon tries. Slowly, in increments, he lets his muscles go lax until he can feel the heel of his shoe dig into the meat of Yoongi’s thigh, the sole resting against his stomach. Yoongi pats the top of Namjoon’s leg in approval and then lifts it up enough to tug off his sneaker and sock both. The second foot gets the same treatment and soon Namjoon’s bare toes are pressed against the soft, thin fabric of Yoongi’s t-shirt, the slight give of his stomach, the hard curve of ribs underneath shockingly intimate.
“There we go,” Yoongi says and squeezes Namjoon’s feet in a way that could be a prelude to a massage another time. Dazedly, Namjoon thinks that another time might actually not be entirely hypothetical.
Yoongi picks Namjoon’s feet up again and sets them down onto the floor on either side of his own legs. “Okay,” he says. “Okay, I’m going to…” There’s a flicker of nervousness in his expression but it’s overshadowed by sheer familiar stubbornness, enough so that Namjoon doesn’t even process their position until Yoongi pushes up on to his knees, effectively pressing close between Namjoon’s legs as his fingers reach up to the top button of his shirt. He taps it with a fingernail. “Okay?” he asks, looking at Namjoon from under his lashes.
It is. And it isn’t. But Namjoon tilts his head back in permission, just enough to give Yoongi better access.
He can’t tell if Yoongi lingers on purpose, if the drag of his fingers over the exposed notch of Namjoon’s throat, the hard ridge of his clavicle is deliberate or if he’s just being careful, flicking the buttons open one by one, working down until he can pull the shirt out of Namjoon’s slacks and push it down his shoulders.
Namjoon lifts each hand off the bed in turn, letting Yoongi tug the garment fully off. His fingers curl into the fabric of Namjoon’s tank top and he plucks at it briefly. “Uh, you want a shower?” he asks. “Or leave this on?”
Namjoon wants Yoongi’s hands on his skin. He wants to press him to the tiled walls of the shower cubicle, wet and pliant, and show him what he wants without words.
Gently, he straightens Yoongi’s fingers, pressing his palm flat against his stomach. No shower.
Yoongi’s smile is kind, and more knowing than it should be. “Okay,” he relents. “But you’re not sleeping in your trousers.” Swiftly, before Namjoon has a chance to get flustered about it, Yoongi unbuckles his belt, pulling the zipper down. “And food is non-negotiable.”
Namjoon huffs out through his nose but lifts his hips obediently to let Yoongi pull his slacks down over his hips. Yoongi’s knuckles brush down the outside of his thigh, a teasing tickle that tingles across his skin and Namjoon can’t quite control the answering stutter in his next inhale. He feels Yoongi pause, a fraction of a second where his skin rests warm against Namjoon’s knee, before Yoongi pulls his slacks free, one leg after the other.
“Better?” Yoongi asks, a slight flush dusting across his cheeks, and Namjoon is brushing his knuckles across the colour before he has time to think about it. Yoongi’s skin is warm, hotter here than his fingers had been against Namjoon’s legs, and something flashes with a corresponding heat in Yoongi’s eyes, before he tilts his head back.
“We need to eat,” he says firmly, and Namjoon is hungry, even if it’s not for food. He indulges just for a moment, letting his hand trail down until his fingers are resting against the dip of Yoongi’s throat in an offer, a promise, a warning, something that he can’t find words for. Just a measured beat of skin against skin, and then he lets his hand fall back against the bed again.
Yoongi breathes in, audibly shaky, his eyelids flickering involuntarily. “Okay,” he mutters again, more to himself than to Namjoon. “Okay. Food.” He shifts then, cold air taking his place between Namjoon’s legs as he leans across to drag the hotel phone and the room service menu down from their place by the bedside.
Yoongi doesn’t ask him what he wants, and Namjoon tunes out the conversation, letting the deep cadence of Yoongi’s voice wash over him. It’s the stutter in the flow, the stops and starts that tell him Yoongi is ordering in English, careful in his intonation in a way he never usually is.
It’s the click of the receiver settling into the cradle that draws him out of his stupor, and his instincts are running close enough to the surface that he doesn’t question the urge to make grabby hands at Yoongi, to catch his wrists and draw him up onto the mattress. Yoongi huffs out a quiet laugh, but he doesn’t resist, letting Namjoon pull him up from his knees and drag him in close until they are curled together against the mattress; Yoongi sprawled back against the pillow, with Namjoon’s arm slung across his waist and Namjoon’s face pressed too close against his throat. Yoongi smells fresh and familiar; the unobtrusive scent of venue shower gel nowhere near enough to overwhelm the scent of him that Namjoon knows better than he should. Yoongi’s fingers card into his hair, hesitant at first until Namjoon presses into the touch, and Yoongi’s fingers curl soothingly against his scalp.
“I have no idea what I just ordered,” Yoongi confesses into the quiet of the room, and Namjoon lets a silent laugh escape against his collarbone. He doesn’t care; whatever comes, he’ll eat it with a smile even if it sticks in his throat going down. He owes Yoongi so much more than that. “I don’t know how you do it,” Yoongi adds, lower and quieter, a secretive whisper that ruffles Namjoon’s hair, not meant for anyone’s ears but Namjoon’s even though they’re alone. Namjoon hums, his arm tightening around Yoongi’s waist and, for the first time that night, he finally wishes he had the words back to explain that it’s this.
This right here is how he does it. And if Yoongi doesn’t already know, then Namjoon will tell him. With words, and without.
***
Title: Tacit
Author:
kat_lair / Mistress Kat & dreamersdare Fandom: 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Pairing: Kim Namjoon | RM/Min Yoongi | Suga
Tags: Selective Mutism, Multilingual Character, Exhaustion, Power Dynamics, Dom/sub Undertones, Service, Caretaking, Feelings
Rating: M
Word count: 2,920
Disclaimer: Very not true
Summary: “I know,” Yoongi says suddenly, apropos of nothing. He cuts Namjoon a glance out of the corner of his eye, before his brow furrows in a frown that Namjoon aches to smooth out with his thumb, but the next words out of Yoongi’s mouth still his movement. “I know,” Yoongi says again, and it’s the thick accent, rather than the words themselves that tells Namjoon Yoongi is speaking in English.
Author notes: Written back-and-forth as part of our kpop weekend extraordinaire. Deeply self-indulgent on two levels; 1) multilingual exhaustion is real and relatable, 2) power dynamics is how we vibe. Prompt for this was: "Being strong doesn't mean never asking for help or admitting you're in pain."
Tacit on AO3
By the time they’re hustled back to the waiting cars, the world has grown blurry around the edges. Namjoon trips over his own feet, almost face-planting into the leather seats if not for Jin’s back breaking his fall and Hoseok’s quick reflexes that have him catching Namjoon by his belt. It’s not the most dignified exit Namjoon’s managed during his career but right now he’ll take it.
He doesn’t have a choice.
“Thanks,” he mutters at Hobi as soon as the doors are closed. “I’m sorry,” gets directed at Jin. “You okay?”
Jin blinks at him and tilts his head curiously. “I am okay,” he says and Namjoon frowns, wondering why he’s answering in English when there are no interviewers around. They’re almost to the hotel by the time he realises it’s because Namjoon did it first and that means he’s more exhausted than he had realised.
He stares at the back of Jin’s head, his mop of dark hair still damp from the rapid showers they’d been rushed through. He could explain, he thinks. Talk about what it’s like when tiredness creeps in so deep that everything gets smeared; grit in his throat that mangles his sounds and sand in his eyes that steal his focus. He could try to describe how the lines between English, Japanese and Korean bend and morph, how they flip him from Hangul to kanji to modern Latin and back, twisting so that he can’t tell which side he’s standing on anymore until he hears the words coming out of his own mouth. Or sometimes, like now, not even then.
He could, but he doesn’t, his head falling back against the headrest instead and he turns to stare blindly out of the window as the lights of the city flicker past too quickly to see. If he tried to explain, he’s not sure the words would come out right. He’s not even sure which words would come out.
The solution is simple; say nothing. Say nothing until he knows what he wants to say, until he knows he wants to say anything at all.
The car pulls into the hotel garage, and everyone files out and toward the lifts on autopilot. The managers are waiting in the lobby, so no one needs Namjoon to talk, and then talk again, and then again, in different words and phrases and similes. They handle the thanks and room keys and a million other details that Namjoon knows by heart, in several languages.
“Room 459,” a staff member says, pressing a key card into his hand. “Wake-up at 7am.”
Namjoon nods because he understands perfectly well. It’s just that if someone had asked what language the message was conveyed in, he couldn’t answer. Right now everything is impressions and feelings, flashes of colour, familiar shapes; Hoseok’s bright jacket, the soft curl of Jimin’s shoulders where he’s leaning against the counter. And like a heavy cloth draped over everything, like a gag stuffed into his mouth, there is the bone-deep tiredness that numbs his tongue, forces its way down his throat until Namjoon can do nothing but try to breathe around the jumbled clump of phrases, the jagged edges of sentence fragments digging into his flesh from the inside.
For someone who has built his entire career, his entire self, on words, it should scare him. And it will, but always after, not during. This isn’t the first time this has happened.
“Dinner?”
Someone is talking to him. Namjoon blinks, swallows. The dry click of his throat sounds loud to his own ears.
“Namjoon-hyung?” It’s Jungkook. “We’re going out for dinner. You coming, right?”
Namjoon is half-nodding before the question registers, because Jungkook is asking for something and it’s instinct to accommodate. It’s another thing he knows without thinking, muscle memory enabling communication in lieu of consideration, but muscle memory is contextually specific too, and Namjoon feels his own instinctive movement stutter in uncertainty, stilling entirely when Jungkook frowns.
“Who’s rooming with Joon-ah?” Yoongi’s voice is crushed gravel over his shoulder, demanding attention away from Namjoon, and his shoulders slump in unspoken relief. Jimin flicks his fingers up in clear acknowledgement.
Yoongi holds out his hand. “Switch. You can share with Tae-yah. Joon and I are going to stay.”
“Hyung?” Jungkook’s look is searching, his gaze flicking restlessly across Namjoon’s face like sheer persistence could draw out an answer he would understand. “Are you okay?”
“He’s fine, Kook-ah,” Yoongi says, softer for their maknae than he ever is for anyone else. “He just needs to sleep; he almost faceplanted into the car on the way here, do you really think a public restaurant with cameras and an audience is what he needs now?”
The look Jungkook aims at Namjoon is openly disbelieving, and Namjoon is acutely reminded of how Jungkook sees him still, the larger-than-life persona that Jungkook has never quite been able to let go of, and he pushes himself a little more upright. He’s never quite managed to live up to Jungkook’s expectations of him, he doesn’t think, but he won’t aim below them.
Behind him, Yoongi’s eyeroll is almost audible.
“You both need to eat,” Jin points out mildly, and Hoseok laughs.
“I think we’re famous enough that they can get away with ordering room service,” he says, his smile bleeding through into his words. “Can we please go and eat? I’m starved.”
It’s permission enough to satisfy everyone, it seems, and Namjoon watches Jimin and Taehyung hustle Jungkook toward the door, with Hoseok and Jin following easily behind them. Jungkook is letting them even with his misgivings clear in the glances he keeps throwing back over his shoulder. Then there’s a warm hand on his waist, steering him toward the lift, and Namjoon doesn’t remember deciding to move, but he’s enclosed before he realises it, soft music with indecipherable lyrics in his ears, and his own distorted face staring back at him from the polished chrome doors.
“I know,” Yoongi says suddenly, apropos of nothing. He cuts Namjoon a glance out of the corner of his eye, before his brow furrows in a frown that Namjoon aches to smooth out with his thumb, but the next words out of Yoongi’s mouth still his movement. “I know,” Yoongi says again, and it’s the thick accent, rather than the words themselves that tells Namjoon Yoongi is speaking in English.
The lift dings, the doors open and so does Namjoon’s mouth, but nothing comes out. There’s a hot flood of embarrassment, of feeling like he’s letting everyone down, but no surprise. Of course, Yoongi knows. Of course, he hasn’t said anything before. And yet, with a sharp stab of resignation and gratitude and overwhelming fondness, Namjoon remembers other times, of Yoongi acting as a buffer between him and the rest of the world when he got like this. He doesn’t remember it being this bad before though, and never in the middle of a tour, never when simply shutting himself in the studio or dorm room until it passes hasn’t been an option.
“C’mon,” Yoongi says, pulling gently on the sleeve of Namjoon’s jacket. He wants to apologise, wants to say ‘thank you’ and ‘you don’t have to’ but his tongue lies still and useless in his mouth, and Yoongi is already towing him toward the room.
Once the door closes behind them, it’s like someone had cut Namjoon’s strings. He would have probably slid to the floor right there if not for Yoongi catching him around the waist with a grunt.
“Christ, you’re heavy,” he complains, hauling Namjoon toward the nearest bed. “You’ve got to stop going to the gym so much. They might look good, but your muscles are not easy to manoeuvre.”
A noise that could be laughter pushes past Namjoon’s lips as Yoongi deposits him onto the mattress.
Namjoon knows what he should do now. He should tell Yoongi that he’s fine, to go catch up with the others and enjoy dinner. He should get out of his clothes and have a shower, order room service and then check his emails and deal with the work things that he’s missed during the last several days of back-to-back interviews and appearances. He should pull out the music file he’s been fiddling with for the last week and see if he can actually make some progress. He should set the alarm early enough to go to the hotel gym before—
“Hey.” Yoongi’s voice penetrates his muddled thoughts with ease. He’s crouching in front of Namjoon. “What are you doing?”
Namjoon doesn’t know but he looks at where his hand has automatically grabbed his laptop from the bedside table, pulling it close.
“No,” Yoongi says. “Joon-ah, leave it.” He tugs the laptop away and unceremoniously slides it under the bed. Namjoon hopes one of them remembers where it is by the time they have to pack. “You don’t always have to…” Yoongi trails off, face pinched with worry and frustration and now Namjoon reaches out, presses his thumb into the crease between Yoongi’s eyebrows, pushes his hair out of the way, feels Yoongi’s stuttering exhale against the inside of his wrist.
“Can you just…?” Yoongi grips Namjoon’s shoulders and shakes him, just a little. “For once, let someone take care of you. Let…” He licks his lips, a nervous habit that has always drawn Namjoon’s gaze more than it should. “Let me?” He asks, eyes dropping from Namjoon’s face to somewhere around his collarbones. “Let me.” This time it’s less tentative, more of a statement than a question.
Fair. There isn’t much Namjoon wouldn’t let Yoongi do.
His hands drop to the mattress, the sheets a static scratch against his fingertips, and he leans his weight back onto his hands. It opens him up; an unspoken permission that answers the fast, searching look Yoongi targets at him. Yoongi licks his lips again, a quicksilver flicker, before determination settles across his face like a mask, and he sinks deliberately down to his knees.
Namjoon’s breath catches like a hook in his throat.
Yoongi flicks him another look from underneath his eyelashes. Namjoon has no idea what the expression on his face says, but the corners of Yoongi’s mouth curl into a small, satisfied smile that echoes, warm and pleasing, low in Namjoon’s belly and his fingers twitch with the urge to chase that feeling.
He holds still. Yoongi asked for this; Namjoon can give it to him.
Yoongi drops his gaze to the ground, and Namjoon feels a tug as Yoongi’s hand wraps around his heel and lifts. He lets Yoongi position them with his foot resting in Yoongi’s lap. Yoongi lets go, and Namjoon feels the strain in his thigh as he holds his weight up.
“Relax,” Yoongi’s voice is timbered low, his hair hanging down to obscure his expression, but Namjoon can hear the fondness under the words. “You’re not that heavy, Joon-ah; I can take it.”
Namjoon exhales shakily, his words hanging heavily on his tongue, and he can’t explain, all of his rationales and justifications trapped behind a linguistic barrier he can’t remember how to breach. Yoongi huffs noisily through his nose before Namjoon feels him press pointedly down against the arch of Namjoon’s sneaker, and all of his explanations dissolve like smoke in a breeze. “Relax,” Yoongi says again, insistently.
Namjoon tries. Slowly, in increments, he lets his muscles go lax until he can feel the heel of his shoe dig into the meat of Yoongi’s thigh, the sole resting against his stomach. Yoongi pats the top of Namjoon’s leg in approval and then lifts it up enough to tug off his sneaker and sock both. The second foot gets the same treatment and soon Namjoon’s bare toes are pressed against the soft, thin fabric of Yoongi’s t-shirt, the slight give of his stomach, the hard curve of ribs underneath shockingly intimate.
“There we go,” Yoongi says and squeezes Namjoon’s feet in a way that could be a prelude to a massage another time. Dazedly, Namjoon thinks that another time might actually not be entirely hypothetical.
Yoongi picks Namjoon’s feet up again and sets them down onto the floor on either side of his own legs. “Okay,” he says. “Okay, I’m going to…” There’s a flicker of nervousness in his expression but it’s overshadowed by sheer familiar stubbornness, enough so that Namjoon doesn’t even process their position until Yoongi pushes up on to his knees, effectively pressing close between Namjoon’s legs as his fingers reach up to the top button of his shirt. He taps it with a fingernail. “Okay?” he asks, looking at Namjoon from under his lashes.
It is. And it isn’t. But Namjoon tilts his head back in permission, just enough to give Yoongi better access.
He can’t tell if Yoongi lingers on purpose, if the drag of his fingers over the exposed notch of Namjoon’s throat, the hard ridge of his clavicle is deliberate or if he’s just being careful, flicking the buttons open one by one, working down until he can pull the shirt out of Namjoon’s slacks and push it down his shoulders.
Namjoon lifts each hand off the bed in turn, letting Yoongi tug the garment fully off. His fingers curl into the fabric of Namjoon’s tank top and he plucks at it briefly. “Uh, you want a shower?” he asks. “Or leave this on?”
Namjoon wants Yoongi’s hands on his skin. He wants to press him to the tiled walls of the shower cubicle, wet and pliant, and show him what he wants without words.
Gently, he straightens Yoongi’s fingers, pressing his palm flat against his stomach. No shower.
Yoongi’s smile is kind, and more knowing than it should be. “Okay,” he relents. “But you’re not sleeping in your trousers.” Swiftly, before Namjoon has a chance to get flustered about it, Yoongi unbuckles his belt, pulling the zipper down. “And food is non-negotiable.”
Namjoon huffs out through his nose but lifts his hips obediently to let Yoongi pull his slacks down over his hips. Yoongi’s knuckles brush down the outside of his thigh, a teasing tickle that tingles across his skin and Namjoon can’t quite control the answering stutter in his next inhale. He feels Yoongi pause, a fraction of a second where his skin rests warm against Namjoon’s knee, before Yoongi pulls his slacks free, one leg after the other.
“Better?” Yoongi asks, a slight flush dusting across his cheeks, and Namjoon is brushing his knuckles across the colour before he has time to think about it. Yoongi’s skin is warm, hotter here than his fingers had been against Namjoon’s legs, and something flashes with a corresponding heat in Yoongi’s eyes, before he tilts his head back.
“We need to eat,” he says firmly, and Namjoon is hungry, even if it’s not for food. He indulges just for a moment, letting his hand trail down until his fingers are resting against the dip of Yoongi’s throat in an offer, a promise, a warning, something that he can’t find words for. Just a measured beat of skin against skin, and then he lets his hand fall back against the bed again.
Yoongi breathes in, audibly shaky, his eyelids flickering involuntarily. “Okay,” he mutters again, more to himself than to Namjoon. “Okay. Food.” He shifts then, cold air taking his place between Namjoon’s legs as he leans across to drag the hotel phone and the room service menu down from their place by the bedside.
Yoongi doesn’t ask him what he wants, and Namjoon tunes out the conversation, letting the deep cadence of Yoongi’s voice wash over him. It’s the stutter in the flow, the stops and starts that tell him Yoongi is ordering in English, careful in his intonation in a way he never usually is.
It’s the click of the receiver settling into the cradle that draws him out of his stupor, and his instincts are running close enough to the surface that he doesn’t question the urge to make grabby hands at Yoongi, to catch his wrists and draw him up onto the mattress. Yoongi huffs out a quiet laugh, but he doesn’t resist, letting Namjoon pull him up from his knees and drag him in close until they are curled together against the mattress; Yoongi sprawled back against the pillow, with Namjoon’s arm slung across his waist and Namjoon’s face pressed too close against his throat. Yoongi smells fresh and familiar; the unobtrusive scent of venue shower gel nowhere near enough to overwhelm the scent of him that Namjoon knows better than he should. Yoongi’s fingers card into his hair, hesitant at first until Namjoon presses into the touch, and Yoongi’s fingers curl soothingly against his scalp.
“I have no idea what I just ordered,” Yoongi confesses into the quiet of the room, and Namjoon lets a silent laugh escape against his collarbone. He doesn’t care; whatever comes, he’ll eat it with a smile even if it sticks in his throat going down. He owes Yoongi so much more than that. “I don’t know how you do it,” Yoongi adds, lower and quieter, a secretive whisper that ruffles Namjoon’s hair, not meant for anyone’s ears but Namjoon’s even though they’re alone. Namjoon hums, his arm tightening around Yoongi’s waist and, for the first time that night, he finally wishes he had the words back to explain that it’s this.
This right here is how he does it. And if Yoongi doesn’t already know, then Namjoon will tell him. With words, and without.
***