Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

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Taehyung looks like himself. 

He’d gone for a haircut earlier today, driven by an impulse to feel somehow cleaner. And tonight, he slipped out of The Orpheum as the final notes of “Man’s Last Romance” rang through the hall, removing his wide-brimmed hat and folding down his collar as the seismic pulse of the crowd followed him down the block.

Now he stands before the bathroom mirror in his apartment above Bitters End, tears stinging his eyes as he shaves his face clean, wiping away the disguise once and for all.

He splashes his face with water and straightens to watch the rivulets track their way down his cheeks.

So far, tonight hurts. To be among those he’s known, in that place, with that music. His old world. A world he helped create, and then selfishly helped destroy. All those people, there to remember him. As ignorant to his sins as they were to his secret presence among them, a silent shadow at the back of the noisy hall.

It was also a relief. To not have to be anything more than a memory. A mystery that might not need to be solved after all.

But it’s time now for Kim Taehyung to reclaim himself. From the memory and the mystery. For those who know him best. 

How will they see him, this man in the mirror? Is this the same man they knew? Do they want him to be?

He wears a floral button-down beneath a brown blazer, simple tan trousers, and sleek pointy shoes. He fixes a brooch to his lapel, in the shape of a cloud with little dangling rhinestone raindrops. Lipstick, just a little, in a subtle color. He allows himself a smirk at the mirror.

He doesn’t look like a barkeep anymore, or a rockstar, or a glam icon. He looks like Taehyung.

The sound of chatter and music fills his ears as he makes his way downstairs and pushes silently through the kitchen door, into the darkened part of the dining room. His bone-rattling nerves feel like the first steps of penance.

He sees them all before they see him, and a sweet warmth fills his wretched chest at the sight. 

Jimin’s got pink hair now, of course. Yoongi is talking with Seokjin, guffawing over some shared memory. Hoseok has skirted around the bar and is taking everyone’s drink orders with aplomb, like he works here. The reporter, Namjoon, looks so seamless among the group.

And him. Heavy boots and nails painted black, awkwardly gripping a cup of coffee. Standing a little apart from the others, watching, wary. Once Taehyung’s eyes find Jungkook, he can’t look anywhere else.

The lines of his posture. The way his hair falls into his eyes. The shape of his jaw, his mouth. How he always seems to be in motion, restless and kinetic, even when he’s just standing there.

To Taehyung, Jungkook is still, always, a fire, an eternal power source. 

Seeing him on that stage tonight, singing that song, his song, ablaze with emotion, was as electrifying as it was devastating. “Man’s Last Romance”, fully realized at last. 

It brought tears to Taehyung's eyes that seemed to evaporate before they fell. It both wrecked and rekindled his breath, in a way that reminded him he hasn’t breathed, hasn’t really breathed, in over a year.

And it was so impossibly hard this past week, knowing Jungkook was here, in this city, in his bar, steps away. So hard, stopping himself from trying to see him. The night of Jungkook’s interview, Taehyung had left the building entirely. 

Last night, he’d been tucked away, reading in his apartment, trying not to dwell on whatever Seokjin was telling Namjoon downstairs, when he heard the muffled sound of someone shouting. Then the pop of the gunshot, the bullet splintering through his floorboards, sending him scrambling.

The second gunshot had rung out as he flew down the stairs in bare feet, heart hammering. He’d come to a screeching halt outside the kitchen door when he heard the sound of Jungkook’s irate voice on the other side. He’d brought his fingertips to the door for a brief, terrifying moment, before slinking quickly back up the stairs and picking up his phone.

He hadn’t been afraid of the gun, nor the man who was holding it. He was afraid of who he’d reveal himself to be, in that moment, if he’d intervened.

Last night, he wasn’t ready. He’s not sure he’s ready now.

Because – Jungkook. Just look at him.

The ravenous flames of his performance have tapered to more of a restive smolder, but his energy is as alluring as ever. Smoky makeup framing flickering eyes. As inconstant as he is inextinguishable. As beautiful as he is destructive. Perfect in his flaws.

He has always filled Taehyung with a burning kind of longing, a longing that never seemed to be his own.

As the group settles themselves around the bar, the voices of Hoseok and Jimin overpower the jukebox, the pair of them scream-singing along to “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”.  

Jimin dances his way over to Jungkook, dragging him in closer to the others as he continues to sing, joined in now by Seokjin’s boisterous tenor. Taehyung watches a reluctant smile overtake Jungkook’s face: his cheekbones lift in a way that changes the whole shape of his face, contouring him into a living delight.

The forgotten organ inside Taehyung’s chest is expanding, blowing out the base, material bounds of his ribcage, filling the room, the city, the galaxy, celestial and infinite. 

He wants so badly to stride right up to him, to tug him in by his collar and kiss him into forever. But first he must beg for forgiveness. From all of them.

He inhales, he exhales, and then he steps out of the shadows.

Hoseok notices him first, and he promptly drops the glass in his hand. The shattering sound brings all the chatter and singing to an abrupt halt as everyone looks first at Hoseok. Then, following his look of shock, their heads turn one by one, and six pairs of eyes land on Taehyung.

They all stare at him as the music continues to play. 

“Hi, guys,” Taehyung says sheepishly, shoving his hands in his pockets.

Seokjin yelps. Jimin brings his fingertips to his mouth. 

“Don’t-cha-know-that-there ain’t no mountain hiiiigh enough…”

Hoseok’s hand remains curved around the empty air left by the fallen glass, his lips parted in frozen surprise.

“…ain’t no valley looow enough…”

Namjoon gives Taehyung a nervous nod. Yoongi is unreadable.

“...ain’t no river wiiide enough…”

Taehyung can’t look at Jungkook.

“...to keep me from gettin’ to you, babe…”

The music fades. Silence swells. Nobody moves.

It seems there isn’t another song queued up on the juke. Taehyung desperately wishes there was another song.

He’s envisioned this moment for months, and now it’s arrived, just as he orchestrated it, on his turf, his terms. The people he loves most gathered here before him. Countless times, he’s thought of what he’ll do, what he’ll say. So naturally, his brain’s switched to static.

Another song would really be great right now.

Taehyung has actually taken a hesitant step in the direction of the jukebox when a voice stops him in his tracks.

“Oh my god, Tae!”

Almost half of Jimin’s drink sloshes out of its glass as he flings himself across the room and nearly collides with Taehyung, wrapping him in his arms, swaying them unsteady. Taehyung feels some of the liquid wet the back of his blazer, but he couldn’t care less, looping his arms around Jimin’s and laughing when he pulls him in tighter.

Then Jimin draws his head back, his eyes darting all across Taehyung’s face, teardrops spilling freely from his eyes. He lifts a hand and gently touches the side of Taehyung’s face like he’s making sure he’s really there.

“Hi, Jiminie.” Taehyung’s voice trembles with relief and anguish.

Jimin sniffles and slaps Taehyung lightly across the cheek. “Do you have any idea how much trouble you’re in?” His face is scrunched with emotion.

“I know,” Taehyung tells him, loosening himself gently in his hold, but not letting him go. “I know.” He looks out towards the others. “I owe you all an apology.”

Seokjin snorts. “I’ll say you do.”

“Some of us more than others,” Jimin adds pointedly, his eyes flitting in Yoongi’s direction.

“I know. I know, I’ll explain everything. I owe you all everything. Let me just—“

“Taehyung,” Hoseok says quietly, coming around the bar in a daze, looking at Taehyung like he’s an honest-to-goodness ghost. “Where have you been? How could you just… just–” His eyes well up and he shakes his head.

“Disappear?” Yoongi finishes Hoseok’s sentence with a protective arm around his shoulder and an accusatory glare at Taehyung.

Jimin takes a step backwards in Taehyung’s arms with a cautious little cough. Taehyung withholds the urge to clutch back at him for dear life. He opts to answer Hoseok’s first question, the easier one.

“Well, mostly, I’ve been here.” He sweeps an arm at their surroundings. “Welcome to my latest project,” he adds with a feeble smile.

He still can’t bring himself to look at Jungkook.

“I knew it!” Jimin squeals. He turns towards Namjoon, who’s skulking halfway behind the bar. “You had the Tae effect,” he declares, “the whole time I was talking with you. Could feel him lurking behind your questions.”

“He wasn’t lurking,” Namjoon protests. “And for the most part, the questions were my own.”

“But this was your idea.” Jimin spirals a pointed finger into Taehyung’s chest. “The interviews, getting us all here tonight. You sneaky bitch.”

“I thought it all rather smelled like a setup,” Seokjin agrees shrewdly.

Taehyung keeps a stabilizing grip on Jimin as he turns to Seokjin. “A setup for what? I just wanted to… find my way back to you all. And I was afraid you wouldn’t– I had to come at this thing sideways because–”

“Because you thought we wouldn’t trust you?” Seokjin raises his eyebrows. “How very astute.”

“No, I–”

Hoseok interrupts him with a mournful shake of his head. “You can’t expect us to trust you when you obviously didn’t trust us.”

“I do now,” Taehyung insists.

“Yeah, right.” Yoongi’s disappointment flows out of him in his palpable waves, coating Taehyung in shame. “Sneaking around, getting at us through a reporter, of all people. Helluva way to demonstrate trust.”

“But I didn’t want to just re-insert myself into your lives if you weren’t ready.”

Yoongi throws out his hands.“Then what in the hell do you call this? Who says it’s up to you when we’re ready? Some of us just had a gig, Taehyung. Some of us are exhausted.”

“No, I know. I was there. But I didn’t know if there’d be another opportunity with all of you together and I…”

“You were there?” Jimin looks up at him.

“Oh, yeah. You were spectacular, as always,” Taehyung tells him with a small smile. “Pure moonshine. And that finale, fuck.” He turns to Hoseok, the safest person to deliver this next bit of praise to. “It was… amazing.”

He should say more, more about that performance, those five minutes of torturous wonder that had left Taehyung fantastically transported and utterly ruined. The song that made him famous, but that had surely never sounded so magical, so stirring, until tonight. They’d turned it into a symphonic blockbuster, for fuck’s sake, brought the whole house down. Hoseok at his finest, peak musical eloquence. A brave and brilliant triumph for Yoongi.But he doesn’t know what to say that won’t sound like desperate flattery.

And he doesn’t think there are words that could ever describe the way Jungkook had made him feel, baring his soul like that, in front of so many people.

So he leaves it at that.

“It was amazing,” Jimin agrees with a regal tilt of his pink head, “wasn’t it?”

“I’m sorry,” Seokjin says incredulously, “are we forgetting that the whole point of the gig was to mourn the loss of a dude standing right the fuck in front of us right now? Or shall we simply pretend this whole last year didn’t happen?”

Beside him, Hoseok’s lower lip is wobbling as he nods. “It’s good you were there tonight. And I’m so happy you’re okay, Tae. Really. But you hurt us. You left us in the dark.”

With a sigh, Jimin extracts himself fully from Taehyung’s arms and returns to the bar, setting down his glass and turning to look at Taehyung with sad, expectant eyes. 

Taehyung takes a few halting steps closer to them all.

“I was selfish,” he admits, more prepared for this part. “I convinced myself that I wanted to start over, to escape. All the hype and the hypocrisy. The excess and the expectations.”

Yoongi scoffs.

Taehyung hesitates, but when Yoongi doesn’t say anything, he barrels on, finding it difficult to look any of them in the eye. “I lost myself. And so I had to cut out everyone who knew me as Vincent Danger. A clean break. I thought it was the best way. I... I was wrong,” he confesses, hoping they all appreciate how hard it is for him to say those words. “And I’m sorry.”

Jimin grimaces and drains the rest of his drink. Hoseok sniffles and wipes his face on his sleeve and Seokjin passes him a polkadotted handkerchief. Out of the corner of his eye, Taehyung discerns the dark shape that is Jungkook. He doesn't appear to have moved at all since Taehyung revealed himself.

“And did you realize,” Yoongi growls, slowly, deadly, “how royally you fucked us all over?”

“Yoongi…” Jimin warns quietly, gently touching his arm.

Yoongi shakes him off. “No.” He takes a menacing step in Taehyung’s direction. “You left Hobi and Han and Minato without a job. And me. You left Jimin without a best friend. And me. Don’t even get me started on Jungkook. Hell, you even fucked with Jin’s precious revenue streams.”

“I mean, now that I’ve gone independent, it doesn’t even really—“

Yoongi ignores Seokjin, talking loudly over him. “You left songs unfinished and unsung, and you left us. You twisted us up in your lies and your schemes, and you dragged us through the grief of your loss, and you expect us to just say, ‘that’s alright, Tae, we forgive you, thank you for blessing us with your presence’? No. Get fucked, Kim Taehyung.”

Right. This was never going to be easy. But Taehyung has always been stubborn, and he holds his ground, even as the weight of guilt sinks lower in his gut.

“I’m not trying to ask for your forgiveness, alright? I don’t… deserve your forgiveness. And if none of you ever want to talk to me again after tonight, I’ll… I’ll understand. But I’ve realized I can't just keep reinventing myself, I can’t just foist my problems off onto another version of me. I’m just… trying to explain. To set things right.”

Yoongi skids a humorless laugh across the rim of his wine glass. “You couldn’t have set things right a year ago? Before your brilliant little assassination?”

“But you wouldn’t have let me go!” Taehyung yelps, his eyes darting around at all of them. 

“I did,” Seokjin shrugs. “Hell, half of it was my idea.”

“That may be so,” Hoseok adds, “But Tae, you didn’t have to stay gone like you did.”

“I did though!” Taehyung’s eyes flood with hot, frustrated tears.

“Why?” Jimin pleads.

“Sometimes,” a quiet voice cuts in, “you just need to disappear.” 

And like a magnet, Taehyung’s eyes are drawn to Jungkook’s.

And Jungkook’s eyes are round, earnest, apologetic in their own right, as he explains, “You can’t expect to find yourself if everyone else already knows where you are.”  

Taehyung swallows. Jungkook holds his gaze, and it’s like neither of them can let go, hypnotized in each other, an almost tangible strand of gossamer understanding suspended between them. 

Until Yoongi blunders through it.

“No, that ain’t it.” Yoongi shakes his head at Jungkook. “Man, something neither of you ever seemed able to figure out is to ask for help when you needed it. Neither of you had to do this shit alone.”

Jungkook glares back at him. “Well, both of us did.”

Taehyung’s heart is pounding to hear Jungkook defend him like this. He drags his gaze back to Yoongi with difficulty. 

“At the time I honestly thought you’d be better off without me,” Taehyung professes, trying not to sound too pitiful about it. “I’d become… too much my own mask. So I left. For you, just as much as I did for myself. I was holding you back, all of you. You didn’t need my bullshit.”

“Your bullshit built my career,” Hoseok says with a wry laugh.

“Hell, mine too,” Seokjin adds. “All of us, really.”

Jimin chimes in, “And your bullshit didn’t leave when you did, sweetie. All the rights and contracts and everything that would’ve made it possible for Yoongi to get the credit he deserved were still in place.”

Taehyung takes another step closer to the group, finding himself dead center in the no-man's-land between the bar and seating area.

“But Yoongi, you always said you never wanted the credit. That you didn’t want the pressure. You agreed–”

Yoongi looks more resigned than angry, now. He looks utterly depleted. “And you agreed that we were in this together.”

Taehyung’s mouth moves silently, forming frail words that will never suffice. The tears that have been burning behind his eyes all night begin to leak down his face.

“Let’s call a spade a spade,” Seokjin says, impatient. “Tae, you left because Jungkook did.”

And that’s true. But it’s not the whole truth. And that’s Taehyung’s whole problem.

“So you’re blaming me?” Jungkook’s eyes are flashing defiantly in Seokjin’s direction.

“No, I’m blaming Taehyung.”

“Hey now, Jin,” Hoseok retorts, clearly trying to sound reasonable, but with a heated tremble in his voice. “Let’s not forget that some of the blame is yours. You kept your own secrets from the rest of us.”

Seokjin’s hands find his hips as he looks down his nose at Hoseok. “Oh, and you didn’t?”

“What secrets?” Yoongi asks sharply, glancing up from refilling his wine glass.

Jungkook lifts an eyebrow. “You really wanna open that can of worms, Mister ‘Man Behind the Music’?”

“No, listen, that was my fault, too,” Taehyung argues, “I should’ve–”

Jimin interrupts,“Well you didn’t–”

"Fuck my songs, I wanna know what secrets-"

"But they were weren't just yours!"

“- wasn’t my idea–”

They all start to overlap in nonsensical layers of tension and frustration and hurt.

“See, this is what I mean about–”

“All of us, lying in lies!”

“I didn’t want—”

“No one cares what you want!”

“-the contradiction in the con!”

“- always running away–”

“Don’t know how you never figured it out–”

“Come on, people–”

“Fuck, Tae, did you have to do this tonight!?” Jimin cries out, shrill enough to be heard over the others. “Things were finally starting to make sense again. We were all ready to move on.”

“NONE OF YOU WERE!”

Namjoon’s voice pierces the tension, spinning them all into dumbfounded silence. 

The momentum of his sudden outburst has pushed Namjoon out from the bar, his quiet presence bursting into an authoritative, impatient thunder. “None of you were ready to move on!”

His exasperated eyes dart between each member of the group. 

“I mean, Jungkook, your performance tonight was incredible, fucking groundbreaking, but it made plain for anyone watching that you’re stuck in your heartbreak."

Jungkook shuffles uncomfortably. Taehyung is rather unable to look at him again.

“And Seokjin,” Namjoon continues, “you try so hard to seem informed, one step ahead of everyone, and you just can’t get over the idea of Taehyung living a whole life without your influence. Only giving you bits and pieces, nothing to spin, nothing to take credit for.”

Namjoon paces back and forth in front of them, hurling the truth at each of them in turn.

“Hoseok, Taehyung took advantage of you, and you know it. He relied on you to hold down the band, when he was supposed to be its leader, and he expected you to bear the weight of his secrets. He burdened you and then he abandoned you. You wanted so badly for Taehyung to be redeemed, but you know he wasn’t. You want to forgive, but you can’t.”

This appears to hit Hoseok as hard as it hits Taehyung. They lock eyes for a brief moment, both of them brimming with tears. 

Then they both look away as Namjoon moves on, facing a head of pink hair.

“And you blame yourself,” he tells Jimin. “Because you knew him better than anyone, and you could see what was happening to him, who he was becoming,  and you don’t think you did enough to stop it. And deep down, you fear that you wanted to see him fail. For once. For Taehyung to not get what he wanted. To get what he deserved. And you’ll never know if he did.”

Jimin stares back at Namjoon in wonder, no ounce of denial on his face. He looks so small in this moment, so childlike, and despite the hurtful implication of Namjoon’s words, all Taehyung wants to do is wrap his dear friend up in his arms once more.

But Namjoon isn’t finished yet.

“Yoongi. You’d been with Taehyung the longest, and you trusted him, but you always doubted his trust in you. Just like you doubted yourself, and your place in this scene. You gave me the notebook, the clue to your hidden hand in all of this, and then when I phoned you up the other day you denied it all anyway.

“It wasn’t until Seokjin hinted there’d be an easy way out that you even dared step into the spotlight. But you’re a natural, Yoongi, there’s music in your bones, anyone here can see it.”

Taehyung finds himself nodding along emphatically, and he’s not the only one.

“Still,” Namjoon continues, “even playing a song that’s half yours, even when you finally had an audience tonight, you were tucked off to the side. And I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that. But Seokjin didn’t quit the label until yesterday, when he’d figured out Taehyung was coming back. You didn’t even realize it, but you were waiting for Taehyung. You still doubt yourself. And you’ll never be able to move forward until you’re able to take pride in your own work.”

Namjoon plants his feet, looking over each of them. “Now, I’m sorry if this is painful to hear, but it’s the story you’ve all been telling me, all week. You haven’t moved on, and you’re not ready to.”

He walks up to Taehyung, looking him carefully but directly in the eyes. “Least of all you. That’s why you brought everyone here. Isn’t it?” There’s a new urgency in his voice as he turns to address the group at large once more. “It’s now. Now is the time to move on, whether you’re ready or not. To face yourselves, and each other, and you can only do it together.”

And with that, Namjoon marches back to the side of the bar and takes a long swig from a bottle of beer. 

As a new kind of silence blankets the room, Taehyung fights a sudden, absurd urge to smile. And because he can’t help himself, his eyes find Jungkook’s once more. Jungkook flashes him a wan smile of his own, and then he hunches his shoulders to light up a cigarette.

Seokjin breaks the silence first.

“Fuck, Namjoon. You gonna put all that in your unauthorized little article?”

“What does that mean, ‘unauthorized’?” Jungkook says sharply, flipping his lighter closed.

“Well…” Namjoon shifts his weight, losing some of his vehemence as he fingers the beer bottle in his hands. He sends a nervous glance Taehyung’s way. “I’m sure most of you figured this out already, but since we’re in the spirit of honesty here, you should know that Taehyung asked me to do these interviews with all of you. He’s going to, um, he’s going to give me an exclusive. Because I helped to reunite you.”

Jimin snorts into his drink. “And what a merry reunion this is.”

“But it’s your story I want to tell,” Taehyung tells them all earnestly. “You guys can go over everything with Namjoon, what you do and don’t want to include. I know your stories aren’t mine to tell, but they made me who I am. Or, rather, who I should be.”

“Yeah,” Namjoon nods. “I set out to find out what happened to Vincent Danger, and I did. You did. You guys happened. I don’t think it’s my story to tell, either, anymore.” He sweeps his eyes over them all. “Unless you want me to.”

Taehyung rolls his lip beneath his teeth. Everyone looks so spent.

“But we don’t have to decide anything now,” Taehyung adds, delicately. “That’s not why I brought you here tonight.”

“Then why did you?” Yoongi asks, brows low over his wine glass. “You don’t want to push this article on us, you don’t want our forgiveness, what do you want?”

“I want… I want us to make dreams.”

There’s a hesitant silence.

“What?” Jimin inquires with a perplexed little flutter of his eyelids. 

Taehyung continues to address Yoongi. “You said I never asked for help. And I know I have no right, but I’m asking now. I can only do this with all of you.” Taehyung hesitates. “And I just… I hope it’ll start to put things right.” He looks at Namjoon. “A way for us to move on.”

Seokjin huffs and crosses his arms. “Well, spit it out.”

The inappropriate urge to grin tickles Taehyung’s cheeks once more. A flutter of excitement ripples across the shallow remnants of his pride.

 “Yoongi, remember King’s? Famous Fridays?”

“The open mic nights?” A wisp of intrigue flutters across Yoongi’s wary features.

“Well, I keep thinking about how I got my start in that little joint. I’d stand there on that tiny stage, and I’d dream it into a whole universe. I could be anyone I wanted, anyone I needed to be, if only for five minutes. So…” Taehyung scurries to the wall and flips a switch.

Warm lights glow on, hung across a pipe suspended from the ceiling. They light up a tall, plastic industrial curtain left by the construction crew, casting it in an opaque gleam. Taehyung crosses over to it. “It’s also pretty small, but…” With a couple hard tugs, the curtain comes billowing down to reveal a small raised platform. “...I’ve always loved a stage.”

“Always loved a dramatic reveal, too,” Jimin mutters.

“I thought we might resurrect those Famous Fridays, here at Bitters End,” Taehyung explains, unable to keep the fervor from his voice, desperately willing them all to be on board. “But every day of the week. Give folks a safe space to dream. To shine. To try themselves out. And then, the people who do well, who need a place to grow, we can invite them to do residencies at the loft. If you’re down,” he adds tentatively to Jimin.

Jimin only pauses for a fraction of a second, before he breaks into a wide, warm smile.

“Hell yeah, I’m down,” he grins. “Like… like a new artists’ collective.”

“Yes, exactly! Between you and I, I’m sure we could fund it. And we can also use it to support established artists and musicians, people like you guys. A space to create, to hone the craft, whatever that might be. And also to mentor the newbies, the up-and-comers. We can organize workshops and stuff during the day, and then host live entertainment at night. And that’s where I’ll need all of your help, too. To curate, to keep things interesting. And to share your own stuff, of course, whenever you want. But I like the idea of discovering new voices here, y’know? Giving them a place to be heard. For them. The outcasts and the poets. For... for the rebels and the pansies, and the sluts and the soothsayers. For us. What do you guys think?”

Taehyung turns nervously toward the others.

“I think…” Seokjin announces, sweeping a cigar from his breast pocket, “you’ll need someone to run it. Lucky for you I just so happen to be looking for a job.”

“Well technically, an artist collective should be run cooperatively,” Namjoon comments from the side, like he can’t help it.

“A business manager, then,” Seokjin throws a scowl at Namjoon before turning back to Taehyung.

“Absolutely,” Taehyung agrees with a flash of his teeth. “And Namjoon, this collective should include writers, too, if you’d want to take part…?”

“Would I…?” Namjoon looks like Taehyung just clubbed him over the head. Beside him, Seokjin snickers.

“I think it’s brilliant,” Hoseok gushes. “I could give guitar lessons! Y’know, proper rock guitar. Get those kiddos shredding… yeah. Yeah. Won’t have to tour so much. Airy will like that. And oh my god, Airy can teach dance lessons, too! Holy shit, I have to call Airy…”

Continuing to talk excitedly to himself, Hoseok ambles out towards the payphone.

Jungkook, meanwhile, is biting his lip as he regards Taehyung from his spot at the bar, but there’s something sweet like pride behind his eyes. He takes a shallow drag from his cigarette, and he nods.

Taehyung nods back.

Yoongi walks right up to Taehyung, distracting him from his impulse to rush over and bury his face in Jungkook’s neck. 

“This doesn’t mean I forgive you,” Yoongi grumbles. “Yet,” he adds, sipping his wine. “But I’m on board.”

“Thank you,” Taehyung tells him, and without thinking he reaches up to squeeze his shoulder.

“Aw fuck that, get in here, kid.” 

And then they’re hugging, and Taehyung is sobbing, and Jimin is refilling everyone’s drinks, and Jungkook is smiling again, and maybe everything is going to be just fine.

Yoongi pulls back before Taehyung does. “So, will you re-form The XYZs?” He asks gruffly.

“Don’t think that’s my call.” Wiping his eyes, Taehyung looks over towards the vestibule where Hoseok is reappearing from using the pay phone.

Yoongi nods thoughtfully. “Guess we’ll have to see what happens. I bet Han and Mintao will be down to contribute to this collective thing, though. Maybe we’ll form a new group.”

“We?” Taehyung asks, daring to hope.

Yoongi shrugs. “Suppose I realized my stage fright wasn’t as bad as I thought it was. Might be time to join the band, so to speak.”

Taehyung pats him rather clumsily on the cheek. “Good. The world has been waiting to see you shine.”

“Really gotta lay it on thick, huh?”

“Yup,” Taehyung grins.

“Well, Airy nearly had an aneurysm,” Hoseok announces, drawing them all back together. “I told her not to tell anyone you’re back yet, Tae, is that right?”

“Thanks,” Taehyung nods, trying not to tense up at the thought of the pending public onslaught.

“She dug the idea of this artist collective, though,” Hoseok tells them. “Said it’s about time we all found something useful to do.”

“We should give it a catchy name,” Seokjin declares with a puff of his cigar.

“The collective?”

“Yeah,” Seokjin shrugs, “everything’s gotta have a catchy name, even crunchy granola artist communes. Wait, Tae, I hope you don’t expect us to grow our own vegetables at the loft or anything. And ‘residencies’ don’t have to  mean ‘residential,’ right? I, for one, am not moving into that souped up loony bin.”

With a roll of his eyes, Taehyung turns to Jimin. “Why not stick with Glitter Gallery?”

“Eh, ‘gallery’ feels too stagnant. And glitter is so 1973.”

“The Alphabet Collective?” Namjoon suggests. “A reference to The XYZs? Your bartender always calls you guys the alphabet band.”

Hoseok scrunches his nose. “Sounds like a preschool.”

“Bulletproof.”

Jungkook is perched on a barstool, leaning low over his elbows as he observes the conversation, a thin stream of smoke ascending from between his fingers. It takes a second for Taehyung to realize it was him who had spoken.

“Bulletproof?”

“Yeah,” Jungkook straightens, tossing his hair out of his eyes in a way that tangles Taehyung’s ribcage in knots. “Like how Tae was shot but he wasn’t. Like, you…” he lifts his eyes hesitantly from Taehyung to the hole in the ceiling, “you’re infallible. We will be, too. Can’t kill art, rock’n’roll will never die, you know…”

And now Taehyung’s all choked up again.

Yoongi comes to his rescue. “I like it. It’s like a dare.”

“And you should rename this joint ‘Bulletproof,’ too,” Seokjin advises. “‘Bitters End’ is much too depressing.”

All Taehyung can manage is a grateful nod.

“Alright then,” Jimin declares, satisfied, “Bulletproof. Let’s drink to it. Hobi, can you make sure everyone’s got something to toast…? And then let’s get our asses to the loft, this construction zone is no place for a party.”

As Hoseok and Jimin move about making sure everyone has a drink, Taehyung feels everyone’s eyes on him. Like they’re trying to make sure he’s really there. Taehyung can only hope that he really is.

In response to Jimin’s proffered bottle, Jungkook stubs out his smoke and lifts his to-go cup, and Taehyung meets his eyes for a moment. He feels the unfamiliar sensation of a blush prickle his skin as he quickly looks away.

Jimin lifts his glass, always the one to lead the toasts.

“Bulletproof,” he says simply.

“Bulletproof,” they all echo, and drink.

Jungkook hisses and  grimaces. “Fuck, this coffee is cold.”

“Sobriety’s a bitch.” Yoongi lifts his glass again to Jungkook with a wan sort of smirk.

“Yeh, well. Least I can do. For my part in fucking it all up.”

“Let’s get you some fruit juice or something, JK,” Jimin says sweetly, tugging him in the direction of the bar.

They begin to break off into their own little conversations as they finish their drinks. Yoongi has migrated to the jukebox, and an upbeat funk beat oozes out into the room. 

Namjoon shuffles over to Taehyung, tucking his beer bottle into his elbow and wiping his glasses nervously on his shirttails.

“Taehyung, listen, you didn’t have to offer for me to join your collective… just because I….”

“I did,” Taehyung insists, a little distracted. “You’re a part of this now, Namjoon.” Before Namjoon can offer any further bumbling contradictions, he adds, “You didn’t tell me Jungkook stopped drinking, too.”

“Oh. Yeah. Guess I forgot, what with him almost shooting me in the head and then pelting me with all the lurid details about how you guys used to fuck all the time.”

Taehyung giggles. “Ah, right. Sorry.”

“Nah,” Namjoon smiles, and then lowers his chin, guiding both their gaze to the emerald pendant around his neck.

“Ah,” Taehyung murmurs. “There it is.”

Namjoon takes it off and holds it between them. “Do you want it back?”

Taehyung’s fingers reach out to brush ever so lightly across the gem’s surface. He swears he can feel the pulse of the mischievous magic it holds. “Hobi gave it to you, hm?”

Namjoon nods.

“Guess he doesn’t need it anymore,” Taehyung says, his eyes finding Hoseok over by the jukebox with Yoongi, browsing the selections. Yoongi appears to have said something that’s sent Hoseok into a signature peel of laughter.

He must feel Taehyung’s eyes on him because he looks up suddenly, the laughter lingering on his face. Taehyung smiles at him, hopeful and warm, and Hoseok smiles back on a nod, jovial and forgiving.

And just a little smug.

After all, he got the girl. But she was never Taehyung’s to begin with.

“Good for him,” Taehyung says, turning his smile to Namjoon. “S’pose it’s yours now.” He pushes the gem back up into Namjoon’s hand.

“If you say so,” Namjoon grins, giving it a final squeeze. He plucks up the chain and places it back over his head, only to lift the gem back up and examine it once more, as if he suddenly saw something in it. “What… what is it exactly?”

“Freedom,” Taehyung replies. Cryptic, he knows, but he’s really talking about much more than the emerald. “It looks good on you.”

Namjoon blushes, and though he doesn’t outright smile, telltale dimples appear on his cheeks. “Thanks,” he mumbles.

Taehyung grips his shoulder. “Dude. Thank you .”

Turning even redder, but appearing to be at a loss for further words, Namjoon nods and hurries off towards the bar. Taehyung watches fondly as Jimin intercepts him, prying the empty beer from his fingers and insisting he try the wine cocktail he’s just invented.

Smiling to himself, Taehyung’s eyes move like magnets, like unavoidable truth, to find Jungkook.

He’s talking to Seokjin near one of the booths, his back to Taehyung. But Seokjin meets Taehyung’s eyes, widening his own meaningfully. Taehyung sighs, steels himself, and with his heartbeat thumping like a bass drum, he walks over to them.

Seokjin is yammering away as Taehyung approaches, and he hears Jungkook give a light chuckle. 

And all Taehyung wants to do is press up behind him, to slip his hands under Jungkook’s elbows and hold him around the chest, hold his laughter, hold his heart. He wants to whisper a greeting into his nape and inhale the scent of his hair. He wants to tug aside the collar of his jacket and press open-mouth kisses along the side of his neck, he wants-

He freezes, a foot away, hesitating.

“-and I told him that game was the one time I cheated, and it was only because fucking Mintao wouldn’t stop talking shit, and Jesus Harold Chist Taehyung stop standing there like a kid with a crush and just get over here already.”

Jungkook turns, and Taehyung startles. The bass drum is in his toes now. How the hell is it possible to feel your heartbeat in your toes?

“Hey,” Jungkook says, in that stupid, stoic way of his.

“Hey yourself.” Taehyung nearly laughs.

“Excellent,” Seokjin announces, already drifting back towards the bar. “How ‘bout that wine cocktail, Namjoon? Got a headache yet?”

Standing here, in front of Jungkook like this, it’s insurmountable in its simplicity. They’re just standing. The others are right over there, pretending not to sneak furtive glances. It’s exactly like Taehyung imagined it would be. And nothing he could have prepared for. Just standing there. Stars colliding.

He clears his throat and gestures to the kitchen door. “Do you wanna…?”

“Nah,” Jungkook says with a casual toss of his head. “It’s just, everyone’s so happy to see you now. Let’s not pull any more disappearing acts for a bit, alright?”

“Alright,” Taehyung nods slowly, chewing his lip. “So. Are– um.” This is difficult. He used to be so confident around Jungkook, so tuned in. Now he feels limp. “Are you happy to see me?”

“I– yeh. Yeah. Obviously. You’re back from the dead, you asshole. It’s a fuckin’ miracle.”

“Jungkook.”

“Well.” He blows out a breath. Folds his arms across his chest. His leather jacket creaks with the motion. “You happy to see me ?”

“Are you kidding? I got a hard-on already.”

“You always have a hard-on.”

“Just around you, baby.”

Jungkook’s breath appears to catch in his throat, but his features quickly pinch into annoyance. “Tae.”

“Fine, I admit it. It’s that reporter got me all hot. What can I say, those broad shoulders and wire-framed glasses just do something to me, I can’t control it.”

“Oh piss off, Taehyung.”

Sometimes he wonders if this was the problem. That he loves riling Jungkook up. That seeing the frustration build in his eyes, weirding him out, getting him on edge, brings Taehyung such immense satisfaction. He wonders what it was, what it ever was, about himself that made Jungkook keep coming back.

“I’m sorry, Jungkook.”

“Nah.”

“No, I’m so, so sorry.”

“Let’s not do this right now.”

“Fine. So. Congrats on the gig tonight. You put on quite a show.”

Jungkook spreads his arms to encompass the bar and the awkward little celebration around them. “So did you.”

“It wasn’t supposed to be– that’s why I didn’t – I don't want to be putting on a show all the time anymore.”

“Then why’d you build a stage?” Jungkook retorts, but there’s no bite to it. It’s more observation than accusation. 

“Uh, well, I–”

“Maybe it’s your nature. Putting on a show. Doesn’t make you any less real, you know?”

“Doesn’t it?”

“Not when you mean it. Not when you’re doing what you love.” Jungkook casts his eyes down, lashes nearly brushing the tops of his slightly pinkened cheeks.

Taehyung releases a shaky breath, laughter bubbling just under the surface. Who is this insightful, compassionate man, and what has he done with Jeon Jungkook? 

“Like you,” Taehyung replies, his voice cracking. He clears his throat. “Um, tonight, that is. On that stage. You were doing what you loved, putting on a show, but it was so real, Jungkookie. So powerful. Beautiful.”

Jungkook huffs, and his blush deepens. “Yeh, well. Thanks for coming out for it. Wasn’t sure you would.”

Taehyung briefly debates whether it’s a good idea to confide in him that he wasn’t sure he would, either. Perhaps Jungkook wouldn’t understand the reason for his doubt, that it wasn’t because he didn’t want to see him up there. But then, perhaps Jungkook knows that’s exactly what Taehyung feared he couldn’t handle. That it was never about jealousy.

As Jungkook’s eyes flicker intently over Taehyung’s face, they seem to say all that, and more. Some new light kindling in his eyes, that Taehyung’s never seen before. Something reassuring, and terrifying. Humbling.

And because he’s a coward, Taehyung directs his next words down into his drink: an eerily green pour of Chartreuse Jimin had chosen for him, in an angular martini glass.

“Aw, how could I miss your first live gig in over a year? I’ve always loved watching you perform.”

“Sometimes a little too much, as I recall.”

Taehyung glances up to find Jungkook grinning at him with achingly familiar mischief. He tries to grin back, but when it threatens to split into a whimper, he takes a flustered sip of Chartreuse. He winces through the strangely herbal burn.

“And you’ve always loved torturing me,” Jungkook adds, eyeing Taehyung’s drink.

“Oh fuck, Jungkook, should I not…?” Taehyung twists around to put the glass down on the table behind them.

“And tempting me,” Jungkook teases, and Taehyung’s not sure if he’s talking about the drink, or the way he just gave Jungkook a direct view of his ass. But before Taehyung can think of a sufficiently snarky reply, Jungkook has reached around him and lifted the glass from the table, handing it back to him.

They’ve maintained a respectfully awkward distance thus far, but Jungkook’s movement brings them closer together. His hand lingers on the stem of the glass, not quite touching Taehyung’s as he slips it between his fingers.

Taehyung lifts his eyes from the green liquid to find Jungkook’s expression flickering from playful to pensive as he murmurs, “it’s alright, Tae. Been working on resisting temptation.”

“Don’t they say the best way to resist temptation is to remove it?”

“Don’t they also say that the best way to remove temptation is to yield to it?”

And isn’t that the thinking that screwed them both over? Taehyung takes a hesitant step back, drawing his glass in towards his body.

“Oh, no, that’s not– don’t do that—”

Jungkook looks unruffled. “Nah, don’t worry. Turns out I have what they call an addictive personality. You take away one temptation, I’ll just find another.” He taps the rim of Taehyung’s glass. “So let me work on fighting this one for now, okay?”

“Okay,” Taehyung replies somewhat feebly, taking another step back to restore a buffer of space between them. “So. Cold turkey?”

Jungkook fumbles to light up another cigarette.  “It sucks.”

“Shit, and this after I stocked half a dozen bottles of your favorite terrible whiskey.”

Jungkook coughs out a smoky laugh, glancing over towards the bar. “Ha, I should’ve known, fuck. Well, consider it a donation.”

“That swill? I consider it an insult.”

“Alright, well, keep it in your back room. On the day I finally learn self control, we can have a celebration.”

“But… you have learned self control.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure.” Jungkook peers at him, betraying a hint of the emotion he’d shown on stage. He clears his throat and brings the cigarette to his lips. “Well, I’ve learned not to hate myself, anyway, which is really the point of it all, right?”

“I’m proud of you, Jungkookie.”

“Thanks. Proud of you, too. This whole thing could’ve backfired real hard on you. I never know if you’re the luckiest bastard I’ve ever met, or the smartest.”

“I think we’ve established I’m pretty far from smart.”

“Well, you did fuck things up pretty spectacularly. But you’re… I mean, you’re a clever bastard, you know that? You make people think without letting them realize it.  Made some pretty genius tunes.”

“Wow, you giving me a compliment, Jeon?”

“Nah, just…” Jungkook scuffs the rubber sole of his boot against the side of the booth beside them. “I got a new tattoo.”

“Oh?”

“It’s, um, XYZs lyrics. I just… now I’m wondering if they’re your words or Yoongi’s.” Jungkook chuckles, rubbing the back of his neck. “Not that it really matters.”

A hit of something close to desperation threatens to demolish Taehyung’s already unsteady composure. “I… uh. What lyrics?”

“I’ll show you.”

Jungkook unzips his jacket halfway. He’s not wearing anything underneath it.

Taehyung bites down on his lip, reminding himself Jungkook was fully shirtless in front of hundreds of people not two hours ago, that he’s seen every part of Jungkook’s body before, that this simple bit of skin shouldn’t make his breath stutter halfway out his lungs.

Jungkook pulls his jacket to the side, revealing three lines of script below his left collarbone:

Capture the moment
Seize imagination
See the starlight

Taehyung swallows. It’s never been so hard to stand still, to stop himself from reaching out. To touch the words written right there over Jungkook’s heart. 

“Yeah,” he murmurs, “that’s me.”

The lyrics are from a song called “See It, Seize It” - the last song he wrote for the Vincent Danger album. 

Jungkook fiddles with his zipper. “Good.”

Taehyung opens his mouth – to elaborate, to sip his drink, to kiss Jungkook’s nose, he’s not quite sure – but then Jimin is calling out to the room at large.

“Alright darlings, the party awaits!”

Hoseok whoops. Seokjin announces he’s going to steal Taehyung’s cocktail glass. Yoongi drains his wine and calls out,  “Oy, rock star!”

“Who, Jungkook?” Taehyung asks.

“Meant you, but point taken.” Yoongi cracks a bit of a smile at Jungkook before directing his attention back to Taehyung. “You, uh, coming to the loft? Lotta people there who’ll lose their mind to see you, you know. Whatta you say?” He renders the question somewhat rhetorical by throwing him a knowing look.

And Taehyung remembers that he looks like Taehyung now. That he’d be recognized instantly by everyone there.

“Ah, yeah. I think… I’m not ready for all that just yet. Just… I wanna ease back in. But you guys go, have some reckless fun for me, okay?”

“Don’t worry, cherub,” Jimin sidles up to him with a gentle pat on his arm. “It’s been an extraordinary night for all of us. We must recalibrate now, through means both familiar and fresh. But don’t you disappear on us again, okay?”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Taehyung promises, and he only wishes there was a surefire way to prove it.

They all agree, and arrange a time to meet Monday evening, to start making plans for the Bulletproof Collective. Hearing the name, the promise of it, the bold agreement it holds, sends a thrill down Taehyung’s spine.

“But of course you’ll be joining us, yes?” Seokjin points his cigar threateningly at Namjoon. “You’re one of us now, whether you like it or not.”

Namjoon, tipsy and flushed, grins like he’s won the lottery. “Fuck, this article is gonna be the most biased thing I’ve ever written.”

Taehyung thinks about belonging. About the invisible forces that tie people together across time and chance. Namjoon had told him that V and The XYZs’ music had given him a sense of affinity. Taehyung rather thinks it was less about the music, and more about Namjoon. That he was always meant to belong among them. That the story he writes may end up a fairytale - all magic and sparkle and happy endings - but that suits Taehyung just fine.

As the rest of them toss back their remaining drinks and start to gather up their things, Jungkook lingers beside Taehyung. But before Taehyung’s heart rate has a chance to rev itself up at the prospect that he might stay, Jungkook is zipping his jacket and angling towards the exit.

“Yeh, so. I better… with the gang…”

“Oh, yeah, of course, right.”

“But I’ll see you. On Monday. And we can… you know, we can keep talking.”

And that suits Taehyung just fine, too.

Because just to be here with him, to carry on a normal conversation like two ordinary people (more or less)... it’s enough. Better than enough. It’s more than he should’ve hoped for.

Taehyung smiles at him. “Monday.” 

He reaches out, not really sure where he’s aiming. He ends up squeezing Jungkook’s wrist, allowing himself the brief flirtation of a curled finger beneath his sleeve before turning him loose on the rest of the group. “Stick with Hobi at the loft, he’ll help you out with that self control thing.”

“Right,” Jungkook flutters out a huffy laugh. “See you, Tae.”

After a final round of hugs and tears with the rest of them, Taehyung is back up in the quiet of his tiny apartment, grappling with endless waves of conflicting emotions and sensations.

He thinks about expectations. The way he can set everything up just right, execute everything exactly as planned, and still feel disappointed.

What did he really want from this night? From these people he loves?

Perhaps it was supposed to be harder.  Shouldn’t there have been more resistance to his reemergence, to his proposed collective? Shouldn’t Taehyung have cried more, cried harder?

Perhaps Taehyung had hoped that admitting to his selfishness would’ve made him less selfish. But it didn’t. Because maybe he resents the easy way they all caroused their way out into the night, leaving him behind without a second glance.

He appreciates why they left, why they needed to recalibrate, as Jimin said.

But he is selfish, and he misses them all already.

Or perhaps it was just Jungkook. Perhaps all he really wanted was for Jungkook to stay. And if he’d just said the right words, maybe he would have.

He puts his shoes back on and grabs his keys, deciding maybe he’d better go to the loft after all, but he finds himself entirely unable to reach for the doorknob.

He kicks his shoes back off in a frustrated huff and wanders into his kitchen. Pours himself a glass of wine. He sits on the countertop, legs dangling, and tells himself this was good, the way this all went down. Tells himself he’s happy, he has a plan. He knows when he’ll see them again. See him again.

It’s better this way.

There’s a knock at the door.

Then again, maybe it’s not better this way.

He’s on his feet in an instant, but then he freezes. Did he imagine it?

The knock comes again.

And, oh, his body knows who it is, knows the sound of that knock, heard its heartthrob beat across countless hotel room doors. Can sense the way all the magnetic fields that hold him upright seem to shift on their axis when it’s him on the other side. When he’s waiting for him.

He doesn’t bother looking through the peephole, but he gives himself the space of a single breath before unlatching the lock and opening the door wide.

Jungkook stands there with this intense look on his face, classically defiant. Almost annoyed. His cheeks a little flushed, the rise of his chest a little strained, like he ran here. His eyes – deeper and more wondrous than the night sky. His mouth the shape of a sunrise.

It’s perhaps the most beautiful thing Taehyung has ever seen.

Inside the infinity of this moment, Taehyung is untethered. Floating upwards, fading into firmament, into an elysian dream, where time doesn’t exist, where there is no reason, no consequence, only light. Only them. Only him.

Jungkook is the opposite of gravity.

Jungkook is breathless.

So is Taehyung, but he tries desperately for casual, lifting an eyebrow at him.

“Forget something?”

“Yes.”

And with that, Jungkook is on him. 

His hands go straight for the sides of Taehyung’s face as he lurches forward and lands his lips right over Taehyung’s open mouth.

A guttural sound escapes Taehyung’s chest. 

And what can he do? He kisses him back. His knees weak with it, his heart on fire for it, their elbows bumping as they mirror each other, each one’s hands sliding into the other’s hair.

No words now, just movement.

And hands, god, Taehyung needs more hands, these two aren’t enough. To pull him in, to keep him there, to keep up, to hold on. To hold eternity in this kiss.

He bobs his head, shifting the fit of their geometry, the way their noses slide against each other, the way their lips slot together. Supple and sweet, desperate and deep.

He kisses into the memory of every kiss that came before it. How their mouths always fit so perfectly together, how their tempo always matched, and how it was still never enough. For either of them. How it was always a game, or a grasp for power, a need for control. How selfish they both were.

And it’s been so long since he’s kissed anyone.

It was Jungkook – the last person he kissed – but he can’t remember which kiss was their last.

And what were Jungkook’s lips like, that last time? Were they taut and rough, on that final morning, as Taehyung fucked a fresh bout of sadness into him? Or later that same day? Those lips dried out and pale, unresponsive, through Taehyung’s thoughtless attempt to kiss life back into them as he knelt over him, waiting for the paramedics?

Or was it sometime before that? Jungkook’s lips just an afterthought to the release, part of the routine?

Were they so disconnected in their parallel torment that they forgot the relief a kiss could bring? The way their mouths moved into each other was so effortless, the easiest escape. But they’d denied themselves that so much in those final weeks, afraid to share their vulnerability, afraid to need each other, each for his own foolish reasons. Seeking escape elsewhere.

Was kissing Jungkook always like this? Was it ever like this?

The last lips he kissed. The last lips he will ever kiss.

But now a tongue has slid its way into their synthesis, and it ripples deep within him. The plunk of a smooth stone down a well. This feeling, this reverberating responsiveness, this need for more - drawing him out of memory and into instinct. 

The way it feels when Jungkook wants him.

So with one hand situated firmly on the back of Jungkook’s head, Taehyung swings his arm around clumsily until it makes contact with the door, slamming it shut behind them.

And they might as well have done this yesterday, with the way their bodies fall so easily back into it, the shared rhythm they’ve always been able to find. The way Jungkook lets himself get pressed up against the door, the way Taehyung drags his mouth down, over his jaw, the top of his neck. Jungkook’s frenetic breath, on fire, the way Taehyung can taste it in the pulse beneath his lips.

The way Jungkook moves like this. The way he smells like this - always had this smell, even when it was smothered beneath the dank fumes of willful poison and self-neglect. Now it’s the only thing in Taehyung’s nostrils, no nonsense to cloud it up, just a hint of leather and tobacco at its edges. Jungkook’s scent is overwhelming and divine, indescribably comforting, and so sweet. Like lilacs and moonlight. 

The way Taehyung breathes him in as he works his mouth up towards his earlobe. The delirious, high-pitched noise Jungkook makes in response.

The way it always escalates so quickly with them.

Even as Taehyung pulls him off the door by the front of his jacket, forcing down the zipper as he backs them further into his tiny apartment, it occurs to him to find some rationality between them, for once.

“Jungkook.”

“Tae,” Jungkook utters back, holding eye contact as he slips his jacket from his bare shoulders and lets it fall to the floor. “Tae.” He pulls him in, one hand on his face, the other on the small of his back. “Taehyung.” He moans it, and Taehyung is made of nothing but water and salt, rushing forth, only one place to go.

He always found rationality to be overrated, anyway.

They’ve fumbled their way into his little kitchenette, where only a counter divides the space between the dining and living area. Jungkook bumps Taehyung up against it, pressing his whole body into him, supporting the arch of his spine. With his head tipped back, Taehyung swallows kiss after delicious kiss.

Jungkook tugs Taehyung’s blazer down his arms, leaving it bunched above his elbows as he nuzzles lower, latching onto Taehyung’s neck. Golden tendrils of pleasure spread from Jungkook’s mouth, winding their shimmering way down through Taehyung’s body. He clings to Jungkook’s arms to hold himself up, to stop himself from pooling into a worthless puddle of lust and despair right there on the floor.

He squeezes Jungkook’s biceps, trying to ground himself in the way the firm curve of muscle fills his palms, in the warmth of his smooth skin. There’s such incredible heat coming off Jungkook’s chest, Taehyung can feel it through the fabric of his own shirt. He wrestles himself fully out of his blazer, and Jungkook sucks lower on his neck, lifting his hands to loosen his top buttons so he can mouth beneath his collar.

And isn’t this what Taehyung wanted? All along? This thrill, this body. To lose himself in this, without all the baggage. To adore and to be adored. Doesn’t it feel like this?

They haven’t even made it past the kitchen, and here’s Jungkook, sinking to his knees, thumbing open Taehyung’s trousers with one hand and pushing the hem of his shirt up past his navel with the other, dragging his lips and tongue across the exposed skin.

It makes Taehyung giggle, but then the giggle turns quite unexpectedly to a sob. 

Jungkook doesn’t seem to notice; he’s got Taehyung’s pants halfway down his thighs, hands circling around his legs and up to his ass, mouthing lower and lower. He moves with such scorching urgency, Taehyung can’t seem to catch his breath. He grips the edge of the counter behind him, gasping as he gazes down at this image he’s seen countless times before, but that never before made him feel so helpless. 

His dick is hard, ignorant as ever to his emotion as Jungkook dips his chin to wrap his sweet lips around him.

He loses himself in it for a moment, his head falling back, one hand slipping into Jungkook’s hair, the ceiling gone all blurry and flimsy, like it could never contain the expansiveness of this scintillating pleasure. Jungkook sucks and slides his mouth up and down, going deliciously deep before the back of his throat contracts and he pulls back, panting. He takes a few quick breaths and then puckers his lips around him once more.

And it’s clear as crystal, obvious and entirely objective to say that Jungkook gives the best head Taehyung’s ever gotten in his life. It’s that special combination of the perfect shape of his mouth and the insatiable way he moves it, how he seems to genuinely crave it. How Taehyung’s infatuation with him was always so deliciously rewarded when he got him like this.

But then, it doesn’t seem fair. Does he deserve to be rewarded?

Was too much of their baggage actually left unpacked?

There’s a tightness in Taehyung’s chest now, a residual guilt on the back of his tongue.

“Jungkook.”

Jungkook lifts his gaze, his mouth still full of him. 

It makes Taehyung so dizzy with desire, he can barely bring himself to cup Jungkook’s chin, to extract himself from the bliss. His eyes flit over the tattoo on Jungkook’s chest. Words that Taehyung wrote, set to music, etched into his skin. 

Their bodies have always been on the same page. But now he needs to be sure their intentions are, too. 

“You said…” Taehyung pants, “self control… temptation…resisting…”

Jungkook wraps a hand around Taehyung’s cock, looking up at him through his dark hair with a stubborn smirk. “Nah, see, it’s scientifically impossible to resist this dick,” he quips, giving it a light squeeze.

Taehyung grits his teeth through the low moan that shudders through him, caressing Jungkook’s cheek to gently stop him from putting his mouth on him again.

“But, Jungkook. Are you sure this is… what you want?”

With a resigned sigh, Jungkook clambers to his feet. He plants his palm over the unbuttoned opening of Taehyung’s shirt, frowning as his eyes dart all over his face. “You. Tae. You’re what I want.”

“But, are you sure you even know who I–”

“Every you. Every reinvention. I can’t think of a version of you I don’t want.”

“Oh,” is all Taehyung’s unstable heart will allow him to say.

“But, I mean, ah, fuck. Do you want–?”

A few shameful tears escape Taehyung’s eyes. “Oh god, yes. Always yes. Jungkookie. So bad. So much.”

“Come here, then,” Jungkook coaxes, his voice gentle, as he pulls him around the counter and into the living area, helping Taehyung fully out of his pants on the way. He nudges him down onto the couch and climbs over him, peppering kisses along his hairline and reaching down to open the remaining buttons of his flowered shirt.

“Just, I– we never really finished talking downstairs,” Taehyung mumbles, “and I wasn’t sure if… I mean, you’re not angry with me?”

“I’m furious. Make love to me.”

Taehyung’s gone untethered again, drifting into oblivion, grounded only by Jungkook’s warm weight on his lap.  “Oh, my baby, baby-”

“Baby,” Jungkook echoes with barely a sound, mostly just air out his nose. His fingernails graze Taehyung’s eyebrows, trace around his ear. He leans in closer, eyes fluttering shut. “Baby,” he whispers against Taehyung’s lips.

And does he know? How he’s set Taehyung’s heart ablaze? How Taehyung will fight the whole world for him? How he needs him more than he needs music?

“I’m so sorry, Jungookie.” He soothingly strokes the planes of Jungkook’s back, drawing his body closer, but he can’t control the tremor in his voice, or the tears that seem so determined to fall. “I wanted to tell you, god, wanted- the whole time. Before it happened.”  Never has Taehyung felt so pent-up, so consumed in desire, so bursting with love and remorse. Like he needs to press it all into Jungkook with each touch. “But you were already gone, and– and I…”

“Shh.” Jungkook kisses him. “Shh.” Circling a thumb over his chin, he kisses him again.

“I’m just so sorry.”

Jungkook sits back on Taehyung’s thighs, looping a loose arm around his neck, regarding him carefully. 

“I’m sorry, too. You… you had all this confidence in me, and I let you down. It’s like…” he lets out a brittle chuckle. “We’re both of us too sorry, and not sorry enough.”

Taehyung looks up at him. Half naked and already sweaty, hair disheveled from Taehyung’s touch, his perfect, precious lips drawn into a thin, hesitant line.

“No, no. You have nothing to apologize for.”

Jungkook’s lips quirk into a tight smile. “I’ll forgive you if you forgive me.”

“But–”

“Please, Tae.” He’s serious now, his eyes adamant but tender, one finger toying with the hair at the base of Taehyung’s head. “Tell me you forgive me, please.”

Taehyung looks up at him. His hands fit themselves around the curve of his waist, the slope of his neck.

He’s never held anything so precious. He’s never loved anything so much.

“I forgive you.”

Jungkook nods solemnly. “And I forgive you, Kim Taehyung.”

He’s leaning back down to kiss him again, but a thought occurs to Taehyung, and he halts their movement, spreading his fingertips out on the center of Jungkook’s chest.

“What about ourselves?”

“What do you mean?”

“Will you say you forgive yourself?”

Jungkook licks his lips. “Okay. But then it’s your turn, too.”

“Okay.”

“Um.” Jungkook adjusts his position, shuffling himself off Taehyung’s lap to sit on his little coffee table instead, keeping their knees slotted together. “I forgive myself.”

Taehyung nervously tugs his unbuttoned shirt over his exposed crotch, trying to encourage this momentum away from his dick for the time being. Just until they’ve gotten through this. Said the right words, finally.

“No,” he urges, gentle but firm. “Say it to yourself: ‘Jungkook, I forgive you…’”

Jungkook throws him a quick grimace, but then closes his eyes, taking a deep breath.

“Jungkook, I forgive you,” he says, eyelids pinched shut. “I forgive you for being an ignorant jackass.” 

Taehyung chuckles, and Jungkook’s face scrunches further into a scowl. Taehyung quickly shuts up, squeezing his hand to continue. 

Jungkook’s brows slacken over his closed eyes with another exhale, and he continues. “I forgive you for pushing yourself to the edge and pushing people away. I forgive you for being weak.”

It’s so hard for Taehyung not to argue with that last part, to stop himself from telling Jungkook that he’s the strongest person he’s ever known. But that’s not what this moment is for.

Jungkook blinks his eyes back open, his expression unreadable.

“Okay, now your turn.”

Taehyung shuts his eyes, too, keeping a firm grasp on Jungkook’s hand.

“I forgive you, Taehyung,” he tells himself, trying to dispel any self-pity from his voice. “I forgive you for being a lying, filthy hypocrite. For telling Jungkook to be better but not getting any better yourself. I forgive you for wanting too much. I forgive you for hiding, for wanting to hide.” 

His eyes open, finding Jungkook’s, holding his gaze as he draws their joined hands up to his lips. “I promise never to hide like that again,” he vows, kissing the words into his skin.

And he tries to show him. To show them both. In the purposeful way he guides their attention back to their bodies, shedding them both of their remaining clothes like it’s a holy ritual. In the way he holds Jungkook’s hand as he leads him into the bedroom, the way he asks Jungkook to take the lead from there.

And he opens himself up to what Jungkook is trying to show him, too - perhaps what he was always trying to show him, but what Taehyung had been too immersed in his own obsession to see. He always knew that for all his prickly standoffishness, Jungkook had tenderness in him, a sensitivity, a certain need to be cared for. What he’d failed to realize was that Jungkook has an instinct to care for Taehyung in return. To make him feel like what he wants is not only good, but right. That Jungkook wants what Taehyung wants, that he gains satisfaction in the act of satisfying.

It feels like a beautiful, unchoreographed dance, the way Jungkook molds their bodies into each other. He pulls Taehyung down onto the bed, into his lap, kissing along his collarbones and over his nipples, while Taehyung snakes a hand down between them.

Jungkook groans almost as pretty as he sings.

When Taehyung’s stroked him to fullness, Jungkook lies back, slow and deliberate. The lines of his lean muscles are thrown into beautiful relief as he holds his head up, watching Taehyung shift down to take him into his mouth.

“Come here,” Jungkook whispers, gently directing Taehyung to rotate himself over him. Taehyung plants his knees by Jungkook’s shoulders, and his palms on either side of Jungkook’s thighs. He dips low to fit his mouth over his cock, simultaneously feeling his own slide between Jungkook’s lips.

Taehyung lifts his chin up just enough to poise the tip of Jungkook’s dick against his lips, to sound a pleasured hum against it, before sinking back down. Jungkook responds with a wet, muffled sound of his own, sending molten vibrations directly into Taehyung’s core.

He’s always loved the way Jungkook’s cock grows bigger inside of him, and it’s like that now, pulsing and swelling, the more he rubs his lips along its length, the more he rolls his hips down into the reciprocal pleasure of Jungkook’s mouth. 

They suck and swallow at each other like it’s urgent, like the more they get, the more they need to give.

They don’t hold back; it’s been so long for both of them, and after several minutes of this inverted paradise, Taehyung can tell they’re both getting close.

Jungkook shimmies himself out from beneath him, his tattooed body always so smooth, searing. He meets Taehyung face to face on a pillow, and with a gentle curl of his lips he reaches right back down for him. They kiss, messy, punctuated by low grunts and gasps as they jerk each other off. They lie so close to each other that Taehyung’s hand knocks into his own stomach with each pull of Jungkook’s cock, but it makes it all feel wonderfully synergetic, almost cyclical.

And so natural, as they come at almost exactly the same time, moaning in strange unison into each others’ mouths.

They continue to stroke each other, sloppy and slick and slow, as they find their breath. Taehyung tilts his forehead against Jungkook’s, reaching up to stroke his hair with his free hand.

“Feel good, baby?” 

“Mmm.” And though he’s a bit of a blur this close up, his smile is unmistakable.

“My thoughts exactly,” Taehyung grins sleepily, planting a kiss on his nose.

They drift off just like that, on top of the blankets, enveloped in their shared residual heat. Legs entwined, sticky stomachs pressed together, arms tossed across each other’s backs. Their faces just a breath apart, there, on Taehyung’s pillow.

Taehyung’s eyes flutter open an hour or so later to find them both in exactly the same position. He’s a little cold, and he has to pee, but he can’t bring himself to move. Not when Jungkook looks so peaceful like this. His brow slopes smooth and untroubled beneath rogue strands of jet black hair, his lips slightly parted and bowed into an endearing little pout.

Just as Taehyung has begun debating whether to risk a gentle kiss, or to try slipping subtly out of bed and to the bathroom, Jungkook stirs. His droopy lids spring wide when he notices Taehyung staring.

“Mmf. Got something on my face?”

Taehyung reaches up, stroking a finger along his jaw. “Just can’t believe you’re here.”

Jungkook’s cheeks go round, one of them all squished up into the pillow. “Preaching to the choir, dude.”

“Well, yeah,” Taehyung props himself up on his elbow. “But, I mean, how’d you even get up here? The street entrance to my flat is locked.”

“Oh, that.” Jungkook’s smile widens as he rolls onto his back. The arm slung across Taehyung’s waist falls away as he turns, but his other hand drifts up over Taehyung’s thigh. “Came up through the bar. Namjoon gave me his key.”

“So they all know you came back?”

“Made it nearly all the way to the loft before Jimin suddenly semeed to realize I was there. Asked me what the fuck I was doing, going with them. And then they all sort of ganged up on me. Kinda freaked me out, actually.”

Taehyung giggles. “Bless them. Don’t think I could’ve waited ‘til Monday to see you again.”

“Probably would’ve shown up here by morning anyway,” Jungkook grumbles, tossing himself back onto his side. His lower hand slips between Taehyung’s thighs as he reaches up to tuck a strand of Taehyung’s hair behind his ear. “Toss a pebble at your window or something.”

“I do also have a buzzer.” Taehyung contracts the muscles of his inner thighs, trapping Jungkook’s fingers between them. “But the romantic gesture is much–” he pecks him on the lips, “--appreciated,” he finishes, with a second peck.

Jungkook groans, yanking his hand out from Taehyung’s legs to give his pelvis a soft shove. “Ugh, fuck you, man, I’ve become romantic gesture guy, and it’s all your fault.” He heaves himself up to sit against the headboard, his wandering hands refusing to fully leave Taehyung’s body, one hand tickling haphazardly across Taehyung’s ribcage as he twists to grope around on the nightstand.

“What’re you looking for, baby?”

“Cigarette. ‘Course you never have any.”

“Yeah, and all your shit’s out in the other room. Want me to–?”

“What’s– aha,” Jungkook exclaims, pulling a clear bottle out of the top drawer. “Been enjoying this, uh,” he reads from the label, “‘personal massage oil,’ have you?” He shoots Taehyung an adorably naughty glance.

Jungkook’s immediate familiarity with Taehyung’s personal belongings strikes a warm, new kind of chord across Taehyung’s heartstrings.

“Just the personal part,” he retorts, snatching it out of Jungkook’s grip. “There hasn’t been anyone,” he adds, keeping his eyes on the bottle. “No one since you.”

“Yeah?” The word expands between them, open and pleased. “Me neither.”

“Sobriety and celibacy? Fuck, Jungkook, how did you survive this last year?”

“Hey, I was still drinking like a fish until two days ago. Let that whiskey dick keep me humble. Besides that, it’s mostly been chain smoking, dirty magazines, and my right hand. And plenty of shit like that,” he adds, nodding towards the massage oil. “Wasn’t trying to torture myself, for chrisake.”

“Amen to that. The only bottle you really need is a good lubricant.”

Jungkook grins and then leans down, pressing his lips against the shell of Taehyung’s ear as he laces their fingers together around the bottle. “Can we use it now?” he murmurs, sending goosebumps down Taehyung’s neck.

“Thought you needed a smoke.”

“Need you.”

“It’s the middle of the night.”

“Mmm, that’s the best time for fucking.”

“I believe your precise words earlier were to make love to you.”

“Eh, what can I say? I’m romantic gesture guy.”

Taehyung brushes his fingers across the tacky dried substance on Jungkook’s stomach. “Yeah, and you’re still covered in your last romantic gesture.”

“So are you.”

“So… shower with me first?”

And so they haul themselves out of bed, moving comfortably, nakedly, about Taehyung’s apartment. They end up taking turns in the shower, giving Jungkook time to smoke half a cigarette, and Taehyung time to start losing his mind about how achingly beautiful this long night has been. How painful and profound. How he wishes it’ll never end.

A hint of awkwardness returns as they reconvene in Taehyung’s bedroom, hair damp, both of them a little quiet, a little thrown off by their own circumspection, the weight of what it means, this time. For once, not caught up in mindless passion, but knowing they’ll arrive there eventually.

Taehyung leans in to kiss him, for what must be the hundredth time tonight alone, and yet it feels new.

Because it’s so different now. They’ve done this before, yes, but never so slowly, never so shared in tenderness. It used to be one or both of them was always trying to get somewhere with it, to gain something. A release, or a diversion, an avoidance of the things neither of them knew how to say.

Now, they have nowhere to go, and all the time in the world to get there.

Now, they start off simply sitting cross-legged in the center of the bed, knees touching, looking at each other. They stare into each other’s eyes, quietly drinking each other in, in a way they never did before. They’re both just here, just now. Occasionally lifting a hand to stroke the other’s face, his hair. Murmuring half-voiced admissions and reminiscences, silly little phrases that would make sense to no one but them.

“My angel, my terrible angel in white.”

“In a cloud of smoke,” Taehyung hums. “Got us on a button.”

“Your fucking voice. Like the inside of a snare drum. Stuck in my head.”

“Wanted your sin.”

“Angels don’t sin.”

“Wanted to fall.”

“I didn’t understand.”

“Didn’t want you to.”

“Why me?”

“You are made to be worshiped.”

“But. Why me?”

“You drew me in. You mangle the mind. You’re interstellar overdrive. You’re checkmate. You’re danger.”

“Mmm. Danger’s you.”

Taehyung kisses him, murmuring meaning against his lips. “The world is changed because you are made of ivory and gold. The curves of your lips rewrite history.” 

Jungkook stares into his eyes for a moment, almost lost. Then he grins, silly. “Like candy.”

“Like a choice.”

“A chance. You took a chance on me.”

“I would again. The world wasn’t ready for you. For us. It will be.”

“It’s funny… We set out to change the world and ended up… just changing ourselves.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing.” Jungkook scoots forward until he’s fully in Taehyung’s lap, his legs folded around his hips. “If you don’t look at the world.”

Taehyung sighs. “So we can avert our eyes…” Leaning forward, he kisses over the word ‘moment’, inked in black on Jungkook’s skin. “...or we can try again. Try to make the world something worth looking at. If only for a handful of people. If only for us.”

Jungkook drops his head, his lips brushing between Taehyung’s eyes. “I am, you know, grateful. For what you did, then.”

Despite himself, Taehyung tenses. “Is that still me? Am I still me?”

“You’ve always been you, Tae.”

“I’ve always been a hyperbole.”

“So? There’s an incredible sound that only you hear - please, never silence it. Don’t…” Jungkook looks at him with sparkling eyes. “Don’t make yourself incomplete. ”

Taehyung pulls him close, smiling into his clean-smelling skin. “Could say the same to you, baby.”

“But I know I’m not incomplete. Not anymore.”

“Sap.”

“Brat.

“Kiss me.”

And now, they keep things slow, even as they speed back up.

Taehyung savors each kiss like it’s the sweetest thing he’s ever tasted, each touch of Jungkook’s lips, each swipe of his tongue sweeter than the last.

Now Taehyung kisses him back in unexpected new places. Before, most of the time it was like he wanted to consume him. Now, he wants to savor him. Every part. The circular joint of his ankle. The back of his leg, just above the knee. The soft underside of his bicep. The very center of his back, and then each and every vertebra above and below. Every tattoo. The very tip of every finger.

Make love to me, Jungkook had said, and Taehyung does.

He asks Jungkook what he likes (though he already knows). Jungkook says “everything.”

“That’s all I ever wanted to give you.”

“I’m ready for it now.”

Taehyung slickens and stretches Jungkook with massage oil, with his fingers and his tongue. He worships him with his words and his touch, drowning him in adoration and kisses. Jungkook lies on his back, happily saturating in it, little satisfied hums leaving his nose from time to time, his fingers trailing through Taehyung’s hair.

And Taehyung enters him like he did their very first time, hovering over his bent knees, pausing once he’s all the way in. And while so much is different (no drugs, no confusion, no misplaced adulation), the astounding immensity of that first time comes rushing back through Taehyung’s chest. His heart thunders with it, the divine fulfillment of finally burying himself inside the willing, waiting, wet object of his every desire. 

That first time, the moment had squeezed his eyes shut, too overwhelmed to process the impossible perfection of Jeon Jungkook under him. Now their eyes are open, locked on each other, and perfection is redefined.

It’s not having Jungkook, it’s not fucking him. It’s just him - flawed and fiery and always sending Taehyung into the stratosphere. It’s this moment, and every moment since Jungkook stepped into the light on that stage tonight. It’s every note he’s ever sung. It’s Jungkook. 

He’s so much more than his sugary lips, he’s so much more than his rebel heart. Behind each of his impulsive actions, there has been a question. And Taehyung knows better now than to promise him all the answers. But he’s going to try. 

It’ll be hard. They can both be a complete pain in the ass when they want to be. And it won’t always feel this good – hell, it may never feel this good again – but Taehyung knows Jungkook deserves all the effort and all the honesty he can give. 

And though he might not recognize it so completely every time, he knows perfection will be redefined again and over again, every time he looks into his eyes.

Tears slide down Taehyung’s face as he squeezes Jungkook’s hands and begins a gentle rock of his hips.

Jungkook blows out a long, stuttered puff of air, and suddenly he’s crying, too.

“Aw, shit, baby” Taehyung huffs, halting his movement and leaning lower to thumb a tear from Jungkook’s face, even as his own eyes continue to leak. “Didn’t mean to make it heavy.”

“No, no, keep going, keep going,” Jungkook mumbles wetly. “It feels…” He breathes in and out, shaky. “...feels really good.”

“Okay,” Taehyung murmurs, dusting his lips across Jungkook’s. “Just tell me if it gets to be too much.”

Jungkook presses his lips together and nods. He wraps his arms around Taehyung’s neck and his legs around his back, widening his thighs to better fit Taehyung between them, to stay close, stay kissing. Taehyung tastes salt; they’re both still crying as he reestablishes a pace of shallow thrusts into him. Neither of them can seem to stop crying.

“Well, this is fucked up,” Jungkook chokes out after another minute. He’s hugging Taehyung down into him, encouraging him to keep at it, even as fresh tears gather at the corners of his eyes.

Taehyung sob-laughs into his neck. “Yeah.”

“Should we try, like, a less emotional position?”

Taehyung’s heart is bursting no matter how they do this.

“What do you have in mind, baby?” 

So they try it without the eye contact. Jungkook kneels up on the bed with Taehyung pressed right up behind him, holding him close across the chest and reaching around to stroke his cock.

Taehyung keeps his lips on him – his neck, his shoulder, the back of his ear, as he moves in him, and this seems to do the trick for Jungkook. He leans back into Taehyung’s touch, arching and reaching back to hold his buttcheeks wider for him, his sounds and his words growing hotter, less weepy. 

And for several sultry minutes, this works for Taehyung, too. He tries to focus on sensation. The way Jungkook’s abs contract beneath Taehyung’s flattened palm. The sweet scent of their shared sweat. The way Jungkook sighs when two of Taehyung’s fingers drift up to rub and pinch his nipple. The way Jungkook’s cock fits warm in his hand. The way his own cock feels pulsing into him, never pulling back far enough for particularly strong thrusts, but gliding within him, the sanctum of his body sucking him in naturally, Taehyung has to work for it to draw his hips back in a steady rhythm, fighting sweet suction to generate the pleasure of each push.

But before he’s even close to his release, he starts to cry again. Overwhelmed and wracked with guilt he may never fully overcome.

Taehyung recalls that awful period last year when they were both so tuned out, where the only time Taehyung really felt anything was when Jungkook fucked him, and it’d always leave Taehyung in a mess of tears. The solution at the time had been to try to control things – for Taehyung to be the one on top, to cling to his floundering sense of self-assurance, and to indulge Jungkook’s destructive impulse for helplessness.

But in this moment, Taehyung’s will to control anything at all has snapped. He tries to persevere - Jungkook sounds so into this - so Taehyung keeps his face buried in the crook of his neck, sucking and swirling his tongue around, hoping his renewed tears will feel like part of all the wet affection he’s trying to give him. But his hips are losing their momentum, and now he feels he’s failing to deliver the kind of driving pleasure he knows his lover craves. The kind of all-consuming sex that Jungkook deserves.

Jungkook can probably feel his sobs more than he can hear them. And quite soon he’s peeling himself forward off of him, turning around immediately on his knees to kiss and soothe him.

“I’m s-sorry,” Taehyung whimpers. “ I— I— it’s all just so—“ an embarrassing sort of strangled wail escapes him as he scrambles to find a hold on Jungkook’s arm, his waist, anything.

“Let’s stop,” Jungkook whispers.

“No, no baby, want you to feel good. Want this to be so good for you,” Taehyung babbles, impatiently wiping at his eyes before dropping a hand back down to Jungkook’s dick, still incredibly hard despite Taehyung’s mood-killing breakdown.

“This has already been so good for me,” Jungkook assures him quietly. He curls his pelvis up into Taehyung’s hold. “Don’t need to finish, alright? Don’t need to do anything. Just- ah- love the way you feel.”

“Then what if, maybe… will you…?” Taehyung feels his face flare as he looks at him. “Please, baby?”

“Oh. Oh, shit.” Jungkook’s lids flutter and his body jerks forward a little, his dick throbbing in Taehyung’s fist, but his tone remains gentle, concerned.  “You sure you’re not too…?”

Taehyung huffs out a strange, shivery laugh. He feels such immense relief at the prospect of giving himself over, surrendering himself entirely to the man he loves, that his crying has ceased almost instantly. 

“The only thing I miss more than fucking you is getting fucked by you, Jungkookie.” He grins, all foolish and flushed, tears drying on his undoubtedly blotchy cheeks. 

Jungkook’s already reaching down for the bottle of massage oil with a scrappy chuckle. “I believe my precise words were ‘make love’.”

“Ohh, baby, yes. God, yes.” Taehyung beseeches, breathy.

Jungkook straightens, nipping at Taehyung’s upper lip while he pries the top off the bottle, making a mess of his fingers and a small puddle on the rumpled sheet below. Taehyung shuffles closer on his knees, touching him everywhere, needing him everywhere.

Jungkook surges forth to meet him, pressing his mouth hot and hungry into Taehyung’s while he circles his arms low around him. He wastes no time grabbing a handful of Taehyung’s ass and sliding the tip of a slippery thumb right inside him.

“Fuck,” Taehyung croaks. His breath hasn’t fully regulated from crying, but the way Jungkook is touching him now makes oxygen feel far less necessary. He’d give it all to Jungkook if he could, all his air, whatever will feed his fire.

Jungkook swaps in his index finger – less tight, but deeper. The bite of discomfort Taehyung feels is soothed by the way Jungkook is massaging the muscle of his ass, the distracting glide of Jungkook’s tongue in and around his own mouth. Jungkook is saving all his precision for Taehyung’s ass, his mouth drifts sloppy over his lips and chin – but Taehyung relishes the messy heat of it. He undulates on his knees, riding the pleasure of Jungkook’s finger, the sweet sting and stretch of the intrusion, past the knuckle, all the way inside.

The satiny swaying of their passion is interrupted by a sudden spark of urgency as Jungkook grabs his shoulder and flips him around, his finger slipping out of him as Taehyung falls with a rush onto his stomach. He tucks his elbows under himself and lets his forehead fall to the blankets, quietly licking his lips, tasting the residue of Jungkook's kisses. He sinks his lower half flush with the blanket, legs long and slightly spread, inviting Jungkook to do whatever he wants with his body.

Jungkook digs a hand under Taehyung’s pelvis to fish his cock out from beneath him so that it’s pressed down into the mattress and peeking out below his ass. He fondles Taehyung’s exposed cockhead between two curled fingers as he lowers himself between his legs. He plants a series of breath-heavy kisses from Taehyung’s hamstring up the slope of his ass and across, slipping his tongue briefly into the crevice beneath his tailbone before dragging it over to the opposite cheek to resume trailing kisses down the swell of the other side.

Then he pushes forward gently, kneading his knuckles into the bottom of Taehyung’s ass to coax his hips up slightly off the bed. Taehyung lifts up for Jungkook to get a hand beneath him again, cupping his cock backwards towards himself to suck on the tip, licking up the underside and then letting it fall back down, heavy between Taehyung’s legs. Jungkook laps at his balls, and then up towards his hole. He uses what feels like the corner of a bedsheet to wipe excess massage oil from between Taehyung’s buttcheeks, and then replaces it with his tongue, his face shoved into him as he licks up and down, hot and hard against Taehyung’s rim.

“Yes baby, yes baby,” Taehyung chants quietly into the blanket, beginning to rock himself into the pleasure. The unnatural angle of his cock, the swirl of Jungkook’s tongue in his ass – Taehyung is so prone like this, so vulnerable, and it feels like flying.

Jungkook keeps his mouth close enough for Taehyung to feel damp breath as he lifts his head and says, “Your ass is fucking perfect, Tae. Gonna use my fingers again now, okay?”

“Okay,” Taehyung presses his smile into the folds of the blanket at the gentleness of the exposition. “Want me to…?” He bends his knees and tucks them up beneath his thighs to give his hips more height.

“No,” Jungkook murmurs, pulling Taehyung’s legs back out one at a time, smoothing a hand over each one in turn. “Want you to be fully relaxed for this. Want you to rub your cock off on the bed for me while I stretch out your ass, nice and easy, right?”

“Oh god,” Taehyung moans, turning his head to the side for more air. “Keep talking, baby, keep talking like that, tell me what you’re gonna do to me.”

“Okay, sweet thing,” There's a sweet smile in Jungkook's voice and actually Taehyung could die right now. The taste of anticipation. The sound of the bottle cap. “Getting my finger more greased up for you now, and then I’m going back in.”

“Do two,” Taehyung urges. “I like when it burns a little.”

Jungkook responds with a kiss to his tailbone and two slick fingers slowly penetrating him. “Like this?” He speaks into the skin of Taehyung’s back, sending goosebumps rippling out from the spot.

“Y-yes. Like that. N-nice and…” Taehyung sucks in a stuttering gasp, “...easy.”

“Uhuh, stay good and relaxed for me.” Jungkook keeps his lips in place, one hand stroking soothing circles on the side of his thigh as he begins a gentle wiggle of the fingers inside him. He’s used a lot of the oil, and while the tight stretch of Taehyung’s inner muscles takes some getting used to, the drenched glide of Jungkook’s fingers feels indescribably good. Even the obscene, slick sort of squishy sound it makes feels strangely soothing.

Jungkook’s lips continue to brush across Taehyung’s lower back, and he continues to tell him all the right things. “Love getting you all drippy like this. Thinking about coming inside you, Tae, how much wetter you’re gonna get. Get you so filled you’ll overflow.”

He’s driving his fingers in and out of him now, fucking him into fresh neediness.

“Ah– ah, Jungkookie. Yes. More. Give me more.”

He feels the immediate press of a third finger fitting itself inside him, accompanied by more dirty words. “Your little hole’s just swallowing me up, angel, fuck. Wish I could see your own cock stuffed in this tight little hole. Wish I could watch you fuck yourself, I’d come so hard, just watching you. Your big, hard cock, mmm, your tight, wet little hole.”

And Taehyung, raunchy, no-holds-barred Taehyung blushes hard at this. He presses his face into the blanket, stifling his moan, but he can’t hide the blush – knows his whole body’s going red from Jungkook’s words, his skin searing beneath Jungkook’s lips. He uses his toes to leverage his body back and forth into the movement of Jungkook’s fingers, feeling the rough, gratifying friction of the bed beneath him.

“I can still feel it inside me, you know,” Jungkook whispers, his lips moving higher on Taehyung’s back. “Your cock. I feel you inside me when I’m inside you. You’re everywhere. Fuck. I missed this. Missed you everywhere.”

Taehyung’s fully incoherent now, but his tears have been successfully chased away, and he’s consumed with heat, with Jungkook’s fire. He flips his head to the side again, giving Jungkook another moan of encouragement, rocking himself faster on the bed.

“Gonna give you my cock now, Tae. I’m so fucking hard for you right now. Bound to blow a nut the second I get in you.”

And wouldn’t that feel absolutely amazing. Taehyung nods vigorously, lifting his hips again. Jungkook catches them, maneuvering Taehyung’s body into place, reaching around to grip Taehyung’s dick. His fingers are still coated with oil, and the lubrication is soothing on Taehyung’s pulsating skin.

“Aah, yes,” is all Taehyung can get out, positively boiling now with desire.

Jungkook teases just a little, rubbing his cock between Taehyung’s ass cheeks and pouring more massage oil over the whole thing. “We’re so good, Tae,” he huffs, his voice tattered with want. “We’re so good inside each other.”

Taehyung feels the press of Jungkook’s fleshy glans against his rim, and then he’s sliding inside. Tight and alarming, always, at first, and then slipping into breathtaking relief as it finds its fit further within him.

“Ahh,” Jungkook sighs. “Like this, Tae. Like this.”

Taehyung sighs, too. He’s up on his elbows now, arching back into Jungkook as he bottoms out, one of Jungkook’s hands still lightly stroking his dick. “Yes,” he says again, and it’s probably just fine if that’s the only word he’s capable of saying anymore. Everything with Jungkook is pure and utter yes.

Jungkook thrusts, and Taehyung swears he feels it all the way through him, right up in the base of his throat. 

“Good?”

Taehyung’s vocal chords spring apart in a senseless glottal stop before he can form a word. And it’s the same word, his new favorite. “Yes.”

“Gonna move more now.”

“Yes.”

“Like my cock in you like this?”

“Yes. Unnh. Yes.”

“Want me to go faster?”

“Yes!”

“More?”

“Yes, yes! Ohhh, yes.”

And Jungkook is absolutely pounding him.

“You're – my – baby – now.”

“Ye– what?”

Jungkook folds himself over Taehyung’s back, slowing his thrusts to whisper low into his ear. “My angel baby. Can I call you that?”

Taehyung melts. “Yes. Yes, baby.”

“Can you show me your pretty face now, angel baby?”

“You’re the pretty one. But yes.”

Jungkook plants a kiss between his shoulder blades. “That’s not what all the papers said. You were the one in the glitter and feathers and heels. Pretty boy angel.” He eases himself backwards and out of Taehyung with a final smacking kiss atop his left buttcheek. Then he lays down beside him and rolls onto his back, pulling Taehyung on top. “Come here.”

Taehyung clambers over him, feeling like jelly, like something saccharine and syrupy-warm has begun flowing through his veins. He grins down at him, and rather than sitting right down onto his cock, he gathers them both up in one hand, stroking them together, thrusting gently into it as he leans back into Jungkook’s bent legs.

Jungkook’s eyes are on his face. “There you are.”

Taehyung peers down his nose at him, unable to get rid of his foolish smile. He leans forward, reaching down to trace a finger over Jungkook’s lips. “There you are.”

“Like it when you’re on top.” Jungkook fits his hands over Taehyung’s hips, stroking his thumbs down into the hollows of his joints.

“Like it when you are.”

“Hmm, what are we going to do about that?”

They’ve both always liked it both ways, that’s not new. What’s new is the way they tell each other about it.

Taehyung lifts his pelvis, keeping Jungkook’s cock firm in one hand, wiggling around until he feels the head of it at the right spot. “Same thing we’re gonna do about the fact that we’re both ‘baby’ now.”

Jungkook gives a delectable moan as Taehyung sinks down on him. “Uhhh, fuck. And what’s that?”

“We’re gonna have to keep taking care of each other.” 

Taehyung delivers it like a punchline, pitching his hips forward on the word ‘care,’ but Jungkook frowns, reaching for both his hands.

“Think we can? Take care of each other?”

“Think we have to.”

“Then we will.”

This is probably how they were always meant to do this – saying tender, poignant things to each other to deepen the physicality. To make the touchable that much more tangible. Taehyung feels himself clench around the thickness of Jungkook inside him, and he lifts their hands to press kisses into Jungkook’s knuckles. Then he brings their fists down to Jungkook’s sides, squeezing tight and using the support to build a rolling rhythm in his hips.

“You should know…” Jungkook gasps after just a short while, “...I’m already really close.”

“Yes.” Taehyung falls forward, draping himself over the sturdy assurance of Jungkook’s sweat-slickened chest. He braces himself with his elbows planted beside Jungkook's ears, keeping their faces close as he holds his ass steady over Jungkook’s lap so that he can pump up into him. “Come inside me, baby, fill me up.”

“Oh, Tae. Oh god, Tae.”

“Fuck. Yes. Like that. Just like that, Jungkookie, fuck.”

“After I—“ Jungkook’s voice comes halting and thick as he snaps his hips up. “Oh, Tae, unngh. After I fill you up. Want… want you to move up me– hah– like you did that first time and– and f-fuck my mouth… ahh, fuck!” Jungkook’s eyes well up again, his lips quivering, voice husky. “Coming now, Tae, coming right now.”

“Baby,” Taehyung whimpers, and it’s completely snuck up on him, but there’s a red hot, tightly coiled spring low in his belly that’s suddenly about to release. He’s not even touching himself, Jungkook’s hands are holding his ass, and there’s barely any friction on his cock as it brushes up and down Jungkook’s abs, but he’s powerfully close, too.

His whole body locks up as he feels Jungkook spill hot and soppy inside him. Deep within the depths of him he feels a tug, the pull of his hole contracting around Jungkook’s cock, sucking in his seed, the yank of Taehyung’s very soul into place.

Jungkook gives it two or three more directed thrusts up into him before he hooks an arm around his neck, pulling Taehyung to him and joining their mouths, more an exchange of electric breath than a kiss. And it’s against every ounce of Taehyung’s physiology, but it’s the touch of their lips that does it. Taehyung’s fingers clutch into Jungkook’s hair, his hips convulse up, and it’s like Jungkook’s cock is pushing Taehyung’s cum right out of him, messying their stomachs again.

“My angel baby,” Jungkook whispers into his mouth, slightly subverting the indescribable beauty of the moment when he adds, “let me suck your dick.”

“I just came, baby.” Taehyung’s breath rolls in heavy waves off his chest as he straightens up, grabbing up Jungkook’s hands and interlacing their fingers over his thighs.

“You did?” Jungkook’s eyes go adorably round. Pushing himself onto his elbows, but keeping his cock nestled inside him, Jungkook dips his chin to spot the milky splatter across his abdomen. “Oh, wow.” His fingers creep around, squeezing Taehyung’s ass as he lifts him off his cock. “Can I suck your dick anyway? Just for a minute?” He drags his fingers into the drips of semen across his skin and then licks at them.

And it’s incredibly sexy, and Taehyung is desperately in love, he’s weightless, floating, but his muscles have gone slack, and his heartbeat is decelerating, and it’s suddenly completely impossible to hold himself upright.

He lifts himself off Jungkook’s cock with a soft groan, thumping onto his back beside him. “Everything, baby,” he sighs, spent. “Everything and anything for you. Let me just… need to… close my eyes for a minute.”

“Close your eyes,” Jungkook agrees, sleepiness creeping back into his voice, too.

Taehyung doesn’t even realize his lids have fallen until he feels lips brush over them.

“But don’ let that stop you,” Taehyung mumbles, clumsily reaching up and stroking a finger along Jungkook’s jaw.

The last thing Taehyung remembers before he fades out is Jungkook’s tongue lapping slowly, lower and lower, from his chin to the base of his throat, his breastbone down to his belly button, lower and lower, wisps of smoke curled over the surface of a tranquil body of water.

The second time he wakes that night, it’s to find Jungkook sound asleep halfway down the bed with his arms wrapped around Taehyung’s thighs and Taehyung’s cock inside his mouth. 

They’ve neglected the blanket again, but Taehyung’s already gotten half hard in the comfort of his sleep. Jungkook appears to be out like a rock, but as soon as Taehyung moves to try to adjust the blanket in the right sort of diagonal across them, Jungkook gives a faint hum, pulls Taehyung closer, and starts to suckle.

Taehyung creams down his throat mere minutes later. He hauls Jungkook up onto the pillows beside him, Jungkook smacking his lips and smiling at him all bleary-eyed and sated. His eyes flutter closed when Taehyung kisses him, and remain closed as the sound of his breath slowly evens out. Taehyung briefly wonders if they’ll keep going like this all night, sleeping only as long as they need to recharge, to stay touching, to stay inside each other.

The third time he wakes, it’s still dark out, but the air through his open window smells like dawn. And cigarette smoke.

The window opens onto the rooftop of Bitters End, a sort of unfinished balcony topped with the kitchen’s exhaust vent and strewn with a tangle of electric and phone wires. The early hour autumn air wafts balmy-cool and comfortable across Taehyung’s face as he eyes the shape of Jungkook from the window, leaning his front against the waist-high brick ledge that borders the roof. He appears to be wearing nothing but a pair of light blue boxer shorts which he must have pilfered from Taehyung’s underwear drawer.

Taehyung smiles at the sight, drinking it in for a moment longer before he turns to collect his bathrobe from a hook on the back of his bedroom door. He grabs a pair of old shoes with the heel squashed down from the rack inside his closet, and a pair of fuzzy slippers for Jungkook.

Belting the flowy robe (which he’d stolen from Jimin years ago) around himself, Taehyung pauses again beside the window, his eye caught by the shabby record player he keeps beside it. There’s an old Nat King Cole album on the turntable, and Taehyung decides it’ll do fine, lifting the needle and setting it delicately down in place between the fine vinyl ridges.

Taehyung gathers his robe carefully at his knees as he climbs out the open window. The crackly sound of vintage piano follows him out and he breathes in the deepness of the tiny hours. Besides the street lamps and the twenty four hour glow from the nearby theater district, the city lies mostly in darkness. 

Above him, rhinestone stars twinkle in the velvet sky. Before him, his whole future stands in silhouette, one shoulder slumped lower than the other as he leans over his elbows trailing a faint, red flare across the black from the tip of the cigarette he lowers beside his thigh. 

Taehyung can’t resist it, when he sees him like that. The words leave his mouth before he can stop them. “Got a light?”

Jungkook turns. “Oh,” he says in a light, oddly relieved voice, like he’d been looking for him somewhere out in the city skyline. “Here you are.”

As Taehyung draws closer and his eyes better adjust to the gray-blue light, he catches the flicker of a smile on Jungkook’s face. He hands out his cigarette for Taehyung to take a drag.

Taehyung inhales the smoke only as far as the back of his mouth, like he always does. He lifts the pair of slippers curled on two fingers as he exhales the cloudy plume.

“Aren’t you cold?”

“It’s nice out,” Jungkook replies, taking the slippers and shuffling his feet into them anyway.

“You can see the loft from up here, you know,” Taehyung says, handing the cigarette back, letting the brush of their fingers linger. 

“Yeah?” Jungkook pivots back to the darkened view. “Where?”

Taehyung moves up right behind him; familiar, because he can. Wrapping an arm around Jungkook’s middle, he guides his gaze to the spot. “And you can see The Orpheum from Jimin’s attic.”

Jungkook keeps his gaze on the distant, distinctly sloped rooftop of the loft.

“Looks farther than it is.”

“Felt that way, too, these past few months. So close to all those memories… not letting myself revisit them.”

“You’ll visit at some point, though, right?”

“Of course. It’s gonna be the headquarters of that hip new Bulletproof Collective. But I don’t think I’ll move back.”

“You like it here?”

“Yeah. I like the bar, I like being close to it. Containing my creation, y’know? The master of my realm.” Nat King Cole’s expressive voice drifts indistinguishably between them. Taehyung hooks his chin over Jungkook’s shoulder. “Close to everything, but quiet at night. Get my alone time.” 

“So I take it you’re not looking for a roommate?”

“I could be,” Taehyung turns his head to brush his nose against Jungkook’s cheek, “if you’re looking for a place to crash?”

Jungkook finds his eyes. “Been looking for a home.”

“I could be that, too.”

“You can,” Jungkook murmurs, turning in his arms and closing the distance between their lips. He draws back, and Taehyung could swear he sees a shooting star reflected in Jungkook’s eye. “I think you’ll be the surest home I’ll ever have.”

“I will,” Taehyung promises, cupping the side of his face and brushing a thumb across his cheekbone.

Jungkook slides a hand up the back of Taehyung’s head, pulling him into the simple serenity of a hug. He holds Taehyung’s head in place on his shoulder, and Taehyung feels very much at home here himself. He feels very much himself here, too, in Jungkook’s embrace.

“Music,” Jungkook says after a few minutes, like he’s only just noticed it.

“Yeah.” Taehyung lifts his head. “Dance with me?”

“You call it madness…” The bittersweet tune ebbs out from Taehyung’s window. “… but I call it love.”

Jungkook weaves their fingers together, circling his other arm around Taehyung’s neck. Taehyung drops a hand to Jungkook’s waist and lets his head fall back onto his shoulder as they move slowly in time to the music, their feet barely shuffling upon the asphalt surface of the roof, their hips swaying gently together.

“We’ve never done this before.” Jungkook’s words vibrate pleasurably into Taehyung’s chest.

“No. Is it weird?”

“Totally. Don’t stop.”

Taehyung presses his hand into the small of Jungkook’s back, gently steering them to rotate slowly on the spot. He’s trying to make sure he doesn’t step on Jungkook’s slippered feet, so the move is a little clumsy. He lets out a sheepish laugh. “I can never tell if I’m leading right.”

“I think you’re doing better than you think.”

“I just… want to be there for you.”

They don’t stop dancing, but their movements become smaller and smaller. Like they’re holding something precious between them.

“The thing is, Tae, you were with me the whole time. Rehab. Meditation. Across the world and back. I saw your face everywhere. Your voice in my head telling me to keep going. Part of me wanted to believe you were dead but part of me knew you weren’t because I… I felt you guiding me.”

“Baby.”

“It’s like… no matter where I went, you were always the destination.”

“Oh my darling.” Taehyung’s voice breaks, and he falls back into him. 

Jungkook holds him close. “I wrote you a song.”

“Yeah?” Taehyung’s heart is a flame that will never fade. “Can’t wait to hear it.”

“For you - your voice.”

And the smile spills so easily onto Taehyung’s face. “Can’t wait to sing it.” 

“Well, with me, I mean,” Jungkook clarifies, eyes gone all round. “A duet, I mean. With me.”

“With you.”

The confirmation is a promise. A shared wish, granted. A song, an expression, a melody entirely their own. 

“And you’re…” Taehyung searches his eyes, “sure?”

It’s a reassurance he may never stop needing. After all, Taehyung is both fickle and proud. And Jungkook is impatient and unsteady.

But Jungkook nods, and his arms are full of patience, just for him, and his eyes are filled with certainty, just for him.

“You are my starlight.” Jungkook holds Taehyung’s face, his very existence, in his hands. “No matter what shape you take. You’re my direction home. I fucking love you, Tae. I love you.”

Taehyung’s smile is everlasting, sure as the sky. Fade away never. He inhales.

*******

“𝕋𝕠 𝕓𝕖 𝕚𝕟 𝕝𝕠𝕧𝕖 𝕚𝕤 𝕥𝕠 𝕤𝕦𝕣𝕡𝕒𝕤𝕤 𝕠𝕟𝕖’𝕤 𝕤𝕖𝕝𝕗.”

                                  - Oscar Wilde