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Mingi sees it before he feels it—pretty little shooting stars sparkling and blurred through blacked-out vision—hears the sharp, heavy slam rattling through his skull. He's never been good at keeping quiet and Hongjoong lords it over him; he knows, distantly, that his yelping will come up later. His face is hot. It throbs from the side of his nose, fire alight under his skin until it's all warped, tight, and aching. His eyes are watering, he realizes; blood spills thick and hot into the plush pink dip of his lip. Tears, too. Mingi licks it up.
He aches. Hongjoong has him bound, knees sore, arms behind his back, sweating and sticky. Summer came in wild and thrashing and Hongjoong has dragged Mingi along on its heels, today to the one dusty, stuffy inn that would take them here—something about Hongjoong's brother, Mingi was dizzy and it had turned to idle noise, he didn't care and couldn't—and still he's dizzy, feels it all tilting when he looks up at the revolver in hand and Hongjoong, smiling, sat neat above him, translucent and doubled.
"Now ain't that a sight, shit. Look at you. Maybe you should drop the attitude and quit shoving your fucking snout in my neck more often."
It's not an attitude, Mingi thinks, petulant, and, anyway, you smelled good. Hongjoong started this, surely, having brushed him off all day, and knowing how Mingi gets. He's not trying to be trouble. It's Hongjoong's eyes on him that he wants, and his hands, and any scrap he'll feed him under the table. "Sorry," he mutters instead.
Hongjoong sighs. Clicks his tongue. "I say you'll be back at it come sun-up, but—all right. C'mon, now." He pats his lap, beckoning, and Mingi, well-trained as he is, scoots in closer as best as he can on his knees. With the muzzle of the gun Hongjoong taps Mingi's wet bottom lip.
"Open up."
His gloved fingers curl into the hinge of Mingi's jaw, hook up under his lip, peeling it back like inspecting a dog for the precious things it should never have eaten. Thumb curves over his canine, slips back into the hard white groove of molars, pulling and distending his cheek with it. "Wider, Mingi. Are you doing this on purpose? It shouldn't be hard. You need help, baby?" He presses flat into the soft heat of Mingi's tongue, pushing down, hard enough he gags. It does a good enough job of getting his mouth open—enough to seem satisfied—and Hongjoong leans down, steadied by his foot on Mingi's groin.
Breathing through it brings a thin whistle through Hongjoong's knuckles. The taste of polish and powder sets off some base instinct to spit out poison, and that Mingi doesn't gag again is a feat he can only hope earns him the fair honor of Hongjoong's recognition: the barrel's terrible drag over teeth sends a stiff pain through his jaw, stings where the sight's notch snags, and with his head tilted back like this all that thick blood slithers its sluglike way down his throat; he's halfway to suffocating, breath caught, bubbling mucousy film on an inhale.
Farther in and Mingi values himself enough not to jerk with a gun kissing the back of his throat and a finger on its trigger. Move too much too fast and he wouldn't have enough of himself left to blame, and Hongjoong doesn't deserve the mess, really. He'd miss Mingi: partner, shadow, left hand. That much Mingi is—made—sure of.
There's progress. Mingi wasn't born so sharp in a shootout either, couldn't still the shakes. This he figures is about the same, more or less, some familiarity in the pressure building in his skull until he's gasping, gracious Hongjoong pulling back the revolver and a thick trail of spit alongside it. Mingi chokes, coughs and sputters with his head swimming, can't quite curl in on himself with the scruffy ropes tugged and straining around his body but there's an effort. When Hongjoong's fingers feel for his chin he doesn't need to be told to look up. Not that he can see well with his eyes scrunched. It's good he's shameless. He knows he's dirty, sweating and slobbering over Hongjoong's hand like this.
Hongjoong watches pink-stained drool trail down his wrist with a low whistle. "Swear this whole town spends their Sundays confessing their sins and here you are. Cute."
Mingi mumbles another apology for whatever it's worth. Hongjoong likes those. Something about actions and volume, but Hongjoong knows him, that he's learning and he's doing his best, he is, and tells him he's done good. It works, or it's that Hongjoong is already so fond of him, but it's nicer to think he knows how to get what he wants—which right now amounts to Hongjoong bringing him in and letting his head settle in his lap, cheek squished up against soft thighs. The gun's been holstered, Mingi realizes, and tries not to feel denied. Hongjoong's fingers in his hair curb that well enough, anyway, even though his hand is still wet and it leaves Mingi's scalp cold and sticky. The boot right on his dick, though. That hasn't changed. Poses a problem, too.
"You know, Mingi," Hongjoong drawls, rolling the name over his tongue. "Did you even stop to think about where that last was?"
Maybe he should've. Tools deserve respect, Hongjoong explained once, especially the ones that love you back, but Mingi was half-awake and focused on him, perched on a crate's edge and lit by flickering kerosene lamplight with a gun in one hand and a brass brush in the other. Both were cumbersome, always a touch too small. A part of Mingi thought it ought to make him look ridiculous, so clumsy and clownish with those little fingers on just too big a grip. Instead everything that belonged to Hongjoong bent to fit him: stolen jackets slung over narrow shoulders, the tremendous shadows behind them, an outlaw twice his size tailing his heels with puppy-dog eyes.
"Lord knows she's seen more than most men," Hongjoong continues. "Do you remember that teller's boy always looking for trouble? Gangly, rheumy-eyed. That one. Shot him just like that, barrel on his tongue. I'm not sure I'd do it again—too much hassle. Now what are you pouting for?"
"You know I hate when you do that."
"Do what?"
"Talk about other men," Mingi confesses. "Don't laugh."
Hongjoong pats Mingi's head, ruffles his hair like he's a cherished pet, and he burrows his face deeper into the leather of Hongjoong's pants for proximity and the blunting of scrutiny both. He really does smell good. Warm and heady even with the day's grime. Hongjoong takes care of himself in his off-hours, somewhat. Mingi has to push him to get him to eat, to clean up his clutter, and to piss when he's drowned himself in the same task for hours without a second of rest, but—he makes sure he looks nice and clean, at least. Mingi watches every time. It's no show but he enjoys it just the same.
"It's different." Hongjoong's hand drags down the crown of Mingi's head to the divot behind his ear. "You're still breathing, for one."
"But if anyone"—Mingi's mouth feels unwieldy and thick-tongued—"it should be you. Only ever wanted your hands on me."
Hongjoong's quiet then, and dead still until Mingi nudges into his hand. "Pretty thought, isn't it," Hongjoong murmurs.
Hongjoong clears his throat, and he's speaking but his voice drifts above Mingi in loosely-wound threads, half-lost to the cottony numbness spreading through his limbs. He's sure it's nothing he needs to concern himself with, some bizarre segue about yields and inventories he knows is—for now—relevant to neither of them. By now the tingling in his legs has mostly subsided, if only because he can't feel them at all, but god do his knees ache. They'll be rubbed raw when he checks later, and if he asks nicely enough and makes a show of it maybe Hongjoong will help him with salves, and if that then surely he'll take care of the burns the ropes will leave on his torso too.
It's just—the boot, damn it.
Through thick fabric his cock is still pressed up against Hongjoong's sole, and that he can feel. There are too many layers for the relief he's craving. He can't move as much as he'd like but it's enough for now, uncoordinated jerks of his hips. Short and shallow is good, so horribly unsatisfying it makes him sick but good, if only because he swears the painful friction through coarse fabric could shred skin if he's not gentle enough, and Mingi can take a lot if Hongjoong wants him to, or if he wants Hongjoong to want him to, but—he figures it's reasonable to like having his dick mostly intact. He feels like a whelp nosing for milk, dumb and starved. He huffs, shaky, halfway to a whine.
Then Hongjoong's withdrawing, slinging his leg to the side of Mingi instead, hand snaking through his gummy hair to scruff the short strands of it at his nape. It's hardly long enough to get a proper grip, but Mingi's body understands before his mind follows; he needs no instruction to let reflex follow his hand's trajectory. His neck arches at an awkward, half-tilted angle, tendons protesting what Mingi doesn't (this time).
"My bad. I've got a different idea." It's hardly contrite. He forces Mingi's head farther back, if with such little resistance it can still be considered forcing. "One more time, first—damage inspection. Say ah, will you?"
Mingi doesn't, but his mouth opens easily enough with some prodding, easier than before despite the bruised sting of his lip pulling back apart. Shameless as Mingi is there's some half-recognized and discarded urge to shy away at Hongjoong's staring, that keen look whenever he gets to see what's under Mingi's skin. Mingi's lucky he's only human, he thinks, and better still that he's Hongjoong's. He'd have died too young were he anything smaller or weaker, thrilled by the attention of being wanted enough to be hunted.
"I think I might like to see a little bit of remorse," Hongjoong muses.
"For?"
"I don't think you caught a single word out of my mouth." His fingers crook under the arch of Mingi's teeth now, pads pressed into the divots between each pearl he treasures.
"I did, 'bout inventories," Mingi slurs around the intrusion. Not theirs. Probably not important. They can always keep skipping town, Hongjoong promised.
"Sure. That's half of it. As for the other half, as charming as it is watching you hump my boot, I can't say I recall you asking. Maybe getting my head knocked around every weekday is starting to leave a mark. Mind jogging my memory?"
Mingi glowers at that. The wet spot seeping through his pants is only half erotic, it's cold and slimy and he's not certain he wants to be sitting in it. "Y'never told me I had to ask."
"I'm telling you now. Don't bother, though."
Carved over the firm ridges of Mingi's palate is a slick, tender gouge, bloodless now but still tasting of it, and surrounding the worst of it the flesh is soft as a fish's belly with its swollenness. It makes his eyes water: leather dragging over raw, two fingers testing the wound's slippery depth. With fewer priorities Mingi suspects Hongjoong would be happy to entertain himself with that alone. The tongue, that's less eventful—little scrapes that'll be memory by morning, though Hongjoong still takes his time to follow each one by one. The wall of his inner cheek is ragged, stippled with the imprints of teeth. Filmy and thin white skin hangs loose and peels away easily with only some pressure. Mingi's been worrying at it a long time now. Habitual violence turned inward whenever he's left to his own devices too long. He doesn't know when he last felt like he could relax anywhere but here, under Hongjoong.
What Mingi has gathered interests Hongjoong more—some sort of fixation he circles back to—is deeper and higher up, the old gap where a molar should be, a charming little souvenir from taking a rifle to the face. The space it left is wide enough for Hongjoong to wedge a finger in. It never healed clean, and Mingi hardly gave it the time to; it gathered itself together angrily, left the pulpy cavity thickened and warped. He'd have preferred if it came away easy, but nothing ever was. It cleaved into pieces, and he'd trembled the whole way back to their place where Hongjoong held his squirming body steady on the bedsheets and cooed almost there, almost there and dug it all loose. Took a while for the blood to come out from under his nails. Mingi liked that, but more than that he liked the gooey feeling he got whenever he saw the bites he left and hoped would scar. Hongjoong's kept each fragment, he's sure.
There's a hesitance to the way Hongjoong pulls his fingers away, and to how he lingers on the viscous mess coating them—spreads them apart to watch spit turn stringy in the gaps between his knuckles and split into beads that pool in the creases of his gloves.
Mingi stares up through damp lashes. "Well?"
"Mouth's in working order," Hongjoong declares with too much satisfaction for what amounts to passable. More a sense of pride for the enduring creature beneath him, maybe, who's built sturdy and always good. He cradles the back of Mingi's head again and guides him forward until his chin is resting on the seat of Hongjoong's chair, his nose just shy of the seam of his pants. Mingi fits well between Hongjoong's thighs, with a palm clamped on his jawbone and another hand stroking tangled hair from his brow. He exhales, long and uneven.
"Put it to use, won't you?"