Work Text:
Act One: Why Can’t I Have You?
Namjoon swears he can feel the stillness of the night pressing down on his shoulders like a heavy blanket. There’s a sigh in the air as the night winds down, like the very walls of the apartment are letting something go. Midnight comes and goes. The party, if you could have ever called it a party in the first place, fizzles and dies. It’s the end of the semester. They’re tired. They don’t have much more to give.
Despite the insistent press of the night closing around them, the apartment is full of the warmth his friends always bring in tow. The kids, as Jin has taken to calling them, are huddled together on the couch. Jimin is scrolling idly on his phone with Jeongguk’s chin tucked into the crook of his shoulder and Taehyung’s head in his lap. His free hand cards idly through the curls of Taehyung’s pink hair. From where he is in the kitchen, Namjoon can see the way they’re interacting, the way the three of them always interact- laughing together, pushing in closer, a warm bubble of their own. He knows they’ll leave soon, arm in arm and giggling as they make their way back to Jimin’s apartment together.
Yoongi and Hoseok are sweeping through the living room together, cleaning up quietly, a pair of silent dancers moving separately, yet in tandem. This is familiar too, the quiet push and pull between the two of them. Namjoon collects the empty bottles littering the counter, watches as Hoseok hooks an arm around Yoongi’s waist and pulls him close for a moment to plant a kiss on his cheek. Yoongi feigns embarrassment, scrunches up his face like he can’t believe Hoseok, but Namjoon has known him for long enough to recognize the swell of pride that rises beneath the mask.
Namjoon has watched them fall in love. He’s seen it all.
He drops the bottles into the recycling, listens to the familiar clinking of glass on glass. He’s trying to ground himself, he thinks. He’s not sure when it happened, but his thoughts have started spooling freely away from his grasp.
(He’s lost track of Jin somewhere in the night, but that’s okay.)
He turns to the sink, starts idly rinsing the few dishes there, as if on autopilot. Yoongi is picking up the cards scattered over the coffee table. Namjoon tracks the repetitive motion as he thinks. He’s thinking about words. Words are his life, in a way. He knows what words are worth.
He’s thinking about how every word he’s ever written has been a manifesto of sorts, a declaration, a grab at some sort of truth. He’s thinking about how setting something down in ink feels like making it true.
He’s thinking about how he’s surrounded by warmth and friendship, and yet he feels detached from it.
He’s thinking of all the words he’s written and never shared. He wonders if those were just as powerful, just as full of terrifying truth, as those which he’s touted proudly, those which promise to make his living.
He’s thinking old thought patterns again, really, walking in circles on the already well beaten trail of his psyche.
“Here,” Hoseok’s voice, bright but gentle, startles him from his reverie. He reaches around Namjoon to rinse the glass he’s holding, places it in the dishwasher. This too is familiar, the unspoken rituals of coexistence. It’s a remnant of when they were roommates, before Yoongi and Hoseok found each other and then a nice one bedroom apartment to make their own.
(Before Namjoon lived with Jin in a turn of events that felt part happy accident, part destiny. Before this apartment, which was peppered with memories that felt at once so light and beautiful and yet too grand and confusing.)
Namjoon can feel himself coming back to reality, like it’s seeping its way back into his bones. He can feel Hoseok’s eyes on him, checking that he’s okay.
“I’m okay,” He tells him, because he knows he’s going to ask. He puts the last dish in the dishwasher, turns to face Hoseok. Hoseok has his lips pursed like he doesn’t believe him, but he nods in allowance anyway.
“Okay,” Hoseok says. He slides the top rack of the dishwasher into place, waits for Namjoon to add soap before starting it, wordlessly.
“I’m just thinking,” Namjoon adds, like he can’t stop himself.
“About anything in particular?” Hoseok asks. Out of the corner of his eye, Namjoon can see Jimin arguing with Yoongi, Taehyung and Jeongguk laughing at the familiar antics.
Familiar, familiar, familiar. The little life they all share.
There are a lot of things Namjoon could say in answer to Hoseok’s question. Us. You two. Family. Love.
(Jin.)
Instead, he shrugs. “Writing, mostly,” He says, which isn’t really a lie either.
“Of course, my little poet,” Hoseok says, smiling. He pauses, looks down at Namjoon’s body pointedly. “I guess not so little,” He adds with a giggle. He’s leaned forward over the counter now, pulling knives from the knife block and staring at the way the light reflects off the blade.
The knife block was a gift for Jin, entirely too expensive and they both knew it. It was still one of the nicer things in their apartment, but more importantly it was so profoundly Jin .
He’d bought it as a birthday gift well over a year earlier, and Jin had made them countless dinners since. Namjoon thought maybe he valued them too much, the meals with just the two of them, that it maybe wasn’t normal to feel so very loved when you sit down to dinner with your roommate.
If Jin were in the room, Namjoon is sure he’d be telling Hoseok to put them back, that he would dull them, that he had no idea how to properly care for them. Namjoon had sat through enough long diatribes on the proper method for sharpening a knife, he could practically hear Jin’s voice echoing through the apartment, even if he was nowhere to be seen.
It’s just a knife block.
It’s just a knife block, and the couch is just a couch, and the dent (almost a hole) in the drywall is just normal wear and tear.
But it’s evenings spent making dinner together, it’s the place he’d felt too close for his own good more times than he could count, it’s the place Jin had crashed when he’d spun and stumbled down the hallway, dancing for Namjoon to cheer him up when he’d been sick on his birthday.
Littered through the apartment are all the tiny reminders of the way he’s fucked up- fallen in love when he shouldn’t have, when it ruins everything, when it gets in the way of how good it could be, how simple. An apartment full of the life they’ve lived together for years now, reminders of how he’s trapped himself here with the one he loves but will never have, painful reminders of the delicate art of falling over and over again for your best friend.
He’s thinking old thoughts again.
(There is something particularly troubling about not knowing where he is, the one he can usually always find.)
He tries to force himself back to the present, back to Hoseok playing with the knives and still giggling at his own joke. Instead, he accidentally asks the question he told himself he wouldn’t.
“Um, do you know where Jin went?” He tries to ask it like it’s casual, like he doesn’t need to know. Hoseok looks at him like he can see right through to his soul, only for a moment. Namjoon hates it when he does this. It is hard to run from a feeling when your friends can see it too.
“I think I saw him talking to Yoongi,” Hoseok says, his gaze softening like he’s taking pity on Namjoon for the moment.
“Honey!” Hoseok barely raises his voice, but he’s never had to work for Yoongi’s attention. Yoongi joins them, a small familiar grin on his face.
“Yeah?” He asks, leaning across the counter opposite Hoseok.
“Do you know where Jin is?” Hoseok asks, and he says each word like it’s full of hidden meaning. Yoongi sighs like they’ve had this conversation before, like maybe this routine is just as old as the thoughts Namjoon has been sifting through.
“He said he needed some air, told me he was going up-”
“To the roof,” Namjoon says before Yoongi can finish, and Yoongi just nods. He forces a smile for Namjoon’s sake, closed mouth pushing into soft cheeks. Namjoon tries to ignore the twinge of jealousy when Hoseok smiles at him warmly, brushing hair from his eyes without a word.
“Look,” Yoongi says, calling Namjoon’s attention back to him. He says it like he’s hesitating, like he’s losing a fight with himself. “Whatever it is… Is obviously between the two of you, uh…” He looks to Hoseok for the words he’s missing.
“You should talk to him,” Hoseok supplies. “I- I’m not going to make assumptions, but I know you. Holding back isn’t going to help you,”
Yoongi nods, glad at having found the words he was missing.
“We have your spare,” He says simply. “Just go, and uh…” He jerks his head towards the living room. “We’ll get them home and lock up. Don’t worry about it,”
Namjoon frowns. He wonders what they know, about him, about Jin. Wonders if they know something he doesn’t. Wonders if they’re wrong. Wonders why they’re both being so cautious with him.
He doesn’t say anything, skirts around all the loose worries and hopes he won’t have to come back to them later. Doesn’t question it. Instead, he nods awkwardly.
“Thanks,” He says, and he’s shocked by how quietly he speaks. He tries again. “Thank you, uh… I think you’re right, I think- I think something’s wrong so… Yeah,”
It’s not his most eloquent. It’s far from it, but it does the trick. They both give him their best encouraging smiles, tell him it’s no problem at all.
He feels like it is a problem.
He also feels like he’s walking directly into a problem of his own.
Act Two : I Was Only Falling In Love
As expected, Namjoon finds Jin on the roof. He recognizes his silhouette, lean but broad, as if he’s known it all his life, though it’s only been a few years since they first met.
“Jin?” He calls, hoping that he’s the only one who hears the faint tremor in his voice. Things have been so strange lately. He feels like he can’t read Jin anymore. He feels like, for some reason he can’t fathom, he’s losing him.
Jin turns from where he’s leaning against the short wall that circles the edge of the roof. He offers Namjoon a weak smile, soft as always. Namjoon tries to quell the useless fluttering of butterflies in his stomach, the feeble jump of his heart in his chest. The wind plays with Jin’s hair the way he’d like to, the way he has once or twice after a few too many drinks. It’s still too cool out, like the weather hasn't caught up to the progress of the year. It reminds Namjoon of when it’s truly cold, when snow catches in Jin’s eyelashes, and Namjoon wishes he could kiss it away.
It is a fool’s wish, he always reminds himself.
“Are you okay?” He asks, instead of doing anything else he wants to. “Yoongi said-”
“It’s fine,” Jin says, too quick. He blinks rapidly, like it’s involuntary. Namjoon knows him better than he thinks he’s ever known anyone else. Namjoon misses him, and he’s standing right in front of him.
“Jin…” Namjoon says. He stares at his hands like they hold the answers, but they are just as empty as ever. He stares at the freckles dotting the skin of his palms, like constellations torn and scattered, not enough to mean anything on their own. “You know you can tell me anything,” He tries.
Jin laughs, not that loud and wanton thing that Namjoon loves, but something humorless and frigid. He rakes a hand through his hair, longer now than ever before.
“No I can’t,” He says dejectedly, and Namjoon frowns. “Not this,”
Jin turns again, staring at something or nothing in the distance. Namjoon doesn’t know what to say.
Namjoon has always known what to say.
He comes to stand beside Jin, leans against the wall just as Jin had been before. He tries to stare through Jin’s eyes, to see what he’s seeing. He’s never been able to, really, but he knows Jin. He trusts Jin. He doesn’t usually have to guess with Jin.
There is a long pause as they stare out over the buildings surrounding them. Jin sighs, and Namjoon watches his breath dance through the air.
“Do you remember the first time we smoked together?” Jin asks. “Just us?” He doesn’t look at Namjoon as he says it.
Namjoon does.
He remembers brushing fingers as they passed the joint back and forth in the alley outside Jin’s old apartment building. He remembers the way the dim, burnt color of the streetlight caught in Jin’s eyes, on his lips. He remembers realizing it was too late for him, although maybe he’d already known that.
He remembers being close, too close , on the futon in Jin’s shitty apartment. He remembers his hands in Jin’s, laughing too loud and too long at something he’d said. He remembers the night felt gentle.
It has only been two years, but it feels like ages.
“Yeah, I remember,” He says, leans into Jin’s side without really thinking about it. Even now, even when things feel shattered between them, he finds a sort of solace by his side, an assurance that whatever this is, they’ll overcome. They have to, they always have.
“I… It feels like maybe I was fucked then,” Jin says with a humorless chuckle. He drops his face to his hands, his next words muffled almost beyond recognition.
“But maybe I was always fucked, Joon,” He mumbles. “I think I was fucked the minute I saw you,”
“Jin, I don’t… Can you look at me?” Namjoon tries, reaching to gently pull Jin’s hands from his face. Big, dark eyes. Misty with tears. Jin smiles, or he tries.
“Thought I could hold my alcohol better than this,” He jokes.
“You barely had anything,” Namjoon says gently, because he knows. He looks at Jin with his brows furrowed, desperate to understand.
“Thought I could hold my… you,” Jin says. Namjoon frowns.
“Jin, did I do something? Did I-”
“You didn’t, you, I… It’s not that,” Jin says. He presses his hands to both sides of his face, like he can compress the feeling free. He sighs again.
“I just want to help, Jin, I… You know I love you,” He says it because it’s true, and he needs Jin to know, and it’s all he knows to say.
Jin makes a sound that seems less like a laugh than a sob.
“I love you too,” He says. He looks at Namjoon with solemn eyes, lips pressed tight together like he’s made up his mind. “That’s kind of the whole problem,”
Namjoon stares at him the way he stares at the pages before him when he can’t think of the right words. He stares at him like something he wants desperately to work out, but can’t.
“I kept thinking, for the longest time, that you would do something and it would go away. You know, like… Like I keep thinking it will be fine, because you’re my friend and I love you and that’s all that really matters and… and everything else will go away if I let it,” He says. Namjoon doesn’t say anything in return. It doesn’t seem like he should speak, it seems like he should listen.
Jin is fidgeting anxiously, twisting his left index finger too hard with his right hand. Namjoon still doesn’t say anything, just wordlessly tugs Jin’s right hand into his. He holds him still,closing both of his hands warm over Jin’s. He waits.
“ This is the problem… Is… You keep taking care of me, and you’ve always been so… So much , like… Like you’re just everything all at once, and… And it makes it really hard not to be in love with you,” Jin finally looks at him then. He looks at him, looking completely without hope as he says the words.
Namjoon is still holding his hand.
His breath catches in his throat. He forgets how to speak, how to move, how to do anything other than stare into Jin’s sad eyes.
“Which is fine, I’m used to it, but we’re having this party and I keep thinking… You know… That it makes sense. It’s Yoongi and Hoseok, and the kids, and they all have each other, and that’s okay… because I have you. I’ve always had you. Like, it feels like that, and I can almost fool myself into thinking- but… But it’s not like that and that’s fine it’s just… Harder tonight, so-”
“Oh, Jin ,” Namjoon breathes, the sound torn out of him. He dares to reach out, a hesitant hand releasing Jin’s and coming to brush over the line of his jaw. “My Jin,”
“Joon…” Jin sighs, like he’s warning him of something, like he’s just on the verge of losing his grip on something he’s holding back. He’s looking down, his head hanging, but he doesn’t pull away from Namjoon.
“ My Jin,” Namjoon says, as forcefully as he can muster. “Can’t you see how long I’ve loved you? How desperately?”
Jin doesn’t say anything. His hand twitches in Namjoon’s grasp. He looks up at him with glassy eyes.
“Don’t,” He says, barely above a whisper. “I’m not joking. I, um… I can’t take it,”
“Jin,” Namjoon takes his face in both hands, forces him to look at him properly. “Why would I lie about that? You know I wouldn’t lie to you-”
“Namjoon, you don’t understand, I don’t mean-”
“I know what you mean Jin,” Namjoon says, and though his heart is leaping in his chest, his voice is steady. “At least, I sure hope I do,”
He carves his hand along the curve of Jin’s jaw again, like he needs to prove to himself he’s really there, like he needs to steady himself.
Act Three: The Reason, Dear, Is You
Namjoon knows what words are worth- knows the way they make meaning as much as they tell it, knows the way they build entire worlds just to tear them back down again- but he also knows there is a place where words fail. He knows, though he fears it like an end of sorts, that even he cannot speak his way through all of the many snags in the course of life.
He looks at Jin, glassy eyes seeming to reflect the light of entire cities, entire skies, back to him, and he thinks this is one of those moments.
He does something he’s thought about doing more times than he’d care to admit.
He kisses Jin.
He kisses Jin like he’s afraid the moment will shatter around him. He kisses Jin like it’s his first kiss, like he wants to remember it for the rest of his life. He kisses Jin sweetly, innocently, a little afraid but not backing away. He doesn’t kiss Jin carelessly, doesn’t kiss Jin on a whim, doesn’t kiss Jin in all the ways he’s almost kissed him in the past years. He kisses Jin once, just to say what even he doesn’t have words for.
Jin’s lips are cold and they taste a bit like cherries and rum.
Jin’s lips part and he stares at Namjoon for the longest second either of them has ever known. Jin reaches up to touch his own lips like he’s not sure they’ll be there, like he can’t trust it to be real. He frowns at Namjoon.
“You love me,” He says, neither a statement nor a question. It’s like he’s trying the words on his tongue, testing the weight and the taste of them. “ You ,” He says. “Love me ?”
“I thought it was obvious,” Namjoon says. He looks at his feet for a second before forcing himself to look back at Jin.
(Beautiful Jin. Always has been.)
“But I’m in love with you ,” Jin says. At some point his hands have found Namjoon’s wrists, and he’s grasping them like he does sometimes when he’s trying to explain something and Namjoon isn’t understanding.
But Namjoon is understanding, though he’s almost afraid to believe it. He almost wants to laugh, though he’s not sure at what.
“I’m in love with you,” Jin says again. This time his words remind Namjoon of dawn. When he says it, it feels like a coming of life.
There are a million things Namjoon wants to say, too-simple things like isn’t that a good thing? and apparently, yeah and please just kiss me , but he doesn’t get the chance.
Jin kisses him like a man starving. He kisses him like he has been drowning, and Namjoon is fresh air. He kisses him like somehow he can find all the time they’ve lost to hesitation in the press of their lips, like he can give it all back to Namjoon and more.
He kisses him for the first time he remembers wanting to, staring at the curve of Namjoon’s lips into a small smile while Jin cracked jokes for him as they closed up after a long shift. He kisses him for the times he thought maybe Namjoon would kiss him, but he never had.
He kisses him for that night on the futon in his first, worst apartment- stoned together for the first time and leaned in too close to one another. Too aware of all the places their bare skin touched, all the tiny sparks he felt leaping between them.
He kisses Namjoon in all the ways Namjoon wants him too, in all the ways Namjoon hadn’t kissed him. He pulls him closer, closing all the tiny gaps they’ve carefully left between them. The fingers of his left hand toy with the soft hair at the nape of Namjoon’s neck, his thumb rubs slow circles on the sensitive skin behind his jaw, and Namjoon gasps against his mouth. His other hand cradles Namjoon’s face, and it’s all shockingly gentle in contrast to the way he kisses him like it’s the only chance he’ll ever have.
It’s all he can do. He doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to bring himself to let go of Namjoon, not when he finally has him in all the ways he hasn’t dared to dream of.
And of course, there’s so much more to say. They know this. Jin is sure it’s kicking at the back of Namjoon’s mind, is sure that any second now he’ll pull away because they need to talk , but he doesn’t.
There will be time to say it all.
Now, Namjoon is caught in the feeling, in the moment. For once, he isn’t thinking about putting words to it all. Instead, he kisses Jin back just as feverishly. He opens his mouth against Jin’s, gasps where he feels the wet press of Jin’s tongue teasing across his upper lip and then slipping into his mouth. He skates his hands up Jin’s sides, pulls him closer until he can feel the warm press of his body, so familiar and yet so new in this way.
There are no words– only the feeling of Jin’s hands twining further into Namjoon’s hair, the press of his body closer than they’ve ever dared to be, the taste of him sweet on Namjoon’s tongue.
It’s the kind of kiss you want to live in.
“They’ll start to worry about us,” Jin is the one who breaks the kiss. He stays close, presses his forehead to Namjoon’s. Namjoon can feel his breath ghosting across his lips when he speaks. When he opens his eyes, he can see a smile twinkling in Jin’s.
“We’ve both been gone for too long, and,” Jin pauses to laugh a little, and this time it has his usual humor in it. His thumb is on Namjoon’s cheek. He’s holding him like something priceless. “I don’t want to share this with them, you,”
And Namjoon knows he should say something. He knows it’s a time to speak, but he can’t help but to kiss Jin once more. He kisses him quickly, because he wants to and he can. Because Jin has the prettiest lips he’s ever seen and he’s kissed them and he’s kissing them and he’s not sure he’ll ever be able to stop.
He does, though, because he knows something Jin doesn’t.
“They’re gone,” He whispers between kisses, too greedy to truly pull back. “Apartment’s empty,”
“They’re-” Jin pulls back, still holding him. He stares at him, incredulous for a million reasons. “What?” He asks simply and Namjoon practically giggles.
“It’s just us,” Namjoon says.
“Just us,” Jin says, says it a bit like he’s breathless.
“Ye-” Namjoon doesn’t get to reply before Jin’s kissing him again, walking him backwards towards where the stairs let out onto the roof. Jin feels Namjoon smile against his lips, thinks of all the times he wanted to kiss the curve of that smile, presses Namjoon against the wall beside the door for just a moment longer than he’d planned. He runs a hand down Namjoon’s front, tracing over the swell of his chest and the firm of his abs presses forward until there’s no space left between them, until he feels Namjoon’s hips stutter for just a moment. Jin smirks, drags Namjoon’s lower lip between his teeth.
“Needy,” He taunts, and Namjoon rolls his eyes.
“And you’re not?” He says. Jin kisses him gently, watches contentedly as Namjoon chases his lips for a moment once he pulls away.
“I didn’t say that,” He says simply, before threading his fingers through Namjoon’s and pulling him through the door and off the roof.
Maybe they trip down the stairs faster than they ever have before, hand in hand and heart’s racing with the thoughts of lips and hands and skin and a thousand old wishes suddenly granted.
Maybe Jin fumbles with the key against the lock as Namjoon crowds too close behind him like so many times before, pressing kisses to his neck, unlike before.
And maybe they don’t make it past the couch before Jin is on top of him, before he’s pressing him down into the shabby cushions of their couch like he’s wanted to countless times.
And he kisses him. He kisses him for God knows how long, eager to touch him in all the ways he wants, to show him how much he cares for him. He would be happy with just this, forever. He would have been happy with less.
Jin’s pretty sure Namjoon’s half hard and he knows that he is too. He rocks down against him, savors the weak moan Namjoon is unable to stifle. Almost a whimper, his lips parted and swollen and his eyes glassy with want. He looks so beautiful. Always has. Jin tells him as much.
“God,” He sighs, brushes a thumb over Namjoon’s lower lip, looks at his big, starry eyes. “So, so gorgeous,”
Namjoon has never felt like this, so worshiped and cared for and adored. He thinks maybe he’s falling apart, coming undone just a little bit. He thinks maybe if he were thinking clearly he’d be able to put into words how only Jin knows him well enough to love him like this. He doesn’t say anything at all, but he doesn’t have to. For as much as there still is unsaid, there’s also so much already between them. He doesn’t have to say it. Jin can see it in his face, in the familiar dimples and the way his smile reaches his eyes.
Jin drops kisses to his lips, his cheeks, the tip of his nose. Anywhere and everywhere he can reach until they’re both smiling like fools, giggling to themselves. Kisses him again until the giggles are replaced with nothing but the sound of their breath, quiet sounds of want.
“Joon,” His lips brush against the warm skin below Namjoon’s ear as he whispers. He’s pressed so close to him, grinding down in that way that is too much but not nearly enough. “Let me make you feel good, can I… Can I touch you?”
“ Please ,” Namjoon’s cheeks are burning. He feels even more desperate than he sounds, but he’s not alone. Jin makes a sound low in his throat and starts fumbling with the button of Namjoon’s jeans with a desperation that would embarrass him in front of anyone else, but Namjoon isn’t anyone else. He could never feel embarrassed in front of Namjoon, could never feel ashamed of wanting this as badly as he does. Awkward like all first times, perhaps. Desperate, a bit graceless, but never embarrassing. Not when Namjoon is looking at him with as much love in his eyes as Jin feels tearing its way free from his heart. Not when they have three years of falling on their sides.
Jin knows what he wants. He knows what he’s doing, has wanted to do it for far too long not to relish in it. He palms Namjoon’s cock through the fabric of his underwear, smiles to himself contentedly when he hears him gasp. He works Namjoon’s pants down over his thighs, tugs the band of his underwear down roughly.
He looks determined, set on what he wants, and Namjoon almost laughs at the familiarity of the set of his face. Almost. Jin wraps a hand around Namjoon’s dick and looks up at him with a smirk. Namjoon makes a strangled sound and it’s all Jin needs.
He wraps his lips around the tip of Namjoon’s cock and Namjoon thinks that might be all it takes, that he might come on the spot, that he might die , that he might already be dead . Jin looks up at him with wide innocent eyes they both know to be a lie. Namjoon loves him, has loved him, will love him. It feels a little like his heart is breaking, a little like it’s whole for the very first time. He feels like maybe he’s losing his mind.
Jin touches him like he knows exactly what makes Namjoon weak, and in so many ways he does know. He knows that Namjoon is a gentle soul, that he deserves to be loved with a fondness and a care. He knows that Namjoon gives endlessly, loves with all he has. He wants to make him feel just as loved. He wants to be the one to make him feel good, dizzy with pleasure, to feel nothing but cared for.
He savors it all, because it’s all he’s wanted for so long. The taste of him, the feeling, the weight on his tongue. The way the muscles of Namjoon’s thigh tense under his hand, the way he can feel him tremble with shaky breath when he slides a hand under his shirt, smoothes over the soft skin and firm muscle there just as lovingly as he can, holds him at the curve of his waist.
He’s so hard it hurts and he couldn’t care less. He’s only focused on Namjoon. Namjoon, who laces a hand in Jin’s hair and runs a thumb where the high of his cheekbone meets his temple. Namjoon, who breathes Jin’s name like an oath, like a promise.
Namjoon feels lost and found. He feels scattered yet whole. He feels unmoored yet home.
He feels so, so loved. So in love.
Jin looks up at him with big, familiar eyes and they’re so full of a love both old and new. Namjoon comes with a soft sound, throws his head back and closes his eyes for a moment that feels like an eternity. Jin is touching him gently, thumbs rubbing slow circles in his sides as Namjoon falls apart below him.
Heart melting in his chest, eyes glazed over with sex and with love and with disbelief, Namjoon dares to look at Jin again. Jin licks his lips with a smile. Namjoon cannot believe his eyes. It feels like a dream. A too happy to be true dream. The kind you pray you don’t wake up from. Jin places a soft kiss to his thigh, rucks his shirt up to trail kisses up the smooth of his stomach.
“Jin,” Namjoon says softly, drags him up until they’re face to face again.
“Hey handsome,” Jin croons, and Namjoon’s smile dimples his cheeks again because it’s so Jin . His Jin.
“Kiss me again?” He asks breathlessly. Jin does. He kisses him slowly, without all the feverish haste of before. Namjoon can taste himself on Jin’s tongue. He can’t get enough. He’s lost in the feeling- Jin’s mouth on his, Jin’s waist beneath his hands, Jin’s hand cradling his jaw. Jin. He wants to touch him, wants to make him feel just as good. Needs to. Namjoon slips a hand under the waistband of Jin’s pants, thanks God Jin’s wearing those stupid sweats he loves so much, smiles aginst Jin’s lips, swears he feels him smile back.
It’s clumsy. Namjoon fumbles to jerk Jin off and kiss him in a haze, still caught in the afterglow of his own orgasm. He knows he isn’t doing a great job- his movements careless, his mind moving slow- but Jin is falling apart above him regardless. His kisses grow sloppy, his breath stuttered. His hips buck into Namjoon’s hand. He gasps into Namjoon’s mouth, swears in a rougher tone than Namjoon has ever heard from him
It’s such a strange blend of the familiar and the new. His Jin, so known to him in sound and scent and soul, and yet he’s never known him like this. He’s his like never before. He knows the feel of him in his arms and yet he’s never held him like this. He knows the feeling of loving Jin better than any other, and yet he’s never been able to love him like this.
He greedily kisses him as best he can. Savors in the way Jin shudders over him, groans low and dirty, mumbles his name between kisses. It feels so good. After months of uncertainty, years of holding back, it feels right again- not in the same way, but in a new beautiful way. It will never be the same, though neither of them would ever wish to go back.
Jin buries his face in the crook of Namjoon’s shoulder, comes with a broken and whiney moan. Namjoon thinks it sounds beautiful. He sounds beautiful. Namjoon has a hand on the small of his back, a gentle pressure keeping him close, like if he lets go of him the moment will dissolve and drift away.
“You love me,” Jin whispers the words like he still doesn’t believe them, like he’s still getting used to the feeling of them on his tongue. His breath ghosts warm over Namjoon’s neck, his lips brush the skin exposed by Namjoon’s collar tugged down. Namjoon shifts below him and Jin pulls back to look at him, eyebrows inching together in question.
“I love you,” Namjoon says, his voice unwavering. “So much, for so long,”
He brushes his thumb across Jin’s lower lip, leans up to kiss him tenderly.
“I wish I knew the words to tell you… the depth of it,” He says. “I just… I just love you,”
“I think I understand,” Jin says simply. “I… You are everything to me. I guess I thought you’d figured that out by now,”
Namjoon chuckles humorlessly. “I guess I’m not that observant,” He jokes, and Jin rolls his eyes at him.
“You’re lucky I love you,” He jokes, and Namjoon laughs for real this time.
He is lucky. He knows it.
Later, they fall into bed together in the kind of peaceful silence that only comes from years of trust. It’s technically Jin’s bed, but it’s not like it really matters. The whole place belongs to both of them, always has. Namjoon barely notices the change, Jin’s room as familiar as his own.
He’s exhausted, the night growing so late that time seems to thin out around them. The sheets are soft on his skin, the whole bed a soft cocoon of their own warmth. He sighs, and the world seems lighter on his shoulders than usual. Jin’s hands roam gently over his body, like he’s trying to map out every bit of his skin. Namjoon rolls over to face Jin, to take him in just the same.
In silence like that, they trace figures of each other in the dark of the night. Jin, for the first time since he really realized that he wanted to, lets his hands wander. He trails them down Namjoon’s side and up his back again, pulling him close, wanting to feel the press of their bodies together. Namjoon mirrors his movements, brush gentle hands over Jin’s collarbones and out to his shoulders, back down to the curve of his waist into his hips.
They’re looking at each other without making eye contact, letting their eyes roam in all the ways they’d tried not to before. Jin touches him tenderly, as gently as someone should. He thinks of how long he’s loved him. He’s so much bigger now than when they first met, stronger, more muscular, but still his Namjoon. Always his Namjoon. Always so gently and sweet, always so dear to him. Jin’s hand stops over Namjoon’s heartbeat, steady in his chest, and he feels himself let go of a dread that he hadn’t really known he was carrying. Namjoon loves him back. He’s there, sure.
Namjoon soothes circles into the skin above Jin’s hip and feels nothing but fondness, nothing but love. He thinks of moving in with Jin for the first time, getting into a fight about the arrangement of their living room and stalking off to ignore each other for hours only to fall asleep slumped against one another watching movies that night. He thinks of the firsts- the first time he heard Jin laugh and knew he wanted to be surrounded by the sound forever, the first time they hung out outside of work, the first time he looked at Jin and thought maybe he was in love with him. He thinks of normalcy- washing the dishes together in silence, knowing how the other wants his coffee in the morning, fingers brushing when they pass the TV remote back and forth. He thinks of how there will be new firsts, but those things will stay.
In the morning, they’ll wake up curled in towards each other and neither will remember falling asleep. Jin will pretend to be disgusted by Namjoon’s morning breath but kiss him anyway. They’ll brush their teeth side by side, not for the first time. Namjoon will make coffee and Jin will make breakfast, and they’ll share a kiss when they sit down to eat. They’ll talk about how they’ll tell their friends, and they’ll get distracted speculating on the sounds coming from the neighboring apartment.
And some of it will feel familiar. And some of it will feel brand new. Namjoon won’t be stuck on trying to describe it, trying to capture it.
All he knows then, all he really needs to know, is it feels like falling perfectly into place. All he knows is it feels right.
All he knows is he loves him, and Jin loves him back.
That’s all the words he needs for now.