Archive of Our Own

The rain falls harder against the roof, a constant pattering that beats down in San’s heart with every move he makes, and yet all he thinks of is about the last time that he saw his mother. It was right before he went to bed, her lingering like a ghost in the doorway to say goodnight, looking more frail than he remembers her being.

Each ease of his steps down to the front door is one he draws in a breath of air for, every creak, thinking how much he couldn’t bear to see tears across her features, that it was better like this. That even though he left in the middle of the night, the stars stretching on and on for an eternity over the fields, he still wasn’t able to convince himself to not miss her. Not ache.

He thought if he was gone in the morning, maybe the pain would weigh on them less, but there was something about the summer wind blowing through her hair, and the tang of her lemonade on his tongue that lingered, that had him turn around in the dirt. At the sound of her calling out his name, probably woken up by his footsteps, the swing of the porch door.

He held her tight, one last time, before he left. It felt bitter in his throat- was he no better than his father? Did he leave in the night like this too, did he hold her like this, knowing in all of the world, there is nothing else like it, like carving a fresh wound and wondering if it’ll ache less if you know it’s coming.

It doesn’t. San doesn’t let her see that he’s crying, and he clenches his free hand into a fist, thinking that for all of the world, let him do one thing right. He says that he’ll write to her. Send her money in the mail.

He hears her broken sobs, as she tries to swallow them up in the blanket draped around her shoulders, one that he’d just fallen asleep with on the couch a few nights before, chilled to the bone in his own anxiety of what was to come. He’ll wonder, on most nights, if she’ll cling to that scent, just as much as he’ll wait for the smell of home to leave the belongings he was able to shove in his backpack.

They fade into the night the longer he walks. The trill of bugs, the dirt kicked by his boots, and he wonders how long it takes for his silhouette to fade into the distance. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever see her again, but he knows it’s better he left.

One less mouth to feed. There’s a crumpled piece of paper in his backpack, one he’d swiped off the town board a little over a month ago and worried the edges between his fingers, like it would answer all of his prayers wrapped up in one.

They need money, this is not a new story for either of them. The town’s run dry and there’s no work for him here, and he thinks that she knows that, and he also thinks, hopes, that she knows he’s doing this for her. It had been just the two of them, his entire life. How could he sit by and watch them crumble? To watch her try and give him more of the portions of their food then to herself? There was only so much money San could make at the corner store, and it just wasn’t enough to help them get by.

There’s a line of lamp light, flickering in the night as he approaches the train station. He’d been saving up for weeks, ever since he found the paper posted up, errant coins and bills he’d crumpled together in a small drawstring bag.

The person behind the booth seems to be half nodding off as he walks up, slides the fare underneath the carved cutout and waits for his ticket. San sees a poster once he leans back on his boots, hoping that the dark of the night, the way his hair falls messy and long into his eyes, covers over the fact that he’d been crying. If he notices, the man doesn’t say anything.

“This ticket only gets you one way. No way home.” His voice is gruff, like it’s the wake up call San needs to turn around and run home. His eyes are still on the print- COME ALONG AND SEEK OUT WONDERLAND, YOU’LL NEVER WANT TO LEAVE!

“I know. One day, I’ll buy a ticket back.” San says, and he’s reaching his hand out for the ticket, the man hesitating on the stamp. One look at him and he lets the ink stain the paper.

“That’s what they all say.” It’s the last thing he tells him as he shoves the ticket towards him, and San plucks it up from the wood, meandering away from the counter as his eyes stay glued to the poster.

THE BEST SHOW YOU’LL EVER SEE! ALWAYS ADDING NEW ACTS! SINGING, DANCING, TALENT LIKE YOU’VE NEVER EXPERIENCED BEFORE!

Don’t all the posters always make it seem so dreamy, the flyers make it like he could never get away even once he tried? San sits on a bench and waits for the train, hears the distant chug of the engine and knows it’ll be the one that’ll take him away. He feels guilty for almost being excited for it- even as the rain starts again, a gentle patter against the platform as San adjusts his jacket to fight off the chill.

All he’d ever known is this town. His mother. The ache that his father left and everything his mother did to keep them afloat, and here he sits, leaving it all behind to try and find something better. Is it wrong of him to want more? He always tried to tell himself, laying alone at night and staring at the dark walls of his room, that there is a whole world he’s never ever laid eyes on, why wouldn’t he want to see it?

He sits and waits and doesn’t think about his mother. Hears the train get closer and closer, enough that he can hear the grind against the tracks as it starts to slow, and everyone starts gathering on the platform. He holds his ticket decisively between two hands, knee bouncing as he tries to keep himself as settled as he can until he gets onto the train, ducking between the awning and the pouring rain and getting damp in the process as he holds it out to the conductor.

It gets stamped again, and San goes inside to find his seat, shoves his belongings in the container over top and settles down for the ride. Watches the rain slide down over the window, and waits for the lull of the train starting up to carry him off to sleep, the blinking lanterns fogs of light that fade out in the rain as they get further and further away.

San never thought he was anything special. He was good with his hands and diligent when he worked, and when he was told to do something, he gave it everything he could. It’s why when he finally finds the place at the address printed plainly on the flyer he had found at home, he knows he’s meant to stay in the shadows.

People spill out of every corner San can see, a series of various shapes and colors of buildings stretching what looked like a mile, stalls and booths and candied smells pouring out over the tamped down ground, interspersed with clouds of bubblegum and freshly popped popcorn, melted butter and savory snacks that makes his stomach growl on its own accord. He keeps his hands shoved into his pockets, knowing he doesn’t have the money for any of it, but he still lets himself see.

From what he knew, the place used to be a grand amusement park. Rides and food and games, until it was run down into the ground and became abandoned as time went by. Someone took pity on the stretch of land that sloped down across a small hill, bought it all and started renovating some of the places, expanding structures as they worked to make the buildings safe to go inside again. It seemed to be an ongoing project, from what San could tell, using the admissions money to get the rest of the park redone that wasn’t in use.

And it wasn’t a company, either. A lone, single benefactor that wished to have their own place to showcase talent, music, to entertain. It was helpful that the amusement park left the bare bones of things, small attractions and buildings that could be turned into what they needed for their vision. The gates usually opened in late afternoons and stretched far into the night, and it was all about putting on a show the likes no one had seen before.

It was a bunch of ghost stories he’d hear in passing. The story seemed to be a gold mine for that kind of thing, interesting enough to make people perk up in a town like where San grew up, slow and unmoving.

He watches as people pass by as they dance and twirl underneath the setting sky, melting into hues of oranges and pinks as the sun sinks, dressed in outfits made of silks and flowing fabrics that San had never seen in his life, only in shop windows and magazines.

It all leads like a series of roads down to the main stage, a building that towers in regal crimsons and golds in the distance, towering over it all like it oversaw the rest of it, the acts and the food and the things that drew everyone in. He thinks that maybe, before, the structure was something of a castle, but in the hopes of not following the previous design, there was canvas draped to look like fabric, laying draped over the remnants of stone. An abandoned castle turned into a hideaway, crumbling but still offering shelter. It was easy to find once he had gotten off the train, sleep crinkling the corners of his eyes, the people spilling down the streets, holding balloon animals and bags of spun sugar and grins that felt as bright as the sun.

He could hear it, too, even as his feet ached by the time he finally made it there, the spin of instruments in jaunts of music that almost made his heart soar, and figures that it’s part of the picture- each of these things intricately placed to lure them all in, just as much as the posters did, the flyer did, for San back home.

San’s not made for any of this grandeur, can only look on in awe at all of them that are, coated in the magic of it all as some places promise tells of the future, lavender smelling smoke thick through his throat as he passes by the edge, the whole park guarded by bricked fencing that only let you see just the tiniest bit inside. There were the yells of a nearby performer cheering patrons on as they desperately tried to win at the game he boasted, rows of stuffed animals seated right behind him, too fluffy and cute to ignore. A carousel spinning endlessly into the night as the sun sets, little shops with trinkets and wardrobes spilling out into the walkways.

It’s not what San’s here for, though. He keeps walking with the flyer clutched in his hand, having taken it out of his backpack once he woke up on the last part of the ride, reading over and over the lines, memorized by now, slipped into his pocket until he got here.

He had just been looking in from the perimeter as he got his bearings, still bleary from the trip, but it’s the crinkled paper in his hands that he uses when he finally makes his way to the ticket booth. There’s someone his age reclining in there, chewing on gum and popping a bubble once his turn in line comes next. It’s pink, and so is his hair, as San slides the folded paper over to him.

“I’m looking for work, is there anywhere you can point me to? Anyone?” San says, and the man in the booth laughs, and all San can think about is bells. He hasn’t been here long, but he’s starting to think that everyone in this place might just be beautiful, all sharp, angular lines, the sweetness of his eyes.

The man lets the front legs of the chair hit the ground, and smoothly pushes the paper back towards him with cleanly manicured fingers, glinting glitter in the light.

“You think you’ve got what it takes to be an act here, sweetheart?” He asks, his eyes dutifully looking over San, covered in dirt and rumpled from his nap on the train, with mild trepidation. It has San shaking his head quickly, hands going out in front of him to assure him that’s not what he’s here for.

“No- No, not at all. You need people behind the scenes, right? Helping to keep things running, repairing stuff?” He tries, and his stare feels so heavy on him, the people behind him in line getting more and more impatient by the second, their exasperated sighs enough of an indication.

“We do, but I think you’d be pretty once you’re cleaned up.” He waves his hand, a bit of a sigh. “You can go in, if you turn left right behind my booth and follow that little road, you’ll come across a smaller building, it’ll be painted black and gold. There’s a sign out front, you really can’t miss it. Say you want to talk to Hongjoong, and Seonghwa sent you, if you run into anyone.”

He smacks his gum, gesturing behind him like it’ll help San find his way. Seonghwa pats at the paper a few times as a grin stretches over his lips, one that’s enough to convince San that he could really tell him anything and he’d probably believe it.

“It’s cute, you kept the paper. Take it with you, Hongjoong will like that.” He says, before he’s leaning forward and gesturing to the people behind him in line forward.

“Next!” He shouts, and San is carried forward, along the path that he told him. He wonders idly if Seonghwa is even worried he’ll do what he says instead of just running right into the rest of the park, but maybe he’s had it happen enough to know when people are actually serious about wanting a job. Or maybe they really need help, and so they’ll take what they can get, but San walks until he finds the place, a small series of his knuckles against the door before he lets himself inside.

It’s a bit like being transported to another world. He barely remembers how small the building seemed on the outside while his eyes take in every inch of the place, covered in cabinetry and knickknacks like it had been set up for awhile, stretches of bookcases containing files and other things that stretch behind the desk that lays in the middle of the room.

He doesn’t have a lot of time to wonder, though, because there’s someone sitting at that desk, illuminated by candle light and pouring over a stack of papers. His hair is carefully combed back, but San can see the circles underneath his eyes, dark even in the light, and the way his hands, covered in an assortment of rings, cycle through the pages like it’s a burden. San’s almost hesitant to say anything before he hears a voice.

“Are you going to stand there all night or tell me why you’re here?”

San’s still gripping the flyer in his hands, so he steps forward and sets it down on the desk. “Seonghwa told me to come here. I’m looking for work, if you need any helping hands? I don’t want to perform, I just want to- help. I’m used to that sort of thing, I’ve worked a lot of odd jobs, so I can do anything that you tell me to do. I- um. I really need this.” He finishes, and it feels a little weak even on his end, and to be in the moment after he had been thinking about it for so long- It feels like all of the adrenaline has almost rushed out of him.

He’s receiving the same kind of look he got from Seonghwa in the booth, except Hongjoong can see all of him from behind his desk, all of the way down to his muddy boots, and his pants that don’t quite reach his ankles. He’d outgrown them a long time ago, but he’s only truly become really conscious about it at this moment.

“Huh, I think you’d be quite something if you wanted to be. Well, if you won’t reconsider, we do need the help. Unfortunately, this isn’t my show to run, I’m only here for the paperwork, so what I can promise you isn’t what I really want to give you, but. It’s what I can offer. A steady salary, you get paid at the end of every month. You stay on site and work when we need you. It’ll be all over the place, you won’t be assigned just one thing. Meals are cooked and served three times a day, and if you don’t eat then, there’s nothing else for you.”

He’s getting out a piece of paper from one of the desk drawers below, clearing away some of the mess in front of him as he plucks a pen from the table and shuffles through until he finds a set of lines. He signs across one before he’s turning it around and pushing it towards San, tapping at the one near the bottom.

“There’s bathrooms directly behind the quarters for the workers, but it’s usually quite busy, so try and find out the right times that work for you. If you’re smart, you’ll go early in the morning when barely anybody is in there.” He sends him a wink, leaning his chin against one of his hands and casting his eyes up towards the ceiling like he’s trying to remember the rest of it.

“If one of the acts asks for your help, then give it. They do get paid a little more than you, even if it isn’t worth much. You’ll learn as you go. If that all sounds alright to you, then. Sign away.”

He gestures towards the papers with a free hand, and his eyes flicker to San, who had been listening with bated breath before he swallows, nods, leans forward to grab the pen and sign away his name.

His signature looks about as boring as he feels, the most boring he’d ever felt. He came from a small town, he had never expected much of himself. He’s not sure what either of them meant about him being capable of being something, but he thinks this job sums it up.

“Thank you.” San says, and Hongjoong draws away the paper, setting it up into another pile nearby, considerably smaller than the others.

“I wouldn’t thank me, but welcome to the show. Wonderland, is what the Conductor would want me to say.”

“Is that who runs the place?” San asks, and Hongjoong wrinkles his nose, clears his expression, and nods.

“You’ll probably never meet him. And if you do, well. Consider this your warning.”

“My warning?”

“You never want to meet him, San. I’m hoping you don’t.” He says, eyes a little dark, and San reaches out for the flyer that had come with him this whole journey, and doesn’t like the way the words seem to grip his throat.

“I’ll keep my head down and work. I really just need the money, that’s all.” San says, and he wonders if his eyes are still glazed from earlier, if even the mentions of his reasoning can be traced in the features of his face.

Hongjoong’s expression remains dark, and he stays hunkered over his desk, like he’s been weathering a storm for too long, and this is all he can do in the face of it.

“Then I wish you good luck. If I have time to come and check on you, I will. Either that or I’ll send Seonghwa. You’ll find the worker’s quarters just down a bit from here, it’s gray, but you can tell there’s two different paint colors from when we renovated, that’s the building you want. You can put your stuff down there on one of the empty beds and if anyone’s around, you can just ask them for the uniform and where they need you. It’s already pretty well into the night, so there might not be much. Rest up while you can.”

“Okay. Thank you.” He murmurs, and turns to walk the short distance back to the entrance, backpack hiked up on his shoulder as he moves to open up the door. Hongjoong’s still watching him, unreadable expression and the glint of his rings in the candlelight.

“Goodnight.” San says, and leaves before he can hear him reply, back into the swirl of sugar and lights and the dark, twinkling skies.

It’s been a few months, but San had gotten into a sort of a routine that he can't really complain about. The food’s never as good as his mom’s, but he thinks it would be like that no matter where he went, and when he lays on the paper thin sheets, sometimes he shivers under his jacket and strains to hear the distant sound of the train as it bleeds through the night. He wonders, sometimes, when he hears it, if it’s going back home.

His first paycheck was nothing to be truly excited for, but it was money, and San kept a little bit for himself and sent the rest to his mother. Sealed it up tight with a warmed wax seal he got from Hongjoong, who solemnly looked on as San scrawled his address on the front of the envelope.

He takes his showers when the sun is rising and no one’s there, and the sky is just turning cotton candy pink as he changes into his same uniform, stained now with oil and grease, overalls and a long, thick turtleneck that had him blending into the background as he lifted heavy things and tried his best to fix the rides when they didn't work anymore.

San kind of likes being needed for all types of things, the acclimation of all he'd learned in his life coming in handy, even if it came down to the way his mom used to make him warm, peppermint tea, for when his head hurt and he could barely open his eyes. He brings it to performers who are a little too exhausted, a little too overwhelmed, works on repairing furniture and shining metal and handing out sticks of spun sugar when the lines get a little too long.

Despite being there for as long as he had, he still hadn't been able to catch the end of the night show that took place at the main stage. All of the people present there usually herded towards the opened curtains, and in their absence, everyone else would take care of the rest of the grounds to close up, leading everyone home once the show was over.

It’s when San is the most busy, flitting from one booth to the next as people call out his name and give him one thing to do one right after another. He doesn't mind- he likes being occupied, keeps him out of his head and his heart, and he likes the fact that he's needed. Everyone here is nice, and he thinks it’s the most interesting group of people he’s ever met. No one in his hometown ever had stories like the ones he heard now.

Seonghwa’s almost finished with another one- it had been a slow night, time reaching into the cooler months, and it was a crawl compared to the heat of the summer that San had first known. San’s still not really sure what job he has, but it seems to be an extent of what San does as he runs around where he’s needed, but instead of the heavy work, Seonghwa tends to fill in on the jobs that are empty, if someone can’t work it that night.

He had met him first in the admissions booth, but tonight, he’s telling futures, telling stories, cloaked in robes of starlight and velvet, leaning over an old wooden table covered in cloth that's illuminated from within. There’s lights sending projections of stars and planets all across the inside of the darkened place, shadows growing long over the furniture.

San had brought him some tea, watching as his hands, elongated into points of dark lacquer, traced idly over the curves of the velvet on the table, the book Yeosang’s always drawing in closed and resting beside his fingers.

Every step over the wood creaks, and he thinks that the small structure used to be an ice cream parlor or a bakery, but it’s been painted over, guests led through carefully placed antiques and furniture to reach Seonghwa in the back room, candles and flickering sconces dotting the path.

“.. And since the kitchens are out of lemons, because the shipment is late, Yeosang couldn't work tonight. It’s the only thing that gets rid of his migraines.” There’s a sigh, and San jolts at the press of cold fingers against his arm. He’s a little sheepish at Seonghwa’s stare, having taken a moment to rest awhile and staring out of the opened window to let the cool breeze in since the building tended to get stuffy, watching the cloaked main stage stand tall and glow against the night sky.

“Are you listening?” He asks, and San shakes his head a little, cheeks flushed. Spotlights streak far off into the night, swirling back and forth as it outlines the regal omnipresence of what lays in wait behind the curtains.

“I’m sorry, hyung, it’s just..”

“You’ve never seen it, right? The main show?” Seonghwa guesses, and San thinks he had been paying a lot more attention than he had. He shakes his head.

“I’ve never really even been inside. Everyone always just needs me out here.”

“Why don’t you go and watch? It’s a slow night, I don't think anyone will need you. I can't believe you haven't been able to even watch it yet, it has our best performers.”

Watching him linger for a moment where he sits, Seonghwa only just waves him on.

“Go. I think you’ll like what there is to see.” He says, and there's a bit of a knowing glint in his eyes, like there’s something Seonghwa is aware of that San isn't.

He gets up from his seat, wiping his hands off on his thighs and sending a little wave as he exits the building through the back. He doesn't look back to see the expression on Seonghwa’s face, but he supposes he’s probably looking into the tall mirror leaning against the wall like it has more answers than San does, watching him go.

He wonders if he truly sees anything there, or if it's just an illusion, as most of the things here were, carefully thought out placements and workers that almost made it seem like it was magic that kept it all together.

San’s been present long enough to know the secrets behind most of the attractions, and he knew there was a pedal on the floor that Seonghwa could press on that changed the lights in the room as he wove his words. It made it seem mystical, full of stardust, when the lights would go dim, and all you could focus on was the light reflecting in Seonghwa’s eyes, bright enough to cast a glow.

Even despite knowing how it worked, San swore, earlier, he saw a flash of something red in the reflection of the mirror, even though none of the lights were on. He casts the thought away as he ducks out into the night.

Probably just a trick of the light.

He’s missed a majority of the show, he knows by the way the sky is colored that it should be over soon. It’s one of the ways he can easily tell what time it is while he’s working and isn’t near a clock, or to ask someone with a watch. Still, he slips into the entrance and tries not to get lost in the colorful folds of fabric that hides stone and ornate paintings, leading down a pathway that opens up to the biggest room he’s ever seen.

It’s the most grand out of all of them, made with heavy, durable fabric that leads all of the attention to the stage in the middle. It’s multi-tiered, soaring what seems to be up into the sky, the performers taking advantage of every bit of the space that’s available to them. There's seating that stretches up farther than San could have imagined, all in circular rings with wooden staircases as he weaves along the back of the crowd, cheering for the act that’s on at the moment.

It must have been redone when the park was opened back up, certain pieces of wood that seemed newer than the others, painted over with dark lacquer to blend it in. Still, it’s grandiose, making use of the stage that had probably remained there before and turning into something even more than it was.

There’s more lanterns of light that add to the ambiance, that almost makes everyone forget that this place was abandoned, once. San still can’t help but shiver- There’s something about it that still feels a little.. off. Remnants of something before that still seem to linger.

He’s trying to stay out of the way as he finds someplace to stand against the back of the room, but his eyes keep catching on the way performers glide through the air looped in fabric. They do it so flawlessly it almost looks like they're flying, twisting and gliding through the air where they're suspended by strips of silk that they expertly weave around themselves in mere seconds as they change formations.

He’s starstruck, because he’s never known it was possible for someone to fly. In particular, it seems like one of them somehow blinks in and out of view, like if he squints too hard, he can lose them for a second before they pop back into his line of vision, like something of a dream where he’d imagined the whole thing. Outlined by silk and shimmering fabrics that catch the light, San rubs at his eyes as he tries to figure out if it’s actually real or not.

The person has to be- And as he watches, he finds himself unable to look away. Unable to stop as they weave and curve so expertly it almost appears like breathing, and once the fabric parts just right, San’s surprised to find it almost looks the same shade of red that he’d seen earlier. Perhaps it's reflected in some of the colors outside, for San to recognize it, but it captivates him nonetheless.

His heart is in his throat every time they drop through the air. They free fall with only the fabric and their own strength to catch them, and he traces arcs of shapes with his eyes as the performers find their way in between each other, hands outreached to trade and guide through the motions.

Maybe it’s the hint of danger that makes it so exhilarating, the sheer talent, too, of being capable of doing such a thing so gracefully, without fear. San understands why it's the second to last show of the night, it’s fantastic.

Even if he’s been distracted by the ripples of the fabric in the air that flow like water, it’s not enough to clear the nagging feeling in his chest that he’s being watched. It’s in the back of his mind, at first, as he watches the performance, but his eyes keep getting drawn back to one figure, and when he looks again, it’s to a gaze that he feels the weight of. And the eyes flash, a brilliant metallic shine of both red and blue, for a span of a second, San almost thinks it's a trick of the light. It’s clear as day, so much so that he feels like he couldn’t have imagined it.

But he knows what he saw. He knows how he feels. Unable to shake it, he hesitates on his feet, wondering if he should leave before the show is finished, try and find some work to do to clear his head. It feels too muddied, and the cacophony of sounds and lights and colors seem to almost be too much for him all at once. Yet he’s rooted in the spot, watching reality bend at will right in front of him as the live music swells, and the swirl of it all only intensifies.

He stays until the end. Leaves with the rest of the crowd, and for the very first time, feels normal, feels like it could be any other night, and he could've bought a ticket to have some fun on the weekend before going home, silly with laughter and sugar and dragging along three different stuffed animals as prizes to line up on his bed.

Instead, he helps close up the attractions and get the last of the guests off the grounds, swipes an apple from the crates in the kitchens and chews on it thoughtfully as he flops onto his sheets, utterly bewitched as the juices drip down his palm, sticky and sweet. The steady thrum of the bugs outside leak in through the open windows, and he keeps seeing the swirl of fabrics in his head, spinning round and round.

San misses his mother’s lemonade, the tang sharp against his tongue, and lets the apple core roll to the floor as he falls asleep, dreaming of red, red, red.

He can't stop thinking about it. It’s been awhile since he’s last seen the show, and yet he finds himself obsessed with the memory, clinging to the leftovers of the scenes that play in his mind as he works. He hadn't had time to return to watch it again, and there's a part of him that wonders if it'll lose the magic of it all, of seeing it for the first time without knowing what he was getting into.

It’s like he can't get rid of the color, either. It’s the scarf Hongjoong winds around his neck at the first hint of bitter, cold winds, telling him to keep it. It’s in the sewing needles he finds tucked away in the back of the admissions booth, the same colored threads winded through. The color that’s weaved through all of the sketches that Yeosang shows him, San peering over his shoulder. The apples he eats every night, crisp against his teeth and bright like a memory. The patches in the fabrics of the curtains for the game booths. The discarded button left laying in the dirt. The cherry juice they serve as a treat for dinner when they get an extra shipment on accident.

San’s tucked into a corner to keep to himself, that night a slow wave of rain that drips off the edges of the canvas keeping everyone dry underneath. There was seating inside, but since they had extended it out to make enough room for everyone, San often took advantage of the more quiet spots outdoors. He’s almost finished, really, if anything, he sits to soak in the way the wind cools as it blows, the shower breaking the heat that had clung to his body throughout the day as he worked.

He finds himself struck frozen when he sees a flash of that red, though, enough it’s noticeable when a nearby table all perks up at the sight. A chorus of cheers, and now that he’s close enough for San to see his features, he knows somehow that it’s worse than the elusive glow that hadn’t left his mind since he saw him wrapped in ribbons and silk from a distance.

He’s beautiful. His breath feels caught in his throat as he watches him curl his arm around someone who he hadn’t been introduced to yet but he thinks his name is Yunho, and laugh, the smile embedded in his cheeks and bright even to his eyes as he leans his head back with it, the sound echoing throughout the nearby area like he could call forth anyone who hears it. A siren’s voice, clear calls and an unyielding will to bring himself closer, the melody of a flute, calling San to follow him in his footsteps to his demise.

He realizes he’s been staring this whole time when his eyes meet his own. Had he been that obvious? It’s enough for him to suddenly stand, clearing the table of any remnants he had left and getting out of there as quickly as possible.

He was content to keep his distance, stars like that didn’t need anything like him blocking out any of their light. And he liked it that way, it was why he worked the job that he did, he was better on the sidelines. If he could work to enhance that shine- He thinks that gives him more satisfaction than anything else. San knows better.

His shoulders settle more into a relaxed line as he turns the corner, leaving the place behind for the safety of his own bed. He half raises his arm to block his face from the rain, but when he looks up, he’s running straight into a body. It causes him to come to a stop in the mud, boots already coated in it as he lets his arm down, feeling the rain pinprick into his hair as he wordlessly comes face to face with what he thought could have truly been a dream.

“I saw you staring.” The stranger says, and San can’t really help the way he lags a bit, the silence stretching before he’s shaking his head.

“I wasn’t.” He’s crossing his arms against his chest as he watches San actively deny something they both know to be true, the curve of his mouth a bit like a cat that got the cream. He still humors him, though, as San decides to sidestep the way he’s blocking his path and keep walking. Instead, he joins him right at his side, unbothered by the rain and the way that San is walking towards a building that he doesn’t even stay in, the complete opposite direction of the main stage and places the main performers stay.

“You’re new, aren’t you? I haven’t seen you around much before, not since that night you saw me perform. What’s your name?” He’s dressed head to toe in better clothes than San has ever worn in his life, and yet somehow, there isn’t a speck of dirt on him.

The clean presses of his shirt and the vest he has buttoned over it seems pristine, flowing over the pants that tuck neatly at his ankles into some boots. San’s a little unsure on how to stop staring at him, especially when he has all of that jewelry glittering at his collarbones, the exposed, honeyed skin that dips down from the unbuttoned fabric. He swallows and keeps his stare resolutely forward.

“San. I’ve been here for a couple months now. How did you see me in the crowd?”

“How did you see me while I was performing?” He asks, head tilted into his view, like San has no choice but to have him creep into his mind like this, too. “San. I like that. How come Hongjoong let you through without making you a performer? I mean, look at you.”

San’s eyebrows raise, and this time he looks at him just to make sure he knows how incredulous he thinks the proposition is. “Look at me?” He asks, and the stranger reaches forward to gently squeeze at the curve of his upper arm, the shirt he’s wearing clinging to his skin to keep the warmth in.

“I mean, come on.” He says, and his touch lingers, and San thinks he’s never had a boy this pretty ever entertain him this long. There’s a rumble of thunder in the distance, like the storm is finally deciding to roll in earnestly, turning the skies an even darker gray, almost swirling above where they stand.

“That’s what everyone keeps saying to me, and I don’t know what any of you mean.” He shakes his head a little, looking down to the dirt as he tries to not let the heat envelop him. Somehow, the compliment seems to affect him differently when it comes from him. Despite only meeting just now, it feels genuine, like his words have every bit of truth when they fall past his lips. San half wishes he could believe him.

“What’s your name?” San asks finally, when the silence stretches too long. He’s not sure if he’s just been looking at him, and he realizes they’ve been walking a bit aimlessly, San leading them nowhere in the way he’d been so wrapped up in his presence. He’s reminded of walking into Hongjoong’s office the first day he came here, the way the entire room seemed to change once he stepped inside.

“Wooyoung.” He says, and his voice seems a lot softer. San makes the mistake of looking at him, and there’s a telltale sadness that gleams in his eyes as he searches his features. It makes his brows furrow- Was he the one that put that there? Just a minute ago, Wooyoung was laughing so brightly, San thought the clouds might open up, clearing the storm away to have the sun shining in no time.

San thinks Wooyoung makes the whole world feel like it zeros down onto just him, nothing else. No one else. There’s almost an apology on his tongue for dampening the mood, and it’s just this reason that has him curling back up into himself.

He should leave before he makes things worse. “Well, it was nice to meet you, Wooyoung. I promise I won’t stare too much again, unless I come to see you perform.” His hand reaches up through his hair, getting caught on the pieces that have gotten damp in the rain as he tries to push it away from his forehead.

“I think it would be a little hard not to.” It’s the best compliment he can give without probably landing face first in the dirt just to cover over that stupid grin he can feel stretching his lips, showcasing his dimples that his mother used to poke when he laughed. It pangs in his heart.

Wooyoung’s just looking at him, and he offers him a patient, pleased smile. “I wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s why I perform, you know. I want people to look.” San almost wants to ask, does that mean you want me to look, too?

He still keeps quiet. “Pay me another visit soon? Maybe I’ll have enough time to show you around after the show.” Wooyoung offers, and it’s then that he decides to turn to leave, San standing idly to watch him go.

“I’ll see you around, San.” He says, turning over his shoulder to offer it to him with a grin, and San gives him a half wave. He probably stays longer than necessary to watch Wooyoung walk back to the cafeteria, wondering if he’ll happen to look back and still see him there. He doesn’t. San still waits, anyways, until he watches him disappear around the corner.

He falls asleep with it echoing in his mind, the sound of his name when he says it, like his voice curls around it special. Maybe it was a trick of the light, or the night, and San’s a little in too deep, not used to having attention like that, when it feels like a person is talking and focusing only on him, like he’s the only thing to exist in the entire world.

It makes him wonder if maybe one day, he could be special. He could be everything they keep trying to tell him, more than the strength of his hands and his boots in the mud, more than someone to lean on.

Maybe he could be someone who wants other people to look.

San starts finishing early on purpose. It’s not that he’s rushing anything, but he tries to make sure he gets done a little faster, at least to catch the end of the performance each night. He finds it surprisingly easy to sneak off, hidden among the people of the crowd as he happens to catch Wooyoung performing. It’s almost uncanny, at this point, at how easily he can identify him even between all of the performers, just from the way he moves alone.

And somehow, even with no words spoken between them, San knows Wooyoung can see him there.

No matter how long he tries to wait after the shows, he still hasn’t been able to catch him for a second time. San knows he promised him a tour sometime, and he had tried not to get his hopes up, performers were busy and so was he, and he wasn’t even entirely sure if he was allowed in here, if his job even extended to this, too, but it’s one night that he’s leaning a bit back against a post after the show’s over, lingering in that magic and watching the crowd filter out, when he feels a tug on his wrist, and he’s falling backwards into the darkness.

The breath is kicked out of him, and before he can even curse, there’s fingers curling around his wrist, steadying him with a breathless laugh that’s been coated in a whisper, like it warrants sneaking around. There’s a rush of wind against the curtains behind them, rattling at the places they’re hooked to the structure keeping everything upright, and San can’t help but laugh as he realizes it’s Wooyoung who’s pulled him into the dark.

It’s still hushed, and Wooyoung mirrors him, both of them erupting into the quieted giggles as they lean into each other, both sharing a secret that they can’t help but express their own kind of glee for. It’s the kind of laugh that makes him feel relaxed, like he’d expelled all of the tension in his body. Somehow, Wooyoung’s eyes seem to be shining even in the low light, and San can find them even though they remain hidden.

“Couldn’t you have asked me to come with you the normal way?” San whispers, and Wooyoung shrugs, fingers squeezing lightly around his wrist.

“What if this is my normal way?” But his eyes are crinkled at the corners, and San can only think about how beautiful he is. He looks a little flushed from his performance, skin warm, still in the skin-tight leotard that covers his torso and legs, but there’s half a cape over his shoulder as if to cover him up as he’d come for San.

“I can’t believe you found my hiding spot so fast.” San sniffs, and Wooyoung is leading him back behind everything, weaving around boxes and discarded tools that San figures they use for repairs and to store things that don’t fit anywhere else.

“Is it really a hiding spot if you stay in the same place every time?” Wooyoung throws over his shoulder, and San’s quiet for a moment, because he’s right. Maybe it goes back to San actually wanting Wooyoung to see.

He’s half thinking about how Wooyoung hasn’t really let go of his wrist, San’s fingers flexing as he lets him guide him through. “I suppose not.” He mumbles, and wonders if they’re ever going to step back into the light.

“We walk around back here so we don’t run into any of the guests. Sometimes they get a little excited, they all swarm for pictures.” Wooyoung says, and San half dodges the remains of a spider web as they seem to clear the curve of the seating and find a curtain that probably leads backstage.

“It seems handy for that, and for hiding all of this stuff.” San replies, and ducks behind the curtain behind him. It opens up even wider than he’d thought, vanities with glowing lights and makeup products strewn across the surfaces, racks and racks of costume changes and the various backgrounds and props that get interchanged throughout the show. He wonders what people do to get this kind of job, if it’s a step up from what he does now, or it’s reserved for people special enough to know how to run this stuff behind the scenes.

Wooyoung finally lets go of his wrist here, after he leads him to a vanity that’s covered in glitter, a feather boa thrown over the edge of the lights, and San notes several presses of lipstick against the mirror. He sees his reflection in it too, standing taller over Wooyoung as he seems to gather some things, and San figures this is probably his own.

It’s like Wooyoung notices him looking, but somehow his thoughts, too, how San is covered in dirt and sweat and Wooyoung is still flushed pink, sparkling cheekbones, a tint to his mouth that he tries to avoid looking at for too long.

“Would you ever let me do your makeup?” He asks, and San looks over to him for a moment, studying quietly until he nods once.

“If you wanted to. Though you’d probably want to get me after I shower, I’d probably just get your brushes dirty like this.” San comments, gesturing to himself, and Wooyoung leans forward to tug gently at his shirt, like he’s trying to dust a bit of it off, hand raising to thumb off something on his chin.

San’s not even sure if there’s anything there, but he feels like he’s being scrutinized under a microscope, Wooyoung noticing every detail. He wonders if there’s a shade of stubble across his upper lip now that it’s so late, and finds himself swiping his tongue over his lips in the absence of the words between them.

Wooyoung’s eyes dip. His thumb just barely skirts over the edge of his bottom lip before he takes his hand away, turning back to his vanity as he grabs another small bag and shoves some of the makeup there inside.

“You could take a shower in our bathrooms. I’ve got to rinse off too, no one will say anything to you if you’re with me.” Wooyoung tells him, and San just remains quiet, because he figured they probably had more bathrooms then the one he knew of or they’d be overrun with people constantly.

He’s trying to not focus on the fact that Wooyoung would be showering nearby San, doesn’t know if he can handle that kind of interaction when he already feels ready to vibrate out of his skin when Wooyoung’s this close, always touching San in ways that make him feel like he’s more special than he really is.

It’s hard to figure out if Wooyoung is just interested in him because San’s new, or he wants to see what lies beneath all of those layers that he tends to pile up, just a small town boy that’s flying way too close to the sun, waiting to get burned.

“Come on. You think too much.” Wooyoung says, and it makes San realize that he had skipped a reply in lieu of doing exactly what he accuses him of, and he follows dutifully as Wooyoung eases the bag over his shoulder, the ripple of fabric down over his back as he leads him in the right direction.

Since it’s after the show, most of the people have cleared backstage, probably going back to the trailers and larger renovated buildings that San assumes are for the more important acts. He knows there’s more of them for the other staff and workers behind the stage, since it’s large enough to hide them all behind the building and the rest of the park that goes unused.

He’s seen Seonghwa coming from that direction before, but sometimes he thinks that it doesn’t have anything to do with him having a room there, but something with Hongjoong, instead, because San sees them coming from the same way every single morning. He never says anything, stays quiet, because often being someone in the background, he’s able to piece together more than anyone else would. He keeps his newly found secrets to himself.

Wooyoung leads him to another building, but this one is quite a lot broader than what he’s used to. Everything is separated into stalls with curtains, long rows of them, and he even notices a few tubs that he assumes are for soaking, a few floor length curved curtains for privacy. Makeshift mirrors over a few faucets, and the reflections are blurry and fogged, though he notices the shapes of the both of them as they come into the room.

No one’s here, San can’t hear any water running. He looks down to his clothes, though, to Wooyoung, who’s taking off the cape and tucking it into the bag he’d brought. He’s stretching his arms over his head, to the side, San unable to stop observing at the way his body curves, bends, showing off the strength of the sinew and muscle that he’s built, the flexibility as he sweeps to the floor, holding onto each ankle as he lets out an exhale.

San’s muscle is built from strength and lifting, from spending hours underneath the sun and sweating through it, and he knows it’s not the same, as Wooyoung twists upwards and turns towards him, a smile spread across his mouth.

“Are you shy, San?” He says, and it almost feels teasing, as he crosses to the tub, reaching to start and fill it up with water.

“I don’t have any clothes to change into.” San says, like his tongue is too large for his mouth, and he worries about what else is about to tumble out if he doesn’t keep it simple.

“You can change into a robe I brought with me, and when we get back to my trailer, I’ll give you something to wear back. Sounds good?” Wooyoung offers, and San feels way too far out of his league, watching as Wooyoung turns and shows him the line of his back.

“Will you help me unzip this before you shower?”

San swallows and steps forward, and if he can’t tell San is close because he’s turned around, he lets a cautious hand settle on Wooyoung’s hip, and he’s surprised by the way his palm curves there, easily spanning the expanse of it. He might hear a little exhale, but he thinks maybe all he can really hear is the way his heart beats faster in his chest.

His other hand goes to the zipper, fingers brushing against the back of Wooyoung’s neck, and he slowly undoes the fastening, watching the way he exposes bare skin underneath, warm beneath his knuckles. San feels himself heat up, eyes taking in every single inch.

“How do you know someone won’t come in?” San asks, and his voice is softer, unable to pitch it any louder, afraid he’s going to break something about this moment.

“I don’t.” Wooyoung looks over his shoulder as San’s hand reaches the dip of his lower back, leaving it there as his hands fall away from Wooyoung’s body, and he doesn’t even notice the way it seems darker in here, like the lights flickered until they went out. All he can look at is Wooyoung, shining quietly in the dim.

“Does that bother you, San?” He asks, and his hands come up to pull down the collar of what he’s wearing, and he pulls his arms out of the sleeves, and San swallows, finds himself unable to move as he watches him reveal more of his skin.

“It doesn’t.” It’s true. There’s a bit of a buzzing at the back of his skull, like Wooyoung’s put him underneath a spell- he doesn’t think he could care about anything else right now if it wasn’t him right in front of him, drawing him in.

“You’re cute. Why don’t you go and shower? Unless you want to help me in?” Wooyoung offers, the corner of his mouth drawn up as he holds the top half of what he’s wearing against his chest, rounding to turn off the faucet before it overflows. San watches on silently, and he finally finds the control of his limbs, stepping backwards and placing his hand on the curtain.

He doesn’t know how to say, if I help you in, I don’t know how to not follow, and I don’t know if you want me to, I don’t know what any of this means.

“I’ll go shower.” San tells him, and lets the curtain draw a boundary between them, even if it makes something in him ache, his heart still thundering in his chest. He’s glad he doesn’t get to see the look on Wooyoung’s face, but he does see the way he’s apparently taken off the rest of what he’s wearing, because he drapes it over the curtain, and San takes another step backwards and towards the showers set up behind him.

He takes his clothes off after he draws the curtain, does the same as he drapes them over and finds the faucet to turn on the water. It’s surprisingly hot, and San swallows down some sort of noise, because he’s been taking cold showers for months, and it feels so good that he just stands there for a few moments, just watching all of the grime swirl down the drain. There’s soap nearby, and it smells of flowers as he lathers it up, covers himself head to toe and takes his time.

It’s the cleanest he’s felt since he left his mother’s, and the water feels so good on his muscles after a day’s work, it’s a wonder he’s not there for hours, because it’s what it feels like. Over the sound of the water falling, he swears he can hear singing. A low, soft voice that alternates between humming and singing out a melody, and San knows it’s Wooyoung. He wonders if he’s singing for himself or for him, but it’s pretty, and it calms him when he thinks about earlier.

He doesn’t know how to tell Wooyoung that he’s not used to this sort of thing, that his town was small and there weren’t many others that he felt like he could be close with, that he’d shared a few hidden, secret kisses at the barn in between the hay bales and the farming equipment, a few meaningless nights to say that it had been done, not meaning any more than that. That he feels painfully aware of all that he doesn’t know how to do, and that Wooyoung feels so bright that he wouldn’t know how to handle him in the way that he deserves.

And that’s even if- Wooyoung wanted to, if San’s not just reading into all of the things that he asks of him, the way he touches him, the way he keeps seeking him out even if they barely know each other. San feels painfully awkward and exposed, like he’s unable to hide the way that he looks at him, wonders if he looks as silly as he feels, like Wooyoung’s a star and he’s nothing but an observer from the ground, watching him shine and burst in prismatic hues as San feels colorless, devoid.

His hair is dripping into his eyes, and San wonders if they’ve been here too long.

“Wooyoung?” He calls out, and when he answers back, his voice sounds a lot closer than he anticipated. San shuts off the water and there’s a hand stuck through the edge of the curtain, holding a robe.

“Here. I’ll give you something else when we get back.” Wooyoung says, and San takes it and realizes just how soft it is as he slips his arms through, opening the curtain to find Wooyoung in something similar, but it’s a dark, silky fabric, his bag tucked over his arm.

San gathers his things and shoves his boots back on, brushing his hair back from hanging into his eyes as Wooyoung offers him a small smile.

“Did you have a nice shower?” He asks, and San nods, and he likes the way the water dampens the color of Wooyoung’s hair to a darker red, sharp against the curve of his jaw.

“The water’s so warm.” San tells him, and Wooyoung’s eyebrows furrow, hands adjusting his bag a little higher on his shoulder. “Do you not get hot water in your showers?” And San shakes his head, watches as Wooyoung hesitates before he starts walking.

“The Conductor must have shut it off. A while ago- Well. Something happened, and he’s had a bit of a bad attitude towards the workers ever since. It’s why you don’t really see him around anymore, well. Except at the main show, because he leads them from backstage.”

“Every night?” San asks, and Wooyoung nods, leading him until they reach the trailers, and there’s neat rows of them that seem to go on for quite awhile, and San’s surprised that there’s so many more people than he thought. He knew Wonderland was large, needed a lot of hands, but they really used the main stage to their advantage to hide them all.

“Yeah.” Wooyoung hums, and goes a little quiet, and San’s reminded of Hongjoong’s warning, as Wooyoung stops in front of a trailer, a small door at the end that he unlocks, window covered by a curtain as he opens it and steps up the stairs. Inside, the space is small, but there’s a large bed at one end that takes up most of the room, covered in blankets and pillows, fabrics and twinkling windchimes hanging from the ceiling that quietly swirl as they enter.

There’s an overflowing wardrobe and another small vanity with a mirror, but it faces the opposite end, reflecting the bed behind it. San leaves his shoes right at the entry, leaving his clothes in a small pile as he hesitates while Wooyoung drops his things in their usual places, immediately going to his wardrobe to start digging through.

“I think I may have a few things that fit you. Probably something from Yeosang, but I think you guys are similar in size.” San’s a little taken aback, but he keeps quiet. He’s happy to have something that isn’t the few clothes that he had shoved in his backpack and his work uniform to change into.

“You know Yeosang?” He asks after a moment, as Wooyoung’s throwing clothes onto his bed.

“Yeah. We both joined at the same time, actually. He didn’t want to be part of the main performance, and kept to the smaller gigs. We used to both alternate running the ice cream parlor, we even helped decorate the place. I think he just wanted to stay close to wherever Seonghwa is.”

San thinks about him in the robes, cloaked in the star projections and the way the orb glows greens and blues, reflects in the shadows of Seonghwa and Yeosang’s face when he’s seen them at work, and thinks Wooyoung would fit right in.

“Does that mean you can tell my future, too?” He asks, and Wooyoung laughs a little, bringing a shirt up and spreading it out in front of him, shifting over to hold it up, squinting one eye shut as he tries to assess if it’ll fit San.

“I could. Did you not already have Yeosang do it for you? He’s really good at it.” He looks at him standing awkwardly still in the doorway and gestures to the bed before he goes back to digging. “Sit on the bed while you wait.”

“I haven’t.” He admits, and crosses the space to settle on the bed. The entire trailer smells like Wooyoung, like velvet and jasmine, some kind of sultry smoke that lays heavy on San’s tongue as he tries to make himself comfortable around the pile of clothes he’d been stacking. The fabrics look expensive and pretty, patterns and velvets and silks that San reaches out to gently run his fingers over in appreciation.

He doesn’t know how to say that he was scared of the answer, and if Yeosang could already tell of his past just from looking at him, he was too afraid to know the future. He was too afraid of the emptiness that lingers there, his uncertainty of what time really holds for him.

“Don’t believe in things like that?” Wooyoung asks, and he turns to throw him the shirt and keeps digging for pants. It’s a little threadbare, like it’s been loved and worn consistently, and San hesitates as he waits for the rest of the clothes to come his way.

“No, I do. More like.. I’m afraid of it.” He admits, voice quiet, and Wooyoung’s digging gets a little more mindful, from what San can see of his back.

“Of the future?”

“Yeah. I think if I knew for certain, it would be harder for me to move forward. I don’t want to know what I’m working towards, I don’t want to think that there’s only one set path for me in this life. I want to make my own, be confident that I have a chance to make it what I want to be.”

“A romantic, hm?” Wooyoung says, and turns, throwing a pair of pants his way, and San tilts his head a little.

“Maybe. I just want to make my own future. I don’t want where I came from to decide where I end up. I don’t want anyone else to make those choices for me, I want to do it myself.”

“Well, you’re here now, right? That counts for something.” Wooyoung murmurs, and turns again. “Get changed. I won’t look.”

San stands and watches himself in the mirror across from the bed, and looks over to Wooyoung, who’s got his face buried in a shirt, covering his peripherals, too. The space is small, and San appreciates it. He turns around from the mirror, shedding the robe and changing into the clothes he’s been given. They’re soft and fit loose, and it’s like San’s shed a million layers since he’s arrived here, comfortable and warm and under cover, and he gently folds the robe and lays it on a nearby surface.

“I’m done.” He says, and Wooyoung uncovers his face to turn and gives him a smile.

“A perfect canvas. Will you close your eyes for me, too?” Wooyoung asks, and San nods, taking another seat on his bed and opting to just place his hands over his eyes as he waits. He can hear Wooyoung laugh under his breath at the gesture, but he can hear the rustling of fabric, the way something’s thrown on the bed beside him, clothes being put on.

Then, careful, gentle hands on his wrists, slowly pulling away his hands. Wooyoung, a vignette of soft candlelight that he had lit, and San watches the reflection of the flames flicker on him as he traces each line of Wooyoung’s features, the sharp curve of his jaw, the slope of his nose, his kind, gentle gaze and the way his hair is drying soft against his forehead, half into his eyes.

“Beautiful.” San blurts out, unable to keep it back, and feels himself warm as Wooyoung smiles, watching as it grows on his pink lips, deep inset of his cheeks, and San’s heart beats steady thumps against his chest, lips parted. Wooyoung’s thumbs trace over the soft, vulnerable side of San’s wrists, and he wonders if he pressed long enough if Wooyoung would notice the frantic flutter of his heart.

“Thank you. You’re so sweet, San, I don’t know how you ever ended up here.” Wooyoung says, and it’s almost like a pity. San wants to say, how did you end up here, too? But it feels too personal, like he would be asking too many things before it’s the right time for it.

“I chose to be. I’ll choose where I go next.” San tells him, and it’s all that he can really offer. Wooyoung studies him for a moment, and San tries to keep his breathing steady, feels surrounded by every single bit of him, never wants to leave.

“Will you let me do your makeup?” Wooyoung asks once more, and San nods, feeling as Wooyoung’s hands slide down his own and lead him over to his vanity. There’s a small stool in front of it, and Wooyoung leads him to sit down, and San realizes he’s just wearing a longer version of the robe that he had been wearing earlier, trailing after his ankles and loosely tied around his waist, the v of it deep and cutting downwards, exposing soft, warm skin, the sleeves flowing downwards in excess fabric at his wrists.

San sits and Wooyoung leans his hip against the wood, and starts pulling out products that San doesn’t really know which each are besides the basics, past what he knows from when he’d watched his mother when he was younger, laying to stay near her as she meticulously got herself ready.

Once it’s all out, Wooyoung slides to sit on the table, moving San to face him completely as one of his legs resides between San’s knees, the robe slipping to expose his bare thigh, parting like a waterfall of fabric halfway down. San swallows again and keeps his gaze upwards, catches Wooyoung’s eyes and his amused grin, like he knows just exactly what he does to San and keeps doing it anyways. There’s something he opens in one palm and holds some sort of puff in the other, and he uses it to slide it underneath San’s chin, prop it upwards for him.

“Hold right here for me. Good.” He murmurs, and San’s lips part as he feels Wooyoung starts to pat the product across his skin, the constant, steady gaze he keeps on him having San flush, captivated to have this much attention once more, he barely knows what to do with himself. His knee starts bouncing despite himself, some way to get out all of the energy that he can’t otherwise.

“You already don’t really need much.” Wooyoung informs him, and San wouldn’t have really known anyways, besides the times that he stole his mother’s lipstick and painted it across his lips. His curiosity to what they would look like with more color than what they normally did led him to do it, and he remembers the first time, wide-eyed as he brushed his fingers against his lips and tried to recognize himself in the mirror.

He’s focusing so much on Wooyoung that he doesn’t really look at the reflection right in front of him, Wooyoung covering half anyways with the way he sits in front of him and blocks it.

“You’re always so quiet. Seonghwa hyung says that you are with him, too, though, always let him talk. So I know it’s not just with me, but. He’d never admit it, it worries him.” Wooyoung admits, and San’s a little surprised that Seonghwa even thinks about him that much, figuring that he only keeps up with him because Hongjoong said to, for whatever reason. And the fact that San ends up wandering to wherever he is, spotting his flash of pink hair in the crowd too easily to not.

“Everyone else here is so much more interesting than me. I don’t have as many stories to tell as hyung does, I’d rather listen.”

“We want to hear about you too, even if you don’t have as many stories. I think.. Everyone here came from something, whether they want to forget about it or not, it’s where you came from.” Wooyoung says, and he’s swapped to something pink and pretty, patting at San’s cheeks.

“I..” San starts and finds his voice fade out in his throat, and a moment later, he sighs a little, and starts speaking again. “I’m here because of my mom.” Wooyoung hums like he’s encouraging him to keep going, keeping quiet as he keeps himself busy with the makeup.

“My father left when I was really young, I never met him. So it was always just me and my mom growing up, but we live in a small town. Not many jobs or many people, and our crops haven’t been doing well for years. We did our best, but there wasn’t much more I could do there. I didn’t want to- I didn’t want to leave her, much less alone, but how could I support her there? I saw a flyer for positions put up for Wonderland, figured I could just do a bunch of odd jobs, it’s what I’ve always done. I’ve been sending her as much money as I can ever since I started. I just want her to eat well. Not worry about anything anymore.”

It comes out of him like a rush, like he’d been keeping it back for so long. And as much as it was a part of him that he was scared to share, it was still a part of him, it was what shaped him, it was what brought him here. It was hard to deny that, those pieces of himself that used to be so close but now seemed so far away.

His entire life that he knew was so far away, and he thinks all of these months, he had been running on autopilot, and all he could think about was her, all he could think about is making a better life for them both, that he hadn’t really thought about much else. Himself.

It makes him realize it as he says it. He smiles a little sheepishly, and Wooyoung pulls out something else, and thumbs close to his eyes.

“Close them for me?” He says, and San does, mourning the moments he doesn’t get to watch Wooyoung in this low light and commit it to memory.

“My parents kicked me out as soon as they could. I never really had a connection to them before that, and I spent more time with Yeosang and his family than my own. The only thing I really miss is my younger brother. I had to leave him, haven’t seen him in years.” His fingers gently smudge something across San’s eyes, focusing on the corners, his touch so gentle he barely even feels it.

“Sometimes I feel guilty for bringing Yeosang along with me, but we both weren’t happy where we were. Yeosang’s parents wanted to travel and he felt like he was just holding them back, and so he followed after me, when I came to Wonderland. I always wanted to perform. I spent a few years going from bar to bar, trying to sing, but no one ever wanted to keep me as a steady act. I wasn’t making enough money to stay anywhere, and Yeosang always let me stay on his couch, but I hated it. I hated that I could never pay him back for any of it.”

Wooyoung sets something down, and San feels him use his fingers to smudge out whatever he had been using to put on with a brush, his movements unhurried. San feels his heart ache for him.

“I found a flyer one day, and Wonderland promised me somewhere to stay, a steady pay, a way to perform. How could I say no?” His fingers tap the underside of his chin once more. “Open.”

San does what he says, blinking a few times against the inky blackness until Wooyoung comes into focus again.

Wooyoung smiles. Maybe it’s been enough time that the story doesn’t bother him as much anymore to share. For San, it still feels raw, it still aches, he could still feel the way it tightens his throat to tell.

“I’ve been here ever since. Everyone has a story to tell, and you’re right, we all have our choices to make. One thing leads us to the next, but we’re all really just looking for somewhere to belong, aren’t we? Someone, somewhere, something.”

Wooyoung’s voice trails off, turning to rifle through a collection of what San thinks is lipstick. When he turns, San can see a corner of his eye, smudged and dark, and he immediately looks away, because he’s not sure how to swallow it all down, at the moment.

“Have you found it yet?” San asks, and Wooyoung chooses a color, uncapping the lipstick and curling one hand around his jaw to steady his other hand as he starts to line San’s lips with it, gently stroking the product over in smooth glides, small pats towards the middle where they part.

“Maybe a little. Not entirely. I think it’s always changing, an ever evolving thing. I don’t know how to say if you can ever be fully complete with life, it’s not like a meal, is it? Finished and you’re done. You keep taking pieces and pieces until it feels right for a little while. Readjust. Take out. Add new things.” He pulls back, caps the lipstick and reaches for another.

He leans back a bit on his other hand once he gets it open and starts to dab it over his own lips. San focuses hard on the mole right underneath his lower lip, the way it coats the swell. He’s never wanted to kiss somebody so much in his whole life.

He’s still looking at him, the dark red coating his lips and making them look full, so sweet. Just like a sweet, crisp apple San wants to bite into.

“Do you want to see yourself?” Wooyoung asks, and San’s hands slide down his pants, grip at his knees. He feels Wooyoung’s foot nudge against his ankle, draw slightly upwards his calf, and San thinks he might crawl out of his skin not touching him, especially when his robe is slowly sliding off his shoulder, exposing the soft lines of his collarbones.

Despite that, he’s not sure if he’s ready, yet, looking up at Wooyoung raw and wanting, that if Wooyoung can spread out in front of him like this and look so pristine, the curve of his lips soft, his thigh and skin gleaming in the warm light, San could somehow keep himself together, and also look at the way he’s made up his features into something he can’t even anticipate.

“You’re not good at hiding how much you want me. You look like you could devour me, if I told you yes, right now.” San’s not really anticipating Wooyoung to say something like that so quickly, but it seems about right for Wooyoung to be so blunt about it, considering his behavior that San knew so far. He didn’t think he was doing such a good job at covering it over, either, no control over himself when it came to Wooyoung looking like this in front of him, in such close proximity. San barely knew what to do with his hands.

“Would you tell me yes?” San asks, and it feels bold of him even hearing it come from his own mouth. There’s something about Wooyoung that brings it out of him, a part of him that lays dark and waiting, the one he doesn’t listen to, doesn’t answer to, the one he pushes away because he doesn’t think he could use it right. But it’s still a part of him, isn’t it? How long will he push it away and push it down, trying to deny himself that it’s a part of him even though it’s just as similar as every other inch?

“Your makeup’s missing a little something.” Wooyoung says instead, and San tilts his head a little, curious, because he really doesn’t know how long they’ve been here, but Wooyoung had still taken his time, and San’s not sure he would’ve missed something in the process.

“What is it?”

Wooyoung answers him with his lips on his mouth.

Leans forward and grips his chin in his hands, tilts him upwards just like he did with his makeup, and fits their mouths together like it’s every single answer he could have given him, better than any words. San thinks that it is.

He kisses him like he’s taking him apart slowly, San feeling the way the lipsticks glide together, smooth and soft, his senses flooded with Wooyoung, eyes falling shut to the way the room darkens completely, and it’s just Wooyoung, it’s all Wooyoung.

Everything is. San surges a bit upwards to meet him, not wanting him to curve too far down over the table, and he’s keeping his hands resolutely gripping the fabric of his pants until he feels Wooyoung’s hands seek them out, guide them upwards, place them on his thighs. He feels the one still covered in fabric, the other bare, and his fingers spread, gently sliding upwards as he takes in every single inch. Feels the way Wooyoung urges his mouth open, licks inside and flicks his tongue against his teeth, and San groans, low in his throat as his hands keep creeping upwards.

Wooyoung’s hands have slid in what seems like appreciation over each curve of muscle, up and up until he reaches San’s dried, soft hair, fingers threading through and gripping at his nape, and it lets him turn San as he wants, tilting his own as he halfway controls the kiss, keeps San reigned in as he kisses back, a little unfocused at first until he finds the rhythm that Wooyoung sets.

His skin is so soft underneath his hands, his own fingers covered in work worn callouses, and he feels almost unworthy to graze them over his thighs, reaches the edge of the robe he’s wearing and doesn’t dare go any farther. He feels the way his tongue slides over his own, exploring each inch of his mouth, and wonders idly if they’re messing up the lipstick that Wooyoung had placed on them both, but then one of Wooyoung’s hands leaves his hair to go to his lips. Tracing over the edge and pulling outwards from the corner, effectively smearing it halfway across his cheek as they finally part.

San gasps in air, feeling it swell in his chest as Wooyoung knocks their foreheads together with a small laugh.

“I think that’s what you needed.” Wooyoung says, and San finds himself leaning forward to brush his nose against his, lips gently meeting again. He can’t help himself now that he’s tasted him, sweet and cloying and addictive, the want rumbling through his chest with their proximity.

“A kiss?” San asks, a little breathless, unable to keep himself from smiling, giddy elation bubbling up in him to have Wooyoung this close. It feels like a dream, everything hazy at the edges. He realizes the candles have really blown out, though, and he can only see Wooyoung because he’s so close, otherwise, the rest of the room is dipped in darkness.

Wooyoung shakes his head a little and somehow finds the willpower to pull away, something San doesn’t think he would have it in himself to do, but he keeps his hands still resting at his thighs, one shy of his waist but not daring to go any further.

“Your lipstick wasn’t the right color. I think it’ll look better, now that it’s mixed with mine.” He says, and Wooyoung slides off the desk, fingers trailing over San’s shoulders as he finds his way to the candles, locates matches and San hears the slide, the way the flame flickers to life. And as Wooyoung lights them one by one, and San watches the room come back to light, he thinks that it’s quite a silly excuse to say that he wanted to kiss him. It makes him smile harder, anyways.

It’s what he sees when he finally turns to the mirror, having almost forgotten what Wooyoung had been doing to him in the first place. He’s almost frozen in place as he takes it in, dazed, glassy eyes and his mouth smeared in dark, roguish red, color smudged to his cheek. His eyes, lined and framed in dark shadows, each slope of his features defined, flush to his cheeks probably worsened by the kiss. His hair, too, tousled from the way Wooyoung had run his fingers through it, and San doesn’t even recognize himself.

He looks- He looks like-

Wooyoung appears behind him, then, hands sliding over his shoulders, down his arms.

“Look at you.” He says, and his smile is knowing, warm, one of his fingers dipping underneath his collar and gently pulling it down, exposing San’s collarbones, the downwards slope of his chest.

He looks like Wooyoung. He looks like he’s glowing. He looks like he would want people to look.

He wants Wooyoung to look at him.

San turns on the stool and reaches upwards, hand curling around the back of his neck to pull him down into another kiss. He’s twisted where he sits, but he’s desperate to have Wooyoung’s lips on his own again, craves it, needs it, doesn’t know how to breathe another unwilling breath until he has it again. Until he has Wooyoung close, he has Wooyoung looking, breathing, tasting him.

Wooyoung makes a surprised noise against his lips but he still kisses back immediately, melting into it in a way that San can feel with his hands, one at his waist, feeling how it fits there just as well as earlier, the other supportive as it slides up along his back, pulling Wooyoung closer, thinking that if he could get down on his knees and worship him now, it would be like this, every single inch.

He must seem desperate enough to have them closer, evident enough to Wooyoung to have him shifting and moving to sit on San’s lap while trying to keep their lips connected. Wooyoung’s arms slide around his shoulders as he settles sideways, and San’s arms wrap around him to keep him steady, one around his lower back, the other, following down the seam of his robe over his lap, toying with that line where he knows the soft expanse of his thighs lie underneath. It falls open in his exploration, and Wooyoung huffs a laugh against San’s lips, sticky with lipstick and the spit between them, and reaches down to flip the robe open, having it part at his hips where it’s tied as it exposes his thighs.

“You can touch me if you want. I’m kissing you, I want you to. Told you I like it when people look, and if I’m kissing you, San, I want you to touch.” Wooyoung tells him, and connects their lips again, San distracted by his lips as he lets his hand roam, up and down his thigh, gently petting over the skin. He dares to let his hand travel farther to his hip, close to where it’s warm, and he can’t help the noise he makes against his mouth as he feels what Wooyoung is wearing underneath the robe.

He’s wearing panties. Lace, from what his fingers can tell, and he’s torn between the way he leans forward to kiss him even harder, sinking his teeth into his bottom lip, and pulling away just to see how they sit against his hip, look against his skin. He hears, feels, an amused rumble in Wooyoung’s chest as San discovers them, and San thinks Wooyoung really might be able to wonder about the future, tell about every one of San’s deepest, darkest desires, even if he no longer sits in the once ice cream parlor and instead soars through the sky.

San’s thumb tucks underneath the fabric and gently pulls, lets it snap back against Wooyoung’s hip and feels the heat roll through him like a wave when it makes Wooyoung whimper, even smudged against his mouth, and he wants to hear it again.

“San.” Wooyoung says, and it gets lost in another series of kisses, and San almost wishes he could bruise his mouth with his, leave him with something that he can feel for days, licks over that mole he knows resides beneath the swell of his bottom lip, that he takes his time to chart over.

“What?” He asks a moment later, still massaging over his hip, where the panties are, and recognizes the way Wooyoung squirms on his lap, hands tightening on his shoulders.

“You keep doing that and I’ll want you to take me to bed.” Wooyoung warns, and San bites a little too hard on his lip and makes Wooyoung keen, and San pulls back for a moment as his breath draws ragged in his chest, in and out, and he tries to calm himself down. His eyes dart downwards, watching the way the lace curls around his thumb, the way it lays against Wooyoung’s skin. He wants to take them off of him. He wants him to keep them on.

He tastes blood on his tongue and realizes that the way he’d sunk his teeth into Wooyoung’s lip has colored them bright, brilliant red, almost as red as his hair. There’s a quiet growl in his throat as he leans forward and licks over what he’s created, the blood metallic on his tongue.

Wooyoung moans, and San smells copper in the air, clashing with the cloying flowers that surround him. It feels like he’s done something to him, interrupting the smell, like he’s left his mark. It satisfies something in his chest, and he laps at it again, Wooyoung’s hands sliding up his throat, cupping over the curve of San’s jaw on either side.

“San.” Wooyoung says again, and he finally pulls back, looks up to him to see Wooyoung just as ruined as San had seen himself in the mirror, eyes wide and shining with a million stars.

“Take me to bed.” Wooyoung tells him, and San doesn’t really think twice about it. He slides his hand underneath the crook of his knees and around his lower back and lifts him without issue, crossing the short distance to deposit him on his bed, spread out among the sheets and the pillows that are tossed haphazardly across its surface. His robe falls open in the process, and San’s eyes roam over the slope of his thighs, fallen open to invite him in, his fingers undoing the tie at his waist to reveal himself fully.

The tapering of his waist is what draws his eyes, the way the black lace of the panties hug his hips, and San leans his knee against the bed as he lets his hands draw upwards from thigh to waist, fingers massaging over the expanse of skin as Wooyoung sits up on his elbows.

“You really like them, huh?” He says, and San nods, sees the way Wooyoung’s eyes follow down his chest to the hem of his shirt and he tears one hand away to lift it off, exposing the line of his skin, the hard-worked muscle that curves down over his abdomen, the low waist of his pants, a little too big to stay on his hips. Wooyoung looks hungry, lipstick smeared almost down his chin, and reaches out to pull forward on them, and bring San right where he wants him.

“You’re beautiful.” San says it as his hands massage over his hips, working over the hem of the lace as he shuffles onto the bed, and Wooyoung wraps his thighs around his waist. It keeps San locked close, like he could even fathom a reason to pull away from him right now, and San dips down to kiss over his collarbones that he’d been staring at. He nips at his skin, greedy with the way he lets his teeth sink, leaving Wooyoung covered in small pockets of bloomed reds and purples.

Wooyoung keeps making all of these pretty noises beneath him, body writhing as San’s hands work up and down his sides, exploring, holding onto that tiny little waist and pressing him down into the bed. He’s been a little resolute about not focusing on where Wooyoung probably wants him to touch the most, having tried to avert his gaze from the way he’d already half hardened in the panties from their kisses, and knows it’s not secret with the way his cock curves in his pants, tenting the front of them, even more obvious without his shirt to cover it over.

“Have you ever fucked anyone before?” Wooyoung asks as his hands slide down San’s chest, appreciating each dip, and San feels it like there’s fire in his fingertips, nods once.

“Only a few times. Never meant anything.” What he means is that it was awkward, and San never really felt right in his skin, always got off and left, more like fumbling hands trying to learn with who was around, limited choices and a desire to know. It had been so long since it’d happened that he felt distant enough from it to be embarrassed about the time in between.

It’s muscle memory, he tries to tell himself, as he curves down, Wooyoung shifts upwards, fits their hips together and grinds his cock against San’s still in his pants. He groans and follows the movement, one hand sliding around and underneath his lower back to help guide him, half supporting him as Wooyoung moves just as sinfully as he imagined he could, bending at San’s will, at how he presses against him without complaint.

“Fuck.” Wooyoung mutters, and seems already a little out of breath, and San pauses on his trail right down the middle of his chest to look at the way they fit together. He can see Wooyoung’s cock through the lace, making it sticky and wet where the tip lies, pushing red and swollen between the gaps. It’s delicious, and San swallows, because he’s a bit bigger than Wooyoung is, thick where he’s a little more thin, curved, pretty, and San grinds his hips down harder.

“There’s-” Wooyoung’s cut off by a moan when San angles his hips a little differently, sitting back a bit on his heels as he brings Wooyoung with him, practically guiding Wooyoung over his cock with one arm. San smirks a little despite himself at the easy way he distracts him, and Wooyoung’s furrowed brows when he looks up and finds him doing it on purpose is what makes him laugh. His heels dig into San’s back.

“There’s lube in that drawer.” He finishes telling him, and San mourns the way he’s going to have to pull away to do it.

“Condoms?” San asks, but he’s shifting, letting Wooyoung lie fully down against the bed as he leans over him to get to the drawer, stretching to open it and feel around for a bottle.

“No. I want to feel you.” Wooyoung says, and his voice seems close, somehow, but then his mouth is closing around one of San’s nipples, sucking hard, and it kicks a moan out of San, looking down a moment and only able to see the fiery halo of his hair as he laps at his nipple and sends a shock that trembles down San’s spine. Combined with the way he just admitted he wants to feel him- raw, full, it makes San’s cock throb. “You’re clean, right?” San bites his lip, nods, and Wooyoung does the same.

His fingers finally close around a bottle and he comes back with it, a bit carefully as Wooyoung is still licking and laving over his nipple, and settles down on his knees as Wooyoung brings himself up, eyes flickering upwards to look at him as one of his hands shifts down, curls over San’s cock and gives him a few easy, sure strokes over the fabric. It drags just on the right side of painful, and San groans and cradles his nape as he switches to his other nipple.

“I’m convinced you’re not real. This is a dream. Ever since you found me earlier in that crowd, I’ve been dreaming.” He murmurs, and Wooyoung hums as he turns his nipple pink and swollen underneath his lips, lipstick on his chest, now, more kisses he dots along San’s pecks, leaving his mark.

“I could say the same about you. I’m here for years until you show up, feeling empty and unfinished, and in just a few short weeks, you turn my world upside down. You know how much I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you? Wishing you would get the hint that I wanted you to kiss me?” He laughs softly at the dumbfounded look on San’s face, like he’s thought this whole time that it’s been incredibly one sided.

“You think too much.” Wooyoung repeats himself, and it’s true, San loses himself to his thoughts more often than he’d like to admit, maybe more than he’s even self aware of. “So I have to make sure I clear out that pretty head of yours so you can finally see me.” He continues, and his hand finally tugs down San’s pants, and he kicks them off as they get to his knees, falling over the side of the bed.

Bare like this, his cock stands fully hard, bobbing against his abdomen and smearing precum against his belly button, and Wooyoung takes the opportunity of San up on his knees to get rid of his pants fully, to lean forward and lap at the tip of his cock. He cleans up what mess he’s caused there as San moans at the sight, tossing the lube down in favor of petting through his hair once more.

“Want to put more of that lipstick on you just so I could ruin it again. With my cock, instead of kissing it off you.” San says, voice a little rough as Wooyoung half sinks his mouth down his length, warm, wet heat that makes his head kick back, trying to keep his hips still from jutting forward. They still do a little, but Wooyoung doesn’t even complain about it, San feels the way his throat flutters like it’s inviting him forward.

“Shit. Can you take it all?” San’s mesmerized, Wooyoung’s eyes wide and warm and he uses the grip in his hair to push Wooyoung further down on his cock, until his nose is nestled against his abdomen and he can feel his throat swallow around the tip.

He curses again, a wicked flare of heat as his other hand shifts downwards to curl around his throat. He squeezes just a little, swears he can feel his own cock and hears the way Wooyoung whimpers, and so he keeps his grip just like that as he eases his cock back out just to the tip, and then thrusts back inside.

“Stars, look at you. Look at you, Wooyoung, do you like this? Get off on your throat getting used?” San asked, building a steady rhythm, feeling his throat bob underneath his fingers, the way the tears gather at the corners of Wooyoung’s eyes, but all he does is hum, and San feels his throat vibrate and he groans at the feeling, chasing more of it as Wooyoung gurgles, spit spilling from his full cheeks.

It’s probably dripping down onto the bed between them with the way San is taking just what he wants, using Wooyoung’s throat, and it makes the pleasure rush up on him all at once, enough that he fully pulls his cock out of Wooyoung’s mouth before he gets a little too into the wet warmth and spills before they’ve even done all that they wanted to. It makes Wooyoung whine, high and reedy, enough that San makes a soft noise in response and dips down to kiss him.

Kisses him through the spit and the lipstick, the telltale lingering taste of himself in Wooyoung’s mouth as he licks it open, enjoys the way Wooyoung bends for him, opens up, lets him devour.

“You’re perfect. So fucking perfect, Wooyoung.” San murmurs, pulling back to nip at his lips, looking at the dazed look in his eyes, hand coasting over his cheeks where they bulged with the curve of his cock just moments ago.

“You’re so big, San. It feels so good, having my mouth filled like that. Fuck, it’s only going to feel better once you’re inside me.” Wooyoung says, brutally honest, voice a little wrecked even though San hadn’t done much, and San feels himself falling, completely and utterly devastated.

“You think so?” San teases, and Wooyoung swats at his arm lightly, lays back against the pillows and spreads his legs. “Stretch me open? Want to feel your fingers instead of mine.”

“Anything you want, angel.” San murmurs, doesn’t even think about it, and Wooyoung smiles, warm, unyielding, as bright as the sun, soft for what’s happening between them.

“I like that.” He says, and he isn’t even shy about it as San kneels his way forward, spreads his thighs farther with his hands and feels around for the bottle of lube. San manages to look a little sheepish about it as he opens the cap and spreads the liquid on his fingers, warming it up as his other hand returns to his thighs, petting up and down over the inner sensitive side, right to the edge of his panties and back.

“Angel?” San says, and it really had slipped out, as San raises one of Wooyoung’s legs over his hip, gets in closer. He doesn’t bother taking the panties off, likes the way Wooyoung’s cock pushes against the lace as he tucks them to the side, presses the pads of his fingers to his entrance as Wooyoung sighs, pleased, and nods, his arms up beside his head, fingers feeling to curl around the pillows supporting him. He looks the picture of the nickname, spread out like this all for San, warm and letting him in, pretty and pink and golden.

He circles around to warm up the skin, feels Wooyoung clench and relax, presses in the pad of his pointer finger and feels the way that he opens up for him. It’s been so long since San had done this, and it had been to himself, and it’s all of the guide that he has as he presses the finger slowly inside. It makes Wooyoung melt above him, like it was everything he wanted and more, pretty smile on his lips as he lets out a small, melodic noise, his other leg opening up further, like he could invite more of San in.

“You’re going to be so pretty on my cock if you keep acting like that.” San tells him, and it’s true, Wooyoung’s eyes flickering up to him from where they’d lay closed, and he looks every bit of the provocation that San knew him to be, like he had gotten exactly everything he wanted.

“I’ll be the prettiest.” One of his hands comes down, and his fingers wrap around San’s cock, smearing some of the precum down over the length and pumping slowly, teasing, maybe just as much as San’s finger inside of him, letting him get used to it. It makes San groan and pick up the pace, drawing it in and out steadily, and Wooyoung matches him in turn with his hand on his cock, the same exact rhythm.

Leaning over him, San gets hit with a sweet smell, something like caramelized sugar, and realizes it must be the lube that Wooyoung had told him to get, and he hums as he pulls a finger out to add a second alongside it, watching as Wooyoung arches as he reintroduces them both.

“Your lube smells sweet, like sugar.” He comments, feels the way Wooyoung stretches on his fingers as he scissors him open, watches him squirm with barely veiled amusement, the pleased little sighs he keeps letting fall past his swollen lips, humming again.

“Does it?” Wooyoung says, and San hums in return, moving his fingers a little bit faster to try and see if he can make Wooyoung even louder, wonders if these trailers are soundproof but finds he doesn’t care too much, if it means that everyone knows Wooyoung is being made to feel this way by someone, if they find out that it’s him, that no one else has ever made him this loud, this pleased.

“Yeah. Nice and sweet, just like you.” San tells him, and watches on as Wooyoung gets a little ahead of himself, starts fucking himself down on San’s fingers in line with the way that San thrusts them inside, bottom lip between his teeth. The comment feels cheesy but San already feels so gone, the sight of Wooyoung driving him to a madness he thinks he doesn’t ever want to recover from.

San likes watching the way his hips roll down onto it, every bit a rhythm of a dancer and a performer, taking what he needs and craves. San adds another finger and Wooyoung cries out, his fingers curling as he presses up against his prostate, and it makes him that much more desperate, whiny, his hand falling away from San’s cock as he tries to prop himself up enough to move faster on his fingers.

“Fuck, right there. Right there, San, don’t stop.” Wooyoung gasps out, pretty mouth falling open, and San smiles, pushes Wooyoung down onto the bed and pins his hip down with a hand, and instead gives him what he’s asking for. Fucking him hard and fast on his fingers, feeling the way Wooyoung tries to arch against him as he cries out, rushed little breaths panting past his lips as San relentlessly fucks him open.

He’s more than ready for his cock, but San’s obsessed with the way Wooyoung reacts to every single one of his touches, wonders how long until he’ll be asking for that, too.

“I- Fuck, San, can you just-” Wooyoung says, and San looks up to see his eyebrows desperately written together across his forehead, pleasure evident across his features. He looks a little out of it, glassy eyes that make San want to give him everything he’s ever wanted. The way he stretches his fingers inside him must make him trail off, but San knows what he wants.

“Can you take all of it, angel? Every inch? You said I was so big, do you think I’ll fit?” San asks, and he lets his fingers gradually slow down as he watches Wooyoung nod, other hand grabbing for his hip, for him, and San repositions himself, pulls his fingers out with a resounding whine from Wooyoung as he recoats his cock with the lube, burnt, spun sugar filling the room as he works his hand over his cock.

Wooyoung’s eyes are on him, the way he strokes over himself languid, like they have all of the time in the world. They do.

“Angel.” San calls sweetly, and Wooyoung’s eyes finally come up to his eyes, and San smiles, almost a coo. “Focus.”

“I can take it all. Can take it all, San. Or- Or I’ll make it fit, want it all to fit.” Wooyoung says, and he looks so pitiful, so desperate, San can’t help but give it to him, give him everything. Wants to smooth down that furrow of his brows with every inch of his cock that he feeds inside him.

“Yes, you can. You’re going to take it all, Wooyoung. I’ll make sure of it, too.” San says, and lines up the tip of his cock to his entrance, smearing more lube there, already wet and stretched, rim pink as San lets the tip catch and sink inside.

It has both of them moaning in unison, Wooyoung looking eager enough to try and take all of him at once, and it has San reaching out for his hip to press him down again, let San work his cock into his hole at his own pace, letting a few inches sink in before he pulls out, fucks back in again, watching the way Wooyoung’s hole continually sucks him in, eager, so fucking tight.

Every few new inches San lets sink in has Wooyoung letting out another cry, and he seems close to tears just from San working him on half his cock alone, addicted to the way he watches him stretch and take it. One of his hands goes down, thumbing at his rim and making him shake, watching his cock ease inside and stretch it further. The lube has the whole room smelling sweet, and it’s almost as intoxicating as Wooyoung around him, sniffling and San watching his eyes gleam as he finally gets to the hilt.

It’s where he sits, feeling a little dizzy, out of it as Wooyoung sits full of his cock, and San reaches up to wipe away the tears that are pooling in his eyes, that have made tracks down from the corners and into his hair.

“See? You took it all, angel, you did so well.” San murmurs, and feels his heart clench as Wooyoung nuzzles into his palm, one of his hands rising up to hold it against his cheek. His skin there is warm, flushed, and San rubs his thumb over it as he lets him get used to the stretch.

“Make me feel so full, Sannie. Haven’t felt this full in such a long time.” Wooyoung says, voice a little slurred, that happy, cock stuffed grin on his lips that San shifts his hand down to thumb over.

“You were made for cock, weren’t you, baby? Made to take it, look at how pretty you look on it.” San tells him, and takes a moment to experimentally pull his hips halfway and fuck back in, nice and slow. The glide’s fucking perfect, and it abates the way Wooyoung had started to squirm with San staying still, pulling a low whine from him instead. It’s almost as nice as when he sings, and San is going to make him sing even louder for him.

He works on a pace that’s steadily pulling only half of his length out, grinding back and forth and making sure he hits deep inside him, and Wooyoung seems like he likes it, hands reaching out to grip tightly onto San’s hips, his ankles digging into the backs of his thighs as San takes his time.

It’s like Wooyoung’s had him in a trance ever since he met him, because he didn’t even know he was capable of this. Of finding someone that sex felt so good with, that made him feel so ease, the way Wooyoung’s eyes are shining up at him making him feel like nothing else matters but him. It makes some sort of adrenaline run through him like a live wire, making it easy to punch his hips forward, chase after what makes him feel good.

It makes his mouth run, too, more than he ever thought it could. He thinks maybe there’s something good after all about his mind constantly inundated with thoughts, the comments flow out of him like water, and he likes the way it only makes Wooyoung squeeze tighter on his cock every time he opens his mouth.

Wooyoung’s lips part just enough for San to slide his finger inside, and he tucks another alongside it for good measure, watching his pink lips close, tongue gliding along the pads of his fingers. He presses them down onto his tongue as he fucks him, and stars, he’s so fucking beautiful like this, spread out on silks and soft blankets, speared open on his cock and taking him so well. San’s surprised he’s lasted this long, his other hand reaching down to Wooyoung’s cock to jerk him off in time with his thrusts.

He likes the way Wooyoung’s eyes flutter shut, eyes rolling back as San strokes into him deep, and he gets his knees half underneath him to fully jostle him on his dick, liking the way he arches for it.

“Will you cum for me? Show me how good you look when you’re on my cock?” San asks, fingers squeezing around his dick, and Wooyoung nods helplessly around his fingers, whimpering around them as the spit drips from the corners of his mouth. He’s a mess and he’s beautiful, and San has done every single bit of it to him.

His fingers slip from his mouth because he wants to hear him, and each punch of his hips against his ass has Wooyoung calling out his name, raspy from the way he took his cock down his throat earlier.

“Feels so good, San, please, fill me up, want to- want to feel you fill me up, so- fuck, mmn!” San cuts him off with a particularly hard thrust, and it must be right against his prostate, because Wooyoung almost goes rigid with it, his thighs shaking around San’s hips, and he’s finally cumming, loud enough everyone in the vicinity can probably tell he’s getting fucked.

It makes San use the last burst of energy he has to carry him through it, milking Wooyoung’s cock, watching him spill round after round onto his stomach as San follows him over. He bends with it, completely caging in Wooyoung against the bed as his hips rut the rest of his orgasm deep inside, filling him up until he can't hold anymore. Feels it spill where his cock displaces the rest, San nuzzling against the skin of his neck.

They lay there for a while to catch their breath. Wooyoung’s made him surprisingly clingy, because he sits there until he’s forced to pull out, cock too soft to keep him plugged up any longer, and he carefully untangles his thighs from around his hips as he lays down next to him. Fingers dancing along his ribcage, finding the spaces that make Wooyoung laugh, breathless, San pressing kisses to his shoulder every time he accidentally finds one.

“I’m never letting you leave my trailer, actually.” Wooyoung says after a little while, his fingers having woven through San’s hair, petting through it so gently it makes him melt into his bed, still mouthing along his skin without any real motive.

“Yeah?” San asks, laughing softly and drawing Wooyoung closer.

“Yeah. I’m going to tell Hongjoong hyung to fire you, and then I’m going to rehire you to stay in my trailer all day for when I need you.”

“You want to hire me for my dick?” San can’t help but laugh even harder, pressed against Wooyoung’s collarbones, and he can feel the huffs of Wooyoung’s giggles in his hair, nodding. “You can have me for free. Whenever you want.”

“You might regret letting me take you up on that.”

“I don’t think I ever would. You’re perfect, Wooyoung.” San says quietly, and one of Wooyoung’s hands comes to rest on his cheek, caressing it gently with a thumb. He tilts his chin up and lets their lips slot together, soft and warm.

“Hush. Will you help clean me up so we can sleep?” San nods, already a little sleepy and thinking about what a long walk it’ll be back to his bed, but the word we gets stuck in his brain as he’s reaching for some sort of wipes on the bedside table that he was sure he shuffled aside earlier while he was looking for the lube.

His hair’s a little astray as he finds the wipes, and turns to Wooyoung, confusion pulling at his brows.

“I can stay?” He asks, voice quiet, and Wooyoung looks so warm spread across the pillows, waiting patiently for him to return.

“Of course you can stay. You’re obligated to give me cuddles after you fucked me like that. Also, do you know how warm you are?” Wooyoung tells him, and San can’t help but smile, and it makes his heart swell in his chest, almost like he doesn’t know where else it could expand, but he’s so happy. So happy to just be wanted. To be seen.

“It’s a blessing and a curse. It’s terrible trying to sleep at night with all of my clothes on.” San says, and he’s finally getting out the wipes to help clean Wooyoung up, careful as he tries not to miss anything, gentle to his skin that he had been so harsh with earlier. Wooyoung makes small little hisses through his teeth, but it’s broken up with laughter at the imagery San presents him with.

“Well, if you sleep here, then you don’t have to wear anything at all.” That makes San perk up, because he was really lamenting the pants.

“Maybe you don’t even need to hire me, I’ll just start hiding away here anyways. It has you, and no pants. A man’s dream.”

“Maybe just your dream, Sannie.”

His arms curl around Wooyoung when he’s done, half pulling a blanket over him so Wooyoung doesn’t catch a chill, but he manages to loop his arms around him and pull him close, half against his chest so San can kiss the top of his head, his forehead where his hair falls soft and clears a space for him to do so.

“Yeah. My dream.” San murmurs, and falls asleep just like that, a world away from all that he’s ever known, but with everything he thinks he might have ever wanted.

San dreams of white. At first, it’s blinding, but warm, and San would sink into it willingly if he didn’t feel some kind of looming danger, like what he always feels. Like if he turned a corner, something would be waiting for him there, hands reached out to grab. And usually, he doesn’t remember dreams, but walking through this one feels like pools of water underneath his feet, rippling with every single step he takes.

He walks towards something hazy, a circular distortion with an image on it, and it’s home. It’s the farm he grew up on, growing cabbage and radish, persimmons sweet and juice ripe, cherries and lemons that his mother would make into lemonade, and he would climb into the trees, reaching high for a blue sky coated in cotton clouds, and the wind was warm and true. It was simple, then. San didn’t have to worry about anything but trying to reach for the next branch, to drop another fruit down from the tree for his mother to catch. He knew she was there, she would catch him, but he also knew he wouldn’t fall.

Reaching out, he feels like he could almost skirt his fingers along the bark, remember what it was like to feel it unyielding beneath his hands, but in this place, it billows like fabric, bends, and he falls through, falling, like he’d let go of the branches and he’s waiting for the landing, the free fall much more peaceful than he would’ve thought.

He’s in his living room. It’s the dark red couch that’s sunken in towards the middle with age, the radio playing low in the background, crackling because they couldn’t find a station that played clearly this far out. Underneath, there’s a low melody, and it sounds like something San has heard before, but he doesn’t know what it is.

A lot of the time, his mother would sit him down on the couch and tell him stories until he nodded off, and sometimes carry him up to bed to sleep. He remembers them being about clouds, and flowers that bloomed in every season, and brilliant, bright summers that led into heavy snows, forming angels on the ground in the powdery, sparkling white. Animals that followed along with every single word, deer and chipmunks that would perch on trees and watch over you. Rainbows that bent like sunshine, rain that tasted sweet, like sugar melting on your tongue.

Often, she would leave him lying there in the living room once he drifted off, draped in a blanket because it was cooler downstairs then it was upstairs, and she could leave the light on in the kitchen for him. San can’t always remember all of the stories she told him, but he does remember this, watches it happen, now, his mother taking San’s cheeks in her hands, looking him right in the eyes.

It’s odd, he never remembered them glowing. But his mother had always glowed, hasn’t she? Brilliant and shining, like the bright flakes of snow in the winter.

“Are you awake? Never tell anyone, San. Never tell anyone anything.” There’s a pull in his chest, like he’s being swept downwards, like he’s being twisted around, like the wind is knocked out of him.

She’s reaching forward, laying her palms over San’s eyes.

“Never tell anyone anything at all. Open your eyes.”

San’s dipped into darkness, it enfolding him from all around. He lets himself sink.

San keeps returning to Wooyoung’s trailer. At one point, he ends up moving his backpack there, too, always worrying about his things someday not being there when he gets back. But when they’re at Wooyoung’s place, he knows they’re safe and sound, the flyer tucked neatly into the front pocket, his clothes and small trinkets he plucked from his dresser, heart heavy with homesickness before he even left.

Wooyoung starts leaving pieces of himself in every little part of San’s life. It’s the hickies on his neck he tries to cover with his turtleneck, it’s that dazed, happy smile that leaves him everytime he catches Wooyoung and drags him into some hidden corner, kissing him until they’re both out of breath. It’s his clothes that start to become his own, and even if it used to be Yeosang’s, Seonghwa’s, Hongjoong’s, now they all share it, and San smells flowers everywhere he goes.

It’s in his hair, on his jacket, his scarf. He doesn’t mind it, actually, because it makes him think about how Wooyoung carries these things with him, too, and it’s not like they’re being entirely secretive about it, but all of the looks Yeosang has been giving him leads him to believe it’s easy to see that’s something’s going on.

“Wooyoung keeps smiling all of the time, whenever I see him.” Yeosang says, and it’s some of the first snowfall of the season, lightly dusting the grounds as they share dinner. Seonghwa’s supposed to return at some point, but San swears he just saw Hongjoong just go off in the same way to the kitchens, too. San leads another spoonful of soup to his mouth and tries to hide a smile, but he knows he’s failing, miserably.

It feels good to know that he’s able to bring him that sort of happiness. He thinks he would feel that way about being able to make anyone happy, but there’s something special about Wooyoung that makes San feel like he’s practically flying, like he’s the one that’s twirled up in the fabric, spinning through the air. San thinks that it’s just how Wooyoung makes people feel, like they’re flying.

Yeosang takes his silence for what it is and continues, taking small pieces of the roll of bread that he has and picking it into tiny little pieces, piling them up into a small pile on a neatly folded napkin. San doesn’t say anything about it, raising an eyebrow at him. “And so are you.”

“And?” San leads him on, amused, and finally lets his spoon rest against the side of his bowl. “Am I not supposed to notice whenever you go and find Jongho and have him give you all of those stuffed animals? Or is it really not just the stuffed animals, because you’re usually gone for quite a long time-”

Someone sits down next to him with a whirl of lilac scented smoke, and as San feels arms wind around his middle, he’s effectively cut off at the way Wooyoung squeezes at him, hand coming up to rub over his arm. It was perfect timing, because Yeosang is turning a shade of red across the table, effectively tearing the bread apart in his hands with a bit more force.

“What are we talking about? Yeosangie, don’t do that to your bread, eat it.” Wooyoung says, picking up San’s spoon and taking a bite of his soup for himself. San can’t help but turn and press his smile into Wooyoung’s hair, letting him have several bites as one of his arms curl around his lower back.

“I was just telling Yeosang about how the other day I saw him going towards the games-”

“And about how close you two have gotten lately.” Yeosang cuts in, picking up the little pieces of bread to pour them back into his soup. “Look. I am going to eat it, and it’s much better than the way you’re doing it.” He says, referring to the way Wooyoung is trying to gnaw off a piece of San’s bread with his teeth, and San’s trying not to think about how he kind of looks like a raccoon doing it, sharp incisors sunk into the meat of it, soup on the corners of his mouth.

Wooyoung’s frowning at him as San reaches for a napkin to wipe off the sides of his mouth, and it directs his attention right back, in which he beams up at San with his cheeks full when San’s done. His eyes say thank you, and San reaches up to clear his hair away from his eyes to say you’re welcome.

“They’re doing that thing where they’re talking without really saying anything again, aren’t they?” Seonghwa says as he sits down at the table, two steaming bowls of soup and bowls of rice, and an errant piece of bread. San’s left wondering what the extra soup is for until Hongjoong shows up, a rare occurrence to actually have him sit down with them, but one San doesn’t comment on. He sits on Seonghwa’s other side, plucking the bowls off of Seonghwa’s tray and in turn throwing everyone a carton of milk or juice.

San’s not picky about what he grabs, but Wooyoung darts his hand out once he spots something and just narrowly grabs it from Yeosang’s, bending the opening to take a sip and immediately sticking his tongue out at him after. Underneath the table, Wooyoung’s throwing a thigh over one of his own, and San doesn’t even hesitate about placing a hand over the curve, gently rubbing up and down as he sips at the strawberry milk he’d grabbed.

“I should’ve seen it coming, they’re evil together. It’s terrible.” Hongjoong says, mouth half pulled into a grimace as he scoops a few spoonfuls of rice into the soup and mixes it together. Wooyoung’s content with the juice he’d found, now leaning his head against San’s shoulder, body relaxed against his side, and by San’s guess, trying to steal as much warmth as he can. San could half feel him shivering as it is, pulling him closer.

“We’re not evil. What about you and Seonghwa hyung? Extra evil, and you have more power.” Wooyoung sniffs, and Hongjoong levels him with a stare.

“When have you ever let that stop you before?” He asks, and Wooyoung just laughs, rubbing his cheek against San’s shoulder.

“You’re right, I haven’t. And now I have Sannie to back me up.” He turns and looks at him, wide, gleaming eyes, and San has to do everything in his power to not kiss him right there.

“Right?” Wooyoung says, and San nods, clearing his throat. Looks up, and sees Hongjoong staring at him, and for all of the way he likes to make sure everyone knows that they all ruffle his feathers, there’s some warmth there. San thinks he puts on a show more than anything.

He manages to look a bit sheepish at him, turns to his milk instead in lieu of an answer because he wouldn’t change it, even for Hongjoong, and sees Jongho trudging towards them through the snow. He’s bringing Mingi and Yunho behind him, wrapped up in scarves and puffy jackets. They spend a lot of their time out in the booths, managing the games and giving out prizes, so they’ve been out in the cold for the longest out of any of them.

Jongho performs in the main show with Wooyoung, but he’s specifically part of the acts who sing, even has a solo performance near the end to round out the show. It makes sense that he’s already carrying something hot to drink with him, always does no matter what time of the year it is and the temperature, the smoke curling up in front of his face as they close the distance between the table and he sits on the other side of Yeosang.

“Hey. Did you already eat?” He hears Yeosang ask him, voice a little lower, a little softer. Jongho nods, setting down his cup but curling his hands around it to help keep them warm.

“I did earlier when I had a bit of a break. Are they being disgusting already?” He says, and Wooyoung tears off a piece of bread to throw at him, and then at Yeosang, when he solemnly nods and he and Jongho share a quiet moment before bursting out into laughter.

Yunho and Mingi wave on the way to go and get something for dinner, but Yunho’s fussing with Mingi’s scarf as soon as they get underneath the awning, tucking it tighter around his shoulders as he makes a beeline for one of the heaters.

“Maybe I’ll steal San so we can go and be disgusting somewhere else.” Wooyoung mumbles, and San just pats quietly at his thigh, because if anything, he had seen enough to qualify any of them for that sort of thing. He was pretty sure Hongjoong and Seonghwa were playing footsie under the table, for the amount of times Hongjoong kept squirming and then trying to appear normal by sitting up completely straight. Seonghwa looks too pleased with himself every time he does it.

“Please do.” Yeosang says, but it’s with laughter, and probably an opening for them if they wanted to go. Wooyoung finished the rest of San’s soup, and he was already pretty done by the time he’d shown up, anyways. They both take it for what it is, Wooyoung detangling himself from San and getting up first just for him to follow, gathering up his tray.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” He responds to the chorus of goodbyes, Wooyoung latching onto his arm and sliding his hands around it, clinging to his side as San throws away his trash and replaces the tray and bowls for washing in the bin.

“I don’t know why they all get so worked up about us fucking when they’re all doing it, too.” San comments, letting one of Wooyoung’s hands slip under his jacket, cold fingers seeking warmth as they step out into the snow.

“It’s just because they think they’re being less obvious about it. You can’t hide anything in this friend group.” Wooyoung mumbles, cheek tucked against his shoulder. There’s a bit of a skip in his step, then, and a tugging on his hand that has San looking down.

“You want me to show you something cool?” Wooyoung asks, sparkling eyes, and he can practically feel the excited flutter of his heart from here.

“Sure.” He says, and lets him lead the way.

There’s something about the park after nightfall and when all of the guests have left, a sort of barren, haunting quality that San finds to be quite beautiful. It’s even more so with the falling of the snow, coating the rooftops and the lanterns with it, illuminating their way as their footsteps crunch, leading a pathway towards more of the buildings that aren’t currently in use.

They’ve roped them off so guests don’t go wandering, and plus, there’s more exciting things if they stay on the pathway, anyways. But Wooyoung, snowflakes in his hair and his cheeks tinged pink, holds up the ropes and ducks under, and waits for San. He only hesitates for a moment before he swoops underneath, back up on the other side. The snow’s undisturbed, here, and he thinks it’ll be the only mark that they leave as Wooyoung leads him in further.

“Why here?” San says, and it’s then that Wooyoung reaches out for his hand, entangling their fingers together and swinging them between their bodies as they walk. Their hands may be cold, but it makes San warm enough just through the gesture, trying to count every little snowflake on Wooyoung’s eyelashes when he gets a look at him.

“Well, first of all, it’s off limits, which already makes it more exciting.” He explains, and San can already tell he’s excited by the way he kind of half jumps on his steps, probably also because of the snowfall, making everything look bright, ethereal, almost.

“And there’s so much of this park that didn’t get used. I know it’s because it still needs to be renovated, but I think it looks cool just the way it does, with all of the overgrown plants and the crumpled rock. And in the snow, it’s even prettier.” Wooyoung continues, ducking under awnings and bringing San along, and he’s glad for the fast way they move, helps him keep warm even in the frigid weather.

It’s underneath the next awning that San pulls Wooyoung closer instead of continuing to walk, arm looped around his lower waist as he drags him closer for a kiss. Ducks down to meet their lips together, breathing warmth across his mouth, too, licking between his teeth and waiting for that whimper he always manages to pull from Wooyoung’s throat. He kisses him until he’s dizzy with it, pulling back with a smile to see one of his favorite looks on him, thoroughly kissed, lips red and swollen and spit slick.

“Pretty. So fucking pretty.” He murmurs, and he watches the way Wooyoung preens with the praise, blooming like a flower underneath his hands, in which he’s given it all of the sun.

“You spoil me.”

“And you deserve it.” San returns, and Wooyoung leans up on his toes to press several more kisses to his lips, soft little brushes that really has San wondering how long their little adventure will be, until he can get him back to his trailer, pressed underneath his hands.

“You’re too distracting. Stop it.” Wooyoung says, and tugs on his hand, giving him one last kiss when San’s smile dimples his cheek and turns around, back on the path that he’d set for them originally.

“Stop kissing you?” San taunts quietly, and Wooyoung brings his hand up to nip at the back of it, before he hums and soothes it over with a kiss.

“No. You’re just too attractive and I can’t help it.”

“My poor baby. What have I done to you, hm? Can’t even do normal things because I’ve got you thinking about me.” He leans in to murmur it near his ear, Wooyoung’s cheeks flushed from the cold, maybe more from his words. “What are you thinking about, angel?”

“Choi San, I will bite you.” San laughs near the shell of his ear, pressing a kiss to his hair and relenting, letting Wooyoung go.

“I don’t think I’d be against that.” He tells him, and Wooyoung brings them in front of a building in which the door’s already hanging half open, stepping carefully over a crumbled entryway and bringing San with him.

“I’ll remember for next time, then.” Wooyoung says, and draws him further inside.

San thinks it would have been beautiful in all of its glory, because now, it’s breathtaking. The room opens up from the entryway into what San believes would have been a beautiful conservatory, a giant glass dome reaching high up into the sky, skylights broken to let in the moonlight, gentle smatterings of snow that sway down like fallen stars.

There’s several abandoned wooden tables, a broad, checkered flooring that’s cracked, plants pushing up through the broken pieces. Chairs drawn together around a barrel with remnants of a fire, and it just makes San think that they’re not the only ones who wonder about the rest of this place.

He wonders what it was used for, but maybe it was for people to rest and relax, maybe eat food from whatever used to be nearby eateries from before. San’s a little taken aback by just how much of this place still lays unused, and the quiet undisrupted state that they find it in makes it all the more beautiful, like he’s seeing something that had been hidden away long ago.

“It’s a shame we don’t use these places along with the rest of the park.”

“I know. We don’t have enough staff for it though, or money.”

“Why did the Conductor buy it anyway, then? If he couldn’t renovate it all?

“What would you do for a dream, San? Would you do anything?” Wooyoung asks, and he turns to look at him, having trailed away from San, their fingers parting between them, halfway reaching, as Wooyoung went to check out what’s happened since the last time he was here.

He’s outlined by snow and derelict shadows, the remnants of a past San couldn’t define, but he’s so bright, so clear, right here in front of him in the present.

San would do anything for his dream, he thinks.

“He only had so much money, but apparently he’d been wanting a place of his own for ages. Somewhere where he was free to perform, to witness art, in every form he could bring in. He needed more money, though, so the amusement park seemed to be a good place to start. Earn money off attractions, food, draw people in for the rest. It’s a good idea on paper, but people aren’t as interested in these things anymore.”

Wooyoung draws through the snow that’s piled on the tables, through the dust, on the others, that haven’t been placed underneath the gaps in the windows.

“I guess I get it, I’ve wanted to perform somewhere my whole life. Have somewhere to belong, people to cheer me on when I’m on stage. And this place does give me that, but it does feel.. Solitary? Frozen? It’s like I came here and then I stopped moving altogether.” Wooyoung continues, and San feels surprised by the answer, because every time he’s seen him, he’s been flying, traveling through the air so fast he thinks he could almost be a shooting star, one he wants to wish on every time he watches.

“A couple of years ago, the Conductor fell in love with one of the workers.” He admits, and San had been nosily looking through a wall that contained dust covered knickknacks, books falling apart at the seams. Wooyoung’s brought himself up onto one of the tables, kicking his feet where he rests, swinging through the air like alternating pendulums.

“They tried to keep it a secret, but everyone figured it out, and the boy, I think.. I don’t think he came here to stay long. I don’t think he ever meant to fall in love. Just needed money, somewhere to find it. I think the Conductor has always been longing for something, and he’s just never been able to figure it out. This amusement park, that love, it was all just opportunities for him to try and feel something, but it kept falling short. He can’t keep this place together, he couldn’t keep the boy here. He left, broke his heart. He’s never been the same since.”

San crosses the room to him, listening quietly, and once he reaches Wooyoung, his hands slide up his thighs, waiting on his hips and gently rubbing his thumbs over the bone, the curve he finds even through the fabric- he knows him, his body, so well now.

“I think it hardened him, made him face too many realities at once. I’m kind of surprised this place is still going, that they even were asking for more workers. But it still brought you to me, didn’t it?” Wooyoung says, his hands sliding upwards over San’s jacket, over his chest and underneath, seeking warmth, again, his fingers flushed red at the tips.

“Would you leave here, if you found somewhere else that would let you perform?” San asks, and he’s not even sure he really wants to know the answer, knows that him and Wooyoung hadn’t really talked through any of this- it felt too soon, too new, and he didn’t want to ruin it, this one, precious thing he’d ever encountered in his life. But despite it all, he wants for Wooyoung. He wants him to be happy. He wants him to get everything he’s ever wanted, every little dream to be answered to.

At the question, he deflates a little, his hands reaching around his waist to pull San closer, bringing him right up against the table, between his knees.

“Everyone’s here. I couldn’t leave everyone- I couldn’t leave you.” Wooyoung says, and even though it calms a piece of his heart, San’s eyebrows still furrow.

“But is it what you want? Truly want?”

“What I want is for everyone to be happy. Everyone I love, I want them to be happy, and I want to be with them in that happiness. And so if it’s here, if we can all be here, and we’re happy, then it’s enough. That’s enough for me.”

Wooyoung answers, and San thinks he gets it. Ever since he met Wooyoung, ever since he got here and he’d found his own way to settle into routine, the spots here that he was able to meld to, he thinks the most important thing to him is to see the people around him happy.

And now that he has people he wants to protect- He thinks he would do anything for that.

“Hongjoong wants more, though. He wants more than this, he always has.” Wooyoung murmurs, and San thinks he’s noticed it, too. He talks directly to the Conductor more than most of them since he handles so much of the paperwork, does so many things to keep everything running while the other works solely on his vision. San sees how drained it makes him, how Hongjoong’s almost ruined in a role like that, unable to do what he wants, what he craves. It drains all of the color out of him.

“Did you know that we all had flyers that led us here?” Wooyoung asks, and San just hums, because he thinks it’s a pretty normal thing for a place like this to advertise. He remembers the poster at the train station, too, and even though he had wondered who had come out to place them up, spread out the papers, he didn’t give it much thought. They needed people to come to work, right?

“Doesn’t every place do that?”

“It just so happened they all turned up at the right time for each of us. We all needed something, and Wonderland provided. Don’t you think that’s kind of special?”

“Yeah, I do. Like you said, it brought us all together.” San says, but he can tell with the look on Wooyoung’s face that it’s not quite what he’s looking for him to say.

“Don’t you ever feel.. More? When you’re here? When we’re together?” Wooyoung asks, and San feels like there’s a distant ringing in his ears, hands gripped a little tighter on his waist.

“I don’t know what you mean. It’s- What do you mean by more, Wooyoung?” San asks, and through all of the confusion he must show, it makes Wooyoung wilt a little, light dampened. San just feels a little lost, though, and wants to remedy it, leaning in to press kisses to his cheeks.

“You’re special to me, angel. I’ve never met someone like you before, never had someone make me feel the way that you do. You don’t know how lucky I feel to be able to say that I’ve found that.” San says, and Wooyoung’s hands rub up and down his sides, clinging to him closer.

“You won’t leave?” Wooyoung asks, and San shakes his head.

“Never, not unless you tell me to.” San tells him, and he feels Wooyoung tilt his head, leaning in to start leaving kisses along the line of his throat.

“I won’t. I never will.” Wooyoung tells him, teeth against his skin, and San groans, quietly, pulls Wooyoung closer to the edge of the table, seeking out more of that heat.

As soon as Wooyoung sinks his teeth into his neck, San uses his grip on Wooyoung’s hips to pull him closer, grinding him right against the crotch of his pants. It makes him gasp, fingers twisting in the fabric of San’s jacket as he angles his hips upwards, making sure that he feels exactly what he wants him to. He feels like he might be shaking, but it’s not from the cold, it’s from how badly he wants Wooyoung.

He doesn’t know what it is about him that riles him up like this, like Wooyoung emits something that makes San realize just how much he needs to be inside him again, have him tight and pretty and singing for him no matter where they are.

“San-” Wooyoung bites out, and his hands are scrambling over his jacket, down his chest, to the front of his jeans.

“Yeah?” He asks, and feels the way Wooyoung undoes each one at quickly as he’s able, fingers fumbling in his eagerness that makes San huff out half a laugh, gently massaging over his cock, coaxing him harder as San leans in to kiss at the shell of his ear, press his mouth to his temple and groan as he squeezes his length.

“Please tell me you brought lube.” San laughs more, and he digs somewhere in his jacket pocket for it. They’ve been fucking so much he figured he’d just carry it around with him, and it was handy more than he’d like to admit, more than he can let the embarrassment of actually doing it talk him out of not keeping it in there.

“You wanted to hire me for my dick, right? Wouldn’t be good of me if I didn’t have any wherever I am, would it?” San says, and Wooyoung just makes a soft noise, and he leaves it in his pocket for later as his hands undo Wooyoung’s pants. He pulls his cock out just enough for him to get at it, the opening of his pants shoved out of the way, and then he’s sinking to his knees.

It’s a good idea, because when he looks up, Wooyoung looks ethereal. He looks like an angel, hair in his eyes as the snow falls harder down around him, the light of the moon the only thing that's illuminating his features, sharp in the glow.

He already looks wrecked, too, bottom lip between his teeth as San wraps a hand around him, pumps him slowly, glides that precum that’s pebbled at the top down his length for a half dry tug. It makes Wooyoung bite his lip even redder.

“I’m paying you extra. A bonus.” Wooyoung says, moaning as San’s hand tightens, and San thinks he likes it like this, is able to worship Wooyoung for how beautiful he really is, on his knees and whispering each praise against the line of his cock as he leans forward, lets the pad of his tongue glide from base to tip before he sinks down on it.

It’s then that he feels Wooyoung’s hands thread through his hair, and San hums in his throat as he keeps his eyes upwards, because he wants to soak in every moment of this.

Every single time Wooyoung tips his head back and lets out the prettiest of noises that echo in the emptiness of the room, ricocheting upwards into the snow and the moonlight. San looking at the line of his throat, marred by his own mouth and darkening, Wooyoung inching the edge of his shirt up to expose more of his abdomen.

The way he leans back on one hand, head lolling and his pretty red hair, a stark contrast to the snow, spilling over his shoulder as he keeps a steady gaze on San’s lips stretched around him. San watches his stomach flex and retract as he bobs up and down his cock, building up a solid rhythm.

Out of anything he could have discovered about himself through all of this, it’s the lack of a gag reflex. He sinks down to the base of his cock and revels in the way that it fills out his mouth, and more so the noises it has spilling out of Wooyoung’s.

His hands tug through his hair in desperate holdings, turning from sweet pets to Wooyoung clinging onto him, encouraging the pace of his mouth on his cock. San thinks he might like sneaking out like this, if it means he can get Wooyoung this loud, resounding in his ears.

“So good, Sannie. Love it when you put your mouth on me.” Wooyoung mumbles, and San’s torn between wanting to stuff his mouth full just to watch him gag on something, or to try and get his pants down so he can somehow get his fingers inside him, see how loud it makes him then.

It makes him pop off of his cock, lapping at the string of spit that follows from the tip to his lips, Wooyoung’s shuddering breath evident as San’s hand reaches up and up, closing around his throat, up, over his jaw and to the edge of his mouth, hooking his thumb in and making him drop it open, before he presses down, inside.

He loves how easy Wooyoung is for him sometimes, makes his cock throb in his pants and has him standing, his other hand working over Wooyoung’s length and the remnants of the glide left from his mouth.

“Not more than you love my cock, right? Know you love that more than anything else, you would do anything for it. I think you’d bend over whenever I’d ask you to just to get me inside you again.” San says, and his fingers slip out just to drag the spit that they’re covered in against Wooyoung’s cheek, and use the grip on his hips to slide him off the table.

He turns him around when he hears a whimper from the way he’s handling him, but San had seen the way he stared at his arms, felt over them when they cuddled, told him once “if you ever threw me around, that’d be so fucking hot, San-ah.”

San pushes him back against the table, but his hand goes to the back of his neck to bend him entirely in half over it, Wooyoung’s cock still hanging out from his pants until he pulls them down and over his ass, exposing him bare to the room. He hears the hiss from Wooyoung in the cool air, but his palms are flat on the table, San kicking at the sides of his ankles to push his legs further apart with his boots.

“Stars, you’re such a fucking slut.” He mumbles, hand coming to grip his ass, letting it go to watch the excess bounce, drawing his hand back to land it in a resounding slap! that has Wooyoung moaning and squirming where he stands, San’s hand keeping him up from collapsing.

The hand on the back of his neck that smushes his cheek against the table, too, hears how he makes Wooyoung whimper, hand sliding downwards so he can get the lube out of his pocket now.

“Stay.” He says, voice level, and he drizzles a bit of the lube on his fingers and lets it warm up a bit between the pads before he’s spreading his ass and pressing two fingers to his rim. He’s surprised to find him give so easily- they slip in just after a moment, Wooyoung already stretched open.

“Were you fucking yourself earlier?” San says, and Wooyoung’s nodding against the table, San can see it.

“Words. Use your words, Wooyoung-ah.” He reminds him, and it has Wooyoung crying out as he presses the rest of his fingers inside, fucking him open again on his own.

“Yes- Yes, I couldn’t help it, I was thinking- thinking about you-” Wooyoung stutters out, and San sighs, repositions himself so he can get his cock out, hissing at the release of pressure from the tightness of his pants, the cold air, and presses it up against the swell of his ass, smearing lines of precum over his warm skin and rutting to release some of that pent up desire.

“So why didn’t you come find me? I’m sure your fingers weren’t enough, or any of those stupid toys that you have. None of them are as big as me. I don’t think any of them would feel as good as me, either, would they, baby?”

San ventures, and lets a third finger slip inside along the first two, only able to do it so quickly because of how Wooyoung had played with himself earlier. He reaches deep, his other hand keeping his hips steady with a tight grip.

“No, no, no, they didn’t, I just- I needed something inside, wanted to fuck this morning but we were late and-”

San cuts him off with another slap. And another. He does it until his skin starts turning pink, and Wooyoung is huffing half sobs against the wooden table. He notices they’ve already scooted it through the dust with how hard San is pressing against him.

Leaning over to talk directly into his ear, he finds his prostate and directs his fingers to press up against it with every single thrust.

“You talk and talk and talk about how much you love my cock, but you don’t even come running for it when you get all fucking needy. What’s the point of being such a slut for me when you can’t even wait?”

This has Wooyoung shaking, and the way he arches for him has him thinking he has him close already, San noticing the tear tracks down his cheeks, smudged against the table.

“Please, San, I want you- Did it because I just want you to be able to- To fuck me wherever we are, want you to just slip inside when you want me, don’t want to wait. Don’t want to have to prep just want to get-”

“Get fucked? Get fucked no matter where we are because you’re such a cock whore? You want me to just use you whenever I want, get my cock off with your ready, dripping hole. I fuck you over and over and you’re still so fucking tight, Wooyoung.” San grits out, and his cock aches, angry red and making Wooyoung’s ass wet with precum, and he pulls his fingers out, shifts back just to watch how much his hole tries to close around nothing.

“Poor baby. You’re nothing without a cock inside you. What would you do without me?” San says, gripping at the red stain of his ass and landing a few more smacks, jolting Wooyoung up the table, those wet, syrupy moans breaking through each loud slap.

“Please fuck me, San, I want your cock so bad, please, just fuck me. Don't ever want to be without you, want you, want your cock. Wanna be full.”

Wooyoung’s so gone, his words are almost just blending together, desperation weaving into his whines as San lines himself up between his cheeks, pouring more of the lube over his cock and letting it slide between them. It makes Wooyoung sob more, to feel the hot outline of his dick over his hole but not actually press inside where he wants it the most.

“Should make you beg more often. You know how pretty you sound?” San murmurs, like he’s content with waiting, even though it’s driving him up the wall, not to sink right into that tight heat and take what’s his.

He lets his cock dip further down, catch on Wooyoung’s rim and shallowly fuck just the head inside, and Wooyoung’s sobs fill the room, his hips desperately trying to fuck himself backwards on San’s cock, take more of him inside.

“Ah, ah.” San breathes out, pulls out again, and Wooyoung spreads his legs even further, trying to arch his back, present himself even more for San, somehow entice him to finally fuck him.

“Please, please. I’d do anything, anything for your cock, Sannie, please, please, please.” San pets over his hip and finally slides inside of him in one clean stroke. It makes Wooyoung almost scream, throat going hoarse as San grinds into him, deep and wet, the squelch of the lube disgusting as he drags his cock half out just to fuck back inside, hearing the table bang up against the wall.

He can’t believe he’s pushed him up this far, but now with every single thrust, it’s a steady thump with San’s hips connecting with Wooyoung’s ass. San keeps a hand on his back as he builds a rhythm and reaches deep inside, grinding against his prostate whenever he hears Wooyoung squeak and freeze with pleasure, hand sliding down his spine and to his hair, fingers threading through before he finally uses the grip to pull him up.

Makes Wooyoung arch obscenely for him, still speared on his cock, his back pressed to San’s chest as his other arm wraps around his middle.

“San, San, San.” Wooyoung just repeats his name over and over again, and it settles some sort of possessive heat deep in his chest, that it’s the only thing he can repeat right now.

“There you go, angel. That’s so good, isn’t it? Just what you wanted, baby?” San coos, and Wooyoung leans his head back against San’s shoulder, meets his eyes with his makeup smeared underneath his eyes, black tear tracks from how fucked up it was, and San leans forward to kiss a line over his shoulder as he’s shifted to grinding deep and slow into his ass.

“Just what I wanted, Sannie, it’s all I thought about. All I wanted- just want you.” He gets out, and San kisses up his neck, hums, reaches his hand down around his cock to jerk him off in time with the way he fucks his cock inside of him.

“You take it so well, you were made for my cock, baby. So good for me, it drives me crazy. Drives me so fucking crazy.” San says, feeling Wooyoung drip so wet from his tip, enough for his hand to glide easily over him, and it makes Wooyoung’s knees shake, like he’s only barely standing because of the way San is holding him up.

All of Wooyoung’s earrings chime so close to San’s ear like this when he picks up the pace, and as he notices Wooyoung’s legs almost giving way, his hands sliding against his arms, he regretfully pulls out. Wooyoung’s whining almost immediately at the loss, in which San can only make a soft noise in response that he hears him, he knows.

He turns him around, picking him up and putting him back on the table enough off of the edge so he can get to him, slipping back inside as Wooyoung tries to wrap his arms around his neck to get closer again.

“You’re so clingy when you’re on my cock, it’s cute.” San murmurs, shallowly picking up the pace against that he’d lost, and Wooyoung’s dick brushes and fucks against San’s shirt, which he rucks up to let him do it against the defined line of his stomach, so cute and red and swollen that San feels like he should take pity on him soon, let him cum.

Wooyoung makes some sort of unintelligible response, and San, frustrated with the way the height of the table isn’t just right with the line of his hips, just lifts Wooyoung up into his arms. It makes him gasp as gravity sinks him back down on San’s cock, his legs wrapping around his waist as San fucks into him this way instead, air burning in his lungs as he chases after his high, of feeling Wooyoung cum tight and whimper sweet on his dick.

“Come on, baby, can you cum for me? Rub off on my stomach? I want to see you cum stuffed full of my cock like this. Just like this, pretty baby.” San coaxes him, using his grip on Wooyoung’s hips to fuck him up and down on it, feeling each muscle seize up as he can barely hold himself back, either, and Wooyoung’s eyes seem glazed over as he cries out when he hits so deep in his stomach, he’s pressing against the place where he feels it, knuckles glazing over his own cock.

“Cum too, cum inside me, I want you to fill me up, want to feel so fucking full-”

Wooyoung nearly screams as he finally cums, and San fucks him through every single wave that he feels warm against his stomach, finally letting himself tumble over as he presses deep and grinds through each wave that he fucks inside of him.

It’s like it finally satiates some of that heat that takes him over whenever he’s in Wooyoung’s vicinity, whatever it is about him that makes San feel crazed, like he could only answer to the most vicious of wantings to finally feel satisfied.

San holds Wooyoung up with one arm as he reaches the other out to seek the table, and once he does, he’s carefully laying Wooyoung back down as they both catch their breath. He keeps himself connected for as long as he can, instead leaning over him, elbows keeping him up near his head as he finally meets his gaze again.

Wooyoung tilts his chin up wordlessly in an ask for a kiss that San grants immediately, the slow glide of their lips turning into several honey sweet kisses that progress so slowly he gets lost in them, lost in time, this frozen moment where it’s just the two of them, and no one else.

“You did so well for me, angel. Always so beautiful for me.” San praises him quietly, trailing kisses all along the planes of his face, watching Wooyoung’s lashes flutter, pleased, preening with his pink cheeks and gleam of sweat against the dips of his collarbones.

“You’re always so hot when you get like that.” Wooyoung tells him, voice a little hoarse from how loud he’d been for him, and San leaves a soft kiss against the slope of his throat in apology.

San laughs a little, because he thinks Wooyoung is the only person to really bring it out of him, and it makes Wooyoung giggle too, soft little chirps that have San nuzzling his cheek against his.

“And then you turn into a cat.” It makes both of them tumble into more laughter, and now that they’re finished, the heat of the moment over, it makes the wave of the chill of the room hit San harder.

Wooyoung, too, because he visibly shivers below him, and San makes a regretful little noise as he finally pulls out of him, and without much else to do, pulls back up Wooyoung’s underwear and pants, even as he watches Wooyoung grimace slightly at the combination of being empty and San farther away from him, now.

“I’ll clean you up once we get back.” San tells him, tucking his own cock back into his pants, and Wooyoung just sort of flops against the table, just laying there, and it makes San smile, looking over him fondly.

“I think you’re going to have to carry me. My legs feel like jelly.”

“You kind of look like a sad sock puppet.” San tells him, and Wooyoung weakly kicks his leg out, arms coming out for him, reaching with his hands, and San quickly acquiesces, turning around and half kneeling down so Wooyoung can crawl onto his back. His arms loop around his neck, and once San gets his hands around his legs around his waist, he fully straightens up, Wooyoung dropping a soft kiss to his cheek.

“Thank you, Sannie.”

“Anything for you, angel.” He murmurs, feeling the way Wooyoung wiggles happily around him, and he leads the way back, following the remnants of their footsteps that had led them there, already being covered over with a dusting of snow.

San feels different, with Wooyoung. A good different, but a million miles away from whoever he had been when he had first walked through into this place. He smiles more, reaches out more, feels more sure in his movements, in himself. And he thinks it was all there even though he didn’t know it was, but there’s something about being with Wooyoung that brings it out of him, that uncovers so many of the things he was convinced could stay buried.

He reminds him that he’s strong, that he can be confident, that it’s okay to be happy, makes him feel like he’s overflowing with it. That there’s no other place to put it then with his hands when he touches him, when he kisses him so much to try and show him just how much of it there is.

They all go into the city to get piercings and Hongjoong a tattoo, and San gets some of his first earrings along his ears, and Wooyoung giggles as he drags Yeosang with him to go into another room in the back to get one that San isn’t able to see, but he’s sure he’ll find later. He doesn’t even really think twice about Wooyoung dragging Yeosang along with him, waits outside with his knee bouncing against the bench, how Yunho tries and fails to convince Mingi to go and get a matching piercing with him.

Wooyoung doesn’t look any different when he comes back out, but he’s still flushed, Yeosang leaning half onto his side, a little dazed, too. Maybe they both got something, San figures, and watches as Yeosang makes a beeline for Seonghwa, who lets him duck underneath the curve of his arm soundlessly.

Sometimes, he wonders if he had been wrong about Hongjoong and Seonghwa, when he looks at the way Seonghwa looks at Yeosang. How he brushes his hair back when he returns, looking over him with a soft smile he sees reserved for things like when Yeosang brings over his sketchbook, and Hongjoong elbows him in the side to show him something. He keeps quiet about this, too, meets Seonghwa’s eyes over the ridges of Yeosang’s hair that he’s nuzzling and offers a soft smile back.

San had gotten done with his piercings first, and had wandered off to go and watch Hongjoong’s tattoo midway through Yunho getting something done to his cartilage. He had never seen it done before, and he stares at it happening for about half of the appointment before he convinces himself to get one, too, and doesn't think he’ll even really mind the pain. He had barely even felt the piercing, he reasons, even though he doesn’t have much experience other than knowing his pain tolerance is pretty high. So he doesn't even really think about it, either, as he slides a blank piece of paper to Hongjoong reclining on the chair, watches him create a symbol that he free hand sketches onto the paper, and San shrugs and tells the artist to go ahead and do it.

He gets it on his hip, having to pull his shirt halfway up as he does it, reclining against the leather. Wooyoung sits with him, and San lets him hold his hand even though he doesn’t really need it for the pain, just likes having Wooyoung near him. San’s thumb keeps idly rubbing over the back of his Wooyoung’s palm, back and forth, eyes watching the way the artist inks the symbol onto his skin. And when he does look at Wooyoung- he looks so glassy eyed, keeps being so touchy throughout the whole thing, fingers running up and down San’s arm, that San’s dragging him around the back of the place when it’s over, body still thrumming, hip still ticking with that dull ache.

Leads Wooyoung to his knees and undoes his belt, tries not to be surprised at how his tongue immediately falls out of his mouth, eager and waiting for San to give it to him. Fucks into his mouth when he’s kneeled in the dirt and looks up at him like he’s something to worship, lets San sink his cock all the way down his throat and watch him choke on it. It makes San realize Wooyoung must just have a thing for tattoos, maybe a thing for San getting them.

Wooyoung’s arousal is obvious, especially when he starts rutting against his calf, the tight jeans that he’s borrowed and shimmied into before they left. It’s only a moment before he eases his boot against the fabric of Wooyoung’s crotch that he can tell how close he already is. He’s desperate as he bobs his head on his length, whimpering and staring at the wrapped tattoo that San rucks his shirt up for Wooyoung to look at, still just as mesmerized as while he got it.

San spills down his throat, and Wooyoung ends up tying San’s jacket around his waist on the way home, clinging onto him and letting San press kisses into his hair, the others droopy and full from snacks and a long day of walking.

And so it becomes a bit of a theme, with them. San’s happy for every moment he gets to be with Wooyoung, but there's something about either of them being in the vicinity that has them five seconds away from their hands on each other. And he can't even complain- there's something about being wanted, needed, that San’s never felt but he can't get enough of. He can't ever get enough of Wooyoung.

And San’s never been like this in his life, even with all of the money that he sends back to his mother, it’s one of the first times that he’s able to have enough excess money and time to spend on himself, and he feels more and more like it with each little thing that he does.

Hongjoong gives him this leather jacket he found that’s a little too big on his frame, after San had just been stealing one from Wooyoung, and San gets a bit lax on his work uniforms, wearing it every single day, especially after Wooyoung steals it from him one night, sews a patch onto the arm of cherries just as red as his hair. Another that's a bundle of stars, a small, tied together bundle of flowers. A cat. An umbrella. He seems to get them out of nowhere, but San likes the way they fill up the upper arms with life.

It’s about the time that he starts getting mistaken for some of the main performers, that it makes him realize that he’s really changed. People stop asking him about the park and start asking him what he does for the park instead, if they’ll see him perform, and it would’ve really made him stop in his tracks, before, but now, he can only guide them towards the main tent, promise them that who they’ve got are more than worth the wait.

San stops going back to the worker’s building altogether, bed abandoned in favor of just staying at Wooyoung’s. No one really tells him he can’t, and he doesn’t think he can go back to sleeping alone on that bed any longer when he knows Wooyoung is this close, getting used to falling asleep and waking up with him in his arms. It’s easy, it almost feels like he’s been doing it for his whole life, if it wasn’t for that long period of alone that makes him realize just how much he’d been missing out on.

It’s not just Wooyoung, San thinks. It’s all of them. They all help each other out at work and hang out when it’s over, and San spends countless nights laughing, now, getting warm and drunk on rum around fires that Hongjoong make that rage and flicker up into the night sky, and San keeps Wooyoung pressed warm to his side, enjoys his love and the love that he sees between all of them, and it just feels right. It feels so fucking right, he wonders why it took him this long to find anything like this in his life. He supposes the waiting is understandable, if this is what it was all leading him to.

He watches Hongjoong skirt around Seonghwa and Yeosang eye him from the other side, he lets the rum loosen his lips to tell all of the stories from before, and he learns a little more about all of them, slowly fits in like a surely placed puzzle piece, like he was meant to be there all along.

Even as the fire fades and they all walk back, watching Yunho carry a half asleep Mingi on his back, who still manages to wave and make Hongjoong swear he’ll save some chocolate pudding for him at dinner tomorrow, it feels right. He calls out into the night to wish sweet dreams to Yeosang being dragged along by Jongho, stumbling together, half broken out into song, with just a single finger woven between them so they don't break apart.

It was just earlier San figured out the piercing Yeosang had gotten with Wooyoung as Jongho had pulled his shirt up while dancing, eating a particularly well cooked marshmallow from the fire that spurred him on, the piercing in his belly button gleaming in the light as he swiveled his hips. Everyone stumbles into laughter, but San’s eyes are on Seonghwa, on Hongjoong, who seem to look at it a little longer than everyone else. Still, it’s Jongho who carries him home, leading him off into the night as San keeps his arm tight around Wooyoung’s waist.

He’s happy. It’s what he tells his mother in the letters that he sends back with the money, now, telling her about how he’s met someone, he’s met all of them, and feeling even more full that she’s getting close to paying off all of the loans that they had made to their neighbors, almost free from that weight that had been heavy on them for years, not knowing if they’d be able to pay it back.

San lets the letter fall somewhere beside him on Wooyoung’s bed, spread out in nothing but loose pants, relaxed as Wooyoung’s putting curls into his hair in front of his vanity. He’s emptied his backpack by now, his things spread out across the room, flyer half crumpled and tossed underneath a pile of clothes that San couldn’t tell which are his own or Wooyoung’s, at this point.

Wooyoung’s singing, again, that one little harmony that San can’t put his finger on but he knows it’s familiar. He’s spraying something into his hair, too, the smell permeating the room, something heavy and sweet like lilies and orchids. San’s half propped up against a pillow, tattoo fully healed, watching him idly.

“Smells pretty. Like flowers.” He says softly, and Wooyoung looks over to him with a small smile, brushing through what he’s done, his red hair in crimson waves, glossy in the low candlelight.

“Is it nice?” He asks, and San hums again in assent, propping his head up on his palm.

“When are you going to come over and give me more kisses?” San asks, and maybe he’s a little whiny, because Wooyoung laughs and continues what he’s doing.

“In just a minute, and then you’ll have me the rest of the night.”

“Done up all handsome, all for me.” San says, and Wooyoung just lets his eyes drag down the line of San’s body, the glimmering gems dangling from his ears, and hums.

“For you. For me, too.” He murmurs, and San watches as he carefully traces the line of lipstick over his mouth, addicted to the way it deepens the pretty red he already has, makes him want to kiss it off him even more.

It’s then that there’s a series of knocks against his door, and it sounds a lot like Hongjoong, a little hurried, a little lax on how hard he lets them make noise. Wooyoung makes a sound, because it’s late, and Hongjoong has come to talk to them at this hour before, but he’s not really sure what it could be for, this time.

Wooyoung opens the door to Hongjoong looking a little red cheeked, flushed like he’d ran here, dressed in plaid, light layers. Spring has been transitioning in, leaving the park warm enough at nights that Wooyoung and San have started to leave the windows propped open when they sleep.

“San-ah. There’s a letter from your mother, priority mail. I didn’t think you’d want me to wait to give it to you until the morning, I just now noticed it in the pile from today, I’m sorry.”

It’s already odd that his mother sent him two letters in a row, but priority, too? Wooyoung takes the letter from Hongjoong and meets San in the middle, handing it to him as he rips the seal open and reads over the contents. Wooyoung must tell Hongjoong that they’ll get back to him in the morning, closing the door and sending him off since it’s already so late, anyways. He thinks he half hears him apologizing again, when San already knows it was just a mistake, wouldn't hold it against him, anyways.

If anything, it’s the contents of the letter that have his hands tightening around the paper, enough to almost rip it between his hands. Wooyoung sounds quiet as he hovers in his peripheral, and San feels a flurry of emotions ring through him in quick succession. Shock, denial, anger. The last one simmers hot enough that he barely notices that all of the candles blow out in the room before they come back to life, flames burning so hot they reach even higher than normal.

“San-ah.” Wooyoung says quietly, and when San brings the letter down, he can feel the tears brimming in his eyes.

When he meets Wooyoung’s eyes, he can hear him gasp, looking taken aback for a moment before he speaks again, jaw set with something new, face shifting. “San-ah, what is it?”

“My mother- she. She said my father came back? And they’re selling the house. Selling everything in it because they’re going to leave together, and since- I’m happy here, now, she thinks I’ll be okay.” He throws the letter aside, running his hands through his hair, and he thinks the whole room might as well be off kilter, like his vision is sliding in and out of focus.

“After all of these years he just.. Comes back? And takes her back? How the fuck does he get to leave and just come back like that and she just accepts it?” He thinks his breaths might be getting a little unsteady, because Wooyoung comes to San and gently places his hands on San’s arms, gently rubbing.

“San-ah, you-” He shakes his head, comes to drag San to his vanity, leads him to sit down on the seat, and he does so almost numb, Wooyoung kneeling down to look up at him, petting up and down his arms with a gentle touch.

“I’m sorry, San. It doesn’t make any sense, no, but sometimes we just can’t understand how it feels for other people, what they go through. What they decide. But we can- we can try and support them.” Wooyoung says, and San feels the tears, hot and vengeful, drip down his cheeks. His hands are tightened into fists.

“I should- I should go back, tell her not to go with him, I mean. How can he just come back? I never even met him, I don’t even know who he is-”

Wooyoung cuts him off, reaching up to gently wipe away his tears.

“San-ah. Can you look in the mirror for me?” He asks, and San’s eyes furrow, confused, looking down at Wooyoung looking at him so seriously, and he has no idea why in this moment, he would want him to do that.

“Why? I don’t want to see myself like this-” San does it anyways, because Wooyoung asked him to, and he wants to know why, but when he looks in the mirror, his eyes are glowing. They’re shining, almost white, taking over his pupils, and San gasps a little, hands reaching up, back down over his cheek, watching his tears streak downwards in small shimmers, like they’re touched with silver. It smears over his fingertips when he touches them.

“I think this might be why your mom is leaving, San.” Wooyoung says, and San’s head hurts, suddenly, a sudden onslaught of pain that he squeezes his eyes shut.

“Why would my mom leave- Why are my eyes glowing? Is it- Am I dreaming?” He mumbles, and Wooyoung’s hands are soothing as they coax calmness from the tight line of his shoulders, standing behind him with a warmth that San leans back into. When he opens his eyes again, Wooyoung is looking at him, and there’s a little bit of sadness there, even with how fond he knows that look can be.

“You’re Awakened.” He says, and when San stays quiet, he keeps speaking, almost keeping San up from falling over where he sits.

“I highly doubt either you or your mother are actually from here. I know this might be a lot for you all at once, but all of us were wondering why you didn’t know anything. You didn’t know who you were, either.” Wooyoung shifts to his side, leaning his hip against the vanity and gently wiping away the tears from his cheeks.

“We aren’t from this world. This earth, made as a meeting point for all that could tangibly exist in this universe, it falls here, it rises, here. It’s mainly a mortal plane, extensively human, and it’s the place where we go when we’re unable to stay where we truly belong. See, when those who have been Awakened live here, they have to give something up to keep their magic. Where we’re from, there’s nothing to exchange, it’s where we belong. We are formed from the very magic itself, there. But here, it’s not as inherent. Magic can exist here, but it doesn’t mean it’s supposed to.”

San feels a little bit like his chest is concaving on itself, sending him down a road where he tries to make sense of it all, if he’s ever made the right path for himself. The way Wooyoung is speaking is low, steady, like he’s trying not to spook him, but he doesn’t think anything else, now, could send him reeling as much as this.

“The land that the park was built on, there’s an extensive vein of in between. A coexisting of realities, an abandoned portal, essentially, that runs in tunnels that were built below the grounds. The Conductor bought it because he’s Awakened, too, but he was cast away from where we came as punishment. He’s supposed to never be able to entertain again, which is why he wanted to build the park. But staying here for so long has jaded him, it’s corrupted whatever magic he had left. It’s why we’re all here. He’s been drawing those who can be Awakened to this park to try and pool enough of our magic to get back. All he ever wanted is to return, and yet he’s stuck here, endlessly watching people entertain for him but not being able to do it himself.”

San’s stopped crying now, he thinks, but everything still doesn’t feel real. A little skewered, like his reality has split, and everything is trying to slide into place but can’t quite fit.

“It’s why you got a flyer, Sannie. They only ever find those with the potential to be Awakened. There’s humans here, too, but most can’t see our magic, it distorts, whenever they look at it. Almost seems like a dream when they try to remember. It’s why none of us knew why you didn’t want to perform, it was like you couldn’t even see it.”

San remembers, now, his mother’s hands over his eyes. Never tell anyone anything at all. Never tell anyone. Are you awake? You can be Awakened, San, don’t tell anyone until you find another.

His hands tighten into fists, relax, his head spinning.

“We all think it’s what you gave up to be here. To be able to see. To see all of us. You always said it looks like magic when I’m performing, it’s because I am using magic. None of us knew how to tell you, but it seemed like.. You were already being exposed to it, anyway. Being here, around all of this energy, the world shifted, for you. But if you can see, then what are you giving up?”

San’s blood runs cold as ice.

“Those who are Awakened are governed by a strict counsel of several chosen, powerful members that keep everything peaceful. Often, the punishment there is to be banished to the mortal realm, to pay a price for what we’ve been given, because we’re never really able to strip away our magic. It’s a part of our beings, interwoven into every piece of you. I can only think that maybe your mother has been called back. Maybe your father went back, too, maybe this is your price, now, maybe this is her’s.”

“You’re saying I can’t.. I can’t do anything?” Wooyoung looks at him, and San’s heart aches. It aches.

“She might have already left.”

San needs to look at the letter again. His mother never would leave him just like this, with nothing. He gets up abruptly to go back and find it on the bed, turning it over in his hands, looking along the back. He feels the tears rising, the tightness of his throat, but when he turns the paper over one more time, it’s almost like it shimmers. He runs his fingers over the shimmer, and they quickly turn into words, the ink bleeding through the paper like San’s brought it forward.

San-ah, my darling love. If you see this, then you’ll have discovered what I have always had to hide, and I never wished to. It was my fault, for being cast here. My fault, and your father’s. You never should have had to grow up here, without your magic, without knowing or being able to see all that it is, that it’s capable of. He’s not a bad man, your father, but marrying me was something he never should have done.

His parents disapproved of the marriage. I wasn’t from a very affluent family, and your father was a candidate to be one of the officials on the counsel. He still married me anyway, and I got pregnant with you. They banished us here, and your father stayed behind. I’m sorry for all of the years that we struggled, and that was my burden I forced you to bear. It is what I had to give up- I wanted so much to be able to take care of you, that I was made unable to do it at all. Often, what we Awakened give up, it is some of the things that matter to us the most. But it is what our magic needs to replace, when we come here. It is not meant to exist in this world, and neither are we.

I want you to know that I love you. Your father loves you. I think you may have found a few of your own who have shown you what I’ve been unable to, and I would never, for the entire world, want to take that from you. But magic always comes with a price, especially ours.

If you see, now, my love, then there is something else you must give up. Your father returned because it is me.

I’m not sure what awaits me, but know that your father will keep me safe, and you do not have to worry. I finally am able to go home. I hope, one day, you will be able to return, too. We’ll both be waiting here for you when you do.

Now that you can see, return with so many stories to tell me. Magic can be so beautiful, this world can be, too, and I think you have found everything you have always been looking for.

I believe in you, and I love you, and I will never, ever stop.

San crumples to the floor. He’s not sure where else to go, but he leans against the edge of the bed as the letter falls from his hands, and the tears stream down his cheeks, unbidden. He can’t hold them back.

Wooyoung’s at his side in a moment, arms wrapping around him, and they gently rock, back and forth, a quiet ebb and flow like a wave. He holds him through the night like that, until his tears dry, and San numbly climbs to bed, tucked into the covers by Wooyoung’s careful hands. There's no words either of them could say.

San opens his eyes and Wooyoung’s gaze glows, quietly, a beautiful shine around his pupils, and as San adjusts to look at him, he watches one shift, a rosy red, golden sheen that turns from almost silver blue, reflected in the other.

He wonders what color his mother’s magic is, and hopes that one day, he will be able to know it, the exact color, the way they shine in the sun, in the moon, how it feels to be enveloped by her with all that he knows now, and finally falls asleep.

In his dreams, his mother is always running away from him, looking back over her shoulder, hand outstretched and San can never quite reach her. At the corner of his vision, he swears there’s always something else there, someone, but everything always gets so blurry whenever he tries to focus, stumbles too hard and he’s reminded of who he’s running after.

Are you awake? His mother calls, over and over, and San swears he is, swears that this grass underfoot is real, that this warm wind, shifting into this biting cold, is real. It feels like a memory, like something he’s experiencing one more time, the fields of his home not too far like this, but it still burns, still aches like the memory’s gone wrong, rotting from the core.

Soon, it turns into everyone. It turns into Hongjoong and Seonghwa, everyone running faster than San’s feet can carry him, keeps stumbling and reaching out to try and feel the barest grasp of their fingers, failing to close in just that extra half inch to try and hold on. They split in front of him in random paths he can’t even predict, can’t even follow, feeling brushed by the wind from every single direction, stumbling and getting lost, picked back up by a voice so close to his ear it feels like they’re right there-

“Open your eyes! Open your eyes!” They all call it in distorted harmony, in spine-chilling whispers that San feels all of the way down to his fingertips, and San is awake. He’s looking. He can see them all running, he can see. He can hear them, but why can’t he get to any of them?

And then it turns into Wooyoung. He can only see that crimson red hair, brilliant in the sun, and Wooyoung laughing, like it’s a game, like San’s just chasing him and he’ll catch him in the end. But Wooyoung keeps not looking back, not looking back, and San keeps crying out, because why can’t he catch up? Why can’t he have him? Why won’t Wooyoung look?

San trips and falls, and darkness envelops him once more, like his dreams always do, arms outstretched for nothing to hold on to. It bleeds onto the edges of his vision and envelops him, static cotton stuffed into his ears, distant eyes and distant watchings that make tension coil in his stomach. He swears he sees that red, shimmering in the darkness behind his eyes, so close and just out of reach.

He lets himself continue to sink.

Summer is just as warm here as it is back home. Sweltering, enough that as San stretches backstage, he can feel it on his nape, heavy even with the fans blowing in the distance, doing nothing for him.

He can hear the idle chatter behind him as everyone gets ready for the show. The transition from where he started to here had definitely been made easier by the aid of Wooyoung, and San swears it's his laughter he can hear all above the rest as he works on making sure the outfit he's wearing is perfect.

Otherwise, he would certainly hear about it.

Standing up straight from the almost stretch, it's to arms winding around his waist from behind. He smiles at the warmth, hands coming up to cover over the arms as he feels a kiss pressed between his shoulder blades, his skin bare all of the way down his back. His outfit was specially designed to show it off, and he supposes all of those months he spent doing heavy lifting around the park helps him now.

“Are you ready?” Wooyoung murmurs, and San turns in his arms, leans down to press a kiss to his forehead. He lost all of his pretenses long ago, Wooyoung was his, now, he wasn't going to shy away from that.

“Mm. Might be if you give me a few more kisses.” San rumbles and Wooyoung just smiles, that of the sun.

“We don't have time for anything else.” He points out, and San slumps a bit.

“Regretfully, I know. Still.” San mumbles, and leans down to kiss him sweetly. He’d done his makeup so beautifully, as always, and San had sat very still, trying to remain composed and not put his hands all over him, as Wooyoung had done his own.

Their kisses don’t linger as long as he’d like. The ache in his chest isn't as noticeable as it used to be, like the summer heat had tried to bleed the rest of it out of him, but what he repeats to himself every day, now, a promise to his mother, I will make so many memories to keep, I will live so fiercely for all the things that I want that the stories I will bring back to you will be endless.

It is how he keeps going. He still hadn't been back out to the house even though Hongjoong told him he could leave, if he wanted, that he would cover over his position, they all would, if he wanted anything that might be left.

San had declined. There was nothing left for him if she was not there.

And now, he was here, with everyone in the world who could love him for who he truly is, as he had grown into his magic, into who he thinks he must always have been, just had too many things hiding away that he didn't know to look for.

A month ago, San had been lighting candles. Wooyoung had been giggling on the bed, and while watching him, he hadn't watched the flame of the match, and how it burned. Burned to his fingertips, but San only felt a distant coolness as the flames licked over his hands, crawled over his skin with a mind of its own. It turned silver, a cosmic blue, dancing flames that curled around his arms and coiled in his palm, a cool, beating heart.

Wooyoung had watched on, San enveloped by a cobalt glow.

While Wooyoung could fly, San had this. He had fire and his strength and the fact that every single day he invited more magic into his life, small strands of his hair slowly shifted to white. A small streak of it over his left eye, like the color had been drained out of it completely.

It didn't make it so easy for him to blend in, anymore, but Wooyoung says it’s his presence, too. That he feels it command a room when he enters, his magic so strong from being laid to the wayside for so long.

At first, it scared him. All of these things he didn't know clearly but were so simple and plain to those around him, San learned of the things he had been blinded to see. The way the park glows at night, and the lights of the carousel eerily plunge through dips of fog, the stands keeping the horses upright almost floating on air.

The lighting of the lanterns, endless flames, the way he could see the way the world shifted with it, like a kaleidoscope, like it hid a million different variations of the same moment in each and every shade, everything happening all at once. The magic, interwoven with this mortal plane, hidden from plain view but laying right underneath it.

Sometimes, San could feel it. Like a certain vibration he’d suddenly become attuned to, always there and waiting for him to notice. He starts to realize that all of the stories he had coveted from when he was younger must have been true.

He likes it in the gentle ways, too, in how Wooyoung seems to almost glide from moment to moment, an elegance he knew before but understands fully, now. He bends each second like it was almost fabric underneath his hands, like he could sense and change every atom of this universe to his will, understanding it in a way San couldn't.

It’s how he flies. It is how San flies with him now, having spent the rest of Spring training hard, long hours into the night to get used to the fabrics around his hands. Of supporting his own weight suspended in the air, to use his magic, too, to guide him.

They perform together. Start separately, Wooyoung gliding, San carefully separating the fire from what burns with his hands- he wonders how it looks to those who are unable to see how he does, how the flames consume him but do not harm. It makes San think about the trick of the light.

It is what he believed in, when he knew nothing of this. Now, it all comes to him as easy as breathing, as if it was waiting for him to finally discover it, to let it in. Like sinking into a warm bath and letting it envelop, magic is just in tune with his body as the air that surrounds him, the energy of this world a patchwork that each of them follows, bends, creates.

San and Wooyoung join in the middle. It is odd, to be the one flying when he had watched it for so long, to have been someone who wanted no one to look, and now revels in it, and yet the only eyes he cares for are the glowing ones on him, alone. It is the only gaze that matters to him in the world.

They curl and glide and spin through the air like they are the ones who shape it, usually pitfalls and pockets of it to carry them for when they fall, boost them back up, bundle them back up together. San never knew he could be someone who runs on the adrenaline of something like this- but the Conductor had seen him with Wooyoung, seen something in San, and this is the creation of it. A new performance. Every roar of the crowd, their cheering, their gasps, every bit of it San feeds from, and he knows that the ones who see his eyes glow, who see his magic, know just how much he loves this.

Now, he is seen. He doesn't think he could ever go back to hiding.

Wooyoung’s hands on his back, his waist, the tattoo peeking out from the jut of the top he's wearing, exposing the lower half of his stomach, defined and flexed, his thighs, just as strong, holding onto San as he lets him bend. San’s hands at his back, letting him dip through midair, as they soar, lights streaming across their combined figures.

San will tell his mother one day, I flew, I flew, almost as if I was a bird, and it was with an angel. An angel so beautiful I couldn't stop looking. No one could stop looking, you would never, ever want to.

They lower to the ground to a cacophony of applause and cheers, and San tilts his head to press against Wooyoung’s forehead, smiling so hard his cheeks dimple.

Wooyoung smiles back. San will never, ever look away.

To be fair, he doesn't think anyone in his position could wait until they made it back to Wooyoung’s. At the end of the performance, San feels the adrenaline running through him like a live wire, every step still half feeling like they were suspended in the air, not even walking on solid ground.

Before the acts had expanded to everything they had now, they had made several dressing rooms to suit each of them, instead of the multitude of vanities that had spread across backstage now. The rooms were mostly used by everyone for various things, costume storage, couches to nap.

Among other things.

It’s where San gets Wooyoung after the show, closing and locking the door behind them before he gets him right up against it. Hears the lock shake in the door frame at the way his hands slam against the wood, caging Wooyoung in for a kiss that's all teeth.

Wooyoung arches against him, hands clawing at the meager clothing San did have on to try and get it off, his eagerness slipping through any inhibitions they might have had at how obvious they were being. San couldn't care. The show was almost over and they had other things to focus on, and San didn't mind if they missed another encore. He needed Wooyoung, now.

He’s a little addicted to the way Wooyoung warms underneath his mouth, carefully pries his lips open and flicks his tongue against teeth, against every corner that he claims as his own. Here, and here, and here, the press of his hands on his hips, accentuating the curve of his back, fingers curling into his hair and tugging back just to lick along the line of his throat.

“You can’t ever get enough of me.” Wooyoung murmurs, a half laugh kicked through with a whine as San lets his teeth sink in with a bite. He gets a knee between his thighs and huffs out at the way Wooyoung so eagerly grinds down against it, and he presses harder.

“Like you can’t get enough of me? Why do you always take everything I give you so eagerly? You can't possibly stand there and tell me you aren't a whore for my cock.” San says, and Wooyoung’s eyes are shining as San grabs at his hands and pins them up against the wood, making him use his hips alone to try and grind his cock against his thigh just right. He watches how the movements make him shake with exertion, whimpering when he’s unable to get the friction good enough.

“You’re so predictable, baby. Want to get your cock off so bad and you can't even do that right. You need me to help you, yeah? I bet you're just so tired, so dizzy from the thought of my cock splitting you open, it must be so hard.” San clicks his tongue, pressing his knee directly against Wooyoung’s crotch and grinding it himself.

It makes Wooyoung moan loud, and if the show wasn't rumbling through the main stage, maybe San would be just a little worried about the amount of noise they were making. For now, he doesn't care- he intends to make him even louder.

“Sannie!” Wooyoung gasps, and it must be too much, too not enough, and San burns as he squirms underneath him. “Please.”

“Please what? You're already begging for it?” San says, and Wooyoung's eyebrows draw together, pathetic pout drawing his kiss swollen lips red and round.

“C’mere.” He says, letting go of his wrists to instead lead him by one further into the room. It’s dim, the only thing lighting it up the bulbs of the vanities outlining each set of mirrors along the wall.

There's chairs in front of them, but San leads right to the couch, facing the reflection and showing the outlines of them both as he settles down. Spreads his knees and pointedly looks down to the floor in front of him. He’s usually not this easy with Wooyoung, but there’s something crawling underneath his skin tonight, a burn he wishes to ease. He feels it quelled when it’s Wooyoung on his knees in front of him, pliant and letting San bend him how he wishes, how he needs- how they both need.

Wooyoung drops down onto the floor. His hands running up San’s thighs in barely concealed reverence, pawing at the hem of his pants that he lets him bring down to get his cock out, red and throbbing as Wooyoung wraps a hand around the base and sucks at the tip. Laves his tongue around the precum sitting there and San weaves his fingers into his hair, half aware of the mirrors sitting in front of them.

He chances a look upwards to see his eyes already glowing. Wooyoung sinks a little farther down on his cock, maybe trying to pull his attention, but San’s addicted to this, Wooyoung on his knees, the bob of his flare of red hair on his cock appearing in and out of view at the edge of the mirror as he sinks up and down. The shine of his abs and Wooyoung’s hand over his tattoo, and San’s fingers curl tighter in his hair to help guide his movements.

He meets his gaze to see him already drooling and making a mess around it, and San’s hips kick, Wooyoung moaning at the barest hints of him fucking his throat.

“You should see how good you look. How you look in the mirror, sucking my cock so eagerly. Stars, you must be so happy, baby. Haven't you been wanting this all night?” San croons, and Wooyoung makes a garbled noise around him, cheeks bulging out with the thick length stuffing them full.

San guides him down on his cock until his nose is nestled against his abdomen and keeps him there. Shallowly fucks up into his throat and feels Wooyoung moan around him more than he hears it.

Also feels Wooyoung inch closer to his leg. San presses it closer to his crotch, until he can feel the hard press of his cock against his pants, and feels Wooyoung start to grind against his calf with the silent permission of it. It always makes him feel so hot, like those flames really are consuming him, when Wooyoung gets off on just this, his mouth filled, San using him to feel good.

His fingers tug on his hair until his cock pops out of his mouth. There's a line of spit that connects Wooyoung’s mouth, whining, and his cock, laying against his abdomen as San looks him over.

“Are you prepped?”

Wooyoung nods, and San hums, cradling his chin with his other hand until he sticks his fingers into his mouth. Drags them down until Wooyoung’s mouth is wide open, and pets over his tongue. Makes him drool over himself a little more.

“Did you use your fingers, or a toy?”

Wooyoung tries to reply, but it comes out garbled. San shifts the hand from his hair to his cock, pressing three fingers inside of his mouth as he strokes over his length in slow, easy glides, squeezing at the tip before he restarts. It makes him sigh, sinking down onto the couch until his head is propped up by the back. Wooyoung’s eyes dipped down.

“What was that?” He asks, and Wooyoung tries again, spit dripping down onto the floor, desperation in his gaze as San keeps jerking himself off.

“How can I fuck you if you don't tell me, hm?” San continues, and is amused to find the way Wooyoung shuffles on the ground, working his outfit off. San had helped with the zipper on the way in. He’s bare on the floor before he’s rising up, a hand around San’s wrist to keep his fingers in his mouth as he straddles his lap, tucks his knees either side of him on the couch.

He’s every bit ethereal, glowing, as he takes those fingers in his mouth and leads them between his legs. To his hole, stretched and wet enough San can sink two fingers in.

“Fuck.” He curses, hand almost stilling on his cock as he fucks his fingers inside Wooyoung again. San chances a look behind them, at Wooyoung, curved over him in the mirror, tattoos along the back of his neck, the shine on his muscles as he takes in two of his fingers, arching back on them with every time they sink in.

“Could take me anywhere, Sannie, anytime you want me. Could just bend me over and sink right in, you could have me right now. Look, you can watch. See us both in the mirror.” Wooyoung guides San’s hand off of his cock just to wrap it around his own, a few strokes as he lets spit drip down from his mouth onto his cock. Stroking it over and over before he lifts up on his knees.

He looks behind him as he does, over his shoulder as he uses the mirror to line up San’s cock with his entrance, letting the tip stroke over and over the pink stretch of his rim. San can only groan, between watching and feeling, hands gripped around Wooyoung’s thighs as he lets him have his fun. He feels his muscles strain with how he’s keeping himself from sinking down on it, waiting for San to tell him he can.

He’s admiring the view, instead. The cinch of his waist and how golden he looks like this, sculpted and pretty and all for him, ethereally existing in his adrenaline and his power and his magic, cherry tinged and moon touched. San wants him so bad he aches. Shifts a hand upwards to thumb at the pretty piercings through his nipples, twinkling at him in the light just to watch how Wooyoung gasps, mouth dropped open as he lets San’s cock glide between his cheeks.

“Want you inside me so bad- want you to fuck me full of your cum, over and over, to fill me up so full I have to walk back with it running down my thighs.” Wooyoung whimpers, and San hums, like he’s thinking.

“Will you fuck yourself on my cock? Let me watch you bounce all pretty on it in the mirror? Give me a little show?” He asks, and Wooyoung nods, moaning out as San gives one of his nipples a pinch, arching so pretty. His golden, pink touched angel.

“Then give me a show.” He says, and groans as Wooyoung finally lets himself sink. His tip catching on his entrance, pushing past as they both let out a sigh, San sliding in so familiar even with how much they both chase after it.

He’s surprised for Wooyoung to take it slow, but then he thinks he understands. He’s taking his time to feel every inch of him as San slides deeper, and he tries to relish in that tight heat as he gets it, watching between Wooyoung’s legs as he takes every bit of it.

“Good boy. You're so good for me.” He murmurs, and smiles when he watches the praise wash over Wooyoung, cheeks already flushed, and he looks so happy, to be filled up with San’s cock. As he reaches the hilt, San kicks his hips up just to jostle him a bit, watch as it ripples through him with a surprised hiccup of a moan, how the pleasure spreads over his face.

“Come on, angel. Bounce.” San watches him straighten out in the mirror, how his back arches and he draws himself upwards just to drop back down. His hands curl around his hips, and he groans as Wooyoung sets up a pace just like this, the sounds of their hips meeting echoing in the room harsher and harsher as Wooyoung finds what he’s looking for.

He’s so fucking beautiful, San lets his nails dig in. His hips roll, body curving to find his cock, let San bury himself back inside, deep and fucking his hole open like he should, Wooyoung’s cock bobbing as he moves. He keeps making these noises that only get more pretty the faster he seeks him out, and San half helps him with his hips, guiding his movements.

“So pretty. You should see yourself, Wooyoung. Stars, you're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.”

“Prettiest on your cock. Makes me feel so good, San, knew I had to have you when I first saw you. Knew it.” Wooyoung gasps out, and San can’t quite help it as he starts thrusting upwards when Wooyoung comes down, meeting them in the middle even harder, feet steady on the carpet beneath them as leverage.

“The prettiest angel, you’re all mine. All fucking mine.” San curses, hands returning back up to those pretty nipples, all healed and sparkling, gets distracted and leans forward to get his mouth around them, making Wooyoung gasp and tighten up on his cock as he sucks them swollen and pink, metal piercings clinking against his teeth.

It makes Wooyoung start fucking back and forth on his cock in short, desperate strokes, working on rubbing up against San’s abdomen, hand curled around the back of his head to keep him near his chest. San still half tries to fuck up into him, wet and raw and feeling the heat course through him so sweltering it’s all he can do.

“Yours, I’m yours.” Wooyoung says, and San can tell he’s close from how much faster he’s getting, how desperate.

“You gonna cum, baby?” He asks, reaching a hand between them to hold onto those pretty hips, curl a hand around Wooyoung’s cock and jerk him off with his thrusts.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, m’close, so close.” Wooyoung gasps out, and San smiles, working that precum dripping down his cock before he squeezes tight around the base and doesn't let him cum. Fucks deep and watches the realization wash over his face, hips still pressing San deep inside of him and whimpering. The cry from his throat is wrecked, hands scrabbling down his chest as he looks at him.

“Please, please let me. Please, San.” He begs, and he hums, watches the pathetic dribble over his fingers.

“I want you to watch yourself cum. I want you to see exactly what you get like on my cock, messy and desperate and so fucking perfect.” San says, and hauls Wooyoung off his cock. Picks him up and turns him around until his back is facing his chest, and lets him sit back down on his cock. He sits up, hands bringing Wooyoung's thighs over his knees, spreading him wide and knowing he can do it, easy, fucked warm and soft and leaning back on his shoulder panting.

“Look in the mirror, angel. Look at yourself for me.” San murmurs, and he slowly starts fucking his cock up, grinding inside of him in steady circles, making Wooyoung’s cock bob. The pretty line of sweat over his collarbones glistening, his cheeks, his swollen nipples and the marks San has left on his hips flushed red and stark against his skin, down his neck and chest. Fading ones turning purple and bruised where San has left his mark before, left it now.

“So sweet when you're taking my cock. Bet you feel it all the way up to here.” He murmurs, and presses a hand over his stomach. Lets his cock drag precum over his knuckles as he presses down and watches Wooyoung moan, squirming pleasantly at what he gives him.

“So big. You're so big, feel you so- so deep, Sannie, please, please.”

“You want more? What more could I give you?” San asks, watches Wooyoung’s eyes flutter, trying to move himself even though it's limited with his thighs stretched so far.

“Deeper. Faster.” He mumbles, and San chuckles softly, starts to kiss a line down his neck.

“My pretty cock whore, never satisfied even when he's stuffed full. What, you want my fingers, too? Could you take it?”

“I’ll take it. I can take it, I can, I can.” Wooyoung whimpers, and San hums, bringing his fingers around to Wooyoung’s mouth. He watches their reflection, how he takes two around his lips and sucks, and feels how he laves his tongue against the pads, getting them soaked, until San brings it down to where they're connected, rubbing over where he’s inside him.

“Love being filled so much. No wonder this isn't enough for you.” He says, and works the first bit of his pointer finger inside along his cock.

It makes Wooyoung almost go boneless, and San swears as he feels him slowly taking in his finger alongside his cock.

“Mmn- Gonna cum.” Wooyoung mumbles, and San’s surprised that he’s so close when he’s barely moving, wanting to ease him open on it.

“Already?” San tsks, and works it in deeper, makes Wooyoung cry out with it as he tries working his hips down.

“Want you to move.” Wooyoung begs, and San hushes him quietly, pulling his finger out and nuzzling against Wooyoung’s neck.

“Fuck yourself on it. Make yourself cum.” San tells him, and keeps his hands on his hips as he watches Wooyoung’s thighs shake from exertion, and starts to earnestly build up a rhythm on his lap. He’s mesmerized by the way he watches his cock sink in every time even though he’s seen it so much, and he doesn’t think he’ll ever get tired of watching the way Wooyoung takes it all.

In the mirror, too, Wooyoung seems to be looking at himself, fingers brushing over his nipples and pinching, playing with the jewelry and arching his back, kicking whimpers from his throat as he starts moving even faster, a little more errant.

“Come on angel, don’t you want to be filled up with my cum? Don’t you want to be so full of it you can barely hold it all in?” San drawls, and Wooyoung’s nodding, chest rising and falling rapidly as his hips roll downwards, and San takes pity on him and starts kicking his hips up, too. It only takes a few sharp thrusts until Wooyoung is tipped over the edge, falling back onto San’s chest as he takes him in his arms and starts chasing after his own release.

Wooyoung just whines and lays against him, San’s hips finding him in quick, sharp thrusts, groans in his throat as he attaches his lips to his neck and sucks. Mouthing over his skin enough to draw blood, satisfied with the hint of iron on his teeth, breathing hot over Wooyoung’s ear as he feels Wooyoung try to tighten up around him.

“Cum for me. Fill me up, San-ah, want to feel you fill me up again. Make me all yours, the only one fucking me so full like this. C’mon, please, wanna feel it.” Wooyoung murmurs, voice broken, and San’s cumming inside him a moment later spurred on by the thought of it, ropes of cum that he keeps fucking deep into him, moaning at the wet sounds that come from below, from just how much he’s given him.

As they catch their breath, San’s hips stop their movement, plugging him up inside as he tries to kiss over the mess that he’s made of Wooyoung in his arms. He’s completely spent, and San’s fingers draw through the cum that Wooyoung’s left on his stomach, brings it up to his lips, instead, and watches as he lets his mouth drop open, pliant, letting San feed it to him.

He makes sure to swallow and keeps showing San that pink stretch of tongue, that it’s clean, that he’ll take more. He keeps doing it until there’s nothing left, and when he’s softened enough to pull out, Wooyoung's legs immediately trying to close to keep his cum inside as San lifts him and puts him down on the couch, laying on his side.

He’s whimpering, and San gently pets through his hair.

“Open your legs. Show me, baby.” He hums, and he’s already getting down to his knees as Wooyoung complies, holding his knees up to his chest as he shows off his pink, puffy hole, dripping with his cum. San can’t help it.

He immediately dives in, lapping up at the cum that leaks out of him to Wooyoung’s surprised moan, still keeping his legs against his chest as his fingers dig into his thighs. He keeps casting his gaze up at him, watches as his cock thickens up again against his stomach as he fucks Wooyoung all over with his tongue, getting his cheeks and chin dripping wet.

“Fuck. Fuck, San-ah.” He lets out a breath, and San can almost see his hesitation in wanting to touch his own cock, sensitive but still wanting. San nods slightly forward and Wooyoung takes it as the command that it is, but first, he’s offering his hand down, palm up, to San.

He pulls away from his ass just to lick over his fingers, get them wet enough so that when Wooyoung wraps a hand around his cock, it’s with an easy glide. Wooyoung sinks into it, and San returns to lapping at his hole, but it’s with his fingers this time, too.

He’s so stretched from his cock that he takes three, easy. Four, as San fits them in and it only makes Wooyoung’s hand even tighter, faster on his cock.

“Feels so good. Feels so fucking good, Sannie, I love your mouth. Love it when you- you eat me out.” His cheeks are flushed, and San’s just as much into it as Wooyoung is, hard pressed to admit that he’s already hard again from just this, eating his own cum from Wooyoung’s stretched hole.

He fucks his tongue deep just to watch the way it makes Wooyoung’s eyes almost roll up, sees how his cock is angry red at the tip and dripping, and starts fucking his fingers up, pressing against his prostate.

“Gonna- ‘Mm- gonna cum again, please, don't stop, San!” Wooyoung cries out, and he’s gone lax against the couch, thighs spread open and letting San ravish him as much as he pleases, and it’s with a hard fuck of his fingers deep inside him that he cums again.

It’s less than the first time, but it still makes San satisfied to see, fucking him through it until he sees Wooyoung start to shiver and stands, hand immediately going around his cock to finish himself.

He jerks off over Wooyoung, who’s smiling up at him happily and opening his mouth for it. It only takes San a few moments, seeing his red hole, his spent cock, so warm and pink and flushed just from what San’s done to him, and cums with a jerk of his hips, ropes of it spread over Wooyoung’s chest. His cheeks too, and his lips, kneeling down on the couch when he sees Wooyoung’s mouth dropped open enough he slides the tip inside, just to give him the last little bit down his throat.

He pets over his hair as Wooyoung cleans up his cock, licking around it until San’s had enough and pulls out, humming softly at what he’s left behind. Wooyoung looks so pretty like this that San can never get enough of him, tucking his hair back around his ears and petting his thumbs over his cheeks.

“Beautiful. You’re so beautiful, angel, you’re so good for me.” San murmurs, and Wooyoung just hums, and lets San rain down kisses all over his cheeks, happy to hear that laughter that bursts through just at the feather light touch of them over his features. That little freckle under his eye. The one under his bottom lip.

“Help me clean up?” Wooyoung asks, voice soft, and San nods, looking around for the wipes he knows are already in here. He finds them tucked away on a shelf, bringing them back and doing his best to clean up what he can. They’ll probably head straight to the showers right after this and really wash it off, but San wants to do it enough he feels comfortable to make it there.

“Look at you. So pretty, and you did so well tonight.” San quietly praises as he cleans, does himself, too, and finally tucks himself back into his pants, and rearranges Wooyoung’s clothes to make him decent enough for the trip.

“You did so well, too. It’s so much fun now, to perform with you, instead of just by myself, makes me so happy to share it.” Wooyoung admits, and San throws away the wipes, spends extra time drawing Wooyoung into his arms and petting through his hair, letting him rest lax against his chest.

“I’m glad you like it, angel. You don’t know how much I do, too. Didn’t know I’d ever do something like this in my life, but look. Now I’m doing it with you, doing so many things with you.” San says, ducks down to nuzzle his nose against his, press several soft, gentle kisses to his lips that don’t lead anywhere but warmth.

“Let’s never stop.” Wooyoung mumbles, and San can already tell he’s getting so sleepy, and they need to get out of here before the show’s over.

“Never. I’ll fly with you even if there’s no one to watch.” He’s gathering Wooyoung into his arms, who already latches to him as he wraps his legs around his waist, tries to do so carefully to not jostle him too much.

“Don’t need anyone to watch. Just us.” Wooyoung says, cheek against his shoulder, and San carries him all the way through backstage, humming that same tune under his breath, the one he hears Wooyoung singing all of the time.

“Just us.” San murmurs back, and leaves the roar and rumble of cheering behind them.

It’s hot enough that San thinks he might melt into the sheets. Wooyoung left a little while ago to go and get them something to drink from the cafeteria, San left laying on the bed and written off from work in the afternoon, having pulled some sort of muscle in his back.

Wooyoung still has to perform, having been doing little bouts of stretching in which he was able to stretch his foot up onto the cabinets, the dresser, his makeup vanity, while San laid listlessly and watched.

San rolls onto his side by the time he returns, a bundle of things in his arms that he dumps onto the bed.

“I got you some ice, and extra drinks for when I’m gone. Aren’t I so nice to you?” He hums, and hands over the package of ice that San drops onto his forehead and lets out a groan.

“So nice. Maybe I’ll start paying you.” Wooyoung laughs and sticks his straw into a juice box, leaning back on one palm and watching the excess condensation from the little bag of ice drip down San’s forehead, giving him some form of relief from the weather.

“What will you pay me with?” He humors him, ankle knocking against one of San’s own as he finally lays back, propped up on an elbow instead so he can still drink.

“Mm. What do you want?” San hums, and Wooyoung looks to the ceiling, the small crystals that spin and cast rainbows across the room, over the expanse of Wooyoung’s thigh, San’s waist, where his tattoo resides, healed against his heated skin.

“Tell me what you smell like.” Wooyoung says, and San looks at him for a moment, eyebrows drawn together.

“Can you not.. Smell me?” San asks, and Wooyoung just smiles, a little soft, a little sad, and leans over to kiss his forehead.

“It’s what was taken from me, for my magic. I can’t smell anything. I appreciate all of the things that I can, but I’ve always wondered what you smelt like. You’re so warm, I always tend to focus the most on that instead.” Wooyoung says, and San remembers small moments where everything comes into focus, where it makes sense that Wooyoung responded the way that he did.

“I’m sorry.” San says, and Wooyoung reaches over to gently squeeze his arm.

“We all had something we gave up. Even you. There’s always a price to pay for magic, and I’ve always wondered why that was what was taken from me, but I think it was because it was another way for me to love. I’ve always fallen in love so easily, never knew what to do with all of it. Not like I ever let that stop me.” He hums, and San just smiles, reaches over to gently cup his cheek and warms when he watches Wooyoung nuzzle into the contact. His thumb gently traces over his skin, thinking quietly.

“I don’t really know what I smell like. I know how you do, though.” San says, and Wooyoung wrinkles his nose.

“Flowers? That’s what Yeosang-ah always told me.” San nods, moving the ice onto the bed and wiping away the errant droplets down his temples.

“And smoke. There’s something about it that has always drawn me in, but it’s most prominent right here. Maybe it’s your candles, and your soap. And just you.” He leans forward to place their foreheads together, lips brushing in a gentle kiss.

“Do you know the other’s, too? What they had to give up?”

“Yeosang can’t see every color. Everything’s in black and white, and the only color he can see is shades of red.” Wooyoung hums, and San looks up pointedly to the color of his hair. Wooyoung laughs, a little fond.

“He did inspire it. He can find me in the crowd real easy, but I like it, too.” Wooyoung says, and San hums a bit, thinking.

“Seonghwa’s pink?” San points out, and Wooyoung nods, moving to press his cheek against his shoulder. “Yeosang can find him quicker, too.” He tells him, and he feels like maybe there’s a lot left unsaid there, but maybe it’s not as easy as explaining it in words.

“I feel like Hongjoong hyung’s is obvious.” Wooyoung says next, and San tilts his head a little bit.

“No, I don’t think so.” He says instead, and Wooyoung offers San his juice, leading the straw to his mouth and letting San take a few sips.

“He’s unable to lead. Do anything in a position of power, it’s why he doesn’t actually run this place. He can never come first in games, never win, never anything that brings him above anyone else. It’s like some cruel twist of fate that stops him every time, no matter how hard he tries. I think I said it’s obvious because he always has all of these ideas, but he has Seonghwa hyung help him do it. I think it’s half of how the Conductor is able to run this place, too, because of Hongjoong’s ideas, and the fact that he’s unable to do them.”

It makes sense, now that San thinks about it, but finding out all of these things leaves a sense of hollow in him, yes, they were able to have their magic, this beautiful thing that changed and shaped the world around them, but they were robbed of the things that were intricate to them, that impacted their lives in a way that mattered to each of them.

He sits up a little bit and catches sight of himself in the mirror, and the reflection distorts for a moment, almost moving in a way that’s too fast to be a reflection, the edges of his mouth curled cruelly, that white streak of his hair almost consuming all of it. It makes San’s eyebrows furrow, blinking until it returns back to normal, like San had never seen anything to begin with. Just himself, blinking right back.

“I don’t know how he lets him do it. The Conductor, lets him take all of his ideas like that.”

“It’s not like the Conductor really takes credit for it. Barely anyone knows what he actually looks like, he’s always wearing that mask.” San only hums, letting himself ease back down on the bed to look at the ceiling. It makes his head feel less dizzy, to concentrate on something he knows will remain still, retain its meaning.

“Is the magic worth it?” San says, and Wooyoung hums, distant.

“Don’t you think so? It brought us together. It was always obvious, too, whenever we were together. My magic always felt like a live wire when I was with you, like I almost couldn’t control it, it just wanted to mix with yours.”

“Is that why the candles almost always go out when we kiss?” San asks, and Wooyoung laughs, a loud, beautiful sound that echoes out of the open windows.

“Maybe. That also might be me, too. You’re too good of a kisser, Sannie.” Wooyoung says, and San hums, finds the energy in him to roll over on top of him, hands seeking out Wooyoung’s wrists to pin down to the bed as he presses kisses over his cheeks.

“Am I so good I make your magic go haywire? Hm?” San taunts, and it seems Wooyoung can’t stop laughing, tumbling from his lips as his kisses lead down his jaw, wanting to listen to the sound. The windchimes twist above them on a clean, clear breeze, sending cool reprieve across the heavy heat of the room.

“Maybe it’s yours, too.” Wooyoung points out, and it’s hard for San to really think about himself as magical even though he knows it to be true, finds it easier to think of Wooyoung as magic since he’s thought about it ever since he saw him that first night, gliding through the air like he was really on wings.

“I probably smell like flowers, too. Like you.” San starts, and Wooyoung hums like he’s listening, San’s hands easing on his wrists when Wooyoung looks up at him like that, like his heart’s open to every single world. It makes San soft, careful.

“Like the leather jacket Hongjoong gave me, and the floral soap from the showers. The smoky smell that lingers here. I miss smelling like how I probably did at home, though, my mom always smelled like cinnamon, always like whenever she baked cookies and it lingered throughout the whole house. The orchards in the summer when the heat would get to the fruit and you could smell it for miles. Fresh lemons, acidic and sharp, when she squeezed them for lemonade.”

Wooyoung’s hand reaches up to gently pet San’s hair back, tucking it behind his ears because it’s gotten so long, now, San’s wondering about taking scissors to it himself over the sink or just giving up and pulling it back with a hair tie. He thinks Wooyoung would like the latter option more, if San wouldn’t let Wooyoung help him cut it in the first place.

“You’re so full of love, San-ah. Every little thing is full of love for you, the way you see the world.” Wooyoung says, and San smiles, bright, indents in his cheeks.

“I was lucky to have an abundance of that. I think it made up for everything else, for me.” San says, and he’s surprised when Wooyoung rolls them the other way, San ending up on his back and Wooyoung straddling his hips, knocking all of the air out of him in a good way.

Wooyoung’s hands drag down his bare chest, leaving goosebumps in their wake.

“I said I always had so much love to give, and I still loved anyways- I just gave it out freely, didn't think much about it. I started getting a little angry at the world, then, for not being able to handle it. For not being able to show me that there was any want for my give. But you came along, loving just as much as I loved in your own way, showing me it’s okay to do it, and I thought.. I just wasn’t loving the right things. I was expecting love from unreliable places, when it would come to me in the right way if it was meant to. It would feel warm, feel right, when it was.”

San stares up at him as Wooyoung talks, quiet in his honesty, bleeding heart and offering it to him with both hands, and all San wants to do is covet, to keep safe, like a treasure he locks away in a gilded box, keeping the key close to his heart.

“Your love is special, Wooyoung. I’ve always admired the way you give- with your whole heart, you show every single ounce of what you feel. It’s so bright, powerful- it’s beautiful, like uncut ore straight from the vein, glittering and waiting. There’s nothing like it. Those you do love- you should see the looks on their faces when they receive it. It’s like they’re looking straight into the sun.” San says, and Wooyoung smiles, and San thinks, there it is.

“Is that how you feel?” Wooyoung asks, and he feels like there’s more behind that, but San thinks he would carve his heart from his chest and give it to him if he asked.

“Yeah. Warm sunlight, all the way through.” San murmurs, and Wooyoung leans down to let their foreheads rest together, breathing in each other’s space.

“Me too.” He whispers, their lips softly brushing with each word. “Me too.”

Sometimes, San dreams of fire. He dreams of it touching him and feeling like the cool frost of wind, and sometimes, he feels it burn him. Draws away his hands, quick as a match, leaving the smoke and the flicker behind as he tries to make sense of just what he’s able to do.

Then the fire burns, and it burns, and it consumes all of the edges until it fades to nothing again, and it’s like San has fallen through a body of water and emerged on the other side, ripples all around him. And then it’s something else familiar to him, something he knows but he has never seen, but it feels like he had.

It is Wooyoung in chains. Wooyoung, on his knees in the center of an island that San can’t get to, and the chains come in on every single side and hold him down. It’s like the water turns into mud all of the way to his knees, and he can’t fight getting through it faster and faster, because Wooyoung is just thrashing, pulling at the metal and making it clank and rattle, and San can’t get to him.

It makes him think of his angel being robbed of flight. Stolen from him, but every time San tries to make his way around, to see how possibly those ribbons of fabric have been turned into heavy weights, Wooyoung looks beyond him. Past him. His eyes are glowing, but they are not the same color that he knows so well.

In his memory, one is red, one is blue. Metallic, like the metal that restrains him, and it’s what glows when Wooyoung flies, when he flickers on each of the candles, when he’s too lazy to walk across a room and summons something over, not wanting to leave San’s arms.

Here, they’re golden. Vibrant and waiting on him, seeing something behind him that San can’t see, even as he rapidly is pulled deeper into the water, the mud, like he’s unable to see anymore. His vision warps and twists, and he’s leaving behind a Wooyoung he only wishes to save, and he wakes up, gasping, making sure that he’s in his arms as he catches his breath.

So many times, he had awoken to silence and Wooyoung’s steady breathing, but tonight, it is to smoke. Thick, heavy smoke that clogs up his lungs, and to an empty bed that does not contain Wooyoung no matter how much he searches through the covers.

Just hours before, he was kissing Wooyoung goodnight, holding his cheeks and pressing kisses everywhere he could reach, just to hear that tumble of laughter out of Wooyoung’s throat, thinking just one more, just one more. It had not been enough.

The door to Wooyoung’s place bangs open on its hinges, and standing in the doorway is Hongjoong. San already slid to the end of the bed, pulled on pants and a shirt that he isn’t sure if it’s his or Wooyoung’s but it doesn’t matter, and he looks up to see him with a thinly veiled relief until he really looks at him.

There’s something off about him.

Like the Wooyoung in his dreams, there is something about this Hongjoong that is not.. The Hongjoong that he knows. His hair is darker, falling into his eyes, dark smudges against his cheeks and gloves on his hands, and a dark, thick cloak half pulled over his glowing eyes. They’re a brilliant, aquamarine blue, the color of waves that San has seen on postcards.

“San, you need to get out of here. You need to meet the others.”

“Hongjoong?” San calls out, throat dry, and watches the grimace pass over Hongjoong’s lips.

“You know that I’m not. I can see it.” He says, and San shakes his head, stands, crosses the threshold and peers out beyond Hongjoong, to find the rest of Wonderland that has gone up in smoke. The flames lick and thrash in the distance, and San remembers the dreams that he got burned. Watches as the main stage crumbles from behind, remnants of a future that’ll cease to exist as the ash disperses.

“You look like Hongjoong. Sound like Hongjoong.” San says, and there is a gnawing worry in him as he looks around, to see if Wooyoung is behind him, if he wasn't here, then where.

“Wooyoung is with the rest of them. Yeosang came and got him last night, right before the fires started.” San hadn’t said anything, but maybe Hongjoong could see the look in his eyes. He wishes it wasn't distrust, but there's something clawing at his heart, something wrong. It clutches onto him like hands in the dark, gripping him tight.

“I am Hongjoong. Just not.. The Hongjoong that you know.” He says, and he looks antsy on his feet, San running a hand through his hair and thinking if Wooyoung is with Yeosang, then he’s safer than alone, but he’d still feel better when he has him near, when he has Wooyoung’s hand in his own. He feels jittery without him, everything so wrong now that he’s woken up, he wonders if somehow he’s still dreaming.

When Wooyoung had first told him of everything, he had thought that was enough to send him reeling, a whole world beyond himself that everyone was aware of but himself, but to also have Hongjoong claim that he isn’t Hongjoong, but he is, when he’s standing, breathing, in front of San, is something harder to swallow.

“How could you be Hongjoong, and I know another Hongjoong?” San says, and it feels like he’s walking in circles even as he says it. Like he's sinking down slowly into heavy waters, and there's nothing he can possibly make sense of. Every part of him feels slow, but especially his thoughts, his brain, feels so slammed with everything all at once it almost halts him completely.

Hongjoong moves back, and San steps out of the trailer, looking back one more time at the room he’s come to know as home behind him- maybe there are things he should grab, things Wooyoung would want, but Hongjoong’s closing the door before he could think about returning for them, frame slamming on the hinges and jolting San from his thoughts.

“You don’t need it, trust me. Come on, we have to go.” He says, and starts leading his way through the crowds of people pushing through, trying to exit the park. Instead, Hongjoong goes the opposite way of the entrance, and deeper in the park itself, the places roped off, forgotten and desolate.

“You’re leading me to Wooyoung, right?” San says, and he would be weary but this is Hongjoong, he thinks, and if he knows where Wooyoung is, then that’s all San really cares about, isn’t it? He thinks about the park, he thinks about the people in it, he thinks of the others and how they’re all hopefully with Wooyoung.

He thinks of the main stage, the old ice cream parlor, the admissions office Hongjoong gave him a job in. His old bed before he moved in with Wooyoung. He thinks of the Conductor, hidden in the shadows and never showing his face.

“Yes, I’m leading you to Wooyoung. But San..” He cuts himself off, and even with walking as briskly as he is, he looks like he’s trying to figure out what to say, like there’s something he’s leaving out, twisting his mouth with it as San keeps half running to keep up along his side.

“It wasn’t supposed to go like this. I don’t really have that much time, but this- It was all fucked up from the beginning. I was never supposed to be here.”

“So who are you?” San presses, and Hongjoong sighs, and San doesn’t even know why he’s so frustrated, wonders how he could objectively be calm in the face of all of this destruction. The flames seem to be crawling mainly over the main stage and all of the main buildings, and the farther they walk this way- maybe it just hasn’t made its way here, yet, but San still chokes on the thick air, the way the flames flicker, ash blowing like flecks in the wind. It makes him think of the bonfires they had had, it makes San ache, because how many nights had they spent thinking that all of this was never ending?

Yet now it burns around him, and Hongjoong takes him by surprise by suddenly stopping, turning to be in front of him and halting him where he stands. The flames half dance across his features, and San tries to figure out those reflections in the fire, why it feels familiar and so distant all at once.

He brings a mask up to his face.

It all makes sense, now.

San had never seen the Conductor, but he had spoken to him once. His voice was low, barely able to hear over all of the noise backstage, but he remembers the day that he assigned him to the performance with Wooyoung. He had been leaning against one of those wooden posts holding everything upright, a fitted coat and a sleek hat tipped over his features and a mask, stretched across the lower half of his face.

“He’s always wearing a mask. Everyone wonders if it’s a way to keep himself hidden so no one really looks into his identity, but all of us wonder if it’s because of him being Awakened, maybe he has something else to hide.” Wooyoung had given him bits and pieces in between dozing, lazy kisses, the summer afternoon heat placating them to do nothing more than lay in bed and claim it was enough for the day. San had never questioned it, he had given him a job, a place to stay, hadn’t he?

“I’ve seen you observing the acts. Wooyoung, specifically.” He had said, and San had only nodded, remembering Hongjoong’s words, I hope you never meet him at all.

“It’s a wonderful show. Wooyoung always makes flying look so easy.”

“Couldn’t you fly, too? Alongside him?” The Conductor had suggested, and finally stepped out from the shadows. Wooyoung had been performing in front of them, soaring in the air with his fabrics, his magic that caused him to almost float from one position to the next, flying without wings.

“Isn’t that for Wooyoung? I couldn’t-”

He cuts him off. “You could. Train with him. Become a part of what Wooyoung does. I think you’re ready. You’ve been ready for a while.” The Conductor said, and there was a brush of a hand on his shoulder, and he was gone. San remembers feeling off the rest of the day, like he’d tilted a certain degree off from where he was, and there was nothing he could do to fix it.

That night, it was one of the first times that he had dreamt of Wooyoung in chains.

His vision refocuses, like the twist of a lens. Hongjoong, standing in front of him. The Conductor, standing in front of him, lowering his mask.

“You’ve been- I thought Hongjoong didn’t have anything to do with this the whole time, he’s just been- he does the hiring. The numbers. He- You’ve been lying to all of us?” San says, stepping backwards, and Hongjoong sighs, pulling the cloak over his face even further.

“He hasn’t been lying to you. I’m Hongjoong, he’s Hongjoong. We’re just not both from the same place. He came here, just like the rest of you did, and I’m lost. I’m trying to get back to where I belong, just like you. It was just bad fucking timing- I wasn’t supposed to be here when he was. When you all were, but I had no other choice. I can’t leave without the rest of them, and we got split up, so now I needed all of you.”

San’s head is spinning. He thinks the whole world is spinning, and Hongjoong reaches out to grab onto his arm, keeping him steady, hand on his chest.

“Breathe, San. Have you been dreaming? Have you been seeing things that don’t make sense?”

“Yes.” He gasps out, and he’s clinging onto Hongjoong because it’s all that he has.

“Yes, I saw. I see all of you, I can never catch up. I see fire, I saw all of this fire, I saw Wooyoung in chains-”

“Fuck.” Hongjoong curses, and tries to take a steady breath. San looks at him, confusion knitting his brows, a roll of worry, of some kind of distant feeling of something wrong coming over him, one that San has no way of hoping to reverse.

“What’s wrong?”

“You- The other you, can see things before they happen when he dreams, in reflections, sometimes in fire. See the other versions of ourselves in different worlds.”

“Did I- The fire?” San asks, suddenly hit with the thought, and Hongjoong shakes his head, firm.

“I started the fire. This place needed to burn.”

“Wooyoung said there was this world, the mortal one, and the other- the one that Awakened come from-”

“Wooyoung’s wrong. It’s not his fault, but he’s wrong. Look, San, we’re all running from the same thing. We’re all trying to get away from the same thing, but- It’s so fucked, but there’s someone who dresses in all white. People, who dress in all white, and masks, not like my own, that cover their whole face.”

Hongjoong clutches onto San’s arms, now, and meets his eyes.

“You have to run from them, San. You can’t save us all. You have to run.”

San’s head hurts. His head hurts, and he wants to get to Wooyoung, and he feels like the fire is getting closer, like the heat’s coming in on all sides. It claws to his throat, clings like something wet and heavy that San can’t get off his shoulders.

“Take me to Wooyoung, I need to see him. I need to get to him.” San pleads, and Hongjoong stares at him for a moment, quiet.

“Stay with the others. Stay together, San. There are more worlds than this one, there is another version of you, and that’s the one I’m trying to get back to. All of them, that I’m trying to get back to. Don’t let them warp your memories, again, or your mind. Your thoughts. They all got to you so fast in this world, before I could even help it. I hope one day you’ll be able to remember what’s true again.”

Hongjoong lets him go, and starts trudging in the direction that they were once traveling towards. San doesn’t even know what to say, other than there’s a buzzing in his hands, in the back of his mind.

It’s why he doesn’t see the swing that’s directed his way. It knocks into the back of his head, sending him forwards, and his cry outwards is all that alerts Hongjoong until he stumbles to his knees. He braces himself for another blow before Hongjoong is there, hands outstretched, holding the arms of someone back from him. They’re cloaked in white.

“San, go! Keep going straight until you get to the alcove. You’ll know where to go. You’ll know.” Hongjoong says, gritting his teeth as he tries to fight his strength against someone with a slighter taller build than his own, roughly San’s size.

He feels something dripping down his neck, puts his hands up and realizes when they come back wet that it’s blood.

“Hongjoong- Can you- Will you be able to get back?” San’s stumbling upwards, world spinning, eyes looking rapidly in between the fight that Hongjoong’s losing. He’s about to say something before the figure knocks Hongjoong to the ground, and San can’t help it, he’s running towards him and pushing the figure back off of him. The figure tilts their head, almost amused, and swings at San again.

He’s ready, this time, and so he clutches onto his arm, twists it away, dodges another punch. The hit earlier makes him a little more sluggish than he’d like, but he still manages to outmaneuver him one more time, trying to see where Hongjoong had gone, if he’s okay, when the figure slams into his side. It knocks him down, rolling in the dirt until the figure is kneeling over him, looking at him, and San reaches out, trying to wrestle off the mask.

“You wouldn’t want to do that. You should’ve learned from the last time.” The last time? The voice sounds so familiar it throws San off enough that he narrowly misses another hit, the figure trying to grapple for his wrists. Instead, San knocks off the mask. It falls, almost in slow motion as San’s vision glides and tries to uncover the features of the person in front of him, the one that wanted to harm him and Hongjoong.

It’s himself.

He stares right back, a sick, twisted grin on his lips as he finally pins his wrists down, hair a stark white against the darkened night sky above him.

“Why’d you have to do that?” He asks, twisted laughter in his voice, and almost knocks San out cold if it isn’t for Hongjoong pushing him sideways off of his body. They both roll on the ground until Hongjoong wins out, pulling a knife from his belt and holding it against his throat.

“San-ah, go.” He grits out through his teeth, jaw clenched as he holds down- himself, struggling to get back up, fighting even with the weapon presented in front of him, a ripped growl from his throat.

“You can’t save them. You’re never going to save them.” The voice is different but it’s still his own, and he doesn’t even get to think about anything, his heart wrenching as he sees Hongjoong shaking to hold the other version of himself down. San doesn’t think it’s the one Hongjoong is wanting to get back to.

Hongjoong pins him down once more and chances one more look at him. He doesn’t speak, but his eyes say enough. San’s only making it harder for him by being here, giving him one more thing to worry about.

San turns and goes.

He runs. He runs until his lungs ache, and his feet still feel like they’re running when he slows. He had been looking for that alcove, throat so tight he feels like he can barely breathe, each step another that he feels like he should turn back, he should help Hongjoong, but how can he help Hongjoong against.. Himself? How is that even himself when all he wanted to do was harm them, that’s not who he is, not who he’s ever been- or so he thinks, or so he remembers, how much of what he remembers is wrong-

He stops himself. He’s thinking too much. He’s thinking too much, and he has to get to Wooyoung, he has to get to the others before the fire gets to them, too, he needs to get them out of here, and maybe he can go back and get Hongjoong once he knows the rest of them have gotten through safely, and then- He sees it.

He sees the alcove, covered in ivy and cobwebs, sees the way a lantern alongside the wall has been tilted downwards, and moves forward. His fingers touch the glass and it lights up silver, and the alcove behind him starts to twist, gravel and stone grinding together as it reveals a doorway, and a downwards, spiraling staircase into the dark.

San looks back over his shoulder. He can’t see Hongjoong anymore, can’t hear him, but he can see the fire raging over the buildings, tearing down everything he had come to love. Every place he had learned to love, and become himself, and become something greater than he thought he would ever be.

What did he tell Wooyoung, once? He would choose to go to this place, and he would choose where he would go next.

In his palm, turned upwards to the dim night sky, San brings forth a flame. It’s cool to the touch, and dances in his palm as he turns his gaze back to the staircase, and descends. The door closes behind him.

The flames flicker against the stone hallways as he walks downwards, cool light spilling only a few feet in front of him as he gets lower and lower. It’s cold down here, and damp, sending a chill over his body the lower he goes. He can distantly hear dripping water, the scatter of small animal feet, but nothing beyond that, straining to try and finally see or hear something he recognizes.

He feels like they go on forever, that inky blackness dipping into the edges of the stairs, until the steps round out into a floor that he steps out onto, his boots only getting a few heavy, echoing footsteps before he’s pushed up against the wall. There’s a gasp of air in his throat, and the coolness of a blade against his throat that keeps his head knocked back against the stone.

And then, in that brilliant, silver light he holds up, is one shining, vermillion eye, one silvery blue, glowing in the dark.

“Wooyoung?” San gasps, and the knife instantly drops, clattering to the floor as Wooyoung wraps his arms around him so tightly he can barely take in a breath.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I never would have left you, but Hongjoong wouldn’t let me come back to get you. He said you’d find us, and you did, you did.” Wooyoung cries out, and San just holds him, holds him so tight, because out of everything he had learned in this night, this is steady, this is true, this is the Wooyoung that he loves.

He would know him even in this darkness, in this absence of knowledge in a place he doesn’t know, when everything around him has been uprooted and lost.

“It’s okay, I know you would’ve come back for me. I’m sorry for being a little late.” He somehow finds it in himself to try and make Wooyoung smile, thinking that through all of this, that will settle him. Wooyoung pulls back to show him one, and it seems to undo a few of the knots still furled in his chest.

“We don’t have a lot of time, the others- but San, I wanted to tell you, I’ve been wanting to tell you, ever since I met you, it felt like I already knew you, like you came from another lifetime, and everything felt so easy, so natural, I felt like you already knew, but I want to say it. I want to make sure you know.”

“I love you too.” San cuts him off, and smiles as he sees Wooyoung’s eyes shining in the dark. His hand comes to connect with his chest, a fond pat, lower lip swelled in a slight pout.

“You stole it from me.”

“You already knew. I already knew. Now we’re just saying it out loud.”

“I love you, San.” Wooyoung murmurs, and San leans down, decides to be selfish, and connects their lips for one moment. When he had been running, it had been all he could think about, all he had wanted. When his other self had pushed him to the ground, grip straining tighter and harder than he even thought himself capable, with that crazed look in his eyes, he had thought about kissing Wooyoung just one more time.

So he kisses him again. One more time.

“I love you too.” San whispers, and it’s enough. He thinks everything in this universe is enough if he can just keep loving Wooyoung, and Wooyoung keeps loving him back.

“We have to go. There’s a- Hongjoong said there was a portal, one that’ll go active once we’re all near. We’ve been waiting for you.” Wooyoung says, and his hand slips into his own, intertwines between every finger and drags him down the path. He leads him blindly through the dark, the light of San’s flames only enough for a few feet in front of them, but it’s not long until it leads into a room.

This, too, is forgotten, crumbled stone and lanterns lit up with artificial flame, much like San’s own, discarded boxes and paintings leaned against wooden tables and bookcases, cast over with sheets. There’s so much down here that’s been abandoned and lost, armoires and stacks of books, regal, velvet covered chairs and lounges, cabinetry creating a maze of lost treasures.

Wooyoung leads them through it until he sees the rest of them all standing around a doorway, but the frame is empty, leading nowhere, just darkness. They turn and look when Wooyoung and San approach them, and San’s surprised when he sees Hongjoong, the one that he knows, perched up on a table with Seonghwa ducked towards him, caught in quiet conversation. There's gauze wrapped around one of his eyes, covered over, that was not there the last time that he saw him. That the other Hongjoong didn't have, either.

“Did you meet him?” Hongjoong asks, and San nods. The rest of them look confused, like they don’t even know what they’re talking about. Wooyoung, at his side, looks at him with furrowed brows.

“Meet who?” Wooyoung asks, and San looks to Hongjoong again.

“Did you know?” San continues, and Hongjoong slides off the table, shoving his hands into the pockets of his coat.

“Only for a little while. I’m not good at hiding things from myself when I want them done a certain way.” He says, and his smile seems a little fond.

“There’s- More. Up there, now, and he told me to go ahead. How can we leave him, though?” San says, and the worry is there in each of his features, Seonghwa stepping forward.

“More? In white?” He asks, and San nods, and Wooyoung’s grip is tighter on him, the rest looking between each of them both. They don’t hide their confusion, but San doesn’t, either. He still really has no idea what’s going on, but it’s then that that buzzing at the back of his mind grows stronger. His vision sweeps the room, catching on a sharp reflection of light against a mirror, pain suddenly strong enough that he cries out, hand coming up to cover over his eyes, everything’s so bright.

The white bleeds across his vision until he sees Hongjoong struggling on the ground against San, until he’s suddenly knocked out of view. And there’s Seonghwa, pink hair long gone and replaced by a cool, sleek blonde, offering Hongjoong a hand and pulling him up. Pulling him into a hug. And Yeosang, behind him, black hair replaced by a silvery purple that seems to bend in the light, the rest of the five dressed in all black, those long, sweeping cloaks, hoods pulled down over their features, gathering around Hongjoong-

And San gasps in a breath, ringing in his ears. He’s on the floor, now, on his knees, Wooyoung’s hands on his shoulders.

“They’re here. He’s okay, he should be okay. Let’s go. We need to go.” San says, looking up to meet Hongjoong’s hard gaze, and he nods. It’s like he knows everything the other Hongjoong told him- and he trusts San. He trusts what he’s seen, even if he’s unable to explain it all. Even if he doesn’t know that it’s real.

As Wooyoung pulls him up, with shaky knees and shaky hands, he still reaches out for Wooyoung’s and threads them back together as they all step forward to the door. It’s like it senses their presence, though, because as they all stand in a half circle in front of that unyielding darkness, there is a small, white keyhole that appears where it should be if it truly was a door.

Half cluttered together and in awe, Hongjoong reaches forward, his other hand clutched in Seonghwa’s, and lets himself get enveloped in that clear, white light. They had each reached out for each other, Yeosang’s other hand in San’s own, and it seems to follow them down the line, the light swallowing each of them whole. Seonghwa, Mingi, Yunho.

San watches it consume Wooyoung. He sees it on his lips, his mouth, he sees the I love you that lingers there. He thinks he would love him in every lifetime, in every world that exists- San knows that he will find him, and he will love him.

He’ll search for him in each one, and every world that comes after that. San’s grip is tight in Wooyoung’s as Wooyoung lets it take him and envelop him whole.

San chose this. He chooses where he goes next.

And if it leads him to Wooyoung again, then he’ll continue to choose. If it leads him to all of them, he’ll continue to choose, and to fight, and to find them again. And again. And again.

He understands why the Conductor- why Hongjoong waited for all of them to find him. In all of his memories, none of the darkness lingered when they were all in a room, warmed by laughter and song and voice.

The light touches all of them, until the doorway falls silent, returning back to darkness, waiting.

Outside, the sky blazes with fire, the light of a full moon, and the clear, almost silent ring of a bell.