Archive of Our Own

It becomes pretty evident pretty quickly that they need to have a conversation.

Not that they don’t talk! Because it’s probably one of Taeyong’s favourite things about loving Doyoung, even before they’re a couple. That he can lean in to whisper something on a live, or chat sleepily in the confused crossover hours of the morning, whether they’re going to sleep or getting up, and Doyoung will listen. He might snap back, or laugh, or keep playing his game and only make cute little humming noises in response, but Taeyong never feels - put up with. Like he’s a hassle.

He does his best to give back as much of that feeling as he receives. Doyoung insists that he likes looking after Taeyong, and Taeyong has had his mouth wiped in public enough times to know how true that is, but there are different ways of caretaking the people you love.

So. They need to talk.

“Jesus, what happened to you?” Johnny’s eyebrows are up around his hairline as he stares at Taeyong’s back. “You look like you got attacked by a vacuum cleaner in the night.”

“Gross!” Donghyuck shouts from across the room where he’s getting his makeup done. “MarkUH, tell hyung how gross he is.”

“Which hyung?” Mark asks, and by this time Taeyong has yanked his new shirt down to hide the red marks smeared over the width of his shoulders. A glance in the mirror says that his face isn’t quite as bad, but that’s more to do with how angry the marks are than how well he’s hiding his blush.

“Allergic reaction,” he says flatly to Johnny, who might as well get the makeup-noona to give him new eyebrows, his have all but disappeared. Somewhere Yuta - there are too many members in this room, but he knows it has to be Yuta - snorts and mutters something, only to yelp at the sharp slap of another member (Jungwoo?) presumably defending his honour, and is this what tension headaches feel like? Taeyong thinks he must be getting a tension headache.

Almost like the thought summoned him, a familiar hand slides cool over the back of his neck. Strong fingers dig into muscle, circle up over the notch between bones; the gathering spike of pain abruptly falls to pieces, throbbing away under Doyoung’s careful touch.

“Mmm,” Taeyong sighs quietly, feeling his shoulders unwind, head dropping forward to expose his nape further.

“Better?” Doyoung asks, and Johnny must have peeled his eyebrows off the ceiling or something because he’s finally looking away, clapping his hands and bounding over to harass Taeil - who, as far as Taeyong can tell, is asleep in his make-up chair. If Taeyong were capable of falling asleep in any position other than flat on his back with his legs elevated at the perfect angle, he might consider joining him. He’s not entirely certain when the last time he caught more than a couple of hours was.

“Much. Thank you.”

The urge to lean back into Doyoung and steal a kiss is overwhelming. It probably wouldn’t even look that weird, if he was quick about it, if he aimed for the underside of Doyoung’s throat or the crest of his cheekbone. They aren’t being filmed - hence Johnny’s vacuum cleaner comment, Taeyong supposes - and it’s not like Donghyuck doesn’t try to ambush people with his mouth every three days.

Things that had once felt perfectly fine take on a sharper edge when you actually have something to hide, Taeyong is discovering. He reaches back over his shoulder, gently clasps Doyoung’s wrist. Tugs it away.

“It looks like Jaehyun’s done,” he says softly. “I should take his seat.”

Doyoung’s expression is heartbreakingly understanding when Taeyong turns to catch sight of it, needing the reassurance. A thousand possible words build up in the back of his throat; he swallows them down just as fast and gives Doyoung’s wrist a quick double squeeze instead. The memory of his grip lingers while Taeyong shoulders Jaehyun out of his seat (or at least, shoves his shoulder into Jaehyun. Jaehyun is careful to make the point that he is unmoved by this show of force before finally heaving his protein-packed ass out of the way).

By the time they’re getting into position on stage, though, the phantom pressure is gone. The pound of their song’s intro keeps the tension from creeping back in, practice and professionalism launching him into a whole separate headspace, but there’s no adrenaline kick along with it, no audience-induced high. They haven’t performed to a real live audience in months now, and while staff in every location do their best to provide hype, it’s not the same. The body-trembling, brain-wrecking sweep of euphoria that comes from having lyrics you wrote screamed back in your face by a heaving crowd is missing.

By the time they’re done, all Taeyong really wants to do is drag his body home and lie down. His bed, Doyoung’s bed, a couch somewhere, he doesn’t care. But he’s made it his habit these days to break down their performances a little more warmly, like he can make up for the energy of a whole crowd on his own. It takes a fair amount of time and focus to walk the line between making sure each member feels seen and appreciated, while still giving them practical the feedback they all need, without being goopy about it because they’re only good at sincerity when you stick them in a room alone with a camera.

By the time they pile into the cars to head back he’s thinking longingly of showers, and feet elevating plushies, and Doyoung’s too-cold hands on the back of his neck. But Mark wants his opinion on some song concept he’s been bouncing around, holding an Airpod out to him with those sparkly anime eyes, and they’re not going to have much time together soon with the amount of running around Mark does, and sometimes the best solid chunk of time you can get is right after a performance.

He lets his fifth floor members know he’ll be heading up to the tenth for a while, catches Doyoung’s hand and gives it a quick squeeze before Donghyuck announces he’s coming too. He pushes between the two of them obliviously to hang off Taeyong’s arm, and Taeyong carefully rearranges his face around the spasm of pain from being so abruptly jerked off his axis.

“Yah, careful!” Doyoung smacks Donghyuck’s upper arm, which immediately starts Donghyuck whining loudly about fairness, although Taeyong does note that he stops hanging all of his weight off Taeyong.

By the time he gets everyone separated and on their way, and corrals his brain into giving Mark some useful feedback, and sits through Yuta and Jungwoo teasing him about his relationship, and orders food for the whole apartment because the only vegetable left in the fridge is half a cucumber, he’s lost track of time. (Jaehyun protests that there are too vegetables in the fridge, it’s just that none of the others are allowed to touch them because they’re his special organic vegetables, to which Taeyong points out that there might as well be no vegetables then, hmm? And god, he does his best to not be too cartoonishly mothering of his members, but they really make it hard to avoid).

Donghyuck announces he’s staying the night as Taeyong goes to leave, and Mark carefully avoids looking at either of them when he does. Which - that’s something that Taeyong is going to have to like, talk to them about at some point, but for the time being they’re able to keep whatever it is they’re doing under wraps. And that’s such a minor miracle, he’s willing to give them both a little slack before he reins them in.

Besides, he thinks ruefully, remembering the hickies painted liberally over the spread of his shoulders. It’s not like he’s been the greatest example of appropriate behaviour for them lately.

Taeyong is so used to being surrounded by a generally howling cacophony of noise at all times, it barely registers when he pushes open the door to the fifth floor apartment that yelling is happening. His mouth stretches in a yawn as he toes off his slides, sets them neatly side by side. He tidies up a few of the other shoes on the rack while he’s down there. He’s in the middle of maybe just falling asleep in their foyer when he registers his own name in the middle of the yelling, and, now that he’s tuned into this frequency, it rapidly becomes clear that this isn’t NCT’s normal kind of noise.

This noise is angry.

“--twist my words, that’s not what I said.”

“It might as well be! You think I’m what, going around hurting him for fun? Without asking?”

“I don’t know what you’re doing, Doyoung.” Johnny’s voice is raised, but it’s with that forced sort of calm, the kind that said I’m your hyung and I’m bigger than you and I’m not afraid to sit on you when they were younger, and that he rarely bothers to pull out these days. “That’s why I asked.”

Taeyong thinks of Johnny’s eyebrows up on the ceiling of the green room somewhere, and can’t decide if he’s annoyed, embarrassed, or touched. Mostly, he’s tired. Beyond that, it’s concern for Doyoung that rings through his body; whatever calm Johnny has managed to manifest into their lounge, none of it has made its way to Doyoung.

Quietly, Taeyong creeps to the edge of the wall where foyer turns into sitting room, wanting to take in the lay of the land before he interrupts. Johnny leans against the doorway to the room he shares with Donghyuck, arms folded over his chest; Doyoung is closer, back to Taeyong and ramrod straight. Instinct has Taeyong glancing down and - his hands are curled into fists, a fine tremor running through his whole body. Taeyong aches to step in, take his hands and smooth them flat, work fingers into the meat of his palm and the spaces between delicate bone until they hang loose again - but he needs to figure out what the actual problem is, first, because it can’t possibly be what he’s thinking right now.

“Did it ever occur to you that maybe what Taeyong and I’s se - that what Taeyong and I do in private has nothing to do with you?”

“Of course it did,” Johnny says slowly. “Which is why I didn’t ask what you were doing. Wanting to make sure you’re being careful isn’t intrusive when I know both of you, and I know how little experience you both have when it comes to this kind of stuff. Or do you want to end up in a cautionary tale about, I dunno, autoerotic asphyxiation?”

Okay, so the problem is definitely to do with what he’d been thinking. Taeyong presses his forehead to the wall and resists the urge to squeeze his eyes shut, sure that if he does, he won’t be able to open them again. The wall at least is cool against his face, which had flushed red when Doyoung tripped over saying sex life and hasn’t made any strong efforts to revert to normal since.

He sucks in a quick breath, centres himself, or at least fakes it pretty well. “I’m pretty sure the ‘auto’ part means ‘by yourself’,” he says dryly. Doyoung starts, twisting around, but Taeyoung has already passed a hand over the small of his back. He anchors it at his waist. “So we don’t have to worry about that.”

Johnny shoots him a look that’s half irritation, half gratitude, and maybe two-thirds of the exhaustion that Taeyong feels threading his bones. “How long were you there for?”

“Long enough to realise that this is a conversation that should wait for the morning.” Taeyong feels the way Doyoung’s already tense form tightens even further, and simply tugs him close. “It’s late. It’s so late, it’s early. You can both yell at each other once the sun is up and I can arrange for an audience and some referees from the Dreamie dorm, okay? Okay. Good night, hyung.”

Does he take flagrant advantage of how pathetic he looks to order a temporary ceasefire? Absolutely he does. Ask any other group leader and he’s sure they’ve done something just as underhanded, if not worse. When you’re trying to manage a gaggle of people who have known you since you were a scrawny little teenager, you use any and every trick that comes to hand.

It works. Johnny glances between the two of them before sighing loudly, throwing his hands up and retreating to his bedroom. It occurs to Taeyong that he has no idea where their manager is in all of this - he can only assume that the answer must be ‘out somewhere’, because he doubts Doyoung would get so openly bothered about their relationship in front of the man, and he doubly doubts that Johnny would bring it up in the first place.

“Doie-yah.” Taeyong plucks at the hem of Doyoung’s oversized shirt. Doyoung hasn’t moved, hasn’t relaxed, the only reason he’s sure he’s breathing is because he can feel it, the jagged stutter of his torso against Taeyong’s arm. “Come on, come sleep with me.”

That seems to shake him out of his stupor. He blinks down at Taeyong, a frown creasing his lovely features. Alone in the lounge now, Taeyong doesn’t hesitate to smooth a thumb between his eyebrows in the hopes of getting them to ease.

“You still need to shower,” Doyoung blurts. “Unless - did you use the tenth floor’s?”

Taeyong rolls his eyes and starts to walk backwards towards his room. He keeps his grip around Doyoung’s waist and drags him along, because if he thinks he’s sleeping alone after whatever just happened, he’s an idiot. And Doyoung is a lot of things, most of them wonderful, but he’s never been stupid.

“Then you can lie in my bed while I shower, how’s that? And then you can personally come and brush my teeth for me afterwards, if you need to make sure I’m taking care of myself so badly.”

It’s the wrong thing to say. Taeyong can tell as soon as the words tumble out of his mouth, nonsense teasing turning Doyoung’s softening expression too still for it to be a reaction to anything Johnny had said or done. It takes a second for Taeyong to work his jaw into motion again, eyeballing Johnny’s door. It’s not too late (early?) to go back on what he’d just decided about sleeping, is it? Maybe now’s a great time for fighting.

“Whatever he said. It’s his opinion, not mine, right? So if you’re worried about something he brought up, please talk to me about it. I can almost guarantee it’s not as bad as what you’re stressing about.”

“What if it is, though?”

“It’s not.” Ordinarily Taeyong knows better than to make hard promises like this, but he thinks he caught enough of their argument to be sure where he stands there, at least. “You’d never hurt me in a way that would actually bother me, Doyoung. I don’t need Johnny at my back to make sure of that.”

The grimace pulls at Doyoung’s mouth before he can bite it back, and he doesn’t need to say more beyond that for Taeyong to know that whatever is running circles through that busy head of his, it’s going to take more than just tonight to untangle it. So instead of trying to argue him into a better headspace, Taeyong simply keeps walking backwards, giving a sharp tug to get him moving when it seems like he’s hesitating.

“I won’t sleep if I’m worried about what you’re doing by yourself,” he says, playing his trump card. Doyoung huffs in irritation at being out-maneouvred, but his body lurches into motion,Taeyong concedes that he can make as many cute noises as he wants to about it.

They get to Taeyong’s tiny room without further incident. “Shower,” Doyoung says firmly, catching the longing look Taeyong is giving his foot-plushie, and it’s Taeyong’s time to make gusty sounds of annoyance as he grabs his pyjamas (these ones have ducks) and stomps off to the bathroom.

He tugs a shower cap on to protect his hair colour and steps under the shower’s spray, lets it beat down on his raw shoulders as he watches the water swirl down the drain with the rest of his useful thoughts. Neither Johnny nor Doyoung are the type to just start yelling in the middle of the night, but Taeyong isn’t naive enough to think his new relationship hasn’t shifted some of their group dynamics. They’d had that conversation early on, Doyoung curled like a comma into Taeyong’s side while Taeyoung luxuriated in a stretch, the covers pulled up over their heads to create their own little world.

NCT has to come first. Not that I think anything is going to happen, but if it did - I just need us both to know that, okay?

Doyoung’s eyes had glittered strangely in what little light crept in through the duvet. That’s why I love you. You’re always thinking of other people first.

Now that Taeyong thinks about it, that’s not actually an agreement.

“I overreacted.”

Doyoung is still perched on the edge of Taeyong’s bed when Taeyong gets back to his room, clean now if not refreshed. His hands curl tight into the side of the mattress and his whole body tips forward at an angle, both feet flat on the floor like the slightest signal will launch him into flight.

Taeyong closes the door behind him, makes sure to lock it. Presses his back to it and just observes Doyoung for a moment. Instinct has him wanting to gather him up, comfort him with warmth and teasing and love, but Taeyong has learnt over the years that it’s usually best to let instinct settle for a moment before he leaps into following it. Doyoung, sometimes, needs space to pull himself back together.

“Okay,” he says. “So what would you change?”

He gets an unimpressed look that says I know what you’re doing and I’m not delighted by it for his restraint, and can’t help but grin back. It’s nice, he’s finding. To be known.

“Probably I would take back biting Johnny’s head off just because he hit on something that I’ve been worrying about anyway.”

“Gonna tell me what that is, or you need a moment?”

There’s a flush steadily working into Doyoung’s cheeks, and he tips his head up to the ceiling in lieu of meeting Taeyong’s gaze any longer. At least he no longer looks like a flight risk, but Taeyong can’t deny the powerful urge to know what exactly it is Johnny had said that had set him off. He can guess the general subject (their sex life, something to do with the occasionally obvious proof of it scattered over Taeyong’s body), but it hadn’t occurred to him that there was a...problem with that aspect of their relationship. Not until right now, eyeing the pale stretch of Doyoung’s throat, the bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallows, the way his lips part, too-pink, to take a sip of air before he speaks.

Taeyong doesn’t think he’s seen Doyoung be nervous about the topic of sex with him before. Which is weird, maybe, now that he thinks of it. It’s not like Doyoung is the chillest person he knows, or the most comfortable. It wouldn’t have surprised him in the beginning if his boyfriend had been flustered, or worried, or embarrassed about the way their bodies worked together. But in the days and weeks since they first kissed, it’s like the only thing Doyoung had needed to feel confident around Taeyong is permission - which Taeyong had been only too eager to hand over.

“You have to understand,” Doyoung tells the ceiling, using a voice that Taeyong associates more with like, telling a story on live than the way he usually talks to Taeyong. Quiet, conversational, but lacking familiarity. Without the particular directness that typically brings Taeyong comfort, the certainty that at least one of them knows what they’re doing. “I know you’re probably fine with it. And that the thought of telling you is still terrifying enough that I can’t get the words out.”

“That’s okay. You don’t have to.”

“I do, though. That’s why I was so mad at hyung. He wasn’t wrong to be concerned.”

“But if I’m probably fine with it - Doyoung-ah. I’m definitely fine with it. Nothing you’ve done has been - everything we’ve done has been good. If we need to check in with each other more so that you don’t have to worry about it, we can do that, but I really can’t think of anything that’s happened, or that could happen, that would give you reason to be afraid.” Taeyong sets his teeth on the edge of desperation creeping into his words and bites it back. “Please let me know what you need. I can’t help if I don’t know what you need.”

It’s supposed to ease the way for him, to make it easier to share his burden. But Taeyong has somehow judged things terribly, because Doyoung’s expression twists, turns into this mockery of a smile that cuts inward instead of out at Taeyong, and all Taeyong can think is that he’d rather take the hit. If he could protect Doyoung from whatever his own head is doing to him, he’d hurt forever.

“I want to hurt you.” The words drop flat between them. “When I leave bruises - I’m not too excited, or overwhelmed. I’m not losing track of my strength. You said you liked it, but I don’t know what that means. Obviously some people just like the physical sensation of pain, but sometimes people like it because it’s a thrill, or they like knowing that their partner wants them - and I do, I want you all the time, I want you so much that it makes me fucking stupid. But it’s not - it’s just--”

Doyoung’s voice devolves into a sound of wordless frustration. He drops back on the bed, knuckling his hands into his eyes, and he’s so vulnerable like this. Splayed on his back, chest cracked open. There’s a current of electricity running through Taeyong’s body, lit up by his words; he waits, watches Doyoung breathe, sure that if he opens his mouth now he’ll spark something that’ll burn them both down.

“If you didn’t like it, I wouldn’t do it,” Doyoung says finally. “I don’t want to do anything to you that you don’t want to do. But I would still wish you liked it. Or wanted me to do it. And you’re accommodating. I would be afraid - I think I am afraid - that you’d agree to something you felt uncomfortable with, because you knew I wanted to do it. And I’d hate myself if that happened, Yong-ah. I couldn’t stand it.”

Taeyong takes a moment. First, to make sure that Doyoung is done, relieved of this burden that he must have been carrying around for weeks. Longer, maybe, it’s not like they started wanting each other the first time they kissed. Second, to check that his tongue hasn’t turned to ash in his mouth, victim to all that backed up energy. He wants to - well. He doesn’t want to do anything. He wants to be done to - bent and tied and held down. He wants to be hurt.

Tongue present and accounted for, he lowers himself carefully to his mattress. Wriggles over until he’s cross-legged next to Doyoung’s torso, close enough that it doesn’t take a stretch to pluck at his hands, pull them away from his face. Doyoung’s nothing if not thorough, so his eyes are of course closed underneath, but it only takes a moment or two (and the careful threading of their fingers together) before he cracks one open, the other following with a sigh.

“There are a lot of things I like about being hurt.” He can feel the embarrassment pinching into his cheeks, a steady pink that he tries not to feel too silly about. If Doyoung can be open about this when he’s scared, Taeyong can be open about it when he makes sure his boyfriend knows he has nothing to be afraid of. “Some of it just goes hand in hand with being made to do things, or pushed around. Giving up control, right? Obviously the physical sensation processes...good, for me, but it’s not like I start gagging for it if I get a paper cut or something. It’s, um, situational.”

The warmth rises in his face, but it’s not entirely embarrassment anymore. Doyoung’s eyes don’t stray from his face, dark gaze intense in that way Taeyong always remembers this man looking at him, like he’s some kind of marvel. Like Doyoung would be missing out on something, to look away from him. Their fingers have laced together again. Taeyong clears his throat, and squeezes them.

“And you aren’t - I mean, you’re not the only person I’ve ever wanted to be in that kind of situation with, but I want it more with you than I ever have before. I trust you more than I’ve ever trusted anyone, to look after me. To hurt me the way that feels good. And god, don’t you think I want that to feel good for you, too? Like, it’s not some favour that you’re doing for me, Doyoung-ah. If you leave a bruise on me, I want you to enjoy the bruise. If you push down on it later, I want you to like that it makes me squirm. I want you to - um, I want you to take pleasure in pulling reactions from me because you want to see them. Like - the fact that you like it is good. I like that you want to hurt me. I want you to hurt me.”

‘Pink’ and ‘warmth’ are expressions of the past in this moment. Taeyong is pretty sure all the blood in his body has fled to his face. He thinks he’s probably going to die of heat stroke, if Doyoung doesn’t skewer him on his gaze first. God, what a beautiful man. Taeyong wants to touch him. Not like this, chaste and comforting, but something closer. Consuming. He wants to press inside of him until there is no more Taeyong, just the suggestion of a shape conforming to Doyoung’s wishes.

“Sorry,” he whispers, as the moment stretches out all soft and malleable. He knows Doyoung must have blinked, but he can’t remember it. “I might have gotten a bit carried away. I just wanted you to know.”

“‘Carried away’,” Doyoung scoffs, already moving. The colour is high in his cheeks and there’s a tremble in his frame when he lurches up, over Taeyong, but it’s not like Taeyong is going to put up a fight. A palm to his chest is enough to tip him back onto the mattress and Doyoung follows him down, knees next to hips, free hand planted next to Taeyong’s head. “I yell at our friend and colleague. I make dramatic statements about being scared. It’s one in the morning, and you’re the one who got carried away?”

“Does Johnny know you call him a colleague behind his back?”

“I said friend first.”

Taeyong shifts, grinning briefly when he realises how tight Doyoung has him boxed in. “I don’t think it’s dramatic if you really are scared. I think it’s just true.”

Doyoung laughs. A silly, wheezing sound that has never failed to tug a smile out of Taeyong, even if just to laugh at him. Doyoung drops his head down between them, and Taeyong takes advantage of the proximity to smack a kiss on his forehead through the fall of his fringe.

“I can always rely on you to put words to the things I fuck up between my brain and my mouth,” Doyoung says, which Taeyong personally thinks is absurd. He’s never had any trouble understanding this man.

“Well,” he says, pushing Doyoung’s hair back until it slips out of his fingers so that he can do it again, stroking it back off his face and behind his ear. A soothing, rhythmic motion. “I’m only brave enough to say most of it because of you.”

It takes a moment before Doyoung lets his eyes slip shut. His head drops after, resting on Taeyong’s collarbone. Ear not directly over his heart or anything, but close enough for the image to sing sweetly at him even if reality doesn’t.

Slowly, in inches, they relax. The tremor of anxiety and adrenaline runs through Doyoung’s body, and then out; the electric current burning along Taeyong’s nerves grounds itself. All of Doyoung’s sharp and bony angles notch into Taeyong’s, gravity increasing on them both until they sink into the mattress, and each other.

It occurs to Taeyong that this is prime make out time. Post emotional disclosure, they’re alone, they’re together, they’re stupid and in love. But by the time he’s worked that out and can start making plans, Doyoung is already--

(A soft whistle interrupts Taeyong’s train of thought, air escaping out from under Doyoung’s bunny teeth. It might just be the sweetest thing Taeyong’s even seen).

*

Taeyong wakes up in the morning to an empty bed because no one in this apartment keeps the same schedule as anyone else. He’d wriggled out of his pyjama shirt at some point in the night and doesn’t bother putting it back on, scratching his tummy idly. It’s not until he spots Johnny sitting at the kitchen table with a spoon halfway to his mouth that he remembers the hassle being shirtless had caused yesterday, and the resulting...situation.

“I spoke to Doyoung,” Johnny says finally, setting his spoon back down. “He uh, made breakfast? He was real serious about it, it was cute. Anyway, we sorted our shit out. I wanted to apologise to you as well though, you didn’t need me commenting on your business like that yesterday.”

Taeyong blinks at him, because this is NCT and all they do is comment on each other’s business, all the time. It had been moderately embarrassing, sure, but not actively distressing.

Still, long experience has taught him that when a member comes to him like this - even one of his hyungs - they’re not looking to have their apology dismissed as unnecessary. He summons a smile for Johnny, wandering closer to punch his shoulder in Manly Acceptance. Johnny rocks back into it, and picks up his spoon.

“I appreciate your calm and considerate care for me and my business,” he says solemnly. “Did Doyoung-ah say where he was going?”

“Where else?” Johnny nods towards Doyoung’s room. Taeyong follows his gaze contemplatively, running a mental finger over various schedules and scenarios.

“Hyung, do you mind taking Donghyuck-ah out after practice today? My treat.”

The spoon hits the bowl again, little splatters of soup flying everywhere. “Taeyong, come on. I’m trying to eat.”

“I mean, you’re welcome to stay, but I doubt it’ll help your appetite.”

“Menaces, both of you. I’ll kidnap manager-hyung too, I guess.”

Taeyong bats his eyelashes obnoxiously in thanks, and starts scrounging up his own breakfast (obviously Doyoung made enough for him too, but Taeyong is still hooked on American oatmeal). There are times when Doyoung’s tendency to sequester himself in his room worries Taeyong, but he’s been better about spending time with everyone since they got together, so Taeyong tries to show his appreciation by giving him space. He flicks him a message in their KaTalk thread [😘] to let Doyoung know he’s awake, but otherwise leaves him to it.

Sure enough, Doyoung emerges fifteen minutes before they’re due to leave, dressed in sweats and sneakers and ready to nag them all out the door.

“Is Donghyuck awake?” he demands, not waiting for a response before he goes and pounds on his door.

“Murr?” Donghyuck slurs back, which Taeyong assumes is a no, but Doyoung seems to take as permission to enter the room he shares with Johnny to bully him out of bed. Taeyong watches as Johnny slides out his Airpods and carefully inserts them with an exaggerated eyeroll, considers what his responsibilities as leader require him to do in this situation, before ultimately leaving them to it.

The sooner they get to practice, after all, the more likely they are to leave on time.

*

Taeyong keeps his plan to himself for a bit, lets them get to the dance studio and through enough rehearsal that the part of his brain constantly tracking where they are against where they should be starts to unclench. They’re maybe three-quarters of the way through their planned practice time when Doyoung gives Taeyong a critical look in the middle of blocking a section of solo choreo.

“Break,” Doyoung says firmly, pressing a bottle of water into Taeyong’s hands. Which, admittedly, take a second to remember how to untwist the bottle cap, so maybe he’s got a point.

(He doesn’t miss the way Doyoung twitches when he fumbles, like he wants to take the cap off for him. Knowing Doyoung, he’d probably hold the bottle to his mouth if he could. Taeyong has to bite back the indulgent smile threatening at his lips before he dribbles all over himself).

“Thank you, baby,” he sing-songs, because Doyoung still isn’t used to being the focal point of that kind of endearment from him, and Taeyong likes to see the way his pretty eyes get all deer-in-the-headlights when he’s taken by surprise. “How about you, you’re not too tired, right?”

“This choreography is specifically designed to let me stand in one spot and wail for half of it, and this isn’t wailing practice,” Doyoung says dryly. “I’m doing fine.”

Taeyong hums around the mouth of the bottle anyway, not bothering to be subtle when he looks him up and down, taking in the way his oversized singlet is starting to stick to his ribs, the sheen of sweat highlighting his collarbones, beading at his forehead and temples. Of course Doyoung looks cute when he’s all bundled up too, like a present to be unwrapped, but Taeyong isn't about to complain about the bare stretch of skin available foe him to admire right now.

“Yah!” Doyoung exclaims, smacking Taeyong in the upper arm. The slap echoes in the huge space of the dance studio, and Taeyong can’t hide his quiet cackle as Doyoung cheeks flood red with something other than exertion. “We’re in public.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Not with your mouth.”

“Oh, if you want to start talking about the things I can do with my--”

“Taeyong.”

He laughs soundlessly, taking another large gulp of water to appease Doyoung before handing the bottle back. Doyoung scowls, but gratifies him by taking a sip; Taeyong waits for him to swallow before he speaks again, because he’s a nice boy.

“So, we have the fifth floor to ourselves this afternoon.”

Doyoung stills. Taeyong watches the bob of his throat, the deliberate way he screws the cap back onto the water bottle. A hand scrapes his hair absently back off his forehead, affectation on anyone else, endearing habit on him (Taeyong can admit he might be biased). His gaze darts nervously around the room, and Taeyong bites his lip on a laugh. Lets it slip out between his teeth again when Doyoung’s eyes land back on him, apparently satisfied that no one is watching them flirt. Well, Taeyong’s flirting. Doyoung’s skills lie in other areas.

“What are you planning?”

“Nothing yet.”

Taeyong knows his eyes are wide; he makes them wider, stepping into Doyoung’s space. He tugs at the hem of his singlet, toying with the soft material. If the backs of his fingers brush against the bare skin of Doyoung’s belly, call it an accident.

He leans in. Not touching, but close enough that the possibility lingers between them, tantalising. “I just thought, given our conversation last night, that it might be good to establish some ground rules? And then maybe...take them for a test run.”

Taeyong is distracted enough by Doyoung’s beautiful face, the quiet shudder of his breath, and the way he can’t look away from Taeyoung’s mouth; he misses the movement until a hand is locked around one of his wrists, pulling it out from under Doyoung’s shirt.

“And the other one,” Doyoung says, squeezing. It doesn’t hurt, not really, but the surprise of it sparks at Taeyong, sends a little thrill sizzling through him. He jerks his other hand back to his side, obedient. “Yah, hyung, you’re so annoying! What am I supposed to do with this for the next half hour?”

The pressure around Taeyong’s wrist is increasing, his thrumming pulse rising with it. He wonders if Doyoung can feel it throb against his grip, if he picks up on the sharp exhale Taeyong lets out through his nostrils. He’s abruptly glad they huddled off to the side of the room for this conversation - he doubts Doyoung would have been so confident if he thought any of the others were paying attention.

“Whatever you want,” Taeyong says softly. “Isn’t that the point?”

*

If Taeyong has a few wild fantasies about being shoved up against a wall and ravished - well, it’s clear that this conversation is a good idea, because what actually happens when they shut and lock the apartment door behind them is that Doyoung flicks him in the forehead.

“Owww.” Taeyong pouts. “That one goes in the no column.”

Doyoung’s face is still prettily pink, even though they’ve long since cooled down from practice. Taeyong reaches out to thumb over the arch of his cheekbone, like he can collect the gathering warmth there. Doyoung leans into his touch, and for once the apartment lets them have this moment, uninterrupted. Taeyong wouldn’t give up his life for anything, but the loud, hectic nature of it does make this little oasis all the more precious.

Doyoung turns his head, murmurs a kiss into Taeyong’s palm. There’s something about the chaste deliberation of it that feels like a promise; his lashes dip low, shadowing the secrets of all the other things he could be doing with his mouth.

“You should go shower.”

“You should shower with me.”

It startles Doyoung; the seduction drops when he glances over his shoulder at the door and Taeyong can’t help but grin, flashing teeth and smugness at what he’s wrought. Sure, there are aspects of Doyoung he wants to bend him over and wreck him, but this is his Doyoung too. Cautious and easily flustered, smooth in moments but hopping jerkily between one to the next. Anticipation fizzes under Taeyong’s skin, heady as champagne. He can’t decide if he wants to get started already, or draw the buzz out longer.

So it’s kind of fitting that the decision gets neatly lifted out of his hands. Apparently satisfied that they really are alone, Doyoung runs an appraising gaze over Taeyong’s form. And Taeyong is not wearing anything more seductive than sweats and an old t-shirt, but he could have been in fishnets and a harness for the way Doyoung drinks his fill.

“All right,” Doyoung says after a long pause. “Strip.”

It’s kind of like being swallowed whole, the tight, prickling heat that sweeps over him. It’s not as though they’ve never played around with Doyoung’s tendency to be demanding before, but this is the foyer of their apartment. If he takes his clothes off here, he has to walk through their open living space to get to the bathroom, which - they’re the only ones home, it shouldn’t make a difference if he’s naked in the bathroom or naked in the lounge. But there’s something sweetly perverse about the prospect of it anyway, hinting at something filthier. Taeyong hooks a finger into the neck of his shirt, toying with the fabric.

“Do you want to show me off, Doyoung-ah?” he asks coyly. “Let everyone see what you have and they don’t?”

“Anyone can see that by looking at you,” Doyoung says. He doesn’t glance at the ring on Taeyong’s forefinger, but he doesn’t have to. They both know what’s there, what it means. “And you do like to be looked at. So I’m not sure why you’re pretending like this is doing me a favour.”

Christ. Taehyung wets his lower lip, coyness slipping away in the wake of real want. All this teasing has been to bait Doyoung into exactly this kind of behaviour, and now that he has it, Taeyong has to resist the urge to simply drop to his knees.

“Okay,” he says, and they both note the little tremor in his voice. It’s not nerves. He opens his mouth like he’s about to say something else, only to realise he’s out of words. He grips the neck of his shirt instead, dragging it off over his head.

“You can leave it here,” Doyoung says, before Taeyong has time to start worrying about what he’s supposed to do with it. “Now the pants.”

They keep a pretty mild temperature in the apartment, but Taeyong shivers anyway. He wonders if he should make a show of this, lick his thumb or drag his hands over his torso or one of a thousand other things he might do for a performance, but this doesn’t really feel like a show. It’s the breaking down of a persona, not the building up of one. Taeyong hooks his thumbs into the waistband of his sweats and underwear at the same time, and tugs them down. Lets them drop to the floor, looks immediately back over at Doyoung to see if that’s what he wanted. To get his approval.

Doyoung’s expression is impassive, except for the part to his lips, the faint whistle of his breath. He steps in without further comment, broad hands settling at the sides of Taeyong’s neck; Taeyong’s pulse picks up and he wonders if Doyoung can feel it, the erratic joy of being desired like this. His hands slide down, thumbs scraping over his Adam’s apple, digging lightly into the hollow of his throat. Not to hurt, but enough to make him swallow, to feel the mechanics of his larynx shift under his touch.

Taeyong knows he’s attractive. An SM scout bribed him with toast to come and audition off the basis of seeing his face one time, and he can make a crowd of thousands scream by pulling up the corner of his shirt. But it’s one thing to hold that information alongside a list of extraneous facts about yourself - he’s 174cm tall, he’s the leader of NCT 127, his favourite flower is a rose, he’s hot. It’s another thing to feel it in the drag of fingers over bone when Doyoung explores his clavicle, the weight of his regard pushing red streaks into his skin. Not hard; they bloom quickly and fade while Doyoung moves to admire the next part of him, consuming his body section by section.

“We’re sort of doing this backwards,” Doyoung says quietly, drawing his nails lightly down Taeyong’s upper arms.

Taeyong, who had not considered his biceps an especially erogenous zone until approximately that moment, blinks dazedly at him. It wins him a flash of teeth - not smug or knowing, but a sweet kind of bunny smile.

“We were supposed to have a conversation,” Doyoung reminds him with a laugh. His nails reach the ends of Taeyong’s arms, and he circles each delicate wrist with his fingers, squeezing. It’s kind of teasing at first, tight and loose, tight and loose, tight and - tighter, Doyoung watching Taeyong’s face carefully as he bears down. “Isn’t that what this was going to be about? Rules and limits. The things you like.”

“I like this,” Taeyong gasps, the little bones in his wrists grinding together under the force of Doyoung’s grip. It aches in a way he can’t explain, forces him up onto his tiptoes in an effort to - escape? He’s not sure, not sure what he wants when his arms jerk either, whether he’s twisting into the hold or away from it. “Doyoung--”

He’s getting hard though. He knows that much.

The pressure relents. Not all at once, not like he’s startled or surprised Doyoung. It’s more like being gently lowered after hanging in the air, a slow release that lets him brush the ground before it drops him. Probably a good thing; Taeyong is boneless in the wake of it, and they’ve barely even started. Instinct has him tipping forward, pressing his forehead into Doyoung’s chest.

“Ah...too much?”

Taeyong shakes his head.

“Then you’re okay to get in the shower?”

This time he nods, but - there’s a little wriggling thing in the back of his mind that hasn’t quite let go of the reins. He pulls back, squints up at Doyoung. “Not for shower sex.”

“Do you think I want to get killed? I want to wash you. Make sure you’re...clean for me.” The light spattering of a blush over the bridge of Doyoung’s nose is nowhere near as intense as it was before, but it’s enough to highlight the intensity of what he’s proposing. There’s something about the addition of those last two words, the shift from clean to clean for me that makes Taeyong feel more in need of a shower than a thousand dance practices.

“O-kay.”

His voice cracks in the middle of the word, chased by the backs of Doyoung’s nails down his spine. It doesn’t hurt - he’s not even scratching. It’s more like a preparation, a promise of things to come. Taeyong squirms, sensitised, caught between Doyoung’s too-light touch at his back and the brush of his clothes against his front.

He wants more. Wants to drape himself over Doyoung, around him. Wants to pull him in tight and squeeze until there’s nothing between him and Taeyong can just grind, work himself to completion against this man he loves until he’s sleepy and sated, ready to be used however Doyoung wants. As though he’s not ready for that now.

But Doyoung’s hand doesn’t stop at the small of his back. It slides lower, a finger - middle finger? God, does it matter? - dipping between his cheeks, and for a second Taeyong really thinks that Doyoung is going to finger him dry right there in the foyer. And he wants it, they’ve never done anything without copious amounts of lube but now that the thought is in his head it won’t leave him. He can imagine Doyoung’s fingers sliding lower, circling the tight furl of his hole, teasing until Taeyong hooks a leg over his hip to spread himself wider, until Taeyong kisses him, until Taeyong pants a desperate plea for more into his mouth only to be denied, because Doyoung wouldn’t want him to hurt quite like that, especially not right as they’re starting out. Maybe he’d push his fingers into Taeyong’s mouth instead, two to start--

“Uh-uh.” Doyoung’s grip is a fucking clamp on his hip, and he hadn’t moved even that single finger lower than a tease. A pathetic whining sound spills between them, and even though he knows where it has to come from, it still takes Taeyong a second or two to realise that it’s his throat producing it. His lips are parted, breath way too fast for what barely counts as light petting, and he’s not entirely sure how much of his own weight he’s holding up at this point. Doyoung’s other arm is secure around his waist. “Shower. Talk. Then we’ll see, okay? We’re not in a rush. Well - I’m not.”

Language takes a moment to sulk back from wherever it had fled to in the combined onslaught of Doyoung’s touch and Taeyong’s own imagination. He manages to stop making that sound at least, breaking off into a cracked laugh.

“Oh my god,” he manages, in English, because the order that things are coming back online for him is stupid. He clears his throat, tests the structural integrity of his legs (fine for now, but definitely not earthquake-ready), switches back to Korean so they can actually communicate. “When did you - where did you - I mean, it’s not that I thought you’d be bad at this, the opposite, but I didn’t - good? Doyoung-ah, Doie-yah, how are you so good?”

“Ah.” Doyoung looks faintly embarrassed, which is a bit rich, considering that Taeyong is the one naked and clinging to him. “I don’t think it’s me, really. I just know you, hyung.”

Taeyong wrinkles his nose before he even registers what the problem is, and Doyoung’s eyebrows skate up in response. So Taeyong does a quick gut check before he can ask, and scrunches his face up a little more because - again, if someone has a reason to be embarrassed here, it’s definitely Taeyong.

“You - hmm, in this situation, you really don’t have to call me hyung.”

Of all the reactions he could have elicited - Taeyong’s just not expecting the groan, is all. Once he hears it, though, ragged like Doyoung tears the sound right out of his chest, it fucking consumes him. He’s been obsessed with Doyoung’s voice for years, has squirrelled away memories of particular moments like the precious things they are, but this is different. This is just for him, because of him, and Taeyong is torn between dragging him into a recording booth so he can keep it forever, and making sure it never happens again. He thinks it might fucking kill him next time.

Doyoung kisses him and Taeyong can taste the desperation on his tongue, tucked behind his teeth. It occurs to him that this is the first time they’ve kissed like this all day and he wants to laugh, might cry from how bad he wants it. It’s like - sure, he could breathe, but how much better to pump oxygen into this fire between them, this impossible burning thing. He wants to rise into the air with it. He doesn’t care where they come down.

“Okay--” Doyoung tries to speak, cuts himself off before Taeyong can do it, drawn inexorably back to his mouth. They’re walking, Taeyong thinks, when he can manage to think at all, when he’s not focusing on Doyoung’s lips and the way he sucks on Taeyong’s tongue and the filthy, wet sound of them coming together again and again. “Taeyong, we - shit. Oh my god.”

There’s something deeply gratifying about making Doyoung swear. Like, he’s already the person Doyoung feels safe cursing around, but to hear him doing it because of Taeyong is its own aphrodisiac. He likes that he can unspool some of that tightly wound tension Doyoung carries around with him, likes being the person that makes Doyoung feel good, even if it’s just with how pliant he’s being for him.

He’s honestly not sure how they get to the bathroom. The next time he pays attention to his surroundings, Doyoung has backed him up against the sink and is breathing hard into his ear, asking him softly, gently, to drop his legs. Apparently he’d wound them around Doyoung’s waist at some point and gotten so caught up in the sweet, rocking pleasure of it that he hadn’t noticed - well, anything.

Taeyong unhooks his ankles from each other, because Doyoung asked. It wins him another precious bunny smile, like Doyoung is pleased with - proud of? - him, so obviously Taeyong can’t just stay where he’s put when Doyoung turns around to deal with the shower.

At some point, Doyoung’s singlet had disappeared. Taeyong blinks at the sight of all those shifting muscles under pale skin, the long stretch of his spine there for the kissing. Doyoung’s sweats sit low on his hips, the band of his Calvin Klein’s barely hiding the swell of his ass (and Taeyong can’t help but pout here because - obviously he likes Doyoung’s ass, but even he has more of one than Taeyong does and Taeyong is allowed to be upset about it even if he’s in the middle of being actively seduced - ravished? Is this a ravishing?). Taeyong thinks he’s probably the one who pulled Doyoung’s sweats down that low, thinks he could be the one to pull them down entirely, his designer underwear as well, and then he stops thinking and starts moving right as Doyoung reaches into the shower to turn the water on.

He’s still standing there with his hand under the spray to check the temperature when Taeyong drapes himself over him. Plasters his chest to his back, sets his front teeth lightly into the ball of his shoulder.

Doyoung hums, amused, and Taeyong feels it vibrate though his ribs. “Hungry, jagi?”

Taeyong mumbles some nonsense back, closing his eyes as the endearment slips sweet through his thoughts. There are a lot of things he wants Doyoung to call him - some of them not so nice - but they can talk about that later. Right now he just rocks his head a couple of times, letting his teeth dig a little harder into Doyoung’s shoulder until he hisses with it, flapping a wet arm behind him like he’s trying to swat a particularly large fly. The image strikes Taeyong as so absurd that he has to detach his mouth to giggle, the sound spilling out of him with a giddy lack of self-consciousness.

“Aish, who let you be this cute?” Doyoung mutters, like it’s a real problem for him. “Naked and sexy and adorable, this should be illegal. You are against the law, Lee Taeyong, do you understand me?”

He turns around then, apparently satisfied with the water’s temperature enough to pay attention to Taeyong again. Taeyong, feeling that this deserves a reward, puts his biggest eyes on for him, holding out both of his wrists pressed together like he’s ready to be taken away in handcuffs.

(Which. Well. His wrists are still ringed in red, and Taeyong doesn’t think they’ll bruise all the way around by tomorrow, but he does think there will be bruises. The way Doyoung’s tongue runs over his bottom lip before sinking his teeth into it, he does too).

“...Handcuffs on the yes column then, huh.”

“Doesn’t need to be handcuffs,” Taeyong offers. “There are proper cuffs for it, obviously, but you could use ropes. There’s this tape stuff too, it sticks to itself but not to skin, so you can use it a lot and it isn’t like getting waxed when you pull it off again. Although in the right circumstances, I guess that could also--”

Taeyong breaks off, because Doyoung has both his wrists in one broad hand and the other one at his waist, and he’s kissing him like - like - oh god, he really wants to kiss him.

“Been researching?” Doyoung pants into his mouth.

“Don’t - mmpf - don’t say it like you didn’t have an incognito tab open at three am this morning, Mr. ‘I just know you’.”

“You think the internet told me you’re an exhibitionist?”

He’s still got pants on, Christ, and as much as Taeyong enjoys the squeeze of Doyoung’s grip at his wrist, he wants him naked more. He tugs his hands free with disappointing ease (they really are going to have that conversation), shoves his thumbs under the elastic of his sweats and underwear both, and pulls. Is it entirely necessary to go down onto his knees on the tile as he drags the material down? Well, none of what they’re doing is necessary, per se, but Taeyong is having a lot of fun.

“From what I understand,” Taeyong sets his palms on Doyoung’s strong, smooth thighs and starts sliding them up. God, Doyoung has a pretty dick, cut and blushing pink, pre-cum beading at the tip just for Taeyong, “the internet has a lot to say about what I’m like in bed.”

“I...hate that, actually.”

Before Taeyong can get his mouth on his prize, there’s a hand in his hair, yanking a moan out of him. They’ve done this before - or they’ve done what Taeyong thinks this is, Doyoung’s dick the perfect length for making him gag, but only if he really fucks his face about it. But Doyoung keeps tugging and it takes a solid few seconds for Taeyong to realise he means up, as in, up off his knees, and Taeyong thinks about being a brat (more of a brat), but they definitely haven’t spoken about that yet. He’s not entirely sure where the line is for what they need to talk about - they’re kind of making it up as they go along - but he figures that anything that plays around with saying ‘no’ to things, even teasingly, should probably go in the conversation column.

So he stands, taking the time to spread his hands over Doyoung’s thighs, touching as much bare skin as possible on the way up. He feels the goosebumps break out, tucks another kiss into the corner of Doyoung’s mouth. There’s something precious about the proof of his own effect on this man, even if it’s only physical. He wants to run his hands over Doyoung’s whole body, test all the different textures and responses, but he settles for the small of his back for now. Sways a little, luxuriating in all the little places their bodies brush together.

“You got a little hazy before,” Doyoung says. “If I put you in the shower, you’re not going to slip, are you?”

“Um.” Taeyong supposes he had sort of blissed out there for a bit. It’s happened a couple of times now, when Doyoung has been especially demanding and Taeyong has been especially in need of a break. There’s a perfect kind of relief in picking his whole brain up and handing it over to Doyoung to deal with, knowing with simple certainty that Doyoung will never let any harm come to him.

Pain, sure. But not harm.

“I’ll be fine,” he promises. “It’s not like a magic switch. You aren’t going to like, dickmatise me into a coma or something. As nice as it is,” he adds belatedly, smiling fondly down at Doyoung’s pretty cock, pressed hard into his pelvis.

Doyoung closes his eyes like he’s praying for patience, and Taeyong doesn’t bother to stifle a giggle. “Did you just - dickmatise?” His hands slip to Taeyong’s shoulders, and he shoves him (gently). “Get in the shower, oh my god.”

If there’s one thing that makes being an idol worth it, it’s the water pressure in this apartment. Taeyong likes to have his showers hot enough to make him dizzy, but Doyoung had set the temperature somewhere more reasonable so there’s no shock of adjustment as the spray pounds down onto his scalp. He tips his head back with a groan - not an exhibitionist thing, he swears, it just feels really good. It doesn’t stop Doyoung from pausing once he shuts the glass door behind them, standing back and taking in the sight of him.

“See something you like?” Taeyong teases, reaching out to thumb at his chin.

Doyoung catches his wrist. Taeyong’s breath hitches before he even does anything, anticipatory, and the quirk of his mouth says that Doyoung hears it. He doesn’t say anything, just steps in closer, holding Taeyong’s gaze as he kisses one of the red marks his grip had left earlier. Taeyong imagines he can feel his pulse there, the sharp jump of it thrumming against soft lips.

“‘Like’ isn’t good enough,” Doyoung says simply, and maybe it’s a good thing he’d kept the temperature down, because Taeyong feels himself blush hard enough to make himself dizzy now. “Pass me the shampoo and turn around, please.”

‘The shampoo’ in this shower is more carefully labelled than their mic cases. Taeyong fumbles for his bottle and passes it over, dutifully presenting his back. There’s a second where he thinks about readjusting the spray of the shower so it’s not like, hitting him directly in the face, but Doyoung is already reaching up past him, angling it onto his chest. It’s kind of like being gently pummelled by a series of tiny fists, but he stops thinking too hard about that once Doyoung gets his hands in his hair.

It’s the sort of sensory experience that Taeyong gets to indulge in pretty regularly, which means he’s had enough scalp massages to start forming opinions on them. Doyoung’s listened to him complain about stylists being too gentle or too focused on the crown of his head enough times to adopt the feedback into his motions now, the force of his fingers spread broad and even as he drags the shampoo back through his hair, working it into a lather. His thumbs circle the jutting bone at the base of his skull, pressing inward and down while he scritches his nails carefully over the softer skin at the sides of Taeyong’s head. It tugs another quiet moan from somewhere deep in Taeyong’s chest, nerves fizzing with a sort of slow-building pressure that skitters down his spine, leaves his skin tingling.

“Eyes closed,” Doyoung murmurs. “Lean forward.”

Taeyong lets his head hang off the tip of his neck, the delicious stretch of it working in with the water pressure and Doyoung’s confident touch. The shampoo is rinsed out, the conditioner requested, the process repeated. Dimly, Taeyong is aware that he’s still hard, that this definitely feels good enough that he can imagine wanting more, but it’s a banked sort of pleasure for now. Content to smoulder until either of them decide to feed it again.

“All right, turn around.”

Taeyong makes a questioning sound, rolling his head back over his shoulder. Doyoung’s eyes are heavy-lidded, the colour high in his cheeks and his hair slicked back off his forehead and oh, maybe that pleasure isn’t as under control as he thought it was. God, what a beautiful man. Taeyong wants to kiss him.

“Conditioner stays in for five minutes, remember?”

Taeyong makes a face because the days where he indulges in a shower that lasts five minutes total are few and far between. Doyoung makes a face back, because he almost certainly has opinions about that (you need to take more time for yourself, Taeyong). “Body wash,” he says, instead of chiding; Taeyong passes it over obediently, leaning back on the accessibility bar (a feature in every idol shower he’s ever been in, silent testimony to the shit they put their bodies through).

The hazy scent of vanilla and honey spills out between them as Doyoung lathers a washcloth. Taeyong tips his head back in anticipation, skull thunking dully against the shower tile. His eyelids drift lower, observing Doyoung through the fringe of his lashes; the careful intensity of his expression, the deliberation of his movements when he reaches for Taeyong.

He starts at Taeyong’s shoulder, circling the washcloth over his clavicle, the side of his neck, from one side of Taeyong’s body to the other. Taeyong’s lips part on a hiss without meaning to - he’s so sensitised from the way Doyoung has touched him, nerve endings plucked raw and trembling, the rougher material of the cloth can’t help but set sparks scattering through his body with each pass of Doyoung’s hand.

He works down one arm, careful to cover every inch down to the palms of his hands, between his fingers. Another sound breaks free from Taeyong’s throat, half pleasure and half humiliation, because that’s weird, isn’t it? To find that sensation so obscenely enticing? But when his eyelashes flutter, determined to catch sight of Doyoung’s reaction, all he sees is that focused intensity, the impossible ink-blackness of Doyoung’s gaze brought to bear on Taeyong’s body.

“However you react,” Doyoung murmurs, not looking up as he returns to Taeyong’s shoulder, starts on his other arm, “you know I like it, right?” The coarse fabric curls around Taeyong’s elbow, and for some reason his knee twitches, some weird cross-wire feedback loop kicking in. “All I want is for you to feel good. I don’t care how that happens.”

“Right,” Taeyong says weakly, trying not to vibrate out of his skin as Doyoung attends to his hand. “Got it.”

The flicker of a smile over Doyoung’s mouth is too much for Taeyong’s brain to process, especially when Doyoung starts on his chest, drawing the cloth in a strong line down his sternum. He’s just - he’s so beautiful, and he’s so caring, and he’s so fucking close but Taeyong’s arms aren’t working properly anymore, his hands only capable of gripping tight around the accessibility bar again.

The washcloth climbs back up the ladder of his ribs and Taeyong can’t help but hold his breath, brace for - honestly, his nipples aren’t usually even that sensitive, but Taeyong is all lit up now, ready for anything and everything to feel good. He’s sure at some point that he said something about no shower sex, but they have the accessibility bar don’t they? Maybe they can work something out. Maybe--

“Shit.” His whole body jerks, the curse curling around Doyoung’s raspy chuckle when he passes over Taeyong’s pectorals like he’s dealing with any other part of Taeyong’s body. Thorough, sure, but not teasing. His abs are still jumping as Doyoung moves lower, but they clench up in delicious tension when the cloth rubs gently over the soft, vulnerable skin; for a second he really does have to cling to the bar to keep his feet under him.

“You okay?” Doyoung doesn’t even look up from his task; there’s a pop of joints as he lowers himself to his knees, the shower spray now turned entirely to the wall so he doesn’t drown down there. Are his knees going to be okay? He wouldn’t be on them unless they were okay, right?

“‘M something,” Taeyong slurs. Maybe he’d been a little quick to announce that Doyoung wasn’t going to - what? Dickmatise him? He’d said that? The washcloth scrapes over the crease of his hip, to his inner thigh, wiping his whole brain clean alongside his body. He keens, the sound high-pitched and desperate; he doesn’t even know what he wants. “Doie-yah, Doie, Doie, please--”

“Please what?” The cloth threatens the back of his knee; Taeyong whimpers, scrunching his toes in to brace himself and god, how’s he going to deal once Doyoung gets to his feet? He doesn’t even have a foot thing, he’s just ticklish. “Tell me what you want, jagi. I’ll give you anything.”

It takes several moments for Taeyong to mop his brain up from the corners of his skull it had melted into. Doyoung mouths a kiss against his knee in the meantime, which nearly threatens to undo all of Taeyong’s hard work, but he’s had a lot of practice holding things together under extreme pressure. He had not anticipated his boyfriend to be one of those extreme pressures, but then, he hadn’t known that kind of force could be so fucking good.

He makes his hand work first, pinching his fingers open and shut like an arcade game claw to check on them before he pushes Doyoung’s wet hair back off his face, cups his hot cheek in his palm for good measure. This level of intensity looks good on him (everything looks good on him), but Taeyong is aware enough that if they keep going like this, he personally is going to be wrecked for the rest of the day. In the best way, sure, but god only knows when they’ll have the chance for this much consolidated alone time again, and Taeyong wants to have that conversation. Honestly, the fact that his brain keeps slipping away from him under Doyoung’s onslaught is making it extremely clear to him that there are more things they need to discuss than he had initially anticipated, because - holy shit, does he want to let it go. Just hand the reins over to Doyoung without care or consideration for what comes next, because Doyoung has him, and that’s all he needs.

But not yet. “Gimme a second,” he says, and then, “Actually, hug me?”

Doyoung’s arms are tight around him in an instant, their bodies flush against each other, warm and wet. Which like, that’s definitely Doyoung’s dick, but the grounding feels more immediate right now, the weight and comfort of him. Taeyong tucks his face into Doyoung’s shoulder, mouths wetly at the bare skin. He tastes of salt, faintly, and then nothing at all. Taeyong sucks gently; he’s careful not to leave a hickey, but there’s something soothing in the motion anyway. In having some part of Doyoung in such intimate proximity, even if there’s nothing especially erotic about it. The skin is all tender and pink when he draws back, but nothing that won’t fade over the next few hours.

“Taeyong?”

It’s not worry in Doyoung’s voice, but it might be the step before. Taeyong’s brain feels like it has solid form enough to recognise that this is not really his typical reaction to sex or foreplay, although he doubts either of them are surprised by it. Maybe by how fast and how far he was drawn in once they started, but not where he was going. Where Doyoung was taking him.

“S’weird,” he informs Doyoung’s shoulder. “Like kissin’ you so much. My brain’s like - why would we stop this? Mouth doesn’t want to be apart from you.”

“That’s going to make rapping difficult.”

Taeyong snorts. “Sorry czennies, Taeyong had to retire because he couldn’t detach from his boyfriend long enough to get in front of a mic.”

“I’m sure they’d understand,” Doyoung says solemnly. One of his hands relaxes, tip-taps little sparks up Taeyong’s spine and back down again. “Did you want to keep going? Or you’re done for now?”

“Oh, I want to keep going so bad.” But whatever bliss Taeyong had been approaching before, it’s slipping away from him now, and probably for the better. At least for the time being. “But I also think that if we do, I’m not going to be in a state to like, use words. Which, let me clear, isn’t bad--”

“But isn’t really conducive to having a conversation?”

Taeyong turtles his head back until he can see Doyoung’s expression, part rueful, and part smug. He squawks, smacking Doyoung in the shoulder to a peal of gross dude laughter. “Yah! You’re such a guy sometimes, the things you make me put up with! Next thing you know I’ll be getting a new tattoo for you, ‘Doyoung was here’ right across my ass.”

That sets them both off again, and there’s a distinct lukewarm edge to the water before they manage to pull themselves together. Taeyong makes Doyoung turn around while he finishes washing himself off, because at this point he’s pretty sure the concept of ‘boyfriend watches him touch himself while naked and wet’ is going to be enough to cause a horny catastrophe, no matter how practical and unsexy he is about getting clean. He turns the temperature icy to save as much of the warmth for Doyoung as possible, scrubs down, and then scurries off to wrap himself in the biggest towel he can find.

“I’ll be in my room, okay?” he says over the spray, setting a towel out for Doyoung as well. “Come find me when you’re done, we’ll get started.”

He wriggles into old clothes when he gets to his room, making sure they actually belong to him - he’s noticed that Doyoung’s mind (and hands) tends to wander if Taeyong is wearing anything from his closet, or that he paid for. The worn cotton is soft against his skin, still pinked up from the shower, and he has to take a moment to close his eyes and brace against the lingering shiver of sensitivity running through him. The cold water had dealt with his boner, but his brain is making up for its earlier flight from reality, pinging with flashes of memory that keep the pulse of desire humming through him even as he tries to be practical about things.

By the time Doyoung pokes his head into the room, Taeyong has gotten more prepared. The lighting is low and comfortable, and he’s lit a couple of scented candles (orange blossom and coconut) because they smell nice and he needed something to do with his hands.

A little ‘o’ of surprise works itself onto Doyoung’s face, before it resolves itself into a shy sort of smile that has Taeyong’s heart fluttering twice as fast as normal. Sure, he loves for Doyoung to take control, but he loves this too. Stupid little romantic things that take Doyoung off guard, that remind him he’s as adored in this relationship as he adores.

“I like you so much,” Taeyong announces, just to enjoy the way Doyoung coughs a laugh. He pats the space next to him on the bed, already set up with pillows against the wall so they can use it like a couch. “Come sit. Don’t kiss me, we’ll just get distracted. Look, I got us notebooks. I thought it’d be a bad idea to do anything on our phones, just in case.”

There’s a pause, before Doyoug laughs helplessly, doing as he’s told. “You really put a lot of thought into this, huh?”

“You’re not the only one who’s detail-oriented and over-cautious,” Taeyong sniffs, handing over a notebook. He had briefly considered getting something cute or fancy for them both, but that had felt a little too extra, and also the last thing he wants is someone getting curious about what’s inside them. So they’re just the standard exercise books he uses for lyric writing, because if there’s one thing their nightmare members will respect, it’s the sanctity of the creative process. “Don’t put names or anything on it, just in case.”

Anyone else would have made fun of his paranoia, probably, and he might not even have minded. He’s their leader; it’s his job to worry like this. But Doyoung just nods seriously and uncaps his pen, eyes Taeyong with his hand poised to start writing. Slowly, a knot in his neck Taeyong hadn’t even been aware of starts to slip loose.

“I don’t - um, I don’t want to be really formal about it? And I think that we should probably - write our own notes about ourselves. Like, I’ll put down what I want you to know, and you put down what you want me to know, and then we can swap and ask questions and stuff. That way we both know for sure that the other person has the important details down, right?”

“That makes sense.” Doyoung tilts his head at him. “You’ve been thinking about this for longer than just the last day.”

“Ah. Haha…” Caught, whoops. “It’s not like I’ve been holding back or trying to find the right moment. I just knew that it was something I’d probably want to talk about s-sooner or later. Because I, um, haven’t really been in a relationship before, not properly. So this would be the first chance I’ve really had to...do? Some of the stuff I’ve wanted to do? Because you’re the person I trust enough to do them with.”

“Oh.” Even in the low light, Taeyong catches the flush crawling over the bridge of Doyoung’s nose, the way his hand clenches around his pen for a second. “Hyu - Taeyong. That’s sweet.”

Taeyong pokes a dimple into his cheek and scrunches a smile at Doyoung, earning himself a huffed laugh. He’s not oblivious to the way Doyoung hesitates over hyung, though, and figures that’s as good a place as any to start taking notes.

“The hyung thing - honestly you can call me whatever any time, you know that, but if we’re playing in the kind of space where - where I’m supposed to be listening to you, it feels sort of jarring? So that’s not a, don’t ever call me hyung thing, just that--” He takes a breath, giving in to the encroaching blush. Better to accept now that the conversation is going to make them both shy than try to fight it. “It doesn’t make sense, in that sort of headspace where you’re telling me to strip naked and walk through the house, that you’re also uh, respecting that I’m older than you.”

Doyoung has started to write as well. “Is there something that you do want me to call you?”

Trust Doyoung to leap right in. There’s a tremble in Taeyong’s hand that he kind of hates - it’s not necessary, not when he doesn’t even feel that nervous, but it’s like - his body is reacting to the fact that he’s in a situation that should cause anxiety, regardless of how he actually feels. He clenches his fingers around the pen a little tighter.

“I mean, I like cute nicknames. Yong-ah, Yongie, that kind of thing. And when you use jagi, yeobo. Baby’s nice too.” He writes all of this down as he says it, but his hand keeps moving after his mouth has stopped. Taeyong stares at the word slut on the page, and has to bite back a giggle. Is he really going to admit that he’s like this? He wants to, the whole point of this is to share a part of himself with Doyoung that he’s never felt brave or interested enough to show anyone else, but taking that leap is harder than he really wants it to be. It sounds so silly in his head, is the thing. Seeing it written down, though, he doesn’t feel silly about it at all, and the way those two impulses clash makes it hard to open his mouth and spit it out.

“I can...be mean, if that’s what you want,” Doyoung says slowly. “It’s not - I don’t want that in the same way as I want to, um, to hurt you, but it’s the kind of thing where, if you like it, I can do it, and I’ll like it because you’re into it. Does that make sense? It feels like this is going to be the sort of thing where we ask that a lot.”

“It makes sense!” Taeyong reassures him. Something about Doyoung offering his own tidbit of information loosens the knot in his tongue, and he decides to give saying it out loud a shot. If nothing else, he at least has something to springboard off now. “I think knowing what or why we like something is important too, you know? Because there are a lot of angles this stuff can be approached from. Like, I would like. For you to call me a slut. And in general, imply that I’m really - that I want it too much? But that you like that about me. I don’t think I want you to be mean - ah, I guess calling someone that isn’t really nice, but…”

Articulating the difference between what he likes and what would really upset him feels like a monumental task, maybe because he doesn’t really know where the precise line is himself. He taps his pen on the page, notes idly that at least his hand has stopped with its tremble.

“I want you to want me,” he lands on finally. “I don’t want you to be disappointed in me. It’s not that I don’t want to be embarrassed, I really like the idea of you like, chiding me for being so horny or so into what we’re doing, I like the idea of you laughing at me trying to follow instructions, which I guess is kind of degrading. But I don’t want you to call me stupid, I don’t want you to call me anything with the intention of actually upsetting me. I’d rather - um, I’d rather be made fun of for trying to be good than told that I’ve been bad.”

Doyoung pushes a hand back through his wet hair, and Taeyong’s heart leaps fondly. They all have their tells. “I think I get what you mean. Like, sort of condescending, but nothing that implies anything about your worth, right? You’re a slut who’s desperate for it, but I’m proud of you for trying to be good, not insulting you for things you can’t help.”

He says it so casually, like they really are having a casual conversation about their relationship - what side of the bed they like to sleep on, or which way the toilet roll should go. But Taeyong doesn’t miss the careful way Doyoung looks at him from under his eyelashes, like he’s trying to gauge how the words hit, so he doesn’t bother to suppress the shiver they tug out of his spine.

“Y-yeah. Pretty much exactly like that. And you’ve been really great about trying things slowly? So if there’s stuff we’re not sure about, if you just give me plenty of time to react to them before you do the next thing, that should work well.”

“That was okay, then?”

Taeyong is about to throw his pen cap at Doyoung for being obvious, when he realises that there’s a real note of anxiety there even though Doyoung had definitely seen how his words made Taeyong react. He reaches out to thumb over Doyoung’s knee instead, the soft material of his sweats whispering against his skin. It feels nice, so he repeats the process, trying to convey as much trust and love as he can.

“That was really good,” he says gently. “But that does sort of touch on something I should have had us start with, actually. Do you know what a safeword is?”

“We don’t need that,” Doyoung says quickly, and Taeyong can feel the way his whole body stiffens at the suggestion. “You can say no or stop, I’ll listen immediately.”

Taeyong winces. “Ahah, I mean, that’s fine, if that’s what you want then that’s what we can use, and we don’t have to push any further than that.”

He tries his best to keep the disappointment from crawling its way out of his throat. There’s already so much Doyoung is willing to do to him that is going to drive him out of his mind - this afternoon is only the latest bit of proof. And he’d known that there had to be some stuff he liked that Doyoung wasn’t into, maybe the other way around too. But when Doyoung had spoken yesterday about wanting to hurt him, there had been a part of Taeyong that couldn’t help but wonder…

“Hyung?” Doyoung’s larger hand slots over Taeyong’s on his knee, stopping the fretful swipe of his thumb back and forth (and when had that shifted from something soothing to nerves?). The way he uses hyung now has - a settling effect, sort of, defining the space they’re in as outside of this dynamic they’re trying to outline. Taeyong likes that, likes the new edge of meaning these familiar words are gaining as they work through all of this. “It kind of feels like there’s a ‘but’ there?”

“You don’t have to agree to this,” he decides to open with. “It’s one of those things that would be really easy to say you’re okay with doing because you want to do it for me, only to find that it’s upsetting once it actually happens. And I wanna stress that it’s not something I think you’d ever, ever do unless I wanted it! It’s not a thing I want because of you, it’s a thing I can only ask for because I trust you so much in the first place, you know?”

“I think I can see where this is headed,” Doyoung says cautiously. “But you haven’t actually asked me for anything yet.”

“Iwanttoaskyoutostopandhaveyouignoreit.”

The words come out in a rush of air, like the physical weight of them has crushed it all out of him. He doesn’t feel lighter for having spoken them out loud, which is sort of a disappointment. More like he has his arms braced under that weight, and the way Doyoung responds is going to determine whether he collapses under it or not.

“Okay.” Doyoung lets out his own long, slow breath. “Okay, that’s - can we talk about that more? That is, what things you’d want me to keep going with? Because if we’re getting into ‘impact play’--” He doesn’t do the air quotes, but it kind of looks like he wants to, and it’s the most endearing thing that has happened all day. “I can probably keep going with that. Or something like trying to make you come again after you already had, when you’re all oversensitive, that’d be fine too. But if I was - literally inside you? I don’t think I could - that’s not a place I really want to go to. Not that it’s bad if you do! But I’d probably go soft if I tried.”

Taeyong turns his hand over on his knee, until he’s palm to palm with Doyoung and can thread their fingers together. “Then it’s off the table,” he says simply, and nothing collapses. His strength doesn’t give out, his lungs still suck in air. “But the--” His lips twitch, “the ‘impact play’ - you want to spank me, baby? Because I definitely want you to spank me.”

“Yah, don’t look at me like that,” Doyoung complains, but he’s squeezing Taeyong’s hand when he does it, three quick, reassuring pulses. “That’s what it’s called! But don’t move on so quickly, please, I don’t want to rush through these more difficult things. When you say off the table, do you mean everything you asked for? Because I really meant what I said, the idea of being...in control of your experience, what you’re feeling, that appeals to me a lot. Being the person who decides when you’re done. And I can see how that would fold in well with impact play, or - it’s called overstimulation, actually, and not stopping when you told me to. Which would make a safeword necessary. Right?”

Under their hands, Taeyong’s knee twitches. Not excessively, just a little flinch of muscle contracting without a direct order from Taeyong’s conscious brain. Because - maybe it had been naive of Taeyong not to consider this before, but it turns out that talking about sex with his boyfriend, even in this hestitant and clinical way, is kind of hot? Hearing Doyoung talk about overstimulation, even if he’s being a brat about it, sends a flush of heat rolling through him. Nothing to make him start moaning aloud or anything, but enough to warm that sensitivity Doyoung had set into his skin earlier.

Maybe they should have given shower sex a chance. It probably would have made this part a little easier to focus on.

“It would. Or - maybe not a word, but a way of checking in? You’re right, I didn’t mean we should ignore the whole idea, just the part that you weren’t comfortable with.”

Because if Taeyong is honest with himself, it doesn’t stop there for him. Which is not something he’s examined all that closely, because it makes him vaguely anxious to really dig into. Not guilty - he tries, really hard these days, to not feel guilty about the fantasies that turn him on - but kind of unsettled. I like to imagine someone shoving me down and forcing me to take it is the sort of thing that feels like an outgrowth of a time in his life when the thought of taking anything would send him into a tailspin - when the appeal of someone just removing the decision from him entirely and making him enjoy it was undeniable.

Ah, it wouldn’t be his fault then, was the thing. It would be something that happened to him, not something he was. Those connecting lines aren’t so strong these days, erased by the work of time and exploring his own desires with a kinder heart, but that had made the fantasy less fraught to engage with, not more.

Taeyong thinks about how to share this with Doyoung, or if he needs to. Is it too much of a tangent, to wander away from talking about what they want and start rummaging into why they want it? If nothing else, Johnny can only keep Donghyuck entertained for so long. They could probably finish this conversation - amongst other thigs - with the door locked, but Taeyong would rather do it when he knows for sure that they’re alone. It’s a private thing, just for the two of them.

“I like to be - overwhelmed,” Taeyong says. “I think what I really want is to just hand all my choices and experiences over to you, just for a little while. I want the things I think to not matter, I want to try things and for them to be ineffectual, and to still be safe. I want to beg and plead and bargain and for it to change nothing, and for that to be okay. Do you understand what I mean? I want a part of my life where I don’t have to be in control, and I really want you to be the person who does have control. But obviously there are things you might not want to do to me, and maybe there are things I think I want that in the moment it turns out I don’t or I don’t feel like it then. So being able to sort of, indicate where we are without completely disrupting what we’re doing, I think that’s more useful than just having a ‘stop everything’ safeword.”

“‘Traffic light system’,” Doyoung enunciates, the hint of a wry smirk tucked into the corner of his mouth. Taeyong knows why it’s there - the feeling that all of this is kind of silly hasn’t fully ebbed, even as he dutifully bullet points his sex notebook. There’s a sharp contrast between the part of him that wants to talk about begging and spanking, and the part of him that wants to start assigning colours to comfort levels, and navigating between the two of them is dizzying.

“Ahah, you really did have an incognito tab open last night.”

“I haven’t only been thinking about this since last night, you know.” The smirk flickers away, Doyoung studiously returning his attention to his own notebook. Taeyong kind of wants to crane over and see what he’s writing, but he supposes he’ll get to know when he’s done. “I mean, I felt really weird about it for a while, but the...things I like do predate our relationship. And I have a VPN.”

“So thorough, Doie-yah!”

“Things worth doing are worth doing right,” Doyoung sniffs, finishing off his latest note. He doesn’t look up from his notebook. “So if we were doing something - if I was spanking you, and you said ‘yellow’, what would you want that to mean?”

Taeyong takes a firm grip of his attention and drags it away from if I was spanking you towards the actual question in that sentence. “A - pause, I think. Like, specifically to let you know that I don’t want to do a hard stop, but that I need you to ask me what I need, and that the question and whatever I say in response both exist outside of the fantasy we’re playing with, so need to be taken seriously.”

“Okay, and red?”

“Total stop to the - scene, fantasy, sex, whatever we’re doing. It would let both of us know that we needed to stop right now without the intention of picking up again right after? Whereas yellow is like, I think I’m into this but I have questions, or I want to keep going, but I need to catch my breath.” He pauses. “Green means everything is okay, obviously, but I think. I’ll probably have other ways to let you know that.”

Doyoung nods, back to writing again. It’s kind of gratifying, actually, to have his boyfriend pay such close attention to him. Not that he isn’t usually attentive, but like this - the two of them alone in the house, knowing for sure that he’s the absolute focus of Doyoung’s attention, it makes Taeyong want to show off for him a bit. You don’t become an idol if you don’t enjoy people looking at you.

“What other ways?”

“Hmm?”

“What other ways would you let me know that everything is okay?” Doyoung finally lifts his gaze and Taeyong stills at the black intensity of it, caught in a trap of his own making. “How would I know you were enjoying yourself, Taeyong-ah?”

He asks it so casually, is the thing. Like they’re discussing vocal arrangements or VLive schedules - both things that they’ve actually done locked away in this room actually, curled up on this bed. Taeyong remembers the hot press of Doyoung’s shoulder against his, the line of their bodies drawn together from waist to hip to knee. Doyoung always runs hotter than him, a blessing when the cold tends to rip right through Taeyong’s narrow frame. Sometimes he would shuffle closer on the pretense of wanting more warmth; later, he’d just hook his leg over Doyoung’s, an arm over his shoulders, turn his whole body and lean in until he could drape himself over the top of him. Their relationship might be pretty recent, but they had stopped needing excuses to be close to each other years ago.

That doesn’t mean Taeyong is totally shameless, though. He can feel the rush of blood to his cheeks, breath shaky in anticipation of what he’s about to say, the way he’s about to say it. There’s no doubt in his mind that this is what Doyoung wants - to strip him a little more metaphorically, flay him bare under the scrape of Doyoung’s regard - and he wants it, too. It’s the space between wanting and doing that’s so intimidating, stretched out now with so many filthy desires and not quite enough action to bridge them. Sooner or later, he’s going to have to leap.

“If you were spanking me?”

He observes Doyoung carefully, although it doesn’t take much work on his part to catch his nod - a bit too eager, a bit too sweet for the roles they’re playing, and that much more enticing because of it. It’s not like Taeyong doesn’t want to get under his skin.

"Well," he starts, and then has to pause to giggle, his own nerves getting the better of him. It's one thing to behave in a way that might be embarrassing because Doyoung wants him to; it's another thing entirely to start sharing his fantasies in a way that's supposed to be titillating.

But he’s come this far, hasn't he? And god, he wants to go further.

"If you were spanking me, I'd probably be on my hands and knees," he says softly. "I'd try to be quiet out of habit, but you'd hit me and say you wanted to hear me. And if we were just starting - I

don't think I'd moan yet, but I'd suck a breath in, you know? Like I couldn’t help myself.”

“When would you moan?”

“It - oh, it wouldn't be too hard to get me there. It's the sting of it. Maybe you'd start off over my underwear just to get me used to it, but the first hit after you tug them down - and you don't even tug them down properly, just snap the band under my ass and leave them there. That first skin on skin hit, though…”

Taeyong hadn't realised that the scratch of pen on paper could be so fucking erotic. The idea that Doyoung is taking down everything he says, that this thing that has lived only in his head is being made real on the page for anyone who reads it to see - it’s delicious, he can taste the pleasure of it pooling under his tongue.

“I wouldn't be able to keep it in - you told me not to, but it just sort of spills out of me either way, and you follow up with a few more hits--”

“I'd make you count,” Doyoung murmurs.

“What?”

“Before spanking you again. I'd tell you that I wanted you to count each hit, and I’d ask you what number we were on.”

He looks at Taeyong expectantly, and it takes a second for Taeyong’s brain to lurch into gear. “O-one,” he stutters, and then, “I’d keep count well.”

“I know you would.” Their hands aren’t tangled together any more, which only gives Doyoung the freedom to turn into Taeyong, push his wet hair back off his forehead. His thumb skirts all the tender, vulnerable dips in Taeyong’s skull; his temple and the corner of his eye socket, the hollow of his cheek. He drags it to the hollow behind Taeyong’s ear and digs under the jut of bone there, a harsh hurt that slides rapidly into relief as he starts to work out the tension between spine and skull. “You’re always so good for me.”

Taeyong whimpers, shoulders rising - either he’s leaning into the pain or trying to brace against it, he can’t decide which. He doesn’t care, happy to hand his reactions over to Doyoung for diagnosis, to be stopped or encouraged according to his whim.

“O-K,” Doyoung says, returning to his notebook with a businesslike flourish that is no less abrupt for all that Taeyong knows it’s put on. He sways helplessly in his wake, only stopped from leaning too far in by a poke in his shoulder from the end of Doyoung’s pen. It presses in fraction deeper than gravity on its own should allow, drawing a low hiss out of Taeyong. “What are some other things that you like, then? Because I know the list doesn’t stop there.”

“Doyoung-ah.”

“Ah, that’s a good point. We went over what you wanted me to call you, but did you want to call me something? I don’t really have any preferences, but if there’s something you like then I don’t mind letting you use it.”

“Doyoung.”

“I don’t need you to respect me, Yong-ah. I just need you to listen.”

Taeyong can do that. It’s like Doyoung had said; he is always good for him. Or he tries to be, at least, does his best to be a good leader and a good friend and a good partner. It’s not a burden, to make this man happy, although he suspects Doyoung makes it easy for him on purpose.

“I don’t...want to call you anything. Other than how I usually call you, that is,” he manages. “I guess I can see the appeal in, in establishing you as someone with a kind of authority over me, but the whole point for me is that it’s you. I mean, I’d call you anything you wanted, if you had a preference. But if you don’t, then your name - your name is good.”

“You should write that down.”

“I should - shit.” He ducks his head in acknowledgement, quickly picking up his notebook from where it had tipped out of his hands at some point. His last note is the header SPANKING FANTASY, underlined twice, although one of the lines kind of trails off the page. There is no fantasy detailed under it, which tracks. “...do you think there’s any way to have this conversation without getting really turned on by it?”

Doyoung shrugs. “Does it matter? We’re alone for the afternoon. I like seeing you get all worked up like this, and we just decided how to slow down if we need to. Do you want to stop?”

Taeyong shakes his head.

“Then let’s keep going.” He nods at Taeyong’s notebook. “Write.”

Taeyong’s hand is already moving before he makes a conscious decision to obey, and the naked truth of that pools heat in his gut. There’s always been something sweetly satisfying about following Doyoung’s demands, of giving into a strong hand at the back of his neck or fingers plucking the bill away from him, of agreeing to requests made with dark eyes and an insistent tone. Even when he resists, it’s mostly to tease; provoking Doyoung is its own form of fun, with its own Taeyong-specific rules. Maybe that’s why he splits the difference, hastily sketching down the fantasy they’d just worked through while eyeing Doyoung over the top of his notebook. It’s not like Doyoung has ever been adverse to letting him have his cake and eat it too.

“What do you want?” he asks, a challenge. “We’ve covered a lot of what I want, and some of what you don’t want, but I want to hear about the things that you like. I want to know what you want to do to me.”

It’s clear he’s caught him off guard, outside of the comfortable little headspace the two of them had been sinking into. Taeyong can feel that - one day, soon, once they’re done with this conversation - he’ll be able to give himself over to it entirely, just subsume himself in Doyoung’s whims entirely until Doyoung is ready for him to have shape and form again. For now, though, there’s an appeal in the push and pull of things, this warm-up before they really start digging into it. Taeyong scratches edging into his notebook, scribbles a star next to it to remind himself to bring it up once he’s heard Doyoung out. That done, he smiles expectantly over at Doyoung, simmering pleasantly in the remnants of his own fantasising.

Doyoung, when he speaks, has acquired this low rasp to his voice. It makes Taeyong’s fingers itch for a studio booth, a recording mic, shit, the app on his phone. He hasn’t really made music for other people yet, but he’ll do it for Doyoung, anything to keep that edge for himself longer than it lingers in the air.

“The first time I thought about making you beg, we weren’t even together,” Doyoung starts. “You’d spent the morning whining at me to buy you candy, and I was only holding out because I like hearing you ask me for it. I asked why you couldn’t get it yourself, and you said, It’s always better when you get it for me, Doie-yah, and you looked at me like you knew exactly what you were doing to me. Whether you did or not, it got you what you wanted. We went out, and you looked so smug and happy about getting your own way, I couldn’t take it. I got off that night thinking…” And oh, there’s that pretty pink colour rising in his cheeks again, so at odds with the way this story flows out of him. Doyoung draws in a sharp breath, like he’s steadying himself. “Thinking about you on your knees, begging to suck my dick. Like you wanted me so badly that you’d take anything, even if it wasn’t directly making you feel good. The next time you wanted something from me, I just bought it straight away. I don’t think I would have been able to withstand hearing you ask a second time.”

Taeyong doesn’t remember the morning in question, because there’s been a dozen of them since California, since Doyoung had treated him to anything he pointed his finger at and Taeyong had discovered how much he likes to be spoiled (he writes spoil me down, stars that one and adds a second star to edging, the rough beginnings of a hierarchy).

“I would, you know,” Taeyong says softly. “You could have tugged that out of me the first time I got on my knees for you. You think my mouth wasn’t watering for it? I had an ache in my jaw just watching you get it out. I wanted to fucking choke myself on it, baby, but I thought that might be a bit...much for the first time I had my mouth on your dick. Should have known that was how you wanted it. Me. If you’d told me no, I think I would have cried.”

If Doyoung’s admission had been enough to lick flames back up his spine, his own confession sets him on fire. There’s something about the way the words spill out of him, like his desires have wrested control from his conscious brain - except he’s doing this on purpose. The loss of control is an illusion; he pictures the weight of Doyoung’s cock in his mouth, imagines the prick of tears in his eyes. He knows what it is to feel saliva pool too thick and too fast under his tongue, knows the desperate gratification of too much dick in his throat and not enough air. He brings all that need to bear now, feeds it into his voice on purpose and watches the way Doyoung swallows down the sound.

“Ah, jagi, jagi, of course I know.” Doyoung’s gaze fixes, unerringly, on Taeyong’s mouth; Taeyong parts his lips for him, slides his tongue over his lower lip. Wet, willing. “You think I didn’t see it then? That I don’t see it every time, how bad you want it? You’ve never been subtle, but it’s like seeing a switch flicked in your head the second you think I might let you have a taste. Like you can’t think of anything except dick.”

“God,” Taeyong whimpers, before he can stop himself. But then - he doesn’t want to stop himself, does he? A flush of humiliation works through him as he processes each word and how right it is, how filthy Doyoung sounds saying it. His own cock throbs with the truth of it, how obvious he’s been this whole time, and his hands can’t help but twitch. “Can I - now? Doyoung-ah. Please?”

Laughter, rich and warm, winds around him. Squeezes him fondly smaller, like he should have known better than to ask, but Doyoung is glad he did. “Can you what now, Yong-ah?”

He makes a sound of frustration, and then immediately wants to cover his face. He’s pretty sure he’s made that exact sound, high-pitched and babyish, when Doyoung has withheld some other treat from him in the name of friendly and camera-worthy banter. Taeyong suspects they’re going to have to scratch the ‘camera-worthy’ off that one in the future. And the ‘friendly’, probably.

Doyoung taps his pen against his notebook emphatically. “You have to use your words. We’re being clear about things, remember? We need to make sure we’re both on the same page about what you want to do.”

“I want to suck your dick!” Taeyong bursts out, rocking forward like - like he can’t help himself. He can, obviously, he doesn’t just dive straight into Doyoung’s sweats, but he’s overwhelmingly aware of how much that has to do with this game they’ve slid into, where only one of them is sure of what the rules are. They’ve created this space between them, carefully constructed with words and want, where he doesn’t feel like a parody for saying it. Where just breaking down the idea of a blowjob is enough to put the obsession in his brain, where there’s no reason not to follow the impulse once it sparks. “I probably would have done it in the shower.”

“What happened to my safety conscious boyfriend?”

“He saw you naked,” Taeyong grumbles. “Baby, please? You said I’m always good for you, can’t I show you?”

He nearly says yes. Taeyong’s sure of it, especially when his nails scrape over Taeyong’s scalp again, knot in his slowly drying hair. The way he pulls on the roots-- “This,” Taeyong gasps, “this, I like this,” and he wins another one of those laughs for his trouble, the sound sparking over his skin.

“Then you’d better write it down,” Doyoung says, pulling again; Taeyong tips forward with a yelp, but Doyoung’s other hand is at his shoulder. He takes the bulk of his weight until the crown of Taeyong’s head is braced against his stomach, face hovering over his crotch, and - god, he’s hard, obvious even through the dark, thick material of his sweats. He’s not so far gone as to start literally drooling over it or anything, but he can’t help the flick of his tongue again, the way he thinks about mouthing at Doyoung’s cock over his clothes.

It doesn’t help that the way Doyoung has him pulled forward - he’s not exactly arching his back, but he could, with a little rearranging. It’s so deliciously vulnerable that Taeyong wants to melt with it, has to focus on not simply turning boneless in his lap.

“Can’t--” he protests, trying to drag arms and pen and notebook into some semblance of usefulness. “Don’t bend like that.” He feels like the physical manifestation of the pleading_face emoji, and he can’t even turn his expression up to Doyoung about it.

“Is your back okay?”

“Mmhm.” Taeyong does arch for a second then, just to test it - and maybe Doyoung, he definitely feels the grip in his hair tighten. “It’s good. Do I still have to write it?”

“You can do it later, you little demon.”

“So you’re going to let me--?”

This time, the grip doesn’t tighten so much as yank - up, up, until Taeyong has to scramble up Doyoung’s torso, abandoning the notebook entirely behind him. Doyoung’s has disappeared somewhere unimportant too, because the only important thing right now is the way Doyoung looks at him, all smug satisfaction at a job well done. Taeyong would argue that he’s only half done, actually, if not for the fact that he likes the look on Doyoung so much.

“I’m not done telling you about the things I want to hear you beg for, yet,” Doyoung chides. “Come on, sit up properly. In my lap, I want your thighs over mine.”

It takes a second for Taeyong to get his limbs in working order, and the little shake Doyoung delivers to his head doesn’t help, combined impatience and condescension conspiring to have Taeyong sagging in his grip again. But he gets there eventually, dragging first one knee and then the other over Doyoung’s crossed legs, tucking his face back into that notch between neck and shoulder once he settles. His dick presses into Doyoung’s stomach; he can feel Doyoung hard under his ass.

He’d bitten Doyoung’s shoulder when he’d done this from the other side in the bathroom. He finds the mark through the wide neck of Doyoung’s old shirt now, worries his teeth over it again. Doyoung doesn’t like pain in the same way that Taeyong does, but he does enjoy Taeyoung possessive and needy. Cradled like this, flush to Doyoung’s body with his hands gripping him close - the one not in his hair has settled at his waist, pressed like a brand into the skin under his hoodie - he’s both.

Doyoung’s mouth tickles his ear, prompting Taeyong to pause in his ministrations. “If you find yourself getting desperate,” he says, “I don’t mind if you grind into me.”

Taeyong bites him, scowling. It doesn’t hide the way his hips flinch forward, an instinctive reaction to being giving permission for something he hadn’t even realised he was holding himself back from.

“Aish - are you going to be this much of a brat every time you don’t get what you want? I knew you were gagging for it, but this is a bit much, don’t you think?”

Chastened, Taeyong soothes his tongue over the mark, more purple than red now (they have tattoo coverup, it’ll be fine). He even lifts his head briefly, just so he has enough space to press a kiss there. He doesn’t mind teasing, but it’s not really in his nature to be a brat. Especially not when he really, really wants to find out what else Doyoung has imagined of him.

“Sweet,” Doyoung murmurs. The hold in his hair gentles, until he’s cupping the back of his head. Moves down, presses the webbing of his thumb in between the notches of Taeyong’s spine, the broad span of his hand meaning that his fingers still close over Taeyong’s pulse. “You nearly came earlier today, right? Before we got into the shower?”

Dimly, Taeyong can recollect sitting on the bench in the bathroom, legs wrapped around Doyoung’s waist as he jerked desperately against him. The way he’s sitting now is reminiscent enough of it that he can’t help but jerk again, breathing out a soft grunt of need at the friction on his dick.

“Was pretty close,” he admits.

“And in the shower?”

“...different kind of desperate. The first time I was just - mindlessly close. The second time it was like, I wasn’t close, and that made it worse? Like you could have just kept touching me until I vibrated to pieces and I still wouldn’t have gotten off.”

Like this, he can feel the stutter of Doyoung’s breath, the flex of his fingers as he processes just how much he enjoys that. It’s like a feedback loop to Taeyong, who loves knowing that Doyoung’s getting off as much as he enjoys Doyoung trying to get him off, and a whole slew of new fantasies cascade over his dizzy brain before he gets back on track - of being watched, appreciated, admired while he gets off, of turning Doyoung on without even having to touch him. Ah, maybe he is an exhibitionist for real.

“I want to keep you like that.”

It takes a second for Taeyong to get his head back on track, but by the time he gets his head around the implications of Doyoung’s words, those tamer fantasies have fled for greener pastures (to be revisited after a concert sometime, maybe).

“Oh,” he breathes, squeezing his thighs around Doyoung’s hips in an effort to keep from grinding down, because - that would feel too easy? But I am easy, Taeyong reminds himself, and the tension in his muscles abruptly gives. Whether that’s because of his own thought, or because of the way Doyoung’s hand splayed across his back starts to apply a rolling pressure, at this point he couldn’t say. What he does know is that it’s instinct to follow the guiding line of Doyoung’s hand, hips falling into a smooth grind that comes with the better part of a decade of dance training. It’s a part of why he’s always kind of enjoyed getting off like this, on his own or with someone else. He’s good at it.

“What did I just say?” Doyoung chides. “If you want to move, move. Don’t try to stop yourself. If I want you to stop, I’ll stop you.”

“Hnngh,” Taeyong says, because all that pooled pleasure in his gut is drawing to a point, ready to pierce through the core of him at a moment’s notice. The pressure from Doyoung eases, but Taeyong is into it now; he tries for maybe three seconds to make it sexy before he gives up on that level of muscle control, just ruts humiliatingly up against Doyoung’s abdomen.

Doyoung’s gaze bores into him as he speaks, a promise and a threat, his hand tight at Taeyong’s neck so that he can’t escape. As though he’d want to.

“Can you imagine? I’d see how close I could get you. Maybe I’d build you up and back down, or maybe I’d just keep you buzzing the whole time, desperate for more. We could use toys, you know? Maybe those restraints you were talking about earlier. Keep you pinned in place so you couldn’t squirm away from me. Bring you right to the edge and--”

Doyoung clamps down on his hips and Taeyong remembers hands on his wrist, hands pick him up, hands pulling him out of the way of other members’ antics, hands in a recording studio gripping a music stand to stay grounded. There’s a physicality to the way Doyoung loves that Taeyong doesn’t think he could ever put in words.

“Stop,” Doyoung finishes, as Taeyong whines, wriggling in his grasp like a fish on a line.

“No,” Taeyong moans, “Nonono I need to - please, I need to--”

Sugar-scrub lips brush too sweet over his forehead, no bite, nothing sharp enough to cut him free. Taeyong can feel Doyoung’s dick hard against his ass, does his best to work down against it, but Doyoung is immovable. Resolute. A sob cracks right through Taeyong’s chest as his sense of space collapses, the room and all its hazy candlelight folding up until it squeezes down on him and he’s not trapped, actually, but kept. Safe.

“You’re okay,” Doyoung murmurs, voice chasing the shiver that drips down Taeyong’s spine, all his writhing energy kept tight and contained. “I’ve got you, hm? I’ve always got you. I want to bring you here over and over, jagi, I want you all soft and pliant in my arms. I want you to tremble over the edge without being able to help yourself, and then I want to do it again. I want you delirious with it, I want you out of your mind.”

Somewhere in the blur of sound and sensation that is his brain right now, Taeyong registers Doyoung’s grip loosening on his hips, one finger at a time. The physical effect of each movement hits first, warmth and pressure easing up his back and down again before he processes their meaning as touch, the soft and soothing drag of palms along the outside of his thighs. Each new experience clicks through him on a movie reel; he pushes his body up against Doyoung’s, keens wet and high pitched into his ear, grinds up into his abs again, again, again, until his muscles seize up and his orgasm grips him by the fucking throat. It spills over his tongue, thick and choking; it takes root in his gut and blooms through his nerves, tangled its tendrils tight around his limbs until he thinks he could tear apart with the force of it, except for Doyoung.

Doyoung and his soothing whispers, Doyoung and his steady hands, Doyoung and the solid weight of his presence wrapped around Taeyong, holding him down, holding him together.

Time is a nonsense thing after an experience like that. Taeyong drifts, untethered from the decisions his body is making for a while, or even if his body is the one making them. He ends up lying down somehow, ends up without pants, ends up clean and curled into a comma on his side, head resting on something firm and warm and reassuring. He’s not sure what’s happened to his bones; he thinks they might have vacated his body entirely.

“Doyoung,” he says, because that’s the only thing that makes sense. His voice comes out clear, which surprises him. He’d been expecting a rasp, although in hindsight, it’s not sure why. It’s not like he’d done anything too strenuous with his throat.

Underneath him, the thing that is firm and warm and reassuring sags a bit, like maybe it had been waiting for something that Taeyong had just provided and now it could relax. It occurs to Taeyong that his eyes are closed; he cracks one, and then the other, blinks up into Doyoung’s wide-open stare. Notes the way his eyebrows twitch, like Doyoung is trying not to look too worried.

“I’m here,” Doyoung says, quickly follows up with, “Do you need anything? You’ve got water, but we’ve got other things in the fridge. Juice? Or I can make you something hot.”

Taeyong’s brain has been so thoroughly blissed, it takes a moment to process the vague squirmy feeling wriggling around in there as discomfort. He reaches up to pet Doyoung’s fringe back instead of saying something, rubbing his thumb firmly over that little furrow between his brows until it eases.

“I want,” Taeyong says firmly, because he needs Doyoung to know that he really means it, “to suck your dick.”

The bubble of laughter that pops over them both in the wake of that statement isn’t exactly the reaction that Taeyong had been pushing for, but it buoys them both enough that he doesn’t care. The rest of his limbs come back online as he worms further up the bed and Doyoung’s body, pushing up on his elbow so he can rest his head on his hand instead.

“Whaaaaaaaaaat,” he whines, making the cutest face he can manage with the vast majority of his creative resources funnelled into the sex notebooks that have slipped, abandoned, onto the floor. “You can say shit like you want me out of my mind with pleasure, but I can’t want to suck your dick?”

“Oh my god,” Doyoung mutters, and he is cherry red, caught somewhere between delight and embarrassment. “Well, for one - that’s not how I worded that! And two - what about anything we just did makes you think I didn’t come in my pants the second you did?”

“Oh.” Bizarrely, tears sting at Taeyong’s eyes; he laughs, bewildered, rubbing his face into Doyoung’s shoulder. “Oh wow, sorry, that’s really hot. I can’t believe I missed that, wow. How long have I been - uh, broken?”

“You are not broken.”

“No, not like - it’s not a bad thing, I just feel like someone switched me off and on again, you know?”

“Then you’d be fixed,” Doyoung sniffs, because apparently he’s an IT expert as well as an idol, boyfriend, and overwhelmingly-good-at-sex guy. “But no, um - it hasn’t been that long, like five minutes? I mean, you were sort of in and out of it the whole time to some degree, it was just this last bit that really took you out. You’re feeling okay?”

Taeyong takes a second to check in on himself to determine the answer to that, wanting to be honest. “I feel amazing,” he says frankly. “Like a dishrag that someone wrung out then hung on the line to dry.” He pauses, considering. Scrunches his nose a bit. “Also, sticky.”

“Excuse the fuck out of me, your majesty, for only having wet wipes to clean you up when you wouldn’t let go of my hand,” Doyoung sniffs, but his voice carries a warmth that belies the bitchiness of his words. Taeyong lets it rock gently through him. “God, only you would use the words wrung out like a good thing.”

“Herniate a disk and get back to me.”

Laughter fizzes up between them again, and Taeyong takes full advantage of his renewed motor control to roll on top of Doyoung and demand kisses. Doyoung curves into him with the casual ease of a man who knows perfectly how to make their bodies fit, trades lazy open-mouthed kisses with Taeyong that meander through comfortable and lovely instead of building to anything bigger. Neither of them really make a decision to keep going, and they don’t seem to make a decision to stop either, time stretching out into nonsense until Taeyong gives a little sigh and rests his head on Doyoung’s chest. He taps out a little beat along the scoop of his collarbone, rubs his fingers into the smooth hollow just because it’s there and he can touch and he wants to.

“So.” Doyoung clears his throat, and Taeyong tucks a smile at his obvious nervousness into his chest. “If you had to give that a percentage score--”

“Oh my god, baby, I’m not giving you a grade for how well you did sex that literally killed my brain.”

“That’s not what literally means.”

“Doyoung.”

“Feedback is important!” Doyoung’s sincerity vibrates through his chest to settle in Taeyong’s. “How am I supposed to improve or know what to repeat if you don’t tell me what you liked, or how much? Think of this like a world tour, that was just the first concert.”

Taeyong has to press his whole face into Doyoung’s shoulder to try and suppress his giggles, although he suspects that Doyoung can feel them anyway. The spank that hits him square on the ass a second later confirms that suspicion; Taeyong is relaxed enough now that it doesn’t give him more than a jolt, but he does lift his head back up.

“Not the first concert,” he dissents, and reaches back to grasp Doyoung’s wrist before he can spank again, because he’s not worked up now, but he also has no idea how long that might last if Doyoung goes on this way. He drags the hand higher up and Doyoung takes the hint, working it under his shirt to settle at the small of his back. “You want feedback? I think it’s a great beginning. We’ve got the basics down, obviously, and some workable ideas. So let’s - work them? Because that was hot, Doie-yah, it was really hot, but I want to do them. Everything you said. All of it, more, but I figure we have to start somewhere.”

Doyoung hums, pleased. “All right. Feedback on your feedback? You have to be able to tell me what ‘everything I said’ entails, because I have no idea how much of anything you were retaining by the end there.”

“Okay, that’s fair.” Given that Taeyong’s wishlist right now can be summed up as ‘make me feel like that again, but more of it’, Doyoung’s probably right to push him for specifics.

“And I need to know - is this the kind of sex you want us to have all the time? With this sort of, um, dominant/submissive energy? Because I might need to think about that. It’s - ah, it’s good, hyung, it’s really good, but so is how we’ve had sex before.”

“You mean you don’t always want to be hitting me and making me cry?” Taeyong asks drily. Doyoung chuckles, but there’s still a tension in his torso that Taeyong’s fidgety beats can’t tap away. “Yah, Doyoung-ah, you think I don’t love your hands on me any way I can get them?”

“Is this the part where I call you easy?”

“Not if you want to keep having this conversation, it’s not.”

Taeyong had meant it when he said he didn’t just get turned on at the flick of a switch or by dropping the right codeword, but that doesn’t mean that he’s not, like, interested when Doyoung raises the spectre of some gentle slut-shaming. He’d meant it when he said he was wrung out, too, but there’s plenty of things they can do that aren’t all that strenuous. Plenty of things Doyoung could do to him.

“Need a moment?”

Taeyong shushes him with a smack to his chest; if he’s lucky, the heat in his cheeks is just an internal temperature thing, not a visible one. There’s more he wants to say on the subject of what kind of sex they have, and while he’s mostly sure that Doyoung will be into the idea, there’s a sliver of Taeyong that worries, always, about how much the other man does for him. If this would be adding one more thing to his plate, if it would take something that’s supposed to be fun and loving and a release for both of them and turn it into work.

Fingertips press cool to the side of his neck, a welcome relief. “Just say it,” Doyoung suggests. “Whatever you’re turning over in there isn’t going to do better stuck in your head than it will out here.”

“Ah, I just - when we started earlier, I said I wanted to turn all my choices and experiences over to you. I guess that I meant this part of things as well. But saying that to you feels like asking so much, like I’m asking you to do all the planning or preparing and I get to just wander around not knowing if you’re going to bend me in half or lay me out the next time we have sex. You have to think up all of the questions, and then whatever answer I say is the right one, you know? It doesn’t feel fair.”

Doyoung hums thoughtfully, petting at the small of his back like Taeyong is a cat he’s trying to settle into staying on him. “I would say...the effort we put into this doesn’t have to be perfectly equal. It just has to be the level of effort that we’re both satisfied with. And I think I’d be happy with being in charge of setting the tone, I guess, whenever we have sex. But I’d need you to be really, really certain that you’d use your safeword the second you weren’t happy with something. And when I say unhappy, I mean in the sense of ‘I’m getting a cramp’ or ‘I’d rather be playing video games’ than ‘I’m going to have a panic attack’, you know? It needs to be an easy thing, not a last resort thing.”

That’s fair too. There are all kinds of vague fantasies floating around in the horny part of Taeyong’s brain, attached to words like ‘free use’ and ‘exhibitionism’ and ‘consensual non-consent’. None of them do any damage fluttering around in there; it’s the transition from thought to action that involves this level of discussion, of planning, of carefully comparing comfort levels. He likes, so far, the experience of teasing each other with spinning those fantasies into some kind of narrative out loud, but it’s harder not to trip over each other’s boundaries when they’re figuring out how practical it is to do this for real. Taeyong is glad to have the safewords in place, but he doesn’t relish the idea of leaning on them in quite the way that Doyoung is suggesting.

“Maybe that’s something we work up to,” Taeyong offers. “It’s not like I hate telling you what I want or anything, it’s still really sexy. A lot of this we’re just talking about at the moment, right? So I’m okay with doing practice and seeing what we like actually doing before we start playing around with how we want to do it. Does that sound...good?”

“It’s sounds…” Doyoung rolls his thoughts around in his head for a long moment, before sighing. “It sounds sensible. I think I just wish that I could upload everything you want to my head and give it to you without having to go through--” He waves his hand. “All of this. It’s exhausting, huh?”

Taeyong tiptoes his fingers up Doyoung’s neck; Doyoung purses his lips for a kiss, and Taeyong forms his hand into a beak to deliver, cackling at the eyeroll he gets for his trouble. “I don’t know. Some of it was kind of fun.”

“Kind of.” Doyoung shuffles around so intently that he dislodges Taeyong with a squawk. He does brace his arm to make sure Taeyong doesn’t roll all the way off the bed, but his expression is a study in perfect irritation. “I wring you out like a dishrag, and you can only give me kind of? What does that translate into numbers, a sixty five? I’ve never gotten a fucking sixty five percent in my life.”

It’s impossible to keep a straight face in response to such outrage, especially when “Well. I thought I’d give us room to grow, you know? It’s not a sixty five, more like a seventy, seventy five--”

“That’s not better!”

Later, Taeyong resolves to thank whoever introduced Doyoung to the free weights at the gym (Johnny, who would probably rather not be thanked, given the circumstances). Doyoung moves him like he’s nothing, rolling the both of them over until he’s caging Taeyong in, knees on either side of his hips, elbows braced next to his head. Taeyong’s laughter spills out between them, interrupting each furious kiss Doyoung peppers on his face with a little bit of joy until they’re both soft again. Doyoung’s lips ease over his, all wet-warmth and tender as Taeyoung twines his arms behind his neck, his legs around his waist, until Doyoung’s knees buckle and his elbows slide out of the way and their bodies crush together, together.

*

“ALL RIGHT WE’RE HOME!” The front door crashes open with enough force to bounce off of the door stop, nearly swinging back and beaning Donghyuck in the face. It does not appear to slow him down any. “INNOCENT MAKNAE EYES COMING THROUGH, PLEASE CEASE AND DESIST ANY ACTIVITIES THAT ARE UNSUITABLE FOR - aww, man! I sit on that couch!”

Without shifting from where he’s serving as a slightly bony body cushion for Taeyong to stretch out on, Doyoung grabs the nearest actual cushion and throws it in Donghyuck’s general direction. It misses by at least half a metre, lengthwise, sailing over his head where Johnny handily catches it on his way in. Their manager, apparently, has been abandoned at some point in the afternoon.

“We’re watching Netflix,” Doyoung huffs. Which is true, but Donghyuck’s yelling is apparently enough to fluster him, because Taeyong can admire the delicate blush creeping up his cheeks even in the dim light of the flickering tv screen.

Donghyuck points an accusatory finger at them. “You can’t trick me! I have a twitter account, I know what that means!”

Johnny, thankfully, shoves the pillow in Donghyuck’s face on their behalf. “Netflix and chill, that’s Netflix and chill, Hyuck. Doyoung-ah’s never been chill in his life.”

Taeyong thinks of steady hands pinning his hips in place, and grins up at Doyoung, who only flushes deeper.

“Oh, ew,” Johnny sighs, catching the exchange. “God, never mind, Donghyuck’s right. You both need to stop that immediately.”

Taeyong wriggles around so he can see over the couch better. For all of his loud distress, Donghyuck has abandoned the conversation in favour of the fridge, rooting around for leftovers with the couch cushion clutched under one arm. “What, looking at each other?”

“Yeah, exactly. As soon as possible, thanks. Some of us are single.”

“That sounds like a you problem,” Taeyong intones as seriously as he can manage. And then, because Doyoung is in reach and he can, he leans up and steals a kiss, before settling back into his little nest of blanket and boyfriend.

Johnny makes an exaggerated retching sound behind them that gets another pillow thrown at him, but things calm down pretty immediately. Both members join them with snacks and start arguing over who should get the remote, which Taeyong lets Doyoung arbitrate as he pulls up his eternal mental schedule, trying to figure out when their next free timeslot is.

“Hey Johnny,” he says, in the middle of a volley about who has better taste in anime. “Are you free in like, two Tuesdays time?”

Johnny shrugs in a way that says he has no idea, but assumes Taeyong knows his schedule better than he does. “Sure, why?”

“Why do you think?” Donghyuck huffs. “They want to bone.”

Doyoung, unfortunately, is out of cushion ammunition. Taeyong finds his hand and pats it absently as another argument explodes between the other three about the appropriateness of yelling certain assumptions at peak volume in the middle of the lounge (‘That’s nowhere near my peak volume!’ Donghyuck protests).

Taeyong leaves them to it. It’s not like Donghyuck is wrong.