Work Text:
Headlights flicker and drift past the bricked, vandalized walls of the outside of the bar with every passing car, casting fluorescent shadows. Seunggil has an arm loosely wrapped around JJ's neck and the other around his waist, his face pressed against the column of JJ's tanned throat. He's cold and drunk, and JJ is warm and not drunk. He deems it to be a match made in heaven, the two of them. He hiccups and giggles a bit, translucent clouds of air forming around them. "This is so funny. Why're you this tall and warm."
JJ hauls Seunggil up more, his legs having become boneless and unable to sustain in holding his weight, and he pats the back of his head, fingers slipping through his locks. "Seunggil Lee asking me something he doesn't already know? A first for everything."
"Jean-Jacques Leroy not bein' obnoxious beyond compare? A first for everything."
JJ pinches his side and leans them against a wall beneath an over-bright light, and Seunggil lifts his head to face him. His cheeks are indulated with a deep pink color, lips puffy and bitten from both his own doing and JJ's, and his eyes are soft about the edges. This version of himself is better fitted, gentler in comparison to his common standoffishness when in public, a general instinct that he isn't quite aware of. Nonetheless, like in all other moments, JJ catches his gaze and grins with the unbearable compulsion to kiss him. "You can't diss me. I'm your designated driver and also your boyfriend, so personally I think your snark should sound a bit more fond."
Seunggil leans into him further, pressing onto his toes so that their mouths align, warm breaths puffing against each other's chapped lips. His eyes drag along the planes of JJ's face, drinking in every detail as though it'll be the last time he gets to see him, as though JJ's face won't be the first thing he sees tomorrow morning and the morning after that one. "Who ever said I was fond of you to begin with?"
JJ grins wider. "Ouch."
Seunggil wraps himself around JJ entirely and allows their mouths to meet, sliding his wine-stained lips along JJ's dry ones, face flushing even further with the weight of how much he loves this man, how much he would give up if anything caused them to be apart. He'd--he'd stop skating, if it meant anything at all, and he's the very brink of spilling. His thoughts are unfolding, and his tongue is a bit looser than it would be under sober circumstances (he's already told JJ how much he enjoyed looking at his face twice tonight, in a row). He's looking for the right moment to tell him, for some slits of sunlight to unravel onto some hardwood floors on some warm afternoon where things are quiet and he's caught JJ looking at him like he's the best thing he's ever seen again. The wall outside of some dingy bar on a sidewalk of sparse bundled up people rushing by is not ideal. He pulls back and brushes the tips of his fingers along JJ's ear. "Take me home."
"Coming from a guy like you, how could anyone refuse? Let's get you home," JJ murmurs with his charming lopsided smile--except--
"Callllll a taxi, though. Bad at directions."
JJ's brow furrows with an affronted expression, like he doesn't know it's literally true. "First, you diss what I think is truly my best quality, and now you're dissing my sense of direction? How the turn tables from the cheese you were serving me by talking about how much you adored me earlier if you ask me--"
"How much I adored your face, don't get the wrong idea. I don't like you at all," Seunggil insists, pinching the tip of JJ's ear.
"We're literally dating, babe."
"Since when?"
JJ pinches Seunggil's side in retaliation, tsking. "You're more of a brat than I am, and I practically invented bratiness."
Seunggil makes a disaffirmative noise, letting his head collapse onto JJ's shoulder. "False. That couple's kid across the street could give you a run for your money. You're not even bratty, you don't complain about anything. You donate to charity. Loser."
JJ snorts into Seunggil's hair briefly and props them up against the wall until they're standing properly. "Well, I'm still taking you home since I'm insulted that you think I don't know the way to and from your house like the back of my hand."
"I won't talk to you for a whole week if you get us lost like you almost did on our way here with the GPS, JJ," Seunggil slurs sophisticatedly as they stumble along the line of cars parked beside the sidewalk, inhaling deeply to drown his senses in JJ's scent.
"It's funny that you think you'd last a week, not to mention a day," JJ prods, pressing the button on his keys repeatedly until he spots his car headlights winking at them farther down the line. He looks down at Seunggil and his flushed, warm body and grins. "I should just carry you if you can't even feel your legs, really."
Seunggil is given little to no time at all to protest, brain failing to catch up with the comment as JJ leans down and hooks his arms beneath the crooks of his knees, lifting him off the ground. Seunggil responds accordingly and slips his arm around JJ's neck, expression openly and pleasantly astonished as JJ's arm comes around his back and he looks at him as though he's carrying something sacred. Hiccups and laughter bubble up from Seunggil's throat at the same time, and it makes a sound like washing shimes that are already clean as he kicks his legs out. "Am I light?" he giggles.
JJ smiles broadly and genuinely and tosses Seunggil slightly in the air for emphasis. "As a feather."
)(
JJ is conclusively secure in the knowledge that he's never loved anyone or anything more than he loves Seunggil.
He can feel his chest seizing up when Seunggil's dimples pop into his cheeks in laughter, rays of moonlight melting into his hair as he tosses his head back and kicks his legs out. He can't seem to hear much of anything else but the sound of his drunken laugh--not car horns or tires squeaking past on rain-soaked roads. His own smile overwhelms his face involuntarily, and he makes a show of Seunggil's lightness for the sound of his surprised squeak. There's little else he loves to do than surprise Seunggil and watch the changes that overcome his face.
If there's anyone else in a rush passing them by, JJ pays no mind to anything except spinning Seunggil about and rocking them to and fro until they reach his car and Seunggil's stomach is clenching painfully. JJ, being the gentleman that he is, doesn't set Seunggil down on his feet and open the passenger door--he opens it with Seunggil still in his arms and places him in the seat himself, pressing a sloppy kiss to his temple.
They cruise around downtown past neon signs and clumps of people celebrating one thing or the other or something all the same, with Seunggil leaning his on JJ's shoulder as his eyes blearily drift from building to building. He's slumped in his seat and looking small in the coat he grabbed from the foyer closet (it's JJ's) and the red scarf with both ends of it embroidered with the Canadian flag (also JJ's--he wears a blue scarf with the Korean flag embroidered into it all the same).
It takes less than fifteen minutes for JJ to get them lost, and it takes less than eighteen for Seunggil to notice--his senses are ever sharp, even in his drunken state.
Seunggil sits up with JJ parks in front of a dingy motel, its sign glowing in pink neon and bathing the lot with its light, and he glares at JJ out of the corner of his eye. "We're lost. Are we lost?"
JJ drums his thumbs on the steering wheel and looks at their surroundings as though he'd want to look at anything or anyone but Seunggil. "'Lost' is a bit of a misleading word. 'Detour' is a lot nicer, a bit more accurate. Yeah. We took a detour."
Seunggil stares forward and stays still, and they sit in silence for a few minutes more to the point that JJ worries that Seunggil isn't breathing when Seunggil speaks up and makes a move for the door handle. "I'm walking."
JJ grabs Seunggil's hand and tugs it towards his mouth, pressing a kiss to the back of his hand. "Babe, no, wait, honestly. Okay, we're lost, but I want you to sleep off the alcohol before we get back on the road, so we stopped here. When it's morning, you can get us back home. See, I have good ideas sometimes."
JJ can tell Seunggil is nearly compelled to deny him this, to tell him something logical like how he doesn't know what does on in this place or if there's a murderer sleeping in the room beside them or not, but Seunggil gives and slumps back into the seat, scrunching up his face cutely. "I'm too drunk to argue. Get us a nice room, and I'll stay in here and pass out. Then you can have an excuse to princess-carry me again."
JJ boops him on the nose, causing Seunggil's half-lidded eyes to startle wide open. "None of that...how do you say...'passing out' business. I'll get you some water somehow if they don't have a vending machine and then I'll let you sleep. I don't have any shades on me, you see, and if you wake up pissed at the sun in the morning, you'll make it my fault, too. Makes sense?"
Seunggil turns to him, eyebrows furrowed and expression unreadable, like he's nearly angry with something but not with JJ. "You care so much about me. Why do you care so much about me?"
JJ is, for lack of a better word, dumbfounded by the question. There are too many answers to such a question, too many good reasons that have too much support, and he'd be there all night telling Seunggil why he cares so much about him--he'd be there all morning in the following day, too. Maybe a little chunk of the afternoon, because it sounds like Seunggil is asking him why he thinks he deserves to be cared for. JJ leans back into his own seat and holds his gaze. "I think you're looking for a simplified answer for a complex question. I guess the easiest answer is that you're you. Cheesy? Yeah. Overdone? Yeah. True? Yeah. You're you, and there's no one else who fits better into my life than you do, and you're someone I want to keep close and protect. You know that's true because I'm flighty, and we've been dating for a few months now, and there's still a lot I haven't told you yet, but I think the most important thing I haven't told you is that I love you more than I'll ever love anything. So." He rubs his palms against his thighs--they're coated with sweat in the middle of December. "If that's an adequate answer."
Seunggil stares at him for a long time, face caught in the expression it had been in before until it slopes into something softer, brighter--his eyes pearling up with tears, his trembling lips parting in a smile, his arms opening and closing around JJ's shoulders as he leans forward over the compartment between them in the cramped space. "Okay," he says into his shoulder, voice muffled and quivering.
JJ's cheeks are damp, and he doesn't recall the point in time where he started crying, but that's where they both are. He envelopes his arms around Seunggil to the best of his ability and wishes vehemently that they were closer. "Don't ever ask me something like that, like you're trying to figure out whether or not you deserve what I give you. You do. No-brainer."
"I love you, too, you know," Seunggil murmurs, tone heavy with the gravity of it in all of its simplicity.
JJ lays a kiss to the side of his head and strokes his hair, rocking them back and forth. "I know."