Chapter Text
The sand is coarse beneath his toes.
Namjoon leans forward, bearing his weight on the balls of his feet, the tide rushing forth and kissing the ground just before his feet. Salt and fish, watermelon and the sunscreen Yoongi had smeared on his face when the sun had still been at its peak; Namjoon sways in the water, eyes shut, breathing deeply, waiting.
He’s always thought that the sea breathed in sync, if one listened hard enough.
The crunch of sandal on sand, the slow, lazy gait; Yoongi’s cologne carries its own presence, curling around his arm and neck before Yoongi himself does, bandaged fingertips brushing grains of sand away from his jaw.
Namjoon breathes, but it’s useless; all his senses are flooded with Yoongi, now, and he’s never been immune to this sort of charm, never free of bewitchment. He tilts his head until his temple touches Yoongi’s hat and husks out a short laugh, voice soft. “Bored?”
Yoongi’s arm curls around his neck, the other his chest. He turns his nose and lands a kiss right over Namjoon’s exposed clavicle, chaste. Instead of answering, he lets the sound of the waves crash into them, inching further and further up the shore the lower the sun falls.
There is always a certain sort of peace, with him, one that even Namjoon’s beloved sea could never measure up against. He slips a hand under Yoongi’s shirt, fingers fitting to his waist, and finally opens his eyes, smile hanging at the sight of Yoongi’s sun-flushed nose, the burn on his cheeks that he’s going to complain about for the next week.
Yoongi looks up, and sand dribbles out of the top of his bucket hat, eyes slitted and sleepy. Namjoon tightens his grip, leaning down to kiss him, and Yoongi takes it without protest, one hand pulling back to rest flat on his chest.
When they part, he settles into Namjoon’s arm, head tipped onto his shoulder to stare out at the sea, content. Whisper-soft, he asks, “She say anything today?”
Yoongi has never been one to chastise him, to tease or poke fun at his sometimes childish superstition. Namjoon pecks the top of his head again, fingernails scratching over his ribs, feeling Yoongi purr against him with every stroke. “Mm-mn. Probably mad about all the pollution.”
A laugh. Yoongi’s tank top slips off his shoulder when he shrugs and Namjoon lands a kiss on the back of his neck before he pulls it back up. “Think she’s petty?”
“Mm. No. The Atlantic is probably, like, super petty. But not her.” Busan has always been good to them, everything down to the water it resided on. Yoongi squirms under his arm, wiggling until he’s hugging Namjoon around the waist, cheek pressed to his chest, and Namjoon laughs, one hand coming up to tuck his hair back into his hat, fond. “You ready to go home?”
Yoongi glances up from beneath his eyelashes, and it’s so unmistakably adoring that Namjoon’s knees are weak all over again. His fingertips slide into the high waist of Namjoon’s swim trunks, fiddling, and Namjoon cups his face, heat curling around his heart, as if Yoongi has reached in with his entire hand and claimed it as his once again. “I already am.”
Namjoon sits up.
It takes several, long minutes to adjust to the darkness of the room, and when he does, staring blankly at the empty spot on the bed beside him, he sighs.
His legs are sticky with sweat, the duvet tacky where he shoves it off of him, both feet swinging off the edge of the bed. The clock winks an obnoxious 4:45 at him, nearly mocking, and Namjoon plants his feet on the floor and closes his eyes for several, long minutes, willing himself not to break it.
It’s not the clock’s fault he’s awake.
He peels out of his pajamas, leaving them in a heap on the bathroom floor when he crawls into the shower, the dreariness startled out of him as soon as the water hits his skin. It’s ten degrees too cold, but the pipes have been freezing a lot, lately, and Namjoon dreads having to trudge outside to go fix it.
His shower is short. Colder by the second. He towels himself off and pulls on his clothes and coat, and his teeth are still chattering by the time he shoves himself into his boots, swiping the flashlight off the kitchen counter with enough force that he nearly sends it clattering to the ground, instead.
Five in the morning is rarely warm, but Namjoon would take the sweltering heat of summer over the icy cold that hits him, stinging his cheeks and wet scalp the moment he steps outside. He waves his hand, and the porchlight comes on, illuminating the area just enough for him to find the basement door without his flashlight.
As expected, ice has crept up the old pipes along the wall, rattling hard when Namjoon turns his flashlight around and gives the largest pipe a good whack . He smacks the underside of the pipe several times, trying to dislodge the ice; the boiler stalls for a moment, and then gives up a thick, hoarse cough, shaking in place as it starts to work again. Namjoon backs away from the sudden steam, waving it away from his face, and tromps back up the stairs, rubbing the sudden exhaustion out of his eyes.
He stops at the top step, waiting. The garage door is closed, and the only track of prints in the snow belong to him and his clunky, stolen boots. He turns his flashlight around, closing and locking the basement door, and checks his watch again, frowning.
5:10. For a second, he thinks to himself, Yoongi will be late for work.
It’s too dark to see Yoongi’s car in the garage without opening the door. Too dark to see the cobwebs and sun-bleached air freshener, too dark to see the towels padded in the back window, still caked with sand.
It’s too dark to see, right now. He’ll clean it out tomorrow.
His coworkers rarely bother him, and it’s one of the perks of working in tech support. Namjoon is relatively patient, quick on his feet and persuasive, and although he’s faced with the occasional rude caller, he enjoys the peace. The solitude.
He doesn’t know why Jung Hoseok took this job.
He leans back in his seat, peering around the edge of his cubicle, whistling to get Namjoon’s attention, and offers up a wide grin and a short, inviting wave. Hoseok hasn’t been quiet a day in his life, and the way he gathers companions and audience in the break room would be alarming, if he weren’t so Goddamn sweet . “Hey, did’ya take lunch yet?”
Namjoon shifts, holding up a finger, and puts himself offline for a moment, wetting his lips. Hoseok has a tendency to mother, to bugger him into eating and taking care of himself, and Namjoon can appreciate it for what it is, when he’s slept more than three hours a night. “Forgot to pack it.”
He always forgets. Eating has become less a physical need and more a far off afterthought, nowadays.
“I figured.” Hoseok’s smile curls at the edges, and he holds up a brown paper bag, waiting for Namjoon to take it before he slides out of his seat and pushes it back against his desk. He’s procured a neon green lunch bag, from somewhere, and he hooks it around his elbow, hips cocked and arms crossed. “C’mon, let’s go now before Becky catches on and tries to follow.”
Namjoon’s cheek dimples, glancing over Hoseok’s shoulder to ensure that she’s still occupied. Hoseok holds out his hand and he takes it, shaking off Hoseok’s grip once he’s up; they duck under the cubicle walls, trying to avoid notice, and once they’re out of the office, they straighten up, sharing fleeting grins.
“Never understand how they let people like her off the plane.” She had fixated on either of them at least once, and Hoseok had had to deny her advances for both, much in part due to Namjoon’s discomfort. Hoseok pats his back, pushing him into the break room, and they sit across from each other at one of the high tables. Hoseok leaves his lunch bag there, wandering over to the vending machine and paying for two drinks.
He doesn’t have to ask what Namjoon wants, anymore. He slides a lemonade across the table and opens his bag, sitting with one of his legs tucked under him.
Hoseok has many stories, each of them long and conspicuously detailed, and if Namjoon were a more inquisitive man, he would question them. If Namjoon were at all the person he used to be, he might pick them apart, might tease Hoseok more for them.
As it stands, Hoseok opens his mouth, and Namjoon starts picking at his food, waiting quietly for him to start.
“God, so,” He unzips his lunch bag, pulling out two tupperware containers and popping the lids off. He slides a bowl of kimchi towards the middle of the table, and Namjoon understands, picking off enough to fill the dip in his disposable bowl of rice. “I was out with my friend, and this bouncer just wouldn’t leave us alone? And, like, Jiminie -- my friend -- he’s not the type to take shit like that, so he got all macho, and…”
Hoseok picks a strip of pork out of his bowl and holds it up for Namjoon to eat without a word, his other hand fixed on his temple as he recounts his night. Namjoon pulls it off with his chopsticks, pretending he doesn’t notice the disappointed little slump of Hoseok’s shoulders, and lays it into his bowl.
“Anyways, the bouncer starts blushing and he’s like, sorry, you’re just so handsome. And Jiminie freezes and kinda starts swooning ‘cause he knows how cute he looks when he does it, and he’s all, like, Really? How handsome? ” Hoseok wrinkles his nose, stabbing his bowl with his chopsticks and frowning deeply, two dimples showing just above the corners of his lips. “I got ditched! For the bouncer ! Can you believe that? I deserve better friends.”
Namjoon snorts, separating his food into bites, because even the effort of eating seems like too much, right now. “Did he come back?”
“Oh, he came back. Needy and missing his undies, that fucker.” Namjoon grins, bringing his hand up to cover his mouth as he eats, and Hoseok offers up a smile softer than usual, tapping his bent wrist with the clean end of his chopsticks. “Anyways. I bet you’d be fun to drink with. You should come with me, sometime, see if the bouncer likes you, too.”
Namjoon shakes his head, picking out another bite of food and waiting for his smile to go down to take another bite. “I don’t think your friend would find me to be much fun.”
“I said you should come with me , Joonie. Wouldn’t need another guest.” Hoseok grins at him, and oh, how handsome he is with that little bit of flush, that blush that turns his pert nose ruddy. “You should smile more. It’s really cute.”
Namjoon reaches up, fingers resting against his chin, but the smile is gone, much to his dismay. Hoseok doesn’t seem to notice, staring at something on his phone as it lights up, but Namjoon’s belly is heavy as a stone.
It’s been four years. He’s okay. He’s adjusting.
He’s adjusting.
He’s always thought Yoongi would be a good gardener.
He’s a capable man, smart and witty with an affinity for handywork; Namjoon has bought him many plants over the years, some more difficult than others, and Yoongi has handled each one with the expected grace and understanding, tending to them even when they began to creep up the side of the house, to spread out of his garden and into the gravel driveway.
He loves his plants. Namjoon leaves a cactus in a pot on the kitchen counter, before he leaves for work, and by the time he’s home, Yoongi has already moved it to the window planter, lovingly crowded in with his other, smaller plants and succulents.
He leans against the counter, draped in nothing but Namjoon’s shirt and slouchy, fuzzy socks, legs pale and shaking at the knees when he stretches over the sink to reach the planter, spritzing plant food into the dirt. The sun cuts over him in rays, threading his dark hair with gold and dusting his cheeks orange and pink, catching light in his many earrings and nearly blinding Namjoon as he steps closer.
Yoongi sprays the soil around the cactus, unsurprised when Namjoon inches closer, letting his bag slouch onto the table and winding an arm around Yoongi’s waist. He tightens his grip in warning, and Yoongi sets the spray down, letting Namjoon hoist him up onto the counter; he holds a spray bottle full of water in his other hand, misting Namjoon in the head with it, pouting.
“I can’t reach them from here.” He complains, but his legs hook around Namjoon’s waist and he lets Namjoon pry the bottles away from him, leaning in to rub their noses together. Yoongi’s lips find his cheek, balm leaving behind a sticky lip print that won’t come off no matter how hard Namjoon scrubs, later. “How was class?”
Long. Boring. Ever since Namjoon got married, his yearning has only doubled in size; He squeezes closer, burying his face in Yoongi’s neck, sniffing there until Yoongi’s arms settle over his shoulders with a husky sort of laugh.
“You big puppy,” He pinches Namjoon’s cheek, hard enough to sting but gentle enough to pull away from. Namjoon braces his teeth threateningly against the long curve of Yoongi’s neck and Yoongi pats his head, seemingly not all that bothered. “Down, boy.”
Namjoon huffs. He nips Yoongi’s neck, lips closing around the spot when Yoongi yelps, sucking a bruise to life in the pale skin there. Yoongi cards a hand through his hair, sigh long enough to dislodge his bangs, lips pressed to his forehead. “I would love it if my husband used his human words to talk to me.”
“Boring. Missed you.” The important things need not be spoken aloud, Namjoon thinks. He braces a hand in the small of Yoongi’s back, and Yoongi’s arms tighten around his neck reflexively, hugging him like a koala when Namjoon backs away from the counter and plants both hands under his butt, carrying him like a toddler into the living room.
Yoongi’s back hits the couch with the careful scrape of fabric on fabric. He tangles both hands behind Namjoon’s neck, eyes searching his face when Namjoon crawls between his legs and hovers over him, pouting.
“Hyung,” He says, bumping their foreheads together, nearly whining. “Kiss.”
Yoongi rolls his eyes, but his fingers are already tracing Namjoon’s face. “Were you always this needy?”
“Please?”
Yoongi laughs, and it’s more than music, more than the way his heart jumps and starts to race. His fingers curl around Namjoon’s ears, cupping his head, and the fond smile on his face has Namjoon’s soul seeping out of him, desperate for more, desperate to sink into him, be with him.
He kisses Namjoon’s nose on either side, thumb resting on the curve of his lower lip, teasing. “What would you do without me?”
4:45. The clock glares at him, but Namjoon is too exhausted to even contemplate getting up and destroying it.
He could sleep. Should, actually, since his work day doesn’t start for another three hours and he’s gotten less sleep in the past few months than he did as a college student. He’s nearly twenty eight -- it should be easier than this to train himself out of bad sleeping habits.
Nothing is as easy as it should be, though. It never is.
The pipes are frozen again, and Namjoon is so weary of facing the cold that he sits on the floor of the bathroom, back pressed against the tile, and holds his head in his hands for several, long minutes.
Breath in. Breath out. Nobody else will do it, and if he doesn’t fix it now, he’s not going to have water when he gets home from work. Breath in. Breath out.
He opens his mouth to swallow and nearly whines for Yoongi to come fix it. To come save him, because it’s cold, and it’s early, and surely he has time before he leaves for work, right?
Namjoon hauls himself into his boots and coat without another sound, jaw clenched tight. The pipes are nearly frozen solid, by the time he gets to them, and he has to stomp extra hard up the basement stairs to shake the ice and snow off of his boots.
He stops at the top step, waiting. The garage door is closed, and the only track of prints in the snow belong to him and his clunky, stolen boots. He turns his flashlight around, closing and locking the basement door, and checks his watch again, frowning.
5:15. For a second, he thinks to himself, Yoongi will be late for work.
It’s too dark to see Yoongi’s car in the garage without opening the door. Too dark to see the cobwebs and sun-bleached air freshener, too dark to see the towels padded in the back window, still caked with sand. In daylight, an abandoned Grumpy Cat plush will glare at him from the dashboard, but it remains hidden in the same darkness that swallows everything else.
It’s too dark to see, right now. He’ll clean it out tomorrow.
He almost feels as if he should pay Hoseok, for always bringing in an extra lunch for him; their job doesn’t pay well, not well enough to support two grown men on one budget, and Namjoon is plenty old enough to be making and packing his own food, by now.
Still. Hoseok pulls him into the break room and shoves a brown lunch bag into his hands, and Namjoon sits and pulls it apart as Hoseok buys their drinks from the vending machine, tapping his chin as if he really needs to put any thought into it.
Namjoon has never been the best at saying thank you . Hoseok slides into the seat across from him, bracing himself on the table for a moment, and Namjoon wets his lips, tentatively sliding the bowl of kimchi in his bag to the middle of the table. “Are you okay?”
“Hangover.” He doesn’t know how Hoseok has the energy to go out all the time. They can’t be that far apart in age -- Namjoon isn’t old, but he’s definitely slowed down in comparison to his years in college. “God, your voice is literally the only one I can tolerate right now.”
There are flamingos on his tie, knotted perfectly at his throat. A rainbow acrylic pin pushed into the collar of his pinstripe button down, the same firetruck-red as his hair. Namjoon blinks, always a step behind in registering things, lately. “Hoseok, are you gay?”
Hoseok blinks several times, surprised, and then puts his arms down and looks at Namjoon, confused. It takes another, long moment before Namjoon realizes how rude the question is, how abrupt; he lowers his head, scratching the back of his neck, embarrassed.
“Sorry.” He says. Hoseok raises a brow, waiting, and Namjoon sucks his cheeks in, unsure. “I like your tie.”
Hoseok stares, arms crossed over his chest. For several, quiet moments, he doesn’t move; then he laughs, something soft and breathy, and lets his fingers rest on the table again, shaking his head.
“I like to think I don’t care that much about gender. Love is love, man.” He begins unpacking his lunch, and Namjoon doesn’t quite understand the swell of satisfaction he gets when Hoseok picks kimchi out of his bowl. Hoseok nods to his hand, curled into a fist on the table. “You married?”
“Was.” Hoseok looks at him, curious, and Namjoon gets the strange feeling that he needs to tread carefully, here; that there is an ending where Hoseok and he are no longer friends, if he can call them that to begin with.
His voice isn’t supposed to come out so calm, but it does. “He passed away.”
Hoseok’s brows draw, his expression suddenly tight with pity, and Namjoon hates it. Hoseok’s hand touches his arm, his fist; Namjoon hadn’t realized he was clenching them until Hoseok slides his fingers into Namjoon’s palm, so cautious it aches.
“I’m sorry.” He whispers, and when he squeezes Namjoon’s hand, Namjoon doesn’t quite manage to squeeze back. “I didn’t realize. I wouldn’t have…”
The apples of his cheeks are red, and Namjoon wonders if he’s missed something.
“It’s fine.” It’s been four years. “It was a long time ago.”
He’s okay. He’s adjusting.
He’s adjusting.
Yoongi smells of old books and ink, when he comes home from the library.
Namjoon has always loved the smell, ever since he was fifteen and the school nerd, hiding in the tall stacks of astronomy books until the librarians came to root him out and send him home so they could close. Yoongi drops his phone and keys onto the coffee table and collapses onto the couch on top of him, fitting his hips between Namjoon’s legs and burying his face in Namjoon’s neck, huffing.
Namjoon pets his head. Rarely is he on this end of impatience; Yoongi’s mouth opens up against his collarbone, gnawing absently, and Namjoon hooks an ankle around the back of his thigh, inviting. “Long day?”
“Field trip.” Yoongi tucks his yawn into Namjoon’s neck, and Namjoon strokes from the nape of his neck to his lower back, feeling him unlock and begin to slump with every touch. He leans back, shifting until he’s got Namjoon’s thighs pulled on top of his, spread around his torso. He fidgets with the buttons on the bottom of Namjoon’s shirt, frowning. “Damn kids ripped up two books. I had to look it up manually, too, ‘cause they fucked up the cover so much I couldn’t read it.”
He wrestles Namjoon’s shirt open, palms flattening against his belly and sweeping upwards, glued to his naked skin. Namjoon takes a deep breath and Yoongi’s hands weld to his ribs, when they expand, thumbs tracing the concave of his tummy. “What’s got you so worked up, then?”
Yoongi leans down, pressing their hips flush together, and rests his forehead against Namjoon’s. His hands crawl upwards, smoothing over either of Namjoon’s pecs, and his lips find Namjoon’s Cupid’s Bow, soft.
“You just looked pretty,” He says, and shoves his hand into Namjoon’s briefs, grinning when Namjoon gasps and kicks his leg, startled. Yoongi bites hard enough to draw blood, hard enough to have Namjoon whimpering and curling into himself; it stings , burning like a brand around the curve of his neck and shoulder, but the realization that it will stay there for weeks, months, years -- Namjoon’s legs are tight around him and Yoongi relishes in it, his hand moving slow and his lips dragging across Namjoon’s cheek, still tacky with blood. “How did I get so lucky?”
6:02. The house shudders, the boiler working overtime to keep it warm and failing. The pipes must be nearly frozen solid, by now, in desperate need of assistance; he doubts any water will come out of the tap, if he tries it.
Namjoon can’t pull himself out of bed.
The clock glares at him, ticking ever onwards, and as he watches it roll over -- 6:03, 6:04, 6:05 -- he thinks, Yoongi must have left already.
The house continues to groan, but he can’t will himself to move, watching the sunlight creep in through the window, terrified. The light brings to focus things it shouldn’t, things he doesn’t need to see. If he goes out, now, he’ll see Yoongi’s car in the garage; he’ll see the cobwebs and the sun-bleached air freshener, the sand caked towels abandoned in the back window.
If he goes out now, he’ll see the dents. The blood they never quite managed to scrub out of the floor. If he goes out now, he’ll see the headstone with Yoongi’s wedding ring bolted into it, and he won’t be able to stop seeing it until he suffocates himself.
So he closes his eyes. He pretends the clock is still hovering just before 4:45 and he has time before Yoongi wakes up, before he has to get up and shrug on his robe and slippers and kiss him goodbye.
If it’s too dark to see, he doesn’t have to clean it. He can do it tomorrow.
He’s adjusting.