Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“What are you on about? Your freckles are one of the most fuckable things about you!”

Felix watches his own expression twist in disagreement in the mirror as he dodges Jisung’s attempts to grab his hands away from his face. He continues dabbing concealer on his cheeks and nose, much to the chagrin of both of his friends. Hyunjin makes an honestly concerning sound of distress and Jisung just drops his hands and sighs, shaking his head.

“Heartbreaking.”

“What is Felix doing, now?”

Felix rolls his eyes and watches his cousin-turned-roommate enter through the mirror, now blending out the concealer with a makeup sponge. Minho’s reflection grins at him, catlike.

“Oh, I see. He’s being Korean.”

That startles a laugh out of everyone in the room, Felix included. It’s true, it’s the only reason he’s doing this.

“I wouldn’t do this if I weren’t here, okay?” Felix defends himself, closing his eyes to mist setting spray over his now complete foundation. He blinks his eyes open and snatches up his eyeshadow palette and a fluffy brush. He switches to English, knowing well enough now that these three will understand him. “In Australia, I’d just throw some glitter on my eyelids and leave. This is different.”

“Bro,” Jisung complains, matching his switch, “Just pretend you’re in Australia, then. Something-something, oi, mate.”

The face Felix makes at his butchered attempt at an Australian accent is not pretty, and it makes Hyunjin laugh hysterically, nearly falling from where he’s perched on Felix’s bed. Jisung just sticks his tongue out at him before immediately getting distracted when Minho hugs him from behind. Felix pointedly ignores them, swiping a shockingly dark shade onto the outer corners of his eyes, blending it inwards.

“Do what you want with your makeup, Felix,” Minho finally says, once he’s done kissing Jisung’s neck and reducing the man to a puddle in his arms. “What matters is that you feel good.”

Jisung nods at this. Felix isn’t sure if it’s because he’s out of it or if he’s given up fighting him on this. Minho might be an evil genius. 

“Yeah,” Hyunjin chimes in, looking up from his phone. “You may have the cutest freckles on the planet, but… We’re here to make your first night out in Hongdae perfect! How are we supposed to do that if you aren’t comfortable?”

“Thanks, guys,” Felix murmurs, a bit distracted by the shimmer shadow he’s trying to apply to his inner corner, but still feeling warm and fuzzy. He switches to English absentmindedly as he focuses on placing a tiny stick-on gem in each inner corner. “I really appreciate you all, y’know? You’re, like… My Seoul family.”

Jisung and Hyunjin coo at Felix and Minho just smiles mildly. Felix has only been here going on two weeks now, but he’s fallen into what he can only describe as an absolute best-case, S-tier situation. He’d found out the week before he left for Hongik University that his cousin Minho not only happened to live near campus but was also willing to let him sublet his spare bedroom, making his monthly rent cheap and his commute nonexistent. He’s beyond lucky to be here. Everything feels right, and it stays that way until they arrive at NB2. 

The outside of the building is a little intimidating, at first, and Felix is deeply glad that his friends are with him. The line is longer than any Felix ever encountered back home at a club, but he’s assured that it’s normal. The atmospheric red and blue glow of the sign over the entrance is dampened slightly by the bright, utilitarian LED floodlights aimed at the line of people. 

Despite this, Minho pushes his way past the crowd, ignoring the murmurs of ruffled annoyance. Felix follows his friends to the door, watching in awe as Minho nods at the bouncer and gets waved through the entrance without much of a second glance. 

“What the fuck was that,” Felix hisses to Hyunjin, gripping onto his friend’s arm as they enter the building. 

“Minho privileges,” Hyunjin answers, his tone a little blasé. Felix turns his head and stares at him as they walk, stunned. “He knows a lot of people at YG.”

“Fuck.”

Hyunjin giggles at Felix, taking him by the hand now.

“This is why you’re with us! No stupid entry fees.”

For the umpteenth time, Felix is so glad he has these humans in his life. He would feel so uncomfortable if he had tried to go alone. With Hyunjin dragging him along, Jisung talking his ear off about some idol he swears he saw at the bar a few months ago, and Minho cutting a path for them through the crowd like a knife through butter, Felix can’t help but feel safe. 

Minho privileges apparently go an awfully long way, because the admittedly cute bartender just chats him up, already making something for him once Minho’s indicated what he’d like. Felix lets himself relax and take in the club, already thoroughly enjoying what he’s seeing. 

The venue isn’t small by any means, but it has an undeniably underground, comfortable feel to it. There are two floors – the first seems to be almost entirely dedicated to the dance floor, at a basement level below the second floor, which is more of a balcony than anything else. The bar is on the second floor, surrounded by an eclectic collection of mismatching tables, chairs, and couches. The entire club is heavy with smoke – some atmospheric and some from cigarettes – and glowing lights. It’s so similar to the clubs Felix frequented in Melbourne that it almost makes him emotional. 

Then the first shot is shoved into his hand. 

Felix gets 3 shots of soju and about half of a dangerously sweet and fruity cocktail in him before Hyunjin drags him down the stairs to the first floor, whining about needing to get up and move. Jisung doesn’t join them when they leave, occupied with Minho’s tongue down his throat. 

Dancing with Hyunjin is comfortable, and together they’re able to ignore the attention they inevitably end up getting, giggling and dodging away from the hands that try to paw at them. Felix knows how real the chances are to get touched in a way he won’t enjoy at a Hongdae club, but with alcohol burning in his system and Hyunjin attached to his hip, he lets the worry go, not holding back on moving his body in ways that would mortify him in any other setting. 

The songs meld into one another, and Felix has no idea how long they’ve been on the floor when he looks up and can’t find Hyunjin. 

Shit.

“Hey,” A voice says over the music from behind him. Felix doesn’t turn around, too scared to face the fact that now that he’s alone, he has less of a chance of dodging any unwanted attention. 

“Hey!” A second voice calls, more insistently and more closely behind him. Felix prays they aren’t both trying to talk to him.

Then a hand is placed on his shoulder. Felix whips around now, hackles raised. The sight that meets him isn’t what he expected but he’s still on guard as he takes these people in. Both the guy with his hand on the shoulder and the man behind him look right around Felix’s age and look sober enough, both smiling in a friendly and inviting way. The man in front has split-dyed hair, most of his head a natural-looking black and a shock of bleached locks falling in front of his eyes. His smile is wide and toothy but genuine, like an excited puppy who’s just found a playmate. Felix finds himself unreasonably intimidated by him, despite this.

The man behind him isn’t exuding the same enthusiastically extraverted energy, but he looks kind enough. He’s pretty, Felix notes astutely, taking in the small close-lipped smile that’s charming despite its owner’s reservation.

“Sorry,” The puppy-like guy starts in unaccented English before crossing over to Korean, “Didn’t mean to scare you! You’re Felix, right?”

“Err, yeah,” Felix says, his guard still raised.

“Sick! Minho’s little cousin, no?” 

“Yeah,” Felix says, frowning. “How d’you know hyung?”

“He teaches at my sister’s usual dance studio. Hyung’s been trying to get me to dance for 5 years now,” the man says, sticking his hand out presumably for a handshake, as if they weren’t in the middle of a dimly lit dance floor completely surrounded by people, being jostled by couples grinding on each other and wasted douchebags jumping around. Felix takes the guy's hand anyway, on instinct. “I’m Seungmin. Seung, Minnie, Min, all good, too.”

Seungmin is shaking Felix’s hand, firm and strong like he’s in a business meeting. Felix just nods quickly, probably looking as lost as he feels. Seungmin laughs, undoubtedly at his expression, and pulls him in by the hold on his hand, bumping Felix’s shoulder with one of his own. 

“Sorry, you just seemed easy to fuck with,” Seungmin says, laughing. Felix can feel the grin creeping across his face despite himself – the guy’s energy is infectious. “Anyway, I saw you by yourself and kind of figured you lost Minho or something.”

“Fuck, Min,” the other guy cuts in, shaking his head despite his chuckle. “Be a little more patronising, huh?”

He leans against Seungmin, an arm draped over his shoulders, and Felix gets a better look at him. His hair is long and shaggy and almost fully covers his eyes when he doesn’t bother to shake it out of them, but the guy’s eyes are absolutely gorgeous, sparkly but deeply dark, and upturned with his smile.

“Jeongin,” is all he says, and Felix takes the hint that it’s his name.

“Hi,” Felix says, realising that probably isn’t an appropriate answer when both men nearly fall over themselves laughing at it. He should probably feel embarrassed but he’s drunk and these people seem so welcoming and Felix can’t stop himself from snorting at himself. “S’ry you’re both just really pretty, okay?”

That seems to seal the deal. Seungmin and Jeongin seem to adopt him on the spot, towing him with them to the centre of the dance floor, laughing and talking over each other. Felix most certainly doesn’t catch all of it, but he enjoys the company and the laughs as they dance. Seungmin, despite his earlier comment about Minho trying to get him to dance at his studio, definitely knows how to move his body despite the restrictive-looking skinny jeans he’s wearing. Jeongin isn’t too bad himself, but he’s definitely less confident than Seungmin or Felix are, letting them pull at his arms and following their leads.

Felix has heard of how women often bond in bathrooms at clubs and wonders if it feels a little like this – he doesn’t know much more than their names and approximate age, but Jeongin and Seungmin are already dear to him. Maybe he’s just drunk, but Felix is convinced he’d kill everyone in the room and then himself if anything bad happened to them.

Then, of course, it happens again.

In what feels like a span of less than a second, Felix suddenly can’t see Jeongin or Seungmin anywhere around him, anymore. The panic that Felix probably should be feeling is numbed by the buzz at the back of his brain that the alcohol is supplying. His body moves on instinct, like it’s the most natural thing, dancing to music he’s never heard before. Felix feels a smile taking over his features.

God, he missed this.

The loss of control in the sweetest way, the teeming crowd, being one speck in a vast mass of human life. This is what clubbing always has been for Felix – an escape. Felix throws his head back and laughs, the sound swallowed up by the music and voices around him. Running his fingers through his hair, Felix raises his hands above his head, then lets them fall, watching the neon lights of the club play over his skin.

The sweater is slipping from one of Felix’s shoulders, exposing the strappy top beneath it, and he can feel that his hair has begun to fluff from the humidity. Felix giggles to himself at the thought that he must look an absolute mess right now. God, he’s drunk. He loves it. 

And right then, of course, is when Felix trips. Felix, who’s never been anything but light on his feet and agile even when he’s got a few drinks in him – he trips. In the half a second that he’s falling, aiming face-first for the floor, Felix braces for impact, but it never comes.

A pair of warm, large hands catch Felix before he can get too close to the ground, righting him gently. 

“Woah,” a voice laughs, probably at his expense. “Steady. I’ve got you, angel.”

Felix has to take a second to blink his vision back into focus, a bit lost. When everything comes back to him, he’s face to face with a man who might as well have walked right out of Felix’s own brain. He’s got to be somewhere around Felix’s age, but the way he holds himself makes him seem much older, like he’s got far more experience in life than he should. The look on the man’s face is teasing but not unkind, his full lips are turned up on one side in a little smirk that reveals a pretty dimple on either cheek and his eyebrows are raised.

As the man tilts his head, prompting, likely trying to capture Felix’s gaze, the glitter of a stud in his nose and a vertical labret catch the light. This guy is a walking bad-boy stereotype, complete with tattoo-adorned muscular arms shown off by the sleeveless shirt he’s wearing and a slit shaved into his left eyebrow. His hair is half swept back to show it off.

It’s his eyes, though, that get Felix. They’re why he’s just staring at the guy like he’s an angel sent from heaven. Chocolatey and warm and kind. It doesn’t match the rest of his exterior in any way whatsoever and it’s so, so enticing.

“Did I break you, starlight?”

Felix is malfunctioning. He must be.

“Thanks- I, erm, sorry-” Felix starts in English, before cringing and shaking his head. The guy looks almost excited, if not a bit smug at the slip-up. He tries again, in Korean this time. “Thanks for catching me.”

“Ah, don’t worry about it, no dramas,” The guy responds, in perfect English, accented heavily in a familiar way that makes Felix gasp. The sound makes the man grin, and God, Felix even finds his teeth attractive. What the fuck. “It’s my luck someone so pretty fell into my arms, anyway.”

“I- Felix-” 

Smooth.

“Er, my name’s Felix.”

There we go.

“Chan,” the man, Chan, says. “Or Chris, if you’d rather.”

It feels like the two of them are stuck in a bubble of slow-motion as the world continues at normal speed around them. Neither of them is really dancing anymore, but they move with the crowd, Felix’s hands apparently on Chan’s shoulders now and Chan’s hands gently settling on Felix’s hips. Felix can feel how open the look on his face must be, can’t help the way his eyes are blown wide and lips are parted in a dumbstruck smile.

“Oh, I like you,” Chan says in Korean, the switch darkening his voice. Felix’s head swims at the praise. “Such a pretty boy.”

Chan’s thumbs hook in the waistband of Felix’s jeans, tugging him closer. Felix lets himself stumble forward with a giggle, smoothing his hands down to Chan’s chest. Chan opens his mouth, about to speak, when-

“Lee Felix!”

A voice cuts through the crowd and the music, very effectively bursting the bubble around them. The crowd is suddenly too close and the music is too loud. Chan looks away from Felix, leaning back with a confused frown like he’s trying to find the source of the voice. 

“Ah, shit,” Felix groans, the voice finally registering in his head. It’s definitely Minho. And if Minho is looking for him, he’s going to find him. “‘M sorry, that’s my cousin, he’s probably just worri-”

“Minho?”

Okay, this is getting weird now. Does everyone at this club know everyone? 

Chan cocks his head in what looks like confusion and a bit of surprise at Minho when the man seemingly materialises out of thin air less than 2 metres away from them, and gaining on them quickly. Minho looks equally as surprised, but seemingly more at Chan and Felix’s embrace than at Chan’s presence. He’s also got this hard look on his face, like he’s reigning in anger.

“Chan. Hi. I need him,” Minho gestures at Felix, “to come sober up with me.”

Felix blinks at him, shocked. Chan must really know Minho, though, because he lets go of Felix without a second of hesitation. 

“Now, Felix. Let’s go.”

“But-”

“Lee Yongbok.” 

Minho’s tone leaves no room for argument. Felix sighs and goes toward him, looking back at Chan as he does. The look he catches on Chan’s face would be attractive if Felix weren’t so confused – a knowing, nonchalant grin.

“See you later, Min! I'll pick up Ji tomorrow.”

Minho looks like he’s fighting to stay mad, pressing his lips together and turning his face away from Chan with an eye roll. It looks like he might be laughing, but Felix can’t really tell with the lighting and the way his brain is processing everything in slow motion. 

“Later, Channie.” Minho sounds exasperated in a fond way, which is thoroughly confusing all by itself. 

Felix just lets Minho take him by the arm, lets him lead him through the crowd. The next thing he knows, he’s being sat down at a table on the second floor, overlooking the crowd, a glass of water being nudged into his hands. Hyunjin is somewhere on this floor too, Felix had caught a glimpse of the back of his head as he was being dragged.

Minho and Jisung are also sitting with him, Jisung looking much less tense than Minho. Minho mutters something under his breath and Jisung laughs loudly, falling toward Minho as he does and leaning on his shoulder. Frustration builds in Felix as he watches them, realising he won't get answers unless he pushes. 

“Hyung, what the hell was that?” Felix finally blurts, pushing away the glass of water and ignoring the way Minho squints at him when he does. “What is he, a registered sex offender?”

Jisung sputters around a surprised snort before falling back in his chair with his head thrown back in a poorly concealed cackle, his hand over his mouth. Minho’s eyes widen and he hisses a shush in Felix’s direction, his eyes darting to Hyunjin, who’s less than a metre from the table now.

“What?” Hyunjin implores, frowning as he takes a seat delicately next to Felix. Felix can’t even be mad at him for abandoning him on the dance floor, just relieved that someone who might be willing to give him more information is here.“What happened?”

“They won’t tell me what’s wrong with Chan,” Felix whines, beyond caring whether he’s overheard. “Minho-hyung yanked me away from him like he was contagious or something.”

Hyunjin’s eyebrows raise more with every word out of Felix’s mouth. Felix groans, exasperated.

“Nooo, you’re doing the thing too, now! What’s so wrong with him?”

“Nothing is wrong with him, necessarily,” Hyunjin says, taking a sip from a glass of water Felix hadn’t noticed he’d brought with him. “He’s just… kind of a slut.”

Felix blinks.

“Okay? So am I?”

Hyunjin laughs, sounding a bit maniacal. He’s shaking his head, gesturing in a ‘no way’ motion with one hand across his throat. Jisung is still giggling, looking between Felix and Hyunjin like he’s watching a particularly good drama. 

“Not like that,” Minho says, flatly. He’s evidently much less amused by the situation than the other two. 

“Okay, so, like – how, then,” Felix says in English, his voice pitching up in frustration. He frustratedly switches back, the alcohol making it hard for his brain to keep up with the language. “Tell me how he’s so bad.”

“Drink your water, Felix,” Minho dodges, staring Felix down until he lifts his glass to his lips. “If you don’t finish that in the next 10 minutes, we’re going home.”

That’s definitely not what Felix wants, so he takes a few sips, already mourning the edge of the pleasantly intoxicated buzz he’s riding at the moment. 

“It doesn’t sound like he’s a bad guy, though,” Felix says once he sets the glass back down, still so very stuck on Chan. Minho groans. “Is he?”

“Not at all,” Jisung says, sounding pretty adamant. “Actually, I know hyung pretty well. We worked together a lot when he was still in undergrad, and he's one of my closest friends now. It's just… He’s sweet, but he’ll fuck anything on two legs that’ll give him consent. Doesn't believe in commitment. Probably doesn't believe in love. Make sense?”

“Better question,” Felix says, taking an uncomfortably large swig of his water. He wants it gone as soon as possible. “How the hell do you know that?”

Jisung chuckles.

“Because he fucked me.”

Felix stares at his friend. Oh.

“I have Minho-yah, now, mostly because Chan felt bad enough that he let me hang out with him and his friends. That’s where I met him.” Jisung pokes Minho’s cheek. The older man doesn’t react outwardly, but his lips twitch in what Felix thinks could be a smile. “But, yeah, I know because that was me.”

Felix gapes at Jisung, his still alcohol-sodden mind struggling to keep up with the onslaught of new information. Jisung just laughs and ruffles Felix’s hair, ignoring the way Felix practically hisses and rears back, almost knocking Hyunjin off of his chair. 

“Bang Chan breaking my heart may be the best thing that happened to me, but I can't guarantee it'll go that way for you , Felix."

“Aww, babe,” Minho says, deadpan. Jisung grins at him.

“Well,” Felix starts, his mouth moving faster than his mind, “If he looks like that and is willing to put his dick in me, I’ll let him ruin my life. I’d even still have dignity, because look at him-”

“Felix-” 

Hyunjin looks absolutely scandalised. Jisung is just laughing again, and Felix just feels adamant. Minho squints at him.

“What!? ’M serious,” Felix slurs, taking a compliant sip from his water as he remembers Minho’s threat. “I don’t care, he’s criminally sexy.”

“Lix, you would be so much cooler if you had any self-control,” Hyunjin says, sighing and shaking his head like he’s witnessing a trainwreck. “You’re so silly.”

“‘M not fuckin’ silly!” Felix pouts, frowning. “I’m fuckable!”

“That’s true,” A familiar voice says from outside of Felix’s line of sight. Minho turns to face the voice and Felix can see Seungmin standing behind him. “You’re definitely silly, still, though.”

“Minnie!” Felix gasps, smiling. Sure, he met the guy tonight, but both he and Jeongin already feel like old friends. “You found me!”

Seungmin snorts. Jeongin appears over his shoulder, hooking his chin over it and smiling at Felix.

“You really are drunk, wow.” Seungmin seems almost impressed, crossing his arms and nodding thoughtfully. “Glad your chaperones found you back.”

Minho actually laughs openly at this, it seems like he and Seungmin really do know each other. He shoves Seungmin’s hip lightly from his place at the table, which just produces a grin from the younger man. 

“Barely,” Hyunjin chimes in, picking at his nails. “Chan almost fucked him before we did.”

Both Seungmin and Jeongin’s smiles drop at that, both of their heads turning back in Felix’s direction. Jeongin looks mildly haunted, whereas Seungmin’s expression has gone hard, and he’s looking over Felix like he’s trying to find a physical injury. Felix throws his hands up, confused and a little annoyed.

“Why does everyone react like that,” he whines, “He’s just some guy!”

Minho stares at him and Felix sighs, taking more sips of his water. He’s getting closer to the bottom, finally. 

Hyunjin seems to be back in his own world, but Seungmin and Jeongin have somewhat melded into the little huddle around Felix. Everyone has water, now, and Felix feels a little less like he’s having an intervention. A little.

“Tell us what happened,” Jeongin says, dodging Felix’s question. His hip is against the railing of the balcony, one hand holding his glass of water and one arm around Seungmin’s waist. It hits Felix, for the first time, that they might be together, in some sense of the concept. “We turned around and you were just gone.”

Felix sighs. This isn’t gonna go well, he can feel Minho still staring at him, his protect-Felix 6th sense activated.

“I mean, that’s what happened,” Felix explains, pouting. “I just looked up and I was by myself!”

“And then?” Jisung says, suddenly looking interested. Felix avoids looking at Minho next to him.

“I mean, I kind of just danced for a bit and then I had to go and fucking trip.”

The group is dead quiet, the atmosphere tense again. Even Hyunjin has his head raised and is listening with full focus on Felix. For people who swear they know Chan well and swear he’s a decent man, Felix thinks they’re being ridiculous.  

“I tripped, Chan caught me,” Felix sighs, then frowns at the flurry of disappointed sounds that come from his friends. He swaps Korean for English, not knowing how much Seungmin and Jeongin will understand, but not particularly caring. “Hey, I would’ve fallen and broken my face, you cunts.”

Once his semi-circle of traitors has calmed itself, Felix continues.

“He was really sweet and nice about it, too,” Felix gushes, pouting and sipping gingerly at his water. “He called me starlight, ‘nd pretty.”

“Oh God, he’s already given you a nickname,” Jeongin laments, looking at Felix with the grim look a professor might give a student who doesn’t yet know they’ve bombed an exam. “I’ll give it to him for being creative, this time.”

Seungmin snickers and Felix glares at him.

“I feel like you’re all overreacting. It’s not like tried to seduce me-”

Jisung’s hands are suddenly on Felix’s cheeks and he blinks, confused, as Jisung levels him with an uncharacteristically serious look.

“Felix, I need you to repeat after me,” Jisung says. Felix pouts at him, feeling his cheeks squish further with the expression. “Say: I will not fuck Bang Chan.”

“I wiw nt fuc Bamnm Chn,” Felix manages, his words muffled. Jisung nods and releases his hold, seemingly satisfied with his answer. 

“Tonight,” He adds the moment his face is free. Felix dodges the flick Jisung tries to administer to his forehead, yelping. He holds his hands up placating to the cluster of concerned expressions around him “Listen, I definitely know I’m too drunk tonight, and he didn’t actually show any interest in fucking me explicitly, yet, so I won’t fuck him tonight. Promise.”

“But?” Minho drawls, looking unimpressed. Felix takes a sip of his water on autopilot. So close.

“I can’t make any real promises if he does start giving me real attention,” Felix says, squinting at his cousin. “I’m a big boy, I can judge a character.”

“I don’t like that,” Minho says with a finality that reminds Felix of his mother. “I think you should stay out of any kind of situation with Chan, sexually, Felix. He’s not a bad guy, but he doesn’t know how to do anything but no strings.”

“Erhm… Okay,” Felix says. He’s not gonna fight this anymore – Minho seems to have made up his mind that he knows best for Felix. And Felix loves Minho, and appreciates his input and support most of the time… but Felix hasn’t even gotten to know Chan. He was raised to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, and to understand that things aren’t black-and-white. And damn, Chan has intrigued him. Not to mention how devastatingly hot he is. For now, though, Felix will let it seem like he’s dropping it. “I get it.”

Minho softens up at that, the pinched, concerned look slipping from his face. The tension slips from the situation as Minho nudges Felix’s water towards him rather than ending the conversation properly. Felix laughs, taking it and finally downing the last of it. Jisung cheers and does a little celebration dance and Jeongin laughs at him. When Felix smiles, it’s genuine and warm. He feels cared for, more than he ever thought he could feel in Korea. 

But, he can’t help the way his eyes stray over Hyunjin’s shoulder as the brunette rambles, tipsy, about some guy he’s talking to on instagram. Hoping to find eyes on him, already.

The rest of the night, while exciting and definitely remarkable, passes without much more drama. The highlights that Felix can remember include a flight of shots of fruity soju that he and Minho shared, Seungmin drunkenly buying Felix five (yes, five) servings of tteokbokki at a street cart because he said offhandedly that he was hungry, and one very awkward UT ride with a driver who seemed like he’d rather die than let them in his car. 

Felix has trouble remembering how he got into the apartment building or how he even made an attempt at getting undressed, but he finds himself in bed the next morning, wearing his usual nighttime uniform of an oversized tee and shorts and not feeling as much like death as he should. He has a feeling that he has Minho and his constant, threat-fueled water consumption crusade to thank for all of the above.

It’s not like he’s not hungover, he still groans when he sits up and stretches his arms over his head, feeling his brain pulse inside his skull. But it definitely is better than running to the bathroom with a hand over his mouth. Felix slinks out of bed, shuffling toward the kitchen with two things on his mind: he needs caffeine and some sort of fatty or starchy food, stat. 

He stops dead in his tracks, though, frozen with one hand in his hair and the other covering an aborted yawn, when he crosses the threshold into the kitchen. 

“The fuck?” Felix mutters intelligently, his voice rough and gravelly with disuse. 

The figure peering into the fridge straightens, peering over the door in mild shock as if Felix were the one intruding.

“...Chris?”

“Oh, Felix!”

In his and Minho’s little kitchen, Chan seems horribly out of place. Although he looks a lot less intimidating and unreal, surrounded by scuffed cupboards and swallowed up in a boring, monochrome outfit of a black jumper and baggy black jeans, he’s still got that presence of being larger-than-life that almost knocks Felix off his feet. He’s not wearing makeup, which somehow makes his lips and eyes look even more inviting than they were before. He’s gorgeous, and Felix has to shake himself out of his stupor to process that he’s actually standing in his kitchen. 

“Why.”

Chan’s face drops slightly before he nearly falls over laughing, leaning on the still-open fridge door. 

“Oh, I really wish you could see your face right now,” Chan sighs once he’s calmed himself, grinning. He finally closes the fridge door and Felix lets go of a breath he didn’t know he was holding. “You aren’t a morning person, are you?”

“I'm not the morning after going clubbing,” Felix grumbles, his eyes widening when Chan starts toward him. 

Everything about the situation feels surreal, and suddenly Chan is right in front of him. He smells good, which Felix finds particularly upsetting. 

“You’ve still got-” Chan cuts himself off with a soft gasp and then a giggle and reaches for Felix’s face. Felix freezes for a second but tilts his head, granting Chan access. He can’t help the way his hand comes up to wrap around Chan’s wrist hesitantly. Chan’s thumb swipes under Felix’s eyes and he shows it back to Felix, a black smudge coming away on the tip of his finger. “Did you just wake up?”

Shit.

“Er- yeah, I did- it’s not like I expected you to be here,” he says, a genuine laugh bubbling up from his chest. Chan grins at the sound. “I must not have done a very good job taking my makeup off last night.”

“Nope,” Chan says, popping the ‘p’ of the word. “Still good enough that I can see those pretty freckles, though.”

Felix gasps and lets go of Chan, bringing his hands up to his cheeks.

“Oh, shit- I’m sorry-”

Chan surprises Felix by cutting him off with a loud snort, an incredulous look on his face.

“Did you just apologise for having freckles?”

Felix blinks, his hands still on his cheeks. He did, didn’t he?

“Don’t ever apologise for existing. Especially,” Chan continues, stepping in closer. Felix watches his face with wide eyes as Chan curls his fingers around Felix’s hands, pulling them down from his hot face. “Especially when you look so sweet like this. You’ve got constellations on your cheeks, starboy.”

Felix is sure his face is scarlet red, at this point. He opens his mouth soundlessly before snapping it shut again. 

“Leave them uncovered, next time,” Chan says, and it’s not a suggestion. Felix’s heart is in his throat. It feels like a test. A game. And Felix is so playing. 

“Maybe I will.”

Chan just smiles that lopsided, charming smile, and tilts his head. Felix tries not to melt. His tactic is to ask Chan a billion questions, grateful when Chan takes them in stride, humouring him. 

They end up settling into an absurdly normal conversation. Felix learns that Chan and Jisung are going to go to Chan’s studio space to work on a pet project with another friend. He also learns that Chan works both as a mixing and mastering engineer for JYP Entertainment, a fact that he’s unreasonably humble about.

“It’s not like I’ve got my name on anything yet,” Chan says, scratching at the back of his neck bashfully. “I just help as part of the production team, behind the scenes.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Felix says, laughing through a bite of rice, his hand flying up to cover his mouth. He’s microwaved a bowl of rice, and has begun to eat it plain. He’s desperate, what can he say?

Felix has situated himself on the kitchen counter, his legs dangling over the edge. Chan faces him, leaning back against the counter on the other side of the horseshoe-shaped kitchen. 

“You just told me you work with Twice.”

“Occasionally,” Chan stresses, rolling his eyes. “It’s usually rookie groups.”

“So,” Felix says, ready to move on. Chan is hopelessly blind to his own apparent talent. “What are you and Sungie gonna go work on?”

“We’ve got this… group?” Chan struggles for the right word, then just shrugs. “It’s Ji, me, and my coworker, Changbin. It’s just a fun thing for us to get together and do.”

“Ah,” Felix says, his eyes lighting up. “You all sing?”

“Yes and no,” Chan laughs. “It’s mostly rap, but we can all sing.”

“Nice,” Felix says, meaning it. Then, it dawns on him and he grins. “Oh my god, do you guys have a name?”

Chan cringes and Felix giggles. Got him.

“It’s, err, 3racha,” Chan says, looking pained.

“Bars,” Felix says in English, laughing. Chan narrows his eyes at him. Felix is quick to defend himself, shaking his head. “No, I mean it! It’s kind of adorable, though.”

“Nineteen-year-old Bang Chan is screaming somewhere right now,” Chan sighs, looking a little like he’s still clinging on the inside. “I thought it was the sickest thing I could possibly name a group when we started it.”

Felix just giggles, imagining a scrawny, for some reason emo-looking, young Chan trying to be tough and thinking of ‘3racha’, of all things.

“Well, nineteen-year-old Felix would have been impressed,” Felix says, grinning. 

They get into a light-hearted argument about their respective teenage phases, which triggers an equally riveting debate about the differences between 90s and 2000s kids’ definitions of ‘emo’ that only is interrupted when Minho and Jisung finally emerge from their room.

“Oh, my god, you’re not even a millennial, stop dick-riding them,” Felix is saying as the door opens, revealing an apprehensive-looking Minho leading a very dishevelled and obviously hungover Jisung by the wrist toward the kitchen, a man on a mission. “Hey, Hyung!”

“Felix,” Minho says amicably, then turns to Chan, who’s already grinning at him easily. 

Felix tries and fails to not stare at the way his labret presses enticingly into his lower lip when he smiles like that. What Felix wouldn’t give to-

“Channie, dear, what are you doing chatting up my little cousin in my kitchen?”

“Did you plan on chatting him up instead?” Chan asks, tone cheeky. “Because someone needs to.”

Minho’s face goes blank and Felix cringes. Jisung doesn’t seem to be absorbing any of the conversation, clinging onto Minho’s arm like a lifeline. 

“Here’s your rapper.”

Minho gingerly peels Jisung’s fingers off his arm, much to the younger man’s chagrin, and pushes him toward Chan, who coos and wraps Jisung in a hug. Jisung melts, looking like he might be falling asleep and Felix finds himself envious. He wants a soft Chan hug. 

“Now out, both of you,” Minho kvetches, frowning. “Chan, buy my boyfriend food.”

“Aye, aye,” Chan accedes, mock saluting with one hand and propping Jisung up with the other. Jisung perks up a bit at this, sending a grateful, mushy smile to Minho. Felix looks down at his rice. 

They’re suddenly out the door, faster than Felix would like, and he’s hit again with the amusing thought that Minho and Chan really must know each other well. Chan knows exactly when to stop pushing Minho’s buttons, much like Felix does. Yes, family gatherings had always been a game of cat and mouse.

“It’s fine,” Felix mutters to himself later as he scrubs at the dark smudges under his eyes. The makeup seems pretty insistent on staying there, and he makes a face at his reflection. Raccoon eyes. “Probably see him again next Friday.”

He doesn’t see him on Friday. Nor does he next Friday, because now that Felix is on spring break, Minho has decided to treat him to plane tickets back home to see his family. Minho and Jisung come with him, naturally – as Minho says, he gets cousin privileges. 

And, yes, Felix has a wonderful time showing Minho around his hometown and explaining the Australian culture-shock moments to him, proud to have native knowledge for once. Minho had never been to Australia – that branch of the Lee family didn’t leave Korea. Of course, Felix is glad to be back, and he’s grateful to make amends with the parts of Australia he would rather have forgotten. 

But maybe he also finds himself wondering what parts of Australia a certain other Aussie is missing right now. And perhaps he envisions something less than pure on the beach he’s walking down with Minho, once. Once.

Nearly the moment they touch down back in Korea, Felix is reigniting the group chat he’d started for clubbing, ignoring the sideways look Minho gives him when he shoots a text suggesting the upcoming Friday for a night out. 

By the time Friday does roll around, Felix is nearly vibrating out of his skin with anticipation. This time, when Jisung and Hyunjin get to his and Minho’s flat, Felix is fully dressed and made up, ready to go. Felix bounces on the balls of his feet as Hyunjin praises his outfit and Jisung fawns over his makeup, impatient.

Felix is restless. He’s antsy on the subway ride to NB2, fidgety as Hyunjin talks his ear off about a cocktail he’s planning on ordering. He barely processes the single shot he throws back before he slips off to the first floor to join the crowd. 

The moment that Felix takes a deep breath, letting his body’s instincts take over for his brain, the itch is soothed. The lights and the bass of the music possess Felix, the flush of confidence moving his body. The soju probably isn’t hurting either.

It’s beyond packed today, and Felix won’t lie to himself and try to pretend that he’s not hoping Chan will be here. The crowd presses in on all sides, as suffocating as it is energizing. Hands graze Felix’s arms and bodies press against his sides. Only when someone’s grip lands on his hips does he panic, struggling to rip himself away from the hands on his body.

“Hi, starlight,” a soothing voice murmurs in Felix’s ear, and he stops his escape attempt. The accented English makes it all better, making him melt back into the chest his back is pressed against. “You’re easy to recognize. Blue hair, and all.”

“Chris,” is all Felix says. The relief is palpable in his voice.

They stay like that, back-to-front, and Felix lets his head fall back against Chan’s shoulder, his eyes falling shut. He’d be worried about his friends seeing them again if Chan hadn’t conveniently cornered him in one of the darker, somewhat more sparsely populated corners of the club, situated under the overhang of the second-floor balcony. 

Chan prompts him to turn around with a tug at his waist and Felix does, smiling widely once he does at the sight that greets him.

"Hi," Felix says, his heart in his throat.

"Hey," Chan smiles, his eyes darting over Felix's Face, taking him in.

The same well-put-together, charismatically handsome Chan from the first night they met stands before Felix, but now that Felix knows more about him he feels like he gets him, a little. Felix thinks he’s starting to understand why Chan’s sweet eyes are at odds with his looks. He’s seen the Chan that gives out bear hugs to his friends and blushes to his ears when he’s talking about music. And, most startlingly, Felix likes it. It adds to this polished, larger-than-life Chan to know he’s a human under there, too. 

"Good boy, you followed instructions."

Felix blinks.

"Huh?"

"Freckles," Chan says easily, as if he hadn't just rocked Felix's entire world. "You look amazing like this, angel."

With a gasp, Felix feels himself light up with recognition and he giggles, scrunching his nose. He might not entirely agree, but he's happy Chan is so responsive to it. He'd still put more effort into his makeup than he would back in Australia, but he's made sure not to cover his freckles this time, for exactly this reason.

"I had a promise to keep," Felix replies, satisfied with himself. 

“Looks like someone paced himself tonight,” Chan teases, his grin pulling at those full lips enticingly. His hands are on Felix's waist. “You look like you might actually be processing what I’m saying to you, this time.”

“Mm-hmm,” Felix responds, letting Chan pull him in closer by his hips, his arms looping around Chan’s neck. He lets the music rise between them and presses ever-closer to Chan when the beat hits the way he wants it to. “Just a little buzzed tonight.”

“I wonder why,” Chan smirks, and Felix knows Chan knows that he had been hoping he’d have a reason to be mentally present tonight. 

Felix just hums, letting the atmosphere around them do the talking. 

People on all sides pay them no mind as they sway, too slow for the music playing, and a wicked look passes over Chan’s face. Grinning, Felix lets himself be pulled away from the dance floor, away from the crowd. 

Chan is leading him to a corner of the club Felix doesn’t recognize, before pulling him into what looks on the inside like a staff-only bathroom. Felix finds himself pinned against the wall, Chan’s face centimetres from his own.

“Chan-”

“Wait,” Chan says, putting space between their faces. Felix would stumble forward if Chan weren’t beginning to press him back against the wall. “I need you to know.”

Felix nods wordlessly.

“I don't… do relationships ,” Chan huffs out the word like it’s personally offended him, and oh, here we go. Felix raises his eyebrows and smiles. “There’ve been plenty of people before you, and there’ll be more after.”

“Okay.”

Chan frowns.

“You don’t mind?”

Felix hums, pulling Chan closer with the hold he has around the older man’s shoulders. Letting his eyes fall shut, Felix relaxes into the feeling of Chan’s arms wrapping around him.

“Don’t mind the no-strings,” Felix says with an easy smile. He can feel Chan watching his lips as he speaks. “Might have to talk you into making me a regular habit for a while, though.”

“That could be arranged,” Chan says without skipping a beat, his nose bumping against Felix’s. Felix opens his eyes at the feeling, locking gazes with Chan. “You seem like you could be pretty persuasive, if you wanted to be.”

Felix laughs and pulls back, still smiling. Something about Chan just makes him feel almost sedated, loose and comfortable. 

“I really like you,” Felix sighs, snorting when Chan’s face twists in panic. “Not like that, Channie. I wanna be friends. For real. Can we?”

Chan blinks at Felix as if the question has thrown him off balance. Maybe that's what Chan’s problem is. Maybe nobody’s ever actually tried to get to know him before fucking him, before.

“Okay.”

Felix feels his face light up.

“Okay?”

“Sure,” Chan murmurs, and his usual nonchalance is back. His lips pull into a downward smile. “Just don’t fall in love with me, ‘kay?”

Felix rolls his eyes.

“I can do that,” he laughs, tilting his head and smiling in a way he hopes is enticing. “Will you kiss me, now?”

Chan raises his eyebrows.

“I normally wouldn’t, y’know. I’m picky about that stuff,” he murmurs, then seems to consider it, his eyes flicking down to Felix’s lips. Felix bites his lower lip in a smile, already knowing he’s won. “I can’t seem to say no to you, though, angel.”

Chan’s lips are on Felix’s then. They slide against Felix’s own, the slightly cool-to-the-touch metal of his piercing interrupting the soft warmth of his skin. It feels wrong how deeply Chan is kissing Felix from the get-go. Chan guides them, gentle and slow, affording Felix opportunities to sneak in little breaths between kisses that make him lightheaded with need. Chan’s hands hold Felix reverently, soft like he’ll break but firm like he’ll run away. It’s intoxicating.

Felix, emboldened, nips at Chan’s labret. The moan Chan produces for him makes him feel weak in the knees. If Chan’s voice is pretty as it is, it sounds nearly musical when he makes sounds like that. 

Chan slips his tongue into Felix’s pliant mouth and Felix freezes. Chan pulls back, a worried look on his face.

“Is something wr-”

“What the fuck,” Felix says, his eyes wide. “Open your mouth.”

Chan, understandably, looks lost. He complies despite this, though, letting his jaw drop slightly, and Felix squeaks, giggling wildly.

“Holy shit, you have a tongue piercing,” Felix babbles, awed. “Fuck, that’s the hottest thing I’ve ever felt in my life.” 

Chan stares at Felix for a moment before he just laughs, bemused. 

“You are… so strange.”

Rather than give an intelligent response, Felix pulls Chan back in by the back of his neck, starting a small sound out of him that Felix swallows. Chan’s tongue is back in his mouth and they pick up exactly where they’d left off, kissing slowly. The velvety softness of Chan’s tongue is followed directly by the smooth almost hot metal of the piercing and the feeling makes Felix outright moan around Chan’s tongue. Embarrassment and arousal make Felix’s skin flush hot. 

He doesn’t register that Chan’s hands aren’t both on his hips anymore only when he feels one of them thread into his hair, fisting in the long locks at the back of his head, and tug slightly. Felix’s head follows the motion, detaching his mouth from Chan and his whimper is thrown out into the air around them. The sound bounces against the tiled walls of the bathroom, making Felix bite his lip in mild humiliation that buzzes through his veins pleasantly.

“Like that?”

What do you think, Felix hopes his eye roll says.

“Words.”

Fuck.

“Yes, I- hhn- love it,” Felix barely manages, because Chan is tugging on his hair again and the pain of it stings perfectly. It’s only fully registering now how completely turned on Felix has already managed to get, and he presses his thighs together. “Like when it hurts a little.”

“Perfect,” Chan whispers, dipping in to press a fleeting kiss to Felix’s lips. Felix tries to chase him, but he can’t move his head with Chan’s hand in his hair. “I like making it hurt a little.”

That sends Felix’s head spinning. Felix can feel Chan, just as hard as he is, pressing against his hip as they kiss. He can also feel, even through the frustrating layers of clothes that separate them, that Chan is big. 

“I need your cock in my mouth,” Felix hisses into Chan’s mouth, whining when Chan pulls back to look at him, a little awed, his hand running through Felix’s hair soothingly now. 

“Fuck, yes, I want that. I’m comfortable doing that, I’m clean. Are you?”

Felix nods quickly, maybe a bit too adamantly. Maybe with a little too much certainty. But, he makes a point of testing if he hooks up with someone random, even if they use protection, and he knows his last test was fine. Chan seems to take this answer incorrectly though, because horror crosses his face.

“Oh, Jesus, Felix are you-” Chan can’t seem to finish his sentence. “A-”

“A virgin? Are you serious?” Felix snaps, frowning. He can feel that he’s pouting. “No!”

“It’s okay if you are, you just gotta tell me,” Chan says, and Felix thinks this would be really sweet if he were actually a virgin. “It’s just- I’d go about everything very differently if you are.”

“Chris,” Felix says in English, his voice rough and deep in a way that Chan hasn’t heard yet, making the older man’s eyes widen. He pushes Chan back against the door, crowding him in. “That was really, really sweet. But-”

Chan opens his mouth and Felix kisses him quiet, biting at his labret and making him moan. Felix pulls back. 

“I am not some blushing virgin.”

Felix swallows and says what he’s dying to before he can lose his nerve.

“I’m the slut begging for you to hurry up and take me home.”

The dark intensity of Chan’s eyes is the last thing Felix sees before his lips are captured in a rough kiss that ends in a bite and draws a breathy moan from him. Then Chan’s dragging him out of the bathroom, practically throwing the door open. Felix lets himself be led down a corridor, then through a door he didn’t know existed that opened up into a small parking lot that looks to be reserved for employees only.

“I know a guy,” Chan says, because of course he does. Felix snorts at the cliche and Chan grins at him. He hasn’t let go of Felix’s hand, leading him toward a black Jeep parked in the middle of the lot. “Changbin used to work as a bouncer, here. Managed to snag me a parking pass.”

“That’s nice,” Felix replies absentmindedly, thoroughly distracted by the fact that Chan is pulling a set of keys from his pocket and unlocking the Jeep like it’s no big deal. “Sorry, you have a car? A fucking Jeep?”

“You look surprised.” 

“Yeah, nobody has a fucking car, here,” Felix says, shocked, as Chan opens the passenger side door for him, gesturing for Felix to climb in. He complies hesitantly, watching wide-eyed as Chan shuts the door behind him and jogs casually to the diver’s side. As soon as Chan opens the door, Felix rushes to ask, “Why do you have a car? How?”

Chan just laughs at his awe, igniting the engine and punching it into first gear. 

“It’s technically a company car, but an artist I worked with actually helped me out with it. It’s a glorified thank-you gift, I guess.”

There’s more to Chan’s story, but Felix doesn’t absorb it. Instead, his attention zeros in on Chan’s hands, one on the wheel and one on the gearshift, as he maneuvers them out of the parking lot and merges into traffic like it’s nothing. Reassured he doesn’t have to backseat drive, Felix feels comfortable enough to shoot a quick text to Jisung, not even chancing sending one to Minho.

bbokki ♥:  sungie i found a friend

bbokki ♥:  i’ll get a ride home by myself. tell hyung!

[02.24]

hani:  Oh damn

hani:  Get ittttttttttt

[02.25]

bbokki ♥:   ji please 

bbokki ♥:   –__–

[02.25]

hani:  You owe me so much. Min’s head 

almost exploded so I kissed him

[02.26]

bbokki ♥:  my hero, what a sacrifice

[02.27]

hani:  He says you have until 5

hani:  Before he goes and finds you

hani:  Uhh I would take that seriously

[02.28]

bbokki ♥:  what is he?? my mom?

[02.27]

hani:  He says yes

[02.28]

Rolling his eyes, Felix locks his phone. 

“Apparently I have a fucking curfew. Five, I guess.”

Chan laughs, then sighs. 

“Sounds like Minho.”

Felix just grins and looks out the window. He has always been terrified of the streets in Korea, especially those in Seoul. The idea of ever driving here makes Felix feel sick to his stomach. Opposite side of the road aside, the road signs, rules, and signals are all so different than what he’s used to. Chan makes it look easy, though, navigating them out of Mapo-gu and through surface streets toward what Felix, startled, recognizes as Seocho-gu, then sees signs for Banpo-dong once they’re off the highway.

“Holy shit, who are you,” Felix marvels, his face twisted into a mask of shock as Chan pulls into an assigned parking spot outside of a fairly modest but safe-looking brick apartment complex. “Gangnam? Seriously?”

Chan just shrugs, and Felix has to consciously try not to find it attractive. 

“JYP’s set me up pretty good.”

Felix shakes his head. This man has to be a genius. There’s no other explanation. Felix stays shocked as Chan leads him through the lobby of the building by the hand, greeting the woman behind the desk politely. She throws Felix a look that he doesn’t want to decipher but smiles at Chan familiarly. It’s almost three in the morning, Felix thinks dizzily as they pass, they have someone on duty at three in the morning?

The shock wears off a little as the elevator doors close in front of them and Chan makes little comments to Felix about his own first impressions of the building, breaking the ice. When the elevator opens on the 10th floor, Felix is giggling and clinging to Chan again, warm-faced as Chan fawns over him for finding the lobby to be fancy. 

The same giggles are swallowed up in a soft sigh when Chan pushes Felix up against the door of his apartment once they stumble inside, kissing him. It’s somehow dirtier than it’d been at the club, and Chan’s thigh finds its way between Felix’s, making him whine into Chan’s mouth. 

“Still want it?” Chan asks softly when they part, and Felix knows exactly what he’s referring to, immediately.

"I want you," Felix murmurs.

Felix lets himself sink to his knees with a practised, controlled grace, not breaking eye contact with Chan. He guides one of Chan’s hands to the back of his head. 

Chan doesn’t bother to do much more than unbutton and unzip his pants, probably due to how (unfairly) tight they are, the black jeans looking like a second skin against his muscular thighs. Felix isn’t sure how he didn’t jump him earlier. 

When Chan pulls his cock free, Felix swears under his breath. He needs this, and he wastes no time wrapping a hand around Chan, smiling at the hiss it draws from him. Felix only hesitates long enough to lock eyes with Chan for a moment before wrapping his lips around the head of his cock. Chan groans, guttural and relieved, when Felix sinks down on him halfway, his hand fisting in Felix’s hair. His grip stays superficial, though, and Felix pulls off to breathe, adjusting. He leans forward as soon as he’s sure he’s ready. 

Felix flattens his tongue along the sensitive skin on the underside of Chan’s cock, following down to the base, teasing. As he noses at Chan’s pelvis, Felix can’t resist sending a look up at Chan that he knows is absolutely filthy from this angle. His lips brush against Chan’s skin as he speaks.

“Use me,” Felix murmurs, dipping his voice low.  

Wasting no more time, Chan begins to feed his cock into Felix’s mouth, cursing under his breath and groaning at the feeling. Felix forces his body to relax as he revels in the feeling of being filled, the pleasure of Chan being in control damping down the feeling of panic that would otherwise rise at how his throat stretches and his jaw is forced open to its limit around Chan’s cock. 

“Shit, baby,” Chan swears, shaking his head as he pets a hand through Felix's hair. Felix just looks up at him, watching his face. The view of Chan from here is absolutely filthy. The explicit angle of his heavily lidded eyes and parted lips makes Felix moan around Chan’s cock, his own twitching in his own pants. 

“You’re fucking amazing, Felix. Can I-”

Felix mumbles a muffled ‘mm-hmm’ around Chan’s cock, revelling in the way Chan’s eyes nearly roll back at the vibration. The hand petting Felix locks into his hair, holding him in place. Chan pulls his hips back before slowly sinking back into Felix’s throat with a pornographic moan. Felix feels his eyes unfocus as Chan’s cock presses at the back of his throat again. The stretch is pleasant and filthy.

“God, you’re being so good,” Chan says, and it flares that same heat in the pit of Felix’s stomach that being called a good boy had done, at NB2, earlier. Felix can’t help but want to be good for Chan, despite everything else the other man has undoubtedly experienced before him. “Not even gagging, fuck.”

Felix moans at that, the sound distorted and muffled by Chan’s cock fucking in and out of him. Chan lets out another string of expletives, louder this time. The hand not holding Felix in place thumbs at Felix’s lips, where they’re stretched to accommodate him. 

“Baby, no one’s gotten me so close so fast,” Chan whispers, and Felix feels pleasure flush hot through his veins. He blinks up at Chan and the older man groans, throwing his head back. “You’re making me fucking insane. So good- fuck- I don’t normally talk like this either, shit.”

If Felix were hard earlier, he’s painfully hard, now. Chan doesn’t shut up, rambling about good and small hands, small mouth and starlight, successfully rendering Felix pliantly dazed. 

“Felix,” Chan’s voice breaks into Felix’s stupor, “Felix, I’m close.”

Felix moans encouragingly, pressing closer. He hopes the message is clear. He wants to taste Chan. And, it seems Chan is willing to let him, because he slows his movement, pulling out of Felix’s mouth to stroke his cock, the head resting on Felix’s waiting tongue. 

“Oh, God,” Chan groans before he’s cumming, directly into Felix’s mouth. The look on his face is stunning, and Felix commits it to memory then and there. 

Felix does his best to swallow, pleased when he manages it with little difficulty, letting his tongue loll out of his mouth to show Chan. He squeaks as, in response, Chan tucks his softening cock back into his pants and tugs Felix up, kissing him messy and dirty, his tongue sliding along Felix’s.

“You taste like cum,” Chan mutters before diving back in, not giving Felix much of a chance to defend himself.

“‘S yours,” Felix manages when he comes up for air, pouting. 

Suddenly Chan is lifting Felix up, bridal style, like he weighs nothing, carrying him in a general direction that Felix has to assume is his bedroom. Felix just giggles and holds loosely onto Chan’s neck, his thoughts muddled by everything happening. A gasp is ripped out of him when Chan drops him on his bed, stepping back immediately to start taking his shirt off. Oh, okay.

“Oh, fuck me,” Felix whispers as he watches Chan strip himself of his clothes, his jaw dropping slightly. 

Chan wasn’t joking when he’d nonchalantly dropped that he went to the gym as often as his schedule allowed to be humanly possible. His arms gave it away this whole time, of course, but Chan is – for lack of better words – fucking ripped. He’s got a set of sturdy, well-defined abs that compliment his even more well-built pecs. The tattoos on his arms don’t stop there, some connecting to the larger ones on his shoulders and back. Chan turns for half a second to toss his clothes into a half-full laundry basket, giving Felix a violently appetizing view of his back and ass. Felix can’t help but feel like he’s won something by just being here in Chan’s bed.

“That’s the plan, starlight,” Chan says, and the nickname shouldn’t be cute in his context but it is, and it makes Felix giggle. “How do you want this, Lix?”

“Chris, I don’t fucking care,” Felix shoots back, swallowing as his eyes flick down to Chan’s cock hanging heavily between his legs. Chan’s cock seems, somehow, to already be hardening again. “Told you, I just want you.”

Chan snorts and Felix should probably be embarrassed at how his voice turned up in a pathetic whine at the end of his plea, but he can’t think as Chan stands over him, pulling him into a messy kiss.

Felix finds himself lowering himself back onto the bed, legs spreading for Chan, in an instant. 

Felix thinks the majority of his clothes end up on the floor. Embarrassingly, his underwear, accompanied by a bottle of lube, ended up next to his head and one stray sock is on the foot of the bed – he can see it. Chan had undressed him with the fervency of a man starved, and now Felix lays, the product of it, completely naked in Chan’s bed and pleasure-stricken beyond belief. 

Ecstasy snaps down Felix’s spine like an electric shock when Chan hooks two fingers upward, the pressure directly where Felix needs it. A desperate moan falls from his lips and his dick twitches, right in front of Chan’s face. One of Felix’s legs is thrown carelessly over Chan’s shoulder. If Felix didn’t feel so good right now, he’d find it in himself to feel embarrassed. 

“There you go, baby. Good?”

Felix nods hastily, squeezing his eyes shut. He doesn’t trust himself to speak, but Chan has different plans.

“Talk to me, Felix.”

The way he says his name, accented to all hell and low in his throat, it does unspeakable things to Felix’s brain. 

“Yes- yes, s’good-” Felix manages, swallowing hard. “Feels good, Chan-”

“Good boy,” Chan murmurs, adding a third finger without asking. Felix takes it well enough.

A sob bursts past Felix’s lips at the praise coupled with the sensations he’s receiving and Chan chuckles. Felix watches, half horrified and half painfully aroused when Chan doesn’t bother to reach for the lube and actually spits into his palm before wrapping his free hand around Felix’s length. He begins to stroke Felix in time with the lazy thrusts of his fingers into his hole.

“You’re taking my fingers so well, baby. Can’t wait to fuck you.”

“Fuck- you’re awful,” Felix says, half laughing and half moaning. “That’s such a shitty line- ah-”

Chan curls his fingers toward himself again, stealing the words from Felix’s mouth. 

“Mmh, it’s true though,” Chan says, heavy-lidded eyes boring through Felix’s. “Feel fucking amazing around my fingers. I can’t wait to be inside you.”

Felix’s eyes flutter with the effort not to let them roll back. This is ridiculous. He shouldn’t be so turned on by such unsophisticated dirty talk.

“Motherf-” Felix starts to whisper, before his words are cut short with his own moan.

Chan seems in no hurry, despite his previous words, to actually get to fucking Felix. It’s torture, in the sweetest, most painfully pleasant way. He could entertain the thought that Chan is doing it on purpose, trying to draw it out so he can ride out his refractory period. The absolutely sadistic gleam in Chan’s eyes as he watches Felix squirm and moan, however, speaks to something much more calculated. And, Felix loves it, even if his prostate is being horribly abused right now.

“You’re being so good for me,” Chan’s words reach Felix’s ears like he’s speaking underwater, the building pleasure wiping Felix’s thoughts from his head scarily quickly. Felix’s chest rises and falls in sharp breaths, his mouth dropping open. He can’t imagine what he looks like right now, but it seems Chan likes it, even if he looks as depraved as he feels. “I think I’m gonna have to keep you for a while.”

That sentence is what does it. Felix can feel his body careening toward that dangerous point of no return where he’d not be able to stop himself from cumming even if Chan stopped touching him, and he panics because he can’t imagine tonight ending without Chan fucking him properly.

“Wait, wait, wait-” Felix sobs, writhing. “Stop, please-”

Chan’s hand is off his cock immediately and he stills his fingers inside him, though he doesn’t pull his fingers out, which Felix is grateful for. Even that would be stimulation. He just needs to breathe. 

“Talk to me, baby, remember?”

Felix takes a deep breath, trying not to let the nickname get to him. 

“Just- just need to breathe, didn’t wanna come,” Felix whines, and Chan coos at him, using the back of his free hand to push a lock of hair out of Felix’s eyes. 

“Okay, angel. Shall I take my fingers out?”

Felix nods, and Chan accepts it as his answer, slowly beginning to pull his fingers from Felix. As Chan kneels over him, wiping his fingers on a rag that apparently was brought to the bed at some point, Felix instinctually goes to sit up. He’s stopped by gentle hands on his shoulders, coaxing him back down.

“Unless you’ve got objections, I’m keeping you right here,” Chan says with a finality that makes Felix’s breath catch. A grin spreads across Chan’s mouth. “I want to see your pretty face, you make the cutest expressions. I like watching you.”

Felix doesn’t have to be told twice. 

“Please,” he whimpers, watching as Chan tears open a condom and rolls it on in one fluid motion. Chan slicks his cock up with a fistful of lube, gazing down at Felix with a dark intensity that makes Felix’s stomach turn in excitement. “Put your cock in me, Channie, please, need it…”

“Since you asked so nicely,” Chan mutters, looking a little awed, low enough that he may have just been saying it to himself. Felix makes a frankly pathetic sound when the head of Chan’s cock touches his rim as Chan lines himself up. 

Felix may not be on the same level that Chan is on, in terms of experience, but he has slept with his fair share of men. More specifically, he’s been fucked by a fair number of men. But, never in his life has Felix felt so entranced watching a man’s face as their cock entered him. The face Chan makes as he sinks into Felix might be the most attractive thing Felix has ever seen in his life.

His brows furrow and his eyes fall closed gently. Those beautiful lips part in a low moan and Felix catches a glint of Chan’s clenched teeth beyond them, a sight that somehow makes the expression even hotter. His cock fills Felix perfectly, the girth more than anything Felix has taken before and the length just right to fill but not hurt him. The groan Chan lets out when he’s fully seated in him mixes with Felix’s lower wanton moan, and Felix can’t help the thought that they sound good together. 

Nor can he help the way he fleetingly prays this won’t be the only time he gets to see Chan like this. 

“Feel okay?” Chan asks, his eyes sharply darting over Felix’s face, like he’s trying to absorb his thoughts. He must have meant it when he said he liked being able to see Felix’s facial expression because he seems to thrive off of being able to see him like this, his cock twitching inside Felix when Felix bites his lip behind a moan, nodding frantically. 

“God, you’re so pretty,” Chan whispers, so quiet Felix almost wonders if he imagined it. “Use your words, though, hmm?”

“Mmh, I feel good,” Felix says, taking a deep breath he hadn’t realised he needed to take. He blinks a few times, feeling overwhelmed by the tears – that he desperately doesn’t want to freak Chan out with – beginning to press at his eyes. “I’m okay, I promise, just-”

His voice breaks. Chan feels so perfect inside of him. 

“I- I cry, sometimes, when it’s good,” Felix rambles, his voice pitching up into a whine at the end. Chan’s eyebrows raise and his mouth opens in slight surprise when Felix’s tears begin to fall. “Fuck, ‘m sorry-”

“Hey, shh, don’t apologise, starlight,” Chan says, and Felix sobs at the nickname, feeling how his hole clenches around Chan’s cock when he does. “Fuck, of course that’s okay. You look so good like this, angel. You feel so good around me, shit. How do you feel?”

“Good,” Felix says, huffs it out. “Full.”

Chan just chuckles at him, shaking his head. Felix can’t take any more teasing or talking.

“Fuck me,” Felix keens, the words slipping from his lips more easily than breathing. “Please, fuck me, Chan, I need it- ah-”

He’s cut off because Chan complies and pulls out just enough to thrust back in shallowly and Felix is hit with two things at once. First, Chan is unfairly good with his hips, which is probably a product of experience. Second, and more pressingly, he’s already crying freely, a steady stream of tears soaking into the pillow his head is resting on. 

Felix gasps when Chan grasps his hips, lifting them from the bed to get a better angle. Now is when Chan truly begins to fuck into him, Felix realizes, because Chan pulls out and thrusts back in again, much more forcefully and all the way to the hilt. Felix sobs in pleasure. 

The hold Chan has on him, physically and mentally, makes Felix feel absolutely had. He’s spellbound, his glossy eyes round and wide open, locked with Chan’s gaze as he builds a comfortable pace – rough and deep but unhurried. Each thrust is measured and controlled, and it drives Felix insane. As do the hands on his hips bearing hold his weight like it’s nothing, locking him into a position that causes each stroke of Chan’s cock to graze his prostate.

“F-fuck,” Felix manages between the moans being punched out of him. “Fuck- Chris- ’s good-”

“Yeah?” Chris says, breathless but not winded like he should be. His tongue pokes out of the corner of his mouth and Felix catches a flash of metal, his piercing. This man can’t be real.“Like taking my cock, starlight?”

Felix sobs and throws an arm over his eyes, nodding. 

“Good, ‘cause you feel fucking perfect,” Chan practically growls, his pace picking up slightly, hands tightening on Felix. “Taking it so well, Lix.”

The sound that escapes Felix doesn’t even sound like him. His orgasm is building in a way it never had before – neither he nor Chan has given a moment of thought to his cock, and yet… The coil in Felix’s stomach is tightening, a telling, familiar feeling that’s stronger than he’s ever felt it. The position allows Felix the ability to see that his cock is flushed a mildly concerning near-fuschia, weeping at the tip similarly to Felix himself, precum pooling in his belly button.

“Mmnghfuck,” Felix moans, “Your hands, they feel s-s’good.”

“Like being held?”

“Just,” Felix gasps, feeling the edge of his orgasm getting closer and closer. His hands fist on either side of his head. “Just like being used. Want your hands on me forever.”

Chan laughs, and Felix can’t tell what’s so funny, anymore.

“I’ll mark you up next time, hmm?” Chan promises, and Felix can’t really see straight anymore, but there’s a smile and the edge of desperation Felix feels in his own system in Chan’s voice. “Leave hand marks on you, huh? Give you pretty bites?”

Felix’s body snaps taught, arching in Chan’s hold, as he orgasms harder than he ever has in his life, completely untouched. He couldn’t describe the sound that flies from his throat if he was paid to – something high and desperate but sated. Next time,  his mind chants as unbridled pleasure courses through him, there’s a next time. His cock pulses against his stomach, releasing pearly white cum that drips onto the bed below Felix as Chan continues to fuck him, though his hips are stuttering now.

“Oh, fuck, that made you so fucking tight,” Chan grits, making Felix whimper. It’s so dirty. He basks in it. “Fuck, I’m gonna cum, pretty boy.”

Things go fuzzy for Felix here, as he feels Chan fill the condom. Chan gives him soft encouragement as he cleans him up, lets him borrow one of his hoodies, holds Felix. It happens in a truly overwhelming blur.

The next thing Felix knows, he’s curled up into Chan’s side on his couch, warm and clean. Chan smells good, like clean warmth and something sharper, like cologne. It’s probably on his clothes.

“-ay for a bit?”

“Huh?” Felix blinks owlishly. 

Chan smiles down at him warmly.

“I said: Minho won’t burn Seoul down looking for you for a couple more hours. Wanna stay for a bit? Maybe we can watch a movie or something.”

Felix leans back to send Chan a properly confused look. Chan just giggles at his expression, ruffling his hair. Felix lets him, but pouts.

“Hey, we’re friends now, right?”

“I…” Felix pauses, thinking. “I guess we are, aren’t we?”

“Exactly,” Chan says, like it’s settled. He leans back into the couch, tugging Felix with him. “Wanna watch a Ghibli film?”

Felix could get used to this.

Chapter Text

Felix sighs as Chan’s hands run down his sides before fitting themselves at his hips. Chan’s hold on him always feels like a final puzzle piece clicking into place, like his body was made for Chan’s touch and vice-versa. 

“You know…”

Chan’s voice trails off, like he’s not sure what he was going to say. Felix hums questioningly. He can’t see Chan like this, stretched out face-down on Chan’s bed like a sunbathing cat, Chan kneeling over him to rub his back. When Chan doesn’t answer, Felix raises his head.

“What 's it, Channie?” 

Chan’s hands knead into Felix’s lower back and he drops his head back into the pillows with a soft moan. That feels good. The bed still smells like sex and the first glow of sunlight is beginning to filter through the slats of Chan’s lazily half-closed blinds. Felix had gotten here when the moon was still out. The thrill of being picked up in Chan’s Jeep when absolutely no-one else is on the street never fails to make their trysts even more exciting than they already are.

“You can stay…”

Felix’s brain struggles to catch up. Chan’s fingers press into his skin, extremely distracting. 

“What?”

“You can stay, you know? Don’t have to go back to your place,” Chan explains, running his hands up Felix’s spine to press the pads of his thumbs at a tender spot he knows Felix always has right below his neck. Felix turns his head to the side and groans. “I want you to stay.”

“I’d love to,” Felix says, then sighs. “But I don’t think I should. It’s stupid, we’re both grown men, but I just don’t want to worry Minho. If he wakes up before I’m back, he’ll lose his mind. I prefer you without all your limbs broken, so I’d rather avoid that.”

Chan snorts at that, but doesn’t push it anymore, continuing his massaging. Felix whimpers when he hits a particularly sensitive knot in his shoulder and feels Chan pause for a moment before continuing. 

“Don’t you think you should just tell him at some point?”

Felix huffs a little laugh.

“Probably. It’s kinda fun to be sneaky about it, though. It’s exciting.”

Chan laughs at him, and his hands continue to press at Felix’s shoulders, kneading. Felix buries his face back in the pillows once more, stretching his whole body. Soft sheets and the downy comforter caress his bare skin. God, he loves Chan’s bed. And Chan’s hands.

“I’ve never let anyone stay, or even offered it before you. Now I’m begging you,” Chan complains, and Felix doesn’t answer. He’s busy biting back a whine as Chan puts his full weight into working on the knot in his shoulder. Chan hums thoughtfully. “Though I guess that’s a little exciting for me.”

“Mmh, guess I’m just special,” Felix teases, his words slurring together and muffled by the position. 

“Yeah.”

That’s not the rebuttal Felix expected, but he’s not complaining. Chan gives one last squeeze to Felix’s shoulders before he removes his hands from his body, lowering himself to lie down next to Felix with a soft grunt. 

The moment he’s situated, Felix rolls over, crowding closer to Chan and pressing the lengths of their bodies against each other, revelling in the feeling of Chan’s skin on his. Chan wraps his arms around Felix with a sigh. Felix raises his head to look at Chan. 

Chan always looks unjustly good after sex, his skin glowing and eyes shining like they’ve got stars in them. He looks just as devastatingly handsome as he did the night, now two months ago, at NB2. His arms are just as strong around Felix now as they’d looked, still are covered in ink. His piercings shine the same way, still giving him the same look of cool hardness that juxtaposes his sweet lips and smiling eyes. But Felix knows him now, and that’s what makes it all so much more appealing. 

Nearly every day, Felix just finds himself grateful he has Chan in this way. Sure, he would enjoy it if Chan were his partner. He’d love to be able to tell Chan how much he loves him. But he’s settling for this, for the security of knowing he has Chan, more fully and more earnestly than anyone else could ever say they have. 

“Felix…” Chan starts, and he seems uncharacteristically nervous, avoiding Felix’s eyes. 

“Hmm?” Felix’s eyebrows furrow.

“We’re friends, right?”

Felix cocks his head. Now he’s really confused.

“Erm… Channie, I’d call you my best friend at this point, so… Yes…?”

Chan visibly relaxes when Felix says this, laughing and shaking his head. He sits up, not bothering with covering himself up in any way and sitting back against the headboard. Unashamedly raking his eyes over Chan’s form, Felix also sits up. 

“Right, yeah. Me too.”

Felix just makes a face at Chan. He’s being weird.

“It’s odd for me, y’know?” Chan sighs and reaches for Felix, who meets him halfway, melting into the hug that Chan wraps him in. Chan takes a deep breath and squeezes Felix closer to him. One of Chan’s hands cradles the back of Felix's head, unreasonably tender. The part of Felix that definitely has feelings for Chan preens at the attention. “I’ve never gotten this close with someone who, y’know…”

“Someone who you’re sticking your cock in?” Felix helpfully supplies, his voice a little muffled. He’s fitted himself into the perfect crook of Chan’s neck, Felix’s cheek pressed against his sternum.

“Jesus,” Chan says, laughing. The vibration of the sound radiates from Chan’s chest pleasantly. Felix grins. “Yeah, exactly.”

Felix hums in acknowledgement, absorbing it. He can see how it might be confusing for Chan, especially if he’s never actually felt anything for anyone he’s had sex with. Now, he has Felix. Felix isn't stupid enough to think that Chan is secretly in love with him, but he does know that Chan cares for him, as a friend. Of course it’s confusing.

“I really like you, Felix,” Chan says, parroting what Felix has said to him so many times before with an almost awed tone. Felix tilts his head up to look at him. Chan smiles at him, lifting one of his hands to brush Felix’s hair out of his eyes. “You make me care.”

Felix can’t help the way he bites his lip in a smile, giggling shily. Chan leans down and kisses his forehead.

“Stop, oh my God,” Felix laughs, ducking back down to hide his face. “What have I done to you?”

Chan just chuckles and dips down to kiss Felix breathless. Felix lets him. 

Looking back, this was when things started to shift. Felix can’t put his finger on what that shift was, exactly, but he feels it, a sense of newness, whenever he sees Chan. 

They begin seeing each other more and more often, and the majority of the time, they’ll just hang out. Felix finds himself spending less time at the apartment and hopes Minho isn’t onto him yet, because he won’t be able to continue using the excuse that’s become regular – studying at the Hongik library – now that summer is closing in on him. Most of their hangouts are passable as any friendly get-together, but more than enough of them do end in Chan’s tongue down Felix’s throat, Felix in his lap.

It makes Felix’s stomach flutter in anticipation every time he prepares to be picked up by Chan – the not knowing. Is he going to get a day with his best friend? Or, is it going to end with Felix face down, ass up in Chan’s bed with Chan’s fingers inside of him, hitting the spots he needs him to with ridiculous ease from experience, like today’s rendezvous has?

“Fuck, look at you,” Chan mutters, and he sounds so appreciative that Felix could cry. Shit, he thinks he might already be crying. “You know you’ve ruined everyone else for me, right?”

Felix moans loudly at this, pushing back against Chan’s fingers. His cheeks are wet. He’s definitely crying.

“R-really?” He pants, turning his head to the side. “Mmh- how so?”

Chan huffs a little laugh and angles his fingers down, toying with Felix’s prostate in a way that makes Felix yelp and squeeze his eyes shut, his mouth hanging open. 

“Haven’t even thought of trying any of my old digits since you,” Chan says, his body suddenly draped over Felix’s, fingers still inside him. His voice is right there, his breath warm against the shell of Felix’s ear. “The only thing that makes me feel anything is the idea of fucking you. I’m selfish, Felix. I want you all to myself.”

Felix chokes on a sound that’s caught between a sob and a whine, he can feel that his cock is absolutely dripping between his legs, neglected. Wanted, he feels wanted, Chan wants him. Chan wants him all to himself. 

“You like that, starlight? Like being mine?”

“Please,” Felix whispers, barely able to force it out. His head is spinning and his heart pounds – this is feeling too real, too fast. “Please, Chan.”

And then the weight of Chan leaning over him is gone, and so are his fingers, making Felix clench around nothing with heaving breaths. Chan’s fingers have been in him for what feels like hours and the loss of them feels unbearable now. Felix doesn’t have to wait long, though, because suddenly he’s being flipped over like he weighs nothing, a pillow shoved under his lower back and he just lets Chan move him, revelling in the helplessness of it. One of Chan’s hands soothes over Felix’s inner thigh as he lines his cock up to Felix’s hole. Felix doesn’t remember when he put on the condom. 

Felix’s tears stream steadily down his temples, dangerously close to pooling in his ears, but he doesn’t care as the head of Chan’s cock breaches his rim, slowly. He’s more than prepped enough, it doesn’t hurt in the slightest, but the stimulation is so overdue that it makes his breath stutter and his tears renew in earnest – tiny, frantic sobs fluttering past his lips. 

In a second, Chan’s face is over Felix’s, expression soft and open, sympathetic. His hands gently remove Felix’s from his own face, replacing them with his own as he leans down and kisses him. The tension that had been winding up in all of Felix’s muscles uncoils.  The head of Chan’s cock sits heavy inside of Felix but Chan seems to relish even just this, thrusting in and out of him in shallow, lazy rolls of his hips. 

“Need more,” Felix moans against Chan’s mouth, despite knowing he’s pushing it with the demand. He’s learned that it drives Chan crazy in a wonderfully dangerous way to be a brat. He switches to English, pouting. “Just fuck me already, put your fucking cock in me, Chris.”

Chan stops moving immediately. Felix swallows hard, opening his mouth to say something, anything to convince him to continue. His words are forgotten completely as Chan does the unexpected, driving his whole length into Felix with a quick, rough thrust. The moan caught in Felix’s throat doesn’t escape, and he just chokes on the sound, his teary eyes blown wide open and locked onto Chan’s. 

“I-”

“You,” Chan interrupts, rolling his hips in a deliberately slow grind, “Are being a brat.”

Felix whines as Chan leans in, nosing at the sensitive skin of his neck. Chan’s hands trail down his body, and are pleasantly, painfully tight in the hold they take on his waist. Bruising. The idea of it makes Felix squirm.

“You’re gonna wait, now,” Chan says, his words tucked under Felix’s jaw. Felix whimpers but doesn’t protest, enjoying every moment of this. “I’m gonna take my time and mark you up all pretty for me, angel. Seems like you need the reminder.”

Chan flattens his tongue against Felix’s pulse, the heat of his piercing making Felix’s breath stutter. One of Chan’s thumbs strokes at Felix’s side as he sinks his teeth into the skin, making Felix jolt and moan. The bite hurts in a pleasant way that lets him know it’s going to last a while, just the way he and Chan both like it.

The marking isn’t anything new, they’ve discussed this and left marks on one another alike many times, but something about this feels different from those other times. Chan works slowly and intentionally, like he’s deciding where to leave the marks with a purpose. Bites and bruises, Chan’s hands on his body, Chan’s cock twitching inside of him when a particularly rough bite to the junction of his shoulder and neck makes Felix mewl and claw at Chan’s arms, scratching pink marks into his skin. It’s all overwhelming and Felix registers at some point that everything that Chan’s doing will be impossible to hide, but Felix doesn’t stop him, craving it.

“‘M never- ah-,” Felix huffs, trying to get the thought out. “I’m never gonna be able, hhnh, to hide any of this, Chris-”

Chan presses a chaste kiss to the bruise he’s just left before looking up at Felix, smirking.

“That’s too bad, huh?”

Felix moans in earnest at that. Damn Chan. Damn his cockiness and damn the dopamine highway in Felix’s brain that finds it irresistibly attractive.

“Everyone’s g’na know you have me,” Felix babbles, and Chan groans. Felix feels Chan’s hands move down to his thighs, kneading and squeezing in a possessive way that makes Felix think it might bruise, too. Visible bruises and bite marks on his neck, handprints on his ass and thighs, all given to him by his best friend. It goes to Felix's head. “Feel… I feel… claimed.”

“Fuck, starlight,” Chan says, and Felix melts, looking up into Chan’s face as the older man straightens up. His eyes rake over his work. “You look claimed.”

Felix giggles, feeling a little lightheaded.

“Am I? Claimed?”

There’s a lull in talking as Chan finally draws his hips back before pushing back in, one of his hands still on Felix’s thighs. He sets a slow, deep pace for them, drawing helplessly wanton moans from Felix’s lips. Felix can feel from the tension in the arm braced next to his head that Chan is holding himself back from fucking him harder, like he’s trying to savour it. Felix’s eyes sting.

“Yeah,” Chan finally murmurs, and it takes Felix a second to zone back in on what he’s answering. The hand on his thigh is trailing toward Felix’s cock, making his breathing quicken. “I think you might just be claimed, angel.”

Felix can’t answer, busy throwing his head back in a high whimper when Chan closes his fist around his cock, stroking him slowly in time as he continues to fuck him. 

“Couldn’t be more clear that you’re mine. Nobody else would even try to fucking touch you,” Chan grits out, his pace accelerating. Felix’s head feels hazy as Chan moans, “Fuck, you got tight at that, Lix.”

“Like it- ah- ” Felix keens, “Like it a lot, Channie.”

“Whose are you?”

“Yours!” Felix sobs, surprising both of them when he comes, hard, with no warning whatsoever. 

Chan is sweet about it and tries to pull out, but Felix insists that he use him. Chan obliges, of course, fucking him into complete overstimulation chasing his high. After soft words and gentle hands ground them both, Felix goes to shower. His reflection in the mirror startles him and he laughs in quiet awe, heart in his throat as he tilts his head, examining the extent of the carnage.

Felix knows that what Chan said must be true, about not wanting anyone else anymore and about not caring if people knew Felix was his, in some sense of the concept. He wouldn’t leave marks like this if he wasn’t comfortable with that. And either way, he wouldn’t be the way he is with Felix – so loose and free – if he wanted to hide it. Though most of their time spent together could be passable as friendly, it just doesn’t pass that way. 

Felix sees the way Chan’s friend from work, Changbin, raises his eyebrows at Chan questioningly when he introduces Felix to him as a friend. He sees the way that Hyunjin and Jisung eye him carefully when he explains that he and Chan have begun to hang out more often, that he feels so close to him. Hyunjin even corners him later to ask him point blank if they’re dating, which Felix truthfully denies, even if it’s a little amusing how close to the truth it is.

Chan points out a few of his old digits to Felix as they stand in line at Megabox to grab a movie, just for the hell of it. 

“Him,” Chan says surreptitiously, nodding toward the guy. Felix follows his gaze before side-eyeing Chan for an explanation. “We met in a fitness class during my third year of undergrad. Made me realise I needed to preface hooking up with people with the ‘no strings’ speech.”

Felix snorts. The guy is attractive enough, but he looks nothing like Felix. His build is strong but lanky, and he’s got a rather intensely stoic disposition that makes Felix glance away from him quickly. Maybe Chan doesn’t have a type. 

“How many people have you used the speech on, now?” Felix asks out of pure curiosity, taking a small sip of the slushie Chan has bought him.

Chan chuckles, making Felix look back at him.

“I don’t have a number for you, Lix,” he says, scratching the back of his neck. Chan seems almost embarrassed by his body count, horribly out of character for a man who claims to ‘not believe in slut shaming’. 

Felix just smiles sunnily, gesturing to himself with his slushie.

“Personally, I thought the speech was pretty good,” he placates, knowing he’s probably being more annoying than comforting. But, he also knows Chan enough to know that Chan needs distraction rather than comfort when he gets embarrassed. “I must have gotten the cumulation of practice.”

A snort and Chan’s hand coming to settle on Felix’s waist tells him he read the situation correctly. Felix smiles to himself and rests his head on Chan’s shoulder. It hits him hard that they look exactly like every other couple here. The man and woman in front of them are in nearly the same position, the woman leaning heavily against her partner as she talks. Felix picks up the word ‘date’ and his private smile grows. It’s mildly funny to him that he and Chan are pretty much on a date, pretty much dating, but have chosen to be friends rather than anything else. 

Chan doesn’t seem to mind it, and neither does Felix.

Felix stands, wearing a boat-neck-collared shirt that he knows may accidentally expose some marks to the general public, being held by Chan. Chan wears the bracelet that Felix got for him on a whim on his right wrist. It’s never come off, not that Felix has seen. 

Felix raises his slushie for Chan, who catches the straw with his teeth and takes a sip. Maybe he’s Chan’s and Chan is his. That doesn’t really have to change anything, does it?

He knows the lines are really beginning to blur after the talk with Minho. 

It wasn’t a surprise when they finally did talk about it. Aside from the fact that he almost never is in their apartment anymore, save to sleep, Felix knows Minho saw the marks a few times. He even told Felix at some point to ‘wear a fucking scarf’ if he was going to walk around like that in his apartment. Felix knows his cousin was joking, but there had been a biting edge to his playful jab that had told Felix this is not the last we’ll touch on this. And it isn’t.

“So, I have to ask,” Minho starts, speaking as he slices carrots into chunks to include in the curry he’s making them for dinner. Felix raises his head from where he’s been scrolling through TikTok on his phone, humming questioningly. “When did you and Chan start seeing each other?”

Felix blanches.

“Err… What are you talking about?”

Minho laughs and Felix is relieved to hear that it’s a genuine one. He drops the carrots into the pot of boiling water on the stove, turning to face Felix. He leans back against the counter, crossing his arms with his knife still in hand, probably not realising how terrifying he looks like that. Or – maybe he does, Felix can never tell, with Minho.

“You two are dating, right?”

“No, we aren’t,” Felix says, and he’s being honest about that, at least. “Chan is… well, he’s probably my best friend, if I had to label it.”

Minho sighs, frowning.

“Look, I know that I’m probably the last person you wanted to tell after how hard I was on Chan,” Minho admits, finally setting the knife on the counter to walk toward Felix where he sits on the couch in the adjacent living room. He perches himself on the arm of the couch. “But, you had to have known that I'd be happy for you.”

Shoulders slumping in mild shame, Felix sighs. Minho’s being so uncharacteristically soft about this, and he can’t even cash in on it.

“We aren’t dating, Min,” Felix says in English, for emphasis. He switches back, “Why do you think that we are?”

A few moments pass where Minho’s face twists in confusion before he laughs, shaking his head at Felix. 

“The better question is, why wouldn’t I?” Minho teases, smiling. “You two have been attached at the hip throughout the whole summer. More importantly, there’s a rumour going around that Chan’s stopped doing random hookups.”

“There’s no way that’s true, hyung,” Felix says flatly. “Rumours like that don’t actually happen in real life.”

“Honest!” Minho maintains, chuckling. “I kind of wish I didn’t know, if I’m honest. I don’t need to know about Bang Chan’s sex life. The girls at the studio, though… They’re pretty damn concerned with it.”

“But I see those girls all the time when I’m on shift,” Felix counters weakly, knowing he’s losing this battle. “They never say anything to me!”

Minho stares at him.

“Felix,” he says slowly, as if he’s speaking to a toddler, “they think you’re his boyfriend.”

Felix just snorts, covering his eyes with his hands as the reality hits him. Of course Chan has fucked the entire MOVE dance studio staff. 

“Fuck,” is all Felix can muster, and Minho pinches his ear for the swear. Felix lets him.

“So,” Minho says after a few beats. “Are you going to tell me what’s actually going on, then?”

A groan is all that Felix can respond with, now covering his whole face with his hands. He’s close enough with Minho now that he feels more like an older brother than a distant cousin. Felix decidedly does not want to explain that he’s fucking his best friend on the regular with his older brother figure. But… Minho deserves answers, and maybe Felix deserves to tell someone about it. Like Chan has said, shouldn’t he just tell Minho at some point?

“Well, we aren’t dating,” Felix says carefully, peeling his hands from his face. “But we aren’t… not together.”

“So you’re together?”

“No,” Felix says, then cringes. “It’s complicated? But also uncomplicated.”

“Wow.”

The unimpressed look on Minho’s face deepens the grimace on Felix’s. 

“Listen, I really didn’t want to explain the details, but Chan and I are just really close friends,” Felix says before pausing. Ugh. “Who… also have sex with each other. Exclusively.”

Minho sighs and nods. Felix feels shaky, like he’s 14 and coming out to his parents again. But this time, Minho just smiles at him, reaching over and fluffing his hair. 

“Disappointed, but not surprised,” he says dramatically, feigning swooning and falling on top of Felix, who yelps and catches him. Minho latches onto Felix and they burst out laughing at the absurdity of the situation.

“Actually,” Minho says later, when they’re sitting and eating the spoils of his cooking, “I am surprised about one thing.”

“Yeagmh?” Felix says around a chunk of potato. 

“I’m surprised you got him to go exclusive. And,” Minho tacks on, looking thoughtful, “Kind of impressed. Is your dick made of gold or something, Bbok-ah?”

Felix almost spits out his bite of food.

“Jesus, hyung- How are you so okay with this?”

Minho shrugs, bringing a spoonful of curry to his lips.

“Hey, I'm not wasting my breath on it now. You seem happy, anyway. If he hurts you, though, just let me know. I’ll rearrange his orifices.” 

Felix believes him. He’ll keep that in mind.

True to what has become their form, Felix does relay the entirety of his and Minho’s conversation to Chan when he sees him next.

“-Anyway, he’s much more okay with it than I ever expected. I think you’ll see the bottom of the ocean if you ever hurt me, though,” Felix finishes in a mumble, peeking over at Chan to see his reaction. 

It’s a ridiculously humid day, and Felix had convinced Chan to pick him up from work – not a difficult task to begin with. Felix was beginning to think that he needed to have a serious talk with Chan about not putting Felix’s needs above his own. Chan always assures him that his schedule is as flexible as he allows it to be, which is only halfway comforting. 

Not wanting to move more than he has to when it’s hot like this, Felix has taken over Chan’s couch (and lap), sprawling across the whole thing, absentmindedly playing Breath of the Wild on his Nintendo Switch while talking. 

Chan’s face stayed relaxed as Felix explained the entire situation, but something shifted when Felix got to the part about the girls at the studio, manifesting in the form of the muscle that always flexes in Chan’s jaw when he’s clenching it. Felix clicks the power button and drops his Switch on his stomach, crossing his arms over his chest and pouting up at Chan from his vantage point in his lap.

“Okay, what’s the problem, Chris,” Felix pokes at him, and Chan looks down at him in surprise. “You're doing the man jaw-clench.”

“I-” Chris looks like he’s going to deny it, but then he sighs, giving in. “It’s just… more people I’ve been with making appearances in your life.”

Felix frowns, taken aback. He sits up, but stays leaning against Chan, not letting him get away from him that easily. 

“That’s what’s bothering you? Channie, I thought it was funny! Maybe a little hot, even.”

Chan looks surprised, his lips parting a little in surprise and eyebrows furrowing. This seems to happen every other week, like Felix is constantly dodging and weaving through Chan’s negative expectations. Felix has gotten used to it, the way that Chan will occasionally just stare at him, like he’s discovered a cure for cancer rather than tell Chan that he doesn’t mind that he’s slept with a whole dance crew’s worth of people that Felix happens to know.

“You found it hot?”

Felix just smiles up at Chan, lifting one of his shoulders in a half shrug.

“People have been speculating about us, it’s the same thrill as before. Feels kind of good to be so… claimed, y’know?”

Before he can even process it, Chan’s lips are on Felix’s. It’s not as if they don’t ever kiss outside of sex, but when it happens Felix always reacts the same way: he melts. Chan’s lips are gentle but captivating, pulling Felix in like the tide. He finds himself fully in Chan’s lap, arms thrown around his neck, one hand carded through Chan’s hair and the other grasping at his shoulder. 

Chan slips his tongue into Felix’s mouth and he moans softly. 

Felix blinks and Chan is laying him with his back resting on the arm of the couch, not something they’ve done yet, scooting lower and looking up at Felix with a question in his eyes, hands reaching for Felix’s shorts. Felix nods madly, wanting nothing more. The arousal has hit him as forcefully as it has quickly. He’s desperate for it already. 

Chan’s thumbs slip under his waistband and he tugs Felix’s shorts and underwear down in one movement, discarding them somewhere over his shoulder that he’ll have to rescue them from later. Felix’s chest rises and falls with quick breaths as he watches Chan take his half-hard cock into his hand, stroking over it gently. Felix looks so small like this and it does things to his head – he’ll have to unpack that later.

“Chris,” Felix breathes when Chan leans down to press soft kisses to his stomach and the crease of skin where his thigh meets his hip. The piercing in his lip is cold and adds an extra little shock with each kiss that makes Felix’s legs kick slightly. “Fuck-”

Chan looks up at him and Felix feels stricken. He’s gorgeous like this, and it’s not just because he’s touching Felix’s dick. The dying sun’s light is streaming golden through the huge windows and Chan is bathed in it, his piercings shining and eyes sparkling. The honey-gold colour of his skin, the dark, rich brown of his curls, it’s all Felix’s right now. Lucky, his brain screams, you are so lucky, Lee Felix.

“Lix,” Chan calls him back to the present, “I want to suck you off.”

“Please,” Felix whispers, and Chan smiles, his pretty dimples shining through.

“Okay, starboy.”

 Chan’s mouth is on Felix in an instant, taking in his rapidly hardening cock like it’s nothing. The ease of it never fails to make Felix impatient and flustered, and it’s no different this time, he can feel his cock twitch. The wet warmth of Chan’s mouth is heavenly, and Felix can’t help the way that his hand falls to Chan’s nape, insistent but not demanding. 

Through the blurry veil of his lashes, Felix can see that Chan’s eyes are trained on him, intense as he bobs his head, making Felix squirm and moan. Chan’s tongue runs along the underside of his cock, dragging his piercing over it as he goes. The feeling is unreal, still, and Felix whines when Chan swallows around him, taking him all the way down again. 

“Fuck, ’s good Channie,” Felix praises, running both his hands through Chan’s hair. “Feels fucking amazing, you do this so well.”

Chan hums and Felix gasps, his whole body tensing.

“Oh fuck, I’m gonna come soon,” Felix whimpers, not caring how pathetic he sounds or how soon it is. He moans, one hand finally fisting in Chan’s hair and his other coming up to cover his mouth. “Chan-”

His voice sounds feverish to his own ears when Chan takes him completely into his mouth, sucking properly. Felix throws his head back with a cry so strained and high that it’s nearly a scream, the weight of his orgasm crashing down on him as he pumps cum into Chan’s mouth. He lifts his head, his hands shaking as he cards his fingers through Chan’s hair, watching as Chan pulls off his softening cock, grinning. He’s swallowed.

“C’mere,” Felix pouts, pleased when Chan practically scrambles up his body to kiss him. He tastes like Felix’s cum, yet it’s not off-putting in the slightest – Felix feels a sense of validation, like he’s claimed Chan just as much as Chan has claimed him.

“Do you know how beautiful you look right now,” Chan murmurs against Felix’s lips, the words nearly lost as he refuses to break away to speak them. “Pleasure looks so good on you, angel.”

Felix’s system buzzes with warmth that he can’t put a name to and he smiles against Chan’s lips in lieu of responding. His focus is on edging his tongue into Chan’s mouth and reaching for Chan’s pants, blindly unbuttoning and unzipping the black jeans that Chan should not be comfortable wearing in this heat. 

“Do you know,” Felix starts when he has Chan’s cock in his hand, hard and steadily leaking, “How beautiful you are when you’re making me feel good like that?”

Chan moans loudly into Felix’s mouth and Felix takes it as a sign to begin to stroke his cock, the precum making the glide smooth. His grip is firm and tight, just like he knows Chan likes it, and he sets a fast pace immediately, smiling when Chan’s breath hitches and he whines. 

“Baby,” the nickname slips from Felix’s mouth, sweet and soft. Chan makes a sound that’s a little broken and Felix breathes it in, still smiling. “You did good for me Chris, you always make me feel so good, like I’m yours.”

“Fuck,” Chan whispers, crashing his lips into Felix’s in a messy counterfeit of a kiss, “Fuck, fuck, fuck-”

“Close?”

Chan nods, panting. Felix’s free hand cups his jaw.

“I want you to come for me, Channie, on me. I’m right here, I’m yours,” Felix murmurs, hoping that it’s as effective on Chan as it is on him. It drives Felix insane. “Come for me, Chris.”

“Mine,” is the last thing Chan manages, rough and low in his throat before he reaches his peak with a gravelly moan. Hot cum spills over Felix’s fingers, drips onto Felix’s stomach and shirt. Looks like he’ll need to borrow one of Chan’s. Chan’s lips capture Felix’s as he strokes Chan through his orgasm slowly.

“Yours,” Felix says softly, the word half lost in their kiss.

Around this time is when anxiety begins to gnaw at Felix, the feeling of something being off. Chan isn’t being weird, but he’s different, as if he’s trying to tell Felix something without saying the words. At first he thinks it might be something as simple as Chan wanting something, at least the first few times it happens. He’ll get this sad little kicked-puppy look on his face when he’s looking at Felix. Like Felix is missing something.

It makes him nervous. Doesn’t Chan know Felix would do anything he asked of him?

Felix asks as much one day, completely on a whim. He and Chan went out to dinner together and are on their way back to Felix and Minho’s flat, as is usual. The weirdness is there, lingering between them. Felix felt all the looks Chan had sent him during dinner. He's stolen plenty of his own, as well.

“Channie,” Felix begins, nervous. “You know you’re my favourite person, like – ever, yeah?”

Chan doesn’t take his gaze off the road, nor does he move his hands from the wheel and gearshift. A smile does pull across his lips, though, sweet and genuine.

“Lix,” is all Chan says, fond. His dimples are out in full force.

“Mean it,” Felix says, deadly serious. “You know I’d do anything for you, right?”

This time, Chan does throw a glance over to Felix, mild confusion mixing in with another emotion, cloudy. 

“Felix,” Chan says this time, matching the weight of his tone. “You don’t-”

“Anything, Chris,” Felix says, and he’s fully turned in his seat now, looking directly at Chan as he drives. “I feel like I’m missing something. I’d do anything to make you happy.”

Chan presses his lips together before he catches his labret between his teeth, a nervous habit. He swallows before glancing at Felix again. His nose ring catches the light. Chan seems to have to tear his eyes off Felix to return them to the road.

“Then, stay.”

Felix blinks.

“Stay?”

Chan nods, taking a slow, deep breath through his nose, lips pursed.

“Stay with me tonight.”

Felix is nodding before he even thinks about it.

“Of course, Chris. I’d love that, I don’t know why we haven’t yet, honestly,” he rambles, a giddy feeling rising in his chest. “I would have invited myself to sleep over if I’d known you wanted it, silly.”

Chan just chuckles, and Felix is relieved to watch the worry drain from his features. It’s without another word that Chan flicks on the turn signal, changing directions to bring them back to Gangnam rather than Mapo-gu.

bbokki ♥:  hyung, i’m gonna spend the night at chan’s

bbokki ♥:  don’t set the city on fire

[20.17]

catbutler:  Thank you, Bbok-ah.

catbutler:  Use protection. ☺️

[20.19]

bbokki ♥:   sigh 

[20.20]

bbokki ♥:   good night hyung <3

[20.24]

catbutler:  I love you, Felix.

[20.34]

bbokki ♥:  love ya :]

[20.35]

Chan’s apartment is beyond familiar at this point in time, but Felix feels nervous as he crosses over the threshold, realising this really is the only time he’s ever come ‘home’ to it. To sleep here. It’s a simultaneously comfortable and strange thought.

“Felix,” Chan’s voice is right behind him, and arms wrap around his waist, pulling Felix against Chan’s chest. “Thank you.”

Felix doesn’t answer, leaning back against Chan heavily. There’s a tenderness in Chan’s voice that feels big, bigger than any of this. Bigger than Felix staying. Felix lets it go.

“Of course, Chan,” Felix says, turning around in his arms to look at him. Chan’s hair is messy, his beanie freshly tugged off. Felix runs his fingers through it, smiling when Chan’s eyes flutter shut in content. “I want to be here. I’m not just… doing you a favour.”

Chan’s eyes open. 

“I know,” Chan’s voice is soft. “Thank you for saying it, though, angel.”

The look in Chan’s eyes is tender, his mouth quirked up into a little smile that makes Felix reach for him. They meet in a kiss that’s gentler than anything Felix has ever felt from Chan. His hold on Felix, the way one hand rests on Felix’s hip and the other cradles his head, is possessive. Chan is gentle, though, so soft with Felix that it hurts a little.

“Chan,” Felix says between kisses, “Take me to bed, please?”

“’Course, starlight,” Chan murmurs against his lips before he pulls back, smiling. 

Hand in Chan’s, Felix lets himself be led to the bedroom, as they’ve done so many times before. The anxiety ebbs greatly once they enter the room, the familiarity taking over. Felix squeaks when Chan turns around and picks him up from a hold under his thighs, carrying him toward the bed. 

Felix is deposited on the foot of the bed and he immediately strips himself of his shirt, throwing it behind Chan. The look on Chan’s face is hungry as his eyes sweep Felix’s form. 

“Pretty,” Chan mutters, before he’s stripping himself of his hoodie and shirt in one go and pouncing on Felix, laying him down to kiss him breathless into the bed. 

Felix is restless, feeling hot all over as he’s kissed and his lips are parted for Chan’s tongue to swipe at his own. He feels the energy build up inside of him and squeezes at Chan’s arms, whining. 

“Chan, Channie, please,” Felix breathes, the words flooding from his brain with no filter. “I need you, please touch me- I need- anything, please-”

His pleas are answered by Chan cursing under his breath and stripping himself and Felix of their pants with a startling efficiency. Chan’s face is a mask of focus and his curls fall in front of his eyes. Felix reaches out for him, his fingers making context with Chan’s hair as Chan presses his own fingers at Felix’s hole, already slicked up for him. 

“God,” Chan says, awed, and he’s able to sink two fingers into Felix immediately. “Baby.”

Felix is mortified and impossibly even more turned on by the feeling. He and Chan already messed around today, Chan had him on his lap for a good two hours with his fingers inside of Felix’s hole just toying with him and fucking his fingers into him as he pleased. The memory alone is incredible, Felix had been in heaven the entire time Chan had kept him there, brought to the edge and coaxed down countless times. What’s even more insanity-inducing is the way that Chan adds a third finger with still no resistance.

Felix covers his face with his hands, moaning helplessly.

“Perfect,” Chan whispers.

“Shut up,” Felix whimpers, his voice high and thin. “Shut up.”

“I don’t think I will,” Chan teases him, and he drags his lips along Felix’s neck before biting gently at his skin. “Love how you’re already able to take my fingers like it’s nothing. So perfect and open for me, Lix.”

Felix can’t speak, just whining behind his hands. Chan’s fingers feel good and right inside of him, even just still as they are. 

“Let me see you,” Chan prompts, and Felix hesitantly takes his hands from his face, now embarrassed by his own embarrassment. “There you go, baby.”

Despite the way he whines and mumbles something about Chan being mean, Felix feels warmth pool in his stomach as Chan begins to move his fingers, gently pressing at his walls, stretching him despite the lack of need for it.

“Nothing to be embarrassed about, starlight. It’s just me. And it’s driving me insane,” Chan says, voice low. “Feel how perfect you are, Lix? You’re already prepared to take my cock, just like that.”

Felix’s breath catches in his throat. Chan turns his wrist so the pads of his fingers stroke over his prostate, too delicately. 

“Then fuck me, please, Chris” Felix demands, unable to stop himself. He feels lightheaded. “I want you in me properly.”

“Oh, baby, okay” Chan concedes, pulling his fingers out. He presses a kiss to Felix’s shoulder before he sits back on his knees, smiling as he leans toward the nightstand, presumably to grab a condom. “I guess I will, you’re asking so nicely-”

“Wait-”

Chan freezes.

“Don’t,” Felix whispers, watching as Chan’s eyes slide over to meet his gaze. “Don’t, I wanna feel you.”

“Fuck, okay, Lix,” Chan says, eyes wide. “You sure?”

“Yes,” is Felix’s empathetic answer, “I want your cum in me.”

Chan doesn’t need to be told twice. He settles between Felix’s legs, draping Felix’s thighs over his own. They both moan, the sounds mixing together as Chan lines the head of his cock up with Felix’s hole. Felix’s hands claw at the comforter beneath him as Chan begins to push his hips forward.

He sinks in embarrassingly easily – smooth and fast. Maybe it’s wishful thinking, and maybe Felix just knows that it’s different this time, a placebo effect. But Felix could swear that the feeling of Chan’s cock inside him is different, more intimate and more filling this time, without a condom. They’re connected now, with no barriers, and it makes Felix’s head feel foggy.

“Fuck me,” Felix whispers, and Chan doesn’t deny him it for a moment longer.

Chan dips down and kisses him with a deep intensity. His hips move with an instantly quick and deep pace, sating Felix’s need. Chan kisses Felix over and over, fucking into him desperately. That’s what this feeling is, it’s desperation, on both of their sides, like either of them might disappear. Felix feels like he’s on fire as he takes Chan’s cock over and over again.

“Love seeing you like this,” Chan says, and it comes out like a growl, deep and rough. Felix feels tears prick at his eyes and he takes a stuttering breath, letting it out as a whine. “You take it so well for me.”

Chan is fucking him deep and rough, a juxtaposition to the way he’s been with him all night, to the way his eyes hold Felix’s with a fondness that doesn’t belong here, doesn’t belong in this context. 

“Chris,” Felix gasps, not even sure why he’s calling for him. He feels the tears finally fall and begin to stream down his face. “Chris-”

“Felix,” Chan answers, groaning. “Fuck, I’m so close, Lix.”

The strokes of each thrust get harder with Chan’s words, reducing Felix to a whimpering mess of tears and gasps. His nails dig into Chan’s biceps as he scrambles for stability, leaving scratches in their wake. Chan has found an angle that forces the head of his cock against Felix’s prostate on each downstroke, and Felix feels himself careening towards his orgasm just as fast. 

“Fuck- I love you” Chan groans as his orgasm hits him, making Felix cry out as cum begins to fill him, pumping him full. “God, I love you, Felix.”

Felix’s eyes roll back and his back arches off the bed as he cums untouched, the emotions and sensations hitting him like a brick wall. 

Chapter Text

 The first time that Chan lays eyes on Felix, he’s not sure that the other man is even real.

He doesn’t look real. Blue hair pulled into a messy ponytail, the colour glowing neon-bright against the bursts of strobe lights in the dark, eyes flashing and body moving like he was made to dance. That baby blue, poor excuse of a top he wears, the damn sweater paws that accompany it per the practically see-through open knit sweater he has over it. The pearly skin that lies beneath it, begging for Chan to bite it. 

This man looks like a being from another world – crafted from starlight. 

And, okay, maybe Chan’s teenage crush on Ramona Flowers was messing with his head, and maybe he’s already had a couple to drink by the time he notices him, but something about that moment feels and stays holy in his mind. Chan’s already made his way halfway across the dance floor, now, thinking about trying to introduce himself, trying to think of anything he could say to get the guy to look at him.

And right then, of course, is when the angel in front of him trips.

Chan hisses and surges forward, grateful he’s close enough to reach out and catch the man by his shoulders, catching the terrified look on his face in the moment he’s falling before he’s intercepted. The laugh that bubbles from Chan is a little relieved, but mostly at the way the man blinks at him, looking utterly lost.

“Woah,” Chan laughs, “Steady. I’ve got you, angel.”

He’s prettier up close than he looked across the club. Chan tilts his head as he takes in his features, unable to help the smile that’s painting itself across his lips, slowly. 

Pretty doesn’t cut it. He’s more than beautiful. Full lips with a sharp cupid’s bow, a button nose, full and sweet cheeks offset by a strikingly defined jawline. Blue hair falls into pitch-dark eyes that have been accented carefully with sparkling gems in the corners and smokey shadow on the lids. The man’s eyes dart across Chan’s face, like he’s trying to read this mind.

“Did I break you, starlight?” The nickname slips off Chan’s tongue like it’s meant to be there, natural as anything.

The man tries to apologise in English, letting slip a familiar accent. Chan’s lips part in surprise. He gets a similar response when he replies, wholeheartedly agreeing with the gasp that escapes the man. He’s had yet to meet anyone else from Australia during the five, going on six, years that he’s lived in Seoul. 

“It’s my luck someone so pretty fell into my arms, anyway,” Chan says waving off the apology, and he means it. 

“I- Felix.”

God, he’s cute.

“Er, my name’s Felix.”

This is the first time that Chan feels it. The nagging tug of fear. Because when Felix introduces himself, Chan just swallows and forces a smile, like his chest isn’t heavy with feeling. Alarm bells, danger, lust. He wants Felix.

“Chan,” he says, “Or Chris, if you’d rather.”

Chan doesn’t begrudge what comes next. He doesn’t begrudge Minho for the way he looks at him, protective and hard, over Felix’s shoulder. In a way, he welcomes it, grateful for the swift reminder of who he is, what he does. 

He also doesn’t blame Minho for the text that he shoots him later, after Chan has already left the club and is back home, showered and changed and ready to sleep. 

catbutler:  Chan.

catbutler:  Don’t even think about it.

[03.44]

cb97:  Wow

[03.47]

catbutler:   Deadly serious. 

catbutler:   Good night, Christopher.

[03.49]

cb97:  I wont seek him out

cb97:  But

cb97:  Im not gonna promise anything if

he seeks me out

[03.55]

catbutler:  Fuck off, Christopher.

[04.09]

And Chan does intend to keep his word – seeing Felix again is a complete accident. It’s not that he doesn’t want to see Felix, he’d love to see Felix… in a variety of ways. 

Chan could sleep with Felix anyway and handle an angry Minho if it weren’t for the clear reason that Minho is so angry. Felix seems… good, simply put. Maybe not innocent, but undeniably good. Chan’s touch, his attention. It could taint that. They both know it. Anyone with eyes would. If Chan had known that Felix was staying with Minho, he probably would have actively avoided the apartment, would have asked Jisung to meet him outside.

But he doesn’t know Felix is staying with Minho, so he waltzes in the next day to pick Jisung up like he normally does – using the spare key Jisung talked Minho into lending him for exactly these types of occasions.

Seeing Felix, small and tired and swallowed up in a ratty t-shirt and basketball shorts, messy blue hair tugged into a lazy half ponytail, should ruin the illusion. It should make Chan realise there’s nothing magical about Felix, he’s just another fleeting attraction passing through Chan’s life.

It doesn’t.

Instead, cruelly, it humanises him. Felix’s tired blinks, the way he has to focus hard before jumping up onto the counter, his laughs and smiles and teasing quips. They crash into Chan, devastating blows to his resolve not to pursue Felix, promises be damned. 

When he escapes with Jisung in tow, he has to take a few deep breaths before he can fire up the ignition, shaking his head. 

“You good, Hyung?”

Jisung is staring at Chan, seemingly starting to wake up a bit more now that he’s been forced out of the comfort of Minho’s apartment.

“Yeah, yeah,” Chan assures, turning the key in the ignition. “I’m fine.”

And he’s completely. Fine. Chan is fine through the whole day at the studio, fine when he goes to sleep that night alone, and fine when the next few times he visits NB2, there’s no sign of Felix, Minho, Jisung or their other friends. 

The day finally comes when Felix is there at the same time he is – Chan can spot him almost immediately. He’s cut his hair but it’s still a vibrant blue, and it falls in his eyes as he dances, like before. 

“Hi, starlight,” Chan can’t resist saying once the magnetic pull has brought him to Felix, and Felix melts, putty in his hands. “You’re easy to recognize. Blue hair, and all.”

Felix leans his head back on Chan’s shoulder. Chan catches a hint of his scent, sweet and spicy.

“Chris.”

Chan can pretend he feels like himself again, now. Felix is enticing, and holding him like this feels like Chan doesn’t need to fight every cell in his body to stay away from him. He can let himself want Felix in the most carnal sense rather than something more complicated. He knows how to do that. Lust is easy. 

Then Felix turns around and it crashes down on him.

Felix had listened to him. A buzzing cuts through the cacophony of voices and music bouncing around in Chan’s head. Alarm bells, danger , lust.

“Good boy,” slips from Chan’s tongue, and he tries not to cringe once he registers what he’s said. “You followed instructions.”

“Huh?”

Felix’s face is open, confused. His brows pinch together and his lips part as he blinks back at Chan. Chan grins. 

“Freckles.”

Felix’s hand is soft and small, so small, in Chan’s hand as he leads them down a darkened corridor that he knows well. He tugs Felix into the bathroom, locking the door behind them one moment and cornering Felix the next. This feels normal. This feels like what Chan is used to – the rush of adrenaline and the way Felix gasps when Chan steps him back against the tiled wall, effectively pinning him in place.

“Chan-”

“Wait,” Chan interrupts. He’s doing this right, he can’t afford to let this one get any weirder. “I need you to know. I don’t… do relationships. There’ve been plenty of people before you and there’ll be more after.”

Chan feels like maybe he has control. The walls, the ones he’s used to, begin to rise in his mind. Best case scenario, Felix won’t mind and they’ll fuck, Chan will get over the weirdness lingering in his head. Worst case, Felix gets upset and they have to go through that awkward moment of Chan unlocking the door for Felix and letting him walk away like nothing happened. Chan doesn’t like the way the possibility of that makes his chest hurt. 

“Okay.”

Felix’s tone is flat but teasing, his lips quirked up into a shadow of a smile, like he finds everything Chan is saying to be mildly amusing. It makes Chan frown.

“You don’t mind?”

Felix chooses to answer by pulling Chan so close that Chan could count his freckles if he wanted to, humming.

“Don’t mind the no-strings,” Felix says, his eyes slipping closed when Chan wraps his arms around him on instinct. “Might have to talk you into making me a regular habit for a while, though.”

“That could be arranged,” Chan says, not a moment of hesitation taken. His world shifts as words tumble out of his mouth, faster than his brain can keep up. Felix opens his eyes and oh, when did Chan step this close to him? 

“You seem like you could be pretty persuasive, if you wanted to be.”

The laugh that bubbles from Felix is intoxicating, sweet and clear but low. He’s the sun, personified, when he smiles like this, not the same as the angel Chan met on the dance floor. The horrifying part is that Chan thinks might like this better.

“I really like you,” Felix says, and Chan feels panic beginning to claw at his throat. He can’t do this. He can’t taint Felix this way. It must show on his face, because Felix snorts, grinning, and Chan’s shoulders sag in relief. “Not like that, Channie,” the nickname rolls off his tongue so seamlessly that Chan almost doesn’t notice, “I wanna be friends. For real. Can we?”

Chan is – simply put – fucking stunned, because Felix has managed to rock his entire universe twice in two sentences. 

Felix wants to be friends. Friends who have fucked each other? Friends who will continue to fuck each other? Chan needs more clarification. He needs to understand what Felix wants like a fish needs water. Felix stresses him out.

Felix brightens, a huge smile drawing itself across his face, and Chan realises he’s agreed.

“Okay?”

Everything clicks back into place. Chan smiles, and it’s genuine. Felix has to have magic powers or something. It’s not natural how easily he just settled Chan’s worries. No one should have this much control over his emotions.

“Sure, just don’t fall in love with me, ‘kay?”

Felix rolls his eyes, and Chan’s smile grows.

“I can do that,” Felix pauses, tilting his head. Chan’s heart skips a beat as desire runs rampant through his system. “Will you kiss me now?”

“I normally wouldn’t, y’know. I’m picky about that stuff,” Chan murmurs, but his eyes betray his brain, flicking down to Felix’s lips. He wants them on his own. Felix’s teeth press into his lower lip and Chan caves, weak. “I can’t seem to say no to you, though, angel.”

And he can’t. He won’t.

Kissing Felix is easy, soft. Chan is helpless to it as he falls into the trap that is Felix, kissing him with more care than he thought he had in him. Felix lets Chan guide him, following his slow, sensual lead and taking little breaths between kisses that are meant to be inconspicuous but come out as little gasps that Chan swallows down hungrily, holding Felix gently in place as he kisses him.

Felix sighs and pulls Chan closer, biting at his lip and piercing gently, and Chan moans, shocked as he does. He’s not vocal, not like this. Felix makes him weak, turns him inside out with kisses and touches and the excited look in his eyes when he pulls back, rambling about the feeling of Chan’s piercings. 

Felix makes Chan weak, and sure, Chan might have a few pounds and a bit of gym time on Felix, but he is weaker than Felix will ever be. 

Chan is weak when Felix moans, loud and clear, the sound echoing in the little room when he tugs Felix’s hair experimentally.

“Like that?”

Felix rolls his eyes, and Chan feels warmth flare up in his chest. 

“Words.”

“Yes, I-” Felix cuts his own words off with a little whimper when Chan tugs at his hair again, teasing and experimenting, “-love it. Like when it hurts a little.”

Chan is weak when, a misunderstanding and a car ride later, he has Felix on his knees, looking up at him with this look of worship and lust. It’s out of his body that Chan watches Felix move one of Chan’s hands to the back of his head, imploring. 

A hiss escapes Chan when Felix finally gets what he wants, cursing and wrapping his hand around Chan’s length when he’s scrambled to free himself from the confines of his pants. Felix’s eyes sear into Chan’s as he takes his cock into his mouth and sinks down, swallowing around him. His mouth is hot and wet, his throat tight when the head of Chan’s cock presses against it.

“Use me,” Felix purrs, once he’s pulled off to drag his tongue down Chan’s cock. Chan is moaning as he pushes his cock into Felix’s mouth before he registers what he’s doing. Felix doesn’t gag, relaxing and gazing up at Chan through his eyelashes. 

“God, you’re being so good,” Chan says, the words punched out of him like he’s had the wind knocked from his lungs. 

Chan is weak , pained, when he lifts Felix from his place on the floor, gathering him close in his arms to kiss him, tasting the proof of his pleasure on Felix’s tongue.

“You taste like cum,” Chan mumbles, not complaining, between kisses. His tongue is Felix’s mouth too quickly to be complaining.

“’S yours,” Felix pouts, and Chan is comprehensively defeated, giving in. 

Felix goes willingly when Chan picks him up, sits pretty when Chan undresses him, spreads his legs for Chan when he prompts it. He takes Chan’s fingers like it’s second-nature, eyes wide and mouth open in low, pretty moans and sharp gasps. Chan can’t help the way he draws it out, can’t help the murmurs of praise and desire that escape him. He watches, eyes trailing up and down Felix’s body, as he pumps two fingers in and out of Felix’s hole, his gaze catching on the flushed tip of Felix’s pretty dick, on the way his hole sucks Chan’s fingers in.

“Good boy,” he says, a third finger slipping into Felix like it’s nothing. Felix makes a sound that makes Chan’s cock twitch in interest, high and sweet. It’s second nature when Chan spits into his palm and wraps his hand around Felix’s cock, drawing another noise out of him that sounds like it’s stolen directly from a wet dream. “You’re taking my fingers so well, baby. Can’t wait to fuck you.”

“Fuck- you’re awful,” Felix moans, his eyebrows turning up like he’s in pain but smiling as he laughs through his words. “That’s such a shitty line- ah-”

Chan just continues fingering him and stroking him, enjoying the way Felix whimpers when he toys with his prostate and thumbs at the weeping slit of his cock. 

“Mmh, it’s true though, you feel fucking amazing around my fingers. I can’t wait to be inside you.”

As if on cue, Felix clenches around his fingers, muttering something under his breath that evolves into another moan. Chan smirks as he continues, the feeling of control comforting and grounding. Someone pretty falling to pieces under him is something he’s comfortable with. He’s been here so many times before.

“You’re being so good for me,” Chan says, and Felix doesn’t react verbally, his breathing growing ragged and eyes unfocusing. The comfort of the situation slips a little as Felix turns his head to the side, whining, and Chan is hit with the thought that Felix looks gorgeous like this, that pleasure looks incredible on him.

That he desperately wants to keep seeing Felix’s face like this, flushed and blissed out.

“I think I’m gonna have to keep you for a while…” Chan trails off, shaking his head. Felix seems just as affected, begging him to stop so he won’t come early, stars in his eyes and squirming. 

Chan keeps Felix in place, doesn’t let him turn over like the younger man is clearly expecting to. He has to see Felix’s face, has to watch him take his cock. 

“I like watching you,” he confesses, and Felix’s face softens as he relaxes back against the bed.

“Please,” Felix says, and Chan is already reaching for the condom he’d left on the comforter next to the lube, tearing it open and rolling it on. Chan has to take a breath as Felix speaks again, trying to focus on stroking lube over his cock. “Put your cock in me, Channie, please, need it…”

“Since you asked so nicely…” Chan mumbles to himself, pressing his cock to Felix’s entrance. Felix makes a broken little sound.

Chan clenches his jaw tightly as he begins to slide his cock into Felix, trying to control the pace at which he does. He wants Felix to feel good, as good as he feels. His eyes fall closed, the blissed-out look on Felix’s face branding itself on the inside of his eyelids. He maintains control, despite how perfect Felix feels around him, tight and hot and soft. The sound he lets out when his hips meet Felix’s ass is guttural and strained, layered over Felix’s satisfied-sounding moan at the feeling.

The sight that greets Chan when his eyes flutter back open is Felix, looking like he might be in pain, pressing his lips together and possibly holding his breath. 

“Feel okay?”

Chan feels an uncharacteristic need to hold and soothe Felix, halfway between worried and unbelievably desperate as his gaze darts over Felix’s face. He feels it when his cock twitches inside of Felix, sees and hears how Felix jolts and moans, nodding quickly.

“God, you’re so pretty,” Chan whispers, losing track of what he’s trying to do. He blinks. “Use your words, though, hmm?”

Felix begins to reassure him, but he falters, his voice breaking. 

“I’m okay, I promise, just- I- I cry, sometimes, when it’s good, fuck- ’m sorry-”

Felix’s voice is high and pathetic as he begins to cry, and it’s doing something to Chan that he’s never felt before. It’s not as if he’s never encountered someone who cries in bed before. Chan has slept with plenty of criers. It’s just… he’s never enjoyed it like this before. Knowing that he’s making Felix feel so good, watching his tears begin to fall down his pretty cheeks. 

“Hey, shh, don’t apologise, starlight,” Chan murmurs, gently. Felix sobs and it makes him tighten, the feeling painfully pleasurable around Chan’s cock. “Fuck, of course that’s okay. You look so good like this, angel. You feel so good around me, shit. How do you feel?”

“Good. Full.”

Felix’s sounds when Chan does finally begin to fuck into him haunt Chan for a week afterwards. Sharp gasps, sobs, moans and whimpers. Felix lets himself be fucked, lets Chan fuck into him, taking it so well that Chan catches himself fleetingly thinking that he was made for this, made to take Chan’s cock in this exact moment of time. The tears rolling down his face add to everything Chan is feeling, driving him insane. 

It’s possessive and urgent when Chan fits his hands to Felix’s hips, pulling Felix toward him for leverage. Chan’s brain screams for more, to take Felix, and he obeys its command, fucking Felix hard and deep, words tumbling from his mouth that he barely knew he had in him. When Felix comes for him, Pulling Chan right over the edge with him, it’s to a promise of ‘next time’ that Chan realises he most definitely means.

The car ride back to Minho and Felix’s apartment is quiet, but it’s not uncomfortable. Felix is staring out the window, the streetlights washing gently over his features as Chan drives. Chan keeps his eyes on the road as much as he has to, but his gaze slips over to Felix again and again, entranced. 

Felix’s eyes are on his this time as he steals a glance, a knowing smile crawling across the younger man’s face. Chan’s lips quirk up in answer and he fixes his eyes back on the road, satisfied. 

“Can I help you?” Felix asks in English – the lazy, accented drawl of his voice making Chan’s smile widen, though he keeps his eyes on the road. 

“Maybe,” Chan answers, matching Felix’s playful tone. “Depends on if you’re free on Sunday.”

“You’ll have to ask my secretary,” Felix says without skipping a beat, and Chan just has to send him a look for that. 

Felix, comfortable and curled up with his knees under his chin, absolutely violating safety regulations for being in a moving vehicle, makes it hard for him to tear his eyes away. Felix beams at him and Chan snorts, finding it in him to turn his head back.

The actual answer remains mildly ambiguous until Chan slows to a roll before throwing the clutch into neutral and engaging the parking brake. He shifts in his seat, turning to Felix. Goodbyes can so often be awkward, in Chan’s experience, but this seems less like a goodbye – he knows he’s seeing Felix again. 

“Just let me know when-”

Chan is silenced with a kiss that’s admittedly uncomfortably tender – or what should be uncomfortable rather than heart-stopping – for the situation. His hand settles on the back of Felix’s neck, cradling his head and pulling him closer as Felix opens his mouth into the kiss, enticing Chan into tracing his teeth with his tongue, the ball of his piercing clicking softly against them. Felix’s eyes are heavily lidded and his smile is a little dazed when he pulls away, grabbing Chan’s phone off its mount and typing his number into his contacts quickly. 

That’s an affirmative, then.

It feels odd, for the first month. 

Chan and Felix. It tastes strange on Chan’s tongue when he tries it out, aloud, to himself late at night when he, customarily, finds himself unable to sleep. Chris and Felix. Even weirder. He wonders what they look like to a random passerby. Friends?

Friends probably don’t look at each other the way he knows he looks at Felix. Felix will catch him sometimes, tells him to stop making puppy eyes at him. Maybe if he was different, Chan would just tell Felix what he’s thinking when he looks at him like that. Tell him that his nose is too cute. Tell him that his lips are too kissable. Tell him that this isn’t working out the way he had planned. That he doesn’t think they can ever just be friends. Friends probably also don’t stay up at night thinking about each other's lips, staring at the ceiling, Chan’s brain very helpfully supplies.

No, Chan can accept that it would be categorically false to describe him and Felix as friends. Felix is his best friend. He thinks he’s probably Felix’s too. But it feels wrong, sacrilege to leave it at that. Thinking of Felix’s friends, his real friends, being similar in any way to his and Felix’s relationship makes something ugly and possessive crawl up Chan’s throat. 

He rolls over with a huff, snatching a pillow from the empty side of the bed and placing it over his head. 

It takes time, but Chan is able to settle into it. He gets comfortable. Felix is easy to enjoy, easy to spend time with, easy to talk to. He works his way into Chan’s routine, becomes a constant. Felix makes Chan care, and he ventures to tell him that much. 

Chan’s life becomes Felix, sunny and bright, talking his head off about a game he’s playing while Chan listens and inputs small ‘ah’s and ‘hmm’s. It becomes Felix, hanging over his shoulders as he works on music at home even though he’s meant to be off the clock, and Felix, bringing him water and food when he forgets to take care of himself. Felix, waiting on the street corner for Chan to come pick him up. Sometimes, it’s during the day, and Felix will light up and wave to him as the Jeep approaches, smiling brilliantly, standing out from the passers-by and dull grey buildings. 

Other times, like tonight, Chan rounds the street corner and is graced with the sight of Felix looking like he’s just rolled out of bed, oversized hoodie that’s probably Chan’s and shorts hidden beneath it, and Chan is greeted the moment the door opens with a hungry kiss and a ‘take me home’.

“Oh, Channie-” Felix gasps, his pretty, dark eyes sparkling as he watches Chan’s face over his own shoulder. Chan’s grip on Felix’s waist tightens and he leans down to lock their lips, bracing himself on a forearm. 

The kiss is messy and heated, mostly tongue and teeth and gentle moans as Chan fucks Felix, hips meeting Felix’s ass in thrusts that jostle them both. Felix’s thighs are spread in an obscene way, his stomach resting on a pillow his cock is rubbed against with each thrust. The position arches his back in a lewd way, twisted to kiss Chan – one hand propping him up, fingers tangled in the comforter, and the other chastely on Chan’s cheek.

Felix trails his touch down to Chan’s shoulder, soft. He’s always so soft, in every way that he can be. Soft skin and soft sighs, gentle eyes. Felix might just be made to be soft, Chan catches himself thinking. His presence is something delicate and honey-sweet in Chan’s eyes. Felix is soft to Chan, too, kind and slow in his movements, caring. 

Chan trails his lips down to nip at Felix’s jaw, moaning into his skin. Felix’s arm gives out and he whines as he falls forward. He says something muffled into the comforter, then turns his head to groan.

"Mark me," he breathes and Chan's hips stutter. "I want marks."

"Yeah?" Chan feels light-headed. "You sure?"

"Yes," Felix says empathetically, "You promised me hand marks and bruises and then you never followed through."

Chan keeps fucking him, but his hips slow from thrusts to deep grinds. 

"That's pretty mean of me, huh?"

Felix makes a sad little sound that says everything he needs it to.

"Shall I make it up to you, starlight?"

"Please!"

In what feels like seconds’ worth of time, Chan has bitten and sucked countless dark marks into the divot of Felix’s collarbone, the hollow of his throat. He’s careless, barely giving each enough thought to make sure they won’t be glaringly obvious. The feeling is addictive, as are the sounds Felix is making, pitchy and breathless cries with each spike of pain. Chan feels Felix bruise beneath his tongue, tastes the faint hint of iron as marks of red bloom on Felix’s skin. It takes one of Felix’s hands reaching back to gently tug at Chan’s waist for him to realize he’s stopped fucking Felix altogether, too entranced. 

Chan leaves one last kiss pressed to the mark he’d tucked under Felix’s jaw, next to the pretty beauty mark he’s got there, before he straightens, drawing his hips back and beginning to fuck into Felix with abandon. Felix’s hand falls from his body, falling limp on the bed as his body is jarred with every thrust.

Chan’s hands settle one on Felix’s waist and the other pressed into Felix’s back, between his shoulder blades. Felix muffles a squeak into the comforter, reaching to claw at the pillows when Chan moves the hand on his waist to smack Felix’s ass, the sound of his palm meeting skin sharp and distinct. 

“Like that, angel?” Chan pants, moaning when Felix begins to roll his hips backward, best he can in the position, to meet his thrusts. 

“Yes!” 

“Fuck, baby.”

The sound of skin on skin and the unchaste mixture of their voices fills the room. Chan gazes at Felix under him, at the way Felix is pinned down and held by his own hands, marks visible even from this angle, wrapping around his collarbones and neck. His gaze rakes down Felix’s body to where they’re connected as he sits back, thrusting into Felix with more leverage, now. Felix lets out a moan so drawn out and loud that it’s debauched as Chan brings his hand back down in a sharp smack to Felix’s ass, leaving another pink handprint in its wake.

“Oh- Chan- !” Felix’s cry is so high and desperate, a veritable scream, and Chan realises Felix has reached his climax as his hole spasms around Chan’s cock. 

The feeling coupled with the knowledge that Felix came completely untouched the second Chan’s hand came in contact with his ass pushes Chan over the edge too, and he moans brokenly, snapping his hips into Felix to fill the condom, breaths shaky and voice helpless even to his own ears.

This is the first time they explore it, Chan's fixation with marking Felix and Felix's equally weighty obsession with being marked. It certainly isn't the last time, either.

“I like keeping you like this,” Chan confesses at some point, his lips brushing against Felix’s leaking cock and Felix’s thighs on either side of his head, littered with bites and bruises. “You look so pretty, all marked up.”

Felix just groans and threads his fingers through Chan’s hair as Chan follows up by sinking his mouth down on his cock, not giving him the chance to respond. The feeling is mutual though, if the way Felix begs him for bites from then on, whenever his current ones start fading, says anything.

It doesn’t just go one way, either – Felix is at least as crazy about giving marks as he is receiving them. Chan definitely knows his preference is to give, but he can’t find himself too dissatisfied with lapfuls of Felix, biting and sucking at his throat and whispering soft compliments into Chan’s skin, hands wandering to caress his arms.

It’s beginning to feel like an obsession, the way they act around each other, the way Chan feels about Felix and sees reflected in Felix’s eyes. It doesn’t matter right now, though.

Chan has Felix under him, pliant and soft and perfect. Soft moans and whimpers are buried into the pillow Felix’s face is pressed into. Chan draws them out skillfully, like a musician might pull music from an instrument. Chan’s mattress creaks minutely as Felix pushes back against his fingers, needy and impatient, and Chan’s head fills with cotton. He’s beginning to feel like Felix might need him, as much as he needs Felix to breathe. 

Chan is convinced that nothing will feel like Felix does, ever again. 

If he were more stuck in his ways, Chan could mourn the loss, could feel like he’s losing something by being tied to anyone the way he feels tied to Felix. Instead, the idea of this man, this angel, being the one who’s entrapped him – it makes Chan smile. Chan presses his fingers downward and he drags them completely out of Felix this time before he presses them back in. Felix’s entire body spasms. He sounds like he might be crying already. 

Chan just watches his fingers slide in and out of Felix, transfixed. 

“Fuck, look at you,” Chan says under his breath, awed. His mouth moves faster than his brain, “You know you’ve ruined everyone else for me, right?”

And he has. Felix moans, sweet and low and desperate, squirming and pushing back against Chan. Nothing compares to this. 

“Really?” Felix sounds so far gone, and he turns his head to the side to speak. Chan can see tear-stained cheeks and spit-slicked lips, from this angle. “Mmh- how so?”

Chan doesn’t answer yet, busy stroking over Felix’s prostate and drawing pretty sounds out of him as he does. He shifts forward, pressing his chest against Felix’s back, needing contact and closeness. 

“Haven’t even thought of trying any of my old digits since you,” Chan says, his lips brushing against Felix’s ear. A shiver runs down Felix’s spine, adorable as it is hot. “The only thing that makes me feel anything is the idea of fucking you. I’m selfish, Felix. I want you all to myself.”

Felix doesn’t respond, just sobbing.

““You like that, starlight? Like being mine?”

Chan doesn’t know what’s come over him, why he’s being so bold about this, why he’s got the courage to ask now. 

“Please,” Felix whispers, and it’s a snap back to attention for Chan. “Please, Chan.”

He fucks Felix, then. Not before, of course, marking him up so badly that Felix whines and moans, taunts Chan with his too-earnest words.

“‘M never- ah-,” Felix pants, sounding desperate. “I’m never gonna be able, hhnh, to hide any of this, Chris-”

“That’s too bad, huh?”

Felix moans more loudly than he has the whole time, and Chan’s pride swells. “Everyone’s g’na know you have me. I feel… Claimed.”

“Fuck, starlight,” Chan breathes, letting his gaze wander down the trail of marks that he’s left over Felix’s body.  “You look claimed.”

“Am I? Claimed?”

“Yeah. I think you might just be claimed, angel.”

Chan strokes Felix’s cock in time with his thrusts, making Felix throw his head back and whimper helplessly.

“Couldn’t be more clear that you’re mine. Nobody else would even try to fucking touch you,” Chan grits out, his pace accelerating. Felix clenches, making Chan moan, “Fuck, you got tight at that, Lix.”

“Like it a lot, Channie-”

“Whose are you?”

“Yours!” Felix sobs, taking Chan completely by surprise as he comes hard, cock spilling over Chan’s fist.

It’s beautiful, Felix is beautiful, and Chan feels like he truly has Felix. There’s a fear that follows, though, and though it doesn’t paralyse him, it hurts. Chan will find himself hesitating to do what Felix does so easily, struggling with himself when the urge to reach out and kiss Felix hits him or when he wants to wrap his arm around Felix’s waist in public. He manages through it, but the guilt will gnaw from time to time, like he’s somehow tainting their relationship.

That fear comes to a head when he introduces Felix to Changbin. Chan has been resisting it, putting it off, but it comes inescapable with how much time Felix and Chan have been spending together. When he suggests it to Felix sheepishly, asks if he wants to come see where he works, Felix lights up in a way Chan hadn’t expected, elated.

“Obviously,” Felix says when Chan asks him if he’s sure, rolling his eyes like Chan has asked a silly question. With a faux pout, Felix fusses, “I want to see where my favourite person spends more time than he does with me.”

Chan had rolled his eyes, internally thrilling at Felix’s response. 

The past three hours have flown by quickly, Chan going through and opening every single file on Cubase that caught Felix’s eye for him. He’s about to click on one of his favourites, a demo he made of a song he’d originally written for a newer soloist at the company that had unfairly gotten the chop, entitled simply ‘Connected’. The handle of the door to his studio clicks as it’s turned, then, and a head pokes around the corner of the door when it’s cracked open.

“Chan, do you have t- Oh!”

Changbin opens the door wider and steps through, taking in the scene before him with raised eyebrows and widened eyes. It’s definitely not something he’s walked into, with Chan, before. Chan has always been something of a self-admitted workaholic. The sight of him relaxing, hand behind his head with a curled-up Felix halfway on his lap on the couch in the back corner of his studio rather than in one of the office chairs, headphones on and buried in his laptop is sure to be jarring.

“Hey, Bin,” Chan says, smiling and caught between feeling oddly smug and feeling embarrassed. “What’s up?”

Felix looks back over to Changbin when he speaks, following their conversation like a spectator of a riveting match of tennis. 

“I could ask you the same, dude,” Changbin says with a snort, closing the door behind him. He looks to Felix, balancing the closed laptop in his hand on his hip like a newborn baby, addressing him properly. “We haven’t met, right? I’m Changbin.”

“This is Felix,” Chan says, letting his hand down from behind his head to wrap it around Felix’s frame, squeezing his shoulder. 

“It’s nice to meet you, Changbin-ssi,” Felix says, bowing his head in a polite gesture but not getting up. His hand stays on Chan’s shoulder and the leg he has thrown over one of Chan’s does, too. 

“Come sit,” Chan prompts, nodding at one of the two office chairs at the wide desk, the one Changbin has practically claimed as his own, when Jisung isn’t here. Chan watches fondly as Changbin smiles and crosses the room, falling heavily into the seat with a grunt. “What are you hoping I have time for?”

“I just have this beat I’m working on, it sounds a little clunky, and not in a good way,” Changbin sighs, puffing his lips out in a frustrated pout. He sets his laptop on Chan’s desk to gesture as he speaks. “I can’t tell if it’s just because I’ve been listening to it for too long or if I’m in need of serious help.”

“Well, we can give it a listen and I’ll tell you what I think. Sound okay?”

“But-” Changbin glances between Chan and Felix, frowning slightly. “I really didn’t mean to interrupt you two, I just thought you’d be alone.”

“I don’t mind,” Felix chimes in sunnily, smiling wide. Chan can actually see Changbin’s resolve softening and beginning to crumble as Felix goes on. He understands that feeling. “I could step out if you’re worried about me listening. I understand, art is difficult to share if you don’t know someone.”

Changbin just stares at Felix, and then his gaze slowly shifts to Chan, incredulous.

“Where the fuck did you find him? And where can I get one?”

Felix giggles and shakes his head, pressing a little closer to Chan. The possessive side of Chan that had been screaming for vengeance against Changbin quiets itself, and Chan smiles, glancing down at the top of Felix’s head. 

“I’ve got a cute friend,” Felix supplies helpfully, and Chan snorts. “His name is Hyunjin and you’re kind of exactly his type.”

“Oh, so you’re taken, then?”

It’s a joke, Changbin smiles as he says it, but it’s a stab to Chan’s heart.

“More or less,” Felix says, and Changbin’s eyebrows raise. 

Chan cringes at the utterly unimpressed look that Changbin sends him when Felix looks away. He doesn’t want to dissect that right now.

Changbin decides to stay and show Chan his beat. They work on it together, hunched over their computers as they toss ideas back and forth, and it’s normal, save for Felix’s presence. He lays, sprawled out on his stomach, kicking his feet, scrolling through social media like he’s always belonged there.

“Channie,” Felix says at some point, “I’ll be back, I need to use the bathroom.”

“Remember where it was?”

Felix grins and nods, stretching as he gets up from his chair. 

“Yep, I listen to my Chris.”

Chan rolls his eyes fondly.

“Okay, Lixie,” he says gently, letting his eyes trail after Felix as he leaves, until the door clicks shut behind him. 

There’s a beat of silence where he’s staring at the closed door before he turns back to his computer, staring at the project on his screen.

“Chan,” Changbin prods. His voice is gentle, like he’s talking to a wounded animal. Chan doesn’t, can't, look up from his computer screen, just nodding to show he’s listening. “Chan, what’s going on?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Changbin swivels his chair to face Chan, meaning business. Closing his laptop, Chan sighs, giving up. He mirrors the motion, turning in Changbin’s direction.

“Now I know that’s not true,” Changbin says, an eyebrow raised. “So tell me, before I start digging.”

“Digging, huh?”

“Yes, digging. I have contacts.”

Changbin looks so deadly serious that Chan can’t help but snort.

“Bribing Jisung to go through my phone doesn’t count as having contacts, Binnie.”

Changbin rolls his eyes and mutters something that Chan should probably be glad he can’t hear any of, other than a ‘fucking dumbass’ thrown in toward the end.

“Talk.”

Chan sighs.

“I met him a couple months ago at NB2,” Chan explains, letting his eyes fall shut as he pinches the bridge of his nose. “I-”

He breaks off, looking at Changbin with what’s probably a pretty pained expression on his face. Chanbin’s face twists in worry and he leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees and chin on his fists. 

“It was just supposed to be a one-time hookup,” Chan pauses, watching Changbin nod in understanding. “I didn’t think he’d be so…”

He gestures weakly, indistinctly. How does one describe Lee Felix?

“You got attached,” Changbin supplies, and Chan nods, though it feels like a terrible understatement. “And, now what?”

“Things keep changing,” Chan says, so low it’s almost a whisper. “But they stay the same, too.”

Changbin squints at him, brow furrowed.

“What stays the same?”

“Everything. We see each other almost every day, we hang out like friends. Usually, the switch flips at some point, and- we-” Chan sighs. “You get it.”

The look on Changbin’s face is undeniably pitying, and Chan accepts it.

“What changes?” Changbin asks, and Chan knows he knows.

“The way-” Chan chokes on his words, swallows. “The way I feel about it. Him. The way I feel about him.”

“Oh, Chan.”

“This is gonna break me,” Chan whispers. 

Changbin’s expression is locked in a frown, a hand now over his mouth thoughtfully. 

“I love you, Chan. You’re one of the most selfless and genuine people I know,” Changbin says, and Chan feels his throat tighten. He doesn’t want to cry, he can’t. Not when Felix will be back any minute, not now. “And that selflessness… it comes with a horrifying lack of self-interest. It’s hard to watch.”

Chan says nothing, his labret caught between his teeth. He can’t look at Changbin anymore, he turns his head.

“I need you to be selfish, Chan.”

It burns. That word, it’s too much. There are very few things that make Bang Chan insecure anymore, but the guilt of feeling selfish, the fear of being greedy, is one of them. And ever since starting this amorphous, unnamed thing with Felix, he’s been more and more terrified of being greedy, taking too much. He’s never had someone the way that he has Felix. Changbin’s hit the nail on the head.

“Stop. I can’t, Bin,” Chan mumbles. “I can’t. I’m already too-”

“You need to,” Changbin interrupts, with an air of finality that makes Chan meet his eyes. The fire in his eyes is startling, he looks more passionate than Chan’s seen him in quite a while. “I’m watching it wreck you Chan, you need to do something. Nothing about the way you’ve been acting made sense before, but I’m seeing it now.”

“I’m f-”

“No, Chan, you’ve got three options now,” Changbin says, rather matter-of-factly. “First option: stop this. All of it. If you and he can’t be friends without getting involved, and you can’t get involved without getting hurt, you can’t keep doing this.”

“No,” Chris says, scowling his disapproval, and it’s final. He needs Felix. He needs Felix like he needs air. 

“Second option,” Changbin continues, moving on quickly like he’d already expected Chan’s answer. “You tell Felix that you’re starting to feel differently and see how he feels about it.”

Chan’s frown deepens.

“That sounds like a bad idea,” Chan mutters, ignoring the way Changbin throws his hands up and falls back into his chair moodily. “Felix… seems happy. I’m happy, I just- I don’t know how to- y’know?”

“I don’t know,” Changbin says, cocking his head. “I’m not sure you know.”

“Shut up,” Chan snaps unkindly, and then regrets it, burying his head in his hands and groaning. “Sorry.”

“’S’fine Channie,” Changbin waves him off, unbothered. “Think you should finish that sentence, though. Even if it’s just… to yourself.”

“I don’t know what I feel, yet,” Chan says, and he’s being honest. “I just know I don’t mind the emotions. That’s new, for me. I also don’t mind the sex-”

“Okay, third option,” Changbin interrupts, sending Chan a mildly disgusted look, as if he’d shared something horrifyingly graphic. Chan squints at him. "You take a deep breath and settle in."

Chan blinks.

"What?"

"I'm saying there's nothing wrong with what you're doing." Changbin looks at Chan pointedly. "You're not hurting him, you two are both having fun. So, enjoy it.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“It could be,” Changbin suggests, and Chan can’t really fight him there. It could be. “While you figure everything out, just let it be. Grow. Take care of yourself. Have Felix. Hell, you already have him – act like it. Be selfish.”

Something ignites in Chan’s chest. The word – selfish – doesn't feel like a slap in the face this time. It feels human. Doable. Maybe, justified. It feels as if maybe, because it’s Felix, because he’s Chan and Chan is Felix’s, he’s allowed to want this. Whatever it is that this is. Chan still can't put a word to it. He still feels heavy, reeling from the conversation, but Chan nods.

“Maybe,” Chan says quietly, and Changbin leaves it alone, leaning over and clapping Chan on the shoulder with a gentle smile. He knows Changbin sees through him, hears how that ‘maybe’ is a ‘please’ in disguise.

They’re just barely opening their laptops again, Chan’s just barely blinking back a few unshed tears, when the door swings open and Felix steps in, lighting up when he sees Chan’s eyes meet his. 

"This place is huge," Felix huffs, shutting the door behind him carefully. "I managed to get lost on the way back."

"I thought you listened to your Chris," Changbin says, wry and grinning, and Felix giggles. 

Chan can't help the way he snatches Felix up before he can return to the sofa at the back of the room, depositing him in his lap. Felix squeaks but doesn't try to escape, instead snuggling back against his chest with a small 'hi'. If Changbin looks askance at them a few times, Chan ignores him, lap and mind full of Felix. He rubs his nose against the nape of Felix’s neck, satisfied to breathe him in. Bergamot orange, the dusty spice of lavender, vanilla. Felix.

He’s glad he brought Felix in, today.

Settling in is more difficult than Chan would like. There’s still a piece of Chan that holds on to the blind terror that he’s doing something wrong by wanting and having Felix. 

He’s not sure if Felix knows how much he’s helping him to do that. Every smile he sends him, every time he talks to him, comfortable and loose with Chan, the praise and gentle power Felix hands him willingly and enthusiastically, helps.

“Lix,” Chan murmurs, heart in his throat, “I want to suck you off.”

“Please,” Felix whispers, giving himself over. 

“Okay, starboy.”

When Felix moans loud and high, nearly screams, as he comes, Chan’s mouth on him and hands on the back of Chan’s head, is when everything starts to fall to pieces.

“Baby,” Felix murmurs, and Chan whines, feeling the word punch him in the gut with emotion. He wonders if Felix will ever understand the effect that he has on him. “You did good for me Chris, you always make me feel so good, like I’m yours.”

Chan wants nothing more than to scream, then. It comes crashing in on him as his orgasm impends on him, as Felix strokes his cock, perfectly, the way he needs it. He wants Felix. He wants Felix in a way that is painful, it hurts. It stings in his chest. Chan loves Felix, he loves him so much that it hurts. 

“Fuck,” Chan whispers, and he pushes forward, “Fuck, fuck, fuck-”

“Close?”

Chan nods, panting. Felix cups his jaw, and Chan leans into it, feeling safe.

“I want you to come for me, Channie, on me. I’m right here, I’m yours,” Felix says, low and deep. Chan’s heart stutters in his chest. “Come for me, Chris.”

“Mine,” Chan growls, low, and rough. He spills into Felix’s fist, pushing forward into a messy, tender kiss. Felix moans, mumbles something Chan can’t hear. He’s shaking, and it’s not just because Felix is stroking him through his orgasm, slow and gentle. 

Chan loves Felix. Not the kind of love that he can write off, the type anyone can use for anyone and anything they feel fond of. Chan is in love with Felix, plain and simple.

The setting sun is in Chan’s eyes as he drives and he pointedly tries to ignore it, keeping his eyes on the dotted line.

“Channie,” Felix says, and his voice sounds small. “You know you’re my favourite person, like – ever, yeah?”

Fear spikes in Chan’s chest. He keeps his eyes on the road. The smile that graces his lips is genuine, though, a product of Felix being Felix.

“Lix.”

“Mean it,” Felix says, and he sounds serious. “You know I’d do anything for you, right?”

Oh, God. Chan glances at Felix. The look on the younger man’s face hurts – sweet and yearning and pained, like he’s struggling to understand. 

“Felix,” Chan starts, his tongue feels heavy in his mouth. “You don’t-”

You don’t know how much I love you. You don’t know how much I want from you.

“Anything, Chris,” Felix says, and Chan can feel his gaze on him. “I feel like I’m missing something. I’d do anything to make you happy.”

Chan chews at his lip, then swallows hard. The glance he throws at Felix is dangerous, it’s hard to not just turn and stare at him.

“Then, stay.”

A beat.

“Stay?”

Chan nods, taking a breath that he hopes doesn’t sound as shaky as it is.

“Stay with me tonight.”

“Of course, Chris. I’d love that, I don’t know why we haven’t yet, honestly,” Felix responds immediately, animated as ever. His eyes sparkle as he talks, and Chan feels something hot and stinging crawl up into his throat, burning his chest as it goes. “I would have invited myself to sleep over if I’d known you wanted it, silly.”

Felix doesn’t get it. Chan feels almost relieved, letting the tension seep from his body. 

It’s more than tonight. It’s more than yesterday’s short outing, or Monday, when Chan thought about asking Felix to stay after Felix had ridden him, pink-cheeked and soft-voiced.  Felix doesn’t get it, and maybe it’s better than he doesn’t. A smile tugs at Chan’s lips. 

He has to let go tonight. 

The rest of the drive to his apartment is quiet and somewhat content. Felix is doing something on his phone, likely texting his cousin. Chan doesn’t worry about it, not paying much attention. His focus is stubbornly on the road. Turn signal. Mirror check. Stay in the lines.

As he pulls into his spot at his apartment, Chan is hit with a sick feeling of deja vu. It feels like ages ago that he brought Felix here the first time. But, it’s only been a summer – three months and change – that they’ve known each other. 

The door closes behind Chan and he fumbles to lock it. He kicks off his shoes and throws his beanie from his head before turning and staggering toward Felix like a man deprived. 

“Felix,” Chan can’t keep the desperation out of his voice, the edge of need. He pulls Felix into his arms from behind, burying his face in the crook of his neck. “Thank you.”

Felix stays quiet, but his body sags in Chan’s hold. For a horrible second before he speaks, Chan thinks Felix has figured it out, has deciphered that the softness in Chan’s voice is something bigger than any of this. Then Felix turns around in his arms, running his hands through Chan’s hair and giving him one of those horribly Felix looks, sweet and doe-eyed. 

“Of course, Chan.”

Chan lets his eyes fall closed. He lets the gentle comfort of Felix’s hands on him take over and soothe the burn in his chest. 

“I want to be here. I’m not just… doing you a favour.”

The skip of Chan’s heart makes a rush of something hopeful course through Chan’s veins as he opens his eyes, feeling his face relax into a soft smile for Felix.

“I know,” Chan’s voice is soft, he hears the yearning dripping from it. “Thank you for saying it, though, angel.”

Felix moves toward him, like he’s been pulled, and Chan beats him there. The kiss they meet in tastes like gentle desperation and affection. Felix sighs into Chan’s mouth as he wraps his arms around his smaller frame, holding Felix like he’ll break. 

“Chan,” Felix presses to his lips, “Take me to bed, please?”

“’Course, starlight,” Chan says, and the smile that finds its way onto his lips as he pulls Felix along is genuine, brought on by the nickname. 

Felix is ready, throwing off his shirt the moment Chan sets him down on the bed, like he’s dying to get to what they both want. Chan wants to resist, to savour this, but he can’t stand to when he sees the look in Felix’s eye after he strips himself of his own shirt and hoodie, lets himself give in and kiss Felix breathless into the mattress, hungry.

“Chan, Channie, please,” Felix breathes, high and delicate, far too quickly and Chan’s head swims with need. “I need you, please touch me- I need- anything, please-”

“Fuck, Lix,” Chan mutters, making immediate, short work of both of their pants and snatching the lube up from the nightstand, sitting there from earlier activities, drizzling a fair amount over two fingers. The image of Felix from this afternoon, whimpering and pleading with Chan in his lap as Chan lazily thrusted his fingers in and out of Felix, jumps to the forefront of his mind. He wonders, pressing two fingers to Felix’s hole as Felix’s hand booths tangle in his hair, desperate. 

“God,” Chan says, reverent as he watches his fingers sink into Felix’s hole seamlessly, no preparation needed. “Baby.”

The third finger slips in like nothing, and Felix snatches his hands back from Chan to cover his face as he moans, wanton.

“Perfect,” Chan whispers, and he means it. Felix is beautiful, flushed red down to his chest and hole clenching around Chan’s fingers at his praise.

“Shut up,” Felix whimpers, “Shut up.”

“I don’t think I will,” Chan murmurs against Felix’s neck, lips brushing against his skin as he speaks. He bites down gently on Felix’s pulse, right over a mark that’s already been left. “Love how you’re already able to take my fingers like it’s nothing. So perfect and open for me, Lix.”

No response comes, and Felix keeps his hands glued to his face, much to Chan’s displeasure. He won’t move his fingers until Felix moves his.

. 

“Let me see you,” Chan prompts, and Felix slowly removes his hands from his face. His cheeks are red and eyes are glossy, and his lips move in what’s probably a complaint about Chan’s request. He’s beautiful. Chan smiles and begins to move his fingers, slowly stretching at Felix’s hole despite the utter lack of necessity for it. “There you go, baby.”

Felix whines.

“Nothing to be embarrassed about, starlight. It’s just me. And it’s driving me insane,” Chan murmurs, feeling Felix react around his fingers. “Feel how perfect you are, Lix? You’re already prepared to take my cock, just like that.”

“Then fuck me, please, Chris” Felix orders, and Chan’s resolve to go slow, to savour any of this, melts away. “I want you in me properly.”

Anything, Chan thinks, anything, as Felix begs Chan to forgo the condom, to fill him with his cum. They're both nearly silent as Chan slides his cock into Felix, easier than it’s ever gone before. The feeling is more incredible than Chan could ever expect  – there shouldn’t be a difference, he’s not stupid enough to think that wearing a condom makes much of a difference at all. But there’s the air of intimacy, the fact that he can truly feel how warm and wet Felix is around him, that makes it feel more intense than anything they’ve ever done before. Felix is the first to break the awed silence, making a high sound at the back of his throat before whispering,

“Fuck me.”

And Chan does. 

Lips on Felix’s, Chan fucks into him at a nearly animalistic pace, taking what he can from this, taking what he can from Felix. He wants everything tonight, more than he’s ever wanted anything in his life. Felix takes it like he’s made to, all moans and desperate gasps. Chan fucks into Felix over and over, possessiveness and affection making his thrusts sloppy and rough. Felix seems to be enjoying it plenty, though, if the absolutely debauched look on his face means anything.

“Love seeing you like this,” Chan growls, meaning it. Felix looks divine like this, in pleasure, and Chan would give anything to keep it this way, to keep him feeling this good for as long as he possibly can. “You take it so well for me.”

“Chris,” Felix cries out, gasping, tears beginning to stream down his cheeks. “Chris-”

“Felix,” is all Chan can respond, “Fuck, I’m close, Lix.”

“Fuck-” Chan’s orgasm crashes into him, harder than any he’s ever had in his life. “I love you.”

Felix cries out, shaking, as Chan begins to cum inside of him, the sensation intense for them both. His hole tightens around Chan, making him groan and slow his pace.

“God, I love you, Felix.”

Reality hits hard, dizzying.

Horror washes over Chan and he watches, out of his body, as his hips slam home one final time, pumping cum deep in Felix. He watches, eyes wide and mouth hanging open in shock as Felix throws his head back and comes, hard and violent, without a second more of stimulation.

Any other time, Chan would let himself bask in Felix’s beauty, watching him come down from his high. The way his eyes flutter after a moment and his chest heaves with heavy breaths, his lips slick with spit, just taunts Chan this time. Look at him, his brain ridicules, look at what you’ve lost.  

Chan is crumbling before he even knows what’s happening. Chan watches in slow motion as Felix’s eyes fly wide open and his arms shoot out to grab at him, pulling him down on top of Felix. He feels Felix’s hands on his back, gentle touches along his spine meant to soothe, and he registers that he’s sobbing, his body wracked with each tortured breath as tears begin to fall, wetting both his and Felix’s faces as he presses a messy kiss to Felix’s forehead.

“I’m sorry,” Chan gasps, between sobs, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry-”

“Chan, please,” Felix soothes, and Chan can see through the blur of his tears that his features are twisted into a terrified expression, his eyes wide and wet. 

It just makes him cry even harder as he cups Felix’s face, kissing over his cheeks and lips, pressing apologies to his skin. If Felix shoves him off, he’ll go easily, but he still holds Felix like he’s precious. Protective, even now.

“I’m sorry- I- I-” Chan’s words are catching on his breaths as he hyperventilates, the horror sinking deep into his bones. “I’m-”

“Chris, I need you to breathe, please.”

Chan finds himself able to take a big, albeit stuttering breath, letting it out as a half-sob. 

“Better,” Felix says, and Chan’s vision refocuses a bit. Felix’s expression is heartbreaking, worry and fear filling his eyes as they scan over Chan’s face. “Another, please?”

Complying, Chan tries to concoct something, anything to say. The air leaves his lungs as a more controlled breath this time, but he’s shaking, hands barely able to keep their hold on Felix.

“Chan, I need you to look at me,” Felix says, and Chan obediently drags his gaze up to meet his eyes. “Thank you. Can you tell me what’s happening in your head right now?”

“So much,” Chan whispers hoarsely. Guilt wracks his body again and he has to blink back more tears. “I’m so sorry.”

“What are you apologising for, Channie? Tell me so I can understand,” Felix implores, shifting to pull Chan closer. His hand comes up to cup one of Chan’s cheeks. The other rests on Chan’s bicep, stroking over his skin soothingly. “I’m not upset with you,” he tacks on, “at all.”

“I feel- like- it- it’s like-” Chan sighs, frustrated. His brain is moving faster than his mouth can. “I feel like I took advantage of you, Lix.”

The nickname spills from his mouth easily, too easy, and Chan cringes, his chest stinging.

“You, in no way, have taken advantage of me, Chan,” Felix says, fiercely, and Chan almost feels inclined to believe him for how sharp his words are. “I wanted all of this, and you haven't overstepped any boundaries.”

Chan can’t help the way he snorts, dismissive and disbelieving. It hits him that his cock is still inside Felix and his skin prickles, hot waves of anxiety flashing over him. 

“I didn’t overstep any boundaries- Felix,” he says desperately. “I- I knew that I…”

“Yes?” Felix presses, and it’s gentle. Too gentle. Chan crumbles.

“I knew that I loved you,” Chan spits out, his words pressing together into a mess. “I knew that I loved you, I wanted to tell you tonight, and I didn’t, and then- it just happened, I’m so sorry, Felix.”

Chan is crying again, new tears cutting tracks down his cheeks as his shoulders shake with the effort not to sob outwardly. 

“Oh, Channie,” Felix breathes, and he looks so pained that it breaks the dam. Chan sobs, his chest hurting horribly with each breath. In English this time, “Chris, baby, breathe please.”

“Can’t-”

“Yes, you can, you have to,” Felix says gently, his hands on Chan’s skin soothing and soft. Chan’s eyesight is blurry with tears, but he sees the way that Felix bites his lip and takes a breath. “Breathe, Chris.”

Chan can’t, his attempts stuttering and panicked, lost.

“Chris, baby, I need you to look at me,” Felix says, both his hands on Chan’s face, and Chan sees him – really sees him. His eyes are red-rimmed but clear of any anger or hurt, only worry clouds them. Felix smiles sadly as Chan finally takes a passably normal breath, letting it out slow and even. “I love you, too, stupid.”

Time stops.

“What?”

“I love you, Chris.”

Chan’s eyes are filling with tears again. He thinks Felix’s might be too, but he can’t see it past the blurriness and he lets it be, feeling Felix shift as he raises his head to press a kiss to Chan’s parted lips. 

“What?”

“I love you, Chris,” Felix says again, humouring him. He kisses Chan a second time. “Very much.”

“Sorry, what?”

A grin is tugging across Chan’s face as he blinks away the haziness in his sight, setting a few stray tears on their paths down his cheeks. Felix pulls him down into a proper kiss, and Chan goes, letting Felix tug him fully onto him, ignoring the way the angle of his cock shifts inside of Felix. The fear, the pain. The guilt. They burn off as Felix kisses Chan, kisses him like he wants him, like he wants him the way Chan wants Felix. This isn’t over, they’ll go over it hundreds of more times, making sure, being heard and hearing each other. But Felix just kisses Chan, for now.

And Chan kisses Felix back, loving him like he’s never loved anything in his life.

“-an. Channie.”

Chan blinks, shaking his head. Felix raises his eyebrows at him expectantly. It takes Chan a second, but then he jolts out of his head, finishing the motion he’s in the middle of. 

Felix makes grabby-hands at him, grinning, as Chan hands him his drink. It’s something fruity and sweet with a stupid, gimmicky name that Chan can’t remember and just doesn’t care to. Felix moans when he takes a sip, nodding as he sets it down on the table.

“Unreal.”

“Told you,” Seungmin says, grinning nonchalantly, “Ordering the ones with the most embarrassing names is worth it.”

“Is making your poor boyfriend order it for you part of the deal?”

Changbin is joking, light and laughing over his own words, but Chan’s heart skips a beat. Felix’s hand is around his bicep, tugging at him to sit next to him on the couch they’ve all crowded onto and around. There’s not enough room with Jisung and Minho taking over one side and Felix and Hyunjin sharing the other, but Chan doesn’t think twice about it. He pulls Felix into his arms as he sits, setting him into his lap. Felix doesn’t react, save for the private little sigh he lets out, leaning back against him.

“Yes,” Jeongin says, the misery in his voice reflected by his face, “Yes, it always is.”

Seungmin cackles and makes like he’s going to bite Jeongin’s hand. Jeongin huffs and snatches his hand away, turning a full 180 degrees away from him. Chuckles and other light talk smooth it over as Seungmin hooks his chin over Jeongin’s shoulder and the younger of the two melts. Chan smiles fondly. The two youngest of their friend group are always the most interesting to watch, what with their cat-and-mouse games and confusing romantic tension.

Chan can’t really talk, concerning the latter, though.

“Can confirm,” Felix says, once he’s leaned back toward the low table to steal another sip of his drink. “The Pink Pussycat definitely is more delicious knowing the suffering I put Channie through to get it.”

Chan’s pulse thrums with affection at the glance Felix sends him from the corner of his eye as he speaks, knowing. He knows how much little things like this matter to Chan, understands the big steps that even casual conversation like this are to him. Chan just snatches Felix back toward him by his waist, burying his face in Felix’s neck to press a grateful kiss to his skin.

“Why can’t you react like that when I bully you, huh?” Seungmin’s voice sounds, and the group bursts out laughing, followed by overlapping chatter that Chan doesn’t fully follow.

“Why would I-”

“Why can’t you like being bullied more-”

“Don’t look at me like that-”

“It was easy enough to train Jisung,” Minho says, and Chan loathes that this is the thread of conversation that he’s tuned into. “Whenever I bully him, he-”

“Hyung!”

Felix shuts that down quickly, yelling about how he doesn’t want to hear what his cousin gets up to in his free time, which Minho of course parries with an indignant shout that he put up with Chan marking his territory for months before Felix moved out. It’s no curiosity that they’re related, watching them go at it like this.

The statement puts the puzzle piece that is perspective into place for Chan. It’s been a long time, now. Felix’s blue hair is long gone, replaced by fluffy, long blonde locks that curl into natural waves that frame his face perfectly. Chan still remembers the day Felix had come home with it, the way he’d nearly jumped out of his skin when Felix rounded the corner, the way Felix had laughed at him when Chan had said he looked like Leila Hyams, awestruck. 

“Glad I didn’t show you before I got home,” Felix had said, grinning, once Chan put him down, lightheaded from the kisses. “You’d probably be waiting at the door like a lonely puppy.”

Home. It’s a full place, now. Chan’s apartment has been utterly commandeered, and he can’t be more grateful for it every time he sees the kitschy little knick-knacks filling the once-empty spaces on the shelves of his bookcase between the sparse works he had shelved, prior. He can’t help but smile when he almost trips over Felix’s shoes when he comes home from the studio, or when he finds Felix’s Nintendo Switch or headphones somewhere they probably shouldn’t be. 

“I love you,” Chan whispers against Felix’s neck as the entire group quietly observes Changbin drunkenly attempt to flirt with Hyunjin, who seems to be trying very hard to pretend it’s not happening despite the way his face is heating up. “Very much.”

Felix doesn’t respond, then, but he leans over to rest his head on top of Chan’s, and Chan feels loved, squeezing Felix tighter.

“I love you,” Chan moans, voice strained and desperate as he spills into Felix, riding out his orgasm in little rolls of his hips that make Felix sob and writhe, his body tensing as he follows Chan over the edge, his cock twitching and warmth pooling between their stomachs as Chan dips down to kiss him, soft and sweet. Felix still smells like himself, but he tastes like alcohol when their tongues meet, a reminder of their night prior to now. “My beautiful angel.”

“I love you more,” Felix breathes between kisses, gasping when Chan’s hips twitch in response. He scrambles for Chan’s hand, squeezing it tightly when he finds it. “I love you so very much.”

And Chan just swallows his familiar words up with another kiss, beholden.