Why Aren't You Scared of Me? (What Do You Know?

)
Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/21361594.

Rating: Explicit
Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Category: M/M
Fandom: | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Relationship: Jeon Jungkook/Kim Taehyung | V
Character: Jeon Jeongguk, Kim Taehyung
Additional Tags: Creepy Fluff, Porn With Plot, It's Not Paranoia If They're Really Out To
Get You
Series: Part 2 of The Ones Who Watch Us
Stats: Published: 2019-11-08 Words: 7796

Why Aren't You Scared of Me? (What Do You Know?)

by mindheist

Summary

There are much worse things to be scared of.

Notes

outtake of they can see us, from the night the demon first vanished. this won’t make a lot of
sense without reading it, but feel free to read this anyway! uhhh this is just a lot of sex and
accidental demon exhibitionism. lol

yep, the title is from bury a friend

content warning: demon imagery, spookiness, slight paranoia

See the end of the work for more notes

Taehyung’s not much of an exhibitionist. He talks big about a lot of kinks: sure, I’m into spanking
and flogging and shibari, and I’m like, a voyeur. I guess. Tentacles are cool, with several
conditions. Sure, I’d fuck the Fish Guy from The Shape of Water. Basic stuff.

He figures he’d be more of an exhibitionist if his usual audience isn’t a demon.

This space is cramped, air muddled of the remnants of fried chicken and ice cream floats, a
stomach turning combination if Taehyung were concentrating. He’s concentrating, just not on the
smell. Jeongguk’s hand burns an imprint where it rests on the nape of his neck, his skin hot as
coals. His mouth tastes like root-beer float. Taehyung is dizzy.

He kissed Jeongguk for the first time on the third date, which is already three dates more than it
usually takes for Taehyung to kiss anyone. Jeongguk had stood there, silent, face stricken, cheeks
rosy and winter-bitten in the snow. How late had it been? Neither of them can remember, even
when Taehyung retraces his footprints. He just remembers it had been mitten warm. Time was a
feeling, and it was the fading warmth of Jeongguk’s mouth on his lips.
The shadow had flickered where it pooled in an ashy cloud around Jeongguk’s neck. Taehyung had
nearly slipped and made a joke in horrible taste: what, demon got your tongue?

Well.

Jeongguk had kissed him back, but it had taken until the next date, after Jeongguk had slept on it,
dreamed about it, maybe practiced on his hand for it, before he really Kissed, capital K kissed,
Taehyung again. That time, it was in a dressing room. Taehyung still remembers the dust motes
clinging to the mirrors and the factory-sweet smell of new clothes. He’d been trying on something
silky and green and probably too low cut for his taste on purpose, opened the door to make some
bland complaint that he didn’t really mean—“I don’t know, does this make me look too boxy?”—
and when the attendant wasn’t looking, Jeongguk took the two strides between the wall and
Taehyung, crowded him back into the room, and swung the door shut.

Taehyung, by principle, does not get embarrassed, but he has not returned to that store since.

But this is the sixth, or the seventh date, Taehyung can’t remember, and Jeongguk kisses him in his
car, in his parking garage, sandwiched in on one side by a black SUV and on the other by a car
caked in dust. His hand slides from Taehyung’s neck up into his hair, cradling Taehyung’s head in
the span of his hand. He tilts Taehyung’s head and kisses him deeper. The sounds of their lips
meeting fill the muted silence in the car. Taehyung sinks in closer, console squeaking under the
weight of his elbow. He’d reached forward with his free hand, and it had been on Jeongguk’s
shoulder, but he slides it down to grasp at the soft material of Jeongguk’s sweater. Knit, or
something, he thinks hazily when he pulls back. Jeongguk has a lot of goddamn sweaters.

“Taehyung,” he says. His name floats between them, halfway a question, and Taehyung reaches
back up to push Jeongguk’s shoulder back towards his seat. Taehyung has not attempted this in a
while, and the last time he had, he’d been in a four-wheel drive. Seojoon had slid the seat back and
everything. There was music. It was like a studio-produced porno.

Jeongguk watches, bemused, hand sliding off Taehyung’s shoulder as he swings his legs over the
console. The charm that swings from Jeongguk’s rearview mirror—an acrylic charm of Tanjirou,
complete with magenta-anodized jingle bells—rings when Taehyung’s back quashes it against the
ceiling.

“Oh,” Jeongguk says intelligently when Taehyung finally seats himself in his lap, straddling him,
and Taehyung wheezes. He has too much leg and not enough flexibility for choreography like this.
“Oh, I—okay.”

“I’ve been thinking about this all day,” Taehyung says, wiggling his ass with ardent purpose into
Jeongguk’s thighs. Close to his crotch, but not quite. He drapes his arms around Jeongguk’s
shoulders, hands hanging from the back of the driver’s seat. The bars holding the headrest in place
are two sharp lines of metallic cold against his exposed wrists. “Since the morning. I’ve been dying
to do this since morning. Since before I saw you.”

“That’s a long time,” Jeongguk says. “Wait, even at the raccoon cafe?”

“Uh, especially at the raccoon cafe.” Taehyung squeezes Jeongguk’s waist a little tighter with his
knees, tries to ignore the dig of hard plastic of the seatbelt buckle into his leg. The bright red tab
blinks angrily up at him: sorry, am I in the way of your dick appointment? “I love a man who’s
good with animals. It’s my top kink.”

“Why?” Jeongguk laughs.

“Animals know people better than people know people,” Taehyung says, leaning in until he can
feel Jeongguk’s breath on his mouth. It trembles over his lips. “They liked you. So I like you. It
was cute.”

When leans in, Taehyung sees it in the backseat.

Faceless as ever, but darker than he usually has the pleasure of noticing, the demon that lives on
Jeongguk’s shoulder sits like a bad dream between the limp seatbealt straps, all the buckles
blinking red as eyes back at him. Smoke drifts from its body with the burn of flesh.

There is the sound of three ragged breaths in this car.

“What’s wrong?” Jeongguk asks, looking up the column of Taehyung’s neck. His eyes are wide,
tinged with mirth, like he’s in on some secret. Maybe a neighbor is walking by who’d gotten an
eyeful. “Someone there?”

No. No one’s there.

Taehyung shakes his head because he doesn’t trust his voice not to sound like a lie. Jeongguk
doesn’t know—not yet, not even about the demon hunting. Taehyung isn’t sure he’ll ever tell
Jeongguk about the demon on his back. He’ll just do it quietly, and then, when the day is right,
he’ll bring it up. Simple, with their plans for the day.

Or he could just let Jeongguk go after this date and not look back, because most of the time, he
can’t afford to. Not with anything. Deep down, Taehyung knows that’s not going to happen. Some
stupid, quiet, silly part of him knew from the moment Jeongguk turned to him with that oversized
scarf at the bus stop.

“Oh, good,” Jeongguk says now, “because your face, for a second I thou—”

His his words muffle in Taehyung’s mouth and Jeongguk doesn’t try to finish. Taehyung kisses
him and braids his fingers into Jeongguk’s hair, one still gripping the headrest bars, and rolls his
hips. Jeongguk chokes against his lips and gasps, ragged, and Taehyung leans away enough to
smile.

“You didn’t expect me to just sit here, did you?”

“I,” Jeongguk says, and that’s all he manages. Which is plenty for Taehyung—he presses their
foreheads together, grinds down harder, and luxuriates in the warm, wet breaths Jeongguk pants. At
one point, Taehyung presses down just hard enough that he can feel Jeongguk’s cock through four
layers—two denim, two cotton boxer, unless Jeongguk’s commando. He hopes fervently that
Jeongguk is commando, even though denim on bare dick sounds like medieval torture.

Are you watching? he wants to ask, petulant, as he ducks his face to bite at Jeongguk’s neck. The
shadow of the demon is so dark and full tonight that it blocks out all of the garage lights through
the back windshield. Looking into the backseat is looking into a yawning void.

Jeongguk’s breath hitches when Taehyung lays his teeth to his fluttering pulse at his jugular. Then
he draws the skin into his mouth and sucks. Jeongguk tastes like the salt of skin and the odd,
alcoholic tang of perfume. Jasmine, maybe. Watch this. Remember this. He’s mine. He lets the skin
out through a bite and presses his lips to Jeongguk’s Adam’s apple. Already, the skin he’d pulled
on is hickeying a bright wine red.

Smoke yawns in the backseat.

“Fuck,” Jeongguk shakes. “Christ, Taehyung.”

“Mm. I know a really pigmented brand of BB cream if you want it.”

“It’s winter,” Jeongguk says. It’s such a weirdly romantic way of saying that he doesn’t care,
scarves can cover it, and that he’s not thinking about, oh, having to take scarves off inside. He fits
his palm to Taehyung’s cheek and pulls him back up to kiss, this time with tongue. Not frantic,
nearly lazy, body coiled with the tension of being heated.

Taehyung grinds down harder now, redoubling his efforts post-hickey, and Jeongguk sputters and
grabs his hips.

“You gotta stop.”

“Do you want to?”

“God, no,” Jeongguk says.

“Okay.” Taehyung looks down into Jeongguk’s face. He’s finding it hard to concentrate with
Jeongguk’s palms over both his asscheeks, burning through his pants. His brains feel fermented.
“Okay, that’s fine.”

Before he can shrug and simply lean down to kiss Jeongguk again, Jeongguk blushes and pitches
his face forward into Taehyung’s shoulder. “It’s just,” his voice is muffled, “I’ll probably come in
my pants.”

Oh.

“And also I don’t want our first time to be in my piece of shit car.”

Oh, Jesus.

“Oh,” Taehyung says.

“Sorry, that’s so fucking—” Jeongguk mashes his faces harder into Taehyung’s shoulder, as if
trying to meld into his flesh. “That’s so lame. Fuck. I don’t even know if—we’re not even—sorry.
I’m sorry. Just ignore me. Yeah, we can fuck here if you want.”

Taehyung rests with his lips at Jeongguk’s temple, thumbing across the reddening mark on
Jeongguk’s skin.

“No, let’s go upstairs.”

“Really?”

The wonder and excitement in Jeongguk’s voice wrenches Taehyung’s heart. What’s not to believe,
golden boy? rises to the top of his throat. There are already demons in this world.

Taehyung glares into the backseat again, like it was the demon’s idea, and puts a mental post-it
flag on this: address Jeongguk’s disbelief that Taehyung likes him. Capital L likes, and capital L
probably loves. But they can talk about that later, among other things.

“Yes, really.” He kisses Jeongguk one more time before flicking the lock in Jeongguk’s driver side
door. “Let’s go. I’m getting a cramp in my thigh.”

The smoke oozes from the car as they leave, like fire with the consistency of slime. No one can see
it, the bits of demon floating in pieces towards the ceiling of the parking garage. It meets concrete
and spreads. Taehyung has to fight down a shiver, the tendrils of dark ooze licking up around his
arms, curious, risky, daring. Most demons never get this close to him.

The slam of the door echoes through the parking garage and Taehyung pushes Jeongguk up against
the side of his car, his spine curving with the bend of the windows, and he leans in close enough to
kiss. Jeongguk’s eyes have already fluttered shut, but Taehyung stops just short so he can speak.

“Do you live alone?”

“Yeah,” Jeongguk says.

You don’t.

“I love the sound of that. No roommates to worry about.”

“I should warn you that it’s the size of a matchbox, not some swanky officetel,” Jeongguk says. His
face has started to fall again. Taehyung makes a point of holding his cheeks again, dragging the
pad of his thumb along Jeongguk’s lower lip, pressing so he sees teeth.

“I can work with anything that resembles a horizontal surface,” he says.

The demon sits on the roof of Jeongguk’s car.

The metal groans under its weight.

Taehyung presses one last kiss to Jeongguk’s mouth, more warmth than touch, and runs his hand
down so he can slip his fingers into Jeongguk’s hand. “Let’s go.”

They don’t run, but walking feels charged. The asphalt is a bed of heated springs beneath them,
and Taehyung’s thoughts are separating from his body. He wants to run for the elevators. That’s
the thing—Kim Taehyung does not run to fuck anybody, but he would for Jeongguk. It’s stupid and
silly and kind of romantic, like running through the woods with sunlight coming through the trees,
if sunlight were fluorescent garage lights and trees were parked cars.

Jeongguk might suggest Naruto-running, so he shelves that idea.

Walking makes Taehyung’s skin tingle. His chest feels too tight. Jeongguk’s fingers miss his
passcode on his keypad twice before he says something to the effect of, “Fuck, what was it?”

“Seriously?”

“The lock broke last week. I was stuck in the hallway until I could wake the landlord.”

“How’d that go?”

“Not well,” Jeongguk says with a shiver when Taehyung leans in close behind him and kisses the
exposed skin at the back of Jeongguk’s neck. He’s worn a button-up, or something satiny, to all of
their dates, so the collar will droop at the base of his neck towards the evening, but he’s wearing a
hoodie tonight. Taehyung can see the hickey he left from earlier at this angle. His kiss is wet, open-
mouthed, and he presses the tip of his tongue to Jeongguk’s skin just long enough to know he feels
it—“fuck, Taehyung, wait”—and pulls away when the door finally clicks to open.

Generously speaking, Jeongguk’s apartment is humble. It’s bigger than a matchbox, not much
bigger than a mint tin, with a bed, a desk, and all his possessions crammed into a space that
Taehyung usually would call his closet. There’s a narrow slice of bathroom tucked into the wall,
and he briefly fantasizes about slamming the door in the demon’s face. Not that it’ll keep it out.
Just a little extra fuck you.

He toes his shoes off on the doormat the size of a napkin, and hangs his jacket up on the hooks on
the bathroom door. Sure, he’s here to have sex (maybe kiss—too much), but that doesn’t mean he’s
going to wear shoes into the apartment.

There are bits and pieces everywhere. Jeongguk’s schoolwork, his laptop, a tablet jammed into the
backpack hanging off the back of his chair. There’s an armful of Innisfree skincare sitting in an
open drawer, smelling of crisp orchid.

“I know it’s a nightmare, sorry, I really didn’t think—”

Jeongguk trails off when Taehyung puts his hand to his elbow. He keeps expecting this to be
desperate, and it is, in some ways. Every cell and fiber of his body reaches for Jeongguk, but he’s
not racing to comply. He doesn’t feel like he has to. The pull is gravitational, and he’s happy to be
caught in Jeongguk’s orbit.

“It’s cozy,” Taehyung says. He takes Jeongguk’s hands and, when Jeongguk feels stiff, tugs him
forward. Keeps tugging, starts backing up.

The shadow flickers on Jeongguk’s shoulders. The demon isn’t sitting on him, right now, but it’s
here.

“Cozy.”

“Mhm, it’s you. Do you just keep your entire IU album collection on display?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“It’s cozy, it’s you, it smells like you,” Taehyung says, back hitting the door. It’s distinctly flat and
cold against his back—glass? No, a mirror, hanging from the back of the door. “And I love it.
What do you use?”

“What do I use?”

“Yeah. Skincare. It smells nice, I want to look into it.”

“Oh, uhm,” and there, Jeongguk relaxes again, face falling into thought. Taehyung wanted to shake
him out loose. His expression is blank, not serious and angry, like Jimin’s can be. “It’s orchid, and
—”

Taehyung pulls him up to his chest and kisses him. Jeongguk doesn’t panic when he kisses, as if
his his body shifts into another gear where all his panic receptors are disabled. Taehyung holds his
face by the chin, Jeongguk’s jaw resting in the valley of his hand, and then he grinds up against
Taehyung, up against the door, so the the hanging mirror clacks against the wood.

The shadow deepens on Jeongguk’s neck.

Taehyung, against his better judgment, ignores it. Jeongguk kisses him more, mindless, and time is
a feeling. Just the meet of lips over and over again.

“Taehyung—”
“Up,” Taehyung says, bracing his hands on Jeongguk’s shoulders and pressing down. Jeongguk
cottons on quickly, sliding his hands under Taehyung’s thighs so he can hitch them up around his
hips. The mirror clunks.

The shadow slides over Taehyung’s fingers to lick at his knuckles. He pushes his hands under the
back of Jeongguk’s hoodie, until his fingers meet warm skin and the juts of Jeongguk’s shoulder
blades.

And then more kissing. The last time Taehyung made out with anyone—properly, with all the
choreography, not a your-parents-are-watching kiss—had to have been months ago. He hasn’t
thought about it much. It was good, just not memorable.

He knows he’s going to be comparing everyone else to Jeongguk for a very long time.

(If he’s in the business of being honest with himself, he doesn’t think anyone will come after
Jeongguk.)

Jeongguk pulls back to breathe, looking woozy, and Taehyung chuckles before he pulls him back
in by the cheeks. He shivers when Taehyung reaches to scratch his nails across the undersides of
his shoulder blades.

“More kisses,” he demands, crushing the words into Jeongguk’s ragged laugh. “Just breathe
through your nose, silly.”

“This is a mouth-breathing kind of kiss.”

And, well, Taehyung doesn’t (and can’t) argue with that.

He laughs, the sound of rushing air through his nose, before he wriggles against Jeongguk’s body.
At first Jeongguk thinks this means to put him down, but Taehyung bites down and sucks hard on
Jeongguk’s lower lip, hooking his heels tighter at the small of Jeongguk’s back. “Oh,” Jeongguk
says, pulling away, like he’s about to audibly berate himself for not getting it. “I didn’t—”

“No, no, it’s okay,” Taehyung says. He talks big, he always talks big, but he needs to breathe
through his mouth, too. The sex hasn’t even commenced and already he’s out of breath. That’s
another box ticked off on things Taehyung does not ever do, but Jeongguk is breaking all his rules.
They’re not really rules, and breaking is a harsh word, but Taehyung will have to relearn where his
brain bits are after this. “I want to keep kissing you. That’s not what this is. I want this, but just,
horizontal.”

Jeongguk stares. Taehyung’s hands rest at the base of his neck, so he runs his thumbs over the
bump of his topmost vertebrae. He’s looking for something else to say, to tell Jeongguk that he
really, actually wants this, and will disrobe here and now to prove it, but then Jeongguk is crossing
the room with Taehyung in his arms and falling into bed. In total, it’s about two and a half steps, if
Taehyung counts the stumble where his back hits the mattress.

“Oh, more of that,” he says, skin too hot and prickly, almost fevered with arousal. Adrenaline
burns holes in his stomach, but it’s nice. That’s a rare feeling. Taehyung does not spend a lot of
time confronting the possibility that he might sleep with people just to scrub fear out of his nerves.

Right now, he doesn’t have to. Every nerve ending in his body sears and then sparks when he puts
his hands back on Jeongguk’s body. Taehyung wore one of his nice shirts, a lilac satiny thing that
he had open down to the third button (the Thot Button, as Jimin calls it) all evening, and even that
seems to chafe at his skin. When Jeongguk puts his hand to Taehyung’s chest, as if to undo the
buttons, his entire body jumps at the touch.

“Whoa, sorry,” Taehyung says, when Jeongguk pauses. “Sorry! I haven’t done this in a while.”

“Are you sure you want to?” Jeongguk asks. He puts his hand back on the bed, and he’s hovering
over Taehyung’s body, but Taehyung doesn’t feel caged in.

Well, not if he ignores the fingers curling themselves around Jeongguk’s shoulder, pulling a
shadowed face from up behind him.

“Of course I want to.” He props himself up on his elbows, shoulders scrunching up towards his
ears. “I don’t go on three dates with someone I don’t want to sleep with.” Then, because he wants
to hear himself say it, “I don’t go on three dates with someone I don’t like.”

“Oh,” says Jeongguk. “Me neither.”

So Taehyung puts his hands up Jeongguk’s hoodie. Down, really, sliding his fingers as low on
Jeongguk’s back as his arms can reach, shivering where it feels cold. Something touches the backs
of his knuckles, and Taehyung tangles his fingers into the fabric to shake off the sensation.

“Taehyung?”

“Nothing.” Taehyung curls his hands tighter in the fleece. “I’ve decided I like you best in hoodies,
though, so remember that.”

The first date they’d gone on, Jeongguk had showed up looking—very handsome, but so not
himself. Jimin will not admit it but Taehyung knows that Jeongguk went to him asking,
overthinking, what to wear, because Jeongguk does not usually ever step out in button-ups with
long jackets and heeled leather boots. Heeled leather boots. He looks great in them, but it’s like
seeing something harshly manmade in a forest: out of place.

Today he’s just in a hoodie and some jeans and Taehyung wants to put his mouth on his skin.

“Good, because all I own is—” Jeongguk’s voice is lost when Taehyung peels the hoodie up, up,
dragging his t-shirt up with it, over his head. His hair disappears into the bunched fabric, and
Taehyung can feel the warmth of Jeongguk’s body linger in the seams as he tosses it off the bed.
He’ll have to pick it back up and sleep in it sometimes—he could live in Jeongguk’s smell. Half
laundry half perfume. “Hoodies.”

His skin erupts in goosebumps when Taehyung puts his hands to Jeongguk’s arms, trailing his
fingers from his shoulders down to his elbows.

Taehyung’s neck prickles as he watches the demon watch him, over Jeongguk’s shoulder. It
doesn’t speak, but it says: he’s mine.

“Get this off,” Taehyung murmurs, tugging at the buttons on his shirt. “Help me out?”

He doesn’t need help, but he just likes to watch Jeongguk’s fingers undoing the buttons. It gets
Jeongguk’s eyes off his face for a bit, because Taehyung is staring right over his shoulder, possibly
looking disinterested, and that’s the last thing he is.

A hand clawed and black starts to wind around Jeongguk’s neck. The pressure is enough that, on
Taehyung’s fifth button, Jeongguk twists his head back and forth like he’s trying to work out knots
in his neck.
“C’mere,” Taehyung says. When he reaches for Jeongguk now, even though he’s so turned on he
might have a headache, he doesn’t hurry. Half of it is for show, not for someone Jeongguk can see.
Taehyung loops his arms around Jeongguk’s neck again, gathers him in in in, and Jeongguk’s
hands barely get his last button free before their chests are pressed against each other.

Don’t look behind you.

The light flickers.

“Taehyung,” Jeongguk breathes. When he shifts his thigh presses into Taehyung’s cock, still stuck
in his jeans, and both of them gasp.

Taehyung puts his hand to Jeongguk’s cheek and kisses him. He closes his eyes and in the eyelid-
thin darkness there is no demon, and time stops passing in minutes and starts passing in kisses. He
grinds up and Jeongguk, without hesitating, presses his hips down, gasping into Taehyung’s
mouth. His hands are in Taehyung’s hair, and on the bed, but then he’s trying to undo Taehyung’s
pants with one hand and succeeding—these jeans have three buttons on top of a zipper, so
Taehyung’s impressed.

“Oh, fuck,” Taehyung curses when Jeongguk slides his hand under the waistband of his underwear.
“Fuck, Jeongguk—”

“Want your pants all the way off?”

“Yes. You too. You are depriving me of The Thigh.”

Jeongguk aims for an eyeroll but only succeeds in a blushing grimace, one where he’s fighting
down a smile but not doing a good job of it. He lifts up, away, balancing on his knees to go for his
belt—a limp, faded thing, with fraying edges. Taehyung sits up to slide his own shirt off, then
reaches for Jeongguk’s belt buckle himself. Just because he can, he leans in and kisses Jeongguk
over his heart. His face is right there. Taehyung doesn’t know why he does, but the want had hit
him, a thunderclap headache, and his cheeks burn when he pulls away.

“Taehyung,” Jeongguk says, voice broken, tiny, and it’s not because he’s turned on. And Taehyung
knows, too, he feels it. Jeongguk. He aims for a joke so his words don’t shake.

“We’ll need to get you a new belt, hm?” A dull noise of chafing pleather as Taehyung tugs belt
from buckle. “You look like you use this to tenderize meat.”

“I’m not usually into that.”

“You’re not?” Taehyung asks forlornly, looking up from where he’s undoing Jeongguk’s fly. His
fingers are putting enough pressure on Jeongguk’s cock through fabric that he knows there’s
enough friction to be maddening.

The demon is dark enough to block out the light in the ceiling. Jeongguk’s hair falls into his eyes.

He can’t tell where the demon ends and where Jeongguk’s body begins.

“I mean, I am. If you are,” Jeongguk says. His chest rises and falls with staccato breaths.

“Cool,” Taehyung says, and then he pulls Jeongguk’s cock out.

Jeongguk chokes on his own gasp. Taehyung smiles, Jeongguk’s cock heavy in his palm. He kind
of loves being here in any hookup; there’s a heady feeling of control when someone’s dick is in his
hand. Anyone can talk big. They can think they’re in control all they want. Chances are, they’re
not, especially not when Taehyung drags the precum from the tip down the shaft with his finger.
Then it’s all oh fuck and fuck, Taehyung, keep doing that, and maybe if he’s really putting his back
into it, he’ll get you look good on your knees.

Or something like that.

Jeongguk shakes, and, before Taehyung can even put his cock in his mouth, says, “Wait, I’m gonna
come.”

“Already?”

“You’re really hot, okay?” Jeongguk says. “Don’t laugh!”

“I’m not laughing,” Taehyung says, but he’s smiling. He’s also pumping his hand loosely along the
shaft of Jeongguk’s cock, not bothering to stop. All of Jeongguk’s skin is covered in faint body
blush now. “That’s cute. Damn, that’s really cute. Are you seriously gonna come?”

“Yes, and on your face if you keep doing—ah! That,” Jeongguk shudders and grabs Taehyung’s
wrists when he tugs a little harder.

“Mm, that’s hot. We should try that sometime. But I hear you, baby, three minutes is short even for
me, so let me—”

Taehyung helps Jeongguk peel the denim and his underwear down his legs and kick his pants off,
and then shimmies his butt on the mattress until Jeongguk does it for him, too. This is also new.
Taehyung does not get this naked for any other hookup or date, but it feels right with Jeongguk.

The lights are still on. In this tiny apartment, there’s no in between, no mood lighting, so it’s either
lights on or doing it in the pitch black. Jeongguk settles between Taehyung’s thighs and puts his
hands to the juts of his tendons at the tops of his legs. Taehyung is hard, so much that his mouth is
dry, and the headache returns in full force as he watches Jeongguk stretch out onto his own belly
and take Taehyung’s cock into his hands.

“Jeongguk—fuck, Jesus fuck,” Taehyung says when Jeongguk sucks the head of his cock into his
mouth. No hesitation, no kittenish licking, Christ, he just goes for it. Taehyung’s hands find
Jeongguk’s hair, and he doesn’t push him, nor does Taehyung buck his hips. Just so the pressure’s
there. Jeongguk hums around him and bobs lower. “Fuck!”

“Mm,” Jeongguk says. These might be words but his mouth is a little busy.

Jeongguk knows how to suck dick. For all his blushing, he’s damn good at it. Taehyung wants to
say something cheeky, but every time he finds the will to cobble together a sentence, Jeongguk
sucks a little harder, drags his tongue wet down the shaft a little slower, and pumps the base of
Taehyung’s cock where his lips can’t reach.

Taehyung thinks his body is liquefying into Jeongguk’s mattress.

There’s a cold tickle at his knees, and it’s not Jeongguk’s hands, but Taehyung can’t be bothered to
look. Jeongguk runs his hands up Taehyung’s thighs to the crests of his hips and keeps sucking.
Then he pulls off, so suddenly that Taehyung’s cock smacks his chin, and he points up at his
pillows. “Hand me the lube?”

Taehyung stares at him incredulously, then shoves his underneath the pillows, towards the
headboard, to grope for the bottle. His fingers close around one almost empty. He gives Jeongguk
the eyebrows when he hands it over. “You sure get around a lot.”

“That,” Jeongguk says, “is for putting stuff up my butt. You should try it sometime.”

As if Taehyung never puts stuff up his butt.

“Bold of you to assume I don’t.”

“Oh, that’s hot. You should show me sometime,” Jeongguk says. He’s loose-lipped with arousal
now, because he says all of that without blushing, and only seems to realize when he’s uncapping
the KY Jelly and squirting what’s left into his palm. “If you want to!”

Taehyung puts his hands over his face and laughs. God. “Yeah. Of course I want to, Jeongguk, I
do. I can’t believe I’m discussing this right now, it usually just happens.”

Jeongguk stops talking. It’s a good idea, because Taehyung’s starting to sound silly, too. He’s only
been on three dates with this guy. He’s talked more during this single hookup than he had during
all his sexual encounters with Seojoon. It feels natural to laugh, even between kisses.

Then Jeongguk puts his lube-slicked fingers against Taehyung’s entrance and he forgets about
laughing. He puts his mouth on Taehyung’s dick again, too, so Taehyung forgets about most things
in general, and drops his head back into the pillows as Jeongguk presses his fingers deeper into
him.

It takes everything in him not to clamp his thighs around Jeongguk’s head. Taehyung breathes out
and his voice actually shudders, audible, a high moan. Faintly, he realizes he’s not faking it.
“Jeongguk,” he says, without really thinking about it. He says it to mean keep going, don’t stop, I
love this, I might like you.

But Jeongguk just pulls back, the tip of Taehyung’s cock still in his lips, face folding with
concentration as he pushes his fingers in deep. He keeps sucking, almost absently, and then laughs
when his fingertips catch and Taehyung jerks.

“Fuck, oh my God—wait, okay, baby—”

Taehyung gathers the willpower to look down, to push himself back onto his elbows, and he tugs
Jeongguk’s fringe slightly so that he pulls off. Jeongguk does, but he grips Taehyung’s cock in his
fingers, lifting his face and dragging the flat of his tongue along the underside of the shaft.

“Fuck,” Taehyung says. “You’re crazy.”

“I haven’t done that in a while,” Jeongguk says.

“I can’t tell. Fuck. You need to get up here and fuck me now if you don’t want me to come,
either,” Taehyung says. One day he’s going to have to test this more closely, laughing as
Jeongguk’s cheeks blush up to his ears like clockwork—as soon as his mouth isn’t on some part of
Taehyung’s body, his brain goes back into overdrive. “Do you have more lube? Condoms?”

“Yeah.” Jeongguk jerks his head. “Drawer of my desk by your head, actually.”

Taehyung jerks it open and the contents slide tumble around each other in a rockslide: Pez
dispensers topped with Spiderman heads, a forest of crumpled post-its, hair ties—hair ties?—at
least three half-finished packs of gum, a wrinkled packet of cucumber seeds, and finally, the
condoms and lube. They’re buried under a layer of mulch some two inches deep. No sign of
anything to put up his butt. Taehyung will have to ask.
“Did you bury it on purpose?” Taehyung hands Jeongguk a fresh bottle and a condom. “Why do
you have so many hair ties?”

“My hair was pretty long a while ago. I’d tie it up during workouts,” Jeongguk says. He’s sitting
back onto his heels, flipping the cap of the lube open with a plasticky snap between them. “But
then I cut it. Split end city.”

“You had long hair?” Taehyung asks. He must look punch-drunk.

“Yeah. About to, about here?” Jeongguk holds his finger against his cheek.

Taehyung sits up, grabs the lube, throws his arms around Jeongguk’s neck and kisses him.

And then something changes: the cold smoke starts fading.

“Oh,” says Jeongguk, equally punch-drunk and looking like Taehyung had kissed the soul out
through his mouth, “I did not realize that would do it for you.”

“Are you kidding? Please grow it out again. I want to see it. Preferably put my hands in it.” He
gives Jeongguk the condom. It’s got a pink wrapper, foil winking when it catches the light.

Jeongguk laughs, and then Taehyung sees it, the paling of the shadows. Not by much—the light
overhead is still weak sunlight through rainclouds, but Jeongguk kisses him again and Taehyung
sees the demon relinquish its grip on Jeongguk’s neck and arms. It goes slow, like it’s wrought
with silent pain. The tear of muscle and ligament from bone.

“Here, lie back,” says Jeongguk.

“Uhm, wait.” Taehyung almost does. Taehyung wants to lie back, but the smoke starts to climb up
the grooves of Jeongguk’s spine. If he focuses, he thinks he can see eyes in it. “Can we—can you
do it from behind?”

Jeongguk pauses, not long enough for it to be awkward, but enough for Taehyung to notice. Blink-
and-you-miss-it. It looks sad. Taehyung’s skin pulses.

“Sure,” he says. The bed dips and creaks as he slides off the bed, then back onto the mattress.
“Okay?”

“Love it,” says Taehyung. He’s on his elbows and knees, facing the door in. He can see Jeongguk’s
body, flushed as a bruising peach, from the mirror that hangs on it, and he can see himself with his
ass in the air. Jeongguk makes a strained noise when Taehyung looks back, and a plasticky snap of
the lube opening and closing crackles behind him. Taehyung’s cock hangs hard and flushed
between his legs, and in the middle of slicking himself up, Jeongguk reaches down and gives a few
quick pumps. “Oh, fuck. Hey, what part of ‘don’t make me come’—?”

“Oops,” Jeongguk says, and he laughs, but it’s high and breathless. More of a giggle. Taehyung
pushes a smile into the crook of his own arm. “I just want you to feel good.”

“You always make me feel good,” Taehyung muffles into his arm. “I always feel good around
you.” Demon and all. Maybe because he enjoys playing with monsters.

They’ve never slept together before this.

Maybe because I looked at you at the bus stop and knew, in the same way I just know a place is
haunted, that I was going to love you.
Jeongguk breathes behind him, missing the beat again.

There’s a hand against the side of Taehyung’s ribcage. Then on his waist, and slowly, Jeongguk
tugs him up. Taehyung goes with his touch until his back is against Jeongguk’s chest. Sure,
Jeongguk’s cock is pressing obscenely into his ass like this, and they’re both wet and turned on and
a little sloppy because of it, but Taehyung’s heart rams painfully against the inside of his chest.
This is too gentle, soft in the night, and it doesn’t feel like just a fun little fuck in a shitty apartment
anymore.

And Taehyung likes it. He finds that he craves it.

“Hey,” he says, and he reaches back for Jeongguk’s face. Grey and black smoke pools in a quiet
fog on Jeongguk’s mattress, and, in the back of Taehyung’s head, he wonders if it’s because of
something he’s doing. He’s never seen it without a seance, but the demon is starting to unhinge.

Already, the body of it is dissolving.

“Jeongguk,” Taehyung says, and he drags his fingers along jeongguk’s jaw, so he’ll turn and look
at him. Then he kisses him. He drags his tongue across Jeongguk’s lips, presses it against his teeth.
Jeongguk splays his hand warm and wide on Taehyung’s belly. “Fuck. You can put it in. I want
you in me.”

Smoke spills off the edges of the bed, like blood at a murder scene.

Taehyung gasps when Jeongguk puts the head of his cock to his entrance and pushes in. Gentle,
but he gasps into Jeongguk’s temple and claws his hand where he has it looped around Jeongguk’s
neck. He nearly buckles and falls forward, facefirst into the demon flotsam, but Jeongguk holds
him up tight.

“Tell me if it’s okay,” Jeongguk mumbles into Taehyung’s shoulder.

“More than okay.” Taehyung is panting, shaking, almost like he’s come already. “You’re so warm.
Yeah—okay, move.”

So Jeongguk does. He starts just by rocking his hips, enough movement to be maddening.
Taehyung’s skin is spiking with sunflares; Jeongguk splays his palms wide over Taehyung’s waist
and belly to hold onto him. Taehyung curls his free hand around one of Jeongguk’s wrists, afraid to
touch himself for fear of coming too fast, and digs blunt nails into the vein where Jeongguk’s heart
flutters frantic as a drumbeat. “Jeongguk,” Taehyung says, thinks he says, anyway.

“Touch yourself,” Jeongguk says, turning his face enough to kiss at Taehyung’s cheekbone. He
rocks harder now, the sound of hot skin to skin loud in this tiny apartment, and Taehyung stops
trying to stifle any moans. He reaches for his own cock, hard and wet with precome. Then
Taehyung turns his face to kiss Jeongguk again, sloppy, and it mutes their ragged breathing until
they pull apart.

When he faces forward he sees how they look in the mirror: himself, fucked, fucked out, messy,
lips kiss-swollen, and Jeongguk, knees between Taehyung’s legs, holding him back against his
chest with hands over his heart. It feels dirty to watch. The bed is pebbled with the rumple of
sheets, and Taehyung whimpers as he pulls at his own cock.

“I’m gonna come,” he says, thighs shaking. His voice is high and wet even in his own ears, and
Jeongguk stamps a moan into Taehyung’s shoulder. “Jeongguk, I’m going to come—I’m gonna—”

When Taehyung comes he feels his body lock, hard enough for the breath to congeal in his lungs.
This is the kind of orgasm that he knows he’ll be feeling for a while after. Skin-tingling, body-
shuddering, and not just jelly-kneed but jelly-armed. He comes all over his own hand and a bit on
Jeongguk’s bedsheets. Then some more on his hand.

He doesn’t remember coming like this with anyone else.

“Oh God, Jeongguk,” Taehyung says. There’s even ringing in his ears. “Did you—?”

A miniscule shake of his head, against Taehyung’s neck.

“Just finish.”

“But I—”

“I want you to, just finish,” says Taehyung, and he kisses Jeongguk so he can’t object. His whole
body quivers from the overstimulation, but it spreads underneath his skin and doesn’t hurt as much
as he remembers it does. He thinks he might still be half hard.

Jeongguk comes, with hitching breaths and a whimper against Taehyung’s cheek.

“Good,” says Taehyung. “God, that’s so good.”

Jeongguk stays in him, running his hands up and down the expanse of Taehyung’s body, hands
trembling as hard as Taehyung is, until Taehyung nudges him.

“Baby, my legs are tired.”

So they fall.

Post-coitus is the only time that Taehyung doesn’t like to be touched. It feels like he’s going to
crawl out of his skin, so during any other hookup, it only takes him as long as he needs to catch his
breath before he’s hopping out of bed, or off the couch, or scrambling up from the floor, looking
for a tissue, chirping, “Thanks! That was fun.”

Right now, he’s happy to lie in the circle of Jeongguk’s arms. They’re both sweaty and Taehyung
gives it a few minutes, tops, before it gets uncomfortable—his hands are sticky, his thighs are
sticky, and his back is sweaty—but he floats in this warmth.

“I’ll go get a towel,” Jeongguk says, pulling away, cock slipping out between Taehyung’s ass
cheeks. The condom is still slick with lube and Jeongguk totters across his room, soft-limbed as
Taehyung feels, disposing it on his way and disappearing into his closet of a bathroom.

The water runs.

Taehyung sits up, a hint of ache starting at the base of his spine. A good ache. He straightens the
sheets half-heartedly, smoothing his hands over the wrinkled cotton, repositioning the pillows,
feeling the threads and the seams.

When Jeongguk had gotten up, there had been no dark, spiny figure wrapped at his neck. Between
the kissing, and the blowjob, and Jeongguk fucking into him, Taehyung had watched the limbs of
the shadowy figure start to slough away. He hadn’t thought much of it. Demons, especially, were
tricky; they took the shapes they wanted to when the time was most opportune.

But nothing of it seems to linger, even in the corners, and the light does not flicker.

He sees himself in the mirror, legs splayed, hands on both sides of himself against the mattress. A
massive hickey, dark as plums, blooms on the side of his neck. Taehyung hadn’t even noticed
Jeongguk teeth on his skin. All of it just had felt right.

“Everything okay?” Jeongguk asks, coming back in. His towel is embroidered with tiny little herb
leaves. A repurposed dish towel. It’s ridiculous, but the warm spot in Taehyung’s chest simply
grows.

“Great. Perfect,” Taehyung says. “Mm, damp, too. You’re so good at this.”

“I think it’s rude to just throw a dry towel at someone and stand in the middle of the room
powering down a bottle of Pocari Sweat after sex,” says Jeongguk, wiping Taehyung’s legs down.

“That’s specific. Sounds like you speak from personal experience.”

“Uhm,” is all Jeongguk says, and then he goes back to quiet, gentle wiping. The warm drag of
towel on Taehyung’s skin is lulling him sleepy, but he refuses to black out. Like Jeongguk says, it
feels rude to. Not that he’s cared before.

“Everyone must love you.”

I mean, I do.

“Not really. Uhm, I don’t do this for everyone,” Jeongguk says, and then he freezes with the towel
in the middle of Taehyung’s chest. The wad of fabric is cooling slightly, and when he freezes, it
digs into the hollow right beneath Taehyung’s sternum. “I—well, I just mean. I want to do it for
you. I guess.”

Taehyung covers Jeongguk’s hand with his own, pulling the towel out of his grasp, and spreads it
over the span of his palm. He shifts to wipe Jeongguk down before the damp gets icy.

“Thank you,” he says. Jeongguk shivers when Taehyung passes it over his cock, still sensitive. He
doesn’t try to say anything else. Words feel out of place for this.

When he finishes, he drops the towel onto a bare bit of floor, and it spreads a ring of lukewarm
condensation around itself on the wood.

Jeongguk is watching him with an unreadable expression. A yearning, perhaps. Taehyung teeters
on the edge of hopping out of bed, now, not wanting to overstay his welcome, but pulled in by the
force of Jeongguk’s gaze. Gravitational, orbital.

The sheets rumple again when Jeongguk extends his hand across the tiny open space of his bed,
reaching for him, and then there are no questions.

“Hey there,” Taehyung says, as he settles down onto the bed again. Jeongguk throws the blanket
over their bodies. Their hands are loose and free in the space between, but Taehyung wonders if he
should slide his hand into Jeongguk’s. He wants to. “Fancy seeing you here.”

Jeongguk chuckles, and now is when his muscles finally start to unravel. “How’d you get in my
bed?”

“I like it here.”

“I like you in it, too.”

“I’ll work hard to come back, how about that?” Taehyung pillows his cheek on the fold of both his
hands.

“I was thinking,” Jeongguk says, and his brain must not have clocked what he said just now,
because the hesitation bleeds back into his voice belatedly. “For—next weekend? Dr. Sleep is
coming out. It’s the sequel to the Shining, and I wanted to ask if maybe you wanted to come watch
with me. It’s a scary movie, which I love, but I know you’re not really a fan of them. And don’t
worry if the answer is no! I can ask other friends, but.” He shifts beneath the blanket, polar fleece,
smelling of orchids and laundry. “You know, I wanted to ask you first.” This last bit is a slurred
mumble.

So Taehyung does what he wants to do: he takes Jeongguk’s hand, shuffles in close, until their
bodies are tangled, and kisses him. Jeongguk’s lips are chapped now, his breathing not so frantic,
and Taehyung runs his hand up the length of Jeongguk’s arm to his neck to his cheek and then
breaks away.

“Yes,” he says. “I’d love to.”

“That’s awesome,” Jeongguk says, eyes unfocused. “Wow. I’m excited. Are you sure? We can do
something else.”

“Yeah. I’m sure. I want to do everything with you.”

“Even get scared shitless?”

Taehyung hums. His hand still rests on Jeongguk’s cheek, and he runs his thumb over the high
crest of his cheekbone. “There are much worse things to be scared of.”

Jeongguk nods. “Climate change,” he says reasonably.

“That,” Taehyung laughs.

Then their voices peter out into the silence. Taehyung wonders if he should go and turn the light
off, so they can—sleep? Should they sleep? It’s nighttime, and it’s late, and Taehyung has gone
home alone far later.

“Stay.”

Jeongguk’s eyes open, close, open, close, the green and yellow of a leaf in wind. He looks so
sleepy and warm and at ease that Taehyung tells himself he imagined it, until he sees Jeongguk’s
mouth move, and again:

“Stay.”

“I will,” Taehyung whispers.

Jeongguk leans in until he’s talking, mostly, against Taehyung’s mouth.

“I usually have a headache every night,” he says. “A recurring one, lately. But I don’t have one
tonight. I think it’s you. So—stay. Stay and tell me about the things you’re scared of.”

Taehyung closes his eyes and thinks: deep shadow, black smoke, the headache that doesn’t go
away, and the mirror that watched them, and about demons.

“Okay.”
End Notes

me, describing this fic to marienadine: "writing a porn in a horror universe like [jerks reader
back and forth unceremoniously between sexy and creepy]"

thank you @muu_shaa for the lovely doods as always!

Please drop by the archive and comment to let the author know if you enjoyed their work!