Chapter Text
The float's losing air. Has been since they got to the house yesterday. There's a puncture somewhere, has to be, but Jimin's been horizontal for forty minutes now and finding it would mean getting out of the pool and patting around with his fingers like an idiot, and the sun's too good, so he's not going to.
He cracks one eye open. Jin's at the grill in a pink apron Namjoon picked up at some petrol station, tongs in one hand, whistling a tune. Jimin can't tell what it is. Something old probably. The smell of the barbeque hits the air properly and his stomach actually growls. It smells incredible, charcoal and meat and that specific sweet-soy thing Jin does with the marinade.
He's so hungry.
Behind him on the loungers Namjoon is rattling on about something and Hobi is laughing at it, that bright sharp Hobi-laugh that makes the dog three houses over start barking.
Yoongi is dead. Well. Not dead. Jimin checked 20 minutes ago. Yoongi's chest has been maintaining a steady pace for a while now, going up and down with his mouth slightly open and one arm hanging off the lounger. The one furthest from the grill so the smoke doesn't bother him.
Jeongguk's been at the convenience store for thirty-four minutes.
Jimin has not been counting.
… except that he has maybe been counting.
Jimin shifts. The float wobbles in that sad deflating way and he shifts back. Ugh.
He can feel that his shorts have ridden even further up than he thought possible but he doesn’t bother trying to fix them.
The shorts — well.
The shorts are the thing.
Jeongguk got them for him last summer, packaged with the dumb little smug-shy face he gets when he's bought Jimin something he's nervous about, and they've been folded in a drawer for nine months because there hasn't been a single day where Jimin had time to wear them and a body of water to wear them in.
Little black mesh things.
Tiny.
With a white trim.
Possibly a bit too indecent — when Jimin came down the stairs an hour ago Jin took one look and went Jimin-ah, what on earth are you wearing, in that scandalised dad voice, and Hobi had whooped, and Tae had actually shielded his eyes and screamed put it AWAY, Jimin-ah, put it AWAY, but Jimin had kept walking past them with his nose in the air because honestly — they'd seen worse. Back in their trainee days they'd shared one bathroom between seven and so there were no parts of any of them that everyone hadn't seen already — and anyway he hadn't put them on for any of them. So Tae can shut up.
Besides, he's been at the gym. Squats and squats and more squats. He'd looked at his ass in the bathroom mirror this morning and thought, alright. Alright then. It was about time for the shorts to come out.
He shifts again on the float. The plastic squeaks. He's a little nervous, which he knows is stupid. They've been together two and a half years, Jeongguk's seen him in less than this, in nothing, in old stolen sweats at four in the morning with cup ramen in his lap and slept-on hair, and still Jeongguk looks at him like he's — anyway.
He's not going to think about it on a pool float in front of his hyungs.
The point is he's nervous.
The point is they've both been so tired lately there hasn't been space for anything but eating and rehearsing and crashing into each other fully clothed, and Jimin wants — fine. He wants Jeongguk to walk back through the gate and see him like this and lose his mind a little bit. Sue him.
He flicks water at his own knee with one finger. He thinks about flipping over to his stomach and decides against it on the grounds that effort is bad.
He hears the door slide open behind him.
It registers in two pieces: door, and then feet slapping against the patio.
He has just enough time to get his sunglasses an inch up his nose and turn his head to see the blur of Tae, all stupid legs and stupid grin and what Jimin can only assume was a runway start from the kitchen, before —
"YAAAH—"
Tae cannonballs.
It's a whole-body event. A wall of water comes up and over the float, splattering all over Jimin, his sunglasses get knocked sideways down his face and there's water in his nose and his mouth and down the back of these shorts, which are doing absolutely nothing against the pressure of half a swimming pool entering them at speed, and Jimin is —
He's coughing. He's choking. He thinks he's swallowed a bug.
Tae surfaces two metres away, hair plastered flat to his forehead, grinning so wide his eyes are gone.
"Hi, Jimin-ah!"
"You—" Jimin is still spluttering. "You absolute— Tae-yah, you absolute—"
Tae's swimming toward him with a lazy stroke, still grinning, which Jimin has learnt to know means trouble.
"Tae." Jimin points at him. Water runs off his finger. "Don't you dare. I'm serious."
"Hmm?"
"I mean it. I see that look in your eyes, Tae-yah, no — no — Tae — don't —"
Tae reaches up and shoves the side of the float.
The world tips. Jimin has maybe a quarter of a second to think oh you fucker and then the water closes over him and everything is blue-green and quiet and his ears are full and his sunglasses are gone, his favourite sunglasses, the ones from Tokyo, sinking down to the bottom in slow motion. He kicks up.
He breaks the surface coughing. The float is three metres off, upside down, looking...sad, honestly.
"You —"
He doesn't bother finishing it. He lunges.
It's not a graceful lunge. He's small and wet and pissed off, which is not exactly a winning combination against Tae's stupidly long arms, but the element of surprise is worth something. He gets a hand on Tae's shoulder and the other into Tae's wet hair and uses every kilo he has to shove him under. Tae goes down with a strangled laugh and comes back up roaring, shaking water out of his face like a dog.
"Oh it's like that —"
"It's exactly like that."
Then they're at it.
Splashing and grabbing, Jimin scrambling for any kind of purchase on Tae's slippery shoulders. Tae gets an arm around his middle and tries for a headlock. Jimin ducks, comes up under his armpit, plants both hands on his back and shoves him under again. Tae's elbow catches him in the ribs and Jimin gives one back right back earning a yelp, the water churning around them like a washing machine.
"BOYS."
That's Jin, from the grill, snapping his tongs at them.
"Stop it. You're going to hurt yourselves —"
"He started it!" they both shout, at the same time, in exactly the same pitch.
Hobi from the lounger, sat up and leaning forward as if he'd paid for the wrestling match: "Get him!"
"Which one of us are you talking to —"
"Either."
Namjoon, mildly scolding: "Hobi-ah."
"What. I'm impartial."
Yoongi still hasn't even twitched.
Jimin gets a wave of water full in the face from Tae's open palm and it's so undignified he laughs. Out loud. Just startled out of him. Tae hears it and sees his opportunity, gets his hands under Jimin's arms, and lifts.
Jimin's legs come up automatically.
He doesn't think about it. He's been hooking onto whichever member was nearest since trainee days for piggyback rides and stupid photos during fan meets, so his body knows what to do — his knees clamp tightly around Tae's waist, ankles crossed behind. Tae hoists him properly up against his chest, one arm tight around his back and the other catching low to stop him sliding, and Jimin is laughing now, properly laughing, into the wet skin of Tae's neck. He smells like chlorine and that coconut sunscreen Tae always uses too much of.
"Put me down, asshole."
"Not until you say sorry for viciously attacking me."
"You're insane. You're actually insane. Put me —"
He tries to wiggle free. Tae's arms tighten. Jimin laughs harder, helplessly, face pressed into Tae's collarbone, shoulders shaking with it. Jimin can feel the shake of Tae's own laughter through his ribs where they're pressed together.
"Tae, I swear to god —"
"Apologise."
"Never."
"Do it, Jimin-ah, or I’ll never put you down!"
"NEVER," Jimin giggles, and gets a mouthful of Tae's wet hair for his trouble.
A cough.
Pointed. Not from the loungers.
Jimin lifts his head off Tae's shoulder, slowly.
Jeongguk is at the tile edge of the pool. A plastic bag in each hand, bottles inside already beading. He's in his big hoodie even though it's hot, sleeves shoved up, hair flat from his cap.
He is looking right at Jimin, and right at Jimin's legs around Tae's waist, and at the little black shorts, and right at Tae's hand which it has taken Jimin up until now to realise has a firm grasp on his ass.
Jimin hears himself swallow.
"Tae."
Jeongguk's voice is flat. Not loud. Quieter than Jimin expects, which is somehow worse.
"Get your hands off my boyfriend."
Tae drops him. Like, drops drops him — Tae's hands fly up so fast it's almost a flinch, and Jimin's legs unhook from his waist on instinct, his feet hitting the bottom of the pool with a graceless little splash, water up to his ribs, and Tae is already a metre away with both palms out like he's been caught reaching into someone's wallet.
"Jeongguk-ah," Tae says, in a register Jimin has never heard come out of him before, all the bass gone, "Kookie, brother — that was nothing. That was nothing, you saw it, right? I was just—"
Jeongguk just stares at him.
"—yeah, yeah, of course." Tae's nodding now, backing up even further even though he's already reached the end of the pool. "Of course. Yeah. No, totally."
Jeongguk isn't looking at him anymore. His eyes have shifted to meet Jimin's.
Jimin cannot move. Jimin is a statue. Jimin is, in fact, watching this happen to someone else, because his brain has cleanly disconnected from his body and is currently hovering about a foot above his own head. Which is fine. He'll get it back later.
"Out."
Jimin blinks.
"Kookie—"
"Don't make me ask again."
Jimin's eyes flick sideways. The loungers have gone interestingly silent. Namjoon is sitting up, watching, mouth doing that flat thing it does when he's deciding whether or not to intervene. Hobi has his hand over his mouth and his shoulders are shaking. Jin is at the grill with a piece of meat lifted on his tongs, frozen mid-flip, looking fascinated.
Yoongi is awake.
Yoongi, who has not voluntarily moved a muscle since they arrived three days ago, is up on one elbow, sunglasses pushed into his hair, watching like someone settling in for a film.
Wonderful.
Jimin wades to the steps. He climbs up one rung at a time and the second he's clear of the surface he understands the scale of the problem.
The shorts.
Dry, the shorts had been a statement. Wet, they're an indictment. They've gone semi-translucent across the front and they're suctioned to him like cling film and there is honestly very little point in even wearing them at this stage. He can feel air on parts of him he was banking on the dryness of the fabric to cover. There is nowhere on this entire patio he can put his hands that will fix this. So he ends up standing there, water sliding off him in noisy rivulets, blushing from his collarbones up.
He tries to make it less obvious. One hand sort of hovering in front of him. Useless.
He flicks his eyes up.
Jeongguk is taking him in.
At an agonising pace.
From the top of Jimin’s head down to his bare wet feet and back up again, Jeongguk’s tongue pushing into the side of his cheek as a warning that he’s not going to be reasonable about any of this. Jimin watches Jeongguk's eyes catch on the shorts and stay there and Jimin's whole stomach drops about a foot.
Jeongguk sets the bags down.
He does it carefully. Lays them on the patio table, bottles clinking as he does so, and adjusts the angle of one so it won't tip.
Jeongguk steps back.
Then he starts walking.
It's not fast. That's the thing. It's the same loose stride he uses when he's coming to steal something off Jimin's plate, but Jimin's body is still reacting like he's a small animal in a clearing watching a much bigger animal appear. Jimin has the strangest impulse to step backward and doesn't, because backward is the pool, and also because his legs may have stopped listening to him.
Jeongguk stops in front of him.
"Kookie—"
Jeongguk bends.
Jeongguk scoops.
Jimin is over his shoulder before he finishes inhaling. The world goes upside down. Patio, sky, the upside-down view of Hobi’s mouth open in an O, and Jeongguk's arm locks across the back of Jimin's thighs to hold him there, palm flat and hot against his wet skin. The skin under his hand prickles up like Jeongguk's shot a current through it. Jimin's hands scramble for purchase on the back of the hoodie. The cotton's dry against his cheek and his thigh is making a wet print on the front of the hoodie that he can already feel spreading.
"Kook-ah— wait— I'm soaking your hoodie—"
Jeongguk hums.
The hand stays where it is. Jimin's skin lights up under it, every fingertip a separate point of contact, and he makes a small involuntary noise into the fabric.
" Jeongguk-ah, I'm— let me dry off first!"
Another hum.
That's all. A low closed-mouth sound that may be agreement but very clearly isn't putting Jimin down.
Jimin kicks his feet a little. Not hard… possibly mainly performative.
He lifts his head and tries to look around.
"Hyungs!" he yells, upside down, at the loungers. "Hyungs, help me, he's lost his mind, hyungs—"
"You'll be fine," Namjoon says, back to looking at his book.
Yoongi snorts. Audibly. The first sound Jimin has heard him make all day. Then lies back down.
"Good luck, Jiminie!" Hobi calls, beaming up at him.
"I'll save you a couple of burgers!" Jin shouts from the grill, "you'll need them."
"You're all terrible," Jimin wails.
He cranes round the other way
"Tae-yah." Higher pitch now. "Tae. Tae, this is your fault, you started it, tell him — tell him you started it—"
Jeongguk stops walking.
Just stops mid-stride and turns his shoulders maybe ten degrees, head angled toward the pool.
The hand on his thigh tightens. A short, deliberate squeeze, fingers digging in slightly, and Jimin forgets what he meant to say next.
Jeongguk turns. Just his upper body, Jimin still slung over the shoulder.
"Tae-hyung."
"Yeah." Tae's voice cracks, actually cracks, on the one syllable.
"I'll deal with you later."
There's a beat where nobody breathes. Jimin, upside down, has a perfect view of Tae's face going from sunburn-pink to no colour at all, like a sheet being pulled across a bed.
"Cool," Tae says weakly. "Cool. Yeah."
Jeongguk turns back. Starts walking again.
The hand shifts.
Higher.
A regrip, fingertips trailing up the back of Jimin's thigh, the heel of the palm settling higher, knuckles right at the seam where the wet fabric has given up and started to ride. The pads of his fingers brush the bare skin of the underside of his ass.
Oh.
Jimin stops wriggling.
He stops talking too.
Just puts his forehead back down against Jeongguk's back, lets his arms hang and just lets himself be carried, water still dripping off his hair onto Jeongguk's calves as the patio tile scrolls past underneath them.
Jeongguk takes the stairs in twos, his pace brisk, and Jimin's stomach is bouncing against his shoulder with every step.
Jimin has not been soft for a while now.
It's mortifying. Honestly. He's twenty-eight years old and the man currently carrying him like a sack of rice has been wrecking him for years so at this point he should be used to it. Have some kind of well-earned immunity. Instead he's pressing his open mouth into Jeongguk's hoodie and breathing through it and trying to will his body to chill out until they're at least past the landing.
The hand squeezes once.
Like Jeongguk knows.
The door at the very end of the hall is theirs. Jeongguk shoulders it open, kicks it shut behind them, and Jimin hears the latch flip and his whole body goes hot in one wave from his sternum out.
Then Jimin's being lowered gently. His feet find the floor and his knees nearly don't take it. Jeongguk's hands stay at his hips a second to steady him, and then they push, and Jimin is being walked back two steps until his shoulderblades hit the wood of the door.
The wood is cold. Jimin gasps a little. Quietly.
Jeongguk plants his hands either side of Jimin's head.
Jimin looks up.
Yeah. Okay.
Jeongguk's eyes are nearly black in this light. They didn't open the curtains this morning, never got round to it, and the only sun in the room is a slice on the floor by his foot, which means Jimin can't really see his face — just the shape of him, the gleam of his eyes, and the way he's just observing.
Jimin swallows.
He tries for a smile. It comes out wobbly.
"Hi."
Nothing.
"Kook-ah."
Jeongguk's eyes are on the shorts.
Jimin watches him watch them. The pulse at Jeongguk's jaw. The slight flare at his nostril.
Jeongguk reaches down. Not all the way. His fingers find the hem of the shorts at the top of Jimin's thigh and pinch the wet fabric between thumb and forefinger and lift it maybe a centimetre off his skin. Looks down at it. Looks back up.
"One year."
Jimin's brain is busy. Jimin's brain is not online.
"What?"
"One year." Jeongguk's still holding the hem. He runs his thumb under it, knuckle dragging up the inside of Jimin's thigh, and Jimin's whole body goes loud about it. "I bought these for you one year ago."
"...yeah."
"One year you've made me wait."
His thumb trails up. From the hem at Jimin's hip, slow, over the wet black mesh, dragging across the front of the shorts where Jimin is very obviously already starting to fill them out. Jimin's breath catches, because the knuckle is right there, a centimetre off, and his cock twitches up toward it like a magnet looking for north. "And the first time I see you in them, baby. The very first time—"
The finger stops just under his navel. Taps once.
"—some other guy's hand is on your ass."
"It wasn’t—" Jimin's voice has gone scratchy. He hates that. He has to clear his throat. "It was only Tae, Kookie."
Jeongguk's other hand comes up to the side of his neck. Not gripping. Just resting, thumb under his jaw, tilting his face up the last inch so he can't look anywhere else.
"Do you really think." Jeongguk leans in. Until his mouth is right at the shell of Jimin's ear, and Jimin can feel the heat of his breath and the tiny brush of his lips when he speaks. "Do you really think Tae-hyung wouldn't fuck you if you let him."
Jimin's mouth opens. Nothing comes out.
"Hmm?" Jeongguk's nose drags down behind his ear. "Do you? Do you think he’d deny you if you spread those pretty thighs and invited him in?"
"He's— Kookie, he's my best friend—"
"Doesn't answer the question."
Jeongguk's other hand finds his hip. Thumb pressing into the bone, fingers spread wide along the side of his ass, and Jimin's hips jerk forward of their own accord and find nothing — Jeongguk has angled his own body just out of reach, deliberately, Jimin realises.
"Do you think any of them wouldn't?" Jeongguk says, conversational, into his neck. "Be honest, hyung. You walk around in these little shorts with that ass and think anyone in that pool wasn't thinking about it? They'd be crazy not to."
"Kookie, please—"
It comes out as a whine. Embarrassing.
"You think I don't see how Namjoon-hyung looks at you when you stretch in the practice room? How Yoongi-hyung can't tear his eyes from your mouth half the time?"
"They don't—"
"They all would. Don't pretend. If I wasn't here, if you wandered into any one of their rooms wearing these…"
"Jeongguk, please—"
"Please what."
Jimin is leaking. He can feel it. The shorts are wet from the pool and now wet in a different way at the front where he's straining and sticky against the mesh, and he's going to die against this door.
"Please touch me," he breathes.
Jeongguk laughs. Quiet. Right against his ear.
"Look at you." Jeongguk pulls back just enough to look down between them. The hand on his hip drags up over his stomach, slow, fingers spreading wide over his ribs. "Already a mess. From what? A bit of talking?"
"From—" Jimin swallows. His tongue feels too big. "From you."
"From me telling you the whole group wants to fuck you?"
Jimin makes a noise. It is not a word. It is barely a vowel.
"Oh, hyung."
The hand on Jimin's hip slides. Around. Settles fully on his ass — the whole palm, fingers spreading, and Jimin's hips are finally allowed to roll forward and meet Jeongguk's thigh. Jimin sobs out a breath because the friction is — god — and Jeongguk lets him do it, exactly twice, and then the hand on his ribs pins him back against the door and Jimin is grinding on nothing again.
"No no no no—"
"You like that?" Jeongguk's voice has gone almost gentle. It is the worst thing. "You like being a little slut for me in front of all my hyungs?"
Jimin's hips try to kick forward again. They have to, holding them back feels like an impossible task.
"No," Jeongguk tuts. "Not yet, baby."
Jimin whines. Out loud. He already lost dignity ninety seconds ago and he's not getting it back today.
"Turn around for me."
Jimin blinks, dazed. "What?"
Jeongguk's hands guide him. Jimin lets himself be turned, palms flat against the wood, chest pressed into it, the cold of it now shocking through the wet shirt against his nipples. Jimin hears him step back and take a breath in.
"Fuck."
Jimin presses his forehead to the door.
"Baby."
"Look at this." A hand cups one cheek through the wet mesh. Just lifts it, weighs it, lets it drop. "I am never —never — going to understand how someone so small. Has an ass. Like this."
The hand comes back. Both hands. Squeezing. Jimin's forehead is pressed into the door and his mouth is open and he's making sounds that are mostly air.
"Look at you in these," Jeongguk says. "There's nothing to them. You're basically naked." A finger hooks under the leg hem at the back, drags it up. Jimin jolts. "You came down those stairs in front of every one of my hyungs basically naked."
"For you—"
"Yeah?"
"For you, Kook, I swear, I put them on for you—"
"My pretty baby." It's said into the back of his neck. Jimin's knees nearly go for real this time. "Coming downstairs all dressed up for me and I wasn't even there to see."
"For you, just for you—"
"I know, baby. I know."
Jeongguk's chest comes flush against his back. And Jimin feels it — Jeongguk is hard, fully hard, has been hard probably since the patio, and the line of him through his sweats fits right into the cleft of Jimin's ass as Jeongguk rolls his hips forward. Once. A slow, deliberate drag against Jimin through two layers of soaked fabric and Jimin's whole spine arches into it, his eyes rolling back into his skull.
"Such a good boy."
"Oh god — "
Jeongguk does it again. Grinds. His hands have come up to Jimin's waist, holding him there, and his mouth has found the side of Jimin's neck and he is — Jimin realises distantly — he is sucking a mark in, hard, deliberately high, right where Jimin's collar won't cover it. Jimin whines. Tilts his head to give him more.
Jeongguk hums against the new bruise like he's pleased with himself and moves down. Lower.
"I bet you could come like this."
Teeth, this time, nipping on the muscle at the join of his shoulder. Jimin's hand scrabbles uselessly at the wood.
"Couldn't you? Bet you're already close."
"No, no, please, please—" Jimin begs, horrified at the thought of coming before getting Jeongguk inside of him.
"Use your words, hyung."
"Touch me— properly— please, Kookie, I've been— I'll be so good, anything you want—"
A pause. Jeongguk's hands gripping him so hard he just knows he's going to have finger shaped bruises to worship tomorrow.
"Bed."
Jimin nods desperately against the door. He doesn't trust his voice.
He thankfully doesn't have to walk. Jeongguk turns him, scoops him up under the thighs again, Jimin's legs locking around his waist on instinct, easy, like they did with Tae except not at all like they did with Tae, because Jeongguk's hands are on his ass openly now, both of them, and Jimin is grinding down on him as they cross the room and Jeongguk is letting him, and then Jimin is being dropped onto the mattress and bouncing once and Jeongguk is standing at the foot of the bed just looking at him.
Jimin props himself up on his elbows. His chest is heaving. He knows what he looks like. Wet hair plastered to his forehead, lips bitten red, two new marks blooming on his neck, the shorts indecent and getting worse, his thighs falling open without him deciding to let them.
Jeongguk's eyes track down. Stop.
Jimin follows the look.
Oh.
His cock is hard enough that the head of it has slipped out the leg hole entirely, flushed and wet, held flat against his thigh by what is essentially at this point, a strip of black fabric.
Jimin's face goes hot. He moves to close his legs out of reflex but Jeongguk's hand is on his knee in a flash, holding it open.
"No. No, hyung. Let me see."
"Kookie, that's so embarrassing, I —"
"Don't be shy now, baby."
Jeongguk climbs onto the bed.
He kneels between Jimin's legs and just looks. Jimin watches his Adam's apple bob. The line of red high on his cheekbones. The way his chest is moving fast under the wet hoodie.
Jimin stays. His thighs tremble.
"Look how pretty."
The fingertip drags first over the fabric. Slow drag from the base along the ridge, the mesh pulling against him. Jimin's hips lift off the bed. Then the fingertip moves from fabric to skin, just brushing the head of him where he's slipped through, slick and obscene against his own thigh, and Jimin keens. His hands fly up to his face.
"None of that." Jeongguk reaches up, catches both his wrists in one hand, and pins them above his head into the pillow. Jimin's whole body goes liquid under the hold. "Eyes on me."
Jimin looks.
Jeongguk above him, hoodie still on, hair a mess, eyes fixed on him, his mouth doing something dangerous at the corner.
"Whose is this?" Fingertip again. Light, circling the head of his cock. "Hm? Tell me, baby."
"Yours—"
His hand moves lower, palming the cheek crushed flat against the mattress.
"This?"
"Yours—"
The hand travels up his body, leaving a trail of goosebumps and settling against the plush of his bottom lip.
"This?"
"Yours." Instant. "Please please please, Kook-ah, I'm all yours, only yours, fuck me, please—"
Jeongguk's mouth comes down on his. Hard. Jimin opens for him immediately, and Jeongguk kisses him filthy, all tongue, swallowing every little noise Jimin makes into it, and his free hand is shoving the shorts down Jimin's thighs and Jimin kicks them the rest of the way off and they hit the floor with a wet slap and then Jeongguk's hand is back, bare skin on bare skin, and Jimin is gone.
The lube is in the bedside drawer. Jeongguk gets it somehow without breaking the kiss, without releasing Jimin's wrists. The cap clicks, the only noise that isn’t his own little broken sounds pressing into Jeongguk's mouth that he can't seem to stop.
Jeongguk pulls back just enough to look down at him.
"Gonna make sure when you go back down there you can't sit tomorrow without thinking about me."
Jimin whimpers.
"Yeah?"
"Yes, Kookie, yes, please—"
The first finger goes in and Jimin arches off the bed.