Work Text:
It’s not going well.
The crowd’s always bloodthirsty, but the roar feels especially rabid as—ONE-TWO-THREE—San takes three sharp jabs to the face. Lights pop behind his eyes like comic book whiz-bangs, and he stumbles, dizzy, when he shakes his head to clear it. He doesn’t even notice the pain anymore. His body responds to it for him.
He swings at Mingi and misses. Bastard didn’t even dodge it. He didn’t have to with how San’s flailing. And if he’d managed to connect, it probably wouldn’t have done any damage. His form’s fucked.
He pushes himself like this during training sometimes, trying to build endurance. Wooyoung is always sitting there on the sidelines, to hand him water and eye his kitten-weak fists, unimpressed. When San’s shaky fingers can’t get the cap off, Wooyoung inevitably snatches it from him, unscrews it, and tips the bottle to San’s mouth, until water’s spilling down his chin. And then Wooyoung pats his cheek and jerks his chin toward the shower with a derisive little sniff.
“Sashay away.”
Now, with his vision so blurry, San can’t pick Wooyoung out from the screaming mass. But he’s there.
He spits blood and tries to focus. Mingi’s given him a few seconds to collect himself, for some reason, and San can hear several voices in the crowd screaming for him to knock San out already.
Mingi shifts his weight, bandaged fists up. He’s bleeding from his nose and his lip, but those were early injuries. San squints past him. Where is he. Where…
There. Wooyoung, sitting pretty, with a not very pretty look on his face. San makes the briefest flash of eye contact with him, and then whatever internal timer Mingi’s been on goes off, and he lunges—
He doesn’t remember falling. One moment he’s upright, the next he’s on the ground with the breath knocked out of him. His ears might split from the screaming, some cheering for Mingi, others howling for San to get up, get up—
“Get up!”
Wooyoung’s voice is somehow perfectly distinguishable from the roar of the crowd.
“Get the FUCK on your feet!” he yells, and twenty muscles in San’s body jump with the instinct to obey, only the rest of his body can’t get in gear. He flails and seizes on the ground
—two, three—
“BITCH GET UP—!”
And he can’t do it. He can’t shift a single muscle.
—six, eight—
Pissing away the seconds.
In the crowd, Wooyoung curls his lip and tosses his pen on the ground.
Just like that, before it’s even called, San knows he’s done.
#
The van smells like sweat and blood. Several of the muscles in San’s shoulder are freaking out; his whole arm keeps shaking, and he can’t trust himself to hold the curved needle and thread. The cut where Mingi split his forehead open seeps blood, but there’s a kink in his shoulder that won’t let him raise his arm high enough to stitch it closed. Which is just as well because he can’t even thread the fucking needle.
He can see Wooyoung just past the frame of his magnifying mirror. With no money to count, he sits restless on the edge of the bed, kicking his heels, fingers drumming.
San tries to lift his arm again. He gets maybe half an inch higher than last time before the trick muscle in his shoulder spasms again. His arm shakes and drops. He’s not even sure when that injury happened—Mingi was whaling on him so hard by the end that it could have been any time.
He’d been nice about it, which compounded the insult of wiping the floor with him. He’d helped San up after, and San had been treated to an extended up-close study of the blood soaking through the wrappings on Mingi’s knuckles. Then his minder—who was half his size, a switchblade to Mingi’s butcher knife—had tugged him away by a firm hand at the back of his shirt.
San’s arm fails him again, and at the same moment, he finally catches Wooyoung’s eye. It glitters gold under the truck’s shitty lights.
Blood oozes hot and slow down the side of San’s face. He gulps and summons his nerve.
“Can you, um—can you—?”
He waves the needle, a flaccid attempt to ask for what he needs. Wooyoung blinks at him like a cat, unfolds himself, and gets up.
He moves like sex. Even now—maybe especially right now—San notices. His mouth is dry by the time Wooyoung closes the short distance between them. Like this, San’s face is almost level with his dick. Like this, he could drop forward and bury his face in Wooyoung’s waist. Smear blood all over his silk shirt. Cry a little bit, embarrass himself, be gross.
Wooyoung takes firm hold of San’s jaw and tips his head back.
The flash of rosy tongue as he threads the needle does things to San’s spinal cord.
Usually, when San does this himself, he’s unbothered by the act of suturing. It’s easy when he’s in control of it. Wooyoung brings the needle up, past San’s line of vision, and San starts to shake. It’s like being in the ring and letting the other guy swing at your face for the first time—San had learned quickly how to not react, how to take it, shake it off, keep it pushing, but that initial clench of terror as the knuckles ram for his face has never disappeared and, unable to see where Wooyoung’s hand is or know when the needle will push under his skin, he’s feeling it now.
“You know it’ll hurt more if you clench up like that,” Wooyoung says. Light and conversational. “You big baby.”
It sounds like he’s teasing him. It doesn’t feel like being teased.
“Sorry,” San mutters, just as the needle pricks in.
It goes fairly easy after the initial flare of tension. A slight tug in his skin, a neat row of aches from the passage of the needle and thread in and out, in and out, in and out…
He’s sweating through his tank. He tried to take it off earlier but couldn’t get the shirt over his head on his own, but Wooyoung didn’t offer to help, and just then, San would have taken another beating rather than ask.
“Done,” Wooyoung says and steps back. San eyes the needle. It still looks clean. His whole forehead is throbbing, the skin too tight and too warm.
“Thanks,” San mumbles and then, as impossible to stop as gagging, for what must be the tenth time, “I’m really sorry—”
“San.”
No honorific. No sticky-sweet, wheedling aegyo—Sannie, Sannie, Sannieeeeeeeeee.
Nothing.
It feels like getting punched.
Wooyoung smiles.
He says, “It’s fine.”
Light and easy. Like it doesn’t mean anything.
He makes like he’s going to head back to his side of the truck, and San grabs a slippery, silken handful of his shirt, feeling like a little kid.
“Can I make it up to you?” he mumbles, and okay, now he’s really feeling the wretchedness of the night because that’s not how they do this. Wooyoung’s the one who does all the begging, and only because he’s got everything already—all the money, all the charm, and San’s balls on a leash to boot. It costs nothing for him to grovel. He never has to risk that San will tell him no.
Wooyoung wraps his hand around San’s where it’s clinging to his shirt.
“You’re pretty busted up, puppy,” he says.
“That’s never stopped us before.” San’s close to pleading. Fuck, where is this coming from? “You know how many times I’ve torn something from fucking you?”
Wooyoung purses his lips. Perfect little pout. It’s mortifying how bad San needs to be kissed suddenly.
“You need your rest,” Wooyoung says. He adds, “It’s just one loss, okay? Don’t get all in your head.”
San sniffs.
“Yeah,” he says.
#
A series of strange, uncomfortable contortions are required to get San’s shirt off him without aggravating any injuries. Wooyoung takes San’s pants off and pointedly fails to notice how San’s dick is making a valiant effort at getting hard. He feeds San his painkillers, chased with a few gulps of room-temperature water, and makes him lie down on their mattress. It smells like the two of them. Day-sweat, night-sweat, sex-sweat. Old blood.
The last thing San is aware of before he passes out is a brief whiff of the night air and then the truck door slamming shut.
#
When he opens his eyes again, he’s lying on his stomach, and the painkillers have kicked in. His face feels warm, slightly numb in an insular kind of way, but nothing’s hurting. They’re making him feel slow too, stupider, and maybe that’s why it takes him so long to understand why the truck feels even smaller than usual.
A wet sound in the semi-darkness. The van shakes a little. San squints.
He makes out two shapes in the dark—one leaned against the wall by the door, the other kneeling in front of it. Outside, a car rumbles by, and the headlights shine gold through the narrow windows, providing just enough light that San can recognize Wooyoung on his knees, head bobbing quick and tight. They aren’t even two feet away—there’s not enough space for that—and San can hear the suction of Wooyoung’s mouth, the rasp of his tongue on the head of the other guy’s dick, and the wet click when it pops into his throat. A little choke, a little whimper. Somehow he looks satisfied and desperate all at once when his mouth is full, constantly hungry. The number of times that San’s caught himself fearing that he won’t be able to keep up with him…
The guy he’s sucking off is loud too, whimpering through the fist shoved against his own mouth. Wooyoung pulls off his dick and rises up on his knees to rasp—
“You wanna get down here and gimme that big dick?”
A deep, cored-out little groan.
“Yeah—yeah, fuck yeah—”
Wooyoung drops onto his elbows and then onto his back, and the other guy follows him, lands on top of him with a grunt that strikes San as really familiar, but it’s only until he’s kissing Wooyoung that San recognizes it as the same grunt he heard in the ring three hours ago, the first time Mingi had knocked him down. He had shoved him facedown on the dirty floor, cheek against rough concrete and his elbow digging hard and sharp into the base of San’s skull. His grunt of exertion had sounded like that. Exactly like that.
San scrapes his teeth over his tongue until it hurts.
Does his mean little minder know? Or did Mingi sneak off behind his back, strung on the promise of victory dick?
Mingi’s pants rustle as he kicks his way out of them and Wooyoung rolls them over, straddling him as he reaches between Mingi’s thighs.
“Aww,” he coos, “poor baby, d’you even know what to do with all that?”
Mingi mumbles something unintelligible that turns into a deep groan as Wooyoung starts stroking him—San’s been on the receiving end of that grip more times than he can count, tight and hard enough that it feels like Wooyoung’s trying to yank it off entirely. Mingi whimpers a little bit. A hiss through his teeth. And then Wooyoung rises up on his knees, his wrist angles a little, and just like that—
“Oh fuck,” Mingi pants. “Oh fuck—fuck—”
His hips jutter up a little, and Wooyoung gasps hard. He drops a hand backward on Mingi’s thigh to brace himself, and a mewling little cry bursts out of his throat. The streetlights streaming through the window shine on his throat and his gleaming teeth as he arches his neck back. Mingi’s hands wrap around Wooyoung’s knees. Another cry from Wooyoung, and then Mingi’s hips move again, and they both sag into the floor a little, and San knows with an old hand’s intuition that Mingi must be up to his balls in Wooyoung now.
“So fucking big,” Wooyoung breathes.
His fingers skim up Mingi’s chest and then curl around his jaw to pull him up for a sloppy kiss. San can hear the wetness of it.
Wooyoung laughs.
“Okay down there?”
“Yeah,” Mingi breathes, “yeah, I just—I just—”
He breaks off as Wooyoung abruptly rolls his hips, his thighs trembling a little. He laughs.
“Fuck.” He settles his palms on Mingi’s heaving chest. “Guess you and Hongjoong aren’t like that, huh? Can’t be.” Rocking back and forth on it. “You’d rip that little bitch in half—just—putting it in—oh my god—”
Mingi reaches up for him, but Wooyoung pushes his hands back down and pins them for good measure.
“Oh no you don’t. You let me do the work, okay?”
Mingi moans in his throat.
“Ohhhhkay,” he pants. “Okayokayokay.”
The truck jostles with Wooyoung’s every movement. To San, it feels a little like he’s getting fucked too, and each time the bed creaks under him marks the growing promise of pain once his meds wear off. Muscle flexes in Wooyoung’s thighs and his stomach as he rides Mingi, and it’s easy to imagine Mingi’s dick twitching inside of him, aching like any of the black bruises scattered across San’s body.
It feels inevitable when San catches his own hips twitching into the mattress. The mattress creaks a little harder, tattling, but Wooyoung and Mingi are too wrapped up in each other—literally, as Mingi sits up and puts his arms around Wooyoung, Wooyoung riding him hell for leather now, teeth sunk into Mingi’s shoulder. There’s nowhere else San can look; and the thing is, they fuck like that all the time, all tangled up with their faces in each other’s necks, rocking hard enough to shake the entire van, and San thinks it might kill him to see that from the outside, and to see how fucking hot Wooyoung is at the center of it.
Precum leaks hot into his underwear.
“God, look at you,” Wooyoung’s panting, “dumb fucking puppy, don’t even know how to fuck me right—can’t even put it in on your own—make me do all the work—”
Mingi whimpers, high and needy. Wooyoung smacks his cheek.
“Don’t come,” he says, “don’t you dare, don’t you dare—”
“Okay—” his teeth scrape Wooyoung’s collarbone— “okay—”
Wooyoung swears and starts jerking himself off.
Mingi paws at Wooyoung’s shoulder.
“Can I—”
He doesn’t finish his sentence, but Wooyoung seems to know what he wants anyway, he lets Mingi tip him onto his back and hike his hips up, ankles on Mingi’s shoulders. Now that he’s got leverage, Mingi fucks Wooyoung with short, sharp punches, and Wooyoung starts gasping, fist frantic on his dick. The position means that San has a perfect view of the cum that jets over Wooyoung’s belly when he orgasms, a fresh burst of liquid each time Mingi’s hips slam against his ass. Wooyoung’s face screws up, his teeth bared. His feet jolt on Mingi’s shoulders.
“—need me—to stop—?” Mingi pants.
Wooyoung moans, soft and almost pained, but he digs his nails into Mingi’s forearms when Mingi makes like he going to pull out.
“Come on, you wanna fuck me like you earned it, huh.” Mingi hisses and starts thrusting again, even as Wooyoung swallows a wail. “Yeah,” he breathes, low and urgent, “yeah, you earned it, baby, you earned it—” He stuffs his knuckles in his mouth to muffle a cry— “oh my god, ow—no, don’t stop—don’t stop—don’t—”
Mingi reaches breakneck, rutting hard, and under his grunts and Wooyoung’s whimpers, it’s easy for San to add his own silent monologue, the shit he always says when he’s close and wants Wooyoung to know and get off on it, take it slut, come on—
San squeezes his eyes shut.
Things go quiet. The in-out of breath. A murmur. A laugh, Wooyoung’s. San opens his eyes again and finds Mingi peeling himself off of Wooyoung. A momentary glimpse of his softening cock, hanging heavy as a club between his legs.
“Where’s a towel?” he asks.
“Why, you need one?” says Wooyoung. He flashes a devastating little grin as he pushes himself into a sitting position. San’s gut flips a little.
Mingi is putting his pants on. Wooyoung watches him dress for a second, then angles over to—San’s gut flips again—one of the suitcases tucked under the bench. The one contains San’s entire life. Wooyoung rifles past clothes and toiletries and photos and then fishes out a thick cluster of bills. A snap of the rubber band that holds it all together. Then he stands up and stuffs a great handful of them under the band of Mingi’s boxer-briefs, against hot, damp skin. Mingi gives him a sultry oh-yeah-baby stare, lip bite and everything, and then breaks into a big grin. Wooyoung slaps his ass and, naked, opens the van door.
Out Mingi stumbles, shirt balled in one big hand, fly open, button undone. Through the open door, San catches sight of a smaller figure waiting outside. Mingi pulls the money—San’s money, his blood money—out of his underwear and hands it all to his minder, who counts with a few deft flicks of his fingers. He hands a portion back to Mingi and pockets the rest. As they disappear into the night together, he slings an arm around Mingi’s waist.
The van door snaps shut.
For a moment, San thinks he’s been left alone. Then the bed shifts underneath him, creaking and squealing, as Wooyoung climbs on. He reeks of sex, and as he nestles in next him, San feels the touch of wet skin.
Fingertips brush San’s mouth. Wooyoung kisses the corner of it.
San rolls onto his back. He studies the dark ceiling, not even an arms-length from his face.
“Are you mad?” Wooyoung whispers against his cheek. “You’re all busted up, I didn’t wanna make it worse.”
San chews his tongue.
“Or is it the money?” Wooyoung adds.
Blood roars in San’s ears.
“I took a pretty big hit tonight, you’ll earn it back in no time—”
“It’s not my money,” San tells the ceiling.
A pause.
“What?”
San sniffs. He tastes blood in the back of his throat.
“You know what I mean. It’s not mine.”
A hand wraps around his jaw and turns his face to look into Wooyoung. He’s so close. Still flushed and damp from getting fucked.
San’s neck hurts.
“C’me here.” Wooyoung shifts into the mattress like he wants to pull San into his arms and spoon. San gulps against the hard lump in his throat. He shakes his head. Wooyoung purses his lips. He murmurs, oh honey.
“I’m sorry,” San mumbles.
“Hey, shhhh.”
Wooyoung cradles his face. One thumb brushes the sutures on his forehead, and then they’re kissing, languorous, almost contentedly. Post-coital, San thinks, through his relief. Between kisses, between their mouths, Wooyoung thumbs San’s lips apart and feeds three of his fingers onto his tongue. They’re already wet, wet and salty-tasting, but it’s not until Wooyoung draws his fingers out and brings them back down to the inside of his own thigh that San’s punch-drunk brain catches up, makes the connection.
His nose burns as Wooyoung’s fingers, wet with the cum that’s been sliding out of him ever since Mingi left, slip back into his mouth. Wooyoung shushes him, pets his hair with his free hand.
“It’s okay,” he murmurs. “You wanna clean me up?”
He offers it like it’s a kindness, and as San, sniffling, painfully crawls on top of him and pulls apart his thighs, with Wooyoung craning his neck to watch, swollen lips parted, looking like he wants to go again, with the meds already starting to wear off, with all of this, kindness is what it might as well be.