Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

for mood/reference: x x

“There’s a storm coming, you know.”

Namjoon peered out the dusty, water-stained window of the tiny, run-down corner store. There wasn’t a cloud in sight. The sun glinted down gentle over the flat, dull lines of the plains. Out in this little corner of nowhere, the air was unsullied from the pollution of the city― all blue, clear skies for miles and miles. Namjoon didn’t fancy himself a country-man yet, but on days like this he understood the appeal, appreciated the serenity of the landscape, the hazy lull of the town around midday, and the hush of the cornfields as he cruised along gravel roads in his truck.

“Looks pretty clear to me,” Namjoon said, sliding his things across the counter for the clerk to scan― dish soap, toilet paper, a new lighter, and a bottle of diet soda with beads of condensation already dripping down the sides. He was still getting his shit together from the move, made odd runs to the convenience store like this almost every day. This particular employee he’d run into at least thrice in the past week. Namjoon was half-surprised he’d given not the slightest inclination that he recognized him.

The cashier shrugged, moving like molasses in winter as he rung up each item and lined them up on the counter. “Weather changes awful quick around here. Debit or credit?”

“Cash.”

The man exhaled loud through his nose, like having to open the cash register was some great inconvenience, and held his hand open across the counter. It took Namjoon a moment to dig through the pockets of his jeans for his wallet. This was another thing he didn’t miss about the city. No one ever seemed to be in much of a hurry around here. The locals seemed a mellow, easy to please sort of folk, nothing like the stuck-up hipsters and stuffy business people Namjoon used to regularly offend when he took too long to order at Starbucks. Everyone here was patient and strangely, bordering on off-puttingly friendly.

… Save, apparently, for the man waiting behind him, who let out an agitated huff as Namjoon begun to unfold and sort through his crumpled mass of bills on the counter. He leaned up against the side of the counter a few feet away, jangling a heavy ring of keys looped around his little finger, very obviously trying to peer around the display at what Namjoon was doing with his money. He had to be just about the only other Asian living in Andover; it wasn’t a particularly diverse sort of place. Namjoon wondered what his story was.

“Didn’t your daddy ever teach you how a man keeps his bills folded,” the stranger said as the cashier slowly, carefully counted out Namjoon’s change.

Namjoon pasted on a wide, easy grin to match the one he’d seen on so many of the men around here― those real country-boys, born and raised on the plains, a near-mythical breed of charmers and smooth-talkers. On them it spoke of confidence and a winsome sort of indifference, on Namjoon he wasn’t so sure yet― needed a little more practice in the mirror perhaps. “No, sir he didn’t.”

“Hmph,” was all the man said in return, and bumped lightly but very purposefully into Namjoon’s side as he set his own things down on the counter before Namjoon could move out of the way. Namjoon wondered if he’d come here from the ‘burbs too; he sure acted like it. Looked like it too with his gauzy patterned button down and swooshy, netted dress pants― it was a far cry from flannel-denim combo it seemed had never gone out of fashion here. It was the most ridiculous, flashy, utterly impractical outfit Namjoon had seen since the move, and he loved the nostalgia that that weird, urban fashion he didn’t understand brought now that he’d been so long away from home. He would have loved it more if the guy hadn’t been such a dick though.

Namjoon scooped his bag off the counter and ducked back outside. After the dingy dim of the shop, the sun burned his eyes. Even for April it was warmer than usual. Namjoon had heard the folks on the weather station say so on the drive over. Two whole months in this town and he still hadn’t figured out the good radio stations. Usually he didn’t bother with it at all, just listened to the hum of the fading engine and the tires crunching over loose gravel.

He slid into the driver’s seat and took a swig of his coke― diet. Outside, the grouchy guy from the line whooshed out the front door, which heaved violently into the shabby wooden panelling of the outside with a groan. Apparently it hadn’t just been Namjoon he’d found irksome. The man stalked towards a thing that might have been considered a car in the seventies but now bore a much closer resemblance to scrap metal on wheels. The whole body was painted in a patchy, faded mustard, a portion of metal sheeting missing from the passenger’s side door. And Namjoon had thought his truck was shitty. Apparently beaten old hoopties were like a right of passage around here.

The man appeared to struggle with the lock on the door, annoyance palpable as he glared down at the key in his hand and kicked viciously at one of the tires. Namjoon couldn’t help it; he chuckled. He thought it’d been quiet enough, but the man’s head snapped up. Even though the protective glass of the windshield, Namjoon shrunk back when that glare landed on him, stony and unamused.

Namjoon shrank back in his seat. He searched a moment for the keys in the cupholder and when he looked up next, the man was looming in front of the driver’s side window, looking stormy. Namjoon jumped hard. The man’s glower deepened and he rapped on the window with the back of his knuckles. His eyebrows were thick and dark and formed two perfect angry lines over his narrowed eyes. Even marred by anger, he had one of the most perfectly symmetrical faces Namjoon had ever seen. Had it not been for the dark, unnecessarily menacing energy, he would have been very handsome. 

Namjoon cranked the window open as fast as the old, creaky thing would allow. “Hiya,” he said. The stranger blinked at him and Namjoon’s heart felt squeezed, suddenly, between his ribs.

“Hi,” the man said after a long second of staring, devoid of any warmth. “Noticed you were staring.” Namjoon opened his mouth to protest but the man didn’t give him the opportunity. “-And I’m in sort of a time crunch right now so I figured it wouldn’t hurt to ask if you got a coat hanger or a wire by any chance.”

“Not with me, sorry.”

“Hmm.” The stranger turned his back and without another word began traipsing back to his car. Long pants swishing in the dust that coated the battered concrete. Out here, the sun outlined his silhouette elegantly through the sheer, billowing fabric of his shirt. He may have been sort of a dick, but he knew how to dress to cut a striking figure. Or maybe his figure was simply striking on it’s own.

Namjoon couldn’t just let him walk away. 

“Wait!” he said, and instantly regretted opening his mouth at all. The man looked back over his shoulder with one thick eyebrow raised. “If you’re really in that much of a hurry I could, uh. Give you a ride?” He hadn’t meant it to be a question at all, but that piercing look turned on him and Namjoon’s mouth was suddenly, completely dry. 

The man’s eyebrows drew together again, but rather than annoyed he looked almost humourously perplexed. “You’re offering me a ride?”

“Sure, why not?” Namjoon was starting to itch under the collar. Since when did pretty eyes, a lean build, and a bad attitude make him this nervous. That was half the population of LA.

“I got some time to kill and you seem like a…” he coughed once into his fist. “Nice guy.”

The stranger looked at him placidly, perfectly symmetrical planes of his face like the fresh-inked pages of a particularly fascinating book. And Namjoon had just forgotten how to read, how unfortunate. 

“Listen guy.” The stranger’s lips pulled up a bit at the corners. It was a mean sort of smile, but Namjoon found he didn’t really mind it on his handsome face. “Thanks for the offer, but I don’t know you and I’m not really in the mood to exchange sexual favors for a ride in your hoopty.” 

Namjoon’s eyes wandered back to the stranger’s car, which looked to be gathering more rust by the minute in the corner of the parking lot. 

“Just being neighborly.”

“We aren’t really neighbors.” 

“I reckon everyone’s neighbors in a town this size.”

The stranger folded his arms over his chest and assessed him again. He was a bit like a swan, Namjoon decided― perfectly poised, graceful, but with a mean streak a mile wide. But damn if he didn’t make it feel sort of good to be hated.

“I reckon you’re trying to fit in around here. Making nice with me ain’t gonna help you with that.”

“Why not?”

“Look at me.” He motioned down the front of his body, the lean sway of his hips, just slightly cocked and the long, artful stretch of his torso.

“Trust me, I am.”

The stranger didn’t look very flattered. His lips curled up in a dark grimace. “Flirting isn’t really doing a good job convincing me on the neighborly thing.”

“Wasn’t flirting,” Namjoon mumbled, knowing that he very much had been. “You’re just really…” he bit down on the inside of his cheek and tasted salt. “Well, you know.”  

“Right.”

The man turned on his heel and made it a few paces before he appeared to have a change of heart and, like the flash of a whirlwind, was at Namjoon’s window in an instant. He leaned forward, until the top of his head was poking in Namjoon’s window, and peered down. Namjoon didn’t move a muscle for fear a spooking him. Up close his hair that had looked almost auburn under the glow of the sun was a rich, chocolate brown. 

Namjoon spent only a few fleeting seconds wondering if the stranger had decided he wanted the ride after all, before his head had vanished. The stranger brooded down at Namjoon in the driver’s seat, sun illuminating the wispy outline of flyaway hairs that halo-ed his head, face all in shadow, looking unduly sinister for a balmy spring day.

“You’re at least a little cute, so I’ll give you a tip.” 

Namjoon’s heart thudded against his ribs. 

“Head straight home. City boys like you don’t get the signs yet. It’ll be pouring in an hour or two, and your shoes are ridiculous.”

Namjoon quite liked his Birkenstocks. They were the one California Thing he allowed himself out here. They were practical and comfortable and he thought they made him look pretty damn cool. The stranger didn’t seem to care. He was already halfway across the parking lot, moving quickly despite that slinking gait of his, shiny black shoes kicking up bits of gravel and dust.

Namjoon hated to see him leave, but he loved to see him go. He let his gaze linger a second longer before he turned the key, started his engine and pulled out of the spot, chalked in sun-bleached white paint. A gentle breeze fluttered his hair through the open window, and he squinted into the glare of the sun in his side mirror. His truck rumbled low as he cruised past the man staring down his terrible yellow monstrosity as if he could unlock it by sheer will alone. 

Namjoon couldn’t resist. 

“I’m Namjoon, by the way,” he called and watched the line of the man’s neck go stiff.

“Good for you,” said the grouchy, hot stranger without so much as a glance over his shoulder in Namjoon’s direction.

“I really wasn’t flirting, you know.” 

“Good for you.”

Namjoon waited a beat. “I’d also really appreciate it if you told me your name.” 

The man mumbled something Namjoon couldn’t hear and yanked on the door handle a few more times with stunning violence, but to no avail. With a sigh he turned around, a single eyebrow arched cooly. “Taehyung.”

“Taehyung.” Namjoon smiled. “I’ll remember that.”

“I bet you will.”

Namjoon peeled out of the lot before angry dude got any angrier. Pissing off the locals wasn’t going to make his job any easier. The people here already didn’t trust him. It was nothing anyone had said, but he saw the looks he got around town when he was on the job. He was an outsider here, a city boy, a cultural outsider who couldn’t quite grasp the fundamental laws that defined this particular sort of rural consciousness. Didn’t really matter that Namjoon wasn’t actually from the city itself, just a tiny burb barely even incorporated in LA county. 

Out on the highway with nothing but the creaky old steel roof separating him from the open sky was the most liberated Namjoon ever felt these days. He rolled the rest of the windows down and just enjoyed the way the wind whipped his hair around, stinging against the sides of his face and stealing his breath. He didn’t have anywhere to be for the rest of the day; maybe he’d go out cruising, or try and get more pictures. 

It seemed, somehow, that everything he took these days was shit. He didn’t try so much anymore. The photos he did take were all the same― lackluster and uninspired. When he looked at these plains he saw beauty in every stalk of grass, each distinct hue of blue that colored the sky, but through the lens of his camera it was just drab dirt and patchy grass― utterly flat, utterly boring.

He’d come here for inspiration but had nothing to show for it so far. Just a flash drive full of crappy, amateurish photos of scarecrows and pictures of sunsets that looked exactly the same as the ones every spoiled, astrology-obsessed girl in the valley posted on instagram from a vacay in Bali. Namjoon was ashamed. 

When he talked to his friends and his parents on the phone now, there was nothing much to say. They didn’t understand why he’d left, and if he was being particularly honest, sometimes he didn’t either. For all that he hated it, it seemed to come up in every conversation. 

Yes, work is going well.

No, I’m not too lonely.

Yes, I think I’m going to stay here for a while.

No one was so cruel as to say it, but he knew what they all thought of the place― not much to see, not much to do. Middle of nowhere. They might have been right. Namjoon usually hated to admit that, but he couldn’t deny that most days, this town was an enigma. He half presumed he was unravelling both it and himself at once. And maybe that fact bellied the particular charm of the place. With nothing to do, there sure was a lot of time for thinking.

Namjoon slowed as he reached the turn into that dirt path that eventually lead towards his house. He didn’t want to go home, home was just a big plot of nothing. He’d lied a little bit all those times on the phone― he was a little bit lonely. Not the kind of lonely he got surrounded by faceless people who he lacked any substantial connection with, but the kind of lonely only isolation could really bring about. He’d met a few nice people at work. He needed to make more of an effort to connect with them. Or he could just get a dog. That sounded a lot easier.

Namjoon veered right, away from home, away from the wobbly, uneven path that lead there. Instead he drove and drove and kept driving, out towards the open blankness of the fields. Green whipped past him all in a blur; tall grass rippled and thrashed under the rising breeze. He was always at least half lost driving through these back-roads. All the farms looked the same, the shallow, black glittering ponds and high grass― the same. All this stretched under the wide, infinite blue sky and Namjoon was almost convinced he’d really gone and done it this time― gotten well and truly lost― until he passed a familiar landmark and reoriented himself. This time it was an old, rusted grain tower he’d tried photographing the first time he’d come up this way. It must have been abandoned. He’d never seen any humans or equipment out here and he didn’t reckon it was in any kind of working condition looking the way it did.

Namjoon rolled to a slow stop in the ditch a few hundred yards away. Usually this particular field was scattered with cattle but today it was bleak and deserted. They must have gone to graze elsewhere. Namjoon didn’t know much about livestock but that seemed like a reasonable assumption to make. Like how some seasons you gave the soil a break to keep it fertile or something. That sounded right. See, Namjoon was picking up this country stuff already.

He left the AC running as he delved into the backseat for his equipment. His camera battery was running low so he hooked his charger into the adapter on the console to let it juice up for a bit. While he waited, he laid in the bed of his truck and stared up at the sky. It was so warm here, so peaceful. The caffeine from his soda was doing nothing to keep him alert. His eyelids drifted shut to the muted whisper of wind, rustling through the long grass. Through them he could still see in vague impressions the patterns of the skies. Floating, morphing colors drifted in and out of sight. Sometimes Namjoon wondered if this was seeing at all, or just his imagination at work, crafting some kind of illusion of lights dancing before his eyes. They weren't quite shapes but more impressions than anything. It was with this thought in mind that he drifted off to sleep for a few moments.

When his eyes next opened, the sun was no more. He was met with the brief, dizzying fear that night had fallen already, that he had slept out here for half the day without realizing it. That wasn’t it, though. Heavy, dark clouds hovered oppressively over the horizon, blotting out the sunlight, looming oppressively near― so near as to make the ground itself claustrophobic. The air felt warm and static-y enough to make his hairs stand on end. His watch read five thirty-four. 

“Fuck.”

He scrambled out of the truck bed to kill the power. 

“Shit, shit, shit,” he hissed, tucking his camera back into the bag, then the battery too when he remembered it. He cranked up all the windows one by one, as fast as their little gears would turn.

He may have been a city boy, but he knew what storm clouds looked like.

He raced to the back of the truck to roll down the tonneau cover. Why was it that his hands were always ten times clumsier when he was in a hurry? He could already feel the way the rain would soak through his clothes, wet down his hair, and trickle down his back. These flash storms always came in such a violent flurry.

He got behind the wheel and turned the key. Nothing. Not even a sputter from the engine. He took it out and tried again. Still nada. He let his forehead thunk against the steering wheel and heaved a great sigh.

“I’m an idiot.”

He brooded a moment in the wake of his own shameful stupidity, then slid his phone out of his pocket and dialed the office. Someone there would be able to jump him. 

The call rang for ages before going to voicemail. Odd. The receptionist was usually pretty on task and they didn’t get a whole lot of calls to begin with. He hung up and tried again. Still no answer. Namjoon was beginning to get an inkling that something wasn’t right. 

He had never regretted not connecting with his coworkers more. He’d been here almost a month and the only phone number he had was of the mousy girl who worked in the Features department and always brought the smelliest tuna salad sandwiches for lunch. Somehow he felt like it wouldn’t really be appropriate to call her. He was pretty sure she’d caught him gagging at the smell last week. He really needed to get out and meet more people. He also really needed to get triple A.

He resigned himself to waiting on the side of the road until someone passed and took pity on him. The utter lack of life or movement out here didn’t bode well. He flicked on his hazard lights, reclined the seat as far as it would go and stared out the windshield at the clouds morphing overhead. A distant rumble of thunder buzzed ominously. He thought he could make out the main drag through town if he squinted hard enough. It was maybe a mile or two out. He might be able to walk there if he really needed to.

Tiny little water drops began to mist over the windows, blurring his view. The water beaded and ran, rendering everything outside into a kind of grey, watery blur. Namjoon took out his cellphone and put on an old episode of Friends. The sound was muted and tinny through the speaker on his phone. It was an episode he’d seen before; Ross and Rachel were at again about the stupid break. Why did it seem like this show had much more entertaining when he was twelve? 

Namjoon’s eyelids began to flutter again. He could rest his eyes for a moment, not like he was going anywhere.

Minutes passed. A third episode started to play and Namjoon’s little niggling concern was back and more insistent. Maybe he should walk out to the main road. It didn’t look like anyone would be coming this way for a while, and he was starting to get worried. His phone battery was draining fast and stranded on the side of the road wasn’t the smartest place to be if this storm was going to be serious. The rain was still but a mist, nothing he couldn’t handle.

Namjoon made up his mind.

His sandals sunk into the damp grass when he jumped from the cab, and he could already feel the wetness seeping between his toes. He took a few steps out towards the road, then changed his mind and turned back for his camera bag in the back seat. He hadn’t paid thousands of dollars to have it stolen out of his car by some derelict on a country back road. 

He slung the camera bag over his shoulder, locked the doors manually, and started up a brisk walk. Even without the sun, the air felt unnaturally hot, barely dampened by the chill of the rain. The drops began to get fatter as he walked; Namjoon wiped water out of his eyes and picked it up to a jog. It was possible the road was farther than he’d thought. He ran for several minutes and it hardly seemed closer. He slowed to rest for a minute, panting hard already. The humidity in the air  made it hard to breathe and his damp clothes clung heavily to his skin.

A long wail pierced the air, warbling and eerie. It seemed to echo all around, coming from every direction at once, an unsettling, off-kilter cadence. Goosebumps prickled up all along Namjoon’s bare arms. Lightning made the dark bank of clouds flash a blue-white. Namjoon fell into a flat out run.

His lungs ached and quads burned with effort. The bottoms of his sandals squelched in the muddy grass, each step a distinct schlucking sound as he slogged through wet soil. The siren wailed on for minutes before the haunting echo of the thing died slowly, until the plain was left in chilling, preternatural silence. 

Finally, the toe of Namjoon’s sandal was sucked up deep into a mudbank and he sprawled forward and hit the ground hard. He caught himself on both hands and pushed back to his feet. His ankle throbbed dully as he slid his foot back into his shoe.

He kept going, thoroughly soaked now and shivering as the wind began to pick up. It made the wet sides of his tee shirt flap stingingly against his ribs and it whipped the long grass up into a frenzy. In his ears, it whistled. 

Namjoon moved as fast as he could but he was tired and his toes were beginning to feel numb from the chill of the rain. The side of the road wasn’t so far now, only a couple hundred yards out. Namjoon bridged the last of the gap and scaled the embankment up onto the side of the road. He collapsed in the gravel there, scanning the road for cars and let himself breathe for a moment. The wind blew harder up here on raised ground, and his face stung as strands of his wet hair lashed against his cheeks.

Namjoon climbed back to his feet and looked around. This wasn’t the road that passed through the center of town like he’d thought it was, just another narrow highway to nowhere. The asphalt clung onto some lingering heat from the sun and he slipped off his shoes and pressed the pads of his toes into it just to feel some residual warmth.

Lightning lit up the horizon again, outlining the vast, deserted landscape and that same rusty silo, neglected and shrunk by distance. The rain had mostly ceased now, though by the look of the sky, not for long. Had he not been stranded, he might have appreciated more the harsh beauty of the sky above the lonely plains. Namjoon shivered and looked around. Now that was an interesting cloud, deep grey and funnel-shaped, arching down as far as he could see into the horizon. The surrounding sky was an orangey hue that held that dark, central column in sharp contrast. The effect was as terrifying as it was beautiful.

Namjoon, against any shed of common sense he might have possessed, got out his camera for a picture. This would look great in the paper, he could picture it already. He peered through the viewfinder and focused in, snapped a photo. The wind cracked the camera strap harshly against his wrist. Namjoon adjusted the lens and snapped another. 

There it was, that energy that his pictures had been lacking so long, alive in his fingers trembling on the shutter, alive and in the brewing storm in front of him. He steadied the camera with both hands and snapped photo after photo. The wind whistled through the gap between his face and the display. He kept on snapping. He didn’t need to look to know these were the best he’d taken in months, maybe years. High on the adrenaline of a good shoot, he briefly forgot himself.

A sharp honk startled him out of his trance-like stupor. Namjoon about-faced with a leap.

“What in God’s name are you doing?”

Namjoon was either very cursed or very blessed. In front of him was Taehyung from the cornerstone in his terrible yellow contraption, looking thunderously outraged as Namjoon stood dumbly on the side of the road in the middle of a lightning storm.

He let the camera hang slack around his neck. “I…”

“Get in.”

Namjoon turned to look over his shoulder back at the muddy ditch. “Huh?”

“I’m talking to you. Get in the car.” 

Namjoon hesitated and looked back once, fleetingly at the storm clouds before he decided that a grouchy, hot stranger was probably still a better bet than standing out here any longer. He hurried around to the passenger side and yanked on the handle a few times before the door jerked open with a groan. 

Inside the car was terribly warm. Namjoon hadn’t even realized he’d been shaking until he felt the heat begin to seep into his soaked skin.

Taehyung pulled back onto the road and punched the gas. Namjoon was rather unceremoniously flattened into his seat. 

“Sorry about your seat,” he said, trying not to drip too much into the cupholders as he shifted.

Taehyung shrugged. “Car’s a piece of shit anyway.”

Namjoon couldn’t really argue with that. Even the interior was dumpy with its worn old upholstery, antique controls, and distinct mothball smell. The road noise was a constant buzz, the only thing that separated them from silence.

“Alright.” Taehyung tapped his fingers on the wheel without rhythym. “You know I gotta ask. What the hell were you doing out there?”

“Taking pictures, I guess.”

Telephone poles raced by outside the window. The sky grew darker still. 

“Why the fuck would you―” Taehyung’s fingers tightened and released on the wheel as he took a breath. “I thought you were from the city, not suicidal.” 

“My car battery died.” Namjoon grimaced. “Hey, you wouldn’t happen to have jumper cables, would you?”

Taehyung glanced over at him. “What do I look like, Mikaela Banes?”

“Who?”

“Nevermind.” He tapped the brakes as they approached the first stoplight in miles. “Where are we going?”

Namjoon blinked. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know how to get to your own house?”

“Not from here. What about my car?”

The light turned green and Taehyung stomped the gas pedal. They shot down the highway, fat new drops of rain spattering against the windshield. Namjoon checked the speedometer; he was going at least fifteen over. 

“Your car? Dude, I know you’re not from around here but come on. You can’t dick around outside during a tornado.”

“There’s a tornado? Where?”

Taehyung pointed out the passenger side window at the cloud formation Namjoon had been admiring earlier. “What’d you think it was, a rainbow?”

Namjoon couldn’t take his eyes off it now, a blot on the horizon that suddenly felt much closer, much more threatening. He couldn’t blink, he feared if he did it would be upon them in an instant. 

God, he didn’t know the first thing about surviving a storm. He was from LA, the worst they got was a little rain, and even that was its own catastrophe the few times a year it happened.

He got a death-grip on the car door handle. “Holy shit, is it even safe to be out here?”

“Nope.” Taehyung ran the next light and jerked the wheel hard to the right. Somehow the storm loomed even larger though the windshield.

Namjoon cowered in his seat. “Why are you driving towards it?”

Something in his voice must have sounded off. Taehyung stopped white-knuckling the wheel for long enough to look amused. “My house is this way.”

“Is that where we’re going?” 

Namjoon was curious. Taehyung didn’t possess that same rural charm that seemed to ooze from this town like sticky-sweet syrup. Namjoon wondered whether he’d grown up here or if some listless pull of impluse and fate had dragged him here just like it had Namjoon.

Taehyung’s eyebrows twitched upwards. “We’ve got a storm cellar.”

Namjoon had only the vaguest idea what that entailed. “Oh.”

They bumped and jolted down a gravel road quite similar to the one that lead to Namjoon’s own house, past a cluster of wooden storage sheds and several broad, fenced off stretches of dirt. Namjoon watched, wide eyed as they approached a squat, stately farm house, old but beautifully preserved― not at all what he had been expecting. There was a wide, screened-in veranda that wrapped around the side, and the front walk was lined in cobblestone to match the foundation of the house. Tall, drooping trees obscured much of the front but for a set of tall, arched windows that overlooked the property. It was a glimpse straight into rustic design heaven; Namjoon was sure his mother would have loved it very much. 

They pulled around into the back and Taehyung cut the engine. Instantly the sound of the wind outside was magnified twofold. Heavy gusts rustled the leaves in the trees and windchimes clanged together wildly. There was the whistle through the door cracks as the wind buffeted the side of car, and another faint, pitched squeal coming from just behind them. That one Namjoon wasn’t too sure about. He peered into the back seat.

“Jesus Christ! What is that?” Namjoon scrambled as close as he could get to the dashboard until the glove compartment was pressed uncomfortably deep into his spine.

Taehyung gave him an odd, guilty look. “This is Jungkook.”

“Who?”

Taehyung threw open the door and got out. “I can introduce you later.” He opened the back door and hauled out a huge, walled dog crate crate. Namjoon wasn’t fooled, whatever creature was in that cage was not a dog.

“Come.” Taehyung beckoned, and Namjoon followed at a safe distance up the backstairs into the mudroom.

If he thought the car had been warm, this was an entirely different sort of warmth, homey and all-encompassing. And yet he could hardly enjoy it as he dripped pathetically onto the floor and waited for Taehyung to fetch him a towel.

“Tae, sweetie is that you?” a voice called, and Namjoon nearly jumped out of his skin. Of course Taehyung didn’t live alone here, of course. Namjoon― now that he wasn’t staring into the face of a deadly storm― felt an intense sort of awkwardness intruding in their home like this.

Taehyung brushed by him and stooped to rustle through a cabinet. “Yeah, I’m in the back!” he called.

Namjoon eyed the dog crate again, sitting atop the washing machine next to the sink by the door. Whatever was in there was scuttling around, snuffling about and rattling the walls. Namjoon thought he caught sight of a vicious looking black claw through one of the gaps in the siding. He took a small step away, then another until his shoulder banged into the wall. He startled again as Taehyung slammed the cupboard door and tossed him a wadded up bath towel.

“Thanks,” Namjoon said meekly, and blotted at his face.

Taehyung looked him up and down and sighed. “We should probably get you a shower.”

Namjoon wasn’t sure how he felt showering in this stranger’s house. He had seen the movie Psycho, and that wasn’t how he wanted to go. “That’s alright, really. No need to go out of your way.”

Taehyung brushed past him again, and this time it almost seemed intentional. “Not me being hospitable,” he said, reaching for a small bowl in the sink. He filled it up with water and set it on the ledge of the sink. “You’re going to get mud and grass all over the place. Here, take off your shoes.” 

Namjoon did as he was told and left his shoes behind as Taehyung led him out into the main house. Namjoon imagined how they would have described it on an episode of House Hunters: spacious, open concept, great hardwood floors. The kitchen was modern and expensive looking, like it could have come straight from a picture in a home decor catalogue. Namjoon’s curiousity increased twofold.

Around the corner, a man appeared. He came sweeping into the room as though in some great hurry but when he spotted Namjoon hovering opposite the refrigerator he stopped up short. 

“Oh,” he blinked in surprise. “We have a guest.” 

Namjoon could only stare. The man was dressed in nothing but a pair of loose grey sweatpants that trailed at his feet. His hair was fuzzy, sticking up around his head, as if he’d just been rolling around in bed. Something about him had Namjoon’s gaze caught, held his eyes just above the waistband of his sweats. Namjoon swallowed dryly and stared some more until realized that he was probably being incredibly rude and cleared his throat.

“Hi, I’m Namjoon.” He held out a hand to shake.

“Jimin.” Jimin flashed a confused sort of smile as he took Namjoon’s hand. “Nice to meet you.” His eyes slid onto Taehyung, searching for an explanation. 

“Found this one on the side of the road,” Taehyung glided up to Jimin’s side and his hand found the dip of Jimin’s waist with an ease that had to have taken practice. He planted a wet kiss right onto lips and Jimin hummed into it happily. Namjoon gaped again before he remembered himself and made his mouth snap audibly closed. Taehyung eyed him severely, as though he was waiting for him to voice some sort of objection. Namjoon smiled, tight-lipped and awkward. It was weird. Since he’d been living there he’d begun to forget that other gay Asians existed outside of West Hollywood and Orange County.

Taehyung scowled as though even Namjoon’s best attempts at stiff pleasantness offended him. “I was just telling him he needed a shower, could you find him some dry clothes for when he gets out?”

“Oh that’s really not necessary, these clothes are fine.” 

Jimin’s eyes went straight to the puddle forming beneath Namjoon’s feet. “Don’t be ridiculous, they’re soaking wet. Give them to me and I’ll throw them in the wash for you.”

Namjoon didn’t think he was in much of a position to argue. His waterlogged jeans clung uncomfortably to his skin, and nothing sounded better at that moment than a nice, hot shower.

“Um okay.” Namjoon reached for the hem of his tee shirt and began to pull off his top. 

Jimin opened his mouth as if to say something but Taehyung shut him up with an elbow to the ribs. Jimin elbowed him right back, slightly harder.

“Sweetie you can do that in the bathroom,” Jimin said when Namjoon started to unfasten the button on his pants. 

Namjoon colored down to the roots. “Right.” 

Jimin and Taehyung exchanged a look that spoke of a million things Namjoon couldn’t even begin to understand. He followed their directions to the bathroom and double, triple checked that he’d locked the door before shedding the rest of his clothes and getting into the shower. He made it quick, only used a little too much of someone’s fancy conditioner that smelled just like green apples. When he’d finished he slung the towel around his waist and poked his head out the door.

Jimin and Taehyung were huddled up on the couch whispering to each other, but the minute they saw Namjoon, Jimin jumped right up. He’d put a shirt, unfortunately, since Namjoon had last seen him and his cheeks were a little flushed as he smoothed down his shirt collar which was situated a bit kittywampus across his shoulders.

“Ah let me get you those pants.” 

Jimin passed on a bundle of clothes sitting out on the kitchen island, taking care not to peek through the door crack. Namjoon, of course, wouldn’t have minded a little peeking, but he realized that would be completely unacceptable with his boyfriend sitting right there on the couch.

Taehyung snorted as he watched Namjoon try to maneuver the door shut while holding his clothes and trying to keep his towel up. “I draw the line at lending out my underwear, so you’re going to have to free ball it I guess.”

Jimin snickered and pulled back, soft eyes scrunched at the corners, and Namjoon managed to get the door shut without any incident. He spent an extra minute inside the bathroom convincing his dick not to get hard at a time like this. The complete lack of physical, human contact over the past few months had not prepared him for this. 

When he stepped out of the bathroom, feeling like a brand new man, someone had turned on the news channel to a low buzz, and Taehyung had disappeared, leaving Jimin, perched on the couch with his legs tucked underneath him, loose collar of his shirt beginning to slip off of one shoulder. He smiled when he spotted Namjoon.

“You can leave the wet stuff by the laundry room door, I’ll throw it in the wash later.” He patted the space on the couch next to him. “Come, sit, make yourself comfortable.”

Namjoon made his way over cautiously. Jimin was ray of sunshine compared to Taehyung’s stormy countenance, and it was throwing him for a loop. He sat carefully on the couch at a polite distance and let his hands rest primly in his lap. On screen, the anchorwoman was gesturing emphatically to a diagram drawn in with red lines and lots of intersecting arrows. Namjoon stared at the TV and tried to make sense of all the jargon whilst repressing a strong urge to ogle Jimin’s collarbone peeking out of his shirt. 

He felt incredibly awkward sitting there in a stranger’s home, wearing their clothes and oggling their boyfriend, like the worst kind of intruder. 

Jimin scooted in closer and smiled again. God that smile. Namjoon was begining to think some very bad things. “Need anything?” Jimin asked. “Water, juice, snacks? Taehyung just went to the store earlier and bought stuff.”

What Namjoon needed was to get himself under control. “Um. Water would be great.”

Jimin got up and went into the kitchen kitchen. Namjoon could still see him over the surface of the breakfast bar, straining up to get a glass out of the cupboard, shirt riding up not quite high enough to show any skin.

Namjoon cleared his throat. “Shouldn’t we like, I dunno. Seek shelter or something?”

Jimin laughed as he filled Namjoon’s cup from the sleek, futuristic little panel on the front of the refrigerator. “That little dirt-devil you saw on the way over? Barely an F-1.” He nodded towards the TV. “It’s probably already broken up by now. Want any ice?” 

Namjoon shook his head wordlessly and accepted the glass from Jimin when he slid back around from the kitchen.

Namjoon looked dubiously out the window at the hazy black storm clouds rolling and writhing overhead, eldritch and ominous. “Couldn’t another one form?”

“It’s possible.” Jimin looked disturbingly unconcerned at the prospect. After a passing beat of silence, he finally seemed to notice Namjoon’s anxious fidgeting and leaned just close enough to squeeze Namjoon’s shoulder. “Hey,” he said more softly. “We get storms like these all the time and usually nothing happens at all. Don’t worry about it. We’ll wait it out here and if it gets bad and we all need to hide in the basement then we’ll hide in the basement, okay?” 

Namjoon took a small sip of his water. “Okay,” he mumbled into the glass.

“Really. If it was that bad I wouldn’t have let Tae go outside. You can relax.” Jimin turned to face him fully then, eyes alight with some unknowable, wicked delight. “Let me distract you.”

Namjoon felt his cheeks go hot and had to take another gulp of his water to cool down. It might have been all in innocence― almost certainly was, in fact― but coming from Jimin it was coquettish and sexy. 

Maybe Taehyung was retroactively justified in being such a dick to him earlier. 

“Okay.”

“Great.” Jimin tucked his legs back under himself. “Twenty questions, go.”

But Namjoon, having long since graduated middle school, hardly remembered how to play. “Uh, you first?”

“Okay. Where are you from?”

“Uh.” His voice cracked slightly. The humidity that seemed to creep in through the house’s very foundation and the intensity of Jimin’s full attention turned on him was making him hot and itchy. Namjoon was way out of his depth. The corner of Jimin’s mouth twitched. 

“LA. Kind of. Just a suburb. You probably wouldn’t have heard of it if you’re not from California. Um…”

After a few seconds of weird, pregnant silence, Jimin laughed. His toe nudged Namjoon’s ankle. “Your turn now.”

“Right.” Namjoon blinked. “Um. Have you lived here long?”

“Yeah, a little while.” Jimin tilted his head and his hair fell limply across his forehead. He pushed it back out of his face impatiently. “But let’s not get too into the boring stuff. I wanna hear about you.” His eyes flashed in the dim of the living room. In that moment Namjoon would have told him anything he wanted to hear. 

“Like, what was the most embarassing thing you ever did?”

The TV flickered beside them and lit up the side of Jimin’s face. Over his head, through the front window that oversaw the lawn, tree branches thrashed violently in the wind. If Namjoon listened for it, he could almost hear a hollow creaking from the trunk, like it migh give out at any moment and send that massive elm tree crashing down on top of them. Namjoon shivered and looked back at Jimin.

“I don’t know.”

“Come on, anything.”

“Okay, uh. I once had three cards in a row get declined at a store.”

“Oh yeah?” Jimin said mildly. “Tough luck. That’s not that embarrassing though. I’ve definitely been there.”

“I was buying bubblegum flavored condoms. There were like five people in line behind me.” 

Jimin snorted. “I mean. At least they all knew you were getting laid.” 

Namjoon hadn’t been. They’d been for a friend, and that same night he’d definitely fallen asleep on the couch after half a bottle of Moscato and some cold, leftover pasta.

“Eh.”

“Not that they’d really need confirmation of that looking at you.”

“Eh?”   

“Okay your turn.”

Namjoon, now cobatting a blush cleared his throat. “So how did you meet Taehyung?”

Jimin made a tch sound. “You’re making these questions way too easy.” He shifted closer until their knees were pressed together. His skin felt hot through Namjoon’s pants. “We met in college. He used to sit in front of me in Biology and spend the whole class fucking around on his laptop. He’d always ask for my notes after class and I’d tell him no. Then he got a better grade than me on the first exam so I had to befriend him just to dissect his studying strategy. And then like two weeks later we hooked up.”

“Nice.”

“It was,” Jimin said with a wicked grin. “Very nice.”

“Okay, ew,” Namjoon said and tried to control the wave of sudden, violent arousal that made his stomach drop.

Jimin cackled obliviously. “Okay then. What was your weirdest hookup?”

“My neighbor in the dorms sophmore year sold pot out of his room. I helped him hide it one time so he didn’t get caught by the RA and then he gave me a blow job in our study lounge at like three am. It kinda felt like he was doing it as a professional courtesy or something, I don’t know.” 

“Doubt it.”

Namjoon wasn’t sure what to do with that. He covered his face. “Alright. Why does it feel like I’m telling you all this embarrassing shit and I havent gotten anything good out of you? How are you cheating at this?”

“You gotta play the game. Ask the right questions Namjoon, don’t be afraid to pry. I promise I won’t get offended.” 

Jimin’s knee bumped against the inside of Namjoon’s thigh and he didn’t move it back. If Namjoon hadn’t known better, he’d have thought he was being flirted with. That was wrong, though. He was just being sick and neurotic and horny and he probably needed to steer them back into safe territory before he did something he’d regret. 

“Um. What about your dream vacation?”

“Mmm.” Jimin narrowed his eyes. “La digue in May, once the tourist season has died down. The weather is perfect and there’s this amazing beach, the Anse Source D'Argent. I wanna get my dick sucked on that beach while I watch the sun set over the ocean.”

Namjoon felt hot from the back of his neck down to the base of his spine. So much for safety.

“Oh.”

Jimin’s eyes were far away. “Yeah. I’ve had a couple dreams about it actually, but I bet the real thing is way better.”

“Maybe.” And then Namjoon couldn’t help himself. “In your dream, Is Taehyung there too?”

He felt guilty even as the words left his lips. 

But Jimin only looked titillated.

“Sometimes. Why?” His eyes slid from Namjoon’s face down his body and back up, his lips twitched like he was masking a smile. His hand fell hot over Namjoon’s knee. “Are you trying to envision it?”

This was going bad places very quickly. Namjoon knew this and was powerless to stop it. 

“I―”

There was the distinct sound of the door banging open and Taehyung reappeared a moment later, windswept hair and rosy cheeks and glossy eyes from the chill. He still managed to look glamorous and aloof. “I just finished locking up the horses,” he swept into the room in a flourish like only he could and Jimin’s gaze was immediately hyper-focused on him, like he’d all but forgotten Namjoon was there at all. Namjoon couldn’t really blame him for it. Taehyung was something else. He had that kind of presence that drew your attention, a magnetism even Jimin wasn’t immune to.

“I just finished checking on the horses. All good.”

Jimin drifted over to feel Taehyung’s cold cheeks in his hands. “You got them all in the stable?” 

Taehyung nodded and wrinkled his nose as Jimin squeezed and squeezed until his lips began to pucker. He took both of Jimin’s tiny hands in one of his and pulled them away from his face terribly gently. Jimin glowed back at him with the force of a thousand tiny suns and Namjoon felt the strongest urge to avert his eyes.

Luckily, Jimin turned back around. “We just had a new cement one put it,” he told Namjoon. So they had remembered him after all. 

“I thought you said the bad part was over.”

“Just taking precautions, don’t worry. The horses don’t like the rain very much and the wind is still pretty bad, isn’t it?”

Taehyung nodded, shedding his slightly rain-damp jacket and slinging it over the back of a barstool. Suddenly he looked excited. It was kind of a weird vibe on him. “Oh I almost forgot. I brought someone to see you!”

Jimin frowned. “I’ve already met Namjoon. Did you pick up another straggler on the side of the road.” His eyes slid to Namjoon. “No offence.”

“Don’t worry, this one is much cuter than Namjoon.” Taehyung looked Namjoon directly in the eye as if he expected a challenge. Namjoon didn’t say a word.

“I don’t know about that.” Jimin wiggled his eyebrows.

Taehyung disappeared around the corner back into the laundry room and rematerialized a moment later with something large and lumpy bundled in his arms.

“Look who came to see you!” he said in that squeaky, high-pitched tone reserved solely for babies and cute, fuzzy animals. 

Jimin gasped and hurried over, already cooing in The Voice. “Jungkook, my baby.”

Namjoon still couldn’t tell exactly what it was he was looking at, but it certainly wasn’t like any baby he’d ever seen.

Jimin scooped whatever it was out of Taehyung’s arms and cradled it to his chest rocking back and forth like he would an infant. “Namjoon, come look! Isn’t he the cutest thing ever?”

“What is it?”

“He is Jungkook. Come say hi.”

Namjoon rose reluctantly from the couch, took a few cautious steps over, got a good look at the tiny monster nestled in Jimin’s arms, and froze. “Is that a raccoon?”

“I know, adorable!” Jimin took one of its small weirdly humanoid hands in his and made it wave at Namjoon. Namjoon took a step back with a shudder. 

“Jesus Christ, what are you doing with it? What if it has rabies?”
“Jungkook doesn’t have rabies,” Jimin said, offended. “Come pet him, he’s really friendly. You’ll see.”

“No thanks.”

Jimin pouted. Namjoon after a half-second of internal debate, broke easily. Jungkook’s fur was very soft and he barely squirmed at all when Namjoon laid a lightly trembling hand on his back. Over Jimin’s shoulder, Taehyung was wearing the biggest smirk. It didn’t dim in the slightest when he saw Namjoon looking.

“See, he’s very sweet.”

Jungkook made tiny chuffing noises and Jimin leaned down to plant a big smooch right on top of his head. Namjoon was both impressed and terrified for him. When he was eleven, a couple of raccoons had gotten into their trash bins outside and bitten his dog. It had taken Namjoon an hour to clean up all the mess and even longer listening to his parents complain about the vet bill. Later that night, he had watched out his window as the raccoons came scampering back and laid waste to carefully re-bagged refuse again. Raccoons were tricky little bastards, not to be tampered with, and Jimin and Taehyung were screwing with the natural order of things.

Jungkook peeped and twisted in Jimin’s arms and Jimin let him drop to the floor and scurry off to hide underneath the coffee table. Namjoon leapt back out of his way and Taehyung snickered.

“Is it even legal to have that here?”

“Not for you regular citizens, no.”

Jimin rolled his eyes. “He’s a veterinarian, he’s got a special license for wildlife rehabilitation.”

“Oh.” Namjoon watched Jungkook dig out a home magazine from under the couch and shred off the front page with his creepy little human-paws. 

Taehyung’s eyes went just a little softer as he watched. “He was a rescue, our office picked him up from family in town. One of the kids had stolen him from a nest as a kit and they tried to raise him like a dog.” Taehyung frowned. “Raccoons are not dogs. I think eventually they realized how much trouble he was to keep and turned him in. He was dangerously obese when we found him, weighed almost thirty pounds. And now he’s down to a trim twenty.”

“You must be so proud.”

Jimin grinned. “He even knows a couple tricks, look.” He went over and took the magazine from Jungkook. “Sit,” he said.

Jungkook tried to snatch the magazine back, missed, and fell on his back and rolled around. “See?”

The only thing Namjoon saw was a still somewhat chubby raccoon writhing on the living room floor, but Jimin looked so excited about it, he couldn’t help but smile too. “Yes, he’s very talented.”

Jimin stood up, satisfied. “Anyway. We got some time to kill. Anyone up for a board game?”

Taehyung made a face and went to flop down on the couch. He found the remote wedged between two cushions and turned the sound back on on the TV. 

“We’ve definitely got Clue, and I think Sorry too. Ooh! And there’s also Monopoly if we want a long one.”

“No!” Taehyung called from the couch.

Jimin shrugged. “I’ll check the game closet,” he told Namjoon. “This is gonna be great, Taehyung never wants to play with me.”

“Hey,” Taehyung said, voice just a note too sharp. They both turned to look at him. “I thought you said you were watching this.”

“We were. Kind of.”

“Really? Because they’re saying that three more storms have formed in south Sedgwick County already.”

Jimin froze for a moment. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Namjoon looked between them for some kind of reaction but Jimin was, for once, closed off and Taehyung was completely expressionless. Neither of them said anything, either because they didn’t care or because they were caught up in some strangely tense, non-vocal dialogue Namjoon wasn’t privy too. 

He coughed. “Where exactly did they say?”

Taehyung reluctantly tore his eyes from Jimin back to the weather forecast. “The closest one is just outside Derby.”

“Derby? That’s like ten miles from here.”

“Eh. Fifteen.”

“Jesus Christ.” Namjoon tried to look out the front window but there wasn’t much visible beyond the rippling green of the fields and the wan sky, drained of color. Fat raindrops and budding condensation from the inside blurred the glass.

Jimin squeezed his shoulder and Namjoon’s whole rib cage clenched tight. “Most tornadoes only make it a few miles. We’ll be fine.”

“You know the longest tornado ever recorded travelled over two hundred miles.” Taehyung kicked up his feet on the coffee table. “We could feasibly be in real trouble here.”

“Or we could be completely fine.” Jimin gritted his teeth. “Come on Namjoon sit down. Let me make you something to calm down, do you like tea? Or I could get you a Valium?” He shoved Namjoon down onto the couch next to Taehyung, grip just a little too tight on Namjoon’s shoulders.

“Jimin.”

“Right, no yeah. Tea it is.” Jimin made for the kitchen in a flurry.  

Taehyung hummed and looked back at the forecast. Namjoon saw lots of swirling red blobs and had to look away. Maybe he was overreacting, but he got the distinct feeling that he was going to die today. It felt like an anvil in his gut. 

“You know what,” Taehyung said. “Maybe I should go get the emergency kit from the garage just in case.”

“No, no, no. I’ll do it.” Jimin waved him back down before he could finish standing. “I think the electric kettle is out there somewhere too, I’ll grab the kit while I look for it.”

He grabbed Taehyung’s coat off the stool and darted for the back door. 

“You sure you don’t―” the door slammed behind Jimin. “Well okay then.”

The house was at once very quiet. Namjoon shifted uncomfortably, trying not to stare too obviously at Taehyung, who was frowning at the door as if it were the one who’d just run out on him. He really wasn’t the greatest of company. He made Namjoon feel gauche and self conscious; everytime Taehyung turned those shifty cat-like eyes on him he got the urge to turn tail run, and Taehyung had the distinct air of a man who knew that about himself and relished in it. He was, in a word, terrifying. Still, his company was better than being alone, provided Taehyung didn’t decide to use him as a human shield when tree branches started flying through the windows. Namjoon scooted a little further down the couch.

“So.” Namjoon was met with the crippling intensity of Taehyung’s full attention. “How’s it going?”

“Ehm. Okay?”

A burst of lightning cracked just outside the window and Taehyung’s dark, hooded eyes glinted with the light. Namjoon’s throat bobbed, suddenly gone very dry. “Scared?” 

“A little.”

A cheshire grin overtook Taehyung’s face. “Of the tornado or me?”

“Um.”

Taehyung laughed. “Don’t look at me like that. You’re looking at me like I just threatened to swallow your first newborn.”

“Forgive me, I was under the impression you might.”

“You know what, I deserved that.”

“Did you now?”

Taehyung made a funny little hum in his throat. Almost like a growl. He draped an arm over the back of the couch and his fingers brushed against the back of Namjoon’s collar. His sheer shirt draped over his body like gossamer, every line of his bone structure outlined underneath in striking detail. Namjoon couldn’t look away from him, from the peek of smooth, golden skin he got through the loose weave of the fabric. Namjoon felt like a piece of space junk, aimless, easily drawn into his orbit.

Taehyung leaned in close with a smile. “You probably couldn’t tell, but I’ve been a little stressed recently.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah.” He squinted. “I’m not usually this…” 

“Bitchy?”

“I was going to say wound up, but I guess your word works. Either way.” He shrugged. “Sorry about earlier.”

Namjoon was so stunned he forgot for a moment what an appropriate response to an apology sounded like. “Thanks.”

Taehyung ran a hand through his wind-matted hair, lazy and slow, looking at Namjoon through the thick fan of his eyelashes. The effect was almost too perfect, like Taehyung knew exactly how he looked and was trying to be sexy. “You’re very welcome.”

Namjoon smiled awkwardly, at a loss. Taehyung’s hand that had been resting on the back of the couch slid down, bumping the back of his neck, and Namjoon jolted reflexively.

“What’s wrong? You look tense,” Taehyung purred, leaning in closer still. Namjoon could see all the details in his eyes at this distance― flecks of black swamped in dark chocolate. “Still worried about the storm?” 

As if to punctuate his sentence, the wind howled through the branches of the trees out front, heavy old trunks creaking as they swayed. Taehyung’s palm planted firmly over his knee, not quite squeezing but a firm pressure, pinning him down, forefinger lightly tracing the inseam of his sweats, back and forth. Namjoon forgot instantly what he’d been about to say. 

“Um. Yeah, a little.” He swallowed, watching Taehyung’s hand creep higher and higher up his thigh, fingers still teasing the inside, pressing indents into Namjoon’s thigh. That wasn’t normal, right?

“You know, there’s something that always helps me relax.”

Taehyung’s mouth was twisted up in a dreadful smirk. He knew exactly what he was doing and Namjoon, although he knew Jimin would be back at any moment from the garage, still couldn’t quite bring himself to push him away. 

“O-oh. that’s good.”

Taehyung’s hand halted midway up his thigh and he looked into Namjoon’s eyes, noses just inches apart, and squeezed. Namjoon’s quad flexed reflexively under his touch. 

“Mmm hmm.”

Taehyung’s smile turned downright sinister. His hand crept higher, almost to the crease of Namjoon’s hip, fingers just barely skimming past his dick. Namjoon held his breath. This was wrong, so wrong. Namjoon knew he should stop this, but he didn’t quite know how.

Taehyung seemed to be waiting for something now, head cocked to the side, eyebrows drawn together pensively. Namjoon held very still under him and waited too. 

Eventually, Taehyung gave him an odd, not altogether displeased look and shifted, drawing his knees up under himself so he could lean further over Namjoon’s splayed legs. He drew his hand away to resituate himself and Namjoon felt the tension he held strung tight in his thighs drain, pulse easing back to normal. 

Namjoon shifted on the couch, trying to subtly bring his thighs back together. His hip still felt the phantom press of Taehyung’s palm.

“Um.” He struggled for something to say that would shatter the weird tension they’d built up. Taehyung just looked at him, cunning and coy, twirling a silver band around his finger and toying with his lip between his teeth. Namjoon’s words died on the back of his tongue. If he’d been thinking anything intelligent before, he surely wasn’t now. The back of his neck prickled. If Taehyung kept looking at him like that, they were going to have a problem. 

But Taehyung was inching forward again, and he was looking right at Namjoon’s lips this time. Namjoon was about to be in trouble― in serious, serious trouble, because he couldn’t find it within himself to pull back as Taehyung drew nearer and nearer, 

“Jimin!” Namjoon burst. Taehyung flinched back, blinking. “He’s taking an awfully long time, isn’t he?”

Taehyung looked at him blankly. “Yeah, I guess.” Namjoon waited for him to say something else, but instead he did the very last thing Namjoon would have expected him to do with his boyfriend’s name still fresh off Namjoon’s lips and reached straight for Namjoon’s dick.

Namjoon let out an undignified squeak at Taehyung’s hand cupping his cock, squeezing him over the fabric of his sweatpants. Namjoon gasped and twitched, hand flying to grasp Taehyung’s wrist.

“What are you―” 

“Shh.” Taehyung worked him slow through his pants, other hand coming to grip Namjoon’s shoulder, hold him still. Namjoon’s cock jerked under his long, deft fingers. So the illicit thing was apparently, definitely doing it for him. Great.

But shit, they couldn’t.

He caught Taehyung around the wrist reluctantly, tried to keep his breaths deep and even even as his cock throbbed under Taehyung’s hand. “What about Jimin?”

Taehyung squeezed his cock again and Namjoon’s grip went instantly slack. “We have an agreement.” He starting moving his hand again, flashed that look through his eyelashes, pure seduction, and Namjoon was puddy.

He jerked his hips involuntarily into Taehyung’s hand as he massaged the length of him, lip drawn taught between his teeth. Taehyung was obviously experienced here; he teased just enough to be unsatisfying but not unbearable. He alternated feather light strokes with the heavy drag of his palm up and down, the squeeze of his fingers on just the right side of too tight. Namjoon wasn’t even all the way hard yet but he was getting there fast. He gritted his teeth and tried not to hump up into Taehyung’s hand.

“You like that?” Taehyung found the spot under the head that made Namjoon’s eyelids flutter.

Namjoon could only groan. God this was so good. And so, so bad. He needed to put an end to this right now, he needed to―

“Yes.”

Namjoon couldn’t think straight, could barely remember why this was such a bad idea. Taehyung shoved the waistband of his track pants down over his narrow hips and Namjoon’s dick was out there. Hangin’. Taehyung wasn’t watching Namjoon for a reaction anymore, he had his eyes fixed hungrily on Namjoon’s cock as he ran his thumb back and forth around the head. He wetted his lips with a deft flick of his tongue. Namjoon shivered in anticipation. 

“Can I?”

Something brushed over Namjoon’s ankle― fuzzy and warm and startlingly alive. He screamed. Taehyung jerked away from him with such an abrupt ferocity that his trajectory took him right over the edge of the couch. He looked at up Namjoon from the floor, baffled. 

“You could have just said no.”

Beside him, Jungkook sat up on his hind legs, his beady eyes trained threateningly on Namjoon’s lap. Namjoon yanked his feet up underneath him, out of raccoon-reach and shoved his dick back into his pants.

“Jungkook wants me dead. I can see it in his eyes.”

Taehyung scooped Jungkook up with one arm and pulled him close to his chest. Jungkook flopped along like a ragdoll, uncaring as Taehyung jostled him into a more comfortable position. “The baby?” Taehyung nuzzled his chin into the thick fur on Jungkook’s exposed belly. “He just wants attention, look.”

Namjoon was looking, and that was precisely how he knew that what Jungkook really wanted was to pluck out his eyeballs with his freaky little claws and then eat them. Namjoon scooched as far away as he could get on the couch, which was still about fifty yards too close to the vicious wild animal in the room. Jungkook made a series of chuffing noises and wriggled as Taehyung blew air into his face, tickling his whiskers.

The back door banged open and Jimin came in, shivering and dripping wet. He was carrying a large plastic bin, whose contents rattled as he heaved it onto the middle of the kitchen floor and stripped hurriedly out of his sopping jacket.

“It’s really starting to come down out there. Any more updates on the storm?”

Namjoon and Taehyung both looked guiltily towards the TV set droning in the background inaudibly. 

“It’s… coming.”

Jimin sighed. “Great.”

Taehyung went to open the box on the floor and Jungkook immediately hopped inside and picked up what appeared to be a child’s kazoo from the bottom. Taehyung plucked it from his paws and examined it for a second before he shrugged and handed it back to him. 

“We really didn’t do a great job packing this thing.” Taehyung started pulling things out one by one. “We got matches, dried banana chips, loose batteries, a gallon of water, cheese puffs, baby wipes, a flashlight, and an unlabeled bottle of pills.”

“Huh.” Jimin peered down into the bin. “I think that’s aspirin. Or acepromazine.”

Namjoon realized at that precise moment that if this new storm was a direct hit they would, without a doubt, all die in that house. That knowledge was as terrifying as it was liberating. Jungkook hopped out of the box and hobbled back towards him and Namjoon couldn’t even bring himself to be totally freaked out.

“I think he likes you,” Jimin said as Jungkook placed one tiny black paw on top of Namjoon’s knee and peeked up curiously into his face. Namjoon, who was rooted to the spot under the weight of Jungkook’s dark, piercing eyes could only chuckle weakly. 

“Yep.”

Taehyung dumped the purported emergency supplies back into the box. “Where’s the kettle?”

“Shit.” Jimin groaned. “I knew I was forgetting something.”

“Forget about it. Don’t go back out there, it’s fine.”

“No it’s not fine, we need that kettle for Namjoon’s tea!”

“Why? We have a stove and a microwave right here.”

Jimin crossed his arms and Namjoon could tell from the steel in his eyes that a challenge was brewing. “A microwave? Are you kidding me?”

“I’m really okay without the tea,” Namjoon added weakly from the couch. They both ignored him.

“You can’t make tea in the microwave, it’s sacrilege.”

Taehyung frowed. “Sure you can, I do it all the time.”

“You do what? Why?”

“It soothes my throat.”

Jimin scoffed. “Why does your throat need soothing anyway?”

“Are you serious?”

Jungkook was beginning to nose around the bottom of Namjoon’s pant-leg; his little nose was cold and unpleasantly damp against Namjoon’s ankle. “Um,” Namjoon said. “I think Jungkook―”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Jimin talked over him. He was still glaring, but not like Taehyung had been back in the store. Taehyung’s look had been all about disdain and irritation; Jimin’s was different. 

Namjoon couldn’t be sure, but what he had mistaken for rage before might have been more accurately described as pure, unfettered erotic fury.

“You’re ridiculous, you know that right?”

“You’re calling me ridiculous? Have you met yourself?”

“Have you met myself?”

Jungkook had started nibbling on the bottom hem of his pant leg; it was only a matter of time before he moved onto skin. Namjoon very slowly, very gingerly pulled his leg up onto the couch, careful not to make any sudden movements. Jungkook scaled the side of the couch easily and clambered into Namjoon’s lap to resume his gnawing. Namjoon held very, very still as he felt Jungkook’s paws tickling up his shin. “Um. Guys?”

“I haven’t had the pleasure. Why don’t you allow me to introduce myself― to my balls in your face!” 

Outside, the rain had turned to tiny hailstones that rattled against the windowpane as they showered the of the house. Namjoon could hear it up on the roof too, the patter of hail beating down hard overhead. The trees bowed under the force of the wind, budding leaves whipping with frantic energy. The sun had been long since blotted from the sky, but it was growing darker still under the thick canopy of storm clouds.

“Ditto!”

“Hey,” Namjoon waved to catch someone, anyone’s attention. “Guys?” Taehyung and Jimin had gravitated inwards during their bizarre display, foreheads nearly brushing, Jimin’s eyes narrowed in annoyance. “Guys! Can we just time out for a minute? Please?”  

Jimin and Taehyung did stop fighting just then, however it was not because they’d finally tuned into how uncomfortable Namjoon had gotten― and he was indeed very uncomfortable at this point― but because every light in the room had shut off at once, leaving them shaded in the increasingly dim light cast through the front window.

There was a long stretch of silence, punctuated by the sounds of twin breathing and then a quiet: “Oh fuck.”

Chapter Text

Namjoon could barely see Jungkook anymore but he could feel him rustling around in his lap, dangerously close to some important parts.

“Could someone please help?” Namjoon squeaked. “I think he’s hungry.”

Jimin came to rescue him, cradling Jungkook like an infant in his arms as he carried him up to Taehyung in the kitchen. “Aww. Is Namjoon afraid of you, cutie?” Jungkook twitched his whiskers and sneezed. “Don’t worry, you didn’t do anything wrong honey, we still love you. Taehyung, kiss him.” Obediently, Taehyung leaned down to kiss him, spat already forgotten.

Anxiety pooled in Namjoon’s gut. He could feel the screening of the veranda vibrating against the house with wild buffets of wind, hear the thunder that growled in distance the like some wild, wounded animal. “You mentioned something about a storm cellar?”

“Ugh.” Jimin groaned. “I hate the basement.”

Taehyung skated his nose up the column of his neck. “You decorated it.”

“You enabled me.”

Namjoon did not care for the strange mating ritual unfolding before him. Had he not feared imminent bodily harm, it might have been amusing, even titillating, but as it was he was growing increasingly agitated that no one in this household was taking any of this seriously.

“So the basement.”

Jimin sighed. “Yeah, the basement. Here Tae, you carry the disaster kit. I’ll grab blankets and the portable chargers.”

Taehyung lead Namjoon through a door at the end of the hall that he would have most certainly mistaken for a closet had Taehyung not pointed it out. Namjoon managed the shortest of glimpses into the master bedroom as they passed, and was disappointed by how mundane it looked― rumpled sheets and an assortment of creams piled up on the dresser. 

The basement door creaked like it hadn’t been touched in years when Taehyung jostled it open, and the air leading downstairs had a certain stale quality that sung of disuse. Taehyung stopped at the bottom of the stares to fish out the flashlight and shine it around the room, which was nowhere near as creepy as Namjoon had been anticipating. 

“Huh.” Namjoon said as he took in what was visible of the room in the scarce lighting from the flashlight and the dim glow that through the window well. “Not what I was expecting.”

Taehyung kicked a bean bag chair away from the base of the stairs. “Yeah well.” 

Namjoon moved past the thick, hairy rug to examine a funky, oblong floor lamp “It’s very…”

“Nineties-themed sex dungeon gone wrong?”

“Yeah, actually. That’s astoundingly accurate.”

“Tell me about it.”

Namjoon and Taehyung sat side by side in silence on the overstuffed couch. Namjoon stared at the blank TV screen and wished he hadn’t massacred his battery watching Friends. That was just like Ross to fuck Namjoon over like that. What didn’t that guy ruin?

Eventually Jimin came down with an armful of supplies. It looked like an awful lot for the  amount of time Namjoon had anticipated they would be spending downstairs. He had googled it on his phone and learned that most tornadoes lasted fewer than ten minutes. That was even longer than most of the earthquakes he’d been through back at home, where you got a pretty quick shake down and then were completely fine. Tornadoes and earthquakes perhaps were not on precisely the same level of natural disaster.

“Look, I found a bunch of candles in the laundry room.” Jimin dumped his load on the floor. It looked like the inside of a Bath and Body works had just vomited everywhere.

“How long are we going to have to hide down here?”

“The storm could last all night. I just wanted to be on the safe side. We’re probably going to have to sleep down here too.”

“Sleep?” It had not occurred to Namjoon prior to that moment that he was going to have to spend the night in these strange people’s house, sleep in the same room with this couple knowing Taehyung had felt him up on the couch not but an hour prior. And there was the added bonus that the roof might be ripped from over their heads at any moment. 

“Yeah sleep. It’s that thing you do at night with your eyes closed,” Taehyung said. So the attitude was back; nice to see that their close encounter on the couch hadn’t changed much. Which reminded Namjoon: he needed to spend some more time feeling anxious and guilty about that.

Jimin laughed like it had been a joke rather than a crudely aimed dig at Namjoon’s intelligence. “Let me grab Jungkook and the rest of the stuff and we can get this party started.”

“Oh. The raccoon has to come?”

“I didn’t drive all the way out to the animal hospital in this weather to leave him up there to fend for himself.” Taehyung found the match box and started lighting a row of the candles. The fiery, flickering glow cast his face all in shadow, outlined the contours of his face in striking detail. Namjoon was entranced, again, by his perfectly bowed lips. “You two should get really get to know each other, I think you’d have a lot in common.”

Namjoon didn’t agree, but he didn’t share this time. Jimin set up Jungkook in his cage in the corner and then they settled down to wait it out. And there was something they didn’t tell you about waiting out a storm: it was incredibly nerve wracking. Taehyung had fallen asleep with his head in Jimin’s lap within minutes of settling down. Jimin carded a hand softly through his hair as he scrolled through his phone for weather updates and the occasional meme to share with Namjoon. Namjoon was too scared to laugh.

It was almost too quiet in the basement without the buzz of the TV or the human voices to keep company. The rush of the storm was muted in the basement, but Namjoon could hear how hard the wind whipped outside, could imagine the force it took to make the siding shudder under its force.  A thud reverberated overhead, like something colliding with the wall. Namjoon flinched at the sound.

“Debris.” Jimin didn’t look up from his screen as he squeezed Namjoon’s thigh. Namjoon had been tense already, but at that he went rigid all over. “There’s gotta be a lot of it. Better hope it doesn’t come through a window.”

“Yeah.” Namjoon said weakly and used the remaining eight percent of his phone’s battery to google ‘signs a guy wants a threesome with you’. Unfortunately there was no definitive answer before his screen went black. He sighed heavily. 

“What’s wrong?” Jimin looked up from his own screen for a moment, squinting to see Namjoon’s face in the candlelight.

“My phone is dead.”

“Ah. Bored already?”

“You could say that.” Of course anxious would have been a much more accurate term.

Jimin’s screen locked with a click and he stuffed a pillow underneath to support Taehyung’s neck before he slipped out of his spot and over to Namjoon’s side of the couch. “Need me to entertain you?”

There it was again, that innocent, sexy look he managed to put on at even the most inopportune times. With his wide eyes and plush lips and wide-necked shirt that could never quite stay in place he was altogether too much for Namjoon to take in his current state. He fidgeted in place, trying not to stare too obviously down Jimin’s shirt. 

“Probably.” 

Jimin laughed loudly and Taehyung didn’t so much as stir. “Let’s see… we could tell ghost stories?” He giggled again at Namjoon’s face. “No? Maybe I could tell you how baby horses are made. There’re a lot more urine involved than you might think. Bet you never thought about that did you, city boy?”

Namjoon flushed down to his toes― something about the way Jimin called him city boy in that particular tone of voice with that small, coquettish smile on his face made his heart beat faster and his stomach flip over. “Gross.”

Jimin twirled his ring around his little finger, as he pondered it. His eyes glittered in the candlelight― he looked ethereal, and Namjoon felt at once like the biggest, clumsiest oaf who had, for some strange reason, been permitted to share a space with him.

“You get used to it. But if you don’t want to hear about that―” Jimin’s eyes glinted once more. “We could always do this.”

Namjoon, in all his― admittedly limited― wisdom had come to expect very little out of boys as pretty as Jimin; boys who flirted and teased and had their fun but never really wanted anything but attention from Namjoon. There were a lot of boys like that in LA. Namjoon knew he was at least somewhat attractive, but he also knew that he wasn’t very smooth, wasn’t very charismatic, good at flirting, or well known for his romantic successes. He knew all this about himself, and as such, he had really not expected to be kissed that day. 

But here it was.

If he had anticipated it, he would have put on his good chapstick― the honey flavored one― and tried to move his lips at least a little while it happened. Instead he froze up; sat very, very still as Jimin’s lips pressed carefully against his for a few fleeting moments before he pulled back with a click and a surprised little hum.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and his lips were pink and plush like cotton candy. Namjoon couldn’t tear his eyes away. He wanted another taste, wanted to prove to himself that it wasn’t just his imagination that made Jimin’s lips taste like sugar. “Did I read that wrong? Or did―” 

The rest of his words were muffled by Namjoon’s lips on his.

Jimin melted like soft chocolate under his mouth, tilted his head for a better angle for Namjoon to kiss him. His small, soft hands came to cup Namjoon’s jaw, sweet even as he licked into Namjoon’s mouth. Namjoon tentatively laid a hand on Jimin’s hip, and he made a gentle noise of approval, kissed Namjoon harder and pressed into his touch. Kissing Jimin made everything hazy, swathed in the buzz of adrenaline, of excitement that came at doing something so wrong that felt so wonderfully right.

Jimin broke away after another moment with a quiet, pleased sigh. He rolled his bottom lip between his teeth and half-hid a smile into his lap as he fingered the collar of Namjoon’s tee shirt between his thumb and forefinger.

“What?” Namjoon asked when Jimin didn’t meet his gaze.

“Nothing. You’re just a good kisser.”

“Definitely not better than you.”

“Don’t try to sweet talk me.” But Jimin was obviously flattered, smile widening as Namjoon’s fingers pressed absently over the smooth skin covering his hip bone.

“So soft,” Namjoon whispered, and he hadn’t meant to say it aloud, but he didn’t regret it once it was out in the open, hanging in the air between them.

Jimin clucked softly and pulled him in by the collar for more. Namjoon tingled everywhere they touched, burned where Jimin’s fingers brushed the skin of his neck. He let himself be tugged and manipulated so that Jimin could get him at the exact angle he needed to kiss the breath out of him. So long as he got to taste those pretty lips on his and feel Jimin’s tiny, deceptively strong hands squeezing at his shoulders, he didn’t care. 

Jimin was working them both up with long, scorching kisses that made Namjoon’s breath go off tempo and his hands search frantically for more hot, smooth skin to feel under Jimin’s shirt. Jimin had begun squirming a little, thighs pressed tight together, squeezing and releasing. Namjoon took a chance and tugged Jimin up to straddle his thighs. Jimin smirked as he settled down over the bulge in Namjoon’s sweats and shifted his hips in a circle, testing.

“That excited already?”

Namjoon’s eyes slid quickly to Taehyung, still snoring on the couch beside them. “I, uh.” His mouth went dry, and suddenly it was a struggle to swallow.

Jimin seemed to understand him immediately. “Naughty boy.” Hot, sudden arousal spiked in Namjoon’s groin. “Don’t worry, he’s a really heavy sleeper.”

Jimin kissed him again and ground lazy circles into his lap, hands running the scope of Namjoon’s chest, feeling and squeezing. Namjoon rutted up against him recklessly and opened up for more when Jimin’s tongue teased his lower lip. He wasn’t usually so sensitive, but every time his cock dragged between Jimin’s cheeks through their pants, he couldn’t quite stifle a grunt at the sensation. His eyes shot to Taehyung’s limp form and he felt hot all over again. Lust like an electrical current pulsed through his body; it made his vision tunnel and his thighs shake.  

Jimin seemed to realize quickly enough that Namjoon was barely holding it together and lifted up onto his knees, relinquishing their point of contact. Namjoon felt all the delicious mounting tension fade all at once and his head thumped against the back of the couch with a hollow thunk.

Jimin snickered as he climbed off the couch, and he disappeared for a minute, ducked out of Namjoon’s peripheral vision as he laid back, boneless on the couch. Then Namjoon felt hands pressing his knees apart, circling his waistband and digging into the flesh of his hips. He lifted up and let Jimin slide his pants down around his thighs, shuddered when he felt the hot press of lips on his bare thigh. 

Namjoon tilted his chin down his chest to see. If he was really going to get sucked off by Jimin with Taehyung sleeping right there― not but three feet from where his boyfriend was taking another dude’s dick― he wasn’t going to miss a moment. Jimin blinked up at him once through his lashes with the most devious look Namjoon had ever seen on a face so pretty before he dipped down and ran his tongue up the side of his shaft. 

“Hmm.” Jimin murmured, circling his fingers around the base. “So thick.” 

It was the only warning Namjoon had before Jimin swallowed him down with a fervor and sunk down halfway to the base. Namjoon’s body locked up, all the muscles in his abdomen coiled tight, and his fingers dug into the cushions, searching for something to grip onto. 

Jimin didn’t let up for a second once he got started, bobbing frantically up and down as Namjoon tried to swallow his moans and keep still when all he really wanted was to scream and break into a million pieces with his cock deep in Jimin’s throat. He ended up with one hand knotted tight in Jimin’s hair and the other covering his own mouth, muffling the sounds he couldn’t stop from slipping past his lips.  

Jimin slid off until just the tip was in his mouth and toyed with the head in his mouth while his hand stroked up the base. Namjoon watched the bulge of his cock imprinted on the inside of Jimin’s cheek and had to close his eyes for a second to push himself back from the edge.

“Joon,” Jimin pulled off to whisper, voice scratchy already. “Are you watching?”

Namjoon let out a garbled groan and resisted an urge to thrust up into Jimin’s mouth.

“Yeah,” he whispered back. “Yeah I’m watching. You look so good.”

Jimin hummed, encouraged, and pursed his fat lips around the head of his cock. Namjoon saw a glimpse of heaven as Jimin slid down all the way to the base and choked. Jimin’s throat spasmed around him and his groin flooded with heat as Jimin slurped on his cock and watched Namjoon’s face while he did it. He ran his fingers sloppily through Jimin’s hair, and thought of all the praises he wanted to give but couldn’t. Jimin hummed, pleased, deep in his throat and the vibrations shot straight up Namjoon’s spine.

“Oh God.” His head hand dropped from Jimin’s hair to fist against his thigh. “You’re so good, I’m―” he gaped. “Oh your mouth, holy shit.”

“Pretty great, isn’t he?”

Namjoon jolted in surprise, and his cock nudged back impossibly deeper into Jimin’s throat. Jimin gagged around him, eyes gone all watery, and moaned. Taehyung sat up blinking, eyebrows furrowed deep as he squinted down at Jimin’s face buried in Namjoon’s crotch. 

“I cannot believe you.”

Namjoon’s heart thudded like a drum in his ears. His vision was going blurry on the edges and still Jimin hadn’t stopped sucking. He twitched under Jimin’s hands, panting desperately until Jimin popped off with a gasp and licked his swollen cherry lips.

“Jealous you didn’t get here first?” he rasped.

Namjoon did his best to cover himself, dick cupped in both hands and angled away from Taehyung’s narrowed eyes. Taehyung looked past him to scowl at Jimin. “Seriously? While I was asleep?”

Jimin didn’t back off, or apologize, or scramble to his feet and beg for understanding― anything that Namjoon imagined might have made sense getting caught in this particular position. Namjoon tried subtly to tug his pants back up but Jimin stopped him with a hand on his waist.

“Your own fault for falling asleep. It’s like seven pm.”

Namjoon gaped.

“Well forgive me for being a little tired after last night. If you would have told me the movie was three and a half hours I wouldn’t have watched it with you!”

“You loved every minute of it, don’t try to make excuses now.”

Taehyung glowered. “You’re breaking the rules.”

“Mmm, remind me again where we keep the rule book.”

Taehyung didn’t have a response to that. Finally he sighed and settled back on the couch with his arms crossed over his chest. “Fine, whatever. Finish. I’m next.” 

Namjoon wasn’t quite sure he understood what was happening between the two of them, but a second later, Jimin was swallowing his cock back down and he lost the ability to care as his fingers scrabbled for purchase on soft suede. Beside him, Taehyung gave a derisive snort.

“Desperate.”

He looked a little too affected himself for it to hold much bite. Namjoon found it hard to be offended anyway with Jimin on his knees, so pretty in front of him, and Taehyung at his side, breath hitching audibly everytime Jimin’ nose grazed the skin over Namjoon’s pubic bone. 

And there was something Namjoon came to realize quickly: Jimin loved to be watched. 

He was making much more of a production of it this time, bobbing down on Namjoon’s cock, suckling at the head with obscene, wet noises as he smoldered up at them, lips stretched lewdly. His eyes kept flitting off to the left, like he was checking for a reaction from Taehyung. 

It was like clockwork; each time Jimin looked at him Taehyung squirmed in place, bottom lip dragged unconsciously between his teeth and fingers clenching and uncurling in his lap. Jimin watched him for a few seconds and made a choked, hurt noise high in his throat before he slid down as far as he could, until his nose was pressed into the skin at the base of Namjoon’s cock and his throat worked frantically around him.

It was too much for Namjoon, all that tight, wet heat and the thrill of fear that lingered in the back of his mind. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried not to come. When he opened them Taehyung was palming himself through his loose pants, eyes locked on Jimin with such intense, singular focus Namjoon got the impression that this was something he wasn’t meant to see, even as Jimin’s throat fluttered around him. Namjoon was jealous, in a way, of how synched they were― Jimin’s eyelashes fluttered and Taehyung let out a harsh pant as his hand slipped into his pants, skated over all that smooth perfectly golden skin. Taehyung noticed Namjoon staring and grinned weakly.

“Jimin, you’re so hot,” he said, and leaned over to sweep Jimin’s bangs delicately out of his face.

“Hhmph.” Jimin moaned, throat vibrating around him.

“So good at that,” Taehyung stroked his hair, eyes fixed on Jimin’s face, utterly enchanted. Even as he watched, he began to fidget in place, knees squeezing and releasing as he pressed up harder into his own palm.

Namjoon was close, hurdling closer and he squeezed his eyes shut again as he felt himself tipping and tried not burst. And then Jimin hummed low, throat convulsing around him and that was all the warning Namjoon had before his spine went taut, his thighs trembled and his groin pulsed. “Sh― shit, I’m gonna―” 

Jimin pulled off halfway and sucked gently as Namjoon filled his mouth.

Taehyung moved to thumb at the cum that leaked from the corner of Jimin’s mouth. Namjoon shuddered through another aftershock. Jimin pulled off once he had gone soft and sensitive, lips spit-slick and glossy.

Taehyung guided Jimin back up onto the couch and once he was there pressed their mouths together. Jimin opened up for him and Namjoon was at once struck, watching Taehyung lick the taste of his come out of Jimin’s mouth. Jimin wound his fingers tight in Taehyung’s hair and tugged. He moaned, head tilted back and throat bared for Jimin to nip down.

Taehyung was glassy-eyed as Jimin slowly unbuttoned his shirt, pressing kisses down his ribcage. When he reached Taehyung’s waistband he paused, glancing up at Taehyung’s face for a moment before his fingers dipped underneath to slide his pants down his thighs. Taehyung helped Jimin work them down around his feet and kicked them off to the side in a heap.

Jimin’s lips pressed softly to the inside of Taehyung’s thigh and rested there for a moment before he began to suck small, dark marks into the crease of his groin. Taehyung shivered and went boneless, eyelids fluttering as he fought to keep them open. He looked to Namjoon almost as an afterthought and smirked again, softer this time, without the harsh edge that same look had held back at the convenience store.

“You like watching, Joonie?”

It should have been condescending the way he said it― too softly, too sweetly, like he was speaking to a child. But Taehyung was all relaxed, body gone slack as Jimin teased between his legs with the pads of his fingers and teased his lips down his cock. Namjoon nodded mutely and Taehyung made a soft noise in his throat. 

“Thought so.”

“Joon.” Jimin pointed out their shitty emergency kit still sitting by the stairs. “Lube. Grab it.”

It struck Namjoon as he was bending to pick the lube from the floor, that this was no accident. Namjoon had been seduced, not the other way around, and he was reassured knowing he was definitely not a homewrecker― in fact very much the opposite. Taehyung and Jimin wanted to put on a show and Namjoon certainly wasn’t going to stop them. 

Namjoon passed the lube over and sat back on the couch to watch. Taehyung’s chest heaved with the press of Jimin’s fingers inside him, pretty and debauched. Namjoon wanted to touch― wanted to feel so badly but he held back. Instead he admired the way they fit together, moved to effortlessly in sync it was like they were connected by a set of invisible strings that guided each little movement, each little shift in balance. When Jimin sunk in it was with slow, practiced ease, his fingers pressing white into the backs of Taehyung’s thighs. 

Namjoon felt it when he drew back and thrust in rough once, twice, three times and held there, Taehyung’s legs pinned to his chest, fingers clutching at Jimin’s shoulders. Taehyung squirmed and bucked down until Jimin had mercy and gave him a few good thrusts, hard thrusts that rocked him in increments up the cushions each time, hair bouncing every time Jimin fucked into him. And then abruptly, Jimin stopped altogether, and squeezed Taehyung’s hips to stop him from rocking down too.

Taehyung whined. “Jimin, baby, you gotta move.” He wriggled his hips minutely, as far as he could make them rock until Jimin slapped him sharply across the back of his thigh. Even Namjoon jolted at the force of it. Taehyung yelped loudly, and his cock twitched against his stomach, wet and dripping. Jimin’s finger tips dug firmly into the flesh of his hip.

“Thought you could show Namjoon how you beg.”

Taehyung’s gaze shifted to Namjoon and he shrunk in on himself, eyelids gone droopy hiding his shame. “I don’t beg.” 

“Then I don’t fuck you.”

“Are you sure?” Taehyung murmured, abs flexing as he clenched around Jimin’s cock. Jimin’s lips parted a few centimeters, lost around a gasp, but he kept his resolve.

“Promise.”
It didn’t take Taehyung long to reach a decision.

“Please.”

Jimin’s smile was deceptively sweet. His fingers loosened on Taehyung’s hip and came to sweep back the hair delicately plastering his forehead instead. “Please what?” 

“Please fuck me.” Taehyung’s teeth sunk deep into his bottom lip, eyelids fluttering, dazed, still pretending he couldn’t meet Namjoon’s eyes. “You feel so… so hngh,” he growled his frustration as Jimin’s fingers traced the arch of his brow bone softly, tauntingly. “Just please fuck me.”

And Jimin did, harsh, halting thrusts that rocked the back of the couch into the wall. Taehyung threw his head back and wailed, wild and unrecognizable from that cock-sure bastard who’d taunted Namjoon at the store.

“Isn’t Taehyung so beautiful while he’s getting fucked?” Jimin grunted. “Doesn’t he take it so well?”

Jimin panted with the effort of keeping up the pace he’d set, but he still took the time to thumb gently, fondly over the apple of Taehyung’s cheek, eyes filled with adoration, like he meant every word. 

Namjoon wanted to say something clever, something sharp and mean to make up for all those quips at his expense before, but the only thing that came from his mouth was a breathless, “Yeah.”

Taehyung finally worked up the nerve to look at him, and there was still an edge there, dulled but not quite blunt. “That all you got to say? We welcome you into our home, into Jimin’s mouth―” he hiccuped at Jimin’s fingernail, digging in sharp around his nipple, “― and that’s all you got?”

“No, I―” Namjoon cleared his throat, feeling like he was swallowing sandpaper. “I― thank you. For helping. It means a lot to me, you don’t―”

Jimin silenced him with a hand on his thigh. “It’s alright, we know. Tae’s just in a mood, aren’t you?” 

Jimin switched to deep, harsh pumps that jerked Taehyung harder up the couch. Taehyung hissed and curled his legs up closer to his chest to give him more room.

“Wow, I couldn’t tell.”

Jimin snorted. “Were you mean before baby?” he thrust in hard, and stayed there, grinding in circles and angling Taehyung’s hips to get at him deeper. Taehyung flailed and moaned wantonly.

“Guh, yes. Couldn’t help it.” Taehyung hiccuped. “Look at that face, so― ugh god―” he gasped as Jimin pounded into him. “So funny when he doesn’t know what to think.” 

“Is that why you gave him a hard time?”

Taehyung’s eyes barely stayed open as his mouth opened round another moan. “Uh huh.”

“Then don’t you think you should apologize?”

“Eh.” Taehyung managed to sound remarkably unaffected despite the way his breathing had gone ragged― like he couldn’t find an even tempo to breath― and the way his fingers grasped weakly for an anchor as sweat dripped down his chest.

Another harsh slap rang through the basement. Taehyung yelped and thrashed, back arching.

“Alright,” Taehyung panted, “Alright. Joonie, I’m sorry. Again” He squeaked as Jimin’s thumb found his nipple to toy with again.

“Sweet boy.” Jimin smoothed his hands up and down his chest, not quite wide enough to span its entirety. “The sweetest, isn’t he?” he asked Namjoon. Namjoon wasn’t sure how true that statement was, but he couldn’t disagree when they both looked like that, all glistening skin and flushed faces, just toeing the edge of too much to handle.

“Yes. The sweetest.”

Jimin was beginning to slip. Namjoon could see it in the way his thighs trembled and how tight his grip had gotten on Taehyung’s shoulders as he finally found the leverage to force him down further onto his cock. He leaned up for a kiss and Taehyung obliged eagerly, licked into his mouth and groaned for him as Jimin’s thrusts went sloppy and off tempo.

Jimin stuttered to a halt, gasping, burying his teeth into Taehyung’s neck as he whimpered a soft string of expletives. His little fingers grasped weakly at Taehyung’s wrist before he could go to stroke himself off. 

“Don’t come,” Jimin panted, eyes slitted, still shuddering through it, lean muscles of his back twitching and flexing minutely as he finished coming inside. He moaned shakily. “Wait for Joon, baby? Please?”

Namjoon and Taehyung made eye contact over Namjoon’s head. Taehyung’s gaze was sharp, like he was evaluating him, sizing him up for signs of weakness or doubt. Namjoon held his eyes until Taehyung seemed to like what he saw there and let his hand be tugged out of the way without protest. 

Jimin pulled out after another second, wincing. “Your turn,” he said, and Namjoon wasn’t sure which of them he was referring to, but then he was watching the cum as it leaked out of Taehyung’s hole, and he couldn’t remember why it would matter.

“C’mere,” Taehyung said once Jimin had flopped off to the side to recover. Namjoon did, and as soon as he was within reach, Taehyung wound his beautiful, long legs around Namjoon’s waist and Namjoon was hit with a punch of arousal to the gut so strong he vibrated with it.

“Don’t put it in yet,” Taehyung warned and then tugged him down and kissed him hard. Taehyung kissed differently than Jimin, with more tooth than tongue, nails raking shallow lines down Namjoon’s back as he did it. Namjoon could already tell Taehyung didn’t intend to make this easy. Taehyung grasped Namjoon’s cock between them and stroked, no teasing, just a long, smooth drag from base to tip, thumb swiping the head on the upstroke. Namjoon squeezed his eyes shut and cursed. He was so hard― he’d just come, he knew― but it felt like he’d been aching and untouched for hours, like Taehyung’s fingers around him were the first he’d felt in years. Namjoon was well and truly starved for his touch― for anything Taehyung would willingly give.

He hitched his hips up minutely to fuck up into Taehyung’s hand, and Taehyung let him rut up a few times before he pulled his hand away with a tsk. 

“All wet,” he murmured. “Not gonna need lube, but we need a condom.” 

“Okay.”

It took Namjoon a moment to realize Taehyung was waiting on him.

“Fuck, yeah. Okay.” He slipped out of Taehyung’s hold to search the emergency kit again. There had to be one somewhere, surely if Jimin had the forethought to bring the lube he’d brought a couple condoms. Surely. The carpet was stung against his knees as he shuffled across the floor, sweeping his hands over the rug, certain that if he just kept on moving and prayed hard enough, he’d find what he wanted through the sheer force of will alone. He gasped when he felt something small, flat and cool against his fingers, then deflated immediately when it was only a packet of tea. 

Over his shoulder, Jimin giggled.

“Having trouble?”

“No,” Namjoon said miserably, “I’m having an amazing time down here. Much better than sex.”

Taehyung snorted and his toe grazed the back of Namjoon’s ankle. “Might just have to go upstairs for it. Would you do that for me? Risk your life for this ass?” 

Namjoon wasn’t sure what was more terrifying, the storm or Taehyung’s dirty talk. Or the fact that he was actually considering doing it.

“Aw. Stop teasing him. Here.” Jimin lobbed something at the side of Namjoon’s head. 

Namjoon recognized it immediately and he fumbled to get the condom on, overeager and not caring at all how obvious it was. He scrambled back onto the couch where Taehyung had rearranged himself, on his hands and knees this time with his ass arched up, hole still dripping. Namjoon’s mouth went dry and his dick throbbed. His eyes flicked unconsciously to Jimin for verification, reassurance this was really okay before he gave in to what he wanted.

Jimin’s eyes were hooded but alight. There was something like excitement there, an unspoken anticipation as he nodded, just the barest of movements. It was all Namjoon needed. He kicked his pants the rest of the way down, kneed up behind Taehyung and lined up. 

It was hard to say who groaned louder when Namjoon sunk in. Jimin gnawed on his lower lip as he watched from the other couch, pupils blown wide. Taehyung arched back and rocked his hips in minute, rhythmic pulses as Namjoon held still and tried to remember where to put his hands. Taehyung bucked against him, impatient.

“Stop squirming,” Namjoon snapped. It slipped out before he had time to consider it too much, harsh even to his own ears. It certainly didn’t convey the gratitude Namjoon felt at being allowed to touch, to feel this ethereal, wicked being arched up under him. Instead it was sharp and mean and just a little too demanding for someone he’d only just met.

But Taehyung loved it. 

“Make me.” He pushed back again, flexing this time so Namjoon could see the way the muscles in his back tensed as he ground his ass back onto Namjoon’s dick.

Namjoon slapped his ass, hard. It seemed like the only right thing to do. Taehyung clenched up tight, body like a vise and dropped his chest to the cushions, angling his ass up, almost desperate, almost like he really needed Namjoon just this once. 

“Just fuck me.” Namjoon didn’t move right away, couldn’t― still overwhelmed, ridiculously aroused, and a little confused as to how he’d ended up in this situation. Taehyung whined quietly. “Please.”

But who was Namjoon to resist that. He reached to feel down the sides of Taehyung’s rib cage, felt each of the bones that jutted out under all that smooth, glowing skin. His hands came to rest in the dip of Taehyung’s waist and he paused a moment to appreciate the shape of Taehyung’s body, not exactly curvy, but he contorted so beautifully while he waited. Namjoon used his hold as leverage to draw back and snap back in. The angle of Taehyung’s hips had him so deep inside, Namjoon could already tell this wasn’t going to last long. The least he could do was make it good.

He fucked Taehyung in long, deep strokes, strokes that stole away his breath and had Taehyung whining lowly into his fist. Taehyung, he’d found, was a lot kinder while he was getting fucked into the sofa. He’d forgotten all his biting remarks from before in favor of biting down on his own forearm to muffle the most desperate of sounds that slipped out when Namjoon hit an especially good spot. 

“Don’t.” Namjoon tugged Taehyung’s arm out from underneath him to pin behind his back, grip still loose in case Taehyung wanted to get out. He didn’t. All the tensed muscles in his back slackened, and his body was all hot and pliant as Namjoon manhandled him to pin the other hand behind his back too. Now he was really in control, with Taehyung pinned and held under him, willing and waiting for anything Namjoon could give. He should have felt powerful― and he did, a little― but mostly there was just a buzzing between his ears and a new note of desperation as his head swam, hazy with lust. 

He picked up the pace and Taehyung wailed as Namjoon’s hips slapped against the backs of his thighs. Namjoon knew he was making noises too now― breathless, pitchy, embarrassing ones that he couldn’t help― Taehyung was just so willing and warm, tight around him. 

“Jesus you two sound like a porno.” Jimin groaned, neck craned against the back of the couch to watch them, full cheeks flushed in some sleepy, half-expressed arousal.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, he loves it,” Taehyung panted, a little muffled with half his face smushed into the cushion. “Like a cuckolding dream come true.”

“Shut up,” Jimin said, and if it weren’t so dark, Namjoon was certain he’d be able to see the full extent of the blush on his face. 

“Like watching me get fucked as much as you like fucking me?” Taehyung pressed. “Or more?”

This time it was Namjoon that flinched hardest at the slap that landed on the side of Taehyung’s ass. Taehyung moaned out, loud and desperate. 

“Mouthy today.” Jimin chided, smoothing over the already fading red mark with his palm. He gave Taehyung’s ass a loving little pat. “Namjoon, don’t be afraid to get a little rough, he loves that.”

“I figured.”

Namjoon released Taehyung’s wrists to pull his cheeks apart and watch the way his cock disappeared inside. Something twisted and filthy and hot pulsed in Namjoon’s gut at how messy Taehyung had gotten, skin slick with lube and Jimin’s come trickling out of him. Namjoon ran his thumb down the crease of Taehyung’s ass all the way down where they were connected. He pressed in and felt the give of Taehyung’s rim beneath his finger, the flutter around his cock as Taehyung groaned and shifted to stretch his legs wider for him. Just like that, Namjoon was dangerously close to coming. 

He pressed Taehyung down flat against the couch and collapsed too, down onto his hands and knees on the cushions, to rut into him, grinding in circles when his thighs got too shaky to thrust right. Taehyung had taken the opportunity to hump against the cushions and he didn’t complain at the torturously slow drag of Namjoon’s cock in and out.

Namjoon was certain if he went any faster it would all be over in a second. He didn’t want it to end; he wanted to be here in this room, fucking this ass for at least another century. He could barely remember how afraid he’d been of the storm, like this it was but a vague recollection of terror, distant and nonthreatening. Taehyung was obviously enjoying himself too, and Namjoon couldn’t find any reason that they shouldn’t just stay like this together, maybe until the end of time if he was lucky. 

Jimin seemed to have other ideas.

He’d kneeled up closer behind them while Namjoon hadn’t been looking, and it was a pleasant shock when he felt Jimin’s palm skating down his back, all the way from his neck to the base of his spine. “What’s wrong, can’t go any faster?” Jimin’s hand retraced its path up and back down. “Need my help?”

“No, just― gonna come,” Namjoon grunted, even as he thrust in a little quicker, a little deeper.

“Come on, Taehyungie needs more than that doesn’t he?”

Taehyung groaned his approval into the armrest.

Jimins hands moved to his ass, squeezing, and then out and around his hips. He wasn’t quite guiding him, but the suggestion was there, enough to make Namjoon hitch forward as he thrust in once, twice jerky and abrupt before he tumbled into something smoother.

“Ah― there.” Taehyung canted his hips back for a better angle. 

“Like that, can you keep going like that?” Jimin cooed, so terribly patronizing, and yet  Namjoon’s dick had never been harder. He was supposed to be in control here― he was almost positive― but here under Jimin’s hands and in Taehyung’s body, it felt like he was melting a little at the edges. He wanted to come, so badly, groin tightening and his breaths coming faster. Namjoon whined, just a little, as he collapsed over Taehyung’s back.

“Wanna fill me up too?” Taehyung craned his head back to smirk and Namjoon lost his last shred of resolve. 

“God,” he growled, so close to Taehyung’s ear. “Shit, I wanna―” 

“Do it.”

Namjoon got a good grip on his shoulders and used it to yank Taehyung down further onto his cock, pin him in place so there was nowhere to go but deeper. Taehyung dropped his forehead back down with a keen, huffing ragged, uneven breaths into the fabric as he trembled with Namjoon’s hips slapping a rhythm against the fat of his ass. Jimin’s hands were still a gentle pressure on Namjoon’s sides, squeezing in soft encouragement even as Namjoon’s hips snapped in wildy. He felt like an animal in heat, mounting Taehyung like this, chasing an almost feverish high. 

“So gorgeous,” Jimin hummed, just quiet enough that it might have been imagined.

Namjoon gave one last hard thrust before he tensed all over, buried his face in the crook of Taehyung’s neck and came, groaning high and just a little frantic. Taehyung shuddered beneath him, clenching, and Namjoon wished there wasn’t that layer of latex separating them, so that he could really feel what it’d really be like to fill Taehyung with his spunk.

After a moment, Namjoon snaked his arm down to get a hand around Taehyung’s cock, only to find that he’d already made a mess of the cushions below. Taehyung whimpered when Namjoon’s fingers bumped the sensitive head of his cock, but didn’t move to push him away. An interesting discovery for another day, if Namjoon was particularly lucky.

“ ‘m gonna pull out,” he warned, and Taehyung whined as he did it, slow and careful not too make a bigger mess of the couch, through it was probably a moot point by now.

Namjoon managed to tie off the condom with nut-clumsy fingers and Jimin took it from him and dropped it over the back of the couch. “’ll pick that up later,” he murmured. 

Namjoon grunted his approval, rolled off the side of the couch, and slumped to the floor so he could sprawl out and really bask in the glow of a stupendous orgasm.

Over his head, Jimin giggled. “Alright down there?”

“Literally never better.”

“Good.”

All was quiet for a few moments as Namjoon focused on the heavy rise and fall of his own chest and the soft rasp of fabric as Taehyung shifted around on the couch above him. There was silence, a bit more shuffling, and then Taehyung’s voice, teasing.

“Wanna do something about that?”

Jimin made a noise that Namjoon suspected meant Taehyung was already doing something about it. He pushed up onto his elbows for a better angle to peek at Taehyung hunched over Jimin’s spread legs, long hair shielding his face from view, tips dusting over the tops of Jimin’s thighs and stomach. 

Taehyung sucked him off, quick, quiet and intimate as Namjoon, still sex-stupid, flopped back to the floor and tried to remember how to move his arms again. He stared up at the ceiling and listened to the slick slide of Taehyung’s lips, Jimin’s hushed grunt as he finished down his throat, and finally, after a moment, the wet, slow sounds of kissing. 

Eventually someone remembered him there too, and then Namjoon had a lapful of naked boys and lips pressed all over him. Jimin and Taehyung kissed him, but mostly each other, until they were all too sleepy to keep going, which didn’t take long at all with the way that the rush of the wind and intermittent rumble of thunder outside had morphed from Namjoon’s personal soundtrack of terror to something like a lullaby. The whole basement was cloaked in a soft, calm, haze. It was the first time since the rain had started that Namjoon had felt anything close to safe. 

Eventually Jimin dragged himself up from the floor to make sure Jungkook had enough water, and Taehyung shifted them around so that Namjoon’s head was pillowed in his lap and he could comb his fingers softly through Namjoon’s hair. Something about it was distinctly intimate, too much for a hookup maybe, but after his many months of celibacy, Namjoon might have just been reading too far into things. 

Jimin returned with baby wipes and blankets, and he tossed one over Namjoon legs before he stepped over him to help Taehyung clean up. Afterwards he tucked himself into Taehyung’s side and pressed a kiss to the side of Taehyung’s head. His chin fit perfectly into the crook of Taehyung’s shoulder, and Namjoon felt out of place all over again. He tried to scoot out of the way so they could do their thing in peace, but Taehyung stopped him with a hand on his chest.

“Where you going?”

Namjoon froze up for a moment, surprised and bashfully flattered. “Uh. I dunno, thought you might want some privacy.”

Jimin laughed. “What gave you that impression?”

Namjoon couldn’t think of a good reason he’d felt that way. He’d never done anything like this before, so he didn’t have much knowledge on threesome protocol. Taehyung and Jimin were just so sweet and lovely together it felt like an intrusion sometimes, and a tiny, scared part of his brain was convinced that if he voiced this, they might realize he had a point and kick him right back out into the storm. 

Namjoon shrugged. “Don’t know.”

“Don’t worry. We like to share.” Taehyung smiled wickedly down at him.

Namjoon tried to hide how flustered he was with his face in the crease of Taehyung’s hip. “Oh okay. That’s good, I guess I just… I dunno.”

Taehyung tugged gently at his hair. “Why so embarrassed now, cutie?” 

Namjoon could feel his ears burning hot, probably obvious even in the candle-light. “Really not used to you talking to me like that,” he mumbled

“What? Is it because of earlier?” Taehyung sounded unfairly delighted. “You are cute, though. Even when you’re taking forever at the checkout.”

Namjoon found that a little dubious. “Really?”

“Well, not right at first. But I wasn’t too mad once you turned around. Definitely the hottest piece of ass to walk into that convenience store in a long long time, present company excluded. What, why do you look so surprised?”

Namjoon tried to wipe his expression of dumb shock from his face. Taehyung looking like that and calling Namjoon cute was a lot to take in. “Sorry. You just didn’t seem very receptive to my flirting earlier.”

“Yeah. Because it wasn’t very good. I was also kind of in the middle of something, if you couldn’t tell. Not good timing.”

“Never a bad time to pick up a stud like this one.” Jimin reached over Taehyung to rub on Namjoon’s chest.

Namjoon shivered under his cool fingers. “Please. That’s even worse than cutie.”

“Don’t act like you don’t love it. Cutie”

Namjoon intended to protest― really, he did― but found he could not in clear conscience deny it. “I mean I don’t hate it,” he settled on, and reburied his face in Taehyung’s hip.

This time when Taehyung and Jimin starting frenching over his head, he wasn’t nearly as bothered about it. Eventually, Jimin made them all rearrange so they could stretch out side by side on the rug― see, the shag was good for something after all― with Namjoon in the middle, their fingers intertwined over his stomach. Somehow it felt like an acceptance. Namjoon cycled in and out of sleep for some immeasurable number of hours, and each time he woke to find two beautiful boys warm at his sides, a barrier between him and the rest of the world. He doubted anything that felt safer than that.

At some indeterminable point in the night, he awoke to a heavy pressure on his chest, and cracked his eyelids to find Jungkook curled up on his chest, soft, bushy tail tickling Namjoon’s chin and beady black eyes peering into his.

Namjoon held very still. “Hi buddy,” he croaked. “Whatcha doin up there?” 

Jungkook only chuffed and curled up into a tighter ball. The hard edge of panic receded. Jungkook looked so cozy like this Namjoon didn’t have the heart to dislodge him. And he was still just a little afraid to touch him. Still, sleep took him again.

The next time Namjoon opened his eyes, it was to Jimin’s sleepy voice in his ear.

“Aw, did you make a friend?” It took Namjoon a moment to realize that Jimin wasn’t speaking to him, but to Jungkook. “What a handsome, sweet boy.” Jimin used the tip of his finger to smooth down the fur on Jungkook’s snout. Jungkook stretched out his forelegs to paw at Jimin’s hand.

“Thanks.”

Jimin didn’t look surprised to see him awake. “Don’t be greedy Namjoon, it’s Jungkook’s turn for compliments.”

“Right, my mistake.”

Jimin laughed, lower and scratchier than usual. “Don’t worry, you’re next.”

On his other side, Taehyung stirred with a groan. He sat up blearily after a moment, hair plastered down on one side and sticking straight up on the other. Even with sleep-swollen eyelids and puffy lips, he was still one of the gorgeous, mildly terrifying people that Namjoon had ever seen. “What time’s ‘t,” he mumbled, eyes still mostly closed. “‘s the storm over?”

There wasn’t any light coming through the window well, but the howling of wind had subsided into an uncanny sort of silence. Namjoon listened for the soft patter of rain and the distant grumble of thunder, but all was placid and calm. Relief crept in, and Namjoon let out the longest, loudest sigh as he sagged into the carpet. Even Jungkook, cuddled up on his chest, felt a thousand times less freaky now. 

“We made it buddy,” he felt like whispering, but bit his tongue. Instead he reached up, very tentatively, to stroke Jungkook’s back. Jungkook snuffled in gentle appreciation.

Jimin got up to check his phone. “It’s four thirty,” he said. “And the last wind advisory was at two.”

“Mmm.” Taehyung rumbled. “Should go check on the horses, make sure they’re not too spooked.”

“And eat breakfast, I’m starving.”

“Ngh. Sounds good.”

It was still another several minutes before Taehyung stirred again. 

“Fuck, I’m sore,” he said when he got up, stepping gingerly back into his pant-legs. Jimin snickered as he wiggled back into his shirt. 

“I told you he looked like he knew how to fuck. Here.” Jimin leaned down and lifted Jungkook off Namjoon’s chest. “Put your clothes back on and I’ll make breakfast.”

“Okay,” said Namjoon, fighting another blush.

Jimin went to check on the horses this time while Taehyung used a match to light the gas range and get started on some eggs. The power was still out so Taehyung propped up a flashlight on the counter that gave them just barely enough light to see by.

“Hopefully they get the power back on pretty quick or all this stuff is gonna get spoiled.” Taehyung slammed the refrigerator shut with a bang and set to work cracking all dozen eggs into the pan. “I hope you’re hungry.”

Namjoon was ravenous in fact, but based on the number of minutes Taehyung spent picking bits of shell out of the eggs, he was somewhat concerned for their fate. Jimin came back before he had a chance to really screw up and swooped in to take over.

“I see you went for scrambled.” Jimin shone his own flashlight into the pan and frowned.

“Of course. My specialty.”

The power came back on about halfway through breakfast, and Namjoon had to squint through the sudden bright light.

“That was quick.” Taehyung stood up with his plate. “Good, my eggs were getting cold. Hey Namjoon, maybe I could make you that tea now.”

“Yeah sure.”

Jimin rolled his eyes as Taehyung filled a mug from the sink and stuck it in the microwave. “You’re the worst.”

Taehyung grinned. “Want me to make you one too?”

“Yes please.”

When dawn cracked on the horizon, Jimin bundled him up in one of Taehyung’s jackets and offered to drive him out to help jumpstart his car. 

“I don’t want you to feel like we’re rushing to get rid of you but―” Jimin motioned to their property littered with storm debris― jagged split branches and twigs and an assortment of garbage tangled along bushes and fencing. “We got a lot of clean up to do. I’m also trying to get an emergency appointment set up with the equine massage therapist for this afternoon, so. Fingers crossed.”

There wasn’t much Namjoon could say in response to that but, “Okay.”

Taehyung climbed into the backseat after them, barefoot and shivering in another gauzy, loose-fitting shirt and boxers. Jimin’s car was much nicer than the bug, with intact upholstery and functional heating. Amenities galore! They bumped down the dirt road, Taehyung humming along with the radio under his breath and Namjoon watching the first pink rays of sunlight peeking over the horizon. 

“I have a question,” Namjoon said suddenly. “What are the signs?” 

Jimin glanced out of the corner of his eye. “Signs?”

“Yeah. How could you tell a storm was coming? Taehyung said something about it to me back at the convenience store.”

“Ah right.” Taehyung laughed. “I have no idea, I just check the weather forecast everyday. You should probably start doing that too, cityboy. You’re not in paradise anymore.”

“Hmph.”

Jimin pulled up next to Namjoon’s truck and went to get the jumper cables out of the back and showed Namjoon where to place the clamps and how to start the engine. Afterwards he used a rag to wipe the little black smudges of grease off his hands. 

“You think you’ll remember all that for next time?”

“I’m really hoping there won’t be a next time.”

Jimin blinked at him for a few seconds, then over to Namjoon’s dumpy old truck, then back to Namjoon. “There will probably be a next time. You can always call me if you can’t figure it out though.” He winked. “Or Taehyung, but he probably won’t be as nice.”

“I can hear you!” Taehyung yelled through the cracked window of the jeep. 

“Then why didn’t you come and help when I called earlier.”

“I’m not wearing shoes,” Taehyung whined. Still, he hopped out of the car a few seconds later, toes squishing in the damp grass as he picked his way over to Namjoon. “See you soon, I hope.”

“Well yeah, I still have to get my clothes ba― ungh.” 

Namjoon was almost too stunned to kiss back when Taehyung swooped in, arms wound tight around his neck, just a touch possessive. His lips tasted like tea leaves and promises. He pulled away almost as abruptly as he’d begun and Namjoon was left with tingling lips and a swooping in his stomach. 

Jimin grinned and leaned in for a peck too, which turned into ten seconds of slow, scorching kisses that made Namjoon want to hop right back into the jeep and beg to be taken back to the farmhouse and ravaged all over again.

Jimin drew back reluctantly, thumb caressing Namjoon’s jawline. His eyes stayed fixed on Namjoon’s lips as he said, “Seriously, call.” 

And then Taehyung and Jimin climbed back into the jeep, and the still silence of the budding dawn was broken by the grumbling engine and Taehyung, calling out the window.

“Try not to get sucked up by any tornados while we’re gone!”

Namjoon felt his lips as he watched them drive away, fingertips like phantom kisses lingering.

Maybe he was starting to find his place here after all.