Chapter Text
Dreams aren't meant to last.
He'll get on that plane and the flight will act like a memory wipe.
The altitude and the salty food and a time skip forward will remind him that he's on his way home.
The customs and cold air of the arrivals hall will cleanse him of what they did when they were away.
Abroad.
Free, for a few short weeks.
The idea of him being his like he promised in everything but words will seem absurd when he climbs into one van, and Yuta into another.
The familiar drive home will make long nights in warmer countries seem like a fever dream.
It's time to wake up, though.
Dreams are beautiful because they are fleeting.
Dreams aren't made to last.
Isn't that what their message is?
Whatever.
Yuta doesn't know.
He just knows that as soon as they get past the encore, past the ments, into the dressing room, Mark is going to start to wake up.
So Yuta takes another picture of him while they rehearse.
Yuta steals another kiss away from everybody else.
Yuta takes what Mark offers while he's still offering it, because as soon as the tour is over, so are they.
Dreams aren't meant to last.
-
Early in the tour, Mark knocked on his door in the middle of the night. Yuta wasn’t asleep; that was probably why Mark knocked. Mark knew Yuta well enough to know that. He was sitting up in bed, watching movies on his phone. Mark was drunk, not messily so but enough to make him giggly. Yuta stepped back and Mark, taking a look up and down the corridor like anybody would give a fuck that he was sneaking into Yuta’s room, walked inside, kicking his shoes into a pile and going straight to the bed.
“Long night?” Yuta climbed under the covers and Mark, seeing this, shrugged off his jacket and got under the covers too.
“Kind of. I’m tired, though. Dude, I went drinking with Jungwoo.”
“That’s not a long night,” Yuta pointed out, and Mark laughed hard into his pillow. Yuta turned on his side to face him. His cheeks were all flushed, vivid pink against the dull blue of his hair. He looked ethereal, like anime, unreal and beautiful like it hurt. Yuta reached out and brushed some of Mark’s hair off his forehead. Mark let him, sighing into the contact.
“Jungwoo wanted to see how much beer he could drink.”
“I could have told him the answer to that,” Yuta said, delighting in making Mark laugh again, in drawing out of him an acknowledgement that they shared knowledge, shared jokes, shared anything at all.
“I might sleep,” Yuta said, closing his eyes. “Are you going to stay?” When he opened his eyes again, he found Mark watching him, eyes bright but clear. He wasn’t as drunk as he seemed.
“Can I?”
“If you want to,” Yuta said. “Only if you want to.”
Mark nodded, and seemed to consider something. “I need my toothbrush,” he said, and shuffled out from under the blankets. “Can I take the key?” Yuta heard shuffling on the desk, a keycard being slipped into a pocket. He sat up, watching Mark cross the hotel room, take his shoes and leave.
His heart started to beat fast; this scene was familiar. This had happened before.
He adjusted the sheets and turned out the lights in the room, until only the little lamp on the other bedside table was on. He lay on his back, willing his heart-rate to slow. He had it under control when his door opened quietly. Then, Mark was climbing back into bed in pyjama pants and a t-shirt and smelling like toothpaste and face wash. He turned off the light before he settled himself.
And they were lying in the dark then, Yuta struggling to remember how to breathe normally.
Because this was familiar. This had happened before.
He felt a hand on his stomach, calloused fingers pressing into the thin material of his vest triggering memories. A tug, a tap, a shuffle beside him, and he was being urged onto his side, away from Mark. Mark curling around him, holding him.
“Hyung, wait,” Mark muttered behind him, and he threaded his other arm under Yuta’s neck so he was half lying on it, and the pillow. It was hard not to sigh. It was difficult for him not to give away too much how he loved this. It was incredible that Mark remembered.
For all of their joking around on stage, the fanservice when they filmed content, the things that Yuta said to Mark in public barely scratched the surface of how he truly felt. When Mark held him like this, Yuta knew he understood. He knew, too, that it was the only way Mark had, of showing him that it was okay that he felt like this. It was hopeless, but it wasn’t wrong.
Mark shuffled closer to him so there was no space between them. Yuta felt his breath on the back of his neck, felt the warm solidity of him when Mark pressed his forehead into Yuta’s shoulder, onto the bare skin between his shoulder blades, soft hair tickling the nape of his neck. He heard his breathing, ragged and uneven, like it had been last time he had been so bold. Last time-
“Do you ever think about us?” Mark asked him in the dark. His fingers on Yuta’s stomach traced patterns on the fabric, rucking it up slightly. “Like, seriously? Not just, you know…”
“What kind of question is that?” Yuta asked, hoping the bitterness in his voice wasn’t too obvious. It wasn’t Mark’s fault that he didn’t feel as strongly for Yuta as he did for him, but Mark didn’t need to tease him about it either.
“Hey,” Mark whispered, and Yuta wished he had more alcohol in his system than the two whiskies he had pilfered from the minibar as Mark moved his hips against his backside. “I didn’t mean to imply… I just- do you think about- about the last time I stayed in your room?”
All doubt or hesitation Yuta had in believing that Mark had come to his room for sex evaporated. That’s what he had turned up for the first time too. Show me how you really feel , he had said to Yuta that night, half in anger and half in trepidation. Yuta had gone too far, said too much, touched him too often in front of members and managers and cameras and fans, and Mark had pinned Yuta to his own bed in a hotel room like this one and asked him to be honest with him. Like Yuta was ever not honest with him.
Now, Yuta shrugged. Mark couldn’t see his face, so he could hide how much this was killing him, the possibility of it, the edging precipice of what was maybe - surely - happening here. “I think about it sometimes,” he said. “Why?”
Mark laughed into his skin, and it turned into a kiss, wet and messy, against his spine. Yuta arched back into it, and Mark laughed again. It was a private laugh, one few people heard, laced with something of an edge. Mark Lee was cute and sweet, boyfriend and adorable. He was an angel in the public eye. But when he got into bed, when he was behind Yuta like this with his fingertips, tracing the bare skin on his hip, between Yuta’s underwear and his vest, he was a demon. He was a tormentor. He had power and knew how to use it, and right now he was using it to make Yuta desperate for him.
“You said it was only one time,” Yuta managed to say, fumbling his words, wishing Mark spoke Japanese because trying to be coherent in Korean when Mark was grinding against him, when the length of him was hard and pressing into Yuta so exquisitely, was impossible.
“We’re on tour, hyung. Let’s have some fun, hm?”
There was a warning blaring somewhere in Yuta’s mind. There was a room in there, way at the back, with a version of Yuta inside who knew what this would do to him when Mark left in the morning. That Yuta was screaming at him right now to stop. That Yuta, that room, his self-preservation, was buried deep though, and where Mark was concerned it was never very effective anyway.
It was past three o’clock in the morning. The middle of the night. Dreams happened in the middle of the night; he could have this if he accepted that he would need to wake up from it eventually. Right?
The arm that Yuta was lying on retracted, and then both of Mark’s hands were on his hips, sliding his underwear down. Not off, not all the way. Yuta noticed this about Mark the last time, the first time, the only time. He kept most of his clothes on, left most of Yuta’s on too, like taking them all off and pressing their skin together was confirming a sin.
Yuta was desperate to touch him, but he didn’t dare interrupt. There would be time after. When Mark was done ruining Yuta, he would let himself be touched and held. That was what had happened last time. So Yuta waited and let Mark take care of him, took the little bottle from the toiletries bag on his bedside table that had been in there since last time, and passed it back over his shoulder without looking at Mark.
Mark took it, but he didn’t go so far this time as he had the first time. He used the stuff, sure, but he coated Yuta and then himself, and fucked the space between Yuta’s thighs. He wrapped his deft fingers around Yuta to bring him off quickly, following soon after, panting into Yuta’s neck, saying his name like a prayer when he came.
Yuta’s body was a mess but he didn’t even register it.
Mark kissed the space between his shoulder blades tenderly in the come-down. Yuta fought himself to stay awake, to enjoy the sensation and comfort, enjoy the feeling of Mark where he needed him.
Eventually, his heart stopped hammering in his chest. Mark’s breathing evened out, and Yuta got up. He cleaned himself off, brought a cloth out to Mark, and when Mark settled down again, Yuta pulled him into his arms and kissed his forehead.
“Can I stay with you, sometimes?” Mark asked, voice laced with sleep.
“If you want to,” Yuta said, sadness flooding back to him. ‘You can stay whenever you like.”
“Just for the tour,” Mark said, settling into the embrace, wrapping one of his arms around Yuta’s stomach, slipping his legs between Yuta’s.
“If you want to,” Yuta said again. It was like a dream, but he didn’t have to wake up yet.
-
The drive to the airport was quiet. Everybody was drained, and tomorrow was going to come sooner than their bodies were used to. Tomorrow, things would get crazy again.
The other van was probably just as quiet; Taeyong had been up most of the night, Yuta knew. In the back seat of their van, Jungwoo was asleep on Jaehyun’s shoulder. Yuta glanced across the aisle at Mark, catching the smile before it tugged at his lips when he took in his morning softness. Mark met his eyes.
“What?” he said shyly, like Yuta didn’t stare at him habitually.
“Tomorrow will be crazy,” Yuta said, pitching his voice low. The conversation wasn’t private, but he didn’t like to share Mark’s attention with others.
Mark nodded. “Need to sleep on the flight,” he agreed, going back to studying his phone. Yuta knew what he was looking at - knew what he was seeing in Mark’s behaviour here - but it didn’t hurt any less. Mark was already turning away from him, already leaving the tour behind.
The last weeks had been blissful. Every day, he worked alongside Mark, toured places he had never been before with Mark, drank tequila and beer and amazing coffee, with Mark. Sure, the other members were there, but there was an intimacy between the two of them that was unbroken in all of the swirl of activity around them. And remarkably, Mark didn’t seem to mind. He was encouraging, which was new. He initiated, for the first time, while Yuta just basked in it, in the glow of his attention. Most nights, when they weren’t with the others, they spent together. Most mornings he woke up with Mark curled around him or tucked beside him. One morning, Mark woke him up with a kiss.
The tour was over, though. And so were they.
“It was amazing, right?” Mark said, as they turned off the highway, into the airport. He meant the tour but the look he gave Yuta when he said it, touched with sadness, still hurt. At least there was no regret there.
Even though it hurt, Yuta was thankful. For the time they had. If that was all he would ever have, then he could never regret that it happened either.
“Yeah,” Yuta said, holding his gaze. “I'm not gonna forget this for the rest of my life.”