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"You don't have to do this."
Jo Heon merely tilts his head, the corners of his lips twitching with amusement that after all they've done together; of all the things they've done to each other, the ways they've seen each other broken, bleeding, and bruised; even after the ways Jo Heon has marked this man as his own and have his marks carved onto his skin in turn, this is the one thing that gets the tips of Kim Jiyong's ears turning a pretty pink and his cheeks flushing.
The back of Jo Heon's teeth itches for a bite.
Wringing out the hand towel in the bath water, Jo Heon adjusts himself where he is sitting at the lip of the tub. Running the cloth over the base of Jiyong's skull, he digs his thumb down into the tense muscle, minding which press has Jiyong's breath stuttering, eyes blinking a little slower and exhaling thickly, and which one has him hissing in pain.
He dips his touch to the knobs of Jiyong's spine that jut out under his skin. Here, he steals a moment of gentleness.
Following that line, he runs the hand towel down, half tracing his path through the blooms of fresh bruises against old ones, letting only the sound of their breathing in the echoing quiet of Jiyong's bathroom be the thing that marks the passing of time in here.
"Lean back."
Jiyong obediently goes. Dark eyes watching him through the fan of his lashes. Jo Heon swallows and watches the way that heavy gaze follows the movement of his Adam's apple with that of his own.
He's beautiful, Jiyong is. Even like this, all scraped and bruised up from his most recent weekend escapade. In a different life, in a softer life, Jo Heon thinks Jiyong could have been more than just a man who burns with a conviction that could one day get him killed.
He hopes that in that other life, Jiyong would have grown up loved and cosseted. He would have friends that he could hang out and do normal things on Sundays together with. He could probably have a girl that he liked enough to share a life with someday. Or perhaps it would be a guy. Jo Heon wouldn't know. Jiyong and him... Falling into this thing they have seemed like a natural progression of everything that has come before. Talking about things like that just isn't them.
A touch wraps itself around his wrist and Jo Heon is carefully brought back to the here and now where Jiyong is watching him with a split lip and a chest that is waiting for his touch.
Jo Heon leans in. Running the cloth over Jiyong's pecs, lingering over his nipples just to hear him sucking in a sharp breath. The pretty blush spreads down his neck and over his chest and Jo Heon thinks Jiyong's had about enough of sitting around in cooling bath water.
Moving away to grab the fluffy towel with the pink flowers that Jo Heon had bought as a joke last summer, but has now taken a place in the laundry rotation, he shakes it out. Reaching down, with an infinite amount of care he keeps hidden on the weekdays, he shifts to carry Jiyong out of the bath, wrapping him up once he has him all dried out.
Jiyong for his grace, takes being princess carried in the arms of his part-time lover with nothing but a tilt of his face into Jo Heon's shoulder. He'll need to change out of his wet clothes, but it's a small matter.
In the face of laying Jiyong down on his too-small bed, moving to grab the sweater and sweatpants he had laid out, Jo Heon only feels a sense of contentment to care for him.
The touch on his wrist returns. "Don't go." It's a quiet demand wrapped in a spoken plea. And with Jiyong's eyes sparkling in the warm glow of the table lamp, who was Jo Heon to deny anything he wanted of him?
"Okay," Jo Heon replies, curling his hand into Jiyong's. "Okay," He says again when Jiyong kicks the damp towel off the bed in favour of tugging Jo Heon to press onto his bath-warmed skin.
"Okay," He surrenders into the perfect press of their lips and the way Jiyong's hands feel like anchor weights where they caress and cup at his cheeks. He shifts away only to shuck off his shirt and unbuckle his pants.
Through this, Jiyong watches him with shadowed eyes that are heavy with the familiar shade of his desire. And when he's just as naked as Jiyong and crawling back to him, Jo Heon gives his idle thoughts one last run.
As Jiyong spreads his legs to hook over his sides, welcoming him into the safe harbour of his hips and the sweetness of his lips, Jo Heon thinks of that other life.
Maybe in that life, they'd never meet. They'd exist in different worlds. Two people who will remain strangers. Living and dying unknowing and uncaring of the other. Maybe that would be best.
In that life, Jo Heon hopes Jiyong smiles more.
For this one, Jo Heon will hold him tight and catch him when he falls.