Work Text:
Donghyuck opens his eyes to warmth.
Limbs aching, he goes to stretch out, and Mark, fit snugly in the space behind him, groans in protest as he shifts with him.
“Stop movin’,” he slurs groggily. Donghyuck’s eyelids flutter shut to amber filtering through the blinds, a light shiver snaking down his spine.
He hums. Lips brush the nape of his neck, curling up in a lazy smile.
Donghyuck breathes in deep, hazy with warmth. Warmth… can it be considered a smell? Regardless, that’s what the room smells like— Mark’s shampoo and comfort and warmth.
The dorm is silent. No clanging dishes from the kitchen, no running shower water, no ringing alarm clocks.
Donghyuck figures it must be early. The sunshine peeking through the curtains is young, it’s fingers of light only just spilling across the carpet and climbing up onto the sheets, stretching across the bedspread that was shoved to the footboard in the night.
Donghyuck squeezes the hand Mark has splayed across his stomach before twisting around to face him, sheets rustling against his bare legs, his hips.
Half of Mark’s face is smushed into the pillow and his tousled hair is fanned out all over the place. Donghyuck smiles, close-mouthed and quiet at the endearing sight.
It doesn’t take long for the tender stillness of the moment to become a bit overwhelming. So he turns to reach for his phone on the bedside table. Checking the time, it looks like they don’t have much more to laze around and certainly don’t have enough to go back to sleep.
Donghyuck sets the phone down with a small clatter and props himself up on his elbow once he rolls over again. Touch incredibly gentle, he starts to thread his hand through Mark’s hair.
“Hey, you,” he says quietly. The older’s soft sigh at his careful ministrations cues he’s listening. “Can’t go back to sleep, babe.”
Mark grunts, a petulant frown paired with a sleepy shake of his head, eyes still shut.
“Mark,” Donghyuck intones, trying to keep the smile from his voice. It’s really fucking difficult because this version of Mark is really fucking adorable.
The thing is, Mark can never decide if he’s an early bird or a late riser, and he solves that by, simply, not choosing. Some mornings he wakes up at the ass crack of dawn and starts playing guitar (much to Taeil’s expressed displeasure) and other mornings he barely gets in the van with both shoes on.
Today, the latter seems likely, if Mark’s current state is anything to go by.
Still, he seems to find the will to hook his arm around Donghyuck’s waist and tug him toward his chest. Donghyuck lets out a defeated snort into Mark’s worn t-shirt and gives up trying to be responsible. (He’ll never tell it’s because he likes these mornings too much to argue otherwise.)
After a few minutes of letting his eyes rest, he pulls away, laying his head on Mark’s outstretched arm to observe the sight he’s blessed with every morning: the love of his life, right in front of him. Mouth open, hair mussed, clothes rucked up every which way... Love of his life.
They haven’t said it yet— those three words. Not out loud, at least. But it’s there. Woven into every glance and whispered touch. Both gone from the moment they realized that even though they infuriated each other sometimes, they couldn’t convince themselves to stay away.
Eventually, Mark blinks his eyes open, face scrunching up in a yawn. Donghyuck does a poor job stifling a chuckle.
“You’re cute,” he says fondly, brushing the hair out of Mark’s eyes.
And there it is… that Look. The one that is often painted on the older’s face, gaze like honey. Warm, dripping with sweetness. That Look means he’ll stare and stare at Donghyuck and he won’t stop staring.
Donghyuck bites back a smile, a lump rising in his throat at the blatant attention.
“Stop,” he demands softly, moving to knock his fist against Mark’s chest, but Mark catches it and weaves their fingers together instead.
Mark’s thumb grazes along his skin, dipping into the crease where their palms are pressed together, along with the staring— Donghyuck has to look away for the second time this morning.
He commits to a half-assed eye roll and follows the lines on the ceiling, distantly wondering how long it’s going to take— this time— to stir the other from his reverie.
He’s met with the same unwavering gaze when he turns back, and promptly lets out a noise that’s suspiciously close to a whine. Switching tactics, he fiddles with their conjoined fingers and pulls the face he’s mastered over the years, the one that is nine out of ten times successful in getting Mark to crack with a smile.
Slowly but surely. After years of becoming an expert in All Things Mark Lee, he can tell he’s getting to him.
Mark bends the arm supporting the younger’s head and begins to scratch along his scalp, his touch torturously slow, teasing. It’s tantalizing and he knows it, the hint of a smirk at his lips an indication of his self awareness.
Donghyuck is about to retort or something, pull some shit of his own because he doesn’t really enjoy playing the game by Mark’s rules (he does).
But then Mark speaks up again in that goddamn morning voice and Donghyuck is helpless but to listen.
“What do you want, hm?” Mark murmurs, nails ghosting behind the younger’s ear. Voice much lower than Donghyuck was expecting.
Oh . Okay.
Donghyuck repeats, “Stop staring.” It’s part of their little game, the push and pull back and forth.
But then he glances down at Mark’s mouth and his own facade falls to shambles. Now he’s staring too, wrapped up in their cocoon of sheets and sunshine.
Mark’s features soften, something Donghyuck wasn’t expecting. The older often does that when it’s just the two of them— surprises him. In public, he can typically keep up with what Mark is thinking, and can often predict how he’ll react if placed in a certain position. It’s something he used to use to his advantage in past years, because who was Lee Donghyuck if not teasing his best friend?
Now, though. Now the older surprises him all the time, whether it be with how affectionate he is, or how perceptive, or how loving. Maybe it’s because there are no cameras, or the absence of pressure from judging eyes. But he may also just be attuned to Donghyuck and what he wants and needs, as Donghyuck has always been to him.
Mark’s gaze is oozing with an emotion that is so clearly adoration and it makes Donghyuck’s heart swell and squeeze at the same time.
Slowly, Mark unlinks their hands. Donghyuck can only watch, watch.
Fingertips ghost over the back of his hand, over his wrist. They graze past his elbow and along his arm, rippling waves of goosebumps left in their gentle wake. No rush. No hurry.
Mark just draws his fingers up, up, until he’s cupping Donghyuck’s chin, caressing his jaw.
Donghyuck has been holding his breath this whole time. It doesn’t stutter out until Mark’s thumb is applying pressure to his bottom lip, the weight pressing down and willing his mouth open, just slightly. Waiting.
“Can’t,” Mark finally counters, tone raspy compared to the static silence.
Well. The silence, and Donghyuck’s now-staggered breathing.
Mark’s eyes are flickering with fire as they roam the landscape of Donghyuck’s face. They settle on his lips. And stay there.
God . His undivided attention makes Donghyuck’s blood sing in his veins, a buzz igniting in his heart that floods throughout his entire body. He’s gone because Mark is gone, because Mark wants him. Because Mark’s eyes are trained on his mouth, his own absentmindedly falling open in a terribly tempting mirror image.
And Donghyuck watches the switch— Mark’s expression flooding with burning heat that licks at the corners of his eyes.
In a split second, their gazes meet, forces of fiery desire clashing together, and the tension strung out between them snaps with the ferocity of something that could never be tethered back anyway.
Mark sweeps forward, pressing their lips together in a rush of heat at its boiling point and Donghyuck sighs against his mouth, his eyes fluttering shut, hands trailing along the planes of lean muscle at Mark’s back—
He inhales sharply and Mark is there, rolling on top of him, crowding him into the mattress. His elbow dips into the sheets beside Donghyuck’s head, his tongue dips into the wet heat of Donghyuck’s mouth, and Donghyuck is losing his bearings quicker than usual. Not that he minds.
He scrapes his fingers through Mark’s hair, who absolutely shudders above him, groaning. And Donghyuck tries, he really does.
Tries to keep his composure because he’s distantly aware that it’s still early. Tries to keep quiet while he tilts his head sideways, tries to compensate for the thrill thrumming through his veins by meeting Mark halfway and gripping at his shoulders a little tighter.
But it all goes to shit when Mark tugs at his bottom lip with his teeth, when Mark lets out a pitchy gasp against his lips. Donghyuck scrambles to loop his arms around Mark’s neck and gather him closer, his body arching up to meet him, demanding, pleading.
Their chests heave, aching for breath but not sparing the time. Mark’s hand flutters along the bumps of Donghyuck’s ribs and finds purchase at his hip, squeezing so goddamn tightly, and Donghyuck is just about ready to shout, Fuck being responsbile! Let’s stay in bed all day.
Mark, however, breaks away at the next broken noise that escapes Donghyuck, who starts to chase him but then crashes back to the mattress, staring up at the sight of his boyfriend hovering over him with flushed cheeks and spit slicked lips.
“You’re being loud, baby,” Mark teases breathlessly. He rakes a hand into Donghyuck’s hair, brushing a thumb along his temple, and his goddamn gorgeous eyes are dancing with that Look again.
Donghyuck pokes him in the side. “Your fault, asshole.”
Mark’s squawks as he rolls off of him, shoving the sheets that got wrapped about his body away. But he’s grinning when he reaches over to connect their lips again, slow and sickly sweet this time, heat pulled down to a simmer.
It’s then that the culmination falls into Donghyuck’s lap.
This boy, right here in front of him, is the same boy that’s consumed his thoughts for years. The same boy he’s cried over, fought with, been so fucking frustrated with. The same boy he’s laughed with, spent countless hours with, stayed awake all night with. The same one he was still pining after just a few mere months before, before they realized they couldn’t pretend what they had wasn’t there any longer. Before they decided to figure this out together.
Dongyuck had wanted for so long.
Maybe it’s the warmth encompassing their little paradise, this tiny island where it’s just them, together. Maybe it’s just Mark and the way he holds him as he kisses him, like he’s precious, like he never wants to let him go.
Regardless, Donghyuck sees those three words written in clear lettering beneath his eyelids and starts to tear up.
“Baby,” Mark sputters worriedly, after he catches him sniffle into the kiss. He cups his cheek and waits for him, running a thumb under his eye.
Donghyuck blinks past the period of blurriness and then looks at him. At the hair that’s growing a little longer than usual, sticking out around his ears. At the slope of his nose, the sweet curve of his lips. At his eyes.
And Donghyuck starts to smile, soft and tender.
“What?” Mark whispers.
“I love you.”
Donghyuck watches as the words settle, watches as Mark’s face melds from a blank canvas to raw emotion. As seconds pass in fuzzy silence, Mark’s eyes turn suspiciously glossy.
“Oh god, not you too,” Donghyuck laughs wetly. He reaches over to wipe Mark’s cheek, who presses a delicate kiss to his wrist, then to his palm, smile peeking around golden skin. Donghyuck feels like he’s overflowing.
Mark sniffs as he sits up, rubbing at his eyes. “You fucker,” he complains, no bite to his tone.
Donghyuck follows him up, gets so close that his knees are all up in Mark’s space, nudging at his ribs.
“I wanted to say it first,” Mark pouts weakly. Grinning at him, Donghyuck leans forward until their noses brush.
“Sorry,” he whispers. The resounding scoff from Mark makes him laugh because they both know he only kind of means it.
Later, when the morning sunlight has slid from the room for greater heights, when they’ve finally pulled themselves out of bed and gotten ready for the day, Mark pulls Donghyuck into his arms. They rock back and forth on their feet, the sounds of the others awake and moving outside the room calling for them.
“I love you,” Mark returns into Donghyuck’s freshly-washed hair, hands gentle at his back, voice gentler.
Donghyuck’s eyes slip closed, and he buries his contented smile in the folds of Mark’s sweatshirt.
They open the door to schedules and practice, closing it on their little paradise, but the warmth, woven between interlocked hands and soft smiles, goes with them.