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Finding himself in the grimy club bathroom was an accident. Nobody throws up in the dirty, broken toilet at Club Pentagon of their own free accord. His nose burns and his throat burns in a more raw and acrid manner. Some fucking annoying trap song buzzes from the shitty speaker built into the ceiling. He hits his head on the stained porcelain as he heaves over.
Nam-gyu was outside, somewhere. Swirling his concerningly blue drink in some darker corner. Thanos curses whoever Nam-gyu got those pills from, they made their way back up faster than he could get them down.
Even from the unsteady echo of footsteps that his intoxicated mind can make out, he can tell that Nam-gyu is a little drunk, as he finds Thanos.
“Dude, what the fuck did you take?” Nam-gyu’s voice is nice against the shitty music. Soft in tone, despite the cursing.
“The shit you gave me!” Thanos chokes out, sounding raspy. He doesn’t even know what the pills were, but they fucked him up.
“You weren’t supposed to take all of them,” Nam-gyu sighs, and Thanos recalls that yeah, he did say that, maybe. Fucking whatever.
“Can we just go home,” Thanos breathes, head feeling heavy as he tries to keep himself from falling into the dirty vomit water.
“I’m on the clock,” Nam-gyu sighs, and Thanos groans.
“Asshole."
Nam-gyu scoffs like he’s gonna leave, but Thanos feels a hand in his hair. Gentle.
“I’ll call you a cab, man.” Thanos can’t help the upward twitch of the corners of his lips.
Nam-gyu just stands there, hand gentle on his head as Thanos croaks, throwing up again. When Nam-gyu speaks to him, Thanos can tell his head is turned. He can hear the grimace in his voice.
“I’m gonna wait outside, okay? Come find me after, I’ll walk you out.”
“Thanks, Nam-su,” Thanos slurs, wincing at the shiver that runs throughout his body. Nam-gyu sighs, and his soft touch is gone.
His head is pounding. The game only ended about a month ago, and he’s already returned to his old routine. With a bonus of Nam-gyu, but otherwise identical. He feels fucking awful, disgusting, and he’s not even high enough to prevent the possibility of a thought occurring.
He wonders if he could die now, and still feel okay about it. After the games had ended.
On that bridge, there was no guilt. There was no question. He felt ready.
This new tether to the world in his small amount of care for Nam-gyu, as much care as he could muster in the state he’s been in, annoyed him as much as it comforted him. Nam-gyu gets fucked up with him, he couldn’t care less about Thanos’s self-destruction–hell, they enabled each other, if anything.
But Nam-gyu would care if he died, and it pisses Thanos off that he even cares about that.
After a few more painstaking minutes of vomiting, Thanos stands, wipes his mouth, flushes the toilet with his foot. Almost loses his balance in the process. The room feels like it’s spinning. He stumbles out into the flashing lights and booming music, crowded bodies making the search for Nam-gyu annoying.
He finds him in the same corner, finishing off his drink. Thanos sits down next to him on the leather couch, their thighs pressed together. He leans into the warm body, soft black hair brushing against his forehead and temple.
“Thanos,” Nam-gyu mumbles, pitiful. Hand steady on Thanos’s shoulder. Snaking up to his head, finding its way back to his hair. He never lets himself go like this, but his head throbs and sweat pools on his forehead, he feels every boom of the bass reverberate in his fucking skull. Nam-gyu is solid and grounding.
And despite all the vomiting, he only feels worse. His vision fades in and out, fuzzy. He can’t help his desperate grabbing at Nam-gyu’s sheer shirt as he leans further into him. His mouth is dry, his heart beats rapidly in his chest.
“Thanos?” he hears Nam-gyu’s voice distantly, as if he was across the room. But his hands are on him, he’s right there. He slumps down, his limbs feeling weak–from what he can even feel of them.
“Thanos,” Nam-gyu’s tone becomes harsher–no, not harsh, but.. Thanos can’t read it anymore, he can’t see anymore. He doesn’t really know where he is anymore. He feels his body in motion, and arms wrapping around him, before everything fades away.
-
The headache is a little better when he wakes. The room is dimly lit by a small lamp on the bedside table. Next to it sits a bottle of water and 2 painkillers. Thanos groans.
He feels Nam-gyu rustling next to him in bed before he had even realized he was in the room at all. He looks at Thanos, concern peeking out from behind the frustrated glare he shoots him.
“What happened?” Thanos grumbles, in English. His voice comes out broken.
Nam-gyu pauses, analyzing Thanos’s expression. Getting a general impression of what he’s asking, Nam-gyu speaks quietly. “You passed out. After getting sick.” Thanos’s eyebrows furrow as he stares at Nam-gyu.
“You brought me home,” he states, matter-of-factly. Nam-gyu is hard to read.
“You vomited and passed out on the club floor. Yeah, I fucking brought you home.” Thanos chews his lip. Nam-gyu was definitely drinking before he’d gotten sick, and as he recalls, he was working. Thanos feels his chest tighten, and Nam-gyu’s gaze grows pointed. “You need to drink some water. Take those pills.”
Their relationship has changed since the game.
In the game, Thanos had something Nam-gyu wanted. Of course, their shared company was not brought on by the drugs. But it was the driving force of their power balance, and it boosted Thanos’s ego to have Nam-gyu trailing him around like a little dog.
Well, he still trails him around, but they’ve balanced out a little. Especially since Nam-gyu is the one giving drugs to him, now. And since he’d moved into Nam-gyu’s apartment.
Thanos sighs, taking a sip of the water, which is like liquid gold the second it hits his tongue. He gulps down the rest of it, finishing it off with the painkillers. When he turns back around, Nam-gyu is still eyeing him.
“Thanks, Nam-su,” Thanos mumbles, the absence of drugs in his system felt. Nam-gyu looks sober too.
His head still hurts. He’s sweating, wearing his uncomfortable clothes from the club. Limbs aching as he sits up, he kicks his pants off. Takes off his jacket, throws his shirt to the ground. When he glances back, Nam-gyu’s eyes are still fixed on him. On his every movement.
“Can’t keep your eyes off me, boy?” Thanos spits, an entertained grin plastered on his face. He opens the dresser, grabbing a baggy T-shirt. Nam-gyu just huffs and keeps testing him with an intense stare as he pulls the shirt over his head.
Thanos slips back into his bed, which Nam-gyu refuses to budge from. He lays down, and Nam-gyu rests his forehead against Thanos’s upper back. Still clingy. Thanos shuffles back, so that their bodies press together.
Their dynamic doesn’t really make sense, Thanos thinks, but it doesn’t really need to. They are both addicts, and Nam-gyu has drugs. They both need a place, and with their winnings put together, they can afford Nam-gyu’s apartment. Thanos is a warm body and, oh, Nam-gyu gets quite cold.
Nam-gyu’s freezing hands ghost over his skin, the neckline of his shirt, fingers lightly pressing against the scar of a shallow stab wound on the side of Thanos’s neck. Thanos winces at the thought of the injury, but doesn’t say anything.
“Do you feel any better?” Nam-gyu asks. The warm breath on the back of his neck makes him shiver.
“Kinda,” Thanos mumbles, considerably less raspy. “Less sick. My head hurts.”
“Yeah, you took like 20 pills.”
“It was not that many.”
Nam-gyu pulls the blanket up over himself, and Thanos grabs hold of the corner, pulling it to cover both of them. The cold air had quickly gotten to him. Nam-gyu presses his face into the crook of Thanos’s neck, lips grazing the soft skin.
Thanos can’t tell if he’s imagining it when he feels small, slow kisses down the side of his neck. He’s certain he is not, though, when Nam-gyu’s hand wraps around his waist, the unmistakable sensation of cold hands on him. The hair on his arms stands up.
He doesn’t know what the fuck this is. The line between sexual favours and genuine intimacy is blurred–it’s hard for him to comprehend. Subconsciously, he leans into Nam-gyu’s soft touch.
“This okay?” Nam-gyu whispers, giving him shivers again.
It’s hard for him to keep up any kind of front or persona like this, even harder than earlier in the night, when he was keeled over and puking his guts out. This makes him even weaker, he doesn’t know why, and that frustrates him to no end. This makes him soft.
“Yeah,” he replies, voice just above a whisper.
Soft lips find their way to the back of his neck, kissing down what he concludes is the line of his tattoo. Nam-gyu’s breath is shaky, his fingers twitch against Thanos’s waist. His movements are cautious, careful to be gentle.
Is Thanos something so fragile? Something that such caution is necessary, just to touch? Does he even deserve such gentility?
He wants to be tough. He wants to be unbreakable. But under Nam-gyu’s calloused hands, he melts.
He keeps moving down Thanos’s neck until he reaches the neckline of his shirt. He pulls away, using his free hand to tuck his own hair back. Still shaky. The pad of his thumb presses against the dark ink of Thanos’s tattoo, tracing it once more. His fingers brush through short purple hair.
With Nam-gyu’s hand in his hair, Thanos rolls over to face him. Nam-gyu pulls his hand back. He can never read those eyes, but the glace down to his lips, and back to his eyes, probably means something. Thanos ignores it.
Things are never this quiet between them. They have also never been this sober together. He does crave something, something to take his mind off of the way Nam-gyu’s lips had pressed against his skin.
“Nam-gyu,” Thanos speaks quietly. Nam-gyu’s eyes widen at Thanos getting his name right. “You, uh… you gonna stay here all night, or what?”
The phrasing was impolite, but his tone wasn’t harsh.
“You want me to go?” Nam-gyu asks.
No.
“Don’t care.” he closes his eyes, leaning his head into his own hand, propped up with his elbow against the pillow.
Nam-gyu just puts his head down on the bed. Laying on his back, he gazes up at Thanos. Their eyes remain fixed on each other.
“How did you get me here? Weren’t you on the clock?” Thanos questions, after a moment of silence. He imagines him bullying his way out of work, throwing crude words at his boss. Sweet to Thanos, a bitter asshole to anyone else.
“My boss told me to stay, so I told him to go fuck himself and left. Took you out to the cab, half-awake,” he pauses. “He won’t fire me. I’ve said worse.”
“What a badass, Nam-su,” Thanos grins. Nam-gyu returns his smile.
He’s impressed, honestly, that Nam-gyu would do that for him. The lengths that he’s gone for Thanos do cross his mind.
Grabbing MG Coin by the hair, pulling him off of Thanos. Punching him in the face, hard enough to knock him to the ground. Tearing the fork from his grasp, preparing to stab him back. Nam-gyu would have killed him, no doubt, if some random X hadn’t yanked him off.
So maybe the club thing shouldn’t come as a surprise, he supposes.
Thanos rests his head on the pillow, next to Nam-gyu’s.
“How long was I out for?” he asks, running a hand through his own hair.
“About, uh…” Nam-gyu grabs his phone from his pocket, the screen casting light on his face. Thanos watches the way he squints a little to read it, nose slightly scrunched up as he subtly nods his head, counting quietly to himself. “About four hours.”
“You need glasses,” Thanos observes, and Nam-gyu stares him down.
“I’ll get on that,” Nam-gyu rolls his eyes, turning to face him.
They were close now. Thanos studies his face, noticing things he hadn’t seen the night they spent together in the dark bunks during the games, or with Nam-gyu pushed up against the wall of Club Pentagon. Nothing beyond strictly physical had ever transpired.
Light freckles dust Nam-gyu’s nose and cheeks. He has a small scar on his cheekbone, and another on his jaw. Without thinking, Thanos brings his hand out to Nam-gyu’s face, tracing his thumb along the scar on his jaw.
Nam-gyu takes a shaky breath in, his eyes meeting Thanos’s. He doesn’t dare speak a word. Thanos has never held him like this before. Actually, when he looks back, he hasn’t held anyone like this before.
Something has taken over his body, something confusing and strange that he’s been pushing down. Since the game ended, since he arrived at Nam-gyu’s apartment and began to share this space with him. The strange domesticity of sharing a cigarette or folding each other’s laundry, of watching TV together while they eat. It’s nice to have each other’s company, but every second he spends around Nam-gyu or thinking about Nam-gyu floods him with that feeling. Right now it is worse than ever.
He withdraws his hand when he notices Nam-gyu’s small smile. His eyebrows furrow.
“What?” Thanos demands, watching him tuck his hair behind his ears.
“Nothing,” Nam-gyu grins, moving to lay on his back again.
His frown turning into a pout, Thanos rests his head on Nam-gyu’s chest. He feels him take a deep breath, chest rising and falling.
Nam-gyu’s arm wraps around his shoulder. Thanos peers up at him, contemplative, before shifting his body upwards, intertwining his legs with Nam-gyu’s. Feeling skin on skin. Nam-gyu’s hand comes down to his hair once again, gently running his hand back and forth.
Maybe, he thinks, just for tonight, he doesn’t need to be tough. Nam-gyu’s body pressed against his is warm and sturdy and he holds Thanos as if he needs him close just to breathe.
He fights the voice in his head telling him to leave, to go get high alone and pretend that nothing has happened. He knows he would have, a month ago. That’s what he’s done to every girl he’s dated, every person he’s spent the night with.
Thanos will never tell him this, but Nam-gyu’s embrace is worth softening for.
He falls asleep to the sound of Nam-gyu’s heartbeat.