[ exo ] of red snapper and boba tea (/2)
title: of red snapper and boba tea
rating: nc-17
pairings: suho/chen, past!suho/leo (vixx), luhan/chanyeol, kris/yixing + baekhyun/kyungsoo if you squint
length: ~10.6k
summary: Joonmyun is known for his selflessness, working at a volunteer centre for abandoned hybrids and giving more love than he ever receives back. It isn't until Jongdae comes around that he realizes maybe he's allowed to take a pinch of happiness for himself sometimes.
warnings: catboys, minor behind the scenes character death, mentions of abuse (physical + emotional), self-lubrication
a/n: originally posted at criticalcapture for wild_jinx.
“Joonmyun, you’re such a sap.”
Lu Han sighs as he sips at his boba tea, pretty pink lips wound around the colorful straw in something resembling a pout. His cutesy girlish appearance attracts the attention of those around them in the small café but Joonmyun knows him well enough to be wary of the devil spawn that hides beneath his looks.
“Hopeless, more like,” Chanyeol adds, before his own mouth opens and he turns slightly towards the blond beside him. Lu Han practically shoves the straw down his throat and snorts when the taller chokes on it before he tugs it back to properly let him take a sip and he turns his attention back to Joonmyun.
“And before you object -- you’re a single twenty four year old who spends all his time either working at a shelter for hybrids, or looking up volunteer opportunities online.” Lu Han’s finger raises as he speaks, an eyebrow arched as if daring the other to combat his words.
“I’m out with you, aren’t I?” Joonmyun tries, smile quietly earnest in an almost hope that his words are good enough to keep Lu Han’s concerned insults at bay.
“The only reason you came is ‘cause Chanyeol’s with me, don’t lie.”
Chanyeol’s ears perk up at the sound of his name and he beams, Joonmyun knowing if he were to look he would see his tail wagging behind him excitedly. Chanyeol’s a cross between a human and a German Shepherd, ears peeking up from the mess of his hair and a small hole snipped out from the back of his jeans for his tail to come through. He’d been at the shelter Joonmyun worked at until Lu Han had given in to his loving (clingy) nature and adopted him for himself.
“That’s not true,” Joonmyun huffs and he reaches out to take Lu Han’s hand from across the table, eyes sincere and serious. “You know I want to see you too. I always have.”
There’s a slight understanding smile on the blond’s lips for a few moments before it’s gone and his nose is crinkling at the bridge, gently swatting Joonmyun’s hands away with a scowl. “Don’t get too sappy on me. I’m just.. worried about you. You’re so lonely all the time, and you know.. I know that you were never good with being lonely before..”
“I’m alone, Lu Han,” he says, and his smile is wide and real and maybe vacant of a little bit of truth, “but I’m not lonely.”
---
“There’s a new one coming today,” calls Yifan as Joonmyun walks through the door into the back room of their shelter where the cat hybrids are held, his large frame bent over to hand a plate of tuna to Yixing, his favorite kitty. His fingers run carefully through the other’s hair and scratch behind his ears slightly before he turns to the shorter. “Zitao’s coworker found him and it took a little bit for them to wrangle him in but they’re dropping him off soon -- he’s apparently in pretty bad shape.”
“Do we know his name?” Joonmyun asks as he comes to sit by Yixing as well, the kitty’s wide friendly eyes flickering from Yifan over to him and lips pulling into a wide smile as he nuzzles into the thumb that runs behind his ear and purrs softly.
“Not yet,” says Yifan, gently ushering Yixing back into the room he shares with a couple other of the friendly kitties they’ve picked up with a quiet fond smile. “Zitao said he looked like he’d been on the streets for a while, or had been abused.. so it’s likely it’ll be a while ‘til he’ll trust us. Do you mind setting up a room for him?”
Joonmyun sighs, but nods and slides his way into one of the makeshift rooms for newbies to start arranging things. He finds the mistreated kittens are the hardest to deal with -- the dogs like Chanyeol, like Jonghyun.. they’re easier to manage. They accept help, they let the patrons of the small shelter feed them and bed them and take them out for walks and medicate them if need be.
The catboys, though, those are a whole different story. Some are already hostile towards newcomers to begin with even if they had merely been donated or brought up in the shelter, and those who had already been beaten and malnourished and treated horribly by humans before brought to them are hard to coax into trusting them again at all.
Sometimes when they go into heat they’re easier to deal with, coddling up to the workers in hope of a relief to the itch that spreads out over the surface of their skins. (They mostly gravitate towards Yifan -- he’s the most dominant male worker at the whole shelter, but once and a while when he’s not around a stray boy will wander up to Joonmyun with a small, coy smile.)
Laying the catboys is entirely against the work code -- that’s left to special workers who get paid good money to make sure the cats’ heats are satisfied and sated properly and efficiently. Once and a while they can’t afford the specialists and Yifan has to take the cat into the back to use toys and his hands the best he can, though Joonmyun’s about ninety percent sure that his boss has fucked a cat or seven in his time at the shelter.
The kitty in question shows up forty five minutes later, Joonmyun just finishing up laying out fresh linen sheets over top of the bed in the corner of the room as the door opens and he’s ushered in.
“This is where you’ll be staying,” he hears Yifan explaining, the other male in the room turning from the bedspread to watch as he ushers the shorter cat into the room carefully, without touching him.
The first thing he notices is how vulnerable he looks. He’s small, smaller than Joonmyun, (especially without any shoes on) and with his ears flattened to the top of his head and shoulders bunched up into his neck he looks tenfold tinier. Joonmyun feels like he could fit the boy in the palm of his hand, sort of wants to, feels like cradling him to his chest and swaying him from side to side til he unravels and doesn’t look so scared.
Because, judging by the way his back arches and his eyes keep darting from the floor to around the room, he’s definitely frightened. His hands are ready at his sides, fingers spread as if at the ready to claw an attacker away, and Joonmyun’s heart aches at the thought that he’s been so maltreated that this is his first instinct. His tail, striped brownblack like that of his ears, is rigid behind him, its tip flicking from side to side in obvious agitation.
“I’m going to leave you here with Joonmyun, okay?” Yifan’s voice is slow and earnest, the smile on his face not gummy enough to scare but just enough to show he cares, show that he’s leaving the kitty in a good place. “He’s going to show you around your room.”
The boy’s eyes flicker back to Yifan for merely a moment to give a curt nod before he’s looking over at Joonmyun, head cocking and ears twitching lightly as he looks him over. Joonmyun hopes his smile is friendly enough to pass the test.
There’s a soft click of the door shutting as the tall worker leaves and Joonmyun and the catboy are left alone in the room together. The tabby’s eyes are on the floor as the other takes a step forward, hesitantly, as not to startle him.
“I’m Joonmyun,” he repeats carefully, mouth opening to continue on before he’s cut off--
“I know,” the cat snaps, and his tail gives another annoyed whip to the side as his socked foot slides back one step. His lips are pulled into a purse and it’s obvious he’s trying to act affronted, angry, like he can hold his own, but the trembling in his hands and tension in his shoulders still gives him away. Joonmyun takes a step back and a little bit of the hold in his frame melts away.
“Okay,” he says, still smiling and friendly, “well anyways, this is your room. There’s nothing in here that’ll hurt you, and me and Yifan will be the only two people to come in here unless you ask for someone else.”
The boy doesn’t nod, but by the rapt attention of his eyes on him Joonmyun guesses he understands and takes another step back towards his bed. “You’ll sleep here,” he explains, before pointing over to the red button beside his bed, “and you can press that at any time during the day if you need something desperately, like if you’re having a nightmare or can’t breathe or need help.”
His lips press together but the kitty doesn’t say anything or nod, so Joonmyun puffs out a soft sigh and makes his way just the slightest bit closer. If he had the heightened sense to be able to see it, he would swear the hair on the arms of the other stood up in fright. He defeatedly slides back again, voice quiet.
“Do you have a name?”
That does it. The cat darts right past him in the blink of an eye, moving so quick for a moment Joonmyun thinks he’s attacking before he’s already behind him, and upon turning he finds the boy curled up on the floor in the corner refusing to look up to the door.
He takes it as a sign to leave, reminding the quiet cat that dinner will be coming soon, not to be scared, and to call if he needs anything, before he exits the room, blowing out a large sigh of disappointment as soon as he shuts the door.
This isn’t going to be an easy one.
---
The cat doesn’t really warm up to anyone at the shelter. It’s been a week and he’s barely said anything to Joonmyun, who’s there to care for him practically all the time, and neither Yifan nor any of the other cats around him.
He’s allowed outside and allowed to socialize when he wants but upon observation it’s not hard to tell that he prefers his room, prefers solitude (“because nothing can hurt me when I’m alone,” he’d said to Joonmyun when he’d asked, speaking for a rare moment). Sympathy strikes hard in the middle of the elder’s chest for him because being alone or lonely, isn’t something he would wish on anyone -- it’s something he’s come to know in his lone mornings and nights far too well and he’s too selfless to knowingly let someone he knows go through that as well.
So he tries. He visits the kitty daily and always brings different kinds of food, sits by the door as he watches him eat and tries to coax him out of his shell with small talk, easy questions.
“Do you like the salmon?” He asks, smiling softly as he adjusts his legs beneath him and folds them nice and neat. The cat doesn’t look up from where he’s eating carefully, pawing at his food first to find bones. “I’ll bring red snapper tomorrow.. it’s expensive, but I think you’ll like it.”
It’s silent for a few minutes as Joonmyun simply watches the other eat, smiling quietly to himself because his mannerisms are nothing short of cute. He tries his best to use the cutlery he’s given but it’s clear he’s only going off of what he’s seen from others using it, the fork and knife awkward in his hands as he tries to use both at once and fails.
Joonmyun’s sort of zoned out and it takes him a moment to realize that the cat is staring up at him, his hands paused above his dish, startling when his eyes meet the other’s coal brown ones and round out wider.
“Can you do it for me?” The other asks quietly, his voice small and quiet and shoulders bunched to make him seem even tinier as he holds out his fork and knife hesitantly. It’s clear he’s nervous to outright ask Joonmyun for help, the thick bob of his throat a clear indication. Joonmyun’s smile is as earnest and helpful as always as he reaches out, taking the silverware from him delicately, careful their fingers don’t brush as he scoots a little closer.
He cuts up the cat’s salmon easily into bite-size pieces, easy for him to pick up between a finger and thumb and pop into his mouth. He can feel curious eyes on his hands as he does, smiling quietly to himself because even though he doesn’t think he’s that much older in years than the other, it almost feels like he’s a child, a kitten.
After he hands the plate and tableware back over, the kitty doesn’t seem to have as much trouble meeting his eyes as he did before. He’s abandoned his knife to the floor but he seems to be able to use the fork well, wrapping both hands around the neck and piercing each piece of salmon to bring to his mouth carefully.
He chews carefully and within a few moments his ears twitch and he smiles just the slightest bit over at Joonmyun, nearly all shy and a little delight twinkling in his eyes. The eye contact is held for only a few moments but Joonmyun returns the happy smile with even more enthusiasm for the few seconds the moment lasts before the kitty is looking back down again, smile fading but still there, faintly.
Minutes later, the quiet silence of the occasional scrape of metal against plate and the boy’s chewing is interrupted by his voice, quiet and small but just the littlest bit more inviting, open.
“Jongdae,” he says, cocoa eyes flickering up only a millisecond before sinking back down. “My name is Jongdae.”
“Jongdae,” repeats Joonmyun, tasting the name on his tongue, pleased with the way it rolls off easily. He grins, white white white teeth probably blinding the catboy -- Jongdae, he reminds himself -- as his head tilts. “I like it.”
---
It’s not that much really changes. Jongdae is still pretty much untrusting, wary around everyone and anything he comes across. He hands his meals over to Joonmyun and has him cut them up and set them so he can eat them easily--
“Red snapper is his favorite,” explains Joonmyun over another boba tea, taking a last sip of the mango slush before reaching for a cookie from the platter in front of him to start breaking it into small pieces in habit. “I knew it was going to be -- it’s the most expensive thing the shelter buys, and Jongdae seems the spoiled type.”
Lu Han eyes him disdainfully from across the table, an eyebrow arched. “More like you just want to spoil him so he likes you. How much have you spent on buying him the red snapper personally, Joonmyun?”
He doesn’t answer and averts his eyes, sipping at his boba discreetly and ending up choking on a pearl not soon after. Chanyeol reaches over and smacks his back with his big big hand and the pearl comes flying out his throat, smacking Lu Han right in the face.
“Disgusting,” the Chinese boy groans, wiping the sticky spot from his forehead with the back of his hand. Chanyeol, eager to help yet again, practically lays himself into Lu Han’s lap, lapping at his forehead as the other squeaks and tries to push him off, to no avail. Joonmyun stands, amused, laying a few bills on the table as he watches his friend try and pry himself from his partner’s overexcited tongue as he pops one of the cookie pieces into his mouth.
“I’ll.. be going,” he says, trying his best not to let his laugh into his voice, “I have to go.. do something. See you soon, Lu.”
“If you’re going to buy fresh red snapper for that dumb cat again, I swear to god Joonmyun-- Chanyeol!” Lu Han laughs quietly as Chanyeol laps his way down, eyes closing and nose crinkling in giggling as his tongue passes over his throat, hand winding into his hair to try and tug him away. “Stop that, I’m trying to lecture the other idiot in the room!”
Joonmyun says another goodbye before exiting the café shaking his head, not admitting to neither Lu Han nor himself that he had been planning to go buy red snapper for Jongdae, instead making his way home quietly.
---
Joonmyun lives in a quiet apartment that’s too big for himself. He’s still stuck in old habits of when he’d had a roommate, of when he’d made two cups of coffee and set two places up at the table. Even after years it still takes him a while to catch himself, to pause in the middle of brewing orange tea instead of his own earl grey preference, to stop and go back to put that second set of cutlery back.
He misses Taekwoon a lot, he has to admit. They’d met through Lu Han and as he himself was moving somewhere too far from Joonmyun’s school for him to follow, Joonmyun had needed a roommate. The two became quick enough friends for Taekwoon to move into his apartment, and into a spot in his life.
Joonmyun doesn’t think about it often, doesn’t talk about it often, avoids the subject with Lu Han when it’s brought up -- but he’d loved Taekwoon. The fondness in his heart was too strong to deny, the skip in his pulse whenever their fingers had brushed (as he’d passed over that ridiculous Spongebob mug Taekwoon had loved so much) too distinct to ignore.
The smiles they’d shared had been coy, both of them just shy out of high school and not yet bold enough to stop acting like middle school kids, to confess and admit their feelings. Joonmyun regrets not being bolder to this day because despite how long it’s been, he still wishes he could have had the happiness he was so close to grasping, still feels it on the edges of his fingertips, just that one bit too far for him to reach out and grab.
Taekwoon’s death was unexpected, tragic, upsetting, and had trapped Joonmyun in a period of mourning, of hurt, so long he’d built up walls. Only allowing Lu Han to visit, to feed him, he’d sheltered his heart in a stronghold much more steadfast than just his ribcage.
It’s been years and though Joonmyun still slips up, he doesn’t cry any longer. He smiles at the memories of Taekwoon, of their friendship, of his humor and his daftness, never thinking or speaking of him other than to himself because he wants to keep Taekwoon in his memories, in the happy times they’d had.
At the same time, though, he’s isolated himself. From times of being fresh out of high school and not wanting to live alone, wanting to function with another half, with bringing someone wherever he went, he’s now gone to doing everything alone. He shops for himself, does nearly all of his work alone, avoids calls and invitations out as long as he can until guilt takes over and he accepts.
Taekwoon’s death might not tug so hard at his heartstrings anymore, but it had wrecked his perception of attachment, of any dependence at all on anyone but himself (and maybe Lu Han). He’s solitary and Joonmyun has somehow come to believe that that’s the way he has to keep himself, to avoid being attached, to keep from hurting and losing again.
Joonmyun might be twenty four, single, alone, lonely -- but as long as the people around him are okay, happy, he’s happy enough too.
---
“Jongdae asked for you earlier,” says Baekhyun as he sweeps the floor, glancing up briefly at Joonmyun as he stands in front of the stove, cooking. He continues upon seeing the elder’s brow furrowing, “I tried to feed him and he nearly scratched me, mumbling something about you and red snapper. I mean -- we don’t even keep red snapper here, so I don’t know what he was talking about.” Baekhyun snorts, shaking his head. Joonmyun takes a step to the side to cover up the pinky-red fish grilling in the pan beside him from the other.
“Uh-- yeah,” he says, nodding stiffly. “I’ll just, I’ll um-- I’ll go feed him, then. He must think the salmon is snapper, or something.” He shrugs and it’s clear Baekhyun doesn’t believe him but he doesn’t press as Joonmyun plates the clearly red fish, garnishing it with a small sprig of mint because he thinks Jongdae will try to eat it and it’ll be amusing.
He opens the door and slinks in with the plate in hand, nudging the door shut with a foot before padding over and sitting in front of Jongdae on the floor, the pair both crosslegged. They share a small smile before the kitty goes back to where he’d been toying with the tip of his tail, the elder reaching and cutting his fish up for him silently.
Joonmyun places the fork back in his hand again after he’s done and it’s an easy routine to sit back and watch Jongdae eat. Their eyes meet ever so often but it’s comfortable, the hint of a smile in his eyes and on his lips letting Joonmyun know that there’s something here, that he’s getting somewhere despite the minimal contact and speech between the two.
He doesn’t think Jongdae would trust him with anything but company and food yet, but that’s okay, because it’s a step in the right direction. It’s a step he’ll take slowly, balance on and ensure is steady, before he reaches out and tentatively takes the next. He’ll test his ground before he leans his weight onto it, before he lifts himself from the last, because he doesn’t want to walk onto thin ice and fall into the cold, unforgiving promise of hypothermic water beneath. Joonmyun refuses to drown again, never again.
---
“Can you take me outside?”
Joonmyun glances up from where he’d been watching Jongdae’s tabby tail with fascination as it flicked from side to side, meets his eyes and finds them sure and steady along with the tone of his voice.
He takes a moment to weigh his decision. Jongdae has definitely branched out this past week -- he’d begun talking to Yixing (and they could possibly have been considered friends, now), he’d left his room more frequently and occasionally socialized with Yifan or the other workers around. Though at the same time, it’s clear he’s still afraid -- he shied from Kyungsoo, the Rottweiler mix with the hard stare, didn’t let anyone but Joonmyun in his room comfortably, and even sometimes struggled to meet Joonmyun’s gaze or allow him close.
But then again, Joonmyun doesn’t want to disappoint. He wants Jongdae to be able to trust him before he starts making the decisions for him, so he assumes that it.. couldn’t hurt to bring him for a walk through the streets.
“Sure,” he says, and the smile that lights up the catboy’s face, true and genuine, is entirely worth it.
They leave not too soon after, after Joonmyun finds clothes decent enough to fit Jongdae and keep him warm and a pair of shoes that aren’t too too big or too too small. He starts to put a leash on him but Jongdae objects, eyes wide with something resembling fear, so Joonmyun holds his hand out instead. Thankfully, Jongdae takes it.
He leads the younger outside carefully after letting Yifan know they’re going, sliding Jongdae’s hand instead up carefully to wind into the sleeve at his elbow. The kitty’s eyes are tentative and his shoulders just the slightest bit bunched, but the press of his lips shows his determination in wanting to do this, to face a fear. (It strikes a chord in Joonmyun’s chest, a hint of familiarity that he can’t place and shrugs off instead.)
They walk down the street slowly, steps languid and slow to let Jongdae take in the outside how he likes. His ears twitch ever so often, picking up a sound that Joonmyun cannot, tail rustling from beneath the shirt he’s placed it beneath.
It’s a warm day, sun beating down on their backs as they walk into the park nearest the shelter, children playing and laughter all around no matter where they look. The elder is smiling at the sight of the happiness around but when he glances over to Jongdae and spots the delighted sparkle in his eye, his lips peel back into a grin amped up just that slight bit more.
He buys Jongdae an ice cream cone (vanilla of course, as not to overwhelm him with something too sweet at first) and can’t wipe the smile off his face at the way he eats it, tongue lapping out at the cold substance like he’s trying to drink it. It’s nearly more than Joonmyun can take, the cute is overwhelming and when Jongdae tries to bite the ice cream and whines he can’t help but laugh softly in amusement, all kindness and happy and amusement and bubbly on the inside for what feels like the first time in a couple forevers.
When his eyes open and he straightens from where he’d been bent slightly over in laughter, he finds Jongdae’s grip pretty much vice on his sleeve, eyes wide and face as white as a sheet. Something cold strikes the center of Joonmyun’s chest as he tries to figure out what he’s done wrong until he notices that the kitten is looking somewhere past him, not bothering to look as the icy feeling spreads at the words that just barely make it past the frightened downturn of Jongdae’s mouth.
“It’s him, that’s him, I-- I can’t be here..”
It’s all Joonmyun needs to take his arm and loop it around the backs of Jongdae’s shoulders to turn him, keeping him fit close to his side as his feet run on autopilot. His heart catches in his throat and his pulse quickens, the trembling of the smaller’s frame against his own splintering his stone steady heart into something fragile, brittle, ready to break at any moment.
In minutes, he realizes instead of making their way back to the shelter, he’s led them a block or two away from his apartment and within a matter of minutes they’re up the elevator and in front of his door, Jongdae’s head still ducked and body quivering uncontrollably. He fishes his keys out and unlocks the door as quick as he can with shaky hands, a hand slipping down to the small of the catboy’s back to gently usher him in.
Joonmyun gathers an armful of blankets up in his hold after sitting the younger down on the couch, bundling them all around him in a safe cocoon as he mumbles the most reassuring things he can come up with.
“You’re in a safe place,” he says, fitting a fuzzy Winnie the Pooh blanket around Jongdae’s narrow narrow legs. “Nobody’s going to be able to get in here unless I let them in.” The duvet he’d tugged from his bed slides from the kitten’s shoulders slightly, and he lifts it back up and tucks it back in behind him. “I’m here, Jongdae -- and I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
The other looks up at that, previously unfocused eyes settling on Joonmyun as a bit of color floods back into his cheeks and he blinks a few times seemingly in thought, hesitation, before his hands are reaching out and snagging into the collar of the elder’s shirt.
For a moment, Joonmyun’s heart seizes in his throat at the thought that Jongdae is going to kiss him, but a moment later he’s simply being pulled closer and his thoughts fly out the window. Thankfully(?) he doesn’t feel contact on his lips, merely a weight on his shoulder that takes a moment to recognize.
Jongdae is sobbing into the fabric of his shirt at his shoulder, body shaking as he chokes out soft thank yous between heaving breaths, wetting the cotton thoroughly in a matter of seconds. Joonmyun’s heart breaks with every broken sound that’s muffled into his chest, taking the obligated seat beside the smaller boy and wrapping him so tight up into his arms he’s afraid if he squeezes too hard he’ll break.
There’s another twang of something déja vu-esque Joonmyun can’t place, a sense of having done this before that takes a glance down to recognize. In the mound of Jongdae’s pretty dark brown hair he spots Taekwoon, small and vulnerable in his arms, crying over his parents’ disownment, his brother’s death.
He sees Taekwoon’s smile in Jongdae’s eyes, the twinkle of happiness Joonmyun had come to know so well, love so well, and his breath all but seizes in his throat as tears prickle at the backs of his eyes. Joonmyun.. isn’t ready for this. Wasn’t ready for Jongdae, when he’d come along.
He’s not healed, not ready to do this. He knows that it’s not hard to love a cat, not hard for a cat to love you -- they were human manufactured at first for love, for companionship in something that resembled a human the best that it could. Chanyeol and Luhan were a clear example of how easy it was for someone of that nature to get attached to someone he’d only seen a few times, who had only been nice to him that small extra mile by bringing treats over, ruffling his ears with a smile just a slight bit bigger than it should be.
Before Joonmyun can lose himself in a fantasy of Jongdae and himself, he swallows all his thoughts and feelings down into a thick lump. He can’t get too ahead of himself, not now, not ever -- this is just a figment of his imagination, just something that comes from memories of someone he’d lost not that long ago and still cares so so so deeply about.
He doesn’t love Jongdae, not in the way he’d loved Taekwoon -- he loves the idea of him. The idea of it, of them, of not being so alone anymore.
He thinks.
---
After shaking the worried, swirling tornado of a clusterfuck of thoughts that’d swept through his head and concentrated on the task at hand, calming Jongdae down, it hadn’t taken too long to relax him. He’d swept circles over his back with the palm of a hand, ran the other fingers carefully through his hair and across his ears, kept his own breathing slow and steady to let the other match him.
It’s awkward after, no doubt about it. Jongdae nurses at the mug of hot cocoa that the elder has made for him quietly, the afterquakes of the shock he’d experienced still chilling him down to the bone. Joonmyun still sits beside him and watches warily, ready for an explosion or for him to ask to be taken back to the shelter any moment.
The way Jongdae’s shoulders hunch, the way his back curls in and he makes himself even smaller than he is, is nothing like how Taekwoon was. (Joonmyun can’t help but compare them after he’d made the connection before, too curious of his own feelings.) His smile is too feline to match, and his mannerisms aren’t Taekwoon-esque.
But he does have the small quirks that Joonmyun can notice, the tap of his foot against the floor when it’s clear he’s nervous, the way his eyes just barely flicker up to the elder every so often as if to check he’s still there.
Lost inside his own mind, trying to solve the mystery of what’s happening in his chest and stomach and whether it’s genuine or not, he doesn’t see the subject of his thoughts setting his mug down and adjusting his blankets slightly. Before he knows it, Jongdae is laying his head in his lap and curling close, eyes closed and teartracks still staining his cheeks.
Joonmyun sits there in slight shock for a few moments, complexion dusted a light pink as he’s unsure of what to do until Jongdae huffs and opens his eyes again, reaching up and taking the elder’s wrist to guide his hand to sit atop his head. Joonmyun idly pets Jongdae’s hair, fingers carding through the silky locks and just gently scratching behind his brownblack ears as he wondrously listens to the sound of the purring that rumbles through the other’s chest and down again into his legs.
It’s silent, for a while, besides the quiet sighs of content that the younger releases and the quiet purrs and mewling that he gives whenever Joonmyun itches at a sweet spot. It’s comfortable, though, and the latter doesn’t feel any need to think about this, to read into the situation or even avoid doing it. He doesn’t have to think, just has to feel, to relax, to be content. It’s nice.
“He used to beat me,” says Jongdae, finally, after nearly twenty minutes of silence, the clock tick tick ticking its way on later into the day and darkening the sky outside. Joonmyun startles a little at the sound of his voice, no matter how quiet, glancing down a mere moment. “He wouldn’t feed me, either.
“It wasn’t abnormal to have to go and find food outside.. sometimes I could jump the neighbours fence and scrounge through their garbage for scraps but he would always catch me. It was usually his belt.. sometimes he wouldn’t be wearing one, would just kick me, use his hands.. other times he’d use whatever was closest to him.” Jongdae swallows thickly, eyes still closed as Joonmyun’s lips press together, fingers rubbing circles into his scalp to try and keep the other calm, still.
“I couldn’t get out for so long. I lost track of the time -- I had to look at the calendar on the wall at your shelter to see if it was even 2014 yet. He told me he was never going to let me go.. would kill me before I could leave.” Jongdae lets out a shaky breath, and Joonmyun smooths a careful hand down his back to keep him relaxed, before he’s laughing a little, small hands wrapping into little fists in his own shirt.
“The worst part was that he wasn’t even all that bad. He would buy me the nicest things, the prettiest collars and the most expensive food.. would keep me in bed on good nights and would make me feel more loved than anything.” Jongdae’s eyes water and Joonmyun reaches down, thumbing away the tears gathering beneath his eyes in a motion so affectionate he nearly regrets it right after. “So when he would get.. the way he would get.. it was just all the worst because I couldn’t -- can’t -- figure out which part of it was real, which part of it he meant.”
Jongdae looks like he’s about to burst into tears again and Joonmyun’s chest aches, sitting the other boy up and pulling him close again, practically lifting him into his lap with how close he hugs him. “Nothing like that is ever going to happen again,” he mumbles against Jongdae’s hair, feeling the other’s fingers hesitantly wind into the front of his shirt as he settles himself to straddle the elder’s thighs with his own. “Whoever adopts you, whoever you stay with, wherever you stay -- I’m personally going to make sure this never happens to you again, okay?”
Jongdae hesitates a mere moment to pull back and look into Joonmyun’s eyes, as if searching for something, before he resigns and nods, leaning back in to press his face into the skin of the elder’s neck, muttering another soft, genuine thanks.
(Joonmyun refuses to acknowledge the throb of jealousy that had echoed when Jongdae had spoken of the good aspects of his old owner, denies even to himself that he wants to be there to make sure nothing bad happens to the kitten firsthand, wants to be the one that holds him at night and keeps him safe.
He locks his secrets up tight in the safekeep of his heart, pushes them aside, and turns his back, because he’s not the one who’s important here. Making Jongdae happy come first, and it’s always going to come first.
The sooner he can make himself believe that too, the sooner he can stop the ugly envying lion rearing its head in his chest and get back to normal.)
I / II
rating: nc-17
pairings: suho/chen, past!suho/leo (vixx), luhan/chanyeol, kris/yixing + baekhyun/kyungsoo if you squint
length: ~10.6k
summary: Joonmyun is known for his selflessness, working at a volunteer centre for abandoned hybrids and giving more love than he ever receives back. It isn't until Jongdae comes around that he realizes maybe he's allowed to take a pinch of happiness for himself sometimes.
warnings: catboys, minor behind the scenes character death, mentions of abuse (physical + emotional), self-lubrication
a/n: originally posted at criticalcapture for wild_jinx.
“Joonmyun, you’re such a sap.”
Lu Han sighs as he sips at his boba tea, pretty pink lips wound around the colorful straw in something resembling a pout. His cutesy girlish appearance attracts the attention of those around them in the small café but Joonmyun knows him well enough to be wary of the devil spawn that hides beneath his looks.
“Hopeless, more like,” Chanyeol adds, before his own mouth opens and he turns slightly towards the blond beside him. Lu Han practically shoves the straw down his throat and snorts when the taller chokes on it before he tugs it back to properly let him take a sip and he turns his attention back to Joonmyun.
“And before you object -- you’re a single twenty four year old who spends all his time either working at a shelter for hybrids, or looking up volunteer opportunities online.” Lu Han’s finger raises as he speaks, an eyebrow arched as if daring the other to combat his words.
“I’m out with you, aren’t I?” Joonmyun tries, smile quietly earnest in an almost hope that his words are good enough to keep Lu Han’s concerned insults at bay.
“The only reason you came is ‘cause Chanyeol’s with me, don’t lie.”
Chanyeol’s ears perk up at the sound of his name and he beams, Joonmyun knowing if he were to look he would see his tail wagging behind him excitedly. Chanyeol’s a cross between a human and a German Shepherd, ears peeking up from the mess of his hair and a small hole snipped out from the back of his jeans for his tail to come through. He’d been at the shelter Joonmyun worked at until Lu Han had given in to his loving (clingy) nature and adopted him for himself.
“That’s not true,” Joonmyun huffs and he reaches out to take Lu Han’s hand from across the table, eyes sincere and serious. “You know I want to see you too. I always have.”
There’s a slight understanding smile on the blond’s lips for a few moments before it’s gone and his nose is crinkling at the bridge, gently swatting Joonmyun’s hands away with a scowl. “Don’t get too sappy on me. I’m just.. worried about you. You’re so lonely all the time, and you know.. I know that you were never good with being lonely before..”
“I’m alone, Lu Han,” he says, and his smile is wide and real and maybe vacant of a little bit of truth, “but I’m not lonely.”
---
“There’s a new one coming today,” calls Yifan as Joonmyun walks through the door into the back room of their shelter where the cat hybrids are held, his large frame bent over to hand a plate of tuna to Yixing, his favorite kitty. His fingers run carefully through the other’s hair and scratch behind his ears slightly before he turns to the shorter. “Zitao’s coworker found him and it took a little bit for them to wrangle him in but they’re dropping him off soon -- he’s apparently in pretty bad shape.”
“Do we know his name?” Joonmyun asks as he comes to sit by Yixing as well, the kitty’s wide friendly eyes flickering from Yifan over to him and lips pulling into a wide smile as he nuzzles into the thumb that runs behind his ear and purrs softly.
“Not yet,” says Yifan, gently ushering Yixing back into the room he shares with a couple other of the friendly kitties they’ve picked up with a quiet fond smile. “Zitao said he looked like he’d been on the streets for a while, or had been abused.. so it’s likely it’ll be a while ‘til he’ll trust us. Do you mind setting up a room for him?”
Joonmyun sighs, but nods and slides his way into one of the makeshift rooms for newbies to start arranging things. He finds the mistreated kittens are the hardest to deal with -- the dogs like Chanyeol, like Jonghyun.. they’re easier to manage. They accept help, they let the patrons of the small shelter feed them and bed them and take them out for walks and medicate them if need be.
The catboys, though, those are a whole different story. Some are already hostile towards newcomers to begin with even if they had merely been donated or brought up in the shelter, and those who had already been beaten and malnourished and treated horribly by humans before brought to them are hard to coax into trusting them again at all.
Sometimes when they go into heat they’re easier to deal with, coddling up to the workers in hope of a relief to the itch that spreads out over the surface of their skins. (They mostly gravitate towards Yifan -- he’s the most dominant male worker at the whole shelter, but once and a while when he’s not around a stray boy will wander up to Joonmyun with a small, coy smile.)
Laying the catboys is entirely against the work code -- that’s left to special workers who get paid good money to make sure the cats’ heats are satisfied and sated properly and efficiently. Once and a while they can’t afford the specialists and Yifan has to take the cat into the back to use toys and his hands the best he can, though Joonmyun’s about ninety percent sure that his boss has fucked a cat or seven in his time at the shelter.
The kitty in question shows up forty five minutes later, Joonmyun just finishing up laying out fresh linen sheets over top of the bed in the corner of the room as the door opens and he’s ushered in.
“This is where you’ll be staying,” he hears Yifan explaining, the other male in the room turning from the bedspread to watch as he ushers the shorter cat into the room carefully, without touching him.
The first thing he notices is how vulnerable he looks. He’s small, smaller than Joonmyun, (especially without any shoes on) and with his ears flattened to the top of his head and shoulders bunched up into his neck he looks tenfold tinier. Joonmyun feels like he could fit the boy in the palm of his hand, sort of wants to, feels like cradling him to his chest and swaying him from side to side til he unravels and doesn’t look so scared.
Because, judging by the way his back arches and his eyes keep darting from the floor to around the room, he’s definitely frightened. His hands are ready at his sides, fingers spread as if at the ready to claw an attacker away, and Joonmyun’s heart aches at the thought that he’s been so maltreated that this is his first instinct. His tail, striped brownblack like that of his ears, is rigid behind him, its tip flicking from side to side in obvious agitation.
“I’m going to leave you here with Joonmyun, okay?” Yifan’s voice is slow and earnest, the smile on his face not gummy enough to scare but just enough to show he cares, show that he’s leaving the kitty in a good place. “He’s going to show you around your room.”
The boy’s eyes flicker back to Yifan for merely a moment to give a curt nod before he’s looking over at Joonmyun, head cocking and ears twitching lightly as he looks him over. Joonmyun hopes his smile is friendly enough to pass the test.
There’s a soft click of the door shutting as the tall worker leaves and Joonmyun and the catboy are left alone in the room together. The tabby’s eyes are on the floor as the other takes a step forward, hesitantly, as not to startle him.
“I’m Joonmyun,” he repeats carefully, mouth opening to continue on before he’s cut off--
“I know,” the cat snaps, and his tail gives another annoyed whip to the side as his socked foot slides back one step. His lips are pulled into a purse and it’s obvious he’s trying to act affronted, angry, like he can hold his own, but the trembling in his hands and tension in his shoulders still gives him away. Joonmyun takes a step back and a little bit of the hold in his frame melts away.
“Okay,” he says, still smiling and friendly, “well anyways, this is your room. There’s nothing in here that’ll hurt you, and me and Yifan will be the only two people to come in here unless you ask for someone else.”
The boy doesn’t nod, but by the rapt attention of his eyes on him Joonmyun guesses he understands and takes another step back towards his bed. “You’ll sleep here,” he explains, before pointing over to the red button beside his bed, “and you can press that at any time during the day if you need something desperately, like if you’re having a nightmare or can’t breathe or need help.”
His lips press together but the kitty doesn’t say anything or nod, so Joonmyun puffs out a soft sigh and makes his way just the slightest bit closer. If he had the heightened sense to be able to see it, he would swear the hair on the arms of the other stood up in fright. He defeatedly slides back again, voice quiet.
“Do you have a name?”
That does it. The cat darts right past him in the blink of an eye, moving so quick for a moment Joonmyun thinks he’s attacking before he’s already behind him, and upon turning he finds the boy curled up on the floor in the corner refusing to look up to the door.
He takes it as a sign to leave, reminding the quiet cat that dinner will be coming soon, not to be scared, and to call if he needs anything, before he exits the room, blowing out a large sigh of disappointment as soon as he shuts the door.
This isn’t going to be an easy one.
---
The cat doesn’t really warm up to anyone at the shelter. It’s been a week and he’s barely said anything to Joonmyun, who’s there to care for him practically all the time, and neither Yifan nor any of the other cats around him.
He’s allowed outside and allowed to socialize when he wants but upon observation it’s not hard to tell that he prefers his room, prefers solitude (“because nothing can hurt me when I’m alone,” he’d said to Joonmyun when he’d asked, speaking for a rare moment). Sympathy strikes hard in the middle of the elder’s chest for him because being alone or lonely, isn’t something he would wish on anyone -- it’s something he’s come to know in his lone mornings and nights far too well and he’s too selfless to knowingly let someone he knows go through that as well.
So he tries. He visits the kitty daily and always brings different kinds of food, sits by the door as he watches him eat and tries to coax him out of his shell with small talk, easy questions.
“Do you like the salmon?” He asks, smiling softly as he adjusts his legs beneath him and folds them nice and neat. The cat doesn’t look up from where he’s eating carefully, pawing at his food first to find bones. “I’ll bring red snapper tomorrow.. it’s expensive, but I think you’ll like it.”
It’s silent for a few minutes as Joonmyun simply watches the other eat, smiling quietly to himself because his mannerisms are nothing short of cute. He tries his best to use the cutlery he’s given but it’s clear he’s only going off of what he’s seen from others using it, the fork and knife awkward in his hands as he tries to use both at once and fails.
Joonmyun’s sort of zoned out and it takes him a moment to realize that the cat is staring up at him, his hands paused above his dish, startling when his eyes meet the other’s coal brown ones and round out wider.
“Can you do it for me?” The other asks quietly, his voice small and quiet and shoulders bunched to make him seem even tinier as he holds out his fork and knife hesitantly. It’s clear he’s nervous to outright ask Joonmyun for help, the thick bob of his throat a clear indication. Joonmyun’s smile is as earnest and helpful as always as he reaches out, taking the silverware from him delicately, careful their fingers don’t brush as he scoots a little closer.
He cuts up the cat’s salmon easily into bite-size pieces, easy for him to pick up between a finger and thumb and pop into his mouth. He can feel curious eyes on his hands as he does, smiling quietly to himself because even though he doesn’t think he’s that much older in years than the other, it almost feels like he’s a child, a kitten.
After he hands the plate and tableware back over, the kitty doesn’t seem to have as much trouble meeting his eyes as he did before. He’s abandoned his knife to the floor but he seems to be able to use the fork well, wrapping both hands around the neck and piercing each piece of salmon to bring to his mouth carefully.
He chews carefully and within a few moments his ears twitch and he smiles just the slightest bit over at Joonmyun, nearly all shy and a little delight twinkling in his eyes. The eye contact is held for only a few moments but Joonmyun returns the happy smile with even more enthusiasm for the few seconds the moment lasts before the kitty is looking back down again, smile fading but still there, faintly.
Minutes later, the quiet silence of the occasional scrape of metal against plate and the boy’s chewing is interrupted by his voice, quiet and small but just the littlest bit more inviting, open.
“Jongdae,” he says, cocoa eyes flickering up only a millisecond before sinking back down. “My name is Jongdae.”
“Jongdae,” repeats Joonmyun, tasting the name on his tongue, pleased with the way it rolls off easily. He grins, white white white teeth probably blinding the catboy -- Jongdae, he reminds himself -- as his head tilts. “I like it.”
---
It’s not that much really changes. Jongdae is still pretty much untrusting, wary around everyone and anything he comes across. He hands his meals over to Joonmyun and has him cut them up and set them so he can eat them easily--
“Red snapper is his favorite,” explains Joonmyun over another boba tea, taking a last sip of the mango slush before reaching for a cookie from the platter in front of him to start breaking it into small pieces in habit. “I knew it was going to be -- it’s the most expensive thing the shelter buys, and Jongdae seems the spoiled type.”
Lu Han eyes him disdainfully from across the table, an eyebrow arched. “More like you just want to spoil him so he likes you. How much have you spent on buying him the red snapper personally, Joonmyun?”
He doesn’t answer and averts his eyes, sipping at his boba discreetly and ending up choking on a pearl not soon after. Chanyeol reaches over and smacks his back with his big big hand and the pearl comes flying out his throat, smacking Lu Han right in the face.
“Disgusting,” the Chinese boy groans, wiping the sticky spot from his forehead with the back of his hand. Chanyeol, eager to help yet again, practically lays himself into Lu Han’s lap, lapping at his forehead as the other squeaks and tries to push him off, to no avail. Joonmyun stands, amused, laying a few bills on the table as he watches his friend try and pry himself from his partner’s overexcited tongue as he pops one of the cookie pieces into his mouth.
“I’ll.. be going,” he says, trying his best not to let his laugh into his voice, “I have to go.. do something. See you soon, Lu.”
“If you’re going to buy fresh red snapper for that dumb cat again, I swear to god Joonmyun-- Chanyeol!” Lu Han laughs quietly as Chanyeol laps his way down, eyes closing and nose crinkling in giggling as his tongue passes over his throat, hand winding into his hair to try and tug him away. “Stop that, I’m trying to lecture the other idiot in the room!”
Joonmyun says another goodbye before exiting the café shaking his head, not admitting to neither Lu Han nor himself that he had been planning to go buy red snapper for Jongdae, instead making his way home quietly.
---
Joonmyun lives in a quiet apartment that’s too big for himself. He’s still stuck in old habits of when he’d had a roommate, of when he’d made two cups of coffee and set two places up at the table. Even after years it still takes him a while to catch himself, to pause in the middle of brewing orange tea instead of his own earl grey preference, to stop and go back to put that second set of cutlery back.
He misses Taekwoon a lot, he has to admit. They’d met through Lu Han and as he himself was moving somewhere too far from Joonmyun’s school for him to follow, Joonmyun had needed a roommate. The two became quick enough friends for Taekwoon to move into his apartment, and into a spot in his life.
Joonmyun doesn’t think about it often, doesn’t talk about it often, avoids the subject with Lu Han when it’s brought up -- but he’d loved Taekwoon. The fondness in his heart was too strong to deny, the skip in his pulse whenever their fingers had brushed (as he’d passed over that ridiculous Spongebob mug Taekwoon had loved so much) too distinct to ignore.
The smiles they’d shared had been coy, both of them just shy out of high school and not yet bold enough to stop acting like middle school kids, to confess and admit their feelings. Joonmyun regrets not being bolder to this day because despite how long it’s been, he still wishes he could have had the happiness he was so close to grasping, still feels it on the edges of his fingertips, just that one bit too far for him to reach out and grab.
Taekwoon’s death was unexpected, tragic, upsetting, and had trapped Joonmyun in a period of mourning, of hurt, so long he’d built up walls. Only allowing Lu Han to visit, to feed him, he’d sheltered his heart in a stronghold much more steadfast than just his ribcage.
It’s been years and though Joonmyun still slips up, he doesn’t cry any longer. He smiles at the memories of Taekwoon, of their friendship, of his humor and his daftness, never thinking or speaking of him other than to himself because he wants to keep Taekwoon in his memories, in the happy times they’d had.
At the same time, though, he’s isolated himself. From times of being fresh out of high school and not wanting to live alone, wanting to function with another half, with bringing someone wherever he went, he’s now gone to doing everything alone. He shops for himself, does nearly all of his work alone, avoids calls and invitations out as long as he can until guilt takes over and he accepts.
Taekwoon’s death might not tug so hard at his heartstrings anymore, but it had wrecked his perception of attachment, of any dependence at all on anyone but himself (and maybe Lu Han). He’s solitary and Joonmyun has somehow come to believe that that’s the way he has to keep himself, to avoid being attached, to keep from hurting and losing again.
Joonmyun might be twenty four, single, alone, lonely -- but as long as the people around him are okay, happy, he’s happy enough too.
---
“Jongdae asked for you earlier,” says Baekhyun as he sweeps the floor, glancing up briefly at Joonmyun as he stands in front of the stove, cooking. He continues upon seeing the elder’s brow furrowing, “I tried to feed him and he nearly scratched me, mumbling something about you and red snapper. I mean -- we don’t even keep red snapper here, so I don’t know what he was talking about.” Baekhyun snorts, shaking his head. Joonmyun takes a step to the side to cover up the pinky-red fish grilling in the pan beside him from the other.
“Uh-- yeah,” he says, nodding stiffly. “I’ll just, I’ll um-- I’ll go feed him, then. He must think the salmon is snapper, or something.” He shrugs and it’s clear Baekhyun doesn’t believe him but he doesn’t press as Joonmyun plates the clearly red fish, garnishing it with a small sprig of mint because he thinks Jongdae will try to eat it and it’ll be amusing.
He opens the door and slinks in with the plate in hand, nudging the door shut with a foot before padding over and sitting in front of Jongdae on the floor, the pair both crosslegged. They share a small smile before the kitty goes back to where he’d been toying with the tip of his tail, the elder reaching and cutting his fish up for him silently.
Joonmyun places the fork back in his hand again after he’s done and it’s an easy routine to sit back and watch Jongdae eat. Their eyes meet ever so often but it’s comfortable, the hint of a smile in his eyes and on his lips letting Joonmyun know that there’s something here, that he’s getting somewhere despite the minimal contact and speech between the two.
He doesn’t think Jongdae would trust him with anything but company and food yet, but that’s okay, because it’s a step in the right direction. It’s a step he’ll take slowly, balance on and ensure is steady, before he reaches out and tentatively takes the next. He’ll test his ground before he leans his weight onto it, before he lifts himself from the last, because he doesn’t want to walk onto thin ice and fall into the cold, unforgiving promise of hypothermic water beneath. Joonmyun refuses to drown again, never again.
---
“Can you take me outside?”
Joonmyun glances up from where he’d been watching Jongdae’s tabby tail with fascination as it flicked from side to side, meets his eyes and finds them sure and steady along with the tone of his voice.
He takes a moment to weigh his decision. Jongdae has definitely branched out this past week -- he’d begun talking to Yixing (and they could possibly have been considered friends, now), he’d left his room more frequently and occasionally socialized with Yifan or the other workers around. Though at the same time, it’s clear he’s still afraid -- he shied from Kyungsoo, the Rottweiler mix with the hard stare, didn’t let anyone but Joonmyun in his room comfortably, and even sometimes struggled to meet Joonmyun’s gaze or allow him close.
But then again, Joonmyun doesn’t want to disappoint. He wants Jongdae to be able to trust him before he starts making the decisions for him, so he assumes that it.. couldn’t hurt to bring him for a walk through the streets.
“Sure,” he says, and the smile that lights up the catboy’s face, true and genuine, is entirely worth it.
They leave not too soon after, after Joonmyun finds clothes decent enough to fit Jongdae and keep him warm and a pair of shoes that aren’t too too big or too too small. He starts to put a leash on him but Jongdae objects, eyes wide with something resembling fear, so Joonmyun holds his hand out instead. Thankfully, Jongdae takes it.
He leads the younger outside carefully after letting Yifan know they’re going, sliding Jongdae’s hand instead up carefully to wind into the sleeve at his elbow. The kitty’s eyes are tentative and his shoulders just the slightest bit bunched, but the press of his lips shows his determination in wanting to do this, to face a fear. (It strikes a chord in Joonmyun’s chest, a hint of familiarity that he can’t place and shrugs off instead.)
They walk down the street slowly, steps languid and slow to let Jongdae take in the outside how he likes. His ears twitch ever so often, picking up a sound that Joonmyun cannot, tail rustling from beneath the shirt he’s placed it beneath.
It’s a warm day, sun beating down on their backs as they walk into the park nearest the shelter, children playing and laughter all around no matter where they look. The elder is smiling at the sight of the happiness around but when he glances over to Jongdae and spots the delighted sparkle in his eye, his lips peel back into a grin amped up just that slight bit more.
He buys Jongdae an ice cream cone (vanilla of course, as not to overwhelm him with something too sweet at first) and can’t wipe the smile off his face at the way he eats it, tongue lapping out at the cold substance like he’s trying to drink it. It’s nearly more than Joonmyun can take, the cute is overwhelming and when Jongdae tries to bite the ice cream and whines he can’t help but laugh softly in amusement, all kindness and happy and amusement and bubbly on the inside for what feels like the first time in a couple forevers.
When his eyes open and he straightens from where he’d been bent slightly over in laughter, he finds Jongdae’s grip pretty much vice on his sleeve, eyes wide and face as white as a sheet. Something cold strikes the center of Joonmyun’s chest as he tries to figure out what he’s done wrong until he notices that the kitten is looking somewhere past him, not bothering to look as the icy feeling spreads at the words that just barely make it past the frightened downturn of Jongdae’s mouth.
“It’s him, that’s him, I-- I can’t be here..”
It’s all Joonmyun needs to take his arm and loop it around the backs of Jongdae’s shoulders to turn him, keeping him fit close to his side as his feet run on autopilot. His heart catches in his throat and his pulse quickens, the trembling of the smaller’s frame against his own splintering his stone steady heart into something fragile, brittle, ready to break at any moment.
In minutes, he realizes instead of making their way back to the shelter, he’s led them a block or two away from his apartment and within a matter of minutes they’re up the elevator and in front of his door, Jongdae’s head still ducked and body quivering uncontrollably. He fishes his keys out and unlocks the door as quick as he can with shaky hands, a hand slipping down to the small of the catboy’s back to gently usher him in.
Joonmyun gathers an armful of blankets up in his hold after sitting the younger down on the couch, bundling them all around him in a safe cocoon as he mumbles the most reassuring things he can come up with.
“You’re in a safe place,” he says, fitting a fuzzy Winnie the Pooh blanket around Jongdae’s narrow narrow legs. “Nobody’s going to be able to get in here unless I let them in.” The duvet he’d tugged from his bed slides from the kitten’s shoulders slightly, and he lifts it back up and tucks it back in behind him. “I’m here, Jongdae -- and I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
The other looks up at that, previously unfocused eyes settling on Joonmyun as a bit of color floods back into his cheeks and he blinks a few times seemingly in thought, hesitation, before his hands are reaching out and snagging into the collar of the elder’s shirt.
For a moment, Joonmyun’s heart seizes in his throat at the thought that Jongdae is going to kiss him, but a moment later he’s simply being pulled closer and his thoughts fly out the window. Thankfully(?) he doesn’t feel contact on his lips, merely a weight on his shoulder that takes a moment to recognize.
Jongdae is sobbing into the fabric of his shirt at his shoulder, body shaking as he chokes out soft thank yous between heaving breaths, wetting the cotton thoroughly in a matter of seconds. Joonmyun’s heart breaks with every broken sound that’s muffled into his chest, taking the obligated seat beside the smaller boy and wrapping him so tight up into his arms he’s afraid if he squeezes too hard he’ll break.
There’s another twang of something déja vu-esque Joonmyun can’t place, a sense of having done this before that takes a glance down to recognize. In the mound of Jongdae’s pretty dark brown hair he spots Taekwoon, small and vulnerable in his arms, crying over his parents’ disownment, his brother’s death.
He sees Taekwoon’s smile in Jongdae’s eyes, the twinkle of happiness Joonmyun had come to know so well, love so well, and his breath all but seizes in his throat as tears prickle at the backs of his eyes. Joonmyun.. isn’t ready for this. Wasn’t ready for Jongdae, when he’d come along.
He’s not healed, not ready to do this. He knows that it’s not hard to love a cat, not hard for a cat to love you -- they were human manufactured at first for love, for companionship in something that resembled a human the best that it could. Chanyeol and Luhan were a clear example of how easy it was for someone of that nature to get attached to someone he’d only seen a few times, who had only been nice to him that small extra mile by bringing treats over, ruffling his ears with a smile just a slight bit bigger than it should be.
Before Joonmyun can lose himself in a fantasy of Jongdae and himself, he swallows all his thoughts and feelings down into a thick lump. He can’t get too ahead of himself, not now, not ever -- this is just a figment of his imagination, just something that comes from memories of someone he’d lost not that long ago and still cares so so so deeply about.
He doesn’t love Jongdae, not in the way he’d loved Taekwoon -- he loves the idea of him. The idea of it, of them, of not being so alone anymore.
He thinks.
---
After shaking the worried, swirling tornado of a clusterfuck of thoughts that’d swept through his head and concentrated on the task at hand, calming Jongdae down, it hadn’t taken too long to relax him. He’d swept circles over his back with the palm of a hand, ran the other fingers carefully through his hair and across his ears, kept his own breathing slow and steady to let the other match him.
It’s awkward after, no doubt about it. Jongdae nurses at the mug of hot cocoa that the elder has made for him quietly, the afterquakes of the shock he’d experienced still chilling him down to the bone. Joonmyun still sits beside him and watches warily, ready for an explosion or for him to ask to be taken back to the shelter any moment.
The way Jongdae’s shoulders hunch, the way his back curls in and he makes himself even smaller than he is, is nothing like how Taekwoon was. (Joonmyun can’t help but compare them after he’d made the connection before, too curious of his own feelings.) His smile is too feline to match, and his mannerisms aren’t Taekwoon-esque.
But he does have the small quirks that Joonmyun can notice, the tap of his foot against the floor when it’s clear he’s nervous, the way his eyes just barely flicker up to the elder every so often as if to check he’s still there.
Lost inside his own mind, trying to solve the mystery of what’s happening in his chest and stomach and whether it’s genuine or not, he doesn’t see the subject of his thoughts setting his mug down and adjusting his blankets slightly. Before he knows it, Jongdae is laying his head in his lap and curling close, eyes closed and teartracks still staining his cheeks.
Joonmyun sits there in slight shock for a few moments, complexion dusted a light pink as he’s unsure of what to do until Jongdae huffs and opens his eyes again, reaching up and taking the elder’s wrist to guide his hand to sit atop his head. Joonmyun idly pets Jongdae’s hair, fingers carding through the silky locks and just gently scratching behind his brownblack ears as he wondrously listens to the sound of the purring that rumbles through the other’s chest and down again into his legs.
It’s silent, for a while, besides the quiet sighs of content that the younger releases and the quiet purrs and mewling that he gives whenever Joonmyun itches at a sweet spot. It’s comfortable, though, and the latter doesn’t feel any need to think about this, to read into the situation or even avoid doing it. He doesn’t have to think, just has to feel, to relax, to be content. It’s nice.
“He used to beat me,” says Jongdae, finally, after nearly twenty minutes of silence, the clock tick tick ticking its way on later into the day and darkening the sky outside. Joonmyun startles a little at the sound of his voice, no matter how quiet, glancing down a mere moment. “He wouldn’t feed me, either.
“It wasn’t abnormal to have to go and find food outside.. sometimes I could jump the neighbours fence and scrounge through their garbage for scraps but he would always catch me. It was usually his belt.. sometimes he wouldn’t be wearing one, would just kick me, use his hands.. other times he’d use whatever was closest to him.” Jongdae swallows thickly, eyes still closed as Joonmyun’s lips press together, fingers rubbing circles into his scalp to try and keep the other calm, still.
“I couldn’t get out for so long. I lost track of the time -- I had to look at the calendar on the wall at your shelter to see if it was even 2014 yet. He told me he was never going to let me go.. would kill me before I could leave.” Jongdae lets out a shaky breath, and Joonmyun smooths a careful hand down his back to keep him relaxed, before he’s laughing a little, small hands wrapping into little fists in his own shirt.
“The worst part was that he wasn’t even all that bad. He would buy me the nicest things, the prettiest collars and the most expensive food.. would keep me in bed on good nights and would make me feel more loved than anything.” Jongdae’s eyes water and Joonmyun reaches down, thumbing away the tears gathering beneath his eyes in a motion so affectionate he nearly regrets it right after. “So when he would get.. the way he would get.. it was just all the worst because I couldn’t -- can’t -- figure out which part of it was real, which part of it he meant.”
Jongdae looks like he’s about to burst into tears again and Joonmyun’s chest aches, sitting the other boy up and pulling him close again, practically lifting him into his lap with how close he hugs him. “Nothing like that is ever going to happen again,” he mumbles against Jongdae’s hair, feeling the other’s fingers hesitantly wind into the front of his shirt as he settles himself to straddle the elder’s thighs with his own. “Whoever adopts you, whoever you stay with, wherever you stay -- I’m personally going to make sure this never happens to you again, okay?”
Jongdae hesitates a mere moment to pull back and look into Joonmyun’s eyes, as if searching for something, before he resigns and nods, leaning back in to press his face into the skin of the elder’s neck, muttering another soft, genuine thanks.
(Joonmyun refuses to acknowledge the throb of jealousy that had echoed when Jongdae had spoken of the good aspects of his old owner, denies even to himself that he wants to be there to make sure nothing bad happens to the kitten firsthand, wants to be the one that holds him at night and keeps him safe.
He locks his secrets up tight in the safekeep of his heart, pushes them aside, and turns his back, because he’s not the one who’s important here. Making Jongdae happy come first, and it’s always going to come first.
The sooner he can make himself believe that too, the sooner he can stop the ugly envying lion rearing its head in his chest and get back to normal.)
I / II