[ soundtrack 4 this chap is angel by beabadoobee ^__^ ]

EVERYTHING'S ALRIGHT,
JUST HOLD ON TIGHT.

RAIN IS HAMMERING down with a vengeance upon the roofs of london as park jimin paints, once again in his underwear, a dressing gown falling off his shoulders and one of his many soul records accompanying the rain. he's completely spent; he can't sleep, hasn't eaten much, surviving on cigarettes and coffee, hasn't been properly alive since he got that tattoo.

he ignores every call that makes his phone rattle in its hold, ignores the whole outside world in favour of drugs and paint. and fuck, he can only paint one person, a reoccurring figure of bronzed skin and miniskirts and black mullets and honey toned moans, long fingers and pretty eyes and pink lips, and fuck, he doesn't know what he's doing. his sketchbook, discarded on the floor, shows taehyung's beautiful smile; his canvas in front of him has the boy's naked chest and beautiful face depicted in watercolour, and jimin is fucking terrified of what these things could mean.

infatuation and admiration and sincerity are all concepts he's terrified of - he can't deal with his feelings, he's never honest, never truly himself, always this fucking image, this mask, that he puts on to convince the world he's some confident sexy artist. sincerity is scary and jimin's dealing with that, dealing with his feelings because he does, in fact, have feelings - feelings for kim taehyung. feelings he hasn't felt in a good while, not since he fled manchester with a new tattoo and a dream for the bright lights big city, the true secrets of the concrete jungle called london obscured to him. he never expected to fall in love again.

he stubs out the fifth cigarette of the hour and looks at his canvas with an ocean crashing in his poor heart, and he's so sober, out of larger and weed and every other vice, locked away from the world for a good few days, and he knows that someone tried to contact him multiple times from the same public phone box, and he's got a sinking feeling it's the same black haired beauty that's pirouetting around his hazy mind. fuck. jimin abandons his canvas, throws it to the floor, and goes to change the record. the smiths' meat is murder, that'll do. morrissey's a suitably maudlin, moaning & miserable cunt to soundtrack this.

he looks desolately out of the window and runs a hand through the mess on his head, looks at his new tattoo on his ribcage, done completely on impulse, he doesn't even know what it means. jimin's not sure what a lot of things mean, not here in the big city. the housing estate back in manchester was easy. manchester was easy, manchester was hanging out with the lads down the chippy and drinking shit larger and white lightning vodka from the offie¹ until you puked your guts out, and getting your cigarette stained heart ripped out by a gobby punk girl at seventeen but you'd laugh about it with the boys later. manchester was... manchester was a simpler time. jimin can't help but want it back; want the shitty sixties wallpaper of his mum and grandma's shared house, wants the pink wafer and squashed fly² biscuits from that antique queen coronation tin, wants his grandma singing along to that fucking marilyn monroe record, wants charlie chaplin on the tv and audrey hepburn photos on the walls, wants to be a kid again. twenty one is confusing and bad and there are a few choice things he'd say to his younger self if he could.

"what a fuckin' mess this is, hm mate?" he says to himself, watching the cars scurry by like ants on the streets below. he watches and watches, and his observant eyes catch on a shiny chrome purple bike, and his heart goes skip, hop, jump and loope-de-loope within his ribcage because he knows those damn motorcycle goggles and that caramel skin obscured by a leather jacket, and oh dear oh lordy oh mother of god, kim taehyung is parking down by the entrance to the apartment building.

jimin works fast. quick, quick, get yourself together, pull on a pair of patched-up jeans and a sex pistols t-shirt, hide the sketchbook, where where where okay under the sofa, kick the canvas in half and shove it in the bin, put the coffee pot on and try and act like you've got it all together cause it's three in the afternoon and you're not supposed to be a mess! put on at least a half-arsed façade for the boy, c'mon!

jimin's on the fifth floor and the lift has never worked cause this building is ancient, and he knows taehyung won't remember exactly where he lives, so he has a good ten minutes to rearrange himself. he dunks his head in the shower and gives it a quick wash and dry, tries to make himself look like he's actually slept because even though he won't admit it, he does have a thing for this beautiful boy, and he wants to make himself look less like a wreck.

he's halfway through drawing rings around his eyes with kohl when there's a knock at the door, and he nearly drops the makeup. "c-coming!" his voice cracks and jimin curses himself, fucking hell man what are you doing?

hastily smudging the makeup, he scrams from the bathroom, hears the coffee pot boil. he takes a deep breath and opens the door, and as sure as the pope's a pedo³, there's kim taehyung, a very irritated look on his greek statue features. "oh, uh, taehyung - alright?" jimin puts up the same act, that 'maybe i've forgotten your name, you don't matter all that much ( but oh, you do, you do, you do )'.

taehyung looks at him, and there's tear stains on his cheeks, tiredness not covered up easily by heavy eyeliner, pink eyeshadow and mascara. he purses his black lips, cocks an eyebrow, and puts his hands on his hips. "you gonna let me in then? 's the least you can do, after ignoring my fucking calls for days, innit?"

jimin's taken aback by the harshness of his tone, blinking softly in shock. "oh, yeah, c-course, come in," he shuts the door behind the pretty boy and turns his boiling coffee off, and oh wow, his hands are shaking. that's new. he tries to pour himself a cup of coffee while also glancing over at taehyung, who's sat on his couch with his arms crossed over his chest, expression reading pissed off.

"do you want, uhm- coffee?" oh god, he's stuttering and he hates himself. taehyung hums, his eyes boring bullet holes into the album covers on jimin's walls, burning into the specials and diana ross. jimin swallows, tries to keep his composure. "how do you take it?"

"black, three sugars." taehyung doesn't even look at him.

"taehyung, look," jimin inhales deeply as he brings the coffee over, biting on the inside of his cheek so hard he tastes blood. "i'm so sorry. i really am."

"are you?" taehyung takes the coffee in his fishnet gloved hands, spitting his words poisonously, malice laced heavily in his tone. "i know i'm just some slag that everyone fucks and throws aside, but you... i dunno why i fuckin' thought you were different." he looks away stubbornly, taking a long gulp of his coffee. jimin sighs, sitting beside him.

"taehyung, i don't know what you want me to say," he says, his heart aching in his chest. "i don't think of you as 'some slag', you're more than that-"

"well you're not fucking acting like it!" taehyung snaps, and jimin can see his lip wobbling, his eyes brimming with sparkling tears. "don't act like you think i'm special, jimin, no fucking one does. i'm just a hole and a cock for people to mess with, and i didn't fucking mind that, perfectly fine with that, i like a good shag or whatever, and then i met you-" his voice breaks and he squeezes his eyes shut, hands gripping the coffee mug hard. "and suddenly i-i don't wanna just get fucked and thrown away." a small tear falls down his cheek.

"taehyung, taehyung, no, god, darling," jimin's voice wavers out of his control, and he grabs taehyung's hands, the boy looking at him with water rimmed eyes and anger mixed with sadness, resent and infatuation. "taehyung, you're more important than you could ever imagine-" you mean so much to me. "-a-and i think you're special, honest, i do, b-but i don't know- i'm not good with feelings, darling, i-i'm so-fuck, i'm just fucked, taehyung."

his hands are shaking and his eyes are stinging and oh no his heart's beating far too fast and taehyung's playing good old fashioned lover boy on his heartstrings and everything hurts. they're both holding in tears but taehyung can't do it well, they start to pour, tiny diamonds glistening on his cheeks, and jimin puts his palm on his cheek to brush them away with his thumb. "don't cry, darling, please, y-you'll set me off."

taehyung sobs, holding jimin's hand, his makeup beginning to run but he's still so beautiful. "jimin, jimin, fuck- can you kiss me, please, i-i need to know t-that you're t-t-telling the truth." he's hiccuping over his tears and jimin's heart just burst into flames, the words acting like a match dropped in kerosene.

"i- tae, i don't-"

taehyung doesn't let him finish his sentence, grabs his face and pulls him forward, mashing their lips together while tears still fall and morrissey sings about a buxom girl in luxembourg and jimin's a supernova, a star expanding evermore and he's exploding in bursts of kaleidoscopic colour.

kissing taehyung feels the same as it did that day with milky tea and golden skin, like guy fawkes⁴ on fire and sparklers writing words in the night. he's soft and sweet and his lipstick tastes oily and his tears are falling into their intertwined lips but it's all so beautiful. jimin kisses him with a hunger, with promise; tries to say i care about you i want to keep you safe i want to make you happy with naught but a kiss, his hands on taehyung's cheeks and taehyung's hands in his hair and he's crying too, and what beautiful trainwrecks they are.

"jimin, fuck, i-" taehyung chokes on his own tears, holding jimin's cheek as they break apart, looking so broken and scared of love but aren't we all? jimin holds his wrist, kisses the veins there gently.

"stay with me tonight," he says, kissing taehyung tenderly, trying to say so many things he's so scared of, but stay with me tonight is a start. "stay. we'll figure it out."

━━

written - 270819

BRIT VOCAB
¹the offie: common slang for the off licence, which tends to be the local newspaper and alcohol shop where, in the 80s at least, they wouldn't card you for booze
²squashed fly biscuits: the most DELICIOUS biscuits ever ! garibaldi's are biscuits that have raisins and currants in them which look like squashed flies, hence the nickname

³sure as the pope's a pedo: uhm so lmao in the uk if someone goes like 'do u want a pint' and you do, you respond w 'is the pope catholic?' or something to that effect, and my dad tends to say 'is the pope a pedo?' and i just thought it was funny lmao
⁴guy fawkes: right dunno how good yalls uk history is but guy fawkes was this dood who tried to blow up the houses of parliament on the 5th of november and basically on bonfire night we burn a sorta scarecrow version of him?? yeah idk man weird shit

AUTHOR'S NOTE
DID SOMEBODY SAY SHIP DEVELOPMENT CAUSE IVE DELIVERED HEYO

jimin's bad w his feelings aka me lmao anyways vmin r gna develop faster than sope HA

ur boy got drunk t'other night on apple cider it was like amazing and awful i was laughing a lot and also very dizzy ?? it was fun tho and thankfully i wasn't hungover lol. nd i'm finally in my new house! it's a rlly cool place and i'm super happy to here yee

hope u r enjoyinnng what would u like to see more of ?? ( probably sope and iTS COMIN I PROMISE THAT THEY SHAG AT SOME POINT ) ...

i love u lots & lots!!!!!!!!

- love, jace