brace face - slowsprings - Stray Kids (Band) [Archive of Our Own] (2024)

When Seungmin gets the call from the dentist’s office, he doesn’t bother to hide the whoop he lets out. Smiling widely, his lips barely fitting over his teeth, an instinctive hand that shoots up to cover his mouth before he eases it down, the joy he feels bubbles up in him like soda, light and airy and almost too-sweet. He shoots the rest of the members a text on their group chat before hearing a familiar creak of a door.

“Yah, Kim Seungmin,” Minho emerges from the cave he calls his room, swallowed in Seungmin’s oversize sweater, flushed pink with sleep. His bedhead is outrageous. And Seungmin’s heart aches, too large for the cavity in his chest, too small to contain his adoration.

“Yeah, hyung?”

“Kim Seungmin, either keep it down, or join me,” Minho mumbles, rubbing a sleeve over his eye. All the words in the world would not be enough to describe this boy — his boy — standing in the middle of their living room half-awake. Seungmin feels the ache like thickened syrup streaming into his veins.

“Hyung,” he says softly, almost breathlessly, and the feather-light exhilaration that shines through with every word has Minho perking up, sharp eyes turning focused, “I’m getting my braces off.”

Minho’s eyes go wide.

“Ah.”

Seungmin waits a beat, then another, rocking back-and-forth on his feet, expectant. A slow, unsure smile spreads onto Minho’s face as he steps forward, shuffling around the too-long legs of his cat-print pajamas, trying not to trip. He cups Seungmin’s face in both hands, thumbs hooking into his bottom lip to pull it down, and something unreadable flashes across his face, a split-second of vulnerability, before he plasters that small smile back on his face. He ruffles Seungmin’s hair roughly, patting the top of his head.

“Puppy’s finally free, huh?” He teases, “Have fun, brace face.”

Seungmin whines in protest, and Minho cackles in response, face scrunching up gleefully. They bicker until they end up kissing, hands tangling into each other’s hair, and they nearly topple off the living room couch.

Seungmin almost doesn’t remember the strain of Minho’s smile, still genuine, always genuine, but somehow… forced.

When they pull apart, sinking into pleather, sighing contentedly, Minho’s fingers linger at his lips.

Seungmin isn’t stupid.

Seungmin isn’t stupid, and more importantly, he knows Minho, knows all his little quirks and mannerisms, has catalogued each minute twitch of his body and expression on his face carefully, a love-soaked spider-web of knowledge that stretches across the lines on his palms, weaves its way around his muscles, his tendons, his very bones.

So he knows something’s off.

On the surface, everything seems about right. They throw loosely-formed taunts at each other, always so casual with it, always so fond. They still have movie nights where they argue over what to watch until they just end up making out instead, warm breaths against warmer skin, wandering hands and love-marks littered against their body carelessly, little pockets of remnants of desire. Minho still sends him photos with ridiculous filters slapped onto him in the middle of a schedule, and he still calls him cute in return, just to delight in the bright red he can see tingeing his ears, just to hear Minho call him a dumb mutt in that half-incredulous, half-endeared way of his.

It’s simple. Easy.

Except it isn’t.

Except, when Minho’s feeding him a bite of his own meal, his fingers curl into Seungmin’s waiting mouth, digging into his tongue before he freezes, pulling away like he’s burnt, refusing to make eye contact as he shovels rice into his mouth. When he wipes at Seungmin’s lips with his routine snarky little half-hearted complaints, he rubs gently at Seungmin’s lips with a mumbled excuse, fingers lingering at the corner of his mouth. When Seungmin smiles widely at him, he goes red, so red, crimson petals that bloom over his cheeks, presses their lips together fiercely, and insists on taking pictures of Seungmin’s kiss-swollen lips, the way they stretch around his glinting braces in a shy smile.

And oh, when he kisses Seungmin, really kisses him, he licks into his mouth with a newfound hunger, fingers digging into his jaw, sucking on his bottom lip harshly. The braces have worried at the inside of his lips, and the flesh is tender there. When Minho bites at his lip, they both taste blood. Seungmin hisses, jerks away, rubs at his mouth with the heel of his palm. Minho tracks the movement with his eyes, his breathing heavy. His pupils are blown, pink staining his cheeks, and he looks — god, Minho looks otherworldly. Gorgeous.

When he surges up to meet Seungmin’s lips again, licking into his mouth, at the insides of his teeth, he kisses him like he is unravelling.

So, on the surface, everything is easy. Simple. Underneath? It’s so much more than that.

Seungmin has some idea of what is going on, knows what this is about, but he lets Minho come to his own conclusions, come to him slowly. He is prey lying down willingly, in eager wait. He is giving himself into Minho’s hands, trusting in how he will be broken down and put back together.

When Minho swings open the door to his room quietly, pads in silently and flings himself onto his bed, Seungmin suppresses a smile. There’s a decisiveness to Minho’s gait now, a surety to his movements that tells Seungmin that he’s come to some sort of resolution, that whatever’s been plaguing him is about to be put to rest.

“Seungmin-ah,” Minho looks up at him from under his lashes, blinking slowly. A measured veil of innocence. The air in the room seems to grow thicker, warmer. Seungmin’s mouth twitches.

“Lee Know-hyung,” he replies, voice flat.

“I was wondering, Kim Seungmin-ssi,” Minho starts off, sincerely enough, “about your teeth.”

Seungmin blinks.

“... My teeth?”

Minho props himself up on his arms, staring passively at Seungmin’s mouth. Seungmin wills himself not to blush.

“Your teeth. Your braces. Your wires were tightened recently, weren’t they?”

A blatant lie, but Seungmin is not about to call him out on it. He’s far too interested in where this is going. He nods, and Minho continues, a smug smile playing on his lips, far too satisfied. The cat that got the canary.

“Poor puppy,” he sighs, lashes fluttering, mouth pouted in a perfect mockery of sympathy, “your gums must hurt. ”

Seungmin watches as Minho rises to his knees, rests a thick, bare thigh against his own sweatpant-clad one. The warmth of it bleeds through the fabric, and Seungmin’s stomach swoops, nervous, fluttery butterflies coming alive in anticipation of what comes next.

He barely has to nod before Minho’s hand is ghosting over his jaw, the blunt nail of his thumb already digging into his lower lip.

“Open,” and the quiet strength of it has Seungmin’s mouth dropping open before he can think about it. Easy, so easy in Minho’s grip, that it has shameful arousal coiling inside him.

Minho hooks his thumb into his mouth, eases his lips open and presses on his tongue gently. Seungmin’s cheeks flare red as spit pools into his mouth, his eyes fluttering shut. There’s something so intoxicatingly humiliating about it — about being maneuvered the way Minho wants, about the way he examines Seungmin’s mouth almost clinically, rubbing at his gums with two fingers, tracing his soft palate with another, mapping the outlines of his braces with a light touch. Seungmin lets himself get floaty with it, with the feeling of Minho examining his mouth methodically, letting the dull pain of fingers prodding at his gums and teeth soothe him.

And for a while, that’s all he thinks it is. That’s where he thinks it ends, the extent of Minho’s little fixation with his teeth; the need to see, feel for himself. That’s all he thinks it is, sucking contentedly around Minho’s fingers, until they scrape against the joint of his gum and tooth, dragging down to the brackets of his braces, and the throb of sudden pain has Seungmin letting out a garbled yelp of a moan, sharp, surprised arousal shocking through him.

Through his teary eyes, he sees that there’s a glint in Minho’s eyes that wasn’t quite there before. The cut of his cheekbones has gone apple-red, and Seungmin can feel the way his breaths shake. The way his pupils quiver.

Minho presses down again experimentally, harsh on his gums, and Seungmin’s hips kick up helplessly, eyes watering.

Minho’s eyes go dark.

“Hyung, hyung — ah,” he tries, but Minho is already quieting him down, adding another finger into his mouth.

“Hyung will take care of you, Seungmin-ah. You will let hyung, won’t you?” He asks quietly.

It is all Seungmin can do to nod in answer.

Minho strokes the crown of his teeth, rubbing against enamel and spit, against the tissue of his gums, fits more fingers into his mouth until Seungmin is practically gagging around them, and Seungmin just — lets him. Lets Minho use him as he’d like, examine him as he’d like. Prey on the dinner table, split open, insides spilling out, ready to be devoured. His mouth, his chest, his dick ache with want.

Minho thrusts his fingers further into his mouth once, and Seungmin chokes on them. Gags, coughing around the intrusion. Minho tucks pink lips under bunny teeth, seats himself on Seungmin’s thigh, his knee digging into his co*ck, and oh, he realises, with a shock of arousal — Minho is hard.

“Perfect, perfect boy,” Minho murmurs, voice low.

Seungmin goes pink and flustered from the praise, melting against Minho’s chest, lips closing around his fingers to suck gently. Minho tuts and pulls his fingers out, and Seungmin whines at the loss.

“Wider, puppy,” Minho commands, “hyung wants to see.”

Seungmin obediently drops his jaw, opening wider, and Minho’s fingers press back in greedily, petting over every crevice, unrelenting. Sweetly overwhelming in his touch. Almost possessive with it.

Seungmin shudders at the thought.

Minho’s fingers brush the back of his tongue, and he gags again, trying valiantly to keep his mouth open. Minho looks — enamoured, really, pupils blown wide, eyes dark with arousal, with wonder, as he watches Seungmin choke on his fingers. It’s strangely intimate, giving himself up to Minho like this. Being under his unyielding scrutiny, allowing himself to give wholly into his touch. The hurt of it has Seungmin choking out another muted moan, and Minho rolls his hips against Seungmin’s thigh, once, twice.

The warmth in Seungmin’s chest unfurls into something wonderful, spreads to the tips of his fingers, and it’s like it reaches Minho at every point they’re connected. It’s like Minho can feel the same warmth, because his face softens, and he eases his fingers out of Seungmin’s mouth again, pressing a soft kiss to his lips.

“You’re doing so well,” he says, tenderly, kindly, and then, “thank you, Seungmin-ah.”

Seungmin shakes his head in answer, because what is Minho thanking him for? Minho smiles fondly in response, anyway, leaning in to nose at his jaw, to kiss up it as he hooks two fingers into his mouth again, rubbing at his braces, and Seungmin knows what this is about, but he can’t bring himself to be anything but endeared. Then Minho slips his other hand into his waistband, and takes his co*ck in his hand, and Seungmin forgets to think about anything at all.

It’s overwhelming, so heady, his head fogged up with cotton-candy clouds, swimming through pink haze. The throb of his gums, the spit pooling under his tongue, the salt of Minho’s fingers still pressing into his mouth, always so insistent. The barely-there swivel of Minho’s hips, grinding on his thigh carelessly, because he has always been more focused on Seungmin’s pleasure than his own. Minho flicks his wrist teasingly, rubs at the dripping head of his co*ck and smiles at the way his eyebrows furrow, at the way his mouth falls wider open in a wet gasp, strings of spit glistening off his braces.

“Gross little puppy,” Minho coos, and twists his wrist up, dipping his head to whisper into Seungmin’s ear, “perfect for me.”

Seungmin gasps around his fingers, his teeth aching with sticky desire, and comes.

The room is quiet for a minute, a reverent sort of silence, before Seungmin breaks it with a soft laugh.

“Hyung is so weird,” he giggles, pulling at Minho’s cheeks.

“Yah,” Minho swats at his shoulder, sliding off his thigh, smiling exasperatedly. Smiling fondly.

“Ah, hyung, did you—” Seungmin realises that there is a rapidly spreading damp patch across Minho’s sleep shorts, and he bursts into an even louder fit of giggles.

Minho hides his embarrassed smile in Seungmin’s shoulder, ears blazing, but it cuts a pretty crescent outline into his skin, anyway.

“You know, I’ll miss these,” he says instead, and taps at Seungmin’s braces.

“I know, hyung,” Seungmin grins, “you’re really obvious.”

Minho shoves at him, and their laughter is warm, orange-yellow like the rising sun.

“And hyung?”

Minho hums in question, head once again burrowed into the crook between his neck and shoulder, their legs tangled together between their sheets. His bedroom feels even more like home with Minho in it.

“I love you.”

Minho tangles his fingers in his hair, rubs a thumb across his cheek, and smiles.

“That’s embarrassing, Kim Seungmin-ssi.”

Then, Minho leans in to kiss him.