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The test starts out with battle lines clearly drawn: Khun, Shibisu, and Anak on one side, Bam, Androssi, and Hatz on the other. There is no real risk of injury, so Khun doesn't think the firefish will be needed. That is, until he sees Bam walk out dressed head to toe in black leather gear, and feels his heart do a little melting fwoosh in his chest.
Khun stares a little, because he can't help it, okay? It looks good. It looks more than good, especially with that lit-up anticipation on Bam's face, his smile relaxed and easy. He's even wearing fingerless gloves, which Khun did not realize until now that he had a thing for but apparently really does. Khun lets himself glance at Bam more than a couple times out of the corner of his eye, appreciative, but that's a mistake. When he looks up, Bam is watching him right back. He catches Khun's glance, and a smile appears on his face that is not good news.
"Ready to get crushed?" Bam calls across the arena, black walled partitions and platforms and nets in between them. It feels like a playground. Khun can't help but feel an answering rush of giddy excitement.
"Dream on," Khun calls back. "We've got all the brains. You're all gonna be running in circles."
Bam shoots back something. Khun, who was honestly raised on trash talking, (albeit the thinly-veiled-threat kind), doesn't back down an inch. Eventually, it comes down to:
"Let's make a bet! The winner should get a prize."
"You're on," Khun says instantly. "What prize?"
Bam considers him for a moment, and Khun shivers at the way his gaze lingers on the exposed skin at his collarbone. "It's a secret."
"Is it now?"
Bam doesn't answer. Then Khun watches, in utter disbelief, as Bam slowly runs his tongue across his bottom lip, and grins.
Khun turns right the fuck around and ducks for cover. He realizes, distantly, that he's so jittery that he can hardly breathe. His skin is tingling, and his mouth is dry, and he's lightheaded. Bam can be cocky, sure, but he's never been cocky with him. Fuck.
Behind their shared cover, Shibisu gives him a concerned look.
"What's our plan, Boss?"
Khun has no plan. Or, rather, whatever plan he had just went flying right the fuck out the window. He squeezes his eyes shut, still dizzy. The image of Bam's body, clad in all that tight clothing, still doesn't go away.
"I'm down for the count, Shibisu," Khun says without opening his eyes. "Give me ... five minutes."
Shibisu makes a small hm sound, clearly concerned. When Khun doesn't move, Shibisu claps a hand on his shoulder and rises to his feet.
"Okay," he says, and this is why Khun has the freedom to have a slight mental breakdown in the middle of a floor test. Shibisu is a great second-in-command.
Anak nudges him a little with her foot.
"Did Bam start stripping or something?" she asks. "That was almost a swoon."
"Pretty much," Khun answers, voice clipped.
Anak snorts. "I'll have to see it for myself."
Khun doesn't grace that with an answer. He leans his forehead against the cheap plastic-leather of the partition, stuffed with something that will stop paintballs but not shinsu bullets. There's a bit of black graffiti on it, from a kid who clearly had nothing better to do than to draw a black heart and crossed out names as if it were the back of a school bus.
Shit, he thinks. There's no way I'm gonna win.
He recovers halfway through the test, and decides, fuck it. Bam might have the ability to melt all his common sense out of his ears, but Khun is just gonna have to deal. He can't just sit around fantasizing about Bam's ass all day. He has a test to pass.
Unfortunately, Khun doesn't even make it halfway past the starting line before something comes hurtling at him. He and it both go crashing to the ground.
"Shit -" Khun scrambles for his paintball gun, only to have a hand slam his wrist back down onto the ground.
He looks up, right into Bam's grinning face.
Bam, who has apparently blasted right through enemy lines, without the slightest regard for the state of the battlefield. Bam, who has apparently been lying in wait just to ambush Khun. Khun would laugh, and probably feel a little fond, if not for the fact that Bam is now right on top of him, breathing heavily, and dressed in something that makes his eyes stand out like a crime.
There's a wild, gleeful look on his face. The muzzle of his paintball gun is pointing right into Khun's chest. He's sweaty, hair damp and clinging to his neck. His smile is a slash of a thing, sharp and dangerous and addictive, too much of everything to look away from. His other hand is on Khun's shoulder, warm, and a finger brushes against the side of Khun's neck.
Khun's brain stutters into white static. He tries to breathe, but he can't pull in any air, and not just because Bam is a solid, heavy weight on his chest.
"I thought you were going to be the hardest one to catch," Bam's fingers slide across Khun's collarbone, right where he had been staring earlier. The motion is ticklish. Khun squirms to get away, but then Bam digs in harder with his knees and that does Khun no favors at all. "What happened? Why were you hiding there for so long? Did you get distracted?"
Khun gives up on struggling. Bam is stronger than him anyway, a fact that took a while to get used to, and still rankles when he thinks about it too hard. Still, he knows his limits.
"Just shoot me and be done with it," he manages to get out.
Bam chuckles, low, and leans down. Khun's heart honest-to-god skips a beat as Bam's lips brush his ear.
"Let's not end it so early. I still have uses for you yet."
That use turns out to be: using Khun as bait to get the rest of his team.
Khun feels conflicted about this. Bam is having entirely too much fun. In Khun's opinion, Bam should get to have however much fun he wants. With one caveat, which is: Bam also shouldn't be having this much fun at Khun's expense. Khun is a member of the 10 Great Families, for fucks sake. He should not be put on display like this.
They're in the center of the arena, on a high platform that serves as a lookout. He's got a pretty good view of Anak, Shibisu, Androssi, and Hatz as they dodge around each other, yelling instructions and screaming profanities in equal measure. There's the occasional thud of a paintball missing its target, and inevitably, more trash talking ensues. It gets pretty intense. Names are called. Things get thrown.
Khun is out for the count, because Khun has been tied up on this particular platform, because Bam put him there, and then had proceeded to laugh his head off and make damsel in distress jokes nonstop.
Khun being bait has two fatal flaws. The first is that he would probably skin Shibisu and Anak alive for falling for such an obvious trap. The second is that, well, Bam is guarding him, which is making an extremely unconvincing case for Khun's rescue.
Essentially, this means that the two of them are up here, alone, and that Khun is being tortured.
"Why'd you stop screaming?" Bam asks, sounding innocent even though he's the least innocent person in the world. His breath is warm on Khun's cheek, and he is currently attempting to find all of Khun's ticklish spots.
"I'm not -!"
His yelp cuts off when Bam's hand slides across the skin on his stomach. Khun squirms and backs up against the railing that he's been tied to. His face has gotten flushed from all of Bam's teasing, and this is humiliating. He is never going to live this down. Bam had planned this, the fucker. He had gone straight for Khun from the beginning.
"That's it," Bam laughs, breaking character for just a moment to mess with him more, hands sliding underneath his shirt, his face pressed into Khun's hair. "Keep going. You need to be loud, remember?"
"I am going to kill you after this," Khun warns him. Bam bites back a smile and slips one finger underneath the waistband of his pants as punishment.
"Is that all you'll do?"
Khun presses his head back against the metal railing, hard, and shuts his eyes. Gods, he's seeing stars. There's a thrumming sensation throughout his entire body, like Bam's been electrocuting him, slowly but surely. When he breathes in, he swears he can taste ozone.
"Just you wait," he gasps. It was meant to come out as a threatening growl, but his voice isn't working as he intends it to. Bam makes a low sound in his throat and digs his fingers into Khun's hip. The individual points of pressure jolt against his skin and bites right through him.
"I'm looking forward to it," Bam replies.
Khun's team actually comes in clutch. With Khun taken out early in the game, and Bam essentially being put on bodyguard duty, Shibisu and Anak had regrouped, decided to give Khun up for dead (a wise decision, he's actually sort of proud of them for it), and focus on taking out Androssi and Hatz first instead. That whole situation had happened out of earshot.
The buzzers go off, loud and reverberating in the sealed room. Bam looks up, and sees that his team is now down two members.
"Looks like Androssi and Hatz are both out for the count," he says. He stands up. "Looks like I'll have to get serious, then."
"One against three?" Khun asks. "You really think you can win?"
Bam slides him a small, sideways smile. "I know I can win."
Khun huffs out a breath of laughter.
He tilts his head back against the railing, feeling the cold metal against the back of his neck. His heart is racing hard in his chest. Bam is looking at him, dressed in black and deadly confident in the bright light.
"And besides, you're out for the count already."
"Am I?"
Khun meets Bam's gaze and lets his smile drag wider, sharp and dangerous. You wanted me to be bait? Bam's eyes go dark at the way Khun's shirt slides off his shoulder. Khun watches as he comes in closer, watches Bam reach for him and pull him forward until Bam's mouth is on his, Bam's fingers are digging into his shoulder, and Khun goes breathless at the possessive quality of Bam's kiss.
But not all good things can last.
Knocking Bam's weapon away, Khun whips out the paintball gun that Shibisu had managed to push into his hands. The restraints come loose, cut neatly in half by Anak's Green April. Bam's eyes go wide as Khun presses the muzzle of the gun against the center of his chest.
"If you have any last words," Khun says, still a little out of breath. "Say them now."
Bam freezes, his golden eyes wide and startled and intense, fixed on Khun's face.
"Done already?" he asks, his voice still a little low, the sound sending a shiver up Khun's spine. "But we were having so much fun."
Khun smiles. "This was fun," he says. "But for once, I'm gonna go on ahead."
Bam blinks at him. He doesn't get it, but that's alright; he doesn't have to. Not yet, anyway.
Khun reaches up to drag his fingers through Bam's hair, brushing his bangs away from his face.
"See you later, my love," Khun whispers in his ear. Bam goes still, warmth flooding his cheeks.
Bang.