CLAIMED BY MY IDOLS UNDER BANGKOK LIGHTS

Bangkok — Present Day The city never sleeps. Ace stands at the penthouse window, forehead pressed to cool glass, watching Bangkok bleed neon into the night sky. Below, his face grins from a hundred banners, fifty feet high, frozen in a smile that reaches eyes that aren't his. Tomorrow's concert will sell out. Forty thousand throats will scream his name. He should feel something. He feels nothing. Behind him, the bedroom door opens. He doesn't turn. He doesn't need to. Five years of sharing hotel suites, tour buses, and sleepless nights have made Zayn's footsteps as familiar as his own heartbeat. "She would've loved this," Zayn says quietly. Ace's jaw tightens. Faye. Even now. Even after two years. Her name still lands like a blade between his ribs. "She left," Ace mutters. The words scrape his throat raw. "Stop bringing her back." Zayn doesn't answer. He crosses the room anyway, bare feet silent on marble, until he's close enough that Ace feels the warmth radiating from his skin. Close enough to smell him, sandalwood and sleep and the faint metallic edge of the whiskey he drank alone an hour ago, trying to quiet his own ghosts. "You're the one thinking about her." Zayn's voice holds no judgment. Just the truth. Soft and lethal. Ace laughs. The sound is hollow, broken, nothing like the roar his fans pay to hear. "And you're not?" "I didn't say that." No. He never does. Zayn carries his pain differently, quieter, deeper, like water moving underground. Ace burns. Zayn drowns. "You almost called Mira her name," Zayn says. Ace turns. Fast. Too fast. He grabs Zayn's wrist before Zayn can step back, fingers locking around the bone and pulse. Zayn's heartbeat races under his thumb, fast, alive, real. The only real thing in this gilded cage they've built. "I didn't," Ace says. His breath comes harder now. Shallower. "But you thought about it." Zayn's voice dropped, rough as gravel. "When she looked up at us in that hallway, the way she moved, the way her eyes widened, you thought Faye had come back." Yes. The word lodges in Ace's throat like broken glass. He doesn't say it. He doesn't have to. Zayn already knows. Zayn always knows. "I see her too," Zayn whispers. "Every time I close my eyes. Every time a fan screams my name. Every time I'm alone in a room that's too quiet." His free hand rises, he presses flat against Ace's chest, over his heart. The warmth seeps through the silk. "She's still here. In both of us. And I don't know how to make her leave." Ace's grip tightens. Not enough to hurt. Just enough to hold on. Just enough to beg without words: Don't go. Don't leave me either. They stand like that for a long moment, two men frozen in the glow of a city that worships them, holding onto each other like the only anchor in a storm. The silence fills with years. Training rooms where they learned to bleed for their art. Empty dorm nights when they were too exhausted to speak but too wired to sleep. Success that came like a tidal wave and swept them both under. Love that arrived quietly, unexpectedly, and then ended the same way Faye did, without warning, without explanation, without mercy. "You're scared," Zayn breathes. "That's all this is. You're terrified it'll happen again." Ace's hand trembles. Not anger. Never anger. Fear. Fear of tomorrow's cameras. Tomorrow's smiles. Tomorrow's performance. Fear of standing on that stage pretending he belongs to forty thousand strangers when the truth is far messier. Fear that one day he'll turn around and Zayn won't be there either. Because they only ever belonged to each other. Ace pulls him closer, one hand still wrapped around Zayn's wrist, the other sliding up to cup the back of his neck. Zayn's breath catches as their foreheads meet. The space between them crackles with electricity, with years of unsaid things, with the weight of loving someone so much it feels like dying. "Don't look at me like that," Ace murmurs. "Like what?" "Like you're already gone." Zayn doesn't answer. He never does. Instead, he tilts his head and presses his mouth to Ace's, soft at first, a question. A prayer. Ace answers with a sound that's almost a sob, pulling him closer, deeper, until there's no space left between them. The kiss tastes like whiskey and longing and five years of wanting. It tastes like the home they built from nothing, the home that keeps crumbling and the home they keep rebuilding. Zayn's hand slides from Ace's chest to his waist, fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt. Ace's fingers tangle in Zayn's hair, holding him there like he might dissolve into smoke. The city glitters below them, indifferent and vast, but up here, in this room, in this darkness, there's only this. Only them. Only now. "I'm still here," Zayn breathes against his lips. "I'm not going anywhere." Ace kisses him harder. Desperate. Devouring. Trying to pour every unspoken thing into the heat of his mouth: I'm sorry. I'm scared. I need you. Don't leave me like she did. They stumble toward the couch without breaking apart, years of practice making the movement instinctive, bodies remembering what words can't. Zayn's shirt comes off. Ace doesn't remember removing it, only the sudden shock of bare skin under his palms, the way Zayn shudders when Ace traces the line of his spine, each vertebra a prayer. "Touch me," Zayn whispers. "Please. I need to feel something real." Ace lays him back against the cushions and follows him down, covering Zayn's body with his own. The weight is familiar. The heat is familiar. But tonight, something feels different, rawer, hungrier, like they're both bleeding and the only cure is each other. Ace kisses down Zayn's throat, tasting salt and skin and the frantic pulse at the base of his neck. Zayn's head falls back, eyes fluttering closed, lips parted in a breath that's half moan, half sigh. His hands roam Ace's back, nails dragging lightly, leaving trails of fire. "Look at me," Ace commands softly. Zayn's eyes open. Dark. Wet. Beautiful. "I need to see you," Ace says. "I need to know you're here. With me." "I'm here." Zayn's voice breaks. "I'm always here." Ace kisses him again, slower now, deeper, pouring everything into it. Then he shifts lower, mouth tracing a path down Zayn's chest, over his stomach, pausing to press his lips to the sharp jut of his hip. Zayn's breath hitches. His fingers tighten in Ace's hair. "Please," Zayn whispers. Just that. Just please. Ace doesn't make him wait. He takes Zayn into his mouth, and the sound Zayn makes, broken, desperate, relieved, is worth every year of pain. Ace moves slowly at first, learning him again, remembering the ways his body responds. The way his thighs tense. The way his back arches. The way his breathing stutters and breaks. "Oh," Zayn gasps. "Oh, f**k, Ace." Ace hums in response, and Zayn's whole body jerks. His taste is salt and want and everything Ace has ever needed. Ace takes him deeper, faster, until Zayn is shaking, until his hips lift off the couch, until he's begging without words. When Zayn comes, it's with Ace's name on his lips, a prayer, a curse, a confession. Ace holds him through it, swallowing everything, giving everything. After, Zayn lies boneless beneath him, chest heaving, eyes glazed. Ace crawls back up to rest their foreheads together, breathing the same air, sharing the same space. "Your turn," Zayn murmurs, reaching down. Ace catches his wrist. "Not yet." "Why?" "Because I want to be inside you when I fall apart." Zayn's eyes darken. He doesn't speak. He just pulls Ace into another kiss, deep and slow and devastating, while his hands work to free them both from the remaining fabric between them. When they're skin to skin, with nothing left, Zayn wraps his legs around Ace's waist and pulls him closer. Ace reaches for the lube they always keep close, always ready, because nights like this happen often. Because they need each other like oxygen. Ace prepares him slowly, one finger, then two, watching Zayn's face the entire time. The way his lips part. The way his eyes flutter. The way he whispers, "More, please, more." When Zayn is ready, when he's arching up, begging without shame, Ace positions himself and pushes inside. The heat. The tightness. The way Zayn's body welcomes him is like coming home. Ace groans, low and deep, dropping his forehead to Zayn's shoulder. "f**k. You feel." He can't finish. There aren't any words. "I know." Zayn's voice is wrecked. Beautiful. "Move. Please move." Ace does. Slow at first. Deep. Each thrust a declaration. Each withdrawal promises a promise to return. Zayn's hands grip his shoulders, his back, his hair, anchoring, pleading, holding on like Ace might disappear. They find a rhythm together, the rhythm they've perfected over years, the rhythm that belongs only to them. Ace moves harder now, faster, chasing something just out of reach. Zayn meets him thrust for thrust, matching his desperation, sharing his need. "Look at me," Ace gasps. Zayn's eyes find him. And Ace sees it, everything. The love. The fear. The years of pretending. The truth is they can never speak aloud. It's all there, reflected in Zayn's dark eyes, and Ace wants to drown in it. "I love you," Ace breathes. "I know we don't say it, but I love you. I love you. I love it." Zayn kisses him, swallowing the words, accepting them. His body tightens around Ace as he comes again, silent this time, shuddering, broken. And Ace follows, one last thrust, one last gasp, spilling inside him with a cry that's equal parts relief and devastation. They lie tangled together afterward, sweaty and breathless and still connected. Ace doesn't pull out. Doesn't move. Just stays there, buried deep, holding Zayn like he'll never let go. Zayn's fingers trace lazy patterns on his back. "Sometimes," he whispers, "I wonder what it would be like to let someone else in." Ace stills. "Not instead of you," Zayn adds quickly. "With you. Someone who could." He pauses, searching. "Someone who could carry some of this weight." The silence that follows is fragile. Precious. Dangerous. "You mean that," Ace says. Not a question. "I don't know what I mean," Zayn's hand stills. "I just know we can't keep going like this forever. Two broken people holding each other up. Eventually we'll both fall." Ace lifts his head, meets Zayn's eyes in the dim light. "Then we fall together." Zayn smiles, sad and tender and beautiful. "That's the problem, Ace. I don't want us to fall at all." Outside, Bangkok burns with neon and noise. Tomorrow the concert will happen. The fans will scream. The cameras will capture their smiles. Neither of them knows that across the ocean, in a city wrapped in night, a girl is staring at her suitcase. She doesn't know their names yet, not really. She only knows their faces on her screen, their voices in her headphones, the fantasy she's built around strangers she's never touched. Her name is Mira. She's about to walk into their world and burn it to the ground. ---