nature.
title: nature
author: futurebruises
pairing: krisyeol
rating: nc-17
genre: fluffy smut idek
length: 4000 words
summary: yi fan and chanyeol understand one another
author's note: so uh this is a rewrite of a really old p!atd fic that i wrote when i was young and uneducated in the ways of boysex and today (yesterday actually it's almost 2 am) was my first day of school so i'm whacked out and it might totally suck bUT NO IT'S AWESOME READ IT
Chanyeol feels stupid whenever he goes shopping, no matter if he’s in gas stations on tour or just plain grocery shopping for home. He always feels sort of desperate, like he’s waited too long to do this and he can’t tell what to buy or what to do.
It’s awful, honestly, especially when he’s trying to find something appropriate for the man he kissed and nearly fucked on what seems now like a million lonely nights. Especially when that man is engaged and Chanyeol has a sort-of boyfriend.
Chanyeol glances at the list he made himself and whistles something new, something nervous and staccato. He needs to get out of this place before he goes insane, but there’s something nagging at him.
Flowers, scrawled in blue ink and barely legible. Chanyeol does not know how on earth to go about buying Yi Fan flowers.
Because, the thing is, if he buys roses, he might imply something far too much like lovers. If he gets carnations he’d look cheap, and besides, he hates carnations. Tulips seem stale; gladiolas are too elaborate.
He stands stupefied in front of the florist’s counter. She asked him what he needed and he swore he was just browsing, but now he wonders if he should ask the large woman what he needs. She might know, right? She looks sad and about twenty-five, round but not unattractive, with a nervous streak of freckles across her nose. She makes her money off of these worthless supermarket blossoms, and she must know what people like.
Everything seems too feminine or too breakable. Lilies are too elaborate. Pansies, well, it’s sort of obvious why not.
“Are you trying to apologize with flowers?” the lady asks, raising overdone eyebrows, her voice tinged with apprehensive knowledge. “ ‘cause then, you can’t just get roses. She’ll know you’ve done something wrong.”
“I - I’m not apologizing. We’re… reuniting,” Chanyeol sighs. He has no idea what to call himself with Yi Fan in the picture.
“Mm, I see. Did you get her flowers on your first date?”
“N-not really.”
Their first date had been a miserable night in motel room. All Chanyeol can remember is Yi Fan’s lips and a view of the cold waves. It had been Busan, right?
“Hmm. You look like you need to start over, then. What’s she like?”
“She - “ Chanyeol feels stupid saying she, but he can’t bring himself to say “he.” “She’s crazy,” he decides, chuckling slightly, almost bitterly. It feels wrong, generalizing Yi Fan into such a word. Crazy doesn’t even begin to describe it, but it’s the closest Chanyeol can get when his head is so muddled and rushed.
“Get her daisies.”
Daisies are nothing like Yi Fan. “They’re too innocent.”
Yi Fan isn’t half gentle. He’s big, practically scary, but then, maybe Chanyeol is gentle, in his own stupid, gangly way. Maybe it’s more of a reflection of himself than of Yi Fan, but Yi Fan likes him, right?
“So? It’s you sort of denying her crazy and acknowledging her soft side. She’ll be surprised. Just try it for me?”
Chanyeol is in no position to argue getting out of here, so he bites his lip and nods.
This has better work.
xxxxx
Chanyeol also has problems with arranging things. His apartment is tiny, and he never gets around to actually cleaning it because he’s twenty and stupid, but he’d shoved a few plants aside on the coffee table and scrubbed away the visible bits of mold before he left for the store twenty minutes ago.
He doesn’t have any proper vases either.
He does find a few coffee mugs, enough plates, and a Roman Candle in his kitchen cabinet. He smiles; fireworks remind him of tour. Summer tours, though, not these awkward spring and autumn ones. It’s early June and he’s home until August.
He feels like a beached whale out here again.
But reminiscing isn’t going to give Yi Fan a better impression. Chanyeol decides the place needs to be clean and he starts going quickly, scrubbing with a shirt he found on the floor, working himself into an uncharacteristic little frenzy. He sticks the six daisies that will fit into his least-chipped coffee mug and throws the rest into the darkest corner of the room, on his creaky mattress upon which he tries his best never to sleep.
The thing is that Yi Fan probably won’t care, no matter how nice a place he lives in himself. Yi Fan is nice about this stuff, right? He’s a little bit disgusting on tour, but if there’s anything Chanyeol has learned, it’s that tour habits really don’t affect home habits.
For all he knows, though, Yi Fan is only coming over because of a desperate conscience, but Chanyeol tries not to think like that.
Yi Fan asked to come over. Yi Fan wants to see Chanyeol.
Chanyeol isn’t terribly good at convincing himself, though, so he paces and paces and picks everything up off the floor and throws it into darker corners along with his better judgment.
His mattress is the only thing he leaves uncovered. Let Yi Fan hate him for this; all he wants is to finish what they started on tour.
It’s innocent enough, yeah?
Not so much when Yi Fan doesn’t show on time.
Chanyeol is not suited to his one-bedroom apartment. He could afford a new one with all the money from their last album - he’s famous now, or Baekhyun is, at the very least, and he gets plenty of girls and paychecks even if he is just the one with the guitar. He’s practically rich, but he never gets around to buying new things. It always sort of scares him.
And then the buzzer rings way too loud.
Chanyeol pushes himself off of his chair and out of his little reverie of despair. He’s thankful Yi Fan is also from this humid climate and won’t mind the roar of the plastic fan. Air conditioners run rampant out here, but he’s too lazy to get one installed.
Chanyeol walks to the door on tiptoe and puts on a smile.
This will work.
xxxxx
Yi Fan isn’t sure what he wants from Chanyeol, but he knows he wants him.
He isn’t sure what he’ll get from Chanyeol, either, but he doesn’t even care.
He always really wants Chanyeol when he gets restless, and it’s just something about being home that makes him restless, and being restless makes him crazy. Thus, he needs Chanyeol, and badly.
And when Chanyeol answers the door, looking all flustered and something more like home than his own house and fiancé, Yi Fan can’t help but envelop the younger man in his arms, still as strong and silent as ever but a little more vulnerable.
“Hey, Fan,” Chanyeol mumbles into Yi Fan’s shoulder, sure he’s blushing.
Yi Fan isn’t much taller than Chanyeol, but Chanyeol had completely forgotten about that until now. Yi Fan is built big, and he carries himself like he knows it. It’s weird to be at eye level with someone for once, and Chanyeol casts his eyes down as they smile.
“Hello, Chanyeol,” Yi Fan replies and Chanyeol sighs softly, wondering where this is going to end up for the sixty-third time tonight.
Yi Fan peeks over his shoulder and Chanyeol perks up nervously.
“So, uh, do you want to come in?” he asks. What little he knows of social customs and politeness are all he really has to work with right now.
Yi Fan crosses the threshold and Chanyeol remembers the first time he bridged that distance, albeit figuratively. He wonders if Yi Fan remembers it too.
“It’s kind of a shithole; I’m sorry,” Chanyeol mumbles, scratching his head and shrugging his shoulders in what he hopes is a vaguely cute acknowledgement of his surroundings.
“Naw, it’s a fine place,” Yi Fan insists, his lips still expressionless but his eyes smiling, making himself at home in the one big armchair Chanyeol pulled up to the dusty coffee table.
(Chanyeol always stays at Jongdae’s when he hangs out with him since he’s deemed his place a lost cause and 'not boyfriend-friendly.' There’s only one real chair for the kitchen table.)
“Glad you think so.” Chanyeol laughs slightly, clipped and uncomfortable.
Yi Fan smirks to himself and kicks off his loafers. Chanyeol is uncomfortable, obviously, and Yi Fan knows he needs to remedy it.
“Why're you so nervous?” he asks, chuckling. “Nice flowers, by the way.”
“Uh, thanks. Nothing’s wrong. This is just… awkward. I don’t know,” Chanyeol sighs, speaking all too fast. “I missed you, though,” he ventures a few moments later. “It’s just weird, not being on tour and not constantly being with people. I guess I forgot how to talk to people.”
Yi Fan sighs and smirks, shaking his head a little. It’s so like Chanyeol to do this, to forget about everything and withdraw himself. He needs Yi Fan in his strange little way, doesn’t he?
“Aren’t you dating Jongdae? He’s a human, right? How am I any different?”
“I’ve known him since I was five. I’ve known you since two years ago. And I’ve probably kissed you way more than I’ve kissed him.”
Yi Fan has this strange way of extracting honesty within seconds. He’s too trustworthy for a scary giant.
“At least you’ve fucked him?”
Chanyeol sighs and opens the deceivingly nice bottle of wine. He’s glad he has wine glasses and a little bit of taste. He hasn’t entirely given up on looking classy.
“Yeah, a few times since I’ve been home.”
“At least you haven’t been a total hermit,” Yi Fan hums broodingly, beckoning Chanyeol closer, acting like he owns the place. Chanyeol can’t even blame him, since it looks like he knows how fuzzy Chanyeol’s head goes when they’re close.
“H - how have you been?” Chanyeol asks, pulling his own chair close to Yi Fan’s and grabbing a broken daisy out of the cup, running dry fingers along its stem. He doesn’t want to look too nervous, but it’s probably too late already. “How’s Joonmyun and everything?”
“Good, I guess,” Yi Fan sighs, pulling a snapped-stemmed daisy off of the table and admiring it skeptically. Chanyeol suspects something might be going on, but he doesn’t know how to ask. Yi Fan’s the one who’s good at this.
“You guess?”
“Yeah. It’s nice. He’s just … high-maintenance.”
“Yeah, tell me about it. There’s been so fuckin’ much reuniting and hugging and changes Jongdae forgot to tell me about. It used to be cute, but it gets old. It’s a pain in the ass to be reminded about everything goes on while we’re… out there in the world, or whatever,” Chanyeol rambles. His tongue gets dirtier when he’s flustered.
He plucks a single petal from the daisy with graceless fingers.
He loves me.
Yi Fan laughs. “It is, isn’t it?”
Chanyeol blushes, nodding. Yi Fan is really wonderfully different when he smiles, when he opens up.
“So what are you doing, holed up in here all the time? Are you writing?”
He loves me not.
Chanyeol plucks another petal. “Sorta,” he sighs deeply. “I think I’m just trying to figure out everything that happened.”
He loves me.
“Well, I’m here, if you need to… talk about it…”
He loves me not, because Yi Fan is about the farthest thing Chanyeol can imagine from a guidance counselor.
But Chanyeol is so nervous that Yi Fan can practically see it in the rings around his big, childish eyes. “I’m totally fine, I swear to God. I’m just a wreck ‘cause it’s been forever. I’m bad at reunions, or something.”
He takes a big swig of the wine, swirling it in his glass and plucking another petal.
He loves me.
“I haven’t exactly been the poster kid for sanity lately, if it makes you feel any better. I missed you,” Yi Fan admits, pulling his jacket down his shoulders to reveal the confusing dragon tattoo he got in some dive bar in Bangkok.
Chanyeol’s heart is going to fall out, it’s beating so hard. He’s not used to being the one who people miss. This is so very Yi Fan, the way he’s got Chanyeol’s heart in his giant hands.
Chanyeol runs a hand through his hair, finally grown out of the sensible short cut he got for the sweaty stages, and smiles. It’s a terrified smile, huge and toothy and stupid, but Yi Fan sees hope between those famous teeth.
He loves me not.
“I missed you too,” Chanyeol repeats, somewhere between a laugh and a whisper, and stands up to pour a little more wine.
Yi Fan eyes him, not even skeptical, up and down and everywhere, and Chanyeol exhales slowly as he pushes his glasses up his nose.
This is working.
xxxxx
See, Chanyeol’s eyes are just foggy enough after two glasses of wine to start seeing Yi Fan like he’s some crystal ball and the future is in his lips.
(Get him drunker and Yi Fan will think the same, only about Chanyeol’s ass.)
He loves me, he loves me not.
Yi Fan notices this, clear as daylight, and he tries to remain cautious. Throwing such things to the wind is really, really stupid with childlike half-lovers like Chanyeol, and Yi Fan knows that very well.
But what are these figurative lines if not waiting to be crossed? They are like the corners on hipbones and the memories of his boy back home - they mean almost nothing.
He loves me.
Yi Fan cocks an eyebrow and smirks in slow motion, plucking another petal, quick as a bone breaking. “He loves me not.”
“How’d you know?” Chanyeol asks, his normal baritone gone up way too far in pitch.
“Why else would anyone pluck a daisy, dumbass?” Yi Fan asks, honey eyes bright.
Chanyeol’s eyes crinkle at the corners despite himself. Yi Fan knows what he needs to do, and he does it gladly.
This threshold is crossed in a simultaneous flash of four nervous lips chapped down into one as Chanyeol plucks the last petal.
His thoughts accelerate into nothingness, he loves me to fuck it to this works.
xxxxx
Chanyeol’s fleeting concept of an empty mattress proves exceptionally helpful in this moment, as leftover petals are splayed across the floor to illuminate the messes in corners. Thank God Yi Fan is too busy popping buttons, his fingers feather-light and animal-fast across Chanyeol’s chest.
“This is… wow…,” Chanyeol huffs, breathless, tugging at Yi Fan’s jeans. This is so close to platonic that he can stop shying away from commentary.
Yi Fan shrugs and pulls off Chanyeol’s wifebeater. They make eye contact, both of them somewhat undressed and messy. “I missed you, yeah? That makes it reasonable, at least.”
Chanyeol smiles and kisses Yi Fan, wrapping his legs around the other man’s waist as a weird, adrenaline-strewn confidence fills his head. They’re straddling on a mattress, a little past sunset, in a ghost apartment, only kissing because it’s been too long and they’re a little bit drunk. There are a million more reasons for them not to be doing what they’re doing than there are for them to be doing it, but it’s happening, and the law of inertia holds true.
Objects in motion stay in motion unless acted on by an unbalanced force, and Chanyeol’s life suddenly feels a lot steadier than it has in a long time with his lips locked on Yi Fan’s.
Yi Fan evidently feels the same or doesn’t care at all. Chanyeol cares more than he lets on, which is saying something - he’s awful at hiding his feelings.
And this is just a rush of feelings, post-adolescent hormones that have been held back with cold pizza and free porn for the last few months. It’s perfectly reasonable. They’re finally in one another’s company, the open sort of company only they can understand, be it by way of shared experience or a shared mindset or whatever else. Even if they can’t leave any physical evidence on one another, they can still make love.
Evidence was only fun on tour anyway. It was something to giggle about and brag about, something to lie about and forget to cover up, something like Yi Fan’s bad tattoo. You’re more hardcore when it’s there, but everybody knows you’re an idiot for letting it happen.
It’s only natural. It’s wrong as hell, what with Jongdae and Joonmyun, and they’re pretending it isn’t, and isn’t pretending just human nature?
Nature, like dirt and daisies and Yi Fan’s pleasant surprise when he finally unbuttons Chanyeol’s ironically distressed jeans and pulls off the striped boxers.
“Yeah, I missed you,” he murmurs.
He knows how to do this way too well for a boy of his magnitude. Luhan was a good teacher, and his lessons were beautiful lessons. The older kid's own daisy was stripped too soon and he was all the more bitter for it, a blown-out dandelion with more power behind his ribs than his lanky frame should have allowed.
Yi Fan kisses Chanyeol’s dick, bluntly and simply and it would seem stupid, but it feels better than anything he’s ever felt before. Chanyeol grabs a shocked hand into Yi Fan’s hair and they intertwine, their awkward limbs giving way to lips and hips and hands and throbbing, whining joy. Yi Fan takes Chanyeol into his mouth, turning him hard with flicks of the tongue that moves so famously fast on so many famous stages, but so few people have ever felt it this intimately, and it sends a rush through Chanyeol’s ribs, through the belly that’s grown softer in the time he’s spent at home and up into his heart.
His breath hitches; Jongdae never gives him attention like this. He pulls at Yi Fan’s hair and then nature kicks in a little harder, this time in the form of Chanyeol pinned to the mattress, utterly naked, eyelashes bent against the flannel, and Yi Fan eager and barely clothed behind him.
“This is really fuckin’ wrong,” Chanyeol mumbles. Yi Fan kisses him to shut him up. This is easy; this is so simple. This is child’s play and plucked petals, the final, satisfactory “he loves me.”
It’s the acceptance of the inevitability of this stupid scandal. Love is nature, always uncontrollable and always there.
Chanyeol groans and kisses back, pulling of Yi Fan’s shirt and tugging rhythmically at Yi Fan’s erect cock with innocence under his closed eyes.
The only thing clothing either of them now are daisy petals and the other’s hands.
Yi Fan is always blinded by Chanyeol’s hands. The somewhat smaller boy is more talented than he seems, guitar playing and all, and while drunken tour bus hand jobs may not have done him justice, it’s definitely something new and beautiful.
This is incredible, and even though Chanyeol is trying to be quiet, Yi Fan has to shove his unoccupied hand into his mouth, risking bite marks and bruises. It’s stupidly exhilarating, knowing he might have to lie about a slammed door or a drunken accident.
Yeah, a drunken accident. Isn’t that what this is anyway? And it’s a fantastic one, too.
Yi Fan’s used to power bottoms and deceivingly pretty lovers, but he knows Chanyeol’s new to this, and Yi Fan is hungry for some dominance. He never gets the simple, no-strings-attached control that Chanyeol lets him have, even when Chanyeol’s almost as big as him. Inexperienced, frustrated lovers are better than anything else.
He turns Chanyeol back onto the mattress and smirks. “You ever been fucked?”
Chanyeol shakes his head as best he can and Yi Fan exhales eagerly. “Not that I can remember.”
“D’you wanna?”
Chanyeol twists his neck around uncomfortably and closes his eyes for a second before nodding curtly and sitting up, his lips drawn out in a blurry smile. “I think there’s lube in one of the cabinets,” he sighs, scratching his hand through the nervous little newborn curls at the nape of his neck.
Yi Fan gets up and starts at the wrong end of the kitchen; Chanyeol goes to help him, and now they’re just two naked guys in a dusky mess, creaking open doors until Chanyeol finds the little tube and Yi Fan tackles him as silently as is possible down onto the bed, laughing until they knock the wind out of one another.
They are luminous. He loves him not.
Yi Fan bites his lip and slicks his fingers. Chanyeol’s shaky breaths punctuate the air: legato, humid, relaxed. He teases the skinny kid’s entrance for a few moments, kissing him curtly and pressing a finger in. Chanyeol cuts through the chapped skin of his hand with his teeth at the sudden pain. Minimal casualties, at least, though bite marks are hard to explain.
Yi Fan sighs, making the kiss a little deeper as a quiet apology, exploring slowly, adding another finger.
This is already so terribly imperfect. Chanyeol hurts, and badly. This will leave a mark, and this will leave a limp. This will not be good tomorrow, but Chanyeol can get out of whatever he’s doing, because there’s an inkling of something in the brutal reality of Yi Fan about to fuck him that feels weirdly important.
They are best friends and Chanyeol is still beached out here in the city. This is how these things naturally progress, if you ignore the fact that they’re already involved with other boys.
But ignoring it is fun, and Kris lubes up, gently helping Chanyeol over onto his back and pushing in slowly, childlike eyes on fierce ones, lovers, kissing between the bars of obligations and established relationships, and it sounds dramatic as hell but they’re really just two friends fucking because they have a few shared understandings. It’s pure and simple and really despicable.
But it feels right, and Joonmyun and Jongdae and the bands and fans and cameras don’t exist right now. Only the threads of drunkenness and loneliness and wanderlust that hold them together exist.
It makes no sense, but who’s thinking about it?
And so Yi Fan fucks him slowly, rhythmically, glorious focus in his eyes and Chanyeol’s heart beats erratically, his moans half-reminiscent of his songs but even deeper, totally unpredictable. Yi Fan is ridiculously aroused, to say the least, and Chanyeol doesn’t even know how he feels.
Yi Fan just knows how to pull Chanyeol’s strings and he doesn’t even act like he cares, and Chanyeol feels right but he’s not sure why, but he knows that nothing bad happens here, not in Yi Fan’s arms.
Yi Fan is just incredulous this whole time, even if he’s good at hiding it.
He’s fucking Park Chanyeol, yeah, the tall kid who plays guitar, the kid with the shitty luck and beautiful eyes and the kid who Yi Fan feels he knows better than any other breathing soul on the planet.
Music is a solitary trade. No matter how in love they are with the outside world, they will never feel quite right in it. They’re meant for the cramped clubs and vomit-stained stages, and even if it’s not the backseat of a van at five in the morning, the dusty mattress makes a pretty okay stage for them to both come, sweaty and half-stupid, daisy petals flying every which way into the cloudy room.
More moments pass and Chanyeol just lies there on the sheets, panting like a damned dog as Yi Fan pulls out. They stare at the dark ceiling for a while until Yi Fan turns over and hunts for Chanyeol’s wide eyes in the dark.
“You okay?”
Chanyeol exhales slowly and bites his lip, turning over to face Yi Fan on the mattress and pulling the blanket up over the two of them.
“I’m… better than I’ve been in a while, at least,” he huffs, smiling as he closes his eyes.
“Good.”
“Good,” Chanyeol repeats, and the sound carries on until everything is absolutely silent.
It is good, yeah, as their legs intertwine and they toast each other in the naked room with a bald daisy tucked gently behind Chanyeol’s overgrown ear, smiling into the dark.
They fall asleep together quickly, the bars of their jail cells replaced with the petals of daisies as their lips upturn in unconscious thanks to late nights on vomit-stained stages and grocery store florists because fuck, man, that worked.
author: futurebruises
pairing: krisyeol
rating: nc-17
genre: fluffy smut idek
length: 4000 words
summary: yi fan and chanyeol understand one another
author's note: so uh this is a rewrite of a really old p!atd fic that i wrote when i was young and uneducated in the ways of boysex and today (yesterday actually it's almost 2 am) was my first day of school so i'm whacked out and it might totally suck bUT NO IT'S AWESOME READ IT
Chanyeol feels stupid whenever he goes shopping, no matter if he’s in gas stations on tour or just plain grocery shopping for home. He always feels sort of desperate, like he’s waited too long to do this and he can’t tell what to buy or what to do.
It’s awful, honestly, especially when he’s trying to find something appropriate for the man he kissed and nearly fucked on what seems now like a million lonely nights. Especially when that man is engaged and Chanyeol has a sort-of boyfriend.
Chanyeol glances at the list he made himself and whistles something new, something nervous and staccato. He needs to get out of this place before he goes insane, but there’s something nagging at him.
Flowers, scrawled in blue ink and barely legible. Chanyeol does not know how on earth to go about buying Yi Fan flowers.
Because, the thing is, if he buys roses, he might imply something far too much like lovers. If he gets carnations he’d look cheap, and besides, he hates carnations. Tulips seem stale; gladiolas are too elaborate.
He stands stupefied in front of the florist’s counter. She asked him what he needed and he swore he was just browsing, but now he wonders if he should ask the large woman what he needs. She might know, right? She looks sad and about twenty-five, round but not unattractive, with a nervous streak of freckles across her nose. She makes her money off of these worthless supermarket blossoms, and she must know what people like.
Everything seems too feminine or too breakable. Lilies are too elaborate. Pansies, well, it’s sort of obvious why not.
“Are you trying to apologize with flowers?” the lady asks, raising overdone eyebrows, her voice tinged with apprehensive knowledge. “ ‘cause then, you can’t just get roses. She’ll know you’ve done something wrong.”
“I - I’m not apologizing. We’re… reuniting,” Chanyeol sighs. He has no idea what to call himself with Yi Fan in the picture.
“Mm, I see. Did you get her flowers on your first date?”
“N-not really.”
Their first date had been a miserable night in motel room. All Chanyeol can remember is Yi Fan’s lips and a view of the cold waves. It had been Busan, right?
“Hmm. You look like you need to start over, then. What’s she like?”
“She - “ Chanyeol feels stupid saying she, but he can’t bring himself to say “he.” “She’s crazy,” he decides, chuckling slightly, almost bitterly. It feels wrong, generalizing Yi Fan into such a word. Crazy doesn’t even begin to describe it, but it’s the closest Chanyeol can get when his head is so muddled and rushed.
“Get her daisies.”
Daisies are nothing like Yi Fan. “They’re too innocent.”
Yi Fan isn’t half gentle. He’s big, practically scary, but then, maybe Chanyeol is gentle, in his own stupid, gangly way. Maybe it’s more of a reflection of himself than of Yi Fan, but Yi Fan likes him, right?
“So? It’s you sort of denying her crazy and acknowledging her soft side. She’ll be surprised. Just try it for me?”
Chanyeol is in no position to argue getting out of here, so he bites his lip and nods.
This has better work.
xxxxx
Chanyeol also has problems with arranging things. His apartment is tiny, and he never gets around to actually cleaning it because he’s twenty and stupid, but he’d shoved a few plants aside on the coffee table and scrubbed away the visible bits of mold before he left for the store twenty minutes ago.
He doesn’t have any proper vases either.
He does find a few coffee mugs, enough plates, and a Roman Candle in his kitchen cabinet. He smiles; fireworks remind him of tour. Summer tours, though, not these awkward spring and autumn ones. It’s early June and he’s home until August.
He feels like a beached whale out here again.
But reminiscing isn’t going to give Yi Fan a better impression. Chanyeol decides the place needs to be clean and he starts going quickly, scrubbing with a shirt he found on the floor, working himself into an uncharacteristic little frenzy. He sticks the six daisies that will fit into his least-chipped coffee mug and throws the rest into the darkest corner of the room, on his creaky mattress upon which he tries his best never to sleep.
The thing is that Yi Fan probably won’t care, no matter how nice a place he lives in himself. Yi Fan is nice about this stuff, right? He’s a little bit disgusting on tour, but if there’s anything Chanyeol has learned, it’s that tour habits really don’t affect home habits.
For all he knows, though, Yi Fan is only coming over because of a desperate conscience, but Chanyeol tries not to think like that.
Yi Fan asked to come over. Yi Fan wants to see Chanyeol.
Chanyeol isn’t terribly good at convincing himself, though, so he paces and paces and picks everything up off the floor and throws it into darker corners along with his better judgment.
His mattress is the only thing he leaves uncovered. Let Yi Fan hate him for this; all he wants is to finish what they started on tour.
It’s innocent enough, yeah?
Not so much when Yi Fan doesn’t show on time.
Chanyeol is not suited to his one-bedroom apartment. He could afford a new one with all the money from their last album - he’s famous now, or Baekhyun is, at the very least, and he gets plenty of girls and paychecks even if he is just the one with the guitar. He’s practically rich, but he never gets around to buying new things. It always sort of scares him.
And then the buzzer rings way too loud.
Chanyeol pushes himself off of his chair and out of his little reverie of despair. He’s thankful Yi Fan is also from this humid climate and won’t mind the roar of the plastic fan. Air conditioners run rampant out here, but he’s too lazy to get one installed.
Chanyeol walks to the door on tiptoe and puts on a smile.
This will work.
xxxxx
Yi Fan isn’t sure what he wants from Chanyeol, but he knows he wants him.
He isn’t sure what he’ll get from Chanyeol, either, but he doesn’t even care.
He always really wants Chanyeol when he gets restless, and it’s just something about being home that makes him restless, and being restless makes him crazy. Thus, he needs Chanyeol, and badly.
And when Chanyeol answers the door, looking all flustered and something more like home than his own house and fiancé, Yi Fan can’t help but envelop the younger man in his arms, still as strong and silent as ever but a little more vulnerable.
“Hey, Fan,” Chanyeol mumbles into Yi Fan’s shoulder, sure he’s blushing.
Yi Fan isn’t much taller than Chanyeol, but Chanyeol had completely forgotten about that until now. Yi Fan is built big, and he carries himself like he knows it. It’s weird to be at eye level with someone for once, and Chanyeol casts his eyes down as they smile.
“Hello, Chanyeol,” Yi Fan replies and Chanyeol sighs softly, wondering where this is going to end up for the sixty-third time tonight.
Yi Fan peeks over his shoulder and Chanyeol perks up nervously.
“So, uh, do you want to come in?” he asks. What little he knows of social customs and politeness are all he really has to work with right now.
Yi Fan crosses the threshold and Chanyeol remembers the first time he bridged that distance, albeit figuratively. He wonders if Yi Fan remembers it too.
“It’s kind of a shithole; I’m sorry,” Chanyeol mumbles, scratching his head and shrugging his shoulders in what he hopes is a vaguely cute acknowledgement of his surroundings.
“Naw, it’s a fine place,” Yi Fan insists, his lips still expressionless but his eyes smiling, making himself at home in the one big armchair Chanyeol pulled up to the dusty coffee table.
(Chanyeol always stays at Jongdae’s when he hangs out with him since he’s deemed his place a lost cause and 'not boyfriend-friendly.' There’s only one real chair for the kitchen table.)
“Glad you think so.” Chanyeol laughs slightly, clipped and uncomfortable.
Yi Fan smirks to himself and kicks off his loafers. Chanyeol is uncomfortable, obviously, and Yi Fan knows he needs to remedy it.
“Why're you so nervous?” he asks, chuckling. “Nice flowers, by the way.”
“Uh, thanks. Nothing’s wrong. This is just… awkward. I don’t know,” Chanyeol sighs, speaking all too fast. “I missed you, though,” he ventures a few moments later. “It’s just weird, not being on tour and not constantly being with people. I guess I forgot how to talk to people.”
Yi Fan sighs and smirks, shaking his head a little. It’s so like Chanyeol to do this, to forget about everything and withdraw himself. He needs Yi Fan in his strange little way, doesn’t he?
“Aren’t you dating Jongdae? He’s a human, right? How am I any different?”
“I’ve known him since I was five. I’ve known you since two years ago. And I’ve probably kissed you way more than I’ve kissed him.”
Yi Fan has this strange way of extracting honesty within seconds. He’s too trustworthy for a scary giant.
“At least you’ve fucked him?”
Chanyeol sighs and opens the deceivingly nice bottle of wine. He’s glad he has wine glasses and a little bit of taste. He hasn’t entirely given up on looking classy.
“Yeah, a few times since I’ve been home.”
“At least you haven’t been a total hermit,” Yi Fan hums broodingly, beckoning Chanyeol closer, acting like he owns the place. Chanyeol can’t even blame him, since it looks like he knows how fuzzy Chanyeol’s head goes when they’re close.
“H - how have you been?” Chanyeol asks, pulling his own chair close to Yi Fan’s and grabbing a broken daisy out of the cup, running dry fingers along its stem. He doesn’t want to look too nervous, but it’s probably too late already. “How’s Joonmyun and everything?”
“Good, I guess,” Yi Fan sighs, pulling a snapped-stemmed daisy off of the table and admiring it skeptically. Chanyeol suspects something might be going on, but he doesn’t know how to ask. Yi Fan’s the one who’s good at this.
“You guess?”
“Yeah. It’s nice. He’s just … high-maintenance.”
“Yeah, tell me about it. There’s been so fuckin’ much reuniting and hugging and changes Jongdae forgot to tell me about. It used to be cute, but it gets old. It’s a pain in the ass to be reminded about everything goes on while we’re… out there in the world, or whatever,” Chanyeol rambles. His tongue gets dirtier when he’s flustered.
He plucks a single petal from the daisy with graceless fingers.
He loves me.
Yi Fan laughs. “It is, isn’t it?”
Chanyeol blushes, nodding. Yi Fan is really wonderfully different when he smiles, when he opens up.
“So what are you doing, holed up in here all the time? Are you writing?”
He loves me not.
Chanyeol plucks another petal. “Sorta,” he sighs deeply. “I think I’m just trying to figure out everything that happened.”
He loves me.
“Well, I’m here, if you need to… talk about it…”
He loves me not, because Yi Fan is about the farthest thing Chanyeol can imagine from a guidance counselor.
But Chanyeol is so nervous that Yi Fan can practically see it in the rings around his big, childish eyes. “I’m totally fine, I swear to God. I’m just a wreck ‘cause it’s been forever. I’m bad at reunions, or something.”
He takes a big swig of the wine, swirling it in his glass and plucking another petal.
He loves me.
“I haven’t exactly been the poster kid for sanity lately, if it makes you feel any better. I missed you,” Yi Fan admits, pulling his jacket down his shoulders to reveal the confusing dragon tattoo he got in some dive bar in Bangkok.
Chanyeol’s heart is going to fall out, it’s beating so hard. He’s not used to being the one who people miss. This is so very Yi Fan, the way he’s got Chanyeol’s heart in his giant hands.
Chanyeol runs a hand through his hair, finally grown out of the sensible short cut he got for the sweaty stages, and smiles. It’s a terrified smile, huge and toothy and stupid, but Yi Fan sees hope between those famous teeth.
He loves me not.
“I missed you too,” Chanyeol repeats, somewhere between a laugh and a whisper, and stands up to pour a little more wine.
Yi Fan eyes him, not even skeptical, up and down and everywhere, and Chanyeol exhales slowly as he pushes his glasses up his nose.
This is working.
xxxxx
See, Chanyeol’s eyes are just foggy enough after two glasses of wine to start seeing Yi Fan like he’s some crystal ball and the future is in his lips.
(Get him drunker and Yi Fan will think the same, only about Chanyeol’s ass.)
He loves me, he loves me not.
Yi Fan notices this, clear as daylight, and he tries to remain cautious. Throwing such things to the wind is really, really stupid with childlike half-lovers like Chanyeol, and Yi Fan knows that very well.
But what are these figurative lines if not waiting to be crossed? They are like the corners on hipbones and the memories of his boy back home - they mean almost nothing.
He loves me.
Yi Fan cocks an eyebrow and smirks in slow motion, plucking another petal, quick as a bone breaking. “He loves me not.”
“How’d you know?” Chanyeol asks, his normal baritone gone up way too far in pitch.
“Why else would anyone pluck a daisy, dumbass?” Yi Fan asks, honey eyes bright.
Chanyeol’s eyes crinkle at the corners despite himself. Yi Fan knows what he needs to do, and he does it gladly.
This threshold is crossed in a simultaneous flash of four nervous lips chapped down into one as Chanyeol plucks the last petal.
His thoughts accelerate into nothingness, he loves me to fuck it to this works.
xxxxx
Chanyeol’s fleeting concept of an empty mattress proves exceptionally helpful in this moment, as leftover petals are splayed across the floor to illuminate the messes in corners. Thank God Yi Fan is too busy popping buttons, his fingers feather-light and animal-fast across Chanyeol’s chest.
“This is… wow…,” Chanyeol huffs, breathless, tugging at Yi Fan’s jeans. This is so close to platonic that he can stop shying away from commentary.
Yi Fan shrugs and pulls off Chanyeol’s wifebeater. They make eye contact, both of them somewhat undressed and messy. “I missed you, yeah? That makes it reasonable, at least.”
Chanyeol smiles and kisses Yi Fan, wrapping his legs around the other man’s waist as a weird, adrenaline-strewn confidence fills his head. They’re straddling on a mattress, a little past sunset, in a ghost apartment, only kissing because it’s been too long and they’re a little bit drunk. There are a million more reasons for them not to be doing what they’re doing than there are for them to be doing it, but it’s happening, and the law of inertia holds true.
Objects in motion stay in motion unless acted on by an unbalanced force, and Chanyeol’s life suddenly feels a lot steadier than it has in a long time with his lips locked on Yi Fan’s.
Yi Fan evidently feels the same or doesn’t care at all. Chanyeol cares more than he lets on, which is saying something - he’s awful at hiding his feelings.
And this is just a rush of feelings, post-adolescent hormones that have been held back with cold pizza and free porn for the last few months. It’s perfectly reasonable. They’re finally in one another’s company, the open sort of company only they can understand, be it by way of shared experience or a shared mindset or whatever else. Even if they can’t leave any physical evidence on one another, they can still make love.
Evidence was only fun on tour anyway. It was something to giggle about and brag about, something to lie about and forget to cover up, something like Yi Fan’s bad tattoo. You’re more hardcore when it’s there, but everybody knows you’re an idiot for letting it happen.
It’s only natural. It’s wrong as hell, what with Jongdae and Joonmyun, and they’re pretending it isn’t, and isn’t pretending just human nature?
Nature, like dirt and daisies and Yi Fan’s pleasant surprise when he finally unbuttons Chanyeol’s ironically distressed jeans and pulls off the striped boxers.
“Yeah, I missed you,” he murmurs.
He knows how to do this way too well for a boy of his magnitude. Luhan was a good teacher, and his lessons were beautiful lessons. The older kid's own daisy was stripped too soon and he was all the more bitter for it, a blown-out dandelion with more power behind his ribs than his lanky frame should have allowed.
Yi Fan kisses Chanyeol’s dick, bluntly and simply and it would seem stupid, but it feels better than anything he’s ever felt before. Chanyeol grabs a shocked hand into Yi Fan’s hair and they intertwine, their awkward limbs giving way to lips and hips and hands and throbbing, whining joy. Yi Fan takes Chanyeol into his mouth, turning him hard with flicks of the tongue that moves so famously fast on so many famous stages, but so few people have ever felt it this intimately, and it sends a rush through Chanyeol’s ribs, through the belly that’s grown softer in the time he’s spent at home and up into his heart.
His breath hitches; Jongdae never gives him attention like this. He pulls at Yi Fan’s hair and then nature kicks in a little harder, this time in the form of Chanyeol pinned to the mattress, utterly naked, eyelashes bent against the flannel, and Yi Fan eager and barely clothed behind him.
“This is really fuckin’ wrong,” Chanyeol mumbles. Yi Fan kisses him to shut him up. This is easy; this is so simple. This is child’s play and plucked petals, the final, satisfactory “he loves me.”
It’s the acceptance of the inevitability of this stupid scandal. Love is nature, always uncontrollable and always there.
Chanyeol groans and kisses back, pulling of Yi Fan’s shirt and tugging rhythmically at Yi Fan’s erect cock with innocence under his closed eyes.
The only thing clothing either of them now are daisy petals and the other’s hands.
Yi Fan is always blinded by Chanyeol’s hands. The somewhat smaller boy is more talented than he seems, guitar playing and all, and while drunken tour bus hand jobs may not have done him justice, it’s definitely something new and beautiful.
This is incredible, and even though Chanyeol is trying to be quiet, Yi Fan has to shove his unoccupied hand into his mouth, risking bite marks and bruises. It’s stupidly exhilarating, knowing he might have to lie about a slammed door or a drunken accident.
Yeah, a drunken accident. Isn’t that what this is anyway? And it’s a fantastic one, too.
Yi Fan’s used to power bottoms and deceivingly pretty lovers, but he knows Chanyeol’s new to this, and Yi Fan is hungry for some dominance. He never gets the simple, no-strings-attached control that Chanyeol lets him have, even when Chanyeol’s almost as big as him. Inexperienced, frustrated lovers are better than anything else.
He turns Chanyeol back onto the mattress and smirks. “You ever been fucked?”
Chanyeol shakes his head as best he can and Yi Fan exhales eagerly. “Not that I can remember.”
“D’you wanna?”
Chanyeol twists his neck around uncomfortably and closes his eyes for a second before nodding curtly and sitting up, his lips drawn out in a blurry smile. “I think there’s lube in one of the cabinets,” he sighs, scratching his hand through the nervous little newborn curls at the nape of his neck.
Yi Fan gets up and starts at the wrong end of the kitchen; Chanyeol goes to help him, and now they’re just two naked guys in a dusky mess, creaking open doors until Chanyeol finds the little tube and Yi Fan tackles him as silently as is possible down onto the bed, laughing until they knock the wind out of one another.
They are luminous. He loves him not.
Yi Fan bites his lip and slicks his fingers. Chanyeol’s shaky breaths punctuate the air: legato, humid, relaxed. He teases the skinny kid’s entrance for a few moments, kissing him curtly and pressing a finger in. Chanyeol cuts through the chapped skin of his hand with his teeth at the sudden pain. Minimal casualties, at least, though bite marks are hard to explain.
Yi Fan sighs, making the kiss a little deeper as a quiet apology, exploring slowly, adding another finger.
This is already so terribly imperfect. Chanyeol hurts, and badly. This will leave a mark, and this will leave a limp. This will not be good tomorrow, but Chanyeol can get out of whatever he’s doing, because there’s an inkling of something in the brutal reality of Yi Fan about to fuck him that feels weirdly important.
They are best friends and Chanyeol is still beached out here in the city. This is how these things naturally progress, if you ignore the fact that they’re already involved with other boys.
But ignoring it is fun, and Kris lubes up, gently helping Chanyeol over onto his back and pushing in slowly, childlike eyes on fierce ones, lovers, kissing between the bars of obligations and established relationships, and it sounds dramatic as hell but they’re really just two friends fucking because they have a few shared understandings. It’s pure and simple and really despicable.
But it feels right, and Joonmyun and Jongdae and the bands and fans and cameras don’t exist right now. Only the threads of drunkenness and loneliness and wanderlust that hold them together exist.
It makes no sense, but who’s thinking about it?
And so Yi Fan fucks him slowly, rhythmically, glorious focus in his eyes and Chanyeol’s heart beats erratically, his moans half-reminiscent of his songs but even deeper, totally unpredictable. Yi Fan is ridiculously aroused, to say the least, and Chanyeol doesn’t even know how he feels.
Yi Fan just knows how to pull Chanyeol’s strings and he doesn’t even act like he cares, and Chanyeol feels right but he’s not sure why, but he knows that nothing bad happens here, not in Yi Fan’s arms.
Yi Fan is just incredulous this whole time, even if he’s good at hiding it.
He’s fucking Park Chanyeol, yeah, the tall kid who plays guitar, the kid with the shitty luck and beautiful eyes and the kid who Yi Fan feels he knows better than any other breathing soul on the planet.
Music is a solitary trade. No matter how in love they are with the outside world, they will never feel quite right in it. They’re meant for the cramped clubs and vomit-stained stages, and even if it’s not the backseat of a van at five in the morning, the dusty mattress makes a pretty okay stage for them to both come, sweaty and half-stupid, daisy petals flying every which way into the cloudy room.
More moments pass and Chanyeol just lies there on the sheets, panting like a damned dog as Yi Fan pulls out. They stare at the dark ceiling for a while until Yi Fan turns over and hunts for Chanyeol’s wide eyes in the dark.
“You okay?”
Chanyeol exhales slowly and bites his lip, turning over to face Yi Fan on the mattress and pulling the blanket up over the two of them.
“I’m… better than I’ve been in a while, at least,” he huffs, smiling as he closes his eyes.
“Good.”
“Good,” Chanyeol repeats, and the sound carries on until everything is absolutely silent.
It is good, yeah, as their legs intertwine and they toast each other in the naked room with a bald daisy tucked gently behind Chanyeol’s overgrown ear, smiling into the dark.
They fall asleep together quickly, the bars of their jail cells replaced with the petals of daisies as their lips upturn in unconscious thanks to late nights on vomit-stained stages and grocery store florists because fuck, man, that worked.