[fic] stay alive
Author ofolivesnginger
Fandom: EXO
Pairing: Kris/Luhan
Rating: PG13
Words: 1451
Summary: months later they meet again.
a/n: what, you thought i was finished?
Wu Yifan knocks on the door twice. He finds it unlocked a moment later.
The walkway is dark. He steps around a lonesome pair of lopsided shoes, bending to take off his own beside them. Eyes on the closet mirrors, glowing the dim orange of the space around the corner. There’s a suitcase on the edge of the carpet. He walks onto it in his socks. Wu Yifan looks in, and the light comes through the bookshelf divisor in grids, behind it cast on the curtains a swaying shadow, flickering in the light.
He watches the profile in the shadow. At the sound of his entrance, the shadow looks back.
He finds Lu Han on the sofa seat, ankles crossed before him. He’s playing soft music on his phone, which he turns down when Yifan approaches but doesn’t close. He lifts his head to match Yifan’s gaze, hair wet from the shower, water running into the collar of his loose tshirt.
Yifan takes a seat on the bed across from him. Lu Han has gone back to watching his own silhouette, the side of his head, its edges ghosting and holographic, morphing into frames of different faces behind the candle-like desk lamp of the hotel. Yifan unbuttons his blazer, drapes it on the other sofa, then his dress shirt, his belt and pants.
He slips under the blanket, buries his head in the closest pillow. The warm light and quiet Chinese pop ballad Lu Han’s playing wants to lull him to sleep, but the one who sits by the foot of his bed doesn’t.
“It’s 2 AM.”
“Exactly,” Yifan responds, voice quiet but raspy. He looks past the edge of his blanket at Lu Han by his side, wearing an expression he can’t read, propping up the whole weight of his upper body on a shoulder. Not much, but heavy. Lu Han blinks at him like he also doesn’t understand.
Then Lu Han stands, takes off his clothes.
Wu Yifan finds the heat of him under the blanket, and arm by arm they sink into the twin beds they never bothered to separate. Wu Yifan’s eyes begin to slide closed to the numbing music, and the rhythm of Lu Han’s movements as he breathes.
He loses heat and contact when Lu Han sits up against the headboard.
It feels like Lu Han’s watching him. He doesn’t open his eyes to check, but he stretches his neck and arms, letting Lu Han know that he’s also present.
Lu Han sighs, long and tired. Wu Yifan hears his hands shift.
“What can I say to you?” He says a while later.
“Nothing,” Lu Han says, and Yifan opens his eyes, because that means more than silence. Lu Han reaches over to the nightstand for his phone, stretching himself over Yifan’s head, palm stuck in the pillow beside him. Yifan lifts a hand, runs it down the length of Lu Han’s back. Lu Han jolts. He worries he’s mad.
It’s the third time they’ve met up since returning. The first two times pass by foggily in Wu Yifan’s memory, too rushed, too strained. Too many eyes, too little time. The expectation for something to happen when he had just wanted to be quiet and still for a while. He wasn’t sure either of them felt as distant as the months really were, but he couldn’t deny the instinct in both their hands to hold what had been tangibly lost.
Lu Han hovers over him for a little bit, staring at him upside down, before shifting open his legs under the blanket. “Come here.”
Wu Yifan raises his eyebrows, but Lu Han isn’t watching, unlocking his phone, only worming a foot around Wu Yifan’s other side while he waits for him to back up into the cleared space-which in reality isn’t cleared, considering there are parts against the edge of his thin undershirt, but it’s no news. He settles with his arms around Lu Han’s bare thighs, leaning into his chest.
“You better not get-”
“Cheese.”
The shutter goes off. Lu Han had brought the phone around, right under Yifan’s chin. He shows him the picture, Wu Yifan’s face taking up half the picture, in the back Lu Han topless, posing.
Wu Yifan takes the phone, deletes it promptly.
“Trying to die before you live a little?”
He gets his face pinched by Lu Han, who yanks his chin up to look at him. Wu Yifan wanted him to know he was serious, but Lu Han didn’t share his doubts, nor his anal logic, his carefulness, his checklist of fears, all the prophecies of how everything they do will ruin them. “You don’t want me to tell you to be careful again.” He states, guessing his mind, but Lu Han’s playful grin falls flat, like he’s fallen out of his moment.
“I am trying to live a little, Wu Yifan.” And Lu Han resignedly drops his chin. “Hang on, phone call.”
Lu Han climbs out of bed, makes himself sound grown up and alive again, loud enough now to ring in Wu Yifan’s ears. With his phone between his ear and shoulder Lu Han pulls on his sweatpants, drapes the blazer Wu Yifan left on the sofa over himself and steps outside in the November night with his feet in the paper thin disposable slippers. Wu Yifan turns onto his side, watches Lu Han shift in the cold through the balcony door, pale body hovering in the bruised grey of the sky.
He gets up himself, doesn’t dress. When he knocks on the glass, Lu Han jumps, and turns around to see Wu Yifan’s smiling gently, breathing fog onto the glass.
Wo, he writes.
Ai, he writes.
Lu Han turns back around.
Wu Yifan’s biting his lip, holding in a snicker, leaning on the door with devout patience and catching Lu Han’s eyes askance, glare ice cold. Yifan hears him wrap up the conversation, and when Lu Han hangs up the call, he sits down into one of the lounge chairs. Yifan walks out onto the icy floor, comes up behind, takes Lu Han’s hand off the bridge of his nose.
“What happened to…staying alive,” Lu Han sighs, not quite his previous words, thoughts scrambled, heart pounding still from the interruption, skin tingling from the cold. Wu Yifan arranges his blazer around Lu Han’s chest, tucking in his arms where he can’t reach.
He walks to the edge of the balcony, hands on the railing, looking out into the city beneath.
“Sometimes I forget.”
The wind whisks. The tone of his voice is lost, and only the words remain, and Lu Han wonders what it is that he forgets. Whether it’s their promise to be free to live, fully, heartily, with vigor, with conviction, with hope in spite of fear, with the priceless, uncomplicated passion of a time past. Whether it’s the things that freedom gives him the right to take.
Should he choose.
Wu Yifan sinks down against the railing, crossing his fingers and listening to the sound of the world with his eyes closed.
“I think you’re a coward,” Lu Han says above him.
“I think I am, too.” Wu Yifan says.
“You always think you have to work so hard for everything, that nothing is supposed to go your way just because it wants to. You only take what you’ve worked for, out of fear.”
“Some times good things do come along.” Lu Han finishes.
Wu Yifan thinks he can see Lu Han saying something like this. Because Lu Han has always been stupidly honest, something he didn’t believe in at the start, until he’d seen him suffer, stand up unscathed and carry on. Because being himself works for Lu Han, because Lu Han is so easy to love.
“We’re different people, Lu Han.”
“No.”
He opens his eyes, and Lu Han is there above him, offering his hands. He’s pulled to his feet. Lu Han doesn’t let go, and he’s forced to look down into his eyes.
“No. Not as much as you think.”
When he leans in, Lu Han returns the kiss to him. Lu Han’s desperately trying to prove something to him, and it hits Wu Yifan hard. He knows. He already knows.
They stumble back in. They sleep toppled onto one another, waking before the world opens its scrutinizing eyes again, leaving behind their warmth in these beds.
Lu Han drives Wu Yifan home, because Beijing is his terrain.
The sun’s rising behind the parking lot. Wu Yifan stands with his hands in his pockets. Lu Han rolls down his window.
“Soon,” he says, grinning.
“I know.”
Wu Yifan smiles back, waving as Lu Han goes.
Fandom: EXO
Pairing: Kris/Luhan
Rating: PG13
Words: 1451
Summary: months later they meet again.
a/n: what, you thought i was finished?
Wu Yifan knocks on the door twice. He finds it unlocked a moment later.
The walkway is dark. He steps around a lonesome pair of lopsided shoes, bending to take off his own beside them. Eyes on the closet mirrors, glowing the dim orange of the space around the corner. There’s a suitcase on the edge of the carpet. He walks onto it in his socks. Wu Yifan looks in, and the light comes through the bookshelf divisor in grids, behind it cast on the curtains a swaying shadow, flickering in the light.
He watches the profile in the shadow. At the sound of his entrance, the shadow looks back.
He finds Lu Han on the sofa seat, ankles crossed before him. He’s playing soft music on his phone, which he turns down when Yifan approaches but doesn’t close. He lifts his head to match Yifan’s gaze, hair wet from the shower, water running into the collar of his loose tshirt.
Yifan takes a seat on the bed across from him. Lu Han has gone back to watching his own silhouette, the side of his head, its edges ghosting and holographic, morphing into frames of different faces behind the candle-like desk lamp of the hotel. Yifan unbuttons his blazer, drapes it on the other sofa, then his dress shirt, his belt and pants.
He slips under the blanket, buries his head in the closest pillow. The warm light and quiet Chinese pop ballad Lu Han’s playing wants to lull him to sleep, but the one who sits by the foot of his bed doesn’t.
“It’s 2 AM.”
“Exactly,” Yifan responds, voice quiet but raspy. He looks past the edge of his blanket at Lu Han by his side, wearing an expression he can’t read, propping up the whole weight of his upper body on a shoulder. Not much, but heavy. Lu Han blinks at him like he also doesn’t understand.
Then Lu Han stands, takes off his clothes.
Wu Yifan finds the heat of him under the blanket, and arm by arm they sink into the twin beds they never bothered to separate. Wu Yifan’s eyes begin to slide closed to the numbing music, and the rhythm of Lu Han’s movements as he breathes.
He loses heat and contact when Lu Han sits up against the headboard.
It feels like Lu Han’s watching him. He doesn’t open his eyes to check, but he stretches his neck and arms, letting Lu Han know that he’s also present.
Lu Han sighs, long and tired. Wu Yifan hears his hands shift.
“What can I say to you?” He says a while later.
“Nothing,” Lu Han says, and Yifan opens his eyes, because that means more than silence. Lu Han reaches over to the nightstand for his phone, stretching himself over Yifan’s head, palm stuck in the pillow beside him. Yifan lifts a hand, runs it down the length of Lu Han’s back. Lu Han jolts. He worries he’s mad.
It’s the third time they’ve met up since returning. The first two times pass by foggily in Wu Yifan’s memory, too rushed, too strained. Too many eyes, too little time. The expectation for something to happen when he had just wanted to be quiet and still for a while. He wasn’t sure either of them felt as distant as the months really were, but he couldn’t deny the instinct in both their hands to hold what had been tangibly lost.
Lu Han hovers over him for a little bit, staring at him upside down, before shifting open his legs under the blanket. “Come here.”
Wu Yifan raises his eyebrows, but Lu Han isn’t watching, unlocking his phone, only worming a foot around Wu Yifan’s other side while he waits for him to back up into the cleared space-which in reality isn’t cleared, considering there are parts against the edge of his thin undershirt, but it’s no news. He settles with his arms around Lu Han’s bare thighs, leaning into his chest.
“You better not get-”
“Cheese.”
The shutter goes off. Lu Han had brought the phone around, right under Yifan’s chin. He shows him the picture, Wu Yifan’s face taking up half the picture, in the back Lu Han topless, posing.
Wu Yifan takes the phone, deletes it promptly.
“Trying to die before you live a little?”
He gets his face pinched by Lu Han, who yanks his chin up to look at him. Wu Yifan wanted him to know he was serious, but Lu Han didn’t share his doubts, nor his anal logic, his carefulness, his checklist of fears, all the prophecies of how everything they do will ruin them. “You don’t want me to tell you to be careful again.” He states, guessing his mind, but Lu Han’s playful grin falls flat, like he’s fallen out of his moment.
“I am trying to live a little, Wu Yifan.” And Lu Han resignedly drops his chin. “Hang on, phone call.”
Lu Han climbs out of bed, makes himself sound grown up and alive again, loud enough now to ring in Wu Yifan’s ears. With his phone between his ear and shoulder Lu Han pulls on his sweatpants, drapes the blazer Wu Yifan left on the sofa over himself and steps outside in the November night with his feet in the paper thin disposable slippers. Wu Yifan turns onto his side, watches Lu Han shift in the cold through the balcony door, pale body hovering in the bruised grey of the sky.
He gets up himself, doesn’t dress. When he knocks on the glass, Lu Han jumps, and turns around to see Wu Yifan’s smiling gently, breathing fog onto the glass.
Wo, he writes.
Ai, he writes.
Lu Han turns back around.
Wu Yifan’s biting his lip, holding in a snicker, leaning on the door with devout patience and catching Lu Han’s eyes askance, glare ice cold. Yifan hears him wrap up the conversation, and when Lu Han hangs up the call, he sits down into one of the lounge chairs. Yifan walks out onto the icy floor, comes up behind, takes Lu Han’s hand off the bridge of his nose.
“What happened to…staying alive,” Lu Han sighs, not quite his previous words, thoughts scrambled, heart pounding still from the interruption, skin tingling from the cold. Wu Yifan arranges his blazer around Lu Han’s chest, tucking in his arms where he can’t reach.
He walks to the edge of the balcony, hands on the railing, looking out into the city beneath.
“Sometimes I forget.”
The wind whisks. The tone of his voice is lost, and only the words remain, and Lu Han wonders what it is that he forgets. Whether it’s their promise to be free to live, fully, heartily, with vigor, with conviction, with hope in spite of fear, with the priceless, uncomplicated passion of a time past. Whether it’s the things that freedom gives him the right to take.
Should he choose.
Wu Yifan sinks down against the railing, crossing his fingers and listening to the sound of the world with his eyes closed.
“I think you’re a coward,” Lu Han says above him.
“I think I am, too.” Wu Yifan says.
“You always think you have to work so hard for everything, that nothing is supposed to go your way just because it wants to. You only take what you’ve worked for, out of fear.”
“Some times good things do come along.” Lu Han finishes.
Wu Yifan thinks he can see Lu Han saying something like this. Because Lu Han has always been stupidly honest, something he didn’t believe in at the start, until he’d seen him suffer, stand up unscathed and carry on. Because being himself works for Lu Han, because Lu Han is so easy to love.
“We’re different people, Lu Han.”
“No.”
He opens his eyes, and Lu Han is there above him, offering his hands. He’s pulled to his feet. Lu Han doesn’t let go, and he’s forced to look down into his eyes.
“No. Not as much as you think.”
When he leans in, Lu Han returns the kiss to him. Lu Han’s desperately trying to prove something to him, and it hits Wu Yifan hard. He knows. He already knows.
They stumble back in. They sleep toppled onto one another, waking before the world opens its scrutinizing eyes again, leaving behind their warmth in these beds.
Lu Han drives Wu Yifan home, because Beijing is his terrain.
The sun’s rising behind the parking lot. Wu Yifan stands with his hands in his pockets. Lu Han rolls down his window.
“Soon,” he says, grinning.
“I know.”
Wu Yifan smiles back, waving as Lu Han goes.