SH 2013: for pretend_parties
For: pretend_parties
From: Your Secret Santa
Fandom: EXO
Title: 天使的眼泪 [Tiānshǐ de yǎnlèi] [Tears of an Angel]
Rating: PG-13
Pairing(s)/Focus: Suho/Chen
Length: 1,830 words
Summary: Jongdae’s always two steps from death, but Suho's the one that needs saving
Warnings: none
Notes: guardian angel!AU, I’m not fantastic with Norse mythology so I might be wrong about a few things
The distant echoes of people screaming and a sharp screech of squealing tires is the last thing that he remembers.
The fog from the bay had been very thick that morning, making visibility highly questionable at best. He had been distracted by his phone; he'd just gotten the newest device last week and was still attempting to figure out how the fully-Chinese interface worked. He hadn't realized the crosswalk light was green until he looked up and noticed the other pedestrians were already almost all the way across. He started to cross at a jog, but was distracted by a new beeping sound from his phone as soon as he stepped off the curb. His fingers flew across the keys at an astonishing rate but his steps began to slow significantly. Soon, he was nearly standing still in the middle of the street as the lights changed. An old diesel semi truck roared to life as it gunned out of the intersection, broken headlights not showing the boy right in front of him until it was far too late.
The boy turns to look at the sudden noise and sees the dark, behemoth shape come lumbering out of the endless expanse of white, phone slipping from his grip as his body begins to stiffen on instinct. The driver smashes his first into the horn and slams on the brakes, attempting to swerve around the boy at a dangerous rate, nearly tipping the cargo container over from the force. The boy still stood in the middle of the road, shattered phone lying in a thousand pieces at his feet, eyes wide and owlish as he begged his fear-frozen body to run. The truck kept getting bigger while it inched closer and closer in some sort of morbidly terrifying slow-motion close-up, and he was crying as he screamed at himself in his head to run or duck or move or do something, and the other pedestrians had noticed the impending crash and started yelling at him to get out of the way and-
Suddenly he blinks and he's all the way across the eight-lane intersection, safely standing on the curb with his brand new phone clutched tightly in his hand. The lights turn with an audible click, and the semi truck pulls out from the crosswalk with no trouble, as if nothing had ever happened. A few people gathering around the crosswalk give him odd looks as he blinks rapidly and has a full-body shiver. Shaking his head, he files the memory away with all the others labeled 'strange day dreams that never actually happened and give me the creeps' and refused to think about it any longer. He shoves his phone in his pocket with jittery hands and races away from the intersection.
-
Suho buries his face in his hands and resists the very strong urge to let out a scream. This was the third instance he had needed to save Jongdae's life in the last month alone. First it from sharks while he was vacationing in Jeju, next it was from muggers while stumbling home almost blackout drunk, and now it was from getting run over by a truck while he wasn't paying attention. Suho supposed getting stuck with Jongdae was his own fault somehow. Maybe in a past life he'd been a serial killer or something and karma was punishing him by giving him the worst guardee in the whole of Korea. Suho had quite literally drawn the short straw when Jongdae's last guardian angel flat-out quit, leaving the spot to be filled by a free guardian angel.
Although Suho felt he deserved a little credit for managing not to tear all his hair out or quit by this point, it had been made very clear to him that this was his last chance. If he screwed up again, he would have his soul permanently washed. In between incarnations, souls had to serve as helpers for the different realms of afterlives, which coexisted peacefully just out of reach of each other. After two incarnations, of which you could only remember the last, you had the choice to live in the afterlife of your choosing and receive all the memories of your lives, or serve another time and get the chance to reincarnate again. How well you did your job had an effect on the circumstances you were born into. There was no way to know how happy you'd turn out, but the better of a job you did, the higher up on the picking list you were. The ones who did a bad job and ended up at the bottom of the list unfortunately ended up having the choice between a snail and a banana slug. Those who killed someone (accidentally or on purpose) or broke the rules too many times had their souls washed clean, essentially erasing everything about who they ever were and any chance of ever knowing about themselves, and were stuck in with the new souls to be born. It was harsh, but it was supposedly to help prevent any unnecessary evil in the world. How was anyone's guess.
Suho had never really fit in or been good at his job. Before this, he had been shifted around quite a lot between the realms. His last assignment had been to help polish the doors of Thor's hall Bilskirnir inside of Valhalla. That wouldn't seem so bad, but when one considered that it had five hundred and forty rooms, each with an enormous door that got constantly touched every minute of the day, the work never ended. Suho had made the mistake of letting one to many people out when a group of valkyries had come back out. That in itself wouldn't have been so bad, but the side door had been propped open to let some fresh air in, and the warrior had managed to wander out of Valhalla altogether. The valkyries had found him before he wandered any further into Asgard and any real damage could be done, but Oden was apparently not very happy when one of his eternal soldiers was allowed to escape. Suho has secretly glad to be out of there. The polishing was as boring as it could possibly get, and he was always freaked out by Geri and Freki when they wandered the halls, the two wolves were always chewing on something that Suho was quite certain he didn't want to know what it was.
Sighing again, he got up and began wandering through the crowds after Jongdae. If Suho managed to make it through this assignment, he only hopped he wouldn't end up as a banana slug.
-
"Are you okay?"
Jongdae jumped as he snapped out of his near-trance and looked up at his co-worker. "Oh, hey, Minseok" Jongdae said, avoiding the question completely.
"Mm-hm" Minseok gave him a knowing look. "What's with all the distraction lately? Did you meet anybody special?" He nudged Jongdae painfully in the ribs and laughed.
"Ow!" Jongdae glared at him as he laughed harder. "And for your information, yes I did."
Minseok sobered up so quickly it would've been funny if Jongdae wasn't still half-offended. "What! What's his name? What does he look like? Where does he work? Is he cute?"
"I just love how you automatically assume it's a guy," Jongdae said dryly.
"Oh please," Minseok attempted to elbow him again, but he quickly scooted backwards in his office chair. "If you're in any way, shape, or form straight, then I'm the flippin' Queen of England!"
"Keep it down would you?" Jongdae looked around the nearly empty row of cubicles, almost the entire company having headed home by now, Minseok rolling his eyes so hard you could almost hear it. "I've got a reputation to protect, believe it or not."
"Seriously, there is not one person in this entire company who thinks you're remotely straight. No straight man wears," Minseok waved his hands ridiculously at Jongdae's clothes, nearly smacking Jongdae's glasses off in the process. "that!" Jongdae snorted indignantly and placed his glasses on his desk, as far out of Minseok's reach as possible. "Now stop avoiding my questions! What's his name!"
Jongdae sighed in a dramatic, long-suffering way. "His name is Joonmyeon."
"Aaaaaannndd?" Minseok's left eyebrow almost disappeared into his hairline. "There has got to be more to it than that."
"Fine." Jongdae huffed out another sigh. "He's a little older than me, and he works at the university library," Minseok gave him a look. "And he's freaking adorable, okay? Happy?" Jongdae pouted much more than a grown man his age should.
Minseok squealed and clapped his hands excitedly, Jongdae slapping his hands over his ears in an attempt to save whatever was left of his eardrums.
"Do you mind!" Jongdae glared, but it was ignored. "You know you look like a retarded seal, right?"
"When are you going out with him? Please tell me you got a date with him!" Minseok looked decidedly desperate as he pulled Jongdae up by the front of his shirt. Jongdae really needed to invest some time into getting some saner friends.
"Yes! Geez…" Jongdae checked his shirt for rips as Minseok dropped him back into his chair.
"That's wonderful!" Minseok suddenly looked like a eight year old girl dreaming of her wedding. He looked so lost in his fantasy that stars were almost visible in his eyes. Said eyes suddenly snapped to Jongdae, a crazy glint shown in them as his smile turned ever so slightly evil looking. "We need to go shopping, stat!"
Jongdae shrieked as he was forcibly pulled from his chair and dragged out of the building by Minseok. The latter forcing Jongdae to tell him every last detail about Joonmyeon and their upcoming date on the taxi ride to the mall.
-
Suho leaned against the break room door as he watched Minseok quite literally drag a violently protesting Jongdae out of the seemingly endless maze of gray cubicles and into the elevator. He didn't bother following; Minseok would keep Jongdae out of harms way for the time being.
The angel sighed as he took the back stairs down and out of the high rise office building, aimlessly wandering around the park across the street. The major disadvantage of not being able to sleep was the boredom. Sure, you could play video games, or read a book, or talk to people; but when every game had been beaten, every book in the library had been read thrice, and talking to anyone was out of the question, what was an angel to do?
Fall hopelessly in love with your guardee, in Suho's case.
It was completely against every rule ever written, vastly tabooed by all involved, and entirely punishable by immediate soul washing. Suho found it ironic that the only city he’d ever fallen in love with someone in, as far as he remembered at least, sounded the same as the very thing his doomed existence depended on.
From: Your Secret Santa
Fandom: EXO
Title: 天使的眼泪 [Tiānshǐ de yǎnlèi] [Tears of an Angel]
Rating: PG-13
Pairing(s)/Focus: Suho/Chen
Length: 1,830 words
Summary: Jongdae’s always two steps from death, but Suho's the one that needs saving
Warnings: none
Notes: guardian angel!AU, I’m not fantastic with Norse mythology so I might be wrong about a few things
The distant echoes of people screaming and a sharp screech of squealing tires is the last thing that he remembers.
The fog from the bay had been very thick that morning, making visibility highly questionable at best. He had been distracted by his phone; he'd just gotten the newest device last week and was still attempting to figure out how the fully-Chinese interface worked. He hadn't realized the crosswalk light was green until he looked up and noticed the other pedestrians were already almost all the way across. He started to cross at a jog, but was distracted by a new beeping sound from his phone as soon as he stepped off the curb. His fingers flew across the keys at an astonishing rate but his steps began to slow significantly. Soon, he was nearly standing still in the middle of the street as the lights changed. An old diesel semi truck roared to life as it gunned out of the intersection, broken headlights not showing the boy right in front of him until it was far too late.
The boy turns to look at the sudden noise and sees the dark, behemoth shape come lumbering out of the endless expanse of white, phone slipping from his grip as his body begins to stiffen on instinct. The driver smashes his first into the horn and slams on the brakes, attempting to swerve around the boy at a dangerous rate, nearly tipping the cargo container over from the force. The boy still stood in the middle of the road, shattered phone lying in a thousand pieces at his feet, eyes wide and owlish as he begged his fear-frozen body to run. The truck kept getting bigger while it inched closer and closer in some sort of morbidly terrifying slow-motion close-up, and he was crying as he screamed at himself in his head to run or duck or move or do something, and the other pedestrians had noticed the impending crash and started yelling at him to get out of the way and-
Suddenly he blinks and he's all the way across the eight-lane intersection, safely standing on the curb with his brand new phone clutched tightly in his hand. The lights turn with an audible click, and the semi truck pulls out from the crosswalk with no trouble, as if nothing had ever happened. A few people gathering around the crosswalk give him odd looks as he blinks rapidly and has a full-body shiver. Shaking his head, he files the memory away with all the others labeled 'strange day dreams that never actually happened and give me the creeps' and refused to think about it any longer. He shoves his phone in his pocket with jittery hands and races away from the intersection.
-
Suho buries his face in his hands and resists the very strong urge to let out a scream. This was the third instance he had needed to save Jongdae's life in the last month alone. First it from sharks while he was vacationing in Jeju, next it was from muggers while stumbling home almost blackout drunk, and now it was from getting run over by a truck while he wasn't paying attention. Suho supposed getting stuck with Jongdae was his own fault somehow. Maybe in a past life he'd been a serial killer or something and karma was punishing him by giving him the worst guardee in the whole of Korea. Suho had quite literally drawn the short straw when Jongdae's last guardian angel flat-out quit, leaving the spot to be filled by a free guardian angel.
Although Suho felt he deserved a little credit for managing not to tear all his hair out or quit by this point, it had been made very clear to him that this was his last chance. If he screwed up again, he would have his soul permanently washed. In between incarnations, souls had to serve as helpers for the different realms of afterlives, which coexisted peacefully just out of reach of each other. After two incarnations, of which you could only remember the last, you had the choice to live in the afterlife of your choosing and receive all the memories of your lives, or serve another time and get the chance to reincarnate again. How well you did your job had an effect on the circumstances you were born into. There was no way to know how happy you'd turn out, but the better of a job you did, the higher up on the picking list you were. The ones who did a bad job and ended up at the bottom of the list unfortunately ended up having the choice between a snail and a banana slug. Those who killed someone (accidentally or on purpose) or broke the rules too many times had their souls washed clean, essentially erasing everything about who they ever were and any chance of ever knowing about themselves, and were stuck in with the new souls to be born. It was harsh, but it was supposedly to help prevent any unnecessary evil in the world. How was anyone's guess.
Suho had never really fit in or been good at his job. Before this, he had been shifted around quite a lot between the realms. His last assignment had been to help polish the doors of Thor's hall Bilskirnir inside of Valhalla. That wouldn't seem so bad, but when one considered that it had five hundred and forty rooms, each with an enormous door that got constantly touched every minute of the day, the work never ended. Suho had made the mistake of letting one to many people out when a group of valkyries had come back out. That in itself wouldn't have been so bad, but the side door had been propped open to let some fresh air in, and the warrior had managed to wander out of Valhalla altogether. The valkyries had found him before he wandered any further into Asgard and any real damage could be done, but Oden was apparently not very happy when one of his eternal soldiers was allowed to escape. Suho has secretly glad to be out of there. The polishing was as boring as it could possibly get, and he was always freaked out by Geri and Freki when they wandered the halls, the two wolves were always chewing on something that Suho was quite certain he didn't want to know what it was.
Sighing again, he got up and began wandering through the crowds after Jongdae. If Suho managed to make it through this assignment, he only hopped he wouldn't end up as a banana slug.
-
"Are you okay?"
Jongdae jumped as he snapped out of his near-trance and looked up at his co-worker. "Oh, hey, Minseok" Jongdae said, avoiding the question completely.
"Mm-hm" Minseok gave him a knowing look. "What's with all the distraction lately? Did you meet anybody special?" He nudged Jongdae painfully in the ribs and laughed.
"Ow!" Jongdae glared at him as he laughed harder. "And for your information, yes I did."
Minseok sobered up so quickly it would've been funny if Jongdae wasn't still half-offended. "What! What's his name? What does he look like? Where does he work? Is he cute?"
"I just love how you automatically assume it's a guy," Jongdae said dryly.
"Oh please," Minseok attempted to elbow him again, but he quickly scooted backwards in his office chair. "If you're in any way, shape, or form straight, then I'm the flippin' Queen of England!"
"Keep it down would you?" Jongdae looked around the nearly empty row of cubicles, almost the entire company having headed home by now, Minseok rolling his eyes so hard you could almost hear it. "I've got a reputation to protect, believe it or not."
"Seriously, there is not one person in this entire company who thinks you're remotely straight. No straight man wears," Minseok waved his hands ridiculously at Jongdae's clothes, nearly smacking Jongdae's glasses off in the process. "that!" Jongdae snorted indignantly and placed his glasses on his desk, as far out of Minseok's reach as possible. "Now stop avoiding my questions! What's his name!"
Jongdae sighed in a dramatic, long-suffering way. "His name is Joonmyeon."
"Aaaaaannndd?" Minseok's left eyebrow almost disappeared into his hairline. "There has got to be more to it than that."
"Fine." Jongdae huffed out another sigh. "He's a little older than me, and he works at the university library," Minseok gave him a look. "And he's freaking adorable, okay? Happy?" Jongdae pouted much more than a grown man his age should.
Minseok squealed and clapped his hands excitedly, Jongdae slapping his hands over his ears in an attempt to save whatever was left of his eardrums.
"Do you mind!" Jongdae glared, but it was ignored. "You know you look like a retarded seal, right?"
"When are you going out with him? Please tell me you got a date with him!" Minseok looked decidedly desperate as he pulled Jongdae up by the front of his shirt. Jongdae really needed to invest some time into getting some saner friends.
"Yes! Geez…" Jongdae checked his shirt for rips as Minseok dropped him back into his chair.
"That's wonderful!" Minseok suddenly looked like a eight year old girl dreaming of her wedding. He looked so lost in his fantasy that stars were almost visible in his eyes. Said eyes suddenly snapped to Jongdae, a crazy glint shown in them as his smile turned ever so slightly evil looking. "We need to go shopping, stat!"
Jongdae shrieked as he was forcibly pulled from his chair and dragged out of the building by Minseok. The latter forcing Jongdae to tell him every last detail about Joonmyeon and their upcoming date on the taxi ride to the mall.
-
Suho leaned against the break room door as he watched Minseok quite literally drag a violently protesting Jongdae out of the seemingly endless maze of gray cubicles and into the elevator. He didn't bother following; Minseok would keep Jongdae out of harms way for the time being.
The angel sighed as he took the back stairs down and out of the high rise office building, aimlessly wandering around the park across the street. The major disadvantage of not being able to sleep was the boredom. Sure, you could play video games, or read a book, or talk to people; but when every game had been beaten, every book in the library had been read thrice, and talking to anyone was out of the question, what was an angel to do?
Fall hopelessly in love with your guardee, in Suho's case.
It was completely against every rule ever written, vastly tabooed by all involved, and entirely punishable by immediate soul washing. Suho found it ironic that the only city he’d ever fallen in love with someone in, as far as he remembered at least, sounded the same as the very thing his doomed existence depended on.