once you’ve got that beat, come and find me, for aprilclash
Title: once you’ve got that beat, come and find me
For: aprilclash
Word count: 2,276
Rating: G
Summary: Kris returns home to Guangzhou for the first time in ten years. Much has changed, including his Pack. wolf!au
The first breath out of the recycled air of the airplane and on the jetway is thick, almost palpable in its choking heat. He can taste the very grit of the city itself, dust and iron and age, coating his tongue with every inhale and step further into the jetway.
Guangzhou is a homecoming.
It’s been at least ten years since Kris has stepped foot in this city, but the air still tastes the same, still cuts through with the same heaviness that seeps into his skin. His legs feel heavier, sturdier, on the hard-packed soil and concrete overlay, and that restless thrum in his bones settles finally, at peace. The swirling mix of English, Mandarin and Cantonese fly around him as he walks through the gates and into the baggage claim area for his luggage, cocooning him in a welcoming kiss.
Toronto’s not really that different. It has its own Chinatown there, a giant conclave of Chinese-Canadians and immigrants whose lingua franca is still the mother tongue that raised him from his first steps as a baby, but here in the bustle and almost frantic pace of Guangzhouren moving about, Toronto falls pathetically short. His body sinks into the atmosphere here, melds into the space, and locks with the very molecules. His senses, his awareness, that keening inside him for Pack-everything’s multiplied; it feels like somebody finally lifted that suffocating lightless cloth over him and set him free.
But, it’s only natural: this is home, after all.
-
The only warning he gets is a sudden inhale of orange blossoms a few feet from the automated doors of the exit, but it clicks almost instantaneously in his mind.
Mom.
He doesn’t hurry his steps, walks measuredly through the doors, not a hair out of place from his neat coiff, but the large hand almost crushing the plastic handle of his luggage case gives his anxiety away. He’s never quite been able to master the ability to hide all his emotions, even after all this time, but when it comes to his mother? Kris might still very well be a wet-behind-the-ears infant in her presence.
The sun beats down glaringly bright on his back, and he adjusts his collar minutely under the intensity of the sun and the forgotten humidity. Guangzhou is a wet heat, something Kris’d thought affectionately of back when he’d been trapped in the frozen tundras of the recent Ice Age hitting the Eastern Seaboard and Canada, but now as he starts to feel the beginnings of sweat oozing out his pores and sticking to his starch-stiff button-down, he can only slap his past self for ever forgetting the true murder of humid weather. He’s grown too used to the milder climature of the Western continents; his ten-year-old self would be scoffing at him right now with disgust.
“Yifan, you’ve come back,” he hears over the roar of stalled cab engines and people eager to leave the airport to return home, and all thoughts of the heat flee his mind. He pinpoints the quiet voice, an unforgettable tenor, strong and clear and unmarred by the passage of time, and his head follows, eyes searching until he sees his mother across the pedestrian crossing, smiling gently in a summer dress, standing by her old rickety car.
The tones are a little creaky in his mouth, rusted with disuse, but they flow out of him with conviction. “I’m home,” he says levelly, lips stretching in a wide smile, almost lost in the noise of the beeping vehicles around him, but he knows his mother hears him by the gleam of her teeth and the hand on her heart.
-
He doesn’t quite barrel his mother over in his haste to greet her and breathe in the smell of home, but only because his mother gets there first, crushing him in her sturdy embrace and nosing him behind the ears. Her hand brushes down his back and scrapes through his styled hair unforgivingly, but his mother has never been one for beating around the bush. Scenting is straightforward business in the Wu pack.
She lets go after a few more seconds, pulling back with strong approval on her face. “You’ve grown more patient, Yifan. Used to be, you’d squirm out of my grasp after just five seconds, but look at you now. My son, the little docile lamb,” she says teasingly, ironically stepping on her tiptoes to ruffle at Kris’ hair. He bends his head obligingly for easier access, and she beams at him.
“I’ve missed you,” is all he says-all he can say without getting choked up. Her expression softens, and she draws him in again, hugging him gently. She pulls away after a little, knuckles at the underside of her nostrils, and claps her hands briskly.
“Now, let’s get us home. Kyungsoo’s prepared a huge feast for us.”
-
Pack is, often times, synonymous with family. You eat with Pack, you learn with Pack, you live with Pack. But they’re not human. That’s what separates family from Pack. There’s an instinctive bond among Pack members that supersedes any sort of familial bond present in a regular human family; it makes them that much stronger.
Kris thinks about this now as he steps out of the parked car, staring at the incoming flood of Pack members running toward him. The threads of connection that had laid dormant in his years overseas pulled one by one as his mother drove him closer and closer to their home grounds, singing with life as each one of his Pack members returned that pull and a heart full of joy at his return.
(You can leave the pack, but you don’t really leave the Pack.)
Zitao reaches him first, narrowly beating out Sehun and Chanyeol, and slams into him, arms wrapping around his torso and face full of tears.
“Geeeeeee,” he wails, and Kris winces but returns the embrace, hugging him warmly.
“You’ve certainly grown since the last time I saw you,” Kris says, amused, noting the few inches of height difference between them. Zitao had been a munchkin at age ten, reaching only half of Kris’ waist; puberty gifted him with miles of height, closing the gap between the adoptive older brother that he’d adored so much and his own determined self.
“Okay, okay, stop hogging him, Tao, come on,” Sehun whines, hovering behind him anxiously. He’s also shot up, but he’d always been a lanky beanstalk even as a kid. Kris isn’t as surprised. “Taooo, let me hug hyung too!”
The slip of Korean has Kris raising an eyebrow at Sehun and then looking questioningly at his mother, who only smiles cryptically and shrugs. Chanyeol, who hovers a little off to the side, catches the look and grins.
“You’re not the only one who’s been doing some soul-searching, hyung,” he says cheekily, also in Korean. Kris blinks in surprise. “Ten years has been a long time for us all.”
“I’ll say,” he replies in equally rusty Korean, smiling when Chanyeol perks up with delight. He turns back to Zitao, who’s still buried in his arms and rubbing his cheek over his clothes, doing his best to mark his territory. “Taozi, don’t you think you should let the rest of our pack get a chance to say hello too?”
Zitao pulls away with a pout, but relents, letting Sehun and Chanyeol take his place. They crowd in on Kris, elbowing each other to get a good spot, and scent him as well, rubbing over Zitao’s spots, and Kris just laughs, hugging them both.
“We’ve all missed you a lot, as you can see by these munchkins trying to squeeze the life out of you,” Lu Han says, as he and Jongdae casually meander over, hands in his pockets. The genuine grin of joy softens the sarcastic tone he uses, and Kris smiles back in kind at the two of them. “No decorum, these betas.”
Jongdae elbows him with a snort. “Shut up, you’re more munchkin than any of them. Besides, I specifically remembered you jumping out of your seat during lunch and shouting to us all that Yifan-hyung was back when you felt him enter back into the Pack lines. Don’t front, man.”
Lu Han blushes a little and lightly kicks him in the shin. “Whatever. I’m not the one who started aggressively washing the dishes to shake off excess energy before Yifan arrived.”
“Tch, lame comeback, still better than your spectacle,” Jongdae says with an eyeroll at Lu Han and a wink at Kris. By this point, Sehun and Chanyeol have already pulled away, and Lu Han and Jongdae each go up to Kris for their own individual welcoming hug. Kris squeezes them both, inhaling the scent of his pack members and reforging old memories with new sensory information.
“Speaking of spectacles,” Lu Han says slyly when he steps away, looking around, “where is Yixing, anyway? You would think he’d be the first one to greet Yifan and all.” He catches sight of a head and shouts, startling Kris. “Oi, Xing! Yixing, get your butt over here and greet your favorite ge!”
Kris is laughing when he catches sight of the boy making his way over, and almost chokes in surprise. He’d been expecting a lanky, boisterous boy loudly proclaiming his presence and swaggering towards them, not this mild-mannered young man making his way over.
Lu Han doesn’t miss his surprise. “Looks different, doesn’t he? When was the last time you saw Yixing, like when he was twelve?”
“Barely,” Kris whispers, eyes stuck on Yixing’s dimpled smile and his shy head tilt. Twelve-year-old Zhang Yixing had been obnoxious and a gigantic brat, constantly following Kris around and pulling the most inconvenient pranks on him whenever he tried to bring a girl home from school and look cool in front of her, laughing and pointing when Kris got mad. (On full moons, he’d stick to Kris like a burr and nip at his tail when they went hunting and jump on him when Kris would try to be quiet to lull his prey into false security, basically being the big shit that he was as a human but ten times worse in wolf form.)
This Yixing, however, is already lightyears away from the faded memory of Kris’ bratty Yixing, with his pitch black curls framing his face and his eyes creased softly. He holds himself demurely, a complete 180 from the posturing snot of his youth, hand lightly grasping at his arm in front of him, and Kris is so utterly charmed.
“It’s been a while, ge,” Yixing says shyly, tightly holding onto himself. Kris doesn’t reply, too taken aback, until Lu Han nudges him with an amused raise of his eyebrow.
“Oh! Yeah, yeah, it’s...it’s been a while,” Kris says back lamely, grasping for words to say. He laughs at himself, embarrassed, and runs a hand through his hair, already at peace with its unruliness. “You-you’ve grown, Yixing.”
Yixing lets out a snort of laughter and hurriedly covers it with a proprietary hand. “It’s been ten years, ge, of course I’ve grown,” he says between muffled giggles.
Jongdae stares at them both with a faint disbelieving grin. “This is almost as painful as one of Taozi’s soaps. And I’ve sat through quite a few.” Lu Han nods somberly in agreement, rolling his eyes when Kris glares at him.
“Just hug and get it over with, god,” Lu Han complains, flapping his hand at them both, and Kris scowls at him before turning back to Yixing, who’s still giggling.
“Sorry. You don’t have to hug me if you don’t want to,” Kris says sheepishly, feeling at odds with himself because he strangely wants that hug. Yixing stops laughing and looks at him patronizingly.
“Ge, really. Come here,” he says imperiously, stretching his arms out, and Kris snorts but follows obligingly. He’s a littled gratified to know that Yixing hasn’t changed so much; the demanding makes everything feel familiar again.
The spark of contact, on the other hand.
He feels warm, so incredibly warm-not from the sticky humidity of the weather, but from Yixing’s touch itself. It’s like a fire’s been lit in him, gone ablaze, and he doesn’t miss the flare in Yixing’s eyes when he pulls away quickly, the shimmer of deep blue that sink back into nut brown. He’d felt it too.
Kris clears his throat, attempts to resettle himself, but Yixing escapes first, smiling quickly and excusing himself to go back inside. He stares after, body still crawling under his skin, and almost jumps out of his hide when Lu Han whistles low and sudden.
“Damn. Looks like you’ve got a partner for this year’s Run,” he says, entertained. “Fanfan’s ten-year-long dry spell’s finally come to an end.” He wipes away a mock tear.
“Yeah, who would’ve thought it’d be Yixing, the kid I specifically recall you said would ‘never be your style,’” joins in Jongdae, grinning teasingly. “Remember when you basically refused to give him the time of day?”
Kris growls at them both and shoulders past them, leaving behind their mocking laughter. His mother, having gone inside a while ago, comes back out the door as he approaches, smiling knowingly at him.
“You heard,” he says, resigned. She nods, and hides a laugh behind her hand.
“I believe we’re going to have an excellent Run this year,” she says, and steps aside for him to enter.
-
END
Note: I didn’t get a chance to explore this in greater depth beyond just a casual mention, given my time constraints, but the aforementioned Run in this verse is a biennial run (hah hah) for werewolf communities to participate in. It’s essentially a mating run, for wolves to pick and choose mates-though in this verse, mates are not predetermined nor are they mandatory to settle down with-and basically just have fun wild sex for the duration of the night-long event.
For: aprilclash
Word count: 2,276
Rating: G
Summary: Kris returns home to Guangzhou for the first time in ten years. Much has changed, including his Pack. wolf!au
The first breath out of the recycled air of the airplane and on the jetway is thick, almost palpable in its choking heat. He can taste the very grit of the city itself, dust and iron and age, coating his tongue with every inhale and step further into the jetway.
Guangzhou is a homecoming.
It’s been at least ten years since Kris has stepped foot in this city, but the air still tastes the same, still cuts through with the same heaviness that seeps into his skin. His legs feel heavier, sturdier, on the hard-packed soil and concrete overlay, and that restless thrum in his bones settles finally, at peace. The swirling mix of English, Mandarin and Cantonese fly around him as he walks through the gates and into the baggage claim area for his luggage, cocooning him in a welcoming kiss.
Toronto’s not really that different. It has its own Chinatown there, a giant conclave of Chinese-Canadians and immigrants whose lingua franca is still the mother tongue that raised him from his first steps as a baby, but here in the bustle and almost frantic pace of Guangzhouren moving about, Toronto falls pathetically short. His body sinks into the atmosphere here, melds into the space, and locks with the very molecules. His senses, his awareness, that keening inside him for Pack-everything’s multiplied; it feels like somebody finally lifted that suffocating lightless cloth over him and set him free.
But, it’s only natural: this is home, after all.
-
The only warning he gets is a sudden inhale of orange blossoms a few feet from the automated doors of the exit, but it clicks almost instantaneously in his mind.
Mom.
He doesn’t hurry his steps, walks measuredly through the doors, not a hair out of place from his neat coiff, but the large hand almost crushing the plastic handle of his luggage case gives his anxiety away. He’s never quite been able to master the ability to hide all his emotions, even after all this time, but when it comes to his mother? Kris might still very well be a wet-behind-the-ears infant in her presence.
The sun beats down glaringly bright on his back, and he adjusts his collar minutely under the intensity of the sun and the forgotten humidity. Guangzhou is a wet heat, something Kris’d thought affectionately of back when he’d been trapped in the frozen tundras of the recent Ice Age hitting the Eastern Seaboard and Canada, but now as he starts to feel the beginnings of sweat oozing out his pores and sticking to his starch-stiff button-down, he can only slap his past self for ever forgetting the true murder of humid weather. He’s grown too used to the milder climature of the Western continents; his ten-year-old self would be scoffing at him right now with disgust.
“Yifan, you’ve come back,” he hears over the roar of stalled cab engines and people eager to leave the airport to return home, and all thoughts of the heat flee his mind. He pinpoints the quiet voice, an unforgettable tenor, strong and clear and unmarred by the passage of time, and his head follows, eyes searching until he sees his mother across the pedestrian crossing, smiling gently in a summer dress, standing by her old rickety car.
The tones are a little creaky in his mouth, rusted with disuse, but they flow out of him with conviction. “I’m home,” he says levelly, lips stretching in a wide smile, almost lost in the noise of the beeping vehicles around him, but he knows his mother hears him by the gleam of her teeth and the hand on her heart.
-
He doesn’t quite barrel his mother over in his haste to greet her and breathe in the smell of home, but only because his mother gets there first, crushing him in her sturdy embrace and nosing him behind the ears. Her hand brushes down his back and scrapes through his styled hair unforgivingly, but his mother has never been one for beating around the bush. Scenting is straightforward business in the Wu pack.
She lets go after a few more seconds, pulling back with strong approval on her face. “You’ve grown more patient, Yifan. Used to be, you’d squirm out of my grasp after just five seconds, but look at you now. My son, the little docile lamb,” she says teasingly, ironically stepping on her tiptoes to ruffle at Kris’ hair. He bends his head obligingly for easier access, and she beams at him.
“I’ve missed you,” is all he says-all he can say without getting choked up. Her expression softens, and she draws him in again, hugging him gently. She pulls away after a little, knuckles at the underside of her nostrils, and claps her hands briskly.
“Now, let’s get us home. Kyungsoo’s prepared a huge feast for us.”
-
Pack is, often times, synonymous with family. You eat with Pack, you learn with Pack, you live with Pack. But they’re not human. That’s what separates family from Pack. There’s an instinctive bond among Pack members that supersedes any sort of familial bond present in a regular human family; it makes them that much stronger.
Kris thinks about this now as he steps out of the parked car, staring at the incoming flood of Pack members running toward him. The threads of connection that had laid dormant in his years overseas pulled one by one as his mother drove him closer and closer to their home grounds, singing with life as each one of his Pack members returned that pull and a heart full of joy at his return.
(You can leave the pack, but you don’t really leave the Pack.)
Zitao reaches him first, narrowly beating out Sehun and Chanyeol, and slams into him, arms wrapping around his torso and face full of tears.
“Geeeeeee,” he wails, and Kris winces but returns the embrace, hugging him warmly.
“You’ve certainly grown since the last time I saw you,” Kris says, amused, noting the few inches of height difference between them. Zitao had been a munchkin at age ten, reaching only half of Kris’ waist; puberty gifted him with miles of height, closing the gap between the adoptive older brother that he’d adored so much and his own determined self.
“Okay, okay, stop hogging him, Tao, come on,” Sehun whines, hovering behind him anxiously. He’s also shot up, but he’d always been a lanky beanstalk even as a kid. Kris isn’t as surprised. “Taooo, let me hug hyung too!”
The slip of Korean has Kris raising an eyebrow at Sehun and then looking questioningly at his mother, who only smiles cryptically and shrugs. Chanyeol, who hovers a little off to the side, catches the look and grins.
“You’re not the only one who’s been doing some soul-searching, hyung,” he says cheekily, also in Korean. Kris blinks in surprise. “Ten years has been a long time for us all.”
“I’ll say,” he replies in equally rusty Korean, smiling when Chanyeol perks up with delight. He turns back to Zitao, who’s still buried in his arms and rubbing his cheek over his clothes, doing his best to mark his territory. “Taozi, don’t you think you should let the rest of our pack get a chance to say hello too?”
Zitao pulls away with a pout, but relents, letting Sehun and Chanyeol take his place. They crowd in on Kris, elbowing each other to get a good spot, and scent him as well, rubbing over Zitao’s spots, and Kris just laughs, hugging them both.
“We’ve all missed you a lot, as you can see by these munchkins trying to squeeze the life out of you,” Lu Han says, as he and Jongdae casually meander over, hands in his pockets. The genuine grin of joy softens the sarcastic tone he uses, and Kris smiles back in kind at the two of them. “No decorum, these betas.”
Jongdae elbows him with a snort. “Shut up, you’re more munchkin than any of them. Besides, I specifically remembered you jumping out of your seat during lunch and shouting to us all that Yifan-hyung was back when you felt him enter back into the Pack lines. Don’t front, man.”
Lu Han blushes a little and lightly kicks him in the shin. “Whatever. I’m not the one who started aggressively washing the dishes to shake off excess energy before Yifan arrived.”
“Tch, lame comeback, still better than your spectacle,” Jongdae says with an eyeroll at Lu Han and a wink at Kris. By this point, Sehun and Chanyeol have already pulled away, and Lu Han and Jongdae each go up to Kris for their own individual welcoming hug. Kris squeezes them both, inhaling the scent of his pack members and reforging old memories with new sensory information.
“Speaking of spectacles,” Lu Han says slyly when he steps away, looking around, “where is Yixing, anyway? You would think he’d be the first one to greet Yifan and all.” He catches sight of a head and shouts, startling Kris. “Oi, Xing! Yixing, get your butt over here and greet your favorite ge!”
Kris is laughing when he catches sight of the boy making his way over, and almost chokes in surprise. He’d been expecting a lanky, boisterous boy loudly proclaiming his presence and swaggering towards them, not this mild-mannered young man making his way over.
Lu Han doesn’t miss his surprise. “Looks different, doesn’t he? When was the last time you saw Yixing, like when he was twelve?”
“Barely,” Kris whispers, eyes stuck on Yixing’s dimpled smile and his shy head tilt. Twelve-year-old Zhang Yixing had been obnoxious and a gigantic brat, constantly following Kris around and pulling the most inconvenient pranks on him whenever he tried to bring a girl home from school and look cool in front of her, laughing and pointing when Kris got mad. (On full moons, he’d stick to Kris like a burr and nip at his tail when they went hunting and jump on him when Kris would try to be quiet to lull his prey into false security, basically being the big shit that he was as a human but ten times worse in wolf form.)
This Yixing, however, is already lightyears away from the faded memory of Kris’ bratty Yixing, with his pitch black curls framing his face and his eyes creased softly. He holds himself demurely, a complete 180 from the posturing snot of his youth, hand lightly grasping at his arm in front of him, and Kris is so utterly charmed.
“It’s been a while, ge,” Yixing says shyly, tightly holding onto himself. Kris doesn’t reply, too taken aback, until Lu Han nudges him with an amused raise of his eyebrow.
“Oh! Yeah, yeah, it’s...it’s been a while,” Kris says back lamely, grasping for words to say. He laughs at himself, embarrassed, and runs a hand through his hair, already at peace with its unruliness. “You-you’ve grown, Yixing.”
Yixing lets out a snort of laughter and hurriedly covers it with a proprietary hand. “It’s been ten years, ge, of course I’ve grown,” he says between muffled giggles.
Jongdae stares at them both with a faint disbelieving grin. “This is almost as painful as one of Taozi’s soaps. And I’ve sat through quite a few.” Lu Han nods somberly in agreement, rolling his eyes when Kris glares at him.
“Just hug and get it over with, god,” Lu Han complains, flapping his hand at them both, and Kris scowls at him before turning back to Yixing, who’s still giggling.
“Sorry. You don’t have to hug me if you don’t want to,” Kris says sheepishly, feeling at odds with himself because he strangely wants that hug. Yixing stops laughing and looks at him patronizingly.
“Ge, really. Come here,” he says imperiously, stretching his arms out, and Kris snorts but follows obligingly. He’s a littled gratified to know that Yixing hasn’t changed so much; the demanding makes everything feel familiar again.
The spark of contact, on the other hand.
He feels warm, so incredibly warm-not from the sticky humidity of the weather, but from Yixing’s touch itself. It’s like a fire’s been lit in him, gone ablaze, and he doesn’t miss the flare in Yixing’s eyes when he pulls away quickly, the shimmer of deep blue that sink back into nut brown. He’d felt it too.
Kris clears his throat, attempts to resettle himself, but Yixing escapes first, smiling quickly and excusing himself to go back inside. He stares after, body still crawling under his skin, and almost jumps out of his hide when Lu Han whistles low and sudden.
“Damn. Looks like you’ve got a partner for this year’s Run,” he says, entertained. “Fanfan’s ten-year-long dry spell’s finally come to an end.” He wipes away a mock tear.
“Yeah, who would’ve thought it’d be Yixing, the kid I specifically recall you said would ‘never be your style,’” joins in Jongdae, grinning teasingly. “Remember when you basically refused to give him the time of day?”
Kris growls at them both and shoulders past them, leaving behind their mocking laughter. His mother, having gone inside a while ago, comes back out the door as he approaches, smiling knowingly at him.
“You heard,” he says, resigned. She nods, and hides a laugh behind her hand.
“I believe we’re going to have an excellent Run this year,” she says, and steps aside for him to enter.
-
END
Note: I didn’t get a chance to explore this in greater depth beyond just a casual mention, given my time constraints, but the aforementioned Run in this verse is a biennial run (hah hah) for werewolf communities to participate in. It’s essentially a mating run, for wolves to pick and choose mates-though in this verse, mates are not predetermined nor are they mandatory to settle down with-and basically just have fun wild sex for the duration of the night-long event.