Garden of Bones
pg - 13 // sehun/chanyeol // ~1k w
-- wherein sehun, lay and chanyeol
got to assassin camp.
photo credit xsix @flickr
japanlove @tumblr
music bloodstream by stateless
the song doesn't particularly influence much
of the overall theme/mood of the fic. it was
just what i had on repeat when i was writing.
title was taken from the name of the band.
With one foot propped on the bench, the other on the ground, Sehoon brandishes one of the twelve daggers he made himself, proudly curved and likened to what Lay lovingly calls Aladdin's sword. One, because the bend of the dagger along the side and tip really does look like Aladdin's sword, and two, he loves Disney movies. Why Sehoon even bothers to create signature daggers for himself, Lay doesn't know. In the camp, they are armed with new equipment every year, brand new models of ammunition and weapons, most of which are probably illegal. Lay found out just a few years ago, when Sehoon began to craft his own weapons, that he was selling most of them online to his fans. He was still keeping up the ulzzang persona, while making sure every dagger he made seeped copper by the time camp was over. Oddly enough, this appeals to women. The whole idea of a man being beautiful and deadly and capable of strangling them in their sleep without hesitation while still devotedly staring into their eyes. Sehoon has all those vampire books to thank for that. Sehoon likes to say, "Online, you don't have to wait until after seven pm for the freaks to surface, I'll tell ya that."
Sehoon likes to show off. Bragging rights are justly his for all intents and purposes seeing as they've been doing this for seven years yet they're still in one piece. Sehoon could skip training and morning drills and still singlehandedly kill everyone in this camp in their sleep with a toothpick.
Lay rolls his eyes, positioned next to Sehoon's leg. He stretches his arms back and yawns.
As everyone is being summoned onto the common grounds, the landscape rid of flesh and crimson spilled from last year, Sehoon scans the crowd for new faces.
"Hyung," Sehoon flips his blade where the light hits it, the reflection blinding him for a second, but he'll be damned if he ever allows anyone to see such a simple fault deflect him. He covers the glitch by clearing his throat and propping an elbow over the knee of his hoisted leg, "you wanna take that one?"
Lay cants his head to the side as he follows the nod Sehoon gives. He is directed to the sight of an overweight, over-zit, overbite monstrosity in the process of trying to sit on the ground without falling into a ball and rolling off somewhere. He was just an easy target here as he was in a supermarket setting, ajhummas being his main competitors. "Sehoon, what's my one rule? If their face is too big for the milk carton, I fold."
"He's a sitting duck-- well, he's trying to sit…"
"I want a challenge, not an opportunity to carve a pumpkin."
Sehoon snickers that way that Lay finds obnoxious enough to shove his fist down the younger's throat and yank his larynx out.
The advisors are still discussing backstage, leaving newcomers and veterans to mingle on the court. Except of course for Sehoon and Lay, the pair of Elites. It is obvious that they are being talked about. Some of the few who were lucky enough to be in their team a year ago went around proudly stating how they slew casualties side by side, still blinded by the fact that they were probably going to be the casualties of this year.
"Look here." Lay cocks his head to the side, stare focused up front where Sehoon has to turn his head to the left.
The first thing he sees is hair. Lots of it. With a head stuck underneath, telescopic eyes popping from the base of a fringe so messy Sehoon could probably lose one of his daggers in there if he isn't careful. "Who brought Carrot Top?" Sehoon refers to the boy rocking back and forth on this heels the same way Sehoon would when he felt uncomfortable as a child, being thrust into an environment, considered but only with judgmental eyes. He stood at a distance, beneath the shade of the biggest tree planted at the center of the grounds. That tree watched more bloodshed than Sehoon's own knives. He remembers hanging corpse after corpse on the tree, piercing through cartilages and pounds of flesh just to show how much blood his own hand had drawn. Sehoon aims his glance at the branches, then at the boy directly below.
"Don't be too quick to judge. He's tall."
"Oh, he's tall?" Sehoon challenges with a pleased grin. He jabs the tip of his blade in the general direction of the potential target, "Like Choi Minho from last year? He was tall enough but he fit into those bags fine."
"We chopped him up."
"Or Shim Changmin. God, that guy was a screamer."
"He put up a good fight." Lay concedes as if speaking of a familial memory.
"I give that guy a day." Sehoon scoffs, twirling the handle of his blade around his hands like a pen.
"You underestimate people, you know that?" Lay sinks further down into his seat, head tilting to land on the frame of the bench. Lay could manage to get comfortable in the eye of a hurricane.
"By saying that he even lives through tonight, I'm already overestimating him." Sehoon reaches into Lay's pocket for a cigarette and a match, swiping the tip of the match over the dry, calloused pad of his thumb and sparking a flame ready for his cigarette. He waves the match around, killing the flame, puffing on his stick as he studies the boy from afar.
He's never seen or heard of this boy before. And not that he cares, but he needs to learn how to blend in more. Having hair fashioned to resemble bushes, coins for eyes, and a maong polo to match his maong pants is just insulting on Sehoon's part. Surely, he's heard of Sehoon, ulzzang sensation and knife thrower extraordinaire. And he still has the audacity to come out of the woodwork looking like a drop of lava forcing penetration on an iceberg.
Lay pries one eye open just in time to find Sehoon clipping the tip of his blade between two fingers of his right hand, moving it back and forth, one eye closed to lock his target.
"What are you doing?" Lay, who should be more panicked by the events that are about to unfold, asks with a dejected yawn.
"I'm doing this kid a favor."
"We haven't even chosen teams yet. The counselors could take you off Elite for that."
"I'm just gonna take a little bit off the top." Sehoon confirms, mumbling a string of don’t move, don’t move don’t move, right after.
"Sehoon--"
The blade thrusts into the air, a beeline with the speed of light piercing through the atmosphere in search of its target. Lay holds his breath, Sehoon bites his bottom lip, stepping off the bench and facing forward fully.
Just like clockwork, the kid catches the knife by the grip mid air, right before the blade even kisses the hair standing on his crown. He doesn't even flinch.
Even Lay has to push off his seat, stoic mask melting into one of contemplation. Sehoon does a better job of keeping his lips from the lilt threatening to spill through. He should be threatened, should want to think about doubling up the locks of his dorm. But really, all he sees is another minion for his team.
The kid observes the weapon in his hand, turning it about and tossing it from hand to hand to test its weight. He notices the crowd around him moving back, eyeing him like he has the plague. He takes note of the fear in their eyes, the warning in their stare as the look from him to somewhere in the distance.
With a questioning stare, he allows himself a quick glance of the field and sets his sights on Oh Sehoon peering back at him under a curved hand hiding his eyes from the light. He studies the knife in his hands and makes the connection between the craftsmanship and its owner. The fact that Sehoon's name is also carved into one of the planes of the blade leaves less room for confusion.
Sehoon intends to smile innocently, but the kid, with his unencumbered mind, can't seem to picture it without a curtsy. "You can never have enough ammo here."
Seconds pass and all the kid does is blink at him from the distance. With irises that wide, he could probably see through Sehoon's skin. Sehoon finds that he doesn't trust that no matter how harmless the kid seems.
"This kid understands Korean, right?" He asks Lay without waiting for an answer. "Hi?" He tries in English, one of the few words he considers to be enough for a road trip around America.
"Is he loose in the head? Why is he just staring at me?" Sehoon wonders out loud, choosing to shrug off the kid's stare and go back to Lay.
"Sehoon, have you any idea how weak you just made us seem?"
"How'd you figure that?"
"Because he caught a dagger mid flight. Even you can't do that."
"It's a fucking party trick, man. Child's play. I once claimed a guy's heart on these very grounds. He was twice my size and he could break five hollow blocks stacked together. Now, you want me to worry about how I look to a guy who can catch daggers? What should I be worried about next? Football players, dart throwers, my aunt? Well, actually my aunt can be one scary son of a bitch when she wants to be."
"Strength is futile without precision and skill. His mind was built the same way those blocks were."
Lay's voice is beginning to drag on his words, talking distractedly. But before Sehoon can tell Lay to look him in the eye when he speaks, the dagger he parted with a minute ago comes flying back to him, taking his cigarette to ineffectually cushion the blow of its landing on the frame of the bench, merely inches away from Lay's outstretched rib cage.
Sehoon unplugs the blade carefully after seconds of just staring at it, shakes off the dead cigarette, turns it over in his hand and finds Park Chanyeol written unevenly over the opposite face of his name. Sehoon tugs at the hem of his shirt and tries to wipe away the name to no avail.
Permanent marker. Simple, but effective.
It only registers on Sehoon then how most of the people on the grounds are gasping and staring at them now. How they're making bets from behind their backs, how they're talking about this year being more exciting than the last. Like they would ever be able to enjoy whatever money they make out of this by the time Sehoon is through with them. Idiots.
Then Sehoon's eyes land on the kid, his face now contorted into a peculiar smile that doesn't go well with his eyes at all. It just looks like every level of wrong that exists, his smile. Like staring down a wood chipper, or a doll laced with poison.
"Motherfucker ruined my blade."
*masterficlist | tumblr | twitter | comment here to be added
-- first attempt at exo fic. chanyeol's eyes
were on my mind for the entirety of writing
this fic. i'm scared now. O__O
-- wherein sehun, lay and chanyeol
got to assassin camp.
photo credit xsix @flickr
japanlove @tumblr
music bloodstream by stateless
the song doesn't particularly influence much
of the overall theme/mood of the fic. it was
just what i had on repeat when i was writing.
title was taken from the name of the band.
With one foot propped on the bench, the other on the ground, Sehoon brandishes one of the twelve daggers he made himself, proudly curved and likened to what Lay lovingly calls Aladdin's sword. One, because the bend of the dagger along the side and tip really does look like Aladdin's sword, and two, he loves Disney movies. Why Sehoon even bothers to create signature daggers for himself, Lay doesn't know. In the camp, they are armed with new equipment every year, brand new models of ammunition and weapons, most of which are probably illegal. Lay found out just a few years ago, when Sehoon began to craft his own weapons, that he was selling most of them online to his fans. He was still keeping up the ulzzang persona, while making sure every dagger he made seeped copper by the time camp was over. Oddly enough, this appeals to women. The whole idea of a man being beautiful and deadly and capable of strangling them in their sleep without hesitation while still devotedly staring into their eyes. Sehoon has all those vampire books to thank for that. Sehoon likes to say, "Online, you don't have to wait until after seven pm for the freaks to surface, I'll tell ya that."
Sehoon likes to show off. Bragging rights are justly his for all intents and purposes seeing as they've been doing this for seven years yet they're still in one piece. Sehoon could skip training and morning drills and still singlehandedly kill everyone in this camp in their sleep with a toothpick.
Lay rolls his eyes, positioned next to Sehoon's leg. He stretches his arms back and yawns.
As everyone is being summoned onto the common grounds, the landscape rid of flesh and crimson spilled from last year, Sehoon scans the crowd for new faces.
"Hyung," Sehoon flips his blade where the light hits it, the reflection blinding him for a second, but he'll be damned if he ever allows anyone to see such a simple fault deflect him. He covers the glitch by clearing his throat and propping an elbow over the knee of his hoisted leg, "you wanna take that one?"
Lay cants his head to the side as he follows the nod Sehoon gives. He is directed to the sight of an overweight, over-zit, overbite monstrosity in the process of trying to sit on the ground without falling into a ball and rolling off somewhere. He was just an easy target here as he was in a supermarket setting, ajhummas being his main competitors. "Sehoon, what's my one rule? If their face is too big for the milk carton, I fold."
"He's a sitting duck-- well, he's trying to sit…"
"I want a challenge, not an opportunity to carve a pumpkin."
Sehoon snickers that way that Lay finds obnoxious enough to shove his fist down the younger's throat and yank his larynx out.
The advisors are still discussing backstage, leaving newcomers and veterans to mingle on the court. Except of course for Sehoon and Lay, the pair of Elites. It is obvious that they are being talked about. Some of the few who were lucky enough to be in their team a year ago went around proudly stating how they slew casualties side by side, still blinded by the fact that they were probably going to be the casualties of this year.
"Look here." Lay cocks his head to the side, stare focused up front where Sehoon has to turn his head to the left.
The first thing he sees is hair. Lots of it. With a head stuck underneath, telescopic eyes popping from the base of a fringe so messy Sehoon could probably lose one of his daggers in there if he isn't careful. "Who brought Carrot Top?" Sehoon refers to the boy rocking back and forth on this heels the same way Sehoon would when he felt uncomfortable as a child, being thrust into an environment, considered but only with judgmental eyes. He stood at a distance, beneath the shade of the biggest tree planted at the center of the grounds. That tree watched more bloodshed than Sehoon's own knives. He remembers hanging corpse after corpse on the tree, piercing through cartilages and pounds of flesh just to show how much blood his own hand had drawn. Sehoon aims his glance at the branches, then at the boy directly below.
"Don't be too quick to judge. He's tall."
"Oh, he's tall?" Sehoon challenges with a pleased grin. He jabs the tip of his blade in the general direction of the potential target, "Like Choi Minho from last year? He was tall enough but he fit into those bags fine."
"We chopped him up."
"Or Shim Changmin. God, that guy was a screamer."
"He put up a good fight." Lay concedes as if speaking of a familial memory.
"I give that guy a day." Sehoon scoffs, twirling the handle of his blade around his hands like a pen.
"You underestimate people, you know that?" Lay sinks further down into his seat, head tilting to land on the frame of the bench. Lay could manage to get comfortable in the eye of a hurricane.
"By saying that he even lives through tonight, I'm already overestimating him." Sehoon reaches into Lay's pocket for a cigarette and a match, swiping the tip of the match over the dry, calloused pad of his thumb and sparking a flame ready for his cigarette. He waves the match around, killing the flame, puffing on his stick as he studies the boy from afar.
He's never seen or heard of this boy before. And not that he cares, but he needs to learn how to blend in more. Having hair fashioned to resemble bushes, coins for eyes, and a maong polo to match his maong pants is just insulting on Sehoon's part. Surely, he's heard of Sehoon, ulzzang sensation and knife thrower extraordinaire. And he still has the audacity to come out of the woodwork looking like a drop of lava forcing penetration on an iceberg.
Lay pries one eye open just in time to find Sehoon clipping the tip of his blade between two fingers of his right hand, moving it back and forth, one eye closed to lock his target.
"What are you doing?" Lay, who should be more panicked by the events that are about to unfold, asks with a dejected yawn.
"I'm doing this kid a favor."
"We haven't even chosen teams yet. The counselors could take you off Elite for that."
"I'm just gonna take a little bit off the top." Sehoon confirms, mumbling a string of don’t move, don’t move don’t move, right after.
"Sehoon--"
The blade thrusts into the air, a beeline with the speed of light piercing through the atmosphere in search of its target. Lay holds his breath, Sehoon bites his bottom lip, stepping off the bench and facing forward fully.
Just like clockwork, the kid catches the knife by the grip mid air, right before the blade even kisses the hair standing on his crown. He doesn't even flinch.
Even Lay has to push off his seat, stoic mask melting into one of contemplation. Sehoon does a better job of keeping his lips from the lilt threatening to spill through. He should be threatened, should want to think about doubling up the locks of his dorm. But really, all he sees is another minion for his team.
The kid observes the weapon in his hand, turning it about and tossing it from hand to hand to test its weight. He notices the crowd around him moving back, eyeing him like he has the plague. He takes note of the fear in their eyes, the warning in their stare as the look from him to somewhere in the distance.
With a questioning stare, he allows himself a quick glance of the field and sets his sights on Oh Sehoon peering back at him under a curved hand hiding his eyes from the light. He studies the knife in his hands and makes the connection between the craftsmanship and its owner. The fact that Sehoon's name is also carved into one of the planes of the blade leaves less room for confusion.
Sehoon intends to smile innocently, but the kid, with his unencumbered mind, can't seem to picture it without a curtsy. "You can never have enough ammo here."
Seconds pass and all the kid does is blink at him from the distance. With irises that wide, he could probably see through Sehoon's skin. Sehoon finds that he doesn't trust that no matter how harmless the kid seems.
"This kid understands Korean, right?" He asks Lay without waiting for an answer. "Hi?" He tries in English, one of the few words he considers to be enough for a road trip around America.
"Is he loose in the head? Why is he just staring at me?" Sehoon wonders out loud, choosing to shrug off the kid's stare and go back to Lay.
"Sehoon, have you any idea how weak you just made us seem?"
"How'd you figure that?"
"Because he caught a dagger mid flight. Even you can't do that."
"It's a fucking party trick, man. Child's play. I once claimed a guy's heart on these very grounds. He was twice my size and he could break five hollow blocks stacked together. Now, you want me to worry about how I look to a guy who can catch daggers? What should I be worried about next? Football players, dart throwers, my aunt? Well, actually my aunt can be one scary son of a bitch when she wants to be."
"Strength is futile without precision and skill. His mind was built the same way those blocks were."
Lay's voice is beginning to drag on his words, talking distractedly. But before Sehoon can tell Lay to look him in the eye when he speaks, the dagger he parted with a minute ago comes flying back to him, taking his cigarette to ineffectually cushion the blow of its landing on the frame of the bench, merely inches away from Lay's outstretched rib cage.
Sehoon unplugs the blade carefully after seconds of just staring at it, shakes off the dead cigarette, turns it over in his hand and finds Park Chanyeol written unevenly over the opposite face of his name. Sehoon tugs at the hem of his shirt and tries to wipe away the name to no avail.
Permanent marker. Simple, but effective.
It only registers on Sehoon then how most of the people on the grounds are gasping and staring at them now. How they're making bets from behind their backs, how they're talking about this year being more exciting than the last. Like they would ever be able to enjoy whatever money they make out of this by the time Sehoon is through with them. Idiots.
Then Sehoon's eyes land on the kid, his face now contorted into a peculiar smile that doesn't go well with his eyes at all. It just looks like every level of wrong that exists, his smile. Like staring down a wood chipper, or a doll laced with poison.
"Motherfucker ruined my blade."
*masterficlist | tumblr | twitter | comment here to be added
-- first attempt at exo fic. chanyeol's eyes
were on my mind for the entirety of writing
this fic. i'm scared now. O__O