[fic] Sunshine Nation
Author ofolivesnginger
Fandom: EXO
Pairing: Luhan/Yixing, Kris/Chanyeol, some other weird flirtations
Rating: R
Words: 4353
Warnings: Graphic descriptions of vampy things
Summary: They get caught thrice from Alaska to Cali, but Chanyeol dismantles Kris' guns loaded. None of them do a great job. (Vampires!AU)
a/n: lmao. this has no plot. also i'm extremely unfunny but vowel will always be the bigger joke. hbd loser. this fic is my revenge. i hope you figured out what i meant in your sleep last night. vamps purely to spite you. here you go taKE IT. posted for Valentine's!!!
After twenty something years Kris thinks he’s finally getting the hang of this life thing.
Partly because he’s been lucky lately. For example, last week he found a part time job to fill up his evenings with after just the first interview. There was also a New Year’s sale at a mall in Chinatown and he bought his mom a tablet for almost 40% off. Also he’d met this guy over the weekend who actually managed to make his leaden heart tremble so rawly under the thunder glare of crucified Jesus shielding his virgin mother from the waves of unabridged passion radiating like solar flares off this nervous man in the last pew of their local Baptist church. More spectacularly when Kris asked him on a date he said yes.
They’d walked out of the theatre half an hour ago and on the drive to their resto reservation Kris kept replaying the sound of Zhang Yixing’s laughter so much he could crystallize the shape of its frequency in his head. In that car with that brewing atmosphere he felt like he could have said anything and meant it. Now though, sitting down with the food in front of them, he probably can’t.
“Are you sure that’s cooked?” He asks, second time in five minutes. It’s just upsetting. He thinks he sees ice crystals, or the lighting’s really weird on the spices. Yixing’s knife cuts and it sounds like he’s sawing a brick. A red brick.
“Shouldn’t I be asking you?” Yixing sounds smug, “You said you had absolute confidence in this restaurant.”
Yeah, confidence in how well it cooked food, not how well it didn’t. He also had absolutely confidence in Yixing until he came and ordered his steak “Like warm, but raw”. The meat on that plate is near crying. Kris might be, too, from the discomfort of watching Yixing send squares of crying meat through his mouth, and lick the blood off his own lips.
His spaghetti slips through the prongs of his fork. Everyone has eccentricities, he argues with his meatballs. Plus, Yixing, Yixing is really damn cute.
Back in the apartment they make out. Kris is nearly knocked out from the steam. His eyes are black, head the program on a glitched TV screen. Zhang Yixing is Frenching his neck when he suddenly stops. “Oops, sorry.” Huh? he says, a snorting pig. “Must be ‘cause I got polished yesterday. Anyway I gotta go.”
Kris doesn’t understand why his lap is suddenly empty. He thinks Yixing pecks him on the cheek before he leaves though. He just sits on the couch trying to breathe. He smells the wound before he feels the wet of his stained collar. Then he gets with the program, except it’s over.
Jesus looked you in the fuckin eye and warned you, Wu Yifan, he tells himself as he looks at the punctures in the mirror. Jesus sang it in your ear. Incredible. Momma. I’m so screwed.
--
Yixing goes home at around 10 and finds Luhan squatting on a stool in front of the washroom mirror, sharpening his teeth.
“Did you dismantle my pencil sharpener again?” The ones with the handles, he’s talking about, the one that’s the least pain in the ass when it came to actual pencils. Yixing really wishes they could fit into the electric ones, but they’re too risky and might grind their teeth like crushed candycane. Yixing himself takes time to care for his teeth and uses a traditional knife, the way his grandpa used to sharpen each and every one of his school pencils back in China. Luhan doesn’t answer, just twists away at his little fangs, lips pulled away and opened mouth pooling spit. He looks like an old man picking his teeth in a restaurant. Anyway, Luhan’s sharpening because…?
“I was finishing a cat, but it wasn’t quick enough and cried out. Some kid might have seen me through the bush. He ran away too fast, I don’t know. I think he pissed himself.”
“Did he see you?”
“I hope not, I’ll suck him dry.” Luhan blows the dust off the blade.
“Not again.”
Luhan reaches across the sink, rattling plastic. “Beef jerky?” he hands over, and Yixing makes a face. Luhan stuffs a stick in his mouth and starts to suck on it like mad, trying to get anything out of what’s already dry as flavored sawdust. Yixing watches distastefully.
“Are you having one of those weeks again?”
Luhan was nicknamed Raisin Man after he jerkyfied this gang of guys he once hated back when they all chilled somewhere east. It’s not meant to deify him, but it kind of had that effect. Among the circles the news spread, and it was one of the hardest cases in decades for the league to deal with, because the bodies couldn’t be disposed in any way that left a hint of just how dry they were, so about four of them had to take the lot into a forest and burn it. The punks’ clothes caught on fire first but even their flesh blazed to ash in under 10 minutes. By that time Luhan had enough blood in him to feed a clan for three generations, and Yixing accidentally blurted while drunk one night that he popped a pimple on Luhan and. Since then Raisin Man has been a kind of urban legend.
Raisin Man looks up with a pink pout. “I need to suck something.” Yixing considers a pacifier, with how childish he looks, but he knows Luhan might be kind of scared right now. He doesn’t want to have to move again, neither of them do.
Luhan will probably get his thrill sucking later. If he dares use teeth Yixing will personally drain his blood and laminate him.
They’ve basically evolved with natural selection. Inbreeding wasn’t cool anymore one day and some bro toughed it out and married this sweetheart, who was a human, and rounds later here these hybrids are. 80% blood. Burdened. Domesticated. Unbelievably mortal. Garlic mayo enthusiasts, salad consumers, things like that.
There were tough months when they were on the run in the winter, when the hemolymph of pine beetles was the closest thing to blood within a 10 mile radius of their grumbling Jeep. Eventually their body fluids cycled as the sun and moon did, and they had to suck back and forth like some kind of sick snowballing game. One drove while the other in the back seats shrunk and writhed, and hacked out concoctions onto the snowed up asphalt, rejecting with the strength stolen from immobilized limbs the 20% poison laced with the red hot honey down their throats. Trails of retch on the road, learning how to shut off hearing, all the while their own bodies reproduced that poison tenfold as the other’s ran back up from the loose faucets of their throats.
Every evening they would park on the gravel, and depending on the odd or even day Luhan would cradle Yixing’s neck-who cooperated by pretending to sleep-then get out the car and hold back the vomit before climbing into the back seats and clutching his own arms. The day Luhan decided he was done holding his vomit he yelled until Yixing got them off 99, pulling up at a Burger King drive thru, and when Yixing paid Luhan scouted through the window. There were only two workers. He was dying to suck the freckled girl in the mic set but they couldn’t leave a trail, they drove across the whole fuckin country. Yixing yelled for the first time I will tie you to the chair, Luhan.
Luhan looked like he was either going to cry or die. Yixing ate his fries, but he followed the detour, and then took Luhan across a bridge somewhere to a fish reservoir. You have an hour, he told him, and don’t trip, the waterfall skins whole cows in half a minute. Luhan came back two hours later with a beaver by the tail. That was in Canada, from Alaska. Yixing wanted to head as far to the edge of the continent as possible, which meant Florida probably. Have you heard of Florida?, Luhan dropped his map. He could fudge their compass while it was his turn to drive and steer them to Cali. Yixing probably noticed, still wanted to head East Coast, but he gave up for a faster drive.
Drawing too much from the same spot scars, Luhan found out first, and Yixing swallowed the guilt, thumbing the holes on his neck idly from under his blanket in the passenger’s seat. Two little wells as wide as the tail end of a pin, skin healed in a ring around like the tips of little anthills. When the area began to swell and he couldn’t touch it anymore he’d wrapped his scarf around it. In the last week before their big break, when Yixing began to refuse to feed, Luhan slit his own wrist and forced it onto his mouth. Then Yixing took from his wrist, both elbows, until the day Luhan inched up his underwear and pushed him onto his pale leg, and Yixing sank his teeth into the centimetre wide femoral vein at the end of his thigh.
It was nearly 2 on night of their breakthrough, Yixing’s fingers were shaking on the wheel, and Luhan was letting himself wilt in his seat when he spotted a cross on the exit sign and yelled until they pulled off. A third of a mile later they broke into the Red Cross van like in the movies. Next day they were in sunny California.
California is 23 Celsius, even in February. Twenty three excuses Luhan for wearing sandals, but it doesn’t excuse him kicking them off when they’re sitting in a cafe. Am I that boring? Yixing just finished saying, watching Luhan tear the straw wrapper into a mess of bits, suck annoyingly from his empty drink. At least you’re more fun when you’re in bed, like last Valentine’s. His bare foot lifts furtively under the table, rests snugly between Yixing’s thighs. Yixing sucks a harsh breath through his nose.
No. More. Bathroom. Quickies. He’s talking about that time after morning rehearsals when Luhan gave him an eager blowjob in the washroom backstage. Apparently natural selection didn’t do their gag reflexes any favors. Come on my face, Luhan asked to recompense, and regretted it bad when he spent his two morning lectures trying to wipe the spunk out of his eyebrows.
Anyhow, Luhan doesn’t hear him. The heel of his foot rolls like a stone massage ball. Luhan’s leering at him, and Yixing eventually forgets about everything and closes his eyes. Maybe he could take them home, and they could ritualistically fuck until the last minute of Valentine’s is over. Maybe he can drive them to the beach and get Luhan to blow them in the middle of traffic. He’s just about decided when Luhan’s foot slows to a halt.
Fuck, no. What?
It’s him. The guy who saw me feed.
Yixing follows his finger-there’s a lanky kid in a snapback, looking around kind of disoriented. He carries his cup to the condiments table and stirs things into his coffee. Eyes wide and startled. Yixing turns back to ask if he’s sure, but Luhan’s already stuffing his toes back into his shoes. “Mom always told me to carry sleeping pills for a reason.”
“Are you nuts?”
Apparently. Yixing watches him speedwalk to the table, pretending to grab some sugar packets before accidentally knocking down a row of forks right next to an unlidded coffee. Luhan’s hand covers the crime, but Yixing knows he’d just slipped a pill through his palm.
I’m so sorry, he hears him say. You look awfully familiar, do I know you from somewhere?
The guy looks at him, and his eyes widen, but not from recognition. It’s appreciation. Yixing squints. Uhm, maybe? Maybe at a party? Yeah, maybe! Cool. What’s your name? Chanyeol. Chanyeol? Chanyeol what? Chanyeol Park. Seriously? I’m close with your roommate. Really? Yeah.
By then Luhan’s sat them down. He’s great at this, really. In about five minutes he’ll decide whether he’s a real threat or not, if he’s going to leave the kid here to doze until sundown or lure him out with something like Actually I borrowed your roommate’s CD, it’s in my car, and take him to Kyungsoo’s psychic shop for a good round of hypnosis and cleaning. Five minutes later, before he lures the kid, he signals Yixing with a hard gaze. I’ll be back, he’s promising. Ok, Yixing nods.
Luhan doesn’t come back though. Twenty minutes later when he’s about to leave he gets a text from a familiar number. It’s Kris Wu, proper grammar for once, thoroughly threatening.
Come to this warehouse
he attaches a Google maps link, for convenience.
We will wait for half an hour.
If you don’t show up...we have your little Va(mp)lentine
Yixing sits with his phone in his hand. He’s suddenly so enervated he can’t even move.
Weak.
So weak, Kris Wu.
--
It’s Tuesday noon when Kris gets a call from Home. He runs his way into the kitchen only to hear from his mom that apparently networks have reported a job nearby. Kris promises he’ll “look around”, even though he’s 90% sure now that he has the address saved in his contacts. There might be a pack, and he might not really need to kill Yixing if he just ends some cousin of his. He’s thinking this while mom gets mad over his word choice:
“Look around? Did your ancestors just look around? You know what would have happened if they just looked around?-”
He’s thinking he could find Yixing and maybe try to either convince him not to suck people or convince him to kiss a little gentler...either way, their relationship is most likely down the drain. At least he can save the trouble for the next.
“-you’re from the Wu family-”
Kris thinks maybe one day his parents will acknowledge the existence of vegetarians when they also learn to acknowledge imitation meat. He appeases her: Yes mom will stock up will stay safe will work hard, you too, bye bye. He hangs up and he thinks about Yixing though. About how his thin eyelids made it look like he could be struck to death any time if you weren’t careful. The wound on his neck is already gone, not even scabbed over, like it never existed.
Truth is that this time Chanyeol feels decided, with some authenticity. He even draws up a list from memory, which actually just says guns knives garlic, until he realizes there’s no way in hell he can handle this attractively on his own and reports back to home base about the sighting.
He’s got a new list in his hand now as he browses the hardware section. This list has materials enough for probably ten different ways of presidential assassinations and an all out torture chamber. He’s looking for a wrench, one of Satan’s gentler toys, but his sister had said something about dentists when she made him write it down and Chanyeol was pretty sure that he was not going to touch it afterwards.
Confession: Chanyeol has no clue what he’s doing.
He reaches for a model on the hook, but his hand accidentally knocks into another, and he looks up to quickly apologize.
And then he sees this guy. He’s got an arm full of an assortment of tools, adding more to a basket, and Chanyeol squints. A lot of what he’s taken Chanyeol also needs. He stares-the guy’s deciding between screwdrivers. In his basket he has a hoe, a pitchfork. Throwing knife set? Okay. Fireproof ropes. Heavy duty shears. Machete. Do they really sell machetes at Home Depot? Chanyeol doesn’t know. A sickle? Come on. “Sorry to bother, where did you find the lighter fluid?”
The guy looks up, and then points to some general direction in the store. “Thanks, man.” He bows a little, nervous, “Got a barbeque.”
It’s not until they bump into each other again in front of the plastic water guns that things start to get weird.
“You need kids pack water guns for a barbeque?” The guy’s thick brows are twisted, like licorice sticks.
“I have no idea what I’m doing,” Chanyeol whispers desperately.
“Well, I don’t know, but you won’t need cable ties, or garden cultivators...or steel trowels...or a chainsaw...”
He stops talking, like he’s stuck on a thought. Suddenly, he notices the little slip of paper in Chanyeol’s hand, pulls it out. Beside everything on the grocery list is a checkmark, except three things: whiskey, holy water, garlic.
“I can’t believe this.” He hides in his hands. He hides the ugliest laughter that’s ever threatened to rise in his hands. And then the Chanyeol reacts and suddenly it’s like they simultaneously realize they’ve met before, years ago as children.
“Are you Kris Wu? Are you really Kris Wu?”
“Oh God, I can’t believe this.”
Kris takes the kid back to his apartment. They haul up everything in Safeway totes, except the chainsaw, which is just a problem, until Chanyeol proves some sort of worth pulling out an empty guitar case from his own trunk.
“I haven’t done this in, shit, like five years?” And that’s what, 16? Kris counts in his head. “I was just always there for tradition, said the prayers and everything-”
“Your family said prayers for them?”
The Park family were the hippies of the gang. This much Kris does remember, and the fact that they had bucket loads of kids. The grandfather was the nutjob uncle of the original clan, his parents kinda established without details. Kris always had the sense he was better off staying away from them.
“Yeah, granddad had a friend turned? Really good friend. We were the rare folk who believed in the soul talk. Anyway, I never did anything, I was too much of an embarrassment, so I got kicked out, pretty much.”
Kris is incredulous, and if he’s honest, kind of jealous. “Let me just get something out of the way,” he mumbles down to his hands, flipping through the keys in his wallet. From beneath his bed he pulls out a slim case, props it open. They’re filed in their slots like instrument fragments, the weapons.
“I don’t want to do this, and I don’t want to do it with you. Nothing personal, I’m just way less excited than you are.” Chanyeol is excited, especially the moment when Kris passes him a Remington 870, and he accepts it with both hands. Kris watches Chanyeol’s fingers curl around the barrel, and he looks up with a stifling grin, a totally unwarranted admiration. It’s an exchange of trust, loyalty. Dependance. Chanyeol reminds him of his old puppy.
“But I will trust you.”
Kris fools himself into believing things are going to work for about ten minutes before he turns back to Chanyeol trying to stick a scrub down the barrel of a Winchester 1897, loaded.
Despite everything, Kris does end up assigning Chanyeol a rifle on D-Day.
Among other arms. He taught him how to use a flamethrower in case things get really bad. He strapped two pistols to his socks and stuffed a Colt behind his back. The bulge by his side is a taser. Still, it’s the rifle Luhan wakes up to, drifting left and right across his vision. His head hurts a little. He lifts his head and suddenly the snapback frat boy now has a gun. Great.
He’s the Lego soldier though. The real menace stands appropriately in a leather jacket. His vision’s barely cleared before they lock eyes across the room-one hell of a room. It’s a warehouse. He’s strapped to a chair. His mouth is duct taped. Pretty cool.
Kris Wu’s heels echo off the cement floor. “I’m gonna let you speak. But don’t try anything funny.”
He pulls an ugly face. “I’m so scared.”
To be honest with you, Chanyeol mumbles, sweating as he pinches one corner of the tape like he’s scared Luhan’s gonna bite him, Me too. What? Then he rips it off, along with Luhan’s face. It hurts a lot.
“You wanna fucking know what they call me, kid?” Luhan screeches, so shrill it makes no sound, just the rip of his breath through his shaking teeth. Chanyeol looks green, almost falls at the knees. “Raisin Man.” Chanyeol makes a face, and Luhan kind of makes a face as well.
Kris stands in front of him now, trying to look unaffected. Luhan stares back hard, bracing for a hit. Kris raises his hand, but only to cross his arms. “What’s your relationship with Zhang Yixing?” He’s so nervous he slurs, and it’s literally unintelligible.
“Pardon?”
Kris blushes. He’s falling apart. Chanyeol takes the cue the wrong way, cringes back, thinking he’s gonna snap. Please don’t kill, Kris, you promised-
“What’s your relationship with Yixing?”
Luhan sits back. “Who?”
“Don’t lie!” Half shouts the tomato. “You were-with your foot-”
“We’re brothers,” Luhan gives him a wink. Chanyeol feels like he’s going to throw up.
Then, outside comes sound sound of wheels on gravel. An engine shuts off. A minute later, all the way across the empty building, the door creaks ominously. Yixing walks in with his hands in the pockets of his parka. Luhan straightens in his seat, and Kris’ back tenses through his leather.
“How are you, Kris?”
“Yeah, cut the crap.”
Yixing’s eyes go wide. He’s just bitter, and embarrassed. Yixing’s eyes snap to Luhan when he speaks, watches him kick his shin forward and deliberately nudges Kris with the tip of his foot. Kris violently convulses, looking down at his wiggling toes feeling nauseated and irrepressible hatred.
“Tell him about us.”
Kris waits for some denial, but Yixing’s just searching for the ways to say this. “Luhan is special to me,” he settles with, smiling.
“He wanders off a lot. Always comes back though.”
Kris thinks about his double digit body count, wonders idly why his arms are jelly, why he doesn’t it have it in him anymore to close his eyes and shoot two more. Yixing stops at a tentative distance, then puts his hands up in surrender. He takes half a step every breath, eyes suddenly hardened, and the air solidifies. Kris’ grip on his gun tightens.
“Look, I don’t know how up to date you are, but we’re from the north. Our bloodline doesn’t suck people. If you shoot us, we will die.”
Bullshit. Behind him Chanyeol suddenly stirs, turns to the man in the chair. What actually was that in the bush? Luhan grins proud, A cat. A dying cat. It was bleeding from the belly. You know what, in fact I wasn’t even hungry. I wanted to end his suffering. Ah, I respect that. Sorry for reporting you. Nah, it’s cool. Kris can’t listen to this anymore. Do you know how much a machete costs? And in the end these guys were just...angels. “I ordered a steak, Kris. How can you not believe us…”
Kris deflates. The mission is over, so anticlimactic. As long as they promise, right? These guys look like the type that’s so meticulous with their diet they would actually keep a daily blood glucose count. At the end of the day, Kris probably could have done the deal if they just promised not to turn people. He turns around gravely, grinding the floor with his heels. “Just untie him, Chanyeol.”
“You’re not gonna kill us?”
Kris is a lost soul.
“Okay, because then we all have to go.” Yixing says, dusting his fingers, “I kind of called the cops outside.”
They all scramble. Luhan and Yixing help them pack the whole operating table. Luhan plays with the water gun and laughs so hard at the fucking garlic. Once everything’s packed, they hop in their separate cars. “Sorry for everything, man. Let’s keep in touch?” Luhan slides on some shades, rolls down the window slumped in shotgun, calls to the van across. Kris looks back with a lingering resentment. “How ‘bout it? You seem like sensible guys.”
Yixing doesn’t wait, clean drives off. He’s oddly quiet. When they’re burning tires on the dirt and long enough gone from sirens, merging back into the fringe of traffic, Luhan turns his attention back to Yixing, notices his clenched jaw, holds his hand. It’s cold and clammy. They’re both glad the fear is over. The road bumps their clenched fist, shakes them like marbles in a burlap bag, but Luhan feels unexpectedly stable within this hold.
“My hero,” he leans his cheek against Yixing’s thin fingers. “How can I make it up to you?”
He expects Yixing to like, sigh, and then talk about going home and making dinner, and how tired he is. Luhan can make dinner. Yixing might need a beer or two, and a massage. Maybe he wants to go to bed early. Luhan can offer himself as pillow.
“Suck my dick.”
“Right now, Luhan, please.”
Luhan sits up straight, face dead and frowning. His eyes bore into Yixing. Yixing glances over, and back onto the road again. He looks really serious.
Another moment, and then Luhan pops his seat belt- “Hell, okay.”
Kris takes them back to his apartment, on idle in the parking lot, both of them breathing hard. Chanyeol is scared white, but is still kind of concerned about his leader. Kris just pouts his round mouth, drums a fist on the rim of his wheel. “He was damn charming, you know.”
Chanyeol wants to say I know, or He really was, or some kind of consolation that didn’t make him sound like a pretentious kid. He doesn’t want Kris to see him as a kid. Hugging him is probably also not okay yet. Kris definitely needs a hug, though. It’s okay, Chanyeol will get there.
Kris looks over sadly. “Wanna have dinner?”
“Y-yeah. Sure I mean.” He blushes red. He’s Clifford. “Okay.”
End.
half a year later they’re all good enough friends and comfortable enough that they have a foursome together. and yifan fucks yixing and chanyeol takes luhan AND it’s all good. bye
Inspired by vowel's better vamp fic
(note: ITS A TRICK!!! its not actually vampfic. so mean.)
Fandom: EXO
Pairing: Luhan/Yixing, Kris/Chanyeol, some other weird flirtations
Rating: R
Words: 4353
Warnings: Graphic descriptions of vampy things
Summary: They get caught thrice from Alaska to Cali, but Chanyeol dismantles Kris' guns loaded. None of them do a great job. (Vampires!AU)
a/n: lmao. this has no plot. also i'm extremely unfunny but vowel will always be the bigger joke. hbd loser. this fic is my revenge. i hope you figured out what i meant in your sleep last night. vamps purely to spite you. here you go taKE IT. posted for Valentine's!!!
After twenty something years Kris thinks he’s finally getting the hang of this life thing.
Partly because he’s been lucky lately. For example, last week he found a part time job to fill up his evenings with after just the first interview. There was also a New Year’s sale at a mall in Chinatown and he bought his mom a tablet for almost 40% off. Also he’d met this guy over the weekend who actually managed to make his leaden heart tremble so rawly under the thunder glare of crucified Jesus shielding his virgin mother from the waves of unabridged passion radiating like solar flares off this nervous man in the last pew of their local Baptist church. More spectacularly when Kris asked him on a date he said yes.
They’d walked out of the theatre half an hour ago and on the drive to their resto reservation Kris kept replaying the sound of Zhang Yixing’s laughter so much he could crystallize the shape of its frequency in his head. In that car with that brewing atmosphere he felt like he could have said anything and meant it. Now though, sitting down with the food in front of them, he probably can’t.
“Are you sure that’s cooked?” He asks, second time in five minutes. It’s just upsetting. He thinks he sees ice crystals, or the lighting’s really weird on the spices. Yixing’s knife cuts and it sounds like he’s sawing a brick. A red brick.
“Shouldn’t I be asking you?” Yixing sounds smug, “You said you had absolute confidence in this restaurant.”
Yeah, confidence in how well it cooked food, not how well it didn’t. He also had absolutely confidence in Yixing until he came and ordered his steak “Like warm, but raw”. The meat on that plate is near crying. Kris might be, too, from the discomfort of watching Yixing send squares of crying meat through his mouth, and lick the blood off his own lips.
His spaghetti slips through the prongs of his fork. Everyone has eccentricities, he argues with his meatballs. Plus, Yixing, Yixing is really damn cute.
Back in the apartment they make out. Kris is nearly knocked out from the steam. His eyes are black, head the program on a glitched TV screen. Zhang Yixing is Frenching his neck when he suddenly stops. “Oops, sorry.” Huh? he says, a snorting pig. “Must be ‘cause I got polished yesterday. Anyway I gotta go.”
Kris doesn’t understand why his lap is suddenly empty. He thinks Yixing pecks him on the cheek before he leaves though. He just sits on the couch trying to breathe. He smells the wound before he feels the wet of his stained collar. Then he gets with the program, except it’s over.
Jesus looked you in the fuckin eye and warned you, Wu Yifan, he tells himself as he looks at the punctures in the mirror. Jesus sang it in your ear. Incredible. Momma. I’m so screwed.
--
Yixing goes home at around 10 and finds Luhan squatting on a stool in front of the washroom mirror, sharpening his teeth.
“Did you dismantle my pencil sharpener again?” The ones with the handles, he’s talking about, the one that’s the least pain in the ass when it came to actual pencils. Yixing really wishes they could fit into the electric ones, but they’re too risky and might grind their teeth like crushed candycane. Yixing himself takes time to care for his teeth and uses a traditional knife, the way his grandpa used to sharpen each and every one of his school pencils back in China. Luhan doesn’t answer, just twists away at his little fangs, lips pulled away and opened mouth pooling spit. He looks like an old man picking his teeth in a restaurant. Anyway, Luhan’s sharpening because…?
“I was finishing a cat, but it wasn’t quick enough and cried out. Some kid might have seen me through the bush. He ran away too fast, I don’t know. I think he pissed himself.”
“Did he see you?”
“I hope not, I’ll suck him dry.” Luhan blows the dust off the blade.
“Not again.”
Luhan reaches across the sink, rattling plastic. “Beef jerky?” he hands over, and Yixing makes a face. Luhan stuffs a stick in his mouth and starts to suck on it like mad, trying to get anything out of what’s already dry as flavored sawdust. Yixing watches distastefully.
“Are you having one of those weeks again?”
Luhan was nicknamed Raisin Man after he jerkyfied this gang of guys he once hated back when they all chilled somewhere east. It’s not meant to deify him, but it kind of had that effect. Among the circles the news spread, and it was one of the hardest cases in decades for the league to deal with, because the bodies couldn’t be disposed in any way that left a hint of just how dry they were, so about four of them had to take the lot into a forest and burn it. The punks’ clothes caught on fire first but even their flesh blazed to ash in under 10 minutes. By that time Luhan had enough blood in him to feed a clan for three generations, and Yixing accidentally blurted while drunk one night that he popped a pimple on Luhan and. Since then Raisin Man has been a kind of urban legend.
Raisin Man looks up with a pink pout. “I need to suck something.” Yixing considers a pacifier, with how childish he looks, but he knows Luhan might be kind of scared right now. He doesn’t want to have to move again, neither of them do.
Luhan will probably get his thrill sucking later. If he dares use teeth Yixing will personally drain his blood and laminate him.
They’ve basically evolved with natural selection. Inbreeding wasn’t cool anymore one day and some bro toughed it out and married this sweetheart, who was a human, and rounds later here these hybrids are. 80% blood. Burdened. Domesticated. Unbelievably mortal. Garlic mayo enthusiasts, salad consumers, things like that.
There were tough months when they were on the run in the winter, when the hemolymph of pine beetles was the closest thing to blood within a 10 mile radius of their grumbling Jeep. Eventually their body fluids cycled as the sun and moon did, and they had to suck back and forth like some kind of sick snowballing game. One drove while the other in the back seats shrunk and writhed, and hacked out concoctions onto the snowed up asphalt, rejecting with the strength stolen from immobilized limbs the 20% poison laced with the red hot honey down their throats. Trails of retch on the road, learning how to shut off hearing, all the while their own bodies reproduced that poison tenfold as the other’s ran back up from the loose faucets of their throats.
Every evening they would park on the gravel, and depending on the odd or even day Luhan would cradle Yixing’s neck-who cooperated by pretending to sleep-then get out the car and hold back the vomit before climbing into the back seats and clutching his own arms. The day Luhan decided he was done holding his vomit he yelled until Yixing got them off 99, pulling up at a Burger King drive thru, and when Yixing paid Luhan scouted through the window. There were only two workers. He was dying to suck the freckled girl in the mic set but they couldn’t leave a trail, they drove across the whole fuckin country. Yixing yelled for the first time I will tie you to the chair, Luhan.
Luhan looked like he was either going to cry or die. Yixing ate his fries, but he followed the detour, and then took Luhan across a bridge somewhere to a fish reservoir. You have an hour, he told him, and don’t trip, the waterfall skins whole cows in half a minute. Luhan came back two hours later with a beaver by the tail. That was in Canada, from Alaska. Yixing wanted to head as far to the edge of the continent as possible, which meant Florida probably. Have you heard of Florida?, Luhan dropped his map. He could fudge their compass while it was his turn to drive and steer them to Cali. Yixing probably noticed, still wanted to head East Coast, but he gave up for a faster drive.
Drawing too much from the same spot scars, Luhan found out first, and Yixing swallowed the guilt, thumbing the holes on his neck idly from under his blanket in the passenger’s seat. Two little wells as wide as the tail end of a pin, skin healed in a ring around like the tips of little anthills. When the area began to swell and he couldn’t touch it anymore he’d wrapped his scarf around it. In the last week before their big break, when Yixing began to refuse to feed, Luhan slit his own wrist and forced it onto his mouth. Then Yixing took from his wrist, both elbows, until the day Luhan inched up his underwear and pushed him onto his pale leg, and Yixing sank his teeth into the centimetre wide femoral vein at the end of his thigh.
It was nearly 2 on night of their breakthrough, Yixing’s fingers were shaking on the wheel, and Luhan was letting himself wilt in his seat when he spotted a cross on the exit sign and yelled until they pulled off. A third of a mile later they broke into the Red Cross van like in the movies. Next day they were in sunny California.
California is 23 Celsius, even in February. Twenty three excuses Luhan for wearing sandals, but it doesn’t excuse him kicking them off when they’re sitting in a cafe. Am I that boring? Yixing just finished saying, watching Luhan tear the straw wrapper into a mess of bits, suck annoyingly from his empty drink. At least you’re more fun when you’re in bed, like last Valentine’s. His bare foot lifts furtively under the table, rests snugly between Yixing’s thighs. Yixing sucks a harsh breath through his nose.
No. More. Bathroom. Quickies. He’s talking about that time after morning rehearsals when Luhan gave him an eager blowjob in the washroom backstage. Apparently natural selection didn’t do their gag reflexes any favors. Come on my face, Luhan asked to recompense, and regretted it bad when he spent his two morning lectures trying to wipe the spunk out of his eyebrows.
Anyhow, Luhan doesn’t hear him. The heel of his foot rolls like a stone massage ball. Luhan’s leering at him, and Yixing eventually forgets about everything and closes his eyes. Maybe he could take them home, and they could ritualistically fuck until the last minute of Valentine’s is over. Maybe he can drive them to the beach and get Luhan to blow them in the middle of traffic. He’s just about decided when Luhan’s foot slows to a halt.
Fuck, no. What?
It’s him. The guy who saw me feed.
Yixing follows his finger-there’s a lanky kid in a snapback, looking around kind of disoriented. He carries his cup to the condiments table and stirs things into his coffee. Eyes wide and startled. Yixing turns back to ask if he’s sure, but Luhan’s already stuffing his toes back into his shoes. “Mom always told me to carry sleeping pills for a reason.”
“Are you nuts?”
Apparently. Yixing watches him speedwalk to the table, pretending to grab some sugar packets before accidentally knocking down a row of forks right next to an unlidded coffee. Luhan’s hand covers the crime, but Yixing knows he’d just slipped a pill through his palm.
I’m so sorry, he hears him say. You look awfully familiar, do I know you from somewhere?
The guy looks at him, and his eyes widen, but not from recognition. It’s appreciation. Yixing squints. Uhm, maybe? Maybe at a party? Yeah, maybe! Cool. What’s your name? Chanyeol. Chanyeol? Chanyeol what? Chanyeol Park. Seriously? I’m close with your roommate. Really? Yeah.
By then Luhan’s sat them down. He’s great at this, really. In about five minutes he’ll decide whether he’s a real threat or not, if he’s going to leave the kid here to doze until sundown or lure him out with something like Actually I borrowed your roommate’s CD, it’s in my car, and take him to Kyungsoo’s psychic shop for a good round of hypnosis and cleaning. Five minutes later, before he lures the kid, he signals Yixing with a hard gaze. I’ll be back, he’s promising. Ok, Yixing nods.
Luhan doesn’t come back though. Twenty minutes later when he’s about to leave he gets a text from a familiar number. It’s Kris Wu, proper grammar for once, thoroughly threatening.
Come to this warehouse
he attaches a Google maps link, for convenience.
We will wait for half an hour.
If you don’t show up...we have your little Va(mp)lentine
Yixing sits with his phone in his hand. He’s suddenly so enervated he can’t even move.
Weak.
So weak, Kris Wu.
--
It’s Tuesday noon when Kris gets a call from Home. He runs his way into the kitchen only to hear from his mom that apparently networks have reported a job nearby. Kris promises he’ll “look around”, even though he’s 90% sure now that he has the address saved in his contacts. There might be a pack, and he might not really need to kill Yixing if he just ends some cousin of his. He’s thinking this while mom gets mad over his word choice:
“Look around? Did your ancestors just look around? You know what would have happened if they just looked around?-”
He’s thinking he could find Yixing and maybe try to either convince him not to suck people or convince him to kiss a little gentler...either way, their relationship is most likely down the drain. At least he can save the trouble for the next.
“-you’re from the Wu family-”
Kris thinks maybe one day his parents will acknowledge the existence of vegetarians when they also learn to acknowledge imitation meat. He appeases her: Yes mom will stock up will stay safe will work hard, you too, bye bye. He hangs up and he thinks about Yixing though. About how his thin eyelids made it look like he could be struck to death any time if you weren’t careful. The wound on his neck is already gone, not even scabbed over, like it never existed.
Truth is that this time Chanyeol feels decided, with some authenticity. He even draws up a list from memory, which actually just says guns knives garlic, until he realizes there’s no way in hell he can handle this attractively on his own and reports back to home base about the sighting.
He’s got a new list in his hand now as he browses the hardware section. This list has materials enough for probably ten different ways of presidential assassinations and an all out torture chamber. He’s looking for a wrench, one of Satan’s gentler toys, but his sister had said something about dentists when she made him write it down and Chanyeol was pretty sure that he was not going to touch it afterwards.
Confession: Chanyeol has no clue what he’s doing.
He reaches for a model on the hook, but his hand accidentally knocks into another, and he looks up to quickly apologize.
And then he sees this guy. He’s got an arm full of an assortment of tools, adding more to a basket, and Chanyeol squints. A lot of what he’s taken Chanyeol also needs. He stares-the guy’s deciding between screwdrivers. In his basket he has a hoe, a pitchfork. Throwing knife set? Okay. Fireproof ropes. Heavy duty shears. Machete. Do they really sell machetes at Home Depot? Chanyeol doesn’t know. A sickle? Come on. “Sorry to bother, where did you find the lighter fluid?”
The guy looks up, and then points to some general direction in the store. “Thanks, man.” He bows a little, nervous, “Got a barbeque.”
It’s not until they bump into each other again in front of the plastic water guns that things start to get weird.
“You need kids pack water guns for a barbeque?” The guy’s thick brows are twisted, like licorice sticks.
“I have no idea what I’m doing,” Chanyeol whispers desperately.
“Well, I don’t know, but you won’t need cable ties, or garden cultivators...or steel trowels...or a chainsaw...”
He stops talking, like he’s stuck on a thought. Suddenly, he notices the little slip of paper in Chanyeol’s hand, pulls it out. Beside everything on the grocery list is a checkmark, except three things: whiskey, holy water, garlic.
“I can’t believe this.” He hides in his hands. He hides the ugliest laughter that’s ever threatened to rise in his hands. And then the Chanyeol reacts and suddenly it’s like they simultaneously realize they’ve met before, years ago as children.
“Are you Kris Wu? Are you really Kris Wu?”
“Oh God, I can’t believe this.”
Kris takes the kid back to his apartment. They haul up everything in Safeway totes, except the chainsaw, which is just a problem, until Chanyeol proves some sort of worth pulling out an empty guitar case from his own trunk.
“I haven’t done this in, shit, like five years?” And that’s what, 16? Kris counts in his head. “I was just always there for tradition, said the prayers and everything-”
“Your family said prayers for them?”
The Park family were the hippies of the gang. This much Kris does remember, and the fact that they had bucket loads of kids. The grandfather was the nutjob uncle of the original clan, his parents kinda established without details. Kris always had the sense he was better off staying away from them.
“Yeah, granddad had a friend turned? Really good friend. We were the rare folk who believed in the soul talk. Anyway, I never did anything, I was too much of an embarrassment, so I got kicked out, pretty much.”
Kris is incredulous, and if he’s honest, kind of jealous. “Let me just get something out of the way,” he mumbles down to his hands, flipping through the keys in his wallet. From beneath his bed he pulls out a slim case, props it open. They’re filed in their slots like instrument fragments, the weapons.
“I don’t want to do this, and I don’t want to do it with you. Nothing personal, I’m just way less excited than you are.” Chanyeol is excited, especially the moment when Kris passes him a Remington 870, and he accepts it with both hands. Kris watches Chanyeol’s fingers curl around the barrel, and he looks up with a stifling grin, a totally unwarranted admiration. It’s an exchange of trust, loyalty. Dependance. Chanyeol reminds him of his old puppy.
“But I will trust you.”
Kris fools himself into believing things are going to work for about ten minutes before he turns back to Chanyeol trying to stick a scrub down the barrel of a Winchester 1897, loaded.
Despite everything, Kris does end up assigning Chanyeol a rifle on D-Day.
Among other arms. He taught him how to use a flamethrower in case things get really bad. He strapped two pistols to his socks and stuffed a Colt behind his back. The bulge by his side is a taser. Still, it’s the rifle Luhan wakes up to, drifting left and right across his vision. His head hurts a little. He lifts his head and suddenly the snapback frat boy now has a gun. Great.
He’s the Lego soldier though. The real menace stands appropriately in a leather jacket. His vision’s barely cleared before they lock eyes across the room-one hell of a room. It’s a warehouse. He’s strapped to a chair. His mouth is duct taped. Pretty cool.
Kris Wu’s heels echo off the cement floor. “I’m gonna let you speak. But don’t try anything funny.”
He pulls an ugly face. “I’m so scared.”
To be honest with you, Chanyeol mumbles, sweating as he pinches one corner of the tape like he’s scared Luhan’s gonna bite him, Me too. What? Then he rips it off, along with Luhan’s face. It hurts a lot.
“You wanna fucking know what they call me, kid?” Luhan screeches, so shrill it makes no sound, just the rip of his breath through his shaking teeth. Chanyeol looks green, almost falls at the knees. “Raisin Man.” Chanyeol makes a face, and Luhan kind of makes a face as well.
Kris stands in front of him now, trying to look unaffected. Luhan stares back hard, bracing for a hit. Kris raises his hand, but only to cross his arms. “What’s your relationship with Zhang Yixing?” He’s so nervous he slurs, and it’s literally unintelligible.
“Pardon?”
Kris blushes. He’s falling apart. Chanyeol takes the cue the wrong way, cringes back, thinking he’s gonna snap. Please don’t kill, Kris, you promised-
“What’s your relationship with Yixing?”
Luhan sits back. “Who?”
“Don’t lie!” Half shouts the tomato. “You were-with your foot-”
“We’re brothers,” Luhan gives him a wink. Chanyeol feels like he’s going to throw up.
Then, outside comes sound sound of wheels on gravel. An engine shuts off. A minute later, all the way across the empty building, the door creaks ominously. Yixing walks in with his hands in the pockets of his parka. Luhan straightens in his seat, and Kris’ back tenses through his leather.
“How are you, Kris?”
“Yeah, cut the crap.”
Yixing’s eyes go wide. He’s just bitter, and embarrassed. Yixing’s eyes snap to Luhan when he speaks, watches him kick his shin forward and deliberately nudges Kris with the tip of his foot. Kris violently convulses, looking down at his wiggling toes feeling nauseated and irrepressible hatred.
“Tell him about us.”
Kris waits for some denial, but Yixing’s just searching for the ways to say this. “Luhan is special to me,” he settles with, smiling.
“He wanders off a lot. Always comes back though.”
Kris thinks about his double digit body count, wonders idly why his arms are jelly, why he doesn’t it have it in him anymore to close his eyes and shoot two more. Yixing stops at a tentative distance, then puts his hands up in surrender. He takes half a step every breath, eyes suddenly hardened, and the air solidifies. Kris’ grip on his gun tightens.
“Look, I don’t know how up to date you are, but we’re from the north. Our bloodline doesn’t suck people. If you shoot us, we will die.”
Bullshit. Behind him Chanyeol suddenly stirs, turns to the man in the chair. What actually was that in the bush? Luhan grins proud, A cat. A dying cat. It was bleeding from the belly. You know what, in fact I wasn’t even hungry. I wanted to end his suffering. Ah, I respect that. Sorry for reporting you. Nah, it’s cool. Kris can’t listen to this anymore. Do you know how much a machete costs? And in the end these guys were just...angels. “I ordered a steak, Kris. How can you not believe us…”
Kris deflates. The mission is over, so anticlimactic. As long as they promise, right? These guys look like the type that’s so meticulous with their diet they would actually keep a daily blood glucose count. At the end of the day, Kris probably could have done the deal if they just promised not to turn people. He turns around gravely, grinding the floor with his heels. “Just untie him, Chanyeol.”
“You’re not gonna kill us?”
Kris is a lost soul.
“Okay, because then we all have to go.” Yixing says, dusting his fingers, “I kind of called the cops outside.”
They all scramble. Luhan and Yixing help them pack the whole operating table. Luhan plays with the water gun and laughs so hard at the fucking garlic. Once everything’s packed, they hop in their separate cars. “Sorry for everything, man. Let’s keep in touch?” Luhan slides on some shades, rolls down the window slumped in shotgun, calls to the van across. Kris looks back with a lingering resentment. “How ‘bout it? You seem like sensible guys.”
Yixing doesn’t wait, clean drives off. He’s oddly quiet. When they’re burning tires on the dirt and long enough gone from sirens, merging back into the fringe of traffic, Luhan turns his attention back to Yixing, notices his clenched jaw, holds his hand. It’s cold and clammy. They’re both glad the fear is over. The road bumps their clenched fist, shakes them like marbles in a burlap bag, but Luhan feels unexpectedly stable within this hold.
“My hero,” he leans his cheek against Yixing’s thin fingers. “How can I make it up to you?”
He expects Yixing to like, sigh, and then talk about going home and making dinner, and how tired he is. Luhan can make dinner. Yixing might need a beer or two, and a massage. Maybe he wants to go to bed early. Luhan can offer himself as pillow.
“Suck my dick.”
“Right now, Luhan, please.”
Luhan sits up straight, face dead and frowning. His eyes bore into Yixing. Yixing glances over, and back onto the road again. He looks really serious.
Another moment, and then Luhan pops his seat belt- “Hell, okay.”
Kris takes them back to his apartment, on idle in the parking lot, both of them breathing hard. Chanyeol is scared white, but is still kind of concerned about his leader. Kris just pouts his round mouth, drums a fist on the rim of his wheel. “He was damn charming, you know.”
Chanyeol wants to say I know, or He really was, or some kind of consolation that didn’t make him sound like a pretentious kid. He doesn’t want Kris to see him as a kid. Hugging him is probably also not okay yet. Kris definitely needs a hug, though. It’s okay, Chanyeol will get there.
Kris looks over sadly. “Wanna have dinner?”
“Y-yeah. Sure I mean.” He blushes red. He’s Clifford. “Okay.”
End.
half a year later they’re all good enough friends and comfortable enough that they have a foursome together. and yifan fucks yixing and chanyeol takes luhan AND it’s all good. bye
Inspired by vowel's better vamp fic
(note: ITS A TRICK!!! its not actually vampfic. so mean.)