The Tries of the Guardians
Rise of the Guardians!AU
Wordcount: ~2700
Characters: Chen Frost, Luhan the Tooth Fairy, Santa Suho, Sandman Xiumin and Kris the Easter Bunny. And kid!Sehun.
Warnings: Contains minor spoilers. Picks up where the movie ended.
A/N: for
royal6thguns because she watched it with me ♥
My name is Chen Frost and I'm a guardian. How do I know? Because the moon told me. Also, because Suho won't stop reminding me. I get it, you dumb Santa. Just stop.
The day after he saves the world and its children, Chen wakes up with three fingers in his mouth.
"Pretty little teeth," Luhan coos, running his fingers across Chen's gums and the bottom line of white teeth. "So white and sparkly, like freshly fallen snow."
It takes a well-placed kick to Luhan's shimmering crotch before the tooth fairy flutters away with a high pitched shriek, scattering sparkling powder all over Chen's baby blue sheets. "I think you froze my balls," Luhan gasps out, hands rubbing the sheer fabric protecting his family jewels.
"This is not how you treat a hero," Chen mumbles before burrowing into his sheets, trying to ignore the morning sun, an annoying Luhan and life in general. Some days he just wants to sleep in. The morning after he gets thrown into a ditch, regains his memories and leads a battle against the forces of evil is one of those days.
"CODE RED!" shrieks Suho as he flies into the room, flapping his arms around so much that the red hat on his head falls on the ground. "We have a non-believer!" he pauses for a moment to stare at Luhan. "Are you... Touching yourself inappropriately in front of Chen?"
Chen rolls his eyes and pulls his blanket tighter around him. Last night was intense, and really, can't a guardian catch a break? "We just saved the world and reinstalled hope in the world. What can one non-believer do?"
Xiumin pads over and gently eases the blanket off Chen using a golden string of sand. When Chen groans and bats the sand away, Xiumin grins and lets the sand rain down on Chen, leaving the boy spluttering as gold dusk gets into his eyes and nose.
Suho frowns, and there's something fascinating about seeing an expression other than jolly on the Santa's face. He keeps the grave expression on his face and speaks, low and solemn, "This boy has never believed in any of us, ever. Not even once."
Luhan gasps, bringing a dainty hand to his mouth. Around him, the fairies flutter around in distress, absolutely scandalized. Xiumin uses his sand to draw an exclamation mark in the air because to have never believed in magic ever! How sad a life must this child have!
"Fine, okay, okay." Grumbling about revoking his agreement to become a guardian, Chen is halfway out of bed when he suddenly realizes that their quintet is missing one essential member. "Where is Kris. He's not joining all of you in being a nuisance to me this morning? I would've thought that he'd enjoy that."
As if on cue, a tiny fur ball hops into the room and twitches his ears in annoyance. "Fuck, why am I tiny again???"
It takes ten minutes for Kris to figure out that he can actually choose forms now. Between the tiny bunny and Kris's gladiator bunny self, everyone not-so-secretly prefers the less intimidating bunny, because he is just so cute. Luhan shows this by immediately scooping the bunny into his arms, scratching him under the chin and making Kris thump his hind legs in joy. It takes Suho clearing his throat and Xiumin crashing a wave of sand into them before the pair remembers that there are more pressing issues on hand.
"Why don't you stay a fur ball? It's easier to tickle you behind your widdle ears." Chen can't resist a dig at Kris, because this love-hate relationship between them is how they function. Kris ignores him and turns back into his more impressive form.
They gather around and Suho presses a button, making a holographic screen flicker to life. On the screen is an awkward young boy, a grainy picture from those school photo days, no doubt stolen off the school's database by one of the more technologically-advanced yetis.
"Oh Sehun, 12," Suho reports solemly. "Has never stayed up on Christmas eve to wait for Santa nor put a tooth under his pillow. When asked about whether the Easter bunny exists, he says, 'I will not believe anything that is most likely a figment of some overactive child's imagination until scientific evidence proves otherwise'."
Xiumin makes a sand face drop its jaw, which is actually unnecessary because Xiumin may be mute but he has jaws. He can drop them himself.
They troop off to survey the subject, rendering themselves invisible to properly observe him in his natural surroundings.
Sehun is a passive kid. He's a pretty child no doubt, with smooth, pale skin and large eyes peeking out beneath cute bangs. It's too bad that his lips are permanently stretched out and pressed into a line, like one of those sesame street puppets.
Xiumin walks into the room and promptly falls flat on his face, tripping over a kaleidoscope that was left lying in the middle of the carpet.
"Oh God, he's one of those kids," Kris groans, spinning a globe around and magically jamming a finger on Canada while it still spins. He glances at Sehun's walls which are littered with certificates of every kind, from first aid courses to business talks to science fair awards. This kid has a more impressive resume than a 50 year old millionaire's.
Suho studies Sehun where he is slumped over his science notes, sleeping, and nods grimly. "We have got our work cut out for us."
With his short stature and adorable cheeks, it's hard to remember that Xiumin is actually the most powerful of them all. His power has the ability to keep children across the world happy every night, unlike the others who are confined to seasons, holidays and the loosening of body parts. It is only reasonable that Xiumin goes first.
Sweeping his hands around in a circle, Xiumin bites his bottom lip in concentration and summons up a cloud of sand. One by one, birds of different sizes start to form, majestic wings and hard beaks gaining shape. Soon, there are parrots and eagles swooping around the room, parakeets and seagulls perched on the bed frame, sparrows and a single flamingo dancing across the ceiling. The room explodes in a burst of gold feathers, creating a spectacular and breathtaking sight.
Xiumin smiles as his babies fly around him, because he knows Sehun has a fascination with wind, and what else reminds him of the wind more than a bird sailing through the sky?
And then Sehun, in his sleep, lifts up a hand and swats an eagle away, fingers slicing clean through the body of the bird. With a squawk, the eagle splits into two and disintegrates into a shower of gold dust. Along with it, the entire flock of golden birds disappears in a explosion of glitter. Only then, does Sehun let out a loud, satisfied snore.
Xiumin stays floating above Sehun's bed, frozen in shock. His babies! His birds! This has absolutely never happened before. Who rejects good dreams? Looks like they need to bring in the big guns.
"Your turn, kangaroo," Chen taunts, grabbing the boomerang from where it is attached to the wall and tossing it to Kris.
Kris catches the boomerang easily and snarls, "I'm Canadian, God dammit."
"Your turn, beaver?"
Kris doesn't even dignify that with a response. He gets his revenge by making the ground beneath Chen's feet rumble, and Chen yelps as he grabs onto a nearby couch, afraid that Kris will open one of his tunnels again. The last time he slid down one of those, he landed on his rump and ow, his butt had serious dirt burns after that. Plus, he has his favourite pair of white pants on.
By the time Chen regains his bearings and realizes that the ground beneath him is thankfully solid, Kris is gone, having dropped through a newly created tunnel that leads straight to a particular room in an apartment in downtown Seoul.
Kris pops out of Sehun's closet and tumbles onto the carpet just as Sehun is getting ready to turn off his bedside lamp.
Sehun's hand freezes on the light switch and he stares wide eyed at the six foot tall rabbit now perched on the edge of his bed. "Wow, rat on steriods."
"Excuse me, I'm a bunny!" Kris snaps, awfully stung. First kangaroo, then beaver and now rat?? Poor misunderstood creature.
"Talking rat." Sehun looks awed for about 3 seconds before he snaps his mouth closed and pulls it into a frown. He looks down at his own sheep pyjamas and mumbles softly, "I must have eaten more candy corn than i thought."
"Be prepared to be impressed, my young boy," Kris says dramatically, hopping closer to the boy until their faces are a few inches apart. "For I am the, wait for it, Easter Bunny!"
Sehun opens his mouth to say something, but instead of words coming out, he sneezes. And sneezes again. Startled, Kris pats Sehun on the back and the boy barely manages to wheeze out between sneezes that make his body convulse, "I'M ALLERGIC TO FUR. GET OUT OF MY SIGHT, YOU MANGLED RAT." He doesn't look impressed at all.
Kris pulls his paw back and looks affronted. "Are you saying that you're kicking me out?" He puffs his chest up, making the fur on his chest stand, and Sehun sneezes more violently. In the end, Xiumin has to throw in a sand rope and lasso the disgruntled bunny out.
Luhan is sent in next.
"Why is your candy corn in the trash?" Luhan asks, the minute he materializes in Sehun's room.
Sehun jumps from where he is wriggling his head through his t-shirt. The shirt hangs around his neck and he whips his head around, mouth open in shock.
It is only then that Luhan realizes how this looks like. He appears to be an adult dressed in shimmering rainbow tights with wings strapped to his back, and is currently standing in the room of a shirtless child uninvited, looking through his trash. "This isn't what it looks like," he tries feebly.
"PERVERT! CREEP! BURGLAR!"
Luhan flaps his wings in distress, sending Sehun's notes for his English literature class to fly all over the room, some of them flitting out of the open window. And he has a test tomorrow too, poor child. "No, no, I'm the tooth fairy!"
"INSANE, EVEN! I'M CALLING THE COPS," Sehun shrieks, grabbing his table lamp off his desk and waving it around like a weapon. This is the most emotion they have ever seen from Sehun in the weeks that they've been studying him, and Luhan is on the unfortunate receiving end of all those feelings.
Luhan eyes the large lamp carefully and puts his palms in front of him to show that he means no harm. He might be the tooth fairy and hence invincible, but a lamp to the head still hurts, as proved by the incident where Chen got a little too excited with the baseball bat during a game. "Put the lamp down, Sehun."
Sehun looks even more startled by the fact that Luhan knows his name and throws his head back to shout, "MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM."
Luhan disappears in a panicky poof.
It takes some effort, but Suho manages to get past the three locks on Sehun's door without triggering the extra alarms rigged up to the windows.
"I seriously need sleep," deadpans Sehun when he looks up from his Advanced Chemistry textbook to find a jolly Santa lugging a red sack through his door.
"I BRING PRESENTS!" Suho cheers and starts pulling out various gifts out of his magic sack, setting them onto Sehun's bed. "A tank! G.I. Joe! Nerf guns! Or a Barbie?" He holds out the busty doll and grins at Sehun expectedly.
Sehun looks sufficiently unimpressed and raises his eyebrows at Suho, disapproval coming off him in waves. "I may be twelve, but I am the youngest person to ever guest speak at Seoul University."
"A set of encyclopaedias, then!!" Suho is unruffled and drags out a set of dusty-looking hardcover books from his magic sack of surprises.
Suho hides in the chimney after Sehun uses the encyclopaedias as ammo and starts pelting him in the face with it. The twelve year old should have had a career in sports instead, what with his aim and strength.
"Well, you're our last hope," Suho says to Chen as he rubs his bruised nose. He says it flatly, as if he's resigned to the fact that Oh Sehun will forever be a non-believer. Chen huffs at the amount of trust placed in him.
"I'll go in with Chenchen!" Luhan trills, sticking his arm up in the air. His team of fairies chorus him eagerly, fluttering around Chen like lovestruck hummingbirds.
"No." Chen sticks out a finger at Luhan and points it at him firmly, like he's reprimanding a puppy.
Luhan's wings droop along with the smile on his face, and the fairies drop to the ground in mock hurt.
Chen zips out of the room just as Suho frets over the fairies littering the carpet and the fairy dust all over his desk. "THIS IS MAHOGANY!"
Chen flies in through the window when Sehun has his telescope set up and pointing to the moon.
By now, Sehun is no longer surprised by weird flying objects in his room. Instead he adjusts the focus on the lens calmly and says, "We really need a talk with the security guys."
"I'm not like those weirdos in your room," Chen says dismissively. He rumbles in his pockets and pulls out a pair of black rimmed glasses, perching it on his nose before grinning. "I'm here to teach you."
Sehun peers at him with a flicker of interest in his eyes, so Chen silently celebrates his success, "You like planets, huh?" With a swish of his cane, he conjures out a frosted universe in the room, specks of stars littering the dark air. Slowly, the specks swirl into a spectrum of colours, and then they fly into a ball of white mass, pulsing with energy.
"It all started with the Big Bang..."
At the end of his highly informative 3D lecture, complete with asteroids coming to pulverise the mini shrieking dinosaurs that kind of resemble kangaroos and beavers, Chen pushes up the rim of his glasses and asks, "Any questions?"
Sehun is staring at him with absolute adoration in his eyes, and Chen can feel a surge of power buildng up inside of him as another light flickers to life. "Wow, you're real."
"Have we not been trying to tell you that?" Chen says exasperated, sending a snowflake to tickle Sehun's nose until he giggles like the 12 year old he really is. It's a good thing that the night of cramming all the knowledge he can about the trappings of the universe into his brain paid off, because Chen hasn't been studying for 300 years, and rusty might be an understatement for the condition of his brain.
"Thank you, Chen Frost!" Sehun grins brighter than ever and lunges to grab at the snowflakes now floating around the room, a picture of childlike innocence.
Chen flies back to the North Pole looking a bit too smug. Only Kris refuses to congratulate him, especially after Chen does a little hip thrusting victory dance, warbling out, "WHO KNOWS KIDS THE BEST? I DO, DO!"
It's not three months before Sehun's light flickers out again.
Suho looks down on his tea with dismay and nibbles on one of the cookies that an elf handed him.
When Chen looks at him questioningly, Xiumin sends out a cloud of sand that turns into a mess of birthday cakes, bubbles and butterflies.
"Huh?"
"Sehun turned 13 last week and decided that he was too old to believe in mythical creatures. He convinced himself it was all a dream," explains Luhan. Xiumin pulls his sand back and flicks a few grains at Chen in spite.
"It was a lost battle, man." Chen pats Suho on the shoulder sympathetically and steals a chocolate chip cookie. The yetis tsk in disapproval. "I guess our greatest enemy isn't the boogie man, after all. It's puberty."
end.
hello izzie bby i'm glad exochocolate brought us together, and that you're there the two times i saw/will see exo~