man's grasp exceeds his nerve.
pairing: kyungsoo/baekhyun
rating: nc-17
wordcount: 3.3k
warnings: [2]implied character death, implied suicide.
summary: magician!au. there are three parts to a trick. including various themes/quotations from the prestige and now you see me.
notes: for my one and only psychic sperm twin/friend wife/harem queen luiza. happy birthday! this is what i was writing at 5am while we were laughing our faces off over horse edits and live feeds of porn searches and baekhyun in tiny blue shorts. sorry if it's not very understandable, whoops. i kind of forgot to ask if you'd seen any of the movies before. but i hope you like it! <3 hope you have a great day. happy birthday! love you.
edited after rereading and realising it made no fucking sense. whoops. also i was originally going to gift you collar!kink smut but couldn't finish it, so i will save it for another day. oho.
There are three parts to a trick.
“Ladies and gentlemen.” He steps out onto the stage, into the blinding spotlight. “Welcome to the show.”
The first part, is the pledge.
The crowd titters excitedly as he pulls a deck of cards out from the lining of his coat, showing it off with a little smile. There is nothing out of the ordinary about the deck. It is store-bought, crimson-red and patterned with the design of a thousand other decks.
He calls a woman up to the stage to check the deck with her own eyes. She does, blushing furiously at the thought of being in such close contact with the famous magician himself. She fiddles with the deck, shuffles it, reshuffles it, examines it for any holes, any marks, any changes. It is real. It is unaltered. It is perfectly normal.
“A round of applause for the lovely lady,” he says charmingly, taking the deck back from the volunteer, who waves shyly, making her way back down to the discordant clapping across the hall. “Now, we begin.”
The second part, is the turn.
“I want all of you,” he starts, voice clear through the room, “yes, every single one of you, to pick a card. Pick any card. And I will choose three people to assist me in this next part.”
He watches the crowd keenly, as they make their choices in their minds. Some of them have their eyes shut, concentrating. Some challenge his gaze with their own, hoping to catch him off guard. Some merely blink, and then it is done.
Now, it is his turn to take something ordinary, and make it extraordinary.
The third part, is the prestige.
He picks up three cards at random, enclosing them in the palm of his hand. “Now, I will call upon three people to tell me their cards, and their cards will be with me.”
The crowd murmurs in anticipation.
“You,” he points, “second row, tell me your card.”
A man stands. “Jack of spades.”
“Next.” He whirls around, and gestures towards the back. “The boy in the last row.”
An excitable youth stands. “Three of hearts!”
“Good. And last, but not least.” He smiles at a girl in the middle of the audience. “You, dear, tell me your card.”
“The six of clubs.”
Now the secret arrives. Now the trick comes. Now the magic happens.
He holds up his hand, high up for all to see, and he slowly pinches the first card from the top, before turning it around.
It is blank.
The crowd begin to shake up. Is this a farce? Is this a mockery? Had the deck not just been examined?
The second card is drawn. It is blank. So is the third card.
He lets the cards fall to the stage, and he waits for the crowd to turn their attention back to him, before he clears his throat, and cracks a grin. There are waiting stares, confused looks, skeptical glances.
He whispers, “Are you watching closely?”
A snap of his fingers, a twirl of his wrist. The cards rise from the stage-floor back up to his hand, and he catches them. The crowd has grown louder in their excitement.
He sends the cards upwards, towards the ceiling, with another flick, and the cards disappear.
They reappear a second later, in a rain of playing cards, all white and crimson and exact matches of the deck. They flutter all around the room, around the audience, around him.
Someone catches a card, and shouts, “It’s the three of hearts!”
“Six of clubs here,” comes a voice from the left. “And there’s a jack of spades!”
“They’re all of those, every single one!”
The crowd’s cheers are deafening.
He tilts his hat, smiles his little smile, and takes a bow. “Thank you.”
Three parts to a trick, abracadabra.
Do Kyungsoo slips off the stage, and disappears into the night.
There are three parts to a trick.
“Run faster, motherfucker!” he shrieks, jumping a bench and skidding off towards the street. “You’re gonna get us caught!”
Jongdae trips over a passerby, grabs the wall, and swings himself around the corner, catching up. “It was your fucking fault,” he snaps, “I told you to stop filching watches!”
“But wallets are boring,” comes the reply, “check out the inlay on this Swiss!”
And he knows none of them.
“Hey!” The enraged man is still chasing them. “Give me back my stuff!”
“Not a chance, buddy!”
They manage to lose him in the twist-and-turn of the city, the one they know like the backs of their hands and the insides of their sleeves, and it’s with a loud sigh that Jongdae punches him in the arm.
“Hey!” He glares, rubbing his shoulder. “What the hell was that for?”
Jongdae barks out a tired laugh. “You’re one of the richest people in the country, and you still drag me around indulging in your kleptomaniac habits.”
A casual shrug. “It’s fun. I let you test your dumbass experiments on me, don’t I?”
“I test those on everyone, don’t try to be some special snowflake.” Jongdae leans back against the wall, catching his breath. “Joonmyun’s gonna be pissed.”
“Who cares about him?” He waves his hand at Jongdae. All three of the stolen watches glint in the dim light casted on the streets from the lamps above. “He’s just the unofficial leader. He doesn’t own me.”
Jongdae hits him again. “Come on. We have a show to prepare for. Tomorrow night’s the big night, remember? The show we’ve been waiting for.”
“The show you’ve been waiting for.” He pushes himself upright, pulls money out of a wallet, and stuffs it into Jongdae’s pockets, tossing the wallet. “I wait for no one.”
“Of course,” mutters Jongdae, “of course.”
Three parts to a trick, abracadabra.
Byun Baekhyun laughs, and disappears into the walls.
Are you watching closely?
Kyungsoo lives for this.
He lives for the deception. The lies. Fooling, manipulating. The illusion of it all. Expert maneuvering in the form of card tricks and look-the-other-way pullouts. The gambit.
It is heady power, concentrated in the way he winks and the sharp little smile he displays and the twist of his wrist, coming together in the stage, lights, action, showing itself in the shrieks of the crowds and the steady rhythm of his heart.
“What’s there to watch,” comes a soft voice by his ear, and Kyungsoo swivels around to see a grinning face and dark eyes, “when all you need to do is believe?”
“Mere belief doesn’t bring in cheques.” Kyungsoo fixes him with an appraising stare. “You’re one of the Four Horsemen, are you not?” The other magicians in tonight’s show. A joint performance.
“Guess which one.” A smile; soft, teasing.
Kyungsoo does not return it. “Death.”
He puffs out his lower lip. “That was quick. How’d you know?”
Kyungsoo sidles up to him, and taps his chest, on the spot where the symbol of the Four Horsemen is embroidered. “You’re wearing grey.” Each of them wear a different colour. White for Conquest, red for War, black for Famine. “The pale rider, of all the riders,” he recites, recalling the text, “khloros. Ashen. Pale.”
“Not bad, Do Kyungsoo.” Fingers skim along the length of his arm. “My name is Byun Baekhyun.”
“Baekhyun,” murmurs Kyungsoo, “and I’m not interested.”
“Oh?” Baekhyun laughs, low in his throat. “Everyone is interested. Why would you be any different?”
“I have eyes.” Kyungsoo gives him a polite smile, revelling in the look on Baekhyun’s face. Probably not used to being told no. Most children are spoilt like that, these days. “Goodnight, Byun Baekhyun.”
There’s a light laugh. “Goodnight, Kyungsoo. I’m looking forward to meeting you again.”
Kyungsoo turns around to speak a last parting, but Baekhyun is gone, faster than the flash of light spilling from the leftover lights.
“Magic,” comes Baekhyun’s voice, and Kyungsoo glances up. Baekhyun is balancing precariously on a beam in the corner, grinning. “Told you. Just believe.”
“I’d rather not ‘just believe’ your sudden trip to the top of the rafters.” Kyungsoo doesn’t want to smile, but he does. This Baekhyun is a strange one. But he interests Kyungsoo. “See you around.”
The second time he turns around, Baekhyun has long gone.
Are you watching closely?
This is the pledge.
They gave him Death for a reason.
It is because Byun Baekhyun knows how to destroy, and he loves it.
He is a self-made millionaire, a genius, a prodigy. CEO of a company that forks in profit after profit every single year. He wears three-piece suits and thousand-dollar Santoni shoes and charms the money straight out of the pockets of the representatives within a three-hour meeting.
Byun Baekhyun is also an addict.
He is addicted to petty theft, to strong drinks, to stronger tabacco sticks and even stronger needle-points. He is addicted to adrenaline rushes and binge-spending and the jagged laughter that trails behind him as he makes off with the belongings of people who make in a year a quarter of what he does in a month.
He is addicted to magic, and the power he has when he uses it for his own gains.
With a snap of his fingers, he can crush the tallest man, the largest building. And it is just so fun.
The Four Horsemen might seem like a passing fancy to anyone who looks upon it from the outside, but it is much more. Much, much more.
It is the only way Baekhyun can find the thrill he’s so desperately wanted this entire life.
Magic.
And nobody can figure out how he does what he does. He’s a genius, after all.
“Misdirection,” breathes Lu Han, swirling his fingers across Jongdae’s closed eyes, testing his latest mentalism technique, “when the real trick is happening somewhere else, you wave your hand and say the magic words, and imply that the trick is happening here, when it’s not.”
“What do you need misdirection for? You’re a hypnotist.”
Lu Han presses a slim finger to his lips, eyes crinkling at the corners as his lips quirk up. “Magic.”
And he snaps his fingers.
Famine. He takes away what was once there.
Jongdae wakes up, and shudders. “That was strange. Felt like drowning, almost.”
“And you’d know a lot about that, wouldn’t you?” Their resident escape artist. Truly the most professional stage performer of the four of them. He knows how to draw the crowd. How to work them to his gains. How to bring the best reactions.
Conquest. He subjugates, he triumphs.
“Run it again.” Joonmyun doesn’t look up from his laptop, running the simulation for tomorrow’s illusions, for tomorrow’s show. “We have to perfect this by tomorrow night.”
“Aye-aye, Captain.” Unofficial leader. The only one who will bother, really, while the rest go about, their own priorities first. “Again.”
War. He makes people believe in the illusion.
And then, there is Death. But sometimes, there isn’t.
They tumble into each other more than once, Byun Baekhyun and Do Kyungsoo.
At first it is easy rivalry. Baekhyun, filthy rich businessman by day, member of a magician’s troupe by night. Kyungsoo, famous illusionist, who’s spent his entire life perfecting this art, this craft, this dedication to the skill of magic. They clash. They collide. They bruise easy and quick, with sharp silver words and bumping glances.
It isn’t hard to miss.
There will be a lingering stare, the licking of lips, the last breath beside his ear.
There will be soft, brushing touches, the purr of words, the streak of arousal, settling low and coiling.
There will be attraction.
Kyungsoo does not favour attraction. He believes in a complete commitment to his work, and things like these, people like these, they only serve to get in the way of pure perfection.
Baekhyun favours the chase.
He pursues Kyungsoo almost aggressively, but in the most quiescent way. He barks, but never bites. He allows Kyungsoo to push, to pull. It almost works. Almost.
In the end, it does. Kyungsoo just doesn’t want to admit it.
"Dangerous," comments Joonmyun one night, after a show, "you, toying with Do Kyungsoo like that. What do you stand to gain?"
"Nothing." Baekhyun catches Kyungsoo's gaze from across the room. "Everything."
True power gives him a rush. The art of magic feeds his excitement. Adrenaline floods through his veins, knowing the potential danger of what they do.
It is almost frightening, how Kyungsoo can make him feel even more than all of those things combined.
For their next show, a map of the KB Gookmin Eunhaeng is laid out across the table, and Joonmyun knows that this will be their grand finale.
“We’re going to go out in flames,” he says, “all we need now is to figure out a way to jailbreak ourselves after we get arrested.”
“Get someone to hang back,” says Jongdae, legs hanging off the edge of the couch, as he fiddles with a pair of handcuffs. “They can break us out from the outside.”
“We need all four of us,” says Lu Han, “we’re not the Three Horsemen.”
Baekhyun shoots up. “Hey, hey, listen. I know what we can do.” He skids over to Joonmyun’s laptop, and punches in a few words. “Ever heard of The Transported Man?”
“Thought that was a myth,” says Joonmyun, eyebrows furrowing. “Urban legend.”
“It’s not,” comes Jongdae’s voice from the side, quiet and pondering, “It’s been made to seem like one because of the sheer number of unsuccessful attempts.” He sits up, and grabs a couple of shot-glasses from the table, positioning them some ten inches away from each other in a parallel line. “The Transported Man, a trick designed to wow the audience, a mix of trapdoor and body-double, created in the 1950s by a man named Borden.”
Jongdae pulls a pen from Lu Han’s hand, and stands it by the first shot-glass. “Two doors, simply connected to the stage. The magician enters the first,” he pulls the pen away, and sets it by the second glass, “and comes out the second.”
“You’ve said it, though,” says Joonmyun, “trapdoor, body-double. That won’t be of any use to us at all.”
Jongdae lifts a finger. “Borden’s greatest rival was a man named Angier, who designed the trapdoor and body-double technique. In reality, Angier sought to discover the actual way Borden worked. And,” he says, taking another pen, and setting it at the first shot-glass, now a double to the original pen, “it was by twin.”
“Borden had a twin?”
“Yes.” Jongdae grins. “But that’s not what Angier first found out. He tracked down an inventor, and discovered a teleportation device that could assist him in his tricks.”
“Teleporting from one place to another.”
“Not that simple, though. After testing, it seemed that the teleportation device wasn’t actually what it was, and instead, was a duplication machine.”
Joonmyun and Lu Han’s faces reflect their obvious disbelief. Baekhyun’s already heard this story many times over, from Jongdae.
“But here’s the thing: creating a duplicate of yourself would only cause trouble. So Angier had to find a way to dispose of his duplicate, every single night.”
“He set a water tank,” says Baekhyun, “under the stage, every night, and drowned to his death, as he recreated himself elsewhere with the machine.”
The silence drips from the walls. “You want one of us,” says Lu Han slowly, “to kill ourselves?”
“No,” says Baekhyun, “because I’d be doing it.”
Jongdae doesn’t even look surprised. Baekhyun always lives up to his name. Going out of his way to do the most insane things, even if it’s for his own gain or for others.
“You’re willing to drown yourself for the sake of a trick?”
“Not just a trick.” Baekhyun’s lips curl up in a smile. “For magic.”
“What if it doesn’t work?”
Nobody says a word. The risk factor is high, and they’d rather not lose one of their own just for a little bit of flash and spin.
Baekhyun laughs hoarsely. “Well, I’d better make some calls then, hadn’t I?”
This is the turn.
The day the Four Horsemen rob one of the largest banks in the country is the same day Kyungsoo finds Baekhyun at his door.
“Let me in?” he asks hopefully, holding up a bottle of wine and a plastic bag of Chinese takeout.
Against his better judgment, Kyungsoo does.
They fuck on the couch.
Kyungsoo’s trousers are shoved down around his knees, Baekhyun’s shirt half-unbuttoned and crumpled, trousers thrown in a heap to the floor. His ankles are squeezed tight around the backs of Kyungsoo’s knees as he bounces on Kyungsoo’s cock, fucking him insistently into the cushions, little breathy hiccupy moans escaping his throat.
“Fuck,” exhales Kyungsoo, hips moving up against Baekhyun’s, hands clamped on his hips, a steady red flush working up his skin. “Christ, Baekhyun.”
“Later,” moans Baekhyun shakily, “later the counter, and the bed, and the floor, I swear to god.”
He keeps his word. Baekhyun takes Kyungsoo’s cock into his mouth as he’s pressed up against the kitchen island, with Kyungsoo’s hands tight in his hair, head rolling back with every bob and suck and long, drawn-out lick, fingers curved prettily around the base of his cock and thumbing along his balls.
Kyungsoo fucks Baekhyun on the floor too, fingers tangled into the rug and and skin rubbing almost painfully against the tiling. Baekhyun’s face is sweat-slicked, hair sticking messily to his forehead, mouth painted a swollen red, eyes fluttering open and close. Kyungsoo thinks he’s never seen anything more attractive in his life.
They go a last time in Kyungsoo’s bed, and Kyungsoo fucks him properly this time, stretching the over-sensitivity to all new heights. Baekhyun sobs and writhes and wails, and Kyungsoo revels in every single second of it, rocking towards each other in jerky rhythms, staining bruises into each other’s skin.
Baekhyun leaves an hour after, citing work as an excuse. Ten minutes later, Kyungsoo turns on the television, and the Four Horsemen are standing on top of a building, surrounded by helicopters and the largest crowd he's ever seen in his life.
Kyungsoo takes a glance at the half-eaten boxes of Chinese on his kitchen counter and the half-full bottle of wine on the coffee table, and turns a confused look back at the screen.
There Baekhyun is, grinning for all the world to see, halfway across the city where he wasn't, ten minutes ago.
This is where the actual trick occurs.
Half an hour later, the Four Horsemen are arrested.
Three hours later, they disappear from their cells. Abracadabra.
Watch closely.
This is the prestige.
They meet again after a year.
“You pulled it off,” says Kyungsoo simply, “the greatest heist of your life. All while you were in my apartment. Tell me, how does that work?”
“Hmm, well.” Baekhyun tips his chin, smiles. “I don’t kiss and tell.”
“You couldn’t have possibly been in two places at once.”
Baekhyun raises an eyebrow. “Have you not heard of the term magic, Kyungsoo?” His fingers tap against his thigh idly.
“Illusions,” says Kyungsoo, “tricks. Nothing more.”
“Magic,” says Baekhyun, “if you believe. Don’t you believe in it, Kyungsoo?”
Kyungsoo has no words for him.
“Anything is possible.” Baekhyun nods at him, and smiles. But his smile isn’t the same. It no longer reaches the corners of his eyes. “Only if you believe.”
“If I believe that you'll tell me how you did it?”
Baekhyun throws back his head, and laughs. “Say the magic word, first.”
“Abracadabra.” Kyungsoo’s lips turn up at the corners. “Alakazam. Hocus pocus.”
Baekhyun wiggles his fingers. “Close.”
“One.”
Baekhyun lives for this. The rush, the adrenaline. The power.
“Two.”
Baekhyun would die for this. The excitement, the control, the fear.
“Three.”
Baekhyun smiles, and says, “See you later, kids.”
He slides the barrel of the gun between his teeth, shoving it against the roof of his mouth, a sharp, cold pang of metal, and he squeezes.
Are you watching closely?
fin.
rating: nc-17
wordcount: 3.3k
warnings: [2]implied character death, implied suicide.
summary: magician!au. there are three parts to a trick. including various themes/quotations from the prestige and now you see me.
notes: for my one and only psychic sperm twin/friend wife/harem queen luiza. happy birthday! this is what i was writing at 5am while we were laughing our faces off over horse edits and live feeds of porn searches and baekhyun in tiny blue shorts. sorry if it's not very understandable, whoops. i kind of forgot to ask if you'd seen any of the movies before. but i hope you like it! <3 hope you have a great day. happy birthday! love you.
edited after rereading and realising it made no fucking sense. whoops. also i was originally going to gift you collar!kink smut but couldn't finish it, so i will save it for another day. oho.
There are three parts to a trick.
“Ladies and gentlemen.” He steps out onto the stage, into the blinding spotlight. “Welcome to the show.”
The first part, is the pledge.
The crowd titters excitedly as he pulls a deck of cards out from the lining of his coat, showing it off with a little smile. There is nothing out of the ordinary about the deck. It is store-bought, crimson-red and patterned with the design of a thousand other decks.
He calls a woman up to the stage to check the deck with her own eyes. She does, blushing furiously at the thought of being in such close contact with the famous magician himself. She fiddles with the deck, shuffles it, reshuffles it, examines it for any holes, any marks, any changes. It is real. It is unaltered. It is perfectly normal.
“A round of applause for the lovely lady,” he says charmingly, taking the deck back from the volunteer, who waves shyly, making her way back down to the discordant clapping across the hall. “Now, we begin.”
The second part, is the turn.
“I want all of you,” he starts, voice clear through the room, “yes, every single one of you, to pick a card. Pick any card. And I will choose three people to assist me in this next part.”
He watches the crowd keenly, as they make their choices in their minds. Some of them have their eyes shut, concentrating. Some challenge his gaze with their own, hoping to catch him off guard. Some merely blink, and then it is done.
Now, it is his turn to take something ordinary, and make it extraordinary.
The third part, is the prestige.
He picks up three cards at random, enclosing them in the palm of his hand. “Now, I will call upon three people to tell me their cards, and their cards will be with me.”
The crowd murmurs in anticipation.
“You,” he points, “second row, tell me your card.”
A man stands. “Jack of spades.”
“Next.” He whirls around, and gestures towards the back. “The boy in the last row.”
An excitable youth stands. “Three of hearts!”
“Good. And last, but not least.” He smiles at a girl in the middle of the audience. “You, dear, tell me your card.”
“The six of clubs.”
Now the secret arrives. Now the trick comes. Now the magic happens.
He holds up his hand, high up for all to see, and he slowly pinches the first card from the top, before turning it around.
It is blank.
The crowd begin to shake up. Is this a farce? Is this a mockery? Had the deck not just been examined?
The second card is drawn. It is blank. So is the third card.
He lets the cards fall to the stage, and he waits for the crowd to turn their attention back to him, before he clears his throat, and cracks a grin. There are waiting stares, confused looks, skeptical glances.
He whispers, “Are you watching closely?”
A snap of his fingers, a twirl of his wrist. The cards rise from the stage-floor back up to his hand, and he catches them. The crowd has grown louder in their excitement.
He sends the cards upwards, towards the ceiling, with another flick, and the cards disappear.
They reappear a second later, in a rain of playing cards, all white and crimson and exact matches of the deck. They flutter all around the room, around the audience, around him.
Someone catches a card, and shouts, “It’s the three of hearts!”
“Six of clubs here,” comes a voice from the left. “And there’s a jack of spades!”
“They’re all of those, every single one!”
The crowd’s cheers are deafening.
He tilts his hat, smiles his little smile, and takes a bow. “Thank you.”
Three parts to a trick, abracadabra.
Do Kyungsoo slips off the stage, and disappears into the night.
There are three parts to a trick.
“Run faster, motherfucker!” he shrieks, jumping a bench and skidding off towards the street. “You’re gonna get us caught!”
Jongdae trips over a passerby, grabs the wall, and swings himself around the corner, catching up. “It was your fucking fault,” he snaps, “I told you to stop filching watches!”
“But wallets are boring,” comes the reply, “check out the inlay on this Swiss!”
And he knows none of them.
“Hey!” The enraged man is still chasing them. “Give me back my stuff!”
“Not a chance, buddy!”
They manage to lose him in the twist-and-turn of the city, the one they know like the backs of their hands and the insides of their sleeves, and it’s with a loud sigh that Jongdae punches him in the arm.
“Hey!” He glares, rubbing his shoulder. “What the hell was that for?”
Jongdae barks out a tired laugh. “You’re one of the richest people in the country, and you still drag me around indulging in your kleptomaniac habits.”
A casual shrug. “It’s fun. I let you test your dumbass experiments on me, don’t I?”
“I test those on everyone, don’t try to be some special snowflake.” Jongdae leans back against the wall, catching his breath. “Joonmyun’s gonna be pissed.”
“Who cares about him?” He waves his hand at Jongdae. All three of the stolen watches glint in the dim light casted on the streets from the lamps above. “He’s just the unofficial leader. He doesn’t own me.”
Jongdae hits him again. “Come on. We have a show to prepare for. Tomorrow night’s the big night, remember? The show we’ve been waiting for.”
“The show you’ve been waiting for.” He pushes himself upright, pulls money out of a wallet, and stuffs it into Jongdae’s pockets, tossing the wallet. “I wait for no one.”
“Of course,” mutters Jongdae, “of course.”
Three parts to a trick, abracadabra.
Byun Baekhyun laughs, and disappears into the walls.
Are you watching closely?
Kyungsoo lives for this.
He lives for the deception. The lies. Fooling, manipulating. The illusion of it all. Expert maneuvering in the form of card tricks and look-the-other-way pullouts. The gambit.
It is heady power, concentrated in the way he winks and the sharp little smile he displays and the twist of his wrist, coming together in the stage, lights, action, showing itself in the shrieks of the crowds and the steady rhythm of his heart.
“What’s there to watch,” comes a soft voice by his ear, and Kyungsoo swivels around to see a grinning face and dark eyes, “when all you need to do is believe?”
“Mere belief doesn’t bring in cheques.” Kyungsoo fixes him with an appraising stare. “You’re one of the Four Horsemen, are you not?” The other magicians in tonight’s show. A joint performance.
“Guess which one.” A smile; soft, teasing.
Kyungsoo does not return it. “Death.”
He puffs out his lower lip. “That was quick. How’d you know?”
Kyungsoo sidles up to him, and taps his chest, on the spot where the symbol of the Four Horsemen is embroidered. “You’re wearing grey.” Each of them wear a different colour. White for Conquest, red for War, black for Famine. “The pale rider, of all the riders,” he recites, recalling the text, “khloros. Ashen. Pale.”
“Not bad, Do Kyungsoo.” Fingers skim along the length of his arm. “My name is Byun Baekhyun.”
“Baekhyun,” murmurs Kyungsoo, “and I’m not interested.”
“Oh?” Baekhyun laughs, low in his throat. “Everyone is interested. Why would you be any different?”
“I have eyes.” Kyungsoo gives him a polite smile, revelling in the look on Baekhyun’s face. Probably not used to being told no. Most children are spoilt like that, these days. “Goodnight, Byun Baekhyun.”
There’s a light laugh. “Goodnight, Kyungsoo. I’m looking forward to meeting you again.”
Kyungsoo turns around to speak a last parting, but Baekhyun is gone, faster than the flash of light spilling from the leftover lights.
“Magic,” comes Baekhyun’s voice, and Kyungsoo glances up. Baekhyun is balancing precariously on a beam in the corner, grinning. “Told you. Just believe.”
“I’d rather not ‘just believe’ your sudden trip to the top of the rafters.” Kyungsoo doesn’t want to smile, but he does. This Baekhyun is a strange one. But he interests Kyungsoo. “See you around.”
The second time he turns around, Baekhyun has long gone.
Are you watching closely?
This is the pledge.
They gave him Death for a reason.
It is because Byun Baekhyun knows how to destroy, and he loves it.
He is a self-made millionaire, a genius, a prodigy. CEO of a company that forks in profit after profit every single year. He wears three-piece suits and thousand-dollar Santoni shoes and charms the money straight out of the pockets of the representatives within a three-hour meeting.
Byun Baekhyun is also an addict.
He is addicted to petty theft, to strong drinks, to stronger tabacco sticks and even stronger needle-points. He is addicted to adrenaline rushes and binge-spending and the jagged laughter that trails behind him as he makes off with the belongings of people who make in a year a quarter of what he does in a month.
He is addicted to magic, and the power he has when he uses it for his own gains.
With a snap of his fingers, he can crush the tallest man, the largest building. And it is just so fun.
The Four Horsemen might seem like a passing fancy to anyone who looks upon it from the outside, but it is much more. Much, much more.
It is the only way Baekhyun can find the thrill he’s so desperately wanted this entire life.
Magic.
And nobody can figure out how he does what he does. He’s a genius, after all.
“Misdirection,” breathes Lu Han, swirling his fingers across Jongdae’s closed eyes, testing his latest mentalism technique, “when the real trick is happening somewhere else, you wave your hand and say the magic words, and imply that the trick is happening here, when it’s not.”
“What do you need misdirection for? You’re a hypnotist.”
Lu Han presses a slim finger to his lips, eyes crinkling at the corners as his lips quirk up. “Magic.”
And he snaps his fingers.
Famine. He takes away what was once there.
Jongdae wakes up, and shudders. “That was strange. Felt like drowning, almost.”
“And you’d know a lot about that, wouldn’t you?” Their resident escape artist. Truly the most professional stage performer of the four of them. He knows how to draw the crowd. How to work them to his gains. How to bring the best reactions.
Conquest. He subjugates, he triumphs.
“Run it again.” Joonmyun doesn’t look up from his laptop, running the simulation for tomorrow’s illusions, for tomorrow’s show. “We have to perfect this by tomorrow night.”
“Aye-aye, Captain.” Unofficial leader. The only one who will bother, really, while the rest go about, their own priorities first. “Again.”
War. He makes people believe in the illusion.
And then, there is Death. But sometimes, there isn’t.
They tumble into each other more than once, Byun Baekhyun and Do Kyungsoo.
At first it is easy rivalry. Baekhyun, filthy rich businessman by day, member of a magician’s troupe by night. Kyungsoo, famous illusionist, who’s spent his entire life perfecting this art, this craft, this dedication to the skill of magic. They clash. They collide. They bruise easy and quick, with sharp silver words and bumping glances.
It isn’t hard to miss.
There will be a lingering stare, the licking of lips, the last breath beside his ear.
There will be soft, brushing touches, the purr of words, the streak of arousal, settling low and coiling.
There will be attraction.
Kyungsoo does not favour attraction. He believes in a complete commitment to his work, and things like these, people like these, they only serve to get in the way of pure perfection.
Baekhyun favours the chase.
He pursues Kyungsoo almost aggressively, but in the most quiescent way. He barks, but never bites. He allows Kyungsoo to push, to pull. It almost works. Almost.
In the end, it does. Kyungsoo just doesn’t want to admit it.
"Dangerous," comments Joonmyun one night, after a show, "you, toying with Do Kyungsoo like that. What do you stand to gain?"
"Nothing." Baekhyun catches Kyungsoo's gaze from across the room. "Everything."
True power gives him a rush. The art of magic feeds his excitement. Adrenaline floods through his veins, knowing the potential danger of what they do.
It is almost frightening, how Kyungsoo can make him feel even more than all of those things combined.
For their next show, a map of the KB Gookmin Eunhaeng is laid out across the table, and Joonmyun knows that this will be their grand finale.
“We’re going to go out in flames,” he says, “all we need now is to figure out a way to jailbreak ourselves after we get arrested.”
“Get someone to hang back,” says Jongdae, legs hanging off the edge of the couch, as he fiddles with a pair of handcuffs. “They can break us out from the outside.”
“We need all four of us,” says Lu Han, “we’re not the Three Horsemen.”
Baekhyun shoots up. “Hey, hey, listen. I know what we can do.” He skids over to Joonmyun’s laptop, and punches in a few words. “Ever heard of The Transported Man?”
“Thought that was a myth,” says Joonmyun, eyebrows furrowing. “Urban legend.”
“It’s not,” comes Jongdae’s voice from the side, quiet and pondering, “It’s been made to seem like one because of the sheer number of unsuccessful attempts.” He sits up, and grabs a couple of shot-glasses from the table, positioning them some ten inches away from each other in a parallel line. “The Transported Man, a trick designed to wow the audience, a mix of trapdoor and body-double, created in the 1950s by a man named Borden.”
Jongdae pulls a pen from Lu Han’s hand, and stands it by the first shot-glass. “Two doors, simply connected to the stage. The magician enters the first,” he pulls the pen away, and sets it by the second glass, “and comes out the second.”
“You’ve said it, though,” says Joonmyun, “trapdoor, body-double. That won’t be of any use to us at all.”
Jongdae lifts a finger. “Borden’s greatest rival was a man named Angier, who designed the trapdoor and body-double technique. In reality, Angier sought to discover the actual way Borden worked. And,” he says, taking another pen, and setting it at the first shot-glass, now a double to the original pen, “it was by twin.”
“Borden had a twin?”
“Yes.” Jongdae grins. “But that’s not what Angier first found out. He tracked down an inventor, and discovered a teleportation device that could assist him in his tricks.”
“Teleporting from one place to another.”
“Not that simple, though. After testing, it seemed that the teleportation device wasn’t actually what it was, and instead, was a duplication machine.”
Joonmyun and Lu Han’s faces reflect their obvious disbelief. Baekhyun’s already heard this story many times over, from Jongdae.
“But here’s the thing: creating a duplicate of yourself would only cause trouble. So Angier had to find a way to dispose of his duplicate, every single night.”
“He set a water tank,” says Baekhyun, “under the stage, every night, and drowned to his death, as he recreated himself elsewhere with the machine.”
The silence drips from the walls. “You want one of us,” says Lu Han slowly, “to kill ourselves?”
“No,” says Baekhyun, “because I’d be doing it.”
Jongdae doesn’t even look surprised. Baekhyun always lives up to his name. Going out of his way to do the most insane things, even if it’s for his own gain or for others.
“You’re willing to drown yourself for the sake of a trick?”
“Not just a trick.” Baekhyun’s lips curl up in a smile. “For magic.”
“What if it doesn’t work?”
Nobody says a word. The risk factor is high, and they’d rather not lose one of their own just for a little bit of flash and spin.
Baekhyun laughs hoarsely. “Well, I’d better make some calls then, hadn’t I?”
This is the turn.
The day the Four Horsemen rob one of the largest banks in the country is the same day Kyungsoo finds Baekhyun at his door.
“Let me in?” he asks hopefully, holding up a bottle of wine and a plastic bag of Chinese takeout.
Against his better judgment, Kyungsoo does.
They fuck on the couch.
Kyungsoo’s trousers are shoved down around his knees, Baekhyun’s shirt half-unbuttoned and crumpled, trousers thrown in a heap to the floor. His ankles are squeezed tight around the backs of Kyungsoo’s knees as he bounces on Kyungsoo’s cock, fucking him insistently into the cushions, little breathy hiccupy moans escaping his throat.
“Fuck,” exhales Kyungsoo, hips moving up against Baekhyun’s, hands clamped on his hips, a steady red flush working up his skin. “Christ, Baekhyun.”
“Later,” moans Baekhyun shakily, “later the counter, and the bed, and the floor, I swear to god.”
He keeps his word. Baekhyun takes Kyungsoo’s cock into his mouth as he’s pressed up against the kitchen island, with Kyungsoo’s hands tight in his hair, head rolling back with every bob and suck and long, drawn-out lick, fingers curved prettily around the base of his cock and thumbing along his balls.
Kyungsoo fucks Baekhyun on the floor too, fingers tangled into the rug and and skin rubbing almost painfully against the tiling. Baekhyun’s face is sweat-slicked, hair sticking messily to his forehead, mouth painted a swollen red, eyes fluttering open and close. Kyungsoo thinks he’s never seen anything more attractive in his life.
They go a last time in Kyungsoo’s bed, and Kyungsoo fucks him properly this time, stretching the over-sensitivity to all new heights. Baekhyun sobs and writhes and wails, and Kyungsoo revels in every single second of it, rocking towards each other in jerky rhythms, staining bruises into each other’s skin.
Baekhyun leaves an hour after, citing work as an excuse. Ten minutes later, Kyungsoo turns on the television, and the Four Horsemen are standing on top of a building, surrounded by helicopters and the largest crowd he's ever seen in his life.
Kyungsoo takes a glance at the half-eaten boxes of Chinese on his kitchen counter and the half-full bottle of wine on the coffee table, and turns a confused look back at the screen.
There Baekhyun is, grinning for all the world to see, halfway across the city where he wasn't, ten minutes ago.
This is where the actual trick occurs.
Half an hour later, the Four Horsemen are arrested.
Three hours later, they disappear from their cells. Abracadabra.
Watch closely.
This is the prestige.
They meet again after a year.
“You pulled it off,” says Kyungsoo simply, “the greatest heist of your life. All while you were in my apartment. Tell me, how does that work?”
“Hmm, well.” Baekhyun tips his chin, smiles. “I don’t kiss and tell.”
“You couldn’t have possibly been in two places at once.”
Baekhyun raises an eyebrow. “Have you not heard of the term magic, Kyungsoo?” His fingers tap against his thigh idly.
“Illusions,” says Kyungsoo, “tricks. Nothing more.”
“Magic,” says Baekhyun, “if you believe. Don’t you believe in it, Kyungsoo?”
Kyungsoo has no words for him.
“Anything is possible.” Baekhyun nods at him, and smiles. But his smile isn’t the same. It no longer reaches the corners of his eyes. “Only if you believe.”
“If I believe that you'll tell me how you did it?”
Baekhyun throws back his head, and laughs. “Say the magic word, first.”
“Abracadabra.” Kyungsoo’s lips turn up at the corners. “Alakazam. Hocus pocus.”
Baekhyun wiggles his fingers. “Close.”
“One.”
Baekhyun lives for this. The rush, the adrenaline. The power.
“Two.”
Baekhyun would die for this. The excitement, the control, the fear.
“Three.”
Baekhyun smiles, and says, “See you later, kids.”
He slides the barrel of the gun between his teeth, shoving it against the roof of his mouth, a sharp, cold pang of metal, and he squeezes.
Are you watching closely?
fin.