you'll get an apology from me when i'm dead
written for liuxin_g for sncj_santa's 2013 round for their prompt: Dear Santa,
may i have a fic where exo k are cops and exo m are an infamous gang. sehun, who is some sort of prodigy in crime solving, meets lu han, the coffee shop barista. OR, kyungsoo meets kris, the bartender. so basically, krisoo or hunhan as the main couple.
you'll get an apology from me when i'm dead
pg-13; ~5.1k; gen (luhan-centric), background chen/tao
mafia au; meet luhan and his band of six compadres, trying to make a living in the world as an organized bunch of high-level thugs. who also run a coffee shop by day.
Chen has opening shift at the cafe on Thursdays, so Lu Han's usually free to swaddle himself in his warm quilted blankets for at least another hour after his morning alarm before Yixing comes back into their shared room and pushes burrito-Lu Han off the mattress to start the day.
This particular morning, though, sees Lu Han bright-eyed and already dressed, loudly clattering around in the kitchen, three hours before any normal human being would be up. He’s rifling through the cabinet doors with abandon, swinging the creaky hinges roughly as he gives each cabinet a cursory look before closing the doors, when Yixing shuffles into the kitchen space uncharacteristically grumpily and pouting.
“It’s 4 o’clock in the morning, you shitface,” the normally mild-mannered boy says grouchily, rubbing at his eyes with one fist while the other hand scratches at the thin tank covering his stomach. Lu Han pauses in mid-swing of another door and looks over his shoulder with a sunny smile.
“Sucks to be on the other side of it, doesn’t it,” he says cheerily. “Want some eggs to turn that little frown upside-down?” Yixing grunts, a disgusted expression crossing over his face before settling on a wide-mouthed yawn, scrunching up his entire visage.
“I want to throw you out the window, is what I want,” he mutters, shuffling to the kitchen table and plopping down unceremoniously. “Give me a few minutes to wake up properly, and I’ll make us something. I’m not calling the fire department again.”
Lu Han pouts, but goes and sits down across Yixing with a hop and skip, fingers tapping away at the wooden table without rhythm. Yixing rubs his hand across his face and peeks out from his palm with one squinted eye.
“How’d it go?” He asks hoarsely, morning sleep thick in his throat. Lu Han just shrugs and smiles that closed-mouth grin that he always gives when he wants to stay cryptic.
“You know.” They sit for a few moments in silence, Lu Han still tapping at the tabletop and Yixing sleepily staring into the blank air.
Yixing yawns again, hiding it away with his hand, and gets up with a stretch of his arms. “You missed a spot on your neck again.” Lu Han’s hand flies up to the side of his neck immediately, and Yixing clucks. “I’m supposed to be the forgetful one, not you.”
“Well, I was a little preoccupied,” Lu Han says petulantly, rubbing his thumb over the stretch of his neck. Yixing leans over the table and drags up Lu Han’s shirt collar over his Adam’s apple and wipes the spot onto the fabric before drawing back with a small smile.
“Okay, what do you want to eat?”
He clocks Chen coming in heavy at his four and steels himself for the rough arm-hug Chen likes to start the day off with. The wiry sleeved arm slings itself recklessly around Lu Han’s straightened shoulders and rounds off around his throat for a moment, punching the breath out of him, before it eases off.
“Lulu-ge, what a great morning it is to be alive,” Chen sings in his ear, his crinkled-eye smile pulling out a responding grin on Lu Han’s face. Lu Han mock swats at his head, and Chen ducks away with a giggle, drawing away.
“Go away with your cheerful self, it’s way too early for you to be smiling up in here,” Lu Han says, flapping a hand at him while unlocking the cash register. Chen giggles again.
“But, Lulu-ge, we’re supposed to be selling service with a smile,” he says, emphasizing the ‘smile’ with his index fingers drawing out the shape on his lips. Lu Han rolls his eyes.
“What is this Lulu-ge crap, anyway? When have I ever said that was acceptable,” he grumbles, opening up the register and taking out the bills to count.
“Hehe, but it just rolls off the tongue, hyung,” Chen says, walking out of the drinks area into the shop front. He cracks his back, bending backwards with his hands braced on his lower back, waiting until he hears a crunch of bone joints, and comes back up with a satisfied smile curling his lips up. “Anyway, you let Mi-Xiumin-ge say it, why can’t I?”
Lu Han raises an eyebrow at him, a ten-dollar bill grasped loosely between his fingers. “And you’re how old again?”
Chen pouts, scrunching up his lips in a poor man’s imitation of a duck beak, and sticks his tongue out in retaliation, before going to take down the chairs from their upside-down positions on the cafe tables.
“That’s not fair, though, we’re Chinese now, ge, there are no age honorifics,” he protests weakly, swinging the chairs down onto the tiled ground with ease.
“Uh huh. I’ll forget the age difference when you stop calling me hyung and Xiumin Minseok,” Lu Han says loftily, holding up a fifty to the fluorescent ceiling lights for a closer inspection. “Do you know where Zitao is? He’s supposed to come in for opening shift today too, and it’s almost time to open the cafe.”
Chen puts down the chair in his hand and frowns pensively in thought. “He wasn’t in bed when I left this morning. I thought he was already here and you sent him out for supplies or something. Maybe Kris-ge called him in for something?”
Lu Han shuffles the bills and stuffs them back into the register with a resolute click and looks up at Chen with a similar frown on his face. “No, Kris called last night; said he was gonna be out for the next two days.”
Chen opens his mouth to offer possible ideas of Zitao’s whereabouts just as the boy in question stumbles in from the back room, clothes ruffled and dirt-smeared, and expression beleaguered, his already prominent dark circles swallowing up his face.
“Tao!” Chen yelps, and runs over to him, hands out and ready to catch him if need be. “What happened? Why are you in yesterday’s clothes; all you alright?”
Zitao heaves a weighted sigh and leans into Chen’s space, slumping onto his chest and hooking his jaw over his shoulder when Chen circles his arms fully around him, uncaring of his disheveled state. Chen staggers back a little, readjusting himself to hold Zitao’s weight more easily, and rubs a soothing hand down his back.
“You okay, Taozi?” Lu Han asks quietly, leaning over the register counter. Zitao nods into Chen’s shoulder and jerks his hand up in a semblance of a thumbs-up.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just exhausted,” he slurs. “One of my girls got into a little jam; I had to get called in.” He huffs, nuzzling into Chen’s body a little, and then breaks away; Chen’s arms fall apart, fluttering back to his sides. Zitao collapses into one of the upright chairs, and Chen follows, primly sitting into the seat next to him.
Lu Han fills up one of the bigger sized cups with the water pitcher and brings it over to them, dragging another chair over to their table and placing the cup in front of Zitao. He sits down without aplomb, leaning back into the chair with his arms and legs crossed, and levels Zitao with a cool stare.
“She okay? Anything I should tell Kris about?”
“No, it’s under control. And I already told Xiumin-ge before I got here,” Zitao says promptly, shaking his head. Chen reaches over, laying a hand over his lap, squeezing a thigh once, and Zitao untenses, relaxing his hunched shoulders. “I’m just more annoyed that I didn’t hear about this problem she’d been having until it got this point. The scuffle took all night to fix.”
“Cops?” Chen prompts, squeezing again. Zitao looks thoughtful, chewing his bottom lip for a moment before answering.
“Not that I noticed, but one of my girls mentioned seeing a detective she’d hollered at before crossing by once.” Zitao bites his lip again and looks down at his lap. “That’s why I told Xiumin-ge.”
They don’t say anything for a bit; Chen picks up the cup for Zitao when it remains untouched and pushes it into his face before Zitao relents and drinks. Lu Han drums his fingers against the table counter.
“Well, hopefully it wasn’t actually anything,” he says in the end. “In the mean time, let’s open up, huh?”
The cafe lease’s under Kris’ name, as are most of their assets, but it’s Minseok who runs the place with an iron fist-well, as much of an iron fist as the perpetually easy-going and smiling second-in-command can possibly muster.
The name comes from the song Zitao had always used to beg his ges to sing to him at night, right after his first meeting with Peter Pan the animated Disney movie, and likewise, the cafe itself is decorated to match its whimsical name, with bright yellow-green walls and painted cartoon children flying around on the giant windows in by the entrance. Cafe Neverland is bright and inviting, and because Minseok believes wholeheartedly in making their patrons happy, he’s usually the first one to call out a greeting from behind the coffee counter with the biggest smile on his face.
Today, however, is Minseok’s day off and he’s gone off to go visit a few of their bookies, so Lu Han, being the second eldest, has control of the reins for the day. Zitao would describe it resentfully as Lu Han’s tyrannical reign of terror, as every time Lu Han’s given the run of the house so to speak, it tends to … get to his head. (The last time Minseok had to run out suddenly of the cafe to do an emergency milk run and left Lu Han in charge, he’d come back to Chen frantically running back and forth to get all the piling coffee orders out, Zitao huddled in the break room rocking back and forth with Yixing hovering over with a soothing hand on his back, and Lu Han cheerfully whistling at the cash register, innocently patting his newfound paper crown. The customers got a kick out of it, though.)
He’s in the middle of dictating a customer’s order a trembling-faced Zitao in a fast-spoken tongue twister while simultaneously leaning over and blowing air over Yixing’s bared collarbones and dodging his increasingly harder whacks when three enormously tall officers walk into the cafe, embroiled in conversation. Chen wipes down a recently vacated table off to the side, broad swipes across the painted wood surface methodical and relaxed; his eyes remain trained on the entering police. Zitao jerks his hand once while plunging down the steam wand, splattering a little of the milk he’s steaming along the edges of the pitcher, but he adjusts with a grimace. Yixing pushes Lu Han fully away from the cashier counter, giving him a final smack to the back of his head that lands with a satisfying thump, and smiles at the three officers who pile up behind the counter.
“Good morning, gentlemen. What can I get for you today?” he asks politely, dimpling his cheek. Lu Han rolls his eyes and elbows his way past Zitao’s to the pastry display, where he rests his chin and takes a good hard look at the three intruders.
The tallest one of the three blue-collared officers, a chestnut brunette with a wide and unusually toothy grin, cuts away from the conversation they’d been having and looks thoughtfully at the menu board behind Yixing. “Morning! I’d like something sweet; what do you guys want?” He looks to the second tallest one and cocks his head. “You are a coffee drinker, right, Sehun-ah?”
Yixing deepens his smile and moves his gaze to Sehun, who’s staring intently at the box of bright colored tapioca straws. “We do also serve bubble tea and smoothies if you’re more into that, sir,” he says kindly, nodding to the right-most corner of the menu board above his head where the bubble tea flavors are listed.
Sehun glances up in a decidedly shy manner, given his flat expression, and nods quietly at Yixing. “Taro bubble tea, please,” he requests quietly, and edges back behind the remaining officer, who’s snickering to himself. He rolls his eyes and punches the laughing boy in the arm. “Shut up and order.”
“Hey, I’m your elder, you can’t talk to me like that!” the boy protests, rubbing the spot Sehun hit. The toothy one huffs and drops a hand on each of the boys’ heads.
“Just once, I’d like to get through a day without having to play nursemaid to you brats,” he mutters. He gives Yixing an apologetic grin, and shakes the boys, fingers tight over their scalps. “I’ll have a medium iced coffee, two pumps of syrup and milk, please, and Jongin here will have his usual baby drink: a banana milk.” He shies away from the swipe Jongin tries to take at him, and shakes him again in retaliation with a gleeful smile.
“Do I get a name for your drink?” Yixing asks absentmindedly, scrawling down the orders on consecutive plastic cups. Toothy does a subtle once-over and raises his brows flirtatiously, letting go of his fellow cops to lean against the register counter.
“Well, that depends. Do I get yours in return?” Behind him, both Sehun and Jongin stop fussing around with their tousled hair and start gagging as one. (Lu Han’s not far behind, to be honest. No one can really beat duizhang’s grease when he turns on the charm, but this guy’s putting up a good fight.)
Yixing blinks at the guy, expression blank. “My name’s on the tag,” he replies slowly, not quite understanding. Zitao doesn’t pause in washing his pitchers, but there’s a slight tremble in his arm, an escaped squeak of laughter. The guy backs up at that, straightening his uniform, an embarrassed laugh escaping his pearly white teeth. A hand flutters up to cover it, surprisingly delicately and shy, given his earlier bravado.
“Ah, well, should’ve seen that coming, I guess. My name’s Chanyeol,” he says, smiling again. Yixing dimples blankly at him and swirls away to help make the drink orders with Zitao.
“...Uh, paying?” Sehun prompts after a few moments; Yixing’s attention remains fixed on the drinks though. Lu Han sighs fondly and disengages away from the pastry display to take up the register.
“Sorry about that, he forgets a lot,” Lu Han says amicably, punching in the price orders for the three. “That’ll be 10.07; would you like a receipt?” He watches, faintly bemused, as Chanyeol and Jongin push a reluctant and cross-armed Sehun forward, ushering him to the counter with matching grins. Lu Han smiles at Sehun’s petulant face. “Receipt?”
“...No,” Sehun replies after a beat, unfolding his arms to take out his wallet. He rifles through the folds of the wallet and picks out a ten-dollar bill and another dollar. He hesitates a second, then places the bills on the counter with unexpected gravity. “Keep the change.”
“Will do, thank you. Have a good day,” Lu Han says, cashing in the bills. Sehun nods, a flat line across his face, and that would’ve been it had Lu Han not looked back up at the exact moment Sehun’s eyes turn to his.
(There’s something discomfitting about this boy’s eyes, even beyond the fact that he’s in an impromptu nonconsensual staring death-match with a fucking cop. Lu Han feels unexpectedly pinned down, a feeling he hasn’t experienced since the day they’d left, and he can’t tear his eyes away. It’s unsettling, the way this kid’s basically ripping off the layers on Lu Han without even touching him or saying a thing, and he won’t admit to the way his body’s clenching up, spine needle straight and veins singing for a knife to grip on.)
Lu Han smiles, quizzical and polite, and Sehun blinks, turning away to join his colleagues at the pick-up counter. A breath hisses out of him, skeeting through gritted teeth, but he shakes away the hand Yixing reaches out to his back with a grimaced smile.
Tonight’s not gonna be pretty.
They have their names like a second skin. Kris doesn’t answer to anything but Kris, even in the safety of Minseok’s panic room, and refuses to even touch his birth certificate with his bare hands when the situation requires it; he uses gloves. Chen hasn’t heard his name spoken in years, can’t quite remember how to curl his tongue around the sounds of the words to ask for it even though he blusters daily and rebelliously drops his hyungs and waes even after the warning looks, but Chen is all he knows now. Zitao never saw the need to be anything but, because Tao is still Zitao, even shortened; he responds just the same.
Minseok, though: Minseok has breathed his full name for an eternity, has kept his grip so tight that Xiumin doesn’t stick on quite right, and likewise they all fumble with it, stuttering to get the language straight, the person right. They have to say it right, though, have to make sure it’s Xiumin the public knows, but it’s Minseok they think of in their minds. He likes it that way, a last remnant of a life long ago.
Yixing had tried once, after they’d left the orphanage the first time round and landed their asses all the way on the other side of the planet. He’d called himself Lay, had the accompanying L-sign with his fingers, would force the smiling and bubbly persona. He’d forgot after the first time someone referred to him as Lay, wouldn’t respond even after repeated calls; Yixing is Yixing.
Lu Han declined any suggestions, had grinned viciously at Zitao’s Xiao Lu and rolled his eyes at Minseok’s joking Lu-ge. Lu Han was an affirmation, a beg for mercy; it was a reminder of who he’d become-how deep into the bone this life had sunk in. Another name couldn’t encompass the whole of them.
Escape is only ever temporary, after all.
Lu Han hurries to put on his apron in the backroom, hastily rubbing off most of the splattered blood left on his cheeks and neck with a rag with one hand while trying to shove his head through the dark blue apron with the other. There's a knock on the door, and he jumps a little, heart still pounding with the thrumming rush that comes from completing a hit, and calls out.
"I’ll be right out!"
Yixing pokes his head in, just a crack so that no one else can see with his body blocking the rest of the view, and raises an eyebrow at him. "You could've cleaned up on the way here, you know. Now I’ll have to clean the rags up again."
Lu Han makes a face at him, and throws the rag at his head. "Shut up. It's done, at least, okay."
"My shift’s up in one minute, just so you know," Yixing says serenely, dodging the half-hearted throw and stepping into the room. He shuts the door after him, waits until the click of the lock sounds, and walks up to where Lu Han's still furiously trying to scrub off the flaking bits of blood on his collarbone.
He pushes Lu Han around, ignoring the huff of protest Lu Han lets out from being manhandled, and straightens the apron ties around his waist and laces him in. At the last pull of his ties, Yixing pauses, hands warm on his hips.
“Kris just called in for a meeting tonight; we may have something of a problem,” he says quietly, breathing into Lu Han’s ear, and then steps away. Lu Han turns around with a faint smile, the grimace he likes to call a smile and Chen likes to call ‘a disgruntled child pretending to swallow his vegetables’, and nods. Yixing raises the corners of his lips up in response, dimple dipping in, and adjusts his apron front with finality.
“Oh, and the cops are back. Have fun entertaining!” Yixing says at the last moment before Lu Han walks out, and Lu Han’s smile drops into a gape for a moment before swiftly resetting itself into a more plastic grin, and he exits out the backroom to the trailing song of Yixing’s soft giggling.
Minseok notices him first, stationed by the juicer, and spares a hand from cutting strawberries to give him a friendly clap on the shoulder.
“Nice to see you on time,” he says with a wide smile. His eyes, cat-like and warm, crinkle along the edges, and shift over to his left. Lu Han follows his gaze with mild unease and finds it warranted with the same kid cop seated by the window, lazily slurping away at his bubble tea and his toothy companion across from him chatting away. Minseok looks back at him. “Ready to get your hands dirty?”
Lu Han laughs lightly. “Aren’t I always?”
He rubs his forefinger and thumb together, and then wipes the blood left onto the bottom corners of his apron where it won’t show over the counter, and steps up to the cashier.
-
There’s something soothing about a dead body. The way the eyes go out first, that last snuff of life gasping out of existence, the way the body still twitches for the first few minutes, uncontrolled and unaware of its disconnect, the slowed oozing of the blood from the body puncture Lu Han likes to gift his hits.
He’d sat there once, crouching over the corpse of a mid-level city hall pencil pusher, idly dangling a knife around, and watched the body sink into itself, careful to avoid the pool of congealed blood. When the rigor had set in, he’d carefully pulled its arms out and daintily slipped his own gloved-hand into the rigid curled fingers in a mockery of a goodbye handshake before tipping his imaginary hat at it and fleeing the scene.
There’s an irreverence to it, playing with dead bodies. Not at all like the lengths people go to with the living.
Lu Han thinks about this now, staring down the two cops from the other day, hands gripping the serving tray.
“Anything else I can get for you, officers? A refill, something to eat?” Cyanide, maybe? Chanyeol, the toothy one, eyes him for a second, a flash of something harder striking through his gaze; Lu Han blinks, and he sees a wide silly smile instead, Chanyeol’s body language relaxed and splayed out. He takes a miniscule step back all the same.
“No thanks,” Chanyeol says pleasantly, hands skittering across the table. He glances at Sehun, who’s nonchalantly looking out the window, tapioca straw pursed in between his lips, and looks back. “We’ll be gone as soon as Sehunnie here finishes his drink.” He leans in a little, conspiratorial and tapping his nose, and Lu Han obligingly steps forward. “We’re not actually off-duty yet; don’t tell our precinct.”
Lu Han nods, eyebrows raised, and smiles a little. “I’ll be sure to keep my mouth shut when your captain storms and ransacks our cafe, looking for your truant asses.”
Sehun chokes and sputters out bits of chewed up tapioca, much to both Lu Han’ and Chanyeol’s disgust. Chanyeol makes a fuss, throws napkins at Sehun’s dyed blond head, but Sehun bats it away distractedly.
“What did you say?” he manages to cough out in between hacks, and Lu Han smiles primly, straightening up his posture.
“I said, I’ll keep your secret; enjoy your drinks,” he says promptly and nods to the two of them, arching a brow at a disbelieving Sehun and winking, before swiveling away to attend to the other patrons.
-
Cafe Neverland closes at 4PM that day, an apologetic Minseok ushering out the last of their patrons with promises of a bright and early opening the next day. Lu Han and Zitao quickly wipe down all the counters while Chen cleans out the espresso machine and the pitchers. At a quarter past four, they amble out of the backdoors of the cafe, aprons and work clothes exchanged for the silly suits and ties Kris insists on for family meetings.
Lu Han thinks they look more like they’re headed for a funeral than a meeting at the bar Kris runs. He pulls at his tie in discomfort, and grumbles when Minseok rolls his eyes and readjusts the tie for him. Zitao makes a face at him over Minseok’s shoulders, fingers smartly doing up his own tie, and Lu Han responds with an even more ghoulish one, pulling down his mouth and unhinging his jaw.
Chen pulls on his gloves with flair and grins at the rest of them. “Let’s go see the boss then, huh?”
Lu Han snorts and reaches over to whap the back his head. “You’ve been watching way too many movies lately.” Chen pouts at him, rubbing his head, and Zitao pets him, giving Lu Han a dirty look. Lu Han just smiles sunnily and waits for Minseok to unlock the gas-guzzler he and Kris had gotten him as a joint present for Christmas.
“Dibs on the front seat!” exclaims Zitao just as the car beeps its welcome, and races for the door.
“Whoa, hey! As magnae, you gotta sit in the back like the rest of us chumps,” Chen protests, lunging for Zitao and pulling at his arm.
“We’re Chinese; being youngest means shit to me,” Zitao whines, slapping away Chen’s hands. Minseok rolls his eyes and climbs into the driver’s seat without a word, content to let them duke it out. Lu Han snickers and clambers into the back without a fuss, more eager to just watch their remaining members petty-fight.
“Come on, Tao, you know I get nauseous if I sit in the back,” Chen begs, scuttling his hands over Zitao’s arms. Zitao snorts and gives him a disbelieving look.
“The ride’s less than ten minutes; you’ll live.” Chen pouts again and throws his arms down.
“I’ll blow you when we get back home.”
“...Fine,” Zitao relents. Chen fist pumps and tiptoes up for a quick kiss on his cheek before slipping into the front seat, and Zitao resigns himself to the back with a sigh. “Better be a good blowjob, damnit.”
“Be lucky you’re getting any at all,” Minseok remarks, looking over his shoulder with a smile. “All right, we all seated, children? Daddy’s waiting.”
“A) Never say that again. B) Never say that again,” says Lu Han, making gagging noises. “Let’s roll, though.” They pull out of the street, bickering, and start their way to Kris’ bar.
A minute later, an unmarked vehicle pulls off out of the street as well and follows behind.
BONUS SCENE
He corners the gasping rotund man at a dead end alley, hovering behind a dumpster in tears. Lu Han blows out his breath into the cold air, casually twirling dagger by its ring, and ambles to the dumpster with a jaunt and a tuneless whistle.
He rounds off the edge of the dumpster and sticks his head out to gaze over his crying hit.
“Peekaboo,” he says lightly, and the man jumps, shriek reverberating in the brickstone alley. “Now, running always gets me a little pumped up, you know. It makes it so much more … fun. Thanks for that.”
“P-please, oh please, please, just let me go, I’ll do anything,” the hit begs, sniveling tears and snot onto his soiled suit. Lu Han smiles faintly.
“What’s the price for a life, I wonder,” he muses, catching his dagger and tapping the tip against his bottom lip. “How much would you give to be alive right now?”
“How much would you?” asks a voice behind him, the sharp click of a safety off a gun stark in the silent air. Lu Han breathes out slowly, more than a little irritated and caught-off guard. He whirls around, safe in the knowledge that his facemask covers him completely, and greets the intruder.
“Oh! Officer! Why, this is a surprise indeed,” Lu Han breathes out, taking in the sight of Sehun before him, gun trained on his body. “So nice of you to drop by me and my friend’s little chat.”
“You’re under arrest,” Sehun says calmly, undeterred by Lu Han’s friendly greeting. Lu Han smiles, despite the mask, and cocks his head. His hit raises his head out from the hiding spot slowly, and then takes the opportunity to scramble away, panicked breathing whizzing past Lu Han and Sehun and out of the alley.
“Oh dear. You’ve scared him off,” Lu Han says, mock disappointment in his throat. Sehun gestures with his gun, both hands holding it steady.
“Rather time to drop your weapons, don’t you think?” Sehun says, a note sardonically. Lu Han lets his dagger fall to the ground as he raises his arms up slowly, making a note to send Chen the bill for his brand new set of ring daggers.
“You got me, you got me,” he says soothingly, calculating the possible exit ways. No dice; he’ll have to fight his way out. Sehun approaches slowly, gun still up, backing Lu Han into the brick wall behind him. “Got nowhere else to go, officer. D’you mind putting away your gun? Firepower gives me the hives, you see.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” Sehun responds and shoots out a hand to pin Lu Han firmly against the wall. The other he uses to flick the safety back on and holster his gun and exchange for a pair of handcuffs.
“Why, officer, I hardly know you. Don’t you think we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves?” Lu Han purrs, gearing himself up for the breakaway. Sehun snorts and snaps open the handcuffs.
“We’ll have plenty of time to get acquainted on our way to the precinct,” Sehun assures him and takes his hand off Lu Han an inch.
Lu Han strikes.
He snaps an elbow out right into his gut, and clenches his teeth before slamming his forehead straight into Sehun’s. Sehun cries out, breath knocked out of him, and Lu Han snakes out a leg to sweep him off his feet.
“Oh fu-” Sehun gasps out before he falls. Lu Han scrambles for the gun in his holster, and smashes his fist into the side of Sehun’s face when he tries to fight back. Gun in hand, Lu Han quickly runs for the emergency fire staircase hanging a few feet away from them. Sehun grabs for his back-up gun and whips it out to target Lu Han’s fleeing figure.
Lu Han jumps for the bottom rung of the fire ladder just as the safety catch clicks, and scrambles up the steps with a loud prayer screaming in his mind. He makes it onto the landing, and almost slams his face down onto the metal to avoid the shot Sehun just fired at his head.
“Shit shit shit shit shit,” he chants, throwing his body onto the staircase and running up the steps, keeping his body tucked in as Sehun keeps firing.
“I’ll-shit-see you-goddamnit, come on-again!” He manages to shout, barely dodging a bullet to his thigh and his head. A third bullet grazes his bicep.
“Not if I kill you first,” Sehun calls out, and Lu Han makes a face.
Always the pretty ones.
end notes: sooooo this was my first exchange fic for this fandom ever!!!!! i finally got around to posting it on my own journal, mostly because i've spent a long time being bitter abt it and hating it, but i think i've finally reached a plateau. characterizations were from oct-december 2013, and if you managed to finish through the fic, you'll notice kris' presence lmfao bc yeah. i think what stopped me the most from being able to really connect with this fic was the fact that i had to uh write hunhan LMFAO and that just really didn't click with me. so you'll notice it's a lot more m- and luhan-centric bc idk luhan just spoke to me. also, i ended writing a lot more layhan interaction than hunhan bc even back then, it was clear for everyone to see. :''') layhan is Life
i have a couple of regrets with this fic; i wish i could've finished it--i wish i could finish all the fics i write, obv, but this was just an Extra Nightmare bc it was my first exchange fic and i still couldn't do a good job of it. :( i had some nice ideas, i think, that never made it past drawing board--like bartender kris and a krisoo sex scene :'''), and culminating in a m vs k showdown at the very end. but alas~
all i can say is that this fic could not have even been finished if it wasn't for infede, who just really held my hand throughout this bumpy ride and gave me her crits whenever i'd frantically line her after writing a passage and being Neurotic about it. :''')
i like to think i've improved since this. who knows.
may i have a fic where exo k are cops and exo m are an infamous gang. sehun, who is some sort of prodigy in crime solving, meets lu han, the coffee shop barista. OR, kyungsoo meets kris, the bartender. so basically, krisoo or hunhan as the main couple.
you'll get an apology from me when i'm dead
pg-13; ~5.1k; gen (luhan-centric), background chen/tao
mafia au; meet luhan and his band of six compadres, trying to make a living in the world as an organized bunch of high-level thugs. who also run a coffee shop by day.
Chen has opening shift at the cafe on Thursdays, so Lu Han's usually free to swaddle himself in his warm quilted blankets for at least another hour after his morning alarm before Yixing comes back into their shared room and pushes burrito-Lu Han off the mattress to start the day.
This particular morning, though, sees Lu Han bright-eyed and already dressed, loudly clattering around in the kitchen, three hours before any normal human being would be up. He’s rifling through the cabinet doors with abandon, swinging the creaky hinges roughly as he gives each cabinet a cursory look before closing the doors, when Yixing shuffles into the kitchen space uncharacteristically grumpily and pouting.
“It’s 4 o’clock in the morning, you shitface,” the normally mild-mannered boy says grouchily, rubbing at his eyes with one fist while the other hand scratches at the thin tank covering his stomach. Lu Han pauses in mid-swing of another door and looks over his shoulder with a sunny smile.
“Sucks to be on the other side of it, doesn’t it,” he says cheerily. “Want some eggs to turn that little frown upside-down?” Yixing grunts, a disgusted expression crossing over his face before settling on a wide-mouthed yawn, scrunching up his entire visage.
“I want to throw you out the window, is what I want,” he mutters, shuffling to the kitchen table and plopping down unceremoniously. “Give me a few minutes to wake up properly, and I’ll make us something. I’m not calling the fire department again.”
Lu Han pouts, but goes and sits down across Yixing with a hop and skip, fingers tapping away at the wooden table without rhythm. Yixing rubs his hand across his face and peeks out from his palm with one squinted eye.
“How’d it go?” He asks hoarsely, morning sleep thick in his throat. Lu Han just shrugs and smiles that closed-mouth grin that he always gives when he wants to stay cryptic.
“You know.” They sit for a few moments in silence, Lu Han still tapping at the tabletop and Yixing sleepily staring into the blank air.
Yixing yawns again, hiding it away with his hand, and gets up with a stretch of his arms. “You missed a spot on your neck again.” Lu Han’s hand flies up to the side of his neck immediately, and Yixing clucks. “I’m supposed to be the forgetful one, not you.”
“Well, I was a little preoccupied,” Lu Han says petulantly, rubbing his thumb over the stretch of his neck. Yixing leans over the table and drags up Lu Han’s shirt collar over his Adam’s apple and wipes the spot onto the fabric before drawing back with a small smile.
“Okay, what do you want to eat?”
He clocks Chen coming in heavy at his four and steels himself for the rough arm-hug Chen likes to start the day off with. The wiry sleeved arm slings itself recklessly around Lu Han’s straightened shoulders and rounds off around his throat for a moment, punching the breath out of him, before it eases off.
“Lulu-ge, what a great morning it is to be alive,” Chen sings in his ear, his crinkled-eye smile pulling out a responding grin on Lu Han’s face. Lu Han mock swats at his head, and Chen ducks away with a giggle, drawing away.
“Go away with your cheerful self, it’s way too early for you to be smiling up in here,” Lu Han says, flapping a hand at him while unlocking the cash register. Chen giggles again.
“But, Lulu-ge, we’re supposed to be selling service with a smile,” he says, emphasizing the ‘smile’ with his index fingers drawing out the shape on his lips. Lu Han rolls his eyes.
“What is this Lulu-ge crap, anyway? When have I ever said that was acceptable,” he grumbles, opening up the register and taking out the bills to count.
“Hehe, but it just rolls off the tongue, hyung,” Chen says, walking out of the drinks area into the shop front. He cracks his back, bending backwards with his hands braced on his lower back, waiting until he hears a crunch of bone joints, and comes back up with a satisfied smile curling his lips up. “Anyway, you let Mi-Xiumin-ge say it, why can’t I?”
Lu Han raises an eyebrow at him, a ten-dollar bill grasped loosely between his fingers. “And you’re how old again?”
Chen pouts, scrunching up his lips in a poor man’s imitation of a duck beak, and sticks his tongue out in retaliation, before going to take down the chairs from their upside-down positions on the cafe tables.
“That’s not fair, though, we’re Chinese now, ge, there are no age honorifics,” he protests weakly, swinging the chairs down onto the tiled ground with ease.
“Uh huh. I’ll forget the age difference when you stop calling me hyung and Xiumin Minseok,” Lu Han says loftily, holding up a fifty to the fluorescent ceiling lights for a closer inspection. “Do you know where Zitao is? He’s supposed to come in for opening shift today too, and it’s almost time to open the cafe.”
Chen puts down the chair in his hand and frowns pensively in thought. “He wasn’t in bed when I left this morning. I thought he was already here and you sent him out for supplies or something. Maybe Kris-ge called him in for something?”
Lu Han shuffles the bills and stuffs them back into the register with a resolute click and looks up at Chen with a similar frown on his face. “No, Kris called last night; said he was gonna be out for the next two days.”
Chen opens his mouth to offer possible ideas of Zitao’s whereabouts just as the boy in question stumbles in from the back room, clothes ruffled and dirt-smeared, and expression beleaguered, his already prominent dark circles swallowing up his face.
“Tao!” Chen yelps, and runs over to him, hands out and ready to catch him if need be. “What happened? Why are you in yesterday’s clothes; all you alright?”
Zitao heaves a weighted sigh and leans into Chen’s space, slumping onto his chest and hooking his jaw over his shoulder when Chen circles his arms fully around him, uncaring of his disheveled state. Chen staggers back a little, readjusting himself to hold Zitao’s weight more easily, and rubs a soothing hand down his back.
“You okay, Taozi?” Lu Han asks quietly, leaning over the register counter. Zitao nods into Chen’s shoulder and jerks his hand up in a semblance of a thumbs-up.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just exhausted,” he slurs. “One of my girls got into a little jam; I had to get called in.” He huffs, nuzzling into Chen’s body a little, and then breaks away; Chen’s arms fall apart, fluttering back to his sides. Zitao collapses into one of the upright chairs, and Chen follows, primly sitting into the seat next to him.
Lu Han fills up one of the bigger sized cups with the water pitcher and brings it over to them, dragging another chair over to their table and placing the cup in front of Zitao. He sits down without aplomb, leaning back into the chair with his arms and legs crossed, and levels Zitao with a cool stare.
“She okay? Anything I should tell Kris about?”
“No, it’s under control. And I already told Xiumin-ge before I got here,” Zitao says promptly, shaking his head. Chen reaches over, laying a hand over his lap, squeezing a thigh once, and Zitao untenses, relaxing his hunched shoulders. “I’m just more annoyed that I didn’t hear about this problem she’d been having until it got this point. The scuffle took all night to fix.”
“Cops?” Chen prompts, squeezing again. Zitao looks thoughtful, chewing his bottom lip for a moment before answering.
“Not that I noticed, but one of my girls mentioned seeing a detective she’d hollered at before crossing by once.” Zitao bites his lip again and looks down at his lap. “That’s why I told Xiumin-ge.”
They don’t say anything for a bit; Chen picks up the cup for Zitao when it remains untouched and pushes it into his face before Zitao relents and drinks. Lu Han drums his fingers against the table counter.
“Well, hopefully it wasn’t actually anything,” he says in the end. “In the mean time, let’s open up, huh?”
The cafe lease’s under Kris’ name, as are most of their assets, but it’s Minseok who runs the place with an iron fist-well, as much of an iron fist as the perpetually easy-going and smiling second-in-command can possibly muster.
The name comes from the song Zitao had always used to beg his ges to sing to him at night, right after his first meeting with Peter Pan the animated Disney movie, and likewise, the cafe itself is decorated to match its whimsical name, with bright yellow-green walls and painted cartoon children flying around on the giant windows in by the entrance. Cafe Neverland is bright and inviting, and because Minseok believes wholeheartedly in making their patrons happy, he’s usually the first one to call out a greeting from behind the coffee counter with the biggest smile on his face.
Today, however, is Minseok’s day off and he’s gone off to go visit a few of their bookies, so Lu Han, being the second eldest, has control of the reins for the day. Zitao would describe it resentfully as Lu Han’s tyrannical reign of terror, as every time Lu Han’s given the run of the house so to speak, it tends to … get to his head. (The last time Minseok had to run out suddenly of the cafe to do an emergency milk run and left Lu Han in charge, he’d come back to Chen frantically running back and forth to get all the piling coffee orders out, Zitao huddled in the break room rocking back and forth with Yixing hovering over with a soothing hand on his back, and Lu Han cheerfully whistling at the cash register, innocently patting his newfound paper crown. The customers got a kick out of it, though.)
He’s in the middle of dictating a customer’s order a trembling-faced Zitao in a fast-spoken tongue twister while simultaneously leaning over and blowing air over Yixing’s bared collarbones and dodging his increasingly harder whacks when three enormously tall officers walk into the cafe, embroiled in conversation. Chen wipes down a recently vacated table off to the side, broad swipes across the painted wood surface methodical and relaxed; his eyes remain trained on the entering police. Zitao jerks his hand once while plunging down the steam wand, splattering a little of the milk he’s steaming along the edges of the pitcher, but he adjusts with a grimace. Yixing pushes Lu Han fully away from the cashier counter, giving him a final smack to the back of his head that lands with a satisfying thump, and smiles at the three officers who pile up behind the counter.
“Good morning, gentlemen. What can I get for you today?” he asks politely, dimpling his cheek. Lu Han rolls his eyes and elbows his way past Zitao’s to the pastry display, where he rests his chin and takes a good hard look at the three intruders.
The tallest one of the three blue-collared officers, a chestnut brunette with a wide and unusually toothy grin, cuts away from the conversation they’d been having and looks thoughtfully at the menu board behind Yixing. “Morning! I’d like something sweet; what do you guys want?” He looks to the second tallest one and cocks his head. “You are a coffee drinker, right, Sehun-ah?”
Yixing deepens his smile and moves his gaze to Sehun, who’s staring intently at the box of bright colored tapioca straws. “We do also serve bubble tea and smoothies if you’re more into that, sir,” he says kindly, nodding to the right-most corner of the menu board above his head where the bubble tea flavors are listed.
Sehun glances up in a decidedly shy manner, given his flat expression, and nods quietly at Yixing. “Taro bubble tea, please,” he requests quietly, and edges back behind the remaining officer, who’s snickering to himself. He rolls his eyes and punches the laughing boy in the arm. “Shut up and order.”
“Hey, I’m your elder, you can’t talk to me like that!” the boy protests, rubbing the spot Sehun hit. The toothy one huffs and drops a hand on each of the boys’ heads.
“Just once, I’d like to get through a day without having to play nursemaid to you brats,” he mutters. He gives Yixing an apologetic grin, and shakes the boys, fingers tight over their scalps. “I’ll have a medium iced coffee, two pumps of syrup and milk, please, and Jongin here will have his usual baby drink: a banana milk.” He shies away from the swipe Jongin tries to take at him, and shakes him again in retaliation with a gleeful smile.
“Do I get a name for your drink?” Yixing asks absentmindedly, scrawling down the orders on consecutive plastic cups. Toothy does a subtle once-over and raises his brows flirtatiously, letting go of his fellow cops to lean against the register counter.
“Well, that depends. Do I get yours in return?” Behind him, both Sehun and Jongin stop fussing around with their tousled hair and start gagging as one. (Lu Han’s not far behind, to be honest. No one can really beat duizhang’s grease when he turns on the charm, but this guy’s putting up a good fight.)
Yixing blinks at the guy, expression blank. “My name’s on the tag,” he replies slowly, not quite understanding. Zitao doesn’t pause in washing his pitchers, but there’s a slight tremble in his arm, an escaped squeak of laughter. The guy backs up at that, straightening his uniform, an embarrassed laugh escaping his pearly white teeth. A hand flutters up to cover it, surprisingly delicately and shy, given his earlier bravado.
“Ah, well, should’ve seen that coming, I guess. My name’s Chanyeol,” he says, smiling again. Yixing dimples blankly at him and swirls away to help make the drink orders with Zitao.
“...Uh, paying?” Sehun prompts after a few moments; Yixing’s attention remains fixed on the drinks though. Lu Han sighs fondly and disengages away from the pastry display to take up the register.
“Sorry about that, he forgets a lot,” Lu Han says amicably, punching in the price orders for the three. “That’ll be 10.07; would you like a receipt?” He watches, faintly bemused, as Chanyeol and Jongin push a reluctant and cross-armed Sehun forward, ushering him to the counter with matching grins. Lu Han smiles at Sehun’s petulant face. “Receipt?”
“...No,” Sehun replies after a beat, unfolding his arms to take out his wallet. He rifles through the folds of the wallet and picks out a ten-dollar bill and another dollar. He hesitates a second, then places the bills on the counter with unexpected gravity. “Keep the change.”
“Will do, thank you. Have a good day,” Lu Han says, cashing in the bills. Sehun nods, a flat line across his face, and that would’ve been it had Lu Han not looked back up at the exact moment Sehun’s eyes turn to his.
(There’s something discomfitting about this boy’s eyes, even beyond the fact that he’s in an impromptu nonconsensual staring death-match with a fucking cop. Lu Han feels unexpectedly pinned down, a feeling he hasn’t experienced since the day they’d left, and he can’t tear his eyes away. It’s unsettling, the way this kid’s basically ripping off the layers on Lu Han without even touching him or saying a thing, and he won’t admit to the way his body’s clenching up, spine needle straight and veins singing for a knife to grip on.)
Lu Han smiles, quizzical and polite, and Sehun blinks, turning away to join his colleagues at the pick-up counter. A breath hisses out of him, skeeting through gritted teeth, but he shakes away the hand Yixing reaches out to his back with a grimaced smile.
Tonight’s not gonna be pretty.
They have their names like a second skin. Kris doesn’t answer to anything but Kris, even in the safety of Minseok’s panic room, and refuses to even touch his birth certificate with his bare hands when the situation requires it; he uses gloves. Chen hasn’t heard his name spoken in years, can’t quite remember how to curl his tongue around the sounds of the words to ask for it even though he blusters daily and rebelliously drops his hyungs and waes even after the warning looks, but Chen is all he knows now. Zitao never saw the need to be anything but, because Tao is still Zitao, even shortened; he responds just the same.
Minseok, though: Minseok has breathed his full name for an eternity, has kept his grip so tight that Xiumin doesn’t stick on quite right, and likewise they all fumble with it, stuttering to get the language straight, the person right. They have to say it right, though, have to make sure it’s Xiumin the public knows, but it’s Minseok they think of in their minds. He likes it that way, a last remnant of a life long ago.
Yixing had tried once, after they’d left the orphanage the first time round and landed their asses all the way on the other side of the planet. He’d called himself Lay, had the accompanying L-sign with his fingers, would force the smiling and bubbly persona. He’d forgot after the first time someone referred to him as Lay, wouldn’t respond even after repeated calls; Yixing is Yixing.
Lu Han declined any suggestions, had grinned viciously at Zitao’s Xiao Lu and rolled his eyes at Minseok’s joking Lu-ge. Lu Han was an affirmation, a beg for mercy; it was a reminder of who he’d become-how deep into the bone this life had sunk in. Another name couldn’t encompass the whole of them.
Escape is only ever temporary, after all.
Lu Han hurries to put on his apron in the backroom, hastily rubbing off most of the splattered blood left on his cheeks and neck with a rag with one hand while trying to shove his head through the dark blue apron with the other. There's a knock on the door, and he jumps a little, heart still pounding with the thrumming rush that comes from completing a hit, and calls out.
"I’ll be right out!"
Yixing pokes his head in, just a crack so that no one else can see with his body blocking the rest of the view, and raises an eyebrow at him. "You could've cleaned up on the way here, you know. Now I’ll have to clean the rags up again."
Lu Han makes a face at him, and throws the rag at his head. "Shut up. It's done, at least, okay."
"My shift’s up in one minute, just so you know," Yixing says serenely, dodging the half-hearted throw and stepping into the room. He shuts the door after him, waits until the click of the lock sounds, and walks up to where Lu Han's still furiously trying to scrub off the flaking bits of blood on his collarbone.
He pushes Lu Han around, ignoring the huff of protest Lu Han lets out from being manhandled, and straightens the apron ties around his waist and laces him in. At the last pull of his ties, Yixing pauses, hands warm on his hips.
“Kris just called in for a meeting tonight; we may have something of a problem,” he says quietly, breathing into Lu Han’s ear, and then steps away. Lu Han turns around with a faint smile, the grimace he likes to call a smile and Chen likes to call ‘a disgruntled child pretending to swallow his vegetables’, and nods. Yixing raises the corners of his lips up in response, dimple dipping in, and adjusts his apron front with finality.
“Oh, and the cops are back. Have fun entertaining!” Yixing says at the last moment before Lu Han walks out, and Lu Han’s smile drops into a gape for a moment before swiftly resetting itself into a more plastic grin, and he exits out the backroom to the trailing song of Yixing’s soft giggling.
Minseok notices him first, stationed by the juicer, and spares a hand from cutting strawberries to give him a friendly clap on the shoulder.
“Nice to see you on time,” he says with a wide smile. His eyes, cat-like and warm, crinkle along the edges, and shift over to his left. Lu Han follows his gaze with mild unease and finds it warranted with the same kid cop seated by the window, lazily slurping away at his bubble tea and his toothy companion across from him chatting away. Minseok looks back at him. “Ready to get your hands dirty?”
Lu Han laughs lightly. “Aren’t I always?”
He rubs his forefinger and thumb together, and then wipes the blood left onto the bottom corners of his apron where it won’t show over the counter, and steps up to the cashier.
-
There’s something soothing about a dead body. The way the eyes go out first, that last snuff of life gasping out of existence, the way the body still twitches for the first few minutes, uncontrolled and unaware of its disconnect, the slowed oozing of the blood from the body puncture Lu Han likes to gift his hits.
He’d sat there once, crouching over the corpse of a mid-level city hall pencil pusher, idly dangling a knife around, and watched the body sink into itself, careful to avoid the pool of congealed blood. When the rigor had set in, he’d carefully pulled its arms out and daintily slipped his own gloved-hand into the rigid curled fingers in a mockery of a goodbye handshake before tipping his imaginary hat at it and fleeing the scene.
There’s an irreverence to it, playing with dead bodies. Not at all like the lengths people go to with the living.
Lu Han thinks about this now, staring down the two cops from the other day, hands gripping the serving tray.
“Anything else I can get for you, officers? A refill, something to eat?” Cyanide, maybe? Chanyeol, the toothy one, eyes him for a second, a flash of something harder striking through his gaze; Lu Han blinks, and he sees a wide silly smile instead, Chanyeol’s body language relaxed and splayed out. He takes a miniscule step back all the same.
“No thanks,” Chanyeol says pleasantly, hands skittering across the table. He glances at Sehun, who’s nonchalantly looking out the window, tapioca straw pursed in between his lips, and looks back. “We’ll be gone as soon as Sehunnie here finishes his drink.” He leans in a little, conspiratorial and tapping his nose, and Lu Han obligingly steps forward. “We’re not actually off-duty yet; don’t tell our precinct.”
Lu Han nods, eyebrows raised, and smiles a little. “I’ll be sure to keep my mouth shut when your captain storms and ransacks our cafe, looking for your truant asses.”
Sehun chokes and sputters out bits of chewed up tapioca, much to both Lu Han’ and Chanyeol’s disgust. Chanyeol makes a fuss, throws napkins at Sehun’s dyed blond head, but Sehun bats it away distractedly.
“What did you say?” he manages to cough out in between hacks, and Lu Han smiles primly, straightening up his posture.
“I said, I’ll keep your secret; enjoy your drinks,” he says promptly and nods to the two of them, arching a brow at a disbelieving Sehun and winking, before swiveling away to attend to the other patrons.
-
Cafe Neverland closes at 4PM that day, an apologetic Minseok ushering out the last of their patrons with promises of a bright and early opening the next day. Lu Han and Zitao quickly wipe down all the counters while Chen cleans out the espresso machine and the pitchers. At a quarter past four, they amble out of the backdoors of the cafe, aprons and work clothes exchanged for the silly suits and ties Kris insists on for family meetings.
Lu Han thinks they look more like they’re headed for a funeral than a meeting at the bar Kris runs. He pulls at his tie in discomfort, and grumbles when Minseok rolls his eyes and readjusts the tie for him. Zitao makes a face at him over Minseok’s shoulders, fingers smartly doing up his own tie, and Lu Han responds with an even more ghoulish one, pulling down his mouth and unhinging his jaw.
Chen pulls on his gloves with flair and grins at the rest of them. “Let’s go see the boss then, huh?”
Lu Han snorts and reaches over to whap the back his head. “You’ve been watching way too many movies lately.” Chen pouts at him, rubbing his head, and Zitao pets him, giving Lu Han a dirty look. Lu Han just smiles sunnily and waits for Minseok to unlock the gas-guzzler he and Kris had gotten him as a joint present for Christmas.
“Dibs on the front seat!” exclaims Zitao just as the car beeps its welcome, and races for the door.
“Whoa, hey! As magnae, you gotta sit in the back like the rest of us chumps,” Chen protests, lunging for Zitao and pulling at his arm.
“We’re Chinese; being youngest means shit to me,” Zitao whines, slapping away Chen’s hands. Minseok rolls his eyes and climbs into the driver’s seat without a word, content to let them duke it out. Lu Han snickers and clambers into the back without a fuss, more eager to just watch their remaining members petty-fight.
“Come on, Tao, you know I get nauseous if I sit in the back,” Chen begs, scuttling his hands over Zitao’s arms. Zitao snorts and gives him a disbelieving look.
“The ride’s less than ten minutes; you’ll live.” Chen pouts again and throws his arms down.
“I’ll blow you when we get back home.”
“...Fine,” Zitao relents. Chen fist pumps and tiptoes up for a quick kiss on his cheek before slipping into the front seat, and Zitao resigns himself to the back with a sigh. “Better be a good blowjob, damnit.”
“Be lucky you’re getting any at all,” Minseok remarks, looking over his shoulder with a smile. “All right, we all seated, children? Daddy’s waiting.”
“A) Never say that again. B) Never say that again,” says Lu Han, making gagging noises. “Let’s roll, though.” They pull out of the street, bickering, and start their way to Kris’ bar.
A minute later, an unmarked vehicle pulls off out of the street as well and follows behind.
BONUS SCENE
He corners the gasping rotund man at a dead end alley, hovering behind a dumpster in tears. Lu Han blows out his breath into the cold air, casually twirling dagger by its ring, and ambles to the dumpster with a jaunt and a tuneless whistle.
He rounds off the edge of the dumpster and sticks his head out to gaze over his crying hit.
“Peekaboo,” he says lightly, and the man jumps, shriek reverberating in the brickstone alley. “Now, running always gets me a little pumped up, you know. It makes it so much more … fun. Thanks for that.”
“P-please, oh please, please, just let me go, I’ll do anything,” the hit begs, sniveling tears and snot onto his soiled suit. Lu Han smiles faintly.
“What’s the price for a life, I wonder,” he muses, catching his dagger and tapping the tip against his bottom lip. “How much would you give to be alive right now?”
“How much would you?” asks a voice behind him, the sharp click of a safety off a gun stark in the silent air. Lu Han breathes out slowly, more than a little irritated and caught-off guard. He whirls around, safe in the knowledge that his facemask covers him completely, and greets the intruder.
“Oh! Officer! Why, this is a surprise indeed,” Lu Han breathes out, taking in the sight of Sehun before him, gun trained on his body. “So nice of you to drop by me and my friend’s little chat.”
“You’re under arrest,” Sehun says calmly, undeterred by Lu Han’s friendly greeting. Lu Han smiles, despite the mask, and cocks his head. His hit raises his head out from the hiding spot slowly, and then takes the opportunity to scramble away, panicked breathing whizzing past Lu Han and Sehun and out of the alley.
“Oh dear. You’ve scared him off,” Lu Han says, mock disappointment in his throat. Sehun gestures with his gun, both hands holding it steady.
“Rather time to drop your weapons, don’t you think?” Sehun says, a note sardonically. Lu Han lets his dagger fall to the ground as he raises his arms up slowly, making a note to send Chen the bill for his brand new set of ring daggers.
“You got me, you got me,” he says soothingly, calculating the possible exit ways. No dice; he’ll have to fight his way out. Sehun approaches slowly, gun still up, backing Lu Han into the brick wall behind him. “Got nowhere else to go, officer. D’you mind putting away your gun? Firepower gives me the hives, you see.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” Sehun responds and shoots out a hand to pin Lu Han firmly against the wall. The other he uses to flick the safety back on and holster his gun and exchange for a pair of handcuffs.
“Why, officer, I hardly know you. Don’t you think we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves?” Lu Han purrs, gearing himself up for the breakaway. Sehun snorts and snaps open the handcuffs.
“We’ll have plenty of time to get acquainted on our way to the precinct,” Sehun assures him and takes his hand off Lu Han an inch.
Lu Han strikes.
He snaps an elbow out right into his gut, and clenches his teeth before slamming his forehead straight into Sehun’s. Sehun cries out, breath knocked out of him, and Lu Han snakes out a leg to sweep him off his feet.
“Oh fu-” Sehun gasps out before he falls. Lu Han scrambles for the gun in his holster, and smashes his fist into the side of Sehun’s face when he tries to fight back. Gun in hand, Lu Han quickly runs for the emergency fire staircase hanging a few feet away from them. Sehun grabs for his back-up gun and whips it out to target Lu Han’s fleeing figure.
Lu Han jumps for the bottom rung of the fire ladder just as the safety catch clicks, and scrambles up the steps with a loud prayer screaming in his mind. He makes it onto the landing, and almost slams his face down onto the metal to avoid the shot Sehun just fired at his head.
“Shit shit shit shit shit,” he chants, throwing his body onto the staircase and running up the steps, keeping his body tucked in as Sehun keeps firing.
“I’ll-shit-see you-goddamnit, come on-again!” He manages to shout, barely dodging a bullet to his thigh and his head. A third bullet grazes his bicep.
“Not if I kill you first,” Sehun calls out, and Lu Han makes a face.
Always the pretty ones.
end notes: sooooo this was my first exchange fic for this fandom ever!!!!! i finally got around to posting it on my own journal, mostly because i've spent a long time being bitter abt it and hating it, but i think i've finally reached a plateau. characterizations were from oct-december 2013, and if you managed to finish through the fic, you'll notice kris' presence lmfao bc yeah. i think what stopped me the most from being able to really connect with this fic was the fact that i had to uh write hunhan LMFAO and that just really didn't click with me. so you'll notice it's a lot more m- and luhan-centric bc idk luhan just spoke to me. also, i ended writing a lot more layhan interaction than hunhan bc even back then, it was clear for everyone to see. :''') layhan is Life
i have a couple of regrets with this fic; i wish i could've finished it--i wish i could finish all the fics i write, obv, but this was just an Extra Nightmare bc it was my first exchange fic and i still couldn't do a good job of it. :( i had some nice ideas, i think, that never made it past drawing board--like bartender kris and a krisoo sex scene :'''), and culminating in a m vs k showdown at the very end. but alas~
all i can say is that this fic could not have even been finished if it wasn't for infede, who just really held my hand throughout this bumpy ride and gave me her crits whenever i'd frantically line her after writing a passage and being Neurotic about it. :''')
i like to think i've improved since this. who knows.