[fic] Rooted
Author: ofolivesnginger
Fandom: EXO
Pairing: Chanyeol/Baekhyun
Rating: R
Words: ~1400
Warnings: Adopted brothers.
Summary: Three people at three ages looking at things they shouldn’t be looking at.
Prologue of the How to Get Rich Quick series.
A/N: Written for Aren because she got me this super nice writing prompt book which I am in love with. This was one of the prompts.
16
Byun Baekhyun had the time to experiment enough to know that feeling the cold wind on his cock gets him excited more easily, so he jerks himself off with the curtains open on a summer night, while he sits on his bed. In dimness, the lamp tints his bunched up tee a soft gold from the back, but the fluorescent light of the laptop makes his sweaty skin glisten. The screen reflects in his eyes, watery and wide, locked on the two guys fucking madly against the couch. 720p HD full screen, that’s where his part-time paycheck goes. The fucking’s pretty violent. You can hear it through his headphones in the dead quiet, see the lighting flash on Baekhyun’s face, hear his own breaths through bitten lip. He comes a moment later, eyes closed now, holding back these little nasal noises as his toes curl. He’s barely managed to tuck himself back in when Chanyeol got back from the shower. Chanyeol takes a look at Baekhyun collapsed on his bed, chest heaving and hair messed, and laughs. Baekhyun wipes his hand while Chanyeol flips through his drawers for boxers, because Chanyeol was still short enough for them to share back then.
Chanyeol turns around, and Baekhyun’s lying down again, scratching the place above his pubes. He just says after a minute, “your favorite channel updated.”
25
They’ve got Chanyeol sat inside a soundproof glass room, with his co-star of the latest box-office hit in the couch next to him, and the couch is so deliberately small that their thighs are touching. Baekhyun’s not that hard to identify as the manager, even with his name tag hidden by the clipboard he’s got squished to his chest while he runs around-making sure the questions are moderated, and that they don’t broach personal topics and don’t bring up Chanyeol’s adoption again like last time. Chanyeol told him at night with a grin that fans like hearing that type of stuff, like the tragic heroes with shit lives, and Baekhyun thinks it’s not nearly funny enough to be a selling point so he tells them all to forget about it. What does sell and what has sold, though, after the movie hit the theatres is the two squeezed on the couch, and from the angle Baekhyun’s in it’s so easy to assume Chanyeol’s squished arm is actually wrapped half around her waist.
Rumors are rampant, but they’ve boosted Chanyeol’s popularity by a long shot, so Baekhyun doesn’t really say anything. Chanyeol tells him he knows the line, and last night even drew him a Venn diagram with two circles that don’t touch. Krystal and I are in that one, he pointed to the one labeled “movie”, and Baekhyun smacked him because he’s not stupid, stupid. Except he still thinks about weird things. Like how it’s really hard to see what’s going on outside the glass and they’re still so blatantly flirty. He’s watching Chanyeol speak words he can’t hear and watching his eyes motion, exactly like the way he looks on screen. Just farther. He’s watching the way he smiles too and maybe he should stop. Krystal reclines comfortably and they angle themselves towards each other. The MC’s gone quiet, watching with an alert fascination as the conversation Baekhyun can’t hear carries on by itself. Baekhyun, Baekhyun’s watching Chanyeol’s hand on his lap, picking at the metal clip on his board because he knows Chanyeol’s body language, knows all his comfort cues, knows how he likes to grip with his hands for assurance, and Chanyeol’s hands are very steadily on his lap. It’s befitting of an actor of his stature. All that in there, it’s acting at its finest, really. But then something is said, and they both laugh, and Chanyeol’s smiling wide and creepy. Baekhyun watches them exchange glances, watches Krystal adjust her feet, watches Chanyeol tilt his head just a little bit, and all of a sudden the air coagulates, and he feels this sinking feeling like he’s intruding, like he’s watching something he shouldn’t be seeing. All of a sudden the hallway is just as silent, and the two figures on the couch are mimes. It feels like he couldn’t reach Chanyeol anymore, couldn’t hear him these days. That weight hits bottom, like a realization, and Baekhyun hastily looks away.
Sure enough, three weeks after he breaks up with Chanyeol a picture of him and Krystal kissing spreads like wildfire on the net. When Baekhyun see it on his newsfeed, he just laughs, because Chanyeol still isn’t holding her waist.
33
He’s only gone back to the family home because their new house is just a town over, and his mom wants at least one kid home for New Year’s if the other’s too busy signing contracts with Hollywood. She’s gone a little old, and that’s why her signature bulgolgi turned out a little too salty this year, but nobody around the table mentions it. He hasn’t been back in years, for good reason. Not the ones he tells his mom, though. After dinner, he meanders around the house, dusts things off with his fingertips.
He gets the guts to finally step into their room two hours later, and sucks in a breath when he flick the light switch. Everything’s the same as he remembers, same as it was in that photo they took with their Polaroid the last night before college, after all bags were waiting in the living room. Empty and soulless, that’s what it is. The air’s stale and cold, void of any energy. The walls are barren without their band posters. The futon’s been kicked under the bed.
He files through the few shirts that are left in their closet. The duct tape they stuck down the middle is still there, except both sides of the closet are barren now, no loose socks tumbling over from Chanyeol’s end. The shirts leftover are either too old or too ugly to be worn in college, just backup change left here in case either one of them came back and stayed over. There are some shoeboxes crammed into a corner, and Baekhyun picks up a couple and shakes them, puts them down when he finds them empty, when he sees something else.
There’s a row of sticky pics rammed into the corner behind the bottom box, and it’s half crumpled, but Baekhyun still knows when this was from before he looks. All those years ago, the two of them had spent their last night here in cold sweat, flipping the place upside down looking for this strip of pictures. Baekhyun was yelling at Chanyeol for being so fucking disorganized and shoving everything everywhere, and Chanyeol was yelling back would you calm the fuck down, I told you it’s not under the bed. They’d searched behind their locked door until three, then with flashlights after their parents told them to go to sleep, but both decided in the end that it was probably already packed somewhere, and that their parents won’t find it if they can’t, won’t come search their empty room anyway.
The one he’s holding is Chanyeol’s side of the dual strips the machine spat out. The first one of the three pictures, they’ve got their arms around each other, and they’re doing the classic peace sign poses. The second one, Chanyeol looks like he’s mid-scream, both hands doing the horns, and Baekhyun’s almost riding piggy back, smile gummy, arms around Chanyeol’s shoulders. In the third one Chanyeol poses superman and Baekhyun crosses his eyes, and in the fourth one Baekhyun leans over and kisses him, and Chanyeol threads their hands together, but the fourth one’s not here. It’s torn off hideously, edge all crooked. And Baekhyun thinks he probably shouldn’t cry like this now that he’s married. But he just kind of wishes that Chanyeol had told him all this time they didn’t really have to worry. That this was why he would never let Baekhyun flip through his wallet saying I’ve got dirt of you in here, don’t get on my nerves or you’ll lose your job, and Baekhyun’s always been antsy because Chanyeol took that wallet everywhere for years. He wonders if anybody, during all these years, had caught sight of the picture, when Chanyeol crammed their business card in there. If Chanyeol had ever been like he thought he knew. Ever been afraid.
Part One