starring role
...I never asked for love, I never had a heart to mend...
Over the Love || Florence and the Machines, Chanyeol x Kyungsoo
Ever since I was a child, I've turned it over in my mind. I sang by the piano, tore my yellow dress and cried and cried and cried...
"Don't do this," he whispers, hands held tight against his sides, fingers curling and uncurling in his distress. She holds the letters in her hands, staring at him with her mind on the fireplace. Chanyeol wants to cry and scream and throw a fit- how could you, he could scream, how could you do this to me?
But his mother is looking at him with high expectations and all he can give her in return are letters to a boy miles and miles away.
They don't say much other than apologies and explanations- excuses, really, because it's Chanyeol's fault they had to go in the first place.
He hadn't meant to fall in love with Kyungsoo.
And he's sorry. He's so sorry. He's sorry he did it, he's sorry he can see when his mother will die, he's sorry he stood at the top of the stairs and screamed at his father to look at him- an empty request with an even emptier reply.His father looked at him and he looked at his father and there was nothing. No love, no acceptance, no I'm sorry son, but we have to go.
I'm sorry I can't give a damn about you. You're a freak, son, and I won't stand for it.
Chanyeol could have handled that. Honestly, he could have.
Instead his father is nowhere to be found and they're back in Sori and Chanyeol is eleven years old, crying in the living room, his mother looking at him with disgust and pity and maybe sadness in her eyes.
"Please," he chokes and then it's repeating itself, over and over, mouth forming the word before he can stop and he's begging her, tears falling from his face. "Please!" He screams and he finds that he's choking, airways too tight for air, too tight for anything besides the unaltered desperation clawing it's way out of his gut. "Please!"
She drops the letters in the fire and he watches them burn one by one.
Dear Kyungsoo, my dad said it's time for us to move back hom-
Dear Kyungsoo, I'm really sorry, okay? I didn't know we wer-
Dear Kyungsoo, are you still angry? Please repl-
Dear Kyungsoo, why won't you answer m-
Dear Kyungsoo, I'm sorry, 'So-
Dear Kyungsoo, Ple-
Dear Kyungsoo. I'm-
Dear Kyung-
One by one by one.
Off to the Races || Lana Del Rey, Chanyeol x Yifan
He doesn't mind I have a Las Vegas past, he doesn't mind I have an L.A. crass way about me, he loves me with every beat of his cocaine heart.
Young and oh so careless, Chanyeol throws his head back and he laughs and the night is so much older than he is, holding secrets he can only dream of understanding, of being important enough to know. Maybe Yifan knows, but they don't talk about it. Anything else is fair game, but the secrets , the ugly spots, the bumps in the road are not. Yifan never asks, he never tells, and Chanyeol returns the favor.
It's a win-win situation except it's starting to feel less and less like a game with a scorecard and more and more like a lifetime of why didn't you tell me?
But Chanyeol needs Yifan. Under all the pretty lights and the careless laughter and hanging off the sides of buildings because they're too young to die, Chanyeol needs Yifan, needs a base to come home to, something to keep him grounded as he floats on air.
It's starting to feel less and less like they're walking the dusty ruins of their childhood and more and more like they're flying out into space, hands connected to each other and to the thin rope keeping them grounded. They're like astronauts, floating in the unknown, exploring new universes and planets and possibilities.
They're so wrapped up in their future that they never stop for the past and Yifan bandages Chanyeols hands quietly and Chanyeol never asks why Yifan throws his phone into the wall until it's scrapped, until a slower version of the ringtone Chanyeol picked out bleeds from its broken speakers.
It's a win-win situation.
Really it is.
Because Chanyeol loves Yifan and Yifan has to love him too or else why would they still be here?
"You look good smoking," Yifan says and Chanyeol doesn't open his eyes when he says.
"You look good naked."
And they're laughing and they're flying and it could be the drugs and it could be the love, but they're a modernized Bonny and Clyde and Chanyeol loves every second of it.
Young and Beautiful || Lana Del Rey, Chanyeol x Junsu
Will you still love me when I'm no longer young and beautiful? Will you still love me when I've got nothing but my aching soul?
"I'm sorry," he says and its a far-cry from what Junsu wants to hear, but it's all Chanyeol has to give, so he hands it over along with a few unsaid words and a carefully placed tear. If he had a heart, he'd give that too, but those are human things, an excuse for the poor decisions all of Gods creatures make. He is no exception. Neither is Junsu.
His whole body aches and he won't survive this, he knows he won't but the sword is as hot as the anger coursing through his stomach.
Of course Junsu would betray him for a human, of course Junsu would forget him for the very things they have been charged to kill and drag to the other side- directions after that being decided on a whim and Chanyeols taken more to the left than the right and Junsu has as well. They're partners, after all, one mind split into two, two halves of a whole.
And now Junsu is going to die at his hand and Chanyeol can't live without him.
"I'm sorry," he says again and he thinks Junsu says it too but there are eyes on Chanyeols back and he wants this over with, wants to move on, so the sword passes through Junsus skin like it's made of air and he's falling, eyes open and dim.
Chanyeol doesn't move, hand outstretched in the stance taught until someone comes and removes the sword from him, wiping the blood away.
It takes time- everything in heaven takes so much time- but eventually he falls, betrays everything they were ever taught.
He kills a human in cold blood, and waits in her home to be retrieved for the trial.
He doesn't answer the question of why, but everyone knows.
Everyone knows.
We Must Be Killers || Mikky Ekko, Chanyeol x Yixing
I woke up, I was stuck in a dream. You were there, you were tearing up everything.
It's the third time this week he's woken up to the sound of ripping, to the sound of breaking glass, to the sound of a table hitting a wall, to the sound of a broken record.
Yixing is losing it.
Chanyeol doesn't know how to stop it, so he lays in bed for a little longer, listening to the noises Yixing makes when he destroys himself. Tears prick at the edges of Chanyeols eyes and the ceiling is blurry and the past is murky and he doesn't know how they got here.
He's as clean as he'll ever be, needles and rolling papers stuck in the past, the most he ever sees being the orange pill bottles passed to dying patients.
And yet Yixing is imploding when he steps into the living room, bare feet used to the sharp sting of shattered glass and a broken heart.
"'Xing," he murmurs and he doesn't hesitate to cross the room, pulling the other into his arms firmly. His fingers are dragging down his arms repeatedly, leaving behind angry red marks, standing out against his skin like haphazard tattoos.
Chanyeol will never know what it's like to be this way. To be so haphazard and broken and so goddamn beautiful that everyone has to look away.
It's heartbtreaking but god is it beautiful.
"It's okay," he whispers and they sink to the floor and Yixing is crying and Chanyeol keeps whispering and he's promising his love and his presence and a trip to Eulsa when Yixing feels up to it. They'll pick up apples and plums and maybe they'll go to the beach afterwards and lay in the sand like they did all those years ago.
When he wakes up, the glass is gone and Chanyeol knows it wasn't ever real in the first place but Yixing is still in his arms but they're in bed.
"I'm sorry," he whispers and he says this every morning, "I'm sorry."
Yixing kisses him and he's silent and he doesn't know if he's forgiven, but a morning kiss is all he's going to get in reply.
He never asks for more.
Novacane || Frank Ocean, Chanyeol x Luhan
Sink full of dishes, pacin' in the kitchen, cocaine for breakfast- yikes.
When he wakes up, he can't see. His head hurts and he can't see.
It takes him a few seconds to realize that he can see, it's just dark, and it isn't morning yet and this isn't his bed. It smells an awful like sex and shame and he knows the smell too well to be entirely regretful. He shifts a little and he sees blonde hair.
Luhan.
With a snort he disengages carefully, feet tripping over themselves as he looks for his clothes- losing his shirt entirely and skipping ahead to the part where he zips up his jacket and sits on the bed to tie his shoelaces.
"Where are you going?"
"Home."
"And where's that?" And it hurts Chanyeol to think of the fact that he doesn't know.
And he can't blame Luhan, but goddamn if he doesn't want to.
Brooklyn We Go Hard || Jay-Z feat Santogold, Chanyeol x Soryong
I'm a Brooklyn boy, I may take some gettin' used to.
The room is hot, air conditioner whirring, working in overtime to cover up the fact that it's so stuffy Chanyeol can barely breathe.
But the music is good and Soryong is sprawled across the floor, long limbs splayed out like a fish dropped out of water. Chanyeol wants to laugh except he'd do the same thing were he not afraid of falling asleep on the pavement of the garage floor.
Soryong is murmuring under his breathe and Chanyeol's doing the same, the lyrics reverberating through his mind like the beat rocks his limbs.
He can't think straight, but then again, that might be the point.
Cherry Tree || The National, Chanyeol x Jongin
Don't look at me, I'm only breathing, don't look at me, I'm indiscreet.
As much as he wants to blame Kai and shove his body through a woodchipper, Chanyeol knows he can't. He knows that orders are orders and shit happens and sometimes it isn't so much about the action as it is about the consequences. Who really cares about the principle of morality when there's cash involved and a strangers half-lived life.
Chanyeol knows that even without the stain of blood on his church Sunday suit, he'd be where he is now.
And where he is now isn't where he pictured himself being all those years ago when he'd screamed for help, for an ambulance, for something because Chanyeol didn't know what to do. Still doesn't really. Even now he wakes up to the sound of her choked tears.
He wants to blame Kai.
But the needle marks littering the inside of his wrist is no ones fault but his own.
Blindness || Metric, Chanyeol x Yongguk
I was the one with the world at my feet. Got us a battle, leave it all to me.... You gave me a life I never chose, I wanna leave but the world won't let me go.
"My name is Park Chanyeol and I am twenty-one years old. I'm a medica- I'm a doc, I'm Chanyeol- Fuck, I'm a medic for the, the brotherhod and I... God I..."
Chanyeol can't breathe and he's so fucking scared that he can't think straight, the lack of drugs clouding his system more than any real drug could.
He's sitting on the floor, back pressed against the couch and someone is knocking at the door but he's crying and how did he get this way? He remembers being young, he remembers sitting on his fathers lap, he remembers falling asleep outside and waking up in his bed, he remembers....
What does he remember?
Yongguk is in front of him and he's confused and Chanyeol is still crying so the other wipes his tears away and Chanyeol is murmuring incoherently.
"He called me a freak," he says over and over and over again and Yongguk has him in his arms and it has to be serious because Yongguk never touches him. Yongguk never even cares.
And still, Chanyeol can't stop shaking.
Love is Blindness || Jack White, Chanyeol x Yixing
The thread is ripping, the knot is slipping. Love is blindness.
Everything about Yixing is strange. Everything about him is different and unique and insanely intriguing to Chanyeol. He knows it's a little dangerous, knows that being involved with Yixing could lead to more problems than solutions but he just doesn't care.
So they hold hands and they kiss and Chanyeol stands at the edge of the sidewalk, looking up at Yixings apartment window and screams the words he's not supposed to understand up to the other, cupping his hands around his mouth and screaming it, letting it go, a secret for Yixing to hold onto or let the wind carry it away.
Chanyeol doesn't care much either way. As long as it's far, far away from him.
But everything about Yixing is also dangerous. Sometimes they'll wake up to a broken house and sometimes they'll wake up to a broken heart and sometimes they'll wake up to a broken Chanyeol because he can't always smile, after all. He just doesn't have it in him.
He loves Yixing. God, does he love Yixing.
He loves the pain and the screaming and the tears and the way their hands fit together despite the odds.
It reminds him that they're not supposed to be this way but they are. They are. And Chanyeol wants to take Yixing away from it all but they're stuck but god fucking dammit, he loves Yixing.
And that's one thing that was meant to be.
Love can be blind but if brings him to Yixing, then maybe he doesn't want to see.
Maybe they can stay lost forever.