[krisyeol] just like yesterday (i told you i would stay) 3/?
Pairing: Krisyeol, Kaisoo + a leeeetle Seho and Baektao Rating: PG-13++++?? Summary: Doctor Who spin-off wherein Chanyeol is sort of the Doctor and Kris is the unsuspecting human that becomes his companion. Timelines cross, and shit happens.
one | two | three | four
Kyungsoo gets excited over visiting Seoul, two thousand and eleven, in autumn. He bounces around the room, collecting and packing clothes, and various gadgets.
“We’re staying for two weeks,” Kris tells him as he shoves his fifth jacket into the duffle bag, “not forever.”
“Over-packing is Kyungsoo’s forte,” Jongin says as an explanation. “So we will have everything we need.”
“… that was a really horrible impersonation of Kyungsoo.” Chanyeol shudders, shaking his head. Jongin laughs unashamedly.
“Better go and stop him before he tries to pack more pants with him.” Jongin gives Kris a pat on his shoulder, then exits the main room, his because that’s not what I want goes ignored.
“So, why a telephone box?”
“What?”
“I mean, it could obviously have been anything. The one on the Orion Nebula was a boulder. Why did you pick a telephone box?”
Kris had been wondering about this (if the Time Lord were just a bunch of oddballs or truly crazy). And about Chanyeol’s home planet, if it exists or of it’s just a burning ball of fire, about the war, about Chanyeol’s family and friends and spouses thereof. He doesn’t think about it long, though, because Chanyeol is constantly there, all bouncy and wild grins. If it’s not an around around Kris’ waist, then it’s a hand wrapped around his arm, and if it’s not a hand wrapped around his arm, then it’s lips against his own.
Chanyeol laughs at the question, slapping his thigh as though it’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard.
“I didn’t pick it--it’s the chameleon circuit.” Kris stares at him blankly. Slowly, Chanyeol explains, “The chameleon circuit helps the TARDIS blend into its surrounding, regardless of time or place. Useful, for example, if you don’t want to land in the middle of under-developed world with giant machinery.”
“So… a telephone box?”
“I was in London in the nineteenth hundreds. Police call boxes were every where. Plus it’s kinda cute, don’t you think?” Chanyeol asks. Then he adds, “Like me.”
Kris aims a kick at him. Chanyeol bursts into laughter, catching Kris’ leg by the ankle.
“You are not coming to Seoul with me,” Kris declares, shaking his head. He drops his foot onto Chanyeol’s lap. “Everyone will think I’m crazy.”
Their story was going to be that Kris made new friends on his vacation, who wanted to look for a place to stay, just for the week. They were going to crash at his place for a while, and because they were all Koreans--well, one Chinese-Korean citizen, one Time Lord, and two New Republic of Korea citizens--Kris offered to bring them around town.
He just hopes his friends don’t ask too many questions.
“Hey, I happen to be a very intelligent, very sensible--”
Kris scoffs, reaching over to cover Chanyeol’s face with his hand. “Nope. Keep quiet and I might re-consider.” Chanyeol pouts, then licks a stripe up Kris’ palm.
“You are the worst. How are you three hundred and five?”
“Time Lords are young at heart and in body,” Chanyeol boasts, and he practically preens, “be jealous.”
“Take three hundred years off your age and I’d be more inclined to believe in that,” Kris retorts, wiping his palm on Chanyeol’s chest. Chanyeol beams at him. “You don’t need me to show you around Seoul anyway.”
“What?”
“Come on. You know every planet like the back of your hand,” Kris explains. He crosses his arms and leans back onto the console.
“I do.” Chanyeol shrugs smugly. Kris scoffs disbelievingly, but then again, what other reaction had he been hoping from Chanyeol. Chanyeol stands, caging Kris with his arms. “Just not the way you know it.”
“Who teaches you to say that,” Kris demands, rolling his eyes. “Is it Jongin? Did he have a cheesy-rom-com phase or something?”
“What’s rom-com?” Chanyeol asks.
“It’s--oh, you know what? Never mind. You haven’t been to Seoul after all.”
Chanyeol just smiles, slowly, fondly, and as he leans forward to kiss Kris, he says, “Told you. I wanna go to Myeongdong. And Hongdae. And--”
“--okay Time Lord, keep your pants on.”
Chanyeol is about to respond when Jongin walks into the room, lugging with him three different bags.
“I tried,” Jongin declares, dropping the bags onto the floor.
“Hey, I packed for all emergencies!” Kyungsoo insists, carefully placing his own bags onto the floor.
“Kyungsoo, you realize that two thousand and eleven is already in the modern world, right?”
“Well--” Chanyeol starts. Kris steps on his foot. Chanyeol pouts.
“I just wanted to make sure,” Kyungsoo says, sounding smaller than he did a second ago. “In case.”
“Kyungsoo,” Jongin says. “I’ll make sure we’re prepared.” He gives Kyungsoo a small smile, and Kyungsoo, after fidgeting with the strap of his watch--at least, Kris thinks it’s a watch--smiles back.
“Okay, two bags.”
Jongin groans.
-
“Zitao, this is Chanyeol, Kyungsoo, and Jongin.” They wave, and Zitao waves warily back, his eyes narrowing at them.
“I met them during my vacation--”
“--we’re locals!” Chanyeol chimes in loudly. Kris winces.
“Yeah, they’re the locals. And they want to move to Seoul next summer, so--”
“--we’re staying for the week,” Jongin adds. Kyungsoo finishes the whole thing by smiling friendlily, and Zitao nods.
They’ve more or less unpacked, Jongin and Kyungsoo taking the spare room, and Chanyeol in Kris’ room. He texts Zitao a hey, I’m back, did you miss me? and receives one Huang Zitao on his doorstep with packed dinner for two.
“Okay, so do you want to explain?” he asks in Chinese. Kris pulls him to the kitchen.
“Chanyeol can understand us. Just a bit.” He doesn’t explain that the TARDIS--now parked inside Kris’ closet--is translating everything Zitao is saying to them.
“So a Chinese-speaking, Korean country kid and his friends just decides to tag along and crash in your house?” Zitao puts a hand to his forehead. “Wu Fan, are you sick?”
Kris pulls Zitao’s hand away.
“They just want to explore Seoul for a bit. Introduce them to some people, so they don’t get a culture shock,” Kris lies. He drops Zitao’s hand and grins ruefully. “You’ll come along, won’t you?”
“Play tour guide to a bunch of strangers? You know them for a whole of two and a half days!” Zitao exclaims disbelievingly. “Baekhyun will have my head.”
“Baekhyun played tour guide to you before, he’ll understand.”
A loud crash comes from the outside. Zitao and Kris flinch simultaneously.
“Okay, as long as you don’t bring them to my apartment,” Zitao acquiesces. “Jesus.”
Kris smiles at him, and Zitao looks slightly taken aback.
“What have they done to you?” he grumbles, when Kris slings an arm over his shoulder and pulls him out into the living room. Zitao is a familiar warmth against his side, and Kris wonders, for a moment, if he could bring Zitao (and okay, Baekhyun, they come in a package now) with him.
“How’s Junmyeon and Sehun?”
“I don’t know, having celebratory sex in their apartment,” Zitao answers monotonously. He smiles at Kyungsoo, who smiles uncomfortably back. “Haven’t seen them since graduation.”
“Tomorrow, I’ll treat you guys to lunch,” Kris declares. It’s been months since he’s seen them. He ruffles his hand through Zitao’s hair, and gets a glare in return.
“You must have inhaled some toxic country air,” Zitao says. “You’re acting weirder than usual. I’m calling Baekhyun.”
“You do that,” Kris tells him. To Chanyeol, he asks, “Now, what did you break?”
Chanyeol jumps guiltily, holding the remains of a photo frame in his hand.
“I just wanted to see,” Chanyeol explains, offering the broken shards to Kris. “Your family, you know.”
Jongin looks equally as guilty, so Kris can only assume they had a fighting match with the casualty of one framed family portrait. He pulls the photo gently out of the glass, careful not to tear it, then hands it to Chanyeol.
“Oh,” he says. Zitao looks over in amusement. “Okay, thanks. And um, I can help you clear that up--”
“You just sit here,” Kris tells him, guiding him to the sofa. He motions for Kyungsoo and Jongin to sit as well. “And don’t touch anything.”
“So, you come from the country?” Kris hears Zitao asking in his accented Korean as he goes in search for the hoover. He really shouldn’t leave the three of them with Zitao, but watching Chanyeol and Jongin squirm--and Kyungsoo smile uncomfortably--is really hilarious. So he lets them be, diving face first into his bed to smell the laundered sheets. He’s been gone for two days. Two days. All the things he’s seen and heard and experienced, purple sunsets and advanced civilizations and endless sand dunes, all compressed into the span of forty-eight hours. He feels impossibly small--a speck of dust floating in space, going on and on and on in a blue telephone box.
The next thing he knows, he’s waking up to a weight on his bed.
“Wow, thanks for bringing us here and then going to sleep,” Chanyeol’s voice reverberates in his ear. “Very nice of you.”
Kris groans in response, rolling over on his bed. He realizes, when he looks at his clock, that he’d been out for three hours and it’s already nightfall.
“Anyway I came in to tell you there’s twenty-first century food on the table outside. Kyungsoo is dying of excitement,” Chanyeol explains. He runs a hand through Kris hair, stroking his scalp. And Kris, damn his motor skills when he’s half-awake, makes a low sound in his throat. “Seriously? You’re like a--what was that, a cat?”
Kris frowns, rolling over to face Chanyeol.
“You promised me Myeongdong,” Chanyeol complains, pouting.
“You have all of time and space and you want to visit a shopping district in Seoul?”
“Hey! I know how to appreciate the local culture,” Chanyeol protests. He pats Kris on the cheek. “Like this one.”
“I’m Chinese, you ignorant ass,” Kris retorts. But he laughs and sits up, stretching. Chanyeol’s eyes are tracing the curve of his chest, down to the skin showing on his stomach. Kris smirks. “Like what you see?”
Chanyeol averts his gaze. “Dinner time. Come on.” He leaves the door open on his way out. Kris lets the buzz of conversation wash over him--is that Sehun’s lisping he hears outside?--before taking a deep breath and rolling out of bed to join his friends.
The next morning they head out to Myeongdong.
“As promised,” Kris tells Chanyeol.
Jongin slings one arm around Kris. “So this is what the twenty-first century is like, huh?” he says, watching Kyungsoo bounce happily next to Baekhyun and Chanyeol and Zitao.
“Mostly, yeah,” Kris answers. He knows Jongin’s from a time of war, who never saw a day of peace until he met Chanyeol.
“I was born in the wrong time, then,” Jongin tells Kris. He smirks lazily, shoving his other hand in his too big pants pocket. It as the only thing Kris could find that fit him. “Kyungsoo can’t stop smiling.”
“Isn’t that a good thing?”
“… yeah,” Jongin replies. He retracts his arm. “So, Chanyeol.”
“Yeah?”
“Is he a good fuck?”
Kris almost chokes on air.
“I mean, he is a Time Lord. And Time Lords are the stuff of legends. Back home, we used to pray for one to come and save us all. That’s got to say something about him.”
“Eh,” Kris replies. “He’s passable.”
Jongin laughs, and Kyungsoo turns, practically skipping over to grab Jongin by the arm.
“Jongin, Baekhyun said there’s a cake shop down the street.”
“As in, actual chocolate and cheesecake and--”
“--yes!” Kyungsoo cuts in excitedly. “Let’s hurry!”
They double their pace. Baekhyun falls back to grab Kris by the elbow.
“Why are they so excited by confectionery?”
“Um.”
“Cakes are frowned upon in our society,” Chanyeol cuts in, nodding solemnly. Kris rolls his eyes. Trust Chanyeol to come up with the most ridiculous explanation. “And Kyungsoo has a sweet tooth. Don’t get me started on Jongin.”
“Woah,” Baekhyun gasps, shaking his head as he proceeds to believe the giant lie that Chanyeol is telling. “That’s tragic. It’s great you guys came here this week, and--”
Baekhyun stops mid-sentence when he realizes that Chanyeol is no longer paying attention. He’s staring, mouth slightly open, at a book shop.
“Uhh,” Baekhyun flounders, glancing between Zitao and Kris.
“I’ll stay with him. Can you guys go after Kyungsoo and Jongin?”
“Sure,” Zitao answers, already steering Baekhyun away. Baekhyun waves back at them, then turns to snake an arm around Zitao’s waist.
“Chanyeol?”
Chanyeol appears to have not heard Kris. Instead, he dazedly walks into the Kim’s Books, all the while staring at the cashier. Kris quickly follows after him.
“Chanyeol,” Kris repeats. Chanyeol jumps when Kris wraps a hand around his wrist. “Is he--an alien or--”
The cashier turns to them to greet them, his face crinkling into a smile. Kris nods politely, then pulls Chanyeol behind a row of books.
“He’s a--” Chanyeol pauses, searching Kris’ face (like he’s looking for recognition, like he wants to know if Kris knows) “--he’s--he looks like someone I know. A Time Lord.”
Kris stares at him blankly. (He doesn’t.)
“What do you mean?” Kris asks him cautiously.
“Wu Fan, I--I don’t know why I--” Chanyeol trails off, looking hopelessly lost.
“What could a Time Lord be doing working in a book shop?”
“He’s not--he turned himself into a human. After the war,” Chanyeol explains quietly. His eyes dart to the cashier again, now laughing happily with a man re-stocking the shelves. “So he could forget.”
“You can do that?” Kris asks, and Chanyeol chuckles, self-deprecating and cynical. “Do you know him?”
“Yeah,” Chanyeol replies. He turns to face the shelf, pulling onto a book at random. “You could say he was--is my best friend.”
“Oh.” Kris really doesn’t know what to say to that. He’s lost all his words of comfort for this man who’s lost his everything. “Chanyeol.”
“It’s okay.” Chanyeol turns to face him, smiling. “I helped him change into a human. Put him in this time period, watched over him until he settled down. He’s even started dating a human the last I saw him.”
“He’s happy,” Kris points out slowly, choosing his words carefully.
“I know.” And Kris can hear the just not with me that goes unsaid. So he puts an arm around Chanyeol’s shoulder and gently removes the book from his hands.
They head to the door together, earning a quizzical look from the cashier. They probably look like they were out to steal something, and Kris tries hard not to look suspicious as he leaves the store.
“Sorry,” Chanyeol says, looking vaguely sheepish, as they walk further away. “I just panicked because this isn’t where I expected him to be.”
“It could have been him,” Kris reasons, trying to soothe Chanyeol. “He could have moved here. Worked here.”
“I’m glad it wasn’t him,” Chanyeol replies, his words heavy and full of meaning. Kris doesn’t know what that’s supposed to mean, but Chanyeol looks so upset that Kris wants to say something, anything, to help him.
“Chanyeol.” Chanyeol looks up to meet Kris’ eyes (and he feels stupidly, ridiculously, like he’s fallen into a romantic Korean drama--and he’s never had tolerance for those things, it was always Zitao crying over this and that--except this is one with time travel and aliens and galaxies beyond his dreams and also, this one is real). “It’s okay.”
“Sometimes I think I should find him again,” Chanyeol continues, shrugging nonchalantly. He leans into Kris’s touch. “But if he sees me, he’d probably remember he’s a Time Lord and that would kill him.”
Kris squeezes his shoulder. What do you say to comfort someone like Chanyeol?
“Sometimes I want him to remember, but that would kill him too,” Chanyeol continues, staring at his feet as they move forward. “I just--it’s not fair.”
You have me, Kris wants to say; it’s in the back of his throat, but it’s stuck. He doesn’t know if he’ll be good enough for Chanyeol, if he’ll be enough for a man who’s been through the death of his entire civilisation, if he’ll be enough for the firecracker Chanyeol, who’s brighter than all the stars Kris has seen thus far.
“You have us,” Kris says instead. “Kyungsoo, Jongin, and me.”
Chanyeol turns to look at him, a hopeful look growing slowly on his face. They stay silent for a while, before Chanyeol moans, “I just stared some poor human down.” He covers his face with his hand.
“You did,” Kris agrees, jumping at the chance to change the topic. “You should have seen his face.”
“Ugh, I am three hundred and five.”
“I feel like I should point out that I always point out you are not three hundred and five.” Chanyeol smiles, a little watery, a little shakily, hands reaching out to grab hold of Kris’ wrists. Kris lets himself be pulled forward. “Where are we going?”
“To the cake shop,” Chanyeol replies, threading their fingers together. “To get cake.”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Chanyeol answers, a little too quickly. “Isn’t it a little human thing to eat themselves into oblivion?”
“Seriously? Comfort food?”
“Cakes!” Chanyeol exclaims. His face scrunches into an almost manic grin. The one that he gave Kris so many months ago, when they stood in between aisles of food, Chanyeol trying to coax him that he was, in fact, not crazy.
“If you throw up, I’m locking you in the TARDIS,” Kris tells him.
Chanyeol laughs, squeezing his fingers tight.
-
“Let me get this straight,” Junmyeon says, taking a sip from his drink. “You went on a two day vacation--”
“--you locked yourself in your house with Sehun for two days,” Kris interrupts. Sehun shoots him a dirty look at being mentioned.
“--and you brought back three strangers?” Junmyeon asks dubiously. “And these three strangers, one of them gets high one cake, one of them doesn’t know how money works, and the last one keeps making eyes at your ass.”
“Okay, woah, hold up,” Kris says. “What’s this about?”
“Kris, do you know who they are?”
“Yeah, they’re a bunch of people I met on vacation, and--”
“What’s Chanyeol’s last name? What’s Jongin’s studying? Or working as? What does Kyungsoo want to do when he moves to Seoul?”
“Junmyeon--”
“They’re strangers,” Junmyeon says, throwing his arms into the air. His cutleries clatter onto the plate. Sehun shakes his head imperceptibly in Kris’ direction. “What if you get mauled in a back-alley while they rob you blind?”
“Have you met them?” Kris defends. “Kyungsoo can’t kill a fly, let alone kill me.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I’m telling you that I do.”
“What hyung means,” Sehun interjects, rolling his eyes, “is that you need to be careful.”
“I would like to remind you who sends your asses home when we go drinking,” Kris says, stabbing his rice cake with more force than necessary. “I think I know what being careful means.”
“Kris, I’m not saying they’re psycho killers… but how can someone not tell the different between one thousand won and ten thousand won?” Junmyeon demands. “It’s like they come from another time--”
Kris chokes on his drink. Sehun sniggers, then pats him on the back pityingly. Junmyeon passes him a napkin.
“Junmyeon-hyung,” Kris addresses. “Please believe me when I say I know what I’m doing. I know these people and they are not going to rob me blind.”
Junmyeon eyes him warily. It’s only when Sehun breaks the silence (“Jesus you two need to stop. This is dinner, not an interrogation.”) that Junmyeon acquiesces with a gentle okay.
He knows Junmyeon is worried about him. Despite everything else, like the fact that Kris is the one who used to be the one Junmyeon cried on before Sehun came along, he wanted to take care of Kris. And okay, it’s a sweet gesture but the thought of Kyungsoo drop-kicking him then stealing all his valuables (some cash, his laptop, an LCD TV) is so ridiculous that he can’t help but snort.
“You should worry about introducing Sehun to your family instead,” Kris puts in bluntly. Junmyeon splutters and Sehun glares at him. “Kris-hyung,” Sehun retorts, “you should worry about the way you’ve been softening lately.”
“I haven’t!”
“You let Chanyeol wake you up in the morning.”
“He’s just less of a brat at doing so,” Kris says defensively. The truth is his body clock is just fucked. What sleeping hours is he supposed to follow, anyway? Twenty-four hours on Earth is six hundred blips on Pollux White and nothing in Second Utopia.
“Still,” Sehun insists. “Never thought the day will come that you don’t snap at someone for waking them up.”
Junmyeon nods solemnly.
“Shut up, both of you, and eat.”
They spend the rest of the week touring Seoul. Kris calls home and tries his hardest not to cry, not once mentioning Chanyeol or Jongin or Kyungsoo. He hears the sound of his sister shouting in the background when his mother gives her benediction. He wishes he could tell her. When he hangs up, his blossoming urge to travel the universe suddenly dims. He wants to go home, wants to eat the food cooked by his mother, and play with his sister. He wants to curl up in his bed and--
“Hey.” Chanyeol interrupts his train of thoughts, sliding closer on the couch. The television is set on a random channel, volume low and unobtrusive. “Whatcha thinking about?”
“Your ass,” Kris answers easily, ducking his head so Chanyeol can rest his arm over Kris’ shoulders. Chanyeol chuckles.
“Home sick?” Chanyeol asks softly. Kris leans his head on Chanyeol’s shoulder and sighs. “Knew it. You know what curbs homesickness?”
“Tell me, oh great Chanyeol.”
“Travel,” Chanyeol answers. “Go to new places. So you can keep making new memories.”
Kris snorts. “Is that what you did?”
Kris knows he’s crossed the line when Chanyeol stays silent. He tilts his head upward, looking apologetically at Chanyeol, who smiles without any humor.
“I wasn’t going to, until you came along,” Chanyeol answers. His fingers tighten around Kris’ shoulder. Kris hates it when Chanyeol talks about Other Kris. Kris the Great, who knows how to solve temporal difficulties within the TARDIS, who knows how to make Chanyeol laugh when he’s sad, who knows how to play martyr between Jongin and Kyungsoo when they fight. Kris wonders how he’s going to get from here to there. “You’re the one who told me to try.”
“What were you going to do?”
“Fuck up space-time by trying to save my home,” Chanyeol answers honestly. “I wish you could have seen her in her full glory. EXO, the planet of the two moons. I wanted to save them, you know, save her. Everything.”
The war is not something they talk about, period, because Chanyeol gets glassy-eyed and quiet, like he is now. Kris tries to change the topic of the conversation.
“Sehun’s on to us,” Kris says. Chanyeol laughs, his finger drawing slow circles on Kris’ shoulder. “He thinks you’re going to make me fall in love with you then cheat me out of my entire inheritance.”
“How do you know I’m not?” Chanyeol teases.
Kris glares at him.
“Okay, okay, I’m not,” Chanyeol concedes, pulling Kris impossibly close. Kris lets his eyes flutter close, concentrating on the feeling of Chanyeol’s arm around his shoulders. “Do you feel better now?”
Kris hums in response. The ache of wanting to go home subsides, replaced by a growing warmth in his gut. A feeling he’s learnt to associate with Park Chanyeol and his ridiculous antics.
-
Soon, they leave in the TARDIS again. Kyungsoo seemed to have collected a list of places on Earth he would like to visit across time.
“He watched National Geographic,” Jongin says, rolling his eyes. Kyungsoo excitedly hands Chanyeol the list, and when Chanyeol scans it, he bursts out laughing.
Kyungsoo nods eagerly, and they’re off, the TARDIS whirring as it dematerializes and appears in another time, another place.
Kris learns new things: how the TARDIS should be parked in places where painted wood isn’t quite the norm yet (hidden in the bushes), how to blend in with the crowd, how to run and avoid being mauled to death by a crowd when they accidentally catch Chanyeol and him making out in a shed in a time when homosexuality was evil, how to find Jongin and Kyungsoo in a city the size of Earth, how to fix the TARDIS when she’s sputtering, throwing them all into timezones that are not their intended destinations. One time, Chanyeol tells him the story of his pendant.
“It’s the sign of the fire bird,” Chanyeol says, carefully resting his pendant against Kris’s palm. “My sign. It’s my safety charm, and it’s equipped with time lord technology.”
He learns a lot of things, many of them technical, a few historical, definitely things he never wants to forget. After a while, he realizes that the more he learns, the shorter the time he would have with this Chanyeol. Chanyeol seems to realize it too, clutching onto Kris’ arms when Kris holds him in the quiet of the room.
Once, with harsh pants punctuating his sentence, Chanyeol asks, “You’ll find me, right?”
Kris doesn’t hear the question until he comes down from his orgasm. He reaches out for Chanyeol, wraps an arm around Chanyeol’s waist--when had he become so familiar with this routine?--and replies, “I will.”
Chanyeol laughs, a little desperate, a little longing.
“Without you,” Chanyeol confesses, his eyes bright and big, “I’d be lost.”
Kris doesn’t know how to reply to that. The truth is, and this is the only truth he knows, that without Chanyeol, he’d be lost. Gallivanting through space-time, with nothing holding him down but a blue box that’s barely taller than he is, on the outside. The only constant is an over-eager Chanyeol (and okay, Kyungsoo and Jongin), the one anchor pinning him to reality.
“Without you,” Kris echoes, leaning his forehead against Chanyeol’s, “I am lost.” But I have you, he doesn’t say, right here, right now. “And I’ll always come for you.”
“Oh god,” Chanyeol says, planting a hand on Kris’ chest to shove him away slightly, “did you really just say that?”
Kris rolls his eyes, flicking Chanyeol’s forehead. “Not the way you think I did, you dirty bastard.”
“You love me,” Chanyeol says, laughing. He has the most ridiculous laughter, face contorted until he looks slightly insane, mouth open wide. Kris smiles, his heart beating quickly.
“I do,” Kris says, because it’s true, and he wants to throw Chanyeol off. Chanyeol stops laughing, looking serious for about three seconds, before he smiles, softly this time, and says, “Me too.”
It’s only a little over a week later (nine Earth days, Kris keeps count) that they encounter something dangerous, something different.
“What’s wrong?” Jongin asks in alarm when the TARDIS starts to swing from side to side, throwing the occupants of the room (minus one Kyungsoo piloting) haphazardly around.
“We’re being pulled in by a negative force field!” Kyungsoo yells, hitting buttons and pulling levers desperately. Kris tries to steady himself on a pillar, but before his hands can grab hold of it, gravity shifts on the TARDIS and he finds himself sliding across the room, his fall broken only because Jongin catches him.
“A what?” Jongin calls out to Kyungsoo. They cling desperately on the diagonal platform that once was the wall.
“A force field, but the opposite. Instead of keeping things out, they’re pulling things in,” Chanyeol explains. He, too, is climbing upwards, navigating from pole to pole to beam to get to Kyungsoo, who’s looking increasingly distressed. “This is not good.”
“Really, from the way the TARDIS is trying to kill us from the inside out, I couldn’t tel--” the rest of Jongin’s sentence gets cut off because he screams, lunging for the nearest solid object. That solid object happens to be Kris, and the two of them go flying to the other end of the room. “Jesus fucking christ.”
“Can’t you stabilize it?” Kris asks, his arms around Jongin so the younger man doesn’t just go flying off. He wraps his legs around the odd, sphere protruding from the ground that he should really ask Chanyeol about.
“I’m trying,” Chanyeol says, now clinging onto the edges of the console. “It’s not co-operating, it’s not letting me stop it, it’s not even letting me divert its course.”
“I think it’s looking for us,” Kyungsoo says, pointing at a string of words on the screen. Chanyeol pulls himself up to follow Kyungsoo’s gaze.
“Its magnetic field is set on… a TARDIS.” Chanyeol stares at the screen, his eyes wide. “They’ve been waiting for us.”
“Who are they?” Jongin asks, before Kris can. The look of fear on Chanyeol’s face is telling enough, and Kris doesn’t want to know. He just wants Chanyeol to get them out of here.
“I can’t seem to move the TARDIS?” Kyungsoo yells, bewildered, when the lights in the TARDIS start flashing ominously. “Chanyeol?”
“It’s no use,” Chanyeol says. Kris can barely hear his voice over the loud thrumming of the machinery. “We’re heading straight for the third crisis on the Dark Nebulon.”
The TARDIS ends up landing with a shaky bump. Kris’s knees seem to have turned into jelly, so Jongin helps him up.
“Thanks,” he says, stretching his arm from where it’s cramped. Chanyeol’s already pulling forward the video feed that shows the TARDIS’s immediate surroundings. It draws up to a blank.
“They’ve killed her!” Chanyeol accuses, slamming his fist onto the console.
“No…” Kyungsoo says, pointing to the static. “She’s fine.”
“I know… I just,” Chanyeol says, as his lip wobbles a little, “have never seen her like this before.”
“We’re in deep shit, aren’t we?” Jongin quips, leaning over the railing to take Kyungsoo’s hand.
“We’re in the Dark Nebulon,” Chanyeol replies drily. His expression darkens visibly but he manages a smile when he adds, “But we’ll have to see.”
Chanyeol is the one who reaches for the door first, his fingers firmly wrapped around the pendant. His other hand clutches onto Kris’s, keeping him at least a foot behind.
“We don’t know what’s on the other side,” Chanyeol says, his voice low and serious. Kris has never heard him like this before. Not when they were chased by a screaming, angry mob. Not when he was recounting the stories of his war (although Kris still hasn’t found out how Chanyeol had managed to survive). Not ever. “So be careful. And stay behind me.”
With one last squeeze to Kris’s hand, Chanyeol pushes the door open slowly.