Baekhyun-centric
Pairing: BaekYeol
Continuity—Chapters 2-Post fic.
Warning: Borders on PG13 for implied y-times and swearing.

#6: Hands Up and Touch the Sky

The average age for a Guardian to enter their training is age 5. There are a few notable exceptions, of course. Tao and Kai especially stand out, having started at ages 2 and 3 respectively. There are those who start later as well, like Lu Han and Lay, but the delay in their training was due to a storm in the South which wiped a few miles of the railroad tracks. Even then, the Masters knew where the two of them were, and their families had already been notified that they would be retrieved as soon as possible, so they weren't all that special in the long run. In Baekhyun’s case, it wasn’t until he was 7 that anyone had any idea where he was, and even then they had a hard time getting to him.

Much like Tao and Kai, Baekhyun had displayed his affinity at an early age. By age three, he’d met the standard for all 10 Cannons, and that was when the Leaders of his city got an idea. The city was in debt to those around it, and they needed a way to pay back what they owed. Until then, the surrounding areas responded by cutting off a lot of the people’s supplies. When it was discovered that they had a budding Guardian in their midst, the Leaders decided to ransom Baekhyun to the Sanctuary, and to keep word of his presence from getting out, they whisked him off to a secure location and locked him up.

Three of the Ten Cannons are that Guardians show high intelligence at an early age, they are more independent than other children their age, and often they are outright rejected by their peers and sometimes their own parents. It was hardly a surprise to anyone that the solitude suited Baekhyun just fine, even more so because the Leaders supplied him with basically anything he could want—of course all he wanted was books and a comfy chair to read them in.

When Baekhyun was six, the Masters sent word to the previous Guardians that they were minus one.  For over a year there was a massive search effort, and just as it seemed as though every boy on the planet would have to be given an affinity test, Baekhyun’s city came forward an announced that they had the child, but they would not give him up without a fight.

The thing is though, you don’t barter with the Guardians of the Tree of Life, especially not for one of their own. The previous Generation quickly crushed any attempt to interfere with Baekhyun’s retrieval, and within a few weeks Baekhyun was off to the Northern Sanctuary to begin his training.

After years of confinement people half expected Baekhyun to be mentally and socially deficient, but Baekhyun had never been truly alone. He’d had teachers and guards, and he wasn’t especially unsociable. It did take quite a while for him to adjust to living with so many other people, though. He could sit through lessons, and thanks to all his reading he could hold his own against the other boys. Still, he didn’t like having to sit through meals with other people, nor did he want to play tag with Sehun and Kai or talk about his feelings with Suho. It got worse when the other four showed up and they were now crowding into Baekhyun’s space. Sometimes he needed to go someplace quiet to be by himself.

Unfortunately when you live with eleven other boys, quiet was hard to come by and Baekhyun had to get more and more creative with where he hid himself. For the most part he was left to his own devices and the others didn’t bother him. Well, all but one anyway.

Baekhyun had a liking for high places, like roofs, towers and tree tops…but so did Chanyeol, and Chanyeol seemed to be allergic to the very idea of quiet.

“Look at those birds!” he’d shout in Baekhyun’s ear. “I wonder where they’re going…or better yet, where they’re coming from. Don’t you sometimes wish you could just take off and go somewhere, Baekhyun? Do you?”

“Not really,” Baekhyun would mutter, if he was feeling generous. Most of the time he stayed quiet, Chanyeol didn’t seem to notice either way.

“You don’t talk very much,” Chanyeol told him one day. They were both eleven and as different as two people could be. Chanyeol was shooting up like a weed and his voice was cracking at odd moments, and Baekhyun was still small and soft spoken.

“You talk enough for the both of us,” Baekhyun retorted, miffed that Chanyeol had brought it up in the first place, as if he wasn’t already aware of the fact.

“That may be, but I don’t talk about what you would talk about if you did talk,” Chanyeol said.

Baekhyun stared at him. “Huh?”

Chanyeol sighed. “We’re different people, the things I talk about aren’t the same as the things you’d say. I want to know what you would say.”

“Nothing!” Baekhyun exploded. “I’d talk about nothing, because I have nothing to say!!”

And then he’d stormed away and shut himself up in his room.

That outburst didn’t deter Chanyeol from pursuing a conversation with Baekhyun, though. At some point—Baekhyun couldn’t remember when it was, but it was before they went to see the Tree—Baekhyun had decided that running was pointless and the best thing to do was give Chanyeol the conversation he so desperately wanted.

The result was that he found out he actually like talking. It felt good to have someone listen to him, even when sometimes he didn’t know what he was saying, and Chanyeol was the best listener Baekhyun could ask for. More and more often they found themselves in each other’s company, outside in the yard or under a window in the library. Baekhyun had never been quite comfortable with being touched, nothing beyond a brief hug anyway, but sometimes when he and Chanyeol sitting were next to each other he’d realize that their arms and legs were pressed together, or that they were almost holding hands. Baekhyun found that he liked being close with Chanyeol emotionally and physically.

One night when he was thirteen, Baekhyun woke up from a reoccurring nightmare and his room seemed to be pressing in on him, and he couldn’t seem to breathe deeply enough or focus on anything. Somehow he made his way to the Healer’s room, where Chanyeol was confined from another bout of what he personally dubbed “Fire Fever,” when his body temperature would skyrocket and he needed to be surrounded by ice packs so the bed wouldn’t accidentally catch fire. Kris was with him that night, but when Baekhyun poked his head in the room Kris seemed to understand that they needed to be alone and left without asking questions.

Chanyeol was sleeping fitfully, he kept whimpering and shifting around in the bed. Baekhyun tried to imagine what it would feel like if your skin was so hot it could set fire to sheets and was very glad he hadn’t been gifted with fire. Chanyeol cried out in his sleep and Baekhyun slipped into the bed next to him and wrapped an arm around his waist.

“I had the nightmare again,” Baekhyun whispered. He’d told Chanyeol he had nightmares but not what they were about. He hadn’t planned to, but Chanyeol had once said that he liked the sound of Baekhyun’s voice because it was calming, and right now Chanyeol needed calming and Baekhyun couldn’t think of anything to talk about other than his nightmare.

“I was being held back by something, I could never see what it was, and then suddenly it would push me forward, and pull me back again, and then forward and back again and again…” his voice caught in his throat and he choked back tears. “And I couldn’t do anything to get out. No matter how much I struggled or screamed it wouldn’t let me go and…I think I know why I have it.”

There was no holding back the tears now. “For years I was held in that room and all people thought of me was that I would be a good bargaining chip. They wanted to sell me or trade me for food, like I was some kind of object that they could just use for whatever they wanted. I thought it didn’t bother me, but now I kind of hate myself for letting them use me like that. I wonder if maybe I should have tried to fight them or run away, and then I wonder what good that would have done. I was just a kid, how could I have thought that I could do anything to them? It’s such an awful feeling, Chanyeol. I hate feeling like this.”

Baekhyun broke off in tears and hid his face in Chanyeol’s shoulder. He didn’t even register that Chanyeol had gone absolutely still.

The next morning Baekhyun woke up to Chanyeol’s face inches away from his. Their legs were tangled under the sheets and Chanyeol had one hand resting on Baekhyun’s face.

“I’d hate feeling like that too,” he whispered.

Baekhyun was confused for a moment before he remembered what had happened the night before. His eyes widened and he gasped. “You heard that?” He squeaked.

Chanyeol nodded and Baekhyun felt himself blush and he buried his face in the sheets.

“I thought you were asleep,” he explained, spitting out a mouthful of cotton when he was done.

Chanyeol made a grossed-out noise and tugged on Baekhyun’s hair. “Quite drooling on my blankets and look at me,” he said playfully. Baekhyun sheepishly peeked out from under the sheet.

“I’m glad you told me,” Chanyeol said, “Because now I can tell you that those people were ing stupid.”

Baekhyun gasped. Suho and Kris were very clear that they weren’t to curse. Chanyeol ignored Baekhyun’s whispered exclamation of his name.

“They were stupid to look at you in that way and even stupider to underestimate you. I think you’re brilliant, Baekhyun. If I’d been there I would have broken you out of that room. I would have helped you fight back.”

It meant more to Baekhyun than he could have ever let Chanyeol know, or so he thought. As time went on and their lives got crazier, Baekhyun had almost forgotten the moment.

It came back to him years and years later, when he and Chanyeol were lying side-by-side on a new planet—their new planet, staring up at the sky while in the distance Suho and Xiu Min were trying to cook over an open fire and general chaos reigned over the rest of their brothers.

“Say, Chanyeol?” Baekhyun said suddenly when the memory hit him like a lightening blot.

“Hm?” Chanyeol asked, busy tracing the stars with the hand not twined with Baekhyun’s fingers.

“Remember that night in the hospital, when you said you would have helped me fight back?”

Chanyeol nodded and grinned. “Oh yeah…I was going to free you from your tower like a knight in shining armor.”

Baekhyun turned his body towards Chanyeol’s, keeping their hands together. Chanyeol’s profile was framed by the distant fire and when he glanced in Baekhyun’s direction, Baekhyun felt his breath catch for how beautiful he looked, the glow of the fire and starlight catching his eyes and making his skin glow. Why had he never noticed how beautiful his friend was before?

“I never thanked you for that,” Baekhyun breathed.

Chanyeol smiled at him and stopped tracing the stars long enough to poke Baekhyun’s cheek. “It’s okay, you didn’t need to.”

Baekhyun caught Chaneyol’s other hand in his own and brought it to rest between them. The grin half slipped from Chanyeol’s face, and he looked a little confused.

“I didn’t thank you,” Baekhyun told him, only now realizing it himself, “Because I didn’t know how.”

Chanyeol seemed to realize what Baekhyun was doing the second before their lips touched, and he leaned forward and caught Baekhyun’s mouth, moving with him in perfect synchronization.

“I didn’t know it was possible to go your whole life not realizing how badly you’ve always wanted a person,” Chanyeol gasped against Baekhyun’s mouth a few minutes later. Baekhyun was about to agree with him when he felt a sharp pain in his shoulder.

“Ouch, what the hell?” He cried, sitting up.

Kai was standing a few feet away from them, tossing another rock up in the air and catching it. “Get a room, you lovebirds!” He hollered before throwing the rock at Chanyeol this time.

Chanyeol thought it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard, of course, and he fell backwards laughing hysterically. Baekhyun flipped Kai off and turned his attention to the boy giggling in the dirt. Chanyeol looked up at him, eyes full of starlight. Baekhyun leaned down and kissed his throat, making Chanyeol’s laughter break off in a whine.

“Let’s go find a room,” he suggested. Judging by the way Chanyeol hauled Baekhyun up and took off running, nearly pulling his arm out of its socket in his haste, he thought it was a pretty good idea.

Yeah I debated throwing the BaeYeol into the party. I kind of alluded to it a bit in chapter 6—and by a bit I mean you have to squint, tilt your head thirty seven degrees to the left and really put your BL goggles on to see it (Hint: It was on the train). But alas they are my third OTP after HunHan and Taoris (none of that last one in here, though. cough as of yet cough.). So I had to throw them in. POST FIC BECAUSE I DO WHAT I WANT.