Thunderstorms and Heartbeats

For Chanyeol there are a million reasons to love rainy days, but most of them involve Baekhyun.  

He likes it in the fall and winter, when it’s cold, but not quite cold enough to snow, and sky looks like it could just fall to earth and drench it in water. Clouds heavy and drooping with precipitation, dangerously close to a shivering torrential downpour. On those days, he’ll sit inside their shared apartment on the couch, tucking his head into the crook of Baekhyun’s neck as he tries to study important things like biology and chemistry, but instead ends up utterly distracted by Chanyeol’s presence. Chanyeol prides himself on how distracting he can be, awarding himself little medals like the pen he successfully steals out of Baekhyun’s grasp or highlighters he confiscates and tucks into his pocket.  It can be a tad frustrating, but Baekhyun doesn’t really mind because it’s not like it ever causes him to fail any of his exams. It just makes him procrastinate a little bit more than he should.

If they happen to be walking somewhere when it’s cold and raining outside, Baekhyun will let Chanyeol wrap an arm around his waist and pull him in close, long fingers settling into his hip. Much welcome pressure and added warmth. Chanyeol insists on being the one to hold the umbrella because he’s taller but sometimes, if Baekhyun’s particularly adamant about things, he lets him do it. Occasionally Chanyeol will end up with sharp pokes of metal in his scalp because Baekhyun doesn’t hold it high enough, but he doesn’t really mind. If he really cared he could go by his own umbrella, preferably one that isn’t bright pink and covered in black polka dots, but he likes the extra excuse to pull Baekhyun closer to his body.

But Chanyeol likes it most when the cold and rainy days turn into warm and rainy days. Flowers popping out of the ground, leaves turning plump and green. Spring is his favorite season. But he also loves it during the beginning of August when the sky turns ugly shades of grey and yellow and the lightning paints purple streaks across the sky while the the thunder shakes the earth beneath his feet. He’d gladly sit outside on their balcony during every thunderstorm if Baekhyun weren’t so afraid of his boyfriend getting electrocuted.

When they go for walks during the heated days of late spring and summer, he’ll tangle his fingers with Baekhyun’s, reveling in the extra heat it provides because Chanyeol likes to feel overwhelmed with warmth. They’ll walk around without umbrellas and let the rain splatter across their skin and clothing, sinking into their bodies and making their fingertips pucker from too much moisture. Their hair will get frizzy from the humidity and Chanyeol’s head will end up looking like a deranged poodle, which Baekhyun finds cute. Then, maybe later, once they’re home, Chanyeol will try to strip Beakhyun out of his soaked clothes and press him up against a wall and kiss him until they’re too heated and excited to stay standing, and barely make it to the couch before Chanyeol loses his clothes as well and they’re sinking into each other, drowning in the blissful friction of their bodies.

They’ll leave the windows open while they lie there, sweaty and sticky, relishing in the sound of the rain and the soft hum of their breath as it slowly returns to normal. Chanyeol will curl Baekhyun closer into his body as if trying to the heat right out of him. Later, Baekhyun will joke and say that Chanyeol gets more by the sound of rain than his body. If Chanyeol’s in a particularly teasing mood he’ll say it’s the thunder that really gets him going, but most of the time he’ll just laugh it off and try to press more kisses into Baekhyun’s skin to which there is much protesting because he must do at least some studying or get ready for work.

On days when the sun is shining too brightly for Chanyeol, he looks up at the glaring sky and thinks that he maybe loves Baekhyun but he isn’t really sure that Baekhyun feels the same. These moments feel disconcerting to him, like he has to go back inside and hide until clouds appear in the sky once again and he can drag Baekhyun out into the rain with him. It’s like the clouds hide him from the dreadful possibility that Baekhyun doesn’t love him. That the sun is only there to shine an ugly light on hidden truths that Chanyeol would rather never know. When it clouds over he can pretend a little longer that maybe Baekhyun loves him just as much as he loves Baekhyun.

It’s a just a suspicion though, even though they’ve been dating for a bit over two years. There’s not much for Chanyeol to really go off of since they’ve never verbalized their feelings for each other beyond “I like you, will you go out with me?”, but Chanyeol can tell that Baekhyun is a little more hesitant about things. A tad more cautions when it comes to words. Neither of them have ever said those three, highly overrated and overused words yet, but sometimes Chanyeol wishes they had. But every time he tries to, the words stick to his throat, lost in a mudslide of saliva and clenched muscles. He’s not sure why it’s so hard, since all Chanyeol’s wanted to do is rapidly devour every inch of Baekhyun since day one.

On the occasions when there isn’t some sort of mudslide or choking volcanic explosion going on in Chanyeol’s throat, he manages to let it slip out. But those occasions only occur in secret, at night, with the soft glare of the moon. He’ll whisper how much he loves Baekhyun into his sleeping ears. Because the moonlight is that safe place between harsh light and complete darkness. The grey area in life where saying I love you is somehow more acceptable and less fearsome.

Sometimes he dreams that Baekhyun even says it back.

* * *

“I think it’s time for Vampire-yeol to come out of his coffin,” Baekhyun smiles on a particularly sunny morning. The sky is crisp and bright like a fresh, perfect apple and Baekhyun wants nothing more than to leap outside and take a bite of it, tasting the sultry blue sky and butter yellow sun.

Rather unlike Chanyeol, Baekhyun is addicted to the sunlight. He likes the way it lavishes his body with warm attention on cold winter days when the windchill alone is enough to freeze any unfortunate underdressed individual. There’s something about the tingling feeling in his limbs, half way between being frozen from the wind and absorbing the heat waves from the sun, that he can’t get enough of. A juxtaposition of bitter cold and terrifying heat. His body reacts to sunlight much like a sunflower, always turning towards the bright yellow streaky glare in the sky, lapping up the warmth even when there appears to be none. He blooms best in the winter.

“No. I think I’m good. I’ll just stay here all day,” Chanyeol says and cocoons himself deeper into the blankets as if he’ll emerge later in the darkness as a beautiful butterfly. But Baekhyun sorta likes the cute caterpillar that scrunches around in the sun during the day.

“You promised we’d go out today,” he pouts and tries to fit himself into Chanyeol’s cocoon. “And make snow angels or snow people.”

Chanyeol pokes his head out from his cocoon, hair mussed and fluffy from static, and breaks out into an eye-twitching smile. “Okay. But I guess that means we have to find some carrots and other face materials.” It’s hard for Chanyeol to resist Baekhyun for too long, even when the sun is shining too bright for his liking. Baekhyun sparkles in the sun just as much as Chanyeol glows in the dark, so it’s really not all that bad when they’re together.

They venture out into the day, bodies wrapped in layers of soft sweaters and jackets, toes snug in waterproof boots, hands curling comfortably into thick gloves. It makes Baekhyun giggle to see Chanyeol look like a giant green marshmallow, the ugly green of his winter coat offsetting the sparkly white of the snow. Chanyeol doesn’t look like he matches this weather, but Baekhyun thinks they fit in their own special way. Juxtaposing forces finding a middle ground to exist in. But he’s possibly biased since he’s romantically involved with Chanyeol and can’t really find it in himself to say that he ever looks ugly or displaced from his environment on any given day. Chanyeol fits wherever Baekhyun is and that makes him look good anywhere.

* * *

Drought coupled with freakishly high humidity is possibly the only thing that can truly make Chanyeol feel depressed. The air’s so thick with moisture he could practically drink from it, but he doesn’t want to take in gulps of thick mist, he wants to drench himself in bucket loads of rain to the point where he can lap up water from puddles (not that he would ever do that because it’s rather unsanitary).

He’s like a foolish child when it comes to puddles, always wanting to hop from one to the other, splashing Baekhyun with little speckles of gritty dirt and water. It’s like another version of one of those childhood games (don’t step on the crack or you’ll break your mother’s back) but he hasn’t quite come up with a lovely rhyme to fit its purpose just yet. Don’t step on dry land or you’ll have to lose a hand does not sound so wonderful, then again, neither does breaking your mother’s back. The purpose of this game isn’t to lose a hand anyways. It’s mainly to see how dirty he can make Baekhyun’s pants so that he has an excuse to take them off once they get home. Chanyeol likes it when he wins because that means his pants are thoroughly soiled as well. Why wash only one item of clothing when you can wash multiple? It’s more environmentally friendly anyways. Except more often than not they lose more than just their pants in the process.

Rain makes Chanyeol ecstatic, but drought makes him languid, makes him hate the usually lovable heat. Drought is a tease. Cloudy and humid one moment, but hours later it’s clear again and not a single drop has fallen. The soil turns to sand beneath his toes and splits, cracking and dry from lack of moisture. Grass goes yellow and trees turn pale with drooping leaves and brittle bark. The sky’s so blue but the earth’s so bland. He curses the sun and the warm winds and mopes about his life like a kicked puppy.

Baekhyun calls him Eeyore on those days, weeks, sometimes even months.

Sometimes it makes Chanyeol snappy and they fight about stupid things and cry about stupid things and stop talking to each other because of stupid things. They have their own little draught. Suffering in their own smothering heat and hurt until it clouds over again and a few drops of rain fall. Then they’re apologizing and making up for lost time until everything’s in full bloom again. Leaves flushing bright green and flowers blushing with color. Soil such a rich and glorious dark brown that all you want to do is dig your fingers into it and claim it as your own.

Baekhyun teaches Chanyeol how to accept the sun even when it means there won’t be any rain for a while. Tells him all about the wonderful things they can do like go to the pool or beach and have picnics or try to make a solar oven and cook an egg in it. Mentions how cute Chanyeol looks when his pale skin starts to turn a lovely shade of pink because he hasn’t applied his sunscreen or he’s using too low of an SPF. Later he’ll smooth over the tinted skin with aloe vera, chuckling softly as Chanyeol grumbles unhappily about how he’s probably going to get skin cancer now and die in like two days.

Usually, the more insistent the complaining, the more fun Chanyeol actually had that day. The worse the burn, the more distracted he was by their activities to notice what was going on. He knows he should be worried about his boyfriend turning cancerous, but at the same time he’s proud that he could make Chanyeol so happy that he can forget about the absence of the clouds and the lack of rain.

He wants their relationship to extend beyond the oncoming clouds and the little pokes of sunlight. Everything all out in the open under the scrutiny of the birds in the sky, the ants in the ground, and the people walking and living around them. He wants everything to be so open and obvious to everything in sight that it’s almost, in a sense, unnoticeable because it’s so natural. So he lets Chanyeol teach him how to love the rain the way that Baekhyun teaches him to love the sun in the hopes that one day maybe they both won’t be so shy and so stupid and silly and everything will just be exposed no matter what the weather may be.

* * *

“It’s never going to stop raining,” Baekhyun grumbles one afternoon, a few weeks into autumn.

All the leaves are deep burgundies and fiery oranges with splashes of yellow. Leaf litter accumulates quickly like dust on an abandoned farm. The spend their time during dry days hopping in leaf piles when they help their friend Jongin, who’s able to live at home while attending school, rake up all the leaves for promises of steaming mugs of apple cider and pumpkin cookies.

“It’s better than no rain at all, Baekhyunnie,” Chanyeol chastises. Drought was particularly bad that summer, but autumn rain is currently making up for it.

“Hmm, I suppose,” he frowns and presses closer to Chanyeol on the couch as he sifts through his organic chemistry book, trying not to mix up alkanes with alkynes and memorize all the different functional groups for his upcoming exam. Drawing ring flips proves to be more difficult than it should and he’d very much like to skip over chemistry and stick solely to biology.

“Only suppose?” Chanyeol says teasingly and drapes his arm around Baekhyun, letting his fingers run across the smooth exposed skin of his neck.

Baekhyun looks up from his textbook and lets his eyes crinkle into a smile. “Maybe.”

Truthfully speaking, Baekhyun doesn’t think he could ever live someplace where it never rains. If it never rained, he’d never have met Chanyeol. He’d forget the sun and forego the moon and the stars if it meant he could spend the rest of his days in the rain with his lover. If there was no Chanyeol, he’d learn to hate the sun and the clouds would be a hateful, teasing reminder of what he once had.

No, he doesn’t seem to really mind these rainy days at all after thinking about it. He knows it’s cheesy, but Baekhyun’s pretty sure that he doesn’t need a sun if he has Chanyeol because Chanyeol can shine brighter than anyone else. Almost even seems to glow in the dark like the sticky little stars he used to have on his bedroom ceiling while growing up. There’s still one or two up there, but most of them have fallen down over time.

During the first summer of their relationship, Baekhyun had invited Chanyeol to visit his home for a few weeks so Chanyeol could see what Arizona was like. Also so that he could maybe try to introduce Chanyeol to his father along with the fact that he was interested in men, a secret he’d been keeping for years now. He wanted Chanyeol to be there for that extra layer of support and fluffy grey clouds just in case things didn’t go so well. Merely two hours after arriving though, idiot Chanyeol had accidentally knocked a few stars down when he had the brilliant idea to stand up on Baekhyun’s bed, orangy red curls of hair tickling the ceiling, peeling off the remainders of his childhood.

That was probably the only time Baekhyun had ever really gotten seriously mad at Chanyeol, despite their stupid quips that never held any meaning. Watching Chanyeol’s seemingly innocent hair wipe away roughly thirteen years of his life sent him into a dizzying moment of despair. His mother had put them up there when he was five because he was scared of the dark, but nightlights were too bright. When his mother passed away after getting into a car crash during a violent storm, he vowed never to take them down. But now there they were, tangled in the mop of hair on top of Chanyeol’s head and he wasn’t quite sure how to feel about that, seeing years and memories become a useless tangle.

It was also the first time Chanyeol had ever seen Baekhyun cry. Only later, once he had thoroughly combed the stars out of his hair, used pieces of sticky tack to adhere them to the ceiling once again, and carefully enveloped Baekhyun in a smothering hug did he find out why those stars were so important.

“I’ll glow for you,” he said brightly and smeared the remaining salty teardrops that didn’t get soaked into his shirt off of Baekhyun’s cheeks.

“You’re such a dork,” Baekhyun laughed and pressed kisses along Chanyeol’s lips and jaw.

Needless to say, Beakhyun’s father had heard and seen everything, but he didn’t seem to disapprove. He’d just wanted to pop in and check up on them, make sure Chanyeol had a place to put his stuff and ask what they’d wanted for dinner, and then ended up quietly watching the whole ordeal unfold. Their first meal together was a little awkward as Baekhyun tried to explain a few things. Why he’d kept it a secret. How long he’d tried to hide it for. When the two of them had met. His father seemed to be full of endless questions, pensively thumping away at them as erratically as Baekhyun’s pattering heartbeat. Things settled down quickly though. His father wasn’t mad, he was simply curious and Chanyeol made sure to do his best to shine and sparkle his way into Baekhyun’s father’s heart.

Two years later, all of Baekhyun’s family seemed to know about him and Chanyeol, and all of them happened to approve. His family works very much like Chanyeol’s favorite summer storms. Heated with a terrifying passion, loud claps of thunder and thick strips of lightning blinking across the sky and striking the ground. It pounds vigorously for a few minutes, and then the storm blows over and the angry dark hue in the sky shifts into soft greys and mellow blues and the perfect feeling of contentment settles into the atmosphere.

* * *

There are really only a few reasons for Baekhyun to love rainy days and it’d be a lie to say that none of them involved Chanyeol.

If anything, he only loves rainy days because of Chanyeol and how overshadows all the sad memories and bundles them up into bright ones. He doesn’t make Baekhyun forget everything, but he helps him find a way to make things better. He likes when they go for walks in the rain and how Chanyeol lets him hold the pink, polka dotted umbrella even though it constantly stabs him in the head, and never even suggests they each carry a separate one. The rain gives Chanyeol courage to do things he wouldn’t otherwise do and Baekhyun is fascinated by how something so seemingly bleak can make a person like Chanyeol glow even more.

He doesn’t mind the constant distraction from his studies and the way Chanyeol’s so eager to smooth over every inch of skin he can get at, , biting and until even the rain becomes obsolete to Chanyeol’s ears and all he cares about is the soft moans coming from Baekhyun’s mouth. His own personal rainstorms of “yes please” and “more” with soft breezes of “Chanyeol” and lightning and thunder clacks of deft fingers running through his hair, clinging to his back, and running down his chest and abdomen. Baekhyun likes the smell of rain and Chanyeol mixed together on his skin, like a fancy personalized perfume, and the taste of it in his mouth and the feel of it under his fingers. He likes the way Chanyeol gets lost in him more than he gets lost in the rain and how the thrashing sound of Chanyeol’s heart because of Baekhyun’s touch is more pleasing than any smack of thunder or trickling of rain.

Sometimes he even writes downs lists of what the rain does for Chanyeol and what Baekhyun does for Chanyeol, and always the list of what Baekhyun does for his lover is longer and more important than what the rain can do. The rain can’t make Chanyeol arch back in pleasure the way Baekhyun can. It can’t cook Chanyeol his favorite foods or help him study and not fail out of college. The rain can’t make Chanyeol smile with the same amount of hidden meaning, happiness, and desire that Baekhyun can. It can’t coax him out into the sunlight or give him amusing sunburns or hug him and give words of encouragement or understanding when he’s feeling down or upset. Baekhyun can do for Chanyeol everything that the rain can and cannot do and he’s proud of that fact.

Baekhyun likes to tease though. In the aftermath of those moments when the two of them are lying there, completely absorbed in each other, the misty breeze blowing in through the windows, and the quiet drip drop of the rain outside, he’ll pretend to frown.

“I think you get off more by the sound of thunder than the sight and sound of me,” he huffs.

Chanyeol snorts. “There’s no thunder today,” he says and slides his hand across Baekhyun’s hips. “But maybe you’re right,” Chanyeol will tease back and lean in for a kiss which Baekhyun deftly deflects much to Chanyeol’s disappointment.

“Jerk,” Baekhyun laughs and flicks Chanyeol’s arm.

“Come on, there has to be some sort of sound that gets you going more than anything else,” he pouts and nuzzles his head into the crook of Baekhyun’s neck.

“Hmm, maybe.... maybe I just like the sound of your heartbeat,” Baekhyun’s sighs, slightly embarrassed. He can feel Chanyeol smile against his skin, lips stretching back over smooth teeth like the sun slipping out from behind the clouds after a storm.

“Only maybe?”

“Maybe more,” he laughs, but the more Chanyeol presses for answers the more noncommittal they become. With much remorse, Chanyeol eventually lets it drop and concedes to taking a shower together so that Baekhyun doesn’t show up to work a sticky, sweaty mess. It’s almost a miracle they make it out of the shower clean sometimes though, but they do and then they go about with the rest of their day feeling satiated with each other’s company and the continuous drizzle outside.

Sometimes the rain continues on for days and Baekhyun will start to feel a little glum, but he knows that all he has to do to make himself feel better is to talk to Chanyeol. Maybe drag him out into the rain for another walk or have a study party in the living room which usually turns into Chanyeol tickling Baekhyun have to death and then making up for it by cooking him cheese ramyeon for dinner.

Baekhyun likes the rain because Chanyeol likes the rain, and that’s good enough reason for him. His favorite moments though, are late at night, with or without the rain, when Chanyeol thinks he’s sound asleep. He’ll slowly massage circles across Baekhyun’s back or along his arms, sometimes even comb fingers through his hair. For a few minutes he’ll continue on in silence and it’s as if Baekhyun can already feel the speed of his thoughts picking up, twisting and churning until he finally decides to speak.

“I don’t know if you know this or not,” he hears Chanyeol whisper in his ear, voice soft, low, and dreamy. “But I really love you.” It comes out almost like a sigh, breathy and airy and dazed. Then he’ll lower his head onto the pillow once again, nose practically touching the back of Baekhyun’s neck, wrap his arm securely around his waist, and slowly drift off to sleep.

His confession makes Baekhyun’s lips twitch into a tiny, unnoticeable, sleepy smile.

He knows. Has known for a while really.

Sometimes, in the safety cloak of darkness, he even says it back.

Maybe tomorrow, under the soft cloud cover and their shared umbrella he’ll even say it out loud when he’s sure Chanyeol will hear him. And maybe then, the sun will start to peek through and make bright cracks of light in the otherwise cloudy sky. If they’re lucky, they’ll see rainbows.

A/N: Ha... so.... continued to neglect my studying for organic chemistry and decided to just go ahead and post this. Fluffy romantic stuff is hard for me (I apparently maxed out on it after writing my Taoris stuff), but I hope you enjoyed my attempt at writing it. Comments are always welcome :D