{Words in maroon are written by Drifterqueen.Words in navy are written by iLuvYesung}

Drifterqueen: Chen, Lay

iLuvYesung: Tao, Luhan

---

Lay-ge was having a bad day. Not that he knew it. As far as Lay was concerned, everything was rainbows and unicorns, because today was the day when Lay’s brain decided to go on strike and forget everything.

To rephrase: Chen was having a bad day dealing with Lay-ge’s .

Not Tao, though.

Tao was having a field day.

As far as Tao was concerned, whenever Lay-gege got this dreamy faraway look in his eyes, and started mumbling about the ‘rolling green meadows of Changsha’, and the ‘flowing blue mountain streams’, then...

Well.

It signalled that now would be a good time to pull out his Gucci catalogues from under his pillow, and borrow Lay-gege’s credit card.

(It wasn’t like he was stealing it or anything. He was returning it later, anyways.)

Chen scowled and slapped Tao’s sneaky, nimble fingers away from Lay’s back pocket denim-clad .

“What do you think you’re doing, you wushu-freak? Trying to cop a feel when Lay-ge is out of it??”

Of course, since Chen’s Mandarin was nowhere near coherent, it simply came out as,

“No.”

Tao shot him a look of disbelief. “Whaddya mean no?” the Chinese maknae asked, letting out his thick Qingdao accent, making his Mandarin become more slurred and heavy than usual.

(In the early days of EXO-M, Tao had quickly realized that having an accent could dramatically improve his chances of getting his way with the Korean members, because...you know.Why would you argue with someone you couldn’t even understand.)

“Lay-gege’s totally out!” Tao leaned closer to Chen, and grinned maniacally at him.

“Now is the time....” the maknae hissed, his heavy accent making his words sound even more ominous.

Chen pursed his lips and gazed at him warily, like a cat eyeing a laser pointer dot.

Despite Tao’s accent, he understood everything said, linguistic barrier notwithstanding.

Because when you’ve heard something often enough, you get it eventually.

He reached under his pillow for the pepper spray.

Unfortunately though, another hand reached out and grabbed it first, snatching away the bottle of spicy liquid.

It was Luhan.

Whilst Chen and Tao had been locked into a Battle of Stares and One-Syllable Replies, Luhan had sneaked up on them, and caught them off guard.

Pocketing the bottle of pepper spray, the baby-faced older member flashed Tao and Chen an angelic smile, looking like the epitome of all things good, wholesome, and innocent.

And then he promptly kicked them off Lay’s bed.

And then hopped in and snuggled in besides the lead dancer, even snaking an arm around Lay’s waist, to pull him in even closer.

They looked cute.

A tiny strangled moan sounded from Chen’s throat.

“L-Luhan-gege...”

He tried to get up to pull Luhan-ge away. However, gravity brought the realization that his limbs were all tangled up with Tao’s on the floor and it was too hard.

Chen fell.

The floor was hard.

So was Tao no, not THAT way! It was his damn wushu-hardened abs.

They probably looked a ridiculous mess.

“Damn, Chen, have you been working out?” Tao gasped, forgetting his honorifics.

The Chinese maknae ignored the fact that he was lying on the dirty grimy floor of Lay and Chen’s room, and instead focused his gaze on Chen.

When did Chen become so...so...buff?  Tao squeezed his bandmate’s bicep experimentally, testing it out.

Huh.

It squeaked.

Weird.

Tao squeezed it again, just to double-check.

Chen froze.

His secret was out!

He squeaked again when Tao squeezed his muscles in a totally not violating way.

“Chenzi, do you plan on stripping for our next concert?” Tao asked innocently, focusing his piercing black eyes on the older member.

Chen was spared from the horror of answering such forwardness by a soft murmuring emanating from the bed.

Both of them whipped their heads bed-ward and met the unblinking gaze of one extremely confused Lay.

Lay wondered where he was.

One moment he was prancing across the green rolling fields of Changsha like a Julie Andrews-wannabe singing about the hills being alive with unicorns...

...and the next he found himself smothered under a testosterone-scented duvet.

Huh. He really needed to check the quality of Crack™ he was inhaling.

Lay then wondered who was groping his abs snuggled next to him.

The Abs-r snuggled closer.

Lay decided that he didn’t really need to know because he was too freaked out the duvet was nice and cozy and leaving would be too hard.

Then he heard the words “Chen” and “stripping” and “concert” in the same sentence and suddenly Lay had never been so alert in his life.

“Who’s Chen?” Lay directed the inquiry at the speaker who was lying on the floor tangled up with a muscle-bound stranger whose face he couldn’t see.

Chen. Chen was someone he remembered.

Stripping. With Chen involved.

Concert. In public.

Yes, this was important.

If only he could remember...

Lay gazed at the speaker imploringly.

“Chenzi’s our bandmate who’s going to become a stripper at our next concert!” Tao supplied helpfully, noticing Lay’s bewilderment. “He’s gonna strip whilst belting out a rock solo!” Tao announced loudly, ignoring Luhan’s look of confusion.

“He is?” Luhan asked, puzzled. Tightening his grip on Lay, Luhan inched even closer to the younger member.

Ah, snuggles.

Luhan likes it. The baby-faced member let out a purr of contentment, as he buried his face into Lay’s abs the fluffy duvet.

“Didn’t you know?” Tao continued on, determined to take full advantage of Lay’s oblivious blur state. “Chenzi’s gonna get to play on an electric air-guitar too! While stripping!” he exclaimed.

Judging from Tao’s facial expression, the Chinese maknae seemed quite envious of the fact that Chenzi would be allowed the chance to play on an electric air-guitar.

From the bed, Luhan idly wondered whether or not he should educate the ignorant maknae on what an air guitar was.

Hmmm, nah. He was really quite comfortable, snuggled up to Lay.

Plus, it was far more soothing to pet Lay’s silky brown head, than to try explaining things to a tiresome maknae.

Face stuck somewhere beneath Tao’s torso, Chen let out a tiny whimper.

Lay-ge has forgotten who I am...

He was so desolated by the thought that even his kittenish ever-present smile drooped.

Up on the bed, Lay smiled vaguely at Tao.

“Chen sounds really nice...”

Chen perked up at this.

“...whoever he is.”

Chen tucked his head between his knees and fought the urge to howl manfully.

He had forgotten that his limbs were still tangled with Tao’s.

This meant that when he tucked his head down, Chen ended up smacking Tao in the crotch.

Hard.

Needless to say, Tao was not...

...amused, by this sudden change in events.

“Damn you,” the Chinese maknae hissed painfully between gritted teeth. “Damn you, damn your bloody thick skull, damn you and your stupid air-guitar, I hope you choke on the next dukbokki you eat, you...you....you...”

Tao collapsed on the floor, too exhausted to continue any further.

A long awkward silence filled the room.

Well, what was one supposed to say, after witnessing someone’s crotch getting banged?

Luhan awkwardly fiddled with the loose threads on the fluffy duvet and studiously avoided meeting anyone’s gaze.  He wasn’t about to offer Tao a massage or anything.

That would be weird, wouldn’t it?

...

Right?

“I hate you, Chen-Chen.” Tao wheezed out, finally getting his breath back. “Go eat some dukbokki and die.”

Head stuck in a vice between wushu-hardened thighs, Chen was indeed having a very bad day.

Lay eyed the sulky hunk with interest.

“You’re Chen?”

His eye creased happily.

“Hi, I’m Lay. It’s a real pleasure to meet you, gorgeous.”

Well, at least Chen’s day was getting better...

“Can I watch you strip?”

...Not.