2|  Warmth on a Cold Night

"C…Cold…"

"Hang in there!" Chanyeol cries as he hurtles towards his home as fast as he can, legs pumping hard and heart pumping harder. He gathers the boy up tighter in his arms in order to free up a hand to push through the back door. The other’s cold fingers scrabble against his stomach and hip. They seem so desperate for warmth, quivering and pressing feebly into his skin to convey the urgency he can’t with words in the state he’s in. The door slams open, and the teenager cringes a bit and hopes his mother doesn’t stir to investigate the commotion.

Chanyeol stumbles his way through the dark kitchen, nearly sending a chair skidding across the room in the process, but somehow he successfully makes it to his room without causing too much more of a ruckus. The boy’s head lolls back a bit when Chanyeol gingerly sets him down on his bed. His lips move feebly, and Chanyeol leans in close to listen to the shallow breathing and whispered pleas. The teen dries the other’s wet hair a bit more until it's damp and less likely to make him catch cold.

The boy whimpers again and reaches out to pull him close. "Help." Chanyeol tugs away the wet blanket and ignores the bare skin beneath it as best he can. He then rids his own body of his shirt and jeans, still heavy and uncomfortable from the pond water.

“It’s OK,” he says to ease the boy’s fears just as much as his own. “Everything will be OK.” The boy makes a little noise of contentment when Chanyeol helps him under the bed covers, slips in beside him and rubs his limbs quickly to help with circulation.

Chanyeol shivers around him. The pond had been very cold (the winter chill still evident in its waters), but the boy is positively icy. It makes Chanyeol wonder how long this boy had been out there struggling before he’d noticed. The boy clutches at his arms and gives another violent shiver, which only makes Chanyeol curl around him tighter. He feels so protective now, so responsible. The feeling is much the same as the time he’d held a tiny bird in his palms that had fallen from its nest. The feeling of holding something’s life in your hands… It is both fascinating and terrifying all at once.

Soon the shivers die down and the boy seems much more comfortable and, thankfully, coherent. He gives a light sigh against Chanyeol’s forearm that he clings to tightly.

“Mmm… Warm.”

Chanyeol stretches out from his protective position once he’s relatively sure the boy isn’t going to suffer from hypothermia. His skin seems warm enough at this point and the shivers are almost completely gone. Chanyeol slips from under the covers despite the other’s feeble protests and proceeds to pile blankets and pillows all around him. The mysterious boy gives a little whine and burrows down into them as Chanyeol shucks his damp boxers and pulls on some sweatpants and a long-sleeved t-shirt.

“I’m going to get you something hot to drink,” Chanyeol reassures as the boy disappears from view, and all that’s left is a small mound of bed covers. “You… You OK in there?”

He gets a faint muffled reply, but it’s still a response and it puts him a bit more at ease about leaving the boy alone.

Chanyeol stumbles back through the house to the kitchen, coming down from his high of adrenaline. His hands shake when he reaches for a mug, and his mind seems to catch up with him all at once as he’s bombarded with realizations of just saving a life and sharing body heat and somehow remaining completely calm about everything. Until now. He takes a moment to steady himself against the kitchen counter as the milk heats up.

Chanyeol returns shortly with a hot mug of coco in hand to the motionless mountain of covers.

“Hello…?” he tries, voice laced with uncertainty, almost afraid that he’s ultimately failed to save this person he feels so responsible for now. Chanyeol shuffles over to the bed. “Hey, I have hot chocolate for you.” He takes a pillow off the top of the mound. “Something to warm you up.”

The boy pops his head out of the blankets and stares open-mouthed at Chanyeol. Chanyeol sets the drink down on his bedside table when the other doesn’t move or say anything for a good minute. He moves to sit on the bed beside the other.

“You…” The other boy reaches out to touch Chanyeol’s arm, almost as if to test if he’s real. “You saved me. You…” He glances down at his body, almost in awe, and briefly Chanyeol realizes how suspicious this all must seem.

Chanyeol panics as big, fat tears start to roll down the boy’s cheeks and loud sobs accompany them. “Please, don’t cry! I was trying to help!”

“Th-Thank you. I’m just s-so happy.” Chanyeol looks a bit dumbfounded, but the boy just cries harder and soon he’s reduced to an ugly, sobbing mess. He reaches up to touch the tears rolling down his cheeks. “What is this? The water I swallowed?”

Chanyeol doesn’t have a response for that.

“Hey, hey calm down. It’ll be OK,” he reassures softly and moves to sit closer to the boy on the bed. “Can you tell me your name?” He wants to make sure this boy’s apparent concussion or some sort of other head injury isn’t too severe.

“I… I-I’m…” the boy stutters with wide eyes. He studies Chanyeol, who shifts uncomfortably under his intense gaze. Chanyeol pulls him into a gentle hug instead, mindful of his fragile state. The boy in a sharp breath as Chanyeol rubs his back soothingly through the blankets.

“It’s OK. It’s just the shock, don’t worry. I’m here.”

The boy burrows his face into the crook of Chanyeol’s neck, and soon the tears subside and he relaxes completely against the auburn-haired boy.

“I’m Baekhyun.” It comes out in a whisper against his skin. Chanyeol pulls away with a relieved look, but the boy named Baekhyun still grips the front of his shirt. “My name is Baekhyun.”

A healthy flush spreads to the boy’s cheeks as his eyes flutter open and he gazes into Chanyeol’s wide ones. Chanyeol swears he’s seeing things when the boy’s skin begins to radiate an ethereal glow, as if there’s light seeping from directly beneath his skin.

“You’re so different from the others. So selfless. You saved me without a second thought.”

“Sorry? I, um, I think maybe you hit your head. You were swimming, right?”

“No,” Baekhyun replies with a cute of his head.

“You must have been swimming, since you were in the pond. Why were you swimming by yourself?”

“I wasn’t. I fell.”

“You…fell…” Chanyeol deadpans and stares at the other.

“I fell from the sky,” the boy says cheerily, his tone in stark contrast with not only his previous sobs, but also the near-death experience he speaks of. “Entering Earth’s atmosphere and then landing directly in icy water — it’s called water, right? It’s a little bit jarring. Never dealt with it. Scary stuff.” Baekhyun seems to notice the other’s dumbfounded expression. “Sorry, I tend to ramble. But yes, I fell. From the sky. I’m a star.”

Chanyeol gets up after a moment of staring and paces and mumbles about how he needs to check and see when the local clinic opens in the morning.

“You saw me fall, I know you did. That was me. I’m a star.”

“You’re…a shooting star…?”

Chanyeol is losing his mind, he’s sure of it now.

“A falling star, apparently,” the boy says humorously, but Chanyeol is not laughing.

The clearly insane boy just beams back at him, and the light beneath his cheeks flares like some otherworldly blush. Chanyeol wonders if he’d somehow hit his own head when pulling the boy from the water.

“Well, you can stay here for the night, but I’m going to have to get you to the doctor tomorrow.”

Baekhyun insists he feels perfectly fine, burrowing back into the mountain of blankets to further his stubborn point.

“I’m a star! Get it through that thick head of yours!” Baekhyun cries in exasperation with a scowl and a cute puff of his cheeks that counteracts any sort of intimidation he wants to project. “And I’m real, not like those toys,” he continues with a jab of his finger up at the glow-in-the-dark stickers on Chanyeol’s ceiling. The teenager feels his cheeks color at the statement.

“Fine, star boy.”

“Baekhyun!”

Chanyeol snatches a blanket from the pile the other is burrowed under. “Alright, Baekhyun. Just stay here tonight and rest until morning. I’ll take you to the clinic first thing.”

Chanyeol arranges a few blankets on the floor and snags a pillow from his bed. He’d offered his bed to Baekhyun because he’d been raised to know guests should be treated as such, no matter how strange. He is still concerned for the other, what with the ramblings about being a star, but he really can’t just turn him out into the cold night. And the boy shouldn’t be sleeping on his cold, hardwood floor, especially considering what he’d just endured at the meadow.

The teenager gets situated on his palette (his feet stick out from under his too-short blanket, unfortunately) and reaches above his head to switch off the lamp. The room goes pitch black and he shuts his eyes tightly, curling up in on himself and pulling the blanket up and over his head, exposing even more of his legs.

It seems like hours that he lies awake, eyes screwed shut until he sees colors dance behind his lids. The house creaks and settles and makes him jumpy.

“Chanyeol?” The small voice cuts through the silence despite it being barely above a whisper.

“Hm?”

“It’s so dark.” A bit of ruffling of sheets is heard. “And I’m cold. Sleep up here?”

“…Hm.”

Chanyeol tosses over to face away from the bed and ignores the air prickling at his uncovering feet.

“Chan? Channie?”

Warmth. The tall boy sighs in contentment as it envelops him. It’s comforting and radiates throughout his entire body, starting in his icy toes and spreading to his fingertips. It warms his heart and squashes down all his fears for the slightest moment before he comes to his senses and rolls to face his bed. A gasp catches in his throat.

“Chanyeol,” Baekhyun says softly, and said boy scrambles away from him as if he were some terrifying creature. Baekhyun is no longer tucked into his sheets, but perched beside his palette on the floor. The light beneath Baekhyun’s skin is several times brighter in the darkness - a soft, warm glow that exudes safety and comfort. His entire body is illuminated, appearance so otherworldly Chanyeol finds himself staring open-mouthed.

“You’re…”

His eyes sparkle, really sparkle, and even his brown fringe looks to be dotted with shimmering flecks.

“Beautiful? I know,” Baekhyun says with a light chuckle and a cheeky grin. Chanyeol is too stunned to even scoff at the haughty reply. “Now, let’s sleep. It’s not so dark anymore,” he says with a gesture to himself. “Or cold.”

Baekhyun drags him back to the palette and promptly curls up beside him, still careful not to invade his personal space.

He can’t know, Chanyeol’s mind races. He can’t have guessed. Is it keen observation or curious coincidence?

But he doesn’t put up much of a fight, and Chanyeol soon finds himself feeling that same lovely warmth he had earlier. A heat like sun rays kissing his skin on a summer afternoon and a soothing embrace from a loved one. It settles deep in his core and makes him stretch out and relax because now that he has this light (though a bit brighter and more chatty than he’s used to), the creaks and moans of the old house no longer set him on edge. He can sleep peacefully.

*shuffles in sheepishly* Hellllooo, it’s been a while. u_u So sorry. But Star Baek is so cute how could you be upset? Yeah? c: I wonder how he’s going to adjust to life on Earth…?

Anyhow, I hope I didn’t disappoint with this long time coming chapter. I’m much less frequently on this site lately, but you can also find me here:

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