Fire has always followed Chanyeol around.

One of his earliest memories is of standing out in the cold in the middle of the night in his mother’s arms, his noona Yura bundled up in his father’s, all of them watching as their home burns to the ground. They all got out, even the cat, but they lost nearly everything they had. Chanyeol was four.

At camp when he was twelve, a stray of flame from the campfire shot out far enough to catch one of the trees. The counselors scrambled to get all the boys out of the way, back to the cabins where they would be safe, but no one slept that night, shouts of fear and excitement as they watched the rangers fight to keep the fire from spreading. Chanyeol never told anyone, but he was actually relieved for the interruption, because if Im Kangwoon had kept telling that scary ghost story, he was probably going to bust into tears and totally embarrass himself.

He was sixteen and at a birthday party sleepover the next time it happened. It was late, so late it was better termed early, and everyone was asleep except for Chanyeol. He was laying on his side and staring at his classmate, a handsome young man with dancing eyes and a wicked sense of humor, and coming very obviously to the realization that he liked men, in that way. He knew this, because he was embarrassingly hard in his sleep shorts, and couldn’t sleep at all because of the boy’s proximity, his lips, his long eyelashes, and the images that danced through his head, blurry but intense. He’d had a hand under the blankets and pressed down against himself and was very seriously considering if he could get away with silently while surrounded by sleeping friends, when he suddenly felt a little light-headed, his nose picking up a scent that didn’t belong. The next moment, the smoke detector went off, and Chanyeol’s mood abruptly deflated in the ensuing chaos and the nagging feeling of why does this always happen to me?

But it isn’t until Chanyeol is twenty, well into his second year of university, and wakes in the middle of the night for the fourth time in his life to the sound of fire alarms and the smell of smoke, that he starts to suspect the problem might be him. Because this time, he is very definitely in the middle of a y dream, and this time, he feels the heat under his skin in a very literal way, waking him gasping and sweating a full forty-five seconds before the alarms sound.

This time it’s not just his family, not just a dozen of his peers, that has to vacate their homes half-asleep and frightened. It’s his entire dorm, and even though he knows logically that there’s no way the fire actually came from him, he still flushes with shame when he hears boys grumbling about having to get up, exclaiming as it becomes apparent this is not a drill, yelling and swearing and even crying when they realize all their things - clothes, computers, schoolwork, keepsakes - are quickly being destroyed.

Then someone actually thinks to take a headcount, and there’s a student missing, one of the resident advisors. Chanyeol’s RA. Everyone knows the RA of floor three works late into the night and then sleeps like the dead, and he’s in a single room, so there wouldn’t have been anyone to wake him.

The firefighters go in, and they find him, but they’re too late. He dies on the emergency room table - complications from smoke inhalation.

It isn’t Chanyeol’s fault. It cannot be Chanyeol’s fault. But he can’t shake the feeling that somehow, it actually is his fault.

He can’t sleep for a week after that, his temporary berth on a classmate’s couch uncomfortable and kind of smelly and his mind filled with images of what might happen if he lets himself drift off. The most he manages are short catnaps, startling himself awake within an hour or so each time with the phantom smell of smoke and the feeling of heat under his skin. His friends are starting to give him worried - pitying - looks, and one night when he sees a flame out of the corner of his eye that isn’t there when he turns to look, he seriously thinks he might be losing his mind.

Chanyeol’s in the bathroom, the only place where he can turn on the lights without waking someone in this cramped apartment. He’s staring at his reflection in the mirror - circles dark as ripe plums under his eyes and his hair an unwashed mess - and wondering how much longer he has until he completely cracks.

He’s so tired, so out of it, that when his reflection shimmers, changes, right in front of him, it takes him several beats too long to notice.

“Hey,” his reflection says. Except it’s not him, anymore. It’s a bright-eyed boy with dyed-red hair that Chanyeol has never seen before. “You must be Chanyeol. Hi. Hello. Look, don’t freak out, okay?”

Chanyeol blinks. “I hate to break this to you,” he says to his hallucination, “but I am long past the point of freaking out.”

He gets a considering, conciliatory look. “Yeah, man, we heard what happened,” the stranger says. “That , I’m so sorry. You, uh...you don’t look like you’re taking it well.” When the boy looks him up and down, Chanyeol notices vaguely that the guy’s eyes are delicately lined. It’s an odd detail, out of place, and it wakes him up a little.

“Alright,” he says, keeping his voice down even though confusion and frustration and fatigue want to scream out of him. “Are you like...um. Real? Or have I finally cracked?”

A startled laugh. The guy’s mouth goes rectangular when he does that. “No man, I’m real,” he says. “My name’s Baekhyun. We’ve been looking for you for a week...one of us was close enough to feel when that went down in your dorm.”

Chanyeol is way, way, way too tired for this. He’s not even certain he’s not dreaming, to be honest. Maybe he fell asleep standing up in the bathroom. Maybe he never got off that couch at all.

But hey, it’s better than dreaming about fire.

“Who’s we?” he asks. “What do you mean, feel?”

“It’s...kind of a long story,” Baekhyun hedges, apprehension in his lined eyes. “And I’m not sure how well you’re really absorbing, right now.” He glances to the side, as if at something next to him. “It’s late as hell, I mean, it was a total long shot trying to scry for you right now. What are you even doing up? You look like you need the rest.”

Chanyeol shakes his head vigorously. “Last time I fell all the way asleep, the dorm burned down,” he says. It comes out harsh, bitter. “And like…I can’t shake the feeling that it was me.” He scrubs a hand over his face; he’s so exhausted that the friction makes his skin tingle strangely. “I know that sounds whacko but you are talking to me through a mirror, so, you know. My whacko-scale has been expanded.”

Baekhyun looks like he can’t decide whether to laugh or frown. “Dude,” he says. “If it’s that bad, we need to get you out of there tonight. I was going to wait until someone could give you a ride the normal way, but if you seriously haven’t slept in a week, you’re in more danger than you realize. This kind of thing is hard enough for a beginner to control when they’re awake.”

A confused frown creases Chanyeol’s face. “I’m...you’re...huh?”

“We’re coming to get you,” Baekhyun says, and just like that, it’s decided. Chanyeol is too exhausted, too confused to argue. “Look, just, you’re staying with someone else right now, right? Since your dorm burned down?” Chanyeol nods. “Give me the address.”

It takes Chanyeol a minute to remember it - it isn’t as if he’s had lots of reasons to thus far. Baekhyun looks down, his arm moving in a way that suggests he’s writing, below the mirror where Chanyeol can’t see. “Pack a bag for a couple of days’ stay and be outside in half an hour, okay?” he says. “I’ll send someone to get you.”

Chanyeol agrees, because he doesn’t have anything that resembles enough brain power to fight it. Baekhyun gives him a small smile and disappears, and he’s back to staring at his own reflection, somewhat wider-eyed than before.

Packing goes quickly, because Chanyeol doesn’t have a whole lot. He fortunately had the insight when he was evacuating his dorm to grab his phone and his wallet; everything else that he has is either borrowed or newly purchased. It’s a couple of days’ worth of clothes and a few toiletries in a cheap backpack. All Chanyeol has to do is toss the plastic bag he’s been using to collect his laundry into the backpack, toss on some jeans over the boxers he was sleeping in, and shove his feet into his shoes.

Outside, there’s sounds from cars and late-night partiers, and light from the streetlamps, and somehow, sitting on the front stoop and leaning on the rusted railing, Chanyeol manages to doze off. He’s woken with a start by a cool touch to his bare shoulder, and looks up into his second set of unfamiliar eyes for the night.

This guy is slim and dark, with messy chocolate bedhead hair and eyes that look nearly as sleepy as Chanyeol feels. He smiles kind of shyly. “Hey, are you Chanyeol?”

Shaking off the clinging strands of sleep - he’s so tired that slumber feels like a pit of tar, dragging at his limbs and threatening to consume him - Chanyeol nods. “Yeah. Hi. Sorry.”

“It’s okay, Baekhyun said you hadn’t been sleeping. We’ll take care of that. I’m Jongin,” the boy says. “I’m here to uh...give you a lift.”

Something about the way he says it has Chanyeol narrowing his eyes. He glances around - the driveway’s empty, and the only car on the street belongs to the house he just came out of. “How?” he asks.

Jongin’s smile deepens. It’s kind of mysterious. Chanyeol is too ing tired to handle mysterious right now.

“I’ll show you,” Jongin says. “Get your stuff together and stand up.” Chanyeol does, slinging the bag over one shoulder as he comes down the stairs, and Jongin’s eyes widen slightly as he looks up. Clearly, he had not realized how tall Chanyeol was. For his own part, Chanyeol is by now used to looking down on nearly everyone.

“Okay,” Jongin says. “I’m gonna have to touch you for this, alright? Hold still and just…hang on.”

Chanyeol frowns, but he’s functioning too slowly at the moment to get a word out before Jongin is right up in his space, wrapping cool arms around his waist. Something deep inside of Chanyeol jerks and he has just enough time to think to himself but this kid’s not even my type before he realizes that’s not attraction he’s feeling, that’s something else, something much more corporeal.

The night completely dissolves around him, and Chanyeol tries to cry out in shock, but he finds he doesn’t have a voice, or a mouth, or a freaking body. He floats in terrified confusion for an indeterminate amount of time - it feels like forever and no time at all - then, something yanks, and he’s back in his body, the remnants of his aborted cry fading from his throat.

He pulls out of Jongin's arms with confused accusations on his lips, but stops when he realizes he's no longer outside. He's in what appears to be a kitchen. Not his kitchen, or any kitchen he has ever been in, but a kitchen nonetheless. Kitchens are all basically the same.

There's a guy in the kitchen, other than Jongin, reaching out as if to steady Chanyeol as he stumbles back. Chanyeol whips around before the guy can touch him and realizes rather belatedly that he recognizes him. It's Baekhyun, the boy in the mirror. He's a lot shorter in person.

"Whoa, dude, chill. It's okay," Baekhyun says, hands held out to placate.

"What just - " Terror and confusion boil under his skin in a way that feels real, and Chanyeol stops, going totally still with his words caught in his throat. He can feel flames around the edges of his consciousness.

“Chanyeol,” Baekhyun says, as Jongin comes around into his field of vision, stepping back and watching Chanyeol warily. They’re both staring like Chanyeol is something dangerous and it is not helping Chanyeol’s threatening panic attack. “Look, you’re not crazy. You’re not. That fire is real, I can feel the heat radiating off of you. You need to calm down.”

It takes a moment. Chanyeol has to close his eyes and try to forget that his life is a freaking shambles for two seconds. He almost wishes someone would touch him - just put their hands on his shoulders or something - because that’s always grounded him, but they both seem afraid to come near.

Finally, though, the heat under his skin recedes, and he opens his eyes once more, somehow twice as exhausted as he was before. Baekhyun gives him a smile - big, kind of forced, mostly relieved.

“That’s better,” he says. “Look, I’d ask you if you were okay, but clearly you’re not. You really need to sleep.” He beckons. “Follow me.”

Too confused, too tired, too high-strung to argue, Chanyeol follows as Baekhyun leads him through the house and up the stairs. There’s a room with two beds, one mussed and one neatly made, and Baekhyun points at the second. “You can stay with me tonight,” he says. “I absolutely promise you that if you start heating up, I will wake you. You’ll be safe here. I’ll explain everything in the morning, after your brain is functioning again. Okay?”

Chanyeol stares, because he wants it to be true and knows it couldn’t possibly be that easy. “Why are you doing this?” he asks, kind of stupidly.

Baekhyun’s smile is a lot more genuine this time. “Because someone did it for me,” he says simply. “I know this is weird as , but just like...I dunno. Just trust me. Sleep.”

And Chanyeol tries, he really does. He lays down in his borrowed bed, and it’s comfortable, and the room is nice and cool and quiet and dark, and despite how terribly exhausted he is, he just can’t manage it. Just like before, he startles awake before he can fall deeply enough asleep to make a difference, his heart racing and phantom flames under his skin. It’s made all the worse by Baekhyun’s kindness, by the words you’re not crazy, those flames are real, because it was almost better when he thought it was all in his mind. Now he knows it really was his fault, that he really is a danger to everyone around him, and the thought of losing consciousness terrifies him.

The first two times he wakens, Baekhyun is there, sitting up in bed and reading from a tablet. He soothes Chanyeol with words, his own voice getting thick with sleep. The third time, though, the light is gone and Baekhyun’s snoring softly in the other bed, and Chanyeol is alone in the dark with his thoughts and hallucinations of fire at the edge of his vision.

The clock says it’s nearing dawn, so Chanyeol gives up, slides silently out of the bed and down the stairs. The little bit of sleep he’s gotten has refreshed him enough that he can look around, take in his surroundings, try and make sense of his wildly out of control life. The house is huge and looks kind of old, not in an expensive way but more in an unkempt way. Baekhyun’s room is at the end of a hall with at least four more doors, and when Chanyeol finds the bathroom, the tiles are broken and the porcelain of the tub is stained with age, but the fixtures work and otherwise it’s clean enough.

He relieves himself and splashes water on his face and borrows someone’s comb to attempt to do something with his hair, and then heads down the stairs. The living spaces are silent and empty but there’s someone in the kitchen, and Chanyeol stops in the doorway, his steps halted with uncertainty and the knowledge that he doesn’t belong.

The guy in the kitchen is smallish but broad-shouldered, in a soft tee and softer pyjama pants, with pale pink hair and his back to Chanyeol. Chanyeol clears his throat uncomfortably, and he looks back over his shoulder in surprise, and Chanyeol blinks, because whoa, he kinda looks like a chipmunk. Or a bunny rabbit. Something tiny and buck-toothed and adorable.

“Hi,” the guy says, giving Chanyeol a once-over that makes him very aware of his dirty, ragged sleep clothes, his messy unwashed hair, his pallor and dark circles and generally crazed look. “Where’d you come from?”

“Um,” Chanyeol replies intelligently. “I - Baekhyun brought me, last night. And Jongin?” The guy is acting chill enough that Chanyeol thinks strangers showing up in this house isn’t totally out of the ordinary, but he’s still aware of how weird and awkward the situation is. “He told me I had to sleep, but...I can’t.” He shrugs kind of helplessly.

“I see,” the guys says. “You wouldn’t be Park Chanyeol, by any chance?” Chanyeol nods, surprised. “Okay, that makes sense. Though I thought we were planning on going to get you later this week, not in the middle of the goddamn night.”

Chanyeol bites his lip and tries not to be too obvious about hiding half of his lanky, clumsy body behind the doorframe. “Baekhyun said...he...he made it sound like it was important,” he mutters lamely. “That I’d be safer here.”

The guy turns fully to face him now, leaning back against the counter. “Considering how wrecked you look, I’m inclined to agree,” he says dryly. “I’m Minseok, by the way. Sit down before you fall down.”

Chanyeol obeys, folding himself into one of the chairs at the little cafe table in the corner. “Sorry,” he murmurs. “I haven’t been sleeping well.”

“I can see that.” The guy, Minseok, smiles at him. It’s a nice smile, gentle. “I’m making coffee, you want some?”

Shaking his head, Chanyeol admits, “I don’t drink coffee. It’s too bitter for me.”

A snort. “That’s because you’ve never had real coffee. Okay, hot chocolate, then?”

Chanyeol shyly accepts, pulling his long legs up onto the chair and wrapping his arms around them. Silence descends as Minseok sets to work, and for the first time Chanyeol notices the tabletop espresso machine on the counter, the pretty glass jar of roasted whole coffee beans sealed with an airtight stopper, the grinder, the glass cabinet filled with mugs and tools. He watches as Minseok measures beans, grinds them, pushes them into the filter and starts the machine. (It’s actually more complicated than that, with steps in between each of the steps, but Chanyeol is too tired to absorb.) When his own cup is done, he uses the wand to steam some milk, measures and pours from some glass bottles of syrup, and it isn’t until the cup is being set in front of Chanyeol that he realizes the milk is for him, and not for Minseok’s coffee. Minseok, it seems, is drinking the espresso straight.

Chanyeol hesitantly takes a sip. It’s not as hot as he expects it to be - not as hot as it is when it’s made with boiling water on a stove, or when he gets a hot drink from a cafe. It’s rich and sweet and definitely has something other than just milk and chocolate in it, and it is utterly delicious. He makes a small noise, his eyes fluttering shut.

“Good?” Minseok asks, sounding amused. Chanyeol nods. “Good. Grab it and come on.”

Still feeling out of it, Chanyeol does as he is told, and follows Minseok out through the living room and out the front door onto the porch. The sun is only just beginning to rise, coloring the edges of the world a pale gray, and there’s an old metal glider with beat-up vinyl cushions, as big as a couch. Minseok sits and sets his cup down on the plastic outdoor table in front of it, picking up the laptop that was on the table instead.

Chanyeol hesitates. Minseok looks up at him, raises an eyebrow, and pats his own thigh. “Come on,” he says. “You need to sleep.”

Wait. Really? “I don’t want to be a bother,” Chanyeol says rather dumbly, but he sits anyway, on the other side of the glider.

Minseok takes a sip of his espresso, reminding Chanyeol of his own drink. He hides in the cup, taking a big gulp, feeling Minseok’s eyes on him.

“Chanyeol,” Minseok says quietly. “How much did Baekhyun explain to you last night?”

The warm richness of the chocolate soothes something right at the back of Chanyeol’s throat, clearing out the taste of smoke that’s been there for a week. “Not a lot,” he admits. “Almost nothing.”

Another snort, this one derisive. “That kid,” Minseok sighs. “Okay, well. Everyone in this house is here because...something happened. Something unexplainable. We all have something going on that’s not...normal. So we get it, you know?” His smile soothes something in Chanyeol’s lungs, the way the chocolate did for his throat. “When things first started happening to me, I couldn’t sleep either.”

Chanyeol stares into the cup, at the spots of deep tan chocolate showing through the pale foam, the swirls where the syrup has settled against the edges of the porcelain. “My RA died,” he blurts out. “He died and I think…” He can’t make himself say it.

“You think it’s your fault,” Minseok says. Tears gather in Chanyeol’s eyes, and he nods miserably. “Yeah. I know how that feels, too.”

Fingers touch Chanyeol’s arm, and Chanyeol jumps, nearly spilling his drink, because Minseok is freaking cold.

“Look, kid. We don’t really have a way of knowing whether you caused that fire, but it actually is possible that you did.” Chanyeol swallows hard. He knew that, of course he did, but it hurts to hear someone say it. “But even if you did, what happened to that guy...It’s not your fault, okay? You didn’t know. You didn’t do it on purpose. It didn’t even happen because you were careless or anything like that, because you didn’t know. Right?”

Chanyeol finally looks up. “I guess,” he says, though he doesn’t really believe it. “I just...now I know, but I can’t...I don’t know how to control it.” His brow crunches down against the bridge of his nose. “I can’t go to sleep. What if it happens again?”

“It won’t,” Minseok says, totally assured. “I’ll be right here.”

Chanyeol blinks at him. “Huh?”

The smile that quirks Minseok’s lips is mysterious, the way Jongin’s was, but Chanyeol finds it much less annoying. That might be because Minseok is holding up his hand, and there are crystals forming right in thin air above his palm, actual for real ice crystals. Shocked, Chanyeol reaches up and pokes at them; the air feels like the dead of winter right there, frigid and dry.

“I told you,” Minseok says. “We’re all different here. Anyway, if I’m close by, you really don’t have to worry. I’ll keep your temperature down.”

That really is too good to be true, but for some reason, he believes Minseok in a way he had not believed Baekhyun. Maybe it’s because he just saw physical proof that Minseok could back up his claim. “Hyung - ” he says, overwhelmed, then flushes and stops because he just met this guy and he’s not even 100% certain Minseok is the elder anyway. “Sunbae - ” he tries instead, because that is safer.

Minseok interrupts him. “Hyung is fine,” he says. “Drink your chocolate then go to sleep. No arguing.”

He says it in a way that really sounds final, so Chanyeol shuts up and does as he’s told. With a belly full of sugary warmth and a mind full of questions, he curls up against the back of the glider, attempting to find a comfortable position to sleep sitting up. But Minseok, apparently, is having none of that. Cold fingers curl against the back of his neck, tugging him down until his head is pillowed on a slim, firm thigh, just thick enough that Chanyeol’s neck is at a comfortable angle, not too high or too low, with enough room for his broad, bony shoulders. He hesitantly stretches out his legs on the vinyl seat. The chill that Minseok radiates rapidly brings down his perpetually elevated body temperature, and Chanyeol shivers, but he welcomes the cold. He honestly can’t remember the last time he wasn’t warm.

“...Thank you, hyung,” he murmurs softly, not knowing what else to say. Minseok hums and sips his espresso.

Eventually - finally - Chanyeol drifts off, lulled by the coolness of Minseok’s presence, the soft clacking of laptop keys and the pale light of sunrise.



~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~



The next few days are some of the most confusing and tiring of Chanyeol’s life.

After waking from his nap a full five hours later and finding himself alone on the glider, Chanyeol stumbles sleepily back into the house and is met with four surprised faces he’s never seen before. Some awkward introductions and dancing around the elephant in the room, and then finally one of them - his name is Joonmyun - comes right out and says it. “We’re all here because we have superpowers, and you do too.”

It’s a bit of a shock, hearing it said bluntly like that, but in some ways it’s a relief, too. At least he’s now certain he isn’t insane.

Well. Mostly certain.

In any case, though, it’s agreed quickly by everyone that getting Chanyeol’s powers under control is top priority. He’s still exhausted and shaky, still looks a bit like death warmed over in the mirror, and all the other members of the household are on eggshells around him at first, like he’s dangerous.

Well, except for Minseok. Minseok plops down next to him when several members of the house are watching tv; Minseok sits next to him at dinner; Minseok laughs at his lame attempts at humor. Minseok makes him feel normal.

And Minseok is the one who drags him out into the backyard to work on his control. Makes him learn how to call fire into a pile of dead branches, and then a pile of fresh-cut wet ones; makes him learn how to light a candle and then put it out. Stands by his side with a cool hand on his back and frost gathered in his other in case Chanyeol loses his concentration. Which happens. Kind of a lot, at first.

Chanyeol doesn’t want to know how many disasters Minseok has averted.

The nights are better, at least. Chanyeol moves out of Baekhyun’s room and into Minseok’s on the third night, because while Baek can shake him awake if things get...warm, he can’t actually cool anything down. If anything, his light-based power makes Chanyeol worse, exacerbates the issue. So Chanyeol switches with Kyungsoo, and Minseok’s room is cold, really cold, and it helps him to sleep.

Of course, since Minseok is crazy and gets up at the buttcrack of dawn every morning, whether he has to work or not, this means Chanyeol starts getting up with him.

He doesn’t have to, strictly speaking. His first class isn’t until ten at the earliest and it’s not as if Minseok is particularly loud when he gets up, but when he leaves the cold leaves with him and Chanyeol’s own heat quickly makes the room stifling. He’s just not comfortable sleeping without the older man nearby anymore, so when Minseok gets up, Chanyeol gets up.

“Are you sure you don’t want coffee?” Minseok asks for at least the third time, eyeing Chanyeol’s frame, slumped forward onto the cafe table. “You look like you could use the caffeine.”

“I’ll take some hot chocolate if you’re making it,” Chanyeol mumbles into his folded arms. “Sorry, hyung, I’m just not used to your schedule yet.”

“You could move in with Joonmyun,” Minseok says, also for at least the third time. “He’s nearly as cold as I am. Or Kyungsoo.”

“Hyuuuung,” Chanyeol whines, pouting. “I don’t want to move in with them.” I don’t know them, he thinks, but does not say. He doesn’t know Minseok either, really. “I’ll get used to it.”

Minseok’s lips purse. “Then I’m making you coffee, and you’re going to drink it,” he says. “No arguing. If you’re getting up with me we need to get your body schedule re-oriented.”

Chanyeol pouts harder - he wanted hot chocolate this morning - but he doesn’t argue. He just rests his chin on his folded arms and watches Minseok work.

There’s definitely an art to what Minseok does. He measures exactly this many beans into the grinder, grinds them exactly so long, pours them into the filter and levels them off perfectly with his finger. He tamps them down with pressure just so and taps the side of the filter exactly three times.

When he’s making coffee for himself, he never gets out the milk, but for Chanyeol he does, measuring it and pouring, steaming it with a steady hand and then pulling out and cleaning the wand with quick . He somehow manages to keep the foamed milk stirring while he pulls the espresso into a pair of itty bitty cups, and while he delicately tastes both of them, considers, and then pours one of the shots into a larger mug, already partway filled with syrups. The milk comes next, carefully poured into the mug, and it looks like he’s doing...something with it. He hands the mug to Chanyeol.

There’s a heart formed out of the foam, creamy white against pale tan. Chanyeol grins, feeling his cheeks pink.

“Cute,” he says. Minseok grins at him as he dumps the used grounds and starts on his own espresso.

“I’ve only figured out hearts and leaves, so far,” he says. “I’m working on it.”

“I almost don’t want to drink it,” Chanyeol murmurs, holding the mug up and inspecting it. It smells amazing but coffee never tastes as good as it smells.

Minseok mock-glares. “You’d better, I used good espresso on that.”

Hesitantly, Chanyeol takes a sip. The first touch is nothing but milk foam, rich and slightly sweet, but as he tips the mug further he does get some of the coffee. It tastes...almost exactly like the hot chocolate does.

He blinks. “Are you sure you put coffee in this?”

Laughing, Minseok winks at him. “Good, yeah?” He finishes pulling his own shots and sits down. “I told you you didn’t know what coffee really was.”

Chanyeol takes another draught, deeper this time. He can taste the coffee but it’s not as overwhelming as he expected it to be. “This is mostly milk and sugar, isn’t it?” he accuses.

“Of course,” Minseok says with a grin. “But you’re expecting the coffee to be bitter, or sour, or both, and espresso made right isn’t all that bitter, and should never be sour.” He pats Chanyeol’s hand. “There’s only one shot of espresso in that whole big mug. We’ll work up to more.”

Chanyeol thinks that if anyone could get him to like coffee, it’d be Minseok.



~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~



As it turns out, Minseok is as serious about getting Chanyeol to drink coffee as he is about training his powers. He starts automatically making Chanyeol his latte every morning, and the caffeine does actually help him to get used to waking up so early, and it’s nice, spending time together in the quiet hours before everyone else is up. He works on his homework on the porch while Minseok does his own work - he writes for a humor website, as it turns out - and it’s just. Nice. Really nice.

Jongin brings home another one of them after Chanyeol has been living in the house for almost three weeks. His name is Jongdae, thunder claps in cloudless skies when he’s upset, and he looks like he hasn’t slept in weeks.

Chanyeol knows that feeling.

They find out quickly that Chanyeol and Jongdae need to stay away from each other. Jongdae’s skin crackles with energy and the moment they brush each other in passing, and Chanyeol feels energy rising under his own in response, and he’s gasping for air and Jongdae is shaking and glassy-eyed and then Minseok is between them, cold hands pressed to Chanyeol’s neck, turning Chanyeol’s head down to look into his eyes. “Breathe, Yeol,” he murmurs, and suddenly Chanyeol can.

Minseok gives him a little push, and Chanyeol walks backwards, letting the older man lead him. His hands come up to hang onto Minseok’s wrists, because right now his chill is the only thing keeping Chanyeol tethered to reality. His back hits the wall, but Minseok keeps going, until his whole body is pressed to Chanyeol’s from chest to knees. He’s freezing.

Chanyeol cools.

“Okay,” he breathes. “I’m okay. I’m okay.”

“You sure?” Minseok asks him, his normally even voice low and concerned. “You feel like the inside of a kiln, Yeol.”

Chanyeol looks down and sees steam rising from the place where his hands touch Minseok’s skin. “Maybe just a couple more minutes,” he admits dazedly.

So they stand, pressed together, against the wall of the living room. As his energy begins to cool, reality starts to trickle back in, and Chanyeol becomes aware of another voice speaking lowly across the room. He looks over Minseok’s shoulder to see that Kyungsoo has got Jongdae in a similar grip, grounding him. Except, in Kyungsoo’s case, it’s literal grounding, since his power has to do with earth. Chanyeol wonders if Kyungsoo will need to switch rooms again.

“Okay,” Minseok finally says. “You’re starting to turn blue. I think you’re better.”

Chanyeol blinks. He’s cold. He hadn’t even noticed. “Thanks,” he says softly.

Minseok accepts it with a curt nod, pulling away. Chanyeol immediately misses his chill. “Stay away from each other until you’re both under better control, okay?” he says, raising his voice so Jongdae can hear. Jongdae nods, looking utterly terrified, and Chanyeol tries to shoot him a reassuring smile. It comes out shaky, but so is Jongdae’s returned smile, and Chanyeol thinks they’re probably going to be okay.



~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~



The world is burning, people are dying, and Chanyeol is not okay.

Waking up with a scream in his throat, Chanyeol opens his eyes and still sees flames. He’s too sleep-muddled and scared to make sense of it at first, but then a wave of freezing air washes over him, startling him into full wakefulness, and he realizes his bed is on fire.

The moment it registers, though, a sheet of ice climbs up over his bed at an alarming rate, totally smothering the flames. Chanyeol himself is encased for all of three seconds before his body heat melts right through it, steam hissing up from his skin.

Minseok is beside the bed, looking both terrified and terrifying, pale and drawn, hands outstretched and eyes glowing slightly in the darkness. Chanyeol’s reaching for him instinctively, his tears boiling as they run down his cheeks, leaving burning trails in their wake.

Pale, freezing-cold hands take his, and it feels so good to be cold that Chanyeol yanks on Minseok’s arm, silently begging. Minseok crawls right up on top of him, covering him like a sheet of ice, only Chanyeol doesn’t burn through the cold this time.

He doesn’t realize he’s until he feels the soft material of Minseok’s pajamas against his bare skin. Why is he - oh. He must have burnt his clothes off.

He’s too freaked out to care, and Minseok doesn’t say anything, just covers him in cold and holds him tighter when his frightened tears become full-out, violent sobbing.

“I’m sorry,” he chokes out, “I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry…” He isn’t sure if he’s sorry for the people he killed in his dream, for the property damage he’s too scared to look at, or for waking Minseok up in the middle of the night again.

“Shhh,” Minseok soothes, his breath cold on Chanyeol’s ear. “Shh, it’s alright. You’re okay.” It’s nonsense, Chanyeol is not okay, but it does help, helps to calm his sobbing hiccuping breaths and to slow his tears. Minseok holds him until he’s no longer shaking, then pulls back just enough to look at him.

“Jesus,” he murmurs. “You’re all burnt up.” He runs a thumb along the scald marks on Chanyeol’s face, not touching them but close enough that Chanyeol can feel the skin pull where it is burnt. “Let’s go get Yixing.”

Chanyeol is grateful that Minseok doesn’t tell him to stay put while he goes and gets their healer. Instead, he helps Chanyeol to his feet, helps clear the charred remains of Chanyeol’s sweatpants from his legs and gently wraps him in his own robe. It’s a little short on Chanyeol, barely to his knees, and the bottom few centimeters of his forearms stick out, but it covers him.

It doesn’t cover the burns, nasty, bubbling, bright red patches all over his body. The heat is leaving him but the pain is setting in, a different kind of fire in his nerves.

“I didn’t even know I could burn myself,” Chanyeol says, rather hysterically.

Minseok’s guiding arm is very gentle around his waist, and his coldness is soothing. “I’m capable of giving myself frostbite,” he says wryly, “so it doesn’t surprise me.”

That’s horrible, but for some reason Chanyeol finds it kind of reassuring. At least he’s not the only freak.

It’s the dead of night, and despite the pain Chanyeol feels terrible knocking on Yixing and Joonmyun’s door, waking them up. Joon is the one who answers, bleary-eyed and half-dressed, but he takes one look at Chanyeol and immediately lets them in, prodding Yixing awake. It’s too dark in their room for Yixing to see what the issue is, but the moment his hands contact Chanyeol’s skin, he makes a soft oh noise, and almost immediately the pain begins to fade, a strange tightness sweeping over Chanyeol’s body, pulling weirdly at his skin before settling back into place. The scald marks on his face are the last to go, and he can see the outline of Yixing shaking his head sadly as his thumbs sweep over Chanyeol’s cheeks, wiping the injury away.

“Thank you,” he whispers, and Yixing nods and pats his cheek before falling back into the bed. Chanyeol’s not certain he even woke up all the way.

As soon as they’re back out in the hallway and the door is closed, Chanyeol mutters, “I wish I had that kind of a power. Not this one.”

Minseok gives him a look. “We found Yixing after he tried to heal his mother’s broken ribs and accidentally gave her lung cancer.”

Oh.

.

Chanyeol swallows and tries not to start crying all over again.

Sighing, Minseok tugs him close, wrapping an arm around him again. He’s considerably smaller than Chanyeol but Chanyeol leans on him anyway, wishing they were sitting so he could curl his body against Minseok’s side and let his hyung snuggle him. “There’s a downside to all of our powers,” Minseok says softly. He’s guiding Chanyeol down the stairs, rather than back to the bedroom; Chanyeol is thankful for that. He doesn’t want to see the damage he’s done to his own bed. “We all had to learn control. You will too. It’ll become second nature and then you won’t have so many nightmares.”

They reach the bottom of the stairs, and Minseok pulls Chanyeol towards the kitchen. “Do the nightmares ever stop?” Chanyeol asks.

Minseok doesn’t answer him.

Instead, he tugs Chanyeol over to the counter where his coffee-making supplies sit. “I’m gonna teach you how to do a pour-over, okay?” he says.

It’s an obvious distraction, but one Chanyeol is grateful for. “Okay,” he says softly.

So Minseok shows him. Which kettle to use - the one with the weird curvy spout, apparently - how much water to heat, how to set the grinder and how to measure the beans. Which of Minseok’s many coffee accoutrements to use (this one is a wood-and-glass pitcher that’s shaped kind of like an hourglass. It’s pretty. Chanyeol likes it.) Where he keeps the filters, and how to set one up, folded side this way and grounds go in like this and don’t forget to shake to even them out, and here, add some cinnamon for extra flavor.

Chanyeol’s hands are still shaky, so Minseok guides his hand as he pours water from the kettle over the grounds. He sees why this particular kettle is necessary - the weird spout makes the water come out in a thin, smooth stream, much easier to control than a regular pour spout. Minseok sweeps their hands in a circle and then pulls Chanyeol back, telling him that he has to let the grounds soak for a bit before finishing the pour.

They stand silently in the kitchen for the thirty seconds while that happens, Minseok’s arm still around Chanyeol’s waist and his hand covering Chanyeol’s on the kettle handle. There’s no sound except for their breathing, and Chanyeol can physically feel his stress leaving him, soaking out into the coffee and the silence and Minseok’s cool presence.

“Okay,” Minseok says, and guides him into the rest of the pour. There’s something very Zen about the whole experience.

Chanyeol’s beginning to understand why Minseok likes coffee so much.



~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~



Chanyeol’s bed is ruined. Yixing offers up his own - it isn’t until he does so that Chanyeol realizes he’d been sleeping in Joon’s bed, not even using his - but Chanyeol refuses. He saves up money from his part-time job as a dishwasher at a local cafe, planning to eventually buy a new one.

In the meantime, he sleeps in Minseok’s bed. It’s a silent agreement at first, Chanyeol staring at his own bed for a long moment before Minseok tugs him down into his own, but as the weeks go by it becomes habit. Chanyeol never has nightmares with Minseok’s cold body next to his in the night, and after weeks and weeks of not sleeping it is blessed relief. As his ability to get a full night’s sleep returns, so does his energy, and his positivity. He finds himself smiling more, laughing more, making stupid jokes again. Keeping control of his power is easier when he’s well-rested, too, and the next time he accidentally runs into Jongdae in the hallway, the flare of power is small, and easy to smother.

He sleeps more soundly now, so when a gasp of fright wakes him in the middle of the night, it takes him a long, groggy moment to figure out what’s happening.

The room is freezing. Minseok, beside him, is gasping for air, clawing at invisible hands around his throat. There’s a sheet of ice crawling up his body, encasing him.

Chanyeol rolls on top of him without a thought and pulls up his power, just as Minseok taught him. His body heats, the ice starts hissing as it melts, and Minseok clutches at him, clearly terrified.

“I’ve got you,” Chanyeol murmurs, pressing his heated cheek against Minseok’s freezing one. Stiff, frozen fingers bury in his hair. Minseok’s shivering is violent, but Chanyeol vaguely remembers reading somewhere that shivering stops when a person gets too cold, so he takes that as a good sign.

“,” Minseok spits, his lips cold and sluggish against Chanyeol’s jaw. “S-ssorry.”

It makes Chanyeol’s heart jerk, because Minseok obviously has no reason to be sorry, but Chanyeol gets it. “It’s okay,” he says softly, burrowing closer to Minseok’s body, trying to cover every extremity. “It’s okay.”

It takes a few minutes for Minseok to calm, for his shivers to lessen and his cramped-up limbs to loosen. When his grip on Chanyeol’s hair finally slackens, Chanyeol pulls away a little bit. “Better?” he asks.

Minseok nods, but doesn’t speak. And Chanyeol’s at a loss for how to make him feel better, until he stops and thinks about what Minseok would do for him.

“Here,” he says, yanking the thick blanket from the end of the bed. Minseok used to always sleep with it, but since Chanyeol’s been sharing with him, they’ve mostly been kicking it away. He wraps Minseok in it now and guides him out of bed.

The older boy feels smaller than usual, and this time it’s Chanyeol wrapping his arms around him protectively, guiding him down the stairs to the kitchen. He can see from the way that Minseok is flexing his fingers that his hands are still too cold to be dextrous, so he sits Minseok at the little table and makes the coffee himself. He hasn’t learned to use the espresso machine yet, but he can do a pour-over, and he does.

While he waits for the water to boil, he crouches in front of Minseok and rubs his hands and arms, trying to get them warm again. Minseok’s watching him silently, with wide, dark eyes, his lips still tinged blue. Chanyeol wishes he knew how to make Minseok warm again, but he’s afraid of burning him if he gets too hot, so he settles for taking it slow.

When the pour is done, he crouches again and presses it into Minseok’s hands. “You might want creamer,” he mutters. “I’m not sure I did it all right.”

Minseok takes a shaky sip. “It’s good,” he murmurs. His lips are still kind of blue.

Chanyeol leans up and covers Minseok’s lips with his own.

They’re cold, so cold, and taste of coffee. Minseok’s mouth drops open automatically, almost instantly; the hand not holding the coffee cups Chanyeol’s shoulder, and suddenly they’re kissing, for real, the soft slide of freezing cold lips against burning hot ones.

Minseok’s tongue flicks against his lips, silently asking permission, and Chanyeol opens to let him in, into his mouth the way he’s already in his heart. He isn’t certain when he fell in love with Minseok, but this feels like the logical next step, natural progression. Minseok doesn’t seem surprised by it at all, and his body is welcoming.

Chanyeol a little on his tongue, pulls his lips in between his teeth, working his entire mouth until the chill is finally chased away. When he starts pressing his tongue to the roof of Minseok’s mouth, the older man laughs gently and pulls back. He rests his forehead against Chanyeol’s.

“Hey,” he says softly. “What do you think about just not getting another bed?”

Chanyeol laughs and wraps his arms around Minseok’s shoulders. “Sounds like a good idea to me.”

They have a ways to go, but the road is easier with company.







~fin~