give me your heart (i'll give you gunpowder and gore)

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/21110765.

Rating: Explicit
Archive Warning: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Category: M/M
Fandom: EXO (Band)
Relationship: Byun Baekhyun/Oh Sehun
Character: Oh Sehun, Byun Baekhyun, Do Kyungsoo | D.O
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Assassins & Hitmen, Alternate Universe -
Prostitution, Threats of Violence, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse,
Suicidal Thoughts, Angst with a Happy Ending, Homophobic Language,
Unsafe Sex, Insomnia, Angst and Fluff and Smut
Language: English
Collections: round 1。
Stats: Published: 2019-10-29 Words: 36424

give me your heart (i'll give you gunpowder and gore)

by okamiwind

Summary

Sehun stands back up, adjusts the collar of his jacket.

“You’re fucking expensive, you know.”

Baekhyun smiles sleepily, glittering even now.

“Yeah, but I’m worth it.”

Notes

prompt no.93 for the north wind and the sun, a sebaek fic fest.

See the end of the work for more notes

He doesn’t usually make a mess.

This time, Sehun makes a mess.

It’s outside of the ordinary, which makes it extraordinary, but something about this motherfucker
really gets to him, so instead of something clean and precise, instead of a headshot tidy through the
window, Steyr SSG 69, .308 caliber, fitted with an AWC Thundertrap silencer… instead of neat,
instead of simple, he pays a visit. They left it up to him, so he doesn’t worry about the
repercussions.

There are people who are there to clean up the messes even though he’s quite capable of doing it
himself.

“Please,” the man begs, bleeding from his lips, his mouth, his nose. His eye, even. One is totally
bruised over by now. “Please.”

“Nope,” Sehun says, and he puts his boot to the guy’s jaw again and he hears it crack, a wail of
pain coming from the worm slithering on the ground as he tries to get away.

He fumbles through another please, but with his jaw broken, he doesn’t make much sense.

“How many was it?” Sehun asks.

Blood pools in his mouth before he tries to cough it out, and he doesn’t answer. Sehun raises his
foot again, poised to kick the guy’s head in for good, but the guy holds up his hands, tears and snot
streaming down his face, milky white mixed with red.

“Answer me,” Sehun says. “And I’ll let you live.”

It is a lie, an easy one, but the man doesn’t have to know that.

“Twelf,” the guy says, busted up teeth and split lip making it almost impossible for him to be
understood. But Sehun understands.

“Twelve,” Sehun says, playing with the metal ring on his finger, underneath the glove, pushing it
around and around. “How old?”

The man whines out another plea for mercy, and Sehun rears back and kicks him in the abdomen,
watching as his body twitches after the blow.

“How old was the youngest?” Sehun asks. “Maybe you’ll remember that.”

“Pleath,” he begs. “Pleaths.”

“Just answer,” Sehun says, twisting his ring around his finger again. “Make it easy on yourself.”

The man cries. Fucking pathetic piece of shit. Sehun needs a new fucking job.

“Eight,” he says, breaking down into hysterics.

“Jesus Christ,” Sehun scowls. He kicks him again in the side for good measure, hard as he can. His
leg is getting fucking tired, but Jesus Christ. “Well, listen. I’m in a weird mood today, so I’ll pose
you a hypothetical, okay?”

But the man’s eyes close. Sehun shouldn’t have started by smashing his head against the floor.
Sehun should have planned this better.

Sehun kneels down, grabs the guy by the hair, slaps him across the face a couple times. God, now
he’s gonna have to get his gloves cleaned too. Pain in the fucking ass.

“Hey,” Sehun says. “Wake up, you dumb motherfucker. I’m gonna pose you a hypothetical. Got
it?”
The man shakes his head, Sehun’s fingers still tangled in the blood-matted hair.

“Good,” Sehun says. “So. There’s a cockroach in your house. Cockroaches disgust you viscerally.
Everything about them makes you wish you could set the fucking house on fire. So… what are you
gonna do?”

The man cries.

“Go ‘head. Answer. I want you to answer,” Sehun says. “Are you gonna take the time to cover it
with a paper cup and then slip a little piece of paper under it and carry it outside? Or are you just
gonna kill it? Not even think about it, just kill the motherfucker.”

The man begs, pleads. His bottom lip is hanging on by a thread.

“Five,” Sehun counts. “Four.”

“Safe it,” the man says. “Safe it!”

“Ah,” Sehun says, tuts his tongue. “That’s what I thought you’d say.”

He lays the man’s head back on the ground, pats him on the cheek, and stands up to his full height.

“You know, cockroaches can survive under absolutely abhorrent conditions,” Sehun says. “And
that’s why, unless you want them around forever, you have to get rid of them. No way around it.
The only thing to do with vermin is to exterminate them.”

“Plea—”

“Do me a favor. Shut the fuck up,” Sehun says.

Without more deliberation, without any more words, he brings his foot down on the man’s skull
over and over again, wet cracking sounds echoing in the motel room, again and again, furiously,
righteously, until the man stops twitching, until there’s no longer a point to it.

“Fuck,” he breathes heavily, looking at the blood soaking the ends of his pants, the brain matter
covering the bottom of his boots. “Shit.”

He stands back and takes off his gloves carefully.

He grabs the phone out of his pocket, dials. Predictably, there is no response.

“Need a clean-up,” Sehun says.

“You bitch,” the voice says, and secretly, Sehun is very glad to hear that voice. “Wait there, I’ve
got your location. Be there in ten.”

“Thanks, sweetheart,” Sehun says, bored, closing the phone and sitting down on the ugly floral
comforter to wait.

Kyungsoo knocks the same way he always does, but Sehun still looks through the peephole
anyway, confirming it. He wears a black baseball hat, black shirt, black pants—trying to blend in
with the night, Sehun supposes. He wears a huge backpack vacuum on his back, though, an
extractor, and that makes him look like a turtle, not nearly as intimidating.
He opens the door for him.

“Hey,” Sehun says. “Got a big one, sorry.”

Kyungsoo steps across the threshold, eyes widening.

“Christ almighty,” Kyungsoo says. “What the fuck did you do?”

“Got a little angry, I guess.”

“A little,” he deadpans.

“Yeah, a little.”

“Christ almighty,” Kyungsoo repeats. “Couldn’t have just shot him. Couldn’t make it fucking easy
on me.”

“I’m easy...normally,” Sehun says, squinting. “Fuck you.”

“You’re right. Easy as that piece of ass over at—”

“Don’t,” Sehun says, holding up his hands. “If you’re going where I think you’re going, I would
prefer that you didn’t.”

“Got it,” Kyungsoo says, and he sets down his bags. “After all, don’t wanna make you angry.”

“You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry,” Sehun says, and Kyungsoo laughs, and for a minute, it’s
almost like being a person again.

“All right,” Kyungsoo says. “So, that’ll be… removal, disposal, and a full clean.”

“Worth every penny,” Sehun says. “You have the number?”

“You don’t need to ask every time,” Kyungsoo says, smiling. “Go, I got it from here.”

“Thanks,” Sehun says. “Owe you a beer.”

“Somehow I don’t think you’re the type of guy who owes anyone anything,” Kyungsoo says.

“Well, I’ll owe you,” Sehun says. “For the… carpet.”

Kyungsoo stares down at the blood stains.

“Kubrick wishes The Shining looked like this,” Kyungsoo says, shaking his head. “Go see your
girl.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Sehun says, and he shoves him for good measure.

“Hey, if you wanted to keep it under wraps,” Kyungsoo says, unzipping his bag and getting out his
various supplies, “you should have locked him up.”

“I don’t think he’s the type of guy to get locked up,” Sehun says. “And I’m not exactly the type to
lock anyone up.”

“No,” Kyungsoo smiles. “I guess you’re right.”

Sehun leaves Kyungsoo to his work. He closes the motel door. Gets on his bike. Rides. His body
knows the way.

Sehun walks into the brothel feeling nervous, or maybe not nervous, just coursing with nerves. And
he knows— there is certainly a difference. Agitated, he runs a hand through his hair before
stepping up to the big chestnut desk where the madam of the house stands, smiling at him.

“Welcome,” she says, red lips curving. “Your usual?”

“Yes,” he says, and he keeps his eyes low.

“Oh, honey,” she says, and she taps her long red nails on the desk. “He’s been waiting.”

Sehun turns to the side, trying to avoid conversation with her. She’s nice and all, but she’s the
madam, and he doesn’t exactly need more attention. He doesn’t need people knowing he comes
here weekly. Sometimes more often if he really needs it.

“Until 8 a.m.?” she prompts.

“Yeah,” Sehun says.

“With the bank account information currently listed?” she prompts again. She turns her computer
to face him.

He doesn’t even glance at the screen. “Yeah,” he says.

“Strong, silent type who always tips well,” she sighs, turning the screen back around and tapping at
the keys. “Baby got lucky with this one.”

Sehun doesn’t say anything, just watches as she turns to the wall with the bell pulls, and her fingers
dance over from the left until she gets to the very last one, shooting Sehun a coy smile before
pulling the mechanism and letting it pop back into place. The building was French Gothic, English
Renaissance, and they kept the butler system to ring the various rooms. Sehun thinks it’s clever,
but he never says as much.

“He will be expecting you,” she smiles. “Have a good night.”

Sehun nods at her, and he takes the stairs two at a time.

He walks through the halls, the walls lined with a plush red fabric. His boot heels click on the
hardwood floor, and he hears nothing besides. Of course he doesn’t. The brothel might be
Renaissance, but the renovations are state of the art, including the soundproofing of the private
rooms.

When you pay premium price, you get premium treatment.

It isn’t hard to imagine what was going on behind those closed doors, all manner of debauchery
and wanton sex and the kinks that go along with the anonymity of the Red House. If you want it,
you can get it here. At least, that’s what the madam always says to him.

He only ever came for one. The one they called Baby. And he wouldn’t admit that to anyone but
himself.

Baby’s room is at the end of the hall, and before Sehun goes any further, he runs another nervous
hand through his hair. And then he knocks.

He doesn’t hear anything for several seconds, and then the door swings open. Above the frame, a
little heart-shaped neon light flicks on, shining red down onto them.

Baekhyun is wrapped in a long, black chiffon dressing gown, with ostrich feathers at the sleeves
and the hem dragging on the floor, and he’s wearing makeup. Sehun can tell now, after all this
time. It’s subtle, but it’s there. Evening out his skin, erasing some freckles. Blush added back in. A
slickness to his lips.

“Hey there,” he says gently. “You just get back from a job?”

Sehun wants to cry at the sight of him. He is beautiful. He is… he is so beautiful. And Sehun
doesn’t deserve even a scrap of this, not even the sash that ties his gown.

“Yeah,” he says brokenly, a crack in the facade.

“It’s okay, honey,” Baekhyun says. “Come on in.”

Baekhyun pulls him in by the leather lapels of his jacket, presses him against the door. Sehun half
expects Baekhyun to kiss him hungrily, sink to his knees, deep throat Sehun until he comes and
falls asleep. That would be the easy way of doing things. But Baekhyun rarely takes the easy way
with him.

Baekhyun is about to press their bodies together gently, softly, his hands gliding to Sehun’s back,
but Sehun knows what he would feel. He knows he would get into trouble. This isn’t a night for
trouble. He’s already caused more than enough.

“Wait,” Sehun says hurriedly.

He eyes Sehun, stepping back and folding his arms across his chest. “I told you to stop bringing it.”
He squints at Sehun.

“I can’t stop bringing it.”

Baekhyun takes another step back, looks at him expectantly. Sehun reaches behind him, grabs the
gun from his waistband and walks over. Places it on the bedside table. It is the Boberg, his just in
case gun.

He looks back at Baekhyun after it’s down.

“Okay,” Sehun says.

“Kinda small, huh?”

Sehun lets a little smile paint onto his face.

“I don’t need to compensate for anything. You know that better than anyone.”

Baekhyun narrows his eyes again, this time with a sly grin. Steps back into Sehun’s space,
dominates it, takes it like he’s owed it. And Sehun lets him take what he wants. Take it all, if he
wants.

“I’m drawing you a bath,” Baekhyun whispers against his lips. He slips his fingers underneath
Sehun’s jacket.“You wanna soak for a while?” The jacket falls to the floor. “Or you want
somethin’ else first?”
Sehun shuts his eyes. Hates himself for needing this.

“Bath sounds good,” he says.

“Good,” Baekhyun says, and he drags Sehun by the hand to the large ensuite.

It is a pretty bathroom, even though Sehun isn’t one to notice those types of things. He supposes
he’s been here enough to notice.

The room is white, grey, and gold, with walls of clean white marble and floors of grey travertine.
There is a bathtub in one corner, the same clean white, and a glass shower in the other corner.
There is a mirrored panel of the wall that stretches floor to ceiling, which Sehun has fucked
Baekhyun against on more than one occasion, plants sit along a shelf on the wall, succulents and
cactuses. Sehun can’t tell if they’re fake or not, nor does he care a whole hell of a lot. He isn’t here
for the plants.

There is a cushioned table against the wall, and Sehun has been a customer long enough to know
what it is for: massages. He’s been laid down on that table many times. Sometimes it’s just a
massage, and it's almost clinical, the way Baekhyun can pinpoint Sehun’s knots and grind at them
until they’re dust. Sometimes it’s nuru, and Baekhyun will strip himself down, pour the thick gel
on Sehun from a glass pitcher, and he’ll massage him with his body until they’re both brought to
climax. Sometimes, he’s rubbed down and edged for an hour before Baekhyun allows him to spill
out over his stomach, only pausing to add his release to it, rubbing it into Sehun’s skin until Sehun
shoves him off.

Sehun has no real preferences when it comes to Baekhyun, so Baekhyun tends to get creative.

The whole room smells of roses, and when Sehun crosses to the bath, the water is pink. Baekhyun
pulls Sehun’s clothes off him, and Sehun looks to the ceiling as he works, limbs manipulated by
Baekhyun’s hands.

“'Kay,” Baekhyun says, patting Sehun on the pectoral, hesitating a moment as he touches. “In you
get.”

Sehun steps in, sits down, leans his head back along the wall of the bath. He sighs. It’s warm.

“Let me wash you, honey,” Baekhyun says, and he takes the basket of soaps, lotions, and oils from
the counter.

“It’s fine,” Sehun says, and he shuts his eyes.

He washed the bottom of his boots in the motel shower and tossed the rest of the clothes into the
gym bag for Kyungsoo to burn. He thought about the hot water, thought about it running through
his hair. Baekhyun can anticipate him now, and Sehun doesn’t like how much he likes it, the way
Baekhyun is always one step ahead of him.

He sinks under the surface of the water, holds his breath, and breaks the surface again, running a
hand through his hair.

“You look pretty,” Baekhyun says.

“Stop talking,” Sehun says.

“Tell me I look pretty too,” Baekhyun says.

“I don’t pay you to talk,” Sehun says. “Nor do I pay for the opportunity to talk to you.”

Baekhyun shuts up, but when Sehun opens an eye to watch him drag the stool from off the wall,
sitting it behind Sehun, Baekhyun is smiling. Sehun shuts his eyes again, and he hears Baekhyun
setting the basket next to him, pouring a pool of shampoo into his hand before he starts to lather
Sehun’s hair.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” Baekhyun asks gently, the movement of his fingers just as gentle.

Sehun says nothing, and that’s answer enough. He could afford to be nicer to Baekhyun. He just
won’t let himself.

Baekhyun dutifully washes Sehun’s hair, and his fingertips carefully massaging Sehun’s scalp. It
feels delicious, feels like sparkling pleasure dripping down the back of his neck. His stomach fills
with heat as he realizes that this is not just a relaxing bath. This is an arousing one.

Baekhyun is just as smart with this as he is with his movements elsewhere. Everything is practiced.
Everything is learned.

The prostitutes of the Red House go through a training period, an apprenticeship where they study
the arts of pleasure. There’s something traditional about it that way. Baekhyun’s told him of his
apprenticeship, his studies, and Sehun tried not to listen, tried not to give a fuck. But he committed
it all to memory, and he wears it like a brand.

Baekhyun was nineteen years old when he came to the House. Most newcomers took a year to
learn, sometimes more. Baekhyun took only four months. He was lightning fast. He was good at
this. Sehun knows it well.

“Sit up and tilt your head back,” he orders.

Sehun obeys.

He fills the pitcher with water, and he pours it over Sehun’s hair, washing the soap out, a hand on
Sehun’s forehead to block his eyes from the splashing water. Baekhyun is smart and not just for a
whore. He knows what he’s doing. In all things.

“Can I get in?” he asks.

“If you want,” Sehun says gruffly.

Baekhyun pushes back from the tub, stands up and pushes the stool back against the wall. He
moves to the foot of the bath, makes eye contact with Sehun, and he holds it.

He pulls at the sash of his gown, lets it fall open slowly. It slips off his body and falls to the floor
in a beautiful dark wave of chiffon and feathers, and then he steps forward with a coy smile.

He isn’t shy, but he knows how to look it.

“The way you look at me sometimes,” he says, stepping into the bath, sinking to his knees.

Sehun doesn’t take the bait, doesn’t say what he wants: What’s that supposed to mean? How do I
look at you? Does it betray me? Will you?

Baekhyun takes the washcloth that hangs on the wall, and he submerges it, lathering it with the
fresh-smelling body wash. The scent is masculine, contrasts with the smell of roses, and Sehun
groans as Baekhyun sits in his lap, starts to wash Sehun’s chest and his arms.

“Mm,” Baekhyun moans, staring down at Sehun’s body. “Look at you.”

“Not much to look at,” Sehun says.

“You’re the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen,” Baekhyun says. He lays the cloth on the edge of the
tub, cups his hands. Wets the skin he just washed before laying wet kisses there. “Are you sure you
don’t wanna talk?”

Sehun closes his eyes. “Shut up.”

“Okay. I don’t mind doing it the old-fashioned way,” Baekhyun says.

He reaches down between their bodies, takes Sehun’s cock in his hand. Baekhyun is good at what
he does, and on top of that, Sehun is conditioned: everything that happens here ends in his pleasure.
He’s already hard enough to cut diamond.

Baekhyun’s cock is soft, but he leans in, takes Sehun in a kiss fit for their surroundings, and by the
time he breaks it, he’s hard between his legs too, pushing alongside Sehun’s cock in his hand.
Sehun groans, throws his head back. Baekhyun licks along his Adam’s apple.

“What do you want, honey?” he mumbles against Sehun’s skin. “You want me to fuck you? You
want toys? You want to fuck me? You want me to be your little fucktoy tonight? You can put a
vibe in me and fuck me with it until I cry. I don’t care. Tell me what you want. I’ll give you
fuckin’ anything.”

He lets himself be quiet for several moments, and Baekhyun breathes against him, letting him take
the silence he craves.

“I want to… I just wanna be able to fall asleep easy after,” Sehun says, and that is too vulnerable,
much too much.

“We’re going to fuck until we can’t move,” Baekhyun says softly. “I’m gonna ride your cock until
you’re begging me to stop. Until it hurts. You’re gonna wish you took a benzo instead.”

Sehun looks up, and Baekhyun wears a look of concern. That’s too much. He needs to… needs to
lessen things. “You got one on you?” Sehun smirks.

“Shut your fuckin’ mouth,” Baekhyun says, and he moves forward so violently, so quickly, that the
water splashes between them as he crushes his lips to Sehun’s.

It is the hunger that Sehun anticipated earlier, and the adrenaline kicks back in. He takes
Baekhyun’s face in his hands, holds him hard as he licks into Baekhyun’s mouth and starts
swallowing moans.

“Get up,” Sehun orders.

The water falls off them in a sheet, and after they get out, he grabs one of the fluffy white towels
off the wall. He rubs Baekhyun down with it, and he might be taking a bit too long, because when
he lowers himself to dry off Baekhyun’s legs, Baekhyun stares down at him with a look on his
face.

“Stop,” Sehun says.

“Stop what,” Baekhyun says.

“Stop,” Sehun says again, and Baekhyun laughs. And that’s enough of that. Sehun stands to his
full height, stares down at Baekhyun.

“You can’t intimidate me,” Baekhyun taunts. “I’ve shot a load on you. You’ve eaten my come. I
know you like it when I put m—”

Sehun relishes the surprised look on Baekhyun’s face when he picks him up swiftly, hands tight on
the backs of his thighs. Baekhyun quickly grabs on to Sehun’s neck, clinging to him. Sehun smirks
as he moves them back to the bedroom, to the giant four poster bed, turned down and clean white.

“When you put your what?” Sehun taunts back.

“When I put my tongue in your ass,” Baekhyun says. “You fucking—”

“Choose your words very carefully,” Sehun warns.

“Or what, honey?” Baekhyun says.

Sehun lets Baekhyun’s back fall to the mattress, the bed bouncing with the weight, and Baekhyun
smiles up at him as Sehun straightens back up.

“Or else I’m gonna be mean,” Sehun says.

“Mm,” Baekhyun moans, and he runs his hands down his body. Sehun’s eyes track the movement,
and Baekhyun laces his fingers with Sehun’s. “And you do know how to be mean, don’t you?”

He gives Sehun a sharp, sudden tug, pulling him flat on top of him before he kisses him, arms
thrown casually around Sehun’s neck. He hums against Sehun’s lips, and he crosses his ankles
around the small of Sehun’s back.

He’s stuck to Sehun like glue.

“Let go,” Sehun murmurs.

“What are you gonna do?” he asks. “You gonna get something to hold me down?”

“Would you like that?” Sehun asks, and he regrets it.

It isn’t about what Baekhyun wants. He’s paying for sex. It’s already bad enough that he makes a
point to get Baekhyun off, like some kind of awful cliché.

“Hm,” Baekhyun says, faux-thoughtful, and then he wears a look of mischief, wears it better than
he wears any lingerie. He hugs Sehun closer, even though Sehun thought it impossible. “What are
you in the mood for?” He lays a kiss to the soft part of Sehun’s neck. Licks a little stripe.

“I don’t know,” Sehun says, and he swallows. Throat tight. “I don’t care.”

Baekhyun is all wiry muscle, core strength and thick thighs. It shouldn’t surprise him when he’s
flipped onto his back, but it does, still shocks a sharp breath out of him.

His body starts to fight back before his brain can catch up, and he surges up, panic in his lungs. He
grips the sheets to stop from putting his hands around Baekhyun’s throat, the fight-or-flight instinct
kicking in like the quickest drug.
Within a moment, though, he’s able to relax into the bed. He’s trained himself.

He came to the Red House for Baby, but he stays because it’s the only place he can sleep through
the night without aid, wrapped in Baekhyun’s arms. He breathes out, shaky and weak, and he lets
things fall away, soot from his shoulders.

“I’m sorry,” Baekhyun says softly. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“It—it’s fine,” Sehun says.

“Be honest,” Baekhyun says. “For a change.”

Sehun says nothing.

“You want me to take control for tonight?” Baekhyun says.

Sehun doesn’t trust his voice.

He nods.

“You still in the mood?” Baekhyun asks. “We don’t have to.”

It’s funny. Stupid. Baekhyun grinds his hips down, rubs against him. There isn’t much that could
stop his body from being aroused around Baekhyun. The adrenaline would probably only bolster
that.

Sehun nods.

“Let me take care of you then,” Baekhyun says, and he runs his hands over Sehun’s arms.

He’s gotten bigger, in recent years. Not out of desire. Just out of necessity. Some people try to
wriggle away. He looks down at Baekhyun’s hands on his. Baekhyun’s nails shine. No dirt. No
blood. Sehun bites his lip, thinks about the way the man pleaded. He did that, made him beg for
life. Because he is the angel of death.

It’s all he’s good at.

“Don’t do that,” Baekhyun says. He lowers his mouth to Sehun’s. Kisses him sweetly. “Be good
for me.”

It’s easier this way, when Sehun can pretend. They roleplay. Sehun is normal. Baekhyun is normal.
And they just talk, but they talk with their bodies.

“Okay,” Sehun breathes out.

He shuts his eyes. Feels Baekhyun kiss down his body. It’s good, it’s normal. He’s normal.
Everything’s normal. He’s not fucked up. He doesn’t know what seared flesh smells like. He
doesn’t hear the screams ringing in his ears. It doesn’t wake him in the middle of the night. The
stench. The screams.

“Breathe,” Baekhyun says, and he kisses Sehun’s hip bones, licks along the thin skin. “Just
breathe.”

“Yeah,” Sehun says, and he obeys. Keeps his eyes closed and lets Baekhyun do what he’s paid for.

He lets his mind go blank as Baekhyun licks kittenish lines along the head of his cock. He can’t
close his eyes, because every time he does, he thinks about the look in their eyes. The terror. What
horrible creature is he, that he can make people look that way?

“Look at me,” Baekhyun orders. “Watch me.”

Sehun makes eye contact with Baekhyun, pretty and dark and endless, and Baekhyun smiles as he
licks the tip with the flat of his tongue, tapping Sehun’s cock against the wetness.

“Don’t look away,” Baekhyun says. “Stay with me. Understand?”

“Yes,” Sehun says through his teeth.

He makes a commitment, a pledge, signs a covenant with his blood. He will enjoy what he’s
paying for. He will let Baekhyun do his job.

“Good boy,” Baekhyun says, and Sehun’s stomach goes warm. “You like it when I suck your
cock?” Sehun nods, but it isn’t enough. “Say it.”

“I like it when you suck my cock,” Sehun says, and the thrill of obscenity runs through him.

“Hold my hair,” Baekhyun says. “But no pulling.”

Sehun does as he’s told to do, and he threads his fingers through Baekhyun’s hair, scratching at his
scalp. Sehun knows he likes that, knows Baekhyun likes to be pet. On more than one occasion,
he’s put on the puppy ears and let Sehun slip the tail plug into him. He’s laid his head on Sehun’s
thigh, seemingly desperate for the physical affection, and Sehun stroked down his spine, eager for
the sounds that fell from Baekhyun’s mouth. No words. Just pleasure.

Once, Baekhyun fell asleep before they got the chance to do anything, so Sehun had to gently slip
the plug back out of him without stirring him. He covered him up in the big bed, lying next to him,
watching him until sleep came for him as well.

“Stop thinking about anything other than me,” Baekhyun says, and he rubs his cheek along the
length of Sehun’s cock.

Sehun doesn’t know how to say I was thinking about you, so he instead, he groans wetly.
Baekhyun rewards him, holds his gaze as he sucks at the head of his cock sweetly. Sehun wants to
thrust, but he doesn’t. He stares down at Baekhyun and holds back all of his urges: take
Baekhyun’s face in his hands, pull Baekhyun to him, kiss Baekhyun hard. Flip him over. Lick his
hole until it’s dripping wet and begging for his cock.

Baekhyun’s eyes go glassy as he swallows more and more of Sehun’s length. Sehun bites his lip,
watches the inch by inch movement, the heat enveloping him from head to toe.

There’s so much that he wants to say, so much he wants to let pour out of him, but he can’t. All he
can do is hold on, watching Baekhyun watch him back as he sucks him down. Brings him close,
then backs away. Over and over again, the process repeats. Baekhyun works slowly, a tremulous
pace as he sucks Sehun down, but then it’s raised to eleven, lightning fast, the most obscene sounds
filling the room. The wet sounds of his throat. The way he chokes when he’s swallowed so much
that he’s got his nose against Sehun’s body.

It’s over and over again, repeating and repeating. Fast and then slow, slow and fast. And Sehun is
holding his hands in the sheets, clinging to the cliff before he slips off it. Baekhyun doesn’t let him,
though, doesn’t let him have that little handle of control. He slips his fingers between Sehun’s,
holds him by the hand as he chokes himself on Sehun’s cock.
“Stop,” Sehun groans, and he throws his head back for a second before tensing his abdomen,
looking back down at where Baekhyun kisses the tip of his cock. “Stop, you’re teasing me.”

Baekhyun licks him coyly, tongue swirling around the head. Open-mouthed kisses, completely
without shame, without inhibitions. It’s filthy, sloppy, messy. Sehun tilts his hips up, but Baekhyun
backs away with a smile.

“Yeah, I’m teasing. But you’re not getting to come that easily. You’re mine tonight. And I get to do
what I fuckin’ want with you. Whatever I want.”

He swallows him back down, soft throat fluttering around the head of his cock once more, and
Sehun moans, high, embarrassingly high.

Baekhyun withdraws again, strokes him with a spit-slick fist as he rubs Sehun’s balls with the other
hand. Sehun shivers when Baekhyun pulls a little, squeezes them tighter than normal, the shock of
pain through him somehow exactly what he needs. It keeps him desperate, keeps him trembling,
and when Baekhyun gets up, leaves him there on the bed quaking, Sehun takes a couple deep
breaths to steady himself. To regain a little bit of his composure.

“Quit that,” Baekhyun says, busy at the bedside table, and when he comes back, he’s got lube and
a condom. “You’re undoing all my good work.”

“I’m not doing shit.”

Baekhyun puts the condom down next to him. The lube is in a squeeze-bottle, easy access, and
Baekhyun spreads it over his fingers. Sehun watches a little run of it drip down his fingers, down
his forearm, all the way to his elbow. It’s sexy, weirdly sexy, and he kicks himself back a little
further onto the center of the bed. Baekhyun follows, spreads Sehun’s legs, and oh—

Baekhyun’s voice is soft when he asks. “Is this okay?” His fingers are wet when he pets across
Sehun’s hole, the sudden touch making him brace.

“It’s fine,” Sehun says, and even as Baekhyun works the tip of his finger inside, he’s debating over
whether or not he comes for this or for the way he gets to give himself up. Or some sick
combination of both.

At the beginning, Baekhyun labored over it, wanted Sehun to say things enthusiastically, wanted a
yes and then a yes, please. But it’s been two years since Sehun started coming to see Baekhyun,
and now Baekhyun knows.

He wants a little black quiet, wants a little white noise, wants it all stirred up in the middle until it’s
spiraling, sprawling mess of grey.

He comes as often as he can, but his employers keep him busy, so he can’t manage to come as
often as he’d like. When Baekhyun slips the entirety of his finger inside, it’s a stretch, and he
breathes through his nose, willing himself to relax, that old familiar feeling. Baekhyun’s good at it,
gentle with him even when he doesn’t deserve it, and in some part of him, a secret part, he wants to
ask for something bad. Something mean. Something cruel.

He knows Baekhyun wouldn’t give it to him. Baekhyun’s got some rules on what he’ll do, so
Sehun doesn’t ask. Knows not to, even though he wants it. Hit me, he thinks. Make me hurt.

Instead, Baekhyun racks his body with intense pleasure, petting up and in, stroking the pad of his
finger over Sehun’s prostate until he gasps.
“Gotcha,” Baekhyun says, and he gets down on his elbows between Sehun’s legs, presses kisses to
the soft parts of Sehun’s inner thighs. “Feel good?”

He twists his finger, circles it until Sehun moans. “Yeah.”

He toys with Sehun, plays with him like he’s molding clay. He slips a second finger inside, and
Sehun squeezes his eyes shut tight, fingers in the sheets as he bears down on it. His whole body
feels hot, and the sticky wet warmth between his legs comes in pulses and waves as Baekhyun
thrusts his fingers in and out, in and out.

“F-Fuck,” Sehun curses, because it really is that good. It really is. Sehun’s had many lovers,
especially early when he was trying to convince himself that he could stay away, but none have
ever been so talented with their hands. None ever knew his body this well, knew how to shatter
him to glorious pieces.

Baekhyun continues to kitten-lick at Sehun’s thighs as he fingerfucks him, deliberate and

decimating. Sehun is going out of his mind, and it’s exactly what he needs, practically hovering
above the bed, out of his own body. Good, he thinks. Send me as far away from myself as you can
manage. Make me someone new.

He shuts his eyes, so hard he sees stars, and he starts to listen to what his body is telling him. He
moves his hips, satisfies a base desire to take control of what’s happening to him. Baekhyun
doesn’t stop him, so he continues, twists and writhes as Baekhyun slows the fingers inside him.

But then, he feels a fist sliding over his cock, spreading the precome down the shaft, and his eyes
shoot open.

“Stay with me,” Baekhyun says. “Okay?”

He breathes out, slow.

“Okay.”

Baekhyun smiles, and it’s not coy or flirtatious or… or anything. It’s just a smile. Just soft. Sehun
feels tears spring to his eyes, and he blinks them away as Baekhyun continues to touch him, stroke
him.

Baekhyun moves sharply then, getting up onto his knees before he reaches for the condom. He
tears it with his teeth, wets the very tip with a bit of lube before pinching the tip and rolling it onto
Sehun. Sehun attempts to get his breathing under control, but he can’t, especially not when
Baekhyun slicks his cock with more lube than is strictly necessary. He runs his hand down slow,
looks into Sehun’s eyes while he does it, and Sehun looks away, because holy shit, he bets
Baekhyun could see right through him, see into his stomach, see the yellow bile.

That’s all he is in the end. The rising of acid into your throat.

Baekhyun lays on top of him, grinds into him as he grabs Sehun by the jaw, kissing him as deeply
as he can. “Stop thinking,” he whispers against Sehun’s lips. “All right? Stop thinking. Only feel.”

He can feel the way they rest against each other, tired, exhausted. And they grind at each other,
shaving away until there’s only raw nerve. It’s hot, so hot, and he can’t breathe in anything but
Baekhyun, kiss him like he’s dying. And he is, he’s killing himself slowly, but at least he’ll die
like this. At least he’ll die next to something beautiful.

Baekhyun straddles him backwards, and God, his ass. It’s exceptionally cute, the way it curves
from his waist. Sehun settles his hands on Baekhyun’s hips, resists the urge to spank him, the slap
stinging his skin. He likes the way Baekhyun moves with a spanking, learning to anticipate the
hits, body reacting before his mind can. They are instinctual, the two of them, and he loves it. He
can’t ever say it, but he loves it.

Maybe it’s been so long that it doesn’t matter if he says it aloud. Maybe Baekhyun already knows.

Baekhyun raises himself up onto his knees, reaches behind him to guide Sehun’s cock to his hole
with a practiced hand. Sehun doesn’t even bother to help. Baekhyun would almost certainly take it
as an insult.

Slowly, slowly, he lowers himself down, sinking down onto Sehun’s dick until he’s fully seated,
the length buried inside him. And then he shakes a little from side to side, as if he’s trying it out for
the very first time.

“Stop,” Sehun grunts.

Baekhyun looks back over his shoulder, and good lord, the way he looks. A fucking angel on top
of him, cheeks red, lips red, hair soft against his forehead.

“You gonna come too soon?” he asks, and he tightens around Sehun, squeezes him like a fucking
vice grip. “You gonna come inside me?”

He can’t, not with the condom in the way, but as a way to arouse him, it still does its job. He wants
to. Wishes he could. You always want things more when you can’t have them, and this is no
different.

“Shut up,” Sehun says, and Baekhyun starts to twist his hips, ride Sehun’s cock smoothly,
practiced, and it feels better than anything else he’s ever had, anything else he’s ever tried.

It’s like Baekhyun was tailor-made for him, like he’s been molded to fit him perfectly, and each
time he raises up and sinks down, pushing himself further and further to the edge, it moves Sehun
that much closer, too.

Sehun frames Baekhyun’s ass with his hands, helps him move, helps guide him. He drags him
back and forth, that familiar move that grinds him against Baekhyun’s prostate with every shift,
and Baekhyun moans, high-pitched, working his hips faster to the rhythm.

Then, his moan echoes Baekhyun’s as Baekhyun works a finger down, slips it into Sehun and
starts to milk as he rides.

“Fuck,” Sehun groans, and he wants to plant his feet on the bed and thrust up into Baekhyun, but
he can’t. He’s caught there, made to take the pleasure he’s given. And it is a shivering, beautiful
pleasure that he takes gratefully, holding it between his palms.

His orgasm surprises him, something about the way Baekhyun’s fingers play inside him, and he
moans as Baekhyun starts to tighten around him, lilting as Sehun comes deep inside him.

Sehun breathes out heavily, a gasp for air really, when Baekhyun withdraws from him, standing
and pulling the condom off of him before disposing of it.

“Where are you going?” Sehun asks.

Baekhyun smiles at him. “You want me to come?”

Sehun doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t need to, this far along.

Baekhyun walks back over to the bed, and he straddles Sehun’s thighs. He pours more lube into his
hand, fucks through it, and Sehun just lies there, heavy-eyed, watching Baekhyun touch himself. If
he thinks about how many others have seen him like this, have got to be where Sehun is in that
moment, the anger flares within him, so he shoves it away. Doesn’t think about it.

Just thinks about being at Baekhyun’s mercy.

Baekhyun whimpers and whines as he comes, spilling out onto Sehun’s stomach. It’s hot, hot
enough that Sehun thinks he could fuck him again, get fucked, he doesn’t know. Doesn’t care.
Ready for whatever round two entailed, he guesses.

But after Baekhyun’s finished, he quickly cleans them both up, hurrying Sehun under the sheets
when he’s done. Sehun’s limbs feel heavy, gravity pulling him down deep, and when his head hits
the pillow, his eyes find it hard to open again. Still, he keeps working against it, staring at
Baekhyun. Baekhyun stares back, runs spread fingers through Sehun’s hair.

“Close your eyes,” Baekhyun tells him.

“I’m not tired,” Sehun says.

“Just humor me.” Baekhyun leans forward, kisses him on the lips, and Sehun shuts his eyes
through it. Doesn’t open them back up. “Good boy.”

It settles in Sehun’s veins, and against all odds, it displaces all the venom.

He is walking through a forest, and all is dark around him. There is a thick fog, so dense that he
can’t see more than a couple steps in front of him. He is walking, trying to find his way out, and the
terror starts to rise up in him. He is lost, he’s been led astray. The tall trees that surrounded him
are now the shifting walls of a maze, a labyrinth, and he hurriedly starts to run, the overwhelming
feeling that something is chasing him.

Then, suddenly, he knows exactly what chases him, closing in behind him. The picture is clear as
day in his head.

Six legs, maybe eight, maybe twelve. A hulking mass of darkness, a broken and rippling back, so
many pinhole eyes that you can barely focus on the swirling nothingness of one before you switch
to another. It is bleeding and oozing, and its maw is giant, a chasm, the sides of it lined with
thousands upon thousands of teeth. They are shaped like knives, but along the top and bottom are
spines, prickly and sharp. It’s both furred and scaled, and its hooves are covered in thick, sludgy
mud.

If it catches him, he will die. He will die screaming. The pain of being ripped limb from limb, sewn
back together, torn apart once more. There will be nothing but agony, not for the rest of his
existence.

And so he runs.

His lungs ache as he puts one foot in front of the other, faster and faster, his bare feet hitting the
dirt floor of the forest. He twists and turns, does not slow his sprint. If it catches him, he dies. He
does not want to die. He wants to live. He runs, keeps running, does not stop running. Will not stop
running.

It does not matter. It catches him anyway.

The clawed hand finally clasps around his shoulder, and he screams, the sound ripped from his
throat as if torn by the jaws of some great beast, and when he turns, the creature that faces him is
his own reflection, of course, sick and smiling.

“Shh,” Baekhyun says, and when Sehun finally wakes, he is cradled in Baekhyun’s arms. “Shh,
shh, it’s over. It’s okay. You’re okay.”

Sehun closes his eyes, wants to thrash away from him as the tears pool at the corners of his eyes,
but he can’t. He lets himself be held, fingers scratching softly at his scalp, and he lets the tears fall,
whimpering as the nightmare crashes away, leaving only the two of them, the soft warmth of the
bed, the sheets cocooned around them.

Baekhyun holds him until the tears stop, until his breath is even, until he’s ready to open his eyes
again.

The light is dim in the room, just a night light by the corner of the bed. Sehun knows it is for his
own sake, and it makes his wretched, putrid heart ache with want. But he can’t begin to parse
where the want begins or where it ends.

Baekhyun stares down at him with sparkling brown eyes, so much fondness there.

How do I tell him I don’t deserve it? How do I tell him that I’m too weak to stop coming to him?
That I don’t think I could survive without him? That every night I’m not in his arms, I go without
sleep? That I am a mess, a bloody mess of untamable emotions and violent rage, pure viscera,
cavities of me spilling out red? That he should be somewhere beautiful? That he belongs
somewhere good?

“Do you want me to sing?” Baekhyun asks.

Sehun doesn’t answer, just lays his head back down onto the pillow, one of Baekhyun’s arms
underneath him. Baekhyun already knows the answer.

When he starts to hum, it vibrates through Sehun, some familiar melody that sounds the way
longing feels: desperate, lovely, and overwhelmingly sad.

He never falls asleep easily, but this is the easiest way: Baekhyun’s sweet tenor in his ear, the quiet
night surrounding them both.

He slips out of bed before his alarm goes off, and quickly, he dresses, slipping himself back into
his underwear and pants before resting on the edge of the bed to pull on his socks one by one.
Baekhyun is still asleep, and he’s lying on his stomach, face mostly hidden by the pillow when
Sehun turns back to observe him.

Baekhyun looks so young when he’s sleeping, looks young all the time really, but especially in
sleep. His cheeks are plump, and there is no careful way to hold himself. He is rarely careless with
the way he appears, every little bit constructed, but in sleep… in sleep, he is pulled apart, all the
parts of him laid bare.

Sehun stands, throws his shirt over his head before pulling on his jacket. He is quiet when he walks
to the bedside table, tucking the gun under the waistband of his pants, and the only thing that
spears through that quiet is Baekhyun’s creaky voice, rough with sleep.

“Didn’t even say goodbye,” he huffs.

Sehun doesn’t say anything as he steps into his boots, and he laces them neatly.

“Do you think you’re gonna come back soon?” Baekhyun asks, and when Sehun looks over, he is
leaned up on his elbow, the sheets pooling at his hip. He looks like a fucking painting, like oil over
canvas.

Sehun stands back up, adjusts the collar of his jacket.

“You’re fucking expensive, you know.”

Baekhyun smiles sleepily, glittering even now.

“Yeah, but I’m worth it.”

Sehun doesn’t speak, only walks through the door, closing it tight behind him, leaning back against
the door after it’s done. The red neon of the heart-shaped light goes out as he stands there.

He can’t open his mouth, because he knows if he does, the thoughts will jump from his stomach to
his throat, and he’ll scream it. Of course you’re worth it. You’re the only fucking thing in this world
that’s worth it.

He gets breakfast at a diner he likes, a greasy bacon, egg, and cheese on an everything bagel, and
the girl fills his coffee up three times before he leaves. He scrolls through his phone for a while as
he sits there, but after, he people-watches. It’s one of his favorite activities, the only one besides
fucking Baekhyun that makes him shut himself down for a minute or two.

There are three men at the counter, two fat and one smaller and shorter, and they talk animatedly
about the Yankees. About Aaron Judge’s broken wrist. Sehun watches them, studies them. It’s a
little bit of practice, a game he plays with himself, trying to suss things out about them. He finds
little things, just from the way they talk. Where they grew up. What their families were like. Files
them away, uselessly stored within himself.

When he walks out, he leaves a twenty on the table for the girl, and he rides back to his condo.

Naturally, it is in his best interest to keep a low profile, so he got a place in Queens, near
Koreatown. It’s a nice place, and the girl selling him on it really went way overboard, talking about
the light and the amenities. He didn’t care about any of that. He just needed a place to stay between
work and Baekhyun’s bed.

On the whole, it’s bare. He doesn’t have any art, sees no point in it. He doesn’t paint the walls,
doesn’t change it really at all. He’s not one for possessions, has nothing to display. It always looks
empty, and that’s fine by him.
The one adjustment he made to the place was to repurpose the closet in his bedroom, mounting a
huge mirror on a sliding track and installing a steel door behind where the mirror rests, with the
handle of the door rigged to an electronic deadbolt.

When he gets back, he steps out of his shoes, lining them neatly by the door. He shrugs out of his
jacket, throws it over the back of the couch before he pads to the bedroom. He takes the gun from
his waistband, holds it in his hand as he slides the mirror to the side, keying in the code. The door
ticks open, and he twists the handle, stepping inside and pulling the cord for the single overhead
light bulb.

Along the walls, he’s mounted holders for his firearms. He’s got four rifles, two he would use for
close-quarters takedowns, one he would call defensive, and one he would call long-range: a
Mossberg 500 (a twelve-gauge pump) and an AK-47, an AR-15, and a Remington 700. This is in
addition to his company-sponsored gear, things he could pick up from command if he wanted to.
They have every fucking weapon under the sun, a dozen times over. But Sehun likes to use things
he’s familiar with.

He’s got a selection of handguns, a Ruger SP101, a Beretta M-941—hell, he even got his hands on
a Desert fuckin’ Eagle—but his favorite is the one resting dead center. Glock 19. Reliable as
anything.

He’s got a magnetized strip along the wall for knives, and they go from small to large. Karambits,
daggers, throwing knives. He’s got a couple of each. He’s even got a rounded bone saw; one job
called for the removal of both hands, packed and sent back to the address provided. Sehun doesn’t
particularly like that aspect of the career, but he does as he’s told because that’s what he’s paid for.

He’s got a case of assorted goods. There’s normal shit: ankle, chest, and waist holsters, tons of
boxes of ammo, and scopes. But there are also stranger things: a crossbow, a katana, a bunch of
light and smoke grenades, two twin tomahawks, an axe. There’s a long spear leaned up against the
wall, and he’s got throwing stars in a case.

Sehun puts the gun back where it belongs. His Boberg XR9-S, the smallest 9mm he’s got. He
wasn’t intending on using it, just wanted it for a backup in case the guy was stronger than he
looked. He wasn’t. Sehun hadn’t needed to use it. But it’s always good to be prepared.

He steps back out of the closet, shuts the light off. He closes the door, waits until the lock
automatically ticks closed, and then he slides the mirror back into place.

Sehun falls to the bed after, and he stares at the ceiling for a while, too tired to do much else. He
does not rest for long though, and after a couple more self-hating moments, he pushes up, heads off
to the bathroom to shower once more.

Sehun doesn’t need to take as many jobs as he does, but if he isn’t working, then he is either sitting
at the condo or going to see Baekhyun. He knows what they say about idle hands, but truth be told,
the devil’s got him no matter if he’s busy or not.

He flops onto the couch, turns on the television. It’s tuned to the news. They’re doing a story on
the pedophile politician. Gone missing. Vanished into thin air.

Sehun changes the channel.

He lazes around for much of the afternoon, doing nothing but watching the Home Shopping
Network. He doesn’t order anything, but the noise is good. Having people in the background. His
eyes glaze over as he watches, and before he knows it, it’s 11:23 in the evening and his day has
gone nowhere.

He orders dinner from the chicken place that’s open late, and he grabs his pocket knife, shoving it
into his jacket pocket before slipping into his boots and walking the short half mile to pick it up.

Sehun probably doesn’t need it, but he carries it almost everywhere now, even if he’s just going to
pick up the bare necessity grocery items. He never feels safe, always looking over his shoulder,
and he wishes he didn’t need it. He wishes he didn’t need anything. But he’s weak. So he takes it.

He gets home, and he sets the bag down on the counter. He grabs a tallboy from the fridge, crosses
legs on the couch, the box in his lap as he eats. His fingers are greasy, and at the end, he wipes
them on his pants.

After he’s fed, he grabs his laptop, opens Tor.

stillshot is the name of the branch that employs him, and once the browser has loaded, he makes
his way to the website. It is almost all black, just 9 white boxes and a small lock underneath. He
clicks inside the first, and he types in his number, 049406089, before clicking the lock.

It opens, and the black blooms away into a simple, clean interface. There are two columns he can
scroll through that tell him of his confirmed completed jobs, his pending completed jobs. Then, the
main part of the page is a constant cycle of new jobs. He’s free to take what he wants now, no
longer shackled to whatever they deemed him capable of. He’s been working officially since he
was eighteen. He’s more than capable, and they know it.

Each job comes with a code, and he watches them pass by with their payouts attached. The levels
are staggered, sorted by a bunch of factors: difficulty of the hit, the prominence of the target, how
badly they want them gone. Altogether, it adds up to danger. The higher the danger level, the
higher the purse. Sehun normally doesn’t bother with anything below a B rank. It’s useless. If he’s
gonna work, he wants to make money.

C and D ranks pass him by, five-thousand- and one-thousand-dollar tags attached. He’s got no
interest in that petty shit. He waits for a B rank, an A rank, but nothing seems to appear. F, C, D,
D, C, F, F, C.

Frustrated, he closes his laptop. Maybe tomorrow.

In the morning, he goes to the gym and lifts for an hour, then runs for an hour. He chokes down his
disgusting protein shake, some approximation of what someone, somewhere once thought could
pass as chocolate, and then he heads home.

He showers, rinsing away all the sweat, hoping for some work for the evening.

Padding out to the living room in just his sweats, hanging low on his hips, he pulls open the laptop
again, opens Tor, opens stillshot, and enters in his number. Starts to scan over the jobs. F, C, C, D,
D, F, F, B.

Bingo.
Quickly, he clicks on it, takes it into his pending jobs without even checking the information. He
doesn’t care how far he’s gotta go. Doesn’t care what he’s gotta do. There’s a fifteen-thousand-
dollar price tag attached, and that’s good for plenty of time in Baekhyun’s bed.

The job is a drive, up past Yonkers, and he’s glad. Shit gets sticky in the city proper. Too many
people, too many eyes watching.

It’s a pretty easy hire, one of the simpler jobs, and it’s a story he’s seen play out before. Wife wants
the husband out. Some kind of affair, he didn’t pay attention to which one of them was having it as
he doesn’t particularly care. Said they got a nice big workshop, that she and the kids would be out
for the evening. Wants it clean. Wants the life insurance money. Sehun likes that. Likes clean.

He wears black, wears a mask, the Boberg at his waist as a just in case. He’s got a bottle of
halothane in his bag and a cloth to go along with it. Halothane is more reliable than chloroform,
works faster, and since it’s such a small amount being used, it won’t show up on a toxicology
report. Not that the wife will demand an autopsy. It’ll look like a suicide, just like she wanted.

Sehun goes to the woods behind the house, crouches there until he’s sure everyone’s out except for
the husband. He moves through the night, silent. Gets to the workshop and sets up the scene: first
the chair, and then he gets the rope from his bag, and fashions the noose, hooks it up and over the
wooden beam closest to the center of the room.

Grabs the bottle, soaks the rag well.

He opens the door attached to the house slowly, listening, and he hears television from the den.
Good. He scoped it beforehand, and he knows he’ll be able to do it crisply this way.

He looks down. Wooden floors. He looks both directions, has two options. Chance the wooden
floors all the way to the back of the couch, or walk through the tiled kitchen, risk the chance of him
seeing movement through his peripherals.

He goes with the floors, hoping the television will be loud enough to mask any creaking. He holds
his breath and wastes no more time, moving quickly like he’s ripping off a fucking bandaid. He
gets to the living room, stalks forward until he’s just behind the couch, sees the fucker watching
the tail end of Thursday Night Football. Troy Aikman is screaming about the Cowboys, some
blown call. He should be banned from television.

Without another word, Sehun grabs the man by the neck forcefully, holding him against his body,
still as he shoves the rag into his face, covering his nose and mouth.

Once he’s unresponsive, which takes a minute or so, the man’s limbs flailing uselessly, Sehun
turns the television off, places the remote onto the coffee table, and hauls the man up over his
shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

He crosses back to the workshop, walking down the wooden steps. Throws the rag over into his
bag before stepping up onto the chair, placing the man’s head through the noose, tightening it, and
then letting him fall.

Sehun steps to the ground, positions the chair appropriately, kicked back from his hanging body.

Strangely, when he looks up at the man, face going purplish-blue, tears jump to his eyes. Horrified,
he turns away, quickly rubs his face into his sleeve. What the fuck is happening? , he wonders, and
his skin crawls.

He’s gotta get out. He has to go.

He gathers his supplies, zips the bag closed, and does final checks. Doors closed. Nothing left
behind. Good.

He leaves, stalking back across the yard before entering the forest. He runs as quickly as he can,
sprints as far away from the house as he can before he dry-heaves, all the bile rising up through
him in an instant. His face goes wet with tears and snot as he retches until he can’t retch anymore.
What is happening, he wonders. What am I becoming?

It is a while before he makes the trek back to his bike. The money will be wired to his Swiss bank
account by the morning, and then he’ll reroute half to a German account before splitting it between
two other accounts. One for his bills and personal needs, both paid in cash. And then, there’s the
one that he keeps solely for Baekhyun. The only person who has access to that account is the
madam.

He walks into the condo, and he resists the near-overwhelming urge to go see Baekhyun. He needs
a shower, not a blowjob. He needs sleep, not sex. He sits on the couch for a while, the adrenaline
still pumping through his blood, and he closes his eyes, lets himself rest for a moment, then a
moment more.

But then, he gets the text from an unknown number.

free tonight? dks.

He smiles at his phone. Types depends.

Within the next second, he gets the reply. i want that drink. And then a second later, house of yes.
12:30ish. look cute.

Sehun stares at it for a couple moments, looking at the time. Almost 11:30. He checks how far the
place is before he gets in the shower.

They’re not really friends, of course. Sehun doesn’t actually have friends. He’s had people he
would consider friends in retrospect, Yeonseok and Chanyeol, and that other kid, the young one…
Sehun didn’t even get his name. He liked them all, liked them a lot, but it’s not easy to keep friends
once you’re wrapped up in the types of things he’s wrapped up in. He doesn’t know if they lived or
died, but one option is easier to pretend. If they’re dead, he doesn’t need to feel bad about losing
them. They were eaten up the same way he’ll be eaten up, and that is comforting to him.

Getting out of the shower, towel around his waist, he deliberates at his closet until he realizes he
doesn’t know what constitutes cute, so instead of wasting more time, he puts on his normal work
uniform. White T-shirt, black jeans. Black boots. Leather jacket. Wallet and butterfly knife tucked
in his pocket. The small 9mm at his waist. Works his black baseball cap over his head. Cute
enough.

It is a half hour drive, about ten miles from his place. He doesn’t go out very often, so he supposes
it’s worth the effort.

Once he pulls up, kickstand out on his bike, he is vaguely horrified by where Kyungsoo has taken
him.

House of Yes proclaims itself loudly with YES painted over the warehouse’s siding, painted eyes of
all shapes and sizes adorning it. There is a large arrow lit with large red incandescent lights, and it
points him towards the door. He checks his phone. 12:30 exactly.

He runs his hand through his hair as he walks up, a small line forming as people funnel inside.

When he walks in, he is overwhelmed by the sheer size of the House of Yes. It is truly massive,
strobing with color and thumping music, and it is swarming with people. Most of them are done up
in glitter and costumes, all colors of the rainbow adorning them. The outliers are the ones in short
dresses, T-shirts and jeans, normal makeup. He’s an outlier even from the outliers.

He ignores all the people dancing, the glitter painted over naked chests, wigs of neon colors and
lipsticks to match. There are aerial silk dancers, and Sehun watches one, a thin man with ropey
muscle along his arms, thighs, and calves. He is wrapped and tangled in the silks, flipping and
somersaulting. Then, suddenly, he wraps himself into a harness of sorts, cradling his lower body
before turning over in the air, legs gone spread-eagle. There is a chorus of cheering below him, and
he hangs there in the air for several moments before, in one great drop, he plummets.

People scream as he falls, but at the last second, he catches himself, the weight of the fall carrying
him into a spin, legs spread in the air. Sehun claps for the man as he climbs back up the silks, arms
waving as he transitions from one maneuver to the next.

It isn’t the type of place that Sehun would go, but certainly he understands the appeal. When he
walks to one of the large bars along the wall, cages with dancers hung overtop, the bartenders are
all dressed in bedazzled short shorts and tops, pouring dramatically into shakers. There are only a
few empty seats, and he sits down near the end, away from the main thrum of people.

A bartender, a girl with curly black hair and rich gold highlights across her face, smiles at him.

“New?” she asks.

“Been here once or twice,” he lies.

“No, you haven’t.” She turns with a smile, goes to grab a list. She slides it across to him. “I’d
remember you.”

He takes the list, scans across it. It’s not a very good list. “Whatever beer’s your favorite.”

She snorts, grabs the first can she can find out of the cooler, and slides it to him. “Fourteen.”

He furrows his brow, but he slides her a twenty, and she does not offer him the change. Not that he
would have taken it.

A hand at his shoulder makes him wheel around, hand to his pocket, but there, dressed as he
always is, black as the night itself, is Kyungsoo.

“Hey,” Kyungsoo says. “You made it.”

“Just barely.”

Kyungsoo flags the girl down, and she seems familiar with him. Is this the type of place Kyungsoo
goes? He doesn’t know much about Kyungsoo. Never cared to learn, he guesses.
“Vodka soda,” he tells her, “but he’s paying for it.”

“Sixteen,” she says.

“Jesus Christ,” he grouses, reaching into his wallet for another twenty before sliding it across the
bar.

The girl winks at him before turning back to her bottles, mixing the drink quickly. She goes heavy
on the vodka, which is strange, because Sehun notices that she distinctly underpours for everyone
else.

“There you go, baby,” she says, sliding it over to Kyungsoo.

“Thanks.” He lifts the cup, sucks at the straw before turning to Sehun. “What do you think?”

“About what?”

“About all this,” Kyungsoo says, raising an arm, gesturing broadly to the House of Yes. “Pretty
cool, huh?”

“If you’re into that kind of thing,” Sehun says.

“They do bondage nights.” Kyungsoo takes another sip, and Sehun somehow finds the action ripe
with innuendo. “You into that shit?”

Sehun rolls his eyes.

“Ah,” Kyungsoo says. “Forgot. Not much of a talker.”

“I didn’t think you were either,” Sehun says.

“I’m not. Not really. But it’s good to get away from all the… all the unpleasant things. Just feel
good for a while. Know anything about that?”

It is a not-so-veiled reference to Baekhyun, and Sehun swallows thickly. He should be more

discreet. Should have been safer about it, but Kyungsoo is only one person. And a friend… maybe.

They sip at their drinks, and Sehun drains almost half his can within the first couple minutes. From
his pocket, Kyungsoo works out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter, offers Sehun one.

Sehun takes it, puts it between his lips and leans in where Kyungsoo holds the light up for him. He
sucks in, lets it go.

“So how did you even get into this?” Kyungsoo asks, and he breathes the smoke up into the air.
Voice nicotine rough. “All this shit.”

Does he really want to go into this? Does he really want to go this deep? Anything below surface
level is too deep, and this is going way deep down. But there are only a couple people in the world
who know his story. What’s one more, he figures.

“Parents had a debt,” Sehun says, and he taps the cigarette on the ashtray, watches grey fall away
from orange embers. “And I fell in with the wrong kids trying to pay it back.”

“Sounds like an anime.” He takes another drag, too close to the first, holding it in his chest before
exhaling. “So then, what, they find you?”
“Yeah. They had a school. Told me that if I worked hard, I could earn a lot of money really quick.”

“Whoa,” Kyungsoo says. “Hardcore shit.”

“Sorta.”

“What was the school like?”

“I say school,” Sehun snorts. “It was like marine boot camp for kids inside this warehouse. You
ever been up to Buffalo?”

“They took you to Buffalo?”

“Yeah,” Sehun smiles. “Cold as fuck out there. We slept on those military cots. Ate MREs. Holy
shit, those were bad.”

“I’ve had a few,” Kyungsoo says. “Not terrible.”

“What can I say? I’ve got a sophisticated palate.”

“Clearly.”

They both take a drag, and the smoke billows up. Up. Up.

“What’d they teach you?” Kyungsoo asks.

“I dunno,” Sehun tells him. “Everything.”

“You throw knives? Like, Arya Stark shit?”

“You wanna see?”

Kyungsoo nods with a smirk, and Sehun takes the balisong from his pocket. He flips it open, and
Kyungsoo’s brows shoot up as Sehun starts to twirl it between his fingers. He keeps spinning it,
flipping it around his hands, between his fingers, before throwing it a couple inches in the air,
catching the handles together, pointing the blade towards Kyungsoo’s wrist.

He looks over, sees the bartender looking at him with shocked, horrified eyes before she looks
away quickly, like she saw something she wasn’t supposed to. It reminds him of who he is. Some
sort of monster. Some angel of death.

“Holy shit,” he says, and he pulls his hand closer to his body. “Guess you used to cut yourself a lot,
huh?”

“Before I wasn’t afraid of it anymore,” Sehun says, and he puts the butterfly knife back into his
pocket.

Kyungsoo grabs his drink, sips at it, so Sehun takes a sip from his beer.

“How old were you?” Kyungsoo asks. And he lowers his voice then. “When you first did it, I
mean.”

Sehun laughs as he thinks about it. “Fifteen.” He is burning his cigarette down to nothing, burning
through it too fast, but he takes another drag, and on the exhale, “With a knife.”

“Little fuckin’ freak,” Kyungsoo mutters. “Knives.”

“I was good at ‘em.” And he taps his ashes off. “Took a while to get used to shooting.”

Kyungsoo smiles, and they sit in silence for a while. Sehun doesn’t know how they got here.
Doesn’t know why he came, but—

“H-How, uh, how did you get hired?” Sehun asks. “Like, how does your company work?”

Kyungsoo raises his eyebrows like he didn’t expect it, and truthfully, it is unlike Sehun to ask
something like that. But there is a kinship between them. Baekhyun always tells him that it’s bad
that he doesn’t have friends, so maybe he should get one. Kyungsoo would do. Already knows the
worst parts of him.

“I, uh, I went to school for chemistry, actually,” Kyungsoo says. “Got my bachelor's. Started
training as a forensic science tech. Did a couple years of that. And then, uh, I was thinking about
going back for my master's, but I basically got scouted.”

“That’s not exactly what I expected,” Sehun says.

“Nah,” and he lifts the cigarette to his lips, “can’t say I imagined myself doing this a few years
back. But they pay me triple what I would make, even with a master's. It’s not as much cleaning as
you’d think. Mostly disposals, which are easy, and I get to do runthroughs, just in case police turn
up. That kinda shit for a two hundred thousand a year?”

“Shit,” Sehun says. “Good money.”

“Yeah, not bad.”

They drink and smoke for another couple hours, and by the end of it, Kyungsoo’s number in his
phone gets a name attached to it. It wouldn’t be so bad, he thinks, to have a friend or two.

He slips into his condo at 3:36 a.m., and his eyes are aching. He did not sleep the night before, and
he needs rest. He knows he needs rest. He’s too weak. Too stupid.

Sehun takes off all his clothes, gingerly puts his weapons back where they belong. He falls into
bed, his phone at his side, and his finger hovers over the call button. He waffles, goes back and
forth.

The worst thing that could happen is that no one answers.

He’s only got a couple contacts in his phone because he only talks to a few people regularly, so
when he switches his number, it won’t be a big deal. He’ll see them. He can give it to them if they
need it.

His finger hovers over Baekhyun’s number, and he turns onto his side and taps the call button
before he can talk himself out of it.

The phone rings, rings, rings, and then, Baekhyun answers sleepily.

“Sehun?”

He clears his throat, strangely pulled to tears just by the strain in Baekhyun’s voice. “Hi.” He flips
back onto his back, the phone held tight to his ear. “Sorry, am I—”
“No, no,” Baekhyun says. “It’s fine. I’m free.”

Off, Sehun’s brain fills in. Not booked.

“Oh,” Sehun says. “That’s good.”

Baekhyun laughs, sparkling and clear. “Yeah, it’s good.” There is a shuffling sound on the other
end, and Sehun imagines him settling into bed, the sheets pooled around him. “It’s late, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. It’s late.”

“You work tonight?”

Sehun pauses. For a moment, the face of the man appears in his head, scary and fast, like a ghost,
and Sehun takes in breath sharply.

“Hey,” Baekhyun says, “it’s all right.”

“Y-Yeah, I’m good,” Sehun says. “I worked.”

“Little late for you getting back from a job.”

“Went out.”

Baekhyun gasps dramatically, and there is the ruffling of fabric, and Sehun finds himself smiling.
“You went out? With who?”

“A… coworker,” Sehun says, and Baekhyun gasps again.

“That sounds suspiciously close to the word friend,” Baekhyun says.

“Shut up.” And he switches the phone to his other ear. Listens to Baekhyun breathing.

“I think it’s good,” he says, voice dreamy. “You need people in your life. You need someone other
than your whore.”

Sehun feels his heart sink to his stomach, and he doesn’t understand why.

“Yeah, I guess.” And then, quickly, his mood sours. Why did he call? Why is he doing something
so stupid? Why is he… why is he calling a prostitute with no intention of asking for sex? “I have to
go.”

“You do?”

“Yeah.”

There is silence, the sick kind of silence, and Sehun doesn’t know what to do, what to say. He
should hang up. He should hang up the fucking phone. Hang up the fucking phone, Sehun. Hang
up.

“You’re not leaving,” Baekhyun says.

“Should I?”

“You said you had to.”

“I lied.”

More silence, but it feels like velvet, like warm water.

“Did you miss me?” Baekhyun asks. “It’s only been a couple days.”

“Shut up.”

“You missed me.” His voice is sweet, coy, that trained shit that Sehun tells himself he hates. He
wouldn’t hate it, not at all, not if he knew that he was the only one Baekhyun talked to that way.

“No,” Sehun lies again, and like the first, Baekhyun can see right the fuck through it.

“No,” Baekhyun repeats. “Well, you’re not much of a talker, so what do you want me to talk
about?”

“I don’t care.” And he doesn’t. “Anything.” Absolutely anything.

Baekhyun breathes, and Sehun listens to it, imagines his head resting on Baekhyun’s chest, riding
the rises and falls. “Anything?” He hums. “I was thinking about you today, actually.”

“Yeah? What about?”

“Just thinking,” he says, doesn’t elaborate even though he knows Sehun wants it.

He doesn’t know what it is, maybe the alcohol or the cigarette smoke or the faces that flash past
him every time he shuts his eyes. I want one thing, Sehun thinks. Let me have this one thing.

“Tell me,” he says, and the emotions that leak out into it, he’s ashamed of them.

“Just thinking about running away with you,” Baekhyun says, and it’s the same musing tone as
before, flighty and silly, and Sehun wants to scream. “Isn’t that stupid?”

I want to run away with you. I want the chance. I want to go somewhere where the only things that
can hurt us are each other. I never want to hurt you. I want to keep you safe. I don’t want you to
stay there, in that place. I don’t want to stay here. I want to leave everything behind. I want to burn
everything down, and I want to leave with you. I want us to go somewhere no one can ever find us.
It’s not stupid. It’s hopeful. And there’s nothing bad you can say about hope.

“I think that would be nice,” Sehun says.

Baekhyun does not respond at first, just lets the thick silence cover them like a blanket, and Sehun
curls in on himself, wondering if that was too much. Wondering if he took it too far.

“Yeah, it would be.”

They stay on the phone until Sehun’s asleep, and when he picks up his phone in the morning, body
tuned to wake at five, he notices the time still ticking by, Baekhyun sleeping softly on the other
line.

He hangs up, and for a moment, feels regretful. Maybe that was the only time they’d ever get to
share that dream. It would have been good to spend just a few minutes, a few seconds more inside
it.

☠
Nothing changes. Nothing ever changes. They are eternally stuck in the graves that they’ve dug for
themselves, the little spots on the carpet where the feet of the furniture have rested for years. You
can try, try to pull them away. But that’s where they go. They rest there.

Sehun works. Starts taking less complicated jobs just so he isn’t inclined to go see Baekhyun and
spill his fucking guts about all this shit that’s building up inside him, has been building up inside
him for a while now.

It’s a pittance, the C grade jobs, but it doesn’t require much expertise. Get the fucking sniper rifle.
Make sure you stay out of sight.

He does his work, watches as grey matter paints windows and walls red. Each time, his stomach
sinks into him, that black hole inside him swallowing everything. Every little drop of blood.

Sehun eats oatmeal for breakfast, goes to work out. Does his weight training and then his cardio.
Showers. Pulls up a job. Does a hit. Comes home. Takes a couple sleeping pills. Shit like that, it’s
not hard to find, especially not working for stillshot.

He goes to the warehouse that evening after he runs out, rides over on his bike. It’s out in the
middle of nowhere, and the ground floor is a slaughterhouse, a literal one. It operates as such above
ground, and everything smells like Clorox and blood when he walks in, the conveyor belts moving
around him. The carcasses of pigs dangle, bloodlet, missing their heads. He dutifully ignores it all,
walks to the back. He presses the door open to the elevator.

The kill floor is level 2. Executive floors, 3. The basement doesn’t have a button. You have to
know a code. Sehun taps it in. G, 2, 3, 3, 2, G, G, G, 3, 2, 3.

Suddenly, the elevator lurches to life, brings him down, down, down, until it halts to a stop. The
doors open, and he is immediately overwhelmed by the smoke. It’s sweet-smelling, weed, and he
waves his hand in front of his face as he goes to the desk.

The place is huge, gritty. The walls are corrugated metal sheet siding, and the place does not look
as though it’s been cleaned in quite a while. To the left, through an archway, there is an armory, a
separate desk to check in and check out the weapons. Sehun doesn’t like touching them.
Everyone’s too friendly, and Sehun doesn’t like that.

To the right, there is a long bar along the wall. Men and women sit along it, drinking, smoking.
And built into the siding, there is a case for the liquor. He does not indulge, especially not when
he’s taking sleeping pills.

“The Man,” the guy working says to him. He has greasy black hair, shoulder length, an untamed
mustache. He looks gross. “What can I get you?”

“Rozerem,” Sehun says. “30.”

The guy turns, immediately calls to the back room behind him, the pharmacy, and immediately, his
order is filled.

“On your company account?” the guy asks.

“Yes.”
Sehun taps his fingers along the desk as he waits, nervous energy.

“Got any good jobs coming up?” the guy asks. Sehun looks at him, confused. “I just figured, since
you’re like, one of the golden boys, you’d probably have some pretty swee—”

“30 Rozerem,” the girl from the back says, stepping forward and shoving the bag into his hands,
essentially saving his life. “Bye.”

Sehun does not give her the same pleasantries, but she does not need them. He saw the look in her
eyes. She’s just as dead as him.

He continues to keep himself above water, barely above water. He is struggling, of course, he
knows he’s struggling, but he doesn’t allow himself any rest. No respite. There is only death,
killing, dying, and death. Blood, more blood. Viscera. He’s seen intestines spill out, stomachs
ripped open by gunfire.

It doesn’t matter. Nothing really matters. He eats, and he kills, and there isn’t much in between.
Not even the medication can knock him out. All he sees and all he hears is desolation of his own
creation.

He takes job after job. Works until he can’t see anything but red. Sees body after body fall, but
never his own. He is wicked, through and through, and each headshot adds up, stacks the scales
ever further towards hell.

It is supposed to be another simple job, a quick in and out. Sehun goes to the apartment, picks the
lock, and immediately, something feels wrong. It just doesn’t feel right. He should turn around, he
knows he should, but he’s already so deep in the shit. His eyes ache, pulse with pain, and he shoves
the feeling away. He is bone tired. But that will not stop him. Nothing will.

The hit is twenty-one or twenty-two, and he’s short, and Sehun figures that should be no problem.
He’s got a year or two, plus height and weight on him. He can take him down. Snap his neck.
Easy. He’s got knives at his ankles, a gun at his waist for reassurance. He’s got this. He pushes the
door open.

Sehun immediately takes stock of the situation. He hears the television on in the living room, and
he sees the shadow in the kitchen. It won’t be hard. It won’t be any different than usual. He just
needs to put his hands around the guy’s neck. He just needs to get there.

He moves silently through the small apartment, and for a moment, he gets distracted by a picture
on the man’s wall. A child. A girl. Young. Maybe two, three years old. Curly brown hair. Bright
brown eyes. Sehun furrows his brow at it, the way it sends an uncomfortable shiver through him.
What kind of hitman is he, getting choked up at the thought of killing a father? He’s killed
hundreds, probably. So why does it start mattering there, right there in the foyer?

Suddenly, he hears the creaking of old floorboards, and panic, the dirty water of panic fills his
lungs. He turns, makes his way back to the door with reckless abandon, but a shocked gasp whips
across his back, and he turns sharply.

He has dug himself into a hole. Time to get himself out.

Sehun leaps forward, tackles the man to the floor and wraps his hands around his throat. It should
be easy, forcing the man out, but he thrashes immediately, the adrenaline already coursing through
him, and Sehun struggles just to keep him pinned with the way the man starts to kick and claw at
Sehun’s face with dulled fingernails.

Do it, Sehun tells himself. Snap his fucking neck. It’s so easy.

But he can’t. Something in him won’t let him. He looks down at the man’s eyes, brown like his
daughter’s, and he pauses for too long. Gives the man a little too much room.

Quickly, with little resistance, the man puts Sehun on his back, and the oxygen leaves Sehun all at
once. What in the fuck is he doing? What the fuck is happening?

The guy gets his hands around Sehun’s throat, and his thumbs start to press down on either side of
Sehun’s windpipe. He’s not crushing, just closing off the air, and Sehun starts to go lightheaded
quickly.

“Who the fuck sent you, huh?” the guy says, and he lifts Sehun’s head, thumps it against the floor.
“What do they fucking want from me? I paid them the fucking money.”

Sehun struggles, eyes bulging as he tries to think, tries to speak, kicking his legs up, trying to buck
the man off of him. He is about to pass out, he is about to die, his blood vessels are about to burst,
the world is going fucking dark, and he realizes. It’s now.

Now or never. Now or never.

With his last bit of strength, he reaches to his ankle, grabs his knife away and slices wildly at the
man’s face.

“Fuck!” he screams, and immediately, his hands withdraw from Sehun’s neck to cover the blood
that pours out from his cheek. “You motherfucker!”

Sehun scrambles back, fighting like fucking hell to catch his breath.

But the man does not take long to react, and he lumbers forward, his left hand pulling a knife from
his own waist.

Jesus fucking Christ.

He hacks and slashes with fervor as he crosses the room, clearly untrained with a knife, and God,
Sehun has to get his head on fucking straight if he wants to make it out alive.

Does he want to live? Does he?

He’s got no time to think, standing there frozen as the man cuts across Sehun’s face, slicing
through his eyebrow as if he thought Sehun would have prevented it. As if the man has never
really been in a fight before. As if… as if he doesn’t really want to hurt anyone.

Instinct kicks in, Sehun’s body taking over, carrying him through the rest. He sticks his hand out,
nicks the carotid quickly, and the man’s eyes go wide for a split second. Sehun sees the panic. The
death panic. He drops to the floor, the blood pouring out over the little white rug, and then, it is
over.

Sehun breathes heavily, can’t quite seem to get a hold of it.

And then he realizes the gravity of what he’s just done.

The blood pool spreads over the floor. There is a body. In need of disposal. He’s hurt. He’s dizzy.
He’s on the brink of a fucking breakdown. He’s on the edge, hands in the soil, hanging on by his
fucking fingernails.

He doesn’t know where to go, doesn’t know what to do. He has no one. No one. He is alone. Alone
in the world. He blinks past the blood coming from his forehead, and he wipes it away onto his
sleeve.

His hands move before his brain can respond, and before he can process it, Kyungsoo’s voice is in
his ear.

“Hello?” he asks. “Are you there?”

“Soo,” Sehun breathes. “Soo… I need you.”

“W—Sehun?”

“Please,” Sehun says. “Please come. I need you.”

“I’m on my way. Just… Just stay where you are, okay? Don’t do anything stupid.”

Too late.

Kyungsoo walks into the apartment, and he stares at the floor in horror.

“Wh-What did you fucking do?”

“I-It got all fucked up,” Sehun says, and his hands are shaking in his lap. “I don’t… I don’t know
what happened to me, it all… it all happened so fast, it’s… I don’t know what happened, it… he
fought me.”

Kyungsoo looks around, the blood stained rug beneath his feet.

“I guess you won.”

“I guess.”

He stares down at the ground, and he feels the blood drip down his forehead. He raises an anxious
hand, brushes it away.

“Okay, we gotta get moving,” Kyungsoo says, and he immediately gets to work, rolling up the
small rug, stuffing it in an industrial trash bag. “Come on, Sehun. Let’s go. You’ve gotta get out of
here.”

“I can’t,” Sehun says. And he feels the ice in his veins, freezing him where he sits. “I don’t think I
can move.”

“Well, you have to. You got me into this mess. Now you gotta listen to me.”

He takes Sehun by the hand, pulls him up from the couch.

“Come on, get in the shower,” Kyungsoo says, and he leads Sehun to the bathroom. “Take off your
clothes. I’ll leave fresh ones. Just… Just don’t die in there, okay?”

The door shuts behind him, and Sehun strips out of his clothes, puts them onto the tile below. He
walks into the cold water, lets the blood rinse down the drain. He does not wash, mostly just stands
in the water until Kyungsoo comes back in, tells him it’s okay to come out now. His fingers and
toes are wrinkled with water, and the clothes are sweats, too short in the arms and legs. They must
be Kyungsoo’s. Sehun’s heart aches. He deserves none of this.

“Go see Baekhyun,” Kyungsoo says, and he gets a bunch of supplies from his bag, sets them on the
couch. “I got the cleanup and shit. You need to… to be with someone, and I dunno if I’m the right
someone, okay?”

“Kyungsoo, I—”

“I’m serious. Go see him.”

“I can’t. I’m too—”

“Go to him,” Kyungsoo says. “He’ll take care of you better than I can.”

Kyungsoo hands him the keys to his motorcycle, helps thread his arms through his leather jacket.
He pats him on the shoulder before Sehun goes to the door, looking back at Kyungsoo with watery
eyes.

“Don’t drive off the bridge, okay?” Kyungsoo says, and he’s laughing, but Sehun can tell he’s
nervous. He can tell the warning was real.

Do I look as broken as I feel?

He supposes the answer is obvious now.

Sehun barely holds himself together as he gets past the madam, his hands shaking as he walks up
the stairs, taking them two at a time. He nearly trips over his own feet, and it begins, starts to chip
away at him the further he moves down the hallway. His eyes are aching, stinging with tears, and
he bites his lip, tastes blood as he walks, and when he knocks at the door, he realizes he’s still got
dried blood under his fingernails.

The door opens, and Baekhyun’s smile fades into fear as he looks Sehun over, studies him.
Immediately, he takes Sehun’s face in his hands.

“What’s wrong?” Baekhyun asks. “W-Wh—”

He doesn’t even know what to say, opens his mouth but can’t make any noise. The tears fall
soundlessly, and Baekhyun pulls him across the threshold, pulls him into his arms.

“It’s okay,” Baekhyun whispers, and he moves them both to the bed. Their bodies are heavy as
they fall, as Baekhyun holds him tightly together, all the pieces of him threatening to fly apart. “It’s
okay, just breathe.”

Sehun tries, tries his damnedest to just lie there and breathe, but he is dying, he is dead, he feels it
coming for him. He can’t stop his chest from the manic rise and fall, can’t seem to get enough
oxygen in him. He gulps down air as the tears continue to fall, Baekhyun’s robe soaked beneath his
face.

Sehun is going to kill Baekhyun, drag him down beneath the crashing waves. Sehun is going to
hold Baekhyun there until the life pours out of him in bubbles. His pretty face will give way to
bloated, terrified fear, and he will struggle against Sehun. He will struggle, struggle, and then, it
will end. For the both of them. There is no other way. He is death. He is death. That’s all he ever
was. That’s all he’ll ever be.

Baekhyun’s warm hand settles on Sehun’s upper back, smoothes his hackles down flat, coaxes him
gentle. But how can you gentle nothingness? How can you fill a black hole with light? It defeats
the purpose. Death consumes all. Does not yield. And Sehun has that in him. That hunger. That
terrible necrotic hunger.

“Hey, hey,” Baekhyun says, and he holds Sehun’s face in his hands. “It’s okay. It’s all okay.
You’re with me now, you’re safe.”

There is no safety, he thinks. Not when you’re with me.

“It’s okay,” Baekhyun says, and he speaks with his lips against Sehun’s forehead. A kiss of words.
“It’ll be okay, baby.”

I am supposed to be your strength. Your shield. Why are you always the one being strong for me?

But he allows himself this comfort. He takes it within his hands, holds it close to his heart. If he
doesn’t, he’ll die. He’ll let it kill him.

He doesn’t want to die. He doesn’t want it to kill him. He doesn’t want blood-stained fingernails.
He does not want the raw, metallic smell of a slaughterhouse in his nose.

“I’m sorry,” Sehun sobs. “I’m sorry for everything.”

Baekhyun kisses him on the forehead, brushes the tears from his eyes, but new ones streak down
just as fast as he can swipe them away.

“You don’t have to apologize to me,” Baekhyun says. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Every choice I’ve ever made has been the wrong one.

Baekhyun is the only thing that pulls him back towards morally grey. Going without him… he
sinks deeper and deeper into nothingness, into empty black space.

Baekhyun puts him in the shower, cleans him up better than before. Sehun had only washed away
the blood. But Baekhyun stands at the other end of the shower in his underwear, scrubs Sehun’s
hair clean. Sehun closes his eyes as Baekhyun works, and he leans his head back into the water
when he’s told to.

Gingerly, once all the soap is washed away, Baekhyun runs his thumb over the cut over Sehun’s
brow. Sehun does not wince, only stares at Baekhyun as he does it.

“You can’t keep doing this,” Baekhyun whispers, and the words reverberate in the tile stall. “You
have to… you have to protect yourself better than this.”
I can’t, he thinks. There is nothing good to protect within me.

Baekhyun wraps him in a towel, puts him into bed. He holds him through it. And in the morning,
Sehun gets out of bed before Baekhyun wakes.

He takes a couple weeks off after that incident.

It is highly unusual, of course. Not that he doesn’t have the money to get by. He’s got more money
than he knows what to do with, but he’s just... never wanted to take time off. Never before now.

Sehun doesn’t know what to do with himself when he isn’t working.

He goes to the gym with more frequency, lets his eyes glaze over as he stares at the television
screen hung above the row of treadmills. He overworks his muscles until they ache, until he is so
dead tired that he can barely run home. It is a good tired, though, like the kind after sex.

He thinks about Baekhyun in the evenings, but he doesn’t touch himself, only thinks about
touching himself. Touching Baekhyun, too. Being a little bit kinder. Treating him a bit more
gently. Speaking to him with a softer voice. It would be nice, he thinks. Really nice.

He starts watching a lot of television in the mornings and afternoons, before and after the gym.
Mostly Food Network. He finds it fascinating, and he crams his hand into giant bags of Lay’s as
the Barefoot Contessa talks to him about pork posole, nodding along as if he understands.

Eventually, though, after about three full days of bingeing all of Ina Garten’s catalog, Sehun wants
to try his hand at a recipe or two. It’s new, feeling interest in something other than knives, other
than sex.

He goes to the nearest Whole Foods, the location of which he has to look up. He’s never been to a
Whole Foods, feels completely out of place, but he wastes no time in getting everything he needs
for smoked salmon with herb butter and a dessert of berry panna cotta. He has no idea what he’s
doing as he’s doing it, but in a strange sort of way, it brings him a spot of joy, the kind that he only
remembers getting from Baekhyun.

The panna cotta is watery, didn’t set properly, but it’s still delicious, and the salmon is perhaps the
best thing he’s ever eaten. He is momentarily amazed that he managed to make it, and for a minute
at least, he lets himself be proud. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe his hands can do something other
than steal life. Maybe they can create just as well.

He goes shopping, buys a bunch of kitchen appliances he never saw a use for before: a nice big
blender, a food processor, a rice maker. He buys a new kitchen knife set, sharp as a motherfucker,
and he marvels at them for a moment before he puts them away in their little block. It’s been a
while since he bought a knife for such… wholesome purposes.

Sehun watches HGTV as he makes breakfast, a cranberry orange smoothie that’s nice as the city
grows a little bit colder. It’s early still, and they don’t have their A programming on yet. He gets
distracted by a show called Gardening by the Yard. The man who hosts, Paul, has snow-white hair
and a dark brown mustache, and Sehun snorts when he notices how silly it looks, but over the
course of the half-hour of standing there in his kitchen, he finds himself entranced by talk of sod,
and then, of winter garden chores.

It’s then that Sehun is struck by the desire to plant something or do something with his hands, so
after he’s added his protein powder to his smoothie, after he’s sipped it down, after he’s gone to
the gym and ran for a while, he googles garden center and finds one exceptionally close, only
about a mile away.

He walks over, hands shoved into his pockets, and when he walks through the doors, he is, for a
minute, completely undone by the sheer amount of color. He’s sure that he looks absolutely
absurd, someone of his size, someone of his very specific image, walking into a garden store, and
almost as soon as he enters, he turns around to leave.

“Did you get lost?” He turns, and an older lady is tilting her head at him, smiling. “Did the big sign
that says,” and she spreads her hands in front of her, “Garden World mislead you?”

She is pretty, in an older lady sort of way. It is clear she still puts effort into her looks. She’s got a
streak of grey through her curly black hair, eyeliner at her eyes and a little neutral pink gloss at her
lips. There is something strangely comforting about the way she looks, like he could find a mother
in her.

“Uh,” Sehun says. “No.”

“I’ve seen a ton of people like you,” she says, shaking her finger at him, and Sehun is confused for
a minute before he realizes that she doesn’t mean murderers. “You all try to run away once you get
here. But you can’t learn until you start.”

“Y-Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

He looks around, frankly overwhelmed by the place. There is a florist’s desk immediately to the
back. There are rows and rows of garden supplies, anything and everything you could possibly
need: hoses, planters, rakes, hoes, spades, soils, seeds. More than Sehun could ever figure out,
especially with his middling knowledge. And then, to the right, there is a nursery.

“Is there anything in particular I can help you find?” the woman asks.

“Um, something that I can’t kill,” Sehun says.

The woman throws her head back and laughs like it’s the funniest thing she’s ever heard. She’s a
good salesperson. He smiles.

“I’m sure you aren’t that bad.”

“I have a talent.”

She laughs again before walking towards the nursery, leaving Sehun to follow her. “We’re gearing
up for the winter, so there isn’t too much to look at just yet.” She looks back at him. “Beginners
usually start during the spring or the summer.”

“I’m… irregular,” Sehun offers.

“Yeah, I gathered,” she smiles.

She walks him over to a row of plants, and she holds her hand under her chin as she looks over
them carefully, particular about the little potted plant that she lifts up to him.

“Jade,” she says. “It’s a succulent, so it’s perfect for a beginner. Hardy. Likes a lot of sun, so you
can stick it in a window and forget about it. Doesn’t need a ton of watering, and you never water
until the soil feels dry to the touch.”

“That sounds good,” Sehun says. “I think… I’m good with that one.”

“Excellent,” she says. “Follow me, and I’ll ring you up.”

His condo starts to feel like… like a home. He looks forward to coming home after a morning at
the gym, and he takes care of himself in a way that he never has before. He cleans the place
thoroughly. He pays attention to what he eats, which he never did outside of making sure he was
getting enough protein. He starts moisturizing. He gets a sheet mask off Amazon out of curiosity.
He’s seen Baekhyun use them plenty of times, smoothing them onto his face before they laid down
for the evening.

Tearing the foil packet open, it is much colder and much wetter than he imagined, but he puts it on
and waits the fifteen minutes prescribed. After, he rubs the stuff into his skin the way Baekhyun
always does, and he smiles, thinking of Baekhyun. He misses him. He hopes he’s doing well.

It is lonely, of course. No one can live totally divorced from humanity. When he falls into bed for
good that night, he imagines Baekhyun in his arms, his lips against Sehun’s neck. He sleeps
dreamlessly, and that is the best kind of sleep there is.

He is on his couch, legs kicked up on the coffee table and watching as Alton Brown taunts
sweating chefs, when his phone buzzes. He immediately picks up. Not many people have his
number, after all, and when he sees Baekhyun’s name on the preview display, he swipes it
unlocked.

hey, Baekhyun writes. That’s it. Plain and simple. Doesn’t need to work too hard at it. Sehun
figures that’s what he likes about Baekhyun. That, and everything else.

Hey, Sehun types back. How are you?

It’s a couple minutes before Baekhyun texts back, so Sehun shuts off the television, goes and flips
the laundry. By the time he’s finished throwing the clean clothes into his laundry basket, his phone
vibrates again.

im good, baby. you wanna swing by tonight?, Baekhyun asks. got a spot open, and its callin ur
name

Sehun’s heart goes warm thinking about Baekhyun thinking about him, but… but no. He’s too…
he’s too ashamed. After what he did, the state that he was in… frankly, he’s amazed that Baekhyun
wants anything to do with him.

I can’t, he types back. I don’t want to hurt you anymore than I already have.

His phone rings moments later, not even long enough that Sehun’s left the laundry room.
Hurriedly, he stuffs the rest of his laundry into his basket, hikes it up against his hip, and answers
the call.

“Hello?”

“Hey, what the fuck was that?” Baekhyun seems angry, and Sehun doesn’t like that. He doesn’t
like making Baekhyun angry, as it’s so rare it becomes a bit mythical. “What do you mean, you
can’t? And like, all that shit about… about hurting me? What are you talking about?”

“I just… I don’t know if it’s a good idea for you to hang around me,” Sehun says, and he makes his
way to the bedroom, setting the laundry basket down to the floor. “I’m not… I’m not good for
you.”

“I’m not an honor roll student, I’m a prostitute,” Baekhyun says. “You’re not corrupting me,
honey. There’s nothing about me that could possibly be corrupted at this point.”

Yes, there is, Sehun thinks to himself. There is a goodness inherent in you that can’t possibly be
extinguished. There is beauty in the way you move and the way you speak. I can infect parts of you
that you didn’t know existed. Parts you thought you’d forgotten.

“You’re wrong,” Sehun says. “I’m dangerous.”

Baekhyun laughs into his ear, and it is a mean laugh, but Sehun takes it gratefully all the same.

“You’re not dangerous,” Baekhyun says. “I know danger. You ain’t it, sweetheart.”

He lies down on the bed, spreads his limbs out across it.

Because it gives Sehun pause. Is Baekhyun right? Is he only pretending? Or does it even matter?
After a while, he thinks, it doesn’t matter if it’s an act or not. It becomes the truth regardless, and
he’s been acting since he was a kid.

“You still there?” Baekhyun asks.

“Yeah,” Sehun says. “I am.”

“Don’t pull that shit again,” Baekhyun says. “'Kay?”

Don’t pull away this time, Baekhyun is saying. When I call, answer the phone.

“'Kay.”

There is silence, sweet silence, and Sehun closes his eyes against it.

“What’d you do today?” he asks, genuinely interested. It’s been a while since he got to talk to
Baekhyun, and whether he’d like to admit it or not, Baekhyun is the best friend that he has.

“Two blowjobs,” Baekhyun says. “Easy peasy.”

His stomach goes uncomfortably hot, and some of that heat rises to his face.

“I guess so,” Sehun says.

“What, you don’t like hearing about it?”

“Not particularly.”
“Gettin’ jealous?” Baekhyun asks, and he’s using that snotty, bratty voice that drives Sehun up the
fucking wall, cute but sexy. “You wanna be my only boy?”

“Yeah,” Sehun says, because he’s tired of lying to everyone, tired of lying to Baekhyun and to
himself.

“Shut up,” Baekhyun says, and he says it with a laugh, like he doesn’t believe Sehun.

But that’s okay. It’s in that thin little moment, the pages of the seconds stuck together, that Sehun
realizes he’s been doing this for so long for one reason and one reason only. And finally, it’s time
to start acting accordingly.

It is a Tuesday, around 9:30 in the evening, and Baekhyun calls again. Sehun fumbles over his
phone for a minute, hurriedly swiping at it, like Baekhyun might disappear if he waits a second too
long.

“Hello?”

“Hey, sugar,” Baekhyun says. “You free?”

For you?, he thinks. For you, all I am is free.

“Yeah, I’m free.”

“You haven’t been comin’ around,” Baekhyun says. “I’ve been missing you.”

“Took some time off,” Sehun says. “Didn’t wanna—I don’t know. Just needed a vacation.”

Baekhyun hums. “I’m glad, then. But does the vacation have to be from me too?”

It’s been a while, he’s right. Sehun didn’t even… he doesn’t know. It was conscious, of course,
staying away from Baekhyun. Like he didn’t wanna get him dirty. Like he didn’t want the sickness
to spread.

But if Sehun’s sick, Baekhyun is sick too. And maybe they need each other to get better.

“No. I guess not.”

“Huh.”

“Huh,” Sehun says.

There is quiet, but it is a flirtatious kind of quiet, and Sehun wants to pet along it with his
fingertips, stroke at it.

“How much for an hour?” he asks.

“Shut up,” Baekhyun says. “An hour isn’t enough for you.” For me, his voice says, and Sehun can
always hear it, if he’s taking the time to listen.

“An hour and a half, then,” Sehun says, and he plans it all out in his head before he asks. “Will
they let you out?”
“I’m free to come and go as I please.” But Sehun knows that it isn’t strictly the case. He knows
they have rules. Curfews. Minimums to make.

“Can you get to Johny’s?”

Baekhyun laughs. “It’s right around the corner from me.”

“Then go there,” Sehun says. “And I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

“It’ll take you longer than that,” Baekhyun tells him.

“No, it won’t,” and Sehun doesn’t bother with anything, not a knife or a gun, just slips into his
shoes, grabs his wallet and keys, and heads for the door.

Sehun walks in, and the place is near empty, just Baekhyun sitting at one of the little stools, hands
wrapped around a cup of coffee. He’s wearing a coat, all bundled up in the city’s cold, and there is
a scarf wrapped nearly all the way up his face. He looks sort of stupid, but the tips of his ears and
nose are red, and that’s… that’s really sweet.

He goes over, sits next to him, and Baekhyun nudges Sehun’s shoulder with his own as the man at
the counter asks if he wants coffee.

“Sure,” Sehun says.

“Menu?” He slides it over, and Sehun takes it.

He doesn’t need food, not really.

The man pours his coffee, refills Baekhyun’s, and he slides a little dish of creams and sugars
between the two of them, but Sehun takes none.

Baekhyun grabs three creams and three sugars, ripping the tops off the sugars in one go, emptying
them in, and he takes great care in dumping the cream in too. He swirls it all together with the little
spoon, tapping it gently on the side of his mug before sipping at it.

“See, I’m smart,” he says after he’s lowered the cup back down. “Putting cream in it, you can drink
it right away.”

“Yes, you’re very smart,” Sehun says, and Baekhyun beams back at him. “You hungry?”

“Are you buying?”

“Yeah. Get whatever you want.”

“Always wanted a man to tell me that,” Baekhyun says slyly, before waving down the man,
hanging at the other end of the counter. When he arrives, Baekhyun points down at the menu.
“Can I get a bacon cheeseburger deluxe, but can I also get cheese on the fries? And you guys have
Diet Coke?”

“Yeah.”

“And a Diet Coke,” Baekhyun says.

“You want anything?” the man asks Sehun.

“I’m good.”

“'Kay,” he says, “comin’ right up.”

Baekhyun turns to him, slowly unwinding his scarf from around his face, eyes sparkling as he
looks into the air, happy. “I haven’t had a fucking cheeseburger in so long. Fuck, it’s gonna be so
good.”

Sehun leans an elbow on the table, watches Baekhyun pull the scarf from around his neck, hanging
it over the back of the chair. Sehun takes his coffee, blows the steam across the top.

“Oh, shoot,” Baekhyun says, pouting. “I shoulda got mushrooms.”

“Hey,” Sehun says sharply, and the man at the grill and the man working the counter, they both
turn, mildly alarmed. “Can he get mushrooms on that?”

“Y-Yeah,” the man stutters. “No problem.”

Sehun turns back to Baekhyun.

“You’re too spooky for your own good,” Baekhyun smiles.

“You’re taking advantage of it now,” Sehun says. “Mushrooms on your cheeseburger.”

Baekhyun slides a little closer to Sehun, his shoulder rubbing against Sehun’s. “Mm. Providing for
me. Love that, daddy.”

Sehun rolls his eyes, and he dislikes how it settles comfortably in his stomach. But then he thinks
about it. What is to dislike? Why is he… why was he always so intent on pushing Baekhyun away?
Was it about protecting Baekhyun, like he told himself? Or was it about protecting himself?

There are so many ways that they could hurt each other, but Sehun doesn’t care. The only thing he
wants, the only thing he’s ever really wanted, is Baekhyun at his side.

The man slides the soda over to Baekhyun, and he ignores it, sips at his coffee while he stares at
Sehun, staring back at him.

“What?” Baekhyun asks with a smile. “Got something on my face?”

Sehun closes the gap between them, a hand on the small of Baekhyun’s back as he surges forward,
kisses him. Baekhyun has a mouth made to be kissed, every fucking second he isn’t being kissed is
a fucking tragedy, and Sehun can’t imagine his life without him.

“What the fuck was that for?” Baekhyun asks, wiping at his lips, smiling through it.

“Maybe we should run away,” Sehun says. “Go someplace together.”

The look on Baekhyun’s face is unreadable, completely impossible to look through, and it worries
Sehun. He… he doesn’t like it.

“What are you talking about?”

“I dunno, just… haven’t you thought about it? Leaving the city? You said—”
“Where would we even go?” Baekhyun asks. “I’ve lived here my whole life.”

“We could go somewhere nice,” Sehun says. “Wherever you wanted to go. We could afford it. We
could do it together.”

Baekhyun falls silent, swirls the cup in his hand so that the milky coffee cyclones in the mug.
Sehun watches him, wants to say something. Wants to reach out, take him in an embrace. But he
doesn’t. Just watches him. Waits.

“You can’t keep doing this,” Baekhyun says. “I’m not going to just… put up with this shit.”

“W-What?”

“You’re jerking me around. You’re… I know it’s the whole point, but I’m tired. You’re… listen,
I’m just fuckin’ tired of it, okay? I don’t wanna get into this.”

Sehun puts his hand on Baekhyun’s, and Baekhyun moves his away.

“I’m serious,” Sehun says. “I wanna… I want to do this. Be with you.”

“You’re not the first person to say something like that to me,” Baekhyun says, and he is cold rolled
steel. Everything from his expression to the way his spine straightens in his seat...he is turning off,
shutting down. “I’ve had people promise to take me away. They always said they’d make sure
they took care of me. Stuff like that. You know how many times they kept their word?”

“No.”

“Never.” And he sips from his coffee cup, clicks his tongue after the sip. “Not once. So what
makes you different, huh?”

“I’m not them,” Sehun says. “I’m something else entirely.”

“Yeah,” Baekhyun says. “You are. And I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not.”

Sehun hangs his head, huffs a breath.

“Baekhyun, I know I’ve… I’ve always kept my distance.”

“That’s a generous way to put it, don’t you think?” And he smiles at Sehun after he drains the rest
of his coffee. “Kept your distance. You always told me exactly what we were. But then you’d
come crying to me. Open the closet, and the fucking skeletons just come pouring out. You’d pay
just to cry in my arms. And now… now you’re saying you want to run away with me? Come on.
Be a fucking man.”

Sehun stares at the speckled countertop just as Baekhyun’s food arrives.

“Actually,” Baekhyun says to the man, “could I get this in a box?”

The man furrows his brows like he doesn’t understand, but he takes the plate away, brings it to the
back, starts boxing it up.

“I was trying to protect you,” Sehun says.

“You’ve done a real good fuckin’ job,” Baekhyun smirks.

Sehun feels it all surge through him, lightning, fire, the bloom of gunpowder on his hands. He’s
never felt strongly about much. Had it beaten out of him. But this… he feels strongly about this.
About Baekhyun.

He wants to be different. Wants to be normal. Doesn’t wanna have to pretend with Baekhyun
anymore. Just wants to be.

“I wanna change.”

Baekhyun looks him up and down. Leans in, and for a second, Sehun is terrified.

But all he does is kiss Sehun softly, all plush lips. A thumb sweeping over Sehun’s cheek as he
pulls back.

“Prove it,” he whispers, and it simmers down Sehun's spine.

The man puts the box back down in front of Baekhyun, and Baekhyun takes it quickly.

“Thanks for the mushrooms,” Baekhyun says, and he trails his hand over Sehun’s shoulder as he
walks out of the diner, threading the scarf back around his neck as he walks away.

A clearing of a throat. The man working the counter stares at Sehun.

“You gonna pay for that, buddy?”

Sehun rolls his eyes, getting out his wallet, thick with paper bills.

Sehun does not visit the brothel. He waits down the block for Baekhyun to exit, pulling a slouchy
winter hat over his hair. He’s not wearing any makeup, actually looks quite tired, and he yawns as
he approaches Sehun on the bike.

Baekhyun was right, he knows. Sehun used him when it was convenient. Sehun treated him…
poorly. But Sehun wasn’t lying. He was telling the truth. He wants to change. Wants to change for
Baekhyun.

“Didn’t think you’d actually come,” Baekhyun says. “After Johny’s.”

“I told you I was gonna do better by you,” Sehun says.

“And you always keep a promise.” He sticks the tip of his finger into the meat of Sehun’s shoulder.
Pushes. “Right?”

“Right.” Sehun turns, grabs the helmet. “Here.”

Baekhyun does not move to take the helmet, folds his arms across his chest instead. He looks
down at Sehun on the bike with a bitchy look on his face, just as handsome as all the rest of his
looks.

“You don’t wear a helmet,” Baekhyun says.

“That’s because I’m very stupid,” Sehun says, and he shoves it into Baekhyun’s crossed arms. “Put
it on.”

Baekhyun cocks an eyebrow, and for a minute, the only thing Sehun can think about is pulling
Baekhyun down to him. Kissing him hard until the look on his face melts away. Until he melts in
Sehun’s arms.

“Or what?”

Sehun shoots him a very unimpressed look, and Baekhyun takes off his hat in favor of the helmet.
He looks cute in it which should be no great surprise; Baekhyun looks cute in anything, so
protective headwear is no different.

“Where are we headed?” Baekhyun asks.

“Chinatown,” Sehun says. “That good with you?”

“Good.” He kicks his leg over the motorcycle, settles down into the seat before wrapping his arms
around Sehun’s waist, leaning his cheek on Sehun’s back. “God. Get a fucking car, you edgy piece
of shit.”

Sehun smiles to himself. Pulls out of the spot along the curb. He’s delighted to feel the way
Baekhyun draws breath, the way his arms tighten around Sehun.

Baekhyun pulls out his phone as soon as they park, and he starts snapping pictures of everything.
The cold means there are less people than usual out on the streets, but that makes for better
pictures, Sehun bets. He aims his camera at the buildings, at the little neon signs in the shop
windows.

They stop by several stores, souvenir places and greengrocers. They look through the fish markets,
stop by the statues, and by the time they end up at Nom Wah, Baekhyun passes his phone over to
Sehun, watching as Sehun scrolls through the pictures. They’re good, really good, and Sehun tells
him as much.

“Thanks,” Baekhyun says. “I like taking pictures.”

“You have a camera?” Sehun asks. Baekhyun wiggles his phone back and forth in front of Sehun’s
face. “I mean like a—,” and he mimics a traditional camera, pointing and shooting, “real camera.”

“Oh, I didn’t know this one was fake,” Baekhyun sneers.

Sehun smiles, and they place their orders not long after: pork shu mai, salt and pepper shrimp, and
egg fried rice. They order tea, too, cups of oolong and shui hisen, but Baekhyun stops him before
he’s able to take a sip. Dutifully, he waits as Baekhyun snaps pictures of it all, even standing up,
pushing his seat back from the table to get a shot from above.

“Okay,” Baekhyun says, sitting back down, shoving his phone back into his coat pocket. “Now
you can eat.”

“Great,” Sehun says flatly, but truthfully, it is nice to see Baekhyun excited about something other
than sex. Truthfully, it’s nice to see Baekhyun in any other context.

Why did it take me so long to do this? He wonders to himself as he chews, watching Baekhyun eat
as though he’s never been fed before.

“Oh my god,” Baekhyun says, eyeing the menu. “Dessert, please.”

He coaxes Sehun into sharing steamed red bean buns, and they look out the window, people-
watching as the traffic picks up in the streets. It is a very warm feeling that flows through him as he
watches Baekhyun watching the world. Baekhyun perches his chin in his hand, and he smiles,
bright white and wide, before he catches Sehun out of his peripherals, turns the grin on him
instead.

“What are you lookin’ at?”

“Just observing,” Sehun tells him.

“Yeah?” Baekhyun says. He wets his lips, and Sehun tracks the movement with his eyes.
“Observing?”

“Yeah.”

Baekhyun pulls him over by the collar of his shirt, kisses him a little too passionately for such a
public place. Sehun wants, wants with every fiber of his fucking being, but he pushes Baekhyun
back gently, a hand on his chest, and when they part, Baekhyun’s lips are strawberry-red.

He drives Baekhyun back, and he does not want to let him go. He realizes, of course, that there is
jealousy boiling him alive as Baekhyun takes the helmet off, putting it on the back of Sehun’s bike
before leaning down and kissing Sehun again.

“Sure you don’t wanna come up?” Baekhyun asks, and it’s temptation from Eden. Fruit never
looked so fuckin’ good.

“I’ll call you when I get back,” Sehun says.

“Promise?”

Sehun kicks off without an answer, leaves Baekhyun behind, but once he’s home, once his shoes
are put away, once he’s showered, once he’s tucked into bed, he rings Baekhyun up, listens to him
breathe.

“Thank you,” is what Baekhyun says, and Sehun feels it, feels it back behind his eyes and in the
beds of his fingernails.

Sehun is not one for art, but Baekhyun expressed interest in going, so he dresses in what he
assumes is something nice, certainly nicer than what he’s used to wearing, and he picks Baekhyun
up.

As expected, Baekhyun looks nice. He’s wearing clothes that Sehun’s never seen before, sort of
a… a smartness about his outfit. Nice pants. A sweater. A plaid scarf and a pea coat. He’s even
wearing glasses, even though Sehun’s sure that he doesn’t need them. Still, it looks nice, looks…
looks great. When he approaches, Sehun stands up straight, brings both hands to Baekhyun’s neck
to kiss him, just the touch of their tongues together before he draws back.

"Hi," Baekhyun says. "What was that for?"

"You look… well, you look good, I guess," Sehun says, not sure what else to say.

Baekhyun looks him over, eyes narrowed as his gaze slides over Sehun's body. It is a delicious
feeling, hot, fiery hot, and he watches Baekhyun watch him.

"You look good too." He leans in, grabs Sehun by the collar. He presses a chaste kiss to Sehun's
lips, but he finishes it filthy, bites Sehun's lip between his teeth. "Really good."

It settles that same heat in the bottom of Sehun's stomach, and he swallows over it, tries not to let it
creep up his throat in a whine. It has been… it has been a long time since he's had Baekhyun. That
night… it seems like so long ago. His hunger for Baekhyun does not wane. It waxes with every
single night that passes.

"Shut up" is the only thing he's smart enough to say, and Baekhyun answers it with a shove to his
shoulder.

Baekhyun dutifully dons the helmet, even though he complains about his hair, and then, he gets on
the bike, arms wrapped comfortingly around Sehun's waist.

"Are you sure you don't mind?" he asks. "The museum?"

"No," Sehun says. "Not at all. I think… I think it's the first time I've ever gone to a museum
actually."

Baekhyun's arms squeeze him, and Sehun looks back over his shoulder. He looks shocked, like
Sehun is the type of guy who spends every Saturday in the MoMA.

"Are you serious?"

"Yeah. Why wouldn't I be serious?"

"I dunno," Baekhyun says. "I just… who hasn't been to a museum? Like, not even on field trips?"

It's not the type of thing they should be talking about, and Sehun has to resist the urge to
automatically shut down, bury everything back down inside him. No, he thinks. I said I would
change.

Change doesn't happen overnight, and it doesn't come easily. It's lemon juice in a knife wound, and
he grits his teeth and bears it, admits to a truth that he doesn't want to.

"I never went to, like, an actual school."

"O-Oh," Baekhyun says. "Right, I guess… I guess we never really talked about our childhoods
much."

"Yeah," Sehun says. "Not a lot."

He revs the engine, takes off, and Baekhyun hangs on tight. He rests his face against Sehun's
shoulder in the way that is becoming familiar. It is a quiet ride, and Sehun feels the tension. He
wants to address it, but he really has no fuckin' idea what to say.

When they arrive, Baekhyun takes off the helmet quietly, puts it on the back of Sehun's bike as he
ruffles his hair back to its carefully messy state.

"Do I look cute still?" Baekhyun asks, head tilted to the side with a smile.

"Yeah." He reaches forward, brushes a little bit of Baekhyun's hair back behind his ear. "You look
cute."
Baekhyun bites his lip again before he closes the gap between them, hands flat against Sehun's
chest. It is a more passionate kiss than before, Baekhyun easy for the praise, but Sehun wants to
think that it's deeper than that. More special than that.

"Come on," Baekhyun says. "You pay, and I'll take your picture next to all the pretty arts, okay?"

Baekhyun laces his fingers between Sehun's, pulls him off towards the doors with a grin.

"Are you allowed to do that?"

"God, that is so weird," Baekhyun says, staring at him like he's a miracle or something instead of
just a waste of space.

"Shut up."

Baekhyun looks at him with a smile as he leads them to the desk, smiles up at Sehun as he pays
their entrance fee. After he crumples the receipt in his hand, sticking it in his back pocket as
Baekhyun goes to get a map.

"'Kay, what kind of art do you like?" Baekhyun asks, eyes running over the little paper.

"The nice kind."

Baekhyun shoots Sehun a look. "Be serious, you motherfucker."

"I am serious," Sehun says. "I don't really know much about art."

Baekhyun turns, walks backwards as he leads Sehun by the hand. "Does that mean I get to teach
you?" He couples it with a lewd look, the kind that reminds Sehun of sheets and screams of
pleasure.

"Yeah," Sehun says. "Teach me."

They stand in front of a Picasso installation, totally empty besides them. Its sculptures are of
plywood and tree branches, and Sehun watches Baekhyun watch it. He hooks his chin over
Baekhyun's shoulder, arms around his waist.

"What does this all say, huh?" Sehun asks, pressing a kiss to Baekhyun's cheek, pushing his hips
into Baekhyun. "Tell me all about it."

"I dunno," Baekhyun says, and he tilts his head to the side. "Kind of erotic, though, don't you
think?"

All Sehun sees is various kinds of wood, cut and shaped, but even still, he would call it whatever
Baekhyun wanted to call it.

"Yeah." He kisses the side of Baekhyun's neck. "I do think."

Baekhyun turns, glares at Sehun. "You'd agree with anything I said."

"Yeah," Sehun says. "I don't know about art."

"Neither do I."
He looks to Baekhyun's mouth. Wants to kiss him. But he holds back. Only looks back into
Baekhyun's eyes, sees the softening of his gaze like melting ice.

"You have a good eye."

"Shut up," Baekhyun says, and Sehun's hand goes to the back of Baekhyun's neck, pulling him
close.

"No," Sehun says, and he kisses Baekhyun as passionately as he knows how.

Maybe it is the deep, earthy smell of the wood. Maybe it is the way Baekhyun looks, tastes. Maybe
it is none of it, maybe it is all of it. But Sehun knows he is in love. Knows intensely that he would
die for this man if need be.

"God, here," Baekhyun says, shoving his plate over to Sehun. "Try a bite. It's so fucking good, I'm
gonna nut."

Sehun looks around them, shoots a look of apology to the couple next to them before he lifts a bit
of the chocolate cake to his mouth. It is delicious, and Sehun shuts his eyes, lets it settle on his
tongue.

"It is good," Sehun says. "Really good."

"I fuckin' told you so." And Baekhyun kicks him under the table, a kick that Sehun easily ignores.
"You know what, fuck you. You never say ow."

"Well, it doesn't hurt."

Baekhyun knits his brows together, reeling back, and he kicks Sehun hard in the shin. That time it
does hurt a bit, but Sehun doesn't show it, only steals another bite of the cake from Baekhyun's
plate.

"I fuckin' hate you," he grimaces. "Mr. Tough Guy."

"That is in my job description."

"Yeah, well wet, open hole is in my job description but I still tighten up sometimes," Baekhyun
says.

Sehun rolls his eyes, and he sets his fork down. "Fine." He grabs Baekhyun's hand. "Hit me."

"No, I don't wanna anymore," Baekhyun says. "You're only doing it to appease me."

"Yeah," Sehun says, and he gently folds Baekhyun's hand into a fist. "Go ahead. Hit me with your
best shot, champ."

Baekhyun hides a little smile, turns in his chair. They are in the middle of a pretty Italian
restaurant, and they don't really belong, not with who they are or what they're wearing or what
they're talking about, but there is romance thick in the air, the kind that stifles you, makes you
crazy. And Baekhyun reaches out, punching Sehun in the shoulder so softly that it almost shocks a
laugh from Sehun's throat.

"Ow," Sehun whines.

"You're such a pussy," Baekhyun says, and he nudges Sehun's calf with the toe of his shoe before
offering Sehun another bite of the cake.

It tastes rich, like love and something impossibly sweeter.

He brings Baekhyun to the park just as a light snow is starting to fall. Sehun holds the bag tightly
in his free hand as they walk, his unclothed hand around Baekhyun’s mitten. They see each other a
couple times a week now, whenever Baekhyun is free, and Sehun takes him wherever the fuck he
wants to go. Sometimes it's somewhere elaborate, somewhere fancy, and Sehun doesn't really give
a fuck. He's got plenty of money, they can do whatever they want. But sometimes, it's little things
like this. Little silent moments.

“Missed you,” Baekhyun says softly, so softly that Sehun can barely hear it.

“Yeah.”

They’re mostly quiet as they walk, and they slow to a stop before a bench, one that overlooks the
water. They sit, and Sehun rests the bag between his legs. They watch people pass them by, joggers
with earmuffs, parents with children between them. Baekhyun leans into him, his body slanted
against Sehun’s, his head against Sehun’s shoulder. It is calm, and Sehun shuts his eyes for a
minute, takes it all in. The sounds… it’s peaceful. Baekhyun’s weight on him is a comfort.

It is a while before Baekhyun breaks the silence.

“What’s this?” Baekhyun asks, kicking his foot against the bag. “You goin’ to a birthday party or
something?”

“Don’t kick it.”

“Why not, huh?” Baekhyun says, and he nudges his foot against the bag again, this time a little
more gently. “If it’s not a present for me, then I don’t give a fuck.” He nudges it again, and Sehun
can hear his little smile.

“It is a present for you.”

Baekhyun inhales sharply, and he turns, surprised. Sehun likes that, likes the face he makes. So
fuckin' real. So fucking honest.

“What is it?”

“It’s a surprise.”

Baekhyun leans in, kisses Sehun deeply, a mittened hand at the back of Sehun’s neck. When he
pulls back, he smiles, biting his lip.

“I hate surprises,” he says. “Tell me what it is.”

“It’s a camera.”

Baekhyun’s eyes go wide, and he looks so pretty as the snows fall down around them. It is a gentle
storm, but the small snowflakes land on the collar of his jacket, along his hair, and he looks like an
angel. A perfect picture. If only Sehun was the one good with a camera.
“A fucking what?”

“A camera,” Sehun says. “A real one. A Canon EOS Rebel SL2.”

Sehun reaches down between his legs, takes the bag by the little handles, and pushes it into
Baekhyun’s hands.

Baekhyun’s eyes water as he takes the box from the bag, staring down at the camera like he can’t
quite believe it. He looks at Sehun like he's fucking crazy, and that's good. Sehun likes that look on
him.

"What did you do?" Baekhyun whines. "I didn't… I didn't need this."

"Does it matter what you need?" Sehun asks. "It's a gift. Gifts aren't usually about need."

"Don't be cute," Baekhyun says even as his voice wavers with emotion. "Why would you—why
would you buy me something like this?"

"I don't know." And he looks down to Baekhyun's hands, covers one with his own. It's so cold that
his knuckles are turning red. "I just saw it, and I thought of you."

It is a white lie, of course, to make things seem a bit more cool. Sehun didn’t just see it. He
researched cameras for a week, trying to find the most user friendly one for beginners. He talked to
people who worked at the camera shop. He compared. He didn’t just see it. He went and found it.

"Y-You thought of me."

Sehun meets his eyes, sees the tears just sitting there waiting to fall, and when Baekhyun blinks,
one tumbles down his cheek. Sehun is quick though, has always been quick, and he reaches out,
stroking a thumb along Baekhyun's face, brushing it away.

"Don't cry," Sehun says. "You get to drag me to good photography spots now."

There is so much light in Baekhyun's eyes now, white-gold and amber, petrichor, and Sehun cannot
deny himself; he leans forward, kissing Baekhyun softly, sweetly.

"Wherever I wanna go?" he whispers.

"Yeah," Sehun says. "Wherever."

They go to a great many places because, as it turns out, New York is a treasure trove of good
photography spots. Baekhyun explains the ins and outs of the camera like he read the manual front
to back multiple times, and Sehun doesn’t understand most of the technical shit, but that’s okay.
He’s happy to sit back and watch as Baekhyun holds the camera to his face, one eye squinted shut
as he takes hundreds, maybe thousands of pictures.

They go all over the city, terraces and bridges and the tallest skyscrapers, and each time, Sehun
finds it more and more endearing. He holds Baekhyun's hand firmly as they walk, the camera
hanging around Baekhyun's neck, and he wonders just how long they can play at this, like they're
some kind of something.

Sometimes, Baekhyun looks like he shares the same thoughts, like he's staring at Sehun wondering
when he's gonna run.

It is a cloudy day, cold, but there is no snow. Sehun stands at the edge of the balcony, leaning his
arms on the railing, and when he turns, Baekhyun has the camera posed at him.

"Is this okay?" he asks.

"What, taking my picture?"

Baekhyun lowers the camera, smiles at him. "Yeah." He bites his lip. "You look—," and he looks
around, steps a little closer. "You look pretty." He says it like it's something dirty, and Sehun turns
around completely, kisses him quickly.

"Thank you," Sehun says. "You can take one if you don't post it anywhere."

"Where would I post it?" Baekhyun asks, rolling his eyes.

"I dunno." Sehun scuffs his boot against the cement. "Like, one of those apps? Where people share
pictures?"

"You mean like Instagram?"

"Sure."

Baekhyun rolls his eyes again, this time biting across a smile, and he grabs Sehun by the collar of
his jacket, pulling him into another kiss, this time sweeter. Sehun savors it, relishes in it. Opens his
eyes slowly when Baekhyun withdraws.

"I don't have one," Baekhyun says.

"Well, it's not like it costs any money," Sehun says. “Does it?”

Baekhyun gives him that old familiar look, the one that says You just said something very stupid.

"It's not about money, it's about talent."

"You've got talent."

Baekhyun laughs like Sehun couldn't possibly understand, just stands back, picking the camera
back up from around his neck.

"Stand there, and look pretty," Baekhyun orders him.

"'Kay."

Sehun tries his level best, arms outstretched along the railing as a sudden gust of wind ruffles
Baekhyun's hair. Baekhyun looks incredible, looks so fucking handsome Sehun can barely believe
he's real, and Baekhyun snaps picture after picture as Sehun stands there, does nothing of import.

After a minute or two, Baekhyun lowers the camera, staring at the display before he looks up at
Sehun, smirking at him.

"You're a good model," Baekhyun says.

"Maybe you're just a good photographer."

Baekhyun throws his head back, laughs loudly, loud enough that it splits through everything else.
He looks back at Sehun fondly when he's finished, a handsome smile on his face. He is beautiful,
of course, but there is something else laced among the usual. It is… it is something special. And
Sehun likes that.

"You're stupid," he says, staring dead into Sehun's eyes before lowering his gaze to the display
once more. "Come here, come look."

Sehun walks over, and he stands close behind Baekhyun, chin hooked over his shoulder. Baekhyun
starts to click the button, flipping through the pictures. And Sehun's never really thought too
strongly about the way he looks, but when he sees the pictures that Baekhyun took, he thinks, Is
that really what I look like?

"These are… these are really good.”

Baekhyun looks over and up at him, grinning. "You think so?" He looks back down. "I dunno. I
think maybe you're just hot, so anybody taking pictures of you would do an okay job."

"No," Sehun tells him. "Get an Instagram."

"I—"

"You've got talent," Sehun says. "So just shut up and get one." He leans down, hand guiding
Baekhyun's jaw. He kisses him firmly, leaves no room for discussion. "Post those pictures you
took at Grand Central."

Baekhyun looks down at his shoes, smiles, and it isn't that coy shit. It's genuine. And Sehun takes
it greedily.

"You think I should?"

"Why not?"

Baekhyun looks up again, into Sehun's eyes, and oh, there is so much there. Sehun can't believe he
never noticed before. There is hope and joy and desperate, desperate love, and Sehun wants a piece
of all of it.

"Yeah," Baekhyun says. "Why not?"

They argue a bit.

"Why don't you come by?" Baekhyun asks. "You never fucking come."

"I pick you up, like, once a week at least," Sehun says. "Usually more."

"Yeah, but that's for like...," and he looks around, stares at all the people walking by them at the
rink. "That's for this shit."

"Dates," Sehun offers.

"Shut up."

"Why?"
“No one dates a prostitute,” Baekhyun says. “No one wants to date a prostitute.”

“I am,” Sehun says. “I do.”

“Shut up,” Baekhyun says. “You’re so fucking corny.”

I’m not, Sehun wants to say. No part of me is sentimental, and yet here I am. You make me feel the
sentiments I thought didn’t, couldn’t exist within me.

Sehun only takes Baekhyun’s hand in his, pulls him off towards the rental stall.

He doesn’t need to ask Baekhyun’s shoe size, hands over the obscene cost for two pairs of skates,
and then directs Baekhyun to the nearest building to slip into them.

“I’ve never ice skated before,” Baekhyun says. “I’m gonna break my fuckin’ tailbone and be out of
commission for a month.” Sehun snorts, gets to his knees in front of Baekhyun, and Baekhyun
slides into that coy look. “Oh, I didn’t know exhibitionism was your thing.”

“Shut up,” Sehun says, and he holds the smaller skate open. “Put it in.”

“Yes, daddy.”

Sehun rolls his eyes, but he laces Baekhyun up as Baekhyun looks around in wonder, like he’s
never been outside before.

“Do you seriously skate?” Baekhyun asks, staring out at the rink like it’s a miracle. “Like, for
real?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean why?” He finishes the knot on the second skate, patting them and standing up.
He offers Baekhyun a hand up. “Try ‘em out. See how they feel.”

Baekhyun stands up, wobbles around in a little circle in his skates. “I think they’re okay? I don’t
know. I think I’m gonna fall over.” He holds his arms out to the sides. Looks like a little kid.

“Okay, okay,” Sehun says. “Sit down. Wait for me.”

“'Kay,” Baekhyun says, and he wobbles a bit more as he sits down beside Sehun. “But you didn’t
answer.”

“Why do I know how to skate?” Sehun laughs. “There isn’t shit to do in Buffalo, that’s why.”

“You never… you never told me about all that.”

Sehun ties his skate tight. “No. I don’t talk about it a lot.”

“You can talk to me about it,” Baekhyun offers. Sehun grabs Baekhyun’s hand in his, pulls him to
his feet, and Baekhyun wobbles so tremendously that he has to brace himself with a hand on
Sehun’s chest. “Whoa. Hey. I feel like you’re trying to avoid the conversation.”

“No,” Sehun says. “But today should be nice. That’s a conversation for… a different day.”

“Maybe tomorrow?” Baekhyun asks.

“Sure. Tomorrow. We could get breakfast at Johny’s.”

Baekhyun smiles at him, genuine, soft and a little ugly, like he’s about to cry, and Sehun leans
down, kisses him.

“Pancakes,” Baekhyun says.

“If you want.”

They walk hand in hand to the rink, and Sehun shoulders a decent amount of Baekhyun’s weight as
they go.

“We’re not even on ice yet,” Sehun says, and he tightens his hold on Baekhyun’s hand as his
ankles struggle to stay straight.

“I’m gonna die,” Baekhyun grimaces. “Don’t make me do this. My family has historically weak
ankles. This is a death sentence.”

“Just one time around won’t kill you.”

“But what if it does?” Baekhyun asks, and he throws on the brakes, leans back as Sehun tries to
drag him forward.

Sehun rolls his eyes. “I’ll buy you hot chocolate afterwards.”

Baekhyun’s eyes go bright, and he stands up straight.

“With marshmallows?”

“Sure,” Sehun says.

“And you’ll get some too?” Baekhyun asks. “And we can take pictures for Instagram?”

“Sure. Just don’t put my face in any of the pictures,” Sehun says.

“Hands are good?”

“Uh, sure,” Sehun says. “Hands are fine.”

“Oh my god, I can’t wait,” Baekhyun says, and all of a sudden, he walks confidently in his skates,
ankles strong as he leads the way, pulling Sehun by the hand. “I’ve wanted to do cute stuff for
Instagram, but the closest I’ve gotten was artsy pictures of buttplugs and dildos with rhinestones on
the handles.”

“I’m not a good judge of what’s cute or not.”

“Of course you are.” Baekhyun pulls Sehun forward to the rink, through the little gate. “You think
I’m cute, don’t you?”

Baekhyun steps onto the ice, and his eyes go wild.

“Yeah,” Sehun says, and Baekhyun throws himself back into Sehun’s arms on solid ground.
“You’re cute.”

☠
Baekhyun gets his pancakes, and the smell of maple syrup, sticky and sweet, is comforting. Sehun
watches, hand around his cup of coffee, as Baekhyun cuts in, stabbing a stack of squares onto his
fork, putting them in his mouth with a moan.

“Holy shit,” he murmurs, mouth full, “this shit is so fucking good.”

“I’m glad you like it,” Sehun says. “But you should probably swallow.”

Baekhyun dutifully swallows, leaning forward and sticking out his tongue after, and Sehun pushes
him back with a disgusted hand.

“Not the first time I’ve heard that, I have to say.” And Sehun wrinkles his nose in response. “Oh,
you’re such a fuckin’ prude.”

Sehun looks around. There are too many people in the crowded diner to say what he wants to say.
You know I’m not. You know that I’m anything but.

He only smirks knowingly at him, takes a sip of his coffee.

“You shouldn’t look so hot this early in the morning,” Baekhyun says, and he cuts another little
stack of pancake away with his fork and knife. He stabs it, holds it out for Sehun to eat. And Sehun
lets himself be fed, chews through it slowly. Baekhyun watches his throat, watches him swallow.
“Makes me wanna—”

“Whatever you’re gonna say,” Sehun says, “don’t say it.”

“What if I said I just wanted to kiss you?”

Sehun cocks a brow at Baekhyun.

“Fine,” Baekhyun says. “I was gonna say that I wanna eat your a—”

“Don’t say it,” Sehun says.

Baekhyun pouts as he eats, and Sehun studies him, finds it hard to keep his eyes off Baekhyun as
he hums, pleased with his meal.

“Are you booked today?” Sehun asks.

Baekhyun swallows thickly, crunching through bacon inelegantly as he speaks. “Don’t think so.
Maybe got something later in the evening. Why?” He picks up his phone, starts scrolling through.

“I told you I’d tell you. About when I was a kid,” Sehun says, and he looks around, someone
bumping into him as they walk past. “But it’s a little crowded here. I thought maybe we could go
somewhere quieter.”

Baekhyun smiles coyly, hooks his ankle around Sehun’s, moving his foot up Sehun’s calf
teasingly.

“Is this an invitation back to your place?”

“I guess,” Sehun says. “If you want.”

“I want.”

Baekhyun finishes quickly, dabbing the corners of his mouth and when he leans forward to kiss
Sehun, he tastes like sweet like syrup.

Sehun walks into his condo and tries to see it through fresh eyes. He’s happy he got a plant. It
looks less like a serial killer lives here. Not a lot less. But less.

Baekhyun slips out of his shoes the same way Sehun does, pads through Sehun’s space with
mismatched socks, one with little Shiba Inus, the other plain orange.

“Oh shit, you got one of those fancy blenders,” Baekhyun says, and he hurriedly rounds the corner
to Sehun’s kitchen, stroking a hand along the side of the machine. “You make any milkshakes in
this bad boy?”

“Uh, not yet,” Sehun says.

“Well, what the fuck are you waiting for?”

Sehun laughs, braces his hand on the counter. “I don’t know.” He runs his hands over the stone,
buries down what his brain is screaming at him.

“Huh,” Baekhyun says. “Guess we’ll have to make them sometime.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

There is a strange, unnamable tension that simmers through the room, and for a moment, Sehun
does not understand it. Then, Baekhyun circles back around the island, and he takes Sehun’s face
in his hands, kisses Sehun softly on the forehead.

“Can you tell me?” he asks.

Sehun looks into Baekhyun’s eyes and sees deep down into his heart, and it is momentarily
frightening, the kind of abject horror he remembers from the worst moments of his life. What is it,
he wonders. Why does that sink into him at that moment?

Ah, he remembers. Vulnerability.

“Y-Yeah,” Sehun says. “Let’s sit.”

He tells Baekhyun about the schedules. About the boys and girls who came, failed, and were gone
by morning. They were like weeds. He tells Baekhyun about the way he wondered where they
went. He tells Baekhyun about how he made sure he wasn’t the next to disappear. He tells
Baekhyun about the knife wounds on his hands, about the first time he was shot. He tells
Baekhyun about the men and women they called sergeants, the ones who became parents to them.
He barely remembers his own parents, only remembers death, only remembers the quiet cold. He
tells Baekhyun about the food, meals made with the flameless heaters. The kids traded for the good
shit, threw away the stuff no one wanted. He remembers the look in their eyes, hungry. Desperate.
There might have been a camaraderie, if it was any less brutal. They often fought each other. Had
to. Fought to survive.

He spares no details even where he should.

“No,” Baekhyun says gently. “It’s good. It’s… it’s good to get it out.”

“It’s not like throwing up,” Sehun laughs.

“It kinda is.” His hand on Sehun’s back rubs in circles, comforting him in the most basic way
possible. Perhaps that is what this has always been, a physical comfort that Sehun's always needed.

They sit there for a long time, just Baekhyun's hand on Sehun's back, the gentle circles almost
enough to lull him to sleep.

“I never really told you,” Baekhyun says, and he stares at the ceiling. “About how I got into this.”

“N-No,” Sehun says. “We’ve never really talked much about before.”

“I started when I was young,” Baekhyun says sadly. “Too young. I wasn’t really… I wasn’t
protected. At least, at the Red House, I have some protection.”

Sehun’s heart breaks, and he watches as pieces of Baekhyun’s life fall together in front of him.
Things he wondered about secretly, never had the courage to ask.

“I’m sorry,” Sehun says.

Baekhyun looks over at Sehun.

“Did you know they monitor what we eat?” He snorts. “Well, only some of us. They don’t want
me gaining too much weight.” Visceral and furious anger leaps into Sehun’s throat like stomach
acid, and Baekhyun must be able to see it, because he laughs. “It’s okay. It’s just why… I mean,
that’s why I have a complicated relationship with food. I was pretty chubby when I first started
there, but now, I’m—”

“I think you would look good that way,” Sehun interrupts. “Sorry, I… I know that’s not the point,
but… but if you were worried about that sort of thing, you shouldn’t be. You’d be pretty no matter
what.”

Baekhyun studies him, and his gaze is enough to take the rest of the words from Sehun’s mouth.
He stares at Baekhyun, sees right into him, and he wonders if Baekhyun would have showed him
all this before… before, when he was cruel.

Not a chance, he thinks. This is something we had to get to slowly.

"Lie back," Baekhyun commands softly, and Sehun goes, lets them fall to the pillowed back of the
couch, Baekhyun's arm around him. "Good boy."

Sehun closes his eyes, breathes out slowly.

"I've never—I-I've never told anyone all that," Sehun says. "I've told… I've told some people bits
and pieces, but never… never all of it. Never all at once."

"It was a lot." His voice is soft, cashmere. "Thank you for telling me."

“Thank you for… for telling me about you.”

Sehun opens his eyes, and Baekhyun is staring at him. Sehun worried, of course, he always
worries. Maybe… maybe it would change. Maybe Baekhyun would look at him differently. Maybe
he would think of Sehun as a charity case, maybe as a monster, maybe as some awful combination
of the two.
But he just looks at Sehun normally. Like this is another page in a long, stupid story that they're
writing together.

"Can I kiss you?" Sehun asks.

"You never have to ask."

Sehun reaches out, brushes his thumb against Baekhyun's bottom lip.

"Can I?"

Baekhyun smiles, gentle and slow, and he closes the gap between them, erases invisible space until
their lips touch, and it feels so very different from how it's always felt before. Is this what it's like
to feel truly naked?, he wonders. Baekhyun opens his mouth against Sehun's, and Sehun can't help
but moan, can't help but shudder in Baekhyun's hold.

"I've missed you so fucking much," Baekhyun says, his lips moving against Sehun's. "Every night,
I wanted to say come over."

"Shut up," Sehun whispers, and he holds Baekhyun by the back of the neck as he kisses him hard,
harder, quiets him as best as he fuckin' can because he feels everything leaking out, a blown gasket,
a screaming of air, and if Baekhyun talks anymore, Sehun is going to say something fucking
stupid, something completely fucking ridiculous.

Something like I love you.

"Fuck," Baekhyun says, "no one kisses me like you do."

It sends another electric bolt of jealousy up Sehun's spine, and he bites Baekhyun's lip between his
teeth before he kisses it better, licks into Baekhyun's mouth the way he's dreamed about at night.

"Why didn't you come?" Baekhyun asks. "I fucking missed you."

"I… I don't know," Sehun says. "I can't anymore."

Baekhyun pulls back, a look of sadness on his face. "Y-You can't?"

"I just… I don't want to—I don't want to cheapen this."

Baekhyun inhales sharply through his nose, and he holds Sehun back, a hand on his chest.

"What are you fuckin' talking about?" Baekhyun asks, hurt and hurt more.

"You wanted me to get serious," Sehun says. "This is… this is how I get serious. I don't wanna… I
don't wanna fucking pay you. I want you to… I wanna get out of here. Because y-you're something
to me. Even when I didn’t say it, you were always something. You knew. You knew how I felt,
even if I couldn’t say it. You're… you were the first, I—”

His brow furrows in response, and oh God, oh no, his body tries to reject the sudden confession.

"What do you mean?" Baekhyun takes Sehun's face in his hand. "What are you saying?"

"I told you. I never really had—I never understood it, people falling in love. People having sex."
He closes his eyes, finds it easier to be honest when he doesn't have to bare his soul while staring
into Baekhyun's pretty eyes. "It was so rare that I wanted something. But when I saw you, I wanted.
You made me feel like a person. You were the first person to ever treat me like a person."
Baekhyun's thumb strokes along his lip, and Sehun opens his eyes honey-slow.

“W-Was I your first?” Baekhyun asks, eyes wide.

Sehun thinks, tries to figure out a way out of this, tries to scramble for purchase, fingernails in the
dirt once more. He is vulnerable, his stomach is torn open. Baekhyun can reach in and take his
beating heart in a dirty fist if he wants to, he—

He stands, gets up from the couch, unable to just sit there as he rips himself out, root and stem.

“Yes,” he finally admits.

“I was?”

“Yes.”

Baekhyun looks at him like he cannot believe what he’s hearing, but he stands, steps forward,
closer, closer, takes Sehun in his arms.

“Are you lying?”

“No,” Sehun says. “I wouldn’t lie to you.”

“Everyone says that,” Baekhyun says. “And then they always do.”

Not me, Sehun thinks. Never me.

Sehun takes him in a kiss, one that breathes air to a fire, growing in passion as the walls fall down
around them. How many times have they pretended? How many times has he paid for the privilege
of Baekhyun’s body in his hands? It’s never mattered. Nothing has ever mattered except for the
two of them, except for the way they make love rise from ash.

They move, chaotic, frenetic, feverish, and they kiss as they go, blindly finding their way to
Sehun’s bedroom.

It sends shivers down his spine, the love he feels in that moment, and he moans into Baekhyun’s
mouth, an echoing sound as they sink down onto the bed, Sehun’s body beneath Baekhyun’s. It is
a moment fraught with opposites, with frantic, hectic hunger, with peace and with calm. They are
settling into something, the weight of them collecting dust, and he brushes it away with the pads of
his fingertips, stroking along Baekhyun's collarbone.

"Touch me," Baekhyun whispers, and his eyes shut, his lashes pretty along his cheeks. "I miss you
touching me."

Sehun sits up, Baekhyun's weight settling comfortably over his lap, and he strips Baekhyun of his
shirt, throws it behind him onto the floor. His floor. Because Baekhyun is deep within his space,
feels like he's already so deep inside Sehun that he can't ever be without him. Something thick in
his blood. In his vessels and arteries, the oxygenation of his cells, in the branching of his lungs.

"You too," Baekhyun says, and his hands go to Sehun's waist, pulling the shirt up and over his
head. It ruffles his hair, and after Baekhyun throws the shirt behind him, he buries his hands in
Sehun's hair, pulls him into a kiss.

It is a fire that only builds between them, dry kindling, their kisses spitting sparks down, down,
down. The heat drips wetly into his stomach, and it spreads, takes no prisoners as they grind into
each other. Sehun touches Baekhyun wherever he can, holds him gently along his jaw, his neck,
his shoulder.

It is tenuous, and Sehun tries not to shake as they kiss, the pure, unadulterated heat raging through
him like a fucking storm. He cannot catch his breath, cannot put enough emotion into it, and it is
all coming to a head now. How he feels, how he wants to feel.

"Are you okay?" Baekhyun whispers, his lips against Sehun's ear, his arms around Sehun's neck.
"You're trembling."

"I-I'm okay," Sehun says. "I just… I just—"

He's so close to blurting it out, letting Baekhyun swallow his confession, but the words stay inside
him. They stay at the corners of his mouth, the split of his lips, and Baekhyun kisses him anyway,
kisses a smile onto him.

"It's okay," Baekhyun says, like he knows exactly what Sehun wants to say. Like he could taste it.

Sehun kisses him so passionately that he fears he might scare Baekhyun away with it, the way he
licks frightening truths away from their lips. Baekhyun pushes him flat again, and he works down
Sehun's body in a manner that should be familiar but feels brand fucking new.

He lays kisses to Sehun's pectoral, licks down the lines of Sehun's stomach, and he pulls the button
of his pants open, unzips them delicately. Sehun moans, hyper-sensitive, and he drags Baekhyun
back to his mouth by the nape of his neck. Baekhyun works a hand between their bodies, and
Sehun groans as Baekhyun touches him.

"I never stop thinking about you," Baekhyun says, but it doesn't feel like a confession, just feels
like honesty, just feels like another little piece of himself that he's chipping off to hand to Sehun. "I
dream about you at night."

"I dream about you too," Sehun says, and tears leap to his eyes at the memories. Baekhyun bathed
in yellow-white light, warm, heavenly. "I missed you so much."

"You've got me," Baekhyun says, and he lays his body over Sehun's, letting Sehun trap him in an
embrace. "And now that you've got me, what are you gonna do with me?"

Sehun flips Baekhyun onto his back, and Baekhyun's hair splays out on the sheets as he settles
back, a smile on his face. Sehun's fingers play with the hem of Baekhyun's pants as he kisses him
slowly, lets the moment wash over them both.

"Can I—can I take it off?" he asks.

Baekhyun bites his bottom lip, nods shyly, and maybe it's a testament to how good Baekhyun is at
this, but it feels so real. It all feels so real. If he's dreaming, if he's being fooled, he doesn't want to
wake up, doesn't want to find out.

Sehun stands, shucks himself of the remnants of his clothing quickly before kneeling on the bed
between Baekhyun's spread legs. He gets low, places a chaste kiss just below Baekhyun's belly
button, and he listens for the moan that falls from Baekhyun's mouth. It comes, sounds better than
Sehun remembers it. That's what spurs him on, what makes him gather Baekhyun's legs up in front
of him, strip him clean like that. He throws the clothes behind him, lowers Baekhyun's legs back
down to the bed, and he can't help but marvel at how fucking beautiful Baekhyun is. How could a
person manage to be so beautiful, so fucking perfect in every way?
"Stop," Baekhyun says, and he covers his face with his hands, a red blush creeping up from his
neck onto his face. "You're staring."

“You never minded me looking before.”

Sehun gently pulls Baekhyun’s hands down, one by one, and it feels like they’re both finally naked,
after years of trying to throw the endless layers to the floor.

They kiss for longer than Sehun can ever remember them kissing before, and it feels like they’re
sharing secrets, being honest for a change. It is the most delicious feeling, the sweetest drink, all
the sweeter for coming directly from Baekhyun’s lips.

Baekhyun flips Sehun onto his back, and nothing stops him. The only thing that steals Sehun’s
breath, makes his body tense, is Baekhyun’s kiss along his neck, hands playing lower on Sehun’s
body.

“In the drawer,” Sehun moans. “Please, I—”

Baekhyun holds Sehun by the hand as he leans back, opens the drawer. He comes back, settles
between Sehun’s legs before petting cold, wet fingers along Sehun’s hole. He shivers, gasps.

“Sorry,” Baekhyun says, and he leans down, mouths wetly along Sehun’s cock as he works a
finger inside. “Fuck, you’re so tight.”

Even that small amount of stimulation is too much, and Sehun arches his back as he pulls his hips
back, biting his lip so hard that he thinks he might draw blood.

“What?” Baekhyun asks. “Are you okay? Did it hurt?”

“N-No,” Sehun says, and his voice trembles. “Felt good.”

Baekhyun smiles, and he licks along the head of Sehun’s cock, laughing as Sehun hisses.

“Yeah?” Baekhyun asks, kissing his hips, the v-ing of his bones.

“Yeah.” And Sehun closes his eyes, tries to stop himself from moaning as Baekhyun strokes a
finger inside him, opens him up, reaches into Sehun’s chest and drags the sounds out with his
hands.

Sehun writhes, lets his body move where Baekhyun tells him to move. They do not speak unless it
is the other’s name, unless it is a command for more. Sehun does not ever remember feeling so
wanton and desperate, but he needs more, the craving coming from the depths of his stomach, and
he sucks in a breath when Baekhyun circles his fingers along where Sehun wants it most.

And Baekhyun is merciless as he touches him, clever mouth working along Sehun’s sensitive skin,
fingers deftly decimating him. Sehun struggles to hold back, cock flexing as he curls his toes, head
thrown back into the sheets.

“Feel good, baby?” Baekhyun asks, and when Sehun looks down, he is tonguing at the head of
Sehun’s cock, lewd, and so beautiful that Sehun feels like fucking crushing him into a hug.

“Yeah,” Sehun says. “Yeah, but I wanna—”

And Baekhyun pulls his fingers out, lets Sehun push him onto his back so he can straddle him,
rubbing their bodies together, slick, wet.
“You look so good like that,” Baekhyun says, reaching both hands up to stroke along Sehun’s
chest. “You look so pretty.”

Sehun shuts his eyes, groans, and he reaches back behind him. Baekhyun moans sharply when
Sehun sinks down onto him. He can’t believe he’s waited so long for this, for the way Baekhyun’s
hands come to hold his hips, for the way he can feel Baekhyun’s name caught in his throat. He
raises his hips, nearly unseats himself fully before sinking back down, and it punches the air out of
him, this feeling of finally being whole again.

He works himself into a slow grind of his hips, torturous when he finds the twist that hits him best.
Sehun tenses up all over, shivering with the pleasure, and Baekhyun groans, hands tightening as he
begins to push and pull Sehun as he rocks in his lap.

“Sehun,” Baekhyun whines. “Sehun, you—”

Sehun can’t help but go to him, kiss him hard until he sees stars behind his eyes. He breathes out
harshly, moans into Baekhyun’s mouth, swallows Baekhyun’s sounds in turn. He is frantic in
fucking himself on Baekhyun’s cock, desperate, wild. It is never enough, it will never be enough,
not unless he has this for as long as he’s living.

Baekhyun holds him by the jaw, and Sehun is trembling all over, shaking and shivering, on the
edge as Baekhyun kisses him, tongue lush and bidding him forward, a crooked finger. Come here
and give it to me.

They rest their foreheads against each other’s, breathe the same air. Sehun looks into Baekhyun’s
eyes, and he is overwhelmed by the emotion there, so beautiful and soft.

He whimpers, collapsing to Baekhyun’s body as he frantically tries to continue, hips slow to react.

“It’s okay,” Baekhyun says, and his hand goes to Sehun’s back, petting down his spine. “We can
go slow.” But the words only want to make Sehun go faster, and he whines, pressing kisses to
Baekhyun’s cheeks. “Flip over. Let me have you.”

Sehun is quick to obey, lays his body down beside Baekhyun’s, a high-pitched moan escaping him
as Baekhyun takes his time, planting kisses to Sehun’s pectorals, licking idly at Sehun’s nipples.

“Don’t,” Sehun whines. “I’m—”

“Let me play with you,” Baekhyun says, and he runs his hands down Sehun’s sides, makes him
clench around nothing. “It’s been so long.”

“I...I’m so close already.” And admitting it shocks a nervous laugh out of his chest, so he squeezes
his eyes shut tight. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.” The bed shifts, and Sehun keeps his eyes closed, waiting for Baekhyun to push
inside him. But even when he splits his legs wide, the thrust does not come. Instead, fingers play at
his hands, and Sehun opens his eyes as his hands open, letting Baekhyun lace their fingers together.
“Hi.”

“Hi,” Sehun says, and Baekhyun kisses the words away.

It is slow, a slow slippery slide as Baekhyun finally pushes back inside him, and Sehun wraps his
legs around Baekhyun’s body, hooks his ankles on the small of Baekhyun’s back when he wraps
his arms around Baekhyun’s neck.
“Please,” Sehun gasps. “Please, oh my god, I’m—”

But Baekhyun doesn’t let him finish, rocks his hips back slow, pushes back in, and it steals the
sounds, Sehun going silent, mouth hanging open as he tries to moan, tries to catch his breath after
the slow, purposeful movement.

“This is the most you’ve ever spoken,” Baekhyun says, and he presses kisses to the side of Sehun’s
face, grabbing him by the jaw to kiss him on the mouth again, again. “Does it feel good, baby?”

“Yes,” Sehun moans, and the sounds burst forth from him again, over and over as Baekhyun holds
back, fucks him slowly, fucks him like they’re gonna stay in this bed forever. “Baekhyun, fuck.”

“Nobody feels like you.” Sehun tightens his hold on Baekhyun’s body, hangs on for dear life.
“Nobody tastes like you.”

The heat drips down into his stomach and pools there, and he can feel it spreading underneath his
skin with every measured thrust of Baekhyun’s hips. Sehun relishes in it, lives in it, thinks that
maybe he could build a home in this. It is powerful, a blow to his resolve, and he finds himself
scrambling again, trying to bite it back, trying to stop himself.

“S-Stop, I’m gonna come,” Sehun says, and a panic rises in his chest because he doesn’t want it to
end, he doesn’t ever want this moment to end. “Stop, stop, I’m gonna come.”

“Come,” Baekhyun says, and it comes out like a plea, and Sehun can’t help himself, can’t hold
back any longer, not when Baekhyun asks him so sweetly.

He squeezes his eyes shut tight, moans Baekhyun’s name from a place deep in his chest as he
tumbles over the edge. He comes hard, too lost in pleasure to be self-conscious of the way he
sounds, too wrapped up in Baekhyun to think about anything besides how happy he is.

It is not long before Baekhyun comes deep inside him, and the feeling of being full...Sehun cannot
describe how much he loves it. Maybe it was a fantasy for so long for good reason. Maybe there
was something base and right about it. He groans brokenly as Baekhyun holds him by the hips,
throat bared as he moans, the last few weak pumps inside Sehun’s body steadying before he
collapses onto Sehun, breathing heavily. It is not for another couple moments, quiet, pretty
moments, that Baekhyun pushes up from Sehun’s body, stares down at him with wide eyes.

“I’m...I’m sorry, we—” Baekhyun stutters. “I didn’t wear—”

Sehun’s arms circle him, and Baekhyun lowers himself back down, sighing as they embrace.

“It’s okay,” Sehun says softly. “I like it.”

There is a breaking of walls, the shattering of something as Baekhyun breathes out against him,
happy.

“We’ll get a shower in a minute.” He kisses Sehun’s neck, luxuriates in it, and an aftershock racks
Sehun’s body. “I’ll clean you.”

Sehun shuts his eyes, breathes out. “Okay.”

“Okay.”

There is much more that Sehun would like to say, but he can’t find the need. It’s too perfect, and he
wouldn’t want to spoil it with silly words.
It is only when Baekhyun is totally asleep, breathing softly in Sehun’s arms that he says what he
wants to say, what he’s maybe always wanted to say.

“I love you,” he whispers, pressing a kiss to Baekhyun’s hair before he settles back into his
pillows, drifting off into the most soundless sleep he’s ever known.

Baekhyun kisses him after he gets off the bike, and he winks before turning around, walking back
to the house. When Sehun gets home, he sees the text that Baekhyun's left for him: pick me up
tomorrow morning. lets go see the sunrise.

Sehun smiles, and it's all that he can fucking think about for the rest of the day, through his work-
out, through grocery shopping, through cleaning and showering, through dinner and the rest. But
when he gets a text from Kyungsoo, just an address and a time, Sehun stops smiling. It isn't that
he's not happy to hear from Kyungsoo. After all, Sehun practically owes Kyungsoo his life. But
there is something about it that seems too ominous. He has a bad feeling as he gets ready, rides
over.

The dive is dingy, dark, and it seems more like their kind of scene than the place they met in
before. Kyungsoo is already seated at the far end of the bar, the red and blue light of the Pabst Blue
Ribbon sign painting him hot and cold.

Sehun sits next to him, and the bartender walks over, takes Sehun's order, and it isn't until Sehun
has his beer that he speaks.

"Sorry about last time," he says.

It shocks a laugh from Kyungsoo, a rare smile on his mouth.

"No problem," Kyungsoo says, and he nudges his shoulder into Sehun's as he reaches into his
pocket, grabs his pack of cigarettes. He offers one to Sehun, lights them both up. "I'm glad you're
doing better now.”

"Yeah," Sehun says, and he rubs his forehead. "It was a bad time. I'm… it was sort of a wake up
call for me."

"Most people just get really drunk and wake up naked in a bathtub." Kyungsoo breathes out up into
the air, and it is beautiful, the way the smoke dances in the neon light. "Not you."

"No." Sehun mirrors him, breathes out smoke. "Not me."

They drink, smoke, and Sehun listens as Kyungsoo talks. It’s good. It’s… normal. A new feeling.
Kyungsoo tells Sehun about a guy he met, about his new apartment, about jobs he's been working.

“Speaking of… you not working anymore?” Kyungsoo asks. “Haven’t gotten a call from you in a
while. Since—”

“Yeah, I’m… I’m taking a break.”

Kyungsoo nods slowly, sips at his drink. “Kind of a long break. Word’s getting around.” He shoots
Sehun a look.

“Oh?”
“Yeah,” Kyungsoo says. “You think The Man just up and stops taking jobs, and everything’s
gonna be super fuckin’ quiet?” He laughs. “Nah. They’re a bunch of birds. Chirping about
everything.”

Sehun stamps his cigarette out in the ashtray. “Shit.” He pulls another cigarette from his pocket.
Lights it up. Takes a drag. “I don’t particularly like it when people talk about me.”

“No,” Kyungsoo says. “Thought not.”

It is after midnight by the time Sehun gets home, but Baekhyun told him to call, so Sehun gets into
bed, curls up his legs and presses the phone against his ear.

"You home?" Baekhyun asks, voice rough with sleep.

"Yeah, just got back."

"Have fun, honey?"

"Yeah," Sehun says. "It was fun."

"Good," Baekhyun says, and Sehun can practically see the sleepy smile on his face. "You don't
wanna fuck him, do you?"

"No."

"Good," Baekhyun repeats, and Sehun just listens to him breathe for a while, the sound gentle,
comforting in the most essential way.

He picks Baekhyun up in the morning and even though he freezes his fucking balls off, they see
the most beautiful sunrise, golds and oranges and fiery magentas and reds. He holds Baekhyun in
his arms as they stand there, watching the sky streak with color, and Sehun kisses Baekhyun's hair.

"Thank you," Baekhyun says. "Been a long time since I’ve seen something so pretty."

"Not me."

Baekhyun turns, and his eyes in the sunrise, amber, golden lights.

"You're so fucking corny." He smiles, and Sehun can't think of anything to do besides kissing him,
there in the middle of the cold, the sun warming them slowly. When it’s over, Baekhyun holds him
by the jaw, smiles at him. “God help me, but I love that shit.”

He makes Baekhyun breakfast at the condo, asks for his plans for the day. Sehun wants to do
something, wants to… wants to take him somewhere nice so that he can take some new pictures
for his Instagram.

"I'm working this afternoon," Baekhyun frowns, drizzling more sriracha over his eggs. "Maybe
tonight? I think I'm free."

"Okay," Sehun says. "We can do Brooklyn Bridge Park."

"Ah," Baekhyun moans, and he quickly lifts a forkful of eggs to his mouth. "Ah. I'm being
pleasured on all sides."
Sehun rolls his eyes, but he leans down, kisses Baekhyun on the cheek anyway.

He keeps himself busy throughout the day, even goes to the department store to pick out a present
for Baekhyun. He settles on a watch, an understated Cartier timepiece that looks like it's from the
1950s. Sehun pays in cash, happy with his purchase, and he goes home, gets to work on dinner,
something romantic: a homemade penne pasta with vodka sauce and chicken. He got a bottle of
Chianti to go along with it.

He wants… he wants to say what he’s been meaning to say. And maybe tonight is the night for
confessions.

It isn't until seven when he texts Baekhyun about their plans that he gets a call a few seconds later.

"I'm sorry, honey, I gotta reschedule," Baekhyun says, and his voice is tight. "They booked me last
minute. I thought—I thought for sure I'd be free." He makes a sound of distress. “I’m sorry, I… I
know it’s late, but I had to make sure I was ready before I could do anything else.” He makes a
sweet sound. “Don’t be mad.”

Sehun doesn't want to take out his frustration on Baekhyun because it isn't his fault, but he wishes,
wishes with all his fucking heart that things were different.

"Shut up, I’m not mad," Sehun says, and he rubs the back of his neck. "It's all right. It’s fine.
Don't… Don't worry about it. Just call me when you're done."

Baekhyun inhales. "Yeah? Tonight?"

"If you wanna talk. If you feel up to going out. Whatever."

"Okay," Baekhyun says, and he is happy, Sehun can hear it. "To—" But there is a commotion that
interrupts him, loud voices, male voices, and they are laughing. "I'm sorry, I have to go." There is a
muffling of sound, and Sehun is confused by it all, listening as the voices ask who he was speaking
to. There is a creak of the bed, and it all happens so fast, the moan of pain that comes, ripped from
Baekhyun's throat, the sharp slice of silence.

"Hey," Sehun says, but the line is already dead.

He’s not a fucking idiot. He can’t just go barging into the brothel and demand to see him. But he
knows Baekhyun now, knows him like the back of his fucking hand. He knows what those sounds
meant. He knows what it sounds like when he’s hurt. The difference in the noises.

He goes to the madam, and her eyes go wide when she sees him.

“I’m sorry, but—”

“Whoever’s free,” Sehun says. “I’ll take it.”

“We’ve only got one girl available for the night,” she says, stressing the gender like it fucking
matters at all.
“I’ll take her.”

She changes her tune almost immediately, turning that charm back on, long red fingernails dancing
over the keyboard as she types. She flips the screen around to face him. “With the information
currently listed?”

He does not look, stares directly in her eyes as he answers. “Yes.”

She rings the girl’s bell, one of the first, and then sends him up.

“First door on the right,” the madam says cheerfully. “Enjoy your stay.”

Sehun says nothing, only walks to the stairs, taking them two at a time. He marches past the door,
goes straight to Baekhyun’s, and the red light is on. He tests the knob. Unlocked. He knocks.

It is a gruff voice that answers him, one that is certainly not Baekhyun’s.

“Come on in,” the man says, and then, a second man laughs.

Sehun enters the room, and he sees Baekhyun strewn across the bed. He has a wig on, long, curly
and pink, and it’s tied into pigtails, secured with ribbons. He’s wearing the thickest makeup
Sehun’s ever seen him wear, thick black lashes, dark eyeshadow, and glossy pink lips. He was
probably once pristinely made. After all, Baekhyun is very particular about that sort of thing.
Nevertheless, the mascara has started to run down his cheeks in fat black tears, eyes watery and
rimmed with black, his lip gloss smudged across his face in a smear.

He is wearing lingerie that’s been fussed with, the straps and the cups of the pink lace bralette
pulled down so that it just hangs lewdly around his middle. His nipples are pinched between
clamps, much redder than their normal pink, and the skin surrounding is red too. He’s still got
panties on, but there’s been a hole torn in them, a hole large enough for the man between his legs
to stick his cock through it.

“S—wha—”

Baekhyun looks dulled, the sharp edges of him worn down, and Sehun feels the bubbling rage
creep up his throat.

“You were the guy on the phone, weren’t you? Come on in,” the man between Baekhyun’s legs
says, and he waves Sehun over. “More the merrier.”

Sehun is frozen for a moment, watching them continue to play with Baekhyun as if he isn’t even
there, as if it’s totally normal. And it sickens him. Makes him want to strangle the life out of them.
Makes him want to cut open their bellies, watch their insides spill out. It is the first time in a while
that he’s felt like this, but in a terrible way, it feels… feels like coming home.

“Get the fuck out,” Sehun says, trying to keep his voice even, stop from shaking with rage. “This is
your only opportunity.”

“Oh shit,” one of the men says with a smile. He is taller than Sehun, built broadly, light hair, light
skin, light eyes. “You’re him, aren’t you?”

Sehun raises an eyebrow at him.

“You’re the fuckin Man,” he says. “Stillshot! Everyone’s heard of you. You’re—” He looks Sehun
up and down, probably smartly swallowing a comment. “I work with John. You know John? We
work in the basement. What are you doing here?”

“Doesn’t matter. Get the fuck out,” Sehun says.

The man frowns. “What’s the problem here?” He backs up off the bed, pulls his pants up, zips
them up. “Or are you just looking for trouble?”

“I’m not looking for shit. I’m telling you to get gone, or there will be consequences.”

“Ooh,” the second man says, equally light skinned, but with dark hair and eyes. He wiggles his
fingers. “Consequences.”

Sehun crosses to the bed, the blond man standing up to Sehun’s challenge. Sehun doesn’t look
nearly as imposing as he knows his reputation is. Maybe he’ll take a fuckin’ shot. Sehun would
love if he took a fucking shot. He dares him into it. C’mon, pussy. Do it. You won’t. You won’t do
it, you fucking pussy.

The blond man reels back, poised to answer Sehun’s dare, and Sehun prepares himself. He’s got
this. He’s never been so ready for a fucking fight.

“Don’t you fucking touch him,” Baekhyun hisses, and he leaps from the bed, pink press-ons
sharpened to points, spread like cat’s claws.

He jumps over to the men, starts scratching them across the face, wherever he can reach, before he
is summarily thrown to the bed. Sehun breathes acid, feels the venom dripping from his teeth to his
tongue, and he wants to spit, hand at his waist.

“No!” Baekhyun shrieks at Sehun, and the men jump back a bit, give him room. “Don’t, please.”

“Fine,” Sehun says. “Fine, we’ll do it your way. How do you want me to kill them?”

Baekhyun stares at him in horror, and Sehun realizes this is the first Baekhyun’s ever seen him like
this. The inherent ugliness. The things he’s kept buried. Bubbling, viscous, muddy water. He sees
fear in Baekhyun’s eyes, but he can’t seem to figure out if the fear is directed at him or the others.

“Sehun!”

He sees the man swinging, and he reels back, draws the dark-haired man into a suckerpunch.

Sehun quickly blocks with his right arm, whips it in, strikes with the side of his hand along the soft
part of the man’s neck, whips back, strikes the opposite side of his neck with the back hand. The
result is instantaneous, the man’s eyes flickering shut like flicking off a light switch, and he drops
to the floor with a thud.

Sehun looks to the spare, sees his eyes go wide like he can’t quite believe it. I’m not like the rest,
you stupid motherfucker. I’m a machine, and I was made for death and death alone.

“Pick him up,” Sehun says to the blond. “Drag him out of here if you fucking have to. If not, you’ll
both leave in a fucking body bag.”

He is quick in his egress, the darker haired man’s arm thrown over the blond’s shoulder, limping
him out of the room.

The door shuts behind them, and Sehun turns back to Baekhyun, terrified by the way Baekhyun is
looking at him.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Baekhyun whispers, but his voice is full of rage.

“They were hurting you,” Sehun says, and he furrows his brow. “I heard them hurting you.”

Baekhyun shakes his head as if in disbelief.

“What?” Sehun says.

“News flash, baby, I’m a fucking prostitute,” Baekhyun says. “I get hurt pretty much every single
fucking day of my life.”

“So that’s it? I should just fuckin’ leave it?”

“God, you just… you don’t get it. I’m gonna get in trouble,” Baekhyun says, and he rips the wig
off, gingerly pulls the clamps off, pulls the lingerie off too. He takes the terry-cloth robe from
where it’s thrown over the chair, and he wraps it around himself, pulling the ties tightly. “I’m
gonna get in so much fucking trouble. Holy shit.”

Sehun watches as Baekhyun pulls a set of eyelashes off, sticks them to the bedside table.

Sehun watches as Baekhyun goes to the bedside table, leans down to the lowest draw. He pulls out
a small plastic box, and when he opens it, he pulls a cloth from the dispenser, starts to rub the
makeup away.

“You know how much they were fucking paying for that?” Baekhyun says, continuing to scrub too
roughly at his skin, the foundation, the mascara, the lipstick smudged, melting onto the cloth.

“As much as I pay?”

Baekhyun stares at him, and Sehun watches little pieces of Baekhyun’s heart fall to the floor.

“Shut the fuck up,” Baekhyun says fiercely, and the makeup wipe hangs limp in his hand. “Don’t
be fucking cute. We’re nothing. You know we’re nothing. You always treated us like we were
nothing, so don’t get fucking cute about it now.” He hurriedly removes the rest of his makeup, his
skin shiny and red underneath, eyes bloodshot and teary. “I’m the sleeve you pay to fuck. That’s
what I’ve always been. Nothing more.”

Sehun has been stabbed before, back when he first got recruited. He was a weak little kid, didn’t
know up from down in that place. But they taught you quick. He would have bled out all over the
floor. But he’d paid attention in the first aid classes, did what they told him to do even as his hands
were shaking, even as the shock of it was setting in. It was fight or flight, and he didn’t know how
to fly yet, so he was forced to fight.

He wants to say What about yesterday? What about that? Didn’t that mean something to you? But
he doesn’t.

This—there is no difference. Apply pressure. Dress the wound. Get somewhere safe.

“Last time, I didn’t pay.”

It is, of course, the wrong thing to say, and it serves its purpose. Baekhyun reels back, an open
palm, and Sehun shuts his eyes, ready to be struck.

But it never happens, and Sehun opens his eyes.

“You hate yourself too much to let yourself be loved,” Baekhyun tells him, and he picks off the
press-ons one by one. “Get the fuck out of here.”

“Is that how you want it to be?” Sehun asks. “I told you I wanted to change. I was trying to
change.”

Baekhyun shoots him a look, disdainful, and he looks so weathered. Weary. And even still, even
after all of it, he still radiates beauty. Radiates light. Sehun can hardly believe someone so beautiful
exists outside of dreams.

“Yeah, you changed. Congratulations. But let’s not fake it anymore. It was fun to pretend, but
that’s all it was. Pretending. It’s never fucking mattered what I wanted.”

He turns, can’t look at his beautiful face any longer. I told you that I wanted you. I told you my
plans for us.

He wants to say something, something like Please don’t do this, please don’t send us back to that
place. I didn’t like it. I don’t like it. I want something real with you. But he doesn’t say anything
like that. Too battered, too bruised.

“Then don’t fucking call anymore,” Sehun says. “If we’re nothing, then we’re nothing.”

“Fine,” Baekhyun says, and he folds his arms across his chest, the long pink fingernails making
him look absolutely absurd. “Fine, we’re fucking nothing.”

Sehun wants to cross the room, take Baekhyun’s face in his hands, kiss him sweetly, softly. But
it’d just be sliding the knife back in, pulling it out once again. He’s a lot of things, but he isn’t
stupid.

He leaves, and the madam doesn’t even pay him any mind. Why would she? He already paid for
the night.

He does nothing. That probably sounds ridiculous, but for days on end, Sehun does nothing.

He barely gets out of bed.

Doesn’t clean himself up or get his hair cut or do much of anything. He goes to the gym
sometimes, but all he does is push himself forward on the treadmill until he has to run to the locker
room to throw up, empty an empty stomach. It’s nothing but spit and bile.

When he gets home, he falls into bed, barely eats. If he does eat, it’s food from the bodega on the
corner, and he eats it in his bed. Cups of noodles. Bags of chips. Gatorade. It is enough to sustain
him. Keep him living. The fresh food in his refrigerator all goes rotten, and he has to learn how to
deal with maggots.

He tries to sleep, but he can’t anymore, not without the pills. Even with them, he is sleeping an
hour, maybe two. He cannot live this way, he realizes. It’s simply unsustainable.

The Cartier timepiece sits on his counter, and it stares at Sehun like a terrible mirror. He cannot
take it back, cannot throw it away. He puts it in his safe. Hides it away until it can’t judge him any
longer.

There’s not much room left for him in this world, the spot for him shrinking with every day that
closes, black and empty of light.

He stares at his phone, willing it to light with a call from Baekhyun, but it doesn’t. He doesn’t call.
And Sehun doesn’t expect him to. They are not the type of people to yield. To bend. They’d rather
break.

On multiple occasions, he pulls up the text conversation with Baekhyun, types out what he's
thinking: I miss you. I'm sorry I let you push me away. I should have said what I wanted to say. I
should have told you that you're the only thing in this world that fucking matters to me. I should
have said that you are my everything, that there has never been anyone like you. Seeing you hurt
hurts me. I feel your pain like it is my own. I don't want you to hurt anymore. I don't like seeing you
hurt. Let me help you. Help me. All I ever wanted was you in my arms, and I regret so much, but I
don't regret anything with you.

In the end, he deletes it, all, finger pressed against the backspace key until all that is left is a
blinking cursor, strangely lonely on the screen.

There is nothing left when Baekhyun isn't in his life anymore, and after days of radio silence, he
picks back up where he left off. He opens his laptop. Pulls up stillshot.

The cold that lances through him, through his eyes and his mouth and his spine, is fervent and
undeniable. There is a blinking red icon by the envelope at the top of the page, and he hesitates
over it.

Swallowing thickly, the sudden sweat sticky in his palms, he clicks on the message box. He hasn’t
gotten a direct hire in… in years.

He didn’t know he could still feel terror. Didn’t know he still had that in him.

It is an S rank job, and the payment is spelled out for him there, right above all the rest of it.
150,000.

It is addressed to him in the same cold, unfeeling tone as all the rest.

049406089,

Pending job
Suggested completion date: ASAP
Target: Baekhyun Byun

The address of the Red House is listed below, and then, below that, a picture of Baekhyun. He
looks younger, much younger. Soft, round cheeks. Something beautiful and kind in his eyes.

They know Sehun won’t take it. They know he’d never do it.

They’ll send someone else. They’ll make it messy. They’ll make him find it. Maybe the mess has
already been made. It’s probably been up for days. They won’t wait around forever.

He’s seen messy before. He’s made messes before.

Acid rolls in his stomach, blood and guts. Please, he thinks. Not him.

He shuts his laptop. Gets his jacket. Gets his keys. Rides. Hopes to find Baekhyun still in one
piece, everything still attached.

When he gets to the Red House, he immediately walks past the desk. He can barely hear past the
blood rushing in his ears, the madam screeching at him as he makes his way up the stairs. She
follows close behind him, trying to pull him backwards, but she’s not exactly a threat. He shakes
her off, keeps walking.

Baekhyun’s room is shut, and the light is on, shining red. Sehun braces himself, tries the handle.
But the door is locked.

Standing back, ignoring the shouts of the madam, he eyes just near the handle before drawing back
and kicking in the door sharply, stepping through before pulling out the gun at his waist. Glock 19,
because he’s not fucking around today.

Baekhyun is on the bed, still clothed, and he sits up at the sound of the door being busted in.

“S-Sehun!” he says, eyes wide. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“Exactly what I was wondering,” the madam says, and she moves between them, arms folded.

Sehun shoves past her, addressing Baekhyun.

“We have to go.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” the madam tells him.

“I’ve got a fucking client in the bathroom,” Baekhyun says. “What are you fucking—”

“Shut the fuck up for a fucking second,” Sehun shouts.

“Get out,” the madam says, and she pulls out her phone. “Or I’ll call the police.”

He turns to the madam, and he raises his shirt, showing her the grip of the gun. “Go back
downstairs, lady.”

She does not wait around any longer, hurries from the room.

“She’s gonna call the police anyway,” Baekhyun says. “You’ve gotta fucking leave. He’s—”

“If he’s not out here now, he’s probably overdosed.”

“That’s not funny.”

“I’m not trying to be funny.” And he goes to the closet, grabs a bag, starts to throw some clothes
inside. “Hurry up. Get whatever you need. You’re coming with me.”

“No, I’m not,” Baekhyun says, and he comes behind Sehun, a hand on his shoulder. “Go home.”
Sehun spins. Drops the bag to the floor. Takes Baekhyun’s hands in his.

“I love you,” Sehun says suddenly, and Baekhyun’s eyes go wide. “Do you know that? I fucking
love you. You’re the only thing… I mean, you’re the only reason I keep going. You’re the only
thing that fucking matters in this life. I never say it, but fuck, Baekhyun… you know, right? You
always knew? That I loved you. Because I do. You’re the only person I’ve ever loved.”

“I—,” Baekhyun says, and tears sit in his eyes before he wipes them away with the back of his
hand. “What does that matter?”

“Do you love me?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Baekhyun says, and he looks nervously towards the bathroom door. “He’s
gonna come out any minute.”

“Fuck him,” Sehun says, and he pulls Baekhyun into a kiss, a grinding, halting kiss that feels like it
could stretch on forever if they let it. “Tell me you love me.”

“Sehun.”

“Say it,” Sehun says. “Because you know it’s true.”

Baekhyun stomps his foot, bites his lip.

“I—I love you,” he says. “You know I love you, but—”

Sehun kisses him again, and Baekhyun groans, their bodies tight against each other’s. How did he
spend so long denying this to himself? How did he tell himself this wasn’t real? He can barely
remember that person he was, the person from so long ago.

When he pulls back, Baekhyun’s mouth is red, his eyes starry. Sehun does not resist the urge to kiss
him again, chaste kisses over his lips, his cheeks, his forehead.

“Stop, stop,” Baekhyun laughs. “What are you doing?”

“Trying to get you to come with me. I’ll do whatever it is I have to. Whatever you want me to do.”

"Sehun, I can't, I—"

"You can," Sehun says. "You have to."

"Sehun."

“I’ve been saving money all my life,” Sehun says. “Every job. I put money away. I never knew
what the fuck I was saving for. I know now. I’ve always been saving up for you. Waiting for you.
And once I… once I met you, it’s like I knew. It fucking hit me. I never wanted to get too close
because I knew that it’d be the end of this job for me. And it’s all I know how to do. It’s all I know
how to be.”

"Sehun, you… you don't need me," Baekhyun says.

"Yes, I do." He holds Baekhyun's hands in his. "You're the only thing I need. And I'll explain
everything if you just come with me. If you just… if you just trust me. Do you trust me?"

Tears drip down Baekhyun's face, and he nods, and that… that is the beginning of them.
 ☠

He explains as he goes, but when he brings Baekhyun home, he isn’t sure where to go from there.

“What the fuck do you mean?” Baekhyun says. “You don’t have a plan?”

“I’ve never done this sort of thing before,” Sehun says. “How am I supposed to have a plan?”

“I’m a damsel in distress!” Baekhyun says. “You’re supposed to be rescuing me!”

“Right.” Sehun immediately goes to the bedroom, gets his big duffel bag out of the closet.
Baekhyun does not follow, so Sehun turns back, bag in hand, shouts to him. “Um. There’s beer in
the fridge.”

Baekhyun then sticks his head into the room. “Beer?”

“Uh, I think there’s...some water too.”

“What if I’m hungry, huh?” Baekhyun says. “Aren’t you gonna provide for me?”

“Um, yes,” Sehun says, and he can feel his brain frying as he struggles to formulate thoughts more
coherent than Go, now. “Just give me a second to think.”

He doesn’t wait a second longer, sliding the mirror to the side sharply and keying in the code to the
door. It ticks open, he steps inside, loads a couple guns, a couple knives, tons of ammo into the
bottom of the bag. He then unlocks the safe, grabs all the contents and lays it on top of the
weapons.

The Cartier watch stares up at him, and Sehun smiles down at it, thinks Soon. Eventually. He
covers it up with stacks upon stacks of bills. He walks out of the closet, back to the bed, and he
throws the bag down, crossing back to his chest of drawers.

Sehun grabs whatever clothes he touches, stuffs them in. Shuts the bag with a huff. And then he
sees Baekhyun leaning into the closet, staring at the walls of weapons.

“Be careful,” Sehun says.

“I’m not gonna poke my eye out.” He looks around. “Holy shit. This is insane.”

“Yeah.” And then he realizes he’s gotta get rid of all that. “Shit, I’ll… I’ll text Kyungsoo.”

Quickly, he figures out a plan. He can get fake passports, fake birth certificates. He can get fake
identities. And Kyungsoo can take care of the condo if Sehun wires him enough money. What else
is there—a destination?

“Where do you want to go?” Sehun asks, and his fingers fly across his phone keyboard.

“What?”

“Where do you want to go?” Sehun repeats.

“Uh, I dunno?”

“Pick somewhere. Pick it fast.”

“I can’t think on the spot like this,” Baekhyun says, and he stomps his foot a little.
“Think quick, or we get murdered here,” Sehun says. “Your pick.”

“Greece!” Baekhyun quickly says.

“Go get the laptop. Coffee table next to the couch. Two tickets, one-way. As soon as humanly
fucking possible.”

Baekhyun hurriedly scampers from the room, and Sehun's fingers shake as he taps his phone until
he's open to his text conversation with Kyungsoo.

Soo, I have a favor to ask of you, he writes, and Kyungsoo, thankfully, responds immediately.

all you do is ask for favors, Kyungsoo says. this better be worth it.

Sehun looks out from the bedroom when Baekhyun calls his name sharply.

"JFK to Athens!" he shouts. "Three hours from now."

Yeah, Sehun thinks. This is worth it.

Kyungsoo arrives, assesses the situation, and stares at Sehun’s bag.

“You can’t go to the airport with weapons,” he says.

“I’ll ditch them before I get there.”

“Course you got a plan.” Kyungsoo crushes Sehun into a hug. “I better get my money, bitch.” And
Sehun can’t help but share in his laughter.

“You will,” Sehun says. “Promise.”

Kyungsoo pats Sehun on the cheek as he lets him go, turning to Baekhyun. “Take care of him,
huh?” He looks at Sehun again. “He’s a good kid.”

“Yeah, I know,” Baekhyun says, and Kyungsoo shoos the pair of them from the condo.

They leave it behind, and they get on Sehun’s bike. Baekhyun shivers as he holds onto Sehun’s
waist.

“It’s gonna be okay,” Sehun says, and he revs the engine. Takes off.

He can barely hear Baekhyun’s answer, but he’s listening for it, so he doesn’t miss it.

“What if they’re coming for us?” He squeezes around Sehun tightly. “What if they get
Kyungsoo?”

“They won’t. They’re not coming for him. They want me. They want you.”

They drive, and Sehun weaves in and out of traffic, flagrant in his ignorance of the laws, and
Baekhyun holds on. For a while, it feels like they are free, like they’re finally free, but just as
they’re passing the gardens, a shock of breath gasps from Baekhyun’s chest.

“Sehun, Sehun.”
Quickly, Sehun swerves, and a loud gunshot explodes through the air, narrowly missing them.

When he looks to his left, there is a car, back window rolled down, the barrel of a gun pointed
directly at him. Ice through his throat, beaded up like tears in his eyes.

“Fuck,” Sehun mutters, and he looks at his narrowly shrinking options, time slowing around him as
he swerves again, this time onto 495.

“Where are we going?” Baekhyun asks, and there is so much fear in his voice, Sehun wants to take
it all away.

“Just a little detour,” Sehun tells him. “It’s okay. We’re gonna be fine.”

“Are you fucking sure?”

It wouldn’t help to tell him the truth, to tell him that he isn’t sure, that this isn’t exactly going to
plan, so he just nods. If he needs to be sure, he’s sure. He’ll do whatever he has to do to protect the
only thing worth protecting.

He does not hear a second gunshot, and looking back, they seem to have lost them, screaming
down the highway, the wind in his hair. He doesn’t look back, just drives, moving in and out of the
traffic that sits in front of them, but luckily, it’s moving, everyone’s moving, and he can keep
driving.

But then—

“Baby,” Baekhyun says, and he’s thumping Sehun on the shoulder wildly, screaming in Sehun’s
ear. “Baby.”

Sehun pulls as far back on the gas as he can, thrusting them forward, and they cut through the cars
faster and faster, the chase injecting him with adrenaline. He breathes heavily as he drives, pulse
thumping in his neck, blood in his ears. He can hear Baekhyun’s whines, can feel him moving to
look, keeping an eye on the car that tries to maneuver behind them.

“Where are we fucking going?” Baekhyun asks. “JFK is—”

“We’re not going to JFK right now.”

He pulls off into Brooklyn Heights, and he is humming through the streets, trying to lose them, but
they tail them expertly. It is clear they don’t want collateral damage, so Sehun keeps hopping
between cars, doesn’t let them get anything close to a clean shot. All he needs is a fucking chance.
All he needs is a place to unpack.

They’ve got a twenty, twenty-five second gap between them as they pull around back of the Red
Hook Grain Terminal, an abandoned grain elevator that looks like it holds a thousand ghosts.
What’s a few more?

The building is closed off, large concrete boulders blocking nearly all entrances, the doors locked
shut. Sehun didn’t have enough foresight for the bolt-cutters, so he brings Baekhyun around to the
side next to the water, a crumbling bit fallen down, letting them inside. They have to cling to the
rubble to hoist themselves up and in, and Baekhyun follows close behind him.

The walls are rusted-red and white inside the first floor, the building huge and utterly quiet, and it
looks like stains of blood as they move through. He came here, once, back when he first started.
He wanted somewhere no one would find him. Wanted somewhere with no loose ends.
He navigates through the halls, around the huge grain tubes that crawl up to the top of the building.
It is covered in bird shit, in brown rust, and he gets them up to the second floor before he decides it
is now, now or never. He finds cover, pulls Baekhyun to it.

“You need to stay down, okay?” Sehun says. “Keep out of sight. Don’t come out until I call you,
okay? Don’t come until I call your name.”

“Sehun, I—”

“Don’t fucking argue with me,” Sehun says, and he crushes his lips to Baekhyun’s before he
pushes him down behind a large boulder of concrete. “Keep quiet. Cover your mouth.”

Baekhyun nods, a hand over his mouth, and Sehun throws the bag to the ground, parts all the
fuckin’ money, the watch, all the shit he’s foolishly kept, and grabs the Glock 19, loads it, loads as
many magazines as he can, stuffs his pockets with two before he hears the sound of men.

He hears them approaching, tries to listen for the number of voices. Five. Five. Is that it? He’s
done hundreds. He can do five.

“Stay down,” Sehun whispers, a reminder. “I love you.”

“I love you,” Baekhyun frantically whispers through spread fingers, closing them soon after the
words escape him.

Sehun crouches low, and he makes his way to another bit of cover, peeking up over the large metal
pipe as the men, five in number, crowd into the room.

“Come out, come out wherever you are,” one catcalls, and Sehun is quiet as he aims. The man
laughs, an ugly smile. “Fucking faggots.”

He could go for more than one, but he’s afraid that the movement will draw their eye. One. Don’t
get greedy. Don’t get careless. Don’t fucking miss.

He’s never missed.

The bullet goes through the asshole’s head, paints the walls with him, and Sehun makes a tally as
the rest of the men scatter for cover. Four. He can do four. He’s done hundreds more than four.

He looks over, and he sees Baekhyun watching him, hand plastered over his mouth. There is so
much fear in his eyes. Sehun will take that fear away. Sehun will put the love back where it
belongs.

Bullets spray the block of concrete, and Sehun looks, sees one of them with an AK-47, waving it
from side to side like he’s in a fucking mafia movie. He doesn’t spray the thing for long because
Sehun aims, fires.

Blood spurts from his neck, and quickly, Sehun fires again, a headshot this time, and the man with
the AK falls. Three. But—

“There!” one says, and he points in Sehun’s general area. Shit.

He waits, doesn’t move, and when he doesn’t hear the sound of movement, he gets nervous. Don’t
panic. Don’t falter. You’re smarter. You’re better at this.

He stays patient, creeps to the side as one finally approaches him. He does not move, doesn’t even
breathe, and when the man looks over the pipe, he doesn’t even get the chance to blink before
Sehun shoots him dead, two in his head. He turns sharply, the other moving quick to close in, but
he moves quicker. He stands, knocks the man’s arm to the side as he shoots. Sehun puts four
through him. Three. Two.

One.

Sehun runs as the only man left catches a glimpse at him, and the man starts to shoot, a trail
chasing along the concrete floor, bullet holes littering the place like pores. Sehun loses him in the
chase, searches for a spot that’s safe. He catches his breath, focuses. One. It’s just one. Just one.

He reorients himself, searching for Baekhyun, searching for the boulder, and finally he spots it,
sees Baekhyun crouched behind it, mouth covered, just like Sehun told him to.

But then, he sees the man.

He wasn’t looking for Sehun. He stands ten feet away from the boulder, gun poised to shoot.
Remove the fucking rock, and he’s aiming directly at Baekhyun’s head.

“No!”

The scream is ripped out of him, and the man turns, makes eye contact for a fucking fraction of a
second, just enough time for Baekhyun to hurry out of sight, ducking behind a wall, before the man
unloads into the concrete. All that Sehun can track is Baekhyun’s movement, that he’s alive. That’s
all. Nothing more. That’s because the man turns the pistol on him.

Sehun gets up and runs, turning his gun back at him. He’s only got three mags left, and he unloads
one as he runs backwards, trying to dissuade the man from following, but this man is better than
the rest, smarter than them, and Sehun has to duck behind another metal pipe to load another mag.

The man has the higher ground, chases after Sehun, and Sehun tries to look for Baekhyun, tries to
get between him and the man, but he is nowhere to be seen. Sehun furiously shoots when he hears
the huffing of the man’s breath, penetrates pipes before listening to the sound of movement. What
if it’s Baekhyun? What if Baekhyun is the one running?

Sehun stands, and he shouts.

“Get out of here,” he screams. “Run!”

It draws the man out, and Sehun fucking unloads, one quick round, seventeen furious shots as he
prays to whatever God exists that one hits. But God is dead, and none of them hit, and he runs as
he changes the clip, the other thrown to the ground. He’s got one left, and once he gets to a good
spot, he fucking brings hellfire down behind him.

He stands up straight, hopes to see a corpse in front of him, but no, the man stares at him from a
crouch, smiling up at him like the grim reaper. Sehun draws quick.

He lost count.

There is a clicking sound when he trains the pistol at the man’s head, and Sehun panics, dirty water
in his mouth as the man grins, and he shoots just as Sehun ducks out of the way, the bullet
ricocheting off the metal pipe over head before hitting the concrete, spraying sparks. Sehun turns,
runs, sprints back to where he left the bag. If he could just grab another gun. If he could just find a
fucking knife. If he just…
If he just—

When he rounds the corner, tries to find Baekhyun, find another gun, find more bullets, he sees
nothing. No Baekhyun. No bag. Good, he thinks. Get out of here.

“Gotcha.”

Sehun stands too late, reacts too late, and the man shoves him hard, the gun pointed at his throat.

He falls back to the floor, and he stares up at the man.

It’s over.

He is dead. He is dying, he closes his eyes on the man’s smile, his gun aimed at Sehun’s head, and
he hopes to God that Baekhyun’s already escaped, took the money and fuckin’ ran. He closes his
eyes, imagining it. There is a strange peace that overcomes him in that final moment, dreaming of
Baekhyun happy, smiling, on a beach somewhere, and then—

Bang.

Bang.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

Bang. Click. Click, click. Click. The clip unloaded.

A hellish scream, guttural and primal, one Sehun is surprised to hear.

He opens his eyes.

Baekhyun is standing there over him, tears in his eyes, tiny hands wrapped around the fucking
Boberg XR9-S, the smallest gun Sehun owns.

There is a moment of silence, tense. Baekhyun saved his life. Shot someone. Shot someone for him.
So that he might live.

With a full-body shudder, Baekhyun erupts into tears.

“You didn’t call my name,” Baekhyun whines, and he tosses the gun to the side, crashes down on
top of Sehun, peppering kisses to his face, whimpering as he turns Sehun from side to side as if
checking for damage. “I was waiting and waiting, and you never called for me.”

“I wanted you to leave,” Sehun says. “I didn’t want you to get hurt.”

“If I didn’t have you, I’d—”

He shakes his head, wiping the tracks of tears away from his face, away from where they land on
Sehun’s skin.

“You got me,” Sehun whispers. “You got me.”

They lay there for longer than they should, wasting time that they don’t have.

“I love you,” Sehun says, and he hugs Baekhyun to his chest. “I love you so much, I’m so sorry.”

Baekhyun pulls back, and he kisses Sehun fiercely, setting suns dipping down under the line of the
horizon as Sehun shuts his eyes. There is so much love here, there’s always been so much love
here. Endless amounts, uncountable, unable to be measured.

“I love you,” Baekhyun says, and he kisses Sehun again. “I love you.”

“I love you.”

“I love you. Now come the fuck on,” Baekhyun says with a teary smile, pulling Sehun up by the
hand. He goes to the bag, shove everything back inside. “We’re gonna miss our flight if we don’t
get on fuckin’ 278.”

They dump the guns into the bay before they get back onto the bike.

Baekhyun’s right. They have a plane to catch.

[+784 days]

Baekhyun’s favorite drink is a Mai Tai, and he does not let Sehun forget it.

They do not stay in one place for long now, but that suits them just fine. For so long, they were
stuck. Now, they can move. And so they never stop.

They stay in Mongolia, in a lodge only accessible by an hour-long propeller plane ride, followed
by an hour and a half drive up the winding dirt road. They stay in a traditional nomadic tent, sleep
on a handmade wooden bed, the interior of the tent richly red and warmly inviting. The ceilings
open, and at night they gaze upon the stars, trying to name all the constellations they know.

They stay in a windmill in Portugal, out in the middle of nowhere. There is beauty all around them,
beaches and forests and villages. Crystal clear waters. Thick thatches of cork trees. They drink
floral tea. They read trashy books that Baekhyun picks up at the airport. They curl up together on
the couch, hold each other until dawn comes.

They travel through the Netherlands, and Sehun makes withdrawals in person from all his
accounts, closing them for good. They stop in Germany, and they buy an apartment in Munich.
They eat Bavarian beef fillet, served with grilled potatoes and a parsnip puree, and when they
toast, it is with a Rioja, glasses filled with the deep red wine, and it is over their sweet dessert, a
white chocolate mousse with cherries.

Baekhyun then asks for somewhere warm, so Sehun gets him an apartment in Palermo, something
low-key and chic. Baekhyun steals a pack of Sehun’s cigarettes, poses for pictures with one
dangling from his lips, and he prints out the pictures at a little digital print shop around the corner.
He looks silly, ridiculously beautiful, and he glows in the summer sun. He throws Sehun’s
cigarettes into the sea, and Sehun never looks back.

They go anywhere they want. Develop little lives wherever they want, whenever they want.
Baekhyun’s never looked so happy, working in convenience stores for practically no money. Sehun
tells him he doesn’t need to, but Baekhyun says he does it because he gets bored sometimes. Just
wants something to keep his hands busy.

“Hey,” Baekhyun says, and he flips over, staring at Sehun. He reaches up, makes grabby hands for
the Mai Tai in Sehun’s hands. “Gimme.”
 The sun glints off the watch, and Sehun smiles as he looks down at Baekhyun, the love of his life,
looks at the way his body has changed since they left. Softer. Fuller. It mirrors his own body, less
cut, more… full. The both of them… happy. Bursting with it.

Sehun steps forward, the sand between his toes, and he hands Baekhyun the drink, happy with the
way he sips at it carefully.

“Good?” Sehun asks.

“God,” Baekhyun says, taking another sip, “so good. We gotta come back next summer.”

“We’ll put it back on the list,” Sehun says, and he sits on the beach chair beside Baekhyun, who
watches out over the water as he works through the first third of his drink.

He, too, stares out at the horizon, where blue meets blue, and he wonders how he got so lucky.
How he managed to make it out alive. And with the love of his life, no less.

“You ever think about going home?” Baekhyun asks, and he rubs his shoulder against Sehun’s leg
from where he sits.

“Home?”

Baekhyun looks up at Sehun with those same sparkling brown eyes that look even more beautiful
shining in the summer sun. “Yeah,” he says. “Home.”

“Nah,” Sehun says. “I don’t think about home at all.”

Baekhyun leans his head onto Sehun’s knee, and Sehun can feel the smile.

“Good,” Baekhyun says. “I don’t either.”

New York was never home. Not really. He doesn’t need to tell anyone where home really is. He
doesn’t even need to think it. Everyone who matters already knows.

End Notes

i sincerely hope you enjoyed the story, even though it is obviously a challenging one with
troubling topics. thank you so much for reading!

my twitter | my curiouscat

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