heaven and hell

and now chanyeol is speaking, and yixing is listening, and he is storing this away somewhere important things are kept.

“eulsa,” he answers after, “but i think i’ve lived in every city.”

“she’s... i dunno? the typical rich, conservative mom of a gay, mutant son?” laughs again, but he knows it isn’t funny. “she wasn’t the worst, she wasn’t the best. she’s just... my mom.” chanyeol shrugs. 

it isn’t that it’s hard for him to talk about this, but it isn’t easy either. 

“she’s upset that you’re a mutant, too, and even more upset that you’re man, but she’s willing to look past it for the sake of familiar relations which really means that she doesn’t want it leaking to the press that the park family is fighting— again.” he feels like he’s rambling, so he gives a tiny smile, more to convince himself than his lover that he isn’t bitter about it. 

he cocks his head to the side, tracing yixings face with his eyes. 

he nods. 

“if you do,” he says, “i can tell you all about me,” because he still knows where he’s written, where his whereabouts are stored, his why’s and how’s,

“and i want to know all about you,” he continues, “since you’re my forever and all.”

scratching his head, chanyeol tries to find the beginning.

he realizes it's very hard to find one.

"let's play a game," he suggests, smiling again, looking for all its worth like the child he is at heart. "you ask me something you want to know, we'll both answer it, and then it's my turn to ask you something i want to know."

this, he thinks, will be easier than beginnings.

but the quiet remains as quiet as it is, and once again yixing feels utterly disappointed in the universe of himself.

“i mean… we talk now, right? about … what we need to buy, and what we need to do and, things we— …

i know we didn’t used to much,” he cuts off and trails away, thinking to bathtubs, shower, water, abandoned buildings, rooftops, earthquakes,

“but we do now, don’t we?

chanyeol isn't sure how to talk about this.

ha. talk about communication.

"do you.... i mean, do you mean real communication? like," chanyeol scratches his neck again, dropping his head back against the couch cushions.

he wonders if their ceiling always looked like this.

"i barely even know where you come from. i've never introduced you to my mom." he laughs, "i tried to propose to you and instead we got a turtle."

realizing it's not very funny at all, he stops laughing.

its a calm day by comparison to any other, and it finds yixing with every nerve set an inch away from the edge. its a few minutes past lunch, and he is yet to smell of baby barf; he thinks this is an achievement.

and it finds chanyeol on the couch, and yixing the young lover he was when they first met; looking and unable to tear his gaze away.

“chanyeol,” he plops down on the couch beside him, quiet still to keep the child sleeping; always looking with all the love in the world, blinking wide brown eyes, fluttering long lashes; folding his legs up on the couch and looping both arms around one of his lover’s. “we communicate, right?”

mundane is ripped away from him as soon as yixing lays eyes on him without laying the rest of his body on him as well.

it's so rare that they spend meis nap time as anything other than their sex time.

"communicate?" chanyeol repeats dumbly, dog earring his book and sitting it beside him.

that's a hard question and chanyeol is unsure how to answer it. he isn't worried about a fight, because they are generally easy-going, but he doesn't want faraway stares for the next few days. mei is teething, and they need to be as united as they can be for the next few months.

do they communicate? chanyeol isn't sure. on one hand, chanyeol could write a novel about yixings favorite foods, locations, kinks, and television shows but he knows he would fall short if it came to his home life, his childhood memories. chanyeol knows how yixing feels about many things, but not because yixing told him.

the last time chanyeol tried to propose, they didnt talk about it. they adopted a turtle.

mango is a great guy, but chanyeol thinks that might be indicative.

"uh," he says, scratching his neck in that tell-tale way that shows his nerves, "i guess it depends on what you mean by communicating?"

anything? (/asks because he’s confused, but then he gets it and he laughs, scratching his head, and leaning back on the couch. he’s a little nervous bc this is the first time anyone aside from himself and yixing have held her, and he’s afraid she’ll panic or, god, even worse, hyoyeon will panic) 

uh, no i don’t think so? (/he leans forward, elbows on his knees, and makes a motion with his hands that is a failsafe to make the little one laugh) but mutant babies show signs so differently. 

i didn’t start showing until i was seven- and even then, my true mutation didn’t surface until i was twenty-one. (/shrugs, and tickles her foot, leaving mei to giggle and shove her fist in her mouth) isn’t that right mei monkey? (/glances up at hyoyeon and then looks back at mei, who’s looking around with impossibly large eyes) 

i don’t know. ( ` and he means it, and it’s not much vanity, because he thinks when chanyeol says hot he means the temperature of his skin because it’s always like this when he’s with him; always yixing never being able to grasp that a human body can heat up so much without simultaneously combusting. he always finds it impossible that his temperature can rise so high and his skin can stay in tact at the same time. 

(but impossible is such a big word, because yesterday he was on the edge of a cliff and yesterday chanyeol was bleeding on the floor and yesterday chanyeol bought this house and today they are in love, and there is a child in the room down the hall breathing to the pace of their heartbeats.)

so he grasps at locks of chanyeol’s tangled hair for answers, urging him on with a soft sound rolling off his lips and the hardness in his jeans becoming obvious. and yixing doesn’t last long, doesn’t last long holding his hands in place—as if to scratch an itch that badly needs to be scratched, he reaches down to unbutton his jeans, and unzip, and pull down. relief comes but it is spared by the material of undergarments, although yixing relishes in the temporary comfort; already distracted by the serious pull of lust, and the intense need to love, and to kiss chanyeol again, forgetting the guilt he’d felt for doing something so obscene with something so innocent not too far.

( ` the day starts with a heartbeat. yixing waking up first and staring into the air for a moment, as he does when he comes to—not for a single second forgetting exactly what day it is.

the most special of days. one he is very thankful for. one he doesn’t know how to live without. and he is staring at chanyeol’s peaceful, sleeping face for a moment, and at the ring on his finger, or just his hand, his even breathing,

(/groggy, and barely awake, chanyeols fingers wrap around yixings, eyes shut but the ghost of a smile on his lips) 

kissing up, his cheek, his temple, bent low over him, the tips of their noses touching, the air sweet with the mess of spilling lust and open love; 

(/the kiss is searing in the cool of the room, and chanyeol laughs breathlessly before he repeats yixings actions, sitting up and kissing down his neck, his collarbones, his chest)