[KPOP RPS] one shot: Sometimes, sometimes it’s like I’m standing still {exo}
Title: Sometimes, sometimes it’s like I’m standing still
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Kris/Chanyeol
Word count: 6, 819
A/N: Written for
hoaegi for the 
sncj_santa
Summary: “Is this the year 2030?” The Stranger asked in lightly accented Korean.
What?
Chanyeol just blinked at him, not quite processing the question. The words he understood…the question not so much
Chanyeol was convinced the librarian was out to get him. She was always there, lurking just out of his line of sight, skulking in the shadows of the stacks, waiting for him. Waiting for him to make too loud a noise, waiting for him to drop a book, which wasn’t really fair because that last time wasn’t his fault and he totally didn’t knock that bookshelf over. He had been in front of it not behind it, and it had almost crushed him, not that the old bat cared about that.
Chanyeol was pretty sure this old place was haunted, but no one would listen to his theory. Not even Jongin and that guy loved conspiracy theories.
No one believed him about the flash of blue light that followed the crash down. Apparently no one else saw it but him and he had just been brained by a (really fucking heavy) book. And no one believed him about the hand Chanyeol had felt on his ass. Apparently Chanyeol’s imaginary ghost was also a pervert. Of course it was.
He couldn’t see Mrs Kim right now, but he could feel her eyes on him, her gaze hot and heavy…and so not in a good way.
He had tried to talk to Baekhyun about just how out to get him the librarian was. But Baekhyun had chalked it up to Chanyeol being over tired and paranoid. Baekhyun was probably right, mainly because Baekhyun was always right. It was like some kind of law or something.
Stupid Baekhyun.
Chanyeol groused and grumbled as he stood up. He stretched and felt something in his spine pop, letting him know that he had been sitting too still for too long. He pushed his chair back away from the table wincing as it scraped over the wood floor, the sound seeming to echo through the stacks. He whirled around, half expecting the librarian to jump out from behind a bookshelf and shhhh him. But all he got were a few annoyed glares from the people sitting closest to him, he was pretty sure that someone even tsked at him. Rude much? It was probably Jongdae, it sounded like his tsk.
Chanyeol blinked owlishly as he looked around the room, seeing the gentle thrum of usual daily activity but not really taking any of it in. His vision was slightly fuzzy from having been staring at his books for too long, his eyeballs felt dry and gritty, like he’d spent the last few hours rubbing them with sandpaper instead of studying. He rubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands but if anything that just made them feel worse. He moved away from the table he’d been camped out at, staggering slightly as he bumped and weaved his way around the chairs. He earned himself a few more glares and the person who tsked him (Jongdae) tsked him again, but the librarian wasn’t shhhh’ing the tsking guy now was she.
He was tired, too tired, he had been in the library all day and he hadn’t got as much done as he felt he should have. His head just hadn’t been in it, his mind too full of other things. He knew he should take a break, a real one, one that involved actually putting down his books and leaving the library and going to that outside place. But one look at the rain outside dispelled that idea before it could really take hold of him. Something about the soft patter of the rain drops on the glass made him uneasy, he never liked the rain but he couldn’t quite remember why. Best to stay in the warm safety of the library, stay with his books.
He walked through the stacks, looking at the book spines but not picking any of them up from the shelves. He walked to the back of the library where the lights were dimmer and the shadows thick and the silence heavy. He had the strange feeling of being watched and he looked over his shoulder, half expecting the librarian to jump out and demand to know what he was doing back here and who he was doing it with. One time, he got caught making out with an exchange student in the back stacks one time…and it was totally Baekhyun’s fault too. Even though Baekhyun hadn’t been there at the time, it was still totally all his fault.
Stupid Baekhyun.
“Hello?” He heard someone say softly in English. Chanyeol whirled around, he moved a little too fast and he flailed his arms out trying to catch himself before he tripped over his own feet. His heart hammered in his chest, beating so hard that he was sure everyone in the library, hell everyone in the whole school, could hear it. But there was no one there. He had been sure he had heard a voice; sure he had heard someone behind him. But there was no one there. There was no one back here with him, it was just him and the shadows…and one shadow appeared to be moving.
“I knew this place was haunted.” Chanyeol muttered as he tried to calm his frantic heartbeat. Though Chanyeol couldn’t think why the ghost would be speaking English, maybe it was the ghost of a Western exchange student…? Yeah, maybe he didn’t really want to find out. Slowly, very slowly he turned around and started to head back to the front of the library where there was people and bright lights and no such thing as ghosts. He was going to get back to his table, gather his books and leave to go find Baekhyun and maybe go and get drunk. That would be nice.
He was so caught up in getting out of there and away from whatever was behind him that he wasn’t paying any attention to what was in front of him. So it came as a bit of a shock when he collided with a solid wall of muscle. He fell back, landing hard on his butt.
“Oh, owwww,” He moaned as he tried to stagger to his feet. The man mountain that Chanyeol had just crashed into must have bent down to help at the same time that Chanyeol tried to push himself up from the floor…he must have done, because that is the only explanation Chanyeol could think of for head butting the guy in the crotch. Head butting him hard.
“Oh, oh my god I am so sor…” Chanyeol never finished the sentence. His words of apology died on his lips when he looked up and saw just whose crotch he had assaulted. Chanyeol didn’t recognise him, and he knew most of the people at the university at least by sight—at least those who lived in the library the way Chanyeol did. Though Chanyeol was pretty sure that if he had seen this guy around campus at any time he would have most definitely remembered him. Mainly because he would have a starring role in Chanyeol’s wet dreams.
Weird, Chanyeol didn’t realize he had a Star trek fetish until right now.
He scooted back and away from the man, who was almost doubled up in pain. This time he managed to stand without either of them getting hurt. Again. Chanyeol wanted to reach out to try and help the handsome stranger in the tight, tight space age body suit, but he wasn’t sure what help he would give, or how he would even help at all. Chanyeol’s eyes watered in sympathy as the stranger stood up straight again, wincing as he did so. Chanyeol was pleasantly surprised to find that he had to look up slightly to look the man in the eyes; there weren’t many people who were taller than him. The stranger’s eyes were dark and serious and so intense that Chanyeol had to take a step back and away, try to put some distance between before Chanyeol did something epically stupid like leap into the man’s arms and kiss him.
That would be awkward.
It took a few long seconds for Chanyeol to realize that the stranger was speaking to him. His mouth was moving and sounds were coming out, but Chanyeol was still reeling with embarrassment and didn’t immediately register the words. It took him even longer to realize that the words weren’t even Korean. The stranger was speaking Mandarin. His voice was deep, a low rumble that spoke straight to Chanyeol’s dick. Stupid thing always did have a mind of its own.
Chanyeol could speak precisely one sentence in Mandarin, something the Chinese exchange student had taught him, he was pretty sure that it would be wildly inappropriate for this situation though.
“Uhhhh.” Chanyeol said. “I don’t understand.”
The stranger cocked his head to the side and looked at Chanyeol with an expression Chanyeol couldn’t quite read. Confusion? Derision? Chanyeol had the feeling he was being studied like a specimen under a microscope, and the stranger wasn’t sure how to classify what he was seeing.
“Is this the year 2030?” The Stranger asked in lightly accented Korean.
What?
Chanyeol just blinked at him, not quite processing the question. The words he understood…the question not so much
“Uh, w…what?”
“Is this the year 2030?”
“Yeah, that’s what I was afraid you said.” Chanyeol sighed heavily, why were all the hot ones bat shit insane? “No, it’s 2012.”
“It didn’t work.” The stranger said, the disappointment in his voice was so palpable that Chanyeol had the urge to offer some comfort, a touch, a smile, kiss the sadness away. But he didn’t, because he didn’t need another crazy guy in his life. “I will have to try again.” The stranger continued and with that he turned and started walking away back to the rear of the library. Chanyeol had to admit that the back view was just as inspiring as the front—that was an ass that was made for spandex. Chanyeol fought back the urge to call the guy back and ask what it was that hadn’t worked, but he didn’t have the time or energy to feed into the guy’s delusion.
Chanyeol really, really needed to get laid.
He watched the gorgeous crazy man walk away, Chanyeol was certain that he never took his eyes off the man, he hadn’t even blinked, but suddenly the guy wasn’t there anymore. He was just gone. Poof. Gone.
Chanyeol had to wonder if he wasn’t the one who had gone bat shit insane. He had to have gone bat shit insane because he didn’t just see that flash of blue light. He didn’t.
He didn’t.
“Weird.” Chanyeol muttered to himself as he turned back to his table. He was going to collect his things and leave, the rain be damned. He needed a break…and possibly a psych test, that guy was pretty solid for a hallucination.
As he left he had the strange feeling he was being watched again. He looked around but no one seemed to be paying any attention to him. Even the librarian was busy dealing with someone else so it wasn’t her evil gaze he could feel on him. Chanyeol shuddered; this was turning out to be a creepy afternoon.
||
Baekhyun’s idea of cheering him up was to drag him to Noreabang. But that was pretty much Baekhyun’s solution for any problem. Not that Chanyeol actually told Baekhyun why he needed cheering up, Chanyeol didn’t even know exactly why he needed cheering up. Baekhyun just took one look at the downcast expression that Chanyeol could do nothing to hide and dragged him to Noreabang. Chanyeol didn’t mind too much, Baekhyun loved to sing and Chanyeol liked to hear him. It was pretty much win/win. Except for tonight, tonight Chanyeol’s thoughts were full of cute guys in tight spandex space suits who thought they were from a different year.
The darkness of the Noreabang booth fit his mood; the bright swirls of the strobe lights were probably going to give him a headache later but right now he didn’t much care. He stared down the neck of his beer bottle like it held all of life’s answers, maybe it did, Chanyeol didn’t really know anymore.
“What’s wrong with you?” Jongin asked, nudging Chanyeol in the ribs to get him to move over even though there was more than enough room on the bench seat.
“Nothing.” Chanyeol said moodily, not looking up and not moving over.
“Good, because I have problems. Look at me.”
Chanyeol turned his body slightly to the side and looked over at Jongin, it was hard to make out Jongin’s exact expression but Chanyeol thought he looked a little constipated.
“Is your problem that you are constipated? Because you look constipated and I can’t help you with that.”
“No, idiot.” Jongin nudged him in the ribs again, harder this time. “No, this is my concerned face. I am trying to look concerned and sympathetic, is it working?”
“No, not really.” Chanyeol said.
“Dammit, I thought I almost had it that time.” Jongin smashed his fist down on the table, almost tipping Chanyeol’s beer over. Jongin caught the bottle before it fell and took a long drink of it before Chanyeol snatched it back.
“Get your own, oh wait, you’re not old enough to drink.”
“That hurts, Hyung.” Jongin said, clutching at his chest in dramatic fashion. “Do I really look constipated?”
“Yes, you do.” Baekhyun said shoving a binder under Chanyeol’s nose. “Pick a song for me, I can’t decide.”
Chanyeol took the binder and started to flip through the song choices but not really looking at them. He was dimly aware of Baekhyun and Jongin bickering but he didn’t pay them much attention until he heard the name of his most recent boyfriend mentioned. Ok, so Lu Han wasn’t exactly a boyfriend, a few fumbled hand jobs don’t for a relationship make.
“What’s that about Lu Han?” Chanyeol asked, though he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
“Oh,” Baekhyun said with a sniff. “He was dating the object of our Jongin’s affection, but they broke up. Now Jongin is going to try and comfort Sehun in order to get into his pants.”
“Is it working?”
“Not so far.” Jongin muttered.
“Sucks to be you. Chanyeol-ah have you picked me a song yet?”
Chanyeol hadn’t, he closed his eyes and stabbed his finger at the list. He frowned at the resulting selection.
“Super Junior!” Baekhyun squealed. “Why do you hate me?”
||
The feeling of being watched lingered after he had said his goodbyes to his friends. Jongin had managed to flirt his way to getting some alcohol from the bar and so had to be half carried home by Baekhyun—who was a little worse for wear himself. Chanyeol half wished he had stayed and walked with them, even if it meant going out of his way. At least then his walk home would have included walking through more populated main streets instead of side streets and back alleys. But this is the route he naturally took and it didn’t occur to him that maybe he shouldn’t until he was almost half way home. He had always been perfectly safe walking this way before, he had always felt perfectly safe before.
Before.
It was just his imagination that he felt someone watching him. It had to be. It was just his imagination that the shadows cast by the meagre street lighting were closing in on him. It was just all his stupid, over active imagination.
He kicked at the ground in frustration. He felt foolish and ill at ease, like he wasn’t at home in his own skin. He wasn’t used to feeling like this; he wasn’t used to being unsure of himself. It wasn’t just the strange encounter with the shiny, crazy space cadet; the feeling had been building up in him for weeks now. Since the bookshelf fell in the library, since he caught Lu Han making out with Minseok, since he finally decided that he hated his major and in fact really wanted to join Jongin as a trainee at LSM Ent.
It felt almost like he was standing still and life was just happening around him, not touching him at all while he relived the same week over and over and over. Get up, go to school, go home, go to sleep, get up, go to school, go home, and go to sleep.
Chanyeol surrendered to his maudlin thoughts, he got so caught up in basking in his self-pity that he forgot about the feeling of being watched and he didn’t hear the crunch of gravel under heavy boots until it was too late to run. Strong hands wrapped around his upper arms and he was pulled back and into a narrow alley, he was pushed into a wall—his face mashed up against the brick work. The rough stone scraped his cheek and Chanyeol worried that the resulting cuts might leave scars. Not that he really had to worry about his vanity; he probably wouldn’t live much longer, certainly not long enough to need to worry about any scarring.
There were two attackers, at least was far as he could tell. It was hard to decipher each attacker’s voice; it was hard to hear anything above the pounding of his own heart. What he could hear of their conversation he couldn’t have understood even if he had wanted to. They weren’t speaking Korean; in fact they weren’t speaking any language Chanyeol had ever heard before. But that wasn’t exactly saying much, there were probably many languages Chanyeol had never heard before. And he would never ever get to hear them because he was about to die here, here in this cramped and dirty alley where he would be food for the rats until some poor kid stumbled across him on their way to school. Oh god, someone would have to call his parents.
In the books and movies this would be the part where his life flashed before his eyes, right? That always happens. Chanyeol wasn’t sure he wanted his life to flash before his eyes quite honestly. He was about to die horribly, he didn’t really need a reminder of just how much of a failure he was. He braced himself; he squeezed his eyes shut so tightly that he saw bright flashes of light behind the closed lids. He braced himself and he waited.
He heard a beep and a whir then another beep and another whir, for a disorientating moment Chanyeol thought it sounded like his alarm clock. This was all a dream, just a dream. He was home safe in bed and was about to get up and start another dreary day. Except he couldn’t move to turn off his alarm clock because some steroid nut was holding him, pinning his arms to his sides with all the strength of steel bands.
So, not a dream then.
He was roughly turned around so that his back was now to the wall. His head bounced off the brick and he saw stars and little tweeting birds. He let out an undignified squeak and he wasn’t sure what hurt more—is head or his pride. It took him a dazed few minutes to realize that they were talking to him; the words were harsh and angry and forceful but even if he wasn’t currently concussed, he wouldn’t have been able to understand what they were yelling at him. They were still speaking that strange language. He blinked to try to clear his head, to try to make some sense of what was happening, of what was happening to him.
It didn’t work.
It might have worked if his attackers had pointed knives at him, guns even. Because knives and guns he could understand, he’d be just as scared shitless but at least he would have a frame of reference for what they wanted, who they were. If they were bog standard thugs, the kind he saw in his favourite detective show. But they didn’t have guns, and they didn’t have knives and they couldn’t have walked straight out of a TV show…unless that TV show was Doctor Who.
They were wearing the same tight spandex suit that the stranger from the library had on, shiny, tight and black, strangely patterned. Chanyeol vaguely noticed that these two didn’t fill theirs out half as well as his stranger had. Their faces were covered by hoods made of the same material as their suits, leaving only their eyes and mouths visible. Neither of the men were Asian and they didn’t seem to be of the same nationality. One of his attackers held him pinned to the wall by the throat, Chanyeol reached up and futilely attempted to pull the hand away. But the man’s grip held strong and Chanyeol was glad that the man seemed to be content to just hold him in place and not strangle him. The other man held a strange object in his hands; it looked like a cross between an iPad and a gadget he’d seen once in a kids sci fi show. It reminded Chanyeol of a toy he had when he was a kid, back when he wanted to be an astronaut and he wanted to see the stars. Now he just wanted to be a star and he might never have the chance. The light bulbs on it flashed and something in deep in the mechanics of the thing blipped and bleeped and whirred again. The space thug holding the strange contraption held it up to him; lifted it up and down the length of Chanyeol’s body, as if the guy was scanning him with it. The machine clicked and then whirred and beeped twice before going silent. The two space thugs looked at each other and nodded in quiet communication. Chanyeol in no way believed that was going to bode well for him.
The man holding him said something, his mouth moved and sound came out and everything. Chanyeol just stared blankly back at him. His fear was receding along with the dizziness caused by his head connecting with the wall; he was too tired and confused to be scared. And he was angry, so angry. Who did these weirdoes think they were? Just as soon as he had the opportunity Chanyeol was going to kick this bastard in the shin and run away. He may or may not scream like a little girl as he did, but any and all screaming would be perfectly justifiable.
“Where is Wu Fan?” The man with the weird thingy jig asked him in Korean.
Would it have been so hard for them to speak Korean from the get go?
“Where is Wu Fan?” The man asked again. The familiar language sounded so odd coming from this strange person, the words sounded thick and heavy and wrong, distorted. Maybe it was so hard for them to speak Korean from the get go.
But it didn’t matter that they were now saying something he could understand, because he still didn’t actually understand. He didn’t know who Wu Fan was let alone know where he was and he had no idea why he was supposed to. He tried to speak, tried to tell them this but all that came out was a weakened croak. The pressure on his throat wasn’t great, but it was enough to steal away his voice. Chanyeol tried to shake his head, but he couldn’t move his head either. How the hell was he supposed to answer them if they wouldn’t let him?
“He has temporal residue all over him.” The one holding him said. He spoke in Korean too and the words sounded just as wrong coming from him as they did from the other one.
But seriously, he had whatsit all over the who now?
The guy with the strange contraption scanned Chanyeol with it again, it beeped and then clicked this time and its operator looked at it in confusion and then he shook his head.
“It’s dissipating.” He said.
Chanyeol wondered what that meant, he wondered what temporal residue meant, he wondered if it was like some kind of radiation and he wondered if it was going to hurt him in the long run. If he had a long run that is.
“He’s useless.” The one holding him said. “We don’t need him.”
“Hey!” Chanyeol tried to gasp out. He wasn’t sure why he should be offended by this, wasn’t sure why he should care that he’d been sized up by a happy meal toy and apparently been found wanting. He was Park fucking Chanyeol and he wasn’t useless!
He kicked out with his right foot; he connected solidly with the guy holding him. His kick landed on the guy’s shin, it was a hard kick, and he put as much strength behind it as he could — which, ok, wasn’t all that much considering his current position. Still, he might as well not have bothered because the guy barely seemed to feel it. The space thug grunted and tightened the hold on Chanyeol’s neck. Chanyeol kicked him again, and that was a really bad idea because the hold tightened to the point where Chanyeol’s vision clouded, and breathing became a real and pressing issue.
“Kill him.” The other space thug said.
Chanyeol was pretty sure that is what his space thug was already trying to do.
Chanyeol had never been choked before, but in the descriptions he’d read, the ones in stories, none of them mentioned a blue light. Bright lights, blurred light, dancing bright lights, spots—yes. But never a blue light, a solid blue light. And that popping sound he heard could have been his ears popping, except that it sounded sort of like the quiet puff of an inhaler. It sounded like a pressured shifting of air.
And then suddenly he wasn’t being choked anymore, the hand holding him was gone and with it the means for him to stay up right. His legs gave out from under him and he fell to the ground.
He heard scuffling and some muffled cries and something that sounded suspiciously like flesh hitting flesh. But the sounds seemed distant and far away and not really all that important. The dark was crowding in on him. He felt consciousness trying to slip away from him, passing out was probably a bad idea but there wasn’t anything he could do about it.
“Hey, hey.” A soft, half familiar voice said. “Hey, stay with me.”
Hands tried to rouse him up, tried to make him stand. But standing really wasn’t happening. He closes his eyes only to have those hands—surprisingly soft—smack him gently across the cheek.
“Just a’thor ‘ve minutes.” Chanyeol mumbles, turning his face away from exploring fingers.
“We don’t have five minutes; you have to get up now!”
Chanyeol was sure he knew that voice, but he didn’t really recognize it, didn’t recognize the accent. Not a native Korean speaker, but not one of those two goons either. He was hauled up to his feet and after a few fumbled tries he managed to stay standing. Result. His vision cleared (opening his eyes again help a bit with that). The first thing he saw were the bodies of his attackers laying on the ground. It was too dark to see if they were breathing or not. The second thing he saw was his rescuer.
“Heeeeeeey, sexy space man.” He drawled. Then he choked on his own tongue because he didn’t just say that, he couldn’t have just said that. He blamed it on the blow to the head.
“I’m not a space man.” The sexy space man said.
Chanyeol would have made some wise crack about not denying the sexy part…but wise cracking took too much energy, energy he didn’t have.
“My name is Wu Fan.” The sexy space man continued. “You need to come with me if you want to live.”
“Oh, oh no.” Chanyeol said, his voice a little stronger now, even to his own ears he sounded strangely calm. “You did not just say that with a straight face.”
||
“You do realize that your internal monologue isn’t quite so internal.” Sexy space man grumbled. “And I have told you, I am not from outer space. Nor were those guys who attacked you.”
And still, he did not deny the sexy part.
“Yeah, I can still hear you.”
Oh, oh.
||
But…but sexy time traveller just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
||
The sexy space man/time traveller waited for some kind of reaction. No, Wu Fan waited for a reaction.
Trouble was Chanyeol couldn’t really give him one. It was too much. Too much information, too ridiculous a situation, too tall of a tale. Chanyeol honestly didn’t know if he should laugh (because it was all really too ridiculous) or cry (because if it was true then it was too freaking scary). He was pretty sure that one of those reactions would offend Wu Fan and the other might freak him out. It was bad enough that Wu Fan saw Chanyeol when he was barely conscious and coherent; he wasn’t going to let Wu Fan see him cry too. Chanyeol did have his pride after all. His dignity was pretty shot but he still had his pride, or something like that.
“Well?” Wu Fan prompted. “You’re taking this far better than the last guy did.”
“What last guy?” Chanyeol barked out as if suddenly coming back to himself. Chanyeol didn’t have that much experience with this kind of thing beyond Doctor Who reruns, but he was pretty sure that the less people who knew that someone was mucking about with time travel the better. Chanyeol was only treated to the tale because he was the designated damsel in distress for this story, apparently.
“There wasn’t a last guy.” Wu Fan said. It might have just been Chanyeol’s wishful thinking, but he was sure that Wu Fan was blushing. Just a little. “I was trying to get some kind of reaction out of you. You’re being very calm about this, too calm. Are you okay?”
The short answer to that was no, he really wasn’t. The longer answer involved him being sort of okay with everything as long as Wu Fan kept looking at him with concern in those dark, dark eyes.
Chanyeol really, really needed to stop thinking with his dick; it was going to end up getting him dead, or in some other kind of serious trouble.
Chanyeol looked at Wu Fan, really looked. He tried to look passed the tight spandex space (sorry, time travel) suit. Wu Fan was all hard lines, from the sharp planes of his face, (you could cut glass with those cheek bones,) to the strange triangle patterns on his suit. Chanyeol supposed they might be the height of fashion in the year 2030, but in 2012 they were making his eyes hurt. He should probably stop staring then.
Wu Fan looked back at him and Chanyeol had the feeling that Wu Fan wasn’t at all disappointed with what he was seeing.
||
What Chanyeol didn’t understand was, if Wu Fan was supposed to be from the year 2030 and he had come back in time to save someone (not specifically Chanyeol, though, he was just that unlucky) like he said he had… How exactly was he able to be in this time at all? Wasn’t there a baby version of Wu Fan running around somewhere? What if they met? What if that meeting ended the world?
“China.” Wu Fan said, amusement in his voice. “The younger version of me is in China. Since I don’t plan on paying myself a visit you don’t need to worry about the world blowing up.”
That was good, Chanyeol had been a bit worried about that.
“And yes,” Wu fan Continued. “I can still hear you; you need to learn to close your mouth when you think.”
||
Chanyeol wasn’t sure exactly where they were, the room Wu Fan had taken him to had the generic blandness of just about every hotel room Chanyeol had ever been in. Not that he had been in that many.
He wasn’t even completely sure how Wu Fan had gotten him there, Chanyeol had faded in and out of consciousness after the attack by the two space goons and it should have worried him that he was being taken away somewhere by someone he didn’t know. He wasn’t sure exactly why Wu Fan would even have a hotel room, or how he paid for it. Did they have money in the year 2030? The must do, it wasn’t that far off in the future.
Chanyeol realized that he felt safe with Wu Fan, felt safe in his arms. That was something he hadn’t really had before, hadn’t really felt before. Chanyeol thought that maybe Wu Fan had teleported him to the room, even though Wu Fan said that his time travel doo hicky didn’t double as a teleportation device. Said doo hicky had a proper name, but Chanyeol couldn’t remember it let alone pronounce it.
“Then how did you find me?”
“I didn’t, I found them.”
“Oh.”
Wu Fan, Wu fan the sexy space time traveller from the year 2030 was here in the year 2012 to save the life of Kim Jongdae, that quiet kid who always sat at the table behind Chanyeol in the library. Well, not so quiet since he had that annoying habit of tsking at people, mainly Chanyeol. Saving him from people who wanted to stop him making an important discovery that wouldn’t save the world (yet) but it would change it for the better. Wu Fan wouldn’t tell him what that discovery will be because that might change the world for the worse. Chanyeol hadn’t seen how that could happen, but then Wu Fan recited a list of all the things that could go bad if the wrong people had the right knowledge. It was a long list; Chanyeol may have fallen asleep half way through.
Chanyeol just had the misfortune to get in the way of this life saving mission. And if he was ever allowed to tell any of this to Baekhyun, Baekhyun would just laugh and point and say that was the way of the world.
It was Wu Fan who knocked over the bookshelf that almost squished Chanyeol. Wu Fan. He hadn’t been trying to squish Chanyeol; he’d been trying to squish the two guys trying to kill Jongdae, the same two guys who had attacked Chanyeol in that alley. They had attacked Chanyeol because Chanyeol had come into (painful) contact with Wu Fan earlier that day and as such had been laced with the temporal distortion that had attracted said bad guys.
“Wait, wait, wait! Was that your hand on my ass then?”
“Uhhh, it might have been. I didn’t mean anything by it, it was an accident honest!”
“Oh.”
It was sort of humiliating how unimportant Chanyeol actually was in the grand scheme of things. He might not have known what had been going on; he might not even understand it fully, but this thing had affected him. It was sad to know just how little he had affected it.
Today, in the library, Wu fan had been trying to leave. But his doo hicky was on the fritz so he couldn’t leave.
“But couldn’t you tell it hadn’t worked?”
“Time travel kind of messes with your head, sometimes it takes a while for my memories to catch up with me.”
“Oh.”
Wu Fan just popped a few hours into the future, his doo hicky locking on to the temporal distortion created by space thugs one and two. Which is how he happened on to Chanyeol in the process of being murdered.
“I am glad I got there, in time I mean.”
“Yeah, me too. Up until then I thought you were a figment of my imagination.”
“Oh.”
||
“Will you ever go back to your own time?” Chanyeol asked even though he wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer. He wasn’t sure he wanted Wu Fan to leave, to leave him. Even though that was kind of pathetic. Baekhyun was always telling him that he got attached to fast and to the wrong people.
“I don’t know.” Wu Fan said. There was pain etched in Wu Fan’s face, it showed in the tired lines around his eyes. It showed in the intense light in Wu Fan’s eyes. “I don’t know if I can.”
Chanyeol tried to ignore the little spark of hope that bloomed inside his chest, because it was wrong to want Wu Fan to stay when Wu fan didn’t looked like he wanted to.
Wu Fan sighed and stood up from the bed he’d been perching precariously on. Chanyeol had slumped in the arm chair next to the bed; he was exhausted and had gotten himself comfortable almost immediately. Wu Fan on the other hand had been stiff and seemingly unsure of himself, unable to sit still for longer than a few minutes. Wu fan went to the window and pushed aside the curtain. Dawn was breaking, the light outside was a soft grey, tinged with pink and orange. Wow, Chanyeol hadn’t realized just how late it was, or how early.
“What do you mean?” Chanyeol asked.
“I’m sort of…” Wu fan trailed of, his face scrunched up with confusion, like he was trying to search for the right word. “…Stuck.”
“Stuck?”
“Yes, stuck. In a sort of time loop. I can go back a few days; I can jump forward a few hours, but I can’t get backed to the future, my time I mean.”
“Oh, that’s gotta suck.”
“It does. But I don’t regret it.”
The way Wu Fan said those words made something in Chanyeol’s stomach lurch. There was an emptiness to Wu Fan’s tone that made Chanyeol think that though Wu Fan said he had no regrets, there was still something missing. Something Wu Fan missed.
“Don’t regret what?”
Wu fan let the curtain drop back into place and he turned around to look at Chanyeol, his expression was carefully blank, his eyes serious.
“I completed my mission first time out.” Wu Fan said, there wasn’t even a hint of pride in his voice, no sense that he was bragging about it. “I did exactly what I was supposed to do, I watched and I waited, waited for those guys to make a move on my target.”
“Jongdae?”
“Yes, he spent a lot of time in your library, so did I. Then when those guys appeared I killed them.”
“Oh…okay?”
“I killed them in the library. With a bookcase. That I pushed over.”
“Sounds painful, and a bit messy. But I think I would have remembered death by bookcase happening in the college library. I probably would ha…oh. Oh.”
Wu Fan just nodded. “First time I completed my mission by thwarting an attempt on Kim Jongdae’s life, another student was killed as well. Crushed. My superiors considered it just collateral damage since the death didn’t have much of an effect on the future. And that should have been that. But…”
“But?”
“I couldn’t let you die.”
“Oh.”
Oh.
It was the third repeat of the bookshelf incident when Wu Fan’s doo hicky broke. At least during that attempt he managed not to kill Chanyeol, something Chanyeol greatly appreciated, even if he hadn’t actually known about it until just now. Unfortunately that was also the attempt where the antagonists had been able to get away and were able to try again a few days later. Only now the bad guys were on to the fact that someone was on to them.
Which in retrospect had been a bad thing.
“I am sorry that you got involved in this.”
“I’m not.” Chanyeol said, surprising himself with the truth of his words.
Wu Fan smiled at him, a heartbreakingly hopeful smile and Chanyeol wondered just how lonely it was travelling through time and saving the world. And he wondered what the chances were of him getting laid. In the movies playing the hero always made the Hero horny and Chanyeol was very grateful.
Very grateful.
||
“So, what are you going to do now?”
“Well, until I can figure out a way to get home I’ll just have to stay here. I need to keep watch over Jongdae anyway.”
“Oh. Well, we’ll need to get you some proper clothes, and then you won’t have to lurk in the shadows anymore.”
“I don’t lurk, and what’s wrong with my suit? It’s cool.”
“I bet even in the year 2030 you are the only person who thinks that.”
The end
A/N - ACK!!! this was so rushed at the end because it was already late and it just wouldn't end. At some point there will be a continuation/part two/remix version from Kris's POV where he is sort of a badass with an inconvenient crush.
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Kris/Chanyeol
Word count: 6, 819
A/N: Written for
hoaegi for the sncj_santaSummary: “Is this the year 2030?” The Stranger asked in lightly accented Korean.
What?
Chanyeol just blinked at him, not quite processing the question. The words he understood…the question not so much
Sometimes, sometimes it’s like I’m standing still
Chanyeol was convinced the librarian was out to get him. She was always there, lurking just out of his line of sight, skulking in the shadows of the stacks, waiting for him. Waiting for him to make too loud a noise, waiting for him to drop a book, which wasn’t really fair because that last time wasn’t his fault and he totally didn’t knock that bookshelf over. He had been in front of it not behind it, and it had almost crushed him, not that the old bat cared about that.
Chanyeol was pretty sure this old place was haunted, but no one would listen to his theory. Not even Jongin and that guy loved conspiracy theories.
No one believed him about the flash of blue light that followed the crash down. Apparently no one else saw it but him and he had just been brained by a (really fucking heavy) book. And no one believed him about the hand Chanyeol had felt on his ass. Apparently Chanyeol’s imaginary ghost was also a pervert. Of course it was.
He couldn’t see Mrs Kim right now, but he could feel her eyes on him, her gaze hot and heavy…and so not in a good way.
He had tried to talk to Baekhyun about just how out to get him the librarian was. But Baekhyun had chalked it up to Chanyeol being over tired and paranoid. Baekhyun was probably right, mainly because Baekhyun was always right. It was like some kind of law or something.
Stupid Baekhyun.
Chanyeol groused and grumbled as he stood up. He stretched and felt something in his spine pop, letting him know that he had been sitting too still for too long. He pushed his chair back away from the table wincing as it scraped over the wood floor, the sound seeming to echo through the stacks. He whirled around, half expecting the librarian to jump out from behind a bookshelf and shhhh him. But all he got were a few annoyed glares from the people sitting closest to him, he was pretty sure that someone even tsked at him. Rude much? It was probably Jongdae, it sounded like his tsk.
Chanyeol blinked owlishly as he looked around the room, seeing the gentle thrum of usual daily activity but not really taking any of it in. His vision was slightly fuzzy from having been staring at his books for too long, his eyeballs felt dry and gritty, like he’d spent the last few hours rubbing them with sandpaper instead of studying. He rubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands but if anything that just made them feel worse. He moved away from the table he’d been camped out at, staggering slightly as he bumped and weaved his way around the chairs. He earned himself a few more glares and the person who tsked him (Jongdae) tsked him again, but the librarian wasn’t shhhh’ing the tsking guy now was she.
He was tired, too tired, he had been in the library all day and he hadn’t got as much done as he felt he should have. His head just hadn’t been in it, his mind too full of other things. He knew he should take a break, a real one, one that involved actually putting down his books and leaving the library and going to that outside place. But one look at the rain outside dispelled that idea before it could really take hold of him. Something about the soft patter of the rain drops on the glass made him uneasy, he never liked the rain but he couldn’t quite remember why. Best to stay in the warm safety of the library, stay with his books.
He walked through the stacks, looking at the book spines but not picking any of them up from the shelves. He walked to the back of the library where the lights were dimmer and the shadows thick and the silence heavy. He had the strange feeling of being watched and he looked over his shoulder, half expecting the librarian to jump out and demand to know what he was doing back here and who he was doing it with. One time, he got caught making out with an exchange student in the back stacks one time…and it was totally Baekhyun’s fault too. Even though Baekhyun hadn’t been there at the time, it was still totally all his fault.
Stupid Baekhyun.
“Hello?” He heard someone say softly in English. Chanyeol whirled around, he moved a little too fast and he flailed his arms out trying to catch himself before he tripped over his own feet. His heart hammered in his chest, beating so hard that he was sure everyone in the library, hell everyone in the whole school, could hear it. But there was no one there. He had been sure he had heard a voice; sure he had heard someone behind him. But there was no one there. There was no one back here with him, it was just him and the shadows…and one shadow appeared to be moving.
“I knew this place was haunted.” Chanyeol muttered as he tried to calm his frantic heartbeat. Though Chanyeol couldn’t think why the ghost would be speaking English, maybe it was the ghost of a Western exchange student…? Yeah, maybe he didn’t really want to find out. Slowly, very slowly he turned around and started to head back to the front of the library where there was people and bright lights and no such thing as ghosts. He was going to get back to his table, gather his books and leave to go find Baekhyun and maybe go and get drunk. That would be nice.
He was so caught up in getting out of there and away from whatever was behind him that he wasn’t paying any attention to what was in front of him. So it came as a bit of a shock when he collided with a solid wall of muscle. He fell back, landing hard on his butt.
“Oh, owwww,” He moaned as he tried to stagger to his feet. The man mountain that Chanyeol had just crashed into must have bent down to help at the same time that Chanyeol tried to push himself up from the floor…he must have done, because that is the only explanation Chanyeol could think of for head butting the guy in the crotch. Head butting him hard.
“Oh, oh my god I am so sor…” Chanyeol never finished the sentence. His words of apology died on his lips when he looked up and saw just whose crotch he had assaulted. Chanyeol didn’t recognise him, and he knew most of the people at the university at least by sight—at least those who lived in the library the way Chanyeol did. Though Chanyeol was pretty sure that if he had seen this guy around campus at any time he would have most definitely remembered him. Mainly because he would have a starring role in Chanyeol’s wet dreams.
Weird, Chanyeol didn’t realize he had a Star trek fetish until right now.
He scooted back and away from the man, who was almost doubled up in pain. This time he managed to stand without either of them getting hurt. Again. Chanyeol wanted to reach out to try and help the handsome stranger in the tight, tight space age body suit, but he wasn’t sure what help he would give, or how he would even help at all. Chanyeol’s eyes watered in sympathy as the stranger stood up straight again, wincing as he did so. Chanyeol was pleasantly surprised to find that he had to look up slightly to look the man in the eyes; there weren’t many people who were taller than him. The stranger’s eyes were dark and serious and so intense that Chanyeol had to take a step back and away, try to put some distance between before Chanyeol did something epically stupid like leap into the man’s arms and kiss him.
That would be awkward.
It took a few long seconds for Chanyeol to realize that the stranger was speaking to him. His mouth was moving and sounds were coming out, but Chanyeol was still reeling with embarrassment and didn’t immediately register the words. It took him even longer to realize that the words weren’t even Korean. The stranger was speaking Mandarin. His voice was deep, a low rumble that spoke straight to Chanyeol’s dick. Stupid thing always did have a mind of its own.
Chanyeol could speak precisely one sentence in Mandarin, something the Chinese exchange student had taught him, he was pretty sure that it would be wildly inappropriate for this situation though.
“Uhhhh.” Chanyeol said. “I don’t understand.”
The stranger cocked his head to the side and looked at Chanyeol with an expression Chanyeol couldn’t quite read. Confusion? Derision? Chanyeol had the feeling he was being studied like a specimen under a microscope, and the stranger wasn’t sure how to classify what he was seeing.
“Is this the year 2030?” The Stranger asked in lightly accented Korean.
What?
Chanyeol just blinked at him, not quite processing the question. The words he understood…the question not so much
“Uh, w…what?”
“Is this the year 2030?”
“Yeah, that’s what I was afraid you said.” Chanyeol sighed heavily, why were all the hot ones bat shit insane? “No, it’s 2012.”
“It didn’t work.” The stranger said, the disappointment in his voice was so palpable that Chanyeol had the urge to offer some comfort, a touch, a smile, kiss the sadness away. But he didn’t, because he didn’t need another crazy guy in his life. “I will have to try again.” The stranger continued and with that he turned and started walking away back to the rear of the library. Chanyeol had to admit that the back view was just as inspiring as the front—that was an ass that was made for spandex. Chanyeol fought back the urge to call the guy back and ask what it was that hadn’t worked, but he didn’t have the time or energy to feed into the guy’s delusion.
Chanyeol really, really needed to get laid.
He watched the gorgeous crazy man walk away, Chanyeol was certain that he never took his eyes off the man, he hadn’t even blinked, but suddenly the guy wasn’t there anymore. He was just gone. Poof. Gone.
Chanyeol had to wonder if he wasn’t the one who had gone bat shit insane. He had to have gone bat shit insane because he didn’t just see that flash of blue light. He didn’t.
He didn’t.
“Weird.” Chanyeol muttered to himself as he turned back to his table. He was going to collect his things and leave, the rain be damned. He needed a break…and possibly a psych test, that guy was pretty solid for a hallucination.
As he left he had the strange feeling he was being watched again. He looked around but no one seemed to be paying any attention to him. Even the librarian was busy dealing with someone else so it wasn’t her evil gaze he could feel on him. Chanyeol shuddered; this was turning out to be a creepy afternoon.
||
Baekhyun’s idea of cheering him up was to drag him to Noreabang. But that was pretty much Baekhyun’s solution for any problem. Not that Chanyeol actually told Baekhyun why he needed cheering up, Chanyeol didn’t even know exactly why he needed cheering up. Baekhyun just took one look at the downcast expression that Chanyeol could do nothing to hide and dragged him to Noreabang. Chanyeol didn’t mind too much, Baekhyun loved to sing and Chanyeol liked to hear him. It was pretty much win/win. Except for tonight, tonight Chanyeol’s thoughts were full of cute guys in tight spandex space suits who thought they were from a different year.
The darkness of the Noreabang booth fit his mood; the bright swirls of the strobe lights were probably going to give him a headache later but right now he didn’t much care. He stared down the neck of his beer bottle like it held all of life’s answers, maybe it did, Chanyeol didn’t really know anymore.
“What’s wrong with you?” Jongin asked, nudging Chanyeol in the ribs to get him to move over even though there was more than enough room on the bench seat.
“Nothing.” Chanyeol said moodily, not looking up and not moving over.
“Good, because I have problems. Look at me.”
Chanyeol turned his body slightly to the side and looked over at Jongin, it was hard to make out Jongin’s exact expression but Chanyeol thought he looked a little constipated.
“Is your problem that you are constipated? Because you look constipated and I can’t help you with that.”
“No, idiot.” Jongin nudged him in the ribs again, harder this time. “No, this is my concerned face. I am trying to look concerned and sympathetic, is it working?”
“No, not really.” Chanyeol said.
“Dammit, I thought I almost had it that time.” Jongin smashed his fist down on the table, almost tipping Chanyeol’s beer over. Jongin caught the bottle before it fell and took a long drink of it before Chanyeol snatched it back.
“Get your own, oh wait, you’re not old enough to drink.”
“That hurts, Hyung.” Jongin said, clutching at his chest in dramatic fashion. “Do I really look constipated?”
“Yes, you do.” Baekhyun said shoving a binder under Chanyeol’s nose. “Pick a song for me, I can’t decide.”
Chanyeol took the binder and started to flip through the song choices but not really looking at them. He was dimly aware of Baekhyun and Jongin bickering but he didn’t pay them much attention until he heard the name of his most recent boyfriend mentioned. Ok, so Lu Han wasn’t exactly a boyfriend, a few fumbled hand jobs don’t for a relationship make.
“What’s that about Lu Han?” Chanyeol asked, though he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
“Oh,” Baekhyun said with a sniff. “He was dating the object of our Jongin’s affection, but they broke up. Now Jongin is going to try and comfort Sehun in order to get into his pants.”
“Is it working?”
“Not so far.” Jongin muttered.
“Sucks to be you. Chanyeol-ah have you picked me a song yet?”
Chanyeol hadn’t, he closed his eyes and stabbed his finger at the list. He frowned at the resulting selection.
“Super Junior!” Baekhyun squealed. “Why do you hate me?”
||
The feeling of being watched lingered after he had said his goodbyes to his friends. Jongin had managed to flirt his way to getting some alcohol from the bar and so had to be half carried home by Baekhyun—who was a little worse for wear himself. Chanyeol half wished he had stayed and walked with them, even if it meant going out of his way. At least then his walk home would have included walking through more populated main streets instead of side streets and back alleys. But this is the route he naturally took and it didn’t occur to him that maybe he shouldn’t until he was almost half way home. He had always been perfectly safe walking this way before, he had always felt perfectly safe before.
Before.
It was just his imagination that he felt someone watching him. It had to be. It was just his imagination that the shadows cast by the meagre street lighting were closing in on him. It was just all his stupid, over active imagination.
He kicked at the ground in frustration. He felt foolish and ill at ease, like he wasn’t at home in his own skin. He wasn’t used to feeling like this; he wasn’t used to being unsure of himself. It wasn’t just the strange encounter with the shiny, crazy space cadet; the feeling had been building up in him for weeks now. Since the bookshelf fell in the library, since he caught Lu Han making out with Minseok, since he finally decided that he hated his major and in fact really wanted to join Jongin as a trainee at LSM Ent.
It felt almost like he was standing still and life was just happening around him, not touching him at all while he relived the same week over and over and over. Get up, go to school, go home, go to sleep, get up, go to school, go home, and go to sleep.
Chanyeol surrendered to his maudlin thoughts, he got so caught up in basking in his self-pity that he forgot about the feeling of being watched and he didn’t hear the crunch of gravel under heavy boots until it was too late to run. Strong hands wrapped around his upper arms and he was pulled back and into a narrow alley, he was pushed into a wall—his face mashed up against the brick work. The rough stone scraped his cheek and Chanyeol worried that the resulting cuts might leave scars. Not that he really had to worry about his vanity; he probably wouldn’t live much longer, certainly not long enough to need to worry about any scarring.
There were two attackers, at least was far as he could tell. It was hard to decipher each attacker’s voice; it was hard to hear anything above the pounding of his own heart. What he could hear of their conversation he couldn’t have understood even if he had wanted to. They weren’t speaking Korean; in fact they weren’t speaking any language Chanyeol had ever heard before. But that wasn’t exactly saying much, there were probably many languages Chanyeol had never heard before. And he would never ever get to hear them because he was about to die here, here in this cramped and dirty alley where he would be food for the rats until some poor kid stumbled across him on their way to school. Oh god, someone would have to call his parents.
In the books and movies this would be the part where his life flashed before his eyes, right? That always happens. Chanyeol wasn’t sure he wanted his life to flash before his eyes quite honestly. He was about to die horribly, he didn’t really need a reminder of just how much of a failure he was. He braced himself; he squeezed his eyes shut so tightly that he saw bright flashes of light behind the closed lids. He braced himself and he waited.
He heard a beep and a whir then another beep and another whir, for a disorientating moment Chanyeol thought it sounded like his alarm clock. This was all a dream, just a dream. He was home safe in bed and was about to get up and start another dreary day. Except he couldn’t move to turn off his alarm clock because some steroid nut was holding him, pinning his arms to his sides with all the strength of steel bands.
So, not a dream then.
He was roughly turned around so that his back was now to the wall. His head bounced off the brick and he saw stars and little tweeting birds. He let out an undignified squeak and he wasn’t sure what hurt more—is head or his pride. It took him a dazed few minutes to realize that they were talking to him; the words were harsh and angry and forceful but even if he wasn’t currently concussed, he wouldn’t have been able to understand what they were yelling at him. They were still speaking that strange language. He blinked to try to clear his head, to try to make some sense of what was happening, of what was happening to him.
It didn’t work.
It might have worked if his attackers had pointed knives at him, guns even. Because knives and guns he could understand, he’d be just as scared shitless but at least he would have a frame of reference for what they wanted, who they were. If they were bog standard thugs, the kind he saw in his favourite detective show. But they didn’t have guns, and they didn’t have knives and they couldn’t have walked straight out of a TV show…unless that TV show was Doctor Who.
They were wearing the same tight spandex suit that the stranger from the library had on, shiny, tight and black, strangely patterned. Chanyeol vaguely noticed that these two didn’t fill theirs out half as well as his stranger had. Their faces were covered by hoods made of the same material as their suits, leaving only their eyes and mouths visible. Neither of the men were Asian and they didn’t seem to be of the same nationality. One of his attackers held him pinned to the wall by the throat, Chanyeol reached up and futilely attempted to pull the hand away. But the man’s grip held strong and Chanyeol was glad that the man seemed to be content to just hold him in place and not strangle him. The other man held a strange object in his hands; it looked like a cross between an iPad and a gadget he’d seen once in a kids sci fi show. It reminded Chanyeol of a toy he had when he was a kid, back when he wanted to be an astronaut and he wanted to see the stars. Now he just wanted to be a star and he might never have the chance. The light bulbs on it flashed and something in deep in the mechanics of the thing blipped and bleeped and whirred again. The space thug holding the strange contraption held it up to him; lifted it up and down the length of Chanyeol’s body, as if the guy was scanning him with it. The machine clicked and then whirred and beeped twice before going silent. The two space thugs looked at each other and nodded in quiet communication. Chanyeol in no way believed that was going to bode well for him.
The man holding him said something, his mouth moved and sound came out and everything. Chanyeol just stared blankly back at him. His fear was receding along with the dizziness caused by his head connecting with the wall; he was too tired and confused to be scared. And he was angry, so angry. Who did these weirdoes think they were? Just as soon as he had the opportunity Chanyeol was going to kick this bastard in the shin and run away. He may or may not scream like a little girl as he did, but any and all screaming would be perfectly justifiable.
“Where is Wu Fan?” The man with the weird thingy jig asked him in Korean.
Would it have been so hard for them to speak Korean from the get go?
“Where is Wu Fan?” The man asked again. The familiar language sounded so odd coming from this strange person, the words sounded thick and heavy and wrong, distorted. Maybe it was so hard for them to speak Korean from the get go.
But it didn’t matter that they were now saying something he could understand, because he still didn’t actually understand. He didn’t know who Wu Fan was let alone know where he was and he had no idea why he was supposed to. He tried to speak, tried to tell them this but all that came out was a weakened croak. The pressure on his throat wasn’t great, but it was enough to steal away his voice. Chanyeol tried to shake his head, but he couldn’t move his head either. How the hell was he supposed to answer them if they wouldn’t let him?
“He has temporal residue all over him.” The one holding him said. He spoke in Korean too and the words sounded just as wrong coming from him as they did from the other one.
But seriously, he had whatsit all over the who now?
The guy with the strange contraption scanned Chanyeol with it again, it beeped and then clicked this time and its operator looked at it in confusion and then he shook his head.
“It’s dissipating.” He said.
Chanyeol wondered what that meant, he wondered what temporal residue meant, he wondered if it was like some kind of radiation and he wondered if it was going to hurt him in the long run. If he had a long run that is.
“He’s useless.” The one holding him said. “We don’t need him.”
“Hey!” Chanyeol tried to gasp out. He wasn’t sure why he should be offended by this, wasn’t sure why he should care that he’d been sized up by a happy meal toy and apparently been found wanting. He was Park fucking Chanyeol and he wasn’t useless!
He kicked out with his right foot; he connected solidly with the guy holding him. His kick landed on the guy’s shin, it was a hard kick, and he put as much strength behind it as he could — which, ok, wasn’t all that much considering his current position. Still, he might as well not have bothered because the guy barely seemed to feel it. The space thug grunted and tightened the hold on Chanyeol’s neck. Chanyeol kicked him again, and that was a really bad idea because the hold tightened to the point where Chanyeol’s vision clouded, and breathing became a real and pressing issue.
“Kill him.” The other space thug said.
Chanyeol was pretty sure that is what his space thug was already trying to do.
Chanyeol had never been choked before, but in the descriptions he’d read, the ones in stories, none of them mentioned a blue light. Bright lights, blurred light, dancing bright lights, spots—yes. But never a blue light, a solid blue light. And that popping sound he heard could have been his ears popping, except that it sounded sort of like the quiet puff of an inhaler. It sounded like a pressured shifting of air.
And then suddenly he wasn’t being choked anymore, the hand holding him was gone and with it the means for him to stay up right. His legs gave out from under him and he fell to the ground.
He heard scuffling and some muffled cries and something that sounded suspiciously like flesh hitting flesh. But the sounds seemed distant and far away and not really all that important. The dark was crowding in on him. He felt consciousness trying to slip away from him, passing out was probably a bad idea but there wasn’t anything he could do about it.
“Hey, hey.” A soft, half familiar voice said. “Hey, stay with me.”
Hands tried to rouse him up, tried to make him stand. But standing really wasn’t happening. He closes his eyes only to have those hands—surprisingly soft—smack him gently across the cheek.
“Just a’thor ‘ve minutes.” Chanyeol mumbles, turning his face away from exploring fingers.
“We don’t have five minutes; you have to get up now!”
Chanyeol was sure he knew that voice, but he didn’t really recognize it, didn’t recognize the accent. Not a native Korean speaker, but not one of those two goons either. He was hauled up to his feet and after a few fumbled tries he managed to stay standing. Result. His vision cleared (opening his eyes again help a bit with that). The first thing he saw were the bodies of his attackers laying on the ground. It was too dark to see if they were breathing or not. The second thing he saw was his rescuer.
“Heeeeeeey, sexy space man.” He drawled. Then he choked on his own tongue because he didn’t just say that, he couldn’t have just said that. He blamed it on the blow to the head.
“I’m not a space man.” The sexy space man said.
Chanyeol would have made some wise crack about not denying the sexy part…but wise cracking took too much energy, energy he didn’t have.
“My name is Wu Fan.” The sexy space man continued. “You need to come with me if you want to live.”
“Oh, oh no.” Chanyeol said, his voice a little stronger now, even to his own ears he sounded strangely calm. “You did not just say that with a straight face.”
||
“You do realize that your internal monologue isn’t quite so internal.” Sexy space man grumbled. “And I have told you, I am not from outer space. Nor were those guys who attacked you.”
And still, he did not deny the sexy part.
“Yeah, I can still hear you.”
Oh, oh.
||
But…but sexy time traveller just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
||
The sexy space man/time traveller waited for some kind of reaction. No, Wu Fan waited for a reaction.
Trouble was Chanyeol couldn’t really give him one. It was too much. Too much information, too ridiculous a situation, too tall of a tale. Chanyeol honestly didn’t know if he should laugh (because it was all really too ridiculous) or cry (because if it was true then it was too freaking scary). He was pretty sure that one of those reactions would offend Wu Fan and the other might freak him out. It was bad enough that Wu Fan saw Chanyeol when he was barely conscious and coherent; he wasn’t going to let Wu Fan see him cry too. Chanyeol did have his pride after all. His dignity was pretty shot but he still had his pride, or something like that.
“Well?” Wu Fan prompted. “You’re taking this far better than the last guy did.”
“What last guy?” Chanyeol barked out as if suddenly coming back to himself. Chanyeol didn’t have that much experience with this kind of thing beyond Doctor Who reruns, but he was pretty sure that the less people who knew that someone was mucking about with time travel the better. Chanyeol was only treated to the tale because he was the designated damsel in distress for this story, apparently.
“There wasn’t a last guy.” Wu Fan said. It might have just been Chanyeol’s wishful thinking, but he was sure that Wu Fan was blushing. Just a little. “I was trying to get some kind of reaction out of you. You’re being very calm about this, too calm. Are you okay?”
The short answer to that was no, he really wasn’t. The longer answer involved him being sort of okay with everything as long as Wu Fan kept looking at him with concern in those dark, dark eyes.
Chanyeol really, really needed to stop thinking with his dick; it was going to end up getting him dead, or in some other kind of serious trouble.
Chanyeol looked at Wu Fan, really looked. He tried to look passed the tight spandex space (sorry, time travel) suit. Wu Fan was all hard lines, from the sharp planes of his face, (you could cut glass with those cheek bones,) to the strange triangle patterns on his suit. Chanyeol supposed they might be the height of fashion in the year 2030, but in 2012 they were making his eyes hurt. He should probably stop staring then.
Wu Fan looked back at him and Chanyeol had the feeling that Wu Fan wasn’t at all disappointed with what he was seeing.
||
What Chanyeol didn’t understand was, if Wu Fan was supposed to be from the year 2030 and he had come back in time to save someone (not specifically Chanyeol, though, he was just that unlucky) like he said he had… How exactly was he able to be in this time at all? Wasn’t there a baby version of Wu Fan running around somewhere? What if they met? What if that meeting ended the world?
“China.” Wu Fan said, amusement in his voice. “The younger version of me is in China. Since I don’t plan on paying myself a visit you don’t need to worry about the world blowing up.”
That was good, Chanyeol had been a bit worried about that.
“And yes,” Wu fan Continued. “I can still hear you; you need to learn to close your mouth when you think.”
||
Chanyeol wasn’t sure exactly where they were, the room Wu Fan had taken him to had the generic blandness of just about every hotel room Chanyeol had ever been in. Not that he had been in that many.
He wasn’t even completely sure how Wu Fan had gotten him there, Chanyeol had faded in and out of consciousness after the attack by the two space goons and it should have worried him that he was being taken away somewhere by someone he didn’t know. He wasn’t sure exactly why Wu Fan would even have a hotel room, or how he paid for it. Did they have money in the year 2030? The must do, it wasn’t that far off in the future.
Chanyeol realized that he felt safe with Wu Fan, felt safe in his arms. That was something he hadn’t really had before, hadn’t really felt before. Chanyeol thought that maybe Wu Fan had teleported him to the room, even though Wu Fan said that his time travel doo hicky didn’t double as a teleportation device. Said doo hicky had a proper name, but Chanyeol couldn’t remember it let alone pronounce it.
“Then how did you find me?”
“I didn’t, I found them.”
“Oh.”
Wu Fan, Wu fan the sexy space time traveller from the year 2030 was here in the year 2012 to save the life of Kim Jongdae, that quiet kid who always sat at the table behind Chanyeol in the library. Well, not so quiet since he had that annoying habit of tsking at people, mainly Chanyeol. Saving him from people who wanted to stop him making an important discovery that wouldn’t save the world (yet) but it would change it for the better. Wu Fan wouldn’t tell him what that discovery will be because that might change the world for the worse. Chanyeol hadn’t seen how that could happen, but then Wu Fan recited a list of all the things that could go bad if the wrong people had the right knowledge. It was a long list; Chanyeol may have fallen asleep half way through.
Chanyeol just had the misfortune to get in the way of this life saving mission. And if he was ever allowed to tell any of this to Baekhyun, Baekhyun would just laugh and point and say that was the way of the world.
It was Wu Fan who knocked over the bookshelf that almost squished Chanyeol. Wu Fan. He hadn’t been trying to squish Chanyeol; he’d been trying to squish the two guys trying to kill Jongdae, the same two guys who had attacked Chanyeol in that alley. They had attacked Chanyeol because Chanyeol had come into (painful) contact with Wu Fan earlier that day and as such had been laced with the temporal distortion that had attracted said bad guys.
“Wait, wait, wait! Was that your hand on my ass then?”
“Uhhh, it might have been. I didn’t mean anything by it, it was an accident honest!”
“Oh.”
It was sort of humiliating how unimportant Chanyeol actually was in the grand scheme of things. He might not have known what had been going on; he might not even understand it fully, but this thing had affected him. It was sad to know just how little he had affected it.
Today, in the library, Wu fan had been trying to leave. But his doo hicky was on the fritz so he couldn’t leave.
“But couldn’t you tell it hadn’t worked?”
“Time travel kind of messes with your head, sometimes it takes a while for my memories to catch up with me.”
“Oh.”
Wu Fan just popped a few hours into the future, his doo hicky locking on to the temporal distortion created by space thugs one and two. Which is how he happened on to Chanyeol in the process of being murdered.
“I am glad I got there, in time I mean.”
“Yeah, me too. Up until then I thought you were a figment of my imagination.”
“Oh.”
||
“Will you ever go back to your own time?” Chanyeol asked even though he wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer. He wasn’t sure he wanted Wu Fan to leave, to leave him. Even though that was kind of pathetic. Baekhyun was always telling him that he got attached to fast and to the wrong people.
“I don’t know.” Wu Fan said. There was pain etched in Wu Fan’s face, it showed in the tired lines around his eyes. It showed in the intense light in Wu Fan’s eyes. “I don’t know if I can.”
Chanyeol tried to ignore the little spark of hope that bloomed inside his chest, because it was wrong to want Wu Fan to stay when Wu fan didn’t looked like he wanted to.
Wu Fan sighed and stood up from the bed he’d been perching precariously on. Chanyeol had slumped in the arm chair next to the bed; he was exhausted and had gotten himself comfortable almost immediately. Wu Fan on the other hand had been stiff and seemingly unsure of himself, unable to sit still for longer than a few minutes. Wu fan went to the window and pushed aside the curtain. Dawn was breaking, the light outside was a soft grey, tinged with pink and orange. Wow, Chanyeol hadn’t realized just how late it was, or how early.
“What do you mean?” Chanyeol asked.
“I’m sort of…” Wu fan trailed of, his face scrunched up with confusion, like he was trying to search for the right word. “…Stuck.”
“Stuck?”
“Yes, stuck. In a sort of time loop. I can go back a few days; I can jump forward a few hours, but I can’t get backed to the future, my time I mean.”
“Oh, that’s gotta suck.”
“It does. But I don’t regret it.”
The way Wu Fan said those words made something in Chanyeol’s stomach lurch. There was an emptiness to Wu Fan’s tone that made Chanyeol think that though Wu Fan said he had no regrets, there was still something missing. Something Wu Fan missed.
“Don’t regret what?”
Wu fan let the curtain drop back into place and he turned around to look at Chanyeol, his expression was carefully blank, his eyes serious.
“I completed my mission first time out.” Wu Fan said, there wasn’t even a hint of pride in his voice, no sense that he was bragging about it. “I did exactly what I was supposed to do, I watched and I waited, waited for those guys to make a move on my target.”
“Jongdae?”
“Yes, he spent a lot of time in your library, so did I. Then when those guys appeared I killed them.”
“Oh…okay?”
“I killed them in the library. With a bookcase. That I pushed over.”
“Sounds painful, and a bit messy. But I think I would have remembered death by bookcase happening in the college library. I probably would ha…oh. Oh.”
Wu Fan just nodded. “First time I completed my mission by thwarting an attempt on Kim Jongdae’s life, another student was killed as well. Crushed. My superiors considered it just collateral damage since the death didn’t have much of an effect on the future. And that should have been that. But…”
“But?”
“I couldn’t let you die.”
“Oh.”
Oh.
It was the third repeat of the bookshelf incident when Wu Fan’s doo hicky broke. At least during that attempt he managed not to kill Chanyeol, something Chanyeol greatly appreciated, even if he hadn’t actually known about it until just now. Unfortunately that was also the attempt where the antagonists had been able to get away and were able to try again a few days later. Only now the bad guys were on to the fact that someone was on to them.
Which in retrospect had been a bad thing.
“I am sorry that you got involved in this.”
“I’m not.” Chanyeol said, surprising himself with the truth of his words.
Wu Fan smiled at him, a heartbreakingly hopeful smile and Chanyeol wondered just how lonely it was travelling through time and saving the world. And he wondered what the chances were of him getting laid. In the movies playing the hero always made the Hero horny and Chanyeol was very grateful.
Very grateful.
||
“So, what are you going to do now?”
“Well, until I can figure out a way to get home I’ll just have to stay here. I need to keep watch over Jongdae anyway.”
“Oh. Well, we’ll need to get you some proper clothes, and then you won’t have to lurk in the shadows anymore.”
“I don’t lurk, and what’s wrong with my suit? It’s cool.”
“I bet even in the year 2030 you are the only person who thinks that.”
The end
A/N - ACK!!! this was so rushed at the end because it was already late and it just wouldn't end. At some point there will be a continuation/part two/remix version from Kris's POV where he is sort of a badass with an inconvenient crush.