Work Text:
It’s more Jongdae’s groan of pure, unadulterated frustration that wakes Baekhyun than the incessant ringing of the business phone on the bedside table to the left of their bed. The older man is jostled slightly, head slipping from its perch on Jongdae’s chest as the latter reaches over blindly to their bedside table and gropes around, knocking something that sounds suspiciously like the lamp off before his searching fingers find the innocuous iPhone. Baekhyun grumbles under his breath as Jongdae answers, voice hoarse.
“What do you mean, you think your circuit board is fried? Again? Are you sure?” comes Jongdae’s reply, startling Baekhyun from the edge of sleep.
“Fucking apartment number twelve and their fucking stupid idiotic fire user, the fuck are they doing down there, fucking what the fuck…” His complaints trail off as he throws an arm around Jongdae’s torso, snuggling the cold tip of his nose into the hollow of his throat. A deep sigh sweeps through his messy hair as Jongdae throws his head back to thump into his pillow, the hand that’s not holding the phone to his ear coming up to rest on Baekhyun’s cheek, thumb sweeping across the soft skin there comfortingly.
“Okay, yeah, I get it. Give us, like, three hours and we’ll be down.” He ends the call. Baekhyun hopes he did it without stupid Mr Apartment Twelve getting a chance to finish what he was saying. Screw Mr Apartment Twelve and his stupidly tall fire-using roommate.
Jongdae lets out another sigh as he places the business phone back onto the bedside table, settling back down under the comforter and wrapping his now free arm around Baekhyun so that his fingers can rest on the sliver of skin that peeks out from between the waistband of his pyjama pants and his shirt.
“What time is it?” Baekhyun slurs into the soft cotton of Jongdae’s work pyjama shirt; his boyfriend hums, low in his throat in response.
“Ass o’clock,” is his answer and Baekhyun snorts. “Five-thirty.” He amends a second later.
“Fucking… What fucking idiots. I hate them.”
Now it’s Jongdae’s turn to snort. “That’s a bit strong, don’t you think?”
“They keep waking us up!” Baekhyun whines, digging his fingers into Jongdae’s ribs and snuggling closer for warmth. “I just want to have a nice lie-in with my stupid boyfriend and they keep calling every damn morning for us to fix their circuit and fuse box and I’m done with life, just let me die in peace!”
A chuckle is the only sound that meets his dramatic words and Baekhyun huffs, wriggling his legs around into a more comfortable position. Even if that position just does so happen to be that they wrap and tangle around Jongdae’s.
“Go back to sleep for a bit, Baek,” Jongdae tells him softly, the hand on his cheek slipping down until it fits comfortably onto his shoulder, pulling the sheets up a little so that they’re both wrapped in a cocoon of warm cotton in the chilly early December air.
“Mkay.”
* * *
It isn’t until eight that Baekhyun even remembers why they’re both up so early on a damn Sunday morning, and it completely ruins the good mood that was brought on by his comfortable sleepy cuddle session with his boyfriend.
“I seriously am going to kill them this time,” Baekhyun tells Jongdae even as they’re in the elevator (they only have to travel down by one floor to get to apartment twelve from their own, apartment twenty five, but Baekhyun insists they don’t waste energy by descending by stairs). “How many times have they called in the last three weeks? It’s got to be nearing twenty times now that that great giant idiot has set their electrics on fire.”
Jongdae hums, adjusting his grip on the small toolbox that he’s carrying. Really, considering the fact that he has control over lightning and electricity and Baekhyun controlling light and illusion, they don’t need the full toolkit, just enough to be able to take the covers off fuse boxes and actually get to the wiring in the apartments, but Baekhyun insists that they look “professional”, so Jongdae gave in.
“It’s got to be,” he agrees as the little red light above the button panel changes to a large ‘1’. “I could check the call log on the business phone, I guess, but I’m not that invested in it, to be honest. And I feel like it would make me angry.”
“I can be angry enough for the both of us!” Baekhyun insists as a ding sounds and the doors slide open. “I can blind them if you want, just say the word, boyfriend,”
“I think we’d better not.” Jongdae responds , sending the older man a side glance. “We’d just hear more from them, and get hit with the hospital bills.”
Baekhyun hums, tilting his head from left to right like a puppy, considering his words. “I mean, yeah you’re probably right, but it would be so satisfying.”
“You’re slightly crazy and I’m not afraid to pretend to not know you,”
“Fucker.”
It’s probably not a good idea for Jongdae to ring the doorbell - his static electricity has never liked doorbells, for some really strange reason - so Baekhyun does it instead, following it up with an impatient knock to the door with his knuckles, just because. They deserve to be annoyed, he believes, thinking of all of the missed lie-in opportunities that he and Jongdae have missed over the last three weeks because of these idiots.
The door opens a crack, one large eye peering through the gap at them, before it swings open to reveal a very harassed-looking Do Kyungsoo, the less flammable resident of apartment twelve.
“I am so, so sorry about this,” he prefaces his explanation, eyes wide and apologetic as he ushers them into the alcove inside the door; it almost mirrors apartment twenty-five. “Chanyeol is a massive idiot and I’m going to bury him alive within the week, so you don’t even need to say anything, I already know how much of an inconvenience this is for you. I’m so sorry.”
Jongdae waves his words off, a good-natured grin on his face. “It’s okay, Kyungsoo-shi, you don’t have to do that,”
“Can I help?” Baekhyun queries, closing the door behind him.
Kyungsoo blinks owlishly up at him (by ‘up’, around an inch).
“If you want to, I guess?” he answers. “I kind of wanted to save that pleasure for myself, to be honest, but I guess you could help me hide the body.”
Jongdae shivers. “You two are disturbing.” He glances sideways at Baekhyun and inches away from him. “I’m taking this opportunity to say that I don’t know this guy,”
“You little fucker.”
* * *
A week goes by where Baekhyun and Jongdae receive no calls from the two men in apartment twelve. It’s almost a tentative acceptance of the radio silence, where they try and get back to their regular lives; after being called down so regularly over the last few weeks, it feels strange to finally have free time.
It’s on the eighth day of silence, the two of them sat in a cafe a block away from their building, that the business phone rings again. It sits in the middle of the table innocuously, between Baekhyun’s and Jongdae’s phones, twitching across the cheap paper tablecloth with every buzz of the ringtone. Baekhyun stares at the device hard, eyes narrowed, and if he had any other power, Jongdae thinks it would have burst into flames right now (although, it’s most likely that electronic devices bursting into flames is what’s causing their issues). Jongdae sighs, pushing away his half finished pancakes and reaches for the phone, not even bothering to check the caller ID before answering.
“Morning, Kyungsoo,” he greets glumly, closing his eyes as he waits for the other to speak.
“Jongdae-ssi,” Kyungsoo replies, overly cheerful, almost to the point of hysteria, by the sounds of things. The fire alarm is beeping in the background and Chanyeol is yelling something that Jongdae can’t quite make out through the call. “I’m really sorry to bother you, but my idiot of a roommate has-“
“-Fried the mains again?”
Kyungsoo sighs. “Yes, that. I’ve tried to find other electricians in the area, but none of them are as good as you and Baekhyun-ssi. I’m really sorry to keep bothering you like this. I’ll make Chanyeol buy you guys a thank-you gift in return, you honestly deserve it,”
Jongdae opens his eyes to see Baekhyun pouting dolefully at his now-soggy pancakes, already rooting through his wallet to find the right amount of cash to leave for the bill.
“Give us, like, an hour and we’ll be there.”
Fifty-six minutes later, Baekhyun is ringing the doorbell for apartment twelve, following it up with his cursory annoyed knock, almost punching Chanyeol in the throat when it’s him who answers instead of Kyungsoo.
“We’re here to fix your electrics, as though that’s a surprise,” Baekhyun says drily, hefting the toolbox up from the floor. “Move.”
“Baek,” Jongdae sighs, rolling his eyes as Baekhyun pushes past Chanyeol, shouldering his way into the apartment and heading straight for the electric box; the taller man just stands there looking half guilty, half offended. “Sorry, Chanyeol.” Jongdae apologises, following his boyfriend’s path.
He finds Kyungsoo sat on the sofa, head in hands, the very picture of despair. “Hey, Kyungsoo,” Jongdae calls, grinning. “Don’t worry so much, okay? Messing with electricity is my forte.”
“I feel bad for always calling you guys out,” is the muffled response.
“Chanyeol’s getting us a present, so it’s okay. Or so I hear.” Baekhyun trills from the kitchen. Kyungsoo lets out a small noise, almost a whimper, and Chanyeol crosses the living room to put a hand on his shoulder comfortingly.
“I really am sorry,” he tells Jongdae sincerely. “I’ll make it upto you both, I promise.”
“You’d better,” Baekhyun warns, poking his head around the doorframe, small orbs of light floating in the air around his head, illuminating the area much better than the overhead strip light could. He narrows his eyes at the tall male, and Jongdae would find it frightening, but he knows Baekhyun inside and out and simply can’t find him scary at all.
“Why are you glaring at me?” Chanyeol questions, tipping his head to one side, fringe flopping over his eyes slightly.
“I’m hoping that you’ll spontaneously combust,”
“Don’t even go there.” Kyungsoo warns, shrugging off the hand on his shoulder.
“Time to get to work, I think!” Jongdae adds cheerfully, winking at Chanyeol and bumping his shoulder into Baekhyun’s affectionately on his way past into the kitchen. “Thanks for adding a little light, babe,” he adds as he rolls up his sleeves.
“You’re very welcome,” Baekhyun responds sweetly, shooting another glare behind them at Chanyeol. “Can you hurry up with your tinkering so that we can go and get drunk?”
Electricity crackles at his fingertips as he opens the box and surveys the damage, shooting a grin at the older man. “It’s you who always takes the most amount of time, Byun Baekhyun.”
He’s still spluttering out protests when Jongdae’s eyes turn white and the wires twitch back to life as though they’re long-dry veins with new blood rushing through them.
* * *
“Well, well, well. Fancy seeing you boys here,”
Kyungsoo sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose between his thumb and index finger. “We invited you here.”
“You’re treating us because you feel guilty about cockblocking us all the time, actually,” Baekhyun corrects, taking a long sip from his cocktail (Jongdae winces, knowing that he’s ordered a double shot of vodka in it. He also knows that he’ll be the one literally carrying his boyfriend home to their apartment later in the night because he’s a damn lightweight who can’t hold his liquor even though he says he can).
Chanyeol flashes them a tentative grin, bringing his own drink (a beer) to his lips. “I’ve been taking classes you, know,” he tells them both, tips of his ears flushing an attractive pink when Kyungsoo’s hand drops from the surface of the table to rest on his knee. “I’ve been trying to learn to control the flow of fire better so that it doesn’t reach out to the circuit board. So far, it’s been working! I mean, it’s been two weeks without any major damage.”
“He did burn a hole in the sofa, but he didn’t plunge the entire place into darkness again, so I’d like to say it’s going fairly well so far,” Kyungsoo adds in his low voice. Jongdae laughs, squeezing Baekhyun’s hand where it rests on his thigh - mainly to stop it from wandering higher, but also as a ‘see? Look how hard he’s trying’ kind of gesture.
“Well, we definitely appreciate our increase in free time lately, that’s for sure,” he tells them both with a smile. “And we should definitely hang out again after this! You guys are actually pretty cool to be around, and it’s always nice to have friends who haven’t slept with my boyfriend.”
Baekhyun whines, leaning wildly to the side and stuffing his nose into the collar of Jongdae’s shirt. He’s halfway drunk already and he’s only on his third drink of the night.
“That was before we were together!” he whinges, squeezing Jongdae’s fingers in apology even as the latter laughs; Kyungsoo and Chanyeol glance at each other, not sure how to answer that.
“I’m kidding,” Jongdae tells them, an grin smile curling at the ends of his lips, eyes crinkling. “But only about the sex thing. It really is nice to hang out with you guys,”
“Thank you,” Chanyeol answers, chuckling as he raises his hand for refills for him and Jongdae.
“I just have a lot of love for people, that’s all!” Baekhyun mumbles as Jongdae pushes him upright again, manhandling him back into his own seat, saving the cocktail that was about to tip into his lap.
“Is he always like this?” Kyungsoo asks, side-eyeing the older man. “I don’t think we knew what we were getting ourselves in for when we suggested taking you guys out for drinks as a way to say thank you for helping us.”
Jongdae nudges Baekhyun softly with his shoulder, causing the other to laugh loudly, reaching across the table for Kyungsoo’s other hand, snatching it with surprising agility and speed considering his level of intoxication, pulling it towards him across the polished wood before the younger can stop him.
“Kyungsoo,” he announces. “Soo. That’s really cute! Hey, Soo!”
“Go home, Baek, you’re drunk,” Jongdae titters as Baekhyun pouts at him.
“Shut up. Soo - you know, I really enjoy your company. You’re officially my new friend.”
“Gee, thanks,” Kyungsoo tells him, sarcasm colouring every syllable. Chanyeol chuckles again, downing the last of his beer.
“Not you, you fiery imbecile.” Baekhyun’s eyes suddenly sharpen as he fixes the tallest man with a mischievous smirk. “You’ve still got a lot to prove to earn our friendship for real.”
(It only takes three more cocktails and a greasy kebab from a questionable-looking shop on the way back to their apartment building before Baekhyun deems Chanyeol ‘good enough’ for him, and demands a piggyback into the lift.)