[Fic] Guardian - 5/8 (EXO)
Title: Guardian
Pairing: Kai/Suho
Rating: NC-17 overall
Genre: master/slave!AU, pseudo-historical, fantasy, smut
Warnings: issues of sexual consent, references to past sexual assault, violence, kidnapping, slaves having no ability to say no especially at first, and did I mention issues of consent inherent to master/slave dynamics?
Summary: They spoke of him as though he were nothing more than a treasure found by the roadside. He bowed to his new master because it was polite, and because he knew of nothing else he could do. See warnings.
***
Chapter One * Chapter Two * Chapter Three * Chapter Four * Chapter Five * Chapter Six * Chapter Seven * Chapter Eight
***
Sehun had not asked Kai what had happened the morning that Suho cried. Kai suspected that Sehun knew either from Suho’s demeanor or his words. He wasn’t unaware that they talked together, did not forbid it since some of his valuable information about Suho had come specifically because Sehun knew Suho well. They could speak as Suho had not been able to speak to Kai before, though he thought that had changed at least some to the better. Sehun had been right to speak up, giving Kai a chance to make things right as much as he had been able. He hadn’t been able to undo the hurt, but Suho had accepted him. He had not had to - if Suho had made himself a stone, he could have existed in Kai’s tent until neither of them could stand the distance. He wasn’t sure what he would have done. The thought of selling Suho left an achy feeling in his chest.
Sehun seemed to know when Kai was there to ask about Suho, and Kai wasn’t sure how. Something in his face or posture, perhaps.
“What can I tell you?” Sehun asked, barely looking up from the stick he was shaving. Or at least, he didn’t until Kai sat and then his attention was focused. Maybe he wondered if Kai had done something wrong. It wasn’t that at all. He’d come with questions, and realized he had a confession to make first.
“I burned those temple robes. I burned them. I don’t want the temple’s taint on him. I don’t want him to think of me like those men.”
Sehun did not even have the manners to disguise his snort. “If you don’t want to be like them, then you won’t be. But burning the robes? Because you believe he belongs in your tents now, not in the temple?”
“But does he believe it?” Kai groaned, letting his head fall back for a moment. “I have to think so, because he asked me to take the robes from him, and he didn’t protest when they were burned.”
“The good memories he has of that place won’t disappear with the burning of cloth. If you did not treat him like a patron would while wearing them, perhaps you alleviated some of his bad memories of them, too.”
“Perhaps. Has he told you what the patrons of the temple were like?”
“Enough to know they didn’t know how to please a man even if it would’ve made them richer,” Sehun said, speaking with as much disdain as he could muster.
Kai huffed out a laugh. “That is true. He doesn’t speak much on it. Some of them wanted his pain. I just want to know that he is at least content to be here.”
It had Sehun blinking at him, frowning slightly. Kai was glad he didn’t answer right away and took time to think, but the delay also gave Kai reason to worry.
“Should he not be? You’re treating him well.”
Kai’s exhale was one of frustration. “I think so. He’s not the quiet shadow he was once. I used to wonder if he accepted what I wanted because he wanted to, or because he was afraid of displeasing me.”
Sehun’s head tilted. “Used to? And you don’t think he would tell you the truth if you asked him yourself?”
Sehun didn’t even flinch when Kai hissed at him. “I suspect he’d give me a very diplomatic answer. I know he will speak up for himself. I just thought you…might know more.”
Or perhaps know more in that Kai did not know how to ask, felt clumsy thinking of doing it, to induce Suho to answer him without fear of retribution.
“You sleep near him,” Sehun pointed out, and it made Kai scowl. Fine, then, if Sehun would not speak, he had more questions he had in his mind.
“Suho said something last night that I haven’t been able to put from my mind. He asked if I knew what the difference was between the patrons at the temple did to him, and what we did together.”
Sehun stared at him, no expression changing except for the lifting of his eyebrows. “And?”
“He didn’t answer. I don’t know what he meant.”
“The patrons hurt him at the temple,” Sehun said slowly, “but you don’t know what he meant?”
Kai scowled. “I know I don’t hurt him like that. I know that, but what he did there, he did for the temple and the other men he was trying to make sure were fed. Here, I own him. He’s seen how my father can punish slaves. I’ve struck him myself, and I’ve caused him distress. Perhaps he meant that there was no difference. He was a servant of the temple, and now he is a slave. And neither time he could refuse, even if he knows he can speak up.”
“When you struck him, it was not because you enjoyed it or for anger, but to teach a lesson,” Sehun said, taking an instructing tone that Kai had not heard often. “And if you fear your slave accepts you or encourages you from fear, the only thing you can do is ask him, or take that fear from him. Then you’ll know.”
“What do you mean?”
“Swear an oath. He will not kneel or bow to your whim or provide sexual favor unless it is his true wish. In return, you swear you will not strike at him, punish him in any way, increase his work, or put him from your tents.”
“What slave would gain such concessions? Is his cock made of gold?” Kai asked, his laugh incredulous even as he considered it.
Sehun smirked, an expression Kai wished he could order right off of him. “Or you could simply ask him, like a grown man. I know you can speak to him. But I also know that he could ask me to intercede on his behalf with you, yet he has not complained. Were he so displeased, I know he would ask. You haven’t broken him.”
“Then he is happy,” Kai prodded.
Sehun picked up the knife and began to strip the bark again from the stick he held. All he had were two frustrating words: “Ask him.”
***
Suho on his knees made him want, bowed over smooth skin with scattered markings. He pressed Suho up against the trunk, both of them knelt on the floor and waiting. Kai could not get Sehun’s words from him, could not help but wonder what it meant what Suho thought of him. He had embraces, kisses, moans he had ordered from Suho’s throat, pleasure squeezed between his fingers. He had a man who slept still and warm beside him some nights, sighing at the brush of Kai’s hand against his skin.
Suho moaned at the press of Kai’s cock and he wondered if it was true, if Suho liked it, if he moaned because he knew Kai desired the sound of it. And Suho stiffened as Kai pressed against his back and whispered into his ear.
“Be silent this night, no sounds at all.”
He got Suho’s nod, the sound of harsh breaths, and he began to fuck, reveling in the feel of Suho tight around him. The silence was unnatural, broken by the sounds of Suho’s hands tightening on the trunk he braced on, the slick sounds of body against body. He held back his own moans, listening to Suho breathe as he paused. He wanted more than that, dissatisfied with it even as Suho tightened around him. Suho’s head turned easily at the press of Kai’s fingers, meeting Kai’s lips, trying to meet the messy kisses as Kai kept fucking him. First, it was a whimper from Suho’s throat, and a moan from Kai’s as Suho touched his hair.
It was that sound that changed things.
“Have I done something wrong?” Suho asked, panting, his eyes open but not meeting Kai’s.
“What? Why would you ask that?” Kai asked, and stilled entirely.
“Asking for my silence. As though you wish to pretend-“
“Pretend what?”
“I am someone else? Or if you do not want to know I enjoy-“
Suho moaned, an instinctual sound, as Kai pulled him up so that he leaned back against Kai’s chest. Fuck. He had not thought of what Suho would take from his request.
“You do not know the pleasure I have found listening to you,” Kai said, curling his hand around Suho’s half-hard cock. “I know very well it is you around me. I want to hear you, Suho.”
“Kai.”
He moaned for Suho, a template, an invitation, and Suho moaned for him, rocking into Kai’s stroking hand and back onto Kai’s cock. Suho went hard so quickly, maybe because he was not holding back, maybe from Kai’s touch, but Kai stroked and sucked along Suho’s shoulder until Suho shuddered and came. It was permission himself to bury himself, fill Suho as he’d wanted to from the start.
He kissed the tender skin Suho’s neck and wondered how it was that they had gotten there, how he had gotten so tangled inside that he made Suho think he was displeased with him. Suho rose, ready to make for the cloth to clean them with, or Kai knew not what. And Kai stopped him, standing and pulling Suho close. It was time to do away with his own demons.
“How does this between us differ than at the temple? You asked and did not answer me.”
Suho turned to him, his face shadowed in the light.
“You are my master. You own me as the temple did, and yet… There I had no choice. But here, I want.”
“Here you have no choice as well, even if you want,” Kai said, stroking down Suho’s arm. There was bitterness there, something Kai didn’t understand even as he said it.
“Would you force me to my knees if I begged you not to? Would you force me to silence instead of hearing my pain?” Suho asked. And when Kai did not answer, Suho touched Kai’s cheek - and after a moment, cupped it. “You would not use your power like that.”
***
Suho knew all too well that Kai would not abuse his power, the way that Kai’s eyes hardened as though the thought of it was perverse. Yet once, perhaps he would have thought of a slave’s body as property. The man standing before him, Kai saw him as Suho and not a receptacle for his needs. He had listened when Suho had been hurting because of his actions. He listened then, had listened when Suho had worried.
“I don’t want to hear your pleasure if you did not want to give it,” Kai said, holding Suho’s wrist so that his hand would not lower from against his face. “I’ve demanded it from you before. I did not want to erase your pleasure, or your pain. I feared… that I was only an echo of the temple to you.”
The inhale was nearly a gasp, when Suho realized they had both been so misunderstood.
“No. Oh, no. When you told me I would worship at your body, I did not expect you to worship at mine, too.” And Suho was abashed for even having suggested it. “I’m- I didn’t mean to-“
Kai stopped him, gripping his chin and lifting it. “You spoke truth.”
“Maybe once I moaned because I thought you wished it, but I learned that if I moaned for myself, it was not a lie. I could show you what pleased me with a sound. I would be Suho of Kai’s tent, with my own voice, my own master. I did not mean to make you worry.”
If he gave Kai what was true, what he received back had more likelihood to be also. He didn’t want Kai to fear the temple or Suho’s connection to it. He wanted Kai to know that he was settled, secure, finally, and when he slipped his arms over Kai’s shoulders, Kai let him, held him.
“I would not worry, when you look at me without shying away,” Kai said. “Even when I make you think you’ve displeased me, or if I have hurt you.”
“You have never had to listen or change, or apologize, or make promises.” Suho tightened his arms around Kai’s neck, pressing his cheek there against the warm skin. “Thank you for hearing me.”
“Tell me if there is anything you… don’t want,” Kai said, his voice halting. “If you’re unhappy.”
There were times when he thought of the different types of masters he could have had, the sorrow, the pain, the exhaustion, that it left him breathless. It did not make Kai perfect, how Kai had dealt with him without reproach, but it did not stunt the fact that he was grateful. He felt protected there in Kai’s arms, welcomed. The scent of Kai was more home to him than the tent itself. What Suho longed for was not something that was right between master and slave, the giddy joy Sehun couldn’t contain sometimes when he spoke of his merchant. Sometimes Suho wondered if his own feelings came about because he had no choice.
It comforted him to know it was not true, and he reveled in the feeling of Kai’s lips against his, soft, kissing him with utmost care. Kai kissed his cheek, his neck, and breathed him in.
“Sometimes I wonder…” Kai murmured. “Would you stay by my side, even if you were not a slave.”
A slither of cold touched his spine. Suho knew words of power, how they sounded. It was not Sight but knowledge. It was as though his soul had been touched. It was not prophecy. But words of power had the chance to change futures, but not always in the way the speaker or even the listener anticipated. Kai did not even know what he’d said, as he leaned against Suho.
It lingered in the back of his mind as they washed, as Kai pulled him close beneath the blanket and breathed against his hair. If he was not a slave, he did not know what else he would be.
***
Suho found a coin in his sandal. It was not the strangest place he had found one, but he did not imagine Kai had much occasion to bother with Suho’s sandals or boots, because when Suho was not wearing them they were tucked out of Kai’s sight. When he looked up, Kai was smirking down at him.
“I see you have a coin,” Kai said.
And Suho opened his mouth to agree, to offer it back to Kai since Kai was standing next to him. He wanted to jolt, to hide it, as though Kai would think he had tried to take it but realized it would have looked as though he were guilty of something he wasn’t.
“What have you been buying with them?” Kai asked, crouching down beside him. “Fruit? Something pretty?”
Suho nearly sputtered. “With your coins? I would not! I’ve bought nothing that you haven’t directed me to.”
“What do you mean? Have you been saving the coins I left for you?” Kai asked, and was so perplexed when Suho offered the coin back to him on his palm. Kai actually pushed his hand back, curling his fingers over the coin. “It’s yours.”
“Left for me,” Suho said, his brain halting. “You mean… The coin in the basin? In my book? The trunk? You left those for me?”
“How would a coin have gotten into your book otherwise?” Kai asked.
Suho wasn’t used to being looked at as though he was very slow and without understanding.
“Then what have you been doing with the coins if not spending them?” Kai asked.
“Putting them aside for you!” Suho said, and that was something he could do, something he understood. He went straight to Kai’s shelf where Kai kept his combs, his clothes, his creams. From it he pulled a clay jar that Kai reached past every single day. In it was the unmistakeable sound of coins jangling together, and Kai was laughing, incredulous as he took the jar and looked down in it.
“I kept waiting for you to say something,” Kai teased. “I thought you were using them and embarrassed.”
“I would have thought I was stealing!” Suho exclaimed.
“That was why I put them in your belongings, things you used. I was too subtle still, I suppose.”
Suho almost deflated, swallowing back a laugh. “Yes. I worried more for you, if you were losing money like that. But you mean to say… These are all mine?”
“Yes,” Kai said. “And especially so now that I realize how true you were to me.”
Suho didn’t know what to do with the admiration on Kai’s face. He had done it because it was the right thing, even more so than knowing there would be a beating or worse if he had truly tried to steal. A loss of trust, and certainly a loss of status. None of those things could be retrieved with so small a coin.
“It’s too much,” Suho said, not even knowing how many coins there were exactly even with the one he still held.
“Why?”
“Why?” Suho echoed. “I-“
He didn’t know why. The half dozen or so coins wouldn’t buy much. They wouldn’t buy much of anything significant, more tokens. A few pieces of fruit, a worn book, a length of cloth.
“You have given me everything I need,” Suho settled on. And he knew if he had needed something more, he could have asked.
“Even if you can trade in your book for others, life is more than just being provided for. You don’t get to choose your meals, or anything else. I thought it would be nice for you to be able to decide something,” Kai said, pressing that simple jar back into Suho’s hands. “Even if it is to save them for something.”
Suho put the jar with the coins down in favor of a different kind of reward. He touched Kai’s chest, fingers half on skin and half on cloth, looking between Kai’s eyes and his mouth until Kai understood and kissed him. It was a lingering kiss, Suho pressing into it as Kai stroked along his back.
“You are more thoughtful than you think,” Suho said. “Thank you.”
“I’ll accept your thanks,” Kai said, almost impossibly mild. “Perhaps I should tell Sehun I tucked a few coins into his bed. He may still be sleeping on them.”
“Kai,” Suho laughed, almost squirming from the engulfing warmth inside. “Kai.”
He hummed as Kai kissed him, pulled into the solidness of his body, Kai’s arms sliding around him.
“I did not mean to seduce you with coin,” Kai muttered.
Suho inhaled as Kai’s hand slipped into the back of his pants. He shifted his hips forward, showing Kai without words that his cock rose for Kai. Kai had left him coin for the fun of it, perhaps and left Sehun some, also. It was not the coin, the having of them, that affected him so. It was the giving.
“You only need to breathe,” Suho admitted, and let Kai draw him closer.
***
The coins were a weight in his trunk, like he carried them around with them instead of having them out of sight. Sehun had laughed baldly when Suho had told him of it, telling him that Kai had made him shake out his blankets to find the coins there and scowling when Sehun had been bewildered.
“He asked me if I’d been growing coins out of my skin,” Sehun chuckled. “I’d have been scared if I’d found them, thinking someone was setting me up to be accused of stealing.”
“That’s close to what I thought, too! I thought I might be accused of it because Kai was just being exceptionally forgetful.”
They shared a little laugh, a traded look, at Kai’s expense. But there was fondness in that, too. He didn’t ask where Sehun kept his coins, or what he meant to spend them on when he had no idea what he wanted either. Some days he went out with a coin tied in the corner of a handkerchief, staring at things. Household items, pretty daggers, bolts of cloth, books, stacks of vegetables and hanging carcasses. He went out several times like that, imagining, wondering. He thought he owed himself even a small thing, to use it as a decision he could make for himself. He haggled down the end of a bolt of cloth, and used half his coin. The other half, he splurged on thick ripe fruit, not too sweet, with flesh the color of mangoes. It was Kai’s favorite, a fruit he’d come to appreciate because of it. It made him smile, carrying them home in the cloth he’d bought and cutting them small, swirling it in honey and spice and letting them sit, waiting for after Kai ate, almost dancing as he sat and ate and wondered. Kai was obviously preoccupied because he didn’t call Suho near and ask about his day, but that didn’t keep him from calling for him after.
When Kai stood, it had Suho reaching for the bowl of prepared fruit and walking near to where Kai stood.
“What’s this?” Kai asked, even though he could plainly see with his two eyes.
“I bought it in the market today,” Suho said.
Kai seemed bemused, picking up a piece of fruit and sucking it into his mouth with a hum.
“So, you used a coin I gave you to use for yourself…to buy fruit for me,” Kai clarified.
It sounded less impressive when put like that.
“For us,” Suho corrected. “And it was only half a coin. The other half I used to buy new cloth to shield myself from the sun. They had only a small bit left, and I liked the color, so.”
He realized he was trying to justify the cloth purchase when Kai began to smile.
“Then you did buy something only for yourself. That’s good. Since you bought this for us, share it with me,” Kai said.
Suho sat with him on the edge of the bed, lifting a piece of the sticky fruit for himself as he watched Kai savor.
“You make this better even than Sehun does,” Kai said, and Suho cursed himself when his face grew hot.
“I pay attention to how quickly you eat it based on how it tastes,” Suho murmured. And his eyes widened when Kai lifted a piece of the fruit to Suho’s mouth.
“You pay attention to many things, it sounds like,” Kai said, watching as Suho took the fruit from his fingers. Suho took another piece himself, offering it, his breath hitching as Kai took one of Suho’s fingertips between his lips as well. That mouth curving as he fed Suho more, and let his fingers linger so that Suho could suck them clean.
“Suho.”
There was a tone of voice that Suho had found unmistakeable, one that had a measure of want in it. It had been shifting through him as well, lifting his eyes to meet Kai’s, the steady demand of them.
Kai put down the bowl, and took Suho’s hand, turning it over, before clasping it in his own.
“You have Seen for Sehun. You can read desires. Touch me. Tell me what you See.”
There were times he could, Suho wanted to protest, and times he couldn’t. The thought had to be free and open, at the very front of consciousness. He could not read deeper than that and had no desire to. He wondered, with Kai so reserved, if he would be able to see anything but the glimmer of want.
But he had no sooner opened his mind and reached for Kai’s, when he pulled his hand back, gasping. His cock twitched at the image he had seen, Kai on his back, urging Suho to fuck him.
“Did you see? Are you surprised?”
“I do not know if I saw what you meant,” Suho said, the words awkward from his lips.
“Your cock in me?” Kai asked, and Suho nodded, unable to keep the amazement off his face. “Don’t look so startled. Why should I not be curious how you do? I’ve tried it in the past, and liked it, but there are not so many men I would trust not to hold it over me.”
“But- oh.” Kai trusted him. As his slave, as a man, as a bed partner, he didn’t know which, but Kai was telling him the truth. “I would tell no one, if that’s what you wish.”
“Then you are willing?”
“I have never,” Suho said. “But I would..try.”
“We’ll try until we accomplish what we want,” Kai agreed, and tugged at Suho’s tunic as he pressed his mouth against Suho’s.
He loved that, almost more than anything else, those traded kisses and tug of cloth, anticipation, breathless as Kai’s skin was bared to him, to his wandering hands. His hands that were free to touch, to stroke, his lips free to speak Kai’s name. There in Kai’s tent, he was a man with his eager lover, a word he had chastised Sehun from using once, sighing as Kai kissed along his neck and bared all of Suho to the air and to him.
Kai rested back on the bed, not pulling Suho with him but widening out one knee like he couldn’t conscience both. His cock was hardening, thickening, and Suho knew what it was to suck at it, feel it hard inside him. But not that night. The positions were reversed. It would not be Kai’s mouth urging his pleasure, but his-
Suho nearly got onto the bed without fetching the oil, so distracted by Kai’s body.
“I can do it, or-“
“I will,” Suho said, kneeling between Kai’s legs. It was the stretch of Kai’s body before him. He knew what it was to make his body slick, to stretch it even a little to make the passage not so startling. And he was not as thick as Kai. He wondered if it would be enough for Kai, but Kai had asked, knowing. Kai’s cock twitched at the first touch of Suho’s fingers, and Suho let his thumb take a smooth path along Kai’s cock as he pressed two fingertips into Kai. It was not that two were so difficult, it was remembering how to let them in. His fingers squirmed and stroked, and he watched Kai’s eyes close, his mouth parting, swallowing, letting out the softer of moans. Not of pain, though, Suho thought he would have known that. He stroked into Kai’s body and wondered how he would survive it, as good as he felt around Suho’s fingers.
“I should let you do this when you have your mouth on me,” Kai moaned, and it made Suho grin.
“I would if you wanted.” To bring Kai pleasure, absolutely. “Do you… Is this enough?”
It was more than he usually did for himself, the subtle stretch and angling, reaching and feeling for what Kai rubbed against inside of him that felt so good.
“Yes. Fuck me,” Kai said, and Suho nearly whimpered, getting his own cock slick and shuffling closer on the bed. He’d nearly pressed his cock to Kai’s body when Kai spoke again. “Do anything you want to me. I won’t tell you no.”
It made Suho freeze, staring at Kai’s face Kai looked back so steadily that it was breathtaking. Maybe he meant it, but he could have had no idea what it said to Suho.
“Kai, I… I want you to tell me no, if that’s what you feel. Otherwise, I will always wonder if I am doing something you don’t want. I know you wish to show your trust in me. But that is trust, too.” And Suho swallowed hard, reaching for and squeezing Kai’s hand. “Knowing I will stop if you wish me to.”
He nearly whimpered when Kai sat up. “Suho.”
“Full power over you is not what I desire. To be…the same with you. Equal to you here, even if you may order me outside of this bed.”
Kai cupped his face, eyes searching Suho’s. “You continually amaze me,” Kai said.
And before Suho could respond or even process that statement, Kai was kissing him, telling him of his want with his lips and the stroke of his hand on Suho’s hair, his neck. He kissed Suho again, and again, pulling Suho over his body until he was stretched out over Kai, poised over him.
“I will tell you if there is something I don’t want,” Kai promised. “Share your pleasure with me.”
Suho nodded, speechless, and he moaned against Kai’s lips as he stroked them together, until all he knew was want, the need to press slick against Kai and try-
Try together.
And oh, it was different than Kai’s mouth, or his hand, or Suho’s own. They were at odds for a breathless set of heartbeats before Kai’s body gave and took him. Tighter, warm, adjusting so gingerly to push back in as Kai moaned under him. It felt too good. Too much, and at the same time different, not enough.
“How do you-“ Suho gasped, moaning as he slid into Kai again.
“How do I what?” Kai asked, and Suho was gratified, at least, that when he looked up Kai’s eyes were nearly as glazed as his felt.
“How do you last?”
Kai laughed at him, gasping little chuckles that did nothing to help his problem.
“You last as long as your body will,” Kai said, gripping Suho’s hip with one hand. “And I will enjoy every moment of it.”
If Kai thought to assure him, he’d both succeeded and failed in one breath. It was like anything, he assumed, that if he slowed, he could catch his runaway body, but that only worked so well. He had Kai’s moans, and Kai’s body, and the tightness of him. He added more oil, hoping less friction would help but it only encouraged him to go faster. All he wanted was for Kai to enjoy it, to find pleasure from it. And he whimpered when he saw Kai grab his own cock, stroking it as he watched Suho fuck him.
“Kai,” he moaned.
But Kai did not dissuade him, urging him, “Faster.”
It felt like his body was not his own, working so quickly he did not know how, his body almost at odds, having to realign and keep moving as he moaned and watched Kai’s face begin to tighten. It seemed impossible that he was above Kai, watching Kai, watching Kai crumble under the desperation.
“Kai. Kai, oh.”
Kai came from the stroking of his own hand, and from whatever pleasure he took from Suho in him, and Suho shuddered, his hips bumping hard, five, six times, until he whimpered at the pleasure that jolted through him. He could smell Kai’s pleasure, and he hung his head, breathing so desperately. He was still shaking with it when he pulled back, moving so that he could lick the come from Kai’s belly, gently sucking his cock clean as Kai grasped at his shoulder.
“You lasted enough,” Kai said, his lips curling, voice rough.
“Does it get easier?”
“Not always. Sometimes I’m barely in you before I want to come.”
He’d never known. He’d heard Kai hissing in his ear, surely, but he’d thought it was because of effort and not because he was so close to losing control.
“I’m glad I’m not alone, then.”
“We’ll see how it goes some other time. Here,” Kai said, and pulled Suho against his side before he could stand.
Yes, he would rest a little bit before getting up. He would stop shaking, at the very least. He didn’t even know why, fingers tangling with Kai’s as they rested together, sticky, too warm. But another part of Kai that he had shared with him.
“Did you like it?” Kai asked, after Suho had gotten up to tie down the flaps of the tent and to settle the tent for the night. Suho leaned his head back against Kai’s shoulder, and thought of so many things he could have said. Some were flippant, others serious.
But he settled on, “Yes,” and felt Kai smile against his cheek.
***
Suho carried the dishes toward the chest, cleaned and dried to be stored. It was not interesting work, but it was better than sitting and staring at the shadows on the side of the tent. Considering some of the labor performed, truly backbreaking work that gave the slaves callouses and life-altering injuries, he had the lightest of the labor. Perhaps they went to their beds uninterrupted, but that was not the horror he’d thought at first.
That was saying it in its most simplistic form. Ever since- Ever since Kai had pulled him over him, things had been different. There was so much more time spent with his arms around Kai’s body than spent naked. It seemed Kai liked to find him in his bed, and he slept there those nights when Kai was through and would not let him go or called him back. He’d become accustomed to Kai’s warmth against him even as the air around the tent chilled. It made his pallet feel cool, even with extra furs.
There was someone else in Kai, someone he’d seen only after raising his head and stopped thinking of himself as a slave. A kindness, a gentleness. Almost a shyness as he looked to Suho for approval. There was no improper sense of self-worth in Kai. He stood tall because he had been raised that way. But who he was beyond his station, that was what Suho had not seen. The fondness he felt when he saw Kai sleeping, dark eyelashes against his skin and his mouth parted. A pretty mouth, he had felt it often on all parts of himself.
Just to sit next to Kai and be near him…
He imagined Kai beside him, talking to him of the horses, of his sums, of the weather, or what he hoped to eat. Simple things that connected them, when he smiled to hear Kai’s voice, or to see Kai leaning over to kiss Suho’s bared shoulder. He smiled, and picked up Kai’s half-full water cup from the table to take it to the bucket he was washing in.
He took only a step, before his world tilted.
The cup dropped from numb fingertips, falling and smashing on the hard ground, the water a silver puddle just moments before Suho’s knees joined it there. But the pain wasn’t something he felt, his vision doubling, blurring. He Saw the colorful tents of the marketplace, Saw Kai smiling to his right at his father. They walked between weapons and fruit, stepping into the central square.
He heard the whistle, nearly saw the air rend. And he heard as Kai’s flesh parted, the thump and echo as a second arrow hit, burying in his ribs.
Kai had only the time to draw in a breath. And he was dead. Suho watched the light fade from his eyes as Kai sank to the ground as shouts rose around him.
Suho came back to himself with a cry of alarm. Kai. He had to find Kai.
“Kai? Have you seen Kai?” he shouted as he ran, not caring of the strange looks or no answers. He knew where he would find Kai, but he wanted the vision to be false. If it was true, Kai was in terrible danger. Those visions could be changed, but only if he could make it in time. He passed the cloth gate of the market, and shoved his way through the crowd.
“Move, Kai is in danger. Kai! Kai!” If he could just get Kai to slow down. Keep him from moving into the open.
Halfway down the corridor of tents, he spotted the back of Kai’s head, moving past the weapon tent.
“Kai! Move,” Suho spat, shoving through a couple talking together. “Kai!”
Nothing slowed Kai’s progress. And as Suho cleared the edge of the crowd, Kai had already cleared the edge of the tents.
“Kai! Get down!” he shouted.
Kai stopped, looking back at him, confused at his presence. There was no time. Suho looked to the direction the arrows had come from, and it took two strides to put himself in front of Kai.
“Get down!“
The air whistled and the impact of the arrow stunned him. The second hit, and he heard the screams over the roaring in his ears. He’d made it.
“Get down,” he said, head swimming. There could be more arrows. More pain. Hands gripped his sides, pulling him back before he could fall. Kai’s scent.
“Suho!” Kai shouted into his ear.
He wanted to see Kai’s face.
“You’re safe. Kai.”
But the darkness was too much.
***
The panic on Suho’s face. That was what Kai remembered, as he raced toward him and Kai tried to understand what it was that Suho wanted.
He knew the sound of weapon into flesh, but he denied it until Suho’s stagger. Suho, back to Kai, between him and someone with a bow trying to kill him.
“Suho. Suho.”
He heard only two words “safe” and “Kai” before Suho had sagged into his arms. People were afraid to help him, afraid of more arrows as he stood in shock with an unconscious man in his arms - and two arrows protruding from him.
“Run for the healers,” Kai said to anyone who would listen, ducking back into the tents with Suho still in his arms. His path sent people scattering ahead of him as he walked as quickly as he could.
Suho would not die.
***
The sound of the arrows pulled from Suho’s body made such a sound he knew he would never forget. But the sound from Suho’s throat was almost worse, as the pain seemed to rouse him from unconsciousness instead of sending him deeper.
He came fully out with a gasp, his eyes meeting Kai’s. Or so he thought until he realized Suho’s eyes weren’t focused. And his body convulsed, some kind of seizing Kai wasn’t sure what to make of- Until he retched, vomiting into Kai’s hands as they turned him, supported him. It was worry, distaste.
But it was terror, when he saw the blood. And when the convulsions stopped, and they pushed Suho back, he saw that Suho’s lips were stained red.
“Oh, please no,” Kai said.
He didn’t have to know much to know that was bad.
And the men around him murmured.
“He will not live through the night,” one said.
“Then find a way to save him! Find a way! Don’t stand here speaking of death before you consider how to save him!”
“There is nothing that can be done. We can prepare an infusion that will make his passing quicker.”
“No. Get out. Get out, all of you!”
It felt like his mind was shaking nearly as badly as his hands. He knew there was truth in what the men said. Suho was vomiting blood, which meant his injuries inside were severe.
“Sehun!”
It took mere moments, but Sehun was beside him. “Yes, sir?”
“You know everyone. You know all the rumors. You know of Suho’s power. Is there someone like him? Someone who could help him, whose power is secret?”
“There…There might be.”
“Fetch him. Promise him anything he desires. Fast, Sehun. He’s fading.”
Suho had already been so pale. And then to lose blood where they could not see.
“How did you know I was in danger?” Kai asked, squeezing Suho’s hand.
“I Saw…dream,” Suho said, and startled him. Suho’s eyes opened and they were wet. He was not crying. He would not cry. “Safe. Kai.”
“I am safe. Suho.” But it seemed Suho had again lapsed into unconsciousness. He watched, barely breathing as he watched Suho’s chest rise and fall. “Stupid. Stupid. I know your name means guardian, but you should not have stepped in front of me. What do I do? Suho, you are mine. You are not allowed to die until I tell you. You want to stay.”
His voice gentled with his hands, as he washed the blood from Suho’s face.
“We’ll eat breakfast in the morning. I’ll kiss you before you can take the plates away. You know that smile you get sometimes, when I pull you close. When you wipe the food from my face or greet me at my horse. I began to think you truly were glad to see me. Promise me you will eat with me.”
“The healer,” Sehun said, and Kai turned.
“Heal him. I don’t care what you have to do. He saved my life. Heal him.”
***
Pairing: Kai/Suho
Rating: NC-17 overall
Genre: master/slave!AU, pseudo-historical, fantasy, smut
Warnings: issues of sexual consent, references to past sexual assault, violence, kidnapping, slaves having no ability to say no especially at first, and did I mention issues of consent inherent to master/slave dynamics?
Summary: They spoke of him as though he were nothing more than a treasure found by the roadside. He bowed to his new master because it was polite, and because he knew of nothing else he could do. See warnings.
***
Chapter One * Chapter Two * Chapter Three * Chapter Four * Chapter Five * Chapter Six * Chapter Seven * Chapter Eight
***
Sehun had not asked Kai what had happened the morning that Suho cried. Kai suspected that Sehun knew either from Suho’s demeanor or his words. He wasn’t unaware that they talked together, did not forbid it since some of his valuable information about Suho had come specifically because Sehun knew Suho well. They could speak as Suho had not been able to speak to Kai before, though he thought that had changed at least some to the better. Sehun had been right to speak up, giving Kai a chance to make things right as much as he had been able. He hadn’t been able to undo the hurt, but Suho had accepted him. He had not had to - if Suho had made himself a stone, he could have existed in Kai’s tent until neither of them could stand the distance. He wasn’t sure what he would have done. The thought of selling Suho left an achy feeling in his chest.
Sehun seemed to know when Kai was there to ask about Suho, and Kai wasn’t sure how. Something in his face or posture, perhaps.
“What can I tell you?” Sehun asked, barely looking up from the stick he was shaving. Or at least, he didn’t until Kai sat and then his attention was focused. Maybe he wondered if Kai had done something wrong. It wasn’t that at all. He’d come with questions, and realized he had a confession to make first.
“I burned those temple robes. I burned them. I don’t want the temple’s taint on him. I don’t want him to think of me like those men.”
Sehun did not even have the manners to disguise his snort. “If you don’t want to be like them, then you won’t be. But burning the robes? Because you believe he belongs in your tents now, not in the temple?”
“But does he believe it?” Kai groaned, letting his head fall back for a moment. “I have to think so, because he asked me to take the robes from him, and he didn’t protest when they were burned.”
“The good memories he has of that place won’t disappear with the burning of cloth. If you did not treat him like a patron would while wearing them, perhaps you alleviated some of his bad memories of them, too.”
“Perhaps. Has he told you what the patrons of the temple were like?”
“Enough to know they didn’t know how to please a man even if it would’ve made them richer,” Sehun said, speaking with as much disdain as he could muster.
Kai huffed out a laugh. “That is true. He doesn’t speak much on it. Some of them wanted his pain. I just want to know that he is at least content to be here.”
It had Sehun blinking at him, frowning slightly. Kai was glad he didn’t answer right away and took time to think, but the delay also gave Kai reason to worry.
“Should he not be? You’re treating him well.”
Kai’s exhale was one of frustration. “I think so. He’s not the quiet shadow he was once. I used to wonder if he accepted what I wanted because he wanted to, or because he was afraid of displeasing me.”
Sehun’s head tilted. “Used to? And you don’t think he would tell you the truth if you asked him yourself?”
Sehun didn’t even flinch when Kai hissed at him. “I suspect he’d give me a very diplomatic answer. I know he will speak up for himself. I just thought you…might know more.”
Or perhaps know more in that Kai did not know how to ask, felt clumsy thinking of doing it, to induce Suho to answer him without fear of retribution.
“You sleep near him,” Sehun pointed out, and it made Kai scowl. Fine, then, if Sehun would not speak, he had more questions he had in his mind.
“Suho said something last night that I haven’t been able to put from my mind. He asked if I knew what the difference was between the patrons at the temple did to him, and what we did together.”
Sehun stared at him, no expression changing except for the lifting of his eyebrows. “And?”
“He didn’t answer. I don’t know what he meant.”
“The patrons hurt him at the temple,” Sehun said slowly, “but you don’t know what he meant?”
Kai scowled. “I know I don’t hurt him like that. I know that, but what he did there, he did for the temple and the other men he was trying to make sure were fed. Here, I own him. He’s seen how my father can punish slaves. I’ve struck him myself, and I’ve caused him distress. Perhaps he meant that there was no difference. He was a servant of the temple, and now he is a slave. And neither time he could refuse, even if he knows he can speak up.”
“When you struck him, it was not because you enjoyed it or for anger, but to teach a lesson,” Sehun said, taking an instructing tone that Kai had not heard often. “And if you fear your slave accepts you or encourages you from fear, the only thing you can do is ask him, or take that fear from him. Then you’ll know.”
“What do you mean?”
“Swear an oath. He will not kneel or bow to your whim or provide sexual favor unless it is his true wish. In return, you swear you will not strike at him, punish him in any way, increase his work, or put him from your tents.”
“What slave would gain such concessions? Is his cock made of gold?” Kai asked, his laugh incredulous even as he considered it.
Sehun smirked, an expression Kai wished he could order right off of him. “Or you could simply ask him, like a grown man. I know you can speak to him. But I also know that he could ask me to intercede on his behalf with you, yet he has not complained. Were he so displeased, I know he would ask. You haven’t broken him.”
“Then he is happy,” Kai prodded.
Sehun picked up the knife and began to strip the bark again from the stick he held. All he had were two frustrating words: “Ask him.”
***
Suho on his knees made him want, bowed over smooth skin with scattered markings. He pressed Suho up against the trunk, both of them knelt on the floor and waiting. Kai could not get Sehun’s words from him, could not help but wonder what it meant what Suho thought of him. He had embraces, kisses, moans he had ordered from Suho’s throat, pleasure squeezed between his fingers. He had a man who slept still and warm beside him some nights, sighing at the brush of Kai’s hand against his skin.
Suho moaned at the press of Kai’s cock and he wondered if it was true, if Suho liked it, if he moaned because he knew Kai desired the sound of it. And Suho stiffened as Kai pressed against his back and whispered into his ear.
“Be silent this night, no sounds at all.”
He got Suho’s nod, the sound of harsh breaths, and he began to fuck, reveling in the feel of Suho tight around him. The silence was unnatural, broken by the sounds of Suho’s hands tightening on the trunk he braced on, the slick sounds of body against body. He held back his own moans, listening to Suho breathe as he paused. He wanted more than that, dissatisfied with it even as Suho tightened around him. Suho’s head turned easily at the press of Kai’s fingers, meeting Kai’s lips, trying to meet the messy kisses as Kai kept fucking him. First, it was a whimper from Suho’s throat, and a moan from Kai’s as Suho touched his hair.
It was that sound that changed things.
“Have I done something wrong?” Suho asked, panting, his eyes open but not meeting Kai’s.
“What? Why would you ask that?” Kai asked, and stilled entirely.
“Asking for my silence. As though you wish to pretend-“
“Pretend what?”
“I am someone else? Or if you do not want to know I enjoy-“
Suho moaned, an instinctual sound, as Kai pulled him up so that he leaned back against Kai’s chest. Fuck. He had not thought of what Suho would take from his request.
“You do not know the pleasure I have found listening to you,” Kai said, curling his hand around Suho’s half-hard cock. “I know very well it is you around me. I want to hear you, Suho.”
“Kai.”
He moaned for Suho, a template, an invitation, and Suho moaned for him, rocking into Kai’s stroking hand and back onto Kai’s cock. Suho went hard so quickly, maybe because he was not holding back, maybe from Kai’s touch, but Kai stroked and sucked along Suho’s shoulder until Suho shuddered and came. It was permission himself to bury himself, fill Suho as he’d wanted to from the start.
He kissed the tender skin Suho’s neck and wondered how it was that they had gotten there, how he had gotten so tangled inside that he made Suho think he was displeased with him. Suho rose, ready to make for the cloth to clean them with, or Kai knew not what. And Kai stopped him, standing and pulling Suho close. It was time to do away with his own demons.
“How does this between us differ than at the temple? You asked and did not answer me.”
Suho turned to him, his face shadowed in the light.
“You are my master. You own me as the temple did, and yet… There I had no choice. But here, I want.”
“Here you have no choice as well, even if you want,” Kai said, stroking down Suho’s arm. There was bitterness there, something Kai didn’t understand even as he said it.
“Would you force me to my knees if I begged you not to? Would you force me to silence instead of hearing my pain?” Suho asked. And when Kai did not answer, Suho touched Kai’s cheek - and after a moment, cupped it. “You would not use your power like that.”
***
Suho knew all too well that Kai would not abuse his power, the way that Kai’s eyes hardened as though the thought of it was perverse. Yet once, perhaps he would have thought of a slave’s body as property. The man standing before him, Kai saw him as Suho and not a receptacle for his needs. He had listened when Suho had been hurting because of his actions. He listened then, had listened when Suho had worried.
“I don’t want to hear your pleasure if you did not want to give it,” Kai said, holding Suho’s wrist so that his hand would not lower from against his face. “I’ve demanded it from you before. I did not want to erase your pleasure, or your pain. I feared… that I was only an echo of the temple to you.”
The inhale was nearly a gasp, when Suho realized they had both been so misunderstood.
“No. Oh, no. When you told me I would worship at your body, I did not expect you to worship at mine, too.” And Suho was abashed for even having suggested it. “I’m- I didn’t mean to-“
Kai stopped him, gripping his chin and lifting it. “You spoke truth.”
“Maybe once I moaned because I thought you wished it, but I learned that if I moaned for myself, it was not a lie. I could show you what pleased me with a sound. I would be Suho of Kai’s tent, with my own voice, my own master. I did not mean to make you worry.”
If he gave Kai what was true, what he received back had more likelihood to be also. He didn’t want Kai to fear the temple or Suho’s connection to it. He wanted Kai to know that he was settled, secure, finally, and when he slipped his arms over Kai’s shoulders, Kai let him, held him.
“I would not worry, when you look at me without shying away,” Kai said. “Even when I make you think you’ve displeased me, or if I have hurt you.”
“You have never had to listen or change, or apologize, or make promises.” Suho tightened his arms around Kai’s neck, pressing his cheek there against the warm skin. “Thank you for hearing me.”
“Tell me if there is anything you… don’t want,” Kai said, his voice halting. “If you’re unhappy.”
There were times when he thought of the different types of masters he could have had, the sorrow, the pain, the exhaustion, that it left him breathless. It did not make Kai perfect, how Kai had dealt with him without reproach, but it did not stunt the fact that he was grateful. He felt protected there in Kai’s arms, welcomed. The scent of Kai was more home to him than the tent itself. What Suho longed for was not something that was right between master and slave, the giddy joy Sehun couldn’t contain sometimes when he spoke of his merchant. Sometimes Suho wondered if his own feelings came about because he had no choice.
It comforted him to know it was not true, and he reveled in the feeling of Kai’s lips against his, soft, kissing him with utmost care. Kai kissed his cheek, his neck, and breathed him in.
“Sometimes I wonder…” Kai murmured. “Would you stay by my side, even if you were not a slave.”
A slither of cold touched his spine. Suho knew words of power, how they sounded. It was not Sight but knowledge. It was as though his soul had been touched. It was not prophecy. But words of power had the chance to change futures, but not always in the way the speaker or even the listener anticipated. Kai did not even know what he’d said, as he leaned against Suho.
It lingered in the back of his mind as they washed, as Kai pulled him close beneath the blanket and breathed against his hair. If he was not a slave, he did not know what else he would be.
***
Suho found a coin in his sandal. It was not the strangest place he had found one, but he did not imagine Kai had much occasion to bother with Suho’s sandals or boots, because when Suho was not wearing them they were tucked out of Kai’s sight. When he looked up, Kai was smirking down at him.
“I see you have a coin,” Kai said.
And Suho opened his mouth to agree, to offer it back to Kai since Kai was standing next to him. He wanted to jolt, to hide it, as though Kai would think he had tried to take it but realized it would have looked as though he were guilty of something he wasn’t.
“What have you been buying with them?” Kai asked, crouching down beside him. “Fruit? Something pretty?”
Suho nearly sputtered. “With your coins? I would not! I’ve bought nothing that you haven’t directed me to.”
“What do you mean? Have you been saving the coins I left for you?” Kai asked, and was so perplexed when Suho offered the coin back to him on his palm. Kai actually pushed his hand back, curling his fingers over the coin. “It’s yours.”
“Left for me,” Suho said, his brain halting. “You mean… The coin in the basin? In my book? The trunk? You left those for me?”
“How would a coin have gotten into your book otherwise?” Kai asked.
Suho wasn’t used to being looked at as though he was very slow and without understanding.
“Then what have you been doing with the coins if not spending them?” Kai asked.
“Putting them aside for you!” Suho said, and that was something he could do, something he understood. He went straight to Kai’s shelf where Kai kept his combs, his clothes, his creams. From it he pulled a clay jar that Kai reached past every single day. In it was the unmistakeable sound of coins jangling together, and Kai was laughing, incredulous as he took the jar and looked down in it.
“I kept waiting for you to say something,” Kai teased. “I thought you were using them and embarrassed.”
“I would have thought I was stealing!” Suho exclaimed.
“That was why I put them in your belongings, things you used. I was too subtle still, I suppose.”
Suho almost deflated, swallowing back a laugh. “Yes. I worried more for you, if you were losing money like that. But you mean to say… These are all mine?”
“Yes,” Kai said. “And especially so now that I realize how true you were to me.”
Suho didn’t know what to do with the admiration on Kai’s face. He had done it because it was the right thing, even more so than knowing there would be a beating or worse if he had truly tried to steal. A loss of trust, and certainly a loss of status. None of those things could be retrieved with so small a coin.
“It’s too much,” Suho said, not even knowing how many coins there were exactly even with the one he still held.
“Why?”
“Why?” Suho echoed. “I-“
He didn’t know why. The half dozen or so coins wouldn’t buy much. They wouldn’t buy much of anything significant, more tokens. A few pieces of fruit, a worn book, a length of cloth.
“You have given me everything I need,” Suho settled on. And he knew if he had needed something more, he could have asked.
“Even if you can trade in your book for others, life is more than just being provided for. You don’t get to choose your meals, or anything else. I thought it would be nice for you to be able to decide something,” Kai said, pressing that simple jar back into Suho’s hands. “Even if it is to save them for something.”
Suho put the jar with the coins down in favor of a different kind of reward. He touched Kai’s chest, fingers half on skin and half on cloth, looking between Kai’s eyes and his mouth until Kai understood and kissed him. It was a lingering kiss, Suho pressing into it as Kai stroked along his back.
“You are more thoughtful than you think,” Suho said. “Thank you.”
“I’ll accept your thanks,” Kai said, almost impossibly mild. “Perhaps I should tell Sehun I tucked a few coins into his bed. He may still be sleeping on them.”
“Kai,” Suho laughed, almost squirming from the engulfing warmth inside. “Kai.”
He hummed as Kai kissed him, pulled into the solidness of his body, Kai’s arms sliding around him.
“I did not mean to seduce you with coin,” Kai muttered.
Suho inhaled as Kai’s hand slipped into the back of his pants. He shifted his hips forward, showing Kai without words that his cock rose for Kai. Kai had left him coin for the fun of it, perhaps and left Sehun some, also. It was not the coin, the having of them, that affected him so. It was the giving.
“You only need to breathe,” Suho admitted, and let Kai draw him closer.
***
The coins were a weight in his trunk, like he carried them around with them instead of having them out of sight. Sehun had laughed baldly when Suho had told him of it, telling him that Kai had made him shake out his blankets to find the coins there and scowling when Sehun had been bewildered.
“He asked me if I’d been growing coins out of my skin,” Sehun chuckled. “I’d have been scared if I’d found them, thinking someone was setting me up to be accused of stealing.”
“That’s close to what I thought, too! I thought I might be accused of it because Kai was just being exceptionally forgetful.”
They shared a little laugh, a traded look, at Kai’s expense. But there was fondness in that, too. He didn’t ask where Sehun kept his coins, or what he meant to spend them on when he had no idea what he wanted either. Some days he went out with a coin tied in the corner of a handkerchief, staring at things. Household items, pretty daggers, bolts of cloth, books, stacks of vegetables and hanging carcasses. He went out several times like that, imagining, wondering. He thought he owed himself even a small thing, to use it as a decision he could make for himself. He haggled down the end of a bolt of cloth, and used half his coin. The other half, he splurged on thick ripe fruit, not too sweet, with flesh the color of mangoes. It was Kai’s favorite, a fruit he’d come to appreciate because of it. It made him smile, carrying them home in the cloth he’d bought and cutting them small, swirling it in honey and spice and letting them sit, waiting for after Kai ate, almost dancing as he sat and ate and wondered. Kai was obviously preoccupied because he didn’t call Suho near and ask about his day, but that didn’t keep him from calling for him after.
When Kai stood, it had Suho reaching for the bowl of prepared fruit and walking near to where Kai stood.
“What’s this?” Kai asked, even though he could plainly see with his two eyes.
“I bought it in the market today,” Suho said.
Kai seemed bemused, picking up a piece of fruit and sucking it into his mouth with a hum.
“So, you used a coin I gave you to use for yourself…to buy fruit for me,” Kai clarified.
It sounded less impressive when put like that.
“For us,” Suho corrected. “And it was only half a coin. The other half I used to buy new cloth to shield myself from the sun. They had only a small bit left, and I liked the color, so.”
He realized he was trying to justify the cloth purchase when Kai began to smile.
“Then you did buy something only for yourself. That’s good. Since you bought this for us, share it with me,” Kai said.
Suho sat with him on the edge of the bed, lifting a piece of the sticky fruit for himself as he watched Kai savor.
“You make this better even than Sehun does,” Kai said, and Suho cursed himself when his face grew hot.
“I pay attention to how quickly you eat it based on how it tastes,” Suho murmured. And his eyes widened when Kai lifted a piece of the fruit to Suho’s mouth.
“You pay attention to many things, it sounds like,” Kai said, watching as Suho took the fruit from his fingers. Suho took another piece himself, offering it, his breath hitching as Kai took one of Suho’s fingertips between his lips as well. That mouth curving as he fed Suho more, and let his fingers linger so that Suho could suck them clean.
“Suho.”
There was a tone of voice that Suho had found unmistakeable, one that had a measure of want in it. It had been shifting through him as well, lifting his eyes to meet Kai’s, the steady demand of them.
Kai put down the bowl, and took Suho’s hand, turning it over, before clasping it in his own.
“You have Seen for Sehun. You can read desires. Touch me. Tell me what you See.”
There were times he could, Suho wanted to protest, and times he couldn’t. The thought had to be free and open, at the very front of consciousness. He could not read deeper than that and had no desire to. He wondered, with Kai so reserved, if he would be able to see anything but the glimmer of want.
But he had no sooner opened his mind and reached for Kai’s, when he pulled his hand back, gasping. His cock twitched at the image he had seen, Kai on his back, urging Suho to fuck him.
“Did you see? Are you surprised?”
“I do not know if I saw what you meant,” Suho said, the words awkward from his lips.
“Your cock in me?” Kai asked, and Suho nodded, unable to keep the amazement off his face. “Don’t look so startled. Why should I not be curious how you do? I’ve tried it in the past, and liked it, but there are not so many men I would trust not to hold it over me.”
“But- oh.” Kai trusted him. As his slave, as a man, as a bed partner, he didn’t know which, but Kai was telling him the truth. “I would tell no one, if that’s what you wish.”
“Then you are willing?”
“I have never,” Suho said. “But I would..try.”
“We’ll try until we accomplish what we want,” Kai agreed, and tugged at Suho’s tunic as he pressed his mouth against Suho’s.
He loved that, almost more than anything else, those traded kisses and tug of cloth, anticipation, breathless as Kai’s skin was bared to him, to his wandering hands. His hands that were free to touch, to stroke, his lips free to speak Kai’s name. There in Kai’s tent, he was a man with his eager lover, a word he had chastised Sehun from using once, sighing as Kai kissed along his neck and bared all of Suho to the air and to him.
Kai rested back on the bed, not pulling Suho with him but widening out one knee like he couldn’t conscience both. His cock was hardening, thickening, and Suho knew what it was to suck at it, feel it hard inside him. But not that night. The positions were reversed. It would not be Kai’s mouth urging his pleasure, but his-
Suho nearly got onto the bed without fetching the oil, so distracted by Kai’s body.
“I can do it, or-“
“I will,” Suho said, kneeling between Kai’s legs. It was the stretch of Kai’s body before him. He knew what it was to make his body slick, to stretch it even a little to make the passage not so startling. And he was not as thick as Kai. He wondered if it would be enough for Kai, but Kai had asked, knowing. Kai’s cock twitched at the first touch of Suho’s fingers, and Suho let his thumb take a smooth path along Kai’s cock as he pressed two fingertips into Kai. It was not that two were so difficult, it was remembering how to let them in. His fingers squirmed and stroked, and he watched Kai’s eyes close, his mouth parting, swallowing, letting out the softer of moans. Not of pain, though, Suho thought he would have known that. He stroked into Kai’s body and wondered how he would survive it, as good as he felt around Suho’s fingers.
“I should let you do this when you have your mouth on me,” Kai moaned, and it made Suho grin.
“I would if you wanted.” To bring Kai pleasure, absolutely. “Do you… Is this enough?”
It was more than he usually did for himself, the subtle stretch and angling, reaching and feeling for what Kai rubbed against inside of him that felt so good.
“Yes. Fuck me,” Kai said, and Suho nearly whimpered, getting his own cock slick and shuffling closer on the bed. He’d nearly pressed his cock to Kai’s body when Kai spoke again. “Do anything you want to me. I won’t tell you no.”
It made Suho freeze, staring at Kai’s face Kai looked back so steadily that it was breathtaking. Maybe he meant it, but he could have had no idea what it said to Suho.
“Kai, I… I want you to tell me no, if that’s what you feel. Otherwise, I will always wonder if I am doing something you don’t want. I know you wish to show your trust in me. But that is trust, too.” And Suho swallowed hard, reaching for and squeezing Kai’s hand. “Knowing I will stop if you wish me to.”
He nearly whimpered when Kai sat up. “Suho.”
“Full power over you is not what I desire. To be…the same with you. Equal to you here, even if you may order me outside of this bed.”
Kai cupped his face, eyes searching Suho’s. “You continually amaze me,” Kai said.
And before Suho could respond or even process that statement, Kai was kissing him, telling him of his want with his lips and the stroke of his hand on Suho’s hair, his neck. He kissed Suho again, and again, pulling Suho over his body until he was stretched out over Kai, poised over him.
“I will tell you if there is something I don’t want,” Kai promised. “Share your pleasure with me.”
Suho nodded, speechless, and he moaned against Kai’s lips as he stroked them together, until all he knew was want, the need to press slick against Kai and try-
Try together.
And oh, it was different than Kai’s mouth, or his hand, or Suho’s own. They were at odds for a breathless set of heartbeats before Kai’s body gave and took him. Tighter, warm, adjusting so gingerly to push back in as Kai moaned under him. It felt too good. Too much, and at the same time different, not enough.
“How do you-“ Suho gasped, moaning as he slid into Kai again.
“How do I what?” Kai asked, and Suho was gratified, at least, that when he looked up Kai’s eyes were nearly as glazed as his felt.
“How do you last?”
Kai laughed at him, gasping little chuckles that did nothing to help his problem.
“You last as long as your body will,” Kai said, gripping Suho’s hip with one hand. “And I will enjoy every moment of it.”
If Kai thought to assure him, he’d both succeeded and failed in one breath. It was like anything, he assumed, that if he slowed, he could catch his runaway body, but that only worked so well. He had Kai’s moans, and Kai’s body, and the tightness of him. He added more oil, hoping less friction would help but it only encouraged him to go faster. All he wanted was for Kai to enjoy it, to find pleasure from it. And he whimpered when he saw Kai grab his own cock, stroking it as he watched Suho fuck him.
“Kai,” he moaned.
But Kai did not dissuade him, urging him, “Faster.”
It felt like his body was not his own, working so quickly he did not know how, his body almost at odds, having to realign and keep moving as he moaned and watched Kai’s face begin to tighten. It seemed impossible that he was above Kai, watching Kai, watching Kai crumble under the desperation.
“Kai. Kai, oh.”
Kai came from the stroking of his own hand, and from whatever pleasure he took from Suho in him, and Suho shuddered, his hips bumping hard, five, six times, until he whimpered at the pleasure that jolted through him. He could smell Kai’s pleasure, and he hung his head, breathing so desperately. He was still shaking with it when he pulled back, moving so that he could lick the come from Kai’s belly, gently sucking his cock clean as Kai grasped at his shoulder.
“You lasted enough,” Kai said, his lips curling, voice rough.
“Does it get easier?”
“Not always. Sometimes I’m barely in you before I want to come.”
He’d never known. He’d heard Kai hissing in his ear, surely, but he’d thought it was because of effort and not because he was so close to losing control.
“I’m glad I’m not alone, then.”
“We’ll see how it goes some other time. Here,” Kai said, and pulled Suho against his side before he could stand.
Yes, he would rest a little bit before getting up. He would stop shaking, at the very least. He didn’t even know why, fingers tangling with Kai’s as they rested together, sticky, too warm. But another part of Kai that he had shared with him.
“Did you like it?” Kai asked, after Suho had gotten up to tie down the flaps of the tent and to settle the tent for the night. Suho leaned his head back against Kai’s shoulder, and thought of so many things he could have said. Some were flippant, others serious.
But he settled on, “Yes,” and felt Kai smile against his cheek.
***
Suho carried the dishes toward the chest, cleaned and dried to be stored. It was not interesting work, but it was better than sitting and staring at the shadows on the side of the tent. Considering some of the labor performed, truly backbreaking work that gave the slaves callouses and life-altering injuries, he had the lightest of the labor. Perhaps they went to their beds uninterrupted, but that was not the horror he’d thought at first.
That was saying it in its most simplistic form. Ever since- Ever since Kai had pulled him over him, things had been different. There was so much more time spent with his arms around Kai’s body than spent naked. It seemed Kai liked to find him in his bed, and he slept there those nights when Kai was through and would not let him go or called him back. He’d become accustomed to Kai’s warmth against him even as the air around the tent chilled. It made his pallet feel cool, even with extra furs.
There was someone else in Kai, someone he’d seen only after raising his head and stopped thinking of himself as a slave. A kindness, a gentleness. Almost a shyness as he looked to Suho for approval. There was no improper sense of self-worth in Kai. He stood tall because he had been raised that way. But who he was beyond his station, that was what Suho had not seen. The fondness he felt when he saw Kai sleeping, dark eyelashes against his skin and his mouth parted. A pretty mouth, he had felt it often on all parts of himself.
Just to sit next to Kai and be near him…
He imagined Kai beside him, talking to him of the horses, of his sums, of the weather, or what he hoped to eat. Simple things that connected them, when he smiled to hear Kai’s voice, or to see Kai leaning over to kiss Suho’s bared shoulder. He smiled, and picked up Kai’s half-full water cup from the table to take it to the bucket he was washing in.
He took only a step, before his world tilted.
The cup dropped from numb fingertips, falling and smashing on the hard ground, the water a silver puddle just moments before Suho’s knees joined it there. But the pain wasn’t something he felt, his vision doubling, blurring. He Saw the colorful tents of the marketplace, Saw Kai smiling to his right at his father. They walked between weapons and fruit, stepping into the central square.
He heard the whistle, nearly saw the air rend. And he heard as Kai’s flesh parted, the thump and echo as a second arrow hit, burying in his ribs.
Kai had only the time to draw in a breath. And he was dead. Suho watched the light fade from his eyes as Kai sank to the ground as shouts rose around him.
Suho came back to himself with a cry of alarm. Kai. He had to find Kai.
“Kai? Have you seen Kai?” he shouted as he ran, not caring of the strange looks or no answers. He knew where he would find Kai, but he wanted the vision to be false. If it was true, Kai was in terrible danger. Those visions could be changed, but only if he could make it in time. He passed the cloth gate of the market, and shoved his way through the crowd.
“Move, Kai is in danger. Kai! Kai!” If he could just get Kai to slow down. Keep him from moving into the open.
Halfway down the corridor of tents, he spotted the back of Kai’s head, moving past the weapon tent.
“Kai! Move,” Suho spat, shoving through a couple talking together. “Kai!”
Nothing slowed Kai’s progress. And as Suho cleared the edge of the crowd, Kai had already cleared the edge of the tents.
“Kai! Get down!” he shouted.
Kai stopped, looking back at him, confused at his presence. There was no time. Suho looked to the direction the arrows had come from, and it took two strides to put himself in front of Kai.
“Get down!“
The air whistled and the impact of the arrow stunned him. The second hit, and he heard the screams over the roaring in his ears. He’d made it.
“Get down,” he said, head swimming. There could be more arrows. More pain. Hands gripped his sides, pulling him back before he could fall. Kai’s scent.
“Suho!” Kai shouted into his ear.
He wanted to see Kai’s face.
“You’re safe. Kai.”
But the darkness was too much.
***
The panic on Suho’s face. That was what Kai remembered, as he raced toward him and Kai tried to understand what it was that Suho wanted.
He knew the sound of weapon into flesh, but he denied it until Suho’s stagger. Suho, back to Kai, between him and someone with a bow trying to kill him.
“Suho. Suho.”
He heard only two words “safe” and “Kai” before Suho had sagged into his arms. People were afraid to help him, afraid of more arrows as he stood in shock with an unconscious man in his arms - and two arrows protruding from him.
“Run for the healers,” Kai said to anyone who would listen, ducking back into the tents with Suho still in his arms. His path sent people scattering ahead of him as he walked as quickly as he could.
Suho would not die.
***
The sound of the arrows pulled from Suho’s body made such a sound he knew he would never forget. But the sound from Suho’s throat was almost worse, as the pain seemed to rouse him from unconsciousness instead of sending him deeper.
He came fully out with a gasp, his eyes meeting Kai’s. Or so he thought until he realized Suho’s eyes weren’t focused. And his body convulsed, some kind of seizing Kai wasn’t sure what to make of- Until he retched, vomiting into Kai’s hands as they turned him, supported him. It was worry, distaste.
But it was terror, when he saw the blood. And when the convulsions stopped, and they pushed Suho back, he saw that Suho’s lips were stained red.
“Oh, please no,” Kai said.
He didn’t have to know much to know that was bad.
And the men around him murmured.
“He will not live through the night,” one said.
“Then find a way to save him! Find a way! Don’t stand here speaking of death before you consider how to save him!”
“There is nothing that can be done. We can prepare an infusion that will make his passing quicker.”
“No. Get out. Get out, all of you!”
It felt like his mind was shaking nearly as badly as his hands. He knew there was truth in what the men said. Suho was vomiting blood, which meant his injuries inside were severe.
“Sehun!”
It took mere moments, but Sehun was beside him. “Yes, sir?”
“You know everyone. You know all the rumors. You know of Suho’s power. Is there someone like him? Someone who could help him, whose power is secret?”
“There…There might be.”
“Fetch him. Promise him anything he desires. Fast, Sehun. He’s fading.”
Suho had already been so pale. And then to lose blood where they could not see.
“How did you know I was in danger?” Kai asked, squeezing Suho’s hand.
“I Saw…dream,” Suho said, and startled him. Suho’s eyes opened and they were wet. He was not crying. He would not cry. “Safe. Kai.”
“I am safe. Suho.” But it seemed Suho had again lapsed into unconsciousness. He watched, barely breathing as he watched Suho’s chest rise and fall. “Stupid. Stupid. I know your name means guardian, but you should not have stepped in front of me. What do I do? Suho, you are mine. You are not allowed to die until I tell you. You want to stay.”
His voice gentled with his hands, as he washed the blood from Suho’s face.
“We’ll eat breakfast in the morning. I’ll kiss you before you can take the plates away. You know that smile you get sometimes, when I pull you close. When you wipe the food from my face or greet me at my horse. I began to think you truly were glad to see me. Promise me you will eat with me.”
“The healer,” Sehun said, and Kai turned.
“Heal him. I don’t care what you have to do. He saved my life. Heal him.”
***