[Fic] Guardian - 6/8 (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
***
The healer’s name was Yixing, which was of no account to Kai, who stood tense as Yixing touched Suho’s face and forehead, his chest and hands. The marking at his thigh. Not, peculiarly, the injuries. Kai looked away for only a moment, glancing at Sehun whose face was drawn in concentration watching as well. Sehun would have brought someone he thought could help, Kai assured himself. He was fond of Suho as well.
“Is there anything you can do?” Kai asked, too impatient to wait for Yixing to speak. Time was short. Suho could only last so long.
Yixing hummed, stood. “Perhaps. He is fighting to live inside. I can feel his thoughts. To heal him, he must be in a place that brought him joy, a place that can bind him. He draws power from the water. He dreams of it.”
Water. Kai thought of things Suho had told him. His previous life. “There was a pool at his temple, made of stone. He had a lot of happy memories there. But that is too far away!”
The healer frowned. “It is no pool made by man, because the bottom is silty. But he is being kissed by a man.”
Kai turned. “Me. That man is me. That place is just behind this tent.”
“Then you must take him there. Hurry.”
“But- They said if he moves-“
“He will die?” Yixing touched his arm. “He will die before the sun sets if you do not take him.”
It was nothing but the truth. Kai swung Suho into his arms, the weight of his prone body almost nothing. It was he who felt weak, staggering on trembling legs when Suho made no movement, no sound at the jostling. But Kai sank into the pool, onto his knees.
“Immerse him,” Yixing said. “His wounds must be beneath the water. It is the water we will call on for healing, because water calls his visions. Whether he lives or dies, he wants to be here in this place, with you.”
“How long does he have to stay in here?”
Suho’s limbs were carefully arranged in the cool water. Kai kept his head toward the bank, carefully resting on Kai’s arm so that he could still breathe. Even if his breathing was so slow, so ragged.
“Till the sun rises,” Yixing said, and did not waver at Kai’s startled look. “It is a long time, yes, but his body is badly damaged. If he is no better by then, there is nothing that can be done. His memories here might hold him.”
“He wanted me to kiss him?”
“I cannot say. It was only in his dream. Remind him of the reasons he has to stay. I will pray.”
Kai stared at Suho’s face, which still looked pained even in unconsciousness.
“Why did you step in front of me?” Kai asked. He smoothed Suho’s eyebrows with a wet finger. “You were so angry with me when we met. There was so much blood. You- Those aren’t reasons to stay. Your smile when I teased you. When you ate at my table the first time. Here in this pool when I-“
Kai pressed his lips to Suho’s slack ones. There was no response. Even when Suho had been angry at him, he had always responded to his kisses. Not just because he felt he had to, no. When he found it aroused Suho, he did it more often. It was their special connection, a conversation without words. When he had no way to speak the thoughts in his head, Suho’s mouth met his, Suho’s hands stroking through his hair. He remembered the first moan of pleasure that Suho had given him, so startled and unsure. As though he wondered if he should be silent, hide what he felt from Kai. But Kai had found a greed in himself, and he wanted all of Suho’s moans.
He remembered when Suho had spilled between them, and without order, or request, he had gasped Kai’s name. The proof of their pleasure, there, in Suho’s smiling eyes.
“You must smile for me again,” Kai told him. “Please.”
And he kissed Suho again, and again, pressing his lips to Suho’s chin, his cheeks and forehead. He listened for every breath as the sun went down.
“I won’t allow you to give your life for mine. Whatever you desire, you’ll have it. I would cover you in jewels, the finest silks. You would have the best horse. You can have my horse. I would kiss your fingers when you woke in my bed beside me and thank you for my life. Suho. Why do I feel you would want none of it? Except perhaps… The last. To greet each morning with me. I would be the slave of your happiness. When you wake, kiss me, so I know you want that, too.”
The water lapped at their bodies, and he spoke until he was hoarse, as the moon rose. He drew breaths with Suho, as though that would ensure they would keep happening. He didn’t know what magic felt like, wasn’t sure if he believed in it. But he knew Suho had a power unlike anything he’d known. But he tried to believe. If that power could heal, then perhaps there was a chance.
“Did you save me so that I could save you? I’ll sit with you in this pond as long as it takes.”
“The moon darkens,” Yixing said, speaking for the first time in hours, and making Kai jolt.
“Is that a bad omen?” Kai asked, touching Suho’s face. It felt warmer than before, and he was glad for a moment, before the worry took him. “He is hot. His skin.”
It was good, because it meant he was alive. But it was bad, because Kai did know what fever meant after injury. It meant danger. The body fought, some healers had said. Others said the body was readying itself for a pyre.
“Bathe his face,” Yixing said. “Keep him cool. The water will remind his body what to do.”
Suho breathed heavier as the moon lowered in the sky. Kai bathed his forehead, his cheeks in the water, smoothing the backs of his fingers along Suho’s skin, feeling the shiver in his own body at the night chill.
“I will keep you alive,” Kai said. “You will wake beside me. Together, we will punish who did this to you.”
Suho drew in a breath that rattled, and the panic shook him. It was the sound of a dying man.
“Suho. Yixing.”
Yixing waded beside them, pressing his hand to Suho’s face. “He is still warm. He feels your anger.”
“How can I not be angry? The longer we are here, the weaker he grows. Someone out there did this. They forced him to this.”
“No. He made this choice. He is in this pond because he chose to save you. He did not save you for your anger, so that you could think of hatred when his body needs to heal. You bury him with a thought. I thought you wanted to save him.”
Air hissed from between Kai’s teeth. “Are you saying I have to choose between him and finding who did this to him?”
“No. But you don’t hunt now. The water heals. But so do you. You are the moon holding his tide.”
“How much longer ’til dawn?”
“Too long,” Yixing said, and stood and returned to the bank.
“Breathe,” Kai whispered, moving his body closer to Suho’s. “Breathe. I’m here.”
Perhaps it was because he was getting used to the cool, but warmth flushed over him. Calm. As he smoothed cool water on Suho’s face and stroked through his hair. He let thoughts of anger and vengeance sweep aside in favor of feeling for Suho’s heartbeat, and willing the blood to stay in him and keep him whole.
“He said I am your moon. Then you must wake for me. When the sun rises you can open your eyes. I’ll take you on my horse. We’ll ride toward it together. I didn’t know I would find you. A pearl plucked from where it was hidden. You deserve to be worshipped. I could feed you with my own fingers. I would please you any way you wanted me to. Only let me find my end with you. Suho. I can’t- Who else would…?”
If Suho died, there would be an empty pallet in his tent, no man to listen to his babbles and give him advice. No man to bathe with him or kneel for him, or shudder at his hands.
He saw Suho’s eyes, dark, placid, and yet curious. Smart, thinking. A need to know, understand. A man interested in Kai’s problems, of no small wisdom of his own. He read, did figures. He could have done none of those things, and still caused the warmth Kai felt when he looked at Suho.
The tears that fell into the water were for what he feared he’d lost. And then the determination that he would have Suho back.
“Stay with me,” Kai whispered again, and kissed Suho’s heated cheek.
“Kai.”
Kai looked up at Yixing’s call. And squinted into the distance where the horizon was beginning to lighten.
“The sun is rising,” Kai said, speaking to Suho’s still face. “You will wake soon. Just keep breathing.”
He waited with every breath Suho took, slow and irregular. Sometimes seeming to struggle before the air came. And Kai willed the sun to rise. He knew if the light shone over the horizon, it would bring Suho strength.
The moon had set. And the shadows grew.
Suho shuddered in his arms as the sun broke over the horizon.
“No,” Kai said, lifting Suho’s head from where it had sunk back. Yixing was there in moments, grasping Suho’s hand and touching his head.
“Your duty here is done. He wants to be warm. Your bed.”
It was only with Yixing’s help that they lifted Suho from the pond. Every part of Kai’s body ached, cold and exhausted. They stripped Suho from his wet and bloody clothes, sliding him naked and dry between blankets. The wounds were so angry and dark against Suho’s pale skin, before they covered his wounds with thick cloth, and then covered him. Kai shivered as he stared down at Suho’s face.
“Watch,” Yixing said. And with a spoon, he parted Suho’s lips, dribbling liquid between them.
“What is that?”
“Tea mixed with broth. I had Sehun prepare it. It will fortify him. But look.”
Another dribble into Suho’s mouth, and his throat convulsed. A swallow.
Kai shuddered. “Does that mean..?”
“It means you should dry yourself, and sleep beside him. He needs you strong. I will urge him to breathe, but you will do that just as you are.”
Kai dried himself quickly, not even taking a moment to warm in the air before he was crawling beneath the blankets and furs to press against Suho’s side. Suho’s skin was chilled, and Kai stroked Suho’s arms hoping the friction would start to warm him. He wasn’t sure how he would sleep. The shivers began, though he fought to still himself so that he would not disturb Suho. They were from cold, and they were from fear.
Yixing held one of Suho’s hands in both of his, urging him to breathe and heal and stay. But Kai’s words would no longer come to him as he pressed his nose against Suho’s cheek. If he slept, Suho might think he was not being diligent, and slip away. He squeezed Suho’s hand in his, hoping for the slightest squeeze, some sign that Suho knew he was there. But there was nothing, just warming fingers clasped in his. But they warmed together. He slept, light and disturbed to the sound of Yixing’s murmurs and Sehun’s queries how to help. He dreamed to the sound of Suho’s breathing, dream of waking to Suho’s smile.
He woke some refreshed, though not to smiles because Suho would not wake. But still, Suho breathed.
***
Suho looked weak and frighteningly pale against the dark blankets. Yixing fed him, tended to his wounds and his health, and Kai watched. He saw the red welts against Suho’s skin, putting his fingers to his own body and tracing where they might have hit. The arrow that had hit high on Suho, might have pierced Kai’s heart. The one low, might have gone into his guts and preceded a slow and ugly death. Though Suho did not wake, he breathed, and he swallowed the broths, and water, and juices, that Yixing gave to him. He did not vomit blood again, or bleed where they could see. But the wounds could fester, and they could not see what evil lurked deep in Suho’s flesh.
Still, Kai rose when his father entered the tent.
“Father.”
“The slave lives. I thought him dead for sure, when you carried him back through the market.”
So had Kai, even if he had not yet admitted it. “He is strong. Perhaps he is rewarded for saving my life.”
It seemed Kai had hit upon something significant, the way that his father’s eyes narrowed at him.
“He saved you so peculiarly. As though he knew the arrow’s path. How would he know? Unless he had ordered them? Perhaps a moment of remorse?”
“No. No that is not possible,” Kai said, frowning. It would mean that all of Suho’s attentions to him, his smiles, had been devious, lulling Kai until Suho could kill him. It was not possible. “It was the result of a vision. He told me, before he lost consciousness.”
“What better way to explain away guilt?”
“You do not know him, Father. He was my slave. Until a man looks into your eyes after he has saved your life, you cannot take his measure. Do you believe I would have worked so hard to save him, if I believed he had anything to do with it?”
His father relented at that. “But he will need to be spoken to when he wakes. If he did have a vision, perhaps he will know who did it.”
“Unless we find out who before then. The men are searching, but they need someone to go to. Father, would you direct them?”
“It should be you. You are a grown man, and your enemies will not look on you with fear if you do not seek them out yourself.”
There was some truth in that, and yet Kai was not moved. He had ears and eyes in many places, so it was not as though he did wish to find out who had done it. For himself, and for Suho as well. But he did not feel he could lead the search, let anger overtake him when he was needed. Strength too came out of adversity, when it was clear he could not do everything himself.
“Suho is still weak. If nearly dying for me tied his life to mine, then I need to stay close to him to keep him from seeking a rest he will not wake from. I will be more help to you here.”
“So you will save the slave, and leave men out there willing to hurt you again. He might wake only to watch you die? Kai.”
And his father’s voice was displeased. Even disappointed.
“If you do not find them, I will with him beside me.” And Kai grinned a little. “Everyone saw Suho’s wounds. I carried him here with the arrows still in his body. If I can bring a man back from the dead, if I have a guardian strong as this, perhaps they will fear me even more.”
“They will fear his magic.”
“Then they will fear what happens to them after death. It is only you I trust to lead the men now.”
Mollified, his father left, and Kai relaxed. Sehun would be in with food for Kai, and for Yixing. Until then, he sat on the low stool beside the bed and stroked the backs of his fingers against Suho’s cheeks. Faintly warm. Alive.
***
“How is he?”
Kai looked up at Sehun, who could have been stomping through the tent for as much as Kai had been aware. It was so easy to just sit there and stare, examining every small thing about how Suho breathed, the movement of his lips. There was no longer a rattle his his breathing, but he was still too warm. They had only truly begun to learn each other, when the arrows had stolen Suho from him. But it was to be a temporary absence. Kai believed that, and would not stop believing it, until Suho got better or ceased to breathe.
“He’s eating what we feed to him, and he breathes,” Kai said, standing up and stretching his stiff back and legs. He kept hold of Suho’s hand and rubbed it as he stood there, staring at the way Suho’s cheeks had begun to lose their roundness. He was fading, even as they tried to hold him there. The frustration that rent from his throat hurt him, staring at Suho’s still hand, fingers that he had kissed. “I don’t know if I should expect more, or when.”
“Yixing seemed encouraged when he left this morning.”
Yes. He’d made an infusion of herbs, helping with Suho’s fever, with the pain, helping him to rest. What he needed was to heal, not to speak or to move, but Kai would have traded so much for a single word, a single opening of Suho’s eyes to see that he was still there, not just a husk.
Sehun knelt beside him, and it was a comfort to have someone else nearby, someone known to him, different than the crackling energy of his father.
“This is for him to hold,” Sehun said, holding out an amulet decorated in gold and dust-dulled stones. “It’s said that if death comes, it will turn it back.”
It was no mere trinket, old and worn though it was, and Sehun averted his eyes when Kai stared at him.
“Where did you get something this? Have you been hiding things from me? I know I gave you three coins, but it wouldn’t buy this.”
“I don’t- It’s not mine.”
“You stole it?” Kai asked, and his tone was gleeful only because Sehun was squirming so much. He knew better. Though, if he thought it would help Suho maybe Sehun would’ve stolen something. But the situation wasn’t so desperate as that.
“It’s a loan,” Sehun corrected, mumbling even still and his ears going red.
Kai lifted the amulet to his nose, inhaling. “Smells like… cloth dye?”
Kai laughed outright, the sound almost painful after holding in so many feelings as Sehun punched his leg. They both stole a look behind them to make sure someone hadn’t seen. Some of those slaps and punches had been explained away by unusually fierce attacking bugs when they were younger.
“Yes,” Sehun hissed, utterly ruffled. “He knew Suho was ill and that he was my friend so he gave it to me, to us, for Suho. I hadn’t seen him since before Suho was injured so… I wish we’d had it then.”
Kai wasn’t sure he believed in the little amulet’s power, but he wasn’t one to disregard it, either. It wasn’t just something to help Kai believe in Suho’s safety, but something for Sehun as well, a gift - one that spoke of trust, affection.
“You’ll thank him for me?” Kai asked. “If he knows I know.”
“I’ll tell him. I could not have given it without you knowing. If you had found it…”
“That’s true. Does it go around his neck?”
“No!” Sehun said, shaking his head. “Idle hands could use it to choke the life from him.”
“They would still try?” Kai mused.
“If it brought them gain,” Sehun said. “But it’s better to be cautious even though I would say now that they should realize that he is worth more to them alive than dead. Because you would not rest until they saw their end.”
Kai stared at Suho’s limp hand, and frowned. Kai took the amulet’s cord and wrapped it around Suho’s wrist, tucking the flat amulet stone under Suho’s slave cuff.
“He can give you the amulet back, when he wakes,” Kai said, and Sehun nodded, sighing.
“I miss seeing him come in to get your food in the morning,” Sehun said, touching Suho’s arm. “And laughing at me while I was washing clothes. He never belonged in the temple, but here with us.”
Kai nodded, unable to even put voice to his agreement. And it was Kai’s arm that Sehun took next.
“You are the one who held him and kept him here, who made him want to stay.”
“I cannot count the things he has taught me, done for me,” Kai said, pressing the back of Suho’s hand against his cheek. “Things I never ordered.”
“You can’t demand that someone care,” Sehun agreed.
“My father wonders if he had something to do with the attack, if he stepped in because he was remorseful about having ordered my death.”
“Suho?” Sehun asked, and his incredulity echoed Kai’s. “Why would he have nearly gotten himself- He’s happy here! I would have known if he wasn’t.”
“I understand why my father might think it, but it would be like accusing my father or you of trying to have me killed.”
“Arrows are too impersonal,” Sehun said, trading a look with Kai. It was true. If his father wanted to have someone killed, it would be a knife and very close. But he did not want to think of killing with Suho there so still.
“I promised him so many things, and I meant them. He is not… He is so much more than he thinks.”
He deserved luxury and riches, but so much more than he surely thought to Kai as well. Not just a slave, though there was that boundary between them even when Suho smiled, sleepy and soft from the bed beside him. He’d had dreams of Suho waking, reaching for his face and pressing a kiss against his lips. He’d given Suho permission to touch, to use his name. He wondered if Suho had wanted to kiss him, to be closer. He wondered how much he had missed by holding still to the walls he thought should be there between master and slave.
“We will not miss him much longer,” Kai said, and did his best to believe it, as Sehun leaned against his side. Suho did not stir, did not do anything but breathe. So Kai took up the last book Suho had brought, and began to read to him. Let him be bound to words, to Kai, but alive.
***
A sound woke Kai from uneasy sleep, half slouched against a trunk beside the bed. At first he looked to see if Sehun had returned, or Yixing, and froze when he realized that Suho’s eyes were open.
“Suho,” Kai whispered, as though he spoke to a butterfly in danger of fluttering away. “Suho, it is Kai.”
He moved, until he was in Suho’s line of vision, touching Suho’s cheek with his fingertips.
“It is good to see your eyes,” Kai said. “I have been waiting for you to smile. Do you hurt? Are you hungry?”
Suho blinked, slowly, making Kai worry for a long moment that he would sleep again, but they opened, and words trapped in Kai’s chest would be held no longer.
“My name, my secret name is Jongin. You aren’t allowed to take that with you, so you can’t die. You have to fight to get better. You’re a guardian, and even your name declares it. You have to protect your life now, for me. I order it.”
He watched Suho breathe, the nearly blank eyes as Kai stared into them. He wondered if Suho was even seeing him, or knew he was speaking. And Suho took a breath, two. Another, his mouth opening. As though he were gathering strength.
“Joon…myun,” Suho breathed. Not even a whisper, on an exhale.
“Your name?” he asked, eager. And Suho’s eyes closed once, before opening again. Agreement. “Good. Then I’ll keep that for you until you’re well. I won’t call you by it until then. Something to wait for.”
Suho exhaled, and it was almost like a laugh. At least, Kai took it that way, even as Suho’s eyelids lowered, and his hand relaxed in Kai’s. His heart leaped.
“Suho. Suho. Joonmyun.”
He heard only the steady, shallow breathing.
Suho slept, and Kai waited.
***
Watching Suho come back to himself was one of the hardest things Kai had ever done. It was not, as Kai had hoped, some kind of magical fix. Suho did not wake with any dawn ready to ride with him, or anything of the like. When he could stay awake for more than five minutes, it felt like they’d scaled mountains. He spared smiles for Sehun, for Yixing, for Kai. Just seeing that expression on Suho’s face made him feel like things were almost right, except that Suho was weak, he was sore, and the wounds were still a danger.
The magic had been in Suho’s spared life.
Kai slept beside him, Sehun on the floor on the other side, and Kai’s whole body was tight as they supported Suho as he sat up for the first time. Suho clutched at the wound on his stomach, a helpless moan leaving him as they shoved pillows behind him and let him relax.
“How is that?” Kai demanded.
“My head doesn’t want to roll off my shoulders,” Suho said, the edges of his mouth curling as he looked to Kai. “Thank you.”
His voice was still soft, his lips pale, but the day after that they let him lift his own water cup to his mouth, and the next, spoon food for himself. He seemed to relish those accomplishments, getting demanding about wanting to sit up, not wanting to become a part of the bed. Kai watched Suho watch Sehun, like he was envying the way that Sehun was cleaning up, the way he was able to do things like bring Kai his food. Though that, that Kai caught onto, eating at Suho’s bedside instead of removed at the table. At least it let Suho feel like he wasn’t completely cut off.
And Kai both dreaded and welcomed the day when Suho asked to stand, and even then not just to stand but to walk.
“Just the length of the tent and back,” Suho said, determined, his legs vibrating where he’d draped them over the edge of the bed. “If I can.”
It was an amendment. Kai calmed himself that between Sehun and him, they could hold Suho up if he felt weak or lightheaded. He wanted to protest. He wanted to give it time. He’d expected Yixing to support him, but all Yixing had done was look at Kai.
“He will know better than you or I when he is ready.”
Which he supposed was a truth. But that didn’t keep him from worry as one of Suho’s arms looped around his neck, the other holding his stomach as Sehun helped to lift him as well. Slowly, Suho pushed himself up until he stood, swaying into Kai’s body and breathing harsh into his shoulder.
Kai opened his mouth to ask how Suho felt and saw Sehun glaring at him, a finger at his lips. Right. He’d let Suho control how fast, how much. Though, for a searing moment he let his worry if Suho would collapse fall away, and realized that Suho was standing, pressed against him as he’d only truly started to before the arrows. He was standing. Alive. Awake. Suho squeaked, not a sound of pain, when Kai gripped him tighter for a long moment. He wasn’t waiting, wondering if Suho would die any longer.
“I’m ready,” Suho breathed, and for a moment they looked at each other. Suho was worried and exhilarated and Kai for a moment fought the urge to laugh and spin him.
He wasn’t yet that well. So instead he let Suho go, feeling like he was letting some knot inside of him go as well, letting Suho latch onto his arm, and then to Sehun’s. It wasn’t as though Suho had forgotten how to walk, just that none of them knew how much stamina he had after so many days lying down. Just standing had been the hardest part, making sure he would not collapse. The steps he took were at first tentative, getting a feel for his footing, for his legs.
“How does it feel?” Kai asked, concerned when Suho gave some kind of gurgling laugh.
“It hurts! Oh, it’s wonderful!” Suho said, and Kai sent a confused look to Sehun.
But he didn’t speak after that, turning slowly with them at the edge of the tent, and walking back to the bed. Suho sat carefully, even though it was clear he wanted to be seated badly, and his face was flushed, his eyelashes dark and damp.
Kai touched his cheek, swallowing down any emotion that wanted to well. “That’s only the start,” he promised Suho.
And he watched as Suho squeezed both their hands and tried not to give in to the tight feeling in his throat.
***
The stronger Suho got, the less he welcomed the help. Kai understood that, in a way, having recovered from a wrenched leg when he was young and ready to be free of the fussing over him. Suho wanted to be free to walk the tent, and when Kai tried to order him otherwise, Suho was like an immoveable boulder. It was still his tent, and Suho compromised that he would only when someone was there to make sure he didn’t fall. He understood why Suho would want the freedom to get up, to relieve himself on his own, but he still worried that Suho would injure himself by breathing, much less walking around on his own.
“I haven’t fallen over yet,” Suho said, and it was all cheek directed at Kai as he gingerly held his stomach and walked the length of the tent and back again. He didn’t shuffle as he had days before, didn’t wince in pain except when he twisted, or sat down, or rose up again.
“Does it pain you much when you walk?”
“I can feel it there,” Suho said, standing still, curling his toes into the rug and swaying a bit as he thought. “As long as I don’t breathe too deeply, or cough, or stretch. But I suppose I need to do some of that so it won’t pain me the rest of my life when I do more than stand upright.”
“As long as you don’t break it open,” Kai said, not liking the sound of any of that at all. The thought of Suho in lasting pain, pain that could follow him every day of his life, that was unacceptable to him.
Suho just sighed at him, walking back to the bed and carefully settling upon it beside Kai. He was not allowed to lift more than his own bowl, his own water cup, but he would be well enough to do even more things beyond that soon enough. Kai looked Suho over, taking in how thin he had gotten, and how much better he looked even then. When Suho looked toward him, he seemed surprised to see Kai looking back at him, though only for a moment. Suho reached down, pressing a hand to the blanket beneath them and waiting a moment before he spoke.
“You’ve allowed me the use of your bed for a good while,” Suho said, staring down at the fingers he twisted together. “I think I’m strong enough, if you’d rather I return to my pallet…”
Strong enough, maybe. Also self-sacrificing if he thought he was causing Kai an inconvenience.
“It would be too much for you to try to crawl up off of the ground,” Kai said, dismissing that thought entirely. “You sleep still and quiet, so you aren’t disturbing me. A better sleep should help you heal swiftly.”
And Kai would be closer for those times he woke, listening to be sure that Suho still breathed.
“You’ve had no one to see to your needs,” Suho said, and when Kai looked to him, Suho’s cheeks had gone red even as he met Kai’s eyes.
“I have managed on my own,” Kai said.
He hadn’t forgotten how to use his own hand to find release. A tingle spread over his skin as Suho’s hand spread against his wrist, gripping it, gentle, as though Kai would shake him off. He’d touched Suho so many times, and Suho had reached for him some of those times as well. He didn’t know what it was about that simple touch that made him react so. Maybe because all they had been focused on had been living, had been on Suho existing, beyond anything else. If Suho pressed against him in the night, Kai did not push him away, but enjoyed the closeness of it. But he didn’t dare do more than the hugs they had shared when Suho stood, or lending himself as someone for Suho to lean on, to rely on.
“I miss it,” Suho said, and though the words themselves were shy, there was also some thoughtfulness to it as well. “I wondered if I- When I arrived, and I saw to your pleasure, it was a duty. When I began to know you, it wasn’t any longer.”
“You told me you did not want me to seek out another,” Kai said, and watched Suho’s head bob, a sharp nod as he drew air through his teeth. “I have not.”
“It would be your-“
“Don’t tell me it would be my right,” Kai said, his words abrupt as Suho’s fingers tightened around his wrist. “I know what I am able to do, and I have been focused on finding the man or men who did this, and seeing you well. There is time for that. Your hair has faded.”
It was an observation, something he really hadn’t noticed even when Suho had sat in the sun, basking like a little marmot. He touched it, dark and even, longer than Suho usually wore it, and Suho’s hand flew up as well.
“I will have Sehun help me with it,” Suho said, offering it with a kind of desperation.
“You do not need to. I like it this way as well.” And Kai cleared his throat, stood, waiting for Suho’s hold on his wrist to loosen. “I have tasks to see to. You will rest for a while?”
He waited until he had Suho’s agreement to his near order, and he left the tent, feeling jittery for no good reason that he could tell.
***
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
***
The healer’s name was Yixing, which was of no account to Kai, who stood tense as Yixing touched Suho’s face and forehead, his chest and hands. The marking at his thigh. Not, peculiarly, the injuries. Kai looked away for only a moment, glancing at Sehun whose face was drawn in concentration watching as well. Sehun would have brought someone he thought could help, Kai assured himself. He was fond of Suho as well.
“Is there anything you can do?” Kai asked, too impatient to wait for Yixing to speak. Time was short. Suho could only last so long.
Yixing hummed, stood. “Perhaps. He is fighting to live inside. I can feel his thoughts. To heal him, he must be in a place that brought him joy, a place that can bind him. He draws power from the water. He dreams of it.”
Water. Kai thought of things Suho had told him. His previous life. “There was a pool at his temple, made of stone. He had a lot of happy memories there. But that is too far away!”
The healer frowned. “It is no pool made by man, because the bottom is silty. But he is being kissed by a man.”
Kai turned. “Me. That man is me. That place is just behind this tent.”
“Then you must take him there. Hurry.”
“But- They said if he moves-“
“He will die?” Yixing touched his arm. “He will die before the sun sets if you do not take him.”
It was nothing but the truth. Kai swung Suho into his arms, the weight of his prone body almost nothing. It was he who felt weak, staggering on trembling legs when Suho made no movement, no sound at the jostling. But Kai sank into the pool, onto his knees.
“Immerse him,” Yixing said. “His wounds must be beneath the water. It is the water we will call on for healing, because water calls his visions. Whether he lives or dies, he wants to be here in this place, with you.”
“How long does he have to stay in here?”
Suho’s limbs were carefully arranged in the cool water. Kai kept his head toward the bank, carefully resting on Kai’s arm so that he could still breathe. Even if his breathing was so slow, so ragged.
“Till the sun rises,” Yixing said, and did not waver at Kai’s startled look. “It is a long time, yes, but his body is badly damaged. If he is no better by then, there is nothing that can be done. His memories here might hold him.”
“He wanted me to kiss him?”
“I cannot say. It was only in his dream. Remind him of the reasons he has to stay. I will pray.”
Kai stared at Suho’s face, which still looked pained even in unconsciousness.
“Why did you step in front of me?” Kai asked. He smoothed Suho’s eyebrows with a wet finger. “You were so angry with me when we met. There was so much blood. You- Those aren’t reasons to stay. Your smile when I teased you. When you ate at my table the first time. Here in this pool when I-“
Kai pressed his lips to Suho’s slack ones. There was no response. Even when Suho had been angry at him, he had always responded to his kisses. Not just because he felt he had to, no. When he found it aroused Suho, he did it more often. It was their special connection, a conversation without words. When he had no way to speak the thoughts in his head, Suho’s mouth met his, Suho’s hands stroking through his hair. He remembered the first moan of pleasure that Suho had given him, so startled and unsure. As though he wondered if he should be silent, hide what he felt from Kai. But Kai had found a greed in himself, and he wanted all of Suho’s moans.
He remembered when Suho had spilled between them, and without order, or request, he had gasped Kai’s name. The proof of their pleasure, there, in Suho’s smiling eyes.
“You must smile for me again,” Kai told him. “Please.”
And he kissed Suho again, and again, pressing his lips to Suho’s chin, his cheeks and forehead. He listened for every breath as the sun went down.
“I won’t allow you to give your life for mine. Whatever you desire, you’ll have it. I would cover you in jewels, the finest silks. You would have the best horse. You can have my horse. I would kiss your fingers when you woke in my bed beside me and thank you for my life. Suho. Why do I feel you would want none of it? Except perhaps… The last. To greet each morning with me. I would be the slave of your happiness. When you wake, kiss me, so I know you want that, too.”
The water lapped at their bodies, and he spoke until he was hoarse, as the moon rose. He drew breaths with Suho, as though that would ensure they would keep happening. He didn’t know what magic felt like, wasn’t sure if he believed in it. But he knew Suho had a power unlike anything he’d known. But he tried to believe. If that power could heal, then perhaps there was a chance.
“Did you save me so that I could save you? I’ll sit with you in this pond as long as it takes.”
“The moon darkens,” Yixing said, speaking for the first time in hours, and making Kai jolt.
“Is that a bad omen?” Kai asked, touching Suho’s face. It felt warmer than before, and he was glad for a moment, before the worry took him. “He is hot. His skin.”
It was good, because it meant he was alive. But it was bad, because Kai did know what fever meant after injury. It meant danger. The body fought, some healers had said. Others said the body was readying itself for a pyre.
“Bathe his face,” Yixing said. “Keep him cool. The water will remind his body what to do.”
Suho breathed heavier as the moon lowered in the sky. Kai bathed his forehead, his cheeks in the water, smoothing the backs of his fingers along Suho’s skin, feeling the shiver in his own body at the night chill.
“I will keep you alive,” Kai said. “You will wake beside me. Together, we will punish who did this to you.”
Suho drew in a breath that rattled, and the panic shook him. It was the sound of a dying man.
“Suho. Yixing.”
Yixing waded beside them, pressing his hand to Suho’s face. “He is still warm. He feels your anger.”
“How can I not be angry? The longer we are here, the weaker he grows. Someone out there did this. They forced him to this.”
“No. He made this choice. He is in this pond because he chose to save you. He did not save you for your anger, so that you could think of hatred when his body needs to heal. You bury him with a thought. I thought you wanted to save him.”
Air hissed from between Kai’s teeth. “Are you saying I have to choose between him and finding who did this to him?”
“No. But you don’t hunt now. The water heals. But so do you. You are the moon holding his tide.”
“How much longer ’til dawn?”
“Too long,” Yixing said, and stood and returned to the bank.
“Breathe,” Kai whispered, moving his body closer to Suho’s. “Breathe. I’m here.”
Perhaps it was because he was getting used to the cool, but warmth flushed over him. Calm. As he smoothed cool water on Suho’s face and stroked through his hair. He let thoughts of anger and vengeance sweep aside in favor of feeling for Suho’s heartbeat, and willing the blood to stay in him and keep him whole.
“He said I am your moon. Then you must wake for me. When the sun rises you can open your eyes. I’ll take you on my horse. We’ll ride toward it together. I didn’t know I would find you. A pearl plucked from where it was hidden. You deserve to be worshipped. I could feed you with my own fingers. I would please you any way you wanted me to. Only let me find my end with you. Suho. I can’t- Who else would…?”
If Suho died, there would be an empty pallet in his tent, no man to listen to his babbles and give him advice. No man to bathe with him or kneel for him, or shudder at his hands.
He saw Suho’s eyes, dark, placid, and yet curious. Smart, thinking. A need to know, understand. A man interested in Kai’s problems, of no small wisdom of his own. He read, did figures. He could have done none of those things, and still caused the warmth Kai felt when he looked at Suho.
The tears that fell into the water were for what he feared he’d lost. And then the determination that he would have Suho back.
“Stay with me,” Kai whispered again, and kissed Suho’s heated cheek.
“Kai.”
Kai looked up at Yixing’s call. And squinted into the distance where the horizon was beginning to lighten.
“The sun is rising,” Kai said, speaking to Suho’s still face. “You will wake soon. Just keep breathing.”
He waited with every breath Suho took, slow and irregular. Sometimes seeming to struggle before the air came. And Kai willed the sun to rise. He knew if the light shone over the horizon, it would bring Suho strength.
The moon had set. And the shadows grew.
Suho shuddered in his arms as the sun broke over the horizon.
“No,” Kai said, lifting Suho’s head from where it had sunk back. Yixing was there in moments, grasping Suho’s hand and touching his head.
“Your duty here is done. He wants to be warm. Your bed.”
It was only with Yixing’s help that they lifted Suho from the pond. Every part of Kai’s body ached, cold and exhausted. They stripped Suho from his wet and bloody clothes, sliding him naked and dry between blankets. The wounds were so angry and dark against Suho’s pale skin, before they covered his wounds with thick cloth, and then covered him. Kai shivered as he stared down at Suho’s face.
“Watch,” Yixing said. And with a spoon, he parted Suho’s lips, dribbling liquid between them.
“What is that?”
“Tea mixed with broth. I had Sehun prepare it. It will fortify him. But look.”
Another dribble into Suho’s mouth, and his throat convulsed. A swallow.
Kai shuddered. “Does that mean..?”
“It means you should dry yourself, and sleep beside him. He needs you strong. I will urge him to breathe, but you will do that just as you are.”
Kai dried himself quickly, not even taking a moment to warm in the air before he was crawling beneath the blankets and furs to press against Suho’s side. Suho’s skin was chilled, and Kai stroked Suho’s arms hoping the friction would start to warm him. He wasn’t sure how he would sleep. The shivers began, though he fought to still himself so that he would not disturb Suho. They were from cold, and they were from fear.
Yixing held one of Suho’s hands in both of his, urging him to breathe and heal and stay. But Kai’s words would no longer come to him as he pressed his nose against Suho’s cheek. If he slept, Suho might think he was not being diligent, and slip away. He squeezed Suho’s hand in his, hoping for the slightest squeeze, some sign that Suho knew he was there. But there was nothing, just warming fingers clasped in his. But they warmed together. He slept, light and disturbed to the sound of Yixing’s murmurs and Sehun’s queries how to help. He dreamed to the sound of Suho’s breathing, dream of waking to Suho’s smile.
He woke some refreshed, though not to smiles because Suho would not wake. But still, Suho breathed.
***
Suho looked weak and frighteningly pale against the dark blankets. Yixing fed him, tended to his wounds and his health, and Kai watched. He saw the red welts against Suho’s skin, putting his fingers to his own body and tracing where they might have hit. The arrow that had hit high on Suho, might have pierced Kai’s heart. The one low, might have gone into his guts and preceded a slow and ugly death. Though Suho did not wake, he breathed, and he swallowed the broths, and water, and juices, that Yixing gave to him. He did not vomit blood again, or bleed where they could see. But the wounds could fester, and they could not see what evil lurked deep in Suho’s flesh.
Still, Kai rose when his father entered the tent.
“Father.”
“The slave lives. I thought him dead for sure, when you carried him back through the market.”
So had Kai, even if he had not yet admitted it. “He is strong. Perhaps he is rewarded for saving my life.”
It seemed Kai had hit upon something significant, the way that his father’s eyes narrowed at him.
“He saved you so peculiarly. As though he knew the arrow’s path. How would he know? Unless he had ordered them? Perhaps a moment of remorse?”
“No. No that is not possible,” Kai said, frowning. It would mean that all of Suho’s attentions to him, his smiles, had been devious, lulling Kai until Suho could kill him. It was not possible. “It was the result of a vision. He told me, before he lost consciousness.”
“What better way to explain away guilt?”
“You do not know him, Father. He was my slave. Until a man looks into your eyes after he has saved your life, you cannot take his measure. Do you believe I would have worked so hard to save him, if I believed he had anything to do with it?”
His father relented at that. “But he will need to be spoken to when he wakes. If he did have a vision, perhaps he will know who did it.”
“Unless we find out who before then. The men are searching, but they need someone to go to. Father, would you direct them?”
“It should be you. You are a grown man, and your enemies will not look on you with fear if you do not seek them out yourself.”
There was some truth in that, and yet Kai was not moved. He had ears and eyes in many places, so it was not as though he did wish to find out who had done it. For himself, and for Suho as well. But he did not feel he could lead the search, let anger overtake him when he was needed. Strength too came out of adversity, when it was clear he could not do everything himself.
“Suho is still weak. If nearly dying for me tied his life to mine, then I need to stay close to him to keep him from seeking a rest he will not wake from. I will be more help to you here.”
“So you will save the slave, and leave men out there willing to hurt you again. He might wake only to watch you die? Kai.”
And his father’s voice was displeased. Even disappointed.
“If you do not find them, I will with him beside me.” And Kai grinned a little. “Everyone saw Suho’s wounds. I carried him here with the arrows still in his body. If I can bring a man back from the dead, if I have a guardian strong as this, perhaps they will fear me even more.”
“They will fear his magic.”
“Then they will fear what happens to them after death. It is only you I trust to lead the men now.”
Mollified, his father left, and Kai relaxed. Sehun would be in with food for Kai, and for Yixing. Until then, he sat on the low stool beside the bed and stroked the backs of his fingers against Suho’s cheeks. Faintly warm. Alive.
***
“How is he?”
Kai looked up at Sehun, who could have been stomping through the tent for as much as Kai had been aware. It was so easy to just sit there and stare, examining every small thing about how Suho breathed, the movement of his lips. There was no longer a rattle his his breathing, but he was still too warm. They had only truly begun to learn each other, when the arrows had stolen Suho from him. But it was to be a temporary absence. Kai believed that, and would not stop believing it, until Suho got better or ceased to breathe.
“He’s eating what we feed to him, and he breathes,” Kai said, standing up and stretching his stiff back and legs. He kept hold of Suho’s hand and rubbed it as he stood there, staring at the way Suho’s cheeks had begun to lose their roundness. He was fading, even as they tried to hold him there. The frustration that rent from his throat hurt him, staring at Suho’s still hand, fingers that he had kissed. “I don’t know if I should expect more, or when.”
“Yixing seemed encouraged when he left this morning.”
Yes. He’d made an infusion of herbs, helping with Suho’s fever, with the pain, helping him to rest. What he needed was to heal, not to speak or to move, but Kai would have traded so much for a single word, a single opening of Suho’s eyes to see that he was still there, not just a husk.
Sehun knelt beside him, and it was a comfort to have someone else nearby, someone known to him, different than the crackling energy of his father.
“This is for him to hold,” Sehun said, holding out an amulet decorated in gold and dust-dulled stones. “It’s said that if death comes, it will turn it back.”
It was no mere trinket, old and worn though it was, and Sehun averted his eyes when Kai stared at him.
“Where did you get something this? Have you been hiding things from me? I know I gave you three coins, but it wouldn’t buy this.”
“I don’t- It’s not mine.”
“You stole it?” Kai asked, and his tone was gleeful only because Sehun was squirming so much. He knew better. Though, if he thought it would help Suho maybe Sehun would’ve stolen something. But the situation wasn’t so desperate as that.
“It’s a loan,” Sehun corrected, mumbling even still and his ears going red.
Kai lifted the amulet to his nose, inhaling. “Smells like… cloth dye?”
Kai laughed outright, the sound almost painful after holding in so many feelings as Sehun punched his leg. They both stole a look behind them to make sure someone hadn’t seen. Some of those slaps and punches had been explained away by unusually fierce attacking bugs when they were younger.
“Yes,” Sehun hissed, utterly ruffled. “He knew Suho was ill and that he was my friend so he gave it to me, to us, for Suho. I hadn’t seen him since before Suho was injured so… I wish we’d had it then.”
Kai wasn’t sure he believed in the little amulet’s power, but he wasn’t one to disregard it, either. It wasn’t just something to help Kai believe in Suho’s safety, but something for Sehun as well, a gift - one that spoke of trust, affection.
“You’ll thank him for me?” Kai asked. “If he knows I know.”
“I’ll tell him. I could not have given it without you knowing. If you had found it…”
“That’s true. Does it go around his neck?”
“No!” Sehun said, shaking his head. “Idle hands could use it to choke the life from him.”
“They would still try?” Kai mused.
“If it brought them gain,” Sehun said. “But it’s better to be cautious even though I would say now that they should realize that he is worth more to them alive than dead. Because you would not rest until they saw their end.”
Kai stared at Suho’s limp hand, and frowned. Kai took the amulet’s cord and wrapped it around Suho’s wrist, tucking the flat amulet stone under Suho’s slave cuff.
“He can give you the amulet back, when he wakes,” Kai said, and Sehun nodded, sighing.
“I miss seeing him come in to get your food in the morning,” Sehun said, touching Suho’s arm. “And laughing at me while I was washing clothes. He never belonged in the temple, but here with us.”
Kai nodded, unable to even put voice to his agreement. And it was Kai’s arm that Sehun took next.
“You are the one who held him and kept him here, who made him want to stay.”
“I cannot count the things he has taught me, done for me,” Kai said, pressing the back of Suho’s hand against his cheek. “Things I never ordered.”
“You can’t demand that someone care,” Sehun agreed.
“My father wonders if he had something to do with the attack, if he stepped in because he was remorseful about having ordered my death.”
“Suho?” Sehun asked, and his incredulity echoed Kai’s. “Why would he have nearly gotten himself- He’s happy here! I would have known if he wasn’t.”
“I understand why my father might think it, but it would be like accusing my father or you of trying to have me killed.”
“Arrows are too impersonal,” Sehun said, trading a look with Kai. It was true. If his father wanted to have someone killed, it would be a knife and very close. But he did not want to think of killing with Suho there so still.
“I promised him so many things, and I meant them. He is not… He is so much more than he thinks.”
He deserved luxury and riches, but so much more than he surely thought to Kai as well. Not just a slave, though there was that boundary between them even when Suho smiled, sleepy and soft from the bed beside him. He’d had dreams of Suho waking, reaching for his face and pressing a kiss against his lips. He’d given Suho permission to touch, to use his name. He wondered if Suho had wanted to kiss him, to be closer. He wondered how much he had missed by holding still to the walls he thought should be there between master and slave.
“We will not miss him much longer,” Kai said, and did his best to believe it, as Sehun leaned against his side. Suho did not stir, did not do anything but breathe. So Kai took up the last book Suho had brought, and began to read to him. Let him be bound to words, to Kai, but alive.
***
A sound woke Kai from uneasy sleep, half slouched against a trunk beside the bed. At first he looked to see if Sehun had returned, or Yixing, and froze when he realized that Suho’s eyes were open.
“Suho,” Kai whispered, as though he spoke to a butterfly in danger of fluttering away. “Suho, it is Kai.”
He moved, until he was in Suho’s line of vision, touching Suho’s cheek with his fingertips.
“It is good to see your eyes,” Kai said. “I have been waiting for you to smile. Do you hurt? Are you hungry?”
Suho blinked, slowly, making Kai worry for a long moment that he would sleep again, but they opened, and words trapped in Kai’s chest would be held no longer.
“My name, my secret name is Jongin. You aren’t allowed to take that with you, so you can’t die. You have to fight to get better. You’re a guardian, and even your name declares it. You have to protect your life now, for me. I order it.”
He watched Suho breathe, the nearly blank eyes as Kai stared into them. He wondered if Suho was even seeing him, or knew he was speaking. And Suho took a breath, two. Another, his mouth opening. As though he were gathering strength.
“Joon…myun,” Suho breathed. Not even a whisper, on an exhale.
“Your name?” he asked, eager. And Suho’s eyes closed once, before opening again. Agreement. “Good. Then I’ll keep that for you until you’re well. I won’t call you by it until then. Something to wait for.”
Suho exhaled, and it was almost like a laugh. At least, Kai took it that way, even as Suho’s eyelids lowered, and his hand relaxed in Kai’s. His heart leaped.
“Suho. Suho. Joonmyun.”
He heard only the steady, shallow breathing.
Suho slept, and Kai waited.
***
Watching Suho come back to himself was one of the hardest things Kai had ever done. It was not, as Kai had hoped, some kind of magical fix. Suho did not wake with any dawn ready to ride with him, or anything of the like. When he could stay awake for more than five minutes, it felt like they’d scaled mountains. He spared smiles for Sehun, for Yixing, for Kai. Just seeing that expression on Suho’s face made him feel like things were almost right, except that Suho was weak, he was sore, and the wounds were still a danger.
The magic had been in Suho’s spared life.
Kai slept beside him, Sehun on the floor on the other side, and Kai’s whole body was tight as they supported Suho as he sat up for the first time. Suho clutched at the wound on his stomach, a helpless moan leaving him as they shoved pillows behind him and let him relax.
“How is that?” Kai demanded.
“My head doesn’t want to roll off my shoulders,” Suho said, the edges of his mouth curling as he looked to Kai. “Thank you.”
His voice was still soft, his lips pale, but the day after that they let him lift his own water cup to his mouth, and the next, spoon food for himself. He seemed to relish those accomplishments, getting demanding about wanting to sit up, not wanting to become a part of the bed. Kai watched Suho watch Sehun, like he was envying the way that Sehun was cleaning up, the way he was able to do things like bring Kai his food. Though that, that Kai caught onto, eating at Suho’s bedside instead of removed at the table. At least it let Suho feel like he wasn’t completely cut off.
And Kai both dreaded and welcomed the day when Suho asked to stand, and even then not just to stand but to walk.
“Just the length of the tent and back,” Suho said, determined, his legs vibrating where he’d draped them over the edge of the bed. “If I can.”
It was an amendment. Kai calmed himself that between Sehun and him, they could hold Suho up if he felt weak or lightheaded. He wanted to protest. He wanted to give it time. He’d expected Yixing to support him, but all Yixing had done was look at Kai.
“He will know better than you or I when he is ready.”
Which he supposed was a truth. But that didn’t keep him from worry as one of Suho’s arms looped around his neck, the other holding his stomach as Sehun helped to lift him as well. Slowly, Suho pushed himself up until he stood, swaying into Kai’s body and breathing harsh into his shoulder.
Kai opened his mouth to ask how Suho felt and saw Sehun glaring at him, a finger at his lips. Right. He’d let Suho control how fast, how much. Though, for a searing moment he let his worry if Suho would collapse fall away, and realized that Suho was standing, pressed against him as he’d only truly started to before the arrows. He was standing. Alive. Awake. Suho squeaked, not a sound of pain, when Kai gripped him tighter for a long moment. He wasn’t waiting, wondering if Suho would die any longer.
“I’m ready,” Suho breathed, and for a moment they looked at each other. Suho was worried and exhilarated and Kai for a moment fought the urge to laugh and spin him.
He wasn’t yet that well. So instead he let Suho go, feeling like he was letting some knot inside of him go as well, letting Suho latch onto his arm, and then to Sehun’s. It wasn’t as though Suho had forgotten how to walk, just that none of them knew how much stamina he had after so many days lying down. Just standing had been the hardest part, making sure he would not collapse. The steps he took were at first tentative, getting a feel for his footing, for his legs.
“How does it feel?” Kai asked, concerned when Suho gave some kind of gurgling laugh.
“It hurts! Oh, it’s wonderful!” Suho said, and Kai sent a confused look to Sehun.
But he didn’t speak after that, turning slowly with them at the edge of the tent, and walking back to the bed. Suho sat carefully, even though it was clear he wanted to be seated badly, and his face was flushed, his eyelashes dark and damp.
Kai touched his cheek, swallowing down any emotion that wanted to well. “That’s only the start,” he promised Suho.
And he watched as Suho squeezed both their hands and tried not to give in to the tight feeling in his throat.
***
The stronger Suho got, the less he welcomed the help. Kai understood that, in a way, having recovered from a wrenched leg when he was young and ready to be free of the fussing over him. Suho wanted to be free to walk the tent, and when Kai tried to order him otherwise, Suho was like an immoveable boulder. It was still his tent, and Suho compromised that he would only when someone was there to make sure he didn’t fall. He understood why Suho would want the freedom to get up, to relieve himself on his own, but he still worried that Suho would injure himself by breathing, much less walking around on his own.
“I haven’t fallen over yet,” Suho said, and it was all cheek directed at Kai as he gingerly held his stomach and walked the length of the tent and back again. He didn’t shuffle as he had days before, didn’t wince in pain except when he twisted, or sat down, or rose up again.
“Does it pain you much when you walk?”
“I can feel it there,” Suho said, standing still, curling his toes into the rug and swaying a bit as he thought. “As long as I don’t breathe too deeply, or cough, or stretch. But I suppose I need to do some of that so it won’t pain me the rest of my life when I do more than stand upright.”
“As long as you don’t break it open,” Kai said, not liking the sound of any of that at all. The thought of Suho in lasting pain, pain that could follow him every day of his life, that was unacceptable to him.
Suho just sighed at him, walking back to the bed and carefully settling upon it beside Kai. He was not allowed to lift more than his own bowl, his own water cup, but he would be well enough to do even more things beyond that soon enough. Kai looked Suho over, taking in how thin he had gotten, and how much better he looked even then. When Suho looked toward him, he seemed surprised to see Kai looking back at him, though only for a moment. Suho reached down, pressing a hand to the blanket beneath them and waiting a moment before he spoke.
“You’ve allowed me the use of your bed for a good while,” Suho said, staring down at the fingers he twisted together. “I think I’m strong enough, if you’d rather I return to my pallet…”
Strong enough, maybe. Also self-sacrificing if he thought he was causing Kai an inconvenience.
“It would be too much for you to try to crawl up off of the ground,” Kai said, dismissing that thought entirely. “You sleep still and quiet, so you aren’t disturbing me. A better sleep should help you heal swiftly.”
And Kai would be closer for those times he woke, listening to be sure that Suho still breathed.
“You’ve had no one to see to your needs,” Suho said, and when Kai looked to him, Suho’s cheeks had gone red even as he met Kai’s eyes.
“I have managed on my own,” Kai said.
He hadn’t forgotten how to use his own hand to find release. A tingle spread over his skin as Suho’s hand spread against his wrist, gripping it, gentle, as though Kai would shake him off. He’d touched Suho so many times, and Suho had reached for him some of those times as well. He didn’t know what it was about that simple touch that made him react so. Maybe because all they had been focused on had been living, had been on Suho existing, beyond anything else. If Suho pressed against him in the night, Kai did not push him away, but enjoyed the closeness of it. But he didn’t dare do more than the hugs they had shared when Suho stood, or lending himself as someone for Suho to lean on, to rely on.
“I miss it,” Suho said, and though the words themselves were shy, there was also some thoughtfulness to it as well. “I wondered if I- When I arrived, and I saw to your pleasure, it was a duty. When I began to know you, it wasn’t any longer.”
“You told me you did not want me to seek out another,” Kai said, and watched Suho’s head bob, a sharp nod as he drew air through his teeth. “I have not.”
“It would be your-“
“Don’t tell me it would be my right,” Kai said, his words abrupt as Suho’s fingers tightened around his wrist. “I know what I am able to do, and I have been focused on finding the man or men who did this, and seeing you well. There is time for that. Your hair has faded.”
It was an observation, something he really hadn’t noticed even when Suho had sat in the sun, basking like a little marmot. He touched it, dark and even, longer than Suho usually wore it, and Suho’s hand flew up as well.
“I will have Sehun help me with it,” Suho said, offering it with a kind of desperation.
“You do not need to. I like it this way as well.” And Kai cleared his throat, stood, waiting for Suho’s hold on his wrist to loosen. “I have tasks to see to. You will rest for a while?”
He waited until he had Suho’s agreement to his near order, and he left the tent, feeling jittery for no good reason that he could tell.
***