the rooster and the snake
title: the rooster and the snake
pairing(s): ontae
rating: g
wordcount: ~4400
summary: in which four members of shinee are their zodiac animals, minho is the farmer that tends them, and a rooster falls in love with a snake.
a/n: lame title is lame and terrible fic is terrible, omg. but this idea started bugging me and i had to write it also ONTAE HOW DO I ONTAE oh man.
Taemin was the best, most beautiful rooster on Minho's farm. The farmer and his wife frequently praised his splendid plumage, his vibrant health, and his boastful confidence with the hens. They also knew that Taemin was a very clever rooster, and as a result they made no effort to confine him to the chicken coop; he was given the run of the entire farm.
Over time, Taemin came to meet other farm animals: an unusually sharp-eyed sheep called Kibum, a glossy chestnut horse called Jonghyun. Taemin soon took to spending all of his time with these companions, for he found his own species rather dull.
One day Taemin was settled contentedly on a wooden fence post to watch the sheepdog, a pretty gray specimen called Sehun, frolic amongst Kibum's flock, when out of the corner of his eye he caught the gleam of something shiny rustling in the grass. Uneasily, he stared at the ground trying to discern what it was, but he was unable make out anything more than a momentary flash of bronze scales reflecting the hot sun and a zigzagging path wended through the tall yellow grass.
Now quite afraid of this mysterious force he could not see, Taemin flapped and fluttered off the fence and hurried away from the pasture to the barn, where there was no tall grass in which any adversary might hide. Inside the barn he found Jungmo, a fat, lumbering ox.
"Hello, Taemin," Jungmo greeted him cordially.
"Hi," Taemin squawked nervously.
"You seem upset," Jungmo noted. "Why are you upset?"
"I'm just shaken, I guess." Taemin shook his head and fluffed his feathers a little. "I saw something scary in the pasture. It seems silly now, actually. But I just had this terrible fear that it would hurt me."
"What did you see?" Jungmo asked calmly.
"I don't know," Taemin admitted. "It moved through the grass, back and forth. It was shiny, and sort of brown colored."
"Maybe you were seeing the snake," Jungmo suggested.
"Snake?"
"There's a sneaky snake from the woods that's been spooking the horses, or so I hear. You should ask Jonghyun about it."
"I will," Taemin replied, already starting out the barn door. "Thanks!"
He began the long trek across the farm to the horses' enclosure, but was interceded by Minho, who cut off Taemin's path with swift strides. Denim-clad legs loomed before him, and Taemin debated briefly whether to turn and run or put up a fight when Minho tried to pick him up. However, Minho merely bent down so that his sun-darkened face was right in front of Taemin's beak.
"You," Minho said, reaching forward to stroke Taemin's head, "have been a very naughty boy."
Taemin tilted his head and waited, his dark brown eyes shining innocently.
"Don't think I don't know about your little romps through the coop," the farmer continued. "You've knocked up seven of my best laying hens."
Taemin clacked his beak in protest.
"While it's nice to have more chickens to sell at market, I'm running out of space to raise 'em all! If you don't leave the hens alone, Taemin, I'm going to have to lock you out of the coop. Got it?"
Taemin clucked his understanding and Minho, apparently satisfied, got to his feet and left to check on the pigs. At that moment, Minho's nine-year-old son, Yoogeun, rode past on Jonghyun, who neighed merrily at Taemin. Flustered, the rooster ran after him on his spindly orange legs.
"Jonghyun! Wait up! I want to ask you about the snake!" Taemin called.
"I can't stop, Taemin," Jonghyun told him apologetically as he trotted off. "The brat's in charge for now. We can talk about Jinki when I get back!"
Jinki? wondered Taemin. Since when did the terrorist snake have a name?
An hour passed before Jonghyun returned. As he waited, Taemin filled his belly with chicken feed and then made his way up to the roof of the farm house. A snake could slither and crawl, he figured, but it probably couldn't scale a two story building. It was a task even Taemin, with his glorious orange wings, had difficulty with.
From the roof, Taemin had a clear view of the entire farm. He noted with pride the marked difference between the attractive chicken coop and the neighboring pig sty, and his gaze wandered past the grazing pastures, where there was now a family of cows lazily chewing on every ripe stalk in sight, to the tall, forested hills that separated Minho's property from the little town where Taemin knew meat and dairy from the farm were sold. He wondered briefly if he would ever be consigned to such a cruel fate; he certainly hoped not. He had known many of his female counterparts to disappear, bound for the slaughterhouse, but he and the other roosters - Kai, a youngster, and Sungjong, old and senile - had never come to any harm.
Sometimes Taemin thought about running away. If he'd believed he could survive out in the wild, without the protection of coarse but kind Minho, he might have done it already. But now, as he looked out at the vast landscape stretched beneath the endless blue sky, something more than curiosity stirred his bones. He'd always wanted to see more of the outside world, just to know what lay beyond the sturdy wooden fences that confined him, but a yearning to really live out there was clouding his mind. He wanted to experience everything the world had to offer.
But he was just a rooster, and common sense told him once again that he would perish in less than a day if he were to leave home. So, when he saw Jonghyun returning to his pen, he settled for flapping down from the roof and continuing on his quest to learn more about the snake called Jinki.
Jonghyun told him that Jinki had first appeared a couple of weeks ago. The horses had avoided him instinctively, but Jonghyun had soon realized that Jinki, despite the scales on his back identifying him as poisonous, meant them no harm.
"And so now sometimes he comes to talk to me," Jonghyun concluded. "We talk about lots of things. Mainly the other farm animals. He's curious about what it's like to live here. He's really not a normal snake."
"Hm," Taemin mused. "Do snakes eat roosters?"
"I don't know." Jonghyun tossed his mane thoughtfully. "I don't think he's big enough to eat you. And I don't think he'd want to."
"Hm," Taemin repeated. "Well, I guess I shouldn't be afraid of him, then."
"I don't know about that," Jonghyun warned.
"You said he wouldn't eat me."
"I said he wasn't normal. I never said he wasn't scary."
Taemin wasn't sure what to make of this, so he decided to find Jinki himself and find out what Jonghyun had meant by "not normal." However, this proved to be more difficult than he anticipated. He tried waiting by the pasture where he'd first spotted Jinki, and he tried waiting by Jonghyun's pen, but no no avail. He wasn't sure where else Jinki spent his time, so further efforts were utterly fruitless. After a week of searching, he was ready to give up, but then Jinki came to him.
It was a cool morning, just after dawn, and Taemin had proudly crowed his announcement of the day's beginning from the top of the barn. The sun's rays had not yet warmed the gritty earth, and Taemin was walking briskly toward the water trough next to the coop, his claws scratching precise tracks into the dirt. The various animals around him were just starting to stir, and he clucked cheerfully at each pig, cow, and sheep as he passed. When he reached the water trough, he began to lower his head to drink, but he froze when a soft, gentle voice called out to him.
"Are you Taemin?"
Startled, Taemin gave a loud squawk. He spun around rapidly, craning his neck up and down, before finally spotting a scaly blunt head and beady black eyes peeking out from a dense patch of weeds. Coming cautiously closer, Taemin soon made out a long, sinuous body extending from the head, covered in dark brown scales edged with a rich yellow. The serpent was nestled in the scant amount of foliage that bordered the chicken coop and the pig sty.
"You must be Jinki." Taemin watched, mesmerized as Jinki nodded his head, coiling and uncoiling his body restlessly. "You're... not what I imagined."
"What did you imagine I would be like?" Jinki asked, flicking his tongue out inquisitively.
"I don't know," Taemin hedged, "I just... I thought snakes were ugly."
Jinki hissed, in what Taemin supposed was a chuckle.
"I'm hardly pretty, though," he pointed out.
"Maybe not pretty," Taemin agreed. "But you're kind of beautiful." It was true. Jinki, even partially obscured as he was now, held a strange attraction in the way his scales glinted, in the smooth curve of his sinuously folded body, in the subtle luster of his eyes. But the snake shook his head.
"Not as beautiful as you."
Taemin didn't know what to make of this comment. He had been called beautiful more times than he could count, but that had always been Minho or his wife speaking, so Taemin thought nothing of it. Hell, those two called Heechul the pig beautiful. They threw the word around like it was nothing. Kibum called him a show-off and Jonghyun called him cute, but this was the first time another animal had ever described him as beautiful. It was the kind of compliment that stuck. And Taemin was grateful for it.
"Thanks."
"I can't stay here," Jinki told him, swinging his head back and forth nervously. No one was around yet - Minho was off milking the cows - but this area was relatively central to the farm's activity, and it wouldn't do for anyone to discover a highly venomous snake hanging around the chickens. "It's not safe for me. But I want to see you again."
"Yeah," Taemin agreed. "Me too."
"Meet me at the northern edge of the pasture," Jinki instructed him, "at noon. We should be able to talk freely there."
Taemin did as he was told, and they did talk freely. They talked more freely than he ever had in his life, in fact. They talked about anything and everything, about rain and sunflowers and the sound of swallows chirping in the morning air. Jinki, Taemin discovered, was funny. Jinki made him laugh until he ached. Sometimes when Jinki opened his mouth wide enough, Taemin would catch a glimpse of the sharp, deadly fangs protruding from his gums, and a thrill of fear would course through him. But it was never enough to make him leave. If anything, the possibility of danger made it all the more enticing to stay. Taemin had never felt this way before.
"What are you doing?" Kibum the sheep wandered over, eyeing Taemin suspiciously. "Oh, don't tell me you're talking to that wretched snake."
"Jinki is not wretched!" Taemin protested. "He's nice! Nicer than you!"
"No one is nicer than me." Kibum lowered his nose to the ground and sniffed deeply. "You shouldn't be associating with that filth."
"Just because he's a snake does not mean he's filth!" Taemin screeched, annoyed. "If you just talked to him for a minute, you'd understand. Jinki - you'd never hurt Kibum, would you?" He turned to address the snake, but Jinki was already gone.
"He's cowardly, too," Kibum snorted. "Typical."
"You shouldn't speak so badly of him," Taemin seethed, shaking with anger.
"You don't know what you're getting into," Kibum told him coolly, and walked away. As his fuzzy backside sauntered off, Taemin thought that maybe he was right - maybe he didn't know what he was getting into.
But he did know that he was already in far too deep to turn back. And there was nothing Kibum, or anyone else, could do about that.
Day after day, Taemin met up with Jinki at various locations on the outskirts of the farm. Somehow, they never seemed to run out of things to talk about. Taemin relayed tales of Minho's various antics in running the farm, as well as those of his careless son. In turn, Jinki patiently described what it was like to live in the wild. His stories of fighting to survive, competing with other predators on a daily basis, and always striving to stay hidden from human eyes were enthralling to Taemin.
"Could I come with you someday?" he asked once. "To see what it's like in the wild?"
"I don't know," Jinki replied. "I don't want to see you get hurt."
Another time, Taemin asked if Jinki would consider living with him on the farm.
"You know I can't," Jinki answered sadly. "That farmer of yours would kill me."
"But if you stayed hidden - "
"I'm sorry, Taemin." And the look in Jinki's eyes truly was mournfully apologetic. "I can't."
"This is so frustrating!" Taemin complained to Jonghyun later. "I can only see him one hour a day, at most. I want more!"
"Oh, Taemin," Jonghyun neighed reprovingly. "Don't tell me you're in love with Jinki."
"I - no - well, so what if I am?" Taemin shot back.
Jonghyun pawed the ground anxiously. "Oh, Taemin," he repeated.
"I just like spending time with him. I don't see what's so wrong about that."
"The problem," Jonghyun sighed, "is that he's in love with you, too."
"Really?" Taemin perked up.
"Before, when he would come and talk to me, he would only ever ask about you. 'That rooster, what's his name?' 'That rooster looks so wonderful.' 'Can you help me meet that rooster?' And then, after he met you, he stopped coming altogether. I imagine he's not interested in me anymore, now that he's got you." Jonghyun sounded a little wistful, and for a moment Taemin felt a twinge of guilt, but it passed quickly.
"So he really likes me?" he asked eagerly.
"I don't see any other explanation."
"This settles it," Taemin declared, confidence rising up inside of him. "We have to run away together."
He had been mulling this plan over for a while, and it was, theoretically, quite simple. Every month Minho drove into town with a truckful of goods - meat, eggs, and produce - to sell at the market. Taemin had watched him load the truck, and he was confident that he and Jinki would be able to fit themselves in among the crates and boxes and coolers. Jinki wasn't a very big snake, after all. And Taemin could make himself compact enough when he wanted to. The truck ride would probably be unpleasant, but after that, they would be completely free.
He presented this plan to Jinki triumphantly the next time they met at the pasture's edge, expecting immediate glee or excitement or some kind of reaction, but to his chagrin, Jinki was silent at first.
"Well?" Taemin prompted. "What do you think of my plan?"
"I don't know," Jinki replied slowly.
"You don't?"
"I don't think it's a bad plan, but I just," Jinki bobbed his head nervously, "I don't think there's any reason to rush into things."
Taemin's heart gave a painful thud. "You mean you don't want to be with me?"
"No, no! That's not it at all!" Jinki exclaimed, agitated. "Of course I do!"
"Then run away with me," Taemin pleaded. "It's impossible to be together as long as we stay here."
"We're together right now," Jinki pointed out.
"But it's not enough," Taemin insisted. "I barely get to see you. It's not enough for me."
"It's enough for me," Jinki murmured.
Taemin stared at him. "How can you say that?"
Jinki cocked his head and fixed him with those entrancing eyes. "Just being able to talk to you makes me happier than I have ever been in my life. You are the most gorgeous creature I've ever seen, and the fact that you would ever want to be my friend is something I would never have imagined even a month ago. But now, here we are. We have something nice. I don't want to ruin it."
"We wouldn't be ruining it," Taemin argued. "We'd be making it better. I thought you would want this."
"I don't know," Jinki answered meekly.
"Please come with me," Taemin begged, all pride forgotten. "Please, Jinki. I love you. So please come with me."
Jinki just stared at him for a moment, jaw slackened in surprise. "You what?"
"I love you, stupid!" Taemin cried, frustrated. "I'm willing to give up everything in my life just to start a new one with you! I know you're a snake, and I'm a rooster, but I don't care. Run away with me, Jinki. I love you."
There was a long silence, and at first Taemin almost regretted voicing all of those things. What if Jinki didn't love him back? What if he had just ruined everything? But then Jinki was ducking his head and swishing his tail and exhaling softly, a single word on his tongue:
"Yes."
"Really?" Taemin squawked exultantly.
"Yes, really."
"I knew you'd come around! Oh, Jinki!" Taemin flapped his wings happily. "Okay. Meet me by the chicken coop tomorrow before dawn. Can you do that? Can we leave tomorrow? We have to, or else we'll have to wait another month. Oh, Jinki, I'm so excited!"
Jinki laughed; Taemin's mood was contagious.
"I'm excited, too."
"So, tomorrow? Before dawn? I'll see you?"
"Yes," Jinki confirmed. "At the chicken coop."
"Okay." Taemin turned suddenly back to the center of the farm, perking up at the sound of his own name. "Ugh, I'm being called. I'm sorry, I have to go."
"It's alright."
"But I'll see you tomorrow."
"Yes."
"Bye, Jinki!"
"Taemin," Jinki cried out as the rooster hurried off. "I love you, too!"
When he got back to the chicken coop, Taemin found Minho waiting for him. Standing next to Minho was an unfamiliar man; judging by his mud-stained jeans, his threadbare baseball cap, and his brown, weathered cheeks, Taemin guessed he was a farmer as well.
"See," Minho said, pointing to Taemin. "This is a smart one."
"Pretty, too," the stranger said, bending down and patting Taemin's feathers.
"A bargain, for the price I'm offering," Minho said.
"You're right. Yeah, I'll take this one too," the stranger said.
"Very good," Minho said, his lips stretching into that weird human expression Taemin recognized as a "smile."
"I'll just load him up, then," the stranger said. "After I write you the check."
"Sure thing," Minho agreed, and then, before Taemin could fully grasp what was happening, he was being scooped up in one deft movement and shoved into a tiny wire cage.
"No!" Taemin squawked, outraged. "What are you doing? I can't go now, you can't sell me! I have to tell Jinki!"
"Calm down," Minho scolded. "Come on Taemin, quiet down. You're just gonna go for a little ride, okay?"
"NO! LET ME OUT!"
"He's a loud one," the stranger said.
"He's not usually this feisty," Minho said. "I don't really know what's gotten into him."
"JINKI!"
Writhing and squirming, Taemin fought to free himself from the cage, but to no avail. He was tossed into the back of hot, stinking truck, where he found himself surrounded by other animals, similarly imprisoned. They all looked skittish and sad, and it was clear that they were resigned to the long ride ahead that would separate them from home forever. But Taemin wasn't ready to give up yet.
"JINKI!" he cried continuously. "JINKI! JINKIIII!"
He crowed himself hoarse for what felt like hours, despite the other animals' attempts to shush him, but when he felt the loud rumble of the truck's engine rattling his flimsy cage, he knew it was over. He stopped calling out and crumpled himself into a feathery ball. He had come so close to escaping with Jinki - and now, instead of running away, he was being snatched away, torn apart from the object of his affections. Would Jinki know that he had been sold? Or would he show up at the coop before dawn, waiting hopefully for a rooster that was miles and miles away? The thought of doing that to Jinki, of letting him down and leaving him without a single explanation or goodbye, was enough to make Taemin's stomach churn with bitter disappointment and regret.
"Jinki," he sobbed quietly. "I'm sorry."
"Eh?" came a soft voice. "For what?"
Taemin's head shot up so fast he banged it on the ceiling of his cage. "Jinki?"
"Shh, don't let anyone know there's a reptile onboard." Taemin wondered if this was real, if he was really seeing Jinki's eyes staring back at him, but then the snake slithered forward, through the bars of the cage, and curled up at Taemin's feet. "I'd be in trouble if they saw me."
"Jinki," Taemin asked, dazed, "how did you - ?"
"You were calling for me, weren't you?" Jinki replied. "Everyone on the farm heard it, apparently. And Kibum came and told me, and I went to find you, and now here I am. Happy to see me?"
Taemin thought that “happy” was a huge understatement; his heart felt about ready to burst with joy. "Yeah, I am."
"We're running away together," Jinki whispered.
"Yeah, we are."
"Are you afraid?"
"Afraid?" Taemin leaned into Jinki's back contentedly. "Not at all."
There, in the cramped cage, they remained nestled together as the truck rattled along until they both fell asleep.
When he awoke, Taemin felt different.
For one thing, he was no longer caged. It felt nice to be free again, so he stretched his wings, only to find that they were no longer thin and feathered, but long and fleshy. He kicked out his legs, only to find that they were no longer scaly and clawed, but soft and smooth. Confused, he looked down at himself. What had happened to his body? It was so pale, so strangely shaped, and, most of all, so big. The inside of the truck appeared much smaller than it had before, and every time Taemin tried to move, he hit one limb or another on one of the surrounding cages. Finally, he brought one wing - no, it wasn't a wing anymore - up to his face for examination. He twisted the appendage on the end around, hardly believing what he was seeing. He knew what this was - he'd seen two of them on Minho, although Minho's were considerably darker and tougher. This was a hand. A human hand.
"I'm... human?" Taemin gasped. Then he gave a cry of shock, because instead of squawking or clucking or crowing, he had just spoken. His voice was so strange and foreign that he spoke again just to hear it. "I'm human!"
"Mmmhmph?" came another human voice. Clumsily, Taemin twisted around to see a naked man sprawled out beside him. Taemin had never actually seen a human without clothes on, but now he decided that it was a sight he liked. Something about the curve of the thighs, the planes of the chest, and most especially, this man's face, all plump lips (which were now mumbling drowsily) and slanted eyes, appealed greatly to Taemin.
"Jinki?" Taemin asked hopefully, poking the man's stomach with one trembling finger.
"Taemin?" When Taemin heard that voice, deep and wonderful and perfect, he knew without a doubt.
"Jinki!"
Taemin didn't stop to think; he just did what his new body felt was right, and launched himself at Jinki, wrapping his arms around the other's neck. Jinki, who had been starting to sit up, welcomed the embrace, holding Taemin tightly to him and leaning back down, allowing Taemin to drape himself over him. The heated contact between their bare skin tingled deliciously and filled Taemin with unfamiliar but pleasant sensations, and, without thinking at all, he leaned his head forward and pressed his lips to Jinki's. The other man seemed utterly unfazed, and he responded by running his big hands up and down Taemin's lean torso. Intoxicated by the way Jinki tasted, Taemin let his mouth linger on Jinki's for a long while before finally pulling back and gazing down happily.
"What's going on?" Jinki asked.
"I don't know," Taemin responded. "We're human."
"I guess we are," Jinki said, dumbstruck. "So being together shouldn't be a problem anymore."
"Never again," Taemin said.
"Hey, what was that just now?" Jinki said abruptly, reaching up to caress Taemin's cheek. "When you put your lips on my lips?"
"I don't really know," Taemin said thoughtfully. "But I really liked it. Can we do it again?"
"Yeah," Jinki replied, his eyes crinkling into warm crescents. "Yeah, we can do whatever you want."
On a couch in a living room in an apartment in Seoul, Lee Taemin sits up suddenly.
"What the fuck?" he mutters to himself.
"Oh, Taeminnie," Jinki calls cheerfully from the kitchen, where he's unwrapping a package of sushi. "You're awake?"
"Yeah," Taemin says, getting up, "and I just had the weirdest dream."
"You did?" Jinki asks absently.
"Yeah," Taemin says as he walks into the kitchen. "I was a rooster and you were a snake, and we had like this secret love affair, but then Minho sold me to Gyungshik hyung, and Kibum was a sheep and he told you to come get me, so you came and actually, I don't know how you pulled that off, cause I was in a truck and you were a freaking snake. But anyways, then you came into my cage and we slept and when we woke up we were humans and naked and we started making out."
Jinki's chopsticks pause between the sushi container and his open mouth. "Huh?"
Taemin shrugs. "I told you it was weird."
"Yeah," Jinki agrees fervently.
"But," Taemin says, reaching over and knocking Jinki's chopsticks out of his hand, "it gave me a great idea."
"I’ll bet," Jinki mutters.
"Let's go make out naked!" Taemin says brightly. He takes Jinki by the hand and starts dragging him to the bedroom.
"You do realize Kibum is in there," Jinki says weakly.
"Not for long."
And Jinki can't bring himself to argue because it's Taemin, and he's never been able to deny Taemin anything, so they kick Kibum out of the bedroom and start kissing, and braving Kibum's wrath is so worth it because this, Jinki thinks as he feels Taemin so pliant and eager beneath him on the bed, is heaven.
This, Taemin thinks as Jinki's lips close softly over his own, was always meant to be.
RAWR MOAR NOTES
so this idea was spawned when i went to eat pho and they had paper place mats with the chinese zodiac, and i noticed that taemin's sign is very compatible with jinki's. and i don't even really ship ontae but i thought that was cute! and then i wrote it and it became uncute. heh. whatever.
also, i really didn't think it would be this long. ugh this happens to me a lot though, i underestimate my rambling plotlines.
and....it's crazy how unmotivated i've been to write lately. i do have a couple of other fics in the works atm, but i'm also going to college in a few days so... yeah idk if i'll be able to finish them anytime soon.
also i was fiddling with my theme and it kinda got messed up so errythang's ugly right now, sorry lol