[exo] supernatural (1/1)
Supernatural
Lay/Luhan, Lay/Kris (friendship), Kyungsoo/Jongin
5739 words
Warnings: supernatural creatures (specifically werewolves), vague mentions of drunken sex, minor character death (past), mating
Trope: possessive/marking
Yixing didn’t really plan on introducing a human into his pack, but with Luhan, nothing ever goes according to plan.
Notes: Written for justgetlayd. This is set in a world where supernatural creatures are known and co-exist with humans. The werewolf mythology in this fic was gratuitously taken from the Teen Wolf universe. Thank you so much to airplanewishes for being an amazing person and helping me with this, and to onyu for basically cheering me on to finish it.
supernatural
The first thing that Yixing becomes aware of is how the mattress is too soft for his liking and that the bed creaks when he moves just a bit."> The first thing that Yixing becomes aware of is how the mattress is too soft for his liking and that the bed creaks when he moves just a bit. He opens an eye out and closes it fast when the light streaming from the curtains hits him.
This isn’t his room. And this is most definitely not his bed.
The second thing that Yixing notices, something that makes his body snap into attention, is the smell of sex in the air.
The smell is suffocating, clinging to every part of him. It’s like most of the room is covered with it - with them.
He looks down at the arm draped over his abdomen and suppresses a flinch. He tampers down the feeling that’s starting to creep up.
Yixing puts his hand around the arm and lifts it up just as the owner moves.
“Unghhh,” Luhan groans, his eyes squinting. “I knew you would be a morning person.”
It’s already noon, is what Yixing wants to say, but instead he says, “Luhan.”
It’s a loaded word. On any normal day, it could mean, be quiet or stop or don’t move. Today it means: what the hell happened last night?
“Uhhh,” Luhan starts and moves awkwardly to try and sit back on the headboard. The sheets fall off his shoulders and pool around his bottom half. Yixing tries not to look. “So we kind of got drunk.”
“I can see that.” Yixing replies. He can feel it, even. But the thing with werewolves is that they don’t get drunk so - “How?”
“I kind of…” Luhan trails off and backs away from Yixing just a little bit. “…maybe had a few wolfsbane on me.”
Yixing closes his eyes and counts to ten. It’s something that Kris had taught him before that lets him have better control, reins in the inner wolf. Kris told him about it a few months after he had sought Kris out, a few months after he had been bitten and turned.
“I wasn’t trying to poison you!” Luhan rushes immediately, aware of werewolf trust issues and how hunters use wolfsbane in their bullets to kill werewolves. “Really! I was just… I’d read somewhere that if a small amount is added to alcohol, it’s enough to make a werewolf drunk. And I was just so ecstatic that we finished our final project and we’re finally starting our summer vacation and I just wanted you to let loose too! I’m human with a terrible excuse for alcohol tolerance and you’re always so formal and I just wanted you to be drunk and happy and- ”
Happy, that was what Luhan had smelled like last night. Maybe it was because Yixing was drowning in Luhan’s happy pheromones that he had put his guard down, not even noticing a whiff of wolfsbane in the tiny apartment. It’s a small, cramped studio type room that’s worthy of college stories. Nothing that Yixing’s nose can’t normally handle. But it’s Luhan’s apartment and everything smells like him.
“-and it’s not like it was…” Luhan stops and shifts. Yixing can smell the awkwardness and horror coming off him. He gulps and Yixing’s distracted by the movement of muscles on his neck. Luhan smells like guilt. “Everything was consensual… right?”
“How much exactly do you remember?” Yixing asks.
“I remember the drinking,” Luhan replies and looks down at his hands, fiddling.
Yixing decides to let Luhan off his misery. He couldn’t remember what happened last night earlier, but Luhan’s rambling jumpstarted his werewolf genes to fix his wolfsbane-addled brain so he’s starting to remember them now. There are parts that he wished he hadn’t as he stares at Luhan’s exposed upper body, the dark bruise already forming on the juncture of his neck and shoulder.
“Don’t worry,” Yixing says, calmly. “No one took advantage of anyone.”
“Oh.” Luhan breathes out, relief pouring out of him in waves. “I really wasn’t trying to… do anything. I didn’t plan on getting you drunk. I mean, I was but - I didn’t plan on… this…” He sneaks a glance at Yixing, eyes travelling down his body.
“Not that I regretted how it went,” Luhan mumbles to himself. Yixing’s ears caught that easily enough, but he doesn’t bother replying. Judging from the way Luhan said it, it wasn’t meant for Yixing to hear.
He coughs and scratches his head, before standing up and grabbing his boxers and shirt from the floor. He turns to Luhan halfway through dressing himself and asks, “Can I use your bathroom?”
-
When Yixing arrives back at the den, everyone’s already up. It’s not really a den, but a huge house for the main members of the pack. Chanyeol likes to call it the frat house when they have one of their parties, but Tao and Sehun coin it the Den since, in Sehun’s words, “It’s a place full of werewolves.” The name somehow stuck.
If Junmyeon has a say in it, he would have preferred The Headquarters. Capitalized. But alpha or not, he really can’t say no to the younger ones’ insistence. He guesses it’s better than Baekhyun’s suggestion of calling it a Cave. He thinks that suits vampires more, bats and all that.
The minute he steps inside the house, Yixing notices several noses twitching. Yixing had been careful about cleaning up. He usually has a set of extra clothes wrapped in plastic that’s always in his bag wherever he goes, which proved handy after last night’s incident. He had showered, three times to be exact, to make sure to erase any traces of evidence on him. The only thing was that he had to use Luhan’s soap to wash so now every time he breathes in it reminds him of Luhan. It was either that or the bleach Luhan uses to clean his bathroom tiles.
It’s Tao who gives in first. “You smell weird.” He scrunches his nose and adds, “Like you, but not you.”
“You smell clean.” Jongin, who’s sitting beside Tao, lands him an inquiring look. “Too clean.”
Kyungsoo quirks an eyebrow at Yixing after giving Jongin an appraising smile. “Almost sterile. Where were you last night?”
It figures that Kyungsoo the one to pick it up since he’s the one with the most sensitive nose out of them. It comes in handy as being the Left Hand. What Yixing’s surprised of is how Jongin made that observation as well. Kyungsoo’s time with Jongin is probably working out. Yixing doesn’t really know what they do - exactly - but when he had asked Kyungsoo why he was training Jongin, the other had replied, “Just in case,” and gave Yixing a sad smile.
“Out.” Yixing is a man of few words, but he becomes monosyllabic under Kyungsoo’s stare.
Tao raises an eyebrow at him. A silent duh look on his face.
“With my college friend,” Yixing amends. “Celebrating the start of the summer.”
Kyungsoo hums as he passes him to go to the kitchen. He stops by the entryway and turns his head to look at Yixing. “We’re having a pack dinner this Friday,” Kyungsoo says, meaningfully.
Yixing hears the message behind it: bring him over. He opens his mouth to say something, but closes it. He mulls it over for a moment and when he glances up at Kyungsoo, he’s still watching him. He can’t say no to that stare.
“Cook for one more person.”
Yixing knows he’s going to regret this.
-
“Are you sure my shirt looks okay?” Luhan fumbles with his shirt for the nth time. They stopped at a station a few miles off the den to get some gas and to help Luhan calm down.
“It looks fine,” Yixing says. He doesn’t say that even though his shirt and jeans look great, they don’t exactly look great together, but to each their own. Yixing’s fashion sense is questionable at times, too, but only Tao’s ever said that out loud. Plus Luhan looks like he’s about to have a meltdown, and Yixing’s not going to do anything to help with accomplishing that.
“Just relax,” Yixing puts his hand over Luhan’s hand that’s fiddling with the edge of his shirt. He tries not to touch him anywhere else - anywhere that can be scented as too intimate. “It’s just dinner.”
“Sure,” Luhan snorts. “But this is dinner with your family - your pack.”
At any other given time, Luhan is the center of coolness. Some people at school even look up to him - maybe for the way he charms people unknowingly with his jokes and stories or the way he fits in easily into conversations and laughs with literally his whole face. But once he realizes that the spotlight is on him, he turns into a ridiculous mess.
Today is probably the worst mess Yixing’s ever seen him as.
Yixing grips his hand tighter as he feels Luhan start to wriggle again. Luhan stops, and then sighs.
“Are you sure I’m not on the menu?”
Yixing can hear the teasing tone behind Luhan’s question. Good, he thinks. That means he’s starting to ease down.
“I won’t let them eat you,” Yixing tells him in his most sincere and serious voice.
Luhan laughs.
-
As it turns out, the pack adores Luhan, which kind of makes Luhan’s previous fussing entirely useless. As soon as the main door opened, he’d been greeted by groups of people in two’s and three’s.
Sehun and Tao are the most receptive to him, flanking him on both sides. Tao because, “You speak Mandarin, too?” and looks at Yixing in betrayal as if he’s been hiding Luhan from him all along. Sehun because, and Yixing supposes, this is one of the times that he can be fully out with a human without the other being weirded out.
They settle around the dining table as Kyungsoo and Jongin lay out the food, occasionally nudging others (or stating orders) to help.
When they’ve finally started eating their dinner and with the pack acquainted to Luhan, Luhan pokes Yixing’s side. Yixing looks at him, mouth half open to allow entrance to the bread he’s holding.
Luhan reaches over and whispers, “You told me they wouldn’t eat me.” Yixing fixes him a confused stare and Luhan darts his eyes at Kyungsoo who has stopped eating, knife in hand poised over a slab of steak (medium well). Junmyeon coughs.
“Oh my god,” Luhan cries and burrows his face against Yixing’s neck. Yixing tries not to shiver at the puff of breath against his skin.
“They heard me, huh,” Luhan whispers again. “Super hearing.”
Baekhyun and Chanyeol look like they’re having a hard time trying to control their laughter, shaking quietly on their seats.
“Luhan,” Junmyeon starts, gently. “We don’t eat humans. Humans are not part of our food pyramid.” He turns to look at Kyungsoo and smiles against his napkin. “Even though Kyungsoo looks like that.”
“Right.” Yixing can smell Luhan slowly relaxing with him this close. Luhan pulls away and says, “So you guys are some kind of vegetarian werewolves.”
Yixings groans and Baekhyun and Chanyeol fall off their chairs.
-
They relax in front of the television after dinner and it’s like suddenly a game of 100 questions. Luhan gets a space in the sofa because he’s the honorary guest of the night, while Yixing takes one at the couch adjacent to it because Sehun and Tao have decided to tag team and squished themselves on either side of Luhan. Those two are terrible cuddlers. Yixing is sort of resigned to Luhan’s fate.
When the topic of how Luhan found out about Yixing being a werewolf comes out, Luhan grins widely and turns to him with sparkling eyes.
“You see, we just finished this horrible project - the professor was a terror,” Luhan begins. “So we decided to eat out at two in the morning at one of those hole in the wall places in Hongdae that are open all night for drunk college students. You know, the one with all the comfort food?”
The others nod in encouragement so Luhan continues.
“When we were going back to my apartment, this drunk guy just came out of nowhere with a knife and headed straight at me. I could have dodged, you know, but Yixing here,” Luhan brandishes his arm at Yixing, “decided to be all Superman and got me out of the way and tackled the guy down. But he ended up with a cut on his arm that I saw knit itself together.”
“How did you react?” Sehun asks.
“At first I thought I was hallucinating from pulling several all nighters until I noticed that his shirt sleeve was cut with a little bit of blood. Then I internally freaked out,” Luhan replies.
“You freaked out?” Tao raises both eyebrows at him.
“Of course. Come on, look at him,” Luhan flaps his arm at Yixing’s general area. “He’s all calm and quiet then bam, he’s suddenly Superman with super powers. But, well, not really human.”
“Part human,” Yixing supplies for him. “The first words out of his mouth was, OH MY GOD YOU’RE A WEREWOLF. THAT IS SO COOL.” Yixing adds quotation marks in the air when he pitched his voice higher.
“I didn’t sound like that!” Luhan protests. “And your quotation marks are offensive.”
“How did you know he was a werewolf?” Junmyeon asks.
“Well, his ears suddenly got more hairy and pointy so I thought…”
Junmyeon narrows his eyes at Yixing. “You wolfed out?”
“He didn’t!” Luhan jumps to Yixing’s defense. “It was only a little bit. But his face didn’t change at all. I only noticed because I know what his ears normally look like.”
Which is true. Luhan has the habit of playing with people’s ears, kind of like what he’s doing with Tao right now. Tao is preening at the attention.
“No one else noticed,” Luhan continues. “He didn’t use excessive force or anything. Plus it was almost four in the morning when it happened.”
“Okay,” Junmyeon says, still sounding a little bit unsure. Luhan shoots Yixing an apologetic look.
“So you weren’t scared of him?” Jongdae pipes up from where he’s sitting on the floor with his back resting on Luhan’s leg, the right one, because the left is supporting Baekhyun. It’s a mess of limbs where they’re sitting.
Luhan paused, thoughtful. “I guess not. He’s always been kind, even before I found out, and even more careful after. Sometimes he treats me like glass just because I’m human, which is unfair. I can handle myself, thank you very much.”
He reaches over and pokes Yixing’s cheek.
“Says the one who keeps tripping on smooth surfaces.”
“That’s different,” Luhan frowns, but Yixing can smell the amusement coming off him. The rest of the night goes as smoothly as Yixing could hope for. He drops Luhan off back at his apartment after they all made Luhan to promise to come back.
Yixing thinks that this could be the start of the apocalypse.
-
Luhan soon becomes a fixture in the house, drifting in and out like any other member of the household. Junmyeon’s even given him a key with the thoughtful message of, “In case you need a safe place, you’re free to a wolves’ den,” which made Luhan laugh, comfortable in the space he has created.
He even settles into their random touching: Kyungsoo’s pat on his shoulder as they pass at the hallway, Sehun and Tao’s snuggles with him at the couch during movie nights, Jongdae’s brief massages, him and Jongin playing footsies, Minseok’s arm on his back as he leads them to the living room while talking about the news.
Luhan found the excessive touching freaky at first -
“Do you guys not know about personal boundaries? Don’t they teach you that at school?” Luhan shouted at everyone after Tao basically rubbed his side on Luhan’s body as they passed each other on the way to the kitchen.
Tao shrugged. “I was raised by wolves.” Laughter erupted at different parts of the house.
- but grew accustomed to it.
Yixing knows what they’re doing - they’re scent marking him to make him part of their pack. He just doesn’t know if they’re doing it consciously or subconsciously.
Pack, Yixing’s brain supplies. But his wolf tells him of something else that makes him shift uncomfortably. He clamps it down as he stares at Junmyeon’s retreating back. He has responsibilities, and Luhan doesn’t fit in any of them.
He remembers his promise to himself when Kris had taken him in under his wing after he got turned. He was sixteen when a rogue alpha had wandered into his area. Hunters came looking for it and took it down, but not before it had bitten Yixing.
The bite took and he was a werewolf the next day.
There was no pack in his area, barely even any supernatural creatures, but he’d heard of Kris, a visiting werewolf, from some of the locals. He’d asked him for help, not wanting to lose control and give in to the wolf inside him. He’d heard it happen - families getting massacred by newly turned werewolves or lone werewolves without a pack submitting to moonsickness - and he didn’t want that to happen to him, could never imagine a life without his family.
Kris had accepted to train him, but it came with a price of leaving his family behind. It was better that way though. He could always come back and visit them. At least they’d be safe from him. And that was how he ended up in Seoul under the Kim pack with a promise to himself that he won’t let humans get involved.
Years later, he’s here in the living room with Luhan by his side.
-
It’s a lazy, hot summer afternoon when it happens, the peak of whatever that has been building up. Yixing doesn’t know what came over him, but one moment he’s sitting on the couch in the living room while Luhan’s playing a game of cards with Tao, Sehun and Jongin on the floor, and the next moment he’s growling and the others have their spines up in attention.
It’s not really a full on growl, just something low in the back of his throat, but it had been enough for even Luhan to hear him. Yixing doesn’t lose control like that, doesn’t really snap at people even when they’re out of line. Kyungsoo is better in reprimanding the younger ones into submission.
“Down boy,” Luhan jokes. It doesn’t seem like he’s caught on yet.
“Is there something wrong?” Jongin asks, carefully. Did we do anything wrong? is the real question behind it.
“It’s nothing,” Yixing lies, forcing his heart to not skip a beat. It’s harder to lie when you live in a house full of natural lie detectors, but he gets better at it.
They go back to their game, but it takes a full twenty minutes before he can see the three relax their shoulders, and that’s only after he’s left the room to get some water. He hates the feeling like he’s somehow made them wary of him, especially when it’s not them that are the problem. It’s him, and the way he’s reacting to how Luhan has been lately. Nowadays, Luhan smells more like pack and less like Yixing, and Yixing doesn’t know what to make of that.
Later on that night, Jongin approaches him while he’s out in the yard. It’s almost two in the morning, and most of them have gone to sleep.
“He smells like you.” Jongin sits by his side on the steps. “Or rather, you smelled like him. The day after that night you didn’t come home. You smelled like his soap.”
Yixing hums a slow, mellow tune. An old lullaby that his mother used to sing to him. He misses his mother, his father, his grandparents - the people he left behind when he left his human life. Luhan is a reminder of that, what he could have been, what he could have had. Maybe in another lifetime.
He doesn’t correct Jongin - that it’s true that he did smell like Luhan’s soap, but also of Luhan himself. He just continues humming along as they sit in the silence of the night.
-
It’s the middle of their summer vacation when Luhan announces that he’s going on a one-week trip back to Beijing.
“Family,” Luhan replies after they asked him why. “Got to visit my parents at least once a year to let them know I’m still alive.”
Yixing’s never asked Luhan about his family, knows only the vague details - a little bit estranged, but slowly getting better. They apparently didn’t like that Luhan decided to leave home and study somewhere else - somewhere not even as prestigious as an Ivy League school. Luhan had only snorted at that.
“At least I didn’t become a celebrity. They might have completely disowned me if that happened.”
On Luhan’s last day in Seoul, Yixing sends him off at the airport. He drives him to Incheon airport and helps him with his luggage. Luhan only has one and it’s just a small check in bag. The rest of his stuff is in his backpack.
“So,” Luhan trails off, “see you in a week?”
Yixing nods, almost imperceptibly. “I’ll pick you up at nine.”
Luhan smiles and waves, starting his walk towards the security line before he makes a U-turn and darts at Yixing with a firm hug.
“Tell the others I’ll bring them something when I get back,” Luhan says as he pushes himself off Yixing then jogs over to where he left his luggage.
Yixing doesn’t shower that night. The next day, he takes his shirt off and tucks it in a corner in his drawer.
-
By the middle of the week, Yixing finds himself at a secluded area of land, a property of the Kim’s and subsequently their pack. He doesn’t know why he even decided to come to Kyungsoo and Jongin’s training when it’s forecasted as the hottest week of the summer. Even the shade of the night doesn’t help much.
Kyungsoo suggested it to him after the others have voiced out their concerns that he’s been moody lately. More quiet, pensive but almost brooding. Jongin agreed that brooding doesn’t suit him, so here he is. He misses Luhan. He misses the comfort of his bed, too.
“Missing something?” Kyungsoo asks, perceptive as usual. Yixing is kind of jealous that he can distinguish even the most nuanced emotions. Kyungsoo inhales slowly then exhales. “Or someone?”
“My bed,” Yixing answers honestly. He can obfuscate the truth and it wouldn’t be a lie. He’s curious how far Jongin is now with his tracking. He knows Kyungsoo can turn this small patch of forest into his own private maze if he wanted to, and he stops the shudder creeping down his spine. Yixing wonders, not for the first time, why Kyungsoo’s set up these hard things for Jongin.
Yixing blames the heat for it, but he accidentally voices his thoughts out loud.
Kyungsoo peers at him inquiringly as if urging him to repeat the question. So he does.
“Why are you so hard on him?”
Kyungsoo doesn’t even pretend that he doesn’t know who he’s talking about. Just answers straight up. “Because I have to be.”
Yixing remembers the night that Jongin got turned. The pack had been out on a mini vacation that got tampered down by the sudden storm. Kyungsoo and Jongin had gone out to buy food at the nearby market when the rain started coming down hard. He knew they were back even before they heard the car stop outside. He could smell the strong scent of blood even through the pounding rain. When the door bolted open, they weren’t surprised to see Kyungsoo bent over a body.
“Turn him,” Kyungsoo’s eyes flashed blue at Junmyeon. Only the Alpha can give the Bite. “Please,” Kyungsoo added, imploringly.
It was the first time Yixing had heard Kyungsoo plead.
Kyungsoo was a born wolf and Jongin was a human, but even through these circumstances, they had been close and fierce. Yixing thought that years of being childhood friends wouldn’t change that. He was wrong. The night after they got into an accident, after Jongin had been turned, the way Kyungsoo acted around Jongin had never been the same.
“That’s not an answer,” Yixing tells Kyungsoo.
He sees Kyungsoo’s face twist in something darker, mouth curled into a snarl. “Because I don’t want to leave the pack without a capable Left Hand when I’m gone.” Then adds, softly, “I don’t want him to suddenly be thrust into that role without knowing what to do.”
And Yixing knows - he knows that situation all too well. There’s a sick crunch in his gut at that memory.
There was an epidemic that hit Korea a couple of years ago. It started during the early weeks of spring when the pollen storm came and caused the normal bout of allergic rhinitis on humans, but also somehow affected several supernatural creatures that were usually immune to diseases. The ones that got inflicted the most were werewolves. What started as allergy symptoms quickly developed into shortness of breath until their airways collapsed. By the time the authorities found what caused it, a special cross breed of wolfsbane with another local variety of flowers common to the area, hundreds of supernatural creatures had died. Junmyeon’s pack was not spared and he lost a lot of his family - his pack. Kris was one of them.
The day after they buried Kris’s body, Junmyeon gave the title of Right Hand to Yixing. He didn’t even get the time to grieve properly as he took on the role that Kris left behind. Slipped into big shoes that were hard to fill, took blind steps into supernatural politics.
Yixing knows that Kyungsoo was referring to him, the reason why he’s training Jongin now, taking all the time that they have. Just in case.
When Yixing finally catches his breath, he asks, “Why did you pick him?”
Kyungsoo gives him a sad smile and it’s remarkable at how it’s the first genuine smile Yixing has seen from him in a while. “Instinct. Because I know he’s the only one who can do it.”
And Yixing knows that as the truth. When he had asked Junmyeon why it was him, he answered as much, told Yixing a story of how Kris had offhandedly mentioned to Junmyeon how he’d fit the role with his multi-lingual tongue, his affinity to hold peace, and his way of easing conflict-ridden situations. That he’d bend over backwards for people he cares about, loyal to the core.
It had been too much for Yixing to absorb then, but he can see it now in Kyungsoo and Jongin. The qualities of a Left. Where Kris as a Right was all about open politics and socializing with other groups and helping Junmyeon establish ties to allied packs, Kyungsoo as a Left is about the welfare of the pack, doing anything that ensures their safety even if it means using underhanded things, even if it’s behind the Alpha’s back.
Kyungsoo is kind to his family, but cruel to their enemies, ruthless in his efficiency. Yixing can see the same in Jongin, whose dedication is so deep that he’ll do it even if it destroys him. It’s a high-risk position, one that usually has a high turn over rate.
Yixing nods, but doesn’t say anything. Kyungsoo seems to take that as an opening to ask, “How about you? How come you haven’t bonded with him?”
Yixing debates feigning that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but this is Kyungsoo, who might not even be his closest friend, but he’s someone he respects enough to deserve the truth.
“The same reason why you haven’t with Jongin,” Yixing explains with the only way he knows how. “Responsibilities.” He knows when the epidemic hit that something had splintered in their pack, that there’s a deep-seated want to rebuild it. He can see it in Junmyeon even though the other doesn’t vocalize it. There’s always strength in numbers, literally and supernaturally. There’s no point in taking Luhan into the fold when he’s not what the group needs, even though he wants.
Kyungsoo shakes his head and looks at him, eyes eerie and owlish. “It’s not the same.” He puts a hand on Yixing’s shoulder, small but reassuring. “We won’t take it against you. Junmyeon won’t take it against you. You can stop being a martyr.”
Yixing replies with a smile. It’s nice to hear it from someone who knows the situation, but it’s not just that, not really. “I want him to have a choice.”
For werewolves, finding The One is based off instinct, something that comes naturally to them, the knowing. This is It. He knows humans are different; they can have as many relationships as they want, and they can all find them just as meaningful as the last. Yixing had been fully human once, for sixteen years of his life. But now, he knows he can only have just that one partner in his life, and he knows he can’t have any others especially after having met him. He can’t let Luhan be tied down to him like that.
Kyungsoo interrupts his thoughts. “He can’t really have a choice when you don’t give him one.”
And Yixing doesn’t really know how to respond to that.
-
When Luhan comes back a week later, Yixing is sitting by the arrivals terminal of Incheon airport, hands in his pocket and listening to his ipod. The music is there to help calm him down. It’s enough that his nose is being assaulted by a multitude of odor so he at least saves his ears by putting on something to block the rest of the noise out.
He smells Luhan right as he walks out of the exit, but he doesn’t stand up, waits until his scent is stronger and near him. Luhan smells wrong, like all sorts of people have brushed on him, laid their scent on top of his clothes, his hair, his bag, his skin. He can’t even smell the scent of pack anymore, barely smells any of himself in Luhan. The urge to stand up and rub their bodies against each other is so strong that Yixing stills himself and tucks the wolf away.
He’s not surprised when Luhan takes his earphones away from him. “What are you listening to? Where are my welcome banners? The poppers? The live band singing your own composition of Welcome Back? You weren’t even looking for me!”
“Welcome back, Luhan.” Yixing’s dimple is so deep, a side effect of how big his smile is.
“I’m offended,” Luhan crosses his arms across his chest, but he’s grinning.
Yixing opens his arms in offering and Luhan doesn’t need to be told anything before he dives into it, arms circling tight around Yixing’s neck as if trying to suffocate the air out of him. Yixing misses his octopus hugs. He palms Luhan’s nape and slides his hand all the way down to his back for good measure.
“Miss me?” Luhan asks as they separate. He’s still holding on to Yixing’s earphones, hands already starting to detangle the knots.
“Of course,” Yixing says, just as Luhan’s sighs, “Why are your earphones always tangled up?”
“Why don’t you get your own?” Yixing throws back, but there’s no snide in his tone.
“I just got back and we need more bonding time. Music sharing is bonding time.” Luhan’s too busy looping and unlooping the cords so Yixing takes a moment to savor this in.
They’re starting to walk out of the airport’s main area and down the flight of stairs to cross underground and get to the parking lot. There’s less people milling about, less scents, and Yixing lightly sniffs the surroundings.
He smiles slightly, satisfied, as sunshine and orange burst waft through the air.
-
When they reach Luhan’s apartment, a familiar sight greets him. Nothing has changed since the last time he was here, which was that night of celebration that marked the start of summer.
They put down Luhan’s luggage near his bed and organize all the silly gifts Luhan brought back from China for the others.
When Luhan stands up, a glass of water on his hand, Yixing isn’t really expecting him to say, “Kyungsoo told me something.”
Yixing pauses what he’s doing, which Luhan takes as a cue to continue. “You never asked me what I wanted.”
“Luhan, you don’t even know what you want to eat for lunch most of the time,” Yixing says, not unkindly.
“That’s different,” Luhan snorts, then tells him. “I know what I want this time.”
Yixing shakes his head and moves as if to stand up. Luhan stops him with a hand on his wrist, palm warm and sweaty. “Wait. Just ask me.”
There’s a challenge in his tone that Yixing knows he won’t be able to defeat.
“What do you want?”
“I want you,” Luhan answers and there’s no skip in his heartbeat. “I want it for there to be an us.”
It’s hard to deny someone like that so Yixing doesn’t. Maybe Kyungsoo’s right. Maybe it’s time for him to stop being a martyr. He leans in, hand over Luhan’s hand on the table, and kisses him. It’s so easy after that - to cup Luhan’ s jaw and twist his fingers on his hair, tongue in his mouth.
When they part for air, Luhan is drunk on happiness. “You kissed me!”
“That’s not the first nor the last.” He lets the words sink in and he knows Luhan understands it when his eyes light up.
“You kissed me first! That night we got drunk, you kissed me first.” Luhan lunges at him and gives him a peck on the lips, laughing. “And I thought I imagined the whole thing! I thought I took advantage of you because I’ve always wanted it to happen, but you took the first step. Oh god, I’m never gonna drink again.”
“You should,” Yixing says, grinning against Luhan’s neck. He brushes his cheek along Luhan’s jaw. “That’s how it started.”
“I think I still have some wolfsbane alcohol in the fridge.” Luhan whispers conspiratorially, lips brushing against Yixing’s before sealing it all the way in.
Yixing doesn’t go home that night.
Lay/Luhan, Lay/Kris (friendship), Kyungsoo/Jongin
5739 words
Warnings: supernatural creatures (specifically werewolves), vague mentions of drunken sex, minor character death (past), mating
Trope: possessive/marking
Yixing didn’t really plan on introducing a human into his pack, but with Luhan, nothing ever goes according to plan.
Notes: Written for justgetlayd. This is set in a world where supernatural creatures are known and co-exist with humans. The werewolf mythology in this fic was gratuitously taken from the Teen Wolf universe. Thank you so much to airplanewishes for being an amazing person and helping me with this, and to onyu for basically cheering me on to finish it.
supernatural
The first thing that Yixing becomes aware of is how the mattress is too soft for his liking and that the bed creaks when he moves just a bit."> The first thing that Yixing becomes aware of is how the mattress is too soft for his liking and that the bed creaks when he moves just a bit. He opens an eye out and closes it fast when the light streaming from the curtains hits him.
This isn’t his room. And this is most definitely not his bed.
The second thing that Yixing notices, something that makes his body snap into attention, is the smell of sex in the air.
The smell is suffocating, clinging to every part of him. It’s like most of the room is covered with it - with them.
He looks down at the arm draped over his abdomen and suppresses a flinch. He tampers down the feeling that’s starting to creep up.
Yixing puts his hand around the arm and lifts it up just as the owner moves.
“Unghhh,” Luhan groans, his eyes squinting. “I knew you would be a morning person.”
It’s already noon, is what Yixing wants to say, but instead he says, “Luhan.”
It’s a loaded word. On any normal day, it could mean, be quiet or stop or don’t move. Today it means: what the hell happened last night?
“Uhhh,” Luhan starts and moves awkwardly to try and sit back on the headboard. The sheets fall off his shoulders and pool around his bottom half. Yixing tries not to look. “So we kind of got drunk.”
“I can see that.” Yixing replies. He can feel it, even. But the thing with werewolves is that they don’t get drunk so - “How?”
“I kind of…” Luhan trails off and backs away from Yixing just a little bit. “…maybe had a few wolfsbane on me.”
Yixing closes his eyes and counts to ten. It’s something that Kris had taught him before that lets him have better control, reins in the inner wolf. Kris told him about it a few months after he had sought Kris out, a few months after he had been bitten and turned.
“I wasn’t trying to poison you!” Luhan rushes immediately, aware of werewolf trust issues and how hunters use wolfsbane in their bullets to kill werewolves. “Really! I was just… I’d read somewhere that if a small amount is added to alcohol, it’s enough to make a werewolf drunk. And I was just so ecstatic that we finished our final project and we’re finally starting our summer vacation and I just wanted you to let loose too! I’m human with a terrible excuse for alcohol tolerance and you’re always so formal and I just wanted you to be drunk and happy and- ”
Happy, that was what Luhan had smelled like last night. Maybe it was because Yixing was drowning in Luhan’s happy pheromones that he had put his guard down, not even noticing a whiff of wolfsbane in the tiny apartment. It’s a small, cramped studio type room that’s worthy of college stories. Nothing that Yixing’s nose can’t normally handle. But it’s Luhan’s apartment and everything smells like him.
“-and it’s not like it was…” Luhan stops and shifts. Yixing can smell the awkwardness and horror coming off him. He gulps and Yixing’s distracted by the movement of muscles on his neck. Luhan smells like guilt. “Everything was consensual… right?”
“How much exactly do you remember?” Yixing asks.
“I remember the drinking,” Luhan replies and looks down at his hands, fiddling.
Yixing decides to let Luhan off his misery. He couldn’t remember what happened last night earlier, but Luhan’s rambling jumpstarted his werewolf genes to fix his wolfsbane-addled brain so he’s starting to remember them now. There are parts that he wished he hadn’t as he stares at Luhan’s exposed upper body, the dark bruise already forming on the juncture of his neck and shoulder.
“Don’t worry,” Yixing says, calmly. “No one took advantage of anyone.”
“Oh.” Luhan breathes out, relief pouring out of him in waves. “I really wasn’t trying to… do anything. I didn’t plan on getting you drunk. I mean, I was but - I didn’t plan on… this…” He sneaks a glance at Yixing, eyes travelling down his body.
“Not that I regretted how it went,” Luhan mumbles to himself. Yixing’s ears caught that easily enough, but he doesn’t bother replying. Judging from the way Luhan said it, it wasn’t meant for Yixing to hear.
He coughs and scratches his head, before standing up and grabbing his boxers and shirt from the floor. He turns to Luhan halfway through dressing himself and asks, “Can I use your bathroom?”
-
When Yixing arrives back at the den, everyone’s already up. It’s not really a den, but a huge house for the main members of the pack. Chanyeol likes to call it the frat house when they have one of their parties, but Tao and Sehun coin it the Den since, in Sehun’s words, “It’s a place full of werewolves.” The name somehow stuck.
If Junmyeon has a say in it, he would have preferred The Headquarters. Capitalized. But alpha or not, he really can’t say no to the younger ones’ insistence. He guesses it’s better than Baekhyun’s suggestion of calling it a Cave. He thinks that suits vampires more, bats and all that.
The minute he steps inside the house, Yixing notices several noses twitching. Yixing had been careful about cleaning up. He usually has a set of extra clothes wrapped in plastic that’s always in his bag wherever he goes, which proved handy after last night’s incident. He had showered, three times to be exact, to make sure to erase any traces of evidence on him. The only thing was that he had to use Luhan’s soap to wash so now every time he breathes in it reminds him of Luhan. It was either that or the bleach Luhan uses to clean his bathroom tiles.
It’s Tao who gives in first. “You smell weird.” He scrunches his nose and adds, “Like you, but not you.”
“You smell clean.” Jongin, who’s sitting beside Tao, lands him an inquiring look. “Too clean.”
Kyungsoo quirks an eyebrow at Yixing after giving Jongin an appraising smile. “Almost sterile. Where were you last night?”
It figures that Kyungsoo the one to pick it up since he’s the one with the most sensitive nose out of them. It comes in handy as being the Left Hand. What Yixing’s surprised of is how Jongin made that observation as well. Kyungsoo’s time with Jongin is probably working out. Yixing doesn’t really know what they do - exactly - but when he had asked Kyungsoo why he was training Jongin, the other had replied, “Just in case,” and gave Yixing a sad smile.
“Out.” Yixing is a man of few words, but he becomes monosyllabic under Kyungsoo’s stare.
Tao raises an eyebrow at him. A silent duh look on his face.
“With my college friend,” Yixing amends. “Celebrating the start of the summer.”
Kyungsoo hums as he passes him to go to the kitchen. He stops by the entryway and turns his head to look at Yixing. “We’re having a pack dinner this Friday,” Kyungsoo says, meaningfully.
Yixing hears the message behind it: bring him over. He opens his mouth to say something, but closes it. He mulls it over for a moment and when he glances up at Kyungsoo, he’s still watching him. He can’t say no to that stare.
“Cook for one more person.”
Yixing knows he’s going to regret this.
-
“Are you sure my shirt looks okay?” Luhan fumbles with his shirt for the nth time. They stopped at a station a few miles off the den to get some gas and to help Luhan calm down.
“It looks fine,” Yixing says. He doesn’t say that even though his shirt and jeans look great, they don’t exactly look great together, but to each their own. Yixing’s fashion sense is questionable at times, too, but only Tao’s ever said that out loud. Plus Luhan looks like he’s about to have a meltdown, and Yixing’s not going to do anything to help with accomplishing that.
“Just relax,” Yixing puts his hand over Luhan’s hand that’s fiddling with the edge of his shirt. He tries not to touch him anywhere else - anywhere that can be scented as too intimate. “It’s just dinner.”
“Sure,” Luhan snorts. “But this is dinner with your family - your pack.”
At any other given time, Luhan is the center of coolness. Some people at school even look up to him - maybe for the way he charms people unknowingly with his jokes and stories or the way he fits in easily into conversations and laughs with literally his whole face. But once he realizes that the spotlight is on him, he turns into a ridiculous mess.
Today is probably the worst mess Yixing’s ever seen him as.
Yixing grips his hand tighter as he feels Luhan start to wriggle again. Luhan stops, and then sighs.
“Are you sure I’m not on the menu?”
Yixing can hear the teasing tone behind Luhan’s question. Good, he thinks. That means he’s starting to ease down.
“I won’t let them eat you,” Yixing tells him in his most sincere and serious voice.
Luhan laughs.
-
As it turns out, the pack adores Luhan, which kind of makes Luhan’s previous fussing entirely useless. As soon as the main door opened, he’d been greeted by groups of people in two’s and three’s.
Sehun and Tao are the most receptive to him, flanking him on both sides. Tao because, “You speak Mandarin, too?” and looks at Yixing in betrayal as if he’s been hiding Luhan from him all along. Sehun because, and Yixing supposes, this is one of the times that he can be fully out with a human without the other being weirded out.
They settle around the dining table as Kyungsoo and Jongin lay out the food, occasionally nudging others (or stating orders) to help.
When they’ve finally started eating their dinner and with the pack acquainted to Luhan, Luhan pokes Yixing’s side. Yixing looks at him, mouth half open to allow entrance to the bread he’s holding.
Luhan reaches over and whispers, “You told me they wouldn’t eat me.” Yixing fixes him a confused stare and Luhan darts his eyes at Kyungsoo who has stopped eating, knife in hand poised over a slab of steak (medium well). Junmyeon coughs.
“Oh my god,” Luhan cries and burrows his face against Yixing’s neck. Yixing tries not to shiver at the puff of breath against his skin.
“They heard me, huh,” Luhan whispers again. “Super hearing.”
Baekhyun and Chanyeol look like they’re having a hard time trying to control their laughter, shaking quietly on their seats.
“Luhan,” Junmyeon starts, gently. “We don’t eat humans. Humans are not part of our food pyramid.” He turns to look at Kyungsoo and smiles against his napkin. “Even though Kyungsoo looks like that.”
“Right.” Yixing can smell Luhan slowly relaxing with him this close. Luhan pulls away and says, “So you guys are some kind of vegetarian werewolves.”
Yixings groans and Baekhyun and Chanyeol fall off their chairs.
-
They relax in front of the television after dinner and it’s like suddenly a game of 100 questions. Luhan gets a space in the sofa because he’s the honorary guest of the night, while Yixing takes one at the couch adjacent to it because Sehun and Tao have decided to tag team and squished themselves on either side of Luhan. Those two are terrible cuddlers. Yixing is sort of resigned to Luhan’s fate.
When the topic of how Luhan found out about Yixing being a werewolf comes out, Luhan grins widely and turns to him with sparkling eyes.
“You see, we just finished this horrible project - the professor was a terror,” Luhan begins. “So we decided to eat out at two in the morning at one of those hole in the wall places in Hongdae that are open all night for drunk college students. You know, the one with all the comfort food?”
The others nod in encouragement so Luhan continues.
“When we were going back to my apartment, this drunk guy just came out of nowhere with a knife and headed straight at me. I could have dodged, you know, but Yixing here,” Luhan brandishes his arm at Yixing, “decided to be all Superman and got me out of the way and tackled the guy down. But he ended up with a cut on his arm that I saw knit itself together.”
“How did you react?” Sehun asks.
“At first I thought I was hallucinating from pulling several all nighters until I noticed that his shirt sleeve was cut with a little bit of blood. Then I internally freaked out,” Luhan replies.
“You freaked out?” Tao raises both eyebrows at him.
“Of course. Come on, look at him,” Luhan flaps his arm at Yixing’s general area. “He’s all calm and quiet then bam, he’s suddenly Superman with super powers. But, well, not really human.”
“Part human,” Yixing supplies for him. “The first words out of his mouth was, OH MY GOD YOU’RE A WEREWOLF. THAT IS SO COOL.” Yixing adds quotation marks in the air when he pitched his voice higher.
“I didn’t sound like that!” Luhan protests. “And your quotation marks are offensive.”
“How did you know he was a werewolf?” Junmyeon asks.
“Well, his ears suddenly got more hairy and pointy so I thought…”
Junmyeon narrows his eyes at Yixing. “You wolfed out?”
“He didn’t!” Luhan jumps to Yixing’s defense. “It was only a little bit. But his face didn’t change at all. I only noticed because I know what his ears normally look like.”
Which is true. Luhan has the habit of playing with people’s ears, kind of like what he’s doing with Tao right now. Tao is preening at the attention.
“No one else noticed,” Luhan continues. “He didn’t use excessive force or anything. Plus it was almost four in the morning when it happened.”
“Okay,” Junmyeon says, still sounding a little bit unsure. Luhan shoots Yixing an apologetic look.
“So you weren’t scared of him?” Jongdae pipes up from where he’s sitting on the floor with his back resting on Luhan’s leg, the right one, because the left is supporting Baekhyun. It’s a mess of limbs where they’re sitting.
Luhan paused, thoughtful. “I guess not. He’s always been kind, even before I found out, and even more careful after. Sometimes he treats me like glass just because I’m human, which is unfair. I can handle myself, thank you very much.”
He reaches over and pokes Yixing’s cheek.
“Says the one who keeps tripping on smooth surfaces.”
“That’s different,” Luhan frowns, but Yixing can smell the amusement coming off him. The rest of the night goes as smoothly as Yixing could hope for. He drops Luhan off back at his apartment after they all made Luhan to promise to come back.
Yixing thinks that this could be the start of the apocalypse.
-
Luhan soon becomes a fixture in the house, drifting in and out like any other member of the household. Junmyeon’s even given him a key with the thoughtful message of, “In case you need a safe place, you’re free to a wolves’ den,” which made Luhan laugh, comfortable in the space he has created.
He even settles into their random touching: Kyungsoo’s pat on his shoulder as they pass at the hallway, Sehun and Tao’s snuggles with him at the couch during movie nights, Jongdae’s brief massages, him and Jongin playing footsies, Minseok’s arm on his back as he leads them to the living room while talking about the news.
Luhan found the excessive touching freaky at first -
“Do you guys not know about personal boundaries? Don’t they teach you that at school?” Luhan shouted at everyone after Tao basically rubbed his side on Luhan’s body as they passed each other on the way to the kitchen.
Tao shrugged. “I was raised by wolves.” Laughter erupted at different parts of the house.
- but grew accustomed to it.
Yixing knows what they’re doing - they’re scent marking him to make him part of their pack. He just doesn’t know if they’re doing it consciously or subconsciously.
Pack, Yixing’s brain supplies. But his wolf tells him of something else that makes him shift uncomfortably. He clamps it down as he stares at Junmyeon’s retreating back. He has responsibilities, and Luhan doesn’t fit in any of them.
He remembers his promise to himself when Kris had taken him in under his wing after he got turned. He was sixteen when a rogue alpha had wandered into his area. Hunters came looking for it and took it down, but not before it had bitten Yixing.
The bite took and he was a werewolf the next day.
There was no pack in his area, barely even any supernatural creatures, but he’d heard of Kris, a visiting werewolf, from some of the locals. He’d asked him for help, not wanting to lose control and give in to the wolf inside him. He’d heard it happen - families getting massacred by newly turned werewolves or lone werewolves without a pack submitting to moonsickness - and he didn’t want that to happen to him, could never imagine a life without his family.
Kris had accepted to train him, but it came with a price of leaving his family behind. It was better that way though. He could always come back and visit them. At least they’d be safe from him. And that was how he ended up in Seoul under the Kim pack with a promise to himself that he won’t let humans get involved.
Years later, he’s here in the living room with Luhan by his side.
-
It’s a lazy, hot summer afternoon when it happens, the peak of whatever that has been building up. Yixing doesn’t know what came over him, but one moment he’s sitting on the couch in the living room while Luhan’s playing a game of cards with Tao, Sehun and Jongin on the floor, and the next moment he’s growling and the others have their spines up in attention.
It’s not really a full on growl, just something low in the back of his throat, but it had been enough for even Luhan to hear him. Yixing doesn’t lose control like that, doesn’t really snap at people even when they’re out of line. Kyungsoo is better in reprimanding the younger ones into submission.
“Down boy,” Luhan jokes. It doesn’t seem like he’s caught on yet.
“Is there something wrong?” Jongin asks, carefully. Did we do anything wrong? is the real question behind it.
“It’s nothing,” Yixing lies, forcing his heart to not skip a beat. It’s harder to lie when you live in a house full of natural lie detectors, but he gets better at it.
They go back to their game, but it takes a full twenty minutes before he can see the three relax their shoulders, and that’s only after he’s left the room to get some water. He hates the feeling like he’s somehow made them wary of him, especially when it’s not them that are the problem. It’s him, and the way he’s reacting to how Luhan has been lately. Nowadays, Luhan smells more like pack and less like Yixing, and Yixing doesn’t know what to make of that.
Later on that night, Jongin approaches him while he’s out in the yard. It’s almost two in the morning, and most of them have gone to sleep.
“He smells like you.” Jongin sits by his side on the steps. “Or rather, you smelled like him. The day after that night you didn’t come home. You smelled like his soap.”
Yixing hums a slow, mellow tune. An old lullaby that his mother used to sing to him. He misses his mother, his father, his grandparents - the people he left behind when he left his human life. Luhan is a reminder of that, what he could have been, what he could have had. Maybe in another lifetime.
He doesn’t correct Jongin - that it’s true that he did smell like Luhan’s soap, but also of Luhan himself. He just continues humming along as they sit in the silence of the night.
-
It’s the middle of their summer vacation when Luhan announces that he’s going on a one-week trip back to Beijing.
“Family,” Luhan replies after they asked him why. “Got to visit my parents at least once a year to let them know I’m still alive.”
Yixing’s never asked Luhan about his family, knows only the vague details - a little bit estranged, but slowly getting better. They apparently didn’t like that Luhan decided to leave home and study somewhere else - somewhere not even as prestigious as an Ivy League school. Luhan had only snorted at that.
“At least I didn’t become a celebrity. They might have completely disowned me if that happened.”
On Luhan’s last day in Seoul, Yixing sends him off at the airport. He drives him to Incheon airport and helps him with his luggage. Luhan only has one and it’s just a small check in bag. The rest of his stuff is in his backpack.
“So,” Luhan trails off, “see you in a week?”
Yixing nods, almost imperceptibly. “I’ll pick you up at nine.”
Luhan smiles and waves, starting his walk towards the security line before he makes a U-turn and darts at Yixing with a firm hug.
“Tell the others I’ll bring them something when I get back,” Luhan says as he pushes himself off Yixing then jogs over to where he left his luggage.
Yixing doesn’t shower that night. The next day, he takes his shirt off and tucks it in a corner in his drawer.
-
By the middle of the week, Yixing finds himself at a secluded area of land, a property of the Kim’s and subsequently their pack. He doesn’t know why he even decided to come to Kyungsoo and Jongin’s training when it’s forecasted as the hottest week of the summer. Even the shade of the night doesn’t help much.
Kyungsoo suggested it to him after the others have voiced out their concerns that he’s been moody lately. More quiet, pensive but almost brooding. Jongin agreed that brooding doesn’t suit him, so here he is. He misses Luhan. He misses the comfort of his bed, too.
“Missing something?” Kyungsoo asks, perceptive as usual. Yixing is kind of jealous that he can distinguish even the most nuanced emotions. Kyungsoo inhales slowly then exhales. “Or someone?”
“My bed,” Yixing answers honestly. He can obfuscate the truth and it wouldn’t be a lie. He’s curious how far Jongin is now with his tracking. He knows Kyungsoo can turn this small patch of forest into his own private maze if he wanted to, and he stops the shudder creeping down his spine. Yixing wonders, not for the first time, why Kyungsoo’s set up these hard things for Jongin.
Yixing blames the heat for it, but he accidentally voices his thoughts out loud.
Kyungsoo peers at him inquiringly as if urging him to repeat the question. So he does.
“Why are you so hard on him?”
Kyungsoo doesn’t even pretend that he doesn’t know who he’s talking about. Just answers straight up. “Because I have to be.”
Yixing remembers the night that Jongin got turned. The pack had been out on a mini vacation that got tampered down by the sudden storm. Kyungsoo and Jongin had gone out to buy food at the nearby market when the rain started coming down hard. He knew they were back even before they heard the car stop outside. He could smell the strong scent of blood even through the pounding rain. When the door bolted open, they weren’t surprised to see Kyungsoo bent over a body.
“Turn him,” Kyungsoo’s eyes flashed blue at Junmyeon. Only the Alpha can give the Bite. “Please,” Kyungsoo added, imploringly.
It was the first time Yixing had heard Kyungsoo plead.
Kyungsoo was a born wolf and Jongin was a human, but even through these circumstances, they had been close and fierce. Yixing thought that years of being childhood friends wouldn’t change that. He was wrong. The night after they got into an accident, after Jongin had been turned, the way Kyungsoo acted around Jongin had never been the same.
“That’s not an answer,” Yixing tells Kyungsoo.
He sees Kyungsoo’s face twist in something darker, mouth curled into a snarl. “Because I don’t want to leave the pack without a capable Left Hand when I’m gone.” Then adds, softly, “I don’t want him to suddenly be thrust into that role without knowing what to do.”
And Yixing knows - he knows that situation all too well. There’s a sick crunch in his gut at that memory.
There was an epidemic that hit Korea a couple of years ago. It started during the early weeks of spring when the pollen storm came and caused the normal bout of allergic rhinitis on humans, but also somehow affected several supernatural creatures that were usually immune to diseases. The ones that got inflicted the most were werewolves. What started as allergy symptoms quickly developed into shortness of breath until their airways collapsed. By the time the authorities found what caused it, a special cross breed of wolfsbane with another local variety of flowers common to the area, hundreds of supernatural creatures had died. Junmyeon’s pack was not spared and he lost a lot of his family - his pack. Kris was one of them.
The day after they buried Kris’s body, Junmyeon gave the title of Right Hand to Yixing. He didn’t even get the time to grieve properly as he took on the role that Kris left behind. Slipped into big shoes that were hard to fill, took blind steps into supernatural politics.
Yixing knows that Kyungsoo was referring to him, the reason why he’s training Jongin now, taking all the time that they have. Just in case.
When Yixing finally catches his breath, he asks, “Why did you pick him?”
Kyungsoo gives him a sad smile and it’s remarkable at how it’s the first genuine smile Yixing has seen from him in a while. “Instinct. Because I know he’s the only one who can do it.”
And Yixing knows that as the truth. When he had asked Junmyeon why it was him, he answered as much, told Yixing a story of how Kris had offhandedly mentioned to Junmyeon how he’d fit the role with his multi-lingual tongue, his affinity to hold peace, and his way of easing conflict-ridden situations. That he’d bend over backwards for people he cares about, loyal to the core.
It had been too much for Yixing to absorb then, but he can see it now in Kyungsoo and Jongin. The qualities of a Left. Where Kris as a Right was all about open politics and socializing with other groups and helping Junmyeon establish ties to allied packs, Kyungsoo as a Left is about the welfare of the pack, doing anything that ensures their safety even if it means using underhanded things, even if it’s behind the Alpha’s back.
Kyungsoo is kind to his family, but cruel to their enemies, ruthless in his efficiency. Yixing can see the same in Jongin, whose dedication is so deep that he’ll do it even if it destroys him. It’s a high-risk position, one that usually has a high turn over rate.
Yixing nods, but doesn’t say anything. Kyungsoo seems to take that as an opening to ask, “How about you? How come you haven’t bonded with him?”
Yixing debates feigning that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but this is Kyungsoo, who might not even be his closest friend, but he’s someone he respects enough to deserve the truth.
“The same reason why you haven’t with Jongin,” Yixing explains with the only way he knows how. “Responsibilities.” He knows when the epidemic hit that something had splintered in their pack, that there’s a deep-seated want to rebuild it. He can see it in Junmyeon even though the other doesn’t vocalize it. There’s always strength in numbers, literally and supernaturally. There’s no point in taking Luhan into the fold when he’s not what the group needs, even though he wants.
Kyungsoo shakes his head and looks at him, eyes eerie and owlish. “It’s not the same.” He puts a hand on Yixing’s shoulder, small but reassuring. “We won’t take it against you. Junmyeon won’t take it against you. You can stop being a martyr.”
Yixing replies with a smile. It’s nice to hear it from someone who knows the situation, but it’s not just that, not really. “I want him to have a choice.”
For werewolves, finding The One is based off instinct, something that comes naturally to them, the knowing. This is It. He knows humans are different; they can have as many relationships as they want, and they can all find them just as meaningful as the last. Yixing had been fully human once, for sixteen years of his life. But now, he knows he can only have just that one partner in his life, and he knows he can’t have any others especially after having met him. He can’t let Luhan be tied down to him like that.
Kyungsoo interrupts his thoughts. “He can’t really have a choice when you don’t give him one.”
And Yixing doesn’t really know how to respond to that.
-
When Luhan comes back a week later, Yixing is sitting by the arrivals terminal of Incheon airport, hands in his pocket and listening to his ipod. The music is there to help calm him down. It’s enough that his nose is being assaulted by a multitude of odor so he at least saves his ears by putting on something to block the rest of the noise out.
He smells Luhan right as he walks out of the exit, but he doesn’t stand up, waits until his scent is stronger and near him. Luhan smells wrong, like all sorts of people have brushed on him, laid their scent on top of his clothes, his hair, his bag, his skin. He can’t even smell the scent of pack anymore, barely smells any of himself in Luhan. The urge to stand up and rub their bodies against each other is so strong that Yixing stills himself and tucks the wolf away.
He’s not surprised when Luhan takes his earphones away from him. “What are you listening to? Where are my welcome banners? The poppers? The live band singing your own composition of Welcome Back? You weren’t even looking for me!”
“Welcome back, Luhan.” Yixing’s dimple is so deep, a side effect of how big his smile is.
“I’m offended,” Luhan crosses his arms across his chest, but he’s grinning.
Yixing opens his arms in offering and Luhan doesn’t need to be told anything before he dives into it, arms circling tight around Yixing’s neck as if trying to suffocate the air out of him. Yixing misses his octopus hugs. He palms Luhan’s nape and slides his hand all the way down to his back for good measure.
“Miss me?” Luhan asks as they separate. He’s still holding on to Yixing’s earphones, hands already starting to detangle the knots.
“Of course,” Yixing says, just as Luhan’s sighs, “Why are your earphones always tangled up?”
“Why don’t you get your own?” Yixing throws back, but there’s no snide in his tone.
“I just got back and we need more bonding time. Music sharing is bonding time.” Luhan’s too busy looping and unlooping the cords so Yixing takes a moment to savor this in.
They’re starting to walk out of the airport’s main area and down the flight of stairs to cross underground and get to the parking lot. There’s less people milling about, less scents, and Yixing lightly sniffs the surroundings.
He smiles slightly, satisfied, as sunshine and orange burst waft through the air.
-
When they reach Luhan’s apartment, a familiar sight greets him. Nothing has changed since the last time he was here, which was that night of celebration that marked the start of summer.
They put down Luhan’s luggage near his bed and organize all the silly gifts Luhan brought back from China for the others.
When Luhan stands up, a glass of water on his hand, Yixing isn’t really expecting him to say, “Kyungsoo told me something.”
Yixing pauses what he’s doing, which Luhan takes as a cue to continue. “You never asked me what I wanted.”
“Luhan, you don’t even know what you want to eat for lunch most of the time,” Yixing says, not unkindly.
“That’s different,” Luhan snorts, then tells him. “I know what I want this time.”
Yixing shakes his head and moves as if to stand up. Luhan stops him with a hand on his wrist, palm warm and sweaty. “Wait. Just ask me.”
There’s a challenge in his tone that Yixing knows he won’t be able to defeat.
“What do you want?”
“I want you,” Luhan answers and there’s no skip in his heartbeat. “I want it for there to be an us.”
It’s hard to deny someone like that so Yixing doesn’t. Maybe Kyungsoo’s right. Maybe it’s time for him to stop being a martyr. He leans in, hand over Luhan’s hand on the table, and kisses him. It’s so easy after that - to cup Luhan’ s jaw and twist his fingers on his hair, tongue in his mouth.
When they part for air, Luhan is drunk on happiness. “You kissed me!”
“That’s not the first nor the last.” He lets the words sink in and he knows Luhan understands it when his eyes light up.
“You kissed me first! That night we got drunk, you kissed me first.” Luhan lunges at him and gives him a peck on the lips, laughing. “And I thought I imagined the whole thing! I thought I took advantage of you because I’ve always wanted it to happen, but you took the first step. Oh god, I’m never gonna drink again.”
“You should,” Yixing says, grinning against Luhan’s neck. He brushes his cheek along Luhan’s jaw. “That’s how it started.”
“I think I still have some wolfsbane alcohol in the fridge.” Luhan whispers conspiratorially, lips brushing against Yixing’s before sealing it all the way in.
Yixing doesn’t go home that night.