Blue Moon: Chapter 12 - Damage
Title: Blue Moon: Damage
Chapter: 12
Characters: EXO - Sehun/Tao centric
AU: Twilight
Pairings: Tao x Kris; Sehun x Kai; side!Chanyeol x Baekhyun
Rating: nc13
Word count: 3.400
Genre: supernatural, angst
Warnings/notes: mild violence
General summary: For the Seoul coven, life isn't that hard. With six members, and only two of them being newborns, hunting is kids' game, and the chances of getting caught are almost nonexisting. But when Sehun, the youngest vampire among them, accidentally transforms Tao (a soon-to-be shapeshifter from the Mandarin pack) into one of them, things aren't all that easy for them anymore, nor they are for the pack itself. Will their bonds be stronger than their nature? Or will their instincts lead them to mayhem?
Chapter summary: It took Zitao a while to figure it out, but now he is completely sure of where his loyalty resides.
“You’ve already done enough damage.”
____________________________________
“Are you going to take a lot longer?”
Zitao rolls his eyes at the question he hears for the third time in the span of ten minutes. “No, Sehun, just fucking wait.”
It’s another four minutes until he goes out of his room, the other boy waiting for him in the hallway. He doesn’t bother to look at him before striding down the hall, across the living room and down the stairs.
“Hey!” complains Sehun, quick to match the older’s pace. “First you make me wait for you, and now I have to follow you?”
Zitao smiles, but Sehun can’t see it. “You asked me to go with you because you’re still a chicken, so you’re just gonna have to adequate to my rules.”
He shakes his head, remembering the pleading eyes that ended up convincing him to turn down Chanyeol’s offer for a hunt, because I haven’t gone forever and guess who hasn’t either and please I need to concentrate this time, and Zitao likes to tease Sehun, but both of them know he is too soft-hearted to ever say no to a request like that. (The fact that Sehun, surprisingly enough, remembered to say please may or may not have tilted the balance slightly to his side, as well).
The younger just scoffs, but he makes sure to be the first to step out of the house. “How about a race?” he asks, walking backwards into the front yard, and he doesn’t give Zitao the chance to say no before turning around and fading in a blur.
If it was Jongin he was competing against, Zitao wouldn’t have had a chance; but he manages to catch up with Sehun in a matter of seconds, despite how much of an advantage the boy got because of the surprise factor.
Zitao can’t wait until he gets the chance to run alone. That was one of the parts of his life as a shapeshifter that he looked forward to the most. If he enjoyed so much walking on the forest or the beach, with the crushing silence as his only company… he figured the speed could only make it better. The way his pack described it had him thinking about it nonstop, curled up with his blanket pulled up past his head when everyone was already asleep, unable to wait any longer.
He takes his eyes off his way for a moment, with the certainty he won’t crush into a tree by accident, and glances at Sehun. The younger doesn’t look at him, his gaze fixated on the clearing he can’t even see yet, and the older manages a smile. Once again, he discovers himself almost fully healed, and the aching pain, the sensation of being robbed of the most important thing in his life, has been replaced with a yearning for something much bigger. Instead of feeling lost, he’s amazed by the sensation of being full; so full of love and care that whether or not he grows fangs and fur matters little, so little in comparison.
Some people don’t get to find their place in this world even once. Zitao, luckily enough, has found it twice.
He can’t wait to give all that love back.
Sehun steps into the clearing with a triumphant smile, fists held jubilantly above his head.
“You’re such a kid,” says Zitao with a chuckle. “I don’t get what Jongin sees in you. So competitive.” The boy shrugs, only slightly uncomfortable. “Come on, stop being three years old. Let’s grab something to eat.”
***
Sehun lies on his back on the grass, arms spread at his sides and eyes closed. “I think I’m good for now,” he says.
Zitao’s eyes wander around, going from the boy to their surroundings, to the birds that chirp in the distance, to his own hands on his lap. “Me too.” Silence follows, a blackout so still and peaceful that it makes Zitao feel like everything is alright. And maybe it is. “Sehun,” he calls after a while.
“Yeah?” replies the other, his eyes still shut, skin sparkling faintly in the sunlight.
“Why didn’t you want to come with Jongin?” He isn’t questioning him, but he is really, honestly curious. “Sharing something like this with someone…" He gestures with his arms spread wide, at the calm and the brightness, signaling to make sure he doesn't mean the hunting part. "Not that I don’t like you,” he clarifies, even though it’s not quite necessary. “Just not that way, you know.”
From four feet away, he sees one of the corners of the younger’s mouth raise in a half assed smile. “Things are strange between us,” he says simply.
“Because of what happened the other day?”
Jongin didn’t tell him the whole story, and Sehun barely told him anything at all; but what he got from both sides was enough to put the episode together.
Sehun sighs, his chest heaving. “I guess. Maybe it was a mistake. I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking.”
“You don’t always have to think,” counters Zitao, his arms wrapping around his knees. “Do what’s right. Sometimes you just have to do what you feel like doing. You know,” he continues, “the heart knows best and all.”
“But now everything feels so weird…”
Zitao looks at Sehun, although the other’s eyes are set far away from this clearing. “But isn’t it better to feel strange with him than normal without him?”
Sehun doesn’t say anything.
***
The sun is starting to set, disappearing in between tree branches, and Zitao is about to say they should go home before the others start worrying when everything becomes twice as loud, twice as intense, twice as cataclysmic inside his head. The buzzing reverberates louder and louder, making him dizzy and ill, weak, lost.
The pressure hits him rowdily, everywhere and nowhere, and he can barely stay on his feet. It’s not a headache, not quite; but Zitao doesn’t think there is a word that encapsulates these sensations better. It’s not something he has never felt, he reminiscences vaguely; just not as a human, and definitely, never this acutely. It’s overwhelming in a displeasing way, pulsing on his temples, and he can’t find his center of gravity. He hears his name called at a distance, and it’s Sehun’s voice but it’s also not, and both feel just as far away. A pair of strong hands grabs him by the shoulders, shakes him, and he thinks he sees a mop of hair the color of cinnamon, hair the color of sand; a pair of red, brown, red eyes, and the sensation is both so familiar and so foreign that he feels like he’s going to throw up. Can vampires throw up?
It all explodes behind his eyelids with a strength that knocks him over, but he doesn’t hit the floor. He feels light and heavy, here and gone, and everything is green when he opens his eyes and everything is green when he closes them, and there’s a mop of hair like cinnamon, hair like sand, red eyes, brown eyes.
Somewhere in the back of his mind he questions if it’s always going to be like this.
The aching pressure starts to fade away slowly, very slowly, and Zitao opens his eyes. Sehun puts him upright, smothering a hand between his shoulder blades with a quiet Are you okay? Zitao ignores. No, Zitao is not okay; because juxtaposed with Sehun’s worried stare there’s a wolf running through the woods, and Zitao recognizes the thick trunks and the big leaves, and the chirping of the birds and the stepping of alarmed deers, and the rumbling of the river that’s less than one mile away from this exact clearing.
“Zitao,” calls Sehun, loud enough for Zitao to hear him over the duplicated roaring of the wind.
Zitao’s fingers grip the boy’s forearm with enough force to break a bone, was Sehun as fragile as Zitao was himself roughly a month ago. He doesn’t look at him, even when his lips open to whisper: “Run.”
“What the fuck…?”
“I said run!”
Sehun can’t know what’s going on, and maybe that’s the reason why he squares his shoulders, muscles tensing. It’s only a few seconds before he understands what the commotion was about.
He doesn’t see him; not right away. It’s only an impression, the vague consciousness of the fact that you’re not alone. The wind blows differently, whistles in an offbeat way. The immediate twitter of the sparrows in the closer branches quiets, expectant of what’s going to happen. Zitao’s own breathing halts, as well.
He doesn’t need his sense of smell in order to know who hides too close for it to be comfortable; to know who’s waiting for his chance to show up.
Sehun lets out a growl as soon as he recognizes his scent. “Not again,” he grumbles, and it seems to be almost unintentional when he steps forward, Zitao remaining still behind him.
It’s years or seconds before Sehun (and Zitao, although he didn’t really need it) manage to peek at the boy that’s treading through the coppice, slowly, so slowly that it feels like it’s going to take him millions of heartbeats until he gets to the clearing. But Zitao must have really lost the habit of counting heartbeats, because it can’t be sixty seconds in by the moment he oversteps the limits of the trees, denim covering his lower half, cut and frayed right above the knees.
“Tell your friend to back off.”
The words are rough and broad, directed not only at Zitao, despite the wording. It’s not a request -it’s an order, but Sehun laughs at the lack of authority, mocking and challenging.
“Fuck you,” he replies simply, not moving one millimeter from his spot.
“Sehun,” calls Zitao softly. This was bound to end in chaos even before starting, and Zitao doesn’t think he can handle it. Not right now. Not ever, he’s afraid.
“I didn’t run all the way here just so you could team up with him and glare at me,” accuses the Alpha.
Zitao chuckles. “What were you expecting? Flowers and chocolates? What do you even want anyway?”
Yifan doesn’t respond right away, seeming to consider his answer. “I want to talk,” he says in the end, glancing just briefly at a Sehun that appears to be deciding whether or not he should wait a few more seconds before jumping onto the other.
A scoff escapes his lips. “Talk about what? The good ol’ times?” His tone is arrant and cheeky, nonchalant even; but his whole body is tense, and the line of his jaw twitches with ire. “I think he was very clear the last time you harassed him -and the rest of us, for instance.” Zitao doesn’t think Sehun is noticing that Yifan’s hands have turned into fists, pressed at his sides; that his teeth are clenched and the vein on his temple is pulsing; that he’s shaking and Sehun should probably stop, because the last time Zitao saw Yifan like this they had to rebuild one of the walls of their cabin. “I don’t know what kinda sick obsession you have with him, but it’s done. It’s over.”
That’s the drop that fills the glass of water.
If Sehun is surprised to see the Alpha’s body convulse and tremble, the quick metamorphosis from man to beast; surprised to see the abnormally large wolf jump at him with raged decisiveness, he doesn’t show it. He takes it like he was expecting it, even, pushing Zitao aside so suddenly that the boy nothing but stumbles. He blocks the attack with his arms and pushes back, sending the animal to crash on a tree twice as thick as him.
Yifan -it’s so hard to think of him that way right now, Zitao thinks, when he’s attacking Sehun like this ̶ is quick to get back on his feet, shaking off the hit and almost not giving himself any time at all before assaulting again, and this time his aim is outright. His fauces are wide open, directed towards the ivory expanse of Sehun’s neck, and when his paws land on the boy’s stomach, he batters him down, heavy on his chest. His tusks clack alarmingly close to the younger’s flesh, and that’s where, for Zitao, everything clears.
It becomes so crisp that, for a second, it’s hard to breathe; the weight of what he’s about to do and how much it means, on so many levels, hitting him so hard that he almost, almost misses his chance.
Later on, he won’t know where he found the strength to jump onto the growling, writhing mess, but his shoulder hits the side of the amber wolf, and it’s probably the shock, and not so much the force, that makes him topple away, freeing Sehun until he can stand up again; dirty, disheveled, but safe.
Zitao stays on the floor in a squatting position, just in case he needs to jump again. His eyes are at the level of Yifan’s, if about three feet away, both still in the silence of Zitao’s newfound loyalty.
“I have tried, many times, to make myself hate you, but I could never quite manage it,” he says slowly, deliberately. He tries so hard to infuse his voice with everything he’s feeling, everything he’s felt for the past month and everything he had felt ever since he can remember, all the memories crushing down like the wall of the cabin that one stormy day, with Zitao, small and frightened, wiping away petrified tears he manages to pass as raindrops. It’s all too much, and it’s there and it’s gone, like he was roughly twenty minutes before. “I tried, to no avail. But with this, you’ve sealed the deal.” Yifan’s eyes, nailed on his, Zitao isn’t sure whether are angry or sad. Maybe both. It surprises him to find out that he doesn’t really care. “I don’t want to see you ever trying to hurt me or any of them again. If you do, I can’t promise I’m going to let you get away with it just like that.” Zitao slowly rises to his feet, his hands at his sides for balance. “You’ve already done enough damage.”
For a second, Zitao thinks he’s going to jump at him. His paws are restless on the grass, weight shifting to one another, a gloom of doubt clouding his eyes.
But then he turns around and leaves faster than he came, his musky scent still lingering in Zitao’s nostrils.
Behind him, Sehun breathes out. “That’s probably the first demi-honorable thing I’ve seen him do.”
It was probably a joke, but Zitao doesn’t laugh. Instead, he closes his eyes as Sehun’s hand rests atop his shoulder, the leaves still fluttering on the route Yifan took to run away from him one last time.
***
“Thank you,” says Zitao, his voice, barely louder than a whisper. “For not running away.”
Sehun wriggles uncomfortably. “Joonmyeon would have killed me.”
Of course he would have, thinks Zitao. But that that was the number one reason for Sehun to stay, Zitao doesn’t buy. “Yeah, right.”
The boy plays with the hem of his shirt, with his laced bracelet; with anything, as long as he doesn’t have to look at Zitao. Oh, Sehun. “Thanks to you, too. You know, for… helping. Must’ve been hard.”
Zitao manages a sardonic smile, unwilling to explain how big of an issue it really was to him, and at the same time, knowing that Sehun understands; that this is why his tone is deep and serious, instead of the uninterested negligence and fresh sass he has gotten everybody used to.
The younger shrugs before changing the topic. “You know how you didn’t believe me when I said there was nothing between Jongin and me?”
Zitao breathes easily now, happy to be back in the warmth and safety of their home. “Yeah.”
“Well,” continues Sehun; “I don’t think I believed you that, either.” His fist lands on the older’s thigh with little force, barely a replacement for the soothing caresses Zitao knows he is yet unable to give. Sehun isn’t -at least not yet- very skilled in the art of comfort, but somehow he still makes him feel better.
Zitao does, nonetheless, consider Sehun’s questioning, and in the end, he settles for explaining his feelings in a way that will make at least a bit of sense.
“How I used to feel about him… I don’t think that’s changed. A lot happened between us, even if nothing really ever did. You know?” The younger nods, the faintest bob of his head just so he knows he’s listening. “But he doesn’t feel like the same person anymore. It’s not because of who I am, if that didn’t open any breach between the rest of my pack and me. It’s him, for some reason. He feels so far away…”
Zitao has come to realize, at some point, that it never had to do with him being alone and scared as he pleaded at first. That, yeah, that definitely sucked, but it wasn’t that much about that bit as it was about Yifan putting the events over the essence, what happened to him over what he still was. That he didn’t give him the benefit of the doubt, jumping straight into conclusions and trying to sever him from what Zitao thought was his whole life. Fundamentally, it was about Yifan not trusting him enough to at least let him expose his side to the story, and making all the decisions for him.
He had always been like that, if he thinks about it. It’s just that nothing had ever been that big of a matter; everything could be solved with a movie night and some snacks, with Luhan’s obnoxious laughter filling the room and coaxing all the rest to laugh with him, to enjoy those moments of glee. It was nothing as big as seeing the person who had vowed to protect you attack the people who are actually protecting you with little to no mercy, aiming at the exact spot that’d make it all end in broken hearts and a funerary pyre.
It’s all so heartless and wicked, and Zitao can’t even begin to comprehend; can't even being to put together the image of the young boy that trembles as he holds his father’s hand, the design that marks him as the Alpha of the new generation’s pack being carved into his skin, with the enraged man that doesn’t think twice before throwing himself into a fight to the death of the weakest. They overlap and dance one in front of the other but they don’t quite match, and Zitao feels as if he missed something in between, some kind of transition that will explain this behavior.
He’s afraid he was too busy with the memories from the past to pay attention to the present, where everything he wanted was slipping in between his fingers like dry sand.
Sehun, sat on the floor with his back against Zitao’s bed and his head rested on the mattress, looks at him in between freshly washed bangs. “I hate to say this, but I guess I can kind of understand him.”
This surprises Zitao. “You do?”
“Yeah, I mean… he probably realized too late… stuff. You know. And the moment it hits you that you made what was probably the biggest mistake in your life, and you can’t withdraw no matter how much you try… You never know how it’s going to hit you.” His eyes are fixated on the window behind Zitao’s head, but they seem to be looking so much further. “I still hate him,” he clarifies, just in case. “I’m just saying I can see where he’s coming from. Maybe. If I squint.” Zitao stifles a laugh, his arms wrapping around his pillow. “I’m sorry, continue.”
“There isn’t much more to say,” admits Zitao. “All I really know is I can’t love what isn’t there anymore.”
Sehun pats his knee, and the truth echoes bitter-tasting in Zitao’s mouth.
____________________________________
a/n: lol this is not how things were going to go down but \o/
also bros!taohun woot woot
Chapter: 12
Characters: EXO - Sehun/Tao centric
AU: Twilight
Pairings: Tao x Kris; Sehun x Kai; side!Chanyeol x Baekhyun
Rating: nc13
Word count: 3.400
Genre: supernatural, angst
Warnings/notes: mild violence
General summary: For the Seoul coven, life isn't that hard. With six members, and only two of them being newborns, hunting is kids' game, and the chances of getting caught are almost nonexisting. But when Sehun, the youngest vampire among them, accidentally transforms Tao (a soon-to-be shapeshifter from the Mandarin pack) into one of them, things aren't all that easy for them anymore, nor they are for the pack itself. Will their bonds be stronger than their nature? Or will their instincts lead them to mayhem?
Chapter summary: It took Zitao a while to figure it out, but now he is completely sure of where his loyalty resides.
“You’ve already done enough damage.”
____________________________________
“Are you going to take a lot longer?”
Zitao rolls his eyes at the question he hears for the third time in the span of ten minutes. “No, Sehun, just fucking wait.”
It’s another four minutes until he goes out of his room, the other boy waiting for him in the hallway. He doesn’t bother to look at him before striding down the hall, across the living room and down the stairs.
“Hey!” complains Sehun, quick to match the older’s pace. “First you make me wait for you, and now I have to follow you?”
Zitao smiles, but Sehun can’t see it. “You asked me to go with you because you’re still a chicken, so you’re just gonna have to adequate to my rules.”
He shakes his head, remembering the pleading eyes that ended up convincing him to turn down Chanyeol’s offer for a hunt, because I haven’t gone forever and guess who hasn’t either and please I need to concentrate this time, and Zitao likes to tease Sehun, but both of them know he is too soft-hearted to ever say no to a request like that. (The fact that Sehun, surprisingly enough, remembered to say please may or may not have tilted the balance slightly to his side, as well).
The younger just scoffs, but he makes sure to be the first to step out of the house. “How about a race?” he asks, walking backwards into the front yard, and he doesn’t give Zitao the chance to say no before turning around and fading in a blur.
If it was Jongin he was competing against, Zitao wouldn’t have had a chance; but he manages to catch up with Sehun in a matter of seconds, despite how much of an advantage the boy got because of the surprise factor.
Zitao can’t wait until he gets the chance to run alone. That was one of the parts of his life as a shapeshifter that he looked forward to the most. If he enjoyed so much walking on the forest or the beach, with the crushing silence as his only company… he figured the speed could only make it better. The way his pack described it had him thinking about it nonstop, curled up with his blanket pulled up past his head when everyone was already asleep, unable to wait any longer.
He takes his eyes off his way for a moment, with the certainty he won’t crush into a tree by accident, and glances at Sehun. The younger doesn’t look at him, his gaze fixated on the clearing he can’t even see yet, and the older manages a smile. Once again, he discovers himself almost fully healed, and the aching pain, the sensation of being robbed of the most important thing in his life, has been replaced with a yearning for something much bigger. Instead of feeling lost, he’s amazed by the sensation of being full; so full of love and care that whether or not he grows fangs and fur matters little, so little in comparison.
Some people don’t get to find their place in this world even once. Zitao, luckily enough, has found it twice.
He can’t wait to give all that love back.
Sehun steps into the clearing with a triumphant smile, fists held jubilantly above his head.
“You’re such a kid,” says Zitao with a chuckle. “I don’t get what Jongin sees in you. So competitive.” The boy shrugs, only slightly uncomfortable. “Come on, stop being three years old. Let’s grab something to eat.”
***
Sehun lies on his back on the grass, arms spread at his sides and eyes closed. “I think I’m good for now,” he says.
Zitao’s eyes wander around, going from the boy to their surroundings, to the birds that chirp in the distance, to his own hands on his lap. “Me too.” Silence follows, a blackout so still and peaceful that it makes Zitao feel like everything is alright. And maybe it is. “Sehun,” he calls after a while.
“Yeah?” replies the other, his eyes still shut, skin sparkling faintly in the sunlight.
“Why didn’t you want to come with Jongin?” He isn’t questioning him, but he is really, honestly curious. “Sharing something like this with someone…" He gestures with his arms spread wide, at the calm and the brightness, signaling to make sure he doesn't mean the hunting part. "Not that I don’t like you,” he clarifies, even though it’s not quite necessary. “Just not that way, you know.”
From four feet away, he sees one of the corners of the younger’s mouth raise in a half assed smile. “Things are strange between us,” he says simply.
“Because of what happened the other day?”
Jongin didn’t tell him the whole story, and Sehun barely told him anything at all; but what he got from both sides was enough to put the episode together.
Sehun sighs, his chest heaving. “I guess. Maybe it was a mistake. I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking.”
“You don’t always have to think,” counters Zitao, his arms wrapping around his knees. “Do what’s right. Sometimes you just have to do what you feel like doing. You know,” he continues, “the heart knows best and all.”
“But now everything feels so weird…”
Zitao looks at Sehun, although the other’s eyes are set far away from this clearing. “But isn’t it better to feel strange with him than normal without him?”
Sehun doesn’t say anything.
***
The sun is starting to set, disappearing in between tree branches, and Zitao is about to say they should go home before the others start worrying when everything becomes twice as loud, twice as intense, twice as cataclysmic inside his head. The buzzing reverberates louder and louder, making him dizzy and ill, weak, lost.
The pressure hits him rowdily, everywhere and nowhere, and he can barely stay on his feet. It’s not a headache, not quite; but Zitao doesn’t think there is a word that encapsulates these sensations better. It’s not something he has never felt, he reminiscences vaguely; just not as a human, and definitely, never this acutely. It’s overwhelming in a displeasing way, pulsing on his temples, and he can’t find his center of gravity. He hears his name called at a distance, and it’s Sehun’s voice but it’s also not, and both feel just as far away. A pair of strong hands grabs him by the shoulders, shakes him, and he thinks he sees a mop of hair the color of cinnamon, hair the color of sand; a pair of red, brown, red eyes, and the sensation is both so familiar and so foreign that he feels like he’s going to throw up. Can vampires throw up?
It all explodes behind his eyelids with a strength that knocks him over, but he doesn’t hit the floor. He feels light and heavy, here and gone, and everything is green when he opens his eyes and everything is green when he closes them, and there’s a mop of hair like cinnamon, hair like sand, red eyes, brown eyes.
Somewhere in the back of his mind he questions if it’s always going to be like this.
The aching pressure starts to fade away slowly, very slowly, and Zitao opens his eyes. Sehun puts him upright, smothering a hand between his shoulder blades with a quiet Are you okay? Zitao ignores. No, Zitao is not okay; because juxtaposed with Sehun’s worried stare there’s a wolf running through the woods, and Zitao recognizes the thick trunks and the big leaves, and the chirping of the birds and the stepping of alarmed deers, and the rumbling of the river that’s less than one mile away from this exact clearing.
“Zitao,” calls Sehun, loud enough for Zitao to hear him over the duplicated roaring of the wind.
Zitao’s fingers grip the boy’s forearm with enough force to break a bone, was Sehun as fragile as Zitao was himself roughly a month ago. He doesn’t look at him, even when his lips open to whisper: “Run.”
“What the fuck…?”
“I said run!”
Sehun can’t know what’s going on, and maybe that’s the reason why he squares his shoulders, muscles tensing. It’s only a few seconds before he understands what the commotion was about.
He doesn’t see him; not right away. It’s only an impression, the vague consciousness of the fact that you’re not alone. The wind blows differently, whistles in an offbeat way. The immediate twitter of the sparrows in the closer branches quiets, expectant of what’s going to happen. Zitao’s own breathing halts, as well.
He doesn’t need his sense of smell in order to know who hides too close for it to be comfortable; to know who’s waiting for his chance to show up.
Sehun lets out a growl as soon as he recognizes his scent. “Not again,” he grumbles, and it seems to be almost unintentional when he steps forward, Zitao remaining still behind him.
It’s years or seconds before Sehun (and Zitao, although he didn’t really need it) manage to peek at the boy that’s treading through the coppice, slowly, so slowly that it feels like it’s going to take him millions of heartbeats until he gets to the clearing. But Zitao must have really lost the habit of counting heartbeats, because it can’t be sixty seconds in by the moment he oversteps the limits of the trees, denim covering his lower half, cut and frayed right above the knees.
“Tell your friend to back off.”
The words are rough and broad, directed not only at Zitao, despite the wording. It’s not a request -it’s an order, but Sehun laughs at the lack of authority, mocking and challenging.
“Fuck you,” he replies simply, not moving one millimeter from his spot.
“Sehun,” calls Zitao softly. This was bound to end in chaos even before starting, and Zitao doesn’t think he can handle it. Not right now. Not ever, he’s afraid.
“I didn’t run all the way here just so you could team up with him and glare at me,” accuses the Alpha.
Zitao chuckles. “What were you expecting? Flowers and chocolates? What do you even want anyway?”
Yifan doesn’t respond right away, seeming to consider his answer. “I want to talk,” he says in the end, glancing just briefly at a Sehun that appears to be deciding whether or not he should wait a few more seconds before jumping onto the other.
A scoff escapes his lips. “Talk about what? The good ol’ times?” His tone is arrant and cheeky, nonchalant even; but his whole body is tense, and the line of his jaw twitches with ire. “I think he was very clear the last time you harassed him -and the rest of us, for instance.” Zitao doesn’t think Sehun is noticing that Yifan’s hands have turned into fists, pressed at his sides; that his teeth are clenched and the vein on his temple is pulsing; that he’s shaking and Sehun should probably stop, because the last time Zitao saw Yifan like this they had to rebuild one of the walls of their cabin. “I don’t know what kinda sick obsession you have with him, but it’s done. It’s over.”
That’s the drop that fills the glass of water.
If Sehun is surprised to see the Alpha’s body convulse and tremble, the quick metamorphosis from man to beast; surprised to see the abnormally large wolf jump at him with raged decisiveness, he doesn’t show it. He takes it like he was expecting it, even, pushing Zitao aside so suddenly that the boy nothing but stumbles. He blocks the attack with his arms and pushes back, sending the animal to crash on a tree twice as thick as him.
Yifan -it’s so hard to think of him that way right now, Zitao thinks, when he’s attacking Sehun like this ̶ is quick to get back on his feet, shaking off the hit and almost not giving himself any time at all before assaulting again, and this time his aim is outright. His fauces are wide open, directed towards the ivory expanse of Sehun’s neck, and when his paws land on the boy’s stomach, he batters him down, heavy on his chest. His tusks clack alarmingly close to the younger’s flesh, and that’s where, for Zitao, everything clears.
It becomes so crisp that, for a second, it’s hard to breathe; the weight of what he’s about to do and how much it means, on so many levels, hitting him so hard that he almost, almost misses his chance.
Later on, he won’t know where he found the strength to jump onto the growling, writhing mess, but his shoulder hits the side of the amber wolf, and it’s probably the shock, and not so much the force, that makes him topple away, freeing Sehun until he can stand up again; dirty, disheveled, but safe.
Zitao stays on the floor in a squatting position, just in case he needs to jump again. His eyes are at the level of Yifan’s, if about three feet away, both still in the silence of Zitao’s newfound loyalty.
“I have tried, many times, to make myself hate you, but I could never quite manage it,” he says slowly, deliberately. He tries so hard to infuse his voice with everything he’s feeling, everything he’s felt for the past month and everything he had felt ever since he can remember, all the memories crushing down like the wall of the cabin that one stormy day, with Zitao, small and frightened, wiping away petrified tears he manages to pass as raindrops. It’s all too much, and it’s there and it’s gone, like he was roughly twenty minutes before. “I tried, to no avail. But with this, you’ve sealed the deal.” Yifan’s eyes, nailed on his, Zitao isn’t sure whether are angry or sad. Maybe both. It surprises him to find out that he doesn’t really care. “I don’t want to see you ever trying to hurt me or any of them again. If you do, I can’t promise I’m going to let you get away with it just like that.” Zitao slowly rises to his feet, his hands at his sides for balance. “You’ve already done enough damage.”
For a second, Zitao thinks he’s going to jump at him. His paws are restless on the grass, weight shifting to one another, a gloom of doubt clouding his eyes.
But then he turns around and leaves faster than he came, his musky scent still lingering in Zitao’s nostrils.
Behind him, Sehun breathes out. “That’s probably the first demi-honorable thing I’ve seen him do.”
It was probably a joke, but Zitao doesn’t laugh. Instead, he closes his eyes as Sehun’s hand rests atop his shoulder, the leaves still fluttering on the route Yifan took to run away from him one last time.
***
“Thank you,” says Zitao, his voice, barely louder than a whisper. “For not running away.”
Sehun wriggles uncomfortably. “Joonmyeon would have killed me.”
Of course he would have, thinks Zitao. But that that was the number one reason for Sehun to stay, Zitao doesn’t buy. “Yeah, right.”
The boy plays with the hem of his shirt, with his laced bracelet; with anything, as long as he doesn’t have to look at Zitao. Oh, Sehun. “Thanks to you, too. You know, for… helping. Must’ve been hard.”
Zitao manages a sardonic smile, unwilling to explain how big of an issue it really was to him, and at the same time, knowing that Sehun understands; that this is why his tone is deep and serious, instead of the uninterested negligence and fresh sass he has gotten everybody used to.
The younger shrugs before changing the topic. “You know how you didn’t believe me when I said there was nothing between Jongin and me?”
Zitao breathes easily now, happy to be back in the warmth and safety of their home. “Yeah.”
“Well,” continues Sehun; “I don’t think I believed you that, either.” His fist lands on the older’s thigh with little force, barely a replacement for the soothing caresses Zitao knows he is yet unable to give. Sehun isn’t -at least not yet- very skilled in the art of comfort, but somehow he still makes him feel better.
Zitao does, nonetheless, consider Sehun’s questioning, and in the end, he settles for explaining his feelings in a way that will make at least a bit of sense.
“How I used to feel about him… I don’t think that’s changed. A lot happened between us, even if nothing really ever did. You know?” The younger nods, the faintest bob of his head just so he knows he’s listening. “But he doesn’t feel like the same person anymore. It’s not because of who I am, if that didn’t open any breach between the rest of my pack and me. It’s him, for some reason. He feels so far away…”
Zitao has come to realize, at some point, that it never had to do with him being alone and scared as he pleaded at first. That, yeah, that definitely sucked, but it wasn’t that much about that bit as it was about Yifan putting the events over the essence, what happened to him over what he still was. That he didn’t give him the benefit of the doubt, jumping straight into conclusions and trying to sever him from what Zitao thought was his whole life. Fundamentally, it was about Yifan not trusting him enough to at least let him expose his side to the story, and making all the decisions for him.
He had always been like that, if he thinks about it. It’s just that nothing had ever been that big of a matter; everything could be solved with a movie night and some snacks, with Luhan’s obnoxious laughter filling the room and coaxing all the rest to laugh with him, to enjoy those moments of glee. It was nothing as big as seeing the person who had vowed to protect you attack the people who are actually protecting you with little to no mercy, aiming at the exact spot that’d make it all end in broken hearts and a funerary pyre.
It’s all so heartless and wicked, and Zitao can’t even begin to comprehend; can't even being to put together the image of the young boy that trembles as he holds his father’s hand, the design that marks him as the Alpha of the new generation’s pack being carved into his skin, with the enraged man that doesn’t think twice before throwing himself into a fight to the death of the weakest. They overlap and dance one in front of the other but they don’t quite match, and Zitao feels as if he missed something in between, some kind of transition that will explain this behavior.
He’s afraid he was too busy with the memories from the past to pay attention to the present, where everything he wanted was slipping in between his fingers like dry sand.
Sehun, sat on the floor with his back against Zitao’s bed and his head rested on the mattress, looks at him in between freshly washed bangs. “I hate to say this, but I guess I can kind of understand him.”
This surprises Zitao. “You do?”
“Yeah, I mean… he probably realized too late… stuff. You know. And the moment it hits you that you made what was probably the biggest mistake in your life, and you can’t withdraw no matter how much you try… You never know how it’s going to hit you.” His eyes are fixated on the window behind Zitao’s head, but they seem to be looking so much further. “I still hate him,” he clarifies, just in case. “I’m just saying I can see where he’s coming from. Maybe. If I squint.” Zitao stifles a laugh, his arms wrapping around his pillow. “I’m sorry, continue.”
“There isn’t much more to say,” admits Zitao. “All I really know is I can’t love what isn’t there anymore.”
Sehun pats his knee, and the truth echoes bitter-tasting in Zitao’s mouth.
____________________________________
a/n: lol this is not how things were going to go down but \o/
also bros!taohun woot woot