[Fic] Flight - 1/1
Title: Flight
Pairing: Zhou Mi/Kyuhyun
Rating: PG-13
Genre: AU
Summary: Deep in the mountains, a dragon roars. It is one flight to freedom, one secret heart's desire.
***
The mountain rumbled. Kyuhyun grabbed his sister’s hand, and they ran down the stone corridor. It had once been mined but rocks were strewn from earthshakes.
And the shouting behind them grew quieter as Kyuhyun veered deeper. Deeper than was safe, and deeper than he had ever explored as a child with his father warning him not to go out of sight. Past the rings of brightly painted sigils warning the unsuspecting of the dangers within.
The mountain would kill, and it would not hesitate.
“Kyuhyun,” Ahra gasped. “Look.”
It was like a graveyard, light bouncing off of bones and strewn belongings. Not of people, though. Sheep, cattle. Goats. They stood among discarded skulls and instead of men chasing them, it was a growl that greeted them, and a rumbling voice.
“You bring no tribute.”
From a gap in the stone, ten times higher than they were, light streamed. It highlighted a looming head and he shoved Ahra behind him with a muffled oath.
“D-dragon,” Kyuhyun stuttered. He looked to the door, that would take them toward danger, and back up at the shadowed head. Tribute. Animals. The animals were tribute. “We have nothing for you. We-“
“You do not come to worship. Why are you here?”
“We were collecting rocks on the mountain side. Some can still be found with gold clinging to them. But men attacked us, and we ran into the mountain to hide.”
“You will find no protection here,” the dragon grumbled. “Climb to the light, and you fall to your death. Go deeper and the stones sing until they are bright and liquid, and eat flesh from your bones.”
“And here?” Ahra asked.
“Humans are toothpicks,” was the resigned answer. “You must go.”
“But-“
Shouts of men echoed to them, and they had a choice. Move closer to the unknown, or try to run toward men they knew were armed. Maybe they wouldn’t be killed, but with anger on them, Kyuhyun didn’t know what they’d do. The small knife he carried would be nothing in their defense.
“They’ll hurt or kill us,” Kyuhyun said. “If you don’t kill people- Will you help us? You’re a dragon. You could fly us free.”
The dragon laughed, a peculiar sound that made Kyuhyun shiver. “Little human, if I could fly you free, I would not be here.”
All the hope in Kyuhyun’s body dropped. “You’re trapped?”
And the dragon rumbled.
“Then please. Let us hide. You can frighten them away?”
“I have no reason to help you.”
“If you’re trapped, is there a way we can free you?” Ahra asked, and Kyuhyun stared at her.
At the way the ground shook, and the air swirled, it seemed the dragon was surprised as well.
“You would?”
“If you promise to see us safely out,” Kyuhyun said. A shout echoed to them, and Kyuhyun stepped closer, straining to see the dragon. And his words ran over each other. “Tell us. We’ll do it.”
“When the mountain trembles, I tremble,” the dragon told him. “The markers you see, bind me. I am bound to the mountain, but have no name. It was…stolen from me. And until it is returned to me, I cannot leave.”
“But how do we know your name? How do we find it? Is it written?”
“I don’t know!” the dragon snarled.
They had a way out, but there was no way out, and Kyuhyun nearly growled in frustration back at him.
“He said he trembles with the mountain,” Ahra said. “Kyuhyun, the name of the mountain. Mount Zhou…? Grandfather used to say, when the earth shook…”
“Zhou Mi is angry,” Kyuhyun said. “Is that even possible… Zhou Mi? Is that your name?”
“This way!” they heard, a shout as fire lit shadows on the wall. The men had come.
“Come closer. Both of you,” the dragon hissed.
Kyuhyun shouted as something horrifyingly strong wrapped around him - but he screamed as he was propelled into the air.
The shouts of men were lost as the air deafened him. The sound of beating wings, and Ahra’s shrieks, and dazzling brightness.
The sun. They were outside. He twisted his neck, seeing Ahra clutched in the same type of claw he was, and a broad, shining green chest.
“Ahra, you’re a genius!” he shouted, but the words were swallowed up.
A genius but he began to note how high they were, and how far they would fall if the dragon let go. But they drifted closer to the ground and he had a different horrible fantasy, that of being driven into the ground. Or having his head ripped off.
As it was, he gulped, and sprawled face first into the grass as the dragon landed and let him go.
He spat a blade out, and scrambled for his sister, who was still righting herself.
In the light, in the tiny meadow they had landed in, the dragon - this Zhou Mi - looked even larger since they could see all of him. Wings folded, eyes large and intelligent and trained on them. He put away the trembling in his knees, squeezed Ahra’s shoulders, and stood.
“Thank you. Zhou Mi. Ahhh. Yes. Thank you. You’re…free now?”
“I am in your debt, little human.”
Had it been a human saying those words, he might have rankled. But in front of the dragon, easily twice his height even crouched, it was nothing but the truth.
“But you saved us, so…” Kyuhyun babbled. He’d seen a dragon once before. He’d been seven and fighting between the urge to run forward for a better look or hide behind Ahra in case it looked at him. And right then as a grown man, he wasn’t any less caught between the two, only he’d have been beside Ahra instead. His sense that he was very little to the creature was impossible to ignore.
“You released me from my prison. For that, you may ask your one true desire. If it is in my power, I will grant it.”
Kyuhyun’s mouth dropped open. It was like some kind of story he’d been told as a child. He thought wildly, hoping to think of something with the dragon’s head rocking back and forth. A mountain made of gold. A storehouse full of food. A hundred dancing men, and- Oh.
“You speak the truth?”
“On my honor,” Zhou Mi said.
Dragons had honor. Things he had never known. Kyuhyun looked back at his sister and stepped forward.
“Kyuhyun!”
He held his hand back toward her, step by step getting closer to the head of the dragon.
“You can hear me?” he asked softly, and the dragon snorted softly in agreement. “You know the way it is of men? When it is another man they desire, not a woman? I cannot ask you to take that from me. But if you could… If you could help me to find a man who could love me as I am-“
“That is your desire?”
“It is.”
Not something a dragon could procure, he thought. But then he didn’t know how a dragon would find a golden mountain or food for the winter, either. Perhaps Ahra would have thought of more sensible things. But they were not in such a bad place. What they had, the rocks in their pockets from the mountain, would hold them. They would not have less in the end.
“Your name, human?”
“Kyuhyun,” he said, nervous. Hoping he hadn’t asked the wrong thing, and was going to get some kind of curse instead.
“I can grant your request, Kyuhyun.”
“What? How?” Kyuhyun asked, and gaped as the dragon lumbered awkwardly back. The dragon’s head lowered, and shoulders fell. At first, Kyuhyun thought he might be lying down. Until Kyuhyun nearly fell over himself staring at the crumbling, shrinking skin. Getting darker and thinner, like ash rolling in the wind. Shrinking until the wings encompassed it, until even those fell away.
Until all that was left was skin. Human skin. And hair as deep and black as the dragon’s eyes had been. Kyuhyun stumbled forward, more than walked, but he got closer. Watched long fingers curl in the grass as the man shifted and sat up from being crouched over. And Kyuhyun knelt. He’d faced a dragon standing tall, but in the presence of a man looking at him with curious eyes, he was unsure. A man that was where a dragon had been. Lifted brows and a wide mouth, and startling eyes.
“Zhou Mi?” Kyuhyun asked, his voice catching in the middle, trying to stop himself from making a huge gaffe.
“Yes. I am Zhou Mi.”
The whole day was strange. Too strange. Escaping into the mountain. Rescuing and being rescued by a dragon. His sister- There was a naked man, and behind him was his sister.
“Stay there,” he commanded, though it sounded more like a question as he struggled to his feet and headed off Ahra.
She consented to give up one of her skirts, so that Zhou Mi wouldn’t be naked. Not that it bothered him but-
“Ahra, this is Zhou Mi. Zhou Mi, this is my sister. Um.”
“We’ve met,” Ahra said, as usual surprising him as she smiled at Zhou Mi. But her next words were for Kyuhyun. “What did you ask of him?”
Before Zhou Mi could even dream of answering, Kyuhyun rushed out, “That I need a man to help me in the fields.”
And he looked at Zhou Mi, imploring him not to contradict him. But as Kyuhyun’s face heated, Zhou Mi did nothing but nod.
But as they walked together toward the little village where they lived and their homes, Kyuhyun’s mind was racing. As Ahra tossed out the occasional curious question to Zhou Mi, Kyuhyun was wondering how much money it would take to clothe Zhou Mi, get him shoes. He didn’t know if Zhou Mi would be any help with gathering grain, or caring for the horses. Kyuhyun cupped the rocks in his pocket and hoped that he would have enough to see it through. He could sell some reserved grain, if he had to. He couldn’t just leave Zhou Mi naked in his house until-
Until he didn’t know what. He had a man he didn’t know what to do with.
A man he had certainly not been expecting.
***
Ahra parted from them, sending a very significant look at Kyuhyun as though to tell him he was on his own. She would leave her favorite brother alone with a man who’d once been a dragon, sure.
He was her only brother but that didn’t make any difference.
But Kyuhyun had never been so glad of the drive to set up his own home, away from his parents as soon as he had left school. The house on property his father had bought had been perfect for his needs. It had several rooms, a loft. It was old, needed repair, but fixing it had been easier than starting anew. His father gave him the land it stood on, the fields around it, so that he could start establishing himself. He’d worked years at his father’s side for that opportunity.
With the first money he’d earned, his first sale of grain, he’d bought two glass windows. They were his pride and joy, though he hadn’t told anyone that. He had room to house a man, but he first had to find a way to wrap his mind around what that man was, how he’d found him. It had been no more than two hours since he’d been running for his life, now he had some kind of magical creature in human form, wrapped in a skirt.
Clothes, then, were his first priority. He had long underwear, a shirt, that would suffice to cover Zhou Mi in the short term. He could take one of his horses into the town and purchase real clothes.
“So, this is my home,” Kyuhyun said, letting Zhou Mi in ahead of him. “I live here alone. My sister is getting married soon, so she still lives with my parents. So it’s just…us.”
And Kyuhyun looked around him, seeing what Zhou Mi would see. A table with a couple of chairs, a wood-burning stove that both heated the house when needed and served to cook on. His bedroom was behind a wall that his sister had decorated with a couple of pretty, if cracked and unusable plates. He had a small bookshelf, his other pride and joy, and several lanterns set around. Some table games were stacked in a corner. If he got too bored, sometimes he played against himself. Usually those times were when he was either caught up with work, or ignoring the work he didn’t want to do.
“It’s pleasant,” Zhou Mi said. “And you let light in.”
Yes, his windows.
“Otherwise it’s too dark. Let’s get you clothes.” He led Zhou Mi to the bedroom, and didn’t even stop to considering until he was pulling the clothes he’d planned out. He looked to Zhou Mi with a question. “You know how clothes work?”
Zhou Mi smiled at him, reaching with one hand to take the cloth. “Yes. I have lived among humans before.”
And that was that. Kyuhyun didn’t ask in what way he’d lived among humans, but he left Zhou Mi to dress and wondered what they would eat.
Kyuhyun gulped as Zhou Mi emerged in the loose shirt hanging below his hips, and the long underwear accentuating his legs. He looked, really looked, at the man he’d brought home and was fascinated. Curiosity raged in him.
“So…You’re human. You’re going to stay human?”
“I believe so,” Zhou Mi said, staring at his outstretched hands. “That was our agreement.”
“Okay,” Kyuhyun said, not really knowing what was going through his mind.
“I could help you in your work, as you told your sister,” Zhou Mi told him. “If I don’t know how, teach me.”
Kyuhyun was stumped. He really had no idea what to say. To tell Zhou Mi thank you, or to insist differently. He had no idea how to proceed, besides making sure Zhou Mi’s most urgent, basic needs were met.
A place to sleep. He had built the bed under his father’s watchful eye. And he had built it for two, since his father thought that since Kyuhyun was striking out on his own, he was going to be looking for a wife. It seemed strange to think of asking Zhou Mi to sleep in the loft, when the bed was right there. And his face heated.
“So, our agreement. I don’t… You love me?”
Zhou Mi’s smile didn’t waver. “No. You asked for a man who could love you. Not for one who will, or one who does - I could not grant that. But I am a man now, and I could. It is in the scope of my power, my feelings, my humanity, to fulfill our agreement. It is not a guarantee.”
So he could fall for Zhou Mi, but Zhou Mi might never tender feelings in return. It was a risk. Life was a risk, he thought with a sigh.
“Is there anything you don’t like to eat?” he blurted, hoping to turn their attention away from his misstep. “Do you eat raw meat?”
“I eat whatever a human might,” Zhou Mi said. “I’m not a dragon now. I want to learn the things you like.”
“Okay. Okay. Good.”
And he tried not to feel watched as Zhou Mi stood beside him as he cooked, serving them up a simple meal at the table and lighting a lantern for them as the room grew darker.
The lamplight on the angles of Zhou Mi’s face, the depth of his eyes. He wanted to touch Zhou Mi’s hair and see if it felt soft, if the skin of his neck was warm to the touch.
He rested, very still in his bed with Zhou Mi beside him, and thought of all the questions he had not asked. If Zhou Mi would miss being a dragon, how he had become human, how he seemed to know so much.
The dragon had been so full of pain and so alone, even Kyuhyun could see that. Locked away, Zhou Mi had grasped at his freedom. Freedom that came with a price. Kyuhyun turned his head, looking to where Zhou Mi rested on his back. Even there, he had not fought Kyuhyun, accepting where he would sleep. What he ate, what he wore, what he did. Kyuhyun rolled and buried his face into his pillow. He had not been as alone as Zhou Mi, but he had been alone. He wanted to know everything Zhou Mi knew. Wanted to know what it felt like to fly when he wasn’t afraid for his life.
He wondered if dragons knew how to kiss, if they wanted to hold hands.
He wondered how to woo a dragon.
***
With a tracing of Zhou Mi’s foot, and a couple of general measurements for length for pants and sleeves, Kyuhyun got everything Zhou Mi would need to wear. Extra food and supplies as well, as he’d traded in his ore. It had meant leaving Zhou Mi at home, which had been worry in itself. Even if he’d asked Zhou Mi to stay inside, he’d pushed his horse a little harder. With the fire not burning and the lamps off, Zhou Mi couldn’t burn down the house or flood it. He was more worried for Zhou Mi wandering away, getting lost or hurt. Zhou Mi wasn’t a child, and he knew that, but he didn’t know what all Zhou Mi knew.
Hell, he didn’t even know if Zhou Mi could read. And a strange man wandering the fields and woods in nothing but underwear would cause a bit of a stir and make people think that Kyuhyun had taken in a man who was possibly just a little bit not fully there in the head. And he would be scolded by his parents, for putting them and his sister in danger by taking in a very strange stranger.
“Kyuhyun is back!” were the first words he heard when he opened his front door, only to see Ahra and Zhou Mi sitting at his table with cups of tea and slices of pie.
His grain sack full of supplies felt a bit more heavy when he stared, and Ahra just smiled at him.
“Put that down and have some tea,” she told him. “Zhou Mi told me you’d gone to buy him clothes. I hope you got nice ones?”
He got that strange little twist in his gut as he had Zhou Mi follow him, as they stood together at the bed and looked over the clothes Kyuhyun had bought. Zhou Mi’s shoulder brushed his as he fondled the material of the shirt, the new socks, the pants and underwear.
“Put them on, so Ahra doesn’t nag,” Kyuhyun suggested. “She thinks I’ll dress you in sackcloth.”
Zhou Mi laughed softly.
And he waited with Ahra, pouring himself a cup of tea to keep from wringing his hands.
And when Zhou Mi walked out, legs long in dark jeans and arms covered in dark red cloth.
Even with his hair a bit wild and long, it was the first real impression that a man was standing there in front of him.
“He looks ready to go to work,” Ahra said, satisfied.
He looked ready for so much more than that.
***
When Ahra had left, leaving behind food for them, his first question had been: “What did you tell her about why you’re here?”
Zhou Mi had sent him a curious look. “That I am here to work? You made it clear that you did not want her to know the true reason.”
She had not seemed strained or awkward, or trying to avoid him. But some of the tightness in his back abated, just in knowing that Zhou Mi would not expose him. He thought of the last day. Zhou Mi dressing himself, feeding himself.
Needing no clarification of what Kyuhyun had meant.
“You accepted it so easily,” Kyuhyun murmured. “You said you’ve been with humans before?”
Zhou Mi tilted his head, never taking his eyes from Kyuhyun’s. “Yes.”
“Were you always a dragon before?”
“I was born a dragon. I have lived as a human, many times. Once I could not read, but I learned. I learned many things. Humans are more social than dragons could ever dream of. I had no desire to find a mate, sire young. Your request spoke very deeply to me.”
Then they were perhaps more alike than he had realized. Or perhaps his request had caused it. He didn’t know.
“I like your windows very much,” Zhou Mi said, gesturing to each wall in turn.
“That can be one of your duties, if you want. You can keep them clean.”
“Show me how!”
Zhou Mi was eager. Not as though he was working for Kyuhyun, but as though it was his house as well. Not only with the windows, he worked without complaint at Kyuhyun’s side, learning how Kyuhyun liked the wagon hitched, how he rubbed down his horses, and fed them. He walked with Kyuhyun to inspect the grain and inspect the buildings for disrepair.
Working as he did, it was sometime lonely. When he had an extra set of hands, such as when his father helped him, they did not often do the same task. There were times his sister accompanied him. So it was something new, to look over and find someone looking back, responding to him, laughing at his jokes. An extra hand to be there in case he needed a tool, or give him a boost.
Someone who was amazed by the world, as Zhou Mi’s hand slid down Kyuhyun’s arm and pointed at the deer standing at the edge of the trees.
“How graceful they are,” Zhou Mi said admiringly.
“What a nice meal they’d make,” Kyuhyun echoed.
“That’s true, also,” Zhou Mi said, half giggling into his shoulder. “I’ve hunted more than few. But that doesn’t make them less beautiful.”
“Do they have much chance when you’re stalking them from the air?”
“Not much. Though if the trees got too thick, it was a problem. Farmers get angry if I take their livestock.”
Kyuhyun didn’t keep many animals, getting his own from his parents when it came time to butcher, but yes, he could imagine.
Still, he felt the touch of Zhou Mi’s hand for the longest time after that, after they had spent a couple of sweaty hours moving rocks out of a field that Kyuhyun wanted to use. Laughing at Zhou Mi’s form as he threw the rocks made Kyuhyun’s stomach ache, and he drenched them both in some of the water he’d brought to drink when they could take no more, sprawled in the shade and leaning into every wisp of breeze.
“I want to do so much. I’ll never have the money to do it. I want a bigger barn, and buy more land. I’d need to hire a man to help. Not even you and I could do everything. I want another window in the house, and to finish it nicer. Maybe get a nice blanket for the bed. I saw one that was so warm at the store when I bought your clothes. Another horse, more tools. Maybe even a nicer stove, and a couple of fruit trees. I just want things nicer.”
Kyuhyun’s dreams poured out of him like water, to ears without judgement. Zhou Mi just wanted to know, making interested sounds. They were dreams, of course. Dreams as likely to come true as him growing wings. He could maybe buy the blanket, if things went well. Something small, and something necessary for when the weather got cooler. Though that was hard to imagine, as hot as it still was.
“I’ll help you choose the blanket. What will we eat tonight?” Zhou Mi asked, knees waggling in the air as though calling the wind to them.
“We’ll feast,” Kyuhyun said. “Eggs. Bread that Ahra brought yesterday. Berries.”
“You should hire someone to cook,” Zhou Mi said, poking fun.
“You could learn how to cook.”
“You’d never let me out of the house.”
Kyuhyun laughed long and hard, because that was possibly true. If he had a full meal to go home to every night, he would be unlikely to give it up.
“You’re too much help out here,” Kyuhyun admitted. “It’s nice to have someone to talk to. Even if you don’t know, you have good ideas. It’s better than asking my dad, who seems to think I need to learn more if I open my mouth.”
“Sometimes being alone is like the breeze I wished we felt now,” Zhou Mi said. “But sometimes it is just alone.”
Then they both understood.
And Zhou Mi sighed. “I enjoy being out here with you, too.”
Kyuhyun hid his smile in his crossed arms, and groaned in joy as the wind cooled them. But even if Zhou Mi was with him in the fields, the windows continued to sparkle.
***
They learned about each other, little by little. Dragons didn’t count years as humans did, so Zhou Mi had no real way of telling him how old he was. They talked when working, when eating their meals, hauling water for baths, or in bed. He had put “wooing” out of his head. Becoming Zhou Mi’s friend, helping him adjust when it was hard. Zhou Mi didn’t know everything, and he was sometimes quiet, looking out the window as though he’d forgotten Kyuhyun was there.
There was a strange oldness, the way Zhou Mi spoke of any different lives. The way his lips would curl, eyes thoughtful as Kyuhyun told a story, as though he were committing it all to memory. When he remembered that it was not just a normal man sitting with him, learning game rules and asking him questions about books, his brain hurt a little. Zhou Mi’s laughter was so free, came so quickly, unlike any man Kyuhyun had known. There were things about him that were so utterly human, and other time not, such as when he had to watch Kyuhyun very closely to see how he should respond. It was not naiveté, not really. Just that the world had changed since Zhou Mi had had been locked away. And Zhou Mi’s only contact had been with people so frightened of his roars of hunger, that they brought him food. Also, when Zhou Mi was a dragon he could do anything, go anywhere. Kyuhyun’s struggles of survival, to make his living, they were known to Zhou Mi. But it seemed so strange that a creature so fantastic would be reduced to building fires, and mucking manure.
Those were the times that he wondered what he was doing, if he was doing the right thing. And also about Zhou Mi’s past.
They’d finished eating dinner together one night when he looked up from the dish bucket, and his mouth asked what he’d been musing for weeks.
“When you were human, had you had feelings for a man?”
Zhou Mi frowned slightly. “Yes.”
“And you’d lived with people.”
“Yes. The last time, with the man who imprisoned me in that mountain.”
“Why did he do that?” Kyuhyun asked, his mouth dry. Perhaps Zhou Mi had done something terrible. Perhaps he’d let out a monster. But he’d thought all of that to start, when the desperation and gladness of being safe had worn off.
Zhou Mi looked away, his voice very soft as he said, “Because I could not love him.”
Kyuhyun nearly fell back a step. “What?”
“The bargain between he and I was different than yours. I worked for him, flew for him when he needed. Created terror when he needed. But he wanted me… Wanted me to want him more than I ever could. It was another man I loved. Someone else.”
“Is he still alive?”
Zhou Mi shook his head. “Long dead, I imagine. I was in the mountain for a long time. And not long before I left, he was married. So perhaps it was a kindness.”
“Oh.”
“You are a little like him.”
Kyuhyun looked at him warily. “Could he have been my grandfather?”
Zhou Mi made a soft sound. “No. It isn’t looks. It is your manner. He had a lovely voice as well.”
Kyuhyun hummed. “I never asked you if you knew my grandfather.”
“I cannot, Kyuhyun.”
“You knew him? Did you know him?” Kyuhyun reached, and caught Zhou Mi’s arm. “Did you? He knew your name. Did he hear the story? If he wasn’t the one you were in love with, then did he lock you up?”
“I cannot! I don’t know!” Zhou Mi was breathing hard. “He took that from me, too, along with my name.”
“To protect himself if you escaped?”
Zhou Mi lowered his head, his mouth sulky, but his eyes near to anger. “Perhaps. Would it matter to you, if he had been your grandfather?”
That stumped Kyuhyun for a moment. “Maybe a little. Well, I guess it would’ve been fitting that if he bound you, that I set you free? Ahra and I.” He hadn’t forgotten that he might have been a chunk of dragon jerky if she hadn’t been there. “But it would’ve been kind of strange, too. I don’t think I’d have liked me much, if I were you.”
“You would have had nothing to do with his choices. And you are your own man. I was here before for some time, so it’s possible many people knew my name. And I do like you. Especially when you feed me.”
A subtle hint that he was delaying dessert. Still, he took a moment, folding the towel, trying to get his thoughts together.
“It’s nice having you here,” he said finally. And to wipe away his feelings of embarrassment, he threw a rag at Zhou Mi’s face, and turned to get their dessert.
***
Life wasn’t all work. Sometimes, it was the best of play. Like telling Zhou Mi they should stop working, put away their tools, and spend the afternoon at the creek. It was hot enough, a late fall spurt of heat, that he thought they deserved it. That, and Kyuhyun’s skin itched with sweat and dirt, and he could think of nothing else but getting his tired feet into the cool water of the creek.
He nearly cried with laugher as Zhou Mi, his shoes abandoned, plunged into the creek. Even if the water barely went over his ankles, it was cold and standing upright, Zhou Mi was flailing like a fish as he danced in it.
“I told you. You’ll get used to it.”
“It feels good,” Zhou Mi insisted, finally stopping his march just to stand there and feel. “Come in with me.”
He’d already been sliding his shoes off. Still, Zhou Mi looked endearingly appealing with both hands held out and his hips waggling side to side. He was eager for Kyuhyun to join him, and he wasn’t sure that he wanted to resist.
The cold was bracing, but not frigid, but he did a little dance that got Zhou Mi’s laughter as he waded in.
“You made it look horrible,” he teased, and Zhou Mi nearly spun around.
He bent, rubbing his hands in the silt, and beckoned Zhou Mi close. Zhou Mi, not even a bit wary, followed Kyuhyun’s invitation.
And then Kyuhyun wiped cold mud down his cheek.
Zhou Mi gasped, hand flying up to feel what Kyuhyun had done. When his hand came away dirty, Zhou Mi fixed judging eyes on him.
“Kyuhyun!”
“It looks good on you,” Kyuhyun shot back, laughter coloring his voice.
And he only sort of shrieked, when Zhou Mi reached down with both hands and sent waves of water at him. It began the water battle to end all water battles, wet hands grasping at clothes, and feet being used to kick up sheets of water. Kyuhyun hollered as he lost his balance, sitting hard on the creek bed with Zhou Mi over him in an instant. His whole body arched, cringing as the cold flooded his back, his neck, the back of his head.
“That’s cold!” he chattered, and Zhou Mi just laughed at him.
“You’ll get used to it,” Zhou Mi told him, using his own words against him.
He already was, as long as he didn’t breathe and get a different part of his skin wet.
But the more his focus was not on the cold and the rushing water, it was on Zhou Mi hovering above him. Zhou Mi’s face, sliding from his smile to something more curious. His own caught in indecision, barely remembering to breathe as Zhou Mi’s head dipped - just enough so that Kyuhyun saw the movement. Shivers raced up his arms but not from cold as he stared at Zhou Mi’s mouth.
“Kyuhyun?”
He didn’t know how to say yes, how to rise from from where he was frozen. His fingers curled uselessly in the loose cloth of Zhou Mi’s shirt. Water dripped onto his face from Zhou Mi’s hair, but the only thing he felt was the tip of the cool, wet nose that brushed his. He exhaled, eyes closing before they could cross, and it was a plea.
“Kyuhyun! Zhou Mi?”
Ahra.
Kyuhyun’s hand hit the water with a splash, and Zhou Mi stood, reaching to grasp Kyuhyun’s arm and pull him up as well.
“Over here!” Kyuhyun shouted, hoping he didn’t sound as strained as he felt as he slopped out of the stream to grab his shoes and start for the house.
***
Kyuhyun had changed first, stripping out of his wet clothes, and drying off. While Zhou Mi did the same, he walked with his sister, showing her the things they had been doing. How much they’d accomplished.
“You seem happier,” Ahra said.
“Yes. It's nice to have someone to help get things done.”
Ahra was silent a moment, before looking over at him. “Is work what you truly asked of him?”
“Yes? Why?”
“He looks at you so strangely sometimes, as though he's trying to understand what you're thinking.”
“Oh. Well, he is a dragon.”
And that was the best explanation Kyuhyun could come up, without thinking too hard. Zhou Mi was very human and that was true, but he had never known any other dragons. Zhou Mi was as human as he was, and perhaps it was due to his years living with humans. It surprised and delighted him, and the times when he was able to teach Zhou Mi something new he felt the strange connection to Zhou Mi grow just a bit stronger. As though he were helping Zhou Mi to grow, opening his eyes to new things. The twinkle in Zhou Mi’s eyes, the curiosity. Perhaps making the years alone fade, just a little.
Ahra hummed as they walked. “I wonder how long his bargain will last.”
“What do you mean?”
“He's repaying you for his release. Surely it can't last forever.”
Kyuhyun's stomach twisted. “So you think one day he’ll think the agreement’s been paid and just…go?”
She looked at him strangely. “Don’t you? Or did you ask him to stay for the rest of your life?”
“No. I mean. That’s just asking to be killed, right? He’d drown me somehow.”
Kyuhyun was fairly certain that she rolled her eyes at him before patting his head and leaving. She was concerned about his wellbeing, but she didn’t actually think Zhou Mi was going to turn back into a dragon and eat him. Of course, with her gone, he was taking shorter and shorter steps back to his front door.
If she was right, then Zhou Mi could leave at any time. Of course he could, he’d always known that. All that kept Zhou Mi there was his promise, but he assumed at least that Zhou Mi was able to turn back into a dragon at any time. He hadn’t stolen that ability from Zhou Mi. He hoped. He hadn’t enjoyed the short flight from the mountain enough to want to replicate it, so there was no real reason to ask.
Zhou Mi was moving the food Ahra had brought around in a pan on the stove, and he smiled as Kyuhyun came in and closed the door.
“Did she go back?”
“She did. Dry clothes are nice after all that cold.”
“It’s warm here by the stove,” Zhou Mi said, and held out his hand.
WIth Ahra there, he could put Zhou Mi’s face being so close to him out of his head. But not then, not with the smell of good food and Zhou Mi’s hand closing around his.
Of course that worked for all of ten seconds because Zhou Mi was staring between them as though trying to figure out how he was going to stir the food and still keep Kyuhyun’s hand at the same time.
So Kyuhyun took over cooking, and it was Zhou Mi’s job to keep holding on.
***
The dark was not a chokehold, as he blew out the lamp and watched the heat at the end of the wick abate. It was comfortable, and warm, and there was light coming through the window enough to see as he swung his feet into bed.
“Kyuhyun?”
“Mm?” he said, turning his head if not his body to see what Zhou Mi needed.
“You looked nice wet.”
The laugh almost exploded out of him since that was the last thing he’d expected to hear.
“What?”
“In the creek. Your shirt was wet. Your face.”
“You were dripping on me.” And Kyuhyun paused, as a thought crossed his mind. “Are you attracted to humans when you’re a dragon? Or is it just when you’re human? Or…”
Zhou Mi’s breathing was very soft, and very close, as Zhou Mi turned to him.
“The body I am in dictates that. When I am a dragon, I may want to seek the company of dragons. When I am human, it is the form of humans that is pleasing to me. But whether I am one or the other, I remember my feelings, even if it sometimes feels like a dream.”
Zhou Mi’s hand covered the side of his face, the touch soft, warm, and Kyuhyun wondered. He wondered, as Zhou Mi’s breath warmed his lips, a question asked without words. And when Kyuhyun did not protest…
He could not have stopped Zhou Mi, did not want to. He wanted.
It took a couple of stuttering attempts, but Zhou Mi’s lips pressed against his. And it felt like his whole body drew up. Lungs stopping, hands curling in the blanket as he took in every moment of the touch and tried to chase it as Zhou Mi pulled away. He had to pull in a hard breath, heart beating wildly and face burning as Zhou Mi stayed near.
“I would remember this,” Zhou Mi said. “No matter what I was.”
“Would you remember why?” Kyuhyun asked.
“Why I kissed you?”
“Yes.”
Zhou Mi was quiet a moment, stroking the hair in front of Kyuhyun’s ear.
“Yes. Because I wanted to.”
They breathed almost in unison for a few moments, before Kyuhyun asked, “Why did you want to?”
And to his credit, Zhou Mi did not attempt to strangle him. But Kyuhyun didn’t know the answer. Why Zhou Mi wanted to kiss him - for himself, because he thought he owed it to Kyuhyun, that was an important distinction.
Zhou Mi’s fingers never stopped stroking his face.
“Because I needed to,” Zhou Mi told him.
Zhou Mi had been alone for a long time. Maybe, to him, Kyuhyun was as much a relief. A touch, one that was wanted.
“Me too,” Kyuhyun said, and Zhou Mi’s soft laughter carried a smile. “Could I…?”
It was the first time he kissed a man, an adult, and his teeth bit into his lips under the force of his enthusiasm at first. But it softened, and Zhou Mi with it, stroking his hair, and smiling against his mouth. Zhou Mi. He was kissing Zhou Mi. He’d had no idea if he’d ever have that chance, if Zhou Mi would ever want- And he had kissed Kyuhyun first. Had nearly kissed him in the creek when Zhou Mi had been wet and beautiful above him. It made him shiver, and yearn, and it took time for the reality of it to fade enough for him to relax.
He fell asleep to Zhou Mi’s fingertips tracing the back of his hand.
***
Kyuhyun had had, at most, a few kisses in his lifetime. A couple from classmates, girls, when he’d been younger. One time, he’d been fifteen and had gone to the city with his father, hours away. There had been a stable boy about his age in the place they had gone to buy breeding stock. They’d had two days to get to know each other, and maybe a handful of fumbling kisses in empty stalls and dark corners. He hadn’t fancied himself in love, but the feelings inside of himself had made so much more sense after the boy had smiled at him and told him he had a pretty mouth, and that he only kissed other boys.
There were boys who wanted to kiss other boys, besides himself.
But none where he lived. The tiny community with its ring of mountains. Villages separated by forests and wide swaths of farms. He didn’t know if anyone there would understand. He couldn’t express interest to another boy, or as an adult, a man. And his parents assumed he was like all the other boys he’d grown up knowing. That he would want a wife.
But he didn’t. He wanted what Zhou Mi, who had not even been born human, showed him. The tender press of a nose tracing beside his. Fingers curling between his, and words softly said against his ear. The curve of an arm in the small of his back, tight and strong, as he gripped Zhou Mi just as intently. Sometimes he wondered that they didn’t merge into each other entirely.
But Kyuhyun was a fast learner. He knew the kisses he wanted, the places Zhou Mi wanted to be touched. That Zhou Mi was ticklish and would squirm, even when the squirming left them panting and with the occasional moan.
They had been teasing each other with kisses and languid hugs and play, for almost a month, before Zhou Mi had him arching in pleasure, with his mouth against Kyuhyun’s neck. He’d felt everything, the warm length of Zhou Mi’s thighs, the comfort of the gentle curve of Zhou Mi’s backside pressed against him in the night. As the nights grew colder, Zhou Mi was warm. He greeted Kyuhyun with kisses when he woke, and was cheerful when Kyuhyun nearly ruined their dinner.
The first time he’d seen Zhou Mi’s back and truly allowed himself to appreciate it, Zhou Mi had been sweaty and dusty from helping him shovel grain.
From the dark hair plastered to Zhou Mi’s neck, to the breadth of his shoulders, and the gleaming muscles and dips and lines as his ribs flared and narrowed to where his pants were tightly belted. Kyuhyun could all too well imagine pushing those down Zhou Mi’s hips, watching more skin bared. Zhou Mi’s legs. His ankles.
When Zhou Mi had turned from wiping his face on his shirt, the view had not gotten less appealing, and had done nothing to abate the ache in Kyuhyun’s body. Cleaning up had been much more fun than getting dirty had been.
And in bed, he read to Zhou Mi. He positioned himself as close to the lamp as he could, and Zhou Mi pressed his head on Kyuhyun’s shoulder, his hand splayed wide over Kyuhyun’s stomach. They talked, sometimes, so long until the lamp sputtered and died, leaving them in darkness and the dawn and work to be done not all that far away. He reversed their position and used Zhou Mi’s chest as his pillow. And as Zhou Mi stroked his hair, his heart ached.
He had freed Zhou Mi from one prison, and he had become one instead.
Because for all the gentle moments, the smiles and laughs. All the ways he tried to make Zhou Mi happy, even by making him food he liked, or letting him choose a game to play or book to read. All those moments were so many, and they did not outweigh the times he found Zhou Mi at the window looking out, his expression wistful as though he could not go beyond the glass.
Of course he could, though, Kyuhyun argued. Zhou Mi had gone out of the door numerous times alone, and many places on the property as well. He wasn’t a prisoner in the house.
Only with Kyuhyun. It was Kyuhyun he could not leave, because of what Zhou Mi felt he owed Kyuhyun. He had become a man, who might possibly one day love Kyuhyun. But that didn’t mean that Zhou Mi would be happy.
One day he looked in the house, the barn, at the creek, for Zhou Mi. Anxiety tightened in his throat, wondering if Zhou Mi had left, if there would be no more walks with his hand grasping Zhou Mi’s.
But it was worse than that. Movement caught his eye when he was walking back, and he saw that Zhou Mi had climbed the ladder, was sitting on the roof of the barn. Birds were wheeling overhead, and Zhou Mi’s hand had raised, as though he could catapult himself up with them - able to fly, be free.
With Kyuhyun, he was doomed to a life of calloused hands and terrible cooking, and hardships. Relying on the seasons to be kind, and the weather. It was hard work, rewarding work, but it must have been so mundane to a dragon. If Kyuhyun had wings, he would have flown to the ocean. Seen all the lands mentioned in his books, and not just dreamed of them in a lumpy bed. Zhou Mi felt like one of those places, like he was something fantastical and unreal.
When Zhou Mi had climbed down, Kyuhyun was already in the house. And when Zhou Mi opened the door, his expression when he saw Kyuhyun was a smile.
“What will we eat tonight? Do you want to play a game? Are you tired?”
The expression on Kyuhyun’s face must have been severe.
He wanted to ask if Zhou Mi was in any way happy, but was afraid of the answer.
So they ate, and they played a game, and he let Zhou Mi kiss him as they stood in front of the stove. So normal, grasping at Zhou Mi’s waist and listening to his sighs.
“We should get some rest,” Zhou Mi told him, his fingertips circling on the back of Kyuhyun’s neck.
It made him want to press his face into Zhou Mi’s shoulder and inhale and remember every good thing. Rolling in the creek. Kissing Zhou Mi against the side of the barn until they had both been breathless and laughing. Zhou Mi’s pretty mouth curving into a smile before Kyuhyun kissed him.
And he thought of Zhou Mi alone, on the rooftop, yearning.
And though he had been able to ignore Zhou Mi’s looks, the wistful way he stared out the windows, it was harder to push that away. He saw, watched for every moment that might mean Zhou Mi was sad. The faraway look in his eyes that would flicker before being replaced with a smile when he saw Kyuhyun.
Even knowing how much that must hurt, it took him a week to truly make his decision. He knew it was selfish, waiting. But every moment, maybe after dinner, or maybe in the morning, he always found an excuse to put it off. Perhaps Zhou Mi looked really happy that morning, or they had really important work to finish that day, or maybe just one more game.
Just one more kiss.
***
Zhou Mi had no idea why Kyuhyun was leading him away from the house that day. Perhaps he’d been preparing himself, saying goodbye in as many ways as he could. He’d made Zhou Mi’s favorite breakfast, cuddled with him in front of the fire in the way that Zhou Mi seemed to like best. There had been kisses, and Kyuhyun had tried not to let his emotions run away with him.
All he needed to do was get them far enough so Zhou Mi could turn into the dragon without being cramped. Room for his wings to spread. That was all.
“What surprise is this?” Zhou Mi asked, as they stopped in the middle of the field nearest the house.
“A good one, I hope,” Kyuhyun said. “I think you should go.”
“Go where?”
“I release you from our agreement,” Kyuhyun told him. “You should be able to fly with the birds instead of just staring at them. You owe nothing more to me.”
“But Kyuhyun-“
“It doesn’t matter if you fulfilled what you stayed for. I made a mistake asking you. You’re miserable, and you did your best. There’s too many bad memories around here anyway.”
Maybe it would’ve been so much different if Zhou Mi had been happy. When he wondered if he was making the right decision, the way the Zhou Mi was staring at him as though he was being betrayed, he thought of Zhou Mi alone on the rooftop and reaching for the sky.
And he could never be that sky, even if Zhou Mi wanted him to be.
“So, go. Have a good life. Enjoy freedom. Don’t let anyone lock you in any more mountains. I won’t find you next time.”
He turned, though his knees felt too light, like he was walking on springs. Watching with hollow eyes as he scuttled more than walked toward the house and the inside where he could hide. If he couldn’t feel Zhou Mi’s eyes on him, he wouldn’t feel tempted to turn back and tell him that he could stay, but only if he wanted to.
The door slammed shut behind him, and he made it as far as the table, palms smarting as they hit it and held him upright. And the words choked through his lips.
“Would our agreement have ended, if you’d come to love me? I couldn’t ask you that.”
Zhou Mi might have left, leaving Kyuhyun to know the person he’d wanted had been just there in his grasp. It was better before he knew. The dark richness of Zhou Mi’s hair beneath his fingers, and the softness of his mouth, and his laughter as Kyuhyun chased him. The strength of his arm around Kyuhyun’s shoulders, and the hopeful smiles. It felt as though he’d cracked.
And Kyuhyun’s knees met the floor as the entire house shook with the force of the roar. Dishes rattled and the world vibrated, the plates Ahra had hung crashing down off the wall.
Then the windows exploded. Shards of glass fell to the floor and shattered as Kyuhyun's heart. The whoosh of air, the sounds of wings, and then silence.
The dragon had gone.
Zhou Mi had gone.
He had just barely made it standing, beginning to sweep the glass into a pile, by the time Ahra pushed through the door.
“What happened?” she gasped, winded from having run the whole way. “It sounded like a dragon. Did Zhou Mi…?”
“He fulfilled our agreement,” Kyuhyun said, and kept sweeping. But he stopped, when she touched his arm.
“Are you okay?”
“Of course. Just more to do myself now.”
He wasn’t sure whether she believed him or not. But she helped him to clean, held boards to cover up the broken windows so he could nail them in place, and cooked a simple dinner for him before leaving.
The house was dark with the windows covered, and he sucked at a cut on his thumb from the glass and nursed a mug of old and bitter wine.
It seemed fitting.
And when he slept, he was alone.
He found Zhou Mi’s clothes in the field the next day.
He burned them.
***
“You’ve lost weight,” Ahra told him.
“I’ve been working for two men again,” Kyuhyun replied.
Part of that was true. Part of it was that he couldn’t stand to be in the dark house, so he grabbed whatever food he could, and worked until his hands ached and his back cried. He’d washed in the stream, tickled a couple of fish one night and roasted them over a carefully laid fire. It had been soothing, watching the smoke waft up into the dark sky. He’d even had a thought that hadn’t hurt at first, wondering what new places Zhou Mi was seeing.
It hurt after a minute though. He carefully put out the fire and crawled into bed
He was sweaty and disgusting the next day from cleaning out the small barn, when he heard a wagon approaching.
“Hello?” he said, when a man jumped down.
“Cho Kyuhyun?”
“Yes?”
“I have a delivery for you.”
Brand new windows. He almost had to stop himself from reaching out to touch them. He’d had no money left to waste to replace the broken panes - and all of them had broken but one.
“I didn’t order these.”
“They’re for you, sir.”
They were offloaded with a minimum of fuss, and no amount of arguing got him answers about who had ordered them, where they’d come from.
All he was left with was a sheet of paper with his name on it and where he lived, brooking no argument that the windows were in the wrong place.
His parents and sister were as baffled as he was, but they helped put them in when it seemed clear that no one was coming back to claim them.
The light shone into the house again, and Kyuhyun’s mood lifted a little. At least his house was almost back to how it was before.
Before.
***
Kyuhyun woke to a banging noise, a pot being loudly place on his stove. It gave him cause for concern for all of half a second. A robber wouldn’t be trying to cook him breakfast. He pressed his face into his pillow for another moment, and tried to justify staying there when either his sister or mother was making him food. It took him a couple of minutes, but he unwrapped himself from his blanket, and dressed, rubbing his face sleepily as he made his way.
His foot hit something hard, and he yelped down at what seemed to be a bag full of rocks. In his bedroom doorway.
He looked up, ready to accuse, and stopped when he saw who was staring back at him.
“Wuh?” was the only sound that left him. Even if his mind was screaming Zhou Mi.
“Sorry, did I wake you?”
No, Zhou Mi should be sorry for barging into his house and surprising the life out of him. Kyuhyun grabbed a handful of his own shirt, and the door jamb, just to ground himself.
“No, I don’t… Why are…”
“It was too long since I’d seen you,” Zhou Mi said. “You look well, Kyuhyun.”
“You too?” he said, his mouth speaking without input from his brain. Of course he looked good. He was there. “What-“
It had been weeks. Weeks that he’d had to work himself from bitterness at himself for sending Zhou Mi away. Maybe the kisses wouldn’t have gone on forever, but they had been wonderful. Maybe Zhou Mi would’ve found a way to be happy. He’d asked all those questions, and told himself that if he had been Zhou Mi, he wouldn’t have wanted to be confined. It wasn’t that Kyuhyun was so unworthy, but that Zhou Mi was so much more. He’d given Zhou Mi everything he could, and even if there had been fear that had been part of his decision, it had been because he’d cared for Zhou Mi in the end. He’d been afraid that Zhou Mi would leave, that it would hurt. And it had hurt. But even if Zhou Mi had been wistful, he’d never stared at Kyuhyun in accusation for what Kyuhyun had taken from him. Kyuhyun had been sad, he’d been angry, even hopeful. He’d woken from a dream, thinking he heard the sound of wings. But there had been nothing but pre-dawn light outside of the windows.
And Zhou Mi was standing in front of him, in his house.
“You put in the windows I sent,” Zhou Mi said, stepping up to one and touching the edge.
“You,” Kyuhyun said, and then had to swallow violently. “You sent them?”
“I did. It took me a little while. But I heard them break when I left, and I know how proud you were of them.”
“Oh.”
The back of his head was buzzing as he stepped over the sack and closer to Zhou Mi. He wasn’t entirely certain that he was still standing up. Or perhaps he was dreaming. But his foot hurt still, and Zhou Mi looked different. His hair was shorter, his clothes different than the one Kyuhyun had bought for him. Blue. A blue shirt against Zhou Mi’s skin.
“I brought you a gift,” Zhou Mi said, pointing.
“A bag of rocks?” Kyuhyun asked, skeptical. Yes, he’d discovered that, somewhat violently. Perhaps Zhou Mi wanted him to build a foundation for some building or something.
“Oh, breakfast!” Zhou Mi said, panicked as he whirled back to the stove to check the boiling pot. When it was saved, Zhou Mi turned to him, reaching for Kyuhyun’s arm and then crouching and opening the tie of the heavy sack. “It is a bag of rocks, but…”
Zhou Mi pulled out a light colored stone, and Kyuhyun was puzzled at first, standing beside Zhou Mi. Zhou Mi rubbed his thumb over the rock, revealing a soft glow. Gold.
“With this, we can build all your dreams,” Zhou Mi said, smiling up at him, and standing with the rock still in his hand.
Zhou Mi had brought him a sack full of gold-bearing rocks.
“My dreams?” Kyuhyun repeated, feeling incredibly slow. He didn’t know what to do with the man standing there. He still didn’t quite believe he was.
“You told me what you wanted to do. The land you wanted to buy, and that you wanted more windows, more animals. We could do that, with this.”
“We?”
Zhou Mi nodded eagerly at him.
“Why…” Kyuhyun began, lost. And he turned away, turned to the window Zhou Mi had given him. Letting the light in. Bringing the light. Perhaps it was both. “I thought leaving was what you wanted.”
“I thought you wanted that, too,” Zhou Mi said, his voice close and so familiar and so foreign at the same time. “But then I realized you never told me you were tired of me, and wanted me to go. Only that I should be happy.”
“I wasn’t going to be your new mountain,” Kyuhyun said, his voice stiff.
And he was glad he was not speaking, because his voice would have broken as Zhou Mi came up behind him and wrapped his arms around him.
“I spent a long time alone dreaming of the things I wanted, the things I would do,” Zhou Mi said, half speaking into Kyuhyun’s neck. “As a dragon, I have no choice but to be alone. But as a man… I could be with a man who could love me, too.”
He could see their reflection, together, in the glass.
“I could be of help to you,” Zhou Mi continued. “I enjoy working beside you.”
Kyuhyun laughed, the sound awkward and full. “Your help was not why I wanted you here.”
He’d had so many other reasons, by the time he’d set Zhou Mi free.
“I know,” Zhou Mi said, and the sound was very soft as he rubbed his head against Kyuhyun’s. He stared down at Zhou Mi’s hands, and wondered if Zhou Mi had read into his statement. That Kyuhyun had wanted him there. Had wanted him. But he let his next words be a question.
“When you left here, where did you go?”
“I flew, as high as I could fly. I could see everything spread beneath me, small and perfect. I could go anywhere. And I was alone.”
A shiver went down Kyuhyun’s spine as Zhou Mi clutched him closer.
“I will make a bargain with you, because you set me free, twice. If you will let me fly away whenever I wish - maybe for an hour, or a day, or a week - I will return to you. My wings are my freedom. You knew that.”
Kyuhyun struggled with Zhou Mi’s arms, just enough so he could turn and look Zhou Mi in the eye. “But why return here? When you could choose anywhere, pick anyone?”
Zhou Mi’s smile was worth more to him than boulders of gold, the way that Zhou Mi cupped his face and kissed him.
Perhaps he had been smarter than he knew, in what he had asked of Zhou Mi. Even if Zhou Mi was, at his heart, a dragon, he had come back to Kyuhyun.
As a man who loved him willingly.
***
Pairing: Zhou Mi/Kyuhyun
Rating: PG-13
Genre: AU
Summary: Deep in the mountains, a dragon roars. It is one flight to freedom, one secret heart's desire.
***
The mountain rumbled. Kyuhyun grabbed his sister’s hand, and they ran down the stone corridor. It had once been mined but rocks were strewn from earthshakes.
And the shouting behind them grew quieter as Kyuhyun veered deeper. Deeper than was safe, and deeper than he had ever explored as a child with his father warning him not to go out of sight. Past the rings of brightly painted sigils warning the unsuspecting of the dangers within.
The mountain would kill, and it would not hesitate.
“Kyuhyun,” Ahra gasped. “Look.”
It was like a graveyard, light bouncing off of bones and strewn belongings. Not of people, though. Sheep, cattle. Goats. They stood among discarded skulls and instead of men chasing them, it was a growl that greeted them, and a rumbling voice.
“You bring no tribute.”
From a gap in the stone, ten times higher than they were, light streamed. It highlighted a looming head and he shoved Ahra behind him with a muffled oath.
“D-dragon,” Kyuhyun stuttered. He looked to the door, that would take them toward danger, and back up at the shadowed head. Tribute. Animals. The animals were tribute. “We have nothing for you. We-“
“You do not come to worship. Why are you here?”
“We were collecting rocks on the mountain side. Some can still be found with gold clinging to them. But men attacked us, and we ran into the mountain to hide.”
“You will find no protection here,” the dragon grumbled. “Climb to the light, and you fall to your death. Go deeper and the stones sing until they are bright and liquid, and eat flesh from your bones.”
“And here?” Ahra asked.
“Humans are toothpicks,” was the resigned answer. “You must go.”
“But-“
Shouts of men echoed to them, and they had a choice. Move closer to the unknown, or try to run toward men they knew were armed. Maybe they wouldn’t be killed, but with anger on them, Kyuhyun didn’t know what they’d do. The small knife he carried would be nothing in their defense.
“They’ll hurt or kill us,” Kyuhyun said. “If you don’t kill people- Will you help us? You’re a dragon. You could fly us free.”
The dragon laughed, a peculiar sound that made Kyuhyun shiver. “Little human, if I could fly you free, I would not be here.”
All the hope in Kyuhyun’s body dropped. “You’re trapped?”
And the dragon rumbled.
“Then please. Let us hide. You can frighten them away?”
“I have no reason to help you.”
“If you’re trapped, is there a way we can free you?” Ahra asked, and Kyuhyun stared at her.
At the way the ground shook, and the air swirled, it seemed the dragon was surprised as well.
“You would?”
“If you promise to see us safely out,” Kyuhyun said. A shout echoed to them, and Kyuhyun stepped closer, straining to see the dragon. And his words ran over each other. “Tell us. We’ll do it.”
“When the mountain trembles, I tremble,” the dragon told him. “The markers you see, bind me. I am bound to the mountain, but have no name. It was…stolen from me. And until it is returned to me, I cannot leave.”
“But how do we know your name? How do we find it? Is it written?”
“I don’t know!” the dragon snarled.
They had a way out, but there was no way out, and Kyuhyun nearly growled in frustration back at him.
“He said he trembles with the mountain,” Ahra said. “Kyuhyun, the name of the mountain. Mount Zhou…? Grandfather used to say, when the earth shook…”
“Zhou Mi is angry,” Kyuhyun said. “Is that even possible… Zhou Mi? Is that your name?”
“This way!” they heard, a shout as fire lit shadows on the wall. The men had come.
“Come closer. Both of you,” the dragon hissed.
Kyuhyun shouted as something horrifyingly strong wrapped around him - but he screamed as he was propelled into the air.
The shouts of men were lost as the air deafened him. The sound of beating wings, and Ahra’s shrieks, and dazzling brightness.
The sun. They were outside. He twisted his neck, seeing Ahra clutched in the same type of claw he was, and a broad, shining green chest.
“Ahra, you’re a genius!” he shouted, but the words were swallowed up.
A genius but he began to note how high they were, and how far they would fall if the dragon let go. But they drifted closer to the ground and he had a different horrible fantasy, that of being driven into the ground. Or having his head ripped off.
As it was, he gulped, and sprawled face first into the grass as the dragon landed and let him go.
He spat a blade out, and scrambled for his sister, who was still righting herself.
In the light, in the tiny meadow they had landed in, the dragon - this Zhou Mi - looked even larger since they could see all of him. Wings folded, eyes large and intelligent and trained on them. He put away the trembling in his knees, squeezed Ahra’s shoulders, and stood.
“Thank you. Zhou Mi. Ahhh. Yes. Thank you. You’re…free now?”
“I am in your debt, little human.”
Had it been a human saying those words, he might have rankled. But in front of the dragon, easily twice his height even crouched, it was nothing but the truth.
“But you saved us, so…” Kyuhyun babbled. He’d seen a dragon once before. He’d been seven and fighting between the urge to run forward for a better look or hide behind Ahra in case it looked at him. And right then as a grown man, he wasn’t any less caught between the two, only he’d have been beside Ahra instead. His sense that he was very little to the creature was impossible to ignore.
“You released me from my prison. For that, you may ask your one true desire. If it is in my power, I will grant it.”
Kyuhyun’s mouth dropped open. It was like some kind of story he’d been told as a child. He thought wildly, hoping to think of something with the dragon’s head rocking back and forth. A mountain made of gold. A storehouse full of food. A hundred dancing men, and- Oh.
“You speak the truth?”
“On my honor,” Zhou Mi said.
Dragons had honor. Things he had never known. Kyuhyun looked back at his sister and stepped forward.
“Kyuhyun!”
He held his hand back toward her, step by step getting closer to the head of the dragon.
“You can hear me?” he asked softly, and the dragon snorted softly in agreement. “You know the way it is of men? When it is another man they desire, not a woman? I cannot ask you to take that from me. But if you could… If you could help me to find a man who could love me as I am-“
“That is your desire?”
“It is.”
Not something a dragon could procure, he thought. But then he didn’t know how a dragon would find a golden mountain or food for the winter, either. Perhaps Ahra would have thought of more sensible things. But they were not in such a bad place. What they had, the rocks in their pockets from the mountain, would hold them. They would not have less in the end.
“Your name, human?”
“Kyuhyun,” he said, nervous. Hoping he hadn’t asked the wrong thing, and was going to get some kind of curse instead.
“I can grant your request, Kyuhyun.”
“What? How?” Kyuhyun asked, and gaped as the dragon lumbered awkwardly back. The dragon’s head lowered, and shoulders fell. At first, Kyuhyun thought he might be lying down. Until Kyuhyun nearly fell over himself staring at the crumbling, shrinking skin. Getting darker and thinner, like ash rolling in the wind. Shrinking until the wings encompassed it, until even those fell away.
Until all that was left was skin. Human skin. And hair as deep and black as the dragon’s eyes had been. Kyuhyun stumbled forward, more than walked, but he got closer. Watched long fingers curl in the grass as the man shifted and sat up from being crouched over. And Kyuhyun knelt. He’d faced a dragon standing tall, but in the presence of a man looking at him with curious eyes, he was unsure. A man that was where a dragon had been. Lifted brows and a wide mouth, and startling eyes.
“Zhou Mi?” Kyuhyun asked, his voice catching in the middle, trying to stop himself from making a huge gaffe.
“Yes. I am Zhou Mi.”
The whole day was strange. Too strange. Escaping into the mountain. Rescuing and being rescued by a dragon. His sister- There was a naked man, and behind him was his sister.
“Stay there,” he commanded, though it sounded more like a question as he struggled to his feet and headed off Ahra.
She consented to give up one of her skirts, so that Zhou Mi wouldn’t be naked. Not that it bothered him but-
“Ahra, this is Zhou Mi. Zhou Mi, this is my sister. Um.”
“We’ve met,” Ahra said, as usual surprising him as she smiled at Zhou Mi. But her next words were for Kyuhyun. “What did you ask of him?”
Before Zhou Mi could even dream of answering, Kyuhyun rushed out, “That I need a man to help me in the fields.”
And he looked at Zhou Mi, imploring him not to contradict him. But as Kyuhyun’s face heated, Zhou Mi did nothing but nod.
But as they walked together toward the little village where they lived and their homes, Kyuhyun’s mind was racing. As Ahra tossed out the occasional curious question to Zhou Mi, Kyuhyun was wondering how much money it would take to clothe Zhou Mi, get him shoes. He didn’t know if Zhou Mi would be any help with gathering grain, or caring for the horses. Kyuhyun cupped the rocks in his pocket and hoped that he would have enough to see it through. He could sell some reserved grain, if he had to. He couldn’t just leave Zhou Mi naked in his house until-
Until he didn’t know what. He had a man he didn’t know what to do with.
A man he had certainly not been expecting.
***
Ahra parted from them, sending a very significant look at Kyuhyun as though to tell him he was on his own. She would leave her favorite brother alone with a man who’d once been a dragon, sure.
He was her only brother but that didn’t make any difference.
But Kyuhyun had never been so glad of the drive to set up his own home, away from his parents as soon as he had left school. The house on property his father had bought had been perfect for his needs. It had several rooms, a loft. It was old, needed repair, but fixing it had been easier than starting anew. His father gave him the land it stood on, the fields around it, so that he could start establishing himself. He’d worked years at his father’s side for that opportunity.
With the first money he’d earned, his first sale of grain, he’d bought two glass windows. They were his pride and joy, though he hadn’t told anyone that. He had room to house a man, but he first had to find a way to wrap his mind around what that man was, how he’d found him. It had been no more than two hours since he’d been running for his life, now he had some kind of magical creature in human form, wrapped in a skirt.
Clothes, then, were his first priority. He had long underwear, a shirt, that would suffice to cover Zhou Mi in the short term. He could take one of his horses into the town and purchase real clothes.
“So, this is my home,” Kyuhyun said, letting Zhou Mi in ahead of him. “I live here alone. My sister is getting married soon, so she still lives with my parents. So it’s just…us.”
And Kyuhyun looked around him, seeing what Zhou Mi would see. A table with a couple of chairs, a wood-burning stove that both heated the house when needed and served to cook on. His bedroom was behind a wall that his sister had decorated with a couple of pretty, if cracked and unusable plates. He had a small bookshelf, his other pride and joy, and several lanterns set around. Some table games were stacked in a corner. If he got too bored, sometimes he played against himself. Usually those times were when he was either caught up with work, or ignoring the work he didn’t want to do.
“It’s pleasant,” Zhou Mi said. “And you let light in.”
Yes, his windows.
“Otherwise it’s too dark. Let’s get you clothes.” He led Zhou Mi to the bedroom, and didn’t even stop to considering until he was pulling the clothes he’d planned out. He looked to Zhou Mi with a question. “You know how clothes work?”
Zhou Mi smiled at him, reaching with one hand to take the cloth. “Yes. I have lived among humans before.”
And that was that. Kyuhyun didn’t ask in what way he’d lived among humans, but he left Zhou Mi to dress and wondered what they would eat.
Kyuhyun gulped as Zhou Mi emerged in the loose shirt hanging below his hips, and the long underwear accentuating his legs. He looked, really looked, at the man he’d brought home and was fascinated. Curiosity raged in him.
“So…You’re human. You’re going to stay human?”
“I believe so,” Zhou Mi said, staring at his outstretched hands. “That was our agreement.”
“Okay,” Kyuhyun said, not really knowing what was going through his mind.
“I could help you in your work, as you told your sister,” Zhou Mi told him. “If I don’t know how, teach me.”
Kyuhyun was stumped. He really had no idea what to say. To tell Zhou Mi thank you, or to insist differently. He had no idea how to proceed, besides making sure Zhou Mi’s most urgent, basic needs were met.
A place to sleep. He had built the bed under his father’s watchful eye. And he had built it for two, since his father thought that since Kyuhyun was striking out on his own, he was going to be looking for a wife. It seemed strange to think of asking Zhou Mi to sleep in the loft, when the bed was right there. And his face heated.
“So, our agreement. I don’t… You love me?”
Zhou Mi’s smile didn’t waver. “No. You asked for a man who could love you. Not for one who will, or one who does - I could not grant that. But I am a man now, and I could. It is in the scope of my power, my feelings, my humanity, to fulfill our agreement. It is not a guarantee.”
So he could fall for Zhou Mi, but Zhou Mi might never tender feelings in return. It was a risk. Life was a risk, he thought with a sigh.
“Is there anything you don’t like to eat?” he blurted, hoping to turn their attention away from his misstep. “Do you eat raw meat?”
“I eat whatever a human might,” Zhou Mi said. “I’m not a dragon now. I want to learn the things you like.”
“Okay. Okay. Good.”
And he tried not to feel watched as Zhou Mi stood beside him as he cooked, serving them up a simple meal at the table and lighting a lantern for them as the room grew darker.
The lamplight on the angles of Zhou Mi’s face, the depth of his eyes. He wanted to touch Zhou Mi’s hair and see if it felt soft, if the skin of his neck was warm to the touch.
He rested, very still in his bed with Zhou Mi beside him, and thought of all the questions he had not asked. If Zhou Mi would miss being a dragon, how he had become human, how he seemed to know so much.
The dragon had been so full of pain and so alone, even Kyuhyun could see that. Locked away, Zhou Mi had grasped at his freedom. Freedom that came with a price. Kyuhyun turned his head, looking to where Zhou Mi rested on his back. Even there, he had not fought Kyuhyun, accepting where he would sleep. What he ate, what he wore, what he did. Kyuhyun rolled and buried his face into his pillow. He had not been as alone as Zhou Mi, but he had been alone. He wanted to know everything Zhou Mi knew. Wanted to know what it felt like to fly when he wasn’t afraid for his life.
He wondered if dragons knew how to kiss, if they wanted to hold hands.
He wondered how to woo a dragon.
***
With a tracing of Zhou Mi’s foot, and a couple of general measurements for length for pants and sleeves, Kyuhyun got everything Zhou Mi would need to wear. Extra food and supplies as well, as he’d traded in his ore. It had meant leaving Zhou Mi at home, which had been worry in itself. Even if he’d asked Zhou Mi to stay inside, he’d pushed his horse a little harder. With the fire not burning and the lamps off, Zhou Mi couldn’t burn down the house or flood it. He was more worried for Zhou Mi wandering away, getting lost or hurt. Zhou Mi wasn’t a child, and he knew that, but he didn’t know what all Zhou Mi knew.
Hell, he didn’t even know if Zhou Mi could read. And a strange man wandering the fields and woods in nothing but underwear would cause a bit of a stir and make people think that Kyuhyun had taken in a man who was possibly just a little bit not fully there in the head. And he would be scolded by his parents, for putting them and his sister in danger by taking in a very strange stranger.
“Kyuhyun is back!” were the first words he heard when he opened his front door, only to see Ahra and Zhou Mi sitting at his table with cups of tea and slices of pie.
His grain sack full of supplies felt a bit more heavy when he stared, and Ahra just smiled at him.
“Put that down and have some tea,” she told him. “Zhou Mi told me you’d gone to buy him clothes. I hope you got nice ones?”
He got that strange little twist in his gut as he had Zhou Mi follow him, as they stood together at the bed and looked over the clothes Kyuhyun had bought. Zhou Mi’s shoulder brushed his as he fondled the material of the shirt, the new socks, the pants and underwear.
“Put them on, so Ahra doesn’t nag,” Kyuhyun suggested. “She thinks I’ll dress you in sackcloth.”
Zhou Mi laughed softly.
And he waited with Ahra, pouring himself a cup of tea to keep from wringing his hands.
And when Zhou Mi walked out, legs long in dark jeans and arms covered in dark red cloth.
Even with his hair a bit wild and long, it was the first real impression that a man was standing there in front of him.
“He looks ready to go to work,” Ahra said, satisfied.
He looked ready for so much more than that.
***
When Ahra had left, leaving behind food for them, his first question had been: “What did you tell her about why you’re here?”
Zhou Mi had sent him a curious look. “That I am here to work? You made it clear that you did not want her to know the true reason.”
She had not seemed strained or awkward, or trying to avoid him. But some of the tightness in his back abated, just in knowing that Zhou Mi would not expose him. He thought of the last day. Zhou Mi dressing himself, feeding himself.
Needing no clarification of what Kyuhyun had meant.
“You accepted it so easily,” Kyuhyun murmured. “You said you’ve been with humans before?”
Zhou Mi tilted his head, never taking his eyes from Kyuhyun’s. “Yes.”
“Were you always a dragon before?”
“I was born a dragon. I have lived as a human, many times. Once I could not read, but I learned. I learned many things. Humans are more social than dragons could ever dream of. I had no desire to find a mate, sire young. Your request spoke very deeply to me.”
Then they were perhaps more alike than he had realized. Or perhaps his request had caused it. He didn’t know.
“I like your windows very much,” Zhou Mi said, gesturing to each wall in turn.
“That can be one of your duties, if you want. You can keep them clean.”
“Show me how!”
Zhou Mi was eager. Not as though he was working for Kyuhyun, but as though it was his house as well. Not only with the windows, he worked without complaint at Kyuhyun’s side, learning how Kyuhyun liked the wagon hitched, how he rubbed down his horses, and fed them. He walked with Kyuhyun to inspect the grain and inspect the buildings for disrepair.
Working as he did, it was sometime lonely. When he had an extra set of hands, such as when his father helped him, they did not often do the same task. There were times his sister accompanied him. So it was something new, to look over and find someone looking back, responding to him, laughing at his jokes. An extra hand to be there in case he needed a tool, or give him a boost.
Someone who was amazed by the world, as Zhou Mi’s hand slid down Kyuhyun’s arm and pointed at the deer standing at the edge of the trees.
“How graceful they are,” Zhou Mi said admiringly.
“What a nice meal they’d make,” Kyuhyun echoed.
“That’s true, also,” Zhou Mi said, half giggling into his shoulder. “I’ve hunted more than few. But that doesn’t make them less beautiful.”
“Do they have much chance when you’re stalking them from the air?”
“Not much. Though if the trees got too thick, it was a problem. Farmers get angry if I take their livestock.”
Kyuhyun didn’t keep many animals, getting his own from his parents when it came time to butcher, but yes, he could imagine.
Still, he felt the touch of Zhou Mi’s hand for the longest time after that, after they had spent a couple of sweaty hours moving rocks out of a field that Kyuhyun wanted to use. Laughing at Zhou Mi’s form as he threw the rocks made Kyuhyun’s stomach ache, and he drenched them both in some of the water he’d brought to drink when they could take no more, sprawled in the shade and leaning into every wisp of breeze.
“I want to do so much. I’ll never have the money to do it. I want a bigger barn, and buy more land. I’d need to hire a man to help. Not even you and I could do everything. I want another window in the house, and to finish it nicer. Maybe get a nice blanket for the bed. I saw one that was so warm at the store when I bought your clothes. Another horse, more tools. Maybe even a nicer stove, and a couple of fruit trees. I just want things nicer.”
Kyuhyun’s dreams poured out of him like water, to ears without judgement. Zhou Mi just wanted to know, making interested sounds. They were dreams, of course. Dreams as likely to come true as him growing wings. He could maybe buy the blanket, if things went well. Something small, and something necessary for when the weather got cooler. Though that was hard to imagine, as hot as it still was.
“I’ll help you choose the blanket. What will we eat tonight?” Zhou Mi asked, knees waggling in the air as though calling the wind to them.
“We’ll feast,” Kyuhyun said. “Eggs. Bread that Ahra brought yesterday. Berries.”
“You should hire someone to cook,” Zhou Mi said, poking fun.
“You could learn how to cook.”
“You’d never let me out of the house.”
Kyuhyun laughed long and hard, because that was possibly true. If he had a full meal to go home to every night, he would be unlikely to give it up.
“You’re too much help out here,” Kyuhyun admitted. “It’s nice to have someone to talk to. Even if you don’t know, you have good ideas. It’s better than asking my dad, who seems to think I need to learn more if I open my mouth.”
“Sometimes being alone is like the breeze I wished we felt now,” Zhou Mi said. “But sometimes it is just alone.”
Then they both understood.
And Zhou Mi sighed. “I enjoy being out here with you, too.”
Kyuhyun hid his smile in his crossed arms, and groaned in joy as the wind cooled them. But even if Zhou Mi was with him in the fields, the windows continued to sparkle.
***
They learned about each other, little by little. Dragons didn’t count years as humans did, so Zhou Mi had no real way of telling him how old he was. They talked when working, when eating their meals, hauling water for baths, or in bed. He had put “wooing” out of his head. Becoming Zhou Mi’s friend, helping him adjust when it was hard. Zhou Mi didn’t know everything, and he was sometimes quiet, looking out the window as though he’d forgotten Kyuhyun was there.
There was a strange oldness, the way Zhou Mi spoke of any different lives. The way his lips would curl, eyes thoughtful as Kyuhyun told a story, as though he were committing it all to memory. When he remembered that it was not just a normal man sitting with him, learning game rules and asking him questions about books, his brain hurt a little. Zhou Mi’s laughter was so free, came so quickly, unlike any man Kyuhyun had known. There were things about him that were so utterly human, and other time not, such as when he had to watch Kyuhyun very closely to see how he should respond. It was not naiveté, not really. Just that the world had changed since Zhou Mi had had been locked away. And Zhou Mi’s only contact had been with people so frightened of his roars of hunger, that they brought him food. Also, when Zhou Mi was a dragon he could do anything, go anywhere. Kyuhyun’s struggles of survival, to make his living, they were known to Zhou Mi. But it seemed so strange that a creature so fantastic would be reduced to building fires, and mucking manure.
Those were the times that he wondered what he was doing, if he was doing the right thing. And also about Zhou Mi’s past.
They’d finished eating dinner together one night when he looked up from the dish bucket, and his mouth asked what he’d been musing for weeks.
“When you were human, had you had feelings for a man?”
Zhou Mi frowned slightly. “Yes.”
“And you’d lived with people.”
“Yes. The last time, with the man who imprisoned me in that mountain.”
“Why did he do that?” Kyuhyun asked, his mouth dry. Perhaps Zhou Mi had done something terrible. Perhaps he’d let out a monster. But he’d thought all of that to start, when the desperation and gladness of being safe had worn off.
Zhou Mi looked away, his voice very soft as he said, “Because I could not love him.”
Kyuhyun nearly fell back a step. “What?”
“The bargain between he and I was different than yours. I worked for him, flew for him when he needed. Created terror when he needed. But he wanted me… Wanted me to want him more than I ever could. It was another man I loved. Someone else.”
“Is he still alive?”
Zhou Mi shook his head. “Long dead, I imagine. I was in the mountain for a long time. And not long before I left, he was married. So perhaps it was a kindness.”
“Oh.”
“You are a little like him.”
Kyuhyun looked at him warily. “Could he have been my grandfather?”
Zhou Mi made a soft sound. “No. It isn’t looks. It is your manner. He had a lovely voice as well.”
Kyuhyun hummed. “I never asked you if you knew my grandfather.”
“I cannot, Kyuhyun.”
“You knew him? Did you know him?” Kyuhyun reached, and caught Zhou Mi’s arm. “Did you? He knew your name. Did he hear the story? If he wasn’t the one you were in love with, then did he lock you up?”
“I cannot! I don’t know!” Zhou Mi was breathing hard. “He took that from me, too, along with my name.”
“To protect himself if you escaped?”
Zhou Mi lowered his head, his mouth sulky, but his eyes near to anger. “Perhaps. Would it matter to you, if he had been your grandfather?”
That stumped Kyuhyun for a moment. “Maybe a little. Well, I guess it would’ve been fitting that if he bound you, that I set you free? Ahra and I.” He hadn’t forgotten that he might have been a chunk of dragon jerky if she hadn’t been there. “But it would’ve been kind of strange, too. I don’t think I’d have liked me much, if I were you.”
“You would have had nothing to do with his choices. And you are your own man. I was here before for some time, so it’s possible many people knew my name. And I do like you. Especially when you feed me.”
A subtle hint that he was delaying dessert. Still, he took a moment, folding the towel, trying to get his thoughts together.
“It’s nice having you here,” he said finally. And to wipe away his feelings of embarrassment, he threw a rag at Zhou Mi’s face, and turned to get their dessert.
***
Life wasn’t all work. Sometimes, it was the best of play. Like telling Zhou Mi they should stop working, put away their tools, and spend the afternoon at the creek. It was hot enough, a late fall spurt of heat, that he thought they deserved it. That, and Kyuhyun’s skin itched with sweat and dirt, and he could think of nothing else but getting his tired feet into the cool water of the creek.
He nearly cried with laugher as Zhou Mi, his shoes abandoned, plunged into the creek. Even if the water barely went over his ankles, it was cold and standing upright, Zhou Mi was flailing like a fish as he danced in it.
“I told you. You’ll get used to it.”
“It feels good,” Zhou Mi insisted, finally stopping his march just to stand there and feel. “Come in with me.”
He’d already been sliding his shoes off. Still, Zhou Mi looked endearingly appealing with both hands held out and his hips waggling side to side. He was eager for Kyuhyun to join him, and he wasn’t sure that he wanted to resist.
The cold was bracing, but not frigid, but he did a little dance that got Zhou Mi’s laughter as he waded in.
“You made it look horrible,” he teased, and Zhou Mi nearly spun around.
He bent, rubbing his hands in the silt, and beckoned Zhou Mi close. Zhou Mi, not even a bit wary, followed Kyuhyun’s invitation.
And then Kyuhyun wiped cold mud down his cheek.
Zhou Mi gasped, hand flying up to feel what Kyuhyun had done. When his hand came away dirty, Zhou Mi fixed judging eyes on him.
“Kyuhyun!”
“It looks good on you,” Kyuhyun shot back, laughter coloring his voice.
And he only sort of shrieked, when Zhou Mi reached down with both hands and sent waves of water at him. It began the water battle to end all water battles, wet hands grasping at clothes, and feet being used to kick up sheets of water. Kyuhyun hollered as he lost his balance, sitting hard on the creek bed with Zhou Mi over him in an instant. His whole body arched, cringing as the cold flooded his back, his neck, the back of his head.
“That’s cold!” he chattered, and Zhou Mi just laughed at him.
“You’ll get used to it,” Zhou Mi told him, using his own words against him.
He already was, as long as he didn’t breathe and get a different part of his skin wet.
But the more his focus was not on the cold and the rushing water, it was on Zhou Mi hovering above him. Zhou Mi’s face, sliding from his smile to something more curious. His own caught in indecision, barely remembering to breathe as Zhou Mi’s head dipped - just enough so that Kyuhyun saw the movement. Shivers raced up his arms but not from cold as he stared at Zhou Mi’s mouth.
“Kyuhyun?”
He didn’t know how to say yes, how to rise from from where he was frozen. His fingers curled uselessly in the loose cloth of Zhou Mi’s shirt. Water dripped onto his face from Zhou Mi’s hair, but the only thing he felt was the tip of the cool, wet nose that brushed his. He exhaled, eyes closing before they could cross, and it was a plea.
“Kyuhyun! Zhou Mi?”
Ahra.
Kyuhyun’s hand hit the water with a splash, and Zhou Mi stood, reaching to grasp Kyuhyun’s arm and pull him up as well.
“Over here!” Kyuhyun shouted, hoping he didn’t sound as strained as he felt as he slopped out of the stream to grab his shoes and start for the house.
***
Kyuhyun had changed first, stripping out of his wet clothes, and drying off. While Zhou Mi did the same, he walked with his sister, showing her the things they had been doing. How much they’d accomplished.
“You seem happier,” Ahra said.
“Yes. It's nice to have someone to help get things done.”
Ahra was silent a moment, before looking over at him. “Is work what you truly asked of him?”
“Yes? Why?”
“He looks at you so strangely sometimes, as though he's trying to understand what you're thinking.”
“Oh. Well, he is a dragon.”
And that was the best explanation Kyuhyun could come up, without thinking too hard. Zhou Mi was very human and that was true, but he had never known any other dragons. Zhou Mi was as human as he was, and perhaps it was due to his years living with humans. It surprised and delighted him, and the times when he was able to teach Zhou Mi something new he felt the strange connection to Zhou Mi grow just a bit stronger. As though he were helping Zhou Mi to grow, opening his eyes to new things. The twinkle in Zhou Mi’s eyes, the curiosity. Perhaps making the years alone fade, just a little.
Ahra hummed as they walked. “I wonder how long his bargain will last.”
“What do you mean?”
“He's repaying you for his release. Surely it can't last forever.”
Kyuhyun's stomach twisted. “So you think one day he’ll think the agreement’s been paid and just…go?”
She looked at him strangely. “Don’t you? Or did you ask him to stay for the rest of your life?”
“No. I mean. That’s just asking to be killed, right? He’d drown me somehow.”
Kyuhyun was fairly certain that she rolled her eyes at him before patting his head and leaving. She was concerned about his wellbeing, but she didn’t actually think Zhou Mi was going to turn back into a dragon and eat him. Of course, with her gone, he was taking shorter and shorter steps back to his front door.
If she was right, then Zhou Mi could leave at any time. Of course he could, he’d always known that. All that kept Zhou Mi there was his promise, but he assumed at least that Zhou Mi was able to turn back into a dragon at any time. He hadn’t stolen that ability from Zhou Mi. He hoped. He hadn’t enjoyed the short flight from the mountain enough to want to replicate it, so there was no real reason to ask.
Zhou Mi was moving the food Ahra had brought around in a pan on the stove, and he smiled as Kyuhyun came in and closed the door.
“Did she go back?”
“She did. Dry clothes are nice after all that cold.”
“It’s warm here by the stove,” Zhou Mi said, and held out his hand.
WIth Ahra there, he could put Zhou Mi’s face being so close to him out of his head. But not then, not with the smell of good food and Zhou Mi’s hand closing around his.
Of course that worked for all of ten seconds because Zhou Mi was staring between them as though trying to figure out how he was going to stir the food and still keep Kyuhyun’s hand at the same time.
So Kyuhyun took over cooking, and it was Zhou Mi’s job to keep holding on.
***
The dark was not a chokehold, as he blew out the lamp and watched the heat at the end of the wick abate. It was comfortable, and warm, and there was light coming through the window enough to see as he swung his feet into bed.
“Kyuhyun?”
“Mm?” he said, turning his head if not his body to see what Zhou Mi needed.
“You looked nice wet.”
The laugh almost exploded out of him since that was the last thing he’d expected to hear.
“What?”
“In the creek. Your shirt was wet. Your face.”
“You were dripping on me.” And Kyuhyun paused, as a thought crossed his mind. “Are you attracted to humans when you’re a dragon? Or is it just when you’re human? Or…”
Zhou Mi’s breathing was very soft, and very close, as Zhou Mi turned to him.
“The body I am in dictates that. When I am a dragon, I may want to seek the company of dragons. When I am human, it is the form of humans that is pleasing to me. But whether I am one or the other, I remember my feelings, even if it sometimes feels like a dream.”
Zhou Mi’s hand covered the side of his face, the touch soft, warm, and Kyuhyun wondered. He wondered, as Zhou Mi’s breath warmed his lips, a question asked without words. And when Kyuhyun did not protest…
He could not have stopped Zhou Mi, did not want to. He wanted.
It took a couple of stuttering attempts, but Zhou Mi’s lips pressed against his. And it felt like his whole body drew up. Lungs stopping, hands curling in the blanket as he took in every moment of the touch and tried to chase it as Zhou Mi pulled away. He had to pull in a hard breath, heart beating wildly and face burning as Zhou Mi stayed near.
“I would remember this,” Zhou Mi said. “No matter what I was.”
“Would you remember why?” Kyuhyun asked.
“Why I kissed you?”
“Yes.”
Zhou Mi was quiet a moment, stroking the hair in front of Kyuhyun’s ear.
“Yes. Because I wanted to.”
They breathed almost in unison for a few moments, before Kyuhyun asked, “Why did you want to?”
And to his credit, Zhou Mi did not attempt to strangle him. But Kyuhyun didn’t know the answer. Why Zhou Mi wanted to kiss him - for himself, because he thought he owed it to Kyuhyun, that was an important distinction.
Zhou Mi’s fingers never stopped stroking his face.
“Because I needed to,” Zhou Mi told him.
Zhou Mi had been alone for a long time. Maybe, to him, Kyuhyun was as much a relief. A touch, one that was wanted.
“Me too,” Kyuhyun said, and Zhou Mi’s soft laughter carried a smile. “Could I…?”
It was the first time he kissed a man, an adult, and his teeth bit into his lips under the force of his enthusiasm at first. But it softened, and Zhou Mi with it, stroking his hair, and smiling against his mouth. Zhou Mi. He was kissing Zhou Mi. He’d had no idea if he’d ever have that chance, if Zhou Mi would ever want- And he had kissed Kyuhyun first. Had nearly kissed him in the creek when Zhou Mi had been wet and beautiful above him. It made him shiver, and yearn, and it took time for the reality of it to fade enough for him to relax.
He fell asleep to Zhou Mi’s fingertips tracing the back of his hand.
***
Kyuhyun had had, at most, a few kisses in his lifetime. A couple from classmates, girls, when he’d been younger. One time, he’d been fifteen and had gone to the city with his father, hours away. There had been a stable boy about his age in the place they had gone to buy breeding stock. They’d had two days to get to know each other, and maybe a handful of fumbling kisses in empty stalls and dark corners. He hadn’t fancied himself in love, but the feelings inside of himself had made so much more sense after the boy had smiled at him and told him he had a pretty mouth, and that he only kissed other boys.
There were boys who wanted to kiss other boys, besides himself.
But none where he lived. The tiny community with its ring of mountains. Villages separated by forests and wide swaths of farms. He didn’t know if anyone there would understand. He couldn’t express interest to another boy, or as an adult, a man. And his parents assumed he was like all the other boys he’d grown up knowing. That he would want a wife.
But he didn’t. He wanted what Zhou Mi, who had not even been born human, showed him. The tender press of a nose tracing beside his. Fingers curling between his, and words softly said against his ear. The curve of an arm in the small of his back, tight and strong, as he gripped Zhou Mi just as intently. Sometimes he wondered that they didn’t merge into each other entirely.
But Kyuhyun was a fast learner. He knew the kisses he wanted, the places Zhou Mi wanted to be touched. That Zhou Mi was ticklish and would squirm, even when the squirming left them panting and with the occasional moan.
They had been teasing each other with kisses and languid hugs and play, for almost a month, before Zhou Mi had him arching in pleasure, with his mouth against Kyuhyun’s neck. He’d felt everything, the warm length of Zhou Mi’s thighs, the comfort of the gentle curve of Zhou Mi’s backside pressed against him in the night. As the nights grew colder, Zhou Mi was warm. He greeted Kyuhyun with kisses when he woke, and was cheerful when Kyuhyun nearly ruined their dinner.
The first time he’d seen Zhou Mi’s back and truly allowed himself to appreciate it, Zhou Mi had been sweaty and dusty from helping him shovel grain.
From the dark hair plastered to Zhou Mi’s neck, to the breadth of his shoulders, and the gleaming muscles and dips and lines as his ribs flared and narrowed to where his pants were tightly belted. Kyuhyun could all too well imagine pushing those down Zhou Mi’s hips, watching more skin bared. Zhou Mi’s legs. His ankles.
When Zhou Mi had turned from wiping his face on his shirt, the view had not gotten less appealing, and had done nothing to abate the ache in Kyuhyun’s body. Cleaning up had been much more fun than getting dirty had been.
And in bed, he read to Zhou Mi. He positioned himself as close to the lamp as he could, and Zhou Mi pressed his head on Kyuhyun’s shoulder, his hand splayed wide over Kyuhyun’s stomach. They talked, sometimes, so long until the lamp sputtered and died, leaving them in darkness and the dawn and work to be done not all that far away. He reversed their position and used Zhou Mi’s chest as his pillow. And as Zhou Mi stroked his hair, his heart ached.
He had freed Zhou Mi from one prison, and he had become one instead.
Because for all the gentle moments, the smiles and laughs. All the ways he tried to make Zhou Mi happy, even by making him food he liked, or letting him choose a game to play or book to read. All those moments were so many, and they did not outweigh the times he found Zhou Mi at the window looking out, his expression wistful as though he could not go beyond the glass.
Of course he could, though, Kyuhyun argued. Zhou Mi had gone out of the door numerous times alone, and many places on the property as well. He wasn’t a prisoner in the house.
Only with Kyuhyun. It was Kyuhyun he could not leave, because of what Zhou Mi felt he owed Kyuhyun. He had become a man, who might possibly one day love Kyuhyun. But that didn’t mean that Zhou Mi would be happy.
One day he looked in the house, the barn, at the creek, for Zhou Mi. Anxiety tightened in his throat, wondering if Zhou Mi had left, if there would be no more walks with his hand grasping Zhou Mi’s.
But it was worse than that. Movement caught his eye when he was walking back, and he saw that Zhou Mi had climbed the ladder, was sitting on the roof of the barn. Birds were wheeling overhead, and Zhou Mi’s hand had raised, as though he could catapult himself up with them - able to fly, be free.
With Kyuhyun, he was doomed to a life of calloused hands and terrible cooking, and hardships. Relying on the seasons to be kind, and the weather. It was hard work, rewarding work, but it must have been so mundane to a dragon. If Kyuhyun had wings, he would have flown to the ocean. Seen all the lands mentioned in his books, and not just dreamed of them in a lumpy bed. Zhou Mi felt like one of those places, like he was something fantastical and unreal.
When Zhou Mi had climbed down, Kyuhyun was already in the house. And when Zhou Mi opened the door, his expression when he saw Kyuhyun was a smile.
“What will we eat tonight? Do you want to play a game? Are you tired?”
The expression on Kyuhyun’s face must have been severe.
He wanted to ask if Zhou Mi was in any way happy, but was afraid of the answer.
So they ate, and they played a game, and he let Zhou Mi kiss him as they stood in front of the stove. So normal, grasping at Zhou Mi’s waist and listening to his sighs.
“We should get some rest,” Zhou Mi told him, his fingertips circling on the back of Kyuhyun’s neck.
It made him want to press his face into Zhou Mi’s shoulder and inhale and remember every good thing. Rolling in the creek. Kissing Zhou Mi against the side of the barn until they had both been breathless and laughing. Zhou Mi’s pretty mouth curving into a smile before Kyuhyun kissed him.
And he thought of Zhou Mi alone, on the rooftop, yearning.
And though he had been able to ignore Zhou Mi’s looks, the wistful way he stared out the windows, it was harder to push that away. He saw, watched for every moment that might mean Zhou Mi was sad. The faraway look in his eyes that would flicker before being replaced with a smile when he saw Kyuhyun.
Even knowing how much that must hurt, it took him a week to truly make his decision. He knew it was selfish, waiting. But every moment, maybe after dinner, or maybe in the morning, he always found an excuse to put it off. Perhaps Zhou Mi looked really happy that morning, or they had really important work to finish that day, or maybe just one more game.
Just one more kiss.
***
Zhou Mi had no idea why Kyuhyun was leading him away from the house that day. Perhaps he’d been preparing himself, saying goodbye in as many ways as he could. He’d made Zhou Mi’s favorite breakfast, cuddled with him in front of the fire in the way that Zhou Mi seemed to like best. There had been kisses, and Kyuhyun had tried not to let his emotions run away with him.
All he needed to do was get them far enough so Zhou Mi could turn into the dragon without being cramped. Room for his wings to spread. That was all.
“What surprise is this?” Zhou Mi asked, as they stopped in the middle of the field nearest the house.
“A good one, I hope,” Kyuhyun said. “I think you should go.”
“Go where?”
“I release you from our agreement,” Kyuhyun told him. “You should be able to fly with the birds instead of just staring at them. You owe nothing more to me.”
“But Kyuhyun-“
“It doesn’t matter if you fulfilled what you stayed for. I made a mistake asking you. You’re miserable, and you did your best. There’s too many bad memories around here anyway.”
Maybe it would’ve been so much different if Zhou Mi had been happy. When he wondered if he was making the right decision, the way the Zhou Mi was staring at him as though he was being betrayed, he thought of Zhou Mi alone on the rooftop and reaching for the sky.
And he could never be that sky, even if Zhou Mi wanted him to be.
“So, go. Have a good life. Enjoy freedom. Don’t let anyone lock you in any more mountains. I won’t find you next time.”
He turned, though his knees felt too light, like he was walking on springs. Watching with hollow eyes as he scuttled more than walked toward the house and the inside where he could hide. If he couldn’t feel Zhou Mi’s eyes on him, he wouldn’t feel tempted to turn back and tell him that he could stay, but only if he wanted to.
The door slammed shut behind him, and he made it as far as the table, palms smarting as they hit it and held him upright. And the words choked through his lips.
“Would our agreement have ended, if you’d come to love me? I couldn’t ask you that.”
Zhou Mi might have left, leaving Kyuhyun to know the person he’d wanted had been just there in his grasp. It was better before he knew. The dark richness of Zhou Mi’s hair beneath his fingers, and the softness of his mouth, and his laughter as Kyuhyun chased him. The strength of his arm around Kyuhyun’s shoulders, and the hopeful smiles. It felt as though he’d cracked.
And Kyuhyun’s knees met the floor as the entire house shook with the force of the roar. Dishes rattled and the world vibrated, the plates Ahra had hung crashing down off the wall.
Then the windows exploded. Shards of glass fell to the floor and shattered as Kyuhyun's heart. The whoosh of air, the sounds of wings, and then silence.
The dragon had gone.
Zhou Mi had gone.
He had just barely made it standing, beginning to sweep the glass into a pile, by the time Ahra pushed through the door.
“What happened?” she gasped, winded from having run the whole way. “It sounded like a dragon. Did Zhou Mi…?”
“He fulfilled our agreement,” Kyuhyun said, and kept sweeping. But he stopped, when she touched his arm.
“Are you okay?”
“Of course. Just more to do myself now.”
He wasn’t sure whether she believed him or not. But she helped him to clean, held boards to cover up the broken windows so he could nail them in place, and cooked a simple dinner for him before leaving.
The house was dark with the windows covered, and he sucked at a cut on his thumb from the glass and nursed a mug of old and bitter wine.
It seemed fitting.
And when he slept, he was alone.
He found Zhou Mi’s clothes in the field the next day.
He burned them.
***
“You’ve lost weight,” Ahra told him.
“I’ve been working for two men again,” Kyuhyun replied.
Part of that was true. Part of it was that he couldn’t stand to be in the dark house, so he grabbed whatever food he could, and worked until his hands ached and his back cried. He’d washed in the stream, tickled a couple of fish one night and roasted them over a carefully laid fire. It had been soothing, watching the smoke waft up into the dark sky. He’d even had a thought that hadn’t hurt at first, wondering what new places Zhou Mi was seeing.
It hurt after a minute though. He carefully put out the fire and crawled into bed
He was sweaty and disgusting the next day from cleaning out the small barn, when he heard a wagon approaching.
“Hello?” he said, when a man jumped down.
“Cho Kyuhyun?”
“Yes?”
“I have a delivery for you.”
Brand new windows. He almost had to stop himself from reaching out to touch them. He’d had no money left to waste to replace the broken panes - and all of them had broken but one.
“I didn’t order these.”
“They’re for you, sir.”
They were offloaded with a minimum of fuss, and no amount of arguing got him answers about who had ordered them, where they’d come from.
All he was left with was a sheet of paper with his name on it and where he lived, brooking no argument that the windows were in the wrong place.
His parents and sister were as baffled as he was, but they helped put them in when it seemed clear that no one was coming back to claim them.
The light shone into the house again, and Kyuhyun’s mood lifted a little. At least his house was almost back to how it was before.
Before.
***
Kyuhyun woke to a banging noise, a pot being loudly place on his stove. It gave him cause for concern for all of half a second. A robber wouldn’t be trying to cook him breakfast. He pressed his face into his pillow for another moment, and tried to justify staying there when either his sister or mother was making him food. It took him a couple of minutes, but he unwrapped himself from his blanket, and dressed, rubbing his face sleepily as he made his way.
His foot hit something hard, and he yelped down at what seemed to be a bag full of rocks. In his bedroom doorway.
He looked up, ready to accuse, and stopped when he saw who was staring back at him.
“Wuh?” was the only sound that left him. Even if his mind was screaming Zhou Mi.
“Sorry, did I wake you?”
No, Zhou Mi should be sorry for barging into his house and surprising the life out of him. Kyuhyun grabbed a handful of his own shirt, and the door jamb, just to ground himself.
“No, I don’t… Why are…”
“It was too long since I’d seen you,” Zhou Mi said. “You look well, Kyuhyun.”
“You too?” he said, his mouth speaking without input from his brain. Of course he looked good. He was there. “What-“
It had been weeks. Weeks that he’d had to work himself from bitterness at himself for sending Zhou Mi away. Maybe the kisses wouldn’t have gone on forever, but they had been wonderful. Maybe Zhou Mi would’ve found a way to be happy. He’d asked all those questions, and told himself that if he had been Zhou Mi, he wouldn’t have wanted to be confined. It wasn’t that Kyuhyun was so unworthy, but that Zhou Mi was so much more. He’d given Zhou Mi everything he could, and even if there had been fear that had been part of his decision, it had been because he’d cared for Zhou Mi in the end. He’d been afraid that Zhou Mi would leave, that it would hurt. And it had hurt. But even if Zhou Mi had been wistful, he’d never stared at Kyuhyun in accusation for what Kyuhyun had taken from him. Kyuhyun had been sad, he’d been angry, even hopeful. He’d woken from a dream, thinking he heard the sound of wings. But there had been nothing but pre-dawn light outside of the windows.
And Zhou Mi was standing in front of him, in his house.
“You put in the windows I sent,” Zhou Mi said, stepping up to one and touching the edge.
“You,” Kyuhyun said, and then had to swallow violently. “You sent them?”
“I did. It took me a little while. But I heard them break when I left, and I know how proud you were of them.”
“Oh.”
The back of his head was buzzing as he stepped over the sack and closer to Zhou Mi. He wasn’t entirely certain that he was still standing up. Or perhaps he was dreaming. But his foot hurt still, and Zhou Mi looked different. His hair was shorter, his clothes different than the one Kyuhyun had bought for him. Blue. A blue shirt against Zhou Mi’s skin.
“I brought you a gift,” Zhou Mi said, pointing.
“A bag of rocks?” Kyuhyun asked, skeptical. Yes, he’d discovered that, somewhat violently. Perhaps Zhou Mi wanted him to build a foundation for some building or something.
“Oh, breakfast!” Zhou Mi said, panicked as he whirled back to the stove to check the boiling pot. When it was saved, Zhou Mi turned to him, reaching for Kyuhyun’s arm and then crouching and opening the tie of the heavy sack. “It is a bag of rocks, but…”
Zhou Mi pulled out a light colored stone, and Kyuhyun was puzzled at first, standing beside Zhou Mi. Zhou Mi rubbed his thumb over the rock, revealing a soft glow. Gold.
“With this, we can build all your dreams,” Zhou Mi said, smiling up at him, and standing with the rock still in his hand.
Zhou Mi had brought him a sack full of gold-bearing rocks.
“My dreams?” Kyuhyun repeated, feeling incredibly slow. He didn’t know what to do with the man standing there. He still didn’t quite believe he was.
“You told me what you wanted to do. The land you wanted to buy, and that you wanted more windows, more animals. We could do that, with this.”
“We?”
Zhou Mi nodded eagerly at him.
“Why…” Kyuhyun began, lost. And he turned away, turned to the window Zhou Mi had given him. Letting the light in. Bringing the light. Perhaps it was both. “I thought leaving was what you wanted.”
“I thought you wanted that, too,” Zhou Mi said, his voice close and so familiar and so foreign at the same time. “But then I realized you never told me you were tired of me, and wanted me to go. Only that I should be happy.”
“I wasn’t going to be your new mountain,” Kyuhyun said, his voice stiff.
And he was glad he was not speaking, because his voice would have broken as Zhou Mi came up behind him and wrapped his arms around him.
“I spent a long time alone dreaming of the things I wanted, the things I would do,” Zhou Mi said, half speaking into Kyuhyun’s neck. “As a dragon, I have no choice but to be alone. But as a man… I could be with a man who could love me, too.”
He could see their reflection, together, in the glass.
“I could be of help to you,” Zhou Mi continued. “I enjoy working beside you.”
Kyuhyun laughed, the sound awkward and full. “Your help was not why I wanted you here.”
He’d had so many other reasons, by the time he’d set Zhou Mi free.
“I know,” Zhou Mi said, and the sound was very soft as he rubbed his head against Kyuhyun’s. He stared down at Zhou Mi’s hands, and wondered if Zhou Mi had read into his statement. That Kyuhyun had wanted him there. Had wanted him. But he let his next words be a question.
“When you left here, where did you go?”
“I flew, as high as I could fly. I could see everything spread beneath me, small and perfect. I could go anywhere. And I was alone.”
A shiver went down Kyuhyun’s spine as Zhou Mi clutched him closer.
“I will make a bargain with you, because you set me free, twice. If you will let me fly away whenever I wish - maybe for an hour, or a day, or a week - I will return to you. My wings are my freedom. You knew that.”
Kyuhyun struggled with Zhou Mi’s arms, just enough so he could turn and look Zhou Mi in the eye. “But why return here? When you could choose anywhere, pick anyone?”
Zhou Mi’s smile was worth more to him than boulders of gold, the way that Zhou Mi cupped his face and kissed him.
Perhaps he had been smarter than he knew, in what he had asked of Zhou Mi. Even if Zhou Mi was, at his heart, a dragon, he had come back to Kyuhyun.
As a man who loved him willingly.
***