[Fic] Guardian - 7/8 (EXO)

[coley_merrin]

Title: Guardian
Pairing: Kai/Suho
Rating: NC-17 overall
Genre: master/slave!AU, pseudo-historical, fantasy, smut
Warnings: issues of sexual consent, references to past sexual assault, violence, kidnapping, slaves having no ability to say no especially at first, and did I mention issues of consent inherent to master/slave dynamics?

Summary: They spoke of him as though he were nothing more than a treasure found by the roadside. He bowed to his new master because it was polite, and because he knew of nothing else he could do. See warnings.



***

Chapter One * Chapter Two * Chapter Three * Chapter Four * Chapter Five * Chapter Six * Chapter Seven * Chapter Eight

***

The better that Suho felt, the more he saw, and heard. Kai watched him at times, sometimes because he worried, but other times Suho wondered what was going through Kai’s head. When Suho approached the bed, grateful after sitting up to crawl back into it, he remembered when Kai crawled above him, kissed him until he was breathless. He didn’t know if he could sustain it, but it didn’t keep him from wondering, and wondering too if Kai thought of it. There had been not so many nights where Suho had not touched Kai, had not enjoyed sharing his pleasure with Kai. His body was healing, but it wasn’t devoid of want. He had, a few times, braced his stomach and brought himself to a quick end. Kai had been out, and Sehun not hovering, and it had felt delicious, like he was temping fate, doing something forbidden. The first time he’d ended up gasping, but he’d learned to pace himself. He didn’t feel right asking it of Kai, waiting until Kai was ready. He had told Kai he missed it, but Kai still had not asked him for anything.

When the light was out and he relaxed, he heard Kai turn onto his side and felt the shift of the cover, rhythmic and quick. It happened one night. Two. Again, a few nights later. Kai had told him he did it, had not tried to hide it. But it was different than knowing, and listening to it, knowing there was something that he could do to help, and flushing in the dark as he imagined how Kai looked when he was pleased.

And Suho paused before he blew out the light one night, looking up and down the line of Kai’s body beneath the blanket.

“Do you have a need tonight?” Suho asked, and Kai looked to him, confused, almost insulted almost. “Maybe my body isn’t healed enough for more, but my mouth is not broken.”

Oh, and that, Kai understood. He sat up, solemn.

“I promised myself when you began to wake that I would not ask it of you until you were fully healed. And then, you could decide what you wanted.”

“If you think to wait until the marks leave my body, you will be waiting longer than either of our lives,” Suho said, and felt almost glad when Kai scowled.

“That isn’t what I mean, and you know it. You can barely stand without bracing your stomach.”

“Sometimes it feels like it will burst open,” Suho sighed. Even if that did not help his argument, he knew Kai knew that already. Even if he knew his stomach would not part, there was still pain there, and it helped him to stand without worry. Suho blew out the light and watched the residual glow for a moment before easing onto the bed.

“Does it seem like I’m demanding only what I want?” Kai wondered. “I just don’t want to take from you what I can’t give you back. I don’t want you to worry.”

“When I am ready, you can believe me,” Suho said. And it was a promise that warmed him as much as the hand that Kai squeezed around his. Connection, closeness. He felt Kai’s care in that, and he let his exhaustion pull him down.

***

Suho ran, oh, he ran until his lungs were burning, careening off of solid stone walls, and through pools that pulled at him, wafting smoke, and sounds of screams, and he ran, Kai just out of sight, just beyond his protection. The arrows hovered around his head, taunting him, jabbing at his sides, his neck, and his arms would not lift to catch them, to move them away.

But the arrows that pierced them, he saw, roaring toward him wreathed in red. The pain ran through his veins like fire, piercing through him, screaming as he gagged and vomited rivers of blood, he fell but did not hit the ground, reaching for Kai whose face swam in front of his eyes, reaching for him. To help, for help, he had to get there. He’d caught the arrows. It was all for nothing. All for nothing as Kai’s reaching hand went limp, cold when he grasped it, sifting through his fingers like sand that whisped away as he tried to grasp it, to gasp for air, to-

Suho’s chest burned as he gasped, clawing at the blanket over him and trying to sit up, to reach for Kai. The pain. The pain. He whimpered as he clutched at his stomach, the wound near his shoulder aching. The tent was dark. It had been a dream. And Kai was stirring beside him.

“Suho? Are you all right?”

For Kai to have woken, he had to have been loud and wild.

“It was just a dream,” Suho said. Not a vision, no. There had been no tinge of that. But Suho curled onto his side. Where he could have comforted himself, after the dream, he could not help himself, pressing his face into the center of Kai’s warm chest and feeling his heart beat beneath. He waited for a moment, breathing, wondering if Kai would push him away.

Kai stilled but did not move him away, and Suho closed his eyes even tighter as Kai touched his shoulder, his hair.

“Of the arrows? Do you dream of that?”

So many times when he’d been ill, it seemed. If he’d been only a little quicker, he could have pushed Kai down. He dreamed of avoiding them, of them chasing him, of blood, of being cold in death, of screams, of Kai writhing in pain and dying in his arms. He’d dreamed of solace, too, of Kai’s smile, of the rhythm of his voice rumbling against Suho’s ear, of holding his hand, and resting sleepy against him. When the arrows threatened, he ran to Kai. Always to Kai.

“I dream of it,” Suho said. “I dream of racing through the market to reach you. I dream of being too late, of dying, or watching you die. I didn’t want to die.“

And he gasped, the words choking in his throat as Kai half turned to him, wrapping his arm around Suho’s shoulders and breathing against his hair.

“But we both are still alive. I wasn’t going to allow you to die.”

“Because I took the arrows for you?”

Kai’s breath hissed out of him. “We still hunt for the archer. There are so many whispers of who and why. My father hunted, when you were still in danger.”

“You never speak of it.”

“I thought it would upset you,” Kai said. “Or. Maybe I worried it would upset me, I don’t know. It’s easier to focus on finding who did it, so they don’t hurt anyone else.”

Outside of the tent, there were so many things that could harm Kai. Being thrown from his horse, an arrow, or even poison. “You’re careful?”

“Yes. I won’t put your sacrifice to waste by seeing their arrow find me now, nor some dagger in my back.”

Horror seized him, his hand tightening on Kai’s side.

“What would… What would become of me then?” Suho wondered.

They would not even speak of it. They didn’t then. Kai would not have allowed him to die, he said, and so Suho would not either, not even in his mind. Maybe it was that determination, or the way that Kai did not force him to move away that soothed him, but he slept dreamless until the sun had risen. Sehun woke them with a small clatter at the table, and Kai rose, scratching at his chest and meeting Suho’s eyes with a small smile.

“Can I sit at the table today to eat?” Suho asked, desperate.

Kai was surprised, halfway there, and Sehun had the tray in his hands meant for Suho’s lap. Sehun looked to Kai, and Kai to Sehun, and Suho fidgeted in the silence before Kai nodded, giving his assent. But he didn’t dine alone, leaning against Sehun as Sehun fetched more food and they all shared their meal together. Suho watched Kai across from him and was thankful. It seemed strange to think it, but even if he still had pain, he had Kai. He was alive. Kai, of his tent would live. He believed it.

***

They did not catch the archer with a bow in his hands, or cackling over arrows. But they did catch him. There were spies, and whispers, and what surprised Kai when he walked into the tent where the archer was being held, was that the face was not unfamiliar to him. He did not have a name to put to the face, but it was a man who had been among the markets and tents for many years, half of Kai’s life it seemed.

“I hear you have a good hand with a bow and arrow,” Kai said, sitting across from the man, assessing him. Kai’s father remained standing, but he was no less alert.

“My father taught me how to hunt when I was small.”

Kai tilted his head. “And when did you begin to move to hunting humans?”

“Enough coin makes many things worthwhile.”

He did not even try to deny it. And for coin, such a reason to take a life. “Why were those arrows directed at me?”

One of the archer’s shoulders jerked. “I didn’t ask. Sometimes it’s better not to know.”

“If you don’t know why,” Kai said. “Then I do want to know who. Do you know that at least? Who paid you?”

There was a slow nod, acknowledgement. “It was a man who called himself Suho.”

Kai stood, grabbing the man’s shirt and giving him a hard shake until he got a sound of distress. “You lie!”

“Kai!” his father barked.

“Tell me the truth, and tell it quickly,” Kai said, but he didn’t let go of the archer.

“He said his name was Suho. He wore a hood, gave me ten silver coins and told me where you would be that day. He said he came from some kind of temple so he could make a blessing on me.”

Kai pushed him back, satisfied and disgusted. “Suho has never seen a silver coin in his life, and he made no blessings.”

“Perhaps he knew enough to fake them?”

Kai shook his head, turning to his father. “He was a guardian of the temple, keeper of some pieces of paper and sticks of wood. And even if he could pretend, he would have had no access to money of that kind. When I left a copper coin, he returned it to me. And he rarely left the tent alone.”

“He would not have had to have left if someone went to him, allowed him to become complicit.”

Kai laughed. “So someone went to my tent, gave my slave money, who then found an archer to shoot me in a place he didn’t know I’d be. And then, he threw himself in front of me, taking the arrows meant to kill me?”

“The regret of guilt.”

“Of loyalty,” Kai corrected. “He Saw my death not minutes before he ran in front of me.”

“And you trust him?”

“Sooner than I would trust this scum. Why would a man admit his own identity, when he could pretend to be my slave?”

It was good the archer did not smirk at him when Kai turned back to him, because Kai wasn’t sure what he would have done if he had seen that. The man’s life was forfeit, would be once they had gotten everything they needed. It was not for Suho’s injury that the man would be punished, but how close the arrows had come to taking Kai’s life instead. It made his lip curl. As though Suho’s life was less important than his own.

“We found you,” Kai said. “We’ll find who paid you. Father?”

Kai left the tent, anger coiled in him as his father asked him more of Suho, of his demeanor, of his obedience.

“Slaves who are not born to it sometimes find it hard to conform,” his father said. “Have you been too soft with him?”

“He had his discipline, but he was not a slave that needed taming. He is a hard worker. Even after the arrows, he strains himself to be able to work.”

“To keep you from suspicion?”

“He is not that kind of man. I would know it. We will find who is behind it, but it is not my slave.”

They parted, he and his father, and Kai did not care if his father was convinced or not. He knew, and that was enough. They would continue their search, and they would find who was responsible. The only other choice was to hope that they were discouraged, and would not make another attempt. He didn’t think Suho would be able to survive any more injuries.

In the door of the tent, Kai paused, studying Suho’s face. Suho was sitting, but he wasn’t idle, reading as Kai had expected. Instead he was folding clothes that Kai assumed Sehun had brought to him. He looked good, face contorting in thought as he twisted cloth and smoothed it. That was the sight of home, Suho waiting for him there. For a moment, Kai wondered if he should tell Suho of the archer’s claims. He knew the reaction he would get, horror, denial. It was a stress upon all of the other stresses that Suho already had, from his healing body to feeling useless that he could not do what he thought he should do. Slaves were not typical ornaments, and perhaps in another tent, Suho would have been pushed to work sooner, but not in his.

When Kai ducked further into the tent, Suho looked up, face going immediately guilty when Kai walked in, like he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t have been doing. For a moment Kai wanted to laugh, As though Suho could have hidden a discontent that would have led to Kai’s death.

“I begged Sehun to let me help, at least somehow. All I could do was sit and talk with him while he washed and hung it up,” Suho explained before Kai could say a word. “It doesn’t hurt when I do this.”

“That’s good to know.”

Kai settled himself on the ground, near enough to watch Suho, but not so close that he was in the way. He knew better than to touch, to offer to help, not wanting the glare that would come with it. Suho would know his limit, though with Kai there watching, he’d undoubtedly use that determination to see it through.

“Are you happy?” Kai asked, leaning forward to pick at the corner of a fraying seam.

The look Suho sent him was incredulous, as though Kai asked him if the ground beneath him was made of clouds.

“I’m alive, and getting stronger,” Suho said. “You are well, and so is Sehun Everything is feeling normal again. It is… It is a new chance.”

All of it was true, but not entirely the answer Kai had been seeking. “Would you want the temple again?”

Suho let out a sound near to a snort, beginning to fold again as though the topic amused him. “Perhaps when I am old, a temple with warming waters would be nice. I could make sure that all the apprentices have food, and that the patrons don’t prey on them. But that would be many years from now. There is too much life to live. If I was in a temple, I wouldn’t see where this tent would move next.”

“Just the tent?” Kai asked, and Suho laughed, folding the last cloth in his hand.

“Wherever the tent goes, you will. I’ll get to see you dismount from your horse when you return, when you walk in to greet me, or..hold me.”

Kai held out a hand, patient as Suho all but crawled closer to grasp it and let Kai pull him against his side. “Like this?”

“That is one way,” Suho murmured, meeting Kai’s eyes. They were dark and thoughtful and those eyes had never changed. “Why do you ask me those things when you already know?”

Kai shook his head, leaning in to brush his lips against Suho’s.

“Many things have changed. I just wanted to be sure that we felt the same.”

Suho smiled at him so brightly after the kiss, pressing his face into Kai’s collarbone and falling into some half sleep as Kai held him. It was not Suho, but it was someone who knew them, who had reason to dislike Kai and want him dead. Sehun ducked into the tent for only a moment before spotting them, ducking right back out with a grin on his face, leaving them so that Suho could rest.

***

Most of what Suho did every day couldn’t be considered work, at least not to him. Though, it felt like it sometimes, exhausting him. He took less naps as days wore on, and when he had none of the simple tasks to do - he could only dust so often- he walked around the tent, crouched and bent and gently twisted. He stretched his arms up, moving them slow and feeling the skin pull around the wound on his shoulder. But it pulled a little less, hurt so much less. He could reach over his head to grip something without holding his breath in concentration. When Kai had come home the night before, and he’d pulled Suho in, he’d been able to wrap his arms around Kai’s shoulders and hold him without fear of pain. He was healing. One day, even Kai would be able to believe it, and he wanted to see the smile when Kai had no doubts. He would have his hair trimmed, give it the red glow that Kai liked. It would be perfect.

Suho paused at a shadow along the tent, watching as it grew larger, a man pushing under the flap. He looked so official, standing there, that Suho was taken off guard for a moment.

“I am sorry, my master is not home,” Suho apologized.

“You are the slave, Suho?”

Suho frowned. “Yes, that is my name.”

Suho stiffened in alarm as a man stalked in from the other side of the tent, approaching him with such speed that Suho barely had time to brace himself before he was being pulled off balance, a gloved hand covering his mouth that smelled of something sickly and made his head swim. His cry of pain was muffled as he was lifted, twisted, pressure on his wounds that sent discomfort shooting through him. Maybe he made a sound, maybe he tried to fight, but he was so dizzy, bound and dropped into a wagon bed with a sack over his head. He breathed through the cloth in his mouth, grunting at the bumps, the sickening sway. It felt like hours, years, before it stopped, and Suho shouted in alarm as he was pulled out, feet first. His shoulder hit the ground before anything else, jolting him, and he groaned, lifted by his ribs and feet by two men and carried. But that wasn’t long before they knelt and lowered him. He tried not to squirm, wondering what was happening to him. They dropped him, not hard and not far, but he only truly knew where he was when one of them ripped the sack off of his head, and with it, the rag from his mouth. He was underground, he realized. Not under, but down beneath, on rocky soil. Above him, three feet of dirt on either side.

For a moment, he thought: a grave.

“You will see the sky from here, but your master will never find you,” the man laughed at him. “Did you See this, too, little witch?”

“No!” he nearly shouted when he realized they meant to leave him there. But his voice was a dry croak, and a covering of wood that had been lashed together was placed over the hole he was in. He heard the orders, move the rocks. Boulders, holding down the wood, trapping him. “No, please don’t leave me here!”

“They found the archer,” one of the men told him. “Now it is time to finish what we started.”

They meant to go after Kai again.

“Please! Please help me!” he shouted, and herd only the sounds of laughter, of horses being mounted, of the wagon starting to move. They grew fainter and his chest grew tighter, lifting his bound hands to press against the wood. He could see through it, but all he could see was the sky. He didn’t know how far away from the encampment he was, if there was anyone around him at all. Perhaps they meant him as ransom, a lure. But the reality that they could leave him there to die was the heaviest weight on him. Kai wouldn’t even know he was in danger. He would return to the tent, and it would be empty. If they killed Kai, if no one thought to look for Suho, they might think he had something to do with it. But he would be dead, too, of hunger, or thirst, and he would be already in the ground.

Tears spilled from the corner of his eyes, and he pressed his hands up and shouted, “Kai!” Oh, it croaked from him. “Kai! Kai. Kai. Please, can anyone hear me!”

A sob choked him, and he dug his nails into his hands to gather himself. No. He couldn’t panic. If he cried, he lost water from inside of him. He needed to keep all of that he could.

He wiped one of the tears from his cheek onto the back of his hand. Perhaps he could not See it or perhaps the answer wasn’t there, but he could not See how to help himself, or what would happen.

***

Suho timed himself, tried not to wear out his voice or use up his strength. Every couple of minutes he would shout, and he would hear the wind in response. It had only been a few hours since he’d been taken, at least he thought it had been. It was perhaps even possible that no one had yet noticed he was gone.

The sound of a horse had him tensing, and he reached for the wood.

“Is someone there! Please, can you help me! Hello? Please!”

“Cry all you want. You do our job for us. If he hears you he will die quicker.”

Suho’s heart sank, realizing it was one of the men who had brought him there. But the man was still there, so there was still a chance perhaps he would be set free, that something would help him go back to the tent.

“Did you want to be sure I still lived?” Suho asked.

“You wouldn’t die in a few hours, not unless something nasty got down in there with you. Or perhaps, if it was raining. We have found another use for you.”

Suho was shaking as the rocks were rolled back, the wood moved. He climbed out, stiff, in pain, and stumbled alongside the horse to just down the road where the wagon waited. In it, he collapsed, grateful, not sick as he had been before, staring at the boards and waiting as it rolled. As long as he wasn’t put back into the ground, he could endure it.

When they stopped, it was in a small encampment, and Suho accepted the water skin, drinking greedily as he sank onto the dirt.

“What do you want from me?” he asked, looking up at the two men who stood by the tent.

“We want you to be what delivers Kai to us. Or to the earth, we don’t mind.”

“You may try to use me, but I will not help you to see any harm come to Kai. If that is your goal in holding me, it is a useless one.”

They were armed, as well. He could not run. Though if there was a way to warn Kai, he tried to think of it. He was no strategist. His goal in the temple had been to hide, but there was nowhere to hide there, and no way to do it.

“Shall I give you a dagger to see your danger to Kai's life ended, then?”

“What would that serve?” Suho wondered. “You would use my body to accomplish the same.”

“And yet you stare at my sword. You could not even lift it with two hands. Perhaps you mean to take it from me when my guard is down.”

“As long as one is alive, all things are possible,” Suho muttered.

“If Kai rides to save you and you slay your captors, it would be a touching scene. You mean to protect him?”

It made Suho shudder. “I am the servant of my master. He will not die because of me.”

“Because he saved you? I saw the arrows fly and sink deep in your body. Perhaps he has magic. Another reason to see him gone from our tents.”

“He has no magic,” Suho scoffed. “The arrows did not fly true. It was my reward for seeing my master safe, to have my life spared.”

“He will not think you lucky but regretful. They have our friend. He will tell them you paid him to have your master killed.”

“Me! The man who feeds me and sees me safe, I would kill him? His father is not so kind. I would not do myself a favor.”

“Revenge has no logic if he plucked you from your home,” the man said, crouching near him. “It festers.”

They tried to turn him, to see if he fostered some ill will, and so clumsily. “Not in me. If your man tells them I am to blame, what use would my master have to find me except to see me dead of his own hand? Or do you mean to see if I harbor resentment? Because you will not find it.”

Suho took a short, sharp breath as a knife point was pressed into his skin. “Perhaps I should do your master’s job for him, since he will not live to do it himself.”

“His is stronger than you think. I am his- I am his guardian. I will be until I die, whether at his hand or yours.”

“Death is kinder than slavery.”

Oh, once he would have thought it, too, but he met his captors eyes. “I don’t wish to die. I want to go home to my master’s tent. He has done nothing for you to hate him. If he had, he would make it right.”

“Bring the boy,” the man said, and Suho looked where he commanded, feeling his stomach drop as Sehun was pushed from the tent, bound, gagged, his eyes wide as he saw Suho.

“He is not Kai’s slave!” Suho said.

“But he is of Kai’s tents. Perhaps if you will not tell us what we need, he will.“

Suho almost laughed. They had brought the two slaves of the tents least likely to have a reason to see Kai hurt. The first fist into Sehun’s side sounded hollow, but the second one had a sharp sound that had both him and Sehun crying out.

“Stop, please!” Suho begged, reaching for the man’s arm. “Please, you must not hurt him. I’ll tell you the color of the sky, I will use my Sight, but you will get no help from me if you hurt him again.”

Suho fell back from the back of the man’s hand against this face. His lip stung but at least Sehun was being left alone.

“If you want something from me, hurt me,” Suho said, his eyes steady as he stared up at the man. “But you already know my answer.”

Suho shivered as his shirt was pulled up over his head, dangling over his bound hands.

“Perhaps the archer was right, and you did pay him to kill your master.”

“I would never,” Suho said.

“But that’s what your master will think,” the man say, glee in his voice. He heard something draw. A whip. A knife. It didn’t matter. Suho braced for the pain.

***

The tent had been empty, and the work tent where Suho and Sehun often worked together. None of the other slaves had seen Suho, no one near the horses, or in the market. Suho’s boots and sandals were still in the tent, and he would not have walked far without them. It was as though Suho had flown away somehow.

“I saw…I think it was him,” a slave said, melting back against a tent wall when Kai approached. “But he did not walk from your tent. A man, tall, carried him. If it was your slave, he was not awake.”

“What did the man look like?” Kai demanded.

“I don’t know. His head was covered by a hood. It looked strange, so I told the lord but he told me to go back to work.“

“My father?” Kai interrupted.

“Yes, my lord.”

“Thank you,” Kai said, and didn’t wait for any further information, instead striding into his father’s tent with a purpose. There at least he found satisfaction, his father resting, eating, and Kai waited for his father to acknowledge him, something ingrained in him since he could walk. So Kai sat, and he waited, and was granted what he wanted.

“Yes, my son?”

“I have spent most of the last hour looking for Suho, the slave I took from the temple. I had news that a hooded man carried him from my tent. He is still injured. A slave asked you of it? What-“

“It was one of my men who took him,” his father said, interrupting Kai without thought. “Waste your time no further.”

“I…What?” Kai asked. “Why would you take my slave from my tent?”

“I warned you when it happened that he might have saved you out of guilt. You left it to me to find the archer, and I did. And you heard that same man who tried to kill you say this slave of yours is the one who paid for his services.”

“And I told you he did not. If Suho truly stopped their attack, do you not think he or whoever paid him would have reasons to want him from my side? He has already saved my life once. How would he have paid? How-”

“He would not be the first slave to steal from his trusting master. You were too blinded by his supposed sacrifice to see. Answers had to be found. Punishment meted. He is your slave, but you are still my son.”

Kai pushed himself onto his feet. “Punishment!”

Their version of punishment for so grave a crime would not be light, death often preceded by great pain.

“He is still alive,” his father said, scowling at Kai’s outburst. “I may have taken it upon myself to find answers, but it would be your right to choose the manner of his death if he is truly to be blamed. My men are extracting answers from him as we speak.”

It was such a gross breach of trust that Kai nearly trembled. A man’s slaves were his own. “Take me to him.”

“At sunset the man questioning him will be here to tell me what he has learned. We’ll decide then.”

Kai grit his teeth together as he imagined Suho in front of him, holding his tunic and begging him to speak to his father rationally or risk being disregarded. Suho had been wise then. And it calmed him then.

“Thank you, Father.”

But Kai did not wait in the tent with his father, returning to his own, to the quiet of it, and watching for the messenger. He wanted to know everything, and the sun lowered too slowly for his liking when he knew that Suho was somewhere, possibly being hurt because of him. Again.

***

His father’s man arrived not long after the last of the sun had fallen beneath the horizon, and Kai was only steps behind him when he entered the tent. Kai took his place to the side, his stomach in knots as he wanted to growl out for the man to speak faster, to give them his report.

“Tell us what you have discovered,” his father said.

“We locked him in the underground box, the small one that feels as though a man is being buried alive. The first two hours, he did not call for us, or beg or plead, only called the name of your son, over and over. When we took him from the box, we told him we meant to kill his master. That we had tried and he had foiled our plots. He told us that he would not help us. We offered him coin and freedom, spoke ill of slavery and his master. When he did not bend, we threatened the other slave.”

Kai looked to his father. “What other slave?”

“Sehun. I know they are close.”

“You let them take Sehun?” Kai asked, incredulous. He had wondered, since Sehun could not be found either, but Sehun had been with them his whole life. And to the man, “So Sehun was threatened. What did Suho do then? Confess his hatred of me?”

“No, my lord. He told them that Sehun was innocent, not a slave of your tent as he was. When he could see the boy was in pain, your slave asked us to beat him instead, if we wished, but he would not tell us the things we wanted. We told him that if he were to take poison to your tent, it would be quick. And he told us he had taken two of our arrows to see you live, and that your end would not come by his hands.”

“And did you beat him?” Kai asked, sounding surprisingly calm to his own ears.

“Enough to see if he would break, but he did not. He bargained with us, my lord. Said if we believed there was a blight on his master’s name, his master would make it right. When I left, I told him that if he would not help us to kill you, he would be our lure. He only held his tongue to keep the other slave from harm.”

“It does not prove his innocence,” Kai’s father said. “That determination could be that of a very guilty man.”

“Or a very loyal one,” Kai replied.

“When we told him the archer captured would blame him, he said if his master believed it then his master would do our job and kill him instead.”

“He thinks he has you fooled,” his father said, scowling.

“No, my lord. He felt that to have survived the arrows, it was his purpose to stay beside his master to protect him, his reward for being true. He said he had Seen the arrows, and if it was his death that would cause that protection then so be it. He was willing to die at the point of my knife if he did not help us. We did find this.”

Suho’s slave cuff, the laces cut, and the amulet Sehun’s merchant had given to help protect Suho tumbled onto the table.

“This is not an amulet of a slave. Payment for the attack?” his father asked, staring hard at Kai, even as Kai shook his head.

“I tied that amulet on his wrist myself when he lay half dead, to protect him. He has been loyal to me, Father. Believe your man, if you will not believe me.”

“If I had doubt, I would say,” his father’s man said. “I think to look further at him is to look in the wrong direction. You do have his loyalty. He would not even pretend to accept the poison to save his own life.”

“Then I would like permission to bring him back to my tent,” Kai said, his voice insistent. He did not feel he had to ask for permission, but he would be damned if he left without it.

“It has put most of the doubt from me at least. I’ll allow him back, unless we find something to change my mind.”

There wouldn’t be anything. That Kai knew without any doubt.

***

It wasn’t quite as destroying as it had been to see Suho bleeding and pale on his bed. Instead of fear, it was anger to see Suho curled on his side in some muddy pit, chained and shirtless. He didn’t look up at the sound of approaching horses, or as Kai approached. But he breathed, and Kai could see that, from the lantern that hung from the front of the interrogation tent.

"Get the shackle off his leg," Kai snapped at the nearest man, and he knelt and reached for Suho's face. "Suho.”

At the touch, Suho's eyes opened, head turning as he focused on Kai's face.

"Kai." There was such joy in that word, a pained smile spreading across Suho's face for only a moment before terror replaced it, a muddy hand pushing at him. “Kai! You have to go! They're using me to lure you here. You're not safe."

"I'm safe," Kai told him. “We’re both safe. These men are my father's. He didn't believe in your innocence when he heard the archer tried to cast blame on you."

"Your father's men,” Suho said, as though wondering. "But I would not have―"

"I know. I know you were not involved. Your only crime was being injured in saving my life."

He'd meant it as a joke, but Suho's face was so severe that he cursed himself. Suho had been locked up, beaten, interrogated. It wasn't the time for jokes.

"Can you stand?"

"I think so."

The shackle was gone, but Suho didn't seem to realize it had ever been there as he steadied himself with Kai's shoulders and stood. Out of the mud, at least. Someone handed Kai Suho's shirt, and he did not look at whoever that was, too angry for that. He just needed Suho covered for the ride home so they wouldn't add chafing and cold to the list of injuries committed against him.

"Suho.”

They both looked over as Sehun stepped up to them.

"Are you all right?" Suho asked, reaching for Sehun's arm.

"Yes," Sehun said, glancing at Kai for only a moment before telling Suho, "Thanks to you."

Suho shook his head but Kai finally got him into his shirt.

"We can thank everyone back in the tents," Kai instructed. "Sehun, can you ride or are you injured?"

"I'm not injured at all. I can ride."

Kai had taught him when they were younger, far away from the eyes of his father. Slaves did not need to ride. But Kai had brought an extra horse, knowing on his own he could take Suho - but he would not leave Sehun to walk back.

"Good."

He could not do to Suho what he wanted, to pull Suho against him and make sure he was not in pain, ask him if he was all right. The men thought Kai was angry then, and that was as it should be because he was. Sehun helped Kai boost Suho up into the saddle ahead of Kai before mounting his own horse.

"I thought I would die before leaving here," Suho said, as their pace picked up into a walk. "I thought if I saw you again they would try to kill you."

"I'm alive, and so are you," Kai said.

They settled into a canter, the tents his only goal. Suho would be washed, fed, held.

“Tell me if this pains you,” Kai said, but Suho was quiet, leaning back against him and holding with both hands one of Kai’s arms. It took them longer than he liked, but when he saw the light of the tents, it calmed him somewhat, pulling his horse to a halt and waiting for Sehun to come up beside him and hand off his own horse to one of the grooms. It allowed Kai to dismount and help Suho off of the horse. It twinged in him, when Suho grunted in pain, but they all walked back together. For a moment he met Sehun’s eyes, and Sehun shook his head, assuring him. Sehun was crabby and hungry, but otherwise fine it seemed.

“Water for Suho to wash,” Kai said, gesturing to Suho there, and Sehun nodded, slipping away. That was when Kai turned to Suho and truly looked at him.

Muddy, exhausted, there was a telltale wetness to his eyes as Kai gripped both of his shoulders.

“I was worried when I could not find you in the tent. When I couldn’t find Sehun- I would have looked fruitlessly if someone had not seen you being carried away.”

"I thought you would think I had run away, that it would be seen as proof of my guilt," Suho said, his face so very still, obviously hiding emotion.

“When my father told me what he had done, he would not tell me where you were, until he was certain of your innocence."

"He is convinced now?"

"I don't know that he could ever truly be convinced but he is more certain of it now than he was before. He is assured that you are more loyal than he believed before."

“That’s good.”

It was. It was, and he would not ask Suho to detail his ordeal, not then. It was a good sign that when Kai asked Suho if he could continue standing to wash, that he glared. Kai kept the chuckle to himself, helping Suho off with his clothes as Sehun and another slave returned with warmer water. It would have been easier to plunge into the cold water but that kind of a shock to Suho's body he couldn't fathom. Kai tested the two buckets of warmer water, and thanked Sehun, sending him away.

"Wait, I wanted to―" Suho said, trying to get him to get Sehun to stop.

"You can talk to him tomorrow," Kai said. "Whatever reassurances or apologies you think you owe. He's fine. Hold still."

The first pass with soap and water got most of the mud and filth from Suho's body. He ignored all protest and requests for Suho to wash himself, pushing away Suho's hands and making quick work of it. Maybe it wasn't as gentle as he'd have liked but it would get Suho off his feet quicker. Over the wounds he could see he was gentle, as much as he could be. Suho was hissing at him as he scrubbed through Suho's hair and then used the remainder of the water to rinse anything left, leaving Suho nearly shivering and reaching for the cloth over Kai's shoulder to dry himself. He let Suho take care of that, mostly. He couldn't help himself, though, using another cloth to dry Suho's hair.

"I know how you were bathed as a child now,” Suho sulked, as Kai guided him inside of the tent.

"Are you in much pain?" Kai asked, ignoring Suho's complaint.

"No. Just tired. They'd fed me some scraps of bread before you got there."

Kai stepped closer. "They said you called for me when they had you locked underground."

"Until I realized they wanted to use me as a lure. Or, at least I thought they did," Suho said, squeezing both hands tight.

He wanted so much right then to grab Suho close, touch every inch of his skin, hug him as he'd wanted to when he'd found Suho in that mud. There was no one there to judge him, just a man sagging with tiredness and probably not some small amount of relief. It was because of that that he urged Suho to the bed, pulling back the covers and waiting until Suho sank down.

And still there was protest.

“I should-“ Suho began.

“You should rest,” Kai said. “Stay there. Sleep. I will see to it that you are safe in these tents.”

“Kai.”

Kai turned away, filling a cup with cool water and bringing it to Suho. “Drink, and sleep.”

Suho drank deeply, shoulders sagging. Kai felt like he’d won some kind of victory, if only that Suho was listening to him on one front. But the second he moved, Suho’s eyes opened.

“You are not leaving?”

The words were urgent, not a demand. A query. Perhaps a worry as well.

“I am not leaving,” Kai said. “Just turning down the light.”

Suho’s breath was very shallow, and Kai was careful not to touch him as he climbed into the bed. .

“Wake me if you are hurting, or if you need anything,” Kai instructed him, just in case Suho was unsure.

“Thank you.”

The words were soft, and Kai closed his eyes even tighter. Suho should not have been thankful. Perhaps it was not of his doing, but his preoccupation with Suho’s health had kept him from finding the one at fault. At first it had been necessary in keeping Suho alive, but then it had been fear that going too far, being too angry, would make Suho disappear. He couldn’t think of them, too grateful, too relieved himself.

"Your heart still beats," Kai said, pressing his head to Suho's chest. It felt almost as though it was Suho who comforted him, sniffling a little and stroking Kai’s hair. He slept that way, the tension in him slowly leaving, and he woke to his head on the pillow beside Suho’s and Suho awake in the pre-dawn light.

“Kai,” Suho said, his voice soft, as though it would disturb the fragile silence around them.

Kai let his lips curl, his voice fought. “What is it?”

"If you believed I had done it, I expected death at your hands,” Suho said, and it as followed by a long, slow exhale.

"You thought I would believe their lies?"

Suho reached for Kai's face, cupping it gently. "Kai. If you had looked at me and thought me a betrayer, death would have been the kindest thing."

"You will not get away from me that easily," Kai said, covering Suho's hand with one of his, at least until Suho scooted forward and wrapped his arm around Kai's neck.

"I wanted to come back to this. To you."

"And now you are."

Both times. Suho had survived to return to him. There would not be a third, he was sure of it, and Kai pressed long, slow kisses to Suho’s lips, cradling Suho’s body against his and reveling in his warmth as they nuzzled against each other and dozed, comforted, together.

***

Suho was sore, but no worse from his ordeal. Kai approached him as though he had been shot again all over, muttering to himself until Suho’s hands soothed some of the anger from his shoulders. He touched Kai then, yes, because Kai did not tell him to stop. The night Kai had brought him back, Suho had bitten the inside of his cheek to fight back the hint of tears as he’d stroked Kai's hair. If Kai hadn’t turned to him, he would have turned to Kai instead, needing that contact, that assurance. He tried to wipe the ugly things from his mind, the thought that Kai’s father had thought he was to blame, the realization that Kai at least believed in him. He had to know that, with the way he had been pushed, the way they had tried to convince him that turning against Kai would be right. If he had taken the offered poison and left, he wondered if he would be dead already, even if he had gone straight to Kai and shown him. He had not cried that night, but after Kai had left him the next morning he had, when the weight of all of it had settled heavily on him. His life had been endangered, twice. Maybe he should’ve felt afraid even to leave the tent.

Kai was the reason that he was not afraid, and Suho knew that all too well.

“I will find who did it so you never have to feel afraid,” Kai had promised him. All he’d had to do was stay at Kai’s side and believe in him, with the slave cuff and its new laces that Kai had given back to him. Knowing how it could have been, it felt good to be coddled, to wake against Kai’s side. He spoke only quietly to Sehun, bruised but not much else. And those faded, too, along with the jolting at shadows and the feeling of being bound. He sat and he reveled in the normalcy of Sehun helping him with the dark paste that would tint his hair red, of feeling it cut, even, as it had been before he’d arrived, as he had kept it before he’d been injured.

It made him wonder if Kai would notice, touching his hair every so often as though to make sure it was still there. But Kai said nothing when Suho brought him his dinner, or when Suho made very pointed lifts of his hand toward it. He would, eventually, Suho knew. Suho cleaned their dishes, almost ready to pull out his mending when Kai ducked into the tent. he stood like a shadow, watching Suho until Suho felt self-conscious, wondering what was in Kai’s head. He didn’t have the look of a man pondering what was different, so Suho knew it had nothing to do with the change of his hair.

“Can I help you?” Suho ventured, and watched as Kai shook himself out of his thoughts.

“Do you feel up to a walk?”

Suho was on his feet almost without thought, bracing himself only a bit, before he walked to Kai’s side.

“To where?” he asked, and let his enthusiasm be his answer.

Kai looked away from him, a smile curving his lips as he slid his hand around Suho’s wrist and tugged him along. The sun was starting to lower in the sky but the way was still bright, and Suho realized they walked toward the horses, the horses milled, some hobbled or in pens, and Suho wondered if Kai meant to go somewhere. The walking did not pain him, a tightness only, and it felt liberating to be outside of the tent and free.

“Look,” Kai said, drawing Suho up next to him and pointing. Between one horse’s legs, another’s seemed to emerge, but thinner, shorter.

“Oh!” Suho said, and took a step forward as the foal appeared from behind his mother’s chest. “So small!”

“A late season birth, born during the night, but he’s healthy,” Kai said. “Come.”

Kai urged the mare closer with the promise of fruit, and she nuzzled his hand, leaning into his strokes and those of Suho’s as well. The foal, shy, wandered to both their sides, stretching out its slender neck toward Suho’s offered fingers and then dancing away before Suho could do much more than touch the soft muzzle.

“Will you name him?” Suho wondered, laughing as the little colt shook his head and made his whole body shudder with it. Still learning his limbs, his body. Suho knew how that felt, nearly feeling reborn as he had started to walk again.

“He will need a name one day,” Kai agreed. And the mare was unconcerned as Kai caught the colt and held him, held him until he was still and curious instead of alarmed, until the colt leaned his head into their stroking hands and nuzzled his tiny nostrils against Suho’s palm. “His sire is my horse, so he’ll be big and strong one day.”

“He seems impossibly strong already, for being only a day old. How amazing life is,” Suho marveled, and steadily did not react when it was obvious that Kai was making fun of him.

But they let the colt go, watching him rub against his mother and begin to suckle.

“Thank you for showing me,” Suho said, as Kai’s fingers wrapped around his and led him. It was not back toward the tent, not directly, a sort of aimless ramble where Suho kept close and wondered still at Kai’s mood, his thoughts. How tall Kai was, how straight and upright he walked, and Suho admired him, admired his profile.

“The horses are…” Kai began, and his voice trailed away as though he wasn’t sure how to continue.

“Freedom?” Suho asked, and Kai nodded.

“Freedom,” Kai agreed.

They sat, together, and Suho pressed himself against Kai’s side, not for warmth but because he was there. Horses grazed not far beyond them, the pond not so far in the other direction. Kai pointed out how the horses moved, how they were arranged and divided, which of them ruled over the others and which he would never part with. It felt like they were in their own land, high grasses and the sound of the wind and Kai’s breathing.

“How lucky we don’t have to use our own two feet to move,” Kai said, and Suho glanced up at him.

“Unless you’re a slave,” Suho teased, and Kai startled a bit, laughing at himself.

“Unless that. I spoke to my father again today. His mind remains unchanged, so you have nothing to fear.”

“I trusted you when you told me that before,” Suho said. Though he wondered, if Kai’s father could not have been convinced, what Kai would have done. He could not imagine Kai lifting Suho onto one of his horses and riding with him to safety. Perhaps he would have put Suho on one instead and sent him with all of his wishes, a slave, an outcast, a man suspected of trying to kill his master. It had him grasping Kai’s hand and lifting it, pressing his lips against Kai’s knuckles. He had trusted, because he had felt Kai’s faith in him. Had it been any other man, perhaps he would not have felt so secure, but it was Kai. Kai, who was young, but held power in his hands and did not wield it. Kai, who learned of himself every day and instead of making Suho afraid, drew him in. Suho exhaled, so content as Kai nuzzled against his hair. And yet-

“Oh,” Kai said, drawing back and lifting Suho’s chin. “Your hair.”

Suho blinked at him. Blinked, and began to grin, laughing as his head ducked and he laughed as Kai shook him. It only made him laugh harder, squirming away and collapsing back against the grass with a surprised sound.

Kai was almost about to tease him more, when he seemed to remember all at once.

“Are you okay? Did it hurt?”

Suho blinked up at him, a smile spreading on his face for a completely different reason. “No,” he said, truthfully. He touched Kai’s cheek. “No, it didn’t hurt at all.”

Grass was poking his neck but he curled his arm around Kai’s neck and met the softest of Kai’s kisses as Kai stroked his hair, his neck. He stroked his free hand up Kai’s arm, feeling the strength of him, moaning as Kai’s teeth caught at his lip and soothed it with kisses that made his head spin. He wanted that Kai, the Kai that forgot himself, who kissed Suho with such want and did not see him as fragile. Kai who wanted him, Kai who made him feel alive.

His body had begun to ache from desire, and from the loss as Kai almost shuddered and pulled Suho to his feet.

“Suho,” Kai started, and thought better of it, leading Suho back to the tent, to the darker shadows of the tent, the quiet, the privacy of it. Kai gathered him by the elbows, drew him in, kissed him beside the bed - the bed that had become their bed - until he was trembling, confused, wanting. Kai cleared his throat, his hands tightening on Suho’s arms.

“If you could have anything you desire, right at this moment, what would it be?”

“More books,” Suho teased at first. But he thought better of that, the way that Kai did not look at Suho as he asked. “I have missed being able to kiss you like this.”

The last word was almost swallowed as Kai met his eyes. There was something fierce there, tempered with attempt at control.

“Then it is kisses you want?”

“I enjoy that, yes.”

“Is that all?”

It was not. Not nearly. “No. To feel you above me. Finding my pleasure with you.”

He wasn’t sure where his boldness sprung from. Perhaps it was because Kai had not yet touched him, and had turned him away when he offered, but kissed him with such obvious want. It was not something he imagined, not as well as he knew Kai. It was fear that ate at him when he had begun to think Kai no longer was interested in anything Suho had to offer. If Kai turned him away again, he knew it would be time to begin sleeping in his own pallet again. If Kai kept him in his bed out of guilt, then that was not something he wanted to take advantage of. He did not sleep there to hear Kai relieving himself in the dark, though Kai looked at him with some tension in his face sometimes, and Suho was not sure why.

“I am sorry to be so bold. With my body healed, I find I miss that more.” And he also did not want Kai’s pity. “It is not something I require.”

He shuddered, as Kai took his hand, kissed his palm. “I miss these hands against my chest and shoulders. I miss my body rising at the sound of you moaning my name.”

“Then why haven’t you-“

Suho stopped his own mouth with his hand before he demanded to know why Kai would not touch him.

“I did not realize you wanted so much. You wish to kiss me?”

“Yes,” Suho said, brow furrowing. “If it is what you want.”

Kai’s lips almost twitched, holding out his arm and inviting Suho in.

“I want because you want and because I want,” Kai murmured, his nose sliding along Suho’s. “Show me.”

Oh, Suho had weeks of imagined scenarios to show Kai, a hundred touches he thought were mere fantasy until he felt Kai’s fingers sliding against his skin again. His worry faded as Kai smiled at him, helping him to wrestle with his clothes and sink onto the blankets. Even at the sight of the marks the arrows had left in his skin, Kai did not pause, kissing along Suho’s chest and stroking his thighs.

“Would it please you to have me fill you?”

Suho smiled like a man who knew all he wanted was at his fingertips. “Very much.”

His fingers tangled in Kai’s hair, holding him close, their lips meeting, and again. All the kisses that he had been without. Each kiss different, shuddering through him to feel Kai’s lips against his, urgent, soft, desiring. He moaned for Kai, against the soft kisses, against the fevered press of his fingers as his thighs widened impatiently. Kai’s lips were against his lips as Kai slid inside of him, and Suho’s body tensed to keep from tugging against his scars.

“You are tighter than I remembered,” Kai gasped, and Suho laughed, his hands grasping at Kai’s back.

“And you are bigger.”

It wasn’t the movement of Kai’s hips that hurt, but the jolting, the curling of his body as he struggled to keep his muscles tight. But even through the quiet pain, he breathed against Kai’s skin and it was what he had wanted, that closeness, that connection. When Kai reached between them and touched him, he shuddered and he came.

“Kai,” he moaned, because Kai was the only one there with him. Not the men of the temple, no one else but Kai. He was not a scared man, he was a guardian, Kai’s guardian. And Kai was his. They had been given to each other. He knew that as surely as pleasure coursed through him. His body was still aching, throbbing, when Kai groaned for him, spilled for him. They were frozen for a long moment like that, the only sound the sound of their breathing. Suho’s body ached, his scars ached, but even if he would be stiff in the morning, it was worth it. Kai, who walked with him, who talked to him, who used a wet cloth to wipe him clean as though Kai was a servant to him instead of his master. Kai let him go only long enough to turn down the light, and Suho slept with his nose against Kai’s cheek and Kai’s arm around him.

***

Kai watched Suho wake and knew that Suho was confused, when Kai roused him before the dawn. It was still dark in the tent, as Kai lit the lamps and urged Suho to dress quickly. He had not slept the whole night, lying beside Suho and listening to him sleep, warm beside him. Warm and whole at last, his body stronger it seemed by the hour. It had been a selfish whim to give in to Suho, to have Suho to surrender his body to him. But Kai had remembered Suho’s words - and he had not commanded. He would not have taken if Suho had not agreed. And how he had agreed, so eager, kissing Kai with hunger, whispering his name, moaning it. He could have had that, maybe for weeks. And the thought of Suho kneeling for him without choice, out of duty, had soured in him. Suho had desired him. Suho had nearly died for him. And even with a choice, Suho might have felt he had none.

To feel Suho beneath him, to watch him cry out in pleasure had been both confession and apology.

The horizon was beginning to brighten as they stepped out, and Kai nodded to his father and to Sehun, who stood some distance away.

“You know what you have brought to my life,” Kai said, before they had reached his father.

Suho glanced at Kai’s father before looking back. “Master…”

“You have been strong in the face of many things. You have survived wounds that would have killed many men. You have stayed true to yourself through many trials.”

“You were there to see me through many of them,” Suho said, his face so earnest, still unsure of what Kai was meaning.

“I caused many of them,” Kai corrected. “As a servant of the temple, you served many, not just one. This wrist cuff is a sign of your slavery, is it not? I put it on your arm when you came to my tents.”

“Yes,” Suho said.

Kai took his hand, holding it still as he untied the cuff, and removed it.

“Ka- Master?”

“It marks you as a slave no longer. Look to the horizon and greet this dawn as a free man.”

Suho looked to the horizon for only a moment before looking back to Kai. “What? Free? Where will I go? What will I do?”

“I am not casting you out. If it is your wish, you will still be a member of my household. You will be given a tent, and eat the same food as you do now. And Sehun… Sehun!” Kai waited until Sehun stepped closer to them. “Sehun is yours now. A gift from my father, in gratitude.”

Sehun’s head bowed to his new master, and Suho’s eyes went even wider. “What? But I can’t- Me? With a slave? I can’t-“

Kai shook his head only once. His father was listening. For Suho to reject his gift would be unthinkable.

“Thank you,” Suho said, looking toward his father only briefly.

“You will have horses, some of mine. The colt we saw. And a settlement to be made as well. But we can discuss that later.”

“I-I don’t know what to say,” Suho said, and he looked lost, floundering as he looked to Kai as though Kai would be able to show him what he needed. But Kai wasn’t sure what to say, how to assure him, except to know that the beginning of what was next started then, no matter what rose with the sun.

“Nothing now. Look.”

The dawn was golden, bright and nearly blinding as the first curve of the sun rose above the earth. Much as Kai had held Suho in the pond until they were sure he would live, he stood beside Suho as Suho became free. Free from his bondage, and free, perhaps, from Kai himself.

***