Beautiful Stranger - 2/? (EXO Dragon AU Multi-Shot)
Title: Beautiful Stranger (2/?)
Author: himawarixxsandz
Rating: PG-13
Pairing(s): XiuRis, HunHan, BaekYeol, SuDo
Summary: Beasts bleed too
A/N: fjdksa;fa okay so this is slightly better than the action-fest last part but augh idek i just don't want anyone to be bored OTL
Prologue // Part 1 // Part 2 // Part 3
Luhan smacks his hand down on the table (Sehun, sitting on a chair beside Luhan and still getting bandages wrapped around his shoulders by Yixing, jumps slightly). “So,” he says briskly, looking out around the warehouse-from where Joonmyeon (with the second lowest injury count, right after Jongin, just a few bruises and a small cut) is lying across the sofa with his head in Kyungsoo’s lap to Baekhyun back to dozing curled up in Chanyeol’s lap to Jongin and Minseok sitting on the floor to Jongdae on the chair beside Sehun, still waiting for his turn for Yixing to patch him up. “We caught it.”
Minseok blinks, as Luhan meets the tamer’s gaze. “Yeah,” Minseok says, blinking again.
“So now,” Luhan says, “we have a hostile dragon in a cage and it probably hates our guts for putting it there.”
“What’s your point?” Kyungsoo asks, staring wide-eyed as he absently runs fingers through Joonmyeon’s hair (carefully avoiding the bandages wrapped around the dragon’s forehead).
“Oh my God,” Luhan stares back as he hands Sehun a shirt once Yixing has finished tending to the wounds on the youngest dragon’s shoulder blades. “What is my point?”
Jongdae stands up and walks gingerly, limping and wincing slightly, to take Sehun’s seat in front of Yixing while Sehun grabs another chair and scoots it over to beside Luhan. “Are you-like-asking what we should do from here on?” Joonmyeon says, head turning against Kyungsoo’s thighs as he meets Luhan’s eyes and then Minseok’s.
“I thought we were going to call some of the other centers,” Sehun says, glancing from Luhan to Joonmyeon to Minseok.
Minseok frowns. “Why would we do that? If we call any of the east centers, they’ll take one look at it and put it down.”
“And what’s wrong with that?” Luhan asks immediately, raising his eyebrows. “Have you ever seen a rogue act like that? That’s how the ones who’ve spent years without shifting act-reasoning with that is like trying to reason with a mountain lion. It’s still going to be a mountain lion.”
Yixing’s hands pause for a moment against the bruises he’s tending on Jongdae’s side. “That’d be kind of a shame, though,” Yixing says quietly, “y’know? Have you ever-”
“I know he’s a pretty Chinese dragon,” Luhan says wearily. He glances to Minseok. “And I know you want to ride him-your eyes fucking say it all. But-I’m just saying right here and now-that I don’t think this one can be tamed. Did you see how much blood he lost? And I can still hear him roaring right now.”
“It wouldn’t hurt to try,” Jongin pipes up hesitantly, glancing out of the corner of his eyes at Minseok. “Most of the centers are busy with rogues right now anyway. Taemin-hyung said that their center doesn’t have any empty cages right now anyway-and he said that Yunho-hyung’s center doesn’t either.”
“How about Taeyeon-noona’s cent-” Chanyeol begins before Jongin glares at him and the taller man falls silent.
Luhan puts his hands in front of him and sighs. “Okay-whatever,” he says resignedly. “I’m not the tamer-just-don’t put me in any position where it’s going to tear my face off and don’t,” he directs right to Minseok, meeting the tamer’s eyes and Minseok looks up into the face of one of his best friends (middle and high school and now, university, together), “put Sehun in any position where he’s going to get his face torn off either. We are not having a repeat of tonight.”
Sehun bows his head silently, the tips of his ears reddening. “Hyung,” he says hesitantly, reaching out for Luhan’s sleeve. “You don’t-”
“I won’t,” Minseok says, meeting Luhan’s gaze head-on, “have a repeat of tonight. Sehunie’s new to all this, but he wasn’t the only one hurt, okay? He’s young but then again so is Jongin.” The tamer stands up and watches as Luhan’s jaw tightens. “I’m sorry,” Minseok says. “But we can’t just put down an injured dragon without giving him a chance to blackout-he probably really is just a rogue-he just caused more damage because he’s big, and there’s no where to put him at the other centers anyway.”
Luhan merely swallows and shrugs, lowering his gaze, and Minseok turns away to look at Jongin who looks back sympathetically. Minseok knows that maybe tonight wasn’t filled with the wisest decisions he’s made as a tamer, but it’s not like he’s been at this for decades. It’s only been a few years for him, for most of them, with Sehun trailing at the end with barely three months of training. They all know, however-and Minseok knows that Luhan knows as well-that they can’t just call it quits on a rogue without giving it the standard four week grace period.
Chanyeol suddenly stands up, lifting the sleeping Baekhyun up with him. The dragon’s head lolls limply against Chanyeol’s chest. “Well,” Chanyeol says promptly, “we’re taking off now. I have to drop him back at his dorm before his DA has a fit.”
“His DA’s already going to have a fit,” Joonmyeon says as he sits up and then winces, “when he sees Baekhyunnie being carried into is room like a mummy.” Kyungsoo helps him stand up and they follow Chanyeol with Baekhyun out to the warehouse door and down the steps.
“’Night,” Minseok calls out as he gives Jongin a hand to his feet as well.
Sehun and Luhan are gathering their bags, which meant Jongin has to leave as well since Luhan was the one who drove the two youngest dragons down here. “See you tomorrow, hyung,” Jongin says, hugging Minseok with one arm.
“You’re not leaving yet?” Jongdae asks Minseok, as he pulls a shirt over his head and Sehun claps Yixing on the back in thanks for fixing him up before the maknae follows Luhan and Jongin out the door.
Yixing exchanges significant glances with Minseok. “No,” Minseok says to Jongdae, “I need to check up on him before I got-make sure the locks are in place and stuff.”
“Do you need me-” Yixing starts.
“No, it’s fine,” Minseok says, shaking his head and claps him on the shoulder. “Go on with Jongdae-I can’t give you a ride home tonight anyway.”
Yixing gives Minseok a last doubtful look before following Jongdae out the door. Minseok walks after them and stands in the doorway, waiting until he sees them reach the parking lot-waits until they climb into their cars and pull out onto the road that leads up off into the highway. Once the parking lot is cleared of all other cars except for Minseok’s own, he jogs down the steps of the warehouse and heads towards the cage.
The roaring has quieted down for the most part, but the dragon is still clashing and clanging against the bars of the cage. For most other dragons, there would be at least enough room to stretch, and maybe even hover a meter or two above the ground, but this dragon is so incredibly massive that it hardly has room to turn. Minseok would’ve put more bars into the cage walls so that they could expand for more room were it not for the fact that Chanyeol has seemed to have put all the bars that are stored in the warehouse and the cage is as large as it can be.
Just as Luhan said, there are intricate gold markings that lead from the glowing, golden spine of the dragon down to its red stomach-the clear indication that this is a Chinese dragon, and therefore, probably won’t be able to understand Minseok. And since Luhan is so seemingly averse to having anything to do with taming this one, Minseok supposes that his only choice is to recruit Yixing tomorrow to come down and try talking to it.
Minseok steps towards the cage, just a few meters away from the coded locks. The dragon senses him and whips around in the cage, gearing up and roaring-snarling, growling, baring its teeth-as it looks down at Minseok. As their eyes meet, as much as Minseok wishes he could completely deny Luhan’s accusations of how Minseok is sticking so firmly to the rule of the four week grace period merely because of his taming urges, Minseok knows he can’t.
It’s not the fact that it’s a challenge to tame a wild or a rogue dragon-it’s not the fact that it’s enticing and thrilling and exciting to face a dragon reluctant and hostile to both humans and other dragons. It’s just that-to Minseok-sometimes, once in a while, there will come a dragon that Minseok just feels would be put to shame if he or she wasn’t trained to his or her full potential. In the case of this dragon, it would be more than just a shame if it wasn’t given the proper chance (if Minseok isn’t given the proper chance to ride it-to train it-to know it).
It’s a bit of a selfish reason, but it’s also not like Minseok can prevent the way his heart races as he looks up into clear, fearsome, wildly unhinged dark brown eyes.
“The sooner you blackout,” Minseok says against the roaring, even though he knows that the dragon probably doesn’t understand Korean, “the sooner Yixing can fix you up.” The stainless steel of the cage is already completely painted in red by all the blood splashing from the dragon’s deep gashes.
The dragon gives another outraged roar, another ram of its vast body into the cage, but the steel refuses to even tremble. Minseok lets himself stare at the powerful way the scales ripple when the beast curves its long body to mold against the cage for another few seconds before he tears his eyes away and heads for the parking lot.
Kyungsoo stares at Minseok. “What?”
Minseok looks back and raises his eyebrows. “What?”
The younger man’s eyes stretch a bit and begin to remind Minseok of golf balls as Kyungsoo says incredulously, “What do you mean we have to feed it?”
“It means,” Minseok says, taking a deep breath, and fixing Kyungsoo with a look, “that we give him food-thus the verb to feed-”
“Hyung,” Kyungsoo says irritably. “I’m being serious.” The rider looks down at the piles of raw beef resting on a blanket of newspapers on the warehouse floor. “Where’d you even get this?”
“The other centers are all tied down with rogues, remember?” Minseok says, pulling on his tamer gloves. “The ones with Taeyeon-noona are still stuck as dragons since they migrated all the way here from-like-Argentina or something instead of heading for the states. So I drove out to their center and stole some of it while they were feeding them.”
Kyungsoo’s mouth opens slightly. “You stole-”
“I got a sort of okay from Sunkyu-noona,” Minseok mutters. “Like-I kind of pointed to the meat right before she went to shift and stuff and she kind of nodded-a little.”
Kyungsoo’s eyes are now fully golf balls as he stares, open-mouthed, at Minseok.
“It’s been three days, Kyungsoo-ah,” Minseok says wearily, “and it still hasn’t blacked out. We can’t just let it starve-”
“It’ll black out faster if we starve it,” Kyungsoo says quickly.
Minseok squints. “I’m not going to starve it,” he says and starts throwing the pieces of meat into the bucket beside the laid out newspapers. “It’s already bleeding and bruised and fucking exhausted-it’ll blackout from that just fine. I should at least feed it because we don’t know how long it’s been out on its own and it’s not like the trip from China is a walk in the park.”
“Why’d you have to call me down?” Kyungsoo sighs, almost to himself more than Minseok.
The tamer grins. “Because everyone else was busy,” he says, “and I knew you needed something else to do besides Joonmyeon.”
“I don’t understand why it’s so hard to have sex and do homework at the same time,” Kyungsoo mutters. “My grades are still fine.”
Minseok just laughs and grabs Kyungsoo’s hand. “C’mon,” he snorts, “put on your gloves and go get the hose. It’s probably thirsty too.”
For the past three days, Minseok has driven down to the center (the first day with Yixing and Luhan, the second day with Sehun and Jongin, and yesterday with Joonmyeon and Jongdae) to make sure that by some unfortunate, horrendous miracle, the dragon has broken out and escaped-and to wait out for at least a good majority of the afternoon to see if it would finally blackout. Both Luhan and Yixing have yelled at it for a good hour in Mandarin, and then scraping together the little Cantonese that they knew, to see maybe communication was the problem-but clearly it wasn’t, as the dragon refused to shift back regardless of what language it was spoken to in.
Today, this afternoon, is the fourth day and Minseok would almost be impressed if he wasn’t so terrified at what could happen if this dragon were to be at full power-healed and well-fed with enough energy to fly. To think that it took five fairly well-trained dragons to bring this red dragon into a cage while it was exhausted and most likely starving is a thought that Minseok would rather not entertain for long periods of time.
The sunlight dances against the red and gold scales when Minseok and Kyungsoo near the cage, and Minseok tries not to dwell on how far more magnificent the dragon would be if its scales weren’t encrusted with dried blood and grime. “Well,” Kyungsoo says bracingly, giving the hose a good yank to get it unfurled as they step up to the bars and the dragon raises its head, “it’s still fucking scary-but it really is pretty.”
“I think it’s a guy,” Minseok says, glancing to Kyungsoo.
Kyungsoo snorts. “It’s definitely not a girl,” he says with raised eyebrows. “I’ve never seen-not even in textbooks-about a girl dragon this big. I’ve never seen a dragon this big at all in person-but at the very least, its measurements are within range for a guy.”
“The western dragons turn out pretty big,” Minseok shrugs, “bigger than this one.”
“Yeah,” Kyungsoo says, “but western dragons also have wings, and this one doesn’t. This one’s Chinese and fucking huge and-shit, it sees us-”
In the span of the past few days, the dragon’s roaring and thrashing had considerably been decreased due to the obvious fact that its energy is probably approaching rock bottom and its injuries haven’t been treated-and are too great to merely heal over on their own despite how dragons heal at alarmingly fast rates in comparison to humans. However, it still began to wildly whip around as much as it could in the cage whenever Minseok or any of the others approached it.
“Him,” Minseok says thoughtfully. “If we’re sure it’s a he,” he says, “might as well stop calling him an it.”
Kyungsoo stares.
Minseok rolls his eyes. “Don’t look at me like that,” he says, “I’m just saying. If you want to keep treating him like an it, then go ahead.” He reaches for the bucket and brings it closer, looking back to see Kyungsoo determinedly still standing with the hose meters behind Minseok. “You’re going to have to come closer,” Minseok says dryly, “unless you want to be watering the grass.”
The dragon gnashes his teeth against the bars.
Kyungsoo clenches his eyes shut and sighs, walking forward reluctantly with the hose. Minseok rolls his eyes and grins, patting the younger man on the back. The tamer picks up a slab of beef with each hand and tips his head up into the face of the dragon, meeting the beast’s eyes. Minseok merely quirks his eyebrows at the creature and then tosses the beef lightly into the bottom of the cage. Kyungsoo aims the house at the small dip in the middle of the stainless steel, letting the water pool to form a large water bowl at the corner of the cage.
The roaring suddenly ceases and the dragon slowly falls away from the bars of the cage-instead of eating or drinking however, he simply slinks back and curls in on himself, resting his head down and continuing to stare at Minseok and Kyungsoo.
“Why isn’t he eating?” Kyungsoo frowns, eyes narrowing as he holds the hose loosely at his side.
A frown tugs at Minseok’s mouth as well. “I don’t know,” he mumbles. “He should be starving-or at least fucking thirsty-but he’s not drinking either.”
“Why,” Kyungsoo says, confusion thick in his voice, “did he get all quiet after we give him food and water? Why did he get all quiet and not eat or drink any of it?”
Minseok bites the inside of his cheek as the dragon now curls in to the point where his head is no longer visible, hidden from view beneath his long body, and seems to go to sleep. On the floor of the cage, there are still droplets of freshly bled blood and Minseok is willing to guess that some of the dragon’s wounds have reopened. Minseok looks down at the meat left in the bucket-still at least ten to fifteen cuts-and then glances at Kyungsoo.
“Let’s head back,” Minseok says briskly, tapping Kyungsoo’s arm. The younger man blinks in surprise at the abruptness. “I’ll drive you to campus-Joonmyeon’s probably done with his last class.”
The tamer ends up having to steer Kyungsoo back towards the warehouse because the rider is too utterly surprised at how Minseok is seemingly just giving up on today’s supposed agenda of feeding the dragon with the stolen supplies. Minseok simply grins, laughs, and tells Kyungsoo not to tell Joonmyeon that the tamer had Kyungsoo get that close to the red dragon.
Minseok drives back by himself later that night.
He brings the meat out of the refrigerator, brings the hose, and this time also brings Yixing’s medical supplies. Minseok switches on the lights on the outside of the warehouses closest to the cage so that he’ll be able to see through the thick, forest darkness. The dragon is no longer sleeping, rearing up once again as it senses Minseok approaching. He doesn’t roar at Minseok, doesn’t growl or snap his jaws, but he does bare his teeth as Minseok sets down all of the supplies onto the ground near the cage.
Even though the tamer knows that the dragon probably doesn’t understand Korean, he still points to the untouched beef and water in the cage and says, “You’re not hungry?”
Now, the dragon begins to growl.
“Look,” Minseok says, and is fully aware of how stupid this must look-especially considering the fact that the dragon can’t even understand him, “I know all you want is for us to let you go, but it’s not going to fucking happen. I’m going to get in trouble anyway if you get out there and start hunting the deer or something.”
The dragon’s eyes flare, angrier than ever-more frustrated than ever.
“So if I were you,” Minseok continues, raising his eyebrows and widening his eyes significantly, “I would eat before this all spoils-especially since I don’t know the next time I’ll be able to sneak out to another center to steal more.”
Minseok watches as the dragon merely blinks back, unfaltering, stubborn, and still quite angry. “Okay,” Minseok nods, breathing in through his nose bracingly, “fine. You can starve and die of dehydration-that’s one option down. Here’s another-do you want to bleed to death, die of infection, or will you at least let me wrap you up?” He holds up the large roll of bandages that are used to patch up dragons while they’re still in dragon form.
Something new happens.
The dragon cocks his head to the side, staring at Minseok intently for a moment. Minseok works through his surprise quickly because he knows he has to take advantage of whatever few minutes the dragon isn’t gearing up on his hind legs and fighting like he’s trying to upturn the entire cage. The tamer fits his arm through the hole of the bandage roll and lightly jumps up against the corner pillar of the cage, hands and feet easily gripping the slippery steel as if Minseok had the same claws of a dragon. It’s easier to climb when there’s no fear of falling-no fear of injuring himself because that’s an impossibility to Minseok, to any tamer, due to how they have the blood of a dragon running through their veins.
It also helps that their palms have the same sort of traction pads that dragons do, only masquerading as human hands.
Minseok climbs around to the side of the cage that faces the back of the dragon since, despite the lights on the outsides of the warehouses, it’s still too dark for Minseok to tend to the more minor wounds so he’s better off starting with the more obvious and deep gashes on the creature’s back. He starts unraveling the bandages, and reaches out to start wrapping it around an area near the dragon’s ears-the tamer uses his legs to hold onto the cage bar-
“Fuck,” Minseok hisses-
-manages to fall in a way that isn’t too painful, falls against his knees and catches himself with the arm that hasn’t been shredded with the dragon’s scales. Blood soaks what remains of Minseok’s sleeve around that arm and the only reason the tamer’s other arm wasn’t injured when the dragon decided to return to his usual hostility and lashed out at Minseok was because the large, roll of bandages was hooked around that arm.
Minseok curses under his breath and shakes the roll off of his uninjured arm, yanking the bandages out and wrapping it around himself to staunch the bleeding-the gash isn’t as deep as it could be because the sharpness of the scales scraped rather than stabbed. The main problem is that the skin seemed to be peeled off and blood was dripping everywhere. There’s pain, but Minseok has dealt with worse (sort of), and really, the more pressing issue is that the others are going to see Minseok’s clothes, see the injury, and have a fit that will probably involve having the dragon sent to another center that Minseok knows will just give up on him and put him down like a diseased dog on the streets.
The tamer would honestly rather fucking kill himself if that ever happened.
“Fuck you,” Minseok shouts irritably at the dragon, as he wraps up his own wound, yanking the bandage tightly over his arm and wincing at the sting. He’ll have to ask Yixing to take a look at his arm early tomorrow morning. The tamer sighs and gets to his feet, dusting off his jeans and looking back up at the dragon-no longer roaring, but still watching Minseok with narrowed eyes. “I know you have no clue what I’m saying,” Minseok says wearily, and holds up the bandages again. “But I’m actually trying to help you, okay?”
The dragon’s gaze is back to being unwavering and frozen, and with the way the creature’s body is now positioned, the way his teeth are bared for Minseok to see exactly how sharp each white fang is, the tamer knows he’s not going to get any farther tonight. And if he tries again, he risks getting injured again and that’s risking other people knowing that they have a hostile, seemingly wild, seemingly untamable dragon at their center.
Minseok sighs, grabbing the bucket with the rest of the meat and tossing the contents to where the slabs he slid into the cage earlier that day are. “At least eat,” he says resignedly, “if you’re not going to let me do anything else-or maybe don’t eat-then you’ll blackout faster and I can punch you in the face.”
The tamer picks up the rest of the supplies, dumps it all in the now empty meat bucket and heads on into the warehouse, ignoring how the dragon has now fallen silent.
Zhang Yixing is a bastard.
“You’re a bastard,” Minseok says, glaring at Yixing as Jongin clings onto Minseok’s left side and Baekhyun clings to Minseok’s right side. Jongin’s arms are strangling Minseok and Baekhyun’s arms feel like a metal vice around Minseok’s stomach.
Yixing looks hurt. “They found out on their own,” he says. “They would’ve found out anyway.”
“Luhan-hyung told us,” Jongin grins, pulling away even though Baekhyun doesn’t seem to be letting go any time soon, “he said he heard you scaling the wall last night while you thought he was showering.”
Minseok thinks about that for a moment and then shrugs, reaching over to his nightstand and grabbing his cell phone to check the time. “Not like I don’t hear him do the same,” he says, “only when he does it he brings company.”
Baekhyun snorts. “You mean Sehunie?”
Minseok grins, and Yixing laughs. The tamer is just glad that Luhan at least had the good graces to feign sleep when Minseok crawled into their shared dormitory last night and had to sneak right back out to find Yixing on the floor below where the underclassmen slept.
“Are you and Chanyeol going down tomorrow?” Minseok asks, as Baekhyun finally decides that hugging Minseok isn’t going to make the tamer’s arm heal any faster and sits on Minseok’s other side.
Baekhyun nods. “Yeah-maybe sometime late afternoon.”
“How about I drive you guys?” Minseok suggests. “We can have dinner on the way there and-”
“You’re going back to it?” Jongin cuts the tamer off incredulously.
“Him,” Minseok corrects reflexively, “and yeah-I am.”
Baekhyun and Jongin stare, and Yixing bites his lip and looks down to the floor.
“I’m not sure if you’re aware, hyung,” Baekhyun says in a small voice. “But your arm kind of has its skin torn off and it’s kind of that dragon’s fault.”
“And how the fuck,” Jongin says, and Minseok blinks in surprise at how angry the younger man suddenly sounds, “are you going to climb a cage when your arm is in a cast, hyung?”
Yixing merely meets Minseok’s eyes and gives a small shake of his head.
Minseok takes a deep breath and stands up, glancing to Baekhyun. “Do you and Chanyeol need a ride or not?”
Baekhyun’s face falls even further. “Hyung-”
“When you two go down there,” Minseok says, tight-lipped, “Chanyeol’s going to park, get suited up and help you suit up too. You’re going to shift and he’s going to jump on you while you get up into the air, and both of you will fly around for hours until you’re both exhausted. Then you’ll shift back and he’ll catch you, and he’ll drive you back and both of you will go to bed-safe and sound.” He grabs his keys from his nightstand and tucks his cell phone into the back pocket of his jeans. “That dragon can’t do that-that dragon is probably fucking scared and lost and has no idea why the fuck it’s in a cage-but I-personally, call me insane-don’t think that’s any reason to let it rot-so if you’ll-”
Jongin grabs Minseok’s uninjured arm, spinning the tamer around to face the young dragon. Jongin’s deep eyes are resigned and concerned-and frightened. “Just be careful,” Jongin says quietly, “please.”
Minseok looks into Jongin’s eyes (sees a young boy as nervous as Minseok is because this is the first time the young boy’s shifted and this is the first time Minseok is going to ride and tame a dragon all on his own) and sighs, offering his childhood friend a small smile. “Aren’t I always?”
Author: himawarixxsandz
Rating: PG-13
Pairing(s): XiuRis, HunHan, BaekYeol, SuDo
Summary: Beasts bleed too
A/N: fjdksa;fa okay so this is slightly better than the action-fest last part but augh idek i just don't want anyone to be bored OTL
Prologue // Part 1 // Part 2 // Part 3
Luhan smacks his hand down on the table (Sehun, sitting on a chair beside Luhan and still getting bandages wrapped around his shoulders by Yixing, jumps slightly). “So,” he says briskly, looking out around the warehouse-from where Joonmyeon (with the second lowest injury count, right after Jongin, just a few bruises and a small cut) is lying across the sofa with his head in Kyungsoo’s lap to Baekhyun back to dozing curled up in Chanyeol’s lap to Jongin and Minseok sitting on the floor to Jongdae on the chair beside Sehun, still waiting for his turn for Yixing to patch him up. “We caught it.”
Minseok blinks, as Luhan meets the tamer’s gaze. “Yeah,” Minseok says, blinking again.
“So now,” Luhan says, “we have a hostile dragon in a cage and it probably hates our guts for putting it there.”
“What’s your point?” Kyungsoo asks, staring wide-eyed as he absently runs fingers through Joonmyeon’s hair (carefully avoiding the bandages wrapped around the dragon’s forehead).
“Oh my God,” Luhan stares back as he hands Sehun a shirt once Yixing has finished tending to the wounds on the youngest dragon’s shoulder blades. “What is my point?”
Jongdae stands up and walks gingerly, limping and wincing slightly, to take Sehun’s seat in front of Yixing while Sehun grabs another chair and scoots it over to beside Luhan. “Are you-like-asking what we should do from here on?” Joonmyeon says, head turning against Kyungsoo’s thighs as he meets Luhan’s eyes and then Minseok’s.
“I thought we were going to call some of the other centers,” Sehun says, glancing from Luhan to Joonmyeon to Minseok.
Minseok frowns. “Why would we do that? If we call any of the east centers, they’ll take one look at it and put it down.”
“And what’s wrong with that?” Luhan asks immediately, raising his eyebrows. “Have you ever seen a rogue act like that? That’s how the ones who’ve spent years without shifting act-reasoning with that is like trying to reason with a mountain lion. It’s still going to be a mountain lion.”
Yixing’s hands pause for a moment against the bruises he’s tending on Jongdae’s side. “That’d be kind of a shame, though,” Yixing says quietly, “y’know? Have you ever-”
“I know he’s a pretty Chinese dragon,” Luhan says wearily. He glances to Minseok. “And I know you want to ride him-your eyes fucking say it all. But-I’m just saying right here and now-that I don’t think this one can be tamed. Did you see how much blood he lost? And I can still hear him roaring right now.”
“It wouldn’t hurt to try,” Jongin pipes up hesitantly, glancing out of the corner of his eyes at Minseok. “Most of the centers are busy with rogues right now anyway. Taemin-hyung said that their center doesn’t have any empty cages right now anyway-and he said that Yunho-hyung’s center doesn’t either.”
“How about Taeyeon-noona’s cent-” Chanyeol begins before Jongin glares at him and the taller man falls silent.
Luhan puts his hands in front of him and sighs. “Okay-whatever,” he says resignedly. “I’m not the tamer-just-don’t put me in any position where it’s going to tear my face off and don’t,” he directs right to Minseok, meeting the tamer’s eyes and Minseok looks up into the face of one of his best friends (middle and high school and now, university, together), “put Sehun in any position where he’s going to get his face torn off either. We are not having a repeat of tonight.”
Sehun bows his head silently, the tips of his ears reddening. “Hyung,” he says hesitantly, reaching out for Luhan’s sleeve. “You don’t-”
“I won’t,” Minseok says, meeting Luhan’s gaze head-on, “have a repeat of tonight. Sehunie’s new to all this, but he wasn’t the only one hurt, okay? He’s young but then again so is Jongin.” The tamer stands up and watches as Luhan’s jaw tightens. “I’m sorry,” Minseok says. “But we can’t just put down an injured dragon without giving him a chance to blackout-he probably really is just a rogue-he just caused more damage because he’s big, and there’s no where to put him at the other centers anyway.”
Luhan merely swallows and shrugs, lowering his gaze, and Minseok turns away to look at Jongin who looks back sympathetically. Minseok knows that maybe tonight wasn’t filled with the wisest decisions he’s made as a tamer, but it’s not like he’s been at this for decades. It’s only been a few years for him, for most of them, with Sehun trailing at the end with barely three months of training. They all know, however-and Minseok knows that Luhan knows as well-that they can’t just call it quits on a rogue without giving it the standard four week grace period.
Chanyeol suddenly stands up, lifting the sleeping Baekhyun up with him. The dragon’s head lolls limply against Chanyeol’s chest. “Well,” Chanyeol says promptly, “we’re taking off now. I have to drop him back at his dorm before his DA has a fit.”
“His DA’s already going to have a fit,” Joonmyeon says as he sits up and then winces, “when he sees Baekhyunnie being carried into is room like a mummy.” Kyungsoo helps him stand up and they follow Chanyeol with Baekhyun out to the warehouse door and down the steps.
“’Night,” Minseok calls out as he gives Jongin a hand to his feet as well.
Sehun and Luhan are gathering their bags, which meant Jongin has to leave as well since Luhan was the one who drove the two youngest dragons down here. “See you tomorrow, hyung,” Jongin says, hugging Minseok with one arm.
“You’re not leaving yet?” Jongdae asks Minseok, as he pulls a shirt over his head and Sehun claps Yixing on the back in thanks for fixing him up before the maknae follows Luhan and Jongin out the door.
Yixing exchanges significant glances with Minseok. “No,” Minseok says to Jongdae, “I need to check up on him before I got-make sure the locks are in place and stuff.”
“Do you need me-” Yixing starts.
“No, it’s fine,” Minseok says, shaking his head and claps him on the shoulder. “Go on with Jongdae-I can’t give you a ride home tonight anyway.”
Yixing gives Minseok a last doubtful look before following Jongdae out the door. Minseok walks after them and stands in the doorway, waiting until he sees them reach the parking lot-waits until they climb into their cars and pull out onto the road that leads up off into the highway. Once the parking lot is cleared of all other cars except for Minseok’s own, he jogs down the steps of the warehouse and heads towards the cage.
The roaring has quieted down for the most part, but the dragon is still clashing and clanging against the bars of the cage. For most other dragons, there would be at least enough room to stretch, and maybe even hover a meter or two above the ground, but this dragon is so incredibly massive that it hardly has room to turn. Minseok would’ve put more bars into the cage walls so that they could expand for more room were it not for the fact that Chanyeol has seemed to have put all the bars that are stored in the warehouse and the cage is as large as it can be.
Just as Luhan said, there are intricate gold markings that lead from the glowing, golden spine of the dragon down to its red stomach-the clear indication that this is a Chinese dragon, and therefore, probably won’t be able to understand Minseok. And since Luhan is so seemingly averse to having anything to do with taming this one, Minseok supposes that his only choice is to recruit Yixing tomorrow to come down and try talking to it.
Minseok steps towards the cage, just a few meters away from the coded locks. The dragon senses him and whips around in the cage, gearing up and roaring-snarling, growling, baring its teeth-as it looks down at Minseok. As their eyes meet, as much as Minseok wishes he could completely deny Luhan’s accusations of how Minseok is sticking so firmly to the rule of the four week grace period merely because of his taming urges, Minseok knows he can’t.
It’s not the fact that it’s a challenge to tame a wild or a rogue dragon-it’s not the fact that it’s enticing and thrilling and exciting to face a dragon reluctant and hostile to both humans and other dragons. It’s just that-to Minseok-sometimes, once in a while, there will come a dragon that Minseok just feels would be put to shame if he or she wasn’t trained to his or her full potential. In the case of this dragon, it would be more than just a shame if it wasn’t given the proper chance (if Minseok isn’t given the proper chance to ride it-to train it-to know it).
It’s a bit of a selfish reason, but it’s also not like Minseok can prevent the way his heart races as he looks up into clear, fearsome, wildly unhinged dark brown eyes.
“The sooner you blackout,” Minseok says against the roaring, even though he knows that the dragon probably doesn’t understand Korean, “the sooner Yixing can fix you up.” The stainless steel of the cage is already completely painted in red by all the blood splashing from the dragon’s deep gashes.
The dragon gives another outraged roar, another ram of its vast body into the cage, but the steel refuses to even tremble. Minseok lets himself stare at the powerful way the scales ripple when the beast curves its long body to mold against the cage for another few seconds before he tears his eyes away and heads for the parking lot.
Kyungsoo stares at Minseok. “What?”
Minseok looks back and raises his eyebrows. “What?”
The younger man’s eyes stretch a bit and begin to remind Minseok of golf balls as Kyungsoo says incredulously, “What do you mean we have to feed it?”
“It means,” Minseok says, taking a deep breath, and fixing Kyungsoo with a look, “that we give him food-thus the verb to feed-”
“Hyung,” Kyungsoo says irritably. “I’m being serious.” The rider looks down at the piles of raw beef resting on a blanket of newspapers on the warehouse floor. “Where’d you even get this?”
“The other centers are all tied down with rogues, remember?” Minseok says, pulling on his tamer gloves. “The ones with Taeyeon-noona are still stuck as dragons since they migrated all the way here from-like-Argentina or something instead of heading for the states. So I drove out to their center and stole some of it while they were feeding them.”
Kyungsoo’s mouth opens slightly. “You stole-”
“I got a sort of okay from Sunkyu-noona,” Minseok mutters. “Like-I kind of pointed to the meat right before she went to shift and stuff and she kind of nodded-a little.”
Kyungsoo’s eyes are now fully golf balls as he stares, open-mouthed, at Minseok.
“It’s been three days, Kyungsoo-ah,” Minseok says wearily, “and it still hasn’t blacked out. We can’t just let it starve-”
“It’ll black out faster if we starve it,” Kyungsoo says quickly.
Minseok squints. “I’m not going to starve it,” he says and starts throwing the pieces of meat into the bucket beside the laid out newspapers. “It’s already bleeding and bruised and fucking exhausted-it’ll blackout from that just fine. I should at least feed it because we don’t know how long it’s been out on its own and it’s not like the trip from China is a walk in the park.”
“Why’d you have to call me down?” Kyungsoo sighs, almost to himself more than Minseok.
The tamer grins. “Because everyone else was busy,” he says, “and I knew you needed something else to do besides Joonmyeon.”
“I don’t understand why it’s so hard to have sex and do homework at the same time,” Kyungsoo mutters. “My grades are still fine.”
Minseok just laughs and grabs Kyungsoo’s hand. “C’mon,” he snorts, “put on your gloves and go get the hose. It’s probably thirsty too.”
For the past three days, Minseok has driven down to the center (the first day with Yixing and Luhan, the second day with Sehun and Jongin, and yesterday with Joonmyeon and Jongdae) to make sure that by some unfortunate, horrendous miracle, the dragon has broken out and escaped-and to wait out for at least a good majority of the afternoon to see if it would finally blackout. Both Luhan and Yixing have yelled at it for a good hour in Mandarin, and then scraping together the little Cantonese that they knew, to see maybe communication was the problem-but clearly it wasn’t, as the dragon refused to shift back regardless of what language it was spoken to in.
Today, this afternoon, is the fourth day and Minseok would almost be impressed if he wasn’t so terrified at what could happen if this dragon were to be at full power-healed and well-fed with enough energy to fly. To think that it took five fairly well-trained dragons to bring this red dragon into a cage while it was exhausted and most likely starving is a thought that Minseok would rather not entertain for long periods of time.
The sunlight dances against the red and gold scales when Minseok and Kyungsoo near the cage, and Minseok tries not to dwell on how far more magnificent the dragon would be if its scales weren’t encrusted with dried blood and grime. “Well,” Kyungsoo says bracingly, giving the hose a good yank to get it unfurled as they step up to the bars and the dragon raises its head, “it’s still fucking scary-but it really is pretty.”
“I think it’s a guy,” Minseok says, glancing to Kyungsoo.
Kyungsoo snorts. “It’s definitely not a girl,” he says with raised eyebrows. “I’ve never seen-not even in textbooks-about a girl dragon this big. I’ve never seen a dragon this big at all in person-but at the very least, its measurements are within range for a guy.”
“The western dragons turn out pretty big,” Minseok shrugs, “bigger than this one.”
“Yeah,” Kyungsoo says, “but western dragons also have wings, and this one doesn’t. This one’s Chinese and fucking huge and-shit, it sees us-”
In the span of the past few days, the dragon’s roaring and thrashing had considerably been decreased due to the obvious fact that its energy is probably approaching rock bottom and its injuries haven’t been treated-and are too great to merely heal over on their own despite how dragons heal at alarmingly fast rates in comparison to humans. However, it still began to wildly whip around as much as it could in the cage whenever Minseok or any of the others approached it.
“Him,” Minseok says thoughtfully. “If we’re sure it’s a he,” he says, “might as well stop calling him an it.”
Kyungsoo stares.
Minseok rolls his eyes. “Don’t look at me like that,” he says, “I’m just saying. If you want to keep treating him like an it, then go ahead.” He reaches for the bucket and brings it closer, looking back to see Kyungsoo determinedly still standing with the hose meters behind Minseok. “You’re going to have to come closer,” Minseok says dryly, “unless you want to be watering the grass.”
The dragon gnashes his teeth against the bars.
Kyungsoo clenches his eyes shut and sighs, walking forward reluctantly with the hose. Minseok rolls his eyes and grins, patting the younger man on the back. The tamer picks up a slab of beef with each hand and tips his head up into the face of the dragon, meeting the beast’s eyes. Minseok merely quirks his eyebrows at the creature and then tosses the beef lightly into the bottom of the cage. Kyungsoo aims the house at the small dip in the middle of the stainless steel, letting the water pool to form a large water bowl at the corner of the cage.
The roaring suddenly ceases and the dragon slowly falls away from the bars of the cage-instead of eating or drinking however, he simply slinks back and curls in on himself, resting his head down and continuing to stare at Minseok and Kyungsoo.
“Why isn’t he eating?” Kyungsoo frowns, eyes narrowing as he holds the hose loosely at his side.
A frown tugs at Minseok’s mouth as well. “I don’t know,” he mumbles. “He should be starving-or at least fucking thirsty-but he’s not drinking either.”
“Why,” Kyungsoo says, confusion thick in his voice, “did he get all quiet after we give him food and water? Why did he get all quiet and not eat or drink any of it?”
Minseok bites the inside of his cheek as the dragon now curls in to the point where his head is no longer visible, hidden from view beneath his long body, and seems to go to sleep. On the floor of the cage, there are still droplets of freshly bled blood and Minseok is willing to guess that some of the dragon’s wounds have reopened. Minseok looks down at the meat left in the bucket-still at least ten to fifteen cuts-and then glances at Kyungsoo.
“Let’s head back,” Minseok says briskly, tapping Kyungsoo’s arm. The younger man blinks in surprise at the abruptness. “I’ll drive you to campus-Joonmyeon’s probably done with his last class.”
The tamer ends up having to steer Kyungsoo back towards the warehouse because the rider is too utterly surprised at how Minseok is seemingly just giving up on today’s supposed agenda of feeding the dragon with the stolen supplies. Minseok simply grins, laughs, and tells Kyungsoo not to tell Joonmyeon that the tamer had Kyungsoo get that close to the red dragon.
Minseok drives back by himself later that night.
He brings the meat out of the refrigerator, brings the hose, and this time also brings Yixing’s medical supplies. Minseok switches on the lights on the outside of the warehouses closest to the cage so that he’ll be able to see through the thick, forest darkness. The dragon is no longer sleeping, rearing up once again as it senses Minseok approaching. He doesn’t roar at Minseok, doesn’t growl or snap his jaws, but he does bare his teeth as Minseok sets down all of the supplies onto the ground near the cage.
Even though the tamer knows that the dragon probably doesn’t understand Korean, he still points to the untouched beef and water in the cage and says, “You’re not hungry?”
Now, the dragon begins to growl.
“Look,” Minseok says, and is fully aware of how stupid this must look-especially considering the fact that the dragon can’t even understand him, “I know all you want is for us to let you go, but it’s not going to fucking happen. I’m going to get in trouble anyway if you get out there and start hunting the deer or something.”
The dragon’s eyes flare, angrier than ever-more frustrated than ever.
“So if I were you,” Minseok continues, raising his eyebrows and widening his eyes significantly, “I would eat before this all spoils-especially since I don’t know the next time I’ll be able to sneak out to another center to steal more.”
Minseok watches as the dragon merely blinks back, unfaltering, stubborn, and still quite angry. “Okay,” Minseok nods, breathing in through his nose bracingly, “fine. You can starve and die of dehydration-that’s one option down. Here’s another-do you want to bleed to death, die of infection, or will you at least let me wrap you up?” He holds up the large roll of bandages that are used to patch up dragons while they’re still in dragon form.
Something new happens.
The dragon cocks his head to the side, staring at Minseok intently for a moment. Minseok works through his surprise quickly because he knows he has to take advantage of whatever few minutes the dragon isn’t gearing up on his hind legs and fighting like he’s trying to upturn the entire cage. The tamer fits his arm through the hole of the bandage roll and lightly jumps up against the corner pillar of the cage, hands and feet easily gripping the slippery steel as if Minseok had the same claws of a dragon. It’s easier to climb when there’s no fear of falling-no fear of injuring himself because that’s an impossibility to Minseok, to any tamer, due to how they have the blood of a dragon running through their veins.
It also helps that their palms have the same sort of traction pads that dragons do, only masquerading as human hands.
Minseok climbs around to the side of the cage that faces the back of the dragon since, despite the lights on the outsides of the warehouses, it’s still too dark for Minseok to tend to the more minor wounds so he’s better off starting with the more obvious and deep gashes on the creature’s back. He starts unraveling the bandages, and reaches out to start wrapping it around an area near the dragon’s ears-the tamer uses his legs to hold onto the cage bar-
“Fuck,” Minseok hisses-
-manages to fall in a way that isn’t too painful, falls against his knees and catches himself with the arm that hasn’t been shredded with the dragon’s scales. Blood soaks what remains of Minseok’s sleeve around that arm and the only reason the tamer’s other arm wasn’t injured when the dragon decided to return to his usual hostility and lashed out at Minseok was because the large, roll of bandages was hooked around that arm.
Minseok curses under his breath and shakes the roll off of his uninjured arm, yanking the bandages out and wrapping it around himself to staunch the bleeding-the gash isn’t as deep as it could be because the sharpness of the scales scraped rather than stabbed. The main problem is that the skin seemed to be peeled off and blood was dripping everywhere. There’s pain, but Minseok has dealt with worse (sort of), and really, the more pressing issue is that the others are going to see Minseok’s clothes, see the injury, and have a fit that will probably involve having the dragon sent to another center that Minseok knows will just give up on him and put him down like a diseased dog on the streets.
The tamer would honestly rather fucking kill himself if that ever happened.
“Fuck you,” Minseok shouts irritably at the dragon, as he wraps up his own wound, yanking the bandage tightly over his arm and wincing at the sting. He’ll have to ask Yixing to take a look at his arm early tomorrow morning. The tamer sighs and gets to his feet, dusting off his jeans and looking back up at the dragon-no longer roaring, but still watching Minseok with narrowed eyes. “I know you have no clue what I’m saying,” Minseok says wearily, and holds up the bandages again. “But I’m actually trying to help you, okay?”
The dragon’s gaze is back to being unwavering and frozen, and with the way the creature’s body is now positioned, the way his teeth are bared for Minseok to see exactly how sharp each white fang is, the tamer knows he’s not going to get any farther tonight. And if he tries again, he risks getting injured again and that’s risking other people knowing that they have a hostile, seemingly wild, seemingly untamable dragon at their center.
Minseok sighs, grabbing the bucket with the rest of the meat and tossing the contents to where the slabs he slid into the cage earlier that day are. “At least eat,” he says resignedly, “if you’re not going to let me do anything else-or maybe don’t eat-then you’ll blackout faster and I can punch you in the face.”
The tamer picks up the rest of the supplies, dumps it all in the now empty meat bucket and heads on into the warehouse, ignoring how the dragon has now fallen silent.
Zhang Yixing is a bastard.
“You’re a bastard,” Minseok says, glaring at Yixing as Jongin clings onto Minseok’s left side and Baekhyun clings to Minseok’s right side. Jongin’s arms are strangling Minseok and Baekhyun’s arms feel like a metal vice around Minseok’s stomach.
Yixing looks hurt. “They found out on their own,” he says. “They would’ve found out anyway.”
“Luhan-hyung told us,” Jongin grins, pulling away even though Baekhyun doesn’t seem to be letting go any time soon, “he said he heard you scaling the wall last night while you thought he was showering.”
Minseok thinks about that for a moment and then shrugs, reaching over to his nightstand and grabbing his cell phone to check the time. “Not like I don’t hear him do the same,” he says, “only when he does it he brings company.”
Baekhyun snorts. “You mean Sehunie?”
Minseok grins, and Yixing laughs. The tamer is just glad that Luhan at least had the good graces to feign sleep when Minseok crawled into their shared dormitory last night and had to sneak right back out to find Yixing on the floor below where the underclassmen slept.
“Are you and Chanyeol going down tomorrow?” Minseok asks, as Baekhyun finally decides that hugging Minseok isn’t going to make the tamer’s arm heal any faster and sits on Minseok’s other side.
Baekhyun nods. “Yeah-maybe sometime late afternoon.”
“How about I drive you guys?” Minseok suggests. “We can have dinner on the way there and-”
“You’re going back to it?” Jongin cuts the tamer off incredulously.
“Him,” Minseok corrects reflexively, “and yeah-I am.”
Baekhyun and Jongin stare, and Yixing bites his lip and looks down to the floor.
“I’m not sure if you’re aware, hyung,” Baekhyun says in a small voice. “But your arm kind of has its skin torn off and it’s kind of that dragon’s fault.”
“And how the fuck,” Jongin says, and Minseok blinks in surprise at how angry the younger man suddenly sounds, “are you going to climb a cage when your arm is in a cast, hyung?”
Yixing merely meets Minseok’s eyes and gives a small shake of his head.
Minseok takes a deep breath and stands up, glancing to Baekhyun. “Do you and Chanyeol need a ride or not?”
Baekhyun’s face falls even further. “Hyung-”
“When you two go down there,” Minseok says, tight-lipped, “Chanyeol’s going to park, get suited up and help you suit up too. You’re going to shift and he’s going to jump on you while you get up into the air, and both of you will fly around for hours until you’re both exhausted. Then you’ll shift back and he’ll catch you, and he’ll drive you back and both of you will go to bed-safe and sound.” He grabs his keys from his nightstand and tucks his cell phone into the back pocket of his jeans. “That dragon can’t do that-that dragon is probably fucking scared and lost and has no idea why the fuck it’s in a cage-but I-personally, call me insane-don’t think that’s any reason to let it rot-so if you’ll-”
Jongin grabs Minseok’s uninjured arm, spinning the tamer around to face the young dragon. Jongin’s deep eyes are resigned and concerned-and frightened. “Just be careful,” Jongin says quietly, “please.”
Minseok looks into Jongin’s eyes (sees a young boy as nervous as Minseok is because this is the first time the young boy’s shifted and this is the first time Minseok is going to ride and tame a dragon all on his own) and sighs, offering his childhood friend a small smile. “Aren’t I always?”