Beautiful Stranger - 3/? (EXO Dragon AU Multi-Shot)
Title: Beautiful Stranger (3/?)
Author: himawarixxsandz
Rating: PG-13
Pairing(s): XiuRis, HunHan, BaekYeol, SuDo
Summary: Beasts bleed too
A/N: I tried so hard to make something actually happen in this part guys omfdsfa and don't worry about banghim or apartment bc those are on their way. I'm just chipping away at them kind of slowly bc i'm having too much fun with this one.
Prologue // Part 1 // Part 2 // Part 3 // Part 4
Minseok ends up going down with Baekhyun and Chanyeol two days after his arm was scratched. Chanyeol is off to suit up and Minseok helps Baekhyun try out a new saddle and new claw pads that were sent to Minseok from the equipment store up in Seoul. The Under Armour brand that all dragons wear while they are still in human form transforms into a saddle as the dragon shifts, and the material differs from saddle to saddle and there are also different fits and sizes.
Baekhyun’s nose wrinkles as he scrunches up the waistband with his fingers, letting it stretch against his hips. “This is new?” he says, frowning. “And it’s supposed to be improved?”
“It’s supposed to stretch more,” Minseok says, as he sits on the ladder that leads up to the upper level of the warehouse-where the beds that Yixing uses as a makeshift infirmary whenever one of them gets particularly beat up during training or handling rogues. “At least-that’s what the box says. Why? Too tight?”
“No,” Baekhyun says slowly, walking a few steps forward and then a few steps back. “Just feels different, I guess. I don’t know-I’ll try it and see how it goes. Is it supposed to be more comfortable for the rider or something?”
“It’s supposed to make them feel more stabilized,” Minseok says and forms quotes in the air with his fingers. “So tell me if Chanyeol notices the difference.”
Baekhyun nods, stretching his arms over his head. “Will do, hyung,” he says, grinning as he turns to head out. Minseok waits until Baekhyun is completely out of the warehouse-until he hears Chanyeol’s voice mingling with Baekhyun’s and the familiar sound of rushing wind right before an equally familiar roar that’s accompanied by Chanyeol’s excited shouting.
When Minseok reaches the doorway, he’s just in time to see Baekhyun’s purple form shooting off into the sky with Chanyeol strapped to the dragon’s back. The tamer makes quick work of re-gathering supplies into a bucket before jogging out (hastily, while the sun is still out) to the cage. He wants to be back at the warehouse before the sun sets because that’s when Baekhyun and Chanyeol will probably return.
It’s been nearly a week since the capture, and by now, there’s a noticeable difference. The dragon still bares his teeth and rears his head whenever Minseok (because no one else will go near the creature anymore) approaches, but at this point, the beast does all this while lying down on his stomach, limbs curled around his body wearily and protectively. There are still wounds all over the dragon’s scales, some still fresh and open, while others are crusting over and Minseok is terrified that they’ll begin to get infected soon.
The dragon raises his head as Minseok puts the supplies down on the ground and sits down beside the bucket. There’s newfound surprise in the dragon’s eyes as he takes in the sight of Minseok simply sitting there. It’s silent-no roaring, not even growling or snapping or snarling. Minseok knows that it’s still stupid because the dragon still won’t be able to understand him, but the tamer decides that at the very least maybe some things can be conveyed through the tone of Minseok’s voice.
“I know you just want to leave,” Minseok says quietly, knowing that as long as there’s no roaring, the dragon will be able to hear just fine because of how sensitive a dragon’s ears are, “we all definitely know that even if you’re a rogue, you weren’t looking for a center. I actually have no fucking idea what you’re doing, but I do know that if we let you go, another center with stronger dragons is going to get you and they’re going to put you down.”
He doesn’t know whether he’s imagining it, but when he glances up into the dragon’s eyes (still unhinged, still wild, still a horrifically beautiful deep, dark brown), there’s comprehension-reluctant, but it’s understanding nevertheless. “I’m not-none of us,” Minseok says and can’t seem to find it in himself to prevent an edge of desperation from tainting his voice, “are going to hurt you if you shift back. And we can’t help you until you do.”
The dragon suddenly looks away, moving within the cage and turning his back to Minseok. As the tamer watches, he notices that the meat and water still haven’t been touched. Minseok sighs, running his good hand over his face and through his hair tiredly as he stands up and grabs the bucket’s handle.
He heads back for the warehouse and wonders if maybe Luhan was right.
It’s dark by the time Baekhyun and Chanyeol land. They walk out of the forest hand-in-hand, with Chanyeol’s hair stuck to the sides of his face with perspiration from the helmet being on the entire time-and from the ultimate adrenaline rush that always comes with flying for so long. Baekhyun is back in human form, shirtless and panting but there’s a wide grin on his flushed face as Chanyeol’s arm wraps around the dragon’s thin shoulders.
“Oh wow,” Baekhyun says, as they arrive at the foot of the warehouse’s steps and Minseok hands each of them a roll of kimbap, “thanks.”
“I’m starving,” Chanyeol groans in gratitude as he rips the plastic wrap off and collapses straight onto the gravel, taking half of the kimbap in his mouth in a single bite. Baekhyun sits down beside him.
Minseok leans against the banister and grins. “I thought you would be.”
Baekhyun looks around, leaning to the side slightly and tilting his head as he gazes out towards the back of the warehouse. “It’s really quiet now, huh?” he asks, glancing at Minseok.
“He,” Minseok corrects again-so instinctively that he almost doesn’t realize the emphasis he’s put on the pronoun until seconds after the word leaves his mouth, “hasn’t had food for like a week-I think he’s drunk a little bit of the water, but I don’t know. Not really all that surprising that he doesn’t have the energy to be a noisy bitch anymore.”
Chanyeol laughs suddenly, and Minseok blinks. “It’s cool,” the rider grins, “how you talk about him like he’s your best friend, hyung.”
Minseok smiles at Chanyeol oddly, amused. “Just saying it like it is,” he shrugs and absently runs his good hand, his left hand, up and down the cast on his right arm.
They eat in silence for a while, Minseok checking through the messages on his phone (he’d eaten while Chanyeol and Baekhyun were off riding), trying to decide which messages he should bother actually answering back since most of them are just Luhan and Jongin furiously texting Minseok to be careful with his arm and make Chanyeol or Baekhyun drive if need be.
“Hyung,” Baekhyun says suddenly, dusting off his palms after he’s finished his food-the dragon crumples the plastic up in one hand. “Mind if I go see him?”
“Who?” Minseok asks blankly, looking up from his phone.
Baekhyun points towards the cage, the top peeking up from the roofs of the warehouses. “I haven’t really had a chance to get a good look,” Baekhyun says lightly, “since it was dark that night and Jonginie and I kind of just-ran for it.”
“Didn’t you get a look after that?” Chanyeol says, looking up as Baekhyun gets to his feet, brushing the gravel from his Under Armour pants.
Baekhyun shakes his head. “Been busy with that project, remember?”
Minseok jerks his head in the direction of the cage. “Go ahead,” he says absently, eyes back on his phone as he curls his tongue against his teeth, and tries to think of an adequate reply to Kyungsoo’s frantic text (written completely all in capital letters with at least twenty exclamation points interspersed throughout) about Joonmyeon nearly breaking his mother’s expensive, custom-made saddle.
“Chanyeol-ah,” Minseok says, frowning, as Baekhyun jogs off, “do you remember how much those saddles with the built-in heating and cooling pads are? Custom fit.”
Chanyeol seems to think for a moment, polishing off the last bite of his kimbap roll before glancing up to meet Minseok’s eyes. “Leather?”
“Yeah.”
Chanyeol blows out a breath thoughtfully, eyes narrowing as he leans back on his palms and thinks, looking up at the night sky. “Mm-maybe around five-hun-”
Baekhyun comes sprinting back, skidding to a stop in the gravel with a slide impressive enough to be that of a baseball player’s (Minseok finds it impressive at least-and apparently so does Chanyeol since the rider starts to clap upon seeing Baekhyun). The dragon, however, doesn’t find it amusing because his arms flail in the air, eyes wide as they look from Chanyeol to Minseok urgently.
“That was a nice slide,” Chanyeol remarks, blinking.
Baekhyun’s arms flap again as he looks to Minseok and Minseok stares. “Hyung,” Baekhyun sputters, “Minseok-hyung.”
Minseok raises his eyebrows. “Yeah?”
But Baekhyun doesn’t answer-instead, he grabs Minseok’s wrist and frantically motions for Chanyeol to get to his feet and follow them. Minseok blankly allows himself to be yanked in the direction of the warehouse, exchanging confused glances with Chanyeol as they navigate through the thicket of buildings. Minseok is suspecting that maybe Baekhyun saw a particularly terrible wound on the red dragon and wanted to-
“Chanyeol-ah,” Minseok instantly starts turning Chanyeol back to face the warehouses (except Chanyeol can’t seem to tear his eyes away from the cage), “the cuffs are in the drawer near the saddle pins-go-hurry-fast.”
Chanyeol’s mouth hangs open while Baekhyun’s grip on Minseok’s arm has progressively tightened to the point where soon the tamer might need a cast for his left arm too. “Park Chanyeol,” Minseok says loudly, and gives the rider a push in the right direction-Chanyeol sets off at a clumsy, hurried sprint.
“C’mon,” Minseok says then, swallowing nervously, and pulling Baekhyun along with him as they approach the cage that now seems even larger than it was before because now, all of the space that was previously occupied by angry, sharp, red and gold scales is now vastly empty. There’s nothing but air all throughout the cage that had previously been so filled, because there’s no red and gold dragon roaring furiously in it anymore.
There is, however, a thin, limp, naked body lying in the middle.
And as Minseok barely manages to enter the correct passcode, and barely manages to drag Baekhyun in (the younger man still seems to be in a mild state of shock-not that Minseok is in much better shape, stumbling into the cage himself)-
“Oh, wow,” Baekhyun breathes.
A painfully, terribly, awfully attractive thin, limp, naked body.
(with scars and cuts and bruises and dried blood and dirt covering nearly every inch of the pale skin)
For a moment, a pathetically stupid moment in Minseok’s opinion, he and Baekhyun stand there and simply stare down-taking in every angle of the young man’s body, every perfect line of his face, and how uncannily golden the hair that spills over his forehead is. The shade of gold isn’t the kind of blond that Minseok usually ever sees comes from dye-it doesn’t even strike Minseok as blond, but it definitely isn’t the young man’s real hair color.
“His hair,” Baekhyun murmurs, voicing Minseok’s thoughts.
“Yeah,” Minseok says back quietly, “it’ll fade though-might take a while, but it’ll be okay as long as he doesn’t shift back too soon and too often-as long as he takes it easy.”
The gold of the man’s hair is the exact color of the gold of the scales on his spine in dragon form-and it’s fairly commonly known, fairly basic knowledge, that if a dragon remains as a dragon for too long (anywhere from a few weeks to entire months), characteristics that that person has as a dragon will manifest in a variety of ways once they shift back. Minseok makes an estimation that it’s probably been at least half a year since the young man was in his human form.
If they remain in their human form consistently enough and ease up on the shifting for at least a month or two, the manifestations usually fade.
Chanyeol arrives then, panting and coming through the cage door that Minseok purposely left open for when the rider came. Chanyeol holds the leg cuffs out to Minseok-two fairly-sized, thin, metal cuffs, made from the same material as the cage, linked together by a long chain. Minseok kneels down beside the unconscious young man, opening the cuffs one by one and locks them easily around the young man’s long legs.
“Thank God,” Minseok sighs in relief as Baekhyun helps transfer the young man onto Chanyeol’s back, “that you guys forget your clothes here all the time when you come after class.” He’s especially feeling thankful towards Chanyeol’s forgetfulness because judging from how this young man’s limbs drape themselves all over even Chanyeol’s tall build, the only clothes that’ll even be close to fitting the man are Chanyeol’s clothes.
They’re a few steps away from the cage when Chanyeol turns his head just enough to glance at the face leaning limply on the rider’s shoulder as he carries the young man piggy-back. “He’s really hot, hyung,” Chanyeol says, glancing to Minseok.
“He’s really injured,” Baekhyun adds, eyebrows furrowing worriedly.
“I just want to get food into him,” Minseok says, “and water-and then whenever Yixing can come down, we’ll worry about the rest.” He leads Chanyeol into the warehouse and towards the upper half-level-framed by a railing that overlooks the ground level of the rickety, rusting metal building. Baekhyun waits downstairs while Minseok helps Chanyeol carry the young man up the ladder and onto one of the three beds.
“Baekhyun-ah,” Chanyeol calls down, and points to the wardrobe pushed to the corner next to the refrigerator. “Throw up the sweatpants I left behind last Tuesday-and see if Sehunie or Jonginie left any boxers too.”
Minseok tries to shift down the blankets so that the young man isn’t lying on top of them and so the chain doesn’t get tangled with the corners of the sheets. “Wait, fuck,” Minseok says suddenly, meeting Chanyeol’s eyes as the rider comes back with clothes in hand, “I’ll have to unlock the cuffs when he wakes up so he can put on pants.”
“So?” Chanyeol shrugs. “Just unlock one side-as long as he has one cuff on, it’s not like the rest of him can go dragon while one foot just stays human.”
“Oh, yeah,” Minseok says, tilting his head, “true.” Chanyeol slings the clothes on the footboard of the bed. “And,” the tamer pats Chanyeol’s arm, “can you ask Yixing to bring a change of clothes for me when he comes back? And food too-lots of food-preferably some stuff that isn’t all junk food-bring salad and beef.”
Chanyeol’s eyebrows crease. “Wait-you’re not-you’re staying the night?”
Minseok blinks, pulling a chair up to one side of the bed and sitting down on it. “I can’t just leave him here,” he says, confused, “what if he wakes up? I don’t have class tomorrow anyway-and the last thing we need is him trying to escape.”
Chanyeol’s expression starts to mirror the confusion on Minseok’s but the rider licks his lips and shrugs. “Okay,” he says unsurely, and begins to head back down the ladder, “you won’t even have a car though-in case anything happens-”
“I’m good,” Minseok says reassuringly, waving the younger man off. “Just go take Baekhyun home and tell Yixing, get some clothes for me, food, all that-and make sure Luhan and Jonginie don’t have heart attacks.”
The rider grins just before his head disappears below the level. “I’ll try my best, hyung,” Chanyeol says and then Minseok hears the rider’s feet hear the ground and Baekhyun’s voice asking questions as to why Minseok is still up on the half-level. The questioning lasts for all of a minute before Minseok can see over the railing Chanyeol ushering Baekhyun out the door.
Once the door of the warehouse shuts, Minseok sighs to himself and looks down at the unconscious body on the bed in front of him. Most of the shallow cuts and bruises are scattered around the dragon’s arms and torso, not so much his legs except for a single, large blossoming bruise-an extremely large, dark, blossoming bruise against the man’s ankle. There’re also a fair number of scrapes, yellowing and scabbing over.
His face is unmarred for the most part, simply roughed up and overly pale-probably from having been in dragon form for so long that the scales have blocked out any exposure to the sun. Minseok’s eyes narrow when he realizes that the man is starting to sweat-beads of perspiration gathering against the sides of his face and that the rise and fall of his chest begins to quicken.
“Fuck,” Minseok mutters and runs a hand over his eyes, “Great-fantastic.”
The dragon has a fever.
“You know what,” Minseok says, thoroughly aware that he’s speaking to an unconscious person, and stands up to make his way to Yixing’s closet in the corner of the upper level-not really even knowing what the fuck he’s looking for because as far as Minseok’s medical knowledge goes, you take pills for fevers so you can get through the rest of your lectures without passing out before you pass out at the dorm, except he doesn’t know how to make an unconscious dragon take pills, “that’s what you get for not fucking eating or drinking for a week, asshole.”
He flicks on another light and decides that at the very least, he should probably work on dressing the bastard since being naked probably has some kind of affect or something on the fever (Minseok really has no fucking idea and just really wishes Yixing were here right now because he feels like he’s a ten-year-old who’s just been told to perform open heart surgery). It doesn’t help though that on top of being unconscious, the dragon also had to decide to be unnaturally tall, meaning even with loose sweatpants and boxers, it took Minseok at least five minutes to wrangle them over the man’s long legs.
The tamer decides not to pull on the shirt that Chanyeol handed over since there were still some open wounds on the dragon’s upper body. “Zhang Yixing,” Minseok mumbles into his hands as he rubs at his cheeks in frustration. He slaps himself across the face once to pull himself together (as much as possible) before he forces himself to stand up and lie down on the bed to the left.
He sets his phone alarm for four hours and hopes that that’ll be enough sleep for him to pull through the rest of the night-the last thing he needs is to fall into such a deep sleep that he can’t even hear the sound of someone trying to break an unbreakable set of leg cuffs.
In the end, the alarm on his phone isn’t what wakes him up.
Minseok is woken up an hour before his alarm is supposed to go off by the buzzing sound of a text messaging coming into his phone. He’s actually surprised it took this long for anyone to text him, because sure enough (as he rubs the sleep out of his eyes and sits up on the bed) it’s a text from Luhan telling the tamer that he’s crazy and that Jongin has literally driven down to the dorms to demand that they somehow bring Minseok back.
The tamer isn’t sure how he’s supposed to reply, so he doesn’t and simply chucks his phone onto the nearest table. He stretches his arms and swings his legs over the side of the bed, supposing that he should probably-
Minseok stares.
The dragon stares back, blinking slowly and heavily as he sits there on the bed Minseok and Chanyeol had dumped him on hours earlier. The young man’s gaze gradually shifts from Minseok to the chain cuffing the dragon’s legs together beneath the sweatpants (the key, to which, is hidden deep in Yixing’s medical supplies).
“I understand Korean,” are the first words out of the dragon’s mouth as he continues to gaze at the leg cuffs. The voice that edges those words out is deep and low and it would almost be soothing if there wasn’t so much danger-so many threats in just those three words-slightly accented, but perfectly comprehensible-no different than Yixing’s Korean although not as fluent as Luhan’s.
Minseok opens his own mouth-except nothing seems to be able to come out, as the other man turns to meet his eyes again (dangerous, clear and dark, brown, unhinged, wild, angry). “I-okay-good,” is what finally sputters out of Minseok. “What’s your name?”
There’s a long pause during which the dragon tears his gaze away and stares at the chain once again, a crease suddenly appearing between his eyebrows. “Wufan,” he finally says, quietly. He glances at Minseok. “What’s the point,” he murmurs, “of taking me out of the cage if you’re just going to chain me up?”
The tamer stands up, bites the inside of his cheek and sighs. “It’s-they stop you from trying to shift once we took you out. And we had to take you out to treat your wounds and give you food and st-”
“So you don’t trust me,” Wufan interrupts.
Minseok squints at Wufan’s expression-still blank and calm and almost maddeningly indifferent. “Of course we don’t trust you,” Minseok says, and can’t keep the incredulity out of his tone. “We went through hell and back getting you in that cage-you speak pretty amazing Korean, but I had my friends yelling Mandarin and Cantonese at you for like two days-you won’t eat the food that I had to steal to get you-you barely drank-and you wouldn’t let us even wrap your injuries up.”
“Let me go,” Wufan says, and suddenly there is expression on his face-it’s dangerous and lethal and Minseok tries his best to remain calm because the horrible downside of being a tamer is that Minseok can see the dragon’s face as a dragon whenever their emotions become too much for them (and Wufan as a dragon, right now, is just exactly that frightening-even if Minseok knows that it’s just in Wufan’s eyes and the cuffs prevent Wufan from transforming).
“You’re going to destroy the forest again,” Minseok says shortly.
“I won’t,” Wufan says, jaw tight, “I’ll fly farther-”
Minseok can’t help it-he laughs-derisively and humorlessly. “You didn’t even have the energy to fly when we found you,” he says, “and if we let you go now-like this-you’re not going to last even if I do take the cuffs off of you. I don’t fucking understand what you’re problem is-because you’re clearly not a rogue-but whatever and whoever you are, you’re not going anywhere fo-”
A moment of blackness-then there’s pain-
Minseok manages to catch himself before he hits the floor, holding onto the bed post and clutching at his side, wincing. By the time he’s gathered himself and bit back the pain (lifted his shirt to assess the damage-which really isn’t much, expectedly, because it’s fairly hard for even a pure dragon to harm a tamer), Wufan is already yanking open the warehouse door and running outside. “For a pretty dragon,” the tamer mutters to himself as he gingerly climbs down the ladder (even though there’s never any physical, visible injury, tamers always feel twice the pain to make up for that), “he sure is an asshole.”
He’s hit with the cold, autumn air-the warehouse lights have turned on because of how dark it is-and prepares to go out on an all-night search through the forest when his eyes narrow towards the cage and he realizes that Wufan is there. Wufan is sitting against the corner of the cage, knees up and elbows resting on his legs, head down.
The tamer makes his way through the warehouses, pushes open the unlocked cage door, steps onto the stainless steel, and walks to the corner where Wufan is seated.
“Leave,” Wufan says quietly-his tone is still dangerous-now it’s actually acidic, angry.
“It’s freezing out here,” Minseok says, and forces himself to sound calm, “you’re starving, you need water, you’re burning up with a fever, you’re injured and sick and tired.”
Wufan raises his eyes. “You’re a human,” he says coldly.
The automatic, built-in correction is halfway up Minseok’s throat (about how he definitely is not human) before the tamer manages to swallow it back down because of more pressing matters at hand-like the fact that Wufan seems to very stupidly think sitting out here, shirtless and wounded and starving, is a wiser decision than staying indoors, sleeping until Yixing comes, and eating the food Minseok was about to make.
Minseok takes a deep breath and then sits down himself, right across Wufan. He looks steadily into Wufan’s slightly surprised eyes. “Why won’t you come in?” Minseok asks, evenly and softly. “I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who likes being in a cage.”
“If you’re going to treat me like an animal,” Wufan says, eyes ablaze even though his voice is icier than ever, “then I’ll sleep where animals sleep.”
A thousand explanations jump into Minseok’s mind on how the cuffs are actually protocol and Minseok would be breaking a lot of rules and taking a lot of risks-in both procedure and plain common sense-if he took them off of Wufan. All those explanations though Minseok shoves away and decides to forego because he realizes that it’s pointless to try any of those on Wufan.
“Fine,” Minseok shrugs, nodding tightly.
Wufan seems to wait for a moment, gazing at Minseok head-on until moments pass and Minseok remains sitting there. Wufan frowns.
Minseok smiles humorlessly.
“Go inside,” Wufan says, confusion starting to seep through his otherwise frigid tone.
Minseok raises his eyebrows. “It’s my cage,” he says, “my passcode on the lock and everything. I can stay here if I want to.”
“I thought you said it was freezing,” the confusion has been smoothed out of the dragon’s tone and from the way he’s looking at Minseok now, the tamer expects to be hit again fairly soon.
Minseok doesn’t reply-merely continues to sit there and gaze back steadily.
Wufan’s eyes are still intensely hostile, but a body can hold out for only so long and at this point, Minseok easily detects how the dragon is sitting there unsteadily-probably dizzy from running out so fast, from the quick movement and strength that it took to punch Minseok minutes ago, from the energy it takes to keep composed and calm and bear through the cold breeze without flinching-without even wrapping his arms around himself like Minseok has the strong urge to do (and the tamer is wearing an actual shirt, and a jacket, and has eaten).
Minutes pass with Wufan staring stonily at the floor of the cage and Minseok watching Wufan, the night growing progressively colder and darker. When the tamer still sees no signs of Wufan retreating, he stands up and walks to the other side of the cage, taking off his jacket and folding it up for a makeshift pillow. He takes one last glance at the unmoving, hunched-over figure (the lights of the warehouse dance in patterns against Wufan’s pale, injured skin) before sighing and closing his eyes against the cold.
Author: himawarixxsandz
Rating: PG-13
Pairing(s): XiuRis, HunHan, BaekYeol, SuDo
Summary: Beasts bleed too
A/N: I tried so hard to make something actually happen in this part guys omfdsfa and don't worry about banghim or apartment bc those are on their way. I'm just chipping away at them kind of slowly bc i'm having too much fun with this one.
Prologue // Part 1 // Part 2 // Part 3 // Part 4
Minseok ends up going down with Baekhyun and Chanyeol two days after his arm was scratched. Chanyeol is off to suit up and Minseok helps Baekhyun try out a new saddle and new claw pads that were sent to Minseok from the equipment store up in Seoul. The Under Armour brand that all dragons wear while they are still in human form transforms into a saddle as the dragon shifts, and the material differs from saddle to saddle and there are also different fits and sizes.
Baekhyun’s nose wrinkles as he scrunches up the waistband with his fingers, letting it stretch against his hips. “This is new?” he says, frowning. “And it’s supposed to be improved?”
“It’s supposed to stretch more,” Minseok says, as he sits on the ladder that leads up to the upper level of the warehouse-where the beds that Yixing uses as a makeshift infirmary whenever one of them gets particularly beat up during training or handling rogues. “At least-that’s what the box says. Why? Too tight?”
“No,” Baekhyun says slowly, walking a few steps forward and then a few steps back. “Just feels different, I guess. I don’t know-I’ll try it and see how it goes. Is it supposed to be more comfortable for the rider or something?”
“It’s supposed to make them feel more stabilized,” Minseok says and forms quotes in the air with his fingers. “So tell me if Chanyeol notices the difference.”
Baekhyun nods, stretching his arms over his head. “Will do, hyung,” he says, grinning as he turns to head out. Minseok waits until Baekhyun is completely out of the warehouse-until he hears Chanyeol’s voice mingling with Baekhyun’s and the familiar sound of rushing wind right before an equally familiar roar that’s accompanied by Chanyeol’s excited shouting.
When Minseok reaches the doorway, he’s just in time to see Baekhyun’s purple form shooting off into the sky with Chanyeol strapped to the dragon’s back. The tamer makes quick work of re-gathering supplies into a bucket before jogging out (hastily, while the sun is still out) to the cage. He wants to be back at the warehouse before the sun sets because that’s when Baekhyun and Chanyeol will probably return.
It’s been nearly a week since the capture, and by now, there’s a noticeable difference. The dragon still bares his teeth and rears his head whenever Minseok (because no one else will go near the creature anymore) approaches, but at this point, the beast does all this while lying down on his stomach, limbs curled around his body wearily and protectively. There are still wounds all over the dragon’s scales, some still fresh and open, while others are crusting over and Minseok is terrified that they’ll begin to get infected soon.
The dragon raises his head as Minseok puts the supplies down on the ground and sits down beside the bucket. There’s newfound surprise in the dragon’s eyes as he takes in the sight of Minseok simply sitting there. It’s silent-no roaring, not even growling or snapping or snarling. Minseok knows that it’s still stupid because the dragon still won’t be able to understand him, but the tamer decides that at the very least maybe some things can be conveyed through the tone of Minseok’s voice.
“I know you just want to leave,” Minseok says quietly, knowing that as long as there’s no roaring, the dragon will be able to hear just fine because of how sensitive a dragon’s ears are, “we all definitely know that even if you’re a rogue, you weren’t looking for a center. I actually have no fucking idea what you’re doing, but I do know that if we let you go, another center with stronger dragons is going to get you and they’re going to put you down.”
He doesn’t know whether he’s imagining it, but when he glances up into the dragon’s eyes (still unhinged, still wild, still a horrifically beautiful deep, dark brown), there’s comprehension-reluctant, but it’s understanding nevertheless. “I’m not-none of us,” Minseok says and can’t seem to find it in himself to prevent an edge of desperation from tainting his voice, “are going to hurt you if you shift back. And we can’t help you until you do.”
The dragon suddenly looks away, moving within the cage and turning his back to Minseok. As the tamer watches, he notices that the meat and water still haven’t been touched. Minseok sighs, running his good hand over his face and through his hair tiredly as he stands up and grabs the bucket’s handle.
He heads back for the warehouse and wonders if maybe Luhan was right.
It’s dark by the time Baekhyun and Chanyeol land. They walk out of the forest hand-in-hand, with Chanyeol’s hair stuck to the sides of his face with perspiration from the helmet being on the entire time-and from the ultimate adrenaline rush that always comes with flying for so long. Baekhyun is back in human form, shirtless and panting but there’s a wide grin on his flushed face as Chanyeol’s arm wraps around the dragon’s thin shoulders.
“Oh wow,” Baekhyun says, as they arrive at the foot of the warehouse’s steps and Minseok hands each of them a roll of kimbap, “thanks.”
“I’m starving,” Chanyeol groans in gratitude as he rips the plastic wrap off and collapses straight onto the gravel, taking half of the kimbap in his mouth in a single bite. Baekhyun sits down beside him.
Minseok leans against the banister and grins. “I thought you would be.”
Baekhyun looks around, leaning to the side slightly and tilting his head as he gazes out towards the back of the warehouse. “It’s really quiet now, huh?” he asks, glancing at Minseok.
“He,” Minseok corrects again-so instinctively that he almost doesn’t realize the emphasis he’s put on the pronoun until seconds after the word leaves his mouth, “hasn’t had food for like a week-I think he’s drunk a little bit of the water, but I don’t know. Not really all that surprising that he doesn’t have the energy to be a noisy bitch anymore.”
Chanyeol laughs suddenly, and Minseok blinks. “It’s cool,” the rider grins, “how you talk about him like he’s your best friend, hyung.”
Minseok smiles at Chanyeol oddly, amused. “Just saying it like it is,” he shrugs and absently runs his good hand, his left hand, up and down the cast on his right arm.
They eat in silence for a while, Minseok checking through the messages on his phone (he’d eaten while Chanyeol and Baekhyun were off riding), trying to decide which messages he should bother actually answering back since most of them are just Luhan and Jongin furiously texting Minseok to be careful with his arm and make Chanyeol or Baekhyun drive if need be.
“Hyung,” Baekhyun says suddenly, dusting off his palms after he’s finished his food-the dragon crumples the plastic up in one hand. “Mind if I go see him?”
“Who?” Minseok asks blankly, looking up from his phone.
Baekhyun points towards the cage, the top peeking up from the roofs of the warehouses. “I haven’t really had a chance to get a good look,” Baekhyun says lightly, “since it was dark that night and Jonginie and I kind of just-ran for it.”
“Didn’t you get a look after that?” Chanyeol says, looking up as Baekhyun gets to his feet, brushing the gravel from his Under Armour pants.
Baekhyun shakes his head. “Been busy with that project, remember?”
Minseok jerks his head in the direction of the cage. “Go ahead,” he says absently, eyes back on his phone as he curls his tongue against his teeth, and tries to think of an adequate reply to Kyungsoo’s frantic text (written completely all in capital letters with at least twenty exclamation points interspersed throughout) about Joonmyeon nearly breaking his mother’s expensive, custom-made saddle.
“Chanyeol-ah,” Minseok says, frowning, as Baekhyun jogs off, “do you remember how much those saddles with the built-in heating and cooling pads are? Custom fit.”
Chanyeol seems to think for a moment, polishing off the last bite of his kimbap roll before glancing up to meet Minseok’s eyes. “Leather?”
“Yeah.”
Chanyeol blows out a breath thoughtfully, eyes narrowing as he leans back on his palms and thinks, looking up at the night sky. “Mm-maybe around five-hun-”
Baekhyun comes sprinting back, skidding to a stop in the gravel with a slide impressive enough to be that of a baseball player’s (Minseok finds it impressive at least-and apparently so does Chanyeol since the rider starts to clap upon seeing Baekhyun). The dragon, however, doesn’t find it amusing because his arms flail in the air, eyes wide as they look from Chanyeol to Minseok urgently.
“That was a nice slide,” Chanyeol remarks, blinking.
Baekhyun’s arms flap again as he looks to Minseok and Minseok stares. “Hyung,” Baekhyun sputters, “Minseok-hyung.”
Minseok raises his eyebrows. “Yeah?”
But Baekhyun doesn’t answer-instead, he grabs Minseok’s wrist and frantically motions for Chanyeol to get to his feet and follow them. Minseok blankly allows himself to be yanked in the direction of the warehouse, exchanging confused glances with Chanyeol as they navigate through the thicket of buildings. Minseok is suspecting that maybe Baekhyun saw a particularly terrible wound on the red dragon and wanted to-
“Chanyeol-ah,” Minseok instantly starts turning Chanyeol back to face the warehouses (except Chanyeol can’t seem to tear his eyes away from the cage), “the cuffs are in the drawer near the saddle pins-go-hurry-fast.”
Chanyeol’s mouth hangs open while Baekhyun’s grip on Minseok’s arm has progressively tightened to the point where soon the tamer might need a cast for his left arm too. “Park Chanyeol,” Minseok says loudly, and gives the rider a push in the right direction-Chanyeol sets off at a clumsy, hurried sprint.
“C’mon,” Minseok says then, swallowing nervously, and pulling Baekhyun along with him as they approach the cage that now seems even larger than it was before because now, all of the space that was previously occupied by angry, sharp, red and gold scales is now vastly empty. There’s nothing but air all throughout the cage that had previously been so filled, because there’s no red and gold dragon roaring furiously in it anymore.
There is, however, a thin, limp, naked body lying in the middle.
And as Minseok barely manages to enter the correct passcode, and barely manages to drag Baekhyun in (the younger man still seems to be in a mild state of shock-not that Minseok is in much better shape, stumbling into the cage himself)-
“Oh, wow,” Baekhyun breathes.
A painfully, terribly, awfully attractive thin, limp, naked body.
(with scars and cuts and bruises and dried blood and dirt covering nearly every inch of the pale skin)
For a moment, a pathetically stupid moment in Minseok’s opinion, he and Baekhyun stand there and simply stare down-taking in every angle of the young man’s body, every perfect line of his face, and how uncannily golden the hair that spills over his forehead is. The shade of gold isn’t the kind of blond that Minseok usually ever sees comes from dye-it doesn’t even strike Minseok as blond, but it definitely isn’t the young man’s real hair color.
“His hair,” Baekhyun murmurs, voicing Minseok’s thoughts.
“Yeah,” Minseok says back quietly, “it’ll fade though-might take a while, but it’ll be okay as long as he doesn’t shift back too soon and too often-as long as he takes it easy.”
The gold of the man’s hair is the exact color of the gold of the scales on his spine in dragon form-and it’s fairly commonly known, fairly basic knowledge, that if a dragon remains as a dragon for too long (anywhere from a few weeks to entire months), characteristics that that person has as a dragon will manifest in a variety of ways once they shift back. Minseok makes an estimation that it’s probably been at least half a year since the young man was in his human form.
If they remain in their human form consistently enough and ease up on the shifting for at least a month or two, the manifestations usually fade.
Chanyeol arrives then, panting and coming through the cage door that Minseok purposely left open for when the rider came. Chanyeol holds the leg cuffs out to Minseok-two fairly-sized, thin, metal cuffs, made from the same material as the cage, linked together by a long chain. Minseok kneels down beside the unconscious young man, opening the cuffs one by one and locks them easily around the young man’s long legs.
“Thank God,” Minseok sighs in relief as Baekhyun helps transfer the young man onto Chanyeol’s back, “that you guys forget your clothes here all the time when you come after class.” He’s especially feeling thankful towards Chanyeol’s forgetfulness because judging from how this young man’s limbs drape themselves all over even Chanyeol’s tall build, the only clothes that’ll even be close to fitting the man are Chanyeol’s clothes.
They’re a few steps away from the cage when Chanyeol turns his head just enough to glance at the face leaning limply on the rider’s shoulder as he carries the young man piggy-back. “He’s really hot, hyung,” Chanyeol says, glancing to Minseok.
“He’s really injured,” Baekhyun adds, eyebrows furrowing worriedly.
“I just want to get food into him,” Minseok says, “and water-and then whenever Yixing can come down, we’ll worry about the rest.” He leads Chanyeol into the warehouse and towards the upper half-level-framed by a railing that overlooks the ground level of the rickety, rusting metal building. Baekhyun waits downstairs while Minseok helps Chanyeol carry the young man up the ladder and onto one of the three beds.
“Baekhyun-ah,” Chanyeol calls down, and points to the wardrobe pushed to the corner next to the refrigerator. “Throw up the sweatpants I left behind last Tuesday-and see if Sehunie or Jonginie left any boxers too.”
Minseok tries to shift down the blankets so that the young man isn’t lying on top of them and so the chain doesn’t get tangled with the corners of the sheets. “Wait, fuck,” Minseok says suddenly, meeting Chanyeol’s eyes as the rider comes back with clothes in hand, “I’ll have to unlock the cuffs when he wakes up so he can put on pants.”
“So?” Chanyeol shrugs. “Just unlock one side-as long as he has one cuff on, it’s not like the rest of him can go dragon while one foot just stays human.”
“Oh, yeah,” Minseok says, tilting his head, “true.” Chanyeol slings the clothes on the footboard of the bed. “And,” the tamer pats Chanyeol’s arm, “can you ask Yixing to bring a change of clothes for me when he comes back? And food too-lots of food-preferably some stuff that isn’t all junk food-bring salad and beef.”
Chanyeol’s eyebrows crease. “Wait-you’re not-you’re staying the night?”
Minseok blinks, pulling a chair up to one side of the bed and sitting down on it. “I can’t just leave him here,” he says, confused, “what if he wakes up? I don’t have class tomorrow anyway-and the last thing we need is him trying to escape.”
Chanyeol’s expression starts to mirror the confusion on Minseok’s but the rider licks his lips and shrugs. “Okay,” he says unsurely, and begins to head back down the ladder, “you won’t even have a car though-in case anything happens-”
“I’m good,” Minseok says reassuringly, waving the younger man off. “Just go take Baekhyun home and tell Yixing, get some clothes for me, food, all that-and make sure Luhan and Jonginie don’t have heart attacks.”
The rider grins just before his head disappears below the level. “I’ll try my best, hyung,” Chanyeol says and then Minseok hears the rider’s feet hear the ground and Baekhyun’s voice asking questions as to why Minseok is still up on the half-level. The questioning lasts for all of a minute before Minseok can see over the railing Chanyeol ushering Baekhyun out the door.
Once the door of the warehouse shuts, Minseok sighs to himself and looks down at the unconscious body on the bed in front of him. Most of the shallow cuts and bruises are scattered around the dragon’s arms and torso, not so much his legs except for a single, large blossoming bruise-an extremely large, dark, blossoming bruise against the man’s ankle. There’re also a fair number of scrapes, yellowing and scabbing over.
His face is unmarred for the most part, simply roughed up and overly pale-probably from having been in dragon form for so long that the scales have blocked out any exposure to the sun. Minseok’s eyes narrow when he realizes that the man is starting to sweat-beads of perspiration gathering against the sides of his face and that the rise and fall of his chest begins to quicken.
“Fuck,” Minseok mutters and runs a hand over his eyes, “Great-fantastic.”
The dragon has a fever.
“You know what,” Minseok says, thoroughly aware that he’s speaking to an unconscious person, and stands up to make his way to Yixing’s closet in the corner of the upper level-not really even knowing what the fuck he’s looking for because as far as Minseok’s medical knowledge goes, you take pills for fevers so you can get through the rest of your lectures without passing out before you pass out at the dorm, except he doesn’t know how to make an unconscious dragon take pills, “that’s what you get for not fucking eating or drinking for a week, asshole.”
He flicks on another light and decides that at the very least, he should probably work on dressing the bastard since being naked probably has some kind of affect or something on the fever (Minseok really has no fucking idea and just really wishes Yixing were here right now because he feels like he’s a ten-year-old who’s just been told to perform open heart surgery). It doesn’t help though that on top of being unconscious, the dragon also had to decide to be unnaturally tall, meaning even with loose sweatpants and boxers, it took Minseok at least five minutes to wrangle them over the man’s long legs.
The tamer decides not to pull on the shirt that Chanyeol handed over since there were still some open wounds on the dragon’s upper body. “Zhang Yixing,” Minseok mumbles into his hands as he rubs at his cheeks in frustration. He slaps himself across the face once to pull himself together (as much as possible) before he forces himself to stand up and lie down on the bed to the left.
He sets his phone alarm for four hours and hopes that that’ll be enough sleep for him to pull through the rest of the night-the last thing he needs is to fall into such a deep sleep that he can’t even hear the sound of someone trying to break an unbreakable set of leg cuffs.
In the end, the alarm on his phone isn’t what wakes him up.
Minseok is woken up an hour before his alarm is supposed to go off by the buzzing sound of a text messaging coming into his phone. He’s actually surprised it took this long for anyone to text him, because sure enough (as he rubs the sleep out of his eyes and sits up on the bed) it’s a text from Luhan telling the tamer that he’s crazy and that Jongin has literally driven down to the dorms to demand that they somehow bring Minseok back.
The tamer isn’t sure how he’s supposed to reply, so he doesn’t and simply chucks his phone onto the nearest table. He stretches his arms and swings his legs over the side of the bed, supposing that he should probably-
Minseok stares.
The dragon stares back, blinking slowly and heavily as he sits there on the bed Minseok and Chanyeol had dumped him on hours earlier. The young man’s gaze gradually shifts from Minseok to the chain cuffing the dragon’s legs together beneath the sweatpants (the key, to which, is hidden deep in Yixing’s medical supplies).
“I understand Korean,” are the first words out of the dragon’s mouth as he continues to gaze at the leg cuffs. The voice that edges those words out is deep and low and it would almost be soothing if there wasn’t so much danger-so many threats in just those three words-slightly accented, but perfectly comprehensible-no different than Yixing’s Korean although not as fluent as Luhan’s.
Minseok opens his own mouth-except nothing seems to be able to come out, as the other man turns to meet his eyes again (dangerous, clear and dark, brown, unhinged, wild, angry). “I-okay-good,” is what finally sputters out of Minseok. “What’s your name?”
There’s a long pause during which the dragon tears his gaze away and stares at the chain once again, a crease suddenly appearing between his eyebrows. “Wufan,” he finally says, quietly. He glances at Minseok. “What’s the point,” he murmurs, “of taking me out of the cage if you’re just going to chain me up?”
The tamer stands up, bites the inside of his cheek and sighs. “It’s-they stop you from trying to shift once we took you out. And we had to take you out to treat your wounds and give you food and st-”
“So you don’t trust me,” Wufan interrupts.
Minseok squints at Wufan’s expression-still blank and calm and almost maddeningly indifferent. “Of course we don’t trust you,” Minseok says, and can’t keep the incredulity out of his tone. “We went through hell and back getting you in that cage-you speak pretty amazing Korean, but I had my friends yelling Mandarin and Cantonese at you for like two days-you won’t eat the food that I had to steal to get you-you barely drank-and you wouldn’t let us even wrap your injuries up.”
“Let me go,” Wufan says, and suddenly there is expression on his face-it’s dangerous and lethal and Minseok tries his best to remain calm because the horrible downside of being a tamer is that Minseok can see the dragon’s face as a dragon whenever their emotions become too much for them (and Wufan as a dragon, right now, is just exactly that frightening-even if Minseok knows that it’s just in Wufan’s eyes and the cuffs prevent Wufan from transforming).
“You’re going to destroy the forest again,” Minseok says shortly.
“I won’t,” Wufan says, jaw tight, “I’ll fly farther-”
Minseok can’t help it-he laughs-derisively and humorlessly. “You didn’t even have the energy to fly when we found you,” he says, “and if we let you go now-like this-you’re not going to last even if I do take the cuffs off of you. I don’t fucking understand what you’re problem is-because you’re clearly not a rogue-but whatever and whoever you are, you’re not going anywhere fo-”
A moment of blackness-then there’s pain-
Minseok manages to catch himself before he hits the floor, holding onto the bed post and clutching at his side, wincing. By the time he’s gathered himself and bit back the pain (lifted his shirt to assess the damage-which really isn’t much, expectedly, because it’s fairly hard for even a pure dragon to harm a tamer), Wufan is already yanking open the warehouse door and running outside. “For a pretty dragon,” the tamer mutters to himself as he gingerly climbs down the ladder (even though there’s never any physical, visible injury, tamers always feel twice the pain to make up for that), “he sure is an asshole.”
He’s hit with the cold, autumn air-the warehouse lights have turned on because of how dark it is-and prepares to go out on an all-night search through the forest when his eyes narrow towards the cage and he realizes that Wufan is there. Wufan is sitting against the corner of the cage, knees up and elbows resting on his legs, head down.
The tamer makes his way through the warehouses, pushes open the unlocked cage door, steps onto the stainless steel, and walks to the corner where Wufan is seated.
“Leave,” Wufan says quietly-his tone is still dangerous-now it’s actually acidic, angry.
“It’s freezing out here,” Minseok says, and forces himself to sound calm, “you’re starving, you need water, you’re burning up with a fever, you’re injured and sick and tired.”
Wufan raises his eyes. “You’re a human,” he says coldly.
The automatic, built-in correction is halfway up Minseok’s throat (about how he definitely is not human) before the tamer manages to swallow it back down because of more pressing matters at hand-like the fact that Wufan seems to very stupidly think sitting out here, shirtless and wounded and starving, is a wiser decision than staying indoors, sleeping until Yixing comes, and eating the food Minseok was about to make.
Minseok takes a deep breath and then sits down himself, right across Wufan. He looks steadily into Wufan’s slightly surprised eyes. “Why won’t you come in?” Minseok asks, evenly and softly. “I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who likes being in a cage.”
“If you’re going to treat me like an animal,” Wufan says, eyes ablaze even though his voice is icier than ever, “then I’ll sleep where animals sleep.”
A thousand explanations jump into Minseok’s mind on how the cuffs are actually protocol and Minseok would be breaking a lot of rules and taking a lot of risks-in both procedure and plain common sense-if he took them off of Wufan. All those explanations though Minseok shoves away and decides to forego because he realizes that it’s pointless to try any of those on Wufan.
“Fine,” Minseok shrugs, nodding tightly.
Wufan seems to wait for a moment, gazing at Minseok head-on until moments pass and Minseok remains sitting there. Wufan frowns.
Minseok smiles humorlessly.
“Go inside,” Wufan says, confusion starting to seep through his otherwise frigid tone.
Minseok raises his eyebrows. “It’s my cage,” he says, “my passcode on the lock and everything. I can stay here if I want to.”
“I thought you said it was freezing,” the confusion has been smoothed out of the dragon’s tone and from the way he’s looking at Minseok now, the tamer expects to be hit again fairly soon.
Minseok doesn’t reply-merely continues to sit there and gaze back steadily.
Wufan’s eyes are still intensely hostile, but a body can hold out for only so long and at this point, Minseok easily detects how the dragon is sitting there unsteadily-probably dizzy from running out so fast, from the quick movement and strength that it took to punch Minseok minutes ago, from the energy it takes to keep composed and calm and bear through the cold breeze without flinching-without even wrapping his arms around himself like Minseok has the strong urge to do (and the tamer is wearing an actual shirt, and a jacket, and has eaten).
Minutes pass with Wufan staring stonily at the floor of the cage and Minseok watching Wufan, the night growing progressively colder and darker. When the tamer still sees no signs of Wufan retreating, he stands up and walks to the other side of the cage, taking off his jacket and folding it up for a makeshift pillow. He takes one last glance at the unmoving, hunched-over figure (the lights of the warehouse dance in patterns against Wufan’s pale, injured skin) before sighing and closing his eyes against the cold.