Beautiful Stranger - 4/? (EXO Dragon AU Multi-Shot)
Title: Beautiful Stranger (4/?)
Author: himawarixxsandz
Rating: PG-13
Pairing(s): XiuRis, HunHan, BaekYeol, SuDo
Summary: Beasts bleed too
A/N: SO 21K and still going strong ahaha FUCK
Prologue // Part 1 // Part 2 // Part 3 // Part 4 // Part 5
He wakes up to a stiff neck, a sore back, what feels like ice forming over his entire face, and the sound of wheels over the gravel as cars arrive into the parking lot. Minseok slowly sits up, wincing at the ache encompassing his entire body (from sleeping through the cold to the pain lingering from Wufan’s blow to the tamer’s side). He glances discreetly across the cage to the occupied corner and sees that Wufan at least did let himself fall asleep albeit still sitting against the cage bars and slumped over his long legs.
Minseok sighs, rubbing a hand over his face gingerly, one hand patting at his side to assess the soreness as he turns to look through the bars just in time to see Yixing and Jongin heading towards the cage. The tamer is about to press a finger to his lips in an effort to ask Jongin and Yixing to keep it down so that Wufan would remain asleep for a bit longer and thus treating him might be easier, but Jongin is already storming into the cage incredulously (noisily).
Before any words are said at all, Minseok has to jump to his feet and launch himself at Jongin-arms around the younger man, gathering all the strength the tamer has in his state of barely-awake-and-incredibly-sore to hold the dragon back from going at Wufan. “He skinned you,” Jongin very nearly growls and Minseok catches Yixing’s gaze as the medic comes into the cage and mouths frantically, “Why did you bring him?” because at the very least, if Yixing had brought Luhan, there would be no danger of accidental transformation regardless of how angry Luhan got.
“He brought himself,” Yixing says wearily, hands in the pockets of his jacket, and from the way his hair is still ruffled on his head, Minseok assumes that it’s still early in the morning and-at best-the tamer probably just only got roughly four hours of sleep.
“Jongin-ah,” Minseok says as calmly as he can, face muffled against Jongin’s shoulder (hugging the dragon in an attempt to shut him up before Wufan wakes up), “Jongin-ah-Kim Jongin-it’s okay-I’m okay, remember?”
But when the tamer draws back just enough to take a look at Jongin’s face, the dragon’s expression is too far gone to reason with-the exact reason why Minseok couldn’t believe no one had the sense to lock Jongin’s car away or something (anything) to keep him from coming down with Yixing because the last thing that needs to happen is Jongin exploding-and even worse, exploding and getting stuck.
Dragons don’t have the same emotional freedoms that humans have-they can’t afford to get furiously angry or miserably upset otherwise they might accidentally transform, be stuck in dragon form, or be unable to shift into dragon form. Young dragons, especially, don’t have the leisure of hitting any extreme negative emotion, but because of the consequences attached to extreme emotions, young dragons are more likely to get intensely angry or intensely upset than matured dragons or any human of any age.
Yixing grabs both of Jongin’s arms from behind-an extra precaution as Minseok puts a hand on Jongin’s chest and orders him to breathe in through his nose and out through his mouth steadily and evenly.
“Hyung,” Jongin says, and Minseok winces when he hears the struggle to keep calm shows far too clearly in Jongin’s tone, “why were you sleeping out here?”
“We had some technical difficulties,” Minseok summarizes slowly, “and I didn’t want to leave him out here alone-”
Those were the wrong words to say.
Horribly, terribly wrong words-Yixing has to yank back Jongin’s arms and Minseok can see the outline of scales and the beginnings of a snout fighting and rippling beneath the otherwise smooth, bronze skin of Jongin’s face. Minseok shoves Jongin back out of the cage as Yixing simultaneously drags the dragon out-both their strengths necessarily combined in order to get Jongin away from Wufan and back towards the warehouse.
“Sedate him if you have to!” Minseok yells, almost irritably (because he’s cold and hungry and aching and even though he knows this is just a culmination of how much Jongin is worried for Minseok, how scared the young dragon is, it really doesn’t excuse how firstly-no one held him back from coming down to the center when Minseok had told Chanyeol that things would be like this, and secondly-that Jongin has been the one tamed for the longest period of time, regardless of how still young he is and should thusly have a somewhat better hold on his emotions than this), as Yixing struggles to drag Jongin back into the warehouse.
A tired sigh shudders from Minseok’s lips as he walks heavily back into the cage to find Wufan’s eyes already open. The dragon doesn’t seem to have the strength to stand up-seems to be using all of his remaining strength (which is probably barely any at all at this point) to continue icily and threateningly gazing at Minseok from beneath strands of unnaturally golden hair.
Minseok takes an experimental step forward, eyes glued to Wufan as the tamer continues to walk with pauses between each step in order to gauge another possible outburst. “How’d you sleep?” he asks once he gets near enough to get a better look at the dragon’s expression. Wufan remains sitting and Minseok remains standing.
Wufan regards the tamer for another long moment before narrowing his eyes as he meets Minseok’s gaze and saying (his voice low and cold as ever), “Why was he angry?”
Minseok blinks. “Wh-Jongin?”
Wufan inclines his head infinitesimally.
The tamer smiles humorlessly. “You hurt me,” Minseok says simply, with a small shrug, holding up his casted arm.
“Why does that matter to him?” Wufan asks, a crease forming between his eyebrows.
Minseok stares, confused for a few seconds before he brushes that back to the corner of his mind because this isn’t the time to be trying to figure out the inner workings (and issues, clearly-lots and lots of issues) of the mind of a dragon that Minseok will probably end up turning to another center anyway once he’s gotten cleaned up and fed, and convinced not to be so dangerously hostile. “Look,” the tamer says, “my friends are here-one of them is going to patch you up, and they brought clothes and food.”
Wufan doesn’t move-doesn’t speak-turns his eyes away from Minseok.
Minseok doesn’t know why he does it-he knows before he even does it that it’s stupid and clearly not ideal and is going to result in more pain, but at that point and at that moment, he’s had enough. The tamer reaches out and grabs Wufan’s arm, making to yank him up before Wufan lashes out and slaps Minseok away-hits the tamer hard enough for Minseok to fall to the steel floor. Minseok just barely manages to land in a way where his shoulder takes the brunt of the fall and his head isn’t harmed.
If he wasn’t a tamer, if there was no dragon blood running through him, Minseok is pretty sure the force of that fall would’ve caused some sort of break in the tamer’s shoulder bone. Minseok struggles to his feet-Wufan is gazing at the floor, clearly avoiding meeting Minseok’s eyes at all costs. The tamer closes his eyes and sighs, turning around resignedly and heading back for the warehouse.
Jongin is sitting on one of the sofas when Minseok enters the warehouse. The dragon looks marginally calmer than before, gripping a cup of steaming tea tightly between his hands. Minseok sneaks a peek into the contents of the cup, wrinkling his nose. “What’s in that?” he asks, ruffling Jongin’s hair apologetically.
“Sedatives,” Jongin says with a bitter smile, “like you told Yixing-hyung to give me.”
“I’m sorry,” Minseok says quietly and Jongin shrugs, leaning back on the couch and sipping at the tea. “You shouldn’t have come. I thought I told Chanyeol to make sure you were the last person Yixing would let come with him.”
Jongin merely continues to gaze into his cup, full lips pressed together tightly. “I’m in control,” he says quietly-almost like a mantra chanted to himself, “I’m in control-I’m in control.”
Minseok sighs. “I know. But until he’s in control, I can’t just let you keep coming with me and pumping yourself up with Yixing’s pills. And it’s not just you,” he says because Jongin has looked away, clearly more upset than he’d started out (which meant that Minseok is doing a crummy job of being a hyung and a tamer right now), “I don’t want any of the others coming out here either until they can promise me that they’re completely in control.”
“But, hyung,” Jongin says, eyebrows furrowing slowly as he glances back up at Minseok, “I-it’s not just because I’m mad that he hurt you-”
“Jongin-ah-”
“No, I swear,” Jongin’s voice rises insistently, “it’s like-when he’s there-like the same thing Baekhyun-hyung and I felt that night-it just feels wrong to be so close to him. Like-you know how it’s uncomfortable for us to be near another dragon who’s so upset that them being out of control makes us out of control? It’s like that.”
The tamer’s eyebrows furrow. “Upset?”
Jongin frowns. “Not even-like-more than upset-I don’t know what it is because he’s not really angry or anything. It’s like he’s-just-he’s really unhappy and terrified of something. Like-he’s lost?”
“Right now,” Minseok mutters, “it doesn’t look like he wants to be found.”
“Wait ‘til Sehunie comes,” Jongin says, looking more and more relaxed as he drinks up the rest of the tea, “all of Yixing-hyung’s pills are going to be used up.”
Minseok hits the side of Jongin’s head lightly. “No,” the tamer says, “they won’t be-because the last thing Luhan is going to do is bring Sehun down near him, and the last thing I’m going to do is let Sehun come near him. I’m not going to spend five hours trying to shift Sehunie back again.”
Jongin merely watches Minseok with his eyes as the tamer walks off to meet Yixing at the foot of the ladder leading up into the half-level. Yixing hops down with a large, white box in his hands-one that Minseok recognizes as the emergency kit, rarely ever seen because hardly any of the dragons or riders at this center injure themselves too seriously.
“How bad is it?” Minseok asks, eyeing the kit in Yixing’s arms.
Yixing shrugs. “Can’t tell-you had me go inside before I could take a real look at him.” He makes to walk past Minseok. “But-I’ll do that now. I don’t know how long it’ll take, but that depends on how worse off he-”
“Tell me what to do,” Minseok says, holding his hands out, motioning for Yixing to hand over the kit.
Yixing stares.
Jongin slowly puts his mug down slowly, blinking in surprise.
Minseok glances back and forth between the two. “He doesn’t trust anyone,” Minseok tries to explain, sighing, “but I think he’ll at least put up with me.”
Yixing reluctantly hands over the box into Minseok’s arms. “There’s really no way for me to tell you what to do until I get a closer look at him,” the medic says, frowning. “But if you can patch up his shallower wounds and then tell me what else is wrong later on-I might be able to figure out directions to give to you if I guess right from what you tell me.”
“You’re amazing,” Minseok breathes in relief, gratefully, and Yixing grins-patting Minseok on the back as the tamer heads back out with a wave to Jongin.
He jogs down the steps and towards the cage, another breath of relief let out of his lips once he sees that Wufan hasn’t moved an inch from where he sits at the corner of the steel cage (although, really, Minseok isn’t surprised because he doesn’t expect Wufan to be able to move very much at all in the state the dragon’s in).
The tamer feels Wufan’s eyes on him the moment he walks back into the cage. Minseok puts down the box once there’s barely a meter between him and the dragon. He kneels in front of the box wordlessly because trying to explain to Wufan any further is pointless-the dragon definitely knows what Minseok is about to do without any verbal prologue.
Cotton pads are tucked into a large plastic bag within the white box-Minseok unzips the bag, grabs a few pads that are clumped together and picks up a medicine squirt bottle (one of the only bottles that Minseok actually isn’t afraid to use because it’s one of the only bottles Yixing has actually bothered to fully teach him the contents and purpose of). He unscrews the bottle and glances up.
Their eyes meet.
“What if,” Wufan asks with an odd-icy-sort of stiffness, as Minseok gazes back determinedly, “I hurt you again?”
Minseok shrugs. “Then you hurt me again,” he says indifferently. “No matter how much you hurt me though, I’m not the one who’s going to pass out any moment.”
“I’m not going to pass out,” Wufan says tightly.
The tamer doesn’t bother with another reply-it’s not going to further anything, and Minseok needs to hurry all of this up so he can get Wufan eventually inside before the weather drops again for the night. It’s warming up because the sun is rising to the center of the sky for the late morning, but there’s still a frosty air around them.
Minseok simply stands up and takes steps with deliberate pauses in between towards Wufan, prepared for backlash that never seems to come as he manages to come to stand so close to Wufan that he has to even tip his head down slightly (as the dragon is sitting down) to look into Wufan’s eyes-
-looking into the dragon’s eyes so closely that Minseok can make out the soft creases of Wufan’s eyelids as he blinks slowly, holding eye contact with the tamer. Wufan’s eyes still hold everything frigid and unyielding, but the dangerous light has somewhat receded.
(-Wufan has breathtaking eyes-)
Minseok starts on the shallow gashes on Wufan’s shoulder, spraying the dragon’s bare skin with medicine cleanser, before dabbing away the dirt and dried blood since most of the wounds have begun to heal-the only problem is that none of them have been cleaned and as long as infection is staved off, dragons are usually good to heal on their own. Wufan hardly moves while Minseok is working-the dragon’s eyes are half-lidded, gaze aimed at the ground.
The dragon is now strangely, almost scarily, compliant-shifting when Minseok asks him to, when Minseok has to go from Wufan’s shoulder to his ribs to his chest to his neck to his arms to his sides to his back. Even when Minseok has to press a little harder on any particular wound, Wufan doesn’t even flinch-continues to remain absolutely frozen and silent.
“I’m not a medic,” Minseok says once most of the shallow cuts have been cleaned and he starts getting into the ones which are trickier to deal with. “So the only way for us to help you is if you come inside and let my friend work on you.” He tosses the used cotton pads into an empty plastic bag and tucks it into a corner of the white box.
Wufan looks up at Minseok through his lashes. “Your friend’s a human,” he says, tone even and low.
“You let me touch you just now-”
“But you’re not a human, are you?” And for the first time, Minseok sees an expression other than anger-other than lifelessness-on Wufan’s face. It’s a change, but not necessarily a welcome one because Wufan’s face right now is nothing less than cynical and dry and bitter-an acidic little smile. “I pushed you, but I didn’t hear anything break. So you’re not a human-not really.”
Questions bubble up in Minseok’s throat-he wants to ask Wufan what the dragon has against humans, what had happened before Wufan arrive in Korea-because as far as Minseok has heard from Luhan and Yixing, China is one of the best at training dragons-China welcomes dragons, and reveres them as highly as the next country.
But he swallows all of that down-tucks it away.
“If you don’t want a human to heal you, what’re you going to do?” Minseok asks and has to curl his hands into fists at his sides, dig his nails into his palms, in order to keep calm (because he swears that if he physically could, if it was physically possible, at this point he would just drag Wufan into the house and have him strapped down so Yixing could fix him up and shoot the dragon up with sedatives).
Wufan doesn’t respond.
“Will you at least come inside?” Minseok tries again. “Will you at least eat? There’s a fucking rotting pile of meat in that corner over there,” he jerks his chin towards the source of the stench in the cage, “so I know you haven’t eaten since who fucking knows when-”
“When are you going to unchain me?” the dragon says tonelessly, listlessly.
Minseok starts packing the rest of the supplies back into the box, closing it with a snap and standing up. “When you do something other than sit here like the meat I gave you that you wouldn’t fucking eat, because eventually that’s what you’re going to end up as if you don’t eat-if you don’t come inside-if you don’t let my human friend help you.”
He doesn’t bother waiting for a response after that because he knows there isn’t going to even be one, and he doesn’t have the patience for this anymore. There are difficult rogues, but there are impossible rogues and he knows that he’s going to have to encounter one as a tamer at one point or another-he just didn’t want it to be so early, and he doesn’t understand why it had to be a dragon with so much potential.
The tamer picks the box up and walks back to the warehouse.
Yixing has to drive back to finish a term paper before the weekend, but Jongin brought a car of his own so Minseok sends the medic off after telling him that there’s no point in staying longer anyway because Wufan doesn’t seem like he’s going to budge. The tamer doesn’t know exactly what’s going to happen now, but the feeling in the pit of his stomach is telling him that he needs to make a decision on what to do with Wufan soon because it’s been over a week and nothing has happened.
Once Yixing is gone, Jongin and Minseok suit up-they only need to meet gazes once before simultaneously heading for their Under Armour because at times like these, it takes a lot less trouble to fly than to bother with unnecessary words. They pull their suits on easily-swiftly-and head outside with Minseok trying his best not to glance over at the cage (and making sure that Jongin doesn’t either because the sedatives never last too long).
They walk straight past the mount pad with Jongin immediately launching himself into a sprint towards the forest. Minseok chases after him, the smell of wood and soil hitting his nose as the cool shade of the forest engulfs him-he feels the crackling of energy through the air as the tell-tale sound of whipping wind fills his ears right before a familiar roar replaces it. He feels a grin tug at the corners of his lips as a blur of scales suddenly rushes past him, blinding him with gray and white scales.
The tamer grabs onto the black strap of the saddle as Jongin speeds by, and jumps on, standing on the stirrups because Minseok has always preferred standing to sitting whenever he can help it. Sitting is for stability, but standing is for excitement. He closes his eyes for a few moments while Jongin soars higher into the air, above the trees-up and up and up-so that by the time Minseok opens his eyes, all he can see are the green-caps of the forest below them.
They fly in silence for the most part-Minseok has his eyes closed for the most part, something he’s only been able to do with Jongin, not because he doesn’t trust the others, but because he’s known Jongin the longest and there’s an entirely different sort of trust and ease when you know a dragon well enough to let them fly you without any shared control. Minseok doesn’t mind having Jongin fly wherever and however while Minseok just stands on the stirrups and daydreams.
He wishes there was somehow a way to transfer all of this into words-or just a way to transfer all of this into Wufan’s mind since Wufan had genuinely been confused as to why Jongin would be so angry that Minseok had been hurt. Many rogues, even though treated terribly by humans, had at least been politely curious and open to the relationship that tamers, humans, and dragons were supposed to have in a first world country. Wufan merely looked distasteful-confounded-bewildered-disbelieving.
Admittedly, the tamer would be hard pressed to find a way to adequately explain exactly why Jongin was so angry. It’s hard to put into words the feeling of meeting a boy only a few years younger than you while you’re only a teenager yourself-to spend most of your life being trained to train others-to be responsible for an entire crew of your peers, to be responsible for teaching them an entire lifestyle. It’s hard to explain that, going into all that, that first boy you meet-that first person who entrusts himself to you and who you struggle alongside and learn alongside-is the person you continuously from then on put your trust into.
“I know you can’t have anything happening to me,” Minseok says quietly, opening his eyes, “but I can’t have anything happening to you either-even though I know you hate sedatives.”
There’s a soft, rumbling growl-deep from within Jongin, as he shakes his massive head from side to side-the way a dragon shrugs.
Minseok sighs and pats Jongin between the ears. “Let’s land,” the tamer says, “so you can get your homework done and I can take a shower.”
Jongin gives a small, affirmative roar and begins to swerve back towards the warehouses.
They walk back from the forest with Minseok’s arm around Jongin’s waist and Jongin’s arm slung along Minseok’s shoulder. Minseok remembers when Jongin was still smaller than Minseok, back when they’d first met each other-when they were the first two at this new center, back during their early taming days.
It’s about late afternoon and Jongin starts to shiver when a cold, autumn breeze blows past them-Minseok is all right because of how thick a rider’s suit is, but dragons in their human form are left shirtless. “You really slept outside all night, hyung?” Jongin says incredulously, taking his arm off of the tamer to fold both arms around himself.
“Yep,” Minseok mutters. They reach the warehouses, and he waves Jongin off lightly. “Go on and change-I have to check up on him.”
Jongin nods and heads off to the warehouse as Minseok splits at the path and jogs easily towards the cage. When the metal bars become apparent in the distance, the tamer’s eyebrows begin to furrow-he can’t see Wufan anywhere in it, and he swears he locked the cage when he left. He slows his steps as he nears, furrowed eyebrows giving way to a full-faced frown.
Wufan is not in the cage at all.
But the cage is locked and there’s no sign of struggle or breakout. There is literally no physical way, though, that Wufan could’ve gotten out so seamlessly with the leg cuffs that Minseok had put on him. There’s no way that Wufan could’ve gotten out so seamlessly even without the leg cuffs for that matter, especially considering the state the dragon is-
“Jongin-ah-”
Jongin hasn’t even changed yet, skidding to a halt in front of Minseok with wide eyes and an open mouth. “He’s at the warehouse, hyung,” Jongin says, stuttering. “He’s inside-he’s not moving-he’s barely-breathing-hyung-he-”
Minseok lets himself stand frozen in stunned silence for an entire seventeen seconds.
“Call Yixing,” he says, then, swallowing and grabbing Jongin-dragging the dragon back towards the warehouse along with the tamer himself. “Call Yixing and tell him to turn around if he’s still on the road-tell him he can bring whoever wants to come, but tell him to come here fast and bring everything-all of his supplies.”
He doesn’t bother waiting for Jongin to scramble for his cell phone. Minseok lets go of Jongin and starts running towards the warehouse-sprinting and trying to calm the beating of his heart (not to panic and think of the worst case scenario-like having to call the hospital, like having to tell the older centers that they’ve been hoarding an unregistered rogue, like-).
“Jesus Christ,” he mutters under his breath as he arrives at the doorway of the warehouse, faced instantly with an unconscious Wufan lying sprawled over threshold, “you’re a fucking idiot.”
Author: himawarixxsandz
Rating: PG-13
Pairing(s): XiuRis, HunHan, BaekYeol, SuDo
Summary: Beasts bleed too
A/N: SO 21K and still going strong ahaha FUCK
Prologue // Part 1 // Part 2 // Part 3 // Part 4 // Part 5
He wakes up to a stiff neck, a sore back, what feels like ice forming over his entire face, and the sound of wheels over the gravel as cars arrive into the parking lot. Minseok slowly sits up, wincing at the ache encompassing his entire body (from sleeping through the cold to the pain lingering from Wufan’s blow to the tamer’s side). He glances discreetly across the cage to the occupied corner and sees that Wufan at least did let himself fall asleep albeit still sitting against the cage bars and slumped over his long legs.
Minseok sighs, rubbing a hand over his face gingerly, one hand patting at his side to assess the soreness as he turns to look through the bars just in time to see Yixing and Jongin heading towards the cage. The tamer is about to press a finger to his lips in an effort to ask Jongin and Yixing to keep it down so that Wufan would remain asleep for a bit longer and thus treating him might be easier, but Jongin is already storming into the cage incredulously (noisily).
Before any words are said at all, Minseok has to jump to his feet and launch himself at Jongin-arms around the younger man, gathering all the strength the tamer has in his state of barely-awake-and-incredibly-sore to hold the dragon back from going at Wufan. “He skinned you,” Jongin very nearly growls and Minseok catches Yixing’s gaze as the medic comes into the cage and mouths frantically, “Why did you bring him?” because at the very least, if Yixing had brought Luhan, there would be no danger of accidental transformation regardless of how angry Luhan got.
“He brought himself,” Yixing says wearily, hands in the pockets of his jacket, and from the way his hair is still ruffled on his head, Minseok assumes that it’s still early in the morning and-at best-the tamer probably just only got roughly four hours of sleep.
“Jongin-ah,” Minseok says as calmly as he can, face muffled against Jongin’s shoulder (hugging the dragon in an attempt to shut him up before Wufan wakes up), “Jongin-ah-Kim Jongin-it’s okay-I’m okay, remember?”
But when the tamer draws back just enough to take a look at Jongin’s face, the dragon’s expression is too far gone to reason with-the exact reason why Minseok couldn’t believe no one had the sense to lock Jongin’s car away or something (anything) to keep him from coming down with Yixing because the last thing that needs to happen is Jongin exploding-and even worse, exploding and getting stuck.
Dragons don’t have the same emotional freedoms that humans have-they can’t afford to get furiously angry or miserably upset otherwise they might accidentally transform, be stuck in dragon form, or be unable to shift into dragon form. Young dragons, especially, don’t have the leisure of hitting any extreme negative emotion, but because of the consequences attached to extreme emotions, young dragons are more likely to get intensely angry or intensely upset than matured dragons or any human of any age.
Yixing grabs both of Jongin’s arms from behind-an extra precaution as Minseok puts a hand on Jongin’s chest and orders him to breathe in through his nose and out through his mouth steadily and evenly.
“Hyung,” Jongin says, and Minseok winces when he hears the struggle to keep calm shows far too clearly in Jongin’s tone, “why were you sleeping out here?”
“We had some technical difficulties,” Minseok summarizes slowly, “and I didn’t want to leave him out here alone-”
Those were the wrong words to say.
Horribly, terribly wrong words-Yixing has to yank back Jongin’s arms and Minseok can see the outline of scales and the beginnings of a snout fighting and rippling beneath the otherwise smooth, bronze skin of Jongin’s face. Minseok shoves Jongin back out of the cage as Yixing simultaneously drags the dragon out-both their strengths necessarily combined in order to get Jongin away from Wufan and back towards the warehouse.
“Sedate him if you have to!” Minseok yells, almost irritably (because he’s cold and hungry and aching and even though he knows this is just a culmination of how much Jongin is worried for Minseok, how scared the young dragon is, it really doesn’t excuse how firstly-no one held him back from coming down to the center when Minseok had told Chanyeol that things would be like this, and secondly-that Jongin has been the one tamed for the longest period of time, regardless of how still young he is and should thusly have a somewhat better hold on his emotions than this), as Yixing struggles to drag Jongin back into the warehouse.
A tired sigh shudders from Minseok’s lips as he walks heavily back into the cage to find Wufan’s eyes already open. The dragon doesn’t seem to have the strength to stand up-seems to be using all of his remaining strength (which is probably barely any at all at this point) to continue icily and threateningly gazing at Minseok from beneath strands of unnaturally golden hair.
Minseok takes an experimental step forward, eyes glued to Wufan as the tamer continues to walk with pauses between each step in order to gauge another possible outburst. “How’d you sleep?” he asks once he gets near enough to get a better look at the dragon’s expression. Wufan remains sitting and Minseok remains standing.
Wufan regards the tamer for another long moment before narrowing his eyes as he meets Minseok’s gaze and saying (his voice low and cold as ever), “Why was he angry?”
Minseok blinks. “Wh-Jongin?”
Wufan inclines his head infinitesimally.
The tamer smiles humorlessly. “You hurt me,” Minseok says simply, with a small shrug, holding up his casted arm.
“Why does that matter to him?” Wufan asks, a crease forming between his eyebrows.
Minseok stares, confused for a few seconds before he brushes that back to the corner of his mind because this isn’t the time to be trying to figure out the inner workings (and issues, clearly-lots and lots of issues) of the mind of a dragon that Minseok will probably end up turning to another center anyway once he’s gotten cleaned up and fed, and convinced not to be so dangerously hostile. “Look,” the tamer says, “my friends are here-one of them is going to patch you up, and they brought clothes and food.”
Wufan doesn’t move-doesn’t speak-turns his eyes away from Minseok.
Minseok doesn’t know why he does it-he knows before he even does it that it’s stupid and clearly not ideal and is going to result in more pain, but at that point and at that moment, he’s had enough. The tamer reaches out and grabs Wufan’s arm, making to yank him up before Wufan lashes out and slaps Minseok away-hits the tamer hard enough for Minseok to fall to the steel floor. Minseok just barely manages to land in a way where his shoulder takes the brunt of the fall and his head isn’t harmed.
If he wasn’t a tamer, if there was no dragon blood running through him, Minseok is pretty sure the force of that fall would’ve caused some sort of break in the tamer’s shoulder bone. Minseok struggles to his feet-Wufan is gazing at the floor, clearly avoiding meeting Minseok’s eyes at all costs. The tamer closes his eyes and sighs, turning around resignedly and heading back for the warehouse.
Jongin is sitting on one of the sofas when Minseok enters the warehouse. The dragon looks marginally calmer than before, gripping a cup of steaming tea tightly between his hands. Minseok sneaks a peek into the contents of the cup, wrinkling his nose. “What’s in that?” he asks, ruffling Jongin’s hair apologetically.
“Sedatives,” Jongin says with a bitter smile, “like you told Yixing-hyung to give me.”
“I’m sorry,” Minseok says quietly and Jongin shrugs, leaning back on the couch and sipping at the tea. “You shouldn’t have come. I thought I told Chanyeol to make sure you were the last person Yixing would let come with him.”
Jongin merely continues to gaze into his cup, full lips pressed together tightly. “I’m in control,” he says quietly-almost like a mantra chanted to himself, “I’m in control-I’m in control.”
Minseok sighs. “I know. But until he’s in control, I can’t just let you keep coming with me and pumping yourself up with Yixing’s pills. And it’s not just you,” he says because Jongin has looked away, clearly more upset than he’d started out (which meant that Minseok is doing a crummy job of being a hyung and a tamer right now), “I don’t want any of the others coming out here either until they can promise me that they’re completely in control.”
“But, hyung,” Jongin says, eyebrows furrowing slowly as he glances back up at Minseok, “I-it’s not just because I’m mad that he hurt you-”
“Jongin-ah-”
“No, I swear,” Jongin’s voice rises insistently, “it’s like-when he’s there-like the same thing Baekhyun-hyung and I felt that night-it just feels wrong to be so close to him. Like-you know how it’s uncomfortable for us to be near another dragon who’s so upset that them being out of control makes us out of control? It’s like that.”
The tamer’s eyebrows furrow. “Upset?”
Jongin frowns. “Not even-like-more than upset-I don’t know what it is because he’s not really angry or anything. It’s like he’s-just-he’s really unhappy and terrified of something. Like-he’s lost?”
“Right now,” Minseok mutters, “it doesn’t look like he wants to be found.”
“Wait ‘til Sehunie comes,” Jongin says, looking more and more relaxed as he drinks up the rest of the tea, “all of Yixing-hyung’s pills are going to be used up.”
Minseok hits the side of Jongin’s head lightly. “No,” the tamer says, “they won’t be-because the last thing Luhan is going to do is bring Sehun down near him, and the last thing I’m going to do is let Sehun come near him. I’m not going to spend five hours trying to shift Sehunie back again.”
Jongin merely watches Minseok with his eyes as the tamer walks off to meet Yixing at the foot of the ladder leading up into the half-level. Yixing hops down with a large, white box in his hands-one that Minseok recognizes as the emergency kit, rarely ever seen because hardly any of the dragons or riders at this center injure themselves too seriously.
“How bad is it?” Minseok asks, eyeing the kit in Yixing’s arms.
Yixing shrugs. “Can’t tell-you had me go inside before I could take a real look at him.” He makes to walk past Minseok. “But-I’ll do that now. I don’t know how long it’ll take, but that depends on how worse off he-”
“Tell me what to do,” Minseok says, holding his hands out, motioning for Yixing to hand over the kit.
Yixing stares.
Jongin slowly puts his mug down slowly, blinking in surprise.
Minseok glances back and forth between the two. “He doesn’t trust anyone,” Minseok tries to explain, sighing, “but I think he’ll at least put up with me.”
Yixing reluctantly hands over the box into Minseok’s arms. “There’s really no way for me to tell you what to do until I get a closer look at him,” the medic says, frowning. “But if you can patch up his shallower wounds and then tell me what else is wrong later on-I might be able to figure out directions to give to you if I guess right from what you tell me.”
“You’re amazing,” Minseok breathes in relief, gratefully, and Yixing grins-patting Minseok on the back as the tamer heads back out with a wave to Jongin.
He jogs down the steps and towards the cage, another breath of relief let out of his lips once he sees that Wufan hasn’t moved an inch from where he sits at the corner of the steel cage (although, really, Minseok isn’t surprised because he doesn’t expect Wufan to be able to move very much at all in the state the dragon’s in).
The tamer feels Wufan’s eyes on him the moment he walks back into the cage. Minseok puts down the box once there’s barely a meter between him and the dragon. He kneels in front of the box wordlessly because trying to explain to Wufan any further is pointless-the dragon definitely knows what Minseok is about to do without any verbal prologue.
Cotton pads are tucked into a large plastic bag within the white box-Minseok unzips the bag, grabs a few pads that are clumped together and picks up a medicine squirt bottle (one of the only bottles that Minseok actually isn’t afraid to use because it’s one of the only bottles Yixing has actually bothered to fully teach him the contents and purpose of). He unscrews the bottle and glances up.
Their eyes meet.
“What if,” Wufan asks with an odd-icy-sort of stiffness, as Minseok gazes back determinedly, “I hurt you again?”
Minseok shrugs. “Then you hurt me again,” he says indifferently. “No matter how much you hurt me though, I’m not the one who’s going to pass out any moment.”
“I’m not going to pass out,” Wufan says tightly.
The tamer doesn’t bother with another reply-it’s not going to further anything, and Minseok needs to hurry all of this up so he can get Wufan eventually inside before the weather drops again for the night. It’s warming up because the sun is rising to the center of the sky for the late morning, but there’s still a frosty air around them.
Minseok simply stands up and takes steps with deliberate pauses in between towards Wufan, prepared for backlash that never seems to come as he manages to come to stand so close to Wufan that he has to even tip his head down slightly (as the dragon is sitting down) to look into Wufan’s eyes-
-looking into the dragon’s eyes so closely that Minseok can make out the soft creases of Wufan’s eyelids as he blinks slowly, holding eye contact with the tamer. Wufan’s eyes still hold everything frigid and unyielding, but the dangerous light has somewhat receded.
(-Wufan has breathtaking eyes-)
Minseok starts on the shallow gashes on Wufan’s shoulder, spraying the dragon’s bare skin with medicine cleanser, before dabbing away the dirt and dried blood since most of the wounds have begun to heal-the only problem is that none of them have been cleaned and as long as infection is staved off, dragons are usually good to heal on their own. Wufan hardly moves while Minseok is working-the dragon’s eyes are half-lidded, gaze aimed at the ground.
The dragon is now strangely, almost scarily, compliant-shifting when Minseok asks him to, when Minseok has to go from Wufan’s shoulder to his ribs to his chest to his neck to his arms to his sides to his back. Even when Minseok has to press a little harder on any particular wound, Wufan doesn’t even flinch-continues to remain absolutely frozen and silent.
“I’m not a medic,” Minseok says once most of the shallow cuts have been cleaned and he starts getting into the ones which are trickier to deal with. “So the only way for us to help you is if you come inside and let my friend work on you.” He tosses the used cotton pads into an empty plastic bag and tucks it into a corner of the white box.
Wufan looks up at Minseok through his lashes. “Your friend’s a human,” he says, tone even and low.
“You let me touch you just now-”
“But you’re not a human, are you?” And for the first time, Minseok sees an expression other than anger-other than lifelessness-on Wufan’s face. It’s a change, but not necessarily a welcome one because Wufan’s face right now is nothing less than cynical and dry and bitter-an acidic little smile. “I pushed you, but I didn’t hear anything break. So you’re not a human-not really.”
Questions bubble up in Minseok’s throat-he wants to ask Wufan what the dragon has against humans, what had happened before Wufan arrive in Korea-because as far as Minseok has heard from Luhan and Yixing, China is one of the best at training dragons-China welcomes dragons, and reveres them as highly as the next country.
But he swallows all of that down-tucks it away.
“If you don’t want a human to heal you, what’re you going to do?” Minseok asks and has to curl his hands into fists at his sides, dig his nails into his palms, in order to keep calm (because he swears that if he physically could, if it was physically possible, at this point he would just drag Wufan into the house and have him strapped down so Yixing could fix him up and shoot the dragon up with sedatives).
Wufan doesn’t respond.
“Will you at least come inside?” Minseok tries again. “Will you at least eat? There’s a fucking rotting pile of meat in that corner over there,” he jerks his chin towards the source of the stench in the cage, “so I know you haven’t eaten since who fucking knows when-”
“When are you going to unchain me?” the dragon says tonelessly, listlessly.
Minseok starts packing the rest of the supplies back into the box, closing it with a snap and standing up. “When you do something other than sit here like the meat I gave you that you wouldn’t fucking eat, because eventually that’s what you’re going to end up as if you don’t eat-if you don’t come inside-if you don’t let my human friend help you.”
He doesn’t bother waiting for a response after that because he knows there isn’t going to even be one, and he doesn’t have the patience for this anymore. There are difficult rogues, but there are impossible rogues and he knows that he’s going to have to encounter one as a tamer at one point or another-he just didn’t want it to be so early, and he doesn’t understand why it had to be a dragon with so much potential.
The tamer picks the box up and walks back to the warehouse.
Yixing has to drive back to finish a term paper before the weekend, but Jongin brought a car of his own so Minseok sends the medic off after telling him that there’s no point in staying longer anyway because Wufan doesn’t seem like he’s going to budge. The tamer doesn’t know exactly what’s going to happen now, but the feeling in the pit of his stomach is telling him that he needs to make a decision on what to do with Wufan soon because it’s been over a week and nothing has happened.
Once Yixing is gone, Jongin and Minseok suit up-they only need to meet gazes once before simultaneously heading for their Under Armour because at times like these, it takes a lot less trouble to fly than to bother with unnecessary words. They pull their suits on easily-swiftly-and head outside with Minseok trying his best not to glance over at the cage (and making sure that Jongin doesn’t either because the sedatives never last too long).
They walk straight past the mount pad with Jongin immediately launching himself into a sprint towards the forest. Minseok chases after him, the smell of wood and soil hitting his nose as the cool shade of the forest engulfs him-he feels the crackling of energy through the air as the tell-tale sound of whipping wind fills his ears right before a familiar roar replaces it. He feels a grin tug at the corners of his lips as a blur of scales suddenly rushes past him, blinding him with gray and white scales.
The tamer grabs onto the black strap of the saddle as Jongin speeds by, and jumps on, standing on the stirrups because Minseok has always preferred standing to sitting whenever he can help it. Sitting is for stability, but standing is for excitement. He closes his eyes for a few moments while Jongin soars higher into the air, above the trees-up and up and up-so that by the time Minseok opens his eyes, all he can see are the green-caps of the forest below them.
They fly in silence for the most part-Minseok has his eyes closed for the most part, something he’s only been able to do with Jongin, not because he doesn’t trust the others, but because he’s known Jongin the longest and there’s an entirely different sort of trust and ease when you know a dragon well enough to let them fly you without any shared control. Minseok doesn’t mind having Jongin fly wherever and however while Minseok just stands on the stirrups and daydreams.
He wishes there was somehow a way to transfer all of this into words-or just a way to transfer all of this into Wufan’s mind since Wufan had genuinely been confused as to why Jongin would be so angry that Minseok had been hurt. Many rogues, even though treated terribly by humans, had at least been politely curious and open to the relationship that tamers, humans, and dragons were supposed to have in a first world country. Wufan merely looked distasteful-confounded-bewildered-disbelieving.
Admittedly, the tamer would be hard pressed to find a way to adequately explain exactly why Jongin was so angry. It’s hard to put into words the feeling of meeting a boy only a few years younger than you while you’re only a teenager yourself-to spend most of your life being trained to train others-to be responsible for an entire crew of your peers, to be responsible for teaching them an entire lifestyle. It’s hard to explain that, going into all that, that first boy you meet-that first person who entrusts himself to you and who you struggle alongside and learn alongside-is the person you continuously from then on put your trust into.
“I know you can’t have anything happening to me,” Minseok says quietly, opening his eyes, “but I can’t have anything happening to you either-even though I know you hate sedatives.”
There’s a soft, rumbling growl-deep from within Jongin, as he shakes his massive head from side to side-the way a dragon shrugs.
Minseok sighs and pats Jongin between the ears. “Let’s land,” the tamer says, “so you can get your homework done and I can take a shower.”
Jongin gives a small, affirmative roar and begins to swerve back towards the warehouses.
They walk back from the forest with Minseok’s arm around Jongin’s waist and Jongin’s arm slung along Minseok’s shoulder. Minseok remembers when Jongin was still smaller than Minseok, back when they’d first met each other-when they were the first two at this new center, back during their early taming days.
It’s about late afternoon and Jongin starts to shiver when a cold, autumn breeze blows past them-Minseok is all right because of how thick a rider’s suit is, but dragons in their human form are left shirtless. “You really slept outside all night, hyung?” Jongin says incredulously, taking his arm off of the tamer to fold both arms around himself.
“Yep,” Minseok mutters. They reach the warehouses, and he waves Jongin off lightly. “Go on and change-I have to check up on him.”
Jongin nods and heads off to the warehouse as Minseok splits at the path and jogs easily towards the cage. When the metal bars become apparent in the distance, the tamer’s eyebrows begin to furrow-he can’t see Wufan anywhere in it, and he swears he locked the cage when he left. He slows his steps as he nears, furrowed eyebrows giving way to a full-faced frown.
Wufan is not in the cage at all.
But the cage is locked and there’s no sign of struggle or breakout. There is literally no physical way, though, that Wufan could’ve gotten out so seamlessly with the leg cuffs that Minseok had put on him. There’s no way that Wufan could’ve gotten out so seamlessly even without the leg cuffs for that matter, especially considering the state the dragon is-
“Jongin-ah-”
Jongin hasn’t even changed yet, skidding to a halt in front of Minseok with wide eyes and an open mouth. “He’s at the warehouse, hyung,” Jongin says, stuttering. “He’s inside-he’s not moving-he’s barely-breathing-hyung-he-”
Minseok lets himself stand frozen in stunned silence for an entire seventeen seconds.
“Call Yixing,” he says, then, swallowing and grabbing Jongin-dragging the dragon back towards the warehouse along with the tamer himself. “Call Yixing and tell him to turn around if he’s still on the road-tell him he can bring whoever wants to come, but tell him to come here fast and bring everything-all of his supplies.”
He doesn’t bother waiting for Jongin to scramble for his cell phone. Minseok lets go of Jongin and starts running towards the warehouse-sprinting and trying to calm the beating of his heart (not to panic and think of the worst case scenario-like having to call the hospital, like having to tell the older centers that they’ve been hoarding an unregistered rogue, like-).
“Jesus Christ,” he mutters under his breath as he arrives at the doorway of the warehouse, faced instantly with an unconscious Wufan lying sprawled over threshold, “you’re a fucking idiot.”