WINNER || GOT YOUR NAME HANGING FROM MY CHAIN (Mino/Taehyun)
GOT YOUR NAME HANGING FROM MY CHAIN
Mino/Taehyun
NC-17, 4.1k.
warnings: violence, sex during violence/in public?, slight bloodplay
A thousand years after the world dies, being dependent on another person is archaic, life-threatening, and absolutely necessary. Mad Max-inspired A/B/O verse.
(written for winnerexchange; originally posted here)
Taehyun wakes up with a dreadful, familiar ache in his lower back and sweat beading on his forehead. He shifts in his bedroll, and a silvery sensation shivers up his spine from the join of his thighs to his nape. He drops his head back to the ground, and exhales a slow 'fuck.' Above him, the sky is still the colour of old steel, the darkest it ever gets, although the horizon is beginning to lighten. They have about an hour before daybreak.
Taehyun closes his eyes, determined to return to sleep. His attempt lasts for all of three minutes before the warmth beneath his skin condenses into a faint, grinding heat, his body seemingly roused by his wakefulness. His dick stiffens, straining against his jeans. Taehyun’s hands curl into fists.
“Get up and deal with that. You’re starting to reek.”
Taehyun’s eyes snap open and he scowls at Seunghoon, perched for his watch on the tailgate of their pickup truck. Seunghoon scans the horizon. A long rifle is laid across his lap, his finger resting below the trigger. After completing a sweep of their perimeter, he meets Taehyun’s glare and shrugs, casually adjusting himself in his pants with the hand that’s not on the gun. “You know it’s a pain for all of us.”
With a reluctant groan, Taehyun throws back his covers and reaches for Seungyoon, who’s curled at the other side of the truck’s cargo bed. He shakes his shoulder and Seungyoon’s eyes crack open, bleary at first, then immediately sharpening when he breathes in.
“Yeah,” Taehyun says. “Give me a hand.” The worst part of his biology, whether physiological or psychological, is how relief can’t fully be achieved without a partner. He scoots back to sit in the shadow of the truck’s cab, propping one leg up against the wall. Seungyoon crawls over, dragging his blankets with him. He drops a drowsy kiss upon Taehyun’s mouth as he undoes Taehyun’s belt, and tosses the blanket over his own head once he has Taehyun’s cock in hand. Seunghoon looks away.
Taehyun bites his fist as Seungyoon swallows half of him down. Seungyoon’s fingers curl around the base, but don’t move - his hands are rough with calluses and Taehyun’s always too sensitive at the beginning. Taehyun stares fixedly into the distance, over the endless desert, and tries to keep from betraying any signs of the pleasure spreading like a flare from his core through to his limbs. The only sound is the wet, muffled slurp of Seungyoon at work.
He’s close, hand fisted in Seungyoon’s hair, when they spot it: a lone figure shrouded in cloth, coming down the side of the closest sand dune.
“Fuck,” Taehyun chokes, startled into releasing the moan caught in his throat. He applies a light pressure to Seungyoon’s head - he’s so close - and grabs a revolver from the floor of the cargo bed with his other hand. Behind him, there’s a loud click as Jinwoo snaps his sawed-off shotgun into position. Taehyun hadn’t realized he was awake.
The figure moves steadily in their direction. When it reaches the bottom of the dune, Taehyun can see it’s a man, laden with bags. The rising sun glints off the double belt of bullets strapped across his chest like rows of gold teeth. Below the blanket, Taehyun’s hips buck as Seungyoon presses two fingers against the sensitive skin behind his balls. His hand is sweating all over the grip of his revolver.
They let him get within five yards before Jinwoo fires. Three bullets plow into the sand between the man’s feet just as Seungyoon pushes one finger into the dip of Taehyun’s wet hole, each burst of impact connecting to a jolt in Taehyun’s dick. He feels twice as hot as he did a minute ago, nearly feverish, the first ooze of slick sliding down the curve of his ass like a cold lick of lighter flame.
The man sways to a stop. He lifts both arms, his hands spread and empty.
“Fuck off,” Seunghoon shouts.
“Let’s talk,” the man calls back. The low rasp of his voice rakes across Taehyun’s scalp and his thighs clench around Seungyoon’s shoulders. He braces the tip of his revolver on the edge of the truck, the muzzle aimed low.
“Not interested,” Seunghoon says, and raises the sight of his rifle to his eye.
The man is faster, cocking an automatic snatched from a shoulder holster. His first bullet grazes Seunghoon in the arm. His second barely leaves the barrel before Taehyun squeezes his trigger, five times.
The man crumples, and Taehyun comes down Seungyoon’s throat with the dark shape of the falling body printed against his eyelids. He barely finishes before Seungyoon pulls off and casts back the blanket to look at their attacker, and later, Taehyun wonders if the man saw them as he went down: Taehyun baring his neck, Seungyoon wiping the wet mess from his own chin and sucking his fingers in his mouth.
They truss up the man, strip his belongings, and throw him in the holding cell fashioned from a coffin at the end of the cargo bed. Only one of Taehyun’s shots had landed: dead in the meat of the man’s thigh, embedded half a centimeter from the bone. Seungyoon and Seunghoon debate removing the bullet, but the entry wound is neat and unlikely to infect, so they use gauze to staunch the bleeding and leave it in. They’ll drive to one of the neighbouring settlements and sell him; maybe to the slave auctioneers, or to the cannibals that live among the jagged outcroppings of black rock in the west.
Seunghoon suggests the second one, dressing the bullet scrape on his upper arm. He’s joking - they’ve only sold to the cannibals once, a long time ago, and it wasn’t an experience any of them are eager to repeat. Jinwoo looks at the man’s face carefully and reaches to rub his thumb along one winged eyebrow. The man, alert but gagged, looks back at him with an impassive calm.
“Maybe we should take him to the women by the dry river as breeding stock,” Jinwoo says. “He’s handsome, and strong. Look how smooth his skin is.”
Seungyoon snorts, not looking up from his inventory of the man’s weapons. Bullets of all shapes and sizes spill over the floor of the truck bed like someone upended a treasure chest.
Taehyun sits cross-legged on the roof of the cab, which is as far as he can get from their prisoner without being obvious about it. He toys with the revolver in his lap with his head lowered. Once or twice, he’d looked up and caught the man’s eyes boring into him. Not hostile, but dark with something akin to curiosity that makes Taehyun angry. The prickle he’d felt when he heard the man’s voice is still there, tingling along the back of his neck. It’s giving him a headache.
At least the temperature of his body has calmed to a low thrum. The fever arrives once every hundred nights, and the first two days are always like this, punctuated with intermittent bursts of fervour, followed by three days of heat as wild and insatiable as a forest fire, devouring the dry cells of his body. Taehyun heard that in the past, when the earth was healthy, the cycle was once a moon and lasted for only a day and a night. Their hormones are messed up now - just like everything else - from the malnutrition, radiation, evolution. Taehyun doesn’t understand why this trait has yet to be eliminated entirely. It cripples their survival to be rendered so defenseless, to crave another person so badly your throat bleeds from want, to have a tiny, stupid slice of your brain always yearning to betray you and give you over to the closest alpha. He’s fortunate to have ended up with this pack; Seungyoon’s a beta, and Seunghoon's no risk because he’s already bonded with Jinwoo. Taehyun breathes in, his nose filling with the others’ scents. Their truck isn’t safe now.
“Let’s leave him here,” he says. “Just dump him.”
Seungyoon squints at him. They make a good return trafficking live bodies, better than working as mercenaries or thieves, and this body is healthy, and it had attacked first.
Jinwoo sniffs the air delicately, his brows creasing. Taehyun bites his lip. Unless they’ve lost control of their faculties - if they’re in heat, or crazed - a person’s distinction can’t be smelt, but the man in their truck is emitting a faint scent. Jinwoo has the most sensitive nose in the group; he should easily be able to identify what’s so clear to Taehyun.
Jinwoo briskly unbuckles the man’s belt, and shoves his hand under the waistband. The man grunts and recoils, and Seunghoon’s eyebrows shoot up to his hairline. Jinwoo feels around for a few seconds, and then extracts his hand and wipes it on a grease-stained rag. “Alpha,” he announces.
“Well, that’s good,” Seungyoon says, but he gives Taehyun another look. Alphas fetch a good price, but this is bad timing: an omega in heat and a free alpha is inevitable trouble. But they’ve managed it before, and Seungyoon knows Taehyun normally wouldn’t let this get between them and a good sale. Taehyun turns his head, avoiding Seungyoon’s scrutiny.
The man kicks the side of the truck. Jinwoo points his handgun in warning, also watching Taehyun.
“Taehyun -” Seungyoon begins.
The man kicks again, and again, the truck shuddering with every slam of his boot.
“Cut that out,” Seungyoon snaps. “Taehyun -”
The man rears his upper body and bangs his shoulder against the floor, twisting against the ropes binding his limbs together.
“Hey,” Seunghoon says. He stands up and cocks his rifle. “This is pretty dumb of you.”
There’s a dust cloud rising in the horizon. Taehyun frowns and raises the binoculars around his neck. “Wait,” he says. “There’s something -”
“SONG MINHO!”
Four desert jeeps burst over a row of dunes.
Their oversized wheels spin in the air, blocking the hazy disc of the low sun, then crash down like an avalanche with an explosive spray of sand, careening straight for them. The jeeps are moving at an incredible speed, accompanied by the scream of engines and the equally ear-piercing shrieks and howls of their riders.
"Shit!" Seunghoon leaps off the cargo bed and dives into the truck cab. Taehyun slides off the roof and picks up the submachine gun confiscated from the man. The ignition roars and their truck jumps forward, the driver's side door slamming shut from the force of the motion.
Seungyoon rips the gag out of the man's mouth. "Who the fuck are you?"
The man coughs, half-laughing. He looks up at Seungyoon, eyes suddenly bright, and the corner of his mouth turns up. "I guess you didn’t hear - Song Minho."
"Asshole!" Seungyoon shoulders the pistol grenade launcher that Jinwoo hands him and rests its barrel across the top of the coffin. "I suggest you don't move," he says to the man, and pulls the trigger.
The shot takes out the wheels of one of the jeeps and sends it rolling, and the yelps escalate, louder and more exuberant. "SONG MINHO," the voice booms again. "YA-FUCKING-HOO!"
Taehyun can spot a figure behind a loudspeaker on the lead vehicle, and he shoots. The jeep swerves, and, as if incited, speeds up. The distance between them is rapidly closing.
"What did you fucking do, Song Minho?" Seungyoon yells, firing again. This one sends up a wall of sand as tall as three stacked vans, and a second jeep flips over. The jeeps are close enough for their jagged hammerhead logos to be visible. "Jesus, it's The Block." Taehyun's heard of them. Notorious for wildness in a landscape where even the flowers are poisonous, their leader hired from the Buckwilds mob by an old tycoon to build a private raider team.
"The old man kicked me out of the group," Song Minho shouts above the din. Even now, his voice raises the hairs on Taehyun's arms. "Now I'm target practice."
"Just our luck," Taehyun mutters, crawling to the back of the truck for a closer shot. He meets Minho's eyes, and Minho, completely incongruous to the situation, gives him a wide, pleased smile. Taehyun grimaces, and purposefully jabs the butt of the submachine gun into Minho's injured thigh as he gets in position.
The two remaining vehicles are only a few metres behind now. Four men grin at them with brightly painted mouths, their faces powdered white. The one hanging to the top of the closest jeep peels back his full lips to flash a toothy smile and waves at Seungyoon. "Hey, pretty boy."
"My cue," Jinwoo says, and Seungyoon ducks out of the way for Jinwoo to throw an incendiary harpoon over his head. The harpoon punches into the grill of the first vehicle and it veers away, engine flaming. The second jeep draws almost level with the truck, and a man with a bright red pompadour sticks his head out of the passenger seat. He's crying, the tears making thick streaks through his makeup, and Taehyun is so startled he empties the rest of his cartridge in a useless decorative spray along the jeep door.
"Minho! Brother!" The man sounds choked. He wears a collar around his neck with a D-ring that connects by chain to the wrist of the diminutive man in the driver's seat. An old-fashioned display of bonding. Taehyun's stomach twists. "Brother! My heart aches for you!"
Minho twists into a sitting position, the chains binding him down having loosened from all the jostling, and Taehyun is horrified to see his eyes are wet too. "Jihoon!" he calls back. "Do what you gotta do. Let go of me!"
"You guys are fucking saps." A thud hits the side of their truck, and Taehyun spins around to come face to face with the man with the full lips climbing into the cargo bed, bearing two machetes. His jeep has come around the back and is now knocking against their vehicle with every vicious wrench of its steering wheel. The man sniffs the air, and his eyes find Taehyun. "Babe," he says, "I'm going to fuck you, after I fuck the rest of y'all over."
What happens next happens in the span of thirty seconds: The man lashes out with his machetes, and Seungyoon throws his grenade launcher into his chest, forcing him back. A blade slices Seungyoon's brow and as he's blinking the blood out of his eyes, the man throws one machete to the side and pulls out a handgun. He fires at Jinwoo and Taehyun lunges to grab his wrist, the bullets bouncing off the edge of the coffin and snapping the chains; Minho leaps out, yanking Taehyun out of the way just as Seungyoon lifts the discarded machete and slashes the man across the throat. Blood drenches the front of Taehyun's shirt, and then he's falling, wind knocked out of him as the man's heavy body collides with him and Minho and all three of them go over the edge of the truck.
Taehyun lands in the sand with a soundless gasp. In front of him, the man is on his knees, clutching his dripping neck with both hands. The sand in front of him is already turning black with blood.
"Jiho!" Both jeeps have stopped, a blond man flinging open the door of the first one and running towards them. Red Pompadour - Jihoon - is getting out too. Taehyun rolls over onto his side, still fighting to breathe, and tries to scramble to his feet before they come too close.
The blond man falls to his knees and presses a thick scarf to Jiho's wound, winding it tight. Jiho looks like he's trying to breathe, or swallow, but all that comes out is gurgling noises. Jihoon immediately turns his gun on Taehyun, and from the corner of his eye, Taehyun sees Minho's crouched body tense. He's going to cover for me, Taehyun abruptly realizes with a hot surge in his lower belly.
Idiot, he thinks, and dives when Jihoon presses the trigger. He rolls behind Minho, unlatching the curved dagger from inside his boot, and when he straightens, he has the blade pressed to Minho's throat, drawing a fine red line.
There's a second of silence.
"You know we're here to kill him," the short man at the other end of Jihoon's chain says, pushing up his sunglasses.
"Are you," Taehyun pants. Already, the aim of Jihoon's gun is wavering. Taehyun's breathing is like a thunderstorm in his ears. He's flush against Minho's back, twisting his arm, and he can feel the shallow rise and fall of Minho's breathing against his chest.
The man in the sunglasses exchanges glances with the blond man.
"Jiho needs help. That would be Cho's priority too. We can get Minho another time." The blond man says after a moment.
Jihoon's shoulders fall in visible relief. Taehyun watches them carefully carry their leader back to his jeep, not releasing his tight hold on Minho until they've driven out of range. Even then, when he pulls Minho to his feet and guides him towards where Seunghoon has stopped the truck, he keeps him close, using his body as a shield.
"When the fuck were you going to stop playing?" Seungyoon bangs on the back window of the truck cab once they've all boarded. "Start the second engine!"
"I thought you'd want a bit of action." Seunghoon cackles, but an obliging double rumble rises from the belly of the truck. They roar across the desert, leaving the bloodied sand behind them.
They chain Minho back up, though this time they let him sit in the cargo bed. He submits without a fuss, mostly keeping his eyes on Taehyun. The look of curiosity is gone now, replaced by a steady patience, like he's found what he's looking for and he's waiting. Taehyun's previous anger has evaporated, substituted with a trembling fear that itself is being burned away by the heat stirring beneath his skin. The flare of heat hasn't left him since he realized Minho had been about to take a bullet for him. Even if Minho had been operating solely on base, animal instinct - because Taehyun recognizes what this is now - it means something.
Jinwoo and Seungyoon are in the backseat of the cab, having silently decided to leave the two of them alone. Taehyun would be embarrassed, but both their scents are thick in the air now, intertwined. Minho rests a shivering hand on the edge of the coffin between them. Taehyun pretends not to see. His head feels dizzier than it should, and Taehyun knows it's because his hormones are messed up again; he's skipping his two buffer days and heading straight into the thick of his heat. He's growing wet, and he's not even hard yet.
"You're bleeding," says Minho.
Taehyun looks down. His entire shirt is soaked in blood, most of it not his, but there's a fresh patch soaking through the sleeve. He hadn't noticed before, but when he grabbed Jiho on the truck the second machete must've bitten into his arm. He presses two fingers to the wound through the torn fabric, and brings them to his mouth, touches the tips to the middle of his bottom lip. He leaves an indent of blood there, then a streak across his cheekbone when he brushes his hair back.
"I smelled you before I saw you." Minho's voice is a low, barely audible rasp.
Taehyun licks the blood from his lip, slowly. He's never wanted to be a part of a bond or to find his 'soulmate.' It's the most foolish thing in this wretched world, where Taehyun has never heard the words 'trust' or 'love' spoken aloud, to become reliant on someone else. Now that it's before him, he doesn't know if he has a choice. Inevitably, as though Minho carries his own gravity, Taehyun is drawn. His body sings with blue fire.
As though Minho can hear his apprehensions, his next words are tinged with a nervous, shy hope: "I've been looking for you my whole life."
That's not what I want to hear, Taehyun thinks. What about my life?
He begins to undo the buttons of his shirt. Jiho's blood has soaked through, leaving his chest washed in red. He slides the fabric off his shoulders, and the dry sun hitting his skin feels like a breeze. His pants feel stifling, so he removes them too, putting his boots back on afterwards. His thumb brushes over his nipples, flicking the silver bar piercings, and the jolt of the sensation has him soaking through his underwear. Minho's breathing flutters. He’s teasing, and it's a bit cruel, Taehyun realizes with a thin, delicious twist of pleasure. Minho is uncertain of his intentions, and in this one day Taehyun has already learned that Minho will not assert his alpha will, at least not on this. He presses his wound and wipes the hot squeeze of blood over his mouth again. He wipes it over his eyelids, like war paint. He rakes it into his hair. He pinches his nipples, and when he gets on his knees, slick spills down his inner thighs.
Minho is flushed, his shoulders bulging with unconscious effort as he strains against the chains binding his arms behind his back. Taehyun moves over to him and slings a leg over his thighs, not quite straddling him. He reaches behind himself and wipes the wetness from one thigh, and splays that hand across Minho's face, slippery thumb just below Minho's mouth. Minho inhales sharply, tongue darting out of its own accord. A vein pulses at his temple, and his eyes are almost black. Taehyun hesitates for less than a second, but Minho notices and closes his eyes, letting out a long, measured breath. He tilts his head in supplication, parting his lips.
Taehyun bends his neck. He lets Minho lick the blood from his mouth, chasing it from the corners to the soft skin on the underside. Only after he's clean does Taehyun press his lips to Minho's. His mouth is closed for the first few seconds, and then he cups Minho's face and lets him in.
It feels like allowing an inferno into a furnace. The burn almost hurts, almost irritates, scratching a hunger that inflames and satisfies all at once. Taehyun pulls away when he's had enough, and lets Minho suck down his neck, lap at the blood of his friend drying along Taehyun's collarbone.
Before Taehyun undoes Minho's pants and strips off his underwear, he pauses. "This doesn't mean what you want it to mean." It will bind them together, but they've only just met. "Not yet."
Minho nods, though Taehyun isn't sure he understands. He takes Minho's cock in hand, and spreads himself with the other. He feels woozy when he touches himself, pushing three fingers inside at once. He's never imagined being this wet or pliant. His knees are slippery with it, and Taehyun wonders how he must smell, if Seunghoon is hard inside the cab, if Jinwoo has climbed into the front seat and taken him in his mouth. He lines Minho up, his body immediately beginning to shake as he eases himself down. He's only done this with betas, and the ache of Minho's cock stretching him open brings relieved tears to his eyes.
Taehyun fucks himself down, Minho leaning forward to mouth at his nipples. Every jolt of the truck pushes him deeper until the zipper of Minho’s pants scrapes against his bare skin with each thrust. There’s nothing around them but sand and the smell of smoke and gasoline, bleeding into the grey sky. They can’t sell Minho now, Taehyun supposes, though he’s not certain Minho can join them either. Every decision is precarious.
It feels like only minutes before Minho's knees clench around his waist, and Taehyun feels the swell of Minho's knot press against his entrance. He inhales through his nose, and sinks down on it, biting his lip at the girth. Minho kisses him again when he's completely filled and breathless, kissing him until Taehyun thinks he'll suffocate. His body feels like a firework, bursting at the edges although his heart remains a cautious flicker. It's all right if Minho doesn't understand him now. Taehyun has days and days, all the time in their short lives to show Minho what he means.
Mino/Taehyun
NC-17, 4.1k.
warnings: violence, sex during violence/in public?, slight bloodplay
A thousand years after the world dies, being dependent on another person is archaic, life-threatening, and absolutely necessary. Mad Max-inspired A/B/O verse.
(written for winnerexchange; originally posted here)
Taehyun wakes up with a dreadful, familiar ache in his lower back and sweat beading on his forehead. He shifts in his bedroll, and a silvery sensation shivers up his spine from the join of his thighs to his nape. He drops his head back to the ground, and exhales a slow 'fuck.' Above him, the sky is still the colour of old steel, the darkest it ever gets, although the horizon is beginning to lighten. They have about an hour before daybreak.
Taehyun closes his eyes, determined to return to sleep. His attempt lasts for all of three minutes before the warmth beneath his skin condenses into a faint, grinding heat, his body seemingly roused by his wakefulness. His dick stiffens, straining against his jeans. Taehyun’s hands curl into fists.
“Get up and deal with that. You’re starting to reek.”
Taehyun’s eyes snap open and he scowls at Seunghoon, perched for his watch on the tailgate of their pickup truck. Seunghoon scans the horizon. A long rifle is laid across his lap, his finger resting below the trigger. After completing a sweep of their perimeter, he meets Taehyun’s glare and shrugs, casually adjusting himself in his pants with the hand that’s not on the gun. “You know it’s a pain for all of us.”
With a reluctant groan, Taehyun throws back his covers and reaches for Seungyoon, who’s curled at the other side of the truck’s cargo bed. He shakes his shoulder and Seungyoon’s eyes crack open, bleary at first, then immediately sharpening when he breathes in.
“Yeah,” Taehyun says. “Give me a hand.” The worst part of his biology, whether physiological or psychological, is how relief can’t fully be achieved without a partner. He scoots back to sit in the shadow of the truck’s cab, propping one leg up against the wall. Seungyoon crawls over, dragging his blankets with him. He drops a drowsy kiss upon Taehyun’s mouth as he undoes Taehyun’s belt, and tosses the blanket over his own head once he has Taehyun’s cock in hand. Seunghoon looks away.
Taehyun bites his fist as Seungyoon swallows half of him down. Seungyoon’s fingers curl around the base, but don’t move - his hands are rough with calluses and Taehyun’s always too sensitive at the beginning. Taehyun stares fixedly into the distance, over the endless desert, and tries to keep from betraying any signs of the pleasure spreading like a flare from his core through to his limbs. The only sound is the wet, muffled slurp of Seungyoon at work.
He’s close, hand fisted in Seungyoon’s hair, when they spot it: a lone figure shrouded in cloth, coming down the side of the closest sand dune.
“Fuck,” Taehyun chokes, startled into releasing the moan caught in his throat. He applies a light pressure to Seungyoon’s head - he’s so close - and grabs a revolver from the floor of the cargo bed with his other hand. Behind him, there’s a loud click as Jinwoo snaps his sawed-off shotgun into position. Taehyun hadn’t realized he was awake.
The figure moves steadily in their direction. When it reaches the bottom of the dune, Taehyun can see it’s a man, laden with bags. The rising sun glints off the double belt of bullets strapped across his chest like rows of gold teeth. Below the blanket, Taehyun’s hips buck as Seungyoon presses two fingers against the sensitive skin behind his balls. His hand is sweating all over the grip of his revolver.
They let him get within five yards before Jinwoo fires. Three bullets plow into the sand between the man’s feet just as Seungyoon pushes one finger into the dip of Taehyun’s wet hole, each burst of impact connecting to a jolt in Taehyun’s dick. He feels twice as hot as he did a minute ago, nearly feverish, the first ooze of slick sliding down the curve of his ass like a cold lick of lighter flame.
The man sways to a stop. He lifts both arms, his hands spread and empty.
“Fuck off,” Seunghoon shouts.
“Let’s talk,” the man calls back. The low rasp of his voice rakes across Taehyun’s scalp and his thighs clench around Seungyoon’s shoulders. He braces the tip of his revolver on the edge of the truck, the muzzle aimed low.
“Not interested,” Seunghoon says, and raises the sight of his rifle to his eye.
The man is faster, cocking an automatic snatched from a shoulder holster. His first bullet grazes Seunghoon in the arm. His second barely leaves the barrel before Taehyun squeezes his trigger, five times.
The man crumples, and Taehyun comes down Seungyoon’s throat with the dark shape of the falling body printed against his eyelids. He barely finishes before Seungyoon pulls off and casts back the blanket to look at their attacker, and later, Taehyun wonders if the man saw them as he went down: Taehyun baring his neck, Seungyoon wiping the wet mess from his own chin and sucking his fingers in his mouth.
They truss up the man, strip his belongings, and throw him in the holding cell fashioned from a coffin at the end of the cargo bed. Only one of Taehyun’s shots had landed: dead in the meat of the man’s thigh, embedded half a centimeter from the bone. Seungyoon and Seunghoon debate removing the bullet, but the entry wound is neat and unlikely to infect, so they use gauze to staunch the bleeding and leave it in. They’ll drive to one of the neighbouring settlements and sell him; maybe to the slave auctioneers, or to the cannibals that live among the jagged outcroppings of black rock in the west.
Seunghoon suggests the second one, dressing the bullet scrape on his upper arm. He’s joking - they’ve only sold to the cannibals once, a long time ago, and it wasn’t an experience any of them are eager to repeat. Jinwoo looks at the man’s face carefully and reaches to rub his thumb along one winged eyebrow. The man, alert but gagged, looks back at him with an impassive calm.
“Maybe we should take him to the women by the dry river as breeding stock,” Jinwoo says. “He’s handsome, and strong. Look how smooth his skin is.”
Seungyoon snorts, not looking up from his inventory of the man’s weapons. Bullets of all shapes and sizes spill over the floor of the truck bed like someone upended a treasure chest.
Taehyun sits cross-legged on the roof of the cab, which is as far as he can get from their prisoner without being obvious about it. He toys with the revolver in his lap with his head lowered. Once or twice, he’d looked up and caught the man’s eyes boring into him. Not hostile, but dark with something akin to curiosity that makes Taehyun angry. The prickle he’d felt when he heard the man’s voice is still there, tingling along the back of his neck. It’s giving him a headache.
At least the temperature of his body has calmed to a low thrum. The fever arrives once every hundred nights, and the first two days are always like this, punctuated with intermittent bursts of fervour, followed by three days of heat as wild and insatiable as a forest fire, devouring the dry cells of his body. Taehyun heard that in the past, when the earth was healthy, the cycle was once a moon and lasted for only a day and a night. Their hormones are messed up now - just like everything else - from the malnutrition, radiation, evolution. Taehyun doesn’t understand why this trait has yet to be eliminated entirely. It cripples their survival to be rendered so defenseless, to crave another person so badly your throat bleeds from want, to have a tiny, stupid slice of your brain always yearning to betray you and give you over to the closest alpha. He’s fortunate to have ended up with this pack; Seungyoon’s a beta, and Seunghoon's no risk because he’s already bonded with Jinwoo. Taehyun breathes in, his nose filling with the others’ scents. Their truck isn’t safe now.
“Let’s leave him here,” he says. “Just dump him.”
Seungyoon squints at him. They make a good return trafficking live bodies, better than working as mercenaries or thieves, and this body is healthy, and it had attacked first.
Jinwoo sniffs the air delicately, his brows creasing. Taehyun bites his lip. Unless they’ve lost control of their faculties - if they’re in heat, or crazed - a person’s distinction can’t be smelt, but the man in their truck is emitting a faint scent. Jinwoo has the most sensitive nose in the group; he should easily be able to identify what’s so clear to Taehyun.
Jinwoo briskly unbuckles the man’s belt, and shoves his hand under the waistband. The man grunts and recoils, and Seunghoon’s eyebrows shoot up to his hairline. Jinwoo feels around for a few seconds, and then extracts his hand and wipes it on a grease-stained rag. “Alpha,” he announces.
“Well, that’s good,” Seungyoon says, but he gives Taehyun another look. Alphas fetch a good price, but this is bad timing: an omega in heat and a free alpha is inevitable trouble. But they’ve managed it before, and Seungyoon knows Taehyun normally wouldn’t let this get between them and a good sale. Taehyun turns his head, avoiding Seungyoon’s scrutiny.
The man kicks the side of the truck. Jinwoo points his handgun in warning, also watching Taehyun.
“Taehyun -” Seungyoon begins.
The man kicks again, and again, the truck shuddering with every slam of his boot.
“Cut that out,” Seungyoon snaps. “Taehyun -”
The man rears his upper body and bangs his shoulder against the floor, twisting against the ropes binding his limbs together.
“Hey,” Seunghoon says. He stands up and cocks his rifle. “This is pretty dumb of you.”
There’s a dust cloud rising in the horizon. Taehyun frowns and raises the binoculars around his neck. “Wait,” he says. “There’s something -”
“SONG MINHO!”
Four desert jeeps burst over a row of dunes.
Their oversized wheels spin in the air, blocking the hazy disc of the low sun, then crash down like an avalanche with an explosive spray of sand, careening straight for them. The jeeps are moving at an incredible speed, accompanied by the scream of engines and the equally ear-piercing shrieks and howls of their riders.
"Shit!" Seunghoon leaps off the cargo bed and dives into the truck cab. Taehyun slides off the roof and picks up the submachine gun confiscated from the man. The ignition roars and their truck jumps forward, the driver's side door slamming shut from the force of the motion.
Seungyoon rips the gag out of the man's mouth. "Who the fuck are you?"
The man coughs, half-laughing. He looks up at Seungyoon, eyes suddenly bright, and the corner of his mouth turns up. "I guess you didn’t hear - Song Minho."
"Asshole!" Seungyoon shoulders the pistol grenade launcher that Jinwoo hands him and rests its barrel across the top of the coffin. "I suggest you don't move," he says to the man, and pulls the trigger.
The shot takes out the wheels of one of the jeeps and sends it rolling, and the yelps escalate, louder and more exuberant. "SONG MINHO," the voice booms again. "YA-FUCKING-HOO!"
Taehyun can spot a figure behind a loudspeaker on the lead vehicle, and he shoots. The jeep swerves, and, as if incited, speeds up. The distance between them is rapidly closing.
"What did you fucking do, Song Minho?" Seungyoon yells, firing again. This one sends up a wall of sand as tall as three stacked vans, and a second jeep flips over. The jeeps are close enough for their jagged hammerhead logos to be visible. "Jesus, it's The Block." Taehyun's heard of them. Notorious for wildness in a landscape where even the flowers are poisonous, their leader hired from the Buckwilds mob by an old tycoon to build a private raider team.
"The old man kicked me out of the group," Song Minho shouts above the din. Even now, his voice raises the hairs on Taehyun's arms. "Now I'm target practice."
"Just our luck," Taehyun mutters, crawling to the back of the truck for a closer shot. He meets Minho's eyes, and Minho, completely incongruous to the situation, gives him a wide, pleased smile. Taehyun grimaces, and purposefully jabs the butt of the submachine gun into Minho's injured thigh as he gets in position.
The two remaining vehicles are only a few metres behind now. Four men grin at them with brightly painted mouths, their faces powdered white. The one hanging to the top of the closest jeep peels back his full lips to flash a toothy smile and waves at Seungyoon. "Hey, pretty boy."
"My cue," Jinwoo says, and Seungyoon ducks out of the way for Jinwoo to throw an incendiary harpoon over his head. The harpoon punches into the grill of the first vehicle and it veers away, engine flaming. The second jeep draws almost level with the truck, and a man with a bright red pompadour sticks his head out of the passenger seat. He's crying, the tears making thick streaks through his makeup, and Taehyun is so startled he empties the rest of his cartridge in a useless decorative spray along the jeep door.
"Minho! Brother!" The man sounds choked. He wears a collar around his neck with a D-ring that connects by chain to the wrist of the diminutive man in the driver's seat. An old-fashioned display of bonding. Taehyun's stomach twists. "Brother! My heart aches for you!"
Minho twists into a sitting position, the chains binding him down having loosened from all the jostling, and Taehyun is horrified to see his eyes are wet too. "Jihoon!" he calls back. "Do what you gotta do. Let go of me!"
"You guys are fucking saps." A thud hits the side of their truck, and Taehyun spins around to come face to face with the man with the full lips climbing into the cargo bed, bearing two machetes. His jeep has come around the back and is now knocking against their vehicle with every vicious wrench of its steering wheel. The man sniffs the air, and his eyes find Taehyun. "Babe," he says, "I'm going to fuck you, after I fuck the rest of y'all over."
What happens next happens in the span of thirty seconds: The man lashes out with his machetes, and Seungyoon throws his grenade launcher into his chest, forcing him back. A blade slices Seungyoon's brow and as he's blinking the blood out of his eyes, the man throws one machete to the side and pulls out a handgun. He fires at Jinwoo and Taehyun lunges to grab his wrist, the bullets bouncing off the edge of the coffin and snapping the chains; Minho leaps out, yanking Taehyun out of the way just as Seungyoon lifts the discarded machete and slashes the man across the throat. Blood drenches the front of Taehyun's shirt, and then he's falling, wind knocked out of him as the man's heavy body collides with him and Minho and all three of them go over the edge of the truck.
Taehyun lands in the sand with a soundless gasp. In front of him, the man is on his knees, clutching his dripping neck with both hands. The sand in front of him is already turning black with blood.
"Jiho!" Both jeeps have stopped, a blond man flinging open the door of the first one and running towards them. Red Pompadour - Jihoon - is getting out too. Taehyun rolls over onto his side, still fighting to breathe, and tries to scramble to his feet before they come too close.
The blond man falls to his knees and presses a thick scarf to Jiho's wound, winding it tight. Jiho looks like he's trying to breathe, or swallow, but all that comes out is gurgling noises. Jihoon immediately turns his gun on Taehyun, and from the corner of his eye, Taehyun sees Minho's crouched body tense. He's going to cover for me, Taehyun abruptly realizes with a hot surge in his lower belly.
Idiot, he thinks, and dives when Jihoon presses the trigger. He rolls behind Minho, unlatching the curved dagger from inside his boot, and when he straightens, he has the blade pressed to Minho's throat, drawing a fine red line.
There's a second of silence.
"You know we're here to kill him," the short man at the other end of Jihoon's chain says, pushing up his sunglasses.
"Are you," Taehyun pants. Already, the aim of Jihoon's gun is wavering. Taehyun's breathing is like a thunderstorm in his ears. He's flush against Minho's back, twisting his arm, and he can feel the shallow rise and fall of Minho's breathing against his chest.
The man in the sunglasses exchanges glances with the blond man.
"Jiho needs help. That would be Cho's priority too. We can get Minho another time." The blond man says after a moment.
Jihoon's shoulders fall in visible relief. Taehyun watches them carefully carry their leader back to his jeep, not releasing his tight hold on Minho until they've driven out of range. Even then, when he pulls Minho to his feet and guides him towards where Seunghoon has stopped the truck, he keeps him close, using his body as a shield.
"When the fuck were you going to stop playing?" Seungyoon bangs on the back window of the truck cab once they've all boarded. "Start the second engine!"
"I thought you'd want a bit of action." Seunghoon cackles, but an obliging double rumble rises from the belly of the truck. They roar across the desert, leaving the bloodied sand behind them.
They chain Minho back up, though this time they let him sit in the cargo bed. He submits without a fuss, mostly keeping his eyes on Taehyun. The look of curiosity is gone now, replaced by a steady patience, like he's found what he's looking for and he's waiting. Taehyun's previous anger has evaporated, substituted with a trembling fear that itself is being burned away by the heat stirring beneath his skin. The flare of heat hasn't left him since he realized Minho had been about to take a bullet for him. Even if Minho had been operating solely on base, animal instinct - because Taehyun recognizes what this is now - it means something.
Jinwoo and Seungyoon are in the backseat of the cab, having silently decided to leave the two of them alone. Taehyun would be embarrassed, but both their scents are thick in the air now, intertwined. Minho rests a shivering hand on the edge of the coffin between them. Taehyun pretends not to see. His head feels dizzier than it should, and Taehyun knows it's because his hormones are messed up again; he's skipping his two buffer days and heading straight into the thick of his heat. He's growing wet, and he's not even hard yet.
"You're bleeding," says Minho.
Taehyun looks down. His entire shirt is soaked in blood, most of it not his, but there's a fresh patch soaking through the sleeve. He hadn't noticed before, but when he grabbed Jiho on the truck the second machete must've bitten into his arm. He presses two fingers to the wound through the torn fabric, and brings them to his mouth, touches the tips to the middle of his bottom lip. He leaves an indent of blood there, then a streak across his cheekbone when he brushes his hair back.
"I smelled you before I saw you." Minho's voice is a low, barely audible rasp.
Taehyun licks the blood from his lip, slowly. He's never wanted to be a part of a bond or to find his 'soulmate.' It's the most foolish thing in this wretched world, where Taehyun has never heard the words 'trust' or 'love' spoken aloud, to become reliant on someone else. Now that it's before him, he doesn't know if he has a choice. Inevitably, as though Minho carries his own gravity, Taehyun is drawn. His body sings with blue fire.
As though Minho can hear his apprehensions, his next words are tinged with a nervous, shy hope: "I've been looking for you my whole life."
That's not what I want to hear, Taehyun thinks. What about my life?
He begins to undo the buttons of his shirt. Jiho's blood has soaked through, leaving his chest washed in red. He slides the fabric off his shoulders, and the dry sun hitting his skin feels like a breeze. His pants feel stifling, so he removes them too, putting his boots back on afterwards. His thumb brushes over his nipples, flicking the silver bar piercings, and the jolt of the sensation has him soaking through his underwear. Minho's breathing flutters. He’s teasing, and it's a bit cruel, Taehyun realizes with a thin, delicious twist of pleasure. Minho is uncertain of his intentions, and in this one day Taehyun has already learned that Minho will not assert his alpha will, at least not on this. He presses his wound and wipes the hot squeeze of blood over his mouth again. He wipes it over his eyelids, like war paint. He rakes it into his hair. He pinches his nipples, and when he gets on his knees, slick spills down his inner thighs.
Minho is flushed, his shoulders bulging with unconscious effort as he strains against the chains binding his arms behind his back. Taehyun moves over to him and slings a leg over his thighs, not quite straddling him. He reaches behind himself and wipes the wetness from one thigh, and splays that hand across Minho's face, slippery thumb just below Minho's mouth. Minho inhales sharply, tongue darting out of its own accord. A vein pulses at his temple, and his eyes are almost black. Taehyun hesitates for less than a second, but Minho notices and closes his eyes, letting out a long, measured breath. He tilts his head in supplication, parting his lips.
Taehyun bends his neck. He lets Minho lick the blood from his mouth, chasing it from the corners to the soft skin on the underside. Only after he's clean does Taehyun press his lips to Minho's. His mouth is closed for the first few seconds, and then he cups Minho's face and lets him in.
It feels like allowing an inferno into a furnace. The burn almost hurts, almost irritates, scratching a hunger that inflames and satisfies all at once. Taehyun pulls away when he's had enough, and lets Minho suck down his neck, lap at the blood of his friend drying along Taehyun's collarbone.
Before Taehyun undoes Minho's pants and strips off his underwear, he pauses. "This doesn't mean what you want it to mean." It will bind them together, but they've only just met. "Not yet."
Minho nods, though Taehyun isn't sure he understands. He takes Minho's cock in hand, and spreads himself with the other. He feels woozy when he touches himself, pushing three fingers inside at once. He's never imagined being this wet or pliant. His knees are slippery with it, and Taehyun wonders how he must smell, if Seunghoon is hard inside the cab, if Jinwoo has climbed into the front seat and taken him in his mouth. He lines Minho up, his body immediately beginning to shake as he eases himself down. He's only done this with betas, and the ache of Minho's cock stretching him open brings relieved tears to his eyes.
Taehyun fucks himself down, Minho leaning forward to mouth at his nipples. Every jolt of the truck pushes him deeper until the zipper of Minho’s pants scrapes against his bare skin with each thrust. There’s nothing around them but sand and the smell of smoke and gasoline, bleeding into the grey sky. They can’t sell Minho now, Taehyun supposes, though he’s not certain Minho can join them either. Every decision is precarious.
It feels like only minutes before Minho's knees clench around his waist, and Taehyun feels the swell of Minho's knot press against his entrance. He inhales through his nose, and sinks down on it, biting his lip at the girth. Minho kisses him again when he's completely filled and breathless, kissing him until Taehyun thinks he'll suffocate. His body feels like a firework, bursting at the edges although his heart remains a cautious flicker. It's all right if Minho doesn't understand him now. Taehyun has days and days, all the time in their short lives to show Minho what he means.