Title: The Life I Live
Author: Coley Merrin
Rating: R overall
Pairings: Zhou Mi/Kyuhyun
Genre: AU, fantasy, angst, romance
Summary: He woke in a world that wasn't his own, to the eyes of a tiger. What he found in an idyll forest was uncertainty, trust, and the most elusive emotion of all...
Fic Archive A/N: So the initial image in my head was Kyuhyun in the tree, seeing Zhou Mi for the first time. Ah. One image.
*
Part One * Part Two *
Part Three ***
Kyuhyun couldn’t say just why he was so alarmed by Zhou Mi’s hand on the cloth. It felt different was the only explanation he could conjure. He wasn’t being perfunctorily stripped so that he could be scrubbed like a child. His face and body had just been painted by this man’s hands, and he had painted Zhou Mi in return. He didn’t know what that ritual had been, but getting naked at the end of it hadn’t been in his mental game plan. Getting naked, in fact, felt like one small step toward a different kind of ritual entirely.
An orgy, his mind scoffed. No women, but there were men. The one in front of him that stared at him with dark, questioning eyes and smelled like smoke and trees.
This man could turn into a tiger, and he wanted to have sex with Kyuhyun? Really? Weren’t there, he didn’t know, tigers for that? But what was he really? Really human, or really a tiger? Maybe he hadn’t really been a tiger. Maybe it had been a trick of the light, or he had been half asleep still, or...
In the end, it didn’t matter if he was a tiger or a lump of clay. Naked still wasn’t happening.
“No!” he said loudly, shaking his head to emphasize his point.
Zhou Mi’s brows lifted, tugging at his captured wrist as though indicating just what he’d like to do.
“Zhou Mi, no,” he said. Was it like giving orders to a dog? Then again, cats were notoriously ill-equipped to listen.
Zhou Mi seemed to get the message, ducking his head to hide a clearly delighted smile. That confused Kyuhyun as much as anything the whole of the confusing night had. But Zhou Mi tucked the ends of the cloth into itself, standing straight, his full height, which was impressively several inches above his own.
Zhou Mi lifted both hands...and sank them into Kyuhyun’s hair. They lingered there, roaming luxuriously for several moments, fingers strong and quick. He might have thought of it as almost like a scalp massage...but no scalp massage had ever felt like that. Zhou Mi’s hands trailed down onto his neck, over his throat, his ears, his face. It was like a blind man learning to see, just by touching. The delicate skin of his eyelids, the slopes of his nose, no skin was left untouched, and the touch left peculiar heat in its path.
His breath caught as Zhou Mi moved behind him, hands sweeping over the planes of his back. The touch there was vigorous and sure, as though he meant to calm Kyuhyun. If this...mapping of his skin was all Zhou Mi had intended, then perhaps he would survive it. But he still harbored doubts that that was truly all this was.
The warm hands slid down Kyuhyun’s arms, tracing the skin between his fingers, his palms, over his shoulders and down his strangely unresponsive sides. If it had been anyone else, any other time, he would have been twisting, shouting with laughter as his skin was tickled. Zhou Mi carefully covered the skin of his chest, where the clear lines Zhou Mi had painted seemed to have absorbed into his skin. Over his stomach...
And back to the knot.
Zhou Mi’s eyes rose to his, asking the silent question. Now?
The correct answer was No! Followed by Never! If what had happened up above held true, Zhou Mi meant to touch, and touch completely. Not an impersonal hand, but an exploring one. And that was completely unacceptable.
He was not attracted to men, he chanted to himself, not even lithe demigods. He had not been aroused by anything Zhou Mi had done to him so far, and perhaps it was natural to assume that he wouldn’t be... No matter where Zhou Mi touched. Perhaps with this Zhou Mi would be finished. He had nearly convinced himself of that fact.
Even so, he shocked himself by dropping his hands in acquiescence.
Zhou Mi made short work of the cloth, and it fluttered uselessly to the ground. Kyuhyun’s fingers tightened into fists. It was the first time he had been exposed for any man, like this. And it was different, as Zhou Mi knelt. So different.
To his credit, Zhou Mi was quick and efficient, his touch quick and light as Kyuhyun stared blindly into the fire. Zhou Mi moved down Kyuhyun’s legs, lifting each foot to run his hand across the sensitive bottoms. As Zhou Mi stood, his hands dragged along the backs of Kyuhyun’s legs, his buttocks, before settling at Kyuhyun’s hips, seemingly content. Zhou Mi was also panting, as though he had just then performed a sprint.
Kyuhyun’s eyes were guarded as they lifted to Zhou Mi’s. Surely, surely Zhou Mi did not expect him to do that. To touch all of Zhou Mi’s body, and there was a lot of it. Zhou Mi’s eyes held reassurance as he lifted Kyuhyun’s hands, sliding them into the silky softness of Zhou Mi’s hair. He moved as though in a trance, as he copied what Zhou Mi had done. Tracing the length of Zhou Mi’s nose, the hollow of his throat. He realized that Zhou Mi was trembling as the man turned, Kyuhyun finishing Zhou Mi’s back and moving onto his chest. The contours were so warm, with the slightest give of flesh. Smooth beneath his fingers, and somehow appealing, as though he would like to just stop and stroke the plane of a shoulder or the inner recess of an elbow. It was like feeling slightly addicted, knowing he should stop, and being utterly incapable of doing so.
In fact, it was almost fascinating, tracing the paint on Zhou Mi’s back, along his ribs. The jagged tiger stripes. He could see where his fingers had just barely smudged them, though Zhou Mi did not seem to mind.
There wasn’t the barest hint of a negative voice, no screaming monsters in the back of his mind with their He’s a man, you can’t touch a man! And if they were there, he paid them them no mind, even as Zhou Mi made an indistinguishable noise as Kyuhyun undid the cloth from Zhou Mi’s hips, sliding it from between his legs, and tossing it aside.
It was as though he had forgotten how to think. He simply touched. As though, he realized as he stood, he was making the body in front of him his own. He couldn’t begin to think of it.
Zhou Mi’s eyes were filled with gratitude, and something else. Something approaching the triumph he had seen when their hands had clasped outside of the tree. Had that been tonight? It seemed like years ago. Acres of skin and knowledge ago.
Zhou Mi stepped forward and enfolded him in some sort of awkward hug, all forearms and elbows. He gasped, nearly losing control of his legs as Zhou Mi licked the skin between his jaw and ear, suckling there briefly. It was three, maybe four seconds of contact, and it was so much more intimate than Zhou Mi’s hands had been. The flush of shame at how affected he had been by it followed closely on the heels of satisfaction.
With a smile Zhou Mi gripped Kyuhyun’s hands, pulling him toward some destination.
He nearly stumbled as his foot landed on something soft, and he saw it was the tiger pelt. Zhou Mi’s tiger pelt. Zhou Mi tugged him forward, finally sinking to sit and guiding Kyuhyun with him.
The light was dancing over Zhou Mi’s face, the fire still burning strong. And both of Zhou Mi’s hands pressed against his chest, guiding him back, until Kyuhyun lay prone beneath him. It was an eerie copy of Kyuhyun’s dream, where the tiger hand pressed him back beside the fire. Only this time, it was a man with wide eyes and parted mouth, who looked at him with hunger.
Kyuhyun’s eyes fluttered closed. Right now was the time to protest. Right here as Zhou Mi balanced above him, rubbing first his head against the side of Kyuhyun’s, then their cheeks together. Zhou Mi returned to that sensitive spot below his ear, and the quick bolt of pleasure nearly immobilized him. He was breathing rather erratically. Perhaps it was shock of some kind. Perhaps...
But he could only arch his neck helplessly into the touch as Zhou Mi’s tongue, soft and heated, took quick worshiping licks along his skin. Licking, so much it, as though he were a cat, bonding.
Which probably wasn’t so far off the mark after all.
Zhou Mi moved onto his chest, lathing first one nipple and then the other, as though having a hard time deciding between them. It felt... All the pleasure he had ever felt in his life was indescribable to this. It was as if Zhou Mi could feel exactly what he was doing to Kyuhyun’s body, where it felt the best, and then kept doing it. Though. The rather wanton moans he was delivering probably were also a good clue.
He tried to conjure the image, that it was a woman doing this to him, any woman... Sweet mouth, sweet curves...
Bile threatened, burning his esophagus, and he felt Zhou Mi retch against his stomach. He took deep breaths, wiping the image from his mind as he reached for Zhou Mi, his whole body soothed as his fingers touched Zhou Mi’s cheek.
“Are you okay?” he asked. Had Zhou Mi felt that, too?
Zhou Mi shook his head, his hair swaying, and then he smiled. He squeezed Kyuhyun’s hand, guiding it back up beside his head.
Zhou Mi’s tongue swirled inside his navel, making his breath catch. Somehow he knew where that mouth would be next, and his thighs tensed, widened in anticipation. The glance Zhou Mi sent him was darkly amused.
From the ministrations of Zhou Mi’s mouth, he was almost fully hard by the time Zhou Mi dropped lower, silkily dragging his nose against the length of him, before his lips parted around him, spreading heat along veins and nerves.
He shuddered as Zhou Mi’s hands stroked on the insides of his thighs, only heightening his pleasure. And the little voice in his head that spoke of what he should want, what he shouldn’t, was shoved to the side.
He muffled himself with the back of his hand as he spilled hard into Zhou Mi’s mouth.
***
It was hard not to whimper where he lay, as the rush began to fade, and there was cool air touching where the heat of Zhou Mi’s mouth had been. He rested, comfortable, for some minutes, floating on that high.
He wondered if that fed his complacency as he was prepared, oil slick and warm, the intrusion slow and shocking but not terribly painful. Zhou Mi’s face was a study of fulfilled yearning, eyes tender as he took such care, murmuring incomprehensibly against Kyuhyun... He shuddered as Zhou Mi licked his neck, feeling the desire rise again like a sickness. It felt as though he were not himself. If he had been, he wouldn’t be here, not like this. With warm fur at his back and a lithe male body rocking above him. He wouldn’t like it. He certainly wouldn’t enjoy it. And “enjoy” sounded so passive beside the fierce joy that gripped him.
This wasn’t simply a ritual, some sort of weird sexual experiment, he realized belatedly, as his eyes flew open and met Zhou Mi’s. It was a mating. He wasn’t just having sex with a man, he was being claimed.
It took little more than the sound of exquisite pleasure in Zhou Mi’s throat to buffet him over the edge.
Zhou Mi did not move for the longest time, curled heavily atop him. It felt as though their skin was leeching together. Their heartbeats attuning.
Strangely he did not feel cold as Zhou Mi left him, but close to hot as they lay together.
“Kui Xian,” Zhou Mi whispered, and then whispered again when he had gotten no response. He wanted something.
“Zhou Mi?” Kyuhyun offered.
A hum of satisfaction rumbled in Zhou Mi’s throat, and Kyuhyun was gathered close. He thought he saw the barest light of early morning sun rising through the trees before exhaustion pulled him into sleep.
***
Kyuhyun woke to the sound of bird chatter, the hum of a forest full of life. Clad only in the cloth, he lay in a puddle of dappled sunlight, the light waving distractingly over his stomach. The fire from before was almost gone. He did at least still have that soft, covering cloth, but he was very alone. Though, since he lay on the tiger skin, he figured he could not be too alone. Zhou Mi had to be quite near. He sat up, testing the soreness of his muscles.
Perhaps he had time to think on it while he was dreaming. He had been drugged, maybe, he reasoned. The sweet liquid he had drank had had some sort of mild mind altering substance, some kind of aphrodisiac. He had never wanted a man, never been attracted to one. So what had happened last night was incomprehensible to him. He would drink nothing but water for a few days. If he was still here in a few days. Wherever here was. He knew beyond a doubt that it wasn’t some kind of dream. Unless he had gotten into some kind of accident and was currently living inside of his head... He supposed he could have had a worse dream, but possibly not a stranger one.
Welcome to paradise, Cho Kyuhyun, he thought wryly. His butt had landed in some sort of forest. Rain forest? Regular forest? He didn’t know. It had trees, and that was enough information for him. And all he had to his name was a skimpy piece of cloth and a man who could change into a tiger, who also coincidentally wanted his body.
He heard a crackling in the bushes and Zhou Mi emerged holding wide leaves and the crude cup. The paint along Zhou Mi’s sides that had emulated the tiger stripes had not been put back on...
He had the barest recollection of going to river some time after the mating (he had convinced that he had been right), but once they had gotten into the water he remembered vividly being helped to wash the paint from Zhou Mi’s sides off of his thighs. He flushed at the memory. It was embarrassment in a way he had never known. Perhaps that drug took a while to wear off, because the relief he felt as Zhou Mi sat beside him, all long limbs and greeting smile, was overwhelming. Or maybe it was that he was in an unfamiliar place, and he had slept with the only person he knew could help him survive. He was as dependent as a suckling child out here.
He’d never been the outdoorsy type. He knew in theory how fire was made. But the stick rubbing and praying and little puffs of air meant if it were freezing cold outside, he’d be a rather large popsicle before he ever got a spark. Though out here, he’d probably burn the whole forest down with his luck.
Zhou Mi was humming tunelessly as he put the cup between their knees.
“So, um, good morning?” Kyuhyun said, trying for some sort of normalcy.
Zhou Mi stared at him fathomlessly, his dark eyes direct but unknowing.
“Right, so I guess you don’t understand what I’m saying,” Kyuhyun said, sighing. “That’s great. You’re mute, and I have no idea where I am.”
His breath caught as Zhou Mi began to unwrap his prizes. Wrapped in a leaf, a large handful of succulent-looking blue berries, another of ones the palest pink and orange. A banana. That he knew. And in the last, the side of a small fish, gleaming white in the light, and steaming hot. He had to swallow to keep the spit from running out of his mouth.
Still, he felt a little tingle at the shy pride in Zhou Mi’s smile as he showed Kyuhyun his offerings.
Zhou Mi picked up a tender morsel of the fish, blowing on it, before offering it to Kyuhyun. He didn’t bother wondering if Zhou Mi had washed his hands or worrying that he was eating from the hands of a man, but simply opened his mouth and took. It was a twofold pleasure, the taste and texture of the salty but slightly sweet fish, and the barest brush of Zhou Mi’s fingertips.
He pressed his knuckles against his lips for a moment, trying to contain himself.
“I think that’s the best thing I’ve ever tasted,” he said, smiling sort of helplessly up at Zhou Mi.
Zhou Mi had definitely been watching for his reaction, because at his smile, Zhou Mi’s face simply beamed.
He accepted another flake of the fish, followed by a sweet and tangy berry. It was food like he had never tasted, in a way had never eaten. He felt like royalty, even more pampered than someone on some chaise lounge eating grapes.
But even as Zhou Mi fed him, he realized Zhou Mi had not eaten at all.
He accepted several more bits of food before he worked up the courage, picking up a berry and offering it to Zhou Mi.
Zhou Mi smiled and cupped his hand around Kyuhyun’s, taking the berry and pressing it to Kyuhyun’s lips instead. He accepted it, and strangely did not feel chastised or awkward. Zhou Mi guided his hand close, taking the tip of Kyuhyun’s thumb into his mouth, then his finger, cleaning them.
In Kyuhyun’s belly, arousal curled slow and familiar.
When the food was gone, Zhou Mi offered him the cup. He sniffed at it delicately, but there was no odor. It was clean, cool water, and he drank deeply.
Zhou Mi’s eyes were lidded, and as their eyes met, he rocked forward, licking a heated line up Kyuhyun’s neck. His whole body flushed with joy.
He had thought that he would fight it. That the thought of it, alien the day before, would give him strength. Enjoying it once had been a fluke, an accident.
That he had let Zhou Mi lay him back and cover him with his body a second time had been no accident.
***