[Fic] Guardian - 4/8 (EXO)
Title: Guardian
Pairing: Kai/Suho
Rating: NC-17 overall
Genre: master/slave!AU, pseudo-historical, fantasy, smut
Warnings: issues of sexual consent, references to past sexual assault, violence, kidnapping, slaves having no ability to say no especially at first, and did I mention issues of consent inherent to master/slave dynamics?
Summary: They spoke of him as though he were nothing more than a treasure found by the roadside. He bowed to his new master because it was polite, and because he knew of nothing else he could do. See warnings.
***
Chapter One * Chapter Two * Chapter Three * Chapter Four * Chapter Five * Chapter Six * Chapter Seven * Chapter Eight
***
Suho got Kai’s breakfast the next morning, watching subtly if he needed anything as he straightened Kai’s bed and prepared for his own day. He waited, hoping for some kind of smile, some kind of acknowledgement of what had happened the night before. It made him want to say something, but he had no idea what. He remembered back to when Sehun had said something about some slaves telling their masters when they wanted. He wondered if he could even be that bold one day, when he discovered again just how things stood between them.
“I’m riding out with my father today, so I won’t be back until nightfall,” Kai told him.
Suho hummed his acknowledgement, not knowing how he should respond given the night before and his thoughts. Kai smiling down at him in his bed.
It nearly had him smiling into the water pail, until Kai came up to him.
“Fuck. Just watching you move this morning. Kneel for me.”
Suho did, staring at the floor as he heard Kai uncap the oil. They wrestled together with Suho’s pants, until they were down far enough for Kai. Kai’s fingers smeared oil but did not press. One moment Suho had been standing, and the next Kai was pressing his slick erection into him. It was slick, there was that. It felt like the first time Kai had taken him, quiet, quicker, without Kai even asking if Suho was ready, if there was pain. There were no words, no kisses, no touches like the night before, just Kai taking what was his. The discomfort became almost numb, and the oil kept him from pain but he braced himself as Kai grunted and came in him.
His shoulders were trembling as Kai pulled from him and stood.
“You did well,” Kai said, his breath labored, a smile tugging at his lips as he touched Suho’s hair. “I’ll be back later.”
Suho had barely scrabbled his pants back up before Kai had pushed out of the tent.
It was Kai’s right to take him however he wanted. Suho knew that. Suho had always known that. He’d done well. It was his duty to do as his master asked, and he’d done well at it. But Kai had barely spoken to him, barely touched him except for the taking, so different than everything since that first week in Kai’s tent. There had been no kisses, no sweet moans of his name or urging Suho to enjoy it. He wasn’t hurt, and he was grateful, but he hated the sick feeling it reminded him of, of being a new slave, afraid, powerless. Kai had reminded him that despite all of the care, he was that same slave that Kai had used at the very start. It had felt like Kai had taught him that there was something more than that, something that had seemed quite beautiful and fragile, and then he had shown Suho again how meaningless it could be.
He didn’t know why he’d expected it, why he’d built it up in his head when he’d known better that it could go back to how it had been before Kai had a thought to Suho’s pleasure. He’d pleased Kai, which on so many days made him happy. He was happy, because Kai was pleased. He was happy.
But he didn’t move. Didn’t move for long minutes, even when Sehun came into the tent. He looked up at Sehun’s sound of alarm.
“I saw Kai leave. Are you okay?”
Suho nodded, still feeling sick.
“Yes.”
Sehun’s hand squeezed his shoulder, crouching beside him. “Did he hurt you?”
Suho shook his head. No. Kai had never hurt him, not like that.
“Then why are you crying?”
Suho swiped at his face with the back of his hand, and it came away wet. “I don’t… I don’t know.”
***
Kai walked to his tent from where he’d left his horse, feeling the rhythm of the ground come back to him. It had been a hard ride, but worth it. They had bartered for a good amount of food, trading away horses and goods. They were things they would need in the wet and cold.
But Kai paused, to see Sehun standing between the tents of his father’s, and his own. Standing as though waiting for him.
“Sehun?”
“Sir,” Sehun said.
“Did you need something?”
“You fought to keep your slave from harm, against your own father.”
“Yes?” Kai said, confused.
“Then why did his tears fall when you left him this morning?”
Sehun ducked into the work tent, leaving Kai standing there alone, mystified.
Kai walked into his own tent, seeing immediately that Suho had heard of their return since food was being set at the low table. It was an apprehensive smile that touched Kai’s face. Usually Suho would greet him, ask if he needed anything after his day and make him comfortable. Instead, Suho stood quiet as he had far before they’d gotten used to each other.
Suho poured him water into the goblet, and Kai stared up at him.
“Do you need anything else?” Suho asked.
“Not now,” Kai said.
Suho did not move stiffly, as though injured, but he moved very deliberately as though he felt Kai’s eyes on him. He did not sit to eat, probably having had his meal already. Sometimes Suho would ask how the ride had been. Or Suho stayed near until Kai would ask Suho to tell him of his day. Something was definitely wrong. Kai put it from his mind as he ate, but as he finished, he saw the look of stubborn concentration on Suho’s face as he sewed.
“Suho, come here,” Kai said, and rose, stepping out to wait the mere moments it took for Suho to stand in front of him. Kai ran his hands over Suho’s shoulders, squeezing at them. No matter Sehun’s words, he had to wonder if something happened during the day. “Have you been hurt?”
He could actually see Suho thinking about it, shaking his head in confusion. “No?”
“Your day wasn’t troubling?”
“No, Master, the day was fine,” Suho said, and his voice was so stiff, so precise.
Suho the night before had smiled at him. Suho in front of him would not even lift his head to look at him. Suho had cried after he had left, Sehun had said. It angered him that he didn’t know why.
“Tell me what’s troubling you,” Kai said, putting some force in it so that Suho would answer him. “Was it me? Did I hurt you this morning? Tell me.”
Suho didn’t cringe but he did close his eyes. Kai inhaled deeply in lieu of shaking Suho or commanding him to speak, and in only another moment more Suho opened his eyes and stared at Kai’s chest.
“You had never taken me like that before, without allowing me time,” Suho said, his words halting.
“Then I did hurt you.”
“No! You surprised me. My body is used to you. My mind-“
Suho had been standing there, soft eyed, soft mouthed, and all Kai had been able to think of was Suho moaning his name. Suho had never refused him. But Suho did not speak of refusing him.
“Then I was too quick,” Kai reasoned.
“No.”
“Suho. Your riddles give me no answers. What do you mean?”
“You said kneel, and you took,” Suho said, his voice measured and controlled, even as his hands balled together. “Without making sure I was ready. Without saying anything. Anything.”
“What would you have had me say?” Kai asked, mystified. “I was to be riding out the whole of the day, and my mind was full of bedding you the night before. I couldn’t ride out with my father with my cock upright, able only to think of my slave. I had only minutes before I had to leave. I had no time to coax you.”
“I am your slave. I need no coaxing,” Suho said.
Kai laughed, because he had no idea what else to do. “Apparently you do. Tell me what I should have said. Tell me what would have eased your mind since I didn’t hurt your body. Suho.”
“They are things not said between master and slave.”
“I don’t care. Tell me.”
“That you needed too much to wait. That you had no time. Could I help you. Was I ready for you.” And Suho shook his head violently. “You needed no permission or to ask if I was ready. It was your right to use me as a thing, like you did when I first arrived. However, whenever, you wish.”
And Suho had finally said it, the part that had bothered him. Kai heard it on the way Suho said “thing” as though it were dirty. As though Kai had used him as though he were a comb, or his fork. A thing he could pick up and use at will, and discard alone until he was ready for it again.
Kai’s hand grasped harder at Suho’s shoulder.
“You are not a thing to me. You are not,” he said, when Suho’s head ducked. “You are the closest thing I have had to a friend in a slave, besides Sehun, and I have known him since we were children. I have asked you before if you were slick enough, if it pained you. You know I want no harm to come to you. Would you have turned me away if I had asked this morning?”
Suho shook his head. “No. I could not have.”
Could not have. No. A slave could be beaten for turning away his master, and Suho had seen the ugliness of beating in his father’s tents. Kai pressed his lips together. “Perhaps. But would you have felt…used? If I had asked you to kneel and told you that my time was short, but that I would return to take you in my bed again. If you were ready.”
“No,” Suho said. “I would not have felt used.”
“My time being short was not apology. It was regret. That fuck was only part of the need I have for you,” Kai said, and it was some kind of confession. He needed more than just the pleasure Suho’s body could bring, and in some ways that frightened him. He would not have been looked down upon for allowing affection for a slave, but there were limits even then. He had not even thought of how Suho would react, had assumed that between them things were unspoken. It turned out that Kai was the fool, and whether he had hurt Suho’s body or not, it didn’t matter. Slave or not, he wanted and needed Suho to trust him. Trust, respect, loyalty. They could not be ordered, only earned or lost.
But he knew there were more things he needed to say, things that were not his entitlement to Suho’s body, even as his face flushed in something like shame.
“Would you forgive me for thinking only of my own needs?” Kai asked.
“You don’t need-“
“I want it,” he pressed. And realized that sounding as though he demanded it would not get him it willingly. “When you can give it. But you have my word. It will not happen like that again.”
Suho nodded slowly, his acceptance of Kai’s words. Kai watched as his lips pressed together, parting again and closing, as though he wanted to speak and was thinking better of it.
“Is there something you want to say? Speak freely.”
Most slaves would not have spoken as Suho had already. But as exasperated as Suho had sometimes made him, he would not have changed that.
“If you find your want rises when the time is short, I would have you do as you wish to me. I would be prepared for that now. You should not ignore your needs, or put them off. Or find another person, another slave, to sate them with.”
“There will not be another slave,” Kai said, hoping to quell Suho’s worries on that. “You don’t have to agree to my every whim in fear of that.”
Some masters shared their slaves, and Kai imagined a man walking into his tent, forcing Suho to kneel for someone else on Kai’s command.
He merely snorted as he ran his fingers down the soft skin of Suho’s cheek. As though he could allow it. As though another man touching Suho with Kai’s consent would ever happen.
“No one else. Look at me,” Kai said, and waited for Suho’s eyes to lift. “No one else.”
Suho absorbing that before speaking. “I understand.”
Understood, not agreed, or was glad. It sent insecurity shifting through him.
“Is there someone else? Someone you desire? I know Sehun has his merchant, but-“ He could see he’d startled Suho with that knowledge. “Yes, I know of them. Sehun has been with my father’s tents most of his life. Most of mine. He’s loyal and hardworking, and he deserves the happiness he can have.”
“Would your father beat him for…?”
“I don’t think so. But he would forbid it. A merchant could sway Sehun’s loyalty, inflate prices. Sehun brightens when he speaks of him.”
It almost embarrassed Kai to say it, the fondness in his voice. He had not meant to share so much, show so much. But Suho knowing he spoke to Sehun, was close to him, was not something he was unhappy about. It was a secret perhaps he should not have kept. It did not weaken him.
“He does become happy at the thought of seeing his merchant,” Suho said, his fingertips brushing above Kai’s tunic, and at his collarbones. His eyes rose, gaze steady. “There is no one else I desire. I promise you that is truth. Only you.”
Kai’s breath nearly stopped in his chest, eyes going wide, mouth opening to breathe as he took all of Suho in, lifting his hand to cup Suho’s face. That morning he had caused Suho’s tears. That night, he had the possibility of replacing them with something better. It was not a master that took him without regard that Suho needed - that Suho wanted. He could be that man for Suho.
“Can I show you what plagued me this morning and made me want?”
“Yes,” Suho said, his bowed lips parted, gaze on Kai’s mouth.
And he pressed it against Suho’s, kissed him as he had wanted to every time he closed his eyes. Suho leaned into him, mouth opening for him. Kissing him. Desiring him. Suho was not a thing, and even if he was a slave he was a man with wants, and dislikes, and feelings. Feelings Kai had trampled, after Suho had given him something very precious. And even after that, Suho looked at him with such hope like he felt Kai would redeem himself. He’d open his ears, next time, his eyes.
A sound not unlike pain left him. Desire to do everything at once. Kiss Suho. Kiss his body, his skin, where he was hardest and wanting. He wanted to turn Suho and take him. To take him on his back with slow kisses. To pull Suho above him and know Suho in him as well.
Suho desired him. He had not asked Suho to tell him that. Suho had told him willingly.
“Come to my bed,” he said, voice rough as he tore his lips from Suho’s. But it was far from command.
Suho nodded, mouth wet. “Yes.”
Suho’s hands were on him as they lowered onto Kai’s furs. Not tentative or wary, but touches full of hunger across Kai’s shoulders, his chest. There was no wariness in his eyes, or anger, examining Kai’s face like he was someone strange, somehow foreign. He felt Suho moan against his lips, sucked against the soft skin of his jaw, his throat.
“I burn with need of you,” Kai said, the words torn from him because he could not keep them deep.
Let Suho use that need, that knowledge, exploit it.
“You don’t have to…Oh.”
Kai lifted his mouth from Suho’s neck. “Yes, I do. If it makes you make sounds like that. Because my Suho knows what he wants and what he doesn’t want. He knows how to tell his master what he likes.”
They were tangled together, Kai pulling Suho half on top of him.
“And every so often he wants his master,” Kai murmured. “Because that is not something he can hide. Am I right?”
Suho leaned down into him, his hair gleaming red in the low light.
“Yes,” Suho murmured against his mouth. “I am slick already, ready for you.”
Kai gaped up at him, and Suho’s lips twisted, sheepish.
“When I knew you were back, I prepared myself. In case-“
“In case my want and impatience overrode my good sense,” Kai said. “Again.”
Suho moved his head into Kai’s hand like a contented cat.
“It was this I hoped for.”
Kai rolled Suho again, pinning him. “It is this I waited for,” Kai told him. “Call me Kai, as you have before. Not in front of others, except maybe Sehun. But in this tent you have full use of my name.”
And it was to Suho’s moans that he took him. Suho grasping at his hair and skin to keep him close, Suho kissing his lips, his face.
“Kai,” Suho pleaded, as Kai touched him.
He could not last long in the slick warmth, hips straining for more as Suho gave to him, kissed him, moaned for him.
“You are mine,” Kai moaned, his lips dragging across Suho’s skin. He pressed close until they were nose to nose with Suho looking at him, half-blind with need. “Suho, you are mine.”
“Yes,” Suho agreed.
“And I… am yours.”
Suho drew a noisy breath, and cried out, his eyes squeezing closed as he came over Kai’s fingers. He was gorgeous, desperate and full of life. His.
“Kai,” Suho chanted as he drew breath. “Kai.”
And Kai emptied himself in Suho’s body.
***
Suho began to squirm, and it lifted Kai from his stupor.
“No,” he complained, not certain exactly what he was demanding an end to.
“The light,” Suho said, his hand on Kai’s arm. “I should straighten up.”
Suho leaving him as he had the night before, going to his pallet and leaving him cold. He had such a vague memory of falling asleep against Suho the night he had stolen Suho’s bed. It had risen in his mind at times when he had woken in the night, cold.
“No,” Kai said again. “I’ll help you.”
He said the last almost amused as Suho gaped at him as Kai rolled to the edge of the bed.
Even if helping meant emptying his bladder as Suho checked the flaps of the tent and blew out the far light. Kai waited, patiently, watching the lines of Suho’s body and shadows playing over it. He gleamed as he approached Kai again, by the last light that still shone.
“Thank you for your help,” Suho said, a smile touching his face.
“For my favorite slave,” Kai said.
The only of his tent. That, too.
“Come back into my bed with me, if you would,” Kai asked.
It was with a nod almost embarrassed that Suho agreed. Perhaps he wondered if Kai still hungered for him. But that was not the case, as Kai extinguished the light and nudged Suho ahead of him beneath the covers.
He pressed his nose into the back of Suho’s hair and smelled sweat, and musk, and sex, and his body was warm against Suho’s back.
He stroked the skin beneath Suho’s ribs and felt his consciousness waver.
“Suho,” he sighed, and reached down to grasp Suho’s forearm. Perhaps he would divine that Kai desired only to sleep against him. For a little while. Just to feel that warmth a little longer.
***
A noise woke Suho, feeling unnaturally warm and heavy and knowing why without even thinking of it. He could hear Kai’s deep and even breaths behind his head, an arm loose over his ribs. Suho opened one eye experimentally, moving his head toward the sound. His mouth parted at the sight of Sehun who raised a finger to his lips, holding out his other hand and telling Suho wordlessly that he should stay.
A moment later, he gasped, as Kai said, “That was Sehun?”
Suho nodded. “Yes. He comes in if I do not go to him first.”
“I must sleep deeply, then, or you are prompt to wake.”
“Both,” Suho mused.
But not that morning. Lulled by the heat of Kai’s body, he thought, or the comfort of Kai’s bed. Kai pulled him back, closer, and the kisses to Suho’s throat had him sighing. Kai’s mouth was incredibly…incredible.
“You should see yourself like this,” Kai said, touching Suho’s face. “You flush so easily. You were sweaty again. Perhaps we should bathe in the pond together again tonight.”
“We’ll wear out the water,” Suho joked.
Kai just grinned as he stood, leaving Suho dazed for a moment. He should have stopped Kai, stood before him. But Kai was there to greet him as he rose, a kiss pressed against his mouth as Suho’s arm curved around Kai’s neck. He startled himself, almost drawing away because of a touch he’d had no permission to give.
But Kai stopped him, drawing him closer.
“Touch me as you wish,” Kai offered. “Only as you wish. It pleases me.”
“Yes,” Suho said. “Kai.”
Kai smiled and it had Suho looking away before whatever was inside of him could twist out of control.
Kai lifted his chin, waiting until Suho met his eyes. “Yes, I like that. Subservience doesn’t suit you. Sometimes I look at you and see a general who should be in command. Don’t laugh at me.”
Suho’s lips trembled. “I would never laugh at my master. But Kai is being exceptionally humorous this morning.”
When Kai huffed, pulling him close as though to kiss him, Suho pressed his hand against Kai’s collarbone.
“Sehun will be back soon if I do not go, and I need to fetch your breakfast. And mine.”
But Kai still succeeded in pressing a kiss to his mouth, before letting Suho go. It was awkward, a little, dressing and feeling Kai’s eyes on him.
“Come to find me after your morning chores,” Kai suggested.
“I will,” Suho told him. And he looked back, lowering his head only slightly as he smiled to see Kai standing there still naked and watching him. Suho ducked out of the tent, and felt lighter than he had in months. If only it didn’t change again. If Kai meant what he said.
Though he was so focused on Kai that he didn’t think about what he was to be facing when he saw Sehun. Of course Sehun had known all the times before, but that day? That day Suho’s face flushed hot at Sehun’s knowing smirk.
He cuffed the side of Sehun’s head, and readied the dishes so he could take Kai his breakfast.
“You look happy,” Sehun told him. “The only time I’ve seen you like this before was when Kai gave you that book.”
“It is a beautiful morning,” was all Suho was content to say. At least, until his embarrassment calmed. He felt near to bursting with everything that had happened, and Sehun would be the only one who understood. Still, he thought Sehun might caution him. The caution would be warranted. No matter how much favor Kai showed him, Suho was still his slave.
***
“You spoke?” Sehun asked, almost as soon as Suho settled beside him after breakfast. “And more, I see, but… You look better.”
Suho felt better as well. He’d spent the whole of the previous day after Kai had left wrestling between anger and fear, and telling himself he had no right to it. He’d felt used, discarded, when the night previous to that he had felt cherished. He did not think it was guilt, the way that Kai had touched him, given him permissions he could not have dreamed of. It had been Kai’s right, and they could not have denied that. It was Suho’s feelings regarding it that had been the issue, and those Kai had heard. Suho had almost seen him absorbing, understanding in some way even if perhaps he had not understood fully. He had listened - and asked. It had been more than Suho had hoped for, but not as much as he had deserved, and still Kai had shown him without words what he truly wanted.
“He heard me. When he saw something was wrong, he listened,” Suho said. Whether it would go back to the way it had been with moments of passion, he didn’t know. He had survived it then, and would find acceptance of it. Everything else would be lukewarm to the want Kai had shown him.
The care. Kai touching his face, and worried for him. That above all else he wanted to believe.
“It is good that he did. You did not see your face yesterday,” Sehun said, shaking his head. “He needed to know something was wrong.”
“I thought a lot about those tears,” Suho mused. “I was afraid that… I was afraid that he would treat me like a slave again. That sounds so odd to say. Perhaps like I perceived a slave to be used? It was a shock, because it had been so different than that. But now, I don’t know if it is usual for a slave to share his master’s bed. Though it has only happened once.”
“Kai feels very deeply. If he wants you in his bed, he will have you there. He wanted to know you were pleased by your encounters, and he cared for your wellbeing.”
“But?” Suho asked, hearing Sehun hesitate.
“You are right to say it was only once. He may not always desire it. I think he is still discovering what he wants from you. If he wished you to sleep beside him night by night, would you want it? Or do you prefer sleeping alone?”
“His bed is comfortable,” Suho ventured, making Sehun laugh. But his smile was quick. “No. I would… I would find it agreeable. We came to an understanding, so I would be glad sleeping alone as long as that understanding stays.”
“Then he has finally made you understand he wants you as more than a body.”
“He is not alone in that.”
“I am glad. He needed someone like you. Someone who could challenge him, make him more. I think you make him see slaves differently. I think you show him how to be a better man.”
“He was never a bad man. He just did not understand a slave cannot- He did not fully understand his power.”
“Yes,” Sehun said, looking pleased. “It was not something I could teach him, as someone raised beside him, because he did not ask those things of me. You deserved a master also who could realize it. A lover who could realize it.”
“He would not think of himself that way,” Suho said, his face flushing and words coming hard, nearly stuttering. “I could not.”
“Yes. I should not have- We will see how time may pass.”
That, they could agree on.
***
There was apprehension, but there was not fear when Suho waited for Kai to return that evening. Mere hours apart would not have changed things, but Kai had stroked his shoulder as he had left, and it had made Suho warm even as he warned himself of reading too much into it. Kai could have simply still been coddling him. But Kai did not enter the tent only to sit with his ledgers, he looked to Suho, his face brightening in greeting. And Suho hadn’t been able to be still, even before Kai’s hand had risen to bid him near. It was not a kiss but a clasp of bodies, a greeting as Suho breathed into Kai’s shoulder.
He opened his mouth to ask if there was anything that Kai needed, and instead said, “It is good to have you home.”
Kai stroked along his back, murmuring something unintelligible and Suho trembled inside. It was the dinner bell that parted them, moments later, and Suho slipped away in wordless nerves, returning with his food and Kai’s, and eating quickly. His stomach ached, but it was worth it to sit at Kai’s knee and watch him do sums.
Suho cleared his throat and when Kai looked up, Suho held his fingertip beside a number and kept it there as Kai blinked down at it, and blinked down again. And then Kai laughed, correcting the six to a five.
“That was very subtle,” Kai said.
“I thought so. You would not like it if I went back when you were sleeping to change your numbers.”
“I would worry. Have you seen others wrong but just never said?”
Suho shook his head. “I would have shown you somehow.”
Somehow, even if it had meant risking Kai’s anger. He had not feared then, had not feared even if he had spoken aloud, but it was Kai’s response that had amused him, and made him glad.
And Kai took him to his bed and kissed him, helped him with the oil until Suho’s body was slick, and eager, his mind ready and clear, and Kai tugged the cloth from him, baring him, hands sprawling over his skin. Kai’s lips were soft, sucking on Suho’s tongue as he squeezed Suho’s ass as though he thought of what he would do to him. He followed Kai, straddled his hips and kept kissing him, rocking his cock against Kai’s in such delicious friction. He felt more of a man like that, the way they touched, the way Kai let him touch instead of a vessel to be taken.
“Let me see you,” Kai said, and Suho rose, panting, his lips throbbing as Kai took him in from his knees to the hardness of his cock to his heaving chest. He reached, touching the dark water drop on Suho’s inner thigh. “You were going to explain this to me.”
It was a tale that needed to be told close, and not so exposed. Suho bent low over Kai’s chest, feeling Kai’s hands on his sides. He had not intended to, but nor could he keep it from Kai when he asked directly, and it comforted him to be near. Kai’s father, perhaps, would be angry, but he did not think that Kai would be.
“I was marked when they found the Sight in me.”
Kai accepted that, not throwing Suho onto the floor immediately, but still Suho fretted inside as Kai thought.
“You never told me.”
“Sehun-“ Suho stopped, horrified that he might be getting his friend in trouble. “Sehun told me that often if bad things occur after a vision, people with the Sight are blamed for calling it. So I held my tongue.”
“That’s true,” Kai agreed. “I am glad he cautioned you for your own safety. You are more than I imagined. Little temple worker, full of fire. Water is your element?”
“I See better in places of water, though I can See without it, or with as little as a bowl of it. It is not usually as strong though, unless the vision is very powerful.”
“I see.”
Suho let his breath release, when it still seemed that Kai was not angry.
“I also did not speak of it, because you said… You said that you were the only temple at which I would worship.”
“Surely I would not have said such an arrogant thing,” Kai teased, making Suho smile. “But the visions are part of you, unrelated to place or allegiance. Do you See often?”
Suho shook his head. “No. Sometimes I can control it. In these tents, at first I lost sight of myself except for small things. When I became more secure, it began to come back to me. You know now why I know to prepare for rain.”
“They are just visions, though. Or knowledge of weather.”
Suho nodded, leaning his hand into Kai’s hand. “Yes. I have no magic of my own but for the visions. Water is comforting to me. That you kissed me there, in the pond…”
“It was meant, then,” Kai said, and pulled at him.
They were not in water then, but he lowered his head and softened his lips for Kai’s kiss.
***
It was not every night, sleeping at Kai’s side. When Suho greeted Kai at his horse with a smile, Kai had tugged him inside for eager kisses. Kai was gentle cupping his head, helping Suho to suck his cock, praising him. Those nights, Suho slept alone, licking his lips clean and stroking himself on his pallet as Kai slept. It was the nights that Kai stripped him, covered him, held him as they both panted and shuddered with pleasure that Kai had brought them both to. Suho did not protest, and Kai did not keep him from rising to shutter the lights, though sometimes Kai sat up and waited, holding out a hand in silent command until Suho rested back against his side. He slept better then, warmer, the bed softer, the possessive hand or arm Kai had on him a comfort. Kai asked more questions, not to excess, but he still asked. It was not even for permission, not outright, though that was what it was in truth. Suho wondered what Kai would do if he refused him. Suho had not had to or wanted to.
Suho watched for Kai, for his cock to harden or his eyes to wander across Suho’s body. It made it so easy to move closer, to angle his body in offering until Kai met his eyes and Suho smiled at him.
Kai grasped the back of his head and pulled him up into his kiss, almost punishing in its eagerness. The squeeze of his hands, the roll of his body, the wet of his mouth. Kai made him want. Kai asked for his want. He let out a startled little moan as Kai pressed hard kisses across his cheekbone and jaw.
“All I want when you leave is to see you back, and bare, and against me,” Kai said, taking Suho’s ear between his teeth for a moment.
“I would not turn from you,” Suho breathed, grinning as Kai laughed.
And when Kai’s fingertip touched Suho’s lips as they both breathed, he knew exactly what he wanted to do. Kai was admiring him, how well he’d been kissed, and Suho wanted something more - to take Kai’s finger in his mouth, to suck upon it as their eyes met. And then reap the pleasure as Kai’s mouth parted.
Suho lathed Kai’s finger, slipping his mouth along it. He took in two, three, sucking on them as though they were Kai’s cock, as though they would give him the come he desired.
“Suho,” Kai said, his voice rough.
It was tease enough, it seemed, so Suho let those slick fingers go, took to his knees and pleased his master very well.
And it was only after he had licked Kai’s cock clean that Kai pulled him back, pulled him until Suho rested against Kai’s body on the bed and Kai could get his hands into Suho’s pants. He was hard, so hard from the pleasure he’d given Kai that he almost bleated as Kai touched him.
“Kai!”
It had been what he had always wanted, and yet still he tensed as Kai gripped him, where he was still hard.
“You fill me so full of need,” Kai said, and at Suho’s half sigh, he growled. “Yes. Your body is the same.”
His eyes were unseeing as Kai stroked him quickly, skin against skin, what little wet there was. But he came, frightfully quick and braced against Kai’s body.
If he’d been without his clothes, he could have felt Kai’s skin against his, but Kai still cupped his cock and kept him close.
“Do you enjoy that?” Kai wondered.
“I wished,” he said, and was cut off as Kai kissed his neck. But then the words would not leave him.
“Wished for what? For this? Me to touch you after?”
“It felt like too much to hope for,” Suho said. And even then, he hoped that Kai did not take him as being too forward. His pleasure in their encounters was a gift, not a given.
“Then you do not know how- To find you wanting after pleasing me, to know you swallow my seed and enjoy my body? Your body rises when you are beneath me, and I feel more of a man.” Kai spoke against Suho’s ear, and breathed. “To feel your need for me in my hand, between my lips. Know I need it.”
It sent shivers against his spine as Kai drew him closer, turned him until they faced each other.. He lifted Kai’s hand, the one that had touched him, and kissed the back of it. It turned and he kissed Kai’s palm, tasting salt and skin. And Kai stroked his hair as they drowsed together, Kai’s arm behind his back holding him close. No heat nor sweat would have driven him from that embrace.
***
Sehun knew of Suho’s plan, but that was only because it could not have been accomplished without him. It was not truly a vision that called Suho into action, but a dream, a dream that Kai stood in the shadows of the temple, watching Suho as he blessed the water. It was not the temple Kai was there for, not the blessing of it, but for Suho. He’d stood so quiet in the dream as Suho went to him, tugging at Suho’s robes as though to say he did not know why he was dressed so. The Suho of Kai’s tent did not dress in slick fabric, gauzy and cool. He woke, just before Kai leaned to kiss him.
And dressed in those slick robes which had been put in a box to one day be used as rags, Suho knelt and offered his master his wine, bowed low and close the floor as though Kai were a patron of the temple. It lowered him, and he did not realize how much until then. Kai did not demand he kneel or bow so close to the ground or never to raise his eyes.
“What is this?” Kai asked. But from Suho’s hands, he took the cup. “Suho? Those clothes are from the temple.”
He rose from the floor just enough so that he could speak clearly. “They had not yet been used as rags. I wanted to serve you in them, just for one night.”
“But you do not serve me as you served some patron,” Kai said, and there was irritation starting in his voice. Suho had feared that.
“Please. Master, just for one night. Let me.”
That he invoked Kai’s position over him, he could tell that he had gotten Kai’s attention.
“For now,” Kai said with some doubt. “You bring me wine, as you would have a patron?”
“Yes, m- Yes, Kai,” Suho said, watching Kai’s knee jerk in front of his face. It made him smile, glad his face was still hidden. “I would bow like this for hours, sometimes. As long as they wanted, unless I went to fetch more food or wine.”
“Did you eat or drink?”
“No,” Suho said. “The wine was for the patrons alone. If we had ever drank any, we would have been severely punished.”
“You have never tasted wine? Surely Sehun has offered you some.”
“Offered, yes, but I refused. He told me that we were allowed a measure.”
“Peculiar. Sit up. I grow weary of talking to your hair,” Kai told him, poking at his head. And when Suho took in Kai’s face, it was amused. “I doubt that’s how your patrons made you sit up.”
“That is true.”
Kai crooked his finger until Suho came closer. Suho inhaled as Kai’s finger dipped into the goblet. And as Kai smiled, Suho’s lips parted. And he tasted. His eyes were closed of a purpose, so that he could savor the wine, the texture of Kai’s finger, and the moan that Suho could only hope for. It was breathy and low, but it was there.
“Well?” Kai asked, when he finally pulled his finger away.
“It is different to the juice I am used to,” Suho said. “But it is good.”
“Yes,” Kai said, and then held out the goblet. “Have more.”
He would. But he wanted closer. It had nothing to do with how he had served the patrons at the temple any more. Kai’s eyes widened steadying Suho at his waist as he placed his knees at each side of Kai’s hips. He both saw and heard Kai swallow, felt power tickle in the back of his throat, and instead of taking the goblet himself he placed his hand around Kai’s.
“Please,” Suho said, and guided the cup to his lips. It was only the smallest of sips, letting the musty-smelling fluid roll across his tongue. He hummed as he swallowed, trying to fully appreciate the taste. Slightly bitter and acidic.
He did not remove his hand from around Kai’s and the goblet, even as Kai drank, and then Suho again. And then he tasted it on Kai’s kiss, Kai’s free hand curling around Suho’s neck and holding him so that he could suck the flavor from Suho’s lips. It was finer than any goblet, Kai’s mouth,and he wondered at the sentiment in that. He needed no goblet, no wine, to want.
“Would you like more?” Suho asked, meeting Kai’s eyes and stroking Kai’s fingers around the cup.
“Yes,” Kai said, his eyes on Suho’s mouth. “But I would drink it from another vessel.”
Suho at last understood his meaning, looking from Kai to the goblet that was being offered. In his mouth he took a little wine, getting close enough to kiss. And from his mouth, Kai drank.
“Yes,” Kai murmured, and tipped more wine into Suho’s mouth, more until it ran the corners of his lips, down his chin to his throat. And the goblet was abandoned to the table, Kai licking clean his skin as Suho panted. His head spun, and not from the wine. Suho caused the rumble against his chin, when he gripped Kai’s shoulders and let his thighs slip wide so that he could rock his hips into Kai’s body.
He caused it. He’d earned it.
Kai had always been in control. He told Suho to kneel, to bend over, to touch himself. Not then. He watched Kai’s eyes nearly crossed, mouth parted. When he did focus, it was on Suho’s face, his mouth, his eyes. Almost as if taking him in, as though being able to see Suho then added to his pleasure.
“Right here,” Suho murmured, and Kai nodded, sighing against Suho’s mouth. “Will you take these from me?”
His robes. It had been Sehun who had carried them away the first time, dressing Suho in the more serviceable clothes he normally wore. He wanted Kai to push them off his shoulders, to bare him for Kai’s eyes alone. Unlike any temple patron, it was because he wanted it.
Suho watched Kai’s face as the cloth parted, watched until he saw that Kai knew that there was no other cloth beneath it.
“Let me bring you pleasure,” Suho said, lifting himself up just enough so that he could look down into Kai’s face.
“In return for what?”
Suho merely smiled, and kissed him. Kissed him, rocked into him, met his moans as he felt Kai grow harder, until the laces were undone and he could feel Kai skin to skin.
But he had another secret, as he lifted himself.
Kai gasped against his lips, and Suho murmured, “I’m ready for you.”
Ready for Kai’s hands to steady him as his body accepted Kai in. The slow rock, lift and fall, the feel of Kai’s hips trying to rise. He was nearly breathless when he could fall no further.
“Suho.”
Yes. Say his name. So that every movement of his body, in Kai’s mind was pleasure being given by Suho alone. Their hips moved together, the rise of Kai’s and the fall of his, undulating in perfect pleasure. He was free of the robes, free to enjoy all of Kai, unencumbered by his past, by his fear. Kai was hard and so urgent, moaning for him, helping him to ride, helping him to feel.
He gathered the utmost of his strength, cupping Kai’s face and trying to focus on his eyes.
“Do you know what makes this different than the temple?” There were so many reasons, but there was one most different from the others - that Kai made Suho want, made him secure. He wanted it, as he had never wanted in the temple, enough to tempt Kai as he had.
Kai’s eyes widened and he moaned. “Suho.”
Cradled in Kai’s arms, filled by him, Suho came between them, his head slipping back in his pleasure as he moaned Kai’s name.
***
Suho did not want Kai to feel threatened by the fabric - it held no meaning any more. But he pressed himself tight to Kai’s side, and watched with Kai as the temple cloth burned. There would be no rags, no remembrance of it, no questions in Kai’s mind as he led Suho to his bed. Suho’s place was not at the temple any longer.
***
Pairing: Kai/Suho
Rating: NC-17 overall
Genre: master/slave!AU, pseudo-historical, fantasy, smut
Warnings: issues of sexual consent, references to past sexual assault, violence, kidnapping, slaves having no ability to say no especially at first, and did I mention issues of consent inherent to master/slave dynamics?
Summary: They spoke of him as though he were nothing more than a treasure found by the roadside. He bowed to his new master because it was polite, and because he knew of nothing else he could do. See warnings.
***
Chapter One * Chapter Two * Chapter Three * Chapter Four * Chapter Five * Chapter Six * Chapter Seven * Chapter Eight
***
Suho got Kai’s breakfast the next morning, watching subtly if he needed anything as he straightened Kai’s bed and prepared for his own day. He waited, hoping for some kind of smile, some kind of acknowledgement of what had happened the night before. It made him want to say something, but he had no idea what. He remembered back to when Sehun had said something about some slaves telling their masters when they wanted. He wondered if he could even be that bold one day, when he discovered again just how things stood between them.
“I’m riding out with my father today, so I won’t be back until nightfall,” Kai told him.
Suho hummed his acknowledgement, not knowing how he should respond given the night before and his thoughts. Kai smiling down at him in his bed.
It nearly had him smiling into the water pail, until Kai came up to him.
“Fuck. Just watching you move this morning. Kneel for me.”
Suho did, staring at the floor as he heard Kai uncap the oil. They wrestled together with Suho’s pants, until they were down far enough for Kai. Kai’s fingers smeared oil but did not press. One moment Suho had been standing, and the next Kai was pressing his slick erection into him. It was slick, there was that. It felt like the first time Kai had taken him, quiet, quicker, without Kai even asking if Suho was ready, if there was pain. There were no words, no kisses, no touches like the night before, just Kai taking what was his. The discomfort became almost numb, and the oil kept him from pain but he braced himself as Kai grunted and came in him.
His shoulders were trembling as Kai pulled from him and stood.
“You did well,” Kai said, his breath labored, a smile tugging at his lips as he touched Suho’s hair. “I’ll be back later.”
Suho had barely scrabbled his pants back up before Kai had pushed out of the tent.
It was Kai’s right to take him however he wanted. Suho knew that. Suho had always known that. He’d done well. It was his duty to do as his master asked, and he’d done well at it. But Kai had barely spoken to him, barely touched him except for the taking, so different than everything since that first week in Kai’s tent. There had been no kisses, no sweet moans of his name or urging Suho to enjoy it. He wasn’t hurt, and he was grateful, but he hated the sick feeling it reminded him of, of being a new slave, afraid, powerless. Kai had reminded him that despite all of the care, he was that same slave that Kai had used at the very start. It had felt like Kai had taught him that there was something more than that, something that had seemed quite beautiful and fragile, and then he had shown Suho again how meaningless it could be.
He didn’t know why he’d expected it, why he’d built it up in his head when he’d known better that it could go back to how it had been before Kai had a thought to Suho’s pleasure. He’d pleased Kai, which on so many days made him happy. He was happy, because Kai was pleased. He was happy.
But he didn’t move. Didn’t move for long minutes, even when Sehun came into the tent. He looked up at Sehun’s sound of alarm.
“I saw Kai leave. Are you okay?”
Suho nodded, still feeling sick.
“Yes.”
Sehun’s hand squeezed his shoulder, crouching beside him. “Did he hurt you?”
Suho shook his head. No. Kai had never hurt him, not like that.
“Then why are you crying?”
Suho swiped at his face with the back of his hand, and it came away wet. “I don’t… I don’t know.”
***
Kai walked to his tent from where he’d left his horse, feeling the rhythm of the ground come back to him. It had been a hard ride, but worth it. They had bartered for a good amount of food, trading away horses and goods. They were things they would need in the wet and cold.
But Kai paused, to see Sehun standing between the tents of his father’s, and his own. Standing as though waiting for him.
“Sehun?”
“Sir,” Sehun said.
“Did you need something?”
“You fought to keep your slave from harm, against your own father.”
“Yes?” Kai said, confused.
“Then why did his tears fall when you left him this morning?”
Sehun ducked into the work tent, leaving Kai standing there alone, mystified.
Kai walked into his own tent, seeing immediately that Suho had heard of their return since food was being set at the low table. It was an apprehensive smile that touched Kai’s face. Usually Suho would greet him, ask if he needed anything after his day and make him comfortable. Instead, Suho stood quiet as he had far before they’d gotten used to each other.
Suho poured him water into the goblet, and Kai stared up at him.
“Do you need anything else?” Suho asked.
“Not now,” Kai said.
Suho did not move stiffly, as though injured, but he moved very deliberately as though he felt Kai’s eyes on him. He did not sit to eat, probably having had his meal already. Sometimes Suho would ask how the ride had been. Or Suho stayed near until Kai would ask Suho to tell him of his day. Something was definitely wrong. Kai put it from his mind as he ate, but as he finished, he saw the look of stubborn concentration on Suho’s face as he sewed.
“Suho, come here,” Kai said, and rose, stepping out to wait the mere moments it took for Suho to stand in front of him. Kai ran his hands over Suho’s shoulders, squeezing at them. No matter Sehun’s words, he had to wonder if something happened during the day. “Have you been hurt?”
He could actually see Suho thinking about it, shaking his head in confusion. “No?”
“Your day wasn’t troubling?”
“No, Master, the day was fine,” Suho said, and his voice was so stiff, so precise.
Suho the night before had smiled at him. Suho in front of him would not even lift his head to look at him. Suho had cried after he had left, Sehun had said. It angered him that he didn’t know why.
“Tell me what’s troubling you,” Kai said, putting some force in it so that Suho would answer him. “Was it me? Did I hurt you this morning? Tell me.”
Suho didn’t cringe but he did close his eyes. Kai inhaled deeply in lieu of shaking Suho or commanding him to speak, and in only another moment more Suho opened his eyes and stared at Kai’s chest.
“You had never taken me like that before, without allowing me time,” Suho said, his words halting.
“Then I did hurt you.”
“No! You surprised me. My body is used to you. My mind-“
Suho had been standing there, soft eyed, soft mouthed, and all Kai had been able to think of was Suho moaning his name. Suho had never refused him. But Suho did not speak of refusing him.
“Then I was too quick,” Kai reasoned.
“No.”
“Suho. Your riddles give me no answers. What do you mean?”
“You said kneel, and you took,” Suho said, his voice measured and controlled, even as his hands balled together. “Without making sure I was ready. Without saying anything. Anything.”
“What would you have had me say?” Kai asked, mystified. “I was to be riding out the whole of the day, and my mind was full of bedding you the night before. I couldn’t ride out with my father with my cock upright, able only to think of my slave. I had only minutes before I had to leave. I had no time to coax you.”
“I am your slave. I need no coaxing,” Suho said.
Kai laughed, because he had no idea what else to do. “Apparently you do. Tell me what I should have said. Tell me what would have eased your mind since I didn’t hurt your body. Suho.”
“They are things not said between master and slave.”
“I don’t care. Tell me.”
“That you needed too much to wait. That you had no time. Could I help you. Was I ready for you.” And Suho shook his head violently. “You needed no permission or to ask if I was ready. It was your right to use me as a thing, like you did when I first arrived. However, whenever, you wish.”
And Suho had finally said it, the part that had bothered him. Kai heard it on the way Suho said “thing” as though it were dirty. As though Kai had used him as though he were a comb, or his fork. A thing he could pick up and use at will, and discard alone until he was ready for it again.
Kai’s hand grasped harder at Suho’s shoulder.
“You are not a thing to me. You are not,” he said, when Suho’s head ducked. “You are the closest thing I have had to a friend in a slave, besides Sehun, and I have known him since we were children. I have asked you before if you were slick enough, if it pained you. You know I want no harm to come to you. Would you have turned me away if I had asked this morning?”
Suho shook his head. “No. I could not have.”
Could not have. No. A slave could be beaten for turning away his master, and Suho had seen the ugliness of beating in his father’s tents. Kai pressed his lips together. “Perhaps. But would you have felt…used? If I had asked you to kneel and told you that my time was short, but that I would return to take you in my bed again. If you were ready.”
“No,” Suho said. “I would not have felt used.”
“My time being short was not apology. It was regret. That fuck was only part of the need I have for you,” Kai said, and it was some kind of confession. He needed more than just the pleasure Suho’s body could bring, and in some ways that frightened him. He would not have been looked down upon for allowing affection for a slave, but there were limits even then. He had not even thought of how Suho would react, had assumed that between them things were unspoken. It turned out that Kai was the fool, and whether he had hurt Suho’s body or not, it didn’t matter. Slave or not, he wanted and needed Suho to trust him. Trust, respect, loyalty. They could not be ordered, only earned or lost.
But he knew there were more things he needed to say, things that were not his entitlement to Suho’s body, even as his face flushed in something like shame.
“Would you forgive me for thinking only of my own needs?” Kai asked.
“You don’t need-“
“I want it,” he pressed. And realized that sounding as though he demanded it would not get him it willingly. “When you can give it. But you have my word. It will not happen like that again.”
Suho nodded slowly, his acceptance of Kai’s words. Kai watched as his lips pressed together, parting again and closing, as though he wanted to speak and was thinking better of it.
“Is there something you want to say? Speak freely.”
Most slaves would not have spoken as Suho had already. But as exasperated as Suho had sometimes made him, he would not have changed that.
“If you find your want rises when the time is short, I would have you do as you wish to me. I would be prepared for that now. You should not ignore your needs, or put them off. Or find another person, another slave, to sate them with.”
“There will not be another slave,” Kai said, hoping to quell Suho’s worries on that. “You don’t have to agree to my every whim in fear of that.”
Some masters shared their slaves, and Kai imagined a man walking into his tent, forcing Suho to kneel for someone else on Kai’s command.
He merely snorted as he ran his fingers down the soft skin of Suho’s cheek. As though he could allow it. As though another man touching Suho with Kai’s consent would ever happen.
“No one else. Look at me,” Kai said, and waited for Suho’s eyes to lift. “No one else.”
Suho absorbing that before speaking. “I understand.”
Understood, not agreed, or was glad. It sent insecurity shifting through him.
“Is there someone else? Someone you desire? I know Sehun has his merchant, but-“ He could see he’d startled Suho with that knowledge. “Yes, I know of them. Sehun has been with my father’s tents most of his life. Most of mine. He’s loyal and hardworking, and he deserves the happiness he can have.”
“Would your father beat him for…?”
“I don’t think so. But he would forbid it. A merchant could sway Sehun’s loyalty, inflate prices. Sehun brightens when he speaks of him.”
It almost embarrassed Kai to say it, the fondness in his voice. He had not meant to share so much, show so much. But Suho knowing he spoke to Sehun, was close to him, was not something he was unhappy about. It was a secret perhaps he should not have kept. It did not weaken him.
“He does become happy at the thought of seeing his merchant,” Suho said, his fingertips brushing above Kai’s tunic, and at his collarbones. His eyes rose, gaze steady. “There is no one else I desire. I promise you that is truth. Only you.”
Kai’s breath nearly stopped in his chest, eyes going wide, mouth opening to breathe as he took all of Suho in, lifting his hand to cup Suho’s face. That morning he had caused Suho’s tears. That night, he had the possibility of replacing them with something better. It was not a master that took him without regard that Suho needed - that Suho wanted. He could be that man for Suho.
“Can I show you what plagued me this morning and made me want?”
“Yes,” Suho said, his bowed lips parted, gaze on Kai’s mouth.
And he pressed it against Suho’s, kissed him as he had wanted to every time he closed his eyes. Suho leaned into him, mouth opening for him. Kissing him. Desiring him. Suho was not a thing, and even if he was a slave he was a man with wants, and dislikes, and feelings. Feelings Kai had trampled, after Suho had given him something very precious. And even after that, Suho looked at him with such hope like he felt Kai would redeem himself. He’d open his ears, next time, his eyes.
A sound not unlike pain left him. Desire to do everything at once. Kiss Suho. Kiss his body, his skin, where he was hardest and wanting. He wanted to turn Suho and take him. To take him on his back with slow kisses. To pull Suho above him and know Suho in him as well.
Suho desired him. He had not asked Suho to tell him that. Suho had told him willingly.
“Come to my bed,” he said, voice rough as he tore his lips from Suho’s. But it was far from command.
Suho nodded, mouth wet. “Yes.”
Suho’s hands were on him as they lowered onto Kai’s furs. Not tentative or wary, but touches full of hunger across Kai’s shoulders, his chest. There was no wariness in his eyes, or anger, examining Kai’s face like he was someone strange, somehow foreign. He felt Suho moan against his lips, sucked against the soft skin of his jaw, his throat.
“I burn with need of you,” Kai said, the words torn from him because he could not keep them deep.
Let Suho use that need, that knowledge, exploit it.
“You don’t have to…Oh.”
Kai lifted his mouth from Suho’s neck. “Yes, I do. If it makes you make sounds like that. Because my Suho knows what he wants and what he doesn’t want. He knows how to tell his master what he likes.”
They were tangled together, Kai pulling Suho half on top of him.
“And every so often he wants his master,” Kai murmured. “Because that is not something he can hide. Am I right?”
Suho leaned down into him, his hair gleaming red in the low light.
“Yes,” Suho murmured against his mouth. “I am slick already, ready for you.”
Kai gaped up at him, and Suho’s lips twisted, sheepish.
“When I knew you were back, I prepared myself. In case-“
“In case my want and impatience overrode my good sense,” Kai said. “Again.”
Suho moved his head into Kai’s hand like a contented cat.
“It was this I hoped for.”
Kai rolled Suho again, pinning him. “It is this I waited for,” Kai told him. “Call me Kai, as you have before. Not in front of others, except maybe Sehun. But in this tent you have full use of my name.”
And it was to Suho’s moans that he took him. Suho grasping at his hair and skin to keep him close, Suho kissing his lips, his face.
“Kai,” Suho pleaded, as Kai touched him.
He could not last long in the slick warmth, hips straining for more as Suho gave to him, kissed him, moaned for him.
“You are mine,” Kai moaned, his lips dragging across Suho’s skin. He pressed close until they were nose to nose with Suho looking at him, half-blind with need. “Suho, you are mine.”
“Yes,” Suho agreed.
“And I… am yours.”
Suho drew a noisy breath, and cried out, his eyes squeezing closed as he came over Kai’s fingers. He was gorgeous, desperate and full of life. His.
“Kai,” Suho chanted as he drew breath. “Kai.”
And Kai emptied himself in Suho’s body.
***
Suho began to squirm, and it lifted Kai from his stupor.
“No,” he complained, not certain exactly what he was demanding an end to.
“The light,” Suho said, his hand on Kai’s arm. “I should straighten up.”
Suho leaving him as he had the night before, going to his pallet and leaving him cold. He had such a vague memory of falling asleep against Suho the night he had stolen Suho’s bed. It had risen in his mind at times when he had woken in the night, cold.
“No,” Kai said again. “I’ll help you.”
He said the last almost amused as Suho gaped at him as Kai rolled to the edge of the bed.
Even if helping meant emptying his bladder as Suho checked the flaps of the tent and blew out the far light. Kai waited, patiently, watching the lines of Suho’s body and shadows playing over it. He gleamed as he approached Kai again, by the last light that still shone.
“Thank you for your help,” Suho said, a smile touching his face.
“For my favorite slave,” Kai said.
The only of his tent. That, too.
“Come back into my bed with me, if you would,” Kai asked.
It was with a nod almost embarrassed that Suho agreed. Perhaps he wondered if Kai still hungered for him. But that was not the case, as Kai extinguished the light and nudged Suho ahead of him beneath the covers.
He pressed his nose into the back of Suho’s hair and smelled sweat, and musk, and sex, and his body was warm against Suho’s back.
He stroked the skin beneath Suho’s ribs and felt his consciousness waver.
“Suho,” he sighed, and reached down to grasp Suho’s forearm. Perhaps he would divine that Kai desired only to sleep against him. For a little while. Just to feel that warmth a little longer.
***
A noise woke Suho, feeling unnaturally warm and heavy and knowing why without even thinking of it. He could hear Kai’s deep and even breaths behind his head, an arm loose over his ribs. Suho opened one eye experimentally, moving his head toward the sound. His mouth parted at the sight of Sehun who raised a finger to his lips, holding out his other hand and telling Suho wordlessly that he should stay.
A moment later, he gasped, as Kai said, “That was Sehun?”
Suho nodded. “Yes. He comes in if I do not go to him first.”
“I must sleep deeply, then, or you are prompt to wake.”
“Both,” Suho mused.
But not that morning. Lulled by the heat of Kai’s body, he thought, or the comfort of Kai’s bed. Kai pulled him back, closer, and the kisses to Suho’s throat had him sighing. Kai’s mouth was incredibly…incredible.
“You should see yourself like this,” Kai said, touching Suho’s face. “You flush so easily. You were sweaty again. Perhaps we should bathe in the pond together again tonight.”
“We’ll wear out the water,” Suho joked.
Kai just grinned as he stood, leaving Suho dazed for a moment. He should have stopped Kai, stood before him. But Kai was there to greet him as he rose, a kiss pressed against his mouth as Suho’s arm curved around Kai’s neck. He startled himself, almost drawing away because of a touch he’d had no permission to give.
But Kai stopped him, drawing him closer.
“Touch me as you wish,” Kai offered. “Only as you wish. It pleases me.”
“Yes,” Suho said. “Kai.”
Kai smiled and it had Suho looking away before whatever was inside of him could twist out of control.
Kai lifted his chin, waiting until Suho met his eyes. “Yes, I like that. Subservience doesn’t suit you. Sometimes I look at you and see a general who should be in command. Don’t laugh at me.”
Suho’s lips trembled. “I would never laugh at my master. But Kai is being exceptionally humorous this morning.”
When Kai huffed, pulling him close as though to kiss him, Suho pressed his hand against Kai’s collarbone.
“Sehun will be back soon if I do not go, and I need to fetch your breakfast. And mine.”
But Kai still succeeded in pressing a kiss to his mouth, before letting Suho go. It was awkward, a little, dressing and feeling Kai’s eyes on him.
“Come to find me after your morning chores,” Kai suggested.
“I will,” Suho told him. And he looked back, lowering his head only slightly as he smiled to see Kai standing there still naked and watching him. Suho ducked out of the tent, and felt lighter than he had in months. If only it didn’t change again. If Kai meant what he said.
Though he was so focused on Kai that he didn’t think about what he was to be facing when he saw Sehun. Of course Sehun had known all the times before, but that day? That day Suho’s face flushed hot at Sehun’s knowing smirk.
He cuffed the side of Sehun’s head, and readied the dishes so he could take Kai his breakfast.
“You look happy,” Sehun told him. “The only time I’ve seen you like this before was when Kai gave you that book.”
“It is a beautiful morning,” was all Suho was content to say. At least, until his embarrassment calmed. He felt near to bursting with everything that had happened, and Sehun would be the only one who understood. Still, he thought Sehun might caution him. The caution would be warranted. No matter how much favor Kai showed him, Suho was still his slave.
***
“You spoke?” Sehun asked, almost as soon as Suho settled beside him after breakfast. “And more, I see, but… You look better.”
Suho felt better as well. He’d spent the whole of the previous day after Kai had left wrestling between anger and fear, and telling himself he had no right to it. He’d felt used, discarded, when the night previous to that he had felt cherished. He did not think it was guilt, the way that Kai had touched him, given him permissions he could not have dreamed of. It had been Kai’s right, and they could not have denied that. It was Suho’s feelings regarding it that had been the issue, and those Kai had heard. Suho had almost seen him absorbing, understanding in some way even if perhaps he had not understood fully. He had listened - and asked. It had been more than Suho had hoped for, but not as much as he had deserved, and still Kai had shown him without words what he truly wanted.
“He heard me. When he saw something was wrong, he listened,” Suho said. Whether it would go back to the way it had been with moments of passion, he didn’t know. He had survived it then, and would find acceptance of it. Everything else would be lukewarm to the want Kai had shown him.
The care. Kai touching his face, and worried for him. That above all else he wanted to believe.
“It is good that he did. You did not see your face yesterday,” Sehun said, shaking his head. “He needed to know something was wrong.”
“I thought a lot about those tears,” Suho mused. “I was afraid that… I was afraid that he would treat me like a slave again. That sounds so odd to say. Perhaps like I perceived a slave to be used? It was a shock, because it had been so different than that. But now, I don’t know if it is usual for a slave to share his master’s bed. Though it has only happened once.”
“Kai feels very deeply. If he wants you in his bed, he will have you there. He wanted to know you were pleased by your encounters, and he cared for your wellbeing.”
“But?” Suho asked, hearing Sehun hesitate.
“You are right to say it was only once. He may not always desire it. I think he is still discovering what he wants from you. If he wished you to sleep beside him night by night, would you want it? Or do you prefer sleeping alone?”
“His bed is comfortable,” Suho ventured, making Sehun laugh. But his smile was quick. “No. I would… I would find it agreeable. We came to an understanding, so I would be glad sleeping alone as long as that understanding stays.”
“Then he has finally made you understand he wants you as more than a body.”
“He is not alone in that.”
“I am glad. He needed someone like you. Someone who could challenge him, make him more. I think you make him see slaves differently. I think you show him how to be a better man.”
“He was never a bad man. He just did not understand a slave cannot- He did not fully understand his power.”
“Yes,” Sehun said, looking pleased. “It was not something I could teach him, as someone raised beside him, because he did not ask those things of me. You deserved a master also who could realize it. A lover who could realize it.”
“He would not think of himself that way,” Suho said, his face flushing and words coming hard, nearly stuttering. “I could not.”
“Yes. I should not have- We will see how time may pass.”
That, they could agree on.
***
There was apprehension, but there was not fear when Suho waited for Kai to return that evening. Mere hours apart would not have changed things, but Kai had stroked his shoulder as he had left, and it had made Suho warm even as he warned himself of reading too much into it. Kai could have simply still been coddling him. But Kai did not enter the tent only to sit with his ledgers, he looked to Suho, his face brightening in greeting. And Suho hadn’t been able to be still, even before Kai’s hand had risen to bid him near. It was not a kiss but a clasp of bodies, a greeting as Suho breathed into Kai’s shoulder.
He opened his mouth to ask if there was anything that Kai needed, and instead said, “It is good to have you home.”
Kai stroked along his back, murmuring something unintelligible and Suho trembled inside. It was the dinner bell that parted them, moments later, and Suho slipped away in wordless nerves, returning with his food and Kai’s, and eating quickly. His stomach ached, but it was worth it to sit at Kai’s knee and watch him do sums.
Suho cleared his throat and when Kai looked up, Suho held his fingertip beside a number and kept it there as Kai blinked down at it, and blinked down again. And then Kai laughed, correcting the six to a five.
“That was very subtle,” Kai said.
“I thought so. You would not like it if I went back when you were sleeping to change your numbers.”
“I would worry. Have you seen others wrong but just never said?”
Suho shook his head. “I would have shown you somehow.”
Somehow, even if it had meant risking Kai’s anger. He had not feared then, had not feared even if he had spoken aloud, but it was Kai’s response that had amused him, and made him glad.
And Kai took him to his bed and kissed him, helped him with the oil until Suho’s body was slick, and eager, his mind ready and clear, and Kai tugged the cloth from him, baring him, hands sprawling over his skin. Kai’s lips were soft, sucking on Suho’s tongue as he squeezed Suho’s ass as though he thought of what he would do to him. He followed Kai, straddled his hips and kept kissing him, rocking his cock against Kai’s in such delicious friction. He felt more of a man like that, the way they touched, the way Kai let him touch instead of a vessel to be taken.
“Let me see you,” Kai said, and Suho rose, panting, his lips throbbing as Kai took him in from his knees to the hardness of his cock to his heaving chest. He reached, touching the dark water drop on Suho’s inner thigh. “You were going to explain this to me.”
It was a tale that needed to be told close, and not so exposed. Suho bent low over Kai’s chest, feeling Kai’s hands on his sides. He had not intended to, but nor could he keep it from Kai when he asked directly, and it comforted him to be near. Kai’s father, perhaps, would be angry, but he did not think that Kai would be.
“I was marked when they found the Sight in me.”
Kai accepted that, not throwing Suho onto the floor immediately, but still Suho fretted inside as Kai thought.
“You never told me.”
“Sehun-“ Suho stopped, horrified that he might be getting his friend in trouble. “Sehun told me that often if bad things occur after a vision, people with the Sight are blamed for calling it. So I held my tongue.”
“That’s true,” Kai agreed. “I am glad he cautioned you for your own safety. You are more than I imagined. Little temple worker, full of fire. Water is your element?”
“I See better in places of water, though I can See without it, or with as little as a bowl of it. It is not usually as strong though, unless the vision is very powerful.”
“I see.”
Suho let his breath release, when it still seemed that Kai was not angry.
“I also did not speak of it, because you said… You said that you were the only temple at which I would worship.”
“Surely I would not have said such an arrogant thing,” Kai teased, making Suho smile. “But the visions are part of you, unrelated to place or allegiance. Do you See often?”
Suho shook his head. “No. Sometimes I can control it. In these tents, at first I lost sight of myself except for small things. When I became more secure, it began to come back to me. You know now why I know to prepare for rain.”
“They are just visions, though. Or knowledge of weather.”
Suho nodded, leaning his hand into Kai’s hand. “Yes. I have no magic of my own but for the visions. Water is comforting to me. That you kissed me there, in the pond…”
“It was meant, then,” Kai said, and pulled at him.
They were not in water then, but he lowered his head and softened his lips for Kai’s kiss.
***
It was not every night, sleeping at Kai’s side. When Suho greeted Kai at his horse with a smile, Kai had tugged him inside for eager kisses. Kai was gentle cupping his head, helping Suho to suck his cock, praising him. Those nights, Suho slept alone, licking his lips clean and stroking himself on his pallet as Kai slept. It was the nights that Kai stripped him, covered him, held him as they both panted and shuddered with pleasure that Kai had brought them both to. Suho did not protest, and Kai did not keep him from rising to shutter the lights, though sometimes Kai sat up and waited, holding out a hand in silent command until Suho rested back against his side. He slept better then, warmer, the bed softer, the possessive hand or arm Kai had on him a comfort. Kai asked more questions, not to excess, but he still asked. It was not even for permission, not outright, though that was what it was in truth. Suho wondered what Kai would do if he refused him. Suho had not had to or wanted to.
Suho watched for Kai, for his cock to harden or his eyes to wander across Suho’s body. It made it so easy to move closer, to angle his body in offering until Kai met his eyes and Suho smiled at him.
Kai grasped the back of his head and pulled him up into his kiss, almost punishing in its eagerness. The squeeze of his hands, the roll of his body, the wet of his mouth. Kai made him want. Kai asked for his want. He let out a startled little moan as Kai pressed hard kisses across his cheekbone and jaw.
“All I want when you leave is to see you back, and bare, and against me,” Kai said, taking Suho’s ear between his teeth for a moment.
“I would not turn from you,” Suho breathed, grinning as Kai laughed.
And when Kai’s fingertip touched Suho’s lips as they both breathed, he knew exactly what he wanted to do. Kai was admiring him, how well he’d been kissed, and Suho wanted something more - to take Kai’s finger in his mouth, to suck upon it as their eyes met. And then reap the pleasure as Kai’s mouth parted.
Suho lathed Kai’s finger, slipping his mouth along it. He took in two, three, sucking on them as though they were Kai’s cock, as though they would give him the come he desired.
“Suho,” Kai said, his voice rough.
It was tease enough, it seemed, so Suho let those slick fingers go, took to his knees and pleased his master very well.
And it was only after he had licked Kai’s cock clean that Kai pulled him back, pulled him until Suho rested against Kai’s body on the bed and Kai could get his hands into Suho’s pants. He was hard, so hard from the pleasure he’d given Kai that he almost bleated as Kai touched him.
“Kai!”
It had been what he had always wanted, and yet still he tensed as Kai gripped him, where he was still hard.
“You fill me so full of need,” Kai said, and at Suho’s half sigh, he growled. “Yes. Your body is the same.”
His eyes were unseeing as Kai stroked him quickly, skin against skin, what little wet there was. But he came, frightfully quick and braced against Kai’s body.
If he’d been without his clothes, he could have felt Kai’s skin against his, but Kai still cupped his cock and kept him close.
“Do you enjoy that?” Kai wondered.
“I wished,” he said, and was cut off as Kai kissed his neck. But then the words would not leave him.
“Wished for what? For this? Me to touch you after?”
“It felt like too much to hope for,” Suho said. And even then, he hoped that Kai did not take him as being too forward. His pleasure in their encounters was a gift, not a given.
“Then you do not know how- To find you wanting after pleasing me, to know you swallow my seed and enjoy my body? Your body rises when you are beneath me, and I feel more of a man.” Kai spoke against Suho’s ear, and breathed. “To feel your need for me in my hand, between my lips. Know I need it.”
It sent shivers against his spine as Kai drew him closer, turned him until they faced each other.. He lifted Kai’s hand, the one that had touched him, and kissed the back of it. It turned and he kissed Kai’s palm, tasting salt and skin. And Kai stroked his hair as they drowsed together, Kai’s arm behind his back holding him close. No heat nor sweat would have driven him from that embrace.
***
Sehun knew of Suho’s plan, but that was only because it could not have been accomplished without him. It was not truly a vision that called Suho into action, but a dream, a dream that Kai stood in the shadows of the temple, watching Suho as he blessed the water. It was not the temple Kai was there for, not the blessing of it, but for Suho. He’d stood so quiet in the dream as Suho went to him, tugging at Suho’s robes as though to say he did not know why he was dressed so. The Suho of Kai’s tent did not dress in slick fabric, gauzy and cool. He woke, just before Kai leaned to kiss him.
And dressed in those slick robes which had been put in a box to one day be used as rags, Suho knelt and offered his master his wine, bowed low and close the floor as though Kai were a patron of the temple. It lowered him, and he did not realize how much until then. Kai did not demand he kneel or bow so close to the ground or never to raise his eyes.
“What is this?” Kai asked. But from Suho’s hands, he took the cup. “Suho? Those clothes are from the temple.”
He rose from the floor just enough so that he could speak clearly. “They had not yet been used as rags. I wanted to serve you in them, just for one night.”
“But you do not serve me as you served some patron,” Kai said, and there was irritation starting in his voice. Suho had feared that.
“Please. Master, just for one night. Let me.”
That he invoked Kai’s position over him, he could tell that he had gotten Kai’s attention.
“For now,” Kai said with some doubt. “You bring me wine, as you would have a patron?”
“Yes, m- Yes, Kai,” Suho said, watching Kai’s knee jerk in front of his face. It made him smile, glad his face was still hidden. “I would bow like this for hours, sometimes. As long as they wanted, unless I went to fetch more food or wine.”
“Did you eat or drink?”
“No,” Suho said. “The wine was for the patrons alone. If we had ever drank any, we would have been severely punished.”
“You have never tasted wine? Surely Sehun has offered you some.”
“Offered, yes, but I refused. He told me that we were allowed a measure.”
“Peculiar. Sit up. I grow weary of talking to your hair,” Kai told him, poking at his head. And when Suho took in Kai’s face, it was amused. “I doubt that’s how your patrons made you sit up.”
“That is true.”
Kai crooked his finger until Suho came closer. Suho inhaled as Kai’s finger dipped into the goblet. And as Kai smiled, Suho’s lips parted. And he tasted. His eyes were closed of a purpose, so that he could savor the wine, the texture of Kai’s finger, and the moan that Suho could only hope for. It was breathy and low, but it was there.
“Well?” Kai asked, when he finally pulled his finger away.
“It is different to the juice I am used to,” Suho said. “But it is good.”
“Yes,” Kai said, and then held out the goblet. “Have more.”
He would. But he wanted closer. It had nothing to do with how he had served the patrons at the temple any more. Kai’s eyes widened steadying Suho at his waist as he placed his knees at each side of Kai’s hips. He both saw and heard Kai swallow, felt power tickle in the back of his throat, and instead of taking the goblet himself he placed his hand around Kai’s.
“Please,” Suho said, and guided the cup to his lips. It was only the smallest of sips, letting the musty-smelling fluid roll across his tongue. He hummed as he swallowed, trying to fully appreciate the taste. Slightly bitter and acidic.
He did not remove his hand from around Kai’s and the goblet, even as Kai drank, and then Suho again. And then he tasted it on Kai’s kiss, Kai’s free hand curling around Suho’s neck and holding him so that he could suck the flavor from Suho’s lips. It was finer than any goblet, Kai’s mouth,and he wondered at the sentiment in that. He needed no goblet, no wine, to want.
“Would you like more?” Suho asked, meeting Kai’s eyes and stroking Kai’s fingers around the cup.
“Yes,” Kai said, his eyes on Suho’s mouth. “But I would drink it from another vessel.”
Suho at last understood his meaning, looking from Kai to the goblet that was being offered. In his mouth he took a little wine, getting close enough to kiss. And from his mouth, Kai drank.
“Yes,” Kai murmured, and tipped more wine into Suho’s mouth, more until it ran the corners of his lips, down his chin to his throat. And the goblet was abandoned to the table, Kai licking clean his skin as Suho panted. His head spun, and not from the wine. Suho caused the rumble against his chin, when he gripped Kai’s shoulders and let his thighs slip wide so that he could rock his hips into Kai’s body.
He caused it. He’d earned it.
Kai had always been in control. He told Suho to kneel, to bend over, to touch himself. Not then. He watched Kai’s eyes nearly crossed, mouth parted. When he did focus, it was on Suho’s face, his mouth, his eyes. Almost as if taking him in, as though being able to see Suho then added to his pleasure.
“Right here,” Suho murmured, and Kai nodded, sighing against Suho’s mouth. “Will you take these from me?”
His robes. It had been Sehun who had carried them away the first time, dressing Suho in the more serviceable clothes he normally wore. He wanted Kai to push them off his shoulders, to bare him for Kai’s eyes alone. Unlike any temple patron, it was because he wanted it.
Suho watched Kai’s face as the cloth parted, watched until he saw that Kai knew that there was no other cloth beneath it.
“Let me bring you pleasure,” Suho said, lifting himself up just enough so that he could look down into Kai’s face.
“In return for what?”
Suho merely smiled, and kissed him. Kissed him, rocked into him, met his moans as he felt Kai grow harder, until the laces were undone and he could feel Kai skin to skin.
But he had another secret, as he lifted himself.
Kai gasped against his lips, and Suho murmured, “I’m ready for you.”
Ready for Kai’s hands to steady him as his body accepted Kai in. The slow rock, lift and fall, the feel of Kai’s hips trying to rise. He was nearly breathless when he could fall no further.
“Suho.”
Yes. Say his name. So that every movement of his body, in Kai’s mind was pleasure being given by Suho alone. Their hips moved together, the rise of Kai’s and the fall of his, undulating in perfect pleasure. He was free of the robes, free to enjoy all of Kai, unencumbered by his past, by his fear. Kai was hard and so urgent, moaning for him, helping him to ride, helping him to feel.
He gathered the utmost of his strength, cupping Kai’s face and trying to focus on his eyes.
“Do you know what makes this different than the temple?” There were so many reasons, but there was one most different from the others - that Kai made Suho want, made him secure. He wanted it, as he had never wanted in the temple, enough to tempt Kai as he had.
Kai’s eyes widened and he moaned. “Suho.”
Cradled in Kai’s arms, filled by him, Suho came between them, his head slipping back in his pleasure as he moaned Kai’s name.
***
Suho did not want Kai to feel threatened by the fabric - it held no meaning any more. But he pressed himself tight to Kai’s side, and watched with Kai as the temple cloth burned. There would be no rags, no remembrance of it, no questions in Kai’s mind as he led Suho to his bed. Suho’s place was not at the temple any longer.
***