Kyuhyun is lying in bed, staring up at the vaulted ceiling of Sungmin’ bedroom with half-lidded eyes.

Even though his healing coma is over, he doesn’t want to move. The blankets are so warm and soft, and it smells so nice. Kyuhyun wonders if Sungmin smells this way naturally or if he uses some sort of magic cologne.

He snuggles into his pillow and hopes for a few more minutes of this. It’s paradise. He never wants to leave.

There’s a tentative knock on the door.

Kyuhyun groans, rolling over and dropping his face right into the center of the pillow. Maybe if he doesn’t respond, the knock will just go away.

Another knock. Louder this time.

So much for that particular strategy.

“Five more minutes,” Kyuhyun says petulantly. He’s vaguely aware that his voice is muffled by fluffy down, but he doesn't care.

There’s a pause outside.

“Hello? Mister... Demon? Sir? You in there?” a reedy voice says.

Kyuhyun lifts his head. It’s the awkward magician from the workroom, with the glasses and the microscopes. Damn. Kyuhyun can’t remember his name.

“Hello, er, Sungmin’ fellow magician – associate – colleague,” Kyuhyun tries valiantly. “Mr. Demon speaking.”

“Right, uh,” Sungmin’ fellow magician-associate-colleague laughs nervously. “I’m Eunhyuk, we met earlier?”

“Eunhyuk, yes, that’s it,” Kyuhyun mutters to himself. He figures he might as well introduce himself again, too. Being referred to as ‘Mr. Demon’ when you’ve led armies and built nations is a bit disconcerting. “Hello, Eunhyuk. My full demonic title is Cho Kyuhyun Marco As you are an associate of Sungmin, however, you may call me Kyuhyun.”

“Oh, uh, Thank you.” Eunhyuk seems to awkwardly shuffle outside the door, judging on the sound of shoes scuffing the wooden floor. “Mr. Kyuhyun, Sungmin sent me up here to call you down to the workroom. We just finished deactivating all your assassin’s spells, so.”

Kyuhyun hums. Having another magician ask him to do something is a bit odd. “Why didn’t Sungmin come and get me himself?”

“He’s... fine,” Eunhyuk says carefully. That gets Kyuhyun’s full attention. “Nothing permanent, but, you see, he’s a little, uh, incapacitated at the moment – ”

Kyuhyun shoots out of bed and rockets out the door, flying past Eunhyuk in a blue blur. He’s down in the workroom ten seconds later.

“Sungmin!” he exclaims, darting up to where Sungmin is collapsed on the floor covered in colorful sigils and grabbing his shoulders. “Are you all right?”

Sungmin is panting heavily and his eyes are tightly closed, but his mouth curls up into a faint smile at the sound of his voice. “I’ll be fine,” he says hoarsely. “I just... need a second. Is zher...?”

Kyuhyun looks up and sees the assassin, lying in a carefully constructed chalk circle a meter away from Sungmin, opening zher eyes.

The same assassin that tried to kill him in his own office.

The same assassin that knifed Jessica.

The same assassin that just hurt Sungmin.

“You blood-sniffing bastard,” Kyuhyun snarls, unsheathing his sharpest claws as he rises to his feet. The air around him crackles with sparks as he roars, “I’m going to rip your ing throat out!”

Zher swings his head in his direction, clouded yellow eyes widening in terror.

Kyuhyun takes deliberate, measured steps towards his target with bloodlust in his fiery eyes and rage in his shaking claws.

Zher scrabbles at the floor with his weak limbs, desperately trying to get away. Kyuhyun can almost taste his fear as he closes in.

“I’m going to enjoy killing you,” Kyuhyun breathes out in a haze of smoke and flame. He wraps a hand over zher’s neck like a vise, relishing his petrified face. “And it will not be over quickly.”

“Kyuhyun,” a quiet, shaky voice pleads. “Stop.”

Kyuhyun doesn’t really hear it over the din in his head. He raises his claws, preparing to stab his sharp claws right through zher and into the floor again and again and again –

“Kyuhyun,” Sungmin cries with a sob. “Stop! Please! Kyu!”

The last shout finally cuts through the noise and zings straight into his mind.

Kyuhyun freezes.

He looks over his shoulder at Sungmin, claws still hanging in midair.

“Sungmin?” he asks, bewildered.

“Don’t,” Sungmin pleads. “Don’t... Kyu  ….he’s... It wasn’t Donghae fault, someone was controlling him, please...”

Kyuhyun blinks. “Wait, Sungmin, did you just call me Kyu?” he asks, completely thrown off by this new development.

“Um, yes?” His eyes flick back to the demon Kyuhyun was about to annihilate. “Kyuhyun, he was a pawn, he doesn’t deserve to die – ”

“But – Sungmin – you called me by my intimate name!” Kyuhyun stares at him, baffled. “When did I – that’s – ”

He shakes his head, trying to clear it of confusion. Damn it all, when did he try to propose? He can’t remember it at all. Maybe it was after Sungmin saved him when he was wounded and delirious? (A/N: When a demon purpose he tells his other half his intimate name)

But more importantly, did Sungmin say yes or no?

“Kyuhyun,” Sungmin says exasperatedly. “Please, can we focus on the matter at hand for a moment, now is not the time for this conversation.”

Kyuhyun clears his throat and tries to compose himself. “Yes, of course, I’m terribly sorry,” he says courteously. “Please continue. You were saying?”

Sungmin heaves a long-suffering sigh while scrubbing his face with a palm, as most humans tend to do when they’re distressed. Kyuhyun thinks it might have something to do with blood pressure or something, but he’s never actually asked. It had never really seemed polite.

“He was being controlled by a powerful magician,” Sungmin finally says in the aggravated tone a professor would use with a particularly irritating student. “So don’t. Kill. Zher.”

Kyuhyun blinks. “Oh,” he says, looking between his raised claws and the trembling assassin he’s gripping by the neck. “Oh. A puppet. Right.”

There’s an uncomfortable silence.

“Well then. This is embarrassing.” Kyuhyun retracts his claws back into fingernails and stretches his hand out for a handshake.

“My apologies,” Kyuhyuns says politely. “Why don’t we start over? Hello, I am Cho Kyuhyun Marco.”

The assassin stares at him in utter astonishment. Kyuhyun carefully keeps his face neutral and non-threatening.

Zher darts a questioning look at Sungmin, who nods.

“I,” Zher stammers nervously. He takes a deep breath before tentatively reaching out to take his hand. “I am Unit Designation 0533F, Codename Donghae.”

Kyuhyun frowns. “Unit...?”

Instinctively, he snatches Donghae’s forearm and turns it over. There, carved in deep cuts, he can clearly read a designation.

Kyuhyun’s face hardens.

A prisoner. Or an experiment. Or both.

“Who did this to you,” he snarls.

Donghae doesn’t respond, just looks at him with wide eyes.

His grip on Donghae’s arm tightens, hard enough to bruise.

“Who. Did this.” He grinds out.

A small, scared noise escapes from the back of Donghae’s throat.

“Kyuhyun,” Sungmin says firmly. “Please. I’ve spoken to Donghae already. Let him be for now.”

He steps up behind Kyuhyun and lays a kind hand over his tight grip.

“Kyu.”

Donghae’s terrified eyes flicker over Kyuhyun’s face, desperately searching for survival. Kyuhyun abruptly notices they’re a deep, molten gold color flecked with black speckles. How striking.

Kyuhyun in a shocked breath. And how childlike. Donghae can’t be more than a fifty-year-old demon-child, not with that amount of speckles ringing around his pupils. He’s practically a newborn.

Sungmin is right.

He peels his fingers off of Donghae’s forearm one by one before stepping back.

“Thank you,” Sungmin says softly. His hand is still resting on top of Kyuhyun’s. It’s comforting.

Kyuhyun can’t look him in the eye.

“Sungmin, I’m not – I need to leave, I have to get everything under control, I’m.” One push away from a mindless berserker massacre, he can’t make himself say.

“I understand,” Sungmin says gently. He unconsciously rubs the pad of his thumb over Kyuhyun’s white knuckles. “Let me know when you’re all right.”

“I will.”

Kyuhyun reluctantly breaks his hand away from Sungmin and sinks through the floor. He rises up into a deep Russian forest on the other side of the world. He needs to tear something apart.

Like that nearby mountain range, for instance.

-

Sungmin rubs at his temples, trying to shake off his horrible headache. He must have gotten it from the psychic journey he took through Donghae’s mind; he’s still caught up in a whirlwind of confusing thoughts and contradicting emotions.

Sighing, he slumps down on the floor next to Donghae.

“Sorry about all that,” Sungmin says apologetically. “I didn’t have a chance to talk to him beforehand to explain things.”

Donghae looks at him with a bit of a smile.

“It’s all right,” Donghae says. His voice is measured and lilting. It’s very calming, just like his cleared mind had been. “I understand. He was just trying to protect his loved ones.”

Sungmin smiles back. “You are truly remarkable.” His smile dims a bit. “It’s astonishing how kind you are, especially given how much you’ve suffered.”

Donghae looks at him inquisitively, cocking his head to the side. Sungmin can almost see he is collecting his thoughts, no doubt sorting through memories nobody would ever want to recall. Donghae’s also studying Sungmin with old eyes – too old for Donghae’s age.

Then Donghae’s golden eyes twinkle, and he says something Sungmin will never forget.

“Suffering does not kill kindness, Lee Sungmin,” Donghae murmurs with the quiet conviction of experience. “If anything, it makes kindness thrive.”

Sungmin stares at Donghae. Donghae keeps surprising him.

He feels close to bursting, with a bubble of mounting admiration expanding in his chest. His throat starts to close up with emotion. He hopes he doesn’t suddenly burst into tears, but he seems to be losing that battle.

“You are, without a doubt, astounding,” he says a bit hoarsely.

Donghae beams at him.

“You see?” Donghae says warmly. “Look at the both of us.”

Sungmin laughs brokenly. Then he gives Donghae a weak, watery smile. He can’t stop a tear or two from escaping. “Yes,” he replies, quickly wiping off his cheeks. “I see.”

“Good,” Donghae says sincerely.

They sit together for a moment, a hush falling over them. They watch dust motes dance in the light like fireflies.

Sungmin somehow feels more at peace than he has in a long time.

Then the silence is broken by the abrupt squeak of the door handle and the creak of its hinges. Sungmin reluctantly turns his head in that direction. He irrationally feels like he’s being interrupted in the middle of something important, even though he’s just sitting silently in one spot, breathing.

Eunhyuk walks through in the opened door, casual as can be, with a steaming cup of coffee in one hand.

“Hey, Sungmin,” he says nonchalantly. He takes a sip of coffee and sits on the edge of the drafting table. “I told Mr. Kyuhyun to come down to the workroom, but then he just flew off. No clue where he went. Kind of a strange guy. Anyway. What did I miss?”

-

Kyuhyun finishes razing the last of the mountain range to the ground in one fell swoop. It’s very satisfying. All the traces of berserker rage are finally gone.

He settles on the top of a fir tree, gazing at the flattened plains around him. There’s not a mountain in sight. Kyuhyun grins. He wonders how the magicians are going to try to explain this one to the press.

Kyuhyun lights a cigarette with his thumb and blows smoke rings. He closes his eyes and reclines like a cat, reflexively winding his tail around the branch underneath him.

What a day.

Well, nobody died, at least. And Sungmin isn’t mad at him. Probably.

Of course, he’ll have to get a new suit immediately. This one is completely ruined. There are huge punctures where the stakes went through him, and blood has stained almost every last inch of it. Can’t go back to Seoul looking like a horror film.

And he should probably give Jessica a raise when he gets back to hell. She definitely deserves it. It’s not every day when your secretary tries to fight off your assassin to save your life, after all.

Most importantly, when he gets back to Seoul, Sungmin and Kyuhyun need to have a conversation about intimate names.

Getting uncontrollable tremors running up his spine from hearing his intimate name come out of Sungmin’ mouth during a serious situation was incredibly distracting. And for ’s sake, Sungmin was calling him Kyu repeatedly in front of Donghae! How mortifying. There is such a thing as privacy, you know.

Kyuhyun shakes his head and stubs out his cigarette on his tongue with a sigh.

Sungmin is worried about him. It would be best to get back soon. Can’t keep him waiting when he’s concerned about Kyuhyun, of all people. That would be awfully inconsiderate.

Kyuhyun blasts out of the fir tree and into the sky with a single beat of his wings.

-

Sungmin sets down bowls of food and milk on the kitchen floor. The cat rubs herself against his leg and meows in thanks. He kneels down to pet her and she purrs contentedly. He wishes it was that easy to take care of everyone else.

Teaching Donghae how to wear clothes and eat properly at the table with Eunhyuk and himself had been a challenge. Donghae kept on accidentally ripping the fabrics with his claws, and then he couldn’t sit in a chair at the table for a full minute without flinching at every sudden movement and crawling under the table in fear.

Sungmin gets the feeling that Donghae was treated more like a pet than a person. An abused pet, at that.

It makes Sungmin pick up the cat and squeeze her to his chest in a sudden hug.

“I love you,” he says into her beautiful orange fur. He remembers when it was matted and coarse, when she first limped up to him. Now her fur is clean and soft, and she never hisses or bares her teeth anymore.

She squawks and squirms in protest, trying to get back to her bowl. Sungmin holds on for another second before relenting and letting her back down.

“Sorry, Mico,” he soothes. She harrumphs at him and returns to her meal.

He smiles down at her.

Taking care of her is the one thing in life he hasn’t messed up yet.

Give it time, he thinks dryly to himself. He stands and goes up to the kitchen’s bay windows. He sits on the dais and watches the sun begin to set, absently picking at a loose thread in his blue sweater.

He wonders for the hundredth time where Kyuhyun went, and if he’s all right.

He doesn’t wonder long.

“Sungmin,” Kyuhyun says from right behind