Epilogue

Finally, after spending several hours giving a much more detailed version of his story than he’d given to Kris, Suho leaned back in his chair and knocked back a glass of water. It was strange, talking so much all at one stretch when he’d been living alone for nearly a month.

Chiron leaned forward and inspected Suho and Kris’s scars. “Well, it looks like you made the right choice, Suho. These scars are the traces of the thread that are embedded in your physical bodies. I think you’ll find some interesting changes, now that you have this powerful magic running through your blood.”

“What kind of changes?” Kris leaned forward in his seat and looked Chiron with curiosity.

“You’ll always be able to know exactly where your other half is, you’ll be able to feel each other’s emotions to a small extent. It shouldn’t hugely affect you two.”

Suho couldn’t speak for a moment, and his eyes filled with tears. “It worked?” he whispered. “It really worked?”

Chiron smiled at him and reached out to pat his knee. “It worked, Suho. Your curse is broken.”

Kris could see Suho biting his lips in an attempt to stop the tears from escaping his eyes, but his heart won out in the end and Suho started crying silently.

Kris reached over and grabbed his hand, trying to comfort him. “Will these scars on our hands ever go away?

Chiron shook his head. “They’ll be there for the rest of your lives.”

They sat in silence for several more minutes, until it became apparent that Suho couldn’t stop crying. Chiron ruffled Suho’s hair affectionately as he stood up. “I’ll give you two some time alone. If he doesn’t stop crying, Kris, come find me and I’ll give him a sedative.” With that, Chiron trotted out of the room to go attend to the rest of the camp, and the two soul mates were left alone in the room.

Suho couldn’t silence his sniffles, and Kris smiled slightly as he got up to grab a box of tissues. “Hey, what’s the matter?” He sat down beside Suho again and gently began wiping his face dry with a tissue. “Shouldn’t you be happy, now that your curse is broken? Why are you crying?”

Suho blinked rapidly in an attempt to stop the tears from flowing. “I-I know. It just…it just seems too good to be true,” he sobbed.

Kris tossed a tissue into the trash and gently cupped Suho’s face in his hands. “But why are you crying? Because it’s too good to be true? Does your hand still hurt? Are you sad? What’s the matter?”

Suho smiled through his tears. “I d-don’t know…the tears just keep coming…”

Kris pressed his lips to his forehead and gently the sides of Suho’s face with his thumbs, but if anything, that made Suho cry even harder.

“I’m sorry,” Suho gasped around his tears. “I really can’t seem to stop crying though…”

Kris smoothed his thumb up the side of Suho’s face one last time before he let his hands fall back into his lap. “Do you want me to ask Chiron for the sedative?”

“N-no,” Suho gasped. “It’ll…it’ll stop soon.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.” Suho rubbed his eyes against the back of his hand. “Ugh…”

Kris just sat back in his chair. Anything he did seemed to make Suho cry harder, so he wasn’t going to try and console him until the tears stopped flowing.

Finally, tears stopped running down Suho’s face, and the small boy blew his nose plaintively into a tissue.

“All done?”

“Yeah.” Suho coughed, and then blew his nose again before throwing the tissue into a trash can. “My eyes feel raw.”

“They are very red.”

Suho rolled his eyes, only to wince slightly at the sensation. “The next time you end up crying for twenty minutes straight, I’ll be equally unsympathetic to your pain.”

“Ah, Suho, you know that I’m worried about you.” Kris reached out and took Suho’s hand again, his eyes carefully searching Suho’s face for any sign that he might start crying again.

Suho smiled slightly. “I know.”

“You know, now that we’re soul mates and all, you’re going to have to open up about your feelings.”

Suho frowned slightly. “But you already know what I’m feeling all the time…”

“No, not always.” Kris began rubbing his thumb in small circles over Suho’s palm. “Definitely not always. Especially when you run away.”

Suho ducked his head, his cheeks flushing in shame. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. Just promise me you’ll try hard, ok?”

“Ok. I promise I’ll try and open up to you more.” Suho smiled shyly at him and closed his palm to squeeze Kris’s fingers. “That means you have to try too.”

“I will. We’ll try together, ok?”

“Ok.” Suho smiled at up him, but then lifted his free hand to cover a yawn.

“Are you tired?”

“Yeah.”

“Come on, let’s get you out of here. You can sleep in your own cabin tonight.” Kris stood up, only for Suho to hesitantly hover on the edge of his seat. “Um…”

“What is it?”

“Can we sleep here?” Suho blurted out nervously. “I don’t…I don’t want to leave your side.”

Kris blinked in surprise. “Here? In this room?”

Suho smiled awkwardly. “Well, there is a bed in here.”

Kris stared at him in silence for a few moments, and Suho prepared himself to reject the idea and head back to their respective cabins when Kris suddenly smiled. “Sure, we can sleep here. Come on.” He pulled Suho out his chair and sat down at the edge of the bed to pull his shoes off. Suho stood in front of him, not totally sure what to do because Kris had actually agreed to sleep next to him, and suddenly he felt very self-conscious about that fact that he probably smelled like sweat and that his clothes were dirty.

Kris kicked his shoes off and got up to unfold the blanket at the end of the bed. “Are you going to take your shoes off?”

Suho kicked his sneakers and socks off before climbing on to the bed and turning on to his side. Kris got on to the bed beside him and then pulled the blanket over the both of them, carefully making sure that Suho was completely covered before leaning back to stare up at the ceiling.

Suho, heartened by the fact that Kris wasn’t staring at him, snuggled in to Kris’s side and sighed in happiness at the warmth surrounding him. He’d missed this familiarity with Kris.

He reached out and grabbed Kris’s hand, mumbling sleepily as he drew their clasped hands up to his chin. He felt Kris moving beside him, and glanced upwards to see that Kris had rolled over so that they were facing each other.

“I missed you.”

“I missed you too.” Kris dragged his other arm up and began to run his fingers through Suho’s hair. “Sleep well.”

“Mmhm.” Suho leaned into the comforting massage to his scalp, and allowed himself to go to the land of dreams.

XXX

“Kris, I’m scared.”

Kris sighed and stretched out his hands. “Suho, Chiron said that the curse is broken. Don’t you trust him?”

Suho scowled. “I trust Chiron! I just…I’m scared!”

“Suho, you can do it. If it doesn’t work, all you have to do is take one step back into safety,” Kris said patiently. “Come on. You can hold my hand the entire time.”

Suho whimpered slightly. “Kris…”

Kris sighed. “Suho, you can either step over the barrier of your own volition, or else I’ll yank you over. Which is it going to be?”

Suho wavered for a moment, and Kris scowled. “That’s it.” He reached out and grabbed Suho’s forearms and yanked him forwards.

“Kris!” Suho screamed and clutched on to Kris for dear life.

“Hey, hey it’s ok. It’s ok. See, nothing bad is happening. We’re the only ones here.”

Suho cautiously pulled away. “Really?”

“Yeah, really. Come on, look around you. There’s no one in sight.”

“Maybe it’s because you’re here.”

Kris snorted. “Suho, you said it yourself. I’m no match for any god, much less Hades.”

“I guess.” Suho looked around them suspiciously.

“So how does it feel to be free?” Kris grinned and looked around appreciatively at the dirt road that s down the hill.

“…I think I might cry again.”

“What?!”

Suho burst into laughter. “Just kidding.” He walked forward so that he was standing in the middle of the road and stared down the hill, his eyes tracing the winding path that the road took. “It feels a little surreal.”

Kris grinned and came to stand behind him, his arms looping easily around Suho’s waist as he pulled him backwards into a hug. “We’ll be out there soon.”

Suho hummed in contentment. “We will.” They’d asked Chiron if they could spend a few months in the mortal world together before returning to Camp Half-Blood. They were going to fly to Canada together to meet Kris’s mother and half-siblings for a couple of weeks, and then they were going to go out and explore the world on their owns for a few more weeks before returning.

“It’ll be fun. You’ll like my mom.”

“What about your little sister?”

Kris shrugged, the movement jostling Suho’s narrow shoulders. “I don’t know, to be honest. I haven’t seen her in five years.”

“Why did you even come to Camp Half-Blood here, as opposed to a closer camp in Canada?”

“My powers started manifesting closer to here than in Canada,” Kris shrugged. “I had a better chance of surviving by trying to come here.”

“I see.” Suho leaned back into the warmth of Kris’s body and proceeded to tuck himself under Kris’s chin.

To his disappointment, Kris let go of his waist and stepped back. “We should go.”

“We should? Why?”

“Just because Hades isn’t coming after us doesn’t mean that monsters won’t be drawn to our scents.”

Suho blinked. “Of course.” They strolled back across the border, their elbows bumping as they walked, and not a moment too soon. A few seconds later, and a lesser demon came up the road, hissing ferociously when it realized that the two tasty half-bloods had crossed the border back into safety.

Kris and Suho kept walking towards camp, smiling and waving as campers passed them by on their way to lessons and errands. They could all tell from the smiles on the two boys’ faces that Suho had successfully stepped over the border.

Eventually, they came to a stop in front of the Athena cabin. “I have to teach an Ancient Greek lesson in ten minutes.”

Suho didn’t try and hide the look of disappointment in his eyes; he’d been hoping that he could spend a lazy summer afternoon with Kris, but apparently it would have to wait. “Ok.”

“I’ll see you later.”

Suho stood on his toes to press his lips to Kris’s cheek. “Ok. See ya.”

Kris nodded and waved goodbye, turning on his lanky legs and mounting the stairs to the porch of the Athena Cabin. Suho stared after him thoughtfully, heedless of the shouting children running around him.

Staring after his boyfriend, his lover, his soul mate, Suho was filled with a deep sense of completion. Somehow, he knew, even if they ended up returning to Camp Half-Blood after their trip to Canada, or if they decided that they wanted to spend their lives in the mortal world, it didn’t matter. Everything would be alright, because no matter where they ended up, and no matter what hardships they had yet to face, Kris would always be by his side. And for Suho, that was more than enough to assure him that they had a happy life together, just waiting for them to take the first step on to a long, but fulfilling journey.

Fin

a/n: So finally, their long journey comes to an end! Both sides went through a lot of pain and emotional stress, but in the end, it was all worth it. Krisho is true love~ To be honest, I actually wasn't sure if I really wanted to do the whole soul mates thing, but in the end I figured what the hell, I love red thread aus, and so I threw it in there, even if it was very cliche and cheesy.

THANK YOU to all of my readers, subscribers and commentors! It was really difficult writing this piece as I went through a lot of struggles in my personal life over the course of this work, but I'm glad that I stuck it out and ended up finishing this. Thank you thank you thank you everyone *hugs and kisses* Right now I'm working to have this story featured at some point so we'll see how that goes down! Anyways, thank you everyone for reading again; your support for my writing really encourages me to keep doing it and to keep growing. Also, special thanks to flowerymisha for tweeting out links to chapters every time I update ^_^ Thank you again and see you guys in another story! (I think I have a fairytale/wolf au planned out for my next fic, which should be posted in a couple weeks!)