Baekhyun is ecstatic of course when Lu Han calls him later that evening.

“You know what this means, right?”

Lu Han knocks his head against the open door frame and groans. “I don’t know. Do I?” he replies facetiously. “Please, enlighten me. What does this mean?”

It’s bordering on dusk. Lu Han is waiting for Xiumin to come again. In the meantime, there’s a patch in the clouds through which part of a weak sunset shines. Elsewhere the world is damp and the drizzle nonstop. Lu Han really hopes Xiumin comes again so he’ll be justified in staying home.

Baekhyun sighs. “It means he likes you. It means you’re buddies now. It means he trusts you enough to come into your house.” He suddenly shouts, “it means he’s perfectly capable of shifting into a fully human body, and you were sound asleep! I can’t believe you missed that!”

Lu Han cringes. He knows, okay, he really knows. He missed the once in a life opportunity to see a… presumably human male get up and walk out a door before potentially sinking back onto all fours and… bounding away like a cat. Hoorah.

“I think he’ll come again,” Lu Han tells him. His conviction is strong, and not unwarranted.

“I agree. Next time though, see if you can’t strike up a conversation. It would answer so many questions! Does he speak any dialect of Mandarin? Does he understand speech? Does he speak, period? Not to mention the golden question: is he conscious of human emotions?!”

“I know, I know,” says Lu Han duly. “Look, slow and steady, right? That’s what you told me.”

Baekhyun sighs impatiently, but Lu Han understands. This thing he’s got going on with Xiumin right now is the biggest breakthrough they’ve ever had with the Asiatic hybrid wildcat. It’s important, tremendously so.

The phone line is silent for a moment. With the exception of static crackles, there’s only the sound of their breaths. Lu Han imagines Baekhyun wheeling deep tread marks in the carpet behind his desk. This project is his life, the reason he was hired, the reason the WHPC hired a foreigner for their Beijing office. In another universe, in another life, if just another set of events had occurred instead of the ones that did, it would have been Baekhyun out here in the field and not Lu Han in his place.

“You’ll do a good job, Lu Han, I know it,” says Baekhyun with alarming sincerity. “Make me proud.”

Lu Han smiles. He can’t help it. One corner of his lip just comes up of his own accord and there’s a warm fuzzy feeling budding up inside his heart cavity-

“But if you it up, I’ll have no choice but to send Junmyeon out there to bail you out.”

Gone is Lu Han’s smile. Gone that nice, warming sensation, replaced in an instant with the burden of dread.

“What do you mean... ? You wouldn’t…?”

Baekhyun sounds tired over the line. “Just don’t it up, and everything will be great!” He laughs once, and the phone goes dead.

The problem with Junmyeon is that Lu Han liked him a lot. A lot, a lot. Too much, a lot, that kind of a lot. They met in college because of a similar interest in hybrid studies, and so they shared many of the same classes. Junmyeon was cute and always laughing. His jokes weren’t the best but his smiles definitely were, and Lu Han just liked him. They started dating in their sophomore year and for a while everything was great. Not perfect, but pretty great. They went out every weekend, were at each other’s apartments every couple of days. They met up daily for meals or just to hang out, sometimes with friends, sometimes alone. And Junmyeon really liked Lu Han’s cats, even better. What Junmyeon didn’t like was Lu Han’s penchant for stressing about the future, specifically his professional future and the amount of time Lu Han poured into his studies and his grades, applying for scholarships and internships because nothing seemed to come to him naturally as it did for Junmyeon.

“ It’s not my fault I get good grades without trying, Lu Han,” he explicitly remembers Junmyeon saying, and without holding back on the snark. “You don’t need to get all jealous. Maybe if you stopped running in circles all day long you’d get more done. Live a little, man. I mean, can’t you?”

“Uhm, no I can’t, Junmyeon,” Lu Han bit back. “ I’m sorry I’m not perfect like you. I just need like, a whole weekend to get this project done. Just give me a weekend. One weekend.”

“One weekend? You sure you don’t need two? How about a month? Is two months fine, and then you can pay attention to me again or should we just call it quits?”

Deep down Lu Han knows Junmyeon didn’t mean to sound so disparaging and, well, mean. Deep down Lu Han knows he had been slowly pushing the other man away because he really wanted to make this work, his school time, his career. He applied for the same internship because he hoped it would help them work out their differences if they had the same goals. But even that backfired. In the end, Junmyeon went to Africa to observe the wildcats there, and Lu Han jumped fields temporarily by cataloguing wolf packs. They never worked out their differences and by the time Junmyeon came home, their relationship which had been put on hold was officially dead in the water.

“And that’s how I came to be here, Xiumin, a lone male, with no hands on experience with wildcats. Kind of sad really, although I don’t regret choosing to stay home. I mean it might definitely have helped but…” Lu Han sighs. Xiumin thumps his tail, the wildcat’s eyes half closed in the moonlight where he lays before the threshold of Lu Han’s open cabin door.

“I just really don’t want to have to see Junmyeon again. Not like this. Maybe after I’ve gotten my PhD, and or gotten engaged to some really hot person who’s at least ten times better than him.”

He laughs, and if it sounds hollow to his ears, at least the wildcat doesn’t say anything, if he even understands. Since the night where Xiumin slept indoors and apparently left after opening the door, Lu Han doesn’t think there’s been another instance where the cat has bothered to transform. Half a week has passed, and most nights Xiumin shows up at dusk to hang out, and most of the time he doesn’t enter, but lays nearby.

He’s almost in petting range right now. If Lu Han leaned a small ways over he could do it. Biting his lips, Lu Han actually wonders.

“Hey, Xiumin.”

The cat twists his head and looks at him. Lu Han refuses to flinch.

“Do you like pets?”

Then he huffs, because really, what kind of question is that. Xiumin also seems to huff, turning away again and leveling his whiskered face atop his outstretched paws. Lu Han holds his breath, thinking not for the first time that the wildcat’s seeming level of understanding is just a bit high…

“I’m gonna do it, okay?”

Breathtakingly slow, Lu Han inches over on the grass, not even looking at the wildcat. He stops short again, just to be sure, and waits for a reaction. Xiumin hasn’t budged, nor does he seems to be concerned by the human moving closer into his vicinity. So Lu Han does it again. This time, when he stops he thinks he’ll be able to reach the wildcat’s back if he puts out his hand.

Lu Han stretches his fingers, knuckles trembling, and his eyes staring hard at the wildcat’s body in case he moves. With the pads of his fingers hovering right over the animal’s back, Xiumin’s fur prickles, but nothing else happens. He holds his breath, then gently lowers his hand, waiting for something exciting to happen…

Nothing does.

“Okay, well this is nice,” breathes Lu Han softly, petting the wildcat in short, soft touches. It’s only inwardly that he preens ‘ victory!’

Not one minute later, when Lu Han asks him what he ought to do about Junmyeon, does the wildcat turn to give him a quick staredown, after which he proceeds to hack out a hairball.

“Uhm, yeah, that’s a good answer, actually. Thanks, Xiumin.”

One week later there’s another light storm. Lu Han swears and stares out at the hidden, dying sunlight from the safety of his doorway. The rain isn’t coming down too hard yet, but these definitely aren’t the conditions he’d want to go out in, and he’s not seen Xiumin in at least three evenings. It’s long enough to have him worrying, wanting to find the wildcat, to see if he’s alright, ask if the cat’s been impartially fed up with Lu Han’s ‘petting’ skills. At least a couple times after the first attempt at touching the animal, Lu Han got close to scratching under his chin; once ven between the ears. It’s as far as he’s dared go.

Unfortunately, his teeming questions about the wildcat’s whereabouts will have to wait. He closes the door—unlocked, just in case—and undresses down to his sweat pants, pilfering through his typical lame dinnertime meal until he deems the storm isn’t going to let up. He turns off the lamps finally when the clock hits 10 PM, drags himself into bed, and falls asleep to the splattering of the rain drops overhead…

The first thing Lu Han thinks is that he knows it’s too early to be awake right now… Something registers as off. The lack of sunlight, the continuing sounds of rain and wind, the fact that Lu Han is practically sweating and that’s never happened before as it’s way too cold outside and in to have him overheating in his own bed.

He moves, or tries to.

Suddenly, Lu Han freezes.

Breathing.

There’s something inside his cabin, breathing, and it’s not Lu Han.

With his heart rate skyrocketing and panic setting in, Lu Han blinks, frantically praying for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, and quickly. There’s a weight laying across his legs, and something else against his waist. The fact that there’s somebody actually asleep— in his bed! — sets off every alarm whistle in his entire body. If he was thinking clearly he might even have figured it out before the thing, also now alert to Lu Han’s growing panic, moves too.

A head lifts off the pillow next to Lu Han’s. A pair of glowing greenish yellow eyes blinks before him, and Lu Han yelps. He gives a wild shove and with a loud thunk, the stranger hits the floor and rolls. Half of Lu Han’s blankets tumble off with him, but Lu Han is already scampering down the bed in the opposite direction, screaming, as he grabs for the flashlight and something to defend himself.

“Stay back!” he shouts, brandishing the flashlight which, he decides is also heavy enough to be a weapon if he needs to use it. His trembling fingers manage to hit the on switch just in time for the pile on the floor to sit up. “Don’t move!”

There’s a boy on the floor. No, not a boy, a young man… Yellowish eyes, and sandy colored hair… A couple freckles across his cheeks.

The man freezes, as demanded, but his eyes are blown wide open, and his nose flares in curiosity, not necessarily in animosity. Lu Han recognizes the extra blanket he keeps at the foot of his bed as the one currently wrapped around the man’s thin and probably frame. From this angle all he can see are his shoulders and collarbones.

Without warning, the stranger smiles, lips pressed flat and showing no teeth but his head tilts and the whole thing is reminiscent of—

“Wait a second…” says Lu Han. Without turning his back, he shuffles for the lamp in the corner of the room, fumbling with it until light floods the small space between them. The man on the floor doesn’t move, just watches him curiously.

“You… you…” Lu Han tries again, bewildered at the possibility, but there’s almost no doubt in his mind this man is the wildcat. “Xiumin?”

The stranger’s smile widens. His eyebrows arch.

“You’re Xiumin, aren’t you?” Lu Han asks again. His throat feels like he swallowed a rock. He’s also freezing cold now outside of his bed. He’s wearing sweatpants, but no shirt.

Lu Han steps forward, then stops. Gulping, he does it again; again he stops. Eyes glancing towards the door, there are the signs that someone entered in the night, water stains settling into the wood, and Lu Han puts the pieces together, remembers this isn’t the first time the wildcat has taken shelter inside… just the first time he got caught in… human form.

Lu Han gasps. His knees turn weak, and taking that as a sign that he needs to actually do something now about this situation, he puts down the flashlight and slowly, crouches down.

“Xiumin, right?” he says, slowly approaching the man on the floor.

The hybrid man continues smiling. Until he opens his mouth, and in a soft, gruff voice like it hasn’t been used in a while he says, “Hi.”

Lu Han’s heart drops through his chest, or the nearest equivalent of that.

“Hi,” he responds quickly.

What. Is. Happening, he wonders thunderously.

“You can speak.”

The wildcat beams at him. A second later, however, as Lu Han continues gaping, the smile drops off the man’s face. Xiumin shivers. The blanket still hangs off his shoulders. And still Lu Han doesn’t know what to do.

“Xiumin?” he says again. “Do you… need clothes?” He mimics the pants he’s swearing, then points at Xiumin.

The wildcat nods.

“Holy ,” whispers Lu Han. The man does understand speech. “Okay, give me a sec. Just, hang on. Hang on, I got this. I got this.” It’s possible the words are more for himself than for the strange man slumped down on the middle of his cabin floor, but Lu Han gets up and fumbles towards his dresser. Only half of his things ever made it out of the suitcase, but he finds pants and a sweater, turns back to the wildcat and kneels down to offer them.

A bare arm reaches out from the blankets, and Xiumin smiles.

“Holy ,” Lu Han whispers again, because damn , if that isn’t that the sweetest look he’s ever seen on a man.

He turns away while the wildcat stands and dresses, only looking back when he hears Xiumin tugging the blanket back up around his shoulders.

“Thank you,” says the wildcat in that soft, thin voice which sends goosebumps down Lu Han’s skin.

“You’re welcome.”

Now what, he thinks. He’s standing up, still practically freezing cold. The wildcat is shuffling towards the bed, still vaguely shivering. It’s so early in the morning.

Xiumin his head again, smile gone and traded for a questioning look. “Bed?”

“What?!” Lu Han cries out.

“Sleep? Back to bed?”

It takes Lu Han an incredibly long time for his brain to pilfer through the suggestion that Xiumin actually wants to go back to sleep, in Lu Han’s bed, together.

“Uhh, that’s fine. Yeah, that’s fine.”

With some awkward maneuvering, Lu Han crawls back to his bed, heart beating at a steady but elevated pace when the wildcat knees his way in too. The bed isn’t enormous, but neither are they cramped. Which makes it even stranger when Xiumin leans right into his space, their heads sharing a pillow.

It’s warm though, and comfortable. They’re practically spooning, except with an additional blanket in between. Even then Xiumin is still shivering.

He’s probably really cold in his skin.

“Is this okay?” he asks softly, putting his arm around the blanket burrito that used to be a medium-sized predator.

“Yes.”

“Okay, okay…”

How extraordinary, he wonders, that sleep seems to pull at him right away. Before he can sleep at least, he allows himself one question, for science.

“Xiumin, do you actually understand everything I say?”

There’s no immediate answer. Lu Han thinks maybe he fell asleep, or he doesn’t understand, or he just doesn’t want to answer. Over a minute later though, Xiumin whispers one last thing. “Yes.”

Sorry for the shorter than usual chapter. The split between this and the next scene is too good. :D

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