When Jongdae's an animal, when he's in the Pit - his mind jolts awake, and he's pinned down by how sharp sight, smell, and the taste of blood on the wind becomes.

It’s like this, now, with Suho. He can see the stitches on Suho's sleeves, the iron clench of his jaw.

He didn't expect this, for Suho to swipe away the dullness that Jongdae swamps himself in - for anger, blade-wicked, to be waiting below.

He could kill Suho, Jongdae knows. Could tear strips of flesh from Suho, enough for blood to drench the sheets. Could crack his bones and make him scream.

But Jongdae still cares. There's guilt, so much of it  -  guilt that he forgot, that he gave up. Unreasonable, biting anger, that Suho has to make him remember, that Jongdae has to be guilty, that Jongdae has to - has to do this. That they came and killed his tribe, that they threw him into the Pit and that he met Kai and now, now when Jongdae managed to forget everything, now there's Suho who wants to use Jongdae.

Suho's still waiting for an answer.

"I don't know," Jongdae says.  It's the first words he's spoken in days.

"You must really like my brother's bed."

"You're brothers." Jongdae pauses, thinking of his own brother. "Why do you hate each other?"

"I do not hate him." Suho releases Jongdae, straightening. He retrieves a square of blue silk from his pocket, cleaning off his hands. Because he touched Jongdae, of course.

"It is him who plots and schemes with Xiumin. Our Emperor has already made it clear, when he locked up our other brother ... he intends for me to succeed him. If you care about Kai, you will help me stop him. He cannot win, not against me."

Suho says it dispassionately. As though ther's nothing to it, as though, like the way the seasons shift, Suho will be the next Emperor of the Middle Kingdom. As tohugh he's doing Kai a favor, now.

Suho glances at Jongdae. "Have an answer for me, next time."

After Suho leaves, he tries to sleep. Instead the dreams come, tangible, of the night the raiders came. Humans and collared shifters, wrestling his brother to the ground. Surrounding his parents.

He struggles awake, cry dying in his throat – falls off the bed, lands painfully, thinks of the Pit.

Feels blood in his mouth, down his throat.

Touches his mouth – hand comes away, hot and shaky with blood. Screams, whimpers more like, muscles seizing up. Shoulders locked in, hunching him over, legs constricted by the bedcovers. Sweat hot and sudden, clogging skin. Back in the Pit, he’s gonna be eaten –

And this is the point where Kai should come in, shadow falling over the doorframe. Should come in and stop Jongdae from remembering –

How exactly Kai hurt him.

But Kai doesn’t come, and Jongdae has to see it all again – Kai crouching before Jongdae, collaring him. Kai and Jongdae in the Pit, Kai watching from above, lounging, the thin stitch of yellow glistening in the dark stadium.

Kai forcing Jongdae’s mouth open, inserting the tube over his resisting tongue, down his constricted throat, catching on the soft wet skin inside. Fed down by Kai, down into him, spurting liquid down his open throat. Heavy in his belly.

Jongdae tries to shift. Body morphs, shattering within his skin, reforming.

Kai making Jongdae shift. Waiting for Jongdae to shift, then saying, “I like you better, this way –“ wasn’t even planned, simply a split-second decision, Kai’s whims crushing Jongdae’s life.

Now, Jongdae can’t push through the last bit of the shift; vision fractured, a quarter of it human-blurry, the rest cat-sharp; he sees the claw-shaped hands, fur tufting them, the nails hardening and yellow. Muscles and bone and blood bulging his skin obscenely, threatening to burst through.

Not human, but he can’t even be lynx.

His lynx-teeth slice his lips, tongue, mouth. Blood again.

Slides back, loses it, human again and left in this skin. Robbed of vision clear and smells sharp, of the promise of power and strength coiling beneath skin.

This is where Kai should come, where Jongdae breathes and says, brokenly, Kai – says his name again, Jongdae can only say it in these moments where his ears are still ringing, too deaf to hear himself beg.

Jongdae should be hating him. Should be snarling, blunt human teeth, wanting to eat Kai.

But something broke, you see. That night when they took his family and left him alone, , scared crazy in a tiny iron cage, they took away Jongdae’s ability to speak. Jongdae could clutch at the bars and mouth words, but they only earned him a reminder of how animal he was. How anything and everything he said would turn out as meaningless cat noises, betraying himself, reminding him how non-existent he was.

It was the way people reacted to him. He said stop and it came out as a bark, he said no, please, it came out as wails (Jongdae thinks it hurt him worse to hear that, rather than the slavers) he said I’ll kill you, and no one listened.

All of the social cues, uprooted. Jongdae had thought, had believed that as long as he stayed within the rules – spoke nicely, was a good person, he’d be safe. But here nothing mattered, and no matter how fiercely Jongdae felt, no matter how angry he got, no matter if he died in that cage – he didn’t and wouldn’t matter.

Last time, Jongdae cried when he got angry, refused to eat on long, sad days. Had his clan around, had his pain to offer up as bait for human touch.

He didn’t have anything to offer now, that they would want. Jongdae wasn’t a human, and somewhere in those long, cramped days, he forgot that he had ever been one.

Kai hurt Jongdae, like the slavers did. But Jongdae only had him, through the depths of cold and the spiking, furious fire that the medicine induced. Only Kai soothing him, keeping him alive – keenly aware of Jongdae, and every shift of Jongdae’s body.

In the valley, Kai never hurt Jongdae again. He fed and played with Jongdae, training him, until he sent Jongdae out into the Pit again.

And then he left Jongdae, alone.

And then he sought Jongdae out.

Jongdae’s finally half-out of the bed covers; his fingers have torn strips in it. Restlessly, he stretches, kicking at the sheets. Feels the hardness of the stone floor, beneath him.

He wants to kill Kai – no, he needs to hurt Kai. Needs to pin him down and tear at him and eat enough of Kai, so that Kai can’t leave again. So Kai can’t hurt Jongdae again.

Kai giving in to Jongdae, touching him shamelessly. Enough that Jongdae only needs to inch close, and Kai will know, will have a hand on Jongdae, soothing.

Kai’s the only person that cares for Jongdae now, who else will, if Jongdae kills him?

But Jongdae’s not a killer, he finds it easy but he’s not.

It’s better if Kai doesn’t come back, if Kai never, never ever comes back again.

--

But Kai comes back, of course. Comes back and finds Jongdae, curled on the floor. Stops, then continues, closer to Jongdae. Crouches down beside Jongdae, breathing picking up.

“Jongdae?” He asks, and Jongdae swallows.

He’s been waiting, for Kai.

Rolls, slowly, onto his back. Eyes still closed, he tips his head back, inside he’s going please, and Kai – Kai’s hand comes, bringing warmth, wiping blood from his torn lips, pad of his thumb rough.

Cups Jongdae’s face, no, he cradles it, holds it carefully, tight, fingers digging into the sensitive underside of Jongdae’s chin.

Jongdae doesn’t understand, and he says so, says, “why are you touching me?”

He’s not expecting Kai to care, and he doesn’t understand why Kai seems to.

Is this care?

“Why can’t I?” Kai asks, and it actually sounds like a question.

Jongdae sighs, tenses, before he’s bucking upwards, mouth open, fingers digging into Kai’s arms.

Kai falls backwards, Jongdae pushing at him.

Jongdae heavy over Kai, snarling. He can do it now, he can –

Except Kai’s looking at Jongdae, with those heavy eyes, a tremor of fear sparking before Kai suffocates it.

Kai’s eyes harden, body tightening. For a wild moment Jongdae’s back in the Pit, and Kai’s crouched opposite him, wild.

He does – something, and partially flips Jongdae, both of them crashing, legs entangled, against the stone floor.

Kai’s human, but he’s harsher. Forces Jongdae back down, elbow crushing Jongdae’s throat, forcing the metal collar deeper into soft flesh.

It scares Jongdae, enough that the temporary resistance is snuffed. He makes himself go limp and squeezes his eyes closed, wheezing pitifully against Kai’s weight.

Too scared.

“Poor cat,” Kai says, scornful, a hint of distaste twisting his lips and lurking in the corner of hardened eyes. “I broke you, didn’t I?”

And that’s that. Jongdae lies there, tired, Kai’s elbow forcing the air out of his throat. The rest of Kai’s body – heavy, familiar – rests on Jongdae.

It gets to Jongdae, Kai looking at him this way. Everyone else can hate him, but Jongdae only has Kai left.

So Jongdae changes, because what Jongdae the human can’t do, Jongdae the lynx can. Feels his bones crack, plates of his skull shifting, throat shrinking, skin wrinkled and eyes –

Vision, Kai, the brown strands in black hair –

Kai loses balance, and Jongdae scrabbles out from under him. Snarls at Kai through human teeth in a lynx’s mouth.

“Go on,” Kai says, sprawled on the floor. Throat bared, waiting for Jongdae.

But Jongdae can’t change; can’t finish the transformation.

It hurts, this liminal space. Jongdae’s not living, he’s – waiting, waiting for something, waiting for Kai to blur the lines between days – wear down these days like water over stone, eventually submerging him into the darkness. Until Jongdae can’t see, until he forgets how to breathe, until he doesn’t have to move and finally, finally oblivion.

But that’s Jongdae’s own fairytale. That’s not the here and now, even though it makes him crazy, to understand this world where his tribe is gone, and – this world where people can hurt other people – even though this splinters understanding, makes his head pound and words get lost in despair - this is the world Jongdae is in.

Jongdae can’t backslide into cat, but the human won’t keep him safe, either.

It’s the fear of the past that wins out – he lapses back into mortality, weak human body tumbling onto the wooden floor. Breathes, the last of the sharp clarity fading.

Everything hurts. Jongdae curls up into himself, hands grasping his own arms, face pressed to wood.

“I won’t hurt you,” he says. “I can’t hurt you.”

After all this, he can’t. That’s not Jongdae, Jongdae told Kai he’d be strong, but Jongdae can’t. After all Kai has done to Jongdae, Jongdae can’t hurt him.

He might, one day. But not now, even with Kai goading him.

“You’re a fool,” Kai says, contempt accenting his words.

“I’m not you,” Jongdae says.

There’s a brittle, angry pause. Jongdae continues, without opening his eyes – “before … what you said to me, I thought… someone said that to you. And later …” the way Kai touched Jongdae and held him; knew exactly what Jongdae was feeling – he touched Jongdae, looked at Jongdae in a way that wasn’t pity, but recognition.

Kai had been just like Jongdae, once before.

“You grew up with dogs. How did you get out of there?”

“Somone brought Xiumin and me back,” Kai says. “I him, soon enough.”

“Did he make you do it,” Jongdae asks, softer.

“What are you saying,” Kai says, “I make my own choices.”

“I don’t think you hate him,” Jongdae says, “I think you hate that he brought you back, and then hurt you. Are you going to do the same to me?”

“Who told you this?”

“You did,” Jongdae says. “You look at me like you know exactly what this feels like … and then you keep warning me, that you’ll hurt me. So he must have hurt you, this person.”

“You think you know it all,” Kai says. “I hurt him back, did you know that?” Softer, “I did it. Got him locked away, and he’ll stay there until he rots, or someone else gets into power.”

“Can you visit him?”

“No,” Kai says.

Jongdae considers that, imagines not seeing Kai again. Cracks his eyelids open, sees Kai, on his back, staring at the ceiling.

Jongdae doesn’t know how he’ll feel, if he never sees Kai again. What if Jongdae helped Suho, in what he was planning, and Kai was locked away?

Jongdae would have no one left, then. He breathes, through his raw throat. Slides himself across the wooden floor, eyes lowered, to rest himself against Kai’s side, nosing his way into the black fabric of his robe. He nudges at Kai, until Kai grudgingly wraps his right arm around Jongdae.

Doesn’t say anything about how tight Kai’s grip around Jongdae is, or how shallow the breaths Kai’s taking are.  

--

A/N: short chapter, but I think after this I'll be able to get on a regular schedule, at least a chapter every two weeks... Thanks for the encouragement!!