Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Not everyone has an instinct, an animal self that lives inside a person, born from their souls and forged to live in their flesh. Hundreds of years ago it was common to have bears, rabbits, fish, and lions, a menagerie of animals, but now, as time and dilution of bloodlines has increased, the most common thing to have is nothing at all.

Not all instincts are the same either. Some weaker, some stronger, some with abilities, and some with nothing more than an aroma of “not quite human at all” about them. Some force the person to live in constant agony as they rip and tear at their humanity to drag them down into the depravity of their animal urges until there is nothing left but the husk of the person that was. Some unify with their instinct and blend as if the two were never separate at all, forging alliances that can never be broken.

Kinn opens his eyes and wonders what that’s like.

In front of him the expanse of Bangkok shines in the evening sun as it transitions from day into night, the balm of the burnt orange sunset dipping into the twinkling lights of the high rises, and the noise, normally a steady thrum at this height, is nothing to the gush of water that laps at his back. His instinct is one that hurts. It barely sleeps, curled up from nose to tail. Instead, it itches and burns under his skin; his back a patchwork of iridescent scales and raw cuts in between them as it splits and rends with each movement of his shoulder blades, coupled with the pale almost translucent skin that scarcely covers them.

“Khun Kinn.” Pete bows as he approaches the opposite side of the pool that Kinn is sitting in. Kinn scented him at the door of his rooms, the fur of Pete’s instinct tickling his nose despite being completely dressed in his normal suited attire. “An invitation has arrived.”

That gets him to stand, water lapping at his waist as Pete approaches and reaches across the boundary of the pool to hand Kinn the invite. It’s a black envelope with silver script: “Theerapanyakul”. Inside it is the same paper with the same script but only an address this time.

He hands it back sharply to Pete, “I’m not interested.”

Pete looks at him, shifting uncomfortably.

“What?” He demands. He’s been out of the water too long, his skin feels tight and aggravated, the heat building.

“It’s from your father, sir,” Pete smiles but it can’t be regarded as anything more than a wince.

Kinn exhales through his nose harshly. It’s not an invitation or a request; it’s an order.

Of course one would send a fox to give an order. As if Kinn needed any cajoling when his father demands it or that in any such event Pete would be the one to do it.

Kinn turns and puts himself back under until the water is lapping at his collarbones, broad strokes of his arms take him back to his seat. It’s a poor man’s salve but he closes his eyes and lets it soothe him just the same. “When?”

“Tonight, sir.”

Inside him the jaw opens in a yawning maw. It helps him to envision it like that, a beast that exists whole inside him with its own wants and desires separate from his own even if it’s a fallacy that breaks as surely as the dawn. His fingers crack at the knuckles as he curls and uncurls them, his instinct's tail swishes and the spiked ridges run along his own spine as it flexes. He grits his teeth as his back aches more tightly, the scales knitting closer together. They’ll split soon if he doesn’t do anything about it.

“I’ll go. Prepare for it,” Kinn tells him as he sits himself back on the steps. “Pete.”

Pete had turned to go but he stops and looks back at Kinn, “Khun Kinn?”

“What color are my eyes?”

He knows it before Pete says it, but he waits for an answer: “Gold, sir.”

Kinn rolls his head from side to side to loosen his neck as he brings his arms up to lean on the stair behind him, “You may go.”

“I can send for someone,” Pete tells him quietly.

Licking his lips, he considers it. He knows he has to. His body won’t last much longer without expending the excess heat and power of his instinct.

“Not a snake” is his only term.

Pete nods, “But—”

Snakes accept Kinn’s heat best but they overheat easily, pass out and leave themselves in Kinn’s bed when he wants them gone. He also doesn’t like the slithering touch of them on his skin. 

“No.”

With a deeper bow of his head, Pete’s gone.

Talons scratch at the inside of his ribs and Kinn grits his teeth and lets a wave of heat pulse out from his skin. The steam rises off of him and he slips under enough so that he can dunk his whole head and push his hair back off his face in the weightlessness of the water.

He stays there for a long moment. It’s not uncomfortable to him in the slightest, in fact, his instinct eases in the hugging pressure of the water. Gold eyes bore out of him and into him, and his back feels split open anew. He knows the water isn’t stained with his blood but the agony that ripples through him feels like it. Slamming a mental door on those gold eyes, Kinn launches himself out of the water with a gasp. His back is throbbing and no amount of water can ease it. Scratching it won’t help. Ice won’t help. Knives slicing into his skin won’t help. He grits his teeth and barely stops himself from gnashing them like the animal inside him that licks its lips, victorious in its play.

Kinn grasps the glass edge of the pool, the solidity calming him as he breathes in through his nose, out through his mouth, his heart racing. He feels a certain kind of hatred when he gives into his instinct. His mind feels beholden and chained to the insolence of a barely sentient creature that knows nothing of his mind or his heart. As if to mock him further, his instinct curls up and waits, doesn’t even bother to pace anymore since it knows it’s going to get fed. Going to get filled up in its belly, gobbling down the heat of another and pouring out its own scorching demands. All it has to do is wait.

So he knows when the glass cracks under his fingertips moments later, it’s his own anger that does it. It slices into his skin and the pain does little, but it does remind him he’s human. Inhale, 1, 2, 3. Exhale, 1, 2, 3. 

Chapter Text

His instinct is sated when he comes, pouring out all the heat that has accumulated since the last time Kinn took someone to his bed. Talons retract and gold eyes blink slowly in their post-coital satisfaction. The hunger pangs, the bone deep pain that had lanced through him are gone. His back smooths out and his scales become less pronounced, and he regains flexibility in his shoulders. Tying off the condom, he throws it into the trash and gets up to take a shower.

“Khun Kinn,” his bed mate breathes. He’s sweating profusely, pale skin flushed red with heat as his legs fail to hold him up when he tries to get onto his knees. Horse, his instinct is a horse, so he rides well but his body isn’t ready or willing to accept anymore than this. A skinny little thing, Kinn would almost be surprised that he held out if he wasn’t personally vetted by his people. There is a list a mile long of people who want to be in Kinn’s bed, he but has to choose them. Why wouldn’t there be? The compensation he pays for the secrecy that goes along with expending his heat is substantial. He also doesn’t need to turn him over to know that he’s covered in his own come. It’s neither his desire nor his concern.  

What Kinn gets out of it is that he feels cold, his instinct quiet and subdued, still present, always present, but waiting with a gleam in its eyes for the next opportunity to feed, which is exactly what he wanted.

“Big will take you home.”

With that, the transaction is concluded.

He won’t see him again. Once is fine for an evening like this, but it won’t do much if he’s truly in the thick of it. His instinct stretches against his skin, pushing at his edges, skittering along his consciousness but doesn’t try to overwhelm him. It will leave him alone for the rest of the night at least.

He turns the knobs on the shower and lets the water run ice cold while he sets out his razor, watch, any jewellery he’s thinking of wearing tonight. His tailor has brought him a tux; deep red velvet suit jacket with a crisp white shirt and black dress pants and they’re hanging up in his walk-in closet next to his selection of bowties.

Kinn lives for the moments like this, when everything is silent, and he can put himself under the spray of water and feel nothing. He sluices himself in the water and the droplets cling to him like tiny magnets. When he cleans his back, he feels none of the rough texture he’s usually left with, and as if it is numbed, there is no sensation there at all. He almost feels…without. Except he’s not quite. None of them with instincts are, because even amongst the water droplets, he hears them like tinkling notes on a piano and he can hold them suspended in the air to make the exact sound he wants to hear.

He doesn’t. He lets the water clinging to his body drop and he shuts off the tap and relishes in the cold chill that goes through his body as he steps out. He catches his reflection in the mirror and his eyes are dark, not a hint of gold in sight. It won’t last, it never does, but for a blissful split in time, he can breathe.

***

Kinn is almost out of the door when his father appears, ‘nonchalantly’ walking through the halls. Dressed in a soft woven sweater and slacks, it belies the truth. A man with an instinct as ruthless as any.

“Pa,” Kinn bows his head, and his father stops and takes him in.

“You’re attending?” It’s phrased as a question, but it isn’t. Kinn hears the undertone of expectation.

“Yes, Pa, thank you for the invitation.” Kinn keeps his head bowed. His instinct stays low, one part gullet full on its previous act of gluttony and because his father’s own instinct keeps his pressed down in submission. When he’s around his father, the air seems to thin and Kinn has to do everything in his power to not to gasp just so that he can feel like his lungs are filled with enough oxygen.

His father hums, “Maybe you’ll find something there.”

Kinn frowns. There? There is a high-class back door club. Something they only know about because they know about the drugs cartel that used to sleep above its lavish floors.

As if he can read Kinn’s mind, his father continues, “Interesting things are hidden in plain sight.”

“Of course, Pa, I will keep my eyes open.” Kinn bows deeper and turns to head out.

He almost misses it, but he hears his father softly say, “You will.”

***

The strangeness of it sits in his stomach as he travels to the venue, his mind wandering as the car rolls smoothly along the roads. His entourage is made up of his main bodyguards, all of whom are required to have instincts. Anything less than would be too weak to protect the Theerapanyakul family since more so than the living world, the underworld is teemed with those with instincts that cannot function in a civilized society. Big, who is riding next to him, is an agile leopard that shows pale black spots on his shoulders when he’s angry; Ken riding up front, an ox, with strength greater than most has a brand seared into his right shoulder from a time before he knew Kinn’s family; and Pete, who is sat opposite Kinn, is a fox who isn’t quite a fox. Normally stationed with his brother, Tankhun, Pete’s instinct is the most unique of the troupe which is why Kinn assigned him to his detail. Pete lowers his gaze from Kinn’s but not without showing the distinct purple that lightens his irises when he scans his surroundings. He can’t help it. Nevertheless, his instinct only knows deference to Kinn’s; the color of his eyes is the equivalent of an exposed throat to appease the beast in the hopes it will only sniff rather than bite down. I’m here but I’m not a threat.

Kinn’s instinct rolls onto its back, ignorant of Pete’s discomfort, tail swishing. He prays that it stays quiet. Big notices his restlessness and offers him a bottle of water, “Khun Kinn.”

He feels a low growl in his chest at the offer, audible only to him, but he ignores it and takes the bottle. The water is ice cold, as is his preference, and he sips it before handing it back. His instinct doesn’t like cats. Doesn’t like anything with claws. It turns its nose up and fumes quietly.

The car slows to a stop and Big gets out to go around and open Kinn’s door.

As far as establishments go, it is something that’s well hidden. Between a takeout place and a tattoo parlour, nothing gives it away as anything more than a dive bar is the doorman and the corded robe blocking any unwanted entry.

Kinn slides out and adjusts his jacket as his bodyguards assemble around him. His driver hands the card to the doorman who immediately removes the rope.

“Mr Theerapanyakul.”

Bear.

To be expected but bears smell the closest to wet dogs and it takes all of Kinn’s etiquette lessons to not wrinkle his nose.

The door opens and the hidden opulence reveals itself. Walls painted in ruby red and lined with black decals, there are stairs immediately ahead that guide the attendee down to the lower levels where the club actually resides. A woman with long dark hair, a pretty face and a deep red dress that matches the walls comes up to meet them. She’s holding an iPad, with a booking system likely, and keeps her distance. Kinn notices that she has some sort of false aroma sprayed on her. It doesn’t erase her scent but mutes it into almost nothingness.

Inhibitor. Expensive, Kinn knows, but he appreciates it. His nose is sensitive, and he is about to walk into a room full of scents he doesn’t know.

“Your suite is ready, Mr Theerapanyakul.” She tells him as she takes the stairs. Rather than going into the main room, she guides him to another hallway, so his bodyguards press in tighter on him, Big to his right and Pete directly behind him with Ken behind Pete.

“We wanted you to be comfortable, Khun Kinn, if I may call you that?” She asks him, perfunctory, she’s either really good at her job or she knows it won’t work with him.

“Of course–?” He doesn’t know her name.

“Mai,” She proves with a bow of her head.

“We’re honored to have you attend this evening, Khun Kinn. Would you like a drink to start, or would you like to wait until your other guests have arrived?”

“Send a bottle of whiskey, aged, sealed, and three glasses.” He tells her and she taps it down on her iPad before she looks at Big and Pete at his sides, “Would bottled water be preferable for—?”

She must see something on his face because she bows again and leaves him in the booth. He realizes it’s an old theatre that has been gutted and this is one of the balcony seating areas. He looks down over the side, he’s only one floor up and directly in front of him is an erected boxing ring. Individuals are milling around down there but he notes that he still can’t scent most of them.

“Ken, find out how they’re muting the scents here.” Kinn orders without looking back.

Big folds his hands in front of himself, “Sir?”

“What can you smell?” Kinn asks him, eyes flicking to Pete. None of them have his senses but they should be able to at least understand what he’s getting at.

They step up to the balcony and there’s nothing, no recognition on their faces as they sniff the air.

“Did they spray the room?” Pete asks. Kinn looks at the corners to see if he can see any apparatus that would indicate they were pumping the room full of aerosolized inhibitors.

His instinct wakes up at the thought. Kinn feels its agitation in his spine. The scales in his back prickle.

A knock at the door has him turning around sharply when another hostess startles as she brings in the tray with the proffered whiskey and glasses.

“Mr Theerapanyakul,” she breathes out in a whisper as if any louder would anger him. Kinn takes her in, same red dress as Mai but her hair is dyed blonde, piled up on her head and her pale neck exposed. He isn’t close to her, but he can see the silvery marks where others have touched. He recoils internally, his instinct’s hackles up at the thought. To her credit, she doesn’t move but she also doesn’t cower more than she is. It won’t provoke a fight in Kinn but that’s nothing to say of others. Pete goes over and helps her, “Thank you, I will serve Mr Theerapanyakul.”

She leaves as quickly and politely as she can, the stench of her fear left in her wake that she can’t quite hold until she’s out of the room.

“Bite marks.” He hisses under his breath. What the fuck is this place?

Why had his father sent him here? The equivalent of a brothel, women placed to accept attentions and likely favors from patrons, shrinking and showing obedience to placate someone else’s instinct. It’s disgusting. His lips curl into an unconscious snarl. Big holds his own but Pete quivers when his instinct’s external reach presses in on him.

Kinn reigns it in, clearing his throat. Pete visibly relaxes and inclines his head in a silent thank you. Kinn turns his attention back onto the floor. It’s easy to tell that the guests below are fake money. Overdressed and spilt diamonds adorning cheap throats without any real class. Coupling that with the boxing ring, highly likely a bit of blood sport between the less fortunate among them, it’s distasteful to say the least. Kinn can tell that both Big and Pete want to scope out the venue, to see what their accessed floor plans have failed to note but they can’t leave him here, so they have to wait for Ken to report back.

Ken lets himself back into the room a few minutes later with a bowed head, “They are using aerosol points under the ground floor, Khun Kinn. Serpente Industries have the patent.”

Italians. It raises his blood to hear it. Had it been anyone else, he would have left and dealt with it in the morning, but it seems their boldness knows no bounds. His instinct bristles and Kinn feels it in the scales on his shoulders, they grate against each other once again, the pain almost a warning as it sets its sights on either a target or for prey to enter its field of vision.

Kinn tries to refocus, ignoring the red stain that Ken has failed to wash off of his hand as the lights begin to dim.

“Find out who’s here,” he tells him and Ken dips back out again.

He makes his way so that he’s leaning on the balcony edge to see the floor below. There is a metal safety railing above the old balcony stone and rather than sitting, Kinn leans against it. He sees that the match referee is waiting just outside of the ring, along with two ring girls not unlike the woman Kinn just saw. He doesn’t know if they’re a part of it, whether they have instincts or not, or maybe they’re just victims of wrong place, wrong time.

A middle-aged man dressed in a circus ringleader’s get up makes a show of making his way through the thicker crowd, tipping his top hat to the ladies and flourishing his hand to the men.

“Ladies and gentlemen, thank for your attendance tonight. We really hope that we have the show for you.” A chuckle, “What am I saying, I know I have the show for you!”

A fake tittering laugh from the crowd. Kinn’s instinct riles, and he feels it in the tightening of the skin in his hands. It’s waking up fully, taking in its surroundings and readying itself.

“Say, would you like to meet Challenger 1?” He whispers, no doubt into a hidden mic. “He’s from the southern region and likes to party. Meet Challenger 1, everyone.”

A burly man in thick cargo pants, combat boots and a dirty t-shirt, likely in his 40s, pushes his way through from the side and people stumble and gasp at his size. He has to be almost 6ft 6 but the same again wide. Bear?  Kinn sniffs the air, but he gets nothing, the inhibitors effectively cutting him off from anything below. His instinct scratches at him, nudging him to get closer, to know more, to take a measure. His shoulder blades start to ache with it and his thighs twinge as his instinct curls its tail around them, waiting for something to place within its grip. He tries to soothe it by uncorking the whiskey, pouring a double measure before downing it and letting it burn his throat. It purrs a little, soothed by the creaminess of the alcohol.

“How’s about meeting Challenger 2?” The ringleader teases, “He’s from right here in Bangkok and also likes to party, Challenger 2!”

Challenger 2 and Challenger 1 are as similar as night and day. Dressed in a white wifebeater and jeans with beat up sneakers, he looks like a 20-something year old kid they kidnapped him off a street somewhere and threw him into the ring. Not an unlikely possibility. Still, his body is lean and looks to be agile. Some sort of cat instinct? Panther? Kinn hedges his bets.

When they see him get into the ring there is a certain amount of jeering. The crowd doesn’t have faith in the second challenger. He doesn’t turn back to them though. Doesn’t seem to consider them at all, only keeps his eyes on his opponent and his back to the top left corner of the ring. Neither of them has any gear on – bare knuckle fighting it is – and the referee seems to be outlining some sort of rules to them before the possible Bear challenger goes to the opposite corner and stares down his smaller opponent.

Challenger 1 swings out the gate but he takes it wide. With a smooth roll under his hook, the second challenger is out from under his left arm and takes a liver shot as he goes. He bounces lightly on his feet as fists come flying at him again. The cross is pushed down and the jab is slipped as he raises up his knee into the man’s mid-section before he’s back out again. Challenger 1 clearly wasn’t expecting it to go this way as he tries to grapple with the second challenger who makes it just in time to slip out of his range.

The crowd get thirstier for blood. Kinn can’t deny it, his instinct is hovering inside him, teased by the prospect of a fight with the Italians and wanting. It craves that first spurt of blood when one of them lands the perfect shot.

Kinn goes with his gut.

“Bet a million baht on the second guy.” Kinn tells Pete, who nods and leaves out of the balcony area.

“Khun Kinn?” Big questions him.

Kinn doesn’t know. His instinct is inside him, pacing, almost licking its own jowls at the prospect at the damage about to be done. Challenger 2 smirks when he rolls another hook.

Interesting things hide in plain sight.

Is this it? Is this the interesting thing? Kinn questions, a nobody fighter in an underground fight ring, trying to dodge the slow deliberate strikes of a fool?

Kinn isn’t left waiting long. The second challenger clocks the first true hit with a cross to the nose, driven all the way from his feet through his turned hips, and naturally it crumples under his fist, blood spurting from the now broken nose. The blood satisfies his instinct, it roars inside him to the point that he feels it in his veins, hot and potent.

In the confusion, the second challenger takes it as his opportunity to drive his right knee up into the air with a hop, driving his leg back as he shunts his right hand down into the exact same bone. His opponent drops to his knees, trying to cover his face when he is struck again to the right side of his face then the left. A knee up again, his left this time, and his left foot driven into the first challenger’s chest in a straight kick. With it, Challenger 2 finishes him, much to the divided satisfaction of the crowd. Enough to get everyone hyped, not enough to satisfy.

Kinn’s own instinct is salivating, his skin is heating up unbidden as Big moves towards him and he jerks out of his reach, spitting through gritted teeth, “Don’t.”

His instinct is unfurling inside him, extending itself to its full length and size, taking up every part of him, and Kinn can’t do anything but grasp onto the railing in front of him and breathe. His scales are burning so he wrestles to get his jacket off and he throws it somewhere behind him before grabbing the metal again.

Challenger 2 is held up as the winner and Kinn catches sight of his face in full view. He’s beautiful, with high cheekbones, dark eyes and pretty lips. His instinct is scratching at him in a way he hasn’t felt in years: want. Need. Mine. Kinn is trembling with it when Pete and Ken come back together. Pete looks at Ken and then Kinn, but Ken looks at him with panic.

“They drugged the canisters, Khun Kinn.”

Kinn feels his instinct growl for a different reason – rage – pure unadulterated rage. He’s hot, so hot and his back is being lanced with pain as his skin splits around his scales. Then the glasses start to smash. They explode on the balcony, the other balcony, on the floor. People scream as shards fly everywhere. They start to rush at the doors to get out in case there is more to come.

“Him.” Kinn hisses. “Bring me him.”

If this is what he came for, that’s what he’s taking with him.

The second challenger is looking up at the balcony with curious eyes and not a care to the mayhem around him and Kinn looks down on him, tries to pin him with his gaze. He could bite him. Bite him and devour all of that pretty brown skin, tear him up and leave nothing but a lick of blood and bones. Pete is the first out the door as Big hovers behind Kinn, Ken at a distance, and part of him wishes he could gouge someone’s guts. He shakes his head and breathes, inhale, 1, 2, 3, exhale, 1, 2, 3. I’m not a monster. There is barely a thread of sanity in him, but Kinn ties it around his fist in his mind like that is the only thing left in the world.

Mai knocks with Pete behind her and enters the balcony and offers a guiding hand, “This way, Khun Kinn.”

She smiles as if the sky isn’t falling and people are racing to get out of this place like bats out of hell.  

“I want that fighter,” He seethes. To do with him, he has no idea. His instinct paces in his belly and he ignores it to satisfy his lie to himself.

“I’m sorry but tonight’s fighters don’t work here.” Mai smiles and her voice keeps an even tone. Kinn stalks over to her and grabs her face in his hand, thumb one side of her jaw and fingers indented on the other.

“If you don’t give me what I want I’m going to kill you for what you’ve done.” Kinn puts his nose to her throat and almost gags, “Rat.”

Her eye twitches and that’s as much as she reacts to being found out. Maybe because she wants to give in, maybe because he knows she’s looking right into his golden eyes. His instinct isn’t a secret in the underground circles. Just because he doesn’t say it, doesn’t mean it isn’t known.

“Of course, Khun Kinn. Give us one moment.” Mai smiles but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes through her fear and Kinn lets her go.

Pete looks at Big and Ken, “We’re not affected, which means they’re targeting Khun Kinn. Sir, we should—”

Pete drowns out into buzzing nonsensical words to Kinn, so he gives up trying to understand. His father sent him here. Did he know?

Kinn groans because his instinct is battering against his sternum. Out, out, out. Rend, slice, gouge. Want, mine. Mine. It pulses in his brain intrusively like a mangled car accident on side of the road.

He imagines a box and he imagines stuffing his instinct inside it. Stay there. It roars at the indignity. It won’t stay there for long, but someone comes to get them to take them down to the now empty floor.

***

The challenger is being held by two doormen, one on each arm as he’s being forced to kneel on the floor with a knee in his back to hold him steady.

“Why the fuck are you doing this to me?” Defiant eyes meet Kinn’s, even from where he’s standing, he can feel the aggravation rolling off him in waves.

“You’re an interesting thing,” Kinn tells him as he takes a step forward and the fighter rocks back as much as he can and curses out his captor when he gets nowhere. “You’re recompense for my ruined evening.”

He looks at Kinn like he’s grown two heads, “What?”

Kinn gets down on one knee to inspect him and he struggles when Kinn turns his head this way and that. His neck is clean, his arms are too, Kinn reaches for his vest, and he almost gets headbutted in the nose for his troubles.

“Khun Kinn!” Big punches him and his head drops only for a moment before he’s back up again.

“His name?” Kinn asks.

He gets a glare, “Jom.”

“Porsche, Khun Kinn.” Mai provides and “Porsche” looks at her incredulously.

His mentally envisioned box disappears and his instinct uncurls itself. It’s pressing and jabbing at his belly. Closer. Closer.

“I’m going to scent you.” He tells Porsche who wrestles against his restraints.

“The hell you will.”

“So you do have an instinct.” It isn’t a question and Porsche stills. “Of course you do, a fighter like you with an opponent that size.”

Kinn leans in, first into Porsche’s breathing space and then nosing along his jaw. He doesn’t need to be this close but it’s about the power and he has a feeling deep inside that Porsche is going to smell amazing. He tries to recoil from Kinn but he can’t as he doesn’t have anywhere to go. Kinn dips on the curve by Porsche’s ear and there is a faint layer of stubble that he can feel as he goes, but overwhelmingly he can smell honey and smoke; however, it’s not like a cigarette, it’s like burning embers and something he doesn’t know. Kinn has met a lot of people with a lot of instincts despite their rarity and none of them smelled quite like this. Like a burning night wrapped up in sweetness and fresh water.

“What—?” He starts to ask.

Then he feels teeth. He’s being gouged by teeth. He grunts in pain and grabs Porsche by the thick crown of his hair to try and pull him off, but he stops when he feels a trickle. Inside and out. His throat is dripping hot blood, his human heart thudding in a frenetic tattoo driven solely by fear, but inside, his instinct stops. Stunned, it stills like a statue, like a pup that has just been picked up by the scruff of the neck and made to fall in line.

It’s a long moment as Porsche’s mouth pulls the heat from inside Kinn out. Kinn feels suspended like a fly in amber, his heart racing but his body immobile as he feels the cold pressing in on his spine, skittering up like a tree vine. This man is like venom in his veins, he seeps in, or rather…he leeches Kinn’s heat out. His instinct wakes up and beats inside his ribs like it’s a cage and it wants out. Give. Mine. Blood. Taste. And roaring so loud it almost deafens him, Kinn slides back, not enough strength to hold himself, attacked from all sides, and Porsche goes with him.

Strong hands encircle his wrists and pin him down, solid bodyweight on his hips keeps him moving but more than that Kinn can’t move. Porsche isn’t a vampire, he isn’t sucking the blood out of Kinn, but his tongue swipes against the skin under his teeth and Kinn shudders. His instinct is holding him down even more than Porsche. Give. Mine. Kinn feels it looking at him and he sees it in its entirety: long black body, sharp pearlescent fangs, ivory talons piercing the very essence of his soul and those gold eyes, peering into him as the world tilts and shifts and the heat that was stolen from him is shunted back inside him, renewed, and dipping into every edge of his being. He can’t cry out even though he wants to, every nerve ending on fire, his mouth gapes as he tugs once more on Porsche’s hair.

It’s different. It’s not the same. His back melts into the ground as the warmth soothes his aches and his thighs part to try to get his feet under him but all it does is situate Porsche tighter on him, his teeth still locked in their vice like grip.

His revelation feels like it should have taken hours, but Kinn realizes that it was over in a matter of seconds as Porsche is yanked off him. His teeth unlatch and Kinn feels momentarily bereft. His instinct is silent. Not gone or even held but resting low in his belly. It’s waiting; eyes solely focused on the person in front it.

Big is the one that pulled Porsche off and the useless doormen get a better grip on him back put him back on his knees. Big is about to go in on Porsche again but Kinn yanks his trouser leg, “Don’t.”

Porsche looks at him, mouth bloody and his white teeth stained. His eyes are dark as if none of this affected him at all. Kinn searches for something, anything that would explain him. Anyone with an instinct that has abilities shows up in their eyes. It’s impossible that they didn’t change or that they could dissipate so quickly.

“What are you?” Kinn asks him, sitting up. He’s never known anything to leech heat from him only to put it back.

Porsche shrugs.

“What you just did. What did you do?” He tries again and Porsche looks at him blankly like he has no idea what Kinn is talking about.

“Get him up. Throw him in the back of the car.” Kinn demands as he forces himself to stand up. He feels a bit doe eyed and bambi legged. His cheeks feel hot when he realizes that his instinct isn’t the only thing that was stirred, and Porsche would have known it too. Nonetheless, his throat is a mess, but he feels clearer than he has in a long time. His instinct huffs, satisfied. Take. Mine. Kinn rolls his shoulders and feels nothing. Not pain, not numb. He feels like himself. His body calms and it’s better than a weekend of nameless escorts.

However, at the demand, Porsche starts to fight against his captors again.

He grunts as they struggle to hold him, so Kinn grabs him by the throat, his thumb forcing Porsche’s chin up to look at him. Kinn ignores his rebellious eyes, getting in close and tells him: “You won’t like it if I bite you, so stop.”

He lets his crippling heat roll through his fingertips and Porsche looks at him, completely unfazed, before spitting in his face.

Chapter Text

The crisp night air does a lot to disperse the heavy cloud that Kinn realizes he was under. However, it doesn’t stop him as he sees Big and Ken manhandling Porsche at his request. His instinct sits under his skin, almost like a thin armor-like veneer. It beats its own mental drum and it throbs in his throat where Porsche has torn him.

To say his unintended guest was unappreciative of his bonds or his mode of transport is a relative understatement as he was tipped into the spacious boot of one of the fleet cars, complete with a gag to stop him from biting again and to stop the stream of colorful expletives that he volleyed at Kinn’s bodyguards. Pete waits by Kinn’s side, but he shakes his head. Understood, Pete goes to the car, pulling out his cell as he does. Kinn hazards a guess to inform his brother since Chan arrived not long after they dragged Porsche out of the club.

Kinn’s father’s head bodyguard was dialled in the moment the spiked inhibitor was found and he brought the necessary reinforcements to capture the workers of the club that had tried to run.

“Khun Kinn.” Chan bows his head minutely as Kinn wipes his mouth. His own extended period of calm is unnerving. His instinct is now sulking as the object of its attentions is shut away. Kinn scolds it, you’ve had more than enough today. It growls at him but doesn’t raise its head off its forelegs. Petulant child.

“Chan.” Kinn relays back to him. “Big has briefed you?”

“Pete. He was comprehensive.”

Kinn knows Chan is making not unnoticed glances at his throat. He scrubs a hand over his face, “It got…rowdy.”

Chan doesn’t so much voice his disapproval, but his silence is a lecture within itself.

Never expose your neck. Not to anyone.

He knows his high-flying trip under Dieu Même’s winning street brawler is wearing off and he is embarrassed to say the least. Chan taught him to guard his throat over a decade ago, not only because it’s a key vulnerability but because of the implications.

***

After a long day of tutoring, Kinn is flagging as he is put through another one of P’Chan’s lessons. At twelve he knows the responsibilities he has are not the same as others. He has to do more, be more, whether that’s English lessons, Italian lessons or violin. He has to do it all.

He flicks between his notepad and the projector screen where Chan is explaining the neck as a strategic point. Soft, fleshy and so so easy to slit.

“One cut here and it’s over. Even for one such as you,” P’Chan tells him, “Never let anyone bite you here, Khun Kinn.”

He frowns, “Bite me? Why would someone bite me?”

There is a moment of silence and Kinn looks up at P’Chan who sighs, “Because it’s for mating.”

“Mating? Like Mae and Pa?” Kinn asks, scribbling down on the lined pages.

There’s a pause and P’Chan closes Kinn’s notepad, “Yes, like your parents. They were chosen to be married for their gain but when your Pa bit your Mae, they were mated.”

“Mated is different to married?”

Strong fingers tap on his notebook, “Yes. Anyone can be married but only those with instincts can be mated.”

Kinn turns that over in his mind. It makes sense.

“But Khun Kinn, your mate—” P’Chan stops, choosing his words carefully, “you don’t choose. Your instinct chooses. So when you bite them, or they bite you, it changes everything.”

“How does it change?”

“You won’t know until one of you is bitten.”

***

“He caught me off guard, but nothing happened. It’s just a nasty flesh wound.” Kinn pokes at it and the tender skin protests with jolts of pain into his neck and up into his head. “But he—”

Chan waits but Kinn tilts his head, unsure how to describe what happened. His instinct uncurls and smooths itself over Kinn’s mental image of himself, curling around his mid-section, tail wrapping around one leg and its head resting on top of his. He stands tall in his mind’s eye, but his instinct almost consumes him with its body and presence.

No.

No? Kinn frowns.

Mine.

Kinn lets out a huffy laugh. No, he’s not. Come down from the high.

His right shoulder buckles where talons pierce his mental form, and he cries out.

Mine.

It’s more emphatic and Chan catches Kinn as he slumps to one side, his shoulder throbbing painfully in his scales.

“Khun—”

Kinn pushes his instinct off his shoulders, and it circles him. He’s incredulous; his mind is overcome with shadows as his instinct increases its hold. His fingers feel rigid when he knows they’re lax, his legs are like sticks as his instinct slithers around him.

Mine.

He grits his teeth, no.

The flare of pain through his body puts him on his knees. His body wants to throw up, palms splayed on the dirty concrete, his throat is being choked harder by his instinct than any street thug ever could.

Stop.

There is a distant voice calling his name, but his instinct doesn’t let up. Kinn scratches at his throat and he can’t hide the whimper when it brings him no relief. It’s merciless as it presses on his windpipe. The edges of his vision get hazy.

Please.

It releases its hold and Kinn coughs and splutters and hands catch him before he completely falls to the floor.

Chan calls out in the distance, “Khun Kinn needs medical, now.”

Kinn feels like he’s floating, his instinct hovering in the background like an ill manner gargoyle.

I’ll skin you one day.

It looks at him and makes a huffing sound he’s never heard before. It isn’t until it stalks over him and knocks him down, his mind slipping into unconsciousness that he realizes it’s laughing.

***

Kinn wakes up dressed for the occasion in the dim of his private room in the medical bay a couple of hours or so later with bandages around his neck and his arm and his voice is hoarse when he tests it out.

His instinct is curled up under his heart, dozing lightly and it wakes up slowly as he does. Kinn stretches his arms and winces as his shoulders stretch, his scales much more prominent than they were earlier in the evening.

Hope you’re happy now.

Golden eyes blink lazily at him. There isn’t an iota of remorse in it as it drops its head back down. 

A figure catches the corner of his eye, the brightness of his coat is unmissable even in the low light, “Khun?”

Tankhun startles awake as if he never intended to fall asleep. “What—? Oh, Kinn. You’re up.”

His hair is burnt-ish red and his patterned trousers look completely at odds with his neon pink coat, but he’s Kinn’s brother and he comes up to the side of Kinn’s bed and rests his forehead on his.

“What’s your bad instinct doing now, hmm?”

Kinn feels something unspool with his brother’s kindness. So many times he’s been told: control it. You have to control it.

It is an ungrateful oversized lizard.

“I—”

“And you brought home a bad fish,” Khun lifts his head and pats Kinn’s shoulder. “They locked it up but it hasn’t stopped hollering.”

“Bad fi- the fighter?” Kinn tries to sit up and Khun helps shift him up so that he’s upright in the bed. The cold light of day hits twice as hard now. He’s essentially kidnapped a man in the middle of his rage.

“Arm has a report for you when you’re ready. Doctors are here though.” Khun smiles as if he’s discussing the weather and turns on the med bay lights without warning and nearly blinds Kinn in the process.

A series of lab coats come into his room and he only knows one of them. A thin reedy woman with greying hair and a worn face, “What?” he croaks.

The one he recognizes bows and gestures to herself, “I’m Dr Som, and this is my team taking care of you, Khun Kinn. We’ve run several tests, including several pathologies on your blood.”

When Kinn stares at her, she hastens to say, “We suspected that we knew the drug that you had been intoxicated with.”

She receives a chart from one of the other doctors and she flips it up to what appears to be a relevant page.

“The team were right. You were drugged with a substance that is colloquially referred to as Onyx-5.”

“Onyx-5?” It sounds ridiculous.

“Yes, we’ve had a number of reported cases of individuals with instincts injecting Onyx-5 before completely losing control and attacking those around them.”

“How is this the first time I’m hearing about it?” Kinn rolls his shoulders. Drug trade isn’t the business of the main family, but the purview of distribution lies within the minor family and is heavily influenced by his uncle. “And I wasn’t injected. There were aerosolized inhibitor canisters under the floor.”

“We believe the drug’s original form is a powder consistency, allowing it to be utilized in a number of ways. You’re very lucky, Khun Kinn.”

Kinn snorts, “I don’t feel lucky.”

His throat hurts in more than a few ways and he now has a prisoner that he doesn’t really know what to do with.

“Well, all the other users are dead.”

That catches his attention, “What? Why?”

“Two were shot by the police in aggressive stand offs, five took their own lives, and thirteen died due to abnormally high tachycardia.”  

Kinn mulls that over in his head, “Why was I the only one affected?”

“It seems Onyx-5 can be chemically engineered to attack certain gene mutations. This variant only appears to affect those of serpentine descent which is concurrent with our research. You were incredibly lucky that it was identified as early as this.”

“Thank you. And the antidote?” He expects there should be one since he hasn’t gone up the walls or offed anyone as yet.

The doctor looks at him, bemused. “Antidote?”

“It has to still be in my system, it’s only been a few hours.”

“No, Khun Kinn, it’s not. What we found were residual molecules, all of which were isolated. If we may, we’d like to take more of your blood to see if we can replicate the antidote.”

Someone else might think that it’s an altruistic act, but if you can solve one of the world’s problems and monopolize it? Then the world can pay for it.

Khun slaps him on the shoulder again, “Well, isn’t that great?”

Kinn looks inward. Disinterested eyes ignore him.

You?

It curls its tail around itself so that Kinn can’t see its face.

“No, you can’t.” His blood is for being inside his veins only and the prospect of anyone else getting a hold of it doesn’t appeal to him at all. Kinn’s tone of finality is clearly understood as they all bow and go to leave, “Oh, and I want to know tomorrow why this wasn’t reported to me before. And that includes you.”

He thinks about asking about his instinct’s momentary act of self-violence but he decides against it. He’ll visit his own personal physician away from prying eyes.

Kinn watches until the last leaves before he turns his head to his brother, “Where are Arm and Pete?”

“Arm is looking at surveillance footage and Pete is sleeping so don’t you dare wake him up.” Khun points and then jabs him with his finger.

“Tell him I want to see him when he wakes up.” Kinn reaches for his phone and gets caught on an IV drip he didn’t realize he had. Khun reaches over for him and hands him his phone; he sends Arm a quick text. Sure, it’s 3am but there is no rest for the wicked.

Doesn’t solve his guest problem either.

“The fighter, is he—?”

Khun raises an eyebrow, “Cursing you, all of our ancestors and descendants for all of time? Mmm.”

With a flourish, he takes his seat again, “Why did you take him, Kinn? Does it have anything to do with that?”

Khun gestures with a delicate wave over his own throat.

There is a disgruntled grumble in his chest and Kinn ignores it. “Pa sent me there.”

“For a club fighter?” Khun frowns like he doesn’t quite understand it. “Sounds…trendy.”

“He—he bit me.” Kinn realizes how ridiculous it sounds in the cold harsh light of day.

Khun nods empathically, “So you’re mad.”

Actually, he’s not. He touches his neck and there’s a gauze covering it, but it doesn’t take away from the pain he feels when he touches it. His instinct tilts its head and if Kinn had to guess, it’s pleased with itself.

“You don’t bite a Theerapanyakul.”

Which is true and Khun looks at him in that way he does where he seems like he knows…more, but he doesn’t say it. He just examines his nails as if he sees a chip in them and Kinn lets out a breath because the interrogation is over for now.

***

After a couple more hours of unexpected, disjointed sleep, Arm knocks on Kinn’s med bay door and bows his head, “Khun No wouldn’t let me come any earlier.”

Kinn nods, “What do you have for me?”

Arm proffers him an iPad and slides it to a video screen, “These are the new canisters being fitted the morning before your visit.”

“Bold.” Kinn comments as Arm slides it to another screen.

“Which means they weren’t tampered with on-site, but rather brought there like that.”

Kinn widens the splay of his fingers over the screen to zoom in and he sees the Serpente Industries branding, “So it doesn’t mean it was the Italians.”

“It doesn’t mean it was the Italians, but it also doesn’t mean that it wasn’t,” Arm confirms before he takes back the iPad. “It means we, I, have to dig a little deeper.”

“You do that.” Kinn confirms and then Arm returns the iPad with an open file, Kinn looks at him with confusion, “What—?”

He looks down again: “Porsche” Pachara Kittisawasd; age: 23; place of residence: Bangkok; relatives: orphan, one living brother, 18; occupation: bartender; distinguishing marks: tattoo right shoulder blade; additional notes: 1.5 million baht debt to his name. Underground fighter known as the Phoenix. There are several articles about Taekwondo championships he’s entered and won over the span of the last six years.

Medical: Instinct – N/A.

Kinn frowns, “Arm, this can’t be right. It says he doesn’t have an instinct.”

Arm looks at him and then down at his report, “Khun Kinn, these are Porsche’s official medical records including his state testing.”

State testing happens over a few days to include for natural instinct cycles and allow weaker, less powerful instincts to rally.

“How can that be?” Kinn flicks through more of the files and nothing in them indicates that the man he took, Porsche, has an instinct.

Maybe for the first time in his adult life, he pokes his own instinct.

Look.

His instinct stretches out and Kinn bears it as the spikes of its tail align with his spine and its talons stab at his thighs.

Mine.

Kinn wonders if he has quite sincerely lost it.

***

It’s a full three quarters of a day until he gets to Porsche’s room. He expects it to be trashed, chair turned over, glass smashed against the walls but nothing. Porsche is laying on the bed with his feet crossed at the ankles and playing on his phone. Someone had clearly given him a charger then.

Kinn clears his throat and Porsche ignores him.

He takes a step further and Porsche lifts his leg so that it is out to his side and stops Kinn from coming any closer.

“I don’t know what you’re on, but you can let me go now.”

Kinn’s instinct quivers and growls, its agitation increasing.

“I have some questions.”

“I don’t care.”

Kinn slaps Porsche’s leg out of the way and that gets him to look up at him before he swings his legs around and sits himself up on the bed.

“Kidnapping is a crime,” Porsche tells him with a tilt of his head.

Kinn nods his head in feigned agreement, “So is fighting in an illegal underground fighting club. Although I’m pretty sure which one would upset your brother more.”

Porsche’s face changes and hardens, “Wow, look at you, some—”

Kinn flicks the button on the blinds that no one has probably shown Porsche.

“Look at where you are. Emotional extortion is child’s play.”

Porsche was given the room directly under Kinn’s on the 17^th floor of the compound.

“Why are you doing this to me? Because I’m interesting? I’m no one.”

Kinn’s instinct prowls in his gut, waiting for an opportunity, an opening for it to pounce.

“Medical, instinct, not applicable,” Kinn tells him, and Porsche shakes his head. “That’s a lie and you and I both know it. You bit me and you did something. Humans, people, people without instincts, can’t do anything. Not to someone with an instinct. Definitely not to someone with an instinct like mine.”

Kinn can feel the steadiness of his heartbeat under his scales. His instinct wants at that creamy soft throat, wants to return the gesture and sink into it, embed itself in the layers and know Porsche. Expose all of his secrets and tease out his truth.

“What did you see, Porsche, hmm? When you gouged yourself into me? Did you see it? My instinct?” He presses and Porsche shakes his head.

“No, I didn’t see anything.”

“Liar.”

Dark eyes flit up to his and Kinn can feel himself stalking Porsche, hunting an animal that hasn’t even moved. He tries to push it back, push back his instinct but it has him and he can’t move, can’t be anything other than this.

Kinn gets close enough that he can see it. The soft bit of flesh that covers his pulse as it flutters over the vein.

He finally admits why it’s so hard. He wants a taste too, driven by his instinct’s desire to penetrate that vulnerable part of Porsche to indicate its perceived ownership. Porsche lets himself be pushed down, lest Kinn suddenly tear his throat out. Kinn catches the knee that comes up and uses it and his hand to drag Porsche down so that he’s at the edge of the bed.

“Want to tell the truth?” He asks, his nose just grazing the skin, Porsche’s burning scent filling up his senses.

His instinct pushes him – more, more.

Porsche lifts his chin and shoves at Kinn’s shoulder, hooking his raised leg around the back of Kinn’s so that they go tumbling off the side of the bed. They land hard, Porsche on top and Kinn grabs his waist when he feels that feeling again. The drawn out, leeching feeling. Porsche latches onto his wrists with his hands and holds him as Kinn tries to gain some leverage to shake him off but he realizes his instinct is still inside him.

Kinn stops. Porsche has his eyes closed and Kinn knows it’s because it would give him away.

“Open your eyes.” Kinn yanks his wrists down, but Porsche holds firm. He’s strong, maybe at least as strong as Kinn.

“No.”

Kinn drags his instinct up, get up now, the shock of it wearing off. His instinct rallies, takes up space inside Kinn and it hurts, it feels like it is trying to expand outside of Kinn’s skin, but he can see the strain on Porsche’s face. Kinn feels the heat start to build inside him as his instinct nudges at his ribs, tries to get inside his lungs, and Kinn lets it.

“Open your eyes, Porsche.”

Kinn lets go. His instinct roars and pushes out heat from every pore but Porsche doesn’t even flinch, he just tightens his grip on Kinn’s wrists as they each tug back and forth before he exhales as the equivalent of molten magma is poured onto him and in him. Kinn watches as sweat beads the slightest amount on Porsche’s hairline but otherwise he takes it, becomes a void to which Kinn pours endless fire into. He gives a little gasp as the heat gushes into him, a waterfall without end.

His instinct doesn’t stop. More.

Kinn feels like he’s about to shatter – his strength, his body – is waning under the weight of pushing so much out onto another. He’s hot, so very hot, like the desert and the sun, no water to hold his resolve.

We have to stop. He tells it as it keeps pushing harder and harder.

More.

No.

Porsche is creating crescent shaped indents into Kinn’s skin, his thighs tight either side of Kinn’s hips as he holds himself exactly as when Kinn let his instinct go.

The cold hits like an icy tundra that winds Kinn as he shivers and shakes, his chest tight with pain. Porsche flops down onto his chest and Kinn barely catches him as he shivers, his teeth chattering and his instinct curling into itself for warmth. He’s never been so cold, never known it could be like this. It hurts his bones and muscles as they pull tight to try and recoup some of what was lost.  

And yet, despite all that, Porsche is like fire in Kinn’s arms and the strength of ten suns. Like a serpent looking for warmth, Kinn slides his hands up under that white wifebeater and holds Porsche to his chest with palms flat on the small of his back.

Heat. Warm. Kinn’s instinct curls around his belly to try and hold the found warmth there and slow his chill.

“What are you, Porsche?”

Porsche looks at him, his eyes dark and a little glazed. “Nothing.”

“Liar.”

Kinn leans forward so that he is almost nose to nose with Porsche. Fisting a hand into his hair, Kinn pulls his Porsche’s head back and watches as Porsche blinks at him, his eyes still not quite seeing, drunk on whatever he’s derived from what he was just forced to accept. If Kinn didn’t know any better he’d say Porsche looked a little fucked out.

“You are going to stay here until you tell me the truth.” Kinn licks the exposed path of Porsche’s throat and his instinct salivates. Bite, bite, bite. Just a taste.

Porsche shakes his head but winces when Kinn’s grip pulls on his hair, “that is the truth.”

“Stop lying, Porsche.” Kinn presses his nose to his jugular and feels his mouth pool with saliva. That sweet smoky smell is in his nose and almost under his teeth. With Porsche wedged on top of him, every breath between them drags their clothes against their skin and Kinn is enamoured with it. The way he can count the eyelashes against Porsche’s cheek, see the crease of where his lips would turn up into a smile, and the way his breath hitches when Kinn digs his fingers into his waist a little tighter.

“What is it about you?” Kinn says, mostly to himself. He knows it’s his instinct’s drive to take possession of this man but the mystery, the why, it doesn’t care about that. Kinn does. His instinct isn’t driving towards a dead end, he can feel it in his soul. He also knows he’s wanted and had men in less time, why should this one be any different?

Mine, his instinct purrs.

You said that.

With nowhere to go, Porsche is forced back onto Kinn’s chest where he sighs and, when it appears he isn’t going anywhere any time soon, seemingly falls asleep.

“Porsche?”

His breathing slows and Kinn knows he’s asleep for real. Tucked up on Kinn’s chest, he pushes Porsche’s hair off his forehead and stares at him. He’s either an idiot or a fool to fall asleep like this.

But Kinn’s initial assessment holds true. Porsche is beautiful. He’s nothing like the men Kinn has chosen or had chosen for him in the past. There is nothing weak about him but there’s something delicate and fragile. That’s when Kinn notices it. His hands, previously warm and pressed against Porsche’s waist, are gripping cold, almost clammy skin. His heat, his fire, have dissipated into nothingness inside this man.

His instinct quiets down when he realizes. There isn’t an instinct in the world that does this, even his would have burned and stayed alight.

Kinn winces as his throat begins to throb and he cries out when it shifts from bearable into unbearable. Sleepily, Porsche shuffles up and noses against Kinn’s neck where he had previously sunk his teeth in. Kinn freezes because he expects the pain, the tear of his flesh, but trembles when Porsche pressed an absent kiss to the abused skin. His instinct keens because buried in the scales of its neck there is a small gap, barely a space, where scales cannot grow. The one shallow weakness his instinct has; the thing that defines it for what it is.

He looks at it, golden eyes that do not lower their gaze. He knows without knowing that the bite on his neck is exactly where the inverted scale doesn’t grow on his instinct.

Kinn breathes. Chest rising and falling and his instinct matches him.

He isn’t yours.

His instinct huffs hot air. Mine.

He isn’t yours.

It stares at him with woeful eyes. Kinn is suddenly reminded of his lesson with Chan that day when he first explained mating and the books he went onto read. Mated instincts aren’t given, but rather they often find each other by their commonalities: dogs and wolves, lions and bears, horses and rabbits, and even among their own kind, finding a match that fitted them perfectly.

There isn’t an animal in any of the books he’s read that fits with his instinct. Dragons are solitary instincts that are reticent to mate. They lack very little and desire less. Maybe more truthful is that few can accept the bite of a dragon, their own animal instinct too weak to cope with the power that will onslaught them. There were less savoury books when he got older that showed the true extent of what a poor mating could do, often with a dragon as the culprit. Makes what Porsche did to his neck look like the work of a fourth grader.

Kinn gently tips Porsche to the side, cradling his head as he lays him on the floor, careful not to wake him, as Kinn sits up, his chest suddenly tight and his eyes prick with tears.

Wake up to the reality. He can’t be yours. You hurt everything you touch. He’s not—

And maybe the truth that hurts worst of all is what Chan told him, about how things change when your mate bites you. Nothing changed when Porsche bit him. His instinct had cried out and received nothing in return. Not wanted. Not worthy.

Kinn looks up and swallows.

It’s just you and me and what I do to keep you.

Chapter Text

Kinn isn’t a self-pitying man. He turns to Porsche who is snuffling into his own bicep and it curls inside his chest in a way that has nothing to do with his instinct. He scoops a hand under Porsche’s neck to lift him up and he flops against Kinn again, his face slipping into the curve of Kinn’s neck as Kinn gets onto his knees and slips an arm around Porsche’s back and under his knees to lift him up as he stands.

His instinct is puffed up and prideful like a peacock. Mine.

Porsche catches Kinn unaware as he throws his arm up over Kinn’s shoulder and turns closer into him in his arms.

There isn’t one lick of guile in him, and for a moment Kinn wonders if someone like Porsche could even live in a world like his, where backstabbing is the norm and family dinners are the precursors to pulling guns.

Kinn poorly balances Porsche as he uses his foot to kick back the covers before he lays him back out on the bed and tuts that he still has his sneakers on. Unlacing each shoe, he slips them off and places them side by side next to the bed. He pulls off Porsche’s socks and tucks them into each other before placing them on top.

He wrestles with himself over taking off Porsche’s jeans. He would definitely be more comfortable that way but he also weighs up if he wants two black eyes. The answer is no.

Pulling the white duvet back over him, Kinn tucks it up around Porsche’s chest who once again flings his arms out to catch Kinn around the neck.

“Stay.” He mumbles.

There’s a jolt of jealousy. It’s easy, sure, the request of one lover to another. Kinn didn’t see anything in Porsche’s file that indicated a long-term lover, instead a significant number of backroom conquests.

“You should sleep and consider your truth-telling options.” Kinn whispers, low and knowing full well Porsche will remember nothing in the morning. Porsche holds firm on his neck and Kinn stumbles into him and almost face plants into the bed on Porsche’s opposite side.

Kinn freezes when Porsche buries his nose in Kinn’s hair and breathes him in, “Smells good.”

He holds himself as still as he can, “Yeah, what of?”

He doesn’t know what he’s expecting but Porsche’s response isn’t it: “Outside. Sky. The ocean.”

His instinct preens.

Kinn isn’t a weak man, but he takes the opportunity to turn his face and bury it in Porsche’s throat and soaks up that addictive scent of him. His neck is hot and Kinn can almost taste the tang of his blood rushing through his veins. It would be so easy to bare his teeth and sink them down into that warm skin.

No, he isn’t a weak man, but he is an opportunist.

He opens his mouth and licks the skin tentatively and Porsche intuitively wriggles against him and Kinn sucks it into his mouth for a second and pulls off with a pop. Long enough to redden the skin but not long enough for it to bruise. It’ll be gone by morning but still, Kinn watches it with a particular kind of pride. Porsche sighs and tilts his face away, giving Kinn more access and Kinn rests his forehead on Porsche’s jaw and exhales harshly.

Don’t.

Bite, bite, bite.

Shut up.

He can see it in his mind’s eye, the picture it paints; his teeth breaking into Porsche’s skin and how he’d dig his fingers into Kinn’s shoulders, his hips rocking up as he tries to buck him off but that they eventually fall back because it feels good. He wonders if Porsche will gasp breathily or whether he’ll punch out a cry as he holds Kinn’s hair.

Bite.

No.

Own.

Kinn noses his reddened mark before he sucks it back into his mouth, his tongue licking at the skin and Porsche sharply exhaling, his fingers burying themselves into Kinn’s hair to hold him exactly how he pictured. Kinn moans into Porsche’s neck without ever letting his throat go, sucking intently and when he’s satisfied, he pulls off and presses a kiss to the skin.

As soon as he’s done and Porsche rolls away from him, letting him go from his embrace and muttering something nonsensical. Not a lick of recognition. The reality slams into Kinn like a cold winter shower and shame drips down his spine. Extracting himself from the bed, he stands up and wipes his mouth.

What am I doing?

His instinct has no compunction. It wants back into the crook of Porsche’s neck, to be wrapped up in his arms and to fully immerse itself into him.

Kinn stumbles as he lets himself out, head down as if that somehow made it less visible that he had put his hands, his mouth, where he should not have.

Mine, his instinct sings.

Shut up.

***

Somewhere between the club, the stay in the medical wing and putting Porsche to bed, Kinn forgets his schedule.

He got himself back to his rooms and was pacing on the floor next to his coffee table when he hears the knock. He opens up the outer door to his suite and is faced with his regular partner from the agency, Marsh, dressed simply because all he needs to do is arrive and leave.

“Khun Kinn.” It’s a sweet and inviting tone.

His instinct stays low; its interest is still on the floor below. In truth, by now, Kinn should be clawing out of his skin to try and rid himself of his excess heat but he’s stone cold sober. He realizes, staring at the face of a man he’s bent over more than a few times, that he doesn’t actually know or remember a time where he had sex because he wanted to, not because he had to manage the beast inside him.

Kinn limply lets his arm fall and Marsh lets himself into Kinn’s rooms and takes off his jacket at the same time.

“Drink?” He offers and Kinn looks at him for a short moment before nodding.

“Sure.”

“You seem tired.”

Kinn laughs but it’s empty, “Do I?”

He’s sucked a hickey on a sleeping man and he’s got an escort in his room because the thing that lives inside him is kind of a whore. Marsh offers him a glass of whiskey with a single ice cube from the bucket that sits on the built in bar before he goes and sits on the couch by the window with a glass of his own, “Mmm. Long day?”

Kinn downs the glass and lets the burn spread out into false warmth, his instinct shuddering at the alcohol.

“You could say that.”

With a tilt of his head, Marsh pats the seat next to him, “Want me to make it shorter?”

Kinn considers it. Marsh is pretty and he knows what Kinn likes; handles him and his instinct well, doesn’t push for things that aren’t his.

Maybe he’s the whore because he starts to unbutton his shirt regardless of his instinct and the man not even ten feet below him. Marsh sits up, pushes his glass onto the table and pulls his own over his head. He’s a valley of pale skin, delicately protruding ribs and a barely there, soft tummy above his jeans.

“Have you ever thought you found your mate?” Kinn asks him quietly. He doesn’t know why he’s asking this. He does. He wants a reason to stop. A reason to start.

Marsh tilts his head, “My mate? No. I wouldn’t be doing this if I had.”

His instinct is thrumming inside him, almost vibrating out of its own skin. No, no, no. Not mine.

The talons that would normally have stabbed into him are loose and pliant and his instinct curls around his thigh and weakly squeezes it.

“Suck my cock then you can go.” Kinn tells him and Marsh smiles, “Of course, Khun Kinn.”

He’s not a weak man, but he isn’t a good man either.

***

Kinn is blinded by the sun the next morning as Porsche slaps him with a heavy duck feather pillow. There is a certain amount of regret about last night on all fronts, and Kinn scrubs a hand over his face to try and erases some memories but he sighs because he can’t and what’s done is done.

“Who let you in here?” Kinn says softly and Porsche hits him again.

Kinn grabs the pillow on the third hit and throws it off the side of the bed.

Porsche stands with his hands on his hips before declaring: “My neck, you asshole.”

“I think you’ll find it was my neck first and a lot worse.” Kinn pushes off his duvet and swings his legs over. Porsche immediately turns around because Kinn is still naked from where he fell into bed last night. “You shouldn’t blush so easy, Porsche.”

It’s easy. Push, pull. See. Doesn’t have to be difficult.

Porsche levels at him, “Fuck off.”

“Hand me my robe,” Kinn curves two fingers towards himself since it’s next to Porsche on the chair.

“Do I look like a servant to you?” Porsche turns back on him and he closes his eyes after they automatically look down. Kinn catches how they widen before he closes them.

Good to know I make an impression.

Kinn gets into his space and reaches around to grab the silk fabric. Porsche holds himself and his breath tight and exhales harshly when he opens his eyes and Kinn is dressed in his robe.

“We should get breakfast.”

Porsche stops and looks at him perplexed.

“You’re hungry, aren’t you?” Kinn goes around to his side of the bed to grab his phone before coming back to stand in front of Porsche, “We can go out or we can order from the kitchen.”

“You’re severely unhinged.” Porsche tells him and goes to leave when Kinn catches his arm.

“You need to eat.”

Porsche tilts his chin up as if to say he isn’t going to be swayed by the prospect of food, but he lasts about 15 seconds before he sighs.

“I want it all.”

“Okay, but you can’t wear that.” Kinn gestures to his clothes that he’s been in for the last two days of his confinement and he gestures Porsche towards his walk-in wardrobe.

Porsche mutters some expletives under his breath when he’s pushed into the closet and his fingers subconsciously skate across Kinn’s many suits.

“Who needs this many clothes?”

“Clothes make the man.” Kinn recites. It isn’t a new concept and he likes clothes. Likes the feel of different fabrics on his skin and his instinct likes some better than others. Like silk.

He ignores Porsche who is eyeing his extensive watch collection and pulls out a cream cashmere sweater and hands it to him before shuffling through his pants to pull out a pair of grey slacks from the back. They don’t fit him anymore, not since he’s been training full time with Chan, but he liked them enough that he never threw them away.

“They won’t be a perfect fit, but they’ll do.” Kinn eyes Porsche and his noticeably small waist. He could probably fit it almost into his two hands – don’t – and goes to grab him some underwear and socks.

Porsche looks down at the clothes he’s been handed, “What? No shoes?”

Kinn shrugs. He considered handing Porsche some loafers on the off chance that they fit, so he goes to grab a pair when Porsche puts his hands out in a “whoa” gesture.

“I’m kidding. This is ridiculous enough as it is.” Porsche takes his reluctant haul back into the bedroom and drops it on the bed. “Okay, so where’s the bathroom?”

They take it in turns to shower. Kinn specifically makes it so that he’s choosing his clothes when Porsche comes out to grab his to change into.

He considers a suit but that seems too formal, and he doesn’t really have what people would describe as “comfy” clothes. He doesn’t want to look like he’s trying to match Porsche either, so he picks up a blue polo shirt and dark slacks. He hates it. He keeps the pants but pulls out a white shirt. He looks like he always does but he feels comfortable and he supposes it’s something.

Porsche comes out of the bathroom in Kinn’s clothes looking decidedly softer than in his own and Kinn’s heart does a little swoop. His instinct is excitedly rolling in his abdomen.

Can you be less easy to please? He tells it and it happily ignores him.

Porsche rubs his head vigorously with a towel and Kinn forces himself to walk past and not take a deep inhale as he does to see how Porsche smells when he smells like him and like Kinn.

In the bathroom, Kinn wrinkles his nose. He doesn’t like to get into an already wet shower, but he turns the spray back on and dips his head so that he can get his hair wet and washed.

His instinct skirts around his shoulders and his scales ripple as he flexes them under the hot water. They’re the loosest they’ve felt in years, and he touches the skin of his back and it’s practically the same texture as the rest of his skin. He can’t help the judder that runs through his body when he does. He touches the smaller patch on his lower back and they too are soft and malleable.

He shouldn’t, but it’s easy to think about Porsche clinging to him, his fingers digging into those soft touch points on Kinn’s back and know how good it would feel. How he could press him up against the shower wall and bite at that gorgeous tan skin with Porsche’s fingers holding Kinn to him and scratching at his scales.

His instinct grumbles happily at the thought because Kinn never lets anyone touch his scales.

Running before you’ve even gotten to the start position, Kinn chides himself. He puts his palms on the wall of the shower and lets his head hang between his arms. After his display yesterday and even the day before, he’s feeling upside down and inside out. I’m going to give myself whiplash pretty soon.

Kinn squeezes out some shower gel and washes his arms, legs, chest, and stomach. He wants Porsche. He knows he wants Porsche. His cock is making a valiant attempt at filling up and he tries to ignore it as he washes himself perfunctorily.

Porsche isn’t his to want.

Mine, mine, mine.

Kinn sees him in his mind’s eye, armed with a pillow and throwing it at him. His neck was purple just above the collarbone with Kinn’s mark, big enough that anyone could see it for what it was. Could see how stark it was. His instinct spreads a smug heat inside him, warms him up to know that its intended bears at least some modicum of a mark.

The guilt he feels at the mark doesn’t stop him from taking himself in hand and getting himself all the way hard. He turns his back to the wall and leans against the tiles, cupping himself and spreading his legs enough to get comfortable. No, shame doesn’t stop him either when he thinks about Porsche. He doesn’t have a lot to go on, but he has felt the muscles in Porsche’s back, how he has carved himself out of muscle and sinew and Kinn wants more. Wants to know the map of his skin as well as his own. His tattoo? Kinn wants to bite it and bruise it red and purple like his throat. Kinn wraps his fingers wrap around himself and he thumbs at the head before stroking back down to the thatch of hair he keeps neat at the base. He wants to see Porsche on his knees, covered in come and his face pressed against Kinn’s thigh ‘just so’ that he can see his embedded mark in the muscle of his neck, moving as his throat bobs when he swallows. The shower gel helps smooth Kinn’s hand, and he speeds up, that one image and the thought of water sluicing down Porsche’s chest, keeps Kinn biting his lips to keep himself from making a sound that Porsche can hear. With his other hand, he tugs a little on his balls and spills over his fingers embarrassingly fast, coating his spend back onto himself and then watches it wash away in the water.

Kinn blinks as the world slowly becomes cohesive again. His instinct is languid and sleepy and Kinn wipes his hand on his hip before he swipes clean hands over himself again.

And if he seems a little pink when he gets out of the bathroom, that’s simply because the water was scalding hot, and he says as much to Porsche when he narrows his eyes on him.

***

Kinn takes Porsche to a hotel not far from the compound. It has a low level jungle theme with printed wallpaper, hanging plants, dark wood panelling and is dotted with opulent tables covered in white linen and seated with forest green velvet chairs. Kinn likes it because they have an excellent brunch menu and it’s easy for his bodyguards to scout and keep cordoned off. He takes Porsche up onto the cleared out raised platform where his bodyguards take their positions at the steps onto it and the exit points.

He also watches Porsche clock the exits and the lack of viable opportunities for escape.

“What would you like?” He asks, ignoring Porsche’s scanning sight line and picking up his menu.

Porsche sighs. Still, he ends up being relatively traditional, asking for a big bowl of joke[1] with a cracked egg and pork, Kinn decides to order the same but instead of sparkling water like Porsche, he orders his usual black coffee.

“So do all the hostages get such special treatment?” Porsche says absently as he stares at the dessert menu rather than looking at Kinn.

“No, but since you did sink your teeth into me, I thought I should at least try to make it special.” Kinn says lightly. Not one to pass up an opportunity to rub it in.

Porsche flushes a delicate shade of red and Kinn lets him off by folding his menu closed and signalling for a waiter with one flick of his wrist. He comes innocuously and takes their order and disappears much the same.

Porsche, however, has his eyes cast down and is awkwardly picking at the trousers that Kinn lent him.

“I—” He swallows and it pricks Kinn’s instinct, it perks up and waits. Kinn is curious. Porsche doesn’t strike him as someone who is overly apologetic but the way he keeps his eyes focused down, he knows he’s going to get something to that effect.

“I didn’t mean to…” He gestures to Kinn.

“You didn’t mean bite another person with an instinct? How were you raised?” Kinn says it offhandedly and Porsche shuts down.

Shit.

 “Porsche—”

“My parents raised me well,” Porsche gives Kinn that hard, defiant look from the club. “Better than someone who steals people like they’re property.”

“Guess that’s why you’re you and I’m me.” Kinn says without any warmth. It’s easy to slip on the mask and it isn’t until then he realized how much he hadn’t been wearing it around Porsche.  

Still, Porsche leans back in his seat, Kinn taps the table in front of him, “Let’s not pretend here. You owe me an explanation regardless of whether I let you walk out that door. Because you were raised well.”

“I guess you read in my file I’m an orphan” Porsche unfolds his napkin and places it over his lap. Kinn hums his assent and Porsche spreads his fingers over the corners of the fabric, protective of his borrowed clothes, “Then you’ll know I wasn’t raised that well.”

Kinn stares at Porsche, the cut of his profile as he moves to the side to allow their waiter to put their food down along with their drinks. He bows his head in thanks and picks up his spoon and Kinn doesn’t know what to do because he realizes in that moment, he likes Porsche. Likes his fire. Likes how impossible it is to put up a wall around him.

Porsche looks at him, “Aren’t you going to eat?”

Kinn picks up his spoon and scoops up some of the joke before catching another glimpse of Porsche out the corner of his eye. He wriggles minutely in his seat with a smile on his face and that’s how Kinn knows the food is good. Taking his first taste, he has to agree.

Their brunch passes without much thoroughfare, Porsche gets some sort of fruity juice after and sips on it while he people-watches the other patrons in the hotel.

There aren’t many since Kinn has taken over the majority of the place, but Porsche seems happy enough.

Kinn takes the opportunity to text Arm: Progress?

His response is almost immediate: Running several data scrapes.

“Porsche?” Kinn asks him quietly and Porsche looks back at him. “Time to go.”

Porsche stands and stretches with his arms up and a sliver of his stomach gets exposed between the waist of Kinn’s trousers and the sweater. Kinn can’t help but stare.

Am I really lusting after a 2cm meter strip of skin? Kinn puts his napkin on the table. I guess I am.

Porsche waits for Kinn to stand and Kinn ends up behind Porsche and gently guiding him out of the hotel with fingertips grazing the small of his back.

Afterwards, Kinn’s fingers burn.

***

And that’s how Kinn ends up…keeping Porsche. He just never lets him go. Porsche comes to his rooms that same evening and stares him down.

“I’m going home.” Porsche tells him.

Kinn puts his iPad down on his desk and leans back in his chair, “No, you’re not.”

“I have to go home.”

“No, you don’t.”

Porsche looks at him with wild eyes, “I have—”

Kinn knows he’s about to say a brother but stops himself.

“—responsibilities.”

“Hmm. I’m sure.” Kinn unlocks his phone and shows Porsche a text.

Yok has had a flood. Helping out. Back when I can. Don’t forget :sun emoji:

“You tapped my phone? I take it back. You’re deranged.” Porsche comes over to Kinn’s desk and tries to snatch his phone but all that happens is Kinn catches his wrist and pulls him down to eye level.

“And yet, you remain silent.”

Kinn rubs his thumb over Porsche’s pulse that is beating erratically under it, “I’ve got nothing to say to a low—”

Kinn pulls Porsche closer again and he’s forced to balance himself on Kinn’s desk or fall across it into his lap.

“Nothing about me is ‘low’ or small or any of those useless adjectives,” Kinn whispers and Porsche watches his mouth as he does.

His instinct strains to get closer. Kinn leans into Porsche who doesn’t move back when he does. He thinks he might be imagining it, but Porsche is once again siphoning heat off of him. His instinct pushes up to meet him, his hand decidedly warm, even to him. The scent of him is intoxicating like this, so heavy on the sweet cloying smell of honey but with that warm fire smell that wraps him up.

“Porsche…” Kinn tilts his head and Porsche follows him unconsciously. He swallows, close enough to feel Porsche’s breath against his cheek.

A little more…

Porsche is openly staring at his mouth and Kinn leans that last inch into him and catches his bottom lip when there’s a knock at his door.

Porsche jerks back and pulls his hand out of Kinn’s. He’s upright and six feet back when Ken comes to hand Kinn another file.

Kinn grits his teeth and accepts it, Ken eyes Porsche silently but leaves just the same. Nonetheless, his instinct is scratching at him, embedding grooves into his sides to share its disappointment.

Settle down.

It huffs and slots its tail against his spine and Kinn rolls his neck to try and loosen some of the tension. Porsche is staring at him and Kinn looks at him before he coughs and gestures to leave.

Kinn sighs, sliding the folder onto his desk and pinches his nose.

Can’t things ever be easy?

***

Kinn learns very quickly that Porsche is a swirl of chaos when cornered.

Once it became apparent that Kinn’s threat to imprison him was real, Porsche started pushing all the boundaries he could find, including endlessly letting himself off the floor he was assigned to and exploiting unforeseen gaps in the compound security. Their…tension has just upped his attentions on his escape.

So that’s why Kinn finds him in the kitchen with the aunties from housekeeping and them cooing over his handsome face. There are six of them, dressed in the smart business casual uniform of the main family, hair pinned up in sleek chignons and presenting the smart face of the Theerapanyakuls at every level. They are also all old enough to be his mother with a couple old enough to be his grandmother, but he plays them like they’re all suddenly twenty again, giggling coquettishly, smiling and touching his arm as they hand him a plate of sweet treats and a mug of warm milk.

Sat up on the counter, it’s almost like he’s always been there.

They catch sight of him and the warm atmosphere drops, “Khun Kinn.”

He’s used to bowed heads, he isn’t used to Porsche staring at him, still holding his cup and sipping it quietly.

“The aunties were kind enough to feed me.” Porsche tells him as if he was in the wrong. Kinn feeds him just fine and it’s been three days. He won’t starve to death that quickly.

“How did you get off your floor?” Kinn asks him, crossing his arms.

He shrugs, “Elevator.”

“Put it down.” Kinn gestures to the cup and Porsche holds it tighter to his chest.

Kinn narrows his eyes, “Porsche.”

“Kinn.”

There is a series of gasps. Only his family addresses him without formality and he keeps a strict boundary with his staff. Address him as Khun or take your leave elsewhere. Porsche, unbeknownst to them, doesn’t really fall into either category but if he did, he’d be in the former as much as Kinn is reticent to admit it. Mostly because he would never address Kinn formally.

Porsche sips his drink and smiles sardonically.

Jutting his chin up, eyeing the staff with their heads still lowered, he replies curtly: “Khun Kinn. Anakinn Theerapanyakul. Head of the main family.”

Porsche raises his eyebrows and mouths “head of the main family”, clearly mocking Kinn, before he puts his mug down next to him, “I’m Porsche—”

“Pachara Kittisawasd. I know.”

“If you know, then why do you need to keep me here?” Porsche hops down and takes one of the small cakes from the plate and pops it into his mouth.

“Tell me the truth and you’re free to leave.”

“Does anyone actually ever believe that?” Porsche chews and makes his way to stand in front of Kinn. For the first time they’re truly eye to eye and Kinn realizes they’re the same height. He swallows his food and tells him, “I don’t have what you want, so give it up.”

Kinn crowds Porsche against the counter to their left, tilting his head to the side. His neck is bare of bandages but the clear outline of teeth has yet to fully heal.

“Why does anyone believe you? You can barely lie through your teeth.”

Porsche’s eyes drop to his lips as he says “teeth”, watching his mouth shape the word, “You’re barking up the wrong tree.”

Kinn lets him up, “I don’t bark. Let’s go.”

He slips his hand around to the small of Porsche’s back to guide him towards the kitchen doors. When he gets outside of them, Porsche sees Big and Ken and his puffed-up attitude deflates.

“Those two?” Porsche wrinkles his nose, “I’d rather fling myself off the nearest balcony.”

Kinn nods, “Good to know.” He turns to his bodyguards, “Lock all the balcony doors.”

Porsche stares at him, “You need a hobby.”

“You need to find yourself back in your room,” Kinn raises his eyebrows and indicates that Big and Ken can take Porsche back up. It’s not before Porsche turns around at the end of the hallway, before he gets onto the elevator, and flips him off.

Kinn manages to hold it until Porsche gets on before he smiles. His instinct rolls happily again in his belly, huffing in that way it does that indicates laughter.

Like a comedian, do you? Kinn prods and his instinct ignores him and curls up on itself again.

Kinn goes back into the kitchens; the aunties once again talking quietly before they stop, heads bowed and silent.

“Make sure you have things Porsche likes.”

One of the aunties, raises her head, “Khun Kinn?”

Kinn coughs, “He has to eat, doesn’t he?”

He doesn’t duck his head as he walks himself out without any preamble nor does he ignore the pink flush that stains his cheeks.

***

Pete finds him at the gun range not long after; he waits until Kinn finishes his clip before he nods and proffers pleasantries.

“Report?” Kinn asks him, and Pete hands him a hard copy folder, which he opens and scans. He had Pete dig into the victims of Onyx-5. “Have you shared any of this with anyone else?

Pete shakes his head, “No. Only you as agreed.”

“You’ve done well, Pete.” Kinn tells him as he closes the file. He’ll burn it in his room later.

“Thank you.”

“What can you tell me about Porsche?” Kinn asks.

Pete looks startled for a moment, “Porsche?”

“My…house guest. What’s your first impression?”

Pete nods and leans against the plexiglass screen next to Kinn, “He’s hiding something.”

Kinn hums.

“He’s silent.”

That catches his attention, “Silent?”

Pete licks his lips and chooses his words carefully, “He could pass.”

Pass as a human.

“But he’s not?” Kinn searches Pete’s face as if it would provide more answers than his words.

“I don’t know. He isn’t like anyone else.”

Isn’t that an understatement.

Kinn puts his hands on his hips and considers his next move.

“Khun Kinn.”

“Yes?”

“This is because…” Pete considers his words because Kinn can tell he’s about to cross a boundary. “Porsche bit you.”

The fact Pete asks tells Kinn he didn’t let his instinct interfere.

He considers telling Pete about how Porsche stole heat from him not once but twice. Maybe even three times if he was right about that time in his room. Regardless, he had taken Kinn to his upper limits, maybe even his true limit, and had some to spare. It makes no logical sense any way he cuts it, and he feels like he’s been going around in the same circle trying to figure it out.

“Did you ask him?”

Kinn glares and Pete ducks his head.

“Hmm, if I had just thought of that.” Kinn replies, his tone dripping heavy sarcasm.

Pete shrugs, “He’s a pretty easy going guy.”

“What?” Kinn asks, his instinct’s ears are pricked, and his stomach drops to his feet. Pete hasn’t had a chance to interact with Porsche since Porsche had been locked away on his trip to the compound and Pete has been with Khun ever since.

“Porsche, he was in the—Khun Kinn!”

Kinn picks up his cell and dials Arm, “Where is he?”

“3^rd floor training room, sir.”

Fuc—does he never stay put?

His instinct is pacing inside him as he strides towards the double doors into the dojo. It’s empty and dark, save a few stray mats not tidied away. Kinn keeps going, crossing the blue mats through to the next doors into the training pool that exists beyond it.

“Porsche!”

It’s darker than the dojo, with lights in the pool itself and a fountain wall that doesn’t spill out light onto the whole room, so Kinn sees that there are two figures at the other end of the pool before his eyes adjust and he can tell that it’s Ken and Big. Porsche isn’t with them.

“Where is he?” He demands.

Big stands upright and Ken follows, “Khun.”

“I said where is he?”

Kinn turns and he can’t see him or anywhere he might have slipped off to, “I asked you take him back to his room; how could you lose him?”

Kinn’s instinct goes cold. It catches his breath and it’s painful, almost like his lungs are burning. He feels the water under his instinct’s talons and he freezes.

“Where. Is. He?” But he knows

Kinn throws his cell to the side of the pool and yanks off his suit jacket before he dives into the water.

It takes him a second for his eyes to focus in the water but he sees Porsche sinking to the deepest part of the pool and reaches out to him to try and grab his wrist. Kinn feels his heart in his throat because Porsche isn’t flailing, isn’t fighting, he’s sinking as if he’s dead weight.

His instinct beats its head against his ribs as he swims down, close enough to grab Porsche around the waist and haul him to his body. It takes what feels like an age to get him up and his head out of the water. He doesn’t splutter, doesn’t give any indication that he’s conscious.

Pete is closest to him at the side of the pool and Kinn gestures to him with wild eyes, gasping, “Help me get him out, he isn’t breathing.”

Pete grabs Porsche’s arms and Kinn pushes him up from below. Pete topples as he gets crushed under Porsche’s weight but he’s out. Kinn hauls himself up and out as Pete lays Porsche down and tips his head back to listen for breath sounds.

Nothing.

His instinct scratches at him; his belly, his ribs, his thighs, and it’s agony being shredded over and over as it tries anything it can to get at Porsche and Pete works on him.

Two sets of breaths and chest compressions get Porsche coughing and spluttering, finally, with guidance from Pete to take easy breaths so he doesn’t inhale any more water. He’s pale and he flops back down in Pete’s arms wordlessly. Pete gives him over to Kinn, who immediately wraps him up in his own arms, his instinct finally settling and giving up some of its heat through Kinn’s skin to Porsche.

Kinn is about to turn back to his guards when Chan calls for him from the second door at the back of the room, “Khun Kinn.”

Chan is choosing to be a buffer between them and Kinn’s anger.

He wants to? Fine.

“Deal with them or I will.” Kinn tells him with quiet determination. His instinct is baying for blood, roaring until the pool water shifts with it.

Death to all.

Chan nods, one eye on the water, “Of course.”

It’s irrational. He should at least hear their side, his men who have been loyal for years, but he doesn’t want to. He wants to enact violence. He wants to tear flesh from bone when he sees Porsche’s pallid complexion.

Pete whispers quietly, “Come on, we’ll get him to medical.”

Kinn tucks Porsche’s face into the crook of his neck before wrapping one arm around his back and the other under his knees before he scoops Porsche up into a princess style carry. He’s nothing like when Kinn put him to bed. Now his body is limp and unresponsive and makes no attempt to cuddle himself closer to Kinn.

His instinct is now dragging at Kinn’s skin, his back burning as if he’s been lanced open and Kinn wants to cry, it feels like he’s being rendered by his scales, but he refuses to let Porsche go.

I’m trying to help. Stop.

His instinct noses at his throat where Porsche’s bite has almost healed and his face is pressed against Kinn before it utters a word that Kinn has never heard it say:

Scared.

Chapter Text

The walk to medical isn’t a solitary one. Half of Kinn’s staff see him sodden and carrying a half-conscious man in his arms, and he doesn’t care.

Pete presses the buttons on the elevator and makes sure it stays open long enough for Kinn to get Porsche in and out without his head ever slipping off his shoulder.

Time ticks almost like a law unto itself. There isn’t a clock anywhere in sight, but Kinn hears it; hears it like he hears the beat of his heart in his chest. His instinct is lethargic and laying in the pit of his stomach, lamenting in silence as he makes his way to the medical floor. The silence is deafening, the stillness an aberration of the norm.

He’s not dead, Kinn reasons.

Gold eyes peer at him above crossed claws. Cold seeps into his bones and Kinn almost stumbles when the elevator doors open and Pete guides him on the familiar route to the medical bay. He naturally clutches Porsche tighter and he feels anxiety creep under his skin as Pete opens one of the double doors.

He looks back at those eyes. They’re dull, almost cloudy and Kinn doesn’t understand what it means. His instinct closes its eyes as if in sleep and Kinn doesn’t know how to cross that threshold. There’s a space between them he has never seen or known; he can’t grasp it, can’t tear it apart.

Kinn looks down at Porsche who is still sleeping or unconscious, he doesn’t know that either. He feels useless and defeated as Pete goes ahead of him to alert the medical staff to their arrival.

He comes back and speaks quietly to Kinn, who is standing in the middle of the small reception area and weighted into the floor by his own feet and nothing to do with Porsche. Pete looks at him with sympathetic eyes and waits before he shuffles a bit, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Do you want me to—?” He offers and Kinn shakes his head.

“No.” It’s just as soft. He sighs, “Thank you.”

Pete smiles but tightly, “No problem, Khun Kinn.”

Dr Som rushes to greet him from a side room so he expects she was in her office on the floor when they got there. She’s wearing a pair of reading glasses which she pulls off when she sees Porsche in his arms, “Khun Kinn.”

She rattles off a series of requests as she pushes a curtain out of the way for Kinn to lay Porsche down on the bed. He shakes his head, “No, a private room.”

Private rooms are reserved for the family and bodyguards who have served for long enough to earn the privilege.

Dr Som takes it in her stride and walks them down towards the room Kinn was in, “Come this way.”

“What happened?” She asks as she unloops her stethoscope from her neck. She gestures for Kinn to put Porsche onto the bed and she gives him a stern look when he doesn’t immediately relinquish Porsche from his hold.

“Khun Kinn, I need to examine the patient.”

Pete prompts him from behind, the jolt spreads easily over him and his instinct acknowledges it by getting to its feet.

Kinn leans over the bed and lets Porsche slip slowly from his arms but keeps his hand within his own two.

“I found him under the water, got him out; Pete did CPR. He didn’t come around the first time but did on the second. I don’t know how long he was under. He’s 23, no known medical issues.”

She pushes up Porsche’s t-shirt to put the stethoscope on his chest and listens to his breathing and Kinn tenses and squeezes Porsche’s hand tighter. His instinct whines.

“Lift him back up for me?” She requests and Kinn gently tucks his hands under Porsche’s armpits and guides him, holding him up while Dr Som listens to the back of his chest. She gestures for Kinn to let him down, which he does. She then places the monitor on his finger. She nods at the numbers the adjacent machines tell her.

“Nurse, get me an oxygen tank, full capacity for the next couple of hours, he’s at 84, and I want him back at 95 ASAP. He’s at risk for asphyxia if his airways aren’t clear, monitor regularly in case we need to intubate, or he develops ventricular dysrhythmias as we have no knowledge of time down. Also, get him out of these wet clothes and some light blankets to start warming him up and prepare warming IV fluids, but also check his temp as he’s cold to the touch. Once he’s stable, I want to run his bloods, a chest x-ray, MRI, and potentially an ECG to give us a fuller picture of why this happened.”

The nurses take the influx of information in their stride, one marking it down on his electronic chart and another goes, Kinn assumes, to get the things needed to treat Porsche.

For his part in all of it, Kinn stares at Dr Som. Her face softens when she turns to him, “I don’t hear any water in his chest, but his oxygen levels are quite low and that’s concerning. Since you found him relatively quickly, we hope that once we get them back up, he’ll wake up and start to be on the mend.”

She gestures for the nurse to give her the chart, reading the notes, “And his instinct did nothing to help?”

Kinn freezes. “What?”

Dr Som looks at him with an open face, “The young man’s instinct. I would have assumed it wanted to help.”

“He doesn’t have an instinct.”

She notes that down on his chart but it gets his back up. Why even ask the question? Even Kinn if he walked into a hospital with no phone or identification wouldn’t be immediately identifiable as one with an instinct.

Kinn catches Pete frowning out the corner of his eye: the quickest and easiest way to find out a person’s instinct after state testing is through a medical blood draw. A person’s instinct markers are aligned with first the threshold to establish an instinct’s existence, and then to the likelihood of the animal. Kinn has extraordinarily high markers in line with the rarity and strength of his dragon. It would be the perfect time to find out Porsche’s secret, but Kinn looks down at him as Dr Som and her team of nurses start to cut Porsche out of his wet, borrowed clothes and cover him with an ugly medical gown and he knows he can’t.

His instinct whines and curls around his wrist, wants to be part of Kinn that’s holding Porsche.  

“Just do what you have but don’t test him without his consent.”

Another nurse comes in and attaches a mask to Porsche’s face and the hiss of the oxygen canister rips through the sombre mood of the room. Kinn straightens himself up and Dr Som bows.

“Understood, Khun Kinn. If necessary, I’ll get your approvals if Mr—”

“Kittisawasd, Porsche Pachara. Arm has Porsche’s medical files, please request them with this caveat.” Kinn knows Arm is smart enough to read between the lines and remove the parts Kinn doesn’t want to be known. The questions that surround Porsche are too intimate and too fragile, like gossamer webs that if Kinn finds out the truth, Porsche will disappear like he never existed at all.

It’s the true crux of their détente. Porsche’s secret lives and breathes between them but Kinn crosses no boundaries trying to learn it.

Kinn rubs his thumb over the soft top part of Porsche’s hand and while he remains limp in the bed, he’s there. He’s warm. He’s alive.

Kinn sends Pete back up to Khun and gets the medical team to set up a cot in the room because he knows he isn’t going to sleep 15 floors up so he might as well stay where he is. One of the aunties from housekeeping, Joy, brings him some pyjamas and fresh clothes for the morning. She looks at him for a moment and Kinn frowns because he isn’t sure why and she gives him a soft smile before she leaves.

“You’re a good boy, Khun Kinn.” She doesn’t reach out and pat his shoulder or his cheek like she had with Porsche in the moments he had watched before he announced himself, but her words feel just the same. It’s when she’s gone that it forms a lump in his throat because no one has called him that since he was a boy. His mother’s boy. Always coddled in her arms because he wasn’t strong-willed like Khun or fearless like Kim.

Oh, my sweet boy, she would say as she brushed back his hair and he smothered his face in her stomach. His instinct was forming then, a burnished gold egg that resided in his chest that she would pat and tell stories to when she came to tuck him in at night.

Do you know my darling that the fiercest dragons are the sweetest? They hold their treasure tight in their hearts.

She smelt like roses and cinnamon, a scent that Kinn has never forgotten.

His instinct shudders inside him, its tears and lament multiples thrice as he thinks about his mother. Her favorite red dress. Her earrings. Her delicate heels. Her laughter. Her sorrows.

He feels cracked open and his emotions are free flowing like water. His mind knows that it’s insanity. Preposterous nonsense to think that he could feel the way he does about a man he met three days ago but he’s here, sitting on an unfolded contraption, hoping to any god that he will be okay. He’ll laugh again. Kinn will get a chance.

What chance?

Mine.

You’re simple. And he means it derogatorily. His instinct turns its nose up and curls its back to him. Kinn looks out the large windows that make up one wall of the room and the clear night sky provides him little comfort. The moon is fat and taunting, its fullness feels like mockery when Porsche struggles to breathe. His instinct turns back to him with it in its eyes.

Not hungry? He queries, the thought of it detestable and the grumble in his instinct’s chest that reverberates through him tells him clearly that no, addressing its hunger is not necessary.

Not mine, it grouses. Kinn realizes it’s talking about…that.

I’ll…try not to do that again, he tells it, and it keeps one eye on him, beady and judging as it turns its head back away.

The silence between them now eases. Kinn lays down on his cot, casting a glance over at Porsche who is still pale in comparison to the natural golden hue of his skin, and his breathing is aided by the mask covering it, and he looks small, tucked up in his many blankets.

I’m sorry, Porsche, I really am. Kinn knows it’s a joke to think it rather than to tell the man himself but the quiet of the medical bay doesn’t deserve Kinn’s apology. Porsche does. So, he’ll tell him when he wakes up and deal with the consequences.

Kinn wrestles with his blanket before he falls off his cot but when he does, he doesn’t fall onto the floor of the medical wing. He falls onto the leafy ground of a forest. He spits dirty leaves off his mouth and rolls onto his back to wipe his face with the back of his hand.

“Disgusting.” He mutters. Getting himself to his feet, he automatically reaches out to his instinct but gets nothing back. Touching his chest, he probes harder with his mind before he feels heated breath on the back of his neck.

Turning slowly, he comes face to face with the closed jaw of a big obsidian dragon and the light seems to be absorbed into the smokiness of its scales. His dragon. Its eyes glow and its scales carry the same iridescence as the ones on his back as they flex and move with it.

“Why are you—?”

Kinn hears a twig snap and he whirls back around to see Porsche standing under a tree. He’s smiling gently, wearing a plain blue t-shirt and jeans.

He’s pristine as if he’d never been in the water. Kinn’s heart drops, what if, beats erratically inside it.

Porsche extends his hand to Kinn in a welcoming gesture – come to me – and Kinn can’t help but go, his feet walking him to Porsche as if they knew no other path.

“How are you—?” Kinn starts but Porsche wraps him up in a big hug around his shoulders. Kinn stops before he hesitantly holds Porsche’s waist, revelling how warm he is and how tightly he holds Kinn in his arms.

“Pors—”

Porsche shushes him. He turns his face into Kinn and kisses his bite, nuzzling it with gentle rubs with the tip of his nose. It burns almost immediately but in the most pleasant way. Kinn hums and Porsche kisses above it and again until he reaches the corner of Kinn’s jaw.

Pulling back, he smiles at Kinn again, “It’s lovely here, isn’t it?”

Kinn looks on either side of him. There are trees and it’s quiet, and beyond where they stand there is a small lake with shimmering water, but it ultimately isn’t real and he is about to say so when Porsche cups his face in both hands and leans in to capture his lips in a kiss.

The shock delays him, but Kinn responds almost immediately after that, opening his mouth to drag his lips over Porsche’s, his teeth just skirt scraping his lips before Porsche opens up in return. He feels fizzy in his belly as he rubs his thumbs against Porsche’s tight waist, the strength there in his muscles as Kinn presses forward, his tongue lapping at Porsche’s bottom lip before curling under his top. He sighs, thrilled, when Porsche kitten licks his tongue, testing, before letting Kinn fully inside. Porsche’s tongue is hot when Kinn sucks on it, letting it go to trap his bottom lip between his own and giving his top the same treatment. His hands travel down, holding the curves of Porsche’s hips, to hold him as he stretches to meet Kinn and Kinn keeps his mouth tight on Porsche’s and catalogues the sighs and little whines that he gives up under his attentions.

Steadily, Porsche pushes his body up against Kinn’s, his hard chest wedged against him as his hips minutely sway under Kinn’s palms, so he pulls him in that last tiny bit across the space between them. His heart pounds with each passing moment and Porsche wraps his arms around Kinn’s neck and holds him in a vice-like grip as they kiss. Rammed from shoulder to thigh, it’s heavenly. Porsche moans sweetly when he’s given the space to breathe and his eyes sparkle when Kinn looks into them.

Porsche takes his hand away from Kinn’s neck to touch his face. He skates his fingertips across Kinn’s eyebrow, the line of his nose and cheekbone and his thumb pressing against the red swell of his lips and butterfly light on his jaw before cupping his marked throat.

“Beautiful,” he whispers.

His instinct roars in the background. Kinn is deaf to it, he leans into Porsche again for a soft peck and then another.

“Porsche, I—” Kinn starts when his vision darkens to black.

Kinn screws his eyes shut and opens them again and he realizes he’s awake in the medical wing. What woke him up was nurses coming into the room and Porsche’s machines screeching at them. He doesn’t know what half of them mean but he knows red is danger.

“What’s going on?” He croaks.

His instinct is pressed against his sternum as he stands.

“Khun Kinn, please give us space.” The nurse has her hands out in front of her and Kinn realizes he had been advancing on her.

“Tell me what’s going on?” He asks again. She takes one look at Porsche, then back at him.

“Mr Porsche is very cold, Khun Kinn. We completed several treatments, but his internal body temperature hasn’t come up.”

“He’s cold?” His instinct repeatedly headbutts him in the chest to the point it feels like his bones are going to crack.

Kinn reaches forward and puts his hands on Porsche’s arms, holding him tightly. His instinct presses down, heavy into Kinn’s stomach, and pushes out heat almost immediately.

“Khun Kinn! You can’t!” The nurse tries to stop him, but she rips her hand away from his bicep like she was burnt. Likely she was.

Kinn pours everything he has into Porsche. He digs into whatever reserves he has, whatever will he can draw up and he pours it down into the endless pit that is inside him.

Take it. Take it and get better.

His head feels woozy and several clothed hands try to drag him away. His instinct falters, its head drooping with expended energy.

Come on, we’re so close, Kinn pushes. He doesn’t know, he can only guess and hope as his instinct drives forward, using Kinn’s sternum as a point to hold itself to. Kinn feels them, the minute cracks in his bones, how they pinch and slice into him as he slips into unconsciousness.

Somewhere, he fails to remember his mother. Oh, my darling, dragons must be careful because even they can die of a broken heart.

***

Kinn wakes up in another bay room, a mirror to the one that Porsche is in, with the sun blaring into him as he scrubs his hand over his face. No dirt. He’s in his same pyjamas and he pushes the duvet off and pushes the call button.

He rolls himself up so that he’s seated with his feet on the floor, wincing as his chest aches and looks down at his feet as he wriggles his toes on the floor.

His instinct is laying against his back, exhausted and unwilling to move. His scales throb when he moves his shoulders but it isn’t unbearable.

Are you…alright?

It huffs, but it raises its head, tilting it to one side. It’s weak but it’s there.  

Kinn reaches out with his hand in his mind’s eye and touches the brow of his dragon. It’s cold and he supposes it will take a long time for it to gather any heat.

You did well.

Dr Som slides open the door to his room, pushing him out of his thoughts, and gives him a pinched face, “Khun Kinn.”

“Doctor.” He slips on his mask and gives her his best disinterested face.

“What a foolish thing you did.” She takes off her glasses and folds them into her pocket, “You ran the risk of burning out your instinct. You know it does not take kindly to heat. I’m sure you’re who we have to thank for the taps.”

Her scolding roots itself in his chest but he can’t force himself to be sorry for anything other than his instinct’s tired huffs.

“Is it okay?”

His instinct doesn’t perk up when spoken about and Kinn sighs.

“It’s very burnt out. You mustn’t do that again. What possessed you in the first place—”

“I knew I could help.” Kinn cuts in and she raises her eyebrows.

“Help? You put two causalities on my floor, Khun Kinn. That’s a hindrance, not a help. I tested your blood and your markers are considerably down from where they are normally so you must take care of your instinct if you want your markers to come back up. Give it the attention it needs.”

It’s incredibly rare, but not unheard of to lose one’s instinct. Sometimes in the battle of the wills, the human wins and the instinct dies within itself, never to return. There were days when that was all he wished for. To return to the silence of his childhood and never know the pain it had wrought on him.  

“Well, that all being said, Mr Kittisawasd is up.” Dr Som sighs as Kinn stands up but she holds out her hand, “You both need to be careful because neither one of you are in any sort of shape, do you hear me?”

Kinn nods, “Thank you, Dr Som.”

She shakes her head and mutters to herself as she leaves.

Kinn’s immediate excitement turns in the pit of his stomach. His reaction, instantaneous as it was, may not even be wanted by Porsche. Kinn turns his family ring on his finger and shakes his head when the doubt creeps inside. He turns his hand over and stares at the ring. The platinum has become duller over the years it has been worn and there’s a dent in the side made specifically by Kinn after one particularly bad deal.

Yes, they have Porsche’s secrets between them, but they also have Kinn’s truth between them as well. Maybe they could survive one but they could never survive both.

Kinn sits back down, feeling suddenly heavy and conflicted. What am I doing?

It’s a question he doesn’t have an answer for.

***

Porsche is still awake and not using the oxygen mask when Kinn goes to visit him. Propped up on pillows as a nurse checks his vitals again. His skin looks healthier, more of a glow to him but Kinn can see the strain on his face.

“Kidnapped me, held me hostage and then dunked me in the pool. I’m starting to think knowing you isn’t good for my health.” Porsche jokes but it doesn’t reach his eyes.

Kinn nods, but his words stick like he’s got peanut butter wedged in his mouth. With the weight of his earlier thoughts, he knows it’s all his fault. After all, he was driven by his drugged and insane need to appease his instinct and then his own ego. The nurse bows his head and leaves them to it with a gentle pat on Porsche’s shoulder and letting him know: “Things look well, Mr Kittisawasd, your pulse ox is up at 96%. It should return completely to baseline in the coming weeks. We’ll keep you for a few more hours of supervision then you can go.”

He nods and thanks the nurse with clasped hands.

When they’re alone, Porsche looks at him with kind eyes when he gestures to Kinn with his hand, “Thank you. For saving me.”

“Well, you’re not wrong that it’s my fault.” Kinn sits gingerly in the seat next to Porsche’s bed and Porsche follows him with his eyes.

“That’s not what I meant.”

Kinn exhales, “No, but it’s true. But I can’t say I understand what happened in the pool.”

He is expecting a report from Chan later when he’s feeling more together and his instinct isn’t quiet in his chest.

Porsche averts his eyes, “It wasn’t a big deal.”

“You almost drowned, I think your concept of a big deal isn’t valid.”

“Were your guys giving me shit? Yeah—” Porsche side-eyes him because he’s sure his emotions show on his face, “come on. Like it wasn’t expected. They’ve been babysitting me since I got here, and they gave me a bit of a shove. And I fell. It was a shitty accident.”

“You fell by accident and did nothing to save yourself?” Kinn asks as he looks at his family ring on his finger, twisting it around and around.

Porsche looks at him and shrugs as if to say he has nothing more to say. Kinn licks his lips and stands, his instinct puts up a fight to whine but it can’t do much else. Porsche tilts his head up to look at him when Kinn slides his hand around the back of Porsche’s neck, leaning down to him and scenting the line of his throat. Kinn feels soothed by the smell, the smoky aroma leaking out from Porsche’s skin as his pulse picks up under Kinn’s nose and his own heart speeds up. He nips the skin and Porsche shudders under him, held by Kinn’s fingers digging into the muscle next to his spine. He doesn’t break the skin, it isn’t a mark, it’s a taste, a tease, and a consolation. He licks it softly and Porsche reaches for him with a quiet sigh, but Kinn pulls back, trying to settle himself.

“When you’re done here, you can go,” Kinn tells him as he lifts his head, dark eyes staring into his own.

His dragon tries to stand weakly in protest, but it can’t. It sways to the side and stumbles until it falls back into its laying position.

“Kinn, wait—” Porsche calls softly, his eyes downcast.

It’s what you wanted, don’t give me those sad eyes.

But his silence after is louder than anything else that he could say.

“Your debt is paid. I’m satisfied.” Kinn stands up, putting space between them, and the way Porsche looks at him, he knows the line has been drawn. He doesn’t want to draw it. He wants to decimate it. The not truth that lives between them, Porsche won’t ever give it up, and Kinn—

I burn for you, but I will not burn for you. Let us return to the places where we started.

All of it is madness. Drugs and false starts, what exists between them isn’t real. It’s the beating notion of could be and it was destroyed by the clarity that Porsche doesn’t belong here. Kinn’s life isn’t made for someone like Porsche.

“Go back to your life, Porsche.”

***

Porsche doesn’t know how to describe how his chest cracks open. His words are strangled and his pain is a wave that crests as Kinn’s back disappears out of the door.

He turns over his hands so that his palms are facing down and he can see the glittering iridescence pressed into his skin, the glow he can’t hide.

Inside his chest, there is a delicate flutter of almost. The ash and soot that he coughed up earlier are folded up in a handkerchief he hid under his pillow. His instinct is nothing more than flittering emotion that he can barely feel let alone understand.

He touches the back of his neck where Kinn branded him with his fingertips, drags them to the skin that Kinn bit and he sees golden eyes. He knows the heat he’s holding in his belly was given to him by Kinn’s instinct but he’s losing it rapidly. He scrambles in the cinders: please, come on. He scatters the dust everywhere, but he can’t find it in the piles of soft crumbling ash.

It was enough, more than enough, what Kinn’s instinct gave, and Porsche knows it. He felt it the moment he sank his teeth into Kinn’s throat. It exploded on his tongue like starbursts and he could help but lap it up, but he doesn’t take what isn’t freely given. He poured it back into Kinn as he was supposed to. Still, he couldn’t help the parts that leaked into him and couldn’t be taken out, that spread into his veins and into the recesses of himself where he holds his own instinct. It touched him like a caress in all the places it slipped into, Porsche shivered with it as they toppled to the ground, Kinn fighting to throw him off but unable to, their bodies slotting together as closely as his teeth in the pinched flesh and muscle.  

At the same time, limping forward, his instinct had bathed in the fire like it was liquid gold, soaking up the energy to prolong its time. But Porsche felt his inner self get trapped, held in an in between place that he’s never been by a pair of clear golden eyes, black pupils dilated and narrowing in on him. Hypnotized, he put out his hand for it, no fear of the sharpness of its fangs as it slowly approached him, head bowed. Its black scales were hard and impenetrable like diamonds but when Porsche smoothed his hand over its brow, they were smooth and soft like an underbelly. Porsche let his hand fall and it exposed its neck to him with a solemn mood. It waited but Porsche looked at his own instinct, languishing and unable to lift its head. The red of its breast almost drained of color and the vivid blue sullied to a pale sky.

Give, it whispered in a low voice.

Give? You want me to give?

It turned its head back and shook it, no.

We give. Yours.

Porsche bows his head, oh, thanks for the fire, but I can’t take it.

It huffed with its teeth exposed.

No. Yours.

Porsche was ripped back into reality, but he saw the ring of gold in Kinn’s eyes as he opened them, both of them a little dazed with the exchange of heat and he knows that the dragon he saw was Kinn. The lingering power of his instinct is right there in the glow of his eyes as he grabbed one of his men to stop him from hitting Porsche. The true reality of the situation set in when Kinn demanded that his men take Porsche. He’d be exposed, his secret exposed, and his weakness out for all to see.

No, they can’t. His instinct was barely present in his consciousness, unable to do more than spread out what little it had left to support Porsche as he faced up to the man with a dragon inside his chest. He spat in Kinn’s face when he threatened to bite him. Porsche was running out of options and he knew it. He gently wrapped his instinct up in his mind’s eye and kicked and pulled at every turn as he was lifted. It took all of Kinn’s men to restrain him and they were forced to bind and gag him before they threw him into a car. He raged and burned, and his instinct held him, speeding its descent.

Please, a bit longer, then I can fix it, he begged. Porsche felt it once again as its life extinguished. It was not the first time, nor would it be the last, but his grief at the silence in his heart was immediate. He bit his lip so they would not hear his cry and he turned in on himself the best he could while he was transported to God knows where. His tears tracked down his cheeks because he was unable to wipe them.

I will bring you back again. Trust me.

Even after so many years, Porsche never gets used to the quiet. The absence of that particular voice inside his mind. He finds it in the fine rubble, the tiny spark that was emboldened by Kinn’s fire.

Hello, he tells it.

It flits again, hello.

Chapter Text

In amongst the jumble of feelings that Kinn leaves in his wake, Porsche keeps his instinct tucked up behind his heart as it strengthens itself, its wings weak and underdeveloped and its fire barely erupting on its feathers. It will double in size as it grows if it’s given the chance. He mentally pets the top of its plumage. It chirps happily and presses against his hand.

He stretches his wobbly legs as he swings to get himself up to sit. He feels a sense of déjà vu as he stretches his arms up, flexing his shoulder blades. His instinct mimics him, extending its wingspan and Porsche feels it where the bones poke against either side of his spine and align down to his forearms. He checks his wrists and they’re clear.

There is a flutter of disappointment that isn’t entirely his own.

Hey, you’re growing.

Head bowed, his instinct scratches its talons against his back. Porsche pats his chest in a “there there” motion and his instinct ruffles its feathers and puffs up, looking rounder like a robin.

I’ll get bigger.

You will, he tells it.

It stills and Porsche holds his breath for a moment as there is a knock on the door of his hospital room. The visitor doesn’t wait for a response and opens the door.

He’s half expecting Kinn to come back and list out all of the things he’s not supposed to do between now and when he leaves. He braces as he turns himself around.

Dark eyes watch him like a hawk, “Mr Kittisawasd.”

It’s the head bodyguard who introduced himself to Porsche as Chan when he arrived at the compound and was ‘escorted’ to his floor. He’s dressed in an all-black suit with a manilla folder in one hand.

“If you have the time.”

It’s not a question and he has nothing but time since he’s got several hours of observation left. Porsche narrows his eyes, “I do.”

His instinct puffs up again but for a different reason.

Danger.                                      

Slow down.

“I’d like to discuss Khun Kinn,” Chan tells him as he takes the seat beside Porsche’s bed. Porsche is seated with his legs over the other side, so he has to lay back in the bed to be facing Chan.

Weakening my position.

Chan puts the folder down on the table that has been slid over Porsche’s bed and holds a water jug, a magazine and a few other sundry items.

“I don’t think there is really a lot to say,” Porsche says shortly.

His face doesn’t move but Porsche catches the tightness around his eyes at Porsche’s comment.

“Khun Kinn is a very decisive person.”

Porsche laughs but it’s hollow, “You could say that.”

Chan gestures to the folder, Porsche picks it up and opens it to the first page. A quick scan tells him it’s a medical file. It’s Kinn’s very fancy-looking medical file.

Name: Theerapanyakul, Anakinn ‘Kinn’

Age: 27

Place of Birth/(Residence): Bangkok

Instinct: Dragon

Subtype:   ͌

“What’s the squiggle?” Porsche doesn’t know anything about dragon instincts beyond avoid avoid avoid.

Chan ignores him, “Further down.”

Recent heat exposure has led to excessive burnout. Mr Theerapanyakul’s instinct is noted to be unresponsive to standard therapies for his subtype. Mr Theerapanyakul himself is resistant to treatment and refuses to engage with medical interventions. There are concerns that Mr Theerapanyakul may burn his instinct out completely through neglect.

Porsche doesn’t know what to do with that. His instinct is sitting in his chest because of Kinn’s choice to give him his heat but he didn’t ask for it. He wasn’t even conscious for the transfer to stop him.

“What do you want from me? I can’t give the heat back.” Porsche closes the file and crosses his arms.

Chan takes the file back and Porsche eyes him as he does.

“If you did, you would be doing more damage. No, you’re going to go to Khun Kinn and offer your services.”

Porsche scoffs, “Offer my— I don’t know what it is you think I do—”

Chan stands and opens up the file and pulls out several sheets from the back and drops them onto the table. They’re photographs. Pictures of Porsche at the Dieu Même, standing victorious; Porsche in the halls of this place; Porsche in the hotel that one time Kinn took him out for breakfast. He isn’t alone in a single one of them. Kinn is in each shot, looking directly at Porsche with intense eyes.  

“You wanna buy your boss a friend?” He laughs and Chan returns it with one of his own before he leans down, getting into Porsche’s space.

“You brought this on yourself, Mr Kittisawasd. Now you’re going to fix it.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

Chan stands back up, smoothing over his suit and picking up the file: “I suppose that’s what you think. Before you met Khun Kinn, you probably thought you could do whatever you wanted.”

Porsche can feel his back heating up as his instinct gets aggravated.

“That because of what you are, it would never matter.”

Porsche’s gut drops to his feet, his instinct startles as his eyes meet Chan’s and he does nothing but return Porsche’s gaze. Even and measured. Porsche feels it for the threat it is. He has no doubt that Chan has a strong inkling, if not outrightly knows, what Porsche has inside him.

“But now it does. So, Mr Kittisawasd, once you’re done here, you’ll report to Khun Kinn.”

“He already dismissed me; he doesn’t want me here,” Porsche tells him, and the hot stab of pain at Kinn’s rejection of him pokes him.

“It’s because he wants you that he dismissed you.” Chan bows his head, “Khun Porsche.”

Porsche’s instinct flaps, beating its wings in his chest, angry at Chan, angry that Porsche feels how he does.

Ssh. We’ll fix this and then we’ll be gone.

He knows he can’t leave Chay much longer, his excuse about Yok’s bar is wearing thin.

Porsche frowns when his instinct stops, wings slowly folding in, it quiets down and Porsche feels its solemn mood.

What?

His instinct tilts its head before it shakes it wordlessly.

***

The weight of the last couple of days presses on Porsche and he falls into a restless, exhausted sleep. He finds himself in the forest when he opens his eyes. His instinct perched on his shoulder, its long red and blue tail feathers swishing behind him as it pecks his head.

“Oww, cut it out.”

Golden eyes, it tells him.

“Yeah, him.” Porsche scowls. “He kidnapped me and now I have to stay and help his stupid a—”

Oh.

Porsche can see from the opposite side of the lake that there is a big black dragon, the only one he knows, sitting on its banks. His instinct stays on his shoulder as he walks around, one eye on the large beast as it lays there. It isn’t until he gets closer that he realizes how sick it is. It isn’t huffing in anger, it’s laboring for breath.

“Hey, hey, come on—” Porsche runs the last bit of the way, falls to on his knees and pats down its side as its chest heaves. Its head lolls to the side and the ground shakes from the weight of it when it drops. “Hey!”

The dragon scratches at the ground and Porsche panics, “How do I—? How do I help you?”

His instinct launches off his shoulder and dips into the water, Porsche tries to lift its head, but he can’t so he settles for stroking its face, focusing on its brow, trying to comfort it. It whines and Porsche shushes it. His instinct comes back up almost immediately and shakes itself over the dragon. The droplets disappear immediately.

“You’re thirsty, is that it?” Porsche goes to the water and cups his hands as his instinct repeats plunging into the water. It makes no effort to take the water and it slips through his fingers. He tries again but it still ignores Porsche. Out of options, Porsche cups the water and pours it over the black scales, spreading it with his fingers. He repeats this several times, but it doesn’t do anything as the dragon is still suffering.

Porsche curses not having something, anything, when he breathes in and out, forcing himself to calm down. He closes his eyes, settles his breathing, and imagines a bucket; the black of the bowl, the metal arched handle and when he opens his eyes, it’s in front of him. He shouts excitedly and picks it up and scoops up as much water as he can and pours it over the dragon’s chest and belly before repeating it all over its big body. He sits and assesses his handiwork. The dragon isn’t heaving anymore, its breath quiet, almost silent.

Is he okay?

His instinct lands itself on his thigh where he’s sat on his ankles.

Sad.

He’s sad?

Porsche’s instinct hops down and hops until it is beak to nose with the dragon.

Porsche blinks as a wave of overwhelming loneliness washes over him and tears blur his vision. He screws his eyes shut tight and the tears track on his cheeks and when he opens them, his instinct is still pressed against Kinn’s instinct with a single tear soaking its feathers.

We made him sad.

Because I took his heat?

The dragon raises its head and opens one of its golden eyes on Porsche. It’s glistening and piercing. Porsche feels seen in a way he has never been. He doesn’t know what to do with himself.

We give.

Porsche hears its husky voice in his mind as clearly as his own instinct.

His instinct hops back and bows its head. The dragon tracks its movements and nudges its nose forward, almost offering it as a ledge for Porsche’s instinct to hop onto.

Porsche watches as it takes up the dragon’s offer and it makes its way to the top of its head and then its neck.

There is beauty in the shimmer of its scales; they look almost pearlescent as it stretches its throat, but what catches Porsche’s eye is that there is a gap in the centre of the left side of its throat. No bigger than two fingers wide and he reaches out to touch it. The dragon shudders under him, its scales rippling all the way down to its tail.

Oh.

Porsche can feel it in his mouth, the sensation of biting down on Kinn’s throat, the way his throat tore, and how it touched somewhere in the back of his mind, the center of his chest and deep inside his stomach. The starbursts that took root and fed his soul, and the whisper he shoved to the side for a chance to save his instinct. It all gushes out within him: the heat, the promise, the blood that stained inside his mouth until he rinsed it out in his room come prison.

Porsche can barely handle it as it consumes him, reaching inside every inch of him. He falls forward, on his hands and knees as he pants. All the things he couldn’t feel because he didn’t have his instinct. It claws its way up his throat, and he scratches at it with blunt nails; there’s nothing there, nothing tying him to it. It burns like nothing he’s ever known. He doesn’t know how to describe it. It feels like every part of him is being rewritten, shuffled a little to the left to make space for this thing that is bigger than the entirety of him. He clings to his instinct by the tether that holds them together as it slowly emblazons itself in pale blue fire, growing within moments to its full size.

Porsche is afraid to ask the question but the undeniable and immovable is right before his very eyes.

Are you…?

The dragon turns its face to watch Porsche. It doesn’t give him any indication, but he knows. Unobscured by the fear and death under which they met; Porsche can feel it. The truth.  

He stumbles to his feet before he falls to the floor again and he turns up his palms, covered in dirt, as he stares at them.

Ours.

Porsche looks up at his instinct who glides down from the dragon’s back to the ground next to him.

Ou—

A nurse wakes him up on his rounds and Porsche groggily fumbles in the dark. She catches his hands, “It’s okay, Porsche. I’m sorry to wake you up. Go back to sleep.”

His chest feels gutted and impossibly full; he is in agony and elated, his heart twisting inside his chest and his soul crying in despair. His breathing picks up as he curls in on himself and his monitors go crazy. His instinct covers his exposed back, treating itself like armor to protect him.

“Porsche? Mr Kittisawasd?” His nurse touches his arm to try and get him to face her, to tell her what’s wrong.

He rejects all attempts to get him to move from where he has tucked his knees up to his chest and he is holding them tightly.

Dr Som comes in not long after and gets down to his level by the side of his bed.

“Porsche, are you alright? Can you talk to me, please?”

Her voice is calm and soothing, but he tucks further into himself.

“I need you to tell me you can hear me, Porsche, please.”

He ignores her, his instinct folds its wings around his heart and protects it as it beats rapidly and sweat drips down his spine.  

“Someone call Khun Kinn. Now.”

“No.” He croaks. He can’t see Kinn. He can’t breathe with how immense it feels. Seeing Kinn will turn him inside out and upside down.  

“Good, you can hear me.”

He nods. His heart starts to slow and he focuses on Dr Som.   

“I’m not going to ask you to move, but I want you to count to ten with me.”

He nods again and she kneels so that she’s more settled in front of him, “Ready? One.”

“One…” His voice shakes but Dr Som nods, “Great, Porsche.”

“Two.”

He stutters the second, “Tt-wo.”

Dr Som nods, “You’re doing well, three.”

“Three.” His voice is clearer.

They trade back and forth on four through to ten and he manages to let his knees go and slowly stretch them a little as Dr Som waves off her staff. The overwhelming rush of emotions has subsided and he’s left with a present ache that he can’t quite ignore.

“Do you want to tell me what that was about?” She asks as she stands, wincing as she does.

Porsche stays silent.

“Okay. Can we expect this to happen again?”

Porsche shakes his head, no.

“I know you were brought here by very unorthodox means, but it doesn’t mean I don’t genuinely want to help you.”

Porsche sits himself up, his voice dry and Dr Som pours him a cup of water, guiding it into his hands as they shake a little.

“Thank you.”

She waits as he sips slowly on his cup, her eyes tracing his movements and Porsche feels examined but also cared for. She takes the cup back from him and puts it down.

“Do you ever leave this place?” He asks her because he realizes he doesn’t think he’s ever seen another doctor here.

“Me? Sometimes.” She laughs drily, “You never know when someone is going to get shot.”

She realizes that her “joke” might not be appropriate, and she purses her lips, “It’s an interesting job, to say the least.”

“But you like it?” Porsche doesn’t know why he’s asking this, it doesn’t matter. Whether it was Chan with his file or Porsche finally understanding the depth of his connection to Kinn, he’s never leaving this place. The thought of it terrifies him.

“Khun Korn and Khun Kinn are very good to their people.”

“Khun Korn?”

“Khun Kinn’s father, the former head of the main family. He chose to begin the transition about a year ago.” Dr Som sits in the chair next to Porsche’s bed. “Khun Kinn has worked very hard to take over the position.”

“And they’re…” Porsche doesn’t know how to say it. He hasn’t led a pristine life, most of his best paid fights were on the underground circuit but he had tried his level best to stay out of that depth of things. The things his uncle couldn’t stay away from.

“Businessmen, first and foremost.” Dr Som crosses her legs. “But yes, they have ties to organized crime.”

“Are there people…outside of it?”

Dr Som looks confused by his question, “Outside?”

He supposes that answers his question. He thinks of Chay, finishing out school and preparing for his college entrance exams and he doesn’t even know how to begin to explain this to him.

You see, I had a fight, no not a legal one, an illegal one, and in the heat of it, I bit someone. Yes, even though I know that’s how instincts mate and I…bit my mate. A powerful black dragon with gold eyes inside the chest of a man who doesn’t want me. Now my mate is sick and he’s sending me away.

He can already hear Chay tutting at him, scolding him for engaging in illegal fights, Kinn was right about that, but it wouldn’t be what he didn’t hear the end of. It would be the bite; the hypocrisy of how Porsche raised him. Porsche had spent many years telling Chay never to expose his instinct or bite anyone even though the likelihood of them even having mates was less than impossible.

His instinct chirrups.

Porsche had gambled one too many times with that fact and with the odds being as awful as they were, he still managed to sink his teeth into the one person who was meant to be his.

Kinn isn’t anything like he imagined. His thoughts were of someone warm who would fit comfortably in his arms and hold tight all of the pieces he tried to keep inside.

He is.

Porsche’s instinct pulls at his memories; the night that Kinn gave him that hickey and Porsche woke up in bed before getting up to wash his face and brush his teeth when he saw it staring back at him. Purple and deep, with red indents for his teeth.

He remembers the heat that Kinn filled him up with, soothing and blistering at the same time. How it pooled in his stomach, made everything throb. Fed into the deepest recesses of him. Porsche has done a lot to obtain heat like that and Kinn dealt it out in spades, pouring it in like an endless waterfall as Porsche tried to hold himself back from pitching forward and trying to bury himself in the nook of Kinn’s throat and his fingers gouging the soft/hard curve of his ass. Kinn’s heat felt like rebirth but also desire, and as much as he wants to pull away from it, Porsche wanted him. Entertained the idea of him with breakfast and playing jokes and with the thought held only within himself if that singular hickey had for one moment been a true bite.

He's ours, his instinct sings. Pale, delicate, almost translucent skin and thick corded muscles, Kinn is a study in opposites. His words cover the truth of his instinct. His words cover the truth of his actions. Porsche doesn’t know what to think.

Dr Som is still looking at him when he pulls himself out of his thoughts. “They asked me to work here,” he offers as a way of an explanation.

As if she understands the way that such a thing can come about, she nods, “I see. Well, Porsche, I want you to keep coming to see me every so often because working here is a very hard job.”

“Thank you, Dr Som.”

“When it’s a reasonable hour, ask one of my team to discharge you. I don’t want you to start work right away. Give it a week, then you can. I’ll put the order in your file and they won’t be able to push back on it, okay?”

“Thanks,” he says with a tight smile, which she returns, patting the bed gently next to him as she stands.

“Take care, Porsche.”

Dr Som leaves him with his thoughts and he has more than enough time to fill his head with them but all that really presses on him is Kinn, Kinn, Kinn.

***

Kinn rubs his eyes as he stares blearily at his iPad and the files on his desk. He’s got a glass of whiskey to his right and his notes to his left. Two days out and he’s suffering under a mountain of paperwork. He’s beginning to navigate what it means to have a quieter instinct as it curls up and sits in his belly and barely acknowledges his presence when he nudges it with his mind.

Go away, it tells him.

You were going to kill both of us trying to save him.

Good. It scowls at him and shuffles to face away.

Hey! Kinn mentally walks around to face his instinct and gets low to meet its eyes.

His instinct bares its teeth at him with a growl. Its eyes glow and Kinn can feel it in his own eyes, the fierce pressure he gets behind them when his eyes are colored gold and how his back itches as his scales roughen up.

Coward, it spits at him and Kinn stands up.

And you’re a good-for-nothing fool chasing after a tight ass and a pretty face.

His instinct roars at him but it doesn’t have the strength to stand or impose on Kinn the way it would have in the past.

Ours, it whines. You chose him. You helped him.

Kinn shakes his head, I didn’t choose him. I don’t get to choose. What I get to do is to stop you from killing us both with your stupidity.

Lies.

He didn’t choose us, did he? After all you gave. He didn’t choose you. Wake up. He isn’t yours. Let him go.

His instinct lets out a wounded sound and does its best to shuffle away from him and Kinn blinks as his eyes adjust, he can still feel that they’re heavy with his instinct behind him. He downs his glass and pours another. His instinct stumbles as he consumes the alcohol, but his eyes don’t burn as much.

He drinks another glass and calls for Arm to bring him the report he’s working on.

Arm brings him his second report, freshly printed after a backdoor entry into the minor family’s system, “Any references to Onyx-5, as you requested Khun Kinn.”

Arm stands with his hands crossed over in front of himself and waits for Kinn to glance over the report.

He picks out headline items:

Shipping containers dock every two weeks.

Selected high level clubs are targeted and dealers are sent out to push product.

Tablet form provided, powdered on special request.

Kinn looks up, “Has anyone requested powdered?”

“Page 5.” Arm replies almost immediately.

Kinn flips to it, scans down and stops at NovaTech.

“NovaTech?”

Arm nods, “Reported to be an off-shore subsidiary for Serpente Industries.”

“So, the minor family are selling to the Italians?” Kinn closes the file and looks up at Arm who nods minutely and shrugs his shoulders.

“It looks like it, but it isn’t a smoking gun,” Arm tells him honestly and Kinn appreciates it. “I’m running a secondary asset search program and it looks like they have someone working to ghost their most obvious accounts, assets and IP addresses. It also doesn’t explain how they’re so far advanced.”

“But it’s a start?” Kinn asks and Arm nods.

“It is.”

Arm’s phone pings and he waits for Kinn to nod his assent before he pulls his phone out to read whatever it is he received.

Arm frowns and Kinn asks him, “What is it?”

“Porsche had an emergency in the med bay.”

“Emergency?” Kinn repeats and his instinct sloppily raises its head.

“Increased heart rate, sweating, initially unresponsive to questions; Dr Som marked it down as a panic attack.”

“He’s okay now?” Kinn tries to quell his own feelings and his instinct nudges at his ribs to get more information.

Arm nods, “They didn’t give him any medication for it. He may have just panicked after waking up in an unfamiliar place.”

That stabs at Kinn. His instinct is weakly pushing at him to go to Porsche, to at least look at him to make sure he’s okay.

Stop, we’re not going.

He wants to say absent feet walked him down here, but he knows he needed to see for himself if Porsche was okay.

His instinct is sleeping under his breastbone, the alcohol in his system making them both feel hazy as he wanders up to the door. It’s open, he supposes for them to keep a better eye on him, and a nurse bobs her head when she sees him and presses a finger to her lips before he enters.

Porsche is laying on the bed, blankets tucked up to his waist and his face turned towards the windows, away from Kinn.

His voice is quiet, but it still startles Kinn, “why are you here?”

He turns his head back and Kinn feels his heart in his throat.

“Did someone tell on me?” Porsche asks him as Kinn keeps walking forward until he’s beside Porsche’s bed, his fingers grazing it as he moves to the middle, turning to the monitors he’s hooked up to and staring at their fluctuating numbers. “Kinn?”

He hums, “Mmm.”

Porsche pushes himself up to be seated higher and Kinn closes his eyes as he feels the air around him move.

“You said you were done. You didn’t need me here anymore,” Porsche says quietly and Kinn licks his lips.

I did say that. His reasons, as immediate and grasping as they were, hold true. His instinct is suffering because it pushed too much, gave too much to a man he doesn’t even know, and yet, he’s standing here checking on him because he likely had a nightmare and panicked over it. He feels like a fool; stupid, naïve, and moronic. His conviction is a joke to be passed around.

Porsche touches his wrist, wrapping his fingers around it and tugs him gently to turn around. Kinn watches as he searches his face for something, he doesn’t know what, and when he does or doesn’t find it, he lets Kinn’s wrist go. Kinn is bereft for a moment until Porsche tugs on his hand and he falls onto the bed, half on the gap, half over Porsche who is smiling at him.

Kinn huffs, “What was—?”

Porsche touches his face, strokes his brow, his cheekbone, thumb on his lips and Kinn freezes.

Beautiful.

He doesn’t know if he hears Porsche say it or if he’s remembering it like a memory, but his hands on Kinn’s face feel real. His lips feel real when he presses them up against Kinn’s and he feels warmer and like he’s pressing that into Kinn’s mouth.

Kinn pulls away with hands pushing at Porsche’s shoulders, “Why?”

Porsche looks at him with hooded eyes, “You know why.”

He leans forward to catch Kinn again, but Kinn keeps himself just out of reach, “I know why? No. I don’t.”

Porsche sharpens his gaze, “Kinn.”

Kinn shakes his head. I’m not falling for this.

Porsche grits his jaw and Kinn can see it in how it twitches so he doesn’t see his hand cup the back of his neck to yank him forward. He falls and Porsche holds him tight with an arm around his back as he pulls Kinn’s head to one side with the hand that slipped off his neck.

“Porsche, stop it.” Kinn weakly struggles, his instinct blinks awake.

He feels Porsche’s tongue lick a stripe up his neck, over his original bite, and he can’t help but sigh.

“Stop?” Porsche asks him, his mouth stopping and his hold relaxing. His instinct is up in his throat, pushing at the vulnerable skin, waiting like it has never waited before.

Kinn pulls back enough that he can see Porsche’s eyes and they’re indescribable, like the facets of a diamond, a prism around his pupils, no one color but also all colors at once.

“What are you, Porsche?” Kinn breathes, “Your eyes, I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Porsche blinks, “You can see them?”

“I can.”

He starts and stops, closing his eyes. Kinn cups his face to try and hold them, him, but when he opens them again, his eyes are dark.

His instinct whines because it was close, so close to its perceived mate and it was pulled away at the last second.

As if a spell is broken, Porsche’s body relaxes as if he was never holding Kinn tight to his body like he might lose it if he lost him.

It makes two things very clear to Kinn. Porsche wants him, but he doesn’t trust him.

Kinn sits himself up and Porsche watches him. Leaning in, Kinn licks Porsche’s bottom lip and nips it, kissing him gently before Porsche opens up and lets Kinn inside, his eyes sliding shut as he does. He lets out a soft sigh as Kinn cups his hand against Porsche’s side as he moves his mouth over his, slowly tasting him, dipping his tongue in against Porsche’s, listening to hear how his breathing changes when he licks and sucks on his tongue before sliding his wet mouth against Porsche’s lips. Kinn feels his blood rising, his instinct’s need to push forward, to bite, claim and rend.

Bite him, eat him up, scar his bones. His instinct struggles to stand, Kinn feels it deep inside him as he breaks away from Porsche, his forehead dipping to rest on his chin. Porsche immediately wraps him up in his arms, tilting his chin so he can kiss Kinn’s forehead before he lets him lie on his chest.

He can hear the steady thump-thump of Porsche’s heart as he lays there, his instinct pressing at his skin to get him to bury his teeth into Porsche’s neck.

How do I even—? Kinn mentally shakes his head. They’re both a mess. Both coming at this from different places and at different paces.

“Porsche.”

Porsche strokes his hair, “Hmm?”

“Stay.”

Porsche exhales, “I was going to.”

Chapter Text

The words slip out without any real thought, “I was going to.”

His instinct flaps its wings happy, yes, and Porsche feels it like butterflies in his stomach. Kinn stays with his head on Porsche’s chest, Porsche’s fingers carding through his hair and he feels…content. He’s pretty sure that his heart is jackhammering in his chest at the same time, but he feels a calm wash over him as Kinn tucks his arms around Porsche’s waist and stays there.

Porsche can see his instinct in his mind’s eye, chirping happily, ours ours ours. He feels a laugh bubble up inside him and Kinn looks up at him as he starts to wriggle with it.

His stomach chooses to growl loudly at that exact moment and Porsche knows he’s flushing red, “I missed dinner.”

Kinn laughs quietly at him and sits up. Porsche mourns the loss of his warm chest pressed against his when Kinn says, “I’ll call the kitchen and order—”

Porsche shakes his head, “it’s late, I can cook for myself.”

Kinn’s face gets a pinched look to it and Porsche squeezes his sides and Kinn jolts. Ticklish then.

“Porsche—” Kinn gasps as he runs his fingers on his sides, curling them like a spider’s legs and digging in unrelenting. Porsche watches as Kinn tucks himself down to protect himself before one strong hand comes up to Porsche’s side and yanks him down in the bed. His fingers are still and Kinn looks at him, his irises ringed gold.

He can see them with perfect clarity because Kinn has pulled him so that they are facing each other, shoulders almost mirroring despite Porsche’s legs hanging off the end of the bed but with the rest of his body turned into Kinn. Kinn, however, is half on it with his left leg lifted onto the bed and his right leg on the floor to balance himself.

Porsche’s instinct stays incredibly still, pinned by that gaze, and he himself can feel Kinn’s breath on his face and he lets his eyes flick down to his gently parted lips. He watches Kinn close his eyes and edge that bit closer to him.

This is it. He doesn’t know what this is but his whole body coils up for it. Porsche licks his lips, closing his eyes and they fly open when he gets a hard open-palmed slap to his ass. It jolts him forward, his stomach swooping and in his instinct openly burns, the edge of its feathers tinged blue but impervious to the damage that the fire could bring.

Bite, it whispers. Porsche watches as Kinn eyes his throat which is neatly exposed, if not elongated. Make it look pretty.

Porsche listens and tilts his head further away from Kinn and stretches the column of his throat and he hears the short, quiet curse. Porsche feels the wet heat of Kinn’s tongue as he licks from the hollow of his throat up to his jaw, wide and flat. He laces his fingers through Kinn’s hair again and holds him there, nose pressed against his vein and where his scent is thickest. Kinn’s fingers dig into his ass as he presses a kiss to where he’s being held. He shudders when he feels Kinn open his mouth and scrape his teeth against his throat. He kisses it wetly when he closes his mouth.

Porsche is crackling energy, practically vibrating out of his skin as Kinn drags his mouth against him, a filthy tease. His instinct is beating his chest with heavy hits of its wings. Give, more, ours.

His stomach growls again and Kinn uses the distraction to pull away.

Porsche stares at him. What just happened?

His instinct flaps its wings again, bring him back.

Kinn wipes his mouth which is red and puffy from rubbing against Porsche’s throat, “You’re hungry. And in a hospital.”

Porsche scowls because Kinn’s right. He is in a hospital and while he has blankets covering him, he’s starting to sport a noticeable bulge. He sneaks a peek and feels mollified that so is he.

Kinn clears his throat, “The kitchens aren’t far, I’m sure one of the cooks will be around to help out.”

Porsche, still dressed in his hospital pajamas, manages to stop Kinn from calling someone out from their bed to cook him a meal.

“Not all of us are pampered princesses,” he teases as he knocks shoulders with Kinn as they walk down the corridor, “I can cook for myself.”

He notices that that rocky, electrical bite stays, and he feels it where he and Kinn touch. He tests his theory by stroking the back of his hand against Kinn’s and his belly does the same swoop and tingle. Kinn catches him with an eyebrow raised.

People pass and bow their heads to him as they move further through the compound to the kitchens, and Porsche tries to see Kinn objectively. Power aside, he’s tall, with strong facial features, pale skin and a well-honed body. He could be a model or an actor with a face like his, the presence he commands.

All for me? Porsche mulls and his instinct chirrups. He’s never told anyone, but he’s never not been attracted to men. His teen years had been awkward: too tall, too lean, too little and too much for his own body, he didn’t really hit his stride until his twenties and, despite that, girls and women had always been interested in him. Porsche with the pretty face and prettier mouth. So, he’s never really looked at a man and desired to be with him, but he has also never looked at a man and been repulsed by it. Kinn…Kinn is everything. Masculine, handsome, beautiful, tight, delicate, powerful. It all twists up inside Porsche’s belly and he can’t help but feel excited by it.

He wonders how Kinn sees him. Does he find him pleasing? Too tall? Too rough. Too dark from summers spent in the sun with his brother and his instinct?

Porsche mentally tucks his instinct under his arm before it laments, you’re perfect.

It pecks at him but without the heavy pinch of when it’s irate at him. We’re perfect. Perfect for them.

Kinn opens the door to the kitchens and Porsche skirts past him and bites back a sigh when their bodies almost touch.

Porsche opens up the refrigerator, and of course, there is every food imaginable. “Are you hungry? I’ll make for two.”

Kinn doesn’t say anything, but Porsche is already pulling out scallions, pre-peeled carrots, tofu and some cabbage leaves. He shuffles around the different cupboards, pulling out noodles, sauces, condiments, pots, and bowls as he finds them and Kinn watches him with interest.

“Never cooked?” Porsche asks him as he slides up the chopping board and a knife.

Kinn has his arms folded, “Not really.”

Porsche nods, “Well, you can chop the scallions.”

There’s a moment where he just looks at him and Porsche puts them on the chopping board, “Come on then, young master.”

If he inflects a bit of a challenge into his tone when he says ‘young master’ who can prove it? Kinn delightfully doesn’t back down. He unbuttons and rolls up his shirt sleeves, exposing slender forearms and wrists before he sets himself to his task. Porsche cups his forearm holding the knife and he stops, “What?”

“A little smaller.”

He guides Kinn’s hands with his as he stands behind him, choosing to whisper into the back of his neck, “duck down” and Kinn complies with a lick of his lips, which Porsche just catches. With his knees a little bent, Porsche can see over his shoulder and he uses his hands to make Kinn’s chop the scallions into thinner rings, “There you go.”

Kinn nods, decidedly quiet, and Porsche lets him stand back up as he boils a pot of water with some chicken bouillon powder that he found. He isn’t making a banquet, just some quick and easy spicy noodles. He puts all his sauces into a smaller bowl and stirs them with his chopsticks before he checks on Kinn who is chopping the tofu. He doesn’t need any guidance for that, so Porsche skirts around him again and grabs another board and knife and helps with the carrots.

He supposes they are making a bit of a racket and he catches sight of one of the aunties as she opens the door, Porsche puts his finger up to shush her. She bobs her head instead of bowing, Kinn still focused on chopping each food he puts in front of himself. She dips back out as if she was never there and it strikes Porsche in the gut. The normalcy of it.  

Kinn is cutting the cabbage leaves, his hair disheveled from Porsche’s fingers in it and a loose strand that teases his forehead when he raises his head to look at him.

This could be his life now. No more nights home alone or coming back to an empty bed at 4 in the morning. Someone that he could teach to cook and curl up with in the same way he squeezes his brother tight when he lets him on movie night.

“I get cold.” He says and Kinn looks at him, confused. “You asked me about the water. My body needs heat, so when I went into the cold water, my body—”

He doesn’t know how to describe it. It was like he was suspended in time, not breathing, not moving, it felt like an embrace and a death all at once.

Kinn puts down his knife and takes a small step toward him, “And?”

“I’ve never been so cold.” Or lonely. Porsche looks down and Kinn raises his head back up with gentle fingers on his chin, “But then…I felt warm. Something was reaching for me.”

He didn’t know it then, but it was Kinn’s instinct, pouring in its heat to fight the cold. The water drifted away and all that was left was fire; beautiful burning red as it slipped towards his fingertips and engulfed him. He felt safe and cared for.

Porsche remembers the forest and how sick Kinn’s instinct looked and he can’t imagine what that feels like. He reaches for Kinn’s chest without thinking and his fingers press just over his heart. His instinct reaches with him, his wrists are stained royal blue around the delicate bones and along the outer edge of his arm with red covering the soft, fleshy inside of his forearms where they’re exposed. The colors look like watercolor splashes and Kinn catches sight of them and chases them with the pads of his fingers.

As if he doesn’t want to scare it away, Kinn says quietly, “Is this your—?”

Porsche can’t speak, his voice is choked in his throat, so he nods.

“It’s beautiful.” He says it without a hint of irony or obfuscation. He slips down from Porsche’s forearm and hedges him back against the refrigerator behind him, hips bumping back on it and then forward into Kinn as he cages him in. His eyes are gold again, but not more than that perfectly circular ring of gold.

Porsche’s instinct presses against his breastbone where Kinn’s chest is closest to him as if it could press hard enough and get out of him and into Kinn.

Mine, it sings again.

Kinn gently rubs his nose against Porsche’s, the heat of his breath different from the heat of the still boiling pot not two feet from them.

“Show me your eyes, Porsche,” Kinn asks him, running his nose against his, barely letting their skin touch, and yet, Porsche can feel it like the whole of him is on fire.

He won’t know, will he? Porsche leans forward when Kinn pulls back from him.

Don’t care, his instinct tells him, head nudging his chest again.

Kinn’s mouth is just there, but Porsche knows he won’t come closer until Porsche gives him what he asked for. He closes his eyes and he’s rewarded with a kiss on his jaw. Porsche opens his eyes and Kinn is looking at him, choosing now to push his knee between Porsche’s closed legs.

Porsche barely catches Kinn looking at him as he’s pushed up against the refrigerator, his mouth under Kinn’s, Kinn’s hands sliding down from either side of Porsche’s head to his shoulders and up to cup his face. He grabs at Kinn’s waist and pulls him in, opening up his mouth as Kinn sucks on his bottom lip before pushing his tongue into his mouth. He sweeps inside and Porsche is overcome with it, his jaw being tilted up in the way Kinn likes it, his lips slick as Kinn kisses him softly before pulling away. He feels taken by it but it ended far too quickly. Kinn noses Porsche’s cheek, giving it a soft peck before he steps out of Porsche’s space.

How is he—? Porsche stands there, not really comprehending what just happened. His instinct is whining in his belly. Kinn takes up his knife and chops the cabbage as if he never touched Porsche.

“Are you kidding me?” He mutters and grabs Kinn’s shoulder and he looks back at him with gold eyes blazing.

Porsche stops, startled.

Kinn bites his lip and turns back to what he was doing, “Make your food, Porsche.”

His voice is husky and Porsche can hear the plea in it. He clears his throat and starts chucking things into the pot.

***

Porsche eats happily, putting leftover rice into the still cooking noodle soup pot once they were both finished, and Kinn watches him with a small smile on his face.

They managed to get back onto an even keel but now, sat at the table just beyond the kitchen area, the air is fraught. Kinn is sitting with his chair angled towards Porsche rather than the table and he is doing the same towards Kinn. Kinn’s hand casually comes to rest on his thigh when they talk about their families.

“There’s Tankhun, my older brother, who lives here in the tower,” Kinn subconsciously squeezes Porsche’s thigh, so Porsche sets down his bowl, putting his leg across Kinn’s two. “And Kim, Kim lives on his own.”

He doesn’t say Kim is his younger brother, but he gets a look on his face Porsche knows he’s had on his.

“You know I have a younger brother, Chay. He’s about to go to college.” Porsche rocks his foot back and forth, Kinn grabbing his ankle and rubbing it.

What he really wants to ask is about his instinct, “Is it okay?”

Kinn stops for a moment, eyebrows raised, “What?”

Porsche gestures to his chest, “Your instinct.”

He watches Kinn sigh, “It’s fine; tired. Sleeps a lot. It’ll be okay.”

The notes from the file bounce around in his head: Kinn is refusing treatment. If there is such a treatment. Porsche doesn’t proclaim to be an expert in anything relating to instincts. His education was spotty at best, he had the ability, just not the time. Raising a brother and keeping their family afloat was a full-time job so he let his schooling slip, even to the point where he was kicked off the Taekwondo team. He didn’t tell anyone he cried into his pillow that night because he wanted to compete so badly, but he didn’t have enough time for training and for shifts at the convenience store where he was working. His uncle, as much as Porsche loves his family, wasn’t someone they could rely on. Porsche. Porsche was the one they could rely on.

Even before that, he remembers pouring over books in the library when his instinct hatched. A tiny scrap of a thing, naked and wrinkly, Porsche remembers staring at it and wondering if he had an alien inside him.

I had feathers, it reminds him.

You had three coming out of your butt.

There was no naked chicken in the books he read. It made even less sense when, after it grew its feathers, it exploded into a burst of flames when Chay got into a car accident on his way to school; a minor thing where he got knocked off his bike. But it changed Porsche. He panicked and his instinct had responded in kind, surging up and burning its fire until it was nothing but ash. He told the school nurse and she looked at him like he was on a flight of fancy.

“Your brother has just been in an accident, and you want to make up such a ridiculous story? I thought better of you, Porsche.”

The voice he barely knew disappeared and he felt gutted and, on top of that, he was branded a liar. So, he kept quiet, never telling anyone about his instinct. It was only when he studied mythology as part of a reading assignment that he saw something even akin to what he had: a phoenix. He touched the page reverently when he recognized the same lines of its tail as his instinct. It too had perked up inside him, eager to know and understand about itself. There were differences in size, his was still small, young, he realized, and it unlocked a memory he didn’t know he had. It was one of his mother sitting him down with Chay on her knee while staring at her artwork.

“This is a phoenix, Porsche, it’s an ancient bird that can reincarnate itself.” She told him in her soft voice, “It gets strong each time it passes. You can do that, can’t you? Always be strong and care for your brother.”

He nodded, not quite understanding, but he knew he was the big brother, it was his job to keep Chay safe.

“But you mustn’t tell anyone.” Her tone is serious as she holds his hand.

He looks up at her with big eyes.

“Phoenixes are special, which makes people want them. Want to hurt them.”

He knew he wasn’t a big mythical bird, so he nods, not really understanding her words, but he liked the colors on the page, deep swirls of red and orange and licks of blue.

He held his mother’s words true to his heart. It was for her, and for himself, when at 17 after his instinct rebirthed itself after his first fight with his uncle’s creditors, he had it tattooed on his shoulder blade.

Now we have a mate, his instinct reminds him.

Kinn lets Porsche’s ankle down from his lap to get up and get a bottle of wine from the refrigerator and a glass. He offers up the glass and Porsche shakes his head, no.

“Didn’t think you were a wine drinker,” Porsche teases.

Kinn’s lips curve upward softly, “I am if the food is good.”

“You make it sound like you’ve never had sundubu. Well, a bastardization of it.”

He’s always favored spicier foods because of his instinct, so he makes a lot of different dishes from different regions and countries. This is one of his favorites because it’s minimal effort and relatively quick.

“Don’t think you’re getting away with it though,” He says, turning serious, “You gave a lot to help me.”

Kinn puts down the bottle and holds onto the counter. He isn’t angry; however, he looks like he’s bracing himself.

“If it’s sick, it needs help,” Porsche tells him and Kinn looks up at him sharply.

“I’m fine.” He says with finality and Porsche takes it as his cue to back down. He watches as Kinn lets his head drop and he inhales and exhales. Standing up from his chair, Porsche goes over to him, rubbing circles on his back.

Kinn laughs drily, “Why are you…?”

He has another realization. Kinn doesn’t expect him to show up for him.

Tucking his palm under Kinn’s cheek, he turns his face back to him and slowly kisses him. Soft, closed-mouthed and over in seconds. Kinn slowly lets himself face Porsche and Porsche leans down and licks his bite on Kinn’s throat which is now a deep pink crescent against pale skin, his tongue tracing tightly the line of his own teeth on Kinn’s neck.

“Doesn’t this mean you’re mine?” Porsche asks him, his voice whispering quietly. “Or did you think it would heal and disappear?”

Truthfully, it could happen if they weren’t mates, he knows that much, but he feels it in his bones. Ours, mine, yours, he could never feel the way he does right now about anyone else. Could never share his secrets with anyone but his mate.

Porsche’s instinct fires itself up, the thought of its mate leaving it all alone grips it tightly and it sends puerile heat through Porsche’s fingers and Kinn flinches when he gets scalded. Porsche holds the other side of his face with his other hand, keeping him focused on Porsche alone.

“Who do you think could have you apart from me?” He feels his eyes change, his instinct shoving itself to the forefront. Bite, claim, burn. Porsche feels like he’s losing his grip on not only himself but the edges of his reality as he leans down again and feels himself open his mouth to reopen the healing wound.

“Porsche—”

“Fuck.” He curses and shoves himself back. Kinn grabs his wrist and drags him towards the kitchens’ doors out to the service elevator. He smashes the button and doesn’t look at Porsche the whole 10 seconds it takes for the elevator to ding and open its doors. He jerks Porsche’s wrist and nearly throws him into the back wall as he pursues after him and Porsche turns back, waiting and ready.

“Are you going to bite me?” He asks, his voice breathy.

“I’m going to fuck you and then I’ll consider biting you.”

 ***

Insanity. It’s all insanity.

He’s dressed in a set of God-awful hospital pyjamas and he clearly hasn’t had a proper shower since before he went into the pool but Kinn has never wanted anyone more.

He’s been teetering on the edge since he had his mouth in the crook of Porsche’s neck. Bite him, tear him, make it so no one will ever touch him again. Porsche making him food, giving up pieces of himself he was scared to share slipped under his guard like butterflies’ wings. And his mouth. Who could have Kinn? No one.

Porsche clings to him as he stuffs his hands down the front of those loosely tied pants and grabs hold of his cock. He lets out a high-pitched keen, his forehead dropping down to Kinn’s shoulder as he strokes the velvety skin against his palm. His instinct is greed for it, wants to hear Porsche cry more and harder.

Eat him up.

“Use your words, Porsche,” Kinn teases, but Porsche’s retaliation is worse. He drags Kinn’s shirt collar down and gets his mouth on his mark and starts sucking it between his tongue and teeth. Kinn’s knees almost buckle, so he pulls his hand out and spits onto it before shoving it back in and smearing his saliva over the head of Porsche’s cock before stroking down over his length.

The service elevator grinds to a stop and Kinn manages to get Porsche off his neck with a hard tug on his hair and slipping his hand out.

“Why’d you stop?” Porsche mumbles, his prismatic eyes concentrated on the front of Kinn’s pants.

“We’re not doing this in the hallway.”

“You can if you try hard enough.”

Kinn laughs and bites his lip, “Keep it PG. And…Porsche, your eyes.”

He might be ready for Kinn to see them, but he doubts he wants Kinn’s staff to.

Porsche blinks, a cold distance dropping over his face as they return to their dark color before he nods, giving a forlorn sigh and slaps Kinn’s ass. He presses the doors open button as they had started to close and Kinn barely makes it out before they close again. Porsche strides like he hasn’t got the beginnings of a wet spot – thankfully hidden by the dark color of the material – and an impressive bulge to go with it.

“Khun Kinn.” His on-duty bodyguards bow; Big and Ken are currently out of rotation following their punishment with Chan.

Porsche leans suggestively against the wall next to Kinn’s door, “So, you come here often?”

“Jesus, how much of this is there?” Kinn laughs as he opens the door and drags Porsche in by the front of his shirt.

As soon as the door closes, Kinn pulls it up over Porsche’s head who reaches for his belt to yank it off and throw it behind him.

Kinn stops and Porsche stops with him, “What? What is it?”

“Turnaround.”

Kinn saw it in the kitchens but he didn’t know, didn’t realize how far it extended. This is Porsche’s instinct. Close to the surface, close enough for Kinn to touch. With delicate fingertips, he chases the blue up Porsche’s arms, skating across it and his biceps, the protruding bone of his collarbone and around to his back.

His whole back from the top of his spine to at least the dip of his pelvis is covered with those same color stains as his arms. He is a patchwork, a mosaic of color. There’s blue predominantly on his arms and then red on the sides of his back, reaching around his ribs and finally shining gold that aligns along his spine and fans out into the red like a firelight ombre.  

“How far does it reach?” He asks, his fingers pulling at his waistband, not tugging it down until he gets permission. Porsche inhales and exhales, there is a minute shake to his body and Kinn drops his hand and pulls Porsche to face him, “Hey. What’s wrong?”

“Promise you won’t tell anyone?” Porsche says in such a small voice.

His instinct curls up under his wrist and tries to infuse Kinn’s hand with warmth. He shushes it down and it waits in his chest as Porsche turns back around. At the top of his right shoulder blade, he has a tattoo, and his hand pulls at his shoulder, stretching the skin to bring Kinn’s attention to it. Kinn read about it in his file, a bird. It’s portrayed as being in flight, talons ready to descend on its prey…or enemies. Kinn lightly traces a wing and Porsche shudders under him. The color disappears and Kinn presses a kiss to the bird as his fingers slope down Porsche’s back and hold his side.

“It’s a phoenix.” Porsche turns around once more and his eyes aren’t dark anymore, they’re bright and unlike anything Kinn has ever seen. “I got it when I was 17.”

Kinn senses that it’s leading up to something, so he squeezes Porsche’s hip, “Why?”

“Because it reincarnates. It dies and is reborn. Always stronger than it was before.” Porsche blinks and his eyes are dark again, “I was always so lonely when it died. This way it was always with me.”

Porsche looks down and sniffs as he rubs his closed eyes with his fingers. It’s a story and an admission.

Kinn has never heard of anyone having a phoenix instinct, let alone an instinct that dies and comes back to life in the same person. Even rarer than his dragon is Porsche’s phoenix. No wonder he was so protective of it.

“It’s stunning.” He tells him honestly, “Can you see it on your back?”

Porsche shakes his head, “Not all of it. Chay took pictures of my back once.”

“And you can decide when it comes out?”

He shrugs, “I don’t tell it to. Sometimes it slips out, but we decide when it goes back.”

Kinn can’t imagine that. He and his instinct have fought for so long he doesn’t know any other way. It’s only been the last few days or so that he’s even been able to converse with it without arguing. Even now, it’s choosing to let Kinn lead.

“It slipped out around me?” Kinn doesn’t know what he’s fishing for, but he thanks whatever is out there that he asked because Porsche flushes red and rubs the back of his neck.

“It wanted you to see it,” he admits.

Kinn gets in closer again to Porsche who looks up at him with soft eyes and a gently parted mouth, “Did it?”

“It wants you to be impressed.”

He captures Porsche’s mouth, and he moans softly and his eyes stay shut when Kinn lets him go, “I am impressed. Very impressed.”

“My thighs…” Porsche says abruptly.

Kinn looks down at them heatedly, but Porsche hooks his thumbs on his pants and starts to slip them off, “You asked how far it goes. Down to my thighs.”

Chapter Text

The craziness of the whole situation isn’t lost on Porsche, but he has lived his entire life taking calculated chances: working in a bar and engaging in not strictly above-board extras, fights in the ring, how long he can push rent until he’s going to have someone showing up at his door. Some worked, some didn’t. And yet, none of those things get his heart racing or throwing caution to the wind like walking away from Kinn, whose eyes pierce him as he drops his pants and turns around. He knows how he looks; his instinct painted on his back with the tendrils of its tail sloping and curving over his ass and around his thighs. They almost look like colored ribbons that could be tied into neat little braids.

His instinct is flapping in his chest: he’s impressed. The pride of his instinct seeps into his bones; Porsche had never thought his phoenix was a peacock, but it preens as Porsche walks as confidently as he can muster towards the bathroom. We’re pretty.

Kinn has almost half a wall-to-ceiling mirror in his bathroom and Porsche catches sight of himself. His hair is sticking out at the back, his mouth rubbed swollen, and his waist and hips have reddened indents that will be fingerprints in the cold light of day. They’re darker than his instinct, their own additions to the colors on his body. He can’t help but feel he looks owned and possessed. Behind him is Kinn, dishevelled and watching Porsche in the mirror.

He stays incredibly still as Kinn almost prowls behind him, a hint of animal cunning in his movements, stopping just short of touching him. It’s where his body is hidden behind Porsche’s that he doesn’t see his fingers slip against him where one of his instinct’s tail feathers are on the back of his thigh, tracing the color under his ass cheek. He holds his breath, his instinct silent as a ghost.  Goosebumps raise on Porsche’s skin as Kinn moves lightly towards his inner thigh. He lets his hands come up and rest on the sink cabinet, bearing his weight as Kinn slides his fingers on the other side of the outline, down his inner thigh, up over the curve of his cheek to where it meets the gold of his spine. Fingers splay at the small of his back and gently guide him forward. Porsche looks at Kinn in the reflection, Kinn’s eyes brighter as the gold in his eyes moves like liquid mercury, and lets him nudge him down. His instinct spreads its yearning through Porsche like a blanket, covering every part of him.

“I came in here to shower.” He breathes.

Kinn hums, not believing him one bit: “You can shower.”

Those fingers dance up his spine and Kinn’s head ducks to bite Porsche’s phoenix tattoo which is still flooded with the color of his instinct. His tattoo lights up red and gold as Porsche flexes his shoulder blades, Kinn letting his tongue soothe the skin he just nipped. Those fingers reach the middle of his back and push again, forcing Porsche a little further down. Kinn steps closer to him and he feels it when his pants brush the back of his thighs.

The swell is unmistakable and Porsche feels his cheeks heat because he’s seen Kinn, naked out of his bed with all that gorgeous skin, muscles and heavy cock between strong thighs. Thick, long and a bit darker than the rest of him, Kinn doesn’t have to be plastered to Porsche for him to feel the press of him against his ass. And he does. He gently tucks himself behind Porsche so that when he pushes on Porsche’s neck to bend his head down, he’s nudging right into his naked cleft with his straining pants.

Porsche licks his lips, his brain static-y and barely listening to his instinct as it thrums out mine like a low-level hum, so he drowns it out, forcing it to be only him inside his head. He never thought he’d be a person who wanted to be under someone else, but almost on his elbows on Kinn’s sink with a hard cock pressed against him, he wants it. He pushes back of his own accord and Kinn groans. He gets a light but sharp tap on his ass cheek for it and Porsche lets out a shocked grunt. Porsche looks up into the mirror again and he can see Kinn unbuttoning his shirt. Kinn watches him watch him and the air crackles with anticipation because Porsche doesn’t know what to expect. He and his instinct breathe as one when Kinn presses into him again. Porsche sighs and lets himself fall forward, Kinn catching him by the waist to drag him back. Again, Kinn’s cock nudges against his ass but his pants bar him from truly getting to where Porsche is steadily aching with anticipation. He drops his head down and he can see his own cock, hard and rigid between his thighs.

“Head up, Porsche,” Kinn commands him and he closes his eyes, exhales, and looks up again.

A nip to his shoulder and Porsche makes to grab Kinn’s hair and hold him, but he slips back and unbuttons his pants. Letting out a frustrated noise, Kinn shushes him with a soft stroke on his back.

“Easy,” Kinn murmurs.

He steps out of his pants and underwear and kicks them behind him. Every moment jangles at Porsche’s nerves, Kinn could be biting him, could be sinking his teeth into his throat and making him his and he isn’t. The desire to obtain it, his bite, becomes a pulse that exists under Porsche’s skin, reverberating with every breath.

“Look at you,” Kinn tells him, and Porsche grips the top of the cabinet tightly when Kinn takes his cheeks in his hands and gently parts him, exposing his hole to the air. He thinks he feels his cock dribble a tiny bit of pre-come at the prospect.

“What a pretty phoenix.”

Porsche freezes. His belly throbs and he licks his lips, Kinn leaning over him, and finally, he feels blessed skin against his back as Kinn nudges his jaw and gets Porsche to turn his face in for a kiss against it. A bit further and Kinn captures his mouth and pushes inside with his tongue, slowly lapping at Porsche’s mouth without any urgency but it still drives him to distraction. Kinn pulls Porsche back and his ass bumps into Kinn’s groin.

Porsche gasps and breaks away, “I’m pretty sure that’s not how this works.”

“There are lots of ways to have sex. I’m sure you know that.” Kinn teases as he wets his right palm with spit and reaches around to cup Porsche at the base of his cock, measuring the weight of him before he slowly slides up the shaft to thumb the head.

Porsche lets out a soft sigh and bucks his hips and Kinn makes sure to hold him with his other hand.

He moves slowly, leisurely, as Porsche clenches his thighs together to not try and hurry the speed. It’s tingly and makes him feel warm but it isn’t enough, it won’t get him off, but he has a feeling that Kinn knows that. Kinn lets him go and disappears from his back and Porsche watches in the mirror as he leans down to one of the cabinet drawers and pulls it open before sifting through its contents and pulling something out.

Lube, but no condom.

Porsche tenses up and Kinn pets his ass, “Easy. Not yet.”

And that embarrasses him, so he folds his arms and ducks his head to hide in them. Kinn doesn’t make him get up when he slicks his palm again and slips it back around Porsche’s cock and skates against his skin. Porsche breathes against his own arm, parting his legs a little more which changes the angle for Kinn, so he presses himself closer to Porsche, lining up against his back, chin hooked over his shoulder down to his fat cock that is pressed up against his cheeks. He stays hidden when he realizes he's clenching on nothing and desperately wants to be. He hasn’t thought a day in his life about being fucked by a man but now it’s all he can think about.

Kinn twists his wrist and Porsche pants and cries out, jerking forward and Kinn leans into him as he goes, his cock slipping down under Porsche’s ass, under his own cock. It’s different. Hot. Kinn sucks on his shoulder and comes off with a wet pop.

“Close your legs.”

Porsche hears him but it takes him a couple of seconds to figure out what he’s asking for. Tightening his legs together, it traps Kinn against him and the head of his cock is brushing past Porsche’s balls when he experimentally pushes through Porsche’s thighs. At the same time, he rubs over the head of Porsche’s length, thumbing at the head and his whole body lights up and he makes a noise akin to “nuggh”.

Kinn disappears for a second again and he comes back with his cock lubed so the slide is even easier and Porsche moans as Kinn readjusts himself against him, slotting in the gap he made for himself with Porsche’s body. Porsche also isn’t ready for the sound of the first slap of Kinn’s hips against him. He half pushes air out, half grunts and Kinn smooths his hand over his back to placate him, but he wants more. His cock is pushing into Kinn’s hand as Kinn’s cock is rubbing everything from his taint up to the base of his dick. The pleasure spikes with every drag and Kinn tugs it up with his hand making Porsche feel jumbly in his stomach with how good it feels.

“So good; so pretty,” Kinn tells him with that husky voice that seems to be the only thing giving him away and it pours over Porsche like honey. His instinct clings to it, ours ours ours. Porsche lifts his head up and he can see Kinn watching his back, down to his ass. The next thrust, he shoves back and Kinn gives up a weighted sigh and Porsche bites his lip. Kinn eyes him in the mirror and presses another kiss to his shoulder.

Porsche holds his gaze, “Tighter. Harder.”

Kinn grips him and digs his fingers into his hip, dragging him back as he pushes forward and Porsche slips his own hand down between his legs to under Kinn’s cock and lets them run along the underside, under the head as he thrusts into Porsche’s closed thighs.

“Oh, fuck,” is all Kinn gives up as he continues to stroke Porsche off and his cock gets slicker, redder and angrier against the tan of Porsche’s own that fairs no better. They’re both leaking pre-come, it mixing in with the lube and spit and Porsche lets his cheek lay flat on his arm as he moans. His ass feels hot, the skin between his balls and his ass is sticky and his cock almost hurts with how swollen it feels but none of it matters. He feels a mess with his skin, tight and jittery, and pleasure sparks behind his eyes as Kinn reaches up to twist his nipple upending the balance. Porsche feels it like a line between his chest and his cock and when Kinn slaps his ass with his hips, it ignites him. Porsche seizes as his whole body stiffens before he comes. He paints the cabinet doors; he’s got some on his thigh and Kinn has the most on his fingers as he eases him through it.

He spasms as everything comes to an end, the loose-limbed feeling dropping over him as his instinct revels in how pleased it is, and Kinn slips from between his legs. Porsche whines and manages to hook him back, “No, I wanna see.”

Kinn captures his gaze again now that he’s using the cabinet to hold up his jello legs. Another hiss and quiet curse and Kinn steps back enough from Porsche that he can see him smear his come onto his cock and stroke up and down the shaft.

Porsche can see how his stomach is tensing, the end approaching. He wills his legs to work as he stands up before dropping to his knees, stabilizing himself on Kinn’s thighs, holding them tightly as Kinn jerks himself off.

He’s shaking his head, eyes fixated on Porsche, “Look at you.”

There’s a certain amount of disbelief in it but Porsche is so focused on his hand, he skates his own up over Kinn’s stomach, feeling the tight clench he could see and how the muscles flex minutely under his hand. Kinn is beautiful like this, his mouth wet and stained red, his whole body straining. Mine.

“Porsche.”

He looks up when Kinn calls for him. He whispers his name over and over and Porsche closes his eyes and turns his head so that he doesn’t get come in them when he feels the hot splatter down his throat.

Oh.

His belly twists and his instinct burns, and when Kinn cries out it sends more ripples through Porsche. This is for me. It drips down onto his chest and he opens his eyes to Kinn with his closed. He stands up and wraps him up in his arms, heaving breaths aside. He tucks in a kiss on his mark and Kinn shudders. There is a tacky smear sticking them together and it’s different having a softening cock lined up in the crease of his thigh, but he can’t help but feel that it’s all how it’s supposed to be.

With his clean hand, Kinn cups Porsche’s head to turn him in for a kiss. At first, it’s a soft peck and then another, tongue licking at the seam of Porsche’s lips. Porsche lets Kinn delve into his mouth, squeaking out a moan as he lets himself be plundered. Kinn kisses as intensely as he approaches everything else and Porsche can’t help but be swept up by him. A heavy hand hits his ass and digs into the meat of it, hauling Porsche in closer. There isn’t an inch of space between them as Kinn walks them over to the shower, blindly fiddling with the door and then the knobs as a jet of cold water splashes them and forcing them to part.

It heats up pretty quickly and Kinn soaps up his body with soft touches, some discreet and some indiscreet, paying particular attention to his nipples, licking and scraping his teeth over them and keeping Porsche’s level of desire humming through his blood. Porsche returns it, his fingers gliding over Kinn as he washes his forearms, tops of his thighs, belly and up over his chest. He feels his instinct under his fingertips as he explores Kinn’s body, the curiosity and desire doubled. Kinn slips away as he reaches up to his shoulders, most of the soap doesn’t survive the strength of the water spray, and he looks to be turning the water off.

It's when Kinn has his back to Porsche that he sees the subtle landscape of his skin. Both his shoulders are covered in slightly rough-looking scales and there is a deep patch along the small of his back on one side. They blend seamlessly into his skin with their light color, reflecting and shimmering in the brightness of the bathroom, and they glisten as the water drips off them. The same way Porsche is covered in a palette of color, Kinn’s instinct is magnificent and gleaming on his back.

Porsche chases a droplet with his index finger along the top of Kinn’s ass, just as the scales end, and Kinn stops, much like Porsche did when he told him he was pretty. He retracts his hand in case he’s upset Kinn, but he lets out a massive sigh.

Turning around with hair sopping in his face, Kinn wraps his arms around Porsche under his arms and hauls him up onto his toes to kiss him. It’s hungry and envelopes Porsche as his back hits the glass of the shower wall. The feeling in his stomach swoops and he gives as good as he gets, pulling on Kinn’s hair, biting his chin, nosing down his throat to his mark. He can’t help a small whine when he mouths against it because his throat feels so bare. He’s probably imagining it, but he can almost feel it burn with where he doesn’t have a mark.

He whines into his slick wet shoulder, “Kinn.”

Kinn murmurs nonsense to him, his hands moving deftly over Porsche’s body, stroking and petting him, trying to ease how tight he’s coiling up.

Porsche pushes back enough that he can duck his head down and he bites Kinn’s chest, right above his nipple, and he jerks as if he’s been struck with electricity. It has an air of ‘that’ll teach him’ but he doesn’t care.

Kinn cups his face and pushes his thumb against Porsche’s bottom lip, pressing it flat against his teeth until Porsche hooks them down under it and Kinn’s thumb slips into his mouth. He swirls his tongue against it and Kinn stares with those burning gold eyes. Porsche makes an educated guess and slides his hand around to Kinn’s back, curling his fingers into the scales at the bottom and digs in a little before scratching his fingers against them.

A thumb becomes his index and middle finger, flattening Porsche’s tongue as Kinn’s other hand slips between the crevice of his cheeks. Pushing his fingers into Porsche’s mouth almost detracts his attention from the finger that gently but purposely circles his rim.

“The things I want to do to you,” Kinn murmurs, almost as if it was to himself. Porsche runs on impulse and intuition, minds his teeth, before he swallows Kinn’s fingers down to the last knuckle before suckling them and pulling off. Kinn pushes against the vulnerable sphincter and penetrates it with ease. Porsche moans low in his throat and goes onto his toes again, trying to get away from the not quite sure sensations of having his hole breached. His instinct flaps its wings unsure and unable to comprehend it. It doesn’t hurt but it feels tight, feels like this is the most he can do but Kinn nudges him with his nose on his cheek.

“Not here; not like this,” Kinn promises him, “You’re too perfect to waste on this.”

Porsche feels a rush of something when Kinn tells him that.

“How?” He nudges Kinn back and they meet for a kiss.

“On my bed, on your knees.” He assures him.

Like a cup, each word Kinn says fills him up until he’s overflowing with want and need. The finger inside him slips out and his ass gets a loving squeeze before Kinn turns the water off, taking his hand and walking him out to grab a towel and rubbing at least the majority of the water off of them both.

Taking his hand back, Kinn leads him into the main bedroom part of his suite. The lights turn on as they enter the room and Porsche tightens his hand in Kinn’s grasp, a wave of apprehension crashing over him. Kinn squeezes back and tugs him in again, his mouth finally touching his neck. Porsche thinks that Kinn could ask him for anything at this moment and he would agree. His whole body is focused on Kinn dragging his open mouth on the muscle there, edging him with the prospect of a bite. The thought of it is arousing, even though he knows it would hurt, he wants it. Not just because his instinct has a deep-seated drive inside him to pin Kinn down and write itself into his blood, but because he wants Kinn anyway he can have him.

Kinn guides him towards the bed, but he doesn’t have him turn around as he expects. He sits Porsche down, Porsche’s eyes almost level with his cock. He tips Porsche’s head up and dips down to kiss him. Porsche wraps his arms around Kinn’s neck and tugs him down and they shuffle until Kinn is laying on Porsche, between his legs, and pressing Porsche into the bed with his own body. Porsche lets his hands roam over Kinn again: the solid muscle of his delts, a featherlight touch over his scales and digs deep into his ass. Kinn rocks up into him, dragging himself over Porsche’s stomach and giving them both delicious friction. His instinct sends heat waves through him, isn’t our mate lovely?

Porsche chases the tingly, warm feeling, pushing his hips against Kinn’s as he holds his ass, and him, as tight to his groin as he can. Kinn drops his head down to Porsche’s shoulder.

“If you keep doing that, I’m never going to get inside you.”

Porsche pokes his tongue between his teeth, “Sounds like you have a stamina issue.”

Kinn pinches his side and Porsche wriggles to get away, only to rub himself up against Kinn again. He isn’t all the way hard again, but he will be and Kinn is almost fully erect.

“I can last, can you?” Kinn questions him; his tone light and playful but darkened with an edge of thick desire.

Porsche slides his leg around Kinn’s thigh, “Do you always talk this much?”

“No, I always prove my worth.”

Kinn gets himself up off of Porsche and off the bed to go into his bedside cabinet for another tube of lube and a condom. Porsche wonders if he has stashes of them everywhere for every occasion. It makes him chuckle to himself because it seems like an uptight thing he would do.

“What’s so funny?”

Porsche shakes his head, “Nothing.”

Kinn smiles at him in a way that says he doesn’t get it, but he’s amused by Porsche. He helps Porsche get a pillow under his hips and gets him to bend both of his knees as Kinn lies down next to him and kisses the outside of his shoulder. He guides his coated fingers between Porsche’s ass cheeks by touch alone, so he probes gently until he finds the soft but tight furl of muscle. Porsche tries not to be a swooning damsel but when Kinn pushes into him, he automatically curls his hand around the outside of his bicep and just holds it. The sensation of being breached feels the same as it did before. Not painful and there wasn’t even really any resistance, but Kinn slowly crooks his finger and it makes Porsche feel prickly and unsure of what exactly he’s feeling.

Together, us, mine. His instinct murmurs incoherently.

“Push yourself down, it’ll be easier,” Kinn whispers under his ear as he licks his jaw. His cock twitches at the sound of Kinn speaking in that low, intimate tone. He adds another finger and that stretches Porsche. He gently spreads them inside, slowly pumping them in and out halfway, and Porsche flexes his feet as his ass starts to feel the warm burn alongside the stretch.

He reaches for himself, encircling his cock and stroking himself lazily as Kinn noses his jaw to get him to turn in for a kiss. The pleasure doesn’t race over him, it builds slowly but intensely as Kinn nudges his leg under Porsche’s, changing the angle slightly, lining up his now hard cock against Porsche’s waist. He’s whimpering quietly into Kinn’s mouth when Kinn pushes three fingers into him and he initially clenches up but when he forces himself to relax, Kinn slides inside and everything becomes shuddery and bright. His cock starts leaking, pooling under his belly button and Porsche drags Kinn’s arm in, pulling him across his body.

Mmm, it’s good.

Kinn slips his fingers away and pulls Porsche’s hand off his cock as he sits up, grabbing a condom. Porsche watches as he rolls it down over his cock, stroking himself with his eyes fully attentive on Porsche as he tips his chin up.

Porsche feels as flighty as his instinct as he rolls himself onto his abdomen. He’s barely got his knees under himself when Kinn pulls him up by his hips as if he weighs nothing and presses his fingers inside again. It’s different, they slide in deeper, and Porsche almost jettisons himself up to the top of the bed but he manages to stay by dragging the duvet under his hands as he lets out a shocked cry. Kinn strokes down inside him and it sends shivery hot pleasure up his spine.

“What—?” He cries, his cock consistently dribbling pre-come. He moves to stroke himself, but Kinn pushes his hand away when he gets close.

“You have to last for this bit, sweetheart.”

Porsche whines and rocks his hips back and forth to try and ease the press inside him that teases hitting that peak, only it never quite materializes. And Kinn moves with him, his palm smoothing up his back, down his side, over his ass, and down onto the back of his thigh.

“Let me come, fuck.”

That gets Kinn to remove his fingers entirely and Porsche tries to flop onto the bed, but Kinn holds him up with a hand under his stomach. He steadies himself and looks back when Kinn moves his own hand, and he watches him slick his cock up over the condom so that it’s glistening.

That’s about to be inside—

Kinn catches his eye and nods, can I? And Porsche feels a swell of affection for him and his instinct caws. Ours. He shakily nods back and Kinn shuffles a bit on his knees until he’s within hair’s breadth of Porsche, his thigh hair almost tickling the back of his as he lines up with Porsche’s rim.

It’s not like his fingers. There is no give, no reprieve, as Kinn eases himself inside, slow – incrementally slow – and pushing his way forward. Porsche clenches and unclenches his hands under him, his toes curl and his thighs shake a little as a whimper catches in his throat and he forces himself to bear down. When he seats himself fully inside, Kinn rubs his thumb at the top of his cleft, where his hole must be stretched and straining and Porsche groans.

“You take me so well.”

Fuck, don’t do that, Porsche thinks. His cock had flagged a little as his body tried to compensate for the intrusion, but now, with Kinn slotted all the way inside, the pleasure moves from simmering into heating up again. There’s a little knot inside his chest that wants to say: is it good, am I good?

Is it enough to make me yours?

Porsche has never begged for anyone’s attention. He’s never had to. He’s fucked more in the backroom than he ever has a bedroom but none of them were him. His mate.

Kinn doesn’t move his hips. Instead, he takes Porsche’s waist in his hands and pushes him only to drag him back onto his cock. Porsche flinches at the sensations; he feels every inch, every line and how it presses all the way up into his stomach. He drops his head down and Kinn moves him again, a drawn-out whine bubbling up out of his throat. Kinn keeps him there, dragging him on and off his cock for a few more thrusts until he pushes forward at the same time.

It's like a puzzle piece that clicks into place. His belly tightens up and his cock dribbles. He’s starting to pool a spot under him on the bed and he doesn’t care.

“Do that again,” he demands and Kinn chuckles behind him.

Porsche feels his skin flush as Kinn starts to thrust into him, slowly and measured and he tries to push back but Kinn’s strong hands keep him still.

“You were made for this.”

Made for you.

It’s all he can think about as he tries to find a way, a gap where he can move how he wants to move. Is he gonna bite me? It’s not enough, it’s not—

Kinn leans over him and noses the back of his neck, his arms coming to either side of Porsche, but it forces his cock all the way back into him and Porsche cries out and slaps his hand back on Kinn’s hip, digging his fingers into anything he can get a hold of. Buried this deep, Kinn barely moves, his cock a wedge that hits everything inside. Porsche circles his hips, his ass clenching, and it sparks that shivery hot feeling again and he chases it as Kinn pants into his skin.

“You can’t even wait, can you? Fuck, Porsche.”

He wants to feel good. He wants Kinn to feel good.

Kinn leans back off of him and Porsche cries out, his fingers scrambling to try and bring him back. He keeps going, slipping out and Porsche is about to complain when Kinn pulls his leg to help him turn over and he is flopped onto his back.

Pushing one knee up, Kinn presses back inside, and Porsche can’t help but tip his head back and grit his teeth. He wraps his other leg around Kinn’s side, his ankle resting over his ass as Kinn settles himself down onto his elbows. Gold eyes watch him, searching over his face, as the first thrust comes. It’s good. It’s better. His cock rubs against Kinn’s belly and he wraps his arms around Kinn’s shoulders as he steadily picks up his pace, his nails scratching at Kinn’s scales.

“You—” Kinn accuses him, and Porsche hears it. The encompassing you. The you who upended his entire life. He isn’t sorry. Not one bit. He’d rip into Kinn’s throat a hundred times for this, wrapped up in his arms, having his desire and need for him pushed inside like an impossible drive. It’s like he’s coalesced into this whole moment to just be. Him, me, us, ours.

“Yeah, me.” Porsche roughly shoves his face into Kinn’s throat and bites over his mark. Nothing like the first time, none of the anger and violence, but he’s firm and unchallenged. This is me owning you, Kinn.

Kinn’s hips stutter, and when Porsche lets him go, Kinn uses one hand to pinch his chin and push his face to the side.

His heart is in his throat, his instinct hooking its talons into his chest and everything is a soft flutter at the same time as Kinn now rails his body, pushing inside him at a ferocious pace that forces Porsche to cry out, moan, shake and clutch at him.

I’m gonna come. He’s gonna rail me and I’m gonna come.

His body is an instrument being played by Kinn and he can only listen to the notes. Kinn licks a long stripe up, the hot spit exposed to the air making it shuddery and cool when he then blows on it.

You fucking tease, just—

When Kinn buries his teeth in Porsche’s neck, time stops. His phoenix crows. His hands come down to Kinn’s waist and slap the skin as he stiffens, his cock spending endlessly between them. Everything is happening to him all at once. He can feel he’s coming, burning hot and bright, but he’s squeezed his eyes shut so tight that all he can see is those starburst he saw when he bit Kinn. He can feel something distantly coiling around his body. He feels embraced, held, safe.

Then it comes, the endless heat, lapping at him like water in a pool. It’s like Kinn upended himself inside Porsche, rather than what he gave and Porsche took before which now feels like a fraction in comparison.

So much heat. So much fire.

He’s full. He’s so full. There isn’t a part of him that Kinn doesn’t reach. His instinct settles, bathing in the flames it was given. Ours.

He’s barely cognizant that Kinn is coming too. His body twitches as Kinn flops down onto him and he pets his hair with one sluggish hand.

***

Part of him foolishly thought he wasn’t going to do it; that he was going to bury himself inside this man and let him go. Because how could it be true that a man he met by chance not even a week ago was his mate? Porsche, who without reservation, bit into him again and announced his claim a second time.

So, he’s flying apart in fifty different ways until he turns Porsche’s face away and sinks his teeth into his throat. His instinct launches itself up into his chest and fills up inside him as he latches on to Porsche’s throat, the blood from the wound dripping into his mouth. The impossible amount of pleasure that started in his cock crests and he practically shoves himself into Porsche’s hole and spends himself inside the condom.

Never again. He’d fill him up and leave him dripping with even more claims on his body.

Heat spills out of him and into Porsche like waves crashing against the rocks of a cliff, pouring more and more only to flow back and in again. His instinct isn’t hurting, it surges with renewed energy.

Give it to him. All of us.

Kinn loosens his mouth and licks gently at the abused skin and lets reality wash back over him as Porsche trembles and shakes with his eyes closed. His stomach is soaked with come and his thighs are spread as if he didn’t have the strength to hold them up anymore.

He lets himself fall onto Porsche’s chest, his ear listening to his heart beating out a rapid drum as he pants

Kinn watches as the colors of his phoenix seep away into his skin, leaving him tan and glowing, and dark eyes blink at him hazy and satisfied.

He smiles, soft but dazzling, “Mine.”

Kinn lets out a breath and smiles back, “Mine.”

Chapter Text

They lay like that for a while, Porsche hugging Kinn to him, rubbing his back and nuzzling the top of his head. The ease and reassurance he receives from it soaks into a little spot inside him, hidden behind his instinct and makes him feel full. His instinct hoards it for Porsche, drawing its wings around it to stop it from dissipating like smoke. Kinn let himself be embraced, his nose resting just above his bite and his tongue peeking out to lick over it because he could.

The moments passed and Kinn had to ease himself out of Porsche, tying off the condom before stroking up and down Porsche’s thigh, giving him that comfort and making sure he isn’t any further away from Porsche than the length of his arm. Porsche felt completely turned inside out, his fingers slipping over the back of Kinn’s hand before Kinn lifted them to lace them with his. They hold each other against Porsche’s thigh before Kinn leans down to kiss his chin and then his mouth.

His throat is throbbing painfully, feeling open and pinching but it confusingly still feels tied to the arousal low in his belly. It thrums through him like a thread that funnels from his neck to his groin. His whole body feels like it can’t quite let go of the pleasure Kinn gave him, leaving him tingling and needy.

Kinn tries to get up, but Porsche whines and tugs on his hand. Don’t.

“I need to clean you up,” Kinn tells him, his voice low as if being too loud might break the quiet repose they’re in.

Porsche feels petulant in a way he never has before and he tugs Kinn’s hand up to his mouth and kisses it, Kinn shuffling up by his side so he can lean down and kiss him properly, brushing his hair back off his forehead as he slips his tongue between Porsche’s lips. Porsche hums happily before he brushes his tongue against Kinn’s and nips his lip when he pulls back. When he closes his eyes, he gets a kiss pressed to his forehead.

“Two minutes, that’s all I need.”

Porsche nods. Kinn leaves him sprawled on the bed and he prods his mind for his instinct that’s been quiet since Kinn bit into him.

We’re mated.

His instinct flaps its wings, we’re mated.

Somehow there’s a comedown. He feels settled and relaxed in his skin, and he no longer burns as he did before. He mentally checks over his instinct and it’s unchanged with its identical glossy plumage. He rubs its soft feathers in his mind and it titters and rubs itself against his ribs.

Kinn comes back and drops a warm, wet cloth on his stomach with a plop. Porsche laughs and uses it to wipe his skin before Kinn takes it and wipes his hole. He thinks he turns beet red, particularly when Kinn pushes his leg out of the way to ensure he’s cleaned all of the lube off and out of him. It reeks of…closeness. Ownership.

You didn’t care when he had his teeth or cock inside you, but a bit of basic hygiene is where you draw the line? He thinks to himself before he gives himself a mental shake.

Kinn picks up another cloth that Porsche didn’t see and tenderly dabs at his throat. Porsche tries to catch his eye, only he can’t with Kinn actively avoiding him: “Is it bad?”

Kinn still looks elsewhere but shakes his head, “Not bad. Deep. It might need stitches.”

He tries not to let that flutter inside him. Kinn’s need for him marked him so deep that he might need—

“Does it hurt?”

Porsche cups Kinn’s wrist that’s wiping his neck, “No. It feels—” he licks his lips, “Good.”

Kinn stops and looks at him, and Porsche looks away. Kinn repeats after him, “Good.”

Porsche hums his assent. Their hesitation with each other feels out of sync but he tries not to analyze it too much.

Kinn folds up the cloth and presses it against him and Porsche winces, “Do you like pain, Porsche?”

Porsche looks back at him, “I don’t think so. I don’t know.”

He’s learned so much about himself in one night that he never knew, so really, he doesn’t know. Maybe Kinn will show him one day, or maybe he’ll decide he does like it. The prospect folds itself up and takes root in his chest. All he, and his instinct, can say is he likes being Kinn’s.

Kinn lets his hand fall from his neck, his voice delicate and tinged with an almost worry, “But you like…” The second part hangs in the air: what we did together.

Porsche slides his hand up Kinn’s arm, past his elbow and bicep, and pinches his nipple; Kinn sharply takes in a breath and pulls himself away from Porsche in a mock attempt to cover himself.

“It was amazing.” He refuses to feel embarrassed about what they did because it did feel amazing. He’s never been touched so thoroughly or intensely.  

There’s a faint pinkness to Kinn’s cheeks and it makes Porsche smile. Not so suave now, huh, Khun Kinn.

He goes out on a limb and asks what he’s dying to ask, “Are you happy, Kinn?”

Kinn looks at him with soft, dark eyes, “I’m happy, Porsche.”

***

They sleep under the fluffy duvet and Kinn wakes up with Porsche tucked into his side, his head on Kinn’s shoulder and he’s snuffling against his shoulder.

When he had put Porsche to bed, his wound’s bleeding finally slowed with sluggishly clotting but it was still open and raw. He knows he should have taped it up but the twisted bit of pride in him wants to see it. Porsche is his now, his mate. He had offered his body up and let himself be contorted and pushed to the ends of his tolerance and he was beautiful doing it. His instinct takes a deep pleasure in it, pretty mate, while sharing flashes of memory as Porsche moaned and whined under him. Kinn grazes his fingertips over Porsche’s back and he burrows deeper into the bedding, slinging his leg over Kinn’s two under it. They’re both still naked so his warm, flaccid cock presses against Kinn’s thigh. It’s intimate. He can’t remember the last time he let someone stay in his bed, let alone in it naked.

He does.

Tawan.

He can’t help but compare the two, but he finds they have little in common. Tawan was rigid and inflexible but also placating. Porsche is bold and brassy, crude in the silliest of ways but surprisingly forgiving and kind.

I don’t know you but it’s like I’ve never not known you.

Ours. Our mate, his instinct chimes in.

Porsche murmurs in his sleep, something about pink flamingos and green frogs, and he reaches out and tries to squash Kinn with an arm around his waist. Kinn tries to soothe him by rubbing his arm, but he pulls tighter with his arm and his leg so that he’s drawing Kinn in like a koala.

He thinks, not for the first time, Porsche is too different from him for this life. The one Kinn has involuntarily dragged him into by value of proximity. Guilt rushes in and threatens to drown him. Porsche hiccups and seemingly wakes himself up.

“Kinn?” He mumbles sleep soft.

Kinn touches his chin gently, “Hmm, what is it?”

Porsche cups his face blindly with one hand, “Sleep.” His thumb rubs gently over his cheekbone, leaning over to give Kinn a little kiss. “Sleep.” He repeats as he falls back into his slumber, his hand laying on Kinn’s chest.

Kinn kisses his hair and lays his head back on the pillow. Sleep doesn’t come right away but he feels comforted as Porsche twitches in his sleep and reminds Kinn he and his instinct are not alone. Not anymore.

***

Porsche gets woken up by the sound of a knock on the door. His head immediately comes off the pillow as he looks back and down at Kinn who is only just starting to open his eyes.

He tries to get out of bed when Kinn grabs him around the waist, “It’s just breakfast.”

Breakfast.

Breakfast when he’s ass out naked. He pushes at Kinn, but he turns out to be surprisingly adamant and strong and he keeps Porsche in the bed with Porsche flopping down in defeat. He throws the blanket over his head, wriggling down as far as Kinn will let him as he hides from the staff, and Kinn sits up while things sound like they’re being shuffled around.

It’s one of the housekeeping aunties, Pai; he recognizes her soft voice. First with a wheeled trolley where she picks up from and puts down what sounds like a tray on a flat surface.

“Good morning, Khun Kinn.”

Kinn makes a short, barely agreeable noise and Pai seems undeterred, “I’ve brought you breakfast…”

There’s a hesitant pause.

Kinn encourages her, “What is it?”

Something Porsche doesn’t know the sound of gets put on the bed because he feels the weight of it on his feet.

“Some comfortable clothes for Mr Porsche.”

His ears are red, they’re definitely red.

“Thank you,” Kinn says shortly, but he’s not unkind. The sound of the trolley being wheeled out gets quieter and quieter until the sound of the door closing.

Kinn pulls the squishy duvet off him and he’s at Kinn’s waist, scrunching his face up in a sort of grimace and Kinn is smiling at him, smug.

“Why were you hiding?” Kinn teases him and Porsche sits himself up. He watches as Kinn reaches out his hand and brushes back hair on the side of his head, likely roughed up from where he threw himself under the covers.

He ignores him and sees there is a big white box at the end of the bed, which Kinn gestures with a nod of his head for Porsche to take and open. Inside it is tissue paper and then an incredibly soft blue t-shirt and a pair of jeans from a brand he doesn’t know. They feel expensive. He’s almost blushing again when he sees a pair of white underwear and socks there too.

Kinn kisses his shoulder, “I don’t know what to do now that all the aunties love you so much. I might lose you and never know it.”

Porsche rolls his eyes, his hands still feeling the material of the jeans, “You won’t lose me.”

Kinn searches his face when Porsche looks at him and he feels suddenly vulnerable and open like there’s nothing he can hide from Kinn now as Kinn pushes the box off his lap onto the floor. He’s about to turn to pick it up when Kinn reaches up and holds his cheek before leaning in to kiss him. He wants to say something about brushing his teeth, his neck throbbing from all the movement, but Kinn pushes past any reservations he has as he urges Porsche up and to sit over his lap, tucking the duvet around his sides, trading slow kisses with him, rubbing his back and raising Porsche’s arms to wrap around his neck. It’s lazy and warm and Porsche has never done anything like this. Kissed for a kiss’s sake. Kinn does let him go to nudge his chin up with his nose and press gently kisses down the line of his neck and over to his bite, soothing the sparks of pain. Porsche flushes with gentle wanting and his stomach tingles.

It's so easy to get lost in Kinn. To throw caution to the wind and let himself be cuddled and touched. His instinct chirrups delightedly and spreads its soothing warmth inside him. Happy.

His stomach growls and Kinn smiles into his throat.

He chuckles as he leans back, rubbing Porsche’s abdomen, “Food? There’s coffee and bread. Fruit too.”

Porsche nods, rubbing the back of his neck shyly, “Want anything?”

Kinn shakes his head, and Porsche loathes getting out of the warm cocoon, but he climbs off Kinn and out of the bed. He sees the tray and picks a grape off and pops it into his mouth. He looks back at Kinn who is leaning on one elbow watching Porsche’s naked frame. Porsche eats another grape and lets him look. There’s a rack of toast and he slides one out and covers it with a little butter from under a bone china dish next to an obscenely small pot of jelly that he then smears over top. Rich people.

He doesn’t notice, but Kinn gets out of bed and comes up behind him and hugs him around his waist as he takes a bite of the toast. A warm heat at his back, Porsche blindly puts the toast over his shoulder for Kinn to try and Kinn gets it stuffed into his face and has to take it from Porsche so that he doesn’t drop it. Porsche gets out another piece from the rack and gives it the same treatment.

When Porsche turns around with his slice, their kisses are sticky and sweet with jelly which they both lick at and taste on each other. Kinn keeps his hand high on Porsche’s backside just because he can.

Porsche looks down, barely a flicker, but Kinn catches him, “Already?”

He thinks about it before he even understands the question, but it isn’t him who answers. His instinct whispers with perfect clarity: always.

“Why? You have better things to do?” He pokes his tongue out to the side and Kinn’s eyes circle gold and the corner of his mouth twitches upward.

Kinn smudges the jelly on his lips on the unbitten side Porsche’s neck, spreading the sweetness before he sucks it back into his mouth. He pulls off with a pop, “Not one thing.”

***

Kinn eventually had Porsche pressed up against the windows, his grunts heavy and weighted as Kinn plowed into him with elongated and hard thrusts. His head had dropped back onto Kinn’s shoulder, rocking with his movements as Kinn wrapped his arms around Porsche’s waist and up around his torso to hold him up as his cock rigidly pulsed out come all over himself, his hand, and smeared on the window.

Porsche didn’t let him pull out. He made Kinn stay as deep inside him as he could as he squirmed on his cock, his body twitching and shaking with oversensitivity. It shouldn’t be as hot as it is, to be used for someone else’s enjoyment, but he’d give Porsche anything at this point, drunk on the scent of him and the tightness of his body, his instinct twisting and curling within him to have a chance at Porsche. Kinn gave him another moment before he bent him with a hand on his shoulder, pushing him down a little, and then thrusting up into him again. Porsche clenched so wonderfully on him, his moans slipping out and he gave hiccupping cries on the ones that catch on where Kinn is learning his prostate is. Kinn covered him and licked at his mark, appeasing his instinct, driving Porsche to grab the back of his head, his other hand lacing with Kinn’s on his hip. Kinn filled up the condom with a short cry and heavy, juddering breaths – the condom was a choice to reduce clean up rather than desire – and let his head lean on Porsche’s shoulder as they both came down.

He slipped out and Porsche turned around and wrapped him up in his arms again, seeking out warmth and pressing their bodies together as tightly as when Kinn was inside him. He dragged his fingers up on Porsche’s sides, skated them across his ribs and wrapped them around him and pulled him in so they were almost one line with each other. Porsche sighed happily as Kinn rubbed his thumbs back and forth.

His heart did a jumbled twist because it hurt. It hurt how wonderful Porsche is and how freely he gave himself.

Now, Kinn listens as the water runs, Porsche showering away the night and morning and he broods on that fact. Porsche the bartender who raises his little brother is now Porsche, Kinn’s mate, and everything that goes with that. He thinks about the events and parties he will have to parade Porsche to and he almost snarls at the thought. That many lustful eyes on Porsche, wondering if he’s a weak spot into Kinn, thinking of ways to hurt him to hurt Kinn, but also under it, pride. His beauty is something to be envied, and ultimately, Porsche would stand by his side and be Kinn’s port in the storm, someone he could find in any room and feel…

Safe.  

The thought of it scares him. How easily, how quickly, he’s let himself be bonded to Porsche. There wasn’t any book that described this, the way he feels without ever really knowing but knowing at the same time. His instinct sits on its hind legs and Kinn sits next to it in his mind.

We really did that.

Porsche comes out of the bathroom, towel wrapped around his waist, his hair wet and curling on his forehead and he frowns when he sees Kinn in his contemplative state. Kinn shakes his head.

“Big thoughts?” Porsche asks him and lets Kinn hug himself to his belly when he stands in front of him, ignorant of how damp he is from his shower.

“No. Nothing important.”

“I’ll be back soon; I need to go home and check on Chay.”

Kinn tightens his grip and Porsche strokes his hair.

“Who knew you were such a softie,” Porsche teases but Kinn’s gut swoops when Porsche tries to wriggle away from him.

Stay. Don’t go.

Porsche eases him away from his body and gets down to his level, crouching down so that he’s sitting on his ankles.

He feels utterly ridiculous, clinging to Porsche who takes his hands in his, “I’m coming back.”

Kinn wonders if Porsche feels it too, this wide chasm inside of him that expands at the prospect of being left alone, his instinct whines and circles the space, unable to cross the blackened pit. He memorizes Porsche’s warm smile, how it feels when he kisses his forehead and squeezes his hands.

“Up you go—” Porsche stands and pulls him up and catching him at his waist when he stumbles. “Who told you to be this cute, huh?”

He feels himself flush; he’s never been called “cute” before.

“I’m not—” He tries but Porsche pecks him on the mouth.

Porsche doesn’t let him chase for another kiss, shaking his head, “Nope. Shower first.”

He still feels jittery as he walks himself into the bathroom, his instinct flattening itself in his stomach, one eye on the feeling Kinn can’t shake.

Ours.

It sounds like possession.

He can’t “keep” Porsche tucked by his side forever in the comfort of his room. He can’t even keep him for today and it sits on him as he showers on autopilot. He does the essentials and comes back out to Porsche in his new clothes, buttoning up his jeans.

He’s still a bit wet so Porsche only traces his hand down his sternum and over his stomach. It thrills him as much as it comforts him.

“I’ll see you later,” Porsche promises him and he leans in for a kiss, avoiding Kinn’s body.

He has to force himself not to grab Porsche and throw him onto the bed and never let him leave.

***

Porsche leaves Kinn standing in his room with a soft scowl on his face. He isn’t happy about it either. It feels as if there is a tendril tied in the center of his chest and it ties him and his instinct directly to Kinn and it doesn’t want to be any further apart than half a step. But it’s been days since he saw Chay and he needs to see him. Needs to know he’s okay, safe, and make sense of everything that’s happened. Including the flesh-colored bandaid on his neck, covering his mark.

When he gets home, he sees the general mess Chay has left – typical – and it makes him smile. He starts to pick up after him and puts in a laundry load and checks his phone. No messages.

Chay isn’t due back from school yet, so Porsche keeps it up with his tidying, making his hands busy so that he doesn’t have to confront the ache inside him that only appeared when he left Kinn in what he now knows is a compound. He was sent home with a driver rather than tied up in the back, his eyes going wide when he saw the daily hustle and bustle of the compound. He had only used the back entries and service routes to avoid being detected by Kinn when he left his room. It’s almost like a whole ecosystem. Pai is in the foyer when he’s about to leave and she smiles when she sees his clothes. He bows and clasps his hands in front of him to thank her. He knows he’s basically admitting he was in Kinn’s room and he needed fresh clothes but he doesn’t care. He can feel Kinn’s hand in how he’s taken care of as he leaves, how he is respected and his needs attended to. He has to admit it’s nice, but it doesn’t sit right. He tries to dismiss as many people as he can, but they all give him the same look: but Khun Kinn.

He thinks that’s the difference between thinking and knowing. He thought that Kinn was something when he got carted off but seeing how people react to him – with admiration and respect – he understands him a little better. No matter what a man is involved in, how he treats others and how they treat him in return will always be more important. Especially to Porsche. He has been the underdog every day of his life since his parents died. In comparison to Kinn, who has lived a rich and opulent life, he’s barely making it. But he is. For him, and for Chay.

Porsche hears the lock go as Chay lets himself in and drops his school bag. He sees Porsche on the couch and his face lights up, “Hia!”

Porsche stands up as Chay comes in for a hug while simultaneously asking him, “How is Yok’s bar?”

He tries not to let a pang of guilt get to him for his lie, “Better.”

Chay is nothing but observant and he clocks Porsche’s neck immediately, “What’s that?”

Porsche snakes himself away, “A bandaid.”

“Why do you need a bandaid?” Chay narrows his eyes and Porsche throws his hands up innocently.

The joke is over though. He feels everything bundle up inside him and he wants to tell Chay everything but at the same time, keep it deep inside.

“I—” Porsche starts and then rubs his neck, conscious of his mark. He sits back down in an effort to have something to do and not feel so exposed.

Chay prompts him, looking down at Porsche now, “I?”

“I met my mate, Chay.”

His brother stops for a moment, quiet, “You did?”

Porsche’s stomach drops. “I did.”

Chay nods, digesting the information, and then smiles, “Congratulations, Hia.”

Porsche knows that Chay is happy for him because he has the biggest heart of anyone he knows, but he also knows how he raised him, always hiding, always cautious of people around them. For Porsche to simply announce that he met his mate is like suggesting he completely disregarded every rule he’s ever held himself and Chay to. And he’d be right.

“His name is Kinn,” Porsche says quietly.

Chay sits down on the couch, squashing in next to Porsche, “Kinn.”

Porsche watches as his brother turns it over in his mouth, if he doesn’t realize Porsche said he, he doesn’t show it, “What is Kinn like?”

Porsche tries not to lie to Chay, not about the really big stuff, so he admits, “I don’t really know, Chay. I’m getting to know him.”

“You let him bite you.” It isn’t an accusation, just a fact.

“I did.”

“Why?”

Porsche thinks about it, “Because he’s mine. He won’t ever not be mine.”

There’s a silence and Porsche hates it, but he won’t push Chay. Not ever.

However, Chay absorbs it, his hands slapping on his thighs before he rubs them as if he’s girding himself to respond: “Can I meet him?”

Porsche ruffles his hair and his brother tries to push him off, “Of course, I want you to meet him.”

Chay lets himself sink into Porsche’s side and Porsche sniff kisses the top of his head. He takes his brother’s wrist in his hand as he folds himself up onto the couch with his head in Porsche’s lap. He rubs the skin in his hand and sees the blue that blooms under it.

“Are you scared, Hia?” Chay asks him absently.

“No. I’m not.”

Porsche makes dinner while keeping one eye on Chay who gets his books out on the dining table and makes notes for his classes. In a way, he was expecting it to be worse. For Chay to call him out, shout and tell him how wrong he was. Family first.

Maybe he was hoping he would have, would have gleefully scolded him for how easily he gave up his convictions for a stranger.

Mate, his instinct prompts.

He hadn’t known before. How simple it would be and how different it would feel to be someone’s. He took Kinn inside him and he slotted in as if he had never been apart from him.

His instinct lets out a solemn trill.

Porsche’s chest gets tight and he puts a smile on his face before he tells Chay the food is almost done.

What’s done is done now. Chay, for all his sharp tongue and wit, is a forgiving person. He will always be on Porsche’s side, no matter the cause, and he the same for Chay. For better or for worse, they were more now. Chay will have one more person to go to in his time of need, and for that alone, Porsche will be eternally grateful to Kinn.

He tries to ignore the flutter of panic that seeps in when his mind tells him quietly, maybe that’s what you think.

***

Kinn checks his phone. It’s been a few hours and no messages from Porsche as yet.

Chan knocks on his door when he’s sat facing away from his desk and Kinn beckons him in, turning back around and rolling back under it.

“Khun Kinn.”

Chan has never bowed his head to Kinn and he doubts he ever will. He is his father’s man and his loyalty to Kinn is as far as that which extends from his duty to Kinn’s father. He hands Kinn a report and steps back.

“I have approached Porsche to be part of your detail.”

Kinn looks up at him from the file, “What?”

“Pachara Kittisawasd, nickname Porsche—”

“I know who you’re talking about; why did you do that?” Kinn drops the file down carelessly and stares Chan down.

“Porsche’s skills are—”

“No.” Kinn tells him firmly.

“Khun—”

Kinn cuts him off again, “No.”

“He needs to have a place here.”

“He has a place.” By my side. “It isn’t in front of me.”

Chan seems to mull that over, “Better that he stands in front of you where you can see him rather than behind you where you can’t.”

“What are you implying?” Kinn hates himself that he takes the bait, yet he does. He hasn’t lived this long being foolhardy.

“I don’t mean to spurn his character” Kinn barely believes that “but Porsche is a key player now. If you protect him like this, you may not see the danger when it approaches.”

Kinn hears the implication and understands, it is known that Porsche is his mate. Rather than avoiding it, he leans into it: “So, you expect me to let” my mate, “Porsche take the hits and falls for me?”

“Porsche has exceptional abilities. He is a credit to himself.”

Kinn narrows his eyes, “Cut the bullshit.”

Chan folds his arms, “He can’t be your mate, Kinn. Not to those outside of the main family.” Chan pauses and then unfolds his arms, leaning down on Kinn’s desk. “As your bodyguard, he can go where you go without anyone paying any attention to him.”

Kinn ignores Chan’s dropping of honorifics and outrightly calling Porsche out, a potentially goading act, instead choosing the path of reason, “That may be so, but I can hardly hide the bite I’ve now got on my neck.”

“No, you can’t.” Chan straightens up and adjusts his cufflinks, “But no one said you had to claim that it was Porsche who gave it to you.”

“Get out.” Kinn immediately snarls, his whole body tensing at the suggestion. He can feel the hand of his father in every word Chan has said. He’s probing the waters and reporting back. Fine, let it be known he won’t lie. He won’t deny Porsche is his.

Regardless, Chan doesn’t react and Kinn’s instinct wants to tear into him with its talons. How dare he even suggest that someone else even spout the lie that he’s Kinn’s mate.

“Think about it, Kinn. Talk to Porsche.”

“Out.” He growls again.

Chan leaves but he isn’t in any hurry. Kinn gets out his phone to check his messages again. Still nothing from Porsche.

It’s not until much later that his phone dings.

How’s things 😊

Quiet? Lonely? Kinn lets his phone slip into his desk as he stares at the smiley face. He wasn’t expecting this sense of discomfort at Porsche being away from him. He eyes his instinct who stares back at him.

Well?

It continues to stare.

Good talk.

Kinn picks up his phone and texts back, quiet. How’s things? He hesitates whether he should add something after but chooses not to.

Chays good. Wants to meet u.

Kinn contemplates that before he responds, let’s set something up.

😊

His jittery feelings settle a little, but it doesn’t take it completely away. He needs to see Porsche, needs to physically hold him in his arms because his heart is beating out like a drum and it’s all he can hear: mine, mine, mine.

He’s taken out of his thoughts when his phone buzzes. He frowns until he sees the caller id: Porsche.

He swipes to answer and he hears a soft hi.

Everything unspools when he says hi back.

His throat feels scratchy and exposed like it’s not enough only to hear Porsche, but he listens to him breathe and it calms the twirled and kinked up lines in his body.

Porsche tells him whisper-quiet like he’s trying not to wake someone up, “I needed to hear you.”

Kinn curls and uncurls his fist, “I needed to hear you too. When are you coming home?”

Home. It’s a presumptive term but he doesn’t mean here. He means him; when is Porsche coming home to hug himself tightly to Kinn’s chest and fill up this hollow feeling inside him?

“Not tonight, Chay needs me. Tomorrow?” Porsche sounds hesitant, maybe because he thinks that will upset Kinn or because he doesn’t want it to be tomorrow either.

It’s too far. Instantly Kinn knows it’s too far.

“I’ll come to you.”

Porsche exhales like a weight has been lifted off of him, “But Kinn—”

“I won’t come inside. Not till you’ve introduced us, but I need to see you.”

It’s been hours, only hours since he last saw him but he’s grabbing his keys as Porsche breathes out a soft okay and tells him his address as if Kinn hasn’t already collected every school report on him since he was 5.

“Wait for me,” Kinn tells him before he ends the call, waving off his bodyguards as he strides to the elevator that will take him to the fleet of cars and find his Maserati.

They all titter but Khun Kinn. He glares at them and they shrink back, not wanting to engage him or his instinct. He still gets a call from Arm as he’s sitting on the plush leather seats telling him, ‘Khun Kinn, please leave the tracker on your phone and call or text once every hour.’ They have more stringent rules normally, but Arm is giving him the slack he needs to leave without consequence. He’ll give him a day off in lieu for his forethought.

He gets into the car and takes a deep breath, his instinct is right under the surface of his skin, pressing at him. Porsche.

Porsche’s home isn’t that far from him, more along the back streets, but still in a wealthy middle-class area. He stops outside of the gate and he sees the upstairs lights on, letting him know they’re home.

He’s about to call Porsche when the front door opens and closes and he’s walking out. Kinn immediately throws his door open so that he can meet Porsche just inside the gate. With his arms, Kinn scoops him up and holds him as close as he can as Porsche tucks his face away in Kinn’s neck and against his mark. Kinn revels in Porsche’s scent, that smoky honey smell that clings to him as Kinn buries his nose in Porsche’s hair.

Everything ripples out of him like water and suddenly he’s a clear lake, pristine and unmoving.

Porsche moans like he’s in pain and Kinn pulls back enough to try and see his face, rubbing his hand up and down his back, “What is it?”

Porsche shakes his head, “Nothing.”

They move in unison, heads tilting as their lips meet. Kinn feels a rush as Porsche opens up the moment their mouths touch. It’s desperate and needy and rough. Kinn scrapes his teeth against Porsche’s lips, biting and soothing with his tongue as he tries to embed himself in Porsche so that he never feels that hurt-pain again. Porsche’s arms move tighter on him, scrambling on his back to crumple up and grip his coat under his fingers, and Kinn lifts him up by his legs, wrapping them around his waist. Porsche makes a high-pitched sound in his throat but dutifully tightens his thighs. He lets Kinn go, panting breaths against his lips as he drags his across Kinn’s cheek and back down to his mark.

Kinn holds Porsche as he nuzzles the skin, Porsche’s hips subconsciously rolling against him, and he curses quietly, “Baby, you can’t.”

He can. Kinn will lay him out on the top of the Maserati and fuck him if he wants, but that wasn’t what they agreed, wasn’t what Porsche wanted his and Chay’s first meeting to be. Not wanting to take the risk, he wills himself to hold a safer part of Porsche than his sinful thighs.

Porsche hears him because he whines, releasing Kinn’s coat and his legs loosen as he slips back down. Kinn kisses him again, gently, with none of the urgency of before. He feels full again, fed on Porsche and his attentions as he holds his slim hips, sliding around to cup his ass for a feel. Porsche is present enough to give him a stink eye about it.

He noses along Kinn’s jaw and lays his head on Kinn’s shoulder and lets himself be held. Kinn tucks his hands up under Porsche’s t-shirt and cuddles him close. Porsche sighs and murmurs something Kinn doesn’t quite hear but he doesn’t press him on it. He doesn’t need to hear it, he’s happiest as he is.

Porsche hums an ‘mmm’ as he hides his cold hands under Kinn’s coat but over his back.

“Better?” He asks and Porsche nods.

“I needed to see you.” He admits, his voice quiet and his head down.

He brings his hand up to Porsche’s cheek and guides him to look up at him, “Me too.”

Porsche huffs a little laugh, “Seems stupid to drag you all the way out here for this.”

They’re both still learning what it means to be mated. Anyone will tell you each pair is different depending on the person, the instinct, their age, or anything really. There is no one size fits all guide to it.

“Why? I got to see you and I got” He thrusts his hips forward, riding them over Porsche’s where the denim is straining. “This.”

He mostly does it to lighten the mood and yet Porsche groans “Don’t” but it’s less no and more ‘don’t tempt me’.

Even with that, wicked fingers slip between them and grope Kinn on his inseam, “Well, would you look at that?”

Kinn laughs and pecks a kiss on Porsche’s mouth, “Maybe tomorrow.”

Porsche leans into him and smiles deviously, “Tease.”

“You were the one who said we couldn’t.” Kinn volleys back, his blood heating up more and more for every moment Porsche stays in his space. He jokes, “Sit on my lap in car and I’ll—”

Porsche takes his hand and walks him back to the car, the door still swung wide open where Kinn exited at speed.

Kinn doesn’t even know where to begin as Porsche pushes him down to sit in the driver’s seat and makes him move it all the way back and down. He didn’t even do this when he was a teenager, let alone now, and the space is beyond limited but he feels a thrill go through his stomach as he shoves the seat back to make room for Porsche.

How did I get such a firecracker for a mate?

No, a firebird. Porsche’s instinct slips out through his eyes, adorning them with that mercurial every color of his as he climbs over onto Kinn’s lap.

“And what? You’ll take me for a ride?”

Chapter Text

Something about Kinn makes him feel wild and untethered. He’s done tons of things because he needed to but very few because he wanted to. He feels like he won’t ever get enough of him even if he has him every single day, even if he sank his teeth into him and never let him go. And, truthfully, logistics have never stopped Porsche. A toilet stall, an alley wall, a crate, the back of a much shittier car, he’s done it all, but none of it has him as feverish as he is to get Kinn’s clothes off him.

He hurriedly helps Kinn to pull his coat off in the tiny space between them and shove it into the passenger seat as Kinn leans forward and kisses Porsche’s t-shirt-covered chest, curtailing any of his attempts to progress further. The denim is problematic, but Kinn deftly unbuttons his jeans and unzips them before he stuffs his hand inside over Porsche’s underwear, rubbing his cock, encouraging it to fatten up as Porsche rocks up onto his knees with the sensations. His knees are in a horrible position between Kinn’s thigh and the door and his other thigh and the gear shift, and even then, it squashes him weirdly against the roof of the car, so he has to curve himself over Kinn and press into the shoulder of the seat with one hand to balance himself. But he doesn’t care. He needs him and he needs him now and tells him so with repetitious, “come on” under his breath and Kinn willfully ignores him, stroking his dick and mouthing at his t-shirt.

Nonetheless, up like that, he shoves the denim off his hips and down his thighs as far as he can get it to go, with Kinn’s other hand roughly slipping down the back of his underwear and gripping his ass cheek tightly, spreading him as he’s groped and fondled front and back, and he’s biting his lip because it feels good.

Porsche can feel where his t-shirt is getting damp from Kinn breathing on it, kissing him against it, so he pulls it up under his armpits and hisses when Kinn immediately latches onto one of his nipples. He’s lapping it and pinching it with his teeth before soothing it, sending shuddering pleasure down Porsche’s nerve endings and fire into his instinct as it spreads out inside him, curling into all of his edges so that everywhere Kinn touches him, he touches his instinct too. He cries out when Kinn’s teeth graze him on the other side and Kinn stops, leaning back to look up at him, “What do you want, sweetheart?”

He’s never been somebody’s sweetheart. Not like this, not like he matters. The hand down the back of his underwear slips away and becomes two fingers pressing against his lips until he opens his mouth to taste them. He wonders if this is Kinn’s thing; sucking or getting his cock sucked. He can’t help but think about it being Kinn, the length and shape of him distinct in his mind, and him swallowing Kinn down and watching him from under his eyelashes like the girls who’ve gotten on their knees and wanted to impress him. He remembers them, the ones who really loved it and got off on bringing him to the edge. Would he like it like that? Would Kinn let him figure it out or would he tell him exactly how to please him? The thought of it thrills him as he lets Kinn’s fingers lay heavily on his tongue, the curiosity heightening his desire. He wonders what it would be like to own that piece of his mate, all of Kinn’s attention on him as he holds his hips and makes him come. His cock twitches and Kinn notices.

“Soon,” He promises him; seeing right through him, “I’ll take you home, lie you down on the edge of the bed, tilt your chin up and feed you my cock until all you can do is swallow around it.”

It’s filthy how Kinn can just tell him what he’s going to do, but Porsche loves it and files it away because even if it’s just dirty talk, it spurs on a burgeoning part inside him that wants to explore, wants to learn the way they both like it. Wants to be able to rip down Kinn’s knowledgeable façade and ruin him. He whimpers and hollows his cheeks, and Kinn pushes in a little deeper until he strokes the back of his throat and Porsche coughs against the stimulation but doesn’t pull off.

“Jesus, Porsche, you’re something else.”

Pride swells up in his chest, his instinct with him as it flutters and flaps in his ribcage. It so desperately wants to be seen, to be told it’s pretty and parade its red gold breast.

Goddamn show off.

And yet he still preens, paying attention to slide the tip of his tongue between Kinn’s fingers and tries not to react when Kinn gets fired up and yanks his underwear down roughly, slipping his fingers out of his mouth and between his thighs. He prods gently back to his hole, circling it and delves inside, almost readily because of last night. Porsche is getting used to the feeling but he clenches and unclenches when Kinn doesn’t let him sit back when he’s breached, his body tightening up against the intrusion as Kinn stays there near his entrance, stretching him instead of smoothly seating them inside. Porsche watches in the dim light as his now rock-hard cock bumps against Kinn’s cheek as he purposely dips his head to slide against it before he smears his mouth across the tip and swallows it into his hot, wet mouth. Porsche shudders at the mixed sensations as they crisp and crackle inside him because he doesn’t know whether to push deeper into Kinn’s mouth or wriggle down on his fingers and chase the tingle that rushes through his body.

He needn’t have worried. Kinn presses in and crooks his fingers in his ass and Porsche’s thighs shake as the tingle sizzles through his body like he’s been struck by lightning. He wants to crumple up, get away from the too much not enough sensations but Kinn keeps a tight hold on his hip as his fingers probe inside him. Porsche runs his fingers through Kinn’s hair, stroking it, clutching at it as Kinn slowly starts to move, bobbing up and down on him in small movements with his tongue rubbing the underside, all of his attention focused on the nerve endings rather than taking him fully.

He can see the outline of his cock in Kinn’s cheek as it flits between the exposed light of the streetlamp through the window and the din of the car. Porsche whines because he wants to thrust inside, Kinn can clearly take it, but he keeps Porsche on the edge with fingernails embedded in his skin and enough pleasure that it winds him up, but it never coalesces in that burning heat that has him spilling over. In the quiet of the car, the sounds are obscene; wet slurping mixed in with Porsche’s bitten-off cries and Kinn’s short moans around his cock.

“Kinn—” He sounds wrecked. He is wrecked. “Baby.”

He pulls his hand out of Kinn’s hair and cups his jaw, thumb rubbing over where he’s sucking his cock so well, where he can feel the velvety slide of inside his cheek. Kinn pulls off messily, spit connecting his plush mouth to Porsche’s cock, his eyes looking up at Porsche, expectant. His face is flushed pink with effort and his fingers are still buried in his ass, curved to make Porsche bead up pre-come at the shiny tip of his cock. Porsche leans down, Kinn finally lets him sit back on his fingers, ensuring they press in as far as they can go with him practically sitting on Kinn’s knees, and pushes his tongue into his mouth, crudely sucking on his tongue with no skill or finesse as he sloppily tastes himself. His whole body is pulsing for the throb Kinn is fostering low in his belly and cock.

He pulls away and breathes against Kinn’s red mouth, rubbing his lips back and forth, whispering, “Next time, I want to.”

Teach me but with all the want and need that Porsche feels circulating in his veins.  

A pleased hum and Kinn bites his bottom lip hard while he squirms. Kinn holds between his teeth as all the avenues of pleasure realign and he’s whimpering when Kinn starts to move his fingers again. Porsche awkwardly reaches for Kinn’s pants where he can blindly feel the wet spot that has gone through his underwear, fingering the top of his cock and teasing the outline of it as he breathes out harshly through his nose. Porsche feels for the fastenings and unhooks Kinn’s trousers, moving to take him out and uncovering him to the air. He traces the shape of him, its width and length, the thick vein that runs along the bottom, and how hot his skin is compared to anything else.

Kinn lets his lip go and moans into his mouth when he finally gets his hand on him, encircling his cock, thumb rubbing at the tip before sliding downward. Kinn’s hips buck and his free hand goes to Porsche’s hair to yank him to the side, exposing his bandaid-covered bite and a noise of disapproval slipping out of Kinn’s throat as his mouth tries to get at what it can’t reach.

“Take it off, Porsche,” Kinn commands him and Porsche helplessly yields, his fingers clumsily peeling back the bandaid as Kinn brings him back down to lick his bite and suck it gently. It hurts and it feels good, Porsche feels his cock slap against his belly and realizes he’s shoving himself on Kinn’s fingers in time with his hand stroking Kinn’s cock. He draws his hand away and spits on it to smooth the path and Kinn groans appreciatively when he puts his hand back.

“Tighter baby, that’s it.” Kinn encourages him as his hips roll, knocking Porsche upwards, almost as if he was fucking him. The thought of it is like an ache he can’t shift and it spurs him on as he lifts himself on and off his fingers while trying to focus his attention on catching the light splaying on Kinn’s face as he bites his bottom lip when Porsche twists his wrist.

“So good for me,” Kinn murmurs, “take it, take it all.”

He chases the minute changes in his lover’s face, the way Kinn winces, not in pain, but when something feels good and how that makes his golden eyes glow deeper. How his breathing changes and stutters when he slides his palm over the head.

“More—” He demands, not for himself; more of Kinn like this, but his hair is released. He’s then pinned by Kinn latched on his throat alone as he puts his hand on Porsche’s cock again, helping him to fuck into it as Porsche still rocks his fingers.

He’s overstimulated, he doesn’t know what to do, pleasure coming from both sides, drawn out of his throat, and he’s losing his grip on wanting to watch Kinn fall apart in his hands. He closes his eyes to try and claw back some sense of himself but Kinn has him, down to his very bones and his mouth is spilling out high-pitched cries as Kinn twists him up under his hands.

Kinn releases his neck and calls for him, “Porsche.”

He blearily opens his eyes and sees Kinn’s gold ones, the hypnotic depth of them as they watch each other as they hurtle toward their climaxes. Kinn’s mouth is open and panting and Porsche licks into it, trying to taste his desperation, the press of his need as they push each other forward. He doesn’t have to see it to know his skin has changed, the watercolor of his instinct has seeped out to meet Kinn, giving him everything, denying him nothing. It wants to be close, closer than this, wants to crawl inside Kinn and never leave. Ours, our mate.

Kinn breathes “Give it up for me, sweetheart,” and part of him thinks there isn’t any more to give, Kinn owns it all, down to when his instinct shows itself on his body, but he feels his orgasm rushing up from the heavy weight in his balls as Kinn’s cock twitches under his palm. Slickness stains his fingers and he feels a tingle at the base of his scalp and spine that hurries over his body as he groans, his orgasm leaking out of him in one long wave that doesn’t abate, Kinn’s stuttering moan distant against the roaring of the blood in his ears. They both jerk and clutch at each other as their bodies move over the peak, leaving them shaky and sated. Porsche keeps going, stroking Kinn even when his thighs tremor and he cries out, finally grasping Porsche’s wrist to hold him still. The sweet agony of his handsome face satisfies him in ways he can’t articulate.

Mine. It claws its way up inside him and punches his gut.

Porsche slumps over Kinn who gently takes his fingers out and wraps Porsche up in his arms. He kisses Porsche’s temple and hums as he rubs his back and Porsche sleepily lets himself drift on Kinn’s chest as he floats in his warmth.

***

His body sags, completely drained, his shirt and stomach wet with their come. Kinn can’t describe how fulfilling it is to be with Porsche. His whole body is an open and exposed nerve that can only feel pleasure when Porsche touches him. He is both full and hungry, the feeling that he needs to eat and lick every scrap of Porsche sits heavily in his gut, but he has glut himself on his very expression and how he gives himself over. He feels the subtleties too. His body is radiating heat that Porsche is soaking up like a sponge, claiming that too as well as his come.

Porsche slurs against him, “Why is it s’good?”

You’re mine, that’s why.  

Kinn has one eye on the time. They’ve been out here for about half an hour, so they probably only have as much time as that to enjoy the afterglow. Porsche finds his way into the gap of Kinn’s shirt and laps at his chest before sucking a blooming bruise between his pectorals. Kinn watches him with amusement. His claim is out and proud on his throat, anything else is useless.

Kinn takes the time to redress Porsche, his body pliant as Kinn manhandles him to slide both his underwear and jeans up, pulling his t-shirt back over his chest and stomach. Devastating, he knows. The mess on his shirt is beyond saving so he unbuttons it and leaves it open. Porsche sighs happily, having more access to more skin like a lizard laying on a sunny rock.

Porsche holds Kinn’s bicep as he rubs his cheek against his shoulder like a cat, “Come inside.”

He wants to. He wants to so badly, but his phone is buzzing with Arm checking in with him and he adeptly holds Porsche to him with a hand on the small of his back as he takes his cell out of the compartment and one-handed texts Arm: all ok.

Part of him knows he’s been stupefied by finding his mate, his hormones going wild like he’s in his second instinctual puberty again and he shouldn’t get himself caught up in that so completely, but he can’t help it. A dark, practical part of him reminds him it’s only been days since he met Porsche. He’s a fighter untested by their means.

His instinct growls and Kinn turns back to flaming gold eyes, anger and unhappiness rolling off it in waves. Ours. The deep sense of betrayal his instinct feels at Kinn’s questioning seeps into him and he makes him clutch Porsche that bit tighter.

Good things don’t happen to us, he tells it. The rigid spines of his instinct relax and press back into its body. He remembers the smear of blood on his palm when he tried to push life back into Tawan’s chest after he shot him. How hysterical he had been after everyone had left him in that cell, his duty carried out at the end of a barrel. It was Chan who had stayed behind and tucked his hands under Kinn’s armpits and pulled him up and said nothing as Kinn beat at his chest uselessly, tears streaming down his face that he was never allowed to show another person.

His instinct had been silent the whole entire time, abandoning Kinn to his pain because it believed, it knew, that this was not its mate.

You were never on my side.

His instinct settles, the fire leaks out and it lays down on its belly. I’m always on your side.

Kinn hadn’t seen it then, but his instinct longed for this moment: Porsche laying across him and weighing Kinn down to where his instinct can feel it. It had sacrificed what revealed itself to be a transitory love for its true other half. It did not mourn the betrayal. It did not cry for the person that Kinn was. It dragged his being through life to make sure he would meet Porsche. The people, the men, it had poured itself into were a means to an end.

You did it all for him.

It shakes its head. I did it for you.

                                                                                                ***             

Porsche would be an idiot not to notice how quiet Kinn gets. He thumbs Kinn’s lips, holding his cheek as he does so, and he gets a kiss pressed against it and Kinn tilts into his palm.

“Big thoughts?” He asks again. Kinn shakes his head.

“No.”

It’s a lie, but he doesn’t push it. The moment for Kinn to come inside has passed and they both know it. They lace their fingers together as Porsche sits up and gives Kinn a slow kiss goodbye, pressing his mouth as tightly as he can to his and not wanting to let him go. Kinn pulls away, nose rubbing against his cheek, “Call me later.”

After another quick embrace, gathering Kinn up against him and holding him tight, unwilling to let him go and a quietly whispered “I’ve got you,” Porsche lets himself out of the car, Kinn catching his fingers to give the back of his hand a soft kiss.

His heart clenches and his instinct laments, a soft cry of no as Porsche moves back so that he can close the door for Kinn.

Is this what dating is like? Or is this more? He doesn’t know but he wrenches himself from the side of the car and forces himself to walk to the gate, Kinn’s eyes on him the whole time. His neck burns as Kinn turns on the ignition and sets the car into reverse from the little side turning his house is on. Porsche realizes that it was so much better to see Kinn and now it’s worse. His chest expands and retracts but he feels empty as the headlights of Kinn’s car disappear and he goes back inside to grab his phone, Chay is still zoned out asleep on the couch where he left him.

He calls and leaves a message: I miss you.

Dropping his phone back on the coffee table, he realizes he’s crusty in his underwear from some dried come so he grabs a towel and has a quick shower. He winces as the water hits his throat but the pinpricks of pain remind him that he’s Kinn’s so he takes them, lets it soothe the burn as he rubs himself down with soap. He isn’t a fantasist, but he imagines Kinn coming in behind him and cuddling up to him in the shower, washing him as he did before. Just being there, a steady presence. He turns the water up as hot as it can go and he tries to recapture the warmth only Kinn can give him. It’s a poor substitute and he shuts the water off, thinking about the bill as he dries himself, sliding on a fresh pair of underwear and shorts.

He makes his way back downstairs to Chay who is still snoring softly and he scoops a hand under his knees and the other under his back and lifts him to take him up to bed. He rolls into Porsche, his arm flopping over his shoulder as Porsche takes him up to his room and lays him on his bed. He fidgets as Porsche lays the blanket he keeps at the end over him and closes his bedroom door quietly before making his way to his room.

Slipping between his sheets, he tucks himself into an empty bed and he hates it. He hates it more than he ever has because he knows now. Knows what it’s like to be held and sleep in someone else’s arms.

He checks his phone and he has a voicemail too.

Porsche…

Porsche holds his breath as Kinn stops in the message.

I want you to consider— *Deep breath* living here with me. Chay too.

Something loosens in his chest at the prospect. His mind races, he knows he can’t uproot Chay and just…move in with someone else but the fact Kinn asks him eases the gnawing pain. He feels it too, the inexplicable pull of their mated bond and how it is tugging them together like metal and a magnet. His fingers spread out on the cool bed, rather than starfishing on it like he normally would, he’s on one side subconsciously finding that space where Kinn is supposed to be.

His instinct yearns. It ruffles its feathers and pecks at Porsche, its talons scorch him in his belly as he tries to calm it. Easy. Easy, he shushes, but it ignores him. He’s never been so discorded with his instinct, never has it been so wilful against him.

Mine, it cries. Porsche can’t give it that. He flops onto his back and hugs himself with his arms. It’s a mockery and joke but he tries to draw up the smell of Kinn. Not the fancy products flecked with gold, the smell of him deep inside that Porsche can almost taste in his throat: fresh sunshine, salt, and the ocean. Porsche closes his eyes, gold ones alight in his mind as he does.

He falls into the blackness of sleep and it’s blessed. His bare feet crumple the dried leaves under them and he meanders through trees he doesn’t recognize. They’re beautiful and lush and they encourage twittering birds he can’t see to sit up high in their branches.

His instinct hops with him, short legs struggle to keep up with his, so he offers it his arm. It accepts and he stumbles across a clearing. It’s a meadow with wildflowers and bright blue skies and he isn’t at all surprised to see the big black dragon among the reeds.

It looks healthier, head raised and sparkling eyes as Porsche approaches it. It bows its head again and his phoenix launches off his arm to swoop down on its back, its long tail delicately laying along the dragon’s belly.

He finds himself speaking formally to it, bowing his head, “Are you well?”

It huffs and turns its head, Porsche sees the gap, or what was the gap in its scales. Amongst the black, there is a scale that looks almost like a prismatic oil slick. It both matches and contravenes the scales around it. Bright amongst the dark but luminescent like the rest.

Porsche is happy for it and tells it so. It turns its head back and past Porsche in the opposite way he came. A sadness drops over it. Porsche strokes its face, over its brow and pets it there, there. He can’t shake the feeling of sadness when he too looks over at the trees that cover where the dragon was looking.

He leaves his phoenix with the dragon and walks towards the opening. At first, it’s more forest and then as he finds himself walking without stopping it’s the lake he knows but he still doesn’t stop, and he gets further and further away from where he started and no closer to the end.

He calls for his instinct, silence is all that meets him. He calls again. He calls for the dragon. Nothing. Panic sets into him and he looks around, the twittering birds are gone and the hum of mosquitoes deafening as he whips around again.

His voice no longer comes out when he feels himself fall.

He wakes up in a cold sweat in his bed and he immediately rolls himself up to sit. He touches himself, his chest, and calls for his instinct that presses against his breastbone, trying to soothe him.

What was that?

It lowers its head in defeat. I don’t know.

He checks the time, 4:30am. Too early to get up, too late to have anyone to talk to.

His instinct nudges at him, Kinn.

Porsche’s mouth goes dry. He can’t.

He slips out of bed and pulls out from a drawer a pair of running pants and another t-shirt before he gets out and pulls on a pair of socks and grabs his sneakers. He leaves a note for Chay on the off chance he wakes up without him there, checks all the window locks just in case and locks the door behind him as he lets himself out.

The air is balmy, and his instinct breathes with him as he stretches; his hamstrings, his quads, inside of his thighs and rolls his shoulders to make sure he’s loose enough when he slowly jogs to the gate and closes it quietly behind him.

The quietness of the road is eerie but it’s better than the horrific silence of his dream and he grits his teeth as it creeps back in. He pushes it back, pounds the pavement harder, pushes his endurance until his lungs burn and sweat drips hotly down his back this time and he wipes his wet forehead as he checks his time on his cell. Six and a half minutes for his mile. It isn’t enough. He keeps going.

***

Kinn gets home, pulls his clothes off and takes a shower, Porsche’s message on repeat, I miss you. His neck aches and he wants to tie this feeling up in his chest, the whimsy and happiness he feels at hearing Porsche say he misses him. His rooms have had the evidence of Porsche ever being there – rumpled sheets, the decimated food plate, even the trash bin – cleared away as if he never was.

Previously Kinn sought the solace of his room, the plain look and feel. No imprint of him, nothing to give away his thoughts or mind. Now it reminds him of the gap in his chest, the emptiness of opulence and no one to share it with. His silk pants are no less luxurious, but they scratch terribly in the knowledge of Porsche’s hands. His robe is loose so he can see in the window reflect the deep bruise Porsche left him with but it’s a touch, a hint of what was between them. His bed is massive but what for, if not to be the place where he and Porsche can fit comfortably and sleep peacefully?

Feeling reckless, he calls Porsche and gets his voicemail. He hesitates as he says Porsche’s name but throws out what he wants directly after it – consider living with me, Chay too – so that neither one of them has to feel this rift again. He ends the call and drops his cell on his bed, his brow furrowed because as much as he’s exhilarated, he’s bewildered. After years of caution, they amount to nothing because of a beautiful man with a waterfall of color on his back. The blinds close as they are automated to do and Kinn breathes out and sits on his bed. He finds himself for the first time in a long time, smiling simply because he’s happy.

His instinct whips its tail, thudding against one side of his ribs. What are you a dog? It doesn’t hurt, it’s like a reminder that it exists, and Kinn pulls back his duvet covers and puts his phone – no new messages – on his nightstand.

Kinn slides under and pulls the blanket up around his chest and pats it, taps reverberating down to his instinct. He licks his lips and closes his eyes and ignores the lurch in his heart.

Kinn is in the water.

His arms flail as he slips under the surface, the ocean tide too heavy for him to fight as it pulls him away.

He fights to get his head above water, gulping down air as he tries to blink away the burning salt water from his eyes. He can’t see it; can’t feel it. His instinct is gone.

“Please!” He shouts.

He gets dragged back under. The water stills beneath the surface, crystalline and syrupy. He moves as if he’s moving through honey as he drives upwards, shattering through and raggedly breathing in again.

“Help—”

Kinn wakes up, coughing over the side of the bed like he can still feel the water in his lungs, burning its way down. His heart rate is through the roof and he grabs his thigh under the duvet and digs his nails in, happy to feel the pain when he does.

His instinct drives an ache in his scales and he winces, but it welcomes that too.

You’re here.

It blinks at him, I’m always here.

He grabs his cell, 4:30 am.

Flopping back down in the bed, he lets his body calm down. He hasn’t dreamed about the ocean in over a decade. His mother used to take him, Khun, and Kim in the summers to a private island they owned, and they’d play in the water while she stared out at them under one of her big hats. It wasn’t until later, after Khun was taken, that she wouldn’t let him in the water. He frowns because he hadn’t thought about that either. How she called for him over his brothers, “Anakinn, be careful.”

He was a good swimmer, a strong swimmer, so he waved her off until Chan came and scooped him out of the water and put him back on the shoreline, away from his brothers. Kim splashed and kept going but Khun...looked at him with a sad face before he blinked it away and pushed Kim over and under the waves. He looked up at his mother and she knelt in front of him and brushed his wet hair off his face and rubbed his cheek.

“It’s better that you stay here, Anakinn.”

He doesn’t know why the old memories come to him, they’re from a time when his instinct was barely bigger than a newt in his belly and his mother was still a vibrant presence in his life. As an adult, he knows it is because she tried to create a sense of normalcy for them after Khun was taken when their father had increased their security tenfold and watched their every move for real and imaginary threats.  

Standing up, he lets himself tip over until he’s on his hands and knees before stretching out to be on his toes. He pushes up and down for a count of thirty, rolling onto his back to do a set of Pilates crunches, raising his knees up and in towards his stomach before stretching his legs out straight again. He gives himself a set on each side of side plank raises before he sits on the floor and wriggles his toes.

The interlude doesn’t interrupt his thoughts in the slightest. He remembers how oppressive it was to live under his father then, how his mother had tried to shield all of them with kind words to ease his unease and letting Kinn hide behind her when he was too scared to go to the new classes his father deemed necessary to take. He remembers how she sat with him while he read a book about instincts and traced the dragon and its red head and black chest.

“Mae—”

“Yes, sweetheart?” She asked as she put down her book, closing it and putting it on the coffee table in front of her and patted the space next to her on the chaise lounge in the library. He brings his book and sits with her, opening it wider so she can see.

“I have a dragon, don’t I?” He asks, seeing the scales that look like his and the long sloping body.

She hums, holding one of the sides of the book open with her hand over his, “Mmm, yes, you do.”

“It’s not red.” He comments, showing her the dragon on the pages.

She’s quiet, “No, darling, it’s not.”

“This one likes fire,” he reads aloud, “Mine doesn’t like fire.”

She reiterates after him, “No it doesn’t.”

“Pa’s doesn’t like fire either.”

Her hand strokes the back of his hair and he feels her lips on the top of his head as she kisses him, “No, Pa’s doesn’t like fire.”

“Mae, does yours like fire?” He asks her innocently.

She clutches at him, his hair caught in her fingers, and he almost tries to wriggle away from her, “No, it doesn’t.”

“It likes the water.” He says absently, he turns the page and there is another dragon with blue scales and gold winding around its spine.

“Yes, sweetheart. It loves the water.”

Kinn is shaken out of his reverie when there is a knock on his door. Pete comes in when he’s called and bows before letting him know: “Khun Kinn, your father is asking to see you.”

He nods, “I’ll be there soon.”

Chapter Text

There is always an element of feeling like a scolded child when he goes to see his father. Despite it being early in the morning, he’s in his study, set up to play chess with an unseen opponent. The invitation for Kinn to play is silent, but Kinn chooses to avoid it by sitting in an armchair to the left of a small table near the set of bookcases. His father watches him the entire time, volumes are spoken without a single word. If disapproval could be uttered without a word, sigh, or look, that would be what his father is doing.

Pa inclines his head and says, “Son,” by way of address and that’s it. There’s a chill in the air so he’s dressed in his customary cashmere cable knit sweater over his dress shirt and it softens him in a way Kinn has never particularly known him to be. His own instinct sits on its hind legs with pricked attention as it sniffs the air to sense his father’s mood.

“Pa, are you well?” Kinn keeps his tone even, despite the fact he knows his father has doctors to visit him regularly currently and he wants people to know. If he didn’t no one ever would.

“Mmm.” A minor concession as he stands and takes the seat opposite Kinn. “There’s chatter.”

Gossip.

“About what?” Kinn is used to the way information travels in the compound. People are people after all and everyone, no matter where they work, loves to gossip.

“Onyx-5.” He tuts as if it sounds ludicrous to him, and Kinn feels a little slip in the tension he feels when he isn’t directly asked about Porsche.

Kinn had prepared several reports and he motions for Pete to bring them over. Pete hands them to his father with a heavy bow of his head and shuffles back. Kinn indicates with two fingers raised that Pete can leave and he bows again and excuses himself while Pa flips the top page up and over.

He closes the file and drops it onto the table, “This isn’t enough.”

The findings are preliminary, he knows, but he isn’t satisfied to go after the Italians, or potentially his uncle, without solid and connected proof. It’s asking them to expose themselves to accusations.

“No, Pa, which is why Arm is scanning the data we have and taking the next steps to locate a shipment we can intercept.” Kinn has no idea if this is true, but he can see his father’s disapproval deepening with his lack of progress. “Without concrete evidence of going against our agreement—”

Pa cuts him off with a simple: “People are dying within our borders.”

Kinn can’t stop himself before he retorts, “More will die if we start a war.”

His father seems satisfied with his response and indicates for someone to bring him a drink. A delicate China tea set is produced by Joy, he hadn’t realized she was there, and Kinn recognizes it as the tea set his mother brought back from a trip to England when he was 6. The almost lemony scent of Earl Grey emanates from the teapot, his mother’s favorite tea, and Kinn watches his father watch Joy. It’s not a comfortable thing. She’s watched to make sure she doesn’t damage his mother’s tea set and her hands are as stable as a surgeon’s as she pours the tea into the cup and his father gestures for her to pour a cup for Kinn.

His father knows he doesn’t like this tea. He calls it “pouring for Mae.” Even if Kinn cannot drink the tea he must observe things she loved because otherwise how else can they remember her?

Joy sets the teapot to one side before she glances up at him for a quick moment as she reaches from her tray to bring over another saucer and teacup for him. He makes no expression as she pours the hot liquid into it. It sloshes but remains in the cup and she glances up again to see if anyone noticed her mistake, he keeps eye contact with her because the moment she reacts then Pa will notice.

She retreats, softly placing the teapot down on her tray now that her duty is done, and she slips away quietly. Kinn takes his index finger and leans it against the handle of his cup and spins it so that the handle is on the correct side for him to take a sip if he chooses. His father adds a spoon of honey and a dash of milk to his and stirs slowly.

Part of him wonders, knowing what he knows now, how his father copes with the gap his mother’s death left in his life. In comparison, he and Porsche are barely a microcosm, a thought of two people together, but his parents had been married, loved for years, and borne children together. As if he can feel Kinn’s thoughts on him, his father laces his fingers together and holds them on his lap.

Both he and his instinct tense.

“About your guest.”

Kinn feels like a bit of bait on a hook as his father examines his fingernails where his hands are interlocked.

He isn’t going to give in first, so he waits until his father starts, “You need to make considerations.”

“I’ve made considerations, Pa,” and it’s the truth. Ever since he met Porsche, he’s been turning him over in his mind, whether he should or he shouldn’t commit to their bond. Whether Porsche could even tolerate being in the world he lives in. Could he ever be the person who tied him to that? Not one day has passed that he hasn’t made considerations. But for the ones his father is pressing upon, he’s made them: Porsche being kept a secret, Porsche being put on display for all to see. Neither of them is appealing to him. Porsche needs to be as he is, whole and together and anything his father could suggest would temper him, would force him to hide the truth of himself because he isn’t made for Kinn’s world.

“So, he’ll be one of your guards.”

His father says it as if it’s the easiest thing in the world.

“Would you have asked that of Mae?” It’s an honest question and his father looks at him so sharply. It takes all of his facial control not to flinch. He expects the air to thin but it doesn’t. His father’s temper seems to be in check.

Still, Kinn watches as Pa sips his tea to buy himself a moment to compose himself. His father speaks quietly, evenly, “When your mother fell pregnant with Tankhun, I asked her to stand aside, take care of the baby inside of her and let me deal with everything.”

He lingers as if he’s lost in the thoughts of his dear wife.

“What did she say?” Kinn doesn’t know what he expects but his father smiles.

“She picked up her gun and she shot the traitor who had tried to harm her and our child.”

Kinn holds his breath, and his father sets down his cup, “Your mother didn’t have time for those who stood in her way. Even less for those who threatened her children.”

There’s a pause and he exhales, “Will he shoot your enemies, Son? Will he defend your life as if it’s his own?”

Kinn thinks of Porsche when he met him, blood dripping down his chin and violence in his eyes. Porsche is as much an animal as he or his father. But would he extend that to Kinn? Would he set aside his gentle heart and warm smiles to hurt others as Kinn has? He doesn’t want him to, but even he knows a phoenix isn’t a kind bird. They’re destruction and violence, war and endlessness. Put him in the right environment and he’ll fracture just the same.

“He’ll never have to,” Kinn tells him. “Porsche will stay as he chooses. He will live as he chooses. I will provide him with a detail if he chooses.”

“That’s foolish, Anakinn.” His father using his full name is meant to reprimand him, but Kinn is strong in his convictions.

“Maybe so. Mae always told me that receiving a mate is like the tea she used to drink. If the water is too hot, it burns the tea; steep a tea too little and the flavor has no depth; brew a tea too long and it tastes overripe and pulpy. A good cup of tea takes knowledge and understanding.”

She had said it after Kinn had come to her crying because he had been yelled at for being buried in his books and not focused on his lessons. He thought his father was mean and how could anyone love him when he was being such an ogre? She walked him back to his tutors who thanked her profusely and she winked as she walked in the direction of his father’s study. There would be peace at the dinner table tonight and he watched her retreating back as his tutor for English cleared his throat and started in on parathesis usage.

When he stands, buttons his suit jacket, and leaves his tea untouched, it is a simple message. His father does not understand his mate, but Kinn does. He will not coral Porsche to be a dutiful wife to the Theerapanyakul family. He’ll hand him a gun and let him decide if he wants to shoot.

Kinn bows slightly as he leaves his father watching him with his sharp eyes. None of this isn’t to say that Kinn doesn’t plan to impress upon Porsche the importance of his safety and that his family, his wider family alone, could prove problematic and he would much prefer that he did have a team to watch over him and keep him safe. However, Kinn knows before he even asks that Porsche will reject the idea. Whether it be for Chay’s normalcy, his pride or to keep the secret of his instinct, he will forge his own path because that’s what he’s always done. Kinn’s bite won’t make him give himself up.

Kinn catches Pete in the hallway as he and his instinct relax finally and they walk together back towards the dining room as it’s well past breakfast, “What’s going on with Onyx-5?”

Pete sighs, “Arm was tracking several dealers, but it all went quiet after your attendance at Dieu Même got out.”

“You think they’re fearing repercussions?”

“Could be. You don’t drug the head of the Theeranpayakul family for fun.”

“And Porsche?”

“Not much chatter. They know you picked up a fighter while you were there, but it got around how angry you were, so he came off as target practice.”

“Nothing about him biting me?”

“Nothing outside of the cannibal sense.” Pete gives him a look that tells him how stupid he thinks it all is. Pete slows and Kinn slows with him. There’s a moment where Pete looks like he’s considering saying something, so Kinn prompts him.

“What?”

“So, it’s true then? He’s your—" He makes a wiggly hand gesture. Kinn raises an eyebrow and Pete gives him a sheepish smile.

Kinn feels pride swell up in his chest, his instinct puffing up, when he nods, “He is.”

Pete grins, wide and beaming, “Congratulations, Khun Kinn.”

He smiles and coughs, putting his business front back up, “Set up meetings with the main drug suppliers in the affected areas, I want to hear from the incredibly shaky horses’ mouths what is going on in each district.”

“Including the minor family?”

Kinn nods again, mostly to himself, “Including the minor family.”

Kinn should have expected to be pounced on by Tankhun on his way past the dining room. It’s not lost on him that their family could go weeks not seeing each other but when something, anything happens, and there is blood in the water, then you can surely find one if not more sticking his nose in where it doesn’t belong. Kim thinks he’s stealthy, but his protective detail report to Kinn weekly. Tankhun fishes better than any talk show host.

“What’s got you up so early?” Kinn feigns ignorance as Khun grabs him with an arm “casually” slung over his shoulders.

“Breakfast.”

Dressed in dark green 70s bell bottoms and a tight cream roll neck, it does seem subdued enough for a casual breakfast but as the oldest, Tankhun lives for butting his nose into other people’s business.

“Uh huh,” Kinn plays along and he lets his brother walk him into the dining room that is “mysteriously” set up with two places. It’s a small room off to the side of the kitchen. They don’t entertain guests here, it’s purely for the family’s private use.

An ambush then.

His instinct settles in his stomach to sleep when it realizes that it’s Khun as Kinn watches him pile random things onto Kinn’s plate from the larger covered plates in the middle of the table. None of the choices seem to have any logical purpose: a bowl of congee, a sweet waffle, toast, scrambled eggs, and syrup-covered bacon. Doesn’t seem doesn’t mean don’t. They’re all things that Kinn has loved at one time or another.

He catches Khun’s hand under the plate and Tankhun hums, “Oh, right.”

He then tends his own plate and puts some eggs and bacon with a slice of toast onto it, “So.”

“So,” Kinn repeats as he scoops up a forkful of eggs and pops them into his mouth before chewing.

Tankhun rolls his eyes at him and Kinn smiles, “What?”

Things with his brother can be difficult. He’s stubborn and strong-willed and if he does not want to do something he is a greater force to be reckoned with than even Kinn.

With an arched eyebrow, Khun nails him with, “Don’t think I don’t know you had a boy in your room.”

Kinn licks his lips, “I often have boys in my room.”

He watches as his brother exhales, exasperated and as if to say, are we really going to play this game?

“You paid him then?” Tankhun eyes him sharply as he spears the bacon with his fork.

Kinn cuts into the waffle and puts down his knife and fork and picks up the cafeteria in front of him, plunging it down and pours himself a cup of coffee, “I didn’t. Porsche isn’t—”

“A call boy? I know.” Khun waves over his own cup and Kinn pours one for him too. He adds in a healthy splash of milk from the small jug next to where it was, just the way his brother likes it.

Kinn’s sexual preference isn’t a secret. He’s been out since he was 16 and had been experimenting with another boy in private school, his instinct steadily building its heat until he couldn’t take it anymore and he had to find a way to release it. Khun had been the first to tell him it was okay. But his penchant for using escorts isn’t common knowledge to the extent that it’s something they talk about over coffee.

“So why are you asking me?” Kinn sips the hot beverage and lets it warm him up and wake him up. It’s only been a few hours, but he feels like he’s been up for a day at least.

Kinn knows that Khun wants him to admit what Porsche is to him. An escort is of no consequence. A mate, his mate, now that he has an imprint in his skin of Kinn’s teeth and the acknowledgment of mine, means that he’s in a way theirs because they’re family. He’ll never be just Kinn anymore. He’ll be Kinn and Porsche. Porsche will be Tankhun’s in the way he adopts everyone he feels a kinship with.

I’ll pray for you, Porsche, he mentally chuckles to himself. He has a feeling that Porsche is on a closer wavelength than Kinn is to his brother.

Tankhun sighs again, “Brother of mine—”

“Phi.” It’s rare Kinn addresses his brother this way as he prefers to be called by his name. “Let me have this.”

Let me figure out Porsche and what it all means before you drag him into this.

Others have thought his brother foolish, unaware, and blatantly stupid, but Khun understands and perceives more than anyone of those idiots could ever contemplate.

“You’ll bring him to me?” It’s soft, quiet, and respectful.

“You’ll be the first person I introduce him to,” Kinn promises. And he will.

Kinn watches as he shuffles his eggs around the plate, “Fine.”

His instinct blinks awake and huffs, toothy and warm. Kinn lets himself sit in the warmth and how it feels to have someone to introduce to his family. Kinn and Porsche.

He doesn’t realize he’s showing his thoughts on his face because Khun throws a corner of toast at him and calls him gross.

Khun stops and leans on his elbow, suddenly serious, “Call Kim.”

Kinn swallows, “I will.”

“Don’t say you will and then don’t call him,” Khun chastises him.

“I will call him, Khun.” Kinn digs his phone out of his pocket and unlocks it, scrolling down to Kim’s name, and fires off a quick text: time to talk?

He shows his phone to his brother, and he nods, satisfied.

“These nongs, I tell you.” Khun mutters and picks up his coffee cup, he gestures towards Kinn, “If you are ever lucky enough to raise kids of your own, you remember my struggles.”

***

Kinn doesn’t expect Porsche to be in his bedroom at midday after breakfast and his trip to see Erika about any increase in arms traffic since the drug-related incidents – no, arms are steady, a slight increase in knife crime, but she wouldn’t report it as significant – but he’s there in an old pair of jeans and a tucked in t-shirt looking gorgeous and homey.

“How long have you been here?” He asks, throwing his suit jacket over the table next to the window, and Porsche rubs the back of his neck, self-consciousness evident.

He looks sheepish as he shifts his weight from one foot to the other, “I was running and then I was sweaty and well—” I ended up here. His babbling is cute and Kinn smiles as he walks over to him.

It’s so easy to fold Porsche into his arms even though he protests, complaining about not being able to breathe, but he smells so good to Kinn, oozing burning embers that are almost sweet off of his skin.

The steady thrum of Porsche, Porsche, Porsche beats through his veins. His instinct coils up as if it can hold the scent of Porsche with its body and submerge itself in it.

“So, you couldn’t wait to see me. How’d you get up here?” Kinn asks as he noses along Porsche’s jaw. He nips lightly on the edge of it before he takes another deep inhale of his throat. Porsche tries to wriggle away, indignant at Kinn’s assessment of the situation but he knows it’s true. He knows he would have done the same thing if he hadn’t been caught in his family all morning.

“One of the suits saw me and brought me up.” Porsche pushes to try and get out of his grasp, but Kinn latches onto him and keeps him pressed tightly against his chest. “Boat?”

Kinn makes a note to officially approve Porsche’s presence in the compound. He has no doubt Chan must have seen Porsche on the CCTV and sent someone to fetch him. He wants to say that it’s a positive thing, but he can’t see what strings his father has attached and that Chan is the one tying to Porsche.  

“Someone is cuddly,” Porsche teases when he can’t get free and Kinn ignores him, scoops him up by his legs with an oof sound and plops him down on the bed. They shuffle up until Kinn is laying on his chest, his hips cradled between Porsche’s thighs and he can hear the pleasant thud-thud of his heart while Porsche brushes his hair off his forehead. “Busy day?”

Kinn nuzzles Porsche’s t-shirt and leans his chin on his chest, a quick kiss pressed to his sternum before he says, “My father wants me to find a place for you.”

“A place for me?” Porsche looks down at him with a frown, “Well—”

“He wants to put you in a box. Friend, foe…family. How we treat people depends on the box.” Kinn lays his head back down on Porsche’s chest and tries not to move too much when he tickles the back of Kinn’s neck by rubbing the strands of hair there.

“What box is a mate? Family?” Porsche asks with a distance to it like he’s thinking out loud.

Kinn shakes his head, “No. I’d never treat you like how I’d treat my family. Mates are…” He isn’t sure how to put this. “Special.”

“You make it sound bad.”

In a way, it is bad. He remembers how his father howled after his mother died, it was as if his instinct could climb out of his throat and roar its pain out. Kinn hadn’t understood it until the moment he bit Porsche, the moment his axis in the world stopped being himself and started being the man under him. He would be Kinn’s sun, moon, and stars for all the days he, or Kinn, is on this earth. It’s terrifying to think of it that way but even now, Kinn can feel how his entire self, his instinct driving the charge, is carving out a place for Porsche: this is how Porsche smells, this is how he sounds when he laughs, this is the sound of his breathing when he sleeps. Each moment embeds Porsche deeper into Kinn and he’s doing nothing to stop it.

“Kinn?”

It wants to bubble out, the honest truth: I can’t keep you safe. The truth of the matter is that he was selfish when he bit Porsche. He wanted to crawl inside him and feel the enormity of them. To satisfy his instinct and their desire to possess that which was his. He didn’t think about the pain, the struggles, the awful things he has done in the name of family. He just saw Porsche.

“My life isn’t easy.” Kinn admits, “Life in this kind of organization is…solitary. Confusing. Mistrustful.”

Kinn feels Porsche’s hands flex on his back, “People hurt each other for the stupidest reasons.”

“Are you sending me away?” There’s a note of hesitancy, like in the hospital room.

“No.” Kinn doesn’t think he could, not now. Not since he exposed his instinct on his back and showed him the delicate truth of himself. “He wanted to hide you in plain sight. As a bodyguard.”

Porsche is quiet but then he sighs, “Well, I’ve heard stupider ideas.”

Kinn lifts his head with a frown, “You’d consider that?”

He shrugs, “I’ve been a street fighter nearly my entire adult life, I get why he’d say that.”

“Porsche, no. That’s—” I don’t want that for you. His instinct nods, it too is repulsed by the idea of Porsche’s bloodying his knuckles for his family’s gain.

“You don’t want me to fight for you?” Porsche looks at him, his eyes slipping into those of his instinct.

“I don’t want you to be forced to submit to me,” Kinn gets up and sits over the end of the bed, Porsche trying to catch his elbow as he does before his back turns to Porsche. “You don’t work for me. You’re not a bodyguard. You’re…mine.”

He wills Porsche to understand the depth of the word. How he will not give what is his to anyone else. Not his father and surely not his enemies. His instinct grumbles in agreement, its talons scraping against his ribs. Porsche is to be held, tight against him, not to kneel and serve.

Porsche cups his cheek around his shoulders as he slides forward, his legs coming down either side of Kinn’s, hugging himself to his back. He lets out a shaky breath against Kinn’s shoulder blade, his shirt covering his scales, but he still feels the heat of Porsche against them.

“So, we date?” Porsche says hesitantly, a little laugh at the end as if it sounds funny and incredulous to him. It is. No amount of dating will change how Kinn or his instinct feels about him. Kinn turns and his nose catches Porsche’s because of how close they are and he tilts his head just enough so that he can give him a small kiss. It stokes the gentle flames inside him that burn consistently for him alone.

Dating seems so juvenile for what they have, but it gives him a little flutter in his chest, “We could date.”

Porsche affectionately wrinkles his nose at him for the way he says it, “We could date?”

Kinn strokes the top of his thigh with one finger, knowing that when it shows, a strand of his instinct’s tail is directly underneath the underside of where his finger is.

“Mmm. I could take you on all sorts of dates,” He gives Porsche another little kiss which Porsche chases and Kinn lets him have another, “Take you to dinner. Take you to different places. Take you on adventures.”

Porsche catches on fast, “But?”

“Dating is for other people.” Kinn inhales against Porsche’s skin, his cheek soft with a hint of five o’clock shadow, and Kinn wonders if he could get high off of his smell.

“Other people,” Porsche repeats and strokes the back of Kinn’s head.

“People who get to choose.” Kinn turns fully and Porsche flops back as Kinn lands on top of him. “There’s no choice for you now, Porsche. I’m it for you.”

His instinct knows the feeling, the ownership that rises up as Kinn untucks Porsche’s mark completely from his t-shirt collar – he’s chosen to leave off the bandaid so it looks pink and vulnerable – and the urge to reopen it is strong.

“So, I’ll take you on dates, bring you home and have you in my bed,” Kinn smells his mark and he swears Porsche’s scent is stronger there, “but you’re mine.”

He sucks it into his mouth and licks the abused skin and Porsche keens, his fingers digging into Kinn’s scales, “I don’t want to date you, Porsche, I want to crawl inside you and never leave. I never want another person to look at you the way I look at you.”

And there it is. The depth of his desire, his need, and Porsche meets him halfway, his thumbs tipping Kinn’s chin upwards and he bites on his Adam’s apple, licks up and over his chin before their sloppily drag their mouths over each other. Kinn feels fired up as his instinct pushes up and out and Porsche pulls away from him with a cry when he feels it.

“Fuck, does it ever stop?” Porsche asks; him, the universe, he doesn’t know.

Kinn wraps his fingers around Porsche’s throat, his pulse a strong thick throb under his thumb, “Not for me.”

***

Porsche is tucking his t-shirt back into his jeans when Kinn wakes up. He stretches out all his limbs and revels in how well-rested he feels.

He strokes Porsche’s spine where he can reach and he gets his hand slapped away when he does. He laughs and Porsche leans over and kisses him on the mouth quickly before he sits back up again, “I didn’t mean to get caught up in all…”

“This?” Kinn provides. This being him lying flat on his back while Kinn shows him the depth of his burning necessity to possess all of Porsche. “And you do it so well.”

Porsche laughs and rolls his eyes, “Dick.”

“That too.”

He gets his nipple flicked and it jolts through him and they end up tussling on the bed for a moment before Porsche looks dishevelled, and once again fuckable, so he lets him go and lays back on his pillows again.

“If you don’t want to date me, and stealing me away isn’t an option—” Porsche concedes while Kinn tilts his head, “what do we do instead?”

“If you want, I’ll introduce you. As my mate.”

It’s not unheard of to introduce one’s mate without any formal courtship since mates are predetermined by fate to be together but it’s usually customary to give the illusion of trying to find out whether you’re compatible or not.

Kinn decided he didn’t want that. If he provides even the smallest amount of wiggle room, his enemies will perceive his lack of commitment as a reason to attack Porsche.

“Are you asking me because you want to or—”

He knows his hesitation to begin with wasn’t ideal, but it was never about not wanting Porsche. He knows deep inside him it was because he did want him and he didn’t want to give himself false hope.

“Porsche.”

He reaches out his hand and Porsche puts his over it and Kinn gives him a reassuring squeeze.

“I want to do whatever keeps you safe and keeps you here.”

Porsche looks down at their hands and then back up at Kinn, “Then can you keep it a secret?”

Chapter Text

He knows it’s a loaded statement and he’s asking for so much because he too feels it in his bones that this isn’t something he should hide but a part of him, a large part of him, has gotten this far in life by keeping it a secret. He can’t bring himself to announce this to the world, the fragile equilibrium that is his life would completely shatter under the magnitude of his truth and Kinn.

Everything turns inside him, cyclical and unending, like an ouroboros with only his fear keeping him from unlatching its mouth from its tail. His instinct doesn’t know where to put its talons as the emotions hedge it back towards his spine, growing like an unstoppable mass until it is unable to contain them with its wings.

Stop, it says with steel in its voice. Porsche feels his feelings ease and the uncovered panic subsides.

It breaks him a little to see the shutter come down on Kinn’s face when he doesn’t say anymore, the silence widening the space between them as his fingers go lax in Porsche’s. Porsche for his part tries to grip tighter, tries to hold onto the bits of him that Kinn will still let him have.

“For how long?” Kinn’s voice is flat. Porsche tries to pull him towards him. To what end, he doesn’t know, he can’t fix this, and Kinn remains solid where he is on his side of the bed, “A month, two? Six? A year?” He laughs but there’s no mirth to it, “Until your brother graduates?”

“Kinn.” He pleads with everything he has but Kinn licks his lips and looks down.

Something inside Porsche cracks and there’s a valley where pain leaks over its contours. He wrestles with himself and with his instinct as it screeches foul, and as Porsche asks him and himself to deny all that they are to each other.

It’s a monotone request: “How long, Porsche?”

He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know and he doesn’t know how he will know. Is there going to be a moment when it suddenly all makes sense? He doesn’t—he can’t even begin to comprehend it.

Kinn can read it on him plain as day and he finally pulls his hand away, “You don’t know.”

Porsche brings his legs up and tries to make it to Kinn but Kinn stands on the floor on his side of the bed and grabs his robe off the carpet where it slipped from the bed when they rolled over it together.

His instinct squawks and beats its wings against his sides, trying to expand out of the space it is contained in and Porsche tries to hold back with a heavy wince. Stop. He tries to temper it. No, it rages. Porsche tunes it out. Sees it in his mind’s eye but no sound reaches him as he catches hold of the edge of Kinn’s robe.

Kinn looks at him with blank eyes and Porsche feels like dirt. He feels like less than nothing on the floor because he can almost feel Kinn’s words: the world gave me you and you want me to…pretend. To say it doesn’t matter.

It’s selfish. It’s so horrifically selfish on both sides. For his part, what he wants and what he’s been taught are two different things, and it isn’t only him he has to think about. Kinn isn’t some guy. They haven’t let that penetrate their bubble since they mated but he wasn’t exactly brought here under a warm pretense. How can he knowingly and willingly thrust Chay into that? And how is it fair for Kinn to demand everything from him when his life depends on his mother’s words?

“I’ll tell you how it goes then, shall I?” Kinn tells him, turning around and leaning down to him, and Porsche hates it because his voice is so cold and so different from how he has come to know Kinn. “Instead of dates, maybe I’ll take you to a function, dress you up and everyone will sit and whisper because Kinn Theerapanyakul doesn’t have lovers. They’ll look and they’ll stare and they’ll pity you because you’re not a person to them. Maybe they’ll whisper because you’re beautiful. Then, when the night is over and it’s time for you to leave, I throw a few thousand baht at you to keep up appearances.”

Porsche knows Kinn is saying it to hurt him because he’s hurt but he doesn’t accept it. He stands, getting in Kinn’s space and his hand becomes an extension of his thoughts as he slaps him across the face.

Kinn grabs the back of Porsche’s head by his hair, his fingers pulling tight and yanking his head back. Porsche breathes harshly, his nostrils flaring as he tips his chin up. He’s faced with golden eyes that give no quarter. He realizes very fast that this isn’t entirely driven by the man, but the animal deep inside. The dragon with slick scales that do not want to share or hide. It’s curling itself up around Porsche with Kinn’s hands and demanding that he bend or let himself be choked by it.

“If you don’t want to be a whore, don’t be a whore.” Kinn spits at him and it raises Porsche’s hackles.

He’s paved a life for himself based on his wits and his skills, his body being one of them. Who the fuck gets to heap shame on him? No one. Especially not the one who is supposed to take him as he is.

“You couldn’t fucking afford me anyway—” Porsche snaps back at him and he bites Kinn’s mouth because it’s what’s in front of him. His instinct fiercely scrapes at his insides, licking flames around his heart, lungs, and the soft inner parts of him that twist up as he bites at Kinn again and shows him his instinct truly, his ability to tap into his desire to hurt.

Kinn shoves him back with a heavy hand on the center of his chest and he bounces on the bed as Kinn reaches for his jeans. Porsche tries to stop him because fuck him, he doesn’t get to shame Porsche and make him a whore. His hands are slapped away as Kinn roughly wrenches the button free, the zip pulled down and the denim is dragged off so roughly that his hips can’t help but lift with it. They disappear violently behind Kinn, less than an afterthought.

His heart is beating like crazy inside his chest when Kinn ignores his underwear and gets down onto his knees with Porsche’s thighs in a vice grip, pulling them so that they drape over his shoulders. Porsche fights, but he can’t get his fingers under Kinn’s to free himself. He struggles as the expanse of his thigh is exposed, Kinn smells the inside of it, into his right thigh and high up near the crease of his hip where it is soft, plump, and vulnerable before he bites into it with the full weight of his jaw clamping down.

Porsche immediately grabs Kinn’s head and tries to pull him off but he can’t dislodge him. It's pain, it’s burning fire, it scorches through him and it’s his throat all over again but in the secretive clutch between his legs.

“Kinn, you assh—, let me go.” Porsche cries out. He doesn’t know what to do. It’s one thing to have a mating mark, for acceptance and ownership, it’s something else entirely to have another which indicates possession, gouged into him because he’s a misbehaving welp. His body seizes up and wave after wave of pleasure pulses through him, trapped in his underwear as he tries to roll against Kinn’s mouth, his left knee coming up and over as he tries to cover himself and hide how he’s been affected. It’s useless. He can’t get past Kinn and he can’t hide how his body has tipped over and responded.

Kinn releases him and it’s because he wants to, not because Porsche made him, “See if anyone will touch you now.”

He wipes his mouth, red and slick with Porsche’s blood and smears it inside over his tongue. Porsche lets himself go limp because his body won’t cooperate. He’s tingly and damp and Kinn can see him, all of him splayed out as his leg pumps sluggish beads of crimson over his thigh.

He hates it. Secretly, twisted up in his gut, he loves it. His instinct bays for blood in the ring, enamoured with the thrust of a fight and it sees no difference in Kinn. His violence while against him is for him. His body, his soul, doesn’t differentiate.

An inane sort of laughter bubbles up inside him, “You’re fucking crazy.”

Kinn. Him. Both of them?

But with that acknowledgment, his anger dissipates and he’s left with a yawning hole in his chest, and Kinn looks at him and it’s like he has that same gaping wound. As quickly as their anger arrived, Porsche feels his eyes blur as he tries to subtly blink away the tears and Kinn lets his legs drop as he hesitantly reaches out for Porsche’s wrist.

He turns his head. No.

His instinct quivers, confused. It hurts because he hurts but it longs for the one who hurt him.

“Porsche.”

Kinn’s voice trembles, and Porsche screws his eyes shut tighter to ignore the pain he can hear. He hears rustling and sounds moving away from him but he doesn’t give in. If he does the thick sob that’s tightening in his chest is going to burst through and he’s going to be a streaming mess.

A roughened cheek touches his left knee, “I’m sorry.”

Soft lips turn in and kiss the inside of it, barely grazing the skin and nudging it to let Porsche know he isn’t going anywhere. Another “I’m sorry.”

Porsche lets go of his pride, his hurt, for that small voice, his instinct settles under his sternum to hold his pieces together as he sits up. He scrubs a hand over his face before he looks down at Kinn who looks wrecked and forlorn as he hides his face in Porsche’s thigh.

He cups Kinn’s face, turning it away from his skin and up to look at him. Kinn’s eyes are dark, glistening and wide open. Porsche leans down, holding Kinn’s face in his hands as he gives him a small kiss and Kinn falls apart under it, a soft gasping cry as Porsche pulls him up and gets him to stumble onto the bed next to him. A tentative hand touches Porsche’s waist, high and unintrusive, and Porsche wipes away the tears he can feel on Kinn’s cheeks under his thumbs.

He shushes Kinn as he wraps his arm around his waist under his robe and they cuddle like that, facing each other, laying on their sides as they trade gentle kisses that are more like breathing with each other.

Porsche feels the pain in his thigh seep in and he tries to put it on the back burner as Kinn nuzzles into his shoulder, their position awkwardly half on the bed half off of it. Still, Porsche wouldn’t move him for the world, brushing back the hair that sweeps over his forehead as he snuffles, his eyes rimmed red and will be puffy very soon.

The thread between them is pulled impossibly tight and he doesn’t see a version of this where they’re both happy.

“I asked what it would take,” Kinn says quietly, so much so that Porsche wonders if he really heard him. “… and you told me.”

Porsche’s heart seizes. His instinct curls in on itself with a sorrowful whine.

“Kinn—”

“I waited my whole life until now for you; what’s a little more time?”

Porsche hears the moment of indecisiveness. It isn’t what Kinn wants but he’ll give it to him because it’s him.

It’s almost a lightbulb moment, that’s what it is.

Porsche sniffs the top of Kinn’s head and presses a kiss directly after, “Let me tell you how it’s really going to be.”

Kinn tilts his head down because he doesn’t want Porsche to look at him and he doesn’t push. He digs his fingers in a little tighter into Kinn’s waist so he knows and he listens to Porsche when he speaks.

“I’m yours. And you’re mine.”

Kinn’s fingers twitch against Porsche’s side as if he considers holding him tighter but doesn’t.

“When the nights are over, I’ll come here and we’ll be together because we belong to each other.”

He doesn’t know any other way to say it other than you’re written into the cells of me. The universe gave you me, but it also gave me you.

It’s terrifying. What they have it’s so new and fragile and so dependent upon their instincts to connect them like the fragile pieces of a glass mosiac. But there is going to be a day when Porsche won’t feel the tug of his phoenix, trilling mine, melodic and sweet at the thought of Kinn. He will gather up all the parts of Kinn inside him and he’ll know because he’ll have fallen in love with him.

Could he fall in love with Kinn? The Kinn who jumps into pools and takes off Porsche’s shoes at night and who smiles like he has the sun inside him? Porsche feels the prospect of it, the soft glow that he feels when he thinks of him like that, but that Kinn doesn’t entirely belong to him. There’s the Kinn who sits up in the boxes of the fights that Porsche has booked because he doesn’t have enough to pay the bills and keep up the appearance that everything is fine to Chay. Porsche admits that he doesn’t know what to do with that version of him. There’s a layer inside his own self that’s angry. He’d have to be dumb, deaf and blind not to know who the Theerapanyakul clan are but even at his lowest, and highest, he was still so far beneath them that he didn’t even know Kinn’s name.

He's heard the stories too, of the Theerapanyakuls who own the drug trade and spin the wheels at the casinos. The ones who hold tightly onto the small timers who continued to lend to Porsche’s uncle when there was nothing but cobwebs and air as collateral. It’s that part he wants to hide from. The ones who would look at him and see him, his very soul, and think it was worth putting on a betting table.

He doesn’t want to be a piece on a chessboard in a game he never asked to play.

His instinct props itself up, wings stretched out and he sees them seep under his skin as he holds Kinn.

He won’t play, it tells him.

Maybe. Porsche resists the swell of emotion his instinct pushes against him.

He won’t risk us.

You don’t know that. It rips out of him like it was torn from his edges.

His instinct looks at him and he sees it in his mind’s eye as if he’s standing in front of it, towering over how it barely makes his waist height.

You don’t trust him, it challenges him.

Porsche sighs internally, you know what Mom said. We have to keep us, you, a secret. Not just you, Chay too.

Coward.

Porsche stands as flames circle him, his instinct folds its wings in and its eyes glimmer like prisms, hypnotic and entrancing. Memories flicker – Chay starting middle school, Uncle Thee when he spent their house money and Porsche had to book his first fight, Porsche at Yok’s bar the first time a woman offered him money for his company – they’re all pieces of him.

Stay in the shadows, his instinct scolds. Hide and lie.

Porsche stays silent and his instinct cuts into his bones, if you don’t let him in, he won’t love us.

The pain he feels radiates out into his stomach, his back and his chest but his instinct presses into him, I don’t want to be owned.

A solitary tear wets its feathers, not by you.

Kinn touches his cheek and it pulls Porsche out of his mind, Kinn’s dark eyes concerned as they look into his to see if he’s there, “Porsche?”

A thumb rubs under his eye and he realizes he’s crying. Kinn pulls them both up and then Porsche into him so that his face is hidden in his neck as Porsche fights to hold everything in.

Kinn rubs his back, “I didn’t want this, I didn’t want to hurt you—”

“Kinn…” Porsche licks his lips and Kinn lets him up.

There is no guarantee, no magic wand that is going to make Kinn only ever be this version of himself. Sweet and kind. And maybe there are ways that Kinn looks at him and thinks that they don’t quite fit right but he’s here, tying himself up in knots to hold onto the pieces that Porsche is willing to give. He wouldn’t want fragments of Kinn either. To only have the parts Kinn felt were safe to have. He’s felt Kinn’s scales under his fingertips, how hot his skin gets when he gives himself over to Porsche. To only have pieces of that guts him down to his core.

It's all or nothing, he realizes. Not just for Kinn, but for his instinct.

Kinn is looking at him expectantly, his face open and his mouth delicate and a little parted. He looks young. Porsche takes Kinn’s hand and puts it over his thigh, his sore skin makes him wince as he does it and Kinn tries to look away, shamed, but Porsche makes him stay with him.

“Promise me,” He licks his lips, suddenly dry with anxiety, “If it looks like they’re going to use me, you’ll let me go.”

Kinn starts but Porsche stops him with a kiss. Quick and resolute.

“I don’t want to live my life in a cell or in a pit.” His phoenix would never survive and he couldn’t bring himself to keep dragging it back. It hangs its head but Porsche cradles it inside him like he cradles Kinn’s hand.

Kinn looks down at his thigh and back up at him, “I would kill them first—”

Porsche pulls at him, “Kinn.”

Kinn exhales harshly. His thumb strokes against his second bite with a gentleness that wasn’t there when he gave it, “We’ll go together.”

Both he and his instinct still.

He can’t help but question: “And when they come chasing?”

“We burn them down to the ground,” Kinn’s eyes are gold when he says it but they aren’t full, they’re like gilded, transparent glass, overlaying his brown eyes.

Maybe it’s idealism, maybe it’s foolishness but something burrows its way under his heart and he can’t help but take Kinn’s face back into his hands and kiss him like he’s everything.

Porsche feels a thrill when Kinn whines under him and Porsche tips him back, Kinn catching him as they go before rolling him in towards the middle of the bed. He laughs because it feels silly but then he’s under Kinn, his knees spread to hold him and Kinn kneeling between them and holding himself over Porsche.

Kinn’s fingers hedge over his thigh like this and he nudges Porsche’s nose with his, “I’m sorry.”

“Let it go,” Porsche tells him. The only person besides him who will ever see it is Kinn. He slips down and bites the untouched side of Kinn’s neck, a nip against his skin, “Unless you want me to give you another?”

Kinn shudders, his hand coming up to tilt Porsche back up to look at him, “Anything.”

Anything. Anything you want to give me. Porsche pulls on the silk tie of his robe and it flutters down, its edges parting like a cocoon to shield them from the world. Kinn watches him intently as Porsche draws the pads of his fingertips over Kinn’s collarbones, down from his throat along his sternum, over his pectorals, skating past his nipples when he draws a breath in between clenched teeth. Then he traces along his stomach, the dips and valleys underneath his skin that Porsche can feel before he follows over Kinn’s hips, pulling them forward to get Kinn to lay down on him so that he’s able to feel the thick swell and strong muscle of his ass. When Kinn lays on him, he slips under the crease of his rear and along the edge of where the thick coarse hair on his thighs starts. Porsche can feel him get harder in the groove of his own unbitten thigh, his own cock filling up as he hears the wet sighs from Kinn as he explores his body.

“Porsche—” Kinn breathes. It’s a soft sigh and Porsche hears him, drawing back up on the front of his thighs where he can reach and he encourages Kinn to get back up on his knees again.

There is something powerful and sleek about Kinn’s body, as if his instinct is made flesh through alabaster skin built like strong marble, and it sits somewhere inside him until he takes Kinn’s cock in hand, Porsche’s other holding Kinn’s thigh as he bites the thick meaty part of Kinn’s shoulder, barely a few inches from his mark and no space at all from his scales that decorate his shoulder blades.

“Porsche.” A hand strokes his hair off of his forehead but Porsche stays latched on as he strokes his fingers up and down over the hot hard length of Kinn. He feels the bedsheet move under them as Kinn drags it up in one of his hands. The noise in Kinn’s throat is guttural as he cups the back of Porsche’s head to hold him there against his skin.  

Kinn tries to slip into his underwear but Porsche knocks him away. Kinn’s voice is soft when he calls him baby. He didn’t think he’d like that but when Kinn calls him that it hits low in his belly and makes him squirm. He shoves his own underwear down enough to free himself, the elastic waistband tucked under his balls, biting down harder on Kinn’s shoulder as he does it.

Kinn pants as Porsche thumbs over the weeping slit of his cock, “I want to touch you.”

Porsche releases Kinn’s shoulder and Kinn keens when he does, “You just touched me.”

He did. He laid Porsche out on his bed and hooked his ankles over his shoulders and drove into him until there was nothing but a sticky stream on Porsche’s chest and some on his chin. He touched him when he sank his teeth into him and hit all of Porsche’s animal instincts that wanted to submit to the hedonistic desire that Kinn was writing into his skin.

“I want to touch you again.”

Porsche smiles because it looks like he’s pouting, lips pursed for a moment before he can’t hold in the wanton sighs that keep escaping him as Porsche works him over, hand on his cock and his other hand now kneading his hip to encourage Kinn to ride into Porsche’s fingers.

“You can’t,” Porsche tells him and Kinn bites his own bottom lip and curses.

“What do you mean I can’t—”

Porsche slips his hand away and Kinn looks at him with a mix of unsatisfied lust and disbelief. Porsche spits into his hand and wipes it down on Kinn, the sound squelching against the quiet of their breathing.

He nudges his nose against Kinn’s, the “kiss me” is silent but Kinn hears it. He pushes his tongue inside Porsche’s mouth, teasingly licking against his tongue before disappearing, and his own cock twitches, dribbling at Kinn’s owning of his lips.

Kinn’s breathing speeds up and Porsche tears himself away from Kinn’s mouth to watch as his cock, a painful shiny red and almost touching his belly even on his knees, slide between the opening in his closed fist.

Kinn drops his head down onto Porsche’s shoulder, obscuring his view as he breathes Porsche’s name into his t-shirt, dampening the fabric against his skin. Porsche hums, encouraging him.

I’m yours, Kinn, and some brave part of him says it out loud, “I’m yours. I’m yours when you touch me and when you don’t touch me. When people look at me, they’re looking at your mate.”

Kinn trembles and smears his mouth against Porsche’s shoulder as he lifts his head up, “My little phoenix.”

Porsche’s instinct shudders and it shakes through Porsche like an earthquake, everything shifting just because Kinn says so. He hooks his leg around the back of Kinn’s and he’s riding thin air, he knows, but he can’t—

“Let me make you feel good,” Kinn cajoles, doing anything he can to get his hands on Porsche.

“No,” Porsche tells him firmly as he slides his fingers from Kinn’s hip to the small of his back and into the dip where his scales are sensitive and raw.

Porsche turns his head to watch Kinn turn his fingers into claws and dig them into the bed on either side of Porsche. He turns back and Kinn bites at his mouth and forces his way inside before Porsche can even let him in.

His phoenix? My dragon. A wanton beast that wants and wants and Porsche is ready to give. Kinn cries out into his mouth and Porsche feels his come land hot on his belly before the last couple of spurts drool onto his cock.

Kinn carefully eases himself down to the side but Porsche pushes at his shoulder and gets him to lie on his back. He’s confused but he goes willingly, pliant and soft from his orgasm. Porsche climbs over him, shoving his robe fully off to his sides, biting his own t-shirt into his mouth as he sits on Kinn’s lap. His thigh throbs tenderly but he ignores it and strokes his clean hand down Kinn’s belly before he uses his stained one to rub the tip of his own cock.

The first touch is impossible, his hips buck up and Kinn lazily holds him down with strong fingers on his hips, his thighs coming up to support Porsche.

“Are you going to ride me, sweetheart?” Kinn drawls, shoving his hips up, and Porsche grunts as he tries to hold himself, curved over Kinn’s body. He gets a shock when Kinn presses two fingers over his underwear but against his hole. He aches from before but in a deep, pleasant filled up way, but that isn’t what he wants, so Porsche slaps his hand and Kinn makes a show of putting his hands back onto Porsche’s hips, not guiding or holding, just keeping him steady as he rocks his hips into his fist.

“Are you mine now?” It’s weighted like if he agrees to it there is no going back. Kinn isn’t going to give him an out. Forget a twist of fate, he has a dragon on his tail and it will consume him.

Porsche twists his wrist and whimpers at how good it feels.

“Sign it, Porsche.” Kinn commands him and he rocks into the air, straddling Kinn and letting his ass hit back against Kinn’s thighs. His hand on Kinn’s stomach slides up to his chest splaying over his sternum, fingers spread wide. His hand on his cock moves faster and faster, Kinn sitting up and knocking him back onto Kinn’s thighs. Kinn dips his head, licks Porsche’s nipple and scrapes his teeth over it before sucking it into his mouth.

The sensation spills Porsche over the edge. He lets his t-shirt drop as he cries out, Kinn guiding him in for a kiss, “that’s it, baby” as he grips Porsche’s ass so tight that it will bruise. He’s jerking and spending himself but it never quite seems to end until it does.

He manages to stay sitting but only because of Kinn, so Porsche weakly scolds him, “Hands.”

“Fuck them,” Kinn retorts, his stomach covered in the wet, sticky mess Porsche has made on him.

Porsche lets the tingles light up inside him as he slides down to be on Kinn’s right side, up on his elbow, leg slung between his two.

His t-shirt is ruined and Kinn shows it no care when he yanks it off his head and throws it off the bed with a wrinkle of his nose. His hands, however, are delicate as glass as they ease down Porsche’s underwear over his thighs.

“I was supposed to go home, you know.” Porsche chides him, no heat in it at all, and Kinn sniffs, every bit of him the son of a rich family.

“Go home tomorrow.”

“I can’t.” Porsche didn’t tell Chay he’d be out all night and he’s supposed to see Yok after missing two shifts at her bar. She won’t accept anything less than seeing his face so that she can be sure he’s okay.

Kinn rolls him into his back again and buries his face in Porsche’s stomach. He can feel the soft kisses he’s pressing there along with a whispered, “Stay.”

Porsche laughs, Kinn’s breath tickling him, and he brushes his thick hair back and decides that maybe—

“Come with me.”

Kinn looks up at him, his hair sticking up where Porsche has disturbed whatever he used to style it, “Come with you?”

“I’m going to Hum bar later, my boss’s bar. Come with me.”

It’s an olive branch, a step into Porsche’s world, and Kinn smiles, wide and goofy and Porsche feels happiness bubble up in his chest.

“Okay, I’ll clear my schedule. But you have to stay here until then.”

Porsche raises an eyebrow. He has no t-shirt to wear and he doubts it’s going to feel good to put his jeans or his underwear back on.

Kinn sits up and scoots to the edge of the bed, wrapping his robe – soiled – around himself and re-looping its belt. He combs his hair back into place before he looks back at Porsche, “I’d prefer it if you stayed here naked but if you don’t want that, you can have whatever you want out of my closet.”

“Is there anything other than suits and dress pants?” Porsche jokes and Kinn rolls his eyes.

“I’m sure one of the aunties put something in there for you out of spite.”

That gets a full belly laugh from him, the continued silly misplaced jealousy that someone else might steal Porsche’s attention.

Kinn slaps his stomach and Porsche lets out an oof as he’s slightly winded, but it doesn’t stop him from teasing Kinn, “Come on.”

“You’re mine. If I didn’t buy the clothes on your back, you can take them off.”

“Oh ho, someone’s going to be my sugar daddy then?” Porsche nudges Kinn’s thigh with his foot and squawks when Kinn catches his ankle and won’t let it go.

“And then some.” Kinn’s eyes deepen back into gold and Porsche’s breath gets shallow. His breathing eases when Kinn blinks and his eyes revert back to normal. “I need to make some calls but use whatever you want here.”

Porsche closes his eyes when Kinn leans over him for a quick peck and then he opens them when Kinn doesn’t move away. Kinn’s eyes are clouded with something Porsche doesn’t understand.

“Kinn?”

“It’s nothing. I just…want this to work. For both of us.”

Another kiss and he’s gone, Porsche watching his retreating back as he heads into the bathroom. He lies back on the bed and examines his leg. Kinn’s bark is infinitely worse than his bite. The bloody parts have crusted over already and he is going to have some thick bruising but it’s nowhere near as bad as he expected. He stretches out to his toes and then his arms above his head as Kinn walks from the bathroom into his closet, wrapped in a white towel and his hair falling over his brows with heavy wet drips.

It's…domestic. A hairdryer goes off in the closet and Porsche shakes his head, because why wouldn’t Kinn’s massive closet have electricity to blow dry his hair? He gingerly walks himself into the bathroom, his aches and pains, while great in the moment, make him feel old and like he’s walking on a hot tin roof.

Porsche stops when he sees the second towel folded up on the sink and a second toothbrush, not on top, but slid in next to Kinn’s.

His instinct nudges him, feathered head tapping the inside of Porsche’s palm in his mind, see.

Porsche takes a deep breath and walks over to the shower, a small smile on his face. 

There are no guarantees, but I’ve never felt special before.

His instinct swells its chest, puffing up and ready to defend him. Ours.

Yeah, ours.

And maybe for the first time, it feels like a promise of something more.

***

There is no big announcement as they walk through the compound when they’re leaving in the evening to head to Yok’s. Chay isn’t going to wait up for him but he’ll be back from his friend’s at 10. He sends Porsche a winky face when Porsche tells him he’s staying with Kinn during the day and he blushes because this isn’t something they do. Porsche’s lovers never made their way to his front door let alone to meet his brother. Now they talk about his mate and how he’s staying out.

Nonetheless, Porsche half expects Kinn to fly a banner that says he has found his mate and to ward off anyone who would dare go against him would suffer a terrible fate. People continue to mill about, bowing their heads when they see Kinn but other than that, they’re two people walking through the hallways.

He narrows his eyes at Kinn and he just smiles at him.

They come up to an alcove and Porsche can’t help but drag him into it, pinning him there with a hand on his shoulder and on his hip.

“What—” He starts but Kinn kisses his cheek. “Hey.”

“You’re cute.”

“You’re suspicious,” Porsche squeezes his shoulder, “What are you up to?”

“Nothing,” Kinn tells him with an innocent face.

“Liar.”

Kinn laughs and Porsche tries to block how soft it makes him feel. “I heard you, Porsche. We’re each other’s and I don’t want to push you before you’re ready.”

Porsche blinks because he doesn’t know what to say, so what comes out is a blunt: “What?”

Kinn takes Porsche’s hand from his hip and laces their fingers together, “I don’t want to hide you away from my family; I want to introduce you to my brothers, my father, but after that, it doesn’t matter. No one likes going to those galas or stupid dinners so better than you stay in my bed, warm and naked instead.”

Porsche flushes, his voice high-pitched when he chides him, “Kinn.”

“I want you, Porsche. Not the idea of you that other people see. Will you give me that?”

It sounds so easy but it’s anything but. Porsche can’t help but push Kinn into it first: “Will you do the same? Give me you?”

“Always.” Kinn raises their hands and kisses the back of Porsche’s.

Porsche twists them so he can kiss the back of Kinn’s, “Okay. Let’s do it.”

Chapter Text

To say he isn’t at least a bit ashamed of himself for his behavior towards Porsche would be a lie. Watching Porsche turn from quiet and contemplative to angry and spiteful through to his face crumpling up in pain and wet tears on his cheeks was one of Kinn’s lowest moments. His instinct had given him no relief.

He’s slipping away, it paced. Talons scratched grooves under his skin in its tenseness and inability to do more than will Kinn to do something.

Kinn felt his instinct’s fear in his skin, his stomach, and his heart. Before, it would have raged endlessly, fighting with Kinn over the smallest inconveniences as a way of asserting itself as a deciding participant in his life. If Kinn yelled, his instinct yelled louder. It’s only through him, that Kinn found commonality with his beast. They both twisted and curled up at the prospect of losing Porsche, or worse, Porsche turning from them as if they never had him. The ghostly echo of almost. It’s a fear that seizes Kinn through to the very insides of his instinct. Being able to only touch parts of an effervescent whole, only having the privilege of the wingtips of Porsche’s glorious soul hurts him in ways he can’t describe. He doesn’t want pieces, and his instinct wouldn’t accept pieces, so he sank his teeth into Porsche’s thigh with the knowledge that no one: man, woman, anyone, would ever see that and think they had a chance to claim what was his. He let his fear pin Porsche down like a butterfly. Only once he had, did he understand how much that wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted Porsche to come to him, to find him pleasing and a person he could share himself with. How wrong he had gotten it welled up in his eyes with shed and unshed tears.

He feared he had locked himself out of ever truly sharing something with Porsche.

But Porsche ever graceful, ever forgiving, did just the opposite. He touched him and kept touching him. His body acted out his words. Kinn was held by his beauty and the silent and spoken promise he was making to Kinn – I’m yours. He gave what Kinn had selfishly tried to take. Shared what he had sought to own.

How many second chances am I going to get?

It’s not something he’s willing to tempt, but he knows he’s more than lucky to have been given any of them.

His instinct warms his belly with gentle firelight as he blowdries his hair roughly. He wants to stay in his room with Porsche but Arm has a new lead that can’t wait. He’s going to have to sit in a cold meeting room and nod when his head, his heart, as vulnerable and exposed as it is now, are here with Porsche.

You want him, his instinct tells him matter-of-factly.

Kinn exhales, he’s my mate, of course I want him.

There’s no use in lying, his instinct sees through him with alacrity.

His simple request, lost in throbbing pulses and deeper desire, was “sign it”. He wanted Porsche to give up notions of ever being anything other than this, mine. Not just his instinct, but the very core of his human self.

Kinn acknowledges he showed his hand, even if Porsche didn’t see it, didn’t want to see it.

We have to keep him, his instinct warns.

Any bright ideas? Kinn snorts and his dragon headbutts his sternum. It doesn’t do it to hurt him, but to warn him of his glib attitude. We’re his mate; if that can’t make him stay then nothing will.

Still, in the depths of his mind, his instinct latches on to Porsche’s request – don’t imprison me, let me go – Kinn feels its hesitation. His world is nothing if not a series of death threats, attempts and kidnaps.

He realizes he’s got a death grip on his hairdryer and he puts it back down on the alcove counter in his closet. Keeping Porsche safe is his number one priority, for his own interests and keeping him here.

Hide him, his instinct whispers slickly, an edge he knows only too well. It feels exactly like when it bartered with him the day he met Porsche, it feels like bite him, eat him up and leave nothing but his bones.

Stop, he warns, but for which of them, he doesn’t know.

***

“Talk and fast,” Kinn tells Arm as he leaves Porsche in his room and meets his brother’s bodyguard in the hallway.

“Yes, Khun Kinn,” Arm hands him his iPad and there are autopsy photos up on the screen. Nothing graphic, two bodies that lay where they had fallen, the only indication of death was blood seeping from the nostrils and the tear ducts. The accompanying report says they were 17 and 20, respectively. “Two of the newer fatalities due to Onyx-5. Distribution is still tight but that’s likely due to the experimentation they’ve been doing, according to Dr Som.”

“These are the only ones who succumbed?” Kinn asks and Arm opens up the door to the conference room that resides on his floor. There are papers scattered about, Chan is reading a folder and two bodyguards he doesn’t know are standing behind him. “The doctors said there were no physical attributes that could—”

“Relate to cause of death,” Arm finishes, “No, not in the snake family. These two…”

He hesitates and Kinn isn’t stupid enough that he can’t fill in the blanks.

“They were dragons.”

“How they found two dragons in a drug den in Bangkok,” Arm muses upon the rarity of the situation, but Kinn knows better.

He scrolls to the report, both had been jacked up with inhibitors and floss. Floss is a street drug with roots in carbamazepine, an anti-seizure medication that has a lesser-known side effect of creating hallucinations. It’s rough and nasty stuff.

“They were self-medicating.” His instinct roils in his belly, sick to his and its stomach. “They probably told them they could make it stop.”

Arm looks at him with a concerned expression on his face and Chan looks at him, stony as ever, “Stop?”

Kinn stays silent but he knows without saying it - the rage, the hunger, the fire, all of it. He hands back the iPad with distaste, an unpleasantness on his tongue. “Dragon instincts aren’t easy to live with.”

“Weak human will can easily be subsumed by a dragon,” Chan interjects. Kinn thinks of the many training sessions they had, Chan pressing down on him with his instinct much like his father’s does and forcing Kinn to drive him back. His instinct had only been small, his father’s voice echoing as he told Chan to do it again. “The same way a strong human will can extinguish an instinct.”

His instinct growls because while it understood those lessons, it doesn’t rest easy when Chan brings them up.

“It isn’t weak to try to find solitude,” Kinn knows that Chan disagrees but he won’t push back. He doesn’t have a dragon, so he can’t ever know or understand the havoc they wreak when their needs are unmet.

“Popping pills isn’t solitude.” Chan’s tone indicates that he doesn’t have more to say on the matter and Kinn looks at the two guards.

“What do you think?” He asks them.

The first one splutters, he’s young barely into his 20s by Kinn’s reckoning, with a sweet baby face if you liked that sort of thing; the second, older, early 30s if he had to guess, forgettable, bows his head respectfully, “Instinctual harmony isn’t given, Khun Kinn. Sometimes it can be achieved, other times we must do our best to live.”

Chan turns his chair, “This is Moss and Mann. They will be Khun Porsche’s bodyguards.”

Moss bows again, but Kinn is focused on and can hear the tense thread in Chan’s voice. His father must have told him about their discussion and how Porsche would not serve but be served. Kinn’s nose picks up their scents, Moss’s is thick and earthy with a hint of the pale moon that Kinn has come to associate with wolves. Mann is brighter, cleaner, and mixed with sandalwood, horse.

“Porsche doesn’t want bodyguards.” He says with a calm tone and Chan returns it, equally calm.

“Porsche doesn’t get to decide that.”

Kinn laces his fingers together and holds them against his belt, “Yes, he does.”

Something relents in Chan’s eyes because he sighs and says in English, “Why must I suffer the idiocy of fools.”

Kinn smiles and replies, “Because we pay very well.”

He turns his attention back to Arm, “The physical attributes?”

“Hmm?” Arm blinks for a moment, clearly lost in the verbal ping pong before he nods, “Yes, they had necrosis of their secondary scales.”

Secondary scales are the medical term for the scales that are present on the human form; the primary scales being the actual scales of the instinct itself. They can be permanent like Kinn’s or transient like those of a weaker instinctive nature that seep in and out depending on their emotional load.

“There aren’t photos of that here.” Kinn checked.

Arm nods, “This is the police file. It also excludes that the two victims were brothers.”

Police involvement isn’t a cause for concern, their payroll is big enough and lucrative enough to lure even the most seasoned cop to their ranks.

“We think these were the last victims before the attempt against you at Dieu Même.”

Kinn looks at them, these kids who never got to be anyone, and it fills him with a certain kind of pity, “What do the cops say?”

“Nothing worth hearing,” Arm sighs. Kinn reads between the lines. Two dead junkies the world is better off without.

Kinn nods, “Find out who they were. Send them home.”

“Kinn,” Chan warns him. Maybe there will come a day when he can look at the bodies of boys who remind him of Kim at that age and not give a damn but today isn’t that day.

“Make sure their families are taken care of. You may leave.”

The answer applies to all and the steeliness of his tone implies it. Chan hangs back as the others leave and Kinn expects him to have something to say but he only waits a moment longer before he follows Moss and Mann out.

Kinn pours over the files, the fallen dragons are an image that stays with him, his own instinct quiet either out of respect or knowledge that it could have easily been them. His youth at one time had been one drunken bender after another, both of them just screaming at each other, Kinn constantly trying to drown his instinct out, ignoring its selfish and impulsive desires, and it ripping into him every day he coldly refused to bend to its will.

It was Kim who had pulled him out of it. He remembers being 21 and in the kitchen picking at the food that was made for him, his instinct disgruntled and gouging him for the umpteenth time that day, week, month, he lost count, when his younger brother placed a glass with a large fifth of whiskey in front of him and told him to drink it.

Home from boarding school and at 15, Kim was taller than when Kinn saw him last, still as scrawny and scrappy, his dark hair starting to flop in front of his face and his mouth a tight line. His uniform was wrinkled but the emblem of his prestigious school was sewn in so tightly it could never crumple. Kinn could see where he had dropped his bag, and his guitar – the one Kinn had gifted to him when Kim had asked him to show him how to play – resting against the wall just inside the kitchen.

Kinn pushed it away, he wasn’t in the mood, his whole body a series of aches and a fever he could barely control. Their father was piling more and more work onto him with no end in sight.

“Fine.” Kim picked it up and down it himself. He coughed horribly and Kinn got up and caught his brother by his shoulders as he almost doubled over.

It wasn’t until he pulled Kim up that he saw the faint glint in his eyes under the wet tears and how the air shifted around him. Kinn forces himself not to rear back like he’s been scolded and to keep his hands steady as Kim looks up at him with familiar but unfamiliar eyes.

The weight between them was the heaviest it had ever been. Kinn didn’t resent Kim for having the things he had so desperately wanted, or that Kim hid them away like seeing them like he was hoarding treasure someone else could steal. Kim’s eyes, however, were something to fear. Kinn knew the weight of their father’s expectations and that if he knew, Kim would get dragged straight into the world he was trying so desperately to get out of.

“Does Pa know?” Kinn asked him, his voice steady, his instinct holding its breath as Kim slumped down into the seat next to Kinn’s at the table.

“State testing is coming up, he’ll know then.” Kim looked at the table, dejected.  

“Khun?”

Kim nodded. “He said you could help.”

Kinn looked down at his younger brother, his skinny shoulders caving in, and he sighs, “There isn’t a lot I can do.”

Kim said it himself; state testing would soon tell the world that he had an instinct. They all knew he would, he’s a Theerapanyakul after all, but what he had was always the subject of debate.

“I don’t want this.”

It’s barely a whisper and suddenly Kim was every bit the 15-year-old and the 10-year-old who lost his mom way too young.

Kinn started and stopped himself because it was a sickening twist in his belly that he was going to tell his brother that this is who he is when all he’s ever done is try to drown himself in anything he can get his hands on. Theerapanyakul hypocrisy at its finest.

His instinct is sat up high in one of his lungs, breathing with him, ears pricked and focused on Kim. The heat and the pain receded back and he’s able to think clearly for the first time in a while.

“I’ll find you someone, a specialist, we’ll keep what it is quiet from Pa,” Kinn tells him and Kim looks up at him with dull eyes.

“You can’t keep anything—”

“If he doesn’t have a reason to need you, he won’t push.” Kinn promised, it’s a half-baked idea but he isn’t going to dash any hope his brother might have left, “the minor family won’t want another one of us muddying the waters. Not when Macau is so young.”

“Kinn.” Kim hooked his fingers on the edge of the table.

They both knew it meant Kinn leaning even more into the family business. He’d been attending meetings and pouring over ledgers and records to understand the budgets and the scope of their operations but it’s still too much for one person to handle. They all knew why Kim had been born. The heir and a spare.

“Kim.”

So much of their relationship was unspoken. Neither one of them said anything when Kim turned and hugged himself to Kinn’s stomach for the briefest of moments. His instinct slopes its way down and nudged at Kim from inside his belly.

You won’t leave me alone but you’ll be nice to him?

His instinct glared at him, he’s family.

And what am I?

A fool.

It wasn’t a monumental change or one that happened overnight but keeping Kim safe and out of the family business gave Kinn a focus, a value to what he was doing. With a path to channel his instinct into, for the most part, it behaved. He learned to redirect his energies beyond fucking and drinking himself into a stupor most nights. While he and Kim didn’t interact any more than they had before, he did receive a simple text the day of the state testing that said, thank you and his father invited him to his first executive meeting that same evening. It didn’t absolve anything inside him, but Kinn felt like he had a reason to be there beyond being “the spare.”

His reverie loses him a bit of time, but he makes notes, sets up some calls and makes sure to put in a designated date and time for him to visit the den the dragons were found in. He needs to see what’s going on for himself. His instinct growls and he feels his irises burn gold with it; he’s sick of being told half-truths and obfuscation. If the minor family is involved, let them try; if the Italians are involved, he’ll wipe the streets with their blood. He knows his father won’t approve of him putting himself out there but he doesn’t care. People like him are dying, maybe even because of him, he isn’t going to sit back and do nothing.

His cell vibrates and he flips it over: what’s he like?

Vibrant, Kinn texts back. He sends another: come and meet him. Khun wants you here.

I think about it.

You’ve got two weeks to think about it.

Kinn slips his cell into his pocket and makes his way back upstairs to freshen up before his big night out.

***

By the time Kinn gets to see Porsche again, it feels like days have passed. Their conversation in the alcove is intimate and the air between them eases with the promises made. His instinct rolls happily in his belly when Porsche doesn’t shake off the hand Kinn slips gently along the small of his back as they walk out to the parade of cars that are prepared for them as they head out to Hum bar. He ordered a town car and it’s sandwiched between several larger dark SUVs that will be filled with an appropriate entourage for the occasion.

He doesn’t expect it but Porsche pinches his side before he hisses under his breath, “What’s this?”

Kinn winces, Porsche has strong fingers, before he cups the back of Porsche’s neck, “People are trying to kill me, I would rather not die.”

Porsche’s face sobers up at the comment and Kinn feels the change in him keenly. Nothing like death threats to ruin a mood. Several bodyguards come up to Kinn and bow before they bow to Porsche and head to the car parked behind theirs.

Porsche watches them, “Do they not have names?”

Kinn lets his hand fall away, “They do but you won’t have much interaction with them.”

Porsche raises a quizzical brow at him and Kinn shrugs, “They’re the rear guard. They take the exit positions on either the upper or rear vantage points.”

Kinn offers Porsche his hand, outstretched and ready for him to take, “The tallest is Bank, the one with the crooked necktie is Law and the shortest is Fong.”

Porsche relaxes and shakes his head with an amused smile as he doesn’t take Kinn’s hand.

Hard to get? At this point? His instinct appreciates the chase, with one eye peeled open, it flexes its claws and whips its tail against Kinn’s back. Time for your A-game.

Better than any bodyguard, his instinct is a built-in fire alarm system when it isn’t driving him absolutely crazy.

I found him, didn’t I? It throws at him lazily.

Kinn mentally folds his arms, yeah, you found him but now you need to rein it in when we meet his boss.

It growls at him and puts its head on its forelocks, he’s ours. She can’t take him.

Big and Ken are back on his detail despite his reservations. He trusts them with his life, experience has taught him to, but he watches them as they greet Porsche, heads bowed almost as if he were Kinn. A ripple of discomfort crosses Porsche’s face, Kinn knows he doesn’t like this aspect of Kinn’s life, the hierarchy, and the status quo, but Kinn can’t help but feel prideful that he fits. With his strong back and sharp eyes, he slips into Kinn’s world as easily as a puzzle piece as he eyes Kinn’s personal bodyguards.

“Khun Kinn, Porsche.” Big inclines his head when Kinn sides up next to Porsche again.

“We won’t be needing anyone in the back with us,” Kinn tells him and Big looks set to argue but he stops with one crisp look from Kinn.

Porsche sighs like he’s being put out when Big sets him with a look as he leaves, “I don’t know what his problem is—”

“Don’t worry about it.” Kinn smiles and steals Porsche’s hand and laces their fingers together.

Porsche looks scandalized, his eyes frantically looking around him, and tries to pull away, “Oi.”

“Tell me about Yok.” He asks as the door to their car is opened and Kinn drags Porsche along with their joined hands to sit in it.

The red flush on his cheeks is adorable and it only takes him a moment to put down that bravado. With his hand now held tighter by Kinn’s, Porsche lets his hand rest on Kinn’s thigh as the rest of the entourage assemble and communicate their positions to each other.

Porsche doesn’t say anything until the car is moving smoothly off onto the road.

“Yok is family.”

He already knew that but he stays quiet while Porsche looks a little wistful.

“She took me in when I had a rough patch. Fixed me up, gave me a job,” Porsche looks out the window, the light from the streetlights suddenly throwing him into light and shadow. “Made sure we were okay.”

We.

He doesn’t know what Porsche was like as a teenager but he has a feeling he was a mouthy asshole, more limbs than anything else, trying to keep his home together so that he and his brother could stay together.

“She took more chances on me than anyone and she never asked.”

She just let him be. It’s hard to be grateful to someone you’ve never met but Kinn can see from a mile off that Yok saved Porsche when no one else was willing to. She gave him safety at zero cost and not many, if any, would do that.

It’s rude to ask if she has an instinct so he doesn’t ask and Porsche doesn’t tell him.

“She’ll love you.” Porsche tells him with a wide grin and Kinn can’t help but feel a sense of dread, “She loves a pretty face.”

***

Porsche was right. She does love a pretty face. Dressed in gold sequins and red heels, Yok fawns wildly over him as Porsche laughs behind his hand and makes his way behind the bar to pour them both a drink. Kinn’s bodyguards fan out and take their allotted positions. It isn’t a heaving night but it’s busy enough that all eyes need to remain on target. Her lack of scent answers Kinn’s question about her instinct – she doesn’t have one – and, in a way, that feels better than if she did have one.

His instinct rumbles happily because that’s one less person it has to fight for Porsche’s attention.

Oblivious to it all, Yok stops long enough to swat Porsche across the bar and scold him for trying to work, “You came to visit me, not work a shift. Although,” she flips her long hair over her shoulder, “When are you coming back, Porsche? The ladies—”

Porsche yelps as he tries to stop Yok from continuing and Kinn picks up the drink that Porsche just finished making and smells the sweet citrus smell and the smoky overtures of it. Kinn had wondered if he told Yok exactly what they were to each other, but he guesses not.

“Porsche is very big with the ladies, huh,” Kinn smiles and Porsche stares daggers at him. He sips the drink and it tastes similar to how it smells with a bitter kick that Kinn appreciates.

Yok, innocent in her naivety, continues, “Of course, women love Porsche, he’s such a gentleman and so handsome too. You both are.”

“Kinn—” Porsche starts, the room is dim but he bets money that Porsche is red as well as flustered.

“And the men?” He asks and Yok laughs, Porsche looks like he wants to dig himself further into a hole.

“No, it takes a strong man to flirt with Porsche,” Yok picks up her drink, freshly poured orange juice because she’s working, and sips it.

Kinn nods, gesturing as if he is contemplative, “How strong?”

Yok laughs at him, “Herculean. Have you seen him? Men either want to be or be with Porsche. They take one look and they know they can never compete.”

Porsche bites his hand as if he can’t get any more embarrassed but Kinn is never one to leave anyone unsatisfied.

“Porsche,” He says sweetly and Porsche glares at him, but not hard enough for Kinn to stop. “Can I buy you a drink?”

“Oh, Kinn,” Yok laughs and slaps his arm, but he looks at Porsche with heavy lids. Porsche licks his lips and Kinn knows he’s got him on the hook. He reaches over the bar and wraps his fingers loosely around his wrist. It’s unintrusive, most people would assume that Porsche is collecting cash payment the way Kinn’s fingers slide over his, “What time do you get off?”

Porsche laughs at him and his dark eyes get a twinkle in them and Kinn gets why he’s so popular. He’s not dumb or blind to the many sets of eyes that have been on him since he got behind the bar. The women are more open about it, their appreciation for him plain as day but Kinn sees it in a few men who watch the capability in his hands as he twists and flips his shaker.

He’s mine.

Maybe it’s a thought that transmigrates because Yok screams in his ear, “Porsche, your neck!”

Porsche stills, his dress shirt for the evening is one of Kinn’s, black with a stiff collar, so it covers most of his bite but with how low Porsche has it open, it struggles to completely stay in place.

She looks at him and then at Porsche. Porsche raises his hands in an easy gesture when she digs her manicured hand into Kinn’s arm, “Booth, now.”

The mood changes as she sits them down, her between the two of them in a rounded booth off to the side. Kinn has to get his men to stand down as they see him being dragged over to an undisclosed location but they reallocate and he gets down to the business of being yelled at.

“Mates!” She cries out. Kinn feels too old to be scolded like this, but Yok pins him with a glare and Porsche tries to speak and she puts an index finger up and over his mouth.

“Yok—” Porsche tries again but she narrows her eyes at him so he stops.

“I let you go to one fight and you pick up” She looks at Kinn, “a whole man.”

Porsche nods, “Yeah.”

“Well, do you like him?” She asks and Kinn starts and he gets the index finger treatment too.

“Yeah,” Porsche says quietly.

“And you?” She whirls on him and he’s taken aback but he nods, “Yes.”

“And this,” She gestures between the two of them, “Was consensual?”

Porsche nods, again the light of the bar belies the color of his face but Kinn can see his nervousness, “It was. It is.”

Something unspoken passes between them and Kinn may never know what but he waits because it isn’t a moment he can intrude on.

She turns to him and he sits up straighter, “You took my Porsche.”

His instinct grouses and he steps on it and it growls louder. Stop it, he chides.

“With all due respect,” Kinn ignores Porsche’s face trying to send him silent signals of what not to do and says, “You took care of him until it was time for us to meet.”

He half expects to get slapped but Yok preens and flips her hair back, “I suppose I did.”

However, her face turns serious. “Doesn’t mean I won’t take him back if you do anything to hurt him.”

His instinct coils around his thigh and tightens up, it wants to retaliate but knows it can’t. Kinn nods, “I would expect nothing less.”

Yok stands and shuffles past his side, forcing him to get out of the booth when it would have been easier to go out Porsche’s side. He lets her and she stops in front of him as they both stand and hugs him tight, pulling him down to her level. Kinn doesn’t know where to put his hands so he curls them into fists and holds them on either side of Yok when she whispers in his ear, “please take care of him.”

She lets go before she turns to Porsche and gestures with two fingers pointing to her eyes, then his, “We’re going to need to talk properly.”

Porsche nods and wipes his hands down on his thighs, “Yeah.”

“But not tonight. Tonight, you celebrate and it’s on me.” Yok walks over to Porsche and cups his face with her hand and gives it a soft squeeze, “Congratulations sweetie.”

With that, she leaves them alone and Porsche looks down at his legs, distant, and Kinn walks around to him and kneels beside him, “You okay?”

“I never thought I’d be introducing Yok to you,” Porsche admits softly.

“A man?” Kinn hazards but Porsche’s face softens.

“My mate. Yok—” Porsche stops and then starts, “she doesn’t care about the other stuff.”

Kinn waits to see if Porsche will say any more but he doesn’t, so he stands and brushes his hand over the back of Porsche’s head and strokes the thick thatch of hair and Porsche looks up at him with those shining eyes and Kinn can’t help but lean down and give him a little kiss.

“You did well,” He tells him and Porsche smiles, soft and shy.

The moment lasts barely a breath when they hear the first gunshot, followed by a scream. Strong hands shove Kinn down and he reaches for Porsche who manages to duck and roll to the floor before the second bullet pierces the cushioned wall behind his chest.

Kinn’s instinct roars and hot lava gate crashes through his chest immediately as Porsche pushes up to stand and he knocks the bodyguard closest to him down with one clear word, “Yok.”

“Porsche!” He yells but he’s held a moment too long by his bodyguards as they try to keep him low and out of the gunfire and they all yelp as they’re scalded by his skin.

He can’t see, but he hears the shot and the thud and everything stops.

Chapter Text

Despite how he throws himself into action, Porsche’s everything coalesces into one thought: Kinn. It rips through his back as his instinct spreads its wings across his shoulders, the color he can feel flooding his skin as he emerges into the main room of the bar. The gunfire is steady, nothing rapid that would indicate machine gunfire. He scans left to right and can see three gunmen dotted around the dancefloor, dressed nothing like any of the clubgoers as people scramble to leave, as well as two of Kinn’s men in their suits with their guns up. They’re advancing on the two shooters furthest from where Porsche is. The third is not two feet from him so when he swings himself around towards Porsche, Porsche throws his bodyweight forward into him, crashing and winding his opponent before he knows what has happened. He grabs at Porsche’s shirt and tries to grasp it and take him down with him but Porsche shoves at his waist and throws him to the ground before rocketing forward, propelling himself towards the bar before launching himself over it and ignoring the glasses he crashes into as he slides over. Yok has herself tucked into the corner on the side he lands, hands over her head trying not to scream. When she sees him, her hands reach for him, trying to pull him to her to keep him safe. He bends down to check her face, she’s got some scratches, likely from glass shrapnel, but she’s okay, she’s alive.

“Stay low,” he tells her and she nods but he has to unhook her hands from him because she shakes her head silently – don’t go – written on her face. He tilts his head, pleading with her and she finally relents, her fingers going lax but no less fear on her face.

His ears prick as he hears the heavy footsteps, measured and deliberate, in and amongst the screaming and fleeing patrons.

He turns himself around so his back is to Yok, but he’s still low in front of her, shielding her from the assailant that is now walking around the edge of the bar to where they’re crouched. It’s Porsche’s friend from before. Porsche notes that his clothes are ill-fitting, if he had to guess where they’re from, he’d probably say the 80s, and the man’s hand has a tremor as he raises his gun to Porsche. If he’s a decent shot, Porsche is going to die, but he isn’t worried about it. His instinct soaks itself into his very bones, emboldening him so that his hands are lightning quick as he shoves his right hand under the man’s wrist, hitting the bone and subsequently jarring the nerve, before twisting the gun to the left, away and out from his grip.

Porsche slips the gun around so that he’s holding it, his finger on the trigger as the man tries the same tact that Porsche did and tries to body slam him but Porsche pulls the mechanism and the shot rings out, piercing even amongst the chaos. The man goes down like a sack of potatoes, gripping his thigh as blood gushes from the now bullet wound.

The ring in his ears moves into booming volume as the gunfire picks up, Yok cries out for him and drags him back down as a stray bullet embeds itself into the back wall behind the bar. Porsche ducks his head in thanks to Yok but he leans forward again to get his hands on the body in front of him and searches the man as he moans painfully. Nothing. No ID, no cell, nothing. More shots ping, so Porsche keeps his eye on the walkway as he slowly gets up onto his knees and then peeks his head above the counter. There are more men on each side, locked in a full-on shootout, Kinn in the middle of them, circled, protected, but his gun raised. Their assailants are looking to do damage, but Kinn and his bodyguards waste no shots. Porsche subconsciously holds his breath as Kinn fires single shot after single shot with immaculate precision. He finally catches sight of Porsche but he still doesn’t lower his gun, he finishes his clip in rapid succession and ignores the shouts of his team when he strides toward Porsche. It isn’t until he gets behind the bar that he sees the friend Porsche has made. Stuffing his gun into his waistband, Kinn drags the man up by his bicep, the man whimpering lamely because of Porsche’s shot.

“Italiano?” Kinn asks him, his accent changing to fit the shape of the word. The man laughs, “Grazie, Signor Theerapanyakul.”

Eyes flick to Porsche. Kinn stares at him and Porsche feels the temperature drop and the glass bottles, the ones that are left, rattling behind them.

“Porsche,” Yok whispers harshly, her fear once again trying to drag him back and down, out of harm’s way.

Porsche isn’t worried about the man. He’s worried about Kinn. From the moment he spoke the foreign word, all Porsche can smell is an acrid burning in his nostrils, making him want to gag. It isn’t the shooting. It’s Kinn. It’s rolling off him like an ugly smog. Porsche tries not to be repulsed because his mate doesn’t smell like this. His mate is clean, fresh, and vibrant, like river water; a man who smiles and flushes when Porsche calls him cute, not this aberration of his scent.

Kinn tilts his head and his other hand comes up to the man’s face, under his jaw and he holds it in his hand, fingers digging in tightly.

“Kinn—” Porsche warns.

The smell intensifies. Porsche coughs and tries to get rid of it out of his mouth, his throat, but it sticks, ugly and like tar, coating everything inside him, and his instinct flaps its wings aggressively.

Kinn snarls his lip curling upwards, and keeps digging his fingers into the other man’s skin until blood is trickling from them, the man’s muffled pain because he can no longer open his mouth. Still, Kinn doesn’t stop. Eventually, there is the sickening crack of bone, then and only then, does Kinn harshly snap his hand back with unnecessary force. The man’s spinal column snaps as loudly as his jaw, if not louder, and he drops like an unsupported sack of potatoes.

Porsche’s heart races and his instinct stills, confused inside his chest. Kinn turns to him, his eyes blazing gold and burning. Porsche realizes there’s no recognition there. It’s like the lights are on but no one is home. Porsche has one eye on Yok as Kinn watches, so it’s clear he isn’t interested in her. His focus is Porsche.

So, Porsche stands, stretching to his full height, Kinn’s eyes watching his every move, his face unreadable. Kinn’s head bodyguard is striding towards them, calling for Kinn, “Khun Kinn.”

Kinn either doesn’t hear him or ignores him.

There’s something to it. The harsh way he forms Kinn’s name. He’s trying to command him. Draw his interest back. It doesn’t work. Kinn steps over the corpse and takes a step toward Porsche.

“Don’t move,” Big tells Porsche.

He snaps his head, eyes narrowing, “What’s going on?”

Porsche is about to turn to get some answers but Big raises his hand in a stop gesture. Porsche feels Kinn’s hand cup the back of his neck, but it isn’t a kind or familiar touch. Heat drips from Kinn’s fingertips, licking its way through Porsche’s body, testing Porsche’s limits. Big’s face finally shows a flicker of concern for Porsche as he whispers it now, “Khun Kinn, it’s time to leave.”

Porsche lets his body relax. The heat? It’s nothing. Porsche is barely scorched, he tilts his head, trying to understand what’s going on in Kinn’s, but Kinn keeps pressing in on him, the steady pour of liquid fire as he leans forward, nose dipping to his hairline, rubbing against the side of Porsche’s face as Kinn scents him, cheek pressing against cheek. It feels good after a fight to feel warm instead of the icy feeling of burnt-off power, but the smell, it’s overpowering. It roils in his stomach and gives way to nausea when Porsche’s instinct raises itself to meet Kinn, excited to reach out and touch what it’s been given. He drags it back, for the first time feeling the very real trickle of apprehension, not of Kinn but this liminal space he finds himself in where it’s Kinn but not Kinn.

He calls his name, “Kinn?”

Kinn lets his nose drag down and he sniffs along Porsche’s jaw, down the column of his throat, hedging near his mark, “Kinn.”

It’s not appropriate at all. Everyone is staring at them, staring at the closeness of Kinn sharing his heat.

So, he keeps his voice short and Kinn stops, raising his head. Porsche can see his eyes now, gold yes, but they look completely different from any other time Porsche has seen them. The black of his pupil is lengthened and almost from the top of his iris to the bottom but barely the width of a quarter of it. A dragon’s eye.

Oh.

“Is it you?” He asks quietly. Big watches him with an intense look, shaking his head when Porsche exposes his neck more to Kinn, hesitant with eyes on them, “I’m okay. We’re okay.”

He tries to ease Kinn’s instinct, giving it all the space it wants to check him over. Kinn’s fingers tighten again around the back of his neck, pinning him with his hand as he slides back into the hollow of Porsche’s throat and up again, lips grazing the path as he goes. Porsche steps the last half a step into Kinn’s space closing it almost completely, save a few centimeters, aware of the eyes on him, knowing that he’s the one they’ll shoot, not Kinn. Porsche shushes him, “That’s enough now, hmm?”

Porsche doesn’t know what to do, but in his heart, he thinks he does.

He wraps his hand around Kinn’s waist under his suit jacket and he untucks his shirt. Those eyes flick up at him and then down and back again, Kinn leaving his neck to sniff Porsche’s hair, burying himself in it while Porsche slips his fingers under the shirt tail to his lower back, fingers scratching gently over his scales. Kinn’s lips part with a gasp, but it’s not enough. His dragon has him in a stronghold. Big watches them before he turns on his heel, “Turnaround.”

His order isn’t for Porsche or Kinn, but for the men under his command. Porsche hears the shuffle of feet but he doesn’t move his head, he lets Kinn scent him more as he continues to travel back down, mouth hovering over Porsche’s throat, breathing damp air onto his skin. Porsche doesn’t know if he’s about to be bitten again. He only knows that whatever it is, it can’t happen here.

“Kinn?” He asks. No response. Kinn licks at his mark, his tongue flat and wide, branding Porsche with a different kind of heat. Porsche clenches his fists as his body shudders. Something still isn’t right, it’s disjointed, wrong, and doesn’t make sense, “Dragon.”

Nose dragging along Porsche’s neck after his tongue, Kinn raises his head and Porsche slides his cheek against Kinn’s, his mouth almost next to his ear, for him and him alone he makes the request, “Come back to me.”

It feels foolish and naïve as if a single plea can bring Kinn back from the brink of whatever is happening to him, but Porsche doesn’t have anything else to give. Can’t ask with anything but his whole self. He smooths his fingers over Kinn’s scales, rubbing his skin softly against Kinn’s, and the smell, the twisted scent of burning fire and poison, recedes.

Kinn blinks, his eyes soft brown again and his face is slack with confusion for a moment as if he doesn’t quite know where he is. He turns to his right and sees Big’s back, but almost as if he knows, he says, “Khun Kinn.”

Kinn looks back at him and sees how close together they are, can feel where Porsche’s hand is. Porsche watches his face the entire time. It’s the face of someone trying to connect the dots. Big turns around and once again, firmly calls out for Kinn, “Khun, we need to return to the compound and give a debrief. This is grounds for—”

Kinn growls, “I know what it’s grounds for.”

Big stops, hands drawing in front of himself, clasped, head bowed, looking the picture of submissive compliance, “Yes, Khun.”

Porsche doesn’t care about any of that. He reaches up and cups Kinn’s cheek and he automatically tilts his face into it.

Is that what they meant when Kinn’s instinct was sick? That it wasn’t just burnt out?

“Kinn—” Porsche starts and there’s an almighty crash, and Yok yelps and it jolts Porsche back into his body abruptly. Here isn’t the place for that.

Kinn reaches out and squeezes Porsche’s hip in his hand before he turns back to the men in the room, “Clean up what you can, send in the surveyors and the contractors, and get me a quote to fix this mess up.”

Porsche watches as Kinn gets dragged back into the melee of organizing and Porsche feels left untethered, his instinct feeling like its strings had been cut.

I don’t— he thinks. In truth, he doesn’t know what he thinks.

His instinct looks solemn.

What just happened? He knows he is looking for an impossible answer because he doesn’t know but saying it out loud loosens the indescribable knot that has slowly twined itself in his chest.

***

Porsche averts his gaze from Yok when he turns to help her up. She’s too perceptive and he doesn’t have any answers. Porsche is an outgoing sort of person but even he could never have expected to put on such a public display of…intimacy. People don’t scent like that in public without a very good reason, leaking out their deepest self for all to see. Blessedly, she leaves him be, cupping his face to make sure that his eyes are normal as she always does. He doesn’t think his eyes are showing but he can’t be sure. He assumes the lack of reaction from Big leaves him in the clear.

Her face is filled with concern but he wraps her up in a hug and tells her, “It’ll be okay. It always is.”

Maybe he’s trying to speak it into existence for himself as well as her. Truthfully, he doesn’t know if her concern is about her bar, what happened in it, Kinn, or all of the above, so he assumes it’s all of it and keeps her in his arms until her body sags a little, the tension slipping out and she sighs.

“I always knew you were trouble,” This time when they part, she pats his cheek and offers him her hand to hold, which he does. He gives her his best megawatt smile because she’s right. She’s seen off more jealous boyfriends who found out about their girlfriend’s good time with Porsche than she can shake a stick at. Gunfire is just a different kind of trouble, one that he hates even more than the black eyes he has had to deal out to fools. Gunfire hurts people; people that Porsche cares about. And he was the one who brought it to Yok’s door. That’s guilt he isn’t going to be able to shift for a good while if ever.

Amongst it all, he checks in with himself, his instinct quiet in his stomach. Are you okay?

It trills unhappily, and Porsche gets it. He just doesn’t know what to do to ease it. Undeniably there’s something more going on here but it’s not something he can figure out on his own, and that’s without the added spice of being shot at while trying to have a nice date night. He settles for walking Yok back out from behind the bar. He makes sure to block her view with his chest, so she doesn’t have to see the body Kinn left, but she purposely hides her face in his shoulder anyway. He keeps her hand tucked in his when he sees Kinn looking at him out on the main floor, nothing but his normal self reflecting at Porsche.  

It doesn’t add up.

Porsche doesn’t expect him to march up to him and stops dead in front of him, his eyes glancing at Yok before he says softly, “Don’t ever do that again.”

Porsche stiffens and feels a spike of anger, letting it slip into his voice, “Do what? Save my friend? I wasn’t going to leave her—”

Kinn draws his eyebrows together and Porsche can’t quite read his expression, “No, you left me behind.”

His instinct perks up, nodding in agreement. Traitor.

Porsche doesn’t imagine that Kinn feels like he needed him to protect him when he has so many guards and an instinct of his own besides. He searches Kinn’s face and Kinn sighs. His cell rings and he shakes his head, clearly having to pick it up. Cleaning up a crime scene is a lot of work, Porsche is finding out, and Kinn apparently needs to be involved in every single conversation.

Yok tuts and Porsche looks at her as she pinches his side.

“Ow.”

“Are you tone-deaf?” She asks him.

“What?”

“You put me first.”

Porsche nods, not seeing the point, “You were in danger.”

“So was he.” Yok folds her arms. “So were you. And you took yourself away from him.”

Oh.

Yok watches the realization hit his face, “Hmm, yeah. That’s what having a significant other means, my darling. It’s no longer you. It’s us.”

Yok only ever calls him her darling when he’s particularly stupid to soften the blow. And he felt it. He felt his instinct tug through him when he went crashing into harm’s way.

“I’m never not going to come and save you. He will just have to deal with that,” he tells her, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. Yok’s place in his life is indescribable. She’s his safe haven when things turn to absolute shit so he owes her at least this much.

“I know. But you have to save him too. Because both your hearts will break a lot more if you don’t.”

It’s a simple thing, but he thinks hearing someone else say it makes it real in a way that thinking it in his head doesn’t. His priorities have shifted whether he acknowledges them or not. Whether his human instincts understand them or not. He needs to stop and think and factor Kinn into things now because his choices don’t only affect him. It takes some of the heat out of his irritation but doesn’t absolve it completely. Finding his mate doesn’t mean he forgot everyone and everything that came before.  

His instinct flaps its wings, annoyed by Porsche’s recalcitrance.

Porsche turns his attention back on Yok, smiling again, “Why are you so wise and still single?”

Yok gives him a look of mock offense, “Who said I was still single?” and gives his ass a little slap because she’s the only person Porsche will let chastise him.

“Ooh,” He teases and she shoves him. Telin, one of the other bartenders, comes in from the back entryway. She’s barely 5ft 4, pretty, with long dark hair braided down her back, but with a fury on her when people push her buttons. She’s lurking, hesitant of Kinn’s men busying themselves around, so Porsche walks Yok over to her.

“Hey, you okay?” He asks her and she nods, “We all hid in the stockroom, no one came back there. Are they—?”

Porsche looks back, “Yeah, they’re on our side.”

Yok falters because this happened, her bar is a state and she can’t say when it will all be fixed, so Porsche jumps in, “Go home, nothing’s going be fixed tonight. I’ll call you in the morning.”

Telin looks at the bodyguard closest to them, “Aren’t the cops—?”

Porsche shakes his head, “No.”

The tension ratchets up but Telin nods again, “Okay.”

She’s a smart girl. She knows when to ask questions and when not to. They all do.

“Yok, are you going to be okay getting home?” Telin asks. “You should come with me if you’re not going to go with Porsche.”

Yok looks up at him and he’s about to offer her to come with him when she takes up Telin’s offer, “Thanks, sweetie, that’ll be great.”

Porsche feels a little put out that Yok doesn’t want to come with him, the pair of them are more or less inseparable on the worst nights at Hum Bar where he makes drinks and Yok tells the most outrageous stories.

“You’ve got other priorities, remember?” Yok gives him one last hug, a big squeeze to let him know that she’s there but he needs to be somewhere else.

***

Somewhere in all of it, Kinn is still on the main floor but has lost his suit jacket, tucked his shirt back in, and rolled his shirt up his forearms. He is standing with his hands on his hips overseeing the bodies being carried out. There are stretchers and sheets to cover them; it’s a whole operation.

“How’s Yok?” He asks as Porsche approaches.

“Fine. Now you care?” It’s more than a little nasty, he knows, and it slipped out harsher than he intended, but he can’t help feeling like in one night Kinn came through and bombed everything he knows as normal and he’s supposed to just be okay with it because they’re mates. Yok doesn’t become unimportant because Kinn is important. He’s being petulant, he’s being a child, he knows all of it but he needs a way to let off this twisted energy that he’s got inside.

Maybe it’s worse because Kinn gives him a very soft and very sorry look like this is the last thing he wanted.

“Sorry. I’m not used to—” he tries to find the words, “all this.”

It’s not just the bodies. It’s them. He’s self-sufficient and always has been. Being collared for being insensitive isn’t something he’s used to because he hasn’t had to care.

“Give my men ten more minutes then we’ll be gone,” Kinn tells him quietly and his instinct riles up because it thinks that Kinn is going to go with them and leave them all alone.

“How do I do this?” Porsche blurts out without really thinking it through.

Kinn looks at him, clearly confused, “Do what?”

“We’re making space for each other, right?” Porsche licks his lips, “How do I make space, right now?”

That gets him a small smile and Kinn offers him his hand, “Hold my hand.”

Porsche looks down at the outstretched fingers and wide palm, “That’s it?”

“That’s it.” Kinn waggles his fingers, “Come on.”

Porsche takes Kinn’s hand and he feels embarrassed because his co-workers are filtering out behind them, guided by Kinn’s people and they can see him holding hands with another man but Kinn ignores all of them and laces their fingers together tighter when Porsche starts to try to pull away.

Porsche looks at Kinn’s face and it looks like there are things he wants to say too but can’t and so this is the halfway point, the middle ground.

“I’m sorry I was just a dick,” Porsche sighs, “Yok needed me and you didn’t. It made sense to go to her and I don’t feel bad about that.”

Kinn nods and makes a little noise that shows he heard Porsche, “I do need you though.”

He’s about to start when Kinn smiles again, “I need you safe and in my line of sight. Don’t be a hero, Porsche. They never live very long.”

‘I want you here for a long time’ hangs between both of them. Porsche supposes that’s the reality of Kinn’s life. Heroes and fools who think they’re doing the right thing only to find themselves at the bottom of a box.

He shakes his head, “I’m not a hero, never claimed to be. But if you’re family, like Chay and Yok, then those are the choices I’m going to make.”

It puts the ball in Kinn’s court because Porsche does get it. Being someone’s mate is asking them to watch their heart live outside their chest, the sum of everything their soul could ever desire walking around like it’s nothing, an irreplaceable puzzle piece that can never be remade. But Porsche can’t give up his family. He won’t. So, he extends the invite if Kinn wants to take it up.

Kinn looks from side to side, everyone is busy and not paying attention to them, so he leans in and kisses Porsche on the mouth. It’s quick, easy, and comfortable, catching Porsche’s top lip between his, exactly like when Kinn had him bundled up in his duvet after the night they first had sex. It’s couple-y. Like, ‘hi, honey’, ‘bye sweetie’, or in this case, ‘I’m sorry, baby’.

How are you so good at this when I’m so bad at it? Porsche thinks when Kinn lets a bit of space between their lips, pulling away but still within reach so Porsche chases him and kisses him back. He’s not trying to deepen the kiss or turn it into something it’s not, he just wants to return the feeling that Kinn gave to him.

His instinct puffs up and leaks its color out on his skin, so when Porsche feels the trickle of it, he startles and pulls away from Kinn, grabbing his left wrist with his right hand. Kinn follows him and he sees the color seeping its way up his neck.

“Are you okay?” Kinn asks, turning around to pick up his jacket which he puts around Porsche’s shoulders, high up so his neck is covered by the stiff collar.

What are you doing? He asks it and it folds its wings up and tilts its head. You can’t…we’re in public. People can see.

He’s ours. He needs to know we’re his.

Porsche feels a little blindsided. He knows we’re his. He marked us. Twice.

He guesses he’s not the only one feeling petulant. Are you upset because I pulled you away?

He needs us.

He has us. That… He tries to find a way to explain it that his instinct can understand. You know how it felt when he was like that.

His instinct blinks at him, what felt like?

Porsche stills, Kinn is looking at him, hand coming up to cup his forearm as it’s clear he’s lost in his thoughts.

You couldn’t smell what was wrong with Kinn?

His instinct makes a sound, almost as if he offended it with the suggestion that it didn’t know what was going on, but the ego gives way because it droops.

That doesn’t seem possible. His instinct is him. Kinn’s instinct is him. They are each the same. There are no differences between them.

What could you smell? Feel?

His phoenix hops and nudges at his breastbone. Pain. Hurt. Loneliness.

Porsche didn’t get any of that nor did it pass through his instinct to him. He blinks and Kinn is still waiting for him, face soft and not a hint of anything that his instinct said. His face is also clear of the horrid wrongness that Porsche felt when Kinn approached him, eyes like slits that said mate but what if.

He crosses it out in his mind.

It’s Kinn. He knows it’s Kinn. He wants it to be Kinn.

Kinn frowns because something shows on his face and he ignores the protest Porsche gives when he pulls him in for a hug, squeezing him in tight, tighter than Yok would ever be capable of.

“Why—” his mouth is muffled against Kinn’s shoulder.

“You looked scared.”

Maybe he is scared. All he has to do is shift his face a little to the right and he can bury himself in that so right smell of the ocean’s edge, salty and fresh. But he doesn’t. It doesn’t feel right to. Like he’s trying to find a fault or a flaw or a lack thereof in Kinn rather than letting him hold him and take away the feeling he couldn’t shake earlier.

A big warm palm cups the back of his head, gentling over his hair and he can’t remember the last time someone comforted him like this. Kinn is murmuring ‘easy’ to him, to his instinct, to soothe the discord he thinks he can see on his skin. It makes the chasm of what happened so much wider.

He lifts his head, “Kinn—”

Big interrupts them, “Khun Kinn, everything is taken care of for now, time to move back to the compound for your safety. Both of your safety.”

Kinn holds his jacket up on Porsche with his fingers now pinching the lapels together so that it doesn’t slip down when he stands properly, “Porsche, I’d prefer if you came to the compound. At least for tonight.”

So, I know you’re safe.

Porsche searches gentle brown eyes for the glitter of gold but there isn’t a speck. Porsche has seen Kinn’s eyes without gold more times than with but now it feels more meaningful. More like there’s something he’s lost, and he doesn’t know what to do with that.  

“I need to be at home for Chay, remember?” Porsche steps out of their shared space and offers Kinn back his jacket, his instinct already receding, “If he agrees, we’ll come by.”

His instinct, silent up until this point, goes berserk because it doesn’t want to be parted.

Kinn looks like he’s swallowed a bee but he doesn’t push and Porsche knows that’s a lot, given the circumstances.

“Give us a minute,” Kinn tells Big and he bows, sparing a glance for Porsche before he leaves.

“Kinn—” Porsche starts when Kinn shushes him.

“I should say take the time you need, but I don’t want to.”

Kinn brushes his hands over Porsche’s shoulders and leans in for another kiss, and Porsche’s brain short circuits because this time it’s deeper. Kinn curls his tongue teasingly at the seam of his mouth and Porsche can’t help but open up under such focused attention. He moans quietly and slides his arms around Kinn’s neck while Kinn supports him with hands on his ribs, sliding down to his waist and then hips. Focus, he tells himself, but Kinn drops every single thought out of his head, one by one, until he’s nothing but a needy ragdoll, easily molded to Kinn’s whims. Kinn is the one who takes a step back, kissing Porsche’s forehead.

“Call me and let me know you’re safe. And let them stand guard for the night,” are the only requests Kinn makes before he has three of his men circle Porsche and offer to drive him home.

He knows that this isn’t what Kinn wants, and it isn’t what he wants, not really, but he still finds himself walking on his own two legs away from him. He stumbles and no one catches him, his chest feeling like an open maw. The confusion that’s running rampant in his brain is sending him into a tailspin he can’t get out of.

“Kinn, come over.” He calls out.

Kinn looks at him with raised eyebrows. It was a line he set, no coming over until Kinn and Chay met officially, but like every other line Porsche has attempted to draw, Kinn blows right past them. It’s not going to fix the gnawing feeling of uncertainty in Porsche’s gut, he knows that, but if Kinn’s there where Porsche can see him then he can at least try to figure out the meaning behind it all.

“Are you sure?” Kinn offers him an out; of course, he does.

His instinct flaps happily when Kinn nods and calls Big over to set up the particulars. Porsche holds himself tight and coiled until Kinn comes over to where he’s standing and when Porsche takes his hand this time, his eyes are glinting gold.

Kinn smiles, “Let’s go home.”

Chapter Text

Sitting in the car with Kinn on the way to his house feels complicated. Porsche can see the tiredness around Kinn’s eyes as he stares ahead to keep himself awake, his fingers either consciously or unconsciously digging into his palm. Big frets from the front of the car, flitting back to look at Kinn until Kinn turns up the divider between them, leaving him and Porsche in solitude.

“Kinn.”

He doesn’t say anything but Kinn sighs. Part of him hoped that Kinn wasn’t going to know what he was going to say but it doesn’t stop him: “Your instinct.”

“Porsche.”

His tone is tired, like even acknowledging it drags the air from his lungs and leaves him sighing out his last.

“No,” Porsche presses. Kinn looks at him and he’s still Kinn, with soft, kind eyes but there’s a steeliness in them that he’s never shown Porsche, not even when he got down on his knees that first night and got into his face. As much as he wants to ignore the elephant in the room and pretend everything is sweet and good, “I can’t—”

He doesn’t know how to phrase it and Kinn’s face gets a pinched look when he replies, “You can’t what?”

Porsche bristles again, he takes a deep breath and tries to calm down again. Be better. His instinct nudges him in solidarity and support.

“Is this what it’s going to be? One minute we’re fine and the next we’re constantly snipping and sniping at each other?” He feels defeated. He wants them to be home and safe in his bed, Chay down the hall where Porsche can hear his tiptoeing footsteps when he goes to pee in the night. “A pair of oversensitive assholes who can’t get their shit together?”

Kinn rubs his eyes and sighs again, “No, Porsche. That’s not—”

“Well, here we are,” Porsche rubs his palms against his thighs and turns his eye line to out the window as Bangkok slips past and he gets closer to the streets he knows better than the lines on his hands. “I can’t shake the feeling that I didn’t know who you were.”

His voice is quiet and he doesn’t really feel like he even says the words but Kinn falls silent, so he knows he did.

“You could have been possessed for all I knew.”

He doesn’t think that’s a thing, it wasn’t in any of the books he read as a teenager, but he knows there are a lot of things he doesn’t know.

“Porsche, I wasn’t possessed,” Kinn tells him to reassure him but he’s pretty sure it does nothing because the feeling in his stomach doesn’t ease.

But you were something. Something Porsche didn’t even know was a thing until tonight.

“Do you know what it was like? Smelling that stench coming off you?” Porsche coils his hands tight against his palms to control himself, to keep the feelings he felt then at bay. “You smelt like you weren’t mine.”

Kinn recoils like he’s been slapped and Porsche might as well have. He watches as the wound he’s dealt Kinn bleeds down into the chill that seems to tinge the air. He’s read that certain instincts can smell other instincts, like five-alarm fire detection, some can smell their family members, and others can only smell their one, their match pair, and that’s how they know. Porsche didn’t realize he had been missing the smell of sun and ocean water until it was taken from him.

“For a second, I questioned us and shook it off because you’re mine.”

It hurts in a way that Porsche can’t even really comprehend, to have and then to have it taken away. To see Kinn, to be able to reach out and touch him but nothing inside himself attached to the instinct that he knows matches his own. He wants Kinn to at least know that, Porsche has claimed him as his own, no matter what.

“If we’re going to do this, we need to fix whatever’s broken.”

Kinn seemingly lets all of Porsche’s words wash over him before he reaches out, his hand cupping the front of Porsche’s throat and his eyes are dark, and in this light, Porsche can’t see how dark. Kinn’s fingers shake him, not hard, but Porsche feels the weak fight in them. Kinn and his instinct are posturing – how dare Porsche say those things to him – but Porsche isn’t afraid, he isn’t bothered. He knows he’s picking at a scab, one that Kinn has warned him off more than once.

“You don’t know what you’re saying,” Kinn whispers, and Porsche cups a hand around Kinn’s wrist. “Nothing’s broken.”

“You don’t believe that.” Porsche hedges a guess.

“And if it can’t be fixed?” Kinn’s fingers loosen and Porsche takes hold of his hand and drops it into his own lap. “Are you going to leave?”

He can’t. Neither of them can. They chose each other and chose to acknowledge the connection between the two of them. That isn’t to say they couldn’t make each other extremely unhappy because they could. But Porsche knows, deep inside, that they’re good together. They could be amazing.

“No, I’m not going to leave,” Porsche tells him, his voice loud in comparison to Kinn’s, “But do you think we can do this, lying to each other?”

“Maybe it’s kinder that way.”

“Maybe you think that’s true.” Porsche counters. “Did you ever think that maybe meeting me would make things better?”

The car slows to a stop and the moment is broken. Kinn retracts and Porsche doesn’t push. He fishes out his keys from his pocket as someone swings his car door open to let him out. Kinn starts giving orders and Porsche lets him, opening his front gate and unlocking his front door.

He leaves it open as he turns back for Kinn who is still standing at the end of the path, “Come on.”

Kinn hesitates and Porsche cocks his head, “Kinn, let’s go.”

It’s a command that he follows wordlessly, his men stay stationed outside of the perimeter of Porsche’s house as Kinn walks up and stops in front of him.

“We don’t have to talk about it tonight,” Porsche tells him, “But we’re not done with this. Not by a long shot.”

Kinn ducks his head and kisses him, lips captured under lips, and he softens under Kinn, feels sympathy for him as he cups Porsche’s face and threatens to steal all his thoughts again. He pushes gently at Kinn’s chest to force them to part, “Inside. We’re letting the bugs in.”

He drops his keys into the dish, flicking on the lights, the upstairs hall light is on but that doesn’t mean Chay is awake but Porsche knows he’ll come down if he is.

He heads into the kitchen and pulls himself out a beer and when he turns to Kinn who has trailed in after him, he tilts the bottle towards him and Kinn shakes his head, looking lost in the doorway.

“You can sit, snoop, whatever.” Porsche isn’t fussy. He figures that is what a new relationship is all about. He did a cursory search for photos in Kinn’s room and found no more than a couple and they didn’t remotely tell a story of his life. Porsche’s house is full of pictures and he can tell each story by heart. And yet, he doesn’t find Kinn’s lack odd. Instead, he feels like it represents what he knows about Kinn: private and shielding. Regardless, Kinn doesn’t move. He just stands there like a ghost.

“Kinn?”

“Was it so terrible?” Kinn asks him when Porsche comes up to stand in front of him.

“You weren’t you,” Porsche tells him. He wasn’t the man Porsche had come to know or even the black-scaled dragon of his dreams; he was twisted, unrecognizable, a hint of a beast Porsche wasn’t sure he could stand.

Porsche touches his face, fingers sloping over his brow bone and cheek. Kinn looks pretty with how the light bounces off his face but he’s solemn in a way Porsche has never known him to be and it reminds him how little they know about each other. But what he does know is that Kinn’s lips part on reflex when Porsche lets his thumb drag over them and he tips his head up when Porsche cups his throat as Kinn did to him. His bite is getting silvery with healing and Porsche fights the itching in his teeth to sink into him again. His own instinct rises up and beats its wings at Porsche’s refusal. He might want to, but it isn’t necessary. Still, he kisses it softly and rubs his nose on it and Kinn holds onto his shoulder, neither pulling nor pushing him.

“What can I give you, Kinn? What will make this better?” Porsche knows better than anyone how and why secrets are kept, and Kinn respected his decision so returning that respect is the very least he can do. Still, it doesn’t make it hurt less to watch him struggle with whether he can tell Porsche, whether he should stride confidently into Porsche’s home because it’s now his home too. He can always come here and find a place to stay. “Let me help you.”

Kinn breathes against his mouth and Porsche denies him, doesn’t let him steal kisses instead of giving words. He draws back just enough to let Kinn know he isn’t pulling away from him, but that he expects something. A bone, a tidbit, something that tells him that Kinn will come around eventually. He also isn’t above being underhanded when the occasion calls for it. He sneaks his hand back under Kinn’s suit jacket and rubs his shirt against his scales and watches as Kinn’s eyes flutter closed, face tipped up still like a cat sunning itself on a rock.

“Feels good,” Kinn murmurs so Porsche scoots closer and slips his other hand under and untucks his shirt again, fingernails light against the grain of his scales before smoothing them back over when Kinn drops his head down onto Porsche’s shoulder.

Kinn stays there and lets Porsche push his jacket off, crumpling on the kitchen floor, lets Porsche unbutton his shirt with nimble fingers so that he can push it open and get his hands up to the scales on the tops of his shoulder blades and stroke them with the same gentleness. Porsche can feel the tension slip out of Kinn’s body and if he was that sun cat he’d be purring when, in reality, he’s snuffling happily against Porsche’s shirt.

Porsche realizes their position is precarious, there’s nothing sexual in his intent but Kinn is exposed in the kitchen and Chay could come down for a glass of water at any minute.

“Let’s go to my room,” Porsche mutters into Kinn’s hair as he slowly pulls himself up, eyes glassy and unfocused. He lets Porsche take him by the hand, jacket scooped up, and lead him upstairs to his room at the end of the hall.

He leaves Kinn by the closed door and turns on the lamp next to his bed before he comes back to slip his arms back around Kinn’s waist. Kinn rubs his cheek against his and his hands come up to hold Porsche’s cheeks.

There’s a long moment where Kinn just looks at him. Looks into his eyes, looks at his cheeks, looks at his mouth, steadily studying Porsche in the dimmer light.

“It started around the time I lost my mother,” Kinn tells him quietly as he lets Porsche undo his belt and slip down his pants. Porsche leaves his socks in case he gets cold but he guides him to sit on the bed while he quickly shuffles off the rest of Kinn’s and his own clothes. “We were very close because we both had dragon instincts.”

It’s not rare for family members to have similar or the same instinct but Porsche wracks his brains to all the things he’s read and all he really remembers is that dragons aren’t known to be a mating breed.

“She would tell me stories she had read about dragons and how they were innately kind and loving instincts. Their intent was to hold, not to hurt.”

Porsche pushes the blanket down and Kinn shuffles up under it automatically and makes room for Porsche to get in beside him.

“I think she didn’t want me to be afraid.”

“How old were you?” The ‘when she died’ is silent but they both understand it.

“15. I was going through puberty and second puberty and something changed.” Kinn frowns, the space between his brows scrunching up as he tilts his head, “I don’t—I don’t quite remember when but my instinct stopped listening to me. It grew angry and resented how I lived my life.”

Porsche strokes Kinn’s arm as he talks because this is something beyond him. He’s crossed words with his instinct and ruffled its feathers more than once, but it never turned from him.

“Suddenly everything I did was wrong,” Kinn’s eyes look shadowed and Porsche wishes more than anything he could take that away, “And then it started to burn.”

Kinn looks down and won’t meet Porsche’s eyes, but he still tries to catch him, “Then what?”

“I found a way to appease it.”

Porsche doesn’t push but Kinn sighs and lays on his back, with Porsche still lying on his side, leaning on his elbow.

“It was never enough. It ripped into me over and over, demanding more and more, until I stopped.”

“You stopped giving it what it wanted?”

“No, I stopped being present. I let it take over and I slipped back.”

What he’s saying takes a moment to penetrate Porsche’s brain because what he’s suggesting is that he has an inversion. Porsche knows the term; they get taught that much in school and it’s always a big to-do on the news when it happens. It’s when a person’s instinct becomes the dominant being, personality, almost. It’s incredibly rare and it’s normally a precursor to the loss of the human soul. To the eventual death of both halves. Part of him panics because that’s too serious, too dangerous for Kinn to be sitting here talking to him about it, he needs to be in a hospital with doctors and he remembers what the file said: Kinn was refusing treatment.

He doesn’t know how you treat an inversion. He doesn’t even know if you can. But it sits in the pit of his stomach and Kinn keeps talking in that soft voice of his and Porsche feels useless.

“It takes its fill and I…let it.”

Porsche sits up and Kinn folds his arm under his head, “But it doesn’t like the heat. Why would it generate so much?”

He feels his face go red, “Chan. He showed me a file.”

“I never understood it either. I suppose when you put you and me together it makes perfect sense.”

A dragon who can give a phoenix fire.

“But it hurts you.” Porsche never wants Kinn to hurt himself for him. To hear that his mate’s instinct turns itself inside out for him, hurting them both, it churns in his belly and makes him feel nauseous.

“Pain tells you that it’s happening,” Kinn says it so matter-of-factly that Porsche wants to shake him. Pain is never the baseline, or it shouldn’t be, and he’s guilty of it too, setting his life to it like clockwork.

Maybe it’s time for both of them to stop.

“It’s making you into something you’re not.”

Kinn pulls on Porsche’s arm to get him to lie back down, “I’ve been this way for a long time and I expect that I’ll always be this way.”

How can he accept living his life as an inversion, in a constant state of war, and call that happiness?

“That’s not a reason.”

“It’s mine.”

“Kinn.”

“Porsche, you wanted to know and now you know.”

It’s something he can know but never fix. His instinct curls up inside his chest, around his heart, and he can’t help but feel hollowed out. His mate is in a losing battle of wills with the dragon inside his chest.

He could lose him.

Maybe it shows on his face because Kinn tugs him down onto the bed and makes him lie along his side, big warm palm lying on Porsche’s breastbone, stroking his skin as if he can reach inside him and touch his instinct at his core.

“It’s better. Since I met you.” Kinn watches his own thumb rub Porsche’s skin, mesmerized by the back and forth of it. “Quieter. Happier.”

Porsche leans over and kisses Kinn’s forehead, trying to impart his apologies and this squiggly feeling in his chest that he can’t articulate. Kinn’s eyes are soft as he gets sleepy and Porsche slides over his arm and strokes his face again, smoothing out the lines and creases as he falls asleep. When he does, Porsche tucks his hand under his arm and pulls Kinn towards him, who goes immediately, trusting and soft in his dreams, and his face slips into the curve of Porsche’s neck and Porsche lays there for a moment, letting Kinn breathe into his throat.

He tucks them up under his thin blanket, making sure Kinn is covered up to his shoulders, and he buries his nose in Kinn’s hair and stays like that for a good long while listening to Kinn breathe and reassuring himself that he’s there before sleep comes for Porsche too.

***

It doesn’t surprise him that he finds himself in the meadow with Kinn’s instinct in his dreams, but he’s alone. His instinct isn’t with him; it’s chirruping in the distance, getting louder and louder.

The dragon looks at him with melancholy eyes and Porsche pities it. Its inverted scale glistens in the light as it bares its throat to him.

Porsche walks up to it and gently places his hand on its head, feeling the warmth and heat against his skin, “Why, hmm?”

Why do you have to hurt Kinn this way?

Porsche frowns when he pulls his hand away and it’s covered in what looks like black sludge. It drops its head to its forelocks and Porsche tries to rub it off on his jeans but it won’t come off.

What the…?

Porsche can see how the sludge has smeared on Kinn’s instinct’s muzzle, blurring its scales above its snout. He looks around, there isn’t anything he can use to clean it off other than his t-shirt so he strips it off and wipes at its scales but the thick viscous fluid refuses to come off. It simply dirties Porsche’s shirt until all he can do is drop it down and wipe it with his hands again before giving up.

There are globs and drips everywhere when his instinct finally comes to rest on his shoulder, panicked and flapping its wings.

“Hey, hey,” He calls to it, “Calm down.”

His instinct pecks at him until he has to nudge it off, talons having gouged his shoulder, “Ow, that hurts.”

It doesn’t stop its insistence, hopping at Porsche’s feet, scraping at his shoes with its talons.

“What is going on with you?” He almost yells and he realizes that it’s pouring its fear and anxiety back into him. He struggles to disentangle his feelings from his phoenix’s.

He lets Kinn’s instinct’s head down gently from his palm before he kneels down for his instinct as it tilts its head, beak pinned closed. He looks at it and then at the sorrowful dragon, “Do you know what this is?”

He gestures to his hands, covered in black slime.

Water.

Porsche blinks, “Water? It’s definitely not water.”

He tries to unstick his fingers and he’s sure it isn’t water when it clicks – he needs water to remove it.

His one lucid dreaming trick where he can magic up a bucket of water isn’t going to cut it this time. He walks around to the dragon’s belly and starts to push at what he thinks are its ribs.

He sticks to it again but pushes through, “Come on, let’s go.”

It huffs and spits smoke from its nostrils and remains laying down.

Porsche pushes again and it flicks its tail softly at him, “Hey. Move it or lose it.”

It takes what feels like an age for the big shuddering beast to stand on its four legs and ripple out its kinks. Porsche feels dwarfed by its size but it stands still, head turned to watch Porsche as he starts to walk the way his instinct came.

It doesn’t move.

Porsche sighs, “I’m not above finding a piece of tree vine and dragging you off, y’know.”

There’s a tense moment where it stares at him before it makes slow progress, one thunderous step at a time. He starts to walk slowly but he stumbles when its big snout pushes into his back and knocks him forward onto his knees.

“Jeez.” Porsche dusts off his hands and it breathes funnily behind him and he narrows his eyes before he spins back around.

If he didn’t know any better, he’d say it was snickering.

“Listen, You.”  

It clearly doesn’t like being called you. Those tuffs and tendrils become billowy pillars of smoke. Porsche stands his ground, “Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.”

It understands nothing he says. Or it knows too much and is making a fool out of him.

“Cut it out, Dragon, we’re on the same side. Cool?” He asks and it blinks its golden eyes at him. It nudges him again, nose pressing into his belly. Porsche wants to stroke its brow but even though he can’t see it there, he knows that tacky goop is all over it.

Fuck it.

Porsche gets onto his knees and puts his forehead down onto the dragon’s nose. The feeling of the thing coating it makes him feel squirmy and like he wants to take a shower but it keeps breathing, slow inhale and exhale, happy to just be.

“What happened to you, huh?” Porsche rubs under its jaw, “What got you twisted up like this?”

How can this animal cause so much pain and anguish? He doesn’t know.

It doesn’t feel like something that would create an inversion. The news tells them that they are the most inhuman of instincts, the rebels and the murderers that gut, gouge, and slice to be proclaimed the victor in the war between human and instinct. They are buried in unmarked graves because of their behaviors.

They are also born to die. A human may live without an instinct but an instinct cannot live without a human. Not forever.

Porsche expects anger and rage and pain, but the instinct in front of him is powerful, yes, but he can feel its tiredness, its loss of will. He doesn’t imagine an inversion would linger in sickness but Porsche can feel it rolling off the dragon in waves.

“I guess that means you can be saved,” Porsche pats its scaly cheek as he stands up again, its head coming up with him. “All you’ve got is a bartender and a bird brain, but it’ll have to do.”

His own instinct squawks unhappily.

Check a mirror, buddy.

He’s about to lead the way again when his body feels syrupy and slow, falling backward until he doesn’t hit the ground but wakes up in his bed, staring at his ceiling.

Porsche realizes with a jolt that he hasn’t woken up naturally, Kinn is twitching and whimpering in his sleep. Porsche cups his face, turning it towards him, “Hey, Kinn, wake up. It’s just a dream.”

Kinn’s hand immediately wraps around his wrist so tightly that it threatens to break the delicate bones there, “Kinn, ow, stop it.”

His words have no effect so he bites the inside of Kinn’s wrist and Kinn drops his wrist immediately, his eyes flying open. He jerks away from Porsche who holds his hands up, “Whoa.”

Kinn stares at him and his brain seems to boot up as he slowly relaxes back into the bed, “Porsche.”

“Yeah.” Porsche reaches out and brushes Kinn’s hair back and Kinn dips momentarily before he lets Porsche run his fingers through his hair, “Bad dream?”

Kinn’s eyes are still a little wild, but he nuzzles Porsche’s wrist, kissing the ensuing redness in apology, “Mmm.”

“S’okay, you’re safe now.”

Kinn wraps his arms around Porsche’s waist and he lets his head drop onto Porsche’s shoulder and Porsche kisses the top of his head, “Wanna talk about it?”

A little shake no and he leaves it be. He doesn’t pretend to understand the connection between seeing Kinn’s dragon in his dream and waking up to Kinn thrashing about. He realizes that they can’t keep going on a hope and a prayer. Whatever is going on with them, with Kinn, is much bigger than either one of them, despite Kinn’s rejection of it.

His instinct wraps its wings around his heart again, the wave of fear alight in both of them. Would the universe really give him a mate to take him away again? Porsche isn’t new to grief; he lost his parents young but he always rationalized it as he was destined to lose them and to be grateful for the time he had with them. Kinn, his mate, is supposed to be with him for a lifetime if he’s lucky. Porsche feels like he doesn’t even know him yet and he’s already being taken away.

“Stop thinking,” Kinn mutters and pats Porsche’s stomach. “S’what you said to me.”

Porsche frowns, he doesn’t think he’s ever said that but he holds Kinn’s hand to him, “I’m not thinking.”

“Stop worrying,” Kinn kisses his shoulder and nuzzles him. “M’not going anywhere.”

Kinn’s sleepy slurring is cute and Porsche tells him so.

“Kinn.”

He hums and Porsche brushes back his hair off his forehead, “Nothing.”

Kinn makes a non-committal noise before he slowly drifts back off to sleep. Porsche and his instinct sit with their feelings, resolution and sleep further and further away.

Please don’t take him away.

He had begged and bargained a lot after his parents died; anything he could think of that meant they’d be here even if he wasn’t. When his prayers, his torn-out cries weren’t answered, he stopped asking. Stopped expecting the universe to care about him. Stopped believing that it gave a damn about him. Years of going it alone are turned over in moments for the man in his arms.

He doesn’t know why he didn’t realize it before now but he feels his heart swell up when he realizes he’s falling in love with Kinn. It isn’t a hypothetical, it’s a fact. He’s looking for ways to keep him here because he wants him here, not just the tug from inside his chest and bones.

His instinct rubs its feathered cheek against his ribs and his eyes well up. Fuck.

Ours, it whispers.

His heart pitty-pats, ours.

Everything relaxes with that admission and his keyed-up tension slips away and he wriggles further into the sheets, trying not to disturb Kinn, as he lets sleep wash over him again. He’s falling in love and it is equal parts terrifying and humbling. Regardless, he lets it fill him up as he blessedly falls into a dreamless sleep.

***

Porsche is quiet the next morning and Kinn tries not to find it awkward after his admission last night. His deep dark secret is out for the world, his world, to see. He’s lived like this for so long that he no longer thinks about it as anything other than normal, but it was a cruel reminder to see Porsche’s face drop when he realized what Kinn was. His fear was rightly so and it punched Kinn in the gut to see his mate, his glorious, color-stained phoenix, and know how lacking he was in comparison. That if given the choice, Porsche probably wouldn’t choose him. No one would choose someone with the prospect of losing themselves and dying in the process.

His instinct blinks at him, nothing to say for itself. And what he said was true. They have gotten along much better since he met Porsche. Porsche for them was the uniting factor because they both want him, they both need him. He’s tried to not look too deeply into it because he’s afraid that if he does, everything will come rushing back up as it was; all of the pain, all of the disgust and shame he used to feel about needing to fuck a parade of different men. That if he examines too deeply, he’ll look back at the boy he used to be when his mother was alive and see how unrecognizable he’s become and that she would be ashamed of him. She wanted so deeply for him to be loved and taken care of despite his instinct, to know the same love and joy she had felt. How poor he would look to her as a mate for Porsche. Everything she did to raise him and it was for naught.

Despite that, it feels like a weight has been lifted to tell Porsche. Even if he curses at him and renounces him, he sees Kinn for who, and what, he is. His, in all of his broken parts.

He’s sitting at the end of the bed when Porsche comes back into the room with a cup of coffee and kisses his forehead, “Drink this. Chay is getting ready for school if you want to say hi.”

Rumpled in sweats and a creased t-shirt, Porsche looks comfortable and at home. Of course, he does, it’s his house, but he’s acting like Kinn, in his wrinkled clothes from last night, fits right in too.

He feels a lump start in his throat, weirdly emotional, and Porsche kneels in front of him after he’s taken the coffee cup and he looks down at the floor to avoid showing his increasingly wet eyes.

“We’re going to have dinner later, the three of us, so don’t feel like you have to right now,” Porsche squeezes his knees and tries to get him to look at him.

It’s acceptance he doesn’t deserve. It’s hope he doesn’t want to fill up more space inside his chest. If Porsche is going to leave him, better if it is now. His instinct sits curled under his sternum again, nose pressed to the bone, always trying to be as close as possible to Porsche. He feels like the entirety of himself is yearning and wanting to be seen.

He doesn’t know how Porsche reads him like an open book but he rocks himself onto the back of his ankles before standing, leaning down, hand resting on Kinn’s thigh before he kisses the center of his chest then his mouth, “Drink the coffee, hmm?”

He catches Porsche’s wrist and he looks at him, transparent and big brown eyes open and expressive. Porsche takes back the coffee cup and sets it down on the floor before he folds himself up in Kinn’s lap, arms loose over his shoulders. Kinn watches as he hovers his lips over his, nose rubbing against his and creating this quiet bubble that’s just the two of them.

Kinn wraps his hands around Porsche’s slim hips, grounding himself with strong bones under his palms.

“Let’s just get through today,” Porsche tells him, his breath a puff of air over him, “Today, tomorrow, day by day.”

They both keep setting this rule: just them, just this, just be, when all Kinn wants is all of him. Not for a day, not for a night, for all the days of both of their lives. His dragon loosens itself up, flexes, and stretches with acknowledgment, ours.

His hands slide up and band around Porsche’s back as he pulls him in tight and kisses him, Porsche immediately kisses him back, hands automatically cupping his face. They trade like that for a little while, Porsche letting Kinn sweep inside his mouth, accepting his anxiety and tension and reflecting it with sweet returns, sucking on his tongue and nipping at his lips. It’s easy to be like this with him, harder to pull away, which they do when the bathroom door slams loudly and an accompanying, “Sorry!” gets yelled after it.

“He’ll take it off its hinges one day,” Porsche mutters to himself and Kinn rubs the small of his back under his t-shirt, nudging at his mark on Porsche’s neck. “Coffee, then eat.”

Kinn hums his agreement, “Okay.”

Porsche unfolds himself from Kinn and he feels the loss of the weight and warmth of him, leaning down to pick up his coffee as Porsche disappears out of the bedroom.

His phone buzzes and it’s a short message: your father is waiting for you.

Kinn can’t deny that a different kind of weight settles back on him and he stands up, slipping his phone into his pocket, to tell Porsche that breakfast may have to wait.

Chapter Text

Porsche takes it in his stride that Kinn has to leave. He’s in the kitchen buttering toast and he looks back at Kinn before he puts down his knife and takes the used coffee cup before depositing it in the sink. Kinn can’t stop the overwhelming affection that crashes over him when he sees Porsche fully in his element, sure and adept. It’s almost like he never said what he said. Or maybe it just doesn’t matter like he thought it would.

Kinn watches as Porsche’s brother rushes to grab his bag, looks up, stops, sees Kinn, and then clasps both his hands before bowing in greeting. He’s not as tall as Porsche, but he has that same thick mop of hair and gentle brown eyes.

Kinn nods back to him, “I’m—”

“P’Kinn, Hia told me.”

Kinn watches an embarrassed flush creep up on his skin as he catches himself cutting Kinn off. He realizes that he has that same vibrant energy that Porsche has, just channeled in a very different way.

“And you’re Porchay.” He moves aside so that Chay can take the toast that Porsche was buttering.

He ducks his head, clearly glad that he hasn’t offended Kinn, but when he straightens up, his eyes take Kinn in, appraising him from top to bottom, likely judging him against whatever he thinks to be worthy of his brother. Kinn refuses to stand down because he knows if he doesn’t make good in Chay’s eyes, Porsche won’t be happy. He’s already seen once the importance of family to Porsche.

He wonders if Porsche has seen this side of his brother, how he meets Kinn’s eyes and doesn’t miss a beat. He isn’t putting any of his own strength into it and even then, more than a couple of people have flinched from his gaze. But still, Chay stays steadfast. As it is, his instinct feels pricked as if Chay is staring at it through Kinn and it unfurls itself, scratching Kinn’s insides as it stands. He feels the tingle of his eyes turning and he sees when Chay sees them, then another, almost subconscious nod before he says to Kinn, “Will you stay for breakfast, P’Kinn?”

Chay looks down to his pocket as he digs out his cell.

Kinn shakes his head, “No, I need to see my father this morning.”

Target acquired, Chay holds it as he looks back up to Kinn, “But you’ll come for dinner like Hia said?”

On the face of it, it’s polite, but Kinn is both a younger and an older brother, he knows his trial isn’t over yet, Chay has questions and it’s his job to answer.

“I will, and I’ll try not to be late.” Kinn smiles and Chay relaxes a little and smiles back at him.

“Good, because Hia makes really good spaghetti.”

“I look forward to it, Porsche’s sundubu was great.”

That wins him points, he can see. Chay lights up when he mentions Porsche cooked for him. He figures out pretty quickly that this must be one of the ways Porsche shows care for those he loves. He can’t help his own warm blush that he hopes doesn’t reach his face when he realizes that Porsche had taken the time to feed him and show care to him and what that means.

“Hia’s jjigae is also really good. He learned from the Korean auntie who has a restaurant not far from here.”

That surprises and doesn’t surprise him, “He did?”

Chay hums affirmatively, “Any time he finds something he can’t do but wants to, he always asks to be taught.”

“He’s a smart guy,” Kinn looks over at Porsche who is watching them but trying not to watch them, his hands making busy work with the toast. He knows from his file that Porsche had to give up formal education early on, but he’s smart. More than that, he’s someone who strives to learn wherever he can.

He says it so absently that he isn’t expecting the look of approval on Chay’s face when he looks back at him.

“Chay, come on, you need to eat and go,” Porsche chides and Chay kicks into gear and walks past Kinn into the kitchen.

When Chay passes him, his scent tickles Kinn’s nose. It’s honeyed like Porsche but none of his brother’s smoky accords, but instead the crisp scent of fresh cut roses. It’s not a smell he knows or knows what to liken it to. He wonders if Chay is like Porsche, a phoenix with colored wings. He’s also young, young enough that he may not have presented yet, a late bloomer, and that’s why Kinn doesn’t know. His scent isn’t stable enough to be defined and he isn’t going to ruffle Porsche’s feathers to ask. However, what he does notice is that his instinct, which had raised its head in warning at being grilled, has deemed Chay to be good, not a threat, and family and is summarily disinterested.

Chay grabs his toast, ducks Porsche trying to ruffle his hair and smoothly picks up his glass of orange juice from the side in one swoop. He gulps it down and hands the glass to Porsche before biting into the bread.

He talks with his mouth full, “See you later, Hia, P’Kinn.”

Hands clasped again, Chay comes back for his bag past Kinn and heads out the door.

“He’s a tornado in the mornings, never gets up early enough,” Porsche laughs and digs out another piece of toast and Kinn can’t help but find himself walking up and lining himself against Porsche’s back and wrapping his arms around his waist as Porsche butters another slice. Porsche leans his head against Kinn’s where it’s hooked over his shoulder.

“Mmm, I thought you couldn’t stay.” Porsche creates crumbs everywhere and Kinn tucks his face into Porsche’s neck for a kiss against his bite.

The truth is, he doesn’t want to go. He wants to stay where it’s warm and cosy and where Porsche is. He turns Porsche around by the hips, knife clattering and he picks him up and puts him on the clean part of the counter and pushes his way between Porsche’s knees. Porsche wraps his arms around Kinn’s neck, fingers stroking the ends of his hair as Kinn presses his face into the center of Porsche’s t-shirt covered chest. He inhales Porsche’s scent, the deep embers and heat, and lets it wash over him and soothe his jangled nerves. His instinct sits high in his chest and vibrates almost like it’s purring.

So, to keep that feeling he digs his fingers into Porsche’s hips like he’s trying to pin him from escaping but Porsche isn’t trying to go. He feels Porsche kiss the top of his head and that gets him to lift his face up and is rewarded with a kiss on his forehead and on the tip of his nose.

“You’re cute,” Porsche grins and kisses his cheek.

Kinn wishes he had the same easy way about him as Porsche does. It’s warm and homely and it feels like there is space for him in a way there has never been space for him before. In his family, he fits because he’s the head, but there isn’t space for what Kinn is and everything that makes him up. He’s a managed inconvenience. Something must show on his face because Porsche’s face gets concerned and Kinn shakes his head.

“I want to stay here,” he admits, feeling somewhat childish.

“I want you to stay here too,” Porsche tells him as he tugs on his short hairs, “But adults have to work and I need to see Yok about the bar today.”

He hums, “The contractors should be there at nine. She won’t have to worry about a thing.”

“Thank you.”

He doesn’t know why he’s being thanked, he’s the reason the place was shot up in the first place. So, he hides again, Porsche rubbing his shoulders and lips pressed against the side of his hair.

“Cuddles are great, but your dad is just gonna call you again,” Porsche tells him after a few minutes have passed.

He stands up and smooths his hands over Porsche’s thighs which are loosely locked around his hips. Porsche pushes his hair back off his face and tries to tidy it into some semblance of normality. Home. All at once, it punches him in the gut and settles over him like a blanket. This is the place he wants to come back to, the place wherever Porsche is with open arms.

“Come back later and we’ll eat and Chay and I will show you the best dive dessert spot of your life.” Porsche smiles and it settles in Kinn’s chest with his instinct holding it like a plentiful hoard.

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

Porsche kisses him and it’s hard not to melt into nothingness. Strong fingers hold his face and as he’s held, Porsche touches their lips gently, testing the waters before he guides Kinn to open his mouth with thumbs pressed at the corners. It feels as if Porsche could touch him down to his toes with his kiss and Kinn believes he could. He treats Kinn with fragility and care and it makes him feel special and wanted. It also ramps up his desire to touch Porsche. His hands slip so that his own thumbs follow the crease of his hips, low under that belt of muscle, stroking them gently.

Porsche bites his lips, his voice a little breathy, “Give me a break.”

He’s right, and Kinn knows it. He has to leave. Still, he cups a hand over Porsche and lifts his eyes to Porsche’s prismatic ones. Lean fingers grab his wrist but Kinn has his fingers tucked underneath and he presses two against the fabric of his pulled-on-for-decency sleep shorts and Porsche instinctively grinds on them.

“Stop it,” Porsche chides. Kinn withdraws his hand and kisses Porsche gently. His arms are already staining with the color of his phoenix, flushing out across his skin like hot blood flow.

“I just want to make sure you think about me when I’m gone.”

“I’m always thinking about you.”

It’s something that clearly slips out because Porsche visibly retracts, pulling away from him and so does his instinct from his skin, so Kinn takes a hold of his elbows to stop him.

“Me too.”

He leans up to reach Porsche who gives him a soft sigh as he decompresses back into Kinn’s arms, fingers tugging on the sides of his shirt as Kinn lets him go and nuzzles his nose with his own, “Call me if you need help with the bar.”

Porsche nods, still close enough for Kinn to feel him breathing, “Come home early.”

“I will, soon as I’m done.”

He helps Porsche hop down from the counter and laces their fingers together as Porsche walks him to the door. Kinn hasn’t felt like this in such a long time and it feels like the first blush of love that he felt in his early twenties at college. He’s happy and jumbly in the best way possible, his heart fluttering when Porsche gives him a shy smile as he clicks the lock on the door. Kinn stops him from opening it with a hand on his.

“I don’t want them to see me kiss you,” he says by way of explanation as he hedges Porsche up against the door, his hands once again naturally finding themselves on his waist.

“Kiss me then,” Porsche tells him, eyes closed and tipping his chin up.

Kinn smiles and slides his nose down Porsche’s neck and sucks his bite scar into his mouth. It’s the closest thing to biting him without biting him and Porsche exhales like it feels amazing but keeps his palms flat on the door and away from Kinn. After drawing up blood underneath, Kinn kisses it softly and gives it a wide lick, asserting his ownership of this patch of skin. Porsche still has his eyes closed and lets his head thunk against the door.

He really is perfect.

“Go,” Porsche murmurs as he blindly opens the door, shuffling forward into Kinn before trying to shove him to the side and out of the door without looking at him.

Kinn smiles, “I’m going.”

He does kiss Porsche’s lips, a soft peck and another rub of their noses that earn him another little shove. Porsche opens his eyes and gives Kinn another small but somehow dazzling smile, “Go.”

His smile widens to a grin and it reaches down to his very soul.

***

The comedown is hard.

Big opens the car door for him to get inside and all the warmth he felt drains out of his body. He’s under no illusions as to why his father is calling him back. It’s like he can smell the truth without ever seeing Kinn and the truth is that he told Porsche about him. Something he was never supposed to do.

But Porsche isn’t anyone. And if he has to be used and he has to be betrayed, let it be by his mate, someone worth taking a chance on. Only that isn’t someone in his mind anymore. Mate in his mind is now Porsche smiling over toast and coffee and how he likes to hold Kinn’s hand when they walk anywhere and he has the cutest nose scrunch when he makes fun of his brother and it’s just that…fun. It isn’t a war every time someone enters a room. There are no expectations of Kinn when he’s with Porsche, other than that to be honest. And that’s why he trusted him. Porsche would rather tell the truth even if it hurt himself than continue the charade. Keeping this from Porsche hurt him. Made him doubt Kinn and his place in Porsche’s life, and even if it’s for a moment, that’s a moment too many. He always feels like what he’s holding with Porsche is something so delicate and fragile that it’s made of gossamer wings and the slightest tug too much and it is going to rip into nothingness. He wants to do everything in his power to not let that happen.

His instinct grinds its fangs at the thought, it won’t.

It’s intrusive how his instinct pushes the thought on him of stealing Porsche away, chaining him up in secret so that no one can have him.

Calm down, no one is taking him.

It snarls and Kinn stares it down. With nothing to do, his instinct curls back up on itself and Kinn feels the distaste rolling off of it. It’s a fight he doesn’t feel like having so he sits with the feeling until it dissipates and it’s around the time they arrive back at the compound.

Chan is waiting for him at the door when he gets out, face passive as always.

“Do I have time to change?” He asks flippantly. He can’t shake completely his instinct’s agitation because he too would much rather be with Porsche than here to get scolded.

“You have thirty minutes. The minor family will arrive in an hour.”

Chan turns to leave but feeling bold, Kinn raises an eyebrow, “You could have texted me that.”

Chan swivels on his heel and tilts his head in that minute way of his.

“I’m sure Pa wouldn’t want you wasting your time on such trivial matters.” Kinn smiles in that disingenuous way everyone in his family has and feels lighter when Chan says nothing but keeps his eyes tracked on Kinn until he’s in the elevator.

Kinn strips off his clothes and his shower is a blessed revelation, even if it is in a rush. The way the water pulses over his shoulders and he scrubs the grime of yesterday’s fight off, he almost feels good as new when he wraps a towel around his waist. He notes the extra boxes in his room; they’re some more things for Porsche to wear when he stays. There are jeans, t-shirts, and some pyjamas in the soft jersey fabric Kinn saw him absently touching in his wardrobe. He knows the one, it’s one of the few hoodies he owns and it’s form-fitting and thin so it clings more than warms but he likes it because it’s light for after the gym, so he also got Porsche a couple of those too.

He heads into his closet and picks out a dark purple almost black suit with a white shirt. He dries his hair with a bit of product, puts on his suit with another one of his watches, and picks up his phone from his bed. Twenty-seven minutes.

Pete is there in the living area to take him up to see his father whom he’s told is on the balcony playing chess again. His father doesn’t even hold the pretense of civility, sending Pete and Chan away from their posts immediately.

Kinn gingerly sits down but refuses to pick up any of the pieces, “Good morning, Pa.”

“Was it wise?”

It’s not a question. It’s a thinly veiled accusation.

“Porsche is—”

“You are the head of this family,” his father cuts him off. “Your actions have consequences for this family.”

He wasn’t expecting his father to be so adamant, so he takes a breath, “I can appreciate that, Pa—”

His father’s tone remains even but his words are clear, “Then why would you expose your condition to an outsider.”

His condition. Outsider. His instinct snarls again and won’t be sedated.

“Porsche isn’t an outsider, Pa. He may not know our ways, but he’s my mate.” Kinn tries to plead reason, to calm his instinct and his father, “I won’t lie to him. It’s not fair.”

“Fair isn’t part of the equation,” his father tells him, “Carelessness breeds sloppiness.”

“It’s not careless to share myself with him.” Kinn feels the weight of his father’s words but also how he feels, “As much as he is mine, I am his. I owe him the truth.”

The bond between mates is sacred. Before his father, before his brothers, his instinct will always choose Porsche and he knows it.

“You’re putting him before our family?”

“Pa, you make it sound like you’re fighting. Porsche is part of this family. He isn’t the enemy.” He doesn’t know why his father is so against Porsche when he himself had found and loved his mate so ardently.

“Do you love him?”

Kinn feels struck by the question, “Pa—”

“I asked you a question.”

Does he love Porsche? Yes. Immediately, his answer is yes. But it isn’t that simple.

His father clearly sees his answer on his face, “You’ve loved before, Anakinn. You’ve made mistakes.”

That is a knife between his ribs.

“So, I must always be held to them?” He asks without really thinking.

“If you refuse to learn from them.”

He thinks about how happy he was less than an hour ago, in the arms of his mate, sneaking touches and kisses in his kitchen because they like each other and they enjoy each other. It’s more than he could have ever dreamed of in his situation.

“Porsche is not a mistake,” Kinn says once quietly then again, louder, a wedge forming in his throat. “My other half is not a mistake.”

Kinn’s love is not a business decision. It’s not a tool. It’s his very being.

“Please refrain from saying such things, Pa.”

It’s the closest he’s ever got to chiding his father and he expects a response, words to correct him, but his father leans back in his chair and laces his fingers together in that way of his.

“Be it on your head,” he says finally. “With all of its repercussions.”

When have I ever not accepted them?

His instinct paces.

“As I would expect, Pa.” Kinn inclines his head, preparing to stand when his father clears his throat, “Your uncle will be here soon. You must greet him.”

The silent command is cover your neck.

“I expect he will want to congratulate me when he hears about my mate.”

The air thins and Kinn fights to not be swept under.

“I will accept the consequences, Pa. Because as you asked—” He straightens his back, “he is my one, for as long as I live.”

And that’s what it circles back to. Fate dealt him a hand, on one side of it, an instinct that could barely be controlled and over a decade of pain trying to build some semblance of a life that his father would be proud of and, on the other, was Porsche. A gift not everyone got or deserved and eased Kinn’s burden just by breathing the same air as him. He would be a terrible fool if he denied what he had been given.

“As Mae was for you.”

His father’s eyes tinge green and he knows it’s somewhat of a low blow to draw on his mother, but Kinn is tired of having to defend himself.

“And I want to make her proud.” He says finally as he stands. “By taking care of Porsche how she would want me to.”

He can tell his father wants to say something else but by invoking his mother, it creates a barrier, because as much as his father comes down on him, he knows that some part of it is because he is the most like her. And it was her refusal to stand by that got her killed.

“Actions have consequences, Pa, I agree, but not just actions in the family. Lies have a way of surfacing and I won’t stand on the back foot when it comes to my mate. Because blood or no, I will slaughter those who intend him harm. That is my promise. My vow.”

He thinks of his uncle and his cousin who are constantly hemming him and his father in, pushing for more, undermining them wherever they can. It’s a dance he’s sick of and to the same tune every time. He will set it out now that not one of them nor their men touch Porsche. There will be no negotiation or parlay. It will be death as a dragon’s will demands.

His father unclasps his hands and turns them over in a placating gesture, “You’ve already decided.”

Kinn doesn’t think for one second that this is over. His father rolls over for no one. Pa stands with him and gestures towards the door, “We’ll be in the boardroom.”

Maybe it will all come crashing down as he expects, but if it does, he knows he hasn’t sold himself, or Porsche, out.

They walk out and Chan falls in line just in front of his father as they walk side by side down the corridor. He can already see the group of men that look nothing like his own, dressed in relaxed prints and cargo pants rather than tailored suits. They stop and stare out of respect for Kinn and his father, but it’s not genuine respect. It’s the hollow kind that has him itching to see if they have a knife dug into his back when he turns around. Pete stays tight on his back because he knows that it makes Kinn tetchy to have minor family men in the compound. His uncle does that same open-handed gesture as his father when Chan opens the boardroom door, and in a way, they both have the same emptiness.

“Brother,” his uncle says with a carefully constructed façade. Kinn doesn’t bow his head out of respect because he isn’t to lower himself for anyone. He looks beyond to his cousin who is quietly sitting at the table, his eyes pinning Kinn. There is a couple of years between them and it’s only a small space of time that has his cousin so irate. Vegas is the oldest son who is able and Kinn is only the middle child, so in his mind, the wealth and the power should have come to him. Maybe in an ideal world that would be true, or that he would at least have a shot at winning this futile war they find themselves in. But he never will. Not because Kinn is two years older than him, not because he’s his father’s son, but because he is the only living dragon in their family. His power, when he has access to it, is unbridled, and he knows even if Khun had been able to succeed the family he never would. Not while Kinn lived.

And that’s the true crux of it. Vegas is as his father is and as Kinn’s father is, a snake instinct. Kinn won the war not through lineage to his father but because of his mother. And this fact made his cousin turn on him. It made Kinn angry because his mother was always kind to Vegas and he knows Vegas loved her, but he let himself be twisted and groomed to believe she was the problem. The one and only physical altercation came after his mother’s death and Vegas came to him spitting words of anger.

“Don’t pretend like you’re anything. You’re only something because of the legs you came out of.” Vegas’s face was contorted in incredulity. Kinn ignored the bruises and laid new ones, fresh blood on his knuckles before the pair of them yanked apart by Chan and the other bodyguards when they had threatened to bite each other. Kinn’s eyes blazed gold as he broke Vegas’s wrist to match the gouges his cousin had made on his side.

He warned Vegas that day, “I am her son. And it will be for her that I rip your throat out you ever speak about her like that again.”

Their fathers came out just as Kinn finished and they were righted and told to “go and play.”

Kinn went back up to his room and didn’t come out until the next morning when Joy came to bring him a plate of food because she was sure he’d be hungry. She said nothing about his red-rimmed eyes and his pilfered sweater from his mother’s closet on his bed.

From that day, whatever they might have been would never be. Now they’re two sides of the same coin, flipping for supremacy in an endless war.

Vegas smiles emptily at him from his end of the table as Kinn takes his seat to the right of his father. His uncle makes his way around the table to where Vegas is sitting and gives them a bright and gregarious smile.

“We hear that congratulations are in order for my nephew.” He isn’t talking to Kinn, he’s talking directly to his father, “He’s met his mate and been claimed.”

When Kinn nor his father give anything up, his uncle tries again, “When will we be meeting my niece?”

Kinn watches as Vegas’s lip twitches. He’s used to his uncle’s homophobia and outright denial of his sexuality but he also knows that Vegas’s isn’t hidden either. It is the one thing he pities him.

“And what is her instinct? I’m assuming she has one as Kinn is such a strong—”

His father cuts it off at the pass, “Enough.

It’s an utter lack of manners to ask someone what their instinct is in this respect. It’s a holdover from when doctors didn’t understand the relationship between puberty and second puberty and conflated instincts with sexuality – there would have been a time when someone might have questioned Kinn’s instinct because a gay man couldn’t have something as virile as a dragon – when instincts are about the human bond with the self first and then their fated one. Just because some bonds are sexual, doesn’t mean all are. There are pairs who have never touched and never will but still share the depth of joy and sorrow as those who do.

“Brother, it’s been too long since we’ve celebrated a union in our family.”

Kinn digs his nails into his palm because his uncle is really pushing his limits. He glances at his father who remains stoic and Kinn works to break the tension, “My mate and I are still in the courtship period. It wouldn’t be appropriate for me to introduce anyone until matters have been decided.”

Matters normally being a bite, but he and Porsche have skipped those formalities. His uncle zeros in on his throat and he knows he can see Kinn’s bite. Kinn doesn’t goad him by lifting his chin, but he doesn’t try to hide it either.

“There has been a claim, what more is there to decide?” Vegas chimes in and Kinn wants to throttle him.

Two can play that game, “When you meet your mate, you’ll understand the intricacies.”

His hit lands and Pa puts his hand on the table, placing it down, innocuous but commanding.

“When the time is right, we’ll welcome Kinn’s mate, as we should. Until then, tell me about the drug trade and why we’re only now hearing whispers about Onyx-5.”

No recognition from either his uncle or Vegas, not that he would expect it. That would be too easy.

Vegas takes out an iPad and turns it around for Pa to watch the video that he’s got set up. It’s a raid of some kind. The shouts are a mix of Thai and Italian so Kinn catches bits of both as they hurtle over each other. It looks like the minor family is raiding Italian territory and taking whatever stash of Onyx-5 the Italians have.

Appearances can be deceiving.

“My men investigated as soon as you brought it to our attention,” his uncle starts, “we’re running our own investigation into—”

His father interrupts, “That won’t be necessary.”

His uncle looks pinched, dissatisfied that he couldn’t get his whole performance out. Kinn notes that it doesn’t even answer the question. Anyone can do anything after the fact. What were they doing before they were told?

Kinn raises his chin and Vegas watches him like a viper with a mouse. Except he isn’t a mouse. His instinct growls, low and warning, and for once he lets it wash over him but still keeps his eyes at bay.

Vegas smiles towards Kinn’s father, “Uncle, I know you probably have Kinn and a host of others looking into this, but this is in the purview of the minor family. We should at least be able to help uncover the truth.”

Some might look at Vegas and think he’s charming but Kinn can practically see his scales, the ones that have banded around his thigh since he was young, ruby red like rivulets of blood and his eyes that match all the same. He’s smarmy and slick and it makes Kinn’s fingers itch like he himself has talons, not just his instinct.

His father smiles, but it’s similar to Vegas’s. There’s a hook, one that he has to willingly walk onto, “Kinn is leading the investigation, I’m sure that he will be happy to take your view on this matter.”

Talk, yes, but that’s it. Everything else is to remain in Kinn’s domain.

“Of course, Uncle. I’m sure Kinn is well aware of the intricacies,” Vegas’s smile falters a little, not because he’s less contrite but because he can’t hold up the façade long enough to hide his pleasure at flipping Kinn off.

Kinn nods, “Report to my office tomorrow at 3.”

Vegas closes down the iPad, insufferably polite, “It’s a date.”

In the end, it ends up being a whole bunch of frustrating misdirection but it gives Kinn enough to keep pursuing the path he’s on.

As soon as he gets free of the meeting room and down the hall far enough that he can’t see his cousin or his uncle, his father calls his name and Kinn looks back at him. He knows he should follow up the leads, the minute tell that they gave by wanting in on it, speak to Arm, anything, but his whole entire being is calling out for Porsche.

Something passes between Kinn and his father because he finally seems to accept that Kinn no longer wants to be here. He wants what his father had, his mother had, he wants his mate. He can’t be stopped.

“Be back here in the morning. Have breakfast with your brother.” His father pauses, “Bring Porsche.”

His father walks past him and Kinn bows his head. Even he knows an order when he hears one. He hopes it is as simple as that, bring Porsche, eat with Khun. That’s doable. He was already intent to invite Porsche after making sure dinner went well with Chay tonight. He gets out his cell and texts Porsche, breakfast with my brother tomorrow?

😊 ill brng my bike.

He’s confused by that and sends him back a question mark.

Going 2 Yok’s after.

Need company?

Maybe. 😉

Kinn drives himself and has a fleet of cars behind him. He texted Porsche before he set off and Porsche replied he’d be there when he got home.

Home. That place again. That place that isn’t a place.

Chay, still in his uniform, is waiting for him outside so as to let him in, “P’Kinn.”

“Chay.” He smiles and Chay gives him a little nod up like ‘hey’.

He takes off his jacket and Chay tries to take it from him but Kinn doesn’t let him, “I’d like to know where they go.”

He’s shown to a little closet room off to the side and he hangs up his jacket before he heads back to the kitchen where Porsche is dicing what looks like basil.

“Chay, can you grab the plates and take them outside? It’s a nice night so let’s sit out. Oh—” Porsche grins when he sees Kinn in the doorway. Porsche looks wonderfully messy in his creased t-shirt and worn jeans.

“I’ll leave you two to it,” Chay gives Porsche the thumbs up which makes Porsche flush red and Kinn ignores all of it to gather Porsche up in a hug he’s needed since he left this morning.

“That good, huh?”

“That bad. I just wanted to be here.” Kinn buries his nose in Porsche’s shoulder and inhales deeply.

“If now—” Porsche’s face is open and ready to do or be whatever Kinn needs.

“Now is perfect,” Kinn says before he gives Porsche a peck on the lips to quiet him down. “How can I help?”

“Go get a drink, I’m almost done.”

He’s shooed off and he finds Chay outside with a guitar, “What do you like playing?”

Chay looks up from his sheet music, “Everything.”

“Everything is a lot of music,” Kinn points out and sits on the bench opposite Chay.

Chay smiles, “I’m writing my own stuff, I’d like to get into university for music.”

“My brother writes music too.”

“He does?” That perks him up.

He nods and admits, “We all play an instrument in my family, he’s the only professional though.”

“I think I’m supposed to give you a talk,” Chay says confidently. Kinn stops and listens carefully as he tries to move with the change in gears. “But what can I do really? You already claimed each other.”

Kinn chooses his words cautiously, “Do you not like me?”

Chay shakes his head, “It’s not that. I don’t know you. I don’t know if you’re good for my brother. And if you’re not, there’s nothing I can do about it.”

That’s a fair assessment of it all.

“I want to be good for him.” Kinn rubs his knee for something to do with his hands, “I want him to like me.”

“He does like you. A lot,” Chay puts down his guitar, “He raised me to never tell anyone about us. But he told you. He said you would never not be his.”

More than a bite on his neck, it tells Kinn that Porsche wants him, thinks about him and their future.

“He’s mine. Chay, I promise you, I will do my best to take care of Porsche, and you, if that’s what you want.”

“I’m not a kid, I don’t need you to take care of me. Just. Don’t break my brother’s heart. He looks tough, but he’s not someone who could survive his mate doing that.”

Every day he finds that he and Porsche are a little more alike than he thought.

“I won’t.”

Porsche brings out a massive pot of pasta covered in ragù and puts it on the heat-tempered metal ring and frowns at them looking so serious, “What are you two talking about?”

“Shovel talk. I looked it up online,” Chay says flippantly before he stands to go over to the dinner table.

Porsche looks at him like he has grown two heads, “What?”

“Like you haven’t picked out your words for my mate since you were 10.” Chay rolls his eyes at Porsche who throws an oven mitt at him.

They squabble like brothers do and Kinn sits down at the end of the table where there’s space and Porsche looks at him, pleading with his eyes, ‘help me out here’.

“I have brothers on either side so I’m not going to pick one lest they find out, since neither of them are people you want to be on the bad side of.” Kinn shudders when he thinks about having to have a talk like that with either Khun or Kim.

Chay pipes up, “P’Kinn is your older or younger brother the musician?”

“Younger. He has a stage name but to us he’s Kim. He’s a little bit older than you, two or three years?”

“Ah, P’Kim.” Chay tests it out.

“Khun, Tankhun, is the oldest. You can call him P’Khun.”

Chay sounds them out, “P’Khun, P’Kinn, P’Kim.”

“Someone likes K-names.” Porsche digs at him as if Kinn’s family are the Kardashians.

He laughs anyway, “My dad is a K-name, but my mother’s name was Calliope. Like the muse.”

“She was the muse of poetry and music,” Chay recites.

Kinn nods, “Right.”

Porsche looks at him with soft eyes and Kinn tries to keep his flush at Porsche’s attention on him to a minimum. He looks at Chay, “What was your mom’s name?”

“Honey,” Chay dishes up a plate for Kinn, then Porsche, and finally for himself.  

Kinn looks at Porsche who is putting salad onto his place, “It suits her.”

Porsche huffs affectionately, “You didn’t even know her—”

He smiles, “People say I’m like my mom. I think that if that’s true then you two are like your mom.”

“Hia says I’m like mom,” Chay sits down with his food and waits for everyone else.

“See, I was right,” Kinn picks up his spoon and smiles at Chay, “thank you for the food.”

Chay laughs, “Sure, P’Kinn.”

They eat in relative quiet, making small talk but mostly eating because they’re starving and the three of them tidy up together before Chay disappears upstairs because he has ‘homework’ to do.

“You’ve done a really good job,” Kinn tells Porsche as he wipes his hands on his jeans to dry them.

“Chay made it too easy some days,” Porsche looks up the stairs after his brother and sighs, “Sometimes I wish he’d yell or throw some stuff so I know that he’s not bottling it all up.”

“Or he could be really well adjusted?”

“He lost his parents before he could remember. There is only so much adjustment you can do.”

Kinn hums because he agrees but he wraps his arm around Porsche’s shoulders when he comes over to him and cuddles up against Kinn’s chest.

“You’ll be there for him regardless.”

Porsche rubs his face into Kinn’s shoulder and works his way until he’s hiding his face in Kinn’s neck, getting back scritches from Kinn.

“Did I do good?” He asks quietly and Porsche looks up, his face showing how tired he is.

“You did good.”

“Boyfriend points?”

“Angling to be my boyfriend after all, huh?” Porsche teases and pokes his tongue between his teeth.

Kinn leans into Porsche and kisses him, slow and cupping the back of his head, softly moving his lips over his, “Yes, I’m angling to be your boyfriend. Will you have me?”

Porsche looks a little dazed but he smiles brightly, “Yeah, you can be my boyfriend.”

“Good.” Kinn kisses him again and shifts his weight so that Porsche is in front of him and he can put his hands on his slender waist and hold his body close to his. Kinn feels his body tingle when Porsche breathes and his chest rubs against his, like all his nerve endings are connected to the man in front of him and all it takes is one touch, one spark to set him alight.

Porsche tugs him by the hand towards the door with a conspiratory ‘come on’ and takes him out to the garden and pushes him up against the outside wall, trapping him there with his body. Kinn automatically looks up at the window and Porsche is already ahead of him, “Chay’s room is on the other side.”

It’s all the confirmation he needs. He seeks Porsche’s mouth to kiss him thoroughly as he goes for his zipper and button while Porsche fights with Kinn’s belt. There’s enough light that when Kinn pulls back he can see the pleasure spread on Porsche’s face when Kinn gets his hand on him and he bites his bottom lip between his teeth. His cock is soft and velvety and Kinn takes his time to work him up as Porsche roughly gets his pants open and his hand down Kinn’s underwear. Kinn licks his lips as Porsche watches his mouth, his face showing Kinn his naked desire. Kinn leans over and licks Porsche’s mouth and dips away when Porsche chases him.

“Kinn.”

“What?” He spits into his hand and strokes Porsche’s heated skin. Porsche shakes his head like he doesn’t know but keeps his hand moving over Kinn. His own body is coiling, Porsche’s hands are rough in a different way to Kinn’s and it scrapes delightfully against his sensitive skin. He leans back against the wall to try and catch his breath and the cool stone feels good and grounds him. Porsche spits into his hand and he starts to work Kinn faster, Kinn feels his body respond in kind, tensing as the pleasure builds in his groin so he strokes his hand to match Porsche’s, thumb going over his wet head every so often to hear his breath hitch.

Porsche is so beautiful like this; his soft mouth dropped open and his full lips swollen and red, he’s stunning. He makes Kinn want him all the more. So Kinn drags Porsche in by his waist so that he’s almost on top of him, as close as he would be if he was inside him and he sucks on Porsche’s bite. Porsche seizes up unexpectedly and keens in Kinn’s ear before he spills hotly over Kinn’s hand and down onto his jeans.

Kinn studies his face as Porsche comes down, drinking him in as his hips roll with Kinn’s fingers, and his orgasm doesn’t slow Porsche at all. He seems more determined to make Kinn come, so he pins Kinn’s shoulder back and makes Kinn show him his body as he gets closer and closer, his cock peeking out red and wet in the circle of Porsche’s fingers. It’s when Porsche kisses him and plunders his mouth, his tongue pushing wetly against Kinn’s that he tips over, his toes curling and he grabs Porsche’s t-shirt and twists it in his clean hand as he spends over Porsche’s fingers, his moan muffled between their mouths.

Porsche shakes his hand to get the worst of the come off before he pulls Kinn off the wall and into a hug and they stumble into each other, giddy, their asses are fully out and their spent cocks rubbing together. Porsche squeezes him in tight before he laughs, deep and with his head tipped back, and Kinn can’t help but laugh with him.

His nose gets nuzzled and Porsche smiles at him, delightfully genuine, “I like you, Kinn. I like you a lot.”

His heart swells up, “I like you too, Porsche.”

Chapter Text

Porsche pulls his jeans up while he’s still laughing and Kinn breathes his laugh into the curve of Porsche’s neck, tickling his skin and his belt clanking. Porsche sneaks a glance up and he hears nothing that indicates Chay has left his room so they’re safe. Kinn bends down and Porsche frowns at him before he feels his stomach swoop as he immediately grabs onto Kinn’s neck and shoulder when he picks him up off the ground, hiking Porsche’s legs up around his waist. Porsche slaps a hand over his mouth so that his yelp doesn’t escape as Kinn carries him back inside and up to his room, navigating the house as if he knows it almost as well as Porsche does. Porsche bites his lips to keep himself quiet but he shakes his head, this man.

When Kinn gets them upstairs, Porsche pushes at him to let him down gently before he tiptoes to the bathroom to grab a washcloth and he runs it under the hot water tap before he meets Kinn back in his room. He gestures for Kinn to take his pants off and he raises a thick eyebrow. Porsche bites his lip as Kinn drags him back in by his hips again and his stomach flippy flops when Kinn’s hands roam over his ass and his nose presses against his scarred neck.

“Kinn—” He whisper-hisses. Kinn looks up and straightens up before he kisses Porsche, confidently capturing his mouth and pushing his tongue in when Porsche lets out a sigh. It’s powerful and commanding and Porsche wraps his arms around Kinn’s neck, careful not to get him wet with the cloth, but Porsche moans quietly as he’s thoroughly explored and kissed, Kinn deciding when he wants to let Porsche go, waiting just a moment longer, staring at his face before he nudges him away with a pat on his behind.

Porsche can’t help his disappointment when his front gets cold with the absence of him but Kinn gives him a dark look his eyes glowing gold in the dim that tells him exactly what he would do if he wasn’t in a house with thin walls and the rooms so close together. Still, he unbuttons Porsche’s jeans first, shimmying them down and takes the cloth from him and wipes him, letting Porsche hold his shoulder for balance. Porsche winces because he’s tender but he watches Kinn, dark hair and pale neck before their eyes meet as Kinn hands the cloth back to him.

“You too,” Porsche says quietly, his tone low. Kinn unbelts his pants and pushes them down and Porsche knocks his hand away, swipes the cloth over him, trying to be perfunctory, and sees Kinn watching him when he stands back up.

It feels different. Maybe because they’re boyfriends or Porsche invited him to a home-cooked meal with his brother, but it feels different. Solid. Stable. Doable.

Kinn tugs at his t-shirt and works it over Porsche’s head, hands sure on his body as he helps Porsche out of all his clothes. Porsche drops his washcloth and does the same for Kinn, careful to make sure his shirt gets placed over the chair in his room before he goes back to stand in front of Kinn.

He didn’t plan to admit that he liked him, everything was still new and raw from his realization but it just bubbled up inside him from the very depths of him, through his instinct and out of his mouth before he could stop it. He feels foolish for doing it but also foolish for thinking of hiding it. Kinn is his mate; no one is going to appeal to him the way that Kinn does. No one is going to give him the squiggly butterflies that Kinn does.  

He likes me too. His instinct puffs up with pride under his breastbone but he wants to minimize it, wants to joke it off but here, with Kinn in the quiet, it feels like anything is possible.

Kinn guides him onto the bed and they lie facing each other when Kinn tucks his hand around Porsche’s back, splaying his fingers exactly between his shoulder blades where his instinct’s wings meet his spine when they bleed through. It’s a sensitive spot and he can’t help that his colors flood out and Kinn’s eyes roam over him with fascination, his fingers dragging gently over his skin where the delicate lines of color meet. Anywhere Kinn touches him he shudders, his back feeling all tingly.

Kinn also catches onto it quickly, so he stares at Porsche’s face as he strokes across his bicep and down to the inside crease of his elbow before he slides to hook Porsche’s thigh over his so that he can reach the tendrils of his tail.

“You’re stunning,” Kinn tells him when Porsche touches his face and he curves inward to kiss the inside of Porsche’s wrist that’s stained crimson. “The reds—”

Porsche feels the air punch out of him when Kinn ducks his head and licks his nipple, the tip of his tongue tracing over it before licking it flatly like he licked his neck when he had Porsche up against his front door this morning, “the golds.”

Porsche can feel the heat of his words on his skin and he’s itching to push Kinn’s face into him, to hold him there and make him press that heat into him.

But Kinn is the one who goes back to dipping and stroking, “they taste like you.”

Porsche struggles not to flush. His instinct preens and glows at Kinn’s words and the exciting feeling only increases when Kinn strokes his collarbone and over his shoulder.

“Show me your back?”

His immediate reaction is no. It’s ingrained and he knows his reaction is obvious, but Kinn keeps stroking his skin, his face passive. Waiting. Waiting for Porsche and whatever he decides.

Porsche looks at Kinn, his face gentle and eyes still praising Porsche with his attention on the parts of him he can see, and Porsche turns over onto his stomach. He’s apprehensive and jumpy when the bed dips as Kinn sits up and hooks his leg over Porsche so he’s astride Porsche’s thighs but sitting up on own his knees. Kinn’s nails softly track down his spine, raising goosebumps on his skin. Everything Porsche is feeling folds itself up in his stomach until he’s got a lump in his throat and he’s hiding in his arms he’s crossed under his head.

“Porsche,” Kinn calls for him and he turns so that he can peer over his shoulder at Kinn. His eyes are accented gold and it speaks to him, tugging on the intangible red thread that ties them together. Sure fingers slope over his shoulders, dipping over his hidden collarbones and back over down his lats and press in deeper on his sides so he feels pressure, not ticklish, when Kinn skates over his waist. His thumbs push into the ripe muscle of Porsche’s rear and track down to the middle of his thighs. It’s deeply pleasing, steadily expressing the knots and tension Porsche holds in his body.

He isn’t the only one being played. His instinct rubs its soft feathers against his back, aligning itself where Kinn’s fingers touch, greedy for attention and wanting. He lets out a rumbling groan and Kinn pushes harder into him and it feels that much better.

Kinn focuses on the small of his back where the red and gold meet above his tailbone, he’s muffled by his own arm but he stumbles out, “Why are you so good at this?”

“You’ve never had a sports massage?” Kinn teases him.

Sports massages don’t feel like this. They’re torture dressed up as help until the pain finally gives to the heat.

“You know a sports massage isn’t like this, oooh.”

Kinn gets a particularly bad knot near his neck from where Porsche likes to sling kegs at the bar and he’s a putty in Kinn’s hands. Porsche isn’t entirely sure but he thinks Kinn puts heat from his instinct into his hands and it spreads out like a thin blanket of warmth over him or a fluffy bathrobe after a hot shower.

His moans sound filthy in comparison to what Kinn is doing and Porsche feels hot embarrassment creep up but Kinn shushes him down with a, “Stop fidgeting.”

“It would be easier if we had oil,” Kinn says as he slinks his palms over Porsche’s skin as he scoots back.

Porsche raises his eyebrows, “Do this a lot, do you?”

“No,” Kinn presses his thumb into Porsche’s inner thigh and he hisses because ow and hides his face again, not wanting to be seen as a big baby. Kinn lets up and smooths his fingers over it, teasing, “But it’s true, skin is easier to rub with oil.”

He’s about to fling a comeback when he feels Kinn close to the side of his head, whispering, “Do you know your back shimmers?”

“What?” He replies automatically. He knows he has an almost glittering tone to his skin when his instinct is reborn.

“Everywhere I touch, it follows me.” Kinn touches the middle of his back, his waist and then his ass. “Little puddles of color that deepen and move.”

Porsche tries to turn so he can see but he can’t and Kinn laughs softly at him. Kinn climbs off the bed and digs for his cell in his pocket. He shows it to Porsche like some offering.

“Can I?”

He rolls onto his back and Kinn sits along his side, dropping his phone on the bed, not waiting for Porsche to respond. Kinn cups his hand around the inside of Porsche’s knee. He slides his hand up and Porsche licks his lips as his stomach feels the thrill of it.

“Look,” Kinn gestures down to where the longest of his instinct’s tail feathers curls around his thigh. Normally burnished gold, it’s now vibrant cobalt where Kinn is pressing on his skin.

He mentally checks in with himself, what are you doing?

His instinct ruffles its feathers, we’re special.

Kinn slowly traces his teeth marks where they’ve scarred Porsche’s skin and neither of them knew it then, but he had bitten perfectly into another tendril. The scar disappears, absorbed into Porsche’s colors.

His instinct craves acceptance and Porsche feels its need as his own. Like Kinn’s bite, his instinct wants – needs – Kinn’s approval. He makes to grab for Kinn who looks momentarily startled before he lets himself be pulled down onto Porsche, finding himself a space when he nudges a gap between Porsche’s thighs, his body weighing Porsche’s down and resting on his forearms so he doesn’t completely squish Porsche.

Porsche hugs himself to Kinn and his instinct extends its wingspan from fingertip to fingertip, embracing Kinn as much as him. This is what he wants, just this.

Safe. Happy.

Kinn slips down a bit so that he’s resting his head on Porsche’s chest and Porsche smooths his hand over Kinn’s shoulders, brushing across his scales. They feel dry and rough and he tries to peek over at them without disturbing Kinn too much.

“Do you moisturize these?” Maybe it’s a stupid question but he doesn’t have scales so he doesn’t know.

Kinn shakes his head, “No. That irritates them more. Water is the only thing that helps.”

He lifts his face up enough to kiss Porsche’s chest, and Porsche feels his instinct slowly slipping back behind his sternum and its colors seeping away.

“Like showers?” Porsche runs his fingers through Kinn’s hair at the front and pushes it up off his face while he chuckles.

“No, like bodies of water. Showers aren’t enough.”

“Phoenixes are good at finding water,” Porsche runs his finger down Kinn’s cheekbone as Kinn smiles at him.

“Yeah? My own little water seeker?” Kinn turns his face and bites Porsche’s finger.

Porsche squeezes his thighs in tight on Kinn’s hips and Kinn laughs at him and pinches his waist, “Hey. It’s not like that.”

They both settle down, but Porsche feels his nervousness build up but he pushes through it anyway, “But maybe that’s what I can do for you.”

It had seemed all so unfair when he realized the extent of what Kinn had gifted him. He had rejuvenated his dying instinct with the very embers of his soul. It wasn’t easy or kind. It hurt him down to his core but he did it anyway. In comparison, what had Porsche given him?

Kinn lifts himself up, hand coming up to cup his jaw, “Porsche, you don’t have to do anything for me.”

Suddenly his throat feels tight and he’s quiet and Kinn strokes his thumb against Porsche’s chin, “I’m not going to go away.”

“I know—”

Kinn picks at his fear. Even if he ignores it, Kinn is still suffering from an inversion and all that entails, and he can’t stop his feelings from running shot of him. Everything about Kinn makes Porsche want him more, to give him more. They all feel like things that will inevitably shatter him to pieces. He can pretend all he wants, but it doesn’t change the truth.

“Do you?” Kinn picks up Porsche’s hand and puts it on his chest, over his heart. “This is yours.”

Kinn’s skin is hot like he’s bleeding heat, getting hotter the longer Porsche touches him and he realizes Kinn’s instinct is pushing it out to him.

“Don’t,” Porsche tries to stop him.

“You don’t need it, but I’m giving it to you. Because I can.” Porsche can’t deny that his instinct craves the heat, its wings deepening their golden hue, looking stronger and more vibrant. Porsche can see the shimmer of gold in Kinn’s eyes, his hint of a smile, and Porsche hurtling closer and closer to the edge of falling in love with him. How selfless and kind he chooses to be.

He takes one of Kinn’s hands and puts it on his chest. Kinn presses his palm flatly against it and Porsche’s instinct shoots up to it and bleeds gold under Kinn’s fingertips.

“There you go,” Kinn whispers like he’s won something and Porsche doesn’t correct him as he lets Kinn take his mouth, pressing his tongue, slick and hot as his hand, between his lips. Porsche reaches up for his neck and Kinn lets his hand drop to Porsche’s hip. This time he doesn’t distract with featherlike fingers. He holds Porsche’s hip tight enough to bruise as he lets him go and he kisses an open-mouthed path down his throat and his chest.

Porsche’s colors flood through again, more potent, and Kinn presses his words into those very shades of red and gold, “Beautiful. Sweet too, like the fruit.”

“God, you’re so cheesy,” Porsche grumbles but it fills up his heart.

“But you like it, right?” Kinn nips gently at Porsche’s throat.

Yeah, he likes it.

Kinn slides lower and lower and Porsche grabs hold of his face, “We can’t.”

Lips press high on his stomach and hands pull his from Kinn’s cheeks and put them around the back of his head. Oh.

His belly flutters as Kinn sucks on patches of skin on his path and lets them pop from his mouth until Porsche is littered with tiny love bites in a haphazard line. He can’t help but lick his lips when Kinn looks up at him with dark eyes, watching him expectantly. He strokes his fingers through Kinn’s soft, silky hair and his toes curl up when Kinn’s hand first touches him but it’s not where he expects. He keeps it low and flat over his belly, a steady pressure, as his other hand strokes Porsche’s hip.

His mouth is hot, almost scalding, against the vulnerable crease where his hip meets his thigh and Porsche doesn’t know what to do with himself. It isn’t anything, not really, but he feels keyed into it like he’s tethered on a tightly wound string.

“Kinn.”

“If you can’t be quiet, cover your mouth.”

He tugs on Kinn’s hair and Kinn licks a stripe along his hipbone and it feels like fire inside all of them. His instinct basks, soaking in the dry heat and shining from the inside like it’s glowing with firelight in its feathers. It unlocks something deep inside him, growing and stretching space where there wasn’t any.

“More,” he demands, loosening one hand to take Kinn’s, their fingers lacing over his hip. The fire drips like candlewax, coating him and driving his desire. He grips Kinn’s hand tighter and he pushes more heat into Porsche’s skin. His thighs quiver and his colors bleed, blending its edges. He needs more. “Kinn.”

Another wave hits and it drowns him. He’s being touched without being touched, fire racing over his body like wanton hands and he’s caressed in every place. He wants to toss and turn against it, writhe as though it burns, but for him, it’s the depths of his being. He is fire and flames and blackened ash.

Kinn’s eyes are gold as they watch him, lips on the slope of muscle above his groin, and he’s searching for any minute change in Porsche. Porsche is overcome. How can he know so easily?

He shakes his hand free and he cups Kinn’s face and he leans into it before he dips to lick Porsche’s belly button.

“Get up here,” Porsche commands.

Kinn goes easily, once again laying his weight on Porsche. Everywhere their skin touches, it burns. Porsche craves it like nothing he’s ever known. Like he could reach inside Kinn and touch the burning heart of him.

“Does it feel good?” Kinn asks as he brushes a thumb over Porsche’s collarbone.

His blood is humming, almost boiling with pleasure, “Yeah. Does it hurt?”

Kinn shakes his head, “No.”

Porsche reaches for his one trick, his one card, unsure if it will even work. Like the bucket, he pushes away the fire and imagines the water. He thinks of the stretch of beach he used to visit as a kid and lets the water ebb and flow over under his fingers as he reaches for Kinn’s back.

His eyes are prisms as Kinn gasps, his mouth open and trembling, “Porsche.”

The warmth inside him stutters. He lets his instinct, dipped in his mind’s eye, drench Kinn’s back in the water brimming under his fingertips. He’s never used it like this, outside of the realm of his dreams, but he sees it on Kinn’s face that it reaches him and can feel him pushing against his hands for more.

“How—?” Kinn doesn’t finish his sentence. He pushes his lips against Porsche’s and plunders his mouth. Porsche welcomes it and lets Kinn take his fill as much as he wants, his fingers tracing along Kinn’s ribs and seeping water into his veins.  

It becomes give and take. Every time Kinn pushes, Porsche falls back and when Porsche laps at Kinn, he recedes. Porsche touches every inch of skin he can get his hands on. He ducks and sucks at Kinn’s collarbone and Kinn bites his chest, soothing any hurt he creates. Kinn’s hips wedge against his and he curls his legs around his, thighs bracketing thighs, calves slipped over calves, twining them together. They swallow each other’s moans in kisses and Porsche revels in when Kinn breathes shakily breaths against his cheek, calling for him in a low tone.

He's so aware of his body and Kinn’s. Every touch point, every inch, pulsing and crying out for more. He didn’t know it could be like this. That Kinn could really get inside his very bones.

The pleasure builds slower with the heat. Coiling deep in his belly before it reaches its pinnacle and he’s panting, sweat dripping off him and his body careening over the edge. It feels like too much, like he’s too big and swollen for his skin and that he’s going to combust and burn up like the ashes of his phoenix and be done for. He tries to pull back, let the water drown the heat, but Kinn bites his throat and he’s stumbling, the feeling exploding like a star at the end of its life, fragmenting every part of him that’s still burning and rearranging him anew.

Kinn lets him go and Porsche seizes the opportunity and sinks his teeth into his skin. The stars he sees now are glittering and Kinn grabs onto his hair and holds him to his throat, his vision a swath of gold, Kinn’s moan prolonged and quiet to his ears.

They’re spent, sticky and sweat-soaked but Porsche hugs Kinn to him as he opens his mouth, licking his teeth.

“It was healing,” Kinn teases him as he presses a kiss on the line of his throat.

“I didn’t mean to,” Porsche grimaces and Kinn pinches him again.

“I liked it.” Kinn corrects him. “I like that you’re a little wild for me.”

“Yeah, well, I wasn’t expecting mate-to-mate-melding,” Porsche launches back and Kinn cups his cheek and kisses his chin then his mouth.

“I didn’t expect it either,” Kinn rolls off him onto his back and Porsche rolls onto his side so they’re still lined up together. Kinn smiles and reaches out for Porsche’s thigh.

“You were the one who started it. Why did you?” Porsche puts his hand on Kinn’s chest, thumb rubbing at the clammy skin, trying not to sound scolding.

“I wanted you to feel me. All of me.”

The man and the instinct. Porsche’s other half.

Porsche tucks an arm under his head, “It reminds me of a poem my mom loved.”

Kinn’s interest looks peaked.

Porsche frowns as he tries to remember the exact words:

“Oh, this world I live to see, for all that it can be,

My darling, my love, my sweet,

My soul is a home where we both shall keep.”

Kinn taps his chest where Porsche had touched him before and then Porsche’s chest, “Here and here.”

Porsche has never been romanced, so he doesn’t know if it’s normal or dumb, but he feels his heart pitty-pat.  

“Keep me here, Porsche.”

He’s never been romanced so he doesn’t know if this is what falling in love truly feels like, but he feels like he opened a door and welcomed Kinn in.

***

With quick showers in the morning, it’s true that Kinn’s pants are ruined, so Porsche gives him a pair of his blue jeans and he looks delightfully disheveled. Less businessman more male model. Porsche grabs onto a belt loop and tugs on it. Kinn smiles at him and lets himself be pulled.

“You look good,” Porsche tells him.

“Yeah?”

He nods, “Really good.”

“Noted,” Kinn leans into him and kisses him gently. “Are you still coming for breakfast?”

Dressed similarly to Kinn with a black pair and a white shirt, he’s about as presentable as he’s going to get, so he hums his affirmation.

“Khun is fine, he’s just curious is all.” Kinn tries to soothe him.

“Are you guys similar?” Porsche asks as he slips his shoes on, his one dress pair for special occasions which are never.

“Not in any way that you’d expect,” Kinn looks like he’s thinking about it when there’s a knock on the door.

Porsche opens it and Chay is standing there in his pjs, “There’s coffee, Hia.”

“Thanks, Chay.”  He cocks his head and gestures for Kinn to follow. He can grab a cup to settle his nerves.

Kinn and Chay exchange morning pleasantries and he’s proud of Chay because he’s not a super morning person. He’s not bad, he just grumbles a lot. Porsche reaches the kitchen and grabs a couple of cups and the coffee pot before pouring it in, taking in the slightly bitter aroma. Kinn is by his side, bumping their hips, hand warm on the small of his back.

“You look good too, baby,” Kinn whispers into his ear over his shoulder.

Porsche slides the coffee cup at him and focuses on getting the sugar so that he can’t see him flush at the endearment.

“Is baby not it? What about darling? Angel? Sweetheart?” Kinn teases him and Porsche pushes at him.

Kinn doesn’t let him go, his face expectant. Porsche licks his lips, “Fine. Baby is fine.”

Chay sits down with his orange juice and ignores them but Porsche sees it as his means of escape, grabbing his coffee and walking over to the table as Kinn reaches for the sugar.

He also goes to the fridge and takes out the milk and splashes a little in Porsche’s cup before taking it back. He takes the seat next to Porsche and casually slips his hand over Porsche’s thigh. Porsche stares at him.

“Chay,” Kinn starts and Chay looks at him, putting his glass down.

“P’Kinn?”

“If it’s alright with you, I’m going to be your brother’s boyfriend,” Kinn smiles and Porsche is speechless.

Chay looks at him and then at Kinn, “If that’s what Hia wants.”

Kinn nods, “He said so yesterday, but as his brother, I wanted you to know.”

Porsche gets it, this brat. Chay looks a little confused but he nods, “Hia?”

Porsche picks up Kinn’s hand and laces their fingers together before he lifts them up and puts them on the table, “Yeah, Chay, it is.”

Kinn is blushy not with embarrassment, but happiness. God, you’re too much to be this cute.

His brother smiles, “Congratulations.”

Kinn’s soft little thank you takes any perceived grievance that Porsche may have had. They sit and drink their coffee while Chay slurps his way through some cereal before Kinn has to take a call from his bodyguards and he takes it outside so as to not bother Porsche and Chay.

Chay is watching him and he can’t shake him off, “What?”

He leans back in his chair, “Are you happy, Hia?”

Porsche feels a bit thrown by the question but he answers it truthfully, “I am.”

“And he’s good to you?”

Porsche wonders when Chay got so grown up to be worried about him like this, “He is.”

“I’ll keep asking,” Chay puts down his spoon. “The day you aren’t and he isn’t, we’ll run away.”

Love swells up inside his chest like nothing else, “Thanks, Chay. And when your mate comes, I’ll do the same.”

Because Porsche can’t believe in a world where someone as good as Chay doesn’t get to meet his mate.

“My instinct would have to be here for that, Hia, you know that.”

Porsche watches as his brother tries to not look despondent. His instinct is still young inside him, not ready to hatch and be a part of the world, but Porsche knows it’s there. He’s seen his brother’s eyes when they dip gold and blue. It takes time.

“Maybe meeting them might make it come out,” Porsche drains the dredges of his cup and puts it down.

“Or I miss them completely.” Chay smiles but it’s tight and sad.

“I didn’t know it was Kinn right away.” Porsche admits, editing their first meeting as he goes, “maybe if my instinct wasn’t dying it might have been different, but I didn’t know.”

“So, you could have lost him?”

It’s a simple question but it guts Porsche down to his core because the reality is that yes. If he hadn’t bitten Kinn in anger, his mate would have walked out of his life none the wiser.

Kinn comes back in and shakes his head, “No.”

Porsche looks up at him as he’s sits back down, taking Porsche’s hand back in his, “There was nothing tying us together.”

“Maybe not for you, but I felt it. My instinct went berserk when it saw you.”

He can’t help but shiver when Kinn says it. He would have been hunted down by a dragon on a mission. Who knows what state he would have been in after? There’s a trickle deep down inside that has Porsche watching Kinn who is staring back at him. They would have fought but Porsche knows his own strength. Would he have bitten Kinn again? Or would Kinn have bitten him out of ownership and desperation?

Chay looks like he wants to ask questions but it isn’t appropriate, not if Kinn doesn’t offer. But Kinn sees him and he tips his head, “What do you want to know?”

Chay looks over at him, hesitant, and Porsche nods, “What did it feel like? Knowing?”

Kinn gets a little furrow between his brows, “Violent.”

That surprises him.

“Our instincts are animals at the end of the day. Mine wanted blood. To take. To hoard.”

It clearly surprises Chay because goes quiet in his seat, Kinn keeps going though, “So when we argued and Porsche bit me—”

Porsche grimaces.

“Everything settled. He took it all and gave it back to me,” Kinn looks fond like it’s a nice story rather than Porsche pinned on his knees and trying to rip his throat out with his teeth. Maybe to a dragon, it is. “Truth is that my instinct knew and I ignored it. I tried to will it away.”

The back and forth they had takes on new meaning. Porsche squeezes his hand and Kinn smiles and squeezes back.

“And then your brother bit me again and, well, fool me once shame on you, fool me twice—” Kinn laughs as Porsche shoves his thigh with his under the table.

“You bit him twice, Hia?” Chay asks him with an impressed look on his face and Porsche tries not to flush up to his ears.

“What’s mine is mine,” he says and Kinn tugs on his hand.

“We need to go.”

“Are you coming home for dinner?” Chay asks him and he shakes his head.

“Not sure yet, don’t save me anything. Text me when you’re back from school?”

Chay nods, “Bye, P’Kinn.”

Kinn smiles and stands up, pulling Porsche with him. Chay gives him a little wave and Porsche salutes back. Grabbing his keys, he tries to settle the batwings that are in his stomach with his instinct, both aggressively fighting each other and making him a little bit nauseous. Chay is home, Chay is safe, Kinn’s family, well, they’re the mafia, aren’t they? It’s like getting slapped with a cold fish but Kinn keeps looking at him with those warm eyes and he feels like if he can exist in that, it can’t all be so bad.

***

He doesn’t know who he was expecting, but he wasn’t this.

Tankhun Theerapanyakul is sitting high up on a lifeguard’s chair in front of an outdoor pool in a feather coat the perfect shade of fuchsia over a psychedelic print jumpsuit. Two bodyguards, one of which he recognizes as Arm, help him down.

“Khun,” Kinn straightens his back when he sees his brother and Porsche figures he should do the same.

Kinn’s brother stops in front of them and he narrows his eyes at Porsche. He reminds him of those TV moms who disapprove of their son’s girlfriends and throw food all over their pretty outfits. He hopes not, he likes these jeans.

“Porsche?”

He doesn’t know where to look but he ends up looking him dead in the eye, “Yes.”

“Khun,” Kinn sounds like he’s pleading for sympathy when his brother raises one hand up to shush him and Kinn stops.

“You’re tall.”

Porsche is used to people making observations about him, “I am.”

Eyes flit down his body, “You can swim?”

He frowns, it’s such a bizarre question, and he doesn’t reply fast enough so he’s met with, “Well, can you?”

“Yes, I can swim.”

“Good. As you were,” Tankhun motions for them to follow him into the house. Porsche feels tension unspool from his body and Kinn presses a hand into the small of his back to steady him as they walk. His brother takes them to a dining room where breakfast is set up, a long table is fully decorated and the sun brightens everything through the floor-to-ceiling windows.

Porsche notes that the spread is more than enough for ten people let alone three.

Tankhun stops and turns again, Porsche almost crashing into him, “I’m Tankhun Theerapanyakul. Eldest son of the main family. You may call me Khun.”

Dredging up his manners from somewhere, he clasps his hands and bows his head before introducing himself.

“I’m Porsche Pachara Kittisawasd. Porsche is fine.” Porsche looks back at Kinn who nods.

“Pachara, like a diamond?” Khun picks up a glass of orange juice from one of the place settings – all ten are set despite them only being three – and it makes Porsche smile because it reminds him of Chay.

“Yes, like a diamond.”

Kinn guides him to sit next to him as his brother takes the seat at the head of the table.

“I suppose you’d want something shiny, little lizard.”

Kinn raises his eyebrows and battle has commenced, “No one has called me that since puberty. For a reason.”

Porsche watches them and he realizes Kinn may be the head of the family, but he is still second in line when it comes to brotherhood.

“Porsche, do you know why we call Kinn, little lizard?” Tankhun asks him, sprawling somewhat on his chair.

Porsche puts his elbows on the table and folds his hands under his chin, “I don’t know, why do you call a dragon a lizard?”

Tankhun smiles at him, big and wide, “Because he doesn’t have any wings.”

It doesn’t really make sense as a joke but he doesn’t think it was supposed to. He thinks it was a test and he hopefully passed. However, it makes him wonder how many others have come here laying a claim on Kinn when he was never theirs, always Porsche’s.

“There weren’t that many,” Khun nails him dead and Porsche leans off his hands, “If he’s little lizard, what do I call you, hmm?”

Porsche looks at Kinn who shakes his head. He didn’t tell.

“It’ll come to me,” Khun announces and he waves at them, “Come on, eat.”

There is a spread of every food imaginable so Porsche picks up the bowl of sliced mangoes and scoops some out onto his plate before spearing them with a fork. Kinn is watching him out of the corner of his eye as one of his bodyguards bends down to whisper something in his ear. He nods and continues with his coffee, Porsche wonders how many cups Kinn can get through in a day. Or maybe his coffee tastes like motor oil in comparison to anything Kinn’s family is used to.

“Kinn, breakfast. No work,” Khun scolds him and Kinn has the sense to look moderately chastised. “Pa already knows you sat at your desk and did nothing the whole day yesterday.”

“Porsche, what do you do?”

He’s rounded on again, butter knife leveled at him, “I’m a bartender.” He leaves off the underground fighter part.

Kinn’s brother huffs, “I don’t drink.”

“I can make other things; juices, mocktails,” He offers and that seems more palatable.

“Will you?” Khun asks him as he offers Porsche behind his head where there is a whole bar array. Porsche puts down his fork and makes his way over to it.

Khun turns on his chair to watch Porsche as he gets a kiwi, a lime, a glass and an unopen bottle of sparkling water. He peels and makes kiwi stars with the sharp knife there and slices his limes thinly so that they disperse flavor and make the tall glass he picked look pretty. A scoop of ice and he pours the water over. Taking a couple of straws and slides them into the drink and swirls them.

“It should be refreshing,” Porsche tells Khun before he hands it to him. He watches Kinn’s brother take a sip before he brightens up again.

“Mmm, it’s good.”

Porsche breathes a sigh of relief before he goes back to his seat but as he’s going, Khun says conversationally, “I know you’re in the honeymoon phase, but you have to stop doing that.”

He watches as Khun wiggles his fingers at Kinn. His throat is once again red and angry, open where Porsche’s canines split the skin last night.

“Khun,” Kinn’s tone is low and things get tense. Porsche tries to ease it, “We’ll—”

“What Porsche and I do together isn’t anyone’s business.”

Kinn’s brother puts down his glass, “It’s everyone’s business when they can see you’re both wandering around like horny pubescents. It isn’t becoming.”

“When have you ever cared?” Kinn questions him. His eyes narrow, “Did Pa put you up to this?”

“Kinn,” Khun sounds offended but in a dramatic way. Then he sighs, “You know others will be sniffing around him, you’re making it too easy.”

Porsche can see Kinn getting more agitated, “Okay, we’ll take that on board—”

“Let them.”

It’s a dark and challenging tone.

Kinn puts his napkin across his lap and smooths it over, “Porsche and I are figuring things out for us, but we’re mates. Let them whisper and talk about things they don’t understand. But you, Khun, are my brother. Whose side are you on?”

The bravado slips, Khun rights himself, “You take that back.”

Porsche sits in his chair and tries to calm things down but he sees Kinn’s golden eyes and when he looks at Khun, his are a burnished orange.

“I think cooler heads need to prevail,” Porsche doesn’t know what he’s walked into, but he could very well get stuck between a pissed-off dragon and an unidentified instinct. “Kinn, let’s go.”

“Thank you for breakfast, Khun, we’ll come again soon,” Porsche all but hauls Kinn up who finally relinquishes his stare at his brother.

He shoves him out into the hallway, “Hey, what is wrong with you? He’s your brother.”

Kinn sighs, his eyes still glaringly gold, “Pa is meddling everywhere I turn.”

Porsche can’t pretend to know what it’s like to grow up in a family like Kinn’s but Khun seems nice enough and clearly hurt when Kinn challenged him. 

He grabs Kinn’s face in his two hands, “Hey. If that’s the case, it’s no use arguing with your brother. Okay?”

Kinn’s eyes bleed back into brown and he sighs, looking a little wan, before he pecks Porsche on the lips, “Sorry, I ruined breakfast.”

“Dragons don’t like to share, noted,” Porsche jokes to lighten the mood, but Kinn’s face tells him it doesn’t really land. “Kinn, come on. I get it. He’s pressing a sore spot, but that’s what brothers do. Chay once washed my Xbox in the shower because he spilt juice on it.”

Kinn gathers him up in a hug and squeezes him, ignoring all the staff who come through, see them and then scurry away. Porsche tries to ignore them and holds Kinn tightly, arms around his neck as he kisses his temple.

After a couple of moments, Porsche taps Kinn’s shoulder and he grunts and ignores Porsche’s tap. So, he does it again. More ignorance. Porsche puts his lips to Kinn’s ear, “Baby, come on.”

Kinn finally lets him go and Porsche smiles at him. He’s so easily led.

“We’ll pretend we’re in a Spanish telenova and everyone can yell, but we’ll all be okay, hmm?” Porsche tells him and offers him his hand to hold.

“Do you have a preference?” A smooth voice asks him from off to one side. Porsche turns to the voice and it’s an older man, shorter than him and wearing one of those shirt and vest combinations that uncles like to wear, but he’s flanked by several bodyguards including Chan. His instinct curls tighter in his chest, protective around his lungs as the air seems to thin. He feels like he needs to be on high alert even though the situation doesn’t call for it. “For your favorite telenova?”

Kinn grips his hand and Porsche pulls a smile onto his face, “No, I don’t watch dramatic TV. Life is enough as it is.”

The older man chuckles, “I suppose it is. However, I like La reina del flow.”

“Porsche Pachara Kittisawasd,” The man intones. It sounds like he’s taking Porsche’s measure and he straightens up when the man smiles at him, “my son’s mate. Welcome.”