Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Where did you find him?” Boya hears hazily as he struggles to rouse from the thick, drugged fog keeping him mostly under.

The voice sounds familiar, but also not, pricking and lingering like the shadow of a memory at the back of his mind. But the more he tries to reveal its truth, the more he tries to think, to recollect, the more his focus turns upon it… the quicker that memory fizzles out, chased away like a shadow by the light.

Lost in his thoughts, in trying to remember, Boya misses most of the reply, catching only the tail end of it.

“…injured but safe. He is in the infirmary, waiting for an audience with you.”

“And this one? Is he rendered merely unconscious or insensate?”

“My lord, you did not specify a fate for him; how would we dare presume? He only sleeps, awaiting your judgement.”

A third voice speaks up. “It was as much for his safety as our own. I know my lord wished him captured alive, wished him brought back whole and aware. But surely you understand the nature of this one. Too fierce to be cowed, too strong to be beaten, too defiant to be swayed. We would have had to kill him otherwise or be killed ourselves.”

There is a quiet sound, casual and dismissive, before the first one speaks again. “You did well,” he says. “All of you. In truth, I would have been surprised if you’d managed to bring him back in the condition I specified while also keeping him awake and aware.”

“My lord is gracious,” the other voices reply in chorus.

“How much longer will the drug last?”

“It is hard to say. He is not an average human. Even by the standards of demon hunters, he is a rare and powerful sort. A normal person, be he human or hunter, would be out easily until daybreak.”

“But this one… he could easily be waking as we speak, if not fully then at least to partial consciousness.”

“But my lord need not fear. The bindings we used will sap his strength, will prevent him from struggling over much, if at all. Even on a hunter such as him, they ought to keep him compliant enough. Should the drug wear off entirely, there is the chance the effects of the bindings will weaken, but not enough that he may attack or escape.”

“And, besides, my lord can easily reinforce the magic of the bindings if there is a need. All is created to bend to your will.”

A pleased rumble, so low and deep as to have been nearly out of Boya’s range of hearing, washes across his senses in a rolling wave of pressure. “Your loyalty and service is ever appreciated. Take your leave, feed and rest, you may complete your report afterwards.”

“Yes, my lord. Our thanks, my lord,” they both say at once. The retreating echo of their footsteps tell Boya he’s now left with just their lord.

Boya hears the barest sound of sliding hinges, the moving joints too well-oiled to creak or grind, and then the soft rustling of feet on dried grass encroaching ever closer. Instinct screams at him to wake, to move, to fight, to defend. Boya does none of them, for he cannot do any of the things he needs to do.

“Well, here you are again, lying at my feet. Can you hear me? Are you awake?”

The nearness of the voice startles Boya. His inability to rouse and for his body to respond to his desperation comes in useful, because he gives no reaction to indicate his burgeoning awareness. He knows he would have jolted, if his body was capable of listening to him.

“No matter. If you are, you are. If you aren’t, you will be eventually.”

A sharp prick stings his cheek, enough that Boya wonders if blood has been drawn. Is his fate to be carved up, alive and aware and unable to do anything about it? Is this meant to be a torture where he’s forced to lie pliant and still while pain slices away strips of his sanity?

He waits, his breath as uncontrollably steady as the rest of him. He waits for the torment to begin, for his blood to be spilled in drip or in gushes. The apprehension and uncertainty makes him tremble inside his mind as he’s unable to do physically.

It never comes.

All that happens is a scratchy slide along his cheek, a caressing stroke if not for the sharpness of the touch, and an oddly soft sigh.

“What will I do with you? What should I do with you?”

Not to you, but with you, Boya notices with no small measure of puzzlement. He wonders if it’s significant or if his mind is grasping at anything it can to stay occupied, to keep from descending into the mad spiral of fear.

“I had hoped to hear your excuses, witness your temper and allow it to rile my own up, when we met once more. I had hoped for your fury to ignite mine, so that its fire would burn away all temptation. But I suppose that was too much to hope for.”

The stinging line down his cheek burns but ultimately stops at his jaw. Then Boya feels the same sharp, pricking sensation on his scalp. Mentally, he freezes, his thoughts stilling and coalescing into dread as he wonders if he’ll be scalped.

“It would be wiser for me to kill you. As you are now, perhaps it would even be merciful. If death must come, would it not be better to come in peaceful sleep? If I slit your throat or snapped your neck at this very moment, you would not know it. No fear, no pain, just continue in a sleep from which there is no waking.”

Those quiet words make the dread growing in him feel leaden. It perfuses throughout him, the knowledge and surety that his end is nigh, that his death will come, swift and instant. And that while it is meant to be a merciful death to one unaware, Boya is awake enough to feel his death, to know he’s dying, to acknowledge that slip from living into not.

Boya doesn’t want to die.

If this were a story, of the kind that book merchants hawk in the marketplace, Boya thinks he’d feel a sudden surge of adrenaline that would break through whatever drug he’s been given, shatter the magic of whatever he’s been bound with. If this were a story, this would be his moment to reveal his consciousness. This would be his opportunity to enact a dramatic escape. Or at least be given a chance to die fierce and fighting — a death more befitting a hunter of his rank than to be slaughtered like a pig meant for the dinner table.

But this isn’t an adventure novel and Boya isn’t a storybook hero. And so the moment comes and passes and Boya remains shackled inside his mind and within a body that’s betraying him for better than any stab in the back from a friend.

“I should kill you, if not for your and your temple’s crimes against my kind, then for the crime of existing in this world. For breathing and being alive. For the crime of being before me and making me wish you were not a demon hunter. If you did not exist, I would not feel a need to keep you alive.”

It shouldn’t upset Boya so much that a demon wants him dead, want his entire temple of hunters dead. So much so as to wish him from existence. It shouldn’t make him feel so sad that someone hates him with such fathomless depth of loathing. It’s understandable, being that they’re mortal enemies, that this demon lord wishes Boya never existed to begin with. Because if Boya never existed, countless demons would still be alive. He hasn’t risen to the rank of Master Hunter because of popularity, after all.

What is strange is that the demon lord seems to want to keep him alive. But, Boya reasons, perhaps it’s just so that he can be tortured, each demon death he’s responsible for wrung out of him and paid for with his blood. In that vein, Boya can see how a quick death now at this demon’s hands might be preferable to a future of unending agony, where he’s kept alive only so that he continues to have blood for them to spill over and over again.

Boya doesn’t want to die, but he doesn’t want a life where he’ll beg for death either. Which seems to be what awaits him. A peaceful death now, or a torturous life later? It’s an impossible choice that brings nothing but despair. Again, his unreacting body is once more an ironic blessing, because it means he can’t cry in front of this demon lord. His breath remains steady even while he sobs in his mind.

A tingling sensation suddenly suffuses him, feeling especially warm around the parts of him where the bindings are tightest and dig into his flesh. Is this what the other demons had spoken off earlier? The weakening drug affecting the magic of the bindings and the demon lord having to strengthen them himself?

“Are you awake? Can you hear me? Did you hear me?”

Boya doesn’t dare reply, doesn’t want to hasten the dreadful fate awaiting him. But, he realises slowly, he still can’t even if he wanted to. His limbs remain slack and unresponsive in the position he’s trussed up, and his breathing and heartbeat remains passive and placid even while his mind is racing frantically.

A gusty sigh sounds above him. “Good,” he hears. “It’s probably better that you didn’t. Though I do wonder what it is you’re dreaming of. What has made you so sad that even as deeply drugged asleep as you are, bound by bespelled silk and magic as you are, tears escape you still?”

The rough scrape of calloused skin swipes near his eyes, as if to wipe away tears that Boya doesn’t remember shedding.

“Do not dream such sad dreams,” he hears. “Perhaps it’s better if you don’t dream at all.”

The voice seems to grow further and further away, and Boya wonders why. In moments, he doesn’t remember what he was contemplating, only that he was…afraid? But then his worries, too, grow soft and fuzzy.

“Sleep, but don’t dream. It might be better if you don’t wake either.”

Boya thinks the words, the meaning of which is getting harder and harder to parse, ought to frighten him, but fear seems such a faraway concern, if one at all.

“But you will, eventually. Maybe by the time you do, I’ll have made a decision.”

What decision?, Boya wonders vaguely and hazily. What decision is there to make? And about what? Or who?

There’s a feeling like someone is stroking his hair. Is it his mother? Boya thinks there should be something… off. About his mother stroking his hair. Did something happen? But he likes it when she strokes his hair. There’s a feeling of wrongness, something he needs to recall. About his mother. But Boya can’t think through the clouds and mist in his mind.

It’ll be okay, though, he decides. If his mother is here with him, he’ll be okay. Mother will always protect him. Mother will always keep him safe.

“Go to sleep,” Boya hears, like Mother has said so many times to him before, though this time the voice that says it isn’t hers. But the difference that ought to be so jarring and discordant doesn’t bother him as he obeys its command and sinks back into dreamlessness.

Chapter Text

Boya recalls, in faded and fuzzy memories like thinking back on a dissipating dream, rising to semi-wakefulness several more times.

Each time feels like being submerged underwater. The voices he hears seem warped, distorted in the same way that his recollection is unravelling at the edges. He doesn’t recall the actual words he hears. He isn’t even sure if he understands them, beyond having a vague impression of what they mean.

This time isn’t any different, except that his wavering focus seems sharper than usual. His thoughts are less unfinished. He feels a bit more…present.

“How long?” Boya hears, as he struggles to comprehend the simple words.

The only answer he hears is an absent questioning hum, as if to say ‘how long what?’

“You can’t keep him under like this forever.”

“Can’t I?” says a calm, unconcerned voice.

“The longer you keep his body in stasis like this, the more his core will weaken.”

“I’ll give him whatever energy he needs. It’ll be fine.”

“It will not be fine!”

Boya recognises one voice, the deep male one, but the upset female one is new to him. He thinks he might have heard it before, during his periods of unsleep, but this is the first time he’s been conscious enough to properly acknowledge it.

“He’s human! The energy he needs isn’t something you can just give to him unfiltered, unpurified, unrefined! If anything, it’ll only weaken his core further! Corrode it even, maybe!”

There’s a hint of annoyance in the demon lord’s reply when it comes. A slight impatience that says he doesn’t like what the woman is telling him. “And what might you suggest, then? That he be allowed to wake?”

“Yes!” she exclaims. “Be allowed to wake, to eat, to sleep without compulsion!”

There’s a soft chuckle and the tone of it is far from reassuring. “So forgiving you are to a man who once tried to kill you. Or have you grown so fond of your patient as to have forgotten his trespass against you?”

“He is a demon hunter and I am a demon, my lord. It is his nature and duty to attempt so. But I am also a healer and my duty is to tend to the ill and advocate for the health of those unable to do so for themselves.”

There’s a silent strength in this woman who Boya has apparently tried (and clearly failed) to kill before. He respects that she is willing to incur the ire of her lord at his expense.

“Besides,” she adds, “isn’t that why you’ve tasked me with his care? I’m not the only healer at your disposal, my lord. Not even the best either. But I do not begrudge the care I give, I do not treat my patients with prejudice despite their race or crimes — perceived or true. I am the only one you could trust to see him as merely a patient and not a demon hunter. Yet now you disparage the very same qualities that you selected me for?”

There’s a pause, heavy and thick like the tension in the air. And then a low, gusty sigh. “That was unworthy of me. And of you. I…apologise. You are correct, as you often are.”

“I do not wish to…upset you, my lord. You know that.”

“I do. I know. And your assessment is an objective one. And yet…”

“Let him wake, my lord. At least enough for him to function as a human should. So that he can eat proper food, sit up and walk around, move his body and circulate his energy unassisted. If you wish to cloud his mind or bend his will to yours, I cannot stop you. But, over time, you risk damaging his mind, making it so fragile that barest brush of yours might shatter it. And I do not think that is what you wish for him.”

“If a hollow shell is what I can keep beside me, is it not better than having him combative and resistant?”

“My lord, you bid him brought to you not simply because his beauty enchanted you. If it were merely that, there are demons aplenty of equal grace and fairness. He is lovely, but not so unparallelled that a more biddable replacement cannot be found. You liked the fire in his eyes and the steel in his spine when he realised he could not best you and yet did not quail. You liked the strength of his will when he fought against yours and tested your ability to compel as no other before has been able to or dared to. The very qualities you find so unique and interesting about him are the ones you risk losing if you continue to bind his mind like this.”

“If I release him, there are only two outcomes: either he’ll try to escape and he’ll be recaptured and forced yet again into submission, and we’ll have this conversation anew; or he’ll try to fight his way out and I’ll have no recourse but to kill him. How is either of them better?”

“Is there not a third, my lord? He might stay. He might come to see beyond your skin and flesh and understand the mighty spirit within you. He might see, and he might find reason to stay.”

The laughter Boya hears is harsh and grating, bitter like herbs mashed and the pulp spread over his tongue.

“Stay? Surely you jest. Or you are blind, thinking everyone shares your ability to overcome prejudice. A demon hunter will only ever see a demon in one way: as an enemy.”

“He might surprise you, my lord. Let him surprise you. At least give him the opportunity. If… If he does fail. If he indeed can only see you as his eternal foe, then I will assist you to submerge his mind and body once more. But at least grant him a chance. Is he not worth at least that?”

Boya can’t quite make heads or tails of the conversation. He understands the words, their meanings and the sentences they make. But he lacks understanding of why the words matter, of what they mean beyond basic comprehension. His head hurts from the dissonance of understanding and yet not.

Beyond that, he realises for the first time how utterly exhausted he feels, despite having been in constant sleep. The golden streams of spiritual energy inside him are dark and sludgy, their flow sluggish and stagnant. His lungs feel flat and the air in them stale, like he’s not taken a deep breath since… since whenever it was that he was taken and drugged.

The core of spinning light deep within him is muted, faded, like a candle flame guttering in its own wax instead of shining bright and pure like the sun in the sky. It hurts. Not physically but spiritually. Even half-aware as he is, Boya knows what he’s at risk of losing and the terror of it rips a weak, anguished whimper out of him. The sorrowful sound is barely louder than a newborn kitten’s tiniest mewl, but the hand in his hair stills and the voices grow silent.

“Are you awake?” Boya hears once again. And like all the other times, he’s unable to speak even the simplest of words. The sheer lack of ability to respond, to let himself be heard and understood, the frustration of having all his thoughts contained within him tear at his mind. Locked away inside himself, he rages and screams and cries, flailing with his thoughts and emotions the way he cannot with his body.

“Why are you crying?” the demon lord asks, his previous unhurried calm suddenly gone. “Don’t cry. Don’t cry.”

“You don’t wish to hurt his body, so don’t hurt his mind and spirit anymore, my lord,” the female demon says. “Release your hold on him and let me bring him up, and out, safely. He’s fighting so hard. He’ll hurt himself. And then that will hurt you, my lord.”

Boya wants to thrash, to rip away the binding magics holding him captive inside himself. He shreds at the walls of his mind the way he wants to claw at his skin and the spells enveloping him. When he feels a now-familiar lassitude overtaking him, sapping the fight and ferocity from his will, he strains further.

“Shh, it’s okay. Don’t fight. Don’t cry. Don’t fight me. I’ll release you. I promise. Don’t hurt yourself anymore.”

He’s tugged beneath a dense fog that wraps all around him almost tangibly. Boya feels his resolve weakening, slipping away like weighted silk from a lax grasp. Not again, he thinks. He’s going to lose himself again and, this time, he might never be allowed to come back.

But the numbing darkness doesn’t return to steal him away. He remains suspended in a cloud of barely-there wakefulness but doesn’t get pulled any deeper. Eventually, the cloud begins to evaporate away and he feels himself returning to his senses. His thoughts remain hazy and foggy, his will remains wispy and fragile, but when he tries to take a deep breath, he finds that, finally, he can.

The air that rushes deep into his lungs is fresh and sweet. It’s like opening a window in a musty, unaired room after ages of neglect. He gasps lungful after lungful of pure and free air, scared that if he so much as pauses for even a moment, the ability to do so will be stripped from him. When it’s clear that he’ll continue being able to breathe however he wishes, he relaxes his chest and slows his breathing.

The hand in his hair has resumed its slow, gentle stroking, to calm or to reassure him, perhaps. As his breathing and his heart rate slows, Boya hears, “That’s good. You’re okay now. It’s okay now. I- You need to stay calm like this. If you behave, I’ll release you completely, alright? Just relax, rest.”

His thoughts still feel sluggish like frozen honey thawing. Instinct yells at him to fight, but the exhaustion in him begs him to do as told, to be still and obedient and calm so that he’ll be freed from further compulsion. The faded light of his spiritual core pulses weakly, pleadingly. Boya sighs and he lets the lingering tension in him drain away.

“Yes, that’s it. Very good. Stay like this and rest,” the demon lord says, relief evident in his voice.

“If my lord will stay with him and refrain from stressing him further,” the female demon says with emphasis, “I will fetch some rejuvenating tonics and some broth.”

“Bring something to keep him…calm,” the demon lord adds hastily.

“If my lord doesn’t say or do anything to scare my patient, there will be no need for such potions.”

“All the same, seeing as he is a…high-strung individual, bring a few anyway.”

There’s an annoyed snort, but the demon agrees reluctantly and leaves. Boya hears the door shut quietly behind her and he’s left alone once more with the demon lord.

“If there was a way to keep you awake yet content, without the use of potions or spells, that would be ideal,” the demon lord says. “It does not please me to keep you enthralled, to have your inner fire banked so close to being quenched. Yet, if I did not do so, that very fire would wish to burn me, to immolate me until there is nothing left. Do I leave your candle lit and burning and allow it to melt itself away? Or do I put your flame out so that I may keep you, but be unable to enjoy your warmth and light?”

Boya knows if he ponders those words, if he lets himself think over then, think about what he wants and does not want, he’ll start to panic again. Or get angry. If he wishes to be free, he needs to stay calm. And so he opts not to contemplate the demon lord’s words, allowing them to enter his mind and flow away just as easily. He lies there as the demon lord strokes him like a doted-upon pet, and he breathes.

He doesn’t quite lose himself again when he sleeps — dozes, rather — and he wakes when the female demon returns. This time, his body reacts in sync with his mind, jolting slightly as the tiny clinking of porcelain startles him awake. It’s still not a true wakefulness — his emotions feel soft and far away — but for the first time since he was captured, he’s able to blink his bleary eyes open.

The light, dim as it already is, is piercing to eyes that have not seen light in days, or possibly longer than that since time has been all but a fluid concept to Boya for so long. He shuts them instantly, grimacing, and then slowly eases one open in a tentative squint.

“Slowly,” the demon lord says, “you needn’t open them if it’s too bright.” The already-dim glow behind his mostly-shut eyelids weakens further and when Boya opens his eyes a bit more, he sees that at least half the lamps that were lit have now been snuffed out.

“Better? Michong has some things that will help you get better. You’ll be good and take them without a fuss, right?”

The demon lord doesn’t say what will happen if Boya tries to resist. He doesn’t have to. Boya knows that if he starts to fight again, his mind will be smothered again, stuffed back into the suffocating box of his mind.

His tongue still refuses to form words and his body feels just as weak and limp and tired the way his soul feels. In lieu of words or a nod, he simply makes a soft sound of affirmation.

“Good,” the demon lord says with a satisfied purr. “Very good. I’ll help you sit up a bit. You’re so weak still.”

Boya expects to be manhandled up, but the arms around him are strong and gentle and the movements slow and patient. There’s some shuffling and rustling but Boya’s too tired to really track what’s happening. His eyes, heavy-lidded and gaze still unfocused, just stare at the steady pinpoints of lamplight dotting the room. When he’s finally eased back against a solid warmth, half-sitting and half-lying, just being awake for all that activity has tired him out and he shuts his eyes again, wanting to fall back into that restful non-drugged sleep once more.

“I know, I know,” he hears as his head lolls over to one side. “Drink these first and you can go back to sleep.”

Tired, he thinks grumpily, but an insistent patting against his cheek forces him to blink his eyes open again. The same hand grasps his chin and rights his head and Boya feels cool porcelain against his lips. His lifetime of training screams for him not to drink, not to consume anything a demon might wish him to. The pull of freedom is a stronger lure and Boya parts his lips.

The liquid that slides into his mouth is cold and bitter and Boya instinctively recoils with a grimace. He’s weak enough that all he manages to do is shift his head aside. The rim of the porcelain vial slips away from his lips and a small dribble of liquid trickles down his chin.

“Now, now,” the demon lord chides, “you promised to be good, didn’t you?”

Boya freezes, wondering if this small accidental protest has lost him what little bit of freedom he’s earned. He can’t go back under. He won’t!

Before he realises that he’s trembling, a thumb wipes the fluid from his chin. “It’s okay, it’s okay, don’t be scared. I don’t want to upset you. Is it- Does it taste bad? Medicine usually is. But if you drink it all, I’ll give you a treat. A reward. All right?”

The thumb, still coated in the bitter medicine, presses against his lips and Boya lets it slip into his mouth. There’s a whisper of musk alongside the salt of skin, and it makes the bitterness less acrid. Absently, sleepily, he suckles at the digit as the bitterness fades.

He hears a soft gasp and a yearning sigh. “I wish you would stay like this, sweet and compliant, for me.”

The cold porcelain returns to his lips and, now forewarned about the taste, Boya managed to drink the rest of the concoction. He’s still frowning, his lips pursed and twisted from the unpleasant taste, when he feels a sticky touch to his pressed-thin lips. Obediently, he relaxes them and what slips in is a fingertip drenched in thick honey. It chases away the lingering taste of bitterness, the deep sweetness of it replacing the herbal taste of the medicine. Boya’s never tasted honey this dark and sweet before. The bees that have produced this must have sipped from some truly magnificent flowers.

He makes a muffled sound of protest when the sweet-laced finger is pulled away, and he hears a soft chuckle. “So beautiful in your submission. Drink this for me and I’ll let you have more.”

More porcelain, warm this time, touches his lips. He braces himself for more awful medicine but it ends up being warm soup. There's a herbal aroma to it, but it simply tastes rich and savoury. And, he decides as spoonful after spoonful of liquid warmth trails down his throat and into his stomach, it’s delicious.

Boya doesn’t know how long he’s been held in drugged captivity but he feels like he hasn’t eaten the whole time. He’s ravenous, but also exhausted. Torn between food and sleep, he can’t decide which he prefers. Eventually, though, sleep wins out and he turns his head somnolently from the spoon.

“I suppose that’s enough for now. It’ll have to do until later. It’s my fault you’re so weak, so tired. I’ll reward you again and then you can sleep, and rest.”

He’s fed more honey, and it’s heartachingly glorious without the taint of bitter medicine. Boya wonders what flowers could have nectar so wonderful as to result in this wondrously magical taste. He suckles at the finger in his mouth, lips and tongue chasing after every just drop of it even as his full and warm belly lulls him deeper and deeper into sleep once again.

“If you must dream,” Boya hears distantly, “let it be of me.”

Chapter Text

When Boya rouses once again, he feels more like himself than he’s been in a good while. An unnatural fog still surrounds him, keeping him feeling distant and floaty, somewhat removed from the world. He feels like he should worry about this off-kilter feeling, but it’s preventing him from caring too much about anything and everything.

A natural brightness fills the room from screened windows and the sheer silk curtaining his bed further filters the light. Boya’s body still feels heavy and his limbs leaded, but he can move them. He’s too weak and tired to actually move them, but he feels them respond to his attempts, at least.

A cursory inspection of his body and their function finds that his hands are bound at the wrists with strange silken wrappings that seem to have no beginning or end that he might try to tug free. While they aren’t so tight as to be digging into his skin, they’re firm and secure, and there’s no give at all when he tries to tug his hands apart. It’s like being bound with thin, flexible metal.

There’s also a similar silken softness around his throat. It feels like loose padded bandages but Boya doesn’t remember being injured there. He tries to wriggle his bound hands up to his neck, but only manages to get them to chest level before he’s worn out from the effort. It doesn’t seem to be hurting him and Boya decides to leave it be for the time being.

He’s dressed in a white sleeping robe. It has the faint sheen and texture of raw silk and the softness of it. Boya doesn’t own anything so fine or luxurious, and he doesn’t recall ever having been gifted any such thing either. It’s thick, the warm lining inside granting protection from the cool, drafty air. It’s also long, because Boya can feel that warmth extending down his thighs and shins. When Boya shifts restlessly, he realises it’s also the only garment he’s wearing. He’s not wearing any pants. None at all, whether short or long, loose or snug, cotton or silk or leather.

He thinks like he ought to feel mortified, or enraged, or wary. Logically, he knows they’re all perfectly acceptable responses to the knowledge that he’s been undressed and redressed by someone unknown. However, he barely feels any of it past the buffer of the strange numbing mist still enveloping part of his mind. And that alone should be worrying but Boya finds it hard to feel that too.

The door opens with a whisper of sound and Boya glances over immediately.

“You’re awake! That’s very good! My lord will be so pleased!”

Boya recognises the voice. It’s the female demon, the one who’d pleaded for the demon lord to release Boya from his thrall. She looks somewhat familiar but Boya can’t quite bring any memory to focus.

“My name is Michong and I’m the healer in charge of your care,” she says with a bright, sunny smile. Her dark hair contrasts starkly against the pair of iridescent wings set just behind each point-tipped ear. A butterfly demon. Boya distantly recalls meeting one but the actual memory of the encounter escapes him. Is this the same one? Did he…try to kill her before?

“You must still be feeling a bit fuzzy. It’s okay! Don’t let it bother you. Everything will stabilise with time. You’ll feel more and more whole and centered as time passes and the drug leaves your system. You’ve taken it far longer than you should have, so it’s only natural that it’ll take your body time to expel it completely.”

Boya twitches at the mention of being drugged, but it’s not new information and what she’s saying makes sense. It’s just…upsetting. That he was drugged. That he slipped up enough to be drugged. And captured. And brought to wherever he is now.

He wants to ask her where he is, but while his mouth and tongue work, he finds himself unable to actually speak the question buzzing about in his mind.

“Oh, um, it might also take some time for your words to return. It’s a side-effect of taking that drug for so long. Your mind and body were unmoored for so long that they now need time to reconnect again. But don’t worry, it will pass, and hopefully soon!”

Boya makes a frustrated grunt and looks away, missing the crestfallen expression that crosses her face.

“It must be deeply upsetting. And annoying. I brought you a few tonics to take. They’ll help with your recovery. One is the same as what you took last night. My lord said you found the taste greatly unpleasant and told me to provide you with a sweet to enjoy afterwards. You can take the others first and the bitterest one last, and then have the sweet after that.”

Boya turns his head to look at her again, wondering at the demon lord’s instruction. It's an oddly considerate way to treat a prisoner. But, like with all other emotions so far, he finds it difficult to feel any which way about it. He settles for simple bemusement.

She helps him sit up, her petite size belying her demon strength, and props several cushioning pillows behind him. His arms are far too weak for him to take the medicines on his own, so she brings each unstoppered vial to his lips and tips their contents slowly into his mouth. When she holds up the last one, the one with the vile-tasting thing that he can already smell from memory alone, he grimaces.

Michong smiles apologetically at him. “If you think you can manage it, it might be better to gulp it all down in one go than sip it slowly.”

Boya twists his lips even further but grudgingly admits she’s right. He glances apprehensively at the vial and nods.

“If it’s too horrid to take all at once just- just, um…” She wracks her brain trying to think of a non-verbal way he can indicate his distress and then brightens when an idea blossoms.

“You could squeeze my hand? If that’s okay with you?” she says, before her sunny expression dims a bit. “I understand if you’d rather not. You are a demon hunter, after all. I doubt the touch of a demon is pleasant to you.”

Boya thinks she’s right. She should be. Logically speaking, she is. And yet, his numbed emotions aside, he thinks she shouldn’t be. She’s a demon and, if last night’s conversation is anything to go by, he’s already attempted to kill her once. And yet, she’s treating him with kindness and consideration. She’s being thoughtful and patient with him.

Against logic and instinct, he opens one hand and glances down at it before bringing his gaze back to hers.

“Oh!” she exclaims with an effervescent giggle. “Okay!”

She prepares his promised sweet so that, once he’s drunk the medicine, she can pop it into his mouth with minimal waiting. And then she unstoppers the vial and places one tiny hand in his open palm. Boya closes his fingers loosely around her delicate fingers, absently thinking that they’re so slender and little, like those of a child. And then she brings the horrid potion to his mouth and tips the entire thing in.

It’s as foul as he remembers, but he forces himself to gulp it down. It’s so bitter it burns. He’s coughing and spluttering even as she brings him a little cup of water to wash the worst of it away. He gulps that down too, and it helps a bit, but only insofar that he doesn’t think he’ll vomit right this instant.

Immediately, she sets the cup down by the empty vials, retrieves the unwrapped sweet and presses it to his waiting lips. “Do you want more water?” she asks.

He shakes his head, sucking urgently on the sugary lump as he wills it to dissolve faster. It does, eventually, and when the hard outer shell of it melts away, out flows a tiny measure of the same honey he’d tasted the night before. It’s as lovely as he remembers, tainted as it is by the lingering awfulness of the medicine. He sighs and relaxes back into the pillows behind him.

As she tidies her tray of vials, Michong says, “Rest a bit. I’ll inform my lord that you’re awake and bring you a light meal.”

His panic must be written all over his face, because she pauses and sets down the vial she’s holding, and then takes his shaking hands in hers and pats them comfortingly.

“There’s no need to worry. He won’t hurt you. He won’t. Wasn’t he gentle with you last night? When he sent the hivefolk out to find you, to bring you back, he said in no uncertain terms that you were not to be harmed. It’s why they drugged you. It was the only way they could subdue you without hurting you. Never fear, my lord won’t harm you.”

She pats his hands until they stop trembling, and then she smoothens the blankets around him, tucking it beneath his hands and drawing it up to mid-chest. And then she draws the bed curtains back, fluffing them as she ties them back. A faint puff of dust wafts from the sheer silk and he twitches his nose. As he watches her tidy the chamber, he relaxes back into his pillows again. By the time she leaves, tray in hand, smiling back at him with a farewell wave, he’s drowsy again.

He doesn’t slip back into sleep. Instead, he finds himself idly amused by floating motes of dust, suspended in the air and highlighted by the soft light filtering in through the windows. He tracks their movement as the minute currents in the room waft them here, and then there. From his position on the bed, he blows a breath at the motes he’s watching and observes with muted glee as they suddenly spin and whirl through the gust he’s created. And then he amuses himself further as he adjusts and modulates his breath to try and steer the motes back to their now-disturbed path.

He’s grinning drowsily when the demon lord enters. Boya doesn’t hear him enter, so focused is he on directing one glinting mote to the right (just a bit more!) that he only notices very belatedly when the demon lord sits beside him at the edge of the bed.

Noticing doesn’t mean Boya acknowledges him. Caught up in the moment, it’s more important to Boya that the little speck of dust reach the imaginary goal point that Boya has designated. When he finally achieves the feat, he dissolves into dazed giggles.

“If only it were me that brought you laughter and smiles,” he hears whispered. Boya rolls his head to the side where the demon lord sits indolently, watching him with golden eyes. He stops laughing, but the corners of his lips remain quirked in a vague, forgotten smile.

This is the demon lord. Boya thinks he ought to be afraid. He’s a demon hunter, currently bound and helpless and held captive, and this is a demon lord. This kind of scenario never ends well. But whatever has him so easily distracted by sparkling dust also steals away his fear, and all he can think is that the demon lord’s eyes remind him of those glowing bits of dust.

“She scolds me for binding your mind, yet she quells your worries in this manner with nary a thought,” the demon lord murmurs. “But having brought such a look to your face, how can I be upset with her?”

Boya hums quizzically, blinking as he absently counts the little flecks of colour in the demon lord’s eyes. They’re such an interesting colour, he thinks, his scattered mind losing count with that thought.

“Little hunter, are you hungry?”

The question distracts Boya from his renewed count. Hungry? He frowns slightly as he considers the query. His stomach answers for him with a jarringly loud growl. He pauses to acknowledge the sound, and then looks up at the demon lord, eyes still glazed, and nods.

The demon lord chuckles fondly and cups Boya’s cheek with his palm. His hand is warm against the chill air and Boya sighs, turning his face towards it. His eyes drift shut as he thinks, This is nice.

He hears, and dismisses, a faint cough, content with sitting still and appreciating the sensation of warm skin upon his face. The texture of the calloused hand and how it feels, rough yet soft, against his skin, fascinates him for reasons he cannot comprehend. He just knows it is fascinating.

“Are you cold?” the demon lord asks, his thumb moving idly and distractingly beside Boya’s lower lip.

It takes Boya a moment to take the words apart, turn them over in his mind, and then string them back together, before he nods. And then the moving thumb catches his attention again and he wonders if it might taste sweet like honey like it did last time. Like a cat confronted with a twitching mouse, Boya blocks everything else out and tries to focus his skittering attention on that slow, idle sweep of movement.

The door opens at the same moment that he dips his head to capture that teasing digit in his mouth. The demon lord hisses but doesn’t try to tug his hand away. A gasp and the giggle that follows has Boya looking up, still grinning gleefully with the demon lord’s thumb clamped between his teeth.

Michong is standing at the doorway, a tray of food in her hands as she tries (badly) to stifle her amusement. She enters, still biting back laughter, and places the tray on the side table.

“My lord, my patient appears a tad hungry. I apologise if I’ve tarried,” she says between half-giggles.

“If he’s turned into a menace, it’s because you dusted him,” the demon lord retorts with a sniff.

Dusted? Boya tries to think back to what the demon lord might be referring to. His thoughts spark and fizzle like new year crackers, fluttering to the front of his mind and back just as quickly. Before he can catch one of these mercurial memories, the thumb in his mouth twitches and Boya’s attention returns to this most pressing of matters.

There isn’t last night’s honeyed sweetness, he realises with disappointment. He pouts and relaxes his bite, no longer interested in it. It doesn’t quite fall from his lips so much as the demon lord slips it out, rubbing his lower lip teasingly as he does so. And then, he’s guided and nudged forward as the demon lord slides in behind him, before he’s settled back against a wonderfully warm body. He sighs happily as he melts back against it.

“Still cold?” the demon lord murmurs as he signals for Michong to bring the food tray over.

Boya shakes his head and shuts his eyes so that he can better appreciate how it feels, soaking into his tired body like a balm. He hasn’t realised how cold he’s felt since waking until right this very moment as the deepest chill in his bones retreats. The warmth feels like safety to his sweetly fuzzy mind. He feels comfortable and warm, which therefore translates into a feeling of security, a hominess that he’s only ever associated with his mother.

“Michong, should he be this sleepy, this out of it?”

“It’s hard to say, but everyone responds differently to mind and mood-altering things. He was under for longer than people usually are. I did tell you that his body and spiritual pathways would be affected by the prolonged duration. It might be that he's more susceptible to the effects, and that his body was more affected than expected.”

Boya listens as they speak but lets their voices wash over him as he floats in darkness and comfort. Emotions and focused thought feel beyond him for now, but he does feel other things. He feels safe. Secure. Carefree. Warm and soft and content. There’s a pinching feeling at the back of his mind as if saying he’s wrong to be experiencing this, to be feeling this way, but his worries seem so far away and dull. Boya can’t quite concentrate hard enough to care about such things.

Michong and the demon lord chatter a bit more and then he hears Michong leave. “Little hunter,” Boya hears him say and wonders who that hunter is. There’s no hunter or hunting here, in the soft, safe space. And then the demon lord says his name, croons it, low and gentle, by his ear, and Boya looks up blearily at him.

“Weren’t you hungry? You need to eat if you want to get your strength back. I do so adore this sweet silliness of yours, but your health is more important.” The demon lord smiles wryly down at him. “Maybe when your mind is centered again, you might think back on this moment and decide I’m not as terrible as you think I am.”

Had he thought the demon lord was terrible? Right now, in this slice of time, he seems rather decent, Boya thinks, blinking quizzically at the demon lord while his syrupy thoughts gather and pool.

“More broth first,” the demon lord says, picking up a bowl of soup off the tray and bringing a spoonful of it to Boya’s mouth. It’s the same as what he had the night before, if a bit thicker now, richer tasting and with tiny shreds of meat and vegetables. He makes quiet hums of satisfaction between sips, warm inside and out and getting steadily fuller.

After Boya empties the bowl, the demon lord swaps it for a dish of little steamed buns. He places the platter on Boya lap and selects one bun. It’s already smaller than buns usually are, but held between the demon lord’s fingers, it seems even tinier and more delicate.

The bun is pulled apart to reveal a fragrant paste. It smells floral and sweet and when a fragment is fed to him, the skin is soft and the paste melts into a gentle sweetness over his tongue. Boya finishes one bun, and then a second. But when the demon lord holds up a third, Boya shakes his head. He leans back against the demon lord’s chest and lets his eyes and thoughts drift.

The dish of buns, of which he’s only eaten half, is replaced on the tray. Boya is disappointed to see that there’s nothing else there, no honey or candy for him. Is it something he’s only allowed to have with medicine? It doesn’t seem fair and Boya isn’t sure the gross liquid is worth it. But maybe it is, he reconsiders. It is really tasty.

“Sleepy again? Hopefully from the food and nothing else,” the demon lord muses. “Would you like it if I continued to hold you, if I stroked your hair as I did before?”

It seems like a good idea, a nice, pleasing suggestion. Boya nods and lets himself be rearranged so that he’s somewhat curled up on the demon lord’s lap, cradled with his cheek resting flush against the demon lord’s chest. He hears the strong thumping of a heart beating beneath his ear and Boya counts it absently. He feels fingers carding through his hair, slow and calming.

It’s nice, he thinks, and it feels like a familiar thought. Huh. It’s still true though.

The demon lord hums a simple tune as he holds Boya and strokes his hair. That’s also familiar but, again, Boya can’t quite place it. Between the repetitive heartbeats he keeps losing count of, the peaceful humming, and the stroking of his hair, Boya slips from dazed wakefulness into dreamless sleep without even noticing.