Work Text:
Chicken eggs were the easiest. Even snake eggs were fairly straightforward, as long as Renjun had the correct equipment. Turtles were difficult; he and Donghyuck had shed a lot of tears over the years, born from people collecting eggs that they shouldn’t have moved from the beach. Lots of the eggs, bird or reptile or something else entirely, came from the folly of misguided human intervention. People trying to help and making things so much worse as they always seemed to.
“Special delivery,” Chenle said, waltzing into the clinic just after closing time. He had a bag of takeout in one hand and a box in the other. “I bring mandu and a mysterious package on your doorstep.”
“It’ll just be Renjun’s Hulk fist dildo, give me the mandu,” Donghyuck said, making grabby hands from the admin desk. His hair was a disarray, his eyes still bright and a little too alert. He’d delivered twelve puppies only half an hour ago, and was still riding the high of all of them latching without any issues.
Because he was still in the puppy euphoria, Renjun didn’t launch a clipboard at him. He’d worked hard, even if he was an asshole. “Your dad asked me to order the dildo.”
“I love walking into adult spaces and hearing adult conversations,” Chenle said, putting the box on the reception desk where Renjun was checking pathology results. He opened the takeout and held out a mandu, which Renjun gratefully ate from his (hopefully) clean hand. “How did today go?”
“Puppies,” Donghyuck said, as articulate as ever. “Mandu?”
Chenle handfed Donghyuck. “Will you check the box? I’m curious now.”
Renjun rubbed his eyes and pulled it over. It wasn’t so rare that people left things for him or Donghyuck – not many veterinarians worked locally, and even less were willing to be on call most of their free time – so gifts were somewhat typical. Cookies, pies, mugs, etcetera. There were more complaints than compliments, still, but that was just what it was like in a public service role. Even if the public service was saving animals, most people still had something to shout at you about. It made Renjun hesitant whenever he opened unsigned packages, because logically he knew it would be cookies, but he was running on fumes, and what if it wasn’t cookies? What if it was a maniacal Saw-esque trap?
He opened the box and immediately wished he hadn’t.
“Well?” Donghyuck asked around his food. “Dildo? Food? Both?”
“Egg.”
“Oh, boring. What kind?”
Renjun stared the egg, silent. It had been packed carefully, surrounded by a nest of crushed newspaper sheets. Someone clearly wanted it to stay safe. Someone clearly cared.
Chenle made an impatient noise, shoving another mandu into Donghyuck’s mouth. “Well? What is it?”
“Dragon.”
A dragon egg.
When Renjun looked up, he saw twin pairs of round-panicked eyes.
“You need to speak to Jaemin,” Chenle said, faint.
Renjun stared down at the egg and nodded. He would have preferred the Saw trap.
-
There were two reasons he didn’t want to see Jaemin.
- Looking at Jaemin was like staring into the sun, if the sun was gorgeous and smug about it.
- Looking at Jaemin was like staring into the sun, if the sun was gorgeous and smug about it and also Renjun’s ex.
-
“Wow,” Jaemin said, completely expressionless. “You told me you weren’t ready for kids.”
“I don’t know what to do with it,” Renjun admitted, embarrassed and somewhat lost. Not physically – he could find Jaemin’s apartment with his eyes closed – but emotionally he was somewhere unfamiliar. Uncertain. He’d never known Jaemin to turn such a neutral expression his way. He’d never known Jaemin to look at him with anything other than undisguised fondness.
“Did you get it at one of those markets again?” Jaemin’s expression immediately moved from nothing to anger, lively and fiery. “I told you that they’re fucking dangerous, Renjun, what the hell are you-“
“It was left at the clinic,” he said, chastised despite his innocence. Any other day and he’d already be arguing, but he’d been awake for so long. Someone had left a fucking dragon’s egg at his clinic. Jaemin was still so pretty that his presence felt like a punch in the chest. More vulnerable than Renjun would have liked, he said, “Jaemin, I really don’t know what to do.”
It took a moment, but Jaemin’s expression softened back into neutrality. “Come in, then.”
-
They hadn’t worked out for a number of reasons, but there were two that stood out.
- Renjun was quick to react. Quick to anger.
- Jaemin was quick to react. Quick to anger.
-
Jaemin had always been better at keeping himself even and centred, but after a time that had been engulfed too. He was dry, but too dry, easy kindling for the flames to envelop, and Renjun had been nothing but jumping sparks.
“I don’t get why you left,” Donghyuck had admitted one late evening, after wine and tears and films that Renjun detested but watched silently for Donghyuck’s sake. “Surely passion is better than boredom?”
“It was too much,” Renjun had said, so drunk he wasn’t sure of it anymore. So drunk he wasn’t sure he’d ever meant it in the first place. “The whole relationship I felt like I was flying too close to the sun.” It was easier to say than explain, I kept doing stupid things and he kept getting angry about it. Justifiably angry. We were making each other worse.
“But you’re an angel,” Donghyuck said, reaching over to link their fingers. “You’re meant to fly.”
“Not that high up.”
“It’s okay if it was something good and you were scared,” Donghyuck said, looking back to the TV as though to allow Renjun some privacy. “But be honest about it.”
Renjun sniffed. He wanted to help me but I never allowed it. This is my fault. “No.”
-
“You’re lucky the spare room is still set up as an incubator,” Jaemin said, leading Renjun through the rooms as though they were unfamiliar. “I fostered a couple of phoenix chicks last week. It was only for a few days, but I never dismantled the equipment because we weren’t sure how well they’d settle in at the shelter.”
Renjun hummed. He hugged the egg closer to his chest. It felt odd, even through the blankets. Heavy and solid like a bowling ball, if bowling balls had iridescent scales that sold for thousands in illegal markets. “Did they? Settle in okay?”
“Yeah, they’re fine. I visited yesterday.” Jaemin rolled up his sleeve and showed Renjun what looked like a small oil spill burn. “Got pooped on, obviously.”
“Obviously,” Renjun echoed. He wasn’t sure there were many men in the world that could get shit on by a fire bird and bring it up casually in conversation, unbothered, but that was the reason that despite everything, Jaemin was the first person he turned to with the egg. There was no one else Renjun would trust with a defenceless animal.
(That, and Jaemin was the only magi-specialised zoologist Renjun knew. His options were incredibly limited.)
Jaemin opened the spare room, and lead Renjun to the corner, where a huge heat lamp hung over a glass enclosure that reached waist-hight. Blankets and all, Renjun put the egg into the enclosure, settling it upright as Jaemin fiddled with plugs and outlets until the light flickered on, immediately too hot. Renjun pulled back, arms prickling from the heat as he stepped away.
Jaemin crouched down near the egg, unbothered. “I’m glad you brought it here,” he said. “I know a couple of shelters that have room for a dragon. Until then, it can stay here, safe and sound.” He looked up, eyes shining in the strong glow of the lamp. “Are you sure you didn’t break into some illegal shop again? You promise that it was left on your doorstep?”
“I promise,” Renjun said. “I don’t do that anymore.” If only because of intervention – usually Jaemin’s. He learnt his lesson too late to salvage their relationship, but it was better than nothing.
‘One day you’ll be killed, and I’ll have to fucking live knowing I didn’t save you!’
That particular argument still haunted him. It was the only time he’d ever seen Jaemin cry.
“I was half convinced that you’d go back to your life of sneaking around in dangerous places once we broke up,” Jaemin said, turning his attention back to the enclosure. He stared at the egg. “I thought I’d lose my hair worrying about you.”
He’d only been injured once, and that was on jagged glass as he climbed out of a window he’d broken only minutes earlier. His backpack had been full of Cerberus puppies, and the scars on his left shoulder were worth it. He’d saved the puppies, and for that result he would have dealt with much worse, which was – probably what ended his relationship, in the end. While he’d felt guilt for worrying Jaemin, he’d never truly felt any guilt for the actions. He was saving rare, endangered animals. In his opinion, the cause was worth the risk. “Like I said, I don’t do it anymore.”
“Why?”
He shrugged, uncomfortable. “The last guys had guns. Chenle is funding a private team now, so I just wait until the animals have been retrieved and take it from there.”
“They had guns? Jesus, Renjun. Were you alone?”
“Donghyuck was with me.”
Jaemin snorted. “Of course he was. It’s like he borrows your braincells then forgets where he leaves them.”
“Hey,” Renjun objected, no real bite to it.
“Hey,” Jaemin said back.
They’d been apart for two months. Renjun had kept away through sheer force of will, and now it was becoming painfully obvious why he’d been so strict about it. He was already crumbling. “I should go.”
Jaemin nodded and stood. He cast one glance back to the dragon egg before leading Renjun out of the room and closing the door softly. “It’s a pretty large one. Should be a couple of months before we see any movement.”
“Yeah? Do you think it’ll be a big dragon?”
“I couldn’t say. It might be a big dragon, or it could be a bonded pair.” He raked a hand through his hair. “Any idea how long it was cold for?”
“None,” Renjun admitted. “It was outside in the box for maybe half an hour, but before that I couldn’t tell you.”
“We’ll just have to see what happens. Dragons typically go into a kind of stasis when cold, but that only allows for a handful of hours. Any longer and the chance of it hatching is more than halved.”
Renjun chewed his lip.
“Stop that,” Jaemin said, softer than anything he’d said so far. “You brought it straight to me, which was the right thing to do. You did well.”
Donghyuck and Chenle had probably finished off the mandu. It left Renjun feeling a horrible mixture of guilty and hungry.
“Renjunnie, stop blaming yourself for things out of your control.”
“Never.”
Jaemin smiled faintly. “Are you hungry? We could get some food and catch up. I’ve been thinking about you, you know. Hoping you’ve been well.”
It wasn’t what he wanted to hear. I miss you. “I could eat.”
-
After a long discussion turned argument turned discussion again, Jaemin decided to cook instead of ordering in. It was a decision made solely by him, solely because Renjun was insisting on paying for the takeout.
So he cooked, and Renjun sat and watched at the small breakfast bar, a little out of place. A handful of months ago and he would have been squeezed in next to Jaemin, cutting vegetables or trimming meat, passing over sauces, reaching up on his toes to kiss the back of Jaemin’s neck.
He thought of the bulldog cerberus cross that they’d fostered the year before. Two of the heads had preferred Renjun, but one had preferred Jaemin. The only way all three had been happy was if Renjun sat in Jaemin’s lap, two puppies sleeping on his stomach while the third pressed its nose to Jaemin’s sternum.
He thought about the simple domesticity that had been ripped away like a limb. The phantom pains dug deep as he watched Jaemin plate up a heaped stir fry and pass it over.
“Hope it’s good.”
“It will be,” Renjun said, certain. He took a bite and nodded. “It is.”
Jaemin’s smile was faint. “Good. Glad I didn’t let you down.”
You never have. Renjun shovelled more food into his mouth and tried not to think about it.
They ate in quiet for a while, before Jaemin asked, “How’s the new place? Have you settled in yet?”
“It’s fine.” It was small, insanely expensive, and Renjun was pretty sure his landlord had killed her ex-husband. He liked it. “A little closer to the clinic, but also to Donghyuck. He comes over a lot.”
“It’s not like he didn’t come over when you lived here,” Jaemin said, wry. “Like you’ll start to wilt if you don’t see each other at least eight hours a day.”
“Don’t act like you and Jeno are any better.”
“I never claimed to be better,” Jaemin said, eyebrows climbing into the fall of his hair, “I just like complaining about Donghyuck. It’s only been a couple of months, Renjun. You didn’t expect me to change my entire personality, did you?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“You’re so quiet,” Jaemin said abruptly. “What’s going on? You’re barely arguing at all.”
If only Jaemin didn’t know him so well. If only what they’d made together had been surface level and fleeting instead of something that had blown up and left Renjun’s chest hollow and structurally unsound. “It’s difficult to argue when you’ve mostly been right.”
“It’s never stopped you from trying before.” Jaemin’s eyebrows lowered again, into something between concern and discomfort. “If you’re not comfortable here, you know you can leave, right? I’ll take care of the egg; I’ll start looking for a decent sanctuary tomorrow. You don’t have to stay longer than you want to.”
It hurt to admit, like embarrassment was a physical thing in his chest and the edges were sharp. “I don’t want to leave.”
Jaemin’s sombre expression eased, and the pain was suddenly worth it. “Oh. Good.”
“Yeah,” Renjun said, sure his expression was twisted up and pink. He stared down at what remained of his meal, knowing he’d eat it all and end up way too full later. Knowing he wouldn’t regret it. “Good.”
-
“Come back in a week or so,” Jaemin said at the door. “We’ll see if there’s any visible progress.”
“Sure,” Renjun said, unsure.
-
There were three reasons he didn’t want to see Jaemin.
- Looking at Jaemin was like staring into the sun, if the sun was gorgeous and smug about it.
- Looking at Jaemin was like staring into the sun, if the sun was gorgeous and smug about it and also Renjun’s ex.
- Looking at Jaemin was like staring into the sun, if the sun was gorgeous and smug about it and also Renjun was still in love with him.
-
“Did you make love next to the egg?” Donghyuck asked as he walked into the clinic.
It was six-thirty and the sun hadn’t risen yet. Renjun was tired and sad and full of so many regrets that he couldn’t even bring himself to force indignation. “No.”
Donghyuck pouted. “Boo. Why not?”
“I’m pretty sure I’ve already burnt that bridge, Donghyuck.”
“Bridges are manmade things,” Donghyuck replied, abruptly gentle as though he knew Renjun couldn’t take anything else. “You can always rebuild.”
-
The baby sphinx mix was an ugly thing, but just catlike enough that when it made a small noise in Jaemin’s arm as he opened the door, Renjun melted. “Oh,” he breathed.
Jaemin passed it over immediately. “I knew you’d like her. A sphynx cat mixed with a sphinx, and she came out mostly cat. You wouldn’t think she was part endangered if not for the serpent tail, right? She’s called Daisy.”
“Daisy? Hi Daisy,” Renjun said, scratching under her chin. She purred, and it was a weird noise coming from a face that only just looked like it belonged to a kitten, but she was still cute. Just in an ugly way.
“Come on in, the egg is doing fine,” Jaemin said, leading Renjun back through the apartment again. He seemed more at ease than last time, but then he’d expected Renjun this time. They’d even messaged about it, though briefly. Renjun had followed up the conversation by staring at photos he couldn’t bring himself to delete from his phone.
“And you? How are you?”
Jaemin smiled. “Better now. You look good, too. Not as stressed.”
No, not as stressed. Resigned, maybe, to the fact that he’d fucked up a relationship he was only now realising was his ideal. Fiery and loving and passionate. And through it all he’d never once doubted Jaemin loved him. He’d always trusted him. And now he ate leftovers for days in a row because he could never get the hang of cooking for just one person. “I’m pretty good, all things considered.”
He was lead into the room with the incubator, and was surprised to see that the egg was… pink. Bright pink.
“What do you think?” Jaemin asked. He crouched down by the glass again and smiled like he was proud. “Pink egg at night, shepherd’s delight, or however the saying goes. The pink hue just means the dragon is developing well and warming. In another month or so the egg will change colour again, depending on the dragon’s elemental inclination.”
“What do you think it’ll be?” Renjun asked, crouching down next to him. He felt an odd tug for this egg that was dumped at his clinic and was surviving anyway, flourishing under Jaemin’s care.
“My guess is fire, but only because it’s the most common.”
Renjun looked down at Daisy, at her sand-coloured fur and pale, scaly tail. “What about Daisy? Where did you get her?”
“Behind a factory downtown. I don’t know if she escaped from somewhere or was dumped, but she’s here for now. Until she gets her shots and can go into a foster home, at least.”
“I like her,” Renjun admitted, as though there was any question about it. He loved cats, apparently even if they weren’t really cats. Her paws were already huge, and he wondered how big she would grow. Maybe to the size of a lion. Maybe bigger.
“I might keep her, in that case.” Jaemin smiled at the egg. “It gives you an excuse to visit once this one has hatched.”
His bravery came from Daisy, which was half sad and half comforting. “I don’t need an excuse to visit. I’d want to anyway.”
Jaemin sighed. “I miss you. I can be honest about it now. I miss you, but not enough to see you risk yourself again and again. I can’t do that again.”
“I wouldn’t ask you to,” Renjun said. He swallowed. “I told you I don’t do it anymore. I guess it took the breakup to make me realise how stupid I was being. I can’t help any animal if I’m dead.”
“We had a lot going for us, didn’t we?” Jaemin asked. He sounded bleak. “Two years doesn’t seem like a long time, but it kind of felt like we’d always been together. We built a lot in that time.”
On quiet days it had been just the two of them cohabiting, quiet and peaceful. Jaemin cooking, Renjun helping. Renjun cleaning, Jaemin helping. Watching movies, reading, visiting friends, enjoying each other’s company in the unexciting, adoring way that meant their love was something genuine and lasting. On the busy days it had been the two of them and whatever pets Renjun couldn’t leave in the clinic overnight, plus whatever animals Jaemin was fostering. Their busiest night had included four cats and three dogs in their bed, another five dogs in the lounge, and eight various endangered birds in the spare room. They hadn’t slept at all. One of the dogs kept farting. They’d laughed and complained until dawn, then sat and chugged coffee while the cats walked all over them.
“I’m sorry I ruined it,” Renjun said to Daisy. “I’m sorry I was too stubborn to listen.”
Jaemin looked over. He was soft and glowed a faint pink in the light from the heat lamp, and he was gorgeous. “Are you sorry enough to try and make it up to me?”
He was sorry enough to do almost anything. “Yes.”
Jaemin smiled. It wasn’t the biggest Renjun had ever seen, but it was genuine. Hopeful. “Good. We have a lot to work out before the baby is born, and I’m not sure I’d be happy as a coparent.”
“You’re not keeping the dragon, Jaemin,” Renjun said, instead of, I love you. I love you so much that now I know how it feels to lose you I’d rather die than do it again.
“But I’m keeping Daisy, right?”
“Yeah,” Renjun said, stroking along her back. “You can keep Daisy.”
Jaemin held out a hand. “Can I keep you?”
It was almost cheesy enough that Renjun said no out of principle. “Yes,” Renjun said, too happy to fight it. “Yeah, you can.”