Author's note: This is the first JaeHo fic I've ever written. I did it for the Secret Santa exchange. It came out a bit longish and too AU-ish. One day I promise to write a sequel.


Blood on the Snow


He woke up with the start. But for a second he lied frozen, thinking that he still must have been resting in the arms of Morpheus. But the numbing feeling in his limbs told him otherwise. With some detached fascination he watched the puffs of breath escape his mouth and quickly dissolve in the air.


Above him the sun was startlingly yellow at the heavenly blue sky.


There must have been some reason, he thought, some explanation why he was where he was. Why he was outside instead of inside? He surely must have some inside, right? But no answer came.


The air was crisp and smelled with winter freshness and fur-tree sap. He was lying on the ground, facing the heavens. He turned his head and his right cheek came into the contact with something cold. A first it was pleasantly cold and then it was quickly melting and turning into some sort of numbness. Somewhere at the back of his mind he registered that he was lying in the snow.


Snow?


He tried to raise his right hand, felt something stir near his body, and then he saw the pale skin of slender fingers which shown with that particular blueness, which is typical for hypothermia, framed by the black laces of the sleeves. He tried to move his fingers – the reluctantly submitted to his whims, sending unpleasant shivers down his arm.


He willed his left hand to join the right one and watched them both just above his face, searching for differences, looking for marks. With exception of the heavy silver ring on his finger of the left hand, both hand were identical, baring no visible marks of anything. No signs of hard labor, or those little corns one gets on the middle finger from writing too much. So he was neither worker nor scholar. He must have been one of aristocracy, which explained the ring and laces but it didn’t explain why his skin was as smooth as baby’s, when it is just born.


The ring caught his attention one’s again, as he turned to it, searching for the answers to his questions. It was a heavy thick silver band, with the only decoration of tiny leaf. The ring brought no associations, no memories. It was just a silver ring, which adorned just a hand, and both were equally alien to him.


I have to get up, he thought.


Slowly he rolled on his right side and making his left arm move, he used it to push himself up. The moment his shoulders lost any contact with the ground, he was overwhelmed by dizziness. In a second his vision whitened and his mind blanked.


When he came around, he noticed with some satisfaction that unlike his previous “awakening”, he could remember what had happened, that is between his losses of consciousness. Still in pursuit of his attempts to get up, he again tried to push himself up. This time he succeeded, leaning heavily on his right elbow and feeling his left arm tremble under him as he closed his eyes and willed the fatigue away.


When he felt that he was ready, he opened his eyes and looked around. His suspicions were confirmed and he was indeed lying in the snow just at the edge of the forest. On the left side there were endless fields of snow with the dark border of yet another forest starting –or maybe the continuation of this one? – far from him. There was nothing and nobody around him except for the white snow and dark trees.


How did I get here?


//


The winter air burned through his lungs, as his rapid breathes ringed in his ears. He felt as if he was running, but his limbs were not moving. He saw nothing but the whiteness. He could hear nothing but his thumping heart. He smelled nothing but the sweetness of blood.


All his being was filled with fear.


He is close…


//


The answer came in the series of fragmented memories, so fast and blurring that he could barely register the visions which flashed before his eyes and left him gasping and shaking with the faint echo of that all-consuming feeling of fear.


He shook his head to clear it a little, willing the dread and weakness in his limbs away. But when he looked up and searched the surroundings for any signs of movement, his eyes looked haunted.


Being scared of something which was nothing but a fear itself, manifested in the morsels of his memories, was ridiculous. Biting the lower lip, he pushed himself up and was finally able to sit straight without support.


Getting up to stand on his two turned out a bit trickier, but he accomplished that too and stood up, swaying a bit and ignoring the white dots which danced before his eyes. His inspection of his clothes confirmed that he was dressed in black velvet and silk, such an attire, which only the nobles wore. Wind threw a strand of dark hair into his eyes, and as he brushed it of his face with a quick movement of his hand, he found that his hair was quiet long, reaching down to his shoulders. It was soft as sick and wet, and when he looked at his hand which just combed through his locks, he saw his fingers covered with blood.


//


Dance, my little boy, dance. Show the Elder what you are capable of.


But I can’t!


Yes, you can, the little one. If anything, it is in your blood.


//


It was easier to ignore the dizziness this time as he swirled to look at the place where he had just been lying. There on the half melted and flattened snow the blood stood out mockingly bright. He tried to decide whether he felt any pain, but there was nothing, except for the exhaustion in his muscles.


He inspected the place, but saw nothing – no traces led to the place where he had been lying. He thought that maybe he had spent a night lying and the snow had fallen and covered his traces. Which didn’t explain why when he had woken up, he hadn’t been covered with snow, and the sky bore no traces of clouds.


He might have as well dropped from the heavens.


There was no sense staying at the place where he was, although he felt some strange attachment to it, similar to what one felt about the place of his birth. But before he could decide which way to turn - try to cross the field or go deeper into the forest – the was a sudden howl which started him.


A wolf was standing just at the line where the trees ended. The dark beast’s eyes were staring at him, and he felt that he was paralyzed with fear. The wolf was big, his dark gray fur must have helped him to blend with the trees and thus approach unnoticed. Suddenly it raised his head up again and let out a load howl. And a few seconds later another howl sounded in the distance, but evidently coming from the forest.


The fear was a purely animalistic reaction to the dangerous situation. It had a tendency to blur somebody’s mind and mess up his judgement. His mind was screaming danger to him, the memories stirred and the old, much deeper, fear surfaced again making him tremble and take of like a deer. Against any common sense he ran across the field, knowing, feeling with the hair at the back of his neck, that the wolf was following him.


He ran, every second expecting sharp teeth to grab at his anchle or his arm and be hurled to the side and torn into pieces. He ran, his breath burning in his lungs and his mind kept helpfully supporting with the various images of the similiar run he had had. He ran and couldn’t help feeling adrenaline rush through his veins as he saw that he was approaching the trees. There was a sanctuary there, he believed, a refuge, meant only for him and for him only. He believed it like a child believes that every fairy tale has a happy ending. Because he had nothing else.


His legs were trembling, his muscles aching with exhaustion, he fell and climbed up, jumped, leaped, fell again, rolled, but was back on his feet in a second. He didn’t know what helped him, he didn’t understand what kept him upright at all, but he ran and ran and ran and never stopped or looked back even when he heard another howl right behind his back.


The moment he reached the edge of the forest felt like forever, he felt the joy and lightness blossom in his heart. But then he came to a abrupt stop, almost stumbling and falling, when he saw the wolves barring him the entrance into the forest. The time seemed to stop, as he looked back and saw other wolves with their tongues hanging out like dogs cutting him of any escape rout. He knew he was done for. There was no way out.


Suddenly he felt calmness envelope him. Instead of being scared for his life, he felt serene, as if he knew what he had to do and that he could come out of this fight as the winner. He could feel his body fill with unexpected strength, with which came the confidence in his abilities.


He was overcome with the sense of deja vu.


//


His hands slid over the silk skin, sure and bold in what they were doing. His nails scraped over the firm muscles of the chest, relishing in their strength and the knowledge that he could easily make that delicious body writhe under him. That these hands knew ways to make this body sing, make it moan, make it scream.


His hands could do all that and much more.


//


The images sent shivers down his spine, flashing his cheeks and making his body tingle with unexpected excitement. The wolves had circled him, and he snarled at them, daring them to come closer. But they did not. Keeping a meter or so distance from him, they just kept staring at him, obviously waiting for something. Experimentally he tried to move, but the wolves immediately started to growl, quiet clearly showing him, that he was not permitted to leave.


The time went, taking the adrenaline rush with it. He was feeling tired again, the crazy chase getting at him. He decided whether the wolves were waiting for him to drop to jump at him, but there was no evident reason, why they hadn’t done it earlier. So he just slowly let himself sit down on the ground. The wolves watched him warily, but some of them sat down as well, and others kept alert.


As he had nothing better to do he kept examining his captors. The big gray wolf he had seen first, was obviously the leader of the pack - the seven wolves total. The lead stood staring at him, occasionally sniffing the air. Other wolves were smaller, also gray, except for one which was black. Once in awhile one of the wolves would get curios and make few hesitant steps close to him, sniffing the air, but the leader would snarl and they would promptly return at their places.


Suddenly all the wolves leapt to their feet, obviously they could hear something he could not, being confined to only his human hearing. Then there was a howl which sounded very close, and in few minutes he could distinguish a distant thudding of hooves.


A horse?


//


He could feel it with his skin, he could hear it in his thoughts - distant like a sound of waves, the name was called out. It was something he never expected to hear, something he never hoped to hear. It was all, it was everything. He both dreaded and desperately craved it.


Jaejoong…


//


There was only one rider that galloped into the clearing. He was tall and young, dressed in the fine dark brown leather and cashmere. His cheeks were reddened by the frost and ride, and his smile was dazzling. But before he could warn the newcomer about the wolves, the beasts surrounded the horse. But to his surprise, neither the horse nor the rider seemed to mind it. In fact some of the wolves were wagging their tails, like faithful dogs, and the leader allowed the young man to lean down and pet his head.


“So, you have found him at last,” the rider murmured. Turning his dark piercing eyes to the man still sitting on the ground, he smiled again and said: “It was quiet a run you had here, Jaejoong.”


His own name sounded alien to his ears, but the voice it was said with seemed familiar. The confusion rose in his chest, and he said nothing in reply.


The rider maneuvered his horse closer to Jaejoong and continued: “It is time to go home, Jaejoong.”


But the man in question shook his head, fighting the feeling of warmth that was spreading in his chest, trying to think reasonably. The was no reason to trust this strange man who spoke like he knew him and was friends with the wolves. “I don’t know you,” he said. “I don’t trust you.”


“You may or may not know me,” said the rider, approaching him. “You may or may not trust me.” He stopped his horse near Jaejoong and held out his hand to the sitting man. "But only I know all the answers.”


//


He could remember these eyes now, always watching him, always smiling at him, even when those lips were kept tight. He remembered the feeling of pure joy when he managed to make the man smile or laugh. Because he had long ago learned that all the smiles and laughs he managed to steal from him, were his and his only. He could remember their first kiss, the blizzard which kept them in the forest, huddled close under the tree, seeking the warmth in each others bodies. It could have been just a slip of the lips, when he turned to whisper something in his ear. It must have been just a surprise which made him gasp and open his mouth to the probing tongue.


//


Everything that he remembered, everything that he felt, it could have been a mistake, an accident, it could have been somebody else’s memory. It could have been an illusion, a magic spell, but his heart knew where it belong.


He felt no difficulty accepting the offered hand and grasping it firmly with his.


“Show me,” he said.


24/12/05