Work Text:
Kazuma jumped when he caught himself drifting again, shaking himself awake as the purring around him stopped. “Whuh… Wait… Where…?”
“By the gods, Kazuma, it’s like you wish to die of exhaustion, refusing to acknowledge your own fatigue like this,” commented Barok, looking up from his book in worried surprise.
Ryunosuke’s weight suddenly pressed in on Kazuma’s other side on the couch, wrapping his arms around his waist and nuzzling his shoulder while minding his antlers. “You’ve been so tired lately, Kazuma. Why won’t you rest?”
“The… the evil dragon…” he remembered, trying to pull out of Ryunosuke’s embrace. “I still need to find them… My father… He could already…”
This again… Barok sighed.
“You’ve been saying the same things on and off for hours now, trying to keep yourself awake, and to no avail,” he reminded the poor human. He pulled him in to rest Kazuma’s head against his shoulder while draping his massive black wing around the human and wingless dragon. “We told you that we can visit my brother and his family to see what they may know of your father tomorrow; for now, you need to rest .”
Kazuma froze up, too out of it to really react to being moved around and all but caged in by the two dragons. But it was so warm, the couch was so plush, and Ryunosuke was purring where he snuggled against him. He relaxed without fully realizing what was going on, the sound was just so nice. Barok soon started purring again, too, the steady rumbling and warmth of the dragons making him drowsy.
So… so … drowsy… maybe just a few moments…
Ryunosuke giggled as Kazuma began to snore in their arms, kissing his cheek before pulling away to let Barok's wing fully engulf him. “I'll leave a message for his sister," he said in a whisper, careful in heading out the door. “Just so she knows he's safe with us."
Barok nodded. “I’ll see about getting him to bed. Hopefully without waking him.”
As the door closed behind the kuraokami, the remaining dragon watched the sleeping human for a bit. The past few months had been quite a journey of teaching the novice “monster hunter” about shifters; less about how to recognize them or defeat them, and more about how they don’t quite deserve the prejudice that humans believe necessitates it. Shifters are typically no different from humans, even if certain illnesses can cause them to be a bit more of a danger to themselves and other creatures. In return, Kazuma had also taught the two black dragons what drove him to be a hunter in the first place.
Kazuma’s sole desire was to find his missing father, also a monster hunter, after he was supposedly abducted by a black dragon when he was very young. Or, if nothing else, find the truth about what happened to him. It was a noble cause, truth be told. Far more than most shifters come to expect of any hunters they come across. It was a small mercy that when he first stumbled across Barok and Ryunosuke in their mountain-carved home, he was ultimately able to understand that they had no part in his father’s disappearance. Being fairly close to him in age, they were simply too young.
However, Barok couldn’t help but suspect that his objective was… misguided, in a sense. As Ryunosuke has said, outside of kitsunes, no creature enjoys deceiving humans more than their fellow humans. While the dragons had never seen any of the other hunters Kazuma had spoken about, the people who initially told him about his father’s fate may well have not been entirely honest about what became of the man. As much as Kazuma himself was and is willing to acknowledge that notion, he’s still determined in his quest.
Even if said quest has led to him forgoing several days worth of sleep in his nearly-manic determination. Honestly, the young human was even worse than Ryunosuke in some ways. The dragons only got him this way by telling him about Barok's older brother, who was supposed to be returning from a trip with his family that night. Kazuma was just barely convinced to go tomorrow to at least give them a chance to rest after a long flight, but evidently his body was more easily persuaded to take a rest than he was.
Barok would’ve liked to immediately bring Kazuma to bed in the dragons’ giant nest not long after Ryunosuke left. However, doing so too soon would result in him waking up and restarting the cycle of listening to him ramble about his father and trying to make him go back to sleep. No amount of care taken to avoid disturbing him would prevent that outcome if he wasn’t deeply asleep.
When the dragon finished the chapter of the book he was reading, he listened closely to Kazuma’s breathing, counting how long each breath was.
In… two… three… four…
Out… two… three… four…
In… two… three… four…
Out… two… three… four…
Perfect. He was sleeping deeply enough that moving him wouldn’t rouse the young human. Marking his book to set it aside, the winged black dragon scooped Kazuma into his arms like he weighed nothing at all. All he did was shift briefly in his arms, rocked by the sway of Barok’s footsteps as he carried the adorable sleeping human to their nest: a massive, circular structure with a mattress nearly bursting with woolen stuffing under its plush casing, joined by a small cluster of pillows and blankets.
Kazuma squirmed a little upon being placed in the relatively chilly nest, humming inquisitively. “Barok… Ryunosuke…?”
Barok carefully blanketed him with his wing, soothing him with the heat radiating from his scales. He even ran a careful black talon through his hair for good measure. "Hush now, Kazuma. Go back to sleep.”
The human leaned slightly into his warm touch with another hum before relaxing, breaths once more falling even as the dragon slid a blanket over him. Barok changed into his nightclothes as quickly as he could, only really wearing pants that tied over his tail, revealing the symmetrical scale patterns that surrounded his wing joints and webbing to spread over his pale, bare skin. For Kazuma, the best he could manage was undoing the buttons on his shirt, carefully unwrapping his sarashi, and removing his belt and shoes.
Once he was deemed comfortable, Barok slid under the blanket beside him, wrapping him up in his arms and draping a wing over them both. Lured in by his outpouring of body heat, Kazuma turned and burrowed under his chin, settling in when Barok started purring.
The winged dragon shifter smiled as he continued to purr. Their new human really was adorable when he slept. A lot of things about him were adorable, really, from the way he’d grow flustered from their kisses or sleepy from their purrs.
It felt like only a light doze until a kiss on the cheek had Barok’s eyes snapping open, his purrs falling silent. Ryunosuke was smiling down at him, already in his nightclothes and gently guiding the taller dragon into a kiss. The mouth of the wingless wolf-dragon was colder than Barok’s with his fire, but the taste and the rumbling sounds beginning past his throat were addictive. Only a subtle shift from Kazuma interrupted them, leading Ryunosuke to slide under the blanket and wing behind Kazuma. Adding his own purring to the mix, he pressed close against their beloved human, his long and fluffy tail twining itself around Kazuma's leg and Barok's more scaly tail. Content now that both of his dear loves lay warm under his wing, Barok tucked it around them, pulling them as close to each other as possible. Ryunosuke pressed a few fluttering goodnight kisses against Kazuma's nape before settling into the bed and pillows, closing his eyes.
Barok didn't take long to follow suit.
Kazuma was slow in drifting back into the waking world. He lingered in the sluggish, trance-like space at the border of wakefulness and slumber, where he could properly come up as easily as he could sink back down. The warmth so closely tucked around him was heavenly, the gentle rumbling white noise around him so soothing. The bed was cozy, too; the softest and most comfortable he’d ever slept in. He was all too happy to snuggle down and start to descend back into lazy, honey-warm dreams…
Then his senses actually started to register things.
First, the smell. A distinct, smoky scent that he’d grown to associate with Barok and his fire. He could also detect the faintest wisp of rain that always followed Ryunosuke around. That probably meant the rumbling he heard as well as felt was them purring.
Then he realized what he was touching. The inhumanly warm skin against his cheek, the cooler scales under his hands, and even the fur against the back of his neck. All signs pointed to the dragons, including the purring.
When he opened his eyes, Kazuma’s suspicions were only confirmed. His head was resting on Barok’s broad chest, and he could see the blotchy, swirling patterns of black scales that painted themselves all over his torso. One of the Western dragon’s giant webbed wings was slung over him and presumably Ryunosuke, engulfing him in toasty darkness like a scaly weighted blanket framed with bones. Aside from Ryunosuke himself hugging against Kazuma’s back, he could also notice the tail loosely wrapped around his leg and the arms criss-crossed around him. One was much larger and paler in skin color, looking like it wore a long glove made of scales; the other smaller and closer to his own complexion, but with scales on the underside and fur on the outside. They were packed so close together in the cushy nest, he could hardly move
When did they bring him into their nest again? He couldn’t remember anything from yesterday. Or even from most of the day before, for that matter. How long had he been awake searching for leads on his father again? For that matter, how long had he been asleep?
He froze when the purring in front of him suddenly stopped, giving way to a brief, low warble that often escaped Barok’s throat upon waking up. The arms around him tightened briefly, the wing shifted down to let in a bit more daylight, and when Kazuma looked up, Barok’s sleepy, luminous blue eyes stared back, flooded with fondness and relief.
“Good morning, Kazuma,” he said softly with a smile, leaning down to kiss his crown. “Did you sleep well? Are you feeling a bit more like yourself now?”
Oh boy. Kazuma ignoring sleep must’ve had an even worse effect on his mind than he thought it would. Anything could’ve happened yesterday and he wouldn’t know because he was too exhausted for his mind to bother remembering any of it.
“I… suppose,” he answered. “I didn’t think I was that tired…”
Barok’s smile fell into something that dripped with concern. “Kazuma, my dear, you didn’t let yourself sleep for days before last night. You can’t even remember what I told you about my brother, can you?”
Kazuma averted his eyes, which seemed to be answer enough.
The second source of purring suddenly stopped, followed by a yawn that sounded vaguely like one from a dog rather than a human. “Oh, are you awake, Kazuma? That’s good.” Ryunosuke planted a few kisses along his nape that made him shudder. “I bet you feel much better now, yes?”
“Well, I can think much more clearly now,” Kazuma admitted, Barok removing his wing so they could all sit up and the dragons could give the human a bit of space. “Though I might need a refresher on what I was told yesterday about Barok’s brother.”
Ryunosuke giggled, albeit with a bit of a sad look in his eye. “I see. Well, yesterday, we received word from another friend of ours -- the valravn, if you remember her -- that Barok’s brother and his family were returning from a trip they had taken together over the summer. They always send that hellhound of theirs ahead before they begin the long flight back, and he’s fond of her. They probably landed last night, but if we went there to immediately greet them with all of your questions, we both knew everyone would be far too tired to get anything properly done.”
“So naturally, despite your best efforts to drag us along either to my brother’s residence or another chase of the evil black dragon,” Barok continued, “we kept you here so you wouldn’t do anything rash. You were fighting to stay even partly conscious for hours before you finally gave in to your body’s desire to rest. While Ryu went to leave a message for your sister explaining the situation and reassuring her that you were safe, I brought you into the nest so you could sleep comfortably.”
The only thing Kazuma could respond with was a meek, “Oh…”
Maybe he should’ve been a bit more upset with the two dragons. They withheld the chance for him to gain potentially valuable information about his father, they held him captive, and even told Susato about what was going on. But those facts had a fair bit less bite to them knowing that everything was done with Kazuma’s well-being in mind. Especially when he kept in mind that he was vehemently ignoring his own needs in favor of his quest… which might not be a smart idea in case things turn sour. And obviously, he just made the two dragons worry about him until they basically had to force him to rest, which honestly just brought on a sense of guilt.
“Thank you, for stepping in,” he finally said. “I’ve probably been insufferable with how obsessive I’ve been in working to find my father since you’ve become a part of my life. Sometimes I truly don’t know how you both put up with me.”
“Oh, Kazuma!” cooed Ryunosuke, pulling him into a hug with his long, fluffy and scaly, serpentine tail. “You know we’d happily do anything for your sake. It’s so hard not to love you, after all.”
Barok chuckled, stretching his wing around them both to join the embrace. “He speaks the truth, Kazuma. We love you, and that’s why we feel the need to care for you when you forget to do so yourself. After all, you can only succeed on your quest if you’re healthy and well-rested.”
Kazuma couldn’t help but smile. The two black dragons truly were the best thing that could’ve happened to him as a monster hunter. Just knowing that they loved him, that they were willing to be there even if it meant forcing him to just get a good night’s sleep… It reminded him of something his father once said.
“Dragons are often frightening and incredibly powerful, my boy, but they are not dangerous to be dangerous. It’s in their nature to protect what they deem precious. Many have written stories of a dragon keeping a hoard of treasure in a cave, a captive princess in a tower, or what have you, but replace that with the dragon’s own loved ones, and you might find them a bit easier to understand. Perhaps… even something to admire.”
“I can only hope Barok’s brother is as willing to help me as you two are,” Kazuma remarked. “Or that he at least won’t mind me being around."
Barok’s chuckle became a proper laugh, if only a short one, and Ryunosuke joined him. “Oh, I wouldn’t be worried, my dear,” Barok replied. “Because now we can properly take you.”
“Oh, goodie!” cheered Ryunosuke. “Let’s get ready to go now, Kazuma. Today’s the day we finally take you on a flight!”