Work Text:
“You know my dad is a colossal asshole, right?”
“Right,” Taejoon said.
“And he fucking sucks, right?”
“I know.”
“And he hates when—”
“Octavio,” his boyfriend said, and he glanced up from his phone, where he had been pretending to do stuff while his mind moved at a million miles per hour, trying to predict his father’s meeting with Taejoon. “Every time we talk about him, you bring up how much you hate him. I am aware.”
Octavio let out a huff at that, tossing his phone aside and giving up his charade. “Well, whatever you’re imagining, scrap it. Imagine Lovecraft. You follow?"
Taejoon raised an eyebrow, but entertained him all the same. "I do."
"Now imagine Lovecraft, but ten times worse." He threw his hands up to exaggerate his point. "And pretending to be a businessman and wearing a businessman suit."
Both of Taejoon's eyebrows were raised now. "When you say Lovecraft, you mean the Cthulhu, right?"
"What's that?"
His boyfriend's face was impenetrable.
"Nevermind."
"He’s insufferable, Taejoon!" Octavio wasn't done yet. He would hop onto any opportunity to insult his father, and had gone on several rants because of it. "He’s an asshole and he’s going to judge you and make it seem like you suck."
“I would be quite used to it.”
Octavio wasn’t so sure about that. Sure, Taejoon was used to being placed under scrutiny and suspicion, but not outright derision. Caustic had a similar attitude to his father, and Taejoon’s temper often flared up when he was around the man. He imagined that the same would happen once his father finally touched down on Solace and began his Bullshit (with a capital B).
Wait, no, actually, this could be fun. He’d pay money to see his boyfriend throw hands with his old man...hell yeah...
“I am not fighting your dad,” Taejoon mumbled as if reading his mind, gaze returning to his book, and Octavio didn’t even try to deny that he was thinking of it.
“Why not?” He whined, kicking off the wall to crawl onto the couch beside Taejoon. “If you really loved me you would.”
“Perhaps I do not love you, then.”
Octavio squinted. “Well if you...maybe if...then you—”
Why was he not good at coming up with badass things to say on the spot? Bangalore often exploited this, and it looked like Taejoon was starting to catch on. Most of the time he was able to quip back rapidly, but sometimes his brain malfunctioned. It was currently doing that now.
Crossing his arms and pouting petulantly, he turned his back on Taejoon. He heard his boyfriend sigh, but refrained from turning around or saying anything, biting hard on the inside of his cheek to keep himself silent.
“You know I didn’t mean that,” Taejoon said quietly. Octavio just kept his mouth shut, leg jittering with energy. “I was joking with you.”
Octavio continued giving him the silent treatment, smirking to himself just a little when he felt Taejoon press his fingers against his lower back.
“Octavio.” Then arms were wrapping themselves gently around his waist, warm and solid. “I love you.”
Melting into his touch, Octavio let himself flop onto Taejoon’s chest and cooed, “I knowwwww.”
Taejoon smiled down at him, and he felt his heart do something funny in his chest. The warm feeling of being wrapped up in his boyfriend’s limbs was almost enough to distract him from the fact that his father would be here any minute now, because someone (Ajay) had told him that he was in a relationship, and his father...
Well, his father wanted to meet Taejoon. He was supposedly coming here to conference with the Game runners, seeing as he was the one who provided the medkits, and would 'drop by' on his way out—but Octavio knew better.
He wouldn't put it past his father to orchestrate an entire trip just to come see him and his new boyfriend; and for no good reason, he was sure of that. He seemed to exist just to make Octavio's life miserable.
But they had a little while more to touch one another before he got there, and he would take full advantage of this. Flipping over so that he was straddling his boyfriend’s lap, he slid his hand through his hair and started nipping playfully at his jaw, just the way he liked.
"Octavio," Taejoon said, voice a deep rumble in his chest. "Can we not do this so close to your dad arriving?"
"Just put your jacket on when he gets here," Octavio said, intent on biting marks into his boyfriend's pretty neck, but the next thing he knew strong hands were maneuvering him off of his boyfriend's lap and seating him easily on the couch beside him, as though he weighed nothing.
Octavio scowled at Taejoon, but this expression quickly disappeared when he asked,
"Do you want to order dinner?"
"Only if I get to choose," he said eagerly, leaning close into Taejoon's personal space to look at his phone as he pulled up the ordering app.
The doorbell finally rang about an hour later.
Technically, the doorbell didn’t really work; it was busted after Octavio had done something stupid with a skateboard. Before it used to produce a long, melodic ding-dong, but now it simply made a short buzzing sound that could only be heard if you were right by the door.
Thankfully, they were eating take-out on Octavio’s couch and trying to get through a bad comedy he’d stolen from Natalie right when it rang, and Octavio let out a groan at the buzz, setting his food down on the coffee table.
“That’s probably him,” he said, and Taejoon sighed, getting up and brushing his pants off. Truth be told, he was just a little bit nervous, and not quite happy about this whole situation.
He had no intention of starting a fight with Mr. Silva, nor did he really intend to impress him—not with the things he knew he’d done to Octavio. His opinion was not something Taejoon wanted nor needed, but he would try to be civil at least. For Octavio's sake.
Octavio turned the TV off before jumping over his couch, throwing the door open without much ceremony. Standing on the front porch was Eduardo Silva, a tall man with graying hair and a mustache. He wore a long white coat and fancy trousers, the exact opposite of what Octavio was currently wearing: a black t-shirt ripped into a crop-top with a pair of jean shorts that had once been regular jeans but had met the same fate as all the rest of Octavio’s clothes—a pair of scissors.
“Father,” Octavio said curtly, taking on a tone Taejoon had only ever heard him use when talking about the man before them.
“Son,” Mr. Silva said with much less feeling. His eyes (brown, unlike Octavio’s hazel) slid right over the other's head and instead focused on Taejoon. He stuck his hands into his pockets as he felt himself bristle beneath the man’s gaze, but he still met his eyes in a direct, silent challenge.
“This is Hyeon Kim?” Mr. Silva asked, stepping in without being invited, and Octavio rolled his eyes as he shut the door behind him.
“The one and only,” he said, sarcastic, but his father either didn’t pick up on his sarcasm or just didn’t care.
“I see.” Mr. Silva stepped around Taejoon, looking him up-and-down, before eyeing the take-out on the coffee table. “How appropriately...underwhelming.”
“Thanks,” Taejoon said. It really was a compliment, considering that he worked hard to be undercover, but he still said his thanks with an undercurrent of snideness in it. Asshole.
Mr. Silva wandered around the messy living room, the unused dining room, and the disastrous kitchen, all with an increasingly more unimpressed look on his face. The natural state of Octavio's house just seemed to be "disorganized". Taejoon tried cleaning every now and then, but truth be told, he wasn’t much of a neat person either.
“Your home is hardly adequate.” Mr. Silva ran his hand over the untouched stove, grimacing when he saw the dust that had gathered on his fingertips. “Do your salaries not afford you a maid?”
Who the fuck talks like that anymore? Taejoon thought to himself, but answered anyways. “We can clean after ourselves.”
“Evidently not.” Mr. Silva eyed him. “I was under the impression you two aren’t living together.”
“We aren’t,” Octavio snapped, and Taejoon sighed at the hostility inflected in his voice. It looked like this wouldn’t be a peaceful meeting after all.
“I would like to see the upstairs,” Mr. Silva said, as if he hadn’t heard him.
“And I would like you to go fuck yourself.”
“Yah,” Taejoon said sharply, and his boyfriend looked over at him with wide eyes. “Let’s keep this civil.”
Octavio crossed his arms, but didn’t say anything else. Even though this wasn't his house Taejoon really didn’t want to let Mr. Silva upstairs either, but the sooner he finished...whatever he was doing, the better.
He led the elder man up the staircase, closing the door to Octavio’s messy room and making a point to slam it before he could glimpse inside. Mr. Silva didn’t enter it, which was good, but it still didn’t stop him from insulting every other room up there.
“I told you he’s a jackass,” Octavio complained to him as Mr. Silva shoved aside the shower curtain to glare at the rust on the faucet.
“I never disputed you on this,” Taejoon replied.
Mr. Silva went back downstairs, and the both of them followed him, their fingers brushing against each other’s on the way down. He took Octavio’s hand into his own and gave it a reassuring squeeze, but the other man pulled away from him with a scowl, stomping after his father to make sure he didn’t touch his things.
Mr. Silva was standing in front of the front door again, which made Taejoon happy for a brief second—he’s about to leave!—when he started speaking again.
“How long has this been going on?”
“Six months,” Octavio said, foot tapping impatiently on the ground. He clearly wanted him out of the house immediately.
"This is a serious arrangement, correct? Not casual?"
Octavio opened his mouth to say something that was probably inappropriate, so Taejoon cut him off with a warning look as he said, "Yes."
“And your background, Mr. Kim?”
Taejoon glared at the other man, wondering if he should even grace him with the fake backstory he’d given the Game runners. Deciding that he wasn’t worth the time, he said, “Unimportant.”
Mr. Silva’s eyes seemed to light up at that, which was a strange reaction. “I see.”
He opened up his long white coat, taking a thick stack of papers out before handing them over to Taejoon. He hesitated before accepting them, staring down at the title page with something like confusion brewing inside of his stomach.
“What’s this?” Octavio asked sharply, and before he could answer, practically shrieked: “A prenup?!”
“Not that I expect you two to get married any time soon,” Mr. Silva said, unaffected by Octavio’s raised voice. “But given the unknowns of Mr. Kim’s background, it’s safe to assume that he is not in the upper echelon. This contract describes the terms you would agree to if you got married.”
"You're such an asshole!" Octavio yelled, face flushing red, and Taejoon had never quite seen his boyfriend lose his temper like this. He was typically easy-going, which could be frustrating at times, but he hardly ever got mad. His father being around seemed to change things, though.
Octavio kept hissing at his father in Spanish as Taejoon flipped through the contract, disbelieving. There were loads of pages, a lot of them about Silva Pharmaceuticals, which he was a little confused by, because he knew that Octavio didn’t want to take over the company. Was this just an intimidation tactic? More terms to add to this contract just to scare him off? Or was there an actual credible threat in here?
He then got to a page about children and heirs, and seeing this, Mr. Silva spoke over Octavio.
“In the event that you two should have a biological child, I would have the right to pass on the title of heir to them, which means that you would be under contract of the company.”
Taejoon didn’t really know where to start with that entire sentence, and he opened his mouth to say something, but he wasn’t sure what. Maybe shut the hell up, or this is illegal, but all that came out was, "I'm not signing this."
Nevermind the fact that he didn't really intend to marry Octavio any time soon, but the sheer audacity and incredulity of the entire situation was truly something else. He was shell-shocked.
Mr. Silva nodded, as if he'd expected this answer. "Then reconsider continuing this relationship."
Octavio suddenly tore the prenup from Taejoon's hands, startling him as he managed to rip the whole thing in half. It was quite an impressive feat considering his skinny arms and the thickness of the packet, and he let the mess fall to the floor, fluttering everywhere.
“I want you out,” Octavio said, and there was a triumphant sort of air to his voice, like he’d been waiting to say that his whole life. “Salte."
Mr. Silva didn’t even argue as he opened up the door, a smug, self-satisfied aura surrounding him. He shut the door behind him on his way out, and Octavio stood there, red-faced and fuming. Taejoon was still trying to comprehend what the fuck had just happened, so he said cautiously,
“Tavi-yah?”
A ‘cute’ nickname he’d given to him only after the other had begged for a pet name in Korean; Taejoon wasn't very good at coming up with that sort of stuff, so he’d just slapped a suffix onto Octavio's pre-existing nickname and called it a day. The other man seemed to love it regardless.
“Ugh,” Octavio burst out, rounding on him, and Taejoon took a wary step back. “He always does this! Every dude I date he uses some stupid intimidation tactic to scare them off because he doesn't want me to leave home for good and—"
“It’s okay,” Taejoon said, and his boyfriend shot him a nasty look at yet another one of his tirades against his father being interrupted. “I’m not going to let him intimidate me. I would've been scared off a long time ago if I wasn’t able to handle you.”
Octavio squinted at him. “Gee thanks, babe.”
“I was just being honest.” Taejoon bent down to pick up the mess on the floor, tucking all of the ripped-up paper beneath his arm. He had known that Mr. Silva would probably do something underhanded when he arrived, but he hadn’t really expected...this.
A prenup...he thought that sort of stuff only existed in those shitty k-dramas he and Mila used to watch together. It just sounded so cartoonishly villainous, the clichéd poor girl meets heir of the company plot that was obligated to have an asshole parent in it for drama.
But prenup aside, the thought of marrying Octavio was...
Feeling that his whole face was now flushed a brilliant red, Taejoon turned his back on his boyfriend, heading towards the kitchen to throw the papers away. Don’t think about that. Don’t think about that.
“Heyyyy,” Octavio whined, following after him closely, and he stiffened a little when he felt the other’s arms wrapping around his waist. “You’re not mad, are you?”
“Why would I be?”
“You just ran away.”
“I didn’t.” Hoping that the heat in his cheeks had died down, he turned and pressed a short kiss to Octavio’s forehead. “Let’s finish eating.”
Octavio stared up at him with wide eyes, and Taejoon stared back with an eyebrow arched, waiting for him to say whatever was clearly on his mind. After a couple of seconds, his boyfriend pointed his finger at him and said,
“You wanna marry me.”
Feeling the heat come back in full force, Taejoon demanded, “What makes you say that?”
Laughing, Octavio ducked out of the kitchen, tumbling over the couch with a whoop.
“Taejoon loooooooves me!”
Idiot.
Picking up his now cold food, Taejoon settled down on the couch with a sigh, lifting his arms slightly so that Octavio could lay himself in his lap. They started their movie again, and he was just picking the corn out of his rice (fuck corn) when Octavio mumbled against his thigh,
“Y’know, I wouldn’t mind getting married to you. Marriage is a sham, but like...”
Heart beating rapidly in his chest, Taejoon let out a hum to show that he was listening.
“With you, it probably wouldn’t be so bad.” Octavio nestled his cheek further into his thigh. “We probably should sign a prenup though. There’s no way I’m letting you keep my PC if we divorce.”
And just like that, the pleasant, bubbly haze that had taken hold of him at the notion of marrying his boyfriend and having a stable life dissolved. Shoving Octavio off of him and earning a squawk, Taejoon ate his food in sullen silence, ignoring the other man while he whined okayyyy I was jokiiiiiing we don’t have to sign a prenup please marry me porrrrr favorrrrrr.
Octavio curled up against his boyfriend, wrapping his limbs around him like a starfish. Taejoon responded by stroking his fingers lightly along the scarred flesh of his thigh, and he gave a shiver at the feeling. It didn't hurt, it just felt...weird. Ticklish, almost.
Their night had ended early after his father had left; they hadn't even finished the movie before Taejoon had stood up and declared that he was tired and wanted to go home. Octavio felt guilty, knowing that his haste to leave probably had something to do with the pile of paperwork sitting in his trash, so he had begged the man to at least sleep over instead of going home, and now here they were, at barely nine in the evening, going to bed.
Who the hell even went to bed at nine o'clock except for old people? Apparently they were, but that was fine. As long as he got to cling to the other man, even if they were...ugh...staying still and not doing anything...
Octavio ran his hand over Taejoon's chest, fingers gliding over the metal plating there before he found soft skin, and he let out a small huff against the back of the taller man's neck. This was so. Boring.
Nice, but boring.
"I meant what I said earlier," Octavio said, because if he didn't speak or do something he was actually going to die. He felt Taejoon's chest deflate under his palm as he gave a slightly-exasperated exhale.
"About getting married?" Came his boyfriend's voice, attractively creaky due to his own apparent tiredness.
"Yeah." Octavio himself couldn't believe that he was saying that. He'd always viewed marriage derisively; his father's never lasted, and every new wedding he attended just left a bitter taste in his mouth, a new timer in his head counting down to the exact moment his father had had enough and filed for divorce. The thought of getting married to someone—shackling himself to them, slowing down for them—had never been appealing. But with Taejoon?
For some reason, it sounded nice. He already felt electricity in his veins every time he referred to the other man as 'my boyfriend'. God, imagine the absolute power he would feel saying 'my husband', and knowing that this wasn't just a silly, casual fling, and that they cared for each other, and...
...He was going crazy.
"Forget about it," Octavio mumbled, burying his face between his boyfriend's shoulder blades. Go away stupid gay thoughts. You sound like a boring person. What kinda daredevil gets married? Where's the fun in that?
He heard Taejoon laugh, so quiet that he was sure that he had imagined it, and then the other man was turning over in his arms, now facing him with a look on his face that was soft. He loved that expression, the exact opposite of the displeased one he wore during the games, and he felt privileged that he got to see it.
"Some day," his boyfriend said, and leaned closer to press a kiss to his lips, which made his heart beat rapidly in his chest like he was a teenager. "If you're up for it."
Bursting with the need to say something, but not sure what, Octavio stared at him, cycling through several responses in his mind. Should he go for something funny? Annoying? Serious? Being serious sucked, and yet this situation seemed to call for a genuine response, not humorous deflection or jokes.
Octavio's eyes slid down his boyfriend's face to focus somewhere on his midriff as he considered his response, knowing that he was about to sound stupid as he mumbled,
"Promise?"
Taejoon's hand found his waist, and his thumb stroked the sliver of exposed skin there, which made his entire body feel warm. "Promise."