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Sanghyeok really hadn’t intended to get angry.
But he kisses Seongwoong, mouth cracked open enough so that he could breathe in that grassy scent, and Seongwoong just lets him—lets him deepen the kiss, lets him shove Seongwoong down onto the bed hard enough Seongwoong lets out this choked noise, lets him yank that damned jacket off of Seongwoong’s shoulders—and by the time Sanghyeok pulls away for air, there’s something raging in his chest, slamming against the cage of his ribs, and he very nearly snarls at Seongwoong.
But he doesn’t. He swallows it, watches Seongwoong’s blank face—carefully empty since the moment Sanghyeok had picked him and set with eyes trained steadily at a point just over Sanghyeok’s shoulder—and he lets the anger in his chest thrash itself into something else, curdling white-hot.
He doesn’t even know why he’s angry, he just is.
Maybe that it’s all just easy.
Sanghyeok presses closer, crawling up between Seongwoong’s legs, and again, he just lets him with nothing more than a brief flicker of something in his eyes. His scent doesn’t change, wildflower scent carefully neutral and controlled, and this must have been how everyone else who’d ever called for Seongwoong after they’d beaten Sanghyeok had seen him, isn’t it?
Just fucking easy.
Sanghyeok hates it.
The point of this—of all of this was to…
What was it?
To hold Worlds over Seongwoong’s head—the sword of Damocles none of them could ever escape? To laugh about the win and take out the stress of the Silver Scrapes as he knows so many others have before?
Sanghyeok ducks his head a little, nosing at Seongwoong’s neck in some half-hearted attempt to get any kind of emotion, and he feels the anger in his chest burn as Seongwoong just bares his scent gland, just like that, eyes distant and unfocused, breathing steady.
“You’re so fucking easy.”
Sanghyeok bites his tongue, nearly hard enough to bleed, before the words can leave his mouth, the mocking tone staining his teeth something bitter.
Seongwoong would hate it if he said that, he knows. He can picture the way he’d shrink in on himself, shoulders tense, and look down. No refute, no defense.
Sanghyeok’s eyes catch on the clasp of Seongwoong’s neck guard, and he finds his fingers flicking it open in the blink of an eye, tossing it off to the side. That, at least, gets a reaction as Seongwoong startles.
“This,” and Sanghyeok almost flinches at the sound of his own voice too, cold and commanding, “is what you get for running.” Seongwoong’s eyes go immediately blank, but Sanghyeok can see the way his jaw tenses slightly before he relaxes, can smell the way something bitter shivers through Seongwoong’s scent.
And fine. He hadn’t really meant to say that—hadn’t meant for it to be so mean—but he’s said it and it’s long been past the time where Sanghyeok should have had to hold onto any regrets when it comes to Seongwoong.
Again, he swallows his sharp acidic words, because really, who was Seongwoong, to be the kind of person to demand Sanghyeok reserve such old regrets?
No more. Sanghyeok won’t regret this.
He’s the one who’s won. He’s the one who’d made it to Worlds, while all Seongwoong will have is a VOD full of Rammus, pitying pat on the back, a useless tournament to go to before he inevitably runs away again. He’s the one holding the sword, hilt in hand and scissors posed to cut.
The kiss is rough enough that Sanghyeok can feel the impact shudder up through his teeth, but he ignores it, hand finding its place around Seongwoong’s throat. The skin just beneath his jaw is soft, warm, and Sanghyeok digs his nails into it, forcing the kiss deeper and deeper until his own head spins.
Seongwoong’s pulse races beneath his hand, legs drawing up in some aborted motion to push Sanghyeok away, maybe, but Sanghyeok’s already drawing away.
And Seongwoong makes this ragged noise, gasping for air, heartbeat fast as a jackrabbit’s. Sanghyeok thinks he tries to say something, half a syllable in his mouth, but Sanghyeok just cuts him off, swallowing the protest.
Beneath his hand, Seongwoong shudders, hands already twisted into the sheets as his chest spasms. Sanghyeok ignores all of it, keeps contact, and demands more—more, more, and more, until finally, Seongwoong’s scent breaks, shattering with a pulse of acrid panic.
Like stealing oxygen to fuel a fire, Sanghyeok thinks dizzily. Under him, he can hear Seongwoong coughing as he tries to breathe, a stuttering inhale and exhale. Still, he follows, obedient as ever, when Sanghyeok tries to yank him back up, nails digging into Seongwoong’s skin hard enough Sanghyeok expects to feel blood welling up.
This time, it takes a little longer for him to calm, for his scent to die back down to something plain and smooth—a painting of flowers instead of a field, buzzing with sunlight—but it still happens, and Sanghyeok hates it so fucking much.
Sanghyeok pushes closer, close enough force Seongwoong’s legs up as his knees push into his thighs, but still, Seongwoong doesn’t complain, just breathes, slow and steady, and lets Sanghyeok wrestle his shirt over his head roughly enough it tears his glasses off his face.
“You’re just used to this, aren’t you?” The words are out of his mouth before he realizes.
Finally, finally, Seongwoong looks up at him, but its with dull eyes, accusing, “Aren’t you?”
This time, Sanghyeok does snarl at him. Seongwoong still won’t respond, and Sanghyeok is starting to loathe that carefully distant, faded quality of his scent. He wants to dig his nails back into the skin of Seongwoong’s throat, wants to demand “Why won’t you say anything to me?” or “Why don’t I warrant any reaction from you? Aren’t you angry at me? Don’t you hate me? I beat you.”
But he doesn’t do any of that.
Instead, he reaches around, hand grabbing at the back of Seongwoong’s neck and at that vulnerable little point at the top of his spine, and he tries to tell himself to enjoy the way Seongwoong immediately tenses, brows furrowing as his eyes flick up towards Sanghyeok.
Sanghyeok squeezes, and Seongwoong goes limp, a puppet with the strings cut. He slumps forward, hitting Sanghyeok’s shoulder hard enough to hurt, and his scent, finally unfiltered, is like a punch to the face.
Seongwoong’s breath shivers out of his lungs this time, warm against Sanghyeok’s neck. He’s still tense, somehow, and it’s so at odds with what Sanghyeok had been used to, oh so very long ago, back when they were all young and new and good enough at playing the game that they hadn’t really ever had to worry about this tradition—back when Seongwoong would willingly push back into any hand that’d hover over the back of his neck and let whoever it was scruff him, forcing the wound-up energy that’d built up in his limbs out and leaving him curled up contently beside whoever was nearest. He’d stopped doing that, after they’d started losing and Jeonghyeon’s chest had gotten worse and worse and Sanghyeok, remembering the way he’d always shy away by the time he’d left in 2016, feels, for a moment, like a bad fucking person.
Something bitter pulses over his tongue, and he can’t quite tell if its his own imagination, if his own scent is doing something weird and twisty to match the tangled knot of emotion in his chest, or if its…
It might be something just a little afraid, he realizes, but it’s not coming from him.
It doesn’t taste like victory. It tastes like dead flowers and ashes.
Seongwoong sways worryingly, but he manages to stay upright when Sanghyeok peels him off his shoulder, his hand in an iron grip on Seongwoong’s chin. Even in the low light, Sanghyeok can see crescent-shaped marks marring the underside of his jaw, deep-set and red, and the thing coiled in his chest only gets tighter when he hisses and earns a muted startle.
This might be worse, he thinks—this bitter taste, rotting flowers and heat-spoiled grass. He almost half-shoves Seongwoong backward. There’s no fight when he climbs on top, knees bracketing Seongwoong’s ribs, nothing more than a faint twitch of fingers and a jump in his acrid scent that sends the thing in his chest thrashing madly again.
But, like before, it’s muted, fading right before his eyes even though Sanghyeok should have bled any of Seongwoong’s control out, and he almost wants to scream.
Seongwoong’s still hiding, still running away, and he’s still holding back. There are so many things, so many, that he could say and that he should say—why won’t you respond to me, why won’t you come back, why do you keep leaving me—but he bites his tongue even though he could say so much worse, could break open Seongwoong’s ribcage and tear his heart apart because he knows how to and it would be so easy, but he doesn’t because he can’t even think those thoughts to himself, much less really say them out loud to Seongwoong.
It makes him fucking furious, to realize like this that he’d somehow still regret it, if he went for the throat that had been bared to him willingly so many times.
A soft whine breaks him out of his thoughts—something placating and a little betrayed, though the latter vanishes into smoke the moment he looks for it—and he looks down to realize that his hands are splayed over Seongwoong’s collarbones, crude wings digging into his skin, and that he’s radiating anger so heavily that he can barely pick out Seongwoong’s wildflower under all of the smoke.
“Shut up,” he hisses, something he refuses to let be regret whip-cracking through his heart not even a second later.
And obediently, Seongwoong falls silent, breathing still eeriely steady, eyes lidded from the effects of the scruff.
His fingers leave red marks, fingerprints staining Seongwoong’s collarbone, when he shifts his grip up to wrap around Seongwoong’s windpipe. He knows the rules of this—nothing permanent, nothing the other couldn’t take.
But Seongwoong could take it, couldn’t he? Sanghyeok feels almost a little hysterical. Seongwoong’s practically made for him. His jungler, his shadow, his summoner spell, his omega.
Sangheyok can feel his fingers spasm, hands shaking, but it gets little more than a slight shift in the muted wildflower scent, even as Seongwoong’s next breath comes out as this faint wheezing noise.
His traitorous hands keep shaking, unable to make the decision for him.
Seongwoong doesn’t close his eyes, doesn’t try to protest, doesn’t even try to move, just keeps staring at nothing, scent empty enough Sanghyeok could almost mistake it as pleasant again. Sanghyeok leans in, close enough that he can see the way Seongwoong’s eyes are glazed over as if he wasn’t even really there. Bile coats his tongue. Sanghyeok knows that feeling.
Still, when he leans in, those distant eyes shift to his face, achingly slowly.
If he looks, and he does, he really does, he thinks he can find something resigned, maybe accepting. They almost seem to accuse. “Well? Are you doing it or not?”
His breath hisses out through his teeth.
And he can’t.
He can’t.
Sanghyeok rips himself away, fast enough he stumbles over his own legs and topples gracelessly off the bed, slamming backwards onto the floor, and he practically runs out of the room.
The door slams, loud enough that he flinches, and the lingering scent of his own anger still clings to him like soot to skin.
He staggers down the hallway, sinking down to the floor around the corner and tries to breathe, sucking in lungfuls of relatively clean air.
He never should have invoked this and he never should have called Seongwoong, of all people.
Heartrate back down to something normal-ish, thanks to the cool plaster of the wall he’s sitting against, he picks himself back up. Seongwoong hates being alone when he’s like this, Sanghyeok knows. It’s his job to fix what he’d fucked up.
Stepping into the dark room again, he winces. With the help of the fresh air earlier and a clearer head, he can finally pick up how strong his own scent is, heavy and oppressive, full of enough anger that Sanghyeok finds himself bristling instinctively at it for a moment.
Too much, he reproaches himself, far too late, too much.
Seongwoong, having pulled himself up so that he’s sitting in the middle of the bed, slightly hunched over himself, his arms loose at his sides and his legs half crossed, lifts his head slightly, hazy eyes snapping to Sanghyeok’s face, and oh fuck.
Sanghyeok bites at the inside of his cheek, moving closer until he can get a better look at Seongwoong’s face, brushing some of his hair out of the way. The mattress groans softly beneath his palm, steadying on the soft surface. And like before, Seongwoong stays still and lets him close, lets him touch, while his eyes flick between Sanghyeok’s, as if looking for something.
Sure enough, that glassy, glazed-over quality’s still there, but he doesn’t look quite as distant now, his scent brighter, more present. Sanghyeok wants to curse at himself again.
He’d shoved Seongwoong so hard he’d somehow shoved him under, he realizes, and metal spills across his tongue. Sanghyeok jerks back with a soft hiss, his cheek throbbing. Seongwoong tilts his head, a tiny bit of worry creasing his brow, but doesn’t say anything.
A lump builds in his throat, and he shifts further onto the bed. Seongwoong just watches quietly, gaze almost intense with how his attention’s focused solely on Sanghyeok’s movements, on Sanghyeok’s reactions. He’s usually not like this, Sanghyeok notes, unless he’s really changed in the last two years, but he supposes the awkward tenseness with which Seongwoong holds himself up is probably his fault this time.
Why can’t he just do it right?
Hesitantly, he raises a hand slowly, bringing it up as if to touch Seongwoong’s cheek, but he finds himself hesitating before he can make contact. Seongwoong tracks the motion, unblinking and still as a statue.
Sanghyeok stops.
Seongwoong’s eyes dart up towards his, skittering over his face, and when Sanghyeok doesn’t react, he leans, just ever so slightly, into the touch, still scanning Sanghyeok’s expression. He still must find nothing too bad, because he closes his eyes, daring to rest a little more weight on Sanghyeok’s hand, and Sanghyeok has to worry at his torn cheek for an excuse to explain away the way his eyes prick.
Carefully, he traces his thumb over the curve of Seongwoong’s cheekbone, feeling a minute shiver run through him. The air pulses with a soft contentment, sweet and airy, and he has to resist the urge to bury his nose in it.
He could. Seongwoong wouldn’t stop him—would honestly probably welcome it, really, in this state—but he resists the urge. Instead, he inches closer, his hand drifting up until his fingers are tangling through Seongwoong’s hair. Experimentally, he combs through the strands, spilling more iron into his mouth when the tension practically bleeds out of Seongwoong.
“Why do you keep leaving me?”
He’d wanted to ask that, but really, he knew the truth.
This, all of this, is why.
Seongwoong makes a soft noise, a quiet rumble, and its with a start that Sanghyeok realizes he’s purring. It feels like forever since he’s heard it, and the sound makes his chest ache.
Seongwoong’s soft, and it’s reflected in the way he’d held his heart out until he’d finally been forced to learn how to put it aside and in his scent, all living meadows and sunshine—the warmth of summer.
But Sanghyeok? Sanghyeok isn’t even the fire, he’s the smoke that heralds it and the smoke that clogs the air after everything’s been burnt to the ground—summer’s raging and violent side, all burning heat and no control.
He can’t even remember the last time he’d done something like this—or if he’d ever done it before to begin with. Seongwoong practically presses into his hand, purring gently, and fuck. He really is a bad person, isn’t he? For this, at least.
Sanghyeok clears his throat, trying to pick apart the knot in his throat.
But whatever’s stuck there, as he tries to dislodge it, what comes out is just, “Lie down.” Sanghyeok gives a gentle push, Seongwoong obeying quickly, even if his movements are heavy, clumsy, finer dexterity and control lost with the lingering effects of Sanghyeok scruffing him earlier. He curls up around Sanghyeok loosely, and Sanghyeok eyes him, trying to clear the bitter taste on his mouth with no avail.
Seongwoong’s relaxed now, breathing steady and eyes shut, but Sanghyeok watches as he immediately stiffens the moment his fingers brush the back of Seongwoong’s neck.
Ah, he thinks, stomach sinking further. But again, he’d already known this, hadn’t he? He’d already known this particular weak spot, and he’d still lunged straight for it, his aim straight and true because there were very few situations where Seongwoong would deny him, and apparently this wasn’t one of them.
And still, never satisfied, even when he knows he should be, he clamps down on on the back of Seongwoong’s neck, hand still loose enough that the pressure wouldn’t send him immediately back down under. The effect is immediate anyway. Seongwoong whines, a tiny questioning sound—why, why, what did I do—and Sanghyeok swallows, thumbing at Seongwoong’s pulse, feeling it jump beneath his hand.
“You’re so easy,” he whispers. “I don’t—you shouldn’t be this easy.” He lets go, but the tension stays in Seongwoong’s shoulders, all coiled up deceptively small and leaving the rest of him relaxed enough that most people probably wouldn’t care.
Really, this is how everyone else had gotten him, wasn’t it? Quiet, perfectly compliant, and yet, not enough as he was still forced out of his body and stuck in his mind until it was over and he regained enough control over his limbs to stumble back.
Sanghyeok, at least, has never had to deal with that. One benefit of his designation, if he looked at things that way.
The knot in his throat finally unravels.
“I’m sorry,” he says quietly.
Seongwoong pauses, then turns his head slightly, just enough so that he can look up at Sanghyeok.
And again, “I’m sorry. I didn’t—I shouldn’t have called you.” Seongwoong’s eyes slide towards the side before flicking back, halfway to an eyeroll. Still, he lets out a soft sigh, and slowly, hesitantly, he pushes back into Sanghyeok’s hand. His skin’s warm, the vulnerable curve of his neck fitting perfectly into Sanghyeok’s palm.
Unbidden, he finds the corner of his mouth ticking upwards. “I’ll apologize properly in the morning,” he promises, “when you can actually respond.” He gets a small hum for that, the sound making Sanghyeok’s own chest rumble with suppressed laughter as he lies down. He can feel Seongwoong’s body heat start to radiate through the fabric of his shirt and their breaths mix, smoke with the bitter edge filed down and wildflowers.
It doesn’t take long for Seongwoong’s breathing to smooth out, and as Sanghyeok stares at him, he tells himself that he’ll figure it out, somehow, how to do all of this right.
He’s tired of regretting things.