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It isn’t until after Rover left Lahai-Roi that Luuk realized he’s in love.
He figured it out a couple of years later. He was just making his morning coffee, flipping through the cat magazine his brother liked so much, when one of the pictures showed a sleek, black cat — at least he thinks it’s supposed to be black — with golden eyes, and it made him miss Rover so viscerally, as if his heart was about to stop. He was just standing and staring at it until one of the TARD-E units came in to remind Luuk to clock in on time, when he realized it.
Luuk remembers laughing quietly and self-deprecatingly. Just when he thought he worked through most of his issues, when he was finally fully relaxing in the Academy — as he probably intended, that clever cat, the Fractsidus infiltration of the Academy was merely a hook to get Luuk here in the first place — this is when a tiny bitty problem of being in love arose.
But on the other hand, he thought back then, how was he not supposed to love Rover? The man saved his life, after all. It’s only fair that this life belonged to him now.
And besides, he helped him work through the grief he’s been feeling for years and had been neglecting in favour of suicidally chasing after the unobtainable.
“Do we really have to wait for you to get killed to decide it’s ‘the right time’?”
Rover was absolutely right in pulling him out. He needed the break — desperately so. Otherwise, sooner or later, he would’ve been caught, and he would’ve been killed for real.
Despite being a loose organisation, Fractsidus aren’t known for handling either betrayal or incompetence well.
But when he got into Lahai-Roi, he suddenly found himself with a lot of time with nothing to do but to think.
And eventually, he just completely broke down.
The first one in the Frostlands was small fish, when Rover gave him some counseling. But the second one…
They were both in his place under Sundermere. They weren’t even doing anything special, just reading through papers for their respective works, when out of nowhere, Luuk just started sobbing uncontrollably.
He remembers holding onto Rover for dear life, while the man was holding him gently, but firmly, as if he could hold the pieces of Luuk together for him for a while, until Luuk could hold them by himself again. He remembers falling asleep with his face in Rover’s stomach, with the man’s hand gently brushing through his hair, taking off the elastic and saying just rest for now, I’ve got you. He remembers thinking that if he just had enough energy, he’d burst into tears again after Rover said that to him, but he was so exhausted that he closed his eyes and fell asleep.
Nowadays he knows that it was caused by finally feeling safe enough that led to that sudden outburst. But back then he felt embarrassed. What kind of spy bursts into tears just like that in front of the man who was as close to being his boss as it can get without any papers confirming it?
Rover told him he shouldn’t feel bad, that it’s normal. He was in a life or death situation for so long that his body now has to throw all that tension out before finally settling. It didn’t really make Luuk feel that much better back then, but he understands it now.
Both Rover and Lahai-Roi helped him move forward, and finally, to move on. And now, it is his greatest privilege and joy to help them both back in return.
With Lahai-Roi, it was easy. He’s a doctor in the Academy, after all, and part of the faculty. By helping out both the student body and his colleagues, and helping advance the ongoing research on Aleph-1 and the Exostrider, he’s doing more than enough to pay back.
It’s much harder to help Rover outside of following his orders, especially after disappearing from Lahai-Roi for twenty years.
But, he can help him now, with the grief counseling he clearly needs, even if he needs some convincing he can trust Luuk with his problems. Here, in the Frostlands, just like twenty years ago, when their roles were reversed.
Even if it is depressing to think how lonely the golden boy has to be, inevitably leaving his friends and loved ones behind as he goes on living for another day, year, and century.
Quite frankly, it’s surprising he’s been as stable and caring as he is, before and after the memory wipe, that embarrassingly he had to pretend he knew all about it from the beginning, since Luuk still isn’t sure if Rover told him about that plan or not.
Luuk has no idea how he would handle being immortal. Poorly, most likely. He was close to killing himself before even seeing his 30th birthday, after all, so he almost certainly would’ve found some way to induce permanent coma to imitate death as closely as he possibly could get within his second century of living.
Maybe it’s all thanks to Shorekeeper, or maybe Rover would have been able to stay sane all this time by himself. Luuk doesn’t know, but the relevant thing is that the golden boy still gives a shit about humanity on Solaris. And he gives a shit about him too.
It was perhaps the most shocking thing for Luuk, that someone actually cares about his wellbeing, and whether he’s still alive or not.
It’s now his turn to show somebody gives a fuck about Rover too, outside of being the hero of Solaris.
~*~
“I am not doing your star-charts for you.” Rover says without preamble when he walks into Luuk’s office at 2AM and throws himself on the couch.
“Well, hello to you too. How did you know I have the night shift today?” He puts away the scalpel he was cleaning on the desk.
“Lucky guess,” Rover says as he takes out his Terminal and opens the digital keyboard. “I can’t focus on sleeping, so I might as well get a head-start on the paper for Stress Threshold Psychology and keep you some company,” he opens at least five different document files and sets them around, while keeping his text program in the middle.
Interestingly enough, Rover’s hologram monitors are in a soft golden color, instead of what Luuk knows to be electric blue of the standard. Definitely better for the eyes.
“You’re not supposed to focus on sleeping, you’re supposed to sleep. There’s a difference, golden boy.”
“Any more pearls of wisdom?” Rover drawls while he writes the opening to this paper with the speed of a man who knows exactly what he wants to write.
Seeing as Rover has never lost any of his knowledge despite losing his memories, he probably already knows the subject better than the professor leading the lecture.
“Yes, actually,” he responds and takes out a plastic bottle and throws it at Rover, “drinking liquids like water or tea is generally advised.”
The man catches the bottle with ease, and checks the label.
“Peach ice tea?”
“Not to your liking?”
“I never said that.”
Rover opens it and takes a couple of sips. His laryngeal prominence moves up and down, and Luuk has to sit down on his armchair before he does something… inadvisable.
“So you can’t sleep, huh.”
“Whenever I try, I usually suddenly remember I had to do something.”
“Hm. Don’t you think you’re throwing yourself into work to avoid being alone with your thoughts, which is why you avoid going to sleep at reasonable times?”
“Oh, definitely,” Rover responds easily, “if I stop to process everything that happened in the last few months, I might be way too tempted to lock myself up in Black Shores and never leave Tethys until the heat death of the universe.”
He must’ve accidentally tripped over something that’s a very sore subject when he said ‘heat death’, because suddenly Rover’s breath hitches, and a shiver visibly moves through his body, but before Luuk can even ask, he shakes himself out of it and relaxes on the backseat, even putting an elbow on top of it.
“Because the shit that happened is kinda awful. I’ve already battled against two Threnodians, three Fractsidus Overseers seem unhealthy obsessed with me, which is creepy as hell, I’ve seen illusions of all my friends in Rinascita dying right in front of me in the worst ways possible, Aemeath may or may not be locked up in an eternal torment within Aleph-1, and Shorekeeper almost got formatted by Tethys, which would have effectively killed her.”
That is a lot. It seems that not even amnesia can stop Rover from seeking trouble like a heat-seeking missile.
But that thing about Shorekeeper.
While Luuk would like to think that he and Rover are close enough for the other man to mourn him at his funeral one day, he knows that the golden boy will rather quickly bounce back from it. He has had a very sad experience of losing people constantly due to his lifespan, and personally, Luuk would rather see Rover moving on than getting hung up on friends long gone.
But Shorekeeper? She’s the sole companion he’s had for thousands of years, the one who still remembers their shared people (nevermind her not being an actual human, it doesn’t matter), who was there through the thick and thin, the most trusted advisor and friend, and possibly a family. The love they both share transcends time.
If Shorekeeper ever dies, Luuk has zero doubts that it would kill Rover.
“I’ve already talked with Shorekeeper about trying to sacrifice herself to get Tethys to finally behave, but I didn’t talk with guys from Rinascita about what Dark Tide showed me, and quite frankly, I really don’t want to. It would only upset them.”
“And it would upset you too, I imagine.”
“Yeah.” Rover sighs and looks at the ceiling. “The only thing I wish for my friends is for them to live long, happy lives, and when the time comes for them to go, I wish they get to do so peacefully surrounded by their loved ones. If that’s not possible, then at the very least they should die in a way that would most please them. I am sure Augusta would’ve been thrilled to die in a battle, basking in the glory of the hunt.”
Rover sighs, and smiles a little wistfully.
“You’re a good man, Rover.”
The man looks at him, as if surprised Luuk has anything to say at all. Ridiculous. The doctor is a chatterbox — he always has something to say.
“And because you’re a good man, you cherish your friends and want what’s best for them, and as such, you don’t want to burden them, which leads to you bottling up your feelings. But Rover, you’re allowed to feel upset. Just because you’ve felt immense relief after realising those mirages aren’t real doesn’t invalidate your previous feelings.”
Rover’s fingers on the backrest start gently tapping a rhythm of a song only he can hear right now — a calming habit he’s had for as long as Luuk remembers. He’s now mulling over what the doctor said, while also avoiding eye contact.
Rover never did like being vulnerable in front of anyone.
The doctor stands up and goes to sit next to the golden boy.
“What’s the melody you’re thinking of?”
The other man freezes. He was probably preparing himself for an interrogation, but Luuk is not interested in things Rover doesn’t feel ready to share with him. Or rather, he is interested, because he’s nosy, but is willing to wait until Rover decides to tell him about it of his own volition. It is a policy of his not to dig too deep too fast, after all.
“Oh. It’s a song I heard back in Rinascita. I have a recording of it on my Terminal.”
Rover closes the text files, opens a player instead, and selects a file simply labeled ‘Lorelei’.
It opens, and the first thing Luuk sees is an enormous echo, easily the size of two Glommoths lying on the floor, and when Rover moves closer to it, it moves up and flies away, inviting Rover to fly together with her.
“I can see the dawn of water’s face—”
How bittersweet.
“This is Lorelei, Queen of the Night. She lives in Nimbus Sanctum.”
“She’s very beautiful. And looks terrifying.”
Rover laughs quietly.
“That she is. Fighting her wasn’t the easiest.” Luuk raises his eyebrows at that, and the man’s face turns less bitter. “I can tell you about it, if you’re willing to listen.”
“Yes, please.”
After all, Rover is an excellent storyteller, and Luuk doesn’t think he’ll ever get bored of listening to his voice.
“An Echo given intelligence by Imperator to purify corrupted frequencies in the Nimbus Sanctum, and which sings her heart out when she fights. Amazing.” Luuk says when Rover finishes, “Of course, I knew about Lorelei, but I have never seen her in person.”
“She is very gentle when she’s not doing her best to kill you.” Rover smiles, “and she’s very loyal.”
The man looks at the doctor for a few seconds before coming to some sort of a decision.
“Would you like to know why I couldn’t make myself trust you at first, despite Aemeath claiming I can do so?”
Well, that’s unexpected.
“Only if you’re willing to tell.”
“I wouldn’t propose if I didn’t mean it.”
“Let’s hear it then.”
Rover shifts slightly to face Luuk a bit more.
“When I first saw you, it was like a ton of alarm bells going off in my head. Like I have to be extremely careful about what I should say next, because despite being calm and collected, I felt like you’re fragile. Like a bomb.”
“That’s… not a glowing recommendation.”
“Yes, which is why I was wary of you. You also clearly knew me, but I didn’t know you, so that also added to the tension. I knew I could trust you a bit, but I also knew I needed to be careful, and it was throwing me off.” Rover smiles lightly, “but now I know why.”
Luuk raises his eyebrow, awaiting the answer.
“After our chat at your place in Sundermere, it dawned on me that the wariness I was feeling was actually extreme worry, to the point I was feeling it when I saw you twenty years and one amnesia later.”
“To be perfectly honest, today’s me would also be extremely worried about that version of me. I was riding on fumes, and I only realised when I dropped all papers for Novialle on my assistant’s desk,” he says softly, “getting me out was the best decision for me you could’ve ever made. Thank you.”
Rover puts his hand on Luuk’s shoulder and squeezes lightly, and that’s enough of an answer.
“Even if now I’m pretty sure this whole ‘there’s evidence of Fractsidus activity’ was more of a bait than anything else.”
“Well, you’re welcome to ask me again if I ever remember my reasoning from back then.”
~*~
The golden boy starts visiting him much more often than before. Luuk is very glad of that.
He’s even seen Lynae teasing Rover about ‘not being able to resist doc’s charm’ at some point, for which Rover flicked her forehead, saying that ‘she’s too young to figure out it’s actually the other way around’.
“What? Then how old are you?”
“Wouldn’t you just like to know,” Rover responds with an innocent smile that Luuk knows is fake.
“Of course! C’mon, just tell me! Or I’ll hack into your files and see for myself!”
“Then I look forward to you actually finding anything interesting in them. Let me know, okay?”
They walk out of his hearing range, but he’s sure Rover continues teasing and baiting Lynae into doing something stupid, like trying to hack Black Shores or something, when he knows perfectly well that Tethys is unhackable for the next who knows how many centuries. Some of the brightest minds have been trying to crack down how the Exostrider works for decades, and apparently it’s just a glorified Lollo Logistics employee by the standards of Rover’s people — who knows just how advanced Tethys is compared to that.
Maybe this is his new way of recruiting consultants.
But yes, Rover visits him quite regularly now. And they don’t even talk about work that much! Huge improvement, if Luuk is allowed to say so.
Still, the doctor isn’t sure just how Rover is finding the time to help out with big-scale projects all over Lahai-Roi. Isn’t he supposed to be in Rabelle College? Their course is almost legendarily brutal, with days packed with lessons to the absolute brim, and with a ton of papers to write. It’s the single biggest stress test Luuk has seen in his life, and he used to spy on Fractsidus.
“Wait. Can you please repeat that. You did what?”
“Helped out rebuilding the destroyed highways, rebuilding the Spacetrek Observatory, I just finished fixing some power lines in the Frostlands too, and now I’m beating up biomechs that ran away with funding from researchers. You know. Light work.”
“Light work, you say… Do you even attend the lectures? Or write your papers?”
“Eh, some of them. Black Shores students have some nice leeway when it comes to attendance as long as I show up for exams, and if you help out with Spacetrek projects, you get some credit. It just turns out helping out with the Observatory and the highways earned me a full credit score for the next ten years. And I still do submit my papers, thanks for your faith.”
“That’s not what I—nevermind.” Luuk sighs, “I just don’t think you know what ‘light work’ actually means.”
“You know, currently the only experience I have to go off of is the last couple of months I remember, and I remember that hard work means a lot of running and beating up everyone standing in my way. And neutralizing the Threnodians.”
“Well, when you put it like that…”
“Rebuilding and helping out is very rewarding for me. It’s nice, seeing how humanity persists despite going through hell. Inspiring. Me bringing some supplies and occasionally beating up TDs to help test out new simulations is just doing a small part in keeping that persistence alive.”
“You shouldn’t devalue your work like that, you know.”
Rover looks at him with a surprise.
“What do you mean?”
“‘Just doing a small part’, ‘doing light work’. Even if those things are small in your scale, it still helps many people get months ahead of schedule. It’s a necessary work, maybe mundane, maybe simple, but essential. You should take more pride in that.”
Rover stares at him as if he can stare straight into his soul, but then he smiles softly.
“If my doctor insists.”
Well damn.
Rover’s smile turns from gentle to smug, and Luuk can’t believe he fell for Rover’s trick. He doesn’t really devalue his work, the man understands perfectly well just how important it is. Hell, he’s the leader of Black Shores, even if he doesn’t remember a thing about managing an organisation, he still knows how ‘small jobs’ like that are the foundation that rests under the ‘big jobs’. He even said that just helping with the Observatory earned him all the credit he would possibly need for the time he’s staying in Lahai-Roi.
Golden boy stands up from his seat, walks over to Luuk’s and lifts the doctor’s chin with a finger.
“I am glad you take your job seriously, Luuk.”
And before the doctor can give any answer back, the man bends down and leaves a soft kiss on Luuk’s lips.
“I will be going out now. The biomechs will not beat themselves up, after all.”
He leaves the room, and Luuk is left with an increased heart beat and a blush on his cheeks.
That makeout session they had in Rover’s cabin has got nothing on this. Before it was a spur of the moment decision, a bit of a distraction, but also Rover’s been figuring out what their relationship was like before, even if he was willing to flirt for a bit there, reacting to Luuk being attracted to him, and besides, one night stands aren’t alien things for Rover, and Luuk knows that. It is a good thing that ‘Aemeath’ has interrupted them. Because now—
Now, this kiss was more intentional. Purposeful.
Luuk would’ve been perfectly happy if Rover decided to stay just friends and partners in crime, even if he had to be content with getting only two hot kisses and a neck full of lovebites, and nothing more. But if he’s considering taking Luuk as a lover… He certainly wouldn’t say no.
“Doctor Herssen? Are you alright? You look a bit shocked.”
He doesn’t even notice when Sigrika walks into his office for her appointment.
“Oh, I am fine. My previous appointment surprised me, that’s all. Now, how do you do, Sigrika?”
~*~
Over time, Rover grows more bold in his advances, especially after Luuk responded positively to them. They started meeting up more after his shifts and took to having walks around the campus. After one of those Luuk took him into his studio in the faculty part of the Academy to continue talking over beers, which led to a heated make-out session before Rover absconded into the night.
They don’t meet up every day — Rover is still scouring around the Frostlands and buried in papers, and Luuk still has his job and colleagues to entertain, but it feels like Rover has a sixth sense for when the doctor is wiped out from his shift and would appreciate some nice company, like when he spent half a day cleaning the glass from the wounds and stitching up a student after a chemical experiment gone wrong, where the student in question got all cut up from broken glass while handling a powder that’s explosive to the touch.
When he came back to his studio, already resigned to just swallow some squeezy jelly before having a session of screaming into his pillow and praying that the next day he won’t be called for an emergency shift (which happens more often than it really should), it turned out Rover has let himself inside and made them both some stuffed tofu and ice tea, and Luuk hasn’t been this close to tearing up ever since he watched a documentary about Bloody Agon a couple years ago.
Luuk hardly said anything on that day to Rover, but the golden boy kept talking about his newest explorations over dinner, and until Luuk almost fell asleep on his shoulder.
This marks the first time in many, many years that Luuk invites Rover to stay the night, and the man agrees.
“Don’t worry,” Rover says teasingly while taking off his jacket, “I’ll be out before most of the faculty even wakes up. I’ll even use the window to protect your reputation.”
“You can just use the door, you know. It’s not like there aren’t others who visit the professors in their private rooms.”
“Hm, but are any of them students?”
“I don’t particularly care, and you shouldn’t either, unless the situation is abusive, either physically or mentally. Most of them are young adults and they know what they’re doing. Hopefully.”
“But what if I use you to get out of the lectures in exchange for sex?”
Luuk snorts.
“As if. You said it yourself, you have all the leeway from them you would ever possibly need or want. If anything, it’s the other way around, me being in bed with my quasi boss.”
“I am not your boss.”
“You have no say in it, actually. I’ll follow your lead until the very end.”
Rover smiles when he slips into the bed next to Luuk.
“How apodictical. Are you sure I am your leader?”
Despite the teasing tone, there’s something delicate and fragile in Rover’s voice.
Luuk intertwines their fingers underneath the bedsheets.
“Absolutely.”
The next day, just as promised, Rover was already out of bed and out of Luuk’s place when the doctor woke up, leaving nothing but a slightly opened window. Whether the insane man actually used the window to make a daring escape, or is just fucking with Luuk for the love of the game, he has no idea, but he’s pretty sure the man wasn’t this dramatic twenty years ago.
~*~
They are playing Peaks of Prestige.
No. That gives the doctor way too much credit.
Luuk is getting trashed in Peaks of Prestige.
They’re in his studio again, sitting on the opposite sides of the coffee table with some drinks and a bowl full of sweets on the side, and Luuk can’t do anything but stare, horrified, at the way Rover just keeps generating energy seemingly out of nowhere, despite Luuk using the domain, which halts any energy production from Reconstruction.
And since PoP’s cards are connecting to the Terminals via chips to simulate the Echo battles and making sure no rules are being broken, it means that Rover has found a winning strategy to finish everything in round one without cheating.
No wonder he’s become the best player in Lahai-Roi.
Rover finally Modulated the last 3 Cost Echo he needed to get Hyvatia out in the field, and Luuk thinks it’s finally over, but no. Oh, no, it would’ve been too easy, because Rover is still left with 12 points of energy, and is now Transforming a Ku-Roro: Max Firepower to strengthen Hyvatia, as if only to rub salt into Luuk’s inevitable humiliation. And he does so again. And again.
“You know, I don’t think there’s much sense in us playing this game if the only thing I can do is take the beating,” he says when Rover finally finishes his round, “why are you even so good at this game?”
Luuk grabs a hard candy from the bowl and starts rolling it around in his mouth as he watches Rover’s Echoes completely trash his own.
“Hm, I guess it helps that I was one of the first PoP’s players back in Septimont, the rules aren’t hard to memorize, and it’s a nice, low-stakes activity to do.” The man responds, his voice in a perfectly even tone.
Too even.
Luuk looks up, and sees Rover leisurely resting on the sofa, his arm laying on the back of it, with his long, long hair in hand absentmindedly untangling the knots he always puts them in, with legs neatly crossed, and he is closely observing Luuk’s face — no, his lips as he’s moving the candy around his mouth.
He crushes the candy with his teeth and swallows, and sure enough — Rover’s eyes follow the way his laryngeal prominence is moving.
Well.
Luuk gets up from his seat, grabs a chocolate piece from the bowl and straddles Rover. The man uncrosses his legs to better accommodate the taller man and grabs Luuk by the hips.
“Wanna try this one out with me? I promise it’ll be worth your while.”
He unwraps the piece, holds it between his pointer and middle finger, and lays it on top of Rover’s lips.
He bends down and bites into it just as Rover opens his mouth. The chocolate neatly divides between them, gently melting in Luuk’s mouth before he swallows it down, and only when he sees Rover swallowing his half does he dive to kiss him.
Rover’s hands slightly adjust their grip before pulling Luuk to sit more fully in his lap, and Luuk lets him, already feeling the flush coming up on his cheeks as those hands slip to grab his ass.
“Oh, yeah,” he sighs against the golden boy’s lips, grinding his hips and moving his hands down on Rover’s chest, then lower until he can slip them under his shirt to feel those firm muscles underneath it.
Rover pulls away from the kiss.
“I think we both have way too many clothes on.”
“I agree.” Luuk says breathlessly and slips off Rover’s lap.
Rover gets up in one elegant move and Luuk cannot help himself, he needs to step closer to the other man and kiss him again.
Luuk grabs his coat, unclasp the fastening and drops the cloth on the floor, and he can hear Rover’s heavy jacket falling with a softthump.
Luuk’s arm sneaks around Rover’s shoulders to keep him close, his hand catches the golden accessory in Rover’s hair and unmakes it, letting the golden boy’s hair fall in a gentle waterfall.
Rover pushes Luuk’s arm away and breaks the kiss.
“You need to keep your hands to yourself for a bit,” Rover smiles as he pulls on the man’s belt, “or do I need to tie you up?”
Heavens above.
“Maybe later.” Because Rover is right, he needs to stop being clingy for at least five seconds to take off his shirt. And time for games will come later — right now, he needs to be able to touch the golden boy. The doctor doesn’t think he’ll survive if Rover ties him up now.
While Luuk wrestles with his shirt, Rover quickly takes care of the doctor’s belt before abandoning it, and when he finally gets the shirt off fully, it is to see the golden boy throwing his own tank top on the floor, showing off well-toned body for Luuk’s viewing pleasure.
Rover pulls Luuk closer again using the waistband and starts biting into his clavicle and shoulders.
“How loud can we be here?”
“The room is soundproof.”
They are not getting walked in on again. It happened twenty years ago and it’s one of the most humiliating moments in Luuk’s life, and he is not eager to repeat that.
Rover hums, and Luuk knows the golden boy is already planning on making him scream.
He can hardly wait.
Luuk bends down and sucks a lovebite into Rover’s neck, even knowing it’s going to disappear within an hour. As some say, it’s the thought that counts.
He drops on his knees, and kisses the buttons on Rover’s pants.
“May I?” He asks politely.
Rover’s smile is enough of an answer.
Fortunately, he is well acquainted with those pants, otherwise he might’ve been completely lost about how he is supposed to get to Rover’s cock without tearing the cloth apart.
At least Rover has taken off the utility belt and thigh straps he’s wearing all the time. It makes Luuk’s job much easier.
He opens and pulls the pants down together with the underwear, opens his mouth and puts the head directly on top of his tongue for a second, before swallowing it.
Luuk closes his eyes.
It’s been a long while since he had the pleasure of blowing a guy. Twenty years, to be exact. He sure hopes he remembers correctly how to do it, even if he cannot take Rover’s dick to the very base how he used to do it when he was younger and more used to it.
He swirls his tongue around the head and he sucks gently at the tip, pushing the tongue gently into the slit, then he pulls out and runs his tongue on the underside of Rover’s gorgeous cock, all the way down to the base, before slowly coming back to the tip with open-mouthed kisses. Rover swears softly under his nose, but not quiet enough for Luuk not to hear it.
Heh, it seems he still got it.
Rover slips his hand into Luuk’s hair when he puts the cock back into his mouth again, gently brushing it with his elegant fingers. Luuk sighs at the sensation, which makes golden boy’s fingers twitch.
Luuk wishes Rover would pull on his hair, to manhandle him into just taking it to the very back of his throat.
He also would like to open his now almost painfully tight pants and take himself in hand, but that would be absolutely no fun, so instead he grabs the back of Rover’s thigh, and the feel of those glorious muscles flexing almost makes up for it.
The man starts leaking bitter pre-come, and the noises he makes resonate in Luuk’s ears beautifully.
He’s got a good rhythm going — with teeth neatly tucked underneath his lips and droll spilling from the corner of his mouth, he moves up and down Rover’s cock, almost as far as he can go, gently sucking and making his mouth nice and tight, while his fingers help cover the rest of the length, moving opposite to his mouth — when Rover suddenly pulls on his hair and pulls him away. Luuk tries to get back to sucking Rover off, but the hand in his hair is like made of iron and doesn’t let him.
“So cockhungry.” Rover says with a chuckle.
Luuk swipes the line of drool off of his face with a smile.
“Only for you.”
“Hm,” Rover’s hand slips from his hair and now holds his chin, “how would you like it to go?”
Luuk stands up and puts his hands on Rover’s waist.
“I’ll follow your lead, and do feel free to order me around. But, if I may be so bold…” Luuk leans down and whispers into Rover’s ear, “I’d really like to have you inside me.”
Rover hums pleasantly.
“That can be arranged,” he says as he unzips Luuk’s pants and lets them fall on the floor, “take off the rest of your clothes and kneel on the sofa. With your back towards me.”
He does just what Rover asked him to do, his heart picking up the pace once again. He tries not to sigh when he finally takes off his underwear, freeing his cock, delivering a much needed relief. He throws it together with his socks on the pants in a nice pile to trip on later, but that’s a future-him problem. Getting fucked hopefully into the next week is much higher on his list of priorities right now.
When he finally kneels, Rover’s firm hand pushes him to lean on the backrest.
“And what are your hard ‘no’?” His fingers travelling down Luuk’s spine make him shiver.
“Ah, I don’t particularly like being beaten outside of a slap or two on my ass—” he says as a gloveless finger slips in-between his asscheeks, “mgh, I don’t enjoy asphyxiation either,” the finger now rests on his hole now, “or humiliation. Teasing is fine though.”
The finger starts massaging his hole, slowly and with almost enough force to breach, but never doing so, and Luuk’s breath picks up.
Rover stops touching him there, but before the doctor can complain about it, the man gabs his asscheeks and pulls them aside, and his tongue replaces the finger, very slowly dragging it across Luuk’s hole.
“The rest is—not important right now,” he says around his breathy moans as Rover starts licking him faster with a flat tongue, “we—we can talk about them later. Most are, ah, the things you don’t enjoy either, so no need to worry.”
Rover’s tongue slips inside, and it takes all of Luuk’s self-discipline not to push against it, to try and get that tongue even deeper.
He fists his hands on the backrest and adjusts his legs to spread more, to give Rover a bit of an easier time to eat him out like a champion.
“You—can leave souvenirs though,” Luuk continues to talk, because he knows he’ll be rendered speechless soon enough if Rover continues like that, and the golden boy needs to know this, “I like it when you dig your fingers into my skin, whe-when you bite me, scratch with your nails, I enjoy a bit of pain.”
Rover takes his tongue out of the hole and trails it up to the small of Luuk’s back, where he stops to suck a bruise in there before moving higher and higher, littering Luuk’s spine with bite marks and lovebites. One of his hands stays on Luuk’s ass, digging his nails in, while the other snakes around to touch his abs, and as his mouth goes up, his hand does too, gently scratching the skin.
A lubed cock suddenly appears on his ass, and Luuk dearly hopes Rover is not going to enter him like that. It’s been a long time since he’s taken anything more than his own fingers, and taking a cock without anything more than lube will be on the wrong side of painful.
However, it seems that Rover has different plans, because when he starts moving, his cock stays firmly on top of Luuk’s hole, moving gently between his cheeks. The hand that was digging bruises now brushes Luuk’s hair to reveal the nape of his neck.
Luuk luxuriates in the feeling of Rover’s cock as the man sets a steady rhythm. It’s hard to explain how it feels properly — it’s undeniably sexy and pleasurable, but in a weird way, it’s also just so nice, letting the doctor fully relax against the movement.
He moves his arms and folds them on top of the backseat, putting his chin on top of them as he softly moans.
“How does it feel?” Rover asks, his hot breath tickling Luuk’s ear.
“So good,” he responds breathlessly, “Rover, please.”
He’s not sure what he wants, but it seems that Rover does, because both of his hands are massaging his nipples now, before one of them moves to pinch it harshly, making Luuk whine.
The Ichor injection has left most of his skin quite sensitive, so much so that when Rover continues to play around, Luuk has to bite into his own arm to stop the loud noises from escaping.
“Don’t hide,” Rover says, his voice lowered and so sexy, “I want to hear you.”
His hand moves down to grab Luuk’s cock at the base and squeezes, the other one pulls the nipple harshly, and as if that wasn’t enough, his teeth suddenly appear on Luuk’s neck and bite.
If it weren’t for the hand on his cock, Luuk would’ve spilled already as he screams.
Rover dislodges himself from Luuk’s neck, circles his arms around the doctor’s abdomen, and stops moving.
“So—so mean, golden boy,” he says when he finally catches enough breath to do so.
“Hm, but you seem to enjoy it,” Rover responds with a slight tease in his voice, “I wasn’t exactly sure if you would, but it felt right to do anyway.”
“Yeah—yeah, I like that,” he takes deep lungfuls of air now, getting down off the high that even now threatens to make him come if Rover so much as moves. “A moment, please.”
“You can even have several.” Rover chuckles, but stays in place, his hot cock still between his cheeks and steadily dripping pre-come.
Luuk closes his eyes. They simply breathe for a couple of seconds, letting the air cool their bodies.
“Okay. Okay, I’m good to go. How about you?” Luuk asks as he turns slightly to look at Rover.
The man smiles and leaves a peck on his lips.
“I was just waiting for you.”
Rover pulls away from Luuk and pushes him back on the backseat. He can hear the golden boy opening the lube, and soon after he feels a well-lubed finger slowly inserting itself into his hole. Rover doesn’t stop until the finger is fully inside.
“How is it?”
“Good,” Luuk breathes out, “move, please.”
He relaxes into the feeling of the finger getting almost all the way out before pushing inside again, every move slow and steady.
“You know, it reminds me of the first time,” he says when Rover slips his second finger in.
“Tell me about it.”
“Ah, you see, when we first started sleeping together, I wasn’t very experienced,” Rover starts scissoring his fingers, which makes it difficult for Luuk to focus, “I definitely didn’t try anal sex before. Or even much else, for that matter.”
Luuk has enormous trust issues when it comes to the autonomy of his body, so anything more than a heated make-out session with heavy petting was not on the table for the doctor. Getting laid as an experiment survivor is not easy, especially when you double-time as a spy.
Sex requires from Luuk the sort of vulnerability that so far he can only achieve with Rover.
“So—oh—so at the beginning you just had me inside you, since you already knew you enjoyed it. You taught me a lot, and—and you were very gentle with me, like now,” Luuk swallows the saliva that gathered in his mouth before it spills on his chin, “you only considered putting yourself inside me when I asked about it.”
Rover spills a bit more of lube on top of Luuk’s hole before sliding another finger in, making Luuk gasp.
“Heh, I was expecting you to fuck me the very first time you fingered me, but you didn’t. You very deliberately didn’t do it until a couple of sessions later, when I was used to the sensations and getting very frustrated. I think you enjoyed my annoyance.”
Rover chuckles and grinds his fingers over Luuk’s prostate.
“Goddamnit, oh, you better put your dick in me tonight though, or I might die.”
“You say the strangest things, Luuk,” the man laughs out, because Luuk’s suffering has always been hilarious for him, “I don’t think you actually can die from that.”
“Let me be the first, then.”
“What a way to go, though. But it might get me into trouble.”
“It would serve you right.”
And because Rover can be an asshole of the highest degree, he pulls his fingers out and steps away. Luuk actually whines.
“Behave,” Rover says and slaps his ass, his voice a bit muffled as if he is holding something in his mouth right now, “it’s not like I was gonna leave you hanging.”
Luuk doesn’t respond, but that’s mostly because he can feel the head of Rover’s cock brushing his hole rather than having nothing to say at all.
Ah, so he was holding a condom to open it with his teeth. He would’ve loved to see it — Rover always manages to make it look so sexy.
The golden boy pushes gently inside — and despite it being so long since Luuk has taken it up his ass, the stretch feels very good.
“How does it feel?” The man asks once he’s fully inside.
Luuk has to focus on his breathing to force himself to relax, because he knows he’s squeezing Rover’s cock, and it will be very hard for him to actually move.
“So full,” he moans out, pushing his ass back to try and take more of Rover’s cock, “feels—feels good.”
Rover’s hand tangles itself in Luuk’s hair and pulls it harshly, dragging his head back and forcing him into an arch. Luuk gasps.
“How about this?”
“Ca-careful,” he moans, “I might come too early if you continue like that.”
“Heh, isn’t that the name of the game?”
“I’d like to enjoy it for a little while.”
Rover’s other hand lays down on his navel when he finally, finally starts thrusting. And ignores Luuk’s protests about teasing, because he’s rhythmically pulling on his hair and biting into the meat of his shoulders, and Luuk has to make sure his cock doesn’t touch the backseat or he’ll really come too fast.
Luuk swears Ichor is boiling under his skin with the way he feels so hot, especially when the cock inside him starts hitting his prostate head on, with how Rover’s breath comes in short huffs into his ear when he stops biting, when the hand on his navel travels lower to grab his own cock.
“No,” Luuk moans out and moves Rover’s hand to touch his chest instead, “I can—I can come without it, just—”
Rover doesn’t need to be told twice. The man picks up the tempo, his fist like an iron in his hair, stimulating his scalp with mouth-watering pulls, the other hand pinching and pulling on the nipple.
“Hah, close?”
“Rover, please.”
“Hah, please—what?”
“A little bit faster, please.”
“Good doctor.”
Oh great Sentinels.
Luuk chokes on his moans as the air is now pretty much punched out of his lungs, his entire world shrinking until it’s just him, Rover, and the way they move their bodies.
“Rover, Rover,” this is the only word in Luuk’s mind now, the only word on his lips when he finally, finally comes.
He can feel himself squeezing Rover’s cock, which doesn’t stop moving as Luuk comes, elongating his orgasm and improving it.
“Oh—oh fuck, Luuk.”
Rover almost collapses on Luuk’s back, but is able to catch himself before doing so, his right hand now next to Luuk’s own on the backrest as they both breathe laboriously.
They stay like that for a minute.
“Holy shit.”
“Still feeling good?”
“You know that, golden boy.”
Luuk feels Rover leaving a kiss on his shoulder before pulling his now soft cock out of his hole. The doctor turns around, just in time to see Rover taking off the condom and tying it up.
“I sure hope you know I am not quite done with you yet,” Rover says after he throws the used condom away. “I wanna do so many things to you.”
Luuk licks his lips.
“Well, the night is still young, and I’m free tomorrow,” he gets up from the sofa to pull Rover into a kiss, “do your worst.”
~*~
Luuk doesn’t know what time it is, but he knows it’s way too early when he hears banging against his door.
Instead of getting up though, he spoons Rover a little bit harder.
“You should open it, you know,” the golden boy says sleepily.
“You could do it for me.”
“Whoever that is is most certainly looking for you. Nobody who needs me would look for me in the facility wing in general, or in your room in particular.”
Before Luuk can continue the banter, the unwanted visitor knocks again, and the doctor groans.
“Fine, I’ll open it.”
“Don’t die of enthusiasm.”
He grabs the bath robe and puts it on and barely ties the knot, showing off the top part of his chest. Thankfully, his knees aren’t giving up on him.
It doesn’t matter anyway, since he’s going to quickly get over it and send whichever professor decided to bother him at the unholy hour of… 9AM… away and get back to bed, where Rover is keeping the sheets pleasantly warm.
When he opens the door and sees Lynae on the other side, he regrets his whole life. And the decision of not fully covering up.
“Doc, I’ve got—! What attacked you?!”
Rover was extremely generous with leaving souvenirs on his body, which means he’s got marks everywhere.
At least he’s got his pajama pants on and Lynae can’t see the bruises on his inner thighs.
“A feral cat,” this is the closest Luuk can get to the actual truth without evaporating from existence. As far as he’s concerned, the only people who should be privy to his sex life are his partner and himself, and nobody else, especially a student. “What do you need?”
“Oh, um, I was asked by President Lucilla to deliver this to you,” she shoves a package into his chest, “she says she’d deliver it herself, but there’s some last minute meeting that got scheduled about Hyvatia, so she won’t be able to meet with you today.”
“Alright, now, if you don’t mind—”
“Lynae, what are you doing here?”
His morning couldn’t possibly get worse.
Professor Mornye stands in front of his door right now, and looks at Luuk with a dead stare of a woman who already knows what and who Luuk was doing. Because she does. A bit too well.
“Oh, so Mentor stayed the night,” she says as the doctor tries to keep his composure and not die of mortification.
“Mentor? Wait—!” Oh no. “Rover is in there?!”
He can hear that son of a bitch cackling in his bed. He’s the absolute worst friend Luuk has ever had.
“Don’t worry, Lynae, walking in on them happens to the best of us,” Mornye says, completely ignoring Luuk, which is just plain rude.
“Walking—” the girl finally catches on, and her face becomes red like a tomato.
“Well, if that’s all, I am going back to bed. Enjoy your day, ladies,” Luuk closes the door as fast as possible, and that’s the moment Rover breaks and laughs.
“Stop,” the doctor groans, “it’s not funny!”
“It is!”
Why does he even love this man, when all he does is laugh at Luuk’s entire life.
“It is not! Oh Sentinels, you’re laughing at this like twenty years ago.”
“Did Mornye walk in on us when we had sex before?” Rover asks when he turns around to look at the doctor.
“Yes. It was awful.”
“Do tell.”
Luuk throws his bath robe on the floor and slips back under the bedsheets with a pinched expression.
“Well, it was when I was in your dorm room, because my place was being renovated, and we decided to have some fun. The thing was, your room was very much not soundproofed. Most people were out for holidays, however, so neither of us thought it’s gonna be a problem if we get a bit loud. So here I am, literally begging you for mercy because you haven’t let me come for what felt like hours, when Mornye bursts in, weapons out to help fight whoever dares to threaten you.”
Rover is trying very hard not to laugh, but in the end loses that particular battle.
“Stop, please, it’s not funny! I thought I’m going to die from embarrassment!”
“I can’t!”
“I bet you would be just as mortified as I was if it was you begging!”
“Hah, I doubt it. But would you like to see it?” Rover teases, his voice slightly lower-pitched, and Luuk’s thoughts make a full halt.
“No.”
“No?”
“No. If you’re begging, then all hope is lost. I don’t want to see you beg. Ever.”
“Wow, alright. I didn’t think you’d have such a strong opinion about that.”
“Me neither honestly, but when you brought it up, the only thing that came to mind was a big no.” He snakes his arm around Rover, ready to get back to sleep.
The golden boy really did deliver last night.
“Speaking of walking in on people,” Rover starts, because he doesn’t understand the concept of resting and sleeping, “has ever anyone caught your fancy?”
Ah. Luuk remembers that conversation well.
Rover is an immortal man who is incapable of staying in one place for more than a couple of months. Sooner or later, he will leave, and he’s always upfront about that with people he sleeps with. There’s no promises of grand romance or anything like that, even though Rover is weirdly loyal to his partners until they get into a relationship with someone else. He is even very insistent on those partners finding love of their own, and not to worry about him.
The only thing that Rover wants is for his loved ones to live a good life, and to invite him to the wedding if there’s one happening.
“Well, I did once try to have something with Lucilla, but we both decided it’s not what either of us wants after we slept with each other,” Luuk says, “it’s not even that the sex was bad or anything, we just don’t fit each other like that.”
She just wasn’t Rover.
But he’s not going to tell the man that. He doesn’t need a lecture when he can get back to sleep instead.
Besides, he knows Rover loves him, even if it’s not exactly a miracle romance or anything grandiose like that.
“And nobody after that?”
“No. I’m happy with staying just friends with people in the faculty, and getting into a romantic or sexual relationship with any of the students is… not something I want to have.”
“Except for me, it seems.”
“Please, as if I have to explain the difference to you.” He pulls Rover into his arms and hides his face into black hair. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going back to sleep. We were up until late yesterday.”
Rover laughs quietly, but shuts up and puts his arm over Luuk’s waist.
He sighs contentedly.
Who needs romance anyway, when being partners in crime is so much more enjoyable.