Chapter Text
To the rest of the crew, Roy slept at the weirdest times. It was one of the first habits he’d fallen into since becoming a career military man: never sleeping on a fixed schedule. If patrols were at scheduled times or worse, in predetermined shifts, it was all too easy for someone to find a predictable weakness and exploit it. Everyone was vulnerable when they slept—the rest of the soldiers in his platoon, the enemy’s soldiers, his boss he was paid to guard, and even Roy himself. Even something as human as the need for sleep was something he had to learn to work around.
Even when he joined Leverage Consulting, he would patrol through every corner of their hideout at irregular intervals throughout the night. Everyone had their job to do. Roy wasn’t a great grifter. As much as he teased Euisung, he didn’t even understand half the things he said when he was hacking. He didn’t even know how to pick a simple lock despite Nabyeol trying to teach him more than once. And he certainly didn’t have the ability to put a plan together like Taejoon. Roy could, however, use his skills to keep everyone safe. So every night, sometimes multiple times a night, he would wake up and patrol.
It was already a late night when everyone started to leave the briefing table. He knew that Euisung hadn’t slept at all the previous night, but he refused to leave his laptop despite Nabyeol pulling on his arm.
“I’m trying to track offshore accounts for this guy, but do you know how difficult it is to hack the banks in the Cayman Islands? The firewalls are basically fire fortresses with turrets and angry sharks in the moat.”
“You can do it though,” Nabyeol said, nonplussed.
Euisung stammered. “W-well, yeah….”
Nabyeol grabbed Euisung’s ear. “Then sleep and do it tomorrow.”
Euisung struggled pathetically, but he didn’t leave his chair. Nabyeol sighed like the entire world was on her shoulders.
Roy stopped watching and scooped Euisung up over his shoulder.
“Hey! Hey! Soldier boy! I’m in the middle of a hack!” Euisung squirmed, flailing his legs uselessly.
Roy gave Nabyeol a look, and she smiled back at him, waving the both of them a good night. Roy stomped down the metal stairs to the lower floor where the living quarters were. He entered Euisung’s room—which was much bigger than Roy’s—and threw the younger down onto the bed.
Euisung sat up and immediately tried to leave, but Roy let out a fake yawn and shoved the beta down into the bed. He collapsed beside him, his arm keeping the beta’s back pinned to the duvet.
At first, Euisung struggled and demanded his release, but after realizing escape was futile, he changed tactics and started to add respect particles on to the ends of his sentences. Roy spent so much time abroad that he didn’t care much for the fact that Nabyeol and Euisung talked to him informally despite the obvious age differences. However, there was some part of him deep down that flared happily at being addressed with the respect he deserved. But, unfortunately for Euisung, it wasn’t enough for him to release him.
“Hyung, please?!”
Roy answered by closing his eyes and pretending to fall asleep—fake snores and all.
Euisung continued to struggle and beg, but Roy didn’t let up.
It wasn’t until Roy blinked open his eyes that he realized he must have fallen asleep for real. And it might not have been his internal alarm that woke him up, but rather a strange noise. When his vision came into focus, he saw Euisung was still next to him, though he was a lot closer than when they were originally positioned.
From the looks of it, Euisung was asleep. His eyes were shut, and his hand was curled around Roy’s arm in a loose grip.
When Roy was trying to keep Euisung from escaping, he kept his arm pressed against Euisung’s chest. As Roy slept, he must have shifted a little, letting his arm pull back and leave his hand to lay across Euisung’s head.
That’s when Roy noticed the noise again. It was a deep, rumbling sound that wasn’t quite a growl. He realized that it was coming from Euisung. That’s when Roy realized how close the scent glands on his wrist were to Euisung’s nose.
Roy felt his mind go blank. Euisung was purring—at Roy’s scent.
He immediately pulled back his hand and practically leapt off the bed. He was up the stairs and back on the main level likely before Euisung even knew what happened. Thankfully.
Unfortunately, he found himself heaving for breath in front of Taejoon who was looking at something on his computer. Roy’s boss leveled his calm gaze over the top of the computer and raised an eyebrow. Roy could have walked away and said nothing. He was allowed to do that with Taejoon. Taejoon wouldn’t take it as insubordination. But Roy couldn’t wrestle himself out of the training that was hardwired into him for almost his entire adult life. So he stood there silently—it was a strange compromise, but he couldn’t get his feet to move.
“Do you want to watch some CCTV footage with me?”
Now Roy’s feet could suddenly move. He was sitting in the wheely chair next to his boss as if he had been teleported there. The black and white security footage played for what could have been hours, but Roy’s thoughts were racing too fast for him to concentrate.
“Nabyeol told me to get Euisung to sleep.” The words tumbled out of Roy’s mouth, and it took a second for him to realize what he blurted.
Taejoon didn’t even take his eyes off of the screen, but his tired expression did change somewhat.
“Is that so?” His voice was frustratingly neutral. “Nabyeol tells me he has nightmares often.”
Of course he did. Euisung was scared of everything. He was so little too—even for a beta. Every alpha on the planet was bigger and stronger than him. Of course he was afraid.
“He didn’t have a nightmare.”
Taejoon smiled. “Well, that’s good to hear.”
And Roy could already feel his mouth opening again, and all that he could get out was a whisper. “He was purring.”
Taejoon finally took his attention from the CCTV and looked at Roy. There was no judgment—at least, not on the surface. Taejoon was good at hiding his emotions.
“It was an accident. I was trying to be annoying, and I was going to leave once he fell asleep, but I apparently also fell asleep. Somehow my wrist ended up close to his face, and when I woke up, I heard him.”
Taejoon continued to watch Roy neutrally, and when Roy chanced a glance at his eyes and found nothing he could read, he panicked again. “I left as soon as I figured out what happened. I’m sorry.”
Roy wrung his hands together as he waited for his boss to speak.
“I’m getting the sense that you think you’ve done something wrong.”
Roy froze. For being so blabby just seconds earlier, his mouth felt heavy and locked now.
“You know that betas only purr when they feel safe and happy, right? So why should I be upset?” Taejoon put a hand on Roy’s shoulder. “If anything, I should be taking this as confirmation that you’re doing your job well.”
“I….” Roy swallowed. “I’ve never heard anyone purr before.”
“Well, when you spend all your life around alphas, that could happen.”
Roy couldn’t believe it. He’d never used his scent for much of anything before. The other alpha soldiers and mercenaries hardly used their scents even for intimidation because their fists were usually too busy to do anything as subtle as that. And because everyone in the Leverage crew were betas save for himself and Taejoon, he hadn’t heard anyone comment about his scent before. The only reason Euisung could probably smell him at all was because his wrist was literally in front of his nose.
The alpha instinct in Roy that he typically kept on a tight leash started to wag its metaphorical tail. His scent was comforting. His scent made someone feel safe. He was a good protector. A good alpha.
Nothing seemed to change after that incident. Euisung certainly didn’t remember purring, and Roy never told him. However, when Roy made his random rounds during the night, he made sure to check on Euisung a bit more closely than just to make sure he was breathing. If it looked like Euisung was in discomfort or clearly in the throes of a nightmare, Roy might have held his wrist over the younger’s nose. He still couldn’t believe that it never failed to make the beta calm down.