✩ Pairing (OC): Auer Burke x Elland de Strontium
✩ Rating: Explicit 🔞
✩ Word Count: 23,986 (completed)
Summary: After a successful mission, Aurors Elland and Auer discover that one of them inhaled plant spores of questionable origin, leading to unexpected side effects that could only be lessened by even more questionable and preposterous activities. The problem is made worse because Elland and Auer can’t stand each other. Or so they claim, until the temptation is too much and their feelings demand reconciliation. They are in love, Your Honour, and the spores have nothing to do with it.
Read about them trying to rationalise their actions, struggling with being vulnerable while craving a connection, and accepting the daunting truths that they’ve been running away from.
✧ Written by @lil-grem-draws for @koffeey (Auer's creator). Read it on AO3
⋆｡˚ Chapters ˚｡⋆
1. Keeper of Secrets
2. Hypothetical
3. Hold Me Till I Am No More
4. Promise
5. All the Sore Spots
6. The Debt Must Be Repaid
Chapter 1
“Get lost.”
“No.”
“I said I’m sick, didn’t the office notify you?”
“I’ve seen your damn note and it didn’t fool me. You never take days off.”
“Perhaps I should, seeing your smug mug sickens me every damn morning.”
“Oh, good thing we are past the morning then. Perhaps you feel good enough to invite your guest in. It's bloody freezing, let me in, Strontium!”
“Go the hell back to where you came.”
The door slams shut in the blond’s face. Years of knowing each other, and all they have to show for it are continuous squabbles. Mission disagreements, personal space invasions, wrong coffee orders, even physical altercations. And sometimes, at times like this one, rather satisfying intellectual exchanges. At least in Auer’s opinion. Particularly because he knows exactly what levers to pull to goad Elland into doing his bidding. Unphased, Auer straightens his Auror robe and bends down to the letter hole in the door.
“You’re a twat, Elland!” he shouts, much louder than is necessary on purpose, his voice—the only sound on the streets of this high-class area of London. The door shoots open, earning the outsider a solid knock on the head. Auer staggers back, rubbing his forehead with a groan. He should’ve waited for the key to turn before yelling, but the deed is done: Prince Charming wouldn’t want him to wake up the neighbours, right?
