Chapter Text
This was supposed to be the quiet zone of the library, a place Oliver could relax and get started on his paper on how Jane Austen’s own views on marriage are seen strongest in Emma. Instead, he got a pounding headache, the noise shaking the desk his books and papers were rested on.
Far above the usual chorus of keyboard clacking from the library computers, the whirring from the heavy duty printers, and the ever present nasty cough somehow shared by every person who has ever entered a library, Felix and his admirers cheered and whopped along to the portable radio they had bought in with them.
A fucking radio.
Oliver's fists and jaw united in clenching as he tried his best to ignore the ruckus and the occasional pointed comment by Farleigh- “ Imagine how we would have this place to ourselves if they charged for library cards?” - “Was there always such a rat problem in this dump?”
There were worse things than noise, Oliver reminded himself. Far worse.
The fucking maze, the sound of Felix’s hips smacking into the unknown woman, antlers catching at leaves, a wine bottle scrapping along the dirt- pills in the back of his pocket.
Blood running cold.
Somehow, through sheer stubbornness, he completes the introduction and the first two paragraphs of his essay. A brilliant start considering they were only given the assignment that very morning, but Oliver wasn't one to leave things for later. He considers leaving the impromptu disco scene now that he's done what he needed to do, but only staying for two hours of this torture feels like admitting defeat. He slides his eyes to the clock and sees that its almost nine, the library will close in an hour. Surely he can last to then.
His brain might be feeling like it's leaking out of his ears, and the various bits of trash and mess that keeps ending up in his space are making his hands shake with rage, but! This is obviously some sort of weird game. Break the creep. Bother the pervert.
And Oliver likes games.
Oliver likes to win games.
When his pathetic murder attempt on his birthday inevitably failed -” poor baby Felix really overdid it at the party last night! He has to get his stomach pumped, twice I might add”- Oliver found himself out on the train platform with all the efficiency and care of a military drill. No one from the family saw him off, but for some bizarre reason the creepy fucking butler who really seemed to hate his guts waited with him the entire time. Even after it was delayed an hour due to the weather. He stood like a toy soldier, an umbrella held a loft above them both, eyes straight ahead. He didn't even move when the train finally pulled away.
He knew that this gesture was a safety precaution. Ensure that Oliver gets on that train and that he doesn't somehow crawl back through the cracks in the Saltburn gates. That he doesn't slide out the drains and infest.
But he always likes to think that it was one last kindness from Felix. That Felix wanted him dry, wanted him safe. That Felix watched him. It was a comforting thought, as he knew that once he was back at Oxford, Felix would do his damn best to ensure that their paths would never cross again.
And that was the case, for a while.
The first two weeks back were distinctly Felix-less. If Oliver ever worked up the courage to walk past the Kings Arms or Felix’s dormitory, he was met with nothing but ghosts and painful memories. So, he stopped trying, comforting himself with the fact that would always have his time at Saltburn. The times before Saltburn, even. He knew Felix’s face when he woke up in the morning, knew what he smelt like if he dodged the shower one too many times, knew his laugh, his real laugh. The one where he wasn’t worried about looking like Felix Catton, let his eyes bulge and the sounds choke and whuff out of his lungs. Oliver knew how Felix tasted, in a more primal way then anyone ever could. He would be content with all of that.
He would have to be content with all of that.
So he had stopped lingering and kept his head down. He changed tutorials, and moved his classes around in a way that should have made it impossible to ever see his Sun again.
A torturous few months indeed, but Oliver was doing it for Felix so it made everything burn just a little less.
And then, on a random Wednesday, Oliver had been sitting in a café furiously re-writing his term paper notes so he could sell them to students falling behind when movement outside the café caught his eye.
It was him. HIM. It was his Felix.
Waving and grinning at Oliver through the glass. The second their eyes caught, Felix started to stride confidently towards the door of the building. Oliver's heart sped and spluttered in his chest, Felix’s eyes burned through him. His fucking Sun. All of Oliver's work to give him the peace, the distance from him that Felix deserved, about to be ruined by an awful coincidence.
He stood abruptly, the screech from the chair legs on the wooden floor ear shattering, and stuffed all of his things into his satchel. He tipped back the coffee dregs, snatched the cheese scone, and then flew past Felix as fast as he could, only allowing himself one last strangled gasp of his scent as he left. He held his breath as long as he could as he hurtled down the road, not wanting to lose this final taste of him. It eventually fought past his lips and he sputtered into the bus driver's face as hurriedly launched a couple of pounds at the man. When he slammed down into his seat and the bus pulled away he saw Felix standing on the pavement, doubled over with his hands on his knees like he’d been running. Running after Oliver. Oh what a sight, what a goddamn sight. But you can't stare directly at the sun for too long, so he snapped his head forward and made himself get lost in the squiggly patterns on the back of the headrest in front of him. Add this to the collection, Oliver. Then no more. But he couldn’t help the grin that subtly curved up the ends of his lips.
And then Felix was everywhere. In the front of lectures for classes he definitely didn't take. Walking down the paths that he should have no reason to be down. Frequenting the pizza places Oliver would go to when the dorm's dinner was lacking. Felix Catton eating Pizza. It truly was a marvel. And every time he saw Oliver he would smile. Sometimes he would call out “Ollie!” filled with childlike joy, and Oliver would have to leave immediately or he would die of heart failure. Or cum in his pants.
He was unavoidable.
Felix at the small shop where Oliver goes to buy his smokes.
He was inevitable.
Felix’s hand on his back as he passed by him at the tube station.
Felix was following him.
Joy and rage battled within Oliver, as they often did.
Why the fuck was he so desperate to see him now? Now? After he had rejected him so terribly, betrayed him over a series of insignificant lies? He had thrown away his one true friend, the only one who knew him, the only one to see all of his arrogance and his mess and his entitlement and love him for it all. Truly and madly.
There was a part of him that wanted to run to Felix, to his room, To throw himself at his feet like a beggar to a king. To beg for a scrap of him, anything, fucking anything. And at this point, he knew Felix would give him the attention he so painfully craved. It was obvious he had seen the Oliver shaped hole in his life and wished to fill it again. But how long would that hole last, that need? He had thrown him away before, he had tried to throw him away multiple times before that.
Oliver had to carve that hole bigger.
It needed to be big enough for him to stay forever.
The carving went thusly: no more running.
When Felix bumped into him in halls or shops, Oliver would meet his gaze, give him a nod of acknowledgement, and then continue doing whatever it was he was doing before Felix bounded up to him. When Felix boldly sat beside him at lunch, forcing his cronies to do the same, Oliver nodded, then turned back to his meatloaf and Michael. He ignored any attempt at conversation from those who were not the human calculator, whether it was friendly or otherwise. And then he left, feeling hot, scorching sun upon his back.
He knew it was working when the following escalated to childish bullying. Felix did not like being ignored, being slighted. He started leaving notes under Oliver's door or in his pigeonhole “ Fucking freak” “Nasty little leech” “Do you kiss your mother with that bloody mouth?”
Oliver kept them all, under his mattress.
When he would see him on the street, Felix would shoulder check him so hard he would have to brace to ensure he didn't end up on his arse. And Felix would laugh and jeer, and then leave before he had a chance to be ignored. Food would be swiped from his plate, water poured down his back. Nothing he couldn’t injure. It was working. He was winning.
Oliver flicked through the newest paragraph on how Emma did not love Mr. Knightly, but loved the control she could exhaust over him, as a shadow appeared on the desk. He looked up and over Felix’s shoulder, mouth falling ever so slightly when he saw it read 10:32. Usually the librarians were very diligent about getting people out at closing time. He raised a brow at the smirking man towering over him. Unless that person's father was a knight, he supposed.
Oliver started to leisurely shuffle all of his things together, when a hand flew out and caught his wrist.
“Leave it.” Felix said quietly, his face still smug.
“But the Library is closed, Felix. It’s time to leave.” Oliver craned his neck up at his captor, making himself look small, widening his eyes. Prey. Felix’s face pinched, then relaxed instantly. If you didn't know him, you wouldn’t have noticed it. But Oliver knew him. He knew him, he knew him, he knew him.
Felix looked around himself at the empty, low lit room, desks cleared and books put away.
“Well, nobody’s here, that's for sure. But-” he lifted an ancient set of keys from his large navy trench coat. “- it's certainly not closed.”
Oliver looked from the keys to the hand on his wrist and then sighed deeply, as if exhausted.
“What do you want from me, Felix?”
The man who had been sauntering slowly closer paused, then he threw his head back and laughed. A hand came up and swiped down his face, pulling at his eyes, at his lips.
Oliver soaked in as many details as the darkness allowed. God. A fucking God. Felix pulled himself together and stalked closer, switching his grip from Oliver's wrist to his neck. Forcing his gaze up, to meet his burning gaze straight on. What a joy, a gift. Who cares if he went blind.
“You said you loved me-” Antlers, a maze, skin slapping, a bottle. “- You said you did it all because you loved me, right?” The grip on neck tightened, his chin also caught within the impossibly large hand.
Oliver gurgled in answer, nodding as much as he could. He willed his eyes to water, the tears to run. I’m prey, I’m prey! Soft, innocent, Easy. You want me, you want to bite me. Prey, prey, prey.
A deep sound came from Felix’s chest, a laugh and a growl.
“Then that’s what I want from you, Ollie. I want everything.” He pushed his crotch into Oliver’s face hard and he could have died, maybe he did die. He was hard and maybe even a little damp and Oliver whined and gargled pathetically. No more pretense even needed, he huffed as deeply as he was able, choking and gasping, wriggling closer.
Felix released the hold on his throat, and Oliver slumped in his seat, a puppet whose strings had been cut. But his eyes never left Felix’s hands as they unzipped his trousers and hitched them down past his hips. Drool pooled in Oliver's mouth, oh he didn't deserve it he doesn't deserve this. But he felt himself drawn forwards like a magnet to Felix’s dick and he couldn't help but mouth at the cloth of the man's boxers, grip his taut thighs.
“Love me, you sick fuck. Worship me.”
Oliver could only serve him.