"To be completely honest with you, I'm surprised that you're so calm. I expected more resistance concerning this whole aftermath."

Seonghwa lifted his eyes to glance at Hongjoong who had just kicked down the door leading to the storage area of their fun carnival house. The statement had come sudden, given that so far they had only talked to inform each other about mission-related notices. Quietly, he followed after the man in the catsuit as he waited for him to continue.

Hongjoong pushed his hair back while crossing the storage hall. He was looking for anything that might lead to an actual digging area, if not at least a hint to where they had searched. Seonghwa spotted the weird patch of wall that was poorly hidden behind some crates first. He walked over to start throwing the empty wooden boxes off.

"You know, seeing as I told you about seven times that I like you, and you still didn't react for a very long time. I had suspected that opinion might have changed when you actually came to me, but..."

Seonghwa kicked the last crate off before pushing open the hidden door with a resounding screech. Hongjoong followed him down the dark stone tunnel and shone their way with his own flashlight.

"Let's put it like this... You had nothing to change. I was too unwilling to admit a lot of things before deciding it was not worth it anymore." Seonghwa pushed open the second door too and stepped out to a huge room that seemed to have no floor and instead lost itself in endless blackness.

Now that seemed more like it.

"I see. So I was right. I wouldn't have been so confident to approach you if I hadn't been convinced that you were just denying it." Hongjoong smirked wryly at him and then opened his backpack to pull out a long metal wire. While he set it up at the door behind them, Seonghwa tried to shine his light down the depths in tries to see something.

"I think I can see the bottom but it's like thirty meters deep."

"These are twenty-eight. Seems like our lucky day. I'll go first." With that, Hongjoong wrapped the end of the rope around his waist and fearlessly jumped into the depths. Seonghwa followed his fall with his flashlight that glinted over the lines of his body.

When the rope was pulled taut, Seonghwa checked again on the door to find it still firmly secured.

"Good calculating skills. I can just drop down from here. Come on."

Seonghwa followed him a tad slower but fast enough that San would have winced had he not been busy right now.

Seonghwa securely dropped to his feet next to Hongjoong and looked around for another entrance.

There was only one, another gloomy tunnel, and they went right there.

It was pretty dark, but there were no signs of anything or anybody down here at least. Seonghwa didn't expect to be using his weapon today at least and that was good news.

There was also the distant noise of water dripping further down the tunnels. Assuming they had found whatever they had searched for, it was close to a larger body of water.

Seonghwa kept his eyes open for their surroundings while Hongjoong marched straight ahead. Out of protectiveness, Seonghwa was used to always walk just a bit behind his companions in order to watch their backs. Slipping into that role to smoothly with Hongjoong quite amused Seonghwa, yet he couldn't help but looking at the man's long legs either.

Hongjoong might have been a small alpha, but he was mostly made of leg for sure. And Seonghwa was convinced that the man would look gorgeous in heels.

Hitting those stupid thoughts out of his head, Seonghwa concentrated on their rough path and the sound of water that seemed to draw nearer with every step they took. So far, they hadn't ran into any traps, making the obtainment of this splitter smoother than any before.

"So tell me... What are you going to do to me when we get back to Oxford? We won't go sightseeing, now, will we?" Hongjoong threw a cheeky smirk over his shoulder that reminded Seonghwa of the little mischievous pixies from the Highlands.

Seonghwa tried to look like a good Christian boy. Fair, they were going for a Christian king right now, after all.

"Oh, you know... Some food, perhaps some sensual music, and my come in your body," Seonghwa smiled sweetly at the other man before jumping after him down into another part of the cave.

Now, finally, they had found what they looking for. And it was far more magnificent than Seonghwa had expected.

"Sounds perfect. I knew you were the romantic type," was the last thing Hongjoong whispered, stunned by the view that manifested in front of them.

They were above a huge lake. A lake, that seemed bottomless and led into depths that Seonghwa would rather not explore in too much detail. It was surrounded by a line of huge boulders that then melted into the walls save for one single shore.

And on that shore, growing out of the cave like some ancient monster, there was a building. It was lit by a few fireplaces in what seemed to be dirty golden bowls. The light reached barely until the water, making it reflect the tomb and seem just the more mysterious.

Seonghwa nodded his head at the sight before fearlessly jumping down and into the cold water. While he swam, he didn't dare take his eyes off the construction for even a second. He was far too amazed by the intricate details the facade and the statues on it showed.

"This looks pretty real to me." It was Yeosang commenting in his ear, his voice seeming just as breathy as Seonghwa felt.

"It's gorgeous."

Seonghwa reached the edge of the cold lake quite fast and pulled himself up on the stones to wait for Hongjoong to arrive. He did soon after and elegantly sank down next to Seonghwa like a luscious siren. For a second, they just sat and stared at the huge building, before Hongjoong stood up first.

"Alright, let's go. Last piece." With a smile painting his lips, he reached his hand out for Seonghwa and pulled him up to his feet. Seonghwa stepped in just a tad too close, and suddenly they were chest to chest and breathing against each other's skin.

Hongjoong had the perfect height for Seonghwa to give him forehead kisses.

"Are you gonna betray me? Was that what it was all about?" Seonghwa rasped against the other man's ear as his hand subtly settled on the other man's waist.

Their scents were mingling again, here, in the dark depths of a grave where Hongjoong had no reason not to wear it boldly. Seonghwa kept wondering how the man could smell nice to him, being another alpha that didn't belong to his pack. Usually, he would have reacted like San, repelled by the stench, and yet he couldn't get enough. He wanted to bury his nose in Hongjoong's skin and maybe leave a little kiss there.

Or a bite.

Seonghwa shuddered at the thought suddenly penetrating his mind. Biting Hongjoong sounded... oddly attractive.

"Oh, Seonghwa, are you still that oblivious? It's not me, who lured you in. It's quite the other way around. Imagine my confusion when I smelled you all those years ago in that grave in Peru and your scent was like the sweetest honey. I fact-checked at least a hundred times. Yet, you were an alpha and you kept announcing that proudly to the world." Hongjoong chuckled to himself as he went on his tippy toes to press a shy kiss to Seonghwa's cheek.

Seonghwa instinctively pulled him closer, nuzzling into the man's wet hair.

"So what do I smell like to you?"

"Home. You smell like home."

And damn yes, he was right.

Hongjoong smelled like home to Seonghwa too.

It was not as if he smelled different to Seonghwa than to other people. But it was a little thing that Seonghwa personally remembered, a scent hidden deep inside.

England had always been a rainy place, and a thunderstorm had caused the plane accident in which Seonghwa had lost his mother.

Hongjoong was his past, his present, and his future. Hongjoong smelled like family, like home.

That meant that Hongjoong connected his smell of fire with home, too. A thing only Hongjoong could do since it was his heart that remembered such details.

They had found each other in an odd place and had advanced in a particular relationship that Hongjoong had desperately tried not to force on Seonghwa via his smell. And yet, Seonghwa had pursued him until he had known.

Hongjoong was not going to betray him.

Seonghwa nodded slowly before pressing a fleeting kiss to Hongjoong's forehead, just because he had to make use of the situation.

"Then let's go."

With that, they parted again and went over to push the grand doors open one each. They cracked dangerously under the force but gave way thanks to the aids the other gravediggers had left here.

Seonghwa looked around in the round hall for a second, trying to recognise something in the rubble that seemed to cover all of the floors. The whole thing seemed to be threatening to break down at any moment.

There were a lot of graves in a circular order lining the walls and leading to a much grander pedestal in the back of the room. That had to be it.

"Signal's poor, Hwa. What are we looking at?"

Seonghwa stepped in carefully, with Hongjoong following right behind to not trigger anything.

"We're looking at the myth. Except it's real. They're all here - the court of Camelot."

"Damn... You're sure?" Yeosang couldn't believe it either, making Seonghwa chuckle. He eyed the ceiling as he stepped over to the main grave.

He found two more bodies there that weren't sealed away in old coffins. They were two workers, as it seemed, their long dried blood creating ugly patches around where they had been smashed to pulps by falling stones. Their artificial light illuminated the scene sickly, making their deaths seem all the more useless to humanity.

Hongjoong made a disapproving noise as he stepped over and examined the metal bars they had tried to lever open the heavy lid of Arthur's coffin with.

"It says Morgan La Fay returned a fragment of the amulet to Arthur after the other pieces were carried off by the knights." Seonghwa stepped over to the other side of the gadget and wrapped his fingers around the hand gear. After a glance at Hongjoong, they started pressing down at the same time.

San squeaked warningly at the noise of stone grinding against stone, but nothing dropped down on them. There was nothing more to fall.

They opened the coffin just far enough for Seonghwa to slip his hand inside. He felt over brittle stones and rotting clothes until he found the familiar piece and pulled it out with a lot of cobwebs attached. Gingerly, he blew them off.

"Arthur Pendragon, king of the Britons. I wouldn't take this if I didn't need it so. I hope you can forgive me," he murmured mostly to himself as he turned to leave. He wouldn't spend a second longer in this damn unstable building.

Hongjoong was silent at his side when they made their way out again. The sound of his boots on the stones was incredibly calming to Seonghwa's ears, especially with what happened next.

"Seonghwa, there's something going on up here... Yeo, Woo, you see that?" San sounded highly alerted, and Seonghwa froze in his steps to listen closely into the conversation. Hongjoong, too, halted, his eyes wide.

"See what?" That was Wooyoung's sweet voice.

Suddenly, a crash that made Seonghwa flinch sounded. He looked around in the cave panicked first, expecting it to bury them alive. However, when he saw Hongjoong pressing his hands to his ears, he understood, too.

"Ah, hell! Get your hands... Get off..." The signal was crackling as if there were clothes being dragged over it. Seonghwa still stood frozen, just his mouth working.

"San! Yeosang!"

"Hey! Let go! Seonghwa!" Yeosang's desperate voice called out one last time, then a crack sounded.

"San! What's happening?!"

There was no answer anymore.

For less than a second, Seonghwa and Hongjoong's eyes met.

Then, they were running. Running through tight tunnels while their flashlights shook, and their breaths bounced off the walls harshly.

They were back at the rope in record time and up even faster. Without caring too much about any scratches and minor bruises they got on their dangerous jumping game back out, they sprinted with only one goal set in their minds.

Save their packs.

Seonghwa had his gun out first and shot down the first man with a weapon he saw outside. There was another one standing pressed up again San and with his gun at the furious's alpha's forehead. A third one was feeling up both of their omegas at the same time right next to him. Yeosang was frozen in fear at the last gun pointed at them while Wooyoung weakly struggled against the man's abusive fingers.

Hongjoong shot the one in front of San, while Seonghwa took care of the last two.

Jongho and Mingi were out cold on the floor, but they seemed fine. Wooyoung crouched down as soon as he was free, not even bothering to fix his clothes.

Yeosang jumped right into Seonghwa's embrace.

"Are you alright? Oh God, you stink of him, did he bite you?"

Yeosang quickly and shakily shook his head before pressing up against Seonghwa again with all of his body shivering.

Seonghwa worriedly glanced toward Hongjoong who was kneeling on the ground now, too.

"Let's go home fast and treat them."