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There's nothing here for Oberon. That's what everything is in the end, so there's no point thinking about what will happen next. The story is over. Everyone died terribly ever after.
Yet he spends his days in Chaldea listlessly, numb to the sounds and sensations around him as he floats between room to room. Sometimes a Servant will stop him. Sometimes the staff will. It doesn't matter. When he sees the same truths with these eyes over and over, they all start to blur until they can rot and brown and crunch under his heel.
Ritsuka's no different. Any day now, she'll crumble and fall. She's tired of the act, too. She has to be. That's why she's taking her clothes off, shedding her skin, crawling out of her hole like some pest begging to be killed. Oberon sits there watching in disgust, wondering if Ritsuka realizes what she's doing in the dark and with whom. Doesn't she know how easy it is to kill her? It won't even take a second. Oberon can end her story here and now, and he too will have fulfilled his purpose in Chaldea, whatever it is.
Whoever it is.
"Are you sure?"
"What?"
"That you want to do this."
Oberon leans back, a smirk tugging at the corner of his lip. This isn’t about him. He’d rather forget it is. “What's wrong? Getting cold feet?” The smile is gone. “Make up your damn mind. You're drooling all over the sheets."
Ritsuka is between his thighs, pushing them apart. She doesn’t look like she knows what she’s doing. She never does, but he thinks she puts up a good front when they’re not naked and alone.
“I guess you won't answer that either, huh?” she murmurs into the cloth.
He can't help the languid way he cants his head and rolls it to the side. From here, Ritsuka looks like a creature he can feel sorry for. He knows where this is going. It's lust, he wants to think. It's not that deep.
"You're the one who wants to suck my dragon dick," he says, each word spat like bile, "so all that's left to do is be a good boy, lie back and think of England, right? Not that that’s any better. You've got weird tastes, Ritsuka. Stress getting to you?"
"That's not very—"
"Fun? Funny?"
"Nice." She pouts. “You make me sound like I'm forcing you. I'm asking you properly, aren't I?”
In the darkest corners of the room, the sound of a hundred legs. The sound of a thousand legs. The buzz of countless wings beating for someone who was never meant to be a king.
Oberon laughs. No one’s forcing him. He just wonders if Ritsuka's lost her mind. She knows what he is, right? He gingerly combs his fingers into her red locks, the touch so careful she starts to tremble and look him in the eye.
“All right then. Why do you want to do it? You want to see me come?"
He grabs a fistful of hair and tugs her head back.
“To fill you up and wear you out? To scream your name and lose control? To be your pathetic little toy until you tire of me, tear me apart, and toss me aside?” Each word brushes against her ear like fire as the curve of a claw traces a line up her neck. “That'd make you really happy, wouldn't it? Milking a story for all that it's worth.” A bitter laugh bubbles from his throat. “Ah, no. You're the one destroying the Lostbelts, so you wouldn't even do that!”
“No, I…” Ritsuka winces through the pain. “I want to be with you. There's nothing wrong with that, right?”
Oberon clenches his jaw, but he can no longer deny that in her eyes, there is no lie.
He lets go.
Ritsuka takes it as a sign. The slow tug of his trousers allows him her hot breath on his skin, the thick base, the velvet head. She gulps in awe. She shudders in delight. Ritsuka's eyes trace his shape, imagining how he will stretch her and how he will pulse within. Oberon sighs, but not in the way he should. He knows he's larger than what humans are used to. He just doesn't get it. Beyond all the bells and whistles, it's still him.
Don't get excited.
“Pervert.”
“Pervert?!” Ritsuka waves her hands in a panic and turns a shade of pink Oberon's seen in the spring. “I'm a pervert? You're the one who said all that weird stuff about…"
“And what? Now you're thinking about it?”
Ritsuka is quiet for a second too long, and Oberon breaks into hysterical laughter.
“Hahaha! So that's what you're like. What are they teaching you in Chaldea? Seriously, everything is starting to make so much sense. Now that I think about it, I’ve seen quite a number of centaurs around here. So that’s how it is. I get it! By the way, I’m sorry mine isn’t how you like it, okay? I wasn’t born with anything disgusting like that.”
“Shut up, shut up!” Ritsuka throws a fit and pounds at his chest, a testament to how much Artoria has rubbed off on her. “Oberon, you jerk! I’m never doing this again!”
“Oh, don't be shy, you size queen!” he goads her, as if saying it louder will drown the rejection out. “It’s not like your reputation can get any worse.”
Ritsuka furrows her brows and figures that's true, so she doesn't fight it. Part of him wishes she would.
This is why he hates her.
“You know," she whispers after a while, rubbing circles into the apex of his thigh, fiddling with the hem of his shirt. "I've only ever wanted to do this with someone special."
“Well,” he says after a deep breath through his nose, “that’s not my problem? I guess even Miss Goody Two-Shoes can't hold herself back, huh. If you're going for a guy like me, you must be pretty desperate. I thought you'd do a little better than that, but you’re the type who’ll settle for anybody, save anybody, and sleep with anybody, so I shouldn’t be surprised. I was getting sick of it, actually! But I’m trying to look on the bright side here. If I think about it, I should be happy. You're just like everybody else! Stupid, horny, incredibly unromantic—”
Ritsuka puffs up her cheeks, takes Oberon by the shaft, and grips him tight.
“If you’re so sick of me, then why are you still here, Romeo?”
A shameful sound escapes him, and he hisses through his teeth.
”Just do what you’re here for, whore.”
Ritsuka doesn't take offense, and sometimes it scares him how his words don’t mean anything.
But Ritsuka touches him anyway. She twists her wrist with each stroke in the hopes of wringing out some honesty, be it something loud or something thick. She kisses his stomach, sucks on the blunt head, and Oberon wonders what's in it for her. What’s so interesting about watching him harden in her grasp? Pleasure is temporary. So is happiness. There’s nothing to be gained from this selfless act. Once he’s in her mouth, it’s hard to breathe. Filth is all she’ll have to show for it. And for what? Someone neither good nor real? Sharp claws rip through the buttons of his shirt, revealing scarlet skin glistening with sweat. Heat sweeps across his flesh, not paper, and pleasure seeps not into his ink but into his bones. If this is a dream, he’s certain he’s having it in the summer, when the fireworks are high in the sky and the cicadas hum as they love and cry. His bare chest rises and falls to the mercy of Ritsuka's hands and lips, and as much as he hates all things fleeting, the delight reminds him why he's here all too easily.
This is why he hates her.
“Don't eat that.”
Her tongue stops right before it touches the white liquid oozing from the tip. "Why not?"
He can't see his reflection in Ritsuka's eyes, so all he sees is raw beauty and naked imperfection, and it takes him a second too long to come up with a reason to refuse her.
“Are you stupid? It tastes bad. Just spit it out.”
“I want to eat it,” she says. “It's yours.”
Ritsuka gathers his liquid heat with her warm tongue, swirling around the head, licking into its slit, and makes sure he sees her swallow.
The next time Oberon touches her, he uses his claws.
She's on her back, trapped by arms and legs like pillars of onyx scales. Her skin shines the same way his own does in the room’s dim light, with sweat rolling down her neck and the valley of her breast. Oberon’s wings like lace flutter in excitement, like a dragonfly rebelling against whoever thought about pinning him down and calling him by any other name. He gives her a handsome smile, and though he can sense the sound of her heart and the sparkle in her eyes, Ritsuka should know he can’t mean anything good.
His tone drips with poisoned honey: “Hey, Ritsuka. I'm tired of listening to this mouth of yours, so I'll do us both a favor. You're fine with that, right?”
Oberon flanks her face with his thighs, looming over the girl as he pushes her bangs back. He hears her heels drag impatient lines across the mattress, and he decides this is much better than playing servant and master. His human fingers open her jaw. He traces the shape of her pink lips and teeth. He presses his digits down her tongue, and once she closes her lips around them, he begins to fuck her mouth, drenching his fingers in her spit as she sucks them eagerly.
It’s lust, clearly. Fairy dust. Otherwise no one could touch him like this without reservation. The tales bards and wizards spun made sure of it.
When he takes his fingers back he lets saliva trickle back onto her lips, the silver lines like spider silk on dewy mornings, and it’s so tempting to take them for himself.
“You’re really hungry for this, aren’t you?” Oberon laughs. “I didn’t even have to say anything and you started slobbering all over my fingers. Do you want me inside you that badly?”
“I just,” Ritsuka says between catches of breath. “I just like you, so—”
His palm shuts her up entirely.
“Yeah, yeah. I hate you, too.”
If there's warmth in his smile, they both don't notice, too preoccupied with his length sliding into her open mouth. Oberon no longer faces her, can’t. He’d sooner die than give into a moment of weakness. Ritsuka coughs. She's tearing up. She can’t even see his face, but her hand is in his now, fingers laced together like they're bracing themselves for what's to come, and he hopes that makes it better. Slowly, Oberon eases into the back of her throat, shudders and swears when her lips close and cheeks hollow. If he knew it was going to feel this good, he should have done this ages ago.
No, it's only possible now because it's—
“Ritsuka!” Oberon calls for her, and she gives his hand a squeeze. That’s good. If she’s going to choke, the least she could do is be awake for it. “I don’t care if you die on me, but I’m not really into that sort of thing, so hang in there, okay? I’m cheering you on!”
His tone is sickeningly sweet, but Ritsuka's mouth is soft and warm. She lets go of his hand to grope his hips, and he drops on all fours to move to a rhythm they can love.
“Yeah, that's it. Use your mouth for something good.” He gathers her legs in his arms and spreads them apart. On her thighs, the cool of his claws. On her slit, the warmth of his tongue. “You like it, don't you? Playing the hero.”
Muffled moans vibrate against his length, throat contracting around the tender skin, and Oberon's voice trickles like nectar. He returns the favor with his tongue, sucking her clit and slipping past her slit to pleasure her walls. Soon, their world is nothing but sweat, sex, and the sound of spit on skin. Oberon wonders what it would be like to taste each other for eternity. Ritsuka would tire of it, he’s sure. Oberon’s always hungry, though. When he reaches his peak, he hopes this feeds him the way an ant hacks at a carcass until it’s nothing but bone. Everything else feels like a dream. That's probably how things should be.
But the name he speaks is—
“Titania.” He kisses her skin and bucks his hips in his reverie. “Oh god, Titania.”
This is why he hates her.
Ritsuka tightens around his tongue as he comes inside her. She swallows what belongs to him, too, her wet and reddened lips dribbling with all the heat he's put in her mouth. She only speaks after their lips let each other go, just as Oberon pushes himself up to look at her.
“I don't like playing the hero,” she musters between labored breaths. “I just think playing the villain doesn't suit you.”
Next to his unsightly insect wings and dragon scales, the girl with splayed limbs, raw lips, and hair matted with sweat admires him with unabashed affection, neither the fault of lust nor fairy dust. If he were a fool, perhaps he would wonder if there was any truth to her words. Perhaps he would even wish that they could both live happily ever after.
Oberon is not a fool.
But only a fool would wish for his Titania.
“Never speak of this,” Oberon growls.
“I don't know.” Ritsuka innocently looks away. “I kind of liked it.”
Oberon's jaw drops in utter horror. With a battle cry of embarrassment and desperation, he chucks a pillow in her direction. Much to his chagrin, Ritsuka catches it, but that’s not even the worst part.
“Hey, Oberon.”
Ritsuka whispers his name like they've known each other for centuries and have forgiven each other for it.
“Next time, can you let me hold you?”
She hugs the pillow and smiles, her face as radiant as the morning sun, and though nothing she can do can quell his hatred, she makes him want to believe his story isn’t over.