Seungcheol was having the nicest dream. Visions of peach and pineapple and coconut cream filled his mind as he smiled to himself and rolled over. He buried his face deep inside the soft luxurious pillow and let the cool sensation of the Egyptian cotton brush against his warm skin. He didn't want to open his eyes.

The golden creep of dawn was starting to filter in through his eyelids and he rolled over again. He heard soft breathing next to him, faint and gentle, and he reached out to find her. He ran his fingers across Luda's bare shoulder before reaching up and stroking her long silky hair. But something was off, it ran too quickly through his fingers, and suddenly his dream wasn't a dream anymore.

"Jeonghan." Seungcheol sighed heavily as he sat up and rubbed his eyes. "What are you doing in here?" Seungcheol clutched the blankets tightly around his bare chest to cover his naked body as he stared down at the bare shoulder and back of his boss. "Jeonghan...." He let go just enough to shake his shoulder and try to get the man to wake up.

Finally Jeonghan was roused enough to roll onto his back. He opened his eyes a little, dark lashes fluttering to life around the heavily lidded chocolate irises, and a soft and genuine smile broached the fine features of his face. "Oh... sorry Cheollie. I had a bad dream...." Jeonghan sat up a little and the sheets fell from his body revealing his bare top half. "Too much wine..... I just didn't want to be alone...."

The small smile was so soft and childlike, so shy and even a little embarrassed, Seungcheol felt himself smile back. He let his eyes wander over Jeonghan's bare body, taking in the expanse of flawless skin, his body pale and thin and soft looking. "I am sorry." Jeonghan reiterated as he sat up properly. "Jeonghan please tell me you have pants on." Seungcheol sighed as he realised he was naked and in bed with his boss. "Yep."

Jeonghan's expression quickly changed from sleepy to flirty as he tried to grab the sheets from Seungcheol's hands. "But you don't do you?" he pulled at them a little and Seungcheol gripped them tightly and without thinking he let them slip down to his waist. "Oh my god. Cheollie what happened to you?" Jeonghan's face changed again, concern and fascination combined, when he saw the huge angry looking scar on Seungcheol's chest.

"Ah... I was shot...." He blushed as he spoke. He hated talking about the shooting. People always looked at him like some kind of victim, like he needed to be coddled and taken care of, but Jeonghan just smiled that soft and real smile that was fast growing on Seungcheol. "Tell me what happened? Please?" he asked as he let Seungcheol gather the blankets around his nakedness again.

"There's not much to tell. It was a drug bust, things went wrong, and it ended badly. Um... my deputy was trying to make it to cover and they shot at him, I pushed him out the way, bullet to the chest...." Seungcheol flushed with embarrassment but Jeonghan just stared wide eyed as his fingers reached out to trace the scar. "You saved someone?" "Yeah, you met him, remember Detective Jeon? He used to be my deputy."

Jeonghan's fingers wandered lightly across Seungcheol's chest as he stared at the angry red marks. "Did you almost die?" he asked as he noticed how close it was to Seungcheol's heart. "Yeah missed by heart by this much.." Seungcheol held his fingers up barely a centimetre apart. "Anyway it hurts when I run and it hurts when I move the wrong way and they couldn't pass me medically to return to work. So I got a small payout and used the money to start my security business and, well, here we are."

Jeonghan frowned. "They wouldn't let you have your job back? But Cheollie you sound like the best police man ever. You saved your deputy. Aren't you a hero?" Seungcheol shrugged. "What good is it being a hero if you can't do what you love anymore?" He felt himself suddenly break open and all the emotions he'd been bottling up inside came flooding out.

"What good is it Jeonghan? If they'd just put the money they paid me out into my rehabilitation first? Instead of just knocking me back? Why couldn't they give me more time? Maybe with some proper physical therapy and more time to heal anything could have happened. But now I've been medically discharged from the force I can't ever reapply. Even if I totally heal."

He sighed heavily. "Wonwoo blames himself. I know he does even though he would never admit it. But it's not his fault. In the moment you just run on instinct and adrenaline Jeonghan, I had to save him, and I'd do it all over again. If it meant saving you..."

He looked up and his eyes met Jeonghan's. Locked in silence, they stared at each other for the briefest of moments, emotions heavy in the air as words unspoken flowed between them. Jeonghan was broken and lonely and needy and Seungcheol suddenly realised he was too. He was broken, physically and mentally, he was lonely and needy for someone to understand. He didn't know why he chose this moment and this person but it suddenly felt good to let it all out. To expose his feelings so bravely and so unashamedly, to bare the truth of how he felt, to face the facts he'd been trying to hide from since the shooting.

What was it about Jeonghan that made him open up? Was it the fact that he saw a mirror of himself in Jeonghan's vulnerability? That they were both just trying to get through each day by putting up a brave front and hiding behind an image? That despite all the people around them they were both deeply and inherently lonely?

"Well. I'm sorry that happened to you Cheollie." Jeonghan smiled brightly and it was like the break of dawn across still water. His cheeks glowed with the same hue of peach as the light scent that floated around him and his eyes sparkled with life and joy. It was the first real and full smile that Seungcheol had seen Jeonghan give anyone and he fell into it without any hopes of escape. "But I'm not sorry that you ended up here. With me. Because I need you Cheollie."

Seungcheol stared way too long at Jeonghan's beautiful smile. He stared way too long at his flawless skin, the lashes around his perfect dark eyes, the way his hands kept going to his hair as he tried to get used to the new length. He stared and he thought hard and he finally understood. He finally knew how all those other people had fallen totally under Jeonghan's spell. Because now he felt it and it made his stomach flutter like it was filled with a million butterflies wiling themselves to freedom.

What Seungcheol didn't understand was how much of a mirror they actually were. He had no idea that Jeonghan, settled beside him in the king sized bed, was struck with the way he couldn't stop staring at the other man. The way everything about him was perfect, not just his looks with his thick eyelashes and perfect rosy lips, but the way he looked right through Jeonghan and saw the man inside. The real Jeonghan, not the false idol he paraded around for the world, but the soft and vulnerable man he really was inside.

And in that one perfect moment they weren't celebrity and bodyguard, boss and employee, idol and fallen detective. In that one perfect moment neither of them wanted to break they were just two souls staring at each other in the soft dawn glow.