Summer School
I AM CRAZY. Actually, yeah I mean I know I am but it bears repeating once in a while. Anyway, just a bit of slashy WAFF-cake for my favourite Tamora Pierce slash pairing.
Seriously, ever since that bitch-slapping scene in the aviary in EM I haven't been able to stop laughing at how CLUELESS Numair is – Ozorne is so obviously trying to get his attention and so obviously jealous as hell of Daine and he's like "NO WE HATE EACH OTHER! WE WANT TO KILL EACH OTHER! NO SEX INVOLVED!" Yeah, right. XDD So I got the feeling that they were probably a pretty sweet item in the University, when things were simpler.
And this followed.
When the teacher drones on and on, Ozorne normally entertains himself by imaging twenty years or so in the future, when he's emperor and lectures can be abolished. It doesn't help that it's normally hot as a furnace, and the bugs and bees are out in full force, and the ice on whatever refreshments are provided melts so fast they're lukewarm and flat long before the lecture ends.
Usually he gives into the urge to just leave, cut class, because god knows he'll pass anyway – he's smart enough and powerful enough to make governmental policies, so no one will deny him a university degree. And the lessons are pedantic at best and at worse an exercise in masturbatory blabbering and there is nothing about them that he cannot miss.
But there's Arram, who sits so low his nose is kissing the paper and has a fly buzzing around his head, taking notes like a scribe, and so he can't even think of leaving. The boy is so gawky, all stork-bird limbs and big, clumsy hands, and the class titters at the insect weaving around his preoccupied head. Their laughter peals when the fly comes close too close to be anything but comedic, so he has no choice but to roll up his test paper and shoo it away.
The scroll taps half-laughingly, half-chidingly on Arram's nose, purely by accident, and he looks up, giving his best friend a lopsided grin that turns into a blush when he sees Ozorne watching him with warm, lazy amber eyes. He looks thirteen and he's caught and never let go of that fresh, tousled look that can break your heart, when you realize who he's with, and the emperor has to desperately keep himself from laughing – because every day is joyous if it begins with a victory as sweetly ruthless as this one.
Arram always tells him at night, when the scent of their sweat and blood soaks the sheets and you can finally hear the birds calling through the window, that it's not that he doesn't know that Ozorne cares. He makes sure to touch him in return for that wonderfully amusing faith, and only something as natural as the rot that comes with adulthood will take it away. Arram has used that same explanation for all the abuse – the bullying from his friends and the nights when he's handcuffed to the bed and the way his mother shrieks "freak" whenever she sees her son – and it applies to their friendship as well. He doesn't mind it, it's part of what makes Arram so adorable, after all.
"I'm going to become a great mage," he can hear the boy thinking, and his pen scrapes just a bit too loudly against the paper, trying to put his enthusiasm for glory into something as plain as homework.
The teacher calls the Draper boy out for disrupting the class, and there is the mundane routine of scraping and bowing, murmuring polite phrases, before Arram sits down again, and leans into his side so that their flesh feels like lines of light against skin.
He needs to see the front clearly, he says. Across the room, Tristan glares daggers.
It's not that he normally disapproves, he tries to be magnamious, especially about his best friend, but the heat and the way his back is slanted against the wooden backing of his chair is turning decidedly awkward for his muscles. He grabs the edge of the desk, and feels their joints ripple against each other as he moves and they both shift. The other boy is compliant against him, moving little on his own except to brace a hand against one hip, blush renewing as it does so.
As the lesson continues Ozorne finds the position is not as comfortable as he thought it was, his back digs into the chair, and Arram has once again begun to sag into his side. His hand now grasps the ridge of hipbone firmly, and his thumb moves rhtymically along the arched line of male curvature. It is distinctly pleasurable, and coupled with a skittish pain that heightens everything as the pads – and nails – of soft fingers dig and squeeze in excitement, half kneading him through his clothes. He hisses, and looks up –
Arram is taking notes, but he is using Ozorne's desk, not his own, and his lashes are lowered in a gaze that feels like a weight moving along his body. The boy can't quite bring himself to smile in victory, he's too noble for it, but his eyes flash triumph.
The class is about to end, and a girl – blonde and pretty – is making eyes at his friend through a handkerchief veil. She looks suitably bubbly, her blonde hair and blue eyes making her the outlandish sort his best friend likes, and not much of a threat. Arram doesn't notice, his attentions are on his notes, but his interest is locked on what he is doing. Ozorne scowls at him through his own blush as the fingers deliberately clench around him, causing heat to flare in a white-hot trail up his spine.
"I might go to her place later." Ah, so he noticed. They share a smirk, and the dark-eyed boy glories in the approval in his friend's eyes. In the sheltered culture of the University, Ozorne is the only role model he has. "So don't wait up for me, okay?"
The squeeze that follows the words is almost cruel against his aching flesh, bruised by a night not long ago with his father and then stroked by those hands, but he motions in agreement.
The girl has finally gotten up the courage to walk over to them. He grabs Arram by the shoulder and steers him towards her, pretending to murmur friendly encouragement though what he really says is much less platonic, while she gives him a grateful smile under batted lashes. Within seconds, they are blushing and whispering, and Arram is convinced once again that she is The One. He reminds himself to stock up on liquor and sweets, totaling the bills in terms of time and resources spent after the inevitable break-up, payment which he will collect in full later.
His own eyes slide shut in sleep as Arram leads the girl away, and he spares himself a private sigh of resignation at his own tastes – their powerplay is so sweet, sometimes friendship itself seems to blunt its flavour.
Normally Immortals slash is LindhallNumair, which is actually quite canon too. I mean, he's blonde. He's pretty. He keeps birds. snerk And they really are sweet together too. But I just couldn't get into that couple's head, and there are plenty of better writers out there who write them just lovely.
Also, OzorneNumair is generally agreed to be a classic yaoi relationship – possessive boyfriend, moralistic nerd who just happens to be loads more powerful, too much BDSM to make it really work out. I guess that's why I don't see much of it. But I love them anyway… maybe BECAUSE it's so classic so there's room to explore, which is why I chose it as my fandom. Nope, nothing to do with the fact that His Imperial Majesty wears makeup. Nothing at all.