Sins of the Past

"Ouch, not like that, Guildpact. You had the angle a second ago."

Jace rolled his eyes and tried to adjust their position on the desk, wondering with the lucid part of his brain how Ral had talked him into this. Not that there had been much talking, really. The Izzet mage had simply decided that he wanted to try being a woman when he hadn't been tricked into it, and Jace had gone along with it because—probably because of the copious amounts of nudity, really.

"I apologize," Jace said stiffly. "I haven't exactly done this position a lot. At least, not from this angle."

"Well, your angle was fine a minute ago!"

Jace groaned and tried to readjust once more. Things were rapidly approaching the point at which he would be willing to declare the experiment a failure and get Ral off a different way.

While thus preoccupied, he almost missed the creaking sound of the door opening, properly registering it only after he heard the footsteps of someone walking in behind them. "Ral," he groaned, the sound elongating slightly as it left his mouth. "Why don't you ever lock the door?" If it was Lavinia, Jace wondered if it was appropriate to ask her to join. He wasn't sure.

"I did lock the door," protested the lightning mage.

"Then how did—" Jace craned his neck backward and found his mouth falling open at the sight of the figure in a stylish purple dress, with unmistakable curling tattoos flowing across her face and body. "L-Liliana."

"Well." His ex-lover leaned against the wall, a small smile on her face. "I see I'm overdue for a visit. I came to ask for your help, Jace, and now I think I just might be getting it."

Jace tried to pull back, but a pair of heels in his back stopped him, and, below him, Ral let out a moan. "That's much better," the Izzet mage broke in approvingly.

"Agh—what?" Jace said, half to Ral and half to Liliana.

"That's definitely Izzet clothing on the floor," Liliana said lazily. "So that lovely young woman you're inside—"

"What?" Jace blurted. Lovely? Ral was going to be insufferable for months after this. Months.

Liliana paused, clearly slightly confused by his response, but rallied. "—must be a member of the Izzet League. I was wondering what the best piece of blackmail material would be, and now you've handed it to me. I'm sure that the folk of Ravnica would be very interested to learn that the Guildpact is having relations with one of the guildmages."

There was a long pause. Then Jace started laughing hysterically. Beneath him, Ral squealed and moaned. "Oh, Krokt, yes, keep laughing—keep him doing that—tickle him or something!"

"What?" said Liliana. She sounded more nonplussed than Jace had ever heard her.

He gasped for breath. "Ral—dammit—I need to talk to her."

"That's great and all, but you just found exactly the right spot, and I need you to keep doing that."

Jace gave up and tilted his head at an awkward angle to look at Liliana. "Liliana, everyone on Ravnica knows that I am fucking Zarek. Even dead people know that I am fucking Zarek. People on other planes probably know I am fucking Zarek."

"They do," put in the panting Izzet mage. "Even some who don't know who you are."

Jace tried not to focus on this. "Really, Liliana, I don't think you could be later to the party if…if…"

"If she was part of the janitorial staff?" Ral suggested.

"That," agreed Jace.

Liliana made an angry noise and inhaled as if she was about to speak again, but Jace cut her off. "Honestly, I know you have an ego the size of—of Bolas, but there's not much point in you walking in here like this. It's been seven years since I saw you last. My life does not revolve around you anymore."

"No, it revolves around my dick," grinned Ral, then gave vent to another yelp as Jace turned a marginal amount of attention back to what he had been doing.

"You don't actually have a dick right now," he pointed out mildly.

There was a pause. "Then it revolves around my clit," Ral finally said in a lofty tone. "I mean, really, my dick is large enough that even when I don't have one your life revolves around it. When you think about it, my dick and my clit might be part of a binary system that—"

Jace groaned. "We don't need a gravimetric analysis of your genitals right now, Ral."

"You—" Liliana finally managed to get out a word, then paused. "What?"

"Excuse me, do you have an appointment?" put in Lavinia, who had appeared at the door. She was eyeing Ral with suspicion. "Have you been selling tickets again?" Jace put a hand to his face in mortification.

"No!" Ral protested, then squealed loudly again. "Keep doing that, Jace. Yes, that."

"'Again'?" Jace asked. "Tickets? Really?"

"It was one time!"

"Don't worry, Jace, I put a stop to it," Lavinia said. "Now, ma'am, I'll need to ask you to leave if you don't have an appointment."

"You're Azorius," Liliana said in a stupefied voice.

"Truly, your powers of observation are beyond compare," Lavinia responded dryly, pointedly adjusting the fall of her cerulean cloak over the rune-inlaid plate armor she wore.

"They're—they're fucking on the desk! The man responsible for the political balance of the city is fucking an Izzet mage on his desk!"

"Yes, they do that frequently. I've started adding it to his daily planner. About that appointment…"

Liliana blinked, then sighed in resignation. "I'm sorry to have disturbed you," she said smoothly. "I'll—ah—make an appointment and come back some other time."

"Thank you," Lavinia said firmly. "Jace, you have a meeting with the Firemind in fifteen minutes. You may wish to have Zarek out of your office by then. Or at least clothed. And male." She and Liliana left, shutting the door behind them, and Jace whimpered softly, which was echoed by a loud noise from Ral, who slumped back onto the desk a moment later.

"Fuck," he said lazily. "Who was that, anyway? And why didn't you ask her to join in?"

Jace shut his eyes in exasperation. "Because I don't particularly feel like getting the ex-lover who killed ninety percent of my friends involved in my life again?"

"Oh, that was her? Heh." Ral sniggered.

Jace paused for a moment. "Hm," he said reflectively. "I—handled that rather well."

"You certainly handled something well," Ral smirked. "Eventually. You should do that laughing thing again, it was good."

Jace sighed, then gasped as Ral did—something—and had to hold onto the desk as his eyes rolled up in his head and his brain went blank. When he was capable of basic motor function again, he stood up clumsily and started searching for his clothes. "Really, though, I'm kind of proud of myself. I would have expected to be more affected by her." There was a sudden pause. Jace looked round in bewilderment. "Wh—"

Ral was behind him, breasts pressed into his back. "Are you saying that I am not woman enough for you, Guildpact? Is that what you're saying?"

"N-no, I was just—" Crackling electricity pulled Jace's head back and forced him forward against the wall. "Dammit, I was having a moment of self-reflection!"

Ral bit him on the neck. "Not on my watch."

Jace gave him a glare. "You know, it was actually rather traumatizing at the time."

"Then what kind of boyfriend would I be if I let you wallow?" Jace opened his mouth to respond and shut it again. He really hated it when Ral was right about things. "I suppose I can forgive you for thinking about someone who calls me a lovely young woman, though," Ral continued meditatively.

Jace groaned.