Sorry for the missed update last week. Finals coming up. Enjoy this chapter, please!

Reds Like Blood and Blues Like Sky

Chapter Four: Sienna Delirium

The next morning he's hung over as balls.

"I DIDN'T EVEN FUCKING DRINK," Mordred shrieks to Druid between heaving into the toilet. "HOW THE FUCK IS THAT FAIR?!"

Apparently, his magic REALLY disagrees with him. It resists when he pulls and snaps with bared teeth when he extends a hand. And apparently it's REALLY good at simulating hangovers without the blissful slide into oblivion that accompanies two liters of vodka while watching poorly-made French art films from the sixties. He skips all his classes, and breakfast, and getting the mail. He vaguely considers skipping breathing, but he doesn't have the energy and instead spends the morning curled in a ball, hugging his toilet brush to his chest like a stuffed animal and moaning.

Someone knocks on the door, and Mordred ignores them. They knock again, and Mordred barks, "WHAT?" When they pound on the door this time, it's a barrage of quick, persistent knocks that has the ill boy on the floor grinding his teeth together. "Fine, have it your way," he grouses sullenly, and with a quick flick of his deft fingertips, slides the bolt across the door to open it. Immediately, the magic in him revolts with a new fervor, and he's back to throwing up with his hands clutching the porcelain puke-holder. He's vaguely aware of the other body in his house (not 'home', never 'home'), but he's too preoccupied with his own bodily functions to give a rat's ass.

Unless the person has come to steal his cat, in which case he WILL taste blood.

Or his plasma T.V. But mostly his cat.

But he can't even make himself look up until there's a hand on the back of his neck, tender and careful, thin pianist's fingers circling him like something worth holding on to. Then there are whispered words, exotic and old, and suddenly the nausea ebbs away and the throbbing in his head meekly subsides until Mordred is limp with relief against the bathroom tile.

He manages to look up and see Emrys's too blue eyes on him. Of fucking course.

"Why the fuck are you in my house?" he rasps, but he feels vaguely like he's floating. Something in the back of his mind rails furiously against the calm, screaming at him that Emrys drugged him, but he feels too dazed to care.

"I was supposed to bring your classwork," he murmurs softly. "I heard you were feeling sick."

"Well, I was. Nicely fucking deduced," Mordred mutters drowsily, staring up at Emrys's nose. It's a bit big, but it's cutely big. He's just so damn cute, all the time. It's really annoying.

Emrys smiles slightly, almost in spite of himself, but it disappears. "My God, Mordred. I had no idea... where did you get this sort of power?"

"My toes," he hums, wiggling them. "They carry me everywhere."

A laugh is startled out of him, and Mordred pats himself on the back-literally. "No, Mordred, not your toes. I mean-the sheer force of it all. I can feel it in the air, and it's agitated as heck, but it's all over. It's in this room, in your whole apartment-it's basically seeped into your carpet. And more keeps coming. God, Mordred, you couldn't even lift a spoon in class last week!"

"It was stupid," he mumbles around a yawn, blinking up at Emrys with difficulty. He keeps going cross-eyed, but it's a bit enjoyable. The whole world looks like a badly-made 3D film, and two Emrys-faces stare down at him with amusement and concern warring in their brows. Mordred decides that this is what heaven looks like. "Why would I want to lift a spoon? Could do that with my hand. Insulting. Didn't even try."

"And what could you do if you wanted to?" asks Emrys. Mordred is too high off whatever grade-A shit Emrys gave him to recognize the look of fascination on the other man's face.

"Anything. I am a God," Mordred whispers, and then throws up on Emrys's sneakers.

He must have blacked out or something, because he comes to afterwards, draped over the arm of his ratty couch like a soggy tarp. "Fuuuuck," he groans, a headache pulsing from behind his eyes, and he hears a soft chuckle beside him.

"Yeah, that's probably a good amalgamation of how you're feeling."

He manages to crack open an eye and Emrys is beside him, wearing skinny jeans that hug his ass and a ridiculous neck-scarf. Nobody should make a neck scarf look so fuckable, but Emrys could put it over his head like a fucking babushka and Mordred would still fall all over himself to pay for his dinner.

"Did I just...?"

"Barf on me? Yeah. It was gross, but magic does have its uses. Besides lifting spoons." Mordred's ears go red, and he scowls.

"You aren't allowed to tease me after you drug me," he grumbles, and Emrys seems adequately chastened.

"I was trying to help," he entreats, opening his spindly hands palm-upwards (Mordred has to quash the bizarre urge to plant a kiss in the center of his hand) in supplication. "I had to channel your magic out productively, so it didn't keep fighting against you. Funneling it out apparently made you a bit...loopy."

"Fat lot of good that did anyway," Mordred sulks, curling further into himself. "I still threw up on you."

"You did," said Emrys pensively, and when Mordred risks a glance upward, Emrys is chewing absently on his knuckle like he's starring in a scene from a low-budget porno.

"Stop molesting your finger." For some reason, his words are making alarm bells go off in his own head, but he's too exhausted to care. "And stop looking pensive. I threw up on your lap. You should be furious."

"You shouldn't have thrown up, is the thing," Emrys says, finally meeting his eyes with absolute seriousness in his expression. "I was keeping your nausea down with my magic. But you still managed to overpower me by will alone."

"It just means I'm a shithead." Mordred absently lifts a hand to brush his dark curls out of his eyes, and Emrys seems incapable of tearing his eyes away from his hand as he moves.

"No. It means you're powerful. Incredibly powerful."

"Is there actually a difference?" he asks with a twisted sort of grin, and for once Emrys seems to be rendered speechless. It's a good look on him. He starts blathering haltingly about justice and duty and Mordred just laughs, throwing his head back all the way on the couch. He still feels the vague dizziness thrumming and coloring everything he can see.

"I'm still drunk on magic," he announces, and Emrys is started out of his monologuing.

"Y-yeah?"

"Yeah," Mordred hums, taking Emrys's hand and placing a gentle kiss on the back of it. Emrys goes red, completely fucking red, and it's also a good look on him. He's only now realizing that everything is a good look on Emrys, and it's a bit insulting how long it took for him to come to that conclusion.

"You're not going to remember a single bit of this when you wake up tomorrow, are you?" Emrys's tone is blatantly accusing, and Mordred flashes him a brilliant grin, uninhibited and childishly sweet. He treasures the amazed look on Emrys's face, like his whole world has been poleaxed by the damaged boy in the wrinkled black jeans.

"Not a damn thing," he says, and promptly goes unconscious.