A/N:
I do not own or profit from any of what Kazue Kato has created.
Mornings – the atrocious purgatory between bliss sleep and waking, unless you have a free period. As it were, Shiro did.
Shiro was very good at sleeping, as many teenage boys are, and he enjoyed mornings like this one to an almost immoral degree. The duvet was kicked off just enough to allow for that delicate balance between warmth and cool to be optimal, his body was sprawled in just the right position, and he'd found that perfect spot on the pillow that wrapped his head in soft, fuzzy clouds. If not for the darker clouds inside his head, it would have been heaven.
There's a grey zone between sleeping and waking, and several between feeling and not feeling. Mephisto was a jerk… smart and funny and a complete jerk… with an annoying habit of being right… True; if you really are prepared to work your ass off to achieve something, you will most likely succeed.
Shiro heaved a sigh into his pillow as loose scenes from his endeavours drifted into each other across the lines of dream and memory. There was a grey zone somewhere between closing his heart entirely and closing it just enough to protect himself, and he would find that grey zone… if he ever wanted to function like a normal human being again… he would show that conceited demon…
Shiro had come to understand Sen in ways he wished he never had. That chilling, empty face of hers mirrored the control she exercised over her emotions, same thing he was learning to do… same still mask of unfeeling that he had to wear every day…
Midori… god, why was she gay… bouncy and cheerful as usual around him, just like she'd promised… and no matter how deep he sank into emotionlessness, that hurt more than anything. His choice, his consequences; not hers…
Still… hanging with them was better than being around Shizuku and Ryuuji. Ryuuji, poor fuck… He should support him, somehow, but words always died halfway out of his mouth. And made things even more awkward between them. Shizuku noticed, of course. He noticed everything. He was a little like a fighting dog, not letting go of what he'd bitten into…
Shiro smiled giddily at the thought of Shizuku as a dog. He should be a shepherd of some sort, wandering in the wilds… larger than Mephisto, anyway…
Mephisto…
Shiro turned his mellow body over to face the wall instead of the intrusive rays of the sun that barged in through the window, and marinated himself in comfortable snoozing. It was a jolly hell, really. Inside the Academy, the worried glances from classmates, and the silence and pretending that gnawed his patience thin as spider web: outside the Academy, a host of "suitors" trying to snatch his body given even half an opportunity.
It was the most splendid irony, that there was one place where he didn't have to worry about either… Shiro reminded himself, with no hope of remembering it when he woke properly, to put the lighter in his blazer pocket next time he did his homework in Mephisto's office: bloody old goat had made a habit of poofing it away if he kept it in the usual trouser pocket. "That 'brick on legs' you're sitting on happens to be antique, and the stench of cigarette smoke will never go out of the cushions." Shiro smiled behind closed eyes, recalling how the demon's barely visible eyebrows spiked downward like a set of inruns for ski jumping…
Such a splendid irony… that the one who'd gotten him into this mess was the only one he could be himself around…
…what if…
…he could also get him out of the mess…?
Shiro's sleepy thoughts wrapped around the idea that floated up from his subconscious and turned it over, like a monkey examining a man-made object it has no idea how to use. It wasn't half bad, though… Shouldn't be impossible to talk Mephisto into that, if he put his words right… "Take the gamble; else you won't know if the boat sinks or floats, will you?" He could hear him perfectly… "You really should invest in a pyjamas, my friend." Odd thing for him to say, though… had he really said that...? "Yare yare, Sleeping Beauty out like a candle…" Even more… odd.
Shiro scowled and forced one eye open a sliver.
Next thing he knew, the back of his head hit the wall, and his heart was hammering his Adam's apple to mush. He had no actual idea what he'd done, only that the faintly glowing green eyes had been too close.
"Good reflexes", Mephisto observed approvingly. He was still leaning over the bed, and eyed the knifepoint aimed at his face with an air of calm surprise. "Sharing your bed must be a very interesting experience."
What was- why was he- when did…?
"Wanna do me here?"
...Shiro's body might be awake, but his brain wasn't.
"I was only half awake, you idiot!" Shiro's sputtering met with hysterical laughter, and Mephisto's weight collapsed on his legs. "'What do you want with me?' and 'What are you doing here?' – that's what I meant to say! I just said it at the same time!" Glorious start on this day, good work: what was that he'd promised himself again? Never to speak when he was tired? "Wipe that grin off your face, you pervert! I wasn't awake! I didn't know what I was saying!"
"Ahahahahhaaahihihaheheheee~! Ahah-haaah, haaah…" Mephisto's shoulders still trembled with laughter as he wiped tears from his eyes. "Oh, your spirit is there whenever the mind is not, dear Sigmund, ahahahaaah…"
Shiro was not in the least interested in who Sigmund was, but rather interested indeed in why he had a giggling demon collapsed on his duvet.
"What are you doing in my bed?" he demanded, as he folded his switchblade together and tried to will his flustered face cool.
"What am I doing in your bed?" Mephisto propped himself up on his elbow, showing no intention whatsoever to leave the bed. "Shiro, Shiro, you really should think before you open your mouth. The question is 'what are you doing in your bed?' Don't you know what day it is?"
Shiro's startled heart skipped a beat, but he kept emotion from reaching his face. No, Mephisto couldn't know that, there was no way he could-
"Let's see~" Mephisto clicked open a golden pocket-watch from within his uniform. "You have three minutes and twenty-nine seconds to get dressed and pack." He closed the watch with a crisp click. "Anything else you might want to do – or want me to do – will have to wait until we have embarked the car." The grin on his lips obliterating any subtlety attempted, and he rose to leave the room.
"You perverted old- Oi, stop, just what-" Nope: Shiro missed grabbing the hem of the white cape and flailed face-first onto the floor. Wonderful. His body was no more awake than his brain was.
"That's three minutes and twenty-one seconds", Mephisto smiled as he courteously plucked Shiro's glasses from the desk, unfolded them, and bent down to put them on Shiro's nose. "I do say, you've gained some muscle since last time I saw you in this state of undress."
Shiro ignored the comment and focused on the main question:
"What am I packing for?"
"What a question! The joint meeting with the Futotsuki clan, of course!"