A/N: I do not own or profit from any of what Kazue Kato has created.
"Wonder if this is part of payback, too, or if the bastard just got lucky…"
Because explaining to his two best friends why he had thrown chairs after their principal-
Well, first of all, to explain why their principal had been in his dorm room at night was-
And explaining this while he tried to hide the painful erection pressing against his boxers-
Shit, explaining why he even had a hard-on in the first place-
"I'm not sure how to explain this." Good start. Shizuku and Ryuuji, who had hauled him into their room when he had stomped back to his own, patiently awaited the rest. "But I can say that it's not what it looks like." Best fucking explanation he'd ever pulled. Great job.
"Really? 'Cause ta me it looks like ye chased ye' demon friend outta yer room at night, wearing nothin' but ye' bed sheet." And Shizuku himself looked like he was very sceptical to the 'not what it looks like' part. His eyebrows were amazing that way.
"I have underwear under it", Shiro huffed, trying to adjust the sheet around his waist: said underwear was a bit of a tight fit at the moment. "He was in there 'cause he was paying me back for a prank I pulled on him, that's all."
There was still a reasonable amount of doubt and questions on Shizuku's features, which wasn't unexpected since the whole situation did look rather… suggestive. Shiro shifted again, trying to hide the bulge in the sheet as much as circumstances allowed.
"Did he get back at you…?" Ryuuji asked from his seat on his bunk.
"What do you think? I threw a fucking vending machine after him." And would have a tremendously sore arm tomorrow, if the thick pain in his shoulder was any indication. Thank god Saburota was away on mission, otherwise- God? God had nothing to do with that: a certain smug demon had.
"Kinda has me curious", Shizuku resumed, looking him up and down and scratching his chin. "What does one hav'ta do te you ta make ye so pissed ye can lift a vending machine?"
There was a moment of silence, in which Shiro failed to come up with a credible and less embarrassing substitute for what Mephisto had actually done.
"You don't want to know." This statement was followed by another silence that let him realise just how suggestive that sounded. "Uh, I mean…" How many times had he told himself not to open his mouth when he was tired…?
"I recall ye bellowin' something 'bout a perverted fucking incubus…?" Shizuku pointed out helpfully, and cocked his head to the side with a raised eyebrow.
Shiro massaged his forehead with an unarticulated grumble. Brilliant, absolutely brilliant; running down the corridor and shouting so that everybody could hear…
"Well, not literally a perverted fucking incubus; just a male demon with a twisted sense of humour. He sprinkled oneiroi dust in my face while I was asleep and fiddled with my dreams", he muttered, rubbing remaining particles from his eyelashes.
It was the same substance that had led non-exorcists to invent the concept of Sandman. Reality wasn't that romantic: the "sand" was dandruff from the oneiroi, spirits that induced and lived in human dreams. Oneiroi themselves were harmless, wandering nomadically from dream to dream merely to have a place to stay. It was when they were tailed by their nastier cousins - mares that re-cast dream into nightmare - that problems like fatigue and sleepwalking might arise.
"That's pretty creative, I'll give 'im that", Shizuku chuckled. "In what way did 'e fiddle with 'em?"
"I'd rather not discuss that." With anyone. Ever.
"Come on, ya tossed a vending machine! I wanna know how ta make ye that mad!"
…and that was some rather unpleasant mental images too, yes. Shizuku had quite a few things in common with his sister sometimes.
"No, you don't, and you never will", Shiro concluded, and grasped the door handle to get back to his own ro-
"Meh, well… I guess I can just ask Pheles instead."
Shiro... twitched. On the outside, that was: on the inside it was more like a convulsion, which most likely came from the death throes his pride would be in if Shizuku made good on his threat.
"NO YOU WILL NOT!" Shiro was pointing with his whole arm, and speaking much louder than he had intended to. "Not a word, not a breath, not even a thought of this in his presence, do you hear me?!"
"I hear ya, I hear ya: like just about the rest o' the dorm does." Shizuku seemed more than a little taken aback by the unexpectedly strong response to such a simple bait. "Relax, I'm just curious o' what-"
Shizuku was interrupted by the peculiar sound of someone so embarrassed he's giggling, but trying not to giggle as that would be even more embarrassing. And whatever he was so torn about, Ryuuji was too giddy to say. When he eventually got enough hold of himself to spill, Shiro wished he hadn't.
"I think I can guess what you dreamt." Ryuuji's cheeks were burning red, but he couldn't stop laughter form bouncing in his voice. "You smell like someone who has… been visited by an incubus."
Of course. Of course: he had the same good nose for pheromones as Mephisto and Midori had, of course he could smell that Shiro had been turned on mere minutes ago…!
"Perverted fucking incubus, huh…?" Shizuku said, looking at Shiro as if he had expected that all along. What the hell, he had expected Shiro to…?
"You sure planned this out well, you shithead." Okay, first things first: "It was a dream. I'm not gay, and not for some grinning jerk of a demon", he grated out, changing his stance in hope of finding some way to lessen the discomfort in his underwear. "He just loves teasing me about it."
Some words make people's jaws drop, and some make their entire faces fall in astonishment.
"You mean he…?"
"Ye dreamt ye slept with- with him?"
Well shit.
"Is it even possible to screw up this bad?"
There had been a slight misunderstanding concerning the nature of Shiro's dreams, only he realised that far too late. Shizuku and Ryuuji had thought his dreams had been about women: induced by Mephisto, yes, but about women. When they realised what kind of dream it had really been, both of them fell down screaming with laughter. And probably woke the few people in the dorm who weren't awake already.
"It's not that funny, guys." It wasn't. It really wasn't. It was not funny at all but the two howling teenagers on the floor didn't care.
"Ye kidding?! It's the best I've heard in-wahahahahaaa! Glorious! Glorious!"
"Shiro, you- you-nhnhnhnhnaahahhaha I can't believe it! This i-hihihihahaha it's just-"
"The worst fucking day of my life", Shiro filled in, standing before his laughing best friends with an aching hard-on in his boxers and ears heating up as if they were aiming to catch fire. Well, he wouldn't mind if they did. If he could just spontaneously self-combust he would at least save himself the humiliation. "Shut up, you two." As if. Hopefully, Shizuku would faint from lack of air soon. "You're not telling a soul about this, okay? No one. Especially not Kasumi-chan." They both nodded, gasping for air and tittering like bloody kindergarten girls. "I have no idea how to erase those dreams from my brain, or how I'm gonna get back at that shitty little imp, but I will make him pay for this."
"How-nhhnhnh how- how did you make him this mad at you in the first place…?" Ryuuji panted, wiping his tears on his sleeve. In the dark his tanuki heritage showed clearly in the way the dim light reflected back from his eyes. It also highlighted how very un-demonic an Astro Boy pyjamas can make you look.
…explanations never come out as they were meant to, when it's three o'clock in the morning and your pride has passed on prematurely without you.
"Okay, lemme get this straight: ye – in a sense, maybe, sort of, kinda, might have – flirted with him…?" Shizuku recapped, sitting cross-legged on his bunk and staring at Shiro as if hoping for a less incredible explanation.
Which he was not going to get.
"I didn't flirt with him", Shiro grimaced. He'd been given a desk chair to sit on, and kept one leg sloppily crossed over the other to hide the waning-but-still-visible bulge. "It was a… a strategic deception with sexual undertones. Crap, that sounds even worse."
"It sounds like what you described. I mean… You were undressing him."
Shiro cringed at Ryuuji's words. Yes, he had undressed Mephisto, or started to, but it sounded-
"Somehow it's impossible to talk about this without making it sound really weird", he muttered.
"And ye didn't think that it was a weird thing ta do in the first place…?"
"Of course, but…" Shiro ran a hand through his unruly hair, as if trying to physically sort out his scrambled thoughts. It was a weird thing to do, when he thought about it: and yet, it had somehow seemed like a completely logical thing to do. "It's not something I'd do to any of you guys, or anyone else." The mere thought of stripping Ryuuji was- No. Just no. "It's different with Mephisto. It's not a weird thing to do around him." …which in itself sounded extremely weird. "Shit, I don't know, it's just… It's a demon thing. I can't- Ow!"
"Just checkin' if yer ears 're growing pointy yet." The look on Shizuku's face suggested that only part of that was a joke. Shiro didn't like that look at all. "Honestly, Shiro-san… That demon-charmer thing ye've got goin' is kinda creepy. Doesn't it ever scare ya…? That ye… That it comes so naturally to ya? That ye act like one without even thinking 'bout it – an' this whole thing with having ta actively block demons from possessing ya, it's… Just what the hell are ya?"
Shizuku realised how that sounded the moment he said it and let out an awkward chuckle as looked down, scratching the back of his head. Good; because Shiro had just experienced a moment of clarity that he wasn't eager to share just yet.
"Sorry, that came out wrong. I'm tired. What I meant was… Screw it, I don't know what I meant. I don't know what you are, an' ta be honest I don't really get ya." He chortled tiredly. "Ye're like that mysterious guy in manga that no one knows anything 'bout, an' then outta the blue ye do crazy stuff an' turn out ta be some kind 'a unda'cova' superhero."
Superhero…
"Special attack: throwing vending machines", Ryuuji suggested with a wide smile.
"An' if 'e's in a tight spot, 'e can use 'is Devilish Charm ta seduce 'is enemies", Shizuku fell in with an unsober giggle.
"And I would have x-ray glasses that let me see through women's clothes."
"Why would ye wanna see through women's clothes…?"
A few more minutes of laughter and tired brains and they had added the final touches to the Perverted Paladin: a legendary superhero with the power to see through (select) clothes, skin pores that could emit love potion in gas form (possibly explaining the clouds of glittering particles surrounding Oscar de Jarjayes in Berusayu no Bara), and the ability to summon vending machines through step dancing (it had something to do with Mephisto snapping his fingers whenever he summoned something, and what gesture would be the equivalent of that for the Perverted Paladin, but Shiro might have been too tired to catch the entire reasoning behind the step dance conclusion).
They had eventually decided that some sleep before tomorrow would be nice, and Shiro had said goodnight and walked back to his own room. The rest of the inhabitants on their floor had gone back to sleep as soon as it was clear that no danger was afoot. The dorm was silent, and no matter how softly he padded over the floorboards his steps seemed to echo in the darkness.
Silence is an awful thing. It makes one's thoughts that much louder.
That demon-charmer thing ye've got goin' is kinda creepy. Doesn't it ever scare ya…? That it comes so naturally to ya?
It was a very simple statement; Shizuku probably hadn't even thought about what he was saying. It's those simple statements that tip worlds on end. It was the first time Shiro realised that the things about demons that were obvious to him, weren't obvious to others. And in most cases never would be. The spur-of-the-moment things he did because they seemed natural didn't seem natural at all to others.
Did it scare him? At times, maybe. But what good did being afraid do? The imprint wasn't going away. Demons weren't going to stop coming after him. All he could do was to make the best of the situation and try as best he could to live as he had bef-
"Ouch, son of a-!"
Ryuuji looked surprised to see him again so soon, when he opened the door to the room he and Shizuku shared.
"I was just gonna ask if you could wake me for school tomorrow", Shiro said, twiddling the cog he'd stepped on between his fingers. "I chucked my alarm clock at Mephisto."
A/N:
Oneiroi - Greek for "dreams", and personification of such.