Bel: Visit even more rainbow drinkers.

You sit, feeling a little stunned. What's gotten into him? This is the same kind of bright, hassling arrogance he used on you when you first met, is he blackflirting with all of them?

... No. No, you realize, he's not; he's scared of them. He must've been scared of you too, once upon a time. And you never would've understood if not for Lainey pointing out that a griffin as small as Reggie is more prey than predator.

What to do about it, well, maybe nothing. You think this is probably as safe a crowd as any. They're confident and relaxed because they have powerful drinkers protecting them, and they probably all know by now how you took out those five party vamps in less than an hour, and can see you took nothing worse than a bit of bruising, so no one's likely to pick a fight or push you.

Satisfied with your reasoning, you let your shoulders relax, and smile. "It's all right if we eat? Thanks so much, I'm ravenous."

 

Your son has returned from his travels, once more bloody, dirty, tired, and starving. You object to this; worse, the blood-smell he is carrying maps exactly to the violet troll settled beside him, who smells like your son's blood also. You have vague sense memories of being threatened by a creature this size and smell before: a sharp beak, a beady purple eye.

Your child is in danger! Your pride and joy! Your solemn duty! You scuff your back legs against the plank tabletop in challenge, hissing and puffing. The terrible dangerous troll ignores you in favor of stealing a bit of meat off your beloved ward's plate, thereby sealing his doom.

Howling deadly challenge, you charge the troll and execute a perfect flying tackle. Your mighty arms wrap their foreleg! Your terrible beak tears at their fingers! You taste blood as you are lifted into the air. You are indomitable. You are invulnerable! You are death on swift and fuzzy paws.

"Bel, get it off," says your prey.

 

Laughing, you gently take hold of the fluffcheep and coax him to quit attacking Erskin's ham-thieving hand. "That's enough, tiny hero. You're very brave, but consider this." You steal a retaliatory slice of meat from Erskin's plate, tear off a proportionally-sized shred for the fluffcheep, and stuff the rest in your mouth. "Vengeance is mine," you tell Erskin, and show him the chewed-up food in your mouth.

 

Very precisely, you insert a fork into Bel's disgusting open maw.

 

Your jaw snaps shut by reflex, so you end up yanking the fork away from him, but also hurting your teeth. "Owww, you jackass," you complain as you drop the fork on his plate. You hastily chew and swallow so you can scowl without looking quite so ridiculous. "See if I ever kiss you again."

But your pet seems to be taking the conflict kind of seriously, and you have to leave off blackflirting to calm him down. "Hey, knock it off, fluff-for brains," you say soothingly as you prevent him from flinging himself at Erskin again. "How in the hell am I supposed to explain blackrom to a hatchling whatsit? He thinks he's my lusus," you explain. "He imprinted, I guess, and his blood color's pretty close to mine. So now he's trying to defend me against your dastardly doings."

 

You look the furry potato Bel has contained with one hand.

"Well, I can see your virtue is safe for the near future," you remark. "This custodian's so much more intimidating than your last, I shouldn't dare cross him."

You grin at Bel. "See if I ever kiss you again."

 

"You're not the one with a sore mouth, so you're just being a joiner," you say, leaning closer. "I'm not kissing you," you taunt. "I'm not kissing yoooouuu..."

(oh my god the sap is everywhere we'll never get the sticky out)

 

"No, it's too late," you say, scooting around on your pillow. "Not even reverse psychology can salvage this disaster. Take your hideous mouthparts somewhere else."

The tealblood is very focused on cutting their fruit slices into even smaller slices, and their ears are brightly flushed.

"Hi, hello, I'm Erskin, I believe we've met, please save me from this horrendously awkward situation by changing the subject with me," you request. "How's the weather been?"

 

You roll your eyes. "Oh, now he cares about social graces," you tell the fluffcheep. It's just auto-snark, not a real objection; you think it's kind of cute, to be honest, and also it frees you to focus on eating.

 

Bel shovels food in like he's being paid by the pound, and you ignore this in order to catch up on things with the tealblood. Their name is Merric, they're one of the funny sort of chap that don't have a gender, and they also don't have a lusus because their ex-moirail stole their stipend, bumped off their custodian, burned down their hive and then vanished on them, leaving them more than a little high and dry, so now they run odd jobs for Greenteeth. The weather's been fair, the local wildlife only yea-big, the zombies long-since cleared out, and the rainbowdrinkers in the area are good sorts— they're the same collective you've met before, the daft weavers, out here to play around with the local flora— some of the trolls in the area are bad sorts. At this pronouncement the brownblood on the other side of the table bounces a fruit pit off your new teal chum's noggin and receives a blustery-loud snarl in return, plus a good bit of demonstrative butterknife waving.

Good grief, you hope you and Bel aren't as excruciating to behold as this pair of hamfisted wigglers.

The little glowing pupa gets bored of his bone and toddles over to you, climbing straight into your lap as if you were a lusus, or a chair. He sits facing your torso and presses his face flat into your chest, right over your sign.

"Oh, don't, I'm all over dust—" no, too late, he's gone brownish-grubby across half his countenance. "—well, it shouldn't kill you again, I suppose."

"Watch out, he steals buttons," says the tealblood.

"What?" you ask, and feel a sharp tug on your waistband. "Fuck!"

The pupa looks up at you, his eyes enormous and dew-silver and trusting, one impossibly small and chubby paw in possession of your shirtfront, and he solemnly puts your pants fastener in his little mouth. Sighing, you ruffle the hair between the nubs of his horns and leave him to it.

If Bel laughs at you for this you are going to turn his stupid blue face inside-out.

 

You manage to keep it down to a smirk as you unload a small pile of safety pins onto the table. "You're going to need these."

 

"Oh, that's very thoughtful of you," you say, picking a pin up and opening it— then grabbing his mouth and pinching his lips shut with your fingers. "Here, hold still—"

 

You jerk back, snap at his fingers, laugh. "Okay, okay, maybe we should can the flirting for a bit, we're making a spectacle of ourselves."

 

"I don't mind," says the brownblood, and you grin.

"You hear that, he doesn't mind," you say, and get a good grip on his lovely hair. Then you proceed to kiss him as if the two of you hadn't just had it off on a mountain half an hour back. You kiss him like you haven't seen him for a sweep, as if he's come back from a battlefield and you've been waiting every night— then you let go very sharply and sit back on your pillow.

"No, you're right, we should tone it down, what?" you say, and comb a lock of his rumpled hair back behind a blue-flushed ear.

The small pupa soberly puts the button from Bel's trousers in his mouth.

 

Reeling, you glance down at the bitty vamp and register the button thing, but can't process it; your eyes go right back to Erskin, and your face is burning. Nobody should be that good at kissing. "New plan: we go find some privacy right now and I can just email Hess the map."

Maybe that's letting him win, but as long as what he's winning is your bulge, you're okay with that.

 

"I— oh. I say." You feel yourself, absurdly, blushing. You'd just meant to tease, but— "I, er, alright, then— lead on."

 

"Thanks for the lunch, keep the buttons," you tell the assembled trolls, and haul Erskin off toward where you parked your flyer.

Making a shirt-nest in the cargo hatch for the fluffcheep will hopefully keep him from attacking Erskin. That's about all the delay you can stand; you have to pin your rival against the side of the vehicle and snog him senseless before you can even be bothered to open the door. It's like the last time just whetted your appetite; you want him so brutally badly, it's almost enough to make you believe in heat cycles and/or serendipity.

 

You're off-balance but you respond with a breathless, flattered enthusiasm. You fumble behind yourself for the door latch and let him push you inside, over the padded flyer seats— much nicer than sand and rocks. You press your thigh up between his legs as he goes to climb in after you, and his long horns catch on the doorframe when he goes all distracted.

"Ha," you murmur, grabbing more secure hold of him by the selfsame cranial appendages, and pull him properly into the cab.

 

"Jerk," you grin, squirming around so you're under him. Not just to keep your horns from gouging up the roof upholstery, but because -- "It's your turn to ride. I haven't been in you for way too long." There's a growl in your voice just thinking of it -- his weight pressing him down on you, the way he rains kisses from above, the way he wriggles.

The drinker pupa's button-stealing habit has its upside; you can just shove Erskin's shirt right off his luscious shoulders and get directly to the hickeying part, no unbuttoning needed.

 

"Nearly a week, however did you survi—ahh, fuck—" he's gone for your scars and even though they've closed up you still get a rush of heat and helpless, melting desire at the feel of his lips and tongue, the barest hint of teeth. You get your knees astride his hips hurriedly, before you can go all soppy, then realize you've neatly pinned both your pants on, like this.

Well— well. You get hold of his wandering hands, pin them down on either side of his horns and lean your weight on them— god, he's built like a bloody thermal hull, nature is deeply unfair— before grinding your stupidly trapped bulges together slowly. You want to get on with it, you hate his stupid slowness games, but it's very nearly worth it for the way he gasps. The way he strains towards you and can't reach, the black frustration.

He could certainly lift his hands, against your weight, but damned if he's getting you to let go of them. You're going to bruise, you're going to leave your fingerprints bright as paint in his skin, and everyone will know, everyone will see, this is yours, this boy is yours, you have him— like riding that rockslide down the mountain, you own him, you were hatched for this sort of rule. You keep moving against him and it's not a tease, it's too good, you want him in you so badly.

You think— you think you wouldn't mind making him call you Lord Aspera. From his bloody blue mouth it'd be, it'd— it'd be such a prize.

"Ask me nicely," you growl down at him, squeezing his wrists. "You're mine, ask me for my nook. Say please."