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Aaron isn't superstitious. Theo points out when she goes with him to view the ridiculously cheap apartment, practically on campus and a quarter the rate of the others in the same building, in her thickest curling patois, “duppy know who fi frighten.” It's not particularly applicable to the situation at hand, but she says it sagely just the same.
“Ghosts,” Aaron points out as he signs the lease, “do not frighten me.”
She rolls her eyes, and helps him move in later that week.
The place isn't particularly creepy. It was built in the seventies, boxy and inefficient, with small windows Theo covers with bright yellow drapes she got from her grandmother, and a bathroom light that flickers a little before it turns on. There's water damage in one corner, a clanking radiator and the pipes squeal at night. Theo puts plants on every windowsill and hangs dried eucalyptus in the doorway because it's supposed to mean “protection of the home.” Everywhere she goes there is colour, and a feminine touch . The boxy apartment seems to open and become a home beneath her decorating expertise. Aaron had no idea that chartreuse was a shade of green, so he lets her do her thing.
Aaron keeps the radio on to fill the apartment with noise, changes the station depending on his mood, rock or classical or top forty hits. As a joke, Theo programs it to a gospel station, “to keep the lord in your home, and the duppy out.” Aaron isn't superstitious, but he doesn't change it when she leaves either.
Nothing ever happens. Sometimes things go missing, just to turn up right where he put them days later. Little things like water bottles or a pair of scissors or thumb tacks. Sometimes whole packs of paper vanish. Sometimes he goes to the fridge and finds less milk than he thought he had. His pens are a lost cause, he is constantly buying more. But on the whole, the episodes are infrequent and unconcerning.
He doesn't mention them to Theo.
Weeks go by like this. He studies. He hangs out with his friends. He marathons cartoons on netflix. There is no dark and creepy presence urging him to leave the apartment. There are no watchful eyes or suspicious noises or even strange appearances of black cats and beady eyed ravens. His skin doesn't crawl in pregnant silences just before he closes his eyes to sleep.
Sometimes when he comes in a little tipsy from a party he thinks he sees a shape in the front hallway, and when he turns on the light it's gone. Sometimes he feels not quite alone in the bleary moments before he's fully awake after having passed out on the sofa with a textbook. Sometimes he thinks he hears a curse, a footstep, the clank of the fridge being opened, he attributes it to neighbours on the other side of thin walls. No matter how little attention he pays to Theo’s potted plants, they never seem to suffer or wither, not even when winter starts in earnest. He chalks it up to a green thumb and pays it no mind.
He hits midterms halfway through November. He has three papers and six exams and a head full of stress that he manages with regular doses of caffeine and a rigid staggered schedule he plotted out in September.
He and Theo have study dates over skype. He munches mechanically on a bag of cashews he doesn't remember getting and sips at coffee he can’t remember pouring for himself. He reads case files and court minutes and text books until his eyes bleed. He thinks at any moment he’s going to stop, put his head down and scream. The only thing keeping him from it is the potential noise complaint from the neighbours and his own reputation as a genius. On her end, Theo taps away at her keyboard and flips pages in her textbooks. She never looks harried or worn out, and her response to everything is “mi irie,” which makes Aaron seethe with envy at her easygoing attitude. She disappears periodically to go to the washroom, to take off her makeup, to heat up leftover curry goat her mom made. Aaron’s wrist cramps from typing in that time. He barely notices her comings and goings.
“I haven't seen you get up once. We’ve been in this call for five hours. Have you been eating?” Theo presses suddenly, squinting at him over the camera like she's in the room with him. “Do you eat when I'm not there to bother you?”
“I eat.” He shows her the bag of cashews. He doesn't even particularly like cashews, but they were on sale and he’s been told to mind his account by his overbearing uncle. Theo’s brows furrow, clearly unimpressed, and he casts around for something more substantial than cashews. There's nothing. But he can't eat for stress, can't think past this paper, this midterm, this grade. He needs only to be perfect. Eating can come second.
“Aaron.” Her repressed accent slips. Aaron doesn't quail.
“We’re pulling into the final stretch.” He says by way of explanation, flipping through his papers and tossing a dry highlighter in the general direction of the waste basket. “It’s exhausting, all of it, but it’s gonna be so worth it in a few short months.”
“You need to sleep. And eat. Perfection comes at a price.”
“I can pay it later.” Aaron says. He opens his third essay, pulling out the syllabus to reread the instructions. His breath catches when he reads over the words on the page.
“That's the thing about debts. They always come to call at the worst time.”
Aaron wonders if Theo knows she says the most prophetic things.
He’s read the phrase “stomach dropping” in novels before. He didn't know the feeling was real, that it's a bit like a hook in his diaphragm, yanking sharply downward and sucking all the air from his lungs with one woosh. “Theo.” He gasps.
“Wha’?”
“Theo I got the date on my essay wrong. I thought--” Theo makes questioning noises, entire face bent in concern. Aaron sucks in a trembling breath, but panic has punctured his lungs, air whistles from the holes, he can't get any oxygen. “It’s due tomorrow. Theo it’s thirty pages and I only have ten and it's due tomorrow--”
“Can you get an extension?” Theo tries, twisting her braids anxiously around her fingers. “What happened? What are you gonna do? What happened?”
Aaron lets the panic rise in his throat for a moment before he wrangles it back into something manageable, sinking his nails into his palms. He isn't a first year any more. He can manage this. “Theo, I'll have to talk to you later, okay.”
She makes a little noise of assent and murmurs “good luck,” before he ends the call. He stares briefly at the opening statements in his essay. He barely has a thesis; it's vague and mangled, he doesn't have half the info he needs. He works through it. He types. He gets up for red bull when the sun starts pulling over the horizon, he paces his tiny apartment hoping for a break through. He feels like a ship trapped in arctic ice, waiting for spring. He writes even when his point seems redundant and it seems to him he's going in circles. He's so weary and wired his eyelids feel like sandpaper when he blinks, his breathing sounds like a death rattle and his fingers shake.
He makes it to thirty pages, but he doesn't have the energy to cheer, or text Theo, or move even. He sets his alarm for ten and puts his head down right there on the coffee table and sleeps.
When he wakes, the couch throw Theo insisted upon is tangled around his shoulders, tucked up under his chin as a makeshift pillow. He’s late for class, his alarm wails in his ear, and he pauses just long enough to splash water on his face and print out his paper.
He does not think to wonder how he reached the throw folded on the back of the couch from his position on the floor. Or why empty bags of cashews were gathered in a neat pile on the coffee table, and all the coffee mugs placed in the sink. He glances at these things when he gets home, shrugs, waters his plants, and goes back to studying, solitary crises averted, never to be repeated. He triple checks all his due dates.
He gets the essay back from the prof with comments like “phenomenal”, “excellent insight”, “great work, you’ve taken an unusually strong position with your arguments.” To say he’s confused is an understatement. There's no way a thirty page essay written on red bull and cashews in a single night will come out phenomenal. But he accepts the glowing ninety five grade with pride. He is home before he reads the essay over, Theo’s feet in his lap while she scrolls through netflix.
“What the hell?” Aaron mutters, flipping back to the start of his paper. Theo hums and decides on some ridiculously long cartoon, strains of the opening pulling through his shitty speakers. “I didn’t...write this?” He flips back and forth, and it’s definitely his name and student number on the cover page. It’s definitely his thesis. In some parts it’s his words, and in other parts they deviate, ramble and curl in such a way that he could almost chalk it up to sleep deprivation, except that's just not his style of writing.
“What do you mean?” Theo pauses her cartoon and leans over to peer at the paper. “Did you take the wrong one?”
“It’s mine but the words are different?” Aaron frowns. “And it’s meticulously spell checked. I know for a fact I finished that paper with grammatical errors a two year old could catch but I didn’t bother to fix? Like right here.” he points at various words, spelled perfectly where they hadn’t been. “These were gibberish. This whole essay was honestly gibberish. I don’t--” he presses his lips together when he sees Theo’s face.
By nature, Theo is calm, smiling, sweet. She looks calculating now, eyes narrowed and dark, frowning around the room as though she sees something he can’t. There’s just the same water stain in the corner, the same groaning radiator, the same minuscule frosty windows behind sunshine bright curtains. He doesn't see anything. “Do you still have that sage I left here?”
“Sage?” Aaron repeats.
Theo makes an impatient noise. “Yes sage, I left a couple pots of sage growing here months ago. Have you been taking care of them?” Aaron shrugs. “And did you burn the incense like I told you?”
“I don’t like the way it smells.”
She kisses her teeth even more impatiently, digging her heel into his thigh in reprimand. “No one likes the way it smells, that’s not why I told you to burn it.” She drags her feet out of his lap to stand and pads over to the kitchen.
“Theo.” Aaron calls as she clanks and clatters around, pulling out drawers and opening cupboards. “Theo, what are you doing, come relax.”
“I can’t relax. This place is freaking haunted. I can feel it.”
Aaron rolls his eyes at her. “The apartment isn’t haunted, Theo, come sit down and watch this stupid Japanese cartoon with me,” he pleads. “Ghosts don’t even exist, you’re just hyping yourself up.”
“Something’s in this house Aaron Burr. I can tell. Now shush, and tell me where you hid your lighters?”
“In a box of stuff in the cupboard above the fridge.”
“You should really keep them closer at hand. What if there's a blackout?”
Theo walks through the apartment with the incense after grumbling she should have done it herself months ago to start with. She reads bible verses aloud as she walks from room to room, trailing fragrant smoke wherever she goes. Aaron knows vaguely in what remains of his religious upbringing, that she's blessing the house.
When she leaves for the night after a full season of her cartoon, still humming the opening theme song she reminds him, “throw out anything that was left by the previous tenants,” drops air kisses to both his cheeks, and sashays down the hallway.
Aaron isn't superstitious, so he doesn't think he'll ever understand her.
If anything, weird occurrences just increase despite Theo’s countermeasures. He finds passages he doesn’t remember reading bookmarked in his textbooks with colour coded sticky notes. He finds hot coffee in the pot, half drained already, on the kitchen counter. More paper than ever disappears into thin air. His left shoe is never where he leaves it, and instead turns up beneath the sink or under the couch. He gets used to it. He accepts the idea of a spirit in his home with a sort of aplomb Theo just can’t abide.
The spirit likes his feta and spinach dip with crackers. The spirit turns off lights when he forgets. The spirit ties Theo’s braids into knots whenever she sleeps over.
That is the last straw for Theo, the third time it happens.
“Can you not?” Aaron says into the darkness when Theo is taking a shower, singing Beyonce at the top of her tone deaf lungs. Nothing shifts or acknowledges he's spoken, and frankly Aaron feels a little stupid. “Please leave Theo alone. She doesn't like your pranks. She doesn't think they're funny.” He doesn't know what else to say, so he shrugs helplessly and tacks on, “thank you.”
The spirit leaves a note in scrawling writing that is damn near illegible. “My apologies to yourself and Miss Theodosia. If you have found any of our interactions offensive, I meant only to inspire amusement. I made you both coffee.“ Theo finds the note first beside the fresh coffee pot and storms into his room to shove the note under his nose, while Aaron snuffles, still half asleep. He wishes he were an early riser, he would have hid the note from her.
“You opened communication with it?” Theo demands, shaking the note. Aaron hums an affirmative. “Lord have mercy, have you never watched a single horror movie in your life?”
Aaron shrugs. He really hasn't.
“Whole bunch of foolishness start when damn fools chat wit’ duppy!” Her accent curls thick in her distress. Aaron waits out her ire in silence and feels a bit like a man playing dead before a bear in the hopes that it’ll lose interest, before she turns her sharp dark eyes on him. “What did you say to it. Word for word.”
“I asked it politely to stop playing jokes on you, because they upset you.”
“That's it?”
“That's honestly it.” Aaron pauses, blinks sleepily at the note. “At least we’re haunted by a polite ghost?”
“I don't actually think this is a duppy any more.” She frowns at the sheets, worrying her lip between her teeth while she thinks. “So.”
“I don't think I like where this is going.”
“We have to find out what it is.”
Honestly, Aaron has more pressing concerns than his house being haunted by a considerate trickster spirit. He still has papers to write. “Do we? Can't we just leave it alone?”
Her look is answer enough to that.
Aaron leaves the kitchen light on that night, just enough to see by. They hide in the curve in the hallway that blurs to shadow and watch the living room where Aaron’s left his laptop open with a half finished assignment.
It is three in the morning before anything happens. Beside him Theo shudders so hard it works through her entire body. Movement starts in the kitchen, a shadow thrown onto the floor. It rummages around in the fridge and settles on toaster strudels, moving to the laptop and humming along to the faint strains of the radio from the bedroom.
It's a man, cast mostly in shadow, long curve of his nose highlighted almost blue in the light the screen gives off. He munches on toaster strudels and works at Aaron's laptop. He looks human. There's something not quite right about him, something Aaron can't put his finger on, but he looks human.
Aaron doesn’t know what he was expecting really. A transparent specter? An alien? A diminutive naked little elf just like in the fairy tales? Theo squints at the man like a naturalist documenting the behaviour of a strange new animal. Aaron is tempted to step out into the light, to say something.
There's another shift of movement and a sound like displaced air, and a woman joins the man, hip cocked and expression shadowed. “Here again?” She asks, tone unimpressed. “You shouldn't meddle with humans so often.” She’s brown skinned and willowy, with the same aura of not quite normal circling her.
“Oh.” Theo breathes. “She’s pretty.”
Aaron blinks at her. If the whole situation wasn’t so surreal he’d probably chide her, he’d say “Really? There are two kinda freaky people in my house who came out of nowhere and all you can think about is possibly giving the girl your number?” Instead it's so absurd Aaron doesn’t know how he keeps from laughing aloud. He fell into the fucking twilight zone, but it's like he doesn't even have the good sense to be scared. It's one more thing he accepts with aplomb.
“He keeps his fridge really well stocked.” The man says through a mouthful of toaster strudel, spraying crumbs across the laptop keyboard and idly dusting it aside. Aaron grimaces.
“That's a poor excuse and you know it. We have food at home.”
“Human food tastes better.”
“No, you just like his cooking better.” When he doesn't reply the woman makes an impatient sound, tugging once at the man’s thick black ponytail. “Alexander.” She says warningly.
“Okay okay. Gimme fifteen minutes to finish this.” Alexander turns back to the laptop, typing rapidly. “He’s smart you know. Really has a way with words. Succinct.” She snorts. “I’m serious, Angelica!”
“I believe you. Yes, your lovely pet human. It's just like you to desire in them what you have none of yourself. Now let’s go, before Eliza skewers us both for being late to the revel.”
“Oh shit, the revel!” Alexander gasps. He hurriedly presses save, considers closing the laptop before he leaves it open, and disappear in a glimmer. Angelica stays a moment longer, casts her eyes around the apartment. In the dark they seem completely black. Those strange black eyes land on Aaron and Theo’s hiding spot, but she says nothing and does not approach, just smirks and disappears too.
“It’s fairies.” Theo gasps when they’re both gone, flopping back against the wall. Aaron is still trying to catch his breath from the strangeness of it all, the sudden spill of cold fear down his back when Angelica had seemed to look right through them both where mirth had been seconds earlier. “Of fucking course it’s ratid fairies.”
“How do you know?”
“Their aura, their glamour, their magic. They couldn't be anything but fairies.”
“Do you just have an encyclopedia of different monsters in your head?”
Theo considers the plate on the table, dotted with crumbs of toaster strudel, that the fairy forgot to put in the sink, brows furrowed. “It wants a war. I’ll give it a goddamn war.”
Life seems to go on as normal for the next few days. Theo’s war, if she has one, is quiet, and she makes no mention of it to him. Aaron makes a point not to stay up too late, to barricade himself in his room and to be sleeping soundly by the time 3 am rolls around. Witching Hour, Theo calls it. He falls asleep with headphones in and doesn’t wake up until the sun is peering around the city skyscrapers. He still doesn’t consider himself superstitious, but that doesn’t stop him from leaving little candies by his open laptop as a strange sort of thank you for Alexander the fairy’s help. It is both strange and comfortable.
Theo gives him an early Christmas gift. It's a vintage oxhide belt with a thick, heavy metal buckle in burnished silver, wrought in all sorts of shapes that kind of remind Aaron of celtic knots. “Wear it every day.” Theo beams when he tries it on. “It suits you.”
Theo also leaves a new potted plant in the kitchen. It’s ugly yellow blossoms are cheerful, joining the sage and a lonesome cactus on the counter. A new note turns up directly underneath it the very next morning. “A show of gratitude and appreciation for services rendered is only common courtesy, sir.” It says, only a little passive aggressively. “If my company or services are no longer desired, it would showcase the utmost respect to merely say so.” A big glaring red arrow points to the plant. “Either it goes, or I go. A. Ham”
Aaron doesn't hesitate to throw it out, though he can't quite explain why. He googles the flowers on his phone, comes up with a whole bunch of pictures of sunflowers before he gives up and types “flowers that fairies hate”. A website with a sparkly domain header cheerfully informs him that fairies can be warded off with a few magical plants. He scrolls through each one and lands on saint john’s wort, ugly yellow blossoms and all. “Well shit,” he mutters, and takes out the trash. “No wonder he was mad.”
Theo went to war after all.
He makes the fairy a quiche as an apology. When he gets up the next morning, all but one slice has been devoured, with another note praising his baking talent running two pages long, waxing poetic. Aaron keeps the note and tries not to let the pleasure of it warm his heart too much.
Aaron and Alex fall into a quasi domestic pattern. He goes to class, he has study dates, he works. He writes assignments and leaves them open for Alex to look at when he goes to bed, next to an overlarge mug of black coffee and a homemade cheese and cracker platter. He wakes to pages of insight that he works through as he makes breakfast, adding what he deems relevant to his essays and reworking it to better suit his style. Sometimes Alex will write little notes across his papers, things like “genius!” and “downright poetic” with so much enthusiasm his letters blur together and Aaron can’t help his smile. Sometimes Alex attaches entire documents detailing why his opinion is bullshit, with sharp criticisms in writing so hard it nearly stabs through the paper, demanding “What are you afraid of? Detail your opinion, back it up, I know you have it in you”. Aaron never opens those until he’s already handed in that assignment. He makes it through his final exams that way.
He spends Christmas with his family in Jersey. His uncle nags him, his cousins hound him, his sister frets, and as usual he doesn’t expect to miss them until he’s on the train back to his apartment scrolling through family photos on facebook. There are piles of paper on every surface when he gets back with a note tacked on the closet door that says only “Aaron, don't move these, they’re in a specific order. Also, buy more paper. A. Ham.”
Aaron starts at one end of the room, skimming over papers about human rights, racism, war. It seems like it's a whole collection of treatises as opposed to one cohesive work. Half way through one pile Aaron will realize Alex has gone off on some tangent, and he’ll have to put it down and search for the answering part. He’s always careful to leave the papers exactly as he found them, even if it limits his moving space in his own home. Eventually he sits in the center of the living room floor in the solitary bare patch on the carpet, where Alex must have sat when he was organizing his writings. It's dusk, the sky quickly bruising to purple and navy, the fading glow of the winter sun throwing patches of light on Alex’s papers and Theo’s pots of sage alike.
Aaron rubs a hand over his temple. If he could hear him when he talked about Theo, surely--
“Are you ever gonna show yourself?”
“I was wondering when you'd ask.”
Aaron nearly leaps out of his skin when he whirls towards the voice. In the daylight he can see Alex better. He's olive skinned with a warm golden undertone, black eyed, pointy eared. “Aren't fairies supposed to be blonde?”
“Are you asking me if all fairies are supposed to be white?” Alex’s brow furrows. “Because I’ll have you know, the fae are as broad in spectrum of ethnicity as humans.”
“Aren't there stories of them liking blonde hair?”
“Sure, everyone has a type. It was the mad king of the unseelie court that started that trend.” He shrugs. “Me, I’m particularly fond of brown eyes.” His gaze is sharp then, imbued with meaning. Aaron ignores it. He gestures instead at the piles of papers, and lets his expression speak for itself. Alex casts a bored glance over the array and shrugs. “You didn’t mess up anything, did you? I’ve been working on this for months.”
“I don’t really think that’s the point, Alexander.” Aaron says. He jerks at the sharp use of his name and turns narrowed eyes on Aaron with a poisonous look. “Is this what you’ve been doing with all my paper?”
He shrugs. “I thought my services more than equalled the pittance your paper cost.” They do, and Aaron purses his lips and doesn’t say so. Alex smirks at him as though he knows it. “I was hoping you would show me some of the same kindness I have shown you.” He pauses for dramatic effect, but when Aaron just waits he deflates a little with a grumble. “Have my writings published.”
“These?” Aaron indicates the room again. “Honestly they read like a tumblr shit post--” He pauses in thought, steps towards his backpack and drags out his laptop. “Here. Let me show you a place where you can transcribe your writings. You’ll love it.”
Second semester seems easier in someway, like a weight has been lifted. Alex is always there when he comes home, a pen tucked behind his ear, a mug of coffee between his palms while he squints at Aaron’s textbooks. “Fresh coffee’s in the pot. What’s for dinner?” he never fails to ask. The domestic rhythm of Aaron’s life in first semester is more real with Alex pressed warm against him on the sofa while Aaron sits on the floor, his knees bracketing his shoulders while he reads out passages from the constitution for Aaron to echo from memory. It’s more real with Alex moaning around a bite of food while they share meals at the rickety dining table. There’s something tangible about it all when Alex pats his elbow and places a steaming coffee mug by his wrist, settling onto the sofa with the throw tangled around his legs.
Alex likes to watch documentaries on Netflix. His hair falls out of its tie by three in the morning, wisping around his face. He thinks that toaster strudels are something Aaron invented, and doesn't believe him when he tells him he only eats them when he’s desperate. Alex reminds him of due dates. He has a studious look about him when Aaron is up late studying, so Aaron thinks he wouldn't look out of place in thick frame glasses and Aaron’s college sweater, the law school one he constantly steals whenever the temperature drops just a little. He never sees Alex sleep. He leaves him awake and fighting with bloggers at night, and wakes up to more coffee and toaster strudels the next morning. And its nice, so of course it doesn't last.
“A mind as sharp as yours shouldn’t worry about something as transient as stepping on toes.”
“The world is about people, Alex, not just getting your point across the fastest. Sometimes I’m better served by staying silent.”
“Let's say I agree with you. Which I don’t.” Aaron rolls his eyes and Alex waves his fork dramatically under his nose. “Are you better served by being noncommittal in your essays?”
“Yes.” Alexander lifts both brows, daring him to prove it while he stuffs another piece of cheesecake in his mouth. “My profs could discriminate against me if they thought I held opinions they didn’t agree with.”
“You’re becoming a lawyer, Aaron.” He can’t help his shiver at the sound of his name in Alexander’s mouth, like it’s been laced with power. He squares his shoulders and watches his plate. “You’re always going to be saying things people don’t agree with, and you’re always going to face discrimination.”
“That can come after I’ve taken the bar.”
“So you’ll just stand idly by, all but blind deaf and dumb, out of fear? For what? Of what? You’re stronger than that! You have the potential to be stronger than that!”
“What difference does it make to you?” Aaron snaps.
Alex’s eyes narrow, expression hard and cold. “Is it bad of me to demand the best of you?”
“It is when you try to push me.” Aaron hisses. “I can't please you all the time, Alexander.”
They tiptoe around each other after that. Alex doesn't come around, isn't there when he gets home, doesn't make coffee. Aaron makes peach cobbler as apology, but Alexander doesn’t eat it. Instead he gets a long angry note detailing just how irritating it is that Aaron is always trying to placate people with things he does not mean, up to and including peach cobblers. Aaron crumples the note and angrily takes the peach cobbler to Theo’s place and spends the night.
“Do you think I try to placate people with things I don’t mean?” Aaron grumbles, watching her eat the cobbler in big happy globs. Theo hums and chews, brow furrowing as she thinks. “Don't ask me where this is coming from. Just tell me. Do you think I'm amoral, or a dishonest disgrace--”
“Aaron.” It's hard to take Theo seriously when she has flecks of granola and ice cream around her mouth and her headscarf on, but she still manages to look severe. “I think you’re a complacent person. You are peaceable, and you don't like to fight.”
“Coming from you it almost sounds like a good thing.”
“It can be both. But you’re also honest. I've never heard you say something you don't mean. It's just saying things that you have trouble with.” She pats his hand and trails her spoon through the plate of melting icecream. “Chances are, if you were trying to placate someone and you meant it, you should have said something, instead of making peach cobbler.”
Aaron snorts and rubs his hand over his face in tired exasperation. “You’re too smart for me, Theodosia Prevost.”
“Mi know.” She replies, and polishes off her cobbler.
Aaron goes home, but the apartment is uncomfortably dark and empty. He flicks on a single light in the kitchen to push back a few shadows and waits, gathers his thoughts and his words.
“I'm graduating this year, Alexander. In a few months, in fact.” Aaron says softly into the dark, and hopes Alex hears him. “Do you get that? I'm so close, I can taste it in my mouth. But I can't get ahead of myself. I can't just throw caution to the wind now. I can't trip up before the finish line.” Aaron sighs. “Do you get it? I won't sabotage myself now, by doing something as reckless as saying whatever I want when I'm this close to making it.”
Aaron waits a few moments, and turns off the kitchen light to head to bed. “No, we can't have that.” Alex's voice says, coloured all over in real humour and the undercurrent of sarcasm. Aaron bites his tongue and does not rise to the bait, turning to face the fairy where he leans against the doorway. “As far as apologies go, that was pretty crappy.”
“Because I wasn't apologizing.” Aaron says firmly, standing straight and tipping his chin up. If anything, Alex looks impressed. His eyes flash like a cats. “I was explaining. But I'm not sorry.”
“Oh well.” Alex laughs. “I like that about you, Aaron!” His smile makes it clear he isn’t sorry either.
“Is that all?” Aaron sneers.
“No.” Alex smirks. “That's not all.” Aaron’s eyes narrow. There's some meaning he's missing, and he doesn't like being unable to place it, feeling like they're on different pages, like Alex is ahead of him. “But let's not get into that just yet.”
“Agreed.”
After that, they are cool again. They fall back into their rhythm as though they’d never fought. If there is an added edge of tension, a charge that runs between them where things were once placid, Aaron ignores it, and pretends Alex is just holding a grudge. It is easier than considering any other option.
There’s heat, when he looks at Alex. A moment where his eyes linger on the bow of his mouth when he talks, the spark in his eyes as he and Aaron debate any and everything, the way he grins when he manages to get Aaron worked up. If he’s honest, the heat has always been there, comfortable, unimportant. Now, he can’t seem to put it out of his mind. He watches Alex mouth words as he reads, tap his pen to some unheard beat against the counter while he waits for dinner to bake, enumerates a thousand new points for his tumblr shit posts with wildly gesticulating hands. Sometimes, he thinks Alex sees him watching, and smiles a knowing mischievous smile.
“I never said thank you.” Aaron muses. They couldn’t be bothered to turn on a light so they lay in the dark, listening to the faint strains of music from the bedroom. He's burnt out from his first midterm, full of pizza and beer.
Alex turns his head just enough to side eye him, hair falling across his cheek. “Fairies hate thank yous.”
“Maybe, but you love being recognized for your achievements, you’re a classic narcissist with inflated ideas of grandeur.”
“I don’t want to hear that from you, mr self proclaimed genius--”
“You were the one who reworked my essay, right? That thirty page one?” Aaron interrupts before they can fall onto an old path of banter.
“Who else do you think did it?”
“Why'd you do it?” He's been wondering for a while, wondering how he ended up here, like this, on his living room floor beside a fairy, who idly curls his fingers in the fibers of the carpet, measuring his words before he says them in a rare show of forethought.
“You're intelligent. It's not like you really needed my help, before then. Hell you don't really need my help now.” Alex gives a lazy shrug. “I saw an opportunity to help you because i could appreciate the effort you put into your studies. Admire it even.”
“So you decided to help me because my anal retentive personality is as just such a turn on.” Alex snorts and Aaron levels a wry grin at him. “I think you have a competence kink.”
“What's that mean?”
“Means smart people turn you on.”
“Not just smart.” Alex muses. “They also have to be pretty.”
“And brown eyed.” Aaron adds. Alex's eyes are hot on him, and he doesn't know why he said it, licks his lips and tries to ignore the strange flutter in his chest.
“And brown eyed.” Alex hums. His gaze is sharp, imbued with meaning. They stare at each other longer than is comfortable, before Aaron licks his lips again and reaches for another beer, handing Alex one as well.
Aaron ignores the change because it’s easier. He keeps ignoring it until he can't anymore.
They aren't talking about anything out of the ordinary. Aaron laughs as he tries to imitate his professor for Alex's benefit. He supposes his gruff old man imitation isn't really doing its job, between his own helpless laughter and a lack of acting talent, because Alex isn't really laughing. His mouth quirks in a half smile, but his eyes are dark and considering. Aaron falls silent the longer Alex says nothing at all. His gaze is intense, edging towards black, and before Aaron can think to say something, break the tension, Alex leans forward, fingers gently cupping his jaw to urge his face up.
Alexander's lips are sweet and dire and unreal, teeth sinking into his lips, fingers finding the back of his neck and scraping there. Aaron groans against his mouth, fights back, gets his fingers on his thick black hair and tugs him closer and deeper, near pulling Alex off the sofa onto the floor with him. He moans another noise when Alex pins him still, kisses him thoroughly, Aaron helpless against the curl of his tongue and the languid scrape of his teeth. “Up.” Alex demands, nails sinking hard into his shoulder, leaving Aaron a little dizzy.
He comes to Alex on the sofa, and leaps away when Alex shrieks an inhuman sound. “What--”
“Is that iron?” He demands, voice high and wrathful. His palm is burnt in the shape of celtic knots, and he gestures at Aaron’s belt buckle. His eyes look like oil spills, and Aaron licks his lips and shrugs helplessly. “Take it off. Don't you know the stories? Fairies are allergic!”
“Sorry, I didn’t--”
“You can make up for it by getting that thing off and getting back on top of me.” Alex lays back, smirk twisting his lips, simultaneously sinful and attractive. “Lucky for you I can take a bit of pain with my fucking.” Something about the whole thing, Alex and his inhuman eyes, his filthy words, the way he looks shrugging out of Aaron’s sweater, sets a coil of want in his belly. He tosses the belt away and moves to Alex like a tidal wave, crushing their lips together, hands sliding over the soft curve of his belly, up to his chest, questing and eager. Alex sighs against his mouth, and Aaron pulls away to explore the delicate skin of his throat, hands sliding to Alex's thighs to urge them apart so he can fit between them. “Fucking finally.” Alex says, breath a little ragged. His fingers slip up beneath Aaron’s shirt, scratching at the small of his back so Aaron arches into it. “Couldn't wait to get you like this, you make it so easy to keep you--”
“Shut--” Aaron starts, but doesn't finish because they are kissing again, wrapped tight in one another, tasting each other. Alex manages to get Aaron’s shirt off, pinning him against the sofa, his palm pressed to the front of Aaron’s jeans with considering amusement, smirking at Aaron’s arch and hiss of, “Fuck, Alex--” He drags him close again, bites at Alex’s tongue, grinds up against his palm, whining softly when he pulls away. He imagines his eyes are blown, his lips kiss swollen. “Let me.” He murmurs, and works Alex’s pants down his thighs, fits him perfectly between his legs so they both groan.
Alex presses his face to Aaron’s throat, rolls their hips together, and Aaron loses himself to the pressure, the heat, the friction, fingers pressed hard into Alex’s hips to urge him on. He only half registers Alex’s breathless laughter or the noises coming out of his own mouth, he just moves, accommodating Alex when he shifts, interlocking their thighs, giving them something to rut against. It’s so much better then, sliding gracelessly and clutching each other close, catching lips in messy kisses.
It’s over embarrassingly quickly. Alex’s cock is hot against his leg, and something winds tight and threatens to snap. Aaron holds tight and lets it break, surprised and helplessly aroused when Alex moans his name and makes a mess of his thigh, biting down hard on his lip as he slips over too, orgasm a warm flood in his veins.
Alex is silent for all of two seconds. He sits up, leaning one trembling arm along the back of the sofa. His eyes twinkle when he looks at Aaron, loose and limp across the couch cushions. “Glad that’s finally settled. It was starting to drive me crazy.”
Alex is not a considerate lover. That isn’t the word Aaron would use to describe him. He is insatiable. He presses Aaron hard against the door as soon as he comes home to kiss him, his mouth always tastes of coffee, his hair smells like the fruity tropical shampoo Aaron bought for him, and Aaron can admit he missed him while he was gone, so he lets it happen. They forget netflix movies half way through to rut into each other’s hands, breathing each other, eyes fixed and the whole sordid thing made all the more intimate for it. They lay in Aaron’s bed on Saturday mornings and scroll through buzzfeed quizzes and facebook, Alex comfortable between his legs with Aaron’s laptop on his belly, both still smelling of sex and each other.
“This is so inaccurate I’m cringing.” Alex pauses, scrolling over a short blurb on mermaids when he finishes another quiz about magical creatures. “Especially this.” He shakes his head, and highlights a line with the cursor. “Mermaids drown their lovers because they forget they can’t breathe underwater? Bullshit. I’ve never met a forgetful mermaid in my life. Evil freaking--”
“What’s wrong with mermaids?” Aaron asks in vague interest, tapping out a reply to a party invitation on his cell, before switching to instagram. “I liked The Little Mermaid, that was nice.”
“There’s no such thing as a nice mermaid. The unseelie fae, they are what they are. They can’t help being dark. But mermaids are outside that. Most vicious, savage creatures in the fae realm.” Alex clicks his tongue. “They aren’t cute, they aren’t pretty. They’re just hungry. And they will eat literally anything that falls into their clutches, fae, human, doesn’t matter. So yeah. Stay away from mermaids.”
“Can they sing?”
“God no. Banshees sound better than mermaids do.” Alex runs his fingers through his hair. “Eliza had to invite one to the winter solstice revel that just passed, fae politics, you know?” Aaron nods, but he doesn’t know. “And of course, she insisted on singing. My ears bleed at just the memory.” he shudders. “They say that their voices sound better underwater.”
“And do they?”
“No one’s ever been dumb enough to try and find out.” Alex retorts. “Only a fool would willingly swim in the same body of water as a mermaid.”
Aaron considers this for a moment. “How do they get to the revels if you don’t go in the water, and they have no legs?” Alex tips his head back to look at him with pity and loathing.
“Seriously?” He rolls his eyes hard. “I’m having difficulties remembering why I like you.”
Aaron forgets about Theo. She is distant and removed, someone he talks to over skype while he’s cooking, someone he texts every morning, someone he gets coffee with after class. He forgets about Theo’s war, but that’s because she doesn’t ask. She notices distantly that he’s happy, pats herself on the back for a job well done, and makes no more mentions of fairies. He forgets that in someway, Alex is supposed to be a secret, because it doesn’t matter. For all intents and purposes his apartment is some separate world, where it is just Alex, their work, their lives, tangled up in each other. So he forgets, honestly, that he should come up with excuses when Theo invites herself for a sleepover. They chat the whole way up the elevator, listing movies they want to watch, Theo cajoling Aaron into making chicken curry and roti for dinner.
“Oh good you’re back. I ran out of paper again so--” Alex pauses when he sees Theo. She stands perfectly still in the doorway. At first her eyes are wide and fixed, but Aaron’s stomach flips when they narrow. They stare at each other, like tigers that have crossed each other’s paths in the jungle, eyes bright and expressions ferocious. Alex smiles, but it is neither kind nor pretty. “I see you have company, So I’ll just...go. Have a nice evening, Miss Theodosia.” he winks at Aaron and disappears.
“Why was he here?” Theo rounds on him, hands on her hips and eyebrow arched, looking him up and down. “Why aren't you wearing the belt I gave you?”
“Well--”
“Where's the saint john's wort.” Theo's face falls. “What did you do?”
“I took the belt off because it burnt Alex.”
“Yes, that was the point. I wanted to keep him away from you.” She crosses his arms. “So? Why did you want Alex near you?”
“I might have kissed him?” Aaron licks his lips a little nervously when Theo just watches him, waiting for more. “I might have done...more than kiss him? I might have been doing more than kissing him for a while?”
Aaron expects Theo to look livid. Her face sort of just crumples in anguish instead, which is probably worse. “He’s dangerous you know, Aaron. He could whisk you away and I’d never know what happened to you, or where you went.”
There’s a whole list of responses he could give her. Alex wouldn’t do that. I’m being careful. I’m fine. He says, “Okay.”
“Of course you aren’t going to listen to me. You pretend you’re above it, but you’re so stubborn.” She wags her finger under his nose. “Fiyah deh a muss-muss tail, im tink a cool breeze.” she warns. She kicks her shoes off and heads to the kitchen, anxiously twisting the ends of her braids. But kind, sweet Theo, she doesn’t say anything more about it even though she clearly wants to.
There is no fire at his tail, Aaron thinks. There is only a fire in his chest that Alex himself lit, and now there's no hope of it being doused again. They fool around, they study together, and it's good. Aaron waits for the other shoe to drop.
Aaron wants to burn away Theo’s words in his ears, wants to forget the crumple of her face and her concern. Maybe it shows, when he kisses Alex hard, scratches with his finger nails, pushes for more, harder, anything that will burn. “What’s wrong with you?” He moans, pinning Aaron still just long enough to look in his eyes.
“Want you to fuck my mouth.” Aaron replies easily. Alex blinks, something ravenous flashes across his face and he eases back to let Aaron wiggle to the floor between his parted knees. He looks imperious while Aaron works his pants off, cocky. Aaron casts him one look through his lashes and holds his gaze.
He can't help the soft noise he makes when he gets his mouth on Alex’s cock. His jaw drops open to take it all, easing his cock into his wet mouth and sucking. Alex moans when his cheeks hollow as his mouth moves up and down his length, lips tight, a pleased hum in his chest when Alex’s hips jerk up. His cock is hot, velvet soft, a good familiar weight as he works his tongue around it, sucks hard at the sensitive spot beneath the head. He lets his teeth catch because Alex said he liked the pain, loses himself to the rhythm. The thick vein along the underside throbs beneath his tongue, and Aaron presses wet kisses along it from base to tip, savouring Alex’s little curses and sighs. Alex’s fingers hook around the back of his head to pin him still. “Mouth open, I just wanna watch you take it.” he orders breathlessly. Aaron lets his jaw go slack, watching Alex as his teeth clamp over his bottom lip, sliding his cock as deep as Aaron can take it and drawing back out, fucking his mouth methodically. Aaron can’t help the wet, hungry noise he makes any more than he could help his other noises, fingers dragging helplessly at Alex’s thighs, cock throbbing in his jeans. He’s sure he looks like a mess, and Alex loves it.
“Never expected to see you like this.” Alex’s thumb traces his spit slick lips. “Thought you were too much of a good boy. But that's not true at all is it?” Aaron moans some answering noise around Alex’s cock and slurps, takes him to his throat even as his eyes water just to hear Alex’s deep groan rumbling through his skin. “You fucking love this don't you.” he pauses, and looks at him, mouth spreading in a vicious smile. “Yeah you love it.” He doesn’t last much longer after that, lips parted on a high moan as he comes in Aaron’s mouth. It dribbles over his lips, filthy and wet, and Alex doesn’t hesitate to lean down and kiss him, licking into his mouth.
He drags Aaron up onto the bed, tearing into his jeans to get his hand on his cock while Aaron fists his hair and tries to remember how to breathe, the taste of Alex still thick on his tongue. Alex holds Aaron close, fingers tight around the back of his neck, they pant into each other's mouths while Alex’s hand slides teasingly slow over Aaron’s length. “I shouldn't be mean,” Alex says with a considering tone and a twinkle in his eye that means he's thinking of being just that. “You were so good for me.”
“Alexander, please!” Aaron’s hips rut helplessly against his palm, fingers tangling in Alex’s mussed waves and tugging hard. He wants to cover his mouth, stop himself from giving into Alex, but his eyes are burning and all consuming, and he whimpers when Alex cruelly draws his hand away to settle on his belly instead. “Please.” He repeats desperately.
“God, you're precious. Alright then.” He spits in his palm and fists him properly, chuckling as Aaron groans, hips rolling into it, fucking into his hand while he jerks him off quickly. He watches him hungrily, and it’s too much for him, too hot, too close, too much. Aaron squeezes his eyes shut, chases the peak, aware that Alex is watching him fall apart. But he can’t stop it now, so he goes with it, moans Alex’s name against his lips, into his skin where he bites vicious marks, until Alex strings him high and tosses him over, trembling through his orgasm. “Yeah,” Alex murmurs mostly to himself. “There’s no way I’m letting you go after that.” Aaron mumbles in response, but he has no idea what Alex means.
Later they are pressed together in bed, sheets loose around their hips, dozing away the after glow. “Would you like to come to a revel?” Alex asks, pressing kisses to Aaron's tender and thoroughly marked clavicle. Aaron hums and runs his fingers through Alex’s hair idly. “It's the spring equinox, it'll be a massive party.”
“Will there be singing mermaids?” Aaron teases.
“Unfortunately yes. But I promise the food will more than make up for it.”
“And you’ll have me home before midnight, just like Cinderella?”
“Aaron, don't you know the stories?” Alex smiles wickedly at him, face half shadow. “You'll have so much fun you’ll never want to leave.”