#anific

Alloran sighed and searched the sky, finding the barest smattering of clouds and no sight of any Andalite ships. His people had told him he was to remain on Earth until they could decide what to do with him. It wasn’t the worst outcome he could have imagined – probably not even all he deserved – but it was still preventing him from returning to his family, and thus he did not like it. That was the only goal clear and burning in Alloran’s head: get to his family. They were all that mattered; let the damned Ellimist himself smite Alloran if that was what it took.

Thoughts of his family made Alloran remember why he had left the stretch of forest Aximili had showed him. It had been secluded there; safe and practical and so close to where Esplin had made his Yeerks place their logging project that he’d laughed for a good five minutes in pure glee. Despite wanting to stay in the cover of the trees until he was allowed back home, Alloran knew he still had a job to do. And he wanted to do it less than he wanted to wait another day before he could see his family again. But anybody else who had known were either dead or unconcerned with breaking the news to the one who deserved it the most. Before he had to find out for himself the hard way.

Alloran held himself tall as he walked through the fallen debris, ignoring the looks he got and the way beings of all races skirted out of his way. The first few he asked for directions refused to answer him, and he could not bring himself to become angry. He was not the Visser. The next three didn’t know, and he was just about to give up when he ran into somebody he’d never really wanted to see again.

The human woman stared at him, and he stared back with all four eyes. Neither of them moved. He was repulsed by the sight of her, but knew it wasn’t his feelings. Knew it wasn’t her fault. Knew that what had happened…

<It’s… Eva?> The name was as foreign as the expression on her face.

She started, pulled away, and then forcefully made herself relax. “That’s right. Alloran?”

He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say to this woman who he knew and did not and who understood more than either of them would be able to put into words. <I…>

“Yeah,” she murmured back. Shifting. Uncomfortable. Repulsed by him without meaning to be.

<I’m looking for Prince Jake,>  he said at last, the title slipping in front of Jake’s name automatically.

Eva started a little, looked at him hard and then smiled thinly. “He’s busy with Toby and the…” She stopped. “I could call him out here if it’s private?”

She was offering him a way out, and he took it without hesitation. It didn’t matter who was there with Jake: he didn’t want to see them as much as they didn’t want to see him. <Thank you. It will be a lengthily discussion, so I can wait for a while.>

“I’ll let him know.” Eva turned, walked a few steps, and then turned back to him. “Alloran…”

<Please don’t.>

She nodded, looked relieved, and disappeared. Alloran wandered slowly around the destroyed buildings, trying to remind himself that he hadn’t been the one to order their destruction. He found a little structure that was still mostly standing – a house? A shop? Nobody could tell any more -  and waited in the darkness. Jake arrived a bit later, and Alloran noted at once that he was running on adrenalin, responsibility and the sheer force of will to not think. Alloran had made it his mission to study the subtle mannerisms and physical signs of humans, simply because Esplin had hated him doing it. Now he wished he hadn’t – he didn’t want to be able to read Jake when he told him the truth.

<Prince Jake.>

Jake jerked for a moment, brow furrowed in confusion at the title that didn’t come from Ax. Then he simply squared his shoulders and followed Alloran’s mental directions until he was standing in the ruin. Alloran was relieved to see the darkness hid some of Jake’s features.

“Don’t call me that,” was the first thing he said, and all Alloran could do was bow his head in acquisition at the tone Jake used. “What’s wrong?”

<You immediately assume something is wrong,>  Alloran hedged, still not quite able to believe that this boy…

“Alloran.” Jake’s eyes were far too old. “Don’t play games with me. Just… tell me. Whatever it is. Plain and simple; I don’t have time to try and discover hidden meanings in things.”

Alloran stared at him, hard, for another moment before he complied to the command, suddenly aware that this would be the final blow against Jake Berenson. After this, there would be no question that Jake had lost this war. <Jake…> He regretted using his name. And then, with a steeling of every nerve in his body, Alloran said it as plain as he could. <Esplin made good on his threat. Two days ago he gave the order, and your parents were murdered.>

There were no words for what Alloran saw happen in Jake’s eyes at that moment. Even if Jake had been in morph, Alloran doubted he would have been truly able to understand the emotions Jake’s head was undoubtedly screaming. His brother. His cousin. His parents.

Seventeen thousand Yeerks.

Jake Berenson had given everything to the war, including his soul. And he had nothing in return except loss and blame and bloodshed and hatred.

Alloran couldn’t look. <I said this would take a while so they would not expect you back soon,> he explained, looking at the door behind Jake. His escape. He wanted to go home to his family. <Jake…> The apology got stuck somewhere between his own memories and his guilt, and he left without saying another word.

He didn’t stop to tell anybody else the truth about the Berensons, simply because he did not want to see their reactions or think about the implications. He did not want to know how badly his saviour was breaking apart in an almost-destroyed, now unrecognisable ruin. If he did not think about it, it would not matter at all. He knew that if Jake was strong enough to be what the world needed him to be, shutting down would be the only way he’d be able to keep breathing.

<We’re too much alike,> he told the sky. Alloran breathed deep and returned to the solitude of the meadow. <I’m going home to my family. Me. I am the one walking. I am free. I am going home to my family. The war is won.>

<What-?>

“Nothing specifically happened,” Jake interrupts quickly. “She’s just…” He looks down at his hands as Tobias looks away. Both of them know exactly what Jake means. “And I think… uh… well, Cassie actually came up with an idea…” Jake pauses for a moment, obviously uncertain about whatever it is that Cassie told him, but his trust in that woman still wins out over everything else. “We think you should take Rachel out on a date.”

Tobias blinks at him, hard. <Uh… We um…> If he was human, he’d be blushing. <We did that. Yesterday.>

“A human date,” Jake clarifies, and there’s something apologetic in his look. “No… links to this war at all. No morphing or anything. Just… Rachel the girl and Tobias the boy…”

<Jake… I can’t…>

“Yeah, you can.” Jake is gentle but firm all at once. “You may not want to, but you can.”

And maybe it’s Jake being the leader he needs to be; maybe it’s Jake lying because he needs to use Tobias in a certain way to accomplish his goals. But Tobias still trusts Jake with the fate of the world, even if he doesn’t always trust his sincerity any more, and it doesn’t take much more convincing before he agrees. After all, it’s Rachel. If there was anybody worth becoming human for, it’s her.

****

Cassie, the real mastermind behind the plan, is the person who gets Rachel into position. Tobias is sure it didn’t take much work: all Cassie would have to do was show a slight, begrudging interest in the mall and Rachel would have towed her downtown before the former girl had time to blink. Tobias has nobody to force him into position except himself, and even as he walks around the crowded mall a part of him wants to turn back. The feeling of clothes against human skin is oddly unsettling, and he’s aware of people giving him strange looks as he forgets not to glare. Underneath the uncomfortable feeling of being human again, there’s a deeper fear; a base instinct that every guy faces when they’re going to meet a gorgeous girl completely out of their league who they are smitten with.

Tobias catches sight of Cassie and Rachel standing outside a boutique that is having a sale. Tobias can’t tell exactly what is going on – he’s blind in this form, he really is – but it doesn’t take much imagination to assume Rachel wants to go in and Cassie really, really does not. He knows for a fact the shorter girl was wearing that exact outfit when he saw her three days ago. For one overwhelming moment Tobias wants to run; dash away and hide in the bathroom where he can demorph and get out. But then sunlight catches Rachel’s hair and he sees how passionate her face is, eyes shining and mouth curved upwards and he remembers Jake’s worry and he stays.

(For her, anything.)

<Cassie. I’m to your right.>

Cassie looks around immediately and beams. Rachel follows her glance and stops mid-gesture, her face registering nothing but shock. Tobias walks casually up to them, feeling his face heat at the intensity of Rachel’s stare.

“Hi Tobias!” Cassie calls happily. Rachel’s hands flop to her sides.

“Hi, guys.” His human voice sounds strange, to him, but he’s the only one who flinches slightly. “I… uh…” He looks at Rachel who is staring at him with wide-eyes. Her silence is unnerving.

“What a surprise!” Cassie chirps, and she’s so obvious that Rachel turns to glare at her. “Well, since this coincidence happened I’m going to run to meet my mom who is coincidentally shopping downstairs and I’m going to head home. Bye now!”

“Cassie-!” Rachel starts to hiss, but Cassie darts away quickly before she can get another word out, disappearing into the streaming crowd effortlessly. Rachel turns to Tobias and folds her arms. “You guys set me up.”

“It’s not like that,” he tells her, nervous as her eyes narrow. “It’s nothing…”

“What. Is. Going. On.”

“I…” he’s stuttering, suddenly, wishing he’d asked for more details on how to do this, wishing being human came with an instruction manual. “Willyougooutwithme?” he asks in a rush, and then wants the ground to swallow him whole.

Rachel blinks at him, anger melting away. “What?”

“I wanted… I came here to ask… if you would… um… want to… go… to… a movie… or… a park… or… something… with… me…”

Rachel is staring at him again, and he can feel his skin crawling. This is so much easier as a bird. So much easier.

“I… Oh.” She’s quiet and suddenly uncrossing her arms, looking meeker and so much younger than he remembers. “I…” She starts blushing and something funny happens in Tobias’ stomach. “I’d really like that… We could… just go flying, you know?”

So much easier as a bird. But that’s not the point. Easier isn’t always better. “Nope. No morphing, today. Today is a Normal Saturday. Just you, the girl Rachel, taking me, the awkward dork Tobias, out on a pity date.”

He knows her well enough to catch the absolute happiness that sparks in her eyes at his words. She loves flying, he knows. She loves flying with him even more. But she’s still human, and Jake is right – she needs to remember and hold on. Suddenly, her fingers grip his and he jumps.

“It’s not a pity date,” she says forcefully. “Not even anything close. I’m… thank you. For asking me.”

He holds her hand tight as they head toward the cinema.

*****

In the end, the date doesn’t really fill Jake’s requirements of ‘no mention of the war’. It’s not a conscious decision Tobias makes, but five minutes into the movie, his hand still clutching Rachel’s, the main supporting actor comes on. It takes another three for Rachel to lean over and whisper exactly what he’s thinking.

“That guy so reminds me of Visser Three!”

The supporting actor is the comic relief in the movie, and so the things “Visser Three” says and does… It isn’t long before the two of them are in stitches, unable to breathe as they take the movie scenes and apply them to their own lives. Suddenly, the leader of the Yeerk invasion couldn’t be more hilarious and less dangerous to them. Rachel actually starts crying in mirth as the lookalike in the movie proclaims he’s going to ‘fulfil the plan using rubber ducks’. She presses her lips to Tobias’ shoulder to hold in her laughter, and all he can feel is the heat of her breath and the thudding of his own heart.

He almost forgets about the morphing time limit. Strangely, it’s Rachel who reminds him. But as he gets up to go to the bathroom, her grip on him tightens and for a second he’s scared she’s going to force him to stay, as she’d tried to do at the dance. He looks back at her with a pounding heart and finds she has her grin plastered all over her face.

“Morph here,” she whispers.

“What?”

“Come on! The place is practically empty, and it’s dark.” Her grin widens. “I dare you.”

Tobias glances around and finds that, including them, there are seven people in the cinema. Apparently, this movie isn’t very popular at all. And all five other people are sitting in rows beneath them…

“This is crazy,” he whispers to her.

“You sound like Marco. Come on. You’re on a date with me. How could you not think we weren’t going to do something daring?”

He has to concede that point to her. Rachel has never been the type of girl to do anything quietly and normally. Tobias glances down once more and then takes off his Tshirt one-handed. Rachel let’s go of his wrist and lets out a low catcall that makes him blush from his neck to his ears.

“Jake is going to kill us,” he laughs.

“What my cousin doesn’t know won’t kill him,” Rachel says flippantly, and he knows this sort of daring is partially to flip Jake off.

“Do you… have to watch?” He’s so embarrassed he feels like he’s giving off the heat of a sun.

Rachel’s teeth gleam in the darkness. “Am I making you nervous?” she teases.

“Yes.” The answer blurts out before he can stop it.

Her smile turns gentler, and she looks away. “I’ll keep an eye on the happy couple and the threesome down there. You just morph.”

He strips down to his morphing gear, hoping nobody will catch him half-naked, let alone half-bird, and then begins to morph. Back in Red-Tail form, he nips at Rachel’s hair playfully and makes her laugh. Then he morphs back, gets dressed, and links his hand with hers again.

“That was fun,” he says dryly, trying to tease her.

“I thought so,” Rachel replies, waggling her eyebrows at him.

She laughs at his expression – when did he start making those, again, without having to think about it? – before putting her head on his shoulder. Instinctively, without thinking about it at all, Tobias kisses her forehead.

****

They walk to her house together, hands still firmly linked as though they were born that way. The uncomfortable, itchy feeling has left Tobias’ chest, somewhat, and his clothes no longer feel like lead weights. Rachel seems lighter beside him than she’s been in a while. It’s as though they reached a compromise; he’ll be okay human as long as they’re almost-flying together. They speak about stupid things – things he’s heard teenagers prattle on about and has always ignored. For the first time ever he hears about her favourite childhood books and movies, about the puppy she’d had when she was eight, about her once-dream of being a fire-fighter. He tells her inconsequential little things about himself: his taste in music, his favourite vacation when he was younger, the greatest time in the morning to go flying.

They reach her house too quickly, somehow, and her hand tightens around his. They stand and stare at the door for a long while, linked and suddenly nervous. As though as soon as they let go of each other’s hand they’ll fall right down the twisted rabbit hole again. As though reality can be held at bay as long as they are together, like that, and refusing to do more than hint at the fact that he is not happy human but not entirely ready to give it up and she is more than begrudgingly ready to become a bear that rips and tears and draws blood.

The front door opens and Jordan sticks her head out. “Mom says stop sneaking around and bring him inside to say hello.” She gives Tobias a wide smile that has something sneaky about it.

Rachel groans. “You are more than welcome to leave. I’ll make up a story of some sort.”

To his immense surprise, Tobias finds himself shaking his head. “No, it’s okay. I’ll… come say hi. It’s polite, right?”

Rachel blinks at him again but then turns and leads him inside. He can’t quite catch her expression, but there’s something soft and glowing about it and it makes him feel warm and accomplished inside. They step into the kitchen and everything is replaced with awkwardness and fear; why had he agreed to go and meet her mother? Sensing his panic, Rachel puls him along more firmly until they half stumble into the living room. Instantly, both of them freeze; Tom is standing right in front of them, close and looming and not looking very friendly. For one heart-stopping moment, both of them think the same thing: it’s all over.

And then Jake is suddenly barrelling into Tom, saying something loud and younger-brother obnoxious, putting himself between his brother and his teammates in a way that is, hopefully, only obvious to them. Tobias lets himself breathe.

“Jake, Tom, would you two please behave. We’re not at home,” Jake’s mom says wearily from the sofa. “Tom started it,” Jake says immediately, causing Tom – Tom’s Yeerk – to throw a peanut at his brother in response.

All part of the act. Jake ducks half-heartedly and casts a look at Tobias and Rachel. Seeing them recovering and not about to do something stupid like morph in front of everybody, he allows himself to return to a chair beside where his parents are sitting.

“Hi, Aunt Jean. Uncle Steve,” Rachel says brightly. Her grip on Tobias’ hand loosens from deathly to normal. “So glad you guys came to visit!”

“We decided we needed to get the boys out the house,” Steve laughs, playing it off as a joke. There’s a tenseness to Jake and Tom’s jaws that tells Tobias it’s no joking matter. “And we realized we haven’t really said hi to you lot in a while.”

Rachel forces a smile and then tugs Tobias forward slightly. “Everybody, this is Tobias. He’s uh…” Both of them suddenly realize they’re still holding hands. They let go so quickly, it’s as though they’ve been shocked. There’s a snort of laughter and it takes a slow moment for Tobias to realize it came from Jake, who is now hiding his grin in his soda.

“It’s very nice to meet you, Tobias.” He shakes Naomi’s hand and stutters his greeting back, suddenly sure that Rachel’s mom would be able to take him on in a staring contest even in hawk form. “Please, come and sit down. Help yourself to biscuits. And then you can tell us all about yourself.”

“Mom,” Rachel hisses, and there’s red on her face.

Her mother simply smiles and sits back down and Tobias is reminded that she’s a lawyer, and a damn good one. He and Rachel sit down on an ottoman, legs and elbows brushing, and he awkwardly takes a soda Jordan hands him. She’s still smiling at him in that I’m-pleased-to-meet-you-I-hope-Mom-doesn’t-eat-you sort of way, and it’s making him highly uncomfortable.

“I’m Jordan,” Jordan tells him, sticking out her hand. He nearly chokes on his soda in his haste to try and shake hands and be normal don’t screw up be normal.

“Right! Sorry!” Rachel says quickly. “Introductions aren’t done. Uh… That’s my youngest sister, Sara, on the carpet,” Sara waves distractedly, too busy with whatever picture she’s vigorously colouring, “My Aunt Jean and Uncle Steve, my cousin Tom,” she grits the words out, “and you know Jake.” Jake gives him a little wave.

“Oh, do you go to the same school as Jake and Rachel?” Jean asks, handing Tobias the plate of biscuits with a smile. Jake has her colour eyes, and it’s startling to see them smiling and happy and carefree.

“I used to,” Tobias says truthfully. “I just know him because he and Rachel spend so much time together,” Jake says out of the blue, and Rachel actually chokes on her soda.

Both of them gape at Jake, who simply gives them an innocent look in return. He’s enjoying it. Naomi’s eyebrows are raised almost to her hairline and Jordan is hiding a giggle.

“Yeah, double dating with you and Cassie is so much fun,” Rachel shoots back, and Jake’s look turns mortified.

“Cassie? Michelle’s kid?” Jean turns to her son with a delighted look and Jake looks like he wants to disappear into the sofa cushions.

“They’re adorable,” Rachel rubs in, smiling sweetly at the look Jake shoots her.

“Awww, Midget’s in wuv. Are you going to start writing sappy poems about how you’ll die for her, Jake?” Tom sniggers and it’s supposed to be the Yeerk teasing but it sends shivers of alarm down Tobias’ spine. Jake is suddenly stony-faced and rigid, his hands clenched too tightly around the can. The air turns completely tense.

“Ha ha,” Rachel says quickly. “It’s so fun to tease Jake about my friends he barely knows.” It’s flat and forced and tense, but it seems to placate Tom.

“Ha. I knew it. There’s no way you could ever get a girlfriend.” Jake doesn’t rise to the bait; he still looks far too tense for it to be natural.

The adults start talking, seemingly picking up on the atmosphere subconsciously, and Tom starts fiddling with a handheld gaming system. Jake relaxes a little and looks over to Rachel. Tobias sees her give him a face out of the corner of his eye. He shakes his head and gives a little shrug, accepting her apparent apology. Tobias leans back with a biscuit and does what he does best: observe. It’s obvious that Jake’s parents and Rachel’s mom are not very close at all, but that they still respect each other and like each other somewhere deep down. It’s even more obvious that that sort of related-but-not-close has changed, somewhat, when it comes to Jake and Rachel. They’re still not the best of friends, they still don’t see eye-to-eye about a lot of things, but they know each other – know each other’s hearts and motives, the darkest and the best of one another. They trust each other, even when they know they shouldn’t. They’re not cousins, they’re not friends, but they are their own twisted, complicated, possibly unhealthy brand of close in a way that nobody can explain. So when Jake goes to refill his mother’s and aunt’s glasses with more juice, Rachel reaches out secretly to touch his hand as he passes. He pats her, once, on the shoulder, they share a look, and everything is okay.

Tobias excuses himself to the bathroom an hour later, undresses, demorphs and remorphs. Jake is watching the door, slightly tense, when he comes back, but as soon as they lock eyes Jake relaxes and pays more attention to what Jordan is telling him. Tom is in a corner, absorbed by his handheld game. Naomi, Steve and Jean are in a deep conversation and Rachel is on the ground beside Sara, helping her littlest sister colour in. She looks soft and glowing, sprawled across the mat and clutching crayons of purple and orange, seriously contemplating what colour to make Snow White’s new dress. Something curls across Tobias’ chest as he watches them and he braces himself for the feeling that he used to get when confronted with these scenes: unwanted.

But then Rachel looks up, smiles at him, and beckons him to the carpet and Sara seriously charges him with colouring in the trees and the flowers and the grass, if he has time and if he can stay in the lines, and Jake is suddenly laughing at Jordan’s joke and Naomi is asking if he wants to stay for supper and… it’s good.

Honestly, lying on plush carpet with Rachel leaning onto him and Sara delightedly praising his colouring skills, not even the Yeerk in the corner of the room can make him think seriously of the war. He still isn’t completely comfortable, and he’ll still be happy to be a hawk once more but the happiness will not be tinged with relief, as though the day was a chore he’d been forced to go through.

  The city is big and alive around them--and that is, of course, magic in and of itself. Grantaire holds his deck of cards out, eyeing the blonde man before him, a length of hair that would look spectacular braided tied the base of his skull, the hairs brushing against the skin of his neck.

“The closer you look,” he explains with all the showmanship he can bring out of his chest, shuffling his cards in careful geometric shapes, “the less you actually see.”

(It’s true for a lot of things, a mantra in and of itself for him. If you just look at this magic trick, for instance, you’d miss the old woman walking across the street, faking a limp, which isn’t that hard to tell if you’d just look at how she scurried across the crosswalk.

But if you’re just paying attention to that, well then you’d miss the traffic congestion around the Square--

But he digresses.)

“So pick a card, when I flip through them,” which he does, the edges of the cardstock buzzing against his fingertips. “Wait--that was a bit faster than I intended, let me try that for you again.” The blonde rolls his eyes but focuses on the cards and they buzz again--a careful count, pausing just so on the seven of diamonds, imperceptibly paused, and that will be the gentleman’s downfall.

“Now let me ask you,” and a blonde brow arches, “do you see your card?”

He flips through it again before fanning it out for him to see--and the blonde shakes his head, blinking at the deck. And then Grantaire grins, tossing the cards into the air even as the building behind him lights up with the seven of diamonds, earning him cheers and raucous applause.

The blonde grins at him and asks, “are you going to need help picking those up?”

(The answer is yes, but they end up leaving the deck there, which is fine--he has plenty. There are things more worth his time.)

Grantaire, currently, is considering sucking on the blonde’s tongue--name, what, Enjolras, right--and they’re pulling at each other’s clothes as they fall back onto his sofa. It’s not an attractive sofa, really patchy, which is fine by him and he thinks he would be embarrassed by it if it were someone else.

But it’s not, it’s Enjolras, apparently naturally suspicious but also appreciative of his art. “If I ask you how you did it, you’ll just tell me ‘trade secret’,” Enjolras laughs, low and appreciative as his eyes skim along the skin bared by Grantaire’s shirt as it comes flying over his head, dropped to the side of the couch unceremoniously. He lifts his hand to press two fingers to the side of Grantaire’s jaw, and Grantaire tips his head back obediently so Enjolras can scrape his teeth across the skin there, test the flesh with little bites that will be visible in the morning. “Won’t you?”

Grantaire can feel his own pulse hot in his veins, prickling the hairs on his arms. “That’s debatable,” he breathes, loosening Enjolras’ hair from the tail it’s in, pulling his fingers through it slowly, tugging lightly on knots where sweat caught and tangled it. “Because depending on how you woo me, I could tell you--but do you really want it spoiled for you?”

He watches Enjolras’ eyelids flutter as he pulls gently on his hair, leaning upward to brush their noses against one another, keeping his lips just out of kissing distance.

“Oh,” he breathes, rolling his hips up against Grantaire’s with something of a whine (and it sounds almost desperate; Grantaire grins, a flash of white, before running his tongue along his teeth). Enjolras’ eyes follow Grantaire’s hand as it’s withdrawn, follows the yellow strands caught around his fingers, before trailing his own fingers down across Grantaire’s bared chest and toward the waistband of his jeans. “I assume that you intended me to pick that card, and then--ah--bribed someone?”

Long fingers pop the button on his jeans, brush over newly bare hipbones almost reverently, and Enjolras looks up at Grantaire with an expression that is half challenge, half expectence.

“Trade secret,” he says, and Enjolras almost laughs, he can see it in the twitch of his lips. “But yeah, basically. You’re something else, you know?”

And he wants to say that most people aren’t that perceptive, too busy focusing--he wants to say maybe we should move to the bed, because a lay this good needs to be remembered. But his eyes catch sight of a card on an endtable, not centered anywhere in particular. It sits inside a trainer he’d left sitting there, the sole of the shoe probably not clean enough to put atop that table.

“Though me,” he quickly amends, caught between the urge to hold Enjolras against his hips and grab for the card in his shoe while shoving him off, “I’m not much--I’m riddled with startling bouts of impotence, much like now.” He tries for a charming grin, watching as amusement and incredulity sit on Enjolras’ sharp features. “For which I apologise. I won’t be able to deliver much tonight.”

Enjolras props himself up on his elbows, his hair a mess over his shoulder and cascading down his back, and his lips twitch again, though it’s difficult to tell if it’s in amusement or disappointment. “That’s a shame,” he murmurs, with a pointed glance at where their hips are still matched, though he lowers his bent legs, which had been caging Grantaire in possessively, to free him for movement. Without waiting for Grantaire to get up, he shifts around him, sits up, and he has to be aware of the way the muscles in his back move, with the way he stretches and rolls his shoulders back, but he just reaches to straighten his shirt and stand, hesitating only momentarily as he passes Grantaire, an invitation for Grantaire to change his mind.

“Just you wait,” Grantaire murmurs to his back and Enjolras pauses again. “I’ll magic your number into my phone, I guarantee it.”

A laugh, quiet and glorious, is cut short by the door, even as Grantaire reaches for the card in his trainer, hating it but boiling with curiosity, vowing that he’ll burn it, maybe, if it wasn’t worth this wait.

March 29th, it reads, 2:00pm. The address is scribbled beneath it in the same white script, a street in New York City.

Correction, he supposes. If this isn’t worth the wait--the rejection he’d had to give, that stupid excuse, he’ll punch this asshole personally.

(But if it is worth it, then who knows?)

-

The cafe isn’t too crowded, but it’s crowded enough to cover his voice when he speaks to his guests--the the man and wife before him, the woman already hypnotised (a malleable mind but a strong spirit, something to admire), the husband standing to the right, looking fond, but absent.

Bahorel already knows everything he needs to, if not the specific details.

“And, awake,” he says with a snap of his fingers, and the woman snaps awake, her short hair brushing against the line of her jaw. He reaches into his back pocket, casting a quick glance at her husband, pulling his wallet from his pocket and freeing a twenty-dollar bill. “If you can say your name, I’ll give you this bill.” The woman smiles, her round cheeks dimpling with it. But her tongue sticks to the back of her teeth and she looks at her husband with a hushed laugh.

The man smiles indulgently--as he would at a child, and Bahorel furrows his brows.

“If you can take this out of my hands,” and her attention comes back to him, “I’ll double it.” The woman reaches, her brown eyes bright with focus, and her laced fingers reach forward, but don’t separate--and she chuckles again, feet stuck in place where she stands. “Give me one sec, all right, I’m just going to tend to your hubby for a second.”

The man pales and shakes his head, “no, really, I’m fin--” but his wife arches a brow, participate etched in the lines of her face, and he sighs, long-suffering. “Okay.”

“Seems to me, sir, you’ve recently been away on business.” His left eye twitches and he smiles. It’s tight. “Florida?” Right eye, tighter smile. “I’d recommend New Orleans myself, but that’s just because I’m a man who loves his home--now, looks like this business was of the older variety, a little scandalous.”

The husband’s cheeks pale before going bright red, “now, I don’t know what you’re--”

“Secretary?” Jaw sets, eyes flicker to his wife, “oh no, sir, you didn’t. Her sister? Amanda?” His pupils blow and his nostrils flare, “no, Abigail.”

Recognition blossoms over the wife’s face, her cheeks going red is displeasure. She pulls at the hypnotism, still stuck in place. But her will is slamming against it, and Bahorel looks to her and says, “sleep,” snapping his fingers. She goes limp, still held upright. “Okay, mon ami, we’re going to do business, really quick. If you want her to forget about this little party we just had, give me your wallet.”

The flush on the man’s face crawls toward his graying hair, “You’re a swindler.”

“Effectively,” he says brightly, holding out his hand, curling his fingers purposefully. Leather touches his palm and he opens the bifold, combing through it. “Two hundred sound good? Ah, no, you spent more than that on your business trip so I’ll just grab an extra fifty here. Shitty president, Grant, but looks good on money, doesn’t he?” The husband isn’t pleased with him. He’ll be even less pleased with this next bit.

He shoves his palm against the man’s ribs, activating the trick word he’d used at the beginning of this trick, “for my next act of benevolence, we’re going to mess around in your brainpan. From here on out, if you so much as think of another woman, you’re going to picture our friend Ulysses S. Grant naked,” he pops the man on the forehead and he blinks. “It’s not pretty, dude was a little excessive in his consumption of alcoholic delicacies, dragged out the skin in places we don’t want to think about do we? I would have suggested me, obviously but--hello, out of your league.”

The husband grimaces, whether trying out Bahorel’s mental cockblock or insulted on an emotional level, it’s hard to tell.

“Now, for the closer.” He snaps his fingers and the wife wakes up again, fingers unlaced, blinking slowly. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but some people just can’t be hypnotised. We did all we could but, it happens.”

“Did I do something wrong?” Ferocity blazes on her face--she’d fix it, if she could. He places a hand on her shoulder and guides her toward her husband.

“No,” he assures her, “you’re just too strong for me.”

She grins, dimpling her cheeks again, and walks away, arm in arm with her husband. He begins to pack up, folding away his easel--and a tarot card lies atop the table where his poster rests. He flips it over, whistling lowly.

March 29th, it reads, 2:00pm, an address added for easier access.

Eh, he supposes, never hurts to be adventurous.

-

If there’s anything Cosette’s learned from her time as a magician’s assistant, it’s that a woman’s legs can literally drive a crowd wild.

It’s not that she particularly enjoys being objectified, or that she likes the way the men in her audience (most of her audience, really) look at her like she’s something to eat, but she definitely enjoys knowing that she’s got them eating out of the palm of her hand when she’s showing some skin and wearing a pair of impractical heels.

(Heels she learned to navigate by walking up and down fire escapes in the city between shows, because if you can manage a fire escape, you can manage a stage.)

“When that timer hits zero,” she calls out, positioning herself just so, her legs parted enough that she can give everyone a good view of the stiletto heels, the fitted jeans, and when she lifts her arm to gesture to the timer above her, the stripe of skin visible between the waistband of her jeans and her top, “the tank above me will open to release all of those flesh-eating piranhas.” The noise of the crowd is overwhelming, and she basks in it, knows that she glows at having them watch her like this, because really, it’s only a matter of time now before they absolutely worship her.

She pops the button on her jeans and peels them off her legs in a manner that lets them know that she knows exactly why they’re here, pulls the fitted, buttoned vest away to reveal a two-piece bathing suit--and she leaves the heels exactly where they are, smirking a little behind the curtain of hair that falls around her face when she leans forward to collect her jeans.

Fuck your magician’s assistant outfits, she thinks, before standing and handing her clothes to one of her assistants, a man dressed in all black to look like a stagehand, because she’ll be damned if she’s letting anyone else even attempt to be the center of attention right now.

The other assistant accepts her proffered wrists and secures the manacles around them, offering her a quirk of his lips into a smile when she crows, “A girl’s gotta have a pair of handcuffs, am I right, ladies?”

When she’s prepared--cuffed and chained around her ankles and wrists, she takes a deep breath, grins at the audience, and jumps.

The ticking of the timer is all too familiar and all too urgent, and she makes a show of struggling with her cuffs, tugging and looking almost helpless, and she can feel every single person there turn from hungry spectator to hero-in-training just waiting to jump in and save the girl. (She almost wants to tell them to give it a shot.) When her own mental count hits about twenty-seven she bangs her hands against the glass of the tank, writhing and looking up in panic, a bubble of air escaping her opened mouth, and, just as she expected, someone goes running for the hatchet her team is holding, slams it against the tank (the tank won’t break, what is this asshole even thinking? Luckily, exactly what she’d expected he’d think. Desperation makes for a great show.)

She flinches when the hatchet comes in contact with the glass, goes back to tugging at her handcuffs and thrashing around. As per usual her timing is perfect; she frees herself and swims to the surface just in time to take a deep breath and tip her head back before letting out a scream.

Then the tank above her opens and everything’s red from there.

The tank is red, the water is red, the space around her is red red red and the audience falls silent with a sort of horror, small murmurs breaking out in patches, and then

“This is bullshit!”

They turn, one by one, to find the source of the criticism.

“What kind of sick fuck does something like that?” and then Cosette grins, impishly, her clothes dripping wet, her vest and jeans back on (and the real magic is in pulling on a pair of soaked skinny jeans in under twenty seconds while wearing shoes, thank you very much) and her hair tangled and dripping around her shoulders. She shrugs and curtseys, still grinning, the rush and thrill of the show coursing through her body like electrical impulses. She lives for this.

It’s not until after the show, when the water’s cleared and she’s got a towel wrapped around her shoulders to guard her dry clothes from her soaking hair, that she sees it, the Tarot card floating in the water.

March 29. 2:00pm. The address is familiar--she knows New York like the back of her hand.

She pauses, smiles softly, presses her palm to the glass of the tank. One of the fish darts away; she doesn’t notice, she just stares at the card until she’s burned it into her memory.

-

It smells a little bit like saltwater--like brine and seagulls and beachy-sand, though it’s a river, and the bay is over yonder, out of reach of the ferry. Garbage barges (garbarges? he tries and then frowns--no one will take him seriously if he thinks stuff like that) pace between the city and the bay.

It’s a wonder, he thinks, as he pushes past the people to the top deck clearing his throat in preparation to shout, that the briny-smell isn’t a garbage-smell. But that’s irrelevant to the task at hand and he calls out, “Whoever can tell me how this trick is done gets a hundred dollars!” That stops the milling about, the hiding in shirt collars.

A thin man, pale enough to have come from his mother’s basement (which isn’t a bad thing, in and of itself--after all, look at that watch he’s got--a Rolex?) is watching closely. Marius bites back a smile, people get suspicious about those, because he’s found the man for his closer.

He pulls out the spoon. The fake bits are in his back pocket. He’s quick, that’s his game. “I’m going to bend this normal spoon with my mind,” he says in all seriousness. He passes it around just to confirm that it is, in fact, a real spoon.

(He’d taken it from a restaurant, on accident, when he was four years old--he’d been too ashamed to tell anyone, and so here it is, so many years later. His punchline.

He thinks the spoon appreciates this destiny more than it would have has a utensil.)

The spoon makes its way back into his hands and he holds it parallel to the floor upon which he stands, curling his fingers around the face of the spoon. And he concentrates. He strains the tendons in his neck, just so. His hand shakes, his arm trembles with the force of his dedication to this act--

The spoon begins to bend.

(The fake spoon is in place, the force his thumb is putting on the metal bending it--no magic involved. The real magic happens later.)

Once it bends, once his face is dripping sweat, he holds it up in triumph. “Pass that around,” he grins, and the spoon goes around as people talk in awe. But the basement-dweller comes forward, as expected and reaches into his back pockets.

And he comes away with the fake spoon. “Look, it’s fake!” He says.

(Marius wants to laugh--it is fake, but not in the right way, not in the way he’s thinking--oh well.)

The spoon makes it back into his possession and he tucks it away to bend back into shape later. “You owe him a hundred,” people murmur or yell--it doesn’t really matter how loudly they say it. He pulls out his wallet and sighs, pulling his mouth into displeasure. “You’ve got a keen eye, my friend,” he grumbles.

He hands over the money and tucks his own wallet away. His fingers brush over the smooth skin of the man’s wrist and the watch comes undone in his hand. Basement-man shoves into him, irritable and arrogant and his wallet sticks to Marius’ palm.

(Oops he thinks but doesn’t mean as he trots past people, down the steps and toward the dock--)

“Hey--hey, stop him, he’s got my wallet!”

Marius pulls up the collar of his jacket (he needs to find a new venue for this kind of stuff or the moisture will ruin this jacket and it’s his only leather one) and pushes away, disappearing from sight and leaving the shouting behind him as he curls around, dropping to the soft sand of the riverbank.

He roots through the man’s wallet--no credit cards for him, but eh, a solid four hundred dollars and a nice watch. He tosses away the leather wallet--bifold--and pockets the money and the watch--but--

There’s stiff cardstock in his pocket, brushing against his knuckles, and he tugs it out, leaving the money and the watch behind in his jeans. Death, the Tarot card reads. On the back, beneath a stenciled eye, March 29th, 2:00pm is scripted in white, with a New York address. He thinks he might have pulled a small show there once, or at least close by.

He grins at the card. This could be it for him--this could be his crowning achievement.