A Few Self-Indulgent Scenes with Edmund

[illicitresearch]

Who: Zexion & Edmund Pevensie
Where/When: City of Ariel (Pre-Reboot), A Fussy "Prudish" Tearoom on a Chilly Late Afternoon
Warnings: Foodporn, Footsie, All that underaged sex good stuff that comes from a heavily aphro'd game context.


The end of Zexion's nose was still a fierce shade of pink by the time he finally shed his outer layers and unwound his scarf, and it still felt colder than the rest of his face, prompting the habitual rubbing between service as the tea parlous maids bustled about, shooting disapproving looks and tutting and gaping in wide-eyed disapproval at couples fondling each other beneath the twee tables as if that were actually a scandalous offense.

It was all tongue-in-cheek play, of course, and that in itself was marvelous people-watching entertainment, if not for the spoils of his own present company. Upon Edmund's arrival, he held up his own shrunken cup from its saucer with sly guilt playing at the corners of his mouth, along with a rich brown smear that he licked away with far less sublety than was proper, shrugging.

"I know, I know, skipping tea for drinking chocolate's a right punishable offense by your sensibilities,"  He surrendered, easing his shoulderblades back against the parlour chair and setting his cup back down. "But alas, it tempted me, I simply couldn't help myself."

The array of sweets seemed unfairly delectable today too, three tiers of crispy, fudgey and chewy, ganache truffles oozing caramel and delicately half-dipped rolled wafers, rich two-bite black forest cakes and other attractive morsels rolled in crushed nuts and candied peel.

Comments

[just_edmund]

Edmund, upon such ceremonious arrival, chuckled and slid into the upholstered chair facing Zexion, still bedecked in scarf and sweater (though his coat had been shed at the door) and a vigorous rosiness to cheeks and nose, as befit any good Englishman. Of all the places to get a warm cup in town, this was certainly the most intriguing. Scrupulously mannered to all appearances, and an authentically appetizing menu of brews and bonbons to tempt the palate, yet the appeal of the forbidden was almost maddening at times.

"It happens to the best of us," he said with a benevolent grin, like a friendly priest doling out dispensation to his penitent parishioner for a rather innocuous confession. Coy tongue notwithstanding. Zexion was always so neat, how did that little bit of liquid bedew his face? "What is it about chocolate that seems so heartening in this weather?"

Tea was cozy, to be sure, but a mug of warm cocoa simply made all things better no matter how fierce the blizzard or bitter the wind. He reached eager for the empty cup on his side of the table, and the elegant little pitcher full of steaming chocolate. The sweets would simply have to wait a moment. "Quite a feat, coming out in this weather. I would suspect you of cheating with a Corridor, but your nose is plenty evidence to the contrary." A sly look and a hint of a wink over his first sip (ahhh heavenly), for he knows his own nose is even pinker if possible, and he has no such measures as Corridors at his disposal.

[illicitresearch]

It still felt odd to trade out his usual leather and zippers for the big burnished-brass buttons of a woolen navy peacoat, but Genesis had bought it for him this season, so he made a point of wearing it out. It was warm, and looked sharp enough to make a new staple, although Zexion often found himself fiercely missing a hood while standing around on corners waiting for trollies.

He unwrapped himself from one outer cucoon and draped it tidily over the back of his chair, only to reveal more layers, tugging down his sweater-sleeves with a bit of trouble as his scarf slipped to the floor. Doubling forward with a soft snort to pluck it up, he fumbled it into his lap and then immediately huddled his hands into the deep pockets of a chunkily-knit cardigan. Zexion wore an even more snugly-fit pullover vest beneath that, but no pressed shirt collar folded down over the neckline...if he was going to get a sound scolding for wearing waffleweave long johns a little bit exposed in public, this would be the place to do it. He had a certain longing for cozyness and after a point, simply didn't care anymore, who thought a button down would be more appropriate beyond one's living room.

"Heartening? Guess I wouldn't know." Zexion quipped right back, bone dry and eyelids lowered. He gave a lower, curmudgeonly grumble at mention of the corridors, hands slipping from his pockets to tuck across his stomach and under each elbow, pinned tightly at his sides.

"Don't do much travel by corridor these days." He replied silkily, half-hoping that this particular update made it's way back to Riku's ears. Edmund was an intuitive go-between where it counted, where there were small inklings of promise about a Nobody's gentle progress. "The smell gets to me." Zexion added, nose crinkling with a light sniff. "...And it's not healthy, really, for the world or anyone, even little bits of exposure. You know that. I can certainly stand to suffer a bit of nippy weather like the rest of you?"

Besides, it gave him something conivial to bitch about, if nothing else. He curled his toes within his boots, squirming in his seat to fully resume some sort of comfortable posture.

"Bittersweet chocolate's good for terrible weather though." He tapped his left temple with a half-volume voice and returned wink. "Better for jolly brain chemistry than the chips....Or perhaps enhancing them?" A meaningful look of warning, although he smirks in a wicked sort of way and finally dances his fingers back around the delicate china cup handle, raising it slightly in cheers. "We'll have to see just how cruel this place is on their poor half-frozen patrons today, I suppose."

[just_edmund]

It was a good look for Zexion; softer, human. Edmund couldn't quibble with the trade of hard leather for warm wool and thick knits. Even, perhaps, a bit jealous of how easily Zexion wore the comfortable cocoons of fabric. Even the softest cotton blend of button-down was still a button-down, inescapable as some conventions were. He stared a little enviously, and daydreamed about how nice it would be on the trolley ride home to cozy up to Zexion's side and share in some of the snugging layers.

"Er..." The pun had been unintentional this time. Edmund looked a trifle embarrassed. "You do know that talking to you is like talking to a blind man - inevitably every other sentence comes out with a reference to sight." He grinned ruefully and took another sip. "I suppose we are both abstaining, then. I'll take biting cold over soul-consuming voids." It was good to hear Zexion growing more solidly human, less set on a Nobody's path. It might even find its way indeed to Riku's ears. "You should try Nico's shadow-traveling sometime. It's quite different. There's nothing unhealthy about it in the slightest. If we can coax you over some day, it might be a fun afternoon."

He chuckled and tipped his head back, cup raised in return. "Chocolate does seem a surer source of pleasure than the legendary oyster. Surely the Pearl can't deny us such innocent delights." He put the porcelain rim to his lips. Warm molten sweetness flowed there, orgasmically satiating voluptuous cravings of taste buds primed for just such indulgence. His eyes half-closed and dark lashes fluttered as dozens of pleasure receptors went off all at once. "Ah, this was worth braving the storm for." Beneath a sooty fringe, dark eyes peeked at Zexion across the table. "Even if we have to get creative in our jollification."

[illicitresearch]

It was a subtle enough impropriety to pass, sitting here swaddled in voluptously rounded knits, stirring the fabric absently against thee knobs of his elbows with a heavy-lidded content that hints at lazier mastubation. It's enough to draw a distracted glance or two from the other side of the room, their little alcove already on the way to becoming magnetic.

"The powers of the Underworld aren't exactly considered wholesome, by most, but I'd be curious to see what he's capable of." Zexion mused aloud, reminded of how much he still didn't really know about Nico's heretitary talents. It was probably wrong of him, to be interested in the demigod first and foremost because he was a child of Hades, but who couldn't deny that was an intriguing feature?

Zexion surpressed a grimace at the mention of oysters, rolling his tongue against the roof of his mouth- it wasn't the memory of their taste which revolted him, but the oozing afters of indulging in a particularly memorable all you can eat buffet.

"Oh, I've sworn off the ocean's bounty." He scoffed, noddding in agreement as his fingertips danced toward the truffles, spinning the middle tier toward his friend in offering. Nested in frilly paper, the rolled chocolates were sprinkled with fine pink crystals but, velvety in the middle. "Though I am still partial to Sea Salt... try the caramels." He encouraged, eyes lingering expectantly as he mouthed silently for emphasis. "Fantastic."

Of course, he could wait for Edmund to enjoy a bit of the hot drinking chocolate first, breathing in the thickness of pleasure on the air.

His brows raised, laughing a little at the thought that anything was lacking here, as far as jollifications were concerned.

"I've never shied away from creative ideas, Ed." Edging on a grin, he leaned a little closer, scooting his seat in. "In fact, I welcome your worst."

[just_edmund]

Distracted, and a few disapproving, with employees and patrons alike keeping religiously to the tenets of propriety and decorum that set the establishment apart from everywhere else in Ariel. Part of the fun was to peer about and see if you could catch another table in the act - if not of sex, at least something a little less than proper. Even elbows on the table. Zexion's surreptitious rubbing was definitely stare-worthy. Heavy-lidded, Edmund smirked at him.

"Wholesome is a relative term. Some thought Narnia was a wholesome place. The Maenads came as a pretty great shock to them." His eyes strayed to the dainty rows of desserts peeping enticingly from their little boats of paper. Perhaps just one, to start out with..."Caramel it is. No sea salt ice cream on a day like today, though." He plucked the nestled square from its mates, coarse salt sprinkled like snow on top, the tidbit looking for all the world like a honeyed Turkish Delight.

Before he could take a bite, he held it between his fingers and contemplated Zexion's challenge with a huff of laughter. "Oh, Zexion, you ask me to be creative in this city? Where eating bananas saucily is Seduction 101?" Edmund looked at him with amusement. "I could close my lips plumply around this sweetmeat and moan, and you would think me a trite hack." Delicately, he nibbled at a corner, and didn't so much moan as fully savour the blend of mapley sweetness and piquant salt, not hiding the pleasure of it from his expression.

"I could play hide-and-seek with your foot beneath the table, but that's really better without shoes, isn't it? Perhaps when our toes are warmer." His boot bumped against Zexion's ankle with a playful rub. "And the under-the-table footjob is so overplayed, don't you think? Someone's sole jammed between your thighs, indiscriminately grinding?" He bent forward to close the distance and his voice lowered to a warm hum, but there were still a few glowers tossed their way. "No, I'd rather take your socked foot in my lap and press my thumb into the arch of your instep, until it no longer keeps the ache." Edmund smiled. "An apple confection slipped between your lips, while you burrow in your layers and let the friction seep beneath your skin, deep into the flesh and bone. That might be a fair way to warm up."

[illicitresearch]

Zexion chuckled appreciatively, wishing to hear more stories from Narnia as ever, craving the saucier anecdotes just as much as the tasty bits set before them upon the table. One eye fixed flatly on Edmund, as if to accuse him of being a tease.

It was pleasant enough foreplay just to watch Edmund's fingertips pinching the soft caramel, bringing it to his lips but barely nipping at it, which was wholly unfair- he'd been looking forward to watching it roll upon his tongue, mashed sticky against the roof of his mouth, rendering his companion silent for several moments. The nibble didn't quite earn an eyeroll, which left Zexion huffing with mild impatience and sinking restlessly back against his seat. His gaze slid toward the front windows, watching the flurries spin, smiling a little in spite of their shared little torments.

"That'd get us tossed out in the cold." He warned sharply, voice lowered to something closer to a growl as Edmund spoke of indiscriminate grinding. It was one of his favorite breakfast table games to play, but here even talk of it was an indiscretion, and Edmund was hardly keeping things to a whiisper. "Don't be too crass!"

He jangled his boot a little at the ankle, stretching and wiggling cold toes as far as the layers of socks would allow him. The feeling Edmund painted with his words were stirring familiarity in him, and even though the nudge he returned was lukewarm, the tickle of a ghostlike impression against the sole of Edmund's foot was unmistakeable.

"Mind you mouth and manners." He snapped in undertone, giving a sharp cock of his head toward two nearby girls dressed in gaudy pink, high-buttoned frilly frocks and searching out treasures deep in one aothers thick petticoats. "There are ladies present!"

[just_edmund]

Edmund grinned broadly at the visible display of frustrated voyeurism. He did so love to tease. It was even better seeing Zexion take the bait. He turned the little square, minus a corner, over and around between two broad fingers.

He was playing with fire, so to speak, his lewd talk endangering their precious table in the chaste establishment. Still, he could swear Zexion was wiggling almost imperceptibly in his seat, could feel the stirring of his boot and a phantom touch on the bottom of his own foot, and it was all worth it.

Glancing at the indicated couple snuggled up together on their benchseat, which inspired no small amount of envy in his breast for multiple reasons, Edmund turned a placating eye back to Zexion and inclined his head. An eagle-eyed matron in a severe black frock and apron hovered within earshot, ready to pounce if there was any more indication of indiscriminate grinding. He coughed to cover his grin. "A thousand apologies for my crudeness," he said off-handedly to his partner in crime. "I but named the customs of this city that I surely could not dream of doing in such a fine place as this." There. That might give them a moment's breathing room.

He waited a few breathless moments until the dowager's back was turned, silently contemplating the caramel between his fingers until the precise second of safety. "Very well, I'm a trite hack, but you seem to like it," and with shameless abandon, he popped half of the morsel between his lips. He didn't have to feign enjoyment. Even as a child, he'd reveled in the plush mouthfeel of a soft gooey trifle, relishing not just the sweet taste but the indulgent pillowy texture. Such an innocent vice, he marvelled now, closing plump lips around the rounded corners, teeth sinking a bisecting line through the pliable confection. Its sugars melted across his appreciative taste buds, in no haste to swallow until he was quite done masticating.

"Hnn...mm!" This time his eyes did close, so he could probably turn the other senses to the full enjoyment of his dessert. Just for a moment, as taste and smell and feel and even the muffled swish in his ears of his tongue and jaw working wet circles within his mouth narrowed all his focus, but he couldn't resist peeking once more beneath his lashes at his mate. He took his time swallowing the bite. A crystal of coarse salt clung to his bottom lip, still wind-reddened from his walk, and he swiped at it with his tongue. "Nothing chaste about that sweet. Pure epicurean debauchery. Won't you try one?"

[illicitresearch]

Although his gaze held to the sweet between Edmund's fingers Zexion tried not to let himself become too preoccupied with memories of how that touch felt, rubbing and squeezing and plying at flesh. It did leave him longing to stretch his body wantonly, twist his spine till it made a soft pop and then curl back up into the kind of huddle that set the slightest pressures over his lap. No need for indiscriminate grinding, just yet, but a bit of warm weight would certainly feel nice.

"Alas, it seems I have a certain fondness." The sigh wrenched from his lips was restless with melancholy, and he waited it out patiently till the Pearl's watchdog had passed them by. Edmund finally stopped beating about the bush and put the caramel square in his mouth, pulled half of it free. To sit still and see him mull it over on the pink mound of his tongue was such a carnal, precarious thing that it raised goosebumps down to his elbows.

He lifted the china chocolate cup back to his lips and sipped absently without really tasting this time, enjoying instead the firm smoothness pressed against his lower lip, a swirl of enticing cocoa aromas warming the end of his nose.

Anyone who thought this was remotely chaste business wasn't opening up their senses. Zexion nodded in agreement, his smirk fuller than it's usual tense, serpentine thinness.

"With pleasure." He reached for a dainty square and took his time, mirroring Edmund's methods, if only to see if that really brought any more joy than popping it past his lips whole.

"I was seven, when I discovered the castle's spice cupboard." He reminisced after nibbling off some of the crunchy finishing crystals of off the top, still holding the rest of the morsel in its wrapping. "Since then I've always liked little savoury bites of this or that, but... a sweet tooth makes its demands, every now and then. These are incomparable, but it's good they're so small, that this place is a bit exensive... being gluttonous could be all too easy otherwise."

[just_edmund]

Probably some did come to the Pearl for honest escape from constant sensualism. Others, for the innocent pleasures of the senses that its offerings brought. And still others, for the titillation of how much they could get away with without being caught. Edmund wriggled his toes in the still-chilled leather of his boots, the last remnants of cold lingering there, and watched with interest as Zexion participated in the epicurean ritual himself. For Edmund, the thrill of voyeurism came in appreciating the purse of lips around a tasty bite, the handsome curve of a pouting pucker like Zexion's making neat inroads on the little square, the beauty of it quite separate from the perverted fantasies of shoving a cock between them. One simply didn't need that to enjoy the sight of a well-favoured mouth nibbling at danties.

Edmund smiled and swallowed the last half of caramel. "I can imagine a very tiny Ienzo, sniffing each and every tin carefully, dabbing a speck to taste, maybe even making notes about their contents. Of course, you already know my infamous sweet tooth, a vice I've had from an early age." He cast a wry look at the tiers and selected a dark chocolate round with a swirl of whipped ganache atop it. "Even sweeties that haven't been enchanted by a wicked sorceress can be sickening in excess. There is sometimes the most pleasure in very little, and diminishing returns in overabundance."

The corners of his mouth crinkled, as if to show he was neither morose nor philosophical about past mistakes in bringing up such matters. "Yet another reason to savour every tidbit to the fullest. The whole at once is over so soon. A taste at a time, the tongue dwelling on each burst of richness and sugarplum sweetness, makes the most of an indulgence."

Edmund delicately sank his teeth into the chocolate, and ah, this was heaven itself, the luscious ganache filling gracefully dancing right to the taste buds that would appreciate its bittersweet complexity. Some of the soft cream from the middle of the remaining half inevitably ended up on his lips, and the tip of his tongue played hide-and-seek with its suggestive smear, in a fashion that was neither strictly perfunctory nor gratuitously pornographic. No, he gathered it up like a maiden gathering wildflowers, purely for the joy of it without any heed for any princes who might be watching from the forest's edge and enjoying the spectacle of it. The other half joined its mate, wantonly, unhurriedly, at a pace that demonstrated exactly how much satiation could be wrung out of a single confection.

"And so," Edmund concluded, leaning back in his chair and wrapping his fingers once more around the warm mug before him, "that is why I am not entirely opposed to the art of slow savouring."

[illicitresearch]

"(I didn't make notes until later.)" Zexion insisted softly in his tidiest defense, remembering all too clearly how he'd agonized over trying to recall the spelling on those labels. He badgered the cooks with curiousity for some time after, and after months of porridge and broth and mourning, Master Ansem had sighed a breath of relief for his renaissance in tactile ways that people could see, fearing he'd be lost in his own head. Ienzo had discovered how to spice his own life up, and after that it was all a matter of exploration, translation.

He was no longer so alone with it, here and now, when it came to sticking little marvels in his mouth, letting the blissful delicacies of the world waft under his nose. Companionship sank into his deepest parts and took up residence in all the vacant space there, and it was a feeling still a little alien, for the Nobody, whenever he actually took the time to reflect upon it. Right now he wound up studying Edmund's dark lashes, the riddle of freckles dotting his fair face, the slow and candid movements of his lips.

He found himself squeezing at his elbows through the sweater again, kneading along as the muscles in their jaws rolled and stretched together, contemplating the sweets. Sighing in contented, aching unison.

Zexion found himself wanting for more to express of himself, wagging his head a little in astonishment.

"Ah," He hesitated, words tangled and half-formed, envying how simple it would be for someone like Ai to lean across the table with smotheringly soft cheek-kisses and nose bumps and Love Yous. That would all be quite off-character, coming from a schemer, emotionally reserved even when he did luxuriate in what might qualify as his passions. "Sometimes, I do wish I had some sort of affectionate remark for you that came easily to my lips."

An odd, inarticulate phrasing, and Zexion sneers at himself for voicing it, glancing down and away, bothered.

He meant to say something complimentary, instead it came out all terribly self-pitying.

His fingertips ferreted among the bottom tier for a crispy aniseed wafer, dipped in more chocolate on one end, popping it in his mouth to stall for time, brittle munching sounds ringing against his teeth and echoing between the ears. Swallowing, he lets his flustered attention fall back to Edmund and his chocolate, and this time it's Zexion who melts outwardly along with him, fondness and melancholy mingling on his brow.

To anyone else in the vicinity, the look might read as lovesick. In truth, he's just a little bit enchanted with his friend's hedonistic abandon.

"You do that so very attractively, Ed." He sighs heavy, lush with grief and ardor. "Any respectable heart should swoon to watch you partake in a pile of truffles."

[just_edmund]

It was hardly a defense at all, and Edmund chuckled under his breath. "Maybe not written ones. I can hardly imagine you even at a tender age not taking a mental catalogue of everything you try." The glimpses he'd gotten of that youngster always endeared him, intrigued his imagination about who Zexion would be now if that boy had grown up with a heart, with parents who'd cared for him, with everything he'd deserved in life.

He studied him now, the still-slight figure retreating into his folds of fabric, and grew thoughtful as Zexion's uncharacteristic lack of words grew more evident. In groping came a refreshing frankness, something uncalculated and fundamental. A fumbling at sentiment. Zexion didn't like it. Edmund tugged in contemplation at his lower lip. He did like it, clumsy and graceless as it was; maybe he liked it because of that. He bumped at Zexion's foot beneath the table.

"I don't need words from you, you know. Your time and company and friendship make life more normal for me here. That...means a great deal."

It was important for Zexion to realize just what sort of presence he represented for Edmund. A sentimental declaration could be found elsewhere; a chum he trusted with secrets both dark and light, with habits that were small but important, and with grounding rituals of his life, was a rare and precious thing. And it was important for Zexion to recognize the progress he'd made in even wanting to express his feelings. It warmed Edmund from the inside. If they were at home, he would have easily swept Zexion into his arms in a return of affection that even he could not always easily voice. Such a pity they were in a place that spoke to every custom of reserve he'd ever grown up with.

His smile is full of embrace. "Any respectable heart should take care with a King who's tasted Maenad lips." His ankle rubs a nesting place next to the other's; comfortable, congenial, unassuming. "I've tasted things no respectable man should. Witch's candy. Gods' wine. Wild, inhuman bodies. I can put on a proper face when I need to, but that's hardly the real Edmund. Perhaps living in this city has simply let more of him exist." He does not explicitly say it, but there it is: perhaps more of the real Zexion has emerged here too.

Edmund's dark eyes softened with glints of humour. "But let me know if you plan on swooning any time soon, and I shall throw down the softest truffles to break your fall."

[illicitresearch]

That little nudge against his toe was met with an almost too-eager return, desperate for the kind of expression that has no place at the table. It's the part of Zexion's physicality that's like a leaning housecat abruptly interested in attention, an eely instep wriggling underfoot, pressing beneath the sole of Edmund's shoe and riding up, bandying about his ankle.

Oh, so you're here with him? He intends to take full advantage of that.

Although Zexion is still too private and too proud to blush over being told all the ways they share significance with each other, he does need to shut his eyes a moment, hiding a bit of himself behind their lids, dipping his chin with a secretive smile to show he's heard.

The real Edmund Pevensie? On a day less bone cold out, he'd want to haul his friend out on a lawn somewhere to lie beneath the stars to thoroughly examine exactly what he means by that, the truest self. Does having a gift to read the heart and measure the quality of its darkness make it any easier to find reflection, authenticity? In any case, it's something else even more appreciable and priceless than the midafternoon spread between then.

It's interesting, to try and imagine Edmund as the grown ruler he'd become in the paradise of Narnian fields and glens. It would be hard to think any higher of him in that place, that time, than he does right now.

"I like him best this way." Zexion decides quietly yet utterly resolute, another cautious endearment slinking out into the light. "Guess I'll keep taking my chances, with the longest taste of you I can bear."

It isn't entirely meant to bring to mind the patient pace of languid kisses, but if their minds should mutually dip there, Zexion doesn't make haste to brush it away, letting the poignant silence simmer between them and grow a little frustrated for the repression game they'd signed themselves up for. In any other cafe in town, it would be perfectly right to gather a tea date up in one's lap and sink into each other in plain view of other patrons.

"Such a gent," he laughs, relaxing himself at last. "And here I was expecting feather down."

[just_edmund]

Edmund looked highly amused as he bandied about with the housepet twine of Zexion's ankle beneath the table. Such a pity about the weather and the choice of tea establishment. This gentle footsie game was just about as much as they could reasonably manage here, without truly pushing their luck. How nice it would be, though, to slip into Zexion's lap and have a few of those chunky wraps tucked about him and pet his fingers down the arching length of neck and spine while his arse made discreet inroads over spread thighs.

That, regretfully, was a pleasure that would have to wait for the trolley.

Quiet dimples welled in his cheeks and he tipped his head to look thoughtfully at the flow of fondness from Zexion's lips. "I can make do with little sips and nibbles," he quipped, sampling the hot mug of cocoa again. Temptation to abandon the warm restaurant and its cozy delights to brave the bitter cold outside grew far dimmer. His thoughts did indeed stray to the soft, brief kisses he'd shared with his companion, his oldest in Ariel, the bedmate he'd kissed perhaps the least, out of consideration for Zexion's feelings on the matter. That mouth was made for kissing, if Zexion could only see it as innocent a luxury as savouring a rich dessert.

"Feather down is later," he scolded, chuckling. "Those are lewd words here! One could get horizontal, and then things might happen." Naps, kisses, books, who knew what perversions might await them on a soft mattress.

"Ah, but there is quite a good view of the night sky from the north alcove down that hallway..." Edmund sipped angelically at his chocolate. "Exquisite taste in drapes, too. Real velvet, you'd swear, if it feels anything like it looks."

With a tip of his foot to slide into the inner curve of an ankle above the top of its boot, he nudged a coaxing morse code. Tap, rub, tap a-tap tap. "I might go see what I can of the stars, for a moment." Carefully, he arranged his unused knife and fork in a diagonal, criss-crossing pattern across his plate, trusting such a proper establishment would know the custom, and pushed his chair back. "I will be just a moment, you know..."

He hid a smile as he whisked away, trusting he would not be lingering long by himself behind those curtains.

Thread Dos: The Jolly Good Private Academy Bedfellows

[illicitresearch]

Who: Ienzo & Edmund Pevensie
Where/When: A Private Boys' Academy, 1940's England
Warnings: A slew of Boarding School Tropes, probably (Implied Fagging, Disciplinary, Peer Heirarchy) Underaged Smut


YIKES THERE'S JUST A LOT OF SETUP HERE, I'M SORRY


The term was shaping up to be considerably more hideous than last.

It wasn't even that he was in any position to be picked on, really, as the names of last year's graduates still held considerable weight, and Ienzo had been slavishly dilligent to a considerably tight ring of them. In fact, it was thoroughly unusual for a overly bright boy who passed entrance exams three years ahead of schedule to be treated as an equal among a cabal of senior students, when he certainly wasn't related by blood in any way, and was rumored to have lost both parents.

Ienzo might have been pecked at for his achievements if he'd chose to be precocious about them, but his calculated demeanor had pulled in even tighter and more cautious since the departure of his elder 'peers'. But a merciful administrator must have caught wind of trouble before summer holiday ended, because Ienzo found himself transferred to another dormitory entirely, and rooming with a fresh set of boys his "own age".

Their youth felt alarmingly alien to him. There were tears and fights and punishments inflicted on the entire dormitory forthe outbursts of one or two brats, and older students bullying them in line...

Ienzo sort of fell very aloof to it all, untouchable as he buried himself in his books, to lessons mismatched to the fellows he was rooming with, which was an added reason to be solitary. He didn't speak much, but when he did it was with all the quietly tamed authority of an adult, except on the very rare occasions when darkness winked sudden life into his eyes and something subversive crept its way past his lips, usually too subtley murmured as inward commentary for anyone to notice, but once or twice bringing a rowdy room around to dead silence and long, wary staring.

Then the new master of Religious Studies suggested to one of his blueblooded favorites that Ienzo ought to have his unruly bangs managed, which brought him into a freshly hellish, stonefaced war with an upper year who regularly pinned him down whenever he could with a visciously pointy pair of steel shears, stealing forelocks one at a time, snip by snip. His hair looked more like an assymmetrical modernist mess by the day, but Ienzo staunchly refused to have it all set sensibly, glowering through the jagged ends.

(Braig told a thousand variations of how he lost an eye, absolutely none of them true, but those scissors were beginning to give Ienzo nightmares of becoming a bald cyclops in his own struggles.)

The trees shed their leaves prematurely too, this year, and the frost came unseasonably early. School blazers, doubled kneesocks and an old woodstove set at the opposite end of an institutional row of steel bunks didn't do much to stave off chill. Ienzo spent many nights fiercely lonely and fitfully awake, shifting his knees against the sheets to generate some friction. He missed Even's scoldings and Dilan's gruff pessimism, which had proven an unsual comfort in a backwards way. He missed having stalwart Aeleus to match stride with across campus, even if his firm imprint on the memories of most upper years still proved a salvation from getting kicked around and spat on.

But most of all he missed their enigmatic ringleader's bed, and warm whispers against his ears of nihilistic philosophies born from parts of the world thought thoroughly unsavoury. Stuff that made his mind feel as if it might explode out his ears while his heart hammered and swelled and made his whole body ache with queerest wanting. No one had even heard from him since graduation day. He wasn't off to any pretigious university (though he easily could have) but it surely something greater than the pettiness of formal academia. Where exactly had he gone to? It remained something of a mystery, a riddle he was still trying to piece out in the depths of his abandonment. Maybe behind enemy lines, doing work that required a certain stroke of mad genius. Or maybe he'd been a double agent all along, poisoning student bodies with wild ideas.

The only new boy of the lot in his dorm who merited any attention at all was the academy's second installment from the Pevensie family, who couldn't seem any less like his lionhearted bore of an upright, virtuous brother. Edmund seemed gripped by a peculiar snarl of identity crisis all jangled up in a barely suppressed pubscent cocktail. He seemed unconventionally wise in his pondering eyes and that made him intriguing, particularly when he occasionally piped up like someone who was also well beyond his years in this mind and as well as someone high above his social standing.

Ienzo didn't make efforts to cozy up to someone who seemed so volatile under the surface, because he couldn't afford to attach himself so early in the term. But there would be time for dreaded group projects to get to know him better, maybe. Or that casual literary society that met down in the village pub, which they'd carefully teased one another about sneaking off to after curfew, sometime. It was a testing of the waters that seemed more appetizing the closer he watched, whenever Edmund couldn't catch him looking.

[just_edmund]

Just a couple more years, and the days of institutionalized grammar school education would be well behind him. It couldn't come soon enough for Edmund. Everything about this place was childish and small, including the ridiculous hierarchy of power that seemed so important to everybody but him. The slavish worship to the Bloods, the obsequious system of fagging that left the juniors at the mercy of their elders. None of it would mean anything once he got out of here.

It was a grudging debt he owed to Peter for shielding him from the worst of it. If anybody had been born a Blood, it was Peter. The younger Pevensie showed a much smaller measure of those oh-so-vital talents displayed by the elder, but the combination was enough to earn him the least distasteful tasks and an automatic place in the clubs he wanted to be in - a select few, to be sure.

A few of the fellows were all right here, but nobody he was particularly chummy with, much less would trust with his secrets. Certainly not with the biggest secret of them all. He was barely more than a Punt, but at least he'd dodged that suggestion early on that he could get along very well as a Tart. Not exactly how I'm used to getting information, he thought dryly, hardly able to compare the covert network of spies he'd helped organize beyond Narnia's borders with the petty gossip and sycophantry of the favour-currying Tarts.

Ienzo, now. The new addition to their dorm was an odd duck. Riding, as he was, the coattails of his elders and 'betters', until graduation had left him behind to enjoy the fruits of their social standing. Nevertheless, in all their lessons he clearly had a brain of his own and a gift for letters. He wasn't like the others at this place, and that was grand recommendation in and of itself. Edmund wanted to know more.

Especially when he turned suddenly one day to spot a violet eye - just one, mind - peering at him from behind that jagged curtain of bangs. Edmund blinked, unsettled for a moment, before offering a questioning brow and curl of his lip in return. He wove closer, casual but purposeful, until they could speak privately. "Do I have something on my face? I don't believe I was doing anything shocking just now. Certainly nothing worth such intent scrutiny."

[illicitresearch]

Ienzo wasn't known for being terribly expressive (outside of whatever fell out from under his pen nib) but when Edmund caught him staring the boy's eye widened, his jaw froze till he could force a swallow, glancing away, his shoulders dropping. It took several moments till he could dare to breathe, shaking his head.

"It's nothing." He spoke curtly, a thin murmur as he found his place in Plato, right where he was before his attention had wandered off. "Sorry." Ienzo tacked on hastily at the end, a careful sweetness of nerves that sounded genuine enough to not be snotty perched in his tone, eyes flitting up and then darting down evasively. He set his focus squarely on the steadying text in front of him, rubbing at his upper arm, surpressing a yawn behind his pursed mouth as he struggled not to shy from Pevensie's sudden closeness.

There was an uneasy pause, a quiet that begged further justificaation, and his breath swelled with a shiver as he kept his eyes pinned on a lengthy paragraph and let his vision blur with distraction. He spoke up again before he sorted out a real answer.

"You had a faraway look about you, which was-"

His brow furrowed, squinting as he peeked up again, and their eyes locked in a way that made Ienzo's stomach clench at the suddden intensity. The rest of his body managed to maintain a cool composure, but... perhaps he ought not try to seem too unflappable. That could be read as being too full of himself, erudite and above his bunkmates.

"Please, forgive my rudeness." Ienzo continued, demurely enough to lend a little weight to all the rumors of what he'd been, exactly, in his former clique. "I was staring without any decent reason to."

Which was hardly something he'd admit so plainly, among other witnesses, but the Library was fairly quiet now.

[just_edmund]

Edmund smothered a grin, terribly pleased at catching the other boy in the act. He didn't even cut a very threatening figure, to earn such a reaction. But for whatever reason, he'd garnered some surprise, even discomfort, and he decided to see how far that would take him.

"Not at all," he murmured, a shake of his head as he leaned down with intentional proximity, bending over Ienzo's shoulder to see what he was reading. "Plato. How classic. You don't get enough of him in Collins' lectures?"

It was a rhetorical tease. There was never too much Plato. Everybody knew that.

"Faraway." A funny choice of words. Edmund stared intently at him, trying to decipher just what he'd meant by that, and found himself the recipient of two violet eyes this time. The jolt of it was a little unsettling. He wasn't used to seeing both of Ienzo's eyes. "Well, what was it?" The unfinished thought intrigued him. "Your rudeness, such as it might be, is pardoned if you will tell me why you've been staring at me for weeks in the library. It was you, all this time? When I feel eyes on the back of my neck?"

Edmund raised his eyebrows, but there was good humour behind the inquisition. Exactly what sort of fellow this Ienzo was without the backing of his group to support him (and just why exactly he'd been so thick with them was probably subject to rampant speculation), still remained to be seen. And Edmund wished very much to see it.

[illicitresearch]

The one shoulder he lifts in an elegant shrug seems poised to nudge Edmund's chin out of the way, should he hover any closer. Ienzo's slid some sort of semi-transparent paper over the school text, and makes his notes in a very soft pencil, tiny yet immaculately printed scrawlings, a mess of ideas. There's only so much radical thought you can pull out of Plato, nowadays, but he's still prone to writing notes that are punctuated by question marks and slanted emphasis.

"Lectures are lectures." It's a dismissive sort of answer, and it takes a moment for Ienzo to decide on how he ought to tease back. A dull huff of a sound presses up from his lungs but gets captured by his throat and closed-up mouth, shaking his head. Has it really been weeks now?

"No need to flatter yourself." He tsks crisply, and adopts a relaxed sort of posture that carries considerably less of the New Boy jitters that he's been very fortunate to skip over adopting, up until the horrors of being thrust backwards in his boarding arrangements this year. A worn out Tart by third year? Some of older lads whisper that it's sad, what's become of him, but he still has his scholarship placements, and he'll be off to (hopefully) better places two years before the burning of their envy has time to cool.

"I do notice when you come and go, it's true. Some take refuge here more relibly than others. And I see some of the things you read." He cocks his head toward the books in Edmund's satchel. "But there's a lot to absorb about everyone."

Some just take a little longer to make decisions about, to let them sink in fully. His gaze sits levelly on Edmund's now, thoughtful.

"You're worth mulling over," Ienzo admits, rolling his tongue against the inner pouch of his cheek and rubbing at the smooth like of his jaw. "If that's something your self-esteem desperately needs to hear? Your brother was far simpler to suss out."

That could either be taken as a mild compliment, or a very casual familial insult, but it's certainly an intentional bait, to at least garner an honest reaction.

[just_edmund]

He's on edge. Edmund wonders just what it is that's got Ienzo so rattled. Perhaps he can poke a bit more and pinpoint the source more precisely.

"Oh, I suppose I should be flattered to have the attention - any other fellow here would be preening like a cock in the barnyard - but really I just wanted to know the why of it. There are all sorts of reasons and not all of them are safe ones." He doesn't need much pretext to feign interest in Ienzo's notes to stay close - he really is curious what sort of things the quiet scholar scrawls to himself - and the brief glimpse reveals a keener mind than the average reviser outlining salient points for exams. A hum of interest is his only observation aloud, and he straightens somewhat when Ienzo does, only so that they might still be face to face, more or less.

Some of the things he reads...not all of them on the prescribed curriculum. A good many of them, in fact, and some that he sneaks in and out of the shelves without checking out. Why, one of them is in his satchel right now. He pulls the flap over poor old Nietzche. Then both eyebrows shoot up in a moment of dumbfounded appreciation for Ienzo's conclusions about him.

"Thanks?" Ienzo has a particular talent for flattering and disparaging in the same breath. "It didn't particularly need to hear that, but I'll take it anyways." Peter was never very hard for anybody to figure out, and he didn't see a need to bother puffing up about it. "For what it's worth, there's not many here worth mulling over, but you've just shot to the top of my list."

Edmund taps the well-worn leather of his satchel with three fingers, considering. "I'd venture yours is a story that fares better over a mug of something bracing down in the village of a night. And if you're not of a mind to give me yours, any story will do."

[illicitresearch]

Edmund's caution seems to spark a dull, wry amusement in Ienzo, the thought that his attention should be a dangerous thing. Indeed, he's a bit more cunning about the way he clings to the shadows, and that sort of presence can be unnerving, especially when it's not for any lack of self-certainty. He's the sort of peculiar brat that's yet to have it beaten out of him, though the ongoing ordeal with his bangs has finally settled a sunken first year's weariness into his eyes, more disgusted than particularly terrorized.

The whole of the college seems to know of him in a way that suggests he carries some kind of 'special' reputation, something that goes beyond his academic standing. A old Blood's favorite tossed back among the wolves, or a runty, tenacious whelp in sheep's clothing, tucked in among the yearlings?

"You'd take me for a threat?" Ienzo asks softly, a twist at the corner of his mouth. He stifles a laugh, shaking his head. "It was never my intention to infringe upon your safety, if that helps to quiet any fears."

That self-conscious motion at Edmund's side, adjusting the flap on his bookbag, doesn't go unnoticed, and Ienzo shoots him a fast, hard, warning look and lowers his voice to a serious murmur.

"Reverend Fields, on the other hand, is a fool who believes old Fred there is Nazi Propaganda," There's slick sternness in a word that's scarely uttered out loud these days, an extra breath pulled as if to emphasize that he's not joshing lightly, now. "So you'd best not let him catch you with that out."

And if that tidbit of advice doesn't lock him in at the very top of Edmund's list, nothing else will.

The prodding for storytelling earns a rare audible snort, mostly for the thought that he'd ever nip off school grounds for a bit of tavern fare and a round of self-aggrandizing bravado. Or a tragic Dickensian tale that would require them to bow over steaming mugs.

The truth is, it's very hard to brush those cliches off the bare facts.

"A mug of something bracing?" He mutters, contemptuous, shaking his head with a harsh exhale. His uncurtained eye keeps itself glued to Edmund as he rises, gathering up his books with the decisive air of getting a move on, whether that be back to the dormitory or any other nook they can cram themselves in for a chat without getting flagged down for errands. "It's nothing to brace yourself for. Bet you've heard plenty already, without having to ask me directly."

"But my circumstances are far from orthodox, so... I'll indulge your curiousity. If you really need anything cleared up."

[just_edmund]

"I'd take anybody with half as much observational fortitude as you as a potential threat," Edmund clarifies with a wry look in return, "but if it tickles your fancy to consider yourself an ominous figure, I won't be churlish enough to deny you the pleasure."

Of course, Ienzo has to go and follow it up with something that could indeed be taken as a threat in a certain light. A threat, or a warning, or a friendly caution between schoolmates. Edmund's brows flatten, and his face grows guarded. "Your circle was rumoured to dabble in worse, and yet here you are, innocently speculating on Plato like a good boy," he half-sneers. "Going to turn snitch as well as prig?"

Nobody quite knew what Ienzo's game was anymore. Edmund couldn't give two figs about schoolyard status, and a part of him fancied the thought of an unincorporated scholar to parry wits with as a chum, but there were darker things murmured about that cliquish set than mere exclusivism, eruditry, and pederasty. Just what was Ienzo's part in all of that?

"I've heard things," he agrees, pulling his satchel of books close and taking some of the weight off his shoulder. "Which is far more reason to ask you directly than not. If I believed all I heard in this coll, I'd be the most gullible first year to ever walk these halls. But these unorthodox circumstances...they'd be worth the listen. The bracing mug would merely be to warm up from the bitter walk to the pub."

He eyes Ienzo speculatively. "Running away already? Aren't you worried some poncy senior will get his mitts on you mid-flight?"

[illicitresearch]

Ominous? If only the chilly severity in his eyes could hold people at a distance with any consistency. Ienzo glancees off and mutters something under his breath, a fleeting thought which sounds an awful lot like Gargoyles in the Gurney.

It would make a fine club, for bookish boys with nowhere else to belong, lurking like corvids on a fence.

Snitch was a particularly nasty insult, for a boy who had seen what he'd seen and had never gone wagging his tongue about it. He knew too much about the methodical torments that happened in the basements of his former house, and the fellowship who dared to called it research beyond all pretenses of establishing their pecking order. It wasn't the rules of the game that interested them, because every boy who'd ever been through school knew them, but the science of it, the theory that interested his collegues. Despair could be measured, catalogued, extracted, turned to potent substance in the soul of a broken person. Ienzo knew it had been well-documented, much of it by his very own hand. Those papers had vanished in a locked valet case, along with his friend and master's other polished writings, off to serve some grander purpose in the great scheme of the world.

He heard whispers that his old building had been emptied for an "airing out" over the summer, before term. Wondered what the walls would say if they could speak, if whitewashing over them had ensured their silence.

"Oh, you can read whatever materials you fancy, Pevensie, I don't care a whit about that." Ienzo chuckles flippantly, reaching out to pat the shoulder strap as if to wave off the matter of the satchel's contents entirely.

"But," His fingers closed and tightened around the leather strap, and he pulled firmly enough to reel Edmund in closer, his voice dropping deeper as he lurched up onto tiptoes. Ienzo cut far from an intimidating stature from a distance, but up close there was a certain dangerous intensity in his eyes that made blood between your ears seem thunderous. "If you give that sanctimonous arse and his cassocked cronies reason to have anything on these shelves pitched to the furnace..." God help the upstart moron who gave the chapel any fuel to host a bookburning by quoting Zarathustra like a proud, phenomenally boorish born again atheist on the lawn. "Forget snitching. I'll end you."

Big, hot words, for such a bantam Bint, but at least it's a nobleminded ultimatum.

Ienzo relinquished his hold and took a step back, rattling out a too-tense breath and looking Edmund up and down with a bewildered, owlish sort of incredulity, as if he already regretted getting too confrontational. He let breathing room ease out between them for a moment, uncertain, biting at the insides of his mouth as Edmund casually accused him of dodging the fag-masters. Ienzo rolled his eyes. Weren't they all?

"You're awfully keen on barreling down the hill for a pint today, aren't you?" He clucked back, lofty with reproach. "Nothing's very private about a public house. But I'm certainly not about to entertain a tell-all with you right here, either."

So they were headed off to elsewhere, unless Edmund had any further objections.

[just_edmund]

Lulled by the curiously good-natured shrugging off of his taunt, Edmund blinks and doesn't retreat from the friendly pat. Which makes the sudden tug and even suddener presence of Ienzo getting up in his face to threaten him against book-burnings...

Unexpectedly and inconveniently erotic.

Shite, he sighs wearily to himself, as the automatic pumping of adrenaline courses blood even faster throughout his body. Experiencing the indignities of adolescence for a second time is a fate he'd done little to deserve. It wasn't fair that a simple manhandling by this self-appointed bibliosoph would make his pulse pound in his ears and his spine stiffen and his eyes lock into the dark swirl that pooled in the fierce gaze before him. But so it was.

He was too startled (and discomfited) to make any sort of reply in the moment, and Ienzo had released him and looked for all the world like he had no idea why Edmund was staring at him dumbfounded, by the time he'd collected himself enough to respond. "I'll keep that in mind." Was that sarcasm on his tongue? Hard to say for sure.

"It's been a while," he says, a little testily, still hyperaware of another type of indulgence that he'd done without for too long. "I wouldn't say no to it. But if you have a better place where we won't be at the mercy of the nearest self-congratulatory tosser, lead on."

[illicitresearch]

He's left Edmund blotchy in the face by getting up in his space, and Ienzo can see the way his chest rises and falls, which wasn't really what he'd intended. Aeleus, in a too-late effort and nudging him towards something resembling ethics, had made him swear off bullying unless it was in the defense of someone weaker... obviously no one else here to stand up for, but himself and the legacy of his family's heirlooms.

That, perhaps, was the story worth sharing the vigorous indignities of, as a test to see if this boy could be trusted.

His expression softens to something a wee bit apologetic, until Edmund's brittle reply leaves him arching a brow. Bit young, for a drunkard. Then again, Ienzo's a been a bit young for a lot of things, and there's nothing he hates more than snaring himself in hypocrisies.

"Awhile since what?" There's a hint of guardedness there, too- if Edmund has any inkling of the sorts of arrangements a cadamite is familiar with, he's certainly not entitled to a taste of it, on the relatively equal footing that they are.

But he tames back that urge to build a wall where he has no foothoolds, shoulders dropping.

"I might know of a certain cupboard." He offers, voice low. Braig made a ferreting thief of him early on, and his Senior's set of lockpicks was one of their parting gifts. "Professor Wilkes is off to visit his mam for the weekend, and he keeps a stash of her homemade shrubs there, if you really must tipple off the cold."

[just_edmund]

"Since I've nipped down to the village," was the cagey reply, a faint grin gracing Edmund's face. Confessions of prior lifetimes of benders with wine-gods were best left for another time. He would have been vaguely flattered and appalled all in the same breath to know the reason for that guardedness. As if he was the Blood type. He certainly wasn't fishing for any sort of Tart of his own, not even a taste.

And then - the conciliatory gesture, more than conciliatory, really; positively convivial. "Damn good of you, Buckwald," Edmund says approvingly, his eyes beginning to light up as the adventure of it all took shape in his mind. "Won't that be a lark? How do you propose we do it? It's the place itself that's the real appeal, you know. There's nowhere in this bloody dungeon to call your own."

The change in his mood at the prospect of some fun was remarkable. This was far better than his original idea. He shoulders his satchel more evenly across his torso and hip, so that he can comfortably lean close to hear the rest of the murmured plan. Any whisper of this and there'd be hell to pay. Nothing like a little lockpicking and larceny to bring a couple of fellows together as co-conspirators.