It happens; Arel sees the knickers hanging off the side of Janus' laundry hamper. It's clean laundry - Arel wouldn't be surprised if Janus washed their girl's underwear after sex, but he'd be surprised if Janus had a girl. It could be one of the many, many things Janus doesn't speak about, but it feels unlikely - dating, boys, girls, it's not the stuff that Janus keeps close to their chest. It's the stuff they know nothing about.
Arel leaves the knickers.
It happens again; and it's the exact same pair. That - that is the detail Arel stops on, fixates on. Even if Janus has a girlfriend, it's surprising that they would end up washing the same knickers twice in a row. It sends Arel reeling - looking over to the door as he approaches, looks over to make sure, but there's no mistaking it. It's the same pair. It starts something up in Arel, like a moped engine puttering in the back of his thoughts, cycling around Janus and who they are. Deadly yet innocent, naive yet battle-hardened. They're two sides of one coin, always putting Arel on a knife's edge, unsure if he'd get tails or face at any given moment. This discovery, it's - a bridge between the two, too much and not enough at once.
It keeps Arel awake.
When it happens again; it feels like the last straw for Arel. Like something breaks inside of him, between his stomach and his ribs, a sharp point under his skin. He rubs at it with two knuckles, his free hand grabbing the knickers out of Janus' laundry basket as another spike hit him in the stomach, but this one he knows; it's guilt. Still, he's here and he's alone and he can't help himself, his emotional brain taking over his rational one when he lies back down in bed, holding the knickers to his eyes.
Fingers drag along his stomach, his throat working hard as images flash in his head. Janus, bending over to grab one of their too many knives, a flash of skin and a flash of lace, suddenly obvious. Slipping the knickers on, up along their legs, tucking their dick into the black cotton. Readjusting themselves during class, fighting an erection, their thoughts going too fast, too hard.
Arel licks his lips, lets his fingers trail down to the waistband of his shorts, slip under, push them down to free his cock. His other hand brings the knickers closer to his face, inhales - he wishes they were dirty, and the mere thought sends another flash of heat up along his stomach, makes his cock twitch his hand. He moves slow, just as slow as he's imagining Janus would, taking the knickers off before jumping in the shower. Just as delicate as he thinks Janus would be, washing them by hand, careful and pink in the cheeks, bottom lip bitten a darker red.
Arel groans, closes his eyes tightly and lets the images flood him, bringing the knickers down and rolling his hips up into them, wraps them around his dick, like they're still on Janus and they're grinding down on Arel. The material is soft in places, scratchy where the lace is stitched in, a stark difference in sensations that grounds Arel to the moment.
He comes too fast - urgency and the very acute knowledge that this is forbidden heightening everything, keying him up and sending him hurtling through a powerful orgasm before he's ready, before he's quite there. He's short of breath; still coiled up tight, muscles aching, his brain going too fast for him to grab at any thought and contemplate.
There's some of his come on the knickers, and he'll have to wash them for Janus. It feels worth it.
[it's been more a month. more than a month at mythian academy, and janus loves it here like they've loved little else their entire life. they have friends. multiple friends. they've met their daimon, who is a mess in a lovely way, like found art. their roommate is very handsome. they now own three individual tubes of lipstain and some liquid eyeliner and three pairs of knickers and two pairs of earrings, their first, despite the fact they've had holes pierced for years. carmela was right: when you look good, you feel good. and janus doesn't really need anyone else to see any difference to feel it; to feel pretty and complete and at home in their skin.
not even the fact that the other hunter, bryn, had shown up— competition-- has been able to ruin it. it took a lot of work and numerous tentacle clippings, but janus has now weeks perfecting the redundant wards across the school grounds, and there was even a smug satisfaction to that. to knowing they'd gotten to the headmaster first, that they'll be the first to know if sylwia breaches the academy's mystic defenses again. they've been watching bryn. she's a good hunter; it's hard to read her, but janus is fairly certain that she isn't pleased.
it's still the mission, mind you. but you're allowed to be happy on missions. janus think so. there's no rule against it. besides, their mothers have been providing positive feedback from the elders and telling janus they're happy they've settled in so well.
so here they are! three o' clock sunshine outside. janus is coming back to the dorms now, an hour since class got out— an hour they'd spent watching bryn run through exercises with an axe on the grounds. they're thinking about maybe asking arel if he wants to go to the cafeteria together later, if he doesn't have a romantic or sexual engagement. they've prepared a series of leading questions about england, which they think may make arel smile, but they figure they should wash the day off their face first so they barge into the bathroom—
--and it's taken, someone forgot to lock the door.] Oh shit, [janus says. they've been swearing more since they came to the academy, which is perhaps the only downside. they're pretty sure it still sounds funny when they do it, like the inflection is off, but it's kind of find it come automatically to them like the other kids.] Sorry, I didn't— hello Arel. [he's washing something in the sink.] I have a ques...
[.... Arel stares back, the incriminating evidence plain as day in his hand. Black lace, cotton, comfortable and pretty, dripping with laundry detergent and water, draped over the back of Arel's hand. He was almost done, getting ready to rinse and hang the underwear - get away Scot-free.}
Janus -
[Janus what. I can explain? It's not what you think?
Actually, it's probably not what they think. Or - maybe it is, Arel has no idea anymore, doesn't know what to think about Janus anymore, what they want what they like why they do the things they do. Everything is off its axis.
Arel stands there, his tongue poking just slightly out of his mouth, the ball of his tongue piercing clicking against the back of his teeth as he tries, he tries to decide on what to say. He knows his cheeks are red, still remembering what he was doing barely fifteen minutes ago, thinking of Janus - their lithe body and their ruddy red lips and the array of random tattoos they sport. Thinking of Janus wearing the knickers like it's nothing, their cock half-hard against the black cotton.
He shouldn't be thinking of Janus like that. Probably. In the end, he says the only thing he can think of.]
[it's a fairly logical sequence of thoughts that goes through janus' head. arel is washing their underwear. a positive interpretation is: he's helping, that's considerate, laundry in and of itself is tedious, necessary, and not particularly significant otherwise.
but it was a secret and private and something in the apology, the blatant shame flooding arel's face suggests he is aware he did something wrong. that goes in the negative column. which is probably why janus can hear their heartbeat going like jackhammers, a pulse beating so loud that an ordinary sixteen-year-old would think their heads would explode. but janus isn't ordinary; it's just like the night before their first mission when they were scared they'd die, or the first time they got shot and thought they'd die, or the nightmares for only a few weeks when they woke up in a sweat thinking they'd die. in the end, they didn't die.
and though it feels like they're going to die now, it's a useless feeling. they stuff it into a box for later assessment.
one moment, the hunter is in the doorway. the next, mirror glass plinks crunching, shattering behind arel's head and janus' arm is shoved up under his jaw where a little roll of their arm will shift the pressure to his windpipe. janus' eyes are as blank as stone. they're too lightweight to be a threat at a standstill, but that hadn't been the point; it'd been a show of speed, an ugly promise. a threat they'll regret later— unbecoming, reckless, more caught up in childish sentiment than they know. the sink bites into arel's ass and the panties go drip, drip.]
[The reaction is immediate. Janus' hand around his neck, his head throbbing with how hard he hit the mirror behind him. The sink uncomfortably digging into his lower back. The sense of immediate danger, while possibly misconstrued, filling up his lungs.
He goes blank. Arel's eyes turn just as dull as Janus' when he looks back, his body locking up, readying for a fight. Too many times this has happened that Arel doesn't feel fear about it anymore. It's just a sequence of events, one two three one two three one two three. Like a dance.
His hand lets go of the knickers and wraps around Janus' wrist, holding his neck. His free hand waves fingers by the lotus flower Janus' hand is half-covering, the ink dissipating in a spore-like cloud between the two of them as the energy floods Arel's body, from brain to the tips of his fingers. He feels them tingling, the magic starting to work. He reigns it in - he doesn't actually want for Janus' hand to fall off.
But he knows the pain - necrotic damage hurts like a motherfucker - and it gives him a minute advantage, enough to pull Janus' hand away from him, jaw clenched and eyes blank, unwavering. The moment he's free, he lets go, the spell subsiding. He slides back a step, and feels his muscles start to work normally again. Calming down.]
What do you think I did, exactly? What could I have done that would warrant that reaction?
[He holds a hand up, palm open to Janus, placating, but also a warning - the skull inked there could be activated in the blink of an eye.]
I just - got them dirty. I... look, Janus, at first I dismissed it, I thought maybe you were getting laid and keeping knickers and that's fine - bit creepy, but fine - but then they kept on appearing and I realised and - [He feels his cheeks flush, but he stands tall, rolls his shoulders.] It turned me on, okay?
[pain explodes through janus' hand. reel-around, throw up, cry and shit your pants pain, rotting through their nerves and gnawing through their bones. janus doesn't reel around, throw up, cry, or shit in their pants, but it feels like a close thing for an instant. they don't know what they thought arel had done. objectively, they knew vodou and blood sorcery probably hadn't been involved.
the feeling of humiliation crawling over their skin feels bizarrely like what they felt when they were 11-years-old, finding out alongside the demigods and the centaurs what their daimon was. they'd made a lot of mistakes then, amid the taunts, both explicit and implicit, and they're making mistakes now. arel puts some space between them, and it's a good thing. janus looks at their hand, lets it drop. realizes what they did. objectively, nothing warrants that reaction; arel is a creature of light, and if he were human, janus would be returning to florida in shame.
objectively]
Okay, [they say, not really understanding. half understanding. they feel the tips of their ears starting to heat up, so janus stoops down and grabs the panties off the floor. they're wet now, clean, but cold, heavy in janus' fingers.
and they certainly don't feel fun and pretty anymore. so janus very calmly, very cooly, very objectively turns around, stepping out of the bathroom door. in a moment, they're rustling through the dorm room supplies— snatching out a garbage bag. it's with ruthless efficiency that they find the rest of the things: the other pairs, the tubes of lipstick, mascara, the stupid ugly jewelry smuggled in with the guns in their underwear drawer. disappointment is selfish. janus wonders how much meditation it's going to take to get over this, and then they think, fuck meditation.]
[There's a moment there, between the heartbeat during which Janus looks at him, and the next where Janus turns around, that Arel feels like he's dying. He's never cared about it before, never cared to think of how it'd feel like.
Now he knows. He's pretty sure he knows.
If he could activate the spell again, he would, and drives his hand straight through his own chest.
Instead, he follows Janus into their dorm, stops at the door, watches. He doesn't feel any more alive as he watches, discovers more about what Janus has been hiding from him. Reminds him of all the things he's hiding from them, only - his are so much worse.
He can't help himself; the way he moves is automatic. He steps forward, forward, curls a hand around Janus' arm, no spell no nothing but skin on skin, and pulls Janus gently to turn around. The plastic bag crinkles in their hands.]
Janus, what are you doing? [His voice is soft, scared, confused. What - in what he said, made Janus think they had to get rid of it all? Or is the idea that they're turning Arel on that repulsive? He didn't think so, didn't want to think so, but -
He pulls back, swallows hard.]
I'm sorry, okay? I made a mistake. I just - you. I shouldn't have taken them. It's your property, and I get if you don't want to wear them anymore now that you know it turns me on to think about you in them, but. You don't have to get rid of all your stuff. Please.
[what the actual fuck, janus thinks. except it's janus so it's more like: basic nonsense. there's a hand on their arm and the feel of skin on skin is suddenly grating— they aren't accustomed to being touched by anyone besides their family, except by people who were obligated to hurt them, and that suddenly seems more true than ever.
janus isn't usually an impulsive person. usually, they know what they think and what they want, which rules pertain, what their objectives are. it's so out-of-character, so unfamiliar to them to be reacting on mindless instinct, blind hurt, and childish spite that they don't even know they're doing it. or maybe they'd realize it's embarrassing for a new and fragile part of their identity to be treated like a shallow sexual kink, like what they've been reading about on the internet, white men who will only let black girls flog them despite knowing who holds the true power in the world outside, or people who like to get hurt because there's something wrong with their minds, or when normal sex becomes boring, people are boring, volume by numbers; boring people become intolerable. they'd believed arel, when he said it was better to wait until you liked someone. if you were lucky enough for them to like you back. it seems like bad advice now, like pity.
it makes sense, suddenly, arel coming back looking relaxed, with subtle bruises all over, putting pictures of his muscles on the internet. his emily, his others, who comment on the pictures of his muscles on the internet. janus has no idea how it makes sense, but it definitely does. just because they can't string it together in words doesn't mean it doesn't make sense.]
You can have it, [janus says. they want arel to stop touching them but they don't want to seem scared of it, so they bring the back over, press it into arel's hand, then let go like it's nothing. it'll spill all over the floor. maybe the mascara will break open and stain everything.] I don't want it anymore. You don't have to pay me back. It's free.
[it feels true.] I'm going out. You can have the room tonight.
[It's like a bruise on Arel's heart. Blood clogging, a dark halo around his arteries, squeezing at them. He takes the bag but it feels surreal, like a dream where he and Janus have not made any strides since they met.
Arel fucked up. He fucked up bad, and he's fucked Janus up. He broke something, he broke Janus, took something from them that he had no right to take. If only - if only he could take it back.]
Janus -
[It's too late. Janus is already walking out the door, not looking back, like they're putting all of this behind them, like there's nothing else to say. There's so much to say - what it means, what is is, how can Arel help?
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
two; a drabble!! cw: crossdressing; nsfw
It happens; Arel sees the knickers hanging off the side of Janus' laundry hamper. It's clean laundry - Arel wouldn't be surprised if Janus washed their girl's underwear after sex, but he'd be surprised if Janus had a girl. It could be one of the many, many things Janus doesn't speak about, but it feels unlikely - dating, boys, girls, it's not the stuff that Janus keeps close to their chest. It's the stuff they know nothing about.
Arel leaves the knickers.
It happens again; and it's the exact same pair. That - that is the detail Arel stops on, fixates on. Even if Janus has a girlfriend, it's surprising that they would end up washing the same knickers twice in a row. It sends Arel reeling - looking over to the door as he approaches, looks over to make sure, but there's no mistaking it. It's the same pair. It starts something up in Arel, like a moped engine puttering in the back of his thoughts, cycling around Janus and who they are. Deadly yet innocent, naive yet battle-hardened. They're two sides of one coin, always putting Arel on a knife's edge, unsure if he'd get tails or face at any given moment. This discovery, it's - a bridge between the two, too much and not enough at once.
It keeps Arel awake.
When it happens again; it feels like the last straw for Arel. Like something breaks inside of him, between his stomach and his ribs, a sharp point under his skin. He rubs at it with two knuckles, his free hand grabbing the knickers out of Janus' laundry basket as another spike hit him in the stomach, but this one he knows; it's guilt. Still, he's here and he's alone and he can't help himself, his emotional brain taking over his rational one when he lies back down in bed, holding the knickers to his eyes.
Fingers drag along his stomach, his throat working hard as images flash in his head. Janus, bending over to grab one of their too many knives, a flash of skin and a flash of lace, suddenly obvious. Slipping the knickers on, up along their legs, tucking their dick into the black cotton. Readjusting themselves during class, fighting an erection, their thoughts going too fast, too hard.
Arel licks his lips, lets his fingers trail down to the waistband of his shorts, slip under, push them down to free his cock. His other hand brings the knickers closer to his face, inhales - he wishes they were dirty, and the mere thought sends another flash of heat up along his stomach, makes his cock twitch his hand. He moves slow, just as slow as he's imagining Janus would, taking the knickers off before jumping in the shower. Just as delicate as he thinks Janus would be, washing them by hand, careful and pink in the cheeks, bottom lip bitten a darker red.
Arel groans, closes his eyes tightly and lets the images flood him, bringing the knickers down and rolling his hips up into them, wraps them around his dick, like they're still on Janus and they're grinding down on Arel. The material is soft in places, scratchy where the lace is stitched in, a stark difference in sensations that grounds Arel to the moment.
He comes too fast - urgency and the very acute knowledge that this is forbidden heightening everything, keying him up and sending him hurtling through a powerful orgasm before he's ready, before he's quite there. He's short of breath; still coiled up tight, muscles aching, his brain going too fast for him to grab at any thought and contemplate.
There's some of his come on the knickers, and he'll have to wash them for Janus. It feels worth it.
Hopefully, he won't get caught.
not here;
guess who replied to the wrong comment
not even the fact that the other hunter, bryn, had shown up— competition-- has been able to ruin it. it took a lot of work and numerous tentacle clippings, but janus has now weeks perfecting the redundant wards across the school grounds, and there was even a smug satisfaction to that. to knowing they'd gotten to the headmaster first, that they'll be the first to know if sylwia breaches the academy's mystic defenses again. they've been watching bryn. she's a good hunter; it's hard to read her, but janus is fairly certain that she isn't pleased.
it's still the mission, mind you. but you're allowed to be happy on missions. janus think so. there's no rule against it. besides, their mothers have been providing positive feedback from the elders and telling janus they're happy they've settled in so well.
so here they are! three o' clock sunshine outside. janus is coming back to the dorms now, an hour since class got out— an hour they'd spent watching bryn run through exercises with an axe on the grounds. they're thinking about maybe asking arel if he wants to go to the cafeteria together later, if he doesn't have a romantic or sexual engagement. they've prepared a series of leading questions about england, which they think may make arel smile, but they figure they should wash the day off their face first so they barge into the bathroom—
--and it's taken, someone forgot to lock the door.] Oh shit, [janus says. they've been swearing more since they came to the academy, which is perhaps the only downside. they're pretty sure it still sounds funny when they do it, like the inflection is off, but it's kind of find it come automatically to them like the other kids.] Sorry, I didn't— hello Arel. [he's washing something in the sink.] I have a ques...
[... ...
.................... janus stares.]
no subject
Janus -
[Janus what. I can explain? It's not what you think?
Actually, it's probably not what they think. Or - maybe it is, Arel has no idea anymore, doesn't know what to think about Janus anymore, what they want what they like why they do the things they do. Everything is off its axis.
Arel stands there, his tongue poking just slightly out of his mouth, the ball of his tongue piercing clicking against the back of his teeth as he tries, he tries to decide on what to say. He knows his cheeks are red, still remembering what he was doing barely fifteen minutes ago, thinking of Janus - their lithe body and their ruddy red lips and the array of random tattoos they sport. Thinking of Janus wearing the knickers like it's nothing, their cock half-hard against the black cotton.
He shouldn't be thinking of Janus like that. Probably. In the end, he says the only thing he can think of.]
Janus, I'm sorry.
Powerpose, lmk if not ok
but it was a secret and private and something in the apology, the blatant shame flooding arel's face suggests he is aware he did something wrong. that goes in the negative column. which is probably why janus can hear their heartbeat going like jackhammers, a pulse beating so loud that an ordinary sixteen-year-old would think their heads would explode. but janus isn't ordinary; it's just like the night before their first mission when they were scared they'd die, or the first time they got shot and thought they'd die, or the nightmares for only a few weeks when they woke up in a sweat thinking they'd die. in the end, they didn't die.
and though it feels like they're going to die now, it's a useless feeling. they stuff it into a box for later assessment.
one moment, the hunter is in the doorway. the next, mirror glass plinks crunching, shattering behind arel's head and janus' arm is shoved up under his jaw where a little roll of their arm will shift the pressure to his windpipe. janus' eyes are as blank as stone. they're too lightweight to be a threat at a standstill, but that hadn't been the point; it'd been a show of speed, an ugly promise. a threat they'll regret later— unbecoming, reckless, more caught up in childish sentiment than they know. the sink bites into arel's ass and the panties go drip, drip.]
What did you do?
[there's no tremor to their voice, no weakness.]
also powerposing but i can edit!!!!
He goes blank. Arel's eyes turn just as dull as Janus' when he looks back, his body locking up, readying for a fight. Too many times this has happened that Arel doesn't feel fear about it anymore. It's just a sequence of events, one two three one two three one two three. Like a dance.
His hand lets go of the knickers and wraps around Janus' wrist, holding his neck. His free hand waves fingers by the lotus flower Janus' hand is half-covering, the ink dissipating in a spore-like cloud between the two of them as the energy floods Arel's body, from brain to the tips of his fingers. He feels them tingling, the magic starting to work. He reigns it in - he doesn't actually want for Janus' hand to fall off.
But he knows the pain - necrotic damage hurts like a motherfucker - and it gives him a minute advantage, enough to pull Janus' hand away from him, jaw clenched and eyes blank, unwavering. The moment he's free, he lets go, the spell subsiding. He slides back a step, and feels his muscles start to work normally again. Calming down.]
What do you think I did, exactly? What could I have done that would warrant that reaction?
[He holds a hand up, palm open to Janus, placating, but also a warning - the skull inked there could be activated in the blink of an eye.]
I just - got them dirty. I... look, Janus, at first I dismissed it, I thought maybe you were getting laid and keeping knickers and that's fine - bit creepy, but fine - but then they kept on appearing and I realised and - [He feels his cheeks flush, but he stands tall, rolls his shoulders.] It turned me on, okay?
[There.]
no subject
the feeling of humiliation crawling over their skin feels bizarrely like what they felt when they were 11-years-old, finding out alongside the demigods and the centaurs what their daimon was. they'd made a lot of mistakes then, amid the taunts, both explicit and implicit, and they're making mistakes now. arel puts some space between them, and it's a good thing. janus looks at their hand, lets it drop. realizes what they did. objectively, nothing warrants that reaction; arel is a creature of light, and if he were human, janus would be returning to florida in shame.
objectively]
Okay, [they say, not really understanding. half understanding. they feel the tips of their ears starting to heat up, so janus stoops down and grabs the panties off the floor. they're wet now, clean, but cold, heavy in janus' fingers.
and they certainly don't feel fun and pretty anymore. so janus very calmly, very cooly, very objectively turns around, stepping out of the bathroom door. in a moment, they're rustling through the dorm room supplies— snatching out a garbage bag. it's with ruthless efficiency that they find the rest of the things: the other pairs, the tubes of lipstick, mascara, the stupid ugly jewelry smuggled in with the guns in their underwear drawer. disappointment is selfish. janus wonders how much meditation it's going to take to get over this, and then they think, fuck meditation.]
no subject
Now he knows. He's pretty sure he knows.
If he could activate the spell again, he would, and drives his hand straight through his own chest.
Instead, he follows Janus into their dorm, stops at the door, watches. He doesn't feel any more alive as he watches, discovers more about what Janus has been hiding from him. Reminds him of all the things he's hiding from them, only - his are so much worse.
He can't help himself; the way he moves is automatic. He steps forward, forward, curls a hand around Janus' arm, no spell no nothing but skin on skin, and pulls Janus gently to turn around. The plastic bag crinkles in their hands.]
Janus, what are you doing? [His voice is soft, scared, confused. What - in what he said, made Janus think they had to get rid of it all? Or is the idea that they're turning Arel on that repulsive? He didn't think so, didn't want to think so, but -
He pulls back, swallows hard.]
I'm sorry, okay? I made a mistake. I just - you. I shouldn't have taken them. It's your property, and I get if you don't want to wear them anymore now that you know it turns me on to think about you in them, but. You don't have to get rid of all your stuff. Please.
no subject
janus isn't usually an impulsive person. usually, they know what they think and what they want, which rules pertain, what their objectives are. it's so out-of-character, so unfamiliar to them to be reacting on mindless instinct, blind hurt, and childish spite that they don't even know they're doing it. or maybe they'd realize it's embarrassing for a new and fragile part of their identity to be treated like a shallow sexual kink, like what they've been reading about on the internet, white men who will only let black girls flog them despite knowing who holds the true power in the world outside, or people who like to get hurt because there's something wrong with their minds, or when normal sex becomes boring, people are boring, volume by numbers; boring people become intolerable. they'd believed arel, when he said it was better to wait until you liked someone. if you were lucky enough for them to like you back. it seems like bad advice now, like pity.
it makes sense, suddenly, arel coming back looking relaxed, with subtle bruises all over, putting pictures of his muscles on the internet. his emily, his others, who comment on the pictures of his muscles on the internet. janus has no idea how it makes sense, but it definitely does. just because they can't string it together in words doesn't mean it doesn't make sense.]
You can have it, [janus says. they want arel to stop touching them but they don't want to seem scared of it, so they bring the back over, press it into arel's hand, then let go like it's nothing. it'll spill all over the floor. maybe the mascara will break open and stain everything.] I don't want it anymore. You don't have to pay me back. It's free.
[it feels true.] I'm going out. You can have the room tonight.
no subject
Arel fucked up. He fucked up bad, and he's fucked Janus up. He broke something, he broke Janus, took something from them that he had no right to take. If only - if only he could take it back.]
Janus -
[It's too late. Janus is already walking out the door, not looking back, like they're putting all of this behind them, like there's nothing else to say. There's so much to say - what it means, what is is, how can Arel help?
But it's too late.]