17. A Little Blood, Between Friends #2
Bastian might have always been taller, but he’s not spent the last seven years building muscle mass - Briar has the upper hand, with magic off the table.
Which, of course, it isn’t. So why is Bastian still beneath them?
‘Get the fuck off me,’ he hisses, wrenching his head to the side, but there’s no Working in his words. There are footsteps and shouts from the pool area, then hands on Briar’s back, wrenching at their jacket. Alistair is speaking from much closer than expected.
‘What—?’ he says. Then, his voice acid, ‘You? Why don’t you go for a swim, Jones? Take a big fucking swan dive off the deep end.’
Briar does love to swim, and the pool’s right there.
It can’t be that much harder without water.
They release Bastian, who doesn’t get up.
Something falls from the ceiling again, a pattering like snow across Briar’s cheeks, but that’s not their problem.
They get to their feet. The roughly grasping hands at their shoulder and collar let go, and Briar has a clear path to the pool and the cracked, bubbled blue diving boards that might just still bear their weight—
‘No,’ Bastian spits from the ground, through heaving breaths. ‘Mine. Get out.’
The pool evaporates from Briar’s mind. Every Mon in the room turns in unison and walks to the door, filing past Briar like a regiment. Alistair pauses, fighting the order, and then goes anyway.
Bastian is staggering to his feet. Briar takes three steps and pins him to the wall.
He’s a mess. Red on his lips, his neck, pinkening the whites of his eyes, soaking into his hair.
He’s shaking, too, as he stares back at Briar through eyes lidded with exhaustion.
Why is he shaking? Briar’s the one who should be shaking.
Alistair just tried to kill them. Ordered a headfirst dive into that empty pool.
Ten more seconds and they’d have been dead.
Oh. Briar is shaking.
‘Fuck,’ they say, moving their hand from Bastian’s throat to his shoulder and then back again, now dangerously lightheaded. ‘Fuck.’
There’s a long strand of bloodied grey stuck to the corner of Bastian’s mouth.
Every time he heaves a breath, it flutters slightly.
Briar pulls the hair free with a distracted jerk of their hand, and then Bastian - like the last ditch grasp of someone falling, like it’s either this or fainting clean away - lurches forward into a kiss.
Briar pushes him away.
No. That’s not quite right.
Briar pushes him against the wall, crushes their bodies together, mouths touching, but not truly kissing him.
His hands fly up to shove Briar back, but he can’t quite manage it, so instead his fingers dig into their shoulders, almost like an embrace, Briar’s burn aching.
Bastian’s heart is hammering in his chest, his pulse thrumming through his body, Briar can feel it - can feel everything, the hard lines of him, the heat, the way his body is opening up against his will, the punched-out gasp when Briar presses into his mouth, just for a second, just to see what it’s like, before Bastian’s fingers find the back of Briar’s neck and Briar wrenches away.
The room sways.
Briar’s head hurts in about three different places.
They can still feel Bastian’s teeth in their arm, and they’ve probably split the stitches on their forehead.
At the thought, terrible nausea rattles through them, like the clattering of a train.
And yet . . . they’re electrified from head to toe, more alive than they’ve felt in forever.
It’s not the kiss - not that it really was a kiss.
It’s that they’re doing something. Invading Bastian’s orbit and knocking him off course.
Piercing right through all the years, the lives they’ve lived, the universes that have risen and fallen since they last truly touched him.
Bastian is still leaning against the wall for support.
‘What the fuck is wrong with you?’ he says, sounding utterly defeated.
‘Me?’ Briar hates how hoarse they sound. ‘Your boyfriend is the one who keeps trying to kill me.’
They don’t mean to say boyfriend, it just slips out - and Briar doesn’t miss the way Bastian’s expression changes, briefly jolted out of kilter before he remembers himself. That’s new. Seb had no idea how to be anything but honest with his face.
‘This is my school,’ he says. ‘You’re the one who showed up on my campus, crashed my party—’
‘I was hired to do a job,’ Briar spits back. ‘And I’m doing it.’
Bastian straightens up slightly. Briar wishes he wouldn’t insist on so much appalling eye contact. ‘And what part of your job involves following me around like a—’
‘Oh, fuck you. Fuck you. You just don’t like seeing me here because it reminds you that you were an actual person once, before you got that letter and I didn’t, and you decided I wasn’t worth your time any more.’
‘That’s not how it happened.’ He seems so strong in his conviction that it takes Briar aback for a moment.
‘What? Of course it is, you prick.’
Bastian smirks without humour, his head tilting back against the wall, addressing the ceiling. ‘Fine. Whatever you say, Briar.’
It doesn’t matter that Briar can’t think of a single thing to say in response to this, because suddenly there are two sets of footsteps tapping rapidly down the hall, and a moment later, Eugenia is there, flanking an older, impressive man with an air of authority, neither of them looking particularly impressed.
The man takes in the scene and then sighs, heavy with disappointment. ‘Right. I think you two had better come with me.’