“Zakeri, would you pay attention?” Cormac sighed for what could have been the twentieth time, tapping his pencil against the silverette’s forehead.
Zakeri jumped, startled back into the real world and out of memories that confused him to the core. “Sorry,” he said for the twentieth time, an apologetic smile on his face.
“I wish you’d stop saying that and just pay attention. You’ll be graduating in no time if you keep up the way you’ve been going, but you’ll flounder in the real world if you don’t learn this stuff!” Cormac scolded, frowning fiercely.
“I know. I’m sorry,” Zakeri said honestly.
Cormac glared at him through narrowed eyes for a moment, but then Zakeri smiled that cocky smile, and he couldn’t resist. “Fine, fine, I forgive you. Again. Just pay attention this time, okay?”
Zakeri nodded emphatically, folding his hands together and leaning forward to show how eager he was to learn about the basics of forging a demonic contract with a human; ten years until you could collect their soul, sealed with a kiss, all that boring stuff that he’d learned from Rahil early on so he could avoid doing something stupid. It didn’t hold his attention, and he found his gaze drifting back to the door that led out into the hallway, out of Cormac’s room and toward the common room where a certain dark-haired demon might be studying in his corner.
“Zakeri, seriously!” Cormac growled, wrapping his fingers in the front of the silverette’s shirt and dragging him halfway across the table.
Zakeri threw his hands out to keep his face from hitting the solid oak, yelping at the unexpected movement. “What?” he asked, blank and innocently confused.
“You’ve been this way since people saw you and Abriel having lunch together. Honestly, I’m beginning to think he did something to you,” Cormac said it lightly, but Zakeri immediately dropped his eyes and flushed softly red. “He did do something to you, didn’t he? I swear to god, I’ll tear him to pieces and feed them to the beast demons!”
Cormac let go of Zakeri as suddenly as he had grabbed him, and Zakeri caught himself again a second before his nose hit the table. Furious, more angry than he’d ever been in his life, Cormac threw his door open- only to be dragged back inside a second later, the door locked by quick fingers.
“Stop, it’s fine,” Zakeri said, eyes flicking between Cormac and the door he stood guard in front of.
“Fine? It’s not fine! What the hell did that bastard do to you to have you so screwed up in the head today?” Cormac hissed, trying to push past Zakeri.
Zakeri put his hands on Cormac’s shoulders- even with his strength, both what he was born with and what he worked years to build up, he was getting pushed back, his socked feet sliding on the carpet. “Look, he didn’t hurt me, okay!”
“Then what did he do?” Each word was its own sentence, forced out through clenched teeth.
Zakeri dropped his eyes again, and his face turned a brighter shade of red. “Nothing. I don’t want to talk about it, okay?”
“What the hell?” Cormac snatched Zakeri’s wrist up, keeping the boy from moving it by holding it high up over their heads- which had the delightful side effect of pressing them close together, Zakeri on his tiptoes to keep from falling over.
“I don’t want to talk about it!” Zakeri repeated, his voice higher and almost desperate, “I… I can’t tell you.
“Why can’t you tell me?” Cormac asked, lowering his face closer to Zakeri’s, shaking the boy’s wrist in an attempt to get him to come to his senses. “For god’s sake, Zakeri, I just want to help. And I am sure as hell going to go out and separate his damn fool head from his shoulders if he did something you didn’t like.”
“I didn’t exactly… hate it,” Zakeri said, his eyes returning to Cormac.
Cormac saw the conflicted confusion there, and a terrible suspicion arose in him. “If I guess, will you tell me if I was right?”
Zakeri hesitated for a moment before nodding his head. “I guess that’s fine,” he said, though he still sounded unsure.
“I think I know what he did,” Cormac murmured, more to himself than Zakeri, “And I’m not even going to do him the courtesy of killing him before I feed him to the beasts.”
“Hey!” Zakeri yelped as Cormac yanked him closer. “What are you doing?”
“Guessing,” Cormac replied, before he closed the distance between Zakeri’s parted lips and his own.
Zakeri threw himself backwards, his back hitting the door- but since Cormac still had a hold on Zakeri’s wrist, he ended up pressing the silverette between his body and the wood. Mistaking it for a sign of passion, Cormac angled his head to deepen the kiss, Zakeri’s captured wrist next to his head as Cormac kissed away the surprised noise the silverette had made.
Zakeri’s eyes were wide, a mix of fear and panic and confusion- and a small part of him that enjoyed what was happening while his hand clutched at Cormac’s sleeve, ready to push him away. Then Cormac’s leg inched between his, the fingers of his free hand gentle on the back of the silverette’s neck, and Zakeri forgot that he wasn’t supposed to be enjoying himself. His hand fell, hitting the wooden door, as his eyes drifted shut.
But as they did, Zakeri found another image came up in Cormac’s place- black hair that was soft as Kissa’s fur, shocking blue eyes that were most often full of hatred when centered on him, and lips moving in an entirely different way against his. And that little part of him that had been enjoying itself drained away.
Cormac’s fingers had slackened enough around his wrist that Zakeri was able to get free easily, shoving at Cormac’s chest with both hands. The redhead stumbled back, shocked by the sudden rejection when he’d been losing himself in the feeling of kissing the silverette he’d wanted the moment he saw him.
Cormac wasn’t able to clear his confusion in time to stop Zakeri, who whirled around and- after struggling with the lock- fled the room, leaving Cormac alone much as Abriel had abandoned him.
No sooner had he thought that than he ran into someone, and looked up to see icy blue eyes as Abriel’s hands steadied him. Those blue eyes ran down him, from the kiss swollen lips to the way Cormac’s hands had skewed the hem of his shirt, then back up to the wide eyes that revealed a muddle of emotions.
Abriel’s mouth tightened. “Cormac?” he asked, his voice as tight as his mouth.
Zakeri, breathless and confused, just nodded his head. Abriel pushed Zakeri to the side and stalked to the door, which was only just opening. Cormac, who’d expected to run after Zakeri- to apologize or explain, he didn’t know- was faced with a demon who’d flared up with hellfire.
Abriel drew his sword, watching the flames dance along its edge with cruel pleasure. Adjusting his grip slightly, he swung the sword, cutting clean through Cormac; unlike Zakeri, there wasn’t a single strain of human DNA in him, and blood welled from where Aokasai had cut through him.
Cormac made a strangled, shocked noise- a noise that was echoed by Zakeri, who had a hand pressed to his throat as he watched the redhead fall.
“Tell the dorm leader where the idiot is,” Abriel snapped to Zakeri, before stalking away, his flame-tipped tail lashing the air angrily.
Zakeri watched him walk away, frozen by the change of events- he’d gone from ‘studying’ with Cormac to standing next to the redhead’s body. The slow seepage of blood, the same color as Cormac’s hair, seemed unreal.
“Bastard,” a hissed comment drew Zakeri’s gaze up, and he felt the sharp crack of a hand across his cheek. He got only a glimpse of a silver fox’s tale before the culprit was gone, but Ashe had managed to smack some sense into him- and he was able to do what he needed to before collapsing in his bedroom with a worried kitten nibbling at his toes.
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