Chapter Two

Ren was all too happy to recreate our disguises.

And I mean way too happy.

“I’m thinking something even darker for you this time, Idris,” he was saying, quickly unpacking a duffel bag full of objects that I couldn’t say for certain weren’t torture devices all over our living room floor. Several pieces of clothing followed the torture devices – erm, beauty tools – along with a couple tiny tins of makeup. Ren had told me once that he handmade all his own makeup using flower petals, but I got bored and zoned out halfway through his explanation, so I still didn’t really know how he did it. I just hoped to the gods that whatever method he used didn’t leave me smelling like potpourri.

Idris, the guy who even wore white pajamas to sleep, grimaced. “…Do you have to?”

“Obviously!” Ren said, throwing his arms out to either side to emphasize how important this apparently was. “We can’t have anyone recognizing you, right? So, we have to make you look as different as possible so no one thinks for even a second that you’re you. Same for you, Rook.” He whipped towards me with an honestly startling ADHD-fueled passion in his rose-pink eyes. “We have to make you look pure and cute. Everyone knows what you look like now that you’re a famous love god. It’s especially important that you look nothing like yourself.”

I rolled my eyes and shrugged. Whatever. As long as I actually got to go to the damned place, I didn’t care what Ren did to me.

“I think you look pure and cute just like this,” Idris assured me sincerely, peeking at me from over Ren’s shoulder, possibly thinking that Ren’s words had offended me somehow, which was adorable, but simply not true. I knew myself and I knew how I appeared. “Pure” and “cute” were not among the adjectives anyone would apply to me. But it was sweet that he would lie to spare my feelings.

“Who said I wanted to?” I drawled. Idris’s mouth opened and closed.

“Fair point,” he conceded. “You’re beautiful no matter what, though.”

This was the man who once tongue-kissed me the morning after I’d gone to bed without brushing my teeth after a very garlic and onion heavy meal and proclaimed that he would happily do it again when I told him how gross it was. So he was kind of a tainted juror on the matter of my attractiveness, but it was nice to hear, nonetheless.

Instead of responding, I just blew a kiss to him with a smirk when Ren’s back was turned. His hands clenched awfully tight into the black mesh shirt Ren had forced him to hold onto.

“Hey! Careful with that,” Ren whined, snatching it out of Idris’s large…strong hands. Hmm. “Why do you always gotta crush things? You did that with one of my teacups last week.”

“Last week?” I chimed in innocently. “Last week on Thursday?”

“Yeah,” Ren said, frowning. “He destroyed one of my porcelain camellia-print cups. It was one of my favorites.”

I hadn’t been there, of course, because Ren had invited us to an actual tea party and that was definitely not my scene, so I stayed at home. But there may have been some frotting right before Idris left for that party that I had cut short so he could get to it.

Idris narrowed his eyes at me and mouthed something that looked like “just wait until we get back.” Or possibly “just wait until we fuck.” The sentiment was the same either way, probably.

Ren changed Idris’s hair first, turning it so black it was actually a little darker than mine, which was pretty impressive. He didn’t do the red streak he’d put in the last time he disguised Idris, and there was no man-bun this time – but he did curl it, a process that took over an hour and gave Idris the sort of sweet, shoulder-length ringlets one might see on a little girl. I bit my lip hard to hold back the insults, but Idris appeared to know what I was thinking anyway because he shot me a stern glare.

Ren changed Idris’s eyebrows and stubble to match his hair, and then made his eyes deep forest green. Next came the clothes, which Ren threw at Idris one piece at a time, flinging them from his pile on the floor as he found them. Idris managed to catch all of them before they could hit his face, much to my disappointment.

He disappeared to the bedroom to change and when he came out, he was dressed in black skinny jeans decorated with zippers all over the thighs, a black t-shirt with that mesh long-sleeved shirt overtop, and black boots studded with spikes.

“Wow. Do those zippers actually open or are they just for show?” I asked. Because if they opened…I was going to have fun with that.

Idris gave me a look but didn’t answer, which means they did. Score.

Ren waggled a finger at me to stand up from where I’d been sprawled over the couch, which I did with great reluctance. I stood where Idris had been while Idris took over the couch, sitting back with a smirk like he was ready for a good show. It was exactly what I’d been doing, so I couldn’t really be annoyed with him for it.

Ren very carefully started working his fingers through my hair to change the color. He was much gentler with me than he’d been with Idris, if only because he was still a little afraid of me, even after all this time. I kept very still, and didn’t even hiss at him when he hit a snag, which was quite generous of me. He was doing me a favor after all.

Approximately forty minutes later, I emerged from the bedroom, having changed into a loose pair of silky white pants that were so flowy they almost looked like a skirt when I stopped walking, a thin white long-sleeved t-shirt with a light pink corset-style tank top over it, and sparkly white flats.

I hated it. I’d never felt more ridiculous in my life. I couldn’t see my reflection to check my appearance, but I strongly suspected I looked like a vanilla cupcake with pink frosting. Idris’s lips were pursed as he took me in, eyebrows up high with concealed mirth. I pointed at him.

“Not a word from you, asshole. Let’s do this shit before I start rolling around in the mud.” I turned my glare on Ren, who must have grown balls at some point – or maybe my new look was just that unthreatening – because he didn’t even cower, smiling serenely as if nothing was amiss. “If I catch anyone taking pictures, I’m going to start biting.”

Idris came over to me, smiling as my scowl softened into an indignant pout. I knew it was necessary, but come on. Sparkly fucking flats? Was I a twelve-year-old girl?

Idris grabbed a lock of my now platinum blond hair, which had been pulled into a half-up half-down style, tugging on it teasingly. “It’s definitely not your aesthetic, but you pull it off.” His eyes dropped to the faux corset, darkening in much the same way I imagined mine did when I saw his indecently placed zippers. “Especially that part.”

I leaned in to whisper in his ear and he obediently tilted his head closer to me. “If you let me unzip all your zippers, I’ll keep it on in bed later.”

His breath hitched. “Deal.”

Not one to waste an opportunity, I smirked and immediately unzipped one, wiggling my fingers into it so abruptly that Idris actually jumped a little and stepped back, grabbing my wayward hand and clearing his throat as he glanced back at Ren, blushing. He turned back to me and kissed me harshly on the lips.

“Later,” he murmured. I considered that. It would be much more fun to stealthily unzip them while we were out in public and torment him, but that would probably get our trip cut short, so I nodded.

A moment later, we were waving goodbye to Ren and teleporting to the temple, which was just a few blocks away from Idris’s palace.

I’d seen parts of the outside of it before from one of the windows. It was only just visible behind a local pet store, so all I’d really been able to see was the domed top and part of the rose-gold walls. Now, looking at it from right outside the front doors, my little glimpses hadn’t done it justice. The rose gold had made me think it was all pretty and flowery inside, cutesy enough to make me vomit, but up close I saw that there were matte black designs swirling and dancing across the outside. The designs were mostly abstract, but the longer I looked at it, the more things began to take shape – a rose, a running tiger, a giant wave crashing over a city, a horse rearing up on its hind legs. I was pretty impressed with the intricacy of it, and it made me hopeful that maybe the inside was just as tasteful.

And maybe include a couple paintings of me and Idris fucking. I may mock the idea out loud, but secretly I was kind of hoping for it. There had to be at least one. It wouldn’t be a proper love god temple if not. It didn’t even have to be me and Idris, but it had to be a high-quality painting. I would accept nothing less.

 It was currently mid-afternoon, a time when most people would be enjoying lunch, working, or simply resting, but still there was a steady flow of people coming in and out of the temple. I watched them for a moment, holding Idris’s hand tightly to keep him in place. He turned to look at me curiously.

There were a variety of emotions on display from my new worshippers, I concluded. Some who exited the temple were smiling brightly, a hopeful gleam in their eyes. Some entered with a skip in their step, clutching flowers or boxes of what I suspected was cake as an offering (which – fuck yeah, gimme all the cake).

But others were more subdued, entering with their heads lowered, seeming drawn and stressed. Some exited looking like they’d made one last ditch effort and knew nothing was going to come of it. There was a despair there that made me shiver.

Don’t ask me for help, I wanted to scream at them. I can’t help you.