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 Posted: Thu Sep 22, 2016 9:33 pm
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Heading into a full moon was a problem Lily had learned to accommodate--there were symptoms, of course, like the need to climb, the feeling too tall for her bones, but those were things she coped with, she accepted. It was after the full moon that was beginning to become something of a nightmare; switching from a diurnal schedule to a crepuscular one and back again did something terrible for Lily's circadian rhythms, and in the couple of days since her shift had ended she still hadn't gotten a full nights rest. On days like these, when consciousness was something fought for with tooth and nail and there were classes to attend and quizzes to take, Lily knew of only one solution.
Coffee, as dark and as bleak as the bags under her eyes.
Unfortunately for her, Lily had apparently hit the campus Starbucks right when everyone was getting out of class, and the line was nearly out the door. She was patient enough to wait, hunched over her phone like most of the other students in line, but as she shuffled forward towards her soy-latte fate she happened to glance up just in time to see the familiar slant of a nose, a jawline, lips bent into a frown, about two people ahead of her in line. Lily's heart wrenched in two directions at once, a piece of it flying into her throat and another falling like dead weight to the bottom of her gut.
Ashton.
"s**t," she hissed to herself, staring pointedly down at her phone. She couldn't just leave, she needed her coffee. But she couldn't exactly be subtle about her presence--in her boots she was a full six feet tall, dressed in black mesh, and there were actual ******** horns poking out from her straight-cut bangs. She looked like Goth Satan, which she had fashioned as pretty neat when she'd left the house today, but now it was a giant skull-covered sign pointing directly at her face.
She scrunched her shoulders like it was cold in a room full of people and pulled her phone to her face, doing anything to not make eye contact.
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Posted: Thu Sep 22, 2016 10:11 pm
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Ashton, quite on the contrary, didn't have those sorts of problems with his bones too big for his skin or his limbs too long -- mostly he just got the urge to rip and tear, sometimes, but that was a Perfectly Normal Human Impulse. Any odd behaviors he had the idea to do, he squashed them down and smiled bright until they were dust specks, and it'd worked out fairly well so far.
And when that didn't work, there was always his scheduled bi-daily coffee trips where he focused, he sat, he got his work done and thought absentmindedly about stabbing the coffee stirrers through his eyes. You know. Normal Human Impulses, that people had, and that people also did not act on --
well. That was interesting. Lily'd only started drinking coffee after she'd dated Ashton (was-dating, really; was-not-dating was the proper, now, because it'd really been much messier than Ashton cared to admit and that was what happened every time)
(and even Ashton wasn't conceited enough to not recognize he was probably the problem, there.)
"Lily," he murmured, slipping a stray glance backwards at his wayward ex - quiet enough to go unnoticed, loud enough she'd know he knew. He knew her orders, if they were the same, but...well. That'd just be presumptuous.
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Posted: Thu Sep 22, 2016 10:24 pm
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He said her name and Lily cringed, a visible ripple that went from the crinkle in her nose to the scrunched tip of her fingers. She glanced up, only for a moment, and found herself frozen in those eyes, so calculating and derisive and distant. Lily's mind reminded her of the times when they'd been soft and warm, making a comparison she'd never wanted, but either expression was enough to get her heart racing in a thready panic. He wasn't supposed to be here, but of course he was, here on campus in the place where he'd led her to this dependency.
"S'up," she said lowly, her voice cracking as she nodded her head in a vague greeting. Her eyes darted down, her shoulders pulled in--anything to hide, to not have this conversation in public, in front of all these strangers. Play it cool, she told herself, but the steady veneer by which she protected herself was crumbling like sand in between her fingers. Under the low-boiling roll of anxiety in her chest was a steady thrum, a self-satisfied tune of 'You did this, you ******** up now, you really ******** this one up, didn't you?'
She didn't look up again. She suddenly had to text somebody about an oven being on.
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Posted: Thu Sep 22, 2016 11:18 pm
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The instruction to breathe made Lily do nearly the opposite, her lips pursed so tightly they might have been paling under her lipstick. This was what happened every time Ashton was around, she kept feeling light-headed and weak and no matter what she did she just kept feeling and feeling and in the absence of a healthy outlet or a practiced way to express herself she just bit it down until she choked.
And she did, sputtering out a cough. No one in Starbucks responded, but the person in front of her shuffled forward, and she knew that they knew.
"N--" Lily's tongue caught in her throat, and she shook her head to limber up. "Nah, dude, I got it," she finally sputtered, putting her free hand on the pocket where her wallet was. Of course her order never changed--they'd gotten it right the first time, why did she need to try something different? And he knew that too, didn't he?
Lily didn't like the way she was feeling, flayed and exposed.
"I think it was my turn to pay anyway," her voice cracked, letting slip the first thing to come to mind in her harried state. "For, uh, coffee. I think. I dunno, I forgot, makes me some kind of a*****e or something." She managed to bite off the rest of the paragraph her brain had concocted in the moment of silence, startled by her lips' own betrayal. But there was no taking back the words, and they hung stagnant in the air like a coming rain.
She considered for a moment, then put her phone away.
"You want me to get yours?"
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Posted: Fri Sep 23, 2016 9:24 am
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"If you say so," Ashton murmured, amused; Lily'd known him close enough to catch the way his tone changed subtly, the way his undertones meant this is alright, but don't push it. "Alright, then." And then it was time for him to order, and.
Well. Ashton had, if anything, gotten more specific with his coffee. It was impressive, actually, how demanding he managed to be without actually sounding like he was asking for much at all. Then again: that was what he did.
"I've got mine -" and he did, he paid for his own, repocketing his phone - "don't worry about me, really." For the first time in this encounter, he turned and looked at Lily, really looked -
his eyes were wrong. It was hard to notice, but -- Ashton had green eyes. These weren't green. These were black, screened with green stars, and it was disconcerting for the half a second before he looked away again.
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Posted: Sun Sep 25, 2016 11:19 pm
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"Oh, yeah, the Othernoodle," Lily nodded in agreement. She pulled her bangs up from her scalp, emphasizing the small horns that stood proudly at her hairline. "These were the crazy worm-thing, too. Thought it was just part of the mask I had, but nope, I get to be the actual devil now and not just a metaphorical one."
And then it was her turn at the counter, ignoring the hesitant stare of the barista as her dark eyes glanced up at the board. Her order was simple enough, until halfway through she realized 'oh s**t it's fall' and switched to a pumpkin spice latte instead. She paid in silence and edged over to the pickup counter, where she found herself waiting next to Ashton once again.
Lily stared at her shoes for a moment, then glanced over again, hoping for another glance of the stars. "...Did you have a good time, though? Other than, like, you know, the whole sacrificial murder and people going nuts." All things considered, there had been at least a few parts that Lily hadn't hated. Maybe she wasn't alone in that assessment.
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Posted: Mon Sep 26, 2016 8:58 pm
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"I wouldn't call it a noodle," Ashton scoffed, "but whatever works, then. There are worse forms for the devil to take than a pretty girl, aren't there?" He winked, sweeping away to a two-seater table after picking up his drink, careful not to spill - and Lily's question brought him to contemplation, chin tilted up, his profile noble.
"...I can't say I'd want to do it again. I suppose the magic is all very interesting, but it's also very dangerous, and I'd rather not die before I get my medical degree. If anything, I'd like to study it all, really..."
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Posted: Fri Sep 30, 2016 11:03 am
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Lily's stare went blank under Ashton's wink, and she stepped backwards, trying to comprehend. Was that flirting? Was that a flirt? Or was Ashton just trying to get a rise out of her? Did that count as the same thing?
She made eye contact with the barista, who was still staring up at her forehead, and after a moment of shared apprehension she murmured cryptically, "Don't worry, they're just real." Without blinking, she reached for her coffee and saluted in silence, blowing on her cup to cool it before taking a short sip.
The Starbucks was packed, she realized too late, the only available table going to a smooth blonde with a complicated order. Lily could leave, of course, which felt like the sensible solution, but she was too tired for games or running or being shy. She followed Ashton's conversation to his table, slumping down on the last available chair while she warmed her hands off of her drink.
"Yeah, not dying would be...tops..." she murmured, not wanting to bring up how her studies had tanked, how she was barely clinging to her own less rigorous course of study.
"You could see if Professor Mercer hosts a class," she snorted, sipping at her drink. "It'd be some weird elective, like, um...Otherworld Basket Weaving." She glanced to Ashton, then stared down hard at her hands. Why would she say that. That was stupid. She was blowing it already. "Or...you know...a lit class..."
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Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2016 11:57 am
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"To be fair," Ashton murmured, gentle, quiet, "if Professor Mercer started offering underwater basket weaving, I'd sign up for it just because there's no reason not to. It'd come in handy someday, I'd think." He took a long sip, then, setting the coffee down and interlocking his fingers around it. "Mostly, though, it'd be because I want to see that man weave baskets underwater. He doesn't seem the type."
"Do the horns hurt you? Are they bone, or...? You know how I am." He grinned, half-faux embarrassed. "Science above all, really. Don't worry, I'm not going to touch them, but -- I am curious about them."
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Posted: Sat Oct 08, 2016 10:17 pm
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"Haha, oh my god, I wonder if he would, like, float..." Lily snorted in response, her nose crinkling in a self-satisfied grin. She herself had no established beef with the professor, he was well-respected in his community and had handled himself with surprising aplomb at Blackfriars. Nevertheless, it was endlessly entertaining to imagine him in some old-timey swimsuit, bobbing about with wicker threading between his hands.
She got a little more shy when Ashton mentioned the horns, retreating into the warm coiling smell of her pumpkin-spice beverage. "Nah, they don't hurt or anything, they're just...there. I don't know what they are, really." On reflex, she lifted a hand up to touch one of them, tracing the gentle curvature from tip to hairline.
"You could...x-ray them...if you wanted to...?" Lily offered slowly, shrugging her shoulders. It was eight different shades of weird, sitting here talking amicably to her ex about magic and body modifications, and they couldn't touch because then packsense would inevitably kick in and that would be weird because they were both actually secret agent furries. Lily thought nothing of the logistics of the actual x-ray--she just assumed that pre-med students had easy access to equipment like that. You know. For science.
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Posted: Sun Oct 09, 2016 7:41 am
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"I mean, I have a class with him," Ashton said, lips curling up into a smirk, "I could go up to him after class and say 'Professor Mercer, sir, would you perhaps consider basket weaving as a class, you seem you'd be very well suited to it'. I won't, but I could." He took another long sip of his coffee.
"We can determine if they're horns or antlers over the next few months, I'd think. If they shed, they're probably antlers." He left the x-ray comment well enough alone, however.
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Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2016 11:49 am
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"Dude, that would be, hahahaha, oh my god, his face..." Lily snickered in a rare display of amusement, setting down her drink so she could put her face in her hands. She missed moments like this one, with Ashton's dry humor calling up the most ridiculous scenarios, something so simple and yet so incredibly hilarious all at once. But soon after came the panic, the slow rise of pain that clamped on her heart, her throat. Lily was laughing too loud, she looked like an idiot, she was making a fool of herself and sending mixed messages.
She was quick to recompose herself, hands curling over her drink.
"It'd be weird if they just sort of...fell off one day," she commented, looking down at her hands. "It was freaky at first, but I kind of like them now."
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